Not to mention that ad takes up some serious real estate up top thus making the display window annoying smaller. Sure, this is a quibble, but enough of one so that people don't buy the product when there are free alternatives.
Plus what kind of a name is Opera? Yeah, that's how you win over Americans, name it after an art form they despise.
user1 "Hey, you're using Opera?"
user2 "No, this is Balletmaster 2000!"
user1 "Killer! I'm thinking of switching to GayMarriage 5.0 soon!"
The gmail service ties in with their larger datamining efforts. Yes, there is a HUGE privacy issue. Some people don't care, but lets not pretend its not there.
Google is a privately-owned US company that has a policy of collecting as much information as possible about everyone who uses its search tool.
It will store your computer's IP address, the time/date, your browser details and the item you search for.
It sets a tracking cookie on your computer that does not expire until 2038.
This means that Google builds up a detailed profile of your search terms over many years.
Google probably knew when you last thought you were pregnant, what diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is.
It refuses to say why it wants this information or to admit whether it makes it available to the US Government for tracking purposes.
And the much-loved Google toolbar tells Google about every web page you look at.
Yet it so dominates the search engine market that no website can afford to ignore it, and it indexes so much of the web that few users think of using another.
We're seeing the emergence of cults in the form of brands and geeks sure as heck aren't immune. Criticizing google, the iPod, or Linux is asking for trouble regardless of the facts. I'm sure this will get modded as a "troll" also for pointing this out.
Who cares? As long as middle america thinks this is going to keep them safe from "nukes" then the industry will continue these pork projects which waste our tax dollars (best spent elsewhere).
Facts in post 9/11 america are decedent excesses for much hated intellectuals and liberals.
I gave up on inkjets a couple years ago. You can get a personal laser printer for $100 or less nowadays. I cant say I miss color at all and if I really needed a color printer I could get one free with rebates/purchase of a new computer.
In the near future I'd like to be able to print high-quality photos, so I'll just spring for a cheap little dye sub photo printer and let the laser printer do all the printing work. This "all in one" color solution is silly. Even if ink was a little cheaper you'd still be wasting tons of it compared to how much toner a laser printer uses.
I still get a kick out of hearing people say "Im out of ink!" Hehe, its like hearing "We're gonna run out of coal" during the steam engine period.
>when will a manufacturer stand up and sell good quality printers
Never. I mean, think about it. How many $200 printers are they going to sell when they can get a crappy/ink subsidized one for free or next to free. This is market failure. When more people shift to laser, perhaps the inkjet people will wake up and smell the coffee.
Music tech has gotten extremely geekified in the past twenty years and its a shame tech sites don't embrace and report on some of the very-high tech stuff out there. Many "geeks" are either musicians or have dabbled in music. Many are also hardcore music fans.
I've found one blog that does this very well and its called MusicThing (I have no relation with the people there, just a fan). I wished slashdot or other high-profile tech sites would also report on pro-audio gear, audio software both free and Free, the digital revolution in music (not just in techno), etc.
I mean, one of the coolest pieces of tech I own has to be my Line6 amp, which models eight tube amps digitally. That's a little revolution in itself.
After reading this article I was wondering if there were open source equivalants or homebrew solutions like build your own analog synth, theremin, microphone, etc.
I know this is a joke, but it plays right in the hands of the religious people I meet who think atheism is a fancy word for "satan-worship." Their little theistic worldview can't handle the fact that millions don't buy modern day fairy tales about good and evil and creator gods, etc.
If there's "evil" in the world its in the form of the anti-reason, pro-faith groups that dominate the world, especially the US.
Okay, this is an issue I've been trying to figure out for quite sometime. I'n currently locked-in to an old hotmail account because:
1. I cant use the email my ISP provides beacause once I leave them its over.
2. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the web is that everyone uses email addresses for verification. At this point a migration away from hotmail to gmail (or whoever) is a serious work-load and would cause all sorts of problems.
3. I get pop access through the Hot Popper program.
So, what are some alternatives? Maybe there can be a publically funded email service for "identification purposes," but I really dont want to depend on the whim of congress for funding. PBS/NPR get treated like shit, and I would expect them to do the same to "socialized" email.
Maybe we really a geek backed, volunteer email service running as a non-profit. For a nominal fee (or even free) you can have an email address for life. This can be given to the public trust like how ICANN (not the best example) run the internet/domain names.
If gmail does offer pop3, Id like to get off hotmail, but both solutions means if these companies go bankrupt or change their policies in some way that affects me negatively then I'm screwed.
