At my one true "dot com" job, they issued laptops to everyone. My first day, I got a new laptop, and was told that there had been a rash of laptop thefts in the company, so all employees needed to take them home or lock them in a drawer before they left. Of course, I got distracted by the whole "new job" experience and forgot all about it, leaving it on the desk when I went home.
Sure enough, when I came back the next morning, the laptop was not on the desk. Visions of being fired after my first day on the job, and after moving my family halfway across the country for the job, danced in my head. Luckily, it turned out that my supervisor had seen the laptop and locked it in my desk drawer for me. Since then, I always take my computer home with me, even though now I work in an extremely secure facility (Tier IV data center).
Of course Slashdot is biased, but Slashdot doesn't pretend to be a source of encyclopedic truth. Slashdot is a news aggregator and blog, it doesn't claim to be "a quality stable version that can be trusted by students, teachers, and anyone else who is looking for top-notch, reliable information" like Veropedia does.
Slashdot editors use a number of criteria to determine what articles to run. These criteria involve factors such as what stories are likely to get the most page hits, generate the most discussion, etc. It is highly likely that the advertisers' sensibilities come into play as well. If Slashdot billed itself as a source for "top-notch, reliable information" that would be a problem, but it doesn't.
So Veropedia requires that everything be vetted by its own panel of "experts" prior to inclusion, and the whole thing is supported by advertisers. However, this brings up all the same arguments against advertising that came up on Wikipedia. Basically, how can Veropedia confirm, or does it even intend to confirm, that their advertisers will have no effect on the content of the articles published? How do we know that part of the job of the "experts" isn't to make sure that none of the articles published on Veropedia will contain any disparaging information about the advertisers?
Even if Veropedia is completely above board in this respect, the advertising will produce a perception of editorial slant in favor of the advertisers. This perception can be just as damaging to credibility as an actual slant would be.
Why not use Wikipedia and just ignore articles that still have cleanup tags? Because articles in need of cleanup still have good information a lot of times. How about instead we use Wikipedia like we ought to be using all non-primary reference sources (including encyclopedias, and including this new Veropedia)? Namely, we should be using them as reference points only, not as sources of truth.
Wikipedia is a good place to start in a research project, and is a great way to find small tidbits of information that aren't particularly important. If you're looking for some information on which to base a major decision or to include in a research paper, Wikipedia might be your first stop, but it can't be your last. Of course, anyone who was required to write a research paper after about the third grade should already know that encyclopedias aren't valid as final sources of information. Information found in any encyclopedic work (including Wikipedia and "Veropedia") must be confirmed using more reliable and complete sources.
The "Nothing to see here" page exists so people can make vaguely on-topic jokes about it in the first few posts, especially in articles about censorship or vaporware.
It depends on how long their private investors are willing to continue pouring money into the operation. If all of the investors are passionate about the work and have lots and lots of cash, it might work out. If the company were to go public with that kind of strategy, of course, it would sink like a stone.
All computers are upgradeable, some just require special tools to do the job. Like a metric screwdriver or an allen wrench. Or a crowbar, a hammer, and a soldering iron.
During the course of the business day, most people will jot down notes about various things discussed during meetings or at informal cubicle conversations or whatever. Usually, these notes are kept for some period of time until they become no longer relevant, at which time they're either thrown out or shredded.
At my office, we throw such notes into little blue bins under our desks. The contents of these bins are then taken by a company who shreds them. In Amazon's case, the contents of the blue bins are apparently sent to the patent office.
This story is an interesting counterpoint to the news that Major League Baseball has agreed to endorse StubHub as their official ticket reseller.
Personally, I'm torn on this issue. Basically, as a person on a fairly standard middle class income, it sucks that I'll likely never be able to attend major sporting events because scalpers quickly scoop up all of the tickets and price them out of range of the normal fan. On the other hand, if teams insist on building stadiums that don't hold the number of fans that would actually be willing to go to the games (for example, Invesco Field in Denver was built to almost exactly the same capacity as the old Mile High Stadium, even though waiting lists for season tickets there are decades long), it might make sense to let the free market determine the price of seats.
Personally, I think that scalping should be illegal, as scalpers essentially make their money by employing dirty tricks to corner the market on tickets, thereby possibly artificially inflating the cost of tickets. I understand the free market argument, but I think measures should be taken so we can be sure that fans at a game represent a true cross section of the fan base for the team, not just the ones that can afford $500 or more for tickets.
They probably made more money because the method of distribution was so novel that they got far more press for doing this than they would have gotten if they just released an album the old fashioned way.
Now we know the first band to do this can make money. Let's see if the 20th band to do it can after the novelty has worn off.
Oh crap, and the President just threatened World War III the other day! Anyone living anywhere near Tehran might want to put on some SPF 1,000,000 sunscreen when this episode is taped.
Yes, but he was also able to survive with a crayon lodged in his brain for like 30 years, and he was also able to fall down a giant gorge, hitting every rock on the way down, and survive (albeit with fairly serious injuries). Clearly, something has given Homer Simpson superhuman powers. I suspect it has something to do with the chemical content of the inks with which he's drawn.
