They did something similar with Ghostbusters.
For months there were full-page ads in the New York Times with the Ghostbusters logo and just the words "Coming this summer to save the world."
There's a rather odd arrangement where they bought him a private jet and lease it back from him.
Such arrangements are not really "odd" in the business world, especially in small businesses. For example, I know someone who runs a small video production company. It's just him and the legal entity known as the "company." The "company" gives him money, and he buys video equipment for his personal use. He then leases it back to the "company." That way, if the company ever goes out of business, goes bankrupt, or is sued, he gets to keep the hardware.
I used to feel this way, too. And every month when I get my statement I match it up with my records in my spreadsheet. The bank is almost always perfectly correct, and more importantly it lets me see the things my wife bought without telling me before they can do any harm to the balance.
But every now and again, the bank statement is wrong. Once it was wrong to the tune of $110. It took me six months to straighten that out and get Bank of America to credit the money to me. What happened? Some "independent contractor" they hired to collect money from the ATMs pocketed my cash deposit. Again, it took me six months to get the amount credited back into my Bank of America account. The next day I moved to Washington Mutual.
I wonder if Apple have considered the southern hemisphere?
Strangely, Apple seems to be targeting their sales at regions where there are the greatest number of potential users. Something about being profitable or something.
I'm not saying the Southern Hemisphere isn't important. I'm sure you're all very nice people. But Apple is in the business of business. When you're a global player, sacrifices have to be made.
Although Q3 isn't ideal on either side of the Earth, at least it's time enough to ramp up for the Christmas holiday shopping season. I wonder if this is an indication that there won't be another machine released before then.
Wow. It must be cool to see into the future. What are the names of the next 50 Windows worms? Did BillG hang himself when Microsoft collapsed? Can you tell me what tonight's winning Illinois lottery numbers are, so I don't have to turn on WGN?
I hope it's not Konfabulator. It seems like a great idea, but on my 17" PowerBook G4 1.33Mhz, it either slows the machine to a crawl or crashes it outright.
The people behind Konfabulator may have had a good idea, but I'll trust Apple to code it so it works fast and reliably.
Should we make it any easier for the average user who doesn't know what they are doing to get into the computer case? Or would we all be better off by only allowing people who at least have a screwdriver or a hex driver into the case. I would really be scared to see someone in my family touching the inside of my computer.
Sounds like Microsoft's philosophy towards software.
Maybe what the world needs is some clever Slashdoter to put together a program that will go ahead and register every phone number in the country for them -- do the nation a favor. Like a demon dialer in reverse!
I don't have the skills, but I'm sure someone out there would like to be a hero today.
Actually, my wife and I both have Capital One cards, and neither of us have gotten any telemarketing calls in two years across four phone lines in two states. Maybe you're doing something wrong? Perhaps it's that whole "getting rude" thing?
The drones making these calls are probably already pretty unhappy with their lives and the fact that they can't get a better job than cold-calling people who don't want to hear from them. If you're an ass to them, what are the chances they're going to "accidentally" forget to take you off the list? I'd say pretty good, especially since turnover at the telemarketing factories is pretty high and they know they probably won't be around to be disciplined.
Overall, I fail to see how GMail will ever be a profitable enterprise for Google.
What Google loses is bandwidth it gains in mindshare. Like radio station contests, or summer soft drink contests, or NASCAR advertising. None of these things make money in and of themselves. But they are part of a company's larger advertising, promotions, and marketing campaigns. Anything your company does to increase mindshare (within reason) is a good investment.
If, three years from now, people start saying, "I'm going to check my g-mail" the way they now say, "Why don't you just Google the answer?" then it will have more than paid for itself.
I have contacted this bank, which will remain unnamed
Why leave the bank unnamed? Go ahead and name it. Maybe it will shame them into supporting standard browsers.
At the time my bank got eaten by Washington Mutual, their web site didn't support anything but IE. I complained. I don't know if anyone else did. But I do know that six months later, I can use Mozilla or Safari, or virtually any other browser I want at wamu.com.
The classical station I listen to most is 98.7 WFMT/Chicago.
The jazz station is 90.9 WDCB/Glen Ellyn.
But there are a few others around that I catch while flipping through the dial. I've only lived in Chciago a few months, so it will take a while to get used to the new stations.
