Yes, it's definitely showing 68 unique messages and they're from 171 unique email addresses... argh, Google.
Gmail doesn't let you sort!
on
Gmail Adds Features
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Gmail's biggest flaw is that you can't sort your messages by anything (i.e. there's no heading bar at the top of the mail listing that you can click, a la Subject, Sender, or Date). Yahoo Mail is seamless at this. With Gmail you get sorted by date, that's it.
Now you might say I could just search my inbox, but that's no good either. Why? The search results suck. I have 171 emails with the exact same subject line right now (running a promotion), and searching for that exact string gets me 68 results. Great... You also can't sort those results, either.
Love the interface otherwise, but the technology needs work and the interface needs sorting!
No, I didn't sign anything. You're right: The waiver is a bigger flag, though on many media appearances I have also had to sign a "permission to use likeness" contract. That's fairly common.
Real news interview or documentary subjects don't need to sign anything nor are they ever paid. (The $200 they were offering her was most definitely a red flag... because that $200 is an exchange for value for the right to make her look like a fool.)
Not true. Even venerable NPR pays a small honorarium to its radio guests. I got a check for a short interview I did for All Things Considered a few years ago. I'm sure other news outlets offer a small stiped as well. The $200 payment for this show sounds reasonable (even though you're right, there was definitely a secondary motive in this case).
As well, numerous talk shows pay their guests -- think Sally, think Geraldo. In Lauren's example, can you imagine a spammer NOT being paid and still going on a talk show to debate about it? In real life, you'd have to reward him handsomely to make any kind of public appearance.
Perhaps it's necessary to spend most of your time and energy hunting the meat before you eat it. From Inuit documentaries like Nanook of the North, most Inuit people were pepetually on the verge of starvation.
If that made any sense, why doesn't Netflix insure shipments already? The USPO would absolutely not give insurance to Netflix for free, that would be ludicrous. They may give a nice discount as they do with all bulk mail, but it won't be more than 30% or so... In any event, postal insurance costs (retail) $1.20 per shipment minimum -- and that would be $2.40 to ship both ways. Considering the current shipment cost to Netflix is about $.60 round trip, bumping that up to $3.00 per shipment would quickly kill the company. Even at $2.00 per shipment, there's no way the company could make money without dramatically raising costs -- which, in the case of games, they may have to do. My theory is that they would return to standard $X per rental pricing where you are entitled to have it out for Y number of days... or possibly X number of rentals per month for fee $Y (vs. all you can eat).
In any event if a disc got stolen, Netflix would break even; they wouldn't profit, as they would have to prove the cost of the disc they insured.
Netflix has a problem now with discs that are broken in the mail or otherwise go lost. When this happens, they apologize and send you another disc. Only rarely is the consumer blamed for this -- and when he is, there's no fine assessed, the account is simply closed. So Netflix is currently eating 100% of the cost of lost, broken, and stolen discs, which by some accounts has hit 1% of all shipments. Charging a fee is loaded with problems, since the US Mail service is probably responsible most of the time, and if Netflix tried to bill me for something that wasn't my fault, I'd cancel my account immediately.
The problem here is not just that games will cost the company more, but they're probably more likely to be stolen than DVDs, and there's not a lot the company can do about it. With a brick and mortar Blockbuster, there's no intermediary to blame, so they can get away with charging you for losing the game.
It won't be easy to pull all of this off. VOD is going to require a wholly new infrastructure and business model for them. Renting video games might be a problem too, when people start "losing" the games. A DVD probably runs about $5 in bulk... a game will probably cost them $30 or more.
Still, it's great to see some innovation left in the dot-coms of the world....
Analysts have been saying the same thing about Hollywood for 20 years, but every year the box office is consistently bigger than the last (and rising faster than inflation) -- and much of that is powered by sequels. In 2003, 6 of the top 10 grossing movies were sequels. And when Hollywood is short on sequels, they recycle old ideas -- Spider-Man was the #1 film of 2002, and it's free to spawn more sequels anew.
