Except that one time when someone important (or not so important to you) dies and walking through old email correspondence lets you relive moments that are gone and may have been forever forgotten without the help of archived emails. While I don't want anyone routing through my emails while I'm alive, I can imagine what a treasure trove of my history is trapped in email format and can be visited, explored and enjoyed by someone else, be it a distant grandchild doing research or a historian trying to understand the emergence of internet technology and its social impacts 75 years from now.
How many iPhones, HTC EVOs and other early adopter phones are purchased without ever touching one? I bet it is the majority. The inability to touch and hold the phone wasn't the problem, the problem was that we live under a cell phone system is is based on phone subsidization and multi-year contracts. If a phone could be purchased at full price and a phone service could be paired with it that didn't carry a subsidization premium, they might have done much better. Bottom line is that Americans don't like paying a premium for a phone unless it is made by Apple.
The Sony Reader starts at $299 and uses E Ink technology that offers all of the features you seem to suggest don't exist. So, YES, there is a eBook reader that:
- doesn't cost near $400 - doesn't need a backlight - doesn't require continuous power to display - can be read in the sunlight or under a lamp
Though, I'm sure you will find something else to complain about--either real or imagined.
For the record, this was moderated 'Redundant' and it was the first of it's type to be posted... I think all the others are the redundant ones.
When I saw the review of this book posted, I puzzled to myself how such a review would find its way into Slashdot 13 years after a book was published. My curiosity was peaked because I personally just read this book, sparked by the documentary already mentioned in other posts. While I am not a conspiracy theorist, I found myself thoroughly spooked by the nature of the Federal Reserve and the fact that our country pays the Reserve billions of dollars in interest each year; "for what?" you may ask... simply because the Fed printed a bunch of money so that our government could pay for things like the war in Iraq and other unchecked spending. During WWI and WWII the dollar was backed by gold and the government couldn't simply print money to pay bills, because they had to have gold in the reserves to back the dollar that was printed. For this reason, the government had to sell War Bonds to raise money to pay for the war. Today, they simply ask the Fed to print more money for them to borrow. Paying interest on this borrowed money is one of the single largest expenses of our federal tax dollars.
I said all of that to say this: when I saw this review go up, I thought for sure it was an attempt to discuss Ron Paul simply because I am willing to bet that the one of the main reasons someone on Slashdot might read this book is because it is one of the issues behind the candidacy of Ron Paul. If you are asking the question, "who the hell is Ron Paul?" you are not alone. Among Paul's goals is the elimination of the Federal Reserve and the return to the gold standard, the elimination of the IRS, Federal Taxes and the Department of Education, the return to a constitutional government and the removal of our country's nose from the rest of the world's business. I know that sounds crazy, but when you scratch the surface and see what is behind all of this stuff, your interest might be peaked as mine was.
While I am not stumping for Ron Paul, I find it strange that his name hasn't come up in this conversation.
I don't understand why all this is a big issue anyway? Evolution should be a single chapter in a textbook just like magnetism and gravity. How does teaching evolution or intelligent design prepare our children for life in the 21st century? Would it not be better to simply teach kids science from a scientific perspective? Teach kids to make observations, develop theories and then test them? Give them all of the observable information, present the theories and let them work out conclusions. Why should science be presented so definitively? Wouldn't creating a generation of scientists that challenge established theories possibly make better scientists? Aren't the greatest minds in science those that think outside of the box and challenge the status quo?
Let's not teach our kids WHAT to think, but HOW to think. As humans, we have something within us that seeks to know things, that is one of the things that seems to make us unique among the life on our planet. Quit putting kids minds in shallow little boxes--both evolution and intelligent design are ways of looking at what is observable. If a mind is able to consider multiple perspectives on interpreting information and able to test and draw conclusions on its own, aren't we better off as a people? Why should we be locked into teaching only one thing when there are large groups of others that teach other things--even if they might be wrong? Sure, teach kids what is generally accepted, but let them know there are other theories... even if it includes spaceships and little green (or gray) men--which Intelligent Design is broad enough to encompass. You don't have to put it in the textbooks, just encourage teachers to present other theories as a general survey of "other thoughts on the subject."
There are many other things, like Critical Thinking, Math and Creativity that are so much more valuable to a young mind than something like Evolution and Intelligent Design. I don't care about where a politician stands on hot button topics like Evolution or Abortion... I want to know what they think are the critical changes we require in education that will make our children competitive in the world market during the 21st century.
When I look at huge bureaucratic SNAFUs like this, I can't help but think that an OSS project would have stepped up and filled the hole. Heck, it isn't like there aren't plenty of OSS hackers out there who wouldn't love to contribute to a project that might foil the next terror plot. Why not document the existing infrastructure and put together a software requirements document and let the OSS community go to town creating a FREE software solution? I know that there are some of you out there that wouldn't want the the "man" to use OSS software to track down your pr0n or help build a case against you for all the illegal BitTorrent downloads you have, but, I think most of the OSS community would love a stab at it... sign me up for the web-based UI development! Heck, I'd volunteer my time to help do a business requirements study with field agents... as long as it is the X-files group;)
I have been using myspace for about 2 years now and have thought over the past year that Google should really find a way to get involved with Myspace for the following reasons:
1. Myspace has a pig slow way of accessing vast amounts of data, google could help 2. one word: blogging 3. piss poor loss of advertising opportunity 4. Google wants to manage the worlds data... myspace is a significant repository of useful data
I personally have thought that Myspace has been missing the boat when it comes to advertising opportunity. Not every person using myspace is an oversexed, cellphone ringtone crazed youth. What service could more specifically target an advertisement? Is there any place on the net where so many people disclose more about what they are personally interested in? I welcome Google to the myspace world and look forward to the tools they can offer. Actually, anyone who could help Myspace change those stupid dating service ads is a help in my book.
