google ads are running a highly dubious ad that typically catches you with something like this:
"Test a Nintendo DS unit and keep it!"
or
"Test an iPod and keep it!"
I fell into the trap and went through it.
This is how the trap is setup: you punch in all your personal information: name, address, email, phone number and even birthday. You have to type that in first, then go through a survey, and then, here's the scam: you have to sign up with or puchase from six advertisers in order to get the "Nintendo DS" and they range from getting a new credit card to Vonage service to CDs and DVDs from Columbia House, etc. Don't fall into this trap (sadly I did) and sign away your soul for nothing.
The reason they set it up like this is because they know that once you punch in your information, that's all they need and they'll then stack the odds against you from ever receiving the iPod, Segway, DS, PS2, or whatever they say they're giving away. So the old adage applies onces again -- if it sounds too good to be true, then it is.
Once they have your email and address, you'll get not only the spam rolling in, but the occasional junk mail, or maybe even worse (who knows).
1. It's awkward to talk when you're trying to compose something that requires a lot of thought first. I usually like to talk to myself (either out-loud or in my head) and type out what I'm thinking in a more formal fashion.
If you're writing a novel with lots of editing while you're writing, speech to text is not for you. If you're a physician who sees patients with just about the same conditions day in and day out, then it's a godsend if you have it working right. Have any of you heard an experienced physician rattle off a patient history into the hospital medical transcription service? Sounds a lot like the Hot Wheels guy.
For critical fields such as healthcare, speech to text will not be implemented until it's perfect. But imagine all the money saved (to help the current healthcare quagmire that we're in) if medical transcriptionists could be supplanted by software.
I posted this in a previous/. article about student films, but no moderators thought it was interesting enough to mod up:
Kiosks in the student union to: 1. browse trailers of student films and 2. pop in a blank DVD-R to burn the film for viewing pleasure at home, the dorm, apartment, etc.
That's one idea. Another is for kiosks in the student learning center or the library so students can plug their portable mp3 players (or burn CDR) to download lecture audio, student notes (could be from a paid student note-taking service), or if you go even more high-tech, powerpoint slides and lecture video. But what am I thinking? No need for kiosks when you have high speed internet -- could be useful for the commuters though.
I've always been a terrible listener in class and have relied heavily on these aids in the past (albeit via the traditional pen and paper notes or the occassional typed notes when available -- shows my age). If you don't spend the money on hardware, then at least spend it on paying students to take notes -- it's a win-win situation. The note-takers learn more because they are forced to listen and convey the class lecture, otherwise their colleagues will be pissed at them. And the classmates get notes as a written record for studying later on.
For those of you shopping around for the DVB-S card by Hauppauge, check Froogle, and for those of you looking to find free (as in beer, and legit) channels, check LyngSat. There are literally thousands of channels that you can get freely, depending on where you live (search "Free to Air" in google). The downside is that lots of channels are from non-English speaking countries -- why do you think lots of Arabic speaking households here in the US have satellite dishes?
The NY Times just recently published an article about red America's viewing habits. Surprisingly, the States that voted conservative in the last election are the same States where the highest viewing population for "CSI" and "Desperate Housewives" arise. You should read the article before NY Times starts charging for it. What does that say about America's viewing habits? "Do what I say, not what I do?"
Anyone seen the Conan bit about India outsourcing?
on
Offshoring IT
·
· Score: 1
This review reminds me of the funny bit on Conan O'Brien about one of his writers actually flying over to India to meet the tech who helped him with his pop-up ad problem. Funny stuff if you get a chance to see it, plenty of sites with the bit encoded in WMV.
Among the findings: artists are divided but on the whole not deeply concerned about online file-sharing. Only about half thought that sharing unauthorized copies of music and movies online should be illegal, for instance. And makers of file-sharing software like Kazaa and Grokster may be unnerved to learn that nearly two-thirds said such services should be held responsible for illegal file-swapping; only 15 percent held individual users responsible.
I wonder how many of those 2/3 would say bong makers and sellers are responsible for illicit marijuana use.
In the meantime cyber security is left up to the private sector via contracts with the government. What I find appalling is the milking of government by these contractors. You've all already heard of Halliburton and KBR milking the government in Iraq, but have you heard of contractors doing that here on US soil, in the IT field where things are supposedly "more efficient?"
