especially funny are the ones where they claim that "if you don't register.tv, you'll lose your opportunity forever." like I care.
I'm glad they are doing something about this. If you want general direct mail stopped, or at least slowed down, check out this site.
More people on cell-phones. Hopefully next they'll get the cell-phone to work on the subway too so I'll be sure to enjoy the maximum amount of other people's annoying conversations.
Did'ya ever notice that some people talk LOUDER on their cell-phones than they normally would? What is the deal with that?
Don't forget to check out these guys, who have a completely rational take on the ubiquitous cell-phone.
I feel for the guy and understand how frustrating it can be to deal with large companies. Now cry me a river. Move on, there is more to life than complaining. How many times did I spend on the phone with phone companies, cable companies, and the life and still wound up getting screwed? At least eBay gives this guy an attempt at a reply. They only have like what, 10 billion listings? Did the guy ever think of not putting the letters CD-R in the listing (duh?) ? He could have said "CD for sale" "make sure your player can play recordable CD media" and it wouldn't have even been flagged by the eBay MCP.
I did some work for Siruis Satellite Radio a few years back, and I can tell you that I knew as soon as I stepped in their corporate Midtown New York office, with Herman-Miller chairs and glass-and-metal desks, that they were the pentultimate dot.com company just ripe to go bust. I mean, they went a few steps further than making a wesbite and selling stuff on it -- they sent satellites into orbit and built a control-station on the first floor of their offices! The article points out that terrestrial stations will be broadcasting digital signals, but even without this satellite-killer, I often wondered who exactly would pay $10/mo to listen to radio in their cars? They can already do that for free.
I tried posting a similar (and better story, not just a stock report) a while back and Slashdot passed. This article has more detail on why Sirius is doing so bad.
I worked on an "accessable" site a few years back, it was my former employers biggest client (and coincidentally, their biggest flop). Although I am concerned with the fact that the blind and other people with disabilities can't always access websites in as efficient a manner as possible (within a medium that is more easily than others to make accessable), I agree with the judge on this one. The W3C guidlines are outdated and unclear. There are no standards for screenwriters and they are prohibitively expensive for smaller shops to own to for quality assurance testing. I think the lobbying groups that wanted to force Southwest should focus their efforts at working with the internet and business community (who take green money from anyone, "able" or not) to come with viable standards and processes for making information technology as accessable as possible.
Probably the same people who bought those Gateway TV / PC combo things that were good at neither computing nor home entertainment. Besides, most people who are inclined to use a PC to record television and use a PC as a DVR probably build their own anyway.
... no matter how great you think a Tivo is, that doesn't mean it is going to be commerically viable in the long term. See Betamax, Newtown, Commodore, the Edsel, etc etc. Just because they were the first to market, doesn't mean they'll be able to survive edgy analysts, worrisome investors, and a fickle public.
Will the DMCA be overturned or changed? Will the freedom-loving internet/technology community ever be able to coalesce and become an effective lobbying organization to effect politics in a real way (e.g. the NRA, the farm lobby, Microsoft)?
Economics tells us that when an entity chooses to specialize and excel at a particular thing, not only does it maximize its own profit potential, but it also makes the competitive environment better through comparative advantage. Why should a widget company develop or even maintain its own technology staff when there are companies out there (pick one, IBM, HP, Microsoft, etc) who produce products and service offerings that will do it better than that company will ever be able to.
All the technologists out there I am sure have seen this. Ever worked for or with companies that are out of their league, hire or maintain a technology staff, and almost ALWAYS outsource to consultants in the end because they don't know what they are doing? What the big players are doing is commodotizing this need by providing software packages that don't require ground-up programming. The consultant is still needed to implement and customize, but the "employee" or the "Dilbert" in-house shlep's days are numbered.
By far the best tools out there, use Google to find them, but they cost quite a bit.
All of these solutions require quite a bit of scripting and customization for full testing. For completely automated testing, well, try hiring someone.
