They then make the jump that if they are ENTITLED to lecture notes, they are ENTITLED to free recordings of the lectures.
You completely lose me on either one of those jumps.
Have you looked at the cost of tuition at most four-year universities in the U.S., lately? A professor is a paid employee of those universities. He shouldn't be creating a little side business while he's doing his job.
From the article blurb: Quote Dr. Schrag "Your tuition buys you access to the lectures in the classroom. If you want to hear one again, you can buy it.
In my experience, that's mostly lectures by TAs because the professor is too wrapped up in his research to do menial tasks like, oh, ACTUALLY TEACH UNDERGRADS. Are those the lectures being sold?
I do not look at the $2.50 as a racket to make money, but rather an incentive to make sure that students continue to come to class, and not just skip "since the lecture and lecture notes are available online."
It's not the professor's responsibility to make sure students attend his class. That's high school mentality. If I'm paying for college courses, then the manner in which I learn the material, and the frequency with which I attend class should be my business.
I'm not saying the professor must provide free video lectures to the class. However, if he's going to charge for them, and then prohibit students from making their own recordings of his lectures, I think that's going too far.
I've found that more often than not, professors lecture almost verbatim from either a set of detailed, easily readable notes, or from a book - often one that they wrote or collaborated on.
The worst professors I had were the few who DID produce lectures without notes as a fixed reference point. Why? Because the material on their tests generally came from a book and had little relevance to the lectures.
Re:Unfounded Criticism
on
iPods at War
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Not that I usually care about how a post is moderated - hell mod me Flamebait I don't care. But if you're going to mod me redundant, try choosing a post that actually is?
Give me a break - I read the comments and no one else mentioned soldiers abusing drugs, which was a definite problem in Vietnam. Still an issue? Sure. But it's less of one now, because the soldiers have other outlets for their stress.
Re:Unfounded Criticism
on
iPods at War
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Soldiers are going to entertain themselves one way or another. Everyone needs an escape for at least a little while when they are in such a stressful environment. Let them play their video games. If there's an attack on the base, guys who were playing some games will be much more alert than if they were smoking weed or drinking heavily.
It isn't so much about blowing up people as it is causing widespread panic and economic paralysis. If you shut down an entire nation's air travel system, you have a large financial impact. The U.S. shut down all flights after the 9/11 attack, and that would happen again if multiple planes were taken down.
Terrorists hate capitalism and disrupting Western economies is one of their highest priorities.
Chemical changes are being made in the brain through conditioning. The brain's reward/punishment mechanism is a very powerful thing and when you screw with it, it's hard to change it back. You do something that makes you feel good all the time and eventually your body adjusts and that becomes your new baseline.
Playing a game has a similar effect to cocaine, albeit far smaller. If you play enough, and condition your body to that constant level of dopamine, then a) the game is eventually going to seem less fun, and b) when you walk away you're going to feel depressed.
I agree that willpower can overcome the desire to continue the behavior. Even some heroin addicts manage to quit cold turkey. So quitting games should be far easier.
The problem with games is not that they are highly addictive. It is that they are somewhat addictive with the additional parameter that many people (esp kids) have unlimited availability of the game at minimal or zero expense.
Electric cars don't have to "lack oomph" -- they can outaccelerate traditional cars when that's what they are designed to do. The problem is finding a battery that can get range on par with a gas-powered vehicle. Since the range is a problem, and since the target market is hippie earth-friendly types, manufacturers haven't been working on performance-oriented electric vehicles.
Actually, at the risk of contradicting my original point, politicians in WA state don't ever make tax cuts. Go ahead try to find one:)
This state's goverment has been controlled by Democrats for a long, long time. In particular this is due to King County, which has the largest population and is heavily liberal. The rest of the state is not, but can't generally muster the votes to overcome King County.
Since the legislators are spineless, the only time WA gets tax cuts is when an initiative passes (thank goodness for those in this state).
However, I think it is unlikely that an initiative will get started to repeal this anti-online-gambling law. Mainly because it affects a small contingent of voters. On the other hand, if a couple of websites get busted for linking, then it turns into a freedom of speech issue. If that happens, I wouldn't be surprised to see an initiative hit the ballot.
