It's hard to imagine that spam filters have gotten to the point where spamming doesn't make economic sense. After all, the business model is something like
Send an email to 10,000 random people
Get money from one of those people
Profit
The model is more like:
Move outside the U.S. Might I suggest a beach villa in Cancun?
Send $500 and the email boilerplate to be sent to someone who runs a spam farm (It's highly unlikely that the person who's running the spam bot is the same person who's selling faux watches). Who knows where they live.
That person sends 1,500,000 emails out with your payload. Of those, maybe 150,000 actually make it past the spam filters and into inboxes.
20 people of that 150,000 think it would be funny/cool/socially responsible to give/own/write an article about a fake rolex and purchase them at $25ea. That's $500 back to you.
The first time out is a wash because it cost you $500 to get fake watches and set up a billing/fulfillment system. After that, it's $500 pure profit each shot.
Note that this shouldn't take more than 2 hours a day of your time once things are set up. That leaves the rest of the afternoon to work a day job, work on your tan, or work 7 or 8 more spam scams. Suddenly, you're making $4k a day.
disclaimer - I'm totally making up those numbers, but even running on the pessimistic side, it's easy to see why folks still spam.
Look at how long the submission is. Why would you make it even longer by including a definition of what a relatively popular software component is? You might as well include definition for Ubuntu, Gutsy, and Xorg while you're at it.
No, but a simple hyperlink on Compiz to the project page or Wikipedia entry would have taken up exactly -0- more characters (articles don't include the server text that comments do) to the displayed text and saved a dozen or so key/mouseclicks involved in looking up up said word. Hyperlinking is the foundation on which the web was built, it's depressing how lost that technique has become.
It doesn't need to be tested in court: bittorrent means you also broadcast as you download.
Actually, I've always wondered about the validity of that argument. Doesn't the material have to actually be consumable in it's original context to constitute rebroadcasting? If I'm DLing via torrent (or most any P2P software), and sending out some random packets of whatever I'm downloading, if those packets can't be re-assembled into a (for instance) playable movie, am I still violating rebroadcasting rules? Doesn't the lack of contiguous signal (packets) constitute some form of encryption, making it illegal for the authorities to interpret without a warrant?
It's called a Nintendo Wii. Turn it on, browse awhile, zoom in, zoom out and turn it off.
Good idea, in theory. In practice, the Wii fails as you need a firm and steady hand to point the Wiimote across the room well enough to click links. A firm and steady hand is not the hallmark of the elderly. If they had a Wii mouse, that'd go a long way.
I'd like to propose some alternate solution:
A plugin that measures the real-estate of a given web site and if the amount of space (X)/bandwidth(Y)/audio(Z)/Browser incompatiblity(Z1) exceeds my personal preferences for X, Y, Z, and/or Z1, adds the site to a block-list. Ideally, the block-list would be distributed (along with the ratings). This would prevent folks from visiting offending sites like the author's in the first place. Bonus if the plugin stores a database of group-moderated alternate sites and pre-fills the address bar for me when I try to visit an Evil Place.
This way, I never have to visit the "revenue is more important than content" sites in the first place.
we DO NOT WANT: IDE, PS/2 or VGA connectors cluttering up our motherboard.
they duplicate functions already better achieved with: SATA, USB, and DVI.
Why DVI over VGA? I've seen very few DVI-only monitors and there's still plenty of VGA-only monitors being sold. In this particular application, lower cost, compatibility, and reduced size weigh more towards "better" than pixel-accurate image reproduction. The DVI connector is physically larger than VGA and I'm guessing the hardware costs are still slightly higher (just because VGA circuitry has pretty much no R&D costs left to recoup and has had 10+ years to cost-optimize the circuit).
Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...
on
The Trouble With TiVo
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· Score: 1
There are three easy changes that TIVO can do that would allow them to dominate, let alone survive.
1. Ethernet Network connectivity to allow access to the web as well as network diskspace
Say what? Network diskspace? You mean like home media sharing, amazon unbox, or adding external storage? All those are in my Series 3. As for web browsing, I think that would be a losing proposition for TiVo, the cost of beefing up the hardware, customer support and browser security wouldn't be worth the meager additional sales it would generate. Especially considering the competition in that space - Wii, personal web devices (Nokia 770), and cheap laptops.
