I had an Epson inkjet which I actually liked quite a bit until I used some off brand cartridges. I went through 2 generic black cartridges without a perceivable difference in quality. Eventually I had to replace the color cartridges and the printer stopped working. Thinking the generics were just bad, I went out and purchased all new genuine cartridges, which also didn't work. A call to Epson tech support confirmed that the printer essentially is bricked when one tries to use generic cartridges.
And if it's too expensive for you to make money with your business model, you shut down your business and let life go on.
Copyright will work fine in those instances where it matters, and in those instances where it doesn't, well, you can't squeeze blood from a stone.
I'm sure they taught you that at B-school.
I'm not sure what B-school you went to or got your MBA from, but that is not the case. They teach you to sue and scare the shit out of as many people you can, especially politicians. If you can scare business executives that cooperation is the only way to avoid tighter regulation, and you can convince politicians that pirates are stealing money from starving artists (or at least convince them its politicial suicide to stand up for the pirates)...then you win.
Changing your business model is very expensive, complicated, and uncertain for your investors.
Re:I Guess I Don't Exist Then ...
on
Why Wave Failed
·
· Score: 1
The problem, as I see it, was that Wave was only accessible to geeks. You had to have connections just to get into the service in the first place.
Yeah, I don't think that was the problem. I was super excited to be in the first big group that was given access, and I instantly sent out invites to all of my friends (about 25% geeks and the rest fairly normal).
We all posted about 1 thing, nobody could figure out how this was really any more useful than the facebook wall, and nobody ever went back to it.
Really, I read the pre-stories on it, talked about it with friends, followed the "live editing" controversy...and still I couldn't figure out what it was good for after it came out.
Not only is $5,000,000,000 a relatively small number compared to GDP and the market as a whole, but you have to look at who is losing the money.
The counterfeit manufacturers only sell this product once. Once they sell it to a distributor (most likely someone in the US) the product becomes part of the economy.
Those counterfeit goods that are sold on the street (as in pictures article) were originally purchased from China (probably also true for the legit product) but the one making the money is the street vendor. That street vendor in turn probably uses this money to buy food, clothes, other retail goods, etc.
While it is very wrong to use a trademark without permission and there is no legal way to justify this type of counterfeiting, the economic arguments aren't necessarily so strong against it. That money is going to stay fairly locally to where that good was purchased, consumption is going to increase, and dollars spread more evenly. Instead of the mall/retailer getting a half decent margin and the trademark holder getting a decent margin, the street vendor gets a very good margin and the consumer gets a steep discount.
I'm not saying that counterfeit goods are good for the economy, I'm just saying that if you are going to throw out numbers (either high or low) without sources, support, or justification, it can lead to a lot of questions about what that number contains. Are 5/200 Billion dollars disappearing from the US economy? From the trademark holders? From local communities? From sales tax coffers?
Maybe newspaper articles should cite their sources and have a list of references at the end like academic papers do. That way at least readers or other interested parties could independently verify the facts in the article.
Heck, even wikipedia articles list their references and are conspicuously labeled if they are in need of references. This article says the figure is from "the authorities".......WTF is that???
By the way, I work for a company that sells products that could be counterfeited. I estimate that just my company loses approximately 200 trillion dollars a year just from people selling products in our name. Why didn't she report that?
It should be easy for M$ to make something that would be awesome. Here are the details: I want something that I plug into a dock next to my desktop computer. Without configuring the crap out of everything, I want that tablet to have everything on it that my computer has - programs, files - everything. If it won't fit locally, I want that tablet to connect online to my hard drive so it looks like it is there (like pogoplug). It doesn't have to be a tablet even, it can be a netbook. I just want something that completely replicates/syncs all of my content across all my devices. I want it to be easy enough for my grandma to do it without calling for help. I don't want to have to deal with licensing issues. I don't want to install software on more than one machine (but I want it on all of them).
The technologies are all out there. Put them together. I might buy it and use that instead of an iphone/kindle/desktop combo.
