How about the investors whose money they squandered?
How about any of the dozens or hundreds of real startups that couldn't get financed because of deceptive schemes like this one?
How about any unwitting investor who decides to give this fellow their hard-earned money without knowing his history?
There's something called "full disclosure" that's a legally required practice in investment circles. It's unlikely this TwoMobile fellow would have disclosed his shady dealings on his own, so kudos to the original poster who brought this to light.
This fellow's denials in the face of detailed evidence bolsters this argument.
I don't know why the post that contains the source article from which the quotes are derived is rated 0, so here it is again:
Re:Mobilemag.com & Infinium == Dishonest Scam (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02, @07:27AM (#8745575)
actually here's the Toronto newspaper that the quote came from you lying cheating scumbag waster
No one said one has a bearing on the other. If you read the post and the articles, the committee is divided on BOTH issues, but the chair is mainly concerned about environmental impact. The former environment minister is mainly concerned with the effects on human health and is pointing out they have done no scientific investigation to declare GM foods are probably safe for humans to eat. I don't see any confusion.
As for Marc Saltzman, read this post about what he's really about. The top post is quoted below but I suggest you read the whole thread.
ShwAsasin is typical of people who don't understand how the news media works and operates, probably because he has never worked in a news environment.
Marc Saltzman "isn't JUST a CNN crony" - he has a syndicated column (in which he summarizes press releases). That means that the newspapers mentioned just dip into the newswire stream whenever they need to fill a hole in a page. It DOES NOT mean he "writes for numerous newspapers" (since when did two papers become "numerous"?) and it certainly doesn't impart to him any real credibility.
The books Marc has "written" are little more than long-form versions of the fanboy game press drek that passes for "reporting", which so many have decried here on Slashdot and elsewhere. The majority of them are game strategy guides and cheat codes. That's not journalism and barely passes for writing.
Marc is well known within the games industry as a flack that even the PR agencies can't stand, but more than one PR rep has confessed that they need him because he has managed to build himself a profile. Marc is tolerated by both games companies and the editors at the papers you mentioned, not celebrated as an authority as you would have us think. Marketing staff at the game companies see Marc as a necessary evil until legitimate technology and business journalists (not fanboys) start to cover their industry like any other technology/software/entertainment business.
Editors have confided that they are aware that he has barely (if at all) played the games he "reviews" but the tyranny of the news cycle compels them to publish whatever they can get their hands on when it comes to games. Because they have already paid for content through their newswire subscription, it doesn't really cost the papers anything to run Marc's bumpf.
At industry events, Saltzman simply walks around the displays, picks up the press materials and sampler CDs, asks the game company reps when the next free trip to [INSERT EXOTIC DESTINATION HERE] will be and what kind of graft they will be giving away, and then he goes home.
Why have I posted anonymously? Because I don't need the flames and grief that comes with exposing one of the worst fraud artists that has latched onto and leeched the games industry.
On a personal level Marc is nice enough guy, but on a professional one he leaves much to be desired.
Marc is the living example of the axiom "Politicians, old buildings and whores all become respectable with age." I'll leave it you to figure out which category Marc Saltzman fits into.
Re:Is Thomas Friedman a simplistic hack? * YES *
on
Does Google = God?
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RobertFisher: "my original comment applied to his book... not his reporting."
Doesn't matter. Friedman is a working journalist employed by a prominent, mainstream news organization. Bias matters, whether it's in his books, columns, speaking engagements or anywhere else in the public sphere. You can't cherry-pick, then turn around and honestly claim he isn't biased.
You seem to misunderstand the definition of the word "reporting" as it's used by journalists. As they use it, reporting is a process. Whether it's for a news article, a column, an editorial, or even a book, reporting is the process they go through to collect and balance information so they can present it to an audience.
RobertFisher: A good op-ed column should generate thought-provoking discussion and debate, which (as evident from the discussion in this thread and by your own account) is precisely what Friedman's column is doing.
I guess you missed the major points of my post, which I prominently summarized so there would be no confusion. Here they are again:
A good journalist:
Gets his facts right.
Gets her facts right.
