I'm not sure who the first was, but up to 30 years ago, you could rent books on tape the same way. They were mainly marketed to the blind, and you ordered from a paper catalog, not the internet, but the keep them as long as you like, get the next one when you return them ideas were the same.
Also, my local library (Multnomah County, downtown Portland Oregon) did the same thing: for one dollar per book, you could get a book, either from the library or inter-library loan sent to your house. You could only have two out at a time that way, and you could have a queue which, in the mid-80's, you could update online by dialing in (directly, via 300 baud modem!). (You could also update it over the phone, by mail, or in person at the branch, I believe). They would send the next one when you sent one back.
These are the only two I can think of. But any decent patent lawyer should be able to find these and others pretty easily, I would think.
What about other companies doing exactly the same thing? Like DVDBarn, Intelliflix, etc.? Is Netflix suing them, too?
(I still wonder how that polygamist beat out all those serial child molesters, mass murderers, and terrorists).
He was a serial child molester. Many of his "wives" were underage, as were several of the girls involved in "marriages" that he arranged.
And despite this being out there now, expect no mention in the mass media.
It might get mentioned now. It's an almost familiar pattern now: issue ignored by mainstream press, picked up and talked about on the internet, queries made to the press, and the press reading various blogs and sites like this, they finally decide it's a worthy story and run it.
I would certainly never expect to see anything on TV news first anymore.
That's what I used in the one year of religious school I went to. The math and the English sections were quite good. The one year of English taught me more formal grammar than all the public schooling up to that point did (does anyone else even diagram sentences any more?). And I was able to easily finish two years worth of math in one year. I could have done 3-4 if I'd applied myself well and worked a bit harder at it.
However, in the fields of science, literature, history, economics, and "social studies", the material is woefully inadequate at best, and laughable in most cases. America is God's favorite country. The answer to all economic questions is that we should have done what God ordered: pure laissez-faire capitalism with no government interference at all (well, some Slashdot posters will be happy with it, I guess.)
In literature, we read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and a bunch of newer neo-fundamentlist books.
In history, The Bible was the main text, and the accompanying "PACE" booklets were mostly either mistakes or lies about all the historical and archaeological evidence that backs it up.
But, the math and grammar parts are certainly good grounding for a Computer Science degree, if you're completely uninterested in a well-rounded education.
Some of his examples were straight value judgements.
His assertion that "skin color is irrelevant", while an opinion that I share, is an opinion, not a scientific theory.
It's an opinion that the religious right, however, has already lost the fight on, and is, ironically, now more generally accepted than the idea that life evolves.
That life evolves is a scientific theory. That a supernatural critter made everything exactly the way it is today 6000 years ago is a religious assertion. Which, despite politicking to the contrary, has no place in a science class. Now, if creationists ever come up with some kind of scientific theory, or any kind of actual evidence, to explain their beliefs, it would be different, but so far, all they can do is try to pick on holes in various evolution theories, and usually dishonestly at that.
You say that current scientific theory is not considered "good" information by the parents. The problem is, that parents aren't usually the best judge of what "good" infomation is, which is why we have panels of experts set school curricula, not parents. If the parents don't have enough education to understand what is and isn't a scientific theory, that only proves that education has been inadequate for more than one generation. I heartily disagree that the answer to inadequate education is to make it even more inadequate to avoid offending the ignorant.
A friend (or, possibly, an enemy) of yours signed you up for that. They had a web site where you could put in a phone number, and then a few things like what the person does for a living, a hobby, a method of transporation, a noun and an adjective (no, sorry, the last two are Mad-libs.) and you'll get a call from Samuel L. Jackson's voice with the appropriate things filled in. (So, I guess it pretty much is a Mad-lib.)
As an interesting aside, the caller ID should have been your friend's phone number (or whatever number they entered on the web site). I don't know by what method they spoofed the caller ID - I didn't even know it was legal.
Most of the problems with alcohol went away when we legalized it.
Deaths from bad product went down 80% within the year.
