Did some bean counter had a brain fart when performing the benefit analysis? Make gobs of money by ripping DVDS minus bigger gobs of money paying attorney fee equals a world of hurt.
I would say this is a stroke of genius for Circuit City. With their business being compromized by internet retailers and increasingly savvy consumers, this is a market that they could dominate.
You can't build an online business that requires sending fragile consumer electronics back and forth through the mail to put content onto it. And with draconian laws, software won't be made available for people to do this themselves.
Sure, Circuit City is going to face a lawsuit, but it is one they have a good chance of winning. And meanwhile, they offer a desirable service that no other online retailer or box box store will offer. Best Buy using media as a loss leader. This service could theorecially not even profit (after legal fees) and still benefit the company.
And while you are getting Pirates of the Caribbean transferred to your IPod, have you seen the new high definition TVs? They are awesome!
It seems that you are doing a lot of things lately to tell me what I want out of your products. Vista's new UI, and now these fancy industrial design specs.
Guess what? I couldn't care less what the shape of my PC is. It is under the desk with my UPS, subwoofer and trash can. And I have no need for a fancy new desktop UI, especially one that takes resources away from what I actually want to do with my computer, like photo and video editing.
What I want is excellent software, compatible with open standards, for a reasonable price. You used to deliver this. When you delivered virtual memory and preemptive multitasking, you were ahead of Apple. Now you seem way behind. And also, I want you to support open standards so that I can use other products with others that haven't paid you a licensing fee, such as open source. I'm not a sheep to lock in. Hello Linux and OSX.
And your prices are far from reasonable. The fact that I can't transfer a OEM Windows licence from one PC to another is rubbish. The fact that you want $399 for the standard edition of office, which I have paid you for several times over the years is robbery. I was happy with the functionality of office five years ago. Why should I need to buy it again? Hello, Open Office.
I'm not a sheep, Microsoft. You used to be innovative. Now you are all about marketing. Its been fun, but we're breaking up!
A click is a click. Just because a user clicks on an ad in a story two weeks after a story has been published, why would it be any more valuable than a user who clicks on a story the minute after it is published? Both clicks may or may not lead to consumer action. In fact, due to robots, clicks on ads from older stories probably should be worth less if anything. Large news sites get roboted at more or less a constant rate, but robots account for a lot less of fradulent clicks on high volume pages.
More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to someone else's tobacco smoke, and tens of thousands die each year as a result, concludes the 670-page study. It cites "overwhelming scientific evidence" that secondhand smoke causes heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.
Of course, the US Surgeon General and overwealming scientific evidence are much less convincing about smoking dangers than joemawlma, so please listen to him.
The irony here is that even if some magical anti-aging component was found in my dirt, it would take big pharma years to purify it, test it, and package it. And then they would sell my own dirt back to me for thousands and thousands of dollars.
No where in this annoucement do they say that they are releasing Picasa as open source software. They do allow use of it free of charge.
Software developers are really in a bind with Linux. If you don't create software for Linux, Linux people whine that you are not supporting them.
Create software for Linux, Linux people whine that its not open source.
Picasa is an awesome photo management application. Be glad Google ported it to Linux, and that you can use it for free. If you demand that all software you use is open source, look elsewhere. Note that there are many useful applications that developers, for many reasons, don't want to release as open source. Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices.
For better or worse, there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution. The fifth amendment means you can't be forced to incriminate yourself, and we have laws about the collection of evidence.
Uh...what about the fourth amendment?
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I would consider monitoring my phone calls to be an unreasonable search, without probable cause.
How is this any different from someone stealing your passport now?
RTFA.
The 96 digit number would be a key into a database, which would "automatically display the cardholder's picture and other biographic information on the border agent's computer screen."
The agent sees the person who is using the card doesn't match the stored information, and hauls you in.
Finally, according to the TFA, "They're also exploring using a card that would have to be activated by the user, through a fingerprint or some other biometric method, before any information could be read remotely."
First, this is one of the worst written articles I have ever seen. Maybe it was typed on a BlackBerry?
