I got half way through the article and stopped. He isn't saying anything really at all.
I don't think this is a discovery of any sort.. I think it is just a guy bragging that he had a nice audience at some conference for which he gave a presentation regarding the non-zero energy of empty space.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this has been known for some time and is even explained our current models.
His presentation seemed to be very anecdotal, I don't think he's claiming to have discovered anything - in fact, I don't think he is claiming to even understand what he is talking about, he's just providing some anecdotal perspective on it.
Not sure if credit unions are popular in other regions or not, but in my area (Saskatchewan, Canada) credit unions are very popular and quite successful. We have general credit unkons, teacher's credit unions, etc.
I see this as an extension of the same concept - only giving everyone involved more control as the technology (web) permits it. Letting everyone control every nickel and dime within a traditional credit union just isn't feasible.
Seems to work here.. can't see many reasons why it wouldn't work on the scale these sites envision.
These things will pass. Look at developing a better technology.
What would an open-source solution offer over the commercially available ones that would possibly make any one want to switch?
Don't say cost, because these are not costing the nuiversities a penny - the students bare the cost buy buying/leasing/renting the clickers.
You say you think this is a prime opportunity for open-srouce. I say good luck.
I work in product development, particularly electronics. A student showed me his clicker and described it to me. Nothing fancy - probably the same ones you've seen. They are a custom job though.. don't believe the company managed to source some strange 6 button IR remotes each that broadcast a unique ID. Send one to a chinese manufacturer and he'll send you a crate of them back in few weeks.
You must also realize that this is about marketing. I bet some of these companies pay the universities for using their clickers - a profit sharing arrangement. You think the powers-that-be are surfing sourceforge looking for alternatives? Not in this life-time.
Technically, IR seems wrong for these in my opinion, but obviously keeps costs down.
I don't think these will last. The idea is a little silly and having students pay for them just makes them upset - in fact, the guy who showed me his said he was trying to avoid the classes which used these things because he didn't want to buy one (never mind the principals that some might have against even using one).
My suggestion to you would be to come up with a better idea - forget the clickers. Perhaps by the time your idea is mature enough clickers will be on their way out.
The problem with a unique ID for the clicker is that you could later identify who had which clicker
That's not the problem, it's the point.
At my local university, they use these for 2 reasons. 1 - to take attendance and give a partial grade for it. 2 - to give quick quizzes at the end of a lecture.
Sort of hard to assign grades to students without a unique ID.
My understanding is that students buy these at the campus bookstore, then register them online as to identify themselves. They then bring them to classes and such.
Worst part of what I heard is that they cost about $15 and you have to return them at the end of the course!
some people incorrectly believe if it cost you some small amount of money to send me an email, I would no longer get spam.
I will bet any sum of money that this sort of thing will never be predominant or commonplace. Or that if it is, it will have no effect on spam as the micropayment will be sufficiently small.
The idea extends to suggest that if you paid $0.05 to send me an email, and I read it I would give you your $0.05 back so it really cost you nothing.
The idea is stupid on a lot of levels. I can't think of anyone I knowthat values email enough to deal with such a system.
these sorts of ideas are fine and all when they offer high rewards.. but an xBox??
To an honest and moral person, perhaps it is worth an xBox.. to almost anyone else, that is way to valuable of a skill to lose over an xBox (this presumes they'll close the hole/exploit you use).
Even if you are honest, an xBox is hardly worth the time/effort you'll spend doing this.
I too would ditch my cable TV in an effort to select shows to watch.
It seems like a business model could be setup by the broadcasters, but we are forgetting one thing...... the message isn't the shows content. the show is merely a medium to deliver the real message: advertisements.
The advertising model currently used is in trouble if shows are delivered as downloads. Advertisers ran scared with VCR's and now with DVR's - this would make things much worse for them.
There needs to be a shift in the revenue models for broadcasters - their customers are not their viewers, but are their advertisers.. what you suggest may seem simple and obvious, but it is really a VERY big change - you want the viewers to be the customers.
I would say broadcasters are reluctant to give the viewers much more control than they already have under the current structure of things - they need to keep their customers (advertisers) happy.
I know someone who has a job listening to recorded telemarkers calls for a large telemarketing firm.
The reason? The young guys making the calls like to cheat the system.
They usually get bonusses based on 'sales'..
marketer: would you like to sign up for this free credit card? person: for the last time, NO!