2. Allow the users FULL control of the device (i.e. if you hit that 30sec skip button, do the 30 sec skip....)
Maybe you could expand on that - The 30 second skip "easter egg" is publicized enough to be common knowledge and AFAIK still works on the most current software.
3. Allow ability to record shows to physical media such as DVD, BluRay, or HDDVD
So the user can violate the copyright/re-broadcast rules by taking the DVD to your friends' house? The broadcasters are the dictators there, not TiVo. How about being able to easily add large amounts of external storage so you dont have to put it on a DVD? Series 3 has an ESATA port on the back that accepts up to 750gb of external storage (I dont know what that finally works out to, but I've added that to my Series 3 and have over 300 SD/HD shows stored and it's not full yet).
Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don
on
The Trouble With TiVo
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· Score: 1
Why on earth would you buy a Tivo when you can rent a HD DVR for $10 from your cable company which is cheaper than the required Tivo subscription! Not to mention you have to buy a $300 - $600 box from Tivo. Until they have free subscriptions they aren't going to get any market share. Sure their software and hardware are both better, but the cable company DVR works just fine.
"works just fine" is entirely subjective. I'm guessing you've not actually used a TiVo for any length of time and then, say, a Comcast DVR. Sure, the Comcast DVR can record shows, but there's several dozen small differences in the way you do that that and pretty much anything else - change channels, find shows, expand the hardware, share media that are much more poorly (or not at all) implemented on the Comcast box that frustrate me to the point where it's no longer a pleasant experience. And lets face it, what we're talking about is a "pleasant experience", not curing cancer or making sure the train's on time. For me it was worth $400 to not have that frustration every time they sit on front of the TV.
Of my friends who have moved from DirecTV w/TiVo to cable, half purchased a new TiVo within weeks of using the cable box. The other half complain incessantly about how miserable the cable box is, but choose to spend their money elsewhere. With the introduction of this new, cheaper, HD box, they may take the plunge as well.
Re:Nothing can truly replace a dedicated cabinet..
on
Project Arcade
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· Score: 1
For the ones who truly want to re-live the 'good old days', especially with a favorite game, you can't beat a dedicated cabinet (READ: *not* MAME).
The reason is simple: You get the cabinet's original dimensions, artwork (side-art, bezel art, banner art, control panel art) that was half the reason you loved the game in the first place. There was nothing like scanning an arcade for your favorite game and seeing it, all lit up, ready for you to pump in a few quarters.
I think you're a bit confused here - MAME is a software arcade emulator, the only thing it has to do with a "cabinet" is I/O and a place to house things. There's nothing to stop me (technically) from building a PC, installing MAME and Double Dragon ROM images, and wiring that up to a gutted Double Dragon cabinet and having pretty much the same experience (yes, you can even wire up the coin box if you desire) as playing a DD machine with original DD arcade motherboard(s) inside.
MAME has very little to do with cabinet dimensions, artwork, lights, or coin slots.
Now, that said, having a nice Double-Dragon cabinet is pretty sweet, but so is having one cabinet that will play 4 player Gauntlet (4 stations), Gyruss (37-way stick), Tempest (spinner), Missile Command (trackball), and Time Crisis (gun). No, it wont have that totally immersive nostalgia effect, but it also wont take up the entire garage.
Mine cost me ~$2k and 12 months of labor in the end to construct (and it has all those in one cabinet). While that sounds expensive, I bet buying/refurbishing all of those machines would have come pretty close.
I'll second the comment that building the cabinet was easy (even for a neophyte like me) compared with wrestling with a front-end, especially after installing multiple emulators. Given the dynamic state of software compared to hardware (AFAIK, iPac is still the de-facto standard and haven't changed much in the last 5 years), I can see why the author would choose not to spend much time on that side of things.
1. Cablecard installation sucks. Make sure when you talk to the provider that they ALWAYS bring 2 Cablecards. It just took for times for TimeWarner to actually get cable going. None of this is Tivo's fault as much as its lack of understanding on the cable company side. The problems are in two places: one - firmware upgrades can take FOREVER, it literally took my 3 days to update the Cablecards, two: provisioning the TWC head-end folks have not quited figured this out yet and it took the guy talking to a friend to get the cards provisioned correctly. So when they come out make sure they try to flash the cards before they leave HQ and know someone on the other side that knows how to provision.
