The Service may only be accessed with an original Xbox, an Xbox 360 console, a personal computer, or other device authorized by us, or by logging into your account via Xbox.com . You agree that you are using only authorized software and hardware to access the Service, that your software and hardware have not been modified in any unauthorized way (e.g., through unauthorized repairs, unauthorized upgrades, or unauthorized downloads
Refund Policies. Unless otherwise provided by law or in connection with any particular Service offer, all charges are non-refundable and the costs of any returns will be at your expense. There are, however, certain circumstances under which you may be entitled to a refund for certain Services.
So what part of that seems unclear enough that it warrants a lawsuit? If you don't agree with terms of use, don't sign up for the service then whine when they catch you violating the terms of service and terminate your account.
Hmm....that's not the case on my phone (LG ENV2) -- after disabling all of the options, I was unable to do anything that incurs a charge. The only thing I can view with Mobile Web is the My Verizon page, which is free.
Or, you could go to the Verizon online service center, go to "Self Service Options->Add and delete Features" and select "Block Mobile Web", "Block VCast usage", "Block Ringtone Purchase", "Block Application Downloads", and "Block Premium SMS". Or just call Verizon and ask them to do the same.
If your complaint is that *you* want those features but you don't want your daughter to access them, then I think the correct answer is "Don't give her your phone". Please don't ask manufacturers to make child-proof phones just in case some parent wants to use it as a toy. I'm an adult and I like my phones to be easy to use, even if features that sometimes cost money are easy to activate.
Contrary to your opinion, it's possible to be a decent parent without being with your child 24x7. Raising children is a big responsibility and a full-time job, yet it's nice to be able to take a break from that job from time to time.
Some of the nicest, well adjusted young adults I know were raised by parents who both had demanding jobs and the children sometimes had to fend for themselves for entertainment.
For that matter, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, but I still have fond memories of watching non-stop Saturday morning cartoons with my sister, (dad was working, mom was doing whatever it is that mom's do), yet I still consider my parents to be excellent parents and am quite happy with how they raised me.
I think the point the parent poster was trying to make is that the car designer can design nearly unlimited mechanical advantage with the steering wheel. If he wants you to be able to turn the wheel 15 times to move the wheels from full left to full right, he can do so.
But even if it only takes the steering wheel one revolution to take the wheels from stop to stop, that's 360 degrees of motion, while the joystick is limited to around 90 degrees.
Furthermore, the described joystick is relying on wrist strength, which is a lot less than the full arm strength that a user can impart to the steering wheel.
All of this means that the joystick controlled steering is likely 100% "fly-by-wire", no mechanical connection.
Horse carts and cars are very different. Don't believe me? Look at what cars have done to the evolution of the American city. European cities, designed when there were no cars, are DRASTICALLY different than modern American cities, where things are spread out. I live in a compact, older city. I would never THINK of getting a month's worth of groceries at a time. Why would I want to? I just walk home, and pick what I need up every other day or so. IT takes only a few minutes. But this is impossible in a modern American city. So, people use more gas, because they have to.
Not quite all American cities are like that. I live and work in an American city that still viable for a walking (or transit based) commute. There are 3 supermarkets on my walk home from work (small markets, not a big Safeway or Albertsons, but they have a broad selection of groceries including produce, fish, meats, household cleaning supplies, etc). 2 produce markets. A well stocked hardware store. A half-dozen small corner markets. A veterinarian. Dentist. Eye Doctor. Hair salons. A hospital. And literally dozens of restaurants in many cuisines (Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, to name a few) within a 15 minute walk from home. On the rare occasions that I want to stock up on a lot of bulky or heavy items, I order from Safeway and pay them to deliver it to my door.
And what keeps you from tasting, changing the spelling, then retasting? I want "Yhoo.com". No wait, no hits to that one, I meant to type "Yaho.com". Sorry, another typo, I really want "Yhaoo.com". "ayhoo.com"? "yaaho.com"?
If you're going to set an arbitrary limit on how many times you can change the spelling before you get charged, why not just set a different arbitrary limit that tells the registrar how many deletes he can have before he gets penalized. Then he is free to set any rename/delete policy he wants, knowing that if he exceeds 10% then he'll get charged.
