Heh. I don't know any more about this technology, but it does seem really funny that they are touting this as a new technology...
My 70+ year-old father's first job at Raytheon in the mid 50's was... to oversee core memory manufacture. Whoo hoo... cutting edge.
But at least this will address the #1 stupidity I see in compters today... why is it I have to have the computer load a bunch of crap from scratch every time I turn it on? I can;t wait for computers to be more like my PDA in this respect...
The thing is... most people *are* buying a limited license... it's just that they assume that they are not. The vast majority click "OK" instead of reading the EULA. Of course, software companies go out of their way to make you think you are "buying" their software initially, rather than licensing it.
But anyhow... how many people buy software with an eye to its longevity? Probably, the main thing people think about in this respect is whether the company manking the software is established. Intuit has been around eons (in computer years) so it's fairly safe to say they will be there down the line, so you will still be able to run Quicken whatever IS will be around in 5 or 10 years.
At least with current software, you have it on your system, and the company can't do much about that beyond no longer giving you support. Just wait until more and more software uses the "passport" model where you need to connect to a license database when you install, or even worse, every time you use the product.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Wait until more software is sold as "services." "Oh, hey, your license ran out. If you want your payroll data, you'll have to pony up more cash. Oh, and we raised our rates last month, so you'll be paying us triple what you paid initially. Have a nice day."
In this model, however, at least there should be more disclosure about the end date. It'll be more obvious that you have "subscribed" to Quicken for a year or two, rather than having bought a shrink-wrapped box and having to guess about when the "time bomb" will go off.
Why not make it so IE and Outlook have popup-adds with every page and email they view. What if the worm steals their emails and sends them to spammers list automatically? I mean obviously people aren't learning, or this crap wouldn't be happening over and over again. Yeah the people are victims blah blah blah... cry me a river.
Ah yes. It's the user's fault. Damn them for actually using the features in their frigging e-mail clients. How dare they not go through arcane menu commands and figure out how to deactivate features. Let's shoot the slobs now, and totally ignore the fact that lazy-ass developers created all of these problems for the users to begin with.
I've never had a worm, and never will. I'm not claming i'm smart or anything, but its common sense that an emailing "I'm asking for your advice" with a document that ends in scr or vbs is something that joe45@aol.com probably didn't mean to send me.
Oh yeah. very common sense. Unless, perhaps you know joe45@aol.com. Which is the case in most of these "scan the user's address book and send a copy" schemes. That's why it's so successful... e-mails go to people who know, and perhaps trust, the person who launched the virus. Hell, a lot of the viruses are in the form of Word documents, which, believe it or not, are actually passed around via e-mail. See, e-mail is all about communication. People send people things. People open them up. 99.99% of the time, nothing bad happens. That's what e-mail is for. That's why we have attachments. If people aren't supposed to open them, what's the point of having that capability in e-mail clients?
Do you actually expect people to know what the hell a.scr file is? Maybe you've got all of Window's file extensions memorized. Most people I know have more important things to think about.
No, if you want to code up a virus to "fix" this problem, code up one that goes out and downloads and installs an e-mail client that was written by someone with a clue about security. Perhaps install an operating system where something run in userland can't fuck with system files. Hell, write a virus with some AI that can seek out and destroy the source code to lousy e-mail clients, scripting systems that have no concept of security, and operating systems that have no security model to speak of.
In the mean time, screeching at people that doing things that the e-mail clients were designed to do in the first place is grounds for a cyber-anal-raping is about as productive as screeching that they're a witch if they float in water. It may seem obvious to you, but you're not speaking their language.
Re:Why don't you guys get it?
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This is IT?
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· Score: 2
I do live in a city.
A city I share with frigging idiots who insist on riding bikes, skateboards, scooters, and rollerblades on the sidewalk, treating pedistrians as a living and moving obstacles in their own private amusement ride.
This technology is neat, and yes, in some cases, it could be useful. I used to work in a warehouse where it took several minutes to walk the entire distance on the building. We had these things that were essentially golf carts that employees and especially supervisors would use to get around. They were expensive and hard to drive in the narrow confines of the shelving.
But translating this thing into a serious commuting tool is going to be difficult. Will it ride on the sidewalks? I'd certainly not want to share the sidewalks with these things. They are called side*walks* for a reason. Even having people jogging down them can be dangerous.