Gets facts right.
Gets good, knowledgeable sources.
Writes well.
To be unambiguously clear, my previous post is concerned with facts and their accuracy. That is the most fundamental aspect of good journalism, again, whether it's for a news article, a column, an editorial, or even a book. Anyone who doesn't meet this basic standard is, by definition, a hack.
Any hack who makes facile arguments based on gross oversimplifications, errors, inaccuracies or misrepresentations is, by definition, a simplistic hack.
It's a given that a good column should generate discussion and debate. But the assumption is that the debate is about the substantive elements of the column -- arguments based on accurate facts.
The Friedman column in question is riddled with inaccuracies and obtuse claims. The discussion and debate surrounding it is not about the ideas expressed, it's about the lack of factual accuracy and the claims he then makes.
By any measure, it's not a good column.
I also did not say that a news article "should not generate controversy," as you wrote. I completely disagree with you. Some of the best news stories generate controversy. The Watergate scandal is one example. The Kuwait baby incubator story from Gulf War I is another. A lot of award-winning stories are ones that generate controversy.
RobertFisher: "Apparently the people who hand out Pulitzers (who should know a thing or two more about journalism than you) seemed to agree that Friedman's news reporting set the standards for oustanding journalism on two separate occassions."
I think the Pulitzer committee should know more about journalism than any single individual, too. But they've been known to give Pulitzers to people who didn't deserve them. One prominent example was Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke's 1981 Pulitzer for a fabricated story. She returned the prize.
Another example is the 1932 Pulitzer awarded to the New York Times' Walter Duranty for his reports from the Soviet Union. It's now known that he deliberately ignored the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, and that his reports were outright propaganda for the Communists. Even the New York Times has distanced itself from Duranty's Pulitzer, yet the award remains unrevoked.
Finally, why do you feel the need to resort to ad hominem attacks to build your case? I didn't attack you personally, so why do you impugn m
Re:Is Thomas Friedman a simplistic hack? * YES *
on
Does Google = God?
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RobertFisher says "When the insight is deep... the impact of the writing can be powerful," and "In the case of his more recent writings, where he is (as he himself admits) writing as a non-expert, the impact is far less substantial."
A good journalist:
Gets his facts right.
Gets her facts right.
Gets facts right.
Gets good, knowledgeable sources.
Writes well.
Most journalists aren't experts in much of anything. They talk to people who are experts and relate what they learn. So, not being an expert in something is no reason for an article not to be insightful, especially when you work for an employer (such as the NYTimes) that gives you as much time as you need to pursue a story and do good reporting. That means asking questions of the knowledgeable, insightful people you need in order to write a story with impact, which is arguably a major reason people read Friedman. They expect unparalleled insight, whether it's his or the impactful insight of others to whom he has access as a result of his position.
As others have noted here, Friedman routinely gets facts wrong, bends some, and omits others that are relevant and give context, all to serve whatever story he chooses to tell. "His own bias as an American Jew" should not "show through" at all in his reporting. It means he didn't write a balanced (!= objective) story.
It's the classic description of a hack. Perhaps Friedman is a celebrated one, but even the shiniest cars can be lemons.
While he's busy raising the spectre of a terrorist-infested Internet, Friedman fails to recognize that his popularity and fame is due, in large part, to the Internet. Were it not for the Internet, he might still be popular and moderately famous, but his readership would chiefly be limited to people in and around New York. Since he would be far less widely read, he would also have far less influence or relevance than he now enjoys. As I write this, the "Is Google God?" column holds the number-one slot for the most e-mailed stories from the New York Times.
What's alarming is the way in which Friedman talks about the Internet as a hotbed of terrorist activity. His arguments are frighteningly reminiscent of the kinds of scaremongering we've seen about the Internet for more than a decade, only before 9/11, the fearmongers vocally decried the Internet as a sea of porn, pedophilic sexual predators, computer criminality and unmitigated violent media. Now, Friedman, like others who have hopped onto the post-9/11 bandwagon, appears to be building a case for online policing, surveillance and restriction.
