The thing is that mine proves that the system isn't as foolproof as you think. I believe you when you say that you haven't had problems. Maybe you've just been lucky.
And likewise you could just say that I've been particularly unlucky to run into problems. That's fine. But do you want something in your OS that will start disabling functionality on purpose just because you get unlucky?
Me? I'd prefer if my OS vendor spent all their time trying to squash bugs rather then investing a lot of their time and money in trying to create new artificial bugs that, in the best case, *probably* won't cause adverse effects if you're legit.
The 'people' who 'lived off the land' for thousands of years? Mostly illiterate, innumerate, and died at ages 35-40. If they were lucky.
That's not the only problem with asking people to "go back to the open land and farm". It's also just not so simple a thing to do. It's not like it was thousands of years ago, where you could just wander off in some direction and hope to find some land that wasn't actively claimed by someone. Where is the "open land" these days? How much is there? And is it good farm land?
I'm not a farmer, but even I understand that not all land is good for farming, and it's no coincidence that the people who are lucky enough to be able to post complaints on Slashdot probably come from societies that sprang up on some of the best farmland in the world.
And then beyond that, you can't just "go be a farmer". Cultivating land doesn't consist of "drop seeds in the ground; wait." You have to know what you're doing, you need equipment, and you need some food in the meantime because there's a lag between planting and harvesting. The reason our ancestors were able to do it was that they had thousands of years of culture surrounding the cultivation of land, they had an excess of fertile land, and quite a lot of time to build up to that point. Even then, lots of people suffered and died.
Take a bunch of first-worlders, take away all their money and assets, and then tell them to "go live off the land," with no help, and most of them would simply starve to death. Nobody is starving to death and thinking, "You know, I could easily go over there and farm and have enough food, but I think I'll sit on my ass."
Honestly, I'm not even sure why the government provided the coupon for converter boxes. Yes, the government is doing something that might potentially make your TV useless, but it's TV. It's TV. You might not be able to watch American Idol or something.
Yeah, I know, there's the news. Is the news that useful anymore? Maybe for weather and traffic reports, but not really for news. But anyway for purely informational purposes, there's still radio.
I guess I'd just question whether it's the best use of funds. I don't consider broadcast TV the sort of inalienable right that would require the federal government to buy your equipment for you, and if anything I think the government should be trying to discourage TV watching for physical/mental health reasons. At the very least, I'm not convinced the money wouldn't have been better spent on infrastructure or college scholarships or something.
Well whatever you call it. I have a volume license. (Yeah, I actually do. No joke, I'm not a pirate.)
I've just had enough problems with activation causing my computer to cease functioning on various products that I won't buy any more software that requires it.
Hell, I even bought Photoshop for my own computer with my own money. If I were going to pirate anything, that would have been the first thing.
I would guess that enforcement would only be on the manufacturer and/or distributor. If I'm selling you a phone that doesn't make a clicking sound, then I get in trouble, but you don't get in trouble for owning a phone that doesn't make a sound.
...which makes the whole thing that much more useless. If you're an actual dangerous predator, I doubt this will present much of an obstacle.
It would also prohibit such a phone from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone.
What does it mean to be "equipped with a means" to do something? If I don't include any option in my list of settings, but it's easily hacked to silence the click, is that "equipped with a means of disabling the tone"?
If so, then it seems like a potential engineering problem. How are you going to make a tamper-proof phone? With many phones, the speaker isn't that loud anyway, and you could probably muffle a single clicking sound by taping over the hole in the case in front of the speaker.
If being able to alter the phone in such a way as to disable it doesn't count, then open source software shouldn't be a problem so long as it's distributed without exposing that setting by whomever is distributing it.
And because of all that, I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be a dumb law. It's either going to be very hard for manufacturers to comply with it, or else very easy to circumvent for the consumer.
Call names all you want, but I'm not buying an OS that requires activation and/or will stop working properly *on purpose* if I make some kinds of changes to my system. Until they change that, no dice.
The original poster was saying, "submit bug reports and maybe Microsoft will fix them!" My point was to say that, for some of the problems that I have with Windows 7, there isn't a chance that Microsoft is going to fix it, because they've created the bug on purpose.
