What I think is more interesting is the stuff right after that:
But Anderson knows it will take time for the creation and implementation of effective new policies. And until then, there is plenty parents can do to protect their kids at home. "Just like your child's diet and the foods you have available for them to eat in the house, you should be able to control the content of the video games they have available to play in your home," he said. "And you should be able to explain to them why certain kinds of games are not allowed in the house -- conveying your own values. You should convey the message that one should always be looking for more constructive solutions to disagreements and conflict."
I really don't have a problem with that analogy (between parents controlling a kid's diet and controlling what games they play). However, he seems to be arguing that we need new policies that go beyond this. That breaks the analogy. People are already upset over the idea of the gummint telling them what they should and shouldn't eat through things like "fat taxes." Fat kids abound; instead of parents taking responsibility for their children's diets, maybe we should ban the sale of candy bars and soda pop to minors.
Funny, I remember writing BASIC programs for my TI that helped me do my homework. Instead of doing the same tedious problem 10 times, I quick wrote up the equation, took inputs, displayed the output. Of course, in order to do this, I had to understand how to work the equation...
If cheating by storing information on these calculators is really such a big problem, why not just have the students use simple four-function or scientific calculators? They're dirt cheap, can't store programs, and won't give anyone an unfair advantage.
Your concern is irrelevant in this case anyway, since the Nspire can run BASIC programs, so students could still program in equations.
What's more, TI actually released assembly programs that would install new features on the calculator. I have a TI-86 from years ago and just recently installed a TI-provided statistics package that gives me the various distributions, test, etc.
Interesting how 3 strikes laws like those mandated in the ACTA Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty (championed by Obama) are showing up in various countries.
Just to clarify, the draft texts of the ACTA Internet Chapter that have been leaked do not mandate 3-strikes/graduated response. The text mentions 3 strikes in a footnote as an example of the measures that ISPs could take to qualify for safe harbor. Also, ACTA is not a treaty, but an executive agreement. The different is important, because treaties require ratification by the Senate, whereas executive agreements involve no Congressional oversight.
The problem is that 3 strikes is the ONLY example that the footnote provides, and that in past such "off the cuff" remarks in agreements have been used to justify interpreting laws in particular ways.
Yeah, that's actually what I started to type in my subject line... "Why are markets in the US so screwed up" etc.
But really, Comcast and Verizon FiOS do offer DVR services now that consumers seem to like. But it's not a competitive market in the sense that you can go buy any DVR you want, like you could with VCRs.
Besides, after using MythTV it's really hard to go back to branded, crappy company-provided DVRs.
if it hasn't been connected to the internet in the past 30 days, it will stop recording stuff - because it can't check to see that you've paid your fee.
I'm guessing it's that, and it will also have run out of guide data so it won't know when shows are on, etc. It's not like it magically gets guide data from the ether. (Actually there is something called EIT, but I think it's only for OTA programs and it's usually crappy data anyway).
Guide data isn't free. It probably should be if you have a cable service, but it's not. Even MythTV users (in the US) have to pay for it, albeit for the price of $20/yr. It used to be free, but the company giving it away decide to stop a few years ago.
It also forces you to view ads - on the tivo menus and stuff. Infuriating.
Yeah, this kind of nonsense is the reason I'll probably never put up with a consumer-grade DVR. MythTV is not exactly easy to set up, but you purchase freedom at the price of ease of use, I suppose.
As long as cable box manufacturers are selling boxes to cable companies, instead of to consumers, I'm not sure how things will get better. I guess this is a difference between the "end-to-end" model of the Internet and other networks such as the cable network.
Everyone I have discussed CableCards with has basically come to the same conclusion: the cable companies wanted it to fail. I think this stems from their desire to keep control out of the hands of consumers; anything that breaks that principle must be marginalized as much as possible. You see the same deal with locked handsets from the mobile phone companies... they take a perfectly decent piece of hardware, flash their shitty branded firmware on it that actually disables features built in to the phone, then try to sell those features back to you (or in my case, don't offer them).
The treaty will be rejected if it's as bad as we're fearing.
No, it won't.
What are we worried about?
We're worried about the fact that ACTA is not a treaty but rather an executive agreement, inter alia. This means that no Senate approval or Congressional oversight of any kind is required. The only limits are that the agreement has to be within the bounds of current U.S. law. Of course, coloring within the lines of judge-made case-law is hard to do, it closes off policy options for the future, and the primary concern many people have is the extent to which ACTA will be forcing US IP policy onto other countries (all the while leaving out the good parts of our law, like fair use).
