I really have a hard time understanding all the hate around 3D. Sure there are some films that do it poorly, but that's true for any new approach that enjoys some popularity (SFX, musical scores, camera motion, film/digital medium, plots, etc). I can only assume it's some physical differences between viewers, making it mostly just unfortunate that it doesn't degrade gracefully for users that can't/don't enjoy it.
Personally the only reason I even go to the movie theater any more is to see a film in 3D. Otherwise, it'll wait until I can watch it from home. The friends I go to 3D films with generally feel the same way. The theater just doesn't have enough value add for its price without it. When you include dinner, drinks, and a quality theater with reserved seating, the 3D surcharge is too minor to worry about... the biggest issue really is that it sort of dulls the films if you ever want to watch them at home.
I love driving too, but I'd jump into an automated car without hesitation. I'd even pay _more_ to NOT have a wheel or driver fallback in the car, with the front two seats facing back like a small limo. I'd much rather have a fully automated car than one that includes a built-in backseat driver.
I don't agree about them having to work without failure or handle every single possible situation possible. If the car can't handle it or if something happens, then a secondary system would surely be in place for the car to pull over, while I use an OnStar style service to talk to somebody about it while they diagnose the problem and if needed wait for a replacement loaner car from my insurance company to drive up on its own to get me. I'd also enjoy paying those lower premiums because they essentially just cover roadside assistance and car replacement/repair, instead of liability (would resent still having to insure against uninsured human drivers though!).
And on top of all that, no more worries about my kids (or their friends) getting into accidents from joy riding, being too cocky, getting distracted (from passengers, phones, etc), or worse. Not to mention, once in college I'd know they always had a dedicated "driver" when out. I can't imagine many parents would buy (or allow their dependents to buy) human-driver cars anymore. Goes the opposite direction too, suddenly the grandparents have complete freedom to go anywhere whenever they want, safely and without the fear of all the aggressive drivers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but right there you have the two most dangerous driving age groups no longer driving, so even if I was driving manually, I'd be safer too.
I imagine the government would have to set up a strict requirements and tests, and then once licensed the vendor would be immune from suits unless gross incompetence or malice could be proven and that they would also then benefit from an insurance pool to compensate/benefit those injured due to the system with some sort of cap or limit to the payouts.
After that was in place, I'd think government and businesses would jump on it to avoid being sued for their employee's driving errors or for simply having their logo on the vehicle, not to mention long term cost savings of not having a human driver (no more wage, insurance, or tax costs) and therefor not needing a cabin and add 24/7 driving and better fuel economy (from no a/c and fuel saving driving patterns). Heck, UPS, FedEx, and the USPS could all redesign their vehicles to carry more while making it easier and even faster for the employee to deliver the mail or packages.
I'd also think those that can't or shouldn't be driving would also be quick to jump on it. For instance, once you had a system like this in place, I'm sure you'd see laws sprout up prohibiting anybody ever guilty of DUI from using a human-driven vehicle. Seniors that can't drive or would rather not will love these cars as they would give them freedom to go anywhere any time, and the people will love that they aren't driving, perhaps leading to lower maximum driving ages. I'd imagine minivans that had no "front seats", designed more like a limo, would be extremely popular with families. Make a sedan designed like that, with rear facing front seats with a built in table and power outlet, and I'm sure most commuters would jump on it. New drivers would simply be used to it by the time they could even apply for a license, so the number of people against the concept would naturally lower every year.
So those that wouldn't want to give up the control could hold out, at least until you end up with such a huge portion of cars driving themselves, that the population starts limiting human driving (more expensive and difficult to obtain licenses, automated-only rules for freeways, tolls, etc) or driving around them becomes too annoying (I enjoy driving, but if every car was going the posted speed limit, and I imagine those limits would only go down, it would get old very fast!).
Specifically, couldn't they have some javascript load a one line javascript file from a subdomain with their desired configuration, and just report the time from the script element being added to the script being executed?
Same for me. Blockbuster would send me the most obscure and probably least watched films in my queue rather than the items at the top and in the year I was a member I never once received anything in my queue that had been labeled "short wait", "long wait", etc. I'm guessing it probably looks for what is the least likely to interfere with other subscribers if your top picks aren't immediately available, so everybody's queue would be different.
Browsing the store was fun, but after 6 months, it really did feel like I had seen everything of interest to me there.
So far Netflix has sent everything in queue order... but I just joined so we'll see.
