Do you actually know someone who wants to use their computer to videochat at the same time they're talking to someone and IMing a third while downloading something?
I'll take the last bit. IM file transfers are notoriously unreliable and on Y!IM, IIRC, they're limited to 10 MB. The Pando plugin let's you send files (or folders of files) up to 1GB, takes advantage of bittorrent, and is better at getting around firewalls than traditional p2p IM file transfers.
(Full disclosure: I work for Pando Networks but not on the plugin)
Not a replacement for rentals, great new niche
on
Self-Serve Car Rental
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· Score: 1
I live in NYC and use ZipCar's service. It's a little misleading to refer to is as a "car rental" service; I'd call it a "scalable car sharing service," at least when talking to geeks. It's best for people who don't have a car at all (and there are a LOT of us in NYC). If you own a car and need to rent while travelling or for a special purpose that your car can't handle (e.g., moving), it's usually cheaper to rent a car from a rental agency. For folks without a car, for many short duration trips, ZipCar is a lot cheaper. What's the difference? Largely, insurance. If you already own a car, your car insurance will usually cover a rental. Rental car insurance can run up to $25/day (which can more than double the daily rate on those $20/day specials). I can reserve a ZipCar on the weekend for $65/day *including* gas for up to 125 miles; and I don't have to travel out of my way to pick up the car or spend a lot of time doing comparison shopping.
Most LAMP apps and sites live in hosted environment. For many large scale hosts, this licensing will not be attractive, so they'll continue to offer MySQL (and sometimes PostgreSQL). And since that's what's available cheap-and-easy, I suspect the open source databases don't have much to fear.
While it's illegal for trade to happen between US corporations and Cuba, most other countries in the world do NOT observe the trade embargo. Cuba probably buys their software from a non-US corporate vendor. I don't think it's illegal for a US company to sell software to, say, a British company which then sells it to the Cuban government.
The MPAA already has a semi-automated system for notifying network admins of allegedly infringing bitorrent traffic on their networks. I've seen this on a University network. They even have a standard XML format for submitting the notifications. AFAIK, they haven't sued anyone yet over bitorrent, however, but they *are* watching end users.
If you think you can attract more 100,000+ viewers AFTER you produce the show, you might be able to get the money up front. This is called "investing." This is how films get produced. They don't (usually) presell tickets to a $100 million movie, yet they still get made. All it'll take is for one or two expensively produced shows to show that this business model can work to convince investors that this might be a viable way to go. So what if the first show or two are already highly popular ones.
The hard part will be to convince a highly popular show to cross that boundary. This might be an opportunity for a relatively popular show that gets booted for reasons of ratings, or better yet, politics. (Maybe an overzealous FCC is a blessing in disguise?)
Also, production costs for TV shows aren't always > $300k per episode...
This reminds me of a Utah Phillips story he tells about a talk he gave to elementary schoolers:
"... And I got to the microphone and I looked out over that multitude of faces and I said something to the effect of: 'You are about to be told one more time that you are America's most valuable natural resource... Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources? Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don't ever let them call you a valuable natural resource... they're going to strip mine your soul... they're going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist. 'Cause the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes a river crooked. Hmmmm...."
He also says "punctuation is no substitute for timing"... so this is much better told than read.
I just converted to a money clip after years of using a bi-fold. For a long time, I used a bi-fold I picked up in London at a street market that had an integrated change purse and a flip out ID window, with plenty of room for cards. A little bulky, but had a great mix. This wore out and I'd been using something similar, without the change-purse with room for more cards. It was still bulky and since it didn't hold my change, I wasn't really happy with it. I finally moved to a money clip with a card pocket and ID window, and I think I've found the perfect mix. The clip is magnetic (hoping it won't zap my mag stripes) so it won't break like the traditional clip. So far, so good. It's small enough that I can carry it in a front pocket, it forces me not to carry receipts around. I'm missing a few cards, but I like another poster's suggestion to photocopy the cards from the grocery store, etc. onto a piece of paper which can be whipped out when needed.
Re:Now that would be an interesting change!
on
We the Media
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· Score: 2, Insightful
What sense does it make to consider an audience with more education and experience than the reporter? Why on earth would those people read the article?
Haven't read (much of) the book, yet, but I took this as the collective audience knows more than the reporte -- which is almost certainly true for any given topic -- not each and every individual reader. E.g., if you're a local reporter writing about a park proposal, many people in your audience are going to know more about various aspects of the proposal (e.g., the history of the location; environmental concerns related to; internal parks commission politics; etc.) -- and while some of your sources will help fill those gaps, you'll never be able to dig up everything as a reporter -- and now that's ok, because your audience can participate and help show you where you go wrong or point out pieces that you missed, etc.