Also, very few of these email outlets even defend freedom of speech. I believe I'm more protected than most because Im a paying hotmail customer, but if I were to reply to a spammer or someone I'm angry at with "fuck you," then I might be subject to account termination. That's not right.
Or perhaps this could be solved with a better TOS/Contract. An email provider who puts aside x amount of money in a savings account to defend a "if we go bankrupt we will run for 6 months as you migrate" policy will get my money, and probably lots of others.
This is just a great comment. I'm sick of reading the same things also and in the end it takes away not only from Da Vinci himself but a plethora of great thinkers who go unacknolewged. Its easy to digest things when pre-packaged this way and to write articles about genius, at best a 17th century concept.
A lot of these articles would be the equivalant of an piece about "MP3 really invented by Thomas Edison." Or "Jet engine really invented by James Watt." Err, no.
Wow, now there's a losing combination. Here in Chicago Comcast is long running corporate joke. Very poor service both in their TV and Cable modem divisions and a broadband network they can't seem to keep up for very long.
I switched to DirecTV w/ Tivo long ago and will probably give that up eventually as more shows become available on bitorrent. Considering I only watch perhaps three shows regularly, its overkill. Also, Rupert-Owned DirecTV with DirecTivo does have its downsides.
Then again, never underestimate the power of bundling services.
Re:Had to completely uninstall the Preview Release
on
Firefox 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
I just copy out my plugins folder, reinstall, and put them back. Its a real shame the installer can't keep the plugins.
Re:I Don't See The Point
on
Halo 2 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
>Sorry people, but that's just a little TOO creepy for me...
Before Ticketmaster changed their policies way back when, my friends were always bugging me to come along with an all-night wait for tickets. It was almost never needed (in fact, if I trusted my memory more I'd say it was NEVER needed), but these little gatherings were little interesting psychological events. First and foremost, doing this is like pledging alleigance to the band/game/whatever. Its sort of the equivalant of going to Church weekly. Then there are secondary benefits like meeting like-minded people and developing some sense of community. Then people get their tickets/games and never speak again. There's a slim chance you might see them at the show and make some banal small-talk.
In some ways its like geek tailgating (when it comes to video games). In other ways its developing this fraudulent 'culture' of Aerosmith (or whoever) fans as if liking some band (especially some top-40) is suddenly this life changing experience and you must commune and commiserate only with those who like the same band.
I think you don't see much of this anymore because the whole idealism and pretentiousness of music thankfully died with the 70s and the 80s. People have wised up and realized that, yes, being fans of the same band(s) doesn't mean much at all.
>Sure, and if a few more people cared more about the people around them
By funding better public trans perhaps? You can over-engineer safety into cars all you like and put speeders in the electric chair, but at the end of the day its Joe and Jane Sixpack driving those machines and that really isn't right. Better public trans (light rail that covers cities with lots of stops) is where its at.
Details are why I wish Hollywood would give up on the theater system and sell/rent the DVD on opening day.
First off, most offerings from Hollywood are just poor, but might be good for a drunken (insert your drug of choice) laugh. Doing this in a theater is a bit rude and illegal in most places.
Secondly, most movies don't deserve the 'big screen' treatment. Not just quality but how they are shot. There are very few "Lawrence of Arabia-esque" movies anymore.
Thirdly, other people. 'nuff said
Lastly, my home entertainment center isn't this awesome thing, but its good enough. It gives me the ability to rewind, review, etc.
In other words the Tivo-ization of movies would be nice. Really nice.
Re:So what are we going to do tonight Brain?
on
Review: Evil Genius
·
· Score: 1
You might like the old dungeonkeeper games. They're probably 4.99 for both sold in the 'classics' section of many retailers. I just saw the package recently at Micro Center and almost picked it up, until I remembered I have the disc somewhere.
Its a micro-manage RPG in which you're the evil dungeon lord and the heroes come to kill you. Fun, wacky, challenging, etc.
I have a dell 'desktop replacement' and bought it because it was marked down to a point I could easily justify the purchase. Its a 8.something lbs monster that gives me MAYBE 60 minutes (around 45 of light use and 30 of hard use) of battery life.
What the grandparent is saying is that the shif away t from the portable low power and lightweight laptop which gets battery life just sucks. I see people dragging their 7-9lbs monsters all the time, most of them have a desktop at home and don't need a 'desktop replacement,' what they need is a lightweight laptop that wont burn them. In fact, you almost never see term 'laptop' anymore. They are just too hot to use on your lap, ironically.
