The biggest thing I sensed from the review of this book is that it's definately Buzzword 2.0 Compliant.
But in all seriousness, I feel that Slashdot readers aren't the best audience for the book. Most of it was a big yawn, and quite frankly, reminded me of meetings I attended while working for Enron Broadband. Hate to say it, but I think most readers are simply not blown away by "group calendar technologies."
Yes, convergence will definately alter how we live and have some significant social effects, but I think this book may be glossing over the fact that current technologies have some serious implementation problems right now: cost (e.g., devices or wireless data services), interface standards, and overall acceptance by the general populace.
I could see tech-friendly cultures like Japan or Korea having far more momentum for something like this over the US (and yes, I'm an American).
The voter should *not* get a "receipt", so that he/she can be paid/blackmailed to vote a certain way. However, the machines should produce a write-only-once piece of human (as well as machine) readable output, such as a paper or plastic card with holes punched or permanent OCR ink markings.
I agree, and in Oregon, we pretty much cut to the chase by sticking with our ScanTron-like voting ballots. Simple, verifiable, and robust--and no hanging chads.
We don't just haphazardly give information away. It costs time and money to make information available, so it's generally asked that citizens put forth some effort to narrow down the information they want and go to some effort to get it. Usually there is some sort of processing fee and you have to know specifically what you want.
This is a source of irritation for me. Some of these 'processing fees' are astronomical. Time and money has already been spent: they're the record clerks who manage this information, and they're paid by the taxpayers.
Some of the fees levied are absolutely ridiculous (think DMV). Imagine if this same fee philosophy applied to other things, such as your bank, retirement fund management company, etc.
Sorry, but I've worked as an IT contractor at State and Federal agencies before, and have simply witnessed too much malaise and laziness to think that everything needs to have a fee, much less one that's not trivial.
Wasn't there a previous study that showed we don't actually need sleep to be physically refreshed?
My Human Anatomy & Physiology teacher summarized the bulk of research we have up to this point:
For most sleep during the night: -Stage 1: Non-REM, Alpha wave (low amplitude, high frequency activity) drifting-off into sleep -Then to Stage 4: NREM, deep-sleep, Delta wave (high amplitude, VERY low frequency [around 4 hz] electrical activity) -Then to REM (which looks suspiciously like Alpha wave), very high neuronal activity and oxygen use
Stage 4 is currently considered to be the most physically restorative, and decreases to nearly zero by around the age of 60. Maintaining Stage 4 sleep past 60 is correlated with exercise, something Slashdot readers may want to look up:-)
I'm not aware of any ways we can stimulate Delta wave electrical activity without some intervention by the Reticular Activating System. Meditation, I recall, doesn't do this.
Is this really due to the brain "working on" problems in your sleep? Or is this because the hours after waking are when the brain is at its operational best and it is easier to process large amounts of information at that time?
I don't know if it's necessarily working on problems, per-se. However, during REM sleep, your brain is at a very high level of metabolic and electrical activity, and is doing things like reinforcing long term memory. It's possible that this integration process makes for better decision making.
That said, without seeing the actual research paper, I'd have to say that the results of the study are rather specious. I'm not buying a research metric based on how people judge which "shampoo" is better.
And, when it comes to the subconcscious, I think I'd have to vote that it would NOT be the best idea to control one's consumer experience solely in that manner. The effects of TV marketing in the USA, and 'mass-consumerism' do not contribute to better buying decisions. I believe that subconscious buying = impulse buying.
The buying habits of Americans would benefit from change that comes from mindful consideration about what we really need, where things are made, and how we're going to afford things in the long term.
...oh, and perhaps the most important thing: I'd still like to be able to fire up Windows XP on it from time-to-time. There are certain applications that I need/prefer Windows for (none of them games, by the way).
I've used both Macs and PCs for nearly 20 years now, and I'd have to say that I'm happy to be purchasing my second Mac after a 10 year hiatus.