As I mentioned in another thread on this topic, Wizards of the Coast (now owned by Hasbro) is based in WA state. People who play Magic the Gathering Online and compete in tournaments for prizes are breaking the new WA state gambling law. However, they are paying taxes on purchases from Wizards of the Coast, and Wizards pays WA state taxes.
The real basis behind this law was lobbying from the tribal casinos. They don't want people gambling online because they think those gamblers will then, in turn, be more likely to drive over to the casinos to play in person.
And you probably can't even work a highschool level single variable calculus equation, let alone write a decent proof. So why don't you kick back, and have a nice warm cup of STFU.
I always enjoy seeing such a miserable attempt at a flame, especially when it is completely incorrect. Congratulations - you succeeded in getting me to log in. If you're from the USA, I'd like to thank you for using your tax dollars to pay for my undergraduate engineering degree.
I realize, of course, that many companies supply proprietary Linux drivers, but will not release the source. They don't want to support the Linux code, and they may have 3rd party licensing arrangements that prevent them from opening the source. In many cases though, they are not making money off the driver. TurboPrint drivers are a notable exception.
In the cases where they are not directly selling a driver, you may be able to get written permission to reverse-engineer the company's binary driver. Even when they will not release the source. Don't overlook the possibility. The worst they can do is say no. But getting such written consent in-hand is a much more reliable way of protecting yourself and Linux, than any clean-room technique.
Blizzard's Terms of Use (at least last time I checked) allows reselling an account, *provided* that you sell the entire game, CD, documentation, original box, etc... along with it. That sticks to first sale doctrine, so hats off to them for that.
I think the capacitors, if they can support a reasonable vehicle range, would be a better choice than hydrogen. You get a direct electric drive vehicle. You get regenerative braking. You don't have to create a hydrogen distribution system for fillups. And you don't have water in the exhaust, which tends to cause problems like corrosion and freezing.
The problem is that the retail market for games has turned into a handful of brick&mortar outlets. Those would be the main one: Wal-Mart, and a few "minor" ones: Best Buy, etc.
Rather than letting parents observe the ratings and decide what to buy, these retailers *won't carry* games with AO ratings, and sometimes won't carry certain games with M ratings. But as a game developer in such a homogenized retail market, you can't hope to turn a profit if your game doesn't get shelf space in Wal-Mart.
So developers and publishers target the Teen-rating, rather than risk losing shelf space. This places an artificial limit on creative content (whether you agree with violence or not, the limit is there). Is it censorship in First Amendment terms? No. Does it still chill an entire market segment? Yes. Blame the stupid American public, or the politicians, or the ESRB, but a conservative minority is getting its way in the U.S. once again.
We can cover all of that with an online game to auction off Nazi memorabilia! Of course it'll be illegal in most of Europe but hey that's why America is great. I think for my encore I'm gonna go wander off and report some people to the U.S. secret police for downloading porn.
Funny how Magic the Gathering Online, run by a Washington state company, now falls under this gambling bullshit. You can buy tickets to participate in matches, and the winners of matches can be awarded prizes -- therefore it's gambling in the eyes of the law.
Congratulations on supporting local businesses, Gregoire! Oh wait you're in the pocket of the tribal casinos... I forgot.
Given that you can download any number of free software programs that contain encryption technology from U.S. servers, without registration, Phil's rationale is itself somewhat paranoid.
For a good example: Firefox links against libssl. Firefox would have been illegal to export in the early 90s when PGP was just starting to become available. Now it (mostly) isn't.
According to Phil, it is illegal to export it to Iran & friends. If that's the case, why doesn't Firefox require the same level of precautions as ZFone before downloads?
Just wanted to say thank you for the reply Phil. I knew in no small part due to your efforts, the U.S. lifted export restrictions on cryptographic tools. I had forgotten that certain countries remain on the watchlist, though.
That said, I think with the current administration, many U.S. citizens feel uneasy about giving out their personal info for this sort of software. As the government becomes more aggressive in its surveillance of the public, lists like these will become suspect and possibly get added to the watch lists you mentioned.
