Can you, or someone else, please explain with examples why you have such a negative feeling towards amazon? I haven't really been paying attention to their business practices, but then again I haven't looked up much info on them either.
I know personally that I have never been spammed by them. I have actually never had any qualms with them. I find that they offer much better prices for textbooks than college bookstores and the company has saved me hundreds of dollars that way. Free shipping is nice too.
Why does AOL have to charge a fee at all? Can't they set up some kind of certification system where a business can legitimize themselves with AOL and get off of their blacklist for a certain time period. After that expires, they have to recertify with them.
I don't think a lot of companies will buy into it either. I don't have any statistics, but there are millions of e-mail addresses that don't have @aol.com on them. I'm also sure aol users probably have other address at yahoo and hotmail where they can be reached.
BS... the reason we have anti-trust laws in the united states is to keep companies who have "too much power" or money in check.
Standard Oil owned 88% of the oil refineries in this country at one point in time. Not too far off from the 98% marketshare M$ has in the operating system business.
The users/customers/whatever you want to call them are the ones who write the user stories, so of course they see them. Thats the whole point of doing it; get the users and developers to interact during development. I think you are thinking about commercial off-the-shelf software, and this practice wouldn't apply to that sort of product.
What I'm talking about is when a company contracts a software developer to create some in-house software for them, where the user base is a great deal smaller and can more easily work directly with the programmers. In this way the customer gets to see each incremental version of their product and comment on it, providing valuable feedback.
And sometimes the marketing people will go off and sell features that aren't feasible for the software people to include, or will take too long / be too expensive. In the end it makes the software team and quite possibly the company as a whole look pretty bad.
This is why I think certain elements of extreme programming should become prominent in the software industry, particularly user stories and incremental releases.
The non-technical customer can provide the programming team with "stories" about how they would like their software to function, and rate these stories based on priority. It is up to the programming team to figure out how to do the technical work in the software to accomplish make the story (or use case) a functional part of the software.
Then, the team can incrementally add these user stories and show the customer a working prototype, so that if the design isn't exactly what they expect, it is easier to change and hopefully to maintain.
So, reading your emails is not an invasion of privacy? Your instant messages? Its just as bad as non-warrant phone tapping. Yes, anyone can go to any website on the net, but the article is talking about going through your personal communications as well.
Good god, where did you go to school??:) I am in the same boat, when I started at the univrsity in '99 we started in Java making dinky AWT applets. We then moved to C, C++, LISP, and whatever else the prof thought would be best to teach the subject material in. The only time I used pascal was in high school, in the one programming class they had.
No files attached to e-mail!!! Thats what ftp is for. You want to give someone a file, send them a link to your ftp server. Is anyone else annoyed that e-mail is now synomymous with file transfers??
I am sure that they did not go through the planets core during that sequence of TPM. I was always assuming they were just traveling through some kind of deep water caves that cut through the land as a short cut to their destination.
Its like how some people might call the deep water trenches in the Pacific the "planet core" to emphasis how deep they are.
Does Dial-Up really protect you or is this a false sense of security and I should just go ahead and pick a faster service and make sure my firewall is a good one and my virus definitions are always up to date?
I may be going really radical with this, but I personally believe internet access should be a regulated utility just like gas, power, and the like. Its a fact that most people now NEED access to the internet on a daily basis. I am required to get my homework assignments off the web for school, and e-mail is one of my primary forms of communication with work and friends.
The fact that ISP's will try to do something like this just to make an extra buck on top of their outrageous fees just screams government regulation.
Easy problem to solve... don't be an early adopter. Wait until the reviews/problem reports come out. Then decide whether or not you want to purchase the product. I'm sure the Xbox 360 will be fine a year from now after this public beta test.
Most educational institutions will offer legitimate free versions of visual studio.net for students. I'm not saying you can run your business using it, but you can learn with it.
If your school doesn't have this program, there are a number of places to go on the web to get discounted software if you're a student. Just do a google search for it, you'll find plenty of places to go.
Ok, this is just awful. Is this standard operating procedure for the food bank, or did you just volunteer with the scum of the earth? And if its the latter (hell, even if its the former) did you report what was going on?
Seriously, people stealing food out of the mouths of the hungry and homeless? What is this world coming to?
Sorry, I was going by what the ps2 cost when I got one, which was around $199. I'm not much of a console gamer, but for the longest time the ps2, xbox, and gamecube was priced at $199, which was palatable. I can't see the 360 getting down to that price.
