So what if they had illegal data on their machinea? What if I'm snorting a huge line of coke right now and the cops break in without a warrant. "Hey look he's got coke, now we don't need a warrant." See?
Its inadmissable, not to mention who would go after a copyright voilation if no money was made out of it and was just one person listening to a few tunes. Even the RIAA has better things to do.
The Microsoft FUD machine is in over-drive, CBS just finished up an 'intimate' invterview with BGates. They tossed him all sorts of softball questions like "Tell me about the man behind the success." Bill eats chessburgers with some no-clue reporter while he talks about family, charity, and nothing about M$.
They should have saved themselves the trouble and flashed "Microsoft is your friend" at the bottom of the screen.
Right now more than a few million americans are thinking to themselves, "Awww. he's such a nice guy, why is our government picking on him?"
Yes, thats how you should have read my post as a metaphor. Where is the market for people who want to attach appliances to computer networks?
Controling your lamps through your pc has been available for YEARS, yet you never see it. How often do you change the temp in your refig? Once a year? Why waste tech and $$$ to wire it? Why put a chip and a couple servos to flush your toilet for you.
Its an urban legend that such technologies exist or are being taken seriously. The bill gates house will never catch on. Why? Because housing will always be traditional. One, its expensive to build a home from scratch and most people buy/rent used. And new home buyers don't want to chance some untested technology for obvious reasons. "Hey for 3 grand we can make the oven take commands form Hawaii!"
Especially when radio shack sells light timers for next to nothing.
Practicaly, its of almost no use to wire your home to anything other than a small upgradable control box, like electonic thermostats today. Why would you want make it net accessible, on the off chance that your 2 weeks vacation every year comes at a time you can't find someone to feed the dog? Or you really need someone from Hawaii cook you a roast.
And Ms. Altschul is looking to license her "interactive cereal" --cereal sculpted into monster shapes that crumple into soggy heaps when doused with milk.
And to think I've been eating "interactive cereal" my whole like and didn't know it. Make me a cereal that DOESN'T become soggy heaps and you might have something.
"I was driving in my car, and I kept losing my cell signal, and I wanted to throw my phone out the window. And -- bingo -- I came up with the idea," Ms. Altschul said.
Here I am eagerly waiting to read her solution to losing cell signals till I realize her 'idea' is actually throwing away phones.
Has the cell-phone craze and consumerism reached the point where cell phones are just too blasé?
Who is this market? People with such crappy credit they can't get approved for or afford a cell phone contract. They'll probably make them in various crazy colors a la iMac to get kids into it.
Patents like these really make me wonder if the ecology movement is completely dead. Faster, cheaper, and better should eventually equal out to reliable equipment that lasts a long time. Instead faster, cheap, better = disposable crap. Eventually you'll be able to buy a disposable version of any electronics you like. Imagine the landfill nightmare of having thowaway TV's, CDplayers, fax machines, etc. If this is the first wave of disposable electronics, I'll be the first to boycott.
Heh, I got a kick out of her reasons why this throw away idea will work: "An engineer's mentality is to make something last, to make it durable. A toy's life span is about an hour, then the kid throws it away. You get it, you play with it and -- boom -- it's gone."
Why if kids do it, it must be the smart thing to do. Or she's admitting her target market is really dumb adults.
"It's the ultimate in-your-face advertising," Ms. Altschul said.
Here's to the hope that the military drafts a few thousand script kiddies, realize their IRC skills are useless and makes them pick up a gun. Good luck in the front, kids!
I haven't seen one worthwhile point Katz has made that wasn't made 100,000 times by comments posted by/. readers. His work is overly sensational and mainly keeps/. Jr's posting either "You suck," or "Society sucks." What he does do well is bring in banner revenue.
Considering ihs history of litigation threats I'm sure this entire interview will either be him defending his actions or a fluff piece to avoid getting sued. Either way it ain't gonna be much of a read.
