Hopefully, they will digitally edit out all of the phasers and replace them with communicators. That could show our youngsters today once and for all that violence isn't a solution to our problems. Maybe while they're at it, they could change Kahn into a gelatinous alien blob instead of a human actor. That would be much better, too.
Re:Publicly traded companies and their spam
on
Buy Low, Spam High
·
· Score: 1
This is a scam called "Pump and Dump" and it is not new by any means. Although email has given it a new twist and made it easier, it's been going on as long as people have been trading things. In the US, it is highly illegal, and prosecuted mercilessly by the SEC if they can catch the person doing it. It's one of the main reasons the SEC was created in the first place. Basically, if you purchase a stock for any other reason than "Gee, this looks like a solid company with a good product" then it is illegal.
OK, but this applies directly to me. This is not a hypothetical question, but an actual one. I have (seriously) just decided to wipe all of my hard drives clean of the (many) songs and movies I downloaded. Not particularly because I fear the RIAA or MPAA, but because I just don't enjoy it anymore. I own all of the music that I listen to and all of the DVD's I watch, and was just downloading stuff for the technical challenge. I was downloading as recently as about a month ago, but last week, I ran DBAN on all of the hard drives which contained the data.
So as a serious legal question out there to people who are in the know, what if the RIAA or MPAA logged my IP address last month and are in the process of subpenoing my ISP? That process can take over 6 months. Are they going to say "He erased his hard drives, so he must be guilty." They can't determine when I erased them, so are they going to claim that I destroyed evidence after I get the letter in 5 months? Can a guy really have a change of heart and do the right thing, only to get more severely punished than if he had kept up the offensive action?
I think you mean authors, artists, journalists, researchers, software developers etc...
No, I mean the vampiric corporate machine feeds on these people. When you hear that an artist or author gets 3%-10% of the sale price of an album or a book, I'm talking about the people that get the remaining money without having any talent themselves. Sure, it costs time and money to bring these things to market, but most of this is driven by greed.
A common dream amongst people who don't produce information for a living.
Funny, that's exactly what I do for a living. In fact, I have a degree in Music and I work for a software company, meaning I have experience in two very different industries that both produce information for a living. I'm not against people getting paid for what they do, but seriously, these greedy corporations are standing in the way of progress, not promoting it.
Are you actually saying that US telecommunications aren't regulated!?! Are you serious? The US Government (Both Federal and State) regulates THE HELL out of the telecom industry. This is arguably the primary reason that we are so far behind. In my neighborhood, I have only one local telco to choose from, only one cable company, only one broadband company. Sure, there's satellite, but if you've ever tried to use that for broadband, you'd know what a total joke it is. I pay $55/mo for a 3mb broadband connection to my house. What incentive do they have to increase that? None.
One of the developers for my company lives in a highly developed area of Indonesia. He pays roughly $90/mo for his 512k connection, plus he is limited to 3GB of transfer per month. Did I mention that his broadband is owned and regulated by the government? Sure, some countries got it right (Sweden, for example) but that doesn't justify a blanket statement that government regulation is better. It just happened to work in that country. There are differences between the US and Sweden other than our systems of government. Cultural, geographic, ethical and economic differences play a much more significant part in the success of their broadband. (In a country which, by the way, has ALWAYS been known for their excellent communications infrastructure.)
Now, I'm not going to be a dolt and suggest that laissez-faire is clearly superior. Unbridled capitalism would carry all kinds of problems as well, but to say that other countries are better as a result of tighter government regulation is just plain wrong. Now, if you argued that US capitalism creates a culture where everyone, especially large corporations, are looking to squeeze as much profit as they can out of as little investment as possible, then you'd be on to a whole different point. It's our values that are screwed up. Not one of the telcos really cares whether or not people have broadband. They just care whether or not they can make a profit.
and probably will pass on more experienced and stronger candidates.
You left out "more expensive." Yeah, sure, it's age discrimination, and it's illegal. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen all the time. They just have to be creative as to how they weed out the old guys.
