The conspiracy theory loving part of me wonders if that was actually sales driven, or driven on the golf course.:-\
I don't know about netbooks, but I'm looking at buying an Ubuntu desktop from Dell - the Inspiron 530N - and it's more expensive than the Inspiron 530 with Vista. The CPU is a little faster, but part of the cost difference is that you can't order the Ubuntu machine without a monitor. You can get the Windows machine without one, though.
If it's US shows you haven't learnt English, you've learnt American. Vastly different dialects...
Until Brits and Yanks are mutually unintelligible, it's more accurate to say "American English" and "British English." Or maybe you'd like to distinguish East London Lower Class English from Atlanta Second Generation Transplanted Northerner English and call them separate languages, too.
So yes, he has learned English. Just not your favo[u]rite flavo[u]r of it.
Although kids only need to be coerced when they are not interested in what you are teaching.
I'm not a teacher, and I'm sure there are ways to make learning fun, but I doubt that everything can be made interesting for every student all the time, but which may still be important.
Example: some kids may not be interested in learning to read, but they must be helped and even forced along. They will understand why it was worthwhile later.
There is no dichotomy here. You can't research without some factual ground to start from.
For example, American kids will never research the meaning of the Constitution unless someone has made them learn the basic circumstances of its creation and why it's relevant to modern life.
Intellectual curiosity starts with learning something interesting. Someone has to force you to learn the first things before you start seeing neat connections.
I didn't know that steam powered cassette based answerphones would let you listen in on a voicemail to your home line even though you were in the office.
Sure. All you need is a walkie-talkie next to the answering machine, and a robot to push the button whenever the machine starts recording.
Now compare someone who spends $100,000 to someone that spends $50,000 and you begin to see my point.
Sure. And compare that to someone who spends $10,000. You can record a pretty good EP with $10,000 these days. Now consider this: at $10,000 a pop, how many albums can an average musician record if they do not make money from those albums? What about if they do?
Thing are cheaper now, but there are unavoidable costs to making music - namely, time and expertise. Those will never go away, and having the means to spend the time and acquire or hire the expertise will result in more music being created.
All I'm saying is "if you like music, support it financially." You'll get more music that way.
Of course there is a side issue in that you don't need a sound engineer to produce your work anymore. Yes, they have a lot to offer and can improve your work but the public doesn't have a problem with a lot of locally produced music, in many cases its simply good enough to just record through Audacity with some very simple gear.
Can you name any bands who primarily record this way? If you can, you have rare musical tastes.
Home recording IS easier and cheaper than it's ever been - which is great! But honestly, being a good musician doesn't necessarily correlate with being a good engineer. Expertise is expensive. Good equipment still costs a few thousand dollars, too.
And there's the time investment - a small-time musician has to write, practice, learn engineering, record, book gigs, design posters, run a web site, manage a business... boy, it sure is nice to be able to pay someone else to do some of that and just focus on MUSIC. Again, time is money.
Sure, anybody can record with Audacity and a stage mic. But compare their work with groups who spend $100,000 making beautifully engineered recordings, and tell me that there's no reason to spend money recording anymore.
I agree that physical media is going the way of the doh-doh bird...but getting paid for your work has not gone the way of the doh-doh bird. The people here at/. agree with this because they like getting paid when they go to work. They don't like to pay for other people's work.
Agreed. And many people here refuse to acknowledge that creativity requires time, and time = money. A musician/novelist/filmmaker/coder whose fans refuse to pay for his/her work will have to keep working a day job, and will therefore have less creative output.
It's in fans' selfish interest to toss a few bucks in the hat. It's a vote for more content. (If the artist is still around.)
Or, you can let the people who choose to invest in a company decide what sort of compensation is reasonable, and let them pull their investment out of that company if they don't like it. Yeah, I know, no governement job is created in that scenario, and no need to tax private citizens to pay for that job. Bummer!
I totally agree with you. If a business and its shareholders want to pay their executives 1 hojillion dollars, it's their decision. The executives are an investment, like any other. If the executives bring enough income to the company to justify it, the company wins, and if they don't, the company loses. Or fires them.
If the company is foolish enough to pay the execs based on short-term gains which ultimately cost them billions, the company loses. Everything works itself out.
What breaks this system is when the company makes horrific decisions and the taxpayers bail them out. Now we're paying the huge salaries and there's no penalty for bad investment. Guess what that creates? (Hint: not "valuable jobs and products.")
You make some great points, and I think that for dramatic readings, text-to-speech is much harder. It's basically voice acting, which might take general AI to replace.
But for simple things, like "read me some news articles," I don't think that the subtleties of human performance are necessary. Nor is it practical to have breaking news articles voice-recorded as they are published and revised.
So the technology has a niche, and will keep improving. And as it does, I think it will start to creep in on audio books.