We were in the same boat and had the 3 disc plan. I had even been dissing my Netflix friends because they couldn't just go pick up a new film when they were finished with theirs. Then one day I was told at the store I reached my exchange limit. "Limit? What limit?" "You received a letter explaining it a few weeks ago." "No, I didn't." "Sorry" I then went home, joined Netflix, and cancelled my blockbuster plan.
I do miss in in-store pickups and just browsing the selection in person. Though, I had NCIS Season 1 on my Blockbuster #1 spot for a year (no, really... and 3 tech support tickets didn't change anything). Added it to my new Netflix account when I created the account. Just after I finished canceling my Blockbuster account, Netflix Shipping emailed me that those same DVDs Blockbuster couldn't give me for a year, had shipped.
Their huge losses explain the problem though, clearly they aren't putting resources toward the logistics or suggestion systems.
"Ad-serving networks like DoubleClick place tiny programs on personal computers, called cookies, that monitor where an individual user goes online."
That's the scariest part of the article... that a publication like the NY Times still hasn't figured out what a cookie is, or worse, has but yet misrepresents it to scare people over to their POV.
While they only sell standard def, they give away free high def movie trailers.
So the real test would be downloading one of the HD movie trailers from iTunes and trying it on the AppleTV product.
If they work well, then chances are if/when Apple movies to sell full movies in HD, the device will handle it well and be more "future proof" than suggested here. If on the other hand it chugs along bandwidth problems, we'll know for sure that its a SD-only device.
Single-monitor workflow is a deal breaker
on
Lightroom Vs. Aperture
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· Score: 5, Informative
I really can't believe it wasn't mentioned as a serious Con for Lightroom with so many video cards (especially those of photographers as well as Mac owners) being dual headed. Thumbnails and controls on one monitor and large full-screen views on the second for adjustments is a wonderful way to work. Viewing the Lightroom forums makes it clear that it is important to users.
I love Lightroom's "develop" controls but the productivity aspect is much more important. Simply allowing the Manage and Develop tabs to used as separate windows would have done the trick (not well, but "good enough").
Worked at Be Incorporated, with BeOS. The rest is history, as is that wonderful car.
I loved it so much that it'll probably be my next car. Besides the hybrid aspect, the display was awesome and the overall experience was great.
I should note that I had the manual version. I think the automatic didn't do quite as well. It also only had two seats, I can see why the civics don't get the same results.
I never got below 50MPG, ever, and that was living in the thin air of Flagstaff, AZ, at over a mile in elevation. I got closer to 60MPG in the lower and warmer Phoenix, AZ.
Re:We have to worry then...
on
The Future of NASA
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Yes, Hubble was never intended to go beyond 2010. NASA was simply asking, "Can we do it? Can we go longer? Is it worth it?" The debate was still open. This just closes the discussion (for better or for worse).
But a company could say they had reason to believe they used the product and were acting on it.
It would be stretching it, but I could see messages saying something like, "Your porn, as seen on this free website, may be in your collection illegally. To fix this, buy a DVD here. If you don't actually have an illegal copy of this video, ignore this messaie." or. "You may be using a foreign 'enlarger' that violates our US Patent on body part enlargers! Be sure to buy your genuine one here. Patent pending."
Though of course it's far more likely to be used for mainstream media. "I saw you on ebay. Did you know that recording of The Return of the King is illegal? Pre-order the DVD online today or risk criminal prosecution for illegal possession of copyrighted material!"
Useless, but I can still see it filling your inbox. If people think that makes it legal, I bet they'd be far less likely to have complaints filed.
The problem is that it's other people deciding what data comes through.
For instance, LiveJournal. Users have found that AOL is blocking HTTP requests through REFERRERs too. Nothing like having a Journal, and then putting a link to your AOL homepage (AOL Journal, etc) on your LJ profile, only to have people blocked when trying to click through (to see it in action, and you don't have referers disabled, go to fadedsanity's profile and click on the website link "p r i n c e s s". You'll get a 404. Now alter the URL (or whatever you have to do to clear the referrer) and reload the page... it works!). Sure, it's understandable to prevent image embedding (though they appear to only be doing it selectively, like with www.livejournal.com, but not ziemkowski.livejournal.com for instance), but hypertext links as well? That's just too much!
The annoying issue is that this will undoubtedly lead to hacks (or even features) to stop sending referers, which will affect website statistics, etc.
Why should the above AOL subscriber not be able to link to her own site? Because other users have marked LiveJournal.com emails as spam? So it isn't just third parties than can be upset; she should be, anybody who wants to access her site through her journal should be, and the third party (LJ) should be.