Seriously...who listens to the rubbish that passes for (music) radio these days?
What kind of stupid question is that? Millions of people listen to radio, or the radio companies wouldn't spend billions creating, buying, and running radio stations. Duh.
Maybe you're overcompensating for your inferiority complex. Or maybe you don't have a local station you like. One's perception of the quality of radio depends on two things -- where you live, and what you like. You sound like some wanna-be uber geek who's more interested in pretending to have superior tastes to the masses while streaming his 1337 P2P 256K OGGS.
I like classical and jazz music. Fortunately, I happen to live in Chicago where there is a great jazz station (not one of those "smooth jazz" jukeboxes), and a pretty good classical station, plus assorted college stations that occasionally play classical.
I don't have the time, money, space, or inclination to buy every jazz or classical CD out there. So I listen to the radio. They're the DJs, so I let them do their jobs.
Because the stations in whatever town you live in don't suit your exact taste doesn't mean all radio is bad. Just because something is the majority of your experience, doesn't mean it's the experience of the majority.
I'm not surprised to hear about language problems with Sony products.
At work I have to use a few Sony programs, and they constantly ask questions like, "Are you sure to delete?" and others that make no sense at all like the error window that pops up "(-64) Mouse Problem" or my personal favorite is an error box that pops up with no text in it whatsoever. Apparently, something I do causes an error, but even the computer doesn't know what it is.
I've found a way around this. Occasionally when staff members are sent to unpleasant, unstable, or otherwise unruly countries, they have to pay a bribe or two to get across borders, pay off customs officials to get their work equipment through the airport, grease the local police to get their passports back, or whatever. My boss just has it written up in the expense reports as an "airport tax." That's a nice phrase that's specific enough to pass the accountants, but doesn't really let on what happened, because officially we really shouldn't be paying bribes to anyone.
Still haven't found a way to write off Asian hookers, though. Maybe "entertainment tax?"
Educational interests started radio? You must have gone to different broadcasting schools than I did. It was the commercial interests (usually newspapers) who pioneered both radio and television. Educational broadcasting didn't blossom until decades later.
For example: The earliest station I can remember reading about is now what is known as KCBS -- a commercial station formerly known as FN as far back as 1910.
Other early stations include: WTG - commerical 3XJ - non-commerical WGY - commercial WSAJ - commercial 2ZK - commercial WGI - commercial the list goes on, but the point is that commercial stations proliferated long before their non-commerical counterparts.
If you wanted to be even more accurate with your statement, you'd say that it was the U.S. Military that pioneered both radio and the internet, and then commercial interests moved in. But that's another argument.
the little slice they had for colleges and highschools is being systematically being pull-out in favor of more clear channel crap.
You are correct, there is a little slice set aside for colleges, high schools, religious broadcasters, and other non-commercial interests. It's 88.1 through 91.9.
Now I'd like you to point out even ONE case where Clear Channel kicked someone out of this band. Clear Channel is not able to own a station in the non-commercial band. It's been about five years since I worked in radio, but I think I'd notice if suddenly commercial entites were allowed to have non-commerical radio stations "systematically being pull-out" (whatever that means).
Moreover, can you document that Clear Channel/Viacom/CBS/Whatever Megalomedia is "systematically" pushing non-commercial stations off the air, or are you just making things up as you go along?
Furthermore, how is LPFM a joke? There are dozens of LPFM stations out there working very hard to serve thier communities, and doing a fine job of it. This high school's little Class-D signal wasn't much different than a legitimate LPFM that you consider a joke. The kids have the station to learn. They don't need 100,000 watts to learn how to bulk erase a cart.
And it's a lie to say that it's too late to get LPFM licenses now. Dozens were awarded within the last month or so. In fact, just last week WKHV-LP/Kingston and WXLJ-LP/Harwich applied for licenses to cover (if you don't know what that means, you shouldn't be posting in this Slashdot conversation). Two weeks earlier, WJSK-LP/Bartlett was granted its license to cover.
Again, anything to back up your claims, or are you spewing rectally again?
Very well put, and just what I was thinking. They KNEW this could happen because of the nature of their license. They had a secondary allocation. If other stations can get primary allocations in their service area, they too had the chance but didn't take it. Secondary means secondary.
