What's worse, I did pay around $400 for my printer (an Epson Stylus Color -- no number, it's the original Epson Stylus Color) but a set of new cartridges is still over $50 -- and there's only one chain that carries them anymore (Office Max). This printer still works great, and ink for newer printers is no cheaper, but I'm tempted to buy a new one because at least I'll be able to find the damn ink (plus, the new models are faster and photo-quality [but thus use more ink]).
I'm inclined to think this new law will just cause them to 1) stop selling the cartridges with a chip, instantly obsoleting the installed base, 2) charge more for printers, as previously stated, and 3) continue to charge $50 for ink.
The difference between Microsoft and their competitors is that MS is willing to take a long-term view:
1) Establish a monopoly on office productivity software 2) Profit! 3) See income drop once everyone has Office. Market saturation! 4) Less Profit:-( 5) Release new Office with new file formats; use monopoly to get it pre-loaded on all new PCs. 6) Eventually everyone else upgrades Office in order to read new file formats they're getting from their co-workers. 7) Profit! 8) Release new OS with filesystem that looks like a database. 9) Release YAO (Yet Another Office) [see 5 & 6] that only works with new database/filesystem in new OS. 10) Now, not only do the masses have to upgrade Office to read co-workers files, they have to upgrade Windows as well. 11) Profit!!!!!
Re:The X-Files did it first.
on
Got Sleep?
·
· Score: 2
Yeah, but that involved surgery. They learned from their mistakes last time; this is a new study looking for a simple pill.
I, for one, would love to know exactly what my engine is doing. Further, the potential to make changes (fuel/air mixture, timing, etc) in engine parameters would make such a project useful beyond even the geek factor.
You have no idea! I worked for GM back in the day (1973-1979), and one of the things I got to play with was the development hardware for their first CCC cars (Computer Controlled Carburetor). There was a black box that sat on the seat, with the computer (which normally was behind the passenger's kick panel) mounted on top. The black box was connected to the under-hood stuff, of course, and via a ribbon cable to a heads-up display that sat on the dash. It had LED displays and toggle switches so you could see/change various parameters. We could get those cars to idle smoothly at insanely low RPMs (did I mention they adjusted idle speed, too? little motors moving the throttle stop), but with those settings they didn't run well unless you really eeeeassed the throttle open. With those boxes you could do anything you wanted. Man, I wanted to score one for myself so badly it hurt, but they were locked down tighter than the Crown Jewels (if any got out, they'd be liable to the EPA!).
It was in those days that I learned a bit of a secret: The computers have a "map" of the various sensor inputs -- rpm, temperature (air & water), vacuum, throttle, etc.) At any point on this multi-dimentional map were the values for things the computer controlled, like air/fuel ratio, timing, etc. They knew the "path" the EPA tests took over this map, and adjusted the settings for min. emissions/max. fuel economy while on that path; the rest of the map had settings for whatever characteristic they wanted for the car in question: performance for a Camero, drivablity for an Olds, economy for a Chevy, etc. I'm sure they still do this today. Aftermarket computer ROMs are using the same trick.
I didn't say there weren't problems, but the original poster seemed to assume there was no choice but zero-G for the round-trip.
To address your points, you don't have to spin the whole package, just the living quarters. The recent Mars mission plans I've seen all involve multiple ships; this isn't going to be an Apollo one-shot-direct-from-Earth's-surface mission. And the planning for a broken tether is simple: redundant tethers. You don't hang a gondola from a balloon with one rope, and you wouldn't tether these ships with one cable.
I have no problem with this at all. Every once in a while my brother will email me a.MOV file that turns out to be a very funny TV ad. So what? I can always delete it. Now and then someone sends me a cute game that incorporates or ends with a corporate logo. If it's entertaining and the sponsorship isn't in-your-face, I don't mind, and I may pass it on myself.
I remember years ago Buick had a driving simulator that, naturally, had you driving various Buicks. You could also get more info about specific models (mostly lists of standard features, etc.). In its day it was very leading-edge, and I passed it around freely. The U.S. Army has released a free wargames sim as a recruiting tool, and it's very good. I'm going to burn it onto some CDs and stuff them into stockings in the hope of enlisting a squad among my family for some serious time-wasting.
If that's what you mean by "viral" ads, go for it, and don't feel bad about it. Just be sure it's quality stuff, because the quality will reflect directly on the sponsor. One issue you should worry about is bandwidth. If these ads are large, consider a format where people can email links to their friends rather than the ads themselves.