Marking that post as a troll is really BS. Not approving of a/. stamped 'cool guy' is called the opposing opinion not a troll. Hopefully a cluefull moderator will fix this mistake.
Meta-moderators should be forced to read some guidelines before allowed access.
This is the same guy that when asked about how lengthy his Hours download was he replied something like, "But it only takes a few minutes at my house." Bowie's perspective is always going to be a rich man looking in regardless of how hard he tries to get in touch with the common bloke.
Now Bowie has reinvented himself as something like a modern philospher. Heh, its kinda cute, he talks about the inevitable tide of change while making pro-god and pro-religious appeals in the same breath.
The only really interesting and thought provoking part of his career was his SF themed songs from the last 60's. Which were quickly replace with his free sex/dj culture songs of the 70's, which of course were replaced by his yuppie culure songs of the 80's, *deep breath* which were replace by his techo stuff of late. Now he's going back and talking about his SF stuff in a Townshendesque 'I was geek before geek was hip.' Who would have thought the internet would bring dinosaurs back to life...
The entire Bowie mystique was partially SF based and partially occult based. For a little while in the 60's, psychedelic rock and SF had a fling going which a lot of musicians participated in. So I don't buy this 'I was the first guy to see the Mothership' mentality. Everyone was doing it, SF was ALL Jimi Hendrix read.
Now that he's older and his PR is wiser I'm sure he'll continue to pull an Al Gore, while showing us that, yes, he's a good vocalist/writer but a flake and opportunist.
But to me he'll always be the only walking corporation in the world!
Cable is getting almost as bad as Network TV. Its such a bloated, condescending medium, but its the focus of so many people's lives. I'm sure someone will appreciate HDTV, at the very least they can make me an HDTV DVD player.
"With my new TV I can see the twinkle in Matthew Perry's eye!"
I'm glad to know someone can do a web search for the word 'Tesla' and they might not get a story about time travel or big-haired rock bands.
"The sign on the wall says 'Danger 100Kv.'"
Re:Tesla is to Torvalds, as Edison is to Gates.
on
Lightning On Demand
·
· Score: 2
AC is more efficient for carrying over powerlines but it cycles at 60hertz which is perfect if you want to stop someone's heart. Old Tommy was frying those animals for a point, though I'm sure he cared more about royalties than anything else.
There are only 2 real reasons why you'd use Netscape on a mac or win platform.
1. I'm so anti-MS I'd rather use an abacus!
2. Security.
Not that Netscape is bulletproof, but look at IE's trackrecord in the past few months. Something like a dozen exploits, most of which do a lot more than just crash your system. So I patiently wait for 5.0 because I don't need the headache of some exploit trashing my system and I don't want to support a company so lax on security.
Heh, I got a kick out of the guy who lists one of IE's strong points as frequent security patches. If these are the 'experts' I'm glad I disagree.
Some of these innovations may just be my win98 system, as the longer you use windows the more personal and quirky it becomes. Hey lets make that innovation number 1.
2. Auto-rebooter. My win98 system needs to be rebooted at least once a day. If I don't, it does it for me! And always when I'm using it, so I know its done its duty.
3. Application freshness. Windows knows that after you've installed a program on your drive that it'll go stale after a while, like bread. So it makes sure applications won't run after a few months and it needs a re-install. Keepin' it fresh!
4. The talking paperclip. Need I say more?
5. Those new windows keys. Why should we let years and years of typing habit go unchanged? Now those expecting CRTL to be next to ALT can enjoy this innovation.
6. Lack of documentation. Everyone knows only nerds read manuals.
7. ActiveX controls. I'm just too busy to download something and double-click to install it.
Thanks for the innovations, Bill. Keep up the good work.
Now that privacy issues are getting more and more press, the time is ripe for a cartoony privacy mascot. Companies can attach his picture to their products if their software doesn't reveal or track any user info. I'm gonna suggest 'Peter, the Privacy Panda.' Maybe he can hang out with Smokey the Bear and McGruff.
