Looks like Bezos is diversifying his interests away from computers. So how long does he think Amazon will last"

OK

It isn't about unions.

It's about banks charging fees to their customers - who happen to be mass enrolled daily wage employees - with the connivance or at least knowledge of their employers.

Banks should introduce a zero balance, no frills (and no charges) category for these accounts.

It isn't about unions. Should it be about class action?

OK

As they developed and distributed the world's cheapest tablet to students. .. As they built the best power infrastructure. ..

I mean, as an Indian I am really worried that off the cuff pronouncements with no real basis in facts and figures, or budget will soon become policy.

AFAIK, this gentleman (Mr. Avinash Chandar) is the new appointed chief of the DRDO. (Defense Research and Development Organisation) and this piece is from an interview hye gave when he took over.

This is not say that the DRDO hasn't done any good work. More and more their defense discoveries find applications in the public space.

OK

(1) Considering that for most students this is an important selection test, for which many students prepare single mindedly for at least an year,I wasn't surprised when the marks fall into a bi-modal pattern. I mean where people are programmed to study the same subjects in these mass teaching shops, you would expect this type of pattern.

This bears out the experience I had with a school in South India about 14 years back (when my son was a 12th grader and I helped his school analyses the results). Most marks were in the 90% bracket and a few in the 50% bracket (just pass). The 90% people are mostly well settled engineers, bankers, chartered accountants etc.

(2) Secondly, ICSE ties up with most major newspapers and news sites to publish/link to a published copy of the web pages. CISCSE doesn't give direct access to their database and Mr. Debarghya Das (the hacker) has apparently looked at one such web site. This was in the electronic news in India yesterday.So while CICSE may claim that nothing really was hacked, they have been casual and careless in allowing easy access to everyone's marks.

PS: I am from India.

OK

Since oracle v 7 (or 8), Oracle has released their data base products first on NT and then on Unixes (Solaris, HP-UX etc). Oracle's plaint will mostly help microsoft by attempting to finish off java. If they finish off Java as an open source product we can only hope that oracle corporation doesn't get a cease and desist injunction for all past version of the API that are floating about. OK

For a minute there I thought that there was a new technological invention called NonFreeJavascript. OK

Seems like a highly unstable device that will shoot only when it's aligned correctly. I wonder how well the borderline cases like not found after so many seconds have been tested. I mean, if a novice cant get it to shoot, he will usually reverse the rifle and try to look down the barrel. OK

Dont accept the fads - like social networking - if they aren't your style but surely you can accept the improved interfaces, standardisation of packages, large app base etc. OK

In India, it was on 10 th May at around noon. To me personally, it was very useful as a simple way that did nor infringe my company's computer usage policy and also easy on the pocket to keep abreast of cricket scores, train ticket (PNR) status, stocks etc. I got it that morning for some query and my post noon query gave "SMS search has been shutdown. You can continue to search the web at google.com on any device". OK

Wonder what was the exactbscam (or scams) to get past the teacher's guard.

It's been there for a long time in other countries and now with the recession America too is catching up. (I m from India).

It shows the dumbing down of educational standards. America is on the verge of replacing quality with quantity - as we in India have due to the clamour for a BA (Pass) or even a BA (Fail) . It used to be said of America that you did not need a college degree to get ahead but that isn't apparently true anymore.

Looking at it from the point of view of employers, a college degree is probably a way to filter out those who don't know their 3 R s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_three_Rs and thus will need further "on the job" training before being able to work in an office environment.

OK

It's not stupidity but a business move. If you read the original COMPUTERWORLD article, you will see that the PSF which he claims is a big US corporation, has just a one man office.

Yes, and despite all the safeguards while using the web, it is easier to authenticate a student's submission if it is handwritten. More true in CS. The only computer that should be allowed are entire code listings - with proper annotation by hand. OK

Further, dBase III followed by FoxPro for DOS. Novell netware (2.2 the peer2peer ie. no dedicated server - and 3.1). Don't know why 3.2 never caught on. OK