Change Linux distribution? Make apps hosted in a browser?
Makes perfect sense to me. A discussion that only smart people who know very well what they're doing, will lead. Not just some random Web 2.0 talk, like most of the garbage out there, which sees only nails, since it just sees a browser, pardon, a hammer.
Ok, so. Who's porting the Linux kernel to JavaScript? Anyone? We're making Linux hosted, right?
Sure! I assume this means you're willing to be infected with cancer for research purposes - after all, interests of the many...
Many of the medicines you use (or people you know use) were tested on humans. If they weren't, those people you know wouldn't be able to take advantage of them.
The problem with testing for cancer is the dogma that a test that is likely to cause cancer is like intentionally killing a human. Thing is, even with drugs that were tested on humans and not supposed to have serious side effects have caused join inflamation, impotence, insults, kidney failures, blood poisoning, liver cirrhosis and so on.
Another poster said:
You state yourself that the tests were cruel and inhumane. You admit that you are promoting a very, very cruel idea.
I'm not promoting to replicate what Mengele did. You can test on human subjects, and do WAY, *WAY* better than Mengele did.
Maybe you should ask yourself if YOU want to be the one the tests are done on. And if you say, "Well, it would benefit everyone else," then you are in serious need of mental help. You should be excited about these models; they can be used to save lives without sacrificing anyone's.
There are doctors who willingly inflicted dangerous illnesses upon themselves to advance science. There are people who lost loved ones and lost meaning of life, but are willing to help others.
There are people with terminal illnesses who would gladly agree to be test subjects for advance science and decrease the pain humanity as a whole suffers.
I'm not afraid to apply cold logic and say that human testing can make the world a better place. It of course should be completely voluntary, and any risk you cause upon your test subjects should be well argumented, and not for the sake of playing God.
But cold logic is what differentiates good decisions from bad decisions. Imagine yourself in this situation:
Two ships in open sea. Both ships are broken. On ship A, the damage is not so serious, 500 people are aboard may survive, but if the ship sinks in the ice water, many will die. The chances it'll sink are 50:50. On ship B, 2 people are aboard, the the ship will definitely sink and have 100% mortality. You have one rescue boat to send. It's large enough to save all the people from either ship, but only one of the ships. Which ship you send it to?
For any sane emergency crue the choice is clear: you send it to the ship with 500 people who risk 50% chance of death. It's basic math.
But apparently when you put things in a different context, namely medical tests, people find it hard to make the right choice, and there are lots of people to call voices of reason "people who need mental help". Well the math is the same, and the outcome will be the same. I'd accept 2 certain deaths to save 500 people versus risk 50% chance 500 people will die to save 2 people.
Tests on other mammals weren't close enough. So they decided to test on a bunch of 3D meshes. That should be close enough to humans.
Sarcasm aside, 3D simulations can help in areas where animal testing can't, but scientist have assumed too many things in the creation of those models. Nature usually surprises in a ways a model can't predict.
The tests done on humans during the World War II in the nazi camps were cruel and inhumane. But no one can reject how useful they were in advancing medicine and providing valuable facts about human anatomy and biology, information used widely even today.
I wonder, could we somehow put the interests of the many before the interests of the one? We're currently eating every day food additives many claim cause cancer. But there's no way to prove it, since causing cancer in test human subjects is illegal.
Just consider: since testing those substances is illegal, thousands upon thousands probably die from cancer eating basically poisonous food we distribute in our food chains.
How many times have you been send a file in a proprietary format, or gone to a non standards compliant website that forced you to use a microsoft browser. This is why people hate them.
So, people hate them since a 3rd party uses their products or doesn't support other browsers.
How on Earth can this be a reason to hate the tool provider. If you're so pissed off, call the guy who gave you the format or whose site you saw, and give him a piece of your mind.
He'll have to give you the said files in SOME kind of format though. I use and like Microsoft Office. If someone gave me files in Open Office format, should I hate Sun?
when the general opinion of people turns to "google is too powerful and potentially evil" because there is choice, people will just stop using it. There's no lock ins (besides email, but even then, there's redirection, or just telling people that your email has changed).
Microsoft however, way back in the day, when you bought a "Windows PC", you had a couple thousand dollar investment in the company, making it a sudo lock in. The comparison doesn't really apply here imho.
So your point is Google is building and (actually mostly buying) all those google apps and services to create an evil lock-in?
