"Benjamin Cohen is a regular contributor to Times Online, writing about the internet and commerce. He is the CEO of pinknews.co.uk".
PinkNews is a GBLT site. Not that I care about the sexuality of the author, but Cohen apparently serves as 1.) a CEO of a separate media company, and 2.) one that deals with alternative lifestyles (NTTAWWT*).
My question is, does either of those two attributes make him more or less qualified to comment/report on potential Google plans, do you think?
It's a shame that their foreign interrogators don't submit to peer review, however. I'm speaking in terms of publication, of course. Why, what were you thinking of?
Unable to resolve a deadlock between two competing proposals, the IEEE working group responsible for the ultrawideband technology threw in the towel Thursday.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.3a task group (TG3a), which oversaw the formation of the UWB standard agreed to withdraw the Jan. 2003 project authorization request that formed the group. Instead, the two competing technologies - MB-OFDM, championed by the Intel-led WiMedia Forum, and DS-UWB, promoted by Freescale Semiconductor and its UWB Forum - will be left to fight it out in the marketplace.
Name me some blogs that actually generate their own factual content, rather than simply opinions on one article or another. This is especially true in politics.
At best, I see blogs aspiring to two things: providing context (Ars Technica's news section does a nice job of this) and news aggregation (the Slashdot model). The one exception to this is something like a developer blog or "celebrity" blog (I don't mean someone like Paris Hilton, but someone like Jonathan Schwartz of Sun, who can occasionally generate newsworthy nuggets or comments, if he feels like flouting SEC rules.)
That's not to say that citizens can't be journalists -- in fact, I really hope they do. But honestly, I really feel that most people are lazy, or suffer from the same syndrome that Robin mentions: "Oh, I don't have time to do...". Well, you can either chatter, or inform.
On the other hand, I completely agree that reporters need to reach out to their readers more. This is basic. Good cops don't sit at their desks; good politicians engage their constituents, and good reporters talk to their readers. You simply can't be everywhere at once, and a good reader-reporter relationship leads to better stories!
I have to think Zonk is trying to fuck this chick.;)
Seriously, though, I don't think there's any way that we can consider Zonk a literary critic. The linked Harry Potter piece was pretty good, but the other excerpts...
It's interesting because hydrogen or methanol seems to be the preferred fuel, but these guys have chosen formic acid, which is produced by fire ants. Tekion claims the energy density is about double that of other FC technologies.
I think the Leicester Square Odeum in London was charging some massive amount of money for Episode III -- I'd swear it was 39 quid or so for the premium seats.
Here in south London, it's about 7 pounds or so, and we also go to the midafternoon showings, to try and minimize the unruly teen factor.
"Johnny1337, that's a wallhack! You're to sit over in that corner, by the crates. Johnny, put that sniper rifle DOWN!"...
"No, evilgrrl, that's spelled "dudes". There is no "z" in "dudes". How will you ever write for IGN if you can't spell correctly?"...
Look, BillyBadAzz, I know the pirates came and stole your isk. You need to tell them that that's wrong, and not let them do that to you. And Billy... Billy, that's a BAD WORD in your name. You change that right now!/kick
Did you have to have PR sign off on them? What about legal? Or marketing? And are your reposnses your own, or was this a group effort between you and others of your team?
Seems odd that Apple wouldn't mention this. Not to be a troll or anything, but Apple has this habit of going into explicit detail about technology when it's first, and then sort of whistling and commenting that "well, the technology isn't the important thing" when it doesn't have the latest and greatest. Just seems a little odd not to include it.
I also thought wires were bad? On the other hand, I could see Apple come out with a wireless Apple Super Extreme UWB version at some point in the future.
Unfortunately, there are a few caveats to the parent's statements. As an American living in Britain, we (along with other foreigners) are required to notify the local police station of our presence. To secure a bank account, we need both a passport and proof of residence. Furthermore, British banks are so paranoid of money laundering that any check over a certain amount (a few thousand dollars, in my case) must be held for "collection", which requires it to be held for up to six weeks. And yes, I pay VAT tax on all of my purchases without any input as to what it's used for.
