Everyone still gets a bit of junk snail mail, sure. But for every 1 piece of junk snail mail, there are tens or hundreds of pieces of legitimate mail. Direct mailing has significant costs (especially when you're talking about blasting tens of thousands of pieces around) that prevent it from being very cost-effective. This is A Good Thing, as it keeps the amount of junk snail mail very low.
Meanwhile, with email, it's the exact opposite. Mail is so cheap to send that spammers can afford to blast millions of messages out with little worry of losing money. So whereas snail mail might have a 10:1 or 100:1 snail mail:junk mail ration, email looks more like 1:10 or 1:100.
As for the particular scheme, I don't know if it would work or not. I do know that making it cost more to send mail may well be the best solution to the problem of spam, as it will greatly increase the costs of sending mail, without (necessarily) affecting most average users. Everyone wants free email, and everyone wants no spam, but it's starting to look like the two may be mutually exclusive. Email can still be cheap, however, and I'd rather pay a couple bucks a month to get rid of spam.
I have to believe a lot of/.ers use woot.com. If so, you should be familiar with the Leakfrog, a small plastic frog that sounds an alarm when it gets water. Basically, it watches for leaks, then blares if one occurs.
Obviously, you'd need more than this, like a neighbor to be checking every couple days, or an internet connection to the house, but it's certainly a part of a solution.
As someone else who lived in Buffalo for many years, I have a different word. It's not snow (though people who downplay that are delusional), and while jobs are an issue, it's not jobs. No, that word is "gray" (or "grey", if you prefer). It is so disgustingly GRAY in Buffalo, for far too many days and months of the year. So why Phoenix and not Buffalo? Because people like color.
Really? This failed? When was it ever supposed to take off? But ok, let's assume this was The Next Big Thing a while back.
While a scant few players do support lossless compression formats (mostly FLAC), lossless formats are generally unavailable for portable players.
Again, really? Every new iPod (save the Shuffle) supports Apple Lossless and AIFF/WAV. Every iPod ever made supports AIFF/WAV. Maybe I'm missing something here, but when, I dunno, 75% or more the portable media players out there (that is, iPods) support lossless, it's tough to say "scant few".
Now, maybe he's talking about the iTunes Music Store, which sells only compressed AAC files. There's an argument to be made there, but it's not the argument he's making.
As the storage capacity of these players increases, the designers seem to think you want to watch tiny video, rather than listen to clean, pristine, losslessly compressed music. So we get ten gazillion songs in 128KB format, rather than a few hundred encoded with lossless compression.
Yeah, and with how poorly the iPod sells, it's clear that these "designers" are idiots. Or maybe this one writer is making his own personal interest into a much bigger story than it is. No, no, that can't be it - Apple is doomed!
Thank you! I'm glad someone else has realized the utter stupidity of this. A couple replies say "Well, ok, but don't put too much text under it". Realize that people read at different speeds, and I know I don't tend to focus on one page for too long. So, if I load a slideshow, then glance away, suddenly it's on page two.
Think of it this way - in the absolutely (nearly impossible) best case, this will require no user interaction. In the much more likely cases, it will either require me to hit Forward to avoid waiting for it to reload (one click per new page), or click Back when it forwards to quickly, and then Forward to move back up (2 clicks per page). You may also wish to click Stop a few times, to pause it, so that's probably 3-5 more clicks total. Meanwhile, not having ANY sort of automated forwarding is, that's right, one click per page. So if this were timed perfectly, it would be more efficient. Because it won't be, it's going to result in a minimum of the same number of clicks, and probably more, than if they didn't have any automatic handling. Any reasonable programmer would simply not implement such a stupid "feature".
"And there's serious money to be had. Mr. Potato Head, made in 1952 by Hasbro's Playskool unit, was the first toy advertised on television, and it grossed more than $4 million in its first year (that's $30 billion in 2005 dollars)"
Uh, I don't think so. If my math is right (or at least, better than their editing), that would mean 1 1952 dollar is 7500 2005 dollars. Does that sound right to anyone? It would also (again, if the math is right) mean the US had 120% inflation for the last fifty years.
If you check this article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10394551/
you'll see the problem. That guy is clearly playing Solitaire. You never realized how dangerous that was, did you?