Bottom line: Creativity has been floundering for a long time, but people keep buying games, keep watching TV, keep going to the movies. Businesspeople would be fools to abandon a known quantity (the revenues of any sequel are easily predictable) in favor of new stories and fresh faces, not matter how much some of us would love to see them. To think that people will suddenly stop buying games because they're all sequels is silly; gamers really have no choice except not to play... and only in WarGames/I. is that a real option.
... on second analysis, this method has now failed on 2 different machines -- both of which asked me for the CD despite being eligible for the CD-free patch per Microsoft's own rules. Use at your own risk, folks! (And apologies if I led anyone astray...)
It might be true the US sends the most spam, but if you rank them by the ratio of spams to valid emails, Taiwan takes the cake. It's so bad IMO that I automatically (and permanently) delete any incoming message with a ".tw" suffix.
Public radio stations say, every year, "we need $xxx", and bug everyone that listens about it, until they have made the money they need.
Most public radio station budgets are for the most part underwritten by large corporations, as is public television. NPR is even (gasp!) largely funded by grants from the evils of corporate America (or at least their "foundation" arms), but their policy is to grant no favors to the advertiser, a practice avowed by any respectable media organization. Do the ads on Slashdot bother you because you fear bias?
Radio stations make calls to the public to make up the shortfalls. And public radio stations go out of business all the time because they can't sustain private donations... It often works in the short run, but in the long run it's just not sustainable. That's my point.
May I ask why asking some larger organization, a "foundation" is better than asking everyone any way you can? And, isn't/. a "foundation" if it wants to be? (Seems from this post that it does want to be). I kind of hate to say this, but if you don't like the story, don't read it.
No, Slashdot is not a foundation, and it is not remotely close to the best forum for regular panhandling. A "real" foundation can provide ongoing financial assistance rather than piecemeal handouts, and can certainly provide far greater $$$ than individuals. Sure, it takes some time and work to raise money, but if the folks behind wikipedia are serious about it, they'll do it. Asking users for funds isn't "wrong", it's just inefficient. Consider the Jerry Lewis Telethon, which regularly raises $50+ million for the Muscular Dystrophy Association; but the MDA takes in $160+ million a year from various sources; the huge effort of the Telethon doesn't even amount to 1/3 of the group's yearly revenue. That's an extreme example, but hopefully you get the idea.
Or at least STFU and stop trying to tell/. readers that they shouldn't contribute personally and just wait for some "foundation" to take care of it.
I never said that. In fact I specifically said that I did contribute personally to help them get on their feet. But perhaps you could learn the difference between constructive criticism (my post) and flamebait (yours).
My problem with "we need $xxx" pleas is that they inevitably lead to "we need $xxx+yyy" pleas after another 6 months when the next thing breaks. Donations are always a stopgap measure and aren't a substitute for a real company model -- be that business or otherwise. If advertising or merchandising is out (for ethical or whatever reasons), then they should be turning to foundations that can help with non-profit fundraising. Wikipedia is a real educational site with real user benefits and shouldn't have trouble coming up with sponsors.
That said, I'm an occasional visitor and I'm gonna go throw a few bucks their way... (but just this once)
The entire point is to help people decide whether to spend their money on the film in the first place bu helping them make a judgment about whether they will or will not like it. Most people hunt around to find a critic with whom they tend to have similar tastes and take that person's advice regarding a (growing and substantial) investment of money and time.
Of course, many of us critics accept that with a film like LOTR, what we say is pretty much meaningless. (Oddly that doesn't stop the trolls from coming out in force when they disagree...)
This is reason #1 why I don't allow comments on my weblog or any other site I run. Have you read the comments most people post on these things, anyway? They're even more asinine than the weblogs themselves...
Not every single web site needs to be a two-way communication system. That's what email and discussion groups are for.
Hmmm, the story is from the University of Pennsylvania and the objects are coincidentally the size of Philadelphia? Sorry, but I smell a pretty hefty conspiracy here!
Slashdot Mirror
I wrote a little story about my failed attempt to try out for Jeopardy almost 10 years ago...
check it out - I was a Jeopardy Rejekt
Executive Summary: The Jeopardy tryout tests are VERY hard. 9 out of 60 people in my group even made it to the 2nd round. I was not one of them.
Yes, it's definitely showing 68 unique messages and they're from 171 unique email addresses... argh, Google.
