i think the general opinion today, right or wrong, is that usenet is no longer very relevent, especially since it has been taken over by spammers for the past 10 years...
other than doing research of things past i don't find myself using usenet. probably the last time i really used it for something other than looking up something about a problem with an old computer or looking at something historic (linux announcement, etc.) was about 5 years ago. i'd say it was a mistake to add posting capability to it to begin with instead of requiring you to have your own newsfeed. for everything else it works pretty well from what i've seen...
the only one they purchased was dejanews and yeah they haven't done a whole lot with it, but i haven't seen a lot of need for much change with that particular feature (however i really don't use usenet much but when i did i didn't ever use deja or later google, i used a real usenet connection).
as you said, if something is in beta status for a long time people may not expect it to go out of beta soon. however they make it clear that these features may or may not be ready for primetime. they are things that they are trying out and they might be pulled if they lose interest in the feature.
cult like status may be true, though i might add it sounds like you are purposefully sounding contrarian, but i would say it stems from two things: google's search has proven to many to be faster, easier and give better results than the competition and two it has a very clean interface that is largely free of advertising clutter. when the competition looks like the home shopping channel it is difficult to appreciate their qualities by any measure.
yahoo has a long history of buying interesting companies to let them rot on their site. they incorporate them but don't extend the features past what they were initially. even worse when they get an interesting new feature they don't take anything interesting from that new project and incorporate it site wide, which for example they could do with flickr.
the only real exception to this has been their email system, which i'm no longer that flattered with...
sure it's great they have all sorts of neat features but who cares when they don't bother to update them as time goes by and users tastes change? google seems to actually do interesting things with their new projects. i am very curious how these new purchases are going to work out for yahoo or if they are just going to add to the rot.
too bad hacking a dead pixel out of the screen isn't easy. from what i've been reading it is an issue that lots of folks have been seeing (however you have to take into account that complaints are often heard louder than fanfare).
in case folks didn't notice the story linked on that same page, here's the text from the site:
Console manufacturer won't replace PSP units with dead pixels on screen
Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation Portable handheld console has finally launched in North America today to the delight of portable gaming fans, but news from Canadian retailers regarding SCE's replacement service policy for the new console threatens to rain on their parade. Ever since it launched in Japan late last year, the PSP hasn't exactly built a confident reputation regarding it's build quality. A potential issue concerns "dead pixels", which means few pixels on your screen that never change color because they are essentially "broken". Depending on where exactly these pixels are, this could actually prove quite distracting.
In the PSP's defense, dead pixels have been an issue for many other devices with high-quality LCD screens, and mainly stems from manufacturing defects. Most manufacturers of such devices (like LCD monitors for PCs) are willing to replace products with dead pixels, provided that your number of busted pixels meets their "tolerance level". Some are little more lenient however and will replace your unit no matter what. The surprise here is that SCEA reportedly will not warrant ANY number pixels, period. Be it five or one on your brand new PSP screen, it appears they will not recognize dead pixels as a manufacturing defect. An email from retailer Videogames Plus provides the details:
"DEAD PIXEL WARRANTY AND TESTING...
We have just been infomned by Sony that they will not be warranting any dead pixel units. They are only warranting hardware defects ie broken buttons, malfuction with drive and so on. Dead Pixels are not considered a defect by Sony of America and will not be warrantied."
Provided that the information is indeed true (the retailer does appear legitimate, but the email is somewhat hastily written), this is quite a heavy-handed measure on Sony's part. This could be a sign that they aren't ready to handle returns for their new console just yet, at least not until they ship enough PSP consoles to as many different consumers as possible first. A bit strange, but hopefully the company will ease up on their policy a little in the future when PSP supplies become more plentiful later in the year.
