... is in armchair quarterbacking the designs. I love sitting there yelling at the TV about some stupid design decision they're making.
On the July 4th car crusher episode, I was craking on to my wife about how the hydraulic system would bend the frame of their crusher. Happily for the Yanks, it did.
And on the diving bell episide, I was screaming "No, no, you idiots! Those bellows will NEVER generate the air pressure that you need!"
And I loved that pumpkin chunkin' trebuchet design. Too cool.
I think unlike a few years ago, we're at a point now where storage capacity is cheap and overabundant. Most new systems come with 40+G drives and 95% of the people who buy them probably never use anything more than 10G... ever.
Am I reading the 120% rule correcting in saying that the INCREASE in drive capacity per year is 120% or that the next generation will be 120% of the current generation (ie, 20% higher). If the former, then in 3 years we could be seeing 850 GB drives for the consumer. That would pretty much hold all of my CD and DVD collection.
Well, just last month I threw together a system from a bunch of old 486 based scrap I had kicking around and installed Linux on it. It's now acting as a crude webserver. My upload rate (behind a cable modem) is only 100Kbps, so I'm guessing the system isn't going to be the bottleneck. It's not mission critical... just a bunch of hobby stuff and pictures to share with friends and family. So far, it works fine.
I think it's a 66 MHz... 30 pin memory (80M worth)... generic svga card... 500M HDD(?)... 2x CD ROM.
Perfectly acceptable computer for what I wanted and for essentially zero cost. Not that I'm going to run around collecting 486 machines... but they can serve a purpose.
I received several of this version (HTML stripped out) to several different email addresses that I'm responsible for...
Brand New FREE MOTOROLA PAGER
Limited Time FREE Offer.
Call 1(800)761-0511 to be Guaranteed Your FREE MOTOROLA Pager Today
With this FREE MOTOROLA Pager you will receive the following
FREE activation.
Very small and lightweight.
Stay in touch with friends/family.
Guaranteed to never miss a page.
Brand New FLEX MOTOROLA Pager technology.
1) This MOTOROLA Pager is small and light weight.
2) A unique never out of range feature.
3) 50,000 character memory & automatic garbled message correction.
4) You can also receive weather, news and sports.
Call 1(800)761-0511 to get your FREE MOTOROLA Pager TODAY!
While SUPPLY Lasts
To be taken off reply to here
And a few more that were exactly the same but with another phone number (the other one listed in my first comment).
And I received several that looked like this (again, no HTML)...
PRIORITY EXPRESS MAIL
Absolutely FREE Motorola Talkabout T10 Pager
You have been selected to receive a FREE MOTOROLA Pager! This side viewable display pager is incredibly small and lightweight. This incredible MOTOROLA PAGER has a unique, never out of range feature so you will never miss a page.
Call 1(800)761-0511 and Order Your FREE Motorola Pager Today!
This strictly limited-time offer will enable you to stay in touch with family and friends.
There is no mistake. Your FREE MOTOROLA Pager is waiting for you-but you must respond soon. If I do not hear from you within 7 days this offer will go to someone else. Please do not allow that to happen!
When you call you will receive a BRAND NEW PAGER in your choice of color and already programmed with a local telephone number in just a few days!
P.S. This may be your final notice regarding the FREE MOTOROLA Pager.
*
GET OFF THE LIST HERE
OK? And I don't have a "beef" with this company (I assume it's only one since I got emails that looked exactly the same except for the phone number). I really want this to generate lots of interest in these products. And I'm sure they won't mind if we call to find out more.
Since late April, I've received 18 spams with the words "Motorola Pager" in the subject. Obviously, as with most spams, remove doesn't work and only lets them know that your email address is indeed valid. All of those spams contained one of two 800 numbers:
1(800)443-0596
1(800)761-0511
I offer those numbers as a service to the slashdot community since I know you all might be interested in getting yourself one of these "free" pagers.