Blogs, etc. aren't replacing traditional journalism, but they are changing it.
A Canadian company, PointShot Wireless, is providing Internet service for trials on two rail lines in Northern California and another in Canada. So far, the PointShot tests, like the Washington State ferry project, are free...
I'm planning a September trip via rail (pun!) in September. It looks like the free wifi is only available to passengers in the Via-1 (i.e., first class) cars, which I'm too cheap to pay for (especially when a "Comfort" class (i.e., coach) CorridorPass is almost 1/3 the price). Anyone know if you can pick up a signal if you're close enough to a "first class" car? =)
I love OmniOutliner for OS X. I also used hnb (Hierarchical Notebook) which is a commandline outliner, for awhile. Otherwise vi/emacs/notepad.exe/whatever is great.
I'm not a radio/electro-magnetic frequency expert, but couldn't a low-power EMP bomb cause something like this? There was talk a year or so ago that terrorists may use EMP devices to distrupt critical infrastructure. In this case, I think the "terrorist" angle merit(ed) looking into.
Yes, auto jobs that are coming back are going to Mississippi and Kentucky, not only because they are cheaper places to live (they are somewhat cheaper), but also because wages are much lower and unions are non-existant or very weak. This is another example of race-to-the-bottom in our own country.
IIRC, the Germans refer to the US South as "our Mexico."
We talk about how these theories are untested, well we've seen the results of this same phenemenon in auto manufacturing. After all, remember all of those car building jobs we 'lost' two decades ago? Well, they're coming back in droves.
You obviously don't live in southeast Michigan. Michigan has one of the highest (and still going up!) unemployment rates in the country right now. Our manufacturing base (centered on the auto industry around Detroit), which has been trickling out in fits and spurts for 20-30 years now, has been clobbered the last few years. If auto industry jobs are "coming back in droves" they're certainly not coming home to the Detroit area.
As an aside, this isn't just affecting manufacturing here. My brother-in-law works for Ford accounting. They sent 70-80% of the positions in his department to India (accountants, etc.) keeping only the highest skilled and most critical positions in the US filled by USians. They eliminated something like 40 or 50 decent paying white collar jobs in his department alone.
I bought an old wooden dresser from our local Zen Buddhist Temple's annual yard sale for $30. It has tons of differently sized drawers I use to sort my spare computer junk as well as other infrequently useful knick-knacks that I want to save. Keeps everything concealled and the wood dresser looks decent in the office/library...
Actually, radio stations receive a list of songs and associated payments for each song played from third parties that sit between record labels and the stations. Every time a station plays a song on that list they get paid by one of the third parties. I've heard that every large radio station has a bank account in the Caribean for hiding a lot of that money.
See This ABC News story as an example of the many stories written on this topic.
It turns out it was costing them more to bill the students for local and long distance than for the calls themselves.
This feature of services shows up a lot -- where accounting for / metering the use of something makes up a significant (sometimes the significant) cost of a system. Mass transit is another example. Are there other, more efficient ways to pay for these "too cheap to meter" types of service? Tuition and taxes are one way.
I use pine. I have a dozen or so "incoming" folders to which my mail is automatically sorted (thank you procmail). In my top level mail folder I usually have a few other non "incoming" folders to which I save mails I may need to refer to in the next month or three (pertaining to specific projects/interests/etc). Mail I want to save for posterity, reference, etc. I save into a folder within a folder called archive. There are a couple hundred folders in this archive folder. Pine makes it damn easy for me to save messages in an appropriate folder (keystrokes: s ar [tab] foldername [enter]). Occasionally I forget where I file something, but then I just grep for it. Works well for me. Don't get too anal. Put it somewhere out of the way, and use grep when you need it.
Actually, the only reason I still use pine is because it allows me to file my messages so easily. Drag 'n' Drop doesn't cut it with my filing system. Do any (Linux) GUI mail clients support keyboard shortcuts to save mail into a folder hierarchy like this? Anyone want to bring me out of the early '90's? Anyone?
If the show is syndicated and not available online for free, you really should just ante-up and buy tapes to support it don't you think?
Perhaps, but if you already donate generously to NPR wouldn't it be better to save them the overhead of recording and distributing tapes and just give them money? And digital content is more convenient (for some of us) than tapes.