Don't know what I mean? Let's say a bid is requested by government for a specific site security analysis/surveillance. If done right, it only needs say 2 or 3 people. But the contractor, knowing that there's not much competition in the field of security, bids and tells the government it's a 10 man job. So they put together a team of 5 people (other 5 are ghosts), and guess who does the brunt of the job? A select 2 or 3 persons of the team. Guess who pockets the salary of the 5 ghosts? The company and the management. Once the job is done, the guys sit around twiddling their thumbs, sitting until the contract runs out.
I don't think contracting services for cyber security is the most efficient way to secure government networks. It works, yes, but we'll see if the problems catch up to the current system.
Some colleagues of mine from Europe were in the states working for a few months. It wasn't prudent for them to purchase a car since they were here for such a short period of time. Since they also lived in the city, public transportation was fine, and walking got them to most places they needed. One night, after some late night partying got them hungry, they wanted to get something to eat. The only place that was open was the late night Wendy's, but it was just a drive-thru. One friend went up to the speaker/automated ordering booth, and stood there waiting...and waiting...before realizing as he stepped aside for a car to go through, that the sensor below allowed the attendant inside to know that there was a car waiting for ordering. He did what any person, half-drunk, hungry from partying would do...he stepped on the sensor and jumped with all his might -- to no avail. Eventually, he sobered up enough to actually walked by the window to talk to a real human. Ahhh...if it wasn't weight sensors, then the mere presence of a human standing on the pad should have activated it, no?
We all know about how MS wants to change things by certifying email to cut down on spam. But what are the open source/free solutions to this? Wouldn't it be nice to have a peer certification network to certify servers running this FairUCE software? Better yet, to reduce the load of these servers, couldn't individual users run a certified version of FairUCE on their desktop to send out mail? I haven't thought this through long enough, so I'm certain my assumptions have lots of flaws, but isn't it an enticing option?
Next time my wife wants me to take her shopping, I'll use that statistic. Wow, what a great stat -- hopefully it'll let me stay home on Sundays to watch my games.
No matter how you try to explain to the significant other (SO) that it wasn't your fault (i.e. buggy RAM, bad OS, or what not), they'd never believe it. Good advice, especially if you want to keep your GF.
cwrsync is so cool. I use it regularly with my hard drive mp3 player to sync up and backup everytime I go from work to home. Personally, I think those Maxtor external hard drives with "one touch backup" aren't as useful as a do it yourself homemade external hard drive and cwrsync setup with a one-click backup icon on the desktop. With my Windows XP, I have a batch file on the desktop with the command:
C:\Progra~1\cwrsync\rsync -a -v --progress "/cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings/My Name.NAM-LAPTOP/My Documents" "/cygdrive/f"
Everytime I want to backup to the external hard drive (my mp3 player). I just plug it in and double click the batch file. Rsync'ed and good to go home!
There's still a large niche for paper for kids
on
Upbeat on E-books
·
· Score: 1
Those of us with kids know that books for kids should stay traditional. I don't have to worry about batteries and boot time. No worries about dropping the unit, or spilling milk on it. Large colorful pages don't take up megabytes of disk space. Sure there's no sound effects or a robot reading to them; but seriously, what machine can replace a parent sitting down with his/her child and reading for the child, making noises, and funny faces?
Back when TV was king, how often did you hear people say, "I can't live without my TV" or "I can't go back to radio." Now, when broadband is increasing in popularity, how often do you hear "I can't live without broadband" or "I can never go back to dialup." I've said it myself many times.
Broadband internet has become so integral to so many of us (by us, I mean slasdot readers) that trying to find information any other way seems absolutely ludicrous. I find directions with my broadband, phone numbers, coupons, movie listings, contractors, and even medical information. The ability to reach experts in any field with just an email away and the ability to find information so quickly are such selling factors in broadband that I honestly can never go back to any other form of communication, unless it's necessary (i.e. a phone call, or face to face meeting).
Back when I was in college, the internet was in its infancy. My profs had email, but we never had forums, bulletin boards, or listmails (at least we didn't use them). Imagine higher education nowadays without the web, and without email?
Since I've never been in your shoes myself, I can't answer your question without asking one myself. If you're already in the black (my assumption from your post), then what's wrong with building it slowly (putting back all the money you earn into the company) and owning it all yourself? I'm not trying to be facetious here, I'm asking a serious question (please don't mod me down). If you spoke to Warren Buffet, I'd assume that's what he'd say. Then once you have a solid product, look to sell and move on with something else. There's a benefit to slow and steady -- is Warren laughing now when in 1999 his peers were ridiculing him for not buying more blue chip stocks faster?
