One of my favorite Mac placements has always been in the Russian action/horror movie Night Watch, where the iMacs all had carefully placed yellow post-it notes covering the telltale "Apple" logo on the back of the monitor.
It always makes me chuckle because who would really stick a post-it on the back of their monitor? They already used so many digital effects in the movie it seems like it would have just been less tacky to digitally remove the Apple logo for that one quick scene.
Bzzzt. For anyone who has worked in banking in the US, M means thousand, and MM means million. It bugs me to this day when people write 240M when they mean 240 million.
M is also used in the advertising industry for thousands. For example, the cost of an ad buy can be given in thousands of impressions, known as CCM (cost per thousand).
This is horribly offtopic, but Guinness' marketing has just worked too well on me. Whenever I hear or read that word, I think of the jovial cartoon characters from their TV ads here in the US. The thought of them on a tropical island, watching a Stealth Bomber crash shortly after taking off, clicking their glasses together and exclaiming "brilliant!" is just too funny.
"Scry"? How are you supposed to read that? It almost looks like 'scary' to me. That is not a good name to have when it comes to MS and data storage... I do not want my data storage to be 'scary'!
I think Apple is doing a decent job upgrading their product line in order to keep winning back existing customers. I still have a 4G iPod (the last version with the monochrome screen) that is 4 years old now and it still works like a charm. The battery is probably shot, but I use it exclusively in my car now so it's plugged in all the time. When the hard drive finally dies I'll probably get an iPod touch so I can get maps and stuff on the go.
However, it shows what happens when nearly everyone in America who wants an iPod has one - sales will drop. Apple really needs to start marketing in up-and-coming markets such as the Middle East, China, and other areas. Sure, there are plenty of knockoff products in those markets already, but that doesn't mean Apple shouldn't try.
The article summary gave me an interesting idea. I have an old 1.5 GHz Pentium M notebook I was going to clean up and give to my folks. I'm wondering if replacing the existing HDD with a SSD would improve performance for it. It's a little old and clunky now, obviously.
All electric cars have to short a range and are too expensive. They suck compared to ic cars.
Yes I'd agree that the prime reason is range, even though I call B.S. on that excuse for most average drivers because people's daily commutes tend to be rather short. I can't recall the number now, but I think I read that most Americans drive less than 50 miles a day. I myself do 7 to work and 7 back, plus random errands and trips. It's a rare day that I need to use the entire 300 mile range of my gas tank. But I believe this psychology is strong in consumers... "what if I want to take a long road trip!" etc. type mentality, even if you hardly go on trips. To me, this is the same idea that drives people to buy huge SUVs for off-road adventures they will most likely never take, but want the car "just in case!".
If they could make an electric car that could recharge in 5 minutes and then go another 250-350 miles, then the problem would be solved I think.
Now you know where your "donations" to the "wikimedia foundation" went... while you were suckered into giving him free labor.
As much as I love Wikipedia and use it daily, this is exactly why I have never given them my money. I've occasionally contributed to an article, but I won't give them my hard-earned cash.
I fail to see the issue with what these two enterprising brothers have done. In my opinion, Mattel would never have thought about making a Scrabble facebook app... thus, in my twisted logic, they are not really being deprived of revenues they would have been otherwise earning. I know this doesn't really make it "right", but whatever. You snooze you lose.
These companies, time and time again, show that they just "don't get" the current online world and are having a hard time figuring out how to transition and make a profit. Rather than suing these guys they need to hire them.
second time was after a self serve gas station, guessing a camera pointed at the card reader.
I've heard of a scam at gas stations and ATMs where a "fake front" is placed onto the unit. This has a device inside that steals your credit card numbers when you place your card into the device. If you're in a hurry you might not notice. The thieves then come back later, remove the device and have all the card numbers that were used.
Which is not a problem if you use virtual account numbers (what Citibank calls it. I'm sure other banks have the same thing with different names) that are only authorized for one transaction for the amount you specify.
Yeah, Bank of America has a similar system and it's pretty neat. The only downsides I have discovered:
I made a purchase online for something like $30, and I authorized my one-time card number for just a few bucks over this. The store messed up, and wound up having to refund me and re-do the transaction. Since they had this one-time number and it wasn't authorized for enough money to cover these two transactions, it caused issues. Long story short I then had to call them and give them my real card number. The whole reason I used the one-time card number is because it was a house-wares site I had never heard of (but had an item I was having trouble finding in stock) and didn't want some criminal front running off with my number.
