I think you misunderstood the point of the argument that free food is harming Afica rather than helping. The argument is not that Africa doesn't need any help, as you imply, but that help ought to be, among other things, in the form of knowledge and technology transfer, rather than in the form of food handouts. Africa does indeed need a lot of help, and while software may not be the number one priority, ahead of modern agricultural methods, fair access to developed markets, better financial management, debt cancellations and a few other things, it is certainly a part of the picture.
Local farmers were not "uninterested" in growing food and turning profit by selling it. Why would they be? They found it impossible to compete in the market which was devalued by the free stuff being poured in, much as Iowa farmers would be "uninterested" in growing corn if a foreign entity was flooding the US market with free corn.
Some of your other comments such as "money for nothing mindset", as applied to the entire population of a continent, are really not worth answering. You might want to study up on the historical, geographical and other causes of unequal levels of development between nations before you jump to a simpleminded and racist conclusion that its just because they don't want to help themselves.
I've NEVER seen an unreasonable speed limit anywhere in my travels.
I guess it depends on your definition of reasonable. I've seen plenty of them according to my definition. In any case safe speed is a subjective thing. An experienced and alert driver, driving on a clear day, can safely go a lot faster than a half-blind 70 year old in low visibility. I assume the speed limits are set to accomodate the latter as well. Police won't tell you this, but it's a common knowledge that limits are usually set at 10-15 mph below the safe speed because they assume people will go over the limit by that much anyway.
If buying a new printer is indeed cheaper than buying cartriges, then you can turn any printer disposable by a very simple act of magic: toss it into the trash can after the ink runs out.
could we be heading into an era where our automobiles will require software updates and fixes to keep them from literally 'crashing'?
I think we are. New cars have more and more software, controlling more and more functions and I don't see that trend possibly stopping or reversing any time soon. Since no software known to man has ever been completely bug free there will sooner or later be a bug that causes a crash. There were aircrafts and spacecrafts that crashed due to software 'glitches' and I can't imagine car companies doing more extensive testing than Boeing or NASA.
Yes, but why? Airplane - Airplanes, Aircraft - Aircraft??? When people mispronounce things like this it is usually because the "wrong" version makes more sense.
Wow, I don't know if you are trolling or if you are some sort of a free market extremist but I'll reply anyway. Are you for abolishing monopoly laws, and about a million consumer protection and other laws that regulate the "free" market in USA thereby making it substantially less free? What happens when you run out of places to move to, does free market still work?
Unfortunately, free market doesn't always work. Where I live, I only have two broadband choices: one company for DSL and one company for cable. I suspect this is true for a lot of other people. It doesn't take much collusion between big carriers to introduce bundling schemes where the only choice would be buying all sorts of crap from them or not having broadband at all. Cable is one example, I only want about 5 channels but I have to buy 72 to get those 5.
How about storage. It takes a lot of space to store a movie collection. People will still want to own the movies, no?
Or is this dude predicting that everything will become pay-per-view? Or else people will go through the trouble of downloading a movie and then burning it onto some media which seems more hassle than just buying a DVD.
I guess it all depends how far ahead you're looking, some day this will all become true, and we'll get flying cars too, but not any time soon IMHO.
I was watching Glengarry Glen Ross on daytime TV and there was no sound at all, just beeps the whole time. It was kinda fun, like an alien translation.
I wonder why they bother showing movies with a lot of forbidden words, if they are going to butcher it to the point where its completely unwatchable. Hopefully they don't get to do it on satellite TV too, not that I get any...
Well I know they aren't talking about Project Gutenberg and that Google has plans to digitise (thansk for the term, much better than "computerize":) books etc. I was just trying to illustrate how difficult and time consuming task that is, and then they just pull this ridiculous number out of a hat. Probably helps with the funding though.
Pardon me while I fall off my chair laughing. Project guttenberg and the like have been "computerizing" public domain books for years and they are up to what, 10,000 or so. Where is this great magical library of 15 million ebooks?
Nice idea in theory but oh so many problems in practice.
The main one is the complexity of the system. I can't imagine primary schools in rural areas in Kenya (or for that matter here in US) having the expertise to fix the problems that will surely arise sooner or later.
If the main goal is to give students access to the textbooks, why not simply preload the relevant ones on the handhelds and give them out to the schools, and do away with the whole satellite -> base station -> wireless network -> handheld business.
At what intervals do the textbooks need to be updated/replaced anyway? Probably less that the average lifetime of the handheld computer in the hands of a 10 year old.
Not a lot of details there. What's so special about this plane that allows it to fly for 80 hours without refueling. What kind of engine etc
Not that I care all that much. Another billionaire trying to get into record books. I had a good laugh every time Richard Branson's baloon crashed, and I'll have a good laugh here too
Not just slashdot, whats up with CNN reporting each new ipod release as headline news. I like Apple but I hate advertising posing as news, or movies, or slashdot stories...
It is too easy for companies to be careless with people's personal data and it will take a serious threat of penalty to make them put in extra expense and effort to guard it properly. The same kind that make airlines so carefull about safety i.e. closing down the shop type of penalty.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you misunderstood the point of the argument that free food is harming Afica rather than helping. The argument is not that Africa doesn't need any help, as you imply, but that help ought to be, among other things, in the form of knowledge and technology transfer, rather than in the form of food handouts. Africa does indeed need a lot of help, and while software may not be the number one priority, ahead of modern agricultural methods, fair access to developed markets, better financial management, debt cancellations and a few other things, it is certainly a part of the picture.
