The submission may a bit wrong. According to the linked release, they're running Linux on a (assumably PC-based) simulator, or perhaps their PDA simulator is running on Linux?
AMD (NYSE: AMD) today demonstrates OpenPDA, a Linux technology-based software platform running on the latest version of the AMD Alchemy(tm) Solutions Mobile Handheld Reference Design Kit (RDK).
I don't see any reference to a handheld device -- just to a "software platform". My read of the info was that it was like the Palm OS PC-based simulator.
So it's totally off-topic, and the story's off the main pages so nobody will even read this comment... but I was just checking out the Slashdot Hall of Fame, and noticed that prostoalex just scored his 100th story submission with this article, putting him on top of the HOF by a good 23 articles ahead of his nearest competitor.
And I thought I was doing good with my 3-for-5 record!
His site looks cool... well, the main page is in Russian, but it still looks cool. I'm getting a kick out of his job interview section... I call myself a VB coder, but many of the questions in this section threw me for a loop -- I've been coding the same app *way* too long! It's going to be a must-read before I try to land a new gig (and a reminder why I'm staying put).
From the summary: It will be 'the first conference in the world to focus on the multidisciplinary implications of accelerating change and the consequences of a technological singularity'.
Wow, what an impressive collection of buzzwords!
According to the Wikipedia, you'd have to compress the Earth to a diameter of 3mm to create a traditional "singularity". I guess if you put enough conference attendees in a single place, and subject them to "accelerating change", you'd get a technological "singularity".
Of course, one of the most interesting properties of a singularity is that you put stuff in it, and it never comes back out. Kinda like that C-note, huh?
On the plus side, the journey to the singularity may include pretty lights and warped reality. I guess their terminology wasn't so far off, after all.
Is it just the geek in me? When I visited the Pressroom link, noted in the article as "other sample applications", I expected to see pictures of things I could poke. I got:
* A floating keypad in the driver's window. Located right where my vehicle is located when I merge onto the highway. Great, now I don't know if the guy pointing at me is letting me merge or calling dial-a-porn.
* A doctor viewing what appears to be a movie -- note the VCR-style buttons. It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Lisa yells to Doctor Nick from the gallery: "Hey! The incision should be made below the blockage! Below!"
* And finally, the smiling face and very, very glossy head of "HoloTouch President and founder R. Douglas McPheters". This, folks is the guy asking for your Venture Capital dollars. Of all the holograms on this page, this one is the one that makes me want to reach out and poke something.
Foo: You think that representatives are themselves actually picking and choosing which letters to read currently? Right... Bar: True enough, but then how does the suggested solution fix anything? It doesn't.
Good point! I hadn't realized it, but my proposal basically takes a somewhat broken paper-based system and moves it to new technology with all its problems fully intact.
But I think it'll still help elected officials stay in touch with their wired constituents, in the same way that letters (though filtered through the paper-based "moderation" system) keep them in touch with the non-wired electorate.
Keep in mind, there's probably no perfect solution to the 1 : 6x10e5 ratio of representatives to constituents. That's just the nature of a representative democracy.
It also means that for me to run for office, I'm saying that I'm better qualified than 600,000 or so other human beings, any one of whom could beat me at checkers.
Mr. Morgan made an interesting point about online communication with representatives, now that "wierd knick-knack gifts" could be misconstrued as bioweapons (especially the staple remover that's been in the drawer next to last month's tuna fish sandwich).
But I've always assumed that any value of online communication would be offset by the volume of 1337 mail -- mostly unintentional. "yOUr rite their otta bee a lAw!"
I'd like to see a tech-savvy representative adopt some form of Slashcode-based constituent feedback system. Articles could be the issues currently on the rep's plate, plus a "catchall" for general feedback. Let the (unpaid) interns do the moderation, and then the rep can read at +2 to +5 depending on workload.
I may make a run for office in the next few years, and I'd be glad to use a Slash-like system for public discussion of my positions. But I agree with Morgan -- a well-written one-page letter with a finite number of defensible points will be much more effective than a Unabomer-style manifesto.
I made it to the Wolf Camera in Richardson (suburban Dallas), and found out what this poster had already discovered: the $10.99 price doesn't include developing. It's another $10.99 for the prints and photo CD -- though it should be pointed out that that's not much different from their regular price, IIRC.
The purchase itself was no problem: walk in, find the single-use camera section, and a cardboard display full of "Digital Single-Use Camera" was perched on top of the original display. Grabbed one, paid the saleslady (who was very sweet, and also very clearly working on commission), and left. No EULA, no strings, just eleven bucks for a 25-shot 2-mpix camera.
By the way, only 4 of the 6 Dallas-Fort Worth "Digital Labs" (out of 35+ total locations) are set up to handle the new cameras (3 Dallas, 1 Fort Worth).
Here are my scans of the packaging. The front is the same as seen before, but the back has the details:
* Tag line: "The only digital camera that's easier to use than film." Depends on your definition of "easier", I guess, but then, I'm a geek.
* A blurry picture of the back of the camera. It's got a typical disposable viewfinder, an unlabelled light that may indicate flash readiness, the LCD "information window", and buttons for "self-timer" and "delete". I haven't opened the package to see how closely the picture matches reality.
