"I've started using ad blocker, and I haven't turned back."
I guess I'm the lone weirdo that still doesn't block ads. I've never had a problem with an ad significantly slowing down Chrome so I don't see the need for it. Also I feel a bit better that at least I'm trying to help the website because if everyone used Adblock the internet would be a very different place.... but then maybe it needs to be. Some of these people that live off their blogs shouldn't be. Slashdot existed before banner ads, having users promote articles instead of depending on a full-time staff posting what they want you to see.
If I had mod points today I'd mark you +5 Insightful and parent would be Flamebait for saying "I couldn't see much value over at the Escapist site anyway"
IMHO the Zero Punctuation videos are the funniest videos the interwebs have to offer. Anyone that does not give them at least some credit for being funny is Flamebait.
" Now, copying a variable number of pages, then erasing them immediately is extra wear and tear on the HD."
Sure that makes sense, but why the long-term storage? Why does it store the copies from 6 months ago? Shouldn't it go through every week wipe anything over a week old?
Of course that's not perfect, there's still going to be that final week on there, but at least no one will be "downloading tens of thousands of documents" from a photocopy machine like they did.
Also shouldn't the manufacture's be responsible for this somewhat? It's obvious when you save a document to a computer that the drive needs to be wiped, not so obvious when it's a copy machine. Shouldn't there be big warning labels and a "wipe all" button on the back somewhere? Sharp apparently offers a product to wipe copy machine hard drives.... for $500: "One product from Sharp automatically erases an image from the hard drive. It costs $500. "
WTF Sharp? You couldn't just put a button on the back that does a DoD wipe?
"So the guy found a phone, tried to return it to the owner, the owner didn't respond so he sold it. I don't see a problem here."
Ok, here's a car analogy since/. loves car analogies: "Well, I was at this bar and found these car keys, so I drove the car around and tried to find the owner. After a few weeks I couldn't, so I sold the car."
If you find something that's not yours you are suppose to try and contact the owner and if you can not, give it to the police. Anything else and it's theft. How else can it work? Are we suppose to trust thefts to be honest?
"Until someone reveals the chipset inside we still have no idea if we are stuck with those horrible infineon chips which are the root of iPhone evil."
I still call fake.
This whole bar story doesn't add up either. I've been to many bars with many cellphones and I've never lost one, how the hell do you lose a prototype iPhone at a bar? That's not just your $500 phone, THAT'S YOUR JOB IN YOUR POCKET.
What are the odds that a iPhone would just happen to be found by gizmodo and engadget? Of all the people in the world? And how much would a popular blog pay for a iPhone prototype? Imagine the hits you'd get with first real photos of the next iPhone! You could even put a no-name blog on the map with real photos. This prototype is incredibly valuable.
If anyone really found a prototype iPhone it would be on eBay until they pulled it, but not before it received thousands of hits and a few dozen bids up to several thousands of dollars, but someone would contact them outside of ebay and negotiate a deal anyway.
Let's not forget that there's not one photo of this prototype iPhone running. Why not? They couldn't charge it? The brains behind engadget and gizmodo can't charge an iPhone? Let me guess, they found a "broken" iPhone prototype at a bar. Yeah, that sounds reasonable.
Some people argue "Well Apple wiped it remotely!" Seriously? Wiped it so well it doesn't turn on at all? Not even a "charge me" screen? I don't buy it. I would be happy with seeing any photo of this thing running next to a regular iPhone, just so you can somewhat compare resolutions.