Something to think about when he writes about spreading terror through the Internet.
securitas: I'm not exactly clear on what the fuss is about here.
swv3752: Smaller size, 5mb more useable memory, and the ability to use cf cards.
You're kind of comparing a luxury car to a mid-range one (or some similar differentiation between market segments), swv3752, but you also made a couple of mistakes.
First, you CAN use compact flash type II cards with the NZ90, and the available RAM on the NX80 and NZ90 are identical: 32 MB (16 ROM, 16 RAM).
While it's true that the NX models are smaller, it's with good reason. Unlike the NX models, the NZ90:
includes a strobe flash for the camera (and believe me, you need it if you're anywhere that's not brightly lit and you want pictures of a decent quality!) not just a "capture light"
the CF slot is inside the body of the NZ90 vs. outboard on the NX models
most importantly, the NZ90 has a REMOVEABLE rechargeable battery. Have you ever had your PDA run out of juice while you were on the road? It always happens at the worst time. And if you're using the wireless networking or the camera a lot, battery power can get eaten up fast.
So, yes, the NZ90 is a little bigger (0.03 inches deeper, 0.12 inches wider and 0.38 inches longer), but I'll take it over the NX models any day -- it's a real workhorse for road warriors and other highly mobile workers. The NX models are good for what they are -- mid-range devices -- but they just don't measure up. Here's the comparison chart.
David Akin was the senior technology reporter for the National Post a few years ago. He's now a reporter for both the CTV national TV network and the Globe & Mail national newspaper.
Re:NOT the economy... FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT
on
Shift Calls it Quits
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If you want to know about the magazine's financial mismanagement, read this post: SHI(f)T - An inside history. It gives you the real picture of what went on there:
I think you missed the point. Saltzman is just another gamer. His only claim to fame is that he never grew out of it so he's been doing it for longer than most. While @Home was still around, his e-mail address was GameGuyIs@Home.com . If that doesn't scream 'game dude' I don't know what does.
It's not a question of whether he got his name from good or bad reviews. It's a question of how he conducts himself and the credibility, trusworthiness and legitimacy of what he produces. Read the post from the guy above carefully. It describes how Saltzman behaves: always seeking freebies and junkets a.k.a. payola. It describes most of his writing: gamefan cheat codes, strategy guides and PR summaries. It describes how Saltzman is regarded by industry people, PR reps, real journalists and editors, and none of it is positive. That says something.
It boils down to this quote from the post above:
game companies see Marc as a necessary evil until legitimate technology and business journalists (not fanboys) start to cover their industry like any other technology/software/entertainment business.
Try reading the game reviews in the the New York Times, for example. They exist on a whole other plane and are far more literate and intelligent than anything I've ever seen by Saltzman. They don't just review a game. They talk about social and societal trends and put the game into a cultural context, just like good film, theater, music and other arts criticism.
There are better choices out there. You just have to look past what's spoonfed to you.
I think you missed the point. Saltzman is just another gamer. His only claim to fame is that he never grew out of it so he's been doing it for longer than most. While @Home was still around, his e-mail address was GameGuyIs@Home.com . If that doesn't scream 'game dude' I don't know what does.
It's not a question of whether he got his name from good or bad reviews. It's a question of how he conducts himself and the credibility, trusworthiness and legitimacy of what he produces. Read the post from the guy above carefully. It describes how Saltzman behaves: always seeking freebies and junkets a.k.a. payola. It describes most of his writing: gamefan cheat codes, strategy guides and PR summaries. It describes how Saltzman is regarded by industry people, PR reps, real journalists and editors, and none of it is positive. That says something.
It boils down to this quote from the post above:
game companies see Marc as a necessary evil until legitimate technology and business journalists (not fanboys) start to cover their industry like any other technology/software/entertainment business.
Try reading the game reviews in the the New York Times, for example. They exist on a whole other plane and are far more literate and intelligent than anything I've ever seen by Saltzman. They don't just review a game. They talk about social and societal trends and put the game into a cultural context, just like good film, theater, music and other arts criticism.
There are better choices out there. You just have to look past what's spoonfed to you.