Obviously, science should be doing more research into this issue.
I wouldn't use it for a production system because it was end-of-lifed like 3 years ago and is therefore completely unsupported. I don't think I'd want to run a website that (presumably) generates quite a bit of revenue on ancient unsupported software.
Even for people that have never owned a PS2 (like me) backwards compatibility is a big deal, because games for new systems are EXPENSIVE and games for older systems are CHEAP. There are some excellent PS2 titles out there retailing for around $20. I get most of the use out of my Wii by playing GameCube games on it (even though I've never owned a GameCube) because I can buy GC games far more frequently than I can buy Wii games, which cost 50 bucks each. PS3 games cost around $60 each, so this is even more of a factor there.
Sure, most games on the older platforms don't age particularly well, but the libraries are so large that there are still a lot of high quality games to buy. I think ignoring backward compatibility when it means cutting yourself off from such a large library of inexpensive games is folly.
For ages 5 to 7, the PC is the only place you're going to get games. At that age, you're primarily looking for educational slower-paced games. While most games of that type on the PC are insufferably lame, that category of game is basically non-existent on consoles. Add to that the fact that parents of kids that age tend to have less money than they do when the kids are older (since people tend to both make more and get better at managing money as they age), and the fact that most people already own a computer even before they have kids, and it's easy to see why kids would be gaming on the family PC prior to any console.
Case took his overinflated stock and bought a huge media company with it, and got himself a very nice golden parachute right before the bottom fell out of the tech sector. I don't expect to see him washing windshields on a street corner any time soon.
AOL was a dialup company struggling to find its way in a world that was rapidly moving to broadband. The company's future was not nearly as bright as its past, and its stock would have plummeted even worse had it not managed to pick up a giant old media property before everything went to hell. Time Warner didn't kill AOL, it was already dying before TW got there. I think AOL's management recognized this, but TW's management didn't see it until it was too late, and they're the ones that got stuck trying to save a company that was circling the drain.
Overinflated stock value. Remember, this was in early 2000, when the bubble was still very much inflated. It didn't start to really burst until later that year.
I'm sure that's why they're making it secret. There's already been at least one slashdot UID auctioned on eBay, and the buyer was mocked mercilessly for it for quite a while as I recall.
Of course, even if this one is secret, given that very few 2 and 3 digit UIDs still post regularly, if the winner posts regularly at all (and what would be the point otherwise?) they'll be found out in fairly short order.
Slashdot Mirror
At my one true "dot com" job, they issued laptops to everyone. My first day, I got a new laptop, and was told that there had been a rash of laptop thefts in the company, so all employees needed to take them home or lock them in a drawer before they left. Of course, I got distracted by the whole "new job" experience and forgot all about it, leaving it on the desk when I went home.
Sure enough, when I came back the next morning, the laptop was not on the desk. Visions of being fired after my first day on the job, and after moving my family halfway across the country for the job, danced in my head. Luckily, it turned out that my supervisor had seen the laptop and locked it in my desk drawer for me. Since then, I always take my computer home with me, even though now I work in an extremely secure facility (Tier IV data center).
Of course Slashdot is biased, but Slashdot doesn't pretend to be a source of encyclopedic truth. Slashdot is a news aggregator and blog, it doesn't claim to be "a quality stable version that can be trusted by students, teachers, and anyone else who is looking for top-notch, reliable information" like Veropedia does.
Slashdot editors use a number of criteria to determine what articles to run. These criteria involve factors such as what stories are likely to get the most page hits, generate the most discussion, etc. It is highly likely that the advertisers' sensibilities come into play as well. If Slashdot billed itself as a source for "top-notch, reliable information" that would be a problem, but it doesn't.
So Veropedia requires that everything be vetted by its own panel of "experts" prior to inclusion, and the whole thing is supported by advertisers. However, this brings up all the same arguments against advertising that came up on Wikipedia. Basically, how can Veropedia confirm, or does it even intend to confirm, that their advertisers will have no effect on the content of the articles published? How do we know that part of the job of the "experts" isn't to make sure that none of the articles published on Veropedia will contain any disparaging information about the advertisers?
Even if Veropedia is completely above board in this respect, the advertising will produce a perception of editorial slant in favor of the advertisers. This perception can be just as damaging to credibility as an actual slant would be.
Wikipedia is a good place to start in a research project, and is a great way to find small tidbits of information that aren't particularly important. If you're looking for some information on which to base a major decision or to include in a research paper, Wikipedia might be your first stop, but it can't be your last. Of course, anyone who was required to write a research paper after about the third grade should already know that encyclopedias aren't valid as final sources of information. Information found in any encyclopedic work (including Wikipedia and "Veropedia") must be confirmed using more reliable and complete sources.
Yes, they'll be running Ubuntu Vomitous Vole.
The "Nothing to see here" page exists so people can make vaguely on-topic jokes about it in the first few posts, especially in articles about censorship or vaporware.
It depends on how long their private investors are willing to continue pouring money into the operation. If all of the investors are passionate about the work and have lots and lots of cash, it might work out. If the company were to go public with that kind of strategy, of course, it would sink like a stone.