Bank of America will only make these one-time use numbers for credit cards, not debit/check cards. I prefer not to put my normal purchases on my credit card, but if I want this additional layer of security I'm forced to. I now have to remember to pay this transaction off of my credit card before the month closes. If they could extend this feature to their debit cards it would be great.
Can a tag this whole 'news' story as offtopic? A fake frickin' VIDEO in the news section?!
Seriously, if I wanted Onion 'news', I'd go to the Onion's website. There is a reason that Slashdot, the NY Times and NPR are on my toolbar as quicklinks... and it isn't because I want fake news.
Yes, better scanners would be a good start and a realistic solution. What takes me the most time in airport security is unloading myself of all metal that could set off the detectors and thus get me pulled aside for "additional searches"... my shoes (some shoes have a metal "shank" in them), my belt, my loose pocket change... then I have to stand around on the other side getting re-organized. Give me a break. If people could just walk through without all that hassle it would be much better.
Weren't they working on some type of "Total Recall" style scanner that basically makes you look like a walking skeleton while going through security? I know there were issues because people were worried about their privacy being violated...
I'd like to know how many people here have actually been taken to court, or taken someone else (a company) to court or other legal proceedings over what was said in an EULA.
I'm sure I "read" the EULAs just as closely as most consumers: I don't. The times I've tried, it took a VERY long time and it made sense, I guess... but by the time you get through it you can hardly remember the content or context of what it said. 99% of the time I just click OK... I've never had an issue where I've had to refer back to an EULA, personally.
I think you'd just have to take more time and be more thoughtful about cutting someone off, getting exciting and interjecting a comment randomly, etc... all the stuff people normally do in conversations. Hey, if I were a colonist I'd take a 1+ second voice delay over only being able to use email to communicate with friends/family back on Earth.
The worst thing I've seen as recently as today, is still photo (as opposed to movie) cameras which bear the "Full HD 1080p" logo, even though they CANNOT record video. It's simply stating that it has a digital output which can show still images at 1080 line.
Are you sure that the camera in question could not do video? As far as I know, the only still photo cameras that cannot do video are DSLR cameras. Every consumer-level point-n-shoot camera I've ever seen can do video, and now a lot of them can record at HD quality.
I'm not trying to say you didn't read it correctly, and I know that a lot of those stickers they put on electronics are full of marketing-speak garbage, but that just seems like a weird thing to advertise if the camera couldn't do video... 1080 lines of vertical resolution for a still image is horribly low. My 6 MP Nikon D100 outputs an image that is 3008 px wide by 2000 px tall.
A 75% reduction in cost over a few year period is not enough for you? I think it's time to admit that you're probably just a cheapskate.
Exactly what I was about to say. 3 years ago I bought a very nice 19" Viewsonic LCD screen, and it ran be about $600. Today that same screen would be $200 or maybe less. I fail to see what your parent was talking about in reference to my post.
This year at CES, they updated the players to profile 1.1, but kept the list prices the same.
Ah yes, I had forgotten about that bit. I'm sure they'll lower the price on the "older" versions... then the suckers who buy those won't be able to see the special features or whatever in the discs released after that point. Nice way to treat your customers I say.
Oh well. I'm still not buying a BD player until they get sub-$200
Well, hopefully with only one format (and everyone who wants HD buying this one format) economies of scale will kick in and lower the price significantly.
In fact, I've heard that a sure way to open a successful independent coffee shop is to open one right by a Starbucks.
Indeed, that may be true and is a good point. A weekly Portland newspaper did a story about how the increasing number of Starbucks stores in the city actually helped increase the number of independant chains, by effectively lifting the popularity of coffee across consumer groups: http://wweek.com/story.php?story=5137.
I myself don't hate Starbcusk at all. They treat their employees well, and their coffee is "ok" in my opinion. The only thing I don't like is that many Starbucks' don't feel very welcoming to stay in for a long period of time, which seems strange to me considering Howard Shultz's theory of Starbucks as the "third space". I find many mom and pop coffee stores just feel more inviting (plus have free WiFi).
They aren't at starbucks for the coffee. They're there for the oxymoronic "hipster cred".
Hipster cred... a starbucks? You almost made me spit tea all over my keyboard. Starbucks hasn't been cool in years. You really haven't seen people trying harder for "hipster cred" then those that go to "Stumptown coffee" in Portland, Oregon. You'd think Jesus had come down and roasted the coffee himself the way people talk about it. It's "ok", but doesn't seem to me to be really better then anyplace else, other than being a local company.
