Sure, maybe not to lower-middle-income residents of wealthy nations, but where these things might be needed and better suited, a VILLAGE might not be able to afford $100.00.
I very much appreciate the exercise, that of making the cheapest possible PC, but we really need next-to-nothing PCs if they're supposed to liberate as we expect. Otherwise, it's just more throwaway stuff for what the poorest nations would call the "well-to-do."
I keep reading about folks moving the stickers around on their Rubick's Cube. The only way I could solve it was to pull it apart an reassemble it solved.
The problem occurs when stores don't do a good job of letting their customers know their policies... if the store policies are available to customers (which they are often not) it's typically printed on a receipt, or even worse, in that light blue writing some receipts have on the back.
This, as I see it, is the worst problem. Indeed, I believe it's more egregious than compiling a database. Customers don't know how to fight because they don't know their rights and they don't know their rights because they're hidden.
Listen to the typical car dealership advertisement. They make light of the fact they have to put in a bunch of legalese at the end, so they speed it up to make it sound like a baritone Alvin. But, all too often there are lines in there that would make a customer think twice about taking advantage of that super nifty sale.
The same goes for EULAs. How many people would download Weatherbug if they read the complete EULA? Of course, this presumes that all one needs to do is listen to Low-Pitched Alvin or read the EULA and understand it. EULA and disclaimer text could never be called "obfuscated." Right?
Too many companies will do their best to hide the caveats of doing business with them. The companies takes the risk that most of their customers will never bump into the policies. What if the customer does bump into the policy? Then the company can't be held responsible if the customer didn't read the sign hidden behind the pinned up sales circulars.
It seems to me this situation is getting much worse, too. How can all the cellular companies have the best network? (Ah, but it all depends on how one defines best if you had read the blurred disclaimer at the bottom of the screen. Sure, I know it's only on there for two seconds, but don't you have Tivo? We have a great deal on them this week.)
It would be fun to find the most outrageous examples. Perhaps that could be an Ask Slashdot.
I work as a roving technical support person helping mostly SoHos with computer problems and, well, I kind of have to agree about the collapse, though I may differ on the actual time.
I routinely see -- on a daily basis -- broken emails that crash mail readers, systems crippled by spyware, viruses like you wouldn't believe.
I realize the danger here of becoming the cop who sees all people as potential criminals, but I think the key difference in predictions of doom-and-gloom several years ago and those of today is very simple: profit.
Companies -- rightly or wrongly -- are profiting from most of the crap causing these problems. Researchers like Ben Edelman and F-Secure have shown that companies and individuals spend, spent _and_ make money with the proliferation of spyware, spam, and spam-bots. Why else did Dell UK show up on WhenU?
And because of this money, things are simply going to get worse.
The other side of this, too, is that most people are simply unaware there is a problem. They see a slow system and lost emails and don't investigate why. They blame the computer, mostly, but instead of fixing the symptoms, if that's even possible, they resort to other ways of getting work done. This is reasonable considering the end user's end goal.
I honestly don't believe that many of the proposals aimed at curbing spyware, trojans, and spam are going to work immediately, if at all, because they ultimately inconvenience the user. Let's face it: The computer didn't become popular during its command-line phase because it _looked_ difficult and so many people were backing that up with statements about complexity. Many people freak out when they change email addresses. Can you honestly expect this person to take the time to understand a whitelist, let alone implement it? Sorry, they're going to pick up the phone. What's more, many of the long-time companies like Symantec are starting to make serious missteps with their upgrades -- breaking applications and hindering systems in the quest to stop the problem. (Just watch Norton 2004 try to remove spyware.)
I really don't know what the answer is, but I am very afraid for the future of computers in workplaces. I'm afraid for computers in general. What's going to happen? I think there's going to be a major business user-contraction if the problem doesn't get better soon. Users WILL come back, but only after they feel they can trust the tool again. And surely, that's all it is to most people trying to get work done: a tool.
azatht writes "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2004 "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction" jointly to David J. Gross, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, H. David Politzer California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USThe 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Frank Wilczek Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA."
The others see...
azatht writes "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics...(uuuhhh words, words, words, uh... blah).
I like the idea. I like it more if you can give it a familiar voice like, say, your Dad when he taught you how to drive.
