Slashdot Mirror

The places that do 'accept' it, for the most part DONT ACTUALLY ACCEPT BITCOIN . . . It's too fucking volatile to hold onto. They mostly pass BitCoin transactions through a third party who then pays your bill with a real financial transaction.

Oh, so sort of like credit cards. You give your card information to the merchant, they go to a 3rd party who then actually handles the shifting of money around.

Outside of malware and exchanges, no one of any importance directly accepts BitCoin for payment, so try again.

Overstock.com, Expedia, Newegg, TigerDirect.com, Shopify stores, Dish... Yeah you're right. None of those businesses are really of any importance. Just some of the largest online retailers or service providers in their particular industry.

If I wanted to pay a bill with Bitcoin, I don't care what the merchant does with it after I make my payment. It's not my problem as long as my account is credited for the payment.

...come Christmas time.

On a positive side, many gamers will actually get to see the world. The one outside.

Nope, I don't think you're imagining things. I didn't realize it myself until this article appeared and I came across your comment.

I've done some web design, and so here's my basic <theory> below, typed as a stream of consciousness. As for making something look "Japanese", I think it's a result of various things:

Rounded Corners:
I don't these are strictly Japanese (see Slashdot's header, Southwest Airlines, Expedia, BBC (UK), Virgin Group (UK)). Though, rounded corners have made websites nicer to look at (not rigid - don't round/curvy things make people generally happy? Interpret as you wish.)

Pastel color scheme presence:
This may be a Japanese thing - all the non-Japanese sites I mentioned above generally employ primary colors. Two interesting US-based website examples are: Sprinkles Cupcakes and Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt. Both sites use lighter, non-primary colors and those color shades and combinations give me a sense of "fun" instead of "corporate". Note, though, that the different color shades aren't necessarily pastel-like in my opinion. One US-based website that uses something very close to pastel colors is Martha Stewart Omnimedia. We'll have to bring in a color expert to state whether Martha's colors are truly pastel.

At any rate, I think that only certain companies can satisfactorily use pastels in the US, and that would be companies dealing with fun food (cupcakes, frozen yogurt, etc) and hobbyist home decor arts/crafts. I think this is part to how I (and maybe you) without a Japanese background/surrounding/etc interpret colors and, as part of our respective cultures, have an understanding of what those colors represent. See this Visual Color Symbolism Chart by Culture and Color Symbolism Chart by Culture for a basic review. As noted in these two charts, "Green" in the US can mean money and trees and other things, but in China green hats mean a man's wife is cheating on him. One color, vastly different meanings! More information on "green" as a color: http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/colorselection/p/green.htm.

High-Context (Japanese) v. Low-Context (N. American, German-Speaking, etc) Cultures:
I came across this article while looking up cultureal color perception in Japan: Elizabeth Würtz's 2005 analysis titled: "A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Websites from High-Context Cultures and Low-Context Cultures". In this study, she noted that Japan is a high-context (HC) culture, whereas North America (and German-speaking countries even moreso) are low-context (LC) cultures:

Face-to-face communication in HC cultures is thus characterized by an extensive use of non-verbal strategies for conveying meanings. These strategies usually take the shape of behavioral language, such as gestures, body language, silence, proximity and symbolic behavior, while conversation in LC cultures tends to be less physically animated, with the meaning depending on content and the spoken word.

What was interesting to read were two of her conclusions regarding animation and presentation of individuals+products on websites:

Animation:
Tendency in HC Cultures: High use of animation, especially in connection with images of moving people.
Tendency in LC Cultures: Lower use of

And while the word "safety" isn't explicitly in the article, it does talk about preventing terrorist threats and airplane crashes, and about causing entirely no pollution when decommissioned (of course, the term "obviously bogus lie" isn't in there either....)

Also, there are designs that are susceptible to meltdowns, and there are designs that simply don't have that failure mode. That doesn't mean that they don't leak plutonium into the water or do other Bad Things, but those Bad Things don't include nuclear explosions or the China Syndrome (er, Argentina or Pitcairn or whatever syndrome in this case...)

1: Stop payment on cheque.
2: Demand refund of deposit.
3: Get one return ticket to contractor's location via Expedia.
4: If 1 or 2 fail send return ticket to "IcePick" Vinnie.
5: Pick up Vinnie at airport in a couple of days.
6: Take money home and count it or enjoy photos of mangled corpse(s).
7: ???
8: Profit!!!

