I know several up-and-coming musicians, and putting out their first couple of CDs is always a financial adventure. If these guys can produce professional-looking packaging on a one-off basis, it could be just what struggling musicians need!
The fact that it shows how irrelevant the big labels are becoming is just icing on the cake.
Ach, I hate sites like that. Even if I wanted to, I can't remember my grade school teachers' names. And if I make up something spontaneous, I am guaranteed to forget it later...
It's almost as irritating as all the different password guidelines out there: with or without special characters, digits, capital letters, etc, etc.
...at least, not in the academic sense. Though there are some research papers that contribute just as little.
At its base, this is how Value-Added-Tax is calculated. Wheel, reinvented, wow...
While "free" is great, there are services I would pay for - heck, there are services I want to pay for. I would be much happier knowing that the service is making money from its users rather than wondering what sort of back-room deals are keeping them afloat.
Here's an example: OpenDNS. Great service, I recently installed in for a small company. There isn't even an option to pay for the service. So just what does OpenDNS get out of providing their service to this company? It bothers me - I keep wondering what the catch is...
Because they original "AGW" scientists saw the writing on the wall. There is no human-caused warming, only natural variation. So how can they preserve credibility? Why, change the name. Now, no matter what kind of natural, cyclical change happens, they are bound to be right: "we said 'climate change' and the climate changed".
I'm old enough to remember the last global-cooling scare. In 10 to 20 years, we'll all see the next one, as a new generation of lousy researchers confuses anecdotal evidence with science.
The point of hydrogen is just energy storage. I used to be a fan of hydrogen, but in the end it is just too hard to transport. However, there are lots of potential chemical reactions that could be used for energy storage, for example, there have been various proposals using aluminum.
The biggest problem is sheer scale: it's all well and good to say we'll store hydrogen/aluminum/whatever for when the wind isn't blowing, you then need full-capacity power plants to convert the hydrogen/aluminum/whatever back into electricity. So: you have to build two power plants, not just one, plus the transport infrastructure. Expensive!
Or another anecdote: there is a movie we want to watch. No rental store in the entire country seems to have it. No shop in the entire country has it (it came out on VHS and was apparently never put onto DVD). I can't rent it, I can't buy it - so I downloaded it via a torrent.
This is similar to the Google kerfluffle about out-of-print books. If the rights-owners can't be bothered to keep a work in the market, then the work is comparatively worthless to them. They really have no ethical basis to complain when the work is distributed by someone else in some other way.
Bloody typical. The legislature is composed of IT experts, or thinks it is. Don't they have something better to do that to micromanage the state's IT departments?
"Developer are critical of their own code"
on
Linux Needs Critics
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· Score: 1
Which, in the end, proves the point Keir is trying to make: Linux has no critics. Who cares what the developers write as comments in their code? This is irrelevant to the end user. What's needed are critics of the end-user experience.
If you find someone criticizing the Linux experience, look at the answers they get. They may be drowned in technical gibberish, they may told "don't domplain, after all it's free", they may be told to go read an FAQ. What they won't get is someone saying: "oh, you're right, that's hard to understand, let's fix it".
The end user wants the computer to recognize his MP3 player when he plugs it in, without having to log out or reboot.
The end user wants the computer to recognize the DVD he just stuffed into the drive.
The end user wants to be able to open that document his colleague just sent him by e-mail.
The end user wants to be able to play with lots of eye candy.
The end user does not care about comments in the source code.
...has substantially influenced the world of programming languages, and he is not a native English speaker. Granted, he specifically avoided producing languages for commercial use.
...the ones who forced through French words, where English ones threatened the language's purity. Octet? Ordinateur?
With the IT people I work with in Europe - excepting France - English is the language of choice.
Just like global warming, the idea that HIV causes AIDS is a consensus, but the proof is a wee bit lacking. James Hogan has written several blog posts on this topic. Just like global warming, there is too much money flowing into AIDS research and drugs for anyone to want to rock the boat...
"It is important...for future generations of music creators, that they can rely on earning an income from their songwriting."
Why?