It's not really that weird (or even unusual). I seem to remember a few times where someone has noticed that Microsoft employees were using Macbooks to give presentations at major conferences. When you really think about it, there's not a big reason not to do that. Ever since Apple switched to Intel, their laptops run Windows just as well as a Dell Laptop.
In fact, the only problem I've had running Windows on Intel Macs has been on the new Macbooks with the no-button trackpad, and I think it's just that they haven't tweaked the drivers for the trackpad well enough yet.
I think it's far more embarrassing when metadata in the files on their website indicates the graphics were made in Photoshop running on OSX. That's happened before, in the past few years.
It's quite clever having this hugely open beta; they get masses of free testing, but under the guise of "Well it's beta...of course [prod_name] doesn't work!".
I'm not sure it's all that clever, given that it's pretty much the purpose of having a beta release.
The system didn't allow projects to progress without the appropriate paperwork. The problem was rather that projects wouldn't progress because no one would bother to submit documentation or else errors would pop up because people would sign off on documents without reviewing them thoroughly. The system was fine, but it was not a replacement for proper management and discipline.
So Microsoft screw the entire non-Apple MP3 market for a couple of years. Then they bring out their own PlaysForSure player. Except it's not PlaysForSure.
Yes, I still have a hard time understanding what Microsoft thought they were doing there. They screwed all their partners there by destroying the idea of PlaysForSure, in that suddenly those songs wouldn't play, at least not for sure. Putting "PlaysForSure" on any product after that was a joke.
I've also thought, in hindsight, that people have greatly underestimated the degree to which Apple hurt Microsoft with the iPod. Most people used to talk about the "halo effect", meaning people would like their iPods so much that they'd be interested in looking at other Apple products, but there were much bigger problems than that.
Microsoft put a decent amount of money into developing Window Media formats, promoting them, pushing support onto every product they could, and selling media companies on the idea of DRM. Most people are quick to note that Windows Media gives Microsoft increased vendor lock-in, since they didn't provide or allow support for other platforms, but it did much more than that. It allowed them to create strategic partnerships with large media companies, and more importantly let Microsoft get their hooks into all sorts of other markets. If they owned WMA and WMA was *the* audio format people were using, then they could own the MP3-player market as well as the cell phone market for phones that would provide media capabilities. Likewise, it could give them an edge in competing in devices like consoles or set-top boxes that might include media-playing capabilities. Further, any embedded systems (e.g. computerized audio systems in cars) would potentially be forced to license the embedded version of Windows. All of these sorts of things apply for video, too.
But apparently someone at Microsoft was snoozing and didn't notice that the iPod was growing in popularity. Since the most popular MP3 player didn't support WMA, it meant that people weren't going to rip their audio collections as WMA, and also they weren't going to be buying those DRM-wrapped WMAs. Since the only DRM they did support was one that no other online stores could use, the record industry was eventually forced to drop DRM, which then lead to an even bigger problem for Microsoft. The great selling point for WMA was that it allowed a nearly universal (except for on the iPod) DRM technology, and not much else. I can only guess that this damaged Microsoft's leverage with media companies, but more importantly it means that it doesn't make any sense to sell WMAs on online stores. The only sensible formats to use for online stores are MP3 and maybe AAC.
Further, since people are much less likely to use WMA, the benefit of providing support in consumer electronics and embedded systems is virtually neutralized.
Sorry for the random (and poorly organized) rant, but I thought it fitting to provide some context. It seems to me that the Zune really wasn't some random unimportant side-product for Microsoft, but rather a desperate attempt by Microsoft to rescue a lot of their work in developing control/lock-in in a variety of markets. I think that, if they're going to drop the Zune, they may be on their way toward abandoning the media dominance they've been chasing for several years.
The "enriched interactive multimedia experience" story-line may sound good at some level, but all it's really going to mean is that time that could have been spent covering and explaining core lesson material is instead spent faffing around with computers, watching videos, dealign with computer probolems etc.
I posted elsewhere that my concern would be whether there was a clear idea as to why they were bringing the computers into the classroom in the first place, but what I think I failed to emphasize in that post is the idea that computers aren't magical devices that automatically educate children, and I wish people would stop thinking they were.
