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Uhhh, that would be no-one

Which did you mean by "that"? If you meant that no one buys All Things Must Pass, then why does Amazon continue to list it?

donation to a private tracker isn't paying for downloads

The private trackers to which I refer grant early access to other torrents to people who donate.

(as not everything on the trackers is pirated)

I've seen plenty of private trackers whose published rules state: If it's not on NFOrce or grokMusiQ then forget it! What on such trackers that specialize in "genuine scene releases" isn't pirated?

and using some of your bandwidth isn't "paying".

The private trackers to which I refer grant early access to other torrents to people who seed more. So they "pay" in share ratio to be able to access these torrents, and United States copyright law appears to define "financial gain" to include such a method of payment.

So stop being pedantic.

I'll stop once the mainstream entertainment industry's lawyers stop.

I just looked up the price on Amazon. According to them, the only Kinect hardware I see is Kinect Sensor with Kinect Adventures for $197. Pardon my ignorance if that's more than retail. I really don't know.

Once you actually learn (SO out of vogue, I know) about things there

Speaking of which, I recently read http://www.amazon.com/Poorly-Made-China-Insiders-Production/dp/0470405589, mainly an insightful look at the Chinese business environment, but which also touched upon aspects of the Chinese cultural mindset in general

So what's this "or dangerous" bit? Ammunition? Websites promoting cults? Websites attacking cults? Websites selling material that promotes anything that senators don't like, like free thought, opposing political positions, naked bodies that they can't grope for themselves?

This ain't about piracy, people.

I just don't get the "Twitter is for idiot jokes". Part of my brain must be missing.

That's okay; here's help: Twitter For Dummies.

I have a Wilson unit that has a magnetic antenna that fits on the roof and a very small antenna that goes inside the car. There's no need to put the phone in a special spot, the unit basically ensures that any cell phone located inside the car gets signal as long as there's enough signal reaching the outside antenna.

Mine is very old, but is basically an earlier model of this:

http://www.amazon.com/Wilson-Electronics-801232-Mini-Mobile-Booster/dp/B001DTZ2AA/ref=sr_1_12?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1290106181&sr=1-12

For home, I have aluminum siding and a metal roof, so I had to install a ZyXel Z-Boost unit.

http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Extenders-zBoost-YX545-Booster/dp/B003VOW5WI/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1290106292&sr=1-2-fkmr0

It's an expensive little bugger and installing it is no treat, but It ensures that the inside of my house is well-covered with signal, and allowed me to drop my last non-cell telephone line. It paid for itself pretty quickly.

I have a Wilson unit that has a magnetic antenna that fits on the roof and a very small antenna that goes inside the car. There's no need to put the phone in a special spot, the unit basically ensures that any cell phone located inside the car gets signal as long as there's enough signal reaching the outside antenna.

Mine is very old, but is basically an earlier model of this:

http://www.amazon.com/Wilson-Electronics-801232-Mini-Mobile-Booster/dp/B001DTZ2AA/ref=sr_1_12?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1290106181&sr=1-12

For home, I have aluminum siding and a metal roof, so I had to install a ZyXel Z-Boost unit.

http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Extenders-zBoost-YX545-Booster/dp/B003VOW5WI/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1290106292&sr=1-2-fkmr0

It's an expensive little bugger and installing it is no treat, but It ensures that the inside of my house is well-covered with signal, and allowed me to drop my last non-cell telephone line. It paid for itself pretty quickly.

Ah, but they want the customer to pay *them* (the carriers) for the privilege of solving the carriers problem, not some upstart little company who has started selling boosters on Amazon.

You're not kidding. I recently installed a Wilson booster that I got from Amazon, and it's like a whole new world for me.

Usually I had about 5 minutes of signal coverage leaving work, which is only useful for short conversations. On my long Interstate drives I'd lose signal about every 15 minutes, which made drive-time talk unpredictable. And this is on Verizon - no other carriers have close to their signal here.

With the booster, I can have a meaningful conversation on my whole ride home. There are no dead zones on my Interstate drives, so I can whittle down my GTD calls list on the road.

One thing to be aware of is that these things require an earpiece. 2010 is a good year for them - I got a Motorola Bluetooth setup from NewEgg for about $40 and it's actually great. I have a small collection of them from previous years which all suck big time. The only downside is the Motorola unit comes in a monstrous piece of cast aluminum packaging. I guess it's to thwart retail-store theft, but via NewEgg it's environmentally reprehensible.

