but doesn't comcast already have other outlets for anime?
Comcast might, but other cable providers may not. I have Charter, and the only somewhat decent anime I get is on Cartoon Network and TechTV. I'm glad they're keeping it in, for non-Comcast subscribers who need an anime fix.
I'm inclined to agree. I'm fresh out of high school, and I can assure anyone here that legislation like the "No Child Left Behind" act are complete crap, and are weighing down the education system.
Our school had a level system, level 1 being honors, level 2, accelerated, level 3 general, level 4, special needs. When students started failing out of level 4 (which is as basic material as you can get, essentially ABCs, and basic math), they didn't attempt to address why the students were failing. Instead, they created level 5, where the students essentially sit there. In addition, they spent a bunch of money on a program where these failing students would learn by computer. They would get a quick electronic lesson, then were presented with a quick multiple choice quiz. If they passed these courses with a reasonable grade within 3 months, they got a high school diploma, with the same recognition as a regular student who passed all level 1 courses with straight A's.
Seems more schools these days are more concerned with sheer numbers- number of graduates and grades vs. quality of education.
I'm not familiar with WhenU's software, but I find this hard to believe. Can this statement be defined with the same style of deceit that seems to encompass adware companies? Anyone who knows of their spyware's habbit's please shed some light on this.
Well, many adware/spyware companies commonly make use of user ignorance to install software. They'll flash a popup bearing a blue screen and windows-like cryptic warning message saying "your system is not optimized" or "your system is vulnerable to spyware" or "your clock is not accurate." The unwitting user is tricked into thinking it's a legitimate windows error, and therefore uses their best judgement to deal with the situation. Usually they'll click the "OK" button just as they do with real windows messages. Then they are presented with some cryptic EULA (which 99% of people don't read anyway), and the next thing they know, they are bombarded with popups and their machine runs at less than 10% it's original speed.
I'd wager one of the politicians in Utah became infected with spyware, and the personal, first-hand experience with the obvious problems it presented led to this fine piece of legislation. Yes, it seems steep, but if it were anything less, it wouldn't send a strong enough message to the lamers that write this crap to deter them from doing it.
Is outsourcing seen in the public eye as helping or destroying an economy? I mean, on the one hand, we're loosing jobs locally, but on the other hand it's creating thousands of jobs in 3rd world countries. I heard someone say before every one job here is worth three jobs offshore, for the same amount of money. I guess the question is, are companies benefiting by getting more bang for the buck out of employees helping the economy locally, if not the job market, while at the same time helping the economies of other countries by creating jobs? A penny saved is a penny earned, potentially spent locally.
Why spend the money on a new drive (since we all know new technology always costs an arm, a leg, and your first born), when old you can adapt.
I've used a number of these things, and they work wonders for cable management. I have an MSI K8T Neo, and run exclusively SATA, with 1 SATA hard drive, 1 PATA hard drives, and 2 PATA optical drives, all through the SATA bus.
For the majority of users, there is no need to use further bandwith on optical drives. Even my 52x32x52 CDRW only runs at ATA-33. Why spend money to develop an ATA-150 model if it doesn't even use that much bandwith to begin with?
Even 52x CD burning is only 7,800 kb/sec. I can see where a SATA drive would be helpful for high speed DVD burning, but even then, if they even developed an ATA-133 model, that should suffice for a number of years.
Don't get me wrong, I love to see newer/faster/better, but I know why companies would want to create a faster transfer method for a device which barely uses the capability of the bus provided anyway.
I work for a small shop as well, and I do have quite a few hearing impaired clients. They communicate with us via fax, email, and in person, we have very good conversations with paper and pen.
I've recieved a number of fraudulent calls as well. We no longer accept relay calls either, but it's certainly not to discriminate. The only phone service we provide to customers is the status of a computer in for service. For our deaf customers, we converse via email and fax. We simply do not take phone orders from anyone, or provide phone troubleshooting. Parts must be picked up at the store, and computers brought down for a diagnostic.
Ditto here, except with us it was an order of five 17" LCDs. Our shop does not ship parts though, they must be picked up. I stressed this to the operator, but all the other end would reply with is "I have credit card." I had a feeling it was a scam when the other end insisted on us shipping them out via UPS with his UPS number, but I didn't say anything. The operator then informed me it was most likely a scam, and that they get hundreds of calls like this per day, and even offered to terminate the call so it wouldn't waste my time. I understand the idea behind the confidentiality and NDA agreements operators must sign, but in cases where it involves money and a potential scam, I believe the right thing to do is inform the hearing end. Besides, especially when it comes to computer related orders, you'd think someone ordering a hard drive or an LCD monitor would have internet access to order these things online, rather than call a shop who does not even ship items anywhere.