I have no problem with interactive/multimedia being used in education, but it's not really a good end in itself. The computer is just the tool and/or medium. It doesn't replace the teacher. The whole thing reminds me a little of a job that I had where the engineers didn't want to do their jobs and didn't want to work on proper project management. There were certain procedures for documenting things and filing paperwork, and the engineers regularly neglected to document things properly. Rather than managing the engineers, the management got the brilliant idea to buy a CMS/workflow system to deal with all the documentation. They figured it would make things easier for the engineers, because instead of writing things down and taking the paperwork to the appropriate person, they could just type a few things in and it would automatically be sent to the appropriate person, and each person would be given a task list of all the documentation they had to deal with.
If you can't already guess, it didn't work out very well. Under the old system, engineers neglected to fill out their paperwork and walk it down the hall. Under the new system, the engineers neglected to fill out the online paperwork and submit it to the system, and nobody paid attention to their task list.
There's just no substitute for competent people doing a good job. Tools can help those people be more efficient, but tools won't do the job on their own.
In that sense, if there's an abundance of high-quality lessons available on computer your teachers would like to use, then find out what the system requirements are and meet them. If you want to teach about computers, then develop some kind of computer science curriculum and figure out what the system requirements for that curriculum would be, and meet those requirements. If you don't have any clear idea of how the computers will be used, then don't buy them.
Of course, I'm saying that as an IT guy, and not an education expert.
I don't have as much faith in a computer for every student, in every class.
I think the big problem is that people don't necessarily ask and answer this question before they begin implementation: what are we trying to accomplish with these computers?
I remember when they first started the "computer in every classroom" initiative in my state. It was during the tech bubble of the '90s, and there was a great sense that computers were the new thing, they were a big deal, and the kids should be exposed to them in education. Put them in the classroom, and students will be magically enriched by the experience.
So they put a single computer into every classroom, and they sat there. There were occasional instances where students were allowed to use them to look something up online, but a few kids went looking for porn, and so next thing you know, students weren't allowed on the computers. Most of the teachers didn't really know how to use them, either, and the computers didn't have anything useful for the teachers anyhow (e.g. computerized grade books to test-creation software). So the computers just sat there and did nothing.
I don't want to suggest that computer *can't* be useful. Obviously they're good for writing papers. I'm still keeping an eye out for stories about using textbooks with open licensing and digital distribution, which seems like a great direction for us to take over the long term. The potential is tremendous.
I just believe that projects will generally be much more successful and efficient if you start by formulating a set of goals (and also perhaps things you'd like to avoid), and then figuring out what's necessary to meet those goals. Starting with a set of tools (which is what the computers would be) and then trying to figure out what you might be able to do with those tools tends to end less well.
And about the Zune having DRM (is what I heard), I don't really understand that because it comes with a built-in wireless system so you can share your music with any other nearby Zune. Which seems like the opposite of what DRM is trying to accomplish.
Aren't those shared songs DRM-wrapped, meaning they're exactly what DRM is trying to accomplish? DRM isn't about trying to prevent "sharing", but rather about trying to control what you can do with the music you've bought.
Anyway, I don't think it's really all about the Zune being "uncool". I'm going to go out on a limb and make the following claim: The problem people have with the Zune is not the Zune itself, but rather that it's yet another lame attempt by Microsoft to take over a market that they perceive as a threat. Microsoft (rightly) perceived that the iPod was an indirect threat to their OS as well as their WMA format, and their response was to release an "iPod killer" that failed to understand the MP3-player market to a laughable degree.
From day one, comcast's VOIP has used seperate channels from their internet services.
I'm not sure that's really the issue. I'll admit a little bit of ignorance on the issue, but what would happen to your upload rates if Comcast opened those VOIP channels to normal data? Or what if they allowed VOIP to travel on those channels whether they were the VOIP provider or not?
Because I think the issue is that they're providing a limited amount of bandwidth to the home and complaining about congestion, meanwhile setting aside access for their own services. I can't blame them, since it probably makes them more money, and they're in a position to do it without worrying about competition.