I remember watching an interview Bill Gates did with college kids back in 2004 (when I was still in school) and all he talked about was tablets. He was sure they were going to be the future and that the traditional laptop would be a niche item. We (as a class watching this interview he had with other college kids) had a long discussion about how that didn't seem to make sense given the "tablets" that were out at the time were heavy and prone to problems and nobody would want to ever give up the traditional keyboard. Of course, we only had Palm Pilots and Windows CE to really think about when it came to handhelds at that point in the mass market.
Our discussion turned out to mostly be correct, at least when it came to M$. Of course, then Apple came out with a product that overcame all the problems we talked about and Bill Gates suddenly became correct!
It doesn't seem like this matters anymore anyway. A "C" at my high school functioned like a "D" because it was so looked down upon. If you were in danger of getting a "D" or "F" you usually instead got a "U" which didn't give you credit but gave the kid the option of working out something with the teacher to pull his grade up after the semester ended so it would eventually count.
Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, a kid was upset if he got an "A" only, because all the competition was higher. An "A" in an honors class was worth 12 points on an 11 point scale. It meant that our top ten students were just over 4.0 when converted. However, most of the schools in the area would give 5 points for an honors class "A" on a 4 point scale. A good 20-30% of the class one school district over have over 4.0 GPAs.
Of course, there are a number of high schools now that have multiple valedictorians and multiple salutatorians.
I just always felt bad for the couple teachers in my high school that would actually follow a decent bell curve approach to grading and received endless grief for not making "A"s more accessible.
Glossy screens look prettier but are not as versatile in their main function. Companies, like Apple, seem to learn towards form over function lately. I imagine if you can't see the screen very well it's because you aren't holding it right. This really seems to be a problem with the user and not with the hardware.
That's simply not true. Our company develops applications with multi-touch on Win7 for our internal cloud management platform. Our users love the touch capabilities more than the automation it helps them accomplish on a daily basis. When Win7 tablets start to appear we will already have a head start on this. And to be honest, all we need is any device that can run Silverlight then Win7 wouldn't even be necessary. You are so thinking inside the box.
Posted as AC because my boss would prefer it.
It's true. I have a good feeling about this one. Microsoft isn't always first to market, but they are masters at getting the product right.
After their slate comes out I will be able to laugh at everyone that bought an iPad just like I was able to laugh at everyone that bought an iPod after the Zune came out...
Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982.
Sounds like you may need to have a quick chat with your city's lawyer about whether Comcast is trying to do an end-run around that agreement. That section may make your problem their problem instead.
Or your solution might be there problem. If they have violated the franchise agreement, don't fight it. If you're in Indiana, try giving Cinergy Metronet a call (http://cinergymetronet.com/) and see if they would be interested in moving in. When competition moves in, it tends to lower everyone's prices and improve service. I imagine they would provide boxless options to the city, and the taxpayers would benefit from having an additional choice.
Better yet, find the franchise agreement and see if they have voided it. If they have, don't fight back. Start your own municipally-owned fiber-to-the-home cable/internet provider.
I was under the impression that he publicly stated why he wouldnt accept the money, and it was basically:
"If I had that money then I would feel compelled to use it to do good charitable things, but what I really want to with my life is more math and as such, that money would be a burden"
Seems fitting he might use that money to build a spacecraft, even if it does look like junk, and finally solve the big question about how long it actually takes to do the Kessel Run - and if it's measured in time or distance.
Though I guess that would be if a physicist won the prize, not a mathematician
But seriously, there are all sorts of applications for "b" wireless equipment. Sure, you can crack WEP, but it's still effective against 99% of the population that will come across it. I never have old wireless routers that still work in my junk pile, because they are still completely useful.
There are a lot of people that "just want wireless" that have
I bet they would be grabbed on freecycle in no time
Re:Unethical is not the word
on
Plagiarism Inc.
·
· Score: 1
Is it though? His company is not actually being dishonest. They write a paper, but the student is the one that turns it in. He is simply enabling dishonesty is a more convenient way that used to be possible. You used to have to bum off of classmates or bully someone smarter than you to do it. Now you just simply pay a stranger.
