"hardly ever crashes (perhaps twice in 3 months), search is *way* improved, and it finally feels like first-rate software."
You've got some low standards. I don't use software that crashes. If I do, it's only because nothing else is available to do what I need to do, but I certainly wouldn't call it "first-rate software".
You hit the nail on the head. And, now that everybody has already raced to the bottom, there's no way to go back. Somebody, somewhere, will ALWAYS offer the content for free.
Where can I find somebody to build a functional custom shopping solution for around $1000? I don't think that $1000 will go very far towards something that's functional and reliable.
As an e-commerce business owner, and a former web developer, I just tried Magento based on a suggestion from my designer. It's not for regular people. There's no formal documentation (literally... none), and like with many OSS projects, "community" support is non-existent. Magento might be a neat project for a large team of professional developers working on e-commerce for a company with very deep pockets, but I don't think that a beginner of any kind should touch it.
I'd rather have less functionality, but more function.
Amazon isn't a saint, either. Keep in mind that I think that they only directly sell books and music. Everything else that they sell is a from an actual retailer, from whom Amazon has taken 15% (INCLUDING SHIPPING CHARGES), and given zero recognition. If you're an online retailer, Amazon is just as bad as Wal-Mart is to manufacturers. I had the opportunity to be one of the earlier Amazon sellers, but walked away from it when I realized that on many items, I would take a loss, while gaining zero brand recognition.
I don't know. Mesa day startin pretty okee-day with a brisky morning munchy, then BOOM! Gettin very scared and grabbin that Jedi and POW! Mesa here! Mesa gettin' very very scared!
"You can also elaborate on exactly how trying to make health care/insurance a government mandated "right" doesn't effectively enslave those who provide such services?"
No, YOU need to explain how affordable health care for everybody has anything to do with "enslaving" people.
Or, if you'd like, you can start by explaining why you are NOT a child molester.
Turn off Fox News and learn how to think.
I have to say that the best AI for this kind of thing was Yahoo's Launchcast service (recently sold to, and dismantled by CBS). Almost every day, I discovered new music that I'd never even heard of, and the vast majority actually suited my tastes. Unfortunately, when CBS bought Launchcast from Yahoo, they took out the only valuable part of the service (the "create your own station" part that had the fantastic AI), and they left just plain old streaming radio stations.
I think it's too bad. Geocities really did make it easy to get a web page online, and is arguably, still one of the easiest ways for *anybody* to get information out there. The beauty of the early web was that there was a lot of weird information that was often maintained by a single person with a passion for, say, peanut butter flavored roller skates. I see the web becoming increasing homogenized today, with lots and lots of interlinking, and less interesting, weird unique content. Despite their annoying JS ads, I'll still miss Geocities.
I agree with you 100%. It won't work. Millions of people already pay for content AND watch ads every day. Cable TV. People are dumb. They'll continue to pay to watch ads.
Viewtouch is a piece of garbage. There is lots of crappy, crappy POS software for *nix, but none that is actually functional. Viewtouch isn't even a complete product. You are uninformed.
If this means a Google version of a crappy, bloated, needlessly complex music player, then good.
If this means a Google version of an overpriced digital music store that sells digital copies of songs that are only good enough to listen to on poor quality mp3 players, then good.
Why Apple decided to use the same name for both a software application and an e-commerce site is beyond me. Regardless, I'd love to see something better than both.
Blah blah blah Linux is the best blah blah blah. Broad statements like this press release are absolutely irrelevant to those of us for whom *nix isn't even an option. In my case, there's no low to mid range POS software that runs on *nix. *nix isn't even a consideration for me and my business. End of story.
Why would it be? I started my software career in porn, and it worked out well for me. What kind of employer cares what industry you've developed software for in the past?
You're right. I think that it would still make sense to not report it until you're sure that a 1099 is sent out (or you get a copy of a 1099).
I also agree with you about the rules. They're silly and outright bad. My point is that anybody with any experience with bureaucracies should know that if things are going well for you, the best thing you can do is to keep your head down and stay quiet. Common sense would say to not rock the boat. She rocked the boat by not once, but TWICE trying to report her nebulously-categorized earnings. Who wouldn't think that that would trigger some sort of audit?
You know, if you tea baggers want to whine about big government, why aren't any of you smart enough to start with the biggest expenditure and the biggest waste: the military?
