All elementary students in Portugal are awarded a small computer (a custom ClassMate, actually) and older ones can get a standard laptop with UMTS access to the Internet for about 150 â (free for students who can't afford it).
There is this portuguese company called "PT InovaÃão" that developed a far superior technology that holds 100 Mbps@5 Kms. Whay should they be working on improving bandwidth in a technology with such short range capabilities? If you get fiber that close, you might as well go all the way to FTTH...
Western or not Western, the reality of those people is that they CHOSE to come from the country-side (where all farmers actually are supposed to have enough land to survive on) to big cities in order to have the "privilege" of working in such factories. If they did so, it is because they believe the conditions are better. Who am I, well employed, well fed, to tell them not to?
Anyone who claims himself to be an expert in some matter is either:
a) Trying to leverage some influence over someone who needs the knowledge he claims to have;
b) Too dumb to look at himself in the mirror.
If there is one thing that we have been taught by thinkers and confirmed by experience is that the more you know, the more you become conscious that you DON'T know. Humility is certainly a general good indicator if expertise.
I recomend reading "The Undercover Economist" for a layman's explanation on the (ab)use of supposed expertise.
That's what nature has been doing forever (or for 6000 years, depending on your reliance on books). If you want to fight something that is always evolving, do it with something that evolves at least at the same rate.
As we humans are limited in our evolution rate by inconvenient things like life span, we have to fight bacteria with something similar like... hum... virus that kill bacteria and are already extensively used in Eastern Europe and Asia?
These kinds of comments that go along the line "we must stop this" and so on are so ignorant of other people's reality that get to the point of being disgusting.
Believe it or not, people in countries other that yours are not stupid nor masochistic. And tend to choose what they believe it's best for them, no matter how different that may be from YOUR personal choices.
The reality is that yes, working conditions are miserable. But they are not slaves. They may choose not to work in those factories. It is just that the alternatives are so bad (starving to death, for one... yes, that may seem incredible for you that feel STARVING after going 2 hours without a snack, but people DO starve to DEATH)that working in those conditions is actually acceptable!
And what is your solution? Penalize the asses out of the companies that operate this way, so that it becomes unfeasable to maintain operation in those countries, condemning the locals to a fate they had chosen not to have because YOUR WELL FED ASS decided what is best for THEM!
They must have, because according to the summary they have started managing the LHC like my Director does: "Your system will be fully operational last week, at the latest!"
Of course I didn't mean Americans don't have families.
What I meant is that, having worked both in Europe and the States, it's not too hard to see that the American job market is much more flexible and fast moving than the European. Laying off someone in Europe is such an assle that most companies take extreme caution when hiring, which slows everything down ALOT!
I understand the stint you mention and I do wish you the best of luck for your present/future job. Having changed jobs three times the same year, I am aware you have to become extra persuasive.
Interesting news, considering that Portugal, an EU member since 1986, has been issuing these EU biometric passports for some years now. Actually, nowadays you may even enter Portugal through a completely automated passport control.
In Portugal all 1st to 4th grade students have access to a free ClassMate and from 5th do 12th a full featured broadband connected laptop for 150 â or 0â, depending on your family income. No restrictions whatsoever. Worked out pretty fine so far!
The ability to tinker with their computers is part of the technology training intended. Hopefully, the next portuguese generation will know no such thing as the IT guy in the family that fixes everyone's computers
Do you want to compare email reliability to snail mail reliability? My country (Portugal) has an 1.4 % error rate in snail mail delivery. That's 1.4 lost each 100. I receive about 150 emails per day. I don't miss out on 2 email per day. Even with spam.
If you have some time to throw at it... Create a virtual machine with the operating system and all the required software to read/edit your data AND your data. Convert this VM to newer versions of the VM software as it arises. Keep the VM duplicated in two geologically different sites.
This will kill my karma, but I just have to ask: isn't all this "something we can't see that's messing up our physics" putting us off the possibility that our physics models may just be flat out wrong?
I mean, would we have a relativity theory if Einstein had stuck to Newtonian physics and stated that the errors measured were caused bay some misterious force/matter/energy that we couldn't see?
Same feeling here! Although I'm a telecom engineer and I can see all the great things about cell phones, the reality is that they brought along what they claimed... and more. It is true that with cell phones you can get in touch with anyone in the world, but at the expense of not devoting your full attention to the people you are actually with. Same thing for work.
What I don't understand is why de business model for pagers died... I'd surely have one to keep connected when I feel the need to disconnect my mobile...
The agreement of the Portuguese government with the Venezuelan gorvernment includes consulting services to set up the teaching infrastructure which, considering that Portugal already has deployed such a program, may cut some of the program's rough edges.
Slashdot Mirror
You are, of course, aware that the plane that landed in that river was an Airbus...
All elementary students in Portugal are awarded a small computer (a custom ClassMate, actually) and older ones can get a standard laptop with UMTS access to the Internet for about 150 â (free for students who can't afford it).
There is this portuguese company called "PT InovaÃão" that developed a far superior technology that holds 100 Mbps@5 Kms. Whay should they be working on improving bandwidth in a technology with such short range capabilities? If you get fiber that close, you might as well go all the way to FTTH...
