I've pretty much giving up going to best buy ('cause I don't appreciate being searched as I leave the store, but that's another rant). Last spring I wanted to buy an XM radio (I think they were having a promotion or something), and Circuit City was out. So I swallowed my pride and went to Best Buy.
The jerk at the cash register was adamant about wanting my phone number. He said it was "for XM" to which I replied "then I'll give my number to XM, but not to you." I finally gave him a fake number, which was rejected. He ended up pulling up the record for some other customer (maybe a name that stood out from earlier in the day) and used that number instead.
What I should do, actually, is say "Okay, I'll give you my number, but I'm also requiring that this not be used as exemption for the national DNC list. Put me on your do not call list immediately." I figure, the cashier is an authorized representative of the company (hell, he's wearing the stupid shirt and name tag), so that makes my request fully legal. Any telemarketing that results from the sale is in violation of the DNC law and subject to fine.
Maybe if we explain *that* at checkout, they'll stop asking ('cause none of them want to be responsible for opening their employer to a $10,000 liability).
In cases where I recognize a need for someone to call me (like, say, to tell me when something's just come into stock) I invariably give my work number.
People keep their cat's litter box in the bathroom? Might as well keep it in the kitchen or your bedroom.
We do. Actually, there's a little space under the counter for a chair, and the litter box goes there (we don't have the chair). That way, it's protected on three sides, the cats have to walk over a throw rug as they leave (which catches much of the litter spill), and then they've still got a lot of bathroom to traverse before they get to the bedroom (so any other tracked litter stays there). Also, this way we empty it every morning just before we hop in the shower, so it never really gets to stink.
We don't want it in the kitchen (food prep and cat poop -- yum!) or the laundry room (dropping wet clothes too near a litterbox -- yum!), and since our basement is unfinished, we don't want it down there. Plus, being in our bathroom pretty much ensures that it's somewhere that our guests will never go, so their visits to our house are kept more pleasant.
What if a work is public domain in one country but copyrighted in another?
Well, one problem with that is that, intellectually, that doesn't make any sense. A book isn't less of a book in a country where it's still covered by copyright (or where it's in the public domain). It's still the same story, the same idea.
Look at it this way: If you spend two years working in Germany, and buy a bunch of books and CDs, should you be forced to forfeit those when you return home to the US, simply because the copyright is owned by someone else? You've purchased them legally, according to the laws of where you were, and you should be able to take them wherever you like.
Now change the two years to a two week vacation. Why should that be any different? Or a two-day business trip? Or a two-minute virtual visit through a web browser? Where do you draw the line? Why do you even need a line?
Ultimately, in a global economy, the concept of copyrights being different in each country is just ludicrous. This is part of what DMCA was supposed to do -- bring our laws in line with a World Intellictual Property Organization treaty. So now we've got WIPO and DMCA (and associated anti-consumer isues), but we're still bound by 18th century notions of nationally-defined copyright controls? How crazy is that?
As I click the link http://thorguard.com/ from above, I scared the crap out of me, and half of the IT department.
Why Mozilla doesn't have some kind of mute button is beyond me. There's one bug (24418) that's been tracking people asking about mute and/or audio controls, for like 4 years, but it's never made it into the product.
At some point, industries are just going to have to get used to the fact that people want to buy from *everywhere*, not just the store in their own town/state/country. If someone in the UK wants to buy from the US store, they should be allowed to, at the US prices. Just like anyone in the US who wants to buy from Amazon-UK can. The downside is you only get whatever international support, if any, the distant store feels like offering.
Of course, content-owners don't like this, 'cause they like having their own little state-sanctioned monopoly on their own content and for some reason can't stomach the fact that someone in another country might want to sell the same stuff.
The way I figure it, if the original rights holders have been compensated, then any and all cross-border traffic in IP goods should be permitted. Why should I care if $$ go to Warner Brothers in the UK or in the US, as long as it goes to WB?
Solve that problem, and pricing disparities between different countries' stores will eventually disappear (or the stores will, 'cause they're not being competitive).
Is there a way to block politics stories from the home page? I checked "Politics" in my home page preferences under "Exclude Stories from the Homepage" so that they wouldn't show up but I still see them. Games stories also still show up even though I have them selected to not show up as well. Is this a bug or is there some other setting I need to turn on or off?
I just tried this, and it worked for me, after I turned off the "Collapse Sections" preference. That is, I had all the sections shown on the front page, and I think that breaks the exclusion setting (despite the prefs page implying that it would still work).
Why is this even news worthy? It's always been a risk, it will continue to be a risk.
Because up until this week, it's been a theoretical risk. Now, the risk is real. A storm of this intensity has never hit the Cape dead-on, and this will come DAMNED near close to dead-on.
As of 5:00 this morning, Patrick AFB (just south of CCAS and responsible for the AF side of things on the Cape) issued a warning that the storm was to pass 60 miles away, with 100+ mph winds.