WHERE'S THE INTERIOR PHOTOS!?ONE photo of the interior, and not a good one. WTF? This is my biggest skepticism. Why not a dozen photos of various processors, the new cameras, the wifi chip, etc. We could piece together every feature of the new iPhone just by interior photos, but they only posted one which shows almost nothing. FTA: "it said it was XX GB, but since we were unable to get the phone to a running state, we couldn't see exactly how large it was." Well if you would have taken photos of the chips someone could probably find the size. FAIL
Changing design doesn't make sense either. Apple has 3 generations of iPhones shaped exactly the same, and now they go in a different direction? Of course Apple did the same thing with the Nano, 5 generations of Nanos and the 3rd and 4th are shaped differently from previous generations, but this is a phone, a lot of money and research has been spent making compatible cases and docks, to change it now would cost a lot of wasted time and money by hundreds of companies.... although that means new licensing fees for Apple.... ok, perhaps new design does make sense;)
This is either Apple's April Fools on Gizmodo/Engadget or a clever marketing by Apple
My highest was also in the 600 kbps range. It was so fast in fact that the 3G upload was faster than the wireless network supported by DSL I was currently connected to that the time, which topped off around 300-something.
The building of video explains what they did with the heat. The plasma screens are hanging from plastic plumbing pipes and there's fans in the piping to keep the screens cool.
By his own admission: " I allowed to expire after years of non-use. A few weeks ago, I noticed that my old site was back online at the old domain. The site-cloners are now using my old email addresses to gain access to old third-party web services accounts (invoicing tools, etc.) and are fraudulently billing my clients for years of services."
Years of non-use.... so why the sudden interest? Obviously you don't care about these clients anymore, you didn't keep in touch with them or continue working for them, why do you care if several years later someone approaches them pretending to be you and asks for money? Were you using these clients for reference? If so, why would you ever let your site expire?
This whole story doesn't add up. I've had online businesses and allowed the domains to expire, if someone contacted my old customers to try and bill them I wouldn't care at all.
Simplest solution is usually correct: what sounds more likely is you have a disgruntled designer or programmer take over your site and complain to your clients and now you're mad and want your site back.
"Let's not make excuses for the fact that Blackboard SUCKS in every conceivable way, as it has since schools first started using it."
The problem is the system has to be easy enough for your average teacher to use it but hard enough a child can't hack it.
That's probably very difficult to do. I'd imagine this "hack" was easier than they're willing to admit, let's not forget this 9 yr old just recently learned how to read most the content required to even start hacking.
But let's play devil's advocate, let's assume this is a super genius kid, that he's been reading since 3, coding at 5 and is now at a college level, that would explain how he figured how to do a real hack, but then wouldn't Blackboard and the school report that? Because as the article reads he's just a "very intelligent 9-year-old". Yeah, so is every 3rd grader now days, but that won't help sell Blackboard systems, couldn't you Doogie Howser up the kid a bit more? Perfect SAT score at 6 would certainly make me feel like this could never happen again. So this kid was not a genius, this had to be a easy hack.
Makes me feel very safe about my info at my old university that has switched to blackboard.
"And then you get several people in the same room, and the system doesn't know who it's supposed to display the contents for."
Did you stop reading after you got to that sentence? Because the very next sentence says: " If there's multiple people it should be able to change according to whoever's closest and looking at the windows."
Re:Oh no money for software and content!
on
How To Build a Winscape
·
· Score: 2, Informative
"While I think $10 is absolutely reasonable - if you look deeper many of the scenes he shows are not available for sale. I'm sure if you were building the thing from scratch you would probably capture your own footage too. But non tinkerers rejoice - a kit may be for sale later for ~$3K"
When I saw the video that's what I thought he had done, I thought it was just watching the user. Requiring a IR necklace made this absolutely not impressive because any day someone will make a webcam version.
I'm even less impressed that this guy's system requires a $2,000 Apple Mac Pro running a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 which is Apple's version of 2008's low-budget Geforce 9500 GT, and is a bit slower than a ATI 4670 for those of you more familiar with ATI. Not high end graphics folks, and making people buy a $2,000 system when you could probably suffice with a PC under $500 is ridiculous, and being Mac based means this will remain expensive for several years while a PC version would continue to drop.
"Apple will have full control over what HTML5 is able to do on the iphone they could limit performance or functionality in a way that would make it pretty difficult to make advanced apps. "
Since the iPhone is locked down I'd be more willing to pay to access quality video content on my phone than my PC. Using HTML5 for video someone could create a iTunes competitor today. Come on TV/Movie studios what are you waiting for? Do you enjoy handing Apple 60%, or do you want someone else to create it all and then cry that they're stealing from you?
