.. when credit cards and clubcards are already so heavily used. A credit card shows where you've been and where you've spent money - for example, someone only need look for a pub that you use your card at regularly to track you down. And the FBI has already shown its willingness to get information from ISPs regards even the vaguest suspicion of a crime - is there any real anonymity left? I doubt it.
We need some sort of 'Godwins Law' style rule whereby an opinion is discounted the moment they make some lame pun about an os/name/product etc. I usually stop reading when I hear someone call something 'gaycube', 'gaystation' etc, a little mental going going off and warning me that it's not worth reading any further.
So will new versions of DVDs feature special sections where fans act out the sections? The Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD has footage of a following of people acting out sections of the movie in front of the movie screen. If you turn the feature on, at certain points an icon appears on screen - hit 'OK' on the DVD remote, and a section of said footage crops up, then afterwards returns you to the movie.
Because while Godzilla may be an icon, the whole 'man in a suit' think has become even more of a joke than it was, thanks to the likes of Power Rangers. I can't watch a Godzilla movie now without thinking these guys/girls in coloured lycra are going to jump into a giant robot and kick his arse.
Lycra? Hmm.. now, X-Men vs Godzilla.. maybe that'd have mileage.
.. for whatever crappy Star Wars Game they're putting out next. The last good game Lucasarts made was Escape from Monkey Island, and they haven't done a decent Star Wars game in years (KOTOR was a Bioware game), continuing to shoehorn Star Wars into every damn genre, not giving a toss about quality. Still, I suppose they're in synch with the goals of George himself. I can't honestly say this was a surprise, after Full Throttle 2 was cancelled. Lucasarts has such great properties, yet they keep messing them up. I honestly can't think of any business strategy that would explain that.
If this really is intended for home use, I'd question the value of legs. Granted, this is from the land that produced Battletech and assorted Mech shows, but we've already seen a robot that can climb stairs on wheels. Surely a wheeled robot would be infinitely more stable that this one. Come home drunk and walk into a wheeled 'bot and you've stubbed your toe a bit. Walk into a walking bot and you could knock it over, damaging and possibly breaking it.
PS - For those wondering about the video post slashdotting, imagine an akward looking slot machine with pointlessly complex legs wobbling aimlessly across a stage in a rythm and fashion in no way whatsoever resembling the happy-love-fun-time-gogogo japanese techno music playing in the background.
That's Riverdance, surely? Sounds like Herr Robot would fit right in.
Why do you want it to talk?
So it can say 'Oh, you're so big!'. Or if you're using the special discounted ad-supported Robo Doll, it can say 'Oh, you're so big! But you could be bigger - visit www.vigorex.com'
The mean age in Japan is approaching 70 and many of these older persons are living alone, so there are a lot of seniors that will require assistance with their daily life. A robot that can fetch medicine or notify the owner that it is time to take medicine or even notify the authorities if the owner doesn't move for more than a specified time.
As long as you don't end up coming back to visit grandad and finding him buried up to his nuts in a two-legged Aibo.
Any mathematical theory that attempts to predict such behaviour is guesswork at best and will inevitably be rendered useless by a butterfly flapping its wings in China.
.. the Russians never managed to sneak some spy laden software into the US, and UK, software so pervasive it'd work its way into every home in the world. Hey.. why's my copy of Tetris trying to send something past my firewall?
Aside from using a credit card when buying computer equipment, one thing I've learned from hearing the frustrated callers try to rma their equipment at my last-job-but-two is to try and buy from a company with a physical return location - preferably a store. That way you can actually drop the PC in the store without it costing postage. And you can actually cause a ruckus in the store, which is a much quicker way of generating negative publicity. I don't mean throw stuff around or do anything that would get you arrested, just raise your voice to the point prospective purchasers can hear you.
tell whatever drone answers the phone that you need to speak to his/her supervisor.
Having been one such 'drone' in a prior job incarnation, I know it's not that easy. My supervisors - and from having spoken to friends, supervisors at another company - refused to take calls from irate customers. So us drones would end up telling angry people that, no, you couldn't take it higher. We'd give the address to write in to complain, but the irony is that there was a section of the helpdesk on a rota that would pick up the letters, send off a form reply - usually saying 'sorry for the inconvience, but we don't care' etc.
Your best bet is to have your credit card company credit your account, which they probably will do, especially if you have documentation. Then just tell Buslink to keep its defective card.
