Chromebooks are not much better than a day planner, and less functional than a cell phone.
You get email, browsing, google docs.
You want to do software development painfully? Try loading up crouton, eclipse and going full steam ahead with software development.
I can pull a coin from my pocket and flip it. I will give me a random state between heads and tails. The user experience is phenomenal, and the functionality useful. How can any football game start without one? Chromebook can't even compete!
This is Google's own version Apple's "What's a Computer?" ad. The marketing manager for Chrome is pleased you greenlit his astroturf.
I think I'll test my emergent AI on Google by pretending to be in the third world via VPN, then performing these tasks by randomly clicking yes / no / can't tell / looks like a potato.
It will probably earn more money than bothering to mine the ever more elusive bitcoin.
I'm stuck on signing up to see what it is. For some reason, they REQUIRE my birthdate, which made me lose interest. It seems like a Cambridge Analytics developer info gathering service. They may have a legitimate reason for requesting this info, but it wasn't stated anywhere readable. So they don't get my email or my developer attention.
When my wife and I bought Android phones, we put our two Nokia S60 phones, an E61i and an E66, to work. Both no longer are on cell phone networks, but their SIP capabilities are used to connect to my Asterisk server. As such, they make wonderful cordless phones, with a very long talk time compared to most consumer phones. I believe the iPhone can do the same thing.
I ended up ordering one that had the basics, as well as a remote control
If you need remote control in a toilet you are doing something wrong.
The remote is more convenient than the standard controls, which are located on the side of the seat, for a couple of reasons:
1. In order to use the side controls, you need to twist your body to look at it. The side controls show LEDs, which are actually kinda hard to see in bright bathroom light. 2. We men think we are just so accurate when we pee, up until the point you clean the toilet on a regular basis. Then you think things like "How did that get up there?". So if you like sticking your hand in yours or someone else's pee, by all means, get the one with the controls on the side.
The remote is LCD based, and can tell you things like water temperature, nozzle strength, and so on, before you adjust it.
I used to laugh about the toilets that wash and dry you. I don't any longer. I went to do some work for a few weeks in Seoul, South Korea. Both the hotel and the place I worked had them. I tried them out, and found out what I had been missing all these years. The basic ones have these functions:
- Warm toilet seats - this really helps to get things moving in the morning - Washing, front and back - say goodbye to skid marks. - Drying
Anyway, I told my wife over Skype how wonderful they were, and she laughed at me. Then she came to visit me in Korea, tried them, and suddenly, it was a must have appliance for when I get back. Since the power in Korea is different from North America (220V with different type of plug), and the instructions were in Korea, I ended up ordering one that had the basics, as well as a remote control. It took me about 1.5 hours to install, but about an hour of that was poring over the entire manual to make sure I understood how to do it. The actual install took about 30 minutes.
We both enjoy using it, and we hardly ever use toilet paper anymore. Some people might be put off by drying time vs. wiping, but as I like to tell people: "What's your hurry? Bring a book."
Here is the really funny thing. My wife has gone viral with this info. She told her pottery group, the girls at the dentist, and countless others abut this. I have female relatives and friends visiting more now, some almost embarrassingly come over to "try out the toilet". Almost all of them are in the process of buying or attempting to convince their significant others to purchase one. I'm now the accidental "Toilet Tech", as I answer questions about purchasing and installation for them.
After they use it, I've received all kinds of comments like: "If I met a guy with one of these, I'd never leave", and many more in the same vein, I got to thinking that the average guy would do well to have one of these when they finally bring home the woman of their dreams. All things being equal, for some gals, the bathroom will be a deal breaker on whether they will spend the night. It just might be worth investing $400-$1000 on a Vorpal Toilet Seat.
The only reason that anyone needs to delete or suspend an account is if it is automatically charging them every month for access. Since currently, Facebook and Twitter do not, there really isn't any reason to 'deal' with the account. There are many good reasons just to leave it as it is, as many posters before me have stated.
The things that irk me are the ways that cell phone providers and such try to keep contracts active, and charged for, way beyond the grave. Those are the ones that specific policies should be posted, and enforced by consumer laws.
I always find these utterly useless laws funny at the state level. What prevents a gene-splicer from creating, transporting, or receiving a human-animal hybrid in neighboring Michigan?
