Youtube for one. The production values are increasing, more content providers are releasing via YouTube and surviving on the advertising revenue generated from there. WWE for another, they're in the process of going direct to customer, cutting out the middle man.
LOL, if YouTube and wrasslin' are how we define the future of technology, the human race is doomed.
I'll stick with my PVR, and a remote I can operate in a darkened room by touch alone.
In other words, they might have been a good idea at the time, but I stopped using them after a few days because they used up so much damned memory. Seriously guys, a clock widget doesn't take 200+ MB of RAM. Or, at least, it shouldn't in any sane world.
And, from the sounds of it, Microsoft didn't make a framework which was secure or safe.
A little single-purpose widget should be a small, lightweight thing that does one thing. But even the ones Microsoft shipped were overly bloated things which shouldn't have existed.
I don't think "cool and trendy" were what defined the failure of those. Bloated and insecure, but not cool and trendy.
I don't think I care about Win 8 either way, but I was in a store the other day which sold computers, and saw a 20"+ HP computer with a touch screen.
And all I can think of is an old fashioned type-writer.
Seriously, you think I'm going to sit and type and then reach up to the screen to do something? This is supposed to be a good thing?
The ergonomics of a desktop computer where I'm meant to reach up and touch the screen seems stupid to me.
Touch makes sense on smaller portable devices... but for a desktop computer it's the most ridiculous thing I can imagine. My monitor is further than arms length from my chair, WTF benefit does a touch screen bring to me? What is the use case for this that I'm missing? Is leaning forward to touch the screen somehow supposed to be better?
I think Microsoft just went gaga over the notion of touchscreens and lost the plot a little about when they're useful. And the companies making the computers have followed suit and made silly machines.
The real art of producing documentation is the subtle play of how much to produce. In some countries, a policeman makes less than a dollar an hour. At a checkpoint, a policeman will usually share his proceeds with the other officers lounging by the side of the road and with the police Chief.
A Vietnamese friend says when he goes home to visit, as you're going through passport control, the best strategy is to put a US $20 bill in your passport before you hand it over.
I suspect there are many many countries in which such 'documentation' is considered a normal and essential part of daily life.
Hell, I know Mexicans who tell me the same thing. And people from Thailand, Russia and a few other countries.
I suspect the protocol for doing this in the US is less well defined, and you might actually occasionally get an honest cop who is genuinely offended.
Asserting a patent that turns out to be invalid or not applicable should cost the accuser big time.
Of course, the problem is that an 'invalid' patent is a valid patent, and once the USPTO grants it it's enforceable. No matter how stupid it is.
Now, if the USPTO had some liability for allowing patents which boil down to "a system and methodology for doing something we've been doing for decades, but with a computer/hand held/on the interwebs".
As it is, they just keep approving things which never should have gotten past review.
There was an issue a few years ago with some Sony cameras which more or less allowed you to make swimsuits transparent and the like.
In other words, with the right spectrum of infrared, people on beaches might appear naked already. I believe other fabrics under the right circumstances are essentially transparent to UV.
I predict this will be the leading use of these contacts.
Americans think cheese is a rubbery long-chain polymer which needs to be dyed orange. It's not even legally cheese, it's "cheese food" or something similar.
Seriously, don't even talk to us about poutine -- fries, gravy, and cheese curd are at least recognizable foodstuff. Some of the shit you guys eat doesn't even meet the legal definition of food in a lot of countries.
If there's any hope for the human race, this "list" is a bit more extensive than just a name
And if there's any truth in history, the people who compile and maintain this list are not the ones we put our faith in for the hope for the human race.
These are the same people who missed a suspected terrorist because the name was mis-spelled. Which means they're equally likely to get non-terrorists or duplicate names.
When you have an arbitrary process which isn't transparent, you really can't assume it's being skillfully and accurately applied.
With all the braying about "scroogling", and the fact that we've all known Microsoft had both the capacity and intent to do the same damned thing... can we simply start calling this Moogling?
Sorry, but when you run a campaign about how everything is an add and they're looking through your email... and then everything you do is an ad and they look through your email, well, people might notice.
