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Education

Finland Dumps Handwriting In Favor of Typing 523

Posted by timothy from the take-a-letter-maria dept.
mikejuk writes It seems incredible that in the 21st century schools are still teaching children to scratch marks on paper. Well in Finland they are taking a step in the direction of the future by giving up teaching handwriting. The Savon Sanomat newspaper reports that from autumn 2016 cursive handwriting will no longer be a compulsory part of the school curriculum. Instead the schools will teach keyboard skills and 'texting'. The idea of teaching proper keyboard skills to children is unquestionably a great idea, the idea of texting is a little more dubious and many will mourn the loss of a traditional skill like cursive writing. So what about a world where cursive writing is forgotten? What do you do when your computer is dead and you need to leave a note? The death of cursive script probably isn't the death of handwriting but the death of doing it quickly and with style. Some no doubt will want to master it just for the sake of it — like driving a stick shift. I know some U.S. schools have done the same; how proficient should kids be with cursive?
The Internet

SKA Telescope To Offer Neighbors Cheap Broadband 63

Posted by timothy from the port-in-a-storm dept.
An anonymous reader writes The Square Kilometer Array is a giant telescope currently being built in the middle of the Karoo in South Africa, which when complete will be 50 times more sensitive than any existing Earth-based telescope. The problem is that it's so sensitive, the thousands of antennas need to be protected from terrestrial radio interference. Given that cell masts and technologies like TB white spaces are the only way people living in the remote areas near SKA are going to be able to get affordable net access, this is a bit of a problem. In order that its neighbors aren't completely cut-off, SKA is offering them subsidized satellite broadband instead. Which is nice.

Submission + - Finland Dumps Handwriting In Favor Of Typing (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: It seems incredible that in the 21st century schools are still teaching children to scratch marks on paper. Well in Finland they are taking a step in the direction of the future by giving up teaching handwriting.
The Savon Sanomat newspaper reports that from autumn 2016 cursive handwriting will no longer be a compulsory part of the school curriculum. Instead the schools will teach keyboard skills and "texting". The idea of teaching proper keyboard skills to children is unquestionably a great idea, the idea of texting is a little more dubious and many will mourn the loss of a traditional skill like cursive writing.
So what about a world where cursive writing is forgotten?
What do you do when your computer is dead and you need to leave a note? The death of cursive script probably isn't the death of handwriting but the death of doing it quickly and with style. Some no doubt will want to master it just for the sake of it — like driving a stick shift.
Bug

Bad Lockup Bug Plagues Linux 257

Posted by timothy from the therefore-it-plagues-you dept.
jones_supa (887896) writes "A hard to track system lockup bug seems to have appeared in the span of couple of most recent Linux kernel releases. Dave Jones of Red Hat was the one to first report his experience of frequent lockups with 3.18. Later he found out that the issue is present in 3.17 too. The problem was first suspected to be related to Xen. A patch dating back to 2005 was pushed for Xen to fix a vmalloc_fault() path that was similar to what was reported by Dave. The patch had a comment that read "the line below does not always work. Needs investigating!" But it looks like this issue was never properly investigated. Due to the nature of the bug and its difficulty in tracking down, testers might be finding multiple but similar bugs within the kernel. Linus even suggested taking a look in the watchdog code. He also concluded the Xen bug to be a different issue. The bug hunt continues in the Linux Kernel Mailing List."

Submission + - Music publishers sue an ISP over piracy (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by wabrandsma
wabrandsma writes: From Ars Technica:
BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music have sued Cox Communications for copyright infringement, arguing that the Internet service provider doesn't do enough to punish those who download music illegally.
Both BMG and Round Hill are clients of Rightscorp, a copyright enforcement agent whose business is based on threatening ISPs with a high-stakes lawsuit if they don't forward settlement notices to users that Rightscorp believes are "repeat infringers" of copyright.
In their complaint (PDF), the music publishers also decided to publicly post IP addresses.

Comment Re:Religion is the last straw (Score 4, Interesting) 289

by Opportunist (#48485135) Attached to: Gilbert, AZ Censors Biology Books the Old-Fashioned Way

The international perception of the US changed a lot in the past decade or two. When I was young, in the 80s, the US was the place to be. It was the dream land. Freedom, peace and the promise that hard work will make you a rich man.

Today the US are regarded not unlike the USSR was while it still existed, with suspicion and caution. Don't get them pissed off, you know what they can do, and what they have done... Plus, and that hurts me personally quite a bit since I do know a lot of people in the US and found a few very good friends there, the whole religious bit paints the people as somewhat dim witted, naive, if not gullible or even outright dumb. The general sentiment is that in the USSR, the people at least knew their government was bullshitting them, but in the US, they succeeded. The people actually believe that they're living in paradise while in reality they are trapped in a hellhole.

