I'm opposed to the idea of "technology needs to be given to our kids" as if it were some kind of Recommended Daily Value -- it's a tool, it's a field in and of itself, but it's not something you can just throw at a classroom to make things "better" or kids more "technologically literate".
That was how braindead my highschool was.
But that's just my take on laptops in class in general. Assuming that you'll be doing it anyway...
I've read a lot of good points in the comments here (filter on the router side, not the laptop side being vital) but I figured I'd tell a parable in what happened to me.
In middle school, the computer lab had Foolproof to lock down the machines (a terrible security package, I might add -- really braindead) but there was a very open culture. If you hung out in the computer lab at lunch, and showed actual interest in computers, before long you'd know the magic keystroke to temporarily disable the lockdown (essentially, sudo privileges). And in this way we'd have files and games on the fileserver and play them at lunch; they trusted us, we returned the favor by not causing trouble.
High school was a different beast. They didn't trust us with anything -- and that we were being treated as more incompetent and less trustworthy than our younger selves was a major point of frustration. So what did we do? Circumvent the security in every way we could. Any door they left open, any trick we could pull, we pulled it.
Detente only came when, finally, they improved the network policy with a round of new computers that had Windows 2000 (as opposed to 98) and used proper ACLs -- that were clearly less restrictive in the general case. We could bring in USB keys, run software, but the machines were essentially reimaged every night. This was fair enough to us, so we went with it.
Why break the restrictions? Because they're there. The more restrictive, the more the desire. The more permissive, the less the desire.
But moreover, only a small fraction of kids will ever seriously butt heads against it. In the general case you can lock down the system to the bare minumum. But the kids who do hit the restrictions -- these are the kids you want to know. Trust them. Give them the keys. Help them play. Talk about your "teachable moments" -- treat them with respect and they'll do the same. They're not stupid -- it's not like we suddenly wisen up at 18. You might even change their lives.
If *Alabama* judges are revoking your license to practice law, you are officially an asshat.
It's not like this happened in California or anything. Alabama. One of the most conservative states in the Union. Throwing out a conservative nutjob. Think about it.
Searching for quotes would be a boon for both teachers and students. Students are given the book anyway -- so searching within it is merely convienence. It's not like the book's text writes an essay on itself. Teachers would love this because students could more easily do their homework (something that they don't want to do anyway, and many don't), be better prepared for essays, etc.
Like my sibling post -- if the teacher is asking "this quote comes from which book" then there's something wrong with the curriculum. If they're asking "in the quote "x" -- who is being referred to" or the classic "what style/theme is the author presenting?" then Googling would only help both parties.
That's what my folks did for me. I thank them for it, really.
I'm off at the #2 college in the world now (as of last year, according to the London Times... wooo Berkeley) and have enough hindsight to recognize that my parents raised me right. I still don't know quite how they did it, but your points describe a lot of the ground rules.
My folks are starting to take their hand off the switch -- and again, I think they're doing it right, cause now it's more of an adult-respect relationship than parent-kid relationship.
Then again, I have friends whose folks are still firmly grasping the switch. Part of controlling the switch is slowly letting go, too.
My two cents. Well done, and really, even when you don't think so, your kid will (and probably already does) respect your parenting.
Blogs serve an interesting and occasionally useful purpose, but will probably always lack the relative objectivity of good news sources such as NPR.
You're right, but what about the non-objective news sources? Consider that, mostly, people want to hear news that fits their worldview. Let's be non-partisan about it: this is why FOX does well, also why Salon.com does well.
The wise people, regardless of their politics, want "just the facts, ma'am" and all of the facts. The problem is that that's being harder and harder to find.
So, yes, traditional media, in that it has access to more facts, generally has a hold on the news market. For everyone who likes to get their political egos stroked, well, blogs are becoming an alternative to mainstream media -- and I think the reason that people are talking about a blogging revolution is not that blogs are more factual (though sometimes they can be, but rarely) but that they're more opinionated.
Someone below me was talking about a blog on Scruffy the Cat. This blog would appeal to say, the PETAites, as well as the minority groups who think Scruffy the Cat should run for public office.
People are finding their niches. Because people don't want to hear it if they don't believe it (in America at least) they'll turn to something particularly tuned to them -- and drag them away from the traditional sources of bias.
