Once, when I had Jury duty I went to McDonalds for breakfast. While I was there I saw a man standing at the pay phone with a moderate sized day planner looking device. He speed dialed number after number while I waited for my McMuffins and as I ate them. The next day he was there again, same time, same place.
Although I couldn't hear him it was apparant that he was a telemarketer. It's my theory that using a pay phone was enough to get *something* to appear on caller ID, and since it was a pay phone all he had to do was move to another location and you'd have a bitch of a time proving that it was the same guy/company calling you again.
How do you pass such a law? How do you enforce it? A cop listening in on every phone call?
What will stop this COLD IN IT'S TRACKS is this. I'll share with you the tools of my one man crusade against telemarketers.
1. NEVER BUY ANYTHING-if they have to spend more money on calls and people to make them than they recoup then they'll stop using that method.
2. Keep them on the phone as long as possible. If you can play with them, get them to go over everything time and time again they have less time to move on to more fertile ground. I have a friend whose personal best is 24 minutes. Mine is closer to 10.
3. As bad as it may sound, don't even give to charities when they use telemarketers. The ends can NOT justify the means, ever, even if they're the good guys.
4. Make them think that you're going to buy something, when they start asking for your information, reverse it on them. Ask for their name, employer, employer's address and employer's telephone number. Say it's because you're afraid of fraud. When they give you this information, write it down.
5. After you get all of their information tell them that you do not wish to ever be contected by them again, remind that that according to US federal law they can be held liable for up to $500 if they call you again.
6. Get Caller ID. When you see "Anonymous Call" or "Out of Area" be prepared to deal with a telemarketer.
I'm not naive, I know that most people will not do these things, but it's not the point if I can do my part I'm happy.
I couldn't agree more. How about when the radio/album version of a song is different than the single? So you buy the single, expecting the same song that you saw on MTV or heard on the radio, only to find out that you NOW must buy the complete album to get the song that you want.
I remember back when I was in high school (about 10 years ago) that somewhere in asia someone had developed a music vending machine. You pay your $10 and pick out a certain number of songs. 20 Minutes later your CD pops out. With JUST THE SONGS THAT YOU WANT.
The record companies didn't like this idea. If you want 10 songs from 5 different artists, you have to buy 5 CDs to get them all. They wanted to get the ($15*5) instead of the ($2*5) from you.
If the record companies hadn't fought sensible and fair music distribution models then, they wouldn't have to deal with Napster, Gnutella and Hotline now.
They killed DAT. They'd love to have killed CD-R. They're quaking in their boots over Gnutella because it can't be stopped.
If you have something and I take it, you therefore don't have it anymore, that can be construed as theft. If you have something, and I copy it, you still have the original, I have stolen nothing.
Artists get what 50-60 cents per CD sold? That's before taxes, before legal fees, before management gets it's cut, and before promotional fees are deducted. Where does the rest of that money go? To the record company. To the lawyers. To the lobbyists. If you really want to help the artists, send a dollar directly to them.
Well, the Supremes tend to be smart people (Thomas excluded) so they said that it's all fine.
Why the dig at Justice Thomas? Do you not like black people? Conservative people? Or is it just black conservative people who get your goat?
An influx of stupid women accomplishes nothing for us. Let's talk about the übergeek chicks.
Instead of mentioning the women who are breaking new ground with research or developing new technologies, you bring us stories of little girls talking about how Dr. Laura's mean or why "this hairstyle" is better than "that one". Give me a break.
Just about 51% of all people are females, it's not like they didn't have any way to talk to one another. Very few of us are geeks. The internet isn't providing women with anything different of a social nature than the lady's clubs of days gone by did.
Bring us the brainy women, bring us the tech-head women, this stupid chick stuff is making my head hurt.
Many of us already live in a Post-Katz Slashdot because aside from the occasional snide comment, we just ignore his endless ranting, raving and pointless pontification.
LK
Re:We may have already lost.
on
Protesting DMCA
·
· Score: 2
I think you will find many people here offended at being compared to "Cee Bee Radio Trailer-Trash" though.
Perhaps I was not clear, what I was trying to say is that the current CB enthusiasts are the same type that were involved before the big CB boom. The hobbiests and technical enthusiasts.
With the net, we'll never be able to go back to that point.
We're experiencing an influx of clueless idiots. They don't understand and they don't care about the medium of the internet.
They don't understand our culturee, they don't understand the technology, and they don't understand what's at stake.