You can't have it both ways.
On the other side of the comparison, a casual Windows user didn't pay "hundreds of dollars" to get Windows. He got a 20-30 USD OEM license fee on top of what was possibly a 600+ USD computer or 1000+ USD laptop.
Let's face it: all corporations want more profits, they all want a lock-in, and lock-in is a lock-in partially because it provides benefit for the users. Neither Google or Microsoft chained you and said "use our stuff". Instead we chose to, because we find something on the platform useful (be it services, quality, compatibility, whatever).
"...the happy face (^_^) [...] it dawned on me that the faces looked exactly like typical [..] Japanese smiles,"
I've never seen a Japanese, or a human being bend his/her eyes in a triangle shape when smiling. Could it possibly something else?
Japanese animes also show a character who's under stress having a huge cross attached right from his forehead, or suddenly disappearing eyeballs and long black dashes coming out of the characters face. Anyone seen that on an actual real human, or it just me.
Smilies are an art, and while the way they ended up looking depend heavily on the culture of the people producing them (Japanese smilies follow closely the anime drawing style), I think saying they are strictly modeled after actual people crying and smiling is just a bunch of wishful thinking. Check some photos, an Asian guy won't smile quite a lot differently than a European guy.
Was that before or after punishing us for doing something which was his fault? Him being omnipotent and all, should have known what we were up to when he created us...
Well, you've never set up your pet (cat, dog) do something stupid so you can have some fun?
I bet God's not very different. I bet he laughed his ass off while getting Adam and Eve's asses kicked out of Heaven:
God: "Wow, that was funny. So what do I do next. Oh yea, I'll write the Bible. Hi-la-ri-ous..!".
The moral of the story? If you have an immutable belief in something + an all powerful God that can do whatever He wants, then all other evidence can be bended or ignored in service of that single immutable belief.
That's something a Bible analyst and historian said in Discovery regarding people who take the Bible for a valid scientific and historic source you can take literally: The Bible is just like a man. Torture it enough and it'll say anything.
I don't think name-calling is a particularly effective nor convincing tactic. You might try, I don't know, attempting to construct some sort of rational argument in the future.
Oh, no I don't think it's convincing. It's just satisfying and easy.
I want to create a bot will do nothing but search for, and then go to, 'illegal' sites. I figure if it hits a few porn sites, maybe an offshore gambling site, and *any* site in Arabic that should be enough. If we get enough of these bot going it should create so much white noise that the g-men couldn't tell the real stuff from the botted stuff. Or maybe I won't. y'know, whatever...
So in short, if under surveillance, perform every crime you could possibly conceive! That's confuse the surveillance team and it'll do absolutely nothing about it.
That bot of yours. Could I possibly load it with some adware with my affiliate id? Cause I think, we got ourselvses some brand spanking new business model.
"Feeling repressed? Show your government what you think: install the FREE F*R*E*E FREE RebelBot today! It's FREE as well, did we say that."
Strongly disagree. If she was so keyed up and stressed out so as to unthinkingly obey any instruction issued out of a machine on the dashboard, then she probably shouldn't have been driving. Certainly she shouldn't have been speeding well in excess of the limit, in the fast lane, on an unfamiliar motorway, on a route she'd never taken before.
She was driving at average speed for that lane on a freeway. You're basically talking out of your rear hole for the entirety of your post.
There are plenty of people with the gene for that.
It's not gene, it's a results of having to take a decision in a stress situation. And the stress was caused by her nto being experienced what "stop the car" might mean and how she should react.
If this happens to her again 3-4 more times, she won't likely stop the car on the middle of the road. Did she "lose a gene"? Because if this is so, you may win a Nobel prize.
Also thew GPS is slightly to blame in this one case (unlike the "jump off the cliff" and "hit by a train" cases). The voice should've said "please pull the car aside, there might be an engine problem". "stop the car" causes stress and is not the right action never mind what.
There are people driving off cliffs and through flooded roads and taking detours that span half of England, apparently at the behest of their navigation units. Things got so bad in one place that authorities even had to put up "ignore your sat nav" signs. Now, a woman's car got hit by a train, and for some reason, she's blaming a GPS navigation unit.
Apparently working with a plethora of devices in your car isn't the best way to concentrate on what's right on front of you on the road.
Here's your proof that people shouldn't phone/text/play/drink/eat while driving. And should watch the road and not just the GPS.