"stop... stop.... STOP!!! Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing?"
My (slight OT) Walmart Interview Story
on
Inside Wal-Mart IT
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Many years ago I applied to work at Walmart. I didn't plan to work in IT. I just wanted to work at a store part time. I was a teenager in search of money. There was, as I recall, a three-part process: a mini-interview, a questionnaire to fill out, then another interview.
One of the questions on the form was something along the lines of:
"Do you feel that everyone tries drugs at some point in their life."
The question wasn't specific. It didn't ask about "heroin," "marijuana," or even "aspirin."
Anyway, I am sometimes Honest and I felt I needed to answer the question truthfully. So, checked "Yes," and wrote: "Yes, I believe that, at some point during a person's very long life, one tries 'drugs'."
Yes, I was a dink.
The interviewer took my form to be "analyzed" and, to this day, I remember the anger on her face when she walked out of that office.
She said, "So, you think people try drugs, huh? Well, I don't think we have any place for a person like that."
I don't think I can ever work at Walmart. I imagine my "form" along with my name and SS has been filed somewhere.
Anyway, I suppose that Walmart's IT folks aren't pot-smoking, heroin-shooting, aspirin-chewing, drug-experimenters who sit in a daze watching Matrix letters melt on their screens, eh?
As a person who helps a lot of people get used to using the web, one of the continual frustrations in the legal online music world is that there are so many holes in the various collections online, especially in stuff not played on commercial radio. It's really disappointing when you get beyond the well-known stuff. World music, for instance.
So, the perfect online music store would have every song that's current in catalog and can be purchased at a store.
It seems to me the RIAA/MPAA/ETCAA need to come to some sort of compromise now on how they're going to accept and compromise with P2P. For all of its plusses, P2P technology is not great yet. The downloads are usually very slow. It's hard to find everything you want and so many items use Windows Media Player and its ability to take you to websites that automagically download spyware. In other words, it's not perfect for users.
Yet.
When this technology becomes rock-solid -- that is, when P2P means fast, good, non-malware-downloads -- THAT'S when the *AA will realize their nightmares.
This _is_ coming. They should really stop putting their fingers in the dyke and work out a compromise.
No no no no. They're reviving the Carmen Sandiego series!
Where in The Fuck is Carmen San Diego -- Search for Carmen through the world's most nortorious brothels and bordellos for the slut of sleuth.
Where in The Hell is Carmen San Diego -- Search through Hell's levels for Carmen. Special Guest Star Pope Nicholas III. Comes with a copy of Dante's Inferno to help guide you.
This is The Big Show with The Big Zero on Sports Radio 850 WWEI in Boston
"Hey John Nash. This is Butchie from beyond da grave. Why don't you call me when you have something modern. He he he he he."
Well it seems the Stars of Mathematics are dwindling as they drop another one in Germany. Hey stars, why don't ya pick it up a little.
"Hey, did you see that play on MathCenter highlights? d/dx(Abs(x))|x=0 is undefined?!"
But don't worry cause we got Evil Tony Mazzarotti to help bring it all into perspective. Hey Evil Tony, why don't you lay off the coffee?
"HEY ROB SCHNEIDERMAN! I HEARD YOU'RE TAKING A SABATTICAL IN THE FALL. YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU FAT BASTAD!"
We also got Larry Johnson to bring us the Yankee -- er, I mean -- Calculus talk.
"I've been trying to get Convergent Sequences on this thing for the past two hours. I keep fiddlin' with it and fiddilin' with it. Oh, brother."
And back on the supersized mic it's Pete "Ito Calculus" Shepard on The Flash.
"It's quite possible that caluclus can prove or disprove God's existance. But I think it's more important to find out if the Sox will ever win The Fall Classic again."
All joining The Big O on a Tuesday edition of the...
"So, the stars dropped another one. Are you sure Terry Francoma isn't managing them?"
I like Ethernet. It's been good to me (, Howard), but didn't Bob Metcalfe predict the death of the Internet in 1996 and then later say he didn't say it? It's a shame that one foolish prediction can dull a shining star, but I find myself filtering what he says through that old prediction...
m
Re:This is why...
on
A Worm's Worm
·
· Score: 5, Funny
...we need to stop relying on thrid-party worms, we need Micro-Soft certified worms to ensure our securtity....
