While I agree that back in the day, Red Herring was *definitely* hopped up on the ol' Kool-Aid, they really got their act together during the dying days of the dot-com boom (say, their last year of publishing).
I've never seen a magazine before or since that managed such a tight focus on the *business* of technology, and that really kept to the cutting edge. At that point, it was a much better magazine than it ever had been before, which was just when they decided to pull the plug.
It really doesn't deserve the bashing it's getting in this thread...
For Windows users, an option I have looked at the past (but admittedly never tried out; trialing The Brain sent me off on a tangent...) is Zoot, a type of "Information Management Software". It is essentially a large relational database into which you can store and organize almost any type of document, email, URL, etc.
The only thing I'm a bit worried about is the last release version appears to have been released in 2000; nonetheless, the software continues winning awards. They have a free trial version available if you want to give it a spin.
Mod parent down: Racist link to important material
on
Blaster Writer Caught
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
While I initially found the article linked to be interesting (and appalling), I grew uncomfortable with what appeared to be a racist bent to the editorializing in the article.
A Google search turns up the fact that Jared Taylor is considered "America's most dangerous racist." The rest of the American Renaissance site is full of erudite but clearly racist commentary.
Yes, prison rape is appalling, but a better link for reference on the topic is this one for the original book on the subject, rather than a racist's view of the material.
I was reading about Moissanite, and the names of the companies sounded so familiar... Then I remembered where I saw them; the two companies involved in the production and commercialization of Moissanite are currently in the process of blowing up.
There was a fascinating article on the multitude of tactics that DeBeers uses to prop up and control the diamond market published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1982, which I believe was referenced here on/. about a year ago.
It was quite long, but it's definitely a very interesting read which will probably change your perceptions of the true value of giving diamonds as important gifts...
Different audience sizes = different market potential.
Matrix Reloaded is rated R: Must be over 17. This limits the potential audience. Matrix Reloaded is one of the highest grossing R-rated movies of all time.
I've been trying to get into Banks for several months now, but it seems that many of the Culture novels are out-of-print, including several that you mention above.
Where do you recommend that I start? Is there a "Book 1"? How can I get a hold of the ones that are OOP?
I finished reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars day before yesterday, and the first thing that came to mind when I read this news is that it's just SO obvious -- EVERYONE knows there's tons of water on Mars!
I had great results with Etymotics ER-20's (which I bought from The Ear Plug Store) (no relation), although I don't think they'd be good for sleeping as they have a small rod that sticks out in order to conduct sound into the eardrum.
The store does sell other, sleep-oriented ear plugs, so you may want to check them out.
I see a couple of potential issues here (aside from all the technical and DRM issues mentioned above).
Time Warner earned the movie industry's distaste by pushing the DVD format hard; it has a vested interest in the patents on the format (along with Toshiba and Sony) and therefore receives royalties on each DVD published and each DVD player manufactured. I would assume that RIAA members will be wary of allowing AOLTW the opportunity to build a similar power base in the downloaded-music arena by controlling the distribution mechanism in this fashion.
This brings up the second issue. A key problem (aside from pricing, DRM, yadda yadda yadda) for PressPlay and MusicNet has been making more than just their partners' music catalogs available on their service. As there is no one place to select from a broad/complete range of music, users would be forced to subscribe to more than one (or all) of the services in order to access all the artists that they desire.
Given the above issues, how likely is it that AOLTW will be able to license & distribute music other than that from Warner Music Group?
There is an interesting (older) article linked from this one regarding the fact that both Pioneer probes (10 and 11) are closer than they should be based on the laws of gravity and Newtonian physics. JPL scientists postulate the existence of some sort of "hyper-gravity", as the effect has been shown equivalent on both probes, although each was sent in opposite directions.
