Sounds like there's "mention of fair use" right here in the summary:
making copies for personal use and then playing them while your friends come over is illegal
"Personal use" seems like a pretty reasonable approximation to "fair use," as far as school children are concerned. Why would they mention "making copies for personal use" at all if they're presenting all copying as illegal?
Just use Handbrake. It's free, adds no DRM, and US law can't touch it because it's hosted outside the US
Actually, Handbrake is distributed without any DMCA-violating software. I don't know where it's hosted, but I don't think there's any legal impediment to distributing it in the U.S.
In order to read encrypted DVDs, Handbrake delegates to VNC, which users must download and install separately.
(I wonder if such an arrangement would really fly if it were tested by somebody like Real or Apple. It's probably too user-unfriendly and unsafe -- requiring your users to download a third-party piece of software which can't be legally distributed in the U.S. -- for anyone like that to try.)
I don't think assembler is the best way to instill the magic and excitement of getting the most complex machine in your house to do what you want it to.
Right. That's the problem with a lot of examples being suggested, including (probably) Scheme. The libraries and tools available to the kid are a lot more important than the language. If he can't write something that he finds useful, then he's probably not going to get very excited about it. Here's where I got my start in "programming":
BASIC games (back when you copied them out of a book)
Turtle drawing
Spreadsheets
Visual Basic macros
HP calculator custom formulas
None used particularly elegant languages, but all gave me a chance to do something I thought was cool—usually by automating a task in software I already used.
Depends on the job, but I don't see why a lot of people in the Slashdot demographic couldn't spend those extra minutes on work. That's 120 minutes less time you have to be in the office.
I don't understand the objection. Everybody complains about how ISPs aren't being upfront about their usage caps. So now they're being upfront. At the same time, they're choosing to raise their rates and make the rates tiered according to usage. There's nothing fundamentally unfair about that -- if anything, tiered pricing is more fair than flat pricing. And I'm no fan of rising prices, but if they can survive in the market while raising their prices, then good for them. It weakens their competitive position. In my experience, different ISPs are always trying to outdo each other on pricing; I'm quite willing to just let supply and demand do its thing.
You need to understand English to develop in programming languages where the syntax and reserved words are in English.
Not really. If the "end" keyword in languages I use were replaced with "fin", it wouldn't bother me much. It's the unbounded set of APIs and accompanying documentation that really causes trouble.
Also note that universal programming languages need not be English-based. There's another lingua franca for programmers: mathematical notation. The Fortress people would argue, in fact, that this is a far better way to express programs, having far more history behind it, and being more natural, concise, and universally-understood.
I've actually had a problem here. The java.lang.Future interface in the Java API has a (British) "isCancelled()" method; I had written some related interfaces using an (American) "isCanceled()" method. I had to use both names and duplicate code to implement both interfaces.
Hulu has allowed me to get rid of my $100-plus a month cable bill
A couple of people have said this, so I'm curious: what did your $100 a month do for you that you couldn't do for free, over-the-air (but that you can now do with Hulu)? Just DVR functionality?
According to Jammer's Reviews, which I have found pretty reliable (the reviewer shares your distaste for Voyager), looks like the average score for episodes he wrote is 2.7 out of 4 stars. 6 of his episodes are rated especially badly (2 stars or less) and 6 are rated especially well (3.5 or more stars). Definitely a mixed bag, including the terrible "Course: Oblivion," "Sprit Folk," and "Fury." On the other hand, he is responsible for some of Voyager's best: "Living Witness," "Drone," and "Barge of the Dead."
In fact, if you look at How to Design Program's introduction (the server seems to be down right now; here an archive page), you'll see that it was written with this sort of a class in mind. Even if you use a different language, and even if you disagree with its philosophy, you should at least be familiar with it as an important work in this area.
A relevant excerpt from the link:
Many professions require some form of computer programming. Accountants program spreadsheets and word processors; photographers program photo editors; musicians program synthesizers; and professional programmers instruct plain computers. Programming has become a required skill.
Yet programming is more than just a vocational skill. Indeed, good programming is a fun activity, a creative outlet, and a way to express abstract ideas in a tangible form. And designing programs teaches a variety of skills that are important in all kinds of professions: critical reading, analytical thinking, creative synthesis, and attention to detail.
We therefore believe that the study of program design deserves the same central role in general education as mathematics and English. Or, put more succinctly, everyone should learn how to design programs.
