My questions largely had to do with how the laptop would be used in the classroom. I made the mistake of asking a question of how the laptop would be used as "a teaching tool"... like Papert, Negroponte's a big believer that students simply need access to technology and can use it to teach each other and to make discoveries themselves.
I'm inclined to agree with the writer that Negroponte's response is lacking. How will every student having a laptop help them in any way?
It's time someone make a passport "book cover" that covered the inside-covers with a transparent faraday cage. Think clear plastic with thin closely-spaced wires.
How about those anti-static bags that microchips, ram chips and motherboards usually come in?
Online Freedom of Speech Act (Introduced in House)
HR 1606 IH
109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 1606
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to exclude communications over the Internet from the definition of public communication.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 13, 2005
Mr. HENSARLING introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on House Administration
A BILL
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to exclude communications over the Internet from the definition of public communication.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Online Freedom of Speech Act'.
SEC. 2. MODIFICATION OF DEFINITION OF PUBLIC COMMUNICATION.
Paragraph (22) of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: `Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.'.
I have a CD that was recorded in 1978 digitally by Telarc. It is the 1812 Overture with cannons and whatnot. It goes down to 4 Hz. The CD also has warnings on the cover.
I too have a CD of the 1812 with real canons in it. I believe the warning is that the canon fire may cause the speakers to blow out by their abrupt overpowering of the speakers if you have the volume turned up to loud. They did this, as I understand it, since as most classical is recorded at low volume levels to increase the dynamic range, and people turn up their sterio systems for this, the canon fire can max out the levels on the amp and possibly blowing the speakers. I don't think it has to do with the 4 Hz signal.
I don't believe piracy impacts cinema receipts, but I do believe it impacts DVD sales.
I think it depends on the individual more than anything else. One of my roommates back in college and I bought hte same DVD at the same time knowing the other was buying it. We each wanted our own DVD copy, not a DivX copy. We also wanted the ancillary material that comes with it. We may not be like most people, but for some reason some people are fine with low quality copies like theater-cam rips.
That said, I have bought more DVDs due to finding out I liked the series/movie after dloading it than otherwise.
One interesting thing though. I have seen fewer movies in the past few years than ever before. Just not that interested in most, and the rest I sometimes miss seeing in theaters. All I am pretty sure of is that the digital distribution is going to open up a few more holes in their chain to piracy.
Digital cinema will cut down on piracy and help the industry to increase its profits.
And if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you. I'll even give you 10% off.
Re:Why is the government applying for patents anyw
on
Patents vs. Secrecy
·
· Score: 1
That's the part that doesn't make any sense. It's paid for by taxpayer dollars (which includes the better-behaved of companies out there), so why would the NSA try to patent them? As a source of funding? As leverage in cross-licensing agreements?
Why does the government do this?
To recoup money from it's investment. The feds spend millions and in some cases billions developing technology. Why should businesses get that research for free? They license out the patents and put the money back into the general fund. That way, they have more money to do more reasearch and pay for other things. Unfortunately, I can't find offhand how much is collected yearly this way.
I wonder if this means that the patented idea is essentially public domain? Other creative works which are products of the Government are automatically public domain in terms of copyright, so is the right to use an idea as well? Or if you want to use one, do you have to go to the NSD and ask for permission / licensing? And if the latter, what do they charge, and who gets the money?
The patents are NOT public domain. They are licensed out to companies. The money is then (i'm pretty sure) put into the general fund of the federal government.
Re:I wish we knew what they were trying to patent.
on
Patents vs. Secrecy
·
· Score: 1
Domestic or foreign, I doubt the leadership (i.e. non-pawns) of a terrorist group would be be unwilling to make the best use of anything they can get their hands on.
Something tells me that the Pentagon is more concerned with foriegn governments getting a hold of the patents rather than terorists.
That would be nice, but breeder reactors are prohibited by some nuclear weapons treaty we (the US) signed, along with uh, some other nations.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does NOT prohibit breader reactors. Nor does any other treaty the US has signed. What does prohibit breader reactors in the US is an execuitive order signed by Jimmy Carter. In fact, France uses breeder reactors. The only reason Carter banned them is that they produce plutonium. This plutonium can still be used in power plants and still requires special refining in order to be used in weapons, if it is even possible (See second link below, it is believed to be impossible due to the purity requirements).
