Hell, I work in a research group in bio-chem modeling, and not to long ago I had a status that read "Everything I know about DNA I learned from Gattaca" - I do hope that any future employers arent facebook-reading idiots...
Yep, went there yesterday, they still had a few unopened usb cables for about $8 a piece after 80% discount. I also remember going there 3 months ago for a mini-jack cable, expecting to pay $3, maybe $5 and only found a $15 cable !
Grandparent might have assumed that a Film has to be from one of the big Hollywood productions or it does not qualify.
If you look at netflix online movies they have 'only' 12,000 titles available, yet quite a few people (including my wife) think the selection is limited which is true since they have about 100,000 titles on DVD, most of it are American titles, and while their foreign selection is ok they miss a *lot* of things. I pretty sure that many countries produce more than 160 movies each every year, heck Tokyo alone might produce that many 'features' every month (not stuff to show to your grandma though).
I watch a good amount of anime and foreign movies which are awful for me to watch online because they are dubbed or if they are not I don't always want the hardcoded subtitles (try to watch a movie with a different version of the dialog popping up before the actor speak).
I would not say I'm the typical user (US person but not citizen) but the better soundtracks and better choice of soundtrack is one of the main reasons I still keep my 3 disk subscription.
The library need to be improved of course, but they are doing a good job at adding stuff already and long term that mean less need for a huge inventory of physical disks. For example you can buy music on iTunes that you could not mail order if you wanted to.
Quality will improve with a faster Internet, it might get a boost thank to the new administration and it's something that is supposed to happen 'naturally' anyway. Just look at the speed available in Tokyo, we are way behind.
I've paid taxes in the US for the past 8 years yet I have no representation. Are you saying I should not be even allowed to donate to say Obama ? Please to not tell me to get citizenship, it will be at least 5 more years before I'm eligible and there will an other presidential election in the meantime.
Moon energy. I know there must be some way that we can harvest this great natural resource. Maybe attach a rope to it that pulls a gear or burn it or something.
Although not yet widely used, moon power has potential for future electricity generation. Moon is more predictable than wind energy and solar power. Historically, moon energy has been used, both in Europe and on the Atlantic coast of the USA. The earliest occurrences date from the Middle Ages, or even from Roman times.
The sad thing is that it is spelled correctly twice in the quote from the article. An other sad thing is that the misspelling has been on slashdot for over 8hs, and you posted about it within 2 minutes. You would assume that the kdawson would at least check the chatter of the articles a bit and correct the typos since he posted 3 more stories in the hours after this one.
Where do you get your DVDs ? I use netflix and I rarely get a DVD that is not 16:9 (or close to it), unless it's a made for TV show from many years ago.
I will agree with you that any decent upscaler will make a good non-HD picture look better, but if the source is an analog signal with some of the noise that goes with it, then yes it will look crappier than on an old 4:3 TV.
It looks like the 'features' you are missing can be solved by software. Now that Google has opened the door for truly customizable phones you could write an app that would ring really loudly until you acknowledge the page/sms/email based on filtering rules.
If you really want an actual pager, just try a popular search engine, you'll find plenty of stores that sell them.
Why is it modded funny ? It's pretty common to put rice in the table salt dispensers to absorb moisture before the salt does (at least in France, I have not seen that in California yet).
Now I would not put rice in electronics, it's a good solution for table salt because rice is edible, there's other better solutions for electronics.
I remember a video on the french news (maybe 15 years ago) about wine making: there was a guy *totally* naked (it's french TV it was not censored) jumping into the grapes to squeeze them. I don't know if the idea was to not get his underwear stained or if the 'all natural' method.
Needless to say I'm a beer drinker (belgian beers).
That's the main reason I don't want 'paper' books anymore. I don't want to waste the space to store them and I don't have to worry about returning anything to the library.
I have a Palm TX and the screen is actually pretty decent for an eBook. Whenever I have to wait a few minutes, like the dentist today, I have something to read with me. It was also a life saver while I was in Japan last month since I could upload maps in japanese and ask directions by showing the google maps on screen (very few people speak english in japan). I could have installed a Japanese dictionary as well... but I got lazy.
I can also play games like bejeweled or play mp3s. It has video capability but I never used that feature. It's an awesome time killer, and you can install ton of applications if you feel like it.
Don't get me wrong this device is outdated and way more expensive than it's worth ($300) but I got it for free and I love it.
It might get replaced by an Android phone when I'll feel like upgrading.
