In retrospect, the video store trip with friends, family or dates is a sort-of fond memory -- or at least quaint and nostalgic one. Even the stupid late fees kind of mellow out with time. Arguing over titles, or even entire genres. Finding 90% of the French movies alphabetized under "L". The habitrail entrance/exit. The "inventory control" arch -- I loved taking the video off the "checked out" side of the counter and dramatically swinging it back through the detector to set off the alarm. The separate card for each location. "How many do I need to get a free wallet for these?" I'd ask. Waiting in the car while your lollygagging friend got his Hot Tamales or Milk Duds. Finding out the previous customer was not kind, and did not rewind. Arguing over whose house to watch at. Good times.
Until everyone figures out that due to maintenance cutbacks your gun has rusted tight due to years of neglect and decay, and that you no longer possess the skills to competently load the gun, having replaced the loading procedure with an MBA designed "just in time" ammo delivery system designed to minimise the total number of idle bullets in stock, and in any case you no longer possess bullets due to even more cutbacks and the recent outsourcing of the last factory in your country that actually makes them.
But don't worry, you still have enough credibility left to bluff.... oh, wait.
If the US's gun gets too rusty, and multinational corporations need to use another country's gun to force the people of the world into submission, it would be inconvenient, but not disastrous for them. They really aren't subject to weakness like "patriotism" or "community" or anything like that that us humans are.
Everything you said is true, but that's beside the point! Slashdot is for NEWS, and nothing about this article is new!
I was gonna reply that Slashdot is "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." and point out that this topic still "matters." But the joke's on me, since now I look around the site and realize that slogan is no more.
This may be surprising to you, samzenpus, but there is an entire field of study called "human-computer interaction", and it has been around for about as long as computers have.
And one of the most valuable methods for gathering data has ALWAYS BEEN the observation of users.
Now you and I are aware and always do a good job usability of course, but crappy design is still with us far too often, no matter how many times stories like this appear. And there are plenty of designers and programmers and engineers who still blame "stupid users" for not being able to use their systems. And plenty of those chime in every time this sort of article appears here.
At least the software world can take some comfort that everyone else sucks at this too. Ever seen a door with a labels on it that say "Push" and "Pull"? We can't even reliably design doors that can be operated without a user manual*. Door designers (and everybody else) can watch people push on a pull handle and vice-versa, and still insist that their design is too beautiful, elegant, symmetrical, etc. and that users should simply adapt. Unless designers of doors, software and everything else watch users use stuff and then do something with that data -- other than concluding that users suck -- nothing gets better.
*Yes, yes, I know about building codes and doors leading in and out of buildings, thanks Slashdot pedants, know-it-alls, and pedantic know-it-alls.
I read that first as "kidneys" and I'm thinking, "ya, they'd probably see some repercussions from that."
As for the actual, much less serious issue, I don't know about the bookstores' reservations. The people you're luring into the store are obviously interested in touching a Kindle before buying it and/or want it right now instead of tomorrow or next week on their doorstep. I'd think this overlaps with the population who'd see a physical book they wanted and also decide to buy it right now instead of ordering it online. They're probably also people who would buy certain books in e-reader format but not others.
Besides, if a corner bookstore sells a Kindle or not, customers will get them if they want 'em. This way, they got them in the door. Retailers of all types complain of customers "showrooming." Is it as bad as they say? I've bought something in a bricks and mortar store I thought I was just going to look at -- "it's an extra five bucks here, but I feel impulsive now!"
I know that's going to be the popular meme in this discussion, but they aren't. They are asking that their trademarked name be removed from the url and that their trademarked logo be removed from the site. That's entirely reasonable defense of their trademark (*) and in no way prevents the author from still posting the _content_ of the site.
* Trademark law, unlike copyright, must be defended or you weaken your trademark to the point of losing it. Look at Kleenex and Xerox for examples. If you become aware of infringement of your trademark and allow it to persist, you weaken your ability to defend it in the future. Thus, if they don't defend the trademark infringement that is happening, they risk losing it. Pure and simple.
I don't think they're taking this action because they're concerned that their brand is being diluted or co-opted or made generic. "FixUbuntu" is specifically about fixing problems Lee perceives Ubuntu to have. He's not using the name Ubuntu to mean Linux in general, or all open source operating systems, or operating systems in general. Canonical is acting like United Airlines in their battle vs. untied.com, that is to say, using trademark protection as an excuse to squelch criticism. And they're getting similar results.