It's her fault. Anybody with the tiniest bit of common sense realizes that trying to explain something like this to an un-fireable government bureaucrat is a losing battle. Why would she report the income? That's really just a dumb move on her part.
That reminds me... my car inspection has expired. Maybe I should call the DMV and tell them...
The University had announced last May it was partnering with Amazon.com, founded by Jeff Bezos â(TM)86, to provide students and faculty members with the e-readers as part of a sustainability initiative to conserve paper.
Why would anybody want to conserve paper? It's a very renewable resource. Tree/grass grows. Becomes paper. Paper rots as soon as book is no longer deemed useful.
If anything, we should be conserving plastic and chemicals. Those are NOT renewable. Mine limited fossil fuels. Make plastic. Plastic still exists hundreds of thousands of years after usefulness of the object has expired.
"Lemme let you in to a little MSFT secret here: what you witnessed was eyewash to make you feel better about your job."
Unless you have proof of this, I have to call this out as bullshit. Part of the reason that Microsoft is so successful is because of their extensive user testing.
At the end of the little marketing "quiz", it asks you if you want to "allow" or "deny" criminals to "steal your identity". Mine wasn't worth all that much, so I said "allow. The videos that follow are quite creative...
"relinquish physical control to a dedicated hardware monkey?"
Why wouldn't you want to do that? Why would a company want to pay an admin salary for somebody to swap out hard drives?
"Sometimes I would ask the student tour guide if Linux was supported and was usually met with a blank stare."
I doubt that it was a "blank" stare. The student tour guide, and everyone else in earshot, was probably wondering if you're a complete jerk, or just utterly clueless. Why would you ask some 18-19 year old kid giving tours stuff like that? Are you trying to prove something, or do you really, honestly believe that some random kid giving tours is going to know what "Linux" is?
I know that it's hard to believe, but it would seem that the human race is actually EVOLVING. Personally, I've always thought that humans were moving towards stupidity, ala Idiocracy, but I can't figure out what else would cause this... People seem to be able to better use their brains to keep their bodies healthy, which would actually be an evolutionary factor. Is it possible?
Slashdot Mirror
"hardly ever crashes (perhaps twice in 3 months), search is *way* improved, and it finally feels like first-rate software."
You've got some low standards. I don't use software that crashes. If I do, it's only because nothing else is available to do what I need to do, but I certainly wouldn't call it "first-rate software".
You hit the nail on the head. And, now that everybody has already raced to the bottom, there's no way to go back. Somebody, somewhere, will ALWAYS offer the content for free.
Where can I find somebody to build a functional custom shopping solution for around $1000? I don't think that $1000 will go very far towards something that's functional and reliable.
As an e-commerce business owner, and a former web developer, I just tried Magento based on a suggestion from my designer. It's not for regular people. There's no formal documentation (literally... none), and like with many OSS projects, "community" support is non-existent. Magento might be a neat project for a large team of professional developers working on e-commerce for a company with very deep pockets, but I don't think that a beginner of any kind should touch it. I'd rather have less functionality, but more function.
Amazon isn't a saint, either. Keep in mind that I think that they only directly sell books and music. Everything else that they sell is a from an actual retailer, from whom Amazon has taken 15% (INCLUDING SHIPPING CHARGES), and given zero recognition. If you're an online retailer, Amazon is just as bad as Wal-Mart is to manufacturers. I had the opportunity to be one of the earlier Amazon sellers, but walked away from it when I realized that on many items, I would take a loss, while gaining zero brand recognition.
I don't know. Mesa day startin pretty okee-day with a brisky morning munchy, then BOOM! Gettin very scared and grabbin that Jedi and POW! Mesa here! Mesa gettin' very very scared!
"You can also elaborate on exactly how trying to make health care/insurance a government mandated "right" doesn't effectively enslave those who provide such services?" No, YOU need to explain how affordable health care for everybody has anything to do with "enslaving" people. Or, if you'd like, you can start by explaining why you are NOT a child molester. Turn off Fox News and learn how to think.
I have to say that the best AI for this kind of thing was Yahoo's Launchcast service (recently sold to, and dismantled by CBS). Almost every day, I discovered new music that I'd never even heard of, and the vast majority actually suited my tastes. Unfortunately, when CBS bought Launchcast from Yahoo, they took out the only valuable part of the service (the "create your own station" part that had the fantastic AI), and they left just plain old streaming radio stations.
