Since every karma whore and his brother has just posted uninstall instructions that are a lot more detailed than mine, yeah, I guess I'm a moron:-) But main point still holds: you can get rid of Brilliant if you're moderately competent and/or read ZDnet occasionally.
Morpheus is dead, and Gnutella clients are improving, but are not nearly good enough yet.
I find what I'm looking for. The user base is huge, 1,000,000+ users online at any time, so I'm very seldom disappointed. Using LimeWire and Bearshare (which I tested out when Morpheus first died) successful results take longer and downloads are more likely to abort unsuccessfully.
It's slick. Morpheus 2.0, BearShare and LimeWire were all huge resource hogs, and took hours to even find some servers to connect to, far less find me any media. And -- a minor but significant point -- their interfaces suck big time. LimeWire's was the best GUI, but the worst results, sadly.
Only moron users can't tell that KaZaA is loaded with spyware. If you're moderately experienced, it's piss-easy to choose the "custom install" option when installing KaZaA. All the spyware programs are clearly listed in that install, and avoiding them is as easy as unchecking the boxes (though the install program is cute, and asks you not to "in order to support our software").
The ALTNET / b3d client does seem to install itself without asking you, but it sits quietly in the "installed programs" list, and can be uninstalled in 3 clicks (which I performed yesterday after reading Brilliant's plans for ALTNET).
Summary: I use KaZaA because it works, and only morons can't uninstall the spyware.
Tomb Raider did flop...
on
Resident Evil
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· Score: 1
Fortunately, Angelina's Jolie's breasts make millions every time they appear:-)
Okay, so have they invented a flexible CD? Not really. All they've done is separated the data layer from the rigid plastic layer, so that people will hopefully own only a few of the rigid "adapters" and loads of the data-handling flexCDs. FlexCDs are (a) easier to break than ordinary CDs (because there's no plastic layer protecting the thin data layer, and (b) place more of the cost of playing CDs on the consumer, since producers won't have to pay for the adapters after a while.
I realised this the moment the team leader of our software development project -- a woman who is about to graduate with a *degree* in *computer science* revealed that her password for nearly everything was her name, spelt backwards. *D'oh!*
While it's annoying to discover a buffer-overflow problem (or whatever; I haven't examined the report closely) in Linux and other OSS, if you ever wanted confirmation that Linux is being taken seriously by the public at large, it's that c|net thought a Linux bug worthy of reporting. Has that ever happened before?
the GNOME 2.0 Desktop is a greatly improved user environment for existing GNOME applications. Enhancements include anti-aliased text and first class internationalisation support, new accessibility features for disabled users, and many improvements throughout GNOME's highly regarded user interface.
Thanks for that info, it's not like we didn't read exactly that same blurb when beta 1 was released...:-)
The Economist (to which I'm also a subscriber) provides a weekly (printed, but that's not really a factor) magazine of entirely original content -- more than I can usually read in a week -- and employs hundreds of people to do so. It contains ads, but there's more content than ads (unlike most PC magazines). That's why the Economist is so expensive.
Much as I love it, Slashdot is not close to the quality of the Economist, and unlike the Economist does not rely on its readers for the vast bulk of its content (not just the comments: the stories are submitted by users, too, remember). And most Slashdot content these days is just a link to content from another source (most often C|net, ZDNet and Wired, with breaks for the BBC).
Regarding subscription figures: obviously 300,000 people aren't all going to sign up. But keep in mind that/. is still going to be getting the ad revenue from all those non-subscribers.
So I still hold that $5 per 1000 page views is too much. $2 or $3 sounds more like what I'd pay -- $36 for an annual subscription sounds good to me.
I'm a big fan of Slashdot, and read it all the time. Given my reading habits (and that I post fairly frequently) I'm positive I fall in at least the top 15% ($5 a month) and pretty sure I'm in the top 3% who would be charged more than $3 a month. I'd love to support Slashdot, but not on these terms.
1. Your heaviest/highest rated posters should get *discounts*, not have to pay extra. Remember, your most interesting content comes from those 3% of your audience -- the ones who actually post.