Reasons: * I'm really really sick of funky variations in how long it takes my Windows XP laptop to wake up from Sleep mode. Not Hibernation mind you, but Sleep. It may take 5 seconds or 5 minutes--with every application closed. This is unnacceptable, especially when I just need to power the thing up to look up a reference or jot down a note. I can only imagine the level of pain I'd have if I were to power it up for airport security and it pulled this sort of tomfoolery.
* While Windows XP is a dramatic improvement in terms of stability and such from Windows 98, it still crashes or throws application exceptions more than I'm comfortable with.
* Time has not treated my IBM ThinkPad 600X well. At about five years old, it's developed a bunch of cracks in weird places. And then there's that really irritating problem with overcharging the battery that IBM refused to fess up to. My PowerBook 100, with a marginal design, didn't do this. Then there are all the ripped off port covers on the laptop. And don't get me started about finding drivers for certain things on the IBM website. Oy.
When I get the MacBook Pro (Rev 2, if I can stand to wait that long), I'm not expecting the most r0xx0r blazing fast machine. Quite frankly, I'd just like to be able to wake the damn thing up quickly, surf the web a bit, type out some Word documents and call it a day.
I'm too old and too busy for toys--I just want a reliable tool.
"it is the duty of the Free to selflessly attempt to liberate the oppressed" reek of cultural imperialism?
Defining the terms a certain way, I agree with your point here. I think Animal Farm is the book that comes to mind here.
Certainly it's within the rights of all to try, but in what sense is our protection of free speech in the West categorically superior to the prevailing Chinese attitude that censorship may sometimes be necessary in order to preserve culture and maintain social order, aims that we in the West, I think, can agree are desirable.
"Preservation of culture" and "maintenance of social order" are not, in my opinion, necessarily the best benchmarks. My anthropology text in school made an interesting point regarding the dangers of both "ethnocentrism" (which you refer to in the first paragraph) and "cultural relativism" (which you refer to in the latter paragraph).
IMHO, the most critical benchmarks in judging a culture is the physical, psychological and spiritual well-being of the participants in it, as well as the the wellness of cultures that are interdependant to it.
For example, I think it wouldn't be terribly valuable to preserve the cultural tradition of "female circumcision" (see http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/Agnes_Pareiyo-e ng). And while maintaining social order is valuable, maintaining it at the expense of social justice is not acceptable.
That movie was not, unfortunately, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a movie that floated around Hollywood for about 20 years before it finally appeared in theaters as a flat, lifeless, americanized lump that was mostly hated by people who liked the book and loathed by people who hated the book."
I'm going to have to call "excessive snootyness" on his comments in general. The book was, indeed, fantastic. As such, it would be very difficult to distill it in a manner that is going to suit everyone's tastes. I was not personally expecting an opportunity to "read the movie," but just have an overall enjoyable experience.
To put things in perspective, how many of these movies will have the persistence of works from Kurosawa, Goddard, and Hitchcock? Perhaps, only time will tell.
I work as a business systems analyst, and I'm curious: how exactly does the data mining functionality described here compare with what would be available using a J2EE/Websphere environment?
Did M$ create some libraries specifically to support AI-esque functions, or is this book specifically about how to use.Net to support AI initiatives?
Craigslist has been charging for some things, specifically full time job postings in certain areas, for the past couple of years.
I actually got my last job in Portland (portland.craigslist.com), thanks to Craigslist. The recruiter (who I ended up working closely with on my contract) noted that the money she paid for that posting was considerably cheaper than using Monster or Dice, and that she got lots of good leads on it.
Thanks Craig! Drinks on me for helping me find work when I was just starting to despair...
It is only that now enough people are well off enough to sit around and worry about such higher level problems.
Worry they do: my A&P professor says that Prozac is taken more than aspirin. Of course, primary care professionals are handing that stuff out like candy, so it's not surprising...
It IS hard. But a good way to get in the door is to temp. I finally got an MBA, but all my experience was in IT. I wanted to be an operations analyst.
I think Hazem's post was very pragmatic. I know several people who got their MBAs with an expectation that jobs would just be lined up out the door for them.