Thankfully, there's been a shift away from this recently and we're seeing lighter laptops. The pentium-m is a great low power CPU and computers are cheap enough where you can have a desktop or two at home and still afford a laptop. No need for the magic one-in-all solutions which you can't really upgrade. No need to buy a couple docking stations. And no need to freak out if one of the kids drops it or if you spill something on it. You still have your desktop and if you're smart you do backups on it.
Re:What? No Harem O' Hos?!?
on
Review: Evil Genius
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Exactly. Where are the hedonistic rewards? Like "Kidnap an american actress and try to make her fall in love with you" and other evil cliches. Sadly, I'm sure these games would have a more 'adult' sense of humor if it wasnt for the game ratings and Walmart censors. A game like this should really be anti-political correctness, it would add a lot, and frankly it needs it. I played the demo and thanked myself for doing so instead of just buying it because it looked funny.
>I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for anybody caught infringing on software/movie/music copyrights with BitTorrent.
Well, I gotta ask, how would you categorize me? The few times I've made a torrent is to show a video clip, like the daily show or some animation. I don't get permission and believe this falls under fair use. There are two bitorrent communities, at least as far as I can tell, the P2P suprnova crowd and the "crap I dont have enough bandwidth from my webhost to offer this" crowd. They both deal in copyrighted materials, yet their intent and use are almost opposites. suprnova gives you free stuff, I give you something I want to comment on or share (usually not the full episode).
On top if it, I wonder how many more Venture Brothers fans and Daily Show watchers there now just because of internet buzz and torrents? Be it full episodes or just snippets.
Err, how far from the core demographic are they trying to get. I'd expect the trailer to first (or also) hit places like Comedy Central or the Cartoon Network. If not trailers.apple.com
Sure, the marketers know they have the core, but celebrity gossip news is where they choose to unload the trailer?
Slashdot Mirror
>it's not as if you're web browsing experience isn't overcome with advertising, anyway.
Mine isn't.
Not to mention that ad takes up some serious real estate up top thus making the display window annoying smaller. Sure, this is a quibble, but enough of one so that people don't buy the product when there are free alternatives.
Plus what kind of a name is Opera? Yeah, that's how you win over Americans, name it after an art form they despise.
user1 "Hey, you're using Opera?"
user2 "No, this is Balletmaster 2000!"
user1 "Killer! I'm thinking of switching to GayMarriage 5.0 soon!"
>Really, there *is* no privacy issue
The gmail service ties in with their larger datamining efforts. Yes, there is a HUGE privacy issue. Some people don't care, but lets not pretend its not there.
The google double standard is pretty big around here. They're anti-privacy dataminers. You can't deny that. Of course they're letting you use POP/IMAP as they've already mined your mail and created a demographic profile on you there are going to sell to anyone with enough money. We're seeing the emergence of cults in the form of brands and geeks sure as heck aren't immune. Criticizing google, the iPod, or Linux is asking for trouble regardless of the facts. I'm sure this will get modded as a "troll" also for pointing this out.
Who cares? As long as middle america thinks this is going to keep them safe from "nukes" then the industry will continue these pork projects which waste our tax dollars (best spent elsewhere).
Facts in post 9/11 america are decedent excesses for much hated intellectuals and liberals.
I gave up on inkjets a couple years ago. You can get a personal laser printer for $100 or less nowadays. I cant say I miss color at all and if I really needed a color printer I could get one free with rebates/purchase of a new computer.
In the near future I'd like to be able to print high-quality photos, so I'll just spring for a cheap little dye sub photo printer and let the laser printer do all the printing work. This "all in one" color solution is silly. Even if ink was a little cheaper you'd still be wasting tons of it compared to how much toner a laser printer uses.
I still get a kick out of hearing people say "Im out of ink!" Hehe, its like hearing "We're gonna run out of coal" during the steam engine period.
>when will a manufacturer stand up and sell good quality printers
Never. I mean, think about it. How many $200 printers are they going to sell when they can get a crappy/ink subsidized one for free or next to free. This is market failure. When more people shift to laser, perhaps the inkjet people will wake up and smell the coffee.
Music tech has gotten extremely geekified in the past twenty years and its a shame tech sites don't embrace and report on some of the very-high tech stuff out there. Many "geeks" are either musicians or have dabbled in music. Many are also hardcore music fans.