So, yeah, if the article were in June, saying "Hey, a hurricane could take us out," I'd agree that this wasn't really newsworthy. Problem is, it's not "a hurricane could take us out," it's "this hurricane could take us out. In 48 hours."
Okay, I don't have an iPod, so I may be confused here, but I thought iPods could load mp3s, right? So all Microsoft has to do in order to load songs to an iPod is to sell you an mp3.
And hasn't Real already figured out how to properly encrypt a song to load on an iPod? So MS could use that approach, too, and sell DRM-enabled songs that would load directly to the iPod. (and don't even start me on whether that's legal or not -- it clearly is, under interoperability clauses, though it'll probably take a court ruling to get that through people's heads).
Sounds to me like MS is *choosing* not to support iPods.
Re:Have it do something worthwhile
on
Palmtop Nirvana?
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The major failing in most PDA's or palmtops is that there's very little you can usefull do with them. [....] Name me one thing that I can do with a PDA I cannot do with a simple cell phone that makes it worth carrying around.
I have a Tungsten T3. I use it all the time, and only partially for the original PDA functions (calendar, todo, etc.) Most of what I use it for would never work on a cell phone:
My wife and I were re-reading the Harry Potter series. When we got to book 5, I didn't want to share, so I found an eText of it and stuck it on the palm. It was the first time I really read anything significant on a handheld, and it really wasn't that bad. Best of all, it was easy to take on the subway with me (easier than lugging around a big book).
When I find the time, I like to go out Geocache hunting. At first, I'd check online for some caches in my area, print out their info sheets, manually enter them into my GPS, and go. Now I get an email weekly with a file that I can load on my palm, and all the information for every cache near me, including recent log entries, are right at my fingertips. Result: MUCH more effective caching, especially enabling spur-of-the-moment cache hunting.
To make that even more effective, I've got a map program. Shows where all the caches are, I can drill down to street level, and it even has a database of stores, restaurants, banks, etc. I can hook it up to my GPS and get real-time map tracking, on-the-fly navigation with spoken turn prompts (including text-to-speech street names). At this point, I almost never use Mapquest any more when I go on a trip, it's all in the palm.
I even have a Weight Watchers program that lets me track what I eat, how many points I've used, etc. (Well, it did, when I was with the program. gotta get back on that...)
Can you do these things with a cell phone? Some, maybe (the map program is being betatested on smartphones). But really you can't do them well. Could you do these on a laptop? Certainly. But a laptop doesn't fit in my shirt pocket, and so wouldn't do me much good in the middle of the woods when I need a hint or have to check a map.
So, not "one thing," but four. And I haven't even mentioned simple databases, shopping lists (think of something you need, add it to the list immediately, then the next time you're in the store, presto!), travel alarm (I never trust hotel clocks), astronomy programs (when you absolutely, positively need to know just when twilight really starts when you're in Edinburgh), financial calculations (is that refinance really worth it?), project outlining (so you can plan your next week's worth of stuff around the house), and password maintenance (in an encrypted DB, naturally). These are ALL programs I use, if not daily, then at least frequently enough that I haven't had to delete them, even when I was on a Palm with much less memory.
Plus, it's much easier to play Solitaire during a meeting on a palm than on a cell phone.
I suppose maybe I'm a bit of an unusual case -- but I'm sure there are plenty of other people who use PDAs as much as, if not more than, I do. And who could never use a cell phone as a substitute.
Everyone's been assuming that this is in response to TimeTrax. People seem to be forgetting that this has been available for some time (along with other, similar software). Also note that the XMPCR was on super-duper clearance in some places ($15 at XMFan.com a few weeks back, though w/out antenna).
The general buzz on the XM message boards is that XM Radio was planning to discontinue the XMPCR for some time, and it just became evident (clearance sales, retail channels drying up, etc.) right about the same time as the software concerns hit the radar.
I mean, really -- could a big company like XM really decide to pull a piece of hardware from the market on only a day's notice? (the TimeTrax software and initial rumors of XMPCR being pulled happened on the same day). There's also been talk of a USB port on new cradles (which may or may not have been recently nixed, depending on your paranoia settings).
And anyway, the XMPCR was never a big seller for them. Only available from online merchants, it was originally a cheap way for someone to get XM (since they didn't need to sell any controls or displays). Now, the prices have come down (my SkiFi with cradle cost $200, a Roady2 with free home cradle is $100), so they don't need the bottom-end as much any longer.
So, yes, it's possible there was some RIAA pressure, and it's possible XM decided on their own to avoid the RIAA, but if so, that was probably only the last straw -- I would not be surprised if they'd made this decision 6 months ago.
I heard a rumour that it was originally made to be 3-d. Is that true?
It was originally a 70mm film. The "normal" scenes were displayed in a regular, smaller size while the scenes shown from a point of view of wearing the the device were shown full screen.
It was actually more complicated than that. yes, the "in-device" scenes were shown in a different aspect ratio (wider, I think, than the rest of the film), but that's not what the first poster was thinking of.
