All the corporate control freaks still think of consumers as sheep that need to be told what they want.
Do these two statements really belong to the same product?:
> "but the sting in the tail is that each title is really only borrowed. Thanks to Open MG protection, the content is unreadable after two months"
> "Whether the convenience of having an armful of books in a pocket-sized reader is worth forsaking building up a physical collection remains to be seen"
Yeah, I'm going to build up quite a library of books... which evaporates every 2 months.
BUZZ! WRONG. E-paper is a great new technology; But this product will be a miserable failure, and nobody at SONY will have any clue why. Perhaps they will take some lessons from the RIAA and blame poor sales on pirates and start litigating, raiding, suing, and raising prices.
Sources close to Berman and Braga say that "they are really excited about this new project. They have some really hot ideas mainly from their marketing departments. This 'prequel' will use the 'Freaky Friday' story and give it a fresh new take with the cast of the hit series 'Enterprise'." Berman is quoted as saying "there's a lot of life left in the universal story of a young hip teen switching places with an older cranky Starship Captain."
> How does it help to be self-employed? This means you work extra hours for the same pay.
I've been self-employed for over three years now. It's a lot of work, and I spend as much time selling my services as actually doing the work I enjoy. However every time I see an opportunity for an employee position it's for less money than I'm making now and usually includes a long commute.
No thanks. I'll be my own boss, make more money, and work from my home office. Yeah, sometimes I may have to work late at night when my family goes to sleep, but at lunch I go jump on the trampoline with my kids. Fair trade-off.
> Fewer complaints They are anonymous. All the information is forged. They never hear the complaints.
> far less likely that they would end up in court for spamming. Court where? in China? in Russia? Who do they send the supoena to? See above.
> they would at least try to target interested people. They would honor unsubscribes. They would put legitimate info in their header. Why? What would they gain by going to these difficult lengths? It doesn't cost them anything more to target EVERYONE. The interested people get the spam.
> None of that would make it acceptable to me, Me neither. I hate them. I hate my overflowing mailbox. But I am pointing out the realities of the situation.
> if most spammers did that, congress wouldn't be passing laws about spam, and far fewer people would complain about it. They don't care. The laws and the complaints don't affect them.
> they are forcing people to get decent spam filters Now THIS is true. Our filters are getting better, which cuts down their audience. But of course they are in this for the quick buck and their business has no happy medium with "considerate marketing". But of course their profits trickle down to hackers for hire who keep sneaking through the spam filters.
> they get a lot of complaints. No they don't. Lots of people are complaining. It's not the same thing.
> It's just that if they'd be a bit smarter, they could direct their spam to people who might actually WANT what they're spamming about, and get better results quicker.
What would be better about their results? It currently costs them nearly nothing to send millions of emails to blind lists of emails and random names at random domain names. How would spending time and effort trying to do anything sensible with that list get "better results" for a spammer?
As much as we hate it, they are behaving in the most cost-efficient way for a scumbag marketer to behave. Any extra effort expended must give better results in order to be worth it, and pissing off less people doesn't put any dollars in their pockets.
> the eye will know it's not real. Even if it's one of those 3d magic eye thingies, you'll know you're looking at a picture.
Don't be so sure, I always see people at the mall walking into the glass in front of those 3-D stereograms. They stare at the dots for a few minutes, then walk right into the glass thinking that that 3-D camel made of about 10 pixels is really a live camel in front of them.
> In fact, I've been impatient with media-playing software that forces you to deal with playlists when all you want to do is "load 'n' play one song".
YES! Thank you! That drives me nuts. I won't use Windows Media Player or Real for this very reason. Only WinAmp has a quick easy option to 'play a folder'. I don't want to "rebuild" my big playlist every time I add a new song to my collection.
(of course this is slashdot, so I've just disgusted 90% of you... 'eeeewww.. those are all Windows apps')
> "I appreciate listening to music,..., in the sequence in which the artist decided to present it," > "Temporal order is an important element of how a work unfolds dynamically over time, an important factor underlying the aesthetic effect. Random shuffle pretty much flushes that down the toilet."
I call B.S.
Most artists today throw together a bunch of random songs in no particular order KNOWING that today's audience will be listening to individual tracks in a club, on the radio, or on 'random shuffle' on their player; Or they don't put that much thought into it at all.
This is probably dating me, but the last albums I recall that had a meaningful sequence were 'Pink Floyd The Wall', and maybe 'STYX Mr. Roboto'. Any more recent examples, please?