Cool, will that mean that some of the idiot web designers will actually start taking non-compatibility complaints seriously? Like those ladened with Javascript that works nowhere else but with IE. Take Expedia.com, where the calendar pop-ups only work with IE or Priston Tale web site where the side menus don't appear if you don't have IE (I already supplied a fix which was ignored) - actually this one should be lumped with the GIS2 web site for excesive use of Flash.

Maybe pigs will fly first?

Just one note Mozilla has one big advantage over Opera and Safari for MS base corportate networks: it supports NTLM.

If you look at a Map of Sunnyvale and Mountain View, you'll see that Moffett Federal Air Field is right next to Sunnyvale Municipal Gold Course. So the airfield must be right next to the city boundary. I can't imagine what it must be like when a Hercules transport planes flies over during take off or landing.

Microsoft destroys everything they touch

Why -- Expedia is rather decent...

Try this

For the past year and a half I've been working in spare time on fleshing out maps of Russia and the former Soviet Union republics, one map for each oblast/province. Check out either Mappoint or the equivalent views on Expedia? At the detailed view, these are the most beautiful maps in the world, 100% better and more detailed than any National Geographic Atlas. But there's a catch. You can only see tiny little patches of the whole map at a time. Therefore, in order to see a detailed view of a whole oblast, you have to stitch together a quilting project, grid by grid along a north to south baseline, and then move across east and west, doing repeated screen shots and piecing the grid together carefully. One little hitch, though. As you move up and down and across the grid, the details change because of their ridiculous javascript-based map generating engine. Thus in one view of a grid you might see two villages; in the gridpoints three degrees west, they should still be there sitting on x:y coordinates by such-and-such river, but they are GONE! In other words, details get wiped out at the edges of the grid views.

If you are perseverant enough to stitch the whole together, taking into account rotations for each patch of the quilt as you move from the baseline east and west, you end up with a beautiful bit map view of the whole oblast, a collosal file size, and with lots of defects because of the problems along seam lines where the screenshots (the quilt patches) overlap. Along N/S grids, you can wipe out 20% of the villages, and even names of major cities (because of the problem of shifting positioning of text). File sizes make them all but useless for the publishing on the web (largest maps are upwards of 10 MB even when compressed to PDF).

The obvious solution is to remap all the topographic detail using SVG so that you end up with a seamless map showing the same detail level, down to villages and rivers, that has the whole oblast in one snapshot, zoomable down to the detail you need to see roads, railroads, and national parks. This would reside in a text file that is probably going to be large for some of the geographically large areas (Chukotia, Khabavarosk, Taymyr, Buryatia, etc.), but by comparison with bitmaps - tiny, and viewable in a browser. For detail areas, you add clickable links to city maps too. So, for example, if you want to look at Sverdlovsk oblast, you can click on Ekaterinburg or Nizhniy Tagil and zoom right down to a city map showing street names, monuments, parks, and other features.

This is where I see real potential of SVG on the web. At least, it's the project I'm working on for the foreseeable future, which will probably take me well into retirement years.

The only way this merger will ever happen is over Sergey Brin's cold, dead body.

...And you actually think Microsoft can't arrange that?!? Look at Expedia! Clearly, they already know where you live ;)

I use Expedia for maps over larger areas or driving directions in Europe.

I do not need US only maps your insensitive clod..

Now every 6th grader may not be able to write a coherent sentence or multiply two fractions, but they'll be able to point-and-click their way to the job of their dreams.

At least they will know where India is on the map and be able to get plane tickets through MSExpedia.

Maybe they don't know ... but the software they made knows for sure ... but who trusts in Microsoft products anyway?

The Freedom of Information Act is the tool of choice for finding out exactly what about you is in those databases. In fact, I would not be surprised if a lot of people started flooding them with requests - and forcing them to answer, with lawsuits if they do not comply with the Act.

As an aside, an Expedia ad popped up when I went to that article. I love it when collusion with advertisers is that obvious.

The best beef steak I've ever had was in San Casciano. And I'm from Australia where we are supposed to be famous for beef!

what are you talking about. no one(ok most people) buys anything from the internet. why do you think internet commerce sites are dropping like flies.

http://www.dell.com
http://www.apple.com
http://shopping.yahoo.com
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.expedia.com

With the possible exception of Apple, all of these make most (if not all) of their money via internet commerce. Dell alone makes millions per day, every day, from online purchases alone. And while their balance sheets vary widely (and at least one may not consistently see a positive bottom-line), none are going to "drop like flies" anytime soon.

