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Actually, the cheapest I found for a 50pk was $1.45 ea. with free shipping, which is still sort of pricey, but a not-insignificant 27.5% below $2. I found name brands around $1.80, which is still 10% less than $2.

Also you don't have to buy them on spindles to get them at or below $2/ea:

http://meritline.stores.yahoo.net/single-sample-du al-layer-dvd-dl-r-media.html
recordingstore.com

User Interface design frequently looks to real-world metaphors because people already understand how to interact with common, everyday objects. You use real-world metaphors everyday, even in the interfaces for cutting-edge applications. For example, Firefox has tabs, and so have filing systems and Rolodexes, for years! When you see a tab, you have expectations about what will happen when you click on one, and you understand that when one tab looks different from other tabs, that means it's the active tab.

A classic book on user-interface design is The Design of Everday Things. I recommend that everyone check it out! It's not even targeted at computer application UIs. For example, there is a section of the book that points out the ineffective design of many doors -- especially "artistic" doors that look pretty but make no sense: Imagine a door that has a handle. When you see a handle, you pull. But then you realize that there is a Push sign on the door. Whose fault is this? It's not your fault!! Handles mean "Pull me!" The fact that you have to fall back to searching for a sign is a powerful indication of how completely and spectacularly the interface of the door has failed. And doors have been around for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years!

So, UI issues aren't always easy, and they come into play whenever you design anything that people have to use. And frequently, presenting users with creative representations of things they already understand how to use, results in tremendously powerful and deep interfaces that are easy to use and learn from day one.

With MS-Windows you don't need to know any hacks. There are books about MS-Windows but they aren't about hacks.

BTW, doesn't your browser do spell checking? The one I use, in a standard Ubuntu installation without any hacks, shows your "oridinary" in red, it's easy to find typos that way.

Read a book.

What about the Microsoft hacks? And yes, most of those books talk about "getting updated",installing drivers, web browsing and changing themes. Oh ya, there is even something included in there that isn't in the Ubuntu one: controlling spyware.
I think I've just been trolled.

What about the Microsoft hacks? And yes, most of those books talk about "getting updated",installing drivers, web browsing and changing themes. Oh ya, there is even something included in there that isn't in the Ubuntu one: controlling spyware.
I think I've just been trolled.

What about the Microsoft hacks? And yes, most of those books talk about "getting updated",installing drivers, web browsing and changing themes. Oh ya, there is even something included in there that isn't in the Ubuntu one: controlling spyware.
I think I've just been trolled.

What about the Microsoft hacks? And yes, most of those books talk about "getting updated",installing drivers, web browsing and changing themes. Oh ya, there is even something included in there that isn't in the Ubuntu one: controlling spyware.
I think I've just been trolled.

What about the Microsoft hacks? And yes, most of those books talk about "getting updated",installing drivers, web browsing and changing themes. Oh ya, there is even something included in there that isn't in the Ubuntu one: controlling spyware.
I think I've just been trolled.

Slashdot's linking to B & N, supposedly because they get nice kickbacks, shows a disgusting disregard for us readers, considering that Amazon has it cheaper.

What about straight up, "The Party"?

That would be totally radical.

I understand from Bill Bryson's "Mother Tongue"

Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue has been condemned by many linguists for its abundance of factual errors ("Russians have no word for engagement ring", "Finns have no profanity") and long-debunked urban myths (Eskimo vocabulary hoax). See my own featured review at Amazon, it lists a few, but since there is literally one on every page I could hardly list all. It's a terrible, terrible book and should be avoided. Crystal's two Cambridge encyclopedias are written at a high school level and are certain more worth recommending to laymen than Bryson, who has no qualifications in linguistics whatsoever.

It is made by Targus. They make a lot of notebook accessories.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AKA8Y/104-16 03678-2242319?v=glance&n=172282

Oh... and the boyfriend says to use a FIRM pillow to prevent blocking the chillpad vents in the back (he still uses a pillow sometimes to prop it up. ;)

The Sega Classics Collection did just that for the old-school Sega games. They improved upon great old games by making nicer graphics, better sound, and better control/motion. I would love to see Nintendo do that to their collection!