Now, I just love spammers as much as the next guy... so I would recommend making sure that as many people as possible see this message (hint, mod me up to +5). Then if everyone calls to inquire about the pagers, think of all the business these spammers will get! Don't call too many times because as you know, each call to an 800 number costs the owners of that number MONEY. We don't want their phone bill to be too high, now do we?
And don't call unless you're actually interested. We wouldn't want to waste THEIR resources to take care of our pointless calls, would we?
I'd second the nomination on smarthome.com. They've got an extensive catalog of stuff. I've ordered from them and was happy with the transaction. I don't know of the other companies mentioned, so I can't comment (and I've got no affiliation with any of them).
It's important to note that X10.com doesn't "own" the X10 standard. There's absolutely NO reason to buy from them when other companies are producing X10 compatible products. I'd bought from X10.com before, but they've royally pissed me off with this stuff, so they're off the list.
...but there are plenty of people who abuse alcohol and tobacco and guns and cars, too. Shouldn't the self-proclaimed moralists go after those things as well?
Uhhhh... apparently you haven't noticed. The self-proclaimed moralists DO go after those things.
In every Microsoft thread, there's always someone who will complain about the Bill Gates as Borg icon that Slashdot uses. I haven't seen him/her show up yet, but when they do, I hereby give you a virtual slap upside the head.
But issues like this aren't Microsoft specific. There's lots of evil software companies that do lots of evil things. How many times have you installed software on a Win machine only to find out that it took over file extension associations without asking first?
I'm finally fed up with MS myself and I'm weaning myself off their products. I've put together a RH Linux system at home and am learning what I can. And being the "PC guy" for many friends and family, I'm recommending to them all that they avoid XP like the plague (I can't possibly recommend Linux to them because these are people who can't set the clock on their VCR).
Thankfully, I'm seeing more and more articles like this, and with any luck Joe Public will start to take notice. Circuit City learned a harsh lesson in pissing of the public with their DIVX scams. If we keep up the pressure, MS will learn the same lessons.
OK, so the config was a mess. But it was like that BEFORE the outage, right? So what happened between "running OK" and "we're down" to cause it to fail? I didn't see anything to explain that in the report. Or maybe they don't know...
Unless I'm mistaken, the case was about internet publication of articles written for magazines and the like. Those articles aren't going into a black hole. There is still this thing called the library, and they do still actually keep archives of periodicals.
The first intelligent AI will have to be, at times, unreasonable. If it just spews out facts, then it is indeed just a computer. Humans have an ability to defy logic and do things that simply are not reasonable. For the computer to learn, it will have to be allowed to do this.
These translation services (such as BabelFish on AltaVista) still have quite a way to go before they're completely reliable. Especially when you translate from one language to another, you might end up with something similar to this (translated from English to Korean and then back to English again):
Will be complete and on the front of the L it will be reliable to translation service (as the BabelFish is same) a yet positively is thin method to Altavista. It was special and when you from one language also translate in different one thing, you in child one silence comfort ended to this, (and the that time English back mac tayn Great Britain from again under translate again in a Korean):
Sheesh. You just get done telling us how stupid people are the real problem and then you say that driving with a cell phone should be illegal. I don't understand that logic at all. A cell phone is no more or less dangerous than eating, changing the radio station, putting in a CD, adjusting the air conditioning, chatting with the person in the passenger seat, etc. It's ENTIRELY up to the driver to maintain control and to NOT do anything that they can't handle. Plenty of people CAN handle using a cell phone while driving.
Try driving at the speed limit in highway traffic sometime. Really. Even in the slow lane. Go 55 while everyone around you is going 70, 75, 80. That 55 driver is FAR more dangerous to the situation than the 80 driver is. The key is NOT speed, it control and sense.
There is NOTHING more inherently dangerous to driving along at 80+ MPH just as long as you're not weaving in and out of traffic and you can keep a safe distance from the car in front of you.
No offense to your friends, but this is EXACTLY why I like the internet for finding new bands so much. It took me all of 2 minutes to listen to a couple of sound-clips to determine that the music isn't at all my cup of tea. Every 20 or 30 tries I find something that I think is worth listening to.
