I agree. Unless the feature is very important to half of the users and detested by the other half. I cannot get to TFA, but in the case of this text field, I'm willing to bet that one way is probably better than the other overall. I don't know if the feature was someone's big idea that users never asked for, or if it was a child of feedback given by those users. It seems like a dumb reason to fork a project. Another strategy might be to re-architect the application so that the interface is divorced from the back-end. Then skins or plug-ins, etc could handle this. Heck, maybe Pidgin already supports this.
I click around on icons until I can copy and paste a lot of letters into a single file. Then, with my Alpha-pallette, I cut and paste each letter as needed.
> You have no idea what you are talking about. I must admit, I read this line, and got all fumed up and ready to fight. (reoow)
> Go and read a bit. Then I read that and decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Thank you for the clear response. It's a clear explanation making what I was poo-pooing (with,I hope some perceived humor) seem more reasonable.
It does bring up another question, though.
Let's assume I invent something that no one thinks twice about. Maybe it's even ridiculed. I got it. A personal carrying case for your individual teeth. Technology moves on and not because of my invention, but because of advances in Genetics and Dentistry. All of the sudden, people can pay money for teeth systems where they can install custom teeth like accessories. My invention is now something that would obviously follow.
Now for the question part (not trying to win any argument here, there could be a clear answer to this) 1) What's to stop me from preventing anyone the pleasure of being able to carry their teeth in a special teeth holder? Does a patent have to be active/in use for it to be valid? 2) What if I put it in use, but make this simple technology incredibly expensive? Would someone have to find a non-trivial extension to this in order to sell their own version or is there some other protection from this sort of bad behavior?
Isn't there a "Triviality" clause in patent laws somewhere? This is something no one needs to invent. It's an obvious application of available technology.
If someone has patented "Taking a Photo", but no one's patented "Taking a Photo of a Bicycle" can I?
This CRAZY check scanning idea is a trivial extension of Scanning and Archiving documents,
which is a trivial extension of Scanning and Archiving paper items,
which is a trivial extension of Scanning and Archiving Physical Objects Digitally,
which is a trivial combination of Scanning and Archiving
What does that gray line that defines when something is an actual innovation look like?
Can't we just do the same thing and create a trivial extension to this patent?
Here, if anyone wants to get rich, steal this idea:
Patent Scanning and Archiving a Bank Check While Wearing Pants.
At least then, if you catch someone else using this innovation, you can sue their pants of.
Thanks for a critical response. I agree artists should get paid. I don't agree that extending copyright should be the way. Artists should get more for their work sooner. This would let them move on to create new pieces of work.
I don't want to get into the "allowing the producer onto my property" argument. That's not art. That is my personal living space. Sure, if I put specs on my home out there, let that producer copy it and film it there.
> A new film is created that derives some of its emotional power from the previously created song. As it would have been if it had obtained that song for free. As it would have been if another song were used. I don't think that extending copyright for 100 years will help in more films and art being created.
> Your argument also completely ignores the intrinsic value of art itself. A society that does not value art (and which does not support artists) is a soulless society.
No it doesn't ignore the intrinsic value of art. It merely advocates for discarding the monetary value of art after the cost of creating the art has been compensated. We can value art in ways that do not involve money. We can value it by sharing it, creating it, staring at it arguing about and spitting on it. If I am working on a piece and find out that my children will not profit off of it when I die, I will continue that piece. I'm doing it for the art. If I do get paid, I consider it fortunate that I am getting paid for something i enjoy doing.
I don't understand why even the artist is entitled to profiting for their entire life. An economy has only so much budget for creative works. Every penny paid was generated from productivity. It seems wrong that we are putting production resources towards work that has long been compensated.
- Artist does work - This costs productivity / resources - Artist gets paid for work by money generated from productivit - Amount of productivity / resources paid to artist doubles productivity exerted by Artist - Every time the artist gets paid for this work, productivity and resources are being poured into a black hole. Nothing is being created. Resources are being wasted.
This is just bad economics. In short, people are laboring, and that labor benefits just one person. We can only afford to buy so much art. As the pool of available art increases, the budget for this does not. So we have less available for new works. It's time to free up those resources to put artists to work!