How can this be insightful? This must be the biggest collection of web design misconceptions I've ever read.

• You're supposed to separate semantics and style, because it makes the pages more flexible, accessible, and terse. Everything on a web page has some semantics (if marked up properly) and a style which completely depends on the capabilities of the client. If you believe these are inseparable, I bet you've never used a textual or audio browser. Input elements are no different from other markup in this respect.
• An HTML page cannot be XML. At least, it cannot be valid HTML and valid XML, except for trivial cases. XHTML is valid XML, but it wasn't created because of CSS. It was created because of stricter syntax rules (leading to easier parsing). CSS works fine with any XML, but millions of pages use it successfully with old-style HTML. And I'd love to know what kind of positioning can only be handled by attributes - I've never seen a case of this.
• Only uninformed zealots will tell you that tables are always bad. Tables have a well-known semantic meaning, but that does not include layout. DIVs also have a well-defined meaning: Division. DIVs separate the markup into parts, which can then be styled (and positioned) at the whim of the developer. But, being completely flexible with regard to visual representation, they can be difficult to handle for novices - Been there, done that. Positioning is IMO the only really difficult part of CSS, mostly because of client bugs. Oh, and DIVs are block elements, even though you can override this.
• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are not the same thing! HTML defines contents, and can be used for web pages, help files, presentations (S5), and books. CSS defines style, and can be used for any HTML or XML markup. JavaScript defines functionality, and is a full-fledged programming language. It's a pipe dream that any number of languages with vastly different capabilities and goals can be merged into a consistent whole without adding oodles of complexity.

To answer your question: CSS is not an "elite thing". It's really quite simple, if you run through a tutorial or two. I recommend W3Schools' tutorial to start with and for reference, Jeffrey Zeldman's Designing with Web Standards to learn practical CSS, and searching Digg, Reddit, and especially del.icio.us to learn lots more.

Juries do not interpret the law

Jury nullification is seen by many legal scholars as a very necessary democratic check on the legal process, and many just outcomes throughout the 200 year-long history of the United States depended precisely on some citizens asserting this right. See Clay S. Conrad's Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine (Carolina Academic Press, 2000) for a history. Your notion that only judges should decide is not in keeping with the actual facts.

It's not a matter of grammar, it's a matter of lexicon. If you can't tell the difference, then for pete's sake pick up something like The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language , ed. David Crystal (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

I'm increasingly beginning to understand the sense in linguists' saying that basic linguistics should accompany maths and sciences in schools.

Would be nice if this could mean gigapixel cameras & the answer to the age old question of ghosts.

Knowing for certain that ghosts exist but not yet having the technology to do away with them (a la Ghostbusters ) would be horrific, don't you think?

now have perfect vision in one eye and better than perfect vision in the other.

I'm not saying that you're wrong,... and I'm not advising folks to tell all their friends that it's a "can't miss" system,... what I will offer is that "a truth" may exist within the perimeter of "announced" certainties,... though closer to one side than others.

        http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/ 0916870480/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-0801059-7642441?_e ncoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort_by=-SubmissionD ate&n=283155

Here are 8 reviews (presumedly by non-scientists) of Aldous Huxley's book reporting his successful treatment with Bates' method. There are extra-ocular muscles. Whether or not they are capable of significantly/sufficiently distorting the globe would depend the particular globe and the tension in the muscles attached to that particular globe.

regards,
gerry

It's not always so easy to explain why one believes what one believes,... especially if pressed, repeatedly.

I'll go hit myself on the head with a hammer and sue Black and Decker for supplying me with a weapon that gave me brain damage.

Wait, friend, be smart about this.

Buy the hammer from Amazon.

Do you know who Michi is? He wrote the definitive book on the CORBA C++ binding. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201379279/002-53 62619-6165620?v=glance&n=283155 I'm sure as a respected author, acknowledged expert on CORBA, long time contributor to the various CORBA specifications and member of the architecture board and co-author of a CORBA ORB he is more qualified to speak on this subject than you are.