But nobody really would say that openly. Sure, we joke about the US behind its back and make fun of it (mostly the government, less so the people), but nobody would dare say it to their face. In general, the US are regarded as the international politics version of the dim witted schoolyard bully. Nobody would dare speak up against him since we all know he can beat us up good, and if we suck up to him we might even get some spoils when he rips off someone's lunch money, but when he ain't around we're much more happy and we make jokes about how dumb he really is.

It's sad, actually. Mostly because I do know a lot of very good, very intelligent people in the US. What's sadder is that most of them are desperately trying to find employment in Europe with the goal to leave the whole religious cesspool behind them...

Submission + - SKA space telescope to offer neighbours cheap broadband (htxt.co.za)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Square Kilometer Array is a giant space telescope currently being built in the middle of the Karoo in South Africa, which when complete will be 50 times more sensitive than any existing Earth-based telescope. The problem is that it's so sensitive, the thousands of antennas need to be protected from terrestrial radio interference. Given that cell masts and technologies like TB white spaces are the only way people living in the remote areas near SKA are going to be able to get affordable net access, this is a bit of a problem.
In order that its neighbours aren't completely cut-off, SKA is offering them subsidised satellite broadband instead. Which is nice.

Submission + - Bad Lockup Bug Plagues Linux

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A hard to track system lockup bug seems to have appeared in the span of couple of most recent Linux kernel releases. Dave Jones of Red Hat was the one to first report his experience of frequent lockups with 3.18. Later he found out that the issue is present in 3.17 too. The problem was first suspected to be related to Xen. A patch dating back to 2005 was pushed for Xen to fix a vmalloc_fault() path that was similar to what was reported by Dave. The patch had a comment that read "the line below does not always work. Needs investigating!" But it looks like this issue was never properly investigated. Due to the nature of the bug and its difficulty in tracking down, testers might be finding multiple but similar bugs within the kernel. Linus even suggested taking a look in the watchdog code. He also concluded the Xen bug to be a different issue. The bug hunt continues in the Linux Kernel Mailing List.
Transportation

Taxi Medallion Prices Plummet Under Pressure From Uber 329

Posted by timothy from the battling-baptists-and-bootleggers dept.
HughPickens.com writes Most major American cities have long used a system to limit the number of operating taxicabs, typically a medallion system: Drivers must own or rent a medallion to operate a taxi, and the city issues a fixed number of them. Now Josh Barro reports at the NYT that in major cities throughout the United States, taxi medallion prices are tumbling as taxis face competition from car-service apps like Uber and Lyft. The average price of an individual New York City taxi medallion fell to $872,000 in October, down 17 percent from a peak reached in the spring of 2013, according to an analysis of sales data. "I'm already at peace with the idea that I'm going to go bankrupt," said Larry Ionescu, who owns 98 Chicago taxi medallions. As recently as April, Boston taxi medallions were selling for $700,000. The last sale, in October, was for $561,000. "Right now Uber has a strong presence here in Boston, and that's having a dramatic impact on the taxi industry and the medallion values," says Donna Blythe-Shaw, a spokeswoman for the Boston Taxi Drivers' Association. "We hear that there's a couple of medallion owners that have offered to sell at 425 and nobody's touched them."

The current structure of the American taxi industry began in New York City when "taxi medallions" were introduced in the 1930s. Taxis were extremely popular in the city, and the government realized they needed to make sure drivers weren't psychopaths luring victims into their cars. So, New York City required cabbies to apply for a taxi medallion license. Given the technology available in the 1930s, It was a reasonable solution to the taxi safety problem, and other cities soon followed suit. But their scarcity has made taxi medallions the best investment in America for years. Where they exist, taxi medallions have outperformed even the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. In Chicago, their value has doubled since 2009. The medallion stakeholders are many and deep pockets run this market. The system in Chicago and elsewhere is dominated by large investors who rely on brokers to sell medallions, specialty banks to finance them and middle men to manage and lease them to drivers who own nothing at all. Together, they're fighting to protect an asset that was worth about $2.4 billion in Chicago last year. "The medallion owners seem to be of the opinion that they are entitled to indefinite appreciation of their asset," says Corey Owens, Uber's head of global public policy.. "The taxi medallion in the U.S. was the best investment you could have made in the last 30 years. Will it go up forever? No. And if they expected that it would, that was their mistake."

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