And if your company plans on spamming them to the world, or participating in the "astroturfing" mentioned elsewhere, then I wish your company horrible flaming death:-)
What about "chat" and "talk"?
on
AOL Patents IM
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I seem to recall applications with names like chat and talk which allowed uses to communicate with anyone logged on at the same time. Do those not count as prior art because the users were all logged onto the same machine, and this patent covers multiple machines networked together? Do terminals hanging off a Vax or IBM mainframe constitute a "network"?
"Insightful"? Insightful is realizing the trip to Mars doesn't have to be zero-G. Ever hear of a centrifuge? Send two ships. Tether them. Spin about common CG.
Oh? If the copyright owner is out of business and the item out of print, who's going to sue me for copyright infringement? The RIAA or MPAA, out of spite?
If you have to explain the joke to the guy who told it, it really wasn't funny.
If you have to explain to the guy who told it why it wasn't funny, you have problems beyond Slashdot's ability to help you; at least you posted as an AC, so there's still hope...
If cash is outlawed, then how will the State counterfeit currency?
Easy: they'll just adjust the computers at the Federal Reserve to show a positive balance in the State's account -- it'll be easier for the State to counterfeit money under the new system.
Same as the user doesn't want to see how a car works. The user only wants to use the car, and to be spared the gory details.
Maybe the user doesn't want to know how a car works, but that doesn't mean they "can be spared the gory details" before they're allowed to use it. It's thinking like that which leads to bozos (appologies to Bozo) assuming that because their SUV can go in the snow it can also stop in the snow (clue for the clueless: it can't).
And it's thinking like that which leads to Customer Service calls asking why the change they just submitted at your web page wasn't instantly implemented in their account. If they understood how your system works (their request is queued up along with those of hundreds of other customers, and will be processed -- in order received -- in a few minutes) they probably wouldn't call.
Geeze, where do you work? Every job I've had it's been: "Here's your computer." I've never had the luxury of picking the hardware. The best I've done is once when the PHB's decided we were better off with Windows 95 and X-Terminal software than the HP-UX workstations we'd been using, I figured out that we could re-use our 19" HP monitors. The PHB's approved it because it saved them the cost of the standard 15" monitors they were going to give us.
Generally, if they pay the bill, they decide what to buy, so again: What enlightened nirvana company do you work for?
Granted, but I see the hosts file as something the user maintains as they see fit, and as you describe in the case of your "nastag" example ("depending on the team you were on, 'nastag' might have a different meaning"), not as something the Admin must maintain on all machines (so, for example, everyone can type "www" and reach the internal web server). Indeed, if you allow users to modify hosts you've pretty much gotta give up on central control -- that central control is what DNS is for.
This is the best answer yet. The real question for you to ask is: "What changed?" All the folks spouting off about how it's the browser, or it's the resolver -- folks, he used to type "http://www" and get the local box he wanted. Now that no longer works. So, what changed? I'm thinking the proxy is as good a bet as anything -- I doubt your browser changed, or you would know, right?
Here, I can just type "www" and get the local server. Mozilla seems to change that to "http://www/". If I "ping www" I get "Pinging www.companyname.com [blah blah]" but the browser doesn't show "http:/www.companyname.com/". So I don't know how Mozilla or DNS or the resolver or anything is doing this, it just works; if it stopped working, I'd ask what changed.
Slashdot Mirror
You've been watching The President's Analyst again, haven't you?
I'm inclined to think this new law will just cause them to 1) stop selling the cartridges with a chip, instantly obsoleting the installed base, 2) charge more for printers, as previously stated, and 3) continue to charge $50 for ink.
The difference between Microsoft and their competitors is that MS is willing to take a long-term view:
:-(
1) Establish a monopoly on office productivity software
2) Profit!
3) See income drop once everyone has Office. Market saturation!
4) Less Profit
5) Release new Office with new file formats; use monopoly to get it pre-loaded on all new PCs.
6) Eventually everyone else upgrades Office in order to read new file formats they're getting from their co-workers.
7) Profit!
8) Release new OS with filesystem that looks like a database.
9) Release YAO (Yet Another Office) [see 5 & 6] that only works with new database/filesystem in new OS.
10) Now, not only do the masses have to upgrade Office to read co-workers files, they have to upgrade Windows as well.
11) Profit!!!!!