"McGuinness criticized Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' pay-what-you-want business model, saying that 'the majority of downloads were through illegal P2P download services like BitTorrent and LimeWire'." In addition, I don't see how this statement makes sense.
Let's for a second assume that Limewire, et al were "illegal download services", how does that reflect negatively on Radiohead's distribution strategy? Radiohead said: "Hey, download it HERE and pay what you want for it"; So some people downloaded it "THERE" and paid nothing for it. How is this any different from someone saying: "Hey, buy it in stores, and pay $15 for it" and then seeing people downloading it "THERE" and paying nothing for it?
If anything it shows proves that it's not just about the money. It's about how people prefer to access music. Radiohead offered it for free "this way", and people took it for free "that way". It's about a delivery mechanism that is not being provided by the industry.
Don't forget drivers who do not use their turn signals. In some cases this is bad for traffic. There are many spots along my commute where I will be stopped at a Stop sign waiting for a car coming from the left to pass so I can keep going only for them to turn right. If they had used their signal, I could have proceeded. Instead traffic gets backed up at the Stop sign. This is true of a couple of rotaries I know as well.
Another problem I see every day is that of drivers who block intersections at a Red Light. I was pleased to finally see a cop ticketing for this recently.
I agree. People should be ticketed for these things. It would help traffic over-all.
Also, it is important to stick with standards. The teacher's personal preference may just be that. But in Industry, this is important. If instructions specify standards, points should be deducted. If the instructions were not clear, of course this isn't reasonable.
Memory management doesn't have to be aided by the introduction of levels. But it sure helps. There are plenty of opportunities to manage memory. Take newer Zelda games for instance. There are buildings, rooms, caves and dungeons. These, from a programming point of view (and memory managing point of view) are similar to levels, but they are not levels from the player's perspective.
BTW, I was impressed by Katamari Damacy. This game does have levels, but each level is a big world. You start off tiny. Objects in your world consists of pins and needles. Furniture are obstacles and you are in a house on a planet. As you get larger, furniture becomes objects. Growing even still, the house you were in becomes an object and the landscape becomes the obstacle. Transitioning from these states (getting bigger) is similar to loading a new level. The difference is, you are loading a new version of the same level. This happens right under your feet. There is still a "loading" time. The game tries to keep the player engaged at this point by spitting witty text onto the screen in the spirit of the game as a whole.
I don't know how I actually feel on the issue of gambling in general, though my gut goes against it. However the fact that new casinos are being allowed alongside harsh penalties being proposed for online gambling seems to kill any reasonable argument for either side. A $25,000 fine for online gambling is just ridiculous. This is obviously not a protectionist measure. It's purely economic and not necessarily in the best interest of the people. The harm of the penalty is inappropriately greater than the harm of the "crime" to both society and the individual. All in all it pulls a heap of credibility from the Governor.
That being said, Deval Patrick claims to work towards the inclusion of ordinary citizens into State affairs. This seems like the expected political dribble, but from what I've seen as a resident of Massachusetts, I would say he is making an honest attempt at this. It may be that he is aiming towards something impossible. Still, the closer we come, the better we are.
Please feel free to voice concerns over this issue at: http://devalpatrick.com/. I am not sure how "heard" your voice will be, but we should at least support this approach to governing.
I've become hooked on Battle Mode. I won't review it here, but will offer my experience with it. The game itself is a lot of fun. The biggest drawback, however is that users disconnect when they are losing. When a user disconnects, it seems that they suffer a slight point loss while the player who was winning gains nothing. It's a real shame. If it were not for that, the experience would be top notch. I've learned to throw the rankings out the window and just play the game. I simply chalk the disconnect up as a win for myself.
Another thing that is sometimes frustrating is lag. I've yet to be able to figure out if it's a flaw in the game or the result of cheating. But it seems that sometimes lag suspiciously begins to occur just when the Link player is in a tight situation. The Phantoms and Link both freeze up. The Phantom player cannot draw lines to guide the Phantoms. Link appears motionless, but when the lag ends, he has "teleported". I can't help but think that this lag is brought on intentionally by the Link player. Maybe they are sitting by their wireless router and unplugging it for a second. Who knows, it might just be an issue with the game.
