They aren't experimenting to get their -product- desireable by 100% of the people they advertise to.
They're tweaking the advertisement to make the product -seem- desireable to 100% of the people they advertise to. To get more people to 'follow up' on that advertisement and check out the product.
They aren't changing the product, or their advertising targets. They're finding the best way to present their product (word usage, images, stories, humor content, etc) to get as many people as possible to click that link.
You and I will get just as much spam.
It won't go up - because it isn't as if the spammers have been holding back because their hit rate is currently low. And it won't go down - because they won't likely decide to halve their spam if their hit rate doubles.
Note the language used in the 'article'. It might not even lead to more sales they never refer to an increase in sales. It just leads to more clicks. (which is fine, as in marketing that's all they care about).
The interesting thing is that everything I found regarding the method online is nothing but vague advertisements for books or seminars. Ironic, no?
They're talking about -altering- the source code of an application so that it will run on new hardware.
Not running the existing code through a software emulator on new hardware.
They are aiming to (for example) map the display instructions from Pacman on the Atari 2600, to x86 windows API display instructions.
They will also have to translate all game logic more times than not (to valid x86 logic instructions), and may have to alter the stored data in the event of differences in endian-notation.
The resulting translation will not suffer from the overhead emulators create.
Interestingly, I see this very feature as becoming one of their largest problems. pre-pentium-speed game programmers tended to rely on the clock speed of their original target hardware to set the update rate for the game. Trying to play frogger on even a 486 would be an impossible blur.
passively relying on any technology vendor is a danger to national security. -relying- on OSS would similarly be a danger to security.
you will always have to have people who keep up with digital security just as you have people who continually keep up with meatspace security. You don't just 'trust' a vendor that their electric razor-wire fence is impregnable - you patrol and monitor as well.
Blindly relying on anything is dangerous.
Yes government machines should definitely not be uniformly Windows. Neither should they be uniformly connected to the internet.
But they should also be running the best anti-virus, firewalls, and 3rd party security/authentication packages out there.
Most importantly they need a proper quantity of skilled security analysts and administrators no matter what environment they're running.
It's also full-color, but it's static so it only draws power when changing the image, it has a refresh rate of up to 70hz (plenty for displays) and it's not backlit (making it behave just like current paper, and again, draws -0- power when not changing the image).
It sounds like the way to go imo. backlighting may be a required feature for TVs (cultural emphasis on watching movies in the dark) - but for laptops/pdas/cellphones/handheld gaming/etc - it'd easily be a killer tech. yeah, you'd have to have some sort of a front-light (like the new light on the GBA SP) for Eg. dialing in the dark, using your laptop on a plane, etc.
But having the light only when you need it will save ridiculous quantities of battery power. Imagine your gadget battery lasting 2-3x as long. Good stuff.
I find it particularly disgusting that the MPAA feels it necessary to push that stuff at us while they're in the midst of a record setting box office year.
As wrong as the RIAA is with their math and their logic - at least their business -is- actually going through a belt-tightening.
while the legality is pretty clear (unauthorized downloading for private use is clearly a civil crime, for profit is criminal) - the morality just isn't that easy.
teaching children that download is theft (which it isn't) along with whatever propaganda they feel like sharing (i'm sure they'll guilt them with fictional jobs losses) seems to be overly intrusive of the industries.
The most notable omission by the RIAA is not their repeated trumpeting of popular album sales declines (which are only down -globally-) but a complete lack of being able to identify even a single -job- (let alone many jobs) that have been lost due to piracy.
How many factory workers pressing CD/DVDs have been let go? How many cover artists/set painters have been downsized? How many production assistants are unemployed now? Oh? The industry doesn't work that way? Why not? They -say- piracy is costing jobs; at the least they heavily imply it.
So we're just supposed to assume that a change in revenue that in no way affects staffing is actually hurting the little guy more than the mega-rich guy at the top, because you say so? How does that make sense?
Should we be creating identification systems that can ID people with scraps of DNA?
we've already had it. Gattica was dystopian in that people were prejudged (and employed) based on the contents of their DNA. We don't have a system capable of decoding the genome of every individual.
if you want to get technical, though - that dystopia is already our reality. How many times have you been asked the medical history of your family with regards to heart/lung disease, cancer, etc. Everything that you are physically is the result of your DNA, so any system which selects/deselects candidates based on a physical attribute is effectively biased against their DNA. (height requirements for astronauts, fitness requirements for military service, sight requirements for pilots, etc)
the only difference is, a personal DNA analysis would allow measurement of the source, as opposed to the symptom - and would be flawless.
but we have already had DNA identifications systems for quite some time. They compare two samples and determine the liklihood of a match. Can't tell squat about a single sample by itself though. Trick is, organizing a dozen to a hundred samples from about 50000 sources. That is the new software this article is talking about.
i just can't imagine them trying to do it with FileMaker Pro....::shudder::
/ Because providers always tell the truth... /
on
Practical RDF
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
/(...)/ == sarcasm
On our staggeringly democratic web, anyone can be a publisher, and as Meta tags have shown - not everyone has the truth in mind.