Of course no one wants to have charge their phones as often as they formerly did. You know what happened? We got better all around technology, and now phones don't need to be charged as much. Don't you think it just -might- be possible that will continue? I do.
As for divergence, you're absolutely right. That's why I have a digital calendar device, a calculator, an electronic dictionary, an electronic notepad, an...wait a minute, those are all on my Palm Pilot. One device can have multiple functions and still be great.
I can't imagine you're really that thick. "Against their own interests"? Maybe in the short-term, yeah. But if 20% of clicks are fraudulent right now, and they sit on their hands, that number will certainly go up. This might hurt profits in the short-term, but a long-term improvement to AdSense helps Google by encouraging more and more advertisers to use the program.
Maybe it's just me, but when I see the words "revolutionary" and "Brazil" (or any South American country), I picture something with a lot more bloodshed.
Perhaps the gears of the motors used to make the thing rotate are at least oiled by the blood of the proletariat?
TBS used to do this (running shows from 12:05 to 12:35), but at some point, they stopped (I've no idea when, but I noticed it one day). It was annoying, and I can't imagine it was worth it. This won't be either.
First of all, this is amazingly old news. Stop & Shop has had these in at least 3 stores for over a year now, though the larger roll-out is new.
Beyond that, I see a lot of "Why bother? What a waste!" comments. Maybe you should actually give it a try first, if possible. It's certainly interesting, and it might even be helpful for at least some shoppers - I used it and enjoyed it, though I didn't go back to use it again (out of the way). As for it being wasteful, I can think of MANY more wasteful uses of technology than this - having my supermarket remind me that I'm probably low on milk isn't the worst thing in the world, and having my shopping cart tell me when I'm near (within about 10 feet) the bread that's on sale that I wanted it to remind me about is great. It's also great for weird or hard-to-find items.
You can read about my personal experience with the Shopping Buddy here.
I've filled out forms for at least 5 of those, and never once have I given real information. It's not as if that's checked stringently, or at all. They issue the card right there after you hand them the paper work.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again (hey, if we're gonna have reposts of articles, why not of comments?)
On the site, in the Design Explorations area, you'll find these Nike golf tees. They look cool, and maybe they even have some good ideas (though if the ground is too frozen to drive a tee in, maybe it's not yet golf-season). But the quote about the "Mojo" tee is just frickin' priceless:
"'The Mojo' tee has a liquid center brewed from turf from Scotland, sand from Pebble Beach, tears from the Nike Goddess and sweat from Tiger Woods."
I dunno how many people wind up reading the actual articles (I don't always), but I think it's clear not everyone here did, or there would be a lot more comments on this:
What, for instance, does he mean by "the skill"? All but the most primal sports demand multiple skills, some physical, some not. Maybe one should take 2) to mean "at least one of the skills relevant to the game is physical." In that case, chess boxing, in which competitors engage in pugilism and speed chess in alternate rounds, makes the cut.
Chess...BOXING! That is absolutely the best thing I have heard all day. Check it out at www.wcbo.org.
Is chessboxing a sport? You decide.
Elsewhere on the site in the Design Explorations area, you'll find these Nike golf tees. They look cool, and maybe they even have some good ideas (though if the ground is too frozen to drive a tee in, maybe it's not yet golf-season). But the quote about the "Mojo" tee is just frickin' priceless:
"'The Mojo' tee has a liquid center brewed from turf from Scotland, sand from Pebble Beach, tears from the Nike Goddess and sweat from Tiger Woods."
I usually enjoy Cringley's columns, but this one annoyed me to the point of posting a response to each of his "predictions". For the most part, they're so incredibly vague as to be worthless.
1) It will happen late in the year, but Microsoft will make a bold run for video game leadership...
Didn't Microsoft already do this, with the XBox? And let's just say MS decides to -announce- the next console - can we have some predicted specs? No? Then all this prediction says is "Microsoft will announce their next console." Fine, this one actually has a bit of substance, actually puts Cringley in the position of being distinctly right or wrong. Of course, the XBox is now almost 2 years old (launched in Nov of 2001), so it's not unreasonable to assume the announcement of a new console, particularly given how early the XBox itself was announced.
2) We still won't see a big example of cyber-terrorism simply because nobody has figured out how to actually kill people that way...