Most of M$ success comes from how they managed to screw everyone (partners and competitors alike) by abusing they monopoly position. Now that Europe is strong enough to not turn a blind eye (with non negligible punishment), even the US justice department is watching (without any real action though) it's much more difficult for them.
Everything that Ballmer is doing is pretty much what Bill Gates was doing. The only way his comeback will change anything is if he's able to lobby (corrupt) the world governments to go back to his old habits. Finding a way of making OpenSource illegal would also be part of the agenda (SCO anyone?).
H1-B is intended and structured to provide temporary labor as a method to deal with shortages, as directly opposed to paying higher wages, which will bring more citizens (and immigrants) into the business.
Well maybe that's the issue... no company would even start an employment based green card application without me being on a H1-B visa first. And the 6 year deadline was basically what pushed them to do so. I was literally told by my former employer that they would not do a green card application because I had several years left on H1:-/ The reasoning being that other employees were running on their 6th year and so they *had* to do they application or face expulsion, making me low priority.
Now the green card application system is really bad, with a lot of backlog. With my previous employer they filed the application the wrong way and it would have taken 4-5 years for me to get the green card, which would have virtually locked me into that employer for that whole time (quit, get fired = leave the country). So I quit with a little over a year of H1-B left and went to an other company where I got the green card in 11 months. So the Visa never ever prevented me from getting an other job, and each time with a significant salary increase (I'm now making 4 times what I made in 2001).
I'm not talking about immigration. We're talking about something akin to 'ringers' being brought in to drive down wages. H1-B workers are not immigrants, they are not coming here to work to become US citizen and stay here, they are temporary workers that drive down wages, send money home and leave eventually.
I know a lot of H1-B workers that use the H1-B just as a way to try and get themselves into the USA.
I second that. I've been in the US for 7 years, the last 6 were on an H1-B visa, trying to get a green card (which I now have).
Saying that the H1-B visa is a tool for corporations to get cheap workers that can't quit when given crappy assignments is not really true. For me finding an other job was an experience issue, nobody would even reply to me until I had 3 years experience. Now I usually get contacted once a month by small and big name companies (latest one was VMWare), but I'm very happy where I am. It is true however that many 'recruiters' have no clue that an H1-B visa is easily transferable (takes 2 weeks) from one company to an other, and some would basically hang up when I mentioned I was on a Visa, making it more difficult to get an other job.
As for the salary, while I wish I would get more so I could afford a house in my area (prices are not going down), my total compensation is well within the average according to hotjobs.com. I also get a lot of perks at work, one of the best being to only deal with smart people.
Sending money home: I've never ever done that, my relatives don't need any help and I'm sure they would actually be very offended if I gave them any money.
PointDev's spokesman claiming that the BSA believes 47% of software used in corporations to be illegal -- whether he is referring to Sony in particular is not clear in the translation.
I'm french so I can provide a more accurate translation:
Selon la Business Software Alliance, une association regroupant les principaux éditeurs du marché, 47 % des programmes utilisés en entreprise le seraient de manière illégale en France...
According to the Business Software Alliance, an organization representing the major software companies, 47% of the software used by businesses in France is used illegally.
So 47% is the global number for french businesses, not limited to Sony.
Well your 'prior art' requires a human to decide where to "mark" the video. The patent here will have a computer find the best moment in the video to place that mark, without having a human watch the videos. Do you think there is a bunch of people hired to watch every single video, and apply filters/marks for YouTube?
I have not looked at the patent but it seems to be a novel technique to find the most effective time to place an ad. The thing that bothers me is that it might apply similar techniques as in the MythTV ad skipping algorithms.
Come on the US energy consumption is not 85% oil it is not even half of that. Note that the article correctly state fossil fuel, the summary translated to 'oil' incorrectly. I guess 'oil' makes a better headline.
in 2005, it was estimated that 40% of the nation's energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 23% from natural gas. The remaining 14% was supplied by nuclear power, hydroelectric dams, and miscellaneous renewable energy sources.
Slashdot Mirror
Hell, I work in a research group in bio-chem modeling, and not to long ago I had a status that read "Everything I know about DNA I learned from Gattaca" - I do hope that any future employers arent facebook-reading idiots...
or /. reading idiots :-)
Even in death, their prices are high
Yep, went there yesterday, they still had a few unopened usb cables for about $8 a piece after 80% discount. I also remember going there 3 months ago for a mini-jack cable, expecting to pay $3, maybe $5 and only found a $15 cable !
Grandparent might have assumed that a Film has to be from one of the big Hollywood productions or it does not qualify.
