I think that is the direction that joe average wants the internet to go. He wants to upload and save all his pics to the net, have all his e-mails accessable via the web from anywhere. He wants his bills e-mailed to him and he wants his banking online. He also likes the idea of accessing his phone messages via his computer.
Why does everyone want bills electronically? Most people I know, who get their bills electronically, print them out immediately. So the biller has just passed one of his costs of doing business to you. Frankly, it is bad enough having to pay the bill which includes the billers overhead.. but it is just so wrong to then have to pay to print said bill.
The traditional desktop was never by choice I dont think. It evolved this way because of technological limitations, lets be honest. If it were from pure design it would be no bigger than a note pad. So my point is yes it will be a reality it's just a matter of companies investing in gurantees. As opposed to just selling a hot service without really backing it up. This applies not only to e-mail but to online sales (security), storage services like flicker and utube (bandwidth and up time).
I think it is more a situation where people no longer care about their privacy.. they take it for granted that everything is and will remain private. Given the number of data breaches, there is no way I'm putting anything of value on the web
If the problem of technology reporting is that reporters don't know a damn thing and just repeat the words of marketing folks, the solution simple: Hire reporters who actually have a technological background. Is that so hard?
Yes, it is hard... considering the reading level of the average person and the dearth of writing skills amoungst the technical folks.
Here's one problem indemic to the open source paradigm: Things like "beauty" or "ease of use" or "how you ought to do things" varies widely from one group to another. Getting everyone that develops an app for Linux to agree on one set of interface standards makes for a pretty steep uphill battle. Take a look at Gnome versus KDE: Where does an "Okay" button belong on a dialog box, left or right?
uh.. the depends on whether your using a right hand mouse or a left hand mouse:-)
What worries me is the new mobile phones, 3G and the like. While I'll own the contracts and be paying for it, I don't see how I'm going to monitor everything they do on a phone. Hell with a bluetooth keyboard even today's phones are pretty good IM devices, so how I'm going to cope in 5 years time I have no idea.
The simple solution for that problem is don't activate the service! All my kids have/had cell phones with web and text services available, but I never allowed the service to be turned on until the child qualified for the phone on their own. If it is in my name, I set the rules.
You might have to talk to second level technical support to get the service disabled on the phone but it is doable.
MythTV is also considerably more expensive than a Tivo. You can't just build a good MythTV box out of spare parts; the tuner cards alone are often more expensive than a Tivo. If you want HD quality video... it's doable, but you're going to end up spending $2000-3000 on a workable system (you need a monster CPU, lots of RAM and some HD tuner cards, not to mention the HD space.)
Whoa there, there have been atleast 4 articles on the net in the last year building out supurb MythTV boxes for less than $700 for standard tuner and for less than $1000 with an HD Tuner.
So you have $100 tivo that if it lasts 5 years costs you $369 for the first 3years and another $369 for years 4 & 5 for a total of $838. So you can spend $100 on hardware that you can't work on and $738 in prepaid service plans. Or you can build a resaonable system for $800, where you can work on the system adding replacing hardware and have no cost for services.
For me, I can't see adding another $15-$20 per month to my cable bill just to use a tivo, I'd rather pay for the hardware and get the service for free...
I think that people give up vacation much more readily because they want to get ahead, than because they're afraid of losing their jobs. You'd probably have grounds for wrongful termination if you got fired for taking your allowed vacation (2 weeks), yet most people don't even take that. Why? It's not because they want to stay in their current jobs, it's because they want to get more, and given the choice between vacation now, and the chance at making more money later, people take the shot at promotion. It's not fear, it's a desire for betterment (aka greed; your choice of terms).
I disagree completely. Almost every American worker is rated against his peers. This rating is then used to determine lots of things. Things like, whether or not you get a raise, how much of a raise or if you are put on plan to be terminated. Managers have the distinct ability to not remember that person A got so much work done by working lots of hours and skipping vacations. If person A gets 10 projects completed in a year by working 60 hour weeks and not taking vacation, that becomes the company standard, anyone not working to a similar pace is on target to get demoted or worse yet let go.
The flip side of the coin, is companies requiring you to take all of your alotted vacation, but requiring you to be reachable on your vacation, unless you've spent a months pay for said vacation. If you are not reachable and haven't spent the months pay, then you're not a team player and don't deserve any of the benefits.