The article says that having a BlackBerry means being on call 24/7, which surely must result in a dip in productivity, and annoy your family and friends. The article concludes by saying that people addicted to their BlackBerry are in the advanced stages of workaholism, and that isn't the tools fault.
I am a BlackBerry user, and I can say, without hesitation, that is is a great tool, and depends completely on how you use it. I used to carry a RIM pager and a phone, and am very happy to now have one device. I love having my outlook calendar available easily. It has helped me avoid missing many meetings. Having the ability to read email is nice, as well as get buzzed for high priority issues. Finally, I like the fact that contacts sync with my desktop, and that I can dial a number on the phone that was sent in an email or meeting request.
One major problem is the default configuration for BlackBerries, which buzzes every time a message is received. This invites users to constantly read messages, and become addicted to instantly replying. I turned that feature off in the first two or three days I had mine, and have been much happier since.
Another issue is that reading lots of text on a small screen can be difficult. Sometimes I have problems getting through an email, only to see it later at my desk, and discover it is much easier to read. But this is a convenience versus readability thing.
In all, the BlackBerry is pretty neat tool. It can help people who use it sensibly, and it can cause workaholics to turn into monsters.
I wouldn't call the distribution of the original video malicious abuse. The stuff that came afterwards was abuse, but that could not have been forseen by the original distributers.
Paul Mercer, and Pixo, created the user interface library, nothing more. As developers know, having a good user interface library is important, but doesn't really effect the elegance or usability of the user interface.
This is a sad commentary on what is important in the post 9/11 US.
What terrible thing could have happened that would make a school district shell out $369,000 and hire two technicians for an eye scanner? It is not like schools don't have funding problems, with music and arts programs being cut left and right, and teacher aaleries not competitive.
Isn't the retnal scanner overkill? Apparently not. The superintendant says, "We had a swipe-card system that operated the doors, but the technology was obsolete." What would make them think a swipe card system is obsolete? Most hotels and many businesses in the US use swipe cards for access.
If we wonder why there are less and less drugs getting approval, we need to look at what researchers and universities are doing with the science the American taxpayer pays for.
Since 1980, universities and individual researchers have had the right to patent IP paid for by public funds. This was obstensibly done to "facilitate the exploitation of government-funded research results by transferring ownership from the government to universities and other contractors who could then license the IP to firms."
However, it is clear how this would have a chilling effect on basic research. Surely cooperation has suffered at the expense of competition. Patents have been a disaster for software, where synthesis of many ideas are important to create products. It is probably similar for the biological sciences.
These researchers are funded by public money. Their results need to be used for the public benefit, and shared publicly.
At the most basic level, they have 43 driver representatives sitting in a room with a view of the track. They write down time off a big clock when their car crosses the line. This is level 1. All it requires is power for the clock.
Also on the desk is a button. They press it when their car crosses the line. Level 2. Requires the computer to work.
In each car there is a small radio transponder, and when they cross an antenna on the start / finish line, a event is recorded. Level 3. This is the data of record for the race.
Finally, every car has a GPS box, and samples are done five times a second (although this is used for fancy broadcast and internet graphics mostly). Level 4.
If any one of these systems fails up to pencil and paper, NASCAR can still score the race. It may not be pretty, but they can score the race.
Critical systems need redundancy, up to and including paper. The FBI should know this.
The worst rebate offender has got to be Intuit with Turbo Tax.
They make you fill out a paper rebate form after you purchase a state product online. They could easily have you enter a one time use coupon instead of entering a credit card and doing a paper rebate, but that isn't profitable.
The whole freaking point of the product is to allow you to electronically fill out paper forms. And in order to get the product they promise on the box, you have to fill in THREE SEPARATE PAPER FORMS. AAAARRRRRGGGG!!!!
As long as there are "old people" there will always be newspapers.
Newspaper circulation is in decline. Evening newspapers (popular for closing stock information) have declined the fastest, but the overall trend is not encouraging. Since 1970 the number of us households has approximately doubled, but newspaper circulation has decreased slightly. This coupled with recent drops of 2.6 percent in the last six months paint a bleak picture.