As for Wifi, I never go to Starbucks when I need to work on my laptop because they charge for it. It's pretty annoying to me, really... but I guess enough people pay that it's worthwhile to them to keep charging for it.
That reminds me of my work. We have one Vista "test" machine that hardly gets used. The software we've developed in-house to support our products doesn't work on Vista, and our customers aren't upgrading. Because of that we're not wasting our time right now in getting the software to actually work with Vista. I see us skipping Vista entirely and probably looking at Windows 7 eventually.
I do have Vista running on my personal laptop, and so far it's been great. However I'm not trying to run enterprise-level software solutions or small obscure utilities, either.
Slashdot Mirror
One of my favorite Mac placements has always been in the Russian action/horror movie Night Watch, where the iMacs all had carefully placed yellow post-it notes covering the telltale "Apple" logo on the back of the monitor.
It always makes me chuckle because who would really stick a post-it on the back of their monitor? They already used so many digital effects in the movie it seems like it would have just been less tacky to digitally remove the Apple logo for that one quick scene.
Are you sure it doesn't mean Clickety-Clicks per Moron?
The term is used for traditional print and billboard media as well as online, so no... I don't think it stands for Clickety-Clicks per Moron. :)
Bzzzt. For anyone who has worked in banking in the US, M means thousand, and MM means million. It bugs me to this day when people write 240M when they mean 240 million.
M is also used in the advertising industry for thousands. For example, the cost of an ad buy can be given in thousands of impressions, known as CCM (cost per thousand).
Brilliant!
This is horribly offtopic, but Guinness' marketing has just worked too well on me. Whenever I hear or read that word, I think of the jovial cartoon characters from their TV ads here in the US. The thought of them on a tropical island, watching a Stealth Bomber crash shortly after taking off, clicking their glasses together and exclaiming "brilliant!" is just too funny.
"Scry"? How are you supposed to read that? It almost looks like 'scary' to me. That is not a good name to have when it comes to MS and data storage... I do not want my data storage to be 'scary'!
Your Admin should have just found kitten cursors then, problem solved. Not that hard...
I think Apple is doing a decent job upgrading their product line in order to keep winning back existing customers. I still have a 4G iPod (the last version with the monochrome screen) that is 4 years old now and it still works like a charm. The battery is probably shot, but I use it exclusively in my car now so it's plugged in all the time. When the hard drive finally dies I'll probably get an iPod touch so I can get maps and stuff on the go. However, it shows what happens when nearly everyone in America who wants an iPod has one - sales will drop. Apple really needs to start marketing in up-and-coming markets such as the Middle East, China, and other areas. Sure, there are plenty of knockoff products in those markets already, but that doesn't mean Apple shouldn't try.
The article summary gave me an interesting idea. I have an old 1.5 GHz Pentium M notebook I was going to clean up and give to my folks. I'm wondering if replacing the existing HDD with a SSD would improve performance for it. It's a little old and clunky now, obviously.
Yes I'd agree that the prime reason is range, even though I call B.S. on that excuse for most average drivers because people's daily commutes tend to be rather short. I can't recall the number now, but I think I read that most Americans drive less than 50 miles a day. I myself do 7 to work and 7 back, plus random errands and trips. It's a rare day that I need to use the entire 300 mile range of my gas tank. But I believe this psychology is strong in consumers... "what if I want to take a long road trip!" etc. type mentality, even if you hardly go on trips. To me, this is the same idea that drives people to buy huge SUVs for off-road adventures they will most likely never take, but want the car "just in case!".
If they could make an electric car that could recharge in 5 minutes and then go another 250-350 miles, then the problem would be solved I think.
As much as I love Wikipedia and use it daily, this is exactly why I have never given them my money. I've occasionally contributed to an article, but I won't give them my hard-earned cash.
Of course it builds from the name Scrabble, thats the *whole point* of the game isn't it? They get a higher score for that name!
I fail to see the issue with what these two enterprising brothers have done. In my opinion, Mattel would never have thought about making a Scrabble facebook app... thus, in my twisted logic, they are not really being deprived of revenues they would have been otherwise earning. I know this doesn't really make it "right", but whatever. You snooze you lose.
These companies, time and time again, show that they just "don't get" the current online world and are having a hard time figuring out how to transition and make a profit. Rather than suing these guys they need to hire them.