Until then, your only real option for replacing a PSP unit with dead pixels (that are actually bothering you) is to return it to your retailer for a new unit. Considering the tights supplies of the PSP right now however, you may not be so lucky. Hopefully you'll get a good unit the first time through!
your opinion sounds like that of some brits i've talked to. billie piper was a well known pop singer in england before being an actress. think britney spears playing a major part in a classic american tv show and the reaction that some folks might have.
there is an awful lot of bad dr. who (like there is an awful lot of bad trek or any other show that has been on for a long time) but i don't think this is so bad. perhaps if i was a brit i would see it as heresy that a teenybopper popstar get the part, but meh, no biggy. i'll watch it.
yep, it would seem that way. since you are about the only one around that has gotten better than 4 hours on yours i would say someone is exaggerating a little.
someone above mentioned using vector graphics as icons (.svg). someone else mentioned an article from a dude that goes into explaining why it may not be such a good idea after all. mostly because the scaling is processor intensive and depending on how it is scaled it can produce incomprehensible tiny graphics or very large messy strokes that look awful.
doesn't seem like an issue that is insurmountable though. i guess i would think you could create a.svgi (svg icon) file that had prescaled high and low bitmapped sizes and use the vector stuff for everything in between. if you build the scaling engine to use directx or opengl it would seem the processor usage wouldn't be so bad...
this time it will look like a hotdog. next relaunch it will look like a pancake. then a banana, a steak, a rutabega, squid, a mushroom and finally an icecream cone.
by that time they will have given up on it and realized that they weren't interested in videogames at all, they were just hungry...
i like how opera does it. it keeps track of windows that you closed in your current opera session. for instance, i almost always have 20-30 tabs open. when you close a window that i opened 4 hours ago it remembers both the time i opened it and closed it.
i may have opened the window hours ago but only gotten to reading it just now. if i close the window it remembers that i closed the window (in the order i closed them) in the 'window->closed' menu. but if you look in the history file it also remember when you first opened the site.
the original client was pc geos. it was pretty sophisticated for the time (i remember a lot of bbs's used it because it was pretty good at multitasking multiple lines and multiple door programs). had a decent gui right from the start. i remember getting win3.0 (i don't think 3.1 was out yet) and wondering when they were going to finally release the windows client...
wood and brass would be a fun whimsical victorian look for a computer. i'm imagining something with gauges (temp/fanspeed) and dials (for on/off) etc...
btw, i think you meant hankering not hunkering. unless you squat on your computer...:P
Which will result in other humorous ads... like these for interstellar gentlemen's entertainment:
What happens in Uranus stays in Uranus. Avoid the Crab (Nebula), stay at the Horsehead Galactic Inn. What's under Orien's Belt? Show her the Milky Way. Venus Palace: Enjoy the biggest black holes in the galaxy.
lucas is doing this as a testbed for the technology. he said recently in a 60 minutes interview that once he is done making these movies he's no longer going to make big grandiose films. he wants to make arthouse movies and such that nobody will ever go see. as he said, "at this point i can afford to be a failure".
so what i am wondering is if he is going to make his next movie in 3d from the start. he tested the waters with cgi and live action when he did the star wars special editions to later go on and use the technology heavily in episodes 1-3...
it seems to me that if you are looking for a job in a large company having a name like novell on your certification list might make some folks take notice. novell's certified linux program is pretty decent and is backed by a big name (well, used to be a bigger name, but they are still well known).
in addition it will tell the person that you aren't just adept at linux but using linux in a real business environment, where novell networks are usually found which imho makes the novell cert more meaningful than a redhat cert...
a few minor quibbles about it and a few big ones too...
a few of the ships didn't look quite like star wars like ships. mostly the ship that we see taking off from the ground. just didn't ring true as a star wars ship and instead looked like something they were giong to use in another project and used it in this one instead.
the bigger issue though is that for what seemed like a good production, for the most part, it fell apart as soon as the 'actors' started talking. the main girls voice is kind of annoying and the other girl sounds whiny, like this was the oc, not star wars (or like young anakin). the dialog is about on par with jarjar's lines. had they gotten a group of real actors that were interested in this and not just the nerd collective, i think this would have been really great.
as it is though it is a great looking work that is marred by the acting and held up by the visuals. on that note, it is fairly similar to episode i, and to a lesser extent, episode ii...