No, the obvious solution is to use condoms, but the idiot Catholic church said condom use is Evil(tm)
I don't get this. The same Catholic Church that is against condoms, is also against sex outside of a monogamous marital relationship. If everyone is in strict adherence to the laws of the Church, AIDS wouldn't be the issue it is. Actually, your problem with the Catholic Church is not that they are against condom use, but that they spend their money to convert people instead of spending money to hand out free condoms... and you think somehow they should be spending their money to support things that they don't believe in? Once again, I don't get it.
I didn't see anyone ask this question. Usually the songwriter is the copyright holder of the lyrics. Unless contracts have changed, I don't see how publishers can even offer an artist's lyrics without an agreement with the writer. They may own a percentage of it, but ultimately a much, much, much larger portion of this should be going to the artists or writers than to the labels or promoters. I personally think this is more hype than genuine business opportunity.
This article was written in September of 2003! Auctions has been around for a while, they are used on occasionally. The article quotes John Pleasants who no longer works for Ticketmaster. Auctions is just one additional service that Ticketmaster offers clients, the venue chooses if such a tool is to be used and how.
To date, very few venues have done auctions since everyone from artist to promoter to venue has to be in agreement. I personally think that this give the general public a greater chance to get tickets that were not otherwise available. Odds are the auction tickets don't come out of general inventory, but holds that the promoter/artist had anyway. Most of the time, they are packaged with premium features like VIP parties, meet and greet with performer, free swag from promoters, exclusive parking or limo services, etc.
In actuality, TM is likely to get the smallest piece of the pie in the offering. Why should scalpers be the biggest profiteers in ticketing? When scalpers charge a premium, few people complain, but when Ticketmaster offers a tool to allow organizers to sell tickets at market value... stop the presses! Besides, this is old news.
I don't understand what all of the huffing and puffing is about. You can still go stand at a line at the venue and buy a ticket without all the Ticketmaster convenience fees. I don't know of any venue that doesn't have traditional ticket windows for buying tickets. However, that wouldn't be convenient for you would it? I guess that is why they are called 'convenience fees'!
It is not like every good ticket is being sold this way. In all of the test markets that I've heard of, it was only a handful of tickets and they are usually put together with value added offerings. Want to meet your favorite performer? Get free swag from the performer's promoters? Get VIP access, a limo ride, or something no one else gets? Would you pay a premium for that? Why not? Sure TM gets a piece of the pie, but the venue/promoter/artist will get the lion's share. Who do you think is driving this?
What people don't seem to catch on to, is that TM is a *service* company that provides services for a client. What you don't see is all of the millions of dollars spent behind the tickets to support the ticketing business. It isn't like TM just puts up a website and sells tickets at a premium and that is it. If that was the whole story, then every little ticketing company would have whittled TM's business right out from under them by now.
Plenty of companies have tried to take away TM's business and have failed. Heck, I think that if you had any idea what was going on behind closed doors, you would be most pissed at the venues. Do you think that all of the fees you pay go to TM? Think again and do some research. Sure, they get what seems to be more than enough, but the larger venues make out hand-over-fist on ticketing as well. I think part of the value in using a juggernaut like Ticketmaster is that they have always looked like the bad guy and the venues use that to their advantage by tacking on a $12 facility charge and letting TM take the blame for excess fees.
As for auctions, when was the last time you got a great seat to a show? Most good tickets are held by the artist and promoter anyway... you can't get them. Until now. Now, if the artist/promoter want to get what the tickets are worth (who doesn't want to make more money?), they will have to surrender some of their holds and make them available to the people that are willing to pay the premium for them. Right now, you have to know someone who knows someone or be the 99th caller when some song is played to ever expect to get a good seat. Not every band is like U2 and make the best seat in the house the cheapest standing-room-only general admission ticket.
I get sick of listening to people belly ache about Ticketmaster. If you don't want to pay the fees, don't. Just go to the window and buy your ticket. Stand in line out in the rain with all of the other hardcore opposition who wants to save $10 in fees. This is America and people are free to take as much of the pie as the legally can. All the communists out there who think that every seat in a venue should be front front row need to wake up and realize that they live in a capitalistic society. Heck, this country is so great, that you are free to create your own company and knock TM off the hill. Ticketmaster did the same thing the Ticketron back in the 80's. The secret to their success back then? Innovation.
You would think that an audience like Slashdot would have some people who could get together and build a company to unseat them. Heck, if you have $20 million laying around, I would be more than happy to sit down with you and tell you how it could be done. The key is realizing that 'ticketing' is not where the business is at, ticketing is only one facet of a multifaceted service company. If you want to just sell tickets, you will become another Tickets.com who have yet to budge TM from their castle on the hill.
There's got to be better game material out there for a movie. I personally think that Warcraft or Starcraft could each make a fantastic special effects film... I always loved watching the cut-scenes in the game. Why HALO? While DOOM might end up being a turkey, there is good video game material out there. I would love for Tim Burton to make the LucasArts title Grim Fandango into a film... it would certainly be entertaining.
