The Wall Street Journal does the opposite, which I think is the right idea.
Their opinion page is available right here, for free. This makes sense, because they are trying to influence the world with it. Thus, they are more interested in power (number of readers) than money (subscription revenues).
Their up to the minute financial news, on the other hand, has real financial value to many people, and its wide dissemination is not as important as receiving money for it. I would think the same would be true of the New York Times - the articles would have financial value but the opinions would be better made free.
Intriguingly enough, the Times' subscription is actually excellent value to anyone who wants to access the Times archives. They were charging $2.95 per article or $7.95 for a four-pack of articles. Unlimited access to articles for $50 is a good deal if you want to read old Times articles in any volume.
I write my HTML by hand, using Emacs, so the way my html looks is important to me.
Which is more readable?
--
This is a paragraph.<p>
<img src = "foo.jpg" height = 20 width = 30>
This is another paragraph.<p>
--- or ---
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<img src = "foo.jpg" height = "20" width = "30"/>
<p>This is another paragraph.</p>
---end---
This kind of issue is why I have resisted changing to the likes of XHTML. I want my code to be easy to read instead of making my documents look like programming language statements.
I do like the improved appearance I can get through CSS, which is why my home page now uses it. But I'm still grumbling at the more difficult readability of the code by humans. I don't see gains from closing all tags or putting quotes around everything. The old way was simpler, easier and more forgiving. I think that's a good thing.
Better error handling and reporting would have converted me to the new way a lot faster than I did. At least when I was learning it, error messages were non-existant. Better communications between the browser and coder would be nice. Of course there are validators, but they seem like a rather esoteric concept when you just want things to work, and don't understand why they do not.
Now I might switch my position. If this had been a fly by wire system, it would have been possible to prevent the tail overcontrol reported, and so it would have been significantly safer.
I looked at the NTSB report I cite above, and it appears to use servos and artificial feedback. This is mentioned on page 18 (section 1.6.2) of the report.
I thought that a system using servos was fly by wire because there is not a direct connection between the controls and the surface being controlled.
This rather infamous accident was caused by excessive inputs to fly by wire (servo-based) controls. The forces generated were so intense that the rudder fell off.
I don't know based on my own experience, but it seems likely that a mechanical system, even a power assisted one, would have made such movements difficult or impossible.
When I was younger and poorer, I ran through a series of ancient Mercedes sedans. (Now I have a newer Mercedes sedan, although 1991 might not be considered exactly brand new, it's a lot newer than what I ran then).
I would have occasional power steering failures, generally caused by the fluid leaking out of the pump. When this happened, there was no problem controlling the car at speed, but it was an absolute beast to get out of parking spaces.
So in short, a power steering failure is actually no big deal at speed, only when the car is stopped.
Oddly enough, neither "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" nor "movie:Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" works, even though that movie is, to my knowledge, still playing.
I like the interface a lot more than rottentomatoes.com, which does the same thing. It's very clean and easy to read.
Someone discovers a nasty possibility, and in two days Apple announces a fix. It will be ready within a few more days and then the problem's gone for good.
I don't think it's hypocrtiical to praise that kind of fast response. If my memory serves, the problems that allowed the Blaster Worm and others to work were publically known for months and MS didn't do anything about them. That's where the condemnation of Microsoft comes from.
A year or so ago, I was head of IT for a mid-sized company.
We had a PC break down and it was owned by a crucial person within the company, who needed a replacement NOW.
So I went to Fry's and purchased a very nice Sony VAIO PC right off the shelf so she could have it NOW.
Imagine my horror when I realized that Windows XP Home, included with that computer, would not interface with our Windows domain. I had to upgrade the computer to XP Pro for $159 from Fry's.
That's one of what I'm sure are many traps that prevent companies from buying XP Home. And yes, it would have been much cheaper for me to buy a machine with XP Pro preinstalled... unfortunately, Fry's had no such animal at the time.
Now I'm a Mac-based multimedia developer and haven't used a Windows machine in six months. If I never use another one it will be way too soon, etc.
In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, there was a very interesting story about journals, corporate sponsorship and the limits of the peer review process.