The discussion on housing made from recycled cardboard is interesting, but one comment on the webpage struck me:
Col holds the strong belief that when households control all the services and become sensitive to rainfall, wind, solar exposure and gardening potential, this will have more impact on sustainable energy use than relying on large utility service providers.
Sounds like we should be marketing in full force personal energy sources -- solar, wind, etc. In fact, I think that making your own energy should be a top priority since for most of us on average only live in 1 or 2 houses in our lifetime. If we can make our own energy to sustain the house that we currently are living in now, that would be the "killer app."
Opening the source of government written software is the right thing to do: taxpayer dollars spent, so taxpayers should get the software. On my short list, government software that is well-known/useful to me:
1. PubMed's e-utils 2. NIST software, which includes OCR, and handprint recognition software, and fingerprint imaging software.
What would be cool is a kiosk in the student union allowing other students (or campus visitors for that matter) to: 1. browse trailers of student films and 2. pop in a blank DVD-R to burn the film for viewing pleasure at home, the dorm, apartment, etc.
It's interesting that some view Chinese companies (or any companies outside the US) as foreign vis-a-vis IBM. Last I checked, IBM stood for International Business Machines. I personally don't see it as a risk to their reputation.
Are Heisenbugs anything like the slashdot memory relapse? You know you've been reading too much/. when you say to yourself, "Wait, I think I saw that in/. somewhere." Then goto slashdot search to try to find it. You end up pulling 20000 articles -- like finding a needle in a haystack.
Perhaps/. needs better database tools.
Like SIPphone's access numbers, but for cellphones
on
VOIP Meets Cell Phones
·
· Score: 1
Sounds like SIPphone.com's access numbers except you get to call anyone in the PSTN. For those of you not familiar with SIPphone's access numbers, it's one of the greatest services I've known that is free (like Netzero was free back in the day). Say you have a bunch of friends all over the country, each with broadband access. They all purchase analog telephone adapters for their phones from SIPhardware.com and sign up for SIPphone's service (free service, hardware is not free) and plug into the broadband. SIPphone to SIPphone calling is free, but you can also call a SIPphone on a regular phone line via the access number local to you. I think the access numbers also work for peer networks such as freeworldialup. Try it out, I think it's well worth the $60 upfront cost.
Maybe to combat the humidity, ask your friends and family to save those little dessicant packs (easy to identify: says "Do not eat, silica gel") they get in shoe boxes, sometimes clothing pockets, leather bags, computer cases, laptop cases, etc. this Christmas. If you have a large enough hoard, you can put them in the case to soak up the moisture, if it builds up in there.
The national press, including United Press International (UPI), were excluded from yesterday's event, at Mr. Tenet's request, organizers said.
There is some information missing in this report: what function did he speak at, who were in his audience, what was the purpose of the speech or forum? Ahh, the journalistic quality of the conservative Washington Times, owned by the Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon. slashdot, please don't link to Washington Times again -- you could have at least done a Google News search for "George Tenet" to find a more informative article of the event.
Slashdot Mirror
google ads are running a highly dubious ad that typically catches you with something like this:
"Test a Nintendo DS unit and keep it!"
or
"Test an iPod and keep it!"
I fell into the trap and went through it.
This is how the trap is setup: you punch in all your personal information: name, address, email, phone number and even birthday. You have to type that in first, then go through a survey, and then, here's the scam: you have to sign up with or puchase from six advertisers in order to get the "Nintendo DS" and they range from getting a new credit card to Vonage service to CDs and DVDs from Columbia House, etc. Don't fall into this trap (sadly I did) and sign away your soul for nothing.
The reason they set it up like this is because they know that once you punch in your information, that's all they need and they'll then stack the odds against you from ever receiving the iPod, Segway, DS, PS2, or whatever they say they're giving away. So the old adage applies onces again -- if it sounds too good to be true, then it is.
Once they have your email and address, you'll get not only the spam rolling in, but the occasional junk mail, or maybe even worse (who knows).
If you're writing a novel with lots of editing while you're writing, speech to text is not for you. If you're a physician who sees patients with just about the same conditions day in and day out, then it's a godsend if you have it working right. Have any of you heard an experienced physician rattle off a patient history into the hospital medical transcription service? Sounds a lot like the Hot Wheels guy.
For critical fields such as healthcare, speech to text will not be implemented until it's perfect. But imagine all the money saved (to help the current healthcare quagmire that we're in) if medical transcriptionists could be supplanted by software.
