My only worry would be, of course, that most people who wanted to film aggressive drivers for your site would not have car-mounted cameras. They'd see an asshole weaving like an idiot, pull out their cell phone, and while they are switching it over to "video taking" mode, they'd be weaving around like an idiot, which would cause someone else to see them and.. well, you get the idea.
The only sad part would be the one person who really WAS watching the road at the time would probably get creamed by multiple Darwin Award candidat... err... aggressivedrivers.com contributors.
Hmm, interesting on the differing prices. I knew the data plan got limited when you added tethering, but I had no idea an unlimited data plan was even available. I appreciate that information.
>>>(and if I wanted GPS, that was EXTRA)
!@$@#$ tell me about it. That's the primary reason I chose AT&T for my Crackberry - I get to use my GPS for any application I damned well please and I don't have to pay the TeleNav tithe to do it. Verizon locked down the GPS and even if you pay the TeleNav tithe you can only use it with a limited list of apps.
Otherwise, I probably would have chosen Verizon, since they have marginally better coverage here (Maine).
Tethering on my crackberry cost $15 extra a month. Admittedly, I'm on a corporate plan, so that rate may not match up with what the rest of the world pays. I think the AT&T rep offered my wife tethering for an additional $30 a month (on top of the $30 data plan) when we bought her a crackberry, so that would TOTAL $60 a month, that's not an additional charge. The $60 includes the standard data plan at $30 plus tethering at an additional $30.
What's the monthly data plan for an iPhone (sans tethering?) If it's the same $30 as a CIS (Crackberry Information Services) plan, then if and when you ever get tethering, you'll save $5 a month. Which adds up, true, but it's nowhere near the difference you suggest.
Plus, umm, tethering is actually available on the Blackberry on the AT&T network. Today. No hacks, no cracks.
I've got nothing against the iPhone, it's a great phone and a super device, but comparing a complete charge for a service that exists against the upgrade charge for a service that does not currently exist is a little over the top.
But how is that email sent to the phone? To (phonenumber)(at)text.verizon.net or whatever it is now? If so, then it's MMS on the receiving end, and is coming out of her SMS/MMS plan.
I've had both Verizon and ATT/Cingular (both companies over the years), and all the email has been SMS/MMS. For a while, my prepaid AT&T phone offered free incoming SMS/MMS, and I could give out an email address for people to email to it, but it got translated to SMS/MMS on its way in. But I couldn't send email on the phone, I could only send SMS (and maybe MMS, but the phone didn't have a camera so what would be the point?)
Now, admittedly, this does mean that iPhones can functionally send SMS and MMS to most other phones by using the carrier's email bridge, and there's even a pretty big advantage to doing so since email doesn't count against your SMS/MMS usage, it uses the data plan. It just makes the exchange a little clumsier, since you can't "reply" to a conversation when you are using email and the other end is using SMS/MMS.
Depends on the type of news and where you are. I know the local papers in my area are pretty good about covering major events in significant depth, but the paper's getting thinner and the coverage is getting shallower as the number of print subscribers dwindles (the paper has an online edition with some of their stories, and that's free and ad-supported, but there's no way for anyone to even pay for the rest of it online).
Personally, I'd happily pay for the whole paper, but I don't find large-format newspapers convenient to read. I'd rather get all the stories in an RSS feed or some format I can read on my BlackBerry and catch up on the details on a desktop machine for articles that have large charts or other stuff that just isn't practical to read on a small screen.
So, in part, they are becoming obsolete because they won't change their business model. But the net effect of that is the loss of in-depth news coverage in the local area. The nearest metro area makes brief mention of our local events from time to time, but only as the briefest of summaries with no depth, and if we lost the local paper there'd be no source for even those summaries.
There are a couple of free papers that do a decent job, but of course they are even more limited in their capacity to cover local issues.
So in our case, local newsgathering capacity is limited by the amount of money the newspapers can make off their dying print model, and the paper is ever so slowly getting smaller and smaller, laying off a reporter at a time and consolidating reporting capacity, and becoming less and less worth the money they charge.
Partly because they can't compete with free, and partly because they can't seem to offer a way for people to pay for their content in a convenient-to-consume manner.
Under Ubuntu, if the application provider supports it, you can just add their repository to your repository list (which can easily be done in the GUI) and their application WILL show up in Synaptic. When the author releases an update, Synaptic will tell you about it and you can automatically install it. (*)
If that is not available, the optical drive is (as far as I know) a default source. The software author would simply have to send you a CD (same as Windows) with the software in repository format (the Linux equivalent of Windows Installer format). Fire up Synaptic (equivalent of Windows "Add/Remove Software"), and install.
Now, admittedly, there are a number of software houses who don't write software for Linux, and if you are running one of those applications, you're stuck. Same with Windows-specific hardware (cheap Winprinters, etc).
But any software that is available for Linux is either sitting on a repository somewhere, or is usually available as an install CD in Repository format. There is occasionally the issue that it's in an RPM and you want a DEB, but most repositories and repository CDs will have the major packaging formats worked out, and most distros can handle both if required. And most of the time this is completely invisible to the person doing the installing.