I find it odd to note that it is never discussed how RDF will be kept from rapidly degenerating into Meta-tag style abuse.
Will there be an authority that will verify content descriptors, or at least handle complaints of abuse?
I would honestly like someone to prove me wrong, to show me where the technology prevents, handles and/or reduces abuse. Because I'm genuinely excited about what is possible with a trustworthy intelligent network. However, I'm just not seeing it here.
Even normally trustworthy hosts tend to have some disingenuous information in their RSS feeds when they think it will benefit their business.
(Eg. altering post dates or posting phantom or questionable updates to get more hits from feed subscribers, broadly labelling their content to avoid being properly categorized to expand their exposure, etc)
the only customer they write for, is themselves. One only has to look at the lack of forward movement on the linux desktop front to see that. it's good enough for a hacker, even a power user - but for your mom? not unless she's a hacker too.
I love open source and linux as much as the next slashdotter - but there isn't alot of open-source support of traditionally government apps.
Is there even an open source e-voting project? Is there an open source criminal history database project? Is there an open source air traffic control app? dmv app?
No. because most people in the open source community don't need those apps. and the people who need those apps aren't typically hackers.
furthermore, if a project based on linux were developed for any of the above apps - it'd be done by government money. And i'd be extremely surprised if anything developed with government money became open source.
I think that it -should-, it being written with tax dollars, to improve public service - but I sincerely doubt that it -would-.
So i've got to wonder, if the ~8gb/mo of traffic that i've been going through is ok - how much are these guys using that they're getting capped?
I mean, sure, it isn't right for comcast to cap without publicizing a formal cap - but these guys aren't saying what their usage is either.
Perhaps because we know what the price of bandwidth is, and would feel a little differently if we knew just how far on the fringe their usage was.
(i grab data regularly from for backup to my home network, as well as having a video game demo and mod habit. while i have a considerable quantity of music on my harddrive, it is all ogg rips done myself from CDs I own. so snuff your flames and stay on-topic.)
preprogrammed numbers are the way to go, certainly - but dialing a number you've never dialed before, or don't have stored for whatever reason, when you're not looking - is the last feature of a physical 'button' interface that touch pads cannot replicate/do better (because by definition they can't have raised buttons).
the current crop of touch-screen dialpads drive me insane because there's no telling what number you're pressing if you're not looking. your traditional phones have 12, easily distinguished buttons, normally with at least the '5' marked by a raised bump (just like 'F' and 'J' on your qwerty keyboard).
to do voiced number dialing, you would most certainly have to record your names for the digits, just as you record names for numbers now; programming 10 digits isn't going to take alot of time.
as for voice activated dialing working/not working - i've never had a mis-dial with my current phone. you might try to make sure the handset is in the same position when you're recording the name as when you're trying to call the number (Eg. next to ear on head), and you may also want to turn down the radio:)
why is it that with this generation's phones, I can record a simple clip to voice-activate dialing a particular number, but i can't enter a voice-activated dialing mode where i speak the numbers to the phone? (eg. "dial: 8, 6, 7, 5, 3, 0, 9" )
once you do that, we won't need tacticle buttons for no-look dialing; removing their last advantage over touch-pad dialing.
and once we're doing touch-pad interfaces - then we're free to do a -good- interface. such as tossing in a stylus and doing handwriting->text conversion a la tabletPC. (writing will always be faster/easier/more accessible than thumb tapping.)
come to think of it, writing phone numbers to dial/store them would completely remove the necessity to even emulate a traditional dialing pad. now we're talking convergence device...
... But the more I read, the more I code, the more I continue to learn and experience in the sfotware development industry - The more I begin to begrudgingly admit that the man is right more times than not. And I hate being wrong, so it's not like I'm particularly pleased with this turn of events.
To the contrary, it seems that it was -I- who was wrong by way of arrogance and hubris. I'd developed dozens of web apps, I'd been on teams designing and developing enterprise, corporate and consumer apps - I thought he was just full of it. What'd he know?
But as I started working with junior developers more, planning and managing projects more, rewriting inherited projects years after designing their previous incarnations - I started to see an eerie parallel to what the man had said.