2. Page views are a *terrible* way of measuring site use. Changing settings (like viewing thresholds), double-checking stories before posting, refreshing a page to see a continuing discussion -- do these count? Can you tell? I don't want to live in fear of wasting my page-views, *especially* if I'm wasting page views by *contributing* content to your site.
3. I'm sorry, but the cost is too high. You have a circulation of 300,000+, and employ fewer than 10 people. You have hardware and bandwidth costs too, but 300,000x$20 = $6 million a year, not counting the 15% who are paying more than that. You can't advocate open source and free software and then overcharge for your website.
So, my suggestions: 1. Flat monthly fee with discounts for annual subscriptions. 2. Karma-based discounts, too, so people have an incentive to post meaningful content, which would boost your signal-to-noise enormously. 3. Lower prices.
Taco posts a story about a new mouse, and includes a one-line comment mentioning MS Mice. Result: a thread of replies almost entirely about Microsoft mice, Microsoft hardware, and MS's business practices. And 3 about the actual mouse:-)
The article is a factual account of what the reporter saw, what the "scientist" claimed, and it includes a lot of balancing views pointing out fairly obvious things like the laws of thermodynamics, etc.. The chances of this guy breaking the laws of thermodynamics are infinitismal, but the article doesn't claim any more than that. It is clearly written with tongue planted firmly in cheek ("the most important Irish invention since Guiness"?), and maybe if Americans understood the concepts of "sarcasm" and "subtlety" more people would have got the joke.
Re:blogging and the death of the commons
on
Browsing Alone
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· Score: 5, Funny
Furthermore, bloggers get "pundit syndrome" where because their views are "published", they feel they know more than others, thus reinforcing their tendency to intone imperiously rather than enter into debates.
According to the ZDnet review, the web pages it browses are actually translated by the "Pogo Technology Server" first: so when you go to www.yahoo.com, it's actually a page on their server: their server optimizes the colours to the Pogo's standard 256, swaps fonts to display better, and then it shrinks the whole page so that an 800x600 page looks fairly normal (if teeny) on the 320x260 screen, which is pretty cool. The fast transfer rate is accomplished because the server also compresses the page before sending it to the phone, which then decompresses it -- a good solution in a bandwidth-limited device. But it relies on a *lot* of proprietary technology:-(
I don't know what the OS is, but apparently it can run just about any Flash application, and they have an API (called "Boing") that allows you to create your own programs for the Pogo. Which sounds pretty cool? (Source: ZDnet review http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/rstories/0,3040,e71 11404,00.html )
This is indeed a pretty sweet device, and at £329 it's comparable to (say) the latest Visor models. However, in typical UK fashion (I live here; I know) CPW has loaded unreasonable ongoing costs on the back of it: data and voice calls are 10p per minute (14 US cents), calls to phones on other networks are 35p (aargh! why?!), and on top of that there's a £7.99 (US$11.50) monthly charge for the Internet access, etc.. That can really add up if you use it pretty regularly. Other than that problem, I'd get it tomorrow!:-)
Reading it, does anybody else get a strong sense of deja vu? It sounds like the two sides are arguing Evolution vs. Creationism -- well, they *are* -- but in this case they're arguing it over Linux instead of over human beings. Only in this case, we *know* there was a creator, and he says "I didn't create it, it evolved". Which makes me wonder if we ever did find the "creator" of human beings, and what would happen if he/she/it/they said the same thing about us:-) Picture it (and pardon my Eurocentricity):
Us: "God! At last we have found you! Now tell us, please... WHY ARE WE THE WAY WE ARE? WHY ARE WE HERE?"
God: "I dunno. I created you to eat the lions, and you just kinda got out of hand"
What they describe is a computer in that it can take input and process to produce output, but since both input and output are in chemical form, how useful can this practically be? I'm not sure I understand how useful it is to have a trillion computers that, when infused with the right chemical mixture, all compute exactly the same data and arrive (99% of the time) at the same result.