* The LCD window appears to have a frame counter, and the words "Wait", "Timer", "D[???]", "Formatting...", and "Return for Prints". I can't make out the "D" word, and I'm not 100% on "Formatting".
* It points out that "Camera does not connect to home computers. Return camera to a participating Big Print Central location for processing." FYI, these are Ritz, Wolf, Kits, Inkley's, and The Camera Shop.
* The "Ritz Camera Recycling Pledge: 100% of this camera (not including batteries) will be recycled or reused when returned to Ritz Camera for processing." Of course, it will -- 'cause it's not a disposable in the first place.
* 9 features listed under "Why Choose Digital?", most of which are basic digital stuff (deleting, no winding). But two of them are a bit misleading: "FREE! Index Print" and "FREE! Photo CD with your pictures", because of the last item:
* "Camera price does not include processing"
The only legalese is the "Limitation of Liability", which is mostly a boilerplate saying "will replaced if defective... except for replacement, you ain't getting cash for your lost pix of Grandma". Also noted, though: "This product may contain recycled parts." And, "Camera made in China", which sparks the whole [explotation|employment] argument.
No EULA, no deposit, no DMCA warnings, no expressed or implied committment to return the camera to anyone. I bought it, it's mine, I can clearly do whatever the heck I want with it. As far as I can tell, it would be perfectly appropriate to keep the two AA batteries for my own use when returning the camera for processing (though I'll probably just swap them out for a couple of dead batteries).
Of course, that's assuming someone on Slashdot doesn't take care of the "processing" part for us.
Here's my little challenge: I'll personally pay $15 via PayPal to whoever comes up with a way to hook up my camera to my computer that I personally can implement with my medium-geek level of technical expertise. I'm a programmer and I can solder, but I don't have access to any fancy testing equipment.
Of course, the Wolf Camera circular advertising the new camera also includes a 2.0 Mpix camera from "Concord" for $79.99 -- less than the price of four "disposable" digital cameras plus processing. But $11 is a small price to pay for this much geek value, right?
I'm going to try it out... I have the good fortune to live near Dallas, one of the test markets (info thanks to this link from another poster).
That is, if I can get through the cloud of Clueless Salespeople.
Despite their positioning as photography experts, I haven't had the best of luck at Wolf Camera (part of the Ritz family). We took some film to them one time, in the hopes that they would push-process the low-light pictures, and got no better results than we would have had at Wal-Mart. Having to explain push-processing to the clerk should have been our first tip-off.:P
So this time, I called the big store in the industrial section of town (Harry Hines Blvd store). They sounded knowledgeable, but said they didn't stock them. I was referred to the suburban Irving location.
The clerk in Irving... didn't know what I was talking about. He said I'd have to hold for the "camera person"... hello, I thought the store was called [Wolf|Ritz] Camera, shouldn't they all be camera people? While waiting, I asked the non-camera person where he was located... he mumbled a bit and gave me a location several miles south of where I really, really thought the store was. Asked him for the store's address... boy, that really threw him for a loop! He found it, finally, and it was right where I thought it would be.
But when I talked to the "camera person", it turned out I didn't need to make the trip. At first, he said "Yeah, we have plenty of digital cameras." Explained the concept of "single use" to him. "Yeah, we have Fuji and Kodak, but we only develop the Kodak". Now, he was talking about the disposable film-based cameras that come with "free" developing to CD. It took a while to explain to him about this new product, big buzz on the 'net... so he gave me the number of another store. That's 15 minutes of my life I won't get back.
So I called location #3. This guy seemed very clueful, and assured me that yes, they have it... yes, they develop it... no, it's not the film-based version, it's the real single-use digital camera.
I'll head over there after work... details will be posted here! Hope my wife doesn't get upset about my new toy...
My mom, despite a reasonably technical background, bought a Kodak PLUSDigital camera -- which sounded to her like a "disposable digital" camera. In reality, it was simply a standard, film-based camera with CD-ROM processing included in the price. Of course, the price was several buck$ higher than she would have paid for a regular disposable camera.
I don't think she's gotten around to developing the pix yet, so I don't know how well the concept worked.
Meanwhile, Ritz' idea sounds like a winner:
* I can get rid of the obvious "oops" pix, even without the LCD.
* I'll be able to afford $10 bucks a pop a lot easier than $200, for the small number of pix I take.
* Developing onto both CD and 4x6 hard-copy is better than I could do with a $200 camera, anyway.
* By the time I get serious about taking digital pictures, someone on Slashdot will have hacked together an interface. If they can hack Furby, a "simple" digital camera can't be that tough.
By the way, guys... when you hack the interface, don't forget the IRmods!
I have a number of close relatives who are or have been waitresses -- go to any small-town cafe and you'll see that for some folks, it's a lifetime career (so tip well, cheapskate).
One of the unexpected benefits of having folks in the biz is that you never seem to run out of glassware. One of our waitstaff relatives lived with us for a while, and when she left, we "inherited" about a dozen water glasses and several steak knives from the local Golden Corral. I really, really planned to drop them off at the restaurant's door in the dead of night, like a cat burglar in reverse, but somehow never got around to it.
