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Journal Journal: Retiring from Slashdot: The long, slow death

1. Why Anonymous Mods suck

Any user on Slashdot is invited to moderate after a while, so long as their Karma remains positive. Moderation is great when its used wisely and I've no hassle being modded down when deserved. Trouble is, every man and their dog is doing it now, and there is no accountability. Take this post. Someone modded it as a "Troll" shortly after I posted it, and hardly anyone else got to see it:

Comment Sweden for Sale (Score -1, Offtopic) 232

Microsoft bought the Vote of the Swedish National Standards Body. What a coincidence: There's long been a question mark over the relationship of the Swedish Government and the MPAA:

http://digg.com/tech_news/Complete_List_of_Civil_R ights_Violations_Regarding_The_Pirate_Bay_Raid?t=1 882690#c1882690 (original article embedded here)
Handhelds

Submission + - What's Keeping US Phones in the Stone Age?

knapper_tech writes: After seeing the iPhone introduction in the US, I was totally confused by how much excitement it generated in the US. It offered no features I could see beyond my Casio W41CA's capabilities. I had a lot of apprehension towards the idea of a virtual keypad and the bare screen looked like a scratch magnet. Looks aren't enough. Finally, the price is rediculous. The device is an order of magnitude more expensive than my now year-old keitai even with a two-year contract.

After returning to the US, I've come to realize the horrible truth behind iPhone's buzz. Over the year I was gone, US phones haven't really done anything. Providers push a miniscule lineup of uninspiring designs and then charge unbelievable prices for even basic things like text messages. I was greeted at every kiosk by more tired clamshells built to last until obselescense, and money can't buy a replacement for my W41CA. I finally broke down and got a $20 Virgin phone to at least get me connected until I get over my initial shock. In short, American phones suck, and iPhone is hopefully a wakeup call to US providers and customers. Why is the American phone situation so depressing?

Before I left for Japan about a year ago, I was using a Nokia 3160. It cost me $40 US and I had to sign a one year contract that Cingular later decided was a two-year contract. I was paying about $40 a month for service and had extra fees for SMS messages.

After I got to Kyoto, I quickly ended up at an AU shop and landed a Casio W41CA. It does email, music, pc web browsing, gps, fm radio, tv, phone-wallet, pictures (2megapixel), videos, calculator etc. I walked out of the store for less than ¥5000 (about $41) including activation fees, and I was only paying slightly over ¥4000 (about $33) per month. That included ¥3000 for a voice plan I rarely used and ¥1000 for effectively unlimited data (emails and internet).

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the costs facing American mobile providers can explain the huge technology and cost gap between the US and Japan. Why are we paying so much for such basic features?

At first, I thought maybe it was something to do with network infrastructure. The US is a huge land area and Japan is very tiny. However, Japan would have lots of towers because of the terrain. Imagine something like Colorado covered in metropolitan area. Also, even though places like rural New Mexico exist, nobody has an obligation to cover them, and from the look of coverage maps, no providers do. Operating a US network that reaches 40% of the nation's population requires nowhere near reaching 40% of the land area. The coverage explanation alone isn't enough.

Another possibility was the notion that because Americans keep their phones until they break, phone companies don't focus much on selling cutting edge phones and won't dare ship a spin-chassis to Oklahoma. However, with the contract life longer, the cost of the phone could be spread out over a longer period. If Americans like phones that are built to last and then let them last, the phones should be really cheap. From my perspective, they are rediculously priced, so this argument also fails.

The next exlpanation I turned to is that people in the US tend to want winners. We like one ring to rule them all and one phone to establish all of what is good in phone fashion for the next three years. However, Motorola's sales are sagging as the population got tired of dime-a-dozen RAZR's and subsequent knockoffs. Apparently, we have more fashion sense or at least desire for individuality than to keep buying hundreds of millions of the same design. Arguing that the US market tends to gravitate to one phone and then champion it is not making Motorola money.

At last I started to wonder if it was because Americans buy less phones as a whole, making the cost of marketing as many different models as the Japanese prohibitive. However, with something like three times the population, the US should be more than enough market for all the glittery treasures of Akiba. What is the problem?

I'm out of leads at this point. It's not like the FCC is charging Cingular and Verizon billions of dollars per year and the costs are getting passed on to the consumer. Japanese don't have genetically superior cellphone taste. I remember that there was talk of how fierce mobile competition was and how it was hurting mobile providers' earnings. However, if Japanese companies can make money at those prices while selling those phones, what's the problem in the US? It seems to me more like competition is non-existent and US providers are ramming yesteryear's designs down our throats while charging us an arm and a leg! Someone please give me some insight.
Windows

Submission + - Vista's 40 Million License Sales In Context

Overly Critical Guy writes: Microsoft's figure of 40 million Vista OEM licenses sold has less impact when weighed against the expanded size of the PC market, according to IDC numbers. The myriad of factors involved in determining success in the market makes Microsoft's constant comparisons to Windows XP less reliable as a growth indicator — particularly with Microsoft refusing to reveal the number of actual activated Vista licenses.
Microsoft