Even if you're not playing games, with 12+ MP images and HD video cameras common now days you're going to burn through 30gb in no time, with blu-ray HD being 40mbps.
So while it might be true your grandma only needs 30gb, anyone that has installed a game made in the last 2 years or takes the occasional picture or video is going to need a bit more.
""Compare how fast 3.5" capacity went from 1G->500G to how relatively slowly its inched from 500G->2000G."
First 1GB hard drive came out around 1994 or 1995. It took 10 years until the first 500GB HD came out in 2005. Then the first 2TB drive came out in 2009, 4 years later. So basically, what the hell are you talking about?"
"So no, a prudent company won't buy these for power savings..."
Bah! You and your "prudent company"! Obviously you have no understanding of the marketing power of being able to say your company is "green". Check out this video from Google and just imagine the millions spent on the solar panels and free electric cars for employee use. Like she says "socially responsible company" is the hot buzzword right now.
"Grown men wasting tax payer $ to play real life video games. It just goes to show you how much money can be wasted on 'defense' spending, and no one bats an eyelid."
And what is your suggestion to train for realistic scenarios? Dolphins with frickin' laser beams?
"Did you explain the experiment before she called or after? "
Before, but the comments she made speak for themselves: if there was any possibility the participants believed they might be able to keep the money then you can not conclude "Handling Money Brings Pain Relief" because, obviously, the idea of receiving $8,000 would offer much relief from many, many pains.
"it's *EXACTLY* the alternative explanation I thought"
I couldn't think of an explanation, so I decided to try it on my wife.
Before I had her call the gas company to see where we're at (we're still catching up from a cold winter) I handed her a stack of twenties she didn't know I had (pimpin' ain't easy) and had her count them out.
She was confused but obliged. After she was done I took the money from her hands and asked her to call. She asked what was up with the money. I explained the experiment and she said "OH I thought you were giving me the money, it's not going to help now!"
That brings up a good point and the article is light on details so I have to ask: is it possible any of the participates were lead to believe they would be receiving all or a portion of the money they were counting out? Were they told upfront "You will not receive any of this money as part of this experiment"? And even if they were told, did anyone still think it was a possibility? I'm damn sure if you handed me 80 $100 bills and told me "We're doing an experiment, please count out this money" and said nothing else I would have a smile on my face until I was told to leave the research lab empty-handed.
Slashdot Mirror
"some experts believe that the disease can be slowed with mental and physical exercises."
So she thought "Gee, rapping is an excellent mental and physical exercise, I'll do that to slow my parkinson's!"
"I've started using ad blocker, and I haven't turned back."
I guess I'm the lone weirdo that still doesn't block ads. I've never had a problem with an ad significantly slowing down Chrome so I don't see the need for it. Also I feel a bit better that at least I'm trying to help the website because if everyone used Adblock the internet would be a very different place.... but then maybe it needs to be. Some of these people that live off their blogs shouldn't be. Slashdot existed before banner ads, having users promote articles instead of depending on a full-time staff posting what they want you to see.
"the Zero Punctuation videos are hilarious"
If I had mod points today I'd mark you +5 Insightful and parent would be Flamebait for saying "I couldn't see much value over at the Escapist site anyway"
IMHO the Zero Punctuation videos are the funniest videos the interwebs have to offer. Anyone that does not give them at least some credit for being funny is Flamebait.
" Now, copying a variable number of pages, then erasing them immediately is extra wear and tear on the HD."
Sure that makes sense, but why the long-term storage? Why does it store the copies from 6 months ago? Shouldn't it go through every week wipe anything over a week old?
Of course that's not perfect, there's still going to be that final week on there, but at least no one will be "downloading tens of thousands of documents" from a photocopy machine like they did.