Violence involving disputes between providers disappeared almost overnight.
Organized crime was dealt a major blow, which they were only able to recover from by switching to other illegal drugs. Protection rackets and fixing gambling just never brought in as much money.
Why do you think it will be any different with cocaine?
I'll have to agree here. One of my all-time favorite games, that I just recently played through again, is Star Control 2, which was originally made back in the '386 days.
And obviously I'm not the only one who feels this way as it's been ported over to a form that can play on modern computers now and there's an entire community keeping it alive online.
I don't know if I would consider it "highbrow", though. Then, again, I don't know if you can consider "The Maltese Falcon" to really be high-brow. It certainly wasn't considered so at the time of its release. But, it is still an incredibly engaging story, well worth visiting repeatedly.
If we want "highbrow" games, how about some of the fan-produced modules for Neverwinter Nights? Elegia Eternum comes to mind, but there are others as well.
...giving them cards that magically replenish their currency value without any effort on your part?
It's no less responsible than magically getting cash just for passing Go. Or winning second prize in a beauty contest.
I don't think Monopoly was ever really an educational game, but if there's any education to be had, then this version is probably a bit better, in that it now teaches children that money in the bank needs to be accounted for and spent responsibly as much as cash on hand does. They'll learn to tie those numbers on their account statements to real money.
Only if you don't pay off your credit card every month. If you do, then you come out ahead.
The credit industry isn't a trillion dollar industry because they give people 1% cash back.
No, they're a trillion-dollar industry because most people don't pay their cards off every month. Of course, I have a debit card that gives me 1% back every time I use it, plus the money earns interest while it sits in the account, so it makes lots of sense for me to keep the money in the account instead of my wallet and pay for everything with the card.
If the judge awards the attorney's fees, the entire amount, not a percentage, automatically goes to the lawyer, without ever touching the defendant's wallet.
Hm, come to think of it, I think that's pretty close to how it normally works...
I keep seeing people saying these kinds of things on slashdot, but has there ever been an actual case of somebody facing criminal charges because of something done by someone using their open wireless connection?
Windows will be the last thing to go if Microsoft ever goes under.
I don't know about that. Microsoft has a lot of products that are much better than Windows.
MS Office is still much better than OpenOffice in many ways. TeamSystem, a software development process tool that integrates version control, bug tracking, task management, and project planning, is a very well-done tool and if they'd port it to Linux it could give the Rational suite some serious competition. And Outlook, despite its many flaws, is, feature-wise, about the best email client/scheduler available.
And, of course, then there's the XBox. I've heard that some people like that, too.
When I've seen layoffs good people often do depart because being in a company, never knowing if you're next to clean desk, is very stressful.
And Intel tends to do layoffs in waves. So, instead of just laying off everybody they're going to all at once, they'll get rid of loads of contractors first, then middle-management, then two or three passes through regular employees. So, whenever they have a layoff, everyone there knows to expect another soon.
When I worked for Intel, I updated my resume after the first couple of rounds, just to be ready. Since I had gone through all the trouble of updating it, I went ahead and posted it to a couple of job sites. Recruiters found it, and found me a much better job. So I left. It was probably about 50/50 whether I would have kept my job there if I hadn't.
And, yeah, this wasn't a surprise. I've got a few friends who still work for Intel, and they've mentioned hearing rumours of an upcoming VSP for a couple of months now.
OK. As a person who uses AIM every day, I have to concur with the consensus: AOL sucks. Since the rest of my team at my new job uses it, I went ahead and signed up for an AIM account myself. I used my own home email address for the contact. Why does AOL insist you provide a valid email address? Apparently to sell to the spammers.
Despite clicking all the "don't advertise" "don't share my address" "don't tell me about exciting new products or features" buttons, the account I used, which previously averaged perhaps one or two SPAM messages per month getting through the filters immediately jumped to 10-15 per day. It's now down to about 5-10 a day, and has stayed at that level for over a month. I shared the account with nobody else during that time.