The only problem is, as you mention, the NIMBYs. Although I do recall a group attempting to start building a new reactor in the US. Sorry, can't find a link on it. I personally would have no problem living near a nuclear power plant.
Re:Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen
on
Ma Bell is Back
·
· Score: 1
If they have the mandate They wouldn't be allowed to do ANYTHING other than maintain the lines...that's it....nothing more....ever....period.
Then they wouldn't be allowed to That would be where that company would increase it's income by investing in it's infrastructure If we modify that, then we have less of a problem.
On a different note. I'm not entirely convinced a company would invest in new infrastructure if they weren't providing a service over it. Here's a quote from the northeastern blackout.
Moreover, it is often difficult for utilities that own networks to receive permission from local authorities to build new lines or raise consumer rates. "If you can't raise rates," noted Rick Bush, editor of Transmission and Distribution World, "the only thing you can do to give money back to shareholders is to cut costs" on transmission line maintenance. He told the Wall Street Journal that investments in new technologies like firewalls and modern switching mechanisms could have helped prevent the spread of the blackout.
Also, lets assume that this was in place with the copper system we have. The telephone companies want fibre to provide better internet and TV services. A company that has a monopoly on the land lines may have no incentive to expand the infrastructure to fibre since it would take years for the return on investment to justify the cost. Or, the initial costs for the lines may be so high that no one would be able to afford them since they would be paying the full cost of the fibre line. The phone companies are currently subsidising the fibre rollout with higher fees on the copper end. There is no reason for a dedicated provider to do so. Can you imagine paying the outright cost to have fibre laid? It's several times what anyone is currently paying for copper service.
When both the content and the lines are owned by one provider, you know who to call when you have a service problem. With two, they may do fingerp ointing back and forth.
Re:Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen
on
Ma Bell is Back
·
· Score: 1
What NEEDED to be done is one company handles all the infrastructure. They wouldn't be allowed to do ANYTHING other than maintain the lines...that's it....nothing more....ever....period.
Of course this means that no company would ever be able to upgrade the lines past copper either or take advantage of new technologies even if it would make the over all costs drop. We wouldn't, oh say, have companies laying down fibre to the home or phone companies competing in TV either.
Re:Ma Bell? Yo no entiendo - SHORT VERSION
on
Ma Bell is Back
·
· Score: 1
The only reason the prices were so high was due to stupid regulation.
The local politicians in every county/city/state regulated what the price of local phone server was. As such, the price was always set at below the actualy cost. AT&T in order to stay solvent had to charge massively on the longdistance calls.
One service outage in 20 years is all I can remember. The cable company diggers cut the copper lines with a shovel. They cut through the conduit containing said copper lines as well. Verizon was out here fixing it and piecing together 220+ tiny 24+ gauge copper wires one at a time within the hour.
Ignoring the eminent domain portions, the main problem seems to be that all the best spots for wind power are on bird migration routes. (Makes sense if you think about it). If you mean what effect it could have on the weather? Well, wind comes from air moving from higher to lower pressure areas. That usually means from warmer to colder as well. We are tapping a fraction of that energy to make electricity. (Not sure what fraction, mind you). So we probably are affecting the weather to some extent, but probably not enough to have a noticeable impact. It would all depend on the ammount we are extracting from the wind.
Even better. I've only had expereience with the ATA Boys before, which have all 14 disks accesible from the front. With 42 drives in 7RU I'm not surprised it has to be unracked. Do you have to shut it down and open it up or are the drives just mounted from the top instead of the front?
Just finished reading over the "UN convention on the rights of children". I found a few things that would be objected to in it in the US.
Article 28
This part appears to require the federal government to have a hand in the running of schools. Currently, all public schools are run at the state level at most. Generally, they are either run at the county or city level. Most people in the US do not want the federal government having any say in the running of schools.
Article 37
States Parties shall ensure that:
(a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age;
The SCOTUS ruled capital punishment of anyone under 18 when the crime was commited unconstitutional. That alone was seen as overstepping on the states authority. As to life without parole, in the Washington DC area about 2 years ago two people were arrested for going arround a sniping people who were just going about their everyday lives. The younger one was just short of his 17th birthday. In the course of a month they had killed 13 people, one of whom was a 13 year old walking in to school.