Even if you still think yourself the ultimate programmer, incapable of mistake or misstep, impervious to making a bad design the first time through a problem - there still comes a time in which you work with developers less talented than yourself, developers less experienced than yourself. Therein you will painfully learn the wisdom of what tools, truisms, and technologies actually -help- make successful projects, and which just hinder.
I still find him to be an arrogant, pompous, ass; but what wise-ass hacker isn't? It's our calling card.
If i could get the latest songs i was looking for, at my preferred bitrate, from a reputable, dependable source (no more hunting for bands that aren't top 40), with consistant (good) transfer rates, for $0.50/song - i wouldn't hesitate.
$1/song still seems fairly high to me. But once there is competition amongst digital distributors, as opposed to the digital competing with the meatspace distributors, that price should fall pretty fast.
particularly considering that the average recording artist is used to seeing $0.20 / CD, (vs $.50 / track on iTunes) i think they'll be more than willing to let that price drop by half again.
I'll agree that any monthly fee service is bound to fail though, in my mind. There just wouldn't be enough demand for ongoing unlimited access once people had recollected their favorite music.
Another problem with the electronic services now, is the oppressive disparate DRM on the data. I won't buy into content providers dictating my hardware purchases without a defined industry standard. And judging by Sony memoryStick sales vs broader Flash card sales - most digital consumers agree with their wallets.
vendor-specific DRM is why I didn't buy into that 'memorystick' or 'securedisk' crap, and got a nexIIe instead of an iRiver or Yepp. (iPod-ers better hope that the industry doesn't decide to go with SecureDisk.)
While the RIAA in particular, and -recording- industry specifically are in trouble - the larger music industry however, is in no trouble whatsoever.
The bulk of artist revenues (as far as the artists are concerned) has always been from touring and tchotchke sales.
CDs have been more of a marketing tool like radio, than a dependable revenue stream. Just ask TLC how much they made off 3 hit albums and no touring.
Infringing on copyrighted works against the will of the copyright holder should -never- be legal.
what -will- happen, is that meatspace distribution of content will be relegated to the niche, and legitimate electronic distribution will take over.
given the democratizing power of the internet, the RIAA will no longer have a stranglehold on the process, and they will be forced to compete.
Prices will drop to the point that:
. enough people will buy digital music legitimately
. legitimate distribution channels will be preferred due to a guarantee of desired quality without the hassle of mislabelled songs, bad rips, radio rips, etc.
. artists will see more direct revenue from sales, and will be very hesitant to pursue those that still swap files not-for-profit (civil offense)
Filesharing by people who aren't looking to profit from it (eg. not selling the copies, selling is the criminal offense) will just be something that the industry will learn to live with, and compete against (via quality, features, etc), just as they do with people who copied VHS movies, or Cassette tapes from their friends.
Recent history has shown that free software will always find away around expensive proprietary copyright schemes, and no content company can afford to keep up technologically or litigiously with civil offenders.
Perhaps the law should be changed such that the civil offense becomes a minor crime, or even a legal extension of 'Fair Use'. But the laws against criminal infringement need to be defended stringently.
From a bank marketing analyst explaining the migration of ATM OS to windows:
"With open technologies it is easier to run different types of hardware on the same software."
and that's right, he's referring to Windows as 'open' technology.
Banks are merging and acquiring different machines, and tired of writing changes a half dozen times or more. yet they're going with the high cost option, instead of the obvious one.
a -security- company -CTO- exec gets a runner up prize for 'Dumbest Thing a Security Consultant Could Possibly Say' by suggesting that the ATMs wouldn't be vulnerable to the myriad MS worms and viruses because they dont work online.
this not even a year after Slammer -did- manage to shut down many ATMs which -also- were not online.
actually 'everyone gets richer' has not been the overall trend.
the 'real' value of the minimum wage (a figure relevant to more than just direct minimum wage earners. many union contracts are based on a multiple of the minimum wage) has been stagnant over the past decade, and economic class stratification more and more clearly defined as management compensation has been skyrocketing.
in the 1960s the wealthiest 20% of people held 40% of the countries wealth. (40/60) the remaining 80% made up the remaining 60%. today it's 50/50 - with all trends indicating our inexorable progression towards 60/40.
this -is- news for nerds, as unskilled labor makes up an increasingly small market, and 'unskilled' becomes more and more broadly defined. yesterdays 'unskilled' line worker may just be today's 'unskilled' call center jockey.
these jobs are ripe for the automation we nerds provide - further forcing the job market into ever-more-educated and specialized jobs, while general labor positions disappear.
in the meantime, business owners are making nearly unfathomable riches from the automation we create and from what they save on not paying labor for the jobs we automate.
