Disclaimer: I haven not tried hard nor received my free ipod...
But...
Several friends of mine have... Some have even gotten free flat panel monitors, and even a free Dell Dimension 4000 system... Apparently, it helps to have a popular website to promote it... But the truth of the matter is that SOME of these free offers do exist... Wired has published stories with mixed results...
Also, since signing up, I haven't noticed *any* increase in snail mail spam... I did not give out my real phone number, and no credit card is necessary. My throwaway gmail account has only 8 messages in it (and only 2 may be related...) so who knows... I am a believer for the time being....
Anyone remember this toy? It was a guy you could tear off his arms, then put in a "chamber" with some goo (slime stuff) and it would make his arms stick back on (regenerate)?
He looked reptilian maybe? And he might have been a spinoff of he-man.
I'd love to find a pic of it, or atleast the name.
(This is an ongoing discussion at www.clinko.com currently... PLEASE help... we have just about given up!!!!)
Yahoo was not at yahoo.stanford.edu, it was at akebono.stanford.edu. At the time, it was hosted by an educational institution. This is not a permanant solution. Banner ads are necessary (yet probably not sufficient) to maintain the content of the Internet as we know it. The sheer magnitude of the internet a-la 1994 was probably 1/1000000th of that which is availiable today. Try supporting that without commercial support... It ain't gonna happen...
I suppose this would be better suited for an "ask slashdot" question, but *how* do you roll out the patches? There are several solutions out there, involving central local server dedicated to the job and using Norton Ghost among others.... How do you do it?
Screw microsoft stock... I'd just tell my 12yr old self who won the major sporting events for the following few years... Money would compound exponentially... Oh.. possibly throw out the idea of patenting anything and everything related to "one click"...
I can't believe this....
on
High Score
·
· Score: 2
They actually converted this to PC/PS2! The review is here... What were they thinking??? Let's do an arcade -> home port of a novelty hologram game... but without the holograms.... I suppose 3 or 4 people will buy it:)
Automation routines such as these will not eliminate the roll of the SysAdmin, nor will the same number of SysAdmins be needed if these routines take off...
What will actually happen is that the jobs of SysAdmins would become simpler, resulting in the need for fewer high-level administrators... Sure, we will still need to exist to fix the simple problems of saving files, cleaning mice, etc... but IF administration is simplified, THEN the manpower required to administer will be reduced....
This is another case of an article(or even headline) making an extreme statement, then Slashdotters saying "oh no, this will never happen, the exact opposite must be true because we can give examples where the extreme statement mentioned in the headline is not true!"
There *can exist* a middleground!
Sneak preview of upcoming Googlage
on
Google Does the News
·
· Score: 5, Informative
It has been mentioned that Google has covered news stories for quite some time. The best place to get info on Google's current projects is Google Labs...
SVCD/Divx Pro is better quality, yes, but when played back on a television, there is very little noticible difference, and the formats you mentioned are not so easily playable on nearly any DVD player. AIW Radeon 7500 has hardware MPEG2 encoder and free TIVO-style programming guide, which are the only two reasons I chose this over an older AIW board...
Step 1. Buy All In Wonder Radeon 7500 for $150 retail...
Step 2. Record TV shows using point and click interface in VCD format...
Step 3. Use software that came with CD-R drive to burn VCD's of your favorite movies and TV shows... (74 min per CD and playable in nearly any DVD player!
This is a cheap and effective alternative to TIVO of any sort considering that you probably already have a CD-R drive, and the AIW card is relatively inexpensive... Also, you can store 1000 hours of programming for far less than a single 320 GB drive will cost *when* it becomes availiable. As an added bonus, the VCD's that you burn are very portable and can easily be taken to friends' houses as well as stored for years to come...
There was a MUD (multi user dimension) that was adventure based... and contained a room with a foul mouthed priest that preformed fairly basic AI responses... When you confessed to him, he would give such responses as "screw absolution, we're all goin' to hell anyway! stop wasting your time talkin to me..."
As I recall, in this MUD you could create your own objects including characters, and for characters, you could have them respond to certain keywords... Hmm.. this sounds very familiar...
"It" or "Ginger." Then I would invite a book publisher to get a sneak peak behind the scenes, documenting the release process in great detail... Included in this release process would be sharing my secret with important people such as the head of Apple computers... then, upon release... In order to insure that the public found out about it, I would then allow the book publisher to send out a teaser to major news media outlets letting them know some worldchanging invention is coming...
What is missing is plug and play ease of use for the average consumer. In a nutshell, PC PVR's have much more bang for the buck features over Tivo, but lack the smoothe interface...
Personally, I'd take a PC PVR over Tivo anyday, (heck, i am an early adopter), but I wouldn't recommend it to my grandparents...
This is a very informal review, compared to those at Tom's Hardware Guide, etc... Additionally it is written aimed at your average consumer, who is interested in ease of use, whereas the average Slashdot user would be more interested in advanced features and tweaking DVR's for peak performance...
I personally own a AIW Radeon 7500 and am *extremely* happy with the advanced features it offers over a Tivo, most notably the ability to save video directly to VCD format, for cheap, easy, longlasting storage...