Lest people think this is limited to Time Warner, Comcast has the same trouble with CableCards. As a technology, whoever's rolling it out as doing an absolute shite job of A. Training their customers (the installers/dispatchers/provisioners), and B. Adequately handling errors. It's my experience that if any sort of bad/insufficient data comes down the pipe, the default behavior for a CableCard is to de-authorize or de-pair completely - which, BTW sends an interrupt to the Series 3 TiVo and forces it do display the Pairing status screen regardless of what channel you're watching. Combine that with (again, IME) CableCards that are not properly authorized in the first place means a lot of service calls where the user had service that went away and the installer has to go through several new cards until they find one that will work. And god help you if you have a dirty line, because they wont work for long.
What's really scary is that currently, only a few 3rd party devices (some newer HD Televisions and the TiVos) use CableCards, but the tech said Comcast is planning on rolling out their own hardware that uses them. This means that instead of 1 CableCard install per month, all installs will be CableCard based.
On a side note, I'll be rather miffed if that feature set is indeed the only difference between the Series 3 and "lite" versions, having just paid $500 for a Series 3 and not really caring about any of the "reduced" features. It'd be a shame that TiVo will have finally done something major (that was not the result of outside forces) to lose customer confidence.
I was under the impression that carbon fiber was actually renowned for being inflexible and tending to shatter, rather than deform (at least from my experience with motorcycle fairings and carbon fiber rims). Is there a less-rigid mix of CF? If so, why is it not used in racing products?
Then Blade Runner is trivia.
Nothing more came from that. (not directly)
If you want innovations, here are some off the top of my head:
space shot in handcam style - everything in BSG's external shots is Firefly derivative.
Didn't Babylon 5 do this? (I could be totally wrong there)
The wild-west space - a genre-crossing adventure with the idea that not everyone will have golly-gee technology
You should check out this old sci-fi show called Star Trek... Rarely seen. They might have had an episode or two that hinted at the disparity between low tech and high tech civilizations. I think it's creator, some Roddenberry guy, called it "Wagon Train to the stars"
Inara was wicked hot. (sorry, not a valid point, but still true)
Again, this old sci-fi series Star Trek. I hear it's on DVD now. Something about a blond yeoman.
Lets hope your script is smart enough to parse: "sentance", "8", "eight", "the last one", "eighth", "word 8", "word number eight", "the 8th word", and the several million other valid replies to that question.
Agreed - it took me several dozen seconds to figure out how to play a CD I'd inserted via WMP. Then another 60 or so to figure out how to get rid of the visualization and make it a smaller profile player.
Really, who the frig cares from a general computing standpoint? Who needs 8 CPUs?
Where this really pays off right now is with virtualization. For the cost of 1 & 1/2 boxes, you get the value of 8. That may not seem like a "general computing standpoint" to you, but virtualization is getting absolutely huge in the software development and server world. Besides, since when is the Mac Pro dual core a "general computing" machine? My guess is >75% of the buyers are buying them for specific heavy lifting. General folks are getting the plenty-fast dual-core iMacs for running iLife and general home chores.
It means that game developers and publishers are ignoring a large portion of the gaming market by focusing on the traditional two segments: casual gamers and hardcore gamers.
Oh, and also there's female gamers, but there's apparently no money to be made there.
I'm guessing the early-adopter-tech-savvy demographic that would buy this gadget probably push the number into double-digits. Too bad. Sounds like it actually could be promising and at a decent rate, until you add the cost of a landline/VOIP service. And running a phone cable to the TV. Then we're back in the NetFlix/Blockbuster price/convenience range.
Imagemagick? ATerm? A fucking bittorrent client? What is the definition of sysadmin?
Some guy decides to list apps he likes and it gets on/. as the "sys-admin top 10".
From TFA: "They're not exactly my sysadmin toolbox -- more like my desktop enhancement kit."
am a Palm user from way back and I am dying for a Treo, but I don't want to buy one and then see Palm go under or sell out or otherwise orphan their products. I want to see lots o' new stuff coming out for Palm platform and I don't want to have to get a Windows-based handheld in a year or two. Go Palm!