Personally, I think that the companies that provide data infrastructure should be forbidden from providing services. For example, if Comcast is the company that actually strings cable to your house, then they shouldn't be allowed to provide voice, video, or data services over that line. Instead, they should be required to have a set fee that is available to any voice, video, or data provider. So Speakeasy or Earthlink or whoever could effectively lease use of the network for providing services.
I know that whole plan would probably present a number of challenges, but otherwise there's an inherent conflict of interest for any company that provides both infrastructure and services. It's in Verizon's best interest as a phone provider, for example, to hamstring independent VOIP providers if they can, and cable companies likewise have an interest in inhibiting competing video services. Even something like blocking SMTP traffic except to their own servers, which arguably is a valid security precaution, encourages people to use the ISP's email servers, making them more likely to use their ISP email address, making it harder to switch ISPs.
Cable companies and phone companies represent a duopoly, since no one else is really permitted to drop their own independent lines in most places, so you can't rely on competition (i.e. free-market forces) to sort these things out.
All this may sound to some like a bit of a conspiracy theory, but I'm not even claiming that these companies are actually abusing their positions-- or at least not yet. I'm just saying that these represent inherent conflicts of interest, ample opportunities for abuse, and a lack of a free market to allow the "invisible hand" to make things work out (if you believe in that sort of thing). So I think it's time for some improved regulation.
Sorry if this ventures off-topic, but it seemed related to the topic at hand.
Well really what I mean is that every time they release a new version, it's "good enough" but not "so great that I need to rush out and buy it", in such a way that if Windows 2000 server was "good enough" for you to use, then Windows server 2003 was probably also "good enough" and possibly "noticeably better than 2000", but generally not so much better than 2000 that you needed to buy the upgrade. And if Windows server 2000 wasn't good enough, then 2003 probably would also not be good enough.
And really I think that's a pattern across their product line. With a few exceptions, I haven't seen any killer new features in Microsoft products in several years. In fact, the only thing that really comes to mind was when they upgraded Exchange to support real syncing to Windows-based mobile phones. That was a substantial improvement that was actually worth paying some money for.
Actually, I think many consumers don't really feel the Microsoft "abuse". Personally, I think that it's more a problem of Microsoft's products being stuck in the gap between "good enough," and "so much better that I need to have it!"
It's not based on anything but anecdotal evidence, but it seems like, for most things I do in Windows/Office, their "2000" line was "good enough". Everything since has remained "good enough", and even strayed into "significantly better", but never quite hit the threshold of "so much better that I need to have it!"
So people don't really buy upgrades, but really only "upgrade" when they get a new computer. At that point, Microsoft is at the mercy of computer-buying cycles, and then also at the mercy of OEMs. If people stop buying new computers, or if OEMs start pre-installing Linux instead, then expect Microsoft's profits to decline.
Of course, like I said, those are just my random thoughts based on anecdotal evidence.
They're sort of "trying to speak your language". When I'm talking to someone who thinks that only communists see value in infrastructure, I use the interstate highway system as an example, and they usually end up begrudgingly agreeing that infrastructure isn't all bad. And it works partially because it's sometimes the same people who LOVE cars because they believe that the alternatives (e.g. trains) are communist too.
And yes, I'd prefer to talk about something like trains, and the benefit it would have for our country to have a decent railway system, but that's kind of a step too far for some people. Besides, I can't exactly point to our existing train system as a rousing success, since it's been so poorly maintained.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, no, I'm not a communist or socialist. I'm just interested in having our be economically prosperous and generally efficiently run. I don't like the idea of the federal government doing very much, but building/maintaining/regulating large-scale infrastructure is one of a couple things the federal government should actually be doing.
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The thing is that mine proves that the system isn't as foolproof as you think. I believe you when you say that you haven't had problems. Maybe you've just been lucky.
And likewise you could just say that I've been particularly unlucky to run into problems. That's fine. But do you want something in your OS that will start disabling functionality on purpose just because you get unlucky?
Me? I'd prefer if my OS vendor spent all their time trying to squash bugs rather then investing a lot of their time and money in trying to create new artificial bugs that, in the best case, *probably* won't cause adverse effects if you're legit.