(*) This is, by the way, in contrast to the average install on Windows where I either have to check for updates myself, or have a specific update checker run for each individual application I install if the author cares enough to include one with the app. On my XP install, I discovered that between my iPod, Java, Flash, Adobe Reader, and a generous handful of others I was running no fewer than 15 "update checkers" in the background that consumed over 100MB of system memory when I added them up.
Add to that the number of apps that check for updates every time you start them (so you have to decide between updating the app now which may mean a reboot to your computer, or continuing on with the work at hand and missing an important security update). Updating becomes a mismashed nightmare of inconvenience.
Then I've got the apps that don't have an updater. I've got to remember to check for updated versions of those from time to time, and with a lot of them I just leave 'em the heck alone until something breaks and miss out on any nifty new features that may be available.
In Linux (Mint, in my case), all of my software comes from author-maintained repositories and one central application does all of that update checking every 12 hours. The default is an irritating every 5 minutes, but it's easy to change. Sure, I get updates almost every day to something or other, but it's a trivial exercise to update them, rarely interferes with me continuing my work, and almost never requires that I update my computer. And I always know that all of my apps are pretty much up-to-date.
I use and enjoy both Windows XP and Linux Mint, and I think both of them are good operating systems. Windows gives me more support for specific hardware and software that has been written exclusively for it, Linux gives me more free software and tools. At the moment, I can't see getting rid of either of them.
The individual-copy cost might APPROACH zero, but it never reaches it. However, the consumed costs for the vast majority of readers for the vast majority of articles is now zero.
And for smaller papers that cover more local-interest news, it's even worse because their costs are nowhere near zero, but the number of people willing to pay for it is dwindling, not increasing. So the cost-per-subscriber goes up, and at the same time a lot of their news is covered very shallowly by free media. So you can read an in-depth analysis of a local fire, with pictures, reasons why the fire happened, etc, but you have to pay for it. Or you can read a headline with a brief summary on Reuters for free.
For most people, the brief summary is appropriate. But that Reuters story is a summary of an article that (a) cost money to gather, and (b) is of deep interest to a percentage of the population. 10 years ago, free wasn't available so everyone bought the detailed story and skimmed it. Now free IS available and only a few people buy the detailed story, so to recoup the costs of gathering the story, the original source has to charge more (or invest less) to make a profit.
Result: Newsgathering-in-depth is slowly waning. Eventually, as the local papers close, a larger news outlet might get a user submission of a picture and post a one-liner that a fire happened in East Noob that no one cares about.
Gathering news at its source tends to be expensive. Gathering it from people willing to go into dangerous and/or inconvenient areas doubly so. Getting someone to gather the news then report it without some form of hidden agenda is rare even in the paid media, and in an ad-supported world there's the constant pressure to bias your news in favor of your benefactors - those who buy ads. So if MegaCorp's CEO is found buggering badgers in Soho, and MegaCorp's ad revenue is your bread and butter, there's a serious temptation to bury that story as deeply as possible, preferably somewhere that never hits print at all. If it is covered, it would be spun as hard and creatively as possible to cast badger buggering in the best possible light.
Ads can pay for some of it, but not nearly all. Newspapers that have their own news-gathering resources are finding that their articles are being reprinted on free media, and are forced in large part to put a lot of their content online for free and hope that ad revenues make up for some of that. Meanwhile, a lot of their loyal readers are discovering that a lot of the content they want is available for free, and are canceling their subscriptions for the dead tree editions.
Many local newspapers now survive on their remaining dead tree subscribers, and struggle to remain relevant in an online world where they can't make enough money to continue gathering news effectively. So a lot of them are dying off as a result, and the concept of "local news" in more rural areas is starting to fade slowly.
My home town still has a larger town next door that has a decent local paper. It's still got a small staff of newsgatherers, and has fresh and relevant local articles. But it's a shadow of the paper it used to be, and is under constant threat of closing down. Print subscriptions are continually dwindling, and that's their major source of income.
a computer-implemented context component of the network-based system for capturing context information associated with user-defined data created by user interaction of a user in a first context of the network-based system
Translation: A computer program on a network that logs where and when users entered data.
the context component dynamically storing the context information in metadata associated with the user-defined data, the user-defined data and metadata stored on a storage component of the network-based system
Translation: Said program stores the information as it is collected, along with information when and where it was collected.
a computer-implemented tracking component of the network-based system for tracking a change of the user from the first context to a second context of the network-based system and dynamically updating the stored metadata based on the change, wherein the user accesses the data from the second context.
Translation: A cookie or other local tracking mechanism tracks the user's movements and can associate various events done by the same user.
So, basically, if I'm translating this correctly, DoubeClick and RedSherriff have massive prior art.
But IANAL, so there's a good chance many of the phrases, in the poorly paraphrased but immortal words of I. Montoya, "killed my Father. Prepare to Die!" Umm, sorry, I meant, "don't mean what they think I mean".