Bike lanes are a possibility, but they are usually ignored by drivers as far as I can see. In Europe, I suspect the situation is better... but not where I live.
Jobs' quote about "cities will haev to be redesigned for this" is close to the mark. These things don't fit well in an urban landscape, as is the case with other similar transport methods. Users of alternative transport means have to either brave traffic that can squash them, or endanger pedestrians who are simply trying to walk to where they are going. Ginger, for all of its techno-glitter, doesn't solve this fundamental problem.
But not the one everyone else is talking about (i.e. an iBook/Powerbook). A coworker had an Apple Newton E-mate which was a cross between a laptop and a PDA.
It had a monochrome screen, no hard disk, smallish keyboard, and looked fairly rugged. Being based on the Arm chip and not having any moving parts, it probably had an OK battery life.
Surprisingly, the things weighs 4 pounds (!?) at least according to the page I mentioned above. The actual unit only had 4MB of memory, as well, which seems small, even for its time.
I suppose, for the adventurous, you could try to track down a unit and use it as a basis for a new machine. Of course, these are rare, and I suspect they still go for a pretty penny. Newton owners are a pretty fiercly loyal bunch. I doubt you could run Linux on it all that well... EMACS is out of the question with so little RAM.
Something like this, ARM based, flash memory, perhaps a screen with optional backlighting and greyscale, and of course Linux based is something closer to the mark than a full-blown laptop. Connectivity would also be an issue. I suspect the keyboard is a bit cramped, as well. But still... an interesting idea. One potential use that springs to mind is a cheap rugged machine for field use.
Don't ay any attention to anything until the end of the day on something like this. No one really knows anything, and the newspeople need to have something to say...
I have a cable modem with AT&T, and they do have a dial-up option for travelling, with local dialups nation wide. It's not terribly useful if you travel frequently, since they only give you 2hrs free access per month. Thereafter you need to pay $2/hr or something. Still, it's not too bad to check on news and maybe download stuff for offline viewing. If I end up taking my laptop on my next trip, I'll probably use it to check on e-mail and send out the files I would be working on.
Finally, in some states (Massachusetts is one) for sales to consumers the CONSUMER has the option of demanding a repair, replacement or a refund. Most written warranties state that it is the manufacturer's option to repair or replace.
Damn, that's cool. I never knew that (and here I am, a life-long resident of the Commonwealth). I assume this also only holds to companies that have a business presence in the state? Hmm... means that this might be a considerating of where to buy something in the future
Can you cite the law, or give a web address for that? (I'm think Massachusetts specifically, but any good consumer rights site that contain pointers to all of the laws would be great). Do these laws generally hold the manufacturer liable, or do they apply to the merchant who sells the product as well? (i.e. all of the record stores who say you can only get a replacement for a CD that you find to be defective, rather than a refund).
What made me reach for my revolver (err... ad blocking software) was that godamned "click the monkey" ad. (In case you've never seen it, it's some dumb ad with a monkey zipping around the background).
Usability tests of websites agree... movement kills the ability to read. Having something zipping around in your perefrial vision distracts your ability to read content. Content is what I came to the website for. If I can;t read the content, why should I go there?
So, since the advertising numbnuts that push animated banner ads poisoned the well, I've been using ad blocking software. Apparently, people still haven't learned, as I have seen godawful flash advertisements slip through my ad blockers, again making the page friggin' unreadable.
Most print ads do not disrupt. There are a few exceptions (I noticed once that a magazine started to place ads in a stripe across the middle of the page, and had each column of text jump over the ad, so in reading the story your eyes would be forced to jump over the ad space two or three times. They knocked that off after two isses). In general, print ads seem to have struck a balance between getting the reader's attention and disrupting the reader's ability to enjoy the content... which is their purpose in reading the book/magazine/newspaper in general. This has happened through evolution. Those that annoyed their readers with ads were less likely to survive.
Ads on the web right now are about the sophistication of those cheesy local cable ads. You know, the ones you can tell are stuck in by the local cable company, because the sound is suddenly too loud, there's usually bad audio, and the video is of poor quality. And like those cheesy cable ads, they tend to be inserted not by the producer of the content, but of third parties (such as doubleclick) who may or may not be concerned about how disruptive the ads are to the site within which they are viewed.
Things are just getting worse in this space. I've seen more Flash ads on the web, which makes me think I should uninstall that damned plugin.
