It's also the day of Earth Hour - a day on which, for one hour, people around the world turn off the lights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Hour I wonder how many here personally partake.
-----
As for backing up goes, I'll just re-paste here what I said in a recent other Ask Slashdot question:
It's not really 'managing' my data.. it's a storage/backup solution. The difference is that if I 'managed' my data, I wouldn't have tens of thousands of digital camera photos in a bunch of folders with meaningless names, but just a few that are actually worth saving to me. It's not that I'm saving all the others for future generations either, I just don't have the energy to go through so many photos and delete all but the best (the very best I've already shared anyway).
But if it's just storage/backup... 1. Every write made to the main HDD is mirrored via a mirroring RAID setup. Pure mirroring, I don't want to deal with RAID levels that use parity/etc. that may save some space but are a PITA to rebuild (and must be rebuilt - a simple mirrored HDD mounts just fine when taken out of the RAID).
2. Files are written to a versioning filesystem, so that if I delete something that I later regret, I can get an older version back (presuming things didn't run out of space and it had to be overwritten with new data).
3. Files saved to a specific area are further synced with a cloud storage solution. These are basically files that I need to be able to access from any location at any time (short of the cloud hoster folding/etc.) asap in case of an emergency. There's very few files that qualify, so bandwidth and monthly caps aren't an issue. I did upload about half a GiB worth initially, though.
4. Every night the computer does a differential backup to an external, also mirrored, HDD, over the network. This is a set that is in a completely different area of the house, so if I manage to trip and splash water all over everything here, the others are fine.
5. Every 2 weeks (used to be weekly) I bring one of the HDDs in the mirroring set in the other room to an off-site location (basically a storage locker). From that off-site location I bring back another HDD and put that into the RAID, and force an update of that HDD from the other one.
So -if- one of my main HDDs dies, there's always the other one. If they both manage to die at the same time, I've still got a daily backup in another room. If that dies, that has another one. If those both die, I still have a 2-weekly backup in an offsite location. If that one's dead as well (what are the odds??), then all my most important stuff is also in the cloud. If that cloud storage solution goes belly-up at the same time and data can't be retrieved? Well, I'm screwed. But life does go on - people whose houses burn down often don't have such a rigorous backup method in place, and they pick up again as well.
That said... 6. Of very important photos, I've got prints (a Kodak booth does better than your home inkjet) or even negatives (the better photography stores can point you in the right direction for that). Of very important documents, I've got print-outs (laserjet). Of very important video? Nothing. Of very important (music) recordings? Also nothing. I have no such 'very important' of the latter two - but I think you get the idea: I would have gotten those transferred to film and/or tape. The reason is that those can easily be seen by human eyes or played back for human interpretation - digital data not so much.
Title: MSU professor Kurt [DeMaagd] Helps bring Broadband Internet to Rural Africa Description: Kurt (who was one of Slashdot's co-founders many years ago) believes his students get as much out of the broadband project as the people in Tanzania who are its primary beneficiaries.
[00:00] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Bringing broadband Internet to Rural Tanzania" appears in the bottom over a still image from the interview with Professor Kurt DeMaagd. The backdrop is a white room with a "2001: a space odyssey" poster.
[00:04] <TITLE> The view fades to that of Robert Rozeboom in front of the "2001: a space odyssey" poster with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "Robert Rozeboom (samzenpus on Slashdot)
[00:04] Robert> In addition to perfecting his ping pong game, Professort Kurt DeMaagd spends a lot of his time working on initiatives that bring broadband to rural communities in developing nations. Today we'll be talking to him about his work in Africa.
[00:16] <TITLE> The view fades back Professor Kurt DeMaagd with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "MSU Professor Kurt DeMaagd"
[00:14] Kurt> I am one of the faculty leads in a project where we have students setting up broadband connections in rural Tanzania.
[00:25] Robert> How did you get interested in doing that in Africa?
[00:28] Kurt> Well I've done other research work on the economic impacts of broadband in various countries, and most of it tends to be working with, sort of, country-level economic indicators. There seems to be a big gap between what these country-level indicators can study and the actual on-the-ground realities. So we thought "Well, let's do a project that actually gets in touch with the people." In part of doing that we thought "Well, maybe we can also blend this with a student project, and get students to actually go out and do some of the roll-out, get some real world experience in a rather challenging environment."
[01:05] Kurt> The biggest technical challenge actually is not the original, I guess, start-up technical challenges, but the ongoing support. So we can come in with our teams, get everything set up, running perfectly and go back home, and a week later things are broken. So the tech challenge is not so much identifying what's going wrong and how to fix it, but how do we actually find the long-term ongoing support working with community members there - so we started partnering with, for example, the University of Dodoma, we have people nearby our schools that we work with who are somewhat trained in the technology so that we can provide the support there. But most the stuff is not a brand new technology that we're developing, but often times adapted the technology just for the individual local needs.
[01:53] Robert> So the biggest problem really is getting the helpdesk.
[01:57] Kurt> *laughs* exactly - the classic challenge! We can go in and fix it, but you know I don't want to fly to Tanzania every week when somebody has problems.
[02:03] Robert> Are you training people specifically for that? Part of the project?
[02:07] Kurt> Yeah, exactly. Part of it is identifying people there who have experience. So, for example, there are plenty of people there who kind of bill themselves as an electrician. But finding the electrician who can competently work on our solar charging systems and not create, you know, gigantic health and fire hazards and all that kind of stuff is a much bigger problem. So, finding first the most competent person, then also working with them in terms of, you know, good quality workmanship is quite a bit of a challenge.
[02:37] Robert> What sort of challenges do you find from the government there?
[02:42] Kurt> That was really - you know, when I said that we've been working there about 6 years with only 4 years of really project work, the first two years were a lot of, sort of, government work relationshi
Oh that goes through a white list, so I wouldn't have received it if you used that e-mail address:) I will be in touch. Good job on the SlashdotTV page! ( And whoever designed the icon to make the antenna poke out from the bar? Kudos to them. )
To expand on that a wee bit. I tried using a speech recognition system but they make quite a few errors. Google's is one of the best out there and if you've ever used YouTube's closed caption system you've probably quickly stopped doing so.
My brain is also not wired for listening to one thing, and watching text appear as another thing, and detecting errors and quickly fixing them that way. Maybe with a lot of training, but right now it's just confusing.
So what I do is record the audio and while playing back the video make note of times when there's something happening - a significant section change, something being pointed out that wouldn't become clear from the spoken lines, etc. Once recorded I actually perform the transcription, which mostly means hitting play, typing, and hoping I can keep up. When I can't, pause playback for a moment, finish typing, un-pause and continue.
If there's a word I just can't make out, I'll make a note of it. If there's a proper name, I try to make sure I have the correct one. For example, the Qu8ke video referred to a building as the former "Chess Hall of Fame". Not knowing any better I thought I must have misunderstood that, but a bit of Googling around showed that, indeed, it was once known as such. Another example was the recent video of a tabletop developer referring to something that sounded like "Munchkin 8 - Have Horse, Will Travel". But because it's a proper name, I double-checked, and it's actually "Munchkin 8 - Half Horse, Will Travel".
I have done transcribing before, many years ago, and recently did it again for the HexBright Open Source Light videos - although that was more to make sure people could search through those transcriptions to what was said and in which video, so they aren't descriptive.
When I saw a recent Slashdot video emerge I remember from earlier videos the complaints that not everybody is in a position to play back videos and would rather have text. Transcriptions can build a bridge between the desire by a site to feature videos and the desire by its users to not have to watch them. I do recommend watching the videos, though - a picture is worth a thousand words, a video etc.