On a somewhat related note, I heard an ad for AT&T while driving to work this morning that was disparaging VOIP service as inferior to landlines here in California. The main thrust of the radio spot was the recent power outages in California prevented people using VOIP from making calls, while those using landlines still had a dialtone. There was the typical scaremongering, with the implication that people who needed to call 911 couldn't if they were relying on VOIP, while AT&T customers were "safe" because AT&T has generators at the switching stations
Given the low percentages of homes with UPS systems or even backup batteries, the commercial is not that far from the true... certainly closer to the truth than the internet companies' promoting reliable "phone service" with voip.
When was the last time you got on your computer during a power outage to use the internet? More than likely, only using dialup from a laptop:-)
Stop paying actors anything more than scale upfront. Give a $20M actor 0.5% of net revenue from ticket and media sales. Pay the writers more so that the movies have plots and character development, and thus might be worth watching.
Challenge the creativity of everyone involved, put in an artificial spending limit... say @25M per hours worth of final product, based projected length of the original script. Tie future funding to revenue generated from the previous work.. shoot a movie for $25M in production costs that returns $250M in box office and media sales, then your budget for the next projects is $200M..
Of course, this will never happen in my or my children's lifetimes
5) Slashdot sucks, because most people here don't see the immorality of file sharing, and don't see that incredibly expensive shows like 24 and Lost WON'T EXIST if they can't make money. We might actually be seeing the fall of good video programming. It may not exist in 10 years, except for amateur junk.
Excuse me? What good video programming? There hasn't been good programming for atleast a decade on a majority of the networks and those few that did are quickly following in the foot steps of the those that didn't.
One problem is, simple phones aren't appreciably cheaper to produce since most of the differences lie in software, so the simple phones don't get a lot cheaper (and especially so when the phone is offered as part of a package deal).
[ big chunk removed ]
So, you could not make a simple telephone with mass market appeal. You would have to make a whole series of phones, all with different combinations of features. Which of course in practice means making one or two hardware designs, and selectively disable stuff in software. But then, of course, the users can simply refrain from using the features they don't want; they'r enot going to pay as much for the identical hardware but with less functionality, after all. Which brings us right back to where we are now.
Off all the things mentioned the camera is the only piece that takes additional hardware, for everything else the existing hardware could perform the desired tasks with the addition of the appropriate software module.
So basically, you need 2 shells one with camera and one without, then everything else become a piece of software that would be choosen and loaded at time of purchase. Obvious things, like phone books and call logs would be standard.. things like sms, internet, camera, fm radio, mp3 would be additional add ons.
Not that hard to do, but would be fought against bye the Cellphone companies, because you would be able to accidently spend more by sending/recieving sms, browsing the web. And oh my, if they have to tell one of their other customers that they can't deliver and sms or email to you...
Do able, yes. Will it ever be done, not if the Cellphone companies have any say
Ultimately they want to put everyone on a monthly subscription for all of their products. Essentially cable tv bills for using word, the operating system, etc. We won't own our own software or machines- we'll just rent them.
You obviously haven't read a EULA lately... you don't actually own the software you bought.. you just rented it for a very long term...
It is NOT inevitable that software will have bugs in it. By your reasoning, it is inevitable that bridges have design defects in them, and that at some point (in their usable specified lifetime), will collapse.
Really bad analogy. Bridges don't ever change their position. The forces acting on the bridge are well known and well studied. Software, while well studied, is never static. Its very nature is always dynamic and when you add people to the mix you will always have bugs. In order to have bug free code, you have to a perfect person writing said code. You won't find anyone that is perfect 100% of the time.
In the last 20 years, I've spent thousands of hours in code reviews with 100s of people examining the code. Yet, nothing that has been through any of those processes are bug free.. might have minimal bugs, but definitely not bog free. Even machines can't produce bug free code, because somewhere along the line a person wrote some of the code.
Now, having said that, software is getting better (I know oxymoron) as the tools development tools improve the resulting software improves.. BUT it will never be perfect.
1. Is this "crippled" in any way, or is it a real Tivo? 2. Does it plug into the Digital cable, or just the regular analog?
The real question is how much extra is Cox going to charge? Right now, in my area, it's $10 per month for their DVR and another $15 per month for the guide service.. If they move to Tivo hardware.. they still get $10 per month for hardware rental, but now they either have to negotiate a reduced cost for the guide service or lose all the revenue for the guide service
Even if you put the noise level REALLY low you could get hearing impaired...
Think about that statement for a minute, then explain it to me once again, answering the following question: how can REALLY low noise impair your hearing? Be specific, make sure you talk about the decibel level at which that REALLY low noise can impair your hearing.