Like CB radio back in the 1970s, the CB subculture was underground and slowly growing. But as soon as people thought it was "cool" there was an explosion of morons. On every channel you had numb skulls talking about "Smokey" and "Good Buddy". There were also the assholes who would illegally amplify their signal for no good reason.
All of a sudden, everybody realized how lame it was and they stopped using the CB. Now it's just the same crowd using CB who was there before.
The internet is a different situation. Instead of voice only, like CB. Any kind of information can be sent out. Megacorporations see untold dollars to be made so they're going to make sure that every moron on the planet is going to be online.
Unless we stick together on certain issues (Like DMCA and UCITA) and put our differences aside on issues like Napster and porno, we're going to LOSE BIGTIME.
It may be worse than talking to a rock, but someone has to let these newbies understand what they could lose.
LK
Re:What a difference a few years makes.
on
Linux And Hip Hop
·
· Score: 1
Lenny is half-black, and so is slash. Lenny's mother was the black lady who was married to the white guy. (Helen Willis) What does that matter anyway? "Police and niggers stay out of my way" pretty much speaks for itself.
LK
What a difference a few years makes.
on
Linux And Hip Hop
·
· Score: 2
With Rap music, bsck in the 1990s Geffen records refused to distribute music made by the Geto Boys because of the "racism" that Geffen felt was expressed in that music. This is the SAME company that was distributing Guns N Roses music. You know those "Police and niggers" stay out of my way guys... But Guns N Roses albums sold millions so I guess Geffen was able to overlook their shortcomings.
After NWA went platinum in a week with their second album, and Ice-T made a gazillion dollars for the record & movie companies with his OG album/New Jack City promotion.
Linux started out as a week-end project for Linus and a few scattered hackers around the world about 10 years ago. Now it's a global contender in the server OS market. Microsoft is actually paying people to tune their OS to be faster just because of an upstart free OS coded by hackers in their spare time.
I suppose that I see both at my place of employment, I have a co-worker who does nothing but pretend to know the industry.
I am more of the mercenary type. However there are rules of common decency that apply. 1. Don't divulge any private information about any former employer to benefit your new employer. 2. Don't steal any customers from your former employer.
If someone is going to offer you more money you have no obligation to turn them down. Liking the people you work with/for has nothing to do with it. You need to weigh the importance of the various benefits and how they affect your situation.
This isn't 40 years ago when you could expect to work for 1 company until you retire.
It took all of my self control not to burst into laughter here at work when I read your name. It reminded me of a time back in college when after a party I saw something on TV that contained the sonc "Secret Agent Man".
For about the next hour I sat in my room Singing "Secret Asian Man".
I'm just waiting for the Dr. Demento or Weird Al version of that song.
People allow themselves to be spoonfed propaganda all of the time.
In the US "Campaign Finance Reform" is a big issue, people don't understand what it means.
"Gun Control" is another term for social engineering. Keep the poor and middle class afraid and they will keep voting for you.
"Family Values" is a way for people to control what you do in your own home. Scare the Christians about the homosexuals and make them angry about the disintegration of the "traditional" family then they'll vote for you.
Americans (although I'm one of them) tend to like quick and easy things. It's easier to let CNN tell you what you should think about issue X than it is to get as much information as possible and decide for yourself.
Look at how many laypersons think that DeCSS is a copy protection issue. Why? Because the AP wire that sparked the story on CNN labeled it as such.
And in your code, it is STILL faster on more robust hardware.
Granted, without software all you have is a big paperweight. Still your hardware HAS to be robust or you'll just grow old and grey while you wait for it to execute that wonderful code.
"Good Enough" on very powerful hardware beats "Optimal" on an antique.
//begin snippet 1 int main(){ int i = 0;
while (i 100000000){ I++;}
return 0; }
//begin snippet 2 int main (){ int i = 0;
while (i 100000000){ i++; i--; i++;} return 0; }
Onced compiled into an app, Snippet 2 will finish it's run much faster on a PII-450 than Snippet 1 would on a 386sx 16. Tuning the code can't overcome that difference. In 20 years, maybe less we might have the hardware capable of running the kind of software that would be capable of intelligent thought.
I don't care who you have coding for you, it's NOT going to happen with today's hardware.
You seem to be taking my statement about birds finding thermals to mean that I consider that to be intelligence.
It's an instinct, intelligence is not a factor. What I'm saying is that we can't imagine what it's like to think as a bird so we can't understand how a bird thinks and in turn how they've developed the ability to find thermals. I can carry that logic to mean that we can't know what it's like to think as an intelligent machine would. It's possible, if not probable that an intilligent self aware machine would be able ot see it's own limitations and find a way to reduce or eliminate them. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I see no flaw in that.