While they're at it, and worried about Sci-Fi possibilities:
- Ban aliens from invading. - Ban research into Warp Drive or Teleportation - Ban Stargates from being used - Ban Zombies
This list could go on forever, unless they ban Infiinity in Ohio.
EA themselves used to release "Classic" versions of their games for around $20. What happened?
If they had any brains at all, they could cut off the used market rather quickly. Just sell the games for cheaper and cheaper amounts, online or otherwise. In other words, let the market function properly.
If their new games were priced lower than used games at GameStop, how many people would buy used?
It reminds me of the Canadian Government complaining about a black market in cigarettes forming because they jacked the taxes up. There was more incentive to buy black market cigarettes than retail, because it was just so much cheaper. They created the black market by ignoring the demand.
Publishers, stop ignoring the demands of the market, and you will make more profit. Is it that hard to understand?
And I'm amused that you are saddened. I agree with you, it's completely unenforceable. If I were this guy, I'd so have a lot of fun with it. This is comedy gold material. Imagine, for the first time in your life, you may see a wanted poster in a theatre ticket office booth:
"Wanted: This guy here for recording fuzzy movies. Contact RCMP immediately. Approach with caution, may be armed with camera."
Imagine the call to the police: "Come quickly! There's a guy here watching a movie in contempt of court! He may buy popcorn, or even leave before the end of the movie, it's that BAD!"
Imagine the Movie industry pulling a RIAA-like unlicensed investigator to shadow this guy in case he visits a theatre, video store or Best Buy.
He should make himself available for every interview he possibly can. He should videotape himself in his own home, and put it up on YouTube. At least then he'd be a FAMOUS video hobbiest. He'd have to be careful not to take any money talking about his deeds...proceeds of crime and all that. But he could easily become the poster boy for all that is wrong with copyright law.
I'm sorry, but not having a video camera or cell phone with a camera outside his house is no big deal, and if you really, really, really think he will get busted for carrying an HB pencil, then you just amused me far more than he did.
Chill out. The cops won't bother, and the biggest hardship will likely be paying his lawyer, not the rather miniscule fine.
I'm sure the judge levied the fine just because it's the stupidest case he's ever had to rule on.
I haven't laughed so hard at a news story in a long time, and I'm still laughing.
What makes this funny is the comments from the Paramount exec:
From the TFA:
"Canada is a hotbed of movie pirating, which is a billion-dollar loss to the movie industry," Mark Christiansen, executive vice-president of operations for Paramount Picture's motion picture distribution, said outside court after reading his victim impact statement.
- Really? They caught one guy. You had a better chance of winning the lottery than getting caught for recording a movie.
"The perception is that Hollywood stars are the only ones hurt by this, but it affects everybody who works in theatres."
- I'm sure all the high school students getting minimum wage in the theatre believe that in all their hearts, their pay and jobs will be affected by some jerk recording a fuzzy copy of a movie.
Virginia Jones, of the Canadian Motion Picture Distribution Association:
"We would have liked to see jail time, sending a stronger message. We hope this is just a starting point," she said outside court, also after delivering a victim impact statement.
- She delivered a victim impact statement? Asked for jail time? The winner, for best performance in a dramatic role is Virginia Jones.
Every single study like this overlooks one very glaring fact: History.
I was a kid before video games existed. We did a lot of very violent things like beating each other up a la "Fight Club", throwing rocks at each other, and playing Robin Hood with sticks and trash can lids. I had a friend that would literally upend a chess board if he noticed he was losing, in order to force a tie.
Our competitive survival instinct is what is driving this. It doesn't matter if it's a video game, board game, or mind game. Some people use learn from their losses to improved their wins. Others get frustrated and lash out at their losses.
Keep in mind that rabbit ears do very little for digital TV. You need a high quality UHF antenna. That is why your analog is nice, and your digital reception sucks.
Remember, the analog spectrum is being auctioned off. A channel may advertise itself as 4, 6, or whatever, but it's actual band is in UHF.
I predict that the RIAA will use the fact that they got less money from them in a the next case they bring up against a deaf priest who only possesses an abacus. They will say, "Look, the RIAA is now getting less revenue due to the nasty press we receive. We're just trying to collect money on the artist's behalf, that we have no intention of actually paying them. We ask the court to award treble damages."