For the rest of us, there's still news.google.com, aka, the mish-mash of traditional media.
Exactly. I did the exact same thing, and it was good -- I could get the pocket money I needed to keep going a little longer, be it gas money, movie money, coffee money, etc.
I expect home computer repair to join the ranks of babysitting, dog walking, and lemonade stands -- ie, under-the-table jobs for younger-to-mid teens.
Hell, if you would trust someone with your *KIDS* for a few hours, trusting a geek to figure things out on a computer has gotta be less stressful. And the pay should be roughly the same, as both free you up to either go out or be more productive.
Plus, you'd be surprised what some of the geekier kids around can do.
When I was 15 or so, I once got $50 for doing what a so-called "professional" could not -- a printer that was purchased wasn't working properly. The professional, I'm told, took all day, deemed it unfixable, and charged for the 8 hours of time. I walk in, check the BIOS (hey -- what's *this* setting), reinstall the driver and voila. 1 hour total, and I'm done. Plus, while things are rebooting/installing I answered all the guy's questions about software/hardware purchases to the best of my knowledge.
Being in college, and the resident geek on the floor, I've done more minor tune ups -- and I've gotten things like plates of cookies out of the deal.
Bottom line -- just like if you have a teaching credential you don't keep on babysitting (comments about the school system (esp. high school) merely being babysitting aside), if you have a real computer degree, you don't keep repairing computers. Details are for people who are paid by the hour:)
People are asking, how is sueing CherryOS different than becoming the RIAA and sueing music downloaders?
Answer: Neither is theft. The latter is considered copyright infringement. The former is copyleft infringement.
Think about it -- I was to understand the idea behind the GPL was specifically so that people COULD take the source, hack at it, and release something -- but that you had to continue to make the source available if you did. Compare to copyright, where the idea of sharing source at all is non-existant.
Maui-X-Stream (the people behind CherryOS, and a stupid name IMO) should not be sued to cease-and-desist. They should be sued to open up their source.
By all means, let this team of no-talent assclowns keep playing with the source -- they're allowed to anyway. And, in fact, let these dicks sell a distro -- so long as people have the choice between source code bases, even Joe Schmo's CVS build of the CherryOS "fork", that's fine.
But the biggest thing is that MXS is a bunch of stupid lying ass-grabbing money-grubbing bastards. I like how they used the term "never ever" when asked if they stole PearPC code. Sounds like they "never ever" grew out of elementary school.
Alright, let's say they do ban sales of 'violent' games to minors. What are they trying to accomplish?
Let's be honest with ourselves. Kids are more crafty than we give them credit for. Especially as they get older (mid-teens) they get connections. If they want alcohol, they can get it, for crying out loud.... if they want a video game, it's a fairly simple matter of acquiring it.
The only group of people this law helps is the overzealous douchebag parents who want their child to be pure and innocent (a debateable goal, but that's another thread for another time) and expect the laws to do it for them.
It DOESN'T help parents who are caring, if protective, of their kids. It doesn't help parents who are fair to their kids. For that matter, it doesn't help parents who neglect their kids, or let them run free -- those kids will be able to get their hands on whatever they want even more easily.
So we're talking a few percent, max. This is not a law of the majority. What keeps me sane about the government is that, even though a bill might be introduced, it has a very low chance of passing. Slashdot likes to report scary things that are introduced, but rarely does it follow up on them -- if we just assumed everything/. reported was made into law, we'd be living in one hell of a totalitarian state. And we're not; look around.
In short, don't freak, just breathe, understand what this issue's about, and move on.
So I'm reading this First Amendment/Free Speech article and sitting overlooking Sproul Plaza as I do so. I'm a Berkeley student, so I know I have some bias.
I am not at all surprised that high school kids are ignorant. True, this is a generalization -- there are many who aren't, example: I grew up in a very conservative rural town, and even there, there were kids, regardless of their political affiliation (by and large, Republican), who actually knew what 1st amendment protections they had.
