My problem with ebooks is the cost. I can buy a paperback for the same price or cheaper (sometimes new, almost always used is cheaper than ebook). Now on top of the additional cost for the actual book I have to pay several hundred dollars for a device that I will have to replace at some point when it breaks, or lose my books. (assuming I want my ebooks to be as portable and readable as a normal book)
You also have the possibility that 10 to 20 years from now your ebook format won't even be readable anymore - then you would have been better off buying the paperbacks even if you threw them in the trash when you finished.
I'm entirely unconcerned about cruft, it can be ignored. What I can't ignore is the lack of libraries on a language that isn't yet mature. I don't want to spend several hours reinventing a wheel when I can use a mature language to do the same thing in fifteen minutes because someone else has already done the uninteresting grunt work.
That's the great thing about Java and C++ - if you want to do something even a tiny bit generic there is probably already a library out there for you. In Java many times these libraries are already installed with the SDK - stuff someone else might consider cruft, but I just happen to need for a particular project.
That example is exactly why I dislike "simple" languages - by trying to be intuitive they make the problem more difficult.
Applescript is a great example - I knew what I wanted to do, and in a normal language it might have taken me 20 minutes, but it ended up taking half a day figuring out which words made it jump through different hoops. Not to mention that some similar words behaved completely differently, and minor changes in the order of words in a sentence completely changed functionality.
The point is, when you put things in natural language it becomes difficult to ascertain what will produce the result you want, since there are so many ways to phrase a request. In the end you need to learn the same amount of details about the syntax, it just makes you type more and becomes easier to confuse a programming word with an everyday word accidentally.
Yeah I was trying to figure out how they do 2.7 per second, but what they're doing is browsing pages of 300 thumbnails for anything obviously bad. It's pretty easy to let your eyes skip over all the cats, babies, etc and pick out the bad stuff. Sounds extremely boring, but not nearly as evil as the article is trying to make it sound. Initially I was picturing someone viewing full-screen images one after another.
That said it sounds like they're hiring soft targets that would be impacted by moderately bad material. Most of the people that would be comfortable with this job wouldn't do work so boring for such low pay.
I remember reading a while ago that NYTimes only pops up the paywall after you read a certain number of articles per day. Calling them an idiot just makes you look ignorant - as if the same website can't serve different content to two people.
As someone who deals with end users for PC products I'd say the report/return rate is irrelevant - in my experience many people won't complain about something until it effects them in a huge way, even though it bothers them. Many times even when they do report it the problem has been happening for months before they mention it.
That issue aside, calling a press conference with Jobs basically acknowledges that it is a PR disaster - regardless of the real-world status. It just makes them look petty when they try to point to other phone manufacturers, rather than just fixing their own problem.
I believe he's referring to the free "controller jackets" for the Wii remotes - which were part of solving the throwing remote problem. You can get a better grip on the "controller jacket" than slippery plastic when your hands are sweaty. Nintendo offered 1 free per Wii remote purchased before a certain date (remotes after that date had them included).
You just had to put your address (and possibly a Wii ID, don't remember) into their website and they sent them to you - free, no shipping charges or anything. That's what I consider good customer service/relations, and that's why so many people like Nintendo - they produce quality products at a fair price and seem to do their best to solve any issues.
Personally, I laughed when I heard the response from Apple about signal strength being a software issue, it was too little too late even if it was the truth. (and if it was the truth they should have pushed out a patch on the announcement day to fix it)
I realize you're probably trolling, but since someone modded you up I'll give you a serious response.
The Apple prototypes were given back before any lawyer or police raid involvement - whereas in this case the person/organization seems to be withholding the prototypes. I don't think many people would have had a problem with the police raiding on behalf of Apple to recover stolen property - but that wasn't what happened.
200 isn't a lot if you're doing filtering on the client to weed out messages you didn't want to see. Not everything a person tweets may be interesting, you might want a subset of their tweets - or maybe all tweets without URLs, etc.
This is especially true related to language filtering, which is currently broken server-side on Twitter (and has been for OVER SIX MONTHS). I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering that even their website has a minimum of one bug every time I try to use it.
For large cities an idea like this would be very neat. I live near Chicago, am not fat, and would love to be able to travel around the city on 30mph moving walkways. Ideally they would be structured like a highway with multiple lanes, one going 10mph, next one over is 20mph, fastest is 30mph.
Something like this would have maintenance costs sure, but it would also remove a huge load off public transit, and reduce taxi traffic majorly. You'd really only need a shuttle for people with large/heavy items, or elderly.