I cannot think of ANYBODY (that can otherwise read) that would ever want to listen to a book or newspaper read to them in that voice. The text-to-speech needs to be looked at as a tool for blind people to be able to have books read to them, not as an add-on feature that replaces audio books.
While I agree that text-to-speech should not be a copyright issue, and that it currently sounds horrible, I think the quality issue will change.
If text-to-speech is even remotely popular, it will keep improving in quality. Eventually you won't know if you're listening to a recording or a rendering. And yes, the market for audio books will (mostly) dry up. (Some people will still want to hear authors read their own work, or hear celebrities read it.)
But hey, them's the breaks. You can't sue obsolescence.
I'm not sure what you are doing. But you are doing it wrong.
What I am doing is highlighting some cells, and going to Format, Cells, and choosing a format. (I'm basing this on Excel, which I have in front of me right now, but I believe the steps are the same in Oo.) How is that not the right way to format cells?
I've been using OOoCalc for a little over a year. It does have some annoyances, but loss of pre set formats is not one of them. I suspect that there is a default setting or preference that governs this.
There is a setting that, by default, does not let you format all the cells you select by choosing Format, Cells? If that is correct, I can't imagine why such a setting exists.
Oo Writer is fine, and I use Oo exclusively at home on the principle that document standards should be open.
But yes, I use Excel at work and Calc at home, and Calc is very annoying by comparison.
For one thing, Excel will let you set a default number format (currency, integer, date, etc) on a whole row or column and whatever you enter thereafter will use that format. I try that with Calc, and it never works. Not only does it not remember the setting, but it forces me to apply the formatting to EACH individual cell AFTER entering the info.
And all I'm doing is keeping a simple balance sheet.
That's called an Auto Attendant system, and that's not something that could reasonably be done at the phone. Rather, it would necessarily be a function your carrier's voicemail system.
Then that's where it should be done. My point is that it's a logical improvement for your phone's function - more so than adding a camera. Haven't you ever debated whether to leave your phone on at night - risk being awakened by a random call vs. risk missing an emergency call? Isn't it obvious that your phone (or carrier) should let you decide who can call you when, and warn them that it may not be a good time? Even IM has "busy" mode, and it's much less disruptive than a phone call.
Sure, because an accurate reverse lookup by address system that can create a distance-sorted list based on arbitrary location inputs at real-time speeds is a trivial undertaking.
Google Maps on my BlackBerry already does it on demand. I'm saying to do it in spare cycles and keep it cached. I admit this isn't easy, and maybe the implementation would be less ambitious - just a quick link to online yellow pages. But isn't a phone book an obvious feature for a phone? More so than a music store?
They can already do that (all Windows Mobile phones can) but since keeping the wi-fi system up all the time sucks the battery down fast, hardly anyone does it that way.
OK, so "always-on" wi-fi probably isn't the solution. But after 7 years of owning a cell phone, only last year did I find a non-PDA (a Nokia) that let me sync my own contacts to my own computer via USB. My previous phone had a carrier-disabled USB port, and BlackBerry still has to ship some devices with disabled Wi-Fi to please the carriers, who want you to buy a data plan.
Have you ever had a phone die and lost your contact numbers? I have. Carriers want to charge you like $10 a month to back up what, 50 KB of contact data? It should be trivial to back up a tiny file from a wireless device to a computer, and that's what I'm calling a "basic function."
Honestly, if you have no idea how these systems would necessarily have to work, you're simply in no position to judge what qualifies as a "basic" type function for a low power device with a sub-200mhz processor. Your comments are a classic example of pointy-haired boss logic , the kind that goes "if I don't know anything about the subject, it must be easy".
Those same dinky phones have been shipping with dedicated browsing buttons (that you can't disable) to surf walled-garden, phone-formatted "web" pages, along with cameras and ring tone stores, for years. "Give me more control over my voice mail" and "give me a working sync method that I don't have to pay for" have nothing to do with the processor on the device. The main difference between my suggestions and what the carriers want to provide is that mine don't need monthly subscription fees.
The real pointy-haired boss logic is asking "how can we get more money from the customer?" instead of "what features would make our phones more useful?" I think if you do the latter, the former will come. But I guess I'm just a blunt-skulled user.
At my place of employment, we have to use an abacus with razor-sharp beads, and when we get done, we have to verify our numbers by writing longhand division with the lump of coal we all share.
At my place of employment, we still use IE6 because many of our systems don't render properly on IE7/8. I hope this update will be received by our IT, so that we can finally get those bloody systems updated.
At my place of employment, I grudgingly load IE7 a couple times a day to access partner sites that specifically forbid non-IE browsers. They also do wacky things like use mis-sized framesets and forbid right-clicking!
Considering what a nightmare the sites are to use anyway - hey, let's make you log in twice, verify a security token and open three tabs to see one piece of information! - I picture their creators working in a dark basement, far from news of things like updated browsers.