GPL manufacturers should be safe, unless they advertised that they help make stupid drivers smarter.
What a billiant example of Slashdotters who don't know the topics he post on.
Billiant? I learn a new word every day. The post is a joke, as such, it can't be considered a reliable source of information. Just like you don't go to The Onion for advice on the actual world news, I suppose.
Please point your browser at the following and read the first two paragraph:
I'm sure some of you will say that "anything that distracts from the road is unacceptably dangerous, I'm willing to trade your freedom to use new technologies in the future for a warm feeling of safety now". Well - I'm never willing to make that trade.
Well, now I know why stupid laws come into existence. To force guys like you "to make that trade".
The interface for texting could be reading directly from your brain for what I care. You still have one brain and one single point of concentration. Multitasking makes you less alert in each of the tasks you perform, but most people don't realize it.
I know what you're thinking, "I texted the hell of my phone and nothing happened". This is also what people thought that got themselves in car accidents that way.
They all thing that way. The law just says: don't do things when you drive, except driving. You can pull aside and text a full novel if you want.
There's a reason why it's not commonly accepted to pull out a gun and wave it around in a crowded place. You may think the lock is on, or think there are no bullets, but history shows lots of people died this way. You're responsible for the people around you, and on the road.
I think it's like writing a term paper while smoking pot. You just think you're writing great paper. Problem is, a failing grade on the expressway is fatal.
This of course poses the question: what if you instead write your term paper while driving. Which will be worse: your driving, or your term paper?
Something for the future generations to ponder about.
Instead of being a uniform orange, it has a patchwork of white spots where technicians sprayed, scraped and filled fresh foam into the more than 4200 areas that were damaged during a freak hailstorm in February.
Oh no! Stop the engines, damn it, and don't even think of thinking of going anywhere with that non-uniform orange fuel tank! We don't want to be embarassed in front of the perfectly uniform green aliens we know absolutely nothing about and forget what I just said.
1. can it work under water? Will it work when dried out, if not, why not?
2. will it fly like a frisbee if I throw it properly? How much abuse can it handle, if a lot, how? If not a lot, why not?
3. how does it look on the inside? What does what? If I knock this off can I put it back? If it cannot, can I jury-rig it?
Seems like if a few kids did this, then they may be sparking something in their mind. Something that might lead to a bigger and better tomorrow. 1. Oceanographer? 2. Engineer? 3. Hacker?
Spinning it as if damaging the laptop is somehow bringing a great future to the kid may sit well in a book or an artsy movie. Reality is harsher. How many oceanographers do you know who got their diploma after soaking laptops wet.
You become a professional by studying and practicing a lot. You don't do it by random things "sparkling" in your mind. Have you tried telekinesis? Wishing real hard that the pencil moves. Right now. And if you can do it, you can quit this shitty job and no longer come home late and work during the weekends.
How did it end: you moved the pencil or, no, you had to work during the weekends.
In those poor countries, I bet lots of great ideas spark through a kids head, but they don't have the skills or access to information to do something about it.
They should really explain those kids how to handle a sophisticated equipment like that. It's just as important as giving them the computer itself. The way these kids handled the laptops, obviously they were not thought well enough.
This end may not always be a bad thing. I'm sure allot of slashdotters (I would certainly be included in this group) got their start into learning about computer hardware by asking just such a question as a child.
Maybe you didn't read their tagline: "ONE laptop per child". One. Not a couple of hundred.
When I was a kid and took apart something, it could officially be called garbage. I gained knowledge all right (that I better not do that again).
Instead of individually banning every single thing you can do on a mobile device, why not simply ban working with mobile devices or performing other distracting activities while driving (such as drinking coffee and eating)...
Or maybe the right question is, why should obvious things be spelled out in a law for the drivers to read? Maybe we should just ban patently stupid drivers from driving at all.
Slashdot Mirror
What the hell, that's informative too?! Guys, you're insane. Mod that informative, damn.
Change Linux distribution? Make apps hosted in a browser?
Makes perfect sense to me. A discussion that only smart people who know very well what they're doing, will lead. Not just some random Web 2.0 talk, like most of the garbage out there, which sees only nails, since it just sees a browser, pardon, a hammer.
Ok, so. Who's porting the Linux kernel to JavaScript? Anyone? We're making Linux hosted, right?
Guys? Where are you going??
