You might notice, though, that neither of the device examples he has given (cameras and mp3 players) are items that Microsoft is particularly known for. Sony, on the other hand, does have both of these and a large number of other electronic devices out there. If the PS3 is going to have a use for hooking these devices to it, they sure as hell will support Sony products.
Really, they may be on to something here, and it could increase sales greatly. You could use iTunes to load up your iPod, and not own a "proper" PC or Apple computer. I don't think that they are trying to compete with Nintendo at all - Nintendo has taken the Revolution far enough afield, you could almost say it is in a different genre of games console from the MS and Sony products. That just leaves the PS3. Including a feature like this could help encourage consumers to adopt the XBox 360 before the PS3 release occurs. It might be a valid selling point for homes without a PC, allowing them to use those digital devices to their full extent without a PC.
I hada a girlfriend ask me to carry her purse once in a mall. I amused myself by proceeding to examine the contents of that purse very publicly, with plenty of verbal commentary. I refused to give it back to her up til the point where there was a very real threat of bodily harm. Funny, she never did ask me to carry it again...
I mean you obviously weren't a heavy smoker (or at least not anywhere close to real addiction) but for us heavy smokers out here that like to smoke all kinds of stuff could you give us more information on where to get this?
*fantacizes about Indonesian Gudang Garam honey & clover cancer sticks* (I know where to get those, no info needed)
As for being a heavy smoker, don't know about that. I started out on cloves such a Djarrum and Gudang Garam (I think I still have a few tins lying around, now holding other items), and when those got too expensive and harsh on my lungs, I switched to Marlboro Reds for "something lighter". I was going through about a pack and a half a day at the end (though that wasn't the height of my usage). Now I don't know what you're criteria are to be a "heavy smoker", but every other smoker I knew at the time that got a whiff of those things agreed that they were some of the nastiest concoctions ever.
Anyways, I've read a few places that the bulk of the nicotine withdrawal takes place in that first week without it. That's not to say it's smooth sailing after that - this thread is testament that it is not. However, for most people a week is what it takes to get beyond the physical, clinically defined substance addiction to nicotine, which is what I used those herbals to get through. I'm not saying these made quitting easy, but it did make it easier. You know what else helped encourage me to quit? A family member died after a long, drawn out over several years battle with lung cancer, due to a life long smoking habit. Funny how that works.
I bought them at a local tobacco shop, just like I said. It was a place that sold all sorts of off-brand trendy smokes, hand-rolling supplies, pipes, loose-leaf, *ahem* "water pipes", and such. This was 5 years ago, and I have no idea if this brand existed 3 months before or after this time in my life, and I never really cared. I did try and do a quick Google search before my last post, but "magic cigarettes" isn't exactly the narrowest of search terms on today's Internet.
Here's what helped me quit - after finishing my last pack of "real" cigarettes (funny how that last pack lasts longer than any other pack you've owned), I went to the tobacconist's and bought a pack of what sounded like the nastiest herbal cigaretes I could find. I think the brand name was "Magic" or something sad like that. Hell, the first two ingredients were marshmallow and "cherry flavoring", with absolutely no tobacco whatsoever. Then, for the next week, whenever that urge got to be so strong that I couldn't resist it anymore, I stepped outside (even if I was somewhere that allowed smoking, 'cause I couldn't force this stench on anyone) and forced myself to smoke an entire one of these. Nastiest crap ever - it tasted like I was smoking over-sweetened Kool-Aid. In fact, I think mixing Kool-Aid powder and dried lettuce leaves might be a good equivalent for hand-rolled.
I used this to help me get through that first week, when the bodies getting over the worst of the nicotine withdrawal. It satisfied my habit of the ritual of smoking, but did nothing to satisfy the addiction, which not only helped divorce the ritual from the effects of the nicotine in my mind, but it also provided some damn effective negative reinforcement to boot.
Hell, any former smoker could tell you this much. I smoked for less than a decade, and I quit over 5 years ago, no relapses. However, sometimes an almost reflex gets triggered by the smell of tobacco, or just seeing a cigarrette, and it's like my arm itches to go through the motions, what I've seen described as a "ritual" of sorts, of lighting a smoke. This all occurs in my mind a split second before the conscious mind kicks in and realizes what is occurring, and takes control again.