- Of the bands/albums listed there as "important", none are all that important any more. The success of Beatles "1" aside, hardly any of those artists have released what I would call a "hit" album in the past 10 years.
- No band will ever "come out of the blue" any more and hit it huge. There is no such thing as a non-manufactured band anymore. U2 is currently in the midst of a sold-out tour, but if they were starting today, it's likely they wouldn't exist. They owe their early success to a core groups of fans and a bunch of radio stations that were willing to play their music. Those stations are now essentially run by the RIAA. See these articles:1,2. Bands today such as The Dave Mathews Band are the rare exceptions.
- The RIAA's business model is focused around promoting a small group of artists through the radio and other media which they mostly control. Having "free" music available over the internet breaks this model. The RIAA companies will no longer be able to promote the artists they want to promote (ie, the ones that they feel give them the greatest chance of profit).
- The RIAA's biggest fear is that artists will be able to promote themselves and leave the RIAA out of the loop entirely. It's only a matter of time before this really starts to happen. Good riddance.
One feature I'd love to see on IE6 as far as privacy goes is the ability to easily import and export lists of sites from the "Restricted sites" list. I have all the usual suspects (doubleclick, avenuea, etc) at maximum restrictions meaning no cookies, no scripts, etc.
Quite frankly I'm amazed that these advertising companies haven't been able to buy that functionality out of the IE6.
Ford Motor Company has a business presence in France. They make cars for sale in the US and in France. The ones for sale in France have different safety requirements than those in the US.
Now if someone sneaks a Ford car designed for the US market into France, it IS NOT Ford's responsibility... it is the responsability of the person who brought that car into France.
Ford DOES NOT have to make and sell cars worldwide that meet French safety laws.
Yahoo! DOES NOT have to censor it's worldwide content so that they meet French censorship laws. It is the reponsibility of the person who brought that content into France (ie, the person sitting in front of the web browser). That the content exists and can be brought into France is no different that "the car exists and can be brought into France".
It's not Ford's problem and it isn't Yahoo's either.
And they are fighting to regain control of their AMERICAN based servers. Just because someone in France calls up a US based webserver and asks for content that is illegal in their country DOES NOT mean that the company owning the server has done anything wrong.
It is illegal for me, as an American, to go to France and smoke a Cuban cigar. But it is NOT up to France or the cigar store in France to enforce that. This is absolutely no different.
The requirement for enforcement in the Yahoo! case should be completely on France and the action should be taken against the person ASKING for the information.
TiVo is my solution to every TV-related problem...
I just fast-forward through all the ads anyway. It's really only when I nod off while watching the tube that the commercials get played. Or on the odd time that I'm actually watching something live (not that often).
Slashdot Mirror
... is in armchair quarterbacking the designs. I love sitting there yelling at the TV about some stupid design decision they're making.
On the July 4th car crusher episode, I was craking on to my wife about how the hydraulic system would bend the frame of their crusher. Happily for the Yanks, it did.
And on the diving bell episide, I was screaming "No, no, you idiots! Those bellows will NEVER generate the air pressure that you need!"
And I loved that pumpkin chunkin' trebuchet design. Too cool.
-S
I think unlike a few years ago, we're at a point now where storage capacity is cheap and overabundant. Most new systems come with 40+G drives and 95% of the people who buy them probably never use anything more than 10G... ever.
Am I reading the 120% rule correcting in saying that the INCREASE in drive capacity per year is 120% or that the next generation will be 120% of the current generation (ie, 20% higher). If the former, then in 3 years we could be seeing 850 GB drives for the consumer. That would pretty much hold all of my CD and DVD collection.
-S
I think it's a 66 MHz... 30 pin memory (80M worth)... generic svga card... 500M HDD(?)... 2x CD ROM.
Perfectly acceptable computer for what I wanted and for essentially zero cost. Not that I'm going to run around collecting 486 machines... but they can serve a purpose.
