So has JT suddenly become a financial supporter of the company he's long campaigned against?
Buying stock provides no financial benefit to the company at all, except at the IPO. None. I could go out and buy a million shares of Microsoft, or Google, or SCO, or even Take Two - and the company won't see a thin dime.
modern tech can probably build a high-temp reentry surface that can actually fly under (limited) control to any chosen landing spot - making the New York - Canberra run an hour-and-a-half or so.
One thing to be said for private flights... is that they probably don't have the enormous amounts of red tape that NASA projects have to wade through. It's incredible how delayed and expensive NASA's projects get
The first flight of Falcon I has already been delayed over a year. Delays for private flights are common - indeed 90% of all such flights have been delayed indefinitely, because they got to be too expensive. (I.E. the company ran out of money.)
When you get a bit older and your list of gift receivers gets huge and you really don't know exactly what someone wants then you'll see the wisdom of the gift card.
I am older, and my list of recipients is huge - but the only people getting gift cards is a pair of twentysomething nieces that I've only recently added to my list (long and irrelevant story behind that). Even so, the gift cards are being placed in handmade Christmas stockings. The only other time I gave a gift card was to the daughter of a close friend, for her birthday three days before leaving for a distant college. She got a Wal-Mart gift card attached to a small framed print - so she could buy what she discovered she needed at that time of great change.
The bulk of the remainder of my list are getting not what they want - but what I want to give them based on my knowledge of their habits, interests, etc... I view gift giving not as fulfilling wishes (unless it's a parent giving a gift to a child), but as showing the recipient that I care and know enough about them to make a personalized selection. Gift cards don't do that.
Especially when it saves someone from waiting in line to return something they dont want or already have.
If you know the folks on your gift list well enough - that doesn't happen. If you don't know them well enough - why in heck are they on your gift list?
Considering that the EM railgun is far closer to production than any space elevator, perhaps the DoD could release their research data on the railgun to private enterprise. I can see it now - a 10 MegaWatt nuclear reactor used to power railguns capable of delivering SST-sized (shuttle) payloads into LEO. Of course, this approach is unworkable for delivering living beings into space, due to initial G forces.
Railguns are unworkable for unliving things too... It's not the G's that are the problem, but the tons of heatshielding needed to survive the ascent through the atmosphere.
Granted the newest revision [of Soyuz] seems to be working problem free or close to it.
Out of six flights to date - four have had serious problems of one kind or another, hardly even close to problem free.
I'd still trust the Russians over anything NASA builds in this area, by a large margin.
Within the bounds of statistical confidence, which isn't very confident due to the low number of flights of both craft, their safety records are essentially indistinguishable. Any choice of one over the other is a matter of emotion, not rational judgement.
On the scientific side of things, I hear that Kliper is very promising, and has already progressed further along than the CEV, and is technically superior.
I'd stop listening to whomever is telling you those things... Kliper is currently at about the same state as CEV - mostly paper, powerpoints, and some pretty models. OTOH CEV is mostly funded for the near term.
Both designs are far too immature for serious comparison.
The Grateful Dead has been one (big) example of a band that succeeded without the need for coercive copyright protections.
The Grateful Dead encouraged taping and tape trading for one reason - and that reason has nothing to do with 'sticking it to the man', or 'anti capitalist philosophies, or any of the other things so beloved of Slashdot.
The reason? Enlightened self interest. The Dead were a jam band, no concert was quite like the previous or the next. Fan tapes emerged in the early days as the only way to preseve those unique performances. (You'll note that the soundboard recordings (which emerged later when the band had money and a soundboard) are still protected by copyright.)
The Dead made their money the right way -- by performing a service for their customers worthy of continual profits. No job requires copyyright.
Completely wrong - you'll note that each and every album and each item of merchandise is protected by copyright - and they sure as hell didn't let people into their concerts for free, or play for free.
The Dead made, and make, their money by selling copyright protected albums and merchandise - and the marketing for the same was accomplished at decidely unfree concerts. The same as any other band.
I am a strong beliver in the capitalist system and right to own property, but that right _must_ include the right to give property away.