I didn't RTFA, but I am an OEM, and have conversed with many representatives concerning licensing in the regard of upgrading/refurbrishing.
I believe this initiative is targeting "refurbrished" machines as in machines made of many components. If you have a COA with a product key (either sticker or book) that originally came with a machine, and the machine still has a majority of it's original parts (I surmise based on my conversations with the MS representative "majority" means essentially the original case), it's legal to use the old license.
The problem occurs with older machines that predate the COA sticker- those Win98 licenses whos keys are on the manual- as many people either loose or didn't keep their Win98 book. Thus, when a machine is donated, the license doesn't go with it unless the key does. If the computer has the sticker, it's legal to use that product key. If it does not, it's not legal to install anything unless you have the original booklet that came with that machine.
If a book is lost, the license is lost with it, even if you can extract the product key from the registry, you can not use it unless you have a COA for it in front of you. MS is cashing in on the lost booklet market in an effort to make a dime off it's old products.
The music companies are reluctant to talk openly about their wholesale-pricing strategies, but they are quick to blame the retailers for higher prices. A spokeswoman for EMI, for instance, stresses that the retailers, not record companies, ultimately set the prices consumers pay.
I call bullshit. Retail price is directly related to inventory cost. Any retail outlet must meet operating costs by marking prices up. While I do feel some retailers are enjoying rather healthy margins, I know what it takes to run a brick-and-morter shop in direct competition with an online market. Which brings up another point- in the article it's mentioned many albums are now more expensive when downloaded online than actually paying for the physical CD.
Looks to me like record companies are starting to recognize that the problem is not piracy, but a crappy product. Even in legit download sites like iTunes, people are going right for the songs they like, and ignoring the crap they don't. What does the recording industry do? Raise prices on good songs, and bundle crap via the label "Also included!"
It's all about control- they want you to hear only what they feed you. They want you to pay for what they produce, whether or not you like it. Instead of buying the 3 or 4 songs off an album you like, they make it cheaper to buy the CD in a store, or if you still download- you get the other 4 or 5 crappy tracks along with it, "as an added bonus" (paid for by the price increase).
It's complete crap. What will it take for these overpaid execs to see what their market wants?
I have a feeling though that this might pose a problem for Joe Consumer. If they have no knowledge of the computer internals, what will happen when they walk over to the game department and buy the latest iteration of The Sims, and it won't play on said $300 machine?
Either they call up tech support and are explained the fundamentals of operating systems, or they return the PC saying nothing more than "it doesn't work."
Not to sound like a Zealot, but I'm enjoying the convenience and performance of both worlds through Gentoo's portage system. It manages dependancies as well or better than traditional packaging, and compiles from source ensuring optimization and performance.
I'm fortunate to be employed in IT, especially because I love what I do. However, I know a number of people who jumped on the IT bandwagon thinking it was easy work for great pay. As they find it becoming harder to find a job, and those that do find dwindling pay, these people are abandoning IT in favor of things they really enjoy doing. This is a good thing, because it means a less saturated job market, and those who remain stay because they at least partially enjoy what they do, which generally implies an increase in overall quality of work.
This makes sense from a business perspective. If your support personell are trained only in certain applications, they can't be expected to provide support for everything. Especially given the "open" nature of open source, there's countless versions of countless programs. No single entity could possibly be expected to provide support for it all.
The same thing is done with Windows- they only support the software that comes with the machine. If you install any 3rd party software, it's solely your responsibility.
If I buy a system with Red Hat, and I install gentoo, why should HP provide support if I can't get an ebuild of GIMP to compile?
Furthermore, I'd like to have seen THG actually buy one of these alleged machines. That was the intention of the article, right? See if the products match the descriptions. If the author was talking face to face with Michael, why couldn't he order one of these machines right from him, or at least ask to see a demo? Rather than just tell people to fend for themselves based on what the reviewer discovered, why not go the final step and actually try to look at the products they are investigating? If they did not perform up to snuff (which is most likely), at least then they would have some hard, tangible evidence to flat out say "avoid these guys."
From the article: But because patents granted their holders a truly "limited" monopoly of just 17 years (at that time), the patents had expired by the time enough federal marshals appeared. A new industry had been founded, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative property.