Well, yeah, you're not likely do do VoPTP (Voice over Pigeon Transfer Protocol) or play an online game using pigeons as packet carriers. The latency is bad. But this was a POC (Pigeon of Concept) that will lead to an RFC (Request Flying Carrier) and eventually it will go Beta (Birds Enabling Telecommunications Applications).
OK, fair enough. But that means I'd have had to think ahead enough to know what might possibly be incriminating down the road. Because if I encrypt EVERYHING, then I have to give EVERYONE I want to be able to read it a decryption key, which means those decryption keys are going to be about as secure as a "don't steal this" sticker on a bicycle.
Facebook already has a "hide information" where you can select who sees what. If you don't trust Facebook, you're probably better off putting nothing at all there. Putting encrypted data there only means it's obvious you are hiding something.
Plus, you're still posting the data unencrypted to a central server, just not one owned by Facebook. Do you trust THEM?
Someone, other than you, is in control of that data. If you think it could be incriminating, perhaps you should think twice about posting it.
None of his points would be changed by changing the browser.
He's not talking about heavy use of IE- or Safari-proprietary plugins or things that would be blocked by AdBlock or NoScript, he's talking about navigation and readability.
No matter what browser you use, Apple's "less clutter" approach and rigid consistency in keeping the banners, colors, and navigation features of the site the same no matter where you are made a positive impression in the study. You go to the site, and the experience remains consistent and predictable throughout. Change from OSX to the iPhone pages, or go to get QuickTime, and you are constantly looking at something that is obviously an Apple web site. They don't even need a logo on the site, though it is always there and always in the same spot looking exactly the same.
Microsoft's inconsistency in terms of page layouts, colors, where the search bar is, where the company logo is and what it looks like, where the banners and navigation bits are, massive clutter, how the data is organized, etc amongst their seven separate subdomains with no central vision fared less well from a "can I navigate this site easily" perspective.
Now, OK, screen resolution - I can see your point. But doing quick comparisons on my 17" laptop screen and my 22" external screen between Microsoft and Apple, I gotta say, I like the way Apple just throws a couple of quick images at me and breaks their product line and common actions down quickly for me.
One place to buy: "Store", Product line breakdown: "Mac", "iPod", "iPhone", etc. and a few common actions: "Downloads", "Support"
Microsoft's banner is "Windows", "Office", "All Products", "Buy Now", "Downloads&Trials", "Partner Solutions", "Security", "Training", "Support", and "About".
"Windows" and "Office" are product lines. What is "All Products"? "Buy Now" is an action, not a product line. The rest of the categories are a continued mixed bag of products, types of customers, and actions. There are too many of them, they are poorly sorted.
Then this is overlaid with an annoying popover about upgrading my IE (I'm running Firefox for this test, but the same thing happened on IE6), and a relatively cluttered batch of what I'm sure are important marketing messages and stuff, but are unlikely to be relevant to me on a home page. When I click on "Office", you can tell me about the latest Office, I don't need a marketing blurb about it cluttering up the home page thanks.
Don't get me wrong, I have an iPod and I rarely use it, and I'm a Windows user (that an Linux, but it's been many moons since I fired up a MacAnything). But Apple's web site is simpler, cleaner, and far more consistent.
Trying to find the Microsoft logo on their various sites is like playing "Where's Waldo" when Waldo keeps changing his shirt color and can move while you're looking for him (and sometimes he's hidden by a pop-over ad).
I love popovers. I fill mine with ice cream. But I detest them on websites. Microsoft: I'm already on your site! You don't need to sell me, you need to give me information!
@@NANNER NANNER NANNER YOU CAN'T READ THIS BECAUSE YOU'RE ONLY A DEMI-FRIEND NOT A REAL FRIEND. TRY TO DECODE THIS ASSHAT! OR FIND THE SERVER IT'S COMING FROM AND HACK THEM FOR SERIOUS BLACKMAIL FUN AND PROFIT!:)
I have a hammer. It's a nice hammer. I use it to bash things. Nails, sheet metal, inanimate objects that make me angry, etc. I have a screwdriver, it's a nice screwdriver. I use it to loosen or tighten screws. It also makes a decent primitive prybar for light jobs.
I have PGP email. It's nice PGP email. I use it to send secure encrypted communications to a list of recipients that I control. I have Facebook. It's a nice Facebook. I use it to say anything that I think my friends and the general public might want to know about my pathetic existence. I also have Pidgin. It's a nice Pidgin and has the Encryption module. I use it if I need to say something "off the record" quickly to a trusted pal.
I would no more use my Facebook to send secure messages to my friends than I would use my hammer to loosen a screw, or my screwdriver to pound sheet metal into shape.
My point: Right tool for the right job.