I do second-tier support for a collection of small offices around the state. The local "support" person (who is often just a secretary or a tech-saavy attorney) is called the Computer Responsible Person. This is, of course, pronounced CReeP making me the Head CReeP. I'm not exactly happy about this term...
I have a Samsung IPH-300 with SprintPCS. I've been mostly happy with the phone and grow less impressed with the service.
The IPH-300 makes the primary compromise in the dialing interface -- which is a touch screen on the palm rather than physical interface. I haven't found this to be a problem, though it is a slightly less friendly way to go about dialing. It's also a little large for a phone these days.
The screen is smaller than a normal palm, which suits me fine. PalmOS works like PalmOS. I use it for calendar and contacts exclusively.
SprintPCS in Ann Arbor, MI sucks. I lose signal indoors constantly. That's my biggest complaint. Cingular has a good rep here, and I'd move but they don't support my phone, IIRC.
The only thing I really wish this phone had was BlueTooth for syncing.
If you, like me, only use a PDA for calendar/contacts, a combo unit is an ideal solution IMO. I'm also attracted to the Sony Ericson T68i.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll take the last bit. IM file transfers are notoriously unreliable and on Y!IM, IIRC, they're limited to 10 MB. The Pando plugin let's you send files (or folders of files) up to 1GB, takes advantage of bittorrent, and is better at getting around firewalls than traditional p2p IM file transfers.
(Full disclosure: I work for Pando Networks but not on the plugin)
I live in NYC and use ZipCar's service. It's a little misleading to refer to is as a "car rental" service; I'd call it a "scalable car sharing service," at least when talking to geeks. It's best for people who don't have a car at all (and there are a LOT of us in NYC). If you own a car and need to rent while travelling or for a special purpose that your car can't handle (e.g., moving), it's usually cheaper to rent a car from a rental agency. For folks without a car, for many short duration trips, ZipCar is a lot cheaper. What's the difference? Largely, insurance. If you already own a car, your car insurance will usually cover a rental. Rental car insurance can run up to $25/day (which can more than double the daily rate on those $20/day specials). I can reserve a ZipCar on the weekend for $65/day *including* gas for up to 125 miles; and I don't have to travel out of my way to pick up the car or spend a lot of time doing comparison shopping.
Most LAMP apps and sites live in hosted environment. For many large scale hosts, this licensing will not be attractive, so they'll continue to offer MySQL (and sometimes PostgreSQL). And since that's what's available cheap-and-easy, I suspect the open source databases don't have much to fear.
While it's illegal for trade to happen between US corporations and Cuba, most other countries in the world do NOT observe the trade embargo. Cuba probably buys their software from a non-US corporate vendor. I don't think it's illegal for a US company to sell software to, say, a British company which then sells it to the Cuban government.
The MPAA already has a semi-automated system for notifying network admins of allegedly infringing bitorrent traffic on their networks. I've seen this on a University network. They even have a standard XML format for submitting the notifications. AFAIK, they haven't sued anyone yet over bitorrent, however, but they *are* watching end users.
If you think you can attract more 100,000+ viewers AFTER you produce the show, you might be able to get the money up front. This is called "investing." This is how films get produced. They don't (usually) presell tickets to a $100 million movie, yet they still get made. All it'll take is for one or two expensively produced shows to show that this business model can work to convince investors that this might be a viable way to go. So what if the first show or two are already highly popular ones.
...
The hard part will be to convince a highly popular show to cross that boundary. This might be an opportunity for a relatively popular show that gets booted for reasons of ratings, or better yet, politics. (Maybe an overzealous FCC is a blessing in disguise?)
Also, production costs for TV shows aren't always > $300k per episode
This reminds me of a Utah Phillips story he tells about a talk he gave to elementary schoolers:
... so this is much better told than read.
"... And I got to the microphone and I looked out over that multitude of faces and I said something to the effect of: 'You are about to be told one more time that you are America's most valuable natural resource... Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources? Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don't ever let them call you a valuable natural resource... they're going to strip mine your soul... they're going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist. 'Cause the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes a river crooked. Hmmmm...."
He also says "punctuation is no substitute for timing"
> > The dollar is falling; it will rise again
> Like the South?
No. Like Jesus.