It would be interesting to find out whether this effect has also been observed on the Voyager probe which surpassed both Pioneer probes as the most distant man-made object in 1998.//Nanoox
That's not the article! Here's the real text from wsj.com:
If TiVo Thinks You Are Gay, Here's How to Set It Straight
What You Buy Affects Recommendations On Amazon.com, Too; Why the Cartoons? By JEFFREY ZASLOW Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Basil Iwanyk is not a neo-Nazi. Lukas Karlsson isn't a shadowy stalker. David S. Cohen is not Korean.
But all of them live with a machine that seems intent on giving them such labels. It's their TiVo, the digital videorecorder that records some programs it just assumes its owner will like, based on shows the viewer has chosen to record. A phone call the machine makes to TiVo, Inc., in San Jose, Calif., once a day provides key information. As these men learned, when TiVo thinks it has you pegged, there's just one way to change its "mind": outfox it.
Mr. Iwanyk, 32 years old, first suspected that his TiVo thought he was gay, since it inexplicably kept recording programs with gay themes. A film studio executive in Los Angeles and the self-described "straightest guy on earth," he tried to tame TiVo's gay fixation by recording war movies and other "guy stuff."
"The problem was, I overcompensated," he says. "It started giving me documentaries on Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Eichmann. It stopped thinking I was gay and decided I was a crazy guy reminiscing about the Third Reich."
He mentioned his TiVo tussle to a friend, who told an executive at CBS's "The King of Queens," who then wrote an episode with a My-TiVo-thinks-I'm-gay subplot.
A lot of gadgets and Web sites now feature "personalization technologies" that profile consumers by tracking what they watch, listen to or buy. The software, embedded in sites such as Amazon.com and CDNOW.com, then recommends other books, videos and music based on a customer's tastes.
The Willies
Many consumers appreciate having computers delve into their hearts and heads. But some say it gives them the willies, because the machines either know them too well or make cocksure assumptions about them that are way off base. That's why even TiVo lovers are tempted to hoodwink it -- a phenomenon that was also spoofed this year on another TV show, HBO's "The Mind of the Married Man."
Mike Binder, creator and star of that show, had set his home TiVo to record his 1999 movie, "The Sex Monster," about a man whose wife becomes bisexual. After that, Mr. Binder's TiVo assumed he would enjoy a steady stream of gay programming. Unnerved, he counteracted the onslaught by recording the Playboy Channel and MTV's spring break bikini coverage. It worked, he says. "My TiVo doesn't look at me funny anymore."
His wife, however, was taken aback when she saw all the half-naked women he was ordering through TiVo. He told her those women meant nothing to him: "I'm just counterprogramming because TiVo thinks I'm gay." She was unamused. The incident inspired an episode of his show.
Though some users contend TiVo has sex on the brain, TiVo's general manager, Brodie Keast, explains that the box is merely "reacting to feedback you give it." Still, the machine employs algorithms -- searching several thousand key details (favorite actors, movie and TV genres) -- that leave some people wondering whether it is judging their predilections.
Mr. Karlsson, 26, says he "pre-emptively" found all the religious shows in his TV listings and used the "thumbs down" button on his remote control to tell TiVo he has no interest in them. (Giving three thumbs down is the best way to block a program.) After that, his TiVo recorded movies about creepy homicides. "They all have titles like 'Murder on Skeleton Isle,' " says the computer system administrator in Cambridge, Mass.
He uses the "thumbs" button to tell TiVo he hates such films. He also orders cooking shows, which softens TiVo's view of him. "I don't want it thinking I'm an ax murderer," he says.
Mr. Cohen, 30, has a TiVo that mysteriously assumed he wanted Korean news programs. The Philadelphia lawyer gave thumbs down to anything Korean, and his TiVo got the message. Sort of. "The next day, it recorded the Chinese news," he says.
TiVo's 500,000 subscribers use the box primarily to record programs they specifically request, and many laud its ability to pause live broadcasts and record a show's entire season. Still, in TiVo-focused online chat-rooms and in secretive admissions to one another, some say they resent being pigeonholed by TiVo's suggestions.
