...it's easy to see why: in these paranoid times, with the NSA allegedly sniffing around the world's collective inbox, and lots of software on the market designed to snoop into people's lives, it's comforting to have an app that'll vaporize your messages within seconds of their opening
So, Snapchat's wild success is from people paranoid of the NSA who use it to send messages, even though multiplestories have appeared about how Snapchat messages can be saved without the sender's knowledge, and Snapchat's own website lists conditions under which messages will be preserved. Riiiiight.
...it doesn't store user information on its servers
Even assuming it doesn't store images (which it does, see above), to use the application, you connect with people as in any other social networking application. This is definitely "user information," and this metadata (some might even call it data) has value.
So, what do people think. Are one time notifications regarding common mistakes acceptable?
Notifications from a calculator app? No, I wouldn't find them acceptable, ever. Why not just pop up a "Did you know?" screen when they start up the app? Limit it to once a day, and be sure to include a "Don't show me these tips anymore" button. They've started the application, therefore they're more likely to pay attention to what you're saying than if you broadside them with a notification.
There are plenty of software documentation sets, tutorials, etc, like this one (selected at random), that have Step 0, Step 1, etc. I think it's an attempt to be clever, in that offsets start with zero, and this is documentation about computer stuff, being read by developers. But items in a list, intended to be read by humans, shouldn't be represented by offsets, but numbered with counting numbers, that is, starting at 1.
I've never understood the whole "Your download will start in n seconds" countdown, followed by an automatic download (hopefully). Is there a reason they do that instead of simply giving you a link to the file? To be fair, this behavior isn't recent; it's done that for years.
Not open source? The source is available for download here.
You can't compile it yourself. You have no idea what is in the source.
You certainly can compile it yourself; I built it on my old Linux iBook G4 (PowerPC), since there were no binaries available for that platform. As has been discussed above, it does have a weird license, but it is absolutely open source.
I don't understand the expression of surprise in the first part of the summary. The "cafes" referred to are set up specifically to skirt the state gambling laws by taking advantage of the "sweepstakes" loophole. They make it appear that you're playing video poker, roulette, etc. but you're really just revealing your sweepstakes winnings, which were predetermined when you bought into the game. Bloomberg Businessweek had an interesting article on these things a few years ago.
... rather than at conventional Internet cafes.
I'm not sure what "conventional Internet cafes" refers to. The idea of the "Internet cafe" as a place where people go to buy time on the Internet died shortly after it was born in the late 90's. You can still go to Starbucks, Panera, etc. and use the Internet there; this bill isn't aimed at that.
This is not a big deal.
Indeed, judging from the introduction, it appears to be a questioning of the pre-canned "solutionism" that the author perceives to be prevalent in today's Internet environment. Apparently, the "review" presented here is based on a single chapter or section of the actual book, and even then, it appears to be more a exhaustive listing of the reviewer's opinion of various websites than any kind of review or critique of the book.
On the C-64 version of Ultima IV, you could flip the floppy disc upside down and then move your character until the next portion of the map was loaded. It read data directly off the disc with no validation, because the map squares then had all kinds of random items on them, a good number of which were treasure chests. As soon as you got enough gold, you just flipped the disc back over and played normally.
Almost the same: Slackware (floppies) -> RedHat -> Gentoo -> Xubuntu
And my reasons for moving:
Slackware -> RedHat: RedHat worked out-of-the-box at the time I needed it; no manual Modeline configurations needed to get X running.
RedHat -> Gentoo: I needed the flexibility of Gentoo to run on multiple architectures (SPARC, PowerPC)
Gentoo -> Xubuntu: Eventually, I got tired of having to manage every detail of the software configuration, not to mention waiting for compiles to complete. I just wanted to get stuff done.
Just about anyone at an airport or hotel, for starters. And what's wrong with that? Shouldn't I be able to expect that to work, without compromising my accounts?
Yes, they will burn in. I was in Borders recently and looked at one of the Sony demo units. The "home page" of the demo was imprinted on the screen, and was faintly visible when turning the page, or wherever there was significant whitespace.
Why don't phones show you, in a clear, unambiguous area on the display (not buried 6 menus deep) exactly how much you will owe on your next bill? Or in the case of prepaid plans, how much is left on the plan? Most companies have a service where you can send a text to a certain number, which you have to remember (and pay for). So, they seem technically able to figure this number out in realtime. Why not show it to you by default?
Now that technology has made it "easy" to resell used books, we finally hear complaints. Just like when technology made it "easy" to exchange music, which was done previously (remember cassette tapes?) but on a much smaller scale.
Thankfully we won't see watermarks placed on books, but I worry that now, in the guise of "protecting authors," there will be some new legislation to "crack down" on used book sales.
A company can only be expected to support a prior version for so long. We develop vertical market apps, and support a single major revision back.
But what I'd also like to see is older versions being made free (as in beer) after a specfied time. DOS 6.0 and Win 3.11, old Amiga games, whatever. Since there's no real potential for those to ever make a profit again, why not help the handful of people who may still be able to make some use of them?
I had an imported music CD (Scriabin Preludes) get corroded by something; this looks like a likely explanation. It was a "gold" CD, at least in color. I have no idea if it was really gold. The "hole" was not at the edge, but near the center. There was about 1/16" of green around the hole, and the whole was about 1/4" in diameter.
