More than you might think. Not that those two are huge, but the same people are also everywhere else, including slashdot. Probably not so much on Facebook. Some people spend an inordinate amount of time online and have multiple personas. They spend so much more time online than most people they skew the statistics. You can't really say X% are doing A and Y% are doing B because mostly the same people are doing both.
We're so used to ignoring things that look like ads or links to other stories that we fail to notice the images down the column at the right are, in fact, the images we're looking for.
I once tried to convince someone trying to get into programming after a career of underemployment that programming was about solving other people's problems. If you can't find satisfaction over solving problems you didn't imagine yourself, you're not going to like programming for other people. As he was coming up with his portfolio project to demonstrate his knowledge I tried to convince him to solve a problem potential employers could relate to. But he thought it more important to bring his vision to the world. So he wrote a web-based dice game.
This is a great project for someone looking to show potential employers they know how to solve problems. Winning would just be gravy.
No, they aren't supposed to take a snapshot as it appeared last time the app quit. They're supposed to include with the app a snapshot of the parts of the interface that won't fool the user into thinking there are working controls, and display it when the app first launches. Since apps don't really exit unless they crash, appearing as they did last is a non-issue, since that's the way they load.
My app loads with a captured and photoshopped screenshot showing the toolbar with no buttons and nothing in the user data area, and when the thing finishes loading it displays its real interface, and then loads and displays the user's data. This is how it's supposed to be done, according to Apple. Staged loading.
The item in the room consuming the most power is the computer.... With 100 million people on computers...
Fortunately not all of them are surfing the web with gaming rigs. With my monitor on, my computer (a Mac Mini) uses less electricity than my television would be, if I was instead watching it, and it uses less electricity than the one I owned ten years ago.
They don't need your never-shared copy to show copyright infringement. You're fine if you in fact didn't share a link. They won't look for it on the servers.
The problem for megaupload is all those blogs and file sharing indexes, as well as google, have millions of public links pointing to plenty enough material.
As in other articles, people have pointed out that the general public doesn't care.
The general public doesn't feel the need to own all the movies and all the music. Most of them have modest collections. So, when you use something like megaupload as your end-of-civilization-of-the-week appeal, they just think you're a dork. And when you get indignant and condescending because they aren't agreeing with you, they think you're a dork and a jerk. And when so much of what comes out of your mouth is hyperbole they get desensitized to anything you say.
If you're going to explain something to someone who doesn't live in the internet, choose as your example something more important than megaupload to the lives of normal people. And pass the task to someone who can talk to normal people without being a dork.
What he demonstrated was that people who are charismatic and aggressive have a career track available to them that makes use of very few classroom-learned skills.
Precious few online resources are thorough and well organized, and for the most part there aren't any reviews of these resources to warn me of the ones that will waste my time. And some of them are just plain wrong.
A private service comes in and competes only for the simple jobs- they refuse service to anywhere tricky. As all their deliveries are simple, they can massively undercut the national service on these jobs, depriving the service of it's main revenue stream.
You just described the Wal-Mart business model. They don't really compete with flower shops, pharmacies, craft stores, toy stores, etc. They don't offer the same depth of choice or quality or service. But they siphon off enough of their customers--the ones buying the common, cheap, bulk basics, and requiring little service--to turn them unprofitable.
The correct geek solution is almost certainly the wrong real-world solution. Take the pirate problem, for example. There's a "correct" game theory solution, but pirates probably don't know game theory. All four will be unhappy with the "correct" solution. So, given that pirates don't know game theory and acknowledging that neither do I, there are at least three better solutions...
The greedy bastard will keep 32 and give 34 each to two of the others (because 100 can't be divided evenly, and you don't want one of the voters you hope to please getting more than the other, and you don't want to keep more than the voters). The two who don't get any don't matter since they can't vote down the plan.
The peace-making plan is to divide it evenly. 20 each.
The plan with heart, and the greatest chance of survival, even long after the voting, is to divide it evenly between the other four and keep nothing. Maybe you could even count on increased loyalty.
Of course know-it-all geeks who got this from some source without having to solve it themselves are going to be unhappy with my answer, but I'm okay with that. I don't want to work with them, anyway. Hopefully the interviewer is instead interested in workable solutions.
They apparently get more than the number. I receive junk mail, addressed to me rather than "resident", after buying things with my credit card.
But even with just a number they can do things with the information that are not in your best interest. Grocery stores don't care if you use bogus information to sign up with their loyalty program because they don't do it to advertise to you. They do it to determine how people shop, and they adjust prices and shelf space accordingly. People who stock up on loss leaders won't buy OJ unless it's on sale? Don't ever put it on sale, or raise the normal price so the sale price is still profitable. The tracking info, even with a lot of John Does in the records, tells them how much their profitable customers will pay and which products they should allocate shelf space for, and they don't care if the unprofitable ones never come back.
Except that as soon as you make a purchase with a credit card they not only know who you are and what you did today, but what you did every day they've tracked you in the past and everything you'll do in the future. Loyalty program cards work the same way. People think they're being smart giving false information to acquire the card, but the first time they use a payment form that includes real identity, the jig is up, past, present and future.