When are they going to make the users of their website tolerable human beings instead of insane caricatures designed to make you lose all faith in humanity?
Except that it isn't. Facebook privacy is violated all the time.
Facebook was essentially designed to violate your privacy.
It's owned an operated by people whose mission statement is to violate your privacy, and who routinely decide that any setting you had concerning your privacy no longer applies.
Facebook was built and is largely owned by a guy who takes the money he made violating your privacy and protecting his own.
"So your medical company can broadcast you medical information all over the world?"
They can sell it to whomever they want, just as facebook can sell your profile data to whomever they want.
I don't think medical companies are legally allowed to broadcast your medical information.
I don't necessarily agree that all of these tracking companies (who I do NOT do business with) should be entitled to collect or distribute my information. Which is why I do my best to deny them the information in the first place.
I reject the notion that by visiting company X's website, that gives companies A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H and J the right to know that and do anything with it.
Unless they want the target to know. Being obvious is an intimidation tactic.
If violating your right to private communications with your lawyer is a new intimidation tactic, America is pretty much screwed, because law enforcement is selectively deciding that some laws don't really apply to them, and some rights are things which don't really exist when inconvenient.
Banana Republics do this kind of thing. Not countries which have enshrined knowing better in law.
Instead, they effectively discovered a major security flaw in AT&T's network. When given the proper query, the telecom's public website would cough up a registered iPad owner's email address.
"There is no unauthorized access," Kerr said at the beginning of his appeal. When anyone can access data simply by entering an address onto a browser, "it is effectively public," he said.
This is essentially accessing information available to anybody without permission. But to call it "hacking" is a complete joke.
Seriously, don't you think that a judge knows the law better than you, a random bloke posting on the internet?
Seriously, have you seen some court rulings? The ones which go to appeals or the Supreme court and get overturned?
I'm sorry, but my faith in the justice system to be able to competently discuss matters of technology is pretty low. My faith in government prosecutors evenly applying the law or not jurisdiction shopping and inflating the charges... also pretty low.
Why do Netflix and a few other companies keep the DVD format alive, when streaming is more convenient for almost all users?
You lost men when the premise of your story was false from the first sentence.
My network speeds and bandwidth allotment don't make streaming 'more convenient', it makes it stupid. If I want to watch a movie twice, why would I pay my ISP twice for the bandwidth?
If I want to watch a Blu Ray film, I pop it in and watch it. No jitter, no lag, no asking permission. I just press play.
If I want to watch a movie on a plane, I just bring a few disks with me and put them in my laptop.
If I want to loan a movie I own to a friend, I walk to my shelf and hand it to him. He takes it home, and can watch it all he likes.
Heck, I can go to a place which doesn't have good interwebs... and you know what? I can still watch a DVD as long as I still have electricity.
There's no metrics being gathered, no opportunities for targeted advertising, and none of the aspects of streaming which I find annoying and inconvenient.
I've never streamed a movie in my life, and I'm hard pressed to figure out why I would.
You kids and your shiny baubles. Get off my damned lawn.
Middle of nowhere? I see it in the middle of town all the time.
No kidding. I can't count how many times I've been proceeding through a green light on a road and the idiot coming to the red light is half way into the intersection to turn right before he turns to look to see if there's any oncoming traffic.
I can't even begin to understand how "I'll decide if I should stop 20 feet past the stop line when I'm already in the intersection and then look" becomes the way people drive.
They half run the light to turn right on red before they have any idea if there isn't already a bus in the lane they're entering.
How do you report something like this, if their own "support" is either ignorant or not prepared to deal with these issues.
If you're a customer, you call up and cancel and tell them that since they seem to be unqualified to do security, you are no longer willing to use them.
If you're not a customer, make sure you can't be brought up on charges of "hacking" their stuff which was secured by chimps and move on.
Slashdot Mirror
LOL, if YouTube and wrasslin' are how we define the future of technology, the human race is doomed.
I'll stick with my PVR, and a remote I can operate in a darkened room by touch alone.