-S
And a few more that were exactly the same but with another phone number (the other one listed in my first comment).
And I received several that looked like this (again, no HTML)...
OK? And I don't have a "beef" with this company (I assume it's only one since I got emails that looked exactly the same except for the phone number). I really want this to generate lots of interest in these products. And I'm sure they won't mind if we call to find out more.
-S
Since late April, I've received 18 spams with the words "Motorola Pager" in the subject. Obviously, as with most spams, remove doesn't work and only lets them know that your email address is indeed valid. All of those spams contained one of two 800 numbers:
1(800)443-0596
1(800)761-0511
I offer those numbers as a service to the slashdot community since I know you all might be interested in getting yourself one of these "free" pagers.
Now, I just love spammers as much as the next guy... so I would recommend making sure that as many people as possible see this message (hint, mod me up to +5). Then if everyone calls to inquire about the pagers, think of all the business these spammers will get! Don't call too many times because as you know, each call to an 800 number costs the owners of that number MONEY. We don't want their phone bill to be too high, now do we?
And don't call unless you're actually interested. We wouldn't want to waste THEIR resources to take care of our pointless calls, would we?
-S
I'd second the nomination on smarthome.com. They've got an extensive catalog of stuff. I've ordered from them and was happy with the transaction. I don't know of the other companies mentioned, so I can't comment (and I've got no affiliation with any of them).
It's important to note that X10.com doesn't "own" the X10 standard. There's absolutely NO reason to buy from them when other companies are producing X10 compatible products. I'd bought from X10.com before, but they've royally pissed me off with this stuff, so they're off the list.
-S
Uhhhh... apparently you haven't noticed. The self-proclaimed moralists DO go after those things.
-S
In every Microsoft thread, there's always someone who will complain about the Bill Gates as Borg icon that Slashdot uses. I haven't seen him/her show up yet, but when they do, I hereby give you a virtual slap upside the head.
But issues like this aren't Microsoft specific. There's lots of evil software companies that do lots of evil things. How many times have you installed software on a Win machine only to find out that it took over file extension associations without asking first?
I'm finally fed up with MS myself and I'm weaning myself off their products. I've put together a RH Linux system at home and am learning what I can. And being the "PC guy" for many friends and family, I'm recommending to them all that they avoid XP like the plague (I can't possibly recommend Linux to them because these are people who can't set the clock on their VCR).
Thankfully, I'm seeing more and more articles like this, and with any luck Joe Public will start to take notice. Circuit City learned a harsh lesson in pissing of the public with their DIVX scams. If we keep up the pressure, MS will learn the same lessons.
-S
Ahhh... thanks! I managed to miss that on the first read.
-S
OK, so the config was a mess. But it was like that BEFORE the outage, right? So what happened between "running OK" and "we're down" to cause it to fail? I didn't see anything to explain that in the report. Or maybe they don't know...
-S
Unless I'm mistaken, the case was about internet publication of articles written for magazines and the like. Those articles aren't going into a black hole. There is still this thing called the library, and they do still actually keep archives of periodicals.
-S
Just don't name the router "Kenny".... he dies every week.
-S
The first intelligent AI will have to be, at times, unreasonable. If it just spews out facts, then it is indeed just a computer. Humans have an ability to defy logic and do things that simply are not reasonable. For the computer to learn, it will have to be allowed to do this.
-S
Anyone developing "free" software should stipulate in their license that it can not be used in any way by Microsoft Corporation.
-S
These translation services (such as BabelFish on AltaVista) still have quite a way to go before they're completely reliable. Especially when you translate from one language to another, you might end up with something similar to this (translated from English to Korean and then back to English again):
Will be complete and on the front of the L it will be reliable to translation service (as the BabelFish is same) a yet positively is thin method to Altavista. It was special and when you from one language also translate in different one thing, you in child one silence comfort ended to this, (and the that time English back mac tayn Great Britain from again under translate again in a Korean):
-S
Sheesh. You just get done telling us how stupid people are the real problem and then you say that driving with a cell phone should be illegal. I don't understand that logic at all. A cell phone is no more or less dangerous than eating, changing the radio station, putting in a CD, adjusting the air conditioning, chatting with the person in the passenger seat, etc. It's ENTIRELY up to the driver to maintain control and to NOT do anything that they can't handle. Plenty of people CAN handle using a cell phone while driving.