Google Hangouts. At least for video conferencing. For voice any decent SIP client will do.
Please, correct me if I'm wrong -- because I would like to be wrong, actually -- but you do need google+ to do google hangout(s) , right? I used to use google talk, but it seemed that google+ became mandatory a few months ago and I wasn't interested.
REAL Tempest fits entirely memory locations 0x9000-FFFF, its lines are ONE pixel wide (but it's a BIG one!) and it does not have whiny buzzy switching power supply. It has a large throbbing step-down transformer and a whopping thirty-two thousand microfarad capacitor in the power supply. It has a flyback transformer feeding a CRT that bristles with actual electricity terror death.
As I remember "Real Tempest" it was a vector-graphic display. And it had a real spinny knob. I sure liked the spinny knob better than the thumbpad thing on the Jaguar that I tolerated solely for Tempest 2k. The Jag did have great graphics and sound -- at least for its time. Mine's long since been sold off, so hard to say exactly how it would look and sound compared with current hardware, which I also don't have . ..
They tend to get upity about people they don't know about touching cash registers too. Though, maybe you could go unnoticed, they also seldom tell you up front "we keep our security footage for 10 days" so its not like you can be sure that you were not recorded doing it.
Despite these measures, somebody managed to tamper with POS terminals in dozens of Michaels stores across the US in 2011 (and ALDI markets the year before) and get away with it. In this case they were skimming PINs. The Secret Service investigated, and two guys were caught a year later. But the guys convicted were ATM cash withdrawers hired for the job, not the masterminds or the POS tamperers.
... and not been near one in years, how would you know it smells of cat's piss if you don't know what cat's piss smells of?
You don't need to like cats or have one to know what cat pee smells like, since they seem recognize people like that when looking for a garden to pee in -- and worse.
But even being lucky enough to have no idea, you'd still have said "My God, this thing smells horrible? What is that awful smell?"
. . . Che Guevara to the London Daily Worker, November 1962
If you're argument is that "The New York Times is a Left-Wing Mouthpiece because they don't "go after" Obama to your satisfaction and Liberals are bad because Socialism is bad because Che," then it's no wonder that people think you're off your rocker.
Hence a major reason not to federalize a lot of power.
In this particular case, it was the states themselves that "federalized" the power -- only 14 of the 50* decided to set up their own exchanges, the rest decided it best to leave it to the feds for one reason or another. And some of themare doing a better job than the federal program.
*This number varies by source, I think because some states are setting up their own systems but not yet.
How about the cyclists weaving and cutting through the traffic, making cars emergency stop because they decide its ok to cut around the front of you as they
can go faster than the heavy traffic by doing it?
And the one I really love, the cyclists who blaze straight through red lights and pedestrians crossing because they are somehow more holy that all other road
users? I have seen at least one nasty accident between cyclists and crossing pedestrian..
When you hit a deer because you couldn't see where you were going except for maybe the nearest cars around you, blaming some cyclist somewhere for riding improperly won't fix your car.
Perhaps you're driving too fast for conditions if you've "almost killed a few". Speed limits are *maximums", driving below the speed limit when conditions warrant it is always legal. Another option would be to pull off the road and wait until conditions improve to the point where you can see safely - a good rule of thumb is that if you can't see a human shaped object on the road, then you can't see well enough to drive.
I'm driving at a speed that is safe for the automobile traffic around me....most of us are. We aren't expecting to have to slow quickly or stop for a slow moving, non-motorized vehicle suddenly appearing in the middle of the road.
If you're not prepared for this, you're not prepared to be on the road. Slow down or wait till conditions improve. That "slow moving vehicle" that suddenly appears on the road may in fact be the box that fell of a truck -- maybe it's empty, wanna find out? Sometimes, due to mechanical failure or other cause, other motor vehicles suddenly slow down or stop altogether -- little warning precedes a wheel falling off or tire blowing out. Delivery vehicles and buses stop intentionally as part of their designed purpose. Could be a dog or deer running across the road? Those antlers can come through your windshield if you're having an unlucky day -- quite a brush with mortality to be pinned by the neck to your headrest by a 6-pointer. Sometimes people stumble on sidewalks -- running over someone's kid walking to school is frowned upon by judges and juries alike. Also traffic signals. Those suckers are quite stationary and are subject to change. When they do, slow-moving vehicles appear from the sides of the road in front of you, could be a Prius, could be a bike -- either way, you'll be barreling through that red light that disappeared in the sun while it was still green. Can't happen to you? That's what the guy in the Buick thought that hit me.
