Looks like ol' Reed has been watching too many tired old 80's teen movies. Guy (played by Reed) has to choose between two girls to take to the prom. Choices are either Reliable But Plain Longtime Friend (played by DVDs) or Sexy Hot New Chick in school (played by streaming). True to form, Guy goes for Sexy Hot New Chick. Unfortunately for Reed, he didn't sit thru the whole film to see the valuable life lesson Guy learned by not choosing Reliable But Plain Longtime Friend.
TFA isn't really clear on this. It mentions the goal of improving test scores by the third grade. So does the same tablet a kid is issued today stay with him thru third grade? (If so, I hope it comes with a booger scraper and a coupon for a can of Goof-Off) If not, when does the kid get separated from his tablet? Before going into first grade? Is the school district going to scrape up another $200k for next years incoming kindergartners? Or are they SOL?
After the inevitable, as you put it, merger goes thru go find some GSM service not controlled by AT&T and then come back and tell us they don't have a monopoly.
So who do I write to try and get my state to help block this as well? I assume my congressman but I don't think he actually gets my letters because if he does they must show up under spam. Perhaps I should lie to Rick Perry and say I'll vote for him if he supports this. I mean if politicians lie to me I can lie to them right?
Good luck getting Rick Perry or any other elected official in Texas (most properly the AG) to file a suit against a company headquartered in Dallas.
It's perfectly valid for anybody - T-Mobile customer or not - to argue against the formation of a monopoly. It's won't be easy to stop this one before it forms. But if it is allowed to form, it will be virtually impossible to fix later.
I'm aware of their correlation strategy, and within genres I think it does a pretty good job. For example, being a fan of 70's & 80's exploitation films, I'm more interested in how other fans of the same genre feel about a given film and less interested in the general public's rating. It's the cross-genre recommendations that seem to flub up. Taking the Terminator/SpongeBob example, I suspect the cause of this is probably along the lines of: Mom and Dad get Terminator, watch it, enjoy it and rate it high; next in queue is SpongeBob for lil' Timmy, he watches it, enjoys it and thus Mom & Dad rate it high. Thus the correlation alogrithms think people (as opposed to accounts, I suppose) who like the Terminator will also like SpongeBob.
So is it a perfect system? Nope, never will be. Do I expect a perfect system? Absolutely not. Is it useful? Sure - in certain specific, yet common, situations. Can it be improved? Yep - one quick idea off the top of my head is to allow sub-accounts at least for the purpose of rating films (not touching the idea of sub-queues). That way Mom, Dad, lil' Timmy and I can all get recommendations based on our individual tastes.
I agree with you there. The Netflix recommendation system has to be one of the most confounding things about the service. For example, I generally dislike George Clooney and his films, so I consistently rate them low - as in 1 or 2 stars. Every time I do, the recommendation system whirs and clicks and comes to the conclusion that I didn't like that film because I HAVEN'T SEEN ENOUGH Clooney films and proceeds to start recommending a stream of Clooney films! And it's not just Clooney - it seems like a great deal of the time when I rate a movie, I'm liable to get recommendations for either similar titles to something I rated poorly, or something wildly unrelated -- like "You enjoyed Terminator so here's a recommendation for Spongebob Squarepants". WTF???
Considering that it seems like at least 20 million people were swearing up and down they'd cancel when this rate change took effect, 1 million doesn't seem so bad. OK, it does seem pretty bad. However, I think the much bigger problem is their loss of content (Sony, Starz and whoever else is next) and the soaring licensing fees for the content they do have.
I doubt MS is anymore or less evil than they've ever been. What may have changed in recent years is:
1. Their ability to be more subtle about it and not generate front page headlines when they screw up.
2. Our perception of what "evil" is. When their primary competition, namely Google and Apple (Canonical would like to be evil, but they can't make the cheap plastic horns stick to their temples), are just as "evil", then maybe "evil" becomes "normal" and MS doesn't seem so bad.
My personal preference is "none of the above" for desk/laptops (prefer Debian) and accept Android as the lesser of the current handset evils.
