This battery life issue is important; unless they can at least reverse those numbers (I.E., 3 hour battery life and 1.5 hour recharge) the product is screwed.
However, if they can do that, and then make the recharge station into some cute little doggy pillow that RoboFido goes and "curls up in", they will have the killer e-pet.
I personally would love to have a little daggit that turns the TV to Dragonball Z right before it comes on, then barks at me to tell me to get off the freakin' web and go watch my show. I don't think I'm alone in this.
NEC, Sony, everybody else, pay attention here:
They need to look like four-legged critters, but they don't need fur. You could make a generic design that is user-selectable as to whether it barks or meows, and that'll be good enough for folks, but a little biped-appearing humanoid will freak people out. Make it four legs or it won't sell.
They need to be able to do useful things, which means they need accurate internal clocks, and either infrared or RF data capabilities. If the thing has an IP address and speaks 802.11 you'll sell a jillion of 'em, but that's not stricly necessary for them to sell.
It's OK if some functions are added if you have a PC for them to talk to, but they better be pretty damn functional without it, and you better make those API's public. Open Source developers will help your sales, and it does *NOT* hurt you if your competition could theoretically make interoperable epets. If you think so, you should get out of the PC business because that's how it works.
Batteries should last long enough for RoboFido to make it around town on the family shopping trip, and RoboFido should go and lie down in his recharge station looking cute from time to time to recharge all on his own. He should never die on me without warning.
RoboFido does not need to understand English, but he does need to learn my voice and distinguish me from other humans.
Much as I hate to start a new topic here, I should point out that the original poster's suggestion that we index sites by the type of content they provide, instead of the actual content, is called "yahoo".
Been there, done that, and it's occasionally useful, but usually not.
1. Turn signals are used to identify rental cars being driven by tourists, and for no other purpose.
2. If two drops of rain fall in the next county, slow to 15MPH and turn on your hazard flashers.
3. The following traffic signals are used:
Red: Means 3 to 5 cars may go through. Yellow: Means speed up to 25MPH over the speed limit. This is trivial since you must already be going 20MPH over the limit, unless there is a traffic accident in sight in which case you're going 5MPH and riding the center line. Green: Stop, and wait for those 3 to 5 cars running the red light.
4. If you miss an exit on the expressway, back up, or you'll pay $2.50 in tolls to get back to your desired exit.
5. All speed limit signs are intentionally set at 20MPH below the actual speed limit. If you observe them, cops will flip you the finger as they roar by.
6. The belief that tractor-trailer rigs require extra space to stop and accelerate is an urban myth. Change lanes directly in front of them, and slam on your brakes; they like that.
7. Yield signs indicate what the other driver is going to do just before you would hit him. Ignore them.
Do you read them all, caring about the name of the grip, or do you do it looking for the odd joke, and waiting till the theatre empties?
You're thinking geek-centric.
My sister is an amateur actress, and in my spare time (when I had spare time), I used to engineer sound for community theatre. We, and lots of our friends also involved in drama, often stay for the credits and applaud the grips, gaffers, best boys, and other similar jobs that never get much recognition for their hard work.
Just because you don't do it doesn't mean nobody cares.
And in fact, because of that, a couple dozen of the folks who used to contribute to a certain BBS network's forum for Star Trek fans now communicate just with each other via a mailing list.
It's small and cozy, like the forum once was before the Internet came along, and we like it just fine.
I think mailing lists fill a big part of the old BBS niche.
The rest of that niche gets nicely filled by a web page that archives the email, and allows links to be created to any files that would have been uploaded in the old days.
The Internet didn't kill BBSing, it just killed BBS technology. That's not really a loss; we can build our communities now based on mutual interest, not just geography.
You can still do everything you used to do, you just aren't restricted to doing it one way.
The only thing that doesn't translate directly to a combination of the web and email is door games, and let's face it, they mostly sucked.
If you really, really just gotta have your Time Of Chaos fix, or whatever lame door game you played, there's always telnet. Some of the old BBSes even operate this way. They are out there.
