Do you remember PCs that were MPC1 or MPC2 certified? I always wanted to have me one of them fancy MPC2 PCs but they were out of reach of nearly everyone when they came out.
Unfortunately, distance is not the only factor. I live in the Denver Tech Center, a place where one should be able to hold a cable out of the window and get internet access, but it is not the case. AT&T doesn't provide cable modem to the area, and despite being less than one block from a Qwest building and living in brand new apartments (I have lived here a year and I am the first in this particular unit), the phone lines are not up to par as far as carrying DSL signal. I found this out after almost three months of U S West (before they were Qwest) telling me that I could get DSL. The type of phone cable and the type of switching box will make a huge difference in the ability to get DSL, even if you are well within the range of the telco.
DogDoo.com has ALWAYS been profitable, ever since our inception in June of 1999! When other huge web sites like Amazon.com still remain in the red we have turned profits each and every month.
It's not hard to see that a company that ships dog crap would be profitable. There's a few reasons for this:
This is a service that has demand. There are several reasons for this as well.
There is very low overhead. The cost of dog food and dog care for a few animals is all.
Shipping and everything else is paid for by the customer sending the package. The end result is that dogpoo.com is probably making close to 100% profit.
Even if only a few people order, they are already making money. A single order from any of the "sizes" of dog crap will pay for the food for the dog for a month or more. It's $25 plus shipping for 2 lbs of feces. That's more than steak.
Pretty much the only other raw materials, besides poop is the shrink wrap and boxes for sending the stuff in. Dogdoo.com is actually providing a service that some people want. Granted it is probably a niche market, but some people are buying it. I cannot see anyone wanting control of their monitor from anywhere in the world.
Didn't the proposed product tip you off just a little bit? Software that allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast of your monitor over the internet? Even most of the dot-coms that failed at least were _going_ to produce something with a slight bit of use.
Of what use would this product possibly be? How would adjusting the brightness/contrast of your monitor across the internet help anyone? If it were a remote monitor, you could not even see the results, and if you were in front of the monitor, who would want to install software to allow them to adjust these settings?
Every part of the story was an exaggeration to the extreme. Many dot-coms may have been run stupidly and inconsistently, but I don't know of any that would have matched the extremeness of any of the examples in the story.
Just hold the pen a little higher than you would if you were actually writing or using the pad to draw. The tablet can pick up the pen from relatively far away. The tablet I have (USB) samples faster than my mouse (I'm pretty sure) so I can make the shapes pretty quickly.
I'm not sure of any way to disable the tip (although you can remove it, but I wouldn't unless B&W is all you do). Try the control panel settings.
I have the Wacom 6x8 and I use it for the gesture part of B&W. I do everything else with the mouse since it seems more natural to move and manipulate thigs with the mouse than the pen, but fighting and casting miracles with the Wacom pen is very easy.
It is like you described at first though, but I think I was doing something weird drawing the gestures with the pen, but after a few successful gestures, I can pull them off with no problem and in quick succession. I don't think B&W has anything to stop perfect gestures. Seeing the red trail on the screen certainly helps too..
[Most recently, it was sued by the entertainment industry for publishing code that lets users crack the supposedly impregnable DVD format.]
What's so impregnable about a code that can be broken by a 14 year old, and later be reduced to be able to fit on a business card in less than 7 lines of perl code?
Supposedly impregnable to me would be code that would have to be output on a quilt or involve measurements that must take into account the RF interference of neighboring electrical components. It's not a 40-bit key found unencrypted in a piece of windows software.
It's like sending all the guards home and leaving the keys and security codes to Fort Knox under the doormat. Impregnability comes from the ability to resist attack and I don't think CSS did that in any way shape or form.
[Congress responded by passing the Privacy Act of 1974, which was designed to discourage such wholesale data gathering. While the law doesn't explicitly prohibit the government from compiling dossiers on presumably law-abiding private citizens, the FBI and other agencies in the past have generally interpreted it that way. Moreover, some of those agencies' own internal guidelines bar them from actively assembling such files themselves.]
So let me get this straight... The law basically says that the FBI and other government agencies cannot compile a dossier on a presumed law-abiding citizen, but it's ok to purchase said dossier as long as they didn't compile it themselves. Seems to me the end result is exactly the same.
I say basically since it appears that there is not a direct law keeping the government from doing this sort of thing, but since they all interpret it that way, maybe they should... And it should be included that obtaining this information on presumed law-abiding citizens is just as bad.
It's like saying well, it's illegal to build a bomb, but not to purchase or be in possession of one. Or marijuana, or any other number of things.
> I'll make a measurement called "Schnach" which is 1 meter in Australia, but is 3 inches in the US. Brilliant idea, eh?