I posted this in a previous /. article about student films, but no moderators thought it was interesting enough to mod up:
Kiosks in the student union to: 1. browse trailers of student films and 2. pop in a blank DVD-R to burn the film for viewing pleasure at home, the dorm, apartment, etc.
That's one idea. Another is for kiosks in the student learning center or the library so students can plug their portable mp3 players (or burn CDR) to download lecture audio, student notes (could be from a paid student note-taking service), or if you go even more high-tech, powerpoint slides and lecture video. But what am I thinking? No need for kiosks when you have high speed internet -- could be useful for the commuters though.
I've always been a terrible listener in class and have relied heavily on these aids in the past (albeit via the traditional pen and paper notes or the occassional typed notes when available -- shows my age). If you don't spend the money on hardware, then at least spend it on paying students to take notes -- it's a win-win situation. The note-takers learn more because they are forced to listen and convey the class lecture, otherwise their colleagues will be pissed at them. And the classmates get notes as a written record for studying later on.
For those of you shopping around for the DVB-S card by Hauppauge, check Froogle, and for those of you looking to find free (as in beer, and legit) channels, check LyngSat. There are literally thousands of channels that you can get freely, depending on where you live (search "Free to Air" in google). The downside is that lots of channels are from non-English speaking countries -- why do you think lots of Arabic speaking households here in the US have satellite dishes?
The NY Times just recently published an article about red America's viewing habits. Surprisingly, the States that voted conservative in the last election are the same States where the highest viewing population for "CSI" and "Desperate Housewives" arise. You should read the article before NY Times starts charging for it. What does that say about America's viewing habits? "Do what I say, not what I do?"
Lastly, all this attention on the PTC should not divert attention away from the thoughtless actions of the American Family Association, who according to an NPR report the night of Veteran's Day, were poised with thousands of people ready to lodge complaints to the FCC about stations that were going to air "Saving Private Ryan" in commemoration of Veteran's Day.
This review reminds me of the funny bit on Conan O'Brien about one of his writers actually flying over to India to meet the tech who helped him with his pop-up ad problem. Funny stuff if you get a chance to see it, plenty of sites with the bit encoded in WMV.
I wonder how many of those 2/3 would say bong makers and sellers are responsible for illicit marijuana use.
In the meantime cyber security is left up to the private sector via contracts with the government. What I find appalling is the milking of government by these contractors. You've all already heard of Halliburton and KBR milking the government in Iraq, but have you heard of contractors doing that here on US soil, in the IT field where things are supposedly "more efficient?"
Don't know what I mean? Let's say a bid is requested by government for a specific site security analysis/surveillance. If done right, it only needs say 2 or 3 people. But the contractor, knowing that there's not much competition in the field of security, bids and tells the government it's a 10 man job. So they put together a team of 5 people (other 5 are ghosts), and guess who does the brunt of the job? A select 2 or 3 persons of the team. Guess who pockets the salary of the 5 ghosts? The company and the management. Once the job is done, the guys sit around twiddling their thumbs, sitting until the contract runs out.
I don't think contracting services for cyber security is the most efficient way to secure government networks. It works, yes, but we'll see if the problems catch up to the current system.
Some colleagues of mine from Europe were in the states working for a few months. It wasn't prudent for them to purchase a car since they were here for such a short period of time. Since they also lived in the city, public transportation was fine, and walking got them to most places they needed. One night, after some late night partying got them hungry, they wanted to get something to eat. The only place that was open was the late night Wendy's, but it was just a drive-thru. One friend went up to the speaker/automated ordering booth, and stood there waiting...and waiting...before realizing as he stepped aside for a car to go through, that the sensor below allowed the attendant inside to know that there was a car waiting for ordering. He did what any person, half-drunk, hungry from partying would do...he stepped on the sensor and jumped with all his might -- to no avail. Eventually, he sobered up enough to actually walked by the window to talk to a real human. Ahhh...if it wasn't weight sensors, then the mere presence of a human standing on the pad should have activated it, no?
We all know about how MS wants to change things by certifying email to cut down on spam. But what are the open source/free solutions to this? Wouldn't it be nice to have a peer certification network to certify servers running this FairUCE software? Better yet, to reduce the load of these servers, couldn't individual users run a certified version of FairUCE on their desktop to send out mail? I haven't thought this through long enough, so I'm certain my assumptions have lots of flaws, but isn't it an enticing option?
Next time my wife wants me to take her shopping, I'll use that statistic. Wow, what a great stat -- hopefully it'll let me stay home on Sundays to watch my games.
