Sometimes I just want to get away and leave the phone behind while still being able to listen to music.
Also, what about size and weight? I can get a tiny MP3 player vs a phone-sized object.
On top of that, for us tin foil hat types - I don't want to have to carry around another trackable device.
Viacom is like the dick who lived down the street who owned an Atari 2600 and every game out (when the 2600 was really popular). However, he didn't ever want to play it, and nobody else could play it because it he didn't want to at the time (or we could come over and watch him play it for a few minutes, and then he'd say, "I'm tired of this - let's go"). Viacom isn't going to get much sympathy from the public acting like that dick did...
On a more serious level - IMO, YouTube exposes some serious holes in 1) the distribution system and 2) the validity of the ownership (public domain) of really old content of companies like Viacom. In my case, I download really old Sesame Street videos to save them because 1) I want my kids to see them, 2) I save them for nostalgia's sake, and 3) Viacom (or whomever is the direct SS content owner) provides no other method of obtaining the material.
If Viacom wants to shut down this archive of their own material, they are hurting themselves as much as they're helping themselves. It's the old Napster argument - it's free marketing... They need to provide a real alternative. There is a market there...
On the flip side, it's not psychologically fine if it's 100 degrees at 10PM. Here in Arizona, we don't have daylight savings time for that reason. In June/July, it's 100 degrees at 9PM in downtown Tempe. I can't even imagine being out at 10PM and seeing the thermostat still above the century mark. Also, our baseball (and early football) games would have to start at 9-10 PM because it'd be too hot to be in a packed stadium at 7PM.
I'm guessing that there are other hot location in the US that suffer these problems.
I'm no fan of Vista and I'll be staying with XP for as long as possible because the upgrade just isn't that great.
However, some of what he's complaining about is more the 3rd party hardware sellers' fault than Microsoft's fault. They want you to throw away that 3-4 year old printer or sound card and buy their latest products, and they want to save on labor costs, so they don't write the drivers for their older stuff. I hit this wall with an HP printer - an LaserJet/Inkjet 820CSE - and XP. I had to throw out much of the functionality of the printer (two-sided printing, etc.) just to get the printer to work because HP offered no XP drivers. HP said, "We don't support XP for this printer." "Why not?" "I'm sorry, but we just don't. We can't keep up with all the printers we've made." We all know they could keep up, but it wouldn't make as much $$$$$ for them.
There's also the long term effect on the usability of the ground. It doesn't seem that the new sandstone-capped ground would be worth much or very usable after the building upon it is torn down. Unless a structure is going to be there forever, this ground treatment doesn't sound like a very good idea.
I don't think that giving small, benign-looking images of a relaxing tree, lounge chair, fish, etc. will do anything to tell the user that "THIS IS IMPORTANT". The image probably blurs into the background of the login process for many users.
IMO, the images should be made much larger to get your attention, maybe 400x300 or larger. Then you include a "If you ignore this image, you'll be really sorry" watermark on the image. Or maybe they could use the MS UAC-style solution (gray the screen of the browser down with a little DHTML and place the image in the center of the screen and ask a yes/no) and show the picture.
Of course, this solution does nothing for blind people, but it is a start.
Yes, there will be stupid people that screw up, no matter how much security is put there. However, it needs to stand out at you.
This is a bit of flame or it's mocking habitual CC users, but I have to respond.
Credit cards aren't good as currency because they're not free. The seller pays a cut (plus a monthly fee for the service), and those costs are passed on to us. Then you pay interest if you carry any balance, or in some cases, you pay an annual fee just to have the card. Why spend money to spend your money?
That's not even counting that 1) our information about what we've bought is sold for more money. Do we get paid back for our marketing "work" being sold? Nope. 2) People that use credit cards slow down checking out. It's pretty frustrating standing in a long line at a convenience store, while people buy $5 worth of chips and soda with a credit card.
Positive side effect of CC prevalence: Cash can be more valuable, penny for penny, in negotiations. I've used "I'll pay with cash" to leverage businesses into small discounts. It's worthless at the $50 level, but when you're buying $1000+ on a card, those discounts become quite substantial. It works more often than you'd think it would...