This seems like fluff to me. Did anyone ever predict "cyber-terrorism"? I know it's not something I'm worried about. If al qaeda (or whoever) stop my email for a week, hey, that's less work for me. It doesn't inspire terror. In fact, little that could be done online has the potential to cause terror, save for the goatse.cx man, and possibly this.
To paraphrase, "I was right last year, so let me try again this year." Watch, I can do it too, with a high probability of success - "We again won't see the launch of nuclear weapons". And hey, if I'm wrong, you probably won't be able to hold me to it anyway.
3) Despite new anti-spam laws, we'll still be plagued with unsolicited commercial messages, especially using Internet Messaging protocols.
Oh my god, what a bold prediction! Surely this Cringley is possessed of a preternatural ability for soothsaying. Spam will still be a problem! Perhaps I can pay this man for tomorrow's lottery numbers, or for a Super Bowl pick. Then it's off to the bookie...
Sorry, my sarcasm got the best of me. To be fair, he does predict possible new email protocols, but he doesn't address whether they will be accepted, or even considered.
4) Continuing the security theme, look for lots of software companies to abandon support for old products and platforms.
Microsoft JUST announced they were dropping Windows 98 support. And companies do this all the time. Is he predicting a rise in this type of decision?
"Companies will abandon old products to get you to upgrade." Once again I am shocked!
5) The SCO debacle has created a crisis within the Linux community. They pretend that it hasn't, but it has.
This one has everyone here talking, but what does it really say? Linux will either continue to grow or start to die in 2004. Well, I mean, yeah. Obviously. Linux has BEEN growing for years now, so if it continues to grow, well look, he was right. Oh, and if in 5, 10 years, it's dead? Well, look, he was probably right, it probably started in 2004, or at least it may have. This is a non-prediction. Something will happen, or it won't. All this rules out is Linux stagnating, and who can judge that? What are the odds that every flavor of Linux will stop making major updates, but continue to make minor updates (and thus, not grow, but not die?).
6) As for SCO, they'll continue to make noise until the middle of the year, at which point the legal case will implode and the company will give up...
SCO will finally crumble under the weight of their legal lies, you say? I'm sure I speak for much of the Slashdot community, and Cringely's largely geek audience in general, when I say "Yes, we know".
7) 2004 will be a crucial year for streaming media... At first, this doesn't sound like much of a prediction. Then, he says MS will settle, which
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone still gets a bit of junk snail mail, sure. But for every 1 piece of junk snail mail, there are tens or hundreds of pieces of legitimate mail. Direct mailing has significant costs (especially when you're talking about blasting tens of thousands of pieces around) that prevent it from being very cost-effective. This is A Good Thing, as it keeps the amount of junk snail mail very low.
Meanwhile, with email, it's the exact opposite. Mail is so cheap to send that spammers can afford to blast millions of messages out with little worry of losing money. So whereas snail mail might have a 10:1 or 100:1 snail mail:junk mail ration, email looks more like 1:10 or 1:100.
As for the particular scheme, I don't know if it would work or not. I do know that making it cost more to send mail may well be the best solution to the problem of spam, as it will greatly increase the costs of sending mail, without (necessarily) affecting most average users. Everyone wants free email, and everyone wants no spam, but it's starting to look like the two may be mutually exclusive. Email can still be cheap, however, and I'd rather pay a couple bucks a month to get rid of spam.
We of course mean 2 days ago. Slashdot, you have gotten oh so slow.
I have to believe a lot of /.ers use woot.com. If so, you should be familiar with the Leakfrog, a small plastic frog that sounds an alarm when it gets water. Basically, it watches for leaks, then blares if one occurs.
f rog_water_alarm
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/ideative_leak
http://www.ideativeinc.com/leakfrog.cfm
Obviously, you'd need more than this, like a neighbor to be checking every couple days, or an internet connection to the house, but it's certainly a part of a solution.
Maybe I can see hell.com having some value (a million bucks is absurd, but whatever). But Iran.com? What possible use could that have?
Of course, when the country's bombed out of existence, I guess the domain will be all that's left. Sigh...
Here's a depressing comparison, showing the rules surrounding slot machines in Vegas vs. voting machines:
Vegas vs. Electronic Voting Machines
As someone else who lived in Buffalo for many years, I have a different word. It's not snow (though people who downplay that are delusional), and while jobs are an issue, it's not jobs. No, that word is "gray" (or "grey", if you prefer). It is so disgustingly GRAY in Buffalo, for far too many days and months of the year. So why Phoenix and not Buffalo? Because people like color.