Maybe I'm being pedantic or unimaginative, but I can't see a single reason why I'd want to post stuff to Facebook and have it only visible to certain people. Other people are just going to see I'm hiding something and either be honked off they are not included or try to hack it. And if I'm going be (IMHO) stupid enough to post it, there's no way in hell it's ending up as cleartext on ANY server run by ANYONE I don't personally know so I can personally go down and personally yell at them if the data ever got out.
If I don't want something on Facebook, I don't put it on Facebook. There! Problem solved!
Why do I need a tool to encrypt data so only selected people on Facebook can see it? Isn't that what PGP email is for? So I can send out information to specific people and (in theory) only those people can see it?
And, additionally, if I don't trust Facebook with a bit of information, what in the hell makes you think that I'd trust a completely unknown third party who is building specific plugins so they can collect things I don't want on Facebook on THEIR SERVERS?
Sounds to me like someone is saying "post all your blackmail-worthy thoughts here. I'll keep 'em safe! Trust me!" in their best used car salesman voice.
Advertising potential: The term "Hidden Wired Editor" will now show up on hundreds of blogs, techie news articles, watercooler discussions, etc. Wired initiates its Facebook presence with more reason to "Become a Fan" than just following Wired's articles. The TwitterNet is all, well, a-Twitter, albeit briefly, about it. The name "Wired" has received some significant eyeball time.
Sounds like a damned cheap ad to me, even at twice the price.
Agreed, 3D is hard and limits your ability to use cheap tricks to make scenes look the way a producer wants.
For a big blockbuster movie, I can see it being worth the cash. You can drop megamillions on producing a movie and run a reasonable expectation of making it back over a relatively short period. 3D would just be added to the list of expensive special effects, and some people will pay a premium for the 3D version for home if it's available. But I really only see this useful for big blockbuster films.
For regular TV shows? Umm, no. Not anytime soon, at least. There will probably be a few shows that will be produced just because they want to be first to 3D, but they'll probably be about the same quality as a/. "first post" message thread.
You can take months and months to shoot a single movie and everyone can be OK with that because it's a movie - it's a one-shot deal and audiences expect a lot so you have to produce something special. For a TV show, you have to release 16 or 38 minutes of footage (once you chop out the commercials and credits from a 30- or 60-minute show) EVERY WEEK, for at least 10-15 weeks out of the year (used to be in the 20s, but most series release a lot fewer shows now).
So, release one movie a year, you have to create ~100-110 minutes of actual show. To release one short (10-episode) season of a "1-hour" show, you've got to create 380 minutes. Your return probably isn't going to be nearly as high, so you simply can't afford to sustain 3D filming for that amount of time year after year and make good money, unless 3D becomes a HUGE ratings boom for your show.
Add to that the complexity of setting up certain convincing shots (long lenses that can give the appearance of an actor being in the middle of an explosion when in reality he's hundreds of feet away, perspective shots, etc), and TV shows would have to either get a lot more expensive, or a lot shorter. Most shows wouldn't even be candidates. Reality shows, sitcoms, talk shows - what would be the point? Cinematic-quality shows like the "X-Files" would be excellent candidates, but they are cinematic quality because the producers used a LOT of camera tricks, so those would be priced right out of reach.
Still, there will probably be a demand built eventually. That's why I conditioned it with "not anytime soon". Possibly someday... but in order to have a big ratings boost because of 3D, you've got to have people watching and desiring 3D shows, which means they all need 3D gear at home, and they won't do that en masse until there's enough content to watch. Home video in 3D will start the adoption because movies are easy to justify in 3D. If that takes off some TV shows might eventually follow once adoption is high enough to get the eyeballs in, and filming becomes cheap enough to afford it.
I would have liked to see Jackson's take on it, if for no other reason than to have a consistency with his take on Lord of the Rings. Jackson wasn't particularly true to the LOTR storyline, but he ended up telling a very LOTR-like tale, and translated some of Tolkien's original memes (particularly Gollum/Smeagol's internal conflict) brilliantly. I'd hate to see too much of a jarring difference in the interpretation of JRR's work that is also jarringly inconsistent with Jackson't interpretation/retelling.
The Hobbit is a standalone work, but it would be nice to be able to watch it, then watch the LOTR trilogy, and feel like it has some kind of consistent feel and flow throughout.
Let's hope del Toro can pull this one off. I'm not familiar with any of his past work, so I can't judge yet.
And Smaug is now the Abominable Snow Monster from Rudolph, who is hoarding misfit toys. Gandalf becomes that snowman-narrator-thingie, and Frodo's nose glows red mysteriously...
Slashdot Mirror
My only worry would be, of course, that most people who wanted to film aggressive drivers for your site would not have car-mounted cameras. They'd see an asshole weaving like an idiot, pull out their cell phone, and while they are switching it over to "video taking" mode, they'd be weaving around like an idiot, which would cause someone else to see them and.. well, you get the idea.
The only sad part would be the one person who really WAS watching the road at the time would probably get creamed by multiple Darwin Award candidat... err... aggressivedrivers.com contributors.
