Comment Re:I will never use Hulu (Score 1) 169
I've never seen that happen. Wow. If that's the case, they are probably testing certain people to see how it pans out. That doesn't bode well. Be vocal with them, if you can.
Comment I will never use Hulu (Score 5, Interesting) 169
When they first came out, I was impressed. They were streaming programs and trying honestly to generate revenue. Instead of cramming ads down my throat, they tried to show them in innovative ways, as a sort of compromise to the ad-weary consumer. They would show two cars and let me pick an ad to watch. They would ask if I wanted to view all commercials first so I could watch the show uninterrupted.
And the commercials were short. I was optimistic about the way things were headed. I understand the need to make money. Hulu seemed to be sensitive to their audience.
Then, Hulu Plus came along. They basically said.. "Some of that free content is no longer free. You have to pay for it now. But, you still have to watch commercials". With that, I ceased all interaction with Hulu. About a year later, I decided that paying for some streaming content would be worthwhile, if I could watch it on my terms. I now gladly give Netflix my money for that. So long as they don't charge me twice by also showing ads, I will stick with them.
Comment Every piece ever? (Score 4, Funny) 142
I hope they don't forget anything from their Chopin list.
The Greatest Keyboard Shortcut Ever 506
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Ryan Vogt writes in the Mercury News that Shakespeare described death as 'the undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns.' Did you know there is a the miraculous way to resuscitate tabs sent to the 'undiscovere'd country,' a sort of Ctrl-Z for the entire Internet, that means 'no more called-out cusswords, no more wishing the back button had you covered when, aiming to click on a tab, you accidentally hit the little X on the tab's starboard.' For Macs: Command [plus] shift [plus] t reopens the last tab. For PCs: Ctrl [plus] Shift [plus] T. 'Try it right now. Close this tab and bring it back. I dare ya.' Melia Robinson's trick [described for Chrome] works in Firefox and Internet Explorer, too, so clumsy mousing won't send the the E*Trade tab you mistakenly closed all cued up to sell those 10,000 shares of stock or your long political post on your uncle's Facebook page on a one-way trip to the undiscovere'd country in those browsers, either." No guarantees on the stock trading.
Comment Interactive Map (Score 1) 249
Here is what Florida (and the rest of the World) would look like if the sea level rose:
http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/florida.shtml
Comment To be technical... (Score 0) 124
"you can thank Doug Engelbart, who passed away today"
Then, no. No, we can't.
Comment Now MakerBot is to be acquired by a larger company (Score 2) 185
Stratasys, a company specializing in industrial 3d-printing will likely complete their acquisition of makerbot in the fall. For better or worse, this should change things in the consumer 3D printer space.
Clinkle Wants To Become Your Wallet 121
vikingpower writes "Clinkle, a new mobile payments start-up, may or may not have succeeded where so many other efforts have fizzled by inventing a practical way to replace credit cards with smartphones. It's hard to say, though, since Clinkle won't say much about how its system works. Its website is, well ... slight. But a prominent group of Silicon Valley investors who do know what Clinkle is cooking up are acting as though it has achieved a breakthrough. On Thursday, Clinkle announced that it had raised $25 million in early financing from Accel Partners; Andreessen Horowitz; Intel; Intuit; Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce.com; Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal; and a long list of other investors with technology industry pedigrees. The Huffington Post has an article on Clinkle, or rather on Stanford students putting their degree on hold to go work at Clinkle. The Wall Street Journal [paywalled] mentions Clinkle having some 30-odd employees already."
Comment Another Da Vinci prediction soon to come true? (Score 1) 78
...The Vitruvian Man.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man
Now we just need a LEG clone.
Comment Bah. (Score 1) 480
They should be minimizing their javascript anyway. Tell that new credit-stealing dev how to use a minimizer. Then, he can feel all fancy when he brags about how his awesome stolen code loads more efficiently. He can also feel important because the obfuscation will make it harder to reuse, making it harder for other devs to take the credit for his awesome stolen code!
Comment Re:Spam (Score 1) 128
If people are willing to sell their friends out for another silly turn at crushing some candy, I worry what they will do to save actual money!
Comment Re:This isn't because he is doing too MORE Science (Score 1) 204
No. Exactly this. I'm referring to propping oneself up on the work of others; worrying more about getting grants and being published in Journals. I didn't say he would excel, but he sure is cut out for it.
Comment This isn't because he is doing too MORE Science. (Score 4, Insightful) 204
The summary makes it look like he is being held back by bureaucracy, while he's really just using it. He entered ONE project in many fairs. Each of these fairs were lateral contests in a larger competition. Effectively he entered multiple times in the over-all road to the International Fair.
What he did would be like a NCAA team losing in March Madness multiple times, only to move position in the bracket, to try again on each defeat. Sorry, I couldn't think of a car analogy.
The kid was taking the same project to different fairs after failing to qualify. Nothing is stopping him from doing Science. He was more interested in being successful. He wasn't doing this so he could "do more science". He was doing it so he could basically enter more times, giving him an unfair advantage. Say I ran a science fair for a bunch of inner city kids. They worked really hard on their projects. When time for judging comes up, some AP, college-bound kid with a rich ( anything white-collar, to these inner city kids) dad comes in with his garage-built project. He didn't qualify in his home town, but blows these kids out of the water. I would be livid.
However, by seeing the way he plays ball, we know he will fit right in in Academia.
Comment Safe for kids? (Score 2) 84
Is the contributed data public? I can just imagine a 6 year old saying: "Hey, strangers! This is my location. Here is a picture of me in my living room, playing with the Wii U!"
Comment It's tough to keep it simple (Score 2) 573
If everyone behaved the same as this guy, I'm sure that Verizon would not be able to offer the service at the consumer price.
70 Terabytes would certainly be the equivalent of "unlimited" to me. This isn't to defend Verizon, as I do agree that they could find a way to make the limits of their plan more clear.
I Suppose Verizon COULD, instead of using the term "unlimited" call the plan: the 50 Terabytes / month plan.
But, for typical consumers, this *IS* unlimited and those numbers just might make choosing an Internet provider more complicated. In fact, if my parents were asking for advice on an Internet service, I would indeed say: "oh, don't worry about those numbers, that pretty much means unlimited for you guys".
By adding these numbers to the plan, competitors could simply up the numbers, while adding no real value for the user. Even Verizon could even offer a 100 Terabyte plan for "only $20 more a month". The average consumer would see this as value, while in reality they would just be paying more.
