I noticed that dozens of web sites and other software packages were trying to get me to install Gator, but I couldn't figure out why they were all so enthusiastic about it. Now I know. I thought it looked like an interesting idea, but had no idea they were out to invade my privacy. It says it remembers it's passwords, but they don't come right out and say, "oh, by the way, we're also going to track your web surfing and innundate you with advertising." They just say, "check this box to install Gator, which does XXX." I didn't know they had a hidden agenda until these articles appeared on CNet.
Gator should at the very least be providing compenstation to the websites whose ads it's covering up. Since the software monitors web browsing habits already, they can probably do a simple query of their database right now to find out exactly how many ads it has replaced from each site. If I owned a web site, I'd be on the phone with Gator asking for my cheque. (Not because I actually expect one, but just to waste a little bit of their time and money.)
Another interesting thing about Anonymous users in 2.2 is that they don't seem to be completely anonymous. I remember reading in the FAQ once that clicking the "anonymous" box is as good as logging out. (I can't find that statement right now, though, and the article does mention that the FAQ needs to be updated.)
I submitted an comment anonymously in another topic. I was reading the article again a while later, and couldn't help but notice that the moderation options didn't show up for that one comment I wrote anonymously. I could moderate anything else in the article, but not that one comment.
It's possible that it's been this way for a long time. Or it could have been some other bug preventing the options from being displayed. It's just curious. Any insight?
I looked at the code once... if I remember correctly, it was something like 50% unfair and you lose points... some lesser percentage unfair and your metamods are silently discarded without penalty. Neutrals didn't count, so if you metamod 2 unfair and leave the rest neutral, you could lose points.
Of course, it was about a year ago that I looked, so I don't remember that clearly.
Do spambots really unmunge email addresses? If I were a spambot, I would look at an address like mark@diespammers.hotmail.com and say, "gee, that guy really hates spam, I'd better not piss him off." It doesn't make sense to aggrivate someone who is clearly opposed to spam.
(Then again, I'd never entrust my real email address to anything that could possibly be deciphered.)
And you forgot to mention my favourite new feature, the anti-goatse.cx mechanism. (Well, it doesn't show up in the preview, but you should see the link domain in square brackets after the link.)
Note: I kept getting an "Invalid form key: FrFL8CgHVg !" when I tried to submit this... I had to hit "reply to this" again. A bug?
Similar things happened when the PS2 came out
on
$1200 Cheap!
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The article doesn't seem to mention if Microsoft is giving bigger incentives for bigger packages. Are retailers creating $1200 bundles because it will get them better marketing, or because the retailers themselves want bigger sales? And did Sony do something similar for the Playstation 2 as well? I remember that up until a couple months after the PS2's launch, you couldn't seem to find a PS2 console without game bundles. Everyone wanted to sell their PS2s with three extra games, for $700 (Canadian.) The one or two stores that didn't bundle never had them in stock.
I always figured it was better for the retailer to sell bundles like this. "A PS2 by itself is no good; you're going to need to start your game library too. Why not buy them with us?" That's when I would say, "of course I need games, but the games I want aren't the ones you're trying to sell me. Can't I make my own bundle?" It made me wonder whether they had some marketing deal with some third party to bundle those specific games. It's obviously good for the retailer to entice you to buy your first games with them, but what's wrong with giving you a choice?
Remember when consoles came with a "free" game? That's how the Nintendo came to be forever linked with Mario, and Sega with Sonic. Some critics have pointed out that Playstation doesn't have an "identity," because it lacks its own character. But even the original Playstation came with a demo disc -- the PS2, the Dreamcast, the XBox, all come with nothing. After buying a Dreamcast, I had to pay for Sonic on top of that -- it seemed like a hidden price increase.
It sounds like she wasn't entitled to disability because she could get a job that doesn't involve typing. So if a programmer injures his wrists in an accident, he's not entitled for disability because he can get a job moving boxes around. The truck driver who went blind shouldn't be entitled for disability either, because he could get a job as a dispatcher. And the construction worker who breaks his arm can get a job at the psychic friends network. The lady at the psychic friends network who loses her voice can get a job in marketing. And so on.:-)
I found some 200 MB 8cm CDs at Future Shop a couple of weeks ago. Rainbow coloured, no less. There doesn't seem to be any agreement on how much data you should be able to put on one of these 8cm CDs... some of them only hold about 150 MB.