A hedge fund I was an IT consultant to pointed out that the purpose of MBA school was, perhaps, less about learning business and more about getting a 'ticket' and a network of people to hook up with (e.g., go to Stanford for West coast tech, Harvard for big corpo work, etc.). This is not to disparage what MBAs study, which I believe is valuable, but the realities of actually finding work.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say that Hazem ended up at Nike or Adidas in Portland (where I'm from). I've spent my entire career in this area, and after washing out of college, rose the ranks in 10 years from putting PCs together at home to sell and doing desktop support to being a business systems analyst in healthcare insurance and energy trading. I would NOT have been able to do that without the tons of experience I got from being a contractor. Nearly every vertical and horizontal move I've made was because a company could see that I had potential to be something different and gave me a chance. They're not as willing to give that chance to someone that they'd hire on full time.
At this point in my career, I've used the fact that I'm very busy as a bargaining chip. In sum:
1) I'm busy for a reason. One can reasonably infer that the reason I'm busy is because I'm valuable to the business I'm working for.
2) My value to that business indicates that I'm not going to just take any old opportunity that rolls along. It's going to need to be considerably better in compensation, situation, and professional growth opportunity.
3) Being presently employed is an irresistable quality to many recruiters. It indicates that you're 'bondable,' and wanted. Nothing succeeds like success.
How many new, patented drugs are actually innovative cures, rather than slight improvements over old, generic drugs that treat the same conditions?
You mentioned Viagra. There's also statin drugs as well.
This, and a discussion about how much money a drug company actually invests in research is found in a book called "The Truth About The Drug Companies" by Marcia Angell (former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine). Excellent read.
I seem to recall Dr. Angell mentioning that her estimates and "forensic accounting" work reveal that it's closer to $200MM per drug. The remainder of the research is paid by the gentle US taxpayer through support of the NIH. The power of this, she noted, is in the suspiciously high level moves of overseas big pharma to the US.
Deep Throat's exhortation to 'follow the money' is still true.
About champagne, have you considered sparking wine from california (or other domestic parts of the world)? While I can't speak much for sparkling wines that cost >$100, I find that the best value sparkling wines I can get can be $20-40 are from california.
I've heard many good things about Methode Champagnoise (sp?) made in California, but haven't really had a chance to try them.
One of my favorite sparkling wines to drink with dessert is an Italian prosecco. About $9-12/bottle.
Even if it works it won't catch on. Wine is like exotic stereo equipment: people are paying for expensiveness.
To a point, I would agree. My long-time acquantances make some excellent (and somewhat expensive ($40-60/bottle) wine, and have said that it's hard to justify the taste/value of very expensive wine ($150+ per bottle).
While things have definately gotten more expensive in the world of Oregon wine, an oenophile with a discriminating palate that has basic knowledge of what they're doing (and finds help they can trust), can most definately find a very nice Oregon Pinot Noir in the $30/bottle range--one that would easily compete with wines costing considerably more.
For sure, one rule is true: a winery with conspicuous reputation for making good wines may very well (after they've gone big) release product lines that aren't terribly good--for the same price. Rex Hill is a good example of this: while some wines are quite good (their Seven Springs and Jacob Hart single-vineyard releases taste very nice to me), some of their other wines aren't. This is a view that has been verified by others who make a living tasting or making wine--or just plain buying it.
I once read that the French really don't have a word for winemaker, but they definately have one for vine-grower. While I respect the work, artistry and scientific knowledge of good enologists, the real money is made in the viticulture arena. I compared two wines, both made from grapes harvested from the same vineyard: one was $15/bottle, my friend's was $30. Both were extremely good, and from a value standpoint, I'd say the cheaper bottle was outstanding, and similar from a flavor experience.
People always say that, for most people, there is no difference between a cheap bottle of wine and an expensive bottle. While I think it's fair to except certain flavors in wine that are prized by fewer folks (the barnyard-y flavor imparted by Burgundian Brettanomyces, for instance), I can say that my personal experience explains otherwise. There are diminishing returns for ultra-expensive wine (e.g., Opus One), but I would never gamble that people would generally like a budget wine from Chile or Australia over a well chosen, moderately priced wine from Oregon, Washington and select winemakers in California.