It is naive to say that there will always be newspapers. It is like saying there will always be record players. Digital technology will eventually destroy newspapers. Even if someday they get replaced by high res flexible digital "paper", the traditional model of a printed paper that has to be distributed is doomed. It is simply too expensive.
Either someone could do the impossible (converting from layout data back into semantic information is very difficult if not impossible), or Microsoft could get off their lazy, arrogant asses and implement an import and export filter, like they did with five versions of Word Perfect, two versions of Works, three html versions, or eight older versions of Word. At least those are the options in Word 2003.
But clearly, supporting an extra set of filters is far too difficult. Clearly Microsoft customers don't want this. Clearly the unencumbered Open Document format is anti-competitive and unconstitutional. And clearly the only people that care are freaks and hippies.
The bottom line is that Microsoft can't compete with better products, so it is trying to bully the market with file format control.
Unfortunately, the quality isn't good enough to replace the whole paper. From the article, ""The images are in colour, and can broadcast anything that can be shown on a regular flat screen monitor or TV, although with a slightly lower quality." So the resolution isn't where it needs to be to replace articles.
In civil law cases, the "burden of proof" requires the plaintiff to convince the trier of fact (whether judge or jury) of the plaintiff's entitlement to the relief sought. This means that the plaintiff must prove each element of the claim, or cause of action, in order to recover.
If this wasn't the case, you would have companies making sweeping allegations and suing with no evidence. But no company would ever do that, would they?
Slashdot Mirror
There are good uses for flash. Take these maps, for example.
CNN had all county level maps updating in real time all night during the election. The nice part was that only a small data file changed, and the flash file was cachable. Also, the same state flash file could show different races and sizes. For example, the same flash file is used on all four of these pages (North Carolina Governor small, North Carolina Governor large, North Carolina President small, North Carolina President large).
Did some bean counter had a brain fart when performing the benefit analysis? Make gobs of money by ripping DVDS minus bigger gobs of money paying attorney fee equals a world of hurt.
I would say this is a stroke of genius for Circuit City. With their business being compromized by internet retailers and increasingly savvy consumers, this is a market that they could dominate.
You can't build an online business that requires sending fragile consumer electronics back and forth through the mail to put content onto it. And with draconian laws, software won't be made available for people to do this themselves.
Sure, Circuit City is going to face a lawsuit, but it is one they have a good chance of winning. And meanwhile, they offer a desirable service that no other online retailer or box box store will offer. Best Buy using media as a loss leader. This service could theorecially not even profit (after legal fees) and still benefit the company.
And while you are getting Pirates of the Caribbean transferred to your IPod, have you seen the new high definition TVs? They are awesome!
And Time Warner is surprised that their stock is a flaming dog turd
Warner Music is not owned by Time Warner.
According to Wikipedia, Warner Music Group, a music company, was sold to a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman, Jr. in late 2003.
Dear Microsoft,
It seems that you are doing a lot of things lately to tell me what I want out of your products. Vista's new UI, and now these fancy industrial design specs.
Guess what? I couldn't care less what the shape of my PC is. It is under the desk with my UPS, subwoofer and trash can. And I have no need for a fancy new desktop UI, especially one that takes resources away from what I actually want to do with my computer, like photo and video editing.
What I want is excellent software, compatible with open standards, for a reasonable price. You used to deliver this. When you delivered virtual memory and preemptive multitasking, you were ahead of Apple. Now you seem way behind. And also, I want you to support open standards so that I can use other products with others that haven't paid you a licensing fee, such as open source. I'm not a sheep to lock in. Hello Linux and OSX.
And your prices are far from reasonable. The fact that I can't transfer a OEM Windows licence from one PC to another is rubbish. The fact that you want $399 for the standard edition of office, which I have paid you for several times over the years is robbery. I was happy with the functionality of office five years ago. Why should I need to buy it again? Hello, Open Office.
I'm not a sheep, Microsoft. You used to be innovative. Now you are all about marketing. Its been fun, but we're breaking up!
They already have this. It is called HBO.
A click is a click. Just because a user clicks on an ad in a story two weeks after a story has been published, why would it be any more valuable than a user who clicks on a story the minute after it is published? Both clicks may or may not lead to consumer action. In fact, due to robots, clicks on ads from older stories probably should be worth less if anything. Large news sites get roboted at more or less a constant rate, but robots account for a lot less of fradulent clicks on high volume pages.