Re:So do they have Linux drivers?
on
ATi Radeon 8500
·
· Score: 1
Obligatory Slashdot comment #1: Linux
> I couldn't find any mention of Linux...
Obligatory Slashdot comment #2: Microsoft
> Keep your pants on, Bill. It'll take a few seconds to get lubed up.
So, in true Slashdot spirit, here is my contribution:
Obligatory Slashdot comment #3: Beowulf clusters
Man, I'd like to see a Beowulf cluster of these!
What Freenet needs is a legal "killer app" -- some feature available nowhere else that will entice millions of normal individuals to install the client on their computer. The "shared bandwidth" idea is a good start -- you just need to get enough useful content on there to make it worthwhile for people to install. But it's just important that the content be legal, so it doesn't end up getting all sorts of bad publicity. (Unfortunately, the media is quick to jump on the backs of anything that could potentially threaten them -- especially when you consider megacorporations like AOL Time Warner that own just about everything. For example, Warner Music hates Napster, so they could get CNN to run stories about how evil Napster is and how it hurts the poor defenceless little record labels. But I'm probably just paranoid.)
If benchmarks are done in Photoshop, what good is that for the huge percentage of the population that doesn't use Photoshop? To get a good benchmark, you need to test a variety of similar operations on both platforms. The applications you choose will never be identical -- even Photoshop, while at the same version number on both platforms, could simply be better optimized for the Mac. Print a document in Word XP on the PC and Word 2001 on the Mac -- different versions, but still pretty close. Navigate the file system in Explorer and in Finder -- two completely different applications, but they're representative of the user experience, and should be included in the benchmark.
My personal favourite ad-busting program (Windows/Linux/Mac) is WebWasher. It removed everything that has ever annoyed me (scripts that run on close, scripted changes of the window size, status bar, scripts that prevent you from using the right mouse button, cookies, looping gif animations, and of course banners, popups, cookies) and is free for personal use. Every advertising annoyance gone. (With the additional help of Ad-Aware, of course.) Of course, Mozilla could probably do that all as well (as others have mentioned), but WebWasher is a cross-browser solution.
I've heard that DVDs didn't look quite as good as laserdiscs when they first came out, but now that encoding techniques have had time to mature a bit more, DVD surpasses laserdisc in terms of video/audio quality. (Admittedly, it's not exactly an unbiased source.)
Is the problem with stereo separation common to all MP3s or just the ones encoded in joint stereo mode? I noticed a huge difference between joint stereo and full stereo, especially on headphone. (The difference is bigger with certain types of music than others.) Unfortunately, I have noticed that many encoding tools steer users towards joint stereo, saying it results in better sounding output at a lower bitrate. I am usually unable to tell the difference between MP3 files at 128 kbps and 160 kbps, but I've had 128 kbps full stereo files that sound better than 160kbps joint stereo files.
I recommend that everyone -- not just Canadians -- take a little bit of their time to ensure that laws like the DMCA don't become a reality here. If one country takes a stand against DMCA-type laws, it will make it that much easier for other nations to say "no" to corporate protectionism.
I read an article the other day saying that the CRIA (Canadian-RIAA) was quoting American rulings against Napster in their attempts to shut down internet accounts of people using services such as OpenNap. If you take that in the other direction, and say "other countries have rejected the notion that copy protection should go so far", that's extra ammunition for you.
I believe the DMCA to be undemocratic, by allowing corporations to essentially create their own laws. What's that, RIAA, you hate the idea of fair use (the ability to copy CDs for your own personal use), but can't get government to pass a law making it illegal? No problem -- just add a trivial encryption scheme to your CDs, and voila -- anyone who bypasses the encryption to make a legal copy of the CD has broken the law.
The gas, brake, and steering wheel all operate the same, so you can move from one car to the other without much trouble -- the major differences are under the hood, and on the surface. On the other hand, moving from an automatic to a manual transmission isn't something that you can do without a bit of relearning.
I didn't say that all computers should be identical (I want my Ferarri gaming machine while my friends prefer a cheap Ford for word processing), but if each make of car had a different method for starting the engine, it would get annoying pretty fast.
