I should have used the word "better" instead of "easier". To me, anytime I'm exposed to ideas that make me think, or that I haven't heard before, or find interesting, that is making my life better. Helping me to make more informed choices, whatever.
"Go outside and do stuff"
Well, duh. I'm not suggesting that we all sit here all day and look for pr0n, as is your case, apparently...
I think a lot of people feel that this is "the way the world works". In fact, this is often seen as a mature belief. Apathy works wonders for the marketers. The best liar wins.
"The fall of journalism" doesn't scare me. The common person is now coming into power (in a way), to tell everyone what they think. So instead of hearing 1 biased opinion from a corporate CEO on the evening news, I get to hear 100 biased opinions, and apply them, debate them, and compare them to my own biases. To me, thats true democracy. 1 opinion simply isn't engough, because frankly there is no such thing as objectivity.
The only technology I see that has any chance of EVER making my life better (maybe even happier) is the internet, for precisely this reason.
Ideas such as this were discussed in a book I read this summer, called "the control revolution" by Andrew Shapiro. It wasn't particularly insighful, but it wasn't bad. Basically he said that these "filters" we can impliment will narrow our scope to a very limited range of topics, thus we'll have less and less in common with everyone else, feel more isolated, etc. At the bottom end of this I suppose you could say this would lead to more violence, wars, etc.
On the other hand, these could be really useful. I don't have 8 hours a day to surf the web. But I'd much rather find my news online than watch my local/national news on TV. As far as I'm concerned TV itself limits your scope, much more than these filters ever would. The fact that most of the media in the world is owned by a handful of coroprations is enough evidence of this for me.
Yes, the Orwellian implications do scare me, though. It all boils down to how it is implemented and by who. What are their intentions: to make life easier for the common man? to make money? to control the common man? I wish we'd see a lot more of the first possibility.
I don't see anything new here. Every article relating to this issue always tries to explain why we geeks "aren't" normal.
A few comments on geeks. To generalize, geeks tend to think for themselves, and tend to ignore the superficial. Of course this isn't true of all. But we're harder to brainwash culturally. It's harder to get us to go out and spend all our money on the superficial things in life. In this culture, that makes you abnormal.
A few comments on psychologists. These guys seem to have replaced god in our world. Many years ago most people simply believed the bible was true. Now we have our new gods, the psychologists, using their science to "prove" whatever words come out of their mouth. There are more problems with this than I can think of.
- With everyone in this society seemingly looking to get themselves ahead, the temptation to change a few facts here, a few numbers there, becomes hard to resist. Money, fame for discovering the "disease of the month", or whatever other bones are thrown to you can be irresistable for the average selfish person.
- No one on this earth is qualified to tell me the definition of normal. We're all different, in fact, thats what makes us interesting.
- There are too many things about the brain that we simply don't understand. It will be many years before we can understand it at some sort of mathematical level. To me that is what defines a scientific analysis at the core. There are plenty of good insights into how the mind works, but I'm skeptical whenever I see the new "disease of the month" on the evening news.
- Drug Companies. These guys have an interest in selling us every type of pill they can. The more "diseases" that exist, the more pills they can sell us. The shareholders will scream bloody murder if profits don't keep going up. The conflict of interest is obvious.
- Our culture. Apathy and a narrow mindset don't lead to good results. How this affects "geeks" I think we all know.
If it's saving money over stand alone PC's thats good. But look at the first paragraph...
"Taking part in a pilot program that could revolutionize education, Intermediate School 381 in Brooklyn has replaced personal computers with a single network server, which could change the way students read, write and research."
Revolutionize? Give me a break. Its just another computer. It is nice to see CNN give something other than wintel coverage, but as usual they ignore other underlying problems.
Another poster wondered what kind of contract Sun has this district nailed too. I wonder too. With shrinking education budgets, the people running the schools are starting to have to choose between two evils. On one hand, you make do with what you have, or, you can "sell the school" out to corporations, who will supply you with equipment, but will force you to expose advertising to the students. Getting kids to recognize your brand at a young age is a great marketing device. It's also incredibly immoral.
