Wow! Combine this with a transmitter and receiver, and you get the ability to have sub-vocal backchannel communication with people--I think it was Gregory Benford who wrote a series of books that featured something like this.
Every month or so, Google updates its database again, and every time, webmasters all over the world whose pages happened to go lower in the rankings complain that Google is broken and the sky is falling. This time is no different, except that mainstream news has picked up the story. Here are a few facts to keep in mind:
1. You can't say with authority that "Google has implemented a filter." Google isn't talking about how their rankings work. The webmasters and SEO types are like astronomers trying to figure out how Google works by observing samples of results. Take everything they say as a theory and nothing more.
2. There's a fine line between making responsibly search-optimized pages and spamming Google, and many of the people who complain are on the spamming side of that line. If you look in the forums where SEO types (and spammers) hang out, 90% of the messages are complaining that their site has disappeared and Google is wrong. If you look in web development forums, 90% of the messages are from people excited to see their pages' position increase.
3. For every webmaster that complains about their site's Google position going down, there are one or more sites whose positions have gone up. Often they're equally deserving of the traffic.
4. There are strong rumors (and some statements from a Google representative) that suggest that this is the last major update to Google's database, and that incremental "freshbot" updates will continue from now on. If this is the case, it may only be a day or a week before your site changes position again, so why complain?
5. Most importantly, notice that it's always webmasters complaining. Never end-users. Guess which group Google considers its customers?
I find this whole tale a bit hard to believe. Spammers have no trouble trolling the web for millions of addresses - why would they buy them from a credit card company? And why would anyone include their email address on a credit card application in the first place? And why would they bother fishing it out of the garbage? And why would they issue a card without her signature?
And why would someone so concerned about the loss of her personal information throw the application away right next to the potential thieves?
And why would someone who gets 1/10 of the spam I get have anything to complain about at all?
Considering the complete lack of non-hearsay evidence, whether it's actionable doesn't matter. You couldn't win anyway.
It's about time - CDs have been overpriced for years.
But when a large segment of the public is going to be comparing $12.98 with the $0.00 filesharing price, I have to wonder if it will have any effect at all.
I wonder what the artists think of this? This price reduction has to impact their bottom line...
> The iQue 3600 is the first PDA to include integrated GPS technology.
> With the power of Palm OS(R) 5 and the dependability of Garmin(R) GPS technology,
> this "Super PDA" redefines multi-tasking. Our integrated software not only
> allows you to look up appointments or contacts, but also locates and routes
> you to them with voice-guidance commands!
Impressive, although I imagine voice guidance is going to sound very cheesy coming out of a tiny machine like this. And embarrassing. (Did your coat pocket just say "turn 90 degrees left"?)
You may now begin the usual "How long will it take for someone to put Linux on one of these" discussion.
It appears that when you combine lawyers and XML you end up with a linguistic quagmire that is completely impossible for mere mortals to comprehend, or escape from.
If this is true (and I'm still waiting for confirmation) it's a major blow for Palm. My wife has gone through three different Palm machines and knows graffiti as well as handwriting - tell her she'll have to learn a new system and suddenly Windows CE starts to look better.
Matt Groening is officially the last of the Web holdouts: MG: Um... I've reserved mattgroening.com. (Laughs) It's said "This Site Is Under Construction" for three years now. I'll get around to it.
I think he really took it down just before the interview, and it was full of Dancing Jesus GIFs.
"Ooh. They have the Internet on computers now."
-- Homer
Wow, this is amazing if you've been around for a while.
My first hard drive was 105MB (that's mega, not giga) and cost $600. Of course, that included the SCSI interface for the Atari ST I was hooking it to.
The big question is where the lower-capacity drives are going. It seems like a decent drive always costs about $100 - and the amount you get for your $100 keeps increasing - but where are all of the 40GB drives that should be floating around for $40 apiece?
The main benefit...
on
Real DRM
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The main benefit of this (if DRM can have a benefit) appears to be that it would simplify things for hardware makers who want to support multiple formats.
Of course, consumers don't seem to want anything but the MP3 format, and they don't want DRM at all... it's just a press release. If there was any real consumer demand for it we'd be hearing about it from its supporters before the official press release...
For what it's worth, here's Real's Technical Details about Helix DRM. It's a bit light on the specifics, though.