LOL, you can have my 23" Acer flat panel (with no touch, thank you very much) when you pry it from my cold dead hands (or it suffers failure).
We don' need no steenkin' touch screens.
For my tablet and phone, I like touch. For a desktop? I can't even understand why you would.
Well, they were memory hogs, and completely insecure.
In other words, they might have been a good idea at the time, but I stopped using them after a few days because they used up so much damned memory. Seriously guys, a clock widget doesn't take 200+ MB of RAM. Or, at least, it shouldn't in any sane world.
And, from the sounds of it, Microsoft didn't make a framework which was secure or safe.
A little single-purpose widget should be a small, lightweight thing that does one thing. But even the ones Microsoft shipped were overly bloated things which shouldn't have existed.
I don't think "cool and trendy" were what defined the failure of those. Bloated and insecure, but not cool and trendy.
I don't think I care about Win 8 either way, but I was in a store the other day which sold computers, and saw a 20"+ HP computer with a touch screen.
And all I can think of is an old fashioned type-writer.
Seriously, you think I'm going to sit and type and then reach up to the screen to do something? This is supposed to be a good thing?
The ergonomics of a desktop computer where I'm meant to reach up and touch the screen seems stupid to me.
Touch makes sense on smaller portable devices ... but for a desktop computer it's the most ridiculous thing I can imagine. My monitor is further than arms length from my chair, WTF benefit does a touch screen bring to me? What is the use case for this that I'm missing? Is leaning forward to touch the screen somehow supposed to be better?
I think Microsoft just went gaga over the notion of touchscreens and lost the plot a little about when they're useful. And the companies making the computers have followed suit and made silly machines.
A Vietnamese friend says when he goes home to visit, as you're going through passport control, the best strategy is to put a US $20 bill in your passport before you hand it over.
I suspect there are many many countries in which such 'documentation' is considered a normal and essential part of daily life.
Hell, I know Mexicans who tell me the same thing. And people from Thailand, Russia and a few other countries.
I suspect the protocol for doing this in the US is less well defined, and you might actually occasionally get an honest cop who is genuinely offended.
Of course, the problem is that an 'invalid' patent is a valid patent, and once the USPTO grants it it's enforceable. No matter how stupid it is.
Now, if the USPTO had some liability for allowing patents which boil down to "a system and methodology for doing something we've been doing for decades, but with a computer/hand held/on the interwebs".
As it is, they just keep approving things which never should have gotten past review.
Fixed that for you. ;-)
Well, you may not need xray.
There was an issue a few years ago with some Sony cameras which more or less allowed you to make swimsuits transparent and the like.
In other words, with the right spectrum of infrared, people on beaches might appear naked already. I believe other fabrics under the right circumstances are essentially transparent to UV.
I predict this will be the leading use of these contacts.
Dude ... scrapple exists.
Americans think cheese is a rubbery long-chain polymer which needs to be dyed orange. It's not even legally cheese, it's "cheese food" or something similar.
There's a dish in the US called Frito Pie.
Twinkies exist.
Seriously, don't even talk to us about poutine -- fries, gravy, and cheese curd are at least recognizable foodstuff. Some of the shit you guys eat doesn't even meet the legal definition of food in a lot of countries.
And if there's any truth in history, the people who compile and maintain this list are not the ones we put our faith in for the hope for the human race.
These are the same people who missed a suspected terrorist because the name was mis-spelled. Which means they're equally likely to get non-terrorists or duplicate names.
When you have an arbitrary process which isn't transparent, you really can't assume it's being skillfully and accurately applied.
Be a viable industry without massive federal agricultural subsidies?
I'd like to see it do that.
You may be unaware of this since Clamato isn't widely available in the US ... it's for a Canadian drink called a Caesar.
It's kind of like a Bloody Mary, but with Clamato juice, a celery stick, and the top of the glass is rimmed with celery salt.
Besides, beer and tomato juice is also a tasty thing. And you can have beer at a clam bake.
They're not as mutually exclusive as you seem to think.
With all the braying about "scroogling", and the fact that we've all known Microsoft had both the capacity and intent to do the same damned thing ... can we simply start calling this Moogling?
