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Comment Re:Not all bloggers, just those that make money (Score 1) 456

She's put in a position where she's acting as a middleman between the advertisers and the hosting company, and losing money in the process. If the Advertisers would just cut out that middleman and deal directly with the hosting company there wouldn't be this problem. But you're right, she's dealing with money, and has to go through the paperwork because she was honest. I just hope Philadelphia gets their $300 filing fee, then sees an overall loss when next year she writes off her hosting, internet connection, computer, and portions of rent, utilities, lunch meetings, travel etc. If she blogs about it it's now business related...

Comment Re:Not all bloggers, just those that make money (Score 3, Interesting) 456

Net Income != Profits. She probably didn't make enough to pay for her hosting. Perhaps we need to go back to the model where people get free hosting in exchange for a 3rd party putting ads on the site. Then Bloggers can blog without having to report the "income" of trying to cover some of their expenses.

Comment Tell me about it. (Score 4, Interesting) 101

I started using using google blog search to create an RSS feed of topics I'm interested. Gradually I started using regex to filter out sites that were clearly just spam sites. Now my regex statement is about 20K in size, and out of 150 results that Google returns, I may have 4 or 5 stories that make it through the filter.
Education

Quantum Physics For Everybody 145

fiziko writes in with a self-described "blatant self-promotion" of a worthwhile service for those wishing to go beyond Khan Academy physics: namely Bureau 42's Summer School. "As those who subscribe to the 'Sci-Fi News' slashbox may know, Bureau 42 has launched its first Summer School. This year we're doing a nine-part series (every Monday in July and August) taking readers from high school physics to graduate level physics, with no particular mathematical background required. Follow the link for part 1."

Comment Bulletproof Glass (Score 5, Interesting) 397

I worked for a small(er) cable company 15 years ago, in their community Television department. We covered city council meetings, parades, had several shows about life in Cleveland etc. It has changed ownerships a few times, and is now Time Warner, and I stopped in not to long ago to see if I still knew anybody who worked there.

The entire community TV department had been replaced by more call center lackeys answering angry phone calls, and what was more interesting was the main reception area where people could pay their bills has the customer service reps behind bulletproof glass, and there was an armed guard sitting in there.

If you are doing such bad job servicing your customers needs that you feel you have to protect your employees from customers so angry they might start shooting up the place, maybe, just maybe, you might want to try and improve your customer service a bit...

Comment Re:Doesn't surprise me (Score 1) 185

Agree 100% Wife bought me a frame for Christmas that she found in a grocery store, I read the box and made her take it back. Then my parents got her the same exact frame. Horrible resolution, no wireless features, the darn thing couldn't even play the photos randomly, just play them sequentially.

Comment What about disibilities? (Score 4, Interesting) 553

One of the most touching things I ever had on Xbox Live was when I received a message I from a friend who always seemed to be on, but not in the previous 2 weeks. The message was from his mother thanking me, and everyone on his friends list for being his friend and telling us he had passed away. She continued to tell us he had Downs Syndrome, and at 21 years of age had passed away from complications of it. She told us that we, his virtual friends were the only friends he really seemed to have, because we didn't know about, or judge him because of his condition.

Would this system have deprived him of the one joy he had in his life because he couldn't run the hundred meter dash, or didn't match up with some other physical standard?

Comment Re:makes me rethink things (Score 1) 610

A few years ago I was working in television as a video editor. I bought Final Cut to do some side projects on, to make my demo DVD as professional as possible while looking for another job, and because I was used to working with pro tools.

Now I'm a software developer, I make maybe 2 or 3 fun videos a year, friends weddings, highlights of hockey, and it isn't worth it to upgrade the software. There still is that pull of "I spent over $1k on that software I should make sure I can still use it, but at the same time when I look at how much more I'll need to spend on a hardware in order to still run it, I need to figure out where to cut the losses.

I thought I had justified it if I could make the entire house Mac centric, but to upgrade the netbook to the cheapest MacBook, and to buy a Mac Pro vs build a home system just doesn't justify it.

Comment Re:makes me rethink things (Score 1) 610

Yeah my main desktop at work is an Ubuntu machine, which runs VirtualBox whenever I need to do something which requires windows (not often). I also have an old iMac at work, but it doesn't do much but serve as an iTunes player, and doing the occasional SVN merge. I've always appreciated the OSX ui, and a few years ago bought Final Cut Pro to do some video editing as a hobby. I'd like to keep using it, but I'm caught in the Mac Hole. iMac isn't the ideal platform for it. Mac Pro is to expensive for something I'll be doing as a "hobby" I want to get my wife off of Windows, and the transition from Windows -> OSX would be just as easy/hard as the transition from Windows -> Ubuntu. Yes they aren't equal yet, but for what she'll use it for there will be close enough.

Comment makes me rethink things (Score 2, Insightful) 610

It's funny as someone with an aging MacBook Pro, I was contemplating passing it down to my wife, claiming her netbook, installing osx86 on it, and then picking up a new Mac desktop, either an iMac or a Mac Pro, and just standardizing on OSX throughout the house.

Now I wonder if I'm better off just installing Ubuntu on the MBP and the Netbook and spend a lot less money on the desktop and build myself one with Ubuntu as well.

I'm not totally stating that this has caused Apple a hardware sale, (at least not yet) but it has made me re-think my strategy.

Comment Sneaking in everywhere (Score 2, Interesting) 358

As a big hockey fan I picked up NHL 10, to play with friends on their online league, the EASHL. In past years the game just featured "real" equipment that the players in the league wore, and you could chose any of that for your character.

This year they featured customized "cool" equipment with boost slots. So a piece of equipment could be unlocked with 3 boost slots, and then up to 3 boosts could also be unlocked and added to it. So suddenly if you decided you wanted your character to look like he rides the short bus, you could actually increase your character up to 60 points, which is a major increase, considering leveling up your character fully only gets you about a 75 point increase.

EA set most of these "unlockables" to some really impossible tasks. Play 4 seasons, manually playing at least 40 games each season and score X number of goals each season. If somebody has a month, they could probably achieve this, but because these would be used in a competitive league, people wanted them now and EA allowed people to purchase them. $3 per equipment, $2 per boost. Maxing out the boost equipment on your guy comes to roughly $40, yet if you don't you're at a disadvantage from those who either have too much time and can unlock, or too much money and can just buy it all.

I bought one or two pieces to try and keep up, and would probably have bought more but my 360 RROD'd and its given me time to think. I doubt I'll buy a $60 game in the future where the part of the game I'm most likely to play will cost me a full $100, then I'll be fully expected to do it again next year.

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