In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I have to assume the majority of the 250,000 were most likely blended.
All computers are upgradeable, some just require special tools to do the job. Like a metric screwdriver or an allen wrench. Or a crowbar, a hammer, and a soldering iron.
How in the world was this ever even submitted?!
I think the flowchart makes that obvious.
During the course of the business day, most people will jot down notes about various things discussed during meetings or at informal cubicle conversations or whatever. Usually, these notes are kept for some period of time until they become no longer relevant, at which time they're either thrown out or shredded.
At my office, we throw such notes into little blue bins under our desks. The contents of these bins are then taken by a company who shreds them. In Amazon's case, the contents of the blue bins are apparently sent to the patent office.
So there you have it.
This story is an interesting counterpoint to the news that Major League Baseball has agreed to endorse StubHub as their official ticket reseller.
Personally, I'm torn on this issue. Basically, as a person on a fairly standard middle class income, it sucks that I'll likely never be able to attend major sporting events because scalpers quickly scoop up all of the tickets and price them out of range of the normal fan. On the other hand, if teams insist on building stadiums that don't hold the number of fans that would actually be willing to go to the games (for example, Invesco Field in Denver was built to almost exactly the same capacity as the old Mile High Stadium, even though waiting lists for season tickets there are decades long), it might make sense to let the free market determine the price of seats.
Personally, I think that scalping should be illegal, as scalpers essentially make their money by employing dirty tricks to corner the market on tickets, thereby possibly artificially inflating the cost of tickets. I understand the free market argument, but I think measures should be taken so we can be sure that fans at a game represent a true cross section of the fan base for the team, not just the ones that can afford $500 or more for tickets.
They probably made more money because the method of distribution was so novel that they got far more press for doing this than they would have gotten if they just released an album the old fashioned way.
Now we know the first band to do this can make money. Let's see if the 20th band to do it can after the novelty has worn off.
I want a unicorn. I bet I get my wish before you get yours, EA.
Oh crap, and the President just threatened World War III the other day! Anyone living anywhere near Tehran might want to put on some SPF 1,000,000 sunscreen when this episode is taped.
Yes, but he was also able to survive with a crayon lodged in his brain for like 30 years, and he was also able to fall down a giant gorge, hitting every rock on the way down, and survive (albeit with fairly serious injuries). Clearly, something has given Homer Simpson superhuman powers. I suspect it has something to do with the chemical content of the inks with which he's drawn.
Obviously, science should be doing more research into this issue.
I wouldn't use it for a production system because it was end-of-lifed like 3 years ago and is therefore completely unsupported. I don't think I'd want to run a website that (presumably) generates quite a bit of revenue on ancient unsupported software.
Even for people that have never owned a PS2 (like me) backwards compatibility is a big deal, because games for new systems are EXPENSIVE and games for older systems are CHEAP. There are some excellent PS2 titles out there retailing for around $20. I get most of the use out of my Wii by playing GameCube games on it (even though I've never owned a GameCube) because I can buy GC games far more frequently than I can buy Wii games, which cost 50 bucks each. PS3 games cost around $60 each, so this is even more of a factor there.
Sure, most games on the older platforms don't age particularly well, but the libraries are so large that there are still a lot of high quality games to buy. I think ignoring backward compatibility when it means cutting yourself off from such a large library of inexpensive games is folly.
For ages 5 to 7, the PC is the only place you're going to get games. At that age, you're primarily looking for educational slower-paced games. While most games of that type on the PC are insufferably lame, that category of game is basically non-existent on consoles. Add to that the fact that parents of kids that age tend to have less money than they do when the kids are older (since people tend to both make more and get better at managing money as they age), and the fact that most people already own a computer even before they have kids, and it's easy to see why kids would be gaming on the family PC prior to any console.
Sudden outbreak of election year politics. Notice that the ban is set to expire in 4 years, just prior to another big election year.
Case took his overinflated stock and bought a huge media company with it, and got himself a very nice golden parachute right before the bottom fell out of the tech sector. I don't expect to see him washing windshields on a street corner any time soon.
AOL was a dialup company struggling to find its way in a world that was rapidly moving to broadband. The company's future was not nearly as bright as its past, and its stock would have plummeted even worse had it not managed to pick up a giant old media property before everything went to hell. Time Warner didn't kill AOL, it was already dying before TW got there. I think AOL's management recognized this, but TW's management didn't see it until it was too late, and they're the ones that got stuck trying to save a company that was circling the drain.
Overinflated stock value. Remember, this was in early 2000, when the bubble was still very much inflated. It didn't start to really burst until later that year.
You've got a pink slip!
For more information, go to AOL Keyword: Unemployment
I'm sure that's why they're making it secret. There's already been at least one slashdot UID auctioned on eBay, and the buyer was mocked mercilessly for it for quite a while as I recall.
Of course, even if this one is secret, given that very few 2 and 3 digit UIDs still post regularly, if the winner posts regularly at all (and what would be the point otherwise?) they'll be found out in fairly short order.
See, if Venus had done a better job controlling their illegal immigration issues, we wouldn't be having this problem.