The XBox360 seems to be conditioning the public to get used to paying more than the standard $200 for a console. To me, a next gen console means including new features and staying in the $200 price range.
Now, I have no idea what the costs are associated with the 360, or if its even possible to keep it in that price range, but it seems to me that $399 would be pretty difficult to eat for many parents wanting to get this thing under the Christmas tree. Maybe M$ just didn't make cost one of its priorities when designing the system...who knows.
It will be interesting to see what the PS3 pricing schemes will be in comparison to the 360's.
This type of product placement is fine with me. Billboards are a fact of life, and to me it would suspend my disbelief more if I saw real world billboard advertising in a racing game as opposed to generic ones made up by the developers. So, the gamer wins with a game that has an enviroment more true to life, and the game makers win by making some extra money from selling the ads. Its when the product placement has nothing to do with the subject matter of the film/game that I don't agree with; ie the Doom guy, after blowing away a bunch of demons, takes a time out for a Big Mac(tm) to recover his strength.....
It all comes down to this: If a computer (or network) contains extremely sensitive company data, it should not be connected to the internet. I don't think there's much of a fundamental difference between being able to steal a paper off of someone's desk and stealing a few files and putting them on a disk.
If the papers aren't locked in the file cabinet, or if the digital info is not encrypted and kept off the net, then people are going to steal it regardless of the format.
Agreed. Nov. 15th, I was sitting at a red light with 2 other cars in front of me, and all of a sudden I get rear ended by an F150 at 45mph. My car and the car in front of me ended up totalled. The reason he wasn't paying attention to the red light...... HE WAS ON THE CELL PHONE.
I don't care how good people think they are at multitasking, driving requires 100% of your attention. You could be good at it 99% of the time, but then there's that one time your trying to dial someone's number and you accidentally veer into that kid on a bike.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you, or someone else, please explain with examples why you have such a negative feeling towards amazon? I haven't really been paying attention to their business practices, but then again I haven't looked up much info on them either.
I know personally that I have never been spammed by them. I have actually never had any qualms with them. I find that they offer much better prices for textbooks than college bookstores and the company has saved me hundreds of dollars that way. Free shipping is nice too.
btw... Borders, one of your less evil companies, is also teamed up with amazon.
Why does AOL have to charge a fee at all? Can't they set up some kind of certification system where a business can legitimize themselves with AOL and get off of their blacklist for a certain time period. After that expires, they have to recertify with them.
I don't think a lot of companies will buy into it either. I don't have any statistics, but there are millions of e-mail addresses that don't have @aol.com on them. I'm also sure aol users probably have other address at yahoo and hotmail where they can be reached.
This just looks like a way for AOL to make $$$.
BS... the reason we have anti-trust laws in the united states is to keep companies who have "too much power" or money in check.
Standard Oil owned 88% of the oil refineries in this country at one point in time. Not too far off from the 98% marketshare M$ has in the operating system business.
The users/customers/whatever you want to call them are the ones who write the user stories, so of course they see them. Thats the whole point of doing it; get the users and developers to interact during development. I think you are thinking about commercial off-the-shelf software, and this practice wouldn't apply to that sort of product.
What I'm talking about is when a company contracts a software developer to create some in-house software for them, where the user base is a great deal smaller and can more easily work directly with the programmers. In this way the customer gets to see each incremental version of their product and comment on it, providing valuable feedback.
And sometimes the marketing people will go off and sell features that aren't feasible for the software people to include, or will take too long / be too expensive. In the end it makes the software team and quite possibly the company as a whole look pretty bad.
This is why I think certain elements of extreme programming should become prominent in the software industry, particularly user stories and incremental releases.
The non-technical customer can provide the programming team with "stories" about how they would like their software to function, and rate these stories based on priority. It is up to the programming team to figure out how to do the technical work in the software to accomplish make the story (or use case) a functional part of the software.
Then, the team can incrementally add these user stories and show the customer a working prototype, so that if the design isn't exactly what they expect, it is easier to change and hopefully to maintain.
4. Profit!
Great computer, still use it for the games ;)
So, reading your emails is not an invasion of privacy? Your instant messages? Its just as bad as non-warrant phone tapping. Yes, anyone can go to any website on the net, but the article is talking about going through your personal communications as well.