I've found one blog that does this very well and its called MusicThing (I have no relation with the people there, just a fan). I wished slashdot or other high-profile tech sites would also report on pro-audio gear, audio software both free and Free, the digital revolution in music (not just in techno), etc.
I mean, one of the coolest pieces of tech I own has to be my Line6 amp, which models eight tube amps digitally. That's a little revolution in itself.
After reading this article I was wondering if there were open source equivalants or homebrew solutions like build your own analog synth, theremin, microphone, etc.
All the "market cap" is this: stocks x price.
So its pretty much how much money you would need to buy the company/what the company is worth.
Intel is a MUCH bigger company than AMD. They have more plants, people, sales, etc. So all that capital is simply worth more.
More info here.
Do they all use non-expiring tracking cookies? And refuse to say who they are selling this info to?
>so he think that God is evil
I know this is a joke, but it plays right in the hands of the religious people I meet who think atheism is a fancy word for "satan-worship." Their little theistic worldview can't handle the fact that millions don't buy modern day fairy tales about good and evil and creator gods, etc.
If there's "evil" in the world its in the form of the anti-reason, pro-faith groups that dominate the world, especially the US.
Okay, this is an issue I've been trying to figure out for quite sometime. I'n currently locked-in to an old hotmail account because:
1. I cant use the email my ISP provides beacause once I leave them its over.
2. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the web is that everyone uses email addresses for verification. At this point a migration away from hotmail to gmail (or whoever) is a serious work-load and would cause all sorts of problems.
3. I get pop access through the Hot Popper program.
So, what are some alternatives? Maybe there can be a publically funded email service for "identification purposes," but I really dont want to depend on the whim of congress for funding. PBS/NPR get treated like shit, and I would expect them to do the same to "socialized" email.
Maybe we really a geek backed, volunteer email service running as a non-profit. For a nominal fee (or even free) you can have an email address for life. This can be given to the public trust like how ICANN (not the best example) run the internet/domain names.
If gmail does offer pop3, Id like to get off hotmail, but both solutions means if these companies go bankrupt or change their policies in some way that affects me negatively then I'm screwed.
Also, very few of these email outlets even defend freedom of speech. I believe I'm more protected than most because Im a paying hotmail customer, but if I were to reply to a spammer or someone I'm angry at with "fuck you," then I might be subject to account termination. That's not right.
Or perhaps this could be solved with a better TOS/Contract. An email provider who puts aside x amount of money in a savings account to defend a "if we go bankrupt we will run for 6 months as you migrate" policy will get my money, and probably lots of others.
This is just a great comment. I'm sick of reading the same things also and in the end it takes away not only from Da Vinci himself but a plethora of great thinkers who go unacknolewged. Its easy to digest things when pre-packaged this way and to write articles about genius, at best a 17th century concept.
A lot of these articles would be the equivalant of an piece about "MP3 really invented by Thomas Edison." Or "Jet engine really invented by James Watt." Err, no.
>Netscape used to have like 92% of the browser market?
End user: Why pay for Netscape when this IE thing is free!
*months later*
Netscape: We're free too now.
End user: Too late. I already have things setup the way I like.
Unless there's some severe price-breaks and bundling involved I wouldn't write off Tivo just yet.
Wow, now there's a losing combination. Here in Chicago Comcast is long running corporate joke. Very poor service both in their TV and Cable modem divisions and a broadband network they can't seem to keep up for very long.
I switched to DirecTV w/ Tivo long ago and will probably give that up eventually as more shows become available on bitorrent. Considering I only watch perhaps three shows regularly, its overkill. Also, Rupert-Owned DirecTV with DirecTivo does have its downsides.
Then again, never underestimate the power of bundling services.
I just copy out my plugins folder, reinstall, and put them back. Its a real shame the installer can't keep the plugins.
>Sorry people, but that's just a little TOO creepy for me...
Before Ticketmaster changed their policies way back when, my friends were always bugging me to come along with an all-night wait for tickets. It was almost never needed (in fact, if I trusted my memory more I'd say it was NEVER needed), but these little gatherings were little interesting psychological events. First and foremost, doing this is like pledging alleigance to the band/game/whatever. Its sort of the equivalant of going to Church weekly. Then there are secondary benefits like meeting like-minded people and developing some sense of community. Then people get their tickets/games and never speak again. There's a slim chance you might see them at the show and make some banal small-talk.