What bad would happen if you bought a Treo and Palm went under? They don't provide the back end (IE - your phone wont go dead) and they dont produce any add-on items that aren't made (often better) by 3rd parties. Assuming they outlive the short warrantee period, I don't really see it having a negative impact.
In short - buy it now!
It's the usual early-adopter problem, but as Dell and HP have also said they're going to release ExpressCard notebooks soon, I think you're going to see WAN devices fairly quickly
FYI - Dell's lowest-end notebooks (B120 and B130) both have ExpressCard slots and have been shipping since before Christmas.
Humorously enough, the one reason I like IM rather than SMS on my phone is the UI. Initiating an SMS "conversation" is a miserably painful experience on most of the phones I've had. If you're lucky, you can send an SMS message from your phone book, but that still requirest sifting through your entire phone book to your particular entry, then one click to open a menu and another click to send the SMS. More than one phone I've had wont let you send an SMS from the address book. You have to enter the SMS section, select Send, select Look Up Address in the address field and THEN you get to browse through your entire addressbook to find your target.
Add in another step or two to either of the above processes if your chat partner has more than one phone number attached to them.
On the flipside, all of the mobile IM solutions I've tried were no more complicated than scrolling through a list of eligible IM nicks and clicking on the one I want to chat with.
If the phone companies made SMS that easy (IE - "buddy lists"), they'd have a hell of a lot more SMS users (myself included).
Slashdot Mirror
Don't assume that all mobile phone users have the gift of sight.
The model is more like:
- Move outside the U.S. Might I suggest a beach villa in Cancun?
- Send $500 and the email boilerplate to be sent to someone who runs a spam farm (It's highly unlikely that the person who's running the spam bot is the same person who's selling faux watches). Who knows where they live.
- That person sends 1,500,000 emails out with your payload. Of those, maybe 150,000 actually make it past the spam filters and into inboxes.
- 20 people of that 150,000 think it would be funny/cool/socially responsible to give/own/write an article about a fake rolex and purchase them at $25ea. That's $500 back to you.
The first time out is a wash because it cost you $500 to get fake watches and set up a billing/fulfillment system. After that, it's $500 pure profit each shot.Note that this shouldn't take more than 2 hours a day of your time once things are set up. That leaves the rest of the afternoon to work a day job, work on your tan, or work 7 or 8 more spam scams. Suddenly, you're making $4k a day.
disclaimer - I'm totally making up those numbers, but even running on the pessimistic side, it's easy to see why folks still spam.
No, but a simple hyperlink on Compiz to the project page or Wikipedia entry would have taken up exactly -0- more characters (articles don't include the server text that comments do) to the displayed text and saved a dozen or so key/mouseclicks involved in looking up up said word. Hyperlinking is the foundation on which the web was built, it's depressing how lost that technique has become.
Actually, I've always wondered about the validity of that argument. Doesn't the material have to actually be consumable in it's original context to constitute rebroadcasting? If I'm DLing via torrent (or most any P2P software), and sending out some random packets of whatever I'm downloading, if those packets can't be re-assembled into a (for instance) playable movie, am I still violating rebroadcasting rules? Doesn't the lack of contiguous signal (packets) constitute some form of encryption, making it illegal for the authorities to interpret without a warrant?
Good idea, in theory. In practice, the Wii fails as you need a firm and steady hand to point the Wiimote across the room well enough to click links. A firm and steady hand is not the hallmark of the elderly. If they had a Wii mouse, that'd go a long way.
I'd like to propose some alternate solution: A plugin that measures the real-estate of a given web site and if the amount of space (X)/bandwidth(Y)/audio(Z)/Browser incompatiblity(Z1) exceeds my personal preferences for X, Y, Z, and/or Z1, adds the site to a block-list. Ideally, the block-list would be distributed (along with the ratings). This would prevent folks from visiting offending sites like the author's in the first place. Bonus if the plugin stores a database of group-moderated alternate sites and pre-fills the address bar for me when I try to visit an Evil Place. This way, I never have to visit the "revenue is more important than content" sites in the first place.
Why DVI over VGA? I've seen very few DVI-only monitors and there's still plenty of VGA-only monitors being sold. In this particular application, lower cost, compatibility, and reduced size weigh more towards "better" than pixel-accurate image reproduction. The DVI connector is physically larger than VGA and I'm guessing the hardware costs are still slightly higher (just because VGA circuitry has pretty much no R&D costs left to recoup and has had 10+ years to cost-optimize the circuit).