I've found that since I got my TIVO my TV watching has declined enormously. I used to plan my schedule so that I'd be home in front of the TV for the three or so shows I liked to watch. Invariably I'd end up watching something before and after "my" shows, and start following those shows as well, even if they weren't that good. Now with TIVO, TV is not a part of my schedule anymore. I only watch TV for exactly three hours a week, and each of those hours take up 40 minutes real-time (no commercials).
The Florida Tax Revenue office is naming this new effort 'Why your business should leave Florida' and including helpful tips on moving your business to another state that doesn't do such stupid things as tax your internal computer network.
> Great. Way to give them free advertising on a very popular website.
Well, for now it's a great way to pummel their web server into submission. If only we could keep the slashdot effect working for months instead of days.
For someone who would love to catch up on all of the old best sci-fi writing, are there collections of the nominated novellas and short stories going all the way back?
> They also don't have permission to do most things that users are used to doing > for most people, convenience is more important than security.
It's not just convenience. Several of the applications I need to run won't work at all unless I am an administrator. It's wrong and stupid, but it's a fact of life on Windows: many applications don't behave properly.
> small passenger jet went offline, cruised until it ran out of fuel, then crashed? The fighter pilots scrambled to intercept it reported that the windows were misted over, hence they couldn't tell anything about the crew and passengers.
What do you think misted over those windows? I think we all know what happened. Stewardess: "oh yes" Captain: "oh yes" Stewardess: "oh yes" Captain: "oh yes" Captin and Stewardess: "OH NO!"
Slashdot Mirror
I think the odd/even versioning also applies to Star Trek movies (suck/good/suck/good...) and Beethovan symphonies (suck/good/suck/good...).
All the corporate control freaks still think of consumers as sheep that need to be told what they want.
:
Do these two statements really belong to the same product?
> "but the sting in the tail is that each title is really only borrowed. Thanks to Open MG protection, the content is unreadable after two months"
> "Whether the convenience of having an armful of books in a pocket-sized reader is worth forsaking building up a physical collection remains to be seen"
Yeah, I'm going to build up quite a library of books... which evaporates every 2 months.
BUZZ! WRONG. E-paper is a great new technology; But this product will be a miserable failure, and nobody at SONY will have any clue why. Perhaps they will take some lessons from the RIAA and blame poor sales on pirates and start litigating, raiding, suing, and raising prices.
> Just a case of needing something to do while performing boring time consuming experiments.
Well, I checked three places, so apparently I have plenty of OCD to go around.
2 of the 3 sources I checked had it the way I wrote it.
Obsess much?
Sources close to Berman and Braga say that "they are really excited about this new project. They have some really hot ideas mainly from their marketing departments. This 'prequel' will use the 'Freaky Friday' story and give it a fresh new take with the cast of the hit series 'Enterprise'." Berman is quoted as saying "there's a lot of life left in the universal story of a young hip teen switching places with an older cranky Starship Captain."
> How does it help to be self-employed? This means you work extra hours for the same pay.
I've been self-employed for over three years now. It's a lot of work, and I spend as much time selling my services as actually doing the work I enjoy. However every time I see an opportunity for an employee position it's for less money than I'm making now and usually includes a long commute.
No thanks.
I'll be my own boss, make more money, and work from my home office.
Yeah, sometimes I may have to work late at night when my family goes to sleep, but at lunch I go jump on the trampoline with my kids. Fair trade-off.
> Fewer complaints
They are anonymous. All the information is forged. They never hear the complaints.
> far less likely that they would end up in court for spamming.
Court where? in China? in Russia? Who do they send the supoena to? See above.
> they would at least try to target interested people. They would honor unsubscribes. They would put legitimate info in their header.
Why? What would they gain by going to these difficult lengths? It doesn't cost them anything more to target EVERYONE. The interested people get the spam.
> None of that would make it acceptable to me,
Me neither. I hate them. I hate my overflowing mailbox. But I am pointing out the realities of the situation.
> if most spammers did that, congress wouldn't be passing laws about spam, and far fewer people would complain about it.
They don't care. The laws and the complaints don't affect them.
> they are forcing people to get decent spam filters
Now THIS is true. Our filters are getting better, which cuts down their audience. But of course they are in this for the quick buck and their business has no happy medium with "considerate marketing". But of course their profits trickle down to hackers for hire who keep sneaking through the spam filters.
> they get a lot of complaints.
No they don't. Lots of people are complaining. It's not the same thing.