Now, we're looking at "Globally unique IDs for each glass." The tin-foil-hat side sees a raid in our family's future: "Hand over the glassware, and nobody gets hurt!" But realistically, I know that the restaurants do lose money on this sort of shrink. I could see low-margin high-volume joints (like Golden Corral) checking out RFID-enabled glassware (plates? silverware? napkins???) to the servers, then docking their pay for anything that doesn't show up in the dishwasher at the end of the day.
You'd think that after paying servers $2.50 or less an hour (much, much less than the nominal "minimum wage"), the cheap bastards would see that a few glasses walking out the door is a pretty low price to pay. But if they have a chance to make another buck at someone else's expense...
By the way, my relative no longer works at Golden Corral. She's at a small, family-owned cafe, and I don't think they really care whose glasses are in her kitchen cabinet.
This verges awfully close to being junk science. If you don't have some expectations to compare results to, or some theory of what the results are likely to be, it's awful hard to come up with valid results.
I agree with your point, especially when the article goes on to say:
But first they need to find reliable ways to arrange the droplets into various 3-dimensional patterns. This is where low gravity comes in handy. Weightlessness greatly simplifies making 3-D structures from fluid droplets...
To a technical reader, it looks suspiciously like a hammer (weightless environment) looking for a nail (ooh, multilayer refracting LCDs!).
One thing to remember, though, is that "Science @ NASA" is not targeted at technically savvy folks like we/.ers. The site's home page says as much:
The Science Directorate at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center sponsors the Science@NASA web sites. The mission of Science@NASA is to help the public understand how exciting NASA research is and to help NASA scientists fulfill their outreach responsibilities.
The article we're dissecting here wasn't designed to explain LCDs in accurate technical detail, nor was it supposed to present the pros and cons of the technology. It's clearly written to "help the public understand how exciting NASA research is" -- and nothing else.
IIRC, the Science @ NASA info used to be a little more in depth. Then, a funding squeeze nearly killed the website altogether. Apparently, the only way they were able to get funding for this basic communications vehicle was to direct it at the least common denomonator. I used to get their email updates, but I dropped them quite a while back -- I think because the articles lost their tech-geek appeal.
Well, I took your suggestion. According to whois.sc, nobody has ever thought of "stillmoresex.com" as their dot-com brainstorm idea.
I couldn't resist the temptation... I went to Gandi and registered the domain. How could I pass it up?
I'll probably redirect it to the URL of this thread. I've registered it with a unique Gandi ID, so it's up for grabs for whoever wants it. Mention Slashdot, and I'll let ya have it pretty much at cost. Send a note to robert b at dixie dash chicks dot com and we'll go over the details.
Usually, I grab interesting domains to keep them from becoming porn portals! Now, I guess I've gone from Karma Whoring to Domain Whoring. So much for the purity of my Slashdot experience!
Now, come on, guys/gals... parent comment is at *least* as deserving of a "+1, Funny" as the next one.
That said, I *love* Bipolar Moderation (and have said so in public). But please, don't waste mod points modding me down... instead, mod parent back up!
Foo: That's were capital punishment comes from--getting the worst bits of humanity out of the gene pool. Bar: Well then, why not just castrate the offender and let him go?
Actually, the flaw in the argument comes because it's often too late to remove the offender's genes from the pool -- he's likely already reproduced by the time he gets caught.
But to yank this thread kicking and screaming back to the topic of the article...
What happens when a "enhanced humanoid" commits a capital offence (under whatever standards are in effect at the time)? Wouldn't a truly committed murderous cyborg install multiple redundant systems with protection mechanisms that would make him/her/it almost impossible to "switch off"? Would criminals be sent into the phantom zone, only to be released on unsuspecting far-off planets by a space-based nuclear explosion?
The Aussie plan site says "Construction of the world's largest solar-powered electric generating plant could begin on Tapio Station as soon as January 2003." That's six months ago, so I clicked the link to EnviroMission, the company behind the project. The "News" section was not very useful, but I did find a January 2003 announcement that they were trying to round up another $250k (assumably, that's A$) for the project. Not a good sign.
As far as the arguments that this tower -- or any other large-scale solar alternative -- is "simpler"... that's an apples-to-oranges comparison. The sun-tracking mirrors may be simpler to build and maintain than a 1000-meter-tall (that's 3000+ feet for we US types) chimney!
Making molten salt the receiver of the solar energy -- the medium that converts light to transportable heat -- is pretty cool. But they could conceivably put a turbine on top of the heat exchanger and do the same thing as the Aussie project, just several thousand feet shorter.
The "molten salt" has the advantage of being method of energy storage. This is a problem for both wind and solar generation systems -- while traditional plants (even nuke plants) can throttle back their production of electrons by burning less fuel, solar and wind have to have someplace to "put" the excess energy if it's not immediately needed.
There are other ways to store energy, though... one idea I've read about (can't find a link!) is to use excess electricity to pump water into high tanks, then let the water flow back into low tanks when demand increases. But that's not nearly as cool as pumping melted salt.
Interestingly, to meet the US's entire current energy demands with solar electric, we would need to cover about half of our roads, at no net change in albumen.
Are you saying that covering half our roads in solar panels would not affect the amount of egg whites available to the food industry? I beg to differ!
