Negroponte has good intentions but he seems to fail to realize the reality of the poor areas he's trying to reach: - Many of the developing world has no electricity, making the laptop as good as a paperweight - They would be lucky to have telephone service, when it is available it may be in the form of a single public telephone for the village. Internet connection might be available only in the larger urban centres. - Illiteracy rates still run high in many parts of the world, making use of the laptop difficult at best - Many of the needy people who receive the laptop will likely resell them for a profit for essential goods to the well off in their country. Judging from the response here, there will be no shortage of people willing to pay more than a $100 for such a laptop - and a $100 is a lot of money for the poor in most parts of the world. In short, he's got a lot of other development problems in the rest of the world to tackle before his sub-$100 laptop can be a successful reality.
I think the article is improperly attributing Leonardo's role in the discovery. Leonardo made accurate anatomical drawings of the heart from which the heart surgeon took inspiration. In this sense, I see da Vinci as having provided artistic inspiration for this medical discovery, much as artists throughout the ages have provided inspiration for countless scientists. It is likely that the heart surgeon could have made his discovery based on any other accurate drawing or illustration of the human heart, but da Vinci's beautifully drawn anatomical sketches provided the inspiration. Admitedly da Vinci often blurred the line between art and science, but in this case it seems to me his role is that of an artist and inspiration, not of a scientist.
That doesn't mean mailinator doesn't get spam from Australia, only that it hasn't received spam from down under recently. It's a real time, or at least semi real-time, map so depending on the time of day you'd likely see decreased activity from Australia.
Here's a thought: is it possible that the house itself is using bots? I mean, these online poker sites are already in legal offshore havens without any gambling commission to monitor them. You have only their word for it that they're playing the game fairly, and their word isn't worth very much. What's to prevent them from introducing their own bots in a game occasionally to further tilt the winnings towards the house?
I believe the Joint Strike Fighter program was already considering the concept of a laser-mounted weapon. As I recall, the Marine version of the JSF has a large ducted fan in the center to provide VSTOL capability. Since the Air Force and Navy wouldn't be needing that ducted fan, that large space in the middle of the fuselage, with substantial power already provided in place by a driveshaft from the engine, would make a natural selection for implementing a high-energy laser weapon.
I used to allow all cookies. I wasn't worried about privacy issues and I found them convenient in many sites. And I let anti-spyware programs sort out the "bad" cookies.
Until a year ago, when I noticed a mysterious slowdown and occasional tendency to crash in my system. Ran adaware and spybot and got nothing. Ran a host of anti-virus tools and got nothing. After working with a slow computer for a week I decided to clear all my cookies. Guess what? Problem went away.
Having learned my lesson that even a combination of multiple anti-spyware tools won't catch all the invasive cookies in my system, I now set firefox to delete all cookies upon exiting my session all the time. And since firefox has auto form-completion, the convenience factor is not lost. Anti-spyware won't catch everything - in some cases because threat of lawsuits from spyware firms have forced anti-spyware makers to delist certain malware. So the only way I can feel safe is by deleting all cookies.
And as soon as the goverment decided to remove goverment subsidies to ethanol in the 90s, cane producers switched to sugar instead. The resulting ethanol shortage then led to huge lines at the pumps and mass switchover to gasoline.
Ethanol has only survived because the goverment reinstated the subsidies. Which only proves that ethanol is only feasible with a lot of goverment subsidy. Not to say that the program isn't worthwhile - it provides cleaner burning fuel and a certain energy independency to Brazil - but it has a significant price tag attached to it.
Seriously. What this guy is doing amounts to extortion, pure and simple. I think there is likely enough evidence if criminal charges were to be laid to convict him of extortion charges. The fact that he's never won any of the 60 cases that's gone to court shows that his trademark is without merit and he's merely using the legal system as a form of intimidation
I sincerely hope that any of the victims of his extortion racket decides to file a criminal complaint. Given that his activity is crossing state lines, I would think federal charges would also be in order.
I think.xxx won't work simply because adult web sites will stay from it.
Consider if you are adult web site operator looking to register your web site. If you register it as.xxx, you know you can expect your site be blacklisted by "family-friendly" ISPs, businesses concerned about their employees web-usage, most schools and the more conservative universities, as well as some of the more puritanical goverments. Why would you want it to register as.xxx when the number of users who can access it will be vastly lower than those who can access.com?
And yes, some goverments may try to legislate adult web sites into using.xxx only, but the successful pr0n sites will merely move overseas making enforcement impossible.