You know, when the Internet was invented, people said it would be the end of libraries. There was the idea that you could take every book, magazine, journal, newspaper, etc. ever printed and put it online. And what a grand idea that would be. Then the intellectual property barons came out and put a quick end to that dream. It's sad, really, when you think of what the Internet could have been. A place where all information could be free, and information could transcend the barriers of distance, culture, politics, even language. Instead, everyone came to the party with their hand out, concerned with how they can get the biggest slice of the pie. If this mentality had existed 800 years ago, we'd still be in the dark ages. It would be nice if I could live to see the beginning of the next renaissence.
I've been in the IT industry for over 10 years in companies varying in size from 4 employees to 80,000. I have NEVER, NOT ONCE had a legitimate business reason to use anything using 3D accelleration, and anything more than basic audio is also unnecessary. Sure, it's a limitation that users may perceive as a slight from "the man" but this isn't a problem for 99% of all true "business users." Now, my home machine on the other hand...
Anyone with an HDTV would potentially want to use it. I've been using it for a couple years, and I can say that even though it's not HD, any game that has the "Progressive Scan" icon on it looks quite a bit better on my TV. Even for games where that weren't specifically developed to use progressive scan, (the majority of them weren't) the color is more accurate with digital out. Personally, I was pretty disappointed when they took the digital out off the the GC. Made me glad I was an early adopter and had one with the option.
As far as numbers go, depending on what you read, HDTV penetration is anywhere from 25% to 35%, with that number expected to reach 50% by the end of next year. It wasn't a very big market when GC was released, but I'd say that it's a worthwhile option now.
Re:Need a "good samaritan" exemption
on
Skin Sensing Table Saw
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It reminds me of the last time I went golfing. Most nerds will realize that metal golf clubs, open spaces and lightning is a really bad combination. Because of this, golf courses are required (at least in my state) to be outfitted with a blaring horn that is supposed to sound when anyone spots lightning. Well, last time I went golfing, we saw lightning off in the distance and ran for the clubhouse. We told them they should sound the horn because a big storm was coming and we saw lightning. His response floored me.
"If we sound the horn, we are legally responsible for making sure everyone gets off ths course. On the other hand, if we "don't see" the lightning and don't sound the horn, we aren't liable, because it's an unforseen act of God. Therefore, we never sound the horn."
So we live in a world where it is advantageous for the owners of a business to turn a blind eye to potentially fatal weather conditions because some idiot somewhere sued the golf course after the horn sounded and he stayed out anyways. There are probably hundreds of people across the country who have been seriously injured or killed by this easily preventable problem, and probably a half-dozen responsible for getting it enacted in the first place.
Wow.... One Slashdot nerd giving another Slashdot nerd advice about women. What's the world coming to? I'd better finish digging that bunker in my basement...
I am making this comment as a politically netural statement of fact.
LIBERAL != LEFT.
In our current state of politics in the United States, traditionally classified liberals tend to lean towards leftist ideas, but for some reason we seem to think the two are synonymous. They are not.
I think invisibility will eventually be achieved, but it will be something like in the movie Predator. The special effects used for his 'invisibility' was actually very accurate. It didn't really make him invisible, but bent the light around him to make him very hard to see. Doesn't violate the laws of physics, and would be highly effective in most situations. In reality, I don't even think it would be that difficult to implement. (relatively speaking.)
To some degree, I see your point, but I am evidence to the contrary. I got two degrees in College, Bachelor's in Music Education, and Bachelor's in Orchestral Performance. (I am a pretty decent Trombone player, and I love to teach.) That being said, I worked at a compter store through college fixing PC's and working in Customer Service. When I graduated, I decided that teaching in a school setting wasn't for me, and orchestral performance is way too cutthroat for my tastes. So I stuck with the computer store job while I decided what I was going to do "for real." Well, that job led to a job as an entry-level WAN technician at MCI/WorldCom. (before they tanked) I learn fast, and was quickly promoted. I was one of the best troubleshooters in the department. That job led to a job with a small start-up which grew to a decent sized company quickly. That's where I'm currently employed as the lead systems engineer. I design networks, am lead sysadmin for the company's internal network and the go-to guy when it comes to solving any type of difficult problem. Not because of analytical skills that I learned in college, but because that's just how my brain works. I don't (can't) write much more than a basic automation script, but in reality, I rarely find that I need to.