What the parent is getting at (and the grandparent completely fails to see) is that technology is the downfall of Star Trek, and scifi in general. Technology does not a good story make; plot, characters, and setting do. The technology is just one aspect of this latter category, and thus is of extremely minor significance.
The grandparent seems to want something along the lines of Discovery/Sci-Fi Channel. Um, no.
As others have pointed out, I have absolutely, positively nothing against London, England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, or the continent of Europe. I lived in London ten years ago as part of a semester abroad, so I'm familiar with London life. I hoped then that I would have the opprtunity to live once again in this marvelous city, and I'm quite thankful that I've had the chance.
I really would like to make that clear -- I think you have a world-class city here, and a wonderful society. Please don't make me sing "God Save the Queen" in Trafalgar Square to prove this:)
I also want to make clear that even though I have been frustrated by the system, the BT employees I have spoken with have been courteous. I still was upset and frustrated by the decision not to allow me to file a complaint, but that's that. My issue is with the system and the apparent bureaucracy.
Here's the crux of the matter. England is famous for its literature, its poetry, its love of the written word. For me, as a writer, I find it hard to believe that there would be an infrastructure in place to hinder that exchange of information. If this is considered unreasonable or xenophobic, I apologize.
Final point: I have to say that I am completely unaware of any line "faults" (ADSL or otherwise) that have occurred in the U.S. I would encourage other Americans to point out my mistakes, but honestly, it's always worked seamlessly. (Now, there have been interruptions in my DSL service, but I have never ever had a phone stop working and been told that there was a "fault" or other problem that necessitated a 48-hour outage. A winter storm, of course, is a different matter.)
I based that comment off of user forums and DSLReports.com. Apparently I'm mistaken, which is good news. I'll have to check with them and see how long it takes to implement their service, though. Bulldog told me it would take six weeks to put the service in (which involves switching the line over from BT). Trying to publish a Web site on dialup is quite painful.
Again, however, my thanks. You can also reach me at mark_hachman@ziffdavis.com if you'd like to fill me in offline, as it were.
"Cartoon Network first partnered with Production I.G. in 2032 to produce five 5-minute episodes of IGPX for an on-air Toonami event in 2003."
"Hideki -- we have no capabiliity to produce these episodes using current technology!"
"Aoki, any word from Project X on Titan?"
"No sir -- it was overrun by the Trog raiders!"
"Damn. Well, we'll need to turn to the Balrog Omega Ultra Option!!!!"
*gasps*
"No arguments! Fetch BoingBoing The Happy Fuzzball and prepare for integration! If we can't make these episodes now, we'll make them in the future! We're going through time!!!!"
For those of you who haven't cultivated a relationship with a CPA (I haven't) I find H&R Block to actually be quite useful. Maybe it's just my experience, but I ended up with a state franchise board ex-employee who moved to H&R Block for the personal contacts. She was excellent -- talked me through what I did, asked about various expenses and so on.
Personally, I didn't really think I could depreciate my car as a business expense (or, actually, what the hell depreciation was). She ran the numbers, and, even with the fees, proved it would be cheaper to re-file previous years and take the additional deductions. And, boy, maintaining a home office is a huge bonus -- avoid the commute, the stress, the chattering coworkers, and write off a portion of your rent, utilities, broadband, etc.
I'm happy around a computer (the hardware side, anyway) but I'm a babe in the woods when it comes to taxes. I'm more than happy to have someone across the table explain why I can take this deduction, how to do it, sign their name to it, and offer to back me up legally in a court of law should things go south.
One piece of advice -- take all of your bills, mortgage slips, car repair bills, whatever, and stick 'em in a shoebox to take down to your tax preparer. You don't have to have bills dating back a year (although it's a good defense in case something goes really wrong and you're audited) but a current bill will allow you to make a solid estimate of your yearly expenses for tax purposes. Also, if you do take the home office expense, know the square footage of your home/apartment and the rough dimensions of your office.