1. Ethernet Network connectivity to allow access to the web as well as network diskspace
Say what? Network diskspace? You mean like home media sharing, amazon unbox, or adding external storage? All those are in my Series 3. As for web browsing, I think that would be a losing proposition for TiVo, the cost of beefing up the hardware, customer support and browser security wouldn't be worth the meager additional sales it would generate. Especially considering the competition in that space - Wii, personal web devices (Nokia 770), and cheap laptops.
2. Allow the users FULL control of the device (i.e. if you hit that 30sec skip button, do the 30 sec skip....)
Maybe you could expand on that - The 30 second skip "easter egg" is publicized enough to be common knowledge and AFAIK still works on the most current software.
3. Allow ability to record shows to physical media such as DVD, BluRay, or HDDVD
So the user can violate the copyright/re-broadcast rules by taking the DVD to your friends' house? The broadcasters are the dictators there, not TiVo. How about being able to easily add large amounts of external storage so you dont have to put it on a DVD? Series 3 has an ESATA port on the back that accepts up to 750gb of external storage (I dont know what that finally works out to, but I've added that to my Series 3 and have over 300 SD/HD shows stored and it's not full yet).
"works just fine" is entirely subjective. I'm guessing you've not actually used a TiVo for any length of time and then, say, a Comcast DVR. Sure, the Comcast DVR can record shows, but there's several dozen small differences in the way you do that that and pretty much anything else - change channels, find shows, expand the hardware, share media that are much more poorly (or not at all) implemented on the Comcast box that frustrate me to the point where it's no longer a pleasant experience. And lets face it, what we're talking about is a "pleasant experience", not curing cancer or making sure the train's on time. For me it was worth $400 to not have that frustration every time they sit on front of the TV.
Of my friends who have moved from DirecTV w/TiVo to cable, half purchased a new TiVo within weeks of using the cable box. The other half complain incessantly about how miserable the cable box is, but choose to spend their money elsewhere. With the introduction of this new, cheaper, HD box, they may take the plunge as well.
The reason is simple: You get the cabinet's original dimensions, artwork (side-art, bezel art, banner art, control panel art) that was half the reason you loved the game in the first place. There was nothing like scanning an arcade for your favorite game and seeing it, all lit up, ready for you to pump in a few quarters.
I think you're a bit confused here - MAME is a software arcade emulator, the only thing it has to do with a "cabinet" is I/O and a place to house things. There's nothing to stop me (technically) from building a PC, installing MAME and Double Dragon ROM images, and wiring that up to a gutted Double Dragon cabinet and having pretty much the same experience (yes, you can even wire up the coin box if you desire) as playing a DD machine with original DD arcade motherboard(s) inside.
MAME has very little to do with cabinet dimensions, artwork, lights, or coin slots.
Now, that said, having a nice Double-Dragon cabinet is pretty sweet, but so is having one cabinet that will play 4 player Gauntlet (4 stations), Gyruss (37-way stick), Tempest (spinner), Missile Command (trackball), and Time Crisis (gun). No, it wont have that totally immersive nostalgia effect, but it also wont take up the entire garage.
Mine cost me ~$2k and 12 months of labor in the end to construct (and it has all those in one cabinet). While that sounds expensive, I bet buying/refurbishing all of those machines would have come pretty close.
I'll second the comment that building the cabinet was easy (even for a neophyte like me) compared with wrestling with a front-end, especially after installing multiple emulators. Given the dynamic state of software compared to hardware (AFAIK, iPac is still the de-facto standard and haven't changed much in the last 5 years), I can see why the author would choose not to spend much time on that side of things.
Lest people think this is limited to Time Warner, Comcast has the same trouble with CableCards. As a technology, whoever's rolling it out as doing an absolute shite job of A. Training their customers (the installers/dispatchers/provisioners), and B. Adequately handling errors.
It's my experience that if any sort of bad/insufficient data comes down the pipe, the default behavior for a CableCard is to de-authorize or de-pair completely - which, BTW sends an interrupt to the Series 3 TiVo and forces it do display the Pairing status screen regardless of what channel you're watching. Combine that with (again, IME) CableCards that are not properly authorized in the first place means a lot of service calls where the user had service that went away and the installer has to go through several new cards until they find one that will work. And god help you if you have a dirty line, because they wont work for long.