I can easily say that one of the worst values in wine is clearly in the arena of champagne. I've sampled many expensive champagnes (Cristal and some releases from Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin [VCP]), and overall, I liked samples that were half the cost (Agrapart e Fils stands out strongly). The only exception was the 1990 La Grande Dame from VCP--I'll never forget the flavor and texture of that. If I only had $150 left in my pocket, I'd buy other wines before buying a single bottle of that.
I'm much more concerned about the fact that taco can't differentiate "to" and "too".
As am I. In addition to story duplication, poor grammar is yet another source of irritation.
Taco is justified in asserting that we should not expect WSJ or NYT-class writing. I think we're justified in expecting writing that wouldn't make a high school junior blush. Poor grammar isn't just an aesthetic concern, but a genuine pox on efficient reading.
I'd expect that Slashdot's paid editors invest in this little peripheral:
"This article brought to you by the manufacturers of Camsnuffling(TM)"
I've been an avid hobbiest for over 20 years (and a tech professional since), and have not heard "lifehack" once. Granted, it's been about 10 years since I rolled with the 3l33t hax0rz but, sheesh.
As noted by a previous poster, I also question whether or not "podcast" will be around in 50 years. In terms of everyday items connected to brand name, I think Kleenex would be a better inclusion.
Slashdot Mirror
Hate to say this, but I expect more from Slashdot moderation than for this article to be considered 'insightful.'
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
The biggest thing I sensed from the review of this book is that it's definately Buzzword 2.0 Compliant.
But in all seriousness, I feel that Slashdot readers aren't the best audience for the book. Most of it was a big yawn, and quite frankly, reminded me of meetings I attended while working for Enron Broadband. Hate to say it, but I think most readers are simply not blown away by "group calendar technologies."
Yes, convergence will definately alter how we live and have some significant social effects, but I think this book may be glossing over the fact that current technologies have some serious implementation problems right now: cost (e.g., devices or wireless data services), interface standards, and overall acceptance by the general populace.
I could see tech-friendly cultures like Japan or Korea having far more momentum for something like this over the US (and yes, I'm an American).
The voter should *not* get a "receipt", so that he/she can be paid/blackmailed to vote a certain way. However, the machines should produce a write-only-once piece of human (as well as machine) readable output, such as a paper or plastic card with holes punched or permanent OCR ink markings.
I agree, and in Oregon, we pretty much cut to the chase by sticking with our ScanTron-like voting ballots. Simple, verifiable, and robust--and no hanging chads.
The only interface requirements are a #2 pencil.
We don't just haphazardly give information away. It costs time and money to make information available, so it's generally asked that citizens put forth some effort to narrow down the information they want and go to some effort to get it. Usually there is some sort of processing fee and you have to know specifically what you want.
This is a source of irritation for me. Some of these 'processing fees' are astronomical. Time and money has already been spent: they're the record clerks who manage this information, and they're paid by the taxpayers.
Some of the fees levied are absolutely ridiculous (think DMV). Imagine if this same fee philosophy applied to other things, such as your bank, retirement fund management company, etc.
Sorry, but I've worked as an IT contractor at State and Federal agencies before, and have simply witnessed too much malaise and laziness to think that everything needs to have a fee, much less one that's not trivial.
Wasn't there a previous study that showed we don't actually need sleep to be physically refreshed?
:-)
My Human Anatomy & Physiology teacher summarized the bulk of research we have up to this point:
For most sleep during the night:
-Stage 1: Non-REM, Alpha wave (low amplitude, high frequency activity) drifting-off into sleep
-Then to Stage 4: NREM, deep-sleep, Delta wave (high amplitude, VERY low frequency [around 4 hz] electrical activity)
-Then to REM (which looks suspiciously like Alpha wave), very high neuronal activity and oxygen use
Stage 4 is currently considered to be the most physically restorative, and decreases to nearly zero by around the age of 60. Maintaining Stage 4 sleep past 60 is correlated with exercise, something Slashdot readers may want to look up
I'm not aware of any ways we can stimulate Delta wave electrical activity without some intervention by the Reticular Activating System. Meditation, I recall, doesn't do this.