Slashdot Mirror
i think the general opinion today, right or wrong, is that usenet is no longer very relevent, especially since it has been taken over by spammers for the past 10 years...
other than doing research of things past i don't find myself using usenet. probably the last time i really used it for something other than looking up something about a problem with an old computer or looking at something historic (linux announcement, etc.) was about 5 years ago. i'd say it was a mistake to add posting capability to it to begin with instead of requiring you to have your own newsfeed. for everything else it works pretty well from what i've seen...
and of those items what did they PURCHASE?
the only one they purchased was dejanews and yeah they haven't done a whole lot with it, but i haven't seen a lot of need for much change with that particular feature (however i really don't use usenet much but when i did i didn't ever use deja or later google, i used a real usenet connection).
as you said, if something is in beta status for a long time people may not expect it to go out of beta soon. however they make it clear that these features may or may not be ready for primetime. they are things that they are trying out and they might be pulled if they lose interest in the feature.
cult like status may be true, though i might add it sounds like you are purposefully sounding contrarian, but i would say it stems from two things: google's search has proven to many to be faster, easier and give better results than the competition and two it has a very clean interface that is largely free of advertising clutter. when the competition looks like the home shopping channel it is difficult to appreciate their qualities by any measure.
yahoo has a long history of buying interesting companies to let them rot on their site. they incorporate them but don't extend the features past what they were initially. even worse when they get an interesting new feature they don't take anything interesting from that new project and incorporate it site wide, which for example they could do with flickr.
the only real exception to this has been their email system, which i'm no longer that flattered with...
sure it's great they have all sorts of neat features but who cares when they don't bother to update them as time goes by and users tastes change? google seems to actually do interesting things with their new projects. i am very curious how these new purchases are going to work out for yahoo or if they are just going to add to the rot.
in case folks didn't notice the story linked on that same page, here's the text from the site:
Console manufacturer won't replace PSP units with dead pixels on screen
Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation Portable handheld console has finally launched in North America today to the delight of portable gaming fans, but news from Canadian retailers regarding SCE's replacement service policy for the new console threatens to rain on their parade. Ever since it launched in Japan late last year, the PSP hasn't exactly built a confident reputation regarding it's build quality. A potential issue concerns "dead pixels", which means few pixels on your screen that never change color because they are essentially "broken". Depending on where exactly these pixels are, this could actually prove quite distracting.
In the PSP's defense, dead pixels have been an issue for many other devices with high-quality LCD screens, and mainly stems from manufacturing defects. Most manufacturers of such devices (like LCD monitors for PCs) are willing to replace products with dead pixels, provided that your number of busted pixels meets their "tolerance level". Some are little more lenient however and will replace your unit no matter what. The surprise here is that SCEA reportedly will not warrant ANY number pixels, period. Be it five or one on your brand new PSP screen, it appears they will not recognize dead pixels as a manufacturing defect. An email from retailer Videogames Plus provides the details:
Provided that the information is indeed true (the retailer does appear legitimate, but the email is somewhat hastily written), this is quite a heavy-handed measure on Sony's part. This could be a sign that they aren't ready to handle returns for their new console just yet, at least not until they ship enough PSP consoles to as many different consumers as possible first. A bit strange, but hopefully the company will ease up on their policy a little in the future when PSP supplies become more plentiful later in the year.
Until then, your only real option for replacing a PSP unit with dead pixels (that are actually bothering you) is to return it to your retailer for a new unit. Considering the tights supplies of the PSP right now however, you may not be so lucky. Hopefully you'll get a good unit the first time through!
your opinion sounds like that of some brits i've talked to. billie piper was a well known pop singer in england before being an actress. think britney spears playing a major part in a classic american tv show and the reaction that some folks might have.
there is an awful lot of bad dr. who (like there is an awful lot of bad trek or any other show that has been on for a long time) but i don't think this is so bad. perhaps if i was a brit i would see it as heresy that a teenybopper popstar get the part, but meh, no biggy. i'll watch it.
how is what i said redundant? do you even bother looking at the date/time when you use your mod points, ESPECIALLY for redundant mods?
read the conversation a little closer instead of being a mod happy jerk!
yep, it would seem that way. since you are about the only one around that has gotten better than 4 hours on yours i would say someone is exaggerating a little.
good theory about the wood elves though...
someone above mentioned using vector graphics as icons (.svg). someone else mentioned an article from a dude that goes into explaining why it may not be such a good idea after all. mostly because the scaling is processor intensive and depending on how it is scaled it can produce incomprehensible tiny graphics or very large messy strokes that look awful.