Who really cares whether Marc Saltzman wrote the review? What I find most interesting is CNN's disclaimer that distances CNN from Saltzman even though the content is clearly labelled as Gannett wire copy:
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of Marc Saltzman, a freelance technology journalist whose reviews also appear on the Gannett News Service.
I've never seen CNN do that for other copy that's clearly marked as being from a wire service.
Saltzman used to be on CNN all the time but they suddenly dropped him a few months ago. My guess is he misrepresented himself as a CNN reporter to someone (I've seen him repeatedly do this on TV appearances) and it got back to CNN he was abusing their name by using it for self-promotion. A lot of companies that use outside workers have riders in their contracts that specifically prohibit the contractors from misrepresenting themselves as employees or using the company name for self-promotion or personal gain.
One thing I will say about the post above is I always suspected he shills, based on the way he presents the games. This note just confirms what I suspected.
I'm not griping (really, I'm not) but the submission chosen for this item was a poor one. I submitted this item -- once on Tues. Dec. 7 and an UPDATE (read carefully before responding) on Fri. Dec. 10 -- with plenty of links to detailed info, and it was rejected both times. Which one do you think was more useful?
UPDATE Dec. 10: SoloTrek personal VTOL aircraft on eBay Trek Aerospace's eBay auction of its protoype SoloTrek XFV ducted-fan Vertical Take-Off and Landing flight vehicle started today (Friday), with an opening bid of about $50,000. As I write this, 46 people have bid and the current bid is $175,000. Trek's CEO says he thinks the seven-day auction's winning bid will exceed $1-million. Technical info, photos and video are available. The company is also working on an unmanned aerial vehicle and closed-cockpit versions for one, or two people.
Toronto has a couple of closed subway stations and partial lines under the Queen and Bay stations that were never put into service. They are now used exclusively for training TTC subway employees and filming movies.
They talked to Seattle's Basel Action Network, which made one of the earliest documentary videos of a cluster of villages in Guiyu, China, where 100,000 people live and work in what is essentially a giant computer dumping ground.
Links to the original NY Times article and Slashdot thread that discussed another initiative out of this agency. Declan McCullagh's was a follow-up as he mentioned in his piece.
CERIAS' Gene Spafford says overpowered, complex, general purpose machines that can do way more than people need are a big part of the problem.
A lot of the attacks that we're seeing now are coming from systems that have been subverted, sometimes by automated agents -- worms, break-in toolkits, massive denial of service tools -- that are taking over home computers [and] small business computers, and are using those as platforms to launch attacks. That's a big threat because those systems are not run by people who really understand anything at all about security...
Read the rest of this interview in which he discusses how increased, unnecesssary complexity combined with a lack of users' understanding of security vulnerabilities and issues, and manufacturers' lack of interest in building in security can make systems more vulnerable to attacks.
If you're not a techie then "Bluetooth" doesn't mean cordless.
It's like going to some isolated village in Africa and saying you want McDonald's. They'll ask what that is. Then you'll explain you want a hamburger and they'll ask you what that is. Then you'll say you want ground meat between two pieces of bread and seasoned with spices, and then they'll understand.
It's all about cultural context, and the fact is that most people have never heard of Bluetooth, let alone know what it is.
It's what the market seems to be willing to bear. It's obliquely explained on page 4 of the review:
The Presenter's price might initially induce sticker-shock but upon consideration it's not as high as it first appears. Geartest.com checked prices on standalone presentation remotes, wireless mice and laser pointers. As far as we could determine, the total price of any combination of these three devices from a variety of manufacturers cost at least as much as the 3-in-1 Presenter, if not more. By choosing the Logitech device over three standalone devices, the user effectively receives the benefits of a good implementation of Bluetooth and good design for free.
Your post takes that quote completely out of context and conveniently ignores the rest of that paragraph and the one that follows, which clearly explain why it's significant that this device uses Bluetooth:
It was supposed to revolutionize the way people use computing technology and consumer electronics by freeing us from cables. The reality was somewhat different.