The only annoyance is the video player of choice. If it supported seeking solidly, it would cut out a one of the steps I outlined above.
Oh, transcripts for all videos on the TV site would be helpful for many as well.
I think that may just be in the pipeline;)
For now, here's the Transcript for this video. ----- Title: Welcome to SlashdotTV Description: Welcoe to SlashdotTV, the / dedicated channel for all video on / Slashdot. This new site lets you / easily browse and watch videos / based on a number of criteria, / including title, subject keywords, / popularity, and those handpicked / by the site's dedicated editors.
[00:00] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar slides down from the top of the screen over a background that shows the SlashdotTV page, and "Welcome to TV.Slashdot.org" fades into the bar.
[00:01] Timothy> Introducing SlashdotTV, where we get up-close and personal [...]
[00:03] <TITLE> Various shots from interviews quickly pass by at this time.
[00:03] Timothy> [...] or drop in via video chat with interesting people from all parts of the tech spectrum;
[00:09] Timothy> From hobbyists [...]
[00:10] <TITLE> A shot from the Qu8ke interview video is shown in which a 'hobby' rocket is launched.
[00:14] <TITLE> Various shots from interviews quickly pass by again.
[00:14] Timothy> [...] to entrepreneurs to project leaders - and sometimes, all three at once.
[00:18] <TITLE> The shot at this time is of Chris Qiu with the his name and title "Senior Architect/Lead Developer for the Trove Insight Solution" displayed in the bottom.
[00:18] Timothy> There's also a corner for sponsored videos, which means supported by advertisers.
[00:22] <TITLE> Shots of the SlashdotTV webpage pass by, relating to the spoken words.
[00:22] Timothy> You can explore our current categories or search for videos by keyword.
[00:26] Timothy> You can comment on videos right from the Slashdot page, or watch or re-watch them at any time from this page.
[00:32] Timothy> We're looking for good ideas of what should make the cut. So please help us shape Slashdot's future with your suggestions, [...]
[00:37] <TITLE> The shot changes to that of several pinball machines.
[00:37] Timothy> [...] and keep watching for more.
I've been adding transcripts to most of the Video stories as of late. I was nudged today saying I should check the replies because apparently there was some official interest in having this done.
Whatever happens there, if there won't be any official transcripts, I'll try to continue to provide them as time allows.
Which brings me to one recommendation for the videos.. not so much the recording side, though: Please get ooyala to fix their player:| Infinite spinning disc of buffering when trying to seek? Reminds me of RealPlayer.. except at least its buffering wasn't infinite;\
I have no valuable input on the streaming-recording side as HD resolutions are apparently one of the goals - that's going to be problematic in general, I suspect. For most of the videos that's probably overkill, anyway? But perhaps some interviews could be done not so much on-the-fly but rather with a list of questions, so that video can be recorded locally and transferred after the fact - the interviewee would still have to be willing to and capable of record(ing) this, of course, and the interview would be a lot less dynamic.
THANK YOU. The stream was unwatchable (see my other comment).
- by Anonymous Coward uhmm... you mean there's only one of you? If so, I feel that I should tell you that I really disapprove of all those goatse trap links you posted back in the day:(
Don't worry - happens to the best of us; I just think that/. should do better in these stories in terms of filtering them (off the front page or entirely). But that's a different discussion:)
Your question seemed to set limits which are unrealistic, that's why the conclusion is really 'HDD' even though you specifically set that as something that wouldn't be an option.
I can tell you how I do it, it's just not cheap. Also, it's not really 'managing' my data.. it's a storage/backup solution. The difference is that if I 'managed' my data, I wouldn't have tens of thousands of digital camera photos in a bunch of folders with meaningless names, but just a few that are actually worth saving to me. It's not that I'm saving all the others for future generations either, I just don't have the energy to go through so many photos and delete all but the best (the very best I've already shared anyway).
But if it's just storage/backup... 1. Every write made to the main HDD is mirrored via a mirroring RAID setup. Pure mirroring, I don't want to deal with RAID levels that use parity/etc. that may save some space but are a PITA to rebuild (and must be rebuilt - a simple mirrored HDD mounts just fine when taken out of the RAID).
2. Files are written to a versioning filesystem, so that if I delete something that I later regret, I can get an older version back (presuming things didn't run out of space and it had to be overwritten with new data).
3. Files saved to a specific area are further synced with a cloud storage solution. These are basically files that I need to be able to access from any location at any time (short of the cloud hoster folding/etc.) asap in case of an emergency. There's very few files that qualify, so bandwidth and monthly caps aren't an issue. I did upload about half a GiB worth initially, though.
4. Every night the computer does a differential backup to an external, also mirrored, HDD, over the network. This is a set that is in a completely different area of the house, so if I manage to trip and splash water all over everything here, the others are fine.
5. Every 2 weeks (used to be weekly) I bring one of the HDDs in the mirroring set in the other room to an off-site location (basically a storage locker). From that off-site location I bring back another HDD and put that into the RAID, and force an update of that HDD from the other one.
So -if- one of my main HDDs dies, there's always the other one. If they both manage to die at the same time, I've still got a daily backup in another room. If that dies, that has another one. If those both die, I still have a 2-weekly backup in an offsite location. If that one's dead as well (what are the odds??), then all my most important stuff is also in the cloud. If that cloud storage solution goes belly-up at the same time and data can't be retrieved? Well, I'm screwed. But life does go on - people whose houses burn down often don't have such a rigorous backup method in place, and they pick up again as well.
That said... 6. Of very important photos, I've got prints (a Kodak booth does better than your home inkjet) or even negatives (the better photography stores can point you in the right direction for that). Of very important documents, I've got print-outs (laserjet). Of very important video? Nothing. Of very important (music) recordings? Also nothing. I have no such 'very important' of the latter two - but I think you get the idea: I would have gotten those transferred to film and/or tape. The reason is that those can easily be seen by human eyes or played back for human interpretation - digital data not so much.
TItle: Industry Expert Alfred Poor Gives HDTV Buying Advice Description: There are features you need and some you don't
[00:00] <TITLE> A "Slashdot TV" logo appears in the bottom left with "An Interview with Alfred Poor of HDTV Almanac" to its right. "What mistakes do / people make when / they buy an HDTV?" zooms into view.
[00:04] Alfred> The biggest one they make of all is not buying [...]
[00:06] <TITLE> A webcam picture of Alfred Poor fades into view.
[...] the right size TV. A lot of people were trained - I don't know about you, but I was trained, growing up, to not sit too close to the TV - it's going to ruin your eyes. In fact, I was taught: hold your palm out so that if it covers up the screen, then you're at the right distance. That's great for the old-fashioned standard definition TV but it's not the right move at all for HDTV. I try to tell people to think in terms of going to the movies; You don't sit all the way in the back of the theater so that you can cover up your screen with your hand - You want an immersive experience, where you're enveloped by the image. That's the same thing you want at home. For most people, they typically get a screen that's a lot smaller than what they really should have. There are a lot of rules of thumb out there - some of them are wrong, but they basically.. if you're gonna be sitting about 6 feet away, you need at least a 42" screen. A 47" screen would be even better. So, that's one of the big mistakes that people make. Now the prices have come down so much that a larger screen doesn't cost that much more. So I encourage people to buy probably the next size up from what they they ought to get.
[01:22] <TITLE> "Are HDTV prices going / to keep on going down?" fades in and out of view. These titles appear throughout the video.