'A Pregnant Gay Man'
Like TiVo, other techno-profilers run hard with limited information. Ray Everett-Church of Fremont, Calif., who is gay, ordered "Queer as Folk" videos from Amazon.com. Understandably, the site began suggesting gay-related calendars and books. Then he bought a baby book for a pregnant friend. So for weeks, the site also recommended parenting books. He says it was as if Amazon.com decided he was "a pregnant gay man."
He fought back, he says, "by inundating it with additional data. I searched for other stuff -- on politics, computers -- so it would stop throwing baby books at me. Now it thinks I've abandoned the baby and I'm preparing for a career in politics."
Mr. Everett-Church, a privacy consultant for businesses, predicts that as techno-profiling increases, more people will purposely muck up their profiles. They'll fear ordering books on mental illnesses or sexual preferences because they'll wonder if they'll somehow be publicly identified.
All techno-profiling companies contacted for this article said that information gleaned is for the customer's personal use only. Still, even Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos knows the potential mortification factor.
For a live demonstration before an audience of 500 people, Mr. Bezos once logged onto Amazon.com (amazon.com) to show how it caters to his interests. The top recommendation it gave him? The DVD for "Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity." That popped up because he had previously ordered "Barbarella," starring Jane Fonda, a spokesman explains.
Dawn Freeman, 23, a tax analyst in Lexington, Ky., has bought lowbrow videos, such as "American Pie," from Amazon.com. But she was aghast when the site suggested Tom Green's gross-out performance in "Road Trip."
"I thought, 'I know I don't like high cinema, but have I really reached the point where I'd like to watch Tom Green lick a mouse?" To even out her Amazon profile, she went through the site finding "witty independent films."
Her TiVo also thinks she's a sophomoric-humor-loving 12-year-old, she says. It keeps giving her cartoons. "I know it's dumb to take it personally, but it's in your face. These are supposedly objective computers saying, 'This is what we think of you.' "
Dissing Ice Cube
A.J. Meyer, a 35-year-old Web site developer in Minneapolis, ordered the DVD for "Scarface," the Al Pacino gangster movie, from Netflix.com (netflix.com). After that, the site kept recommending movies about gangster rappers. He stopped the assault by giving negative ratings to all movies starring Ice Cube. (Netflix allows members to rate any of its 12,000-plus titles with one to five stars -- whether they have rented a film or not. That helps the site calculate future recommendations.)
After Mr. Meyer ordered a documentary about New York from Amazon.com, it pitched him countless documentaries -- even one on the history of the thimble. He stopped the Ken Burnsification of his profile by searching the site for plasma TVs. "That way, I identified myself as a high-tech guy," he says. "The thimble is more low tech."
Virginia Heffernan, TV columnist for Slate.com, doesn't understand why some people are resistant to techno-profiling, or find it creepy. She didn't look for any deep meaning when her TiVo kept giving her TV shows in Polish. And after buying self-help books on Amazon.com, she accepted that every time she logged on, the site pitched products to make her a more self-fulfilled human being.
"I like the idea that someone cares," she says. "Even a machine."
TiVo users can program the machine to skip certain channels entirely. But many users don't bother to figure out how to do it, or are too intrigued by TiVo's recommendation process, says a spokesman. TiVo is paid to promote programs and products it calls "advertainment" on a special screen. But the company says none of these are given to users as suggestions.
Some people have given up trying to manipulate personalization technologies. Dino Leon, a hair-salon owner in Birmingham, Mich., says his TiVo quickly figured out that he and his partner were gay. They were OK with that, but just for fun, they tried to confuse the software by punching in "redneck" programs, like Jerry Springer's talk show.
TiVo wasn't fooled, and kept recording gay shows. Mr. Leon believes the box was giving them a message: "You're definitely gay. And you're watching too much TV."