Of course this tells them which links you click on. And if Chrome does this, too, then google is not only aware of your searches but also the links you click on outside their domain.
There are also reviewers selling their services as search engine optimizers. Their reviews are for google, not for amazon shoppers. Here's one (top 50 reviewer). Bills herself as "eBook Publishing Expert, Writer, SEO Consultant". Lots of 5-star ebook reviews to her name, with lots of tags. Lots of questionable 5-star reviews for those same titles.
While I think you'll be able to find them if you want, and you'll see them in movies, most people will choose not to own physical books in far less than several generations. I suspect physical books will be like vinyl records in 20 years.
I think libraries will stop buying them in ten years and stop storing them in large buildings in 20. Optimistically. They'll stop offering them when the demand doesn't justify the cost. That may be a lot sooner than 20 years. Does any of you live in a community with overflowing coffers? We think of libraries as long-term stores of books, but they may ditch them before we do.
Geeks are an exception. Geeks like to keep large book collections as a visible testament to their intellect. But most people don't see the homes of geeks, so most people won't see them even there.
It'll be pretty much only geeks, and old geeks at that, that regularly see books. Everyone else will have pitched them.
Yeah, Amazon stooping support for the format is a concern. It's supported with PC and Mac clients, though, so Kindle books are unlikely to become unreadable any time soon. I don't keep a library as a testament to my intellect like a lot of geeks do, so it's unlikely the books I'm buying now will still be useful to me when Amazon goes dark. In fact being digital will probably allow me to keep them longer, as I frequently prune my physical book collection to make space.
When I look for a book I'm generally not looking for pages to read. I'm looking for the book that will most effectively teach me what I want to learn, or a particular piece of fiction. Limiting myself to the geek dogma-compatible selection is not in my best interest. Yeah, I hope the one I buy will have the best utility, but my time is far more valuable than the cost of books, so I'm not going to sweat it if my purchase will ultimately not be able to be resold for pennies on the dollar, or given away. If I'm going to spend hours of my time with it it's far more important that it be the best text for the job.
Slashdot Mirror
More than you might think. Not that those two are huge, but the same people are also everywhere else, including slashdot. Probably not so much on Facebook. Some people spend an inordinate amount of time online and have multiple personas. They spend so much more time online than most people they skew the statistics. You can't really say X% are doing A and Y% are doing B because mostly the same people are doing both.
There are fewer people online that is apparent.
We're so used to ignoring things that look like ads or links to other stories that we fail to notice the images down the column at the right are, in fact, the images we're looking for.
I once tried to convince someone trying to get into programming after a career of underemployment that programming was about solving other people's problems. If you can't find satisfaction over solving problems you didn't imagine yourself, you're not going to like programming for other people. As he was coming up with his portfolio project to demonstrate his knowledge I tried to convince him to solve a problem potential employers could relate to. But he thought it more important to bring his vision to the world. So he wrote a web-based dice game.
This is a great project for someone looking to show potential employers they know how to solve problems. Winning would just be gravy.
No, they aren't supposed to take a snapshot as it appeared last time the app quit. They're supposed to include with the app a snapshot of the parts of the interface that won't fool the user into thinking there are working controls, and display it when the app first launches. Since apps don't really exit unless they crash, appearing as they did last is a non-issue, since that's the way they load.
My app loads with a captured and photoshopped screenshot showing the toolbar with no buttons and nothing in the user data area, and when the thing finishes loading it displays its real interface, and then loads and displays the user's data. This is how it's supposed to be done, according to Apple. Staged loading.
The item in the room consuming the most power is the computer. ... With 100 million people on computers...
Fortunately not all of them are surfing the web with gaming rigs. With my monitor on, my computer (a Mac Mini) uses less electricity than my television would be, if I was instead watching it, and it uses less electricity than the one I owned ten years ago.
Use one of those file sharing indexes to search for a few albums and movies and see if your new host shows up repeatedly?
They don't need your never-shared copy to show copyright infringement. You're fine if you in fact didn't share a link. They won't look for it on the servers.
The problem for megaupload is all those blogs and file sharing indexes, as well as google, have millions of public links pointing to plenty enough material.
As in other articles, people have pointed out that the general public doesn't care.
The general public doesn't feel the need to own all the movies and all the music. Most of them have modest collections. So, when you use something like megaupload as your end-of-civilization-of-the-week appeal, they just think you're a dork. And when you get indignant and condescending because they aren't agreeing with you, they think you're a dork and a jerk. And when so much of what comes out of your mouth is hyperbole they get desensitized to anything you say.
If you're going to explain something to someone who doesn't live in the internet, choose as your example something more important than megaupload to the lives of normal people. And pass the task to someone who can talk to normal people without being a dork.
What he demonstrated was that people who are charismatic and aggressive have a career track available to them that makes use of very few classroom-learned skills.
Precious few online resources are thorough and well organized, and for the most part there aren't any reviews of these resources to warn me of the ones that will waste my time. And some of them are just plain wrong.