It doesn't help that standard installs of Comcast and Verizon FiOS provided routers not only leave the default administrative usernames and passwords intact, but also enable only WEP security. I know people claim that they have to do this because of compatibility, but really, has anyone bought anything in the last five years that doesn't support WPA? I've seen techs enable WEP for a person with a single Macbook.
Granted, they don't enable remote access, but really, what is so hard about writing down passwords and taping them to the bottom of the router?
We'd not be able to approach the school if kids could find "workarounds"
to site-access control; & they'd still need to monitor & assist students'
working, in real time.
Unless you're explicitly whitelisting sites, or you're preventing students from using SSH software or using their own machines, I'm sure you have kids smart enough in your school who know about ssh -D.
I don't know the specifics of this case, but if it was designed by Lockheed Martin on a government contract, that's not an indication that it would have been feasible to do so in the private sector.
That doesn't make much sense to me. Regular books may run from 150 to 400 pages, so you're looking at least $1000 in "paper" costs. For that price, you could purchase two Kindle DXs, or an iRex. Both of these options save you the printing time and allow you to store and view multiple books; the iRex would also allow you to make annotations.
Whereas, if you print on this special paper, you wouldn't be able to annotate or write on it, since you need to reuse the paper. That pretty much negates the advantage of printing something out in the first place.
I was a grad student there, and most of the people I knew hated the Horde webmail interface. I practically never used it, since I've always set up IMAP.
My current university also outsources most of their student e-mail services to Google... again, I almost always access it through IMAP. The main downside I've run into is that the university version of Gmail doesn't have access to Labs features that you get with regular Gmail.
Much quantitative academic and scientific work could benefit from the use of tools like Sweave, which allows you to embed the code used to produce statistical analyses within your LaTeX document. This makes your research easier to reproduce, both for yourself (when you've forgotten what you've done six months from now) and others.
What other kinds of tools like this are/.ers familiar with?
The author of the article complains there's no Netflix app - but how is that Apple's fault? Netflix is free to make such an app if they choose. The only issue is the inability to play in the background - something that primarily affects music apps.
Netflix may be free to make the app, but they're not free to distribute it - that's up to Apple. I somehow doubt that Apple will be fine with allowing an app that "duplicates functionality" already found on the iPad (by which they means competes with iTunes). The examples you gave - Rhapsody and Pandora - actually offer something different than iTunes. From what I can tell, the closest direct competitor to iTunes is something called "Spotify", which apparently allows you to cache streamed music for offline playback. That's still not quite as direct of a competitor to iTunes as Netflix would be.
This is the same reason you won't see a Hulu app anytime soon, despite year-old rumors that one is in the works. (Well, that, and the fact that AT&T's network would probably grind to halt if every iPhone were streaming TV shows). It's also probably one of the factors contributing to the decision to not include Flash capability.
Why is it that people doing what people do naturally -- looking out for their own interests -- is normal and acceptable when you do it, but evil and wrong when somebody else does it?
It's different when the "someone else" is the board of a publicly owned company.
That said, that sort of behavior is also to be expected due to inherent differences of interests in the principal-agent relationship.
As b4upoo's counsel, I am taking this opportunity to inform you that you will shortly be receiving notice of copyright infringement. Your blatant and willful distribution of his copyrighted comment has harmed its marketability, and we intend to sue you for statutory damages in the amount of eleventy billion dollars.
I seriously considered getting a Touchbook (I also mentioned it in my original post)... you're right, it's close, but still off the mark a bit. No VGA out is a big deal for me (they suggest that it will be compatible with USB to VGA adapters, but "will be" and "is" are different, plus that increases the cost). Also there's the fact that I can't just order one today and expect to get it within a week - they're backordered for who knows how long.
I would also like to know more about the package managers being used for these Linux distributions... the whole point of using Linux for me is the ability to install the software I want (that and the fact that it runs on ARM in the first place).
Having a slide-out keyboard doesn't make something a netbook. There are tons of phones with slide-out keyboards. Fine for texting, basic web-browsing. Useless for typing anything of any length, or taking notes.
The N900 has the advantage of being Linux based, but I'm talking about an ARM netbook offering in the standard netbook format - something around 10", clamshell, with a standard keyboard.
As I said before, Skylight seems to be exactly this (though it's not available yet, and the OS remains to be seen). I also just found this, but at 7" it's a bit small and the processor is older and underpowered. But it does have Linux.
Like the other person who responded to your post notes, I think these would do quite well at schools and universities. That's my environment, and it's the main reason I want one.