When you view the flash file, option C is the control with no "emotional" image. When I looked at C, I could not see a sideways building, no matter how many times I watched it.
I personally think that this is a bunch of crap. Requiring a person to interpret an image that is skewed should require more mental effort then a properly oriented image and would be more difficult to process when you might already be processing a gory image and questioning just what you saw.
I would like to see the test done again, but instead of a complicated image, like a sideways building, why not use a large black arrow on a white background. I think that a simplistic object like an arrow would be easier to discern and would likely be noticed and its direction easy to determine. Would a lower processing requirement make the "blindness" less blinding?
Blindness? What about simple distraction? Carnage and nudity are probably one of the few things that would make most anyone take another look at something-- just to make sure that they were seeing what they thought that they were seeing. Other things that would make a person double-take would require a context. For example, if you are sitting in your office and a horse walks by your door... you would likely have a reaction similar to seeing gore or nudity for a split second, but you can't provide a context when flashing images, so I think gore and nudity are all you are left with to evoke a "mental double-take."
What if the image wasn't gory? What if in a series of tests they made the gory image less and less discernable, at what point would the effect be eroded? What about putting in something unexpected? Place a skewed image of something easily discernable (iconic) like a sideways Captain Crunch character or an upside down Nike Swoosh. Does an image that makes you mind work harder have the same effect. How about a word... place a misspelled or scrambled word before the sideways building... does it have the same effect? What about showing someone what the sideways building looks like before showing the clips, would that have any effect?
What leads them to attribute this to emotional response? Replace the gory image with a photo of a loved one or a cute animal, is the response the same? How do they gauge an emotional response to an image?
Maybe I am missing something, but this seems like bad science to me.
The idea behind Zazzle is great, but service totally sucks. I created a shirt and place an order for like 13 shirts as a surprise gag for a friends out-of-town graduation.
There was no way to guarantee when shipping would occur. They had some process (I forget what it entailed, maybe paying for priority shipping) that allowed you to jump the line and get priority printing. I followed the process and sent several emails through their online forms telling them that if I could not get the shirts before a specific date, I needed to cancel the order.
Well, with something like a two week lead time, I watched my order and my status never changed. I sent follow up email after follow up email trying to get someone who could tell me about my order.
Eventually, I had to research the company, find out where in California they were located and then do a company lookup for their phone number (you can't find any of that information on their website).
I finally tracked someone down via land line and they checked on my order. I called to let them know that if the order wasn't finished, I would have to cancel it. The sales guy told me that the order was finished several days prior and some glitch prevented it from shipping and it was sitting in the warehouse.
He then told me that come hell or high water it he would get it to me before I left town. I told him I was leaving town at 1:00 PM on a Friday and he said, no problem.
Well, then next day I called to check up and I was told that it failed to make it out the door because of some other glitch, but to be assured that it was possible to still receive it before I left town.
Well, Thursday evening, I get a confirmation that the item shipped. When I looked at the detail I noticed that it wasn't sent as a "deliver before 10AM" parcel and that I shouldn't be expecting my package until 4PM.
On Friday, I logged in to track the package and sure enough, another snafu caused DHL to misdirect the package and I would not receive it until Monday!
Well, I left for the graduation sans t-shirts and I got a package on Monday for about $150 worth of now-useless t-shirts.
After a month of leaving messages and trying to get an RMA, I gave up and realized I just got sacked by Zazzle.
Now a part of Google or not, I will never use them again.
I had never heard of a swamp (evaporative) cooler until I moved to AZ. At first, I didn't like the idea of adding a ton of humidity to the air in order to cool some space, but when I bought my first house, I learned that I LOVE swamp coolers.
Newer homes never have them, but the older house that I bought (built in 1979) had a monster one installed on it. During the early parts of summer (when the humidity is low) I can keep my house at 72 degrees when the outside temp is about 100 and my electricity bill is $65/mo.
If I ran my AC unit and kept the house equally as cool with it, I would be looking at no less then a $150 in early summer and $200+ as the temp gets into the range of 110+.
At this point, what I would love is a thermostat that runs both my swamp cooler and AC unit and can determine when to use one versus the other and switch automatically between them. Anybody know of such a device?
If you read the article, it sets the limit at 11. Not that 12+ is not a sex crime, but I'm sure that the conditions are weighed out in court. ANYONE who does something to an 11 year old deserves whatever they get. I don't think that you can conjure a scenario that paints something like that as a simple misjudgment... I don't care if you are a 12 year old boy... if something like that happens, you are not wired correctly and should never be trusted again.
As for the 17 year old... they are all familiar with "jail bait." No 17 year old should be shagging a 15 year old. So if he gets caught, let him pay the price. If he doesn't like it, let him become a lawyer, run for office and change the laws, so that it will be perfectly legal for anyone to have sex with HIS 15 year old DAUGHTER. But, I am sure that by that time, he will have changed his mind.
When you are old enough to pay real taxes, I'm sure that you will have changed your mind as well.
I think the Civil War settled the States' Rights issue once and for all. The federal government has felt the right, since 1819, to walk over a sovereign State's rights whenever it feels it has a moral high ground to do so. If it didn't, slavery would have existed much longer in this country and racial segregation even longer than that.
Hey, if you don't like it, fight it and if you don't want to fight it, leave it. Maybe there is some utopian society out there that conforms to your pipe-dream of the way a governed society should live.