I am not happy with AOL. No, sir, not happy at all.
Oh, yeah, and AIM is nowhere near as easy, useful, or feature-rich as Yahoo messenger, which I've used for many years.
Actually, most terrorists in the United States have been white Christians.
If by the "current crop" you mean the "terrorists" who are fighting against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, yeah, those are mostly Arab and Muslim, but there's a good reason for that.
If you mean the terrorists on TV and in movies, then, yeah, I'll grant you that. Almost exclusively Muslim these days.
Punching the hole (well, half a hole. A notch) on one side of a single-sided 5-1/4" floppy made it double-sided.
On 3-1/2" disks, you could take a low-density 720K disk, and make a hole on the other side (drilled, not punched, because you're going through hard plastic), and the computer would then recognize it as a double-density, 1.44MB, floppy.
There were no double-sided 3.5" floppies, because they had the little metal slider that would only open one way. I suppose you could take that off and throw it away and use both sides, but I didn't think of that until just now, so never tried it. Anyone ever try doing that?
Anyhow, I've lived there for about 3 years now, and still, every single time I go into that room: I turn the light switch on.
"And six months later, I get a call from some guy in Germany who yells 'Cut it Out!'".
-Steven Wright
Still, there's a substantial difference between not thinking about it for half a second, and not thinking about it while you grumble about it, find the number for support, call them, wait on hold, describe the problem to a tech, find the flashlight, etc...
Oh, yeah, and those switches in rooms without lights often control one or more of the outlets, so you can plug a light into them and turn it on with the switch.
Or, if you're a certain friend of mine, plug your computer into it so the network crashes every time someone who isn't used to it walks into the dark computer room...
Did I read the GP correctly? Network cable in the cd-rom drive?? What, does it just dangle in there, and they expect it to work?
I've never rescued a CD-ROM from a 5-1/4" drive, but back in the olden days, while working in the campus computer lab, people did all sorts of fun and interesting things to their 5-1/4" disks. One student punched holes in them so they can be stored in her binder.
Another, I couldn't find why so many went bad for him so quickly, until I found he was storing them on the dorm fridge - holding them in place with an old speaker magnet.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't that a violation of section 305 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act?
Or is video-on-demand somehow immune to that act now?
I'm not sure who the first was, but up to 30 years ago, you could rent books on tape the same way. They were mainly marketed to the blind, and you ordered from a paper catalog, not the internet, but the keep them as long as you like, get the next one when you return them ideas were the same.
Also, my local library (Multnomah County, downtown Portland Oregon) did the same thing: for one dollar per book, you could get a book, either from the library or inter-library loan sent to your house. You could only have two out at a time that way, and you could have a queue which, in the mid-80's, you could update online by dialing in (directly, via 300 baud modem!). (You could also update it over the phone, by mail, or in person at the branch, I believe). They would send the next one when you sent one back.
These are the only two I can think of. But any decent patent lawyer should be able to find these and others pretty easily, I would think.
What about other companies doing exactly the same thing? Like DVDBarn, Intelliflix, etc.? Is Netflix suing them, too?
Yes, but it's funny!
Exactly!
Don't like the inane restrictions? Download, don't buy! Couldn't agree with you more!
He was a serial child molester. Many of his "wives" were underage, as were several of the girls involved in "marriages" that he arranged.
And despite this being out there now, expect no mention in the mass media.
It might get mentioned now. It's an almost familiar pattern now: issue ignored by mainstream press, picked up and talked about on the internet, queries made to the press, and the press reading various blogs and sites like this, they finally decide it's a worthy story and run it.
I would certainly never expect to see anything on TV news first anymore.
That's what I used in the one year of religious school I went to. The math and the English sections were quite good. The one year of English taught me more formal grammar than all the public schooling up to that point did (does anyone else even diagram sentences any more?). And I was able to easily finish two years worth of math in one year. I could have done 3-4 if I'd applied myself well and worked a bit harder at it.