I already have a laptop, but it weighs 5 lbs, and the battery lasts at best 3 hours. Space is at a premium in the city, so you can be lucky to even find a place to sit, let alone one with an outlet. If I had a 10" netbook weighing 2.5 lbs and getting an 8 to 10 hour battery life, I'd be very happy.
Of course, I suppose I could buy one of the slightly upper-end Atoms and get those specs. But I really don't want to pay the Microsoft tax, even if it's just out of principle. It's also irritating to hear about all these great ARM offerings that are always just around the corner. I want something running Linux. That gives me rsync for synchronizing files between my machines, I can install R and a MythTV client...
Yeah, it's true, there are actually a bunch of generic 7" ARM-based models out in the wild for less than $200. However, you'll notice they all seem to run Windows CE.
I'm not aware that there's been much success in loading Linux onto devices like that.
The Smart Q5 and Q7 are shipping. The Nokia 770, N800 and N810 all shipped. The iPad is shipping in a couple of months.
None of those are netbooks. They're all tablet-format devices. As far as I can tell, the Touchbook is the only ARM-based netbook (in the sense of having a dedicated keyboard) that you can actually go and order right now (and it's actually backordered, so you can't in fact receive it anytime soon).
Fine if you want a tablet - I don't. I want an ARM netbook.
We've been hearing about ARM laptops/netbooks/smartbooks for over a year now. They were demoed at CES 2009, and promised to be delivered during 2009. Nothing came. They were demoed at CES 2010, and promised to be delivered during 2010.
I can't wait to slap down $200 to $300 for an ultralight, long-battery life, ARM-based netbook running Linux. But until they make it out of video reviews and trade shows and into stores or online for purchase, what good are they?
Lenovo Skylight is pretty much the first firm offering we've seen, but it ain't cheap. The Touchbook seems to be a Beagleboard in a nice case, and isn't being mass-produced like other netbooks. Now that the iPad is out (with an ARM-based processor) and MSI et al. have ARM offerings in the pipeline, with manufacturers finally grow some balls, realize they can offer a non-Intel machine and still use Intel on their other machines, and offer us some cheap ARM netbooks?
Slashdot Mirror
What I think is more interesting is the stuff right after that:
But Anderson knows it will take time for the creation and implementation of effective new policies. And until then, there is plenty parents can do to protect their kids at home. "Just like your child's diet and the foods you have available for them to eat in the house, you should be able to control the content of the video games they have available to play in your home," he said. "And you should be able to explain to them why certain kinds of games are not allowed in the house -- conveying your own values. You should convey the message that one should always be looking for more constructive solutions to disagreements and conflict."
I really don't have a problem with that analogy (between parents controlling a kid's diet and controlling what games they play). However, he seems to be arguing that we need new policies that go beyond this. That breaks the analogy. People are already upset over the idea of the gummint telling them what they should and shouldn't eat through things like "fat taxes." Fat kids abound; instead of parents taking responsibility for their children's diets, maybe we should ban the sale of candy bars and soda pop to minors.
Funny, I remember writing BASIC programs for my TI that helped me do my homework. Instead of doing the same tedious problem 10 times, I quick wrote up the equation, took inputs, displayed the output. Of course, in order to do this, I had to understand how to work the equation...
If cheating by storing information on these calculators is really such a big problem, why not just have the students use simple four-function or scientific calculators? They're dirt cheap, can't store programs, and won't give anyone an unfair advantage.
Your concern is irrelevant in this case anyway, since the Nspire can run BASIC programs, so students could still program in equations.
What's more, TI actually released assembly programs that would install new features on the calculator. I have a TI-86 from years ago and just recently installed a TI-provided statistics package that gives me the various distributions, test, etc.
Interesting how 3 strikes laws like those mandated in the ACTA Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty (championed by Obama) are showing up in various countries.
Just to clarify, the draft texts of the ACTA Internet Chapter that have been leaked do not mandate 3-strikes/graduated response. The text mentions 3 strikes in a footnote as an example of the measures that ISPs could take to qualify for safe harbor. Also, ACTA is not a treaty, but an executive agreement. The different is important, because treaties require ratification by the Senate, whereas executive agreements involve no Congressional oversight.
The problem is that 3 strikes is the ONLY example that the footnote provides, and that in past such "off the cuff" remarks in agreements have been used to justify interpreting laws in particular ways.
Yeah, that's actually what I started to type in my subject line... "Why are markets in the US so screwed up" etc.
But really, Comcast and Verizon FiOS do offer DVR services now that consumers seem to like. But it's not a competitive market in the sense that you can go buy any DVR you want, like you could with VCRs.