Here is a good plan: live a good life, help your fellow man, don't commit a felony, keep your nose clean and never give up a DNA sample without a fight. And just in case you haven't seen an episode of CSI or watched the movie GATTACA, your DNA is everywhere, if someone wants it, they can get it.
I would suggest that there are concerns that by releasing episodes they damage syndication value. I don't know for sure, but I assume that unless a show is wildly successful (read Friends) they will shop syndication and only release DVDs when syndication opportunities are exploited.
By helping people access episodes on demand they could possibly erode the market value of the show. Re-runs of shows, have a market because people want to watch a show. I would suspect, based on my personal experience, that most of that market is driven by people who have missed episodes and watch regularly to catch what they have never seen.
Everything the entertainment world does is based on specific formulas to generate the greatest amount of revenue. I am sure that if selling access to episodes generated enough money to change the formula, they would do it.
Exactly, or what if the parallel you escaped to has already ended? After the universe ends can it still have a parallel? How can nothing have a parallel? Once your original universe ends, does the parallel you traveled to cease to be a parallel universe?
What if in the parallel universe, Jar Jar Binks wasn't just a movie character, and everyone on the parallel earth breathed carbon monoxide and Slashdot was "pr0n for nerds. stuff that matters"?
Your fears are realized, obviously, IT WORKED! Old joke, new joke... anything better then that joke of a candidate.
I think it is better to vote FOR someone you like, then AGAINST someone you don't. Exit polls showed most votes for Kerry were actually votes against Bush. When you make such a choice, you may end up in a situation that is even worse.
The joke is on you, sorry... the people have spoken.
Now that you KNOW Kerry is going to win, all of you Kerry supporters can now relax; as a matter of fact, there is no longer any reason for you to even show up and vote!
The average amount of dead space between each stud in a standard wall is something like 3 cubic feet of space. If you cool the wall, you will end up cooling that space. By insulating the interior walls, you are not trying to keep from cooling anything beyond the wall, you are preventing cooling of the many cubic feet of space between the walls. Do the math on your dwelling and find out how much unusable space you are cooling and heating.
Each regular void in your wall is approx. 96" x 15.5" x 3.5" Using regular 2 x 4 construction, studs are places 16" apart on center. Assuming 8' studs and the fact that a 2x4 is actually 1.5 x 3.5... you do the numbers. You'll have to check my math... I was a MIS major, not a CS;)
Obviously, you don't know much about Phoenix history. Phoenix has been a rich place of agriculture with plenty of water to sustain multiple cultures throughout history.
The prehistoric Hohokam Indians first settled the area about 300 B.C. and dug a system of extensive irrigation canals for farming. This system included over 300 miles of major canals, which took its water from the Gila, Salt, San Pedro and Santa Cruz rivers. This water was then used to support thousands of acres of farm land. Much of Phoenix still uses the canals dug by the Hohokam.
The Phoenix area has sustained many cultures for many centuries. Phoenix has quite a few "renewable" sources of water and desert land is quite fertile and supports many crops including fruit, lettuce, cotton and hay.
Arizona produces enough cotton a year to provide at least one pair of jeans for everyone in America. Also, it is very likely that the Iceberg lettuce that you enjoy in your salad comes from Arizona. If you enjoy fruit salad, Arizona is one of the top producers of melons in the U.S.
Not to leave out the carnivores, 534.9 million pounds of beef comes from Arizona cattle per year. Getting hungry? Let's finish things of with dessert... if you have some cookies, you need milk... over 350,000 gallons are produced in AZ each year.
While it is true that Phoenix has outpaced its local resources and requires supplementary services to survive, it is far below that of much of Southern California. After all, what major metropolitan city can support itself agriculturally? I think that our neighbors in Las Vegas and Southern California are much worse off.
Just because Phoenix is in a desert, doesn't mean that it isn't naturally livable. Actually, your dire assessment of the area would lead me to conclude that the fact those of us who life there aren't dead yet, is proof enough that someone is doing something right.
Having lived in Georgia, I can say, from experience, that Maricopa County services are so much better than those of DeKalb County. The fact that my driver's license doesn't expire until I am 65 is reason enough to offer props. You have no idea how many hours I've spent waiting GA DOV lines to renew a license. In Maricopa, nearly every government service has an online component and information is only a click away: http://www.maricopa.gov/
I have been hosting several personal domains for years, all with a catch-all account. The spam I receive on most is minimal, mostly stuff promoting web related services. I guess that this is simply from people who crawl the domain names and send to basic accounts like "admin", "webmaster" and "postmaster." These can easily be identified and filtered.
One thing I have noticed, is that one of my domains is the one I use for web hosting. I have determined that if you have a domain with a website that is linked to throughout the web, you will receive a ton of dictionary email account spams. So, if you get your own domain, don't use it for a web hosting domain and your spam quantity will be quite reasonable.
Of the 5 domains that I own, only 1 gets lots of spam to the catch-all... that one is the domain with the web hosting. All the others are minimal.
Oh, one of the other benefits of a catch-all, is that when you are forced to include an email address for some web sign-up, you can invent an email address under your domain without setting up an account. So, if you sign up for a give away at www.freebeer.net, you use the email address freebeer.net@mydomain.com... you can then get the mandatory confirmation emails, but you can later filter that email address and track if that email has been sold. It is a beautiful thing. If the email gets sold, you simply start forwarding all the mail on that account to some email address at the original company that sold it.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that one time when someone important (or not so important to you) dies and walking through old email correspondence lets you relive moments that are gone and may have been forever forgotten without the help of archived emails. While I don't want anyone routing through my emails while I'm alive, I can imagine what a treasure trove of my history is trapped in email format and can be visited, explored and enjoyed by someone else, be it a distant grandchild doing research or a historian trying to understand the emergence of internet technology and its social impacts 75 years from now.