[01:28] Alfred> Actually, the story is that the prices have been coming down very steadily. They've been coming down almost 20%/year, for the last 4 or 5 years. If there's one business that I would not want to be in, it would be manufacturing HDTVs. It's a brutal, brutal business. We've seen Pioneer get out of it. Panasonic is backpedaling, even though they have this huge commitment to plasma screens. SONY is trying to figure out how not to make their own anymore, just job it all out to somebody else in China. Philips doesn't make 'm anymore - they've just loaned the name to somebody else to stick on their sets. On and on and on - it's a brutal, brutal business. We've got Samsung, we've got LG - you've got a handful who are doing a good job of making a go at it, but they're probably losing a lot of money on it also. So the price has been coming down pretty steadily. Will they keep coming down? Well, each year I say they just can't keep coming down any more than they have, just because you get all the materials' cost. And yet, they continue to do so. I think it's gotta slow down - I think we're probably getting near the bottom. If we see cuts at this point, it'll be more due to distress than increased efficiency. It will be because there'll be either retailers or manufacturers who are stuck with inventory and trying to get some cash out of it, rather than sit there having to pay interest on the inventory. Though having said that, we're gonna see a bunch of good opportunities, probably in the next 3 or 4 months, to get some very good deals on HDTVs. Sears has announced that they're gonna be closing a whole lot of stores, and that could put a whole lot of product into the channel at low prices as they try to liquidate some of that inventory. Each store is gonna have several of each model on hand. So you're talking about hundreds of sets right there. If Sears starts advertising prices that are way low, well Best Buy, Costco, they're gonna have to follow them right down into the mountain, so that they don't give up market share.
Either.. A: Buy that HDD. Yes, they're a bit more expensive right now..or.. B: Wait a few months, prices will come down again, buy that HDD then. Yes, you may lose your data in the mean time.
Too bad it had a short running time, Castellan might be worth a look for somewhat older kids.
-----
Title: Timothy Lord Checks Out Steve Jackson Games' Latest Description: Fun Fact: Steve Jackson made games before there were computers to play them on
[00:00] <TITLE> The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." zooms out to the bottom right corner of a view of 3 custom dice from the game Zombie Dice.
[00:01] <TITLE> A view of Timothy without his signature glasses.
[00:01] Timothy> Not all the gaming action at south-by-southwest (SXSW) was electronic. The Catan folks were on hand, and so was Steve Jackson Games. Steve Jackson Games has been around since 1980; It's a real Austin stalwart. Philip Reed COO of the company took a few minutes to lead us through the company's new tabletop game offerings.
[00:18] <TITLE> The view changes to that of the interviewee, Philip Reed, sitting behind a desk with various board game items on it.
[00:18] Phil> I'm Phil Reed with Steve Jackson Games and I'm gonna show you a couple of our upcoming releases.
[00:24] Phil> Right this year we'll have Dino Hunt Dice out. This is for kids 10 and up. In the game you are going to go through and look for dinosaurs. Like our Zombie Dice game, you will roll the dice, and you want to find dinosaurs so you capture them and bring them back to your zoo. This dinosaur's hiding in the leaves, so if you keep going you're gonna roll the die again. This dinosaur stepped on me. If you get stepped on 3 times, your turn is over, and you don't get to take any of the dinosaurs home with you. This is really quick, simple, should be out later this fall.
[01:05] Phil> Also this year we have Castellan. This is a two plaer strategy game where each player has cards, [...]
[01:17] <TITLE> The view changes to a closer look at the cards in Phil's hands.
[01:17] Phil> [...] and each player will have the exact same decks of cards. The cards allow you to play [...]
[01:20] <TITLE> The view changes back to Phil sitting at the table.
[01:20] Phil> [...] pieces to build a castle. On your turn you'll play a card, you'll add pieces to the castle. You're trying to score locations, so you wanna fill a courtyard completely, so it's totally walled in. At the end of the game this courtyard is worth 5 points - one for each tower. The game takes about 30 minutes. I think it's my favorite new game we have coming this year.
[01:46] Phil> For things available in stores right now we have the latest Munchkin expansion; "Munchkin 8 - Half Horse, Will Travel". This was designed by our Munchkin Tzar, Andrew Hackard and illustrated by John Kovalic. It's stupid, silly, fun - it's everything you expect from Munchkin.
[02:07] Phil> Hitting stores in the next couple of weeks is "The Good, The Bad, The Munchkin 2 - Beating a Dead Horse". Because, well, that's what we like to do with things.
[02:19] Phil> Also coming out at the same time will be Zombie Dice 2. It's the first expansion for our Zombie Dice game. These three dice fit right inside this cup. You get Santa Claus, who might bring you presents or he might shoot you. You also get the The Hunk and The Hottie - these two work together and if you've got one in your brains pile with the other one comes up a shotgun, the brains are rescued, he goes back into the cup, so they're dangerous. Notice her fashionable high heels(!)
[02:52] Phil> That's what we've got new. Also this later year we'll have Munchkin Conan and Munchkin Apocalypse.
[02:57] <TITLE> The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." fades into view in the bottom right corner and the background changes to the view of the three dice used at the beginning of the video.
The EFF helped set up an effort for U.S. users of MegaUpload to get their data back. They should have some information on how many requests they've gotten.
"Carpathia Hosting has created the website www.MegaRetrieval.com to help lawful users in the United States work with EFF to investigate their options for retrieving their legitimate, non-infringing files from Megaupload."
An AC above made the same argument with regard to swapping SIM cards - but if I buy a subsidized Vodafone phone here in NL, I can't just stick a T-Mobile SIM card in and use that instead.
I'll first have to get that Vodafone phone unlocked. I have that right after 1 year, or after the contract is up, whichever comes first. Or I can get it done at one of the more shady shops (which appear on most street corners down from the official provider shops in big cities).
Even then the phone itself might have a country lock preventing me from sticking a U.S. AT&T card in there.
So whether it's handled in software or via a card doesn't really matter in terms of people switching providers.
I wouldn't know what MITM attack becomes easier if it's handled in software - keeping in mind that not the entirety of SIM would have to be software, just all of the identification bits. An internal chip (probably integrated into the radio chip) can still handle any en/decryption needs and other bits and pieces that you'd rather not expose too easily via software.
Now unfortunately it has become a battle between companies that want to give their own little twist to it. Why? So they can charge license fees, of course. FRAND - yes, but $5 per device surely is completely fair? Especially if you're the company that gets that $5 per competitor's device.
For now it looks like Apple is likely to be that company, as it already has several large European providers on board and is also trying to get a larger vote within ETSI. (Financial Times).
I have to say I had expected to see more case mods - but I suppose that's what the interwebs are for. ----- Title: Austin Modders Take Their Exotic PCs to SXSW Description: Custom PCs AND a huge LAN party. W00T!
[00:00] <TITLE> "Austin Modders / Take Their Radical PC Mods to SXSW" appears over a background showing a computer case and monitor while the Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." zooms out from view to the bottom right.
[00:03] John> This is my custom case mod that I'd done many years ago.
[00:06] <TITLE> As the camera pans up, the name of the person interviewed fades in and out: John Zitterkopf.
[00:06] John> I started this project probably back in 2000. It was popular on a lot of the modding forums of the day: ars technica[?], WizD, those kind of websites.
[00:18] John> This box is a custom mount-mod UFO case. Again, purchased several years ago.
[00:26] <TITLE> The view changes to a closer look at the back of the case mod being discussed.
[00:26] John> It's been heavily modified. One of the things that I did is that I polished - [...]
[00:30] <TITLE> The view changes back to the view of John.
[00:30] John> [...] - it was a brushed aluminum surface - I polished it completely and sent it off to nickel-platers, so the entire case is nickel-plated aluminum.
[00:45] <TITLE> The view changes to a closer look at the back of the case mod again and pans around to the side.
[00:45] John> All of the plexiglass you see on here is customized as well. I modified it with CAD programs and sent it off to laser-cutters to get cut.