Sure, it's a shame to lose a signal -- especially an educational one. But there's probably very little stopping them from moving to a nice 1,000 watt AM allocation with far better coverage. Oh, the little baby DJs don't want to be on AM? Then they're not using it to learn, and shouldn't have an educational radio station. They could probably sell/trade their 10 watt FM transmitter for a 1kw AM transmitter. The only real hassle would be finding a frequency and going through all the paperwork and lawyers. And if that doesn't work, LPFM is still an option.
I'm not sure if I shouldn't believe this guy, or really admire him when he says he didn't take one. I know my inner-hacker would definately want to take one. I'd want to know if the sensor was a simple mercury switch vibration sensor, or if they had something cooler in there. I'd want to know what frequency the thing transmits on, and the range, and how long the batteries last.
I don't think I could resist taking one, and I'm not sure he did, either.
On another point, though -- it IS public land, so people like him can also plant their own sensors to detect when the government drives around and plants their sensors. Public property is a two-way street.
Apparently if a base doesn't exist, it is free from abiding by EPA regulations.
Actually, whether a base officially exists or not, it is usually exempt from EPA regulations. That's one of the problems that some cities (San Antonio, Austin, etc...) are having redeveloping old military bases into high-tech centers, airports, and whatnot. After the military closes the base, and the civilians go in to redevlop, there's all sorts of nasty crap left over in the ground because the military is exempt from many EPA regulations.
But don't blame the military, blame your representatives in Congress. They love exemptions, and have even exempted themselves from many federal laws, like labor laws, ADA, and others.
Slashdot Mirror
They filmed some scenes for Batman Begins last week in one of the north suburbs of Chicago -- scenes involving the Batmobile.
Next week, they begin filming more scenes from the movie in my building !
According to the notice we got from the landlord, they're going to do some inside scenes, and some stunts involving helicopters.
They did something similar with Ghostbusters. For months there were full-page ads in the New York Times with the Ghostbusters logo and just the words "Coming this summer to save the world."
Bad idea using urine to hydrate food. Just plain bad. There is always a better way.
Spoken like a man who has never been in combat or any other serious mortal peril. I have. Sometimes you do what you have to in order to survive.
Now go back to your cushy cubicle world.
There's a rather odd arrangement where they bought him a private jet and lease it back from him.
Such arrangements are not really "odd" in the business world, especially in small businesses. For example, I know someone who runs a small video production company. It's just him and the legal entity known as the "company." The "company" gives him money, and he buys video equipment for his personal use. He then leases it back to the "company." That way, if the company ever goes out of business, goes bankrupt, or is sued, he gets to keep the hardware.
Hate to reply to my own post, but I must make a correction.
It was Wells Fargo, not Bank of America where I had the problem.
I don't know why I wrote Bank of America. I've never had an account there.
Gotta switch to a better brand of crack.
I used to feel this way, too. And every month when I get my statement I match it up with my records in my spreadsheet. The bank is almost always perfectly correct, and more importantly it lets me see the things my wife bought without telling me before they can do any harm to the balance.
But every now and again, the bank statement is wrong. Once it was wrong to the tune of $110. It took me six months to straighten that out and get Bank of America to credit the money to me. What happened? Some "independent contractor" they hired to collect money from the ATMs pocketed my cash deposit. Again, it took me six months to get the amount credited back into my Bank of America account. The next day I moved to Washington Mutual.
I wonder if Apple have considered the southern hemisphere?
Strangely, Apple seems to be targeting their sales at regions where there are the greatest number of potential users. Something about being profitable or something.
I'm not saying the Southern Hemisphere isn't important. I'm sure you're all very nice people. But Apple is in the business of business. When you're a global player, sacrifices have to be made.
Although Q3 isn't ideal on either side of the Earth, at least it's time enough to ramp up for the Christmas holiday shopping season. I wonder if this is an indication that there won't be another machine released before then.
Can't remember the film, but I remember the line:
"Read it? I RUINED it!"
No, but neither is Rendezvous. Nor will it be.
Wow. It must be cool to see into the future. What are the names of the next 50 Windows worms? Did BillG hang himself when Microsoft collapsed? Can you tell me what tonight's winning Illinois lottery numbers are, so I don't have to turn on WGN?