How many iPhones, HTC EVOs and other early adopter phones are purchased without ever touching one? I bet it is the majority. The inability to touch and hold the phone wasn't the problem, the problem was that we live under a cell phone system is is based on phone subsidization and multi-year contracts. If a phone could be purchased at full price and a phone service could be paired with it that didn't carry a subsidization premium, they might have done much better. Bottom line is that Americans don't like paying a premium for a phone unless it is made by Apple.
The Sony Reader starts at $299 and uses E Ink technology that offers all of the features you seem to suggest don't exist. So, YES, there is a eBook reader that:
- doesn't cost near $400
- doesn't need a backlight
- doesn't require continuous power to display
- can be read in the sunlight or under a lamp
Though, I'm sure you will find something else to complain about--either real or imagined.
For the record, this was moderated 'Redundant' and it was the first of it's type to be posted... I think all the others are the redundant ones.
Just my $0.02,
When I saw the review of this book posted, I puzzled to myself how such a review would find its way into Slashdot 13 years after a book was published. My curiosity was peaked because I personally just read this book, sparked by the documentary already mentioned in other posts. While I am not a conspiracy theorist, I found myself thoroughly spooked by the nature of the Federal Reserve and the fact that our country pays the Reserve billions of dollars in interest each year; "for what?" you may ask... simply because the Fed printed a bunch of money so that our government could pay for things like the war in Iraq and other unchecked spending. During WWI and WWII the dollar was backed by gold and the government couldn't simply print money to pay bills, because they had to have gold in the reserves to back the dollar that was printed. For this reason, the government had to sell War Bonds to raise money to pay for the war. Today, they simply ask the Fed to print more money for them to borrow. Paying interest on this borrowed money is one of the single largest expenses of our federal tax dollars.
I said all of that to say this: when I saw this review go up, I thought for sure it was an attempt to discuss Ron Paul simply because I am willing to bet that the one of the main reasons someone on Slashdot might read this book is because it is one of the issues behind the candidacy of Ron Paul. If you are asking the question, "who the hell is Ron Paul?" you are not alone. Among Paul's goals is the elimination of the Federal Reserve and the return to the gold standard, the elimination of the IRS, Federal Taxes and the Department of Education, the return to a constitutional government and the removal of our country's nose from the rest of the world's business. I know that sounds crazy, but when you scratch the surface and see what is behind all of this stuff, your interest might be peaked as mine was.
While I am not stumping for Ron Paul, I find it strange that his name hasn't come up in this conversation.
Just my $0.02,
I don't understand why all this is a big issue anyway? Evolution should be a single chapter in a textbook just like magnetism and gravity. How does teaching evolution or intelligent design prepare our children for life in the 21st century? Would it not be better to simply teach kids science from a scientific perspective? Teach kids to make observations, develop theories and then test them? Give them all of the observable information, present the theories and let them work out conclusions. Why should science be presented so definitively? Wouldn't creating a generation of scientists that challenge established theories possibly make better scientists? Aren't the greatest minds in science those that think outside of the box and challenge the status quo?
Let's not teach our kids WHAT to think, but HOW to think. As humans, we have something within us that seeks to know things, that is one of the things that seems to make us unique among the life on our planet. Quit putting kids minds in shallow little boxes--both evolution and intelligent design are ways of looking at what is observable. If a mind is able to consider multiple perspectives on interpreting information and able to test and draw conclusions on its own, aren't we better off as a people? Why should we be locked into teaching only one thing when there are large groups of others that teach other things--even if they might be wrong? Sure, teach kids what is generally accepted, but let them know there are other theories... even if it includes spaceships and little green (or gray) men--which Intelligent Design is broad enough to encompass. You don't have to put it in the textbooks, just encourage teachers to present other theories as a general survey of "other thoughts on the subject."
There are many other things, like Critical Thinking, Math and Creativity that are so much more valuable to a young mind than something like Evolution and Intelligent Design. I don't care about where a politician stands on hot button topics like Evolution or Abortion... I want to know what they think are the critical changes we require in education that will make our children competitive in the world market during the 21st century.
Just my $0.02,
When I look at huge bureaucratic SNAFUs like this, I can't help but think that an OSS project would have stepped up and filled the hole. Heck, it isn't like there aren't plenty of OSS hackers out there who wouldn't love to contribute to a project that might foil the next terror plot. Why not document the existing infrastructure and put together a software requirements document and let the OSS community go to town creating a FREE software solution? I know that there are some of you out there that wouldn't want the the "man" to use OSS software to track down your pr0n or help build a case against you for all the illegal BitTorrent downloads you have, but, I think most of the OSS community would love a stab at it... sign me up for the web-based UI development! Heck, I'd volunteer my time to help do a business requirements study with field agents... as long as it is the X-files group ;)
Just my $0.02
I have been using myspace for about 2 years now and have thought over the past year that Google should really find a way to get involved with Myspace for the following reasons:
1. Myspace has a pig slow way of accessing vast amounts of data, google could help
2. one word: blogging
3. piss poor loss of advertising opportunity
4. Google wants to manage the worlds data... myspace is a significant repository of useful data
I personally have thought that Myspace has been missing the boat when it comes to advertising opportunity. Not every person using myspace is an oversexed, cellphone ringtone crazed youth. What service could more specifically target an advertisement? Is there any place on the net where so many people disclose more about what they are personally interested in? I welcome Google to the myspace world and look forward to the tools they can offer. Actually, anyone who could help Myspace change those stupid dating service ads is a help in my book.
just my $0.02
I don't get this. The same Catholic Church that is against condoms, is also against sex outside of a monogamous marital relationship. If everyone is in strict adherence to the laws of the Church, AIDS wouldn't be the issue it is. Actually, your problem with the Catholic Church is not that they are against condom use, but that they spend their money to convert people instead of spending money to hand out free condoms... and you think somehow they should be spending their money to support things that they don't believe in? Once again, I don't get it.