Aside from further shrinking the broadband-equipped potential audience, wouldn't real-time voice communication kind of spoil the suspension of disbelief?
Xyphor: Welcome to the Weapons Shoppe! How may I serve thee on this fine morn? Benny38: Hey, er, what's up dude? Xyphor: Dost thou wish to sample my wares? Benny38: Can you hear this? Are we like talking now? Xyphor: Thou art testing my patience with these fine weapons close at hand. Benny38: Umm, hello? Can someone send me an email and tell me if they can hear me? It's benny38 at AOL dot com. (insert blood-wrenching sound effect here)
I was imagining some kind of retro computer programming contest, but along with "Most Obscure Computer Competition" the events include:
- Photography Competition - Short Story Competition - Live Vocal Music Competition ("You do not necessarily have to sing, you can also make other sounds/noise with your mouth(s).") - Love Music Competition - Black and White Video Competition ("Shades of gray are not allowed.")
I love it. It's a shame I'm nowhere near Finland or I'd stop by just to see the spectacle of 300 retro computer geeks in a love song competition...
First of all, the supreme court has not yet accepted the case. Don't hold your breath:
Attorneys said it typically takes the California Supreme Court about three months to decide whether to hear a case. A ruling could take more than a year.
Second, this is not an issue of whether domain names are property, but whether they're tangible property - the kind to which "traditional property conversion laws should apply".
The appeals court seems to be bouncing this to the CSC because they're afraid of laying down a precedent in this area. Too much of a hot-button issue, I suppose.
I hope the name SpamAssassin is all they have the rights to. It seems like there might be some messy legal issues here.
Also, if this goes as mainstream as it looks like it's going, we might need a different open-source spam filter after all - because NAI's product will be the one the spammers will be testing on and trying to get past.
OTOH, maybe NAI throwing money at this will make ISPs everywhere notice and start taking spam a bit more seriously.
Anyway, while it lasts, SpamAssassin (or whatever we call it) is excellent. The new Bayesian filtering in the upcoming 2.50 is working wonders.
Looks like a decent system and definitely a boon for libraries. I won't use it, but then, I don't use libraries at all. I like to own stuff.
Really, it's the perfect use for ebooks. Nobody wants to pay for them, because they're inferior to paper books* in so many ways. But the libraries don't want to make money, they just want to let people read things for free. This system makes that possible at a lower price for the libraries, and publishers can feel good about themselves by giving the e-version away to libraries if they want to.
It won't take off, though, until the libraries come up with a cheap, incredibly durable ebook reader that they can lend out with the books. This will serve as a stopgap until the time when (and if) most households have a reader of some sort.
Students haven't paid attention in class since the dawn of time. It's what makes them students. Whether you give them computers, wireless net connections, paper airplanes, books, or guitars to play with will make no difference.
Those who are surfing the net now would have been passing notes in class or listening to headphones years ago. If they really want to change this they could start kicking out students for apathy, but all that would do is make the schools go broke while professors spoke to near-empty rooms.
Don't forget, those apathetic students are paying to keep the school running for those who actually listen in class.
>It's not cheap and maybe not very practical. >But very cool nevertheless.
That just about sums up every electric car produced so far. What makes this one different?
Well, it does have 8 wheels and seats 8 people. More of an Electric Limo. Probably the perfect thing for the insanely rich environmentalist on the go with seven friends.
It's cute but without features like Sync, it's just a novelty. And I don't really find tiny keyboards any more practical than phone keypads. The kids will love it.
I'm dreaming of the Kyocera Smartphone 7135. Full color screen, Palm OS, expansion slot, 3G, and it's barely larger than my Startac. NICE!
Slashdot Mirror
Wow! Combine this with a transmitter and receiver, and you get the ability to have sub-vocal backchannel communication with people--I think it was Gregory Benford who wrote a series of books that featured something like this.
Way better than text messaging.
Every month or so, Google updates its database again, and every time, webmasters all over the world whose pages happened to go lower in the rankings complain that Google is broken and the sky is falling. This time is no different, except that mainstream news has picked up the story. Here are a few facts to keep in mind:
1. You can't say with authority that "Google has implemented a filter." Google isn't talking about how their rankings work. The webmasters and SEO types are like astronomers trying to figure out how Google works by observing samples of results. Take everything they say as a theory and nothing more.