Never dying and not having a maximum amount of time that you can live (until my body gives out) are not the same.
Dogs live 10-15 years or so, if that were extended to 50 years would a dog be any more intelligent at 45 than he was at 10? No. Because he's just a dog. Would he have more experiences? More things learned? Yes. The same would hold true for a man, if you extended the lifespan of the ordinary human being by a factor of 5 at the end of that life he'd still be primarily the same as at the half-way point.
A machine is different. A machine is not bound by genetics, a machine could see it's own limitations and improve itself. Those improvements would then in turn allow it to see other limitations and improve those. And so on and so on.
If you believe that there is a brickwall that will be hit when no more improvements can be done, then perhaps you're right Maybe life would become pointless. I don't believe that perfection wll ever be attained, neither by man nor machine.
I'd love to be around when a fusion between man and machine takes place (under certain conditions), I'd love to live for 500 years. I'd love to see Halley's Comet a few more times. When I get as far along as I'd like to, I guess then it'll be time to turn my self off.
Look I have a hand, I might not always have THIS hand.
I agree, but I guess I may not have been clear enough in my point.
I meant to illustrate that if it takes such a powerful computer to pretend to be intelligent, how much more power will we need to have a machine with true intelligence?
Hardly. Good software can do something worthwhile even on crappy hardware, but there is not, never has been and never will be a hardware that can't be reduced to total ineffectiveness by badly designed or written code.
Yeah? Let's see you create a (arbitrary type of game here) chess program that will run on a 386 that wouldn't get pounded by Deep Blue. One more stipulation. It can't take more time to decide which move to make than deep blue does.
Slashdot Mirror
Once, when I had Jury duty I went to McDonalds for breakfast. While I was there I saw a man standing at the pay phone with a moderate sized day planner looking device. He speed dialed number after number while I waited for my McMuffins and as I ate them. The next day he was there again, same time, same place.
Although I couldn't hear him it was apparant that he was a telemarketer. It's my theory that using a pay phone was enough to get *something* to appear on caller ID, and since it was a pay phone all he had to do was move to another location and you'd have a bitch of a time proving that it was the same guy/company calling you again.
How do you pass such a law? How do you enforce it? A cop listening in on every phone call?
What will stop this COLD IN IT'S TRACKS is this. I'll share with you the tools of my one man crusade against telemarketers.
1. NEVER BUY ANYTHING-if they have to spend more money on calls and people to make them than they recoup then they'll stop using that method.
2. Keep them on the phone as long as possible. If you can play with them, get them to go over everything time and time again they have less time to move on to more fertile ground. I have a friend whose personal best is 24 minutes. Mine is closer to 10.
3. As bad as it may sound, don't even give to charities when they use telemarketers. The ends can NOT justify the means, ever, even if they're the good guys.
4. Make them think that you're going to buy something, when they start asking for your information, reverse it on them. Ask for their name, employer, employer's address and employer's telephone number. Say it's because you're afraid of fraud. When they give you this information, write it down.
5. After you get all of their information tell them that you do not wish to ever be contected by them again, remind that that according to US federal law they can be held liable for up to $500 if they call you again.
6. Get Caller ID. When you see "Anonymous Call" or "Out of Area" be prepared to deal with a telemarketer.
I'm not naive, I know that most people will not do these things, but it's not the point if I can do my part I'm happy.
LK
I couldn't agree more. How about when the radio/album version of a song is different than the single? So you buy the single, expecting the same song that you saw on MTV or heard on the radio, only to find out that you NOW must buy the complete album to get the song that you want.
LK
I remember back when I was in high school (about 10 years ago) that somewhere in asia someone had developed a music vending machine. You pay your $10 and pick out a certain number of songs. 20 Minutes later your CD pops out. With JUST THE SONGS THAT YOU WANT.
The record companies didn't like this idea. If you want 10 songs from 5 different artists, you have to buy 5 CDs to get them all. They wanted to get the ($15*5) instead of the ($2*5) from you.
If the record companies hadn't fought sensible and fair music distribution models then, they wouldn't have to deal with Napster, Gnutella and Hotline now.
They killed DAT. They'd love to have killed CD-R. They're quaking in their boots over Gnutella because it can't be stopped.
LK
If you have something and I take it, you therefore don't have it anymore, that can be construed as theft. If you have something, and I copy it, you still have the original, I have stolen nothing.