There is a good article about this phenomena in this weeks issue of "The Nation".
The author really should have pointed out that pricing, availability, and expected speeds very VASTLY from city to city. MediaOne is the local cable provider where I live (St. paul). But the lines here aren't bi-directional, so if you get one, you need a modem for upstream. Thats an absurd speed for what you're paying, and it wastes another phone line. So I took the lesser of two evils and got a DSL line from uswest. 512 kbit, for a little under 100 a month with static IP's. Not a fantastic deal compared to some of the people I know around the country and Canada, but it still beats the hell of of my old 56k.
The security info that was given was interesting, but beyond that any discussion on this topic is worthless without knowing EXACTLY what is available in you area.
Boy, they sure like to control us eh? Too bad the internet is changing all that. Even as the web seems to be mutating into some sort of capitalistic commercial, I see articles like this all the time. This article helps demonstrate the governments dwindling control over other countries. I love it. I can't say the same for the citizens, since they're using similar technologies to keep there control over us. I don't hate this country, but frankly our gov't has been pushing people around for too long.
On a somewhat unrealted note, if our gov't deems computers with clock speeds over 1 GHz to be capable of helping design nuclear weapons, who is to say every country in the world won't have some nuclear device in 30 years? I think the playing field is being leveled really fast. I hope it settles without the world blowing up. Unfortunatly people don't give up power easily...
Level playing fields are a good thing. Somehow I thought that had something to do with democracy.
"So how can universities change to become more effective? The major problem is that education is not really market driven, more like a semi-regulated oliopoly (state charters, national certifications, etc) with all the expected distortions."
Your statement about universities not being "market driven" really worries me. I've seen discussion on this topic before, and I don't see much primise in it at the current time. Any institution being "market driven" isn't any good for anything other than making a profit. Universities are supposed to be a place where learn about yourself, other people, other ideas. It shouldn't be a corporate training ground.
Personally I think universities are very much market driven, or at least are moving in that direction very fast. With shirnking budgets, we see corporations creeping in to fund new labs/programs, which are essentially corporate driven, with any discoveries going to the corporation. This isn't obvious on the outside but the influence is definately there.
Have you ever taken a web based class? When you can't interact directly with the professor,TA, or other students you might as well just sit down by yourself and read the book. In its current form I'd rate web education as 1 step above that.
Another thing that worries me is the fact that universities themselves are starting to behave like corporations. Its almost as if they are investment bankers, managaing large pools of money, and running educational institutions on the side. Every year I see decisions at my school being based less and less on the students needs and more on their bottom line, and whatever can fatten it. Meanwhile more positions are created at "upper management" levels and they're all getting big raises every year. The president at my school just got a raise of 50k, he now makes around 450k a year.
I see web/internet based education as playing just another part in this. When the idea of money became a reality, the search for wealth became infinite, there is always more money, more power to be had. Same thing here. Now there is no limit on class size, you can charge the same fees, and register 100, 1000, 1 million, or any number of students. And the overhead costs drop significantly, you can just have a professor operating out of his home office. Think of all the money they could make!!
This sounds pretty interesting, even if it isn't something new. It's nice to see artisitc design go with the engineering side.
But how many people can afford it? Sure the price of this type of equipment has come down in recent years but I still wouldn't expect to see it in someone's house unless they had a lot of money or a strong technical backround.
As much as I like technology I don't think I'd want it present in EVERY single thing I do in my house. Too much wasted electricity. Sometimes I like to be old fashioned and read a book made out of paper...
" In a nutshell, the general outlook on money here is, "I put up most of the capital, so I should reap most of the profits." IMHO, that's a very healthy capitalistic mentality. "If you, the Artist, don't want my funding, find it elsewhere, or do it yourself." "
This is the reality of the current state of the world. That doesn't make it good or moral. The reaction of record companies to mp3 technology has shown the bad side of capitalism very well (if it even has much of a good side). Any system that puts money before people is immoral. The music industry is a great example. Music is one of the greatest forms of human expression, and here we have all these record companies using it as a commodity.