"borrowing a musical tape from a friend to copy onto a blank tape for private use (a royalty payment to the owner of the song rights has been paid when the blank tape was purchased)."
If I want to borrow one of your music CDs and make a copy on a disc that the levy was paid on, I can do it LEGALLY, in Canada. It makes no difference that the artist is a U.S. artist, Canadian or otherwise. CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) absolutely hates that law.
If one were to know the irc channel that a DDoSer uses to communicate with the zombie machines, is it possible to spam the channel with commands that will physically shut down the zombies, like a poweroff command in Linux, thus mitigating the effect?
It could be a Denial of Denial of Service Attack, or DoDos. I confess I might be simplifying the issue too much.
In this case, you'd have to:
1. Identify a DDoS is in progress. 2. Pick one of the zombie IP addresses. 3. Identify the type of DDoS it is performing, by trying all known ones (if it is out there in quantity, it is likely known). 4. Find it's IRC channel and spam it with poweroff commands. 5. DDoS stops happening.
I complained bitterly to Microsoft after I purchased the Remote control to play DVDs (for $50CDN) only to find that it does not have a POWER ON/OFF switch on the remote.
I'd even settle for just an OFF switch. Sometimes when I'm on the verge of falling asleep, I prefer not to get up and wake up all the way. I would leave it turned on, but it's just too damn noisy.
Even the cheapest of TVs, DVD players and recorders are able to pretend they are powering down, mostly by shutting off fans and motors, because they are often still warm or powered. Even slowing down the fan substantially would help.
I don't think that this issue warrants a sensationalist headline like this.
So one big Empire (Microsoft) makes a deal with another big Empire(Visa), er, not really with Visa, but with the company that writes software for Visa to make software that will link their authentication application (Passport) with a financial vehicle (money).
I still don't have an MS-Passport account, partly because I don't like their terms of service, but mostly because I have no use for it. However, I don't need to equate their attempts to find uses for their technology with a slap in the face for all of mankind.
Anyone remember "Microsoft At Work"? This was a great example of putting out a white paper on how they were gonna put MS in every embedded device in the world, including all fax machines, tv's, etc. How many TVs do you know that run windows today?
How about "Microsoft DNA"? "Building a Digital_Nervous_System", omigod, a technology that is so uber, it requires no specific software, but if you install NT and SQL Server, shucks, yer most of the way there. Trust us.
Two words: "Microsoft Bob".NET is like.MSN all over again. MSN does ok, but I got the idea that they were hoping MSN would be the 'internet killer'. Neither MSN nor AOL managed to win the title of 'King of the Net', though both do okay, depite many 'partner' announcements and billions and billions spent.
I don't use IIS as a web server, nor Exchange as an email server, and my network hasn't become unglued.
I have both a Visa and MasterCard, and either will work most everywhere, because if either limit their markets in any way (ie, only working with MS software, browsers, etc.) they are only limiting their own business opportunities. They know this. A market with no competition is no market. The point is, if this is a good idea, it will take off, and others that smell the money will compete. If they use patents or market power to attempt to control our use of it, the less restrictive competition will flourish...or...like other great Microsoftian Bob ideas, it will die on the vine.
In order for this to work, you must sign an affidavit saying that:
1. You did not sign up 2. You provided them written notice of cancellation, and they have not.
I cancelled my VISA card, and VISA still allowed them to charge it, and yes, still sent me bills for it, until I got it cleared up, despite the fact that it was cancelled. To GlobalServe's credit, IBM has quick customer support and once told of the problem, refunded all the charges.
The weird part is that as long as charges are made to your card, you cannot cancel it. I suspect an easier route might be to just say that you lost your card, please issue a new one.
Slashdot Mirror
According to Statistica, there are almost 12,000 Wal-Marts worldwide: https://www.statista.com/stati...
17k handsets, is almost 1.5 per store. I don't know the distribution of them. That point is vague.
The interesting part is the fact that Wal-Mart is experimenting with VR, specifically Oculus. The amount is actually underwhelming, in a relative way.
Chromebooks are not much better than a day planner, and less functional than a cell phone.
You get email, browsing, google docs.
You want to do software development painfully? Try loading up crouton, eclipse and going full steam ahead with software development.