Heh.
The Virus you're about to install has not passed Windows Logo testing to verify its compatibility with Windows XP.
I don't know. I'm happy about the merger; I think the topics are natural fits, but they BOTH struggled mightily for ad revenue. I keep thinking about the song "Nothing From Nothing Means Nothing." Can combining both really bring a real bump in revenue?
Count your stars lucky.... At least HP still manufactures decent calculators. It's not that far a stretch to see HP take their calculators down the road of so many of their other products like their printers, which used to be sooooo good.
Here's a plausible scenario:
Imagine having to first activate the calculator via a Windows software install. This would, of course, require an Internet connection, so that the latest firmware (2.45, of course, to fix recent problems with totals) could be downloaded to the calc. The firmware, by the by, is 12.85 megabytes. (Well, not _really_ but there's other stuff in there, too, of course.) No Internet? No activation. No calcy.
Oh, and you must register the product, otherwise you won't receive support or updates. And while installing, Share-to-Web, BackWeb, and five other processes will be installed. They'll come up with the next reboot. (That explains the extra 50 seconds added to reboot, anyway.)
Slashdot Mirror
Dust in the screen.
Some PSPs have dust in the screeeeeeen.
OOoooOOOoh. oooooUUUH!
Sure, maybe not to lower-middle-income residents of wealthy nations, but where these things might be needed and better suited, a VILLAGE might not be able to afford $100.00.
I very much appreciate the exercise, that of making the cheapest possible PC, but we really need next-to-nothing PCs if they're supposed to liberate as we expect. Otherwise, it's just more throwaway stuff for what the poorest nations would call the "well-to-do."
I keep reading about folks moving the stickers around on their Rubick's Cube. The only way I could solve it was to pull it apart an reassemble it solved.
The problem occurs when stores don't do a good job of letting their customers know their policies... if the store policies are available to customers (which they are often not) it's typically printed on a receipt, or even worse, in that light blue writing some receipts have on the back.
This, as I see it, is the worst problem. Indeed, I believe it's more egregious than compiling a database. Customers don't know how to fight because they don't know their rights and they don't know their rights because they're hidden.
Listen to the typical car dealership advertisement. They make light of the fact they have to put in a bunch of legalese at the end, so they speed it up to make it sound like a baritone Alvin. But, all too often there are lines in there that would make a customer think twice about taking advantage of that super nifty sale.
The same goes for EULAs. How many people would download Weatherbug if they read the complete EULA? Of course, this presumes that all one needs to do is listen to Low-Pitched Alvin or read the EULA and understand it. EULA and disclaimer text could never be called "obfuscated." Right?
Too many companies will do their best to hide the caveats of doing business with them. The companies takes the risk that most of their customers will never bump into the policies. What if the customer does bump into the policy? Then the company can't be held responsible if the customer didn't read the sign hidden behind the pinned up sales circulars.
It seems to me this situation is getting much worse, too. How can all the cellular companies have the best network? (Ah, but it all depends on how one defines best if you had read the blurred disclaimer at the bottom of the screen. Sure, I know it's only on there for two seconds, but don't you have Tivo? We have a great deal on them this week.)
It would be fun to find the most outrageous examples. Perhaps that could be an Ask Slashdot.
m
I don't know about you guys but I need help down there. That's why I and Kenny Loggins stuff our pants.
Now, with this integrated tunnel system, the next time I go out I can stuff a very long one and it'll snake all around me.
Wait til they get a load of me now!
m
Where is this thing? Is it in orbit? Is it near-Earth, pointing at it? Does it turn off ALL TVs in the universe?
Perhaps presidential candidates can use it when opponents run ads or programs.
I'd like to see a Universal Orgasm Button. That'd be SWEET.
I work as a roving technical support person helping mostly SoHos with computer problems and, well, I kind of have to agree about the collapse, though I may differ on the actual time.
I routinely see -- on a daily basis -- broken emails that crash mail readers, systems crippled by spyware, viruses like you wouldn't believe.