Anyway, the Wilson booster paid for itself the first week I had it. I have a second one at my office to install in the wife's car this weekend.

Now, if I could only get PagePlus to port our numbers I'd be really happy.

You know you all thunk it.

# No pornography. Movies like Risky Business are OK. Movies like Deep Throat are definitely not OK. You know what we mean.

Not like getting porn out there is difficult, but at least they're trying to cut down on those submissions.

Wonder what happens if you get a tasteful pornographic movie though.

Stanislaw Lem has been describing something like that - bacterias communicating in Morse code.

According to the rules page of the Amazon writing contest, scripts are supposed to be uploaded in RTF format. This is a massive fail in my book, since scripts (unlike novels and stories) require strict formatting, something which RTF (as a least common denominator file format) isn't capable of. This is a job for a fixed layout format like PDF (or maybe TeX). From the rules:

What file format should I use?

Be sure to save your script in .rtf file format. Saving your script in .rtf format allows it to be opened and edited in all word processing applications. . To save your script correctly, choose the "Save as" option in the File menu and select "Rich Text Format (*.rtf)". Saving into Rich Text Format from a scriptwriting program such as Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter can sometimes create issues with formatting and length, so be sure to go over your script once you've converted it and before you upload it to Amazon Studios.

In that vein, I think a good role model is someone who popularizes science. If I were to quote you some scientists who Hirsch-indices were really high, the problem is that most of their stuff is unintelligible to most adults, much less a kid. So I'd pick ones that have written books that popularize science. Along with Tyson, I'd think about guys like:

Steve Jay Gould (paleontologist, unfortunately dead)
Robert Hazen (mineralogist, works on origin of life, not really young though)
David Goodstein (chemist, writes on oil resource depletion.)
Perhaps someone who reports on science, like the scientists at work blog at the NYT or one of the blogs on national geographic. That way the kid could keep up with current events (maybe you could find a blog of someone working someplace inhospitable, like McMurdo station in the Antarctic.

The evidence does not support this theory. Read Government by Judiciary by (liberal) Raoul Berger. In it you'll learn that the purpose of the Equal Protection Clause is to give freedmen the right to enter contracts, to own property, and to sue. The Supreme Court may have twisted the meaning to suit their own purposes, but the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of Berger.

Try Motofone F3. $20 unlocked, no contract, light, battery will last at least a week with regular use, large "e-ink" screen, addressbook, call log, alarm, just ignore the minimal text messaging feature if you want.

Besides, even with the bare bones cell phone, you would still hopefully make some use of missed call notifications, call log, and voicemail notification.

Other helpful items for children include the Playmobil Security Checkpoint

http://www.amazon.com/Playmobil-3172-Security-Check-Point/dp/B0002CYTL2/

Here you Go friend. I've had to pick up a couple of these for customers who bought laptops without realizing they don't come with modems anymore. I don't use Linux so I don't know if it will work there (probably not, funky USB stuff I never had luck with) but on XP and Win7 it works just fine and will easily give you the same speed (ha ha) as you'd get on a built in.

He would then forge the legendary sky-metal sword, which can reassemble itself from it's own fragments.

http://www.amazon.com/Carnivores-Light-Darkness-Journeys-Catechist/dp/0446606979

talk about democracy. we were just discussing how capitalism easily corrupts and dominates a democratic storefront

Part of Capitalism is free markets. Well free markets do not exist. The closest we've come to it was in America in the 1820s and '30s and it is what inspired Alexis de Tocqueville to write "Democracy in America". Of course there was the black mark on free markets called slavery.

Falcon

Lots of albums here, digital and offered online. http://www.amazon.com/The-Beatles/e/B000APTK6K/works/ref=ntt_mus_teaser

If the relation to China goes sour, it won't be like the Cold War. Then it was US industry versus Soviet industry. It'll be Chinese industry versus no industry. IP agreements depend on enforced contracts, the day China says here are the letters F and U they'll still have all the means to produce, while the US will have nothing.

I doubt China will try matching the US or Russia on nukes, they have some but that's not so essential. But what if they develop a proper rocket shield? Suddenly you're back to way more conventional warfare, with a billion soldiers and heavy industry now making ammunition and tanks.

So this.

Even if it comes to conventional war, and even given the USA's military supremacy, it'll still be dicey.

If you have a trade war with the only place in the world that makes your pants, even if you bring out the nukes, you now have a choice between no pants or radioactive pants.

