I know no one likes a smartypants but ...
on
Jurassic Web
·
· Score: 1
... in 1996 I was dating someone I met online, downloading porn, streaming video, playing with VOIP and writing about how everyone who wasn't, would be, soon.
Of course it was different... at 28.8kbps and at 56kbps. But it was recognizable, and you could tell a lot about what it would look like when it grew up.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said "any number of companies might have an interest" in Yahoo, but added that a Google-Yahoo merger was "clearly prevented by the antitrust laws." (NYTimes)
That Microsoft's general counsel could suggest with a straight face that it is the company's position that *anything at all* is clearly prevented by antitrust laws is one of the funnier things I've read in a while.
... is this the community for whipsawing a website that goes alpha | "proof of concept" with "very little money?"
I read the article, I read the review. I know who Jimmy Wales is, for chrissake, and I know he's controversial. Does that mean he's not allowed to take the wraps off software and a web site that hopes to rely heavily on user input to make it worthwhile and better? We all start... and restart... *somewhere.*
... how many people can name, say, even a handful of instances in the last decade of Congress taking on a major technology issue? Just so we have it straight -- is there a previous, tech-savvy Republican-controlled Congress that impressed the submitter of this "article"?
Hahahahaha. Yeah, OK. I'll give you electronic voting. Yep, they impressed me there.
... of making some of the same mistakes that the recording industry made.
Proprietary formats and hardware. Not passing along any of the cost savings to consumers.
I've been reading books on a Pocket PC for about five years. That's not what I bought it for, but it turned out to be one of my biggest uses for the handheld.
I can use or convert any format I've run across. And it's easy to read on. People are always dubious about that until I show them. Nice and bright, turn pages quickly with a jog wheel, one-handed reading at any angle. Sure, I mostly read paper, but the handheld is good for travel. Battery life leaves something to be desired... but if I turn off wifi and dial down brightness a bit, I get five hours or so.
And there are a ton of books available via P2P. I say that with some resignation, as an author... but it's not like I'm in the elite. I'm prepared to adjust my business model.;-)
That "most of them have basic housing and a working power infrastructure," is something of an understatement, though I understand that you're trying to set a baseline and that it's difficult to generalize. There are huge economic disparities.
In the primary metro/urban areas of all these countries, they have quite a bit more than that. They have decent-to-excellent medical care, public transportation, growing economies and a growing middle class, side-by-side with entrenched wealth and severe poverty. Providing a 21st century education to as many people as possible gives them all their best chance at long-term peace and general welfare. Are cheap PCs part of that equation? Hell, yeah. And put full libraries of educational textbooks on each one, while you're at it. Everything from "Dick and Jane" to college-level math/science/engineering/social sciences/literature.
They can figure out how many farmers they need, I'm sure.
Yes, I know there are places in the world, primarily in Africa, where, what little civilization there is, is moving backwards or at a standstill. But many countries have put that behind them or are in position to do so. The term "third world," which springs reflexively to the minds of most Americans when they think about countries that are not in North America, Europe or named Japan or Australia, is becoming an anachronism.
I suppose one could also argue that turnitin.com is a *champion* of intellectual property, since it is deterring or preventing the "theft" of original work. As an author -- well, this stuff comes up. "Can I use the material in your book if I link to it?" Fair use isn't well understood.
I'd love to have available as a 'Net service a site that identifies who said what, first. It can be time-consuming to track down all the George Carlin hoax material...
It would also be interesting to come up with some sort of "fair use" score generator... copying a full work without attribution would get a zero or less. It would take a pretty fancy algorithm to judge a skillful rewrite.;-)
I can see the students' point, though. "Opt out," which they advocate, might be the way to go. Turnitin.com already has enough material to function as a deterrent. I don't think the students are suggesting that the schools have no right to compare current material to the DB... it's the *adding* of material.
If it's for humans, it will be enormously expensive, and none of the people who actually need it will be able to afford it. Meanwhile, the maker of the vaccine will try to get the U.S. government to buy 300 million doses at retail price.
If it's for animals, it'll be cheap enough to lace the entire food chain with it, and we'll only find out it has horrific side effects five years from now.;-)
... well, to me, I was just stunned that Microsoft claimed to own the Enterprise "search space."
I admit, I haven't been in an "enterprise" environment on a day-to-day basis since 2003... but my recollection is wishing that SOME company would go into enterprise search, because MS search tools...
sucked.
Enterprise search -- can't help this -- I do recall "Star Trek" episodes in which things aboard ship that were missing (or not supposed to be there at all) took forever to find...
... and if a frog had wings, he wouldn't whomp his ass every time he jumped.
You're right, of course. But it's not so much "can't be bothered." Most users with an out-of-the box computer know of no reason to have a password other than for LOCAL security.
Manufacturers and/or MS could force the issue. But I've never heard that proposed anywhere. With wireless routers (another example) I've at least heard it *suggested* that units be shipped with software that forces a password change, or with some (simple?) security.
the idea of Wikipedia.
I admire the effort and expertise of those who have made it a superb resource. Why can't the mainstream media (in this case, the WSJ) accept it for what it is? "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."
