Now I see why I was unable to order an new MP3 player on the Creative site when I tried to use my XboxLive Diamond card discount. All of the players were marked *Out of Stock* and that did seem rather odd. Too bad. I adore my Micro Zen and think that its sound quality and ease of use are wonderful and I had wanted to get both a little Flash player and a large hard disk model. Guess I'll have to wait and see how things go on the battlefield...
Guess the people were caught napping on this one. I know from experience that violence among the young is not one of the top concerns among the populace in my home state. A healthy respect for weaponry, the ability to fight and take a punch and a strong urge to join the military were the traits one associated with the good ol' boy subspecies and these are the ones who are now in the process of procreating the next generation. Perhaps the Katrina disaster infused a greater appreciation for life and harmony than once existed. More likely, the legislation got pushed through during Happy Hour and no one noticed amongst the beer and pretzels...
This is just going to expand. Already, kids view their phones as more necessary than any other form of personal technology (and that includes their ipods). They are almost obsessive with them - checking constantly for missed calls, text messages...they are loathe to even purchase a calculator for classes, arguing that their phones have builit-in calculator functions. It would be natural to extend their gaming desires to the one piece of equipment they would never be caught without. Guess I'd rather have that progress with Carmack putting his neurons into the works than without, but I am not looking forward to the increased number of phones I'm going to have to confiscate off of high schoolers...
This a truly flaccid attempt at a warning. Microsoft should be ashamed. People who would actually worry about voiding their warranty are likely far too Joe Citizen to consider (or be capable of) hacking their system. People who would try to finagle their 360 and have the capacity to successfully accomplish the task are likely also smart enough to convince the guy on the other end of the phone that the problems with his system are the result of trying to make toast, blow dry the dog, charge their digital camera and play Halo all at the same time...
Nanotechnology offers a fantastic range of possibilities to both improve and destroy our lives, but the actual scope of its effects is still shrouded in speculation. I am loathe to have a governmental agency regulate its use, especially when the members of that agency have little to no familiarity with the technology. That is the problem with the rapidly expanding tecnology and biotechnology fields - there just aren't enough competent officials in government to monitor and honestly evaluate the issues associated with the technologies.
My charger takes my phone from dead to dancing in about 3 hours. I usually just plop phone and charger on the dashboard while I'm driving around to keep it topped up. I agree, though, that one of the main impediments to the adoption of alternative energy technologies is that they just haven't made them as convenient as their traditional counterparts. Time will tell..
I have a solar charger for my mobile phone and it works just fine. I am cheap and like the thought of free energy to power the black hole of money that is my phone. I applaud the expansion of alternative energy technology into our daily lives, but wonder if this is the best application for fuel cells...
...is that nothing is ever certain. I doubt that there will ever be an unhackable system. It is the nature of things that when one system evolves, it promotes evolution in other systems. Coevolution is a fundamental process in the biosphere and I am sufficiently humble to think that we are not yet so smart as nature.
I actually printed this bit of news out to pass on to our school committee. They want to put teacher's gradebooks online and firmly believe that they can keep the system safe from little hacking fingers. Our computer system was scavagend from the castoffs of another district and was likely cutting edge when Regan was in office...Another example of people with no understanding of technology being in charge of technology.
Ecologists have yet to understand the impact of genetically-modified crops on ecosystems. The potential impact for native plants and their pollinators, wild stock, herbivories, etc. should be closely monitored. It is fine to help people through an alternative form of administering medical assistance, but at what price? Further, the long-term effects of this engineering on the host crop might not be what the engineers expect. With a monoculture agricultural system, crop failure may be complete and what then does the populace do?
If the dragonfly migration paths are similar to that of songbirds, it would argue that there are certain environmental selectors for "good" migration routes for many of the migratory species. That could be a useful argument for trying to preserve the rapidly-vanishing lands along migration corridors. Songbirds are definitely declining in number due to habitat loss on their migration routes and that does not bode well for other species that might follow similar paths.