Art is everywhere. Art is cheap. How many people are members of garage bands? Play an instrument? Sing? Maybe even give the occasional performance? How many people paint, write, compose, sculpt or dance in their spare time? Most have no expectation of making money - it's a hobby, something they do for fun.
Earning real money with any of this - composing, performing, writing, dancing, whatever - is very, very difficult. But the sense of entitlement from wannabe professionals is amazing: "My work is so great, I deserve to make a living at it". When they find that they can't, why then "life is unfair" and they are being cheated.
...is, that by pursuing this to the supreme court, she has spent her formative teenage years enmeshed in this incident. Would it not have been better for her to have been helped to get over it and get on with her life?
Her parents were rightly outraged, but they may have pursued the wrong course of action here.
This is yet another argument for keeping schools under the control of local school boards. That would have made it easy to assure that the adults involved lost their jobs. Then everyone else could have quietly gotten on with their lives.
What use is a test like this? It looks to me like the idea is to embed a few key questions in a flood of innocuous ones. Surely anyone of average intelligence will still spot the key questions, and answer accordingly?
Examples:
114. Sometimes I am so strongly attracted by the personal articles of others, such as shoes, gloves, etc., that I want to handle or steal them, even though I have no use for them. Oh yeah, especially stinky socks...
127. Criticism or scolding hurts me terribly. Whimper...
138. I believe I am being plotted against. But thankfully I remembered my tin-foil hat...
The parent post disses the game for looking 15 years old. It does, of course, but that does not mean that it is a poor game. If the storyline is good and the game-play is fun, shiny graphics are pretty irrelevant.
It goes both ways, of course. Take Mass Effect as an example: it looks good, but the game-play could be better and the storyline outside the four main quests is shallow. I'd rather have had crappy graphics with better game-play and a more detailed storyline.
I've just downloaded his demo - if the game looks worth $28, I'll buy it, old-fashioned graphics or no...
As others have said, I have quite good experience with Adblock. If nothing else, it makes the Internet experience more pleasant.
For me, the most important point is that the kids have their computers in the "family office". They've never tried to visit anything really objectionable, but it has happened that they wandered onto sites that I found inappropriate. I wouldn't necessarily have noticed this if their computers were in their rooms, or even by looking at logs. As it was, it was one of those "teachable" moments.
Of course, as they get older, they have more and more access to mobile devices. By the time this could be a problem, I hope to have taught them well enough to behave responsibly.
Germany has a very consumer protection laws. In particular, you have an absolute right to return mail-order purchases within (iirc) 30 days - this also applies to Internet orders.
She should delete the software and inform them that she has thereby "returned" it. If she is concerned, she should ask a local lawyer for the right language to use.
Re:Anyone actually BUY anything because of web ads
on
How Web Advertising May Go
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I've been on the other side: setting up Google ads for two small companies. In one case, it did increase the web-traffic, but did not result in a single sale. In the other case, it has resulted in sales - but the total effect was very minimal.
This was with Google ads - which I suspect are among the most effective, because they are generally relevant to what the person was searching for. Even so, the results were marginal at best.
Web advertising would be more effective if there were less of it. Unfortunately, dropping prices mean dropping revenue, which will probably cause some sites to add even more adverts. Resulting in even less value, further price and revenue drops, and a vicious cycle is begun.
Even though all attempts to date have failed, I still think an effective micropayment system is the right answer...
You can easily fill a few idle hours off the coding sites, though not necessarily at the hourly rate you want. But to make a full-time go of it you will likely spend a lot of your time marketing yourself. Lots of us techie types either can't sell, or can but hate it.
If you don't like the idea of doing a good bit of sales and marketing, you are better off either making the best of your current job, or looking for a different one.
The proximity sensors that detect and react to heavy snowfall as a solid object. The glare-ice warnings that goes off on a perfectly dry road, apparently because the temperature is near freezing. Etc, etc.
The last thing I want is for the car to assume control in cases like this!
That 98% of the registered users are inactive is no surprise at all. I used to contribute once in a while, adding or correcting content where I knew I could. The last time I did I was informed that my changes did not meet the editorial guidelines, and that I should go study those before contributing again. This was couched in the "holier than thou" language of someone who spends far too much time volunteering, and expects to be worshiped for their selflessness.