Originally, it was to be filmed in something called "Showscan." That was, if memory serves, a 70mm format at 60 frames per second (!), which provided, according to its inventor, an incredible sense of realism. But of course, that'd require all sorts of new projecter equipment (not to mention LOTS of film, hence only using it on the VR scenes), so it never happened that way.
It looks like the process has been bought and is now being applied to simulator (amusement park) rides, and the like.
I'm reading on the forums at XMFan.com that XM will stop selling the USB-based PCR radio altogether, largely because of this software.
1) that sucks, 'cause I wanted to figure out how to integrate the PCR into my in-house MP3 network, and
2) it's crazy that they stop selling a product just because a small number of purchasers are doing something they don't like with it.
I wonder how long it'll be before someone figures out how to modify the car tuner (XM Direct, if it ever ships) to be computer controlled...
Anyway, I just thought I'd mention it. I haven't seen official confirmation (it's still on the XM website, for example), but the mods on XMFan seem to be in the know, and they're saying it's true.
Drivers here have more than enough trouble coping with travel in two dimensions. Adding a third is a recipe for disaster.
It's worse than that. People don't really drive in 2 dimensions, but rather closer to 1. Think about it: Most of your driving is spent starting in a lane, traversing that lane until you need to change to another lane. Even in a parking lot, the most 2-dimensional driving space most people run across (unless you're 4-wheeling in a field), you tend to drive in pre-established lanes, up-and-down, looking for a spot.
So flying cars really take you from a 1+ dimension realm into a full, unlaned, uncontrolled 3 dimensional space. Unless they do a LOT of narrow traffic control.
I've wondered for a while whether it might be possible to actually overlay four projectors. Rather than an overlapping mosaic of four images, you'd aim all four projectors at the same spot and align them such that each projector filled the gaps between the others' pixels.
So rather than:
AABB
AABB
CCDD
CCDD
you'd have
ABAB
CDCD
ABAB
CDCD
I'd think that this might be more difficult than a simple overlapping mosaic, because you'd have to have consistent geometry across the entire image (rather than just perfectly consistent along the seams).
But it might also nicely hide color balance issues. As all four projectors would simultaneously contribute to any single region of the screen, slight differences in color or brightness would be averaged out by the eye. Maybe. At least, it should be less noticable than if one entire quadrant were, say, "a little red".
So, Real Networks takes it into their owns hands, and provides a hack to allow.rm on the iPod. This violates a whole lot of things, besides just common cortesy: DMCA, copyright, a few others.
How exactly is that a violation of DMCA? Or Copyright? Or some "few others"?
Someone buys an iPod. They want to put music on it. They're free to put.mp3 and.aac from iTunes on it, right? And also any.mp3s from other sources, right? So why is it suddenly illegal for an iPod owner to put.rm files on the iPod? Just because it required a hack to make it happen?
Or are iPods now unmoddable, just like Playstations seem to be?
Yes, it means you have 4 different accounts for each of the 4 systems, so it is not exactly what you want, but it is a reasonable approximation and could be used in a scenario where a company didn't want to pay MS for their middleware. The biggest problem you have is when one of those systems changes their protocol.
That that's exactly the problem that I was getting at. Jabber doesn't provide "any user on any network to talk to any other user on any other network" functionality. That's still going to require real buy-in from the other services (which is what I thought this might be about).
The Jabber *protocol* might have solved all the problems I mention, as far as addressing, routing, and presence information, but they'd still have to get the other IM systems speaking and honoring that protocol (and all the associated client-side issues would have to be ironed out). But as it stands today, *nothing* lets me fire up an AIM client (AIM, GAIM, Trillian, or even Jabber with an AIM transport) and send a message to someone who's only on Yahoo!. That's the Holy Grail, and to solve it will require cooporation from all the players.
If it uses middleware to translate between them, then it most certainly does sound like Jabber.
Except that Jabber doesn't allow an AIM user to talk to a Yahoo! user. Unless that's changed in the last couple of years (since I abandoned Jabber for Trillian). The problem isn't multi-system clients (like GAIM or Trillian). The problem isn't centralized logging (which Jabber "proxies" certainly can do, as another poster recounted). The problem is trans-system communication.
What's needed is something like this: "aim:david" or "yahoo:david" (yes, I'm avoiding using my real IM ID's:) ). But to do this, we'd need:
Clients that can have trans-system buddies
A server that can accept a message from a client bound for a different system, and route that to the different system
A server that can accept a message from a different system's server, pull the IM destination out of it, and pass it on to that user's client
This isn't even beginning to address the question of passing presence information across systems.
Having not read the FA, I'm not sure exactly what they're talking about now. If they're coming up with their own implementation of such a system, and just expecting everyone else to modify their servers/clients to be compatible, then I'm not sure it'll work. If, though, there's a cross-provider effort to standardize on some of the above, then there's a chance it might just work.
Unless, of course, I missed something glaringly obvious. Wouldn't be the first time:)
I think a good idea would be to make pet doors that can "learn" to unlock only when certain RFID tags are within 4 or five feet.