My old cell phone had a novel approach to this problem. Apparently the engineers believed that there was a software solution that could change the reception of radio waves by an antenna, and instead used what they call an "external antenna." Sure, it looked "so 1990's" to pull the antenna out when placing a call, but it did improve signal strength.
Of course, everyone said this didn't make a difference, and the first gen iphone was the first phone I ever had without an external antenna, but coincidentally it is the first phone that I seem to have reception problems - though they aren't bad.
I just want to know what engineer thought that putting an antenna on the outside of the phone in the exact place where you are supposed to hold it was a good idea. I would expect "touching an antenna while operating it reduces performance" to be in Antennas 101.
People make snap judgments about others. Get over it. That's why you show up for an interview in a suit. That's why you show up for a date bathed and with your teeth brushed.
Sure, eventually you can win someone over when they get to know you but many folks won't give you the chance if you look like a fad chasing lemming that permanently disfigures themselves to follow a trend.
It makes you look stupid.
It's true, compared to the new LED technologies that are out there, a simple 2D inked design is going to be old and lame and do nothing but date you as you age. What you should do is set the new, modern, fashion trend and get some sort of small flexible digital display. Then you can change the equations as our understanding changes, as well as furthering your geekiness with the latest interests that you have.
Perhaps you could include bluetooth or wifi so that you could pull RSS feeds, the weather, your caller ID? Don't worry about all of that yet, just make sure you get the hardware. http://xkcd.com/644/
Or go for chemistry! Depending on how large you're willing to make your tatoo, you can get all of the periodic table inscribed on that isn't going to change. Obviously you would want to avoid certain parts and information, but the symbols of all the elements we are pretty sure about are unlikely to ever change.
What if you write a private letter to your aunt during school hours? Does the school have a right to read it before you post it?
Does it matter? When I was in high-school they got around this by not allowing us to visit any webmail sites. They also used deep-freeze to keep any programs or changes from being implemented. The problem is that there are tens or perhaps hundreds of kids with lots of free time that are willing to search for ways to get around the system, and only a few IT guys with limited time to prevent them from doing so.
For us that meant working through the spanish (as in Spain) portal to get to our email because it wasn't blocked, and storing any files we wanted to keep around as hidden files in the recycle bin (which for some reason didn't get erased). The content filter was easily sidestepped by changing a browser setting they had forgotten to keep us from.
Deep Freeze got better and the filters improved, but I'm betting the IT dept wins against 90% of the kids that aren't that interested, but the kids that are determined will find a way.
3.5 billion years ago is too long ago for us to ever *know* definitively. We won't get to Mars for decades and it would be decades after that before any real "hands on" research could even bring us closer to a "definitive" answer (which will still inly be a best guess).
Actually, I *know* because I was there. I'm just over 4 billion years old. Mars was one-third water. We didn't realize that it wasn't enough to support life, as we consumed most of it watering our Martian golf courses. (Which happen to be much larger than earth courses.)
Once we lost most of the potable water to golf, we started harvesting the oceans. It never seemed a problem, as water was viewed as an "unlimited" and "cheap" resource.
Well, it turns out if you kill the ocean you kill the planet. Oops. So then we decided to colonize a nearby planet that looked like it was about 2/3 water. It's been going well so far, though the natives occasionally screw things up.
I don't really care which one might be the lobbyist and which one might be the sage. It would have been nice if this had happened 10 years ago, or for that matter 40 years ago, and we would have helped ourselves out. Einstein was worryed about somebody else beating us to the punch, but everyone now is just trying to figure out how to dig out of the hole.
If China can come up with an alternative energy solution than go for it. However, the people that do "solve" the problem are going to be the ones with the money, and the power. Corportations, countries, whomever...
If Bill Gates, GE, lobbyists, wall street, main street, or the RIAA can get our government to focus on alternative energies, space travel, efficient infrastructure, and all other forms of hard science research than they would be a sage in my book.
I don't know about O2's data transfer speeds either. I'm an ATT customer who lives on the EDGE network. I am in NO risk of having excessive data usage.