Except out the power lines that are good at radiating RF outside the house just like they are good at carrying RF inside the house. At least until they reach a transformer.
As long as his transfer switch has a 15A circuit breaker (most of the ones at DIY stores seem to) and the wire between the generator and transfer switch is sized to carry 20 amps, then I don't see the problem?
Oops, I got interrupted in the middle of composing this posting and made a couple mistakes.
where I said 1.8KWh above, I should have said 1.8Wh, but this is wrong anyway.
It takes 1400 gallons of diesel to ship the container, so that means that each bulb is using 1400 * 40000 Wh / 22000 = 2500 Wh
So it takes 35 hours for the CFL to recoup the energy used in shipping.
I didn't take into account the fact that turning diesel into electricity is not 100% efficient, so you're not going to get 40KHw out of a gallon of diesel. In real life it's probably closer to 50%. So that makes my numbers even more conservative and it's probably closer to 17 hours to recoup the energy cost.
A 20' container is approx 19' x 7' x 7' or 1.6M cubic inches (it's a bit bigger, but I left room for pallets, etc).
If a CFL + packaging is 3" x 4" x 6" = 72 in^3 then you can fit around 22,000 of them into a 20' container
This site claims you can ship a 20' container from China to the US for $3800 USD
Let's say that 75% of the shipping cost goes toward fuel, the rest goes to labor, paying off the ship, container rental, etc. Sounds reasonable.
I'm going to use Diesel for the energy calculations. I know that ships run off bunker fuel, not diesel, but I have to think that the cost per unit of energy for bunker fuel is cheaper than diesel since it's less refined, so by using Diesel I'm being conservative. Right now you can buy diesel for under $2/gal, so with 75% of $3800, we can buy 1425 gallons of diesel.
Diesel has 38 MJ of energy per liter (143 MJ/gal), or 40KWh according to the units command.
So, each light bulb uses 40KWh / 22,000 = 1.8 KWh (1800 Wh)of energy
A 29 Watt CFL can replace a 100 Watt incandescent bulb, so that's a 71 watt savings... 1800Wh / 71 W = 25 hours
Sooooo....a CFL will save the energy used to ship it in about 25 hours of operation. CFL's are supposed to last 5000 hours, so over its lifetime, it will save over 200 times more energy than used to ship it. (of course, this is only this shipping energy, and ignores the extra energy that it took to manufacture the CFL it as compared to an incadescent. I don't know how to do that math).
In other words, it does not provide more exposure, it is simply replacing exposure that already exists. And if you're listening to your favourite playlists, you're being exposed to less new music than just sticking on the radio.
No, in your words. In my words, Youtube gives me more exposure because friends are sending me new videos hosted on Youtube.
If what you said only minutes ago doesn't count, you can hardly blame a re-negotiation after 2 years. How on earth did you make it to your late 30's thinking that every deal is perfect first time?!
Sorry, that was a little hyperbole on my part, I assumed (poor assumption on Slashdot, I know) that everyone read the article and would realize the the labels are already getting a cut of the profits.
I've never encountered this effect whereby digital media provides more exposure to music than the radio, friend's mix tapes, watching TV, going to gigs, music press, references in books, receiving presents, etc.
You may have never encountered it, but thats where the market is heading -- as digital media gains more traction, it pushes traditional media to the side. I don't even listen to live music in my car anymore, why bother when I can pop a USB stick into my car stereo and listen to my favorite podcasts, or my favorite playlists.
Excellent point, but not one that supports your argument that Warner should just aim for free exposure. Are you changing your position?
Of course not, I never claimed that they should receive *no* compensation. As it says in the article:
...The talks fell apart early on Saturday because Warner wants a bigger share of the huge revenue potential of YouTube's massive visitor traffic. There were no reports on what Warner was seeking...
So somehow, a revenue share that was fine for them for 2 years is no longer acceptable. Even though they benefit from it.