I really don't understand people and their problems with smartphones -- if you don't like it, don't use it.:\ No one's forcing you to use one.
I agree, although it is frustrating when you get a device with tons of functions but terrible reception. Great reception is a fundamental phone feature.
I also think there are things that "smart phones" could do to be smarter AS phones. For instance:
Have a "knock first" mode: callers hear "I'm busy or asleep - press one to ring me anyway if it's an emergency, otherwise leave a message."
Have built-in, onscreen, location-aware, always-cached phone book search. If there's anything a phone needs internet for, that's first.
Automatically sync your contacts to your computer via Wi-Fi when you walk in range of your home network.
SOME phones have SOME of these features, but stuff like this should be basic to any phone that's supposed to be "smart." Let it be a great phone before you make it a camera and a computer and a bagel slicer.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about netbooks, but I'm looking at buying an Ubuntu desktop from Dell - the Inspiron 530N - and it's more expensive than the Inspiron 530 with Vista. The CPU is a little faster, but part of the cost difference is that you can't order the Ubuntu machine without a monitor. You can get the Windows machine without one, though.
How much sense does that make?
Until Brits and Yanks are mutually unintelligible, it's more accurate to say "American English" and "British English." Or maybe you'd like to distinguish East London Lower Class English from Atlanta Second Generation Transplanted Northerner English and call them separate languages, too.
So yes, he has learned English. Just not your favo[u]rite flavo[u]r of it.
Lucky for me, my computer went ahead and pre-emptively died this morning - won't even turn on.
You ain't gettin' ME, Conficker!
I'm not a teacher, and I'm sure there are ways to make learning fun, but I doubt that everything can be made interesting for every student all the time, but which may still be important.
Example: some kids may not be interested in learning to read, but they must be helped and even forced along. They will understand why it was worthwhile later.
There is no dichotomy here. You can't research without some factual ground to start from. For example, American kids will never research the meaning of the Constitution unless someone has made them learn the basic circumstances of its creation and why it's relevant to modern life. Intellectual curiosity starts with learning something interesting. Someone has to force you to learn the first things before you start seeing neat connections.
Uh oh - the Whimsy Police are closing in on me!
Sure. All you need is a walkie-talkie next to the answering machine, and a robot to push the button whenever the machine starts recording.
I think I'd better keep an empty bladder for the next couple of days, so I don't pee my pants with excitement when I get the upgrade notice.
Aw man, if I had an Android phone syncing my Gmail/Google Voice contacts, too... darn you, AT&T! Hurry up with that!
Sure. And compare that to someone who spends $10,000. You can record a pretty good EP with $10,000 these days. Now consider this: at $10,000 a pop, how many albums can an average musician record if they do not make money from those albums? What about if they do?
Thing are cheaper now, but there are unavoidable costs to making music - namely, time and expertise. Those will never go away, and having the means to spend the time and acquire or hire the expertise will result in more music being created.
All I'm saying is "if you like music, support it financially." You'll get more music that way.
Can you name any bands who primarily record this way? If you can, you have rare musical tastes.
Home recording IS easier and cheaper than it's ever been - which is great! But honestly, being a good musician doesn't necessarily correlate with being a good engineer. Expertise is expensive. Good equipment still costs a few thousand dollars, too.
And there's the time investment - a small-time musician has to write, practice, learn engineering, record, book gigs, design posters, run a web site, manage a business... boy, it sure is nice to be able to pay someone else to do some of that and just focus on MUSIC. Again, time is money.
Sure, anybody can record with Audacity and a stage mic. But compare their work with groups who spend $100,000 making beautifully engineered recordings, and tell me that there's no reason to spend money recording anymore.
Agreed. And many people here refuse to acknowledge that creativity requires time, and time = money. A musician/novelist/filmmaker/coder whose fans refuse to pay for his/her work will have to keep working a day job, and will therefore have less creative output.
It's in fans' selfish interest to toss a few bucks in the hat. It's a vote for more content. (If the artist is still around.)
I totally agree with you. If a business and its shareholders want to pay their executives 1 hojillion dollars, it's their decision. The executives are an investment, like any other. If the executives bring enough income to the company to justify it, the company wins, and if they don't, the company loses. Or fires them.
If the company is foolish enough to pay the execs based on short-term gains which ultimately cost them billions, the company loses. Everything works itself out.
What breaks this system is when the company makes horrific decisions and the taxpayers bail them out. Now we're paying the huge salaries and there's no penalty for bad investment. Guess what that creates? (Hint: not "valuable jobs and products.")
You make some great points, and I think that for dramatic readings, text-to-speech is much harder. It's basically voice acting, which might take general AI to replace.
But for simple things, like "read me some news articles," I don't think that the subtleties of human performance are necessary. Nor is it practical to have breaking news articles voice-recorded as they are published and revised.