these are not necessarily bad things, but it is a trend we are involved in perpetuating, so it's good to be aware of the progress and consequences of these trends.
it's not standards to avoid code rewriting, it's interoperability standards for web services. basically a framework to sit atop SOAP, for common application standards (security,transaction control,etc).
you'll still be OSvendor-locked when you write your web service code; but a web service consumer (website end developer) could choose a web service provider with OS-independence.
this isn't as ground-shaking as it sounds. it's analogous to microsoft's embracing of HTML.
it will be supported (as IE supports w3c html) - and then doubtlessly extended through proprietary means (simplistic analogy to the IE-specific 'marquee' tag), to benefit those who use MS (can only see 'marque' if you use IE). while the extensions won't be necessary to participate (you dont necessarily -need- to see 'marquee'), they're hoping for a critical mass of developers to use their extensions (lots of sites using ) to encourage users to switch over, further incentivizing developers to use their extensions. (enter: feedback loop + network effect)
'marquee' being a simplistic and not very rich example for the analogy, i know - but you get the idea.
and 50 million people won't be shafted again when Isabel knocks out power across the eastern seaboard, tripping power grids thousands of miles away?
because i'm in detroit, and I don't exactly have the utmost faith that they've corrected the problem already. particularly since they haven't even identified it yet.
at least i'm all stocked up again. unfortunately my generator hasn't arrived yet.
in fact, mostly all you will do is weaken them, providing exactly what mr carlin is looking for.
has sanitation (via indoor plumbing), anti-bacterial soap, and better hygiene made human beings sicker or healthier since they were invented?
exactly, so you apply that gained knowledge from a thousand years of improved health (and non-depressed immune systems) to other places that disease hangs out.
sure, if you live in a bubble, you'll have problems. but i'm far from advocating that. i'm just aware of where germs and pathogens hang out that you people happily ignore. you don't need to scrub them down daily - but at least once a month would be nice.
i don't have allergies and haven't been sick in years. how about you?
the EU tries to maintain -its- deficit at 2 percent, as it exists -in-addition- to the deficit of its member states. as i understand the EU (and IANA-european lawyer), it doesn't have the authority to curb member state taxation/spending. The EU's deficit cap was enacted to ensure the member states that the EU couldn't vastly outspend its means, crumble, and saddle them with vast debt.
the kyoto protocol (yes i read it) is another misrepresented problem. the reason the US did not sign the treaty was that while it had good guidelines for developed nations, it allowed undeveloped nations to vastly exceed those guidelines, and more deplorably, allowed them to -sell- the rights to exceed those quotas to foreign businesses operating in their country.
essentially it would create an economic landrush to relocate the old cheapest, dirtiest, most environmentally dangerous plants to these nations who thus-far have been blessed by -not- having been raped by industrial mistakes.
it was not because big business in america would be hurt. our corporations would jump at the chance to have a legal requirement to relocate to mexico, central and south america to plunder their environment. you think the rain forests are hurting now?
if you recognize the value of saving the environment, you know that the peripheral jobs gained in those countries by the influx of those industries (now largely automated) would not be a reasonable tradeoff for the extensive damage they'd do.
kyoto was more a "Not In My BackYard" approach to environmentalism than it was a solution.
so I'm not surprised/affected in the least by this.
c'mon people, any object that is carried -everywhere- or used daily (potentially used by or in the immediate proximity of sick people) provides an opportunity for disease to spread. particularly when it's something that people never clean.
i honestly hope no-one is surprised by this.
it's reminicent of the studies that surprised you all a few years back, that showed the average computer workstation is dirtier (bacteria) than the average bathroom.
primarily because: how often do you clean around your PC? actually picking it up, moving it around, and wiping it all down with sanitizing pads? (particularly keyboard,mouse,wrist pads,power buttons,etc)
ok, now how often do you wipe down your cell phone with a sanitizing pad? exactly. your phone is almost certainly more filthy than your toilet. think about that.
and while you do your reactionary one time cleaning, don't forget your pager, pda, land-lines, av remotes, video gaming controllers, camera, keys, wallet, laptop, and car interior (radio, steering wheel,shifter,beltbuckler,door handles,etc).
me? my neuroses keeps me well protected from you damned dirty apes.
Slashdot Mirror
They aren't experimenting to get their -product- desireable by 100% of the people they advertise to.
They're tweaking the advertisement to make the product -seem- desireable to 100% of the people they advertise to. To get more people to 'follow up' on that advertisement and check out the product.
They aren't changing the product, or their advertising targets. They're finding the best way to present their product (word usage, images, stories, humor content, etc) to get as many people as possible to click that link.