I don't know what's worse -- to have a monopoly on one or two things, or to own a smaller chunk of just about everything (let's see... they have the largest internet service, CNN, HBO, Warner Music, Warner Bros, Hanna-Barbera, New Line Cinema, Turner, Winamp, Time, Life, Fortune, People, ICQ, Spinner, MapQuest, Dr Koop, Netscape, Comedy Central, Road Runner, a few sports teams, etc....) Get on their bad side, and they might refuse to run your ads, run biased stories against you on CNN and in all of their magazines, make jokes about you in all their movies, and so on. You'd be seeing the same biased information everywhere you look, and it would be nearly impossible for people to tell what was what. Microsoft, on the other hand, limits their dominance to the area of computers.
You can avoid Microsoft with no problem -- use an operating system other than Windows, and 95% of your problem is solved. What if you want to avoid AOL-Time-Warner? They have more control over the public's mindshare than Microsoft could ever hope to.
To add to this, you always know when you're faced with a Microsoft product -- it's got the logo in a prominent position on the box. With AOL-Time-Warner and its myriad of brands, you never know when you're being fed by the corporate monster.
Remember back in the days of Windows 3.1 when every PC manufacturer would use their own proprietary shell and fill the disk with dozens of applications they decided you should have? When it was nearly impossible to help your friends over the phone because their configuration was completely different from yours?
Standards, in many cases, are a good thing. Sure, it would be nice if they weren't controlled by a single profit-driven corporation, but I find it to be better than the alternative. It is, after all, just a computer. Does your mother care about the operating system behind the computer? If it gets the job done and doesn't cause inconvenience to me personally, that's good enough.
The Phantom Menace, mastered by THX for superior sound and picture quality, presented in Anamorphic Widescreen and Dolby 5.1 Surround EX (English), Dolby 2.0 Surround (English and Spanish), and Dolby 2.0 Surround (French, for Canadian release
It lists a bunch of other features too... but nothing that sounds too extraordinary. Just the typical DVD stuff: deleted scenes, a documentary, behind-the-scenes featurettes, a music video, posters, photos, trailer, storyboard, audio commentary.
But anyhow, I thought THX wasn't an actual sound format, but a set of guidelines to make the movie sound and look good?
The article wasn't specific about how the speed is calculated. It's quite possible that the system being used (AirIQ) gets its reading directly from the speedometer of the car. The article mentions that the AirIQ system allows the operator to remotely disable the car (if it goes too fast or leaves the country, for example), so it must be deeply integrated with the car's systems. (They can even lock and unlock the doors remotely.)
Of course, even if the device goes by the speedometer, it still relies on the accuracy of that device. But they probably won't give out tickets unless you are significantly over the limit.
So they'd buy a second DVD player to play all the new movies they buy while overseas? Then they'd bring that player back with them when they return?
In the old days, people would decorate their houses with souveneirs from their travels. Now, we'll just go to the living room. "There's the DVD player I bought to play the movies I brought back from Japan... and this here is the DVD player I bought during my year in China. Oh, and this little bueaty is the one I picked up in Africa...."
That's what the MPAA would want us to do, apparantly.
I think we'd be safe from that kind of abuse. In order for a company to put smart tags on other pages, they would have to convince the user to download some sort of add-on. The SmartTags database won't be open for the public to modify, and there will certainly be at least a Yes/No prompt before Internet Explorer allows a site to add keywords.
Of course, if Microsoft starts inserting SmartTags on behalf of other sites, there's no guarantee the Republicans won't pay Microsoft lots of money to put links on the Democrat pages. Hopefully they would have some sort of policy to prevent this. But it can't be abused unless Microsoft lets it be abused.
What guarantee are web authors given that the web browser will display a page exactly the way they want? Do Internet Explorer's accessibility features (which allow users to override font sizes and colours) also create a derivative work of the web page?
Now I can't say I'm too fond of the feature, but I'd say it's up to the user if they want to use a program that provides easy access to other information. This is sort of like the little tool that lets you right-click on any word to do an instant web search on that word.
Natually, I'd be sure to disable this feature on all of my web sites.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
I noticed that dozens of web sites and other software packages were trying to get me to install Gator, but I couldn't figure out why they were all so enthusiastic about it. Now I know. I thought it looked like an interesting idea, but had no idea they were out to invade my privacy. It says it remembers it's passwords, but they don't come right out and say, "oh, by the way, we're also going to track your web surfing and innundate you with advertising." They just say, "check this box to install Gator, which does XXX." I didn't know they had a hidden agenda until these articles appeared on CNet.