I can pull a coin from my pocket and flip it. I will give me a random state between heads and tails. The user experience is phenomenal, and the functionality useful. How can any football game start without one? Chromebook can't even compete!
This is Google's own version Apple's "What's a Computer?" ad. The marketing manager for Chrome is pleased you greenlit his astroturf.
I think I'll test my emergent AI on Google by pretending to be in the third world via VPN, then performing these tasks by randomly clicking yes / no / can't tell / looks like a potato.
It will probably earn more money than bothering to mine the ever more elusive bitcoin.
I'm stuck on signing up to see what it is. For some reason, they REQUIRE my birthdate, which made me lose interest. It seems like a Cambridge Analytics developer info gathering service. They may have a legitimate reason for requesting this info, but it wasn't stated anywhere readable. So they don't get my email or my developer attention.
When my wife and I bought Android phones, we put our two Nokia S60 phones, an E61i and an E66, to work. Both no longer are on cell phone networks, but their SIP capabilities are used to connect to my Asterisk server. As such, they make wonderful cordless phones, with a very long talk time compared to most consumer phones. I believe the iPhone can do the same thing.
I ended up ordering one that had the basics, as well as a remote control
If you need remote control in a toilet you are doing something wrong.
The remote is more convenient than the standard controls, which are located on the side of the seat, for a couple of reasons:
1. In order to use the side controls, you need to twist your body to look at it. The side controls show LEDs, which are actually kinda hard to see in bright bathroom light.
2. We men think we are just so accurate when we pee, up until the point you clean the toilet on a regular basis. Then you think things like "How did that get up there?". So if you like sticking your hand in yours or someone else's pee, by all means, get the one with the controls on the side.
The remote is LCD based, and can tell you things like water temperature, nozzle strength, and so on, before you adjust it.
I used to laugh about the toilets that wash and dry you. I don't any longer. I went to do some work for a few weeks in Seoul, South Korea. Both the hotel and the place I worked had them. I tried them out, and found out what I had been missing all these years. The basic ones have these functions:
- Warm toilet seats - this really helps to get things moving in the morning
- Washing, front and back - say goodbye to skid marks.
- Drying
Anyway, I told my wife over Skype how wonderful they were, and she laughed at me. Then she came to visit me in Korea, tried them, and suddenly, it was a must have appliance for when I get back. Since the power in Korea is different from North America (220V with different type of plug), and the instructions were in Korea, I ended up ordering one that had the basics, as well as a remote control. It took me about 1.5 hours to install, but about an hour of that was poring over the entire manual to make sure I understood how to do it. The actual install took about 30 minutes.
We both enjoy using it, and we hardly ever use toilet paper anymore. Some people might be put off by drying time vs. wiping, but as I like to tell people: "What's your hurry? Bring a book."
Here is the really funny thing. My wife has gone viral with this info. She told her pottery group, the girls at the dentist, and countless others abut this. I have female relatives and friends visiting more now, some almost embarrassingly come over to "try out the toilet". Almost all of them are in the process of buying or attempting to convince their significant others to purchase one. I'm now the accidental "Toilet Tech", as I answer questions about purchasing and installation for them.
After they use it, I've received all kinds of comments like: "If I met a guy with one of these, I'd never leave", and many more in the same vein, I got to thinking that the average guy would do well to have one of these when they finally bring home the woman of their dreams. All things being equal, for some gals, the bathroom will be a deal breaker on whether they will spend the night. It just might be worth investing $400-$1000 on a Vorpal Toilet Seat.
The only reason that anyone needs to delete or suspend an account is if it is automatically charging them every month for access. Since currently, Facebook and Twitter do not, there really isn't any reason to 'deal' with the account. There are many good reasons just to leave it as it is, as many posters before me have stated.
The things that irk me are the ways that cell phone providers and such try to keep contracts active, and charged for, way beyond the grave. Those are the ones that specific policies should be posted, and enforced by consumer laws.
I always find these utterly useless laws funny at the state level. What prevents a gene-splicer from creating, transporting, or receiving a human-animal hybrid in neighboring Michigan?
While they're at it, and worried about Sci-Fi possibilities:
- Ban aliens from invading.
- Ban research into Warp Drive or Teleportation
- Ban Stargates from being used
- Ban Zombies
This list could go on forever, unless they ban Infiinity in Ohio.