You and I will get just as much spam.
It won't go up - because it isn't as if the spammers have been holding back because their hit rate is currently low.
And it won't go down - because they won't likely decide to halve their spam if their hit rate doubles.
Note the language used in the 'article'. It might not even lead to more sales they never refer to an increase in sales. It just leads to more clicks. (which is fine, as in marketing that's all they care about).
The interesting thing is that everything I found regarding the method online is nothing but vague advertisements for books or seminars. Ironic, no?
They're talking about -altering- the source code of an application so that it will run on new hardware.
Not running the existing code through a software emulator on new hardware.
They are aiming to (for example) map the display instructions from Pacman on the Atari 2600, to x86 windows API display instructions.
They will also have to translate all game logic more times than not (to valid x86 logic instructions), and may have to alter the stored data in the event of differences in endian-notation.
The resulting translation will not suffer from the overhead emulators create.
Interestingly, I see this very feature as becoming one of their largest problems. pre-pentium-speed game programmers tended to rely on the clock speed of their original target hardware to set the update rate for the game. Trying to play frogger on even a 486 would be an impossible blur.
Timing control will be their biggest hurdle.
passively relying on any technology vendor is a danger to national security.
-relying- on OSS would similarly be a danger to security.
you will always have to have people who keep up with digital security just as you have people who continually keep up with meatspace security. You don't just 'trust' a vendor that their electric razor-wire fence is impregnable - you patrol and monitor as well.
Blindly relying on anything is dangerous.
Yes government machines should definitely not be uniformly Windows. Neither should they be uniformly connected to the internet.
But they should also be running the best anti-virus, firewalls, and 3rd party security/authentication packages out there.
Most importantly they need a proper quantity of skilled security analysts and administrators no matter what environment they're running.
It's also full-color, but it's static so it only draws power when changing the image, it has a refresh rate of up to 70hz (plenty for displays) and it's not backlit (making it behave just like current paper, and again, draws -0- power when not changing the image).
It sounds like the way to go imo. backlighting may be a required feature for TVs (cultural emphasis on watching movies in the dark) - but for laptops/pdas/cellphones/handheld gaming/etc - it'd easily be a killer tech. yeah, you'd have to have some sort of a front-light (like the new light on the GBA SP) for Eg. dialing in the dark, using your laptop on a plane, etc.
But having the light only when you need it will save ridiculous quantities of battery power. Imagine your gadget battery lasting 2-3x as long.
Good stuff.
article
I find it particularly disgusting that the MPAA feels it necessary to push that stuff at us while they're in the midst of a record setting box office year.
As wrong as the RIAA is with their math and their logic - at least their business -is- actually going through a belt-tightening.
while the legality is pretty clear (unauthorized downloading for private use is clearly a civil crime, for profit is criminal) - the morality just isn't that easy.
teaching children that download is theft (which it isn't) along with whatever propaganda they feel like sharing (i'm sure they'll guilt them with fictional jobs losses) seems to be overly intrusive of the industries.
The most notable omission by the RIAA is not their repeated trumpeting of popular album sales declines (which are only down -globally-) but a complete lack of being able to identify even a single -job- (let alone many jobs) that have been lost due to piracy.
How many factory workers pressing CD/DVDs have been let go? How many cover artists/set painters have been downsized? How many production assistants are unemployed now? Oh? The industry doesn't work that way? Why not? They -say- piracy is costing jobs; at the least they heavily imply it.
So we're just supposed to assume that a change in revenue that in no way affects staffing is actually hurting the little guy more than the mega-rich guy at the top, because you say so? How does that make sense?
... yesterday's cliche joke, today's sad reality.
Why not have a PSA for this spammed out to the nation for a couple months?
Though I suppose it could be disqualified as the advertised danger apparently actually exists.
Should we be creating identification systems that can ID people with scraps of DNA?
::shudder::
we've already had it. Gattica was dystopian in that people were prejudged (and employed) based on the contents of their DNA. We don't have a system capable of decoding the genome of every individual.
if you want to get technical, though - that dystopia is already our reality. How many times have you been asked the medical history of your family with regards to heart/lung disease, cancer, etc. Everything that you are physically is the result of your DNA, so any system which selects/deselects candidates based on a physical attribute is effectively biased against their DNA.
(height requirements for astronauts, fitness requirements for military service, sight requirements for pilots, etc)
the only difference is, a personal DNA analysis would allow measurement of the source, as opposed to the symptom - and would be flawless.
but we have already had DNA identifications systems for quite some time. They compare two samples and determine the liklihood of a match. Can't tell squat about a single sample by itself though. Trick is, organizing a dozen to a hundred samples from about 50000 sources. That is the new software this article is talking about.
i just can't imagine them trying to do it with FileMaker Pro....