Either scenario is not optimal.

There really isn't a premium. I went to Home Depot recently, bought several hand tools, a lock, about 12 9v batteries, some 2 part epoxy, etc. Spent about $80. Out of this list, the only thing made in China was the lock. Everything else was made in the US. The lock (a Master Lock) was one of the more expensive items, and I had no choice. As far as price goes, the US made versions of most of the products I bough were about the same as the Chinese made ones. For about the price of a large order of Dominoes, you can get a cast iron pizza pan, also made in the US. Until you have made pizza on one of these bad boys, you haven't lived. And try finding a Chinese made version that is much cheaper.

Actually, for the big guys it's not a big deal, they can spend a relatively small amount of $ and service a large percentage of the affected audience, it's the small and medium sized guys who are hardest hit because they have probably 50-90% of the cost with a fraction of the audience. For example amazone has a sub-site for the visually impaired already and added text to speech fairly easily for the Kindle.

Information is the new capital! It should be bought and sold on markets, it should have rates associated with it and Perato Law should be applied!

All hail the new information emporer -- he that knowth what is right and wrong by virtue of his vast information resources! We should herald our new turtlenecked emporer and congratulate him on his victory with abjection, not this slime written by a clearly Oriental socialist!

Today is your lucky day, it's available for free at http://clang.llvm.org/ and http://valgrind.org/.
Make sure you read the instructions before you start, though. You can find them at http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0131103628.
Enjoy!

> Why should I? We both know I am right. It's C-pound, or C-numbersign, or C-octothorpe. In no case is it C-sharp.

You're only right that a sharp sign is not the same as a pound sign. You are wrong that the language is named "C-pound."

Look at this official software package, the title clearly shows a sharp sign, not a pound sign:

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Visual-NET-Standard-2003/dp/B00008I9K3/

Just because it's expedient to use the '#' in place of a sharp sign doesn't change the name of the language. Now if we concede this utterly insignificant point will you shut the fuck up?

You're brother-in-law must be an idiot. There is no HDCP requirement for playing games otherwise one would be unable to use the composite or component cables that Sony themselves sell for the PS3.

You're brother-in-law must be an idiot. There is no HDCP requirement for playing games otherwise one would be unable to use the composite or component cables that Sony themselves sell for the PS3.

You mean like this? Kinectimals

Are you sure he didn't publish it? I recall there was a very small book titled something like "The Simple Solution to the Rubik's Cube". The first couple of pages covered the notation, and the rest described a layered solution - top, middle, bottom corners, then bottom edges.

Well, let's try google...holy crap! I'm not surprised that I found it, but rather that they're collectible, and one in new condition is being offered for nearly $1000. Unreal.

- T

or

http://www.amazon.com/Maxi-Aids-Footime-Foot-Mouse/dp/B001CH956U

it's amazing.. get the the patent and already have things for sale.

wait.. isn't that prior art?? (i know they filed in 2006 but I've seen these for a lot longer than that).

Is bacon close enough for you?

Breaking news: MinLove reminds us that Al Qaeda still loves us, has always loved us, and many of our best friends, and wants to love us even even more in future! Al Qaeda can only love us. We should meditate on why they do not love us as often as other people. Make your holiday plans now, destinations are filling up!!

Yes, and you can get WP8 at an incredible price now too!

http://www.amazon.com/Corel-WordPerfect-Suite-8-pc/dp/B0006PJAZU

I disagree, I don't believe 40,000 is a "okay" day. I don't know anything about the number of these phones that are out there, but I what I could find briefly is for distributors so far are AT&T, the same company that is providing service for the iphone, amazon, the world's largest on-line distributor, AND Best Buy a huge brick-and-mortar chain of stores. Between them, they sold 40,000 units whereas the iphone sold 270,000 for the same period, almost SEVEN times as many and just from Apple and AT&T stores/on-line.

You can argue that sales will pick up after Verizon starts carrying it next year and once natural turnover will force people to buy new phones, but I'd put it as 50-50 that this is the highest rate of sales that they'll ever see with this OS and that from here on out it's downhill. While I don't think this will be another Kin that will get pulled from the shelves in a few months, they haven't made nearly the impression they need to in order to get any sort of widespread awareness of the public that this is a useful thing to buy.

For the record, I don't own an iphone, nor do I text, nor to I patronize the apple store with any regular frequency.