Sure! I assume this means you're willing to be infected with cancer for research purposes - after all, interests of the many...
Many of the medicines you use (or people you know use) were tested on humans. If they weren't, those people you know wouldn't be able to take advantage of them.
The problem with testing for cancer is the dogma that a test that is likely to cause cancer is like intentionally killing a human. Thing is, even with drugs that were tested on humans and not supposed to have serious side effects have caused join inflamation, impotence, insults, kidney failures, blood poisoning, liver cirrhosis and so on.
Another poster said:
You state yourself that the tests were cruel and inhumane.
You admit that you are promoting a very, very cruel idea.
I'm not promoting to replicate what Mengele did. You can test on human subjects, and do WAY, *WAY* better than Mengele did.
Maybe you should ask yourself if YOU want to be the one the tests are done on. And if you say, "Well, it would benefit everyone else," then you are in serious need of mental help. You should be excited about these models; they can be used to save lives without sacrificing anyone's.
There are doctors who willingly inflicted dangerous illnesses upon themselves to advance science. There are people who lost loved ones and lost meaning of life, but are willing to help others.
There are people with terminal illnesses who would gladly agree to be test subjects for advance science and decrease the pain humanity as a whole suffers.
I'm not afraid to apply cold logic and say that human testing can make the world a better place. It of course should be completely voluntary, and any risk you cause upon your test subjects should be well argumented, and not for the sake of playing God.
But cold logic is what differentiates good decisions from bad decisions. Imagine yourself in this situation:
Two ships in open sea. Both ships are broken. On ship A, the damage is not so serious, 500 people are aboard may survive, but if the ship sinks in the ice water, many will die. The chances it'll sink are 50:50. On ship B, 2 people are aboard, the the ship will definitely sink and have 100% mortality. You have one rescue boat to send. It's large enough to save all the people from either ship, but only one of the ships. Which ship you send it to?
For any sane emergency crue the choice is clear: you send it to the ship with 500 people who risk 50% chance of death. It's basic math.
But apparently when you put things in a different context, namely medical tests, people find it hard to make the right choice, and there are lots of people to call voices of reason "people who need mental help". Well the math is the same, and the outcome will be the same. I'd accept 2 certain deaths to save 500 people versus risk 50% chance 500 people will die to save 2 people.
Tests on other mammals weren't close enough. So they decided to test on a bunch of 3D meshes.
That should be close enough to humans.
Sarcasm aside, 3D simulations can help in areas where animal testing can't, but scientist have assumed too many things in the creation of those models. Nature usually surprises in a ways a model can't predict.
The tests done on humans during the World War II in the nazi camps were cruel and inhumane. But no one can reject how useful they were in advancing medicine and providing valuable facts about human anatomy and biology, information used widely even today.
I wonder, could we somehow put the interests of the many before the interests of the one? We're currently eating every day food additives many claim cause cancer. But there's no way to prove it, since causing cancer in test human subjects is illegal.
Just consider: since testing those substances is illegal, thousands upon thousands probably die from cancer eating basically poisonous food we distribute in our food chains.
How many times have you been send a file in a proprietary format, or gone to a non standards compliant website that forced you to use a microsoft browser. This is why people hate them.
So, people hate them since a 3rd party uses their products or doesn't support other browsers.
How on Earth can this be a reason to hate the tool provider. If you're so pissed off, call the guy who gave you the format or whose site you saw, and give him a piece of your mind.
He'll have to give you the said files in SOME kind of format though. I use and like Microsoft Office. If someone gave me files in Open Office format, should I hate Sun?
when the general opinion of people turns to "google is too powerful and potentially evil" because there is choice, people will just stop using it. There's no lock ins (besides email, but even then, there's redirection, or just telling people that your email has changed).
Microsoft however, way back in the day, when you bought a "Windows PC", you had a couple thousand dollar investment in the company, making it a sudo lock in. The comparison doesn't really apply here imho.
So your point is Google is building and (actually mostly buying) all those google apps and services to create an evil lock-in?
You can't have it both ways.
On the other side of the comparison, a casual Windows user didn't pay "hundreds of dollars" to get Windows. He got a 20-30 USD OEM license fee on top of what was possibly a 600+ USD computer or 1000+ USD laptop.
Let's face it: all corporations want more profits, they all want a lock-in, and lock-in is a lock-in partially because it provides benefit for the users. Neither Google or Microsoft chained you and said "use our stuff". Instead we chose to, because we find something on the platform useful (be it services, quality, compatibility, whatever).