Every time I see that VISA commercial where the man pulls out cash to pay for his food and the smooth running process of people using their cards comes to a screeching halt. That commercial gets on my nerves. It's uncool to use cash now??
The U.S. Mint should try minting $5/$10/$20 coins - like they did with gold coins a long time ago. Don't make them bigger in size (have you ever put 4-5 Eisenhower dollars in your pocket?), and they don't have to be made of gold or be gold-colored - it is fiat currency, after all. Just make them bigger in denomination.
It's better to try the larger denomination coins than keep minting dollar coins that get tossed after 1-2 years of minting...
I started practicing Dvorak for a couple of days, and I could see the potential. Then I tried to use it with a word processor and found that the common shortcuts, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, etc. were no longer right there for the left hand to use. It took two hands to type them, so the shortcuts weren't as efficient as before. I found that trying to re-map shortcuts, combined with setting every computer I sit down at to a Dvorak-style keyboard just to gain a little time, too much of a pain to deal with.
Unless you're a 6-fingered bad guy from The Princess Bride (who, ironically, is best known as the guitarist from "This Is Spinal Tap"), there's no way to play that game the way you play a real guitar because of the five buttons. Four buttons would've been much better, or perhaps with a couple of rows of four buttons for a total of eight, would've been more realistic and fun for us four-fingered and one-thumbed folk.
When the Mach 3 came out years ago, an SNL or MadTV skit parodied this years with the "Mach 13". A Will Ferrell skit, I believe. "Just when you don't think you can get any closer, another blade comes along and takes the 1st layer of skin off!", or something like that... It was good stuff...
Other prescient multi-blade humor via Google.
Yeah, I was disappointed to see this gone from the UI, but it is still available via about:config . The key is network.cookie.cookieBehavior, default value is 0 (all cookies allowed). Change this to 1 (no 3rd party cookies). More info from the MozillaZine knowledgebase.
When I went into make this change, it was set to 1, so if you've upgraded to 2.0 from a previous Firefox install and you'd already selected the no 3rd party cookies option, this setting is carried over. (I've checked this with a clean install and it is indeed '0' by default). I wonder why they made that choice (removing the UI option to block the 3rd party cookies).
I tried this as well and had interesting results. I live in AZ in a 2100 sq. ft. stucco box that's insulated fairly well (built in 2005). My wife had an argument about putting in the flourescents because she thought they were hard on the eyes, but I didn't think it was a big deal, so I did a test with her. We used Reveal light bulbs (the best I've found) and comparable Home Depot-bought flourescents. Each room has a 2-bulb, 120W light fixture, and the rooms are generally the same paint color brightness. I set one room to 100% incandescent (120W), one room with 50%/50% (1 flour. bulb, 1 inc. bulb - about 72W), and the last room with both flour. bulbs (about 24W). She had to pick out which room was which, and we did the test several times.
After 15-30 seconds of looking, she usually spotted the 100% flourescent room (a little harsher on the eye, minimal), but after several tries (swapping bulbs between rooms), she couldn't tell the difference between the 50%/50% or 100% incan. bulbs. After that test I changed the bulbs out to a 50/50 configuration, which eliminates the flourescent "lag" (can be a real issue - they take up to a minute to light up all the way).
I made the change throughout the house, and I saw an immediate yet modest power bill difference - about $5-$10/month.
There are hitches. The flour. bulbs are fragile to power surges and being flicked on and off. If you have young kids who like to flick lights on and off, the flourescents are doomed within a week or two. Also, if your builder was spartan on the wiring specs (I'm sure my builder maxed out the number of outlets/switches on each breaker/circuit, all on the less expensive 14 gauge wiring), any power usage surge on that circuit with the flourescents (i.e. big CRT monitor going on, etc.) kills the bulbs as well. You can identify the rooms that have problems quickly and forget the flourescents there - you lose too much in replacement costs.
In summary: A 50/50 configuration works best, IMO, as a bridge between the two schools of thought, and you will save a little money while dealing with the quirks.
Side thoughts:
Make sure and buy the bulbs in bulk (5+ at a time), not in the grocery store where you pay way too much for individual bulbs.
You can save just as much money by turning off the lights in the room you just left instead of leaving on every room's light ALL the time (are you listening, honey?). 0W bulbs are always the cheapest...