Bottom line: 8 years after graduating from college, I am a sysadmin, I am making good money, I am indespensible at my job, I love what I do and I can pretty much work when I want, how I want. I think that if you are good at what you do and enjoy it, you don't necessarily need to have a degree. Maybe I was lucky, and maybe I'm the exception to the rule, but hard work and love for the craft will take you a long way.
I'm not sure why this idea has so much traction, but I've read many articles that state the contrary. It's true that when a console launches, it usually loses money for the first few months, because the startup costs for the fabrication are high. However, as I've read, usually within 6 months or so when production is in full swing, they start making a small profit on the hardware. The longer the hardware is manufactured, the less expensive it is to produce, both because the initial startup costs are paid off, and because technology generall gets less expensive rather quickly. Granted, they may make a lot more money on the software, but I don't think they'll be losing their butts on hardware just to sell software, and I doubt that Microsoft is still losing money on the Xbox360 hardware.
Now, the I believe I read that the Xbox division is still losing money, but that's a management problem and not really a fab problem. Just because the division is losing money doesn't mean the hardware is selling at a loss.
I'm running Windows Mobile 5.0, and I get "Google Maps may not work on on your cell phone. If you'd still like to try, download Google Maps for a high end phone or a mainstream phone."(US/Canada)
If this thing's not going to work on Windows Mobile 5.0, I'm not sure for whom it's intended.
Small point of correction here... If the hypothetical parents in this example were to download "nigerian_bank_account_transfer_program.exe" and said program was a known trojan, its execution would be blocked by most anti-virus programs. It's not a 100% sure-fire way to protect dumb users from themselves but it can help.
The DS Lite advertises 18 hours of battery life on the lowest brightness setting, and I can personally attest to this fact. Due to the fact that I have a wife, I keep track of exactly how much time I spend playing games. (It helps with arguments about how much time I spend gaming. For those of you who are married, you probably understand where I am coming from... wait... this is Slashdot... never mind about the being married part.) Anyway, I have played my DS Lite for 36 hours since I purchased it about a month and a half ago. I have charged it exactly twice (once when it was new, and once since then) and it's going strong. The first charge actually lasted a little under 20 hours, and I'm still on the second.
I think this is just the music industry looking for revenue where they had previously written it off. Remember that they sued lyrics.ch (the original lyrics site) out of existance right before the MP3 phenomenon hit. Then when MP3's hit, people "stealing" lyrics (yeah, it even sounds funny...) looked like small potatoes compared to people "stealing" whole songs. Now that the've more or less accepted the fact that they're not going to be able to eliminate P2P completely, they're going after revenue wherever they can. I think it's going to be interesting to see them go after sites that are hosted in other (non Western friendly) countries. It'll be easy enough to take down the ones in the US, but I doubt they'll have much headway in Belize, Romania, Estonia, etc. They're having enough trouble with AllOfMP3.com, and that's in Russia. (I think)
Even better, we could breed people specifically to serve this purpose. We could have a whole class of people created in test tubes, deprived of meaningful human contact and trained just to look at thousands of images per minute, all day every day. With banks and banks of these people, we could create a human powered "supercomputer" capable of identifying any person on earth in mere seconds!
Note: This is currently a fictional scenario, but in one hundred years when this is actually going on, someone will stumble upon this post and realize how very forward-thinking I was...