In the words of the article, is there a distinction between Copyright and Patent? I was under the impression patents were for ideas of inventions, and copyrights a wann-be patent for creative works. In any case, it's interesting in a sad way how the movie industry took off initially by infringing on Edison's patent, then grew more when the patent expired after a reasonable period of 17 years. Yet in the past couple of decades, the same people who made their fortune because a patent expired are trying to extend copyrights for generations!
Why does it always end up as "This or That" and never "both"? Hubble or Mars? Why can't they spare the extra 2 or 3% of the military budget and funnel it into NASA... after all, Hubble could potentially be used for military purposes, no? It's this sort of tightwadding of money that causes the managerial problems plaguing NASA today, as money gets yanked around to different places, with never enough left over to get jobs done the right way. As long as this sort of crap keeps up, we'll never get much farther than low earth orbit anytime soon. Just a few decades ago, we had a focus- to get to the moon. We got to the moon. What have we now? A leaky space station with pieces falling off, remnants of an aging and grounded shuttle fleet, and not much of a grand vision to get anywhere. While we do have 2 rovers poking and prodding Mars, America needs to find it's sense of adventure again, the spirit of pioneering that founded this country. Lewis and Clark headed west knowing the risks and found the Pacific Ocean. I've had enough of this safety and political correctness crap. Yes, it's risky, yes, it's dangerous. But how far can humanity progress without taking risks?
Bleh, that turned into a rant pretty quick, but I stand by it, so mod accordingly.
Fixed a number of bugs in SCSI from 2.6.3 too- I heard of a lot of people (myself included) having trouble with K3b with SCSI/USB/Firewire cd burners, locking up and such.
K3b fired up perfectly the first time with 2.6.4-rc2, and I'm looking forward to the expanded firewire support in 2.6.4 final, it's compiling right now. Great to have such a dedicated community which stands by their work and fixes problems so quickly!
Slashdot Mirror
Geek: I invented a program that downloads porn off the internet one million times faster.
:drools: One million times...
Marge: Does anyone need that much porno?
Homer:
but doesn't comcast already have other outlets for anime?
Comcast might, but other cable providers may not. I have Charter, and the only somewhat decent anime I get is on Cartoon Network and TechTV. I'm glad they're keeping it in, for non-Comcast subscribers who need an anime fix.
I'm inclined to agree. I'm fresh out of high school, and I can assure anyone here that legislation like the "No Child Left Behind" act are complete crap, and are weighing down the education system.
Our school had a level system, level 1 being honors, level 2, accelerated, level 3 general, level 4, special needs. When students started failing out of level 4 (which is as basic material as you can get, essentially ABCs, and basic math), they didn't attempt to address why the students were failing. Instead, they created level 5, where the students essentially sit there. In addition, they spent a bunch of money on a program where these failing students would learn by computer. They would get a quick electronic lesson, then were presented with a quick multiple choice quiz. If they passed these courses with a reasonable grade within 3 months, they got a high school diploma, with the same recognition as a regular student who passed all level 1 courses with straight A's.
Seems more schools these days are more concerned with sheer numbers- number of graduates and grades vs. quality of education.
Oh the irony of that post being here on slashdot.
I'm not familiar with WhenU's software, but I find this hard to believe. Can this statement be defined with the same style of deceit that seems to encompass adware companies? Anyone who knows of their spyware's habbit's please shed some light on this.
Well, many adware/spyware companies commonly make use of user ignorance to install software. They'll flash a popup bearing a blue screen and windows-like cryptic warning message saying "your system is not optimized" or "your system is vulnerable to spyware" or "your clock is not accurate." The unwitting user is tricked into thinking it's a legitimate windows error, and therefore uses their best judgement to deal with the situation. Usually they'll click the "OK" button just as they do with real windows messages. Then they are presented with some cryptic EULA (which 99% of people don't read anyway), and the next thing they know, they are bombarded with popups and their machine runs at less than 10% it's original speed.
I'd wager one of the politicians in Utah became infected with spyware, and the personal, first-hand experience with the obvious problems it presented led to this fine piece of legislation. Yes, it seems steep, but if it were anything less, it wouldn't send a strong enough message to the lamers that write this crap to deter them from doing it.
Screw that, give me Qbasic Gorrilas!