You can find out more from the (currently sparse) links at:
My question is this: Would you use or purchase cryptography software from somewhere that is even the slightest bit sloppy as to the phrasing of what their product does?
Let me get this straight; one programmer from a company makes one internet post about a subject, and you misunderstand the meaning of one word because his sentence was unclear to your quick reading, and that indicts the entire company's entire product line?
Jeezus, boy, you just talked yourself out of doing business with every single company that ever existed. Get a grip.
If some guy writing POS apps for Burger King accidentally types "freis" when he's in a hurry some time, are you going to quit eating there?
The sad part is, what the guy said wasn't even wrong; he was exaggerating for effect. You're the one that made the mistake, and you're claiming people should blow off HIS company over it?
Hell, where do you work; maybe we should boycott your company too while we're at it.
BTW, you misspelled "algorithm". Perhaps the Public Relations folks at your company should be fired over your horrible mistake.
FedEx has a new ground service that is cheaper than UPS 2-day.
Their ground services will certainly continue to expand.
FDX (the parent company) also owns RPS now, which is probably UPS' biggest competitor in the day-specific (as opposed to time-specific, which is FedEx's bag) market.
Those "loopholes" in the law don't come from the Florida legislators at all; they're a consequence of Federal court interpretations of the 2nd Amendment.
It's the same in *EVERY* state.
Florida's murder and violent crime rates have gone down in recent years, ever since the legislature passed the CCW act.
I live in north Orange County. The phone system is completely up-to-date, there's more Internet bandwidth coming into it than to most cities twice it's size, and we've got both DSL and Cable Modems.
I'm not sure where you were, but in north Orange County the phone system supports 33.6k+ just fine.
You're talking about the Sanford flea market; Sanford is in north Seminole County, almost into Volusia County. You're off by the width of an entire county.
Bullshit. The temperature has not risen, the agriculture is feeding more people than it ever could in the past, and the immune system doesn't have eff-all to do with alcohol consumption.
As for "bringing in" alcohol, it predates written civilization. Every culture has discovered it on their own long ago.
Read a book not written by Al Gore before you spout off in public.
If you went to Disney and the other attractions, you didn't go to Orlando; you went to a bubble that doesn't represent the 1.8M+ people in this metropolitan area.
The technology scene around here is not Disney. Disney is an important part of the local economy, but they aren't everything.
How about FedEx's 600+ local employees working on some of the largest projects in that company?
How about Theseus Logic developing revolutionary semiconductor technologies?
How about other large local technology centers, like the research park at UCF with it's Naval Special Warfare labs?
How about half of freakin' NASA being 45 minutes away?
How about every defense contractor in existance?
How about large IT staffs at Anheuser Busch and Tupperware?
This town is a technology hotbed. It's no San Jose or Austin, but it's big.
Disney is important, and they employ a lot of people, but they aren't Orlando any more than Euro Disney is Paris.
Agreed; it's just as easy for us, but people need to remember something:
WE ARE NOT NORMAL.
The same objection applies here as applies to the frequent cries of "just update it from the internet".
80% of the people in the US, which is arguably the most-connected country in the world (and please don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong on that) ARE NOT ON THE NET.
Now, most of those don't have computers, but a lot of 'em do.
Most people with computers don't hang out at LUG meetings, don't spend any time at all in the local computer store, and don't know where to even turn to find somebody to help them.
They buy their blank floppies at Wal-Mart, they buy their hardware upgrades from Dell or Gateway, and they buy their software at CompUSA (blech) or another such place.
Not only do they not meet geeks, but they wouldn't like us if they did.
Also, a lot of older people don't want their nephew or the 14-year-old next door installing their software; they pride themselves on what little computer knowledge they have, gained from painful experience and "... for Dummies" books.
The bottom line is this:
If you accept the proposition that new people joining the Linux bandwagon is a good thing (and not every one of us does, but that's a different thread), and you prefer Debian, there's good reason for you to find this distribution to be A Good Thing.
Me, I'd rather see 'em buy Red Hat, but that's not the point at all.
