Comment Brilliant (Score 1) 294
Software patents seems like a brilliant scheme by lawyers to produce infinite work out of nothing.
Professors Banning Laptops In the Lecture Hall 664
Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that professors have banned laptops from their classrooms at George Washington University, American University, the College of William and Mary, and the University of Virginia, among many others, compelling students to take notes the way their parents did: on paper. A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen, but during the past decade it has evolved into a powerful distraction as wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming. Even when used as glorified typewriters, laptops can turn students into witless stenographers, typing a lecture verbatim without listening or understanding. 'The breaking point for me was when I asked a student to comment on an issue, and he said, "Wait a minute, I want to open my computer,"' says David Goldfrank, a Georgetown history professor. 'And I told him, "I don't want to know what's in your computer. I want to know what's in your head."' Some students don't agree with the ban. A student wrote in the University of Denver's newspaper: 'The fact that some students misuse technology is no reason to ban it. After all, how many professors ban pens and notebooks after noticing students doodling in the margins?'"
Comment Re:Totally misleading (Score 1) 256
Sharing photos means uploading them, no? I'd assume the 7Mbit connections are asynchronous, so it's not a stretch to recommend a ~500kbit upload connection if you intend to send your ageing mother a bunch of straight-off-the-camera photo files at 3MB each.
I don't think it's false advertising. As the GP says, it's all "good for" and "ideal for", which is true.
Not entirely sure what these super turbo maximum deluxe packages do, but I believe the idea behind snatching auction deals is to have extremely low latency and fast download to be able to reload a closing auction as quickly as possible in order to get in the winning bid.
Comment Re:Fish semen (Score 1) 1397
Himo=?????
Himo means pimp in Japanese. Does that help?
Comment Re:NEWSFLASH! MP3's suck. Use a lossless CODEC. (Score 1) 377
If you're curious about testing if you can hear the difference, it shouldn't be impossible to convert the encoded mp3 into a pure WAV file and burn it on a CD along with the original WAV before encoding, then playing them both on your CD player. The cut-off bits aren't likely to magically reappear just because it's back to WAV.It could be that the mp3s encoded in the latest version of LAME could have closed the gap but it is also likely that the difference is exacerbated by the fact that I am playing the mp3s via the laptop's headphone jack hooked up to the stereo amp.
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