Kind of makes you feel bad for her, not only did she think she was an orphan and the last of her species for circa 30 years, she's stuck using a piece of thousand year old technology... Well, at least she get's Tetris on it.
Ingenious to patent. Amazon saw their sales shoot up dramatically when they implemented the feature. Barnes and Noble, wanting to see the same result, now has to pay Amazon in order to do so, making having the buisness model and patenting the buisness model a twofold win for Amazon. Yes it's a simple matter of acting on user input, but most buisness model patents are mind numbingly simple and general, which is why I dont like the idea of them at all. Personally, I hope they're all thrown out, but because these types of patents are accepted as legal, to patent one-click was a very smart (and ingenious) move on Amazon's part.
But the reason why it was granted and why they want to defend it to the end is because it buffers against buyer's regret. How many times have you added a book to your shopping cart, only to think about it, and then remove it. With One-Click, the item is already purchased at the first click, and it would take much more effort to go and cancel the order once thought about. Ingenious idea, and probably defendable under current patent law, unless of course the entire concept of patenting buisness models is done away with.
As someone who has no extended family in this country, I (but even moreso my parents) would lose a lot. Our closest relatives are in Canada, followed by the UK, and then the middle east. My mom uses skype to talk to her siblings in the UK at least once a week. Emails to relatives in the middle east are less frequent, but it is truely our only way to contact them, with phone service not being as reliable over there.
Personally, we all stand to lose a lot with regionalized internet. As someone doing research in particle physics, i know how much the High Energy Physics group here relies on being able to access CERN's resources. This isnt just to access their grid (although i use both CERN an BNL's computers), but also to coordinate meetings, actually have meetings via webcam, and much more.
Finally, i dont know where I would be without my daily regement of bbcnews to complement slashdot and cnn.com. Although others may satisfy themselves only with foxnews.com, I, and i think many more, need that trifecta i just listed.
How important is anti-video game legislation compared to all other problems in the world. I remember how as a 16 year old I hoped that Bush would win over the Gore/Leiberman ticket just because of Leiberman's views on gaming. Obviously, it didnt take long for me to realize my mistake. The rise in government secrecy, eroding civil liberties, our foreign policy, the economy, and even female reproductive rights are far more important issues in my mind than the narrow issue of the regulation of video game sales. Vote for the better candidate on the biggest issues, and hope that the courts can realize the unconstitutionality of such censorship. I'm all for attempting to sway the views of those politicians, but I just hope people keep things in perspective.
This is not about Chinas pride of their language system, or a retaliation to the US defacto controll of ICANN. It's just another way for the chinese government to control access of information to it's citizens.
Seems a bit like overkill since Yahoo, Google, et al. are already far to generous with censoring at the whims of the PRC.
Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a housemate who is a veterinary technician about putting animals down, or when they die on the operating table. I asked her if she witnesses the doctor talking to the family, and the emotions that people go through when they lose a pet.
Who will be able to explain to little Timmy that his beloved Aibo got a wireless virus, and that there was nothing they could have done to save him because there was no patch available...
The price is still right. Essentially this game series is the cult B movie of computer games. Some flaws, but you're not paying 55 bucks, instead you're paying about half. It's like the movie you find in the bargian bin at blockbuster. Sure its about ghosts living on the internet, but you werent paying the 25 dollars you would have spent on some acadamy award winning feature. Anyway, thats just my 2 cents. If 1400 people also want to contribute, we can go out and buy a copy.
You and a hundred thousand slashdot fans take turns "peeking" at this poor CMU student's project. While all of you are peeking, the student's computer is booming.
It's really sad what has happened to Nintendo in recent years. Although in my mind, their heyday was the NES and SNES, I think most others would say their last major success was the N64...
Maybe it was the gamecube's clunky shape, or lack of DVD functionality. Of course the severe lack of enjoyable games hurts too. Xbox has its various Halos. Playstation has Katamari Damacy. In my mind, Mario Kart 64 is better than the newest version of the game. And thankfully Pokemon disappeared as quickly as it did.