Think about how pleasant it would be if you could stroll down the street at 30mph directly toward your destination, rather than having decide which subway or bus will get you to your destination in a roundabout way (possibly even needing to change bus/trains mid-trip).
Of course this idea will never happen because of the cost and effort - but it is a lovely utopian idea.
Yeah their API is very simplistic - if they made some changes this wouldn't be an issue.
As it stands right now, if you wanted to check all your messages, once per minute you would need 1 Request for Direct Messages 1 Request for messages @ you 1 Request for timeline (people you follow) 1 Request for each list's timeline (you can list people you don't follow)
So if the user has 5 lists that's potentially 8 requests every 60 seconds.
The other problem is that you can't get more than 200 messages per request - so if one of those timelines produces a lot of messages that you want to run through a filter (for instance) - then you may need multiple requests to fetch all messages since you last updated.
What they should probably do is make an all inclusive query that allows you to specify that you want DM,Timeline,LIST1,LIST45 updates, and it would provide you with all of those, with an XML/JSON field that indicated what the message source was. They would have to increase the messages per request limit to something reasonable like 1000-5000, and allow requesting say 10 different sources at once.
Sure they can - it's probably trivial to write code that doesn't update the signal strength bars in real time. Here's an example from 5 seconds of thought - you can probably make it more complicated, but this is the basic idea:
if (massive change in signal strength && strength > 0) {
nifty timer to slowly diminish signal strength } else {
show update in real time }
As much as I like good code, people like that are not doing their job. Clean up code as much as you have time for while doing your own job, but when you start missing deadlines you visibly cost the company money. Best course of action would be to note down dirty code for after release so that your manager can give you time to write a patch for important issues.
It's easier to understand if you set a fixed mile amount and calculate the gas from that.
So driving 330 miles in each of the initial cars:
Car #1 10MPG = 33 Gallons Car #2 33MPG = 10 Gallons
Drive 330 miles in each upgraded car: Car #1 20MPG = 16.5 Gallons Car #2 50MPG = 6.6 Gallons
Car #1 - 33-16.5 = 16.5 Gallons saved Car #2 - 10-6.6 = 3.4 Gallons saved
In conclusion, "bigger improvement in fuel economy" is the same thing as "saves more gas" in this case.
Re:Was Not Impressed at All
on
Lost Ends
·
· Score: 1
You hit the nail on the head with this one. Alias was enjoyable, for a couple seasons - same with Lost - but in the end he adds so many 'lies' to the story that it becomes unbelievable.
The only thing I've seen him be part of that I enjoyed fully was the TV series 'Six Degrees', and in that case he was only one of the producers, and also didn't run long enough to be destroyed by overtelling the story. (not to mention it had an excellent cast)
Someone also mentioned that they didn't know how much time Lost would run for - which is untrue - they knew two or three seasons ahead how much time they had until the final episode, and still chose not to properly resolve the series.
I really wonder what makes people 'idiots' for speeding in a construction zone. Wouldn't the idiot be the construction worker that stepped outside of the cone area in front of a vehicle? I highly doubt getting hit at 40mph vs 70mph is going to make much of a difference, I'm sure both are fatal the majority of the time. If I had to guess I'd say the lower speed limits are for the safety of the drivers, in the case of construction equipment crossing or driving into the lanes.
I bet drivers who kill construction workers who are actually within the cone area are pretty rare - which makes me a bit annoyed at the huge fines and jail time the signs announce for people who hit a worker. Why should someone be over-zealously punished for something that is the fault of the worker?
I've seen people say (on older articles involving classified info) that the only person who can be prosecuted is the one who used their clearance to leak it. I think the premise is similar to a NDA - if you don't sign/agree to secrecy, you can't legally be bound to it.
I don't know if those people are correct though, and I can think of at least one exception to that rule - I remember reading that if you are served with papers from one of those secret US courts you aren't even allowed to discuss it with anyone. (Which doesn't seem right to me, but apparently that's how it works)
I'm not Jewish, but I'm pretty sure you can get pitas(flatbread) without yeast - I think that was the whole point of the 'unleavened bread' thing in the Bible passover story?
flatbread with a bit of butter inside, toasted and filled with tomato and cucumber slices is pretty tasty.
Well if you're taking photos with a digital SLR you're probably saving to RAW, and then resaving a post-processed version in another format, so this wouldn't be an issue.