I just converted to a money clip after years of using a bi-fold. For a long time, I used a bi-fold I picked up in London at a street market that had an integrated change purse and a flip out ID window, with plenty of room for cards. A little bulky, but had a great mix. This wore out and I'd been using something similar, without the change-purse with room for more cards. It was still bulky and since it didn't hold my change, I wasn't really happy with it. I finally moved to a money clip with a card pocket and ID window, and I think I've found the perfect mix. The clip is magnetic (hoping it won't zap my mag stripes) so it won't break like the traditional clip. So far, so good. It's small enough that I can carry it in a front pocket, it forces me not to carry receipts around. I'm missing a few cards, but I like another poster's suggestion to photocopy the cards from the grocery store, etc. onto a piece of paper which can be whipped out when needed.
Haven't read (much of) the book, yet, but I took this as the collective audience knows more than the reporte -- which is almost certainly true for any given topic -- not each and every individual reader. E.g., if you're a local reporter writing about a park proposal, many people in your audience are going to know more about various aspects of the proposal (e.g., the history of the location; environmental concerns related to; internal parks commission politics; etc.) -- and while some of your sources will help fill those gaps, you'll never be able to dig up everything as a reporter -- and now that's ok, because your audience can participate and help show you where you go wrong or point out pieces that you missed, etc.
Blogs, etc. aren't replacing traditional journalism, but they are changing it.
I love OmniOutliner for OS X. I also used hnb (Hierarchical Notebook) which is a commandline outliner, for awhile. Otherwise vi/emacs/notepad.exe/whatever is great.
I'm not a radio/electro-magnetic frequency expert, but couldn't a low-power EMP bomb cause something like this? There was talk a year or so ago that terrorists may use EMP devices to distrupt critical infrastructure. In this case, I think the "terrorist" angle merit(ed) looking into.
IIRC, the Germans refer to the US South as "our Mexico."
You obviously don't live in southeast Michigan. Michigan has one of the highest (and still going up!) unemployment rates in the country right now. Our manufacturing base (centered on the auto industry around Detroit), which has been trickling out in fits and spurts for 20-30 years now, has been clobbered the last few years. If auto industry jobs are "coming back in droves" they're certainly not coming home to the Detroit area.
As an aside, this isn't just affecting manufacturing here. My brother-in-law works for Ford accounting. They sent 70-80% of the positions in his department to India (accountants, etc.) keeping only the highest skilled and most critical positions in the US filled by USians. They eliminated something like 40 or 50 decent paying white collar jobs in his department alone.
I bought an old wooden dresser from our local Zen Buddhist Temple's annual yard sale for $30. It has tons of differently sized drawers I use to sort my spare computer junk as well as other infrequently useful knick-knacks that I want to save. Keeps everything concealled and the wood dresser looks decent in the office/library...
Rsync and ssh can work with Windows using Cygwin. See this document for example.
See This ABC News story as an example of the many stories written on this topic.
This feature of services shows up a lot -- where accounting for / metering the use of something makes up a significant (sometimes the significant) cost of a system. Mass transit is another example. Are there other, more efficient ways to pay for these "too cheap to meter" types of service? Tuition and taxes are one way.
Actually, the only reason I still use pine is because it allows me to file my messages so easily. Drag 'n' Drop doesn't cut it with my filing system. Do any (Linux) GUI mail clients support keyboard shortcuts to save mail into a folder hierarchy like this? Anyone want to bring me out of the early '90's? Anyone?
Fricken' lasers...
Is it that, or because Apple is a direct competitor?
I do second-tier support for a collection of small offices around the state. The local "support" person (who is often just a secretary or a tech-saavy attorney) is called the Computer Responsible Person. This is, of course, pronounced CReeP making me the Head CReeP. I'm not exactly happy about this term...
I have a Samsung IPH-300 with SprintPCS. I've been mostly happy with the phone and grow less impressed with the service.
The IPH-300 makes the primary compromise in the dialing interface -- which is a touch screen on the palm rather than physical interface. I haven't found this to be a problem, though it is a slightly less friendly way to go about dialing. It's also a little large for a phone these days.
The screen is smaller than a normal palm, which suits me fine. PalmOS works like PalmOS. I use it for calendar and contacts exclusively.
SprintPCS in Ann Arbor, MI sucks. I lose signal indoors constantly. That's my biggest complaint. Cingular has a good rep here, and I'd move but they don't support my phone, IIRC.
The only thing I really wish this phone had was BlueTooth for syncing.
If you, like me, only use a PDA for calendar/contacts, a combo unit is an ideal solution IMO. I'm also attracted to the Sony Ericson T68i.
Good luck.