Please accept my apologies - Somehow I managed to *not* paste in the second half of the transcript. Usually -- really, almost always -- the transcripts have *more* info than the videos. So I slammed in the rest just now, with a little less polishing than usual, but it's all there.
And Flash. Everybody who actually works on the site (and reads your comments) agrees with you.We tell them over and over, but I've been working on Slashdot since it was brand new and shiny (UID 357), so what do I know? Obviously not as much as a young marketing go-getter. Sigh.
...and you don't think that it has anything to do at all with the fact that the new business involves a convenient app connected to an efficient centralized planning service, whereas the old business usually involves things like trying to wave down any empty yellow cars that might happen to pass by? Either approach could be implemented with or without unions.
Hardly any cabbies or limo drivers belong to unions or get benefits or even salaries. When I drove a cab I rented it for $75/day(in Baltimore) and took it home with me. I could have had it on a 12-hour shift for less. After a while I bought my own cab. I didn't have a permit/medallion, so I rented one from a friend. Did I make a living? Sure. But I worked a lot of hours.
Limousine: I drove for Maryland Limo, the BWI airport franchisee for a few months to learn the businehss. Then I got my own limo -- and drove it happily and profitably until Andover.net offered me a considerable salary to dump the limo and be their full-time editor in chief.
TODAY, I'd probably drive for Uber, even though it's a shoddy company. Remember when they decided to cut fares? BAM! Every driver who had invested in a nice car got burned. But I would maybe stay with Uber for a year, then go off on my own once I had a decent "book" of private customers built up. I assure you, this is what the smarter Uber drivers are doing. Also: there are people in the big cities who buy Uber-qualified cars and rent them to drivers either for a fixed rate or on a percentage split -- just like a cab company.
Re additive technology: You're right. This is why I don't care much about the people who "make guns" with their 3-D printers. Some of them make lower receiver units because that's the legal definition of a "gun" even though in my eye's it's kind of like making the driver's door frame on a car and claiming you made a car because that's where the VIN goes.
To make a gun or anything else that needs to contain strong forces, I'll join TWX and put my faith in old-fashioned, non-groovy tools like milling machines, lathes, and drill presses. Yay, subtractive technology!
(Not knocking the 3-D print people - Fun stuff, no question.)
They're hooked together -- Bob Twiggs is the common point, and "the man" behind a lot of the "citizen satellites" stuff that's been popping up in the last decade.
Arliss: "ARLISS began as a cooperative program between Professor Bob Twiggs of Stanford, his colleagues at other universities worldwide and members of AeroPac led by Pius Morizumi and Tom Rouse. The first ARLISS event was held in 1999."
Magnitude.io: ADVISORY BOARD Professor Bob Twiggs Robert Twiggs has been a professor of astronautical engineering at MSU in July 2009. He was instrumental in the development of a space systems curriculum. Prior to his time at MSU, Twiggs was a consulting professor in the aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University for 14 years. He is responsible for developing the curriculum for students interested in designing, building and operating small space experiments. He helped develop the original concepts for the CricketSat, CanSat, CubeSat and the PocketQub for educational applications for use in space. In 2010 he was selected as by the Space News publication as one of 10 space professionals “That Made a Difference in Space”. One of his recent publications is as a co-author of the article “Citizen Satellites” in the February 2011 Scientific American. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Idaho and an master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Question: "Why doesn't Slashdot do an interview with Prof. Twigg?" Answer: We should. I'll talk to Tim, see who he wants to do it.:)
For some reason Flash seems to be the default, but I can watch/. videos on my Linux laptop that doesn't have Flash installed. The thing that irks me is that if we put two videos on one story the second one is always flash, period. Timothy and I have told the software engineers and management people that this isn't a good idea, and sooner or later maybe they'll get around to fixing the problem. Meanwhile, let me get the transcript for *this* video edited and uploaded - it came in late. Garg.
"Slashvertisement - a fiction spawned in the brains of basement-dwellers who think that anyone who says anything nice about anything or anyone is getting paid to be positive."