If the gov't was serious about the adoption of flourescent, they'd offer a small tax credit to us. I'm guessing that in the end it would save more than it would cost...
How much power is going to be needed to cool the material to 4K? I imagine you'd be creating quite a bit of waste (some of which would be nuclear) by doing this, thus negating some of its usefulness.
Thanks for that information.
I wonder how this would go over if the Senate was Democrat controlled... It wouldn't surprise me if Ted Stevens (and the anti-Net Neutrality lobby) is trying to get this issue killed before this November, when the Republicans most likely lose control of the Senate, if not all of Congress.
I recommend this article for anyone who has a strong opinion about the Electoral College either way. This article (written in 1996) gives a sound argument for keeping the Electoral College and not going to a pure, popular vote. Essentially, as quoted from the article, "...our electoral system increases voters' power."
If you don't like the offensive speech, don't listen to it. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. Community standards is just another way of saying that a significantly large group of people can bully everyone else into shutting up about what they want to say.
I guess you telling me to "shut the fuck up" isn't about bullying me into accepting your standard of expression then? People like you are exactly why vague, poorly written laws have to be there - in order to be fair to everyone.
IMO, there is no solution for this problem because the problem goes beyond freedoms vs. censorship. It is much more basic than that - the majority doesn't care about other people enough to be tolerant of each others' wants/needs. Today it's all all about "me" and "what are MY rights?" - not about what someone else may want. If people were more kind and humble, and subsequently more tolerant of each other, they'd be the type of people that would respect each other enough to not be yelling "just shut up if you don't like it" at each other.
Things you do that are okey today and aren't okay tomorrow won't be held against you tomorrow.
Yeah, until you do them again tomorrow. Either you were trolling or you missed the point of the parent post. Freedoms that we enjoy today may be gone tomorrow in the name of "the children" or "terrorism" or political points of view (abortion, etc.).
The GP post's original argument, "don't do anything wrong and you'll be fine.." has a huge flaw: Who decides what's right and what's wrong? You think the governmentt will always line up with your point of view about what's right? Who'll win if that disagreement comes to blows?
This has to be a joke article... If it's not, this sounds 100% business driven and 0% environmentally unwise. According to an update to the article at the bottom, "exports are exempt from the new law." Maybe that's how they plan on getting rid of worthless junk instead of filling up landfills - send it elsewhere and make it someone else's problem.
I guess that means that reselling a Sony Playstation is illegal now... Will this 5 year date roll forward, rendering items made in 2002 unsellable in 2007, etc.?
The remaining untapped ore in the ground isn't the only remaining supply of copper because our processes for extracting the copper have vastly improved. Up until about 20 years ago, many copper mines primarily used smelters to extract copper from the raw ore as possible. That process was inefficient, leaving a lot of copper in the waste product (called "tailings"), which over the years has been piled into gigantic yellow hills near any mining site (you know, those giant yellow hills near any copper mining town that no plant life will grow on).
However, they shut down their smelters a couple of decades ago because they've discovered a much better way of removing the copper from the ore, and more importantly, the waste product, which they now consider to be a new source of copper.
The point is that there is more copper out there than just the raw ore still buried in the ground. As recycling technology improves, the amount of copper remaining in the ground will become less significant.
Don't get upset at me just because I am temporarily preventing you from speeding. It's called the passing lane, not the speeding lane.
Whether the person behind you is speeding or not isn't the issue. YOU are breaking the law.
Have you ever seen those black and white signs that say something to the effect of "Slower traffic move to the right" or "Left lane for passing"? Those are the law - not just a suggestion (like yellow caution signs, etc.).
You are impeding the flow of traffic, and that is illegal. There are times when you can't move to the right - congested freeways, etc. However, if you can move to the right to allow cars to pass, and you don't, you are breaking the law, whether the car behind you is going the speed limit or not. So - get off your high horse (or cell phone) and get the hell out of the way!
Don't believe me? Ask any highway patrolman about whether it's illegal to not yield to faster traffic. Sure they'd want to ticket the dude going 15+ MPH over the speed limit first, but if they're going 5-10 over, and you're going the speed limit in the high lane and not moving out of the way, they'd write you the ticket. That is, of course, if they had more time (i.e. not changing flat tires for incapable people, etc.).