The 'people' who 'lived off the land' for thousands of years? Mostly illiterate, innumerate, and died at ages 35-40. If they were lucky.
That's not the only problem with asking people to "go back to the open land and farm". It's also just not so simple a thing to do. It's not like it was thousands of years ago, where you could just wander off in some direction and hope to find some land that wasn't actively claimed by someone. Where is the "open land" these days? How much is there? And is it good farm land?
I'm not a farmer, but even I understand that not all land is good for farming, and it's no coincidence that the people who are lucky enough to be able to post complaints on Slashdot probably come from societies that sprang up on some of the best farmland in the world.
And then beyond that, you can't just "go be a farmer". Cultivating land doesn't consist of "drop seeds in the ground; wait." You have to know what you're doing, you need equipment, and you need some food in the meantime because there's a lag between planting and harvesting. The reason our ancestors were able to do it was that they had thousands of years of culture surrounding the cultivation of land, they had an excess of fertile land, and quite a lot of time to build up to that point. Even then, lots of people suffered and died.
Take a bunch of first-worlders, take away all their money and assets, and then tell them to "go live off the land," with no help, and most of them would simply starve to death. Nobody is starving to death and thinking, "You know, I could easily go over there and farm and have enough food, but I think I'll sit on my ass."
Congratulations. Your anecdotal evidence is different than mine.
Savings before you factor in transmitter efficiencies: 2.1 GW.
2.1 gigawatts? 1.21 GIGAWATTS? Great Scott!
It is worthwhile. For this one reason. Gigawatts.
What the hell is a gigawatt?
Honestly, I'm not even sure why the government provided the coupon for converter boxes. Yes, the government is doing something that might potentially make your TV useless, but it's TV. It's TV. You might not be able to watch American Idol or something.
Yeah, I know, there's the news. Is the news that useful anymore? Maybe for weather and traffic reports, but not really for news. But anyway for purely informational purposes, there's still radio.
I guess I'd just question whether it's the best use of funds. I don't consider broadcast TV the sort of inalienable right that would require the federal government to buy your equipment for you, and if anything I think the government should be trying to discourage TV watching for physical/mental health reasons. At the very least, I'm not convinced the money wouldn't have been better spent on infrastructure or college scholarships or something.
Well whatever you call it. I have a volume license. (Yeah, I actually do. No joke, I'm not a pirate.)
I've just had enough problems with activation causing my computer to cease functioning on various products that I won't buy any more software that requires it.
Hell, I even bought Photoshop for my own computer with my own money. If I were going to pirate anything, that would have been the first thing.
I would guess that enforcement would only be on the manufacturer and/or distributor. If I'm selling you a phone that doesn't make a clicking sound, then I get in trouble, but you don't get in trouble for owning a phone that doesn't make a sound.
...which makes the whole thing that much more useless. If you're an actual dangerous predator, I doubt this will present much of an obstacle.
I guess it depends on how the law is written.
It would also prohibit such a phone from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone.
What does it mean to be "equipped with a means" to do something? If I don't include any option in my list of settings, but it's easily hacked to silence the click, is that "equipped with a means of disabling the tone"?
If so, then it seems like a potential engineering problem. How are you going to make a tamper-proof phone? With many phones, the speaker isn't that loud anyway, and you could probably muffle a single clicking sound by taping over the hole in the case in front of the speaker.
If being able to alter the phone in such a way as to disable it doesn't count, then open source software shouldn't be a problem so long as it's distributed without exposing that setting by whomever is distributing it.
And because of all that, I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be a dumb law. It's either going to be very hard for manufacturers to comply with it, or else very easy to circumvent for the consumer.
Call names all you want, but I'm not buying an OS that requires activation and/or will stop working properly *on purpose* if I make some kinds of changes to my system. Until they change that, no dice.
The original poster was saying, "submit bug reports and maybe Microsoft will fix them!" My point was to say that, for some of the problems that I have with Windows 7, there isn't a chance that Microsoft is going to fix it, because they've created the bug on purpose.