Why do you say that most consumer's behavior is different? I've given a specific example of how Youtube increases music sales, do you have any data (even anecdotal evidence) to the contrary? I'm saying that people that are exposed to music end up buying more music. Youtube is just another outlet where people can be exposed to music and it's hard to believe that more exposure doesn't lead to more sales. I'd be quite interested to see any data you have that links lost sales to exposure on Youtube or any other media outlet. Certainly there will be people that refuse to pay any money at all for music...well this Youtube deal is irrelevant to them - it's not like they will suddenly stop pirating music just because they can't see videos on Youtube. I'm referring only to those consumers that actually are willing to pay money for music.
Of course Youtube isn't exactly the same as a TV channel, it's better (for the consumer) and more directed, I can watch what I want when I want it (well I could if more media outlets would post their content).
If people in their 30's are embracing new media, then you can be certain that the college age group (traditionally heavy music consumers) is already farther along that path.
Of course TW has the right to do to anything they want with their content, but that doesn't mean that it's the smartest thing for them to do. Look at RIAA's recent about-face on suing music industry customers. The industry can either embrace how people want to find and consume music and find ways to monetize it, or simply drive consumers underground. Maybe people are willing to pay for music if it's available the way they want it.
Trying to force a legitimate music outlet to pay an unreasonable fee seems counter productive. Of course, I don't know what terms they are seeking, but based on the payout the industry was seeking from online broadcasters, it was likely exorbitant.
And you consider yourself representative even thought you've bought literally dozens of albums? Does it really make sense to use your comparatively unusual example as an argument?
Yes I do consider my example to be relevant.
I'm a consumer, and Youtube facilitates me finding new music. I'm not one to go and seek out new music on my own, but if a friend sends me a link to some hot new band, I'm going to watch it, and if I like it, I'll buy it. I'm old enough and have enough income that I don't want to search out free music, if I like it I don't mind paying for it -- if it's an unencumbered MP3, I don't want to pay for DRM restricted music.
I don't think I'm that unusual as a consumer though I may be atypical for the Slashdot crowd.
It's strange to me that we're talking about a YouTube as if it were just a TV channel
But that's what it is - another "TV channel"! It's not where I go to find new music, that's better suited to true social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. The labels need to adapt to this new model.
If people in my age group aren't finding new music on MTV (late 30's), I doubt that MTV is very relevant in the college age group either. Youtube is a great legitimate way to find music videos, if the labels make it too hard to find legitimate sources, then people will just trade them underground and instead of sending me links to Youtube videos, my friends will send me the video and/or audio files, then I'll have no need to buy anything.
I'm still upset over them shutting down mp3.com years ago -- that was a great way to buy music, I'd buy an album and download the MP3's and a week later the CD itself would show up in the mail. Plus I could listen to my entire music collection at home or at work. Great for the labels, and great for me. It's when they do stuff like that that drives people to music piracy.
With a mouse, there is an easily visible cursor that shows you exactly where it's pointing. Try using the mouse if you can't see the cursor until you click the mouse button.
Even if this device can show you a cursor of some sort when you hover your finger just off the surface, there are still drawbacks. First, your finger will get really tired after extended use -- it's much easier to rest it on a surface than to hold it in the air. And secondly, as you move your finger from the hover position to actually touch the screen, it's likely that the cursor will shift a little bit.
I think that the iPhone virtual keyboard, much as I hate it as compared to a real keyboard, is the way to go -- the popup letters show you exactly which one your finger hit, and you can shift your finger to a slightly new position if you see the wrong letter pop up.
This pretend "transparent" display might be nice for sliding things around or maybe for clicking on buttons that have raised dimples in the back of the device, but for clicking on things like URL's that are located in random places, it doesn't seem to offer any improvement since it's hard to tell when your finger is located over the place you want to click.
And it doesn't really help with clicking on small targets that are located next to each other. Sure you can click on a 2mm square, but not if it's located 2mm from another square. I can easily click on a 2mm square with my iPhone if it's surrounded by 2cm of empty space.
I guess a chorded model where you use one finger to point and another to click might be usable, but it seems awkward.
What a brilliant idea! Those stupid prostitutes will *never* think about putting their ads in the Craigslist sections that don't require ID!
It's not like they aren't already posting in the non-erotic services sections, the w4m section often has ads with "women" looking for a "generous" guy who will help out a girl who will "do anything". Along with more explict ads from women advertising their services. They eventually get flagged off but get reposted quickly.