Artists get what 50-60 cents per CD sold? That's before taxes, before legal fees, before management gets it's cut, and before promotional fees are deducted. Where does the rest of that money go? To the record company. To the lawyers. To the lobbyists. If you really want to help the artists, send a dollar directly to them.
Well, the Supremes tend to be smart people (Thomas excluded) so they said that it's all fine.
Why the dig at Justice Thomas? Do you not like black people? Conservative people? Or is it just black conservative people who get your goat?
LK
I'm truly sick of these Katz fluff pieces.
An influx of stupid women accomplishes nothing for us. Let's talk about the übergeek chicks.
Instead of mentioning the women who are breaking new ground with research or developing new technologies, you bring us stories of little girls talking about how Dr. Laura's mean or why "this hairstyle" is better than "that one". Give me a break.
Just about 51% of all people are females, it's not like they didn't have any way to talk to one another. Very few of us are geeks. The internet isn't providing women with anything different of a social nature than the lady's clubs of days gone by did.
Bring us the brainy women, bring us the tech-head women, this stupid chick stuff is making my head hurt.
LK
Obviously IANAL, but what I'm getting at is this.
.vs me is a one sided slaughter, but I'm musing.
If someone publishes a book, you can buy that book and see for yourself that it's been ripped off if I scan it and post it on my web page.
Windows source code is not available to the public. How could M$ prove that the source code is theirs unless they were to make it available?
Without their code for comparison, I could claim that "The author of this code, who wishes to remain anonymous, has given me permission to post it."
In the real world I know that 10000 lawyers
LK
The source code to windows 2000 were to be leaked?
Could I then post it on my web page and call it freedom of speech?
LK
Many of us already live in a Post-Katz Slashdot because aside from the occasional snide comment, we just ignore his endless ranting, raving and pointless pontification.
LK
I think you will find many people here offended at being compared to "Cee Bee Radio Trailer-Trash" though.
Perhaps I was not clear, what I was trying to say is that the current CB enthusiasts are the same type that were involved before the big CB boom. The hobbiests and technical enthusiasts.
With the net, we'll never be able to go back to that point.
LK
We're experiencing an influx of clueless idiots. They don't understand and they don't care about the medium of the internet.
They don't understand our culturee, they don't understand the technology, and they don't understand what's at stake.
Like CB radio back in the 1970s, the CB subculture was underground and slowly growing. But as soon as people thought it was "cool" there was an explosion of morons. On every channel you had numb skulls talking about "Smokey" and "Good Buddy". There were also the assholes who would illegally amplify their signal for no good reason.
All of a sudden, everybody realized how lame it was and they stopped using the CB. Now it's just the same crowd using CB who was there before.
The internet is a different situation. Instead of voice only, like CB. Any kind of information can be sent out. Megacorporations see untold dollars to be made so they're going to make sure that every moron on the planet is going to be online.
Unless we stick together on certain issues (Like DMCA and UCITA) and put our differences aside on issues like Napster and porno, we're going to LOSE BIGTIME.
It may be worse than talking to a rock, but someone has to let these newbies understand what they could lose.
LK
Lenny is half-black, and so is slash. Lenny's mother was the black lady who was married to the white guy. (Helen Willis) What does that matter anyway? "Police and niggers stay out of my way" pretty much speaks for itself.
LK
With Rap music, bsck in the 1990s Geffen records refused to distribute music made by the Geto Boys because of the "racism" that Geffen felt was expressed in that music. This is the SAME company that was distributing Guns N Roses music. You know those "Police and niggers" stay out of my way guys... But Guns N Roses albums sold millions so I guess Geffen was able to overlook their shortcomings.
After NWA went platinum in a week with their second album, and Ice-T made a gazillion dollars for the record & movie companies with his OG album/New Jack City promotion.
Linux started out as a week-end project for Linus and a few scattered hackers around the world about 10 years ago. Now it's a global contender in the server OS market. Microsoft is actually paying people to tune their OS to be faster just because of an upstart free OS coded by hackers in their spare time.
LK
I'm sorry AC. Some of us have lives and are unable to read the ENTIRE list of posts.
LK
Does anyone remember that Bear Suit article from several months back? Does anyone have any updates on it.
LK
I suppose that I see both at my place of employment, I have a co-worker who does nothing but pretend to know the industry.
I am more of the mercenary type. However there are rules of common decency that apply. 1. Don't divulge any private information about any former employer to benefit your new employer. 2. Don't steal any customers from your former employer.