It's not really that weird (or even unusual). I seem to remember a few times where someone has noticed that Microsoft employees were using Macbooks to give presentations at major conferences. When you really think about it, there's not a big reason not to do that. Ever since Apple switched to Intel, their laptops run Windows just as well as a Dell Laptop.
In fact, the only problem I've had running Windows on Intel Macs has been on the new Macbooks with the no-button trackpad, and I think it's just that they haven't tweaked the drivers for the trackpad well enough yet.
I think it's far more embarrassing when metadata in the files on their website indicates the graphics were made in Photoshop running on OSX. That's happened before, in the past few years.
Submitter: nine-times
Date: 01/26/2009
Topic: Windows Product Activation
Symptoms: It exists.
Work-around: Use Linux if possible. Otherwise uninstall Windows 7; continue to use Windows XP corporate addition.
It's quite clever having this hugely open beta; they get masses of free testing, but under the guise of "Well it's beta...of course [prod_name] doesn't work!".
I'm not sure it's all that clever, given that it's pretty much the purpose of having a beta release.
The system didn't allow projects to progress without the appropriate paperwork. The problem was rather that projects wouldn't progress because no one would bother to submit documentation or else errors would pop up because people would sign off on documents without reviewing them thoroughly. The system was fine, but it was not a replacement for proper management and discipline.
So Microsoft screw the entire non-Apple MP3 market for a couple of years. Then they bring out their own PlaysForSure player. Except it's not PlaysForSure.
Yes, I still have a hard time understanding what Microsoft thought they were doing there. They screwed all their partners there by destroying the idea of PlaysForSure, in that suddenly those songs wouldn't play, at least not for sure. Putting "PlaysForSure" on any product after that was a joke.
I've also thought, in hindsight, that people have greatly underestimated the degree to which Apple hurt Microsoft with the iPod. Most people used to talk about the "halo effect", meaning people would like their iPods so much that they'd be interested in looking at other Apple products, but there were much bigger problems than that.
Microsoft put a decent amount of money into developing Window Media formats, promoting them, pushing support onto every product they could, and selling media companies on the idea of DRM. Most people are quick to note that Windows Media gives Microsoft increased vendor lock-in, since they didn't provide or allow support for other platforms, but it did much more than that. It allowed them to create strategic partnerships with large media companies, and more importantly let Microsoft get their hooks into all sorts of other markets. If they owned WMA and WMA was *the* audio format people were using, then they could own the MP3-player market as well as the cell phone market for phones that would provide media capabilities. Likewise, it could give them an edge in competing in devices like consoles or set-top boxes that might include media-playing capabilities. Further, any embedded systems (e.g. computerized audio systems in cars) would potentially be forced to license the embedded version of Windows. All of these sorts of things apply for video, too.
But apparently someone at Microsoft was snoozing and didn't notice that the iPod was growing in popularity. Since the most popular MP3 player didn't support WMA, it meant that people weren't going to rip their audio collections as WMA, and also they weren't going to be buying those DRM-wrapped WMAs. Since the only DRM they did support was one that no other online stores could use, the record industry was eventually forced to drop DRM, which then lead to an even bigger problem for Microsoft. The great selling point for WMA was that it allowed a nearly universal (except for on the iPod) DRM technology, and not much else. I can only guess that this damaged Microsoft's leverage with media companies, but more importantly it means that it doesn't make any sense to sell WMAs on online stores. The only sensible formats to use for online stores are MP3 and maybe AAC.
Further, since people are much less likely to use WMA, the benefit of providing support in consumer electronics and embedded systems is virtually neutralized.
Sorry for the random (and poorly organized) rant, but I thought it fitting to provide some context. It seems to me that the Zune really wasn't some random unimportant side-product for Microsoft, but rather a desperate attempt by Microsoft to rescue a lot of their work in developing control/lock-in in a variety of markets. I think that, if they're going to drop the Zune, they may be on their way toward abandoning the media dominance they've been chasing for several years.
The "enriched interactive multimedia experience" story-line may sound good at some level, but all it's really going to mean is that time that could have been spent covering and explaining core lesson material is instead spent faffing around with computers, watching videos, dealign with computer probolems etc.