However, in the fields of science, literature, history, economics, and "social studies", the material is woefully inadequate at best, and laughable in most cases. America is God's favorite country. The answer to all economic questions is that we should have done what God ordered: pure laissez-faire capitalism with no government interference at all (well, some Slashdot posters will be happy with it, I guess.)
In literature, we read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and a bunch of newer neo-fundamentlist books.
In history, The Bible was the main text, and the accompanying "PACE" booklets were mostly either mistakes or lies about all the historical and archaeological evidence that backs it up.
But, the math and grammar parts are certainly good grounding for a Computer Science degree, if you're completely uninterested in a well-rounded education.
OK, I take it back. When I said that I will never wait tables again, I wasn't thinking far enough ahead.
This would tempt me back to it.
Some of his examples were straight value judgements.
His assertion that "skin color is irrelevant", while an opinion that I share, is an opinion, not a scientific theory.
It's an opinion that the religious right, however, has already lost the fight on, and is, ironically, now more generally accepted than the idea that life evolves.
That life evolves is a scientific theory. That a supernatural critter made everything exactly the way it is today 6000 years ago is a religious assertion. Which, despite politicking to the contrary, has no place in a science class. Now, if creationists ever come up with some kind of scientific theory, or any kind of actual evidence, to explain their beliefs, it would be different, but so far, all they can do is try to pick on holes in various evolution theories, and usually dishonestly at that.
You say that current scientific theory is not considered "good" information by the parents. The problem is, that parents aren't usually the best judge of what "good" infomation is, which is why we have panels of experts set school curricula, not parents. If the parents don't have enough education to understand what is and isn't a scientific theory, that only proves that education has been inadequate for more than one generation. I heartily disagree that the answer to inadequate education is to make it even more inadequate to avoid offending the ignorant.
A friend (or, possibly, an enemy) of yours signed you up for that. They had a web site where you could put in a phone number, and then a few things like what the person does for a living, a hobby, a method of transporation, a noun and an adjective (no, sorry, the last two are Mad-libs.) and you'll get a call from Samuel L. Jackson's voice with the appropriate things filled in. (So, I guess it pretty much is a Mad-lib.)
As an interesting aside, the caller ID should have been your friend's phone number (or whatever number they entered on the web site). I don't know by what method they spoofed the caller ID - I didn't even know it was legal.
Oh, hell yeah!
Why not?
Most of the problems with alcohol went away when we legalized it.
Deaths from bad product went down 80% within the year.
Violence involving disputes between providers disappeared almost overnight.
Organized crime was dealt a major blow, which they were only able to recover from by switching to other illegal drugs. Protection rackets and fixing gambling just never brought in as much money.
Why do you think it will be any different with cocaine?
I'll have to agree here. One of my all-time favorite games, that I just recently played through again, is Star Control 2, which was originally made back in the '386 days.
And obviously I'm not the only one who feels this way as it's been ported over to a form that can play on modern computers now and there's an entire community keeping it alive online.
I don't know if I would consider it "highbrow", though. Then, again, I don't know if you can consider "The Maltese Falcon" to really be high-brow. It certainly wasn't considered so at the time of its release. But, it is still an incredibly engaging story, well worth visiting repeatedly.
If we want "highbrow" games, how about some of the fan-produced modules for Neverwinter Nights? Elegia Eternum comes to mind, but there are others as well.
It's no less responsible than magically getting cash just for passing Go. Or winning second prize in a beauty contest.
I don't think Monopoly was ever really an educational game, but if there's any education to be had, then this version is probably a bit better, in that it now teaches children that money in the bank needs to be accounted for and spent responsibly as much as cash on hand does. They'll learn to tie those numbers on their account statements to real money.
Only if you don't pay off your credit card every month. If you do, then you come out ahead.
No, they're a trillion-dollar industry because most people don't pay their cards off every month. Of course, I have a debit card that gives me 1% back every time I use it, plus the money earns interest while it sits in the account, so it makes lots of sense for me to keep the money in the account instead of my wallet and pay for everything with the card.