Go read "Applied Cryptography" for answers to all your questions, including the "brand new" wrinkle you just thought of (that everybody else in the industry thought of and solved years ago.)
You can find it on Amazon/BarnesandNoble/Fatbrain/wherever.
SETI doesn't rely on us being able to talk to them; it just relies on us being able to detect radio emissions and demonstrate whether or not they contain patterns that indicate they weren't generated by natural processes.
Figuring out how to communicate with them is a totally seperate process that might or might not follow detecting them.
Really, communicating with them isn't the point; any such communications would take many years, and by the time anything useful could be said we'd have probably figured it out on our own.
SETI is about proving zorg the martian exists, not asking him how the wife and larvae are doing.
The concern shouldn't be whether or not they'll restrain themselves for a "long enough" period of time.
What needs to happen is LESS government regulation, not more, to whit: shorter patent expiration times, so everybody else can reverse engineer and use it after the builder gets his well-deserved head start for all the work he's done.
As for what China did; just goes to show you Communism doesn't work. In the US, people make enough money that they have spare cash to give to churches and other programs to give away free milk, and the resulting taxes cover government programs to do the same.
Slashdot Mirror
There's nothing that says they can't have a different successor every film.
:-)
John DeLancie would be a very good choice, puns aside.
(For those who don't know, John played "Q" on every Star Trek series since "Next Generation".)
Heck, maybe every person who plays his replacement could be an actor named John.
...that they introduced his successor in the latest film.
He will be missed.
If "some of us" prefer that, then how can you say "you probably mean"?
No, he probably DOESN'T mean that. If he did, he'd have said so.
Prefer what you'd like, but don't waste everybody else's time and bandwidth etc. bitching about what others prefer.
This battery life issue is important; unless they can at least reverse those numbers (I.E., 3 hour battery life and 1.5 hour recharge) the product is screwed.
However, if they can do that, and then make the recharge station into some cute little doggy pillow that RoboFido goes and "curls up in", they will have the killer e-pet.
I personally would love to have a little daggit that turns the TV to Dragonball Z right before it comes on, then barks at me to tell me to get off the freakin' web and go watch my show. I don't think I'm alone in this.
NEC, Sony, everybody else, pay attention here:
They need to look like four-legged critters, but they don't need fur. You could make a generic design that is user-selectable as to whether it barks or meows, and that'll be good enough for folks, but a little biped-appearing humanoid will freak people out. Make it four legs or it won't sell.
They need to be able to do useful things, which means they need accurate internal clocks, and either infrared or RF data capabilities. If the thing has an IP address and speaks 802.11 you'll sell a jillion of 'em, but that's not stricly necessary for them to sell.
It's OK if some functions are added if you have a PC for them to talk to, but they better be pretty damn functional without it, and you better make those API's public. Open Source developers will help your sales, and it does *NOT* hurt you if your competition could theoretically make interoperable epets. If you think so, you should get out of the PC business because that's how it works.
Batteries should last long enough for RoboFido to make it around town on the family shopping trip, and RoboFido should go and lie down in his recharge station looking cute from time to time to recharge all on his own. He should never die on me without warning.
RoboFido does not need to understand English, but he does need to learn my voice and distinguish me from other humans.
Much as I hate to start a new topic here, I should point out that the original poster's suggestion that we index sites by the type of content they provide, instead of the actual content, is called "yahoo".
Been there, done that, and it's occasionally useful, but usually not.
Wander off into irrelevancy with it? :-)
Also, I'm sure law enforcement will like this for detecting marijuana fields by the side of the road.
Sounds like Orlando:
1. Turn signals are used to identify rental cars being driven by tourists, and for no other purpose.
2. If two drops of rain fall in the next county, slow to 15MPH and turn on your hazard flashers.
3. The following traffic signals are used:
Red: Means 3 to 5 cars may go through.
Yellow: Means speed up to 25MPH over the speed limit. This is trivial since you must already be going 20MPH over the limit, unless there is a traffic accident in sight in which case you're going 5MPH and riding the center line.
Green: Stop, and wait for those 3 to 5 cars running the red light.