It's a well-known fact that in order to ask, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" you must be able to postulate a road for the chicken to cross. If half our roadways are converted to solar power production, there would be chaos in chicken coops across the country! Whoever heard of asking "Why did the chicken cross the solar panels?"
I predict a very large reduction in the country's albumen, to the point that Grandma's Lemon Meringue Pie will be available only in the most exclusive households. We must, as a society, decide whether this is a price we are willing to pay.
I agree with your points entirely -- I'm extremely frustrated by the resources devoted to fertility treatments vs. those devoted to the children we already have. (Multi-thousand-$ international adoptions also get my goat, BTW.) But one of your points needs clarification:
It may not be a popular point of view, but there is no rule out there that says everyone has to or should be able to have a baby if they want to, even though they can't naturally.
In some cultures, there are rules that make it harder to adopt than to undertake extreme measures. In March, 2002, a Saudi Arabian woman underwent a uterus transplant rather than adopt or look into "hiring" a surrogate mother, because of religious and cultural reasons.
Again, I agree with you that this is a waste of resources, and quite likely counterproductive. Not only did the woman not conceive, but her new uterus lost its blood supply after about three months and was removed (again). Even if she had been able to conceive, the effects of powerful anti-rejection drugs on her baby would be hard to predict.
Meanwhile, if I may make a rash generalization, her Filipino maid probably could have put the woman in touch with an orphanage with plenty of healthy babies needing homes.
Smartest #23, 1993: Namco and Sega Bring Arcades Home, seems to be the most depressing "advance" for me. As noted in the editor comments, designing arcade games for future home use pretty much spelled the end of the 1980s arcade culture.
In the 80s, you had mom-n-pop arcades in little hole-in-the-wall spots. My favorite was one in downtown Tulsa that you'd never have found unless you happened to walk past and look inside. That's the one where I lost my $10 (see my lame-o attempt to First Post this article). Another was across the street from the grocery store I worked at, and was a great place to wind down after bagging groceries in the days before "paper or plastic?"
Now, it's virtually impossible to support a stand-alone arcade. Oh, you can drive down any street in Texas (at least) and see video parlors, but they're devoted to Cherry Master and Video Poker, not Pac-Man and Asteroids. The only place you can find a real game selection is at the mall or the movie theater. I wasn't into the mall scene as a teen, and I'm even less inclined that way in my 30s.
Although I did manage to embarass my daughter at DDR. She tried it out, but was wearing the wrong shoes and bailed. So I hopped on, much to her embarassment, but to the amusement of the rest of the teenyboppers. I don't think she's forgiven me yet...
When I was a teenager, in a darkened arcade, I accidentally put a $10 in the $1 changer. I didn't realize my mistake until I got home and couldn't find my $10.
My smartest moment was the one and only time I beat Dragon's Lair.
Oh, they meant 10 dumbest/smartest moments that actually meant something to someone other than me!
Interestingly, when I clicked on the ThinkGeek banner ad (banner ads work, IF they're relevant to me), I saw this:
ThinkGeek:: Key Katcher
This is a device that can be connected to a keyboard to record all keystrokes. It has a changeable password, keyword search, enable/disable option, and stores URLs. Records more than 130,000 keystrokes and does not require any software. [...]
Key Katcher plugs in between your keyboard and your computer. A microcontroller interprets the data, and stores information in the non-volatile memory (which retains the information even when there is a loss of power.) This means that the Key Katcher device can be unplugged, and the information will not be lost.
To access the recorded data, you simply type your password in a text editor and the Key Katcher comes to life. A menu is displayed with options to erase data, view data, search data for keywords, change password, or disable the device.
As long as you're going to hack Kinko's, why not support a Slashdot sponsor in the process! Here's the link: ThinkGeek:: Key Katcher. Be sure to click from here, so they'll see the Slashdot HTTP-REFERER.
I feel so used... I got the parent in my M2 stack, and blithely marked the "Informative" mod as "Fair". Then, curious, I checked out the article and thread.
How the hell did I miss those obvious "frontend" and "backend" links?
But I may have still meta-mod as "fair", since there isn't an option for "oops!"
By the way, for a full answer to the questions "what's a goatse?" and "where the HELL did you get that picture?!?!", as well as other Slashdot "gotchas", see the Wikipedia article on Slashdot Trolling.
I've had huge success in attracting spam by simply registering a domain name. I use a dedicated email address for my domain registrations (if you're dying to spam me, do a whois on my domain name).
I forgot to clean out my "domains" mailbox for a couple of weeks, and I had over 240 messages waiting. It would have been higher, but the mailbox filled up to its 1 meg capacity. Every single message was spam.
Did you realize how many 1337 ways there are to spell p3n15 ?! If only that creativity could be turned away from the Dark Side..
Looking at the detailed map, it's fair to say that, in the Western Hemisphere, Alaska sucks. Also, Montana seems to suck, and southern Mexico sucks, too. Colombia and Chile, though, really suck.
On the other hand, the Bermuda Triangle totally blows.
Interesting how the map relegates Europe to the fringes... I'm suuuuuuuure it's just because the Prime Meridian happened to cut France in half.