And the credit card company will put pressure on the company to refund the money to them - should the company refused to comply, the CC company is in a better position to bring its legal might down on the company. Should this happen enough times, the company might sit up and listen.
.. you work. The company I used to work at had these all the time. I even had one guy say he was recording the conversation and was going to take it to a solicitor, and wanted to speak to a supervisor. Guess what - the supervisors still didn't want to speak to him, and generally didn't care. Mind you, I didn't care by that point, just told him that the supervisor refused to speak to him and that was that.
Orwellian Tech Support anyone? I can't speak for this company but as far as the main tech company I worked for a while ago, they really didn't care about one person being without a PC. And so, if you tried to actually chase a return, as a tech, you got nowhere. So then the techs stopped caring and the usual procedure was just to fob people off - you actually need to make a noise / threaten to generate bad publicity to get action in some case.s
Tell me about it. I broke my Magnatron, and totally fried Optimus Prime too. That's the last time I play Decepticon Rays From Space with my Transformers.
When this all blows over the companies that buy licences are going to look pretty stupid. I have no doubt that SCO will get laughed out of court, and I'd be surprised if the person who recommended buying a licence will actually have a job after that. 'So, Dave - why did you recommend we buy a worthless licence?' But more importantly, such a decision is not just going to be a waste of money, but it's going to impact negatively on the company's image. It's like letting yourself be threatened by a chiuaha.
.. sits a white caucasian guy munching a bagel. His phone rings and he leaps into life... 'Hello, thank you for calling Coca Cola India. My name is... er... Gupta. Isn't the weather in Bombay warm at this time of year? How may I help you?'
So how long before a commercial entity gets up there, and starts mining the water? You can look foward to Pepsi Space Age - selling at $200 a bottle - or Eau Du Mars - $1000 a bottle.
It shows, for example, how capillary action works, a property that allows plants up to 20 feet (i think!) tall to absorb water without using any energy whatsoever!
Oh my god.. the Martians are.. Triffids. Oh, wait, mis-red the post. Seriously, though, water may be essential to life, but I still don't think it's much to get excited over. I mean, it means what - that very very primitive life may have existed there a long time ago, possibly no more complex than your average pond life. I'd rather see the money spent on Mars exploration spent actually plumbing the depths of our own aquatic reserves. Now videoing a giant squid, that'd grab my attention.
Maybe leading to the creation a distributed archive of sorts, because the BBC doesn't exactly have a great track record of keeping its own archives, having wiped a great many programmes from its own archives. I can see it now - 'BBC appeals to PVR owners after short sightedly deleting every episode of Dr Who in archives'
Slashdot Mirror
.. when credit cards and clubcards are already so heavily used. A credit card shows where you've been and where you've spent money - for example, someone only need look for a pub that you use your card at regularly to track you down. And the FBI has already shown its willingness to get information from ISPs regards even the vaguest suspicion of a crime - is there any real anonymity left? I doubt it.
We need some sort of 'Godwins Law' style rule whereby an opinion is discounted the moment they make some lame pun about an os/name/product etc. I usually stop reading when I hear someone call something 'gaycube', 'gaystation' etc, a little mental going going off and warning me that it's not worth reading any further.
So will new versions of DVDs feature special sections where fans act out the sections? The Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD has footage of a following of people acting out sections of the movie in front of the movie screen. If you turn the feature on, at certain points an icon appears on screen - hit 'OK' on the DVD remote, and a section of said footage crops up, then afterwards returns you to the movie.
Lycra? Hmm.. now, X-Men vs Godzilla.. maybe that'd have mileage.
.. for whatever crappy Star Wars Game they're putting out next. The last good game Lucasarts made was Escape from Monkey Island, and they haven't done a decent Star Wars game in years (KOTOR was a Bioware game), continuing to shoehorn Star Wars into every damn genre, not giving a toss about quality. Still, I suppose they're in synch with the goals of George himself. I can't honestly say this was a surprise, after Full Throttle 2 was cancelled. Lucasarts has such great properties, yet they keep messing them up. I honestly can't think of any business strategy that would explain that.
If this really is intended for home use, I'd question the value of legs. Granted, this is from the land that produced Battletech and assorted Mech shows, but we've already seen a robot that can climb stairs on wheels. Surely a wheeled robot would be infinitely more stable that this one. Come home drunk and walk into a wheeled 'bot and you've stubbed your toe a bit. Walk into a walking bot and you could knock it over, damaging and possibly breaking it.
