jcl

45 ms·

421.
by jcl 16y ago
I'm pretty sure that Amazon, at least, is testing the hell out of their layouts. You may not be able to comprehend the guy who thinks "Fabric softener!", but he's probably out there, spending more money than the people who prefer less rand
422.
by jcl 16y ago
Eh... seeing as how the service predates the comic, I'm thinking it's really "xkcd imitates life".
423.
by jcl 16y ago
Yes, it's supposedly inspired by Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, which are both excellent books. However, the letter shapes of those two books are closer to each other than they are to Comic Sans. It seems the font creator relied mo
424.
by jcl 16y ago
Even then, it's limited to a kind of "cramped technical pen" lettering that would be expected in alternative or underground comics. There are other comic book fonts that would be more broadly applicable.
425.
by jcl 16y ago
I think what happens is that the wires are fixed length, but wrapped around a ring on the back axle. As the pedal is pushed down, it moves the pulley, unwrapping the wire from the ring, which rotates the rear wheel through a ratcheting mec
426.
by jcl 16y ago
To be fair, the Autodesk case was a little more complicated than the Slashdot summary makes it sound. A company bought Autodesk's software, then they later bought an upgrade at a discount and sold the original software to a reseller. In ot
427.
by jcl 16y ago
Clause 6 of the GPLv2 says that you "cannot impose any further restrictions" on recipients of the software. One possible interpretation of this clause is that the App Store terms of service impose further restrictions on recipients. Thus a
428.
by jcl 16y ago
It's not an unreasonable suggestion. The reason YouTube has this filter in place is because their business model does not allow them to handle the issues with humans -- likewise for the complaint form Jeff filled out. Thus, while YouTube e
429.
by jcl 16y ago
I love that a couple of the top suggestions are "Microsoft should reduce its number of products" and "Microsoft should start hundreds of little companies". :)
430.
by jcl 16y ago
There is. But these two URLs differ, even though they point to the same content.
431.
by jcl 16y ago
That one bugged me, too. Unlike all the other examples, that photo was manipulated to make it obvious that it was a "photo illustration". The only apparent controversy is the context in which the photo appeared. I found an article with m
432.
by jcl 16y ago
Note: Many of the photos are clickable to show the source material next to the doctored photo.
433.
by jcl 16y ago
And not just icons... the OS X interface generally marks interactive elements in blue (folders, buttons, scrollbars, highlights etc.) -- living up to the "Aqua" name. The default Windows 7 interface also has a bluish tint, although not nea
434.
by jcl 16y ago
It's a little annoying that they're passing off a human interest story as research. It doesn't tell us why the people felt younger (Because of increased exertion? Because they expected to? Because they were good at acting? Because they w
435.
by jcl 16y ago
Now, there is some more nuance than even that: if I sell your song, I am obviously depriving you of money people are willing to pay for it. If I give away your song tho, there is no money I am depriving you of -- the people who gave me $0
436.
by jcl 16y ago
(I guess you mean "I don't not eat HFCS..." in the first sentence. Substituting "avoid" for "don't eat" might be clearer.)
437.
by jcl 16y ago
No, he's right. There is at least one eye-tracking study that shows that people from Asian cultures pay greater attention to the eyes when reading expressions. Relative to the Asians in the study, the Caucasians relied more on other parts
438.
by jcl 16y ago
I'm surprised there's no virtual pets involved. :) The new Ford Fusion apparently has a virtual pet installed in the dashboard to encourage better driving habits. It would probably work just as well in an exercise machine, as a more-visibl
439.
by jcl 16y ago
Interesting that "Apple" appears in the one-star list. In what sort of contexts does this appear? Are people actually blaming Apple for the crappy apps?
440.
by jcl 16y ago
I guess this is the literary equivalent of "sampling".
441.
by jcl 16y ago
Actually, the GPL is not exercised in that example. As the author of Doom, id Software can do whatever they want with it; they are not going to sue themselves for violating the GPL. The GPL's terms only become relevant when a third party w
442.
by jcl 16y ago
This change has the brilliant side-effect of coaxing users to give more specific descriptions of what they are searching for. Before instant search, a search term was sufficient if it brought up the desired result in the first page or two,
443.
by jcl 16y ago
Of course, the problem with that approach is that it punishes everyone who paid for the app before it was free.
444.
by jcl 16y ago
Schmidt's point in his speech is that Google can use what they know about web surfers to provide better service to them. By cutting the phrase down to just the headline, it makes Google's motives sound more questionable. It is like the dif
445.
by jcl 16y ago
The Pac-Man doodle triggered hundreds of support calls and problem tickets for the makers of browsers and antivirus software. A big part of that, though, was the fact that it played sound (even when the Google search page was loaded on a b
446.
by jcl 16y ago
For the record, the use of the word "pirate" as "one who takes another's work without permission" dates back to the 1700s, when Daniel Defoe wrote of one of his novels: "Its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates"... hardly newspeak. h
447.
by jcl 16y ago
I think the article is referring to the Bittorrent company's attempt several years ago to get into bed with the Hollywood studios. The result would have presumably provided a service similar to Netflix's online offering -- i.e. not the sam
448.
by jcl 16y ago
And Scribd doesn't charge you to read the documents. And for some of their videos, YouTube allows you to download them for a fee. http://help.youtube.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...
449.
by jcl 16y ago
There are people for whom aliens fill the same "unknowable higher power" role that deities typically fill. But these people usually also believe that aliens have played some active role in life on Earth. Hawking, on the other hand, believe
450.
by jcl 16y ago
For me, the corniness of the phrase isn't as much a turn-off as the fact that it validates gorging on junk food.

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