Slashdot Mirror
AMD Alchemy(tm) Solutions Mobile !!!Handheld!!!!! Reference Design Kit (RDK).
But I'm still confused -- and hoping I'm wrong. But it looks like it can be read both ways:
Handheld Reference Design Kit = a Handheld Kit for Reference Design
- or -
Handheld Reference Design Kit = a Reference Design Kit for Handhelds
If it turns out I'm way off the mark, hopefully the moderators will put the kibosh on my original post. Karma to burn, baby!
The submission may a bit wrong. According to the linked release, they're running Linux on a (assumably PC-based) simulator, or perhaps their PDA simulator is running on Linux?
AMD (NYSE: AMD) today demonstrates OpenPDA, a Linux technology-based software platform running on the latest version of the AMD Alchemy(tm) Solutions Mobile Handheld Reference Design Kit (RDK).
I don't see any reference to a handheld device -- just to a "software platform". My read of the info was that it was like the Palm OS PC-based simulator.
Or did I miss something?
So it's totally off-topic, and the story's off the main pages so nobody will even read this comment... but I was just checking out the Slashdot Hall of Fame, and noticed that prostoalex just scored his 100th story submission with this article, putting him on top of the HOF by a good 23 articles ahead of his nearest competitor.
And I thought I was doing good with my 3-for-5 record!
His site looks cool... well, the main page is in Russian, but it still looks cool. I'm getting a kick out of his job interview section... I call myself a VB coder, but many of the questions in this section threw me for a loop -- I've been coding the same app *way* too long! It's going to be a must-read before I try to land a new gig (and a reminder why I'm staying put).
Cool... I changed my preferences and now it looks like this:
"Greetings from Chilliware... (Score:5)
by Chilliware (215893) on 10 ish (#684158)
(http://www.chilliware.net)"
Wow... I can configure Slashdot to give me an absolutely meaningless date/timestamp! Now *that's* creative.
And to make it even better, chilliware.net is now a search portal! But that's still not as good as it could have been.
From the summary: It will be 'the first conference in the world to focus on the multidisciplinary implications of accelerating change and the consequences of a technological singularity'.
Wow, what an impressive collection of buzzwords!
According to the Wikipedia, you'd have to compress the Earth to a diameter of 3mm to create a traditional "singularity". I guess if you put enough conference attendees in a single place, and subject them to "accelerating change", you'd get a technological "singularity".
Of course, one of the most interesting properties of a singularity is that you put stuff in it, and it never comes back out. Kinda like that C-note, huh?
On the plus side, the journey to the singularity may include pretty lights and warped reality. I guess their terminology wasn't so far off, after all.
Is it just the geek in me? When I visited the Pressroom link, noted in the article as "other sample applications", I expected to see pictures of things I could poke. I got:
* A floating keypad in the driver's window. Located right where my vehicle is located when I merge onto the highway. Great, now I don't know if the guy pointing at me is letting me merge or calling dial-a-porn.
* A doctor viewing what appears to be a movie -- note the VCR-style buttons. It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Lisa yells to Doctor Nick from the gallery: "Hey! The incision should be made below the blockage! Below!"
* And finally, the smiling face and very, very glossy head of "HoloTouch President and founder R. Douglas McPheters". This, folks is the guy asking for your Venture Capital dollars. Of all the holograms on this page, this one is the one that makes me want to reach out and poke something.
*honk* Gotcher nose!
Foo: You think that representatives are themselves actually picking and choosing which letters to read currently? Right...
Bar: True enough, but then how does the suggested solution fix anything? It doesn't.
Good point! I hadn't realized it, but my proposal basically takes a somewhat broken paper-based system and moves it to new technology with all its problems fully intact.
But I think it'll still help elected officials stay in touch with their wired constituents, in the same way that letters (though filtered through the paper-based "moderation" system) keep them in touch with the non-wired electorate.
Keep in mind, there's probably no perfect solution to the 1 : 6x10e5 ratio of representatives to constituents. That's just the nature of a representative democracy.
It also means that for me to run for office, I'm saying that I'm better qualified than 600,000 or so other human beings, any one of whom could beat me at checkers.
Mr. Morgan made an interesting point about online communication with representatives, now that "wierd knick-knack gifts" could be misconstrued as bioweapons (especially the staple remover that's been in the drawer next to last month's tuna fish sandwich).
But I've always assumed that any value of online communication would be offset by the volume of 1337 mail -- mostly unintentional. "yOUr rite their otta bee a lAw!"
I'd like to see a tech-savvy representative adopt some form of Slashcode-based constituent feedback system. Articles could be the issues currently on the rep's plate, plus a "catchall" for general feedback. Let the (unpaid) interns do the moderation, and then the rep can read at +2 to +5 depending on workload.
I may make a run for office in the next few years, and I'd be glad to use a Slash-like system for public discussion of my positions. But I agree with Morgan -- a well-written one-page letter with a finite number of defensible points will be much more effective than a Unabomer-style manifesto.
I made it to the Wolf Camera in Richardson (suburban Dallas), and found out what this poster had already discovered: the $10.99 price doesn't include developing. It's another $10.99 for the prints and photo CD -- though it should be pointed out that that's not much different from their regular price, IIRC.