When you push things too far, when you make things annoying enough, don't be surprised when your audience pushes back, and does things like install ad filtering software. It's corporate conceit and stupidity to fight back with things that are supposed to technologically allow you to annoy the hell out of your potential customers. Hey guys, how about maybe adopting guidelines so your ads don't disrupt your audience's ability to do what they really came to your site to do? Like, for example, no movement. Totally static images. I know, not as flashy, not as sexy, but also not as annoying. If, in the end, I cannot read and enjoy the content of the site, I'm simply not going to come back. Then the site dies, just as surely as if they had no revenue from ads in the first place.
Hey, think of it like shipping work overseas... the Shire is obviously backwards compared to (uh... wheverever it is the Elves are from).
I mean, jeez, they just picked up the ring and stomped off. Did you hear word one about health benefits? If I were going to stomp through Sauron's turf with the one thing he wanted most of all, damn straight I'd be asking about death and dismemberment benefits.
The only things the record companies will understand is money. The have to be financially hurt for this to stop.
If they see a large percentage of their product coming right back at them as returns, they might get the message. Personally, if I ever find a CD I cannot play on my PC, I will return it, saying it's defective. Likely, the store clerk will give me another copy, which I will also return, ad infinitum, until I get my money back. The store will have lost a sale, and the time its clerk took to deal with the issue. The record company will have to accept its defective disks back. Of course, the crecord company won;t notice this until it becomes really bad, since we know the cost of actually creating the physical CD and packaging is their smallest cost overall.
Eventually, the record companies will likely have to label these things as not working on PC-CDROM drives, to avoid having so much of their product returned to them (and wasting the time of record stores). Which will make the average consumer ask why. Having to slap a label on your product informing your customer that you've just screwed them over is likely to make the consumer think. And that's not what the record company wants.
This, of course, assumes that a large number of people use CD-ROM drives to listen to music. I'm not sure what the percentage of the average CD buying public this is. The Record industry has to either be betting that the numbers of people who, say, listen to CD's in the CD-ROM drive of their PC at work are small enough not to make a difference, or they are hoping that the consumer is sheep-like enough to simply accept that they cannot listen to their music in CD-ROMs. I'm not sure on either point.
I got the e-mail, followed the link, entered my user name and password (fortunately written down a while ago, since I've not bought anything from them in tears) and they claim I've been removed.
All of this in Konqueror, so not even a hassle that I don't have one of the "big two" browsers.
Of course, if you're paranoid, there is the question of whether they will honor it...
I have a mutli-level armored approach to browsing:
I installed Bugnosis which is designed specifically to deal with single pixels images that might be web bugs.
I use Proxomitron to do Javascript filtering. It cuts out the worst examples of Javascript annoyances (popups, leaving the page triggers, etc.) The filters are editable, so you can customize them yourself to filter out things like this spy script.
I route everything through Junkbuster, which gets rid of the ads that Proxomitron misses.
All of the above besides Junkbuster are Windows-only. The first one is specific to IE, but I end up using that anyhow, since it's the most stable Windows browser.
I can browse most sites that don't do stupid shit like refuse to serve pages to me if they cannot detect my browser (in which case, they are probably crap, anyhow). For shopping sites, I can just add the site to Junkbuster, or bypass the protection through Proxomitron. I am pop-up ad free, and I give out minimal information about myself. The other better way of browsing I could see would be to use an anonymous proxy, which would protect my IP addess.
Of course, this would bet better implemented via the browser. I was using Konqueror a lot at home under Linux, but it began crashing too much for my tastes. There, I've just stuck to using Mozilla with Junkbuster. Javascripts still sometimes get through, though.
I've donated to Tecschange in the past. Gave them a fairly good Sony 15" monitor (upgraded to a 19" Hitachi). They even came by and picked it up, which was a major bonus for me (I'm carless, so any hauling of equipment anyplace entails a huge hassle). I'm ride of something I used to stub my toe on, and someone, someplace, now has a functioning PC monitor. I didn't bother with the tax writeoff. Recovering the floorspace was enough for me:)
Currently, I seem to have enough computer-needy freinds to make disposing of my recently-used hardware. I just gave my nephews a computer built out of my old hard drive, case, and a failed motherboard upgrade. A freind of mine is going to get my BP6 motherboard after she moves... another may get parts from a gutted server that was replaced with a smaller system.
Ask around, as well. I know several of the IT folks where I work do volunteering for non-profits on the side. I may drag the old 200Mhz PPro out, lash it back together, and give it to them.