Really? This failed? When was it ever supposed to take off? But ok, let's assume this was The Next Big Thing a while back. Again, really? Every new iPod (save the Shuffle) supports Apple Lossless and AIFF/WAV. Every iPod ever made supports AIFF/WAV. Maybe I'm missing something here, but when, I dunno, 75% or more the portable media players out there (that is, iPods) support lossless, it's tough to say "scant few".
Now, maybe he's talking about the iTunes Music Store, which sells only compressed AAC files. There's an argument to be made there, but it's not the argument he's making. Yeah, and with how poorly the iPod sells, it's clear that these "designers" are idiots. Or maybe this one writer is making his own personal interest into a much bigger story than it is. No, no, that can't be it - Apple is doomed!
Well, it was perhaps poorly worded, but that was 120% inflation on average, per year, for the last 53 years.
Thank you! I'm glad someone else has realized the utter stupidity of this. A couple replies say "Well, ok, but don't put too much text under it". Realize that people read at different speeds, and I know I don't tend to focus on one page for too long. So, if I load a slideshow, then glance away, suddenly it's on page two.
Think of it this way - in the absolutely (nearly impossible) best case, this will require no user interaction. In the much more likely cases, it will either require me to hit Forward to avoid waiting for it to reload (one click per new page), or click Back when it forwards to quickly, and then Forward to move back up (2 clicks per page). You may also wish to click Stop a few times, to pause it, so that's probably 3-5 more clicks total. Meanwhile, not having ANY sort of automated forwarding is, that's right, one click per page. So if this were timed perfectly, it would be more efficient. Because it won't be, it's going to result in a minimum of the same number of clicks, and probably more, than if they didn't have any automatic handling. Any reasonable programmer would simply not implement such a stupid "feature".
Clearly, I've thought about this too much.
"And there's serious money to be had. Mr. Potato Head, made in 1952 by Hasbro's Playskool unit, was the first toy advertised on television, and it grossed more than $4 million in its first year (that's $30 billion in 2005 dollars)"
Uh, I don't think so. If my math is right (or at least, better than their editing), that would mean 1 1952 dollar is 7500 2005 dollars. Does that sound right to anyone? It would also (again, if the math is right) mean the US had 120% inflation for the last fifty years.
If you check this article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10394551/ you'll see the problem. That guy is clearly playing Solitaire. You never realized how dangerous that was, did you?
Google Fight! ...And we have a winner.
Of course no one wants to have charge their phones as often as they formerly did. You know what happened? We got better all around technology, and now phones don't need to be charged as much. Don't you think it just -might- be possible that will continue? I do.
As for divergence, you're absolutely right. That's why I have a digital calendar device, a calculator, an electronic dictionary, an electronic notepad, an...wait a minute, those are all on my Palm Pilot. One device can have multiple functions and still be great.
"the dot"? That's not even a good nickname, it's a full 5 characters (counting the space) longer than "/.".
I can't imagine you're really that thick. "Against their own interests"? Maybe in the short-term, yeah. But if 20% of clicks are fraudulent right now, and they sit on their hands, that number will certainly go up. This might hurt profits in the short-term, but a long-term improvement to AdSense helps Google by encouraging more and more advertisers to use the program.
Oh come on! Flamebait? Who's moderating this, Brazilians? It was a joke, people. Feh.
Maybe it's just me, but when I see the words "revolutionary" and "Brazil" (or any South American country), I picture something with a lot more bloodshed.
Perhaps the gears of the motors used to make the thing rotate are at least oiled by the blood of the proletariat?
TBS used to do this (running shows from 12:05 to 12:35), but at some point, they stopped (I've no idea when, but I noticed it one day). It was annoying, and I can't imagine it was worth it. This won't be either.
First of all, this is amazingly old news. Stop & Shop has had these in at least 3 stores for over a year now, though the larger roll-out is new.