Yeah, but that involved surgery. They learned from their mistakes last time; this is a new study looking for a simple pill.
Did you even look at his picture? He has obvious burn-in. Maybe you need to adjust the gamma on your monitor.
Yes! (OMG, has it been 30 years? Damn, I'm old :-)
Pocket PC is a hardware/software spec; WinCE is the OS portion of that spec. All Pocket PCs run WinCE but not everything running WinCE is a Pocket PC.
[I'm guessing either nothing (the APC UPSs worked just fine and nobody noticed) or major disaster (APC wasn't using their own product).]
Perhaps you're asking the wrong group. Did you try comp.unix.admin?
It was in those days that I learned a bit of a secret: The computers have a "map" of the various sensor inputs -- rpm, temperature (air & water), vacuum, throttle, etc.) At any point on this multi-dimentional map were the values for things the computer controlled, like air/fuel ratio, timing, etc. They knew the "path" the EPA tests took over this map, and adjusted the settings for min. emissions/max. fuel economy while on that path; the rest of the map had settings for whatever characteristic they wanted for the car in question: performance for a Camero, drivablity for an Olds, economy for a Chevy, etc. I'm sure they still do this today. Aftermarket computer ROMs are using the same trick.
To address your points, you don't have to spin the whole package, just the living quarters. The recent Mars mission plans I've seen all involve multiple ships; this isn't going to be an Apollo one-shot-direct-from-Earth's-surface mission. And the planning for a broken tether is simple: redundant tethers. You don't hang a gondola from a balloon with one rope, and you wouldn't tether these ships with one cable.
I remember years ago Buick had a driving simulator that, naturally, had you driving various Buicks. You could also get more info about specific models (mostly lists of standard features, etc.). In its day it was very leading-edge, and I passed it around freely. The U.S. Army has released a free wargames sim as a recruiting tool, and it's very good. I'm going to burn it onto some CDs and stuff them into stockings in the hope of enlisting a squad among my family for some serious time-wasting.
If that's what you mean by "viral" ads, go for it, and don't feel bad about it. Just be sure it's quality stuff, because the quality will reflect directly on the sponsor. One issue you should worry about is bandwidth. If these ads are large, consider a format where people can email links to their friends rather than the ads themselves.
And if your company plans on spamming them to the world, or participating in the "astroturfing" mentioned elsewhere, then I wish your company horrible flaming death :-)
I seem to recall applications with names like chat and talk which allowed uses to communicate with anyone logged on at the same time. Do those not count as prior art because the users were all logged onto the same machine, and this patent covers multiple machines networked together? Do terminals hanging off a Vax or IBM mainframe constitute a "network"?
"Insightful"? Insightful is realizing the trip to Mars doesn't have to be zero-G. Ever hear of a centrifuge? Send two ships. Tether them. Spin about common CG.
Oh? If the copyright owner is out of business and the item out of print, who's going to sue me for copyright infringement? The RIAA or MPAA, out of spite?
And now that you've posted to the thread, your moderations are moot.
If you have to explain the joke to the guy who told it, it really wasn't funny.
If you have to explain to the guy who told it why it wasn't funny, you have problems beyond Slashdot's ability to help you; at least you posted as an AC, so there's still hope...
[in Soviet Russia, currency counterfeit you]
And it's thinking like that which leads to Customer Service calls asking why the change they just submitted at your web page wasn't instantly implemented in their account. If they understood how your system works (their request is queued up along with those of hundreds of other customers, and will be processed -- in order received -- in a few minutes) they probably wouldn't call.
Generally, if they pay the bill, they decide what to buy, so again: What enlightened nirvana company do you work for?
Granted, but I see the hosts file as something the user maintains as they see fit, and as you describe in the case of your "nastag" example ("depending on the team you were on, 'nastag' might have a different meaning"), not as something the Admin must maintain on all machines (so, for example, everyone can type "www" and reach the internal web server). Indeed, if you allow users to modify hosts you've pretty much gotta give up on central control -- that central control is what DNS is for.
Here, I can just type "www" and get the local server. Mozilla seems to change that to "http://www/". If I "ping www" I get "Pinging www.companyname.com [blah blah]" but the browser doesn't show "http:/www.companyname.com/". So I don't know how Mozilla or DNS or the resolver or anything is doing this, it just works; if it stopped working, I'd ask what changed.
Um, I thought the whole point of DNS was so you didn't have to populate/maintain the hosts file in every computer.
+