I don't think the production of these virtual goods can be compared to sweatshops. The company mentioned in the article, Blacksnow Interactive, ran two sites, camelotexchange.com and aoexchange.com, since defunct, which operated as an auctionhouse for gamers for "Dark Ages of Camelot" and "Anarchy Online" to trade goods. The virtual goods sold and produced were made by gamers themselves.
The fact is, the players who can put in long hours and succeed well at these multi-player games to produce these virtual goods are those with the best gear, broadband connection, and free time. I.e., affluent middle-class teenagers from the developed world.
The concept of a third-world "sweatshop" producing these goods is ridiculous. Why would someone spend a large amount of money buying expensive gear and paying for difficult to obtain broadband connections in the 3rd world, where they'd be experiencing substantial delay lags with the servers running online games in the U.S.? He can get the same goods from idle american teenagers looking for a little extra cash who already have all the latest gear, without spending any money himself.
Saying that suburban north-american teenagers playing video-games work in a "sweatshop" does a grave injustice to the millions of underage children who are forced to work in actual sweatshops in degrading conditions for little pay. A better description of the people running these businesses is that they are virtual brokers, handling transactions between gamers.
What's being filtered, according to the article, is google's news service, not it's search engine. Although, as has been mentioned by other posters, the chinese goverment already attempts to block banned sites from being accessed through google's cache.
Also, the censorship is being carried out in google's china-based servers only. As far as I know, a chinese resident could still access google's US based service, circumventing the restriction
A more appropriate title for this list would have been the 25 most ignored or underreported new stories. I agree that most of the stories mentioned were underreported in the media, they were not censored. Proof being the various references and links shown in each article.
I understand their need to reduce shock, but I would think a properly designed system with parachutes and balloons to absorb the impact, proven technology that's been used in the mars lander missions, would work just as well with less risk.
Catching the capsule mid-air with a hollywood helicopter stunt-pilot definitely does not sound like playing it safe to me. It sounds to me more like NASA is trying to attract the publicity by going with a risky recovery scheme at the expense of the science involved.
Re:Why 100CDN denominations?
on
Make Money Fast
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· Score: 1
Why do counterfeiters ALWAYS pick huge denominations?
One word: greed.
If they were smart, sensible people they would follow your suggestion. But then, if they were smart and sensible, they wouldn't be criminals
I'm not worried, I don't use cash
on
Make Money Fast
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· Score: 1
I don't have any problems with counterfeit cash - I do all my transactions by credit card or debit card. Even the smallest corner store nowadays accepts electronic forms of payment. I'm surprised how the article doesn't mention the slow move we are making to a cashless society, which will make problems of counterfeit currency irrelevant.
More informative what've been a list of the most banned books, not merely the most challenged. Anyone can challenge a book, and you can never please 100% of the public with your writing. There's always a kook willing to challenge even the most family friendly novel. What I'd be curious to know is how many of these challenges actually succeeded.
The difference is in the number of copies published. J.K. Rowling has achieved a phenomenom that C.S. Lewis could not even dream of. With fame comes greater scrutiny. I'm sure there's hundreds of books depicting magic and paganism and ways more objectionable to religious fundamentalists, but none of them achieved the level of book sales that Harry Potter did.
More to the point, events like the luge and downhill skiing can reach extremely high velocities. Downhill skiers have been clocked at upwards of 200km/h. At these speeds, even a very small interval in time can mean a very large difference in distance at the finish line. Measuring in fractions of a second becomes more significant the faster the sport.
Additionally, these are world-class athletes competing at the top of their sport. The competition is so intense that a fraction of a second is all that may separate first from last. So, yes, measuring in milliseconds can be quite significant.
Crap doesn't quite come close to describing this pseudo-scientific nonsense that he attempts pass off as "10 laws of robotics". My favourite example was his tenth law:
As transcendental follower, I will rejoice in the principles of mysticism by following the mystical values (ecstasy, bliss, joy, and harmony) while renouncing the corresponding vices (iniquity, turpitude, abomination, and perdition).
Transcendental follower? Principles of mysticism? I am amazed that nonsense like this got picked up by/. Asimov surely must be spinning in his grave these days. After the abomination that was the movie "I, robot", now we get new age gurus trying to get free publicity by attaching their ideas to his laws of robotics
Well, if you're stupid enough to pay to be a walking billboard for a corporation I say let 'em confiscate your expensive $150 corporate logo shirt. The confiscated shirts, hats, shoes and other floating billboard paraphernalia could be donated to the underpaid sweatshop workers who made them for a few cents an hour.