I posted elsewhere that my concern would be whether there was a clear idea as to why they were bringing the computers into the classroom in the first place, but what I think I failed to emphasize in that post is the idea that computers aren't magical devices that automatically educate children, and I wish people would stop thinking they were.
I have no problem with interactive/multimedia being used in education, but it's not really a good end in itself. The computer is just the tool and/or medium. It doesn't replace the teacher. The whole thing reminds me a little of a job that I had where the engineers didn't want to do their jobs and didn't want to work on proper project management. There were certain procedures for documenting things and filing paperwork, and the engineers regularly neglected to document things properly. Rather than managing the engineers, the management got the brilliant idea to buy a CMS/workflow system to deal with all the documentation. They figured it would make things easier for the engineers, because instead of writing things down and taking the paperwork to the appropriate person, they could just type a few things in and it would automatically be sent to the appropriate person, and each person would be given a task list of all the documentation they had to deal with.
If you can't already guess, it didn't work out very well. Under the old system, engineers neglected to fill out their paperwork and walk it down the hall. Under the new system, the engineers neglected to fill out the online paperwork and submit it to the system, and nobody paid attention to their task list.
There's just no substitute for competent people doing a good job. Tools can help those people be more efficient, but tools won't do the job on their own.
In that sense, if there's an abundance of high-quality lessons available on computer your teachers would like to use, then find out what the system requirements are and meet them. If you want to teach about computers, then develop some kind of computer science curriculum and figure out what the system requirements for that curriculum would be, and meet those requirements. If you don't have any clear idea of how the computers will be used, then don't buy them.
Of course, I'm saying that as an IT guy, and not an education expert.
I don't have as much faith in a computer for every student, in every class.
I think the big problem is that people don't necessarily ask and answer this question before they begin implementation: what are we trying to accomplish with these computers?
I remember when they first started the "computer in every classroom" initiative in my state. It was during the tech bubble of the '90s, and there was a great sense that computers were the new thing, they were a big deal, and the kids should be exposed to them in education. Put them in the classroom, and students will be magically enriched by the experience.
So they put a single computer into every classroom, and they sat there. There were occasional instances where students were allowed to use them to look something up online, but a few kids went looking for porn, and so next thing you know, students weren't allowed on the computers. Most of the teachers didn't really know how to use them, either, and the computers didn't have anything useful for the teachers anyhow (e.g. computerized grade books to test-creation software). So the computers just sat there and did nothing.
I don't want to suggest that computer *can't* be useful. Obviously they're good for writing papers. I'm still keeping an eye out for stories about using textbooks with open licensing and digital distribution, which seems like a great direction for us to take over the long term. The potential is tremendous.
I just believe that projects will generally be much more successful and efficient if you start by formulating a set of goals (and also perhaps things you'd like to avoid), and then figuring out what's necessary to meet those goals. Starting with a set of tools (which is what the computers would be) and then trying to figure out what you might be able to do with those tools tends to end less well.
And about the Zune having DRM (is what I heard), I don't really understand that because it comes with a built-in wireless system so you can share your music with any other nearby Zune. Which seems like the opposite of what DRM is trying to accomplish.
Aren't those shared songs DRM-wrapped, meaning they're exactly what DRM is trying to accomplish? DRM isn't about trying to prevent "sharing", but rather about trying to control what you can do with the music you've bought.
Anyway, I don't think it's really all about the Zune being "uncool". I'm going to go out on a limb and make the following claim: The problem people have with the Zune is not the Zune itself, but rather that it's yet another lame attempt by Microsoft to take over a market that they perceive as a threat. Microsoft (rightly) perceived that the iPod was an indirect threat to their OS as well as their WMA format, and their response was to release an "iPod killer" that failed to understand the MP3-player market to a laughable degree.
Which is... much greater bandwidth for customers?
From day one, comcast's VOIP has used seperate channels from their internet services.
I'm not sure that's really the issue. I'll admit a little bit of ignorance on the issue, but what would happen to your upload rates if Comcast opened those VOIP channels to normal data? Or what if they allowed VOIP to travel on those channels whether they were the VOIP provider or not?
