Thinking in the wrong box... Go to games.yahoo.com. Then go to games.netscape.com. Rinse, repeat, etc. If your box is simply an enhanced WebTV there are now thousands of retail games out there. Take away the overhead of a versatile PC operating system, now your web games will run faster than on a PC. Though I suspect I'm thinking too simplistic, there remain two explanations- either it runs games that already exist for existing platforms (PC, Java, MAME, Nesticle) or it's a complete hoax. Come to think of it, if they created a legit licensing scheme for the thousands of classic games that exist as pirated ROM rips, there's a business plan right there.
heh.. 'tis the nature of moderation. Moderator points don't grant omniscience, therefore inevitably anything that is long and wordy will be modded up as interesting or informative regardless of content, unless patently obvious as offtopic or troll.
Read the article. That will only apply if you die in a freezer... most self-winders are powered by motion, this is not. That is the point of the patent, that it is a different, innovative way to power a watch.
Granted, it seems like an out of place innovation.. with all sorts of electronic perpetuals out there, using thermal or solar, or motion, including $300 Citizens that can operate unworn for 3 years, this doesn't exactly solve a problem that's out on the real-world market. But for the wealthy who MUST have a status symbol watch, this is a new way to set one up.
But it won't stop when you do, and that's just the point.
Optimum is terrible for uploads anyway. I've never had a single file successfully upload beyond modem speed on my Optimum. Though that could be the fault of my firewall, who knows, but a) this will not affect my use of their service one bit, b) evil sharers like me don't use Optimum's email service, thus we didn't recieve this letter.
"the civilian consumer pricing for SoloTrek XFV should be similar to that of a very high-end sports car."
Are we talking British/Italian high-end? As in very very six figure? Judging from the looks of the thing, I would appraise it at maybe $25,000, and that's only because I work in the car business and know how cheap a $25000 car really is.
vs. the Moller Skycar starting at half a mil (price of a Mclaren F1) and dropping over years to ~60k (price of a Cadillac Escalade).
So the two "vehicles" are about the same price, while one seems to vie for Segway marketshare- and looks flimsier- while the other looks like it came out of Star Wars and seeks to obsolete the Interstates. Given the difference in function and appearance, I think its obvious why one lost funding.
That and who wants to do any sustained flying in an unenclosed vehicle flying too low for a parachute to be effective?
More agreement. As we came out, my friend said, "They broke the first rule of movie sequels- they made the second better than the first." Wondering what he had smoked.. first, it's not a movie sequel, it's the movie version of volume two of a long book. Then, I couldn't see the better part.
LOTR doesn't fit the Hollywood definition of good movie material, thus the changes; what makes a truly classic book doesn't make a good movie. (FB: Can you imagine "The Catcher In the Rye - The Motion Picture"?)
Some prime gripes: 1) Gimli seemed to me in the book to be more than just comic relief. In film one, we get "nobody tosses a dwarf." In film two, Gimli trapped under a warg and saved by others thrice in a minor battle, uselessly standing a the top of a wall at Helm's deep as if to make the point that he's useless, and finally, saying "Toss me!" I can't remember from the book, was he really doing utterly nothing during the warg battle? 2) "You'll need to give us your weapons by order of wormtongue." "Ok, here have my sword/axe/bow, but let the old man keep his walking stick." What happenned to "well I wouldn't normally give up my axe, but since it will be in such good company..." Lots of reasonably important (or at least poetic) dialogue was cut! 3) Riding on top of trees had worse bluescreen than Star Wars original. Granted, ents are tough to do, but if you can have a well animated Gollum you can properly get some wind in the hobbits' hair, backgrounds that look real, and smoother motion.
Other than that it was indeed great. I think it will get more rave reviews that FOTR on account of raging battle scenes, and of course that's a shame; Tolkien shall be turning in his grave. The story is about plot, not action. Gollum was amazing, looked more real than any CGI I've yet seen, which is more real than most actual TV actors;)
Also glad that Eowyn wasn't totally scratched... I'd heard early rumors of that; look forward to the love subplot getting straightened out next book. But why do I have a feeling they're going to have Arwen steal her thunder next volume?