The US Surgeon General has just released a 670 page report stating that there are no safe levels of second hand smoke.
From CNN:
More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to someone else's tobacco smoke, and tens of thousands die each year as a result, concludes the 670-page study. It cites "overwhelming scientific evidence" that secondhand smoke causes heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.
Of course, the US Surgeon General and overwealming scientific evidence are much less convincing about smoking dangers than joemawlma, so please listen to him.
The irony here is that even if some magical anti-aging component was found in my dirt, it would take big pharma years to purify it, test it, and package it. And then they would sell my own dirt back to me for thousands and thousands of dollars.
Typical Linux whine.
No where in this annoucement do they say that they are releasing Picasa as open source software. They do allow use of it free of charge.
Software developers are really in a bind with Linux. If you don't create software for Linux, Linux people whine that you are not supporting them.
Create software for Linux, Linux people whine that its not open source.
Picasa is an awesome photo management application. Be glad Google ported it to Linux, and that you can use it for free. If you demand that all software you use is open source, look elsewhere. Note that there are many useful applications that developers, for many reasons, don't want to release as open source. Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices.
Uh...what about the fourth amendment?
I would consider monitoring my phone calls to be an unreasonable search, without probable cause.
How is this any different from someone stealing your passport now?
RTFA.
The 96 digit number would be a key into a database, which would "automatically display the cardholder's picture and other biographic information on the border agent's computer screen."
The agent sees the person who is using the card doesn't match the stored information, and hauls you in.
Finally, according to the TFA, "They're also exploring using a card that would have to be activated by the user, through a fingerprint or some other biometric method, before any information could be read remotely."
...wasn't that he was using an obsolete code, but that the Italian alphabet is missing k, j, w, x, and y.
Just how the heck can they express themselves without those letters? That must leave pretty big holes in their keyboards!
First, this is one of the worst written articles I have ever seen. Maybe it was typed on a BlackBerry?
The article says that having a BlackBerry means being on call 24/7, which surely must result in a dip in productivity, and annoy your family and friends. The article concludes by saying that people addicted to their BlackBerry are in the advanced stages of workaholism, and that isn't the tools fault.
I am a BlackBerry user, and I can say, without hesitation, that is is a great tool, and depends completely on how you use it. I used to carry a RIM pager and a phone, and am very happy to now have one device. I love having my outlook calendar available easily. It has helped me avoid missing many meetings. Having the ability to read email is nice, as well as get buzzed for high priority issues. Finally, I like the fact that contacts sync with my desktop, and that I can dial a number on the phone that was sent in an email or meeting request.
One major problem is the default configuration for BlackBerries, which buzzes every time a message is received. This invites users to constantly read messages, and become addicted to instantly replying. I turned that feature off in the first two or three days I had mine, and have been much happier since.
Another issue is that reading lots of text on a small screen can be difficult. Sometimes I have problems getting through an email, only to see it later at my desk, and discover it is much easier to read. But this is a convenience versus readability thing.
In all, the BlackBerry is pretty neat tool. It can help people who use it sensibly, and it can cause workaholics to turn into monsters.
I wouldn't call the distribution of the original video malicious abuse. The stuff that came afterwards was abuse, but that could not have been forseen by the original distributers.
The brains behind the IPod (or at least the IPod software), if it can be boiled down to one person, is Jeff Robbin. He co-wrote SoundJam MP MP3 player, which became ITunes, and led the team who developed the firmware for the IPod.
Paul Mercer, and Pixo, created the user interface library, nothing more. As developers know, having a good user interface library is important, but doesn't really effect the elegance or usability of the user interface.
This is a sad commentary on what is important in the post 9/11 US.
What terrible thing could have happened that would make a school district shell out $369,000 and hire two technicians for an eye scanner? It is not like schools don't have funding problems, with music and arts programs being cut left and right, and teacher aaleries not competitive.