Several states have a law that allows anyone juvenile over the age of 14 to be tried as an adult in various crimes. This was one of them where he was tried as an adult and sentenced to life without parole. I can't think of a reason his mental capacity would sudenly have increased when he turned 18 to be accountable for his actions.
Now, This section is interesting as it could be construed as allowing the restrictions the prinicipal has of not allowing blogs.
Article 19
1. States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.
Nexsan has a box called ATA Beast
Raid, Fibre Channel, 42 ATA drives per 7 RU chasis. Throw in 500GB drives and 1 parity drive for every 6 data drives and you have ~30 TB per chasis.
Even for personnel, that's on the order of time it took to sail from Europe to America via wind power, and people did that
http://www.bartleby.com/65/co/ColumbusC.html
On Aug. 3, 1492, Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa María, commanded by Columbus himself, the Pinta under Martín Pinzón, and the Niña under Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. After halting at the Canary Islands, he sailed due west from Sept. 6 until Oct. 7, when he changed his course to the southwest. On Oct. 10 a small mutiny was quelled, and on Oct. 12 he landed on a small island (Watling Island; see San Salvador) in the Bahamas.
I get 2 months and a bit over a week from that, not over 1 year.
They should set a slightly lower speed limit. This would encourage more people to work on the problem.
The minimum speed was 1 meter/s = 3.6km/h = 2.2369 miles/h. I can walk faster than that.
Geosynch is 35,786 km above sealeve according to wiki. At 3.6 km/h it would take over a year to get up to geosynch. They really should increase the minimum speed.
Most of the area they are covering is just too saturated with free hotspots and people whose unprotected networks are named 'linksys.' As someone who lives outside the coverage area, I certainly wouldn't pay for it. I'm already getting pretty much exactly the same service for free, though I'll grant I'm not getting it from anyone in particular.
On that note, how are they going to deal with interference from other wireless users? Are they going to use something other than 802.11b/g? Is the city going to (try to) trump the FCC and force locals not to use the same frequencies?
Slashdot Mirror
My questions largely had to do with how the laptop would be used in the classroom. I made the mistake of asking a question of how the laptop would be used as "a teaching tool"... like Papert, Negroponte's a big believer that students simply need access to technology and can use it to teach each other and to make discoveries themselves.
I'm inclined to agree with the writer that Negroponte's response is lacking. How will every student having a laptop help them in any way?
It's time someone make a passport "book cover" that covered the inside-covers with a transparent faraday cage. Think clear plastic with thin closely-spaced wires.
How about those anti-static bags that microchips, ram chips and motherboards usually come in?
And what is wrong with current passports?
They are more easily forged?
Here is the complete bill text:0 6:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.16
Online Freedom of Speech Act (Introduced in House)
HR 1606 IH
109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 1606
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to exclude communications over the Internet from the definition of public communication.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 13, 2005
Mr. HENSARLING introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on House Administration
A BILL
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to exclude communications over the Internet from the definition of public communication.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Online Freedom of Speech Act'.
SEC. 2. MODIFICATION OF DEFINITION OF PUBLIC COMMUNICATION.
Paragraph (22) of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: `Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.'.
I have a CD that was recorded in 1978 digitally by Telarc. It is the 1812 Overture with cannons and whatnot. It goes down to 4 Hz. The CD also has warnings on the cover.
I too have a CD of the 1812 with real canons in it. I believe the warning is that the canon fire may cause the speakers to blow out by their abrupt overpowering of the speakers if you have the volume turned up to loud. They did this, as I understand it, since as most classical is recorded at low volume levels to increase the dynamic range, and people turn up their sterio systems for this, the canon fire can max out the levels on the amp and possibly blowing the speakers. I don't think it has to do with the 4 Hz signal.
Because CNN doesn't really give local news?
I don't believe piracy impacts cinema receipts, but I do believe it impacts DVD sales.
I think it depends on the individual more than anything else. One of my roommates back in college and I bought hte same DVD at the same time knowing the other was buying it. We each wanted our own DVD copy, not a DivX copy. We also wanted the ancillary material that comes with it. We may not be like most people, but for some reason some people are fine with low quality copies like theater-cam rips.
That said, I have bought more DVDs due to finding out I liked the series/movie after dloading it than otherwise.
One interesting thing though. I have seen fewer movies in the past few years than ever before. Just not that interested in most, and the rest I sometimes miss seeing in theaters. All I am pretty sure of is that the digital distribution is going to open up a few more holes in their chain to piracy.
