Disney already did a Toy Story series, see here for details. It was basically the Buzz Lightyear show as it would have existed in the Toy Story universe I believe.
You're right on both of your points, but I believe this is the first mention of Toy Story 3 being developed.
I think it's a bit ambitious of Disney to believe that they can recreate the wonderful look and feel of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 without Pixar's help.
The RedHat name is still branded on their Enterprise products. Brand recognizition if VERY important, as you've stated; especially when convincing management to switch to a new platform. If you're convincing management to buy a product, you're probably going to want a product from the RedHat Enterprise Line, and not Fedora. Fedora is, in my opinion, aimed more at the slightly more Linux-savvy crowd who don't need name recognition and care more about the use of Free Software and up to date software than the name of the distribution.
Ok, here's another look at it. I'm not saying that you're wrong, and I hope that you aren't, but I just don't trust large corporations to not screw us over.
Let's say it's $0.20/large bottle to tag and each large bottle on average fills 20 perscriptions. That SHOULD only raise the price about $0.01/perscription. Which is barely noticable.
Now add in the cost of the RFID reader. I don't know how expensive these things are, but I'm sure they're more than a couple of dollars. Now install at least one reader in each pharmacy. Now train each pharmacy tech to use the equipment. See how fast the costs can increase? Companies will most likely want to make up for these costs ASAP, so they'll increase prices immediately instead of trying to spread the costs over a year with only slightly higher prices. Once the insurance companies are paying these prices, the pharmacies have no incentive to lower the prices (citing continued maintenence and training costs). This, of course, causes insurance premiums to go up and we won't even talk about what happens to the uninsured.
Just how often do we have to "solve" the mystery of Atlantis? When will the media accept that not every sunken city Atlantis, and that it probably isn't the last time that someone will find a site sunken by volcanic activity. Most of these discoveries are occuring in an area with large amounts of Volcanic activity, so doesn't it just make sense that these cities are there?
What bothers me about this argument is that if I'm taking prescription drugs, I now have to eat the increased cost of making sure that I'm given legitimate drugs. Sorry, but I feel that the drug distributing industry should have to be responsible for this particular service on its own. Loopholes in their system have allowed counterfeit drugs to slip in, and they should be the ones paying to fix it, not consumers who are alredy bogged down with the (sometimes exteremly high) cost of prescription drugs. Also, we're not just seeing the price of the RFID tag passed on to consumers, but also the cost of the equipment to check those tags at delivery sites.
I think it's worth it if the drug industry is paying for their own screw ups. In reality, the customers who are already the victims of counterfeit drugs are going to have to pay for this.
It would be great if windows could ship with a functional, unix-like CLI instead of the barely usable system that ships. Until that day (which may never come), if you have to use Windows there are alternatives.
For starters, try Cygwin. I keep this on my work Windows boxes. It's a lot to install though, so I don't recommend carrying it around on CD to put on other peoples' PCs.
I can't speak for all areas, but I live in Winston-Salem, NC and I have RoadRunner (and it's available across most of the state I believe). Also, my parents live in Greenville, SC and have RoadRunner as well, as do many of my friends across SC.
Can anyone else vouch for the other states listed?
You underestimate how many people are brainwashed into believing that AOL DOES provide their broadband service. My less than technically inclined brothers-in-law are convinced that I work some kind of voodoo to use the internet without having AOL. They think that they can't do the same since they're not "computer guys" like me. The worst part is that they have cable modem with a wireless access point, and instead of buying wireless cards for all 3 of their PCs, they put one next to the cable modem (so that they LAN cable could reach), put a wireless USB adapter on the second, and use f*cking dial-up on the third because they don't understand that more than on PC can use the wireless network at once.
The real surprise here is that according to the article AOL is telling customers to switch to BellSouth's FastAccess DSL service. I would really expect them to promote Time Warner's RoadRunner service since it's still a part of AOL/Time Warner. Perhaps such bad decisions like this are a part of the reason that AOL is losing customers?
Hate to reply to my own post, but I didn't want to start a new thread.
Anyway, I completely forgot about board games! Risk, monopoly, chess, all of these are fun. Also, they just released a 1990s version of Trivial Pursuit, just in case you want to start training junior to be the next Ken Jennings...
Here are a few things that spring to mind. I have two youner brothers-in-law (12 and 13) that I need to find gifts for and they are particularly hard to shop for.
Legos - This is a classic. I'd stay away from the sets that are designed to build a single item and try to buy bulk lego boxes. If you have a technically curious child to shop for, the Lego Mindstorms kits are awesome. Link here.
A model train set. For a kid interested in learning about this kind of thing, it's a great experience. This isn't a gift for everyone; I think most kids wouldn't give it a second look.