Isn't the retnal scanner overkill? Apparently not. The superintendant says, "We had a swipe-card system that operated the doors, but the technology was obsolete." What would make them think a swipe card system is obsolete? Most hotels and many businesses in the US use swipe cards for access.
What a freaking waste.
If we wonder why there are less and less drugs getting approval, we need to look at what researchers and universities are doing with the science the American taxpayer pays for.
Since 1980, universities and individual researchers have had the right to patent IP paid for by public funds. This was obstensibly done to "facilitate the exploitation of government-funded research results by transferring ownership from the government to universities and other contractors who could then license the IP to firms."
However, it is clear how this would have a chilling effect on basic research. Surely cooperation has suffered at the expense of competition. Patents have been a disaster for software, where synthesis of many ideas are important to create products. It is probably similar for the biological sciences.
These researchers are funded by public money. Their results need to be used for the public benefit, and shared publicly.
Reminds me of how NASCAR scores races.
At the most basic level, they have 43 driver representatives sitting in a room with a view of the track. They write down time off a big clock when their car crosses the line. This is level 1. All it requires is power for the clock.
Also on the desk is a button. They press it when their car crosses the line. Level 2. Requires the computer to work.
In each car there is a small radio transponder, and when they cross an antenna on the start / finish line, a event is recorded. Level 3. This is the data of record for the race.
Finally, every car has a GPS box, and samples are done five times a second (although this is used for fancy broadcast and internet graphics mostly). Level 4.
If any one of these systems fails up to pencil and paper, NASCAR can still score the race. It may not be pretty, but they can score the race.
Critical systems need redundancy, up to and including paper. The FBI should know this.
The worst rebate offender has got to be Intuit with Turbo Tax.
They make you fill out a paper rebate form after you purchase a state product online. They could easily have you enter a one time use coupon instead of entering a credit card and doing a paper rebate, but that isn't profitable.
The whole freaking point of the product is to allow you to electronically fill out paper forms. And in order to get the product they promise on the box, you have to fill in THREE SEPARATE PAPER FORMS. AAAARRRRRGGGG!!!!
BRAIN ANEURYSM!!!!
As long as there are "old people" there will always be newspapers.
Newspaper circulation is in decline. Evening newspapers (popular for closing stock information) have declined the fastest, but the overall trend is not encouraging. Since 1970 the number of us households has approximately doubled, but newspaper circulation has decreased slightly. This coupled with recent drops of 2.6 percent in the last six months paint a bleak picture.
It is naive to say that there will always be newspapers. It is like saying there will always be record players. Digital technology will eventually destroy newspapers. Even if someday they get replaced by high res flexible digital "paper", the traditional model of a printed paper that has to be distributed is doomed. It is simply too expensive.
What? AIM Fight narrowed to two players? I thought AIM Fight was always between two players.
Either someone could do the impossible (converting from layout data back into semantic information is very difficult if not impossible), or Microsoft could get off their lazy, arrogant asses and implement an import and export filter, like they did with five versions of Word Perfect, two versions of Works, three html versions, or eight older versions of Word. At least those are the options in Word 2003.
But clearly, supporting an extra set of filters is far too difficult. Clearly Microsoft customers don't want this. Clearly the unencumbered Open Document format is anti-competitive and unconstitutional. And clearly the only people that care are freaks and hippies.
The bottom line is that Microsoft can't compete with better products, so it is trying to bully the market with file format control.
Unfortunately, the quality isn't good enough to replace the whole paper. From the article, ""The images are in colour, and can broadcast anything that can be shown on a regular flat screen monitor or TV, although with a slightly lower quality." So the resolution isn't where it needs to be to replace articles.
Maybe they don't quite agree that the victim of a crime has to shoulder all the cost and hardship of the investigation.
This is not a criminal lawsuit. This is a civil case.
From Wikipedia:
In civil law cases, the "burden of proof" requires the plaintiff to convince the trier of fact (whether judge or jury) of the plaintiff's entitlement to the relief sought. This means that the plaintiff must prove each element of the claim, or cause of action, in order to recover.
If this wasn't the case, you would have companies making sweeping allegations and suing with no evidence. But no company would ever do that, would they?
He is just trying to get his AIM fight score raised.