In any case, if you can play with a non-cheater (friend codes, or luck of the draw) and there is no lag, you'll be in for a treat with this game. It's short enough to play "just one more" again and again. Buyer beware!
They might want to give more incentive. In the least some feedback would make the task a little more rewardnig. I got bored fairly quickly.
The 'statistics' and the 'show my galaxies' sections are both not working. Perhaps once they are in place, it will be a little more fun to participate. There should be more info, such as "you were the first one to classify this galaxy", or "You were the 100th person to classify this galaxy", etc.
If the site gets popular they might add more features. I'd like to see how many galaxies i've done. How many galaxies other users have done, etc. In any case, I hope it catches on.
I propose someone create a 5 pound Wii Remote. Parents can secretly do the switch. Just make sure to make the wrist strap extra durable in case something like this happens.
The last job I left, I gave three weeks for just that reason. It was a good company with great leadership. I was not black-spotted for those three weeks. I was an important resource. If you are respected and are leaving a place you respect, show some integrity and work with people. If you are leaving because you loath your job, please, be the bigger person. In the long run, it's your benefit.
Are Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne. Both have yet to fail me. I have brought these games to people who are used to Monopoly and Scrabble. They fall in love each and every time.
Yeah, make no excuses. Sounds like you have a reasonable idea of what you want to do, so follow the path. Need experience? Go to College. I grew up on Welfare and paid for College on my own. I worked my way through it. It's possible to put yourself through College, believe it or not. I have so far been making a good living, too. It sounds like you know what you want to do. The keyword is "want". I would not advise anyone to become a programmer unless they enjoy programming and have a curious mind. Intelligence is fine, but I've found the successful programmers have a passion. Then again, it all depends on how you define success. Good luck.
I've been getting a lot of calls that seem to be the "wrong number". When I tell the caller that they've reached the wrong person, they say.
Sorry for the mistake, sir. Perhaps you would be interested in....
It's been happening more and more lately. I would imagine with auto-dialers it wouldn't be the case. Looks like they are using cold calling "dialing mistakes" intentionally. They could all be errors, but it does seem quite suspicious.
Sounds good, but I think one problem with the idea in the "Hobbit" case would be the time restriction. If they made a 6 part mini-series, the entire film would have to be divided into 6 40-1hr chunks. They would all have to end reasonably. Even if there had to be no cliff hanger, scenes would have to be editted such that they did not end mid-dialogue. For something like the Hobbit, this would not be acceptable. It would lead to a product that is not true to the book. This isn't to say that our viewing experience can't change. But as things are now, it won't work. It might work if all parts are meant for download or "view on demand" TV, where things are likely headed anyway.
If you use a Wikipedia article for information, you should validate that information. Just as you should take reasonable measures to confirm a fact from a book.
One way to start with Wikipedia might be to look at the history of changes. You might see evolution of the disputed information.
Sometimes you can read two newspapers with different points of view on a subject and start to see the 'real picture'. The more sources hear about an event from, the more effective your intelligence can be at filtering out noise. The human mind decides on a stopping point where it is safe to assume something is true to a degree of certainty. This is what makes us fairly sure that when we walk, we will not fall through the ground during some subsequent step.
Looking at the history might give insight into how the entry took shape. We will have a larger pool of beliefs from which to harvest the most accurate picture. It's work, but that's what research is.
He was a scapegoat. AOL is responsible. They put unreasonable pressure on the employee to keep customers on the phone. They don't tell them 'how', they just tell them to make sure they do it.
This is the same way big companies get their retail outlet managers to stiff workers out of overtime/benefits. By giving them unreasonable goals and incentives that are only achived by doing things that a corporation doesn't want to own up to doing themselves. So, they pass they buck, the blame, but not the profit.
I would urge this employee to take action. I for one am witness to AOL doing this very thing. Remember, those calls are monitored. They can't pretend not to condone this activity. I am sure that there are ex AOL employees that were rewarded for doing the same thing.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. Unless the feature is very important to half of the users and detested by the other half. I cannot get to TFA, but in the case of this text field, I'm willing to bet that one way is probably better than the other overall. I don't know if the feature was someone's big idea that users never asked for, or if it was a child of feedback given by those users. It seems like a dumb reason to fork a project. Another strategy might be to re-architect the application so that the interface is divorced from the back-end. Then skins or plug-ins, etc could handle this. Heck, maybe Pidgin already supports this.