However, I have yet to see a single sysadmin tweak the source of a Linux or BSD kernel because they found a bug or performance bottleneck.
Well, maybe you don't work with people who are very good at what they do. I know the IT folks here where I work have submitted patches to Red Hat to fix issues they have come across in the field. (At least one of them got "the letter" due to this.)
Another feature of Open Source is that you can hire someone else to go out and fix the bugs for you much faster than the closed source "wait until the next version" folks will. My company currently is looking offering a bounty for a bug fix to an Open Source piece of software we use. We'll probably get a fix for that in a month, for a reasonable price (much less than we would pay for a one year service contract with some companies).
I own one of these... it makes a neat little server box. Get your own CPU, RAM, hard drive, and you're good to go. No need for another monitor, I've got it's video out plugged into the TV.
Only down side is the thing is that it is fairly loud, for something so tiny. I've got it sitting in my living room, and it's fan noise is rather noticable. My dream is to have an appliance-like system I can use for general purpose stuff. Sort of like a TiVo, but with more oomph, and of course. general purpose. And quiet. Until then, though, the Book PC is a nice, cheap alternative.
I always thought that NASA used older chips because they had attained milspec ratings and all of that... i.e. the time it took for the processor to be certified capable of handling the extreme environments, g-force stresses, etc. for mission-critical components basically ensured that they were working with trailing-edge tech as far as electronics goes.
Maybe in these faster, better, cheaper days, these requirements were tossed out the window..
No kidding. My cable modem data light blinks non-stop now.
Mine too. I'm on AT&T Broadband/Road Runner/Whatever the hell they are calling themselves now.
I have a website up, so Apache is logging all hits on the site... it seems the access_log is only logging one attempt to access the site per infected host... the error_log indicates that the worm is actually hitting the site three times in quick succession (I think over a period of minutes). The only thing is, neither log really accounts for all the traffic that appears at the modem. Everything else is being blocked by the router/firewall appliance, which doesn't have great logging capabilities.
It looks like Red Alert recently hit a motherload of AT&T broadband sites, since I am seeing mostly sites hitting me that trace back to AT&T. Like another poster mentioned, you're not supposed to be running servers (so... sshh! I'm not running anything;). I'm willing to bet a good number of people have an install of Windows 2000 or NT up with IIS installed and running by default. I bet most don't even know they are running a web server, much less that it's been infected. The few sites I tried to access that appear in my log all have the default "this page not available" thing, which is what I think IIS coughs up if you've not made some directory the server root.
I suspect one thing is that the DSL and cable companies may be prompted to crack down on servers hosted on their network. I mean, if they really wanted to enforce the ban, they can just do a sweep of their network and tell you to know it off or they will pull the plug. I wonder if they will actually start doing this.
The *concept* of CG actors may leave people cold on the face of it. But the reality of seeing those digital actors in an actual context... engage the viewer in a compelling story, and he or she will not be paying attention to whether the actor is digital, flesh and bone, or hand drawn.
I bet if you asked these same people about using technology to revive, say, John F. Kennedy from the grave to appear in a movie, they would have also been dubious. But that didn't stop Forrest Gump from being a success, mostly because of that technology. In the context of the film, it made sense and looked fairly natural.
Where digital actors will make an impact first (and have already been making an impact) are background crowd scenes and walk-ons. With some motion capture equipment, a few actors can become a huge crowd that does exactly what the director tells them, every time. The A-list stars may not be threatened, but I suspect people who make some money on the side by being extras will be seeing less work. I also suspect stunt people will be seeing less work as well. Why risk a real human life by having them jump off a building, when you can get a digital actor to jump and come to a splattery end without anyone being hurt?
But I do think eventually that audince's suspension of disbelief will apply when they are presented with a life-like character in a compelling plot... something that is a bit more than a technology demo that the current crop of realistic digital actors are now.
I got that, too, last night. I looked at the privacy stuff by following the link, but didn't click the "I Agree" link.
This morning, my stock quotes are back. Looks like I don't actually have to agree to anything... just having viewed the page is enough. Wonderful.
Reminds me of a scheme I had...
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DSLBlaster?
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Hey, I already thought of this... sorta. I was thinking that you could hook two computers up over a phone line by using speech synthesis/recognition software. Think how much easier it would be to debug communications issues if you could understand what the computers were saying to each other by eavesdropping...
computer 1: EA BF 02 51
computer 2: Huh?
computer 1: I *said* EA BF 02 51 36
computer 2: Oh, yeah.