In short, if you're not prepared for anything but similarly-sized vehicles around moving you at similar speeds, you're not ready to be out on the road. Relying on the world around you to appear as you expect it is a recipe for becoming -- and causing -- a statistic.
Avoiding accidents, even those that would not be considered your fault, will save you lots of time, trouble and money. That refrigerator in the sibling post? Guy didn't properly secure his load -- his fault to be sure. But you hit that thing and best case scenario is you're only out the use of your car a few weeks, you're only a couple hours late to work -- perhaps you can trouble a friend to pick you up at a moment's notice. Happily the weather's nice, so standing around waiting for a tow truck and to make a police report isn't uncomfortable. You suffer minor injuries or escape unscathed. You play phone tag with insurance companies to get a rental (a shitty little Fiesta or something) while you're car is repaired and then later to cover the costs of complete paint job, since the repaired part doesn't quite match the unscathed portion due to the older paint being weathered by a year or two. Your once-new, beautiful car, while fixed, will never be quite the same -- stupid thing won't stay aligned for more than a couple months at a time or some such. All this stuff won't be fully fixed by an eventual restitution. Those magic words: "it wasn't my fault," while they may fix it when a friend spills your milk in elementary school, aren't quite the cure-all in adulthood. But this understanding really only comes with age and experience -- and some people don't live that long.
Slashdot Mirror
In retrospect, the video store trip with friends, family or dates is a sort-of fond memory -- or at least quaint and nostalgic one. Even the stupid late fees kind of mellow out with time. Arguing over titles, or even entire genres. Finding 90% of the French movies alphabetized under "L". The habitrail entrance/exit. The "inventory control" arch -- I loved taking the video off the "checked out" side of the counter and dramatically swinging it back through the detector to set off the alarm. The separate card for each location. "How many do I need to get a free wallet for these?" I'd ask. Waiting in the car while your lollygagging friend got his Hot Tamales or Milk Duds. Finding out the previous customer was not kind, and did not rewind. Arguing over whose house to watch at. Good times.
Until everyone figures out that due to maintenance cutbacks your gun has rusted tight due to years of neglect and decay, and that you no longer possess the skills to competently load the gun, having replaced the loading procedure with an MBA designed "just in time" ammo delivery system designed to minimise the total number of idle bullets in stock, and in any case you no longer possess bullets due to even more cutbacks and the recent outsourcing of the last factory in your country that actually makes them.
But don't worry, you still have enough credibility left to bluff .... oh, wait.
If the US's gun gets too rusty, and multinational corporations need to use another country's gun to force the people of the world into submission, it would be inconvenient, but not disastrous for them. They really aren't subject to weakness like "patriotism" or "community" or anything like that that us humans are.
What.
I'm pretty sure this is all hypothetical. Or at least the "guests" part.
Everything you said is true, but that's beside the point! Slashdot is for NEWS, and nothing about this article is new!
I was gonna reply that Slashdot is "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." and point out that this topic still "matters." But the joke's on me, since now I look around the site and realize that slogan is no more.
This may be surprising to you, samzenpus, but there is an entire field of study called "human-computer interaction", and it has been around for about as long as computers have. And one of the most valuable methods for gathering data has ALWAYS BEEN the observation of users.
Now you and I are aware and always do a good job usability of course, but crappy design is still with us far too often, no matter how many times stories like this appear. And there are plenty of designers and programmers and engineers who still blame "stupid users" for not being able to use their systems. And plenty of those chime in every time this sort of article appears here.
At least the software world can take some comfort that everyone else sucks at this too. Ever seen a door with a labels on it that say "Push" and "Pull"? We can't even reliably design doors that can be operated without a user manual*. Door designers (and everybody else) can watch people push on a pull handle and vice-versa, and still insist that their design is too beautiful, elegant, symmetrical, etc. and that users should simply adapt. Unless designers of doors, software and everything else watch users use stuff and then do something with that data -- other than concluding that users suck -- nothing gets better.
*Yes, yes, I know about building codes and doors leading in and out of buildings, thanks Slashdot pedants, know-it-alls, and pedantic know-it-alls.
Youtube is now impossible to use... The comments sections have been rendered useless - or about as useless as a wet blanket.