.. marketer presses 'yes' button on the PC to give himself the $12 bonus for that sale
so.. they pick random succesful calls and listen to them after the fact to make sure their employees aren't cheating them. Also, any complaints that make it back to them (ie. I told you guys 'NO' and you still sent me this) they will actually make an effort to review the call.
at least at his company, as he described it to me, it's all for customer protection.
civilization-ending event: if one occurs, you will die. (and he claims one occuring in the next 100 years is 1 in 455)
Your mistake is not realizing an average person takes many, many, many more than 1 flight in their lifetimes.
According to the National Safety Council, your odds of dying are actually slightly worse. Your odds of dying due to injury in a plane crash are about 1 in 4,023 (see this table).
If you rarely fly, then your at a favorible statistical end of the spectrum with respect to fatalities due to injury by air travel - but remember, some people bank several flights each and every week for years.
I formerly considered myself pretty poor in spelling/grammar (you can probably pick errors out of this very sentance), but with the degradation of attention in the business world, I now consider myself an advanced writer.
I had one business encounter I'll never forget. The guy was from the UK and spoke english as a first language. This guy's emails took me forever to decode - honestly! Even then I could never figure them out.
And it wasn't in error - it was intentional. You know, stuff like:
y0 m8, dat repo B gr8 4 muh prp
which might mean "That report meets our requirements."
I couldn't believe this fool was able to keep his job. I honestly can't recall them - but some were so bad we couldn't even decipher the general topic of the email.
Very strange - and to me, unacceptable.
I have no issue with shorthand like 'btw', etc. as long as you are fairly certain your audience can catch its meaning, but talking in some gibberish code is just a waste of everyones time.
Forget animated films.. who can forget the 90 minute Nintendo commercial, The Wizard starring Fred Savage?
It was a story created out of the classic song, Pinball Wizard, but with heavy Nintendo advertising.
It was the first time anyone saw the Power-glove in action and we were all so jealous. Unfortunatley for everyone who went out and purchased it, it didn't work quite as well as the 'movie' made it look.
It was also the worlds first glimpse at Super Mario Brothers 3!
I don't know if the movie caught flack from parents, but I remember quite enjoying it at the time as a kid.
I also remember a Mario Brothers Saturday morning show - and if memory serves correctly, it was also non-animated.
I think they'll seed the network with approved files and only those files can be shared (based on their hash or whatever else). Presumably the seeded files will be consistent quality as they'll be coming from the labels directly.
My concern about these sorts of things is that Indi artists get lost.
With the major labels on-board, this company could easily forget that any other type of music exists.
Will they have a means for indipendant labels to register and use their sales/distribution scheme as well? I hope so! I know it adds hassles of verifying IP/ownership rights, but I think it would then appeal to a wider audience (although, I'll admit, a probably insignificant amount of the sales).
I'm on-board with the first solution which makes it open to ALL artists.
this isn't really 'sharing' as their press releases would have you believe.
It is 'sharing' as in sharing your bandwidth. You still pay for the download. Wurld Media gets a cut and so do the labels (and presumaby the artists).
The difference between something like this and iTunes is that they are going to try to sell it with the "p2p" sex-appeal to lure people in.
Since it is p2p, it will cut down on their bandwidth costs in a big way.
If the P2P protocol and/or client isn't superior to whats available (for 'free') to people, it won't fly.
If it IS superior, how long until we see a 'lite' version of their client that authenticates with an alternative server (or none at all) that gets widely distributed and used as a seperate and 'free' p2p network?
that's what they did. this is what users saw when they visited the printed URL:
Please wait, you are being redirected to www.caseydonovan.com.au, the home page of Casey Donovan, the new Australian Idol. Please note that there is a US site with a similar address which contains adult content which is not suitable for minors. If you are over 18 and do not want to go to Casey Donovan's Australian Idol Site, please click here now www.caseydonovan.com
Yup, Firefox on XP here at work and when I click to read comments it all freezes up for a while (a long while) - I used to have to kill Firefox, but now I just wait it out and it eventually comes back to me.
I like to view the ad's cause if any site is going to have ad's targeted at 'me', it's this one. I've clicked the top banner many-a-time, but I may have to start blocking them cause I just can't give up 60 seconds every time I want to view some comments.
This author is a wee-bit off of his rocker. I'm in Canada, and I'm not sure how hemming is handled in his neck of the woods (Toronto I presume), but whereever I've lived in Canada sounds fairly close to China's hemming system.
I can't think of a department store in my home city that doesn't offer hemming services.. when in the fitting rooms, I'll inquire about having the pants hemmed, she'll pin/mark them and although I can't recall anything as speedy as 3 minutes, I can usually pick them up in-a-bit (let's suppose 20 or so minutes).
20 minutes isn't so inconvenient.. I can continue shopping during that time.