The purchase itself was no problem: walk in, find the single-use camera section, and a cardboard display full of "Digital Single-Use Camera" was perched on top of the original display. Grabbed one, paid the saleslady (who was very sweet, and also very clearly working on commission), and left. No EULA, no strings, just eleven bucks for a 25-shot 2-mpix camera.
By the way, only 4 of the 6 Dallas-Fort Worth "Digital Labs" (out of 35+ total locations) are set up to handle the new cameras (3 Dallas, 1 Fort Worth).
Here are my scans of the packaging. The front is the same as seen before, but the back has the details:
* Tag line: "The only digital camera that's easier to use than film." Depends on your definition of "easier", I guess, but then, I'm a geek.
* A blurry picture of the back of the camera. It's got a typical disposable viewfinder, an unlabelled light that may indicate flash readiness, the LCD "information window", and buttons for "self-timer" and "delete". I haven't opened the package to see how closely the picture matches reality.
* The LCD window appears to have a frame counter, and the words "Wait", "Timer", "D[???]", "Formatting...", and "Return for Prints". I can't make out the "D" word, and I'm not 100% on "Formatting".
* It points out that "Camera does not connect to home computers. Return camera to a participating Big Print Central location for processing." FYI, these are Ritz, Wolf, Kits, Inkley's, and The Camera Shop.
* The "Ritz Camera Recycling Pledge: 100% of this camera (not including batteries) will be recycled or reused when returned to Ritz Camera for processing." Of course, it will -- 'cause it's not a disposable in the first place.
* 9 features listed under "Why Choose Digital?", most of which are basic digital stuff (deleting, no winding). But two of them are a bit misleading: "FREE! Index Print" and "FREE! Photo CD with your pictures", because of the last item:
* "Camera price does not include processing"
The only legalese is the "Limitation of Liability", which is mostly a boilerplate saying "will replaced if defective... except for replacement, you ain't getting cash for your lost pix of Grandma". Also noted, though: "This product may contain recycled parts." And, "Camera made in China", which sparks the whole [explotation|employment] argument.
No EULA, no deposit, no DMCA warnings, no expressed or implied committment to return the camera to anyone. I bought it, it's mine, I can clearly do whatever the heck I want with it. As far as I can tell, it would be perfectly appropriate to keep the two AA batteries for my own use when returning the camera for processing (though I'll probably just swap them out for a couple of dead batteries).
Of course, that's assuming someone on Slashdot doesn't take care of the "processing" part for us.
Here's my little challenge: I'll personally pay $15 via PayPal to whoever comes up with a way to hook up my camera to my computer that I personally can implement with my medium-geek level of technical expertise. I'm a programmer and I can solder, but I don't have access to any fancy testing equipment.
Of course, the Wolf Camera circular advertising the new camera also includes a 2.0 Mpix camera from "Concord" for $79.99 -- less than the price of four "disposable" digital cameras plus processing. But $11 is a small price to pay for this much geek value, right?
I'm going to try it out... I have the good fortune to live near Dallas, one of the test markets (info thanks to this link from another poster).
:P
That is, if I can get through the cloud of Clueless Salespeople.
Despite their positioning as photography experts, I haven't had the best of luck at Wolf Camera (part of the Ritz family). We took some film to them one time, in the hopes that they would push-process the low-light pictures, and got no better results than we would have had at Wal-Mart. Having to explain push-processing to the clerk should have been our first tip-off.
So this time, I called the big store in the industrial section of town (Harry Hines Blvd store). They sounded knowledgeable, but said they didn't stock them. I was referred to the suburban Irving location.
The clerk in Irving... didn't know what I was talking about. He said I'd have to hold for the "camera person"... hello, I thought the store was called [Wolf|Ritz] Camera, shouldn't they all be camera people? While waiting, I asked the non-camera person where he was located... he mumbled a bit and gave me a location several miles south of where I really, really thought the store was. Asked him for the store's address... boy, that really threw him for a loop! He found it, finally, and it was right where I thought it would be.
But when I talked to the "camera person", it turned out I didn't need to make the trip. At first, he said "Yeah, we have plenty of digital cameras." Explained the concept of "single use" to him. "Yeah, we have Fuji and Kodak, but we only develop the Kodak". Now, he was talking about the disposable film-based cameras that come with "free" developing to CD. It took a while to explain to him about this new product, big buzz on the 'net... so he gave me the number of another store. That's 15 minutes of my life I won't get back.
So I called location #3. This guy seemed very clueful, and assured me that yes, they have it... yes, they develop it... no, it's not the film-based version, it's the real single-use digital camera.
I'll head over there after work... details will be posted here! Hope my wife doesn't get upset about my new toy...
Well, for one thing, it'll actually be "Digital".
My mom, despite a reasonably technical background, bought a Kodak PLUSDigital camera -- which sounded to her like a "disposable digital" camera. In reality, it was simply a standard, film-based camera with CD-ROM processing included in the price. Of course, the price was several buck$ higher than she would have paid for a regular disposable camera.
I don't think she's gotten around to developing the pix yet, so I don't know how well the concept worked.
Meanwhile, Ritz' idea sounds like a winner:
* I can get rid of the obvious "oops" pix, even without the LCD.
