I'm suprised they haven't yet done something crazy like requiring you to prove your laptop battery isn't currently recalled given the random Dell balls of fire.
Didn't get down to the very details, but the summary sounds like any human social interaction in any given environment. If you consider your office a "network" the next time you give a co-worker you happen to like a gift be prepared to pay Microsoft some money on the side! They now would own how you interact!
My battery serial number was in the range for a recall according to the info, but when I entered it on the website it decided my computer was valid, but the battery serial number wasn't. After 50 minutes of being on hold (hurray for speakerphones) I found out there were some server issues and that they apparently were being worked out. Managed to get things taken care of over the phone while i was there already.
Guess I shouldn't complain... the battery was starting to not last as long and now it'll be back to full capacity in a few weeks (and hopefully less likely to burn my place down). Now only if I could get a charger I wouldn't have to worry about....
"What's lacking now is labelling to inform the consumer about the electricity consumption of a new TV,"
What? Size = x inches, power consumption = y watts on the label, or an equivalent current at voltage rating (P=VI). If you can't do simple math or look at more than the number of connectors on the back of the TV, then you probably don't care about how much power it consumes to begin with.
I'm thinking more of a movie like Gattaca, where the guy goes as far as glueing fake fingerprints of another person on his to pretend to be another person. Not sure how hard that really is, but I'm sure it can't be too out of the question, specially if some con artists wants to pull it off that badly. Of course you have to get a good copy of the originals to make the fakes to begin with.
Can I reply to my own comment? Anyways I'm suprised no one has tried some of the various kinds of car cleaners or waxes... really what you are doing is either trying to fill in the gaps as seamlessly as possible so the laser can read the data, or you are trying to polish them away by smoothing out the edges of the scratches or actually making the CD thinner to the depth of the scratches themselves. I'd think some auto polishes may do a good job of this if they don't make the plastic surface too reflective.
I have a friend that started working for the USPTO a few months ago. I showed that person the link and got a little bit of information about how things happen there:
Them: yeah well some people screw up examiners do it just as much as anyone else
Me: doesn't anyone double-check these things though?;)
Them: infact i think we do it less, but it's just more public well, we have a production goal and the yare trying to make "quality" but however when you're under the pressure of being fired if you don't get your count, you might mess up but then again, they might just be stupid:P
Me: so after someone researches it and decides it's ok to grant does someone else review that or after 1 pass it gets accepted?
Them: not if you're a primary examiner, then you sign your own cases
Me: that's scary
Them: yeah, as a primary sometimes you have to do a case a day which makes it rough
Me: how many do u have to do now?
Them: 3-4 every 2 weeks but i'm only doing 2-ish b/c i've only been examining for 2 months
Me: and if u don't get them done then your boss gets on your case?
Them: well, we are on a one year probationary period...if i don't make it with in a year then we might get fired
---- Sounds like a high-pressure job, especially the longer you've been there. There are probably some burn-out examiners that just let things slip through now and again (which is pretty evident by what's been coming out of there).
This is the same company that said the normal user doesn't need a 64-bit CPU either. Even if they don't, people are always looking for something with more [insert feature here]. If you can't make any improvements in another way, just put more of what you already have in the same box and increase the initial price and people will buy it whether they need it or not.
Fix it later? Aren't they running out of time before the July 4th launch? Wrap it in duct tape... that seems to work well for other insulated pipes installed at public institutions (at least from my observations).
I had a friend move from Ohio to California awhile ago. I forget which moving company he used, but it took over 2 weeks for his stuff to arrive. So make sure you have enough of your stuff to live on for a week or two just in case. Make sure if you use a moving company that they are bonded and insured (I don't know who wouldn't be these days). Also cost of living is probably one of the biggest issues. I will be moving from college to the "real world" soon and was stuck with choosing a 64k salary in Sacramento where I could maybe buy a double-wide in a trailer park for around $200k, or a 60k salary in Austin where I can get a 2000-3000sq ft home in a nice neighborhood for the same price.
Very popular audio podcasts can cause some issues for small ISPs also. I own one such ISP that hosts a website with a podcast that has become very popular. Being able to deliver that much content to so many people hasn't yet maxed out our bandwidth, but it definately is using a majority of the total that we see right now.
What happens to my data when my microwave turns on? Can you "erase" my CPU when the feds show up at the door? Yes there are lots of good uses for this new technology.