Hmm, interesting on the differing prices. I knew the data plan got limited when you added tethering, but I had no idea an unlimited data plan was even available. I appreciate that information.
>>>(and if I wanted GPS, that was EXTRA)
!@$@#$ tell me about it. That's the primary reason I chose AT&T for my Crackberry - I get to use my GPS for any application I damned well please and I don't have to pay the TeleNav tithe to do it. Verizon locked down the GPS and even if you pay the TeleNav tithe you can only use it with a limited list of apps.
Otherwise, I probably would have chosen Verizon, since they have marginally better coverage here (Maine).
Tethering on my crackberry cost $15 extra a month. Admittedly, I'm on a corporate plan, so that rate may not match up with what the rest of the world pays. I think the AT&T rep offered my wife tethering for an additional $30 a month (on top of the $30 data plan) when we bought her a crackberry, so that would TOTAL $60 a month, that's not an additional charge. The $60 includes the standard data plan at $30 plus tethering at an additional $30.
What's the monthly data plan for an iPhone (sans tethering?) If it's the same $30 as a CIS (Crackberry Information Services) plan, then if and when you ever get tethering, you'll save $5 a month. Which adds up, true, but it's nowhere near the difference you suggest.
Plus, umm, tethering is actually available on the Blackberry on the AT&T network. Today. No hacks, no cracks.
I've got nothing against the iPhone, it's a great phone and a super device, but comparing a complete charge for a service that exists against the upgrade charge for a service that does not currently exist is a little over the top.
But how is that email sent to the phone? To (phonenumber)(at)text.verizon.net or whatever it is now? If so, then it's MMS on the receiving end, and is coming out of her SMS/MMS plan.
I've had both Verizon and ATT/Cingular (both companies over the years), and all the email has been SMS/MMS. For a while, my prepaid AT&T phone offered free incoming SMS/MMS, and I could give out an email address for people to email to it, but it got translated to SMS/MMS on its way in. But I couldn't send email on the phone, I could only send SMS (and maybe MMS, but the phone didn't have a camera so what would be the point?)
Now, admittedly, this does mean that iPhones can functionally send SMS and MMS to most other phones by using the carrier's email bridge, and there's even a pretty big advantage to doing so since email doesn't count against your SMS/MMS usage, it uses the data plan. It just makes the exchange a little clumsier, since you can't "reply" to a conversation when you are using email and the other end is using SMS/MMS.
>>>What the hell is the plural of Soyuz?
Soyuzlent Green? It's People!
Depends on the type of news and where you are. I know the local papers in my area are pretty good about covering major events in significant depth, but the paper's getting thinner and the coverage is getting shallower as the number of print subscribers dwindles (the paper has an online edition with some of their stories, and that's free and ad-supported, but there's no way for anyone to even pay for the rest of it online).
Personally, I'd happily pay for the whole paper, but I don't find large-format newspapers convenient to read. I'd rather get all the stories in an RSS feed or some format I can read on my BlackBerry and catch up on the details on a desktop machine for articles that have large charts or other stuff that just isn't practical to read on a small screen.
So, in part, they are becoming obsolete because they won't change their business model. But the net effect of that is the loss of in-depth news coverage in the local area. The nearest metro area makes brief mention of our local events from time to time, but only as the briefest of summaries with no depth, and if we lost the local paper there'd be no source for even those summaries.
There are a couple of free papers that do a decent job, but of course they are even more limited in their capacity to cover local issues.
So in our case, local newsgathering capacity is limited by the amount of money the newspapers can make off their dying print model, and the paper is ever so slowly getting smaller and smaller, laying off a reporter at a time and consolidating reporting capacity, and becoming less and less worth the money they charge.
Partly because they can't compete with free, and partly because they can't seem to offer a way for people to pay for their content in a convenient-to-consume manner.
Under Ubuntu, if the application provider supports it, you can just add their repository to your repository list (which can easily be done in the GUI) and their application WILL show up in Synaptic. When the author releases an update, Synaptic will tell you about it and you can automatically install it. (*)
If that is not available, the optical drive is (as far as I know) a default source. The software author would simply have to send you a CD (same as Windows) with the software in repository format (the Linux equivalent of Windows Installer format). Fire up Synaptic (equivalent of Windows "Add/Remove Software"), and install.
Now, admittedly, there are a number of software houses who don't write software for Linux, and if you are running one of those applications, you're stuck. Same with Windows-specific hardware (cheap Winprinters, etc).
But any software that is available for Linux is either sitting on a repository somewhere, or is usually available as an install CD in Repository format. There is occasionally the issue that it's in an RPM and you want a DEB, but most repositories and repository CDs will have the major packaging formats worked out, and most distros can handle both if required. And most of the time this is completely invisible to the person doing the installing.
(*) This is, by the way, in contrast to the average install on Windows where I either have to check for updates myself, or have a specific update checker run for each individual application I install if the author cares enough to include one with the app. On my XP install, I discovered that between my iPod, Java, Flash, Adobe Reader, and a generous handful of others I was running no fewer than 15 "update checkers" in the background that consumed over 100MB of system memory when I added them up.