In any case, thank you for providing the tools. Hopefully some good will come of it.
Subject says it all. Seriously. There are two kinds of video cards: quiet, and high performance. You're not going to get both.
If quiet is your goal, buy a new motherboard with on-board video. You get:
- low heat & silent - speed on par with a "budget" video card - no slot taken up (which is not a big deal, unless you're using a mini-itx system, which often only take half-height pci cards)
On top of all that, the new motherboard will probably cost you less than the budget video card you were looking at anyhow.
While you have to play Guild Wars online, it really isn't an MMOG. Every time you enter an area where combat is possible, you enter a separate instance that is private to your group. So you are never in a fighting situation with more than a handful of people.
Contrast that to, say, World of Warcraft. You could potentially run into any other person on the server when you are outdoors.
Guild Wars is really just Diablo 2 with some clever camouflage to make it appear to be a seamless world. But towns are really just Diablo 2 chatrooms, and the level of interaction with other players in the combat areas of the game is small.
Good lord, aside from the drug-injection allegation, some of the things you listed are positively cozy compared to special forces training. Not just in the U.S. but in many nations. The problem is that everyone has their own definition of torture.
I'd really like to see a link where the U.S. military said they were injecting Guantanamo Bay inmates with drugs for any purpose other than medical attention.
Working against the U.S. administration is the current debate about whether interrogation guidelines should remain classified. I can see both sides of the argument on that one.
Now what I don't agree with is prisoners being held in a legal-limbo for years without trial. As someone else said, they are either foreign soldiers who should be treated as POWs, or they are foreign criminals. If they are the latter, ok they may not have Constitutional rights that an American would have, but they should at least be extradited to their home countries, or prosecuted in the U.S. civilian system as a foreign national.
Slashdot Mirror
They then make the jump that if they are ENTITLED to lecture notes, they are ENTITLED to free recordings of the lectures.
You completely lose me on either one of those jumps.
Have you looked at the cost of tuition at most four-year universities in the U.S., lately? A professor is a paid employee of those universities. He shouldn't be creating a little side business while he's doing his job.
From the article blurb: Quote Dr. Schrag "Your tuition buys you access to the lectures in the classroom. If you want to hear one again, you can buy it.
In my experience, that's mostly lectures by TAs because the professor is too wrapped up in his research to do menial tasks like, oh, ACTUALLY TEACH UNDERGRADS. Are those the lectures being sold?
I do not look at the $2.50 as a racket to make money, but rather an incentive to make sure that students continue to come to class, and not just skip "since the lecture and lecture notes are available online."
It's not the professor's responsibility to make sure students attend his class. That's high school mentality. If I'm paying for college courses, then the manner in which I learn the material, and the frequency with which I attend class should be my business.
I'm not saying the professor must provide free video lectures to the class. However, if he's going to charge for them, and then prohibit students from making their own recordings of his lectures, I think that's going too far.
I've found that more often than not, professors lecture almost verbatim from either a set of detailed, easily readable notes, or from a book - often one that they wrote or collaborated on.
The worst professors I had were the few who DID produce lectures without notes as a fixed reference point. Why? Because the material on their tests generally came from a book and had little relevance to the lectures.
Information does want to be free after all.
Or $2.50, max.
Not that I usually care about how a post is moderated - hell mod me Flamebait I don't care. But if you're going to mod me redundant, try choosing a post that actually is?
Give me a break - I read the comments and no one else mentioned soldiers abusing drugs, which was a definite problem in Vietnam. Still an issue? Sure. But it's less of one now, because the soldiers have other outlets for their stress.
Soldiers are going to entertain themselves one way or another. Everyone needs an escape for at least a little while when they are in such a stressful environment. Let them play their video games. If there's an attack on the base, guys who were playing some games will be much more alert than if they were smoking weed or drinking heavily.
Sounds like good ol' Rocket Reed's EE course at the U.S. Naval Academy...
During my time there, ~80% of his students went through that class with a D or F.
Gotta love tenured professors.