The tiny ass minidisk player is indeed a part of it, a symptom- we have backdated technology because it is more profitable to bloated bureaucracy. We have a society that rewards non-constructive behavior; look at who gets paid the most in American businesses, it's certainly not the people who are innovating. Hell, howabout "DOJ vs. The Freedom to Innovate"? There we have a corporate redefinition of the meaning of the word innovate.
But the parent post DOES point out that America has lost its tech edge. All of these things.. computer industry, nuclear power, moon travel.. substantially predate "modern society" and while IANA statistician I'm sure that around half our population has been born since these things happenned. Something needs to be done...
(begin trolling) Right, this is a spoiler, because we now know that a movie based on a classic book contains a significant event from the book and incidentally uses some pretty cool effects technology. Fortunately, none of us have seen the Table of Contents to the volume, which gave us significantly more spoiler information than this thread.
I'm not going to spoil it for you, but just so you know, they already released the ENTIRE story in book form- and it's better, longer, and of course, uncut, and even comes in an innovative media format that requires no separate viewer hardware or software; chances are your library has a dozen editions. And if you haven't read it, you're missing out more than if you miss the movie.
Be warned, here's the biggest spoiler of all- it will have a cliffhanger ending, they DON'T get to Mount Doom, etc, but don't worry, if you're really stuck on what happens next, you can wait a year for the Return of the King, or you can read the book!
There is no such thing as a spoiler for a movie made from a well-known book, especially when posted among geeks who, as a whole, tend to have read the books at least once.
No, that is not the reason. People prioritize their spending. Most people and most companies are perfectly content with their current computers if they are less than 3 years old- rather, if they continue to serve the needs of the users with only minor headaches. Being non-average, I realize this and inexpensively keep my family fully stocked on the hot technologies of three years ago, which are STILL beyond the needs of the users. Computers are not like cars- they don't just automatically wear out, break down, and get boring with age. Windows does, but for most people simply reformatting and reinstalling Windows has the same effect as buying a new computer. Last time I "bought a new computer" (replaced more than half the components in my always self-built box) was because I had nothing less than four years aold and my machine couldn't run Windows 2000. I'm sure there are a number of/. readers just like me, and I know that many home users are just like my family- "I just need it to go on Hotmail and write my life story." (my mom) So her killer apps are Internet Explorer and Word. I could set her up on a Pentium 90 and she'd be happy.. and she was for about two years until I got her a laptop, for no reason beyond maybe getting her out of the house.
Most market analysts, I suspect, have absolutely no idea how computers work.
Sure, the hide looks great in your Bimmer.. but really, have you ever actually tasted a buffalo?
Although, since they're usually "free range", I bet it would solve this drug-meat debate. Oddly, last time I was offered Buffalo meat, it prompted me onto the path of abandoning my vegetarian beliefs, because I realized that like so many, I really had no problem with the eating animals part; we were meant to do that. It's the overprocessing, overconsumption, and mechanization of it that bothers me. Though come to think of it, everything we do to cows, I've met people who've done worse to potatoes, so there goes that argument.
Well I'm glad we stopped caring about that damned Constitution. It was just getting annoying with all those "you can'ts" like "You can't tax interstate commerce". Now that the Constitution doesn't matter anymore, we can write laws to say whatever we want! Note to self, better head to a gun show quick before they take away my second amendment as an afterthought.
The beauty of e-commerce is that its a bit less regulated, and a bit less taxed, not to mention, oh yeah, that it gives me the consumer access to thousands of competitive vendors in every state. No mistake, though, everything I buy online is taxed four times, first as income for the corporation I bought it from (state and federal), then as income for the employee whose paycheck it went into (state and federal). Sales tax in general is just one more way to pay tax on tax on tax.
When you add it all up, even without sales tax most of the money goes back to government. Notice the line in the article where "States lost $35 billion last year to internet purchases?" That's Hollywood talk- the assumption that even though they didn't get it under present circumstances, they would under others. Living in New York, who's to say I won't do my shoppping at stores in New Jersey regardless of the internet? NJ isn't letting go of my 6%, do I need to give NY their 8 too? If I buy online, now they're calling the tax I didn't pay the retailer in California as lost money. If not for tax-free e-commerce, I may have gone to Connecticut instead to pay lower sales tax, and both states lose! Which would you rather have, untaxed interstate exports contributing to your economy and consequently, state income tax, or taxed purchases going to another state charging a lower rate?