2. Helium-3, fusion catalyst that's only found on earth as a by product of nuclear reactions and is about 50,000 a pound. That alone makes it worth it moneywise.

In his book "Moonrush," Dennis Wingo argues that besides Helium-3, platinum-group metals would also be a critical resource. From a review:

In the first part of Moonrush, Wingo makes the case for how lunar resources are critical for meeting the increasing energy demands of terrestrial civilization. Most people are aware of the fact that the quantity of fossil fuels, notably petroleum, is finite, and will run out sooner or later. Wingo discusses this in detail in the book, noting that even the most optimistic assessments of petroleum reserves--ones that make assumptions unlikely to be borne out in practice--would be insufficient to get the world through the 21st century. One alternative to gasoline-burning engines currently under active development is the hydrogen-powered fuel cell. Even these, though, have a resources problem that Wingo describes in the book: they rely on expensive, scarce platinum-group metals (PGMs). If the world tries to make the transition from gasoline engines to fuel cells, it could exhaust the supply of PGM elements on the Earth.

Of course, there is no shortage of such metals in space, particularly in asteroids. The Moon, on the other hand, would seem to be an unlikely place to find PGMs: the collisional process that formed from the Moon left it mostly devoid of heavy metals. However, Wingo makes an ingenious case for finding PGMs on or near the lunar surface, in the form of debris from asteroid impacts. While conventional wisdom has argued that impacts of large asteroids would vaporize most of the impactor, modern computer modeling has shown that a significant fraction of an asteroid impacting the Earth would survive in some form. In fact, some major sources of PGMs on Earth, such as Sudbury in Canada and sites in South Africa, have been linked to asteroid impacts. The Moon's lower gravity would mean slower impacts, making it more likely that significant portions of asteroids could survive. PGMs mined from those impacts could meet the fuel-cell needs of the Earth for centuries; the mining process would, in turn, also generate other metals like iron and nickel that could be used for settlements on the Moon and beyond.

My AT&T E5965C does exactly that. It's about $120 if you can catch it on sale.

Here it is at Amazon

Looks like this Uniden handset has the functionality you mention: Uniden TRU9465-2 Expandable Cordless System with Dual Keypad and Call Waiting/Caller ID and Extra Handset and Charger

Maybe I'm wrong, but wasn't E.T. held from release on VHS until it's 15th or so anniversary in 1996? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/6304143184/103-85 28752-9792644?v=glance&n=404272 In that case, it probably didn't sell too many VHS players...

Folks,

Check reality today then speak:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sc_bb_br_ 3370831_32/103-0947571-2406231?_encoding=UTF8&node =3594761&no=3370831&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER

That's an unfair comparison. A fair comparison would be to compare the DVD that has been released with what's available on iTunes.

What you have is more than likely a torrent of a HD rip. That, by its nature, will be superior to DVD because HD broadcasts have higher resolution. Because of file size, I don't see HD downloads being commonplace for a few years, and not de rigueur for 5-7 years, if not more. Yes, Comcast in the US has HD on-demand but the selection is paltry and limited and the quality is questionable (since it depends on available bandwidth).

Now, on to pricing...

The problem is that $9.99 per movie, across the board, is a terrible idea. When was the last time Steve Jobs shopped for a DVD? At the very low-end (not counting public domain titles), we have Wal-Mart sales for movies for under $4 each. And these are for movies which are well-known and popular and put out by the big studios. At the other end, we have publishers/distributors that sell single movies for $20-$50 regularly. (Terry Gilliam's Brazil for example, is a big box set for $59.95).

Movie prices, especially since the advent of the DVD, have been dropping steadily. For bigger movies now (say, Munich, Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong, Walk the Line), you have at least two different products on release day: one for the budget minded (MSRP $20-30), one for the collectors (MSRP $30-$40) -- some markets, especially Japan, get insanely expensive editions in the $100+ range. The less expensive version gradually keeps dropping in price, with many movies ending with a final price of $7-$15, when they were $20 or more before. (For a recent example, see The Constant Gardener). These aren't sales --- the studio is dropping the actual price.