/(...)/ == sarcasm
On our staggeringly democratic web, anyone can be a publisher, and as Meta tags have shown - not everyone has the truth in mind.
I find it odd to note that it is never discussed how RDF will be kept from rapidly degenerating into Meta-tag style abuse.
Will there be an authority that will verify content descriptors, or at least handle complaints of abuse?
I would honestly like someone to prove me wrong, to show me where the technology prevents, handles and/or reduces abuse. Because I'm genuinely excited about what is possible with a trustworthy intelligent network. However, I'm just not seeing it here.
Even normally trustworthy hosts tend to have some disingenuous information in their RSS feeds when they think it will benefit their business.
(Eg. altering post dates or posting phantom or questionable updates to get more hits from feed subscribers, broadly labelling their content to avoid being properly categorized to expand their exposure, etc)
So is it accounted for?
the open source community has one major flaw:
the only customer they write for, is themselves. One only has to look at the lack of forward movement on the linux desktop front to see that. it's good enough for a hacker, even a power user - but for your mom? not unless she's a hacker too.
I love open source and linux as much as the next slashdotter - but there isn't alot of open-source support of traditionally government apps.
Is there even an open source e-voting project?
Is there an open source criminal history database project?
Is there an open source air traffic control app? dmv app?
No. because most people in the open source community don't need those apps. and the people who need those apps aren't typically hackers.
furthermore, if a project based on linux were developed for any of the above apps - it'd be done by government money. And i'd be extremely surprised if anything developed with government money became open source.
I think that it -should-, it being written with tax dollars, to improve public service - but I sincerely doubt that it -would-.
... and I have not received any such letter.
So i've got to wonder, if the ~8gb/mo of traffic that i've been going through is ok - how much are these guys using that they're getting capped?
I mean, sure, it isn't right for comcast to cap without publicizing a formal cap - but these guys aren't saying what their usage is either.
Perhaps because we know what the price of bandwidth is, and would feel a little differently if we knew just how far on the fringe their usage was.
(i grab data regularly from for backup to my home network, as well as having a video game demo and mod habit. while i have a considerable quantity of music on my harddrive, it is all ogg rips done myself from CDs I own.
so snuff your flames and stay on-topic.)
my post was just the lyrics from 'Jenny (8675309)' by tommy twotone.
i made a vague reference, dlosey demonstrated that they got the in-joke, i demonstrated my appreciation.
you don't have to mod it down just because you don't get the joke. it's not my fault i've got 'excellent' karma.
I got her number from the wall.
'For a good time call'
preprogrammed numbers are the way to go, certainly - but dialing a number you've never dialed before, or don't have stored for whatever reason, when you're not looking - is the last feature of a physical 'button' interface that touch pads cannot replicate/do better (because by definition they can't have raised buttons).
:)
the current crop of touch-screen dialpads drive me insane because there's no telling what number you're pressing if you're not looking. your traditional phones have 12, easily distinguished buttons, normally with at least the '5' marked by a raised bump (just like 'F' and 'J' on your qwerty keyboard).
to do voiced number dialing, you would most certainly have to record your names for the digits, just as you record names for numbers now; programming 10 digits isn't going to take alot of time.
as for voice activated dialing working/not working - i've never had a mis-dial with my current phone. you might try to make sure the handset is in the same position when you're recording the name as when you're trying to call the number (Eg. next to ear on head), and you may also want to turn down the radio
why is it that with this generation's phones, I can record a simple clip to voice-activate dialing a particular number, but i can't enter a voice-activated dialing mode where i speak the numbers to the phone? (eg. "dial: 8, 6, 7, 5, 3, 0, 9" )
once you do that, we won't need tacticle buttons for no-look dialing; removing their last advantage over touch-pad dialing.
and once we're doing touch-pad interfaces - then we're free to do a -good- interface. such as tossing in a stylus and doing handwriting->text conversion a la tabletPC. (writing will always be faster/easier/more accessible than thumb tapping.)
come to think of it, writing phone numbers to dial/store them would completely remove the necessity to even emulate a traditional dialing pad. now we're talking convergence device...
... But the more I read, the more I code, the more I continue to learn and experience in the sfotware development industry - The more I begin to begrudgingly admit that the man is right more times than not. And I hate being wrong, so it's not like I'm particularly pleased with this turn of events.
To the contrary, it seems that it was -I- who was wrong by way of arrogance and hubris. I'd developed dozens of web apps, I'd been on teams designing and developing enterprise, corporate and consumer apps - I thought he was just full of it. What'd he know?