Gmail's biggest flaw is that you can't sort your messages by anything (i.e. there's no heading bar at the top of the mail listing that you can click, a la Subject, Sender, or Date). Yahoo Mail is seamless at this. With Gmail you get sorted by date, that's it.
Now you might say I could just search my inbox, but that's no good either. Why? The search results suck. I have 171 emails with the exact same subject line right now (running a promotion), and searching for that exact string gets me 68 results. Great... You also can't sort those results, either.
Love the interface otherwise, but the technology needs work and the interface needs sorting!
No, I didn't sign anything. You're right: The waiver is a bigger flag, though on many media appearances I have also had to sign a "permission to use likeness" contract. That's fairly common.
Real news interview or documentary subjects don't need to sign anything nor are they ever paid. (The $200 they were offering her was most definitely a red flag... because that $200 is an exchange for value for the right to make her look like a fool.)
Not true. Even venerable NPR pays a small honorarium to its radio guests. I got a check for a short interview I did for All Things Considered a few years ago. I'm sure other news outlets offer a small stiped as well. The $200 payment for this show sounds reasonable (even though you're right, there was definitely a secondary motive in this case).
As well, numerous talk shows pay their guests -- think Sally, think Geraldo. In Lauren's example, can you imagine a spammer NOT being paid and still going on a talk show to debate about it? In real life, you'd have to reward him handsomely to make any kind of public appearance.
I reviewed this (Windows version) earlier this year for Mobile PC... link
Perhaps it's necessary to spend most of your time and energy hunting the meat before you eat it. From Inuit documentaries like Nanook of the North, most Inuit people were pepetually on the verge of starvation.
If that made any sense, why doesn't Netflix insure shipments already? The USPO would absolutely not give insurance to Netflix for free, that would be ludicrous. They may give a nice discount as they do with all bulk mail, but it won't be more than 30% or so... In any event, postal insurance costs (retail) $1.20 per shipment minimum -- and that would be $2.40 to ship both ways. Considering the current shipment cost to Netflix is about $.60 round trip, bumping that up to $3.00 per shipment would quickly kill the company. Even at $2.00 per shipment, there's no way the company could make money without dramatically raising costs -- which, in the case of games, they may have to do. My theory is that they would return to standard $X per rental pricing where you are entitled to have it out for Y number of days... or possibly X number of rentals per month for fee $Y (vs. all you can eat).
In any event if a disc got stolen, Netflix would break even; they wouldn't profit, as they would have to prove the cost of the disc they insured.
Netflix has a problem now with discs that are broken in the mail or otherwise go lost. When this happens, they apologize and send you another disc. Only rarely is the consumer blamed for this -- and when he is, there's no fine assessed, the account is simply closed. So Netflix is currently eating 100% of the cost of lost, broken, and stolen discs, which by some accounts has hit 1% of all shipments. Charging a fee is loaded with problems, since the US Mail service is probably responsible most of the time, and if Netflix tried to bill me for something that wasn't my fault, I'd cancel my account immediately.
The problem here is not just that games will cost the company more, but they're probably more likely to be stolen than DVDs, and there's not a lot the company can do about it. With a brick and mortar Blockbuster, there's no intermediary to blame, so they can get away with charging you for losing the game.
It won't be easy to pull all of this off. VOD is going to require a wholly new infrastructure and business model for them. Renting video games might be a problem too, when people start "losing" the games. A DVD probably runs about $5 in bulk... a game will probably cost them $30 or more.
Still, it's great to see some innovation left in the dot-coms of the world....
Sounds like TiVo for the soul.
Analysts have been saying the same thing about Hollywood for 20 years, but every year the box office is consistently bigger than the last (and rising faster than inflation) -- and much of that is powered by sequels. In 2003, 6 of the top 10 grossing movies were sequels. And when Hollywood is short on sequels, they recycle old ideas -- Spider-Man was the #1 film of 2002, and it's free to spawn more sequels anew.
Bottom line: Creativity has been floundering for a long time, but people keep buying games, keep watching TV, keep going to the movies. Businesspeople would be fools to abandon a known quantity (the revenues of any sequel are easily predictable) in favor of new stories and fresh faces, not matter how much some of us would love to see them. To think that people will suddenly stop buying games because they're all sequels is silly; gamers really have no choice except not to play... and only in WarGames/I. is that a real option.