Slashdot Mirror
I had an Epson inkjet which I actually liked quite a bit until I used some off brand cartridges. I went through 2 generic black cartridges without a perceivable difference in quality. Eventually I had to replace the color cartridges and the printer stopped working. Thinking the generics were just bad, I went out and purchased all new genuine cartridges, which also didn't work. A call to Epson tech support confirmed that the printer essentially is bricked when one tries to use generic cartridges.
And if it's too expensive for you to make money with your business model, you shut down your business and let life go on.
Copyright will work fine in those instances where it matters, and in those instances where it doesn't, well, you can't squeeze blood from a stone.
I'm sure they taught you that at B-school.
I'm not sure what B-school you went to or got your MBA from, but that is not the case. They teach you to sue and scare the shit out of as many people you can, especially politicians. If you can scare business executives that cooperation is the only way to avoid tighter regulation, and you can convince politicians that pirates are stealing money from starving artists (or at least convince them its politicial suicide to stand up for the pirates)...then you win.
Changing your business model is very expensive, complicated, and uncertain for your investors.
The problem, as I see it, was that Wave was only accessible to geeks. You had to have connections just to get into the service in the first place.
Yeah, I don't think that was the problem. I was super excited to be in the first big group that was given access, and I instantly sent out invites to all of my friends (about 25% geeks and the rest fairly normal).
We all posted about 1 thing, nobody could figure out how this was really any more useful than the facebook wall, and nobody ever went back to it.
Really, I read the pre-stories on it, talked about it with friends, followed the "live editing" controversy...and still I couldn't figure out what it was good for after it came out.
Not only is $5,000,000,000 a relatively small number compared to GDP and the market as a whole, but you have to look at who is losing the money.
The counterfeit manufacturers only sell this product once. Once they sell it to a distributor (most likely someone in the US) the product becomes part of the economy.
Those counterfeit goods that are sold on the street (as in pictures article) were originally purchased from China (probably also true for the legit product) but the one making the money is the street vendor. That street vendor in turn probably uses this money to buy food, clothes, other retail goods, etc.
While it is very wrong to use a trademark without permission and there is no legal way to justify this type of counterfeiting, the economic arguments aren't necessarily so strong against it. That money is going to stay fairly locally to where that good was purchased, consumption is going to increase, and dollars spread more evenly. Instead of the mall/retailer getting a half decent margin and the trademark holder getting a decent margin, the street vendor gets a very good margin and the consumer gets a steep discount.
I'm not saying that counterfeit goods are good for the economy, I'm just saying that if you are going to throw out numbers (either high or low) without sources, support, or justification, it can lead to a lot of questions about what that number contains. Are 5/200 Billion dollars disappearing from the US economy? From the trademark holders? From local communities? From sales tax coffers?
Maybe newspaper articles should cite their sources and have a list of references at the end like academic papers do. That way at least readers or other interested parties could independently verify the facts in the article.
Heck, even wikipedia articles list their references and are conspicuously labeled if they are in need of references. This article says the figure is from "the authorities".......WTF is that???
By the way, I work for a company that sells products that could be counterfeited. I estimate that just my company loses approximately 200 trillion dollars a year just from people selling products in our name. Why didn't she report that?
It should be easy for M$ to make something that would be awesome. Here are the details: I want something that I plug into a dock next to my desktop computer. Without configuring the crap out of everything, I want that tablet to have everything on it that my computer has - programs, files - everything. If it won't fit locally, I want that tablet to connect online to my hard drive so it looks like it is there (like pogoplug). It doesn't have to be a tablet even, it can be a netbook. I just want something that completely replicates/syncs all of my content across all my devices. I want it to be easy enough for my grandma to do it without calling for help. I don't want to have to deal with licensing issues. I don't want to install software on more than one machine (but I want it on all of them).
The technologies are all out there. Put them together. I might buy it and use that instead of an iphone/kindle/desktop combo.
I remember watching an interview Bill Gates did with college kids back in 2004 (when I was still in school) and all he talked about was tablets. He was sure they were going to be the future and that the traditional laptop would be a niche item. We (as a class watching this interview he had with other college kids) had a long discussion about how that didn't seem to make sense given the "tablets" that were out at the time were heavy and prone to problems and nobody would want to ever give up the traditional keyboard. Of course, we only had Palm Pilots and Windows CE to really think about when it came to handhelds at that point in the mass market.