Is outsourcing seen in the public eye as helping or destroying an economy? I mean, on the one hand, we're loosing jobs locally, but on the other hand it's creating thousands of jobs in 3rd world countries. I heard someone say before every one job here is worth three jobs offshore, for the same amount of money. I guess the question is, are companies benefiting by getting more bang for the buck out of employees helping the economy locally, if not the job market, while at the same time helping the economies of other countries by creating jobs? A penny saved is a penny earned, potentially spent locally.
Why spend the money on a new drive (since we all know new technology always costs an arm, a leg, and your first born), when old you can adapt.
I've used a number of these things, and they work wonders for cable management. I have an MSI K8T Neo, and run exclusively SATA, with 1 SATA hard drive, 1 PATA hard drives, and 2 PATA optical drives, all through the SATA bus.
Er.. that should read "but I don't know why companies would want to create a faster transfer method..."
It's easter, and I just woke up...
For the majority of users, there is no need to use further bandwith on optical drives. Even my 52x32x52 CDRW only runs at ATA-33. Why spend money to develop an ATA-150 model if it doesn't even use that much bandwith to begin with?
Even 52x CD burning is only 7,800 kb/sec. I can see where a SATA drive would be helpful for high speed DVD burning, but even then, if they even developed an ATA-133 model, that should suffice for a number of years.
Don't get me wrong, I love to see newer/faster/better, but I know why companies would want to create a faster transfer method for a device which barely uses the capability of the bus provided anyway.
I work for a small shop as well, and I do have quite a few hearing impaired clients. They communicate with us via fax, email, and in person, we have very good conversations with paper and pen.
I've recieved a number of fraudulent calls as well. We no longer accept relay calls either, but it's certainly not to discriminate. The only phone service we provide to customers is the status of a computer in for service. For our deaf customers, we converse via email and fax. We simply do not take phone orders from anyone, or provide phone troubleshooting. Parts must be picked up at the store, and computers brought down for a diagnostic.
Ditto here, except with us it was an order of five 17" LCDs. Our shop does not ship parts though, they must be picked up. I stressed this to the operator, but all the other end would reply with is "I have credit card." I had a feeling it was a scam when the other end insisted on us shipping them out via UPS with his UPS number, but I didn't say anything. The operator then informed me it was most likely a scam, and that they get hundreds of calls like this per day, and even offered to terminate the call so it wouldn't waste my time. I understand the idea behind the confidentiality and NDA agreements operators must sign, but in cases where it involves money and a potential scam, I believe the right thing to do is inform the hearing end. Besides, especially when it comes to computer related orders, you'd think someone ordering a hard drive or an LCD monitor would have internet access to order these things online, rather than call a shop who does not even ship items anywhere.
I didn't RTFA, but I am an OEM, and have conversed with many representatives concerning licensing in the regard of upgrading/refurbrishing.
I believe this initiative is targeting "refurbrished" machines as in machines made of many components. If you have a COA with a product key (either sticker or book) that originally came with a machine, and the machine still has a majority of it's original parts (I surmise based on my conversations with the MS representative "majority" means essentially the original case), it's legal to use the old license.
The problem occurs with older machines that predate the COA sticker- those Win98 licenses whos keys are on the manual- as many people either loose or didn't keep their Win98 book. Thus, when a machine is donated, the license doesn't go with it unless the key does. If the computer has the sticker, it's legal to use that product key. If it does not, it's not legal to install anything unless you have the original booklet that came with that machine.
If a book is lost, the license is lost with it, even if you can extract the product key from the registry, you can not use it unless you have a COA for it in front of you. MS is cashing in on the lost booklet market in an effort to make a dime off it's old products.
The music companies are reluctant to talk openly about their wholesale-pricing strategies, but they are quick to blame the retailers for higher prices. A spokeswoman for EMI, for instance, stresses that the retailers, not record companies, ultimately set the prices consumers pay.
I call bullshit. Retail price is directly related to inventory cost. Any retail outlet must meet operating costs by marking prices up. While I do feel some retailers are enjoying rather healthy margins, I know what it takes to run a brick-and-morter shop in direct competition with an online market. Which brings up another point- in the article it's mentioned many albums are now more expensive when downloaded online than actually paying for the physical CD.
Looks to me like record companies are starting to recognize that the problem is not piracy, but a crappy product. Even in legit download sites like iTunes, people are going right for the songs they like, and ignoring the crap they don't. What does the recording industry do? Raise prices on good songs, and bundle crap via the label "Also included!"