I came VERY close to doing almost exactly this a few years back. We have two cats, each with kidney issues requiring a special diet. The kicker is, they each had their own food, and eating the other's would just make their own problem worse. So we had to pour out their food, stand there and watch them eat, then when it looked like they were done, take it away.
So I was all set to go rip apart some prox cards, get a couple of readers, and figure out how to hook them to those automatic pet feeders (with the timed-opening doors). Fortunately, another company came out with a single food that manages *both* problems, and our cats are now both fat, dumb, and happy. Well, Jake's fat. Elwood's a bit slimmer. They're both fairly dumb, and both quite happy.
Maybe it is time to retire this relic of the cold war or just admit that it is primarily for military purposes and re-allocate the funds for science elsewhere.
I really don't know why people perpetuate the myth that NASA is a branch of the military. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think NASA has launched a military satellite since the Challenger explosion. All military satellites are currently launched by expendable boosters, built by Lockheed and Boeing, from Air Force Bases (Cape Canavaral and Vandenberg).
NASA missions, on the other hand, have all been about the ISS, Earth science, and the effects of weightlessness on humans. I'm not even sure NASA is involved with cutting-edge military-based aerospace research (most of that happening out in Nevada now).
They partner with a business that you have a legitimate relationship with.
I'm really not sure that's a legal loophole. Yes, there is a loophole for a company you currently do business with (which really pisses me off when Best Buy refuses to sell me something w/out a phone number -- yes, that happened, and when I pushed the matter, the cashier grabbed a random customer's phone number out of their DB right in front of me!)
Anyway, sorry, was ranting. Yes, someone you do business with has a loophole of sorts. But a credit card company, simply by "partnering" with AAA, doesn't get to call you. They're still an independent company offering an independent product that has nothing to do with the business relationship you've established with AAA. I really don't see how they can get around the law on that one. They should have been reported.
Now, if it actually *was* AAA calling, then you simply need to tell AAA to put you on their own DNC list, and they have to. Like anyone ever did in the past. But still, they have to, and then NONE of the other "partnership" scams they might enter into will work.
Let me try and rephrase all this, 'cause I'm hungry and telemarketers still raise my blood pressure:
AAA calls on behalf of a CC company: legal (but a terribly violation of your trust in AAA)
A CC company calls on behalf of AAA: Illegal (but I'm not a lawyer, and besides, does it really matter?)
Anyway, that's the way I'd *expect* it to work. I'm probably wrong.:(
I haven't used Evolution in ages (mostly because I'm generally not on a linux desktop). Has anyone contemplated (succeeded?) in generating a Windows or Mac version?
I'm trying to "standardize" on Thunderbird at home (fairly featurful, stable, and very cross-platform compatible). As Sunbird matures, that helps solve some of the calendar problems. But I'm not sure there's a good Addressbook app, or ToDo app, in the Mozilla world. Has anyone begun thinking about a Mozilla alternative to Evolution / Outlook, that (potentially) merges separate apps under an outlook-like front end?
Note, of course, that this still overlooks some of the back-end problems (IMAP's great for mail, but getting LDAP pervasively distributed and configured is something of a challenge) (and I'm not sure it's the best DB for user-centric Address/Phone books). But if I can get a unified front-end that'll run on all the desktops in the house, then I'll deal with the data issues later (hell, I'll just use shared folders if I have to).
Instead of the in-your-face road signs, they should have just quietly started converting smaller things over and let the old system fade away gradually.
There's a road near me (the Prince William County Parkway, in northern Virginia) that's measured in KM. The road signs, where there are any, are in miles (as in "Manassas -- 10 Miles"), but the "mile markers" (those little 5x10" green signs, low, off the shoulder) are measured in KM. I was quite surprised by this, and the last time I was out there, the signs were still in place.
Personally, I'm almost thinking that if we were to do this, we should start doing it in reasonable chunks. Change all the speed limits on interstates to KPH (maybe adopt the European (global?) standard speed limit sign in the process, so people can differentiate). Then do the major state roads. Then everything else.
I've been waiting for the soft drink industry to lead the charge on some of the conversion battles. They've finally started selling half-litre bottles (just a shade off of 16 oz), and people are getting used to that amount. Now, they should switch measurements -- put metric in larger type, and imperial units smaller, in parentheses. Hell, they can even round to the nearest "nice-looking" metric quantity and shaft the consumer in the process -- chances are, outside of Consumer Reports, we'll never even notice. Now you've got food changed over.
The bigger challenge is presented by measurements that are interpreted more personally, like temperature, weight (bathroom scales, not foodstuffs), and distance (though, really, how many of us have a good conception of what a mile really is, anyway? Most of us simply read the odometer.)
Of course, whether this will ever happen is beyond me. I think most kids learn metric in school, use it for a bit while in school, and then we all revert to English units when in the real world (and have realized that nobody else cares).
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I've pretty much giving up going to best buy ('cause I don't appreciate being searched as I leave the store, but that's another rant). Last spring I wanted to buy an XM radio (I think they were having a promotion or something), and Circuit City was out. So I swallowed my pride and went to Best Buy.