Also, most malls in my area have hemming shops so when you buy clothes at any of the stores in the mall, they can be brought there for alterations. Some stores reimburse you, but most don't - it's only a few bucks at these little hemming shops in the malls and usually a similar 20min or so wait (depending on how busy they are of course).
Also, offering in-store hemming has nothing to do with technology. It's just a choice of the store - do they need to offer that level of SERVICE (or want to)? There is a cost to offering such a service, and if it gives them no competitive edge, why bother.
This isn't like there's no stores in Canada doing this (see above), it's not a question of technology at all.
We've had "Sony Stores" for years and years around my parts (Alberta & Saskatchewan).
They read over the sign, "The Sony Store", they are very swanky and very expensive. Usually in malls, but my home-town did have a stand-alone one about 5-10 years ago (I belive it closed eventually).
Things are usually priced above MSRP in them for some reason, perhaps to appease retailers who carry Sony products.
I think 2 malls have Sony sotres where I live. I've been in them, but never purchased anything at either as it's just so much cheaper to go somewhere else (I also don't like salesmen in suits with slicked hair trying to fast-talk me when I'm Sunday shopping - get enough of that during the work week thankyouverymuch).
Unfortunatley, the fun ends here. When you enter the correct password, you are taken to google lab's hiring page which I presume is accessible without jumping through hoops.
as someone who has done sales as well, I can assure you that the driving factor is "better and cheaper" - flashy names help, but 'better and cheaper' goes a long, long way.
That doesn't mean google registered it in 1995. Take a look at the wayback machine, there have been pages there in the past. Particularly a webmail provider in 96.
Also, searching the web (using google of course) turns up lots of pervious remnents.
Here it is for sale. This is probably who google bought it from - umm, probably last week (but who knows).
Slashdot Mirror
I got half way through the article and stopped. He isn't saying anything really at all.
:)
I don't think this is a discovery of any sort.. I think it is just a guy bragging that he had a nice audience at some conference for which he gave a presentation regarding the non-zero energy of empty space.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this has been known for some time and is even explained our current models.
His presentation seemed to be very anecdotal, I don't think he's claiming to have discovered anything - in fact, I don't think he is claiming to even understand what he is talking about, he's just providing some anecdotal perspective on it.
P.S. I don't claim to understand it myself..
Not sure if credit unions are popular in other regions or not, but in my area (Saskatchewan, Canada) credit unions are very popular and quite successful. We have general credit unkons, teacher's credit unions, etc.
I see this as an extension of the same concept - only giving everyone involved more control as the technology (web) permits it. Letting everyone control every nickel and dime within a traditional credit union just isn't feasible.
Seems to work here.. can't see many reasons why it wouldn't work on the scale these sites envision.
These things will pass. Look at developing a better technology.
What would an open-source solution offer over the commercially available ones that would possibly make any one want to switch?
Don't say cost, because these are not costing the nuiversities a penny - the students bare the cost buy buying/leasing/renting the clickers.
You say you think this is a prime opportunity for open-srouce. I say good luck.
I work in product development, particularly electronics. A student showed me his clicker and described it to me. Nothing fancy - probably the same ones you've seen. They are a custom job though.. don't believe the company managed to source some strange 6 button IR remotes each that broadcast a unique ID. Send one to a chinese manufacturer and he'll send you a crate of them back in few weeks.
You must also realize that this is about marketing. I bet some of these companies pay the universities for using their clickers - a profit sharing arrangement. You think the powers-that-be are surfing sourceforge looking for alternatives? Not in this life-time.
Technically, IR seems wrong for these in my opinion, but obviously keeps costs down.
I don't think these will last. The idea is a little silly and having students pay for them just makes them upset - in fact, the guy who showed me his said he was trying to avoid the classes which used these things because he didn't want to buy one (never mind the principals that some might have against even using one).
My suggestion to you would be to come up with a better idea - forget the clickers. Perhaps by the time your idea is mature enough clickers will be on their way out.
The problem with a unique ID for the clicker is that you could later identify who had which clicker
That's not the problem, it's the point.
At my local university, they use these for 2 reasons. 1 - to take attendance and give a partial grade for it. 2 - to give quick quizzes at the end of a lecture.
Sort of hard to assign grades to students without a unique ID.
My understanding is that students buy these at the campus bookstore, then register them online as to identify themselves. They then bring them to classes and such.
Worst part of what I heard is that they cost about $15 and you have to return them at the end of the course!
some people incorrectly believe if it cost you some small amount of money to send me an email, I would no longer get spam.
I will bet any sum of money that this sort of thing will never be predominant or commonplace. Or that if it is, it will have no effect on spam as the micropayment will be sufficiently small.