Trust me, this is a very accurate description of how some of these habits ingrain themselves into your mind.
At least in my area of the midwest US, there are lots of natural gas pockets in the ground, and the average person can, local regulations not withstanding, drop a small well and have an ample supply. All it takes is a simple filter system to make it useable. So, for some of us anyways, this is a potential boon. If I'm not mistaken, the number of people who can drop an oil rig and a refinery plant in ther backyard is a lot less...
Still, for the rest of the population, this is just moving from one type of scarce fossil fuel to another. We've all heard about the gasoline substites (ethanol, corn and soy based fuels, greasel, what have you), but is there much R&D on synthetic or renewable natural gas substitutes?
I got the impression based upon the fact that they used the past tense (updated) as opposed to a future tense (will update). I know these guys are in Hong Kong, and English is a pain in the ass, even for native speakers (just peruse these forums for further proof), but their grasp of the language was impressive enough based upon the rest of the article, that I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Now if I'm wrong, so be it. However, based upon the language used, I assumed that they had already updated the psoting of their results within the first 24 hours, and planned to update it further later on. That's all.
FYI, as the article states, this drive ships with a X2 battery with it. They even tested battery length, comparing a standard battery w/ a 1 GB memory stick against the x2 battery and 4 GB HDD. Direct quote:
Playing movie with Standard Battery and SanDisk 1G Memory Stick: 4.45 Hours.
Playing movie with Datel X2 Battery and Datel 4GB Hard Drive: *Still Testing* (Updated within 24h)
Looks to me like the new setup is/was able to run for around 24 hours under the new setup. I'm not surprised, given the size of the thing... I mean, it fits the lines of the device fine so it doesn't look out of place, and supposedly it doesn't weigh that much, according to their stats, but damn that's huge for a handheld device. Certainly doesn't really qualify as a pocket device with those attachements.
I'm not going to dispute whether an auctioneer needs a license or not if they take their trade online. However, what they are talking about here - people who take items on consignment to be sold via eBay, or otherwise sell things ofr others on eBay - just doesn't seem to fit the role here. Maybe I'm being too much of a nit-picker, but isn't eBay the auctioneer here? The consignment guy is just acting like a go between, while eBay is running the auction. I can see some wisdom in requiring eBay to register as a valid auctioneer in that state in order to conduct business in that state.
I'm having trouble picking out a real-life equivalent to these consignment operators.
If someone was looking for statistics on how AMD and Intel might fare in the marketplace if each where given (roughly) equal footing, then those statistics in fact MUST exclude sales by Dell. That was the main point of my post there.
This all gives further evidence (circumstantially at least) that AMD can compete in the market place against Intel. Antitrust legislation isn't meant to make sure that consumers are all well informed, merely to prevent monopolistic business practices.
There have been cheaper alternatives to Intel chips before (Cyrix comes to mind), but if it doesn't perform as well, then the consumer will end up feeling ripped off later when they find out about it, which doesn't help the retail store any. AMD has ben the first to really compete on a technical level such that your average Joe doesn't really care or notice which one his computer has.
Of course the fact that AMD systems tend to be cheaper, and thus provide better retail margins, plays into the equation. That's just business. That's part of how well they can compete on an otherwise level playing field.
These sales in fact do not say much about the technical merits of AMD vs Intel. But it does lend credibility to what AMD says in their lawsuit against Intel.
Not including direct sales: does Dell sell AMD chips? Latest info a quick search comes up with says no, but I haven't been keeping track. If so, it doesn't really contribute anything useful to this point.
So, the stats are meaningful, just don't try and apply the wrong meaning to them.
That can be easily handled by a reasonability test - is there suitable reason to believe that the person is only using this defense solely to gai the protection of the shield law? If this is reasonable, then proceed; it is now up to the defendant to prove that the conversation was held with journalistic intent.
Basically, the only bloggers who will be able to readily and successfully claim protection under the shield law are those with existing blogs that have a reasonably established history. They can then stand up in court, state that the conversation in question was held as a journalist*, and point to their blog, and be done with it.