From what I understand from my A&P class, yes. It's also throwing out information that your brain is not finding terribly useful.
Is this really due to the brain "working on" problems in your sleep? Or is this because the hours after waking are when the brain is at its operational best and it is easier to process large amounts of information at that time?
I don't know if it's necessarily working on problems, per-se. However, during REM sleep, your brain is at a very high level of metabolic and electrical activity, and is doing things like reinforcing long term memory. It's possible that this integration process makes for better decision making.
That said, without seeing the actual research paper, I'd have to say that the results of the study are rather specious. I'm not buying a research metric based on how people judge which "shampoo" is better.
And, when it comes to the subconcscious, I think I'd have to vote that it would NOT be the best idea to control one's consumer experience solely in that manner. The effects of TV marketing in the USA, and 'mass-consumerism' do not contribute to better buying decisions. I believe that subconscious buying = impulse buying.
The buying habits of Americans would benefit from change that comes from mindful consideration about what we really need, where things are made, and how we're going to afford things in the long term.
...oh, and perhaps the most important thing: I'd still like to be able to fire up Windows XP on it from time-to-time. There are certain applications that I need/prefer Windows for (none of them games, by the way).
I've used both Macs and PCs for nearly 20 years now, and I'd have to say that I'm happy to be purchasing my second Mac after a 10 year hiatus.
Reasons:
* I'm really really sick of funky variations in how long it takes my Windows XP laptop to wake up from Sleep mode. Not Hibernation mind you, but Sleep. It may take 5 seconds or 5 minutes--with every application closed. This is unnacceptable, especially when I just need to power the thing up to look up a reference or jot down a note. I can only imagine the level of pain I'd have if I were to power it up for airport security and it pulled this sort of tomfoolery.
* While Windows XP is a dramatic improvement in terms of stability and such from Windows 98, it still crashes or throws application exceptions more than I'm comfortable with.
* Time has not treated my IBM ThinkPad 600X well. At about five years old, it's developed a bunch of cracks in weird places. And then there's that really irritating problem with overcharging the battery that IBM refused to fess up to. My PowerBook 100, with a marginal design, didn't do this. Then there are all the ripped off port covers on the laptop. And don't get me started about finding drivers for certain things on the IBM website. Oy.
When I get the MacBook Pro (Rev 2, if I can stand to wait that long), I'm not expecting the most r0xx0r blazing fast machine. Quite frankly, I'd just like to be able to wake the damn thing up quickly, surf the web a bit, type out some Word documents and call it a day.
I'm too old and too busy for toys--I just want a reliable tool.
"it is the duty of the Free to selflessly attempt to liberate the oppressed" reek of cultural imperialism?
e ng). And while maintaining social order is valuable, maintaining it at the expense of social justice is not acceptable.
Defining the terms a certain way, I agree with your point here. I think Animal Farm is the book that comes to mind here.
Certainly it's within the rights of all to try, but in what sense is our protection of free speech in the West categorically superior to the prevailing Chinese attitude that censorship may sometimes be necessary in order to preserve culture and maintain social order, aims that we in the West, I think, can agree are desirable.
"Preservation of culture" and "maintenance of social order" are not, in my opinion, necessarily the best benchmarks. My anthropology text in school made an interesting point regarding the dangers of both "ethnocentrism" (which you refer to in the first paragraph) and "cultural relativism" (which you refer to in the latter paragraph).
IMHO, the most critical benchmarks in judging a culture is the physical, psychological and spiritual well-being of the participants in it, as well as the the wellness of cultures that are interdependant to it.
For example, I think it wouldn't be terribly valuable to preserve the cultural tradition of "female circumcision" (see http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/Agnes_Pareiyo-
That movie was not, unfortunately, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a movie that floated around Hollywood for about 20 years before it finally appeared in theaters as a flat, lifeless, americanized lump that was mostly hated by people who liked the book and loathed by people who hated the book."