Nope. All ads or "sponsored content" pieces on Slashdot are clearly identified. This piece is legit, and I clearly stated that this is just one of many companies in the energy-saving businesses. Clouden's company is close to me and I first heard about it from a satisfied customer, but at no point did I (or he) say his company was better than others in the same business. In fact, let me repeat: If you're going to buy any kind of energy-saving services, you'd better shop around -- just like Smokey Robinson's momma told him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You submitted those stories, right? Anyway, looking through your comment history, you love to be negative. You should thank us for giving you something else to complain about. Also, if I was in a bad mood I might point out that 1 article + 1 article = 2, and "fawning" is a bit over the top. But hey! You're the one who knows more than the rest of us, so I won't question anything you say.
You are probablyright about the "10,000" cars thing being unrealistic, but let's look at it in context:
"The initial plan is for DM to scale up to an annual production of 10,000 of these limited supercars, making them available to potential customers. This isn’t all though, as DM doesn’t merely plan on just being satisfied by manufacturing cars via this method. They plan on making the technology available to others as well."
That 3DPrint.com article wasn't nearly as good as it would have been if you had written it, but you might want to be a little kinder to your inferiors. Czinger and Balzer have consistently talked about cars being just one type of manufacturing for which their process can be used. And it's not all about 3-D printing. Really.
Okay - time to go upload some howto videos.
Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the 3-D printers bite!
Why do you insult us by insisting that we get paid for running stories about things that interest at least one Slashdot editor? If a story is a paid ad, it will say something like "AD" or "Sponsored Content."
Also, what is not newsworthy to you may be newsworthy to someone else. You also seem to be missing the point of 3-D printing in this context: that the Blade is just a proof of concept. The idea is that other items can be made with similar manufacturing techniques; not purely 3-D printing but 3-D printing combined with other fab methods.
Tim just put the "let's have the ability to attach two or more HTML5 video to one text block" on the developers' work request list. It'll happen. When? Um.... "Soon." This is yet another case where the people who actually work on the site agree with readers -- which we do 90% of the time. Believe it or not, our management is gradually learning that the people who work on the site know a thing or two. The Beta debacle was great training for them. Gawd, that thing was awful...
As for video length restrictions: A spreadsheet manager looks at video costs and sees that a majority of people jump off of a video within 3 minutes. So, asks the spreadsheet manager, why would we ever want to have longer videos? Reality = people not interested in that video or topic watch 3 minutes, while people interested in the topic or interviewee stick around for 10, 15, 30, even 60 minutes. What Tim and I want is 3-minute (or so) summary videos for the uninterested, followed by full-length ones for those who are interested. At least, when the topic is interesting to at least some readers, we now can (and generally do) provide a transcript that covers the full, uncut video interview for you.
Believe me, we appreciate questions and criticism. We read what you have to say. Like about the cartoon-balloon m,ain page comment counts. I can't say that I personally care much about them one way or another, but I think Tim or one of the other guys brought them up in a meeting to which I was not invited -- because I rarely am since I'm retired and I just work part-time editing/. videos for hourly pay to supplement my Social Security. Thinking of which, I have some howto videos to edit for another site, so I'd better break off here and go do that.
I don't have a problem with linking to a video as long as you have a transcript, but the fact that "thousands" of people watched them without complaining doesn't prove anything about whether they liked them.
I think we need could have a great discussion, but that first we'd need to go back to Marshall McLuhan's first major book, Understanding Media - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... - and come forward from there. This is where the saying, "The medium is the message" came from, in a time when "multimedia" was a beat poet doing a recital accompanied by a flute and bongos while psychedelic (a new word back then) images played on a sheet behind the stage.
I think that might make a fun little video piece. If you want to do it, email robin@roblimo.com.
I've written more than a few op-eds over the years that said we should tax "campaign contributions." I agree. A win-win. I also think all politicians should be like NASCAR, and wear all their sponsors' logos.
