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Comment I dare him not to use the internet for a month ! (Score 4, Insightful) 307

How can you not use the internet let's see to not use the internet would require:

1. Drawing money for a month before the experiment start as most banks use internet technology to contact their branches. (Yes might be secured but still TCP/IP)

2. You cannot buy from certain stores because they use internet technology to update store details and order new stock.

3. You cannot even send a letter or receive a letter because I can promise you the systems that sort your mail are connected to the internet in some way. (Uses network technology)

4. In some buildings you will not be able to use elevators so walk up the stairs as they monitor the lifts via internet connections.

5. You cannot watch TV because the TV stations use internet connections to build their news and even news papers become problematic.

6. You cannot use a phone because even landline phones these day at some stage pass through internet connected devices.

7. Oops cannot use electricity from electricity grid, even the solar panel controler is that you use at your home might be connected to the internet.

So yes it is absolutely possible to not use the internet. But you will have to live somewhere in a forest somewhere.

Comment State is responsible for OpenSource Software in ve (Score 1) 114

The principle is that the state are responsible for ensuring the safety of the vehicle So if a vehicle have been certified safe by the authorities they take responsibility for the safety. On the other hand if there is no regulations regarding software used in cars or that software is proprietary then the manufaturer needs to take responsibility.

In the case of OpenSource there is definitely a possibility that the owner might be responsible. But American law is funny so it could go both ways.

Comment Wrong Period. (Score 1) 280

It's wrong period. Whether you like it or not. Absolute control corrupts absolutely. For some reason, Americans believe that there are only one government form and one economic model that they wish to enforce on everyone. By controlling the DNS system, they will control all countries in the world. If there is something they do not as they can only disable the domain and that ideology is suppressed.

I'm hoping the DNS system administrators think very carefully. We have gone through something similar in South Africa where the government wanted to take control of the DNS system. So the first reaction was to move it out the country and after that, the negotiations started to keep the system independent.

Comment Speed reading is just a tool (Score 1) 207

I don't understand why people think it is a either or situation. Depending on exactly what you consider to be speed reading of course ?

1. Being able to speed read allows you to take in a lot of knowledge at a rapid pace but just like regular reading you need to go back and read the book again if you want to retain more knowledge.

2. Speed reading does not mean that you lose the ability to read slowly and carefully.

3. Even when doing regular reading the amount of knowledge retained are not that great.

4. Speed reading when used correctly and effectively allows you to decide how much knowledge you wish to retain per reading and overall decrease the time you site passive while reading.

Comment Yes make it illegal to encrypt emails if ... (Score 1) 562

I've been thinking about this and I think that privacy is a right not a privileged.

So it is very easy if the government feels they have the right to listen to my conversations without my consent I feel it is fair that any person that sits in public office should make their communication available for public scrutiny. Don't you think it is just fair that the president that is working for us must make his communication open and available. He has nothing to hide does he.

And if he feels that he has legitimate reasons to hide some of his communications from the public don't you think we have legitimate reasons to hide our communication from the government.

Just wondering ....

Comment Justice is not about revenge. (Score 1) 914

There is a fine line between justice and revenge. But my oppinion is that jail time should only be for purpetrators that cannot function in society else it is just revenge.

We want drug dealers in jail not for revenge but because they are dangerous and could keep on selling drugs and killing people. We want murderers of the street for the sam reason. But sending a person that steals because they are hungry is nothing more than revenge and should simply not happen.

Honnestly we live in an enlightened society is there no better way to rehabilitate criminals. We know that once you go to jail you will just end up there again.

Comment Re:"Saved" them money? (Score 2) 47

No!

First lets put this into perspective. The ANC led goverment have closed down about 2000 schools since 1994. That is saying something. Schools are mostly self funded. There is some money from the goverment but a significant number of students are paid from the schools own funds (School funds) paid by parents. So in areas where parents can afford it the education is simply much better than in areas where the parents cannot afford it. Please understand this, education is very important for South African parents. But teachers (not all teachers) are simply not producing the goods.

Regarding the actual text book situation. Our goverment took it appon themselves to change the syllabus year on year. cut funding to schools. So instead of students only paying for text books that get damaged students have to every year buy new text books and old books cannot be sold to the next year as the syllabus have changed. Their is no method for redistributing text books. and honestly text books are more expensive than what they should be.

So yes the tablet/laptop thing makes sense in saving parent money.

This things upsets me very much there is only one way to reduce poverty and generally lift the living standard of people and that is through education. There is nothing else that works. So why is the SA government not doubling the school subsidies why have they not setup a committee of the best teachers and written the necessary textbooks with the Goverment making textbooks copyright public domain and subcontracting the cheapest manufacturers. There is many ways that this can be solved but lets be honest fixing education is not a priority of the ANC.