Maybe you need to look at the upcoming Tungsten line, which will include wireless services built-in. The Tungsten T is rumored to come with built-in Bluetooth, while the Tungsten W is a smartphone which uses GPRS/GSM networks; it is primarily data-centric (internet/email), but can function as a phone. The Tungsten models will be available on October 28th.
You have no idea how lucky you are that kidnapping is so rare in the U.S.
My wife's 30-year-old cousin was kidnapped two weeks ago in a small town in Veracruz, Mexico, most likely by a group connected with the federal police force. This is by no means a rare occurrence in Mexico (see this Google search for more info); it has become quite the cottage industry.
As such, police have a disincentive to investigate, and even when they do investigate, lack even the most primitive of the forensic methodology routinely displayed on C.S.I.. Kidnappings are rarely reported to the authorities and are even more rarely solved. Kidnappers collect the (significant) booty, either may or may not release the victim alive (amputation of digits, limbs or facial features is common, and executions are frequent), get off scot-free, and move on to their next mark.
This kind of product, if commercialized in a subtle way, and if backed up by the necessary infrastructure in Mexico, would be a huge step forward in putting a stop to this problem.
Amazingly, after five anguishing days my wife's cousin was able to escape unharmed from his kidnappers, and no money changed hands. But he is definitely in the minority in this country.
Wherify, if you're reading this, consider this an invitation to come and try out Mexico. Release an adult version of this product, and you could find a very large market niche and might help control this spiralling problem.
Slashdot Mirror
While I agree that back in the day, Red Herring was *definitely* hopped up on the ol' Kool-Aid, they really got their act together during the dying days of the dot-com boom (say, their last year of publishing).
I've never seen a magazine before or since that managed such a tight focus on the *business* of technology, and that really kept to the cutting edge. At that point, it was a much better magazine than it ever had been before, which was just when they decided to pull the plug.
It really doesn't deserve the bashing it's getting in this thread...
For Windows users, an option I have looked at the past (but admittedly never tried out; trialing The Brain sent me off on a tangent...) is Zoot, a type of "Information Management Software". It is essentially a large relational database into which you can store and organize almost any type of document, email, URL, etc.
The only thing I'm a bit worried about is the last release version appears to have been released in 2000; nonetheless, the software continues winning awards. They have a free trial version available if you want to give it a spin.
While I initially found the article linked to be interesting (and appalling), I grew uncomfortable with what appeared to be a racist bent to the editorializing in the article.
A Google search turns up the fact that Jared Taylor is considered "America's most dangerous racist." The rest of the American Renaissance site is full of erudite but clearly racist commentary.
Yes, prison rape is appalling, but a better link for reference on the topic is this one for the original book on the subject, rather than a racist's view of the material.
Or Real Dolls...
And this is "stuff that matters" in what way? Oh, I get it - it's Douglas Adams. Silly me.
I was reading about Moissanite, and the names of the companies sounded so familiar... Then I remembered where I saw them; the two companies involved in the production and commercialization of Moissanite are currently in the process of blowing up.
There was a fascinating article on the multitude of tactics that DeBeers uses to prop up and control the diamond market published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1982, which I believe was referenced here on /. about a year ago.
It was quite long, but it's definitely a very interesting read which will probably change your perceptions of the true value of giving diamonds as important gifts...
Different audience sizes = different market potential.
Matrix Reloaded is rated R: Must be over 17. This limits the potential audience. Matrix Reloaded is one of the highest grossing R-rated movies of all time.
Finding Nemo is rated G...
Nanoox
I've been trying to get into Banks for several months now, but it seems that many of the Culture novels are out-of-print, including several that you mention above.
Where do you recommend that I start? Is there a "Book 1"? How can I get a hold of the ones that are OOP?
Nanoox
I finished reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars day before yesterday, and the first thing that came to mind when I read this news is that it's just SO obvious -- EVERYONE knows there's tons of water on Mars!
Talk about getting caught up in the story...