I didn't see anyone ask this question. Usually the songwriter is the copyright holder of the lyrics. Unless contracts have changed, I don't see how publishers can even offer an artist's lyrics without an agreement with the writer. They may own a percentage of it, but ultimately a much, much, much larger portion of this should be going to the artists or writers than to the labels or promoters. I personally think this is more hype than genuine business opportunity.
Aren't RFID tags a passive technology? It doesn't hang around "broadcasting" anything, but it can be queried. Am I wrong here?
This article was written in September of 2003! Auctions has been around for a while, they are used on occasionally. The article quotes John Pleasants who no longer works for Ticketmaster. Auctions is just one additional service that Ticketmaster offers clients, the venue chooses if such a tool is to be used and how.
To date, very few venues have done auctions since everyone from artist to promoter to venue has to be in agreement. I personally think that this give the general public a greater chance to get tickets that were not otherwise available. Odds are the auction tickets don't come out of general inventory, but holds that the promoter/artist had anyway. Most of the time, they are packaged with premium features like VIP parties, meet and greet with performer, free swag from promoters, exclusive parking or limo services, etc.
In actuality, TM is likely to get the smallest piece of the pie in the offering. Why should scalpers be the biggest profiteers in ticketing? When scalpers charge a premium, few people complain, but when Ticketmaster offers a tool to allow organizers to sell tickets at market value... stop the presses! Besides, this is old news.
Just my $0.02,
I don't understand what all of the huffing and puffing is about. You can still go stand at a line at the venue and buy a ticket without all the Ticketmaster convenience fees. I don't know of any venue that doesn't have traditional ticket windows for buying tickets. However, that wouldn't be convenient for you would it? I guess that is why they are called 'convenience fees'!
It is not like every good ticket is being sold this way. In all of the test markets that I've heard of, it was only a handful of tickets and they are usually put together with value added offerings. Want to meet your favorite performer? Get free swag from the performer's promoters? Get VIP access, a limo ride, or something no one else gets? Would you pay a premium for that? Why not? Sure TM gets a piece of the pie, but the venue/promoter/artist will get the lion's share. Who do you think is driving this?
What people don't seem to catch on to, is that TM is a *service* company that provides services for a client. What you don't see is all of the millions of dollars spent behind the tickets to support the ticketing business. It isn't like TM just puts up a website and sells tickets at a premium and that is it. If that was the whole story, then every little ticketing company would have whittled TM's business right out from under them by now.
Plenty of companies have tried to take away TM's business and have failed. Heck, I think that if you had any idea what was going on behind closed doors, you would be most pissed at the venues. Do you think that all of the fees you pay go to TM? Think again and do some research. Sure, they get what seems to be more than enough, but the larger venues make out hand-over-fist on ticketing as well. I think part of the value in using a juggernaut like Ticketmaster is that they have always looked like the bad guy and the venues use that to their advantage by tacking on a $12 facility charge and letting TM take the blame for excess fees.
As for auctions, when was the last time you got a great seat to a show? Most good tickets are held by the artist and promoter anyway... you can't get them. Until now. Now, if the artist/promoter want to get what the tickets are worth (who doesn't want to make more money?), they will have to surrender some of their holds and make them available to the people that are willing to pay the premium for them. Right now, you have to know someone who knows someone or be the 99th caller when some song is played to ever expect to get a good seat. Not every band is like U2 and make the best seat in the house the cheapest standing-room-only general admission ticket.
I get sick of listening to people belly ache about Ticketmaster. If you don't want to pay the fees, don't. Just go to the window and buy your ticket. Stand in line out in the rain with all of the other hardcore opposition who wants to save $10 in fees. This is America and people are free to take as much of the pie as the legally can. All the communists out there who think that every seat in a venue should be front front row need to wake up and realize that they live in a capitalistic society. Heck, this country is so great, that you are free to create your own company and knock TM off the hill. Ticketmaster did the same thing the Ticketron back in the 80's. The secret to their success back then? Innovation.
You would think that an audience like Slashdot would have some people who could get together and build a company to unseat them. Heck, if you have $20 million laying around, I would be more than happy to sit down with you and tell you how it could be done. The key is realizing that 'ticketing' is not where the business is at, ticketing is only one facet of a multifaceted service company. If you want to just sell tickets, you will become another Tickets.com who have yet to budge TM from their castle on the hill.
Just my $0.02,
There's got to be better game material out there for a movie. I personally think that Warcraft or Starcraft could each make a fantastic special effects film... I always loved watching the cut-scenes in the game. Why HALO? While DOOM might end up being a turkey, there is good video game material out there. I would love for Tim Burton to make the LucasArts title Grim Fandango into a film... it would certainly be entertaining.