This is just madness. Unconstitutional, idiotic madness.
As a first mover, Ford frustrated his financers by failing to produce a viable product. Henry Leland approached said backers with a viable product and solid manufacturing techniques, and they put together a business plan; Ford lost his factory, Cadillac was born in its ashes.
Ford came back a few years later with a new business plan on a product that had been market-proven by other companies but needed a price and availability break. I don't think that scenario is extremely common, but it happens. Example: Engineers who helped launch the handheld computer as a platform left their company and started another competing solely on price and performance- Handspring. Then they figured out how to find a new direction for their product, because it became obvious that "smaller, more power efficient, fewer superfluous features" had a pretty low ceiling.
So if the Tivo people want to succeed, they'll step back and do some rethinking. Technology and name licensing is definitely the thing to do- this is how Qualcomm survived and thrives with their wireless technology, and there are research companies who do nothing but license as their overall business plan.
They'll either figure it out, or they'll get eaten by a giant.
I said "wow, someone did a great job on this spoof site." This is the real thing?
We'd better get rid of those big books that come from your HMO, people might be able to use them to create an internet database identifying the addresses of health care providers. But I'm glad we'll be doing away with lights and sirens, they're so damned annoying when I'm driving in traffic. Now I won't have to worry about them pesky ambulances skooting by all the traffic just by turning around traffic or going on the shoulder; now they'll get pulled over and delayed by the cops just like me! Thank you HIPAA, you've made life so much better.
If I ever get sick or injured, I'm driving MYSELF to the hospital, that is, if I can still legally find its address.
Please, enlighten me. I've looked on Palm's web site, and have yet to find something remotely compelling about this "product". It's priced the same as their own m105, which adds web clipping and email functionality and 4x the ram. When I saw the description of it I said "Wow, Palm finally caught on and made a $50 handheld!" Yeah, they made a $50 handheld and packaged it for $100. Thanks, for $100 I'll stick with a real handheld. Palm lost my business when they stopped marketing innovation and started focusing on brand image only.
Right now I'm solidly convinced Sony has the best value in PalmOS, my $299 T615 from August is STILL better than Palm's current top model, and $50 less. I will give Palm this, though, they have some pretty neat peripherals if you have a lot of money to shell out for them.
Re:Unemployment is overrated (flamebait)
on
Shop Till It Drops
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· Score: 1
So? Too much of our economy is based on people doing completely unnecessary jobs. I left the bank I worked at in disgust because rather than pay me the $1000 I offered to write a computer program to do my job unatended in perpetua, they'd rather pay a kid $450 a week to do the mind-numbingly repetitive job of a robot. 'Course I should have built the machine to do it and still collected checks playing Freecell... Most of these people don't realize it but it seems that many of the jobs ordinary people do (like loan processing clerks) exist not out of a need for a human to do a job to complex for a machine but rather out of a percieved need to have people employed. Not sure, but I think my idea of having the government send subsistence checks to useless people (sometimes refered to as "welfare") is unpolular for some reason.
or is this one of those "painfully obvious" ideas that should be fundamentally unpatentable? Unless there's a patent on the ASCII system or on the QWERTY layout (is there?) then this shouldn't be patented. Two years ago I gave up on this idea out of sheer laziness, but mostly because I knew I wouldn't be content with a design requiring to be held. Why not take it to the next level, with something that electrically senses twitches in your muscles like how some prosthetic limbs work? That way, you would type the same way, chording with five fingers, but the "keyboard" would just be a bracelet with a battery and a wireless (bluetooth) transmitter, so you could use it for phone, palm, etc. Anyone ever try something like that? As I said, I gave up on the idea based on the facts that a) I'm not an engineer, and b) I loathe the notion of someone managing to patent it and prevent me from eventually building my own.
Yeah, I had two such statistics books. One was written in the early 80s so none of the jokes made sense to me. The other was ultimately 300 pages longer than necessary, likewise crowded by way to many examples and way to many in-depth explanations of every detail. College texts in general are written that way, though, and the "Cliff's" version generally does the job for most people, is 5% of the size and 10% of the price. Maybe make the default manuals "For Dummies" style and sell "Cliffs" versions and O'Reilly for those who know what the hell the material's about?
Slashdot Mirror
Thinking in the wrong box...