Does this strike anyone as being eerily like the way naturalists will shoot a tranq into some hapless animal and saddle them with a bigass ugly collar around their neck containing a radio reciever?
"Welcome to PBS. Next on Nature, stalking the wild European consumer..."
Slashdot Mirror
Sheesh. Take 3 seconds, click a link, you find their explorer install page
Or you can just post to Slashdot.
Heh. I don't know any more about this technology, but it does seem really funny that they are touting this as a new technology...
My 70+ year-old father's first job at Raytheon in the mid 50's was... to oversee core memory manufacture. Whoo hoo... cutting edge.
But at least this will address the #1 stupidity I see in compters today... why is it I have to have the computer load a bunch of crap from scratch every time I turn it on? I can;t wait for computers to be more like my PDA in this respect...
The thing is... most people *are* buying a limited license... it's just that they assume that they are not. The vast majority click "OK" instead of reading the EULA. Of course, software companies go out of their way to make you think you are "buying" their software initially, rather than licensing it.
But anyhow... how many people buy software with an eye to its longevity? Probably, the main thing people think about in this respect is whether the company manking the software is established. Intuit has been around eons (in computer years) so it's fairly safe to say they will be there down the line, so you will still be able to run Quicken whatever IS will be around in 5 or 10 years.
At least with current software, you have it on your system, and the company can't do much about that beyond no longer giving you support. Just wait until more and more software uses the "passport" model where you need to connect to a license database when you install, or even worse, every time you use the product.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Wait until more software is sold as "services." "Oh, hey, your license ran out. If you want your payroll data, you'll have to pony up more cash. Oh, and we raised our rates last month, so you'll be paying us triple what you paid initially. Have a nice day."
In this model, however, at least there should be more disclosure about the end date. It'll be more obvious that you have "subscribed" to Quicken for a year or two, rather than having bought a shrink-wrapped box and having to guess about when the "time bomb" will go off.
Ah yes. It's the user's fault. Damn them for actually using the features in their frigging e-mail clients. How dare they not go through arcane menu commands and figure out how to deactivate features. Let's shoot the slobs now, and totally ignore the fact that lazy-ass developers created all of these problems for the users to begin with.
Oh yeah. very common sense. Unless, perhaps you know joe45@aol.com. Which is the case in most of these "scan the user's address book and send a copy" schemes. That's why it's so successful... e-mails go to people who know, and perhaps trust, the person who launched the virus. Hell, a lot of the viruses are in the form of Word documents, which, believe it or not, are actually passed around via e-mail. See, e-mail is all about communication. People send people things. People open them up. 99.99% of the time, nothing bad happens. That's what e-mail is for. That's why we have attachments. If people aren't supposed to open them, what's the point of having that capability in e-mail clients?
Do you actually expect people to know what the hell a .scr file is? Maybe you've got all of Window's file extensions memorized. Most people I know have more important things to think about.
No, if you want to code up a virus to "fix" this problem, code up one that goes out and downloads and installs an e-mail client that was written by someone with a clue about security. Perhaps install an operating system where something run in userland can't fuck with system files. Hell, write a virus with some AI that can seek out and destroy the source code to lousy e-mail clients, scripting systems that have no concept of security, and operating systems that have no security model to speak of.
In the mean time, screeching at people that doing things that the e-mail clients were designed to do in the first place is grounds for a cyber-anal-raping is about as productive as screeching that they're a witch if they float in water. It may seem obvious to you, but you're not speaking their language.
I do live in a city.
A city I share with frigging idiots who insist on riding bikes, skateboards, scooters, and rollerblades on the sidewalk, treating pedistrians as a living and moving obstacles in their own private amusement ride.
This technology is neat, and yes, in some cases, it could be useful. I used to work in a warehouse where it took several minutes to walk the entire distance on the building. We had these things that were essentially golf carts that employees and especially supervisors would use to get around. They were expensive and hard to drive in the narrow confines of the shelving.
But translating this thing into a serious commuting tool is going to be difficult. Will it ride on the sidewalks? I'd certainly not want to share the sidewalks with these things. They are called side*walks* for a reason. Even having people jogging down them can be dangerous.