The problems with Nintendo, (at least consoles, not so much handhelds) are not really with technology, but with what they do with it. New wireless support will not help the company for as long as the same people who came up with Mini-DVD disks and whoever is in charge of their game licensing division are still in power.
My old chemistry professor wrote an extremely funny article on the subject of quantum baseball. Okay, so extremely funny is a relative term, but at least I enjoyed it...
I used to work at a telemarketing firm. Yes it meant that i hated myself, but college is expensive, but the money can be really really good if you make commission.
Our employment video showed a happy cheerful place where people were genuinely interested in a new credit card, or some entertainment club, or identity theft protection. Every person had their own cubical, with computer and phone, and the entire call center looked like some upscale human resources department.
My call center was dirty. Dirty isnt really a strong enough word to describe it, but lets just say that people got excited when they had the little moist towelettes to wipe down the keyboards, which had years of god only knows what encrusted on the keys. The fabric on the chairs were stained horribly, like someone's pet had gotten loose and had some fun.
You would go in around 9:00, put on the headset, and log into the computer, which were running Windows 98 with some specialized dialer software. A name would flash on screen. The instant that name popped up, the person had already said "Hello" at least once. Meaning, no time to attempt to figure out pronunciation... "Hello, Mr. Fhqwhgads please." Assuming that you are close enough to the proper pronucniation that they dont slam the phone down in disgust, you must seek permission to continue. This is required by law. How is this circumvented? The magic word is "okay".
Never, ever, ever, ever ask a question without phrasing it so that the last word is "okay". That is one of the fundamentals. "I'm calling from *******, and i know you're probably busy, but i just want to take a quick moment of your time, okay?" If they dont say "no" or something similar immediatly following that, then you have legal permission to continue. You start your schpeil. The trick is to say it as quickly as possible, outline benefits, and explain to this person who is already way over their head in debt why they want a new credit card just because of the balance transfers. The script itself is like a choose your own adventure. For early interrupts, there are a series of retorts for you to choose from. You must respond to early interrupts. Once you have outlined benefits, you use a line similar to "i know this is a great deal that can really help you out, so after a quick confirmation and approval, we can have this card out to you in a few weeks, okay?" If they say they are not interested here, you must use no less than 2 second efforts, which outline other benefits that you didnt mention before. Long before you actually get to go through with the second efforts, the "customer" has already hung up, but this is of no concern to the managers, who walk around the room listing in on each "Tele-Service Representitive"'s calls.
The managers are the ones who can convince Neil Armstrong that he never walked on the moon. They speak fast, and they speak clear. Using a form of mind control that is perfected from years of being a telemarketer, when most people normally get 6 sales a day, these guys made 12. They throw around the word "okay" like nobody's business, because they know that the mind's first instinct when it hears "okay?" is to respond with "okay."
Being a telemarketer wasnt about finding people who actually need a service, and making it available to them. The right person for the deal is whoever you are talking to, and its your job to make them realize that.
It was a stressful job, and one that i hope ill never have to go back to again. Getting an ulcer by age 18 should say something about a job. Besides, being a male prostitute would be far less dirty. Maybe the moral of this story is that the concept of the telephone is out dated. I can type faster than i talk anyway...
Slashdot Mirror
Kind of makes you feel bad for her, not only did she think she was an orphan and the last of her species for circa 30 years, she's stuck using a piece of thousand year old technology... Well, at least she get's Tetris on it.
Ingenious to patent. Amazon saw their sales shoot up dramatically when they implemented the feature. Barnes and Noble, wanting to see the same result, now has to pay Amazon in order to do so, making having the buisness model and patenting the buisness model a twofold win for Amazon. Yes it's a simple matter of acting on user input, but most buisness model patents are mind numbingly simple and general, which is why I dont like the idea of them at all. Personally, I hope they're all thrown out, but because these types of patents are accepted as legal, to patent one-click was a very smart (and ingenious) move on Amazon's part.
But the reason why it was granted and why they want to defend it to the end is because it buffers against buyer's regret. How many times have you added a book to your shopping cart, only to think about it, and then remove it. With One-Click, the item is already purchased at the first click, and it would take much more effort to go and cancel the order once thought about. Ingenious idea, and probably defendable under current patent law, unless of course the entire concept of patenting buisness models is done away with.