It isn't so much about blowing up people as it is causing widespread panic and economic paralysis. If you shut down an entire nation's air travel system, you have a large financial impact. The U.S. shut down all flights after the 9/11 attack, and that would happen again if multiple planes were taken down.
Terrorists hate capitalism and disrupting Western economies is one of their highest priorities.
Chemical changes are being made in the brain through conditioning. The brain's reward/punishment mechanism is a very powerful thing and when you screw with it, it's hard to change it back. You do something that makes you feel good all the time and eventually your body adjusts and that becomes your new baseline.
Playing a game has a similar effect to cocaine, albeit far smaller. If you play enough, and condition your body to that constant level of dopamine, then a) the game is eventually going to seem less fun, and b) when you walk away you're going to feel depressed.
I agree that willpower can overcome the desire to continue the behavior. Even some heroin addicts manage to quit cold turkey. So quitting games should be far easier.
The problem with games is not that they are highly addictive. It is that they are somewhat addictive with the additional parameter that many people (esp kids) have unlimited availability of the game at minimal or zero expense.
Electric cars don't have to "lack oomph" -- they can outaccelerate traditional cars when that's what they are designed to do. The problem is finding a battery that can get range on par with a gas-powered vehicle. Since the range is a problem, and since the target market is hippie earth-friendly types, manufacturers haven't been working on performance-oriented electric vehicles.
Actually, at the risk of contradicting my original point, politicians in WA state don't ever make tax cuts. Go ahead try to find one :)
This state's goverment has been controlled by Democrats for a long, long time. In particular this is due to King County, which has the largest population and is heavily liberal. The rest of the state is not, but can't generally muster the votes to overcome King County.
Since the legislators are spineless, the only time WA gets tax cuts is when an initiative passes (thank goodness for those in this state).
However, I think it is unlikely that an initiative will get started to repeal this anti-online-gambling law. Mainly because it affects a small contingent of voters. On the other hand, if a couple of websites get busted for linking, then it turns into a freedom of speech issue. If that happens, I wouldn't be surprised to see an initiative hit the ballot.
As I mentioned in another thread on this topic, Wizards of the Coast (now owned by Hasbro) is based in WA state. People who play Magic the Gathering Online and compete in tournaments for prizes are breaking the new WA state gambling law. However, they are paying taxes on purchases from Wizards of the Coast, and Wizards pays WA state taxes.
The real basis behind this law was lobbying from the tribal casinos. They don't want people gambling online because they think those gamblers will then, in turn, be more likely to drive over to the casinos to play in person.
And you probably can't even work a highschool level single variable calculus equation, let alone write a decent proof. So why don't you kick back, and have a nice warm cup of STFU.
I always enjoy seeing such a miserable attempt at a flame, especially when it is completely incorrect. Congratulations - you succeeded in getting me to log in. If you're from the USA, I'd like to thank you for using your tax dollars to pay for my undergraduate engineering degree.
I realize, of course, that many companies supply proprietary Linux drivers, but will not release the source. They don't want to support the Linux code, and they may have 3rd party licensing arrangements that prevent them from opening the source. In many cases though, they are not making money off the driver. TurboPrint drivers are a notable exception.
In the cases where they are not directly selling a driver, you may be able to get written permission to reverse-engineer the company's binary driver. Even when they will not release the source. Don't overlook the possibility. The worst they can do is say no. But getting such written consent in-hand is a much more reliable way of protecting yourself and Linux, than any clean-room technique.
Blizzard's Terms of Use (at least last time I checked) allows reselling an account, *provided* that you sell the entire game, CD, documentation, original box, etc... along with it. That sticks to first sale doctrine, so hats off to them for that.
I think the capacitors, if they can support a reasonable vehicle range, would be a better choice than hydrogen. You get a direct electric drive vehicle. You get regenerative braking. You don't have to create a hydrogen distribution system for fillups. And you don't have water in the exhaust, which tends to cause problems like corrosion and freezing.
The problem is that the retail market for games has turned into a handful of brick&mortar outlets. Those would be the main one: Wal-Mart, and a few "minor" ones: Best Buy, etc.