Now we have this great, democratic technology called mp3. It has the potential to give all the power back to the artists and listeners. It's interesting that in a so called democratic society, there would be such a backlash against this technology, by companies and the gov't, to some extent.
You also mentioned the fact that cd's need to be marketed. In todays world they do. But what I would like to see, and I think the internet can do, is help create a big change in our culture.
Right now you sit down, blindly stare at your TV, see some commercials, and passively go out and buy the products you saw. I'd rather see people actively seeking out clips of music on the internet and buying cd's right from the artist. No more middleman, no more fabricated artists with no talent on MTV.
Everything as far as technology is in place for this, people just need the desire to do it. People aren't taught to embrace change though...big suprise.
It all boils down to whether companies will be able to turn the internet into one big commercial, with push formats, etc. But the internet can't be controlled.
" However they will consider it a victory since it will put a bit of doubt into the back of the minds of other people who may want to put up links or content. "
I'd have to agree, a lot of companies use this as a scare tactic. In the internet world, where total control isn't possible, this method can be the next best thing.
I think they just used the number 100 for terms that the average moron understands. 650 megs or whatever doesn't mean much to the average person, I guess.
Reminds me of stories I read, about some company expanding/upgrading some internet/LAN lines:
"these lines can carry data, voice, video, or graphics."
You mean you don't need a seperate line for each one? Amazing.
That is interesting. Not suprising though, you would think most applications of this would be bio related (or at least any that have the chance of being profitable in the next, oh, 50 years).
This is something I've been waiting for. Unfortunatly this unit is too expensive. How much would an equivalent cd player cost, with the radio and 10 second anti skip? I'd say 80 bucks max. I'm sure the mp3 decoder chip doesn't cost the company $220. Granted this is a new, small company, so the high price doesn't suprise me that much. But that price is almost absurd, I'm not to pay a premium price just because it holds 600 megs on a cd. If it were 600 megs of SRAM, that would be another story. Of course then the price would be...well, pretty damn high. I'd still buy one of these particular players though if I wasn't still a poor college student:)
Once these players (SRAM or cd based) start hitting better price points with more capacity (for SRAM based), I think they'll reall start taking off.
Another load of hot air that is a bit more serious than that gov't post from yesterday, but still ignores a lot.
Anyone who reads this web page knows that the problems that exist in the computer industry (or any industry) are a lot more fundamental than a lack of some sort of written code of ethics.
It all stems from human greed, which is particularly bad in this country, it's what drives the economy. Thus our economic system is to blame too. Any company has to keep pumping out new products, to keep profits up, otherwise you go out of business. I'm sure this idea and its relation to the computer industry has been discussed here before. Our economic system is immoral. Not much is likely to change until the econmic system changes too.
Of course we're all part of the problem. When you release code under pressure from your boss and look the other way you're part of the problem. When you sit at home passively watching TV instead of getting out and doing something about it you're part of the problem. I'm as guilty as anyone on this count.
Then again, you have to put food on the table, right? It's a tough decision to make, trying to fight a seemingly unstoppable machine.
But those who made those tough decisions in the past are those who have made the most difference in this world....
I read the front of this page and that was enough. The government can say whatever they want, it doesn't mean they really care. The biggest tipoff for me was this line: "Education is the key to developing the intellectual capacity of our children -- the next generation of innovators, CONSUMERS and citizens." Yeah, gotta make sure that the kiddies know how to spend all their money on stuff they don't need.
To me there are two big problems with education. Number one is money. If the government was serious about improving education, they wouldn't cut the education budget every year, while raising the budget for the military and the prison system. They need to raise the salaries for teachers so that the educational system can attract people who would be truely good teachers.
Second is teaching kids to think for themselves. Another post mentioned something to this affect. I never learned anything like this in school, all I learned were a few half truths about history and how to do some math problems. We need classes on how to view the media critically, commercials, tv, or anything else that takes your time and or money. But no, not in this country...here we have to go out and buy whatever the commercials tell us to buy.
Until the gov't addresses these issues (or something similar) I won't take them seriously.
Slashdot Mirror
I should have used the word "better" instead of "easier". To me, anytime I'm exposed to ideas that make me think, or that I haven't heard before, or find interesting, that is making my life better. Helping me to make more informed choices, whatever.