None of that could possibly be any different than if Aunt Mildred just sent you a gift card for Amazon. Nor would it be different than if Aunt Mildred sent you the items, and then you returned them to Amazon for store credit.

Also, for reference alcohol isn't sold on amazon. Also, I can't find anything about it now, but I remember hearing that when sending knives to Germany, Amazon has to to inform the deliverer because they will only deliver to someone over 18. So yes, Amazon is aware of the laws and what is legal in your area.

I read about this decades ago.
Amazon review of a book.
It made no sense then, it'll make no sense today.

Oh really?

It's not exactly a bubble, it's more like a void. Peter Hamilton was prescient.

Still, I guess that Wikipedia must know best. It's not like it can just be edited by anyone...

What is it about lazy people who can't believe that they're wrong.

Can't dispute the fact, well lets just attack wikipedia because you've got a stick firmly up your ass.

Follow the fucking citation.

Hyde, Grant Milnor. Handbook for Newspaper Workers. D. Appleton and company, 1921, p. 38
http://www.amazon.com/Newspaper-Punctuation-Journalistic-Structure-Typographical/dp/1150066504

I love compression in communication, so thank you, sir. One of my favorites is "short term ... [snapping fingers]"; and, I understand that this has a limited audience, of those people who are actively curing their tumors. Similarly, a mechanic who I went to once gets the following recommendation: "I wouldn't go back." That's all I need to say.

Should you have ever have a Big-Mac attack, Eat this, not that has a burger for you. Instead of one of those crappy fake veggie-patties, they use a big-assed portobello mushroom for the burger. Looks mighty yummy, and I eat meat. BTW, if you are out with other people at a restaurant, most vegetarian entries are absolute nutritional nightmares, not that the meat entries are much better. I have also never advocated Linux to anyone. Several people have come to me in which I help them and explain how it works.

Ellison? I don't know him and never met him. But it has been published that he's a womanizer, likes his jet fighters, race cars, yachts, etc... which seems to support your premise.

"More useful... Is simply multiple cameras."

And I'm sure you'd have better luck with multiple cameras: Of the 89 reviews, 35 gave it 1 out of 5 stars. That's a very poor score, who would buy something where nearly half the reviews are 1 out of 5 stars?

And the complaints aren't just "I can't set it up". Many of the complaints are Battery only has a 10 minute charge, no customer service, Broke after 2 months, no customer service.

One customer even managed to fix his using internet instructions after WowWee said it was broken forever: " I followed the recovery steps outlined in the link, and ended up with a functioning Rovio. This was after several emails with WowWee where they ended up saying "sorry, there is no way to recover from this problem". Basically "too bad"; no warranty because I had owned it for more than 180 days.

Obviously the biggest problem isn't setup or software, it's poor relibility added with poor customer service.

"More useful... Is simply multiple cameras."

And I'm sure you'd have better luck with multiple cameras: Of the 89 reviews, 35 gave it 1 out of 5 stars. That's a very poor score, who would buy something where nearly half the reviews are 1 out of 5 stars?

And the complaints aren't just "I can't set it up". Many of the complaints are Battery only has a 10 minute charge, no customer service, Broke after 2 months, no customer service.

One customer even managed to fix his using internet instructions after WowWee said it was broken forever: " I followed the recovery steps outlined in the link, and ended up with a functioning Rovio. This was after several emails with WowWee where they ended up saying "sorry, there is no way to recover from this problem". Basically "too bad"; no warranty because I had owned it for more than 180 days.

Obviously the biggest problem isn't setup or software, it's poor relibility added with poor customer service.

"More useful... Is simply multiple cameras."

And I'm sure you'd have better luck with multiple cameras: Of the 89 reviews, 35 gave it 1 out of 5 stars. That's a very poor score, who would buy something where nearly half the reviews are 1 out of 5 stars?

And the complaints aren't just "I can't set it up". Many of the complaints are Battery only has a 10 minute charge, no customer service, Broke after 2 months, no customer service.

One customer even managed to fix his using internet instructions after WowWee said it was broken forever: " I followed the recovery steps outlined in the link, and ended up with a functioning Rovio. This was after several emails with WowWee where they ended up saying "sorry, there is no way to recover from this problem". Basically "too bad"; no warranty because I had owned it for more than 180 days.

Obviously the biggest problem isn't setup or software, it's poor relibility added with poor customer service.

"More useful... Is simply multiple cameras."