Honestly, how would you turn this into a practical computer? On the desktop? A supercomputer?
But maybe that's the way to success: start off with a very appealing product, then slowly tighten the screws
Wow, have you thought about writing an e-commerce strategy book? No-one's ever come to that conclusion before. Incidentally, how much are those/. subscriptions going to cost?
Slashdot Mirror
Since every karma whore and his brother has just posted uninstall instructions that are a lot more detailed than mine, yeah, I guess I'm a moron :-) But main point still holds: you can get rid of Brilliant if you're moderately competent and/or read ZDnet occasionally.
At the risk of sounding like an AOL-er, that's actually a brilliant idea.
The ALTNET / b3d client does seem to install itself without asking you, but it sits quietly in the "installed programs" list, and can be uninstalled in 3 clicks (which I performed yesterday after reading Brilliant's plans for ALTNET).
Summary: I use KaZaA because it works, and only morons can't uninstall the spyware.
Fortunately, Angelina's Jolie's breasts make millions every time they appear :-)
Okay, so have they invented a flexible CD? Not really. All they've done is separated the data layer from the rigid plastic layer, so that people will hopefully own only a few of the rigid "adapters" and loads of the data-handling flexCDs. FlexCDs are (a) easier to break than ordinary CDs (because there's no plastic layer protecting the thin data layer, and (b) place more of the cost of playing CDs on the consumer, since producers won't have to pay for the adapters after a while.
I realised this the moment the team leader of our software development project -- a woman who is about to graduate with a *degree* in *computer science* revealed that her password for nearly everything was her name, spelt backwards. *D'oh!*
While it's annoying to discover a buffer-overflow problem (or whatever; I haven't examined the report closely) in Linux and other OSS, if you ever wanted confirmation that Linux is being taken seriously by the public at large, it's that c|net thought a Linux bug worthy of reporting. Has that ever happened before?
the GNOME 2.0 Desktop is a greatly improved user environment for existing GNOME applications. Enhancements include anti-aliased text and first class internationalisation support, new accessibility features for disabled users, and many improvements throughout GNOME's highly regarded user interface.
:-)
Thanks for that info, it's not like we didn't read exactly that same blurb when beta 1 was released...
The Economist (to which I'm also a subscriber) provides a weekly (printed, but that's not really a factor) magazine of entirely original content -- more than I can usually read in a week -- and employs hundreds of people to do so. It contains ads, but there's more content than ads (unlike most PC magazines). That's why the Economist is so expensive.
/. is still going to be getting the ad revenue from all those non-subscribers.
Much as I love it, Slashdot is not close to the quality of the Economist, and unlike the Economist does not rely on its readers for the vast bulk of its content (not just the comments: the stories are submitted by users, too, remember). And most Slashdot content these days is just a link to content from another source (most often C|net, ZDNet and Wired, with breaks for the BBC).
Regarding subscription figures: obviously 300,000 people aren't all going to sign up. But keep in mind that
So I still hold that $5 per 1000 page views is too much. $2 or $3 sounds more like what I'd pay -- $36 for an annual subscription sounds good to me.
I'm a big fan of Slashdot, and read it all the time. Given my reading habits (and that I post fairly frequently) I'm positive I fall in at least the top 15% ($5 a month) and pretty sure I'm in the top 3% who would be charged more than $3 a month. I'd love to support Slashdot, but not on these terms.
1. Your heaviest/highest rated posters should get *discounts*, not have to pay extra. Remember, your most interesting content comes from those 3% of your audience -- the ones who actually post.
2. Page views are a *terrible* way of measuring site use. Changing settings (like viewing thresholds), double-checking stories before posting, refreshing a page to see a continuing discussion -- do these count? Can you tell? I don't want to live in fear of wasting my page-views, *especially* if I'm wasting page views by *contributing* content to your site.
3. I'm sorry, but the cost is too high. You have a circulation of 300,000+, and employ fewer than 10 people. You have hardware and bandwidth costs too, but 300,000x$20 = $6 million a year, not counting the 15% who are paying more than that. You can't advocate open source and free software and then overcharge for your website.