Beyond that, I see a lot of "Why bother? What a waste!" comments. Maybe you should actually give it a try first, if possible. It's certainly interesting, and it might even be helpful for at least some shoppers - I used it and enjoyed it, though I didn't go back to use it again (out of the way). As for it being wasteful, I can think of MANY more wasteful uses of technology than this - having my supermarket remind me that I'm probably low on milk isn't the worst thing in the world, and having my shopping cart tell me when I'm near (within about 10 feet) the bread that's on sale that I wanted it to remind me about is great. It's also great for weird or hard-to-find items.
You can read about my personal experience with the Shopping Buddy here.
I've filled out forms for at least 5 of those, and never once have I given real information. It's not as if that's checked stringently, or at all. They issue the card right there after you hand them the paper work.
On the site, in the Design Explorations area, you'll find these Nike golf tees. They look cool, and maybe they even have some good ideas (though if the ground is too frozen to drive a tee in, maybe it's not yet golf-season). But the quote about the "Mojo" tee is just frickin' priceless:
"'The Mojo' tee has a liquid center brewed from turf from Scotland, sand from Pebble Beach, tears from the Nike Goddess and sweat from Tiger Woods."
Yeah...
...would have been "I, Librarian".
I know, I know, *Groooooan*. Fine, that wasn't very funny.
But then, neither is the fact that these will be the main characters in future librarian-based sexual fantasies. Frightening...
I usually enjoy Cringley's columns, but this one annoyed me to the point of posting a response to each of his "predictions". For the most part, they're so incredibly vague as to be worthless.
1) It will happen late in the year, but Microsoft will make a bold run for video game leadership...
Didn't Microsoft already do this, with the XBox? And let's just say MS decides to -announce- the next console - can we have some predicted specs? No? Then all this prediction says is "Microsoft will announce their next console." Fine, this one actually has a bit of substance, actually puts Cringley in the position of being distinctly right or wrong. Of course, the XBox is now almost 2 years old (launched in Nov of 2001), so it's not unreasonable to assume the announcement of a new console, particularly given how early the XBox itself was announced.
2) We still won't see a big example of cyber-terrorism simply because nobody has figured out how to actually kill people that way...
This seems like fluff to me. Did anyone ever predict "cyber-terrorism"? I know it's not something I'm worried about. If al qaeda (or whoever) stop my email for a week, hey, that's less work for me. It doesn't inspire terror. In fact, little that could be done online has the potential to cause terror, save for the goatse.cx man, and possibly this.
To paraphrase, "I was right last year, so let me try again this year." Watch, I can do it too, with a high probability of success - "We again won't see the launch of nuclear weapons". And hey, if I'm wrong, you probably won't be able to hold me to it anyway.
3) Despite new anti-spam laws, we'll still be plagued with unsolicited commercial messages, especially using Internet Messaging protocols.
Oh my god, what a bold prediction! Surely this Cringley is possessed of a preternatural ability for soothsaying. Spam will still be a problem! Perhaps I can pay this man for tomorrow's lottery numbers, or for a Super Bowl pick. Then it's off to the bookie...
Sorry, my sarcasm got the best of me. To be fair, he does predict possible new email protocols, but he doesn't address whether they will be accepted, or even considered.
4) Continuing the security theme, look for lots of software companies to abandon support for old products and platforms.
Microsoft JUST announced they were dropping Windows 98 support. And companies do this all the time. Is he predicting a rise in this type of decision?
"Companies will abandon old products to get you to upgrade." Once again I am shocked!
5) The SCO debacle has created a crisis within the Linux community. They pretend that it hasn't, but it has.
This one has everyone here talking, but what does it really say? Linux will either continue to grow or start to die in 2004. Well, I mean, yeah. Obviously. Linux has BEEN growing for years now, so if it continues to grow, well look, he was right. Oh, and if in 5, 10 years, it's dead? Well, look, he was probably right, it probably started in 2004, or at least it may have. This is a non-prediction. Something will happen, or it won't. All this rules out is Linux stagnating, and who can judge that? What are the odds that every flavor of Linux will stop making major updates, but continue to make minor updates (and thus, not grow, but not die?).
6) As for SCO, they'll continue to make noise until the middle of the year, at which point the legal case will implode and the company will give up...
SCO will finally crumble under the weight of their legal lies, you say? I'm sure I speak for much of the Slashdot community, and Cringely's largely geek audience in general, when I say "Yes, we know".
7) 2004 will be a crucial year for streaming media... At first, this doesn't sound like much of a prediction. Then, he says MS will settle, which