The state that you belong to means much more than random "happenstance." Roads, education, welfare, etc. -- all the boring stuff that government spends most of its time managing -- are all tied to the state. Those are the interests that you have in common with everyone else in your state, and that, I believe, usually overshadow or at least equal your interests associated with other groups. Where states are not bound by common interest in important areas, they can evolve by splitting/realigning (West Virginia did this; California sometimes talks about it).
Whether these regional interests really outweigh interests associated with other arbitrary groups is open for debate. I think they're at least on a similar level -- in any case, like I said, preventing abuse is hard enough when voting is based on residency; doing anything more would probably be unenforceable. And I think it's essential that some measure of broad appeal, beyond strict popularity, be used in the formula that determines which candidate is best.
The discussion of rural states was just an example. I'm not suggesting that "rural" people deserve special treatment. I'm saying that small states, despite their small size and regardless of their demographics, deserve to have their interests as entities represented.
Is there a principled reason in this case to think that Iowans and other rural voters should receive votes that matter more even though they are numerically fewer?
Yes. People who live in the same region tend to share the same interests. (Hence, governments are organized geographically.) A candidate who only appeals to urban voters in a few regions does not very well represent the interests of the country as a whole. Similarly, a candidate who appeals to a variety of regions but can't get a majority of voters (because he rejects urban interests) doesn't represent the country as a whole, either. An ideal candidate should be strong in *both* dimensions: regionally and popularly. Hence, a formula was derived that gave weight to both dimensions (although the popular dimension carries much more weight -- 436 vs. 102).
In mentioning other groups with common interests (races, religions, etc.), you're suggesting that there ought to be other dimensions that carry some weight in the formula. In principal, I think that sounds fine. A president should appeal to a variety of races, etc. But I think regional interests tend to be more significant than interests associated with membership in these other groups, and it would clearly be a lot harder to prevent abuse of a system based on the ill-defined concept of identification with a certain race, etc.
Give me a break. You don't think California, Texas, and New York have any influence on presidential elections? It's a *prerequesite* that, say, any Democratic presidential candidate can win California and New York. If that weren't the case, they'd never get off the ground. And if an opposing-party candidate has a chance to take one of those big states, it's *huge*.
And here I am looking for a job at IBM, Intel, Sun, . . . . Maybe I should take the in-laws up on their offer to let their son-in-law with a CS PhD live in the basement for a few years.
On the other hand, we would not be who we are without our ability to sacrifice self-interest for a higher cause. Sure, there are suicide bombers. There are also WWII soldiers. Gandi and Mother Teresa. Muhammad and Jesus. Great art and literature. Computers, space exploration, and vaccines. Democracy and human rights.
Reduce humanity to a bunch of drones concerned exclusively with biological survival, and I think all those things go away.
many things in OS X do things the UNIX way - do one simple thing well
iTunes is certainly not a model citizen in this regard, although I can appreciate your interest in not making things worse.
instead Finder should be watching folders and run actions based on directories or file types
There is a long precedent now in OS X of introducing libraries that do cool OS-level things (think Spotlight, Time Machine) and then integrating the functionality into existing apps. Using the "folder changed" facilities in OS X to add a feature to iTunes would be a classic example following in this mold.
You don't want folder monitoring, where every user/machine pair maintains its own library in parallel, resulting in all sorts of redundancy and messiness. You want true library sharing -- a database of music that all your clients can interact with. I see Apple doing something like that long before they do add a hacked "watch this folder" feature.
Some limitations of the current "Sharing" feature that could easily be fixed:
It's read-only (including play counts).
It doesn't support cover art (!) or playlist folders (!).
It's restricted to a local network.
You can't sync shared items to an iPod.
The sources can't be filtered on a per-client basis (hiding certain items, playlists, etc.)
It requires a running instance of iTunes (rather than, say, a headless server running on Time Capsule).
Has anyone read the entire tax law recently, much less ALL the laws we're supposed to know?
Good point. The response cited in the summary ("predictable cry of outrage") makes a similar point. The benefit of privacy policies is that there's a published policy that the companies can be held accountable for. You don't preemptively read the entire body of law in your jurisdiction -- instead, you consult the law when problems arise.
So how do you know before the fact about things you won't like? Rely on the community. The press and other organizations routinely point out problems in the law. Similarly, if a business is going to risk their reputation on a shady contract, privacy policy, EULA, etc., you're probably going to hear about it.
The summary's "$20 per computer" really just refers to the cost of a software copy on each machine. If Apple sold iTunes, it would be the same: you have to buy a copy of the software for each machine on which you want to use it. Nothing surprising there.
Slashdot Mirror
Once it starts to catch on, it will be mandated for ALL children, ages ~3-15.