Rather than letting parents observe the ratings and decide what to buy, these retailers *won't carry* games with AO ratings, and sometimes won't carry certain games with M ratings. But as a game developer in such a homogenized retail market, you can't hope to turn a profit if your game doesn't get shelf space in Wal-Mart.
So developers and publishers target the Teen-rating, rather than risk losing shelf space. This places an artificial limit on creative content (whether you agree with violence or not, the limit is there). Is it censorship in First Amendment terms? No. Does it still chill an entire market segment? Yes. Blame the stupid American public, or the politicians, or the ESRB, but a conservative minority is getting its way in the U.S. once again.
Emotion, Economics, Emblem, and Europe.
We can cover all of that with an online game to auction off Nazi memorabilia! Of course it'll be illegal in most of Europe but hey that's why America is great. I think for my encore I'm gonna go wander off and report some people to the U.S. secret police for downloading porn.
Funny how Magic the Gathering Online, run by a Washington state company, now falls under this gambling bullshit. You can buy tickets to participate in matches, and the winners of matches can be awarded prizes -- therefore it's gambling in the eyes of the law.
Congratulations on supporting local businesses, Gregoire! Oh wait you're in the pocket of the tribal casinos... I forgot.
After thinking about this some more...
Given that you can download any number of free software programs that contain encryption technology from U.S. servers, without registration, Phil's rationale is itself somewhat paranoid.
For a good example: Firefox links against libssl. Firefox would have been illegal to export in the early 90s when PGP was just starting to become available. Now it (mostly) isn't.
According to Phil, it is illegal to export it to Iran & friends. If that's the case, why doesn't Firefox require the same level of precautions as ZFone before downloads?
Just wanted to say thank you for the reply Phil. I knew in no small part due to your efforts, the U.S. lifted export restrictions on cryptographic tools. I had forgotten that certain countries remain on the watchlist, though.
That said, I think with the current administration, many U.S. citizens feel uneasy about giving out their personal info for this sort of software. As the government becomes more aggressive in its surveillance of the public, lists like these will become suspect and possibly get added to the watch lists you mentioned.
In any case, thank you for providing the tools. Hopefully some good will come of it.
Then why do you insist on having people register in order to download, instead of providing a simple link?
For better or worse, people interested in this type of technology also have a vested interest in anonymity.
Subject says it all. Seriously. There are two kinds of video cards: quiet, and high performance. You're not going to get both.
If quiet is your goal, buy a new motherboard with on-board video. You get:
- low heat & silent
- speed on par with a "budget" video card
- no slot taken up (which is not a big deal, unless you're using a mini-itx system, which often only take half-height pci cards)
On top of all that, the new motherboard will probably cost you less than the budget video card you were looking at anyhow.
Apparently by the time I hit submit, my post was redundant. I type too slow. Oh well at least someone agrees with me ;)
While you have to play Guild Wars online, it really isn't an MMOG. Every time you enter an area where combat is possible, you enter a separate instance that is private to your group. So you are never in a fighting situation with more than a handful of people.
Contrast that to, say, World of Warcraft. You could potentially run into any other person on the server when you are outdoors.
Guild Wars is really just Diablo 2 with some clever camouflage to make it appear to be a seamless world. But towns are really just Diablo 2 chatrooms, and the level of interaction with other players in the combat areas of the game is small.
Good lord, aside from the drug-injection allegation, some of the things you listed are positively cozy compared to special forces training. Not just in the U.S. but in many nations. The problem is that everyone has their own definition of torture.
I'd really like to see a link where the U.S. military said they were injecting Guantanamo Bay inmates with drugs for any purpose other than medical attention.
Working against the U.S. administration is the current debate about whether interrogation guidelines should remain classified. I can see both sides of the argument on that one.
Now what I don't agree with is prisoners being held in a legal-limbo for years without trial. As someone else said, they are either foreign soldiers who should be treated as POWs, or they are foreign criminals. If they are the latter, ok they may not have Constitutional rights that an American would have, but they should at least be extradited to their home countries, or prosecuted in the U.S. civilian system as a foreign national.