It might not have the "wishlist" feature, but it has:
a "season pass" integrated 30-second skip and 10-second rewind features search scheduling dual-tuners 100 hours recording time (might be more now) themes
Tivo is still a bit easier to use and has a nicer interface, but I'm a satisfied DISH customer. (However, if my apartment complex allowed Cox or Chartered to provide cable instead of their horrid no-name provider, I might be an all-in-one cable PVR/Internet customer.)
I'm not a big DSL fan, but I'd consider the DSL/satellite combo in the future.
"
Among these could be new products from Motorola. Motorola, the second-ranked mobile phone vendor in terms of unit sales, enjoyed the strongest growth during the fourth quarter according to iSuppli Corp, with shipments growing by 36.5 percent. Overall, the mobile phone market expanded to 195 million units in the fourth quarter, an all-time high, up 14.7 percent from 170 million in the third quarter."
Based on this picture, I see no monster closets. Ergo, it isn't Doom. Unless the guy playing the baddies can just drop random shit in on top of the player, that is...
"Okay, I slowly -- SLOWLY -- enter the room. What do I see?"
"It's dark. There's some blood on the ground."
"And that's it?"
"Yes. ROWR!"
"What? What? I spin around!"
"There's nothing there. Just a scary noise. Oh, but you see a box of shotgun shells."
"OK, motherfucker, I know what's going to happen. I sneak up, and JUST AS I GRAB THE SHELLS I spin around!"
"A closet opens up and an imp pops out!"
"I shoot the bastard! BLAM1 I rolled a 12! He's dead!"
"Good job, marine. So what now?"
"I walk toward the door..."
"And just as you do so, three Hell Knights teleport in behind you!!"
"What the..."
"GRROWR! ROAR! SLASH! BOOM! You're dead."
"Motherfucker... OK, I hit Alt-tab."
"What?"
"You heard me. I navigate to the DOOM directory and hit unistall.exe . You backstabbed me for the last time, bitch."
It sounds like you haven't read the report either, this happens all the time, leading the poster to be tarred with the brush that he paints the press with.
Slashdot Mirror
"Benjamin Cohen is a regular contributor to Times Online, writing about the internet and commerce. He is the CEO of pinknews.co.uk".
PinkNews is a GBLT site. Not that I care about the sexuality of the author, but Cohen apparently serves as 1.) a CEO of a separate media company, and 2.) one that deals with alternative lifestyles (NTTAWWT*).
My question is, does either of those two attributes make him more or less qualified to comment/report on potential Google plans, do you think?
*(Not That There's Anything Wrong...")
It's a shame that their foreign interrogators don't submit to peer review, however. I'm speaking in terms of publication, of course. Why, what were you thinking of?
UWB Standards Group Calls It Quits "
Unable to resolve a deadlock between two competing proposals, the IEEE working group responsible for the ultrawideband technology threw in the towel Thursday.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.3a task group (TG3a), which oversaw the formation of the UWB standard agreed to withdraw the Jan. 2003 project authorization request that formed the group. Instead, the two competing technologies - MB-OFDM, championed by the Intel-led WiMedia Forum, and DS-UWB, promoted by Freescale Semiconductor and its UWB Forum - will be left to fight it out in the marketplace.
Name me some blogs that actually generate their own factual content, rather than simply opinions on one article or another. This is especially true in politics.
At best, I see blogs aspiring to two things: providing context (Ars Technica's news section does a nice job of this) and news aggregation (the Slashdot model). The one exception to this is something like a developer blog or "celebrity" blog (I don't mean someone like Paris Hilton, but someone like Jonathan Schwartz of Sun, who can occasionally generate newsworthy nuggets or comments, if he feels like flouting SEC rules.)
That's not to say that citizens can't be journalists -- in fact, I really hope they do. But honestly, I really feel that most people are lazy, or suffer from the same syndrome that Robin mentions: "Oh, I don't have time to do...". Well, you can either chatter, or inform.
On the other hand, I completely agree that reporters need to reach out to their readers more. This is basic. Good cops don't sit at their desks; good politicians engage their constituents, and good reporters talk to their readers. You simply can't be everywhere at once, and a good reader-reporter relationship leads to better stories!