As someone who has no extended family in this country, I (but even moreso my parents) would lose a lot. Our closest relatives are in Canada, followed by the UK, and then the middle east. My mom uses skype to talk to her siblings in the UK at least once a week. Emails to relatives in the middle east are less frequent, but it is truely our only way to contact them, with phone service not being as reliable over there.
Personally, we all stand to lose a lot with regionalized internet. As someone doing research in particle physics, i know how much the High Energy Physics group here relies on being able to access CERN's resources. This isnt just to access their grid (although i use both CERN an BNL's computers), but also to coordinate meetings, actually have meetings via webcam, and much more.
Finally, i dont know where I would be without my daily regement of bbcnews to complement slashdot and cnn.com. Although others may satisfy themselves only with foxnews.com, I, and i think many more, need that trifecta i just listed.
How important is anti-video game legislation compared to all other problems in the world. I remember how as a 16 year old I hoped that Bush would win over the Gore/Leiberman ticket just because of Leiberman's views on gaming. Obviously, it didnt take long for me to realize my mistake. The rise in government secrecy, eroding civil liberties, our foreign policy, the economy, and even female reproductive rights are far more important issues in my mind than the narrow issue of the regulation of video game sales. Vote for the better candidate on the biggest issues, and hope that the courts can realize the unconstitutionality of such censorship. I'm all for attempting to sway the views of those politicians, but I just hope people keep things in perspective.
This is not about Chinas pride of their language system, or a retaliation to the US defacto controll of ICANN. It's just another way for the chinese government to control access of information to it's citizens.
Seems a bit like overkill since Yahoo, Google, et al. are already far to generous with censoring at the whims of the PRC.
See, while Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 will only cost arm, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 will cost arm + leg.
Oh, and the premium edition, Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007...
you don't want to know.
Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a housemate who is a veterinary technician about putting animals down, or when they die on the operating table. I asked her if she witnesses the doctor talking to the family, and the emotions that people go through when they lose a pet.
Who will be able to explain to little Timmy that his beloved Aibo got a wireless virus, and that there was nothing they could have done to save him because there was no patch available...
because it's down right now. I'm guessing from the slashdot effect...
:P
take that, Digg
I was only helping them?
*Crumples tin foil hat into tin foil ball*
The price is still right. Essentially this game series is the cult B movie of computer games. Some flaws, but you're not paying 55 bucks, instead you're paying about half. It's like the movie you find in the bargian bin at blockbuster. Sure its about ghosts living on the internet, but you werent paying the 25 dollars you would have spent on some acadamy award winning feature. Anyway, thats just my 2 cents. If 1400 people also want to contribute, we can go out and buy a copy.
If Typepad was utilizing Sun's $1 per gigabyte and per hour of processing time then such slowdowns wouldnt be a problem...
"It seems that after the first 100.000 UID's, it's taking a looong time to get to 1.000.000 or maybe that's just me?"
The internet is running out of nerds, and the nerds that have already taken the first 500,000 or so UIDs arent reproducing often enough....
I love the proof that .9999... repeating to infinity is equal to 1. People never believe it until they see the simple demonstrative proof:
1/3 = 0.3333333...
3*(1/3) = 3*(0.3333333...)
3/3 = 0.9999999...
1 = 0.9999999...
Definitly bears some resemblance to Thunderbird 2 :)
e rbird-2.jpg
http://www.ludd.luth.se/~kavli/Thunderbirds/Thund
Adapted from "How to Play":
The Basics: Peeking and Booming
You and a hundred thousand slashdot fans take turns "peeking" at this poor CMU student's project. While all of you are peeking, the student's computer is booming.
Hasn't anyone else noticed the typo in the title?
No bloody A, B, C, or D...
o han.ap/index.html)
He was a nerd, just like the rest of us. I wonder if he would have enjoyed the fact that he was directly responsible for the slashdot effect on some poor website (http://www.planetxpo.com/doohan/), all because whoever submitted the story didnt link to a site with a bit more bandwidth (http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/20/obit.do
It's really sad what has happened to Nintendo in recent years. Although in my mind, their heyday was the NES and SNES, I think most others would say their last major success was the N64...