I am a big fan of downloading content, but the truth is, it's a PITA. You often must start downloading from multiple trackers, because while some of the trackers work fine, others just sit there and never download. Sometimes you get a bad or corrupted file. Plus, I DO have an ethical belief that people should be compensated for their work. That being said, I avoid anything that uses DRM. It's a simple question of free and unencumbered vs. unfree and crippled. If studios started providing reasonably un-encumbered downloads that I could burn, store, let friends borrow, etc. I would be 100% likely to save the trouble and pay $10 - $15 for a download I KNOW is going to be good. My time is worth money, and if it takes more than 15 minutes to download, then I'm behind. However, right now, there is no legal alternative to my problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Hopefully, they will digitally edit out all of the phasers and replace them with communicators. That could show our youngsters today once and for all that violence isn't a solution to our problems. Maybe while they're at it, they could change Kahn into a gelatinous alien blob instead of a human actor. That would be much better, too.
This is a scam called "Pump and Dump" and it is not new by any means. Although email has given it a new twist and made it easier, it's been going on as long as people have been trading things. In the US, it is highly illegal, and prosecuted mercilessly by the SEC if they can catch the person doing it. It's one of the main reasons the SEC was created in the first place. Basically, if you purchase a stock for any other reason than "Gee, this looks like a solid company with a good product" then it is illegal.
OK, but this applies directly to me. This is not a hypothetical question, but an actual one. I have (seriously) just decided to wipe all of my hard drives clean of the (many) songs and movies I downloaded. Not particularly because I fear the RIAA or MPAA, but because I just don't enjoy it anymore. I own all of the music that I listen to and all of the DVD's I watch, and was just downloading stuff for the technical challenge. I was downloading as recently as about a month ago, but last week, I ran DBAN on all of the hard drives which contained the data.
So as a serious legal question out there to people who are in the know, what if the RIAA or MPAA logged my IP address last month and are in the process of subpenoing my ISP? That process can take over 6 months. Are they going to say "He erased his hard drives, so he must be guilty." They can't determine when I erased them, so are they going to claim that I destroyed evidence after I get the letter in 5 months? Can a guy really have a change of heart and do the right thing, only to get more severely punished than if he had kept up the offensive action?
Are you actually saying that US telecommunications aren't regulated!?! Are you serious? The US Government (Both Federal and State) regulates THE HELL out of the telecom industry. This is arguably the primary reason that we are so far behind. In my neighborhood, I have only one local telco to choose from, only one cable company, only one broadband company. Sure, there's satellite, but if you've ever tried to use that for broadband, you'd know what a total joke it is. I pay $55/mo for a 3mb broadband connection to my house. What incentive do they have to increase that? None.
One of the developers for my company lives in a highly developed area of Indonesia. He pays roughly $90/mo for his 512k connection, plus he is limited to 3GB of transfer per month. Did I mention that his broadband is owned and regulated by the government? Sure, some countries got it right (Sweden, for example) but that doesn't justify a blanket statement that government regulation is better. It just happened to work in that country. There are differences between the US and Sweden other than our systems of government. Cultural, geographic, ethical and economic differences play a much more significant part in the success of their broadband. (In a country which, by the way, has ALWAYS been known for their excellent communications infrastructure.)
Now, I'm not going to be a dolt and suggest that laissez-faire is clearly superior. Unbridled capitalism would carry all kinds of problems as well, but to say that other countries are better as a result of tighter government regulation is just plain wrong. Now, if you argued that US capitalism creates a culture where everyone, especially large corporations, are looking to squeeze as much profit as they can out of as little investment as possible, then you'd be on to a whole different point. It's our values that are screwed up. Not one of the telcos really cares whether or not people have broadband. They just care whether or not they can make a profit.
You know, when the Internet was invented, people said it would be the end of libraries. There was the idea that you could take every book, magazine, journal, newspaper, etc. ever printed and put it online. And what a grand idea that would be. Then the intellectual property barons came out and put a quick end to that dream. It's sad, really, when you think of what the Internet could have been. A place where all information could be free, and information could transcend the barriers of distance, culture, politics, even language. Instead, everyone came to the party with their hand out, concerned with how they can get the biggest slice of the pie. If this mentality had existed 800 years ago, we'd still be in the dark ages. It would be nice if I could live to see the beginning of the next renaissence.