I spent one summer (during the.com bust) working as a credit card bill collector. I sat in a little cubicle and called people all day that had past-due accounts on their Victoria's Secret or whatever other clothing store credit cards the company handled. Well my computer was one of the few that still had Hearts on it, and after I got pretty good at memorizing the scripts we were supposed to go through and making the best use of the desktop space in Windows I managed to keep all my work up, continue doing my job at the same pace, and also play Hearts on the side. I'd play the most while on hold waiting for someone at a hospital or car dealership that was supposedly going to show up on the phone, and when I needed to do actual data entry I'd of course stop playing Hearts immedately and do my job. But it was mostly talking with nothing else to do. So one day my supervisor came by and saw what I was doing and I was just about fired, but luckily I guess I was also bringing in the biggest dollar amounts for them too so I was just told to not play games any more. So I went on to other tasks, like finding a bunch of security holes in their old Windows95 PC network which I told them about and they ignored. Then I sketched every object on my desk, and finally started bringing in magazines to read. I also got in trouble for those. I could read things, but only company-approved magazines or training manuals. So IEEE Spectrum didn't cut it. Anyways I was glad to be done with that job when it was time to start school again. I guess some jobs just arn't meant to be long term, and I don't know who would want to keep a job that strict anyways.
I claim prior art by previously creating a "mobile" network of wi-fi users. My buddies and I were on a road trip while one of us dialed up via a cellphone and shared the connection via wifi with everyone else in the car that had a laptop (minus the drive of course). While not documented anywhere, I'm sure there are quite a few claims out there of prior art to shoot it down.
I think it's Intels refusal to bring 64-bit CPUs into the consumer market. Intel has previously stated that a home user doesn't need 64-bit while AMD's marketing scheme is riding on the whole idea that the larger the number the better it must be (and in some cases it is). When it comes to most non-computer savvy purchasers that is what works. Even though Intel isn't going to disappear, they are going to continue to have good competition until they realize this.
Considering the keyboard I'm using I found in a box by a dumpster, I'm not really suprised. I have done spring cleaning on my keyboard before though, disassembling and wiping down the insides. Haven't tried using the dishwasher yet though even though rumor has it you can get away with it so long as it's completely dry in the end. I still see it taking at least a week or so to completely dry out though.
I still prefer my 6-speed manual, non-abs, vehicle (though I wouldn't mind ABS just because it doesn't interfere unless a dangerous event happens anyways). I think I'll always look over my shoulder before changing lanes and always hit the brake pedal myself, because you JUST NEVER KNOW what'll happen the one time you don't. Sure you can trust your life to some technology, but you only get one life in reality.
I also wonder if they test these things on vehicles covered with an inch of snow or a layer of ice or 2-3 years of dirt, because that happens pretty often in some areas.
What maybe buying the crappy CDRs, or leaving the good ones out in the sun for too long, but 5 years "MAX" definately isn't right.
I just keep buying more hard drives and setting them up in a RAID configuration. That way those family reunion photos are always up and ready to be viewed. Now that's inefficiency at its finest.
I remember reading an article about some company taking Celerons and selling them as Pentium 4s, so you may get something "cheaper." Plus when you buy something with a certain company brand on it then it breaks, you may tend to have a worse perception of that company and go for another brand instead next time. Of course people should use the rule of thumb that if it looks too good to be true it probably is. So long as you aren't being tricked into buying something that it really isn't, or a company name isn't being used that doesn't belong to the manufacturer I don't see any issue with generics though.
I've experienced scratching on my original XBox. The only game that's caused this was DDR Ultramix 2. You may think well you were jumping around and that caused the lens to bounce up into the disc, but after I noticed the problem on my first disc I exchanged it for another copy. I put this new disc in a second Xbox I had, started a song I knew was skipping on the other disc and just listened to the XBox instead of jumping around on the pads. This second disc caused the drive to do the same thing again. So I copied it to the hard drive of my modded Xbox just to prevent any more disc scratching (and listened to it scratch the outer edge as it copied it over. There must be some poor encoding on the outer edge of some discs that causes these drives to shove the lense right up onto the disc surface... you'd think they would test these sort of things... guess not when they're rushing a product to market.
He should throw some Google ads along the bottom or something and make some more money on the side.... and then there's always the possibility of someone copying the idea... like http://www.milliondollarwebpage.com/. Yet another bit of wasted bandwidth that somehow makes money....
Slashdot Mirror
I'm suprised they haven't yet done something crazy like requiring you to prove your laptop battery isn't currently recalled given the random Dell balls of fire.
Didn't get down to the very details, but the summary sounds like any human social interaction in any given environment. If you consider your office a "network" the next time you give a co-worker you happen to like a gift be prepared to pay Microsoft some money on the side! They now would own how you interact!