Well, I work in IT so I've seen my share of people having issues, and although I've never given anyone a pirated copy of Windows it doesn't surprise me. A number of times people have hosed their system, and then can't manage to find the OEM CD that came with it. No one can make a copy of a real Windows CD for them as a replacement since OEM CDs normally don't come with Windows keys.
This leaves three options in general: 1. Someone reinstalls a cracked version of Windows (or legit version with key off the internet) 2. The person calls the manufacturer to request a replacement CD
I always advise the second option, but I can see why someone would find it easier to go with the first option - and that is partially the OEM/Microsoft's fault for not providing a full retail product with the sale of the computer. With a real product key (assuming they didn't lose that) all the person would need would be a friend to make them a backup copy of Windows to replace the lost CD.
It's a cheap shot to place blame on the people trying to work around the inadequacies of the way the corporations are doing business. If Dell or other OEMs were smart they would offer an opt-out option to pay $5 more at time of purchase for the ability to re-download lost CDs (and a online list of software product keys that came with the computer) - I bet they'd make a bundle.
When I first saw the iPad I was somewhat excited, expecting something revolutionary - and the more I watched and read about it, the more it seemed like a giant iPod touch with a couple new apps and features. It has nothing to offer me that my Android phone can't handle on the road - and my laptop for the office/hotel/home. Sure a 10 hour battery life is nice, but if I can't use it for what I want then that is useless to me.
The only selling point I see for the iPad is that it starts at $500, which is about the same price as an unlocked iPhone.
I disagree - you could use the current model with a built in flash drive that only needs to be activated during saves. It wouldn't be as energy efficient, but only being on when you press a 'save' button would still make the energy use fairly minimal. I'm not sure how much that extra functionality would drive up the price though - probably enough to make it a much less attractive device.
Amazon has a system that lets you do what Paypal does, or much more with their API, depending on which part of their program you use. http://payments.amazon.com/
I've only used it for about $500 worth of transactions, but it does work well especially since many people already have an amazon account (there used to be an option for credit card transactions without an account too, but I don't know if it still exists - I can't find it right now)
Google checkout is the only other major player that I know of, but I never had an opportunity to use their service so I can't vouch for it.
Slashdot Mirror
My problem with ebooks is the cost. I can buy a paperback for the same price or cheaper (sometimes new, almost always used is cheaper than ebook). Now on top of the additional cost for the actual book I have to pay several hundred dollars for a device that I will have to replace at some point when it breaks, or lose my books. (assuming I want my ebooks to be as portable and readable as a normal book)
You also have the possibility that 10 to 20 years from now your ebook format won't even be readable anymore - then you would have been better off buying the paperbacks even if you threw them in the trash when you finished.
I'm entirely unconcerned about cruft, it can be ignored. What I can't ignore is the lack of libraries on a language that isn't yet mature. I don't want to spend several hours reinventing a wheel when I can use a mature language to do the same thing in fifteen minutes because someone else has already done the uninteresting grunt work. That's the great thing about Java and C++ - if you want to do something even a tiny bit generic there is probably already a library out there for you. In Java many times these libraries are already installed with the SDK - stuff someone else might consider cruft, but I just happen to need for a particular project.
That example is exactly why I dislike "simple" languages - by trying to be intuitive they make the problem more difficult.
Applescript is a great example - I knew what I wanted to do, and in a normal language it might have taken me 20 minutes, but it ended up taking half a day figuring out which words made it jump through different hoops. Not to mention that some similar words behaved completely differently, and minor changes in the order of words in a sentence completely changed functionality.
The point is, when you put things in natural language it becomes difficult to ascertain what will produce the result you want, since there are so many ways to phrase a request. In the end you need to learn the same amount of details about the syntax, it just makes you type more and becomes easier to confuse a programming word with an everyday word accidentally.
Yeah I was trying to figure out how they do 2.7 per second, but what they're doing is browsing pages of 300 thumbnails for anything obviously bad. It's pretty easy to let your eyes skip over all the cats, babies, etc and pick out the bad stuff. Sounds extremely boring, but not nearly as evil as the article is trying to make it sound. Initially I was picturing someone viewing full-screen images one after another.
That said it sounds like they're hiring soft targets that would be impacted by moderately bad material. Most of the people that would be comfortable with this job wouldn't do work so boring for such low pay.
I remember reading a while ago that NYTimes only pops up the paywall after you read a certain number of articles per day. Calling them an idiot just makes you look ignorant - as if the same website can't serve different content to two people.
As someone who deals with end users for PC products I'd say the report/return rate is irrelevant - in my experience many people won't complain about something until it effects them in a huge way, even though it bothers them. Many times even when they do report it the problem has been happening for months before they mention it.