Digital cinema will cut down on piracy and help the industry to increase its profits.
And if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you. I'll even give you 10% off.
That's the part that doesn't make any sense. It's paid for by taxpayer dollars (which includes the better-behaved of companies out there), so why would the NSA try to patent them? As a source of funding? As leverage in cross-licensing agreements? Why does the government do this?
To recoup money from it's investment. The feds spend millions and in some cases billions developing technology. Why should businesses get that research for free? They license out the patents and put the money back into the general fund. That way, they have more money to do more reasearch and pay for other things. Unfortunately, I can't find offhand how much is collected yearly this way.
I wonder if this means that the patented idea is essentially public domain? Other creative works which are products of the Government are automatically public domain in terms of copyright, so is the right to use an idea as well? Or if you want to use one, do you have to go to the NSD and ask for permission / licensing? And if the latter, what do they charge, and who gets the money?
The patents are NOT public domain. They are licensed out to companies. The money is then (i'm pretty sure) put into the general fund of the federal government.
Domestic or foreign, I doubt the leadership (i.e. non-pawns) of a terrorist group would be be unwilling to make the best use of anything they can get their hands on.
Something tells me that the Pentagon is more concerned with foriegn governments getting a hold of the patents rather than terorists.
That would be nice, but breeder reactors are prohibited by some nuclear weapons treaty we (the US) signed, along with uh, some other nations.
/ fasbre.html#c6
% 20and%20Breeder%20Reactors.htm
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does NOT prohibit breader reactors. Nor does any other treaty the US has signed. What does prohibit breader reactors in the US is an execuitive order signed by Jimmy Carter. In fact, France uses breeder reactors. The only reason Carter banned them is that they produce plutonium. This plutonium can still be used in power plants and still requires special refining in order to be used in weapons, if it is even possible (See second link below, it is believed to be impossible due to the purity requirements).
The only problem is, as you mention, the NIMBYs. Although I do recall a group attempting to start building a new reactor in the US. Sorry, can't find a link on it. I personally would have no problem living near a nuclear power plant.
Look at the French Super-Phoenix breeder reactor at the bottom of this page:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene
Jimmy Carter Execuitive Order mentioned here and some info on the weapons grade material:
http://www.argee.net/DefenseWatch/Nuclear%20Waste
If they have the mandate They wouldn't be allowed to do ANYTHING other than maintain the lines...that's it....nothing more....ever....period.
Then they wouldn't be allowed to That would be where that company would increase it's income by investing in it's infrastructure If we modify that, then we have less of a problem.
On a different note. I'm not entirely convinced a company would invest in new infrastructure if they weren't providing a service over it. Here's a quote from the northeastern blackout.
Moreover, it is often difficult for utilities that own networks to receive permission from local authorities to build new lines or raise consumer rates. "If you can't raise rates," noted Rick Bush, editor of Transmission and Distribution World, "the only thing you can do to give money back to shareholders is to cut costs" on transmission line maintenance. He told the Wall Street Journal that investments in new technologies like firewalls and modern switching mechanisms could have helped prevent the spread of the blackout.
Also, lets assume that this was in place with the copper system we have. The telephone companies want fibre to provide better internet and TV services. A company that has a monopoly on the land lines may have no incentive to expand the infrastructure to fibre since it would take years for the return on investment to justify the cost. Or, the initial costs for the lines may be so high that no one would be able to afford them since they would be paying the full cost of the fibre line. The phone companies are currently subsidising the fibre rollout with higher fees on the copper end. There is no reason for a dedicated provider to do so. Can you imagine paying the outright cost to have fibre laid? It's several times what anyone is currently paying for copper service.
When both the content and the lines are owned by one provider, you know who to call when you have a service problem. With two, they may do fingerp ointing back and forth.
What NEEDED to be done is one company handles all the infrastructure. They wouldn't be allowed to do ANYTHING other than maintain the lines...that's it....nothing more....ever....period.
Of course this means that no company would ever be able to upgrade the lines past copper either or take advantage of new technologies even if it would make the over all costs drop. We wouldn't, oh say, have companies laying down fibre to the home or phone companies competing in TV either.
The only reason the prices were so high was due to stupid regulation.