Bike lanes are a possibility, but they are usually ignored by drivers as far as I can see. In Europe, I suspect the situation is better... but not where I live.
Jobs' quote about "cities will haev to be redesigned for this" is close to the mark. These things don't fit well in an urban landscape, as is the case with other similar transport methods. Users of alternative transport means have to either brave traffic that can squash them, or endanger pedestrians who are simply trying to walk to where they are going. Ginger, for all of its techno-glitter, doesn't solve this fundamental problem.
But not the one everyone else is talking about (i.e. an iBook/Powerbook). A coworker had an Apple Newton E-mate which was a cross between a laptop and a PDA.
It had a monochrome screen, no hard disk, smallish keyboard, and looked fairly rugged. Being based on the Arm chip and not having any moving parts, it probably had an OK battery life.
Surprisingly, the things weighs 4 pounds (!?) at least according to the page I mentioned above. The actual unit only had 4MB of memory, as well, which seems small, even for its time.
I suppose, for the adventurous, you could try to track down a unit and use it as a basis for a new machine. Of course, these are rare, and I suspect they still go for a pretty penny. Newton owners are a pretty fiercly loyal bunch. I doubt you could run Linux on it all that well... EMACS is out of the question with so little RAM.
Something like this, ARM based, flash memory, perhaps a screen with optional backlighting and greyscale, and of course Linux based is something closer to the mark than a full-blown laptop. Connectivity would also be an issue. I suspect the keyboard is a bit cramped, as well. But still... an interesting idea. One potential use that springs to mind is a cheap rugged machine for field use.
Nope, now it's an Airbus.
Don't ay any attention to anything until the end of the day on something like this. No one really knows anything, and the newspeople need to have something to say...
I have a cable modem with AT&T, and they do have a dial-up option for travelling, with local dialups nation wide. It's not terribly useful if you travel frequently, since they only give you 2hrs free access per month. Thereafter you need to pay $2/hr or something. Still, it's not too bad to check on news and maybe download stuff for offline viewing. If I end up taking my laptop on my next trip, I'll probably use it to check on e-mail and send out the files I would be working on.
Damn, that's cool. I never knew that (and here I am, a life-long resident of the Commonwealth). I assume this also only holds to companies that have a business presence in the state? Hmm... means that this might be a considerating of where to buy something in the future
Can you cite the law, or give a web address for that? (I'm think Massachusetts specifically, but any good consumer rights site that contain pointers to all of the laws would be great). Do these laws generally hold the manufacturer liable, or do they apply to the merchant who sells the product as well? (i.e. all of the record stores who say you can only get a replacement for a CD that you find to be defective, rather than a refund).
Banner ads, in general don't bug me.
What made me reach for my revolver (err... ad blocking software) was that godamned "click the monkey" ad. (In case you've never seen it, it's some dumb ad with a monkey zipping around the background).
Usability tests of websites agree... movement kills the ability to read. Having something zipping around in your perefrial vision distracts your ability to read content. Content is what I came to the website for. If I can;t read the content, why should I go there?
So, since the advertising numbnuts that push animated banner ads poisoned the well, I've been using ad blocking software. Apparently, people still haven't learned, as I have seen godawful flash advertisements slip through my ad blockers, again making the page friggin' unreadable.
Most print ads do not disrupt. There are a few exceptions (I noticed once that a magazine started to place ads in a stripe across the middle of the page, and had each column of text jump over the ad, so in reading the story your eyes would be forced to jump over the ad space two or three times. They knocked that off after two isses). In general, print ads seem to have struck a balance between getting the reader's attention and disrupting the reader's ability to enjoy the content... which is their purpose in reading the book/magazine/newspaper in general. This has happened through evolution. Those that annoyed their readers with ads were less likely to survive.
Ads on the web right now are about the sophistication of those cheesy local cable ads. You know, the ones you can tell are stuck in by the local cable company, because the sound is suddenly too loud, there's usually bad audio, and the video is of poor quality. And like those cheesy cable ads, they tend to be inserted not by the producer of the content, but of third parties (such as doubleclick) who may or may not be concerned about how disruptive the ads are to the site within which they are viewed.
Things are just getting worse in this space. I've seen more Flash ads on the web, which makes me think I should uninstall that damned plugin.