I think it's too bad. Geocities really did make it easy to get a web page online, and is arguably, still one of the easiest ways for *anybody* to get information out there. The beauty of the early web was that there was a lot of weird information that was often maintained by a single person with a passion for, say, peanut butter flavored roller skates. I see the web becoming increasing homogenized today, with lots and lots of interlinking, and less interesting, weird unique content. Despite their annoying JS ads, I'll still miss Geocities.
I agree with you 100%. It won't work. Millions of people already pay for content AND watch ads every day. Cable TV. People are dumb. They'll continue to pay to watch ads.
Viewtouch is a piece of garbage. There is lots of crappy, crappy POS software for *nix, but none that is actually functional. Viewtouch isn't even a complete product. You are uninformed.
If this means a Google version of a crappy, bloated, needlessly complex music player, then good.
If this means a Google version of an overpriced digital music store that sells digital copies of songs that are only good enough to listen to on poor quality mp3 players, then good.
Why Apple decided to use the same name for both a software application and an e-commerce site is beyond me. Regardless, I'd love to see something better than both.
Blah blah blah Linux is the best blah blah blah. Broad statements like this press release are absolutely irrelevant to those of us for whom *nix isn't even an option. In my case, there's no low to mid range POS software that runs on *nix. *nix isn't even a consideration for me and my business. End of story.
Why would it be? I started my software career in porn, and it worked out well for me. What kind of employer cares what industry you've developed software for in the past?
You're right. I think that it would still make sense to not report it until you're sure that a 1099 is sent out (or you get a copy of a 1099). I also agree with you about the rules. They're silly and outright bad. My point is that anybody with any experience with bureaucracies should know that if things are going well for you, the best thing you can do is to keep your head down and stay quiet. Common sense would say to not rock the boat. She rocked the boat by not once, but TWICE trying to report her nebulously-categorized earnings. Who wouldn't think that that would trigger some sort of audit?
oh wait...
You know, if you tea baggers want to whine about big government, why aren't any of you smart enough to start with the biggest expenditure and the biggest waste: the military?
There's a difference between being honest, and willfully supplying superfluous information to a system that is not equipped to handle it.
It's her fault. Anybody with the tiniest bit of common sense realizes that trying to explain something like this to an un-fireable government bureaucrat is a losing battle. Why would she report the income? That's really just a dumb move on her part. That reminds me... my car inspection has expired. Maybe I should call the DMV and tell them...
The University had announced last May it was partnering with Amazon.com, founded by Jeff Bezos â(TM)86, to provide students and faculty members with the e-readers as part of a sustainability initiative to conserve paper.
Why would anybody want to conserve paper? It's a very renewable resource. Tree/grass grows. Becomes paper. Paper rots as soon as book is no longer deemed useful.
If anything, we should be conserving plastic and chemicals. Those are NOT renewable. Mine limited fossil fuels. Make plastic. Plastic still exists hundreds of thousands of years after usefulness of the object has expired.
I'll take the real books, thanks!
"Lemme let you in to a little MSFT secret here: what you witnessed was eyewash to make you feel better about your job." Unless you have proof of this, I have to call this out as bullshit. Part of the reason that Microsoft is so successful is because of their extensive user testing.
At the end of the little marketing "quiz", it asks you if you want to "allow" or "deny" criminals to "steal your identity". Mine wasn't worth all that much, so I said "allow. The videos that follow are quite creative...
"relinquish physical control to a dedicated hardware monkey?" Why wouldn't you want to do that? Why would a company want to pay an admin salary for somebody to swap out hard drives?
"Sometimes I would ask the student tour guide if Linux was supported and was usually met with a blank stare." I doubt that it was a "blank" stare. The student tour guide, and everyone else in earshot, was probably wondering if you're a complete jerk, or just utterly clueless. Why would you ask some 18-19 year old kid giving tours stuff like that? Are you trying to prove something, or do you really, honestly believe that some random kid giving tours is going to know what "Linux" is?
I know that it's hard to believe, but it would seem that the human race is actually EVOLVING. Personally, I've always thought that humans were moving towards stupidity, ala Idiocracy, but I can't figure out what else would cause this... People seem to be able to better use their brains to keep their bodies healthy, which would actually be an evolutionary factor. Is it possible?