Less videos on Slashdot. As someone explained a few days ago, Slashdot readers are not business suits, we prefer to read our information. It's just plain faster.
This is the old "Slashdot ran a story that didn't interest me personally" complaint that's been going around since 1999. If you don't want to watch videos, don't watch them. If you want some or all of the information contained in a video, but don't want to watch the video, we give you transcripts.
Slashdot typically runs 20+ stories every day, and around 3 videos per week which may (gasp) go up to 4 or even 5 at some point. Thousands of people watch those videos and seem to like them, while 5 or 10 complain.
On the gripping hand, you seem interested in Bitcoins and that sort of thing. I've had people tell me that stories about digital currency don't interest them, so they don't belong on Slashdot. Ummm..... okay....
The sad secret is that there are many Slashdot readers with different tastes and desires. I figure that if anyone -- including me -- finds 80% of the stories on the site interesting, that's pretty good.
You're kidding, right? The show/hide transcript links have been in the same place all along. Is that one click really that hard on you? What about the click it takes to watch the video you don't want to watch?
If you don't want to watch videos on Slashdot, don't. We run three of them in the average week, and 20+ text pieces per day.
Slashdot Mirror
My 1996 Jeep Cherokee still runs well. Computer controlled, fuel injected, driver's side air bag... but no remotes. I think I'll keep it.
Everybody who actually works on the site agrees with you.
Please accept my apologies - Somehow I managed to *not* paste in the second half of the transcript. Usually -- really, almost always -- the transcripts have *more* info than the videos. So I slammed in the rest just now, with a little less polishing than usual, but it's all there.
And Flash. Everybody who actually works on the site (and reads your comments) agrees with you.We tell them over and over, but I've been working on Slashdot since it was brand new and shiny (UID 357), so what do I know? Obviously not as much as a young marketing go-getter. Sigh.
...and you don't think that it has anything to do at all with the fact that the new business involves a convenient app connected to an efficient centralized planning service, whereas the old business usually involves things like trying to wave down any empty yellow cars that might happen to pass by? Either approach could be implemented with or without unions.
Hardly any cabbies or limo drivers belong to unions or get benefits or even salaries. When I drove a cab I rented it for $75/day(in Baltimore) and took it home with me. I could have had it on a 12-hour shift for less. After a while I bought my own cab. I didn't have a permit/medallion, so I rented one from a friend. Did I make a living? Sure. But I worked a lot of hours.
Limousine: I drove for Maryland Limo, the BWI airport franchisee for a few months to learn the businehss. Then I got my own limo -- and drove it happily and profitably until Andover.net offered me a considerable salary to dump the limo and be their full-time editor in chief.
TODAY, I'd probably drive for Uber, even though it's a shoddy company. Remember when they decided to cut fares? BAM! Every driver who had invested in a nice car got burned. But I would maybe stay with Uber for a year, then go off on my own once I had a decent "book" of private customers built up. I assure you, this is what the smarter Uber drivers are doing. Also: there are people in the big cities who buy Uber-qualified cars and rent them to drivers either for a fixed rate or on a percentage split -- just like a cab company.
Also, Uber may have a nice app, but others are catching on. Read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08...
Uber is cute, but it's purely pump and dump. You just wait and see.
Or you could read the transcript -- while drinking a beer, of course.
We have transcriptions for the faster readers. But you enjoy complaining, so we won't let that silly fact stop you.
Thanks for your input,
- R
Re additive technology: You're right. This is why I don't care much about the people who "make guns" with their 3-D printers. Some of them make lower receiver units because that's the legal definition of a "gun" even though in my eye's it's kind of like making the driver's door frame on a car and claiming you made a car because that's where the VIN goes.
To make a gun or anything else that needs to contain strong forces, I'll join TWX and put my faith in old-fashioned, non-groovy tools like milling machines, lathes, and drill presses. Yay, subtractive technology!
(Not knocking the 3-D print people - Fun stuff, no question.)