Go to games.yahoo.com. Then go to games.netscape.com. Rinse, repeat, etc.
If your box is simply an enhanced WebTV there are now thousands of retail games out there. Take away the overhead of a versatile PC operating system, now your web games will run faster than on a PC.
Though I suspect I'm thinking too simplistic, there remain two explanations- either it runs games that already exist for existing platforms (PC, Java, MAME, Nesticle) or it's a complete hoax. Come to think of it, if they created a legit licensing scheme for the thousands of classic games that exist as pirated ROM rips, there's a business plan right there.
heh.. 'tis the nature of moderation. Moderator points don't grant omniscience, therefore inevitably anything that is long and wordy will be modded up as interesting or informative regardless of content, unless patently obvious as offtopic or troll.
Read the article. That will only apply if you die in a freezer... most self-winders are powered by motion, this is not. That is the point of the patent, that it is a different, innovative way to power a watch.
Granted, it seems like an out of place innovation.. with all sorts of electronic perpetuals out there, using thermal or solar, or motion, including $300 Citizens that can operate unworn for 3 years, this doesn't exactly solve a problem that's out on the real-world market. But for the wealthy who MUST have a status symbol watch, this is a new way to set one up.
But it won't stop when you do, and that's just the point.
No.
16 grand is the cheapest watch the company sells, and is a conventional mechanical watch.
The perpetuals start at just over $64k.
Thus this is a plaything for the very rich.
Depends on how many live within 1500 feet of a Verizon switch station and can thus get DSL around here. Seems like only a small percentage.
And this is news because...
Optimum is terrible for uploads anyway. I've never had a single file successfully upload beyond modem speed on my Optimum. Though that could be the fault of my firewall, who knows, but a) this will not affect my use of their service one bit, b) evil sharers like me don't use Optimum's email service, thus we didn't recieve this letter.
"the civilian consumer pricing for SoloTrek XFV should be similar to that of a very high-end sports car."
Are we talking British/Italian high-end? As in very very six figure? Judging from the looks of the thing, I would appraise it at maybe $25,000, and that's only because I work in the car business and know how cheap a $25000 car really is.
vs. the Moller Skycar starting at half a mil (price of a Mclaren F1) and dropping over years to ~60k (price of a Cadillac Escalade).
So the two "vehicles" are about the same price, while one seems to vie for Segway marketshare- and looks flimsier- while the other looks like it came out of Star Wars and seeks to obsolete the Interstates. Given the difference in function and appearance, I think its obvious why one lost funding.
That and who wants to do any sustained flying in an unenclosed vehicle flying too low for a parachute to be effective?
More agreement. As we came out, my friend said, "They broke the first rule of movie sequels- they made the second better than the first." Wondering what he had smoked.. first, it's not a movie sequel, it's the movie version of volume two of a long book. Then, I couldn't see the better part.
;)
LOTR doesn't fit the Hollywood definition of good movie material, thus the changes; what makes a truly classic book doesn't make a good movie. (FB: Can you imagine "The Catcher In the Rye - The Motion Picture"?)
Some prime gripes:
1) Gimli seemed to me in the book to be more than just comic relief. In film one, we get "nobody tosses a dwarf." In film two, Gimli trapped under a warg and saved by others thrice in a minor battle, uselessly standing a the top of a wall at Helm's deep as if to make the point that he's useless, and finally, saying "Toss me!" I can't remember from the book, was he really doing utterly nothing during the warg battle?
2) "You'll need to give us your weapons by order of wormtongue." "Ok, here have my sword/axe/bow, but let the old man keep his walking stick." What happenned to "well I wouldn't normally give up my axe, but since it will be in such good company..." Lots of reasonably important (or at least poetic) dialogue was cut!
3) Riding on top of trees had worse bluescreen than Star Wars original. Granted, ents are tough to do, but if you can have a well animated Gollum you can properly get some wind in the hobbits' hair, backgrounds that look real, and smoother motion.
Other than that it was indeed great. I think it will get more rave reviews that FOTR on account of raging battle scenes, and of course that's a shame; Tolkien shall be turning in his grave. The story is about plot, not action. Gollum was amazing, looked more real than any CGI I've yet seen, which is more real than most actual TV actors
Also glad that Eowyn wasn't totally scratched... I'd heard early rumors of that; look forward to the love subplot getting straightened out next book. But why do I have a feeling they're going to have Arwen steal her thunder next volume?