That issue aside, calling a press conference with Jobs basically acknowledges that it is a PR disaster - regardless of the real-world status. It just makes them look petty when they try to point to other phone manufacturers, rather than just fixing their own problem.
I believe he's referring to the free "controller jackets" for the Wii remotes - which were part of solving the throwing remote problem. You can get a better grip on the "controller jacket" than slippery plastic when your hands are sweaty. Nintendo offered 1 free per Wii remote purchased before a certain date (remotes after that date had them included).
You just had to put your address (and possibly a Wii ID, don't remember) into their website and they sent them to you - free, no shipping charges or anything. That's what I consider good customer service/relations, and that's why so many people like Nintendo - they produce quality products at a fair price and seem to do their best to solve any issues.
Personally, I laughed when I heard the response from Apple about signal strength being a software issue, it was too little too late even if it was the truth. (and if it was the truth they should have pushed out a patch on the announcement day to fix it)
I realize you're probably trolling, but since someone modded you up I'll give you a serious response.
The Apple prototypes were given back before any lawyer or police raid involvement - whereas in this case the person/organization seems to be withholding the prototypes. I don't think many people would have had a problem with the police raiding on behalf of Apple to recover stolen property - but that wasn't what happened.
200 isn't a lot if you're doing filtering on the client to weed out messages you didn't want to see. Not everything a person tweets may be interesting, you might want a subset of their tweets - or maybe all tweets without URLs, etc.
This is especially true related to language filtering, which is currently broken server-side on Twitter (and has been for OVER SIX MONTHS). I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering that even their website has a minimum of one bug every time I try to use it.
For large cities an idea like this would be very neat. I live near Chicago, am not fat, and would love to be able to travel around the city on 30mph moving walkways. Ideally they would be structured like a highway with multiple lanes, one going 10mph, next one over is 20mph, fastest is 30mph.
Something like this would have maintenance costs sure, but it would also remove a huge load off public transit, and reduce taxi traffic majorly. You'd really only need a shuttle for people with large/heavy items, or elderly.
Think about how pleasant it would be if you could stroll down the street at 30mph directly toward your destination, rather than having decide which subway or bus will get you to your destination in a roundabout way (possibly even needing to change bus/trains mid-trip).
Of course this idea will never happen because of the cost and effort - but it is a lovely utopian idea.
Yeah their API is very simplistic - if they made some changes this wouldn't be an issue.
As it stands right now, if you wanted to check all your messages, once per minute you would need
1 Request for Direct Messages
1 Request for messages @ you
1 Request for timeline (people you follow)
1 Request for each list's timeline (you can list people you don't follow)
So if the user has 5 lists that's potentially 8 requests every 60 seconds.
The other problem is that you can't get more than 200 messages per request - so if one of those timelines produces a lot of messages that you want to run through a filter (for instance) - then you may need multiple requests to fetch all messages since you last updated.
What they should probably do is make an all inclusive query that allows you to specify that you want DM,Timeline,LIST1,LIST45 updates, and it would provide you with all of those, with an XML/JSON field that indicated what the message source was. They would have to increase the messages per request limit to something reasonable like 1000-5000, and allow requesting say 10 different sources at once.
Most frequent use: kidnapping someone else
Most frequent customers: husbands with talkative wives.
Busiest day: Superbowl Sunday
Sure they can - it's probably trivial to write code that doesn't update the signal strength bars in real time.
Here's an example from 5 seconds of thought - you can probably make it more complicated, but this is the basic idea:
if (massive change in signal strength && strength > 0)
{
nifty timer to slowly diminish signal strength
}
else
{
show update in real time
}
As much as I like good code, people like that are not doing their job. Clean up code as much as you have time for while doing your own job, but when you start missing deadlines you visibly cost the company money. Best course of action would be to note down dirty code for after release so that your manager can give you time to write a patch for important issues.
Like it says in this entertaining article:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html
"Shipping is a feature"
It's easier to understand if you set a fixed mile amount and calculate the gas from that.
So driving 330 miles in each of the initial cars:
Car #1 10MPG = 33 Gallons
Car #2 33MPG = 10 Gallons
Drive 330 miles in each upgraded car:
Car #1 20MPG = 16.5 Gallons
Car #2 50MPG = 6.6 Gallons
Car #1 - 33-16.5 = 16.5 Gallons saved
Car #2 - 10-6.6 = 3.4 Gallons saved
In conclusion, "bigger improvement in fuel economy" is the same thing as "saves more gas" in this case.