When you push things too far, when you make things annoying enough, don't be surprised when your audience pushes back, and does things like install ad filtering software. It's corporate conceit and stupidity to fight back with things that are supposed to technologically allow you to annoy the hell out of your potential customers. Hey guys, how about maybe adopting guidelines so your ads don't disrupt your audience's ability to do what they really came to your site to do? Like, for example, no movement. Totally static images. I know, not as flashy, not as sexy, but also not as annoying. If, in the end, I cannot read and enjoy the content of the site, I'm simply not going to come back. Then the site dies, just as surely as if they had no revenue from ads in the first place.
Hey, think of it like shipping work overseas... the Shire is obviously backwards compared to (uh... wheverever it is the Elves are from).
I mean, jeez, they just picked up the ring and stomped off. Did you hear word one about health benefits? If I were going to stomp through Sauron's turf with the one thing he wanted most of all, damn straight I'd be asking about death and dismemberment benefits.
Actually, the truth was they were overbudget already, and could only afford cheap hobbit contractors.
The only things the record companies will understand is money. The have to be financially hurt for this to stop.
If they see a large percentage of their product coming right back at them as returns, they might get the message. Personally, if I ever find a CD I cannot play on my PC, I will return it, saying it's defective. Likely, the store clerk will give me another copy, which I will also return, ad infinitum, until I get my money back. The store will have lost a sale, and the time its clerk took to deal with the issue. The record company will have to accept its defective disks back. Of course, the crecord company won;t notice this until it becomes really bad, since we know the cost of actually creating the physical CD and packaging is their smallest cost overall.
Eventually, the record companies will likely have to label these things as not working on PC-CDROM drives, to avoid having so much of their product returned to them (and wasting the time of record stores). Which will make the average consumer ask why. Having to slap a label on your product informing your customer that you've just screwed them over is likely to make the consumer think. And that's not what the record company wants.
This, of course, assumes that a large number of people use CD-ROM drives to listen to music. I'm not sure what the percentage of the average CD buying public this is. The Record industry has to either be betting that the numbers of people who, say, listen to CD's in the CD-ROM drive of their PC at work are small enough not to make a difference, or they are hoping that the consumer is sheep-like enough to simply accept that they cannot listen to their music in CD-ROMs. I'm not sure on either point.
I got the e-mail, followed the link, entered my user name and password (fortunately written down a while ago, since I've not bought anything from them in tears) and they claim I've been removed.
All of this in Konqueror, so not even a hassle that I don't have one of the "big two" browsers.
Of course, if you're paranoid, there is the question of whether they will honor it...
I have a mutli-level armored approach to browsing:
All of the above besides Junkbuster are Windows-only. The first one is specific to IE, but I end up using that anyhow, since it's the most stable Windows browser.
I can browse most sites that don't do stupid shit like refuse to serve pages to me if they cannot detect my browser (in which case, they are probably crap, anyhow). For shopping sites, I can just add the site to Junkbuster, or bypass the protection through Proxomitron. I am pop-up ad free, and I give out minimal information about myself. The other better way of browsing I could see would be to use an anonymous proxy, which would protect my IP addess.
Of course, this would bet better implemented via the browser. I was using Konqueror a lot at home under Linux, but it began crashing too much for my tastes. There, I've just stuck to using Mozilla with Junkbuster. Javascripts still sometimes get through, though.
I've donated to Tecschange in the past. Gave them a fairly good Sony 15" monitor (upgraded to a 19" Hitachi). They even came by and picked it up, which was a major bonus for me (I'm carless, so any hauling of equipment anyplace entails a huge hassle). I'm ride of something I used to stub my toe on, and someone, someplace, now has a functioning PC monitor. I didn't bother with the tax writeoff. Recovering the floorspace was enough for me :)
Currently, I seem to have enough computer-needy freinds to make disposing of my recently-used hardware. I just gave my nephews a computer built out of my old hard drive, case, and a failed motherboard upgrade. A freind of mine is going to get my BP6 motherboard after she moves... another may get parts from a gutted server that was replaced with a smaller system.
Ask around, as well. I know several of the IT folks where I work do volunteering for non-profits on the side. I may drag the old 200Mhz PPro out, lash it back together, and give it to them.
Well, maybe you don't work with people who are very good at what they do. I know the IT folks here where I work have submitted patches to Red Hat to fix issues they have come across in the field. (At least one of them got "the letter" due to this.)