"have yet to rise up and try to enslave humanity, which is more than we can say for humanity." Brilliant sentence!!! Can I quote you on that one?
Western or not Western, the reality of those people is that they CHOSE to come from the country-side (where all farmers actually are supposed to have enough land to survive on) to big cities in order to have the "privilege" of working in such factories. If they did so, it is because they believe the conditions are better. Who am I, well employed, well fed, to tell them not to?
Anyone who claims himself to be an expert in some matter is either: a) Trying to leverage some influence over someone who needs the knowledge he claims to have; b) Too dumb to look at himself in the mirror.
If there is one thing that we have been taught by thinkers and confirmed by experience is that the more you know, the more you become conscious that you DON'T know. Humility is certainly a general good indicator if expertise.
I recomend reading "The Undercover Economist" for a layman's explanation on the (ab)use of supposed expertise.
That's what nature has been doing forever (or for 6000 years, depending on your reliance on books). If you want to fight something that is always evolving, do it with something that evolves at least at the same rate.
As we humans are limited in our evolution rate by inconvenient things like life span, we have to fight bacteria with something similar like... hum... virus that kill bacteria and are already extensively used in Eastern Europe and Asia?
These kinds of comments that go along the line "we must stop this" and so on are so ignorant of other people's reality that get to the point of being disgusting.
Believe it or not, people in countries other that yours are not stupid nor masochistic. And tend to choose what they believe it's best for them, no matter how different that may be from YOUR personal choices.
The reality is that yes, working conditions are miserable. But they are not slaves. They may choose not to work in those factories. It is just that the alternatives are so bad (starving to death, for one... yes, that may seem incredible for you that feel STARVING after going 2 hours without a snack, but people DO starve to DEATH)that working in those conditions is actually acceptable!
And what is your solution? Penalize the asses out of the companies that operate this way, so that it becomes unfeasable to maintain operation in those countries, condemning the locals to a fate they had chosen not to have because YOUR WELL FED ASS decided what is best for THEM!
The sheer arrogance is unbelievable...
Judging by how most people drive, I'd say we have enough problems with controlling ONLY FOUR limbs...
They must have, because according to the summary they have started managing the LHC like my Director does: "Your system will be fully operational last week, at the latest!"
Of course I didn't mean Americans don't have families.
What I meant is that, having worked both in Europe and the States, it's not too hard to see that the American job market is much more flexible and fast moving than the European. Laying off someone in Europe is such an assle that most companies take extreme caution when hiring, which slows everything down ALOT!
I understand the stint you mention and I do wish you the best of luck for your present/future job. Having changed jobs three times the same year, I am aware you have to become extra persuasive.
This is a normal management decision. When you have prospects of declining growth, cutting 5 to 10% of your under-performers is just good management.
Rationality aside, my sympathies for the families of those being laid off (although in the USA job market this is not such a big deal).
Interesting news, considering that Portugal, an EU member since 1986, has been issuing these EU biometric passports for some years now. Actually, nowadays you may even enter Portugal through a completely automated passport control.
Brain interface. Put the half-penny computer inside your skull and you just got yourself a co-processor :D
Lucky for Nabokov he's dead, or he'd be jailed for writing Lolita...
In Portugal all 1st to 4th grade students have access to a free ClassMate and from 5th do 12th a full featured broadband connected laptop for 150 â or 0â, depending on your family income. No restrictions whatsoever. Worked out pretty fine so far!
The ability to tinker with their computers is part of the technology training intended. Hopefully, the next portuguese generation will know no such thing as the IT guy in the family that fixes everyone's computers
Do you want to compare email reliability to snail mail reliability? My country (Portugal) has an 1.4 % error rate in snail mail delivery. That's 1.4 lost each 100. I receive about 150 emails per day. I don't miss out on 2 email per day. Even with spam.
If you have some time to throw at it... Create a virtual machine with the operating system and all the required software to read/edit your data AND your data. Convert this VM to newer versions of the VM software as it arises. Keep the VM duplicated in two geologically different sites.
Just my 2 cents (of an â) :)
This will kill my karma, but I just have to ask: isn't all this "something we can't see that's messing up our physics" putting us off the possibility that our physics models may just be flat out wrong?
I mean, would we have a relativity theory if Einstein had stuck to Newtonian physics and stated that the errors measured were caused bay some misterious force/matter/energy that we couldn't see?
You're right, I missread the punctuation. Me bad :)
Fact check: Turkey is NOT an EU member.
Same feeling here! Although I'm a telecom engineer and I can see all the great things about cell phones, the reality is that they brought along what they claimed... and more. It is true that with cell phones you can get in touch with anyone in the world, but at the expense of not devoting your full attention to the people you are actually with. Same thing for work.
What I don't understand is why de business model for pagers died... I'd surely have one to keep connected when I feel the need to disconnect my mobile...
The agreement of the Portuguese government with the Venezuelan gorvernment includes consulting services to set up the teaching infrastructure which, considering that Portugal already has deployed such a program, may cut some of the program's rough edges.
... but they even kept most of the cars in the precise same spots as the present image!! What a production!
Informative?! INFORMATIVE?! Did the moderator even bother to follow the link? You could tell the Monty Python refence from the moon...