Wouldn't the Australian women be a little upset about saying they've got a 1 meter schnach? In the US it's significantly smaller, and we tend to run away from anything approaching 1 meter.
The secret service should have to reimburse E-gold based on the average days' worth of business for each day that they had the equipment that kept the business from running.
Marketing is the reason IBM is changing (has changed) the AS/400 to be the iSeries 400, the RS6000 to be the pSeries, the Intel/NT/2000 boxes to be the eSeries, the 390 to be the zSeries, and I believe linux to be the xSeries. I am not 100% on which letters go with what when it comes to the p, e, and x, but I know the i for sure.
It should be noted that the mathematician's name mentioned in the article can be rearranged to
"SHE BE TRICK PRO"
Of course that is using Robert instead of Bob, but the point is obvious:)
Almost two years ago, a group of friends and I in college modified a power-wheels jeep to be controlled by a 25 lb "portable" Linux box. We yanked out all the pedals, steering wheel, etc, and replaced them with servos and motors.
We also added a pan/tilt video camera and a rotatable sonar range-finding device. We wrote programs that would allow us to move the vehicle, turn its wheels, take pictures, range find, etc. We made it so the vehicle was able to be controlled over a LAN, or the internet, and could send pictures back to a graphic analysis program. Combined with a sonar sweep we had a decent "3D" view of the jeep's surroundings.
I don't know if that's the correct name for it, but it sounds like this rubber sheet theory may be correct. It's basically where the entire universe is a flat rubber sheet, and all the planets, stars and other heavenly bodies cause the sheet to have indentions based on the mass of the body. That's where we get gravity in space.
On the other hand, maybe the universe is like a big sheet of paper and it's only a matter of time until God folds us up like a plane and throws us away. Maybe He's got a circular file too.
It sounds to me that the best use, and probably the most common use for this technology would be to let multimedia and DVD authors to test out their latest creation relatively cheap. Last time I checked, commercial DVD writers were 20-50x more expensive than this unit. For corporations or companies that want to enter the DVD arena, either by sending out DVDs to customers to inform them of new products (AOL CDs?) or to distribute software this way (Microsoft is going to start doing this), this seems like an extremely cheap way to do this without having to purchase a full commercial DVD writer. And once you have the master (gone gold) then you can send it out to a DVD publisher and get your discs pressed for much cheaper than $30/disc.
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Do you remember PCs that were MPC1 or MPC2 certified? I always wanted to have me one of them fancy MPC2 PCs but they were out of reach of nearly everyone when they came out.
Unfortunately, distance is not the only factor. I live in the Denver Tech Center, a place where one should be able to hold a cable out of the window and get internet access, but it is not the case. AT&T doesn't provide cable modem to the area, and despite being less than one block from a Qwest building and living in brand new apartments (I have lived here a year and I am the first in this particular unit), the phone lines are not up to par as far as carrying DSL signal. I found this out after almost three months of U S West (before they were Qwest) telling me that I could get DSL. The type of phone cable and the type of switching box will make a huge difference in the ability to get DSL, even if you are well within the range of the telco.
DogDoo.com has ALWAYS been profitable, ever since our inception in June of 1999! When other huge web sites like Amazon.com still remain in the red we have turned profits each and every month.
It's not hard to see that a company that ships dog crap would be profitable. There's a few reasons for this:
Even if only a few people order, they are already making money. A single order from any of the "sizes" of dog crap will pay for the food for the dog for a month or more. It's $25 plus shipping for 2 lbs of feces. That's more than steak.
Pretty much the only other raw materials, besides poop is the shrink wrap and boxes for sending the stuff in. Dogdoo.com is actually providing a service that some people want. Granted it is probably a niche market, but some people are buying it. I cannot see anyone wanting control of their monitor from anywhere in the world.
Didn't the proposed product tip you off just a little bit? Software that allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast of your monitor over the internet? Even most of the dot-coms that failed at least were _going_ to produce something with a slight bit of use.
Of what use would this product possibly be? How would adjusting the brightness/contrast of your monitor across the internet help anyone? If it were a remote monitor, you could not even see the results, and if you were in front of the monitor, who would want to install software to allow them to adjust these settings?
Every part of the story was an exaggeration to the extreme. Many dot-coms may have been run stupidly and inconsistently, but I don't know of any that would have matched the extremeness of any of the examples in the story.
It was a damn funny story though.
Not to mention all the people today that'd have brain cancer from using a cell phone for the past 30-40 years.
Just hold the pen a little higher than you would if you were actually writing or using the pad to draw. The tablet can pick up the pen from relatively far away. The tablet I have (USB) samples faster than my mouse (I'm pretty sure) so I can make the shapes pretty quickly.