But I think they should apply the policy equally: confiscate walking-billboard clothing from official sponsors as well. I'm sure if they keep up this policy for future olympics, spectators will be abandoning branded clothing very quickly
I agree. I shouldn't be forced to give out all my personal information to be able to receive a rebate that should be embedded in the sales price after all. Rebates are almost everywhere in electronics and computer sales nowadays, and they form a substantial part of the sales price. Meaning that a consumer who does not want to receive spam and junk mail or give out his personal information will be penalized $50 or more. Hell, I've seen rebates of $300-$400 in higher end electronics. Rebates of that level are not really optional for most people.
Manufacturers should be honest and include rebates in the sales price. I should not be forced to send personal information to a manufacturer under the threat of hundred dollar "rebate" fine.
The Earth's magnetic field measures about 50 microTeslas.
Doing a google, I see that a person living directly under a power line would experience a field of 8-9 microTeslas. Listening to an AM receiver is about 10 microTeslas. None of this is much compared to the normal background magnetic radiation we all experience every day of our lives, so it's hard to see how any of this could have any effect on the human body.
On the other hand, I see that fridge magnets can measure up to 0.1Teslas on a gaussmeter, so maybe we should be worrying about the effect fridge magnets have on our food?
I would also add:
4) Simplicity. The paper ballot works well in Canada (and I say this as a Canadian myself) because the ballot is itself very simple. Federal, provincial, and municipal elections almost never coincide. Americans usually vote for a much wider range of elected officials. And we don't have these plethora of propositions to vote on at election time. At our recent federal election, my paper ballot was a simple envelope sized piece of paper with about eight different choices for member of parliament. I'm quite certain the american ballot is nowhere near that small if the horror stories I hear from there are true, and electronic voting would make this vastly simpler
5) Reduce fraud. Yes, I know many people have criticized electronic voting for the opposite reason, but paper ballots are open to fraud themselves - ballot stuffing is all too common in many elections in the third world. For the local political honcho seeking to influence the election, manipulating electronic votes is vastly more difficult than stuffing ballot boxes. Stuffing ballot boxes can easily be done locally with the help of corrupt local officials. Electronic fraud requires a greater degree of skill, and cannot be done locally, as the system is centralized. At least in Brazil, where I am originally from, it was credited with producing the cleanest election in history after electronic voting was adopted there.
Slashdot Mirror
Negroponte has good intentions but he seems to fail to realize the reality of the poor areas he's trying to reach:
- Many of the developing world has no electricity, making the laptop as good as a paperweight
- They would be lucky to have telephone service, when it is available it may be in the form of a single public telephone for the village. Internet connection might be available only in the larger urban centres.
- Illiteracy rates still run high in many parts of the world, making use of the laptop difficult at best
- Many of the needy people who receive the laptop will likely resell them for a profit for essential goods to the well off in their country. Judging from the response here, there will be no shortage of people willing to pay more than a $100 for such a laptop - and a $100 is a lot of money for the poor in most parts of the world.
In short, he's got a lot of other development problems in the rest of the world to tackle before his sub-$100 laptop can be a successful reality.
I think the article is improperly attributing Leonardo's role in the discovery. Leonardo made accurate anatomical drawings of the heart from which the heart surgeon took inspiration. In this sense, I see da Vinci as having provided artistic inspiration for this medical discovery, much as artists throughout the ages have provided inspiration for countless scientists. It is likely that the heart surgeon could have made his discovery based on any other accurate drawing or illustration of the human heart, but da Vinci's beautifully drawn anatomical sketches provided the inspiration. Admitedly da Vinci often blurred the line between art and science, but in this case it seems to me his role is that of an artist and inspiration, not of a scientist.
That doesn't mean mailinator doesn't get spam from Australia, only that it hasn't received spam from down under recently. It's a real time, or at least semi real-time, map so depending on the time of day you'd likely see decreased activity from Australia.
Here's a thought: is it possible that the house itself is using bots? I mean, these online poker sites are already in legal offshore havens without any gambling commission to monitor them. You have only their word for it that they're playing the game fairly, and their word isn't worth very much. What's to prevent them from introducing their own bots in a game occasionally to further tilt the winnings towards the house?
I believe the Joint Strike Fighter program was already considering the concept of a laser-mounted weapon. As I recall, the Marine version of the JSF has a large ducted fan in the center to provide VSTOL capability. Since the Air Force and Navy wouldn't be needing that ducted fan, that large space in the middle of the fuselage, with substantial power already provided in place by a driveshaft from the engine, would make a natural selection for implementing a high-energy laser weapon.