Slashdot Mirror
Update your software now because you are may be guilty of a crime.
Sometimes I just want to get away and leave the phone behind while still being able to listen to music. Also, what about size and weight? I can get a tiny MP3 player vs a phone-sized object. On top of that, for us tin foil hat types - I don't want to have to carry around another trackable device.
Viacom is like the dick who lived down the street who owned an Atari 2600 and every game out (when the 2600 was really popular). However, he didn't ever want to play it, and nobody else could play it because it he didn't want to at the time (or we could come over and watch him play it for a few minutes, and then he'd say, "I'm tired of this - let's go"). Viacom isn't going to get much sympathy from the public acting like that dick did... On a more serious level - IMO, YouTube exposes some serious holes in 1) the distribution system and 2) the validity of the ownership (public domain) of really old content of companies like Viacom. In my case, I download really old Sesame Street videos to save them because 1) I want my kids to see them, 2) I save them for nostalgia's sake, and 3) Viacom (or whomever is the direct SS content owner) provides no other method of obtaining the material. If Viacom wants to shut down this archive of their own material, they are hurting themselves as much as they're helping themselves. It's the old Napster argument - it's free marketing... They need to provide a real alternative. There is a market there...
On the flip side, it's not psychologically fine if it's 100 degrees at 10PM. Here in Arizona, we don't have daylight savings time for that reason. In June/July, it's 100 degrees at 9PM in downtown Tempe. I can't even imagine being out at 10PM and seeing the thermostat still above the century mark. Also, our baseball (and early football) games would have to start at 9-10 PM because it'd be too hot to be in a packed stadium at 7PM.
I'm guessing that there are other hot location in the US that suffer these problems.
Somebody sprayed the web server and it has disappeared. Mirror?
I'm no fan of Vista and I'll be staying with XP for as long as possible because the upgrade just isn't that great.
However, some of what he's complaining about is more the 3rd party hardware sellers' fault than Microsoft's fault. They want you to throw away that 3-4 year old printer or sound card and buy their latest products, and they want to save on labor costs, so they don't write the drivers for their older stuff. I hit this wall with an HP printer - an LaserJet/Inkjet 820CSE - and XP. I had to throw out much of the functionality of the printer (two-sided printing, etc.) just to get the printer to work because HP offered no XP drivers. HP said, "We don't support XP for this printer." "Why not?" "I'm sorry, but we just don't. We can't keep up with all the printers we've made." We all know they could keep up, but it wouldn't make as much $$$$$ for them.
There's also the long term effect on the usability of the ground. It doesn't seem that the new sandstone-capped ground would be worth much or very usable after the building upon it is torn down. Unless a structure is going to be there forever, this ground treatment doesn't sound like a very good idea.
I don't think that giving small, benign-looking images of a relaxing tree, lounge chair, fish, etc. will do anything to tell the user that "THIS IS IMPORTANT". The image probably blurs into the background of the login process for many users. IMO, the images should be made much larger to get your attention, maybe 400x300 or larger. Then you include a "If you ignore this image, you'll be really sorry" watermark on the image. Or maybe they could use the MS UAC-style solution (gray the screen of the browser down with a little DHTML and place the image in the center of the screen and ask a yes/no) and show the picture. Of course, this solution does nothing for blind people, but it is a start. Yes, there will be stupid people that screw up, no matter how much security is put there. However, it needs to stand out at you.
This is a bit of flame or it's mocking habitual CC users, but I have to respond. Credit cards aren't good as currency because they're not free. The seller pays a cut (plus a monthly fee for the service), and those costs are passed on to us. Then you pay interest if you carry any balance, or in some cases, you pay an annual fee just to have the card. Why spend money to spend your money? That's not even counting that 1) our information about what we've bought is sold for more money. Do we get paid back for our marketing "work" being sold? Nope. 2) People that use credit cards slow down checking out. It's pretty frustrating standing in a long line at a convenience store, while people buy $5 worth of chips and soda with a credit card. Positive side effect of CC prevalence: Cash can be more valuable, penny for penny, in negotiations. I've used "I'll pay with cash" to leverage businesses into small discounts. It's worthless at the $50 level, but when you're buying $1000+ on a card, those discounts become quite substantial. It works more often than you'd think it would... Every time I see that VISA commercial where the man pulls out cash to pay for his food and the smooth running process of people using their cards comes to a screeching halt. That commercial gets on my nerves. It's uncool to use cash now??