* I'll be able to afford $10 bucks a pop a lot easier than $200, for the small number of pix I take.
* Developing onto both CD and 4x6 hard-copy is better than I could do with a $200 camera, anyway.
* By the time I get serious about taking digital pictures, someone on Slashdot will have hacked together an interface. If they can hack Furby, a "simple" digital camera can't be that tough.
By the way, guys... when you hack the interface, don't forget the IR mods!
I have a number of close relatives who are or have been waitresses -- go to any small-town cafe and you'll see that for some folks, it's a lifetime career (so tip well, cheapskate).
One of the unexpected benefits of having folks in the biz is that you never seem to run out of glassware. One of our waitstaff relatives lived with us for a while, and when she left, we "inherited" about a dozen water glasses and several steak knives from the local Golden Corral. I really, really planned to drop them off at the restaurant's door in the dead of night, like a cat burglar in reverse, but somehow never got around to it.
Now, we're looking at "Globally unique IDs for each glass." The tin-foil-hat side sees a raid in our family's future: "Hand over the glassware, and nobody gets hurt!" But realistically, I know that the restaurants do lose money on this sort of shrink. I could see low-margin high-volume joints (like Golden Corral) checking out RFID-enabled glassware (plates? silverware? napkins???) to the servers, then docking their pay for anything that doesn't show up in the dishwasher at the end of the day.
You'd think that after paying servers $2.50 or less an hour (much, much less than the nominal "minimum wage"), the cheap bastards would see that a few glasses walking out the door is a pretty low price to pay. But if they have a chance to make another buck at someone else's expense...
By the way, my relative no longer works at Golden Corral. She's at a small, family-owned cafe, and I don't think they really care whose glasses are in her kitchen cabinet.
This verges awfully close to being junk science. If you don't have some expectations to compare results to, or some theory of what the results are likely to be, it's awful hard to come up with valid results.
/.ers. The site's home page says as much:
I agree with your point, especially when the article goes on to say:
But first they need to find reliable ways to arrange the droplets into various 3-dimensional patterns. This is where low gravity comes in handy. Weightlessness greatly simplifies making 3-D structures from fluid droplets...
To a technical reader, it looks suspiciously like a hammer (weightless environment) looking for a nail (ooh, multilayer refracting LCDs!).
One thing to remember, though, is that "Science @ NASA" is not targeted at technically savvy folks like we
The Science Directorate at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center sponsors the Science@NASA web sites. The mission of Science@NASA is to help the public understand how exciting NASA research is and to help NASA scientists fulfill their outreach responsibilities.
The article we're dissecting here wasn't designed to explain LCDs in accurate technical detail, nor was it supposed to present the pros and cons of the technology. It's clearly written to "help the public understand how exciting NASA research is" -- and nothing else.
IIRC, the Science @ NASA info used to be a little more in depth. Then, a funding squeeze nearly killed the website altogether. Apparently, the only way they were able to get funding for this basic communications vehicle was to direct it at the least common denomonator. I used to get their email updates, but I dropped them quite a while back -- I think because the articles lost their tech-geek appeal.
Well, I took your suggestion. According to whois.sc, nobody has ever thought of "stillmoresex.com" as their dot-com brainstorm idea.
I couldn't resist the temptation... I went to Gandi and registered the domain. How could I pass it up?
I'll probably redirect it to the URL of this thread. I've registered it with a unique Gandi ID, so it's up for grabs for whoever wants it. Mention Slashdot, and I'll let ya have it pretty much at cost. Send a note to robert b at dixie dash chicks dot com and we'll go over the details.
Usually, I grab interesting domains to keep them from becoming porn portals! Now, I guess I've gone from Karma Whoring to Domain Whoring. So much for the purity of my Slashdot experience!
Now, come on, guys/gals... parent comment is at *least* as deserving of a "+1, Funny" as the next one.
That said, I *love* Bipolar Moderation (and have said so in public). But please, don't waste mod points modding me down... instead, mod parent back up!
Foo: That's were capital punishment comes from--getting the worst bits of humanity out of the gene pool.
Bar: Well then, why not just castrate the offender and let him go?
Actually, the flaw in the argument comes because it's often too late to remove the offender's genes from the pool -- he's likely already reproduced by the time he gets caught.
But to yank this thread kicking and screaming back to the topic of the article...
What happens when a "enhanced humanoid" commits a capital offence (under whatever standards are in effect at the time)? Wouldn't a truly committed murderous cyborg install multiple redundant systems with protection mechanisms that would make him/her/it almost impossible to "switch off"? Would criminals be sent into the phantom zone, only to be released on unsuspecting far-off planets by a space-based nuclear explosion?
No, that would be silly.
The Aussie plan site says "Construction of the world's largest solar-powered electric generating plant could begin on Tapio Station as soon as January 2003." That's six months ago, so I clicked the link to EnviroMission, the company behind the project. The "News" section was not very useful, but I did find a January 2003 announcement that they were trying to round up another $250k (assumably, that's A$) for the project. Not a good sign.
As far as the arguments that this tower -- or any other large-scale solar alternative -- is "simpler"... that's an apples-to-oranges comparison. The sun-tracking mirrors may be simpler to build and maintain than a 1000-meter-tall (that's 3000+ feet for we US types) chimney!