Arguing against a "think of the children" fallacy with a slippery slope fallacy. Classic.
making copies for personal use and then playing them while your friends come over is illegal
"Personal use" seems like a pretty reasonable approximation to "fair use," as far as school children are concerned. Why would they mention "making copies for personal use" at all if they're presenting all copying as illegal?
Just use Handbrake. It's free, adds no DRM, and US law can't touch it because it's hosted outside the US
Actually, Handbrake is distributed without any DMCA-violating software. I don't know where it's hosted, but I don't think there's any legal impediment to distributing it in the U.S.
In order to read encrypted DVDs, Handbrake delegates to VNC, which users must download and install separately.
(I wonder if such an arrangement would really fly if it were tested by somebody like Real or Apple. It's probably too user-unfriendly and unsafe -- requiring your users to download a third-party piece of software which can't be legally distributed in the U.S. -- for anyone like that to try.)
I don't think assembler is the best way to instill the magic and excitement of getting the most complex machine in your house to do what you want it to.
Right. That's the problem with a lot of examples being suggested, including (probably) Scheme. The libraries and tools available to the kid are a lot more important than the language. If he can't write something that he finds useful, then he's probably not going to get very excited about it. Here's where I got my start in "programming":
None used particularly elegant languages, but all gave me a chance to do something I thought was cool—usually by automating a task in software I already used.
I mean, theres not any preferences, logging in, etc. by members of the general public
Three federal government programs that do/should provide a Web interface to authenticated users:
These are off the top of my head. I'm not trying very hard.
Depends on the job, but I don't see why a lot of people in the Slashdot demographic couldn't spend those extra minutes on work. That's 120 minutes less time you have to be in the office.
I don't understand the objection. Everybody complains about how ISPs aren't being upfront about their usage caps. So now they're being upfront. At the same time, they're choosing to raise their rates and make the rates tiered according to usage. There's nothing fundamentally unfair about that -- if anything, tiered pricing is more fair than flat pricing. And I'm no fan of rising prices, but if they can survive in the market while raising their prices, then good for them. It weakens their competitive position. In my experience, different ISPs are always trying to outdo each other on pricing; I'm quite willing to just let supply and demand do its thing.
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006099/
O'Reilly would never put a picture of a cat on a book about "cat". It's way too obvious. (Well, nevermind.)
You need to understand English to develop in programming languages where the syntax and reserved words are in English.
Not really. If the "end" keyword in languages I use were replaced with "fin", it wouldn't bother me much. It's the unbounded set of APIs and accompanying documentation that really causes trouble.
Also note that universal programming languages need not be English-based. There's another lingua franca for programmers: mathematical notation. The Fortress people would argue, in fact, that this is a far better way to express programs, having far more history behind it, and being more natural, concise, and universally-understood.
I've actually had a problem here. The java.lang.Future interface in the Java API has a (British) "isCancelled()" method; I had written some related interfaces using an (American) "isCanceled()" method. I had to use both names and duplicate code to implement both interfaces.
Hulu has allowed me to get rid of my $100-plus a month cable bill
A couple of people have said this, so I'm curious: what did your $100 a month do for you that you couldn't do for free, over-the-air (but that you can now do with Hulu)? Just DVR functionality?
According to Jammer's Reviews, which I have found pretty reliable (the reviewer shares your distaste for Voyager), looks like the average score for episodes he wrote is 2.7 out of 4 stars. 6 of his episodes are rated especially badly (2 stars or less) and 6 are rated especially well (3.5 or more stars). Definitely a mixed bag, including the terrible "Course: Oblivion," "Sprit Folk," and "Fury." On the other hand, he is responsible for some of Voyager's best: "Living Witness," "Drone," and "Barge of the Dead."
In fact, if you look at How to Design Program's introduction (the server seems to be down right now; here an archive page), you'll see that it was written with this sort of a class in mind. Even if you use a different language, and even if you disagree with its philosophy, you should at least be familiar with it as an important work in this area.
A relevant excerpt from the link:
Many professions require some form of computer programming. Accountants program spreadsheets and word processors; photographers program photo editors; musicians program synthesizers; and professional programmers instruct plain computers. Programming has become a required skill.
Yet programming is more than just a vocational skill. Indeed, good programming is a fun activity, a creative outlet, and a way to express abstract ideas in a tangible form. And designing programs teaches a variety of skills that are important in all kinds of professions: critical reading, analytical thinking, creative synthesis, and attention to detail.
We therefore believe that the study of program design deserves the same central role in general education as mathematics and English. Or, put more succinctly, everyone should learn how to design programs.