The tiny ass minidisk player is indeed a part of it, a symptom- we have backdated technology because it is more profitable to bloated bureaucracy. We have a society that rewards non-constructive behavior; look at who gets paid the most in American businesses, it's certainly not the people who are innovating. Hell, howabout "DOJ vs. The Freedom to Innovate"? There we have a corporate redefinition of the meaning of the word innovate.
But the parent post DOES point out that America has lost its tech edge. All of these things.. computer industry, nuclear power, moon travel.. substantially predate "modern society" and while IANA statistician I'm sure that around half our population has been born since these things happenned. Something needs to be done...
You mean, this 1st post is being sent over the cablemodem and becomes equivalent to a 15th post...
Wow, it really works!
(begin trolling)
Right, this is a spoiler, because we now know that a movie based on a classic book contains a significant event from the book and incidentally uses some pretty cool effects technology. Fortunately, none of us have seen the Table of Contents to the volume, which gave us significantly more spoiler information than this thread.
I'm not going to spoil it for you, but just so you know, they already released the ENTIRE story in book form- and it's better, longer, and of course, uncut, and even comes in an innovative media format that requires no separate viewer hardware or software; chances are your library has a dozen editions. And if you haven't read it, you're missing out more than if you miss the movie.
Be warned, here's the biggest spoiler of all- it will have a cliffhanger ending, they DON'T get to Mount Doom, etc, but don't worry, if you're really stuck on what happens next, you can wait a year for the Return of the King, or you can read the book!
There is no such thing as a spoiler for a movie made from a well-known book, especially when posted among geeks who, as a whole, tend to have read the books at least once.
Who does these mods? Ten minutes ago parent was +3 funny, now it's 1 Redundant. Did two moderators miss the punchline or what?
No, that is not the reason. People prioritize their spending. Most people and most companies are perfectly content with their current computers if they are less than 3 years old- rather, if they continue to serve the needs of the users with only minor headaches. Being non-average, I realize this and inexpensively keep my family fully stocked on the hot technologies of three years ago, which are STILL beyond the needs of the users. Computers are not like cars- they don't just automatically wear out, break down, and get boring with age. Windows does, but for most people simply reformatting and reinstalling Windows has the same effect as buying a new computer. Last time I "bought a new computer" (replaced more than half the components in my always self-built box) was because I had nothing less than four years aold and my machine couldn't run Windows 2000. I'm sure there are a number of /. readers just like me, and I know that many home users are just like my family- "I just need it to go on Hotmail and write my life story." (my mom) So her killer apps are Internet Explorer and Word. I could set her up on a Pentium 90 and she'd be happy.. and she was for about two years until I got her a laptop, for no reason beyond maybe getting her out of the house.
Most market analysts, I suspect, have absolutely no idea how computers work.
Sure, the hide looks great in your Bimmer.. but really, have you ever actually tasted a buffalo?
Although, since they're usually "free range", I bet it would solve this drug-meat debate. Oddly, last time I was offered Buffalo meat, it prompted me onto the path of abandoning my vegetarian beliefs, because I realized that like so many, I really had no problem with the eating animals part; we were meant to do that. It's the overprocessing, overconsumption, and mechanization of it that bothers me. Though come to think of it, everything we do to cows, I've met people who've done worse to potatoes, so there goes that argument.
The beauty of e-commerce is that its a bit less regulated, and a bit less taxed, not to mention, oh yeah, that it gives me the consumer access to thousands of competitive vendors in every state. No mistake, though, everything I buy online is taxed four times, first as income for the corporation I bought it from (state and federal), then as income for the employee whose paycheck it went into (state and federal). Sales tax in general is just one more way to pay tax on tax on tax.
When you add it all up, even without sales tax most of the money goes back to government. Notice the line in the article where "States lost $35 billion last year to internet purchases?" That's Hollywood talk- the assumption that even though they didn't get it under present circumstances, they would under others. Living in New York, who's to say I won't do my shoppping at stores in New Jersey regardless of the internet? NJ isn't letting go of my 6%, do I need to give NY their 8 too? If I buy online, now they're calling the tax I didn't pay the retailer in California as lost money. If not for tax-free e-commerce, I may have gone to Connecticut instead to pay lower sales tax, and both states lose! Which would you rather have, untaxed interstate exports contributing to your economy and consequently, state income tax, or taxed purchases going to another state charging a lower rate?