Simply put, hearing loss is a function of volume over time... for very loud sounds the time is very short before damage occurs. For very soft sounds the time is extremely long, so long that most people will suffer damage from loud sounds before they realize they've lost hearing do to the soft sound.
OSHA requires hearing protection for any workplace exposure of > 95 decibels
> 85 to 95 decibels for 4 or more hours per day or total exceeding 20 hours per week
> 75 to 80 decibels for 6 or more hours per day or total exceeding 24 hours per week
Antidotally, as the IT professionals age, more and more are being seen with notched hearing for the frequencies typically put out by computer fans and disk.. normally less than 60 db
Kind of like cookies: They don't track anything that the server couldn't track server side if it wanted to, in which case you wouldn't be able to erase the records, which puts cookies one up imo.
No, what is really happening is companys are looking to reduce their overhead and expense by pushing as much "cost" (diskspace, cpu cycles, bandwidth) to the end user.
A few thousand cookies doesn't take much diskspace to store, but a few billion or trillion is a totally different issue. Pings are the same way... by pushing the ping to the user.. the website is reducing the size of their logs, which impacts diskspace, cpu cycles and bandwidth utilization.
Re:Best Tax Programs - TurboTax and Linux
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Ever thought of just dropping in a simple survey in every box? Want a bigger return, make it a postage paid post card or a notice with a URL to the survey. Given the number of other pieces of paper that come with the disk, how hard could that be....
There are tons of other reasons to file appearls, but the RIAA has enough time and enough money to litigate that woman into bankruptcy 500 times over.
And just how many of those "tons" of lawyers are willing or able to work 100% of their time for the next 3-5 years?
I would guess the percentage is extremely small. The RIAA lawyers will bury their opponents with motions to be responded to and out rageous discovery requests.
My other point was that the fear of drunk driving is another of those things that is being used to erode our rights. I could rape somebody and the police can't obtain a DNA sample from me without my consent or a court order. Assuming they had to get a court order and it proved that I was innocent no harm would come to me. If I refuse a BAC (whilst drunk or sober) then I instantly (with no due process) lose a right (driving).
Sorry, driving is NOT a right, it is priviledge which is doled out by the powers that be and therefore is not subject to due process.
$13 per month is over half of my cable bill. At 2M subscribers that is $26M per month (give or take a few million for lifetimers).. someone in mgmt needs to be shot if Tivo can't make ends meet on that type of cash flow...
Typically if you set you AP to channel 11 and buy a phone with a "change channel" you can work with a 2.4GHz network. I end up changing channels on my phone 1 or 2 times per day.
At most, you lose a few packets while changing the channel
Slashdot Mirror
Why does everyone want bills electronically? Most people I know, who get their bills electronically, print them out immediately. So the biller has just passed one of his costs of doing business to you. Frankly, it is bad enough having to pay the bill which includes the billers overhead.. but it is just so wrong to then have to pay to print said bill.
I think it is more a situation where people no longer care about their privacy.. they take it for granted that everything is and will remain private. Given the number of data breaches, there is no way I'm putting anything of value on the web
Yes, it is hard... considering the reading level of the average person and the dearth of writing skills amoungst the technical folks.
uh.. the depends on whether your using a right hand mouse or a left hand mouse
The simple solution for that problem is don't activate the service! All my kids have/had cell phones with web and text services available, but I never allowed the service to be turned on until the child qualified for the phone on their own. If it is in my name, I set the rules.
You might have to talk to second level technical support to get the service disabled on the phone but it is doable.
Whoa there, there have been atleast 4 articles on the net in the last year building out supurb MythTV boxes for less than $700 for standard tuner and for less than $1000 with an HD Tuner.
So you have $100 tivo that if it lasts 5 years costs you $369 for the first 3years and another $369 for years 4 & 5 for a total of $838. So you can spend $100 on hardware that you can't work on and $738 in prepaid service plans. Or you can build a resaonable system for $800, where you can work on the system adding replacing hardware and have no
cost for services.
For me, I can't see adding another $15-$20 per month to my cable bill just to use a tivo, I'd rather pay for the hardware and get the service for free...
To each, their own...
I disagree completely. Almost every American worker is rated against his peers. This rating is then used to determine lots of things. Things like, whether or not you get a raise, how much of a raise or if you are put on plan to be terminated. Managers have the distinct ability to not remember that person A got so much work done by working lots of hours and skipping vacations. If person A gets 10 projects completed in a year by working 60 hour weeks and not taking vacation, that becomes the company standard, anyone not working to a similar pace is on target to get demoted or worse yet let go.