/Nanoox
I had great results with Etymotics ER-20's (which I bought from The Ear Plug Store) (no relation), although I don't think they'd be good for sleeping as they have a small rod that sticks out in order to conduct sound into the eardrum.
/Nanoox
The store does sell other, sleep-oriented ear plugs, so you may want to check them out.
Isn't that an oxymoron? Nanoox
I see a couple of potential issues here (aside from all the technical and DRM issues mentioned above).
Time Warner earned the movie industry's distaste by pushing the DVD format hard; it has a vested interest in the patents on the format (along with Toshiba and Sony) and therefore receives royalties on each DVD published and each DVD player manufactured. I would assume that RIAA members will be wary of allowing AOLTW the opportunity to build a similar power base in the downloaded-music arena by controlling the distribution mechanism in this fashion.
This brings up the second issue. A key problem (aside from pricing, DRM, yadda yadda yadda) for PressPlay and MusicNet has been making more than just their partners' music catalogs available on their service. As there is no one place to select from a broad/complete range of music, users would be forced to subscribe to more than one (or all) of the services in order to access all the artists that they desire.
Given the above issues, how likely is it that AOLTW will be able to license & distribute music other than that from Warner Music Group?
It seems as though it would be a non-starter...
Nanoox
Just FYI... Spirited Away will be coming out in Region 1 on ("Disney") DVD on April 15th... check it out.
For what it's worth, Nausicaa and Laputa: Castle in the Sky will be available the same day.
There is an interesting (older) article linked from this one regarding the fact that both Pioneer probes (10 and 11) are closer than they should be based on the laws of gravity and Newtonian physics. JPL scientists postulate the existence of some sort of "hyper-gravity", as the effect has been shown equivalent on both probes, although each was sent in opposite directions.
//Nanoox
It would be interesting to find out whether this effect has also been observed on the Voyager probe which surpassed both Pioneer probes as the most distant man-made object in 1998.
Actually, it's the Slashdot posters who need to improve their thinking skills. :)
... Particularly given all the dupes we've been seeing around here lately. // naNoox
Probably the Slashdot editors could use some work, too...
That's not the article! Here's the real text from wsj.com:
If TiVo Thinks You Are Gay, Here's How to Set It Straight
What You Buy Affects Recommendations
On Amazon.com, Too; Why the Cartoons?
By JEFFREY ZASLOW
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Basil Iwanyk is not a neo-Nazi. Lukas Karlsson isn't a shadowy stalker. David S. Cohen is not Korean.
But all of them live with a machine that seems intent on giving them such labels. It's their TiVo, the digital videorecorder that records some programs it just assumes its owner will like, based on shows the viewer has chosen to record. A phone call the machine makes to TiVo, Inc., in San Jose, Calif., once a day provides key information. As these men learned, when TiVo thinks it has you pegged, there's just one way to change its "mind": outfox it.
Mr. Iwanyk, 32 years old, first suspected that his TiVo thought he was gay, since it inexplicably kept recording programs with gay themes. A film studio executive in Los Angeles and the self-described "straightest guy on earth," he tried to tame TiVo's gay fixation by recording war movies and other "guy stuff."
"The problem was, I overcompensated," he says. "It started giving me documentaries on Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Eichmann. It stopped thinking I was gay and decided I was a crazy guy reminiscing about the Third Reich."
He mentioned his TiVo tussle to a friend, who told an executive at CBS's "The King of Queens," who then wrote an episode with a My-TiVo-thinks-I'm-gay subplot.
A lot of gadgets and Web sites now feature "personalization technologies" that profile consumers by tracking what they watch, listen to or buy. The software, embedded in sites such as Amazon.com and CDNOW.com, then recommends other books, videos and music based on a customer's tastes.
The Willies
Many consumers appreciate having computers delve into their hearts and heads. But some say it gives them the willies, because the machines either know them too well or make cocksure assumptions about them that are way off base. That's why even TiVo lovers are tempted to hoodwink it -- a phenomenon that was also spoofed this year on another TV show, HBO's "The Mind of the Married Man."