[00:52] <TITLE> The view changes back to John.
[0:52] John> There's custom etching on the front; reset button here, power button here. The case itself has an Extreme Edition i7 in it, with 8GiB of memory. It's a little long in the tooth but it's still good. Water-cooled. Very heavy.
[01:15] <TITLE> The view changes to a close-up look of the handle discussed.
[01:15] John> That's why there's a nice spring-loaded handle [...]
[01:16] <TITLE> Back to John.
[01:16] John> [...] here; this thing probably weighs close to 100 pounds.
[1:19] <TITLE> "The Austin Modders Run a / Huge, Noise LAN Party at SXSW" appears over a typical LAN party view - lots of computers on rows of desks.
[1:17] <TITLE> The title '"Call me Mister Red," he says' appears over a view of a man in a cowboy hat behind two case mods.
[1:27] Mr. Red> This is one of my first mods. This is DÃjà 2.0. It's a LAN PC that I built for coming to places like this where you needed to grab all your components and move them to a different location.
[01:42] <TITLE> The view pans down to a closer look of the case mod being discussed, which is largely made of woodworked materials and resembles a suitcase-style case.
[01:42] Mr. Red> The monitor is on a hinge. My keyboard, monitor - everything is integrated. I've even got some speakers up in here. The guts are standard tower components. It's not like I've got a laptop built into this thing, I put a desktop harddrive, desktop powersupply and a desktop motherboard [in it]
[02:07] Mr. Red> This evolved over about 3 years. It was quite a bit of work. It was a lot of learning experience, too, because I've never done anything like this. I'm not a woodworker, so there was a lot of learning.
[02:18] <TITLE> The view changes to the previously discussed case mod and somebody interacting with it.
[02:22] <TITLE> The view changes to a black "Austin modders" card on top of a red chamfered box, and pans to the side to reveal the other case mod, a largely red box with window and red interior illumination.
[02:27] <TITLE> The view changes to another look at the woodworked case mod, wit
The only reason he gets away with this stuff is because he's bringing in umpteen millions on his films so far.
He may flop entirely with TMNT and consequently be pulled from ThunderCats, though. Hollywood can be fickle like that. But then they'll just find somebody else to screw that up:)
Go ahead, put it on the boxes. You know that kids will still be buying them anyway (same way that 9-year-olds are buying games rated for 13+ right now), and that mommy and daddy will buy them for their kids for Christmas just as well. The impact from the warning on those boxes (that you keep at home and rarely see - and doesn't even apply to e.g. Steam downloads) is even less than the warnings on cigarette boxes (comparison suggested in article) which are visible any time one grabs one of the ~20 in the pack, which is often around others. ( Of course there's companies that sell sleeves that block off the warning. )
So clearly keeping people from buying them can't be the goal. So what is? Financial ruin by trying to get Walmart not to sell them? Hardly an issue to begin with (not the only games sellers) and Walmart wouldn't shoot themselves in the foot that much. Some manner of legal liability? But having the warnings on there should mean people can no longer blame the game devs/publishers, no? They could just point to the government-mandated warning that little Johnny could go to school and mow down his classmates after playing that game, not their fault they bought it for him anyway.
Baca and Wolf just wanted their names out there for political reasons, is my best guess so far.
Maybe there's a nuance in liability that I missed - that would still be the most likely ulterior motive.
You know, come to think of it.. I don't think I've ever dreamed (of) an ad.
Off-topic as this might be, I'm going to pose this as a serious question: have any of you ever dreamed an ad?
I've had a great many number of dreams that range wildly in topics and vividness. I once woke up remember several lines of text from a book I was reading in my dream - I googled the lines of text but as far as it was concerned, those lines were not written anywhere for it to find.
But I don't recall having ever seen an ad. Or even related. I.e. walking down a city, I remember stores, I remember cars, traffic, people, the rain, a gust of wind... I don't, however, remember any H&M ads in the bus stalls, or Heineken sign outside a bar.
( Of course now that I've written this, I'll bet I'll be dreaming of ads come tonight. Damn. )
The only problem with this approach is you are asking the ad networks to do more work with no real benefit to themselves.
Not quite. The ad networks (Google's, etc.) do just one thing.. serve up ads based on certain metrics that you send in a request. If you send 5 requests, you get 5 ads. There's no change required on that end.
Ad frameworks are a different matter. Most of the large ad networks also offer ad frameworks that make it easy to implement advertising based on their services - be that on your website or in an app. Those frameworks may not be well-suited to pre-loading multiple ads. The benefit to them is that they could also more efficiently grab ads. Whether that outweighs the loss of having up-to-the-second metrics (as opposed to, say, once per day), I'll leave up to them to worry about.
Developers, however, don't necessarily have to use these frameworks and, as long as their agreements allow it (usually when the payout isn't based on impressions, but on clickthroughs), grab 5 ads,10 ads, 100 ads and display those as needed.
I do agree though that most users are just going to shrug it off, as are most developers.
As it is, while these ad connections do sip battery power some, it's still the displays that easily take the most energy even with them forced to their lowest setting.
More specifically, bad ad serving code eats your smartphone battery.
If your app connects to an ad server/framework every minute, or on particular events, etc. etc. each time... then yes, that's going to suck down energy real fast.
Instead, download multiple ads (in the background), serve from that pool.
Better yet, as somebody at a Dutch tech site suggested, let shared ad frameworks do this so that N ads downloaded can be shared across multiple apps.
There are down sides, of course: - the ads in the pool may become outdated. I.e. if somebody searched for PNDs today, the ads downloaded yesterday won't be notifying you of the latest TomTom/Garmin/whatever offerings. This can be corrected by always refreshing after a set time. - you may end up downloading more ads than you'll actually use before such a refresh, which means you actually used more energy (and bandwidth) than you would have under traditional methods.
But in general, all this opening/closing of connections which in turn may or may not lead to 3G / 4G modules kicking into action, etc. is just inefficient.
But then what would you call an ISP that actually checks for compliance with, and enforces its own ToS? Are those then cops? And if part of their ToS says "no uploading illegal material" and including in that the subject matter at hand, wouldn't that make them "copyright police" by default?
The reason it's 'quite a leap' is because police are the investigative branch. If anything, the subject should have read that ISPs are becoming copyright executioners, with the interest groups as the judges, and nobody for a jury.
This past year I downloaded about 200 movies and liked almost none of them.
Wait... somewhere after movie #150 that you didn't like you kept thinking "maybe the next one will be awesome!"?
I guess at least you watched every single one of them yourself to form your own opinion, but surely it can't hurt to start with some reviews? Figure out what reviewers you usually agree with and weigh their reviews more heavily, before you download 200 movies the majority of which you could probably have guessed you wouldn't like.
It would have saved you from bad entertainment, and freed your time for the books and magazines (presuming you don't just download the ebook versions of those, too, of course).
Slashdot Mirror
It's also the day of Earth Hour - a day on which, for one hour, people around the world turn off the lights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Hour
I wonder how many here personally partake.
-----
As for backing up goes, I'll just re-paste here what I said in a recent other Ask Slashdot question:
It's not really 'managing' my data.. it's a storage/backup solution. The difference is that if I 'managed' my data, I wouldn't have tens of thousands of digital camera photos in a bunch of folders with meaningless names, but just a few that are actually worth saving to me. It's not that I'm saving all the others for future generations either, I just don't have the energy to go through so many photos and delete all but the best (the very best I've already shared anyway).
But if it's just storage/backup...
1. Every write made to the main HDD is mirrored via a mirroring RAID setup. Pure mirroring, I don't want to deal with RAID levels that use parity/etc. that may save some space but are a PITA to rebuild (and must be rebuilt - a simple mirrored HDD mounts just fine when taken out of the RAID).