Some hypothetical questions here: What about an unemployed journalist? What if he takes a temp job in another field while he continues to look for a new job in journalism? How about after he's been at that temp job for a year? 5? What if he never finds that job, and starts a blog instead?
* Even at this point, I would imagine the judge can apply a reasonability test to the conversation - held as a clearly stated interview, or as gather info for the site, or undercover investigation, sure. As pillowtalk after a midnight romp, not so much.
I'm off similar mind, but I err just on the other side. I'm thinking that a blog should be assumed to have that shield, and before they can be prosecuted (or whatever) otherwise, it must be proven first that the blog has no journalistic merit. Now admittedly, I have not spent a lot of time browser a lot of the blogs out there, but that's how I see it. Sort of along the lines of innocent until proven guilty (though those who think all journalists are guilty might disagree with the analogy), we should initially give them the benefit of the doubt. If it can be shown that there is a reasonable probability that the blogger has been acting as a paid shill, with malicious intent, or otherwise without intention of contributing to the common good, then legal action can move forward.
So when FoxNews decides to see what various blogs are saying today, and they put several of these blogs on the big screen behind the desk, does that count as their entire viewership reading the blog? Tell ya what, when the newspaper's readership reaches as high as 1/2 of some of these blogs...
Seriously, though, one thing to consider is that an average newspaper on even a slow newsday consists of hundreds, if not thousands, of articles, columns and features. Would it be fairer to compare the readership of a blog with the readership of one professional journalist's articles? Or should we consider what the distribution of a paper would be if it consisted solely of one journalist's works? Hell, we all know many newspapers' subscriber base would plummet if they didn't carry daily comics.
There are quite a few online "news sites" that could end up in uncertain waters under this situation. Think Secret probably has a readership that greatly exceeds many newspapers, and we've certainly seen them in this situation before. Should the original articles on this site - such as book and game reviews - be granted any such shield? Maybe the game publisher disagrees with your statement that the plot for their latest game is poorly acted and an almost word-for-word reproduction of a two-bit action novel. That article you wrote had to pass before the eyes of an editor before reaching the front page, and the readership of this site is enough to kill many a newspaper's website; why shouldn't it earn protection as well?
You can rant all you want, but I have seen an article in a newspaper about belly-button lint...
Thing is, if we draw a line in the sand and say on one side you're a journalist, and on the other side you aren't, then what standard are you going to use? Is it simply that a journalist is paid for his or her craft? Put some ads on a blog, and you're paid too. It can't be whether people pay for the privelege of seeing your work - just look at the number of quality free newspapers out there. Is it that the work makes it into print form? Not only is it easy enough for a blogger to print up 20 copies to hand out to friends, but there are plenty of professional journalistic sites that publish a lot of articles on their sites that never make it to the print versions.
Then there's the issue that the line between who is and is not a journalist has been historically fuzzy. How about the colonialists who printed the leaflets in favor of independence leading up to the Aerican Revolution? The pirate radio station operating behind enemy lines? The resistance rags of WWII occupied France?
While I'm at it, where would Matt Drudge fit into the whole thing?
A camera would make a nice option, preferably as a removable attachment, but there are just way too many places that are now screening for cameras on cell phones and other handheld devices for it to be a viable standard. It already sucks enough right now that I must hand over my cell phone to security when entering into certain federal and corporate buildings, but when it comes down to it, I'd rather not have to leave behind a Palm that I have that much of a money investment in, not to mention the amount of personal info that might be on one.
A camera on a handheld is handy to have, and I get enough use out of it on my phone to lift it just out of "toy feature" status, but I still don't see it's use as an integrated part of a professional tool like this.
First thing a a golem would say, of course, is nothing. Golems can't speak, according to folklore. Sure would have made it more difficult for Andy Sirkis to get an award...
Actually, avoiding a blackout like this one is not that difficult. All you have to do is make sure you are receiving your connection either directly from, or via a provider that receives a connection from, a level 2 service provider that has signed up with multiple level 1 providers. The only ones effected by this outage are those who only have one or the other of these two level 1s (well, maybe a 1 and a 1.5). Even those that have a different level 1 are unaffected.