Mike Binder, creator and star of that show, had set his home TiVo to record his 1999 movie, "The Sex Monster," about a man whose wife becomes bisexual. After that, Mr. Binder's TiVo assumed he would enjoy a steady stream of gay programming. Unnerved, he counteracted the onslaught by recording the Playboy Channel and MTV's spring break bikini coverage. It worked, he says. "My TiVo doesn't look at me funny anymore."
His wife, however, was taken aback when she saw all the half-naked women he was ordering through TiVo. He told her those women meant nothing to him: "I'm just counterprogramming because TiVo thinks I'm gay." She was unamused. The incident inspired an episode of his show.
Though some users contend TiVo has sex on the brain, TiVo's general manager, Brodie Keast, explains that the box is merely "reacting to feedback you give it." Still, the machine employs algorithms -- searching several thousand key details (favorite actors, movie and TV genres) -- that leave some people wondering whether it is judging their predilections.
Mr. Karlsson, 26, says he "pre-emptively" found all the religious shows in his TV listings and used the "thumbs down" button on his remote control to tell TiVo he has no interest in them. (Giving three thumbs down is the best way to block a program.) After that, his TiVo recorded movies about creepy homicides. "They all have titles like 'Murder on Skeleton Isle,' " says the computer system administrator in Cambridge, Mass.
He uses the "thumbs" button to tell TiVo he hates such films. He also orders cooking shows, which softens TiVo's view of him. "I don't want it thinking I'm an ax murderer," he says.
Mr. Cohen, 30, has a TiVo that mysteriously assumed he wanted Korean news programs. The Philadelphia lawyer gave thumbs down to anything Korean, and his TiVo got the message. Sort of. "The next day, it recorded the Chinese news," he says.
TiVo's 500,000 subscribers use the box primarily to record programs they specifically request, and many laud its ability to pause live broadcasts and record a show's entire season. Still, in TiVo-focused online chat-rooms and in secretive admissions to one another, some say they resent being pigeonholed by TiVo's suggestions.
'A Pregnant Gay Man'
Like TiVo, other techno-profilers run hard with limited information. Ray Everett-Church of Fremont, Calif., who is gay, ordered "Queer as Folk" videos from Amazon.com. Understandably, the site began suggesting gay-related calendars and books. Then he bought a baby book for a pregnant friend. So for weeks, the site also recommended parenting books. He says it was as if Amazon.com decided he was "a pregnant gay man."
He fought back, he says, "by inundating it with additional data. I searched for other stuff -- on politics, computers -- so it would stop throwing baby books at me. Now it thinks I've abandoned the baby and I'm preparing for a career in politics."
Mr. Everett-Church, a privacy consultant for businesses, predicts that as techno-profiling increases, more people will purposely muck up their profiles. They'll fear ordering books on mental illnesses or sexual preferences because they'll wonder if they'll somehow be publicly identified.
All techno-profiling companies contacted for this article said that information gleaned is for the customer's personal use only. Still, even Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos knows the potential mortification factor.
For a live demonstration before an audience of 500 people, Mr. Bezos once logged onto Amazon.com (amazon.com) to show how it caters to his interests. The top recommendation it gave him? The DVD for "Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity." That popped up because he had previously ordered "Barbarella," starring Jane Fonda, a spokesman explains.
Dawn Freeman, 23, a tax analyst in Lexington, Ky., has bought lowbrow videos, such as "American Pie," from Amazon.com. But she was aghast when the site suggested Tom Green's gross-out performance in "Road Trip."
"I thought, 'I know I don't like high cinema, but have I really reached the point where I'd like to watch Tom Green lick a mouse?" To even out her Amazon profile, she went through the site finding "witty independent films."