...I hope it *is* Konfabulator!
I hope it's not Konfabulator. It seems like a great idea, but on my 17" PowerBook G4 1.33Mhz, it either slows the machine to a crawl or crashes it outright.
The people behind Konfabulator may have had a good idea, but I'll trust Apple to code it so it works fast and reliably.
Should we make it any easier for the average user who doesn't know what they are doing to get into the computer case? Or would we all be better off by only allowing people who at least have a screwdriver or a hex driver into the case. I would really be scared to see someone in my family touching the inside of my computer.
Sounds like Microsoft's philosophy towards software.
Maybe what the world needs is some clever Slashdoter to put together a program that will go ahead and register every phone number in the country for them -- do the nation a favor. Like a demon dialer in reverse!
I don't have the skills, but I'm sure someone out there would like to be a hero today.
Actually, my wife and I both have Capital One cards, and neither of us have gotten any telemarketing calls in two years across four phone lines in two states. Maybe you're doing something wrong? Perhaps it's that whole "getting rude" thing?
The drones making these calls are probably already pretty unhappy with their lives and the fact that they can't get a better job than cold-calling people who don't want to hear from them. If you're an ass to them, what are the chances they're going to "accidentally" forget to take you off the list? I'd say pretty good, especially since turnover at the telemarketing factories is pretty high and they know they probably won't be around to be disciplined.
I know I won't be releasing any of the souce code to any of the back-end things I've written for my web site.
People would just laugh at it.
Disclaimer for the clueless: I'm not a programmer, so my code sucks so bad it's funny.
Overall, I fail to see how GMail will ever be a profitable enterprise for Google.
What Google loses is bandwidth it gains in mindshare. Like radio station contests, or summer soft drink contests, or NASCAR advertising. None of these things make money in and of themselves. But they are part of a company's larger advertising, promotions, and marketing campaigns. Anything your company does to increase mindshare (within reason) is a good investment.
If, three years from now, people start saying, "I'm going to check my g-mail" the way they now say, "Why don't you just Google the answer?" then it will have more than paid for itself.
I have contacted this bank, which will remain unnamed
Why leave the bank unnamed? Go ahead and name it. Maybe it will shame them into supporting standard browsers.
At the time my bank got eaten by Washington Mutual, their web site didn't support anything but IE. I complained. I don't know if anyone else did. But I do know that six months later, I can use Mozilla or Safari, or virtually any other browser I want at wamu.com.
The classical station I listen to most is 98.7 WFMT/Chicago. The jazz station is 90.9 WDCB/Glen Ellyn. But there are a few others around that I catch while flipping through the dial. I've only lived in Chciago a few months, so it will take a while to get used to the new stations.
Seriously...who listens to the rubbish that passes for (music) radio these days?
What kind of stupid question is that? Millions of people listen to radio, or the radio companies wouldn't spend billions creating, buying, and running radio stations. Duh.
Maybe you're overcompensating for your inferiority complex. Or maybe you don't have a local station you like. One's perception of the quality of radio depends on two things -- where you live, and what you like. You sound like some wanna-be uber geek who's more interested in pretending to have superior tastes to the masses while streaming his 1337 P2P 256K OGGS.
I like classical and jazz music. Fortunately, I happen to live in Chicago where there is a great jazz station (not one of those "smooth jazz" jukeboxes), and a pretty good classical station, plus assorted college stations that occasionally play classical.
I don't have the time, money, space, or inclination to buy every jazz or classical CD out there. So I listen to the radio. They're the DJs, so I let them do their jobs.
Because the stations in whatever town you live in don't suit your exact taste doesn't mean all radio is bad. Just because something is the majority of your experience, doesn't mean it's the experience of the majority.
I'm not surprised to hear about language problems with Sony products.
At work I have to use a few Sony programs, and they constantly ask questions like, "Are you sure to delete?" and others that make no sense at all like the error window that pops up "(-64) Mouse Problem" or my personal favorite is an error box that pops up with no text in it whatsoever. Apparently, something I do causes an error, but even the computer doesn't know what it is.