Add to that the number of apps that check for updates every time you start them (so you have to decide between updating the app now which may mean a reboot to your computer, or continuing on with the work at hand and missing an important security update). Updating becomes a mismashed nightmare of inconvenience.
Then I've got the apps that don't have an updater. I've got to remember to check for updated versions of those from time to time, and with a lot of them I just leave 'em the heck alone until something breaks and miss out on any nifty new features that may be available.
In Linux (Mint, in my case), all of my software comes from author-maintained repositories and one central application does all of that update checking every 12 hours. The default is an irritating every 5 minutes, but it's easy to change. Sure, I get updates almost every day to something or other, but it's a trivial exercise to update them, rarely interferes with me continuing my work, and almost never requires that I update my computer. And I always know that all of my apps are pretty much up-to-date.
I use and enjoy both Windows XP and Linux Mint, and I think both of them are good operating systems. Windows gives me more support for specific hardware and software that has been written exclusively for it, Linux gives me more free software and tools. At the moment, I can't see getting rid of either of them.
But what is the cost that went into that article?
The individual-copy cost might APPROACH zero, but it never reaches it. However, the consumed costs for the vast majority of readers for the vast majority of articles is now zero.
And for smaller papers that cover more local-interest news, it's even worse because their costs are nowhere near zero, but the number of people willing to pay for it is dwindling, not increasing. So the cost-per-subscriber goes up, and at the same time a lot of their news is covered very shallowly by free media. So you can read an in-depth analysis of a local fire, with pictures, reasons why the fire happened, etc, but you have to pay for it. Or you can read a headline with a brief summary on Reuters for free.
For most people, the brief summary is appropriate. But that Reuters story is a summary of an article that (a) cost money to gather, and (b) is of deep interest to a percentage of the population. 10 years ago, free wasn't available so everyone bought the detailed story and skimmed it. Now free IS available and only a few people buy the detailed story, so to recoup the costs of gathering the story, the original source has to charge more (or invest less) to make a profit.
Result: Newsgathering-in-depth is slowly waning. Eventually, as the local papers close, a larger news outlet might get a user submission of a picture and post a one-liner that a fire happened in East Noob that no one cares about.
Gathering news at its source tends to be expensive. Gathering it from people willing to go into dangerous and/or inconvenient areas doubly so. Getting someone to gather the news then report it without some form of hidden agenda is rare even in the paid media, and in an ad-supported world there's the constant pressure to bias your news in favor of your benefactors - those who buy ads. So if MegaCorp's CEO is found buggering badgers in Soho, and MegaCorp's ad revenue is your bread and butter, there's a serious temptation to bury that story as deeply as possible, preferably somewhere that never hits print at all. If it is covered, it would be spun as hard and creatively as possible to cast badger buggering in the best possible light.
Ads can pay for some of it, but not nearly all. Newspapers that have their own news-gathering resources are finding that their articles are being reprinted on free media, and are forced in large part to put a lot of their content online for free and hope that ad revenues make up for some of that. Meanwhile, a lot of their loyal readers are discovering that a lot of the content they want is available for free, and are canceling their subscriptions for the dead tree editions.
Many local newspapers now survive on their remaining dead tree subscribers, and struggle to remain relevant in an online world where they can't make enough money to continue gathering news effectively. So a lot of them are dying off as a result, and the concept of "local news" in more rural areas is starting to fade slowly.
My home town still has a larger town next door that has a decent local paper. It's still got a small staff of newsgatherers, and has fresh and relevant local articles. But it's a shadow of the paper it used to be, and is under constant threat of closing down. Print subscriptions are continually dwindling, and that's their major source of income.
Let me have a go:
a computer-implemented context component of the network-based system for capturing context information associated with user-defined data created by user interaction of a user in a first context of the network-based system
Translation: A computer program on a network that logs where and when users entered data.
the context component dynamically storing the context information in metadata associated with the user-defined data, the user-defined data and metadata stored on a storage component of the network-based system
Translation: Said program stores the information as it is collected, along with information when and where it was collected.
a computer-implemented tracking component of the network-based system for tracking a change of the user from the first context to a second context of the network-based system and dynamically updating the stored metadata based on the change, wherein the user accesses the data from the second context.
Translation: A cookie or other local tracking mechanism tracks the user's movements and can associate various events done by the same user.
So, basically, if I'm translating this correctly, DoubeClick and RedSherriff have massive prior art.
But IANAL, so there's a good chance many of the phrases, in the poorly paraphrased but immortal words of I. Montoya, "killed my Father. Prepare to Die!" Umm, sorry, I meant, "don't mean what they think I mean".