I realize the danger here of becoming the cop who sees all people as potential criminals, but I think the key difference in predictions of doom-and-gloom several years ago and those of today is very simple: profit.
Companies -- rightly or wrongly -- are profiting from most of the crap causing these problems. Researchers like Ben Edelman and F-Secure have shown that companies and individuals spend, spent _and_ make money with the proliferation of spyware, spam, and spam-bots. Why else did Dell UK show up on WhenU?
And because of this money, things are simply going to get worse.
The other side of this, too, is that most people are simply unaware there is a problem. They see a slow system and lost emails and don't investigate why. They blame the computer, mostly, but instead of fixing the symptoms, if that's even possible, they resort to other ways of getting work done. This is reasonable considering the end user's end goal.
I honestly don't believe that many of the proposals aimed at curbing spyware, trojans, and spam are going to work immediately, if at all, because they ultimately inconvenience the user. Let's face it: The computer didn't become popular during its command-line phase because it _looked_ difficult and so many people were backing that up with statements about complexity. Many people freak out when they change email addresses. Can you honestly expect this person to take the time to understand a whitelist, let alone implement it? Sorry, they're going to pick up the phone. What's more, many of the long-time companies like Symantec are starting to make serious missteps with their upgrades -- breaking applications and hindering systems in the quest to stop the problem. (Just watch Norton 2004 try to remove spyware.)
I really don't know what the answer is, but I am very afraid for the future of computers in workplaces. I'm afraid for computers in general. What's going to happen? I think there's going to be a major business user-contraction if the problem doesn't get better soon. Users WILL come back, but only after they feel they can trust the tool again. And surely, that's all it is to most people trying to get work done: a tool.
I used to work for a developer/publisher and we often rewrote reviews in major and minor magazines when we didn't agree with the reviewers end result.
The physics person sees...
...(uuuhhh words, words, words, uh... blah).
azatht writes "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2004 "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction" jointly to David J. Gross, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, H. David Politzer California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USThe 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Frank Wilczek Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA."
The others see...
azatht writes "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics
I like the idea. I like it more if you can give it a familiar voice like, say, your Dad when he taught you how to drive.
.... STOP!!! Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing?"
"stop... stop
Many years ago I applied to work at Walmart. I didn't plan to work in IT. I just wanted to work at a store part time. I was a teenager in search of money. There was, as I recall, a three-part process: a mini-interview, a questionnaire to fill out, then another interview.
One of the questions on the form was something along the lines of:
"Do you feel that everyone tries drugs at some point in their life."
The question wasn't specific. It didn't ask about "heroin," "marijuana," or even "aspirin."
Anyway, I am sometimes Honest and I felt I needed to answer the question truthfully. So, checked "Yes," and wrote: "Yes, I believe that, at some point during a person's very long life, one tries 'drugs'."
Yes, I was a dink.
The interviewer took my form to be "analyzed" and, to this day, I remember the anger on her face when she walked out of that office.
She said, "So, you think people try drugs, huh? Well, I don't think we have any place for a person like that."
I don't think I can ever work at Walmart. I imagine my "form" along with my name and SS has been filed somewhere.
Anyway, I suppose that Walmart's IT folks aren't pot-smoking, heroin-shooting, aspirin-chewing, drug-experimenters who sit in a daze watching Matrix letters melt on their screens, eh?
As a person who helps a lot of people get used to using the web, one of the continual frustrations in the legal online music world is that there are so many holes in the various collections online, especially in stuff not played on commercial radio. It's really disappointing when you get beyond the well-known stuff. World music, for instance.
So, the perfect online music store would have every song that's current in catalog and can be purchased at a store.
It seems to me the RIAA/MPAA/ETCAA need to come to some sort of compromise now on how they're going to accept and compromise with P2P. For all of its plusses, P2P technology is not great yet. The downloads are usually very slow. It's hard to find everything you want and so many items use Windows Media Player and its ability to take you to websites that automagically download spyware. In other words, it's not perfect for users.
Yet.
When this technology becomes rock-solid -- that is, when P2P means fast, good, non-malware-downloads -- THAT'S when the *AA will realize their nightmares.
This _is_ coming. They should really stop putting their fingers in the dyke and work out a compromise.
self-evidently moronic
Damn. I had to look that up.