I have to think Zonk is trying to fuck this chick. ;)
Seriously, though, I don't think there's any way that we can consider Zonk a literary critic. The linked Harry Potter piece was pretty good, but the other excerpts...
Yeah.
It's interesting because hydrogen or methanol seems to be the preferred fuel, but these guys have chosen formic acid, which is produced by fire ants. Tekion claims the energy density is about double that of other FC technologies.
ExtremeFuelCells.com link
Here in south London, it's about 7 pounds or so, and we also go to the midafternoon showings, to try and minimize the unruly teen factor.
"Johnny1337, that's a wallhack! You're to sit over in that corner, by the crates. Johnny, put that sniper rifle DOWN!" ...
...
/kick
"No, evilgrrl, that's spelled "dudes". There is no "z" in "dudes". How will you ever write for IGN if you can't spell correctly?"
Look, BillyBadAzz, I know the pirates came and stole your isk. You need to tell them that that's wrong, and not let them do that to you. And Billy... Billy, that's a BAD WORD in your name. You change that right now!
Did you have to have PR sign off on them? What about legal? Or marketing? And are your reposnses your own, or was this a group effort between you and others of your team?
And it's not on the specs page.
I also thought wires were bad? On the other hand, I could see Apple come out with a wireless Apple Super Extreme UWB version at some point in the future.
Unfortunately, there are a few caveats to the parent's statements. As an American living in Britain, we (along with other foreigners) are required to notify the local police station of our presence. To secure a bank account, we need both a passport and proof of residence. Furthermore, British banks are so paranoid of money laundering that any check over a certain amount (a few thousand dollars, in my case) must be held for "collection", which requires it to be held for up to six weeks. And yes, I pay VAT tax on all of my purchases without any input as to what it's used for.
Just the other side of the coin.
What the parent is getting at (and the grandparent completely fails to see) is that technology is the downfall of Star Trek, and scifi in general. Technology does not a good story make; plot, characters, and setting do. The technology is just one aspect of this latter category, and thus is of extremely minor significance.
The grandparent seems to want something along the lines of Discovery/Sci-Fi Channel. Um, no.
I'm the author.
:)
As others have pointed out, I have absolutely, positively nothing against London, England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, or the continent of Europe. I lived in London ten years ago as part of a semester abroad, so I'm familiar with London life. I hoped then that I would have the opprtunity to live once again in this marvelous city, and I'm quite thankful that I've had the chance.
I really would like to make that clear -- I think you have a world-class city here, and a wonderful society. Please don't make me sing "God Save the Queen" in Trafalgar Square to prove this
I also want to make clear that even though I have been frustrated by the system, the BT employees I have spoken with have been courteous. I still was upset and frustrated by the decision not to allow me to file a complaint, but that's that. My issue is with the system and the apparent bureaucracy.
Here's the crux of the matter. England is famous for its literature, its poetry, its love of the written word. For me, as a writer, I find it hard to believe that there would be an infrastructure in place to hinder that exchange of information. If this is considered unreasonable or xenophobic, I apologize.
Final point: I have to say that I am completely unaware of any line "faults" (ADSL or otherwise) that have occurred in the U.S. I would encourage other Americans to point out my mistakes, but honestly, it's always worked seamlessly. (Now, there have been interruptions in my DSL service, but I have never ever had a phone stop working and been told that there was a "fault" or other problem that necessitated a 48-hour outage. A winter storm, of course, is a different matter.)
Mark Hachman here.
I based that comment off of user forums and DSLReports.com. Apparently I'm mistaken, which is good news. I'll have to check with them and see how long it takes to implement their service, though. Bulldog told me it would take six weeks to put the service in (which involves switching the line over from BT). Trying to publish a Web site on dialup is quite painful.
Again, however, my thanks. You can also reach me at mark_hachman@ziffdavis.com if you'd like to fill me in offline, as it were.
*adds Samari711 to friends list*
Go Irish!
I lik /. It r00lz! But lik any k1d, I use IRC.