2. There's a fine line between making responsibly search-optimized pages and spamming Google, and many of the people who complain are on the spamming side of that line. If you look in the forums where SEO types (and spammers) hang out, 90% of the messages are complaining that their site has disappeared and Google is wrong. If you look in web development forums, 90% of the messages are from people excited to see their pages' position increase.
3. For every webmaster that complains about their site's Google position going down, there are one or more sites whose positions have gone up. Often they're equally deserving of the traffic.
4. There are strong rumors (and some statements from a Google representative) that suggest that this is the last major update to Google's database, and that incremental "freshbot" updates will continue from now on. If this is the case, it may only be a day or a week before your site changes position again, so why complain?
5. Most importantly, notice that it's always webmasters complaining. Never end-users. Guess which group Google considers its customers?
I find this whole tale a bit hard to believe. Spammers have no trouble trolling the web for millions of addresses - why would they buy them from a credit card company? And why would anyone include their email address on a credit card application in the first place? And why would they bother fishing it out of the garbage? And why would they issue a card without her signature?
And why would someone so concerned about the loss of her personal information throw the application away right next to the potential thieves?
And why would someone who gets 1/10 of the spam I get have anything to complain about at all?
Considering the complete lack of non-hearsay evidence, whether it's actionable doesn't matter. You couldn't win anyway.
So... it's an uncomfortable couch with a $10 digital scale built in?
...or a couch made of mouse pads.
And they got on CNN? Obviously the rest of us just aren't trying hard enough.
Real geeks don't want that couch, they want funny-looking ergonomic sofas or something with a built-in stereo and drink holder.
Why a convertible? Riding it is going to be like one of those amusement park rides that gets everyone wet.
> "The Thames is a perfect location to make use
> of this vehicle as it has no speed limit and
> is greatly under-utilised."
Those silly Brits. We have speed limits posted for all bodies of water here in the US.
The VideoNOW Linux Project can't be far behind.
I'm sure Hasbro will nip this in the bud as soon as they realize someone could market their own shows for it. (Or, god-forbid, porn!)
It's about time - CDs have been overpriced for years.
But when a large segment of the public is going to be comparing $12.98 with the $0.00 filesharing price, I have to wonder if it will have any effect at all.
I wonder what the artists think of this? This price reduction has to impact their bottom line...
> The iQue 3600 is the first PDA to include integrated GPS technology.
> With the power of Palm OS(R) 5 and the dependability of Garmin(R) GPS technology,
> this "Super PDA" redefines multi-tasking. Our integrated software not only
> allows you to look up appointments or contacts, but also locates and routes
> you to them with voice-guidance commands!
Impressive, although I imagine voice guidance is going to sound very cheesy coming out of a tiny machine like this. And embarrassing. (Did your coat pocket just say "turn 90 degrees left"?)
You may now begin the usual "How long will it take for someone to put Linux on one of these" discussion.
It appears that when you combine lawyers and XML you end up with a linguistic quagmire that is completely impossible for mere mortals to comprehend, or escape from.
The CNN article doesn't mention the observatory but does have some other details about the fires.
If this is true (and I'm still waiting for confirmation) it's a major blow for Palm. My wife has gone through three different Palm machines and knows graffiti as well as handwriting - tell her she'll have to learn a new system and suddenly Windows CE starts to look better.
Matt Groening is officially the last of the Web holdouts:
... I've reserved mattgroening.com. (Laughs) It's said "This Site Is Under Construction" for three years now. I'll get around to it.
MG: Um
I think he really took it down just before the interview, and it was full of Dancing Jesus GIFs.
"Ooh. They have the Internet on computers now."
-- Homer
Wow, this is amazing if you've been around for a while.
My first hard drive was 105MB (that's mega, not giga) and cost $600. Of course, that included the SCSI interface for the Atari ST I was hooking it to.
The big question is where the lower-capacity drives are going. It seems like a decent drive always costs about $100 - and the amount you get for your $100 keeps increasing - but where are all of the 40GB drives that should be floating around for $40 apiece?
The main benefit of this (if DRM can have a benefit) appears to be that it would simplify things for hardware makers who want to support multiple formats.
Of course, consumers don't seem to want anything but the MP3 format, and they don't want DRM at all... it's just a press release. If there was any real consumer demand for it we'd be hearing about it from its supporters before the official press release...