Wouldn't it have been a lot less problematic to add a custom bayesian filtering system with spam ratings, that runs on the subscriber's system? I'm sure AOL could have designed an interface and methodology for such a system that would be extremely straightforward to users yet much more effective, all without relying on one subscriber to know what another subscriber thinks of another person's messages? Heck, they could have advertised that they have "Smart" email filtering, yadda yadda yadda.
You'd think that a company that has acquired sources of programming creativity like Netscape and WinAmp, would be able to meet the interests of their subscribers and investors much better than they have with this.
How much longer until AOL blocks referers from slashdot?
Can you claim it's a bug because it doesn't stand up to the audio cd format and thus you were just trying to work around/with the faulty/buggy programming?
Anybody recall when Pizza Hut inquired about putting their logo on the moon via earth-bound lasers? Of course they realized they couldn't, but they wanted to.
Or how about an opengl screensaver with a 3d paperclip that moves around the screen.. reading quotes from fortune. and using aspell or the like to check the spelling and add a red squiggly line under unknown words. heh. Once in a while through in quotes like, "Microsoft is not a monopoly" and "Everybody loves Microsoft" and put a green squiggly line under the entire quote.:P
Handspring needs to learn how to run a business
on
The new Palm VIIx
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· Score: 1
I loved my Visor, it was a good buy and better value than a Pilot. At least until I had to deal with the company itself when the screen cracked.
I was lucky in getting my Visor only a week after ordering it. Most of my friends with Visors didn't receive theirs for months. Unfortunately it seems that their customer service dept. hasn't yet sped up though. Nothing like being ignored by the company to make you feel good about buying their products.
3com is a large corporation, and they know how to handle workflow and customers. If Handspring doesn't get to my support inquiry soon, I'll just go Pilot. At least 3com has color PDAs.
It takes more energy to get to the moon. Even if there was an endless supply of fuel available at no cost sitting on the moon (which there obviously is not), it would still not be cost effective to go that route.
I could only see a moon stop on the way to mars if it was due to commercial space flight similar to airlines today, where you might go a bit out of your way to stop in route to pick up additional passengers. However that's quite far off, and by then we'd probably be using more advanced systems, and it wouldn't really be an issue either way.
It would be neet however to have a system where as vessels to both can sort of piggy back to LEO and then go on their separate ways.
Slashdot Mirror
I really have a hard time understanding all the hate around 3D. Sure there are some films that do it poorly, but that's true for any new approach that enjoys some popularity (SFX, musical scores, camera motion, film/digital medium, plots, etc). I can only assume it's some physical differences between viewers, making it mostly just unfortunate that it doesn't degrade gracefully for users that can't/don't enjoy it.
Personally the only reason I even go to the movie theater any more is to see a film in 3D. Otherwise, it'll wait until I can watch it from home. The friends I go to 3D films with generally feel the same way. The theater just doesn't have enough value add for its price without it. When you include dinner, drinks, and a quality theater with reserved seating, the 3D surcharge is too minor to worry about... the biggest issue really is that it sort of dulls the films if you ever want to watch them at home.
I love driving too, but I'd jump into an automated car without hesitation. I'd even pay _more_ to NOT have a wheel or driver fallback in the car, with the front two seats facing back like a small limo. I'd much rather have a fully automated car than one that includes a built-in backseat driver.
I don't agree about them having to work without failure or handle every single possible situation possible. If the car can't handle it or if something happens, then a secondary system would surely be in place for the car to pull over, while I use an OnStar style service to talk to somebody about it while they diagnose the problem and if needed wait for a replacement loaner car from my insurance company to drive up on its own to get me. I'd also enjoy paying those lower premiums because they essentially just cover roadside assistance and car replacement/repair, instead of liability (would resent still having to insure against uninsured human drivers though!).
And on top of all that, no more worries about my kids (or their friends) getting into accidents from joy riding, being too cocky, getting distracted (from passengers, phones, etc), or worse. Not to mention, once in college I'd know they always had a dedicated "driver" when out. I can't imagine many parents would buy (or allow their dependents to buy) human-driver cars anymore. Goes the opposite direction too, suddenly the grandparents have complete freedom to go anywhere whenever they want, safely and without the fear of all the aggressive drivers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but right there you have the two most dangerous driving age groups no longer driving, so even if I was driving manually, I'd be safer too.
I imagine the government would have to set up a strict requirements and tests, and then once licensed the vendor would be immune from suits unless gross incompetence or malice could be proven and that they would also then benefit from an insurance pool to compensate/benefit those injured due to the system with some sort of cap or limit to the payouts.