What's really scary is that currently, only a few 3rd party devices (some newer HD Televisions and the TiVos) use CableCards, but the tech said Comcast is planning on rolling out their own hardware that uses them. This means that instead of 1 CableCard install per month, all installs will be CableCard based.
On a side note, I'll be rather miffed if that feature set is indeed the only difference between the Series 3 and "lite" versions, having just paid $500 for a Series 3 and not really caring about any of the "reduced" features. It'd be a shame that TiVo will have finally done something major (that was not the result of outside forces) to lose customer confidence.
I was under the impression that carbon fiber was actually renowned for being inflexible and tending to shatter, rather than deform (at least from my experience with motorcycle fairings and carbon fiber rims). Is there a less-rigid mix of CF? If so, why is it not used in racing products?
Now there will be more folks seeding the music torrents.
Nothing more came from that. (not directly)
If you want innovations, here are some off the top of my head:
space shot in handcam style - everything in BSG's external shots is Firefly derivative.
Didn't Babylon 5 do this? (I could be totally wrong there)
The wild-west space - a genre-crossing adventure with the idea that not everyone will have golly-gee technology
You should check out this old sci-fi show called Star Trek... Rarely seen. They might have had an episode or two that hinted at the disparity between low tech and high tech civilizations. I think it's creator, some Roddenberry guy, called it "Wagon Train to the stars"
Inara was wicked hot. (sorry, not a valid point, but still true)
Again, this old sci-fi series Star Trek. I hear it's on DVD now. Something about a blond yeoman.
$ zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2007
I still get the old format, even though$ zdump -v US/Pacific | grep 2007
shows the new March dates. Does that mean my machine is not updated? What do I still need do?Lets hope your script is smart enough to parse: "sentance", "8", "eight", "the last one", "eighth", "word 8", "word number eight", "the 8th word", and the several million other valid replies to that question.
Agreed - it took me several dozen seconds to figure out how to play a CD I'd inserted via WMP. Then another 60 or so to figure out how to get rid of the visualization and make it a smaller profile player.
No, the real response (and far more annoying) will be the continued growth of product placement.
Where this really pays off right now is with virtualization. For the cost of 1 & 1/2 boxes, you get the value of 8. That may not seem like a "general computing standpoint" to you, but virtualization is getting absolutely huge in the software development and server world. Besides, since when is the Mac Pro dual core a "general computing" machine? My guess is >75% of the buyers are buying them for specific heavy lifting. General folks are getting the plenty-fast dual-core iMacs for running iLife and general home chores.
Oh, and also there's female gamers, but there's apparently no money to be made there.
I'm guessing the early-adopter-tech-savvy demographic that would buy this gadget probably push the number into double-digits. Too bad. Sounds like it actually could be promising and at a decent rate, until you add the cost of a landline/VOIP service. And running a phone cable to the TV. Then we're back in the NetFlix/Blockbuster price/convenience range.
Some guy decides to list apps he likes and it gets on
From TFA: "They're not exactly my sysadmin toolbox -- more like my desktop enhancement kit."
What bad would happen if you bought a Treo and Palm went under? They don't provide the back end (IE - your phone wont go dead) and they dont produce any add-on items that aren't made (often better) by 3rd parties. Assuming they outlive the short warrantee period, I don't really see it having a negative impact. In short - buy it now!
FYI - Dell's lowest-end notebooks (B120 and B130) both have ExpressCard slots and have been shipping since before Christmas.
If you're lucky, you can send an SMS message from your phone book, but that still requirest sifting through your entire phone book to your particular entry, then one click to open a menu and another click to send the SMS.
More than one phone I've had wont let you send an SMS from the address book. You have to enter the SMS section, select Send, select Look Up Address in the address field and THEN you get to browse through your entire addressbook to find your target.
Add in another step or two to either of the above processes if your chat partner has more than one phone number attached to them.
On the flipside, all of the mobile IM solutions I've tried were no more complicated than scrolling through a list of eligible IM nicks and clicking on the one I want to chat with.
If the phone companies made SMS that easy (IE - "buddy lists"), they'd have a hell of a lot more SMS users (myself included).