Just make prostitution legal and regulate it -- charge enough taxes and the Governator won't need to push for a California sales tax increase.
We have a pretty small installation, 200 corporate users on Zimbra, nearly all addicted to and using Outlook.
We haven't had many problems, most of the problems we've had are with sharing calendars and contacts. It works fine, but not when the share is initiated through Outlook, the initial share needs to be done from the Zimbra web UI.
Aside from that, users seem pretty happy with Zimbra, most don't even know it's not exchange.
We're not running the free version of Zimbra for the very reason you suggested, it doesn't support the Outlook connector. The Outlook connector is key in a shop full of MS users, it gives them full email + calendar + contacts integration with.
It can replace your Exchange server for email, has an XMLPP IM server built-in, and is much more cost effective and easier to administer than Exchange.
What's so hard to beleive? That it's possible to recover data from drives that have a physical or electrical problem?
So you think that the original article was a fabrication? Or maybe that Drivesavers took the guys $1500 and just ran r-tools to recover his data (and scrapped 20% of it just to make it look like it was hard)? What about Kroll Ontrack? Did they fleece NASA too with the Columbia disk recovery? Or maybe NASA made up the whole thing?
In spite of the article sounding like an advertisement (they probably offered the author a discount on his fee if he published his experience), I don't see anything extraordinary in the article that makes the data recovery hard to believe.
I've had one personal experience with data recover services -- it wasn't my drive, but I saw the dead drive, it would not even spin up though the green light on the circuit board was blinking.
They sent the drive to a recovery firm and $750 and 2 weeks later they got a DVD in the mail with the missing data and an explanation that the drive guts were fine, but the circuit board had some fault, so they just replaced the board (or maybe just some component) and were able to do a full recovery.
You might try reading the article linked in the parent posting for a case where the drive had both bad electronics *and* the head crashed yet they still recovered 80% of the data.
Unless your 10 drives were all run over by a truck or incinerated in a crash, then you're sending your drives to the wrong company. Oh wait, even if the drive has been incinerated in a crash, the data could still be recovered.
Re:Use a 'fan center' to isolate when grid power d
on
Hobbyist Renewable Energy?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
This is exactly why you want to buy a real isolating inverter and not try to make your own.
If the failure is isolated to your circuit from the power company (like if the transformer at your pole fails), then your circuit would never detect that the grid power went down if your home power system is producing enough power to feed the grid -- since your home system is tied directly to the grid, it would also be powering your 24AC transformer so would never see the grid side go down.
So, when the lineman goes to fix your transformer, he's dealing with a live circuit from your house.
Real isolation inverters look at the waveform and frequency to determine if the grid is offline.
That said, if he was planning on working at home, I don't see why he wouldn't just take the laptop home rather than leaving it on.
I think you answered your own question:
I wouldn't want to drag my laptop home everyday if I wasn't planning on using it - it just becomes a liability then.
Why lug the laptop home everday on the train/bus/bike/etc if he doesn't have to? I think you'll find that most people reading Slashdot already have a computer at home, so why bother dragging home the laptop from work if he can rdesktop in from home? I have a laptop on my desk at work that I never take home, I only use it when I need to visit one of our remote offices.
I don't particularly like working on the laptop itself, I prefer the external monitor + keyboard that I have on my office desk.
High speed trains don't follow geography, they follow politics - the actual route includes Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, LA, San Diego, among other cities. Regardless of route, it's estimated to cost around $37B for 700 miles, which is what I was referring to.
If a cross country high speed rail route ever reached the planning stage, it would probably be a 5000 mile route that hits every congressman's hometown between LA and NY.
I don't know where they got that cost estimate, but that's way low.
The 700 mile SF to LA high speed rail route (conventional rail, not maglev) is estimated at $37B. LA to NY is about 4 times the distance, so figure around $150B to do the whole thing.
Oh, but that doesn't take into account the inevitable cost overruns. I think SF's BART runs around 50% overrun on their big projects, so figure around $225B minimum. Cost overruns on Boston's Big Dig project run up to 500% depending on what numbers you look at, so the final price tag could be around $750B.