Besides, after using MythTV it's really hard to go back to branded, crappy company-provided DVRs.
if it hasn't been connected to the internet in the past 30 days, it will stop recording stuff - because it can't check to see that you've paid your fee.
I'm guessing it's that, and it will also have run out of guide data so it won't know when shows are on, etc. It's not like it magically gets guide data from the ether. (Actually there is something called EIT, but I think it's only for OTA programs and it's usually crappy data anyway).
Guide data isn't free. It probably should be if you have a cable service, but it's not. Even MythTV users (in the US) have to pay for it, albeit for the price of $20/yr. It used to be free, but the company giving it away decide to stop a few years ago.
It also forces you to view ads - on the tivo menus and stuff. Infuriating.
Yeah, this kind of nonsense is the reason I'll probably never put up with a consumer-grade DVR. MythTV is not exactly easy to set up, but you purchase freedom at the price of ease of use, I suppose.
As long as cable box manufacturers are selling boxes to cable companies, instead of to consumers, I'm not sure how things will get better. I guess this is a difference between the "end-to-end" model of the Internet and other networks such as the cable network.
Everyone I have discussed CableCards with has basically come to the same conclusion: the cable companies wanted it to fail. I think this stems from their desire to keep control out of the hands of consumers; anything that breaks that principle must be marginalized as much as possible. You see the same deal with locked handsets from the mobile phone companies... they take a perfectly decent piece of hardware, flash their shitty branded firmware on it that actually disables features built in to the phone, then try to sell those features back to you (or in my case, don't offer them).
This will be debated.
No, it won't.
The treaty will be rejected if it's as bad as we're fearing.
No, it won't.
What are we worried about?
We're worried about the fact that ACTA is not a treaty but rather an executive agreement, inter alia. This means that no Senate approval or Congressional oversight of any kind is required. The only limits are that the agreement has to be within the bounds of current U.S. law. Of course, coloring within the lines of judge-made case-law is hard to do, it closes off policy options for the future, and the primary concern many people have is the extent to which ACTA will be forcing US IP policy onto other countries (all the while leaving out the good parts of our law, like fair use).
It doesn't help that standard installs of Comcast and Verizon FiOS provided routers not only leave the default administrative usernames and passwords intact, but also enable only WEP security. I know people claim that they have to do this because of compatibility, but really, has anyone bought anything in the last five years that doesn't support WPA? I've seen techs enable WEP for a person with a single Macbook.
Granted, they don't enable remote access, but really, what is so hard about writing down passwords and taping them to the bottom of the router?
We'd not be able to approach the school if kids could find "workarounds" to site-access control; & they'd still need to monitor & assist students' working, in real time.
Unless you're explicitly whitelisting sites, or you're preventing students from using SSH software or using their own machines, I'm sure you have kids smart enough in your school who know about ssh -D.
It was designed by Lockheed Martin.
I don't know the specifics of this case, but if it was designed by Lockheed Martin on a government contract, that's not an indication that it would have been feasible to do so in the private sector.
That doesn't make much sense to me. Regular books may run from 150 to 400 pages, so you're looking at least $1000 in "paper" costs. For that price, you could purchase two Kindle DXs, or an iRex. Both of these options save you the printing time and allow you to store and view multiple books; the iRex would also allow you to make annotations.
Whereas, if you print on this special paper, you wouldn't be able to annotate or write on it, since you need to reuse the paper. That pretty much negates the advantage of printing something out in the first place.
I was a grad student there, and most of the people I knew hated the Horde webmail interface. I practically never used it, since I've always set up IMAP.
My current university also outsources most of their student e-mail services to Google... again, I almost always access it through IMAP. The main downside I've run into is that the university version of Gmail doesn't have access to Labs features that you get with regular Gmail.
Much quantitative academic and scientific work could benefit from the use of tools like Sweave, which allows you to embed the code used to produce statistical analyses within your LaTeX document. This makes your research easier to reproduce, both for yourself (when you've forgotten what you've done six months from now) and others.
What other kinds of tools like this are /.ers familiar with?
The author of the article complains there's no Netflix app - but how is that Apple's fault? Netflix is free to make such an app if they choose. The only issue is the inability to play in the background - something that primarily affects music apps.
Netflix may be free to make the app, but they're not free to distribute it - that's up to Apple. I somehow doubt that Apple will be fine with allowing an app that "duplicates functionality" already found on the iPad (by which they means competes with iTunes). The examples you gave - Rhapsody and Pandora - actually offer something different than iTunes. From what I can tell, the closest direct competitor to iTunes is something called "Spotify", which apparently allows you to cache streamed music for offline playback. That's still not quite as direct of a competitor to iTunes as Netflix would be.