Essentially, the bottom line is that since peer reviewers work for free, they're not going to delve into the data and see if the full picture was presented honestly. So researchers, often working for major drug companies, can, say, take the first six months of results instead of a full year, if the six month result is better.
The article authors have defenses of their methodologies that may even be accurate - in their case, people often discontinued taking the drugs after the initial six months, and relapsed. But these nuances are not mentioned in the finished article, and there is no good way for peer reviewers, who are often stressed and short on time, to dig in and find the results.
I have a friend who's a professor at a major university and he has said the same thing as the article about peer reviews. They definitely have their limitations.
You're not going to get very far from your house with a streaming music source, even a wireless one. This isn't going to help the great majority of iPod users.
If you do add $72 for your gigabyte of Flash memory, the price difference between your solution and the iPod photo at $350 is pretty low if not non-existant.
Since the article itself was listed before the "summary" written by Piquepaille, I don't see anything wrong with it being published. It was a very interesting article, at least to me, because I'm interested in learning more about how scientific journals work.
I did think it was odd how you were encouraged to go to the "summary", but I read the article without going there and therefore the submission did not achieve Mr Piquepaille's goals of more hits for his site.
Even Paris Hilton bought a T-Mobile Sidekick. I have one myself and it's pretty good for AIM. I can't type as fast as with a full-sized keyboard, but it's not half bad. It's definitely usable for short messages, typed in "normal speak" because I don't like to look dumb.
From what I understand, in most cases asbestos used as insulation is perfectly safe unless disturbed.
Since removal of asbestos obviously disturbs it, the cure is often far worse than the disease.
Asbestos has saved lives through its fire retardant properties, but I have no way of knowing if it's been a net killer or a net savior. What is certain is that most of the deaths and injuries caused by it have been caused by mining, not actual use.
My impression is that you buy from Tiger Direct because it sells cheap stuff, and sometimes it's better to get cheap stuff than no stuff at all.
But this doesn't extend to iPods, which cost the same as they do anywhere else. (Funny, that).
So I can't see any reason for that complaint.
One very curious impact this suit appears to have is to increase Tiger Direct's rank in search engines. I checked Google just now and it's number 2 in the search results, up from number three when I last looked. Number three is MacOS X Tiger.
This may have been an unintended consequence of the suit, but I can see why it happens. It certainly appears to render the suit moot, however.
Real Tigers do have reason to sue, however, They're all but knocked out of the top 10 links on Google. Now all they have to do is prove standing and damages in American courts...
Viewing ads is a small price for the entertainment value I get out of the site. If I don't view them, there's a decent likelihood that Slashdot won't have sufficient revenues to survive without having to take strong measures like mandatory subscriptions.
Therefore I have no problem viewing ads and will never use an ad blocker.
It can't be a coincidence that about the time the lawsuit broke, I suddenly found Tiger Direct ads appearing on Slashdot. In fact, as I write this, there is one sitting happily on top of my screen. They are attempting to take advantage of the free publicity which was the true purpose of the suit.
You might be interested in the documents in the lawsuit. It doesn't strike me as a well-argued suit and I'm confident it will fail.
But a lot more people have heard of Tiger Direct now than then, and they might get some sympathy as the "underdog". Unfortunately about 90% of them are Mac users and Tiger doesn't deal with Macs at all. So I doubt it will be the windfall Tiger would like to see.
Of course the story we've responded to also has the same purpose. I laughed out loud when I read it, so it's okay by me. But this story was meant to provide publicity for the team and Bob Young.
It was an awfully funny book even if it was a bit dark.
I think the fourth book, with Authur falling in love and living happily ever after, is a more likely version of Adams' long-term desire for his characters.
And this, of course, makes a romance between Author and Trillian seem perfectly normal and even correct. So perhaps the critics of the movie should think twice about this aspect of it.
Thanks for letting me know. I based that on an article that I believe was on O'Reilly about the top 10 good things and bottom 10 disappointments in Tiger, but now I can't find it:-(.
I'm a little surprised they would get this wrong, but it was surprising that they wouldn't have accounted for HTML files. I apologize for spreading inaccurate information.
