"whats the point in having a folding lcd monitor? it's not like portability is a huge factor when you still have to plug it into your computer"
Well, I don't know what rock you've been living under, but the term 'computer' has evolved to mean more than a big beige box. In fact, there have been several stories on Slashdot about those new "portable pcs" where you essentially move your whole PC around in a box the size of a cigarette box that has ports and plugs into a docking station.
How bout one of those coupled with a folding/rollup monitor, portable battery, mouse, and rollup keyboard (or maybe one of those new laser ones that project the keyboard and sense where your fingers are).
"Go to imdb and look at the runtime of a movie.
Then compare with the runtime of the blockbuster version."
Thats an excellent idea, but only for when they remove whole scenes. I just remembered that the movie the customer had had a problem with before was the Osbourns. Swear words were bleeped out. IMDB wouldn't catch that. And that is something that would ruin the entire movie...jesus...95% of what Ozzy says would be "bleeep bleep bleepity bleep BLEEEEP"
"What I am currently doing is writing a nice little email to Netflix...basically saying that if I so much as smell enforcement of this bullshit patent, I will immediately cancel my subscription to their business."
Hey, more power too ya for actually doing something, compared to many other slashdotters (myself included) but you do realize the reality of the situation right?
To them you are not a customer, you are a consumer. If you leave, another will take their place. In fact, they'd probably rather have it that way as their current system of "new people get stuff they want, older accounts have to wait a long ass time" seems to encourage that kind of behavior. Seriously, to me this business practice is right up there with the RIAA treating their customers like criminals. With Netflix, if you have used their service for a while...suddenly you are impeding them from having enough good movies to bring in new money.
"It's not so much that they cut the naked people out. It cutting ANYTHING out of the movie without telling me."
I have the misfortune of working at blockbuster on the weekends since my (awesome) internship during the week is for credit only...and Saturday night I had a girl come up to me and ask me if the movie she was considering was 'edited' because she had had a nasty experienec with that before. So i'm examining the movie and the case...and ya know what? There was not a single way for me to tell if it was altered or not. Now, that could be because it wasn't, but how would you know? Is that what that "This movie has been altered for your tv" msg or w/e it is means?
"This would really suck with video, where you have to notice the links at the right time."
Don't worry, once spammers get ahold of this technology they'll make sure you are aware of when the link is there...hell...they might even 'click' it for you if your security is lax enough.
"for ships out at sea for extended periods of time (or just passing by), they can take a quick run to Niue and drop off/pick up their email without having to dock.."
O...email...I had something else in mind for the sailors on extended trips....it involved 'seamen' and 'pr0n' but its too early to formulate the rest of the joke.
I have been in several classes where there were computers in the rooms. In fact, at my college (which is a relatively small private college) one of my classrooms is a computer lab. There is a center table that everybody sits around for most of the class, however, I have been in situations where we were allowed to sit at the computers. And I can tell you for a fact that if any of the kids KNOW computers, they will be dicking around the first chance they get, especially if they finish early.
On top of that, there will be students who do NOT know how to use the computer, and that will eat up additional time. And most importantly, I hope YOU know computers (i assume you do since you are posting this on/.) because nothing is worse than a teacher I once had who had the majority of his classwork requiring the internet........and here he was trying to figure out how to get "onto the interweb" and get to a site called "goggle or google or something". Yeah.....we let him flounder for 5 minutes before one of us went over there and went to google for him.
"I am not 'today's winner' if this banner is flashing, because the banner flashes all the time. And if I've "just won $50****" I'm 100% SURE I won't be seeing any of that money at all.
Why don't they ban THAT?"
Because they are legally correct. Look up the legal definition of false advertising sometime. While I agree wholeheartedly with you, and many people realize that 'today's winner' means 'everydays winner', it is still technically allowed because, Today, You ARE a Winner, and when tomorrow comes around, the same statement will be true. Its all semantics, but thats the name of the game. Sucks don't it?
"(2) to share information among law enforcement agencies about infringement activities. Frankly, I think if people were better informed about copyright issues and laws it would be a Good Thing(TM), and I'd much rather have an accountable law enforcement agency policing copyright infringement (which is, whatever your personal ethical position, a crime according to the US Code) than RIAA and MPAA vigilantes."
Now, granted I haven't read the Act, but how do you know that to speed the dissemination of information to Law Enforcement, they won't just have the **AA's send them their hitlist of everybody who has ever downloaded a file off the internet?
But don't you realize that File Sharing is a gateway crime? It leads to fraud, prostitution, murder, and massive drug dealing. For the love of god Think of the children! "
"You would think, being as it's VERY simple to split oxygen and hydrogen, that someone would eventually build a giant solar array in the middle of the ocean, being as salt makes a good catalyst... but no.:)"
Yes, this would be a good option, except scaled down, with a multitude of arrays, scattered, because a single giant array would be a big target for "terrorism" and other things, and more susceptible to damage than many little ones. Never good to put all your eggs in one basket.
This is happening already in online communities. Slashdot ran an article about bloggers and paid product placement. While I think they were required to label it as an ad.....I doubt many PR companies would do even that.
soooo........handy little new media device.....what do you think the odds are its gonna have DRM on it? Better yet....since we're now reaching the point where new devices aren't necessarily new, just miniaturizations of existing technology.....how easy do you think it would be for M$ for example to just say "yup, here's the new small computer that does EVERYTHING......(except play your pirated files because of the DRM on it).....take it or leave it.
" Now public schools will again have a rationale for prohibiting cell phones in school!"
Yeah, imagine if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had these phones at Columbine.....instead of shooting kids with guns, they'd just re-enact DOOM and run around pointing their phones at kids yelling "1 0wNz0rz J3w n00bz0rz!!!" while kids just stared back blankly.