Because I think the issue is that they're providing a limited amount of bandwidth to the home and complaining about congestion, meanwhile setting aside access for their own services. I can't blame them, since it probably makes them more money, and they're in a position to do it without worrying about competition.
Personally, I think that the companies that provide data infrastructure should be forbidden from providing services. For example, if Comcast is the company that actually strings cable to your house, then they shouldn't be allowed to provide voice, video, or data services over that line. Instead, they should be required to have a set fee that is available to any voice, video, or data provider. So Speakeasy or Earthlink or whoever could effectively lease use of the network for providing services.
I know that whole plan would probably present a number of challenges, but otherwise there's an inherent conflict of interest for any company that provides both infrastructure and services. It's in Verizon's best interest as a phone provider, for example, to hamstring independent VOIP providers if they can, and cable companies likewise have an interest in inhibiting competing video services. Even something like blocking SMTP traffic except to their own servers, which arguably is a valid security precaution, encourages people to use the ISP's email servers, making them more likely to use their ISP email address, making it harder to switch ISPs.
Cable companies and phone companies represent a duopoly, since no one else is really permitted to drop their own independent lines in most places, so you can't rely on competition (i.e. free-market forces) to sort these things out.
All this may sound to some like a bit of a conspiracy theory, but I'm not even claiming that these companies are actually abusing their positions-- or at least not yet. I'm just saying that these represent inherent conflicts of interest, ample opportunities for abuse, and a lack of a free market to allow the "invisible hand" to make things work out (if you believe in that sort of thing). So I think it's time for some improved regulation.
Sorry if this ventures off-topic, but it seemed related to the topic at hand.
Well really what I mean is that every time they release a new version, it's "good enough" but not "so great that I need to rush out and buy it", in such a way that if Windows 2000 server was "good enough" for you to use, then Windows server 2003 was probably also "good enough" and possibly "noticeably better than 2000", but generally not so much better than 2000 that you needed to buy the upgrade. And if Windows server 2000 wasn't good enough, then 2003 probably would also not be good enough.
And really I think that's a pattern across their product line. With a few exceptions, I haven't seen any killer new features in Microsoft products in several years. In fact, the only thing that really comes to mind was when they upgraded Exchange to support real syncing to Windows-based mobile phones. That was a substantial improvement that was actually worth paying some money for.
Actually, I think many consumers don't really feel the Microsoft "abuse". Personally, I think that it's more a problem of Microsoft's products being stuck in the gap between "good enough," and "so much better that I need to have it!"
It's not based on anything but anecdotal evidence, but it seems like, for most things I do in Windows/Office, their "2000" line was "good enough". Everything since has remained "good enough", and even strayed into "significantly better", but never quite hit the threshold of "so much better that I need to have it!"
So people don't really buy upgrades, but really only "upgrade" when they get a new computer. At that point, Microsoft is at the mercy of computer-buying cycles, and then also at the mercy of OEMs. If people stop buying new computers, or if OEMs start pre-installing Linux instead, then expect Microsoft's profits to decline.
Of course, like I said, those are just my random thoughts based on anecdotal evidence.
Making $4 Billion in one quarter isn't much a decline.
I guess it depends on how much they made the quarter before...?
Well what doesn't screw "some people"? Well, I guess people posting on Slashdot don't screw anyone...
(I had a valid point, but it got screwed for the sake of a joke)
They're sort of "trying to speak your language". When I'm talking to someone who thinks that only communists see value in infrastructure, I use the interstate highway system as an example, and they usually end up begrudgingly agreeing that infrastructure isn't all bad. And it works partially because it's sometimes the same people who LOVE cars because they believe that the alternatives (e.g. trains) are communist too.
And yes, I'd prefer to talk about something like trains, and the benefit it would have for our country to have a decent railway system, but that's kind of a step too far for some people. Besides, I can't exactly point to our existing train system as a rousing success, since it's been so poorly maintained.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, no, I'm not a communist or socialist. I'm just interested in having our be economically prosperous and generally efficiently run. I don't like the idea of the federal government doing very much, but building/maintaining/regulating large-scale infrastructure is one of a couple things the federal government should actually be doing.