4. If you miss an exit on the expressway, back up, or you'll pay $2.50 in tolls to get back to your desired exit.
5. All speed limit signs are intentionally set at 20MPH below the actual speed limit. If you observe them, cops will flip you the finger as they roar by.
6. The belief that tractor-trailer rigs require extra space to stop and accelerate is an urban myth. Change lanes directly in front of them, and slam on your brakes; they like that.
7. Yield signs indicate what the other driver is going to do just before you would hit him. Ignore them.
Do you read them all, caring about the name of the grip, or do you do it looking for the odd joke, and waiting till the theatre empties?
You're thinking geek-centric.
My sister is an amateur actress, and in my spare time (when I had spare time), I used to engineer sound for community theatre. We, and lots of our friends also involved in drama, often stay for the credits and applaud the grips, gaffers, best boys, and other similar jobs that never get much recognition for their hard work.
Just because you don't do it doesn't mean nobody cares.
If you send something via FedEx, do you expect to have it read?
You ought to maybe read the Terms and Conditions of shipping via FedEx:
Inspection of Shipments
Inspection of Shipments
We may, but are not obligated to, open and inspect any shipment at our
sole discretion and with or without notice.
Besides being on the web page, that's also verbatim from the back of the airbill you sign when you ship.
And in fact, because of that, a couple dozen of the folks who used to contribute to a certain BBS network's forum for Star Trek fans now communicate just with each other via a mailing list.
It's small and cozy, like the forum once was before the Internet came along, and we like it just fine.
I think mailing lists fill a big part of the old BBS niche.
The rest of that niche gets nicely filled by a web page that archives the email, and allows links to be created to any files that would have been uploaded in the old days.
The Internet didn't kill BBSing, it just killed BBS technology. That's not really a loss; we can build our communities now based on mutual interest, not just geography.
You can still do everything you used to do, you just aren't restricted to doing it one way.
The only thing that doesn't translate directly to a combination of the web and email is door games, and let's face it, they mostly sucked.
If you really, really just gotta have your Time Of Chaos fix, or whatever lame door game you played, there's always telnet. Some of the old BBSes even operate this way. They are out there.
You can find out more from the (currently sparse) links at:
http://www.fidonet.net
Hmm. That has been changed since I was hired, and employees in the IT Division weren't notified.
Thanks for the correction.
I'll try to find out whether there are FAA regulations involved in that decision.
My question is this: Would you use or purchase cryptography software from somewhere that is even the slightest bit sloppy as to the phrasing of what their product does?
Let me get this straight; one programmer from a company makes one internet post about a subject, and you misunderstand the meaning of one word because his sentence was unclear to your quick reading, and that indicts the entire company's entire product line?
Jeezus, boy, you just talked yourself out of doing business with every single company that ever existed. Get a grip.
If some guy writing POS apps for Burger King accidentally types "freis" when he's in a hurry some time, are you going to quit eating there?
The sad part is, what the guy said wasn't even wrong; he was exaggerating for effect. You're the one that made the mistake, and you're claiming people should blow off HIS company over it?
Hell, where do you work; maybe we should boycott your company too while we're at it.
BTW, you misspelled "algorithm". Perhaps the Public Relations folks at your company should be fired over your horrible mistake.
Fradulent in terms of "packages weren't insured"?
No.
Fradulent in terms of "company was actually self insured, and just trying to be sneaky and pretend they weren't?"
Yes; the courts have already decided that. This suit is a result of that decision, not a speculation hoping to achieve that decision.
Where did you hear that rubbish?
FedEx doesn't stop you from shipping firearms any way you want. They just don't want you shipping ammo.
FedEx has a new ground service that is cheaper than UPS 2-day.
Their ground services will certainly continue to expand.
FDX (the parent company) also owns RPS now, which is probably UPS' biggest competitor in the day-specific (as opposed to time-specific, which is FedEx's bag) market.
The state in which they're registered as a corporation (Ohio) doesn't allow you to self-insure without a license.
That's not very confusing. They knew, otherwise they wouldn't have tried to form a phony insurance company in Bermuda.