So, my suggestions:
1. Flat monthly fee with discounts for annual subscriptions.
2. Karma-based discounts, too, so people have an incentive to post meaningful content, which would boost your signal-to-noise enormously.
3. Lower prices.
Taco posts a story about a new mouse, and includes a one-line comment mentioning MS Mice. Result: a thread of replies almost entirely about Microsoft mice, Microsoft hardware, and MS's business practices. And 3 about the actual mouse :-)
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....
:-)
I want a boyfriend who will do this for me, too!
The article is a factual account of what the reporter saw, what the "scientist" claimed, and it includes a lot of balancing views pointing out fairly obvious things like the laws of thermodynamics, etc.. The chances of this guy breaking the laws of thermodynamics are infinitismal, but the article doesn't claim any more than that. It is clearly written with tongue planted firmly in cheek ("the most important Irish invention since Guiness"?), and maybe if Americans understood the concepts of "sarcasm" and "subtlety" more people would have got the joke.
Furthermore, bloggers get "pundit syndrome" where because their views are "published", they feel they know more than others, thus reinforcing their tendency to intone imperiously rather than enter into debates.
What, you mean like JonKatz?
According to the ZDnet review, the web pages it browses are actually translated by the "Pogo Technology Server" first: so when you go to www.yahoo.com, it's actually a page on their server: their server optimizes the colours to the Pogo's standard 256, swaps fonts to display better, and then it shrinks the whole page so that an 800x600 page looks fairly normal (if teeny) on the 320x260 screen, which is pretty cool. The fast transfer rate is accomplished because the server also compresses the page before sending it to the phone, which then decompresses it -- a good solution in a bandwidth-limited device. But it relies on a *lot* of proprietary technology :-(
I don't know what the OS is, but apparently it can run just about any Flash application, and they have an API (called "Boing") that allows you to create your own programs for the Pogo. Which sounds pretty cool? (Source: ZDnet review http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/rstories/0,3040,e71 11404,00.html )
This is indeed a pretty sweet device, and at £329 it's comparable to (say) the latest Visor models. However, in typical UK fashion (I live here; I know) CPW has loaded unreasonable ongoing costs on the back of it: data and voice calls are 10p per minute (14 US cents), calls to phones on other networks are 35p (aargh! why?!), and on top of that there's a £7.99 (US$11.50) monthly charge for the Internet access, etc.. That can really add up if you use it pretty regularly. Other than that problem, I'd get it tomorrow! :-)
"Stuff we steal from Wired"
:-)
Actually, it might not be all that useful, since it would include 50% of the all the stuff on Slashdot anyway
But the word "gay" is not an insult...
The product shots are CG renders! I doubt this product really exists...
Here's that link without the parse error...
Reading it, does anybody else get a strong sense of deja vu? It sounds like the two sides are arguing Evolution vs. Creationism -- well, they *are* -- but in this case they're arguing it over Linux instead of over human beings. Only in this case, we *know* there was a creator, and he says "I didn't create it, it evolved". Which makes me wonder if we ever did find the "creator" of human beings, and what would happen if he/she/it/they said the same thing about us :-) Picture it (and pardon my Eurocentricity):
Us: "God! At last we have found you! Now tell us, please... WHY ARE WE THE WAY WE ARE? WHY ARE WE HERE?"
God: "I dunno. I created you to eat the lions, and you just kinda got out of hand"
What they describe is a computer in that it can take input and process to produce output, but since both input and output are in chemical form, how useful can this practically be? I'm not sure I understand how useful it is to have a trillion computers that, when infused with the right chemical mixture, all compute exactly the same data and arrive (99% of the time) at the same result.
Honestly, how would you turn this into a practical computer? On the desktop? A supercomputer?
The Onion has been using obviously machine-generated "parody" for years now. Nothing else can explain the lack of originality...
Wow, have you thought about writing an e-commerce strategy book? No-one's ever come to that conclusion before. Incidentally, how much are those /. subscriptions going to cost?