Another feature of Open Source is that you can hire someone else to go out and fix the bugs for you much faster than the closed source "wait until the next version" folks will. My company currently is looking offering a bounty for a bug fix to an Open Source piece of software we use. We'll probably get a fix for that in a month, for a reasonable price (much less than we would pay for a one year service contract with some companies).
I own one of these... it makes a neat little server box. Get your own CPU, RAM, hard drive, and you're good to go. No need for another monitor, I've got it's video out plugged into the TV.
Only down side is the thing is that it is fairly loud, for something so tiny. I've got it sitting in my living room, and it's fan noise is rather noticable. My dream is to have an appliance-like system I can use for general purpose stuff. Sort of like a TiVo, but with more oomph, and of course. general purpose. And quiet. Until then, though, the Book PC is a nice, cheap alternative.
I always thought that NASA used older chips because they had attained milspec ratings and all of that... i.e. the time it took for the processor to be certified capable of handling the extreme environments, g-force stresses, etc. for mission-critical components basically ensured that they were working with trailing-edge tech as far as electronics goes.
Maybe in these faster, better, cheaper days, these requirements were tossed out the window..
Mine too. I'm on AT&T Broadband/Road Runner/Whatever the hell they are calling themselves now.
I have a website up, so Apache is logging all hits on the site... it seems the access_log is only logging one attempt to access the site per infected host... the error_log indicates that the worm is actually hitting the site three times in quick succession (I think over a period of minutes). The only thing is, neither log really accounts for all the traffic that appears at the modem. Everything else is being blocked by the router/firewall appliance, which doesn't have great logging capabilities.
It looks like Red Alert recently hit a motherload of AT&T broadband sites, since I am seeing mostly sites hitting me that trace back to AT&T. Like another poster mentioned, you're not supposed to be running servers (so... sshh! I'm not running anything ;). I'm willing to bet a good number of people have an install of Windows 2000 or NT up with IIS installed and running by default. I bet most don't even know they are running a web server, much less that it's been infected. The few sites I tried to access that appear in my log all have the default "this page not available" thing, which is what I think IIS coughs up if you've not made some directory the server root.
I suspect one thing is that the DSL and cable companies may be prompted to crack down on servers hosted on their network. I mean, if they really wanted to enforce the ban, they can just do a sweep of their network and tell you to know it off or they will pull the plug. I wonder if they will actually start doing this.
The *concept* of CG actors may leave people cold on the face of it. But the reality of seeing those digital actors in an actual context... engage the viewer in a compelling story, and he or she will not be paying attention to whether the actor is digital, flesh and bone, or hand drawn.
I bet if you asked these same people about using technology to revive, say, John F. Kennedy from the grave to appear in a movie, they would have also been dubious. But that didn't stop Forrest Gump from being a success, mostly because of that technology. In the context of the film, it made sense and looked fairly natural.
Where digital actors will make an impact first (and have already been making an impact) are background crowd scenes and walk-ons. With some motion capture equipment, a few actors can become a huge crowd that does exactly what the director tells them, every time. The A-list stars may not be threatened, but I suspect people who make some money on the side by being extras will be seeing less work. I also suspect stunt people will be seeing less work as well. Why risk a real human life by having them jump off a building, when you can get a digital actor to jump and come to a splattery end without anyone being hurt?
But I do think eventually that audince's suspension of disbelief will apply when they are presented with a life-like character in a compelling plot... something that is a bit more than a technology demo that the current crop of realistic digital actors are now.
I got that, too, last night. I looked at the privacy stuff by following the link, but didn't click the "I Agree" link.
This morning, my stock quotes are back. Looks like I don't actually have to agree to anything... just having viewed the page is enough. Wonderful.
Hey, I already thought of this... sorta. I was thinking that you could hook two computers up over a phone line by using speech synthesis/recognition software. Think how much easier it would be to debug communications issues if you could understand what the computers were saying to each other by eavesdropping...
computer 1: EA BF 02 51
computer 2: Huh?
computer 1: I *said* EA BF 02 51 36
computer 2: Oh, yeah.
Does this strike anyone as being eerily like the way naturalists will shoot a tranq into some hapless animal and saddle them with a bigass ugly collar around their neck containing a radio reciever?
"Welcome to PBS. Next on Nature, stalking the wild European consumer..."
. But if the new series is set in the 22nd Centuy, there can be no Borg or Q, and the technology will be crappy!
On the other hand... this means no more fucking holodeck goes nuts and tries to kill crew episodes.
That'll make it interesting right there.