When you view the flash file, option C is the control with no "emotional" image. When I looked at C, I could not see a sideways building, no matter how many times I watched it.
I personally think that this is a bunch of crap. Requiring a person to interpret an image that is skewed should require more mental effort then a properly oriented image and would be more difficult to process when you might already be processing a gory image and questioning just what you saw.
I would like to see the test done again, but instead of a complicated image, like a sideways building, why not use a large black arrow on a white background. I think that a simplistic object like an arrow would be easier to discern and would likely be noticed and its direction easy to determine. Would a lower processing requirement make the "blindness" less blinding?
Blindness? What about simple distraction? Carnage and nudity are probably one of the few things that would make most anyone take another look at something-- just to make sure that they were seeing what they thought that they were seeing. Other things that would make a person double-take would require a context. For example, if you are sitting in your office and a horse walks by your door... you would likely have a reaction similar to seeing gore or nudity for a split second, but you can't provide a context when flashing images, so I think gore and nudity are all you are left with to evoke a "mental double-take."
What if the image wasn't gory? What if in a series of tests they made the gory image less and less discernable, at what point would the effect be eroded? What about putting in something unexpected? Place a skewed image of something easily discernable (iconic) like a sideways Captain Crunch character or an upside down Nike Swoosh. Does an image that makes you mind work harder have the same effect. How about a word... place a misspelled or scrambled word before the sideways building... does it have the same effect? What about showing someone what the sideways building looks like before showing the clips, would that have any effect?
What leads them to attribute this to emotional response? Replace the gory image with a photo of a loved one or a cute animal, is the response the same? How do they gauge an emotional response to an image?
Maybe I am missing something, but this seems like bad science to me.
Just my $0.02 --
The idea behind Zazzle is great, but service totally sucks. I created a shirt and place an order for like 13 shirts as a surprise gag for a friends out-of-town graduation.
There was no way to guarantee when shipping would occur. They had some process (I forget what it entailed, maybe paying for priority shipping) that allowed you to jump the line and get priority printing. I followed the process and sent several emails through their online forms telling them that if I could not get the shirts before a specific date, I needed to cancel the order.
Well, with something like a two week lead time, I watched my order and my status never changed. I sent follow up email after follow up email trying to get someone who could tell me about my order.
Eventually, I had to research the company, find out where in California they were located and then do a company lookup for their phone number (you can't find any of that information on their website).
I finally tracked someone down via land line and they checked on my order. I called to let them know that if the order wasn't finished, I would have to cancel it. The sales guy told me that the order was finished several days prior and some glitch prevented it from shipping and it was sitting in the warehouse.
He then told me that come hell or high water it he would get it to me before I left town. I told him I was leaving town at 1:00 PM on a Friday and he said, no problem.
Well, then next day I called to check up and I was told that it failed to make it out the door because of some other glitch, but to be assured that it was possible to still receive it before I left town.
Well, Thursday evening, I get a confirmation that the item shipped. When I looked at the detail I noticed that it wasn't sent as a "deliver before 10AM" parcel and that I shouldn't be expecting my package until 4PM.
On Friday, I logged in to track the package and sure enough, another snafu caused DHL to misdirect the package and I would not receive it until Monday!
Well, I left for the graduation sans t-shirts and I got a package on Monday for about $150 worth of now-useless t-shirts.
After a month of leaving messages and trying to get an RMA, I gave up and realized I just got sacked by Zazzle.
Now a part of Google or not, I will never use them again.
Just my $0.02 --
I had never heard of a swamp (evaporative) cooler until I moved to AZ. At first, I didn't like the idea of adding a ton of humidity to the air in order to cool some space, but when I bought my first house, I learned that I LOVE swamp coolers.
Newer homes never have them, but the older house that I bought (built in 1979) had a monster one installed on it. During the early parts of summer (when the humidity is low) I can keep my house at 72 degrees when the outside temp is about 100 and my electricity bill is $65/mo.
If I ran my AC unit and kept the house equally as cool with it, I would be looking at no less then a $150 in early summer and $200+ as the temp gets into the range of 110+.
At this point, what I would love is a thermostat that runs both my swamp cooler and AC unit and can determine when to use one versus the other and switch automatically between them. Anybody know of such a device?
cheers.
If you read the article, it sets the limit at 11. Not that 12+ is not a sex crime, but I'm sure that the conditions are weighed out in court. ANYONE who does something to an 11 year old deserves whatever they get. I don't think that you can conjure a scenario that paints something like that as a simple misjudgment... I don't care if you are a 12 year old boy... if something like that happens, you are not wired correctly and should never be trusted again.
As for the 17 year old... they are all familiar with "jail bait." No 17 year old should be shagging a 15 year old. So if he gets caught, let him pay the price. If he doesn't like it, let him become a lawyer, run for office and change the laws, so that it will be perfectly legal for anyone to have sex with HIS 15 year old DAUGHTER. But, I am sure that by that time, he will have changed his mind.
When you are old enough to pay real taxes, I'm sure that you will have changed your mind as well.
Just my $0.02
Hey, if you don't like it, fight it and if you don't want to fight it, leave it. Maybe there is some utopian society out there that conforms to your pipe-dream of the way a governed society should live.
Here is a good plan: live a good life, help your fellow man, don't commit a felony, keep your nose clean and never give up a DNA sample without a fight. And just in case you haven't seen an episode of CSI or watched the movie GATTACA, your DNA is everywhere, if someone wants it, they can get it.