For what it's worth, here's Real's Technical Details about Helix DRM. It's a bit light on the specifics, though.
Aside from further shrinking the broadband-equipped potential audience, wouldn't real-time voice communication kind of spoil the suspension of disbelief?
Xyphor: Welcome to the Weapons Shoppe! How may I serve thee on this fine morn?
Benny38: Hey, er, what's up dude?
Xyphor: Dost thou wish to sample my wares?
Benny38: Can you hear this? Are we like talking now?
Xyphor: Thou art testing my patience with these fine weapons close at hand.
Benny38: Umm, hello? Can someone send me an email and tell me if they can hear me? It's benny38 at AOL dot com.
(insert blood-wrenching sound effect here)
I was imagining some kind of retro computer programming contest, but along with "Most Obscure Computer Competition" the events include:
- Photography Competition
- Short Story Competition
- Live Vocal Music Competition ("You do not necessarily have to sing, you can also make other sounds/noise with your mouth(s).")
- Love Music Competition
- Black and White Video Competition ("Shades of gray are not allowed.")
I love it. It's a shame I'm nowhere near Finland or I'd stop by just to see the spectacle of 300 retro computer geeks in a love song competition...
First of all, the supreme court has not yet accepted the case. Don't hold your breath:
Attorneys said it typically takes the California Supreme Court about three months to decide whether to hear a case. A ruling could take more than a year.
Second, this is not an issue of whether domain names are property, but whether they're tangible property - the kind to which "traditional property conversion laws should apply".
The appeals court seems to be bouncing this to the CSC because they're afraid of laying down a precedent in this area. Too much of a hot-button issue, I suppose.
I hope the name SpamAssassin is all they have the rights to. It seems like there might be some messy legal issues here.
Also, if this goes as mainstream as it looks like it's going, we might need a different open-source spam filter after all - because NAI's product will be the one the spammers will be testing on and trying to get past.
OTOH, maybe NAI throwing money at this will make ISPs everywhere notice and start taking spam a bit more seriously.
Anyway, while it lasts, SpamAssassin (or whatever we call it) is excellent. The new Bayesian filtering in the upcoming 2.50 is working wonders.
Looks like a decent system and definitely a boon for libraries. I won't use it, but then, I don't use libraries at all. I like to own stuff.
Really, it's the perfect use for ebooks. Nobody wants to pay for them, because they're inferior to paper books* in so many ways. But the libraries don't want to make money, they just want to let people read things for free. This system makes that possible at a lower price for the libraries, and publishers can feel good about themselves by giving the e-version away to libraries if they want to.
It won't take off, though, until the libraries come up with a cheap, incredibly durable ebook reader that they can lend out with the books. This will serve as a stopgap until the time when (and if) most households have a reader of some sort.
(Remember when video rental places rented VCRs?)
This moon picture is one of the most impressive digicam pictures I've seen.
Shame about the expensive telescope requirement, though.
Students haven't paid attention in class since the dawn of time. It's what makes them students. Whether you give them computers, wireless net connections, paper airplanes, books, or guitars to play with will make no difference.
Those who are surfing the net now would have been passing notes in class or listening to headphones years ago. If they really want to change this they could start kicking out students for apathy, but all that would do is make the schools go broke while professors spoke to near-empty rooms.
Don't forget, those apathetic students are paying to keep the school running for those who actually listen in class.
>Pages iii-v: ableofcontents
...but this article can.
>Not even lawyers can mess up a table of contents.
>The geeks amongst us should use this commonality to rise up
> and use our voice for progress and not petty squabbling."
That's like asking us to give up caffeinated beverages or broadband connections. Petty squabbling is a proud and necessary part of being a geek.
>It's not cheap and maybe not very practical.
>But very cool nevertheless.
That just about sums up every electric car produced so far. What makes this one different?
Well, it does have 8 wheels and seats 8 people. More of an Electric Limo. Probably the perfect thing for the insanely rich environmentalist on the go with seven friends.
It's cute but without features like Sync, it's just a novelty. And I don't really find tiny keyboards any more practical than phone keypads. The kids will love it.
I'm dreaming of the Kyocera Smartphone 7135. Full color screen, Palm OS, expansion slot, 3G, and it's barely larger than my Startac. NICE!