Did anyone look at their other apps? From a reviewer page for ColorMagic (http://appshopper.com/photography/colormagic), their other apps are about 95% tour guide applications for various locations.

Yes, they were inflating their reviews. But it doesn't look like this company is doing cheap knock-offs of thousands of apps. This is just sloppy journalism (or no research done). Nothing like getting a story out there and over-sensationalizing it. It's not like it couldn't have stood on its own merit - Apple finally spanked somebody for over-inflating reviews (which should have happened long ago IMO).

I absolutely love the fact that my post got moderated "overrated". Apparently we have some management types on Slashdot these day that got some mod points. It's a perfect example of how some people feel about BCP.

And uh, aren't "overrated" mod points for things that have been modded up a whole bunch that you don't agree with?

And not just backups, it sounds like they had no BCP plan at all. This is a massive oversight, but a fairly common one. I've consulted for a number of years, and it's amazing at how many companies don't have a BCP plan at all, and sometimes it includes simple backups of data.

The companies where I've seen this basically do a risk assessment and say "well, we are willing to accept the risk of downtime because BCP is too costly". Unfortunately they don't weigh the chance of an outage or disaster appropriately, and then find themselves severely screwed when a tornado, storm system, or fire occurs, and then they are either out of business (in a small company) or take enough of a hit to make a headline on Slashdot and cripple the business.

Seriously, when are companies going to realize that this is a critical component of IT? I've felt like I've talked till I was blue in the face about this over the years.

I can imagine that there's citizens of China that have unfettered access to the internet; there are plenty of companies out there that host software VPN's that allow a user to appear to be from a different country. The information is out there, you just have to know how to get it, although there is some risk. Hell, a business could probably make a good amount of money hosting terminal or Citrix servers just for FireFox usage for China users.

I'm sure there's a fairly large risk involved, and the punishments are probably severe. But where there's a will, there's a way, especially in technology.

Spinal implants and other non-heart related implants do allow wireless communications. That's how I turn on and off my spinal implant. Granted it only seems to support a distance of within a foot of the implanted battery pack to the controller, but still. I honestly don't know if it's the controller or the receiver that requires that distance though.

Guess which website I'll be visiting tonight?

I have a spinal implant, which is basically an implanted tens-unit, that I use to block the pain from the degenerative disease I have. Although the device has a top level setting, it still hurts if I crank it up that far. If someone was able to remotely turn on my device and turn the intensity up and shorten the waveform they could bring me to my knees. If I couldn't turn it off I'd be in some serious trouble, since I couldn't flee.

As much as it's not life-threatening in my case, it's still pretty damn scary. I can't imagine having a pacemaker that could be disrupted remotely. Although talk about a great tool for the CIA for remote-kills.

Let me clarify a bit then: In this case, Fox created controversy by running sweepers and the story with words that were judgmental and suggested that people should be disgusted with Sharon Osbourne. They did not report just on the facts and let people decide on their own how they felt, they provided their own color commentary and helped create the buzz of the story.

IMO the news is supposed to be fact, not commentary, and the way the news is reported is just as important as what is reported. Fox (and CNN, MSNBC, etc) don't deliver just facts, they deliver "human interest stories" and news item from a slanted perspective. I don't like being told how to feel on things, but there are so many people that do like being told. The news should absolutely be reporting on anything and everything; that is their job.

And to the people that think that no one cares, people do and that's why we can't have nice things. The amount of made-up outrage out there is ridiculous; people love to feel outraged. That's why radio and TV content have both gone to hell IMO.

I don't totally agree, but I see what you are getting at.

My point was that Fox took an event that had passed and was basically unknown except for the listeners of that radio show and then created controversy, thus creating a story based on that controversy. There was no controversy, no people demonstrating against Sharon Osbourne or even really talking about. I believe Fox was the first to report on this (and we'll say they are for this example); since they basically manufactured this controversy by bringing the segment to light, playing it for people and getting their responses, and even talking to Susan Boyle, IMO they made news rather than reporting on it.

It's a blurry line, and I totally see where you are coming from with yellow journalism. It's too damn close for my liking.

Yes, but unfortunately that's not what you are getting most of the time. CNN is better than most IMO, but what we tend to see is entertainment, not news. How many times do we see these channels making news rather than reporting the news? I'm so sick of seeing this kind of behavior.

A great example was on Fox recently where they were asking people on the street what they thought of Sharon Osbourne's comments on Susan Boyle. Most people hadn't heard it, as it happened on an Sirius radio show, but Fox was constantly reporting on it. Then Fox tracked down Susan Boyle at the airport (at the same time as Entertainment Tonight and a few other programs) and asked her how she felt. This isn't reporting the news, this is making the news.

News organizations should be held to reporting the news, being fair about what they are reporting, and being held to a standard. They are worried about ratings, and unfortunately that affects content.

From the looks of Reality B, it would be to maintain the current state of business and finance so they can enjoy their lives, rather than causing the panic, wars, and breakdown of civilization any sooner than they have to.

Maybe they think they have their thumb stuck in the dam, holding back a huge wave, and are trying to live as well as possible until the inevitable happens? It's not like they aren't going to be blamed a bit if it does..

Of course they'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Yes, but in this case it sounds like the PowerPoint slides are also included with the text (probably on a CD or DVD). I remember when I was a student; if the professor would have just been putting up the slides and talking I probably would have skipped class, thus missing out on the comments made by the teacher about the materials.

At least with overheads you had to listen to the professor and write the information down and thus commit it to memory to a certain extent.

PowerPoint could either be a complete slacker medium, or could be part of a more-encompassing lecture. It's all in the way it is used.

I have a degenerative disease, have had a laminectomy, bone spur removals, and have some messed up disks and nerve damage. I've been in some amount pain for about six years and have run the medicine gauntlet.

From experience, I've been prescribed medicine where the doctor's told me "this is much better than what you are on, it will manage your pain much more effectively". I got all excited, and started taking it. On the first day I was miserable. The second and third days were even worse. After a week I switched back.

I really think that the placebo effect only works for small amounts of pain, or for certain kinds of pain (there are a lot of different types). In my case, I ended up with a spinal implant (kind of like an internal tens unit) and take a small amount of medicine to manage the pain. It still hurts every day, but I get by much better and work a 40 to 50 hour week and raise kids.

"One of the T61ps is a server, making it a client/server network with a couple of routers and an Ethernet backbone.."

You're telling me that with over a hundred machines up there that they have a single point of failure for their domain architecture? And it's a laptop? Hey NASA, ever hear of high-availability?

Granted they probably don't use that many domain resources, but you'd think if they were going to use any specific kind of tech that they would make sure it was redundant. You'd think with how much they spent for this space-station that they'd make an appropriate IT purchase..

I understand the desire for a laptop device that is able to do more than read textbooks. The audience is kids in school, both starting out and more advanced. You want software that also helps the kids learn to read, do math, and possibly watch some basics videos about the world.

My three year old is able to sit down with my iPod touch and run through a variety of games. He knows how to unlock it, scroll through the menus, and choose which game he wants. There are coloring games, letter and number games, and shape games. He is also starting to do the same on my laptop. Learning with this type of technology has come much more naturally than the flashcards and flat books.

Sure an ebook reader is a great possibility, but I think part of the point is to engage the children as well and teach them in more constructive ways than just flat reading.