It's amazing, considering all the great features in Apple Core Somethingorother, that he could not have used the built-in spellchecker to proofread his article.
One or two spelling errors is not a big deal, but I proofread my Slashdot posts more carefully than his article was.
One thing he doesn't touch on that I've seen in other sites is that HTML files are not indexed using Spotlight. This was a rude shock to me since most of my documents are written in HTML. (I don't have Tiger yet so that comment is not yet based on experience, but the warning seemed pretty definitive).
I think Tiger looks pretty cool and I'm looking forward to receiving my copy. But this review is not a credible information source.
The real innovation is that the OS controls and doesn't require that a program be run continuously to do the indexing. Instead, as soon as you save the file, it's indexed.
I don't know if I'd count that as revolutionary, but it's a very cool feature that will save thousands of Mac users a lot of time. I'd call that important, surely.
Yes, you can do it with mySQL but only with data you control. You can't have all Word documents created in the computer indexed automatically without writing a user interface to do it. In this regard, the Apple approach is way superior to what you've done.
I might also add that the GUI was a revolutionary development because it made it possible for dummies to use computers. Helping dummies is underrated as a technological and economic achievement.
The Sidekick has a web interface to the device that allows you to pull out pictures, add/change contacts and so on through your personal computer. All the data is stored on their central servers, not the device itself, as Paris Hilton found out much to her cost.
If you're not Paris, it seems like a near-ideal system that doesn't require the inconvenience of synching with a PC.
Surfing the web on the phone is pretty addictive if you regularly go places where there is no computer access. That's the main use I have for my Sidekick II.
Slashdot Mirror
The Wall Street Journal does the opposite, which I think is the right idea.
Their opinion page is available right here, for free. This makes sense, because they are trying to influence the world with it. Thus, they are more interested in power (number of readers) than money (subscription revenues).
Their up to the minute financial news, on the other hand, has real financial value to many people, and its wide dissemination is not as important as receiving money for it. I would think the same would be true of the New York Times - the articles would have financial value but the opinions would be better made free.
Intriguingly enough, the Times' subscription is actually excellent value to anyone who wants to access the Times archives. They were charging $2.95 per article or $7.95 for a four-pack of articles. Unlimited access to articles for $50 is a good deal if you want to read old Times articles in any volume.
D
I write my HTML by hand, using Emacs, so the way my html looks is important to me.
/>
Which is more readable?
--
This is a paragraph.<p>
<img src = "foo.jpg" height = 20 width = 30>
This is another paragraph.<p>
--- or ---
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<img src = "foo.jpg" height = "20" width = "30"
<p>This is another paragraph.</p>
---end---
This kind of issue is why I have resisted changing to the likes of XHTML. I want my code to be easy to read instead of making my documents look like programming language statements.
I do like the improved appearance I can get through CSS, which is why my home page now uses it. But I'm still grumbling at the more difficult readability of the code by humans. I don't see gains from closing all tags or putting quotes around everything. The old way was simpler, easier and more forgiving. I think that's a good thing.
Better error handling and reporting would have converted me to the new way a lot faster than I did. At least when I was learning it, error messages were non-existant. Better communications between the browser and coder would be nice. Of course there are validators, but they seem like a rather esoteric concept when you just want things to work, and don't understand why they do not.
D
I stand corrected.
Thanks for the correction.
Now I might switch my position. If this had been a fly by wire system, it would have been possible to prevent the tail overcontrol reported, and so it would have been significantly safer.
Is this view more accurate?
D
I thought it was an interesting experience for what it's worth.
The original poster did not mention whether the car involved was front, rear or four wheel drive.
D
I looked at the NTSB report I cite above, and it appears to use servos and artificial feedback. This is mentioned on page 18 (section 1.6.2) of the report.
I thought that a system using servos was fly by wire because there is not a direct connection between the controls and the surface being controlled.
What am I missing?
D
This rather infamous accident was caused by excessive inputs to fly by wire (servo-based) controls. The forces generated were so intense that the rudder fell off.