The U.S. Mint should try minting $5/$10/$20 coins - like they did with gold coins a long time ago. Don't make them bigger in size (have you ever put 4-5 Eisenhower dollars in your pocket?), and they don't have to be made of gold or be gold-colored - it is fiat currency, after all. Just make them bigger in denomination. It's better to try the larger denomination coins than keep minting dollar coins that get tossed after 1-2 years of minting...
I started practicing Dvorak for a couple of days, and I could see the potential. Then I tried to use it with a word processor and found that the common shortcuts, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, etc. were no longer right there for the left hand to use. It took two hands to type them, so the shortcuts weren't as efficient as before. I found that trying to re-map shortcuts, combined with setting every computer I sit down at to a Dvorak-style keyboard just to gain a little time, too much of a pain to deal with.
Unless you're a 6-fingered bad guy from The Princess Bride (who, ironically, is best known as the guitarist from "This Is Spinal Tap"), there's no way to play that game the way you play a real guitar because of the five buttons. Four buttons would've been much better, or perhaps with a couple of rows of four buttons for a total of eight, would've been more realistic and fun for us four-fingered and one-thumbed folk.
When the Mach 3 came out years ago, an SNL or MadTV skit parodied this years with the "Mach 13". A Will Ferrell skit, I believe. "Just when you don't think you can get any closer, another blade comes along and takes the 1st layer of skin off!", or something like that... It was good stuff... Other prescient multi-blade humor via Google.
Yeah, I was disappointed to see this gone from the UI, but it is still available via about:config . The key is network.cookie.cookieBehavior, default value is 0 (all cookies allowed). Change this to 1 (no 3rd party cookies). More info from the MozillaZine knowledgebase.
When I went into make this change, it was set to 1, so if you've upgraded to 2.0 from a previous Firefox install and you'd already selected the no 3rd party cookies option, this setting is carried over. (I've checked this with a clean install and it is indeed '0' by default). I wonder why they made that choice (removing the UI option to block the 3rd party cookies).
I tried this as well and had interesting results. I live in AZ in a 2100 sq. ft. stucco box that's insulated fairly well (built in 2005). My wife had an argument about putting in the flourescents because she thought they were hard on the eyes, but I didn't think it was a big deal, so I did a test with her. We used Reveal light bulbs (the best I've found) and comparable Home Depot-bought flourescents. Each room has a 2-bulb, 120W light fixture, and the rooms are generally the same paint color brightness. I set one room to 100% incandescent (120W), one room with 50%/50% (1 flour. bulb, 1 inc. bulb - about 72W), and the last room with both flour. bulbs (about 24W). She had to pick out which room was which, and we did the test several times.
After 15-30 seconds of looking, she usually spotted the 100% flourescent room (a little harsher on the eye, minimal), but after several tries (swapping bulbs between rooms), she couldn't tell the difference between the 50%/50% or 100% incan. bulbs. After that test I changed the bulbs out to a 50/50 configuration, which eliminates the flourescent "lag" (can be a real issue - they take up to a minute to light up all the way).
I made the change throughout the house, and I saw an immediate yet modest power bill difference - about $5-$10/month.
There are hitches. The flour. bulbs are fragile to power surges and being flicked on and off. If you have young kids who like to flick lights on and off, the flourescents are doomed within a week or two. Also, if your builder was spartan on the wiring specs (I'm sure my builder maxed out the number of outlets/switches on each breaker/circuit, all on the less expensive 14 gauge wiring), any power usage surge on that circuit with the flourescents (i.e. big CRT monitor going on, etc.) kills the bulbs as well. You can identify the rooms that have problems quickly and forget the flourescents there - you lose too much in replacement costs.
In summary: A 50/50 configuration works best, IMO, as a bridge between the two schools of thought, and you will save a little money while dealing with the quirks.
Side thoughts:
How much power is going to be needed to cool the material to 4K? I imagine you'd be creating quite a bit of waste (some of which would be nuclear) by doing this, thus negating some of its usefulness.