The jerk at the cash register was adamant about wanting my phone number. He said it was "for XM" to which I replied "then I'll give my number to XM, but not to you." I finally gave him a fake number, which was rejected. He ended up pulling up the record for some other customer (maybe a name that stood out from earlier in the day) and used that number instead.
What I should do, actually, is say "Okay, I'll give you my number, but I'm also requiring that this not be used as exemption for the national DNC list. Put me on your do not call list immediately." I figure, the cashier is an authorized representative of the company (hell, he's wearing the stupid shirt and name tag), so that makes my request fully legal. Any telemarketing that results from the sale is in violation of the DNC law and subject to fine.
Maybe if we explain *that* at checkout, they'll stop asking ('cause none of them want to be responsible for opening their employer to a $10,000 liability).
In cases where I recognize a need for someone to call me (like, say, to tell me when something's just come into stock) I invariably give my work number.
People keep their cat's litter box in the bathroom? Might as well keep it in the kitchen or your bedroom.
We do. Actually, there's a little space under the counter for a chair, and the litter box goes there (we don't have the chair). That way, it's protected on three sides, the cats have to walk over a throw rug as they leave (which catches much of the litter spill), and then they've still got a lot of bathroom to traverse before they get to the bedroom (so any other tracked litter stays there). Also, this way we empty it every morning just before we hop in the shower, so it never really gets to stink.
We don't want it in the kitchen (food prep and cat poop -- yum!) or the laundry room (dropping wet clothes too near a litterbox -- yum!), and since our basement is unfinished, we don't want it down there. Plus, being in our bathroom pretty much ensures that it's somewhere that our guests will never go, so their visits to our house are kept more pleasant.
What if a work is public domain in one country but copyrighted in another?
Well, one problem with that is that, intellectually, that doesn't make any sense. A book isn't less of a book in a country where it's still covered by copyright (or where it's in the public domain). It's still the same story, the same idea.
Look at it this way: If you spend two years working in Germany, and buy a bunch of books and CDs, should you be forced to forfeit those when you return home to the US, simply because the copyright is owned by someone else? You've purchased them legally, according to the laws of where you were, and you should be able to take them wherever you like.
Now change the two years to a two week vacation. Why should that be any different? Or a two-day business trip? Or a two-minute virtual visit through a web browser? Where do you draw the line? Why do you even need a line?
Ultimately, in a global economy, the concept of copyrights being different in each country is just ludicrous. This is part of what DMCA was supposed to do -- bring our laws in line with a World Intellictual Property Organization treaty. So now we've got WIPO and DMCA (and associated anti-consumer isues), but we're still bound by 18th century notions of nationally-defined copyright controls? How crazy is that?
As I click the link http://thorguard.com/ from above, I scared the crap out of me, and half of the IT department.
Why Mozilla doesn't have some kind of mute button is beyond me. There's one bug (24418) that's been tracking people asking about mute and/or audio controls, for like 4 years, but it's never made it into the product.
At some point, industries are just going to have to get used to the fact that people want to buy from *everywhere*, not just the store in their own town/state/country. If someone in the UK wants to buy from the US store, they should be allowed to, at the US prices. Just like anyone in the US who wants to buy from Amazon-UK can. The downside is you only get whatever international support, if any, the distant store feels like offering.
Of course, content-owners don't like this, 'cause they like having their own little state-sanctioned monopoly on their own content and for some reason can't stomach the fact that someone in another country might want to sell the same stuff.
The way I figure it, if the original rights holders have been compensated, then any and all cross-border traffic in IP goods should be permitted. Why should I care if $$ go to Warner Brothers in the UK or in the US, as long as it goes to WB?
Solve that problem, and pricing disparities between different countries' stores will eventually disappear (or the stores will, 'cause they're not being competitive).
Is there a way to block politics stories from the home page? I checked "Politics" in my home page preferences under "Exclude Stories from the Homepage" so that they wouldn't show up but I still see them. Games stories also still show up even though I have them selected to not show up as well. Is this a bug or is there some other setting I need to turn on or off?
I just tried this, and it worked for me, after I turned off the "Collapse Sections" preference. That is, I had all the sections shown on the front page, and I think that breaks the exclusion setting (despite the prefs page implying that it would still work).
Check that out, see if it helps...
Why is this even news worthy? It's always been a risk, it will continue to be a risk.
Because up until this week, it's been a theoretical risk. Now, the risk is real. A storm of this intensity has never hit the Cape dead-on, and this will come DAMNED near close to dead-on.
As of 5:00 this morning, Patrick AFB (just south of CCAS and responsible for the AF side of things on the Cape) issued a warning that the storm was to pass 60 miles away, with 100+ mph winds.
So, yeah, if the article were in June, saying "Hey, a hurricane could take us out," I'd agree that this wasn't really newsworthy. Problem is, it's not "a hurricane could take us out," it's " this hurricane could take us out. In 48 hours."