Supposedly the ancient Greek poet Aeschylus was killed by a tortoise dropped from a great height, so maybe that one's not so far-fetched. NB: the summary says "attacked BY a turtle", however the actual article includes the codes for "attacked WITH a turtle" - quite a difference - especially to a certain ancient Greek poet . . . the creepy ones are for "Other contact with a turtle". I dare not even speculate on what that "Other contact" might be . . .
Don't get me wrong - I think this sounds like a fantastic idea by Intel. But is $2.5 mil a year (spit in the ocean for Intel) enough enticement to get a research university to forego any future revenues and other benefits of holding patents. Apparently it was at Carnegie Mellon . . . maybe i'm overestimating their annual research budgets . . . or perhaps overestimating the value of patents?
. . . your intention is to put a single 3TB drive in a desktop machine. IMNSHO, that's a fairly risky and unwise proposition. I think the review would've been better if the authors had covered a few more items of interest to the storage systems market (even the hobbyist/consumer/SOHO segments). For example: How much power does each drive consume? Temperatures? Noise? Error recovery (particulary WD's TLER)? I think these things might be of some interest to the broader market for these types of drives.
Is the length of the waiting period to be allowed to ask for an appeal or reconsideration of the indexing. 10 years seems to be a little excessive. IMHO, a period of 2-5 years seems more appropriate.
Should the games have been indexed in the first place? Maybe. Maybe not. I think that question is best left to parents in Germany who were raising their children circa 1993-1994 and later.
So what he's essentially saying is "if you don't believe or act like me, you're an idiot". He'd be a perfect fit for our Congress. Hey - I even have a campaign slogan for him: "Vote for me or you're an idiot!"
But seriously, can I have your stuff?
Anyways, thanks for helping me pass the time at work, and good luck and best wishes in whichever direction the winds take you.
Who wants to pay for "drooping porn'? I can get that at home - show me some "big and bouncy porn" or "petite and perky porn" or anything but "drooping porn"!
Wouldn't it be the ultimate irony if Rustock reared up and shutdown Microsoft's reward/bounty site? If I had a spare $250k laying around I'd pay to see that.
. . . Very few businesses and even fewer private houses use indoor lighting during day (at least around my parts), and during summer... right, neither light nor heating are needed . ..
I'm truly curious about the quoted statement above: where are your parts and what businesses are you frequenting that don't use indoor lighting? I live in the sunny southern US (Mississippi to be exact) and if I approach a business without any lights turned on, I assume it's closed and go away.
Plot? Plot? OK, you think you need a plot . . . here's what ya do: go take ANY basic zombie movie, change the zombies to "space invaders" and voila! There's your plot! You got endless hordes of approaching enemies, you gotta keep shooting at 'em to kill 'em, and as they get closer they pose a more imminent danger. Granted the greater danger from invaders comes from their increased speed as opposed to the proximity danger posed by hungry brain devouring zombies - but such is the magic of Hollywood . . . now just slap a few bits of dialogue down on some paper, put some film in the cameras, hit the strip club to find a couple of heroines and get to making a movie!
The average clueless user doesn't go installing an alternative browser.
The idea that approaching 50% of Internet users are savvy enough to even consider an alternative browser, let alone choose one, is implausible.
Therefore I question the methodology.
I respectfully disagree. The average clueless user installs any and every thing they can get their grubby little paws on. Browsers, freeware, malware, whatever - it doesn't matter as long as it's easy ("click here", "run now", etc. are clueless's best friends). Usually ol' clueless will have at a minimum: IE (whatever version), Firefox, Safari, and a bouquet of unsubscribed virus protection programs installed at any given time.
"less clueless" users OTOH (in my experience) are the ones more likely to stop and ask themselves or somebody more knowledgeable "Why do I need to install this browser?" or "Is this the right thing to do?"
Not sure this incident should brand OCZ as a "garbage brand" though. If anything it highlights the necessity for the consumer to do their homework and not rely on just the summary specs of a drive before making a purchase. (That's not meant to defend OCZ's mistakes - just pointing out there's more to selecting an SSD than just the summary specs you see printed on the box or in the results of a Newegg search)
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Looks like ol' Reed has been watching too many tired old 80's teen movies. Guy (played by Reed) has to choose between two girls to take to the prom. Choices are either Reliable But Plain Longtime Friend (played by DVDs) or Sexy Hot New Chick in school (played by streaming). True to form, Guy goes for Sexy Hot New Chick. Unfortunately for Reed, he didn't sit thru the whole film to see the valuable life lesson Guy learned by not choosing Reliable But Plain Longtime Friend.