> It's just that if they'd be a bit smarter, they could direct their spam to people who might actually WANT what they're spamming about, and get better results quicker.
What would be better about their results?
It currently costs them nearly nothing to send millions of emails to blind lists of emails and random names at random domain names.
How would spending time and effort trying to do anything sensible with that list get "better results" for a spammer?
As much as we hate it, they are behaving in the most cost-efficient way for a scumbag marketer to behave. Any extra effort expended must give better results in order to be worth it, and pissing off less people doesn't put any dollars in their pockets.
> Jay Maynard's cool TRON costume
I think the real TRON would definitely wear a cup and a girdle as part of this costume.
I really didn't need to see Milton's nads.
In your experience with robots, which is the real danger, pushing or shoving?
> the eye will know it's not real. Even if it's one of those 3d magic eye thingies, you'll know you're looking at a picture.
Don't be so sure, I always see people at the mall walking into the glass in front of those 3-D stereograms. They stare at the dots for a few minutes, then walk right into the glass thinking that that 3-D camel made of about 10 pixels is really a live camel in front of them.
But you must have really really good eyesight.
> In fact, I've been impatient with media-playing software that forces you to deal with playlists when all you want to do is "load 'n' play one song".
YES! Thank you! That drives me nuts.
I won't use Windows Media Player or Real for this very reason. Only WinAmp has a quick easy option to 'play a folder'. I don't want to "rebuild" my big playlist every time I add a new song to my collection.
(of course this is slashdot, so I've just disgusted 90% of you... 'eeeewww.. those are all Windows apps')
> "I appreciate listening to music, ..., in the sequence in which the artist decided to present it,"
> "Temporal order is an important element of how a work unfolds dynamically over time, an important factor underlying the aesthetic effect. Random shuffle pretty much flushes that down the toilet."
I call B.S.
Most artists today throw together a bunch of random songs in no particular order KNOWING that today's audience will be listening to individual tracks in a club, on the radio, or on 'random shuffle' on their player; Or they don't put that much thought into it at all.
This is probably dating me, but the last albums I recall that had a meaningful sequence were 'Pink Floyd The Wall', and maybe 'STYX Mr. Roboto'. Any more recent examples, please?
I've found that since I got my TIVO my TV watching has declined enormously. I used to plan my schedule so that I'd be home in front of the TV for the three or so shows I liked to watch. Invariably I'd end up watching something before and after "my" shows, and start following those shows as well, even if they weren't that good.
Now with TIVO, TV is not a part of my schedule anymore. I only watch TV for exactly three hours a week, and each of those hours take up 40 minutes real-time (no commercials).
The Florida Tax Revenue office is naming this new effort 'Why your business should leave Florida' and including helpful tips on moving your business to another state that doesn't do such stupid things as tax your internal computer network.
> cool. that will be the end of mid east wars.
and the start of "the porcelain wars"...
That sounds like there will be some dirty fighting...
> Great. Way to give them free advertising on a very popular website.
Well, for now it's a great way to pummel their web server into submission.
If only we could keep the slashdot effect working for months instead of days.
Who is 'Reverand Pitched'?
Why does Iomega have a reverand for a spokesman?
For someone who would love to catch up on all of the old best sci-fi writing, are there collections of the nominated novellas and short stories going all the way back?
Run, Forest, run...
> PlayFair has been removed from SourceForge.net.
Oh good, should I order my T-shirts now?
> eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaa
Um.... Syndey is that way. But what does that have to do with maglev trains?
> They also don't have permission to do most things that users are used to doing
> for most people, convenience is more important than security.
It's not just convenience. Several of the applications I need to run won't work at all unless I am an administrator. It's wrong and stupid, but it's a fact of life on Windows: many applications don't behave properly.
Maybe it went more like this:
Captain: 'oh yes'
Stewardess: 'oh yes'
Captain: 'oh yes'
Stewardess: 'oh yes'
Stewardess: 'oh yes'
Stewardess: 'oh yes'
Stewardess: 'Captain?'
Stewardess: 'oh oh...'
> small passenger jet went offline, cruised until it ran out of fuel, then crashed? The fighter pilots scrambled to intercept it reported that the windows were misted over, hence they couldn't tell anything about the crew and passengers.
What do you think misted over those windows?
I think we all know what happened.
Stewardess: "oh yes"
Captain: "oh yes"
Stewardess: "oh yes"
Captain: "oh yes"
Captin and Stewardess: "OH NO!"