The ones that ARE ignorant are not the ones who end up here, behind a booth on Sproul Plaza (for those unfamiliar with Berkeley: You will never see a more wretched hive of free speech and activism). In general, they won't amount to much in the political machinations of the world (oh, they may become CEOs, who knows? but they'll either have to learn something in that timeframe or they're not going to make an impact)
The real trouble is the same old story about high school -- creativity and individualism is discouraged, especially speaking out. Period.
I think my point is to say "What else is new?" and "How does this affect the big picture?". High school sucks, man. Get over it.
Then again, could this be a means to an end? Help out NASA by making "Mars Survivor" and a) testing the feasibility of people living on Mars b) donating some money from advertising revenue?
When I was a young geek of 9, I got my ham radio license.
I tricked my bike out with an old 2M radio bolted to the handlebars, 6V golf cart battery under the seat, and a whip antenna attached to the frame, down by the rear axle, running up like one of those flags
More than doubled the bike's weight. I was, however, the kid with a real mobile rig.
I only really talked to my parents with it, but it was still cool. And ultra-geeky.
I'm appalled that the competitors themselves can't write what they're thinking, and instead we have color commentators doing that for us....and doing it poorly!
Just a little while ago, I heard the commentator use the word "swum" as the past tense of "to swim".
Last time I checked, "swam" was the past tense, and "swum" the past participle.
Compare: He swam today. He has swum every day for the past week.
Yeah, it's a nitpicky sorta thing, but if they're hired to commentate, they should have a brilliant command of the English language. "swum" that!
Ah yes, it was the perfect show for being a second grader - when your fascination with colors and dinosaurs at an apex, mix in a healthy dose of Japanese violence and you've struck gold
How could marketing NOT go for that?
1. Take strange Japanese TV 2. Mix in bad American acting 3. Advertise! 4. ??? 5. Profit!....
Back on topic, Megazilla sounds strangely feasible.....they only need a good contacts app and I'm sold! What "bird" would that be? AirBird? LightningBird? (it would have to interface with Thunderbird...) RainBird? (no, that's a sprinkler...) RainFox, then?
While having a big screen would be nice, you'll find that there are mitigating factors to smaller screen sizes (ie, portability).
What really matters is what software you run to read the books.
I myself have an old iPaq running PocketPC 2002... and my alltime favorite e-book program is Book which is fast, well written, and does a top-rate job at reading HTML, TXT (great for Gutenburg texts), RTF and a number of formats (save proprietary ones like PDF and LIT)... and it does all this with cool bookmark features, builds it's own Table Of Contents and all that good stuff, including using ClearType... probably one of my favorite pocket utils of all time. (and I've been from an old Palm to this to Familiar Linux on the iPaq and back again)
On the other hand, there's this thing most people call "radio" - but we need a radio that the user controls, not the station manager. Almost like satellite, but I've yet to see a satellite implementation I like.
Here's one of many models for the RIAA to embrace tech:
1. Fund a methodology (like radio) to play songs the user requests. Subscription a possibility. True, it can't quite be full control (for this would be superior to CDs (which is itself a new model)) but it could be Tivo-esque control (thumbs up, thumbs down, and generating personalized playlists from there).
An important aspect to this is to also get the name out there tied to the music. If my dash displayed the artist name / song title of the tune playing that I liked (or disliked), that would be good. Eliminate the station identification/"That was blahblah by blahblahblah, up next.."
2) Encourage the purchase of songs over a medium like iTMS -- one that interfaces not only with your PC, but with your satellite account -- use the portability of radio waves/Internet to all devices. Like iTMS, CD-burning-DRM-things can be included (I don't mind the iTunes model)
3) So now what do we have? An account on a server that plays you the tunes you bought at your control and demand, but also acts as a personal radio DJ. The account space is trivial, maybe a quota of a few megs for each account, but those are only needed for playlists and lists of files owned, etc. Add in a many-terabyte archive that it all links to, holding all the perfect WAV masters and streaming in realtime....
4) Now you're paying a buck for the right to burn/transport a song, and even hold onto it if you let your subscription go.
I dunno, maybe I'm thinking too optimistically. But the point is to give the buyer power (like Tivo does for, say, DirecTV) over the radio. Add into this mass portability and preference memory, and I know I'd buy it.
And the RIAA certainly has the investment money for this idea. The profits could roll in...