Making molten salt the receiver of the solar energy -- the medium that converts light to transportable heat -- is pretty cool. But they could conceivably put a turbine on top of the heat exchanger and do the same thing as the Aussie project, just several thousand feet shorter.
The "molten salt" has the advantage of being method of energy storage. This is a problem for both wind and solar generation systems -- while traditional plants (even nuke plants) can throttle back their production of electrons by burning less fuel, solar and wind have to have someplace to "put" the excess energy if it's not immediately needed.
There are other ways to store energy, though... one idea I've read about (can't find a link!) is to use excess electricity to pump water into high tanks, then let the water flow back into low tanks when demand increases. But that's not nearly as cool as pumping melted salt.
Sweet information! Just one picky question:
Interestingly, to meet the US's entire current energy demands with solar electric, we would need to cover about half of our roads, at no net change in albumen.
Are you saying that covering half our roads in solar panels would not affect the amount of egg whites available to the food industry? I beg to differ!
It's a well-known fact that in order to ask, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" you must be able to postulate a road for the chicken to cross. If half our roadways are converted to solar power production, there would be chaos in chicken coops across the country! Whoever heard of asking "Why did the chicken cross the solar panels?"
I predict a very large reduction in the country's albumen, to the point that Grandma's Lemon Meringue Pie will be available only in the most exclusive households. We must, as a society, decide whether this is a price we are willing to pay.
I agree with your points entirely -- I'm extremely frustrated by the resources devoted to fertility treatments vs. those devoted to the children we already have. (Multi-thousand-$ international adoptions also get my goat, BTW.) But one of your points needs clarification:
It may not be a popular point of view, but there is no rule out there that says everyone has to or should be able to have a baby if they want to, even though they can't naturally.
In some cultures, there are rules that make it harder to adopt than to undertake extreme measures. In March, 2002, a Saudi Arabian woman underwent a uterus transplant rather than adopt or look into "hiring" a surrogate mother, because of religious and cultural reasons.
Again, I agree with you that this is a waste of resources, and quite likely counterproductive. Not only did the woman not conceive, but her new uterus lost its blood supply after about three months and was removed (again). Even if she had been able to conceive, the effects of powerful anti-rejection drugs on her baby would be hard to predict.
Meanwhile, if I may make a rash generalization, her Filipino maid probably could have put the woman in touch with an orphanage with plenty of healthy babies needing homes.
Smartest #23, 1993: Namco and Sega Bring Arcades Home, seems to be the most depressing "advance" for me. As noted in the editor comments, designing arcade games for future home use pretty much spelled the end of the 1980s arcade culture.
In the 80s, you had mom-n-pop arcades in little hole-in-the-wall spots. My favorite was one in downtown Tulsa that you'd never have found unless you happened to walk past and look inside. That's the one where I lost my $10 (see my lame-o attempt to First Post this article). Another was across the street from the grocery store I worked at, and was a great place to wind down after bagging groceries in the days before "paper or plastic?"
Now, it's virtually impossible to support a stand-alone arcade. Oh, you can drive down any street in Texas (at least) and see video parlors, but they're devoted to Cherry Master and Video Poker, not Pac-Man and Asteroids. The only place you can find a real game selection is at the mall or the movie theater. I wasn't into the mall scene as a teen, and I'm even less inclined that way in my 30s.
Although I did manage to embarass my daughter at DDR. She tried it out, but was wearing the wrong shoes and bailed. So I hopped on, much to her embarassment, but to the amusement of the rest of the teenyboppers. I don't think she's forgiven me yet...
When I was a teenager, in a darkened arcade, I accidentally put a $10 in the $1 changer. I didn't realize my mistake until I got home and couldn't find my $10.
My smartest moment was the one and only time I beat Dragon's Lair.
Oh, they meant 10 dumbest/smartest moments that actually meant something to someone other than me!
(semi-on-topic first post, y'all...)
I feel so used... I got the parent in my M2 stack, and blithely marked the "Informative" mod as "Fair". Then, curious, I checked out the article and thread.
How the hell did I miss those obvious "frontend" and "backend" links?
But I may have still meta-mod as "fair", since there isn't an option for "oops!"
By the way, for a full answer to the questions "what's a goatse?" and "where the HELL did you get that picture?!?!", as well as other Slashdot "gotchas", see the Wikipedia article on Slashdot Trolling.
I've had huge success in attracting spam by simply registering a domain name. I use a dedicated email address for my domain registrations (if you're dying to spam me, do a whois on my domain name).
I forgot to clean out my "domains" mailbox for a couple of weeks, and I had over 240 messages waiting. It would have been higher, but the mailbox filled up to its 1 meg capacity. Every single message was spam.
Did you realize how many 1337 ways there are to spell p3n15 ?! If only that creativity could be turned away from the Dark Side..
Looking at the detailed map, it's fair to say that, in the Western Hemisphere, Alaska sucks. Also, Montana seems to suck, and southern Mexico sucks, too. Colombia and Chile, though, really suck.
On the other hand, the Bermuda Triangle totally blows.
Interesting how the map relegates Europe to the fringes... I'm suuuuuuuure it's just because the Prime Meridian happened to cut France in half.