A Bicycle. Every kid should have one (provided you live somewhere that it's reasonable to ride). Lots of excercise, time outdoors, and a good social activity.
This is a little offtopic from your original question, but don't forget about not-so-classic but still fun toys. Two years ago I gave my brothers-in-law a copy of Ico for the PS2 and they fell in love. Their parents basically bought them whatever video game they wanted, which amounted to whatever was popular at the time. I like to think that I opened them up to the idea of playing games that required a little more thought than the average shooter. They've started buying less mainstream games since then, and I think it's helped them become more well rounded (they went from 'Halo is t3h best ever!' to 'Hey, have you tried Katmari Damacy?') which is a refreshing change. I'm not saying that one video game did that - I also made a point to show their mom the ESRB ratings on the games that she'd been buying them. Being educated about what's available for your kids is important, and it's nice to see Slashdot encouraging folks to look into not-so-hip but good presents.
Can anyone recommend any great games that have come out recently that will generally get overlooked due to the flashier titles (e.g. HL2, Halo2, Metroid Prime 2, etc)?
While the article is somewhat interesting, the title is misleading. I expected someone to have done a Battlebots style bout between a Segway and a Roomba. Instead, all that happended was that someone riding a Segway ran over a Roomba that was going across the floor. Maybe if there'd been a video of this it'd be worth a 'funny' story entry...
You got me curious, so I checked my manual and it turns out that yes, I do have E911 support. Entering your location is part of the modem setup, which the cable guy handled (the manual does show how to confirm it, which I did). Thanks for the heads up, I'd be pretty upset if I dialed 911 while choking or something and they couldn't find me.
I just switched to Time Warner's Digital Phone service, and here's the 411 (pun intended):
I have Caller ID and Call waiting standard.
I have 911. If the power goes out, the modem has a battery backup that's supposed to last 8 hours. The extra bonus here is that now I can browse the web for an extra 8 hours from my laptops if the power goes out. Once the battery on the modem dies, I have to use my cell or wait or the power to come back on (or rely on my UPS).
411 is like a US$0.03 charge each use, but that includes the operator making the connection.
Re:This stuff is cool but...
on
Wi-Fi Toys
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
One chapter of this book covers building a solar-powered access point. It's not really wireless power, but it does let you have power just about anywhere that you have access to sunlight.
Exactly why do you need to use your eyes while you're on the train? While you're on any kind of transport system would be a great time to use something like this (unless you're the driver, pilot, conducter, etc).
One of the nice things about the iPod is it's integration with iTunes. If apple can convince movie studios to let them sell movies through a similar service then we'll probably see a video-capable iPod. Until then, there's not a huge market of people who understand how to rip a DVD and convert it to a format that will fit on the Photo iPod's screen. If there's not a market, there aren't profits to be made. If there aren't profits to be made, Apple has no incentive to release the product.
If they release it now,/. geeks are about the only people that you'd see carrying around their Futurama libraries; the average Joe won't know how to do this.
Apple realizes all of the potential of their device and more; just give them time.
Actually, search engines profit from ad revenue displayed on search result pages (amoung other things). The search engine with the best results SHOULD attract the most users. Increasing the number of users can correlate to increasing profits from ads. Thus, search engine sites profit from having THEIR 'bots crawl YOUR site. On the flip side, we as web users, profit (non-monetarily) by having a better search engine.
I'm just worried about technologies like this being used ad an excuse to detain people who are completely innocent. The guy really should've just stopped and talked to the officer who approached him, since he wasn't doing anything illegal by just video taping buildings. However, if this technology becomes widespread and fear of terrorists doesn't decline in the US, it may become common practice to detain people who are using recording devices in public spaces, which is completely legitimate.
Ok, well while on the point of civil liberties, how long until this is used by law enforcement to discourage video taping of "sensitive areas"? Just a few months ago, a man was arrested in Charlotte, NC for video taping buildings. Authorities suspected that he was video taping them for terrorist purposes, however there is no evidence linking him to terrorist activities according to Tom Ridge (secretary of Homeland Security). How long will it be before companies are deploying these systems around their campuses? Given, there are not a lot of people walking around with recording devices right now, but in the next decade or so I expect that wearable computing will help the geek crowd slowly move to Neal Stephenson's vision of Gargolyes.
Maybe I'm just too paranoid, but I'm worried that this technology could be used as a scapegoat to arrest and detain "suspected terrorists" if it catches on.
Re-read the post and check some purchase statistics. The XBox does OK in the states, but still can't compete with the PS2. My point is that in a market where MS doesn't have the option of pushing their newer products along with an older, established product, they haven't shown the ability to be successful. I'm not saying that they can't do it, I'm just saying that it will be difficult for them. Also, if they keep pushing products that are not turning a profit (like the XBox), sooner or later investors will start noticing.