Many posts are talking about how the MPAA has it figured out, or at least moreso compared to the RIAA.
As some have noted, this is due to the fact that the theaters are where the money is made.
(PS - an exercise for the reader is to consider how a theater model might work for music)
But, as far as walking into the store and choosing between a DVD and a CD, many things are taken into consideration (esp. if you have piracy as an option)
Music: I could buy this CD, for about $16-20 which is a couple bucks more than this DVD, but instead I could go home and download the one song I really want (legally or otherwise) and take a hit in quality. Given the speed of my net connection and the price differential, it's far better for me to not buy this CD, and use other means.
Movies: I could buy this DVD, for about $10-15, or I could go home, get online, and pirate an approximately 700 meg version that will be of crappy quality (far worse of a quality hit compared to CD vs. MP3/Ogg/ACC), which will take me a few hours to download. Or, I could spend the money, get the sucker in a portable format (and off my HD), with immensely superior quality and all the bonuses. Yeah, that's worth the money.
If you consider that time is money, at minimum wage in CA ($6.75 an hour) you could spend 2 hours on DSL (if you're lucky) pirating a movie ($13.50) or buy it for about the same price. Meanwhile, a CD costs about 3 hours ($20.25) and is compared to about 3.5 megs for about 12 tracks, or about 42 megs, which comes in, if you're lucky, in about 30 minutes ($3.37). That includes the tracks you DON'T want. If there's only 3 that are good, it's about comparable to buy those on iTMS legally.
This isn't difficult math. It's just math the RIAA can't do.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm opposed to the idea of "technology needs to be given to our kids" as if it were some kind of Recommended Daily Value -- it's a tool, it's a field in and of itself, but it's not something you can just throw at a classroom to make things "better" or kids more "technologically literate".
That was how braindead my highschool was.
But that's just my take on laptops in class in general. Assuming that you'll be doing it anyway...
I've read a lot of good points in the comments here (filter on the router side, not the laptop side being vital) but I figured I'd tell a parable in what happened to me.
In middle school, the computer lab had Foolproof to lock down the machines (a terrible security package, I might add -- really braindead) but there was a very open culture. If you hung out in the computer lab at lunch, and showed actual interest in computers, before long you'd know the magic keystroke to temporarily disable the lockdown (essentially, sudo privileges). And in this way we'd have files and games on the fileserver and play them at lunch; they trusted us, we returned the favor by not causing trouble.
High school was a different beast. They didn't trust us with anything -- and that we were being treated as more incompetent and less trustworthy than our younger selves was a major point of frustration. So what did we do? Circumvent the security in every way we could. Any door they left open, any trick we could pull, we pulled it.
Detente only came when, finally, they improved the network policy with a round of new computers that had Windows 2000 (as opposed to 98) and used proper ACLs -- that were clearly less restrictive in the general case. We could bring in USB keys, run software, but the machines were essentially reimaged every night. This was fair enough to us, so we went with it.
Why break the restrictions? Because they're there. The more restrictive, the more the desire. The more permissive, the less the desire.
But moreover, only a small fraction of kids will ever seriously butt heads against it. In the general case you can lock down the system to the bare minumum. But the kids who do hit the restrictions -- these are the kids you want to know. Trust them. Give them the keys. Help them play. Talk about your "teachable moments" -- treat them with respect and they'll do the same. They're not stupid -- it's not like we suddenly wisen up at 18. You might even change their lives.
The magic key in middle school was Cmd-]
If *Alabama* judges are revoking your license to practice law, you are officially an asshat.
It's not like this happened in California or anything. Alabama. One of the most conservative states in the Union. Throwing out a conservative nutjob. Think about it.
You, sir, are my hero for the day.
It's 7AM, I just woke up to find this. First thought through my head on reading the headline:
:)
*queue G&S's Modern Major General*
"I'm seeing something absolutely inconcievable...."
Looking forward to it
I call BS.
Searching for quotes would be a boon for both teachers and students. Students are given the book anyway -- so searching within it is merely convienence. It's not like the book's text writes an essay on itself. Teachers would love this because students could more easily do their homework (something that they don't want to do anyway, and many don't), be better prepared for essays, etc.