I click around on icons until I can copy and paste a lot of letters into a single file. Then, with my Alpha-pallette, I cut and paste each letter as needed.
> You have no idea what you are talking about.
I must admit, I read this line, and got all fumed up and ready to fight. (reoow)
> Go and read a bit.
Then I read that and decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Thank you for the clear response. It's a clear explanation making what I was poo-pooing (with,I hope some perceived humor) seem more reasonable.
It does bring up another question, though.
Let's assume I invent something that no one thinks twice about. Maybe it's even ridiculed. I got it. A personal carrying case for your individual teeth. Technology moves on and not because of my invention, but because of advances in Genetics and Dentistry. All of the sudden, people can pay money for teeth systems where they can install custom teeth like accessories. My invention is now something that would obviously follow.
Now for the question part (not trying to win any argument here, there could be a clear answer to this)
1) What's to stop me from preventing anyone the pleasure of being able to carry their teeth in a special teeth holder? Does a patent have to be active/in use for it to be valid?
2) What if I put it in use, but make this simple technology incredibly expensive? Would someone have to find a non-trivial extension to this in order to sell their own version or is there some other protection from this sort of bad behavior?
Isn't there a "Triviality" clause in patent laws somewhere? This is something no one needs to invent. It's an obvious application of available technology.
If someone has patented "Taking a Photo", but no one's patented "Taking a Photo of a Bicycle" can I?
This CRAZY check scanning idea is a trivial extension of Scanning and Archiving documents,
which is a trivial extension of Scanning and Archiving paper items,
which is a trivial extension of Scanning and Archiving Physical Objects Digitally,
which is a trivial combination of Scanning and Archiving
What does that gray line that defines when something is an actual innovation look like?
Can't we just do the same thing and create a trivial extension to this patent?
Here, if anyone wants to get rich, steal this idea:
Patent Scanning and Archiving a Bank Check While Wearing Pants.
At least then, if you catch someone else using this innovation, you can sue their pants of.
Thanks for a critical response. I agree artists should get paid. I don't agree that extending copyright should be the way. Artists should get more for their work sooner. This would let them move on to create new pieces of work.
I don't want to get into the "allowing the producer onto my property" argument. That's not art. That is my personal living space. Sure, if I put specs on my home out there, let that producer copy it and film it there.
> A new film is created that derives some of its emotional power from the previously created song.
As it would have been if it had obtained that song for free. As it would have been if another song were used. I don't think that extending copyright for 100 years will help in more films and art being created.
> Your argument also completely ignores the intrinsic value of art itself. A society that does not value art (and which does not support artists) is a soulless society.
No it doesn't ignore the intrinsic value of art. It merely advocates for discarding the monetary value of art after the cost of creating the art has been compensated. We can value art in ways that do not involve money. We can value it by sharing it, creating it, staring at it arguing about and spitting on it. If I am working on a piece and find out that my children will not profit off of it when I die, I will continue that piece. I'm doing it for the art. If I do get paid, I consider it fortunate that I am getting paid for something i enjoy doing.
I don't understand why even the artist is entitled to profiting for their entire life. An economy has only so much budget for creative works. Every penny paid was generated from productivity. It seems wrong that we are putting production resources towards work that has long been compensated.
- Artist does work
- This costs productivity / resources
- Artist gets paid for work by money generated from productivit
- Amount of productivity / resources paid to artist doubles productivity exerted by Artist
- Every time the artist gets paid for this work, productivity and resources are being poured into a black hole. Nothing is being created. Resources are being wasted.
This is just bad economics. In short, people are laboring, and that labor benefits just one person. We can only afford to buy so much art. As the pool of available art increases, the budget for this does not. So we have less available for new works. It's time to free up those resources to put artists to work!
"McGuinness criticized Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' pay-what-you-want business model, saying that 'the majority of downloads were through illegal P2P download services like BitTorrent and LimeWire'." In addition, I don't see how this statement makes sense.