-S
http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/ images/dilbert2004061210620.gif for those worried about goatman.
-S
Try driving at the speed limit in highway traffic sometime. Really. Even in the slow lane. Go 55 while everyone around you is going 70, 75, 80. That 55 driver is FAR more dangerous to the situation than the 80 driver is. The key is NOT speed, it control and sense.
There is NOTHING more inherently dangerous to driving along at 80+ MPH just as long as you're not weaving in and out of traffic and you can keep a safe distance from the car in front of you.
-S
No offense to your friends, but this is EXACTLY why I like the internet for finding new bands so much. It took me all of 2 minutes to listen to a couple of sound-clips to determine that the music isn't at all my cup of tea. Every 20 or 30 tries I find something that I think is worth listening to.
-S
- Of the bands/albums listed there as "important", none are all that important any more. The success of Beatles "1" aside, hardly any of those artists have released what I would call a "hit" album in the past 10 years.
- No band will ever "come out of the blue" any more and hit it huge. There is no such thing as a non-manufactured band anymore. U2 is currently in the midst of a sold-out tour, but if they were starting today, it's likely they wouldn't exist. They owe their early success to a core groups of fans and a bunch of radio stations that were willing to play their music. Those stations are now essentially run by the RIAA. See these articles:1,2. Bands today such as The Dave Mathews Band are the rare exceptions.
- The RIAA's business model is focused around promoting a small group of artists through the radio and other media which they mostly control. Having "free" music available over the internet breaks this model. The RIAA companies will no longer be able to promote the artists they want to promote (ie, the ones that they feel give them the greatest chance of profit).
- The RIAA's biggest fear is that artists will be able to promote themselves and leave the RIAA out of the loop entirely. It's only a matter of time before this really starts to happen. Good riddance.
-S
One feature I'd love to see on IE6 as far as privacy goes is the ability to easily import and export lists of sites from the "Restricted sites" list. I have all the usual suspects (doubleclick, avenuea, etc) at maximum restrictions meaning no cookies, no scripts, etc.
Quite frankly I'm amazed that these advertising companies haven't been able to buy that functionality out of the IE6.
-S
I was all set to ask how they're going to keep the stuff frozen.. out... in.... the..... cold...... of....... space........
Duh. Answered my own question.
-S
Ford Motor Company has a business presence in France. They make cars for sale in the US and in France. The ones for sale in France have different safety requirements than those in the US.
Now if someone sneaks a Ford car designed for the US market into France, it IS NOT Ford's responsibility... it is the responsability of the person who brought that car into France.
Ford DOES NOT have to make and sell cars worldwide that meet French safety laws.
Yahoo! DOES NOT have to censor it's worldwide content so that they meet French censorship laws. It is the reponsibility of the person who brought that content into France (ie, the person sitting in front of the web browser). That the content exists and can be brought into France is no different that "the car exists and can be brought into France".
It's not Ford's problem and it isn't Yahoo's either.
-S
And they are fighting to regain control of their AMERICAN based servers. Just because someone in France calls up a US based webserver and asks for content that is illegal in their country DOES NOT mean that the company owning the server has done anything wrong.
It is illegal for me, as an American, to go to France and smoke a Cuban cigar. But it is NOT up to France or the cigar store in France to enforce that. This is absolutely no different.
The requirement for enforcement in the Yahoo! case should be completely on France and the action should be taken against the person ASKING for the information.
-S
TiVo is my solution to every TV-related problem...
I just fast-forward through all the ads anyway. It's really only when I nod off while watching the tube that the commercials get played. Or on the odd time that I'm actually watching something live (not that often).
-S