I'm not sure of any way to disable the tip (although you can remove it, but I wouldn't unless B&W is all you do). Try the control panel settings.
How am I supposed to type one-handed while using a KeyBowl though?
I have the Wacom 6x8 and I use it for the gesture part of B&W. I do everything else with the mouse since it seems more natural to move and manipulate thigs with the mouse than the pen, but fighting and casting miracles with the Wacom pen is very easy.
It is like you described at first though, but I think I was doing something weird drawing the gestures with the pen, but after a few successful gestures, I can pull them off with no problem and in quick succession. I don't think B&W has anything to stop perfect gestures. Seeing the red trail on the screen certainly helps too..
Of course I could be wrong. Maybe they did mean capable of being impregnated. But then it changes the whole meaning of the article.
PETA... People Eating Tasty Animals?
What's so impregnable about a code that can be broken by a 14 year old, and later be reduced to be able to fit on a business card in less than 7 lines of perl code?
Supposedly impregnable to me would be code that would have to be output on a quilt or involve measurements that must take into account the RF interference of neighboring electrical components. It's not a 40-bit key found unencrypted in a piece of windows software.
It's like sending all the guards home and leaving the keys and security codes to Fort Knox under the doormat. Impregnability comes from the ability to resist attack and I don't think CSS did that in any way shape or form.
So let me get this straight... The law basically says that the FBI and other government agencies cannot compile a dossier on a presumed law-abiding citizen, but it's ok to purchase said dossier as long as they didn't compile it themselves. Seems to me the end result is exactly the same.
I say basically since it appears that there is not a direct law keeping the government from doing this sort of thing, but since they all interpret it that way, maybe they should... And it should be included that obtaining this information on presumed law-abiding citizens is just as bad.
It's like saying well, it's illegal to build a bomb, but not to purchase or be in possession of one. Or marijuana, or any other number of things.
Isn't that how kids get started in the first place?
> I'll make a measurement called "Schnach" which is 1 meter in Australia, but is 3 inches in the US. Brilliant idea, eh?
Wouldn't the Australian women be a little upset about saying they've got a 1 meter schnach? In the US it's significantly smaller, and we tend to run away from anything approaching 1 meter.
>paying some immigrant to scrape barnacles off my yacht.
What! If God intended you to go galavanting around in the ocean he would have given you fins or huge bags of gas to keep you afloat...
If he would have intended for you to live in 8 bedroom mansions he wouldn't have given you skin.
You wippersnappers have it too damn easy these days.
The secret service should have to reimburse E-gold based on the average days' worth of business for each day that they had the equipment that kept the business from running.
Previously we've managed to slashdot personal homepages, government pages, news sites, but now we've managed to Slashdot everything!
Marketing is the reason IBM is changing (has changed) the AS/400 to be the iSeries 400, the RS6000 to be the pSeries, the Intel/NT/2000 boxes to be the eSeries, the 390 to be the zSeries, and I believe linux to be the xSeries. I am not 100% on which letters go with what when it comes to the p, e, and x, but I know the i for sure.
It should be noted that the mathematician's name mentioned in the article can be rearranged to "SHE BE TRICK PRO" Of course that is using Robert instead of Bob, but the point is obvious :)
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Almost two years ago, a group of friends and I in college modified a power-wheels jeep to be controlled by a 25 lb "portable" Linux box. We yanked out all the pedals, steering wheel, etc, and replaced them with servos and motors.
We also added a pan/tilt video camera and a rotatable sonar range-finding device. We wrote programs that would allow us to move the vehicle, turn its wheels, take pictures, range find, etc. We made it so the vehicle was able to be controlled over a LAN, or the internet, and could send pictures back to a graphic analysis program. Combined with a sonar sweep we had a decent "3D" view of the jeep's surroundings.
All this fun, and we got college credit too...
I don't know if that's the correct name for it, but it sounds like this rubber sheet theory may be correct. It's basically where the entire universe is a flat rubber sheet, and all the planets, stars and other heavenly bodies cause the sheet to have indentions based on the mass of the body. That's where we get gravity in space.
On the other hand, maybe the universe is like a big sheet of paper and it's only a matter of time until God folds us up like a plane and throws us away. Maybe He's got a circular file too.
It sounds to me that the best use, and probably the most common use for this technology would be to let multimedia and DVD authors to test out their latest creation relatively cheap. Last time I checked, commercial DVD writers were 20-50x more expensive than this unit. For corporations or companies that want to enter the DVD arena, either by sending out DVDs to customers to inform them of new products (AOL CDs?) or to distribute software this way (Microsoft is going to start doing this), this seems like an extremely cheap way to do this without having to purchase a full commercial DVD writer. And once you have the master (gone gold) then you can send it out to a DVD publisher and get your discs pressed for much cheaper than $30/disc.