You hit the nail on the head with this one. Alias was enjoyable, for a couple seasons - same with Lost - but in the end he adds so many 'lies' to the story that it becomes unbelievable.
The only thing I've seen him be part of that I enjoyed fully was the TV series 'Six Degrees', and in that case he was only one of the producers, and also didn't run long enough to be destroyed by overtelling the story. (not to mention it had an excellent cast)
Someone also mentioned that they didn't know how much time Lost would run for - which is untrue - they knew two or three seasons ahead how much time they had until the final episode, and still chose not to properly resolve the series.
I really wonder what makes people 'idiots' for speeding in a construction zone. Wouldn't the idiot be the construction worker that stepped outside of the cone area in front of a vehicle? I highly doubt getting hit at 40mph vs 70mph is going to make much of a difference, I'm sure both are fatal the majority of the time. If I had to guess I'd say the lower speed limits are for the safety of the drivers, in the case of construction equipment crossing or driving into the lanes.
I bet drivers who kill construction workers who are actually within the cone area are pretty rare - which makes me a bit annoyed at the huge fines and jail time the signs announce for people who hit a worker. Why should someone be over-zealously punished for something that is the fault of the worker?
I've seen people say (on older articles involving classified info) that the only person who can be prosecuted is the one who used their clearance to leak it. I think the premise is similar to a NDA - if you don't sign/agree to secrecy, you can't legally be bound to it.
I don't know if those people are correct though, and I can think of at least one exception to that rule - I remember reading that if you are served with papers from one of those secret US courts you aren't even allowed to discuss it with anyone. (Which doesn't seem right to me, but apparently that's how it works)
I'm not Jewish, but I'm pretty sure you can get pitas(flatbread) without yeast - I think that was the whole point of the 'unleavened bread' thing in the Bible passover story?
flatbread with a bit of butter inside, toasted and filled with tomato and cucumber slices is pretty tasty.
Well if you're taking photos with a digital SLR you're probably saving to RAW, and then resaving a post-processed version in another format, so this wouldn't be an issue.
Well, I work in IT so I've seen my share of people having issues, and although I've never given anyone a pirated copy of Windows it doesn't surprise me. A number of times people have hosed their system, and then can't manage to find the OEM CD that came with it. No one can make a copy of a real Windows CD for them as a replacement since OEM CDs normally don't come with Windows keys.
This leaves three options in general:
1. Someone reinstalls a cracked version of Windows (or legit version with key off the internet)
2. The person calls the manufacturer to request a replacement CD
I always advise the second option, but I can see why someone would find it easier to go with the first option - and that is partially the OEM/Microsoft's fault for not providing a full retail product with the sale of the computer. With a real product key (assuming they didn't lose that) all the person would need would be a friend to make them a backup copy of Windows to replace the lost CD.
It's a cheap shot to place blame on the people trying to work around the inadequacies of the way the corporations are doing business. If Dell or other OEMs were smart they would offer an opt-out option to pay $5 more at time of purchase for the ability to re-download lost CDs (and a online list of software product keys that came with the computer) - I bet they'd make a bundle.
I ran across this video about the iPad the other day - at first I thought it was a parody, but I guess it isn't (which is rather sad).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXzZNpBfgDw
When I first saw the iPad I was somewhat excited, expecting something revolutionary - and the more I watched and read about it, the more it seemed like a giant iPod touch with a couple new apps and features. It has nothing to offer me that my Android phone can't handle on the road - and my laptop for the office/hotel/home. Sure a 10 hour battery life is nice, but if I can't use it for what I want then that is useless to me.
The only selling point I see for the iPad is that it starts at $500, which is about the same price as an unlocked iPhone.
I don't believe any spam filter that advertises 100% accuracy, especially one claiming to do it by figuring out the spam email 'templates'
I disagree - you could use the current model with a built in flash drive that only needs to be activated during saves. It wouldn't be as energy efficient, but only being on when you press a 'save' button would still make the energy use fairly minimal. I'm not sure how much that extra functionality would drive up the price though - probably enough to make it a much less attractive device.
Amazon has a system that lets you do what Paypal does, or much more with their API, depending on which part of their program you use. http://payments.amazon.com/
I've only used it for about $500 worth of transactions, but it does work well especially since many people already have an amazon account (there used to be an option for credit card transactions without an account too, but I don't know if it still exists - I can't find it right now)
Google checkout is the only other major player that I know of, but I never had an opportunity to use their service so I can't vouch for it.