Slashdot Mirror
Disney already did a Toy Story series, see here for details. It was basically the Buzz Lightyear show as it would have existed in the Toy Story universe I believe.
The locked it in the Disney vault.
You're right on both of your points, but I believe this is the first mention of Toy Story 3 being developed.
I think it's a bit ambitious of Disney to believe that they can recreate the wonderful look and feel of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 without Pixar's help.
The RedHat name is still branded on their Enterprise products. Brand recognizition if VERY important, as you've stated; especially when convincing management to switch to a new platform. If you're convincing management to buy a product, you're probably going to want a product from the RedHat Enterprise Line, and not Fedora. Fedora is, in my opinion, aimed more at the slightly more Linux-savvy crowd who don't need name recognition and care more about the use of Free Software and up to date software than the name of the distribution.
Ok, here's another look at it. I'm not saying that you're wrong, and I hope that you aren't, but I just don't trust large corporations to not screw us over.
Let's say it's $0.20/large bottle to tag and each large bottle on average fills 20 perscriptions. That SHOULD only raise the price about $0.01/perscription. Which is barely noticable.
Now add in the cost of the RFID reader. I don't know how expensive these things are, but I'm sure they're more than a couple of dollars. Now install at least one reader in each pharmacy. Now train each pharmacy tech to use the equipment. See how fast the costs can increase? Companies will most likely want to make up for these costs ASAP, so they'll increase prices immediately instead of trying to spread the costs over a year with only slightly higher prices. Once the insurance companies are paying these prices, the pharmacies have no incentive to lower the prices (citing continued maintenence and training costs). This, of course, causes insurance premiums to go up and we won't even talk about what happens to the uninsured.
The AP article can be found here, on CNN.
Just how often do we have to "solve" the mystery of Atlantis? When will the media accept that not every sunken city Atlantis, and that it probably isn't the last time that someone will find a site sunken by volcanic activity. Most of these discoveries are occuring in an area with large amounts of Volcanic activity, so doesn't it just make sense that these cities are there?
What bothers me about this argument is that if I'm taking prescription drugs, I now have to eat the increased cost of making sure that I'm given legitimate drugs. Sorry, but I feel that the drug distributing industry should have to be responsible for this particular service on its own. Loopholes in their system have allowed counterfeit drugs to slip in, and they should be the ones paying to fix it, not consumers who are alredy bogged down with the (sometimes exteremly high) cost of prescription drugs. Also, we're not just seeing the price of the RFID tag passed on to consumers, but also the cost of the equipment to check those tags at delivery sites.
I think it's worth it if the drug industry is paying for their own screw ups. In reality, the customers who are already the victims of counterfeit drugs are going to have to pay for this.
It would be great if windows could ship with a functional, unix-like CLI instead of the barely usable system that ships. Until that day (which may never come), if you have to use Windows there are alternatives.
For starters, try Cygwin. I keep this on my work Windows boxes. It's a lot to install though, so I don't recommend carrying it around on CD to put on other peoples' PCs.
When working on other peoples' PCs, consider carrying the -tiny branch of UnitKit for Windows around on a USB flash drive.
I can't speak for all areas, but I live in Winston-Salem, NC and I have RoadRunner (and it's available across most of the state I believe). Also, my parents live in Greenville, SC and have RoadRunner as well, as do many of my friends across SC.
Can anyone else vouch for the other states listed?
You underestimate how many people are brainwashed into believing that AOL DOES provide their broadband service. My less than technically inclined brothers-in-law are convinced that I work some kind of voodoo to use the internet without having AOL. They think that they can't do the same since they're not "computer guys" like me. The worst part is that they have cable modem with a wireless access point, and instead of buying wireless cards for all 3 of their PCs, they put one next to the cable modem (so that they LAN cable could reach), put a wireless USB adapter on the second, and use f*cking dial-up on the third because they don't understand that more than on PC can use the wireless network at once.
The real surprise here is that according to the article AOL is telling customers to switch to BellSouth's FastAccess DSL service. I would really expect them to promote Time Warner's RoadRunner service since it's still a part of AOL/Time Warner. Perhaps such bad decisions like this are a part of the reason that AOL is losing customers?
Hate to reply to my own post, but I didn't want to start a new thread.
Anyway, I completely forgot about board games! Risk, monopoly, chess, all of these are fun. Also, they just released a 1990s version of Trivial Pursuit, just in case you want to start training junior to be the next Ken Jennings...
Here are a few things that spring to mind. I have two youner brothers-in-law (12 and 13) that I need to find gifts for and they are particularly hard to shop for.