I'm going to have to call "excessive snootyness" on his comments in general. The book was, indeed, fantastic. As such, it would be very difficult to distill it in a manner that is going to suit everyone's tastes. I was not personally expecting an opportunity to "read the movie," but just have an overall enjoyable experience.
To put things in perspective, how many of these movies will have the persistence of works from Kurosawa, Goddard, and Hitchcock? Perhaps, only time will tell.
I work as a business systems analyst, and I'm curious: how exactly does the data mining functionality described here compare with what would be available using a J2EE/Websphere environment?
.Net to support AI initiatives?
Did M$ create some libraries specifically to support AI-esque functions, or is this book specifically about how to use
Craigslist has been charging for some things, specifically full time job postings in certain areas, for the past couple of years.
I actually got my last job in Portland (portland.craigslist.com), thanks to Craigslist. The recruiter (who I ended up working closely with on my contract) noted that the money she paid for that posting was considerably cheaper than using Monster or Dice, and that she got lots of good leads on it.
Thanks Craig! Drinks on me for helping me find work when I was just starting to despair...
IANA molecular biologist, but isn't there a pretty common process for taking trace DNA, then duplicating it en masse for crime scene investigation?
c tion
Neither am I, but I believe this may be what you're referring to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_rea
It is only that now enough people are well off enough to sit around and worry about such higher level problems.
Worry they do: my A&P professor says that Prozac is taken more than aspirin. Of course, primary care professionals are handing that stuff out like candy, so it's not surprising...
It IS hard. But a good way to get in the door is to temp. I finally got an MBA, but all my experience was in IT. I wanted to be an operations analyst.
I think Hazem's post was very pragmatic. I know several people who got their MBAs with an expectation that jobs would just be lined up out the door for them.
A hedge fund I was an IT consultant to pointed out that the purpose of MBA school was, perhaps, less about learning business and more about getting a 'ticket' and a network of people to hook up with (e.g., go to Stanford for West coast tech, Harvard for big corpo work, etc.). This is not to disparage what MBAs study, which I believe is valuable, but the realities of actually finding work.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say that Hazem ended up at Nike or Adidas in Portland (where I'm from). I've spent my entire career in this area, and after washing out of college, rose the ranks in 10 years from putting PCs together at home to sell and doing desktop support to being a business systems analyst in healthcare insurance and energy trading. I would NOT have been able to do that without the tons of experience I got from being a contractor. Nearly every vertical and horizontal move I've made was because a company could see that I had potential to be something different and gave me a chance. They're not as willing to give that chance to someone that they'd hire on full time.
At this point in my career, I've used the fact that I'm very busy as a bargaining chip. In sum:
1) I'm busy for a reason. One can reasonably infer that the reason I'm busy is because I'm valuable to the business I'm working for.
2) My value to that business indicates that I'm not going to just take any old opportunity that rolls along. It's going to need to be considerably better in compensation, situation, and professional growth opportunity.
3) Being presently employed is an irresistable quality to many recruiters. It indicates that you're 'bondable,' and wanted. Nothing succeeds like success.
How many new, patented drugs are actually innovative cures, rather than slight improvements over old, generic drugs that treat the same conditions?
You mentioned Viagra. There's also statin drugs as well.
This, and a discussion about how much money a drug company actually invests in research is found in a book called "The Truth About The Drug Companies" by Marcia Angell (former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine). Excellent read.
I seem to recall Dr. Angell mentioning that her estimates and "forensic accounting" work reveal that it's closer to $200MM per drug. The remainder of the research is paid by the gentle US taxpayer through support of the NIH. The power of this, she noted, is in the suspiciously high level moves of overseas big pharma to the US.
Deep Throat's exhortation to 'follow the money' is still true.
About champagne, have you considered sparking wine from california (or other domestic parts of the world)? While I can't speak much for sparkling wines that cost >$100, I find that the best value sparkling wines I can get can be $20-40 are from california.