Has anyone tried patenting oxygen lately?
My battery serial number was in the range for a recall according to the info, but when I entered it on the website it decided my computer was valid, but the battery serial number wasn't. After 50 minutes of being on hold (hurray for speakerphones) I found out there were some server issues and that they apparently were being worked out. Managed to get things taken care of over the phone while i was there already.
Guess I shouldn't complain... the battery was starting to not last as long and now it'll be back to full capacity in a few weeks (and hopefully less likely to burn my place down). Now only if I could get a charger I wouldn't have to worry about....
"What's lacking now is labelling to inform the consumer about the electricity consumption of a new TV,"
What? Size = x inches, power consumption = y watts on the label, or an equivalent current at voltage rating (P=VI). If you can't do simple math or look at more than the number of connectors on the back of the TV, then you probably don't care about how much power it consumes to begin with.
I'm thinking more of a movie like Gattaca, where the guy goes as far as glueing fake fingerprints of another person on his to pretend to be another person. Not sure how hard that really is, but I'm sure it can't be too out of the question, specially if some con artists wants to pull it off that badly. Of course you have to get a good copy of the originals to make the fakes to begin with.
Can I reply to my own comment? Anyways I'm suprised no one has tried some of the various kinds of car cleaners or waxes... really what you are doing is either trying to fill in the gaps as seamlessly as possible so the laser can read the data, or you are trying to polish them away by smoothing out the edges of the scratches or actually making the CD thinner to the depth of the scratches themselves. I'd think some auto polishes may do a good job of this if they don't make the plastic surface too reflective.
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/14b7a5a68c2b653db 431beae72d1d8c7/index.html
I have a friend that started working for the USPTO a few months ago. I showed that person the link and got a little bit of information about how things happen there:
b lackboard_patents_the_lms
;)
:P
Me: http://mfeldstein.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/
your people are being dumb there
Them: yeah well some people screw up
examiners do it just as much as anyone else
Me: doesn't anyone double-check these things though?
Them: infact i think we do it less, but it's just more public
well, we have a production goal
and the yare trying to make "quality" but however when you're under the pressure of being fired if you don't get your count, you might mess up
but then again, they might just be stupid
Me: so after someone researches it and decides it's ok to grant does someone else review that or after 1 pass it gets accepted?
Them: not if you're a primary examiner, then you sign your own cases
Me: that's scary
Them: yeah, as a primary sometimes you have to do a case a day
which makes it rough
Me: how many do u have to do now?
Them: 3-4 every 2 weeks
but i'm only doing 2-ish
b/c i've only been examining for 2 months
Me: and if u don't get them done then your boss gets on your case?
Them: well, we are on a one year probationary period...if i don't make it with in a year then we might get fired
----
Sounds like a high-pressure job, especially the longer you've been there. There are probably some burn-out examiners that just let things slip through now and again (which is pretty evident by what's been coming out of there).
This is the same company that said the normal user doesn't need a 64-bit CPU either. Even if they don't, people are always looking for something with more [insert feature here]. If you can't make any improvements in another way, just put more of what you already have in the same box and increase the initial price and people will buy it whether they need it or not.
http://feh.osu.edu/Design-Project/Design-project.h tm
I've been a part of this since '98. It doesn't get as much publicity as it should though.
Fix it later? Aren't they running out of time before the July 4th launch? Wrap it in duct tape... that seems to work well for other insulated pipes installed at public institutions (at least from my observations).
I had a friend move from Ohio to California awhile ago. I forget which moving company he used, but it took over 2 weeks for his stuff to arrive. So make sure you have enough of your stuff to live on for a week or two just in case. Make sure if you use a moving company that they are bonded and insured (I don't know who wouldn't be these days).
Also cost of living is probably one of the biggest issues. I will be moving from college to the "real world" soon and was stuck with choosing a 64k salary in Sacramento where I could maybe buy a double-wide in a trailer park for around $200k, or a 60k salary in Austin where I can get a 2000-3000sq ft home in a nice neighborhood for the same price.
Get one implanted in your left hand or in your neck or back of your head or something. Just avoid the right hand or forehead. Disaster averted!
Very popular audio podcasts can cause some issues for small ISPs also. I own one such ISP that hosts a website with a podcast that has become very popular. Being able to deliver that much content to so many people hasn't yet maxed out our bandwidth, but it definately is using a majority of the total that we see right now.
What happens to my data when my microwave turns on? Can you "erase" my CPU when the feds show up at the door? Yes there are lots of good uses for this new technology.