Perhaps it shows that women are more willing to cooperate?;) Or perhaps the test invalidates itself in that nobody who tends towards non-cooperation would have cooperated in taking the test in the first place!
Ya gotta love barenaked ladies... (and the band by that name too)... A few weeks prior to the release of their last album, all the tracks appeared on Morpheus... leaked by themselves! sorta... During a few points in each song various band members chimed in with wisecracks about file trading, computer stuff, etc... The tracks served both to promote the songs as well as give the fans something unique, yet different from the studio releases... It was great! I burned a copy of this version and purchased the actual album when it was released... both are classics... I'm all for this practice, though i can't imagine such creativity coming from most other RIAA contract holders (I doubt that RIAA approved of BNL's antics, for that mattter...)
If you are considering Farscape on DVD, be sure to get the European versions if at all possible.. They come in 6 packs for only 50% more than US 2-packs... (aprox $30 for 6 pack vs $20 for 2 pack)... In the long run, it would actually be worthwhile to buy a region free DVD player if you plan to collect the whole set and live in the US... Hint: look for APEX 600A on ebay... and do a google search for "loophole menu"....
Note: The APEX 600A will also disable CSS copy protection allowing you to copy ANY DVD onto VHS!
Personally, I think it is somewhat disturbing, as the appearance of one name brand item in the midst of so many generic items serves as a reality blast to break the mood of disbelief...
Fortunately, as more and more product placement enters movies and television, it becomes the norm, and not the exception, and therefore is less distracting... I never thought I'd say it, but more product placement advertising could eventually be a great solution in another way also, as it could result in fewer distracting commercials... That's a win-win situation as far as I see it!
While it is true that a victory by replay users could result in a slightly stronger push for more aggressive advertising, unfortunately, it will make little difference in the end, as this movement is already going full-steam ahead and growing by the day.
Examples abound! There exist steamroller-like vehicles that press advertising patterns into sand on public beaches... Skies in public places are filled with advertising banners hanging behind aircraft... Around the world people PAY inflated rates to buy T-shirts, hats, and other clothing items bearing advertising slogans... sportscasts rarely exist without mid-play endorsements by the sportscasters in addition to the inbetween inning/quarter/period commercials... more and more stadiums and other buildings are named after corporate giants... GPS based IM advertisements will soon target cell phone users nearing storefronts... the list goes on!
It is only a matter of time before the entire world is taken over by advertisements... I doubt that a small lawsuit like this can spur this on too much faster... I sure hope not!
Frankly i've been facinated with the Klez virus for two reasons...
First of all, I did some calculations, and found that there are over 1600 different subject line possibilities alone with this virus! This takes into consideration the number of variable words within the subject lines, and doesn't even account for the number of different message bodies. All things considered, there are probably over 10,000 possibilities!
The second thing about Klez that I find interesting is the payload... You often get totally random files from people's computers (if they survive virus removal)... For example, one of my coworkers got the 2001 operating budget of her church, and was able to see how much everyone was paid, how much they blew on projects, etc... Opening your inbox is like opening presents on christmas morning... most of the stuff is pretty boring, but every once in awhile you open something interesting!
Slashdot Mirror
Disclaimer: I haven not tried hard nor received
my free ipod...
But...
Several friends of mine have... Some have even gotten free flat panel monitors,
and even a free Dell Dimension 4000 system... Apparently, it helps to have
a popular website to promote it...
But the truth of the matter is that SOME of these free offers do exist... Wired
has published stories with mixed results...
Also, since signing up, I haven't noticed *any* increase in snail mail spam... I
did not give out my real phone number, and no credit card is necessary. My
throwaway gmail account has only 8 messages in it (and only 2 may be related...)
so who knows... I am a believer for the time being....
Anyone remember this toy? It was a guy you could tear off his arms, then put in a "chamber" with some goo (slime stuff) and it would make his arms stick back on (regenerate)? He looked reptilian maybe? And he might have been a spinoff of he-man. I'd love to find a pic of it, or atleast the name. (This is an ongoing discussion at www.clinko.com currently... PLEASE help... we have just about given up!!!!)
slashdot missed this story by the better part of a week ;) (check the date on it!)
Yahoo was not at yahoo.stanford.edu, it was at akebono.stanford.edu. At the time, it was hosted by an educational institution. This is not a permanant solution. Banner ads are necessary (yet probably not sufficient) to maintain the content of the Internet as we know it. The sheer magnitude of the internet a-la 1994 was probably 1/1000000th of that which is availiable today. Try supporting that without commercial support... It ain't gonna happen...
I suppose this would be better suited for an "ask slashdot" question, but *how* do you roll out the patches? There are several solutions out there, involving central local server dedicated to the job and using Norton Ghost among others.... How do you do it?
Screw microsoft stock... I'd just tell my 12yr old self who won the major sporting events for the following few years... Money would compound exponentially... Oh.. possibly throw out the idea of patenting anything and everything related to "one click"...