That right does exist in the copyright system, it's called "putting a work in the public domain" - which Guthrie did not do. What he did was give blanket permission to perform the song, which is a different kettle of fish.
Has anyone else noticed the decline in quality merchandise from Maxis as EA's interventions have increased...
Prime Example... Sim City. Great Game. Sim City 2000. Wonderful Game. Sim City 3000. Somewhat enjoyable Game. Sim City 4. A shameless lust for more money.
Myself, I see them as getting better over time. Better graphics, more options, better simulations, etc... etc...
The Sims doesn't feel nearly as grand as everyone praises it to be.
Not everyone does - nor does everyone praise Halo or Halo 2 either. Those who think critically about games do however think hard about The Sims for one simple reason - by counting total boxes sold, it has sold more units over a longer time than any other game in the history of computer games by nearly an order of magnitude. That alone suggest something is there, something big, even if the game does not attract the average Slashdotter. (And Slashdot must really have something against The Sims - as I post this, all four upmodded replies are putdowns of the game.)
And the Sims 2 seems to have even less appeal.
With continued steady sales and three expansion packs - every message board, group, etc.. as busy as ever, I don't see how you can say that.
Does anyone remember the short-lived Sims Online? Was that silently killed by the suck that is EA?
Short lived? Silently killed? Try 'still active today'.
No, I definitely agree. One night of sitting around in a virtual house making pizzas for hours on end with a bunch of giddy chicks over the internet is enough, thanks.
That's The Sims Online, not The Sims - two very, very, different games.
How people can play for hours, days, months and years on end is beyond me.
How people can play FPS games with their endless cycle of "see enemy > shoot enemy" escape me... Different strokes for different folks.
The Sims is like a giant barbi house. Therein lies its demographic.
Not really. There are multiple paths to solving meeting your sims various needs. Differing work hours means you may not have both parents available to tend the kids, and change in work hours when you get promoted could change that for better - or worse. There's subtle strategies in timing meals, taking vactions, gaining skills, etc... etc...
But to see them and explore them takes a very different mindset than that which sees the world through the cross hairs of a [rifle|flamethrower|BFG]. Not better, not worse. Different.
That found the Sims to be totally boring? After about 10 minutes of playing it, I realized that you could build walls around the people, and kill them. That was the highlight of the game.
On the other hand, I find the mindless repetion of FPS games to be boring - variety is the spice of life.
I don't speak for everyone here, but I live in the United States where we at least attempt to protect the freedom to express ourselves and say what we want. Granted that the issues of censoring games completely and selling games with mature themes to minors are very different issues, but we tend to like to blur them together and treat any legislation as an attack on first ammendment rights.
A key thing to realize about the history of the protection of first amendment rights in America - There has been two steady trends accompanying the defense of the right to say what you will, where and when you will. The first is holding an individual responsible for exercising his right (libel, slander), the license is not unlimited. The second, and key to this issue, is protection of others from persons exercising their rights. Or, as Justice Holmes wrote "the right to free speech does not extend to crying fire in a crowded theatre".
Everything was running beautifully for months, until politics entered the game.
More accurately - everything ran beautifully until the bosses decided that the system didn't meet their needs or desires.
Some higher-ups bought software without consulting the IT department (me and one other guy) that of course only ran on Windows.
From the sound of it - it would have been pointless to consult with you, because you a a rabid zealot rather than an honest employee.
They also decided that we were going to go with FileMaker for a grade database, that was maintained by some high-price consultant.
Making such decisions is of course the province of bosses.
In the end, they wanted everything to be Windows for some reason or another (misinformed about how Open Source works, you know, the whole deal). My wonderful little Linux environment disappeared, and eventually, so did I.
The problem of course is this - it wasn't your computing enviroment, it was the schools.
Moral of the story: technical challenges aside, your project can always be torpedoed by someone who is self-important and more powerful than you.
Moral of the story: A significant (I.E. the majority) percentange of IT folks/Linux boosters on Slashdot are self centered asshats who forget who they work for. (And who doesn't work for them.)
They're blaming the cost of games on voice acting?
No, they aren't.