If we're lucky some guy in a Panda suit will follow around the fed's new anti-hacking mascot around to all the gradeschools.
If we're really lucky he'll pick a fight with the anti-hack gerbil as he tries get converts for the CIA kids program. "No kids, snitching is bad, take that you filthy gerbil!"
The trial is about illegal anti-competitive practices. That means I can't 'vote with my dollar' if the competition has been illegaly squashed by MS before it makes it to the store. Or illegaly driven out by MS's monoplolistic practices.
MS's popularity isn't some manifest destiny. Its market stronghold has a lot to do with the ignorace of end-users and its legal + illegal market practices. Both of which are responsible for each other.
Most windows users agree, "OS? Huh? Computers run on Windows."
This pretty much says it all, if you disagree with the laws concerning monopolistic practices than you disagree with the facts and verdicts of the case. Making you the biased one.
I tried the vote at 12:20am CST but the link was dead and found this new vote at www.cnn.com
Microsoft's dominance of the PC operating system industry is due to:
Its monopolistic business practices.
The superiority of its products.
The combination of strong products and strong-arm tactics.
I love the compromise #3 is. It both criticizes MS and compliments it, while ignoring that most if not all of MS's 'strong-arm' tactics are strong-arm monopolistic tactics. CNN spreads out the anti-ms votes into 2 categories.
Most IR car openers( read: lazy man's key ) 'jump' codes so once you use that code it's no longer good. You could copy the code and use it once if you're so inclined.
Leapfrom makes IR to RF attachment that sends the signal to an RF to IR box pointing at your stereo or tv so you can turn down KC and the Sunshine band while in the shitter.
Slashdot Mirror
So what if they had illegal data on their machinea? What if I'm snorting a huge line of coke right now and the cops break in without a warrant. "Hey look he's got coke, now we don't need a warrant." See?
Its inadmissable, not to mention who would go after a copyright voilation if no money was made out of it and was just one person listening to a few tunes. Even the RIAA has better things to do.
Send all you scathing remarks to Paul Fowler, the CMU drone quoted in the article.
A few thousant emails should give him something to think about.
fowler@andrew.cmu.edu
The Microsoft FUD machine is in over-drive, CBS just finished up an 'intimate' invterview with BGates. They tossed him all sorts of softball questions like "Tell me about the man behind the success." Bill eats chessburgers with some no-clue reporter while he talks about family, charity, and nothing about M$.
They should have saved themselves the trouble and flashed "Microsoft is your friend" at the bottom of the screen.
Right now more than a few million americans are thinking to themselves, "Awww. he's such a nice guy, why is our government picking on him?"
You gotta love a channel that offers shows like Decoding Nazi Secrets, Time Travel, and the Breast of Loch Ness.
If it was still sweeps we'd see a show about a Nazi Loch Ness monster who travels times to help the germas develop an ubercode.
Yeah yeah I know PBS doesn't go for sweeps...
"Hiel Herr Ness!"
Yes, thats how you should have read my post as a metaphor. Where is the market for people who want to attach appliances to computer networks?
Controling your lamps through your pc has been available for YEARS, yet you never see it. How often do you change the temp in your refig? Once a year? Why waste tech and $$$ to wire it? Why put a chip and a couple servos to flush your toilet for you.
Its an urban legend that such technologies exist or are being taken seriously. The bill gates house will never catch on. Why? Because housing will always be traditional. One, its expensive to build a home from scratch and most people buy/rent used. And new home buyers don't want to chance some untested technology for obvious reasons. "Hey for 3 grand we can make the oven take commands form Hawaii!"
Especially when radio shack sells light timers for next to nothing.