TFA isn't really clear on this. It mentions the goal of improving test scores by the third grade. So does the same tablet a kid is issued today stay with him thru third grade? (If so, I hope it comes with a booger scraper and a coupon for a can of Goof-Off) If not, when does the kid get separated from his tablet? Before going into first grade? Is the school district going to scrape up another $200k for next years incoming kindergartners? Or are they SOL?
After the inevitable, as you put it, merger goes thru go find some GSM service not controlled by AT&T and then come back and tell us they don't have a monopoly.
So who do I write to try and get my state to help block this as well? I assume my congressman but I don't think he actually gets my letters because if he does they must show up under spam. Perhaps I should lie to Rick Perry and say I'll vote for him if he supports this. I mean if politicians lie to me I can lie to them right?
Good luck getting Rick Perry or any other elected official in Texas (most properly the AG) to file a suit against a company headquartered in Dallas.
It's perfectly valid for anybody - T-Mobile customer or not - to argue against the formation of a monopoly. It's won't be easy to stop this one before it forms. But if it is allowed to form, it will be virtually impossible to fix later.
I'm aware of their correlation strategy, and within genres I think it does a pretty good job. For example, being a fan of 70's & 80's exploitation films, I'm more interested in how other fans of the same genre feel about a given film and less interested in the general public's rating. It's the cross-genre recommendations that seem to flub up. Taking the Terminator/SpongeBob example, I suspect the cause of this is probably along the lines of: Mom and Dad get Terminator, watch it, enjoy it and rate it high; next in queue is SpongeBob for lil' Timmy, he watches it, enjoys it and thus Mom & Dad rate it high. Thus the correlation alogrithms think people (as opposed to accounts, I suppose) who like the Terminator will also like SpongeBob.
So is it a perfect system? Nope, never will be. Do I expect a perfect system? Absolutely not. Is it useful? Sure - in certain specific, yet common, situations. Can it be improved? Yep - one quick idea off the top of my head is to allow sub-accounts at least for the purpose of rating films (not touching the idea of sub-queues). That way Mom, Dad, lil' Timmy and I can all get recommendations based on our individual tastes.
I agree with you there. The Netflix recommendation system has to be one of the most confounding things about the service. For example, I generally dislike George Clooney and his films, so I consistently rate them low - as in 1 or 2 stars. Every time I do, the recommendation system whirs and clicks and comes to the conclusion that I didn't like that film because I HAVEN'T SEEN ENOUGH Clooney films and proceeds to start recommending a stream of Clooney films! And it's not just Clooney - it seems like a great deal of the time when I rate a movie, I'm liable to get recommendations for either similar titles to something I rated poorly, or something wildly unrelated -- like "You enjoyed Terminator so here's a recommendation for Spongebob Squarepants". WTF???
Considering that it seems like at least 20 million people were swearing up and down they'd cancel when this rate change took effect, 1 million doesn't seem so bad. OK, it does seem pretty bad. However, I think the much bigger problem is their loss of content (Sony, Starz and whoever else is next) and the soaring licensing fees for the content they do have.
I doubt MS is anymore or less evil than they've ever been. What may have changed in recent years is:
1. Their ability to be more subtle about it and not generate front page headlines when they screw up.
2. Our perception of what "evil" is. When their primary competition, namely Google and Apple (Canonical would like to be evil, but they can't make the cheap plastic horns stick to their temples), are just as "evil", then maybe "evil" becomes "normal" and MS doesn't seem so bad.
My personal preference is "none of the above" for desk/laptops (prefer Debian) and accept Android as the lesser of the current handset evils.
Supposedly the ancient Greek poet Aeschylus was killed by a tortoise dropped from a great height, so maybe that one's not so far-fetched. NB: the summary says "attacked BY a turtle", however the actual article includes the codes for "attacked WITH a turtle" - quite a difference - especially to a certain ancient Greek poet . . . the creepy ones are for "Other contact with a turtle". I dare not even speculate on what that "Other contact" might be . . .