Am I the only one who initially read that as "H-1B" and thought "gee, the displacement of American workers has now reached the Astronaut level?" :)
Well, yeah, you're not likely do do VoPTP (Voice over Pigeon Transfer Protocol) or play an online game using pigeons as packet carriers. The latency is bad. But this was a POC (Pigeon of Concept) that will lead to an RFC (Request Flying Carrier) and eventually it will go Beta (Birds Enabling Telecommunications Applications).
get. out. of. my. head. :)
"A false sense of security is far more dangerous than a real sense of vulnerability."
OK, fair enough. But that means I'd have had to think ahead enough to know what might possibly be incriminating down the road. Because if I encrypt EVERYHING, then I have to give EVERYONE I want to be able to read it a decryption key, which means those decryption keys are going to be about as secure as a "don't steal this" sticker on a bicycle.
Facebook already has a "hide information" where you can select who sees what. If you don't trust Facebook, you're probably better off putting nothing at all there. Putting encrypted data there only means it's obvious you are hiding something.
Plus, you're still posting the data unencrypted to a central server, just not one owned by Facebook. Do you trust THEM?
Someone, other than you, is in control of that data. If you think it could be incriminating, perhaps you should think twice about posting it.
You have friends who only communicate by Facebook, but you don't use Facebook because you can't trust it.
With respect, the solution is not to take that same information and throw it on yet another server run by yet another unknown third party.
"Give your information, or give it not, there is no 'trust'."
None of his points would be changed by changing the browser.
He's not talking about heavy use of IE- or Safari-proprietary plugins or things that would be blocked by AdBlock or NoScript, he's talking about navigation and readability.
No matter what browser you use, Apple's "less clutter" approach and rigid consistency in keeping the banners, colors, and navigation features of the site the same no matter where you are made a positive impression in the study. You go to the site, and the experience remains consistent and predictable throughout. Change from OSX to the iPhone pages, or go to get QuickTime, and you are constantly looking at something that is obviously an Apple web site. They don't even need a logo on the site, though it is always there and always in the same spot looking exactly the same.
Microsoft's inconsistency in terms of page layouts, colors, where the search bar is, where the company logo is and what it looks like, where the banners and navigation bits are, massive clutter, how the data is organized, etc amongst their seven separate subdomains with no central vision fared less well from a "can I navigate this site easily" perspective.
Now, OK, screen resolution - I can see your point. But doing quick comparisons on my 17" laptop screen and my 22" external screen between Microsoft and Apple, I gotta say, I like the way Apple just throws a couple of quick images at me and breaks their product line and common actions down quickly for me.
One place to buy: "Store",
Product line breakdown: "Mac", "iPod", "iPhone", etc.
and a few common actions: "Downloads", "Support"
Microsoft's banner is "Windows", "Office", "All Products", "Buy Now", "Downloads&Trials", "Partner Solutions", "Security", "Training", "Support", and "About".
"Windows" and "Office" are product lines. What is "All Products"? "Buy Now" is an action, not a product line. The rest of the categories are a continued mixed bag of products, types of customers, and actions. There are too many of them, they are poorly sorted.
Then this is overlaid with an annoying popover about upgrading my IE (I'm running Firefox for this test, but the same thing happened on IE6), and a relatively cluttered batch of what I'm sure are important marketing messages and stuff, but are unlikely to be relevant to me on a home page. When I click on "Office", you can tell me about the latest Office, I don't need a marketing blurb about it cluttering up the home page thanks.
Don't get me wrong, I have an iPod and I rarely use it, and I'm a Windows user (that an Linux, but it's been many moons since I fired up a MacAnything). But Apple's web site is simpler, cleaner, and far more consistent.
Trying to find the Microsoft logo on their various sites is like playing "Where's Waldo" when Waldo keeps changing his shirt color and can move while you're looking for him (and sometimes he's hidden by a pop-over ad).
I love popovers. I fill mine with ice cream. But I detest them on websites. Microsoft: I'm already on your site! You don't need to sell me, you need to give me information!
(end rant)
Or "encrypting" a billboard using those 60's-looking inkblot things that can only be seen using special polarized/colored "decoder glasses".
People know there's a message there, they know you're trying to hide it, so why bother all your "semi"-friends with tons of postings like:
@@rA3wrAw#FraW3rar3awra3WFaW#fFRAw3WF3Aw#F#:aw#:Rfa
Which, before decoding, can be read as
@@NANNER NANNER NANNER YOU CAN'T READ THIS BECAUSE YOU'RE ONLY A DEMI-FRIEND NOT A REAL FRIEND. TRY TO DECODE THIS ASSHAT! OR FIND THE SERVER IT'S COMING FROM AND HACK THEM FOR SERIOUS BLACKMAIL FUN AND PROFIT! :)
I have a hammer. It's a nice hammer. I use it to bash things. Nails, sheet metal, inanimate objects that make me angry, etc.
I have a screwdriver, it's a nice screwdriver. I use it to loosen or tighten screws. It also makes a decent primitive prybar for light jobs.
I have PGP email. It's nice PGP email. I use it to send secure encrypted communications to a list of recipients that I control.
I have Facebook. It's a nice Facebook. I use it to say anything that I think my friends and the general public might want to know about my pathetic existence.