Why the hell was I modded informative, it's was just a pedestrian observation void of new information.
"...the happy face (^_^) [...] it dawned on me that the faces looked exactly like typical [..] Japanese smiles,"
I've never seen a Japanese, or a human being bend his/her eyes in a triangle shape when smiling.
Could it possibly something else?
Japanese animes also show a character who's under stress having a huge cross attached right from his forehead, or suddenly disappearing eyeballs and long black dashes coming out of the characters face. Anyone seen that on an actual real human, or it just me.
Smilies are an art, and while the way they ended up looking depend heavily on the culture of the people producing them (Japanese smilies follow closely the anime drawing style), I think saying they are strictly modeled after actual people crying and smiling is just a bunch of wishful thinking. Check some photos, an Asian guy won't smile quite a lot differently than a European guy.
Was that before or after punishing us for doing something which was his fault? Him being omnipotent and all, should have known what we were up to when he created us...
Well, you've never set up your pet (cat, dog) do something stupid so you can have some fun?
I bet God's not very different. I bet he laughed his ass off while getting Adam and Eve's asses kicked out of Heaven:
God: "Wow, that was funny. So what do I do next. Oh yea, I'll write the Bible. Hi-la-ri-ous..!".
The moral of the story? If you have an immutable belief in something + an all powerful God that can do whatever He wants, then all other evidence can be bended or ignored in service of that single immutable belief.
That's something a Bible analyst and historian said in Discovery regarding people who take the Bible for a valid scientific and historic source you can take literally: The Bible is just like a man. Torture it enough and it'll say anything.
I don't think name-calling is a particularly effective nor convincing tactic. You might try, I don't know, attempting to construct some sort of rational argument in the future.
Oh, no I don't think it's convincing. It's just satisfying and easy.
Hmmm... "Monday is Wiretap the Internet Day"... Quick, everybody tell their friends to perform cybercimes only Tuesday to Sunday.
We win again, government, MUAHAHAHAH!
I want to create a bot will do nothing but search for, and then go to, 'illegal' sites. I figure if it hits a few porn sites, maybe an offshore gambling site, and *any* site in Arabic that should be enough. If we get enough of these bot going it should create so much white noise that the g-men couldn't tell the real stuff from the botted stuff. Or maybe I won't. y'know, whatever...
So in short, if under surveillance, perform every crime you could possibly conceive! That's confuse the surveillance team and it'll do absolutely nothing about it.
That bot of yours. Could I possibly load it with some adware with my affiliate id? Cause I think, we got ourselvses some brand spanking new business model.
"Feeling repressed? Show your government what you think: install the FREE F*R*E*E FREE RebelBot today! It's FREE as well, did we say that."
Strongly disagree. If she was so keyed up and stressed out so as to unthinkingly obey any instruction issued out of a machine on the dashboard, then she probably shouldn't have been driving. Certainly she shouldn't have been speeding well in excess of the limit, in the fast lane, on an unfamiliar motorway, on a route she'd never taken before.
She was driving at average speed for that lane on a freeway. You're basically talking out of your rear hole for the entirety of your post.
There are plenty of people with the gene for that.
It's not gene, it's a results of having to take a decision in a stress situation. And the stress was caused by her nto being experienced what "stop the car" might mean and how she should react.
If this happens to her again 3-4 more times, she won't likely stop the car on the middle of the road. Did she "lose a gene"? Because if this is so, you may win a Nobel prize.
Also thew GPS is slightly to blame in this one case (unlike the "jump off the cliff" and "hit by a train" cases). The voice should've said "please pull the car aside, there might be an engine problem". "stop the car" causes stress and is not the right action never mind what.
There are people driving off cliffs and through flooded roads and taking detours that span half of England, apparently at the behest of their navigation units. Things got so bad in one place that authorities even had to put up "ignore your sat nav" signs. Now, a woman's car got hit by a train, and for some reason, she's blaming a GPS navigation unit.
Apparently working with a plethora of devices in your car isn't the best way to concentrate on what's right on front of you on the road.
Here's your proof that people shouldn't phone/text/play/drink/eat while driving. And should watch the road and not just the GPS.
GPL manufacturers should be safe, unless they advertised that they help make stupid drivers smarter.
An ancient sun.
An alien with a secret.
An astronomer with a past.