Comment Clear statistics (Score 1) 947

20000 deaths per year involve a motor vehicle
10000 involve a pedestrian
600 involve a cyclist
0 involve a self driving car

Clearly the government should mandade that we all get self driving cars immediately ! The statistics clearly support this.

Comment TAX and secrets (Score 2) 395

Wait let met get this straigt. You want to take half of my salary (yes all the taxes you pay together). An not tell me what you do with it.

In a democratic society you work for me! You better tell me what you do with my money !

The only reason to keep something secret is because you are doing something illegal either from international law or local law.

Why do you want to monitor everything I do ? I'm not a child I'm supposed to be free !!!

With democracy come responsibility, to hide things from me is wrong. Yes we understand that we want to hide some information from criminals but I'm not a criminal !

Why do you change incent until proven guilty into guilty purely by being part of society. Keeping things things secret is the easy way out. Like when you are a child and you hide things from your parents because you are guilty.

If you want to hide stuff do not come and moan at me when you get caugh out. Take responsibility and CHANGE YOUR BEHAVIOUR

Comment This is pretty common (Score 1) 297

This is pretty common. A person can get more prison time for copying videos than for raping or killing a person.

We have similar problem in South Africa where the police is not willing or able to solve even basic crime but if you do something about it you will go to jail. This type of thing creates anomosity towards the law and law enforcement causing lawlessness and the breakdown of society.

The crime should fit the punishment is a basic premis of law but it does not seem to be in this case. Especially where computer crime is involved.

10 years for hacking ?

Mmmmm....

Comment The Same reasons users are not using to Linux (Score 1) 1215

i've been using Linux for about 15 years now. So I basically have the same knowledge and confort with Linux that most people have with Windows.

There is a lot of social presure to use windows in my day to day life. The situation is getting better every day. But here is my reasons I have not moved to windows yet.

1. There is up till now no Windows OS that can support my workflow. I have not tried Windows 8 yet. But starting your PC's up and starting all the apps that you use on a daily basis and running those apps for several weeks at a time just simply do not work on Windows. As I said windows is getting so my standard workflow boggs down Windows 7 in about 50 minutes vs the 10 for Windows 2000.
2. I have and am still using Linux to solve Windows short commings.
3. I have problem paying R1000 ($100) for Windows. At some stage I used windows to play games once a week on Sundays. (Got the license with my laptop). But have since simply removed it.
4. When using windows the GUI actually confuses me. I'm used to the way that Unity works. Most of the work I do on windows is configuration for end users. This is confusing and hard to follow.
5. I personally believe the only reason people are still using windows is because of social presure and legacy knowledge. I have problem with people trying to force me to us something.
6. I have spend month trying to solve problems on windows that eventually required a upgrade from one windows version to another. The same problem in linux was solved with a quick Google.
7. Linux desktop at it's worst is still faster and more responsive than windows. I've had clients with the same hardware asking me with surprise how did I get my computer to work so fast while I was cursing my laptop for being unresponsive and slow.
8. Linux is like the human brain even if you have been using it for 15 years you are probably still using 10% of it capabilities. Window is more like a dogs brain you need to use special training techniques to get it to do simple tricks.
9. It is simply faster to solve problems on Linux than on Windows (this is causing a slight problem for me at the moment as I gain experience the hours I can bill to clients decrease while the same clients windows support is increasing).

Oooo I can go on but why bother. Yes a lot of it is subjective but a lot of this is objective. Understand that I mostly work in the server and mission critical space and as such use Linux on servers. This makes me very bias toward O/S's that is stable, fast, reliable and feature rich.

Comment How to increase interest in a club .... (Score 3, Insightful) 265

I currently run a club with about 230 members about 100 active on a weekly basis. Here is the principles I use to run the club.

Basic principles:
1. Challenging
We try and target classes and projects just slightly above the students current level.

2. Fun
Let's face it if it's not fun people don't come.

3. Sense of achievement
People do not want to feel like they wasted their time. We give certificates for specific achievements.

4. Do what you promise
This is a way to make sure your club does not die. If you say you have meeting you have to have a meeting regardless if 1 person pitches or 100.

This is the only way I know how to do it. And it seems to be working.

Comment Going back to the dark ages (Score 1) 86

Don't you guys get the feeling that we are moving backwards.

Instead of embracing new technology we try and kill it.

What really sadens me is that copying is such a fundamendal part of our human existence without it none of us would be able to survive. We cannot even learn language without copying. Now we want to artificialy control it.

Interesting but sad.

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