2. Files are written to a versioning filesystem, so that if I delete something that I later regret, I can get an older version back (presuming things didn't run out of space and it had to be overwritten with new data).
3. Files saved to a specific area are further synced with a cloud storage solution. These are basically files that I need to be able to access from any location at any time (short of the cloud hoster folding/etc.) asap in case of an emergency. There's very few files that qualify, so bandwidth and monthly caps aren't an issue. I did upload about half a GiB worth initially, though.
4. Every night the computer does a differential backup to an external, also mirrored, HDD, over the network. This is a set that is in a completely different area of the house, so if I manage to trip and splash water all over everything here, the others are fine.
5. Every 2 weeks (used to be weekly) I bring one of the HDDs in the mirroring set in the other room to an off-site location (basically a storage locker). From that off-site location I bring back another HDD and put that into the RAID, and force an update of that HDD from the other one.
So -if- one of my main HDDs dies, there's always the other one. If they both manage to die at the same time, I've still got a daily backup in another room. If that dies, that has another one. If those both die, I still have a 2-weekly backup in an offsite location. If that one's dead as well (what are the odds??), then all my most important stuff is also in the cloud. If that cloud storage solution goes belly-up at the same time and data can't be retrieved? Well, I'm screwed. But life does go on - people whose houses burn down often don't have such a rigorous backup method in place, and they pick up again as well.
That said...
6. Of very important photos, I've got prints (a Kodak booth does better than your home inkjet) or even negatives (the better photography stores can point you in the right direction for that). Of very important documents, I've got print-outs (laserjet). Of very important video? Nothing. Of very important (music) recordings? Also nothing. I have no such 'very important' of the latter two - but I think you get the idea: I would have gotten those transferred to film and/or tape. The reason is that those can easily be seen by human eyes or played back for human interpretation - digital data not so much.
Title: MSU professor Kurt [DeMaagd] Helps bring Broadband Internet to Rural Africa
Description: Kurt (who was one of Slashdot's co-founders many years ago) believes his students get as much out of the broadband project as the people in Tanzania who are its primary beneficiaries.
[00:00] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Bringing broadband Internet to Rural Tanzania" appears in the bottom over a still image from the interview with Professor Kurt DeMaagd. The backdrop is a white room with a "2001: a space odyssey" poster.
[00:04] <TITLE>
The view fades to that of Robert Rozeboom in front of the "2001: a space odyssey" poster with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "Robert Rozeboom (samzenpus on Slashdot)
[00:04] Robert>
In addition to perfecting his ping pong game, Professort Kurt DeMaagd spends a lot of his time working on initiatives that bring broadband to rural communities in developing nations.
Today we'll be talking to him about his work in Africa.
[00:16] <TITLE>
The view fades back Professor Kurt DeMaagd with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "MSU Professor Kurt DeMaagd"
[00:14] Kurt>
I am one of the faculty leads in a project where we have students setting up broadband connections in rural Tanzania.
[00:25] Robert>
How did you get interested in doing that in Africa?
[00:28] Kurt>
Well I've done other research work on the economic impacts of broadband in various countries, and most of it tends to be working with, sort of, country-level economic indicators.
There seems to be a big gap between what these country-level indicators can study and the actual on-the-ground realities.
So we thought "Well, let's do a project that actually gets in touch with the people."
In part of doing that we thought "Well, maybe we can also blend this with a student project, and get students to actually go out and do some of the roll-out, get some real world experience in a rather challenging environment."
[01:05] Kurt>
The biggest technical challenge actually is not the original, I guess, start-up technical challenges, but the ongoing support.
So we can come in with our teams, get everything set up, running perfectly and go back home, and a week later things are broken.
So the tech challenge is not so much identifying what's going wrong and how to fix it, but how do we actually find the long-term ongoing support working with community members there - so we started partnering with, for example, the University of Dodoma, we have people nearby our schools that we work with who are somewhat trained in the technology so that we can provide the support there.
But most the stuff is not a brand new technology that we're developing, but often times adapted the technology just for the individual local needs.
[01:53] Robert>
So the biggest problem really is getting the helpdesk.
[01:57] Kurt>
*laughs* exactly - the classic challenge!
We can go in and fix it, but you know I don't want to fly to Tanzania every week when somebody has problems.
[02:03] Robert>
Are you training people specifically for that?
Part of the project?
[02:07] Kurt>
Yeah, exactly.
Part of it is identifying people there who have experience.
So, for example, there are plenty of people there who kind of bill themselves as an electrician.
But finding the electrician who can competently work on our solar charging systems and not create, you know, gigantic health and fire hazards and all that kind of stuff is a much bigger problem.
So, finding first the most competent person, then also working with them in terms of, you know, good quality workmanship is quite a bit of a challenge.
[02:37] Robert>
What sort of challenges do you find from the government there?
[02:42] Kurt>
That was really - you know, when I said that we've been working there about 6 years with only 4 years of really project work, the first two years were a lot of, sort of, government work relationshi
Oh that goes through a white list, so I wouldn't have received it if you used that e-mail address :) I will be in touch. Good job on the SlashdotTV page!
( And whoever designed the icon to make the antenna poke out from the bar? Kudos to them. )
Glad to hear it :)
I have actually had the checkbox to disable ads for quite a while now (well before the video transcripts), but I haven't checked it as of yet.
Thank you, and you're welcome :)
Yes, manually. See also: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2746001&cid=39483397
To expand on that a wee bit. I tried using a speech recognition system but they make quite a few errors. Google's is one of the best out there and if you've ever used YouTube's closed caption system you've probably quickly stopped doing so.
My brain is also not wired for listening to one thing, and watching text appear as another thing, and detecting errors and quickly fixing them that way. Maybe with a lot of training, but right now it's just confusing.
So what I do is record the audio and while playing back the video make note of times when there's something happening - a significant section change, something being pointed out that wouldn't become clear from the spoken lines, etc. Once recorded I actually perform the transcription, which mostly means hitting play, typing, and hoping I can keep up. When I can't, pause playback for a moment, finish typing, un-pause and continue.
If there's a word I just can't make out, I'll make a note of it. If there's a proper name, I try to make sure I have the correct one. For example, the Qu8ke video referred to a building as the former "Chess Hall of Fame". Not knowing any better I thought I must have misunderstood that, but a bit of Googling around showed that, indeed, it was once known as such. Another example was the recent video of a tabletop developer referring to something that sounded like "Munchkin 8 - Have Horse, Will Travel". But because it's a proper name, I double-checked, and it's actually "Munchkin 8 - Half Horse, Will Travel".
I have done transcribing before, many years ago, and recently did it again for the HexBright Open Source Light videos - although that was more to make sure people could search through those transcriptions to what was said and in which video, so they aren't descriptive.
When I saw a recent Slashdot video emerge I remember from earlier videos the complaints that not everybody is in a position to play back videos and would rather have text. Transcriptions can build a bridge between the desire by a site to feature videos and the desire by its users to not have to watch them.
I do recommend watching the videos, though - a picture is worth a thousand words, a video etc.
The only annoyance is the video player of choice. If it supported seeking solidly, it would cut out a one of the steps I outlined above.
I think that may just be in the pipeline ;)
For now, here's the Transcript for this video.
-----
Title: Welcome to SlashdotTV
Description: Welcoe to SlashdotTV, the / dedicated channel for all video on / Slashdot. This new site lets you / easily browse and watch videos / based on a number of criteria, / including title, subject keywords, / popularity, and those handpicked / by the site's dedicated editors.