Submission + - OLPC to run Windows, come to the US

An anonymous reader writes: 'Yesterday Nicholas Negroponte, former director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab now head of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project, gave analysts and journalists an update on the OLPC project. Two big changes were announced — the $100 OLPC is now the $175 OLPC, and it will be able to run Windows. Even in a free and open market where there are free and legal alternatives to using Windows and Office, there's a huge demand for Microsoft software. The OLPC was seen as a way for open source Linux distributions to achieve massive exposure in developing countries, but now Negroponte says that the OLPC machine will be able to run Windows as well as Linux. Details are sketchy but Negroponte did confirm that the XO's developers have been working with Microsoft to get the OLPC up to spec for Windows.' We also find out that the OLPC gets a price hike and will officially come to the US. Could this be tied into Microsoft's new $3 Windows XP Starter and Office 2007 bundle? Now that the OLPC and Intel's Classmate PC can both run Windows, is Linux in the developing world in trouble?
The Media

Submission + - NBC Believes They Own Political Discourse

PoliSciASU writes: "MSNBC has established draconian rules regarding the use of the Presidential Primary Debates on the internet. Kevin Bondelli talks about why this is shameful and wrong. Voters are missing out on the ability to actually have an engaged conversation about the candidates and their debate performances because of NBC's greed."
Media

Web Scanning Technology for Copyright Violations 54

eldavojohn writes "I've heard a lot of talk about software being used to detect pirated media anywhere on the web, but haven't seen a lot of details. PhysOrg has a good article on one of the tools out there. Automatic Copyright Infringement Detection (ACID) boasts a patented technology dubbed 'meaning-based computing' that is reportedly capable of finding relationships among 1,000 different types of files. The important thing is that this is not tagging-based searching. 'Autonomy's search technology uses automatic hyperlinking and link clustering that the company claims isn't built into keyword search engines. According to the company, this technology allows computers to perform searches with greater context, so it finds a wider range of related documents or research citations than is possible from keyword searches.' For more details on how this magic works, check out Autonomy's patent and the many patents by its subdivision, Virage."
Data Storage

Submission + - Can CDs Be Recycled?

An anonymous reader writes: I was recently doing a closet-cleaning and came across literally hundreds of old software CDs that are no longer usable — both manufactured CDs and CD-Rs. Note that by "not usable", I mean that many of them simply couldn't be read anymore, possibly due to the fact that they'd been stored rather ineptly (no, I wasn't responsible for how they were stored). My question is: Is it possible to reclaim CDs for raw materials? It seems wrong to just throw them out, but are there other things that can be done with them that will allow their raw materials to be reused in some way?

Feed Tumors Stopped From Spreading In Mice (sciencedaily.com)

A research team reports that radiation and chemotherapy increase circulating levels of the growth factor TGF-beta, circulating cancer cells, and tumor metastases in a mouse model of metastatic breast cancer.

Feed Culture Is Key To Interpreting Facial Emotions (sciencedaily.com)

Culture is a determining factor when interpreting facial emotions. The study reveals that in cultures where emotional control is the standard, such as Japan, focus is placed on the eyes to interpret emotions. Whereas in cultures where emotion is openly expressed, such as the United States, the focus is on the mouth to interpret emotion.
Linux Business

Submission + - HP: Load Linux, Lose Waranty

darkonc writes: "Currently highlighted on Groklaw's newsbytes is an article on linux.com about a woman who bought a Compaq laptop and loaded Ubuntu on it. When, some time later, the keyboard started acting up she called the Compaq for warranty repairs..
"Sorry, we do not honor our hardware warranty when you run Linux." she was told. Even an HP PR rep was unable to "do the right thing" when given a couple of weeks to work on it. It looks like HP could be an especially bad vendor for people hoping to avoid Microsoft's Monopoly Tax on arbitrary machines."
Linux Business

Submission + - Get Vista/Works refunded from Dell with 2 emails!

look@thealternative.ch writes: "Although some people asked for Linux pre-installs and Dell seems to listen (Google cache, survey off since Friday), some still think it will be hard to get at least a naked PC. But what about stripping it naked after you bought it? I managed to get Windows Vista (and a bit more) refunded from Dell Germany last week. The process was surprisingly simple:
  1. After delivery, ask Dell Support for refund by email
  2. ???
  3. Refund!!! (aka "Less profit!!!" for other "personas")
For replication, read the full email conversation in the German original or my English translation. For the impatient reader: The refund is EUR 77.54 for Windows Vista Home Basic plus Works8.0 (that is 15% of the total amount I paid). The whole process took 2 emails, 2 more to say thank you and less than 48h. The money is already on my account. Kudos to Dell Customer Care (esp. "Veronika") for being efficient and customer-oriented!"

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