Practicaly, its of almost no use to wire your home to anything other than a small upgradable control box, like electonic thermostats today. Why would you want make it net accessible, on the off chance that your 2 weeks vacation every year comes at a time you can't find someone to feed the dog? Or you really need someone from Hawaii cook you a roast.
When will the urban legend of 'connecting your toaster to the net' die? Who makes this gear? Who would buy it? No one.
This is such a non-issue its almost funny that people worry about it. You've been reading too much William Gibson.
We can call it the "Maximum Overdrive Meme." or MOM.
"Looks like some hacker flushed the toilet when I was taking a shower again."
And Ms. Altschul is looking to license her "interactive cereal" --cereal sculpted into monster shapes that crumple into soggy heaps when doused with milk.
And to think I've been eating "interactive cereal" my whole like and didn't know it. Make me a cereal that DOESN'T become soggy heaps and you might have something.
"I was driving in my car, and I kept losing my cell signal, and I wanted to throw my phone out the window. And -- bingo -- I came up with the idea," Ms. Altschul said.
Here I am eagerly waiting to read her solution to losing cell signals till I realize her 'idea' is actually throwing away phones.
Has the cell-phone craze and consumerism reached the point where cell phones are just too blasé?
Who is this market? People with such crappy credit they can't get approved for or afford a cell phone contract. They'll probably make them in various crazy colors a la iMac to get kids into it.
Patents like these really make me wonder if the ecology movement is completely dead. Faster, cheaper, and better should eventually equal out to reliable equipment that lasts a long time. Instead faster, cheap, better = disposable crap. Eventually you'll be able to buy a disposable version of any electronics you like. Imagine the landfill nightmare of having thowaway TV's, CDplayers, fax machines, etc. If this is the first wave of disposable electronics, I'll be the first to boycott.
Heh, I got a kick out of her reasons why this throw away idea will work:
"An engineer's mentality is to make
something last, to make it durable. A toy's life span is about an hour, then the kid throws it away. You get it, you play with it and -- boom -- it's gone."
Why if kids do it, it must be the smart thing to do. Or she's admitting her target market is really dumb adults.
"It's the ultimate in-your-face advertising," Ms. Altschul said.
That just says it all doesn't it?
Here's to the hope that the military drafts a few thousand script kiddies, realize their IRC skills are useless and makes them pick up a gun. Good luck in the front, kids!
Waiting for this breaking story...
We now have a credible source to reveal the identity of the badly-moderated, yet vocal, Slashdot user 'Anonymous Coward.'
"Remember what they told us in last week's meeting, Slashdot mention = Slashdot effect = banner revenues!"
I haven't seen one worthwhile point Katz has made that wasn't made 100,000 times by comments posted by /. readers. His work is overly sensational and mainly keeps /. Jr's posting either "You suck," or "Society sucks." What he does do well is bring in banner revenue.
Considering ihs history of litigation threats I'm sure this entire interview will either be him defending his actions or a fluff piece to avoid getting sued. Either way it ain't gonna be much of a read.
Marking that post as a troll is really BS. Not approving of a /. stamped 'cool guy' is called the opposing opinion not a troll. Hopefully a cluefull moderator will fix this mistake.
Meta-moderators should be forced to read some guidelines before allowed access.
This is the same guy that when asked about how lengthy his Hours download was he replied something like, "But it only takes a few minutes at my house." Bowie's perspective is always going to be a rich man looking in regardless of how hard he tries to get in touch with the common bloke.
Now Bowie has reinvented himself as something like a modern philospher. Heh, its kinda cute, he talks about the inevitable tide of change while making pro-god and pro-religious appeals in the same breath.
The only really interesting and thought provoking part of his career was his SF themed songs from the last 60's. Which were quickly replace with his free sex/dj culture songs of the 70's, which of course were replaced by his yuppie culure songs of the 80's, *deep breath* which were replace by his techo stuff of late. Now he's going back and talking about his SF stuff in a Townshendesque 'I was geek before geek was hip.' Who would have thought the internet would bring dinosaurs back to life...