[00:00] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar slides down from the top of the screen over a background that shows the SlashdotTV page, and "Welcome to TV.Slashdot.org" fades into the bar.
[00:01] Timothy>
Introducing SlashdotTV, where we get up-close and personal [...]
[00:03] <TITLE>
Various shots from interviews quickly pass by at this time.
[00:03] Timothy>
[...] or drop in via video chat with interesting people from all parts of the tech spectrum;
[00:09] Timothy>
From hobbyists [...]
[00:10] <TITLE>
A shot from the Qu8ke interview video is shown in which a 'hobby' rocket is launched.
[00:14] <TITLE>
Various shots from interviews quickly pass by again.
[00:14] Timothy>
[...] to entrepreneurs to project leaders - and sometimes, all three at once.
[00:18] <TITLE>
The shot at this time is of Chris Qiu with the his name and title "Senior Architect/Lead Developer for the Trove Insight Solution" displayed in the bottom.
[00:18] Timothy>
There's also a corner for sponsored videos, which means supported by advertisers.
[00:22] <TITLE>
Shots of the SlashdotTV webpage pass by, relating to the spoken words.
[00:22] Timothy>
You can explore our current categories or search for videos by keyword.
[00:26] Timothy>
You can comment on videos right from the Slashdot page, or watch or re-watch them at any time from this page.
[00:32] Timothy>
We're looking for good ideas of what should make the cut.
So please help us shape Slashdot's future with your suggestions, [...]
[00:37] <TITLE>
The shot changes to that of several pinball machines.
[00:37] Timothy>
[...] and keep watching for more.
Hi there,
I've been adding transcripts to most of the Video stories as of late. I was nudged today saying I should check the replies because apparently there was some official interest in having this done.
Whatever happens there, if there won't be any official transcripts, I'll try to continue to provide them as time allows.
Which brings me to one recommendation for the videos.. not so much the recording side, though: Please get ooyala to fix their player :| Infinite spinning disc of buffering when trying to seek? Reminds me of RealPlayer.. except at least its buffering wasn't infinite ;\
I have no valuable input on the streaming-recording side as HD resolutions are apparently one of the goals - that's going to be problematic in general, I suspect. For most of the videos that's probably overkill, anyway?
But perhaps some interviews could be done not so much on-the-fly but rather with a list of questions, so that video can be recorded locally and transferred after the fact - the interviewee would still have to be willing to and capable of record(ing) this, of course, and the interview would be a lot less dynamic.
magic!
No, not puff the magic dragon naturally speaking - that would be the sane way to do it.
Typing magic + Audacity (because the ooyala video player is pants).
- by Anonymous Coward :(
uhmm... you mean there's only one of you? If so, I feel that I should tell you that I really disapprove of all those goatse trap links you posted back in the day
anyway, you're welcome ;)
Don't worry - happens to the best of us; I just think that /. should do better in these stories in terms of filtering them (off the front page or entirely). But that's a different discussion :)
Your question seemed to set limits which are unrealistic, that's why the conclusion is really 'HDD' even though you specifically set that as something that wouldn't be an option.
I can tell you how I do it, it's just not cheap. Also, it's not really 'managing' my data.. it's a storage/backup solution. The difference is that if I 'managed' my data, I wouldn't have tens of thousands of digital camera photos in a bunch of folders with meaningless names, but just a few that are actually worth saving to me. It's not that I'm saving all the others for future generations either, I just don't have the energy to go through so many photos and delete all but the best (the very best I've already shared anyway).
But if it's just storage/backup...
1. Every write made to the main HDD is mirrored via a mirroring RAID setup. Pure mirroring, I don't want to deal with RAID levels that use parity/etc. that may save some space but are a PITA to rebuild (and must be rebuilt - a simple mirrored HDD mounts just fine when taken out of the RAID).
2. Files are written to a versioning filesystem, so that if I delete something that I later regret, I can get an older version back (presuming things didn't run out of space and it had to be overwritten with new data).
3. Files saved to a specific area are further synced with a cloud storage solution. These are basically files that I need to be able to access from any location at any time (short of the cloud hoster folding/etc.) asap in case of an emergency. There's very few files that qualify, so bandwidth and monthly caps aren't an issue. I did upload about half a GiB worth initially, though.
4. Every night the computer does a differential backup to an external, also mirrored, HDD, over the network. This is a set that is in a completely different area of the house, so if I manage to trip and splash water all over everything here, the others are fine.
5. Every 2 weeks (used to be weekly) I bring one of the HDDs in the mirroring set in the other room to an off-site location (basically a storage locker). From that off-site location I bring back another HDD and put that into the RAID, and force an update of that HDD from the other one.
So -if- one of my main HDDs dies, there's always the other one. If they both manage to die at the same time, I've still got a daily backup in another room. If that dies, that has another one. If those both die, I still have a 2-weekly backup in an offsite location. If that one's dead as well (what are the odds??), then all my most important stuff is also in the cloud. If that cloud storage solution goes belly-up at the same time and data can't be retrieved? Well, I'm screwed. But life does go on - people whose houses burn down often don't have such a rigorous backup method in place, and they pick up again as well.
That said...
6. Of very important photos, I've got prints (a Kodak booth does better than your home inkjet) or even negatives (the better photography stores can point you in the right direction for that). Of very important documents, I've got print-outs (laserjet). Of very important video? Nothing. Of very important (music) recordings? Also nothing. I have no such 'very important' of the latter two - but I think you get the idea: I would have gotten those transferred to film and/or tape. The reason is that those can easily be seen by human eyes or played back for human interpretation - digital data not so much.
TItle: Industry Expert Alfred Poor Gives HDTV Buying Advice
Description: There are features you need and some you don't
[00:00] <TITLE>
A "Slashdot TV" logo appears in the bottom left with "An Interview with Alfred Poor of HDTV Almanac" to its right.
"What mistakes do / people make when / they buy an HDTV?" zooms into view.
[00:04] Alfred>
The biggest one they make of all is not buying [...]
[00:06] <TITLE>
A webcam picture of Alfred Poor fades into view.
[...] the right size TV.
A lot of people were trained - I don't know about you, but I was trained, growing up, to not sit too close to the TV - it's going to ruin your eyes.
In fact, I was taught: hold your palm out so that if it covers up the screen, then you're at the right distance.
That's great for the old-fashioned standard definition TV but it's not the right move at all for HDTV.
I try to tell people to think in terms of going to the movies; You don't sit all the way in the back of the theater so that you can cover up your screen with your hand - You want an immersive experience, where you're enveloped by the image.
That's the same thing you want at home.
For most people, they typically get a screen that's a lot smaller than what they really should have.
There are a lot of rules of thumb out there - some of them are wrong, but they basically.. if you're gonna be sitting about 6 feet away, you need at least a 42" screen.
A 47" screen would be even better.
So, that's one of the big mistakes that people make.
Now the prices have come down so much that a larger screen doesn't cost that much more.
So I encourage people to buy probably the next size up from what they they ought to get.
[01:22] <TITLE>
"Are HDTV prices going / to keep on going down?" fades in and out of view. These titles appear throughout the video.
[01:28] Alfred>
Actually, the story is that the prices have been coming down very steadily.
They've been coming down almost 20%/year, for the last 4 or 5 years.
If there's one business that I would not want to be in, it would be manufacturing HDTVs.
It's a brutal, brutal business.
We've seen Pioneer get out of it.
Panasonic is backpedaling, even though they have this huge commitment to plasma screens.
SONY is trying to figure out how not to make their own anymore, just job it all out to somebody else in China.
Philips doesn't make 'm anymore - they've just loaned the name to somebody else to stick on their sets.
On and on and on - it's a brutal, brutal business.