Okay, I don't have an iPod, so I may be confused here, but I thought iPods could load mp3s, right? So all Microsoft has to do in order to load songs to an iPod is to sell you an mp3.
And hasn't Real already figured out how to properly encrypt a song to load on an iPod? So MS could use that approach, too, and sell DRM-enabled songs that would load directly to the iPod. (and don't even start me on whether that's legal or not -- it clearly is, under interoperability clauses, though it'll probably take a court ruling to get that through people's heads).
Sounds to me like MS is *choosing* not to support iPods.
I have a Tungsten T3. I use it all the time, and only partially for the original PDA functions (calendar, todo, etc.) Most of what I use it for would never work on a cell phone:
- My wife and I were re-reading the Harry Potter series. When we got to book 5, I didn't want to share, so I found an eText of it and stuck it on the palm. It was the first time I really read anything significant on a handheld, and it really wasn't that bad. Best of all, it was easy to take on the subway with me (easier than lugging around a big book).
- When I find the time, I like to go out Geocache hunting. At first, I'd check online for some caches in my area, print out their info sheets, manually enter them into my GPS, and go. Now I get an email weekly with a file that I can load on my palm, and all the information for every cache near me, including recent log entries, are right at my fingertips. Result: MUCH more effective caching, especially enabling spur-of-the-moment cache hunting.
- To make that even more effective, I've got a map program. Shows where all the caches are, I can drill down to street level, and it even has a database of stores, restaurants, banks, etc. I can hook it up to my GPS and get real-time map tracking, on-the-fly navigation with spoken turn prompts (including text-to-speech street names). At this point, I almost never use Mapquest any more when I go on a trip, it's all in the palm.
- I even have a Weight Watchers program that lets me track what I eat, how many points I've used, etc. (Well, it did, when I was with the program. gotta get back on that...)
Can you do these things with a cell phone? Some, maybe (the map program is being betatested on smartphones). But really you can't do them well. Could you do these on a laptop? Certainly. But a laptop doesn't fit in my shirt pocket, and so wouldn't do me much good in the middle of the woods when I need a hint or have to check a map.So, not "one thing," but four. And I haven't even mentioned simple databases, shopping lists (think of something you need, add it to the list immediately, then the next time you're in the store, presto!), travel alarm (I never trust hotel clocks), astronomy programs (when you absolutely, positively need to know just when twilight really starts when you're in Edinburgh), financial calculations (is that refinance really worth it?), project outlining (so you can plan your next week's worth of stuff around the house), and password maintenance (in an encrypted DB, naturally). These are ALL programs I use, if not daily, then at least frequently enough that I haven't had to delete them, even when I was on a Palm with much less memory.
Plus, it's much easier to play Solitaire during a meeting on a palm than on a cell phone.
I suppose maybe I'm a bit of an unusual case -- but I'm sure there are plenty of other people who use PDAs as much as, if not more than, I do. And who could never use a cell phone as a substitute.
Everyone's been assuming that this is in response to TimeTrax. People seem to be forgetting that this has been available for some time (along with other, similar software). Also note that the XMPCR was on super-duper clearance in some places ($15 at XMFan.com a few weeks back, though w/out antenna).
The general buzz on the XM message boards is that XM Radio was planning to discontinue the XMPCR for some time, and it just became evident (clearance sales, retail channels drying up, etc.) right about the same time as the software concerns hit the radar.
I mean, really -- could a big company like XM really decide to pull a piece of hardware from the market on only a day's notice? (the TimeTrax software and initial rumors of XMPCR being pulled happened on the same day). There's also been talk of a USB port on new cradles (which may or may not have been recently nixed, depending on your paranoia settings).
And anyway, the XMPCR was never a big seller for them. Only available from online merchants, it was originally a cheap way for someone to get XM (since they didn't need to sell any controls or displays). Now, the prices have come down (my SkiFi with cradle cost $200, a Roady2 with free home cradle is $100), so they don't need the bottom-end as much any longer.
So, yes, it's possible there was some RIAA pressure, and it's possible XM decided on their own to avoid the RIAA, but if so, that was probably only the last straw -- I would not be surprised if they'd made this decision 6 months ago.
I heard a rumour that it was originally made to be 3-d. Is that true?
It was originally a 70mm film. The "normal" scenes were displayed in a regular, smaller size while the scenes shown from a point of view of wearing the the device were shown full screen.
It was actually more complicated than that. yes, the "in-device" scenes were shown in a different aspect ratio (wider, I think, than the rest of the film), but that's not what the first poster was thinking of.
Originally, it was to be filmed in something called "Showscan." That was, if memory serves, a 70mm format at 60 frames per second (!), which provided, according to its inventor, an incredible sense of realism. But of course, that'd require all sorts of new projecter equipment (not to mention LOTS of film, hence only using it on the VR scenes), so it never happened that way.
It looks like the process has been bought and is now being applied to simulator (amusement park) rides, and the like.
Bungie should come up with a FPH (First Person Helper) game where you run around helping people in distress. It would be named "Horns"!
Halo - worn by angels. Good.