And I still don't see how maglev can compete with airlines for speed on a cross country trip, it would have to average 500mph including stops to beat a 5 hour flight. And the article even says that maglev systems current average around 260MPH, so that's over a 9 hour trip.
If they are counting on time savings since the train can go direct to city centers and not to outlying airports, then build high speed rail to link airports to city centers. Though you're not going to run at 500MPH above ground in any city...or even in suburbs -- no one will put up with the noise from a 500mph train 20 feet from their house (even if the propulsion is completely silent with maglev, displacing air at 500mph will make a huge amount of noise).
Slashdot Mirror
The terms of use seem pretty clear:
The Service may only be accessed with an original Xbox, an Xbox 360 console, a personal computer, or other device authorized by us, or by logging into your account via Xbox.com . You agree that you are using only authorized software and hardware to access the Service, that your software and hardware have not been modified in any unauthorized way (e.g., through unauthorized repairs, unauthorized upgrades, or unauthorized downloads
Refund Policies. Unless otherwise provided by law or in connection with any particular Service offer, all charges are non-refundable and the costs of any returns will be at your expense. There are, however, certain circumstances under which you may be entitled to a refund for certain Services.
So what part of that seems unclear enough that it warrants a lawsuit? If you don't agree with terms of use, don't sign up for the service then whine when they catch you violating the terms of service and terminate your account.
Hmm....that's not the case on my phone (LG ENV2) -- after disabling all of the options, I was unable to do anything that incurs a charge. The only thing I can view with Mobile Web is the My Verizon page, which is free.
Or, you could go to the Verizon online service center, go to "Self Service Options->Add and delete Features" and select "Block Mobile Web", "Block VCast usage", "Block Ringtone Purchase", "Block Application Downloads", and "Block Premium SMS". Or just call Verizon and ask them to do the same.
If your complaint is that *you* want those features but you don't want your daughter to access them, then I think the correct answer is "Don't give her your phone". Please don't ask manufacturers to make child-proof phones just in case some parent wants to use it as a toy. I'm an adult and I like my phones to be easy to use, even if features that sometimes cost money are easy to activate.
Contrary to your opinion, it's possible to be a decent parent without being with your child 24x7. Raising children is a big responsibility and a full-time job, yet it's nice to be able to take a break from that job from time to time.
Some of the nicest, well adjusted young adults I know were raised by parents who both had demanding jobs and the children sometimes had to fend for themselves for entertainment.
For that matter, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, but I still have fond memories of watching non-stop Saturday morning cartoons with my sister, (dad was working, mom was doing whatever it is that mom's do), yet I still consider my parents to be excellent parents and am quite happy with how they raised me.
I think the point the parent poster was trying to make is that the car designer can design nearly unlimited mechanical advantage with the steering wheel. If he wants you to be able to turn the wheel 15 times to move the wheels from full left to full right, he can do so.
But even if it only takes the steering wheel one revolution to take the wheels from stop to stop, that's 360 degrees of motion, while the joystick is limited to around 90 degrees.
Furthermore, the described joystick is relying on wrist strength, which is a lot less than the full arm strength that a user can impart to the steering wheel.
All of this means that the joystick controlled steering is likely 100% "fly-by-wire", no mechanical connection.
Horse carts and cars are very different. Don't believe me? Look at what cars have done to the evolution of the American city. European cities, designed when there were no cars, are DRASTICALLY different than modern American cities, where things are spread out. I live in a compact, older city. I would never THINK of getting a month's worth of groceries at a time. Why would I want to? I just walk home, and pick what I need up every other day or so. IT takes only a few minutes. But this is impossible in a modern American city. So, people use more gas, because they have to.
Not quite all American cities are like that. I live and work in an American city that still viable for a walking (or transit based) commute. There are 3 supermarkets on my walk home from work (small markets, not a big Safeway or Albertsons, but they have a broad selection of groceries including produce, fish, meats, household cleaning supplies, etc). 2 produce markets. A well stocked hardware store. A half-dozen small corner markets. A veterinarian. Dentist. Eye Doctor. Hair salons. A hospital. And literally dozens of restaurants in many cuisines (Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, to name a few) within a 15 minute walk from home. On the rare occasions that I want to stock up on a lot of bulky or heavy items, I order from Safeway and pay them to deliver it to my door.