.svgi (svg icon) file that had prescaled high and low bitmapped sizes and use the vector stuff for everything in between. if you build the scaling engine to use directx or opengl it would seem the processor usage wouldn't be so bad...
doesn't seem like an issue that is insurmountable though. i guess i would think you could create a
this time it will look like a hotdog. next relaunch it will look like a pancake. then a banana, a steak, a rutabega, squid, a mushroom and finally an icecream cone.
by that time they will have given up on it and realized that they weren't interested in videogames at all, they were just hungry...
i like how opera does it. it keeps track of windows that you closed in your current opera session. for instance, i almost always have 20-30 tabs open. when you close a window that i opened 4 hours ago it remembers both the time i opened it and closed it.
i may have opened the window hours ago but only gotten to reading it just now. if i close the window it remembers that i closed the window (in the order i closed them) in the 'window->closed' menu. but if you look in the history file it also remember when you first opened the site.
the original client was pc geos. it was pretty sophisticated for the time (i remember a lot of bbs's used it because it was pretty good at multitasking multiple lines and multiple door programs). had a decent gui right from the start. i remember getting win3.0 (i don't think 3.1 was out yet) and wondering when they were going to finally release the windows client...
apple is requiring 4.7 to use itms. however, 4.7.1 has the new restrictions as laid out in that article...
yeah they will have a bug that will limit them to 4 gig of ram... ;p
hp: innovating bullet to foot solutions for over 15 years.
meh... i like wordbiz (also free) better... have a looksee...
wood and brass would be a fun whimsical victorian look for a computer. i'm imagining something with gauges (temp/fanspeed) and dials (for on/off) etc...
:P
btw, i think you meant hankering not hunkering. unless you squat on your computer...
http://artscene.textfiles.com/asciiart/ASCIIPR0N/
heh, i meant gent's and ladies adult entertainment...
Which will result in other humorous ads... like these for interstellar gentlemen's entertainment:
;p
What happens in Uranus stays in Uranus.
Avoid the Crab (Nebula), stay at the Horsehead Galactic Inn.
What's under Orien's Belt?
Show her the Milky Way.
Venus Palace: Enjoy the biggest black holes in the galaxy.
i could keep going but that's enough...
here's my guess...
lucas is doing this as a testbed for the technology. he said recently in a 60 minutes interview that once he is done making these movies he's no longer going to make big grandiose films. he wants to make arthouse movies and such that nobody will ever go see. as he said, "at this point i can afford to be a failure".
so what i am wondering is if he is going to make his next movie in 3d from the start. he tested the waters with cgi and live action when he did the star wars special editions to later go on and use the technology heavily in episodes 1-3...
even if that were true it would still be worth it compared to the quality of most of mobile browsers (or even many computer browsers)...
it helps when the guy that invented css is also the cto of the company. :)
it seems to me that if you are looking for a job in a large company having a name like novell on your certification list might make some folks take notice. novell's certified linux program is pretty decent and is backed by a big name (well, used to be a bigger name, but they are still well known).
in addition it will tell the person that you aren't just adept at linux but using linux in a real business environment, where novell networks are usually found which imho makes the novell cert more meaningful than a redhat cert...
heh, damn. beat me to it!
a few minor quibbles about it and a few big ones too...
a few of the ships didn't look quite like star wars like ships. mostly the ship that we see taking off from the ground. just didn't ring true as a star wars ship and instead looked like something they were giong to use in another project and used it in this one instead.
the bigger issue though is that for what seemed like a good production, for the most part, it fell apart as soon as the 'actors' started talking. the main girls voice is kind of annoying and the other girl sounds whiny, like this was the oc, not star wars (or like young anakin). the dialog is about on par with jarjar's lines. had they gotten a group of real actors that were interested in this and not just the nerd collective, i think this would have been really great.
as it is though it is a great looking work that is marred by the acting and held up by the visuals. on that note, it is fairly similar to episode i, and to a lesser extent, episode ii...