Like my sibling post -- if the teacher is asking "this quote comes from which book" then there's something wrong with the curriculum. If they're asking "in the quote "x" -- who is being referred to" or the classic "what style/theme is the author presenting?" then Googling would only help both parties.
That's what my folks did for me. I thank them for it, really.
I'm off at the #2 college in the world now (as of last year, according to the London Times... wooo Berkeley) and have enough hindsight to recognize that my parents raised me right. I still don't know quite how they did it, but your points describe a lot of the ground rules.
My folks are starting to take their hand off the switch -- and again, I think they're doing it right, cause now it's more of an adult-respect relationship than parent-kid relationship.
Then again, I have friends whose folks are still firmly grasping the switch. Part of controlling the switch is slowly letting go, too.
My two cents. Well done, and really, even when you don't think so, your kid will (and probably already does) respect your parenting.
I suppose her acceptance speech began:
..."
"I used to live in a VAN down by the RIVER!
For a figure like hers, I'd eat a steady diet of government cheese...
Google buys it?
Blogs serve an interesting and occasionally useful purpose, but will probably always lack the relative objectivity of good news sources such as NPR.
You're right, but what about the non-objective news sources? Consider that, mostly, people want to hear news that fits their worldview. Let's be non-partisan about it: this is why FOX does well, also why Salon.com does well.
The wise people, regardless of their politics, want "just the facts, ma'am" and all of the facts. The problem is that that's being harder and harder to find.
So, yes, traditional media, in that it has access to more facts, generally has a hold on the news market. For everyone who likes to get their political egos stroked, well, blogs are becoming an alternative to mainstream media -- and I think the reason that people are talking about a blogging revolution is not that blogs are more factual (though sometimes they can be, but rarely) but that they're more opinionated.
Someone below me was talking about a blog on Scruffy the Cat. This blog would appeal to say, the PETAites, as well as the minority groups who think Scruffy the Cat should run for public office.
People are finding their niches. Because people don't want to hear it if they don't believe it (in America at least) they'll turn to something particularly tuned to them -- and drag them away from the traditional sources of bias.
For the rest of us, there's still news.google.com, aka, the mish-mash of traditional media.
And the Pentagon's not? Check that out. You can even still see the helipad...
It's a strange time in the country when the legislators who voted for war are hiding more than the people who might actually be waging war.
Exactly. I did the exact same thing, and it was good -- I could get the pocket money I needed to keep going a little longer, be it gas money, movie money, coffee money, etc.
:)
I expect home computer repair to join the ranks of babysitting, dog walking, and lemonade stands -- ie, under-the-table jobs for younger-to-mid teens.
Hell, if you would trust someone with your *KIDS* for a few hours, trusting a geek to figure things out on a computer has gotta be less stressful. And the pay should be roughly the same, as both free you up to either go out or be more productive.
Plus, you'd be surprised what some of the geekier kids around can do.
When I was 15 or so, I once got $50 for doing what a so-called "professional" could not -- a printer that was purchased wasn't working properly. The professional, I'm told, took all day, deemed it unfixable, and charged for the 8 hours of time. I walk in, check the BIOS (hey -- what's *this* setting), reinstall the driver and voila. 1 hour total, and I'm done. Plus, while things are rebooting/installing I answered all the guy's questions about software/hardware purchases to the best of my knowledge.
Being in college, and the resident geek on the floor, I've done more minor tune ups -- and I've gotten things like plates of cookies out of the deal.
Bottom line -- just like if you have a teaching credential you don't keep on babysitting (comments about the school system (esp. high school) merely being babysitting aside), if you have a real computer degree, you don't keep repairing computers. Details are for people who are paid by the hour
People are asking, how is sueing CherryOS different than becoming the RIAA and sueing music downloaders?
Answer: Neither is theft. The latter is considered copyright infringement. The former is copyleft infringement.
Think about it -- I was to understand the idea behind the GPL was specifically so that people COULD take the source, hack at it, and release something -- but that you had to continue to make the source available if you did. Compare to copyright, where the idea of sharing source at all is non-existant.
Maui-X-Stream (the people behind CherryOS, and a stupid name IMO) should not be sued to cease-and-desist. They should be sued to open up their source.