Wikipedia is a great resource. However, if they make it too irritating for the average user to contribute, then they will have only the dedicated core. If they want to retain wide participation, they need to make some changes.
Slashdot Mirror
I know several up-and-coming musicians, and putting out their first couple of CDs is always a financial adventure. If these guys can produce professional-looking packaging on a one-off basis, it could be just what struggling musicians need!
The fact that it shows how irrelevant the big labels are becoming is just icing on the cake.
Ach, I hate sites like that. Even if I wanted to, I can't remember my grade school teachers' names. And if I make up something spontaneous, I am guaranteed to forget it later... It's almost as irritating as all the different password guidelines out there: with or without special characters, digits, capital letters, etc, etc.
ny
...booby traps are a really bad idea, as you have no idea just who they will target.
...at least, not in the academic sense. Though there are some research papers that contribute just as little. At its base, this is how Value-Added-Tax is calculated. Wheel, reinvented, wow...
While "free" is great, there are services I would pay for - heck, there are services I want to pay for. I would be much happier knowing that the service is making money from its users rather than wondering what sort of back-room deals are keeping them afloat.
Here's an example: OpenDNS. Great service, I recently installed in for a small company. There isn't even an option to pay for the service. So just what does OpenDNS get out of providing their service to this company? It bothers me - I keep wondering what the catch is...
Because they original "AGW" scientists saw the writing on the wall. There is no human-caused warming, only natural variation. So how can they preserve credibility? Why, change the name. Now, no matter what kind of natural, cyclical change happens, they are bound to be right: "we said 'climate change' and the climate changed".
I'm old enough to remember the last global-cooling scare. In 10 to 20 years, we'll all see the next one, as a new generation of lousy researchers confuses anecdotal evidence with science.
The point of hydrogen is just energy storage. I used to be a fan of hydrogen, but in the end it is just too hard to transport. However, there are lots of potential chemical reactions that could be used for energy storage, for example, there have been various proposals using aluminum.
The biggest problem is sheer scale: it's all well and good to say we'll store hydrogen/aluminum/whatever for when the wind isn't blowing, you then need full-capacity power plants to convert the hydrogen/aluminum/whatever back into electricity. So: you have to build two power plants, not just one, plus the transport infrastructure. Expensive!
I want to found the SAUA (Society Against Useless Acronyms)
Or another anecdote: there is a movie we want to watch. No rental store in the entire country seems to have it. No shop in the entire country has it (it came out on VHS and was apparently never put onto DVD). I can't rent it, I can't buy it - so I downloaded it via a torrent. This is similar to the Google kerfluffle about out-of-print books. If the rights-owners can't be bothered to keep a work in the market, then the work is comparatively worthless to them. They really have no ethical basis to complain when the work is distributed by someone else in some other way.
Bloody typical. The legislature is composed of IT experts, or thinks it is. Don't they have something better to do that to micromanage the state's IT departments?
Which, in the end, proves the point Keir is trying to make: Linux has no critics. Who cares what the developers write as comments in their code? This is irrelevant to the end user. What's needed are critics of the end-user experience. If you find someone criticizing the Linux experience, look at the answers they get. They may be drowned in technical gibberish, they may told "don't domplain, after all it's free", they may be told to go read an FAQ. What they won't get is someone saying: "oh, you're right, that's hard to understand, let's fix it".
The end user does not care about comments in the source code.
...has substantially influenced the world of programming languages, and he is not a native English speaker. Granted, he specifically avoided producing languages for commercial use.
...the ones who forced through French words, where English ones threatened the language's purity. Octet? Ordinateur? With the IT people I work with in Europe - excepting France - English is the language of choice.
Just like global warming, the idea that HIV causes AIDS is a consensus, but the proof is a wee bit lacking. James Hogan has written several blog posts on this topic. Just like global warming, there is too much money flowing into AIDS research and drugs for anyone to want to rock the boat...
"It is important...for future generations of music creators, that they can rely on earning an income from their songwriting."
Why?