"...whose albums are to be listened to AS ALBUMS... consider Pink Floyd, Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins (Adore flowed together)... "
Forget them, I can name a whole genre who's music depends on being heard as an album to really get the full feeling of it. Electronic Music. Once you get into it, suddenly the individual tracks are nice...but the real appeal is to see how the DJ mixes them together in one flowing set.
"There is an old saying that the customer is always right. The popular music racket is one of many that seem to have forgotten this."
It's not just the Labels that have forgotten...its everybody. The reason why is because the 'customer' has become the 'consumer' in many cases, and in their eyes, the 'consumer' isn't always right, they are just someone who is slowing down the process of other 'consumers' throwing their money at the company and are replaceable.
The companies that will ultimately succeed in the long run treat people as customers. Look at Apple for instance. Classic example of listening to your customers.
Kind of reminds me of some of the current military research being done into new GUIs for flying....supposed to give you more of a "feel" for flying when you look at your instruments as opposed to just numbers. Someone posted screenshots on here once and I thought it looked like it was out of Macross.....if anybody knows what I'm talking about, please post the link again. It was fascinating stuff. Really looked like it would make flying more intuitive because you could look at visual readouts..and kind of know if things "looked" right.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I don't know what rock you've been living under, but the term 'computer' has evolved to mean more than a big beige box. In fact, there have been several stories on Slashdot about those new "portable pcs" where you essentially move your whole PC around in a box the size of a cigarette box that has ports and plugs into a docking station.
How bout one of those coupled with a folding/rollup monitor, portable battery, mouse, and rollup keyboard (or maybe one of those new laser ones that project the keyboard and sense where your fingers are).
Try thinking outside the beige box for once.
Thats an excellent idea, but only for when they remove whole scenes. I just remembered that the movie the customer had had a problem with before was the Osbourns. Swear words were bleeped out. IMDB wouldn't catch that. And that is something that would ruin the entire movie...jesus...95% of what Ozzy says would be "bleeep bleep bleepity bleep BLEEEEP"
Hey, more power too ya for actually doing something, compared to many other slashdotters (myself included) but you do realize the reality of the situation right?
To them you are not a customer, you are a consumer. If you leave, another will take their place. In fact, they'd probably rather have it that way as their current system of "new people get stuff they want, older accounts have to wait a long ass time" seems to encourage that kind of behavior. Seriously, to me this business practice is right up there with the RIAA treating their customers like criminals. With Netflix, if you have used their service for a while...suddenly you are impeding them from having enough good movies to bring in new money.
So does Slashdot owe double for dupes?
But who cares as long as they can get rich quick. (and that was sarcasm)
Never fear, Bezos has patented the act of patenting something before Amazon has, and thus gets licensing fees from every other patent in existence.
I have the misfortune of working at blockbuster on the weekends since my (awesome) internship during the week is for credit only...and Saturday night I had a girl come up to me and ask me if the movie she was considering was 'edited' because she had had a nasty experienec with that before. So i'm examining the movie and the case...and ya know what? There was not a single way for me to tell if it was altered or not. Now, that could be because it wasn't, but how would you know? Is that what that "This movie has been altered for your tv" msg or w/e it is means?
Don't worry, once spammers get ahold of this technology they'll make sure you are aware of when the link is there...hell...they might even 'click' it for you if your security is lax enough.
O...email...I had something else in mind for the sailors on extended trips....it involved 'seamen' and 'pr0n' but its too early to formulate the rest of the joke.
On top of that, there will be students who do NOT know how to use the computer, and that will eat up additional time. And most importantly, I hope YOU know computers (i assume you do since you are posting this on /.) because nothing is worse than a teacher I once had who had the majority of his classwork requiring the internet........and here he was trying to figure out how to get "onto the interweb" and get to a site called "goggle or google or something". Yeah.....we let him flounder for 5 minutes before one of us went over there and went to google for him.
Because they are legally correct. Look up the legal definition of false advertising sometime. While I agree wholeheartedly with you, and many people realize that 'today's winner' means 'everydays winner', it is still technically allowed because, Today, You ARE a Winner, and when tomorrow comes around, the same statement will be true. Its all semantics, but thats the name of the game. Sucks don't it?
Now, granted I haven't read the Act, but how do you know that to speed the dissemination of information to Law Enforcement, they won't just have the **AA's send them their hitlist of everybody who has ever downloaded a file off the internet?
I can see it now.....
"If you use P2P, you're supporting Terrorism!"
Yes, this would be a good option, except scaled down, with a multitude of arrays, scattered, because a single giant array would be a big target for "terrorism" and other things, and more susceptible to damage than many little ones. Never good to put all your eggs in one basket.
Why's that? All the juicy bits were leaked (or "leaked" as some would think) already.
Well you could READ the article and find out! O wait...forgot where I was, sorry.
I'm gonna go wrap myself in tinfoil now.
Yeah, imagine if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had these phones at Columbine.....instead of shooting kids with guns, they'd just re-enact DOOM and run around pointing their phones at kids yelling "1 0wNz0rz J3w n00bz0rz!!!" while kids just stared back blankly.
Forget them, I can name a whole genre who's music depends on being heard as an album to really get the full feeling of it. Electronic Music. Once you get into it, suddenly the individual tracks are nice...but the real appeal is to see how the DJ mixes them together in one flowing set.
It's not just the Labels that have forgotten...its everybody. The reason why is because the 'customer' has become the 'consumer' in many cases, and in their eyes, the 'consumer' isn't always right, they are just someone who is slowing down the process of other 'consumers' throwing their money at the company and are replaceable.
The companies that will ultimately succeed in the long run treat people as customers. Look at Apple for instance. Classic example of listening to your customers.
Hey.....i'm sure MANY people on slashdot would be willing to buy a new computer that gave them "New life style".