If you look at netflix online movies they have 'only' 12,000 titles available, yet quite a few people (including my wife) think the selection is limited which is true since they have about 100,000 titles on DVD, most of it are American titles, and while their foreign selection is ok they miss a *lot* of things. I pretty sure that many countries produce more than 160 movies each every year, heck Tokyo alone might produce that many 'features' every month (not stuff to show to your grandma though).
I think the grandparent tried to show he was smart by proving his ignorance and this is just your typical american that see the world like this. A few miles from where I live we have The Language Capital of the World, The Garlic Capital of the World and the Artichoke Center of the World.
My point ? For many people in the US the 'World' ends at the county line.
p.s.: before the grammar nazis show up let me say that English is my third language, ... and it's 4AM.
I watch a good amount of anime and foreign movies which are awful for me to watch online because they are dubbed or if they are not I don't always want the hardcoded subtitles (try to watch a movie with a different version of the dialog popping up before the actor speak).
I would not say I'm the typical user (US person but not citizen) but the better soundtracks and better choice of soundtrack is one of the main reasons I still keep my 3 disk subscription.
The library need to be improved of course, but they are doing a good job at adding stuff already and long term that mean less need for a huge inventory of physical disks. For example you can buy music on iTunes that you could not mail order if you wanted to.
Quality will improve with a faster Internet, it might get a boost thank to the new administration and it's something that is supposed to happen 'naturally' anyway. Just look at the speed available in Tokyo, we are way behind.
I've paid taxes in the US for the past 8 years yet I have no representation. Are you saying I should not be even allowed to donate to say Obama ? Please to not tell me to get citizenship, it will be at least 5 more years before I'm eligible and there will an other presidential election in the meantime.
Moon energy. I know there must be some way that we can harvest this great natural resource. Maybe attach a rope to it that pulls a gear or burn it or something.
We already use moon energy.
Quote from Wikipedia:
Although not yet widely used, moon power has potential for future electricity generation. Moon is more predictable than wind energy and solar power. Historically, moon energy has been used, both in Europe and on the Atlantic coast of the USA. The earliest occurrences date from the Middle Ages, or even from Roman times.
disclaimer: I've edited the quote.
Perl Harbor
Only on Slashdot?
Harbor.pl
The sad thing is that it is spelled correctly twice in the quote from the article. An other sad thing is that the misspelling has been on slashdot for over 8hs, and you posted about it within 2 minutes. You would assume that the kdawson would at least check the chatter of the articles a bit and correct the typos since he posted 3 more stories in the hours after this one.
the annoying 4:3 ratio that most DVDs are in
Where do you get your DVDs ? I use netflix and I rarely get a DVD that is not 16:9 (or close to it), unless it's a made for TV show from many years ago.
I will agree with you that any decent upscaler will make a good non-HD picture look better, but if the source is an analog signal with some of the noise that goes with it, then yes it will look crappier than on an old 4:3 TV.
It looks like the 'features' you are missing can be solved by software. Now that Google has opened the door for truly customizable phones you could write an app that would ring really loudly until you acknowledge the page/sms/email based on filtering rules.
If you really want an actual pager, just try a popular search engine, you'll find plenty of stores that sell them.
Why is it modded funny ? It's pretty common to put rice in the table salt dispensers to absorb moisture before the salt does (at least in France, I have not seen that in California yet). Now I would not put rice in electronics, it's a good solution for table salt because rice is edible, there's other better solutions for electronics.
What about putting goatse.cx as a background picture, including for the login page. ... or just burn it.
They might return the laptop to you right away
Gold is about 5 times faster than the regular GNU linker. It will only work on x86 code (64bits included) and ELF targets (linux/solaris)
Or Kill Bill Volume 1: "She swore revenge, luckily for her Boss Mazumoto was a pedophile. At 11 she got her revenge."
You're talking about Manneken Pis and Jeanneke Pis I suppose.
I remember a video on the french news (maybe 15 years ago) about wine making: there was a guy *totally* naked (it's french TV it was not censored) jumping into the grapes to squeeze them. I don't know if the idea was to not get his underwear stained or if the 'all natural' method.
Needless to say I'm a beer drinker (belgian beers).
http://www.odul.com.nyud.net/articles/dpf/digital_picture_frame.html
That's the main reason I don't want 'paper' books anymore. I don't want to waste the space to store them and I don't have to worry about returning anything to the library.
... but I got lazy.