I used to allow all cookies. I wasn't worried about privacy issues and I found them convenient in many sites. And I let anti-spyware programs sort out the "bad" cookies.
Until a year ago, when I noticed a mysterious slowdown and occasional tendency to crash in my system. Ran adaware and spybot and got nothing. Ran a host of anti-virus tools and got nothing. After working with a slow computer for a week I decided to clear all my cookies. Guess what? Problem went away.
Having learned my lesson that even a combination of multiple anti-spyware tools won't catch all the invasive cookies in my system, I now set firefox to delete all cookies upon exiting my session all the time. And since firefox has auto form-completion, the convenience factor is not lost. Anti-spyware won't catch everything - in some cases because threat of lawsuits from spyware firms have forced anti-spyware makers to delist certain malware. So the only way I can feel safe is by deleting all cookies.
And as soon as the goverment decided to remove goverment subsidies to ethanol in the 90s, cane producers switched to sugar instead. The resulting ethanol shortage then led to huge lines at the pumps and mass switchover to gasoline.
Ethanol has only survived because the goverment reinstated the subsidies. Which only proves that ethanol is only feasible with a lot of goverment subsidy. Not to say that the program isn't worthwhile - it provides cleaner burning fuel and a certain energy independency to Brazil - but it has a significant price tag attached to it.
Seriously. What this guy is doing amounts to extortion, pure and simple. I think there is likely enough evidence if criminal charges were to be laid to convict him of extortion charges. The fact that he's never won any of the 60 cases that's gone to court shows that his trademark is without merit and he's merely using the legal system as a form of intimidation
I sincerely hope that any of the victims of his extortion racket decides to file a criminal complaint. Given that his activity is crossing state lines, I would think federal charges would also be in order.
I think .xxx won't work simply because adult web sites will stay from it.
Consider if you are adult web site operator looking to register your web site. If you register it as .xxx, you know you can expect your site be blacklisted by "family-friendly" ISPs, businesses concerned about their employees web-usage, most schools and the more conservative universities, as well as some of the more puritanical goverments. Why would you want it to register as .xxx when the number of users who can access it will be vastly lower than those who can access .com?
And yes, some goverments may try to legislate adult web sites into using .xxx only, but the successful pr0n sites will merely move overseas making enforcement impossible.
I don't think the production of these virtual goods can be compared to sweatshops. The company mentioned in the article, Blacksnow Interactive, ran two sites, camelotexchange.com and aoexchange.com, since defunct, which operated as an auctionhouse for gamers for "Dark Ages of Camelot" and "Anarchy Online" to trade goods. The virtual goods sold and produced were made by gamers themselves.
The fact is, the players who can put in long hours and succeed well at these multi-player games to produce these virtual goods are those with the best gear, broadband connection, and free time. I.e., affluent middle-class teenagers from the developed world.
The concept of a third-world "sweatshop" producing these goods is ridiculous. Why would someone spend a large amount of money buying expensive gear and paying for difficult to obtain broadband connections in the 3rd world, where they'd be experiencing substantial delay lags with the servers running online games in the U.S.? He can get the same goods from idle american teenagers looking for a little extra cash who already have all the latest gear, without spending any money himself.
Saying that suburban north-american teenagers playing video-games work in a "sweatshop" does a grave injustice to the millions of underage children who are forced to work in actual sweatshops in degrading conditions for little pay. A better description of the people running these businesses is that they are virtual brokers, handling transactions between gamers.
What's being filtered, according to the article, is google's news service, not it's search engine. Although, as has been mentioned by other posters, the chinese goverment already attempts to block banned sites from being accessed through google's cache.
Also, the censorship is being carried out in google's china-based servers only. As far as I know, a chinese resident could still access google's US based service, circumventing the restriction
A more appropriate title for this list would have been the 25 most ignored or underreported new stories. I agree that most of the stories mentioned were underreported in the media, they were not censored. Proof being the various references and links shown in each article.
I understand their need to reduce shock, but I would think a properly designed system with parachutes and balloons to absorb the impact, proven technology that's been used in the mars lander missions, would work just as well with less risk.
Catching the capsule mid-air with a hollywood helicopter stunt-pilot definitely does not sound like playing it safe to me. It sounds to me more like NASA is trying to attract the publicity by going with a risky recovery scheme at the expense of the science involved.