Isn't that a straightforward enough warning?
I saw fit to quote from Wikipedia in my own first book, on the subject of medical tourism. But I certainly didn't take the entry as a final word, or even as a trustworthy one. But the *history* of the term was interesting -- when did it first get noticed and how has the Wikipedia entry for it changed? And I can look at the change history now with some amusement and see that, sure enough, there have been editorial efforts to tilt the content one way and another, in favor of different destinations for medical tourists (people who travel outside of their own country for health care, for whatever reasons.)
I'm almost certainly among the more qualified people in the world to actually write and maintain the entry on this off-the-beaten path subject. I've written a book on it titled Beauty from Afar; I'm a journalist and I've spent the better part of the last two years researching medical tourism. And I've been tempted to edit the Wikipedia entry more than once... but what for? The entry *is* a blog, really. I don't own it, nor should I. It would make me crazy to try to keep it "correct" (from my point of view) and up-to-date.
Wikipedia is a wonderful and evolving resource. I don't see how anyone can expect it to be the final word on anything that represents a moving target.
(mea culpa for the book plug, but I think it's a good example.)
about two years ago I finally came up with a hardware configuration that lets me have it all, I think.
("All" meaning, everything *I* want and need.)
I run dual monitors on my main PC with an nVidia card... and I run my old AIW 8500 on my No. 2 PC, plugged into the second input on one monitor. So the tuner is the flick of a switch away, on one monitor. And I'm running all the ATI drivers/apps one box removed from anything they might screw up... like real and sound editing apps.
Will I ever upgrade the AIW card? Maybe for HDTV. Someday.
I don't believe or disbelieve -- I'm just weighing what I read. In particular, as regards magic:
"xMax is unconventional," said Stuart Schwartz, professor of electrical engineering at Princeton Universithy, who has scrutinised xG's demonstration set-up, speaking at the xMax demonstration. "It is clever and innovative, but it is not magic. It uses single cycle modulation, and needs much less power than other technologies."
Slashdot Mirror
Of course it was different ... at 28.8kbps and at 56kbps. But it was recognizable, and you could tell a lot about what it would look like when it grew up.
http://www.intotemptation.net/2009/02/03/super-bowl-porn-postmortem/
That someone might think that keeping the video online is worthy of *charity* might be the funniest part of the whole story?
http://www.intotemptation.net/2009/02/03/super-bowl-porn-postmortem/
Unfortunately for him ... he had no plan to monetize the traffic at all.
How fast do you think traffic will drop off? My guess is ... down 80 percent in 30 days ...
The Irony Award goes to MS attorney Brad Smith.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said "any number of companies might
have an interest" in Yahoo, but added that a Google-Yahoo merger was
"clearly prevented by the antitrust laws." (NYTimes)
That Microsoft's general counsel could suggest with a straight face that it
is the company's position that *anything at all* is clearly prevented by
antitrust laws is one of the funnier things I've read in a while.
Assume for a moment that, for example, your XP system has bluescreened and you can't boot up.
And that you don't have another PC handy.
Are you going to tell me that being able to get to the web isn't on your "to do" list?
I know, it's crazy. Stuff like that never happens.
"I tell the staff that they should act on all of those complaints and investigate all of them," Martin said.
Well, I guess they're right on top of things, huh. Yep.
... is this the community for whipsawing a website that goes alpha | "proof of concept" with "very little money?" I read the article, I read the review. I know who Jimmy Wales is, for chrissake, and I know he's controversial. Does that mean he's not allowed to take the wraps off software and a web site that hopes to rely heavily on user input to make it worthwhile and better? We all start ... and restart ... *somewhere.*
... how many people can name, say, even a handful of instances in the last decade of Congress taking on a major technology issue? Just so we have it straight -- is there a previous, tech-savvy Republican-controlled Congress that impressed the submitter of this "article"? Hahahahaha. Yeah, OK. I'll give you electronic voting. Yep, they impressed me there.
Proprietary formats and hardware. Not passing along any of the cost savings to consumers.
I've been reading books on a Pocket PC for about five years. That's not what I bought it for, but it turned out to be one of my biggest uses for the handheld.
I can use or convert any format I've run across. And it's easy to read on. People are always dubious about that until I show them. Nice and bright, turn pages quickly with a jog wheel, one-handed reading at any angle. Sure, I mostly read paper, but the handheld is good for travel. Battery life leaves something to be desired ... but if I turn off wifi and dial down brightness a bit, I get five hours or so.
And there are a ton of books available via P2P. I say that with some resignation, as an author ... but it's not like I'm in the elite. I'm prepared to adjust my business model. ;-)
Let us know when you're ready for prime time
Thank you ... everyone above the line had their knee jerking spasmodically. I have mod points, but neither "flamebait" nor "troll" is lethal enough.
Is there a worse word to have associated with the release of a new technology product?
No, I didn't think so. Might as well just say the device causes prostate cancer, and be done with it.
That "most of them have basic housing and a working power infrastructure," is something of an understatement, though I understand that you're trying to set a baseline and that it's difficult to generalize. There are huge economic disparities.