Billy West, a voice actor with the roles of Fry and Prof. Farnsworth from futurama to his credit, has an interesting article on The Onion - AV Club about how Hollywood pays people like Cameron Diaz 20 million for their voice in Shrek while overlooking the vetran voice actors in the industry.
They paid Cameron Diaz for her star power, her voice was just a small corner of the overall package. Veteran voice actors are ignored because voice actors have zero box office draw.
Imagine your waiter coming up to you at a restaurant you've never been to and saying, "Welcome sir and madame. Your usual?"
Which is exactly what I *don't* want. When I go to a new restaurant, it's because I want to try something new. If I want my usual, I go to my usual place.
Imagine they don't have to ask if you want sour cream or butter or cheese, or how you want your steak done, or if you want lemon in your tea.
I imagine I'll hate it. I make those decisions spur-of-the-moment based on my mood and how the rest of the meal is shaping up as I consider my order. (Heavily loaded potatoes go with cheap steaks - prime rib gets a lightly loaded potatoe since it's so rich to start with.) Sometimes I want my steak medium rare, sometimes blue, sometimes just medium. (On the other hand, with the two steakhouse I frequent I have to order the steaks differently in order to obtain the same desired result.)
With just a few strokes of a pen or voice recognition, the chefs in the restaurant see an order pop up on the screen, without the waiter having to return to the kitchen.
Welcome to the 21 century. Most restaurants (above the level of the most local or smallest) have key pads scattered about the restaurant so that the wait staff doesn't have to return to the kitchen. The upper end places that don't have such, do so for a reason - food is usually more customized in such places and the direct communication link (customer > waitstaff and waitstaff > kitchen) is key to proper functioning. Some things text or simple.CFG files cannot simply encompass.
You approach a guest desktop PC in your hotel room and it automatically sets your preferred resolution, color scheme, and most commonly used apps, along with the latest news in the categories you prefer. With no effort involved.
Won't do me, or any intelligent and aware computer user much good - as the guest desktop PC doesn't, and will never have, my data.
Your television automatically displays a welcome message and displays upcoming shows that fit your viewing preferences, or suggests movies you can order.
I don't want a goddam welcome message or suggestions on what I might like to view. I want the damm thing off and if I do choose to watch, I already *know* what I want to watch.
Just the tip of the iceberg, really. Once computing and networking is truly ubiquitous, our lives really will change.
It'll be great for the lazy and habit ridden. It'll suck badly for those of us who don't live under the peak of the bell curve.
Make yourself a charging shelf, somewhere in the house. Near the front door is a fine place, since you'll want to grab the phone and PDA on your way out. Put all the chargers there, on a switched power strip.
I just built a charging shelf in my laundry room - all the chargers (clearly labeled) for my drill, phone, screwdriver, etc... etc.. are stored in a drawer beneath a shelf with a switched power strip attached. Only three chargers are not there - the chargers for my mustache/beard trimmer and my wifes razor live in the master bathroom upstairs, and the laptop charger lives in the computer room (since the bulk of the time the laptop is used plugged in).
In a hospital, there are people dying all the time, so finding a donor that isn't on life support doesn't seem completely impossible. Just somewhat difficult.
The problem isn't just finding a donor - it's finding a donor whose tissue matches the recipient and having the recipient prepped for surgey when said donor's organs become available. That's why (back in the days before ubiquitous cellphones), potential recipients carried pagers with them 24/7.
The problem with newspapers is similar to broadcast television. They have gotten this idea in their head that their reports should never be challenged and what they decide to print will BE the truth.
The blogosphere is little better. You'll very rarely see a blog link to an article or post that espouses a viewpoint or facts that are different from the 'editorial' viewpoint of the blog. (Unless it's to poke fun at, insult the writer thereof, etc...)
The internet has allowed individuals to challenge the accuracy and fairness of the newspaper and broadcast television industry. No longer do people just blindly accept what they read in their local paper or see on the nightly news.
No, instead they blindly accept what they read on their favorite blogs. Very few blogs actually challenge the accuracy and fairness - they just report what they think is accurate and fair. (When they aren't slamming out of force of habit that is.)