They're hooked together -- Bob Twiggs is the common point, and "the man" behind a lot of the "citizen satellites" stuff that's been popping up in the last decade.
Arliss:
"ARLISS began as a cooperative program between Professor Bob Twiggs of Stanford, his colleagues at other universities worldwide and members of AeroPac led by Pius Morizumi and Tom Rouse. The first ARLISS event was held in 1999."
Magnitude.io:
ADVISORY BOARD
Professor Bob Twiggs
Robert Twiggs has been a professor of astronautical engineering at MSU in July 2009. He was instrumental in the development of a space systems curriculum. Prior to his time at MSU, Twiggs was a consulting professor in the aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University for 14 years. He is responsible for developing the curriculum for students interested in designing, building and operating small space experiments. He helped develop the original concepts for the CricketSat, CanSat, CubeSat and the PocketQub for educational applications for use in space. In 2010 he was selected as by the Space News publication as one of 10 space professionals “That Made a Difference in Space”. One of his recent publications is as a co-author of the article “Citizen Satellites” in the February 2011 Scientific American. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Idaho and an master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Question: "Why doesn't Slashdot do an interview with Prof. Twigg?" :)
Answer: We should. I'll talk to Tim, see who he wants to do it.
And all articles ITWBennett submits are from IT World. Neither of these users is anywhere near a top submitter by percentage. Not even close.
For some reason Flash seems to be the default, but I can watch /. videos on my Linux laptop that doesn't have Flash installed. The thing that irks me is that if we put two videos on one story the second one is always flash, period. Timothy and I have told the software engineers and management people that this isn't a good idea, and sooner or later maybe they'll get around to fixing the problem. Meanwhile, let me get the transcript for *this* video edited and uploaded - it came in late. Garg.
So laser-print it with metal. Might not be ultra-strong, but way better than plastic. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What Bruce said. Not everything needs to have a practical application to be interesting. Some things are just fun.
That thing (made out of metal) would make one heck of a 'granny gear' for my recumbent trike, though.
"Slashvertisement - a fiction spawned in the brains of basement-dwellers who think that anyone who says anything nice about anything or anyone is getting paid to be positive."
Nope. All ads or "sponsored content" pieces on Slashdot are clearly identified. This piece is legit, and I clearly stated that this is just one of many companies in the energy-saving businesses. Clouden's company is close to me and I first heard about it from a satisfied customer, but at no point did I (or he) say his company was better than others in the same business. In fact, let me repeat: If you're going to buy any kind of energy-saving services, you'd better shop around -- just like Smokey Robinson's momma told him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Without discussion of lease terms, length, and end of lease requirements, you really can't determine if there is anything to be saved...
Yep. You'd better shop around.
I believe Pat's company does lease to own deals. A lot of them do. That should be a big factor in selecting a vendor for that kind of lease program.
You submitted those stories, right? Anyway, looking through your comment history, you love to be negative. You should thank us for giving you something else to complain about. Also, if I was in a bad mood I might point out that 1 article + 1 article = 2, and "fawning" is a bit over the top. But hey! You're the one who knows more than the rest of us, so I won't question anything you say.
You are probablyright about the "10,000" cars thing being unrealistic, but let's look at it in context:
"The initial plan is for DM to scale up to an annual production of 10,000 of these limited supercars, making them available to potential customers. This isn’t all though, as DM doesn’t merely plan on just being satisfied by manufacturing cars via this method. They plan on making the technology available to others as well."
That 3DPrint.com article wasn't nearly as good as it would have been if you had written it, but you might want to be a little kinder to your inferiors. Czinger and Balzer have consistently talked about cars being just one type of manufacturing for which their process can be used. And it's not all about 3-D printing. Really.
Okay - time to go upload some howto videos.
Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the 3-D printers bite!
- R
Why do you insult us by insisting that we get paid for running stories about things that interest at least one Slashdot editor? If a story is a paid ad, it will say something like "AD" or "Sponsored Content."