Our discussion turned out to mostly be correct, at least when it came to M$. Of course, then Apple came out with a product that overcame all the problems we talked about and Bill Gates suddenly became correct!
It doesn't seem like this matters anymore anyway. A "C" at my high school functioned like a "D" because it was so looked down upon. If you were in danger of getting a "D" or "F" you usually instead got a "U" which didn't give you credit but gave the kid the option of working out something with the teacher to pull his grade up after the semester ended so it would eventually count.
Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, a kid was upset if he got an "A" only, because all the competition was higher. An "A" in an honors class was worth 12 points on an 11 point scale. It meant that our top ten students were just over 4.0 when converted. However, most of the schools in the area would give 5 points for an honors class "A" on a 4 point scale. A good 20-30% of the class one school district over have over 4.0 GPAs.
Of course, there are a number of high schools now that have multiple valedictorians and multiple salutatorians.
I just always felt bad for the couple teachers in my high school that would actually follow a decent bell curve approach to grading and received endless grief for not making "A"s more accessible.
Glossy screens look prettier but are not as versatile in their main function. Companies, like Apple, seem to learn towards form over function lately. I imagine if you can't see the screen very well it's because you aren't holding it right. This really seems to be a problem with the user and not with the hardware.
That's simply not true. Our company develops applications with multi-touch on Win7 for our internal cloud management platform. Our users love the touch capabilities more than the automation it helps them accomplish on a daily basis. When Win7 tablets start to appear we will already have a head start on this. And to be honest, all we need is any device that can run Silverlight then Win7 wouldn't even be necessary. You are so thinking inside the box.
Posted as AC because my boss would prefer it.
It's true. I have a good feeling about this one. Microsoft isn't always first to market, but they are masters at getting the product right.
After their slate comes out I will be able to laugh at everyone that bought an iPad just like I was able to laugh at everyone that bought an iPod after the Zune came out...
Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982.
Sounds like you may need to have a quick chat with your city's lawyer about whether Comcast is trying to do an end-run around that agreement. That section may make your problem their problem instead.
Or your solution might be there problem. If they have violated the franchise agreement, don't fight it. If you're in Indiana, try giving Cinergy Metronet a call (http://cinergymetronet.com/) and see if they would be interested in moving in. When competition moves in, it tends to lower everyone's prices and improve service. I imagine they would provide boxless options to the city, and the taxpayers would benefit from having an additional choice.
Better yet, find the franchise agreement and see if they have voided it. If they have, don't fight back. Start your own municipally-owned fiber-to-the-home cable/internet provider.
I was under the impression that he publicly stated why he wouldnt accept the money, and it was basically: "If I had that money then I would feel compelled to use it to do good charitable things, but what I really want to with my life is more math and as such, that money would be a burden"
Seems fitting he might use that money to build a spacecraft, even if it does look like junk, and finally solve the big question about how long it actually takes to do the Kessel Run - and if it's measured in time or distance.
Though I guess that would be if a physicist won the prize, not a mathematician
This is a great idea!
But seriously, there are all sorts of applications for "b" wireless equipment. Sure, you can crack WEP, but it's still effective against 99% of the population that will come across it. I never have old wireless routers that still work in my junk pile, because they are still completely useful.
There are a lot of people that "just want wireless" that have
I bet they would be grabbed on freecycle in no time
Is it though? His company is not actually being dishonest. They write a paper, but the student is the one that turns it in. He is simply enabling dishonesty is a more convenient way that used to be possible. You used to have to bum off of classmates or bully someone smarter than you to do it. Now you just simply pay a stranger.
Apparently they're just upgrading:
I thought they were just finally taking off the "Beta" designation
How could a software update fix a hardware problem with the antenna? Isn't basic physics involved?
>
Yes, but the new software update will allow you to turn it up all the way to 11.