Instead, the group was initially unable to decide on what should and shouldn't be included in the standard and the first version of Bluetooth was delayed and flawed; some would say it was sloppily put together. The result was that the manufacturers of the scant few early devices using Bluetooth included proprietary communications "extensions" or add-ons, which effectively made devices from different companies unable to communicate with one another, completely defeating one of the key reasons for creation of the communications standard. Add to that the high cost of the early Bluetooth microchips, which made it extremely expensive to produce Bluetooth-enabled products -- a cost that would be passed on to the consumer. But with time, prices fall and technologies improve. And that brings us to Logitech launch of its Cordless Presenter.
In other words, this is one of the first commercially available devices that has gotten past all of the problems and implemented the Bluetooth standard.
Either you chose to ignore the explanation for some reason or you need to brush up your reading comprehension skills. Either way, read thoroughly and include the context before posting next time.
And as someone else posted here, the reason to use Bluetooth is its range -- have you ever used a 900mHz remote? The signal is inconsistent and anyone with a cordless phone or even a minidisc player can throw off interference that disrupts its operation.
Based on this review, I'm going to check this out.
This is an interesting question. How many of the companies that do this are Canadian vs. American registrars? Are the fraud laws different enough in Canada and the USA that they make a difference?
Setting aside the sheer ratio of companies compared to population, I am surprised I haven't heard of Canadian scams like this.
Tucows has a reseller program and is definitely one of the bigger registrars and it is Canadian. But I haven't heard of any of these scams from their resellers.
All of the problems seem to come from American registrars like Bulkregister, eNom and other ones that seem to be preferred by cybersquatters.
Meanwhile, anecdotally, there seems to be a higher ratio of cybersquatters in emerging East Asian markets like Korea and Hong Kong.
Are the domain scamming and cybersquatting interlinked?
Slashdot Mirror
How about the investors whose money they squandered?
How about any of the dozens or hundreds of real startups that couldn't get financed because of deceptive schemes like this one?
How about any unwitting investor who decides to give this fellow their hard-earned money without knowing his history?
There's something called "full disclosure" that's a legally required practice in investment circles. It's unlikely this TwoMobile fellow would have disclosed his shady dealings on his own, so kudos to the original poster who brought this to light.
This fellow's denials in the face of detailed evidence bolsters this argument.
I don't know why the post that contains the source article from which the quotes are derived is rated 0, so here it is again:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=102600&cid=87No one said one has a bearing on the other. If you read the post and the articles, the committee is divided on BOTH issues, but the chair is mainly concerned about environmental impact. The former environment minister is mainly concerned with the effects on human health and is pointing out they have done no scientific investigation to declare GM foods are probably safe for humans to eat. I don't see any confusion.
If you really want to know how to break into the games industry you should read this Slashdot thread on pitching games, and check out this guide to submitting games from the International Game Developers Association. Why waste your money on a questionable book when you can get better information about breaking into the industry for free?
As for Marc Saltzman, read this post about what he's really about. The top post is quoted below but I suggest you read the whole thread.
MORE HERE
Doesn't matter. Friedman is a working journalist employed by a prominent, mainstream news organization. Bias matters, whether it's in his books, columns, speaking engagements or anywhere else in the public sphere. You can't cherry-pick, then turn around and honestly claim he isn't biased.
You seem to misunderstand the definition of the word "reporting" as it's used by journalists. As they use it, reporting is a process. Whether it's for a news article, a column, an editorial, or even a book, reporting is the process they go through to collect and balance information so they can present it to an audience.
RobertFisher: A good op-ed column should generate thought-provoking discussion and debate, which (as evident from the discussion in this thread and by your own account) is precisely what Friedman's column is doing.
I guess you missed the major points of my post, which I prominently summarized so there would be no confusion. Here they are again:
A good journalist:
To be unambiguously clear, my previous post is concerned with facts and their accuracy. That is the most fundamental aspect of good journalism, again, whether it's for a news article, a column, an editorial, or even a book. Anyone who doesn't meet this basic standard is, by definition, a hack.
Any hack who makes facile arguments based on gross oversimplifications, errors, inaccuracies or misrepresentations is, by definition, a simplistic hack.
It's a given that a good column should generate discussion and debate. But the assumption is that the debate is about the substantive elements of the column -- arguments based on accurate facts.