I've heard of a scam at gas stations and ATMs where a "fake front" is placed onto the unit. This has a device inside that steals your credit card numbers when you place your card into the device. If you're in a hurry you might not notice. The thieves then come back later, remove the device and have all the card numbers that were used.
Yeah, Bank of America has a similar system and it's pretty neat. The only downsides I have discovered:
Can a tag this whole 'news' story as offtopic? A fake frickin' VIDEO in the news section?!
Seriously, if I wanted Onion 'news', I'd go to the Onion's website. There is a reason that Slashdot, the NY Times and NPR are on my toolbar as quicklinks... and it isn't because I want fake news.
Yes, better scanners would be a good start and a realistic solution. What takes me the most time in airport security is unloading myself of all metal that could set off the detectors and thus get me pulled aside for "additional searches"... my shoes (some shoes have a metal "shank" in them), my belt, my loose pocket change... then I have to stand around on the other side getting re-organized. Give me a break. If people could just walk through without all that hassle it would be much better.
Weren't they working on some type of "Total Recall" style scanner that basically makes you look like a walking skeleton while going through security? I know there were issues because people were worried about their privacy being violated...
I'd like to know how many people here have actually been taken to court, or taken someone else (a company) to court or other legal proceedings over what was said in an EULA.
I'm sure I "read" the EULAs just as closely as most consumers: I don't. The times I've tried, it took a VERY long time and it made sense, I guess... but by the time you get through it you can hardly remember the content or context of what it said. 99% of the time I just click OK... I've never had an issue where I've had to refer back to an EULA, personally.
I think you'd just have to take more time and be more thoughtful about cutting someone off, getting exciting and interjecting a comment randomly, etc... all the stuff people normally do in conversations. Hey, if I were a colonist I'd take a 1+ second voice delay over only being able to use email to communicate with friends/family back on Earth.
Are you sure that the camera in question could not do video? As far as I know, the only still photo cameras that cannot do video are DSLR cameras. Every consumer-level point-n-shoot camera I've ever seen can do video, and now a lot of them can record at HD quality.
I'm not trying to say you didn't read it correctly, and I know that a lot of those stickers they put on electronics are full of marketing-speak garbage, but that just seems like a weird thing to advertise if the camera couldn't do video... 1080 lines of vertical resolution for a still image is horribly low. My 6 MP Nikon D100 outputs an image that is 3008 px wide by 2000 px tall.
Exactly what I was about to say. 3 years ago I bought a very nice 19" Viewsonic LCD screen, and it ran be about $600. Today that same screen would be $200 or maybe less. I fail to see what your parent was talking about in reference to my post.
Ah yes, I had forgotten about that bit. I'm sure they'll lower the price on the "older" versions... then the suckers who buy those won't be able to see the special features or whatever in the discs released after that point. Nice way to treat your customers I say.
Well, hopefully with only one format (and everyone who wants HD buying this one format) economies of scale will kick in and lower the price significantly.
Indeed, that may be true and is a good point. A weekly Portland newspaper did a story about how the increasing number of Starbucks stores in the city actually helped increase the number of independant chains, by effectively lifting the popularity of coffee across consumer groups: http://wweek.com/story.php?story=5137.
I myself don't hate Starbcusk at all. They treat their employees well, and their coffee is "ok" in my opinion. The only thing I don't like is that many Starbucks' don't feel very welcoming to stay in for a long period of time, which seems strange to me considering Howard Shultz's theory of Starbucks as the "third space". I find many mom and pop coffee stores just feel more inviting (plus have free WiFi).
Hipster cred... a starbucks? You almost made me spit tea all over my keyboard. Starbucks hasn't been cool in years. You really haven't seen people trying harder for "hipster cred" then those that go to "Stumptown coffee" in Portland, Oregon. You'd think Jesus had come down and roasted the coffee himself the way people talk about it. It's "ok", but doesn't seem to me to be really better then anyplace else, other than being a local company.
As for Wifi, I never go to Starbucks when I need to work on my laptop because they charge for it. It's pretty annoying to me, really... but I guess enough people pay that it's worthwhile to them to keep charging for it.
That reminds me of my work. We have one Vista "test" machine that hardly gets used. The software we've developed in-house to support our products doesn't work on Vista, and our customers aren't upgrading. Because of that we're not wasting our time right now in getting the software to actually work with Vista. I see us skipping Vista entirely and probably looking at Windows 7 eventually.
I do have Vista running on my personal laptop, and so far it's been great. However I'm not trying to run enterprise-level software solutions or small obscure utilities, either.