There's plenty of commerce being done online. There are just a lot fewer companies doing it now than a couple years ago. Given all the dumb ideas that were given capital, that's a Good Thing.

here

As reported on The Register, which was really a repost of an article from Compuwire, AOL has announced that in its next upgrade to their AOL client for Apple's OS X, it will use Netscape by default. (And just for those who want another link, Spider-Man is cool).

Most people (well, me) assume this means that AOL is using the Macintosh crowd as a testing base, then will make the same move on the Windows side of things by changing their PC client's default from IE to Netscape. The move won't really hurt Microsoft - it will still own 80% of the browser market, and since both Netscape and Internet Explorer are free, neither company will start having shifts of money.

But this isn't so much about money, as it is about control. AOL knows that their are two reasons Microsoft pushes Internet Explorer. Control of standards, and control of eyeballs. With every Windows computer that ships, it has Internet Explorer on it. And it's home page is MSN, Microsoft's media system.

Control the Eyeballs!

Netscape, by comparison, points to Netscape.com - which contains the collective linked knowledge to all things AOL/Time Warner. Links to news articles on CNN, Cartoon Network, and all else.

It's about the eyeballs. AOL wants you to see Time/Warner stuff, Microsoft wants those eyeballs to check out MSN. Both companies have a lot to gain by keeping your attention. AOL/Time Warner wants you to know all about their movies (like the upcoming Power Puff Girls movie, or their cable channels, or their electronic entertainment partnerships, or, just as important, keeping you signed up with AOL.

MSN has its wants, with its line of cable shows, plus all of the other Microsoft goodies, like Gamezone, Hotmail, Expedia and other services - which keep you plugged into the Microsoft system, and keeps those dollars coming in.

Control the browser, control the world

Just as important as the eyeballs is the technology that drives what they see. At last year's E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), AOl and Sony demonstrated using AOL on the Playstation 2 system, at the same time that Sony talked about running Linux on the Playstation 2. Now, almost a year later, Sony is getting ready to start shipping their hard drive/Ethernet/modem combo unit for $150. And AOL sees a large market place - one where there are more TV's than computers, and a $200 Playstation 2 in plenty of homes.

Odds are, Microsoft isn't going to make Internet Explorer for the Playstation system (not with their own Xbox on the market) - let alone for Linux. But since AOL has been sponsoring the creation of Mozilla, the Open Source browser Netscape is based on. Mozilla has been ported to nearly every operating system in existence - Linux, Macintosh, Solaris, and, of course, Windows. And across all operating systems, it provides the same look and feel - so now it doesn't matter what operating system you're using to surf the web/check your mail/chat with your friends on - Netscape looks the same. And you can bet it will be easy enough to develop and port to the Playstation 2 as well.

The implications could drive a shift of development. Suppose you're a web developer at this second, and you want to make sure people visiting your web page see all the whiz bang stuff. Right now, you spend most of your time making sure that Internet Explorer sees the page perfectly - then concentrate on the other browsers out there. Microsoft is happy, because to make sure IE looks the best, odds are you'll use Microsoft technology, which means you're spending Microsoft money (note: not Microsoft Money - different thing).

Netscape, being built on Mozilla, is HTML 4.0 standards compliant. That means that anything written for Netscape is certain to work with every other browser out there - including Internet Explorer (as long as Microsoft codes IE to be fully HTML compliant).

So now the web developer, in a post AOL-switching-to-Netscape time, has a new choice. Program your web site for IE, then for all the others - or make your web site HTML 4.0 standards compliant, and know that all browsers will render it correct the first time. There will still be questions about plug-ins (like those who like to use Flash enabled web sites, but by changing that over to Java, which runs on as many operating systems as Mozilla, developers can code around that hurdle. HTML 4.0 standards mean that anyone's tools can be used - Open Source, proprietary, or otherwise. Which means less money to Microsoft, and more power everyone else.

Maybe the move to Netscape won't change the world overnight, or drive subscribers to AOL. But it keeps the competition between the two companies alive.

And for most of us, competition is a good thing.