The Friedman column in question is riddled with inaccuracies and obtuse claims. The discussion and debate surrounding it is not about the ideas expressed, it's about the lack of factual accuracy and the claims he then makes.
By any measure, it's not a good column.
I also did not say that a news article "should not generate controversy," as you wrote. I completely disagree with you. Some of the best news stories generate controversy. The Watergate scandal is one example. The Kuwait baby incubator story from Gulf War I is another. A lot of award-winning stories are ones that generate controversy.
RobertFisher: "Apparently the people who hand out Pulitzers (who should know a thing or two more about journalism than you) seemed to agree that Friedman's news reporting set the standards for oustanding journalism on two separate occassions."
I think the Pulitzer committee should know more about journalism than any single individual, too. But they've been known to give Pulitzers to people who didn't deserve them. One prominent example was Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke's 1981 Pulitzer for a fabricated story. She returned the prize.
Another example is the 1932 Pulitzer awarded to the New York Times' Walter Duranty for his reports from the Soviet Union. It's now known that he deliberately ignored the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, and that his reports were outright propaganda for the Communists. Even the New York Times has distanced itself from Duranty's Pulitzer, yet the award remains unrevoked.
There's more on Cooke and Duranty in the Columbia Journalism Review.
Finally, why do you feel the need to resort to ad hominem attacks to build your case? I didn't attack you personally, so why do you impugn m
A good journalist:
Most journalists aren't experts in much of anything. They talk to people who are experts and relate what they learn. So, not being an expert in something is no reason for an article not to be insightful, especially when you work for an employer (such as the NYTimes) that gives you as much time as you need to pursue a story and do good reporting. That means asking questions of the knowledgeable, insightful people you need in order to write a story with impact, which is arguably a major reason people read Friedman. They expect unparalleled insight, whether it's his or the impactful insight of others to whom he has access as a result of his position.
As others have noted here, Friedman routinely gets facts wrong, bends some, and omits others that are relevant and give context, all to serve whatever story he chooses to tell. "His own bias as an American Jew" should not "show through" at all in his reporting. It means he didn't write a balanced (!= objective) story.
It's the classic description of a hack. Perhaps Friedman is a celebrated one, but even the shiniest cars can be lemons.
While he's busy raising the spectre of a terrorist-infested Internet, Friedman fails to recognize that his popularity and fame is due, in large part, to the Internet. Were it not for the Internet, he might still be popular and moderately famous, but his readership would chiefly be limited to people in and around New York. Since he would be far less widely read, he would also have far less influence or relevance than he now enjoys. As I write this, the "Is Google God?" column holds the number-one slot for the most e-mailed stories from the New York Times.
What's alarming is the way in which Friedman talks about the Internet as a hotbed of terrorist activity. His arguments are frighteningly reminiscent of the kinds of scaremongering we've seen about the Internet for more than a decade, only before 9/11, the fearmongers vocally decried the Internet as a sea of porn, pedophilic sexual predators, computer criminality and unmitigated violent media. Now, Friedman, like others who have hopped onto the post-9/11 bandwagon, appears to be building a case for online policing, surveillance and restriction.
Something to think about when he writes about spreading terror through the Internet.
swv3752: Smaller size, 5mb more useable memory, and the ability to use cf cards.
You're kind of comparing a luxury car to a mid-range one (or some similar differentiation between market segments), swv3752, but you also made a couple of mistakes.
First, you CAN use compact flash type II cards with the NZ90, and the available RAM on the NX80 and NZ90 are identical: 32 MB (16 ROM, 16 RAM).
While it's true that the NX models are smaller, it's with good reason. Unlike the NX models, the NZ90:
So, yes, the NZ90 is a little bigger (0.03 inches deeper, 0.12 inches wider and 0.38 inches longer), but I'll take it over the NX models any day -- it's a real workhorse for road warriors and other highly mobile workers. The NX models are good for what they are -- mid-range devices -- but they just don't measure up. Here's the comparison chart.
A search of the archives turns up this Bluetooth cordless presenter from Logitech that was a mouse-like object reviewed on Slashdot late last year.