"Go outside and do stuff"
Well, duh. I'm not suggesting that we all sit here all day and look for pr0n, as is your case, apparently...
Well put.
I think a lot of people feel that this is "the way the world works". In fact, this is often seen as a mature belief. Apathy works wonders for the marketers. The best liar wins.
"The fall of journalism" doesn't scare me. The common person is now coming into power (in a way), to tell everyone what they think. So instead of hearing 1 biased opinion from a corporate CEO on the evening news, I get to hear 100 biased opinions, and apply them, debate them, and compare them to my own biases. To me, thats true democracy. 1 opinion simply isn't engough, because frankly there is no such thing as objectivity.
The only technology I see that has any chance of EVER making my life better (maybe even happier) is the internet, for precisely this reason.
Ideas such as this were discussed in a book I read this summer, called "the control revolution" by Andrew Shapiro. It wasn't particularly insighful, but it wasn't bad. Basically he said that these "filters" we can impliment will narrow our scope to a very limited range of topics, thus we'll have less and less in common with everyone else, feel more isolated, etc. At the bottom end of this I suppose you could say this would lead to more violence, wars, etc.
On the other hand, these could be really useful. I don't have 8 hours a day to surf the web. But I'd much rather find my news online than watch my local/national news on TV. As far as I'm concerned TV itself limits your scope, much more than these filters ever would. The fact that most of the media in the world is owned by a handful of coroprations is enough evidence of this for me.
Yes, the Orwellian implications do scare me, though. It all boils down to how it is implemented and by who. What are their intentions: to make life easier for the common man? to make money? to control the common man? I wish we'd see a lot more of the first possibility.
I don't see anything new here. Every article relating to this issue always tries to explain why we geeks "aren't" normal.
A few comments on geeks. To generalize, geeks tend to think for themselves, and tend to ignore the superficial. Of course this isn't true of all. But we're harder to brainwash culturally. It's harder to get us to go out and spend all our money on the superficial things in life. In this culture, that makes you abnormal.
A few comments on psychologists. These guys seem to have replaced god in our world. Many years ago most people simply believed the bible was true. Now we have our new gods, the psychologists, using their science to "prove" whatever words come out of their mouth. There are more problems with this than I can think of.
- With everyone in this society seemingly looking to get themselves ahead, the temptation to change a few facts here, a few numbers there, becomes hard to resist. Money, fame for discovering the "disease of the month", or whatever other bones are thrown to you can be irresistable for the average selfish person.
- No one on this earth is qualified to tell me the definition of normal. We're all different, in fact, thats what makes us interesting.
- There are too many things about the brain that we simply don't understand. It will be many years before we can understand it at some sort of mathematical level. To me that is what defines a scientific analysis at the core. There are plenty of good insights into how the mind works, but I'm skeptical whenever I see the new "disease of the month" on the evening news.
- Drug Companies. These guys have an interest in selling us every type of pill they can. The more "diseases" that exist, the more pills they can sell us. The shareholders will scream bloody murder if profits don't keep going up. The conflict of interest is obvious.
- Our culture. Apathy and a narrow mindset don't lead to good results. How this affects "geeks" I think we all know.
Have a nice day.
If it's saving money over stand alone PC's thats good. But look at the first paragraph...
n g.shtml
"Taking part in a pilot program that could revolutionize education, Intermediate School 381 in Brooklyn has replaced personal computers with a single network server, which could change the way students read, write and research."
Revolutionize? Give me a break. Its just another computer. It is nice to see CNN give something other than wintel coverage, but as usual they ignore other underlying problems.
Another poster wondered what kind of contract Sun has this district nailed too. I wonder too. With shrinking education budgets, the people running the schools are starting to have to choose between two evils. On one hand, you make do with what you have, or, you can "sell the school" out to corporations, who will supply you with equipment, but will force you to expose advertising to the students. Getting kids to recognize your brand at a young age is a great marketing device. It's also incredibly immoral.