I've found a way around this. Occasionally when staff members are sent to unpleasant, unstable, or otherwise unruly countries, they have to pay a bribe or two to get across borders, pay off customs officials to get their work equipment through the airport, grease the local police to get their passports back, or whatever. My boss just has it written up in the expense reports as an "airport tax." That's a nice phrase that's specific enough to pass the accountants, but doesn't really let on what happened, because officially we really shouldn't be paying bribes to anyone.
Still haven't found a way to write off Asian hookers, though. Maybe "entertainment tax?"
Educational interests started radio? You must have gone to different broadcasting schools than I did. It was the commercial interests (usually newspapers) who pioneered both radio and television. Educational broadcasting didn't blossom until decades later.
For example: The earliest station I can remember reading about is now what is known as KCBS -- a commercial station formerly known as FN as far back as 1910.
Other early stations include:
WTG - commerical
3XJ - non-commerical
WGY - commercial
WSAJ - commercial
2ZK - commercial
WGI - commercial
the list goes on, but the point is that commercial stations proliferated long before their non-commerical counterparts.
If you wanted to be even more accurate with your statement, you'd say that it was the U.S. Military that pioneered both radio and the internet, and then commercial interests moved in. But that's another argument.
the little slice they had for colleges and highschools is being systematically being pull-out in favor of more clear channel crap.
You are correct, there is a little slice set aside for colleges, high schools, religious broadcasters, and other non-commercial interests. It's 88.1 through 91.9.
Now I'd like you to point out even ONE case where Clear Channel kicked someone out of this band. Clear Channel is not able to own a station in the non-commercial band. It's been about five years since I worked in radio, but I think I'd notice if suddenly commercial entites were allowed to have non-commerical radio stations "systematically being pull-out" (whatever that means).
Moreover, can you document that Clear Channel/Viacom/CBS/Whatever Megalomedia is "systematically" pushing non-commercial stations off the air, or are you just making things up as you go along?
Furthermore, how is LPFM a joke? There are dozens of LPFM stations out there working very hard to serve thier communities, and doing a fine job of it. This high school's little Class-D signal wasn't much different than a legitimate LPFM that you consider a joke. The kids have the station to learn. They don't need 100,000 watts to learn how to bulk erase a cart.
And it's a lie to say that it's too late to get LPFM licenses now. Dozens were awarded within the last month or so. In fact, just last week WKHV-LP/Kingston and WXLJ-LP/Harwich applied for licenses to cover (if you don't know what that means, you shouldn't be posting in this Slashdot conversation). Two weeks earlier, WJSK-LP/Bartlett was granted its license to cover.
Again, anything to back up your claims, or are you spewing rectally again?
Very well put, and just what I was thinking. They KNEW this could happen because of the nature of their license. They had a secondary allocation. If other stations can get primary allocations in their service area, they too had the chance but didn't take it. Secondary means secondary.
Sure, it's a shame to lose a signal -- especially an educational one. But there's probably very little stopping them from moving to a nice 1,000 watt AM allocation with far better coverage. Oh, the little baby DJs don't want to be on AM? Then they're not using it to learn, and shouldn't have an educational radio station. They could probably sell/trade their 10 watt FM transmitter for a 1kw AM transmitter. The only real hassle would be finding a frequency and going through all the paperwork and lawyers. And if that doesn't work, LPFM is still an option.
I'm not sure if I shouldn't believe this guy, or really admire him when he says he didn't take one. I know my inner-hacker would definately want to take one. I'd want to know if the sensor was a simple mercury switch vibration sensor, or if they had something cooler in there. I'd want to know what frequency the thing transmits on, and the range, and how long the batteries last.
I don't think I could resist taking one, and I'm not sure he did, either.
On another point, though -- it IS public land, so people like him can also plant their own sensors to detect when the government drives around and plants their sensors. Public property is a two-way street.
Apparently if a base doesn't exist, it is free from abiding by EPA regulations.
Actually, whether a base officially exists or not, it is usually exempt from EPA regulations. That's one of the problems that some cities (San Antonio, Austin, etc...) are having redeveloping old military bases into high-tech centers, airports, and whatnot. After the military closes the base, and the civilians go in to redevlop, there's all sorts of nasty crap left over in the ground because the military is exempt from many EPA regulations.
But don't blame the military, blame your representatives in Congress. They love exemptions, and have even exempted themselves from many federal laws, like labor laws, ADA, and others.