This is the same reason you won't see a Hulu app anytime soon, despite year-old rumors that one is in the works. (Well, that, and the fact that AT&T's network would probably grind to halt if every iPhone were streaming TV shows). It's also probably one of the factors contributing to the decision to not include Flash capability.
I just visited 4chan from a FiOS connection without issues. The bold, red text across the top clearly says "Verizon Wireless."
That said, I wonder what the reasoning was for blocking it on VZW, and what the outcome will be.
Why is it that people doing what people do naturally -- looking out for their own interests -- is normal and acceptable when you do it, but evil and wrong when somebody else does it?
It's different when the "someone else" is the board of a publicly owned company.
That said, that sort of behavior is also to be expected due to inherent differences of interests in the principal-agent relationship.
It would probably be rejected, and you'd be sued for copyright and trademark infringement by both Google and Apple.
As b4upoo's counsel, I am taking this opportunity to inform you that you will shortly be receiving notice of copyright infringement. Your blatant and willful distribution of his copyrighted comment has harmed its marketability, and we intend to sue you for statutory damages in the amount of eleventy billion dollars.
I seriously considered getting a Touchbook (I also mentioned it in my original post)... you're right, it's close, but still off the mark a bit. No VGA out is a big deal for me (they suggest that it will be compatible with USB to VGA adapters, but "will be" and "is" are different, plus that increases the cost). Also there's the fact that I can't just order one today and expect to get it within a week - they're backordered for who knows how long.
I would also like to know more about the package managers being used for these Linux distributions... the whole point of using Linux for me is the ability to install the software I want (that and the fact that it runs on ARM in the first place).
Having a slide-out keyboard doesn't make something a netbook. There are tons of phones with slide-out keyboards. Fine for texting, basic web-browsing. Useless for typing anything of any length, or taking notes.
The N900 has the advantage of being Linux based, but I'm talking about an ARM netbook offering in the standard netbook format - something around 10", clamshell, with a standard keyboard.
As I said before, Skylight seems to be exactly this (though it's not available yet, and the OS remains to be seen). I also just found this, but at 7" it's a bit small and the processor is older and underpowered. But it does have Linux.
Like the other person who responded to your post notes, I think these would do quite well at schools and universities. That's my environment, and it's the main reason I want one.
I already have a laptop, but it weighs 5 lbs, and the battery lasts at best 3 hours. Space is at a premium in the city, so you can be lucky to even find a place to sit, let alone one with an outlet. If I had a 10" netbook weighing 2.5 lbs and getting an 8 to 10 hour battery life, I'd be very happy.
Of course, I suppose I could buy one of the slightly upper-end Atoms and get those specs. But I really don't want to pay the Microsoft tax, even if it's just out of principle. It's also irritating to hear about all these great ARM offerings that are always just around the corner. I want something running Linux. That gives me rsync for synchronizing files between my machines, I can install R and a MythTV client...
Yeah, it's true, there are actually a bunch of generic 7" ARM-based models out in the wild for less than $200. However, you'll notice they all seem to run Windows CE.
I'm not aware that there's been much success in loading Linux onto devices like that.
The Smart Q5 and Q7 are shipping. The Nokia 770, N800 and N810 all shipped. The iPad is shipping in a couple of months.
None of those are netbooks. They're all tablet-format devices. As far as I can tell, the Touchbook is the only ARM-based netbook (in the sense of having a dedicated keyboard) that you can actually go and order right now (and it's actually backordered, so you can't in fact receive it anytime soon).
Fine if you want a tablet - I don't. I want an ARM netbook.
We've been hearing about ARM laptops/netbooks/smartbooks for over a year now. They were demoed at CES 2009, and promised to be delivered during 2009. Nothing came. They were demoed at CES 2010, and promised to be delivered during 2010.
I can't wait to slap down $200 to $300 for an ultralight, long-battery life, ARM-based netbook running Linux. But until they make it out of video reviews and trade shows and into stores or online for purchase, what good are they?
Lenovo Skylight is pretty much the first firm offering we've seen, but it ain't cheap. The Touchbook seems to be a Beagleboard in a nice case, and isn't being mass-produced like other netbooks. Now that the iPad is out (with an ARM-based processor) and MSI et al. have ARM offerings in the pipeline, with manufacturers finally grow some balls, realize they can offer a non-Intel machine and still use Intel on their other machines, and offer us some cheap ARM netbooks?