Well, I guess if anyone can crush Microsoft, it'll be Clear Channel. They crush everyone at some point.
No no no no. They're reviving the Carmen Sandiego series!
Where in The Fuck is Carmen San Diego -- Search for Carmen through the world's most nortorious brothels and bordellos for the slut of sleuth.
Where in The Hell is Carmen San Diego -- Search through Hell's levels for Carmen. Special Guest Star Pope Nicholas III. Comes with a copy of Dante's Inferno to help guide you.
Ow!
This is The Big Show with The Big Zero on Sports Radio 850 WWEI in Boston
"Hey John Nash. This is Butchie from beyond da grave. Why don't you call me when you have something modern. He he he he he."
Well it seems the Stars of Mathematics are dwindling as they drop another one in Germany. Hey stars, why don't ya pick it up a little.
"Hey, did you see that play on MathCenter highlights? d/dx(Abs(x))|x=0 is undefined?!"
But don't worry cause we got Evil Tony Mazzarotti to help bring it all into perspective. Hey Evil Tony, why don't you lay off the coffee?
"HEY ROB SCHNEIDERMAN! I HEARD YOU'RE TAKING A SABATTICAL IN THE FALL. YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU FAT BASTAD!"
We also got Larry Johnson to bring us the Yankee -- er, I mean -- Calculus talk.
"I've been trying to get Convergent Sequences on this thing for the past two hours. I keep fiddlin' with it and fiddilin' with it. Oh, brother."
And back on the supersized mic it's Pete "Ito Calculus" Shepard on The Flash.
"It's quite possible that caluclus can prove or disprove God's existance. But I think it's more important to find out if the Sox will ever win The Fall Classic again."
All joining The Big O on a Tuesday edition of the...
"So, the stars dropped another one. Are you sure Terry Francoma isn't managing them?"
Big Show.
Is a paperweight styled like an iPod? Or an iced cake?
Actually, they're ALL copies of Ivory Soap. Proctor and Gamble's gonna put the smack down on Apple any day now, just you wait and see.
I like Ethernet. It's been good to me (, Howard), but didn't Bob Metcalfe predict the death of the Internet in 1996 and then later say he didn't say it? It's a shame that one foolish prediction can dull a shining star, but I find myself filtering what he says through that old prediction...
m
...we need to stop relying on thrid-party worms, we need Micro-Soft certified worms to ensure our securtity....
Heh.
The Virus you're about to install has not passed Windows Logo testing to verify its compatibility with Windows XP.
Continue Anyway.
Did whomever that was say [the raising the bar on security comment] with a straight face?
Well, they can HOPE all they want. Doesn't mean it will actually happen.
I hope I'll win a billion dollars at the end of the night?
I hope I'll magically have all my paperwork done in five minutes.
I hope that Natalie Portman (with hot grits (or porridge, or oatmeal, i don't care)) will appear here by the end of the night.
Will these things actually happen?
I don't know. I'm happy about the merger; I think the topics are natural fits, but they BOTH struggled mightily for ad revenue. I keep thinking about the song "Nothing From Nothing Means Nothing." Can combining both really bring a real bump in revenue?
m
Count your stars lucky.... At least HP still manufactures decent calculators. It's not that far a stretch to see HP take their calculators down the road of so many of their other products like their printers, which used to be sooooo good.
Here's a plausible scenario:
Imagine having to first activate the calculator via a Windows software install. This would, of course, require an Internet connection, so that the latest firmware (2.45, of course, to fix recent problems with totals) could be downloaded to the calc. The firmware, by the by, is 12.85 megabytes. (Well, not _really_ but there's other stuff in there, too, of course.) No Internet? No activation. No calcy.
Oh, and you must register the product, otherwise you won't receive support or updates. And while installing, Share-to-Web, BackWeb, and five other processes will be installed. They'll come up with the next reboot. (That explains the extra 50 seconds added to reboot, anyway.)
*sigh*
That's what the cops say. ;-) First you have speeding, then running red lights, then running stop signs, soon you're up to mass-murder.
This new stop light just gets you through the gateway just a little quicker.
m
Cool!
Finally, I'll be able to fulfill my childhood dream of digging to China.