-DARPA AI 312 Mark 26.12
"Cartoon Network first partnered with Production I.G. in 2032 to produce five 5-minute episodes of IGPX for an on-air Toonami event in 2003."
"Hideki -- we have no capabiliity to produce these episodes using current technology!"
"Aoki, any word from Project X on Titan?"
"No sir -- it was overrun by the Trog raiders!"
"Damn. Well, we'll need to turn to the Balrog Omega Ultra Option!!!!"
*gasps*
"No arguments! Fetch BoingBoing The Happy Fuzzball and prepare for integration! If we can't make these episodes now, we'll make them in the future! We're going through time!!!!"
"That sort of uniformed spewage gives Slashdot a bad name."
:)
Someone break it to him gently...
For those of you who haven't cultivated a relationship with a CPA (I haven't) I find H&R Block to actually be quite useful. Maybe it's just my experience, but I ended up with a state franchise board ex-employee who moved to H&R Block for the personal contacts. She was excellent -- talked me through what I did, asked about various expenses and so on.
Personally, I didn't really think I could depreciate my car as a business expense (or, actually, what the hell depreciation was). She ran the numbers, and, even with the fees, proved it would be cheaper to re-file previous years and take the additional deductions. And, boy, maintaining a home office is a huge bonus -- avoid the commute, the stress, the chattering coworkers, and write off a portion of your rent, utilities, broadband, etc.
I'm happy around a computer (the hardware side, anyway) but I'm a babe in the woods when it comes to taxes. I'm more than happy to have someone across the table explain why I can take this deduction, how to do it, sign their name to it, and offer to back me up legally in a court of law should things go south.
One piece of advice -- take all of your bills, mortgage slips, car repair bills, whatever, and stick 'em in a shoebox to take down to your tax preparer. You don't have to have bills dating back a year (although it's a good defense in case something goes really wrong and you're audited) but a current bill will allow you to make a solid estimate of your yearly expenses for tax purposes. Also, if you do take the home office expense, know the square footage of your home/apartment and the rough dimensions of your office.
Including exactly what performance will mean with this chip... Link.
It might not have the "wishlist" feature, but it has:
a "season pass"
integrated 30-second skip and 10-second rewind features
search
scheduling
dual-tuners
100 hours recording time (might be more now)
themes
Tivo is still a bit easier to use and has a nicer interface, but I'm a satisfied DISH customer. (However, if my apartment complex allowed Cox or Chartered to provide cable instead of their horrid no-name provider, I might be an all-in-one cable PVR/Internet customer.)
I'm not a big DSL fan, but I'd consider the DSL/satellite combo in the future.
" Among these could be new products from Motorola. Motorola, the second-ranked mobile phone vendor in terms of unit sales, enjoyed the strongest growth during the fourth quarter according to iSuppli Corp, with shipments growing by 36.5 percent. Overall, the mobile phone market expanded to 195 million units in the fourth quarter, an all-time high, up 14.7 percent from 170 million in the third quarter."
"Okay, I slowly -- SLOWLY -- enter the room. What do I see?"
"It's dark. There's some blood on the ground."
"And that's it?"
"Yes. ROWR!"
"What? What? I spin around!"
"There's nothing there. Just a scary noise. Oh, but you see a box of shotgun shells."
"OK, motherfucker, I know what's going to happen. I sneak up, and JUST AS I GRAB THE SHELLS I spin around!"
"A closet opens up and an imp pops out!"
"I shoot the bastard! BLAM1 I rolled a 12! He's dead!"
"Good job, marine. So what now?"
"I walk toward the door..."
"And just as you do so, three Hell Knights teleport in behind you!!"
"What the..."
"GRROWR! ROAR! SLASH! BOOM! You're dead."
"Motherfucker... OK, I hit Alt-tab."
"What?"
"You heard me. I navigate to the DOOM directory and hit unistall.exe . You backstabbed me for the last time, bitch."
Yes, you've quite proven that already.
It sounds like you haven't read the report either, this happens all the time, leading the poster to be tarred with the brush that he paints the press with.
gg letterrip