One word: greed.
If they were smart, sensible people they would follow your suggestion. But then, if they were smart and sensible, they wouldn't be criminals
I don't have any problems with counterfeit cash - I do all my transactions by credit card or debit card. Even the smallest corner store nowadays accepts electronic forms of payment. I'm surprised how the article doesn't mention the slow move we are making to a cashless society, which will make problems of counterfeit currency irrelevant.
More informative what've been a list of the most banned books, not merely the most challenged. Anyone can challenge a book, and you can never please 100% of the public with your writing. There's always a kook willing to challenge even the most family friendly novel. What I'd be curious to know is how many of these challenges actually succeeded.
The difference is in the number of copies published. J.K. Rowling has achieved a phenomenom that C.S. Lewis could not even dream of. With fame comes greater scrutiny. I'm sure there's hundreds of books depicting magic and paganism and ways more objectionable to religious fundamentalists, but none of them achieved the level of book sales that Harry Potter did.
More to the point, events like the luge and downhill skiing can reach extremely high velocities. Downhill skiers have been clocked at upwards of 200km/h. At these speeds, even a very small interval in time can mean a very large difference in distance at the finish line. Measuring in fractions of a second becomes more significant the faster the sport.
Additionally, these are world-class athletes competing at the top of their sport. The competition is so intense that a fraction of a second is all that may separate first from last. So, yes, measuring in milliseconds can be quite significant.
Crap doesn't quite come close to describing this pseudo-scientific nonsense that he attempts pass off as "10 laws of robotics". My favourite example was his tenth law:
Transcendental follower? Principles of mysticism? I am amazed that nonsense like this got picked up by /. Asimov surely must be spinning in his grave these days. After the abomination that was the movie "I, robot", now we get new age gurus trying to get free publicity by attaching their ideas to his laws of robotics
Well, if you're stupid enough to pay to be a walking billboard for a corporation I say let 'em confiscate your expensive $150 corporate logo shirt. The confiscated shirts, hats, shoes and other floating billboard paraphernalia could be donated to the underpaid sweatshop workers who made them for a few cents an hour.
But I think they should apply the policy equally: confiscate walking-billboard clothing from official sponsors as well. I'm sure if they keep up this policy for future olympics, spectators will be abandoning branded clothing very quickly
Personally, I am much more worried about then trying to ban pornography
I agree. I shouldn't be forced to give out all my personal information to be able to receive a rebate that should be embedded in the sales price after all. Rebates are almost everywhere in electronics and computer sales nowadays, and they form a substantial part of the sales price. Meaning that a consumer who does not want to receive spam and junk mail or give out his personal information will be penalized $50 or more. Hell, I've seen rebates of $300-$400 in higher end electronics. Rebates of that level are not really optional for most people.
Manufacturers should be honest and include rebates in the sales price. I should not be forced to send personal information to a manufacturer under the threat of hundred dollar "rebate" fine.
Let's see...
The Earth's magnetic field measures about 50 microTeslas.
Doing a google, I see that a person living directly under a power line would experience a field of 8-9 microTeslas. Listening to an AM receiver is about 10 microTeslas. None of this is much compared to the normal background magnetic radiation we all experience every day of our lives, so it's hard to see how any of this could have any effect on the human body.
On the other hand, I see that fridge magnets can measure up to 0.1Teslas on a gaussmeter, so maybe we should be worrying about the effect fridge magnets have on our food?
I would also add: 4) Simplicity. The paper ballot works well in Canada (and I say this as a Canadian myself) because the ballot is itself very simple. Federal, provincial, and municipal elections almost never coincide. Americans usually vote for a much wider range of elected officials. And we don't have these plethora of propositions to vote on at election time. At our recent federal election, my paper ballot was a simple envelope sized piece of paper with about eight different choices for member of parliament. I'm quite certain the american ballot is nowhere near that small if the horror stories I hear from there are true, and electronic voting would make this vastly simpler 5) Reduce fraud. Yes, I know many people have criticized electronic voting for the opposite reason, but paper ballots are open to fraud themselves - ballot stuffing is all too common in many elections in the third world. For the local political honcho seeking to influence the election, manipulating electronic votes is vastly more difficult than stuffing ballot boxes. Stuffing ballot boxes can easily be done locally with the help of corrupt local officials. Electronic fraud requires a greater degree of skill, and cannot be done locally, as the system is centralized. At least in Brazil, where I am originally from, it was credited with producing the cleanest election in history after electronic voting was adopted there.