Sorry, but when you run a campaign about how everything is an add and they're looking through your email ... and then everything you do is an ad and they look through your email, well, people might notice.
And ... this is different from Slashdot, how? ;-)
Facebook was essentially designed to violate your privacy.
It's owned an operated by people whose mission statement is to violate your privacy, and who routinely decide that any setting you had concerning your privacy no longer applies.
Facebook was built and is largely owned by a guy who takes the money he made violating your privacy and protecting his own.
I don't think medical companies are legally allowed to broadcast your medical information.
I don't necessarily agree that all of these tracking companies (who I do NOT do business with) should be entitled to collect or distribute my information. Which is why I do my best to deny them the information in the first place.
I reject the notion that by visiting company X's website, that gives companies A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H and J the right to know that and do anything with it.
If violating your right to private communications with your lawyer is a new intimidation tactic, America is pretty much screwed, because law enforcement is selectively deciding that some laws don't really apply to them, and some rights are things which don't really exist when inconvenient.
Banana Republics do this kind of thing. Not countries which have enshrined knowing better in law.
Except, by most standards, he didn't "hack" anything. AT&T employed pathetic security which a teenager could defeat.
This has been covered quite a bit.
This is essentially accessing information available to anybody without permission. But to call it "hacking" is a complete joke.
Seriously, have you seen some court rulings? The ones which go to appeals or the Supreme court and get overturned?
I'm sorry, but my faith in the justice system to be able to competently discuss matters of technology is pretty low. My faith in government prosecutors evenly applying the law or not jurisdiction shopping and inflating the charges ... also pretty low.
Point of fact: he ran something which people think looks like a bank, but wasn't.
This is more along the line of a private company offering to hold onto your money for you.
Yes, yes you do ... I think I've known of that one for at least 30 years.
And Tits, wow. Tits doesn't even belong on the list, you know. It's such a friendly sounding word.
Bah, it's just following the dictate to have haircuts like Kim Jong Un.
And, yes, that's evidently a real requirement in North Korea now.
Only if you connect it to the internet.
And that can be prohibitive.
For those of us whose bandwidth is metered, a physical disk is vastly superior to streaming.
I own several hundred DVDs, and a growing number of Blu Rays. And that will be my preferred format for some time to come.
You lost men when the premise of your story was false from the first sentence.
My network speeds and bandwidth allotment don't make streaming 'more convenient', it makes it stupid. If I want to watch a movie twice, why would I pay my ISP twice for the bandwidth?
If I want to watch a Blu Ray film, I pop it in and watch it. No jitter, no lag, no asking permission. I just press play.
If I want to watch a movie on a plane, I just bring a few disks with me and put them in my laptop.
If I want to loan a movie I own to a friend, I walk to my shelf and hand it to him. He takes it home, and can watch it all he likes.
Heck, I can go to a place which doesn't have good interwebs ... and you know what? I can still watch a DVD as long as I still have electricity.
There's no metrics being gathered, no opportunities for targeted advertising, and none of the aspects of streaming which I find annoying and inconvenient.
I've never streamed a movie in my life, and I'm hard pressed to figure out why I would.
You kids and your shiny baubles. Get off my damned lawn.
You seem to be confusing levity with me giving a damn.
I'm not a luddite, but I might be on the paranoid end.
And, quite frankly, I don't see any difference in Slashdot over the last 10 years -- it's always been like this.
Don't like it, stay on your own damned lawn.
No kidding. I can't count how many times I've been proceeding through a green light on a road and the idiot coming to the red light is half way into the intersection to turn right before he turns to look to see if there's any oncoming traffic.
I can't even begin to understand how "I'll decide if I should stop 20 feet past the stop line when I'm already in the intersection and then look" becomes the way people drive.
They half run the light to turn right on red before they have any idea if there isn't already a bus in the lane they're entering.
If you're a customer, you call up and cancel and tell them that since they seem to be unqualified to do security, you are no longer willing to use them.
If you're not a customer, make sure you can't be brought up on charges of "hacking" their stuff which was secured by chimps and move on.