You mean, Microsoft used to support Windows?
Hm, come to think of it, I think that's pretty close to how it normally works...
I keep seeing people saying these kinds of things on slashdot, but has there ever been an actual case of somebody facing criminal charges because of something done by someone using their open wireless connection?
You mean a contingency basis. Pro bono means they don't get paid at all.
MS Office is still much better than OpenOffice in many ways. TeamSystem, a software development process tool that integrates version control, bug tracking, task management, and project planning, is a very well-done tool and if they'd port it to Linux it could give the Rational suite some serious competition. And Outlook, despite its many flaws, is, feature-wise, about the best email client/scheduler available.
And, of course, then there's the XBox. I've heard that some people like that, too.
And Intel tends to do layoffs in waves. So, instead of just laying off everybody they're going to all at once, they'll get rid of loads of contractors first, then middle-management, then two or three passes through regular employees. So, whenever they have a layoff, everyone there knows to expect another soon.
When I worked for Intel, I updated my resume after the first couple of rounds, just to be ready. Since I had gone through all the trouble of updating it, I went ahead and posted it to a couple of job sites. Recruiters found it, and found me a much better job. So I left. It was probably about 50/50 whether I would have kept my job there if I hadn't.
And, yeah, this wasn't a surprise. I've got a few friends who still work for Intel, and they've mentioned hearing rumours of an upcoming VSP for a couple of months now.
OK.
As a person who uses AIM every day, I have to concur with the consensus: AOL sucks.
Since the rest of my team at my new job uses it, I went ahead and signed up for an AIM account myself. I used my own home email address for the contact. Why does AOL insist you provide a valid email address? Apparently to sell to the spammers.
Despite clicking all the "don't advertise" "don't share my address" "don't tell me about exciting new products or features" buttons, the account I used, which previously averaged perhaps one or two SPAM messages per month getting through the filters immediately jumped to 10-15 per day. It's now down to about 5-10 a day, and has stayed at that level for over a month. I shared the account with nobody else during that time.
I am not happy with AOL. No, sir, not happy at all.
Oh, yeah, and AIM is nowhere near as easy, useful, or feature-rich as Yahoo messenger, which I've used for many years.
Actually, most terrorists in the United States have been white Christians.
If by the "current crop" you mean the "terrorists" who are fighting against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, yeah, those are mostly Arab and Muslim, but there's a good reason for that.
If you mean the terrorists on TV and in movies, then, yeah, I'll grant you that. Almost exclusively Muslim these days.
No, the original post had it right:
Punching the hole (well, half a hole. A notch) on one side of a single-sided 5-1/4" floppy made it double-sided.
On 3-1/2" disks, you could take a low-density 720K disk, and make a hole on the other side (drilled, not punched, because you're going through hard plastic), and the computer would then recognize it as a double-density, 1.44MB, floppy.
There were no double-sided 3.5" floppies, because they had the little metal slider that would only open one way. I suppose you could take that off and throw it away and use both sides, but I didn't think of that until just now, so never tried it. Anyone ever try doing that?
"And six months later, I get a call from some guy in Germany who yells 'Cut it Out!'".
-Steven Wright
Still, there's a substantial difference between not thinking about it for half a second, and not thinking about it while you grumble about it, find the number for support, call them, wait on hold, describe the problem to a tech, find the flashlight, etc...
Oh, yeah, and those switches in rooms without lights often control one or more of the outlets, so you can plug a light into them and turn it on with the switch.
Or, if you're a certain friend of mine, plug your computer into it so the network crashes every time someone who isn't used to it walks into the dark computer room...
I've never rescued a CD-ROM from a 5-1/4" drive, but back in the olden days, while working in the campus computer lab, people did all sorts of fun and interesting things to their 5-1/4" disks. One student punched holes in them so they can be stored in her binder.
Another, I couldn't find why so many went bad for him so quickly, until I found he was storing them on the dorm fridge - holding them in place with an old speaker magnet.