Thanks for that information. I wonder how this would go over if the Senate was Democrat controlled... It wouldn't surprise me if Ted Stevens (and the anti-Net Neutrality lobby) is trying to get this issue killed before this November, when the Republicans most likely lose control of the Senate, if not all of Congress.
Math Against Tyranny
I recommend this article for anyone who has a strong opinion about the Electoral College either way. This article (written in 1996) gives a sound argument for keeping the Electoral College and not going to a pure, popular vote. Essentially, as quoted from the article, "...our electoral system increases voters' power."
Someone at the meeting said, well, you know, don't we understand gravity? Things fall.
Who invited THAT guy?
If you don't like the offensive speech, don't listen to it. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. Community standards is just another way of saying that a significantly large group of people can bully everyone else into shutting up about what they want to say.
I guess you telling me to "shut the fuck up" isn't about bullying me into accepting your standard of expression then? People like you are exactly why vague, poorly written laws have to be there - in order to be fair to everyone.
IMO, there is no solution for this problem because the problem goes beyond freedoms vs. censorship. It is much more basic than that - the majority doesn't care about other people enough to be tolerant of each others' wants/needs. Today it's all all about "me" and "what are MY rights?" - not about what someone else may want. If people were more kind and humble, and subsequently more tolerant of each other, they'd be the type of people that would respect each other enough to not be yelling "just shut up if you don't like it" at each other.
Things you do that are okey today and aren't okay tomorrow won't be held against you tomorrow.
Yeah, until you do them again tomorrow. Either you were trolling or you missed the point of the parent post. Freedoms that we enjoy today may be gone tomorrow in the name of "the children" or "terrorism" or political points of view (abortion, etc.).
The GP post's original argument, "don't do anything wrong and you'll be fine.." has a huge flaw: Who decides what's right and what's wrong? You think the governmentt will always line up with your point of view about what's right? Who'll win if that disagreement comes to blows?
This link had more information about the law. Clears this up a bit, but it's still a weird and unenforcable law, IMO.
This has to be a joke article... If it's not, this sounds 100% business driven and 0% environmentally unwise. According to an update to the article at the bottom, "exports are exempt from the new law." Maybe that's how they plan on getting rid of worthless junk instead of filling up landfills - send it elsewhere and make it someone else's problem.
I guess that means that reselling a Sony Playstation is illegal now... Will this 5 year date roll forward, rendering items made in 2002 unsellable in 2007, etc.?
Weird law all the way around.
The remaining untapped ore in the ground isn't the only remaining supply of copper because our processes for extracting the copper have vastly improved. Up until about 20 years ago, many copper mines primarily used smelters to extract copper from the raw ore as possible. That process was inefficient, leaving a lot of copper in the waste product (called "tailings"), which over the years has been piled into gigantic yellow hills near any mining site (you know, those giant yellow hills near any copper mining town that no plant life will grow on). However, they shut down their smelters a couple of decades ago because they've discovered a much better way of removing the copper from the ore, and more importantly, the waste product, which they now consider to be a new source of copper. The point is that there is more copper out there than just the raw ore still buried in the ground. As recycling technology improves, the amount of copper remaining in the ground will become less significant.
Don't get upset at me just because I am temporarily preventing you from speeding. It's called the passing lane, not the speeding lane.
Whether the person behind you is speeding or not isn't the issue. YOU are breaking the law.
Have you ever seen those black and white signs that say something to the effect of "Slower traffic move to the right" or "Left lane for passing"? Those are the law - not just a suggestion (like yellow caution signs, etc.).
You are impeding the flow of traffic, and that is illegal. There are times when you can't move to the right - congested freeways, etc. However, if you can move to the right to allow cars to pass, and you don't, you are breaking the law, whether the car behind you is going the speed limit or not. So - get off your high horse (or cell phone) and get the hell out of the way!
Don't believe me? Ask any highway patrolman about whether it's illegal to not yield to faster traffic. Sure they'd want to ticket the dude going 15+ MPH over the speed limit first, but if they're going 5-10 over, and you're going the speed limit in the high lane and not moving out of the way, they'd write you the ticket. That is, of course, if they had more time (i.e. not changing flat tires for incapable people, etc.).