Her TiVo also thinks she's a sophomoric-humor-loving 12-year-old, she says. It keeps giving her cartoons. "I know it's dumb to take it personally, but it's in your face. These are supposedly objective computers saying, 'This is what we think of you.' "
Dissing Ice Cube
A.J. Meyer, a 35-year-old Web site developer in Minneapolis, ordered the DVD for "Scarface," the Al Pacino gangster movie, from Netflix.com (netflix.com). After that, the site kept recommending movies about gangster rappers. He stopped the assault by giving negative ratings to all movies starring Ice Cube. (Netflix allows members to rate any of its 12,000-plus titles with one to five stars -- whether they have rented a film or not. That helps the site calculate future recommendations.)
After Mr. Meyer ordered a documentary about New York from Amazon.com, it pitched him countless documentaries -- even one on the history of the thimble. He stopped the Ken Burnsification of his profile by searching the site for plasma TVs. "That way, I identified myself as a high-tech guy," he says. "The thimble is more low tech."
Virginia Heffernan, TV columnist for Slate.com, doesn't understand why some people are resistant to techno-profiling, or find it creepy. She didn't look for any deep meaning when her TiVo kept giving her TV shows in Polish. And after buying self-help books on Amazon.com, she accepted that every time she logged on, the site pitched products to make her a more self-fulfilled human being.
"I like the idea that someone cares," she says. "Even a machine."
TiVo users can program the machine to skip certain channels entirely. But many users don't bother to figure out how to do it, or are too intrigued by TiVo's recommendation process, says a spokesman. TiVo is paid to promote programs and products it calls "advertainment" on a special screen. But the company says none of these are given to users as suggestions.
Some people have given up trying to manipulate personalization technologies. Dino Leon, a hair-salon owner in Birmingham, Mich., says his TiVo quickly figured out that he and his partner were gay. They were OK with that, but just for fun, they tried to confuse the software by punching in "redneck" programs, like Jerry Springer's talk show.
TiVo wasn't fooled, and kept recording gay shows. Mr. Leon believes the box was giving them a message: "You're definitely gay. And you're watching too much TV."
...for the plane to land to hear about the cute guy sitting in 21-b.
Hey!! That was me in 21-b!
Don't stop her from doing something about it...
It must suck to be a "freelance writer" and to not even get a credit on your "submission" to Microsoft's site...
Nanoox
More like The Crying Game...
So much for all those who were postulating about dinosaurs in Day-Glo colors... /Nanoox.
Maybe you need to look at the upcoming Tungsten line, which will include wireless services built-in. The Tungsten T is rumored to come with built-in Bluetooth, while the Tungsten W is a smartphone which uses GPRS/GSM networks; it is primarily data-centric (internet/email), but can function as a phone. The Tungsten models will be available on October 28th.
Nanoox
You have no idea how lucky you are that kidnapping is so rare in the U.S.
My wife's 30-year-old cousin was kidnapped two weeks ago in a small town in Veracruz, Mexico, most likely by a group connected with the federal police force. This is by no means a rare occurrence in Mexico (see this Google search for more info); it has become quite the cottage industry.
As such, police have a disincentive to investigate, and even when they do investigate, lack even the most primitive of the forensic methodology routinely displayed on C.S.I.. Kidnappings are rarely reported to the authorities and are even more rarely solved. Kidnappers collect the (significant) booty, either may or may not release the victim alive (amputation of digits, limbs or facial features is common, and executions are frequent), get off scot-free, and move on to their next mark.
This kind of product, if commercialized in a subtle way, and if backed up by the necessary infrastructure in Mexico, would be a huge step forward in putting a stop to this problem.
Amazingly, after five anguishing days my wife's cousin was able to escape unharmed from his kidnappers, and no money changed hands. But he is definitely in the minority in this country.
Wherify, if you're reading this, consider this an invitation to come and try out Mexico. Release an adult version of this product, and you could find a very large market niche and might help control this spiralling problem.
Nanoox...