The idea extends to suggest that if you paid $0.05 to send me an email, and I read it I would give you your $0.05 back so it really cost you nothing.
The idea is stupid on a lot of levels. I can't think of anyone I knowthat values email enough to deal with such a system.
these sorts of ideas are fine and all when they offer high rewards.. but an xBox??
To an honest and moral person, perhaps it is worth an xBox.. to almost anyone else, that is way to valuable of a skill to lose over an xBox (this presumes they'll close the hole/exploit you use).
Even if you are honest, an xBox is hardly worth the time/effort you'll spend doing this.
I too would ditch my cable TV in an effort to select shows to watch.
... the message isn't the shows content. the show is merely a medium to deliver the real message: advertisements.
It seems like a business model could be setup by the broadcasters, but we are forgetting one thing...
The advertising model currently used is in trouble if shows are delivered as downloads. Advertisers ran scared with VCR's and now with DVR's - this would make things much worse for them.
There needs to be a shift in the revenue models for broadcasters - their customers are not their viewers, but are their advertisers.. what you suggest may seem simple and obvious, but it is really a VERY big change - you want the viewers to be the customers.
I would say broadcasters are reluctant to give the viewers much more control than they already have under the current structure of things - they need to keep their customers (advertisers) happy.
I know someone who has a job listening to recorded telemarkers calls for a large telemarketing firm.
.. marketer presses 'yes' button on the PC to give himself the $12 bonus for that sale
The reason? The young guys making the calls like to cheat the system.
They usually get bonusses based on 'sales'..
marketer: would you like to sign up for this free credit card?
person: for the last time, NO!
so.. they pick random succesful calls and listen to them after the fact to make sure their employees aren't cheating them. Also, any complaints that make it back to them (ie. I told you guys 'NO' and you still sent me this) they will actually make an effort to review the call.
at least at his company, as he described it to me, it's all for customer protection.
civilization-ending event: if one occurs, you will die. (and he claims one occuring in the next 100 years is 1 in 455)
Your mistake is not realizing an average person takes many, many, many more than 1 flight in their lifetimes.
According to the National Safety Council, your odds of dying are actually slightly worse. Your odds of dying due to injury in a plane crash are about 1 in 4,023 (see this table).
If you rarely fly, then your at a favorible statistical end of the spectrum with respect to fatalities due to injury by air travel - but remember, some people bank several flights each and every week for years.
I formerly considered myself pretty poor in spelling/grammar (you can probably pick errors out of this very sentance), but with the degradation of attention in the business world, I now consider myself an advanced writer.
I had one business encounter I'll never forget. The guy was from the UK and spoke english as a first language. This guy's emails took me forever to decode - honestly! Even then I could never figure them out.
And it wasn't in error - it was intentional. You know, stuff like:
y0 m8, dat repo B gr8 4 muh prp
which might mean "That report meets our requirements."
I couldn't believe this fool was able to keep his job. I honestly can't recall them - but some were so bad we couldn't even decipher the general topic of the email.
Very strange - and to me, unacceptable.
I have no issue with shorthand like 'btw', etc. as long as you are fairly certain your audience can catch its meaning, but talking in some gibberish code is just a waste of everyones time.
Forget animated films.. who can forget the 90 minute Nintendo commercial, The Wizard starring Fred Savage?
It was a story created out of the classic song, Pinball Wizard, but with heavy Nintendo advertising.
It was the first time anyone saw the Power-glove in action and we were all so jealous. Unfortunatley for everyone who went out and purchased it, it didn't work quite as well as the 'movie' made it look.
It was also the worlds first glimpse at Super Mario Brothers 3!
I don't know if the movie caught flack from parents, but I remember quite enjoying it at the time as a kid.
I also remember a Mario Brothers Saturday morning show - and if memory serves correctly, it was also non-animated.
I think they'll seed the network with approved files and only those files can be shared (based on their hash or whatever else). Presumably the seeded files will be consistent quality as they'll be coming from the labels directly.
My concern about these sorts of things is that Indi artists get lost.
With the major labels on-board, this company could easily forget that any other type of music exists.
Will they have a means for indipendant labels to register and use their sales/distribution scheme as well? I hope so! I know it adds hassles of verifying IP/ownership rights, but I think it would then appeal to a wider audience (although, I'll admit, a probably insignificant amount of the sales).
I'm on-board with the first solution which makes it open to ALL artists.
From their FAQ.
Is Peer Impact available outside the U.S.?
No. Due to licensing restrictions, Peer Impact is currently available to U.S. residents only.
this isn't really 'sharing' as their press releases would have you believe.