I have a Palm TX and the screen is actually pretty decent for an eBook. Whenever I have to wait a few minutes, like the dentist today, I have something to read with me. It was also a life saver while I was in Japan last month since I could upload maps in japanese and ask directions by showing the google maps on screen (very few people speak english in japan). I could have installed a Japanese dictionary as well
I can also play games like bejeweled or play mp3s. It has video capability but I never used that feature. It's an awesome time killer, and you can install ton of applications if you feel like it.
Don't get me wrong this device is outdated and way more expensive than it's worth ($300) but I got it for free and I love it.
It might get replaced by an Android phone when I'll feel like upgrading.
Most of M$ success comes from how they managed to screw everyone (partners and competitors alike) by abusing they monopoly position. Now that Europe is strong enough to not turn a blind eye (with non negligible punishment), even the US justice department is watching (without any real action though) it's much more difficult for them.
Everything that Ballmer is doing is pretty much what Bill Gates was doing. The only way his comeback will change anything is if he's able to lobby (corrupt) the world governments to go back to his old habits. Finding a way of making OpenSource illegal would also be part of the agenda (SCO anyone?).
Well maybe that's the issue ... no company would even start an employment based green card application without me being on a H1-B visa first. And the 6 year deadline was basically what pushed them to do so. I was literally told by my former employer that they would not do a green card application because I had several years left on H1 :-/ The reasoning being that other employees were running on their 6th year and so they *had* to do they application or face expulsion, making me low priority.
Now the green card application system is really bad, with a lot of backlog. With my previous employer they filed the application the wrong way and it would have taken 4-5 years for me to get the green card, which would have virtually locked me into that employer for that whole time (quit, get fired = leave the country). So I quit with a little over a year of H1-B left and went to an other company where I got the green card in 11 months. So the Visa never ever prevented me from getting an other job, and each time with a significant salary increase (I'm now making 4 times what I made in 2001).
Now something that was really hard was my wife was *not* allowed to work or study during the years we were on a Visa, not even allowed to 'flip burgers'. It was initially very and got very bored from staying at home. So she's been doing a lot of volunteer work for local non-profits, now how do you feel about that: she was working for 'free' , is that good or bad for the economy ? Now if she wants to works she has a 6 year gap in here résumé.
I'm not talking about immigration. We're talking about something akin to 'ringers' being brought in to drive down wages. H1-B workers are not immigrants, they are not coming here to work to become US citizen and stay here, they are temporary workers that drive down wages, send money home and leave eventually.
I know a lot of H1-B workers that use the H1-B just as a way to try and get themselves into the USA.I second that. I've been in the US for 7 years, the last 6 were on an H1-B visa, trying to get a green card (which I now have).
Saying that the H1-B visa is a tool for corporations to get cheap workers that can't quit when given crappy assignments is not really true. For me finding an other job was an experience issue, nobody would even reply to me until I had 3 years experience. Now I usually get contacted once a month by small and big name companies (latest one was VMWare), but I'm very happy where I am. It is true however that many 'recruiters' have no clue that an H1-B visa is easily transferable (takes 2 weeks) from one company to an other, and some would basically hang up when I mentioned I was on a Visa, making it more difficult to get an other job.
As for the salary, while I wish I would get more so I could afford a house in my area (prices are not going down), my total compensation is well within the average according to hotjobs.com. I also get a lot of perks at work, one of the best being to only deal with smart people.
Sending money home: I've never ever done that, my relatives don't need any help and I'm sure they would actually be very offended if I gave them any money.
I'm french so I can provide a more accurate translation:
Selon la Business Software Alliance, une association regroupant les principaux éditeurs du marché, 47 % des programmes utilisés en entreprise le seraient de manière illégale en France...According to the Business Software Alliance, an organization representing the major software companies, 47% of the software used by businesses in France is used illegally.
So 47% is the global number for french businesses, not limited to Sony.
Well your 'prior art' requires a human to decide where to "mark" the video. The patent here will have a computer find the best moment in the video to place that mark, without having a human watch the videos. Do you think there is a bunch of people hired to watch every single video, and apply filters/marks for YouTube?
I have not looked at the patent but it seems to be a novel technique to find the most effective time to place an ad. The thing that bothers me is that it might apply similar techniques as in the MythTV ad skipping algorithms.
Come on the US energy consumption is not 85% oil it is not even half of that. Note that the article correctly state fossil fuel, the summary translated to 'oil' incorrectly. I guess 'oil' makes a better headline.
Wikipedia numbers for 2005:
in 2005, it was estimated that 40% of the nation's energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 23% from natural gas. The remaining 14% was supplied by nuclear power, hydroelectric dams, and miscellaneous renewable energy sources.
Yahoo is an ISP and a high traffic portal, it does not seem to do them that much good.