I'm afraid I'm having trouble imagining a situation where a reader wants to know about different NAS solutions, yet doesn't know what NAS means. Maybe it's just me though.
I'm all for explaining acronyms where appropriate, but really, some are common place enough that you just got to assume that your average reader of this site will know what you are talking about. If someone posts about an Automated Teller Machine, I expect them to just use ATM without spelling it out (though this case might require the distinction that they don't mean Asynchronous Transfer Mode(I think that's right)). Even if you don't know a common acronym - I actually, had forgotten what JBOD stood for - since it is common, the answer isn't far away. It took me all of 5 seconds with Google to clear up my confusion.
So, if someone explains the acronym, great, but if it's common enough, I don't expect them too.
For me, it is some ASCII art, consisting solely of 1s and 0s forming a solid rectangular block with the image created by varying the level of whitein each character, on a black background, with the text "NO WAI!!" spelled out in the ASCII artwork. It's hard to tell what it is, but it looks almost chicken or a duck facing left.
In the page source, at the bottom of the page is the text "get ready" in the middle of a comment tag.
Now, INL (I'm No Lawyer... create your own acronym for fun and profit!), but it seems to me that if the copyright holder provides instructions for you to circumvent their own DRM, then they are granting you permission to do so, at least this one time. This doesn't necessarily mean you can apply it to other artists on the same label, or share this info with others. So, make of it what you will.
Look, Halo3 may end up being right on schedule, with a respectable development time, but it just sounds like it'll never be released when you can say that it sounds like it will be released *AFTER* Duke Nukem Forever.
Odd... I replied to this the other day, but the comment seemed to have gotten lost.. oh well.
Amusingly enough, I am 99% sure the story submitter found this article via Penny Arcade.
Story Submitter here, and you're absolutely correct. I did indeed find this linked off of PA, and decided to share it here. Got to find them somehow, right? Though I read PA, I'm actually more of a Sluggy Freelance fan, and was much more interested in the comments about that comic than the others.
Still, I'm sort of disappointed that they didn't comment on Bill Holbrook's Kevin and Kell. We've all seen anthropomorphic comics before, and that's about as close to a mainstream anthro webcomic as you'll find. It is well written, and it would be interesting to see it compared with the mainstream anthro comics, like Over The Hedge, Pearls Before Swine, and others.
The silly side of me would like to have seen them try and analyze the artistic history of something like Partially Clips, just for the hell of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Really, they may be on to something here, and it could increase sales greatly. You could use iTunes to load up your iPod, and not own a "proper" PC or Apple computer. I don't think that they are trying to compete with Nintendo at all - Nintendo has taken the Revolution far enough afield, you could almost say it is in a different genre of games console from the MS and Sony products. That just leaves the PS3. Including a feature like this could help encourage consumers to adopt the XBox 360 before the PS3 release occurs. It might be a valid selling point for homes without a PC, allowing them to use those digital devices to their full extent without a PC.
I hada a girlfriend ask me to carry her purse once in a mall. I amused myself by proceeding to examine the contents of that purse very publicly, with plenty of verbal commentary. I refused to give it back to her up til the point where there was a very real threat of bodily harm. Funny, she never did ask me to carry it again...
*fantacizes about Indonesian Gudang Garam honey & clover cancer sticks* (I know where to get those, no info needed)
As for being a heavy smoker, don't know about that. I started out on cloves such a Djarrum and Gudang Garam (I think I still have a few tins lying around, now holding other items), and when those got too expensive and harsh on my lungs, I switched to Marlboro Reds for "something lighter". I was going through about a pack and a half a day at the end (though that wasn't the height of my usage). Now I don't know what you're criteria are to be a "heavy smoker", but every other smoker I knew at the time that got a whiff of those things agreed that they were some of the nastiest concoctions ever.
Anyways, I've read a few places that the bulk of the nicotine withdrawal takes place in that first week without it. That's not to say it's smooth sailing after that - this thread is testament that it is not. However, for most people a week is what it takes to get beyond the physical, clinically defined substance addiction to nicotine, which is what I used those herbals to get through. I'm not saying these made quitting easy, but it did make it easier. You know what else helped encourage me to quit? A family member died after a long, drawn out over several years battle with lung cancer, due to a life long smoking habit. Funny how that works.