But as I started working with junior developers more, planning and managing projects more, rewriting inherited projects years after designing their previous incarnations - I started to see an eerie parallel to what the man had said.
Even if you still think yourself the ultimate programmer, incapable of mistake or misstep, impervious to making a bad design the first time through a problem - there still comes a time in which you work with developers less talented than yourself, developers less experienced than yourself. Therein you will painfully learn the wisdom of what tools, truisms, and technologies actually -help- make successful projects, and which just hinder.
I still find him to be an arrogant, pompous, ass; but what wise-ass hacker isn't? It's our calling card.
..this thread's gonna get bumpy.
If i could get the latest songs i was looking for, at my preferred bitrate, from a reputable, dependable source (no more hunting for bands that aren't top 40), with consistant (good) transfer rates, for $0.50/song - i wouldn't hesitate.
$1/song still seems fairly high to me. But once there is competition amongst digital distributors, as opposed to the digital competing with the meatspace distributors, that price should fall pretty fast.
particularly considering that the average recording artist is used to seeing $0.20 / CD, (vs $.50 / track on iTunes) i think they'll be more than willing to let that price drop by half again.
I'll agree that any monthly fee service is bound to fail though, in my mind. There just wouldn't be enough demand for ongoing unlimited access once people had recollected their favorite music.
Another problem with the electronic services now, is the oppressive disparate DRM on the data. I won't buy into content providers dictating my hardware purchases without a defined industry standard. And judging by Sony memoryStick sales vs broader Flash card sales - most digital consumers agree with their wallets.
vendor-specific DRM is why I didn't buy into that 'memorystick' or 'securedisk' crap, and got a nexIIe instead of an iRiver or Yepp. (iPod-ers better hope that the industry doesn't decide to go with SecureDisk.)
While the RIAA in particular, and -recording- industry specifically are in trouble - the larger music industry however, is in no trouble whatsoever.
The bulk of artist revenues (as far as the artists are concerned) has always been from touring and tchotchke sales.
CDs have been more of a marketing tool like radio, than a dependable revenue stream. Just ask TLC how much they made off 3 hit albums and no touring.
Infringing on copyrighted works against the will of the copyright holder should -never- be legal.
what -will- happen, is that meatspace distribution of content will be relegated to the niche, and legitimate electronic distribution will take over.
given the democratizing power of the internet, the RIAA will no longer have a stranglehold on the process, and they will be forced to compete.
Prices will drop to the point that:
. enough people will buy digital music legitimately
. legitimate distribution channels will be preferred due to a guarantee of desired quality without the hassle of mislabelled songs, bad rips, radio rips, etc.
. artists will see more direct revenue from sales, and will be very hesitant to pursue those that still swap files not-for-profit (civil offense)
Filesharing by people who aren't looking to profit from it (eg. not selling the copies, selling is the criminal offense) will just be something that the industry will learn to live with, and compete against (via quality, features, etc), just as they do with people who copied VHS movies, or Cassette tapes from their friends.
Recent history has shown that free software will always find away around expensive proprietary copyright schemes, and no content company can afford to keep up technologically or litigiously with civil offenders.
Perhaps the law should be changed such that the civil offense becomes a minor crime, or even a legal extension of 'Fair Use'. But the laws against criminal infringement need to be defended stringently.
From a bank marketing analyst explaining the migration of ATM OS to windows:
"With open technologies it is easier to run different types of hardware on the same software."
and that's right, he's referring to Windows as 'open' technology.
Banks are merging and acquiring different machines, and tired of writing changes a half dozen times or more. yet they're going with the high cost option, instead of the obvious one.
a -security- company -CTO- exec gets a runner up prize for 'Dumbest Thing a Security Consultant Could Possibly Say' by suggesting that the ATMs wouldn't be vulnerable to the myriad MS worms and viruses because they dont work online.
this not even a year after Slammer -did- manage to shut down many ATMs which -also- were not online.
This Wired article reads like an Onion article.
actually 'everyone gets richer' has not been the overall trend.
the 'real' value of the minimum wage (a figure relevant to more than just direct minimum wage earners. many union contracts are based on a multiple of the minimum wage) has been stagnant over the past decade, and economic class stratification more and more clearly defined as management compensation has been skyrocketing.
in the 1960s the wealthiest 20% of people held 40% of the countries wealth. (40/60) the remaining 80% made up the remaining 60%.
today it's 50/50 - with all trends indicating our inexorable progression towards 60/40.
this -is- news for nerds, as unskilled labor makes up an increasingly small market, and 'unskilled' becomes more and more broadly defined. yesterdays 'unskilled' line worker may just be today's 'unskilled' call center jockey.
these jobs are ripe for the automation we nerds provide - further forcing the job market into ever-more-educated and specialized jobs, while general labor positions disappear.
in the meantime, business owners are making nearly unfathomable riches from the automation we create and from what they save on not paying labor for the jobs we automate.
these are not necessarily bad things, but it is a trend we are involved in perpetuating, so it's good to be aware of the progress and consequences of these trends.