--ellis
A year after on an attack on the United States which killed thousands of innocent people, it is a challenge to avoid polemics or hackneyed sentimentalism. The confusion stirred up by these events has raised tensions both between the cultural West and East, and within the West itself. The well intentioned from all over the political spectrum have analyzed and interpreted the events surrounding the specific attacks and the wider questions that surround it ad infinitum, yet no clear strategy or purpose has emerged from the West to deal with this crisis.
The moral questions that surround the attacks, the nature of "terrorism", and the conflict between the fundamentalist Islamic world and the West are interesting but somewhat irrelevant. The attempt to paint different actors good and evil have gained nothing in the way of consensus and open up its supporters to claims of hypocrisy and blindness. On the other side, the justification of anti-American sentiment based on moral equivalency or past or current US actions, while having valid points, will win no converts and is suspect of being a front for latent anti-Americanism.
So what are the options for the West? We can do nothing, but the status quo has given us our current situation. We can attempt to understand the perpetrators, but who the perpetrators are is an elusive subject itself. The conceit that we can actually understand them is also a bit unrealistic, considering the stark differences in the foundations of our societies, the difference in wealth and technology, and the deep hatred embedded on both sides.
The difference in wealth and technology is a poignant one as it brings us to see the essence of the crisis. We currently have the technological means so far ahead of any of our possible adversaries that with the momentum of a unified West, we can stop any regime that supports the destruction of our culture. That difference in culture, wealth, and technology, is the raison d'etre for the nascent movements against the West. Couched in religious fundamentalism, it becomes even more dangerous, and practically incurable, unless the West was to give up the very core of its culture. As this is unlikely to happen, unless we destroy the power behind the culture that seeks to destroy us, we will be destroyed ourselves. To see this is as impossible is to be pessimistic as to the power of our society. To see this as easy is to be naïve. The political correctness that leads us away from calling a clash of civilizations "a clash of civilizations" reveals our soft underbelly.
I am not a hawk or a warmonger. Before this crisis emerged, I would have been against any moves by the US or the West that would be seen as imperialistic or bullying. After careful consideration however, I no longer care about the perceptions of the US by those both on the inside and the outside of Western society. By eliminating the regimes in Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, we will do a service to countless future generations by removing the vitriolic cancer of hate and ignorant religiousness that permeates those societies. To think that someday (and I'm not sure if it is as soon as the media is no portraying it) these societies will not possess nuclear weapons and use them against us is naivety to the point of delirium. This is no crusade, to call it such would be to further couch our motives in destructive religious terms, it is a battle for human progress and civilization.
Under confusion, non-cooperation, and disinterestedness, Rome was overrun.
Ugh. Typical fundamentalist babble. Let's try not to look to 2000 year old folklore books for a way of life, and then see what kind of progress we can make as a society.
Once again, Slashdot fails to properly credit ...
on
Robots Go Spelunking
·
· Score: 0
... sources. This is an AP story, that Yahoo placed on their news portal. Yahoo doesn't RUN any kind of stories.
-- ellis
Offtopic? "Yahoo is covering a very cool piece on the development of roll-up screens..." This is not true. The story comes from Reuters. Yahoo doesn't "cover" stories. The opening text of the story is misleading as usual because of a lack of editorial.
The guy asks a legimate questions -- a more technical and interesting from a DYI perspective than I've seen on Slashdot in a awhile, and everyone creams him. A herd mentality. Instead of steering him to a sensible solution, which is mostly on a Linux platform anyway, he is cast away. Left to drown in the cruel world of google searches and pop-up ads.
-- ellis d. trails
"Madness is rare in individuals-- but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule." -- Nietzsche
Not true, by providing contract in a TEXTBOX HTML element, an argument could be made that SonicBlue is implicitly allowing editing AND submission of your changes to the contract. This would also be in line with with "offline" contracts where signees and/or their lawyers typically make changes, strikeouts, and corrects to contracts prior to final submittal. If SonicBlue really doesn't want any changes made, they should put their contract in HTML text or PDF.
Slashdot Mirror
especially funny are the ones where they claim that "if you don't register .tv, you'll lose your opportunity forever." like I care.
I'm glad they are doing something about this. If you want general direct mail stopped, or at least slowed down, check out this site.