Also shouldn't the manufacture's be responsible for this somewhat? It's obvious when you save a document to a computer that the drive needs to be wiped, not so obvious when it's a copy machine. Shouldn't there be big warning labels and a "wipe all" button on the back somewhere? Sharp apparently offers a product to wipe copy machine hard drives.... for $500:
"One product from Sharp automatically erases an image from the hard drive. It costs $500. "
WTF Sharp? You couldn't just put a button on the back that does a DoD wipe?
"So the guy found a phone, tried to return it to the owner, the owner didn't respond so he sold it. I don't see a problem here."
/. loves car analogies: "Well, I was at this bar and found these car keys, so I drove the car around and tried to find the owner. After a few weeks I couldn't, so I sold the car."
Ok, here's a car analogy since
If you find something that's not yours you are suppose to try and contact the owner and if you can not, give it to the police. Anything else and it's theft. How else can it work? Are we suppose to trust thefts to be honest?
"Until someone reveals the chipset inside we still have no idea if we are stuck with those horrible infineon chips which are the root of iPhone evil."
;)
I still call fake.
This whole bar story doesn't add up either. I've been to many bars with many cellphones and I've never lost one, how the hell do you lose a prototype iPhone at a bar? That's not just your $500 phone, THAT'S YOUR JOB IN YOUR POCKET.
What are the odds that a iPhone would just happen to be found by gizmodo and engadget? Of all the people in the world? And how much would a popular blog pay for a iPhone prototype? Imagine the hits you'd get with first real photos of the next iPhone! You could even put a no-name blog on the map with real photos. This prototype is incredibly valuable.
If anyone really found a prototype iPhone it would be on eBay until they pulled it, but not before it received thousands of hits and a few dozen bids up to several thousands of dollars, but someone would contact them outside of ebay and negotiate a deal anyway.
Let's not forget that there's not one photo of this prototype iPhone running. Why not? They couldn't charge it? The brains behind engadget and gizmodo can't charge an iPhone? Let me guess, they found a "broken" iPhone prototype at a bar. Yeah, that sounds reasonable.
Some people argue "Well Apple wiped it remotely!" Seriously? Wiped it so well it doesn't turn on at all? Not even a "charge me" screen? I don't buy it. I would be happy with seeing any photo of this thing running next to a regular iPhone, just so you can somewhat compare resolutions.
WHERE'S THE INTERIOR PHOTOS!? ONE photo of the interior, and not a good one. WTF? This is my biggest skepticism. Why not a dozen photos of various processors, the new cameras, the wifi chip, etc. We could piece together every feature of the new iPhone just by interior photos, but they only posted one which shows almost nothing. FTA: "it said it was XX GB, but since we were unable to get the phone to a running state, we couldn't see exactly how large it was." Well if you would have taken photos of the chips someone could probably find the size. FAIL
Changing design doesn't make sense either. Apple has 3 generations of iPhones shaped exactly the same, and now they go in a different direction? Of course Apple did the same thing with the Nano, 5 generations of Nanos and the 3rd and 4th are shaped differently from previous generations, but this is a phone, a lot of money and research has been spent making compatible cases and docks, to change it now would cost a lot of wasted time and money by hundreds of companies.... although that means new licensing fees for Apple.... ok, perhaps new design does make sense
This is either Apple's April Fools on Gizmodo/Engadget or a clever marketing by Apple
UPDATE: while I was writing this post I found this: Apparently Gizmodo did buy this phone:
"iPhone was stolen from Apple, then purchased by Gizmodo."
"I have two 3g results that are higher than that number, the highest being 613 kbps."
Same here. Here's a link to the iPhone speed test app.
My highest was also in the 600 kbps range. It was so fast in fact that the 3G upload was faster than the wireless network supported by DSL I was currently connected to that the time, which topped off around 300-something.
Here's a video of a guy testing his home network using the Speed Test app
The building of video explains what they did with the heat. The plasma screens are hanging from plastic plumbing pipes and there's fans in the piping to keep the screens cool.
Women deal with the kids, but we have to deal with the women, so who's really the better multitasker here?