I've been in the IT industry for over 10 years in companies varying in size from 4 employees to 80,000. I have NEVER, NOT ONCE had a legitimate business reason to use anything using 3D accelleration, and anything more than basic audio is also unnecessary. Sure, it's a limitation that users may perceive as a slight from "the man" but this isn't a problem for 99% of all true "business users." Now, my home machine on the other hand...
Anyone with an HDTV would potentially want to use it. I've been using it for a couple years, and I can say that even though it's not HD, any game that has the "Progressive Scan" icon on it looks quite a bit better on my TV. Even for games where that weren't specifically developed to use progressive scan, (the majority of them weren't) the color is more accurate with digital out. Personally, I was pretty disappointed when they took the digital out off the the GC. Made me glad I was an early adopter and had one with the option.
As far as numbers go, depending on what you read, HDTV penetration is anywhere from 25% to 35%, with that number expected to reach 50% by the end of next year. It wasn't a very big market when GC was released, but I'd say that it's a worthwhile option now.
It reminds me of the last time I went golfing. Most nerds will realize that metal golf clubs, open spaces and lightning is a really bad combination. Because of this, golf courses are required (at least in my state) to be outfitted with a blaring horn that is supposed to sound when anyone spots lightning. Well, last time I went golfing, we saw lightning off in the distance and ran for the clubhouse. We told them they should sound the horn because a big storm was coming and we saw lightning. His response floored me.
"If we sound the horn, we are legally responsible for making sure everyone gets off ths course. On the other hand, if we "don't see" the lightning and don't sound the horn, we aren't liable, because it's an unforseen act of God. Therefore, we never sound the horn."
So we live in a world where it is advantageous for the owners of a business to turn a blind eye to potentially fatal weather conditions because some idiot somewhere sued the golf course after the horn sounded and he stayed out anyways. There are probably hundreds of people across the country who have been seriously injured or killed by this easily preventable problem, and probably a half-dozen responsible for getting it enacted in the first place.
Wow.... One Slashdot nerd giving another Slashdot nerd advice about women. What's the world coming to? I'd better finish digging that bunker in my basement...
Sorry about this one guys and gals...
In Soviet Russia, patches apply YOU!
I am making this comment as a politically netural statement of fact.
LIBERAL != LEFT.
In our current state of politics in the United States, traditionally classified liberals tend to lean towards leftist ideas, but for some reason we seem to think the two are synonymous. They are not.
I think invisibility will eventually be achieved, but it will be something like in the movie Predator. The special effects used for his 'invisibility' was actually very accurate. It didn't really make him invisible, but bent the light around him to make him very hard to see. Doesn't violate the laws of physics, and would be highly effective in most situations. In reality, I don't even think it would be that difficult to implement. (relatively speaking.)
To some degree, I see your point, but I am evidence to the contrary. I got two degrees in College, Bachelor's in Music Education, and Bachelor's in Orchestral Performance. (I am a pretty decent Trombone player, and I love to teach.) That being said, I worked at a compter store through college fixing PC's and working in Customer Service. When I graduated, I decided that teaching in a school setting wasn't for me, and orchestral performance is way too cutthroat for my tastes. So I stuck with the computer store job while I decided what I was going to do "for real." Well, that job led to a job as an entry-level WAN technician at MCI/WorldCom. (before they tanked) I learn fast, and was quickly promoted. I was one of the best troubleshooters in the department. That job led to a job with a small start-up which grew to a decent sized company quickly. That's where I'm currently employed as the lead systems engineer. I design networks, am lead sysadmin for the company's internal network and the go-to guy when it comes to solving any type of difficult problem. Not because of analytical skills that I learned in college, but because that's just how my brain works. I don't (can't) write much more than a basic automation script, but in reality, I rarely find that I need to.