After that was in place, I'd think government and businesses would jump on it to avoid being sued for their employee's driving errors or for simply having their logo on the vehicle, not to mention long term cost savings of not having a human driver (no more wage, insurance, or tax costs) and therefor not needing a cabin and add 24/7 driving and better fuel economy (from no a/c and fuel saving driving patterns). Heck, UPS, FedEx, and the USPS could all redesign their vehicles to carry more while making it easier and even faster for the employee to deliver the mail or packages.
I'd also think those that can't or shouldn't be driving would also be quick to jump on it. For instance, once you had a system like this in place, I'm sure you'd see laws sprout up prohibiting anybody ever guilty of DUI from using a human-driven vehicle. Seniors that can't drive or would rather not will love these cars as they would give them freedom to go anywhere any time, and the people will love that they aren't driving, perhaps leading to lower maximum driving ages. I'd imagine minivans that had no "front seats", designed more like a limo, would be extremely popular with families. Make a sedan designed like that, with rear facing front seats with a built in table and power outlet, and I'm sure most commuters would jump on it. New drivers would simply be used to it by the time they could even apply for a license, so the number of people against the concept would naturally lower every year.
So those that wouldn't want to give up the control could hold out, at least until you end up with such a huge portion of cars driving themselves, that the population starts limiting human driving (more expensive and difficult to obtain licenses, automated-only rules for freeways, tolls, etc) or driving around them becomes too annoying (I enjoy driving, but if every car was going the posted speed limit, and I imagine those limits would only go down, it would get old very fast!).
Specifically, couldn't they have some javascript load a one line javascript file from a subdomain with their desired configuration, and just report the time from the script element being added to the script being executed?
Same for me. Blockbuster would send me the most obscure and probably least watched films in my queue rather than the items at the top and in the year I was a member I never once received anything in my queue that had been labeled "short wait", "long wait", etc. I'm guessing it probably looks for what is the least likely to interfere with other subscribers if your top picks aren't immediately available, so everybody's queue would be different.
Browsing the store was fun, but after 6 months, it really did feel like I had seen everything of interest to me there.
So far Netflix has sent everything in queue order... but I just joined so we'll see.
We were in the same boat and had the 3 disc plan. I had even been dissing my Netflix friends because they couldn't just go pick up a new film when they were finished with theirs. Then one day I was told at the store I reached my exchange limit. "Limit? What limit?" "You received a letter explaining it a few weeks ago." "No, I didn't." "Sorry" I then went home, joined Netflix, and cancelled my blockbuster plan.
I do miss in in-store pickups and just browsing the selection in person. Though, I had NCIS Season 1 on my Blockbuster #1 spot for a year (no, really... and 3 tech support tickets didn't change anything). Added it to my new Netflix account when I created the account. Just after I finished canceling my Blockbuster account, Netflix Shipping emailed me that those same DVDs Blockbuster couldn't give me for a year, had shipped.
Their huge losses explain the problem though, clearly they aren't putting resources toward the logistics or suggestion systems.
That "Universal" bar is only displayed on the initial results and doesn't stay there when you switch to Images, Blogs, etc. Eww.
Somebody needs to join that Open HIG group!
"Ad-serving networks like DoubleClick place tiny programs on personal computers, called cookies, that monitor where an individual user goes online."
That's the scariest part of the article... that a publication like the NY Times still hasn't figured out what a cookie is, or worse, has but yet misrepresents it to scare people over to their POV.
While they only sell standard def, they give away free high def movie trailers.
So the real test would be downloading one of the HD movie trailers from iTunes and trying it on the AppleTV product.
If they work well, then chances are if/when Apple movies to sell full movies in HD, the device will handle it well and be more "future proof" than suggested here. If on the other hand it chugs along bandwidth problems, we'll know for sure that its a SD-only device.
I really can't believe it wasn't mentioned as a serious Con for Lightroom with so many video cards (especially those of photographers as well as Mac owners) being dual headed. Thumbnails and controls on one monitor and large full-screen views on the second for adjustments is a wonderful way to work. Viewing the Lightroom forums makes it clear that it is important to users.
I love Lightroom's "develop" controls but the productivity aspect is much more important. Simply allowing the Manage and Develop tabs to used as separate windows would have done the trick (not well, but "good enough").
Worked at Be Incorporated, with BeOS.
The rest is history, as is that wonderful car.
I loved it so much that it'll probably be my next car. Besides the hybrid aspect, the display was awesome and the overall experience was great.
I should note that I had the manual version. I think the automatic didn't do quite as well. It also only had two seats, I can see why the civics don't get the same results.