Art is everywhere. Art is cheap. How many people are members of garage bands? Play an instrument? Sing? Maybe even give the occasional performance? How many people paint, write, compose, sculpt or dance in their spare time? Most have no expectation of making money - it's a hobby, something they do for fun.
Earning real money with any of this - composing, performing, writing, dancing, whatever - is very, very difficult. But the sense of entitlement from wannabe professionals is amazing: "My work is so great, I deserve to make a living at it". When they find that they can't, why then "life is unfair" and they are being cheated.
...is, that by pursuing this to the supreme court, she has spent her formative teenage years enmeshed in this incident. Would it not have been better for her to have been helped to get over it and get on with her life? Her parents were rightly outraged, but they may have pursued the wrong course of action here. This is yet another argument for keeping schools under the control of local school boards. That would have made it easy to assure that the adults involved lost their jobs. Then everyone else could have quietly gotten on with their lives.
What use is a test like this? It looks to me like the idea is to embed a few key questions in a flood of innocuous ones. Surely anyone of average intelligence will still spot the key questions, and answer accordingly?
Examples:
114. Sometimes I am so strongly attracted by the personal articles of others, such as shoes, gloves, etc., that I want to handle or steal them, even though I have no use for them. Oh yeah, especially stinky socks...
127. Criticism or scolding hurts me terribly. Whimper...
138. I believe I am being plotted against. But thankfully I remembered my tin-foil hat...
The parent post disses the game for looking 15 years old. It does, of course, but that does not mean that it is a poor game. If the storyline is good and the game-play is fun, shiny graphics are pretty irrelevant.
It goes both ways, of course. Take Mass Effect as an example: it looks good, but the game-play could be better and the storyline outside the four main quests is shallow. I'd rather have had crappy graphics with better game-play and a more detailed storyline.
I've just downloaded his demo - if the game looks worth $28, I'll buy it, old-fashioned graphics or no...
As others have said, I have quite good experience with Adblock. If nothing else, it makes the Internet experience more pleasant.
For me, the most important point is that the kids have their computers in the "family office". They've never tried to visit anything really objectionable, but it has happened that they wandered onto sites that I found inappropriate. I wouldn't necessarily have noticed this if their computers were in their rooms, or even by looking at logs. As it was, it was one of those "teachable" moments.
Of course, as they get older, they have more and more access to mobile devices. By the time this could be a problem, I hope to have taught them well enough to behave responsibly.
Germany has a very consumer protection laws. In particular, you have an absolute right to return mail-order purchases within (iirc) 30 days - this also applies to Internet orders. She should delete the software and inform them that she has thereby "returned" it. If she is concerned, she should ask a local lawyer for the right language to use.
I've been on the other side: setting up Google ads for two small companies. In one case, it did increase the web-traffic, but did not result in a single sale. In the other case, it has resulted in sales - but the total effect was very minimal.
This was with Google ads - which I suspect are among the most effective, because they are generally relevant to what the person was searching for. Even so, the results were marginal at best.
Web advertising would be more effective if there were less of it. Unfortunately, dropping prices mean dropping revenue, which will probably cause some sites to add even more adverts. Resulting in even less value, further price and revenue drops, and a vicious cycle is begun.
Even though all attempts to date have failed, I still think an effective micropayment system is the right answer...
You can easily fill a few idle hours off the coding sites, though not necessarily at the hourly rate you want. But to make a full-time go of it you will likely spend a lot of your time marketing yourself. Lots of us techie types either can't sell, or can but hate it.
If you don't like the idea of doing a good bit of sales and marketing, you are better off either making the best of your current job, or looking for a different one.
The last thing I want is for the car to assume control in cases like this!
That 98% of the registered users are inactive is no surprise at all. I used to contribute once in a while, adding or correcting content where I knew I could. The last time I did I was informed that my changes did not meet the editorial guidelines, and that I should go study those before contributing again. This was couched in the "holier than thou" language of someone who spends far too much time volunteering, and expects to be worshiped for their selflessness. Wikipedia is a great resource. However, if they make it too irritating for the average user to contribute, then they will have only the dedicated core. If they want to retain wide participation, they need to make some changes.