That's Riverdance, surely? Sounds like Herr Robot would fit right in.
Why do you want it to talk? So it can say 'Oh, you're so big!'. Or if you're using the special discounted ad-supported Robo Doll, it can say 'Oh, you're so big! But you could be bigger - visit www.vigorex.com'
As long as you don't end up coming back to visit grandad and finding him buried up to his nuts in a two-legged Aibo.
.. John Romero joining the project. Then we know it's suspect.
Any mathematical theory that attempts to predict such behaviour is guesswork at best and will inevitably be rendered useless by a butterfly flapping its wings in China.
.. the Russians never managed to sneak some spy laden software into the US, and UK, software so pervasive it'd work its way into every home in the world. Hey.. why's my copy of Tetris trying to send something past my firewall?
Aside from using a credit card when buying computer equipment, one thing I've learned from hearing the frustrated callers try to rma their equipment at my last-job-but-two is to try and buy from a company with a physical return location - preferably a store. That way you can actually drop the PC in the store without it costing postage. And you can actually cause a ruckus in the store, which is a much quicker way of generating negative publicity. I don't mean throw stuff around or do anything that would get you arrested, just raise your voice to the point prospective purchasers can hear you.
Having been one such 'drone' in a prior job incarnation, I know it's not that easy. My supervisors - and from having spoken to friends, supervisors at another company - refused to take calls from irate customers. So us drones would end up telling angry people that, no, you couldn't take it higher. We'd give the address to write in to complain, but the irony is that there was a section of the helpdesk on a rota that would pick up the letters, send off a form reply - usually saying 'sorry for the inconvience, but we don't care' etc.
And the credit card company will put pressure on the company to refund the money to them - should the company refused to comply, the CC company is in a better position to bring its legal might down on the company. Should this happen enough times, the company might sit up and listen.
.. you work. The company I used to work at had these all the time. I even had one guy say he was recording the conversation and was going to take it to a solicitor, and wanted to speak to a supervisor. Guess what - the supervisors still didn't want to speak to him, and generally didn't care. Mind you, I didn't care by that point, just told him that the supervisor refused to speak to him and that was that.
Orwellian Tech Support anyone? I can't speak for this company but as far as the main tech company I worked for a while ago, they really didn't care about one person being without a PC. And so, if you tried to actually chase a return, as a tech, you got nowhere. So then the techs stopped caring and the usual procedure was just to fob people off - you actually need to make a noise / threaten to generate bad publicity to get action in some case.s
Tell me about it. I broke my Magnatron, and totally fried Optimus Prime too. That's the last time I play Decepticon Rays From Space with my Transformers.
When this all blows over the companies that buy licences are going to look pretty stupid. I have no doubt that SCO will get laughed out of court, and I'd be surprised if the person who recommended buying a licence will actually have a job after that. 'So, Dave - why did you recommend we buy a worthless licence?' But more importantly, such a decision is not just going to be a waste of money, but it's going to impact negatively on the company's image. It's like letting yourself be threatened by a chiuaha.
.. sits a white caucasian guy munching a bagel. His phone rings and he leaps into life... 'Hello, thank you for calling Coca Cola India. My name is... er... Gupta. Isn't the weather in Bombay warm at this time of year? How may I help you?'
... from the follow-up lawsuit include.
D*ryl McBr*de
Ly*ng Scumf*cks
S*mpr*ni
So how long before a commercial entity gets up there, and starts mining the water? You can look foward to Pepsi Space Age - selling at $200 a bottle - or Eau Du Mars - $1000 a bottle.
Oh my god.. the Martians are.. Triffids. Oh, wait, mis-red the post. Seriously, though, water may be essential to life, but I still don't think it's much to get excited over. I mean, it means what - that very very primitive life may have existed there a long time ago, possibly no more complex than your average pond life. I'd rather see the money spent on Mars exploration spent actually plumbing the depths of our own aquatic reserves. Now videoing a giant squid, that'd grab my attention.
Ryleh had to be on Earth. I for one quiver with fear at our new Lovecraftian masters' sub-aquatic subterranian resting place.
Meanwhile, in other news, a special report from Scotland - batter found on Mars.
Maybe leading to the creation a distributed archive of sorts, because the BBC doesn't exactly have a great track record of keeping its own archives, having wiped a great many programmes from its own archives. I can see it now - 'BBC appeals to PVR owners after short sightedly deleting every episode of Dr Who in archives'