The entire Bowie mystique was partially SF based and partially occult based. For a little while in the 60's, psychedelic rock and SF had a fling going which a lot of musicians participated in. So I don't buy this 'I was the first guy to see the Mothership' mentality. Everyone was doing it, SF was ALL Jimi Hendrix read.
Now that he's older and his PR is wiser I'm sure he'll continue to pull an Al Gore, while showing us that, yes, he's a good vocalist/writer but a flake and opportunist.
But to me he'll always be the only walking corporation in the world!
"With my new TV I can see the twinkle in Matthew Perry's eye!"
"The sign on the wall says 'Danger 100Kv.'"
Thanksgiving tip : 1kV for every pound of Turkey.
There are only 2 real reasons why you'd use Netscape on a mac or win platform.
1. I'm so anti-MS I'd rather use an abacus!
2. Security.
Not that Netscape is bulletproof, but look at IE's trackrecord in the past few months. Something like a dozen exploits, most of which do a lot more than just crash your system. So I patiently wait for 5.0 because I don't need the headache of some exploit trashing my system and I don't want to support a company so lax on security.
Heh, I got a kick out of the guy who lists one of IE's strong points as frequent security patches. If these are the 'experts' I'm glad I disagree.
Some of these innovations may just be my win98 system, as the longer you use windows the more personal and quirky it becomes. Hey lets make that innovation number 1.
2. Auto-rebooter. My win98 system needs to be rebooted at least once a day. If I don't, it does it for me! And always when I'm using it, so I know its done its duty.
3. Application freshness. Windows knows that after you've installed a program on your drive that it'll go stale after a while, like bread. So it makes sure applications won't run after a few months and it needs a re-install. Keepin' it fresh!
4. The talking paperclip. Need I say more?
5. Those new windows keys. Why should we let years and years of typing habit go unchanged? Now those expecting CRTL to be next to ALT can enjoy this innovation.
6. Lack of documentation. Everyone knows only nerds read manuals.
7. ActiveX controls. I'm just too busy to download something and double-click to install it.
Thanks for the innovations, Bill. Keep up the good work.
If we're lucky some guy in a Panda suit will follow around the fed's new anti-hacking mascot around to all the gradeschools.
If we're really lucky he'll pick a fight with the anti-hack gerbil as he tries get converts for the CIA kids program. "No kids, snitching is bad, take that you filthy gerbil!"
MS's popularity isn't some manifest destiny. Its market stronghold has a lot to do with the ignorace of end-users and its legal + illegal market practices. Both of which are responsible for each other.
Most windows users agree, "OS? Huh? Computers run on Windows."
Illegal? Yes, but what isn't nowadays?
This pretty much says it all, if you disagree with the laws concerning monopolistic practices than you disagree with the facts and verdicts of the case. Making you the biased one.
I tried the vote at 12:20am CST but the link was dead and found this new vote at www.cnn.com
Microsoft's dominance of the PC operating system
industry is due to:
Its monopolistic
business
practices.
The superiority
of its products.
The
combination of
strong
products and
strong-arm
tactics.
I love the compromise #3 is. It both criticizes MS and compliments it, while ignoring that most if not all of MS's 'strong-arm' tactics are strong-arm monopolistic tactics. CNN spreads out the anti-ms votes into 2 categories.
Us monopolies got to stick together, Ted.
Leapfrom makes IR to RF attachment that sends the signal to an RF to IR box pointing at your stereo or tv so you can turn down KC and the Sunshine band while in the shitter.
What you need is a PalmPilot + the Omniremote software. They even sell a hardware add on if you don't have IR.
Goto http://www.pacificneotek.com/
BTW, this is the gear the guys at the HackFurby project use - http://www.homestead.com/hackfurby/
And when you perfect your IR floodlamp remote please don't distrub my daily viewings of Manimal and Joni Loves Chachi.