Slashdot Mirror
Presumably #IoT = Internet of Things. But #I guess we're #supposed to invent #clever #hashtags for everything #now.
Oh look, it's this thread again.
So, Snapchat's wild success is from people paranoid of the NSA who use it to send messages, even though multiple stories have appeared about how Snapchat messages can be saved without the sender's knowledge, and Snapchat's own website lists conditions under which messages will be preserved. Riiiiight.
Even assuming it doesn't store images (which it does, see above), to use the application, you connect with people as in any other social networking application. This is definitely "user information," and this metadata (some might even call it data) has value.
So, what do people think. Are one time notifications regarding common mistakes acceptable?
Notifications from a calculator app? No, I wouldn't find them acceptable, ever. Why not just pop up a "Did you know?" screen when they start up the app? Limit it to once a day, and be sure to include a "Don't show me these tips anymore" button. They've started the application, therefore they're more likely to pay attention to what you're saying than if you broadside them with a notification.
There are plenty of software documentation sets, tutorials, etc, like this one (selected at random), that have Step 0, Step 1, etc. I think it's an attempt to be clever, in that offsets start with zero, and this is documentation about computer stuff, being read by developers. But items in a list, intended to be read by humans, shouldn't be represented by offsets, but numbered with counting numbers, that is, starting at 1.
I've never understood the whole "Your download will start in n seconds" countdown, followed by an automatic download (hopefully). Is there a reason they do that instead of simply giving you a link to the file? To be fair, this behavior isn't recent; it's done that for years.
It's not open source.
Not open source? The source is available for download here.
You can't compile it yourself. You have no idea what is in the source.
You certainly can compile it yourself; I built it on my old Linux iBook G4 (PowerPC), since there were no binaries available for that platform. As has been discussed above, it does have a weird license, but it is absolutely open source.
I'm not sure what "conventional Internet cafes" refers to. The idea of the "Internet cafe" as a place where people go to buy time on the Internet died shortly after it was born in the late 90's. You can still go to Starbucks, Panera, etc. and use the Internet there; this bill isn't aimed at that. This is not a big deal.
Indeed, judging from the introduction, it appears to be a questioning of the pre-canned "solutionism" that the author perceives to be prevalent in today's Internet environment. Apparently, the "review" presented here is based on a single chapter or section of the actual book, and even then, it appears to be more a exhaustive listing of the reviewer's opinion of various websites than any kind of review or critique of the book.
On the C-64 version of Ultima IV, you could flip the floppy disc upside down and then move your character until the next portion of the map was loaded. It read data directly off the disc with no validation, because the map squares then had all kinds of random items on them, a good number of which were treasure chests. As soon as you got enough gold, you just flipped the disc back over and played normally.
Meant to mod this "funny"... posting to undo bad mod.
Almost the same: Slackware (floppies) -> RedHat -> Gentoo -> Xubuntu
And my reasons for moving:
Here's a link to the actual comparison, instead of a blog describing the comparison: http://www.imore.com/iphone-5-vs-iphone-4s-camera
It's already been done. Check out: http://www.bbspot.com/toys/slashtitle/
Just about anyone at an airport or hotel, for starters. And what's wrong with that? Shouldn't I be able to expect that to work, without compromising my accounts?
I prefer to use "lengthened" URLs: http://hugeurl.com/.
The next time I'm in a restaurant and I see someone at another table with broccoli, I'm going to turn beat red
That's beet red. Or do you have something against beets, too?
Yes, they will burn in. I was in Borders recently and looked at one of the Sony demo units. The "home page" of the demo was imprinted on the screen, and was faintly visible when turning the page, or wherever there was significant whitespace.
Not only that, but it's the first volume of four? It sounds interesting but that fact, combined with the review, puts me off a little.
MinTTY works great. All the benefits of xterm (including window resizing), without needing to start the X server.
The MAC presented via wifi isn't necessarily the same one your ISP sees.
Why don't phones show you, in a clear, unambiguous area on the display (not buried 6 menus deep) exactly how much you will owe on your next bill? Or in the case of prepaid plans, how much is left on the plan? Most companies have a service where you can send a text to a certain number, which you have to remember (and pay for). So, they seem technically able to figure this number out in realtime. Why not show it to you by default?
Now that technology has made it "easy" to resell used books, we finally hear complaints. Just like when technology made it "easy" to exchange music, which was done previously (remember cassette tapes?) but on a much smaller scale.
Thankfully we won't see watermarks placed on books, but I worry that now, in the guise of "protecting authors," there will be some new legislation to "crack down" on used book sales.
A company can only be expected to support a prior version for so long. We develop vertical market apps, and support a single major revision back.
But what I'd also like to see is older versions being made free (as in beer) after a specfied time. DOS 6.0 and Win 3.11, old Amiga games, whatever. Since there's no real potential for those to ever make a profit again, why not help the handful of people who may still be able to make some use of them?
I had an imported music CD (Scriabin Preludes) get corroded by something; this looks like a likely explanation. It was a "gold" CD, at least in color. I have no idea if it was really gold. The "hole" was not at the edge, but near the center. There was about 1/16" of green around the hole, and the whole was about 1/4" in diameter.