You generally don't see that with albums. Not only is most music from $10 to $16 new, but you don't see it drop in price as time passes. Amazon has Hotel Rwanda (the movie) for $7.88, but the soundtrack is still $14.98. A year ago the movie was more expensive than the soundtrack, whose price has not dropped.

I'd say the studios have the pricing thing a bit more figured out than Apple. Now it's just a matter of time to see if Steve will use his Disney ownership to pull some weight in re: their movies. I frankly don't see Disney EVER selling every animated movie of theirs for $9.99.

I've even once bought a set of 9 movies on 3 DVDs in a set for $6. Sure, some of the movies on it were really stupid, but when you also get Metropolis, Things to Come, and Slipstream (Mark Hamill's "please don't type-cast me as Luke Skywalker!" movie), $6 is actually almost worth it. But, Jobs' plan would price even this movie at $9.99. (If you don't get it at first, read the reviews, which is the only reason I linked to Amazon rather than IMDB)

MPAA aside, this just doesn't seem like the best pricing plan to me.

And in other fields, if we can do this as an "add-on" for hearts, we could probably further the study and production of organic structures that would assist (or replace) other organs, without the nasty issues of rejection etc.

Indeed, this entire field of medicine is moving much faster than anyone could have imagined. Larry Niven, for example, wrote science fiction stories (like the Three Books of Known Space ) where organ donation was all the rage three hundred years from now, and only half a millenium from now would we get alloplasty, "gadgets instead of organs", without the issueso of rejection. Now, with all of this research into manipulating cells directly into doing our bidding, it seems that medicine may skip the alloplasty stage entirely.

Maybe Ray Kurzweil was right about all of that "approaching the singularity" hype.

Every top ten item is a diaper, #11 is Bounty towels which I suppose could be used as diapers, then it is back to diapers again until the fertility test #14 and razors at #15, then it's all diapers and babywipes again to round out the top 20.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/new-for-you/t op-sellers/-/grocery/16310211/102-8388649-7401761

What are you talking about?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0004MUE1Y/qid=11 50667571

My PS/2 has no such switch (I just looked). I have the slim model that they have sold for the last couple of years.

And if they stick arnd with just books, whereas google offers everything (including Amazon links - which obviously they cant afford to take out), they might start to lose a bit of relevence. And obviously google's plan to scan the worlds books is a very visible threat.

I suggest you go look at Amazon - they sell quite a large variety of stuff. Books, Video, Sporting goods, clothing, gems, electronics, Badonkadonk, cosmetics, watches - you name it. The one thing they seem to shy away from are things that require special handling, like firearms. The do have bullet knives, though.

Mmm, pocky

Amazon.com doesn't really care. If you buy from they, they are happy. They don't really have a big ad budget, relying on weblinks, word of mouth, and occasionally, a rare TV ad, or print insert. Otherwise, they get free advertising in newspapers, especially when they print book reviews....

"Dan browns New Book, the Davinci Toad, just hit #1 in sales on Amazon.com..."

And Amazon is offering more and more electronic content. While google is fighting with publishers, and still trying to hash out how to offer access to non-public-domain works, you can currently 'upgrade' a lot of books you buy on Amazon.com to a PDF version for a very low price. And as amazon.com stores that book for you, it's available from anywhere you can access the web from."

Now if only they offered pure electronic versions. This would be win-win, the publishers wouldn't have to pay for paper, printing, and transport costs, and amazon wouldn't have to pay for storage, shipping either. I expect it's probably a year out before the publishers feel comfortable with the idea.

This grocery service isn't necessarily intended to compete with Peapod. It's just another service. Of course, Amazon may offer things others don't, like Nori and Sushi rice.

And yes, you can probably expect 'reccomendations' for foods in the near future...

"People who bought sushi rice also bought 'making sushi for Dummies'".

BTW, they're hiring too.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/102-1490223-5 715325?node=14201851

Also, who really wants used peanut butter? I don't want my food in the condition of "Used - Good."

Harry Potter reference link (Sorry, it was the first thing that popped into my head for which to search)

Amazon already has a gourmet food store. This seems like a logical extension to me.

In case you didn't get it, The above quotation is from George Orwell's 1984 . It's a book that should indeed be read, but which is cited far, far too often here on Slashdot.