This is just madness. Unconstitutional, idiotic madness.
As a first mover, Ford frustrated his financers by failing to produce a viable product. Henry Leland approached said backers with a viable product and solid manufacturing techniques, and they put together a business plan; Ford lost his factory, Cadillac was born in its ashes.
Ford came back a few years later with a new business plan on a product that had been market-proven by other companies but needed a price and availability break. I don't think that scenario is extremely common, but it happens. Example: Engineers who helped launch the handheld computer as a platform left their company and started another competing solely on price and performance- Handspring. Then they figured out how to find a new direction for their product, because it became obvious that "smaller, more power efficient, fewer superfluous features" had a pretty low ceiling.
So if the Tivo people want to succeed, they'll step back and do some rethinking. Technology and name licensing is definitely the thing to do- this is how Qualcomm survived and thrives with their wireless technology, and there are research companies who do nothing but license as their overall business plan.
They'll either figure it out, or they'll get eaten by a giant.
I said "wow, someone did a great job on this spoof site." This is the real thing?
We'd better get rid of those big books that come from your HMO, people might be able to use them to create an internet database identifying the addresses of health care providers. But I'm glad we'll be doing away with lights and sirens, they're so damned annoying when I'm driving in traffic. Now I won't have to worry about them pesky ambulances skooting by all the traffic just by turning around traffic or going on the shoulder; now they'll get pulled over and delayed by the cops just like me! Thank you HIPAA, you've made life so much better.
If I ever get sick or injured, I'm driving MYSELF to the hospital, that is, if I can still legally find its address.
Please, enlighten me. I've looked on Palm's web site, and have yet to find something remotely compelling about this "product". It's priced the same as their own m105, which adds web clipping and email functionality and 4x the ram. When I saw the description of it I said "Wow, Palm finally caught on and made a $50 handheld!" Yeah, they made a $50 handheld and packaged it for $100. Thanks, for $100 I'll stick with a real handheld. Palm lost my business when they stopped marketing innovation and started focusing on brand image only.
Right now I'm solidly convinced Sony has the best value in PalmOS, my $299 T615 from August is STILL better than Palm's current top model, and $50 less. I will give Palm this, though, they have some pretty neat peripherals if you have a lot of money to shell out for them.
So? Too much of our economy is based on people doing completely unnecessary jobs. I left the bank I worked at in disgust because rather than pay me the $1000 I offered to write a computer program to do my job unatended in perpetua, they'd rather pay a kid $450 a week to do the mind-numbingly repetitive job of a robot. 'Course I should have built the machine to do it and still collected checks playing Freecell...
Most of these people don't realize it but it seems that many of the jobs ordinary people do (like loan processing clerks) exist not out of a need for a human to do a job to complex for a machine but rather out of a percieved need to have people employed. Not sure, but I think my idea of having the government send subsistence checks to useless people (sometimes refered to as "welfare") is unpolular for some reason.
or is this one of those "painfully obvious" ideas that should be fundamentally unpatentable? Unless there's a patent on the ASCII system or on the QWERTY layout (is there?) then this shouldn't be patented. Two years ago I gave up on this idea out of sheer laziness, but mostly because I knew I wouldn't be content with a design requiring to be held. Why not take it to the next level, with something that electrically senses twitches in your muscles like how some prosthetic limbs work? That way, you would type the same way, chording with five fingers, but the "keyboard" would just be a bracelet with a battery and a wireless (bluetooth) transmitter, so you could use it for phone, palm, etc.
Anyone ever try something like that?
As I said, I gave up on the idea based on the facts that a) I'm not an engineer, and b) I loathe the notion of someone managing to patent it and prevent me from eventually building my own.
Yeah, I had two such statistics books. One was written in the early 80s so none of the jokes made sense to me. The other was ultimately 300 pages longer than necessary, likewise crowded by way to many examples and way to many in-depth explanations of every detail.
College texts in general are written that way, though, and the "Cliff's" version generally does the job for most people, is 5% of the size and 10% of the price.
Maybe make the default manuals "For Dummies" style and sell "Cliffs" versions and O'Reilly for those who know what the hell the material's about?