If someone is going to offer you more money you have no obligation to turn them down. Liking the people you work with/for has nothing to do with it. You need to weigh the importance of the various benefits and how they affect your situation.
This isn't 40 years ago when you could expect to work for 1 company until you retire.
LK
It took all of my self control not to burst into laughter here at work when I read your name. It reminded me of a time back in college when after a party I saw something on TV that contained the sonc "Secret Agent Man".
For about the next hour I sat in my room Singing "Secret Asian Man".
I'm just waiting for the Dr. Demento or Weird Al version of that song.
LK
Log In, become a moderator and you can have a say in whether or not a post gets moderated down.
LK
Your code would execute in 30 seconds on a PII450.
You can run your base case plus 9 "what if" scenarios in the same time you could run it once on your 386.
LK
What does that tell us?
LK
People allow themselves to be spoonfed propaganda all of the time.
In the US "Campaign Finance Reform" is a big issue, people don't understand what it means.
"Gun Control" is another term for social engineering. Keep the poor and middle class afraid and they will keep voting for you.
"Family Values" is a way for people to control what you do in your own home. Scare the Christians about the homosexuals and make them angry about the disintegration of the "traditional" family then they'll vote for you.
Americans (although I'm one of them) tend to like quick and easy things. It's easier to let CNN tell you what you should think about issue X than it is to get as much information as possible and decide for yourself.
Look at how many laypersons think that DeCSS is a copy protection issue. Why? Because the AP wire that sparked the story on CNN labeled it as such.
Thinking is hard. Reacting is easy.
LK
And in your code, it is STILL faster on more robust hardware.
Granted, without software all you have is a big paperweight. Still your hardware HAS to be robust or you'll just grow old and grey while you wait for it to execute that wonderful code.
LK
"Good Enough" on very powerful hardware beats "Optimal" on an antique.
//begin snippet 1
int main(){
int i = 0;
while (i 100000000){
I++;}
return 0;
}
//begin snippet 2
int main (){
int i = 0;
while (i 100000000){
i++;
i--;
i++;}
return 0;
}
Onced compiled into an app, Snippet 2 will finish it's run much faster on a PII-450 than Snippet 1 would on a 386sx 16. Tuning the code can't overcome that difference. In 20 years, maybe less we might have the hardware capable of running the kind of software that would be capable of intelligent thought.
I don't care who you have coding for you, it's NOT going to happen with today's hardware.
LK
You seem to be taking my statement about birds finding thermals to mean that I consider that to be intelligence.
It's an instinct, intelligence is not a factor. What I'm saying is that we can't imagine what it's like to think as a bird so we can't understand how a bird thinks and in turn how they've developed the ability to find thermals. I can carry that logic to mean that we can't know what it's like to think as an intelligent machine would. It's possible, if not probable that an intilligent self aware machine would be able ot see it's own limitations and find a way to reduce or eliminate them. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I see no flaw in that.
Never dying and not having a maximum amount of time that you can live (until my body gives out) are not the same.
Dogs live 10-15 years or so, if that were extended to 50 years would a dog be any more intelligent at 45 than he was at 10? No. Because he's just a dog. Would he have more experiences? More things learned? Yes. The same would hold true for a man, if you extended the lifespan of the ordinary human being by a factor of 5 at the end of that life he'd still be primarily the same as at the half-way point.
A machine is different. A machine is not bound by genetics, a machine could see it's own limitations and improve itself. Those improvements would then in turn allow it to see other limitations and improve those. And so on and so on.
If you believe that there is a brickwall that will be hit when no more improvements can be done, then perhaps you're right Maybe life would become pointless. I don't believe that perfection wll ever be attained, neither by man nor machine.
I'd love to be around when a fusion between man and machine takes place (under certain conditions), I'd love to live for 500 years. I'd love to see Halley's Comet a few more times. When I get as far along as I'd like to, I guess then it'll be time to turn my self off.
Look I have a hand, I might not always have THIS hand.
LK
I agree, but I guess I may not have been clear enough in my point.
I meant to illustrate that if it takes such a powerful computer to pretend to be intelligent, how much more power will we need to have a machine with true intelligence?
LK
Hardly. Good software can do something worthwhile even on crappy hardware, but there is not, never has been and never will be a hardware that can't be reduced to total ineffectiveness by badly designed or written code.
Yeah? Let's see you create a (arbitrary type of game here) chess program that will run on a 386 that wouldn't get pounded by Deep Blue. One more stipulation. It can't take more time to decide which move to make than deep blue does.
LK