A man is nothing without a job, unless man has a reason for existence, be it tilling the soil or repetitively inserting screws on an assembly line, he is nothing, for work maketh a man.
Nanotechnology changes all this - the technology does the work. With this new technology, it looks as though the textiles industry will be the first to suffer once again. Clothes will manufacture themselves, and the honest worker in the clothing industry will become as the ancient hand weavers, non-existent.
Feh. The degree to which we can coopt a technology for ourselves is the degree to which we remove control from the hands of our masters.
There's not much we can do to get our hands on our masters' looms, but once the replication is done by nanomites, we've gotten our hands on the machine - the control has moved outward as it did when mainframes gave way to PCs where Linux and the likes were born - the control has moved outward as it did when huge bandwidth went from just a few sites to everyone who could afford cable and DSL and peer to peer file sharing became/is becoming the norm - and when we can capture and successfully reprogram the little knitting machines that comprise a sweater, we'll find a new wealth there as well.
Don't fear the nanobots. Fear the legislation that will attempt to stop you from using them yourself.
No game list is complete without Bomberman, and I left that off.
Until you've had a bunch of guys over for beer and Bomberman, you haven't had fun.
Go with Bomberman or Bomberman '93 on the Turbo Grafx. '94 and later, and the SNES ports go overboard on the features and ruin the simple skill-based fun of the game.
That list is painfully biased toward first-person shooters where action games are concerned. I'm not a FPS or strategy fan, so about 2/3 of that list gets a huge yawn.
Let me give props to my faves -
Give me Paradroid 90 on the Amiga. Give me Uridium on the C-64. Give me Attack of the Mutant Camels on the C-64. Give me the NES and Turbo Grafx 16 ports of Galaga. Gate of Thunder and Lords of Thunder on the Turbo Grafx CD are so beautifully perfect they'll bring tears to your eyes, and Super Star Soldier on the Turbo Grafx quite possibly has the most perfectly tweaked play of any shooter ever.
I loved Tempest 2000 on the Saturn (I'm biased - I wrote half of that and most of Tempext/X3 on PSX.) A&E was sweet and very replayable on the Apple ][, but not half as replayable as Lode Runner on the same. Jump Man was great on every platform, and cloyingly cute as it is, Flicky may have been the best Genesis game.
People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting.
I'm interested in seeing what all these idiots are sending me (call me nosy; I also look at car wrecks when I drive by). What's the safest way to open these attachments on a Windows 98 machine that is not running Outlook?
Save the file on your harddisk, then remove the first 137216 bytes. You need a hex editor to do that.
Only in the World of Windows would adding 137kilo-bloat to a word processor document be considered "stealthy."
When the person ultimately in charge of something as big as Slashdot, who undoubtedly normally has to remain neutral for
advertising sales purposes comes out and TRASHES a company, you know he's pissed...
And you can bet that between NPR, Slashdot, the New York Times, etc covering X10, they're doing business like never before.
By far, the biggest spam magnet is an eBay account.
There must be hundreds of harvesters running, collecting e-mail addresses there. Users are required to have a valid e-mail address to keep their eBay account, and by being there, you're showing a willingness to trust strangers in net commerce to some extent. This makes eBay address collections golden.
I created a rather obscure new address at my personal domain, intending to use it for eBay only. Within a few weeks, I was up to a dozen spam messages a day.
They are going out of their way in mainstream publications to let it be known that the only reason these servers have been hacked is because of 'lazy' system administrators.
And of course, Microsoft will leverage this incident to point out the "need" for Microsoft.NET class servers, wherein your servers will be suckling off the big MS teat for all their code, and so running without patches becomes virtually impossible.
And the above would almost make sense if it weren't for the fact Microsoft were hacked too, once again demonstrating that when it comes to security, Microsoft is completely inept.
A single limitation like this doesn't mean much. This just means consumer-level hard drive manufacturers will spend more time competing on speed until the next breakthrough is ready.
Given that I/O speed is still such a huge bottleneck for many operations, and given that you can already have 240 gigs of storage for under a grand, is this really such a bad thing?