Those "loopholes" in the law don't come from the Florida legislators at all; they're a consequence of Federal court interpretations of the 2nd Amendment.
It's the same in *EVERY* state.
Florida's murder and violent crime rates have gone down in recent years, ever since the legislature passed the CCW act.
Get your facts straight.
I live in north Orange County. The phone system is completely up-to-date, there's more Internet bandwidth coming into it than to most cities twice it's size, and we've got both DSL and Cable Modems.
I'm not sure where you were, but in north Orange County the phone system supports 33.6k+ just fine.
You're talking about the Sanford flea market; Sanford is in north Seminole County, almost into Volusia County. You're off by the width of an entire county.
Bullshit. The temperature has not risen, the agriculture is feeding more people than it ever could in the past, and the immune system doesn't have eff-all to do with alcohol consumption.
As for "bringing in" alcohol, it predates written civilization. Every culture has discovered it on their own long ago.
Read a book not written by Al Gore before you spout off in public.
If you went to Disney and the other attractions, you didn't go to Orlando; you went to a bubble that doesn't represent the 1.8M+ people in this metropolitan area.
The technology scene around here is not Disney. Disney is an important part of the local economy, but they aren't everything.
How about FedEx's 600+ local employees working on some of the largest projects in that company?
How about Theseus Logic developing revolutionary semiconductor technologies?
How about other large local technology centers, like the research park at UCF with it's Naval Special Warfare labs?
How about half of freakin' NASA being 45 minutes away?
How about every defense contractor in existance?
How about large IT staffs at Anheuser Busch and Tupperware?
This town is a technology hotbed. It's no San Jose or Austin, but it's big.
Disney is important, and they employ a lot of people, but they aren't Orlando any more than Euro Disney is Paris.
Agreed; it's just as easy for us, but people need to remember something:
WE ARE NOT NORMAL.
The same objection applies here as applies to the frequent cries of "just update it from the internet".
80% of the people in the US, which is arguably the most-connected country in the world (and please don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong on that) ARE NOT ON THE NET.
Now, most of those don't have computers, but a lot of 'em do.
Most people with computers don't hang out at LUG meetings, don't spend any time at all in the local computer store, and don't know where to even turn to find somebody to help them.
They buy their blank floppies at Wal-Mart, they buy their hardware upgrades from Dell or Gateway, and they buy their software at CompUSA (blech) or another such place.
Not only do they not meet geeks, but they wouldn't like us if they did.
Also, a lot of older people don't want their nephew or the 14-year-old next door installing their software; they pride themselves on what little computer knowledge they have, gained from painful experience and "... for Dummies" books.
The bottom line is this:
If you accept the proposition that new people joining the Linux bandwagon is a good thing (and not every one of us does, but that's a different thread), and you prefer Debian, there's good reason for you to find this distribution to be A Good Thing.
Me, I'd rather see 'em buy Red Hat, but that's not the point at all.
Go read "Applied Cryptography" for answers to all your questions, including the "brand new" wrinkle you just thought of (that everybody else in the industry thought of and solved years ago.)
You can find it on Amazon/BarnesandNoble/Fatbrain/wherever.
SETI doesn't rely on us being able to talk to them; it just relies on us being able to detect radio emissions and demonstrate whether or not they contain patterns that indicate they weren't generated by natural processes.
Figuring out how to communicate with them is a totally seperate process that might or might not follow detecting them.
Really, communicating with them isn't the point; any such communications would take many years, and by the time anything useful could be said we'd have probably figured it out on our own.
SETI is about proving zorg the martian exists, not asking him how the wife and larvae are doing.
So what? It's their crap, they built it.
The concern shouldn't be whether or not they'll restrain themselves for a "long enough" period of time.
What needs to happen is LESS government regulation, not more, to whit: shorter patent expiration times, so everybody else can reverse engineer and use it after the builder gets his well-deserved head start for all the work he's done.
As for what China did; just goes to show you Communism doesn't work. In the US, people make enough money that they have spare cash to give to churches and other programs to give away free milk, and the resulting taxes cover government programs to do the same.