Publish a picture of yellow snow in the antarctic and I'll look at the photolog.
No matter how you try to explain to the significant other (SO) that it wasn't your fault (i.e. buggy RAM, bad OS, or what not), they'd never believe it. Good advice, especially if you want to keep your GF.
Those of us with kids know that books for kids should stay traditional. I don't have to worry about batteries and boot time. No worries about dropping the unit, or spilling milk on it. Large colorful pages don't take up megabytes of disk space. Sure there's no sound effects or a robot reading to them; but seriously, what machine can replace a parent sitting down with his/her child and reading for the child, making noises, and funny faces?
Back when TV was king, how often did you hear people say, "I can't live without my TV" or "I can't go back to radio." Now, when broadband is increasing in popularity, how often do you hear "I can't live without broadband" or "I can never go back to dialup." I've said it myself many times.
Broadband internet has become so integral to so many of us (by us, I mean slasdot readers) that trying to find information any other way seems absolutely ludicrous. I find directions with my broadband, phone numbers, coupons, movie listings, contractors, and even medical information. The ability to reach experts in any field with just an email away and the ability to find information so quickly are such selling factors in broadband that I honestly can never go back to any other form of communication, unless it's necessary (i.e. a phone call, or face to face meeting).
Back when I was in college, the internet was in its infancy. My profs had email, but we never had forums, bulletin boards, or listmails (at least we didn't use them). Imagine higher education nowadays without the web, and without email?
Since I've never been in your shoes myself, I can't answer your question without asking one myself. If you're already in the black (my assumption from your post), then what's wrong with building it slowly (putting back all the money you earn into the company) and owning it all yourself? I'm not trying to be facetious here, I'm asking a serious question (please don't mod me down). If you spoke to Warren Buffet, I'd assume that's what he'd say. Then once you have a solid product, look to sell and move on with something else. There's a benefit to slow and steady -- is Warren laughing now when in 1999 his peers were ridiculing him for not buying more blue chip stocks faster?
Sounds like we should be marketing in full force personal energy sources -- solar, wind, etc. In fact, I think that making your own energy should be a top priority since for most of us on average only live in 1 or 2 houses in our lifetime. If we can make our own energy to sustain the house that we currently are living in now, that would be the "killer app."
Opening the source of government written software is the right thing to do: taxpayer dollars spent, so taxpayers should get the software. On my short list, government software that is well-known/useful to me:
1. PubMed's e-utils
2. NIST software, which includes OCR, and handprint recognition software, and fingerprint imaging software.
What would be cool is a kiosk in the student union allowing other students (or campus visitors for that matter) to: 1. browse trailers of student films and 2. pop in a blank DVD-R to burn the film for viewing pleasure at home, the dorm, apartment, etc.
It's interesting that some view Chinese companies (or any companies outside the US) as foreign vis-a-vis IBM. Last I checked, IBM stood for International Business Machines. I personally don't see it as a risk to their reputation.
Are Heisenbugs anything like the slashdot memory relapse? You know you've been reading too much /. when you say to yourself, "Wait, I think I saw that in /. somewhere." Then goto slashdot search to try to find it. You end up pulling 20000 articles -- like finding a needle in a haystack.
/. needs better database tools.
Perhaps
Sounds like SIPphone.com's access numbers except you get to call anyone in the PSTN. For those of you not familiar with SIPphone's access numbers, it's one of the greatest services I've known that is free (like Netzero was free back in the day). Say you have a bunch of friends all over the country, each with broadband access. They all purchase analog telephone adapters for their phones from SIPhardware.com and sign up for SIPphone's service (free service, hardware is not free) and plug into the broadband. SIPphone to SIPphone calling is free, but you can also call a SIPphone on a regular phone line via the access number local to you. I think the access numbers also work for peer networks such as freeworldialup. Try it out, I think it's well worth the $60 upfront cost.
Maybe to combat the humidity, ask your friends and family to save those little dessicant packs (easy to identify: says "Do not eat, silica gel") they get in shoe boxes, sometimes clothing pockets, leather bags, computer cases, laptop cases, etc. this Christmas. If you have a large enough hoard, you can put them in the case to soak up the moisture, if it builds up in there.
There is some information missing in this report: what function did he speak at, who were in his audience, what was the purpose of the speech or forum? Ahh, the journalistic quality of the conservative Washington Times, owned by the Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon. slashdot, please don't link to Washington Times again -- you could have at least done a Google News search for "George Tenet" to find a more informative article of the event.