By all means, let this team of no-talent assclowns keep playing with the source -- they're allowed to anyway. And, in fact, let these dicks sell a distro -- so long as people have the choice between source code bases, even Joe Schmo's CVS build of the CherryOS "fork", that's fine.
But the biggest thing is that MXS is a bunch of stupid lying ass-grabbing money-grubbing bastards. I like how they used the term "never ever" when asked if they stole PearPC code. Sounds like they "never ever" grew out of elementary school.
Alright, let's say they do ban sales of 'violent' games to minors. What are they trying to accomplish?
/. reported was made into law, we'd be living in one hell of a totalitarian state. And we're not; look around.
Let's be honest with ourselves. Kids are more crafty than we give them credit for. Especially as they get older (mid-teens) they get connections. If they want alcohol, they can get it, for crying out loud.... if they want a video game, it's a fairly simple matter of acquiring it.
The only group of people this law helps is the overzealous douchebag parents who want their child to be pure and innocent (a debateable goal, but that's another thread for another time) and expect the laws to do it for them.
It DOESN'T help parents who are caring, if protective, of their kids. It doesn't help parents who are fair to their kids. For that matter, it doesn't help parents who neglect their kids, or let them run free -- those kids will be able to get their hands on whatever they want even more easily.
So we're talking a few percent, max. This is not a law of the majority. What keeps me sane about the government is that, even though a bill might be introduced, it has a very low chance of passing. Slashdot likes to report scary things that are introduced, but rarely does it follow up on them -- if we just assumed everything
In short, don't freak, just breathe, understand what this issue's about, and move on.
So I'm reading this First Amendment/Free Speech article and sitting overlooking Sproul Plaza as I do so. I'm a Berkeley student, so I know I have some bias.
I am not at all surprised that high school kids are ignorant. True, this is a generalization -- there are many who aren't, example: I grew up in a very conservative rural town, and even there, there were kids, regardless of their political affiliation (by and large, Republican), who actually knew what 1st amendment protections they had.
The ones that ARE ignorant are not the ones who end up here, behind a booth on Sproul Plaza (for those unfamiliar with Berkeley: You will never see a more wretched hive of free speech and activism). In general, they won't amount to much in the political machinations of the world (oh, they may become CEOs, who knows? but they'll either have to learn something in that timeframe or they're not going to make an impact)
The real trouble is the same old story about high school -- creativity and individualism is discouraged, especially speaking out. Period.
I think my point is to say "What else is new?" and "How does this affect the big picture?". High school sucks, man. Get over it.
I read that as:
Futuristic 'Smart' Yams From Carbon Nanotubes
In the US, they'd make it a reality TV show.
Then again, could this be a means to an end? Help out NASA by making "Mars Survivor" and
a) testing the feasibility of people living on Mars
b) donating some money from advertising revenue?
When I was a young geek of 9, I got my ham radio license.
I tricked my bike out with an old 2M radio bolted to the handlebars, 6V golf cart battery under the seat, and a whip antenna attached to the frame, down by the rear axle, running up like one of those flags
More than doubled the bike's weight. I was, however, the kid with a real mobile rig.
I only really talked to my parents with it, but it was still cool. And ultra-geeky.
Hehe
You seem not to understand a basic rule of life:
People like to bitch
Even if MS was replaced with something quick, bug free, and exactly what the average user wanted, people will still bitch about it somehow.
You can only minimize the bitching, never can you eliminate it.
Been watching the HD loop of the Olympics.
...and doing it poorly!
I'm appalled that the competitors themselves can't write what they're thinking, and instead we have color commentators doing that for us.
Just a little while ago, I heard the commentator use the word "swum" as the past tense of "to swim".
Last time I checked, "swam" was the past tense, and "swum" the past participle.
Compare:
He swam today.
He has swum every day for the past week.
Yeah, it's a nitpicky sorta thing, but if they're hired to commentate, they should have a brilliant command of the English language. "swum" that!
Ah yes, it was the perfect show for being a second grader - when your fascination with colors and dinosaurs at an apex, mix in a healthy dose of Japanese violence and you've struck gold
....
..they only need a good contacts app and I'm sold!
How could marketing NOT go for that?
1. Take strange Japanese TV
2. Mix in bad American acting
3. Advertise!
4. ???