EA themselves used to release "Classic" versions of their games for around $20. What happened?
If they had any brains at all, they could cut off the used market rather quickly. Just sell the games for cheaper and cheaper amounts, online or otherwise. In other words, let the market function properly.
If their new games were priced lower than used games at GameStop, how many people would buy used?
It reminds me of the Canadian Government complaining about a black market in cigarettes forming because they jacked the taxes up. There was more incentive to buy black market cigarettes than retail, because it was just so much cheaper. They created the black market by ignoring the demand.
Publishers, stop ignoring the demands of the market, and you will make more profit. Is it that hard to understand?
And I'm amused that you are saddened. I agree with you, it's completely unenforceable. If I were this guy, I'd so have a lot of fun with it. This is comedy gold material. Imagine, for the first time in your life, you may see a wanted poster in a theatre ticket office booth:
"Wanted: This guy here for recording fuzzy movies. Contact RCMP immediately. Approach with caution, may be armed with camera."
Imagine the call to the police: "Come quickly! There's a guy here watching a movie in contempt of court! He may buy popcorn, or even leave before the end of the movie, it's that BAD!"
Imagine the Movie industry pulling a RIAA-like unlicensed investigator to shadow this guy in case he visits a theatre, video store or Best Buy.
He should make himself available for every interview he possibly can. He should videotape himself in his own home, and put it up on YouTube. At least then he'd be a FAMOUS video hobbiest. He'd have to be careful not to take any money talking about his deeds...proceeds of crime and all that. But he could easily become the poster boy for all that is wrong with copyright law.
I'm sorry, but not having a video camera or cell phone with a camera outside his house is no big deal, and if you really, really, really think he will get busted for carrying an HB pencil, then you just amused me far more than he did.
Chill out. The cops won't bother, and the biggest hardship will likely be paying his lawyer, not the rather miniscule fine.
I'm sure the judge levied the fine just because it's the stupidest case he's ever had to rule on.
I haven't laughed so hard at a news story in a long time, and I'm still laughing.
What makes this funny is the comments from the Paramount exec:
From the TFA:
"Canada is a hotbed of movie pirating, which is a billion-dollar loss to the movie industry," Mark Christiansen, executive vice-president of operations for Paramount Picture's motion picture distribution, said outside court after reading his victim impact statement.
- Really? They caught one guy. You had a better chance of winning the lottery than getting caught for recording a movie.
"The perception is that Hollywood stars are the only ones hurt by this, but it affects everybody who works in theatres."
- I'm sure all the high school students getting minimum wage in the theatre believe that in all their hearts, their pay and jobs will be affected by some jerk recording a fuzzy copy of a movie.
Virginia Jones, of the Canadian Motion Picture Distribution Association:
"We would have liked to see jail time, sending a stronger message. We hope this is just a starting point," she said outside court, also after delivering a victim impact statement.
- She delivered a victim impact statement? Asked for jail time? The winner, for best performance in a dramatic role is Virginia Jones.
Every single study like this overlooks one very glaring fact: History.
I was a kid before video games existed. We did a lot of very violent things like beating each other up a la "Fight Club", throwing rocks at each other, and playing Robin Hood with sticks and trash can lids. I had a friend that would literally upend a chess board if he noticed he was losing, in order to force a tie.
Our competitive survival instinct is what is driving this. It doesn't matter if it's a video game, board game, or mind game. Some people use learn from their losses to improved their wins. Others get frustrated and lash out at their losses.
Keep in mind that rabbit ears do very little for digital TV. You need a high quality UHF antenna. That is why your analog is nice, and your digital reception sucks.
Remember, the analog spectrum is being auctioned off. A channel may advertise itself as 4, 6, or whatever, but it's actual band is in UHF.
I predict that the RIAA will use the fact that they got less money from them in a the next case they bring up against a deaf priest who only possesses an abacus. They will say, "Look, the RIAA is now getting less revenue due to the nasty press we receive. We're just trying to collect money on the artist's behalf, that we have no intention of actually paying them. We ask the court to award treble damages."
I looked into this very carefully.
d _protect-e.html
The levy essentially allows us Canadians to copy CDs at will.