Were they ever useful? Youtube comments make slashdot ACs look like perfect gentlemen, upright and true.
.
I read that first as "kidneys" and I'm thinking, "ya, they'd probably see some repercussions from that."
As for the actual, much less serious issue, I don't know about the bookstores' reservations. The people you're luring into the store are obviously interested in touching a Kindle before buying it and/or want it right now instead of tomorrow or next week on their doorstep. I'd think this overlaps with the population who'd see a physical book they wanted and also decide to buy it right now instead of ordering it online. They're probably also people who would buy certain books in e-reader format but not others.
Besides, if a corner bookstore sells a Kindle or not, customers will get them if they want 'em. This way, they got them in the door. Retailers of all types complain of customers "showrooming." Is it as bad as they say? I've bought something in a bricks and mortar store I thought I was just going to look at -- "it's an extra five bucks here, but I feel impulsive now!"
But they aren't silencing critics.
I know that's going to be the popular meme in this discussion, but they aren't. They are asking that their trademarked name be removed from the url and that their trademarked logo be removed from the site. That's entirely reasonable defense of their trademark (*) and in no way prevents the author from still posting the _content_ of the site.
* Trademark law, unlike copyright, must be defended or you weaken your trademark to the point of losing it. Look at Kleenex and Xerox for examples. If you become aware of infringement of your trademark and allow it to persist, you weaken your ability to defend it in the future. Thus, if they don't defend the trademark infringement that is happening, they risk losing it. Pure and simple.
I don't think they're taking this action because they're concerned that their brand is being diluted or co-opted or made generic. "FixUbuntu" is specifically about fixing problems Lee perceives Ubuntu to have. He's not using the name Ubuntu to mean Linux in general, or all open source operating systems, or operating systems in general. Canonical is acting like United Airlines in their battle vs. untied.com, that is to say, using trademark protection as an excuse to squelch criticism. And they're getting similar results.
You failed to understand the basic premise of the story. Read it again. Well, have someone read it to you and explain the big words to you.
It's gonna be awesome when our grandkids have flamewars over the deeper meanings of the Twilight series in a few decades.
It's better! He Rule 34'd the Godwin of the Streisand effect! (or something like that).
You win the internet.
He's still got to fill out form 27b/6 to claim his prize . . .
Why is this rated funny? Insightful would be more like it.
It can be both.
Google Hangouts. At least for video conferencing. For voice any decent SIP client will do.
Please, correct me if I'm wrong -- because I would like to be wrong, actually -- but you do need google+ to do google hangout(s) , right? I used to use google talk, but it seemed that google+ became mandatory a few months ago and I wasn't interested.
Rats, AZ is mountain.
Except when it's not. . . . Or am I jumping the gun with this annual flamefest topic by a few days? Nevermind, forget I wrote that.
That's why you do more than glance before you make such a maneuver.
Uh huh. Just slow down, Flash, and everybody gets to live. Other drivers have got plenty to deal with already.
REAL Tempest fits entirely memory locations 0x9000-FFFF, its lines are ONE pixel wide (but it's a BIG one!) and it does not have whiny buzzy switching power supply. It has a large throbbing step-down transformer and a whopping thirty-two thousand microfarad capacitor in the power supply. It has a flyback transformer feeding a CRT that bristles with actual electricity terror death.
As I remember "Real Tempest" it was a vector-graphic display. And it had a real spinny knob. I sure liked the spinny knob better than the thumbpad thing on the Jaguar that I tolerated solely for Tempest 2k. The Jag did have great graphics and sound -- at least for its time. Mine's long since been sold off, so hard to say exactly how it would look and sound compared with current hardware, which I also don't have . . .
I'm confused, you mean information can actually be conveyed via air vibrations?
If you'd only listened in school, you'd know that . . .
(**) I mentioned this to my Dad recently, in a nostalgic way, and he complained about the amount of work it took to hollow out a turnip(!)
I've heard that Halloween has even made some inroads in France lately*. Imagine hollowing out a mimolette!
*My reliable source is: "some guy I talked to on vacation".
They tend to get upity about people they don't know about touching cash registers too. Though, maybe you could go unnoticed, they also seldom tell you up front "we keep our security footage for 10 days" so its not like you can be sure that you were not recorded doing it.