Good god, where did you go to school?? :) I am in the same boat, when I started at the univrsity in '99 we started in Java making dinky AWT applets. We then moved to C, C++, LISP, and whatever else the prof thought would be best to teach the subject material in. The only time I used pascal was in high school, in the one programming class they had.
No files attached to e-mail!!! Thats what ftp is for. You want to give someone a file, send them a link to your ftp server. Is anyone else annoyed that e-mail is now synomymous with file transfers??
I am sure that they did not go through the planets core during that sequence of TPM. I was always assuming they were just traveling through some kind of deep water caves that cut through the land as a short cut to their destination.
Its like how some people might call the deep water trenches in the Pacific the "planet core" to emphasis how deep they are.
Does Dial-Up really protect you or is this a false sense of security and I should just go ahead and pick a faster service and make sure my firewall is a good one and my virus definitions are always up to date?
Holy run-on sentence batman!
seriously, editors??
I may be going really radical with this, but I personally believe internet access should be a regulated utility just like gas, power, and the like. Its a fact that most people now NEED access to the internet on a daily basis. I am required to get my homework assignments off the web for school, and e-mail is one of my primary forms of communication with work and friends.
The fact that ISP's will try to do something like this just to make an extra buck on top of their outrageous fees just screams government regulation.
Easy problem to solve... don't be an early adopter. Wait until the reviews/problem reports come out. Then decide whether or not you want to purchase the product. I'm sure the Xbox 360 will be fine a year from now after this public beta test.
Most educational institutions will offer legitimate free versions of visual studio .net for students. I'm not saying you can run your business using it, but you can learn with it.
If your school doesn't have this program, there are a number of places to go on the web to get discounted software if you're a student. Just do a google search for it, you'll find plenty of places to go.
"Having worked at a food bank in the past, the volunteers (who are not always poor or in need of food) get first pick on what is donated."
Yeah....
"Sim everything besides -city?"
Are you forgetting about The Sims???? One of the best selling games of all time.
Ok, this is just awful. Is this standard operating procedure for the food bank, or did you just volunteer with the scum of the earth? And if its the latter (hell, even if its the former) did you report what was going on?
Seriously, people stealing food out of the mouths of the hungry and homeless? What is this world coming to?
Sorry, I was going by what the ps2 cost when I got one, which was around $199. I'm not much of a console gamer, but for the longest time the ps2, xbox, and gamecube was priced at $199, which was palatable. I can't see the 360 getting down to that price.
The XBox360 seems to be conditioning the public to get used to paying more than the standard $200 for a console. To me, a next gen console means including new features and staying in the $200 price range.
Now, I have no idea what the costs are associated with the 360, or if its even possible to keep it in that price range, but it seems to me that $399 would be pretty difficult to eat for many parents wanting to get this thing under the Christmas tree. Maybe M$ just didn't make cost one of its priorities when designing the system...who knows.
It will be interesting to see what the PS3 pricing schemes will be in comparison to the 360's.
Yeah, I do like some fake ads; the ones in the GTA3 series are great. But for some examples such as the billboard one, I can live with that.
This type of product placement is fine with me. Billboards are a fact of life, and to me it would suspend my disbelief more if I saw real world billboard advertising in a racing game as opposed to generic ones made up by the developers. So, the gamer wins with a game that has an enviroment more true to life, and the game makers win by making some extra money from selling the ads. Its when the product placement has nothing to do with the subject matter of the film/game that I don't agree with; ie the Doom guy, after blowing away a bunch of demons, takes a time out for a Big Mac(tm) to recover his strength.....
It all comes down to this: If a computer (or network) contains extremely sensitive company data, it should not be connected to the internet. I don't think there's much of a fundamental difference between being able to steal a paper off of someone's desk and stealing a few files and putting them on a disk.
If the papers aren't locked in the file cabinet, or if the digital info is not encrypted and kept off the net, then people are going to steal it regardless of the format.
Agreed. Nov. 15th, I was sitting at a red light with 2 other cars in front of me, and all of a sudden I get rear ended by an F150 at 45mph. My car and the car in front of me ended up totalled. The reason he wasn't paying attention to the red light...... HE WAS ON THE CELL PHONE.
I don't care how good people think they are at multitasking, driving requires 100% of your attention. You could be good at it 99% of the time, but then there's that one time your trying to dial someone's number and you accidentally veer into that kid on a bike.