I bought them at a local tobacco shop, just like I said. It was a place that sold all sorts of off-brand trendy smokes, hand-rolling supplies, pipes, loose-leaf, *ahem* "water pipes", and such. This was 5 years ago, and I have no idea if this brand existed 3 months before or after this time in my life, and I never really cared. I did try and do a quick Google search before my last post, but "magic cigarettes" isn't exactly the narrowest of search terms on today's Internet.
I used this to help me get through that first week, when the bodies getting over the worst of the nicotine withdrawal. It satisfied my habit of the ritual of smoking, but did nothing to satisfy the addiction, which not only helped divorce the ritual from the effects of the nicotine in my mind, but it also provided some damn effective negative reinforcement to boot.
I never did finish that pack...
Trust me, this is a very accurate description of how some of these habits ingrain themselves into your mind.
Still, for the rest of the population, this is just moving from one type of scarce fossil fuel to another. We've all heard about the gasoline substites (ethanol, corn and soy based fuels, greasel, what have you), but is there much R&D on synthetic or renewable natural gas substitutes?
Now if I'm wrong, so be it. However, based upon the language used, I assumed that they had already updated the psoting of their results within the first 24 hours, and planned to update it further later on. That's all.
Looks to me like the new setup is/was able to run for around 24 hours under the new setup. I'm not surprised, given the size of the thing... I mean, it fits the lines of the device fine so it doesn't look out of place, and supposedly it doesn't weigh that much, according to their stats, but damn that's huge for a handheld device. Certainly doesn't really qualify as a pocket device with those attachements.
I'm having trouble picking out a real-life equivalent to these consignment operators.
If someone was looking for statistics on how AMD and Intel might fare in the marketplace if each where given (roughly) equal footing, then those statistics in fact MUST exclude sales by Dell. That was the main point of my post there.
There have been cheaper alternatives to Intel chips before (Cyrix comes to mind), but if it doesn't perform as well, then the consumer will end up feeling ripped off later when they find out about it, which doesn't help the retail store any. AMD has ben the first to really compete on a technical level such that your average Joe doesn't really care or notice which one his computer has.
Of course the fact that AMD systems tend to be cheaper, and thus provide better retail margins, plays into the equation. That's just business. That's part of how well they can compete on an otherwise level playing field.
These sales in fact do not say much about the technical merits of AMD vs Intel. But it does lend credibility to what AMD says in their lawsuit against Intel.
Not including direct sales: does Dell sell AMD chips? Latest info a quick search comes up with says no, but I haven't been keeping track. If so, it doesn't really contribute anything useful to this point.
So, the stats are meaningful, just don't try and apply the wrong meaning to them.
Basically, the only bloggers who will be able to readily and successfully claim protection under the shield law are those with existing blogs that have a reasonably established history. They can then stand up in court, state that the conversation in question was held as a journalist*, and point to their blog, and be done with it.
Some hypothetical questions here: What about an unemployed journalist? What if he takes a temp job in another field while he continues to look for a new job in journalism? How about after he's been at that temp job for a year? 5? What if he never finds that job, and starts a blog instead?
* Even at this point, I would imagine the judge can apply a reasonability test to the conversation - held as a clearly stated interview, or as gather info for the site, or undercover investigation, sure. As pillowtalk after a midnight romp, not so much.
I'm off similar mind, but I err just on the other side. I'm thinking that a blog should be assumed to have that shield, and before they can be prosecuted (or whatever) otherwise, it must be proven first that the blog has no journalistic merit. Now admittedly, I have not spent a lot of time browser a lot of the blogs out there, but that's how I see it. Sort of along the lines of innocent until proven guilty (though those who think all journalists are guilty might disagree with the analogy), we should initially give them the benefit of the doubt. If it can be shown that there is a reasonable probability that the blogger has been acting as a paid shill, with malicious intent, or otherwise without intention of contributing to the common good, then legal action can move forward.