Despite these measures, somebody managed to tamper with POS terminals in dozens of Michaels stores across the US in 2011 (and ALDI markets the year before) and get away with it. In this case they were skimming PINs. The Secret Service investigated, and two guys were caught a year later. But the guys convicted were ATM cash withdrawers hired for the job, not the masterminds or the POS tamperers.
... and not been near one in years, how would you know it smells of cat's piss if you don't know what cat's piss smells of?
You don't need to like cats or have one to know what cat pee smells like, since they seem recognize people like that when looking for a garden to pee in -- and worse.
But even being lucky enough to have no idea, you'd still have said "My God, this thing smells horrible? What is that awful smell?"
. . . Che Guevara to the London Daily Worker, November 1962
If you're argument is that "The New York Times is a Left-Wing Mouthpiece because they don't "go after" Obama to your satisfaction and Liberals are bad because Socialism is bad because Che," then it's no wonder that people think you're off your rocker.
What could have happened in the past to make socialism a dirty word? Start with the events of 20th century.
A concerted campaign by their opponents to demonize them?
Hence a major reason not to federalize a lot of power.
In this particular case, it was the states themselves that "federalized" the power -- only 14 of the 50* decided to set up their own exchanges, the rest decided it best to leave it to the feds for one reason or another. And some of them are doing a better job than the federal program.
*This number varies by source, I think because some states are setting up their own systems but not yet.
Just think about all the possibilities of the privatized execution!
Simpsons already did it.
How about the cyclists weaving and cutting through the traffic, making cars emergency stop because they decide its ok to cut around the front of you as they can go faster than the heavy traffic by doing it?
And the one I really love, the cyclists who blaze straight through red lights and pedestrians crossing because they are somehow more holy that all other road users? I have seen at least one nasty accident between cyclists and crossing pedestrian..
When you hit a deer because you couldn't see where you were going except for maybe the nearest cars around you, blaming some cyclist somewhere for riding improperly won't fix your car.
I'm driving at a speed that is safe for the automobile traffic around me....most of us are. We aren't expecting to have to slow quickly or stop for a slow moving, non-motorized vehicle suddenly appearing in the middle of the road.
If you're not prepared for this, you're not prepared to be on the road. Slow down or wait till conditions improve. That "slow moving vehicle" that suddenly appears on the road may in fact be the box that fell of a truck -- maybe it's empty, wanna find out? Sometimes, due to mechanical failure or other cause, other motor vehicles suddenly slow down or stop altogether -- little warning precedes a wheel falling off or tire blowing out. Delivery vehicles and buses stop intentionally as part of their designed purpose. Could be a dog or deer running across the road? Those antlers can come through your windshield if you're having an unlucky day -- quite a brush with mortality to be pinned by the neck to your headrest by a 6-pointer. Sometimes people stumble on sidewalks -- running over someone's kid walking to school is frowned upon by judges and juries alike. Also traffic signals. Those suckers are quite stationary and are subject to change. When they do, slow-moving vehicles appear from the sides of the road in front of you, could be a Prius, could be a bike -- either way, you'll be barreling through that red light that disappeared in the sun while it was still green. Can't happen to you? That's what the guy in the Buick thought that hit me.
In short, if you're not prepared for anything but similarly-sized vehicles around moving you at similar speeds, you're not ready to be out on the road. Relying on the world around you to appear as you expect it is a recipe for becoming -- and causing -- a statistic.
Avoiding accidents, even those that would not be considered your fault, will save you lots of time, trouble and money. That refrigerator in the sibling post? Guy didn't properly secure his load -- his fault to be sure. But you hit that thing and best case scenario is you're only out the use of your car a few weeks, you're only a couple hours late to work -- perhaps you can trouble a friend to pick you up at a moment's notice. Happily the weather's nice, so standing around waiting for a tow truck and to make a police report isn't uncomfortable. You suffer minor injuries or escape unscathed. You play phone tag with insurance companies to get a rental (a shitty little Fiesta or something) while you're car is repaired and then later to cover the costs of complete paint job, since the repaired part doesn't quite match the unscathed portion due to the older paint being weathered by a year or two. Your once-new, beautiful car, while fixed, will never be quite the same -- stupid thing won't stay aligned for more than a couple months at a time or some such. All this stuff won't be fully fixed by an eventual restitution. Those magic words: "it wasn't my fault," while they may fix it when a friend spills your milk in elementary school, aren't quite the cure-all in adulthood. But this understanding really only comes with age and experience -- and some people don't live that long.