In some ways its like geek tailgating (when it comes to video games). In other ways its developing this fraudulent 'culture' of Aerosmith (or whoever) fans as if liking some band (especially some top-40) is suddenly this life changing experience and you must commune and commiserate only with those who like the same band.
I think you don't see much of this anymore because the whole idealism and pretentiousness of music thankfully died with the 70s and the 80s. People have wised up and realized that, yes, being fans of the same band(s) doesn't mean much at all.
>Sure, and if a few more people cared more about the people around them
By funding better public trans perhaps? You can over-engineer safety into cars all you like and put speeders in the electric chair, but at the end of the day its Joe and Jane Sixpack driving those machines and that really isn't right. Better public trans (light rail that covers cities with lots of stops) is where its at.
>Once we've finished with the war, fixed the medical system, social security, homeland security, the environment,
Not to mention stopped all this welfare! Now that's a tax break we can all get behind.
Details are why I wish Hollywood would give up on the theater system and sell/rent the DVD on opening day.
First off, most offerings from Hollywood are just poor, but might be good for a drunken (insert your drug of choice) laugh. Doing this in a theater is a bit rude and illegal in most places.
Secondly, most movies don't deserve the 'big screen' treatment. Not just quality but how they are shot. There are very few "Lawrence of Arabia-esque" movies anymore.
Thirdly, other people. 'nuff said
Lastly, my home entertainment center isn't this awesome thing, but its good enough. It gives me the ability to rewind, review, etc.
In other words the Tivo-ization of movies would be nice. Really nice.
You might like the old dungeonkeeper games. They're probably 4.99 for both sold in the 'classics' section of many retailers. I just saw the package recently at Micro Center and almost picked it up, until I remembered I have the disc somewhere.
Its a micro-manage RPG in which you're the evil dungeon lord and the heroes come to kill you. Fun, wacky, challenging, etc.
I have a dell 'desktop replacement' and bought it because it was marked down to a point I could easily justify the purchase. Its a 8.something lbs monster that gives me MAYBE 60 minutes (around 45 of light use and 30 of hard use) of battery life.
What the grandparent is saying is that the shif away t from the portable low power and lightweight laptop which gets battery life just sucks. I see people dragging their 7-9lbs monsters all the time, most of them have a desktop at home and don't need a 'desktop replacement,' what they need is a lightweight laptop that wont burn them. In fact, you almost never see term 'laptop' anymore. They are just too hot to use on your lap, ironically.
Thankfully, there's been a shift away from this recently and we're seeing lighter laptops. The pentium-m is a great low power CPU and computers are cheap enough where you can have a desktop or two at home and still afford a laptop. No need for the magic one-in-all solutions which you can't really upgrade. No need to buy a couple docking stations. And no need to freak out if one of the kids drops it or if you spill something on it. You still have your desktop and if you're smart you do backups on it.
Exactly. Where are the hedonistic rewards? Like "Kidnap an american actress and try to make her fall in love with you" and other evil cliches. Sadly, I'm sure these games would have a more 'adult' sense of humor if it wasnt for the game ratings and Walmart censors. A game like this should really be anti-political correctness, it would add a lot, and frankly it needs it. I played the demo and thanked myself for doing so instead of just buying it because it looked funny.
a firewall AND patching. Not one or the either! Thanks Mr. NSA!
Fine. Then google has to change their motto from don't be evil to "dont be relatively evil." Considering the moral relativsm you just posted.
> Don't assign the American value system (democracy)
Also, you can have free speech without a democracy.
>to a political system you don't understand.
You should try to understand the difference between voting (or mob rule) and freedom of speech.
>I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for anybody caught infringing on software/movie/music copyrights with BitTorrent.
Well, I gotta ask, how would you categorize me? The few times I've made a torrent is to show a video clip, like the daily show or some animation. I don't get permission and believe this falls under fair use. There are two bitorrent communities, at least as far as I can tell, the P2P suprnova crowd and the "crap I dont have enough bandwidth from my webhost to offer this" crowd. They both deal in copyrighted materials, yet their intent and use are almost opposites. suprnova gives you free stuff, I give you something I want to comment on or share (usually not the full episode).
On top if it, I wonder how many more Venture Brothers fans and Daily Show watchers there now just because of internet buzz and torrents? Be it full episodes or just snippets.
Err, how far from the core demographic are they trying to get. I'd expect the trailer to first (or also) hit places like Comedy Central or the Cartoon Network. If not trailers.apple.com
Sure, the marketers know they have the core, but celebrity gossip news is where they choose to unload the trailer?