Legos - This is a classic. I'd stay away from the sets that are designed to build a single item and try to buy bulk lego boxes. If you have a technically curious child to shop for, the Lego Mindstorms kits are awesome. Link here.
A model train set. For a kid interested in learning about this kind of thing, it's a great experience. This isn't a gift for everyone; I think most kids wouldn't give it a second look.
A Bicycle. Every kid should have one (provided you live somewhere that it's reasonable to ride). Lots of excercise, time outdoors, and a good social activity.
This is a little offtopic from your original question, but don't forget about not-so-classic but still fun toys. Two years ago I gave my brothers-in-law a copy of Ico for the PS2 and they fell in love. Their parents basically bought them whatever video game they wanted, which amounted to whatever was popular at the time. I like to think that I opened them up to the idea of playing games that required a little more thought than the average shooter. They've started buying less mainstream games since then, and I think it's helped them become more well rounded (they went from 'Halo is t3h best ever!' to 'Hey, have you tried Katmari Damacy?') which is a refreshing change. I'm not saying that one video game did that - I also made a point to show their mom the ESRB ratings on the games that she'd been buying them. Being educated about what's available for your kids is important, and it's nice to see Slashdot encouraging folks to look into not-so-hip but good presents.
Can anyone recommend any great games that have come out recently that will generally get overlooked due to the flashier titles (e.g. HL2, Halo2, Metroid Prime 2, etc)?
While the article is somewhat interesting, the title is misleading. I expected someone to have done a Battlebots style bout between a Segway and a Roomba. Instead, all that happended was that someone riding a Segway ran over a Roomba that was going across the floor. Maybe if there'd been a video of this it'd be worth a 'funny' story entry...
You got me curious, so I checked my manual and it turns out that yes, I do have E911 support. Entering your location is part of the modem setup, which the cable guy handled (the manual does show how to confirm it, which I did). Thanks for the heads up, I'd be pretty upset if I dialed 911 while choking or something and they couldn't find me.
CNN's coverage can be found here.
Even cooler, here 's an older slashdot article describing getting videoconferencing to work between two prop planes!
One chapter of this book covers building a solar-powered access point. It's not really wireless power, but it does let you have power just about anywhere that you have access to sunlight.
Exactly why do you need to use your eyes while you're on the train? While you're on any kind of transport system would be a great time to use something like this (unless you're the driver, pilot, conducter, etc).
One of the nice things about the iPod is it's integration with iTunes. If apple can convince movie studios to let them sell movies through a similar service then we'll probably see a video-capable iPod. Until then, there's not a huge market of people who understand how to rip a DVD and convert it to a format that will fit on the Photo iPod's screen. If there's not a market, there aren't profits to be made. If there aren't profits to be made, Apple has no incentive to release the product.
/. geeks are about the only people that you'd see carrying around their Futurama libraries; the average Joe won't know how to do this.
If they release it now,
Apple realizes all of the potential of their device and more; just give them time.
Actually, search engines profit from ad revenue displayed on search result pages (amoung other things). The search engine with the best results SHOULD attract the most users. Increasing the number of users can correlate to increasing profits from ads. Thus, search engine sites profit from having THEIR 'bots crawl YOUR site. On the flip side, we as web users, profit (non-monetarily) by having a better search engine.
I'm just worried about technologies like this being used ad an excuse to detain people who are completely innocent. The guy really should've just stopped and talked to the officer who approached him, since he wasn't doing anything illegal by just video taping buildings. However, if this technology becomes widespread and fear of terrorists doesn't decline in the US, it may become common practice to detain people who are using recording devices in public spaces, which is completely legitimate.
Ok, well while on the point of civil liberties, how long until this is used by law enforcement to discourage video taping of "sensitive areas"? Just a few months ago, a man was arrested in Charlotte, NC for video taping buildings. Authorities suspected that he was video taping them for terrorist purposes, however there is no evidence linking him to terrorist activities according to Tom Ridge (secretary of Homeland Security). How long will it be before companies are deploying these systems around their campuses? Given, there are not a lot of people walking around with recording devices right now, but in the next decade or so I expect that wearable computing will help the geek crowd slowly move to Neal Stephenson's vision of Gargolyes.
Maybe I'm just too paranoid, but I'm worried that this technology could be used as a scapegoat to arrest and detain "suspected terrorists" if it catches on.
Re-read the post and check some purchase statistics. The XBox does OK in the states, but still can't compete with the PS2. My point is that in a market where MS doesn't have the option of pushing their newer products along with an older, established product, they haven't shown the ability to be successful. I'm not saying that they can't do it, I'm just saying that it will be difficult for them. Also, if they keep pushing products that are not turning a profit (like the XBox), sooner or later investors will start noticing.