Maybe it was the gamecube's clunky shape, or lack of DVD functionality. Of course the severe lack of enjoyable games hurts too. Xbox has its various Halos. Playstation has Katamari Damacy. In my mind, Mario Kart 64 is better than the newest version of the game. And thankfully Pokemon disappeared as quickly as it did.
The problems with Nintendo, (at least consoles, not so much handhelds) are not really with technology, but with what they do with it. New wireless support will not help the company for as long as the same people who came up with Mini-DVD disks and whoever is in charge of their game licensing division are still in power.
I thought that was Al Gore...
He got a Webby for it and everything!
you broke his toy. shame on you all.
he doesnt hold the world record for memorization of pi. The record is currently strongly held by one Hiroyuki Goto of Japan. See this site for the list:. html
http://pi-world-ranking-list.com/lists/memo/index
My old chemistry professor wrote an extremely funny article on the subject of quantum baseball. Okay, so extremely funny is a relative term, but at least I enjoyed it...
http://www.aps.org/apsnews/0100/010008.cfm
I used to work at a telemarketing firm. Yes it meant that i hated myself, but college is expensive, but the money can be really really good if you make commission.
Our employment video showed a happy cheerful place where people were genuinely interested in a new credit card, or some entertainment club, or identity theft protection. Every person had their own cubical, with computer and phone, and the entire call center looked like some upscale human resources department.
My call center was dirty. Dirty isnt really a strong enough word to describe it, but lets just say that people got excited when they had the little moist towelettes to wipe down the keyboards, which had years of god only knows what encrusted on the keys. The fabric on the chairs were stained horribly, like someone's pet had gotten loose and had some fun.
You would go in around 9:00, put on the headset, and log into the computer, which were running Windows 98 with some specialized dialer software. A name would flash on screen. The instant that name popped up, the person had already said "Hello" at least once. Meaning, no time to attempt to figure out pronunciation... "Hello, Mr. Fhqwhgads please."
Assuming that you are close enough to the proper pronucniation that they dont slam the phone down in disgust, you must seek permission to continue. This is required by law. How is this circumvented? The magic word is "okay".
Never, ever, ever, ever ask a question without phrasing it so that the last word is "okay". That is one of the fundamentals. "I'm calling from *******, and i know you're probably busy, but i just want to take a quick moment of your time, okay?" If they dont say "no" or something similar immediatly following that, then you have legal permission to continue. You start your schpeil. The trick is to say it as quickly as possible, outline benefits, and explain to this person who is already way over their head in debt why they want a new credit card just because of the balance transfers. The script itself is like a choose your own adventure. For early interrupts, there are a series of retorts for you to choose from. You must respond to early interrupts. Once you have outlined benefits, you use a line similar to "i know this is a great deal that can really help you out, so after a quick confirmation and approval, we can have this card out to you in a few weeks, okay?" If they say they are not interested here, you must use no less than 2 second efforts, which outline other benefits that you didnt mention before. Long before you actually get to go through with the second efforts, the "customer" has already hung up, but this is of no concern to the managers, who walk around the room listing in on each "Tele-Service Representitive"'s calls.
The managers are the ones who can convince Neil Armstrong that he never walked on the moon. They speak fast, and they speak clear. Using a form of mind control that is perfected from years of being a telemarketer, when most people normally get 6 sales a day, these guys made 12. They throw around the word "okay" like nobody's business, because they know that the mind's first instinct when it hears "okay?" is to respond with "okay."
Being a telemarketer wasnt about finding people who actually need a service, and making it available to them. The right person for the deal is whoever you are talking to, and its your job to make them realize that.
It was a stressful job, and one that i hope ill never have to go back to again. Getting an ulcer by age 18 should say something about a job. Besides, being a male prostitute would be far less dirty. Maybe the moral of this story is that the concept of the telephone is out dated. I can type faster than i talk anyway...
Complete with pictures, a movie, etc
http://www.hektor.ch/