More people on cell-phones. Hopefully next they'll get the cell-phone to work on the subway too so I'll be sure to enjoy the maximum amount of other people's annoying conversations.
Did'ya ever notice that some people talk LOUDER on their cell-phones than they normally would? What is the deal with that?
Don't forget to check out these guys, who have a completely rational take on the ubiquitous cell-phone.
More useless science solved. Yipee.
I feel for the guy and understand how frustrating it can be to deal with large companies. Now cry me a river. Move on, there is more to life than complaining. How many times did I spend on the phone with phone companies, cable companies, and the life and still wound up getting screwed? At least eBay gives this guy an attempt at a reply. They only have like what, 10 billion listings? Did the guy ever think of not putting the letters CD-R in the listing (duh?) ? He could have said "CD for sale" "make sure your player can play recordable CD media" and it wouldn't have even been flagged by the eBay MCP.
I did some work for Siruis Satellite Radio a few years back, and I can tell you that I knew as soon as I stepped in their corporate Midtown New York office, with Herman-Miller chairs and glass-and-metal desks, that they were the pentultimate dot.com company just ripe to go bust. I mean, they went a few steps further than making a wesbite and selling stuff on it -- they sent satellites into orbit and built a control-station on the first floor of their offices! The article points out that terrestrial stations will be broadcasting digital signals, but even without this satellite-killer, I often wondered who exactly would pay $10/mo to listen to radio in their cars? They can already do that for free.
I tried posting a similar (and better story, not just a stock report) a while back and Slashdot passed. This article has more detail on why Sirius is doing so bad.
I worked on an "accessable" site a few years back, it was my former employers biggest client (and coincidentally, their biggest flop). Although I am concerned with the fact that the blind and other people with disabilities can't always access websites in as efficient a manner as possible (within a medium that is more easily than others to make accessable), I agree with the judge on this one. The W3C guidlines are outdated and unclear. There are no standards for screenwriters and they are prohibitively expensive for smaller shops to own to for quality assurance testing. I think the lobbying groups that wanted to force Southwest should focus their efforts at working with the internet and business community (who take green money from anyone, "able" or not) to come with viable standards and processes for making information technology as accessable as possible.
Probably the same people who bought those Gateway TV / PC combo things that were good at neither computing nor home entertainment. Besides, most people who are inclined to use a PC to record television and use a PC as a DVR probably build their own anyway.
From 1996: Gateway Dimension, or "more crap they try to sell you"
... no matter how great you think a Tivo is, that doesn't mean it is going to be commerically viable in the long term. See Betamax, Newtown, Commodore, the Edsel, etc etc. Just because they were the first to market, doesn't mean they'll be able to survive edgy analysts, worrisome investors, and a fickle public.
... the next step towards Big Brother.
Space Elevator
It goes way up
Space Elevator
Taking cargo to space
Space Elevator
Watch it go UP AND DOWNNNNNN
(thank you)
http://www.phonebashing.com/
They'll take care of it in a jiffy. But I wonder, where do they discard their costumes?
Will the DMCA be overturned or changed? Will the freedom-loving internet/technology community ever be able to coalesce and become an effective lobbying organization to effect politics in a real way (e.g. the NRA, the farm lobby, Microsoft)?
Economics tells us that when an entity chooses to specialize and excel at a particular thing, not only does it maximize its own profit potential, but it also makes the competitive environment better through comparative advantage. Why should a widget company develop or even maintain its own technology staff when there are companies out there (pick one, IBM, HP, Microsoft, etc) who produce products and service offerings that will do it better than that company will ever be able to. All the technologists out there I am sure have seen this. Ever worked for or with companies that are out of their league, hire or maintain a technology staff, and almost ALWAYS outsource to consultants in the end because they don't know what they are doing? What the big players are doing is commodotizing this need by providing software packages that don't require ground-up programming. The consultant is still needed to implement and customize, but the "employee" or the "Dilbert" in-house shlep's days are numbered.