And what keeps you from tasting, changing the spelling, then retasting? I want "Yhoo.com". No wait, no hits to that one, I meant to type "Yaho.com". Sorry, another typo, I really want "Yhaoo.com". "ayhoo.com"? "yaaho.com"?
If you're going to set an arbitrary limit on how many times you can change the spelling before you get charged, why not just set a different arbitrary limit that tells the registrar how many deletes he can have before he gets penalized. Then he is free to set any rename/delete policy he wants, knowing that if he exceeds 10% then he'll get charged.
I doubt any EM leaked out of that house.
Except out the power lines that are good at radiating RF outside the house just like they are good at carrying RF inside the house. At least until they reach a transformer.
As long as his transfer switch has a 15A circuit breaker (most of the ones at DIY stores seem to) and the wire between the generator and transfer switch is sized to carry 20 amps, then I don't see the problem?
where I said 1.8KWh above, I should have said 1.8Wh, but this is wrong anyway.
It takes 1400 gallons of diesel to ship the container, so that means that each bulb is using 1400 * 40000 Wh / 22000 = 2500 Wh
So it takes 35 hours for the CFL to recoup the energy used in shipping.
I didn't take into account the fact that turning diesel into electricity is not 100% efficient, so you're not going to get 40KHw out of a gallon of diesel. In real life it's probably closer to 50%. So that makes my numbers even more conservative and it's probably closer to 17 hours to recoup the energy cost.
A 20' container is approx 19' x 7' x 7' or 1.6M cubic inches (it's a bit bigger, but I left room for pallets, etc).
If a CFL + packaging is 3" x 4" x 6" = 72 in^3 then you can fit around 22,000 of them into a 20' container
This site claims you can ship a 20' container from China to the US for $3800 USD
Let's say that 75% of the shipping cost goes toward fuel, the rest goes to labor, paying off the ship, container rental, etc. Sounds reasonable.
I'm going to use Diesel for the energy calculations. I know that ships run off bunker fuel, not diesel, but I have to think that the cost per unit of energy for bunker fuel is cheaper than diesel since it's less refined, so by using Diesel I'm being conservative. Right now you can buy diesel for under $2/gal, so with 75% of $3800, we can buy 1425 gallons of diesel.
Diesel has 38 MJ of energy per liter (143 MJ/gal), or 40KWh according to the units command.
So, each light bulb uses 40KWh / 22,000 = 1.8 KWh (1800 Wh)of energy
A 29 Watt CFL can replace a 100 Watt incandescent bulb, so that's a 71 watt savings... 1800Wh / 71 W = 25 hours
Sooooo....a CFL will save the energy used to ship it in about 25 hours of operation. CFL's are supposed to last 5000 hours, so over its lifetime, it will save over 200 times more energy than used to ship it. (of course, this is only this shipping energy, and ignores the extra energy that it took to manufacture the CFL it as compared to an incadescent. I don't know how to do that math).
In other words, it does not provide more exposure, it is simply replacing exposure that already exists. And if you're listening to your favourite playlists, you're being exposed to less new music than just sticking on the radio.
No, in your words. In my words, Youtube gives me more exposure because friends are sending me new videos hosted on Youtube.
If what you said only minutes ago doesn't count, you can hardly blame a re-negotiation after 2 years. How on earth did you make it to your late 30's thinking that every deal is perfect first time?!
Sorry, that was a little hyperbole on my part, I assumed (poor assumption on Slashdot, I know) that everyone read the article and would realize the the labels are already getting a cut of the profits.
I've never encountered this effect whereby digital media provides more exposure to music than the radio, friend's mix tapes, watching TV, going to gigs, music press, references in books, receiving presents, etc.
You may have never encountered it, but thats where the market is heading -- as digital media gains more traction, it pushes traditional media to the side. I don't even listen to live music in my car anymore, why bother when I can pop a USB stick into my car stereo and listen to my favorite podcasts, or my favorite playlists.
Excellent point, but not one that supports your argument that Warner should just aim for free exposure. Are you changing your position?