A galaxy thorn asunder.
An astronaut on the edge.
A hidden moon.
A mythical planet.
An ancient.. mythical.. secret.. planet sun guy.
And a flaming chicken.
In 2009, none of these things, happen in ATHF 2.
Except the flaming chicken.
> In fact, I used to feel the same way about Linux until nothing ever came of the "year of Linux on the desktop" claims every year.
Linux got on my desktop a couple of years back.
Right, I don't remember it being "year of Linux on some dude's desktop", but if you say so.
What a billiant example of Slashdotters who don't know the topics he post on.
_ Kong
Billiant? I learn a new word every day. The post is a joke, as such, it can't be considered a reliable source of information. Just like you don't go to The Onion for advice on the actual world news, I suppose.
Please point your browser at the following and read the first two paragraph:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hong
I tried to point my browser, but it's really tricky. Can't I just click the link?
I'm sure some of you will say that "anything that distracts from the road is unacceptably dangerous, I'm willing to trade your freedom to use new technologies in the future for a warm feeling of safety now". Well - I'm never willing to make that trade.
Well, now I know why stupid laws come into existence. To force guys like you "to make that trade".
The interface for texting could be reading directly from your brain for what I care. You still have one brain and one single point of concentration. Multitasking makes you less alert in each of the tasks you perform, but most people don't realize it.
I know what you're thinking, "I texted the hell of my phone and nothing happened". This is also what people thought that got themselves in car accidents that way.
They all thing that way. The law just says: don't do things when you drive, except driving. You can pull aside and text a full novel if you want.
There's a reason why it's not commonly accepted to pull out a gun and wave it around in a crowded place. You may think the lock is on, or think there are no bullets, but history shows lots of people died this way. You're responsible for the people around you, and on the road.
I think it's like writing a term paper while smoking pot. You just think you're writing great paper. Problem is, a failing grade on the expressway is fatal.
This of course poses the question: what if you instead write your term paper while driving. Which will be worse: your driving, or your term paper?
Something for the future generations to ponder about.
Instead of being a uniform orange, it has a patchwork of white spots where technicians sprayed, scraped and filled fresh foam into the more than 4200 areas that were damaged during a freak hailstorm in February.
Oh no! Stop the engines, damn it, and don't even think of thinking of going anywhere with that non-uniform orange fuel tank! We don't want to be embarassed in front of the perfectly uniform green aliens we know absolutely nothing about and forget what I just said.
-- NASA guy in a black suit
1. can it work under water?
Will it work when dried out, if not, why not?
2. will it fly like a frisbee if I throw it properly?
How much abuse can it handle, if a lot, how? If not a lot, why not?
3. how does it look on the inside?
What does what? If I knock this off can I put it back? If it cannot, can I jury-rig it?
Seems like if a few kids did this, then they may be sparking something in their mind. Something that might lead to a bigger and better tomorrow.
1. Oceanographer?
2. Engineer?
3. Hacker?
Spinning it as if damaging the laptop is somehow bringing a great future to the kid may sit well in a book or an artsy movie. Reality is harsher. How many oceanographers do you know who got their diploma after soaking laptops wet.
You become a professional by studying and practicing a lot. You don't do it by random things "sparkling" in your mind.
Have you tried telekinesis? Wishing real hard that the pencil moves. Right now. And if you can do it, you can quit this shitty job and no longer come home late and work during the weekends.
How did it end: you moved the pencil or, no, you had to work during the weekends.
In those poor countries, I bet lots of great ideas spark through a kids head, but they don't have the skills or access to information to do something about it.
They should really explain those kids how to handle a sophisticated equipment like that. It's just as important as giving them the computer itself. The way these kids handled the laptops, obviously they were not thought well enough.
This end may not always be a bad thing. I'm sure allot of slashdotters (I would certainly be included in this group) got their start into learning about computer hardware by asking just such a question as a child.
Maybe you didn't read their tagline: "ONE laptop per child". One. Not a couple of hundred.
When I was a kid and took apart something, it could officially be called garbage. I gained knowledge all right (that I better not do that again).
Instead of individually banning every single thing you can do on a mobile device, why not simply ban working with mobile devices or performing other distracting activities while driving (such as drinking coffee and eating)...
Or maybe the right question is, why should obvious things be spelled out in a law for the drivers to read? Maybe we should just ban patently stupid drivers from driving at all.