It is 'sharing' as in sharing your bandwidth. You still pay for the download. Wurld Media gets a cut and so do the labels (and presumaby the artists).
The difference between something like this and iTunes is that they are going to try to sell it with the "p2p" sex-appeal to lure people in.
Since it is p2p, it will cut down on their bandwidth costs in a big way.
If the P2P protocol and/or client isn't superior to whats available (for 'free') to people, it won't fly.
If it IS superior, how long until we see a 'lite' version of their client that authenticates with an alternative server (or none at all) that gets widely distributed and used as a seperate and 'free' p2p network?
This one might be interesting.
Now, don't get me wrong, I feel bad for anyone who put a burning hot device up against their face, but 83 people?
83 reports of this in the past 2 years - out of what, 100,000,000 cell-phone users? That's is extremley rare.
I'm not saying such a problem should be ignored, but you can't expect anyone to prioritize it when occurences are so rare.
and how many of the 83 reports of 'exploding batteries' were due to misuse? "the box didn't say I couldn't put my phone in the microwave"
that's what they did. this is what users saw when they visited the printed URL:
Please wait, you are being redirected to www.caseydonovan.com.au, the home page of Casey Donovan, the new Australian Idol.
Please note that there is a US site with a similar address which contains adult content which is not suitable for minors. If you are over 18 and do not want to go to Casey Donovan's Australian Idol Site, please click here now www.caseydonovan.com
Yup, Firefox on XP here at work and when I click to read comments it all freezes up for a while (a long while) - I used to have to kill Firefox, but now I just wait it out and it eventually comes back to me.
:)
I like to view the ad's cause if any site is going to have ad's targeted at 'me', it's this one. I've clicked the top banner many-a-time, but I may have to start blocking them cause I just can't give up 60 seconds every time I want to view some comments.
Either that, or stop viewing the comments
This author is a wee-bit off of his rocker. I'm in Canada, and I'm not sure how hemming is handled in his neck of the woods (Toronto I presume), but whereever I've lived in Canada sounds fairly close to China's hemming system.
I can't think of a department store in my home city that doesn't offer hemming services.. when in the fitting rooms, I'll inquire about having the pants hemmed, she'll pin/mark them and although I can't recall anything as speedy as 3 minutes, I can usually pick them up in-a-bit (let's suppose 20 or so minutes).
20 minutes isn't so inconvenient.. I can continue shopping during that time.
Also, most malls in my area have hemming shops so when you buy clothes at any of the stores in the mall, they can be brought there for alterations. Some stores reimburse you, but most don't - it's only a few bucks at these little hemming shops in the malls and usually a similar 20min or so wait (depending on how busy they are of course).
Also, offering in-store hemming has nothing to do with technology. It's just a choice of the store - do they need to offer that level of SERVICE (or want to)? There is a cost to offering such a service, and if it gives them no competitive edge, why bother.
This isn't like there's no stores in Canada doing this (see above), it's not a question of technology at all.
We've had "Sony Stores" for years and years around my parts (Alberta & Saskatchewan).
They read over the sign, "The Sony Store", they are very swanky and very expensive. Usually in malls, but my home-town did have a stand-alone one about 5-10 years ago (I belive it closed eventually).
Things are usually priced above MSRP in them for some reason, perhaps to appease retailers who carry Sony products.
I think 2 malls have Sony sotres where I live. I've been in them, but never purchased anything at either as it's just so much cheaper to go somewhere else (I also don't like salesmen in suits with slicked hair trying to fast-talk me when I'm Sunday shopping - get enough of that during the work week thankyouverymuch).
This site says they have 70 stores in Canada.
I won't post the URL, but here's what it says in case you want a jump on the second question;
Unfortunatley, the fun ends here. When you enter the correct password, you are taken to google lab's hiring page which I presume is accessible without jumping through hoops.
as someone who has done sales as well, I can assure you that the driving factor is "better and cheaper" - flashy names help, but 'better and cheaper' goes a long, long way.
That doesn't mean google registered it in 1995. Take a look at the wayback machine, there have been pages there in the past. Particularly a webmail provider in 96.
Also, searching the web (using google of course) turns up lots of pervious remnents.
Here it is for sale. This is probably who google bought it from - umm, probably last week (but who knows).
must they also disclose easter eggs?
the bmw m3 has an interesting one..
oohh.. having driven a Niva for years I've heard them all, here's a favorite;
Q) How do you get parts for your Niva?
A) Follow another one and pick up the ones falling off of it.
Q) How do you double the value of a Lada?
A) Fill the gas tank.
Q) What should you do with your Lada at each petrol station?
A) Check the gas and fill up the oil.