Of course not, I never claimed that they should receive *no* compensation. As it says in the article:
So somehow, a revenue share that was fine for them for 2 years is no longer acceptable. Even though they benefit from it.
Why do you say that most consumer's behavior is different? I've given a specific example of how Youtube increases music sales, do you have any data (even anecdotal evidence) to the contrary? I'm saying that people that are exposed to music end up buying more music. Youtube is just another outlet where people can be exposed to music and it's hard to believe that more exposure doesn't lead to more sales. I'd be quite interested to see any data you have that links lost sales to exposure on Youtube or any other media outlet. Certainly there will be people that refuse to pay any money at all for music...well this Youtube deal is irrelevant to them - it's not like they will suddenly stop pirating music just because they can't see videos on Youtube. I'm referring only to those consumers that actually are willing to pay money for music.
Of course Youtube isn't exactly the same as a TV channel, it's better (for the consumer) and more directed, I can watch what I want when I want it (well I could if more media outlets would post their content).
If people in their 30's are embracing new media, then you can be certain that the college age group (traditionally heavy music consumers) is already farther along that path.
Of course TW has the right to do to anything they want with their content, but that doesn't mean that it's the smartest thing for them to do. Look at RIAA's recent about-face on suing music industry customers. The industry can either embrace how people want to find and consume music and find ways to monetize it, or simply drive consumers underground. Maybe people are willing to pay for music if it's available the way they want it.
Trying to force a legitimate music outlet to pay an unreasonable fee seems counter productive. Of course, I don't know what terms they are seeking, but based on the payout the industry was seeking from online broadcasters, it was likely exorbitant.
And you consider yourself representative even thought you've bought literally dozens of albums? Does it really make sense to use your comparatively unusual example as an argument?
Yes I do consider my example to be relevant.
I'm a consumer, and Youtube facilitates me finding new music. I'm not one to go and seek out new music on my own, but if a friend sends me a link to some hot new band, I'm going to watch it, and if I like it, I'll buy it. I'm old enough and have enough income that I don't want to search out free music, if I like it I don't mind paying for it -- if it's an unencumbered MP3, I don't want to pay for DRM restricted music.
I don't think I'm that unusual as a consumer though I may be atypical for the Slashdot crowd.
It's strange to me that we're talking about a YouTube as if it were just a TV channel
But that's what it is - another "TV channel"! It's not where I go to find new music, that's better suited to true social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. The labels need to adapt to this new model.
If people in my age group aren't finding new music on MTV (late 30's), I doubt that MTV is very relevant in the college age group either. Youtube is a great legitimate way to find music videos, if the labels make it too hard to find legitimate sources, then people will just trade them underground and instead of sending me links to Youtube videos, my friends will send me the video and/or audio files, then I'll have no need to buy anything.
I'm still upset over them shutting down mp3.com years ago -- that was a great way to buy music, I'd buy an album and download the MP3's and a week later the CD itself would show up in the mail. Plus I could listen to my entire music collection at home or at work. Great for the labels, and great for me. It's when they do stuff like that that drives people to music piracy.
With a mouse, there is an easily visible cursor that shows you exactly where it's pointing. Try using the mouse if you can't see the cursor until you click the mouse button.
Even if this device can show you a cursor of some sort when you hover your finger just off the surface, there are still drawbacks. First, your finger will get really tired after extended use -- it's much easier to rest it on a surface than to hold it in the air. And secondly, as you move your finger from the hover position to actually touch the screen, it's likely that the cursor will shift a little bit.
I think that the iPhone virtual keyboard, much as I hate it as compared to a real keyboard, is the way to go -- the popup letters show you exactly which one your finger hit, and you can shift your finger to a slightly new position if you see the wrong letter pop up.
This pretend "transparent" display might be nice for sliding things around or maybe for clicking on buttons that have raised dimples in the back of the device, but for clicking on things like URL's that are located in random places, it doesn't seem to offer any improvement since it's hard to tell when your finger is located over the place you want to click.
And it doesn't really help with clicking on small targets that are located next to each other. Sure you can click on a 2mm square, but not if it's located 2mm from another square. I can easily click on a 2mm square with my iPhone if it's surrounded by 2cm of empty space.