The local politicians in every county/city/state regulated what the price of local phone server was. As such, the price was always set at below the actualy cost. AT&T in order to stay solvent had to charge massively on the longdistance calls.
One service outage in 20 years is all I can remember. The cable company diggers cut the copper lines with a shovel. They cut through the conduit containing said copper lines as well. Verizon was out here fixing it and piecing together 220+ tiny 24+ gauge copper wires one at a time within the hour.
Start using breeder reactors and we have solved our current nuclear "waste" "problem".
0 3,1130672,00.html
As for the windmills. Currently the problems listed usually deal with birds and bats flying into them or getting hit by them. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,69
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/17/news-lewis.php
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16383
Ignoring the eminent domain portions, the main problem seems to be that all the best spots for wind power are on bird migration routes. (Makes sense if you think about it). If you mean what effect it could have on the weather? Well, wind comes from air moving from higher to lower pressure areas. That usually means from warmer to colder as well. We are tapping a fraction of that energy to make electricity. (Not sure what fraction, mind you). So we probably are affecting the weather to some extent, but probably not enough to have a noticeable impact. It would all depend on the ammount we are extracting from the wind.
Your wish is granted
http://www.muropaketti.com/3dmark/r520/12419.png
(hint: I am male)
You're posting on slashdot. Male is the default setting.
Oh, and they do SATA now, I hear.
Even better. I've only had expereience with the ATA Boys before, which have all 14 disks accesible from the front. With 42 drives in 7RU I'm not surprised it has to be unracked. Do you have to shut it down and open it up or are the drives just mounted from the top instead of the front?
Just finished reading over the "UN convention on the rights of children". I found a few things that would be objected to in it in the US.
Article 28
This part appears to require the federal government to have a hand in the running of schools. Currently, all public schools are run at the state level at most. Generally, they are either run at the county or city level. Most people in the US do not want the federal government having any say in the running of schools.
Article 37
States Parties shall ensure that:
(a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age;
The SCOTUS ruled capital punishment of anyone under 18 when the crime was commited unconstitutional. That alone was seen as overstepping on the states authority. As to life without parole, in the Washington DC area about 2 years ago two people were arrested for going arround a sniping people who were just going about their everyday lives. The younger one was just short of his 17th birthday. In the course of a month they had killed 13 people, one of whom was a 13 year old walking in to school.
Several states have a law that allows anyone juvenile over the age of 14 to be tried as an adult in various crimes. This was one of them where he was tried as an adult and sentenced to life without parole. I can't think of a reason his mental capacity would sudenly have increased when he turned 18 to be accountable for his actions.
Now, This section is interesting as it could be construed as allowing the restrictions the prinicipal has of not allowing blogs.
Article 19
1. States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.
Nexsan has a box called ATA Beast
Raid, Fibre Channel, 42 ATA drives per 7 RU chasis. Throw in 500GB drives and 1 parity drive for every 6 data drives and you have ~30 TB per chasis.
Even for personnel, that's on the order of time it took to sail from Europe to America via wind power, and people did that
http://www.bartleby.com/65/co/ColumbusC.html
On Aug. 3, 1492, Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa María, commanded by Columbus himself, the Pinta under Martín Pinzón, and the Niña under Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. After halting at the Canary Islands, he sailed due west from Sept. 6 until Oct. 7, when he changed his course to the southwest. On Oct. 10 a small mutiny was quelled, and on Oct. 12 he landed on a small island (Watling Island; see San Salvador) in the Bahamas.
I get 2 months and a bit over a week from that, not over 1 year.
They should set a slightly lower speed limit. This would encourage more people to work on the problem.
The minimum speed was 1 meter/s = 3.6km/h = 2.2369 miles/h. I can walk faster than that.
Geosynch is 35,786 km above sealeve according to wiki. At 3.6 km/h it would take over a year to get up to geosynch. They really should increase the minimum speed.
Most of the area they are covering is just too saturated with free hotspots and people whose unprotected networks are named 'linksys.' As someone who lives outside the coverage area, I certainly wouldn't pay for it. I'm already getting pretty much exactly the same service for free, though I'll grant I'm not getting it from anyone in particular.
On that note, how are they going to deal with interference from other wireless users? Are they going to use something other than 802.11b/g? Is the city going to (try to) trump the FCC and force locals not to use the same frequencies?