I would suggest that there are concerns that by releasing episodes they damage syndication value. I don't know for sure, but I assume that unless a show is wildly successful (read Friends) they will shop syndication and only release DVDs when syndication opportunities are exploited.
4 1&tid=214&tid=129) to generate interest in shows before you see every episode available.
By helping people access episodes on demand they could possibly erode the market value of the show. Re-runs of shows, have a market because people want to watch a show. I would suspect, based on my personal experience, that most of that market is driven by people who have missed episodes and watch regularly to catch what they have never seen.
Everything the entertainment world does is based on specific formulas to generate the greatest amount of revenue. I am sure that if selling access to episodes generated enough money to change the formula, they would do it.
I suspect that you might begin to see more promotions-based downloads (see: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/26/15552
Just my $0.02,
Exactly, or what if the parallel you escaped to has already ended? After the universe ends can it still have a parallel? How can nothing have a parallel? Once your original universe ends, does the parallel you traveled to cease to be a parallel universe?
What if in the parallel universe, Jar Jar Binks wasn't just a movie character, and everyone on the parallel earth breathed carbon monoxide and Slashdot was "pr0n for nerds. stuff that matters"?
Your fears are realized, obviously, IT WORKED! Old joke, new joke... anything better then that joke of a candidate.
I think it is better to vote FOR someone you like, then AGAINST someone you don't. Exit polls showed most votes for Kerry were actually votes against Bush. When you make such a choice, you may end up in a situation that is even worse.
The joke is on you, sorry... the people have spoken.
(mod +5, justified)
Now that you KNOW Kerry is going to win, all of you Kerry supporters can now relax; as a matter of fact, there is no longer any reason for you to even show up and vote!
The average amount of dead space between each stud in a standard wall is something like 3 cubic feet of space. If you cool the wall, you will end up cooling that space. By insulating the interior walls, you are not trying to keep from cooling anything beyond the wall, you are preventing cooling of the many cubic feet of space between the walls. Do the math on your dwelling and find out how much unusable space you are cooling and heating.
... you do the numbers. You'll have to check my math... I was a MIS major, not a CS ;)
Each regular void in your wall is approx. 96" x 15.5" x 3.5" Using regular 2 x 4 construction, studs are places 16" apart on center. Assuming 8' studs and the fact that a 2x4 is actually 1.5 x 3.5
Just my $.02,
Obviously, you don't know much about Phoenix history. Phoenix has been a rich place of agriculture with plenty of water to sustain multiple cultures throughout history.
The prehistoric Hohokam Indians first settled the area about 300 B.C. and dug a system of extensive irrigation canals for farming. This system included over 300 miles of major canals, which took its water from the Gila, Salt, San Pedro and Santa Cruz rivers. This water was then used to support thousands of acres of farm land. Much of Phoenix still uses the canals dug by the Hohokam.
The Phoenix area has sustained many cultures for many centuries. Phoenix has quite a few "renewable" sources of water and desert land is quite fertile and supports many crops including fruit, lettuce, cotton and hay.
Arizona produces enough cotton a year to provide at least one pair of jeans for everyone in America. Also, it is very likely that the Iceberg lettuce that you enjoy in your salad comes from Arizona. If you enjoy fruit salad, Arizona is one of the top producers of melons in the U.S.
Not to leave out the carnivores, 534.9 million pounds of beef comes from Arizona cattle per year. Getting hungry? Let's finish things of with dessert... if you have some cookies, you need milk... over 350,000 gallons are produced in AZ each year.
While it is true that Phoenix has outpaced its local resources and requires supplementary services to survive, it is far below that of much of Southern California. After all, what major metropolitan city can support itself agriculturally? I think that our neighbors in Las Vegas and Southern California are much worse off.
Just because Phoenix is in a desert, doesn't mean that it isn't naturally livable. Actually, your dire assessment of the area would lead me to conclude that the fact those of us who life there aren't dead yet, is proof enough that someone is doing something right.
Having lived in Georgia, I can say, from experience, that Maricopa County services are so much better than those of DeKalb County. The fact that my driver's license doesn't expire until I am 65 is reason enough to offer props. You have no idea how many hours I've spent waiting GA DOV lines to renew a license. In Maricopa, nearly every government service has an online component and information is only a click away: http://www.maricopa.gov/
Just my $0.02,
I have been hosting several personal domains for years, all with a catch-all account. The spam I receive on most is minimal, mostly stuff promoting web related services. I guess that this is simply from people who crawl the domain names and send to basic accounts like "admin", "webmaster" and "postmaster." These can easily be identified and filtered.
One thing I have noticed, is that one of my domains is the one I use for web hosting. I have determined that if you have a domain with a website that is linked to throughout the web, you will receive a ton of dictionary email account spams. So, if you get your own domain, don't use it for a web hosting domain and your spam quantity will be quite reasonable.
Of the 5 domains that I own, only 1 gets lots of spam to the catch-all... that one is the domain with the web hosting. All the others are minimal.
Oh, one of the other benefits of a catch-all, is that when you are forced to include an email address for some web sign-up, you can invent an email address under your domain without setting up an account. So, if you sign up for a give away at www.freebeer.net, you use the email address freebeer.net@mydomain.com... you can then get the mandatory confirmation emails, but you can later filter that email address and track if that email has been sold. It is a beautiful thing. If the email gets sold, you simply start forwarding all the mail on that account to some email address at the original company that sold it.
just my $0.02,