And I'm sure you'd have better luck with multiple cameras: Of the 89 reviews, 35 gave it 1 out of 5 stars. That's a very poor score, who would buy something where nearly half the reviews are 1 out of 5 stars?

And the complaints aren't just "I can't set it up". Many of the complaints are Battery only has a 10 minute charge, no customer service, Broke after 2 months, no customer service.

One customer even managed to fix his using internet instructions after WowWee said it was broken forever: " I followed the recovery steps outlined in the link, and ended up with a functioning Rovio. This was after several emails with WowWee where they ended up saying "sorry, there is no way to recover from this problem". Basically "too bad"; no warranty because I had owned it for more than 180 days.

Obviously the biggest problem isn't setup or software, it's poor relibility added with poor customer service.

According to the article, once the toy dog is tricked out it'll set you back a little under $1000. For that kind of money, you can put at least nine of these little suckers (or any one of a number of similar models) into your house:

http://www.amazon.com/Cisco-Linksys-Wireless-N-Internet-Monitoring-Camera/dp/B002OHDFOA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1289334401&sr=8-2

There are also models with higher resolution and/or automatic night vision, which of course comes at a price. But you can still afford two or three really, really good cameras for $1000.

With one robot, the crook's gonna hear it coming a mile away and one swift kick means no surveillance. When you check in a few minutes later, you'll probably just assume the batteries ran out. It's passive surveillance, meaning your chances of catching footage of someone in the act is slim to none.

A solid handful of well-concealed AC-connected cameras means you'll have redundant coverage throughout the house, with no batteries to worry about recharging. Battery backups are pretty easy if you're worried about a power outage (assuming your Internet connection is similarly backed up, but you'd need that for RoverCam too). Cover the windows, hallways, and doors. No one can get in the house at all without at least one camera catching motion.

Best of all, it's an active surveillance system - the cameras can be set to only capture and forward imagery if they see motion, so instead of checking at random on the off chance you were robbed or becoming overwhelmed with hundreds of hours of footage of a still room, the system can notify you and send the important imagery to an email address somewhere so you have a copy securely offsite. You can easily place cameras so they are hard to see and your would-be thief needs to walk through their field of vision to get to them (far corners of rooms are ideal).

Your local cops might be vaguely interested only in that it proves the person on the camera is not you, and they'll be more willing to sign the forms so your insurance company can reimburse you (technically it'll be a loan with interest because your insurance rates will go up).

About the only practical use would be if you feared coming home to a house with the criminal still in it, leading to a physical confrontation. You could scan the house on your smartphone from your car, I suppose. The problem is, if you fail to get a response back from one ROV, you might logically assume that the batteries went dead. Compare that to one of the independent cameras in the active system having already told you hours ago that they detected motion (and you have a secure copy of the imagery).

The criminal might be able to deactivate them, but it'd be almost impossible for them to take out all nine without at least one of them sensing motion and notifying you before it went dark.

If you're totally paranoid about someone being in your house, you could also have a pretty simple machine running BigBrother and notifying you every hour that "all is well" if all your cameras are pingable, or notifying you immediately when a camera goes offline. That way, if the thief goes around disabling cameras and manages to do so without triggering the camera through motion, at least you'll get multiple warnings that "Camera A is out", "Camera B is out", and you'll pretty much know that someone is walking around the house breaking cameras.

But, agreed, an ROV-mounted camera is cool concept. I'd still love to have one, but solely for the geek factor, not for surveillance.

If it's off Catalina Island, then obviously it's The Company. On the other hand, it could just be the usual OGA, The Company.

If the Ex-Ambassador's suggestion, that it might be a demonstration for China related to Obama's tour, were anything other than random blathering, it's a bloody stupid demonstration if there isn't a big press announcement about it from the White House, unless it's various government agencies demonstrating that Obama's not The Decider just because he's Commander in Chief.

I should have waited to post until I found more about the books. Here's an amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Riders-Chuck-Norris/dp/0805440321

Sounds like enjoyable stuff.

I seriously doubt things like Amazon or GAE will beat even small compute clusters available at universities

That was true until recently - Amazon now has "HPC" capabilities. While not extremely impressive (yet?), you can indeed rapidly beat out any small compute cluster at a university now - at a fraction of the cost, too. Now instead of having a cluster that takes weeks to give you results, takes lots of man-hours to build and maintain, and spends only part of it's time being used...you can spin up (in minutes) a cluster that can do the work, then you can release the nodes and you're no longer paying.