Would you pay a higher premium for better customer service? How much of a higher premium would you be willing to consider?
I know I would, even 20-25% of the order if service was so perfect that I never had to bother with a trip to the grocer again.
I think the average person in the States will allow a salesman to push them down, spit on their face, step on their neck, call them fat and shackle them to the front of a trolley to save 1% though.
Peapod learned their lesson early on.
on
Webvan Out Of Gas
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· Score: 5
Peapod learned their lesson early on. They used to be driven by customer service, bending over to ensure that the customer was happy. The shopper would call if an item was out of stock, and they'd suggest alternatives. The drivers would carry items to your kitchen. It was a pretty nice, relaxed kind of service.
They quickly figured out that service costs money, and did a SprintPCS-style turnaround. (If you've been a customer for more than a year and have tried dealing with customer support, you know exactly what I mean.) They figured out that they could serve more people more quickly if they dropped all but the base required service. Now, drivers are instructed to deposit items just inside the door and scram, excepting special circumstance. In their larger markets, they no longer shop a large grocery store, but a little warehouse which usually only contains a small subset of the items which are listed on their web site, which means that you typically won't get a substantial number of things you ordered, requiring you to head on down to the grocery yourself. The "shoppers" (I'm unsure of the new title) are not only no longer instructed to contact customers, but no longer allowed. They're timed on how long they have to complete each order, which is a fraction of the time previously alotted.
I was still a Peapod user throughout the changeover, and orders went from being typically 95%+ fulfilled to around 50-60%, with absolutely nothing included that you wouldn't see in the main 3 aisles of your typical grocer. Peapod's response to comments on the site and service and notes about errors on the web site went from personal responses to "Thank you for your idea, little man. Please be placated by the following runaround," and defensive form letters stating that they were in no way legally responsible for any errors on the site, and "please contact this number to be run around in circles by someone with vapid marketroid scripts until you give up if you've got something that you foolishly think needs fixing."
It's unfortunate. Peapod used to be a pretty nice service, but I can't see using it anymore unless you've got really generic tastes, are disabled, or are somehow incapable of shopping for yourself.
Now - I tried WebVan a few times. They continued to take their time, knocking themselves out to make everyone happy. They really never got to the point of optimizing customer service out of their operation.
KDE and Gnome? Are you suggesting business actually RUN KDE and Gnome? You are kidding, right? OK business world: Go install KDE on everybody's desk and watch your business crumble. Get real folks. KDE and Gnome are nice for the tech crowd but they ain't for the business crowd. The licensing is attractive, but whaddya expect for nothing. Mac OS X perhaps, assuming you can get the apps you need to run on that platform. But KDE and Gnome? I think not. For more businesses than not, Windows is still the only realistic option. Could Microsoft get away with this highway robbery if it weren't?
The worst problems I have ever seen with Linux in the business have been solely caused by workers being afraid to make mistakes, and so refusing to save their documents on an unfamiliar system. This is a problem but a 5 minute instructional introdution will reduce the worst problems here.
The real problems are psychological, not technological.
Leaving aside the issues of interoperability and the abundance of trained MS Office users --Until there are the ability for Joe User to figure out how to add a printer, better output, better online help, MS Word-style autodetection and formatting for outlines, various indentation styles, all the little convenience features that let a body simply sit and write without needing to look about for help or have a sysadmin on call -- until these exist, kWord, AbiWord and the likes haven't a chance.
It's the same old thing - yes, MS products cost money. But the savings is in running them, not in the initial acquisition. Office Joes work more effectively and more independently with the mature MS Office products.
I love Linux. I love FreeBSD and all the packaged and ported software. They're all I run at home. But as a businessman, there's no way in hell I'd try and drop any of it on my secretary's desk. Supporting the secretary with it would mean the end of my free time.
Browser-based solutions are a good idea. I would love to block images that match certain dimensions (1x1) or have a URL that matches some regexp (/ads/).
Time for another link to WebWasher. It's now available for Linux and Mac, as well as Windows. It's free for private use - and it's so damned nice that it's the only program I run on my home machine that doesn't come with source.