I also have Pidgin. It's a nice Pidgin and has the Encryption module. I use it if I need to say something "off the record" quickly to a trusted pal.
I would no more use my Facebook to send secure messages to my friends than I would use my hammer to loosen a screw, or my screwdriver to pound sheet metal into shape.
My point: Right tool for the right job.
Maybe I'm being pedantic or unimaginative, but I can't see a single reason why I'd want to post stuff to Facebook and have it only visible to certain people. Other people are just going to see I'm hiding something and either be honked off they are not included or try to hack it. And if I'm going be (IMHO) stupid enough to post it, there's no way in hell it's ending up as cleartext on ANY server run by ANYONE I don't personally know so I can personally go down and personally yell at them if the data ever got out.
If I don't want something on Facebook, I don't put it on Facebook. There! Problem solved!
Why do I need a tool to encrypt data so only selected people on Facebook can see it? Isn't that what PGP email is for? So I can send out information to specific people and (in theory) only those people can see it?
And, additionally, if I don't trust Facebook with a bit of information, what in the hell makes you think that I'd trust a completely unknown third party who is building specific plugins so they can collect things I don't want on Facebook on THEIR SERVERS?
Sounds to me like someone is saying "post all your blackmail-worthy thoughts here. I'll keep 'em safe! Trust me!" in their best used car salesman voice.
Cost: $5K.
Advertising potential: The term "Hidden Wired Editor" will now show up on hundreds of blogs, techie news articles, watercooler discussions, etc. Wired initiates its Facebook presence with more reason to "Become a Fan" than just following Wired's articles. The TwitterNet is all, well, a-Twitter, albeit briefly, about it. The name "Wired" has received some significant eyeball time.
Sounds like a damned cheap ad to me, even at twice the price.
So everyone wins, then! :)
Agreed, 3D is hard and limits your ability to use cheap tricks to make scenes look the way a producer wants.
For a big blockbuster movie, I can see it being worth the cash. You can drop megamillions on producing a movie and run a reasonable expectation of making it back over a relatively short period. 3D would just be added to the list of expensive special effects, and some people will pay a premium for the 3D version for home if it's available. But I really only see this useful for big blockbuster films.
For regular TV shows? Umm, no. Not anytime soon, at least. There will probably be a few shows that will be produced just because they want to be first to 3D, but they'll probably be about the same quality as a /. "first post" message thread.
You can take months and months to shoot a single movie and everyone can be OK with that because it's a movie - it's a one-shot deal and audiences expect a lot so you have to produce something special. For a TV show, you have to release 16 or 38 minutes of footage (once you chop out the commercials and credits from a 30- or 60-minute show) EVERY WEEK, for at least 10-15 weeks out of the year (used to be in the 20s, but most series release a lot fewer shows now).
So, release one movie a year, you have to create ~100-110 minutes of actual show. To release one short (10-episode) season of a "1-hour" show, you've got to create 380 minutes. Your return probably isn't going to be nearly as high, so you simply can't afford to sustain 3D filming for that amount of time year after year and make good money, unless 3D becomes a HUGE ratings boom for your show.
Add to that the complexity of setting up certain convincing shots (long lenses that can give the appearance of an actor being in the middle of an explosion when in reality he's hundreds of feet away, perspective shots, etc), and TV shows would have to either get a lot more expensive, or a lot shorter. Most shows wouldn't even be candidates. Reality shows, sitcoms, talk shows - what would be the point? Cinematic-quality shows like the "X-Files" would be excellent candidates, but they are cinematic quality because the producers used a LOT of camera tricks, so those would be priced right out of reach.
Still, there will probably be a demand built eventually. That's why I conditioned it with "not anytime soon". Possibly someday... but in order to have a big ratings boost because of 3D, you've got to have people watching and desiring 3D shows, which means they all need 3D gear at home, and they won't do that en masse until there's enough content to watch. Home video in 3D will start the adoption because movies are easy to justify in 3D. If that takes off some TV shows might eventually follow once adoption is high enough to get the eyeballs in, and filming becomes cheap enough to afford it.
I would have liked to see Jackson's take on it, if for no other reason than to have a consistency with his take on Lord of the Rings. Jackson wasn't particularly true to the LOTR storyline, but he ended up telling a very LOTR-like tale, and translated some of Tolkien's original memes (particularly Gollum/Smeagol's internal conflict) brilliantly. I'd hate to see too much of a jarring difference in the interpretation of JRR's work that is also jarringly inconsistent with Jackson't interpretation/retelling.
The Hobbit is a standalone work, but it would be nice to be able to watch it, then watch the LOTR trilogy, and feel like it has some kind of consistent feel and flow throughout.
Let's hope del Toro can pull this one off. I'm not familiar with any of his past work, so I can't judge yet.
And Smaug is now the Abominable Snow Monster from Rudolph, who is hoarding misfit toys. Gandalf becomes that snowman-narrator-thingie, and Frodo's nose glows red mysteriously...