As always, I'm John "Dark Paladin" Hummel. And that's my opinion.

Microsoft was going to open up passport authentication to third-party ID servers via passport, right? Or am i just confused about that? Is that not happening anymore?

• Expedia (not surprising as it used to be an MS co-own)
• Egg.com - announced but not implemented as yet. Egg are hard-core Microsoft lackeys^Wpartners

Um that's it AFAIK

Okay, the reason for that is that the Microsoft HQ is so big it has it's own road. Hence the name "Microsoft Way". And if you have the whole road, why not make your address number 1? Sure, you could go up to three hundred, but what would be the point?

Printed on 100% content-free html

Notice any pattern? :)

Q

1. I type a date and I get a Smart Tag menu that prompts me to see if I want to schedule a meeting on that date or if I want to see my calendar for that date.
   
   
2. I type a name and I get a Smart Tag menu that prompts me to see if I want to send the person an email or add the person to my contact list.
   
   
3. I type an address I get a Smart Tag menu that prompts me to see if I want driving directions that links Expedia .

Can you imagine what this technology would do to a search engine like Google? It's all a conspiracy. It's always a conspiracy. Is there anywhere to go to get away from all this?

Can you imagine what this technology would do to a search engine like Google? It's all a conspiracy. It's always a conspiracy. Is there anywhere to go to get away from all this?

When you consider that first class plane tickets for a couple departing from Montreal(YUL) to Sydney(SYD) cost between 30k - 45k CAN. Check out Expedia for details.

26k USD to go in space seems like a bargain to me!

I have my own browser which makes it very easy to debug things like this. Not only does it never follow redirects and naver take cookies, but it makes it easy to examine the raw data returned by every HTTP transaction. I also use Linux Netscape 4.72, and have cookies enabled there all the time.

I discovered that expedia and msnbc have common GUIDs in my Netscape cookies file, and furthermore the expedia site uses the same triple-redirection technique shown on the pc-help.org article. It routes through expedia.msnbc.com and then back to expedia.com after attaching the GUID to the URL.

- Robert Munafo

Connections to most other stores would run from the mid-20s to the low 30s, but we'd always connect to the Milpitas store at the whopping fast speed of 9600 bps!

That's the speed I usually get when I hook my Ositech Jack of Diamonds PCMCIA modem+ethernet. If I'm way out in the boonies I'm lucky to get 2400. And if I'm in Northern Quebec, I don't connect at all!

If you're not trying to grab some huge binary file 2400 is more than enough. It brings back the old days of BBSes and 232 characters per second. :-)

Same thing industrial workers at the beginning of the 20th century did. Organize, form Unions and fight back.

Oh come off it.

All unions do these days is ensure that Joe Sixpack makes $26/hr stamping metal. That's it. Work conditions for the industrial worker at the start of the 20th century are a lot different than they are for the tech worker today.

If you don't like where you are, leave. That will send a far stronger message and, if you are worth your salt, you will have zero trouble finding another job. If you're some shitass ASP programmer who can't figure out anything on your own, yeah you'll starve, which is probably the reason you want your sacred union in the first place.

Oh and yes, I have a young family and know how tough it is to leave your job for the unknown. And yes I'm in rural Ontario, far far far away from either Silicon Valley or what's known as Silicon Valley North. If you are working (60+ hours | terrible conditions | unhappily), you gotta do it. Unions won't solve your unhappiness. Grow your own balls instead of hiding behind someone else's.

Same thing industrial workers at the beginning of the 20th century did. Organize, form Unions and fight back.

Oh come off it.

All unions do these days is ensure that Joe Sixpack makes $26/hr stamping metal. That's it. Work conditions for the industrial worker at the start of the 20th century are a lot different than they are for the tech worker today.

If you don't like where you are, leave. That will send a far stronger message and, if you are worth your salt, you will have zero trouble finding another job. If you're some shitass ASP programmer who can't figure out anything on your own, yeah you'll starve, which is probably the reason you want your sacred union in the first place.

Oh and yes, I have a young family and know how tough it is to leave your job for the unknown. And yes I'm in rural Ontario, far far far away from either Silicon Valley or what's known as Silicon Valley North. If you are working (60+ hours | terrible conditions | unhappily), you gotta do it. Unions won't solve your unhappiness. Grow your own balls instead of hiding behind someone else's.