My old cell phone had a novel approach to this problem. Apparently the engineers believed that there was a software solution that could change the reception of radio waves by an antenna, and instead used what they call an "external antenna." Sure, it looked "so 1990's" to pull the antenna out when placing a call, but it did improve signal strength.
Of course, everyone said this didn't make a difference, and the first gen iphone was the first phone I ever had without an external antenna, but coincidentally it is the first phone that I seem to have reception problems - though they aren't bad.
I just want to know what engineer thought that putting an antenna on the outside of the phone in the exact place where you are supposed to hold it was a good idea. I would expect "touching an antenna while operating it reduces performance" to be in Antennas 101.
It's a fad.
People make snap judgments about others. Get over it. That's why you show up for an interview in a suit. That's why you show up for a date bathed and with your teeth brushed.
Sure, eventually you can win someone over when they get to know you but many folks won't give you the chance if you look like a fad chasing lemming that permanently disfigures themselves to follow a trend.
It makes you look stupid.
It's true, compared to the new LED technologies that are out there, a simple 2D inked design is going to be old and lame and do nothing but date you as you age. What you should do is set the new, modern, fashion trend and get some sort of small flexible digital display. Then you can change the equations as our understanding changes, as well as furthering your geekiness with the latest interests that you have.
Perhaps you could include bluetooth or wifi so that you could pull RSS feeds, the weather, your caller ID? Don't worry about all of that yet, just make sure you get the hardware. http://xkcd.com/644/
Or go for chemistry! Depending on how large you're willing to make your tatoo, you can get all of the periodic table inscribed on that isn't going to change. Obviously you would want to avoid certain parts and information, but the symbols of all the elements we are pretty sure about are unlikely to ever change.
What if you write a private letter to your aunt during school hours? Does the school have a right to read it before you post it?
Does it matter? When I was in high-school they got around this by not allowing us to visit any webmail sites. They also used deep-freeze to keep any programs or changes from being implemented. The problem is that there are tens or perhaps hundreds of kids with lots of free time that are willing to search for ways to get around the system, and only a few IT guys with limited time to prevent them from doing so.
For us that meant working through the spanish (as in Spain) portal to get to our email because it wasn't blocked, and storing any files we wanted to keep around as hidden files in the recycle bin (which for some reason didn't get erased). The content filter was easily sidestepped by changing a browser setting they had forgotten to keep us from.
Deep Freeze got better and the filters improved, but I'm betting the IT dept wins against 90% of the kids that aren't that interested, but the kids that are determined will find a way.
3.5 billion years ago is too long ago for us to ever *know* definitively. We won't get to Mars for decades and it would be decades after that before any real "hands on" research could even bring us closer to a "definitive" answer (which will still inly be a best guess).
Actually, I *know* because I was there. I'm just over 4 billion years old. Mars was one-third water. We didn't realize that it wasn't enough to support life, as we consumed most of it watering our Martian golf courses. (Which happen to be much larger than earth courses.)
Once we lost most of the potable water to golf, we started harvesting the oceans. It never seemed a problem, as water was viewed as an "unlimited" and "cheap" resource.
Well, it turns out if you kill the ocean you kill the planet. Oops. So then we decided to colonize a nearby planet that looked like it was about 2/3 water. It's been going well so far, though the natives occasionally screw things up.
I don't really care which one might be the lobbyist and which one might be the sage. It would have been nice if this had happened 10 years ago, or for that matter 40 years ago, and we would have helped ourselves out. Einstein was worryed about somebody else beating us to the punch, but everyone now is just trying to figure out how to dig out of the hole.
If China can come up with an alternative energy solution than go for it. However, the people that do "solve" the problem are going to be the ones with the money, and the power. Corportations, countries, whomever...
If Bill Gates, GE, lobbyists, wall street, main street, or the RIAA can get our government to focus on alternative energies, space travel, efficient infrastructure, and all other forms of hard science research than they would be a sage in my book.
Can anyone still read it? Isn't it written in latin? Don't you have to pay someone to interpret it for you?
I don't know about O2's data transfer speeds either. I'm an ATT customer who lives on the EDGE network. I am in NO risk of having excessive data usage.