A little pricey for the casual user but built-in laser pointers are fun if you have a cat. Then you can play Cat and Mouse!
David Akin was the senior technology reporter for the National Post a few years ago. He's now a reporter for both the CTV national TV network and the Globe & Mail national newspaper.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=54618&thresh old=1&commentsort=0&tid=149&mode=thread&pid=535198 9#5358575
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=54618&thresh old=1&commentsort=0&tid=149&mode=thread&pid=535198 9#5358575
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=54618&thresh old=1&commentsort=0&tid=149&mode=thread&pid=535198 9#5358575
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=54618&thresh old=1&commentsort=0&tid=149&mode=thread&pid=535198 9#5358575
Repost for ease of reading.
I think you missed the point. Saltzman is just another gamer. His only claim to fame is that he never grew out of it so he's been doing it for longer than most. While @Home was still around, his e-mail address was GameGuyIs@Home.com . If that doesn't scream 'game dude' I don't know what does.
It's not a question of whether he got his name from good or bad reviews. It's a question of how he conducts himself and the credibility, trusworthiness and legitimacy of what he produces. Read the post from the guy above carefully. It describes how Saltzman behaves: always seeking freebies and junkets a.k.a. payola. It describes most of his writing: gamefan cheat codes, strategy guides and PR summaries. It describes how Saltzman is regarded by industry people, PR reps, real journalists and editors, and none of it is positive. That says something.
It boils down to this quote from the post above:
Try reading the game reviews in the the New York Times, for example. They exist on a whole other plane and are far more literate and intelligent than anything I've ever seen by Saltzman. They don't just review a game. They talk about social and societal trends and put the game into a cultural context, just like good film, theater, music and other arts criticism.
There are better choices out there. You just have to look past what's spoonfed to you.
I think you missed the point. Saltzman is just another gamer. His only claim to fame is that he never grew out of it so he's been doing it for longer than most. While @Home was still around, his e-mail address was GameGuyIs@Home.com . If that doesn't scream 'game dude' I don't know what does.
It's not a question of whether he got his name from good or bad reviews. It's a question of how he conducts himself and the credibility, trusworthiness and legitimacy of what he produces. Read the post from the guy above carefully. It describes how Saltzman behaves: always seeking freebies and junkets a.k.a. payola. It describes most of his writing: gamefan cheat codes, strategy guides and PR summaries. It describes how Saltzman is regarded by industry people, PR reps, real journalists and editors, and none of it is positive. That says something.
It boils down to this quote from the post above:
Try reading the game reviews in the the New York Times, for example. They exist on a whole other plane and are far more literate and intelligent than anything I've ever seen by Saltzman. They don't just review a game. They talk about social and societal trends and put the game into a cultural context, just like good film, theater, music and other arts criticism.
There are better choices out there. You just have to look past what's spoonfed to you.
Who really cares whether Marc Saltzman wrote the review? What I find most interesting is CNN's disclaimer that distances CNN from Saltzman even though the content is clearly labelled as Gannett wire copy:
I've never seen CNN do that for other copy that's clearly marked as being from a wire service.
Saltzman used to be on CNN all the time but they suddenly dropped him a few months ago. My guess is he misrepresented himself as a CNN reporter to someone (I've seen him repeatedly do this on TV appearances) and it got back to CNN he was abusing their name by using it for self-promotion. A lot of companies that use outside workers have riders in their contracts that specifically prohibit the contractors from misrepresenting themselves as employees or using the company name for self-promotion or personal gain.
One thing I will say about the post above is I always suspected he shills, based on the way he presents the games. This note just confirms what I suspected.
I'm not griping (really, I'm not) but the submission chosen for this item was a poor one. I submitted this item -- once on Tues. Dec. 7 and an UPDATE (read carefully before responding) on Fri. Dec. 10 -- with plenty of links to detailed info, and it was rejected both times. Which one do you think was more useful?