Also, what is not newsworthy to you may be newsworthy to someone else. You also seem to be missing the point of 3-D printing in this context: that the Blade is just a proof of concept. The idea is that other items can be made with similar manufacturing techniques; not purely 3-D printing but 3-D printing combined with other fab methods.
Thank you for your input!
- Rob
He was involved in an electric car venture a while back and it didn't go well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I am not in love with Slashdot on Android. "It needs work," is a gentle way to say what I think of it.
I don't see the transcript on my phone, either. Thanks for reminding me about that. I'll pass it up the chain.
Tim just put the "let's have the ability to attach two or more HTML5 video to one text block" on the developers' work request list. It'll happen. When? Um.... "Soon." This is yet another case where the people who actually work on the site agree with readers -- which we do 90% of the time. Believe it or not, our management is gradually learning that the people who work on the site know a thing or two. The Beta debacle was great training for them. Gawd, that thing was awful...
As for video length restrictions: A spreadsheet manager looks at video costs and sees that a majority of people jump off of a video within 3 minutes. So, asks the spreadsheet manager, why would we ever want to have longer videos? Reality = people not interested in that video or topic watch 3 minutes, while people interested in the topic or interviewee stick around for 10, 15, 30, even 60 minutes. What Tim and I want is 3-minute (or so) summary videos for the uninterested, followed by full-length ones for those who are interested. At least, when the topic is interesting to at least some readers, we now can (and generally do) provide a transcript that covers the full, uncut video interview for you.
Believe me, we appreciate questions and criticism. We read what you have to say. Like about the cartoon-balloon m,ain page comment counts. I can't say that I personally care much about them one way or another, but I think Tim or one of the other guys brought them up in a meeting to which I was not invited -- because I rarely am since I'm retired and I just work part-time editing /. videos for hourly pay to supplement my Social Security. Thinking of which, I have some howto videos to edit for another site, so I'd better break off here and go do that.
"Due to management-imposed restraints on video lengths, we broke the ~10 minute interview into two parts,"
I don't have a problem with linking to a video as long as you have a transcript, but the fact that "thousands" of people watched them without complaining doesn't prove anything about whether they liked them.
I think we need could have a great discussion, but that first we'd need to go back to Marshall McLuhan's first major book, Understanding Media - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... - and come forward from there. This is where the saying, "The medium is the message" came from, in a time when "multimedia" was a beat poet doing a recital accompanied by a flute and bongos while psychedelic (a new word back then) images played on a sheet behind the stage.
I think that might make a fun little video piece. If you want to do it, email robin@roblimo.com.
I've written more than a few op-eds over the years that said we should tax "campaign contributions." I agree. A win-win. I also think all politicians should be like NASCAR, and wear all their sponsors' logos.
Less videos on Slashdot. As someone explained a few days ago, Slashdot readers are not business suits, we prefer to read our information. It's just plain faster.
This is the old "Slashdot ran a story that didn't interest me personally" complaint that's been going around since 1999. If you don't want to watch videos, don't watch them. If you want some or all of the information contained in a video, but don't want to watch the video, we give you transcripts.
Slashdot typically runs 20+ stories every day, and around 3 videos per week which may (gasp) go up to 4 or even 5 at some point. Thousands of people watch those videos and seem to like them, while 5 or 10 complain.
On the gripping hand, you seem interested in Bitcoins and that sort of thing. I've had people tell me that stories about digital currency don't interest them, so they don't belong on Slashdot. Ummm..... okay....
The sad secret is that there are many Slashdot readers with different tastes and desires. I figure that if anyone -- including me -- finds 80% of the stories on the site interesting, that's pretty good.
Thanks for caring,
- Rob
You're kidding, right? The show/hide transcript links have been in the same place all along. Is that one click really that hard on you? What about the click it takes to watch the video you don't want to watch?
If you don't want to watch videos on Slashdot, don't. We run three of them in the average week, and 20+ text pieces per day.