We've got Samsung, we've got LG - you've got a handful who are doing a good job of making a go at it, but they're probably losing a lot of money on it also.
So the price has been coming down pretty steadily.
Will they keep coming down?
Well, each year I say they just can't keep coming down any more than they have, just because you get all the materials' cost.
And yet, they continue to do so.
I think it's gotta slow down - I think we're probably getting near the bottom.
If we see cuts at this point, it'll be more due to distress than increased efficiency.
It will be because there'll be either retailers or manufacturers who are stuck with inventory and trying to get some cash out of it, rather than sit there having to pay interest on the inventory.
Though having said that, we're gonna see a bunch of good opportunities, probably in the next 3 or 4 months, to get some very good deals on HDTVs.
Sears has announced that they're gonna be closing a whole lot of stores, and that could put a whole lot of product into the channel at low prices as they try to liquidate some of that inventory.
Each store is gonna have several of each model on hand.
So you're talking about hundreds of sets right there.
If Sears starts advertising prices that are way low, well Best Buy, Costco, they're gonna have to follow them right down into the mountain, so that they don't give up market share.
[03:44] <TITLE>
What's the HDTV
It's that time again, is it?
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2452630&cid=37557630
Either.. ..or..
A: Buy that HDD. Yes, they're a bit more expensive right now
B: Wait a few months, prices will come down again, buy that HDD then. Yes, you may lose your data in the mean time.
Now stop asking or I'm going to pull over.
Too bad it had a short running time, Castellan might be worth a look for somewhat older kids.
-----
Title: Timothy Lord Checks Out Steve Jackson Games' Latest
Description: Fun Fact: Steve Jackson made games before there were computers to play them on
[00:00] <TITLE>
The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." zooms out to the bottom right corner of a view of 3 custom dice from the game Zombie Dice.
[00:01] <TITLE>
A view of Timothy without his signature glasses.
[00:01] Timothy>
Not all the gaming action at south-by-southwest (SXSW) was electronic.
The Catan folks were on hand, and so was Steve Jackson Games.
Steve Jackson Games has been around since 1980; It's a real Austin stalwart.
Philip Reed COO of the company took a few minutes to lead us through the company's new tabletop game offerings.
[00:18] <TITLE>
The view changes to that of the interviewee, Philip Reed, sitting behind a desk with various board game items on it.
[00:18] Phil>
I'm Phil Reed with Steve Jackson Games and I'm gonna show you a couple of our upcoming releases.
[00:24] Phil>
Right this year we'll have Dino Hunt Dice out.
This is for kids 10 and up.
In the game you are going to go through and look for dinosaurs.
Like our Zombie Dice game, you will roll the dice, and you want to find dinosaurs so you capture them and bring them back to your zoo.
This dinosaur's hiding in the leaves, so if you keep going you're gonna roll the die again.
This dinosaur stepped on me.
If you get stepped on 3 times, your turn is over, and you don't get to take any of the dinosaurs home with you.
This is really quick, simple, should be out later this fall.
[01:05] Phil>
Also this year we have Castellan.
This is a two plaer strategy game where each player has cards, [...]
[01:17] <TITLE>
The view changes to a closer look at the cards in Phil's hands.
[01:17] Phil>
[...] and each player will have the exact same decks of cards.
The cards allow you to play [...]
[01:20] <TITLE>
The view changes back to Phil sitting at the table.
[01:20] Phil>
[...] pieces to build a castle.
On your turn you'll play a card, you'll add pieces to the castle.
You're trying to score locations, so you wanna fill a courtyard completely, so it's totally walled in.
At the end of the game this courtyard is worth 5 points - one for each tower.
The game takes about 30 minutes.
I think it's my favorite new game we have coming this year.
[01:46] Phil>
For things available in stores right now we have the latest Munchkin expansion; "Munchkin 8 - Half Horse, Will Travel".
This was designed by our Munchkin Tzar, Andrew Hackard and illustrated by John Kovalic.
It's stupid, silly, fun - it's everything you expect from Munchkin.
[02:07] Phil>
Hitting stores in the next couple of weeks is "The Good, The Bad, The Munchkin 2 - Beating a Dead Horse".
Because, well, that's what we like to do with things.
[02:19] Phil>
Also coming out at the same time will be Zombie Dice 2.
It's the first expansion for our Zombie Dice game.
These three dice fit right inside this cup.
You get Santa Claus, who might bring you presents or he might shoot you.
You also get the The Hunk and The Hottie - these two work together and if you've got one in your brains pile with the other one comes up a shotgun, the brains are rescued, he goes back into the cup, so they're dangerous.
Notice her fashionable high heels(!)
[02:52] Phil>
That's what we've got new.
Also this later year we'll have Munchkin Conan and Munchkin Apocalypse.
[02:57] <TITLE>
The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." fades into view in the bottom right corner and the background changes to the view of the three dice used at the beginning of the video.
The EFF helped set up an effort for U.S. users of MegaUpload to get their data back. They should have some information on how many requests they've gotten.
http://www.megaretrieval.com/
"Carpathia Hosting has created the website www.MegaRetrieval.com to help lawful users in the United States work with EFF to investigate their options for retrieving their legitimate, non-infringing files from Megaupload."
An AC above made the same argument with regard to swapping SIM cards - but if I buy a subsidized Vodafone phone here in NL, I can't just stick a T-Mobile SIM card in and use that instead.
I'll first have to get that Vodafone phone unlocked. I have that right after 1 year, or after the contract is up, whichever comes first. Or I can get it done at one of the more shady shops (which appear on most street corners down from the official provider shops in big cities).
Even then the phone itself might have a country lock preventing me from sticking a U.S. AT&T card in there.
So whether it's handled in software or via a card doesn't really matter in terms of people switching providers.
I wouldn't know what MITM attack becomes easier if it's handled in software - keeping in mind that not the entirety of SIM would have to be software, just all of the identification bits. An internal chip (probably integrated into the radio chip) can still handle any en/decryption needs and other bits and pieces that you'd rather not expose too easily via software.
Actually, that is the step that should have been taken; software SIM
Why they're still going for a card is beyond me - but perhaps it has something to do with licensing.
The Giesecke & Devrient company mentioned in the article actually announced their nano SIM card last year:
http://www.gi-de.com/en/about_g_d/press/press_releases/G%26D-Presents-World%E2%80%99s-First-Nano-SIM-Card-g17024.jsp
Now unfortunately it has become a battle between companies that want to give their own little twist to it. Why? So they can charge license fees, of course. FRAND - yes, but $5 per device surely is completely fair? Especially if you're the company that gets that $5 per competitor's device.
For now it looks like Apple is likely to be that company, as it already has several large European providers on board and is also trying to get a larger vote within ETSI. (Financial Times).
I have to say I had expected to see more case mods - but I suppose that's what the interwebs are for.
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Title: Austin Modders Take Their Exotic PCs to SXSW
Description: Custom PCs AND a huge LAN party. W00T!
[00:00] <TITLE>
"Austin Modders / Take Their Radical PC Mods to SXSW" appears over a background showing a computer case and monitor while the Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." zooms out from view to the bottom right.
[00:03] John>
This is my custom case mod that I'd done many years ago.
[00:06] <TITLE>
As the camera pans up, the name of the person interviewed fades in and out: John Zitterkopf.
[00:06] John>
I started this project probably back in 2000.
It was popular on a lot of the modding forums of the day: ars technica[?], WizD, those kind of websites.
[00:18] John>
This box is a custom mount-mod UFO case.
Again, purchased several years ago.
[00:26] <TITLE>
The view changes to a closer look at the back of the case mod being discussed.
[00:26] John>
It's been heavily modified.