Dropping the paranoia. I've been into a surveilance center in a major city and, as you would expect, half the time the people working there are too busy checking out the hot women walking about to notice any crimes...

In all seriousness, read Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses to see why "hot women" are just as capable of terrorism as the unshaven Arab guy walking down the street. While surveillance staff should not ogle people needlessly, anyone can be a suspect.

Personally, I think we should just cut to the chase and start growing humans specifically to harvest the organs. Why not? As long as they don't achieve consciousness, what's the harm?

Well, there are two problems with that as presented in the vision of the future of Larry Niven's Gil Hamilton universe (not so hot writing, but good futurism).

The first is that people would be more likely to take organs from criminals, since they at least can be seen as culpable. This is reputably already popular in China, where if you commit a heinous crime people are going to have no sympathy for you whatsoever. If you're creating human life for the mere extraction of organs, then said human life has an aura of innocence Tabout, and so the matter will weigh heavily on society's hearts. The consequence of taking organs from criminals, however, may be that the death penalty becomes proscribed for all kinds of minor infractions, from driving under the influence to vandalism.

The second problem is that I don't foresee the need for organs lasting so long that we'd get to the point of creating an entire human being just for organs. New breakthroughs in alloplasty ("gadgets instead of organs") might free us from the problem of donations forever.

Actually, Linux for Dummies describes mainly Fedora and Knoppix. There's no Caldera material in there.

A much better collection of accidental discoveries can be found in "Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science" by
Royston M. Roberts. Just check out the table of contents on Amazon.

His Chronology of Science & Discovery covers most important scientific breakthroughs and details the situation surrounding their discoveries. Were you thinking of that?

The accidental discovery of the potato chip was important only in that ultimately, when people searched for a way to improve the thin and lackluster potato chip of the masses, the miracle of Pringles was born. I don't know how people could just eat those greasy things that come in a bag for several decades.

One item of trivia that might amuse fans of science fiction is that the machine responsible for Pringles was invented by Gene Wolfe, author of the masterpiece tetralogy The Book of the New Sun and formerly a professional engineer.

Perhaps George Lucas' infamous 1986 film was really a desperate attempt to tell the public the real truth. But, with its theme coded too intricately, no one understood what it really about and so it bombed. I'm sure the scientists and their duck puppet masters are quite pleased.

Not only were its graphics stunning, but Castlevania: Symphony of the Night also had some excellent sound effects and music. Playing the game with your Playstation connected to a high-end stereo system makes for an awesome gaming experience. Is there any list of someone's Top 5 Best-sounding Games?

Of course, the voice acting in this Castlevania installmentis quite annoying--at least in the American version--but there isn't too much dialogue.

Actually, it's even worse than no discount. You're actually paying a premium for the electronic version, vs. the price at Amazon. Compare $26 for the Complete Warrior PDF vs. $17 at Amazon.

Don't forget Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1904468136 "Gambling Online" complete with a sample excerpt of the book!

What I'd like to see is something like the AD&D Core Rules CD-ROM. It had every book and every rule. It was searchable (by topic, by keyword, by book, by anything). And it included a character generator.

It was miles above a PDF. Since it was all text (not scanned pages), it was easy to read, resize, and scroll through.

I'd love to see a product like this. Especially if they could tailor it for a PDA. I've got a couple hundred megs available on my 1GB flash. The entirety of AD&D2 takes up ~333 megs... and that's with all the character, map, dungeon and campaign generators. All the rules, along with a simple Character utility, would take up far less.

Heck, if it's on a PDA, you can even take advantage of the Beam feature. Want to transfer gold and equipment to another player? Beam it. The GM's handing out XP? Beam it. Want to send a secret message to another player telling them to stab the third player in the back. Beam it. =)

They COULD add in some sort of dice-rolling utility that broadcasts its results to the group (to avoid cheating, of course ;) ), but I know I'd never use it. Nothing beats rolling the actual bones.

For a product like that, I'd gladly pay, like, $50. Though I'd probably be better off using that $50 to buy a pipe to smoke that dream with.