A private service comes in and competes only for the simple jobs- they refuse service to anywhere tricky. As all their deliveries are simple, they can massively undercut the national service on these jobs, depriving the service of it's main revenue stream.
You just described the Wal-Mart business model. They don't really compete with flower shops, pharmacies, craft stores, toy stores, etc. They don't offer the same depth of choice or quality or service. But they siphon off enough of their customers--the ones buying the common, cheap, bulk basics, and requiring little service--to turn them unprofitable.
The correct geek solution is almost certainly the wrong real-world solution. Take the pirate problem, for example. There's a "correct" game theory solution, but pirates probably don't know game theory. All four will be unhappy with the "correct" solution. So, given that pirates don't know game theory and acknowledging that neither do I, there are at least three better solutions...
The greedy bastard will keep 32 and give 34 each to two of the others (because 100 can't be divided evenly, and you don't want one of the voters you hope to please getting more than the other, and you don't want to keep more than the voters). The two who don't get any don't matter since they can't vote down the plan.
The peace-making plan is to divide it evenly. 20 each.
The plan with heart, and the greatest chance of survival, even long after the voting, is to divide it evenly between the other four and keep nothing. Maybe you could even count on increased loyalty.
Of course know-it-all geeks who got this from some source without having to solve it themselves are going to be unhappy with my answer, but I'm okay with that. I don't want to work with them, anyway. Hopefully the interviewer is instead interested in workable solutions.
This one, of course.
They apparently get more than the number. I receive junk mail, addressed to me rather than "resident", after buying things with my credit card.
But even with just a number they can do things with the information that are not in your best interest. Grocery stores don't care if you use bogus information to sign up with their loyalty program because they don't do it to advertise to you. They do it to determine how people shop, and they adjust prices and shelf space accordingly. People who stock up on loss leaders won't buy OJ unless it's on sale? Don't ever put it on sale, or raise the normal price so the sale price is still profitable. The tracking info, even with a lot of John Does in the records, tells them how much their profitable customers will pay and which products they should allocate shelf space for, and they don't care if the unprofitable ones never come back.
Except that as soon as you make a purchase with a credit card they not only know who you are and what you did today, but what you did every day they've tracked you in the past and everything you'll do in the future. Loyalty program cards work the same way. People think they're being smart giving false information to acquire the card, but the first time they use a payment form that includes real identity, the jig is up, past, present and future.
I'm assuming meta-moderation is why I don't get mod points anymore. I've modded up some minority opinion and I've been punished for it.
Not that this comment will ever be seen, as I'm also stuck permanently on a score of 1.
Usually when I have the urge to comment I remind myself it's just Slashdot and posting is a waste of time.
$109 if you want that without ads. That's the one I want, though I already have the keyboard version, as an even lighter leave-at-work Kindle.
Of course this tells them which links you click on. And if Chrome does this, too, then google is not only aware of your searches but also the links you click on outside their domain.
Neat.
And why should I put in any effort learning about this when they'll probably cancel it?
There are also reviewers selling their services as search engine optimizers. Their reviews are for google, not for amazon shoppers. Here's one (top 50 reviewer). Bills herself as "eBook Publishing Expert, Writer, SEO Consultant". Lots of 5-star ebook reviews to her name, with lots of tags. Lots of questionable 5-star reviews for those same titles.
While I think you'll be able to find them if you want, and you'll see them in movies, most people will choose not to own physical books in far less than several generations. I suspect physical books will be like vinyl records in 20 years.
I think libraries will stop buying them in ten years and stop storing them in large buildings in 20. Optimistically. They'll stop offering them when the demand doesn't justify the cost. That may be a lot sooner than 20 years. Does any of you live in a community with overflowing coffers? We think of libraries as long-term stores of books, but they may ditch them before we do.
Geeks are an exception. Geeks like to keep large book collections as a visible testament to their intellect. But most people don't see the homes of geeks, so most people won't see them even there.
It'll be pretty much only geeks, and old geeks at that, that regularly see books. Everyone else will have pitched them.
In about 20 years.
Yeah, Amazon stooping support for the format is a concern. It's supported with PC and Mac clients, though, so Kindle books are unlikely to become unreadable any time soon. I don't keep a library as a testament to my intellect like a lot of geeks do, so it's unlikely the books I'm buying now will still be useful to me when Amazon goes dark. In fact being digital will probably allow me to keep them longer, as I frequently prune my physical book collection to make space.
Are you going to back that up with a credible story that is not edge-case?
When I look for a book I'm generally not looking for pages to read. I'm looking for the book that will most effectively teach me what I want to learn, or a particular piece of fiction. Limiting myself to the geek dogma-compatible selection is not in my best interest. Yeah, I hope the one I buy will have the best utility, but my time is far more valuable than the cost of books, so I'm not going to sweat it if my purchase will ultimately not be able to be resold for pennies on the dollar, or given away. If I'm going to spend hours of my time with it it's far more important that it be the best text for the job.
Automatic transmissions can already handle hills. No database required. What would a database-driven predictive shifter do?