By far the best tools out there, use Google to find them, but they cost quite a bit. All of these solutions require quite a bit of scripting and customization for full testing. For completely automated testing, well, try hiring someone. --ellis
A year after on an attack on the United States which killed thousands of innocent people, it is a challenge to avoid polemics or hackneyed sentimentalism. The confusion stirred up by these events has raised tensions both between the cultural West and East, and within the West itself. The well intentioned from all over the political spectrum have analyzed and interpreted the events surrounding the specific attacks and the wider questions that surround it ad infinitum, yet no clear strategy or purpose has emerged from the West to deal with this crisis.
The moral questions that surround the attacks, the nature of "terrorism", and the conflict between the fundamentalist Islamic world and the West are interesting but somewhat irrelevant. The attempt to paint different actors good and evil have gained nothing in the way of consensus and open up its supporters to claims of hypocrisy and blindness. On the other side, the justification of anti-American sentiment based on moral equivalency or past or current US actions, while having valid points, will win no converts and is suspect of being a front for latent anti-Americanism.
So what are the options for the West? We can do nothing, but the status quo has given us our current situation. We can attempt to understand the perpetrators, but who the perpetrators are is an elusive subject itself. The conceit that we can actually understand them is also a bit unrealistic, considering the stark differences in the foundations of our societies, the difference in wealth and technology, and the deep hatred embedded on both sides.
The difference in wealth and technology is a poignant one as it brings us to see the essence of the crisis. We currently have the technological means so far ahead of any of our possible adversaries that with the momentum of a unified West, we can stop any regime that supports the destruction of our culture. That difference in culture, wealth, and technology, is the raison d'etre for the nascent movements against the West. Couched in religious fundamentalism, it becomes even more dangerous, and practically incurable, unless the West was to give up the very core of its culture. As this is unlikely to happen, unless we destroy the power behind the culture that seeks to destroy us, we will be destroyed ourselves. To see this is as impossible is to be pessimistic as to the power of our society. To see this as easy is to be naïve. The political correctness that leads us away from calling a clash of civilizations "a clash of civilizations" reveals our soft underbelly.
I am not a hawk or a warmonger. Before this crisis emerged, I would have been against any moves by the US or the West that would be seen as imperialistic or bullying. After careful consideration however, I no longer care about the perceptions of the US by those both on the inside and the outside of Western society. By eliminating the regimes in Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, we will do a service to countless future generations by removing the vitriolic cancer of hate and ignorant religiousness that permeates those societies. To think that someday (and I'm not sure if it is as soon as the media is no portraying it) these societies will not possess nuclear weapons and use them against us is naivety to the point of delirium. This is no crusade, to call it such would be to further couch our motives in destructive religious terms, it is a battle for human progress and civilization.
Under confusion, non-cooperation, and disinterestedness, Rome was overrun.
(originally posted by me on internet infidels )
Ugh. Typical fundamentalist babble. Let's try not to look to 2000 year old folklore books for a way of life, and then see what kind of progress we can make as a society.
... sources. This is an AP story, that Yahoo placed on their news portal. Yahoo doesn't RUN any kind of stories. -- ellis
Offtopic?
"Yahoo is covering a very cool piece on the development of roll-up screens..."
This is not true.
The story comes from Reuters.
Yahoo doesn't "cover" stories. The opening text of the story is misleading as usual because of a lack of editorial.
-- ellis D. trails
... Reuters does. How about some editorial?
-- ellis D. trails
The guy asks a legimate questions -- a more technical and interesting from a DYI perspective than I've seen on Slashdot in a awhile, and everyone creams him. A herd mentality. Instead of steering him to a sensible solution, which is mostly on a Linux platform anyway, he is cast away. Left to drown in the cruel world of google searches and pop-up ads. -- ellis d. trails "Madness is rare in individuals-- but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule." -- Nietzsche
... if he didn't suck. Might read into a Richard James interview, but Moby??
Not true, by providing contract in a TEXTBOX HTML element, an argument could be made that SonicBlue is implicitly allowing editing AND submission of your changes to the contract. This would also be in line with with "offline" contracts where signees and/or their lawyers typically make changes, strikeouts, and corrects to contracts prior to final submittal. If SonicBlue really doesn't want any changes made, they should put their contract in HTML text or PDF.