The best part about any CMP publication is that you can receive the publication for free, so long as you're willing to fill out a lengthy form once a year and receive a bunch of relevant junk mail. (Although I strongly advise that you not put your correct office phone/fax on the form.)
I looked on the website and the thing is self-progamming. Press the Select key twice, press the function key you want to program, enter the keystrokes, press Select again to finish.
OTH, with 142 keys the damn thing is a battleship! It's bigger than the old IBM 3270 keyboards I had to work on. Definitely not for the original poster.
I had one on my desk, and the thing is definitely not self-programming. Without software support, you're sunk, which means (unless someone writes something for Linux), it's only of use for DOS and pre-Windows 3.11 users.
These things were made in the late 80s and have been sitting around looking for a home forever. If you pick one up, you'll even find that it's got an XT/AT switch, and the cable has been chopped off so a mini-DIN (PS/2) connector could be attached in place of the standard DIN (IBM PC/XT) connector that sat there before.
Slashdot Mirror
Feh. The degree to which we can coopt a technology for ourselves is the degree to which we remove control from the hands of our masters.
There's not much we can do to get our hands on our masters' looms, but once the replication is done by nanomites, we've gotten our hands on the machine - the control has moved outward as it did when mainframes gave way to PCs where Linux and the likes were born - the control has moved outward as it did when huge bandwidth went from just a few sites to everyone who could afford cable and DSL and peer to peer file sharing became/is becoming the norm - and when we can capture and successfully reprogram the little knitting machines that comprise a sweater, we'll find a new wealth there as well.
Don't fear the nanobots. Fear the legislation that will attempt to stop you from using them yourself.
You'd think he and those around him have gotten pretty used to the way he 'speaks' by now. It'd be weird and distracting to change now.
p.s. - if you're gonna mod it - mod it as funny. In the real world, this is what we call a capital Bad Idea.
(which you can do manually right now with the worm-installed back door.)
Leave that going long enough, and the infected systems will just keep powering off until the IIS feebs get a clue.
No game list is complete without Bomberman, and I left that off.
Until you've had a bunch of guys over for beer and Bomberman, you haven't had fun.
Go with Bomberman or Bomberman '93 on the Turbo Grafx. '94 and later, and the SNES ports go overboard on the features and ruin the simple skill-based fun of the game.
Let me give props to my faves -
Give me Paradroid 90 on the Amiga. Give me Uridium on the C-64. Give me Attack of the Mutant Camels on the C-64. Give me the NES and Turbo Grafx 16 ports of Galaga. Gate of Thunder and Lords of Thunder on the Turbo Grafx CD are so beautifully perfect they'll bring tears to your eyes, and Super Star Soldier on the Turbo Grafx quite possibly has the most perfectly tweaked play of any shooter ever.
I loved Tempest 2000 on the Saturn (I'm biased - I wrote half of that and most of Tempext/X3 on PSX.) A&E was sweet and very replayable on the Apple ][, but not half as replayable as Lode Runner on the same. Jump Man was great on every platform, and cloyingly cute as it is, Flicky may have been the best Genesis game.
Does this mean lots of really tiny pop-under ads?
This certainly gives me an idea or two...
Yours,
Michael I. Crosoft
Only in the World of Windows would adding 137kilo-bloat to a word processor document be considered "stealthy."
And you can bet that between NPR, Slashdot, the New York Times, etc covering X10, they're doing business like never before.
There must be hundreds of harvesters running, collecting e-mail addresses there. Users are required to have a valid e-mail address to keep their eBay account, and by being there, you're showing a willingness to trust strangers in net commerce to some extent. This makes eBay address collections golden.
I created a rather obscure new address at my personal domain, intending to use it for eBay only. Within a few weeks, I was up to a dozen spam messages a day.
And of course, Microsoft will leverage this incident to point out the "need" for Microsoft.NET class servers, wherein your servers will be suckling off the big MS teat for all their code, and so running without patches becomes virtually impossible.