Slashdot Mirror
Now I see why I was unable to order an new MP3 player on the Creative site when I tried to use my XboxLive Diamond card discount. All of the players were marked *Out of Stock* and that did seem rather odd. Too bad. I adore my Micro Zen and think that its sound quality and ease of use are wonderful and I had wanted to get both a little Flash player and a large hard disk model. Guess I'll have to wait and see how things go on the battlefield...
Guess the people were caught napping on this one. I know from experience that violence among the young is not one of the top concerns among the populace in my home state. A healthy respect for weaponry, the ability to fight and take a punch and a strong urge to join the military were the traits one associated with the good ol' boy subspecies and these are the ones who are now in the process of procreating the next generation. Perhaps the Katrina disaster infused a greater appreciation for life and harmony than once existed. More likely, the legislation got pushed through during Happy Hour and no one noticed amongst the beer and pretzels...
This is just going to expand. Already, kids view their phones as more necessary than any other form of personal technology (and that includes their ipods). They are almost obsessive with them - checking constantly for missed calls, text messages...they are loathe to even purchase a calculator for classes, arguing that their phones have builit-in calculator functions. It would be natural to extend their gaming desires to the one piece of equipment they would never be caught without. Guess I'd rather have that progress with Carmack putting his neurons into the works than without, but I am not looking forward to the increased number of phones I'm going to have to confiscate off of high schoolers...
This a truly flaccid attempt at a warning. Microsoft should be ashamed. People who would actually worry about voiding their warranty are likely far too Joe Citizen to consider (or be capable of) hacking their system. People who would try to finagle their 360 and have the capacity to successfully accomplish the task are likely also smart enough to convince the guy on the other end of the phone that the problems with his system are the result of trying to make toast, blow dry the dog, charge their digital camera and play Halo all at the same time...
Nanotechnology offers a fantastic range of possibilities to both improve and destroy our lives, but the actual scope of its effects is still shrouded in speculation. I am loathe to have a governmental agency regulate its use, especially when the members of that agency have little to no familiarity with the technology. That is the problem with the rapidly expanding tecnology and biotechnology fields - there just aren't enough competent officials in government to monitor and honestly evaluate the issues associated with the technologies.
My charger takes my phone from dead to dancing in about 3 hours. I usually just plop phone and charger on the dashboard while I'm driving around to keep it topped up. I agree, though, that one of the main impediments to the adoption of alternative energy technologies is that they just haven't made them as convenient as their traditional counterparts. Time will tell..
I have a solar charger for my mobile phone and it works just fine. I am cheap and like the thought of free energy to power the black hole of money that is my phone. I applaud the expansion of alternative energy technology into our daily lives, but wonder if this is the best application for fuel cells...
...is that nothing is ever certain. I doubt that there will ever be an unhackable system. It is the nature of things that when one system evolves, it promotes evolution in other systems. Coevolution is a fundamental process in the biosphere and I am sufficiently humble to think that we are not yet so smart as nature. I actually printed this bit of news out to pass on to our school committee. They want to put teacher's gradebooks online and firmly believe that they can keep the system safe from little hacking fingers. Our computer system was scavagend from the castoffs of another district and was likely cutting edge when Regan was in office...Another example of people with no understanding of technology being in charge of technology.
Ecologists have yet to understand the impact of genetically-modified crops on ecosystems. The potential impact for native plants and their pollinators, wild stock, herbivories, etc. should be closely monitored. It is fine to help people through an alternative form of administering medical assistance, but at what price? Further, the long-term effects of this engineering on the host crop might not be what the engineers expect. With a monoculture agricultural system, crop failure may be complete and what then does the populace do?
Actually, I'm thankful it is slated for Saturday mornings. That's one less reason for my students to be late during the school week...
If the dragonfly migration paths are similar to that of songbirds, it would argue that there are certain environmental selectors for "good" migration routes for many of the migratory species. That could be a useful argument for trying to preserve the rapidly-vanishing lands along migration corridors. Songbirds are definitely declining in number due to habitat loss on their migration routes and that does not bode well for other species that might follow similar paths.