5. Profit!
Back on topic, Megazilla sounds strangely feasible...
What "bird" would that be? AirBird? LightningBird? (it would have to interface with Thunderbird...) RainBird? (no, that's a sprinkler...) RainFox, then?
Eh - just set it on FireSomething and let it go.
While having a big screen would be nice, you'll find that there are mitigating factors to smaller screen sizes (ie, portability).
... and it does all this with cool bookmark features, builds it's own Table Of Contents and all that good stuff, including using ClearType... probably one of my favorite pocket utils of all time. (and I've been from an old Palm to this to Familiar Linux on the iPaq and back again)
What really matters is what software you run to read the books.
I myself have an old iPaq running PocketPC 2002... and my alltime favorite e-book program is Book which is fast, well written, and does a top-rate job at reading HTML, TXT (great for Gutenburg texts), RTF and a number of formats (save proprietary ones like PDF and LIT)
Well.. good thing it's not an african swallow...
Problem is concerts generally promote CD sales.
On the other hand, there's this thing most people call "radio" - but we need a radio that the user controls, not the station manager. Almost like satellite, but I've yet to see a satellite implementation I like.
Here's one of many models for the RIAA to embrace tech:
1. Fund a methodology (like radio) to play songs the user requests. Subscription a possibility. True, it can't quite be full control (for this would be superior to CDs (which is itself a new model)) but it could be Tivo-esque control (thumbs up, thumbs down, and generating personalized playlists from there).
An important aspect to this is to also get the name out there tied to the music. If my dash displayed the artist name / song title of the tune playing that I liked (or disliked), that would be good. Eliminate the station identification/"That was blahblah by blahblahblah, up next.."
2) Encourage the purchase of songs over a medium like iTMS -- one that interfaces not only with your PC, but with your satellite account -- use the portability of radio waves/Internet to all devices. Like iTMS, CD-burning-DRM-things can be included (I don't mind the iTunes model)
3) So now what do we have? An account on a server that plays you the tunes you bought at your control and demand, but also acts as a personal radio DJ. The account space is trivial, maybe a quota of a few megs for each account, but those are only needed for playlists and lists of files owned, etc. Add in a many-terabyte archive that it all links to, holding all the perfect WAV masters and streaming in realtime....
4) Now you're paying a buck for the right to burn/transport a song, and even hold onto it if you let your subscription go.
I dunno, maybe I'm thinking too optimistically. But the point is to give the buyer power (like Tivo does for, say, DirecTV) over the radio. Add into this mass portability and preference memory, and I know I'd buy it.
And the RIAA certainly has the investment money for this idea. The profits could roll in...
Many posts are talking about how the MPAA has it figured out, or at least moreso compared to the RIAA.
As some have noted, this is due to the fact that the theaters are where the money is made.
(PS - an exercise for the reader is to consider how a theater model might work for music)
But, as far as walking into the store and choosing between a DVD and a CD, many things are taken into consideration (esp. if you have piracy as an option)
Music: I could buy this CD, for about $16-20 which is a couple bucks more than this DVD, but instead I could go home and download the one song I really want (legally or otherwise) and take a hit in quality. Given the speed of my net connection and the price differential, it's far better for me to not buy this CD, and use other means.
Movies: I could buy this DVD, for about $10-15, or I could go home, get online, and pirate an approximately 700 meg version that will be of crappy quality (far worse of a quality hit compared to CD vs. MP3/Ogg/ACC), which will take me a few hours to download. Or, I could spend the money, get the sucker in a portable format (and off my HD), with immensely superior quality and all the bonuses. Yeah, that's worth the money.
If you consider that time is money, at minimum wage in CA ($6.75 an hour) you could spend 2 hours on DSL (if you're lucky) pirating a movie ($13.50) or buy it for about the same price. Meanwhile, a CD costs about 3 hours ($20.25) and is compared to about 3.5 megs for about 12 tracks, or about 42 megs, which comes in, if you're lucky, in about 30 minutes ($3.37). That includes the tracks you DON'T want. If there's only 3 that are good, it's about comparable to buy those on iTMS legally.
This isn't difficult math. It's just math the RIAA can't do.
...you control the MPAA!