Not sure if thsi has been mentioned yet, but from my understanding the NSA signed contracts with all the baby bells to acquire the information. Does this not make it a commercial venture of sorts - selling of costumer information by telephone companies which is prohibited (I could be wrong caught it while listening to NPR).
What scares me more about this is that there seems to be so much more I dont know. Like the academic saying goes: "When you get your B.S. you think you know everything. Graduate with your master you understand you don't know that much. Finish your PhD and realize you don't know Sh!t." Every from looking at governement reserach contracts my company bids on I can tell we are headed down a scary road (a ton of them deal with human tracking and monitoring!)
So a while back Chyrsler was sued by a group of consumers becuse the paint Chrysler cars had a tendancy to chip and cause rust on the car. Thankfully consumers won the case which allowed me and many other folks to recieve compensation to repaint our cars.
Now a lot of neysays could have made the arguement that I should have covered my car everytime I parked, or I shouldn't drive when its raining out, or its my fault that some random pebble dinging my car on the highway and caused a huge a patch of rust.
The problem is car paint should chip and cause rust through normal use. While the car warrenty doesn't gureentee the paint job will survive 5 years, the warente does essentially state that the car will be maintained under normal use condition.
I don't see how this is any different for an ipod. People purchase an ipod nano for its small size and portability. There is no reason why users should have to buy a big bulky screen becuase this goes against the impled purpose of the product. A shitty protectant, just like a shitty paint job, is an important drawback from the product. If uses had known how sensative it is to scratch Im sure many people wouldnt have bought it.
I just feel there is a lot of people on this list talking trash aobut people who are complaining - Im guessing most of them don't have a ipod nano. Its like they say, "if you dont know, then you dont know"
So a lot of folks have been commenting on how engineering classes should be hard. Well, I had to kinda but not totally disagree. I have a few friends who came from below average performing high schools, and the first two years of classes kicked their asses. Most couldn't maintain a gpa above 3.0. One in fact went on academic probation twice and should have been kicked out of school. But for some reason they were hard assed and stuck it out. All the while there were times I wanted to tell them to give up. And to this day I am glad I didn't. Most of them went on to graduate with a gpas above 3.0, one finished with a 3.6, and the one on academic probation ended up in a phd program at the same school (Berkeley). At the same time I had a bunch of friends who left engineering, but I knew they were smart kids who could have probably hacked it.
I guess my point is somewhat a mix off a few posts. Yeah engineering should be hard, but the idea of weeder classes is rediculous. Instead of booting potentially great engineers, universities should help to create and build foundations for students to prepair for more difficult matterial.
The problem is that this system is not conducive for research universities like Berkeley. I would love the idea of professional lecturers for the first couple years of college science/math courses. But the problem is, this style does not introduce students to the rigour and thought process required at the reserach/phd level. It was because I had real reseraching professor teaching my math/science classes that I learned the beauty of proofing and analysis.
And no not all profs are created equal. For the most part (but not always) a lecturer cannot rival the knowledge and elegance of a pdh reseraching prof.
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure if thsi has been mentioned yet, but from my understanding the NSA signed contracts with all the baby bells to acquire the information. Does this not make it a commercial venture of sorts - selling of costumer information by telephone companies which is prohibited (I could be wrong caught it while listening to NPR). What scares me more about this is that there seems to be so much more I dont know. Like the academic saying goes: "When you get your B.S. you think you know everything. Graduate with your master you understand you don't know that much. Finish your PhD and realize you don't know Sh!t." Every from looking at governement reserach contracts my company bids on I can tell we are headed down a scary road (a ton of them deal with human tracking and monitoring!)
So a while back Chyrsler was sued by a group of consumers becuse the paint Chrysler cars had a tendancy to chip and cause rust on the car. Thankfully consumers won the case which allowed me and many other folks to recieve compensation to repaint our cars. Now a lot of neysays could have made the arguement that I should have covered my car everytime I parked, or I shouldn't drive when its raining out, or its my fault that some random pebble dinging my car on the highway and caused a huge a patch of rust. The problem is car paint should chip and cause rust through normal use. While the car warrenty doesn't gureentee the paint job will survive 5 years, the warente does essentially state that the car will be maintained under normal use condition. I don't see how this is any different for an ipod. People purchase an ipod nano for its small size and portability. There is no reason why users should have to buy a big bulky screen becuase this goes against the impled purpose of the product. A shitty protectant, just like a shitty paint job, is an important drawback from the product. If uses had known how sensative it is to scratch Im sure many people wouldnt have bought it. I just feel there is a lot of people on this list talking trash aobut people who are complaining - Im guessing most of them don't have a ipod nano. Its like they say, "if you dont know, then you dont know"
A few random thoughts
So a lot of folks have been commenting on how engineering classes should be hard. Well, I had to kinda but not totally disagree. I have a few friends who came from below average performing high schools, and the first two years of classes kicked their asses. Most couldn't maintain a gpa above 3.0. One in fact went on academic probation twice and should have been kicked out of school. But for some reason they were hard assed and stuck it out. All the while there were times I wanted to tell them to give up. And to this day I am glad I didn't. Most of them went on to graduate with a gpas above 3.0, one finished with a 3.6, and the one on academic probation ended up in a phd program at the same school (Berkeley). At the same time I had a bunch of friends who left engineering, but I knew they were smart kids who could have probably hacked it.
I guess my point is somewhat a mix off a few posts. Yeah engineering should be hard, but the idea of weeder classes is rediculous. Instead of booting potentially great engineers, universities should help to create and build foundations for students to prepair for more difficult matterial.
The problem is that this system is not conducive for research universities like Berkeley. I would love the idea of professional lecturers for the first couple years of college science/math courses. But the problem is, this style does not introduce students to the rigour and thought process required at the reserach/phd level. It was because I had real reseraching professor teaching my math/science classes that I learned the beauty of proofing and analysis.
And no not all profs are created equal. For the most part (but not always) a lecturer cannot rival the knowledge and elegance of a pdh reseraching prof.