In the primary metro/urban areas of all these countries, they have quite a bit more than that. They have decent-to-excellent medical care, public transportation, growing economies and a growing middle class, side-by-side with entrenched wealth and severe poverty. Providing a 21st century education to as many people as possible gives them all their best chance at long-term peace and general welfare. Are cheap PCs part of that equation? Hell, yeah. And put full libraries of educational textbooks on each one, while you're at it. Everything from "Dick and Jane" to college-level math/science/engineering/social sciences/literature.
They can figure out how many farmers they need, I'm sure.
Yes, I know there are places in the world, primarily in Africa, where, what little civilization there is, is moving backwards or at a standstill. But many countries have put that behind them or are in position to do so. The term "third world," which springs reflexively to the minds of most Americans when they think about countries that are not in North America, Europe or named Japan or Australia, is becoming an anachronism.
And I say this as someone who doesn't own an IPod and who only uses a cell phone as a modem.
I don't claim to understand the market for their little gizmos. But it doesn't take understanding it to see that it's there.
I'd love to have available as a 'Net service a site that identifies who said what, first. It can be time-consuming to track down all the George Carlin hoax material ...
It would also be interesting to come up with some sort of "fair use" score generator ... copying a full work without attribution would get a zero or less. It would take a pretty fancy algorithm to judge a skillful rewrite. ;-)
I can see the students' point, though. "Opt out," which they advocate, might be the way to go. Turnitin.com already has enough material to function as a deterrent. I don't think the students are suggesting that the schools have no right to compare current material to the DB ... it's the *adding* of material.
-jeff
2. Process for granting intellectual property rights.
3. ...
It's really nothing to worry about until you wake up in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney.
He's only about a half hour drive from where they can get cable TV. I guess that makes it suburban, really. At least for Maine. ;-)
And there is, as mentioned, the problem of maintaining signal strength. Maybe power boosters that run off photosynthesis and ...
Oh, nevermind ...
I know, it sounds like cartoon physics ...
But I'm only half kidding ...
If it's for humans, it will be enormously expensive, and none of the people who actually need it will be able to afford it. Meanwhile, the maker of the vaccine will try to get the U.S. government to buy 300 million doses at retail price.
If it's for animals, it'll be cheap enough to lace the entire food chain with it, and we'll only find out it has horrific side effects five years from now. ;-)
I admit, I haven't been in an "enterprise" environment on a day-to-day basis since 2003 ... but my recollection is wishing that SOME company would go into enterprise search, because MS search tools ...
sucked.
Enterprise search -- can't help this -- I do recall "Star Trek" episodes in which things aboard ship that were missing (or not supposed to be there at all) took forever to find ...
... and if a frog had wings, he wouldn't whomp his ass every time he jumped.
...
You're right, of course. But it's not so much "can't be bothered." Most users with an out-of-the box computer know of no reason to have a password other than for LOCAL security.
Manufacturers and/or MS could force the issue. But I've never heard that proposed anywhere. With wireless routers (another example) I've at least heard it *suggested* that units be shipped with software that forces a password change, or with some (simple?) security.
But there would be all those calls to India
-jeff
http://www.beautyfromafar.com/
the idea of Wikipedia. I admire the effort and expertise of those who have made it a superb resource. Why can't the mainstream media (in this case, the WSJ) accept it for what it is? "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Isn't that a straightforward enough warning? I saw fit to quote from Wikipedia in my own first book, on the subject of medical tourism. But I certainly didn't take the entry as a final word, or even as a trustworthy one. But the *history* of the term was interesting -- when did it first get noticed and how has the Wikipedia entry for it changed? And I can look at the change history now with some amusement and see that, sure enough, there have been editorial efforts to tilt the content one way and another, in favor of different destinations for medical tourists (people who travel outside of their own country for health care, for whatever reasons.) I'm almost certainly among the more qualified people in the world to actually write and maintain the entry on this off-the-beaten path subject. I've written a book on it titled Beauty from Afar ; I'm a journalist and I've spent the better part of the last two years researching medical tourism. And I've been tempted to edit the Wikipedia entry more than once ... but what for? The entry *is* a blog, really. I don't own it, nor should I. It would make me crazy to try to keep it "correct" (from my point of view) and up-to-date.
Wikipedia is a wonderful and evolving resource. I don't see how anyone can expect it to be the final word on anything that represents a moving target.
(mea culpa for the book plug, but I think it's a good example.)
("All" meaning, everything *I* want and need.)
I run dual monitors on my main PC with an nVidia card ... and I run my old AIW 8500 on my No. 2 PC, plugged into the second input on one monitor. So the tuner is the flick of a switch away, on one monitor. And I'm running all the ATI drivers/apps one box removed from anything they might screw up ... like real and sound editing apps.
Will I ever upgrade the AIW card? Maybe for HDTV. Someday.
I don't believe or disbelieve -- I'm just weighing what I read. In particular, as regards magic: "xMax is unconventional," said Stuart Schwartz, professor of electrical engineering at Princeton Universithy, who has scrutinised xG's demonstration set-up, speaking at the xMax demonstration. "It is clever and innovative, but it is not magic. It uses single cycle modulation, and needs much less power than other technologies."