Woooooosh

As someone who has Amazon Prime (I got it for like $39 as a grad student and it's still good until this summer) and uses a Roku, I can tell you that I would definitely not be paying for a "KindleTV" + Prime if they dropped my Roku.

Why? Because their library sucks, the interface is fucking terrible, and the way they don't group show seasons together into one show is just wrong.

Amazon doesn't need to work on a Roku replacement, they need to work on a Prime Video replacement and pronto.

If they could now re-design a furniture store where customers would buy furniture which would be then delivered to their homes already assembled would be a huge step forward. Oh wait...

School districts do this to when levies don't pass. They immediately cut athletic programs and bus service.

My bad, I meant to include the source: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/budget_bib_fy2011.pdf

Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs): An increase of $20M and 350 BDOs (210 FTE) is
requested to further enhance TSAâ(TM)s Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques
program. The FY 2011 request includes a total of 3,350 officers, to enhance coverage at
lanes and shifts at high risk Category X and I airports, and expand coverage to smaller
airports.

[...]

Transitioned validated multi-cultural indicators of hostile intent, and demonstrated a
mobile device that enables TSA Behavioral Detection Officers to record observations,
automatically calculate behavior-based scoring, and share information among peers
and with supervisors in near-real time. This potentially saves TSA an estimated 60 -
120 FTEs.

I did my masters thesis on this subject and the TSA is doing the same thing the Israelis are. In fact, they spend a lot more than you would think on doing it. The problem seems to be that because people A) don't recognize this effort, B) because it's just as expensive as the machines, and C) it's just as ineffective because it ignores the fact that terrorists could walk into the building strapped with explosives in front of the screening area and kill hundreds+ of people.

So I was bored and decided to watch a few of the pilots. As someone who loved Netflix's House of Cards, I was excited to see what Amazon had in store for us of similar caliber. Well, suffice to say that spreading their dollars across numerous pilots instead of one single show gets you what you expect: utter trash.

Those Who Can't, a story about three teachers (gym, history, and Spanish) was utterly terrible. They hated a jock in the school who was constantly annoying them and being the stereotypical douchebag. The script was jerky, the acting was bad, and the entire premise was overdone. Not impressive in the least, in fact in many instances it was downright painful.

Alpha House starts out great with Bill Murray getting arrested and John Goodman watching as he freaks out but it goes downhill from there mostly because Murray is not on the show after that first 45 second cameo. The vulgarity (something I don't mind in the least and use regularly myself) is there for vulgarity's sake, not because it makes sense in the dialogue. The show itself is slow, boring, and pointless. It's like Amazon was trying to make fun of House of Cards on SNL but failing as SNL tends to do so well.

While I haven't watched all the pilots yet, I really don't think I have much desire to do so. I am still waiting for more House of Cards and certainly more Arrested Development on Netflix but this Amazon shit is just bad. They need to get their shit together and up their game if they think they're going to compete with Netflix's first-run flagship.

I am a SAS developer and have never run into any such problems but I won't say I don't believe you. However, the benefit of that large licensing fee is the easy access to SAS help resources (real live people living over there in Cary, NC) who get back to you VERY QUICKLY for ANY level of technical question you have.

Their employees, at least the hundred or so I've met over the years when presenting at SAS Global Forum, have been INCREDIBLY friendly and helpful.

Because it's blank; as in, I don't have cable TV nor will I ever have it again because streaming is what I prefer. Once HBO stops just putting feelers out to the public so the cable companies can realize the hold HBO has over them and they could move their catalog to streaming only, maybe I'd have a clue what Game of Thrones is even about.

HBO: streaming++; current business model--

So buy an old one. I have both an old and a new Roku (the new one was $50 on sale around Christmas and we plan to use it at our vacation home).

I mean, do you really expect them to support devices which few people use anymore? I didn't have a HDTV until a few months ago but most people haven't had a need for component input for a VERY long time.

Are companies really supposed to support dying technologies just to make a handful of geeks happy? The device is tiny and cheap as it is, continuing to hold out on these old technologies drops the ability to have support for other things people want.

Move along, nothing to see here.

I guess it depends on the DRM that comes on your e-books. In the case of the courses I took over the last 3.25 years for my masters program, it was generally as simple as printing the chapters to PDF from the reader application.

Yeah, it put my e-mail address on every page but they were then searchable PDFs and easily transferable. Being that the books were 'free' as part of my program, it was a no brainer to choose that route over regular books (my preferred method). It was doubly important being that I worked for the University and my entire tuition, up until the time I left just over a year ago, was covered as part of my employment.

YMMV.

Listen, I understand that Google's services are free and they are a business and need to do what they feel is necessary to make money; however, I am not sure why some of these went away.

Let's take for instance the fact that Google has killed off their RSS discovery plugin. I was a die hard Google Reader person and made the move to Feedly when Google Reader was killed. Killing Google Reader may have made sense to them; after all, they were supporting traffic and crawling feeds, and doing all those things that take money, time, engineering resources, and bandwidth. No worries there. But killing off the RSS plugin? I just can't fathom how that matters.

Leave the damn tool out there for people to use. It really doesn't harm anyone if it's something that works and can continue to work client side.

But I digress. Yes, Feedly (or any of the tools that will ultimately replace Reader) could make their own but killing it off in some misguided attempt at pushing users to use G+ (what I assume is their reasoning for it all) is just going to drive people farther away from Google's tools.

No, G+ (or any social network for that matter) does not operate in the same way Reader (or any RSS reader) did. I don't give a fuck what other people find interesting for the most part; I want to be able to pick and choose and provide that content back out to people on those networks, not the other way around.

Make your money in the way you see fit but I hope they're not surprised when there is a backlash against those changes. Oh and open source the damn RSS app and even Reader so people can continue on w/o Google's backing. That would fit the "do no evil" mantra.

From the article:

The most important thing that would not be much different if The Times had been his outlet would be Manningâ(TM)s legal liability. The law provides First Amendment protection for a free press, but not for those who take an oath to protect government secrets. This administration has a particular, chilling intolerance for leakers â" and digital footprints make them easier to catch these days â" but I canâ(TM)t imagine that any administration would have hesitated to prosecute Manning.

As an American and Global citizen I want to fucking hug Bradley Manning. I want to thank him repeatedly for the great service he has provided the entire world. He is a true hero in my eyes.

However, he's also a fucking traitor and deserves the punishment which is coming to him. People who are true heroes do not think about the potential consequences they face and do not look for a way out when those happen. They do things to save others, bring about change, etc and they do so selflessly. Manning broke laws and oaths he had to this country just like many others practicing civil disobedience before him. They all paid their price and so will he and I will still love every last piece of information he released.

The fact that The Times would not have published everything shows what a bunch garbage the mainstream press in this country has become. Journalists are the lackeys of corporate legal teams, chickenshits and oppressive management.

Let the heroes shine and let them take whatever comes of them once the protections afforded to journalists run out and the source must be provided.

Again, thank you Manning; I personally put your accomplishments far higher than many of those who have received medals before you even though you deserve every punishment that is coming to you.

I am not saying that it's a good or bad idea for Microsoft; I was simply replying in general as to why they were being demonized for this.

re: M/W/F - exactly. I check my USPS mail less than once a week unless I'm expecting something. Why? Because there's nothing in there anyway.

All my billing is online, my paycheck is deposited automatically, and the only thing that appears in my mailbox is garbage anyway.

I only look around the holidays and birthdays or if a package is on the way, otherwise I just let it pile up in there like the GMail spam folder.