People now are much better picking out when a story is more opinion/editorial than factual compared to the editors of the same.
When I read two blogs, each with a different opinion on the same event - I see in the comments the same thing on each side: Repeated comments to the point of "right on brutha! stick it to da man!". I see very little evidence of any attempt to discern, correct, or clarify the difference between opinion/editorial and factual information.
When I saw the headline, I expected an article about newspaper survival in the internet age, but what I got was an article about website survival in the internet age. There is a difference between the two topics. Like most of the ultra-wired generation the author fails to realize that the market encompasses much more than their self-centered world. (Furthermore he suggests the failed Slashdot and wiki concepts as being the replacement.)
Jim Lileks has been touting the solution for a couple of years now - and it's not (as the slashdot article proposes) by attempting to compete where your strengths are not. (We have a newish local paper that's been following that advice for a couple of years now... And it's circulation is growing, at the current rates of growth in that paper and decline of the 'traditional' paper, they'll cross in another few years.) The author of the slashdot article eventually gets around to this point but again confuses newspapers and web boards.
It's not really Vonage's fault that they provide misleading emails and promotional material and instructions that lead one to believe they are providing 911 service - when they actually are not? That's the point here - Not the PSAP's, not the RBOC's, but Vonage misleading people into believing that they provide the same functionality as a POTS 911.
Having been a subscriber to Vonage, I found them quite up front about the difference between what they provide and POTS 911 service.
They are up front about it, sorta, kinda. They prominently state that they support 911, they give procedures for signing up for 911, they tell you that you have 911 available... And then toss if in a single sentence that you explains that don't really have 911 - but the sentence is worded to obfuscate that fact.
All the handwaving in the world won't change the facts - Vonage mislead it's customers and at least one death has resulted. That is what is important here.
If the teen in question doesn't voluntarily leave and has hearing damage, they can sue the owner of the device, 'duh'.
Not very likely - as the owner can demonstrate, easily, that the teen in question was not forced to stay, but did so voluntarily. Thus, the teen in question chose to recieve the injury rather than avoiding it.
Here's an idea, why not put spike belts on your front door-step so that people get pain in their feet when they walk up your steps so people stop knocking on your front door? Because injuring people to keep them away is illegal.
If the shop owner in question was injuring people - you'd have a point. Don't confuse your strawman with reality.
Slashdot Mirror
The bulk of the remainder of my list are getting not what they want - but what I want to give them based on my knowledge of their habits, interests, etc... I view gift giving not as fulfilling wishes (unless it's a parent giving a gift to a child), but as showing the recipient that I care and know enough about them to make a personalized selection. Gift cards don't do that.
If you know the folks on your gift list well enough - that doesn't happen. If you don't know them well enough - why in heck are they on your gift list?Both designs are far too immature for serious comparison.
The reason? Enlightened self interest. The Dead were a jam band, no concert was quite like the previous or the next. Fan tapes emerged in the early days as the only way to preseve those unique performances. (You'll note that the soundboard recordings (which emerged later when the band had money and a soundboard) are still protected by copyright.)
Completely wrong - you'll note that each and every album and each item of merchandise is protected by copyright - and they sure as hell didn't let people into their concerts for free, or play for free.The Dead made, and make, their money by selling copyright protected albums and merchandise - and the marketing for the same was accomplished at decidely unfree concerts. The same as any other band.
But to see them and explore them takes a very different mindset than that which sees the world through the cross hairs of a [rifle|flamethrower|BFG]. Not better, not worse. Different.
Missing is an enumeration of *why* you want to make the change, and the benifits/risks thereof.
Jim Lileks has been touting the solution for a couple of years now - and it's not (as the slashdot article proposes) by attempting to compete where your strengths are not. (We have a newish local paper that's been following that advice for a couple of years now... And it's circulation is growing, at the current rates of growth in that paper and decline of the 'traditional' paper, they'll cross in another few years.) The author of the slashdot article eventually gets around to this point but again confuses newspapers and web boards.
All the handwaving in the world won't change the facts - Vonage mislead it's customers and at least one death has resulted. That is what is important here.