It's all about control- they want you to hear only what they feed you. They want you to pay for what they produce, whether or not you like it. Instead of buying the 3 or 4 songs off an album you like, they make it cheaper to buy the CD in a store, or if you still download- you get the other 4 or 5 crappy tracks along with it, "as an added bonus" (paid for by the price increase).
It's complete crap. What will it take for these overpaid execs to see what their market wants?
Or they're too busy working to improve their product to enter a pissing match initiated by a leaky faucet.
I have a feeling though that this might pose a problem for Joe Consumer. If they have no knowledge of the computer internals, what will happen when they walk over to the game department and buy the latest iteration of The Sims, and it won't play on said $300 machine?
Either they call up tech support and are explained the fundamentals of operating systems, or they return the PC saying nothing more than "it doesn't work."
That's easy. Just alert the RIAA they stole your iPod without paying them license fees.
Not to sound like a Zealot, but I'm enjoying the convenience and performance of both worlds through Gentoo's portage system. It manages dependancies as well or better than traditional packaging, and compiles from source ensuring optimization and performance.
So what kind of loss is Microsoft taking now to ship these things?
If they already sold the X-Box for below cost, wouldn't this just hurt them further?
I'm fortunate to be employed in IT, especially because I love what I do. However, I know a number of people who jumped on the IT bandwagon thinking it was easy work for great pay. As they find it becoming harder to find a job, and those that do find dwindling pay, these people are abandoning IT in favor of things they really enjoy doing. This is a good thing, because it means a less saturated job market, and those who remain stay because they at least partially enjoy what they do, which generally implies an increase in overall quality of work.
This makes sense from a business perspective. If your support personell are trained only in certain applications, they can't be expected to provide support for everything. Especially given the "open" nature of open source, there's countless versions of countless programs. No single entity could possibly be expected to provide support for it all.
The same thing is done with Windows- they only support the software that comes with the machine. If you install any 3rd party software, it's solely your responsibility.
If I buy a system with Red Hat, and I install gentoo, why should HP provide support if I can't get an ebuild of GIMP to compile?
Furthermore, I'd like to have seen THG actually buy one of these alleged machines. That was the intention of the article, right? See if the products match the descriptions. If the author was talking face to face with Michael, why couldn't he order one of these machines right from him, or at least ask to see a demo? Rather than just tell people to fend for themselves based on what the reviewer discovered, why not go the final step and actually try to look at the products they are investigating? If they did not perform up to snuff (which is most likely), at least then they would have some hard, tangible evidence to flat out say "avoid these guys."
From the article:
But because patents granted their holders a truly "limited" monopoly of just 17 years (at that time), the patents had expired by the time enough federal marshals appeared. A new industry had been founded, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative property.
In the words of the article, is there a distinction between Copyright and Patent? I was under the impression patents were for ideas of inventions, and copyrights a wann-be patent for creative works. In any case, it's interesting in a sad way how the movie industry took off initially by infringing on Edison's patent, then grew more when the patent expired after a reasonable period of 17 years. Yet in the past couple of decades, the same people who made their fortune because a patent expired are trying to extend copyrights for generations!
Why does it always end up as "This or That" and never "both"? Hubble or Mars? Why can't they spare the extra 2 or 3% of the military budget and funnel it into NASA... after all, Hubble could potentially be used for military purposes, no? It's this sort of tightwadding of money that causes the managerial problems plaguing NASA today, as money gets yanked around to different places, with never enough left over to get jobs done the right way. As long as this sort of crap keeps up, we'll never get much farther than low earth orbit anytime soon. Just a few decades ago, we had a focus- to get to the moon. We got to the moon. What have we now? A leaky space station with pieces falling off, remnants of an aging and grounded shuttle fleet, and not much of a grand vision to get anywhere. While we do have 2 rovers poking and prodding Mars, America needs to find it's sense of adventure again, the spirit of pioneering that founded this country. Lewis and Clark headed west knowing the risks and found the Pacific Ocean. I've had enough of this safety and political correctness crap. Yes, it's risky, yes, it's dangerous. But how far can humanity progress without taking risks?
Bleh, that turned into a rant pretty quick, but I stand by it, so mod accordingly.
Fixed a number of bugs in SCSI from 2.6.3 too- I heard of a lot of people (myself included) having trouble with K3b with SCSI/USB/Firewire cd burners, locking up and such.
K3b fired up perfectly the first time with 2.6.4-rc2, and I'm looking forward to the expanded firewire support in 2.6.4 final, it's compiling right now. Great to have such a dedicated community which stands by their work and fixes problems so quickly!