I guess a chorded model where you use one finger to point and another to click might be usable, but it seems awkward.
What a brilliant idea! Those stupid prostitutes will *never* think about putting their ads in the Craigslist sections that don't require ID!
It's not like they aren't already posting in the non-erotic services sections, the w4m section often has ads with "women" looking for a "generous" guy who will help out a girl who will "do anything". Along with more explict ads from women advertising their services. They eventually get flagged off but get reposted quickly.
Just make prostitution legal and regulate it -- charge enough taxes and the Governator won't need to push for a California sales tax increase.
We have a pretty small installation, 200 corporate users on Zimbra, nearly all addicted to and using Outlook.
We haven't had many problems, most of the problems we've had are with sharing calendars and contacts. It works fine, but not when the share is initiated through Outlook, the initial share needs to be done from the Zimbra web UI.
Aside from that, users seem pretty happy with Zimbra, most don't even know it's not exchange.
We're not running the free version of Zimbra for the very reason you suggested, it doesn't support the Outlook connector. The Outlook connector is key in a shop full of MS users, it gives them full email + calendar + contacts integration with.
It can replace your Exchange server for email, has an XMLPP IM server built-in, and is much more cost effective and easier to administer than Exchange.
So you think that the original article was a fabrication? Or maybe that Drivesavers took the guys $1500 and just ran r-tools to recover his data (and scrapped 20% of it just to make it look like it was hard)? What about Kroll Ontrack? Did they fleece NASA too with the Columbia disk recovery? Or maybe NASA made up the whole thing?
In spite of the article sounding like an advertisement (they probably offered the author a discount on his fee if he published his experience), I don't see anything extraordinary in the article that makes the data recovery hard to believe.
I've had one personal experience with data recover services -- it wasn't my drive, but I saw the dead drive, it would not even spin up though the green light on the circuit board was blinking.
They sent the drive to a recovery firm and $750 and 2 weeks later they got a DVD in the mail with the missing data and an explanation that the drive guts were fine, but the circuit board had some fault, so they just replaced the board (or maybe just some component) and were able to do a full recovery.
Unless your 10 drives were all run over by a truck or incinerated in a crash, then you're sending your drives to the wrong company. Oh wait, even if the drive has been incinerated in a crash, the data could still be recovered.
This is exactly why you want to buy a real isolating inverter and not try to make your own.
If the failure is isolated to your circuit from the power company (like if the transformer at your pole fails), then your circuit would never detect that the grid power went down if your home power system is producing enough power to feed the grid -- since your home system is tied directly to the grid, it would also be powering your 24AC transformer so would never see the grid side go down.
So, when the lineman goes to fix your transformer, he's dealing with a live circuit from your house.
Real isolation inverters look at the waveform and frequency to determine if the grid is offline.
High speed trains don't follow geography, they follow politics - the actual route includes Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, LA, San Diego, among other cities. Regardless of route, it's estimated to cost around $37B for 700 miles, which is what I was referring to.
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/route/default.asp
If a cross country high speed rail route ever reached the planning stage, it would probably be a 5000 mile route that hits every congressman's hometown between LA and NY.
The 700 mile SF to LA high speed rail route (conventional rail, not maglev) is estimated at $37B. LA to NY is about 4 times the distance, so figure around $150B to do the whole thing.
Oh, but that doesn't take into account the inevitable cost overruns. I think SF's BART runs around 50% overrun on their big projects, so figure around $225B minimum. Cost overruns on Boston's Big Dig project run up to 500% depending on what numbers you look at, so the final price tag could be around $750B.
And I still don't see how maglev can compete with airlines for speed on a cross country trip, it would have to average 500mph including stops to beat a 5 hour flight. And the article even says that maglev systems current average around 260MPH, so that's over a 9 hour trip.
If they are counting on time savings since the train can go direct to city centers and not to outlying airports, then build high speed rail to link airports to city centers. Though you're not going to run at 500MPH above ground in any city...or even in suburbs -- no one will put up with the noise from a 500mph train 20 feet from their house (even if the propulsion is completely silent with maglev, displacing air at 500mph will make a huge amount of noise).