I know you're trying to be funny, but talking on the phone is the only thing the iPhone can currently multitask.
Is thinking how to reply to a slashdot post really a single task?
No one wants to beat that
I call B.S.
.... so why the sudden interest? Obviously you don't care about these clients anymore, you didn't keep in touch with them or continue working for them, why do you care if several years later someone approaches them pretending to be you and asks for money? Were you using these clients for reference? If so, why would you ever let your site expire?
Why does he care anymore?
By his own admission:
" I allowed to expire after years of non-use. A few weeks ago, I noticed that my old site was back online at the old domain. The site-cloners are now using my old email addresses to gain access to old third-party web services accounts (invoicing tools, etc.) and are fraudulently billing my clients for years of services."
Years of non-use
This whole story doesn't add up. I've had online businesses and allowed the domains to expire, if someone contacted my old customers to try and bill them I wouldn't care at all.
Simplest solution is usually correct: what sounds more likely is you have a disgruntled designer or programmer take over your site and complain to your clients and now you're mad and want your site back.
"Let's not make excuses for the fact that Blackboard SUCKS in every conceivable way, as it has since schools first started using it."
The problem is the system has to be easy enough for your average teacher to use it but hard enough a child can't hack it.
That's probably very difficult to do. I'd imagine this "hack" was easier than they're willing to admit, let's not forget this 9 yr old just recently learned how to read most the content required to even start hacking.
But let's play devil's advocate, let's assume this is a super genius kid, that he's been reading since 3, coding at 5 and is now at a college level, that would explain how he figured how to do a real hack, but then wouldn't Blackboard and the school report that? Because as the article reads he's just a "very intelligent 9-year-old". Yeah, so is every 3rd grader now days, but that won't help sell Blackboard systems, couldn't you Doogie Howser up the kid a bit more? Perfect SAT score at 6 would certainly make me feel like this could never happen again. So this kid was not a genius, this had to be a easy hack.
Makes me feel very safe about my info at my old university that has switched to blackboard.
"And then you get several people in the same room, and the system doesn't know who it's supposed to display the contents for."
Did you stop reading after you got to that sentence? Because the very next sentence says: " If there's multiple people it should be able to change according to whoever's closest and looking at the windows."
I also wrote that Logitech has been making facial recognition software that follows your face since 2005 so go ask them how the 5 yr old software with the lowly Pentium 4 1.4ghz system requirements managed to determine who to follow without the assistance of quad cores.
Ah, i fed the troll, how stupid of me!
"While I think $10 is absolutely reasonable - if you look deeper many of the scenes he shows are not available for sale. I'm sure if you were building the thing from scratch you would probably capture your own footage too. But non tinkerers rejoice - a kit may be for sale later for ~$3K"
I agree, $10 is reasonable. My problem is you have to wear a giant ugly IR-emitting necklace for the system to recognize you. Gee, a computer that can track a IR-emitting necklace? That's 1990s tech my friend. Facial recognition software has been around for many years, you'd think a webcam could determine where you are in the room and change the image based on that alone without a IR necklace. Logitech added face tracking to their webcams in 2005 and people were playing with it on Youtube in 2006. If there's multiple people it should be able to change according to whoever's closest and looking at the windows. Here's a example from 2008 of using a webcam for the same effect without giant IR necklaces. Here's one you can test at home yourself if you have webcam.
When I saw the video that's what I thought he had done, I thought it was just watching the user. Requiring a IR necklace made this absolutely not impressive because any day someone will make a webcam version.
I'm even less impressed that this guy's system requires a $2,000 Apple Mac Pro running a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 which is Apple's version of 2008's low-budget Geforce 9500 GT, and is a bit slower than a ATI 4670 for those of you more familiar with ATI. Not high end graphics folks, and making people buy a $2,000 system when you could probably suffice with a PC under $500 is ridiculous, and being Mac based means this will remain expensive for several years while a PC version would continue to drop.