I never got below 50MPG, ever, and that was living in the thin air of Flagstaff, AZ, at over a mile in elevation. I got closer to 60MPG in the lower and warmer Phoenix, AZ.
-AZ-
It would be stretching it, but I could see messages saying something like, "Your porn, as seen on this free website, may be in your collection illegally. To fix this, buy a DVD here. If you don't actually have an illegal copy of this video, ignore this messaie." or. "You may be using a foreign 'enlarger' that violates our US Patent on body part enlargers! Be sure to buy your genuine one here. Patent pending."
Though of course it's far more likely to be used for mainstream media. "I saw you on ebay. Did you know that recording of The Return of the King is illegal? Pre-order the DVD online today or risk criminal prosecution for illegal possession of copyrighted material!"
Useless, but I can still see it filling your inbox. If people think that makes it legal, I bet they'd be far less likely to have complaints filed.
She is a customer.
The problem is that it's other people deciding what data comes through.
For instance, LiveJournal. Users have found that AOL is blocking HTTP requests through REFERRERs too . Nothing like having a Journal, and then putting a link to your AOL homepage (AOL Journal, etc) on your LJ profile, only to have people blocked when trying to click through (to see it in action, and you don't have referers disabled, go to fadedsanity's profile and click on the website link "p r i n c e s s". You'll get a 404. Now alter the URL (or whatever you have to do to clear the referrer) and reload the page... it works!). Sure, it's understandable to prevent image embedding (though they appear to only be doing it selectively, like with www.livejournal.com, but not ziemkowski.livejournal.com for instance), but hypertext links as well? That's just too much!
The annoying issue is that this will undoubtedly lead to hacks (or even features) to stop sending referers, which will affect website statistics, etc.
Why should the above AOL subscriber not be able to link to her own site? Because other users have marked LiveJournal.com emails as spam? So it isn't just third parties than can be upset; she should be, anybody who wants to access her site through her journal should be, and the third party (LJ) should be.
Wouldn't it have been a lot less problematic to add a custom bayesian filtering system with spam ratings, that runs on the subscriber's system? I'm sure AOL could have designed an interface and methodology for such a system that would be extremely straightforward to users yet much more effective, all without relying on one subscriber to know what another subscriber thinks of another person's messages? Heck, they could have advertised that they have "Smart" email filtering, yadda yadda yadda.
You'd think that a company that has acquired sources of programming creativity like Netscape and WinAmp, would be able to meet the interests of their subscribers and investors much better than they have with this.
How much longer until AOL blocks referers from slashdot?
Can you claim it's a bug because it doesn't stand up to the audio cd format and thus you were just trying to work around/with the faulty/buggy programming?
What a misnomer, by secure pc I'd think more encryption, more eh, security for my data not security for third parties.
Kinda like anti-security no? Giving third parties the ability to control what goes on on my drives.
-AZ-
It means you missed it. :P
Anybody recall when Pizza Hut inquired about putting their logo on the moon via earth-bound lasers? Of course they realized they couldn't, but they wanted to.
Absolutely amazing.
Or how about an opengl screensaver with a 3d paperclip that moves around the screen.. reading quotes from fortune. and using aspell or the like to check the spelling and add a red squiggly line under unknown words. heh. Once in a while through in quotes like, "Microsoft is not a monopoly" and "Everybody loves Microsoft" and put a green squiggly line under the entire quote. :P
I loved my Visor, it was a good buy and better value than a Pilot. At least until I had to deal with the company itself when the screen cracked.
I was lucky in getting my Visor only a week after ordering it. Most of my friends with Visors didn't receive theirs for months. Unfortunately it seems that their customer service dept. hasn't yet sped up though. Nothing like being ignored by the company to make you feel good about buying their products.
3com is a large corporation, and they know how to handle workflow and customers. If Handspring doesn't get to my support inquiry soon, I'll just go Pilot. At least 3com has color PDAs.
Be warned,
Adrian Z
Correct. Mars Society is a not-for-profit organization.
There are people participating in both organizations of course.
Cheers,
Adrian Z
It takes more energy to get to the moon. Even if there was an endless supply of fuel available at no cost sitting on the moon (which there obviously is not), it would still not be cost effective to go that route.
I could only see a moon stop on the way to mars if it was due to commercial space flight similar to airlines today, where you might go a bit out of your way to stop in route to pick up additional passengers. However that's quite far off, and by then we'd probably be using more advanced systems, and it wouldn't really be an issue either way.
It would be neet however to have a system where as vessels to both can sort of piggy back to LEO and then go on their separate ways.