The state that you belong to means much more than random "happenstance." Roads, education, welfare, etc. -- all the boring stuff that government spends most of its time managing -- are all tied to the state. Those are the interests that you have in common with everyone else in your state, and that, I believe, usually overshadow or at least equal your interests associated with other groups. Where states are not bound by common interest in important areas, they can evolve by splitting/realigning (West Virginia did this; California sometimes talks about it).
Whether these regional interests really outweigh interests associated with other arbitrary groups is open for debate. I think they're at least on a similar level -- in any case, like I said, preventing abuse is hard enough when voting is based on residency; doing anything more would probably be unenforceable. And I think it's essential that some measure of broad appeal, beyond strict popularity, be used in the formula that determines which candidate is best.
The discussion of rural states was just an example. I'm not suggesting that "rural" people deserve special treatment. I'm saying that small states, despite their small size and regardless of their demographics, deserve to have their interests as entities represented.
Is there a principled reason in this case to think that Iowans and other rural voters should receive votes that matter more even though they are numerically fewer?
Yes. People who live in the same region tend to share the same interests. (Hence, governments are organized geographically.) A candidate who only appeals to urban voters in a few regions does not very well represent the interests of the country as a whole. Similarly, a candidate who appeals to a variety of regions but can't get a majority of voters (because he rejects urban interests) doesn't represent the country as a whole, either. An ideal candidate should be strong in *both* dimensions: regionally and popularly. Hence, a formula was derived that gave weight to both dimensions (although the popular dimension carries much more weight -- 436 vs. 102).
In mentioning other groups with common interests (races, religions, etc.), you're suggesting that there ought to be other dimensions that carry some weight in the formula. In principal, I think that sounds fine. A president should appeal to a variety of races, etc. But I think regional interests tend to be more significant than interests associated with membership in these other groups, and it would clearly be a lot harder to prevent abuse of a system based on the ill-defined concept of identification with a certain race, etc.
Give me a break. You don't think California, Texas, and New York have any influence on presidential elections? It's a *prerequesite* that, say, any Democratic presidential candidate can win California and New York. If that weren't the case, they'd never get off the ground. And if an opposing-party candidate has a chance to take one of those big states, it's *huge*.
And here I am looking for a job at IBM, Intel, Sun, . . . . Maybe I should take the in-laws up on their offer to let their son-in-law with a CS PhD live in the basement for a few years.
On the other hand, we would not be who we are without our ability to sacrifice self-interest for a higher cause. Sure, there are suicide bombers. There are also WWII soldiers. Gandi and Mother Teresa. Muhammad and Jesus. Great art and literature. Computers, space exploration, and vaccines. Democracy and human rights.
Reduce humanity to a bunch of drones concerned exclusively with biological survival, and I think all those things go away.
many things in OS X do things the UNIX way - do one simple thing well
iTunes is certainly not a model citizen in this regard, although I can appreciate your interest in not making things worse.
instead Finder should be watching folders and run actions based on directories or file types
There is a long precedent now in OS X of introducing libraries that do cool OS-level things (think Spotlight, Time Machine) and then integrating the functionality into existing apps. Using the "folder changed" facilities in OS X to add a feature to iTunes would be a classic example following in this mold.
You don't want folder monitoring, where every user/machine pair maintains its own library in parallel, resulting in all sorts of redundancy and messiness. You want true library sharing -- a database of music that all your clients can interact with. I see Apple doing something like that long before they do add a hacked "watch this folder" feature.
Some limitations of the current "Sharing" feature that could easily be fixed:
Has anyone read the entire tax law recently, much less ALL the laws we're supposed to know?
Good point. The response cited in the summary ("predictable cry of outrage") makes a similar point. The benefit of privacy policies is that there's a published policy that the companies can be held accountable for. You don't preemptively read the entire body of law in your jurisdiction -- instead, you consult the law when problems arise.
So how do you know before the fact about things you won't like? Rely on the community. The press and other organizations routinely point out problems in the law. Similarly, if a business is going to risk their reputation on a shady contract, privacy policy, EULA, etc., you're probably going to hear about it.
And here I was going to complain that this is definitely *not* "news" if it's been going on for 20 million years.
The summary's "$20 per computer" really just refers to the cost of a software copy on each machine. If Apple sold iTunes, it would be the same: you have to buy a copy of the software for each machine on which you want to use it. Nothing surprising there.
Given that Microsoft is parodying the Mac vs. PC ads, this is on topic, right?
Best Mac vs. PC parody ever.
Computers suck.