Bottom line: 8 years after graduating from college, I am a sysadmin, I am making good money, I am indespensible at my job, I love what I do and I can pretty much work when I want, how I want. I think that if you are good at what you do and enjoy it, you don't necessarily need to have a degree. Maybe I was lucky, and maybe I'm the exception to the rule, but hard work and love for the craft will take you a long way.
I'm not sure why this idea has so much traction, but I've read many articles that state the contrary. It's true that when a console launches, it usually loses money for the first few months, because the startup costs for the fabrication are high. However, as I've read, usually within 6 months or so when production is in full swing, they start making a small profit on the hardware. The longer the hardware is manufactured, the less expensive it is to produce, both because the initial startup costs are paid off, and because technology generall gets less expensive rather quickly. Granted, they may make a lot more money on the software, but I don't think they'll be losing their butts on hardware just to sell software, and I doubt that Microsoft is still losing money on the Xbox360 hardware.
Now, the I believe I read that the Xbox division is still losing money, but that's a management problem and not really a fab problem. Just because the division is losing money doesn't mean the hardware is selling at a loss.
I'm running Windows Mobile 5.0, and I get "Google Maps may not work on on your cell phone. If you'd still like to try, download Google Maps for a high end phone or a mainstream phone."(US/Canada)
If this thing's not going to work on Windows Mobile 5.0, I'm not sure for whom it's intended.
Small point of correction here... If the hypothetical parents in this example were to download "nigerian_bank_account_transfer_program.exe" and said program was a known trojan, its execution would be blocked by most anti-virus programs. It's not a 100% sure-fire way to protect dumb users from themselves but it can help.
The DS Lite advertises 18 hours of battery life on the lowest brightness setting, and I can personally attest to this fact. Due to the fact that I have a wife, I keep track of exactly how much time I spend playing games. (It helps with arguments about how much time I spend gaming. For those of you who are married, you probably understand where I am coming from... wait... this is Slashdot... never mind about the being married part.) Anyway, I have played my DS Lite for 36 hours since I purchased it about a month and a half ago. I have charged it exactly twice (once when it was new, and once since then) and it's going strong. The first charge actually lasted a little under 20 hours, and I'm still on the second.
Firefox + Adblock Plus + Filterset.G = No ads on this site at all. Plus you're right. There are about 26 words in the article.
It's just a bunch of pipes...
I think this is just the music industry looking for revenue where they had previously written it off. Remember that they sued lyrics.ch (the original lyrics site) out of existance right before the MP3 phenomenon hit. Then when MP3's hit, people "stealing" lyrics (yeah, it even sounds funny...) looked like small potatoes compared to people "stealing" whole songs. Now that the've more or less accepted the fact that they're not going to be able to eliminate P2P completely, they're going after revenue wherever they can. I think it's going to be interesting to see them go after sites that are hosted in other (non Western friendly) countries. It'll be easy enough to take down the ones in the US, but I doubt they'll have much headway in Belize, Romania, Estonia, etc. They're having enough trouble with AllOfMP3.com, and that's in Russia. (I think)
Even better, we could breed people specifically to serve this purpose. We could have a whole class of people created in test tubes, deprived of meaningful human contact and trained just to look at thousands of images per minute, all day every day. With banks and banks of these people, we could create a human powered "supercomputer" capable of identifying any person on earth in mere seconds!
Note: This is currently a fictional scenario, but in one hundred years when this is actually going on, someone will stumble upon this post and realize how very forward-thinking I was...
I am a big fan of downloading content, but the truth is, it's a PITA. You often must start downloading from multiple trackers, because while some of the trackers work fine, others just sit there and never download. Sometimes you get a bad or corrupted file. Plus, I DO have an ethical belief that people should be compensated for their work. That being said, I avoid anything that uses DRM. It's a simple question of free and unencumbered vs. unfree and crippled. If studios started providing reasonably un-encumbered downloads that I could burn, store, let friends borrow, etc. I would be 100% likely to save the trouble and pay $10 - $15 for a download I KNOW is going to be good. My time is worth money, and if it takes more than 15 minutes to download, then I'm behind. However, right now, there is no legal alternative to my problem.