I don't know based on my own experience, but it seems likely that a mechanical system, even a power assisted one, would have made such movements difficult or impossible.
D
When I was younger and poorer, I ran through a series of ancient Mercedes sedans. (Now I have a newer Mercedes sedan, although 1991 might not be considered exactly brand new, it's a lot newer than what I ran then).
I would have occasional power steering failures, generally caused by the fluid leaking out of the pump. When this happened, there was no problem controlling the car at speed, but it was an absolute beast to get out of parking spaces.
So in short, a power steering failure is actually no big deal at speed, only when the car is stopped.
D
Oddly enough, neither "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" nor "movie:Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" works, even though that movie is, to my knowledge, still playing.
I like the interface a lot more than rottentomatoes.com, which does the same thing. It's very clean and easy to read.
D
Someone discovers a nasty possibility, and in two days Apple announces a fix. It will be ready within a few more days and then the problem's gone for good.
I don't think it's hypocrtiical to praise that kind of fast response. If my memory serves, the problems that allowed the Blaster Worm and others to work were publically known for months and MS didn't do anything about them. That's where the condemnation of Microsoft comes from.
D
A year or so ago, I was head of IT for a mid-sized company.
... unfortunately, Fry's had no such animal at the time.
We had a PC break down and it was owned by a crucial person within the company, who needed a replacement NOW.
So I went to Fry's and purchased a very nice Sony VAIO PC right off the shelf so she could have it NOW.
Imagine my horror when I realized that Windows XP Home, included with that computer, would not interface with our Windows domain. I had to upgrade the computer to XP Pro for $159 from Fry's.
That's one of what I'm sure are many traps that prevent companies from buying XP Home. And yes, it would have been much cheaper for me to buy a machine with XP Pro preinstalled
Now I'm a Mac-based multimedia developer and haven't used a Windows machine in six months. If I never use another one it will be way too soon, etc.
D
In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, there was a very interesting story about journals, corporate sponsorship and the limits of the peer review process.
Essentially, the bottom line is that since peer reviewers work for free, they're not going to delve into the data and see if the full picture was presented honestly. So researchers, often working for major drug companies, can, say, take the first six months of results instead of a full year, if the six month result is better.
The article authors have defenses of their methodologies that may even be accurate - in their case, people often discontinued taking the drugs after the initial six months, and relapsed. But these nuances are not mentioned in the finished article, and there is no good way for peer reviewers, who are often stressed and short on time, to dig in and find the results.
I have a friend who's a professor at a major university and he has said the same thing as the article about peer reviews. They definitely have their limitations.
D
You're not going to get very far from your house with a streaming music source, even a wireless one. This isn't going to help the great majority of iPod users.
If you do add $72 for your gigabyte of Flash memory, the price difference between your solution and the iPod photo at $350 is pretty low if not non-existant.
D
Since the article itself was listed before the "summary" written by Piquepaille, I don't see anything wrong with it being published. It was a very interesting article, at least to me, because I'm interested in learning more about how scientific journals work.
I did think it was odd how you were encouraged to go to the "summary", but I read the article without going there and therefore the submission did not achieve Mr Piquepaille's goals of more hits for his site.
Actually, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about a week ago mentioning elevators, including this design, as an increasing trend.
People are getting older and richer, both of which increase demand for things like this. I think it would be a fun toy myself.
D
Even Paris Hilton bought a T-Mobile Sidekick. I have one myself and it's pretty good for AIM. I can't type as fast as with a full-sized keyboard, but it's not half bad. It's definitely usable for short messages, typed in "normal speak" because I don't like to look dumb.
D
From what I understand, in most cases asbestos used as insulation is perfectly safe unless disturbed.
Since removal of asbestos obviously disturbs it, the cure is often far worse than the disease.
Asbestos has saved lives through its fire retardant properties, but I have no way of knowing if it's been a net killer or a net savior. What is certain is that most of the deaths and injuries caused by it have been caused by mining, not actual use.
D
My impression is that you buy from Tiger Direct because it sells cheap stuff, and sometimes it's better to get cheap stuff than no stuff at all.
...
