Ummm, let me guess. Yes? Sitting in boring classrooms got us to the moon and got us the computers we're sitting in front of, so I think we must have been doing something right.

I am not saying that we got it all right before computers. Sitting in boring classrooms may not be the optimal use of time, but it sure beats wasting the same amount of hours sitting behind the computer. I am a computer programmer and I spend much of my time behind the computer, but had I been in school I would have thought it would be better to attend classes, whether they were boring or not. What TFA is saying is that children have lost the ability to concentrate and that multitasking and online social media has robbed the kids of their ability to relate to their peers in the real world. I have raised two kids and always attempted to curb their use of computers, not harshly, but sensibly. In addition, they were not allowed to have televisions, game consoles and computers in their bedrooms. This was all an attempt to get them to spend time on the first floor with their parents or with their friends around the neighborhood. I am fairly certain that now that they're in college and looking at their peers, they appreciate the way they were raised.

A part of life is actually learning to deal with the boring parts, since there are many instances in our lives that are spent doing things we really don't want to do. Calming down, taking a sip of coffee while looking outside the window and admiring the bird, passers by, and the clouds, is something today's kids do NOT understand.

They're only up because kids have been taught to game the test and solve for multiple choice problems. In real life, Math is not multiple choice. Salman Rushdie argued this on Bill Maher the other night. To really test a student's ability in problems, you need to eliminate multiple choice.

My wife works for a school district and their union sucks big Willy Wonka dick. Truly the union is looking only for its own best self interest. On another note, I worked at a corporation in California for a couple of years. When their NetWare server had issues, I suggested that they swap the NIC with another one that was sitting on the shelf above the server. They had to wait for a union guy to come in and swap the card. Seriously? Any half-brained twat could have replaced the card. I had done it only a thousand times before I was in the position to suggest so. But everyone was scared of the union and they wouldn't swap the card.

The issue with unions in this country is that they get in the way of doing things. But the downside without the unions is that corporations will fuck you with a steel rod if you're not part of a union.

Let me fix that for myself. Corporations will fuck you with a still rod whether you're in a union or not. Given the choice between union and non-union, I choose union, because at least some poor soul is getting some dough instead of the corporation.

We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.

Seriously? I admit there are some thing that are just easier done in Windows than Linux, like my Galaxy S3's photo's being transferred to my PC. I don't evern recall not being able to open a MS Word document in Libre Office, no matter what the version of MS Word the document was saved in was. I also do not agree that the UI on Linux is behind Win XP, let alone 2K. I use XFCE on all my Linux boxes and have never had a problem doing anything graphically, although I'm more of a command guy to begin with. Both my daughters have been using Linux on notebooks (yes, notebooks, no issues with wireless or anything) for a very long time (4-5 years). The only time they had issues was when they used to save presentations when they were in high school (a few years ago) and had to make things work in Powerpoint.

At the end, it's not the few hundred bucks you're saving. It's rising against tyranny when it comes to the PC O/S. I hated buying Dell notebooks and having to pay for Windows. Even though those copies of Windows were already paid for, I elected for my daughters to use Linux on the same notebooks. I always thought of it as using a different language at home. They'd know Linux, but they'd learn Windows through their friends anyway and at the end would know both, which they do.

The ONLY thing Linux couldn't do well was gaming. One of my daughters wasn't into gaming at all. For the other one, she had a desktop that ran Windows so that she could play games, knowing that I would never help her with a Windows problem if she strayed and started to use the Windows machine as her main machine. She never did. She confined it to gaming, and I was happy, because I knew if she used it as her main machine she'd end up with tons of malware. She got the best of both worlds.

This is the second article I've seen from a few days ago which has NO comments. Tell me it isn't so?

Which is why I don't understand them not taking the 3 billion. It's just an app. It's not like it's a comprehensive social web site. I can't imaging FB having offered 3B for a simple app. You can't build a social experience around one app, so sell the app and use the money to come up with something entirely different, without the need for VC.

Obligatory Link for RDBMS deniers: mySQL vs. MongoDB

If he was truly able to get 350 women to undress just by chatting with them online, then he's either Hannibal Lecter, or God! Teach me, master!!!!!

Because most retailers who'll choose to exercise this method will not drop their current prices by 4 percent. The prices will stay where they are right now (because everyone's used to already paying those prices) and the CC users will instead get shafted an extra 4 percent. The sad thing is that the cash payers will CONTINUE to get shafted because the price they're paying for is the same price as before even though it no longer includes the increase attributed to CC users.

Of course nobody can tell what future holds, or he'd be a millionaire. However I stand by what I said. Just check out these snippets from the article and tell me how any of these could be good for the consumer:

Is it fair use or not? If it is, then they should STFU and come up with a business model that works better for them and gets them what they want. If it's not, then take Google to court.

Who do you think will pay for these "compensation schemes"? You and I. We're the only ones who have untapped money. True that we're already paying an arm and a leg for Internet connectivity and Satellite audio/video, but where there's more, greedy bastards will follow.

Ditto above.

Of course the other side of the coin is that it's in nobody's interest for newspapers or media companies to go out of business, but enough is enough. Newspapers can definitely reach a sustainable model. It just means they'll have to change. Look at Newsweek. They just issued their last print edition. They figured they'd make out better financially. Media companies are the whores of this planet, loving to charge for both ends as someone else already put it very elegantly in this thread. For them, the more holes they have the better off they are.

I'm not saying we have all the facts of the case and obviously more information is always good. I'm just saying that a network provider who is (highly) likely already getting paid for traffic going across their wires getting paid twice CANNOT end up being good for us consumers. If Google pays for the double traffic, then the least it'll cost us is in terms of innovation coming out of Google.

I'm sure the "other" providers using Orange's connectivity are already paying based on whatever agreement they signed up with Orange, thus they look like another "customer" to Orange. You can throw more information at the issue, but it just stinks of a business model not good for us end users, since it'll just make content providers more greedy for money if they have to pay network providers.

You do know that ripping your DVDs is illegal, don't you? Based on DMCA, breaking the encryption of your DVD can land you with a fine and/or jail.

You know, that's the fucking problem. I have plenty of money to pay for good, on-demand video and the selection I want. However, because my time is literally worth money, I don't want to have to sit through commercials and ads. I subscribed to Hulu plus for a week before I discontinued it, and it wasn't because I didn't want to pay the $9/month fee. I would have gladly paid $20/month if I could watch the content ad-free.

Face it, as another poster said already above, downloading offers a whole bunch of incentives, such as DRM fee, Ad free, and great selection. If I had that combination, heck, I'd even pay $30/month for it. Not that I download shit, cough cough, but I'm already paying $119/month for my satellite TV with HBO, Show Time, Starz, Encore, and lots of other programming. Obviously it's not the money that's the issue.

Holy shit! I just noticed your low ID of 9623. Please don't delete my account! I'll make all sourts of GRAMITTICAL mi$stakes just to pr0ve that I'm no graWWar police. *ducks*