First Person shooter - killing people. Bad.
So, to continue the contrast, a game about helping people (instead of shooting them) should be called "horns" (to associate with the devil).
Was the joke lame? probably.
Did they reach a bit far for the joke? definitely.
Am I even more lame for getting it? absolutely.
I'm reading on the forums at XMFan.com that XM will stop selling the USB-based PCR radio altogether, largely because of this software.
1) that sucks, 'cause I wanted to figure out how to integrate the PCR into my in-house MP3 network, and
2) it's crazy that they stop selling a product just because a small number of purchasers are doing something they don't like with it.
I wonder how long it'll be before someone figures out how to modify the car tuner (XM Direct, if it ever ships) to be computer controlled...
Anyway, I just thought I'd mention it. I haven't seen official confirmation (it's still on the XM website, for example), but the mods on XMFan seem to be in the know, and they're saying it's true.
*sigh*
Drivers here have more than enough trouble coping with travel in two dimensions. Adding a third is a recipe for disaster.
It's worse than that. People don't really drive in 2 dimensions, but rather closer to 1. Think about it: Most of your driving is spent starting in a lane, traversing that lane until you need to change to another lane. Even in a parking lot, the most 2-dimensional driving space most people run across (unless you're 4-wheeling in a field), you tend to drive in pre-established lanes, up-and-down, looking for a spot.
So flying cars really take you from a 1+ dimension realm into a full, unlaned, uncontrolled 3 dimensional space. Unless they do a LOT of narrow traffic control.
That's what happens when you don't wear your tinfoil hat.
I work for the Government.
And I can honestly tell you that tinfoil hats in no way affect our ability to read your thoughts.
That is all.
I've wondered for a while whether it might be possible to actually overlay four projectors. Rather than an overlapping mosaic of four images, you'd aim all four projectors at the same spot and align them such that each projector filled the gaps between the others' pixels.
So rather than:
AABB
AABB
CCDD
CCDD
you'd have
ABAB
CDCD
ABAB
CDCD
I'd think that this might be more difficult than a simple overlapping mosaic, because you'd have to have consistent geometry across the entire image (rather than just perfectly consistent along the seams).
But it might also nicely hide color balance issues. As all four projectors would simultaneously contribute to any single region of the screen, slight differences in color or brightness would be averaged out by the eye. Maybe. At least, it should be less noticable than if one entire quadrant were, say, "a little red".
So, Real Networks takes it into their owns hands, and provides a hack to allow .rm on the iPod. This violates a whole lot of things, besides just common cortesy: DMCA, copyright, a few others.
.mp3 and .aac from iTunes on it, right? And also any .mp3s from other sources, right? So why is it suddenly illegal for an iPod owner to put .rm files on the iPod? Just because it required a hack to make it happen?
How exactly is that a violation of DMCA? Or Copyright? Or some "few others"?
Someone buys an iPod. They want to put music on it. They're free to put
Or are iPods now unmoddable, just like Playstations seem to be?
Yes, it means you have 4 different accounts for each of the 4 systems, so it is not exactly what you want, but it is a reasonable approximation and could be used in a scenario where a company didn't want to pay MS for their middleware. The biggest problem you have is when one of those systems changes their protocol.
That that's exactly the problem that I was getting at. Jabber doesn't provide "any user on any network to talk to any other user on any other network" functionality. That's still going to require real buy-in from the other services (which is what I thought this might be about).
The Jabber *protocol* might have solved all the problems I mention, as far as addressing, routing, and presence information, but they'd still have to get the other IM systems speaking and honoring that protocol (and all the associated client-side issues would have to be ironed out). But as it stands today, *nothing* lets me fire up an AIM client (AIM, GAIM, Trillian, or even Jabber with an AIM transport) and send a message to someone who's only on Yahoo!. That's the Holy Grail, and to solve it will require cooporation from all the players.
Except that Jabber doesn't allow an AIM user to talk to a Yahoo! user. Unless that's changed in the last couple of years (since I abandoned Jabber for Trillian). The problem isn't multi-system clients (like GAIM or Trillian). The problem isn't centralized logging (which Jabber "proxies" certainly can do, as another poster recounted). The problem is trans-system communication.
What's needed is something like this: "aim:david" or "yahoo:david" (yes, I'm avoiding using my real IM ID's
- Clients that can have trans-system buddies
- A server that can accept a message from a client bound for a different system, and route that to the different system
- A server that can accept a message from a different system's server, pull the IM destination out of it, and pass it on to that user's client
This isn't even beginning to address the question of passing presence information across systems.Having not read the FA, I'm not sure exactly what they're talking about now. If they're coming up with their own implementation of such a system, and just expecting everyone else to modify their servers/clients to be compatible, then I'm not sure it'll work. If, though, there's a cross-provider effort to standardize on some of the above, then there's a chance it might just work.
Unless, of course, I missed something glaringly obvious. Wouldn't be the first time
I think a good idea would be to make pet doors that can "learn" to unlock only when certain RFID tags are within 4 or five feet.