Also, don't plasma screens suffer from screen burn-in? Why is this guy running basically static images for hours on two 46" plasma screens?
"Apple will have full control over what HTML5 is able to do on the iphone they could limit performance or functionality in a way that would make it pretty difficult to make advanced apps. "
Who needs HTML5 apps? If I was Apple be more worried about someone setting up their own Hulu for iPhone. This HTML5 video works on iPhones and is privately hosted, not pulling from Youtube. Not only does it work, it works very well, loading much faster than Youtube videos do on my 3GS.
Since the iPhone is locked down I'd be more willing to pay to access quality video content on my phone than my PC. Using HTML5 for video someone could create a iTunes competitor today. Come on TV/Movie studios what are you waiting for? Do you enjoy handing Apple 60%, or do you want someone else to create it all and then cry that they're stealing from you?
"Why should alien abduction be treated any differently? Teach the controversy!"
What about Bigfoot and Loch Ness? Can't leave them out, that's discrimination!
"Even now, a lot of people only use like 30gb worth of disk space. Sure, they have more, but they don't use it."
Your source? A single game now days takes over 10gb. Grand Theft Auto IV, which was released for PC in 2008, requires 16gb, Red Alert 3, also released in 2008, required 6 to 12 gb, Assassin's Creed, released 2008, required 12gb.
Even if you're not playing games, with 12+ MP images and HD video cameras common now days you're going to burn through 30gb in no time, with blu-ray HD being 40mbps.
So while it might be true your grandma only needs 30gb, anyone that has installed a game made in the last 2 years or takes the occasional picture or video is going to need a bit more.
""Compare how fast 3.5" capacity went from 1G->500G to how relatively slowly its inched from 500G->2000G."
First 1GB hard drive came out around 1994 or 1995. It took 10 years until the first 500GB HD came out in 2005. Then the first 2TB drive came out in 2009, 4 years later. So basically, what the hell are you talking about?"
First, I need links.
First 100gb, 2001
First 500gb, 2005
First 2tb, 2009
I'd love to find older stories but any page before 2000 doesn't rank well on Google.
Anyway, Quantum you're right, we went from 500gb to 2tb in 4 years, while the trip from 1gb to 500gb took a little over ten years.
"So no, a prudent company won't buy these for power savings..."
Bah! You and your "prudent company"! Obviously you have no understanding of the marketing power of being able to say your company is "green". Check out this video from Google and just imagine the millions spent on the solar panels and free electric cars for employee use. Like she says "socially responsible company" is the hot buzzword right now.
"Grown men wasting tax payer $ to play real life video games. It just goes to show you how much money can be wasted on 'defense' spending, and no one bats an eyelid."
And what is your suggestion to train for realistic scenarios? Dolphins with frickin' laser beams?
"Did you explain the experiment before she called or after? "
Before, but the comments she made speak for themselves: if there was any possibility the participants believed they might be able to keep the money then you can not conclude "Handling Money Brings Pain Relief" because, obviously, the idea of receiving $8,000 would offer much relief from many, many pains.
"it's *EXACTLY* the alternative explanation I thought"
I couldn't think of an explanation, so I decided to try it on my wife.
Before I had her call the gas company to see where we're at (we're still catching up from a cold winter) I handed her a stack of twenties she didn't know I had (pimpin' ain't easy) and had her count them out.
She was confused but obliged. After she was done I took the money from her hands and asked her to call. She asked what was up with the money. I explained the experiment and she said "OH I thought you were giving me the money, it's not going to help now!"
That brings up a good point and the article is light on details so I have to ask: is it possible any of the participates were lead to believe they would be receiving all or a portion of the money they were counting out? Were they told upfront "You will not receive any of this money as part of this experiment"? And even if they were told, did anyone still think it was a possibility? I'm damn sure if you handed me 80 $100 bills and told me "We're doing an experiment, please count out this money" and said nothing else I would have a smile on my face until I was told to leave the research lab empty-handed.
What do your wireless keyboard problems have to do with a article on silent HTPCs?