In Ann Arbor, the "smart" meters are susceptible to an exploit where if you add 5 cents of time to a meter, you remove all the existing time on that meter. For $1, a prankster can reset 20 parking spots and watch everyone get parking tickets. More info at this screenshot of a now-deleted comment on AnnArbor.com.
To destroy Google, someone would have to beat them at what they make their money on - search and ads.
That's sort of like saying that Google is destroying Microsoft by building a better desktop OS. Cringely is talking about something disruptive, either in terms of technology (rich web apps being good enough to replace some desktop apps) or business models (a software company making money through advertising).
You don't beat the 800 lb. gorilla by being a 750 lb. gorilla, you beat it by building a gun.
My biggest problem with NexGenWars isn't the stats behind it, it's the concept. Who won the last gen? In my living room I have a PS2, Xbox and GameCube (retired in favor of the Wii), so for me, everyone. I know that the GC didn't do as well as the PS2 or Xbox, and you could say it "lost" the last gen wars. That means both Sony and Microsoft "won," which isn't an option you can vote for on NexGenWars. How do I vote for the Wii60?
Wow, maybe they should have thought of genericide before they partnered with Pontiac to use the verb "google" in their ads. Remember kids, trademarks are nouns, not verbs.
Why don't companies announce immediately when they have been forced to do something by the government against their will (like Google)? As far as I was aware America is still a country where you can speak freely against the government without fear of punishment.
Ask.com has many features not available with rivals -- topic clusters, quick facts from Wikipedia on the search page, and, (what counts most) fewer ads than any of the rivals.
If that's what matters most to you in a search engine, wouldn't Goatse.cx (R.I.P.) have been better than Ask, Google and Yahoo combined? I don't think it had any ads...
it's estimated that Bit-torrent accounts for about two thirds of all traffic on the internet.
... by people who want to sell you devices to reduce BitTorrent's network usage. Good thing they don't have a financial incentive for inflating those numbers, or someone might suspect they're full of shit.
Maybe they should look into reducing their hosting costs with some of these instead of these.
Re:Podcasting? In an email application??
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Thunderbird 1.5 Arrives
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· Score: 2, Insightful
RSS makes sense to me in an email app. An RSS feed can be thought of as a publicly readable email account, accessed over HTTP instead of POP3 or IMAP. And RSS items sometimes have attachments, just like emails.
Goal of DRM: Sell more movies/tickets. Effect of getting good reviews: Sell more movies/tickets. Effect of not getting reviews due to DRM: Sell less movies/tickets. Definition of irony: "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result" (OED).
Seems like irony to me. Don't forget the forum either, on Slashdot fewer things are more enjoyed than copyright schadenfreude.
Wait a second...Didn't we just determine that Gmail is still in beta? Don't we all know that beta == issues? Alright, so we have a service that shouldn't be in beta, but that has issues. Gotcha.
Does that mean there aren't legitimate criticisms of Gmail's functionality? By slapping the word "Beta" on it, does Google absolve themselves of any shortcomings?
Maybe Microsoft should permabeta the next Windows to avoid any quality concerns. "Oh, don't worry about that IE security flaw, it's just beta."
User confusion problems are usually killed by this. Most users pay more attention to what they're doing if they know someone is watching. If they don't, the error will usually be extremely obvious and correctable. And most transient problems will have solved themselves by the time you get to the user.
Criticism: I believe you're mistaken about the word "berate." Berating means to "scold or criticize (someone) angrily" and the OED notes that it is "often combined with scorn or contempt for the person being criticized."
So the core problem with remixing is that if the entire world is forced to pick only one form of creation to participate in, and the world picks remixing, then we'll only have n^2-n iterations of art left to create, where n is the amount of art in the world?
I don't get the link to FOAF. All the companies mentioned are jealously keeping people locked in, FOAF is an open standard and lets people network across pretty much anything. FOAF is the antithesis of the social networking sites linked.
As for computers, unfortunately I think the best solution is to always buy newer ones, but it costs energy to make them, so this isn't perfect. Newer computers do seem to use less energy as long as you're not pushing them to extreme clock speeds.
According to a power supply wattage calculator older computers use less energy than newer ones. A Pentium 3 can use as little as 21 watts, a Pentium 4 can use as much as 100 watts.
Rumor of Apple buying TiVo was reported on CNBC this morning, but as far as I can tell this was just some analyst's idea that it would make sense for Apple to buy TiVo, no actual inside information that a deal is in the works...