There is a good article about this phenomena in this weeks issue of "The Nation".
http://www.thenation.com/issue/990927/0927manni
The author really should have pointed out that pricing, availability, and expected speeds very VASTLY from city to city. MediaOne is the local cable provider where I live (St. paul). But the lines here aren't bi-directional, so if you get one, you need a modem for upstream. Thats an absurd speed for what you're paying, and it wastes another phone line. So I took the lesser of two evils and got a DSL line from uswest. 512 kbit, for a little under 100 a month with static IP's. Not a fantastic deal compared to some of the people I know around the country and Canada, but it still beats the hell of of my old 56k.
The security info that was given was interesting, but beyond that any discussion on this topic is worthless without knowing EXACTLY what is available in you area.
Boy, they sure like to control us eh? Too bad the internet is changing all that. Even as the web seems to be mutating into some sort of capitalistic commercial, I see articles like this all the time. This article helps demonstrate the governments dwindling control over other countries. I love it. I can't say the same for the citizens, since they're using similar technologies to keep there control over us. I don't hate this country, but frankly our gov't has been pushing people around for too long.
On a somewhat unrealted note, if our gov't deems computers with clock speeds over 1 GHz to be capable of helping design nuclear weapons, who is to say every country in the world won't have some nuclear device in 30 years? I think the playing field is being leveled really fast. I hope it settles without the world blowing up. Unfortunatly people don't give up power easily...
Level playing fields are a good thing. Somehow I thought that had something to do with democracy.
"So how can universities change to become more effective? The major problem is that education is not really market driven, more like a semi-regulated oliopoly (state charters, national certifications, etc) with all the expected distortions."
Your statement about universities not being "market driven" really worries me. I've seen discussion on this topic before, and I don't see much primise in it at the current time. Any institution being "market driven" isn't any good for anything other than making a profit. Universities are supposed to be a place where learn about yourself, other people, other ideas. It shouldn't be a corporate training ground.
Personally I think universities are very much market driven, or at least are moving in that direction very fast. With shirnking budgets, we see corporations creeping in to fund new labs/programs, which are essentially corporate driven, with any discoveries going to the corporation. This isn't obvious on the outside but the influence is definately there.
Have you ever taken a web based class? When you can't interact directly with the professor,TA, or other students you might as well just sit down by yourself and read the book. In its current form I'd rate web education as 1 step above that.
Another thing that worries me is the fact that universities themselves are starting to behave like corporations. Its almost as if they are investment bankers, managaing large pools of money, and running educational institutions on the side. Every year I see decisions at my school being based less and less on the students needs and more on their bottom line, and whatever can fatten it. Meanwhile more positions are created at "upper management" levels and they're all getting big raises every year. The president at my school just got a raise of 50k, he now makes around 450k a year.
I see web/internet based education as playing just another part in this. When the idea of money became a reality, the search for wealth became infinite, there is always more money, more power to be had. Same thing here. Now there is no limit on class size, you can charge the same fees, and register 100, 1000, 1 million, or any number of students. And the overhead costs drop significantly, you can just have a professor operating out of his home office. Think of all the money they could make!!
This sounds pretty interesting, even if it isn't something new. It's nice to see artisitc design go with the engineering side.
But how many people can afford it? Sure the price of this type of equipment has come down in recent years but I still wouldn't expect to see it in someone's house unless they had a lot of money or a strong technical backround.
As much as I like technology I don't think I'd want it present in EVERY single thing I do in my house. Too much wasted electricity. Sometimes I like to be old fashioned and read a book made out of paper...
" In a nutshell, the general outlook on money here is, "I put up most of the capital, so I should reap most of the profits." IMHO, that's a very healthy capitalistic mentality. "If you, the Artist, don't want my funding, find it elsewhere, or do it yourself." "
This is the reality of the current state of the world. That doesn't make it good or moral. The reaction of record companies to mp3 technology has shown the bad side of capitalism very well (if it even has much of a good side). Any system that puts money before people is immoral. The music industry is a great example. Music is one of the greatest forms of human expression, and here we have all these record companies using it as a commodity.
