subject says it all.

I live in an area such as this.. Indiana. It has many small farm towns where if lucky, there is a gas station and perhaps a restaurant / bar. The town I live in is large enough to support a Walmart, however the theater (built circa 1995) is lacking. Housing 2 "large" screens and 6 smaller ones. I don't know the specific sizes but i think the smaller screens have 4 or 5 seats on each side with one aisle down the middle) The larger 2 screens still do not compare to the newer theaters in Indianapolis which seem HUGE, and aren't even IMAX. The change to digital 3d has forced prices for tickets and coke sky high, but the experience is lacking b/c I can drive for 1 hour and pay the same price and watch in a comfy chair with better sound and video quality. If there is a way that subscription model pricing can be viable, sign me up. I've dropped cable, switched to netflix / vudu / dvds throughout my house, and have cut back in other areas as well. My family and I love going to the movies, but I can't seem to justify the $30 night out at the local theater because I know the options an hour away are so much nicer.

I guess I still just don't get it. I was hired because I was the only person who brought a portfolio of previous work. I also don't display my phone like some sort of trophy. I do believe I left it in my car for the duration of the interview. As an aside: One of the hindrances to upgrading / getting a newer model cell phone is price. I don't like paying a lot of money for things that I don't think should cost as much as they do. I also don't sign up for time-length service plans / leases. I buy things outright. My "things" are paid for up front. Its just a personal preference. That means I drive a 10 year old car (There's the car analogy tie in thingy), or have an old but albeit good phone. I have a 62" widescreen rear projection TV that recently got new horizontal and vertical convergence ICs. I just don't need to have new things to be happy. That's why I have a family.

A title with the word black in it 3 times, and also all the words except 1 start with B. On top of that, its an article about people embarrassed of a phone they own? Huh? Whats stopping them from getting a different phone? Who gets embarrassed by a phone? Also don't give me that plan crap. You can get out of plans. Whats stopping these embarrassed people from sticking the SIM card in an unlocked phone bought from someone who needs some quick cash on Craigslist. Wait, its a business phone and you have to use it? Correct me if i'm wrong, unless you are in marketing, you aren't going to get judged by other business people by your phone. I still use an old 3GS with a pay as you go plan and WIFI for internet because it just works.. Seriously people! Get creative. It just pisses me off how people do not do anything anymore for fear of breaking a rule that may or may not exist. Sorry. Feeling ranty this morning.

I feel that an artist has to do one of two things these days to make money... Take Deadmau5 for example. Mainstream 'electronic music' artist who isn't on the Radio (much) but has a pretty huge fanbase from concerts and constant internet presence. He doesn't really have 'albums' but songs get grouped together as he releases them. He puts a lot of demo junk tracks he's playing with on sound cloud or whatever service he chooses. It keeps people interested in his work. He's also producing other artists in the same vein of music style. The other option is the Bieber model. Release an album that is huge with a large group of people. Take that album and do tours around the world. After that success, release only tiny tidbits for months on end, teasing the fans along into a frenzy. Finally when you are out of song snips / album cover / song lists going to be in the album / tour announcements / tour DATE announcements etc. Release the album. Go on tour. Repeat.

The sound of a 19,200 baud modem when someone was calling in to my BBS is a part of my childhood. I have searched the internet and cannot find one single example of this sound, nor can I find a 9600 baud sound. There are plenty of people saying their sounds are 9600 or 14,400 or 19,2 but its just the same old 56k sound. You'll know it because it has that dee-twang de-twang sound, and sometimes a rising 'braaaaaaaaaaang' sound in it. (Sorry I am not looking up the terms, I admit I don't know what they are). If someone could post an actual 9600 or 14,4 sound i'd love to hear it. US-Robotics Jumper switches and AT commands all the way!

Talks Serious Security Turkey... I had to read that four times before it actually made sense. Talks securitious security... turkey security.. Sorry for the randomness, but I wouldn't have even clicked this article had it not been for the title being so weird.

Its doing the robot! HAR HAR HAR

You still have to fight the layers system when working with PSD files though. ARGHH why do designers get CS5 and us web guys get to use whatever we can find ;)

Sorry, claiming my comment.

From http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/VISOR The VISOR, acronym for Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement, was a medical device used in the Federation to aid patients who have suffered loss of eyesight or who were born blind. The VISOR detected electromagnetic signals across the entire EM spectrum between 1 Hz and 100,000 THz and transmitted those signals to the brain through neural implants in the temples of the individual via delta-compressed wavelengths. We may not be at brain-interface yet, but looks like we are heading in the right direction.

Maybe the definition of meaningful is in question. If I ask a computer for directions out loud, and it tells them to me and says "is there anything else you need" and I respond with "no", that was meaningful. But I've yet to have a computer initiate a conversation with me about something I might be interested in talking about, nor have I talked to a computer that was successfully able to change the topic to something 'it' wanted to talk about. That would not be a meaningful conversation IMO. Maybe instead of 'meaningful' we should use the word 'interesting' before conversation. Have you ever carried on an interesting conversation with a computer? Me? no. BTW, slashdot noob here, how do you line break.

Remember, I was working back in a day when I had tons of free time, a lot more money (for tinkering, now a family man) and cell phones were pretty new to everyone. Internet access on the cell phone was for big shots. If I could do it again today, I'm sure something really cool would result from it.

I've dabbled a bit in my time with what I considered "artificial intelligence". I installed a computer in my car back in 2004 and built a program called MediaEngine to tie it all together. One of the things I always wanted to do on long trips was talk to my computer as if a person was in the car. I would have on a bluetooth earpiece and the voice would come through the stereo speakers. I never had much trouble with the getting the voice recognition to be accurate, but I always was amazed at the lack of things I had to say. I used a program called Ultra Hal, and even tried writing my own in VB6, but I realized the problem isn't that the computer doesn't know how to respond, its just that it has no life experience. Imagine walking up to someone you know. You have things to tell them, and they may or may not have things to tell you, and you both will 'bounce' off each other. Now imagine walking up to someone who has absolutely nothing to say. You say your bit, they say thats nice, have you always done this, etc. Its like an interview. At some point you run out of stuff to say because the other person isn't bouncing anything back. As soon as *this* problem is solved, we will have 'scary' computer conversations. My computer never started speaking to me first...