I came VERY close to doing almost exactly this a few years back. We have two cats, each with kidney issues requiring a special diet. The kicker is, they each had their own food, and eating the other's would just make their own problem worse. So we had to pour out their food, stand there and watch them eat, then when it looked like they were done, take it away.
So I was all set to go rip apart some prox cards, get a couple of readers, and figure out how to hook them to those automatic pet feeders (with the timed-opening doors). Fortunately, another company came out with a single food that manages *both* problems, and our cats are now both fat, dumb, and happy. Well, Jake's fat. Elwood's a bit slimmer. They're both fairly dumb, and both quite happy.
and uses that power to send back a signal saying "here's my data".
Wow! Finally, a job for all those who never progressed beyond "Hello, world!"
Maybe it is time to retire this relic of the cold war or just admit that it is primarily for military purposes and re-allocate the funds for science elsewhere.
I really don't know why people perpetuate the myth that NASA is a branch of the military. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think NASA has launched a military satellite since the Challenger explosion. All military satellites are currently launched by expendable boosters, built by Lockheed and Boeing, from Air Force Bases (Cape Canavaral and Vandenberg).
NASA missions, on the other hand, have all been about the ISS, Earth science, and the effects of weightlessness on humans. I'm not even sure NASA is involved with cutting-edge military-based aerospace research (most of that happening out in Nevada now).
Can anyone expand on this?
They partner with a business that you have a legitimate relationship with.
:(
I'm really not sure that's a legal loophole. Yes, there is a loophole for a company you currently do business with (which really pisses me off when Best Buy refuses to sell me something w/out a phone number -- yes, that happened, and when I pushed the matter, the cashier grabbed a random customer's phone number out of their DB right in front of me!)
Anyway, sorry, was ranting. Yes, someone you do business with has a loophole of sorts. But a credit card company, simply by "partnering" with AAA, doesn't get to call you. They're still an independent company offering an independent product that has nothing to do with the business relationship you've established with AAA. I really don't see how they can get around the law on that one. They should have been reported.
Now, if it actually *was* AAA calling, then you simply need to tell AAA to put you on their own DNC list, and they have to. Like anyone ever did in the past. But still, they have to, and then NONE of the other "partnership" scams they might enter into will work.
Let me try and rephrase all this, 'cause I'm hungry and telemarketers still raise my blood pressure:
AAA calls on behalf of a CC company: legal (but a terribly violation of your trust in AAA)
A CC company calls on behalf of AAA: Illegal (but I'm not a lawyer, and besides, does it really matter?)
Anyway, that's the way I'd *expect* it to work. I'm probably wrong.
I haven't used Evolution in ages (mostly because I'm generally not on a linux desktop). Has anyone contemplated (succeeded?) in generating a Windows or Mac version?
I'm trying to "standardize" on Thunderbird at home (fairly featurful, stable, and very cross-platform compatible). As Sunbird matures, that helps solve some of the calendar problems. But I'm not sure there's a good Addressbook app, or ToDo app, in the Mozilla world. Has anyone begun thinking about a Mozilla alternative to Evolution / Outlook, that (potentially) merges separate apps under an outlook-like front end?
Note, of course, that this still overlooks some of the back-end problems (IMAP's great for mail, but getting LDAP pervasively distributed and configured is something of a challenge) (and I'm not sure it's the best DB for user-centric Address/Phone books). But if I can get a unified front-end that'll run on all the desktops in the house, then I'll deal with the data issues later (hell, I'll just use shared folders if I have to).
Instead of the in-your-face road signs, they should have just quietly started converting smaller things over and let the old system fade away gradually.
There's a road near me (the Prince William County Parkway, in northern Virginia) that's measured in KM. The road signs, where there are any, are in miles (as in "Manassas -- 10 Miles"), but the "mile markers" (those little 5x10" green signs, low, off the shoulder) are measured in KM. I was quite surprised by this, and the last time I was out there, the signs were still in place.
Personally, I'm almost thinking that if we were to do this, we should start doing it in reasonable chunks. Change all the speed limits on interstates to KPH (maybe adopt the European (global?) standard speed limit sign in the process, so people can differentiate). Then do the major state roads. Then everything else.
I've been waiting for the soft drink industry to lead the charge on some of the conversion battles. They've finally started selling half-litre bottles (just a shade off of 16 oz), and people are getting used to that amount. Now, they should switch measurements -- put metric in larger type, and imperial units smaller, in parentheses. Hell, they can even round to the nearest "nice-looking" metric quantity and shaft the consumer in the process -- chances are, outside of Consumer Reports, we'll never even notice. Now you've got food changed over.
The bigger challenge is presented by measurements that are interpreted more personally, like temperature, weight (bathroom scales, not foodstuffs), and distance (though, really, how many of us have a good conception of what a mile really is, anyway? Most of us simply read the odometer.)
Of course, whether this will ever happen is beyond me. I think most kids learn metric in school, use it for a bit while in school, and then we all revert to English units when in the real world (and have realized that nobody else cares).