One of the things that I did is that I polished - [...]
[00:30] <TITLE>
The view changes back to the view of John.
[00:30] John>
[...] - it was a brushed aluminum surface - I polished it completely and sent it off to nickel-platers, so the entire case is nickel-plated aluminum.
[00:45] <TITLE>
The view changes to a closer look at the back of the case mod again and pans around to the side.
[00:45] John>
All of the plexiglass you see on here is customized as well.
I modified it with CAD programs and sent it off to laser-cutters to get cut.
[00:52] <TITLE>
The view changes back to John.
[0:52] John>
There's custom etching on the front; reset button here, power button here.
The case itself has an Extreme Edition i7 in it, with 8GiB of memory.
It's a little long in the tooth but it's still good.
Water-cooled.
Very heavy.
[01:15] <TITLE>
The view changes to a close-up look of the handle discussed.
[01:15] John>
That's why there's a nice spring-loaded handle [...]
[01:16] <TITLE>
Back to John.
[01:16] John>
[...] here; this thing probably weighs close to 100 pounds.
[1:19] <TITLE>
"The Austin Modders Run a / Huge, Noise LAN Party at SXSW" appears over a typical LAN party view - lots of computers on rows of desks.
[1:17] <TITLE>
The title '"Call me Mister Red," he says' appears over a view of a man in a cowboy hat behind two case mods.
[1:27] Mr. Red>
This is one of my first mods.
This is DÃjà 2.0.
It's a LAN PC that I built for coming to places like this where you needed to grab all your components and move them to a different location.
[01:42] <TITLE>
The view pans down to a closer look of the case mod being discussed, which is largely made of woodworked materials and resembles a suitcase-style case.
[01:42] Mr. Red>
The monitor is on a hinge.
My keyboard, monitor - everything is integrated.
I've even got some speakers up in here.
The guts are standard tower components.
It's not like I've got a laptop built into this thing, I put a desktop harddrive, desktop powersupply and a desktop motherboard [in it]
[02:07] Mr. Red>
This evolved over about 3 years.
It was quite a bit of work.
It was a lot of learning experience, too, because I've never done anything like this.
I'm not a woodworker, so there was a lot of learning.
[02:18] <TITLE>
The view changes to the previously discussed case mod and somebody interacting with it.
[02:22] <TITLE>
The view changes to a black "Austin modders" card on top of a red chamfered box, and pans to the side to reveal the other case mod, a largely red box with window and red interior illumination.
[02:27] <TITLE>
The view changes to another look at the woodworked case mod, wit
I think you meant...
1. Michael Bay takes a shit
2. Sets it on fire
3. Calls it Transformers 4
4. ???
5. Profit. Mad, mad profit.
Transformers 1 - budget: $150M, worldwide gross: $710M
Transformers 2 - budget: $200M, worldwide gross: $836M
Transformers 3 - budget: $195M, worldwide gross: $1123M
The only reason he gets away with this stuff is because he's bringing in umpteen millions on his films so far.
He may flop entirely with TMNT and consequently be pulled from ThunderCats, though. Hollywood can be fickle like that. But then they'll just find somebody else to screw that up :)
Warning: Video Games are Known to Cause...
Go ahead, put it on the boxes. You know that kids will still be buying them anyway (same way that 9-year-olds are buying games rated for 13+ right now), and that mommy and daddy will buy them for their kids for Christmas just as well.
The impact from the warning on those boxes (that you keep at home and rarely see - and doesn't even apply to e.g. Steam downloads) is even less than the warnings on cigarette boxes (comparison suggested in article) which are visible any time one grabs one of the ~20 in the pack, which is often around others.
( Of course there's companies that sell sleeves that block off the warning. )
So clearly keeping people from buying them can't be the goal. So what is? Financial ruin by trying to get Walmart not to sell them? Hardly an issue to begin with (not the only games sellers) and Walmart wouldn't shoot themselves in the foot that much. Some manner of legal liability? But having the warnings on there should mean people can no longer blame the game devs/publishers, no? They could just point to the government-mandated warning that little Johnny could go to school and mow down his classmates after playing that game, not their fault they bought it for him anyway.
Baca and Wolf just wanted their names out there for political reasons, is my best guess so far.
Maybe there's a nuance in liability that I missed - that would still be the most likely ulterior motive.
You know, come to think of it.. I don't think I've ever dreamed (of) an ad.
Off-topic as this might be, I'm going to pose this as a serious question: have any of you ever dreamed an ad?
I've had a great many number of dreams that range wildly in topics and vividness. I once woke up remember several lines of text from a book I was reading in my dream - I googled the lines of text but as far as it was concerned, those lines were not written anywhere for it to find.
But I don't recall having ever seen an ad. Or even related. I.e. walking down a city, I remember stores, I remember cars, traffic, people, the rain, a gust of wind... I don't, however, remember any H&M ads in the bus stalls, or Heineken sign outside a bar.
( Of course now that I've written this, I'll bet I'll be dreaming of ads come tonight. Damn. )
Not quite. The ad networks (Google's, etc.) do just one thing.. serve up ads based on certain metrics that you send in a request.
If you send 5 requests, you get 5 ads.
There's no change required on that end.
Ad frameworks are a different matter. Most of the large ad networks also offer ad frameworks that make it easy to implement advertising based on their services - be that on your website or in an app. Those frameworks may not be well-suited to pre-loading multiple ads. The benefit to them is that they could also more efficiently grab ads. Whether that outweighs the loss of having up-to-the-second metrics (as opposed to, say, once per day), I'll leave up to them to worry about.
Developers, however, don't necessarily have to use these frameworks and, as long as their agreements allow it (usually when the payout isn't based on impressions, but on clickthroughs), grab 5 ads,10 ads, 100 ads and display those as needed.
I do agree though that most users are just going to shrug it off, as are most developers.
As it is, while these ad connections do sip battery power some, it's still the displays that easily take the most energy even with them forced to their lowest setting.
More specifically, bad ad serving code eats your smartphone battery.
If your app connects to an ad server/framework every minute, or on particular events, etc. etc. each time... then yes, that's going to suck down energy real fast.
Instead, download multiple ads (in the background), serve from that pool.
Better yet, as somebody at a Dutch tech site suggested, let shared ad frameworks do this so that N ads downloaded can be shared across multiple apps.
There are down sides, of course:
- the ads in the pool may become outdated. I.e. if somebody searched for PNDs today, the ads downloaded yesterday won't be notifying you of the latest TomTom/Garmin/whatever offerings. This can be corrected by always refreshing after a set time.
- you may end up downloading more ads than you'll actually use before such a refresh, which means you actually used more energy (and bandwidth) than you would have under traditional methods.
But in general, all this opening/closing of connections which in turn may or may not lead to 3G / 4G modules kicking into action, etc. is just inefficient.
But then what would you call an ISP that actually checks for compliance with, and enforces its own ToS? Are those then cops? And if part of their ToS says "no uploading illegal material" and including in that the subject matter at hand, wouldn't that make them "copyright police" by default?
The reason it's 'quite a leap' is because police are the investigative branch. If anything, the subject should have read that ISPs are becoming copyright executioners, with the interest groups as the judges, and nobody for a jury.
Wait... somewhere after movie #150 that you didn't like you kept thinking "maybe the next one will be awesome!"?
I guess at least you watched every single one of them yourself to form your own opinion, but surely it can't hurt to start with some reviews?
Figure out what reviewers you usually agree with and weigh their reviews more heavily, before you download 200 movies the majority of which you could probably have guessed you wouldn't like.
It would have saved you from bad entertainment, and freed your time for the books and magazines (presuming you don't just download the ebook versions of those, too, of course).