I've heard many good things about Methode Champagnoise (sp?) made in California, but haven't really had a chance to try them.
One of my favorite sparkling wines to drink with dessert is an Italian prosecco. About $9-12/bottle.
Even if it works it won't catch on. Wine is like exotic stereo equipment: people are paying for expensiveness.
To a point, I would agree. My long-time acquantances make some excellent (and somewhat expensive ($40-60/bottle) wine, and have said that it's hard to justify the taste/value of very expensive wine ($150+ per bottle).
While things have definately gotten more expensive in the world of Oregon wine, an oenophile with a discriminating palate that has basic knowledge of what they're doing (and finds help they can trust), can most definately find a very nice Oregon Pinot Noir in the $30/bottle range--one that would easily compete with wines costing considerably more.
For sure, one rule is true: a winery with conspicuous reputation for making good wines may very well (after they've gone big) release product lines that aren't terribly good--for the same price. Rex Hill is a good example of this: while some wines are quite good (their Seven Springs and Jacob Hart single-vineyard releases taste very nice to me), some of their other wines aren't. This is a view that has been verified by others who make a living tasting or making wine--or just plain buying it.
I once read that the French really don't have a word for winemaker, but they definately have one for vine-grower. While I respect the work, artistry and scientific knowledge of good enologists, the real money is made in the viticulture arena. I compared two wines, both made from grapes harvested from the same vineyard: one was $15/bottle, my friend's was $30. Both were extremely good, and from a value standpoint, I'd say the cheaper bottle was outstanding, and similar from a flavor experience.
People always say that, for most people, there is no difference between a cheap bottle of wine and an expensive bottle. While I think it's fair to except certain flavors in wine that are prized by fewer folks (the barnyard-y flavor imparted by Burgundian Brettanomyces, for instance), I can say that my personal experience explains otherwise. There are diminishing returns for ultra-expensive wine (e.g., Opus One), but I would never gamble that people would generally like a budget wine from Chile or Australia over a well chosen, moderately priced wine from Oregon, Washington and select winemakers in California.
I can easily say that one of the worst values in wine is clearly in the arena of champagne. I've sampled many expensive champagnes (Cristal and some releases from Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin [VCP]), and overall, I liked samples that were half the cost (Agrapart e Fils stands out strongly). The only exception was the 1990 La Grande Dame from VCP--I'll never forget the flavor and texture of that. If I only had $150 left in my pocket, I'd buy other wines before buying a single bottle of that.
And your lack of editing is why I don't pay for a /. subscription anymore.
Now that I'm gainfully employed, I've considered getting a subscription, but have deferred my decision for the same reason.
grammer nazi's
"grammar Nazis"
I'm much more concerned about the fact that taco can't differentiate "to" and "too".
As am I. In addition to story duplication, poor grammar is yet another source of irritation.
Taco is justified in asserting that we should not expect WSJ or NYT-class writing. I think we're justified in expecting writing that wouldn't make a high school junior blush. Poor grammar isn't just an aesthetic concern, but a genuine pox on efficient reading.
I'd expect that Slashdot's paid editors invest in this little peripheral:
The Elements of Style Illustrated by Strunk, White, et al.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200696
I'm launching "cleaning@home"
Seriously, this '@home' moniker is starting to get lame and hackneyed.
That noted, I'm wondering if the iClean 06 suite comes with your service, including iBucket and iMop, as well as a bottle of iSol?
One icon is worth a million dupes on /.
:-)
I'm thinking they should use the logo from the recently maligned S. Korean cloning project
"This article brought to you by the manufacturers of Camsnuffling(TM)"
I've been an avid hobbiest for over 20 years (and a tech professional since), and have not heard "lifehack" once. Granted, it's been about 10 years since I rolled with the 3l33t hax0rz but, sheesh.
As noted by a previous poster, I also question whether or not "podcast" will be around in 50 years. In terms of everyday items connected to brand name, I think Kleenex would be a better inclusion.