Let's for a second assume that Limewire, et al were "illegal download services", how does that reflect negatively on Radiohead's distribution strategy? Radiohead said: "Hey, download it HERE and pay what you want for it"; So some people downloaded it "THERE" and paid nothing for it. How is this any different from someone saying: "Hey, buy it in stores, and pay $15 for it" and then seeing people downloading it "THERE" and paying nothing for it?
If anything it shows proves that it's not just about the money. It's about how people prefer to access music. Radiohead offered it for free "this way", and people took it for free "that way". It's about a delivery mechanism that is not being provided by the industry.
Don't forget drivers who do not use their turn signals. In some cases this is bad for traffic. There are many spots along my commute where I will be stopped at a Stop sign waiting for a car coming from the left to pass so I can keep going only for them to turn right. If they had used their signal, I could have proceeded. Instead traffic gets backed up at the Stop sign. This is true of a couple of rotaries I know as well.
Another problem I see every day is that of drivers who block intersections at a Red Light. I was pleased to finally see a cop ticketing for this recently.
I agree. People should be ticketed for these things. It would help traffic over-all.
Also, it is important to stick with standards. The teacher's personal preference may just be that. But in Industry, this is important. If instructions specify standards, points should be deducted. If the instructions were not clear, of course this isn't reasonable.
Good to know you had an extra license for that copy of XP. ;)
What if you don't have a legitimate copy of XP? What if you only have the laptop and the restore (Vista only) CD?
Easy from a 'task' point of view. Not necessarily easy on the wallet or on the hardware.
Memory management doesn't have to be aided by the introduction of levels. But it sure helps. There are plenty of opportunities to manage memory. Take newer Zelda games for instance. There are buildings, rooms, caves and dungeons. These, from a programming point of view (and memory managing point of view) are similar to levels, but they are not levels from the player's perspective.
BTW, I was impressed by Katamari Damacy. This game does have levels, but each level is a big world. You start off tiny. Objects in your world consists of pins and needles. Furniture are obstacles and you are in a house on a planet. As you get larger, furniture becomes objects. Growing even still, the house you were in becomes an object and the landscape becomes the obstacle. Transitioning from these states (getting bigger) is similar to loading a new level. The difference is, you are loading a new version of the same level. This happens right under your feet. There is still a "loading" time. The game tries to keep the player engaged at this point by spitting witty text onto the screen in the spirit of the game as a whole.
I don't know how I actually feel on the issue of gambling in general, though my gut goes against it. However the fact that new casinos are being allowed alongside harsh penalties being proposed for online gambling seems to kill any reasonable argument for either side. A $25,000 fine for online gambling is just ridiculous. This is obviously not a protectionist measure. It's purely economic and not necessarily in the best interest of the people. The harm of the penalty is inappropriately greater than the harm of the "crime" to both society and the individual. All in all it pulls a heap of credibility from the Governor.
That being said, Deval Patrick claims to work towards the inclusion of ordinary citizens into State affairs. This seems like the expected political dribble, but from what I've seen as a resident of Massachusetts, I would say he is making an honest attempt at this. It may be that he is aiming towards something impossible. Still, the closer we come, the better we are.
Please feel free to voice concerns over this issue at: http://devalpatrick.com/. I am not sure how "heard" your voice will be, but we should at least support this approach to governing.
I've become hooked on Battle Mode. I won't review it here, but will offer my experience with it. The game itself is a lot of fun. The biggest drawback, however is that users disconnect when they are losing. When a user disconnects, it seems that they suffer a slight point loss while the player who was winning gains nothing. It's a real shame. If it were not for that, the experience would be top notch. I've learned to throw the rankings out the window and just play the game. I simply chalk the disconnect up as a win for myself.
Another thing that is sometimes frustrating is lag. I've yet to be able to figure out if it's a flaw in the game or the result of cheating. But it seems that sometimes lag suspiciously begins to occur just when the Link player is in a tight situation. The Phantoms and Link both freeze up. The Phantom player cannot draw lines to guide the Phantoms. Link appears motionless, but when the lag ends, he has "teleported". I can't help but think that this lag is brought on intentionally by the Link player. Maybe they are sitting by their wireless router and unplugging it for a second. Who knows, it might just be an issue with the game.
In any case, if you can play with a non-cheater (friend codes, or luck of the draw) and there is no lag, you'll be in for a treat with this game. It's short enough to play "just one more" again and again. Buyer beware!