So the technology has a niche, and will keep improving. And as it does, I think it will start to creep in on audio books.
While I agree that text-to-speech should not be a copyright issue, and that it currently sounds horrible, I think the quality issue will change.
If text-to-speech is even remotely popular, it will keep improving in quality. Eventually you won't know if you're listening to a recording or a rendering. And yes, the market for audio books will (mostly) dry up. (Some people will still want to hear authors read their own work, or hear celebrities read it.)
But hey, them's the breaks. You can't sue obsolescence.
What I am doing is highlighting some cells, and going to Format, Cells, and choosing a format. (I'm basing this on Excel, which I have in front of me right now, but I believe the steps are the same in Oo.) How is that not the right way to format cells?
There is a setting that, by default, does not let you format all the cells you select by choosing Format, Cells? If that is correct, I can't imagine why such a setting exists.
Oo Writer is fine, and I use Oo exclusively at home on the principle that document standards should be open.
But yes, I use Excel at work and Calc at home, and Calc is very annoying by comparison.
For one thing, Excel will let you set a default number format (currency, integer, date, etc) on a whole row or column and whatever you enter thereafter will use that format. I try that with Calc, and it never works. Not only does it not remember the setting, but it forces me to apply the formatting to EACH individual cell AFTER entering the info.
And all I'm doing is keeping a simple balance sheet.
While you're at it, explain why, if WM 6 is ho-hum, and this new OS is better than the iPhone's, it only rates a 6.5 version number.
I would think you'd need to rebuild WM from the ground up to compete with the iPhone. (The new Palm OS looks fairly promising in that regard.)
Also made of water: clouds, frequently located between space and the ground. Anybody know what happens when you microwave clouds?
I'm thinking "scary weather" is one possible answer.
Actually, I think the best thing to do with these in-game browsers is to play in-browser games.
Hopefully, those games will include browsers, too, so we don't get bored.
Then that's where it should be done. My point is that it's a logical improvement for your phone's function - more so than adding a camera. Haven't you ever debated whether to leave your phone on at night - risk being awakened by a random call vs. risk missing an emergency call? Isn't it obvious that your phone (or carrier) should let you decide who can call you when, and warn them that it may not be a good time? Even IM has "busy" mode, and it's much less disruptive than a phone call.
Google Maps on my BlackBerry already does it on demand. I'm saying to do it in spare cycles and keep it cached. I admit this isn't easy, and maybe the implementation would be less ambitious - just a quick link to online yellow pages. But isn't a phone book an obvious feature for a phone? More so than a music store?
OK, so "always-on" wi-fi probably isn't the solution. But after 7 years of owning a cell phone, only last year did I find a non-PDA (a Nokia) that let me sync my own contacts to my own computer via USB. My previous phone had a carrier-disabled USB port, and BlackBerry still has to ship some devices with disabled Wi-Fi to please the carriers, who want you to buy a data plan.
Have you ever had a phone die and lost your contact numbers? I have. Carriers want to charge you like $10 a month to back up what, 50 KB of contact data? It should be trivial to back up a tiny file from a wireless device to a computer, and that's what I'm calling a "basic function."
Those same dinky phones have been shipping with dedicated browsing buttons (that you can't disable) to surf walled-garden, phone-formatted "web" pages, along with cameras and ring tone stores, for years. "Give me more control over my voice mail" and "give me a working sync method that I don't have to pay for" have nothing to do with the processor on the device. The main difference between my suggestions and what the carriers want to provide is that mine don't need monthly subscription fees.
The real pointy-haired boss logic is asking "how can we get more money from the customer?" instead of "what features would make our phones more useful?" I think if you do the latter, the former will come. But I guess I'm just a blunt-skulled user.
Luxury.
At my place of employment, we have to use an abacus with razor-sharp beads, and when we get done, we have to verify our numbers by writing longhand division with the lump of coal we all share.
At my place of employment, I grudgingly load IE7 a couple times a day to access partner sites that specifically forbid non-IE browsers. They also do wacky things like use mis-sized framesets and forbid right-clicking!
Considering what a nightmare the sites are to use anyway - hey, let's make you log in twice, verify a security token and open three tabs to see one piece of information! - I picture their creators working in a dark basement, far from news of things like updated browsers.
Why does it have to be a security risk? I'm not talking about syncing executables, just contacts. Let it be a CSV file.
Besides, I said your home network. Don't you secure it?
About time.
I agree, although it is frustrating when you get a device with tons of functions but terrible reception. Great reception is a fundamental phone feature.
I also think there are things that "smart phones" could do to be smarter AS phones. For instance:
SOME phones have SOME of these features, but stuff like this should be basic to any phone that's supposed to be "smart." Let it be a great phone before you make it a camera and a computer and a bagel slicer.