Part of protecting the public from Big Copyright involves making people understand what's at stake, and part of it is paying people to do the hard work.
LiveJournal's social networking still popular after all these years. LinkedIn is hot with the suit and tie crowd. My del.icio.us inbox is one of my first stops of the day (after my LiveJournal Friends page).
Social networks make it possible to collectively filter information, while keeping the spammers out.
Re:Start with just making PHONES
on
Cell Phone On A Chip
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I don't want to edit pictures with my gaming computer. I don't want to play MP3s with picture editing computer. I don't want to check my e-mail with my MP3 computer. I don't want to browse the web with my e-mail computer. I don't want to play games with my web browsing computer.
I just want to type documents in Word with my computer. Want to lower the average price of a computer? Start with taking all of that crap out of it.
Slashdot Mirror
In Ann Arbor, the "smart" meters are susceptible to an exploit where if you add 5 cents of time to a meter, you remove all the existing time on that meter. For $1, a prankster can reset 20 parking spots and watch everyone get parking tickets. More info at this screenshot of a now-deleted comment on AnnArbor.com.
You don't beat the 800 lb. gorilla by being a 750 lb. gorilla, you beat it by building a gun.
My biggest problem with NexGenWars isn't the stats behind it, it's the concept. Who won the last gen? In my living room I have a PS2, Xbox and GameCube (retired in favor of the Wii), so for me, everyone. I know that the GC didn't do as well as the PS2 or Xbox, and you could say it "lost" the last gen wars. That means both Sony and Microsoft "won," which isn't an option you can vote for on NexGenWars. How do I vote for the Wii60?
Wow, maybe they should have thought of genericide before they partnered with Pontiac to use the verb "google" in their ads. Remember kids, trademarks are nouns, not verbs.
Good point, since if we went by the legal definition there would be no such thing as plagiarism.
Also, they claim 35%, not 66%.
The source code for FeedValidator is freely available on SourceForge
Maybe they should look into reducing their hosting costs with some of these instead of these.
RSS makes sense to me in an email app. An RSS feed can be thought of as a publicly readable email account, accessed over HTTP instead of POP3 or IMAP. And RSS items sometimes have attachments, just like emails.
Goal of DRM: Sell more movies/tickets.
Effect of getting good reviews: Sell more movies/tickets.
Effect of not getting reviews due to DRM: Sell less movies/tickets.
Definition of irony: "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result" (OED).
Seems like irony to me. Don't forget the forum either, on Slashdot fewer things are more enjoyed than copyright schadenfreude.
Maybe Microsoft should permabeta the next Windows to avoid any quality concerns. "Oh, don't worry about that IE security flaw, it's just beta."
Criticism:
I believe you're mistaken about the word "berate." Berating means to "scold or criticize (someone) angrily" and the OED notes that it is "often combined with scorn or contempt for the person being criticized."
Berating:
You jerk.
Sorry, your invitation is over here.
So the core problem with remixing is that if the entire world is forced to pick only one form of creation to participate in, and the world picks remixing, then we'll only have n^2-n iterations of art left to create, where n is the amount of art in the world?
I don't get the link to FOAF. All the companies mentioned are jealously keeping people locked in, FOAF is an open standard and lets people network across pretty much anything. FOAF is the antithesis of the social networking sites linked.
And you're on Slashdot becuz... ?
Take a look at what the EFF's legal team has accomplished, thanks to the fact that they got people to donate money to pay the lawyers.
Part of protecting the public from Big Copyright involves making people understand what's at stake, and part of it is paying people to do the hard work.
at work we classify A9 as a "severe privacy threat" and therefore it is blocked at the firewall
What about the cookie-free http://generic.a9.com/?
LiveJournal's social networking still popular after all these years. LinkedIn is hot with the suit and tie crowd. My del.icio.us inbox is one of my first stops of the day (after my LiveJournal Friends page).
Oh, and I see that Hemos considers you a friend, so I know you're not just trolling.
Social networks make it possible to collectively filter information, while keeping the spammers out.
I don't want to edit pictures with my gaming computer.
I don't want to play MP3s with picture editing computer.
I don't want to check my e-mail with my MP3 computer.
I don't want to browse the web with my e-mail computer.
I don't want to play games with my web browsing computer.
I just want to type documents in Word with my computer. Want to lower the average price of a computer? Start with taking all of that crap out of it.