You forgot to add in shipping and handling.
Don't get me wrong - I think this sounds like a fantastic idea by Intel. But is $2.5 mil a year (spit in the ocean for Intel) enough enticement to get a research university to forego any future revenues and other benefits of holding patents. Apparently it was at Carnegie Mellon . . . maybe i'm overestimating their annual research budgets . . . or perhaps overestimating the value of patents?
. . . your intention is to put a single 3TB drive in a desktop machine. IMNSHO, that's a fairly risky and unwise proposition. I think the review would've been better if the authors had covered a few more items of interest to the storage systems market (even the hobbyist/consumer/SOHO segments). For example: How much power does each drive consume? Temperatures? Noise? Error recovery (particulary WD's TLER)? I think these things might be of some interest to the broader market for these types of drives.
Is the length of the waiting period to be allowed to ask for an appeal or reconsideration of the indexing. 10 years seems to be a little excessive. IMHO, a period of 2-5 years seems more appropriate.
Should the games have been indexed in the first place? Maybe. Maybe not. I think that question is best left to parents in Germany who were raising their children circa 1993-1994 and later.
Not to mention if they've already written off the cost of WebOS, then that's a significant line item deducted from the unit production cost.
So what he's essentially saying is "if you don't believe or act like me, you're an idiot". He'd be a perfect fit for our Congress. Hey - I even have a campaign slogan for him: "Vote for me or you're an idiot!"
. . . if they could no longer use the old "Well, it's 5:00 somewhere!" excuse!
But seriously, can I have your stuff? Anyways, thanks for helping me pass the time at work, and good luck and best wishes in whichever direction the winds take you.
"It's an honor just to be nominated!"
Who wants to pay for "drooping porn'? I can get that at home - show me some "big and bouncy porn" or "petite and perky porn" or anything but "drooping porn"!
Wouldn't it be the ultimate irony if Rustock reared up and shutdown Microsoft's reward/bounty site? If I had a spare $250k laying around I'd pay to see that.
. . . Very few businesses and even fewer private houses use indoor lighting during day (at least around my parts), and during summer... right, neither light nor heating are needed . . .
I'm truly curious about the quoted statement above: where are your parts and what businesses are you frequenting that don't use indoor lighting? I live in the sunny southern US (Mississippi to be exact) and if I approach a business without any lights turned on, I assume it's closed and go away.
Plot? Plot? OK, you think you need a plot . . . here's what ya do: go take ANY basic zombie movie, change the zombies to "space invaders" and voila! There's your plot! You got endless hordes of approaching enemies, you gotta keep shooting at 'em to kill 'em, and as they get closer they pose a more imminent danger. Granted the greater danger from invaders comes from their increased speed as opposed to the proximity danger posed by hungry brain devouring zombies - but such is the magic of Hollywood . . . now just slap a few bits of dialogue down on some paper, put some film in the cameras, hit the strip club to find a couple of heroines and get to making a movie!
The average Internet user is fairly clueless.
The average clueless user doesn't go installing an alternative browser.
The idea that approaching 50% of Internet users are savvy enough to even consider an alternative browser, let alone choose one, is implausible.
Therefore I question the methodology.
I respectfully disagree. The average clueless user installs any and every thing they can get their grubby little paws on. Browsers, freeware, malware, whatever - it doesn't matter as long as it's easy ("click here", "run now", etc. are clueless's best friends). Usually ol' clueless will have at a minimum: IE (whatever version), Firefox, Safari, and a bouquet of unsubscribed virus protection programs installed at any given time.
"less clueless" users OTOH (in my experience) are the ones more likely to stop and ask themselves or somebody more knowledgeable "Why do I need to install this browser?" or "Is this the right thing to do?"
Citation Required.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4256/the-ocz-vertex-3-review-120gb/2
Not sure this incident should brand OCZ as a "garbage brand" though. If anything it highlights the necessity for the consumer to do their homework and not rely on just the summary specs of a drive before making a purchase. (That's not meant to defend OCZ's mistakes - just pointing out there's more to selecting an SSD than just the summary specs you see printed on the box or in the results of a Newegg search)