User: 5937

Same goes for newspapers

On: When Wikipedia Fails

You step into a blog, you know what you're getting. But if you search an encyclopedia, it's fair to expect something else. Actual facts, say.

Same goes for newspapers.

At its worst, Wikipedia is an active deception, a powerful piece of agitprop, not information.

And that often too.

But newspapers have no warning-shields and discussion-pages.

New way to teach spelling..

On: New(?) Anti-Fraud DNS service

Typos are punished with ads :)

Seems they improved speech-quality

On: Talking iPods

But Apple says its system will break down words in a new way that makes it possible to pronounce perfectly even the most obscure song titles and artist names. It also proposes using "voice talent" - such as famous actors - to make the speech more human and add in the celebrity factor. The patent also proposes using different voice "characteristics", such as gender, for different sections of the iPod menus. Professor Steve Renals, a speech technology expert at Edinburgh University, said: "It is possible to create very high quality text-to-voices these days. "We have seen some already used in mobile phones, but it has struggled in the past with difficult words and names. The technology is much better now and can cope with most things."

Re:whether or not this solves the problem

On: Elastic Tabstops — An End to Tabs vs. Spaces?

Whether or not this solves the problem (I don't think it does), I get real nervous when source code starts being perceived as a document that lends itself to proportional fonts. Maybe I haven't been in the latest and greatest IDEs lately and am missing something here, but source code seems to scream for canonical form, and proportional font is not that.

Oberon, (not the latest IDE albeith the greatest;) uses a full word-processor. Some forthes allow embedded html, so source can be formatted. And where such things are lacking, people want at least syntax-highlighting. So, why not?

Re:Quick question.

On: School Admins Demand Access to Students' Cellphones

Who exactly needs a cellphone at school? I'm sure you might say for emergencies, but it would be much simpler and just as easy for somebody to call the school and have somebody come get you.

Especially on the way home.

Re:Not only the children, parents lose rights too

On: School Admins Demand Access to Students' Cellphones

In many areas of the country the schools have been too invasive into families and worse they are nearly immune to correction. This is just another symptom of failing schools. When on the downward spiral you make damn sure all those who can criticize you fear you in one way or another. An "unusual" mark on a child - automatic suspicion of child abuse. Too thin, child abuse. Too fat, child abuse. DFACs should know!!! Bad grades, must be from a bad home environment; again child abuse!

Want absurd? One guy at work mentioned that a neighbor got a letter from the school's counselor. Seems the kid didn't like what he did or did not get in his lunch his mom sent him to school with. The school actually wrote a letter suggesting that the parents aceed to their child's wishes or give him money to buy a school lunch or snacks!!!

Obviously the kid fears teachers so much, it even tells them what it likes to eat! Or was that found on a cellphone? And that when kid-friendly food is so hard to afford!

Any "abuse, obeye, we tell police!!" in that letter?

Re:Kids these days, and later...

On: School Admins Demand Access to Students' Cellphones

What these kids will not understand later is how to value such rights when they are adults...