And the above would almost make sense if it weren't for the fact Microsoft were hacked too, once again demonstrating that when it comes to security, Microsoft is completely inept.
This would be a sweet extra little display for a full-time klog, etc.
There are many hardware solutions available which only route a ring signal to a phone jack if the appropriate ring style is detected.
Gee, that's a whole new twist on "2010: A Space Odyssey."
Given that I/O speed is still such a huge bottleneck for many operations, and given that you can already have 240 gigs of storage for under a grand, is this really such a bad thing?
I know I would, even 20-25% of the order if service was so perfect that I never had to bother with a trip to the grocer again.
I think the average person in the States will allow a salesman to push them down, spit on their face, step on their neck, call them fat and shackle them to the front of a trolley to save 1% though.
They quickly figured out that service costs money, and did a SprintPCS-style turnaround. (If you've been a customer for more than a year and have tried dealing with customer support, you know exactly what I mean.) They figured out that they could serve more people more quickly if they dropped all but the base required service. Now, drivers are instructed to deposit items just inside the door and scram, excepting special circumstance. In their larger markets, they no longer shop a large grocery store, but a little warehouse which usually only contains a small subset of the items which are listed on their web site, which means that you typically won't get a substantial number of things you ordered, requiring you to head on down to the grocery yourself. The "shoppers" (I'm unsure of the new title) are not only no longer instructed to contact customers, but no longer allowed. They're timed on how long they have to complete each order, which is a fraction of the time previously alotted.
I was still a Peapod user throughout the changeover, and orders went from being typically 95%+ fulfilled to around 50-60%, with absolutely nothing included that you wouldn't see in the main 3 aisles of your typical grocer. Peapod's response to comments on the site and service and notes about errors on the web site went from personal responses to "Thank you for your idea, little man. Please be placated by the following runaround," and defensive form letters stating that they were in no way legally responsible for any errors on the site, and "please contact this number to be run around in circles by someone with vapid marketroid scripts until you give up if you've got something that you foolishly think needs fixing."
It's unfortunate. Peapod used to be a pretty nice service, but I can't see using it anymore unless you've got really generic tastes, are disabled, or are somehow incapable of shopping for yourself.
Now - I tried WebVan a few times. They continued to take their time, knocking themselves out to make everyone happy. They really never got to the point of optimizing customer service out of their operation.
"I didn't see a thing. I only clicked the mouse a few times thinking it might turn the display back on, your honor..."
Leaving aside the issues of interoperability and the abundance of trained MS Office users --Until there are the ability for Joe User to figure out how to add a printer, better output, better online help, MS Word-style autodetection and formatting for outlines, various indentation styles, all the little convenience features that let a body simply sit and write without needing to look about for help or have a sysadmin on call -- until these exist, kWord, AbiWord and the likes haven't a chance.
It's the same old thing - yes, MS products cost money. But the savings is in running them, not in the initial acquisition. Office Joes work more effectively and more independently with the mature MS Office products.
I love Linux. I love FreeBSD and all the packaged and ported software. They're all I run at home. But as a businessman, there's no way in hell I'd try and drop any of it on my secretary's desk. Supporting the secretary with it would mean the end of my free time.
Time for another link to WebWasher. It's now available for Linux and Mac, as well as Windows. It's free for private use - and it's so damned nice that it's the only program I run on my home machine that doesn't come with source.
The best part about any CMP publication is that you can receive the publication for free, so long as you're willing to fill out a lengthy form once a year and receive a bunch of relevant junk mail. (Although I strongly advise that you not put your correct office phone/fax on the form.)
I had one on my desk, and the thing is definitely not self-programming. Without software support, you're sunk, which means (unless someone writes something for Linux), it's only of use for DOS and pre-Windows 3.11 users.
These things were made in the late 80s and have been sitting around looking for a home forever. If you pick one up, you'll even find that it's got an XT/AT switch, and the cable has been chopped off so a mini-DIN (PS/2) connector could be attached in place of the standard DIN (IBM PC/XT) connector that sat there before.
Happy Hacker at Pfu for those who don't know it. (Karma already at 50, not whoring with links, etc.)