Local farmers were not "uninterested" in growing food and turning profit by selling it. Why would they be? They found it impossible to compete in the market which was devalued by the free stuff being poured in, much as Iowa farmers would be "uninterested" in growing corn if a foreign entity was flooding the US market with free corn.
Some of your other comments such as "money for nothing mindset", as applied to the entire population of a continent, are really not worth answering. You might want to study up on the historical, geographical and other causes of unequal levels of development between nations before you jump to a simpleminded and racist conclusion that its just because they don't want to help themselves.
Yep, somebody did
Alot is two words
I've NEVER seen an unreasonable speed limit anywhere in my travels.
I guess it depends on your definition of reasonable. I've seen plenty of them according to my definition. In any case safe speed is a subjective thing. An experienced and alert driver, driving on a clear day, can safely go a lot faster than a half-blind 70 year old in low visibility. I assume the speed limits are set to accomodate the latter as well. Police won't tell you this, but it's a common knowledge that limits are usually set at 10-15 mph below the safe speed because they assume people will go over the limit by that much anyway.
If buying a new printer is indeed cheaper than buying cartriges, then you can turn any printer disposable by a very simple act of magic: toss it into the trash can after the ink runs out.
could we be heading into an era where our automobiles will require software updates and fixes to keep them from literally 'crashing'?
I think we are. New cars have more and more software, controlling more and more functions and I don't see that trend possibly stopping or reversing any time soon. Since no software known to man has ever been completely bug free there will sooner or later be a bug that causes a crash. There were aircrafts and spacecrafts that crashed due to software 'glitches' and I can't imagine car companies doing more extensive testing than Boeing or NASA.
Yes, but why? Airplane - Airplanes, Aircraft - Aircraft??? When people mispronounce things like this it is usually because the "wrong" version makes more sense.
Wow, I don't know if you are trolling or if you are some sort of a free market extremist but I'll reply anyway. Are you for abolishing monopoly laws, and about a million consumer protection and other laws that regulate the "free" market in USA thereby making it substantially less free? What happens when you run out of places to move to, does free market still work?
Unfortunately, free market doesn't always work. Where I live, I only have two broadband choices: one company for DSL and one company for cable. I suspect this is true for a lot of other people. It doesn't take much collusion between big carriers to introduce bundling schemes where the only choice would be buying all sorts of crap from them or not having broadband at all. Cable is one example, I only want about 5 channels but I have to buy 72 to get those 5.
Mmmmm, can't wait... tabbed browsing...png support...and printing too! And they are even considering supporting CSS!
How come nobody else could think of those features until now? Well done Microsoft!
Great, I've been thinking what to do with $3600 and buying a hard disk to keep a bunch of movies on is just perfect.
How about storage. It takes a lot of space to store a movie collection. People will still want to own the movies, no?
Or is this dude predicting that everything will become pay-per-view? Or else people will go through the trouble of downloading a movie and then burning it onto some media which seems more hassle than just buying a DVD.
I guess it all depends how far ahead you're looking, some day this will all become true, and we'll get flying cars too, but not any time soon IMHO.
Why on earth not. It's called labor market
I was watching Glengarry Glen Ross on daytime TV and there was no sound at all, just beeps the whole time. It was kinda fun, like an alien translation.
I wonder why they bother showing movies with a lot of forbidden words, if they are going to butcher it to the point where its completely unwatchable. Hopefully they don't get to do it on satellite TV too, not that I get any...
He become eligible for an upgrade once he slays a dragon.
Well I know they aren't talking about Project Gutenberg and that Google has plans to digitise (thansk for the term, much better than "computerize" :) books etc. I was just trying to illustrate how difficult and time consuming task that is, and then they just pull this ridiculous number out of a hat. Probably helps with the funding though.
Pardon me while I fall off my chair laughing. Project guttenberg and the like have been "computerizing" public domain books for years and they are up to what, 10,000 or so. Where is this great magical library of 15 million ebooks?
Nice idea in theory but oh so many problems in practice.
The main one is the complexity of the system. I can't imagine primary schools in rural areas in Kenya (or for that matter here in US) having the expertise to fix the problems that will surely arise sooner or later.
If the main goal is to give students access to the textbooks, why not simply preload the relevant ones on the handhelds and give them out to the schools, and do away with the whole satellite -> base station -> wireless network -> handheld business.
At what intervals do the textbooks need to be updated/replaced anyway? Probably less that the average lifetime of the handheld computer in the hands of a 10 year old.
Not a lot of details there. What's so special about this plane that allows it to fly for 80 hours without refueling. What kind of engine etc
Not that I care all that much. Another billionaire trying to get into record books. I had a good laugh every time Richard Branson's baloon crashed, and I'll have a good laugh here too
a few snapshots
Please, I'm eating. Oh good, the server is dead...
Not just slashdot, whats up with CNN reporting each new ipod release as headline news. I like Apple but I hate advertising posing as news, or movies, or slashdot stories...
Well, they don't necessarily go away after being delisted from nasdaq, but yeah, another nail in the coffin...
It is too easy for companies to be careless with people's personal data and it will take a serious threat of penalty to make them put in extra expense and effort to guard it properly. The same kind that make airlines so carefull about safety i.e. closing down the shop type of penalty.
Usually I'd expect at least one attention seeking asshole saying "Well, this is actually a good thing because "
Ah, good old appeal to authority. Assuming that
a) Steve Jobs never makes mistakes
b) We actually know what his position is (as opposed to a rumour)
it is a really good argument and fully deserves 5 Insightful