It's a road block. It's a provision webcasters cannot easily adhere to. It's a license to shutdown/strong-arm stations selectively.
They might want to give more incentive. In the least some feedback would make the task a little more rewardnig. I got bored fairly quickly.
The 'statistics' and the 'show my galaxies' sections are both not working. Perhaps once they are in place, it will be a little more fun to participate. There should be more info, such as "you were the first one to classify this galaxy", or "You were the 100th person to classify this galaxy", etc.
If the site gets popular they might add more features. I'd like to see how many galaxies i've done. How many galaxies other users have done, etc. In any case, I hope it catches on.
I propose someone create a 5 pound Wii Remote. Parents can secretly do the switch. Just make sure to make the wrist strap extra durable in case something like this happens.
The last job I left, I gave three weeks for just that reason. It was a good company with great leadership. I was not black-spotted for those three weeks. I was an important resource. If you are respected and are leaving a place you respect, show some integrity and work with people. If you are leaving because you loath your job, please, be the bigger person. In the long run, it's your benefit.
Are Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne. Both have yet to fail me. I have brought these games to people who are used to Monopoly and Scrabble. They fall in love each and every time.
For the "Earth is Flat" Version. Oh, wait. maps.google.com
Yeah, make no excuses. Sounds like you have a reasonable idea of what you want to do, so follow the path. Need experience? Go to College. I grew up on Welfare and paid for College on my own. I worked my way through it. It's possible to put yourself through College, believe it or not. I have so far been making a good living, too. It sounds like you know what you want to do. The keyword is "want". I would not advise anyone to become a programmer unless they enjoy programming and have a curious mind. Intelligence is fine, but I've found the successful programmers have a passion. Then again, it all depends on how you define success. Good luck.
I've been getting a lot of calls that seem to be the "wrong number". When I tell the caller that they've reached the wrong person, they say. Sorry for the mistake, sir. Perhaps you would be interested in ....
It's been happening more and more lately. I would imagine with auto-dialers it wouldn't be the case. Looks like they are using cold calling "dialing mistakes" intentionally. They could all be errors, but it does seem quite suspicious.
Sounds good, but I think one problem with the idea in the "Hobbit" case would be the time restriction. If they made a 6 part mini-series, the entire film would have to be divided into 6 40-1hr chunks. They would all have to end reasonably. Even if there had to be no cliff hanger, scenes would have to be editted such that they did not end mid-dialogue. For something like the Hobbit, this would not be acceptable. It would lead to a product that is not true to the book. This isn't to say that our viewing experience can't change. But as things are now, it won't work. It might work if all parts are meant for download or "view on demand" TV, where things are likely headed anyway.
If you use a Wikipedia article for information, you should validate that information. Just as you should take reasonable measures to confirm a fact from a book. One way to start with Wikipedia might be to look at the history of changes. You might see evolution of the disputed information.
Sometimes you can read two newspapers with different points of view on a subject and start to see the 'real picture'. The more sources hear about an event from, the more effective your intelligence can be at filtering out noise. The human mind decides on a stopping point where it is safe to assume something is true to a degree of certainty. This is what makes us fairly sure that when we walk, we will not fall through the ground during some subsequent step.
Looking at the history might give insight into how the entry took shape. We will have a larger pool of beliefs from which to harvest the most accurate picture. It's work, but that's what research is.
He was a scapegoat. AOL is responsible. They put unreasonable pressure on the employee to keep customers on the phone. They don't tell them 'how', they just tell them to make sure they do it.
This is the same way big companies get their retail outlet managers to stiff workers out of overtime/benefits. By giving them unreasonable goals and incentives that are only achived by doing things that a corporation doesn't want to own up to doing themselves. So, they pass they buck, the blame, but not the profit.
I would urge this employee to take action. I for one am witness to AOL doing this very thing. Remember, those calls are monitored. They can't pretend not to condone this activity. I am sure that there are ex AOL employees that were rewarded for doing the same thing.
... for telling me that something I didn't know to be true, is in fact, untrue!
In other news, Wal.Mart will not be constructing a Muppet Themed roller coaster.
I suppose this may have put to rest a rumor circulating about a MMO StarCraft. But, I've never heard such a rumor.