Now we have this great, democratic technology called mp3. It has the potential to give all the power back to the artists and listeners. It's interesting that in a so called democratic society, there would be such a backlash against this technology, by companies and the gov't, to some extent.
You also mentioned the fact that cd's need to be marketed. In todays world they do. But what I would like to see, and I think the internet can do, is help create a big change in our culture.
Right now you sit down, blindly stare at your TV, see some commercials, and passively go out and buy the products you saw. I'd rather see people actively seeking out clips of music on the internet and buying cd's right from the artist. No more middleman, no more fabricated artists with no talent on MTV.
Everything as far as technology is in place for this, people just need the desire to do it. People aren't taught to embrace change though...big suprise.
It all boils down to whether companies will be able to turn the internet into one big commercial, with push formats, etc. But the internet can't be controlled.
We win by default.
" However they will consider it a victory since it will put a bit of doubt into the back of the minds of other people who may want to put up links or content. "
I'd have to agree, a lot of companies use this as a scare tactic. In the internet world, where total control isn't possible, this method can be the next best thing.
I think they just used the number 100 for terms that the average moron understands. 650 megs or whatever doesn't mean much to the average person, I guess.
Reminds me of stories I read, about some company expanding/upgrading some internet/LAN lines:
"these lines can carry data, voice, video, or graphics."
You mean you don't need a seperate line for each one? Amazing.
That is interesting. Not suprising though, you would think most applications of this would be bio related (or at least any that have the chance of being profitable in the next, oh, 50 years).
So whats the over/under in years of when I'll be able to turn myself into a borg?
This is something I've been waiting for. Unfortunatly this unit is too expensive. How much would an equivalent cd player cost, with the radio and 10 second anti skip? I'd say 80 bucks max. I'm sure the mp3 decoder chip doesn't cost the company $220. Granted this is a new, small company, so the high price doesn't suprise me that much. But that price is almost absurd, I'm not to pay a premium price just because it holds 600 megs on a cd. If it were 600 megs of SRAM, that would be another story. Of course then the price would be...well, pretty damn high. I'd still buy one of these particular players though if I wasn't still a poor college student :)
Once these players (SRAM or cd based) start hitting better price points with more capacity (for SRAM based), I think they'll reall start taking off.
The glory days for the big 5 are numbered...
Another load of hot air that is a bit more serious than that gov't post from yesterday, but still ignores a lot.
Anyone who reads this web page knows that the problems that exist in the computer industry (or any industry) are a lot more fundamental than a lack of some sort of written code of ethics.
It all stems from human greed, which is particularly bad in this country, it's what drives the economy. Thus our economic system is to blame too. Any company has to keep pumping out new products, to keep profits up, otherwise you go out of business. I'm sure this idea and its relation to the computer industry has been discussed here before. Our economic system is immoral. Not much is likely to change until the econmic system changes too.
Of course we're all part of the problem. When you release code under pressure from your boss and look the other way you're part of the problem. When you sit at home passively watching TV instead of getting out and doing something about it you're part of the problem. I'm as guilty as anyone on this count.
Then again, you have to put food on the table, right? It's a tough decision to make, trying to fight a seemingly unstoppable machine.
But those who made those tough decisions in the past are those who have made the most difference in this world....
I read the front of this page and that was enough. The government can say whatever they want, it doesn't mean they really care. The biggest tipoff for me was this line: "Education is the key to developing the intellectual capacity of our children -- the next generation of innovators, CONSUMERS and citizens." Yeah, gotta make sure that the kiddies know how to spend all their money on stuff they don't need.
To me there are two big problems with education. Number one is money. If the government was serious about improving education, they wouldn't cut the education budget every year, while raising the budget for the military and the prison system. They need to raise the salaries for teachers so that the educational system can attract people who would be truely good teachers.
Second is teaching kids to think for themselves. Another post mentioned something to this affect. I never learned anything like this in school, all I learned were a few half truths about history and how to do some math problems. We need classes on how to view the media critically, commercials, tv, or anything else that takes your time and or money. But no, not in this country...here we have to go out and buy whatever the commercials tell us to buy.
Until the gov't addresses these issues (or something similar) I won't take them seriously.