I spent one summer (during the .com bust) working as a credit card bill collector. I sat in a little cubicle and called people all day that had past-due accounts on their Victoria's Secret or whatever other clothing store credit cards the company handled. Well my computer was one of the few that still had Hearts on it, and after I got pretty good at memorizing the scripts we were supposed to go through and making the best use of the desktop space in Windows I managed to keep all my work up, continue doing my job at the same pace, and also play Hearts on the side. I'd play the most while on hold waiting for someone at a hospital or car dealership that was supposedly going to show up on the phone, and when I needed to do actual data entry I'd of course stop playing Hearts immedately and do my job. But it was mostly talking with nothing else to do. So one day my supervisor came by and saw what I was doing and I was just about fired, but luckily I guess I was also bringing in the biggest dollar amounts for them too so I was just told to not play games any more. So I went on to other tasks, like finding a bunch of security holes in their old Windows95 PC network which I told them about and they ignored. Then I sketched every object on my desk, and finally started bringing in magazines to read. I also got in trouble for those. I could read things, but only company-approved magazines or training manuals. So IEEE Spectrum didn't cut it. Anyways I was glad to be done with that job when it was time to start school again. I guess some jobs just arn't meant to be long term, and I don't know who would want to keep a job that strict anyways.
I claim prior art by previously creating a "mobile" network of wi-fi users. My buddies and I were on a road trip while one of us dialed up via a cellphone and shared the connection via wifi with everyone else in the car that had a laptop (minus the drive of course). While not documented anywhere, I'm sure there are quite a few claims out there of prior art to shoot it down.
Just like the power outage caused people's deaths, someday in the future people are going to die because of an Internet outage....
I think it's Intels refusal to bring 64-bit CPUs into the consumer market. Intel has previously stated that a home user doesn't need 64-bit while AMD's marketing scheme is riding on the whole idea that the larger the number the better it must be (and in some cases it is). When it comes to most non-computer savvy purchasers that is what works. Even though Intel isn't going to disappear, they are going to continue to have good competition until they realize this.
Considering the keyboard I'm using I found in a box by a dumpster, I'm not really suprised. I have done spring cleaning on my keyboard before though, disassembling and wiping down the insides. Haven't tried using the dishwasher yet though even though rumor has it you can get away with it so long as it's completely dry in the end. I still see it taking at least a week or so to completely dry out though.
I still prefer my 6-speed manual, non-abs, vehicle (though I wouldn't mind ABS just because it doesn't interfere unless a dangerous event happens anyways). I think I'll always look over my shoulder before changing lanes and always hit the brake pedal myself, because you JUST NEVER KNOW what'll happen the one time you don't. Sure you can trust your life to some technology, but you only get one life in reality. I also wonder if they test these things on vehicles covered with an inch of snow or a layer of ice or 2-3 years of dirt, because that happens pretty often in some areas.
What maybe buying the crappy CDRs, or leaving the good ones out in the sun for too long, but 5 years "MAX" definately isn't right. I just keep buying more hard drives and setting them up in a RAID configuration. That way those family reunion photos are always up and ready to be viewed. Now that's inefficiency at its finest.
I remember reading an article about some company taking Celerons and selling them as Pentium 4s, so you may get something "cheaper." Plus when you buy something with a certain company brand on it then it breaks, you may tend to have a worse perception of that company and go for another brand instead next time. Of course people should use the rule of thumb that if it looks too good to be true it probably is.
So long as you aren't being tricked into buying something that it really isn't, or a company name isn't being used that doesn't belong to the manufacturer I don't see any issue with generics though.
I've experienced scratching on my original XBox. The only game that's caused this was DDR Ultramix 2. You may think well you were jumping around and that caused the lens to bounce up into the disc, but after I noticed the problem on my first disc I exchanged it for another copy. I put this new disc in a second Xbox I had, started a song I knew was skipping on the other disc and just listened to the XBox instead of jumping around on the pads. This second disc caused the drive to do the same thing again. So I copied it to the hard drive of my modded Xbox just to prevent any more disc scratching (and listened to it scratch the outer edge as it copied it over. There must be some poor encoding on the outer edge of some discs that causes these drives to shove the lense right up onto the disc surface... you'd think they would test these sort of things... guess not when they're rushing a product to market.
He should throw some Google ads along the bottom or something and make some more money on the side.... and then there's always the possibility of someone copying the idea... like http://www.milliondollarwebpage.com/. Yet another bit of wasted bandwidth that somehow makes money....