Seriously, though, one thing to consider is that an average newspaper on even a slow newsday consists of hundreds, if not thousands, of articles, columns and features. Would it be fairer to compare the readership of a blog with the readership of one professional journalist's articles? Or should we consider what the distribution of a paper would be if it consisted solely of one journalist's works? Hell, we all know many newspapers' subscriber base would plummet if they didn't carry daily comics.
There are quite a few online "news sites" that could end up in uncertain waters under this situation. Think Secret probably has a readership that greatly exceeds many newspapers, and we've certainly seen them in this situation before. Should the original articles on this site - such as book and game reviews - be granted any such shield? Maybe the game publisher disagrees with your statement that the plot for their latest game is poorly acted and an almost word-for-word reproduction of a two-bit action novel. That article you wrote had to pass before the eyes of an editor before reaching the front page, and the readership of this site is enough to kill many a newspaper's website; why shouldn't it earn protection as well?
Thing is, if we draw a line in the sand and say on one side you're a journalist, and on the other side you aren't, then what standard are you going to use? Is it simply that a journalist is paid for his or her craft? Put some ads on a blog, and you're paid too. It can't be whether people pay for the privelege of seeing your work - just look at the number of quality free newspapers out there. Is it that the work makes it into print form? Not only is it easy enough for a blogger to print up 20 copies to hand out to friends, but there are plenty of professional journalistic sites that publish a lot of articles on their sites that never make it to the print versions.
Then there's the issue that the line between who is and is not a journalist has been historically fuzzy. How about the colonialists who printed the leaflets in favor of independence leading up to the Aerican Revolution? The pirate radio station operating behind enemy lines? The resistance rags of WWII occupied France?
While I'm at it, where would Matt Drudge fit into the whole thing?
A camera on a handheld is handy to have, and I get enough use out of it on my phone to lift it just out of "toy feature" status, but I still don't see it's use as an integrated part of a professional tool like this.
First thing a a golem would say, of course, is nothing. Golems can't speak, according to folklore. Sure would have made it more difficult for Andy Sirkis to get an award...
Sure, manage to sneak your own correction in while mine is being posted, you sneaky bastard ;)
That said, thanks for the pointer... I'll have to check it out.
Actually, avoiding a blackout like this one is not that difficult. All you have to do is make sure you are receiving your connection either directly from, or via a provider that receives a connection from, a level 2 service provider that has signed up with multiple level 1 providers. The only ones effected by this outage are those who only have one or the other of these two level 1s (well, maybe a 1 and a 1.5). Even those that have a different level 1 are unaffected.
I'm all for explaining acronyms where appropriate, but really, some are common place enough that you just got to assume that your average reader of this site will know what you are talking about. If someone posts about an Automated Teller Machine, I expect them to just use ATM without spelling it out (though this case might require the distinction that they don't mean Asynchronous Transfer Mode(I think that's right)). Even if you don't know a common acronym - I actually, had forgotten what JBOD stood for - since it is common, the answer isn't far away. It took me all of 5 seconds with Google to clear up my confusion.
So, if someone explains the acronym, great, but if it's common enough, I don't expect them too.
In the page source, at the bottom of the page is the text "get ready" in the middle of a comment tag.
Now, INL (I'm No Lawyer... create your own acronym for fun and profit!), but it seems to me that if the copyright holder provides instructions for you to circumvent their own DRM, then they are granting you permission to do so, at least this one time. This doesn't necessarily mean you can apply it to other artists on the same label, or share this info with others. So, make of it what you will.
Old habits die hard, I guess.
Amusingly enough, I am 99% sure the story submitter found this article via Penny Arcade.
Story Submitter here, and you're absolutely correct. I did indeed find this linked off of PA, and decided to share it here. Got to find them somehow, right? Though I read PA, I'm actually more of a Sluggy Freelance fan, and was much more interested in the comments about that comic than the others.
Still, I'm sort of disappointed that they didn't comment on Bill Holbrook's Kevin and Kell. We've all seen anthropomorphic comics before, and that's about as close to a mainstream anthro webcomic as you'll find. It is well written, and it would be interesting to see it compared with the mainstream anthro comics, like Over The Hedge, Pearls Before Swine, and others.
The silly side of me would like to have seen them try and analyze the artistic history of something like Partially Clips, just for the hell of it.