Dec. 7: SoloTrek XFV personal VTOL flight vehicle on eBay
Trek Aerospace announced it will auction a protoype SoloTrek XFV ducted fan Vertical Take-Off and Landing flight vehicle on eBay this Friday, with a starting bid of about $50,000. Trek's CEO says he thinks the seven-day auction's winning bid will exceed $1-million. Technical info, photos and video are available. The company is also working on an unmanned aerial vehicle and closed-cockpit versions for one, or two people.
UPDATE Dec. 10: SoloTrek personal VTOL aircraft on eBay
Trek Aerospace's eBay auction of its protoype SoloTrek XFV ducted-fan Vertical Take-Off and Landing flight vehicle started today (Friday), with an opening bid of about $50,000. As I write this, 46 people have bid and the current bid is $175,000. Trek's CEO says he thinks the seven-day auction's winning bid will exceed $1-million. Technical info, photos and video are available. The company is also working on an unmanned aerial vehicle and closed-cockpit versions for one, or two people.
Toronto has a couple of closed subway stations and partial lines under the Queen and Bay stations that were never put into service. They are now used exclusively for training TTC subway employees and filming movies.
The subway scenes for the Mira Sorvino film Mimic (1997) were shot there, as were scenes from Johnny Mnemonic and Darkman, among others.
The CBC TV investigative consumer news show Marketplace did a story on high-tech trash earlier this year.
They talked to Seattle's Basel Action Network, which made one of the earliest documentary videos of a cluster of villages in Guiyu, China, where 100,000 people live and work in what is essentially a giant computer dumping ground.
You can watch the report in Quicktime or in Real Video format.
Links to the original NY Times article and Slashdot thread that discussed another initiative out of this agency. Declan McCullagh's was a follow-up as he mentioned in his piece.
The NY Times tells us that DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the same agency that wants to create a massive cross-domain transaction database, also proposed what it called eDNA: '...tagging Internet data with unique personal markers to make anonymous use of some parts of the Internet impossible.' Slashdotter Declan McCullagh followed up on the NYT piece with his article on MSNBC.
CERIAS' Gene Spafford says overpowered, complex, general purpose machines that can do way more than people need are a big part of the problem.
Read the rest of this interview in which he discusses how increased, unnecesssary complexity combined with a lack of users' understanding of security vulnerabilities and issues, and manufacturers' lack of interest in building in security can make systems more vulnerable to attacks.
If you're not a techie then "Bluetooth" doesn't mean cordless.
It's like going to some isolated village in Africa and saying you want McDonald's. They'll ask what that is. Then you'll explain you want a hamburger and they'll ask you what that is. Then you'll say you want ground meat between two pieces of bread and seasoned with spices, and then they'll understand.
It's all about cultural context, and the fact is that most people have never heard of Bluetooth, let alone know what it is.
Do you understand the meaning of the word "review"? Here's some help: http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=review
Your post takes that quote completely out of context and conveniently ignores the rest of that paragraph and the one that follows, which clearly explain why it's significant that this device uses Bluetooth:
In other words, this is one of the first commercially available devices that has gotten past all of the problems and implemented the Bluetooth standard.
Either you chose to ignore the explanation for some reason or you need to brush up your reading comprehension skills. Either way, read thoroughly and include the context before posting next time.
And as someone else posted here, the reason to use Bluetooth is its range -- have you ever used a 900mHz remote? The signal is inconsistent and anyone with a cordless phone or even a minidisc player can throw off interference that disrupts its operation.
Based on this review, I'm going to check this out.
This is an interesting question. How many of the companies that do this are Canadian vs. American registrars? Are the fraud laws different enough in Canada and the USA that they make a difference?
Setting aside the sheer ratio of companies compared to population, I am surprised I haven't heard of Canadian scams like this.
Tucows has a reseller program and is definitely one of the bigger registrars and it is Canadian. But I haven't heard of any of these scams from their resellers.
All of the problems seem to come from American registrars like Bulkregister, eNom and other ones that seem to be preferred by cybersquatters.
Meanwhile, anecdotally, there seems to be a higher ratio of cybersquatters in emerging East Asian markets like Korea and Hong Kong.
Are the domain scamming and cybersquatting interlinked?
Does anyone have any info on any of this?