Check the Canadian gov't (Industry Canada) page:
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/cp/copy_g
under non-infringing uses:
"borrowing a musical tape from a friend to copy onto a blank tape for private use (a royalty payment to the owner of the song rights has been paid when the blank tape was purchased)."
If I want to borrow one of your music CDs and make a copy on a disc that the levy was paid on, I can do it LEGALLY, in Canada. It makes no difference that the artist is a U.S. artist, Canadian or otherwise. CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) absolutely hates that law.
My mail server stopped accepting mail from hotmail over 2 years ago.
Microsoft History Month?
If one were to know the irc channel that a DDoSer uses to communicate with the zombie machines, is it possible to spam the channel with commands that will physically shut down the zombies, like a poweroff command in Linux, thus mitigating the effect?
It could be a Denial of Denial of Service Attack, or DoDos. I confess I might be simplifying the issue too much.
In this case, you'd have to:
1. Identify a DDoS is in progress.
2. Pick one of the zombie IP addresses.
3. Identify the type of DDoS it is performing, by trying all known ones (if it is out there in quantity, it is likely known).
4. Find it's IRC channel and spam it with poweroff commands.
5. DDoS stops happening.
Try egroupware http://www.egroupware.org/. It is my favorite replacement for Outlook. I especially like the daily comics feature.
I complained bitterly to Microsoft after I purchased the Remote control to play DVDs (for $50CDN) only to find that it does not have a POWER ON/OFF switch on the remote.
I'd even settle for just an OFF switch. Sometimes when I'm on the verge of falling asleep, I prefer not to get up and wake up all the way. I would leave it turned on, but it's just too damn noisy.
Even the cheapest of TVs, DVD players and recorders are able to pretend they are powering down, mostly by shutting off fans and motors, because they are often still warm or powered.
Even slowing down the fan substantially would help.
I don't think that this issue warrants a sensationalist headline like this.
.NET is like .MSN all over again. MSN does ok, but I got the idea that they were hoping MSN would be the 'internet killer'. Neither MSN nor AOL managed to win the title of 'King of the Net', though both do okay, depite many 'partner' announcements and billions and billions spent.
So one big Empire (Microsoft) makes a deal with another big Empire(Visa), er, not really with Visa, but with the company that writes software for Visa to make software that will link their authentication application (Passport) with a financial vehicle (money).
I still don't have an MS-Passport account, partly because I don't like their terms of service, but mostly because I have no use for it. However, I don't need to equate their attempts to find uses for their technology with a slap in the face for all of mankind.
Anyone remember "Microsoft At Work"?
This was a great example of putting out a white paper on how they were gonna put MS in every embedded device in the world, including all fax machines, tv's, etc. How many TVs do you know that run windows today?
How about "Microsoft DNA"?
"Building a Digital_Nervous_System", omigod, a technology that is so uber, it requires no specific software, but if you install NT and SQL Server, shucks, yer most of the way there. Trust us.
Two words: "Microsoft Bob"
I don't use IIS as a web server, nor Exchange as an email server, and my network hasn't become unglued.
I have both a Visa and MasterCard, and either will work most everywhere, because if either limit their markets in any way (ie, only working with MS software, browsers, etc.) they are only limiting their own business opportunities. They know this. A market with no competition is no market.
The point is, if this is a good idea, it will take off, and others that smell the money will compete. If they use patents or market power to attempt to control our use of it, the less restrictive competition will flourish...or...like other great Microsoftian Bob ideas, it will die on the vine.
In order for this to work, you must sign an affidavit saying that:
1. You did not sign up
2. You provided them written notice of cancellation, and they have not.
I cancelled my VISA card, and VISA still allowed them to charge it, and yes, still sent me bills for it, until I got it cleared up, despite the fact that it was cancelled. To GlobalServe's credit, IBM has quick customer support and once told of the problem, refunded all the charges.
The weird part is that as long as charges are made to your card, you cannot cancel it. I suspect an easier route might be to just say that you lost your card, please issue a new one.
Actually, I would add, the most USED applications are Solitaire and Minesweeper, respectively.
Though I have to admit, i was SHOCKED to see the Windows XP Notepad open an 18 meg logfile without asking to load Wordpad.
They also said not including Java in Windows 2000 will be the death of it.
It don't bother mean. We all hafta open,read,write,close sometime.
Grokko