Yarr, and before i forgets, Avast Ye Scurvy Dogs!
it's not standards to avoid code rewriting, it's interoperability standards for web services.
basically a framework to sit atop SOAP, for common application standards (security,transaction control,etc).
you'll still be OSvendor-locked when you write your web service code; but a web service consumer (website end developer) could choose a web service provider with OS-independence.
this isn't as ground-shaking as it sounds.
it's analogous to microsoft's embracing of HTML.
it will be supported (as IE supports w3c html) - and then doubtlessly extended through proprietary means (simplistic analogy to the IE-specific 'marquee' tag), to benefit those who use MS (can only see 'marque' if you use IE). while the extensions won't be necessary to participate (you dont necessarily -need- to see 'marquee'), they're hoping for a critical mass of developers to use their extensions (lots of sites using ) to encourage users to switch over, further incentivizing developers to use their extensions. (enter: feedback loop + network effect)
'marquee' being a simplistic and not very rich example for the analogy, i know - but you get the idea.
and 50 million people won't be shafted again when Isabel knocks out power across the eastern seaboard, tripping power grids thousands of miles away?
because i'm in detroit, and I don't exactly have the utmost faith that they've corrected the problem already. particularly since they haven't even identified it yet.
at least i'm all stocked up again.
unfortunately my generator hasn't arrived yet.
oh don't worry - you won't get them all.
in fact, mostly all you will do is weaken them, providing exactly what mr carlin is looking for.
has sanitation (via indoor plumbing), anti-bacterial soap, and better hygiene made human beings sicker or healthier since they were invented?
exactly, so you apply that gained knowledge from a thousand years of improved health (and non-depressed immune systems) to other places that disease hangs out.
sure, if you live in a bubble, you'll have problems. but i'm far from advocating that. i'm just aware of where germs and pathogens hang out that you people happily ignore. you don't need to scrub them down daily - but at least once a month would be nice.
i don't have allergies and haven't been sick in years. how about you?
the EU tries to maintain -its- deficit at 2 percent, as it exists -in-addition- to the deficit of its member states. as i understand the EU (and IANA-european lawyer), it doesn't have the authority to curb member state taxation/spending. The EU's deficit cap was enacted to ensure the member states that the EU couldn't vastly outspend its means, crumble, and saddle them with vast debt.
the kyoto protocol (yes i read it) is another misrepresented problem. the reason the US did not sign the treaty was that while it had good guidelines for developed nations, it allowed undeveloped nations to vastly exceed those guidelines, and more deplorably, allowed them to -sell- the rights to exceed those quotas to foreign businesses operating in their country.
essentially it would create an economic landrush to relocate the old cheapest, dirtiest, most environmentally dangerous plants to these nations who thus-far have been blessed by -not- having been raped by industrial mistakes.
it was not because big business in america would be hurt. our corporations would jump at the chance to have a legal requirement to relocate to mexico, central and south america to plunder their environment. you think the rain forests are hurting now?
if you recognize the value of saving the environment, you know that the peripheral jobs gained in those countries by the influx of those industries (now largely automated) would not be a reasonable tradeoff for the extensive damage they'd do.
kyoto was more a "Not In My BackYard" approach to environmentalism than it was a solution.
so I'm not surprised/affected in the least by this.
c'mon people, any object that is carried -everywhere- or used daily (potentially used by or in the immediate proximity of sick people) provides an opportunity for disease to spread. particularly when it's something that people never clean.
i honestly hope no-one is surprised by this.
it's reminicent of the studies that surprised you all a few years back, that showed the average computer workstation is dirtier (bacteria) than the average bathroom.
primarily because: how often do you clean around your PC? actually picking it up, moving it around, and wiping it all down with sanitizing pads? (particularly keyboard,mouse,wrist pads,power buttons,etc)
ok, now how often do you wipe down your cell phone with a sanitizing pad? exactly.
your phone is almost certainly more filthy than your toilet. think about that.
and while you do your reactionary one time cleaning, don't forget your pager, pda, land-lines, av remotes, video gaming controllers, camera, keys, wallet, laptop, and car interior (radio, steering wheel,shifter,beltbuckler,door handles,etc).
me? my neuroses keeps me well protected from you damned dirty apes.