They actually converted this to PC/PS2! The review is here... What were they thinking??? Let's do an arcade -> home port of a novelty hologram game... but without the holograms.... I suppose 3 or 4 people will buy it :)
and if you believe that... i've got some land on the moon to sell you... err...
Go to this link to buy an acre on the moon!
What will actually happen is that the jobs of SysAdmins would become simpler, resulting in the need for fewer high-level administrators... Sure, we will still need to exist to fix the simple problems of saving files, cleaning mice, etc... but IF administration is simplified, THEN the manpower required to administer will be reduced....
This is another case of an article(or even headline) making an extreme statement, then Slashdotters saying "oh no, this will never happen, the exact opposite must be true because we can give examples where the extreme statement mentioned in the headline is not true!"
There *can exist* a middleground!
It has been mentioned that Google has covered news stories for quite some time. The best place to get info on Google's current projects is Google Labs...
SVCD/Divx Pro is better quality, yes, but when played back on a television, there is very little noticible difference, and the formats you mentioned are not so easily playable on nearly any DVD player. AIW Radeon 7500 has hardware MPEG2 encoder and free TIVO-style programming guide, which are the only two reasons I chose this over an older AIW board...
Step 2. Record TV shows using point and click interface in VCD format...
Step 3. Use software that came with CD-R drive to burn VCD's of your favorite movies and TV shows... (74 min per CD and playable in nearly any DVD player!
This is a cheap and effective alternative to TIVO of any sort considering that you probably already have a CD-R drive, and the AIW card is relatively inexpensive... Also, you can store 1000 hours of programming for far less than a single 320 GB drive will cost *when* it becomes availiable. As an added bonus, the VCD's that you burn are very portable and can easily be taken to friends' houses as well as stored for years to come...
As I recall, in this MUD you could create your own objects including characters, and for characters, you could have them respond to certain keywords... Hmm.. this sounds very familiar...
on the other hand, perhaps that's a bad idea...
Personally, I'd take a PC PVR over Tivo anyday, (heck, i am an early adopter), but I wouldn't recommend it to my grandparents...
I personally own a AIW Radeon 7500 and am *extremely* happy with the advanced features it offers over a Tivo, most notably the ability to save video directly to VCD format, for cheap, easy, longlasting storage...
Slashdotted? ;) sorry.. couldn't pass that one up :)
Perhaps it shows that women are more willing to cooperate? ;) Or perhaps the test invalidates itself in that nobody who tends towards non-cooperation would have cooperated in taking the test in the first place!
While clicking "freeplay" yields a bad link, This Link should bring you to a good review of this service...
Ya gotta love barenaked ladies... (and the band by that name too)... A few weeks prior to the release of their last album, all the tracks appeared on Morpheus... leaked by themselves! sorta... During a few points in each song various band members chimed in with wisecracks about file trading, computer stuff, etc... The tracks served both to promote the songs as well as give the fans something unique, yet different from the studio releases... It was great! I burned a copy of this version and purchased the actual album when it was released... both are classics... I'm all for this practice, though i can't imagine such creativity coming from most other RIAA contract holders (I doubt that RIAA approved of BNL's antics, for that mattter...)
If you are considering Farscape on DVD, be sure to get the European versions if at all possible.. They come in 6 packs for only 50% more than US 2-packs... (aprox $30 for 6 pack vs $20 for 2 pack)... In the long run, it would actually be worthwhile to buy a region free DVD player if you plan to collect the whole set and live in the US... Hint: look for APEX 600A on ebay... and do a google search for "loophole menu"....
Note: The APEX 600A will also disable CSS copy protection allowing you to copy ANY DVD onto VHS!
In the long run
Fortunately, as more and more product placement enters movies and television, it becomes the norm, and not the exception, and therefore is less distracting... I never thought I'd say it, but more product placement advertising could eventually be a great solution in another way also, as it could result in fewer distracting commercials... That's a win-win situation as far as I see it!
Examples abound! There exist steamroller-like vehicles that press advertising patterns into sand on public beaches... Skies in public places are filled with advertising banners hanging behind aircraft... Around the world people PAY inflated rates to buy T-shirts, hats, and other clothing items bearing advertising slogans... sportscasts rarely exist without mid-play endorsements by the sportscasters in addition to the inbetween inning/quarter/period commercials... more and more stadiums and other buildings are named after corporate giants... GPS based IM advertisements will soon target cell phone users nearing storefronts... the list goes on!
It is only a matter of time before the entire world is taken over by advertisements... I doubt that a small lawsuit like this can spur this on too much faster... I sure hope not!
First of all, I did some calculations, and found that there are over 1600 different subject line possibilities alone with this virus! This takes into consideration the number of variable words within the subject lines, and doesn't even account for the number of different message bodies. All things considered, there are probably over 10,000 possibilities!
The second thing about Klez that I find interesting is the payload... You often get totally random files from people's computers (if they survive virus removal)... For example, one of my coworkers got the 2001 operating budget of her church, and was able to see how much everyone was paid, how much they blew on projects, etc... Opening your inbox is like opening presents on christmas morning... most of the stuff is pretty boring, but every once in awhile you open something interesting!