If it happens, we'll be able to find out once and for all if two wrongs really do make a right.
Regardless of the name, it shall be known as Rupert, right?
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (search for "Rupert")
... on second analysis, this method has now failed on 2 different machines -- both of which asked me for the CD despite being eligible for the CD-free patch per Microsoft's own rules. Use at your own risk, folks! (And apologies if I led anyone astray...)
How aggravating that many people won't install these service packs because Microsoft requires you have the original CD to install them.
There is a workaround: Download the larger (the 58MB one with "fullfile" in the name) file on this page here and you can do the update without a CD.
It might be true the US sends the most spam, but if you rank them by the ratio of spams to valid emails, Taiwan takes the cake. It's so bad IMO that I automatically (and permanently) delete any incoming message with a ".tw" suffix.
Public radio stations say, every year, "we need $xxx", and bug everyone that listens about it, until they have made the money they need.
Most public radio station budgets are for the most part underwritten by large corporations, as is public television. NPR is even (gasp!) largely funded by grants from the evils of corporate America (or at least their "foundation" arms), but their policy is to grant no favors to the advertiser, a practice avowed by any respectable media organization. Do the ads on Slashdot bother you because you fear bias?
Radio stations make calls to the public to make up the shortfalls. And public radio stations go out of business all the time because they can't sustain private donations... It often works in the short run, but in the long run it's just not sustainable. That's my point.
May I ask why asking some larger organization, a "foundation" is better than asking everyone any way you can? And, isn't /. a "foundation" if it wants to be? (Seems from this post that it does want to be). I kind of hate to say this, but if you don't like the story, don't read it.
/. readers that they shouldn't contribute personally and just wait for some "foundation" to take care of it.
No, Slashdot is not a foundation, and it is not remotely close to the best forum for regular panhandling. A "real" foundation can provide ongoing financial assistance rather than piecemeal handouts, and can certainly provide far greater $$$ than individuals. Sure, it takes some time and work to raise money, but if the folks behind wikipedia are serious about it, they'll do it. Asking users for funds isn't "wrong", it's just inefficient. Consider the Jerry Lewis Telethon, which regularly raises $50+ million for the Muscular Dystrophy Association; but the MDA takes in $160+ million a year from various sources; the huge effort of the Telethon doesn't even amount to 1/3 of the group's yearly revenue. That's an extreme example, but hopefully you get the idea.
Or at least STFU and stop trying to tell
I never said that. In fact I specifically said that I did contribute personally to help them get on their feet. But perhaps you could learn the difference between constructive criticism (my post) and flamebait (yours).
My problem with "we need $xxx" pleas is that they inevitably lead to "we need $xxx+yyy" pleas after another 6 months when the next thing breaks. Donations are always a stopgap measure and aren't a substitute for a real company model -- be that business or otherwise. If advertising or merchandising is out (for ethical or whatever reasons), then they should be turning to foundations that can help with non-profit fundraising. Wikipedia is a real educational site with real user benefits and shouldn't have trouble coming up with sponsors.
That said, I'm an occasional visitor and I'm gonna go throw a few bucks their way... (but just this once)
If you were travelling back in time, why on earth would you want to come to 2003?
The entire point is to help people decide whether to spend their money on the film in the first place bu helping them make a judgment about whether they will or will not like it. Most people hunt around to find a critic with whom they tend to have similar tastes and take that person's advice regarding a (growing and substantial) investment of money and time.
Of course, many of us critics accept that with a film like LOTR, what we say is pretty much meaningless. (Oddly that doesn't stop the trolls from coming out in force when they disagree...)
CCN, filmcritic.com
This is reason #1 why I don't allow comments on my weblog or any other site I run. Have you read the comments most people post on these things, anyway? They're even more asinine than the weblogs themselves...
Not every single web site needs to be a two-way communication system. That's what email and discussion groups are for.
Tall Magazine
You short people can use the back issues to stand on.
Hmmm, the story is from the University of Pennsylvania and the objects are coincidentally the size of Philadelphia? Sorry, but I smell a pretty hefty conspiracy here!