The flip side of the coin, is companies requiring you to take all of your alotted vacation, but requiring you to be reachable on your vacation, unless you've spent a months pay for said vacation. If you are not reachable and haven't spent the months pay, then you're not a team player and don't deserve any of the benefits.
Amen!
Given the low percentages of homes with UPS systems or even backup batteries, the commercial is not that far from the true... certainly
closer to the truth than the internet companies' promoting reliable "phone service" with voip.
When was the last time you got on your computer during a power outage to use the internet? More than likely, only using dialup from a laptop
Are they making my plans to open source the rest of their graphics drivers ?
Stop paying actors anything more than scale upfront. Give a $20M actor 0.5% of net revenue from ticket and media sales. Pay the writers more so that the movies have plots and character development, and thus might be worth watching.
Challenge the creativity of everyone involved, put in an artificial spending limit... say @25M per hours worth of final product, based projected length of the original script. Tie future funding to revenue generated from the previous work.. shoot a movie
for $25M in production costs that returns $250M in box office and media sales, then your budget for the next projects is $200M..
Of course, this will never happen in my or my children's lifetimes
If it touches the Cell phone frequencies
Excuse me? What good video programming? There hasn't been good programming for atleast
a decade on a majority of the networks and those few that did are quickly following in the
foot steps of the those that didn't.
Off all the things mentioned the camera is the only piece that takes additional hardware, for everything
else the existing hardware could perform the desired tasks with the addition of the appropriate software module.
So basically, you need 2 shells one with camera and one without, then everything else become a piece of software that would be choosen and loaded at time of purchase. Obvious things, like phone books and call logs would be standard.. things like sms, internet, camera, fm radio, mp3 would be additional add ons.
Not that hard to do, but would be fought against bye the Cellphone companies, because you would be able to accidently spend more by sending/recieving sms, browsing the web. And oh my, if they have to tell one of their other customers that they can't deliver and sms or email to you...
Do able, yes. Will it ever be done, not if the Cellphone companies have any say
You obviously haven't read a EULA lately... you don't actually own the software you bought.. you just rented it for a very long term
Really bad analogy. Bridges don't ever change their position. The forces acting on the bridge are well
known and well studied. Software, while well studied, is never static. Its very nature is always dynamic and when you add people to the mix you will always have bugs. In order to have bug free code, you have to a perfect person writing said code. You won't find anyone that is perfect 100% of the time.
In the last 20 years, I've spent thousands of hours in code reviews with 100s of people examining the code. Yet, nothing that has been through any of those processes are bug free.. might have minimal bugs, but definitely not bog free. Even machines can't produce bug free code, because somewhere along the line
a person wrote some of the code.
Now, having said that, software is getting better (I know oxymoron) as the tools development tools improve the resulting software improves.. BUT it will never be perfect.
Simply put, hearing loss is a function of volume over time... for very loud sounds the time is very short before damage occurs. For very soft sounds the time is extremely long, so long that most people will suffer damage from loud sounds before they realize they've lost hearing do to the soft sound.
OSHA requires hearing protection for any workplace exposure of > 95 decibels
> 85 to 95 decibels for 4 or more hours per day or total exceeding 20 hours per week
> 75 to 80 decibels for 6 or more hours per day or total exceeding 24 hours per week
Antidotally, as the IT professionals age, more and more are being seen with notched hearing for the frequencies typically put out by computer fans and disk
A few thousand cookies doesn't take much diskspace to store, but a few billion or trillion is a totally different issue. Pings are the same way... by pushing the ping to the user
Ever thought of just dropping in a simple survey in every box? ....
Want a bigger return, make it a postage paid post card or a notice with a URL to the survey. Given the number of other pieces of paper that come with the disk, how hard could that be
There are tons of other reasons to file appearls, but the RIAA has enough time and enough money to litigate that woman into bankruptcy 500 times over.
And just how many of those "tons" of lawyers are willing or able to work 100% of their time for the next 3-5 years? I would guess the percentage is extremely small. The RIAA lawyers will bury their opponents with motions to be responded to and out rageous discovery requests.
ah, but ctl-H makes it easier for the authorities to compromise the integrity of the data :-)
$13 per month is over half of my cable bill. At 2M subscribers that is $26M per month (give or take a few million for lifetimers).. someone in mgmt needs to be shot if Tivo can't make ends meet on that type of cash flow ...
Typically if you set you AP to channel 11 and buy a phone with a "change channel" you can work with a 2.4GHz network. I end up changing channels on my phone 1 or 2 times per day.
At most, you lose a few packets while changing the channel