But this doesn't extend to iPods, which cost the same as they do anywhere else. (Funny, that).
So I can't see any reason for that complaint.
One very curious impact this suit appears to have is to increase Tiger Direct's rank in search engines. I checked Google just now and it's number 2 in the search results, up from number three when I last looked. Number three is MacOS X Tiger.
This may have been an unintended consequence of the suit, but I can see why it happens. It certainly appears to render the suit moot, however.
Real Tigers do have reason to sue, however, They're all but knocked out of the top 10 links on Google. Now all they have to do is prove standing and damages in American courts
D
Slashdot needs revenue.
I enjoy Slashdot.
I enjoy reading Slashdot for free.
Viewing ads is a small price for the entertainment value I get out of the site. If I don't view them, there's a decent likelihood that Slashdot won't have sufficient revenues to survive without having to take strong measures like mandatory subscriptions.
Therefore I have no problem viewing ads and will never use an ad blocker.
D
But they are successful!
:-).
It can't be a coincidence that about the time the lawsuit broke, I suddenly found Tiger Direct ads appearing on Slashdot. In fact, as I write this, there is one sitting happily on top of my screen. They are attempting to take advantage of the free publicity which was the true purpose of the suit.
You might be interested in the documents in the lawsuit. It doesn't strike me as a well-argued suit and I'm confident it will fail.
But a lot more people have heard of Tiger Direct now than then, and they might get some sympathy as the "underdog". Unfortunately about 90% of them are Mac users and Tiger doesn't deal with Macs at all. So I doubt it will be the windfall Tiger would like to see.
Of course the story we've responded to also has the same purpose. I laughed out loud when I read it, so it's okay by me. But this story was meant to provide publicity for the team and Bob Young.
And it has
D
It was an awfully funny book even if it was a bit dark.
I think the fourth book, with Authur falling in love and living happily ever after, is a more likely version of Adams' long-term desire for his characters.
And this, of course, makes a romance between Author and Trillian seem perfectly normal and even correct. So perhaps the critics of the movie should think twice about this aspect of it.
D
Thanks for letting me know. I based that on an article that I believe was on O'Reilly about the top 10 good things and bottom 10 disappointments in Tiger, but now I can't find it :-(.
I'm a little surprised they would get this wrong, but it was surprising that they wouldn't have accounted for HTML files. I apologize for spreading inaccurate information.
D
It's amazing, considering all the great features in Apple Core Somethingorother, that he could not have used the built-in spellchecker to proofread his article.
One or two spelling errors is not a big deal, but I proofread my Slashdot posts more carefully than his article was.
One thing he doesn't touch on that I've seen in other sites is that HTML files are not indexed using Spotlight. This was a rude shock to me since most of my documents are written in HTML. (I don't have Tiger yet so that comment is not yet based on experience, but the warning seemed pretty definitive).
I think Tiger looks pretty cool and I'm looking forward to receiving my copy. But this review is not a credible information source.
D
The real innovation is that the OS controls and doesn't require that a program be run continuously to do the indexing. Instead, as soon as you save the file, it's indexed.
I don't know if I'd count that as revolutionary, but it's a very cool feature that will save thousands of Mac users a lot of time. I'd call that important, surely.
Yes, you can do it with mySQL but only with data you control. You can't have all Word documents created in the computer indexed automatically without writing a user interface to do it. In this regard, the Apple approach is way superior to what you've done.
I might also add that the GUI was a revolutionary development because it made it possible for dummies to use computers. Helping dummies is underrated as a technological and economic achievement.
D
The Sidekick has a web interface to the device that allows you to pull out pictures, add/change contacts and so on through your personal computer. All the data is stored on their central servers, not the device itself, as Paris Hilton found out much to her cost.
If you're not Paris, it seems like a near-ideal system that doesn't require the inconvenience of synching with a PC.
Surfing the web on the phone is pretty addictive if you regularly go places where there is no computer access. That's the main use I have for my Sidekick II.
D
Difference of opinion.
If I wanted a computer that depressed me to tears, I'd stick with Microsoft.
In that regard, Teletubbies, which simply looks appallingly bright, is better.
D