Gator should at the very least be providing compenstation to the websites whose ads it's covering up. Since the software monitors web browsing habits already, they can probably do a simple query of their database right now to find out exactly how many ads it has replaced from each site. If I owned a web site, I'd be on the phone with Gator asking for my cheque. (Not because I actually expect one, but just to waste a little bit of their time and money.)
Another interesting thing about Anonymous users in 2.2 is that they don't seem to be completely anonymous. I remember reading in the FAQ once that clicking the "anonymous" box is as good as logging out. (I can't find that statement right now, though, and the article does mention that the FAQ needs to be updated.)
I submitted an comment anonymously in another topic. I was reading the article again a while later, and couldn't help but notice that the moderation options didn't show up for that one comment I wrote anonymously. I could moderate anything else in the article, but not that one comment.
It's possible that it's been this way for a long time. Or it could have been some other bug preventing the options from being displayed. It's just curious. Any insight?
I looked at the code once... if I remember correctly, it was something like 50% unfair and you lose points... some lesser percentage unfair and your metamods are silently discarded without penalty. Neutrals didn't count, so if you metamod 2 unfair and leave the rest neutral, you could lose points.
Of course, it was about a year ago that I looked, so I don't remember that clearly.
Do spambots really unmunge email addresses? If I were a spambot, I would look at an address like mark@diespammers.hotmail.com and say, "gee, that guy really hates spam, I'd better not piss him off." It doesn't make sense to aggrivate someone who is clearly opposed to spam.
(Then again, I'd never entrust my real email address to anything that could possibly be deciphered.)
And you forgot to mention my favourite new feature, the anti-goatse.cx mechanism. (Well, it doesn't show up in the preview, but you should see the link domain in square brackets after the link.)
Note: I kept getting an "Invalid form key: FrFL8CgHVg !" when I tried to submit this... I had to hit "reply to this" again. A bug?
The article doesn't seem to mention if Microsoft is giving bigger incentives for bigger packages. Are retailers creating $1200 bundles because it will get them better marketing, or because the retailers themselves want bigger sales? And did Sony do something similar for the Playstation 2 as well? I remember that up until a couple months after the PS2's launch, you couldn't seem to find a PS2 console without game bundles. Everyone wanted to sell their PS2s with three extra games, for $700 (Canadian.) The one or two stores that didn't bundle never had them in stock.
I always figured it was better for the retailer to sell bundles like this. "A PS2 by itself is no good; you're going to need to start your game library too. Why not buy them with us?" That's when I would say, "of course I need games, but the games I want aren't the ones you're trying to sell me. Can't I make my own bundle?" It made me wonder whether they had some marketing deal with some third party to bundle those specific games. It's obviously good for the retailer to entice you to buy your first games with them, but what's wrong with giving you a choice?
Remember when consoles came with a "free" game? That's how the Nintendo came to be forever linked with Mario, and Sega with Sonic. Some critics have pointed out that Playstation doesn't have an "identity," because it lacks its own character. But even the original Playstation came with a demo disc -- the PS2, the Dreamcast, the XBox, all come with nothing. After buying a Dreamcast, I had to pay for Sonic on top of that -- it seemed like a hidden price increase.
It sounds like she wasn't entitled to disability because she could get a job that doesn't involve typing. So if a programmer injures his wrists in an accident, he's not entitled for disability because he can get a job moving boxes around. The truck driver who went blind shouldn't be entitled for disability either, because he could get a job as a dispatcher. And the construction worker who breaks his arm can get a job at the psychic friends network. The lady at the psychic friends network who loses her voice can get a job in marketing. And so on. :-)
I found some 200 MB 8cm CDs at Future Shop a couple of weeks ago. Rainbow coloured, no less. There doesn't seem to be any agreement on how much data you should be able to put on one of these 8cm CDs... some of them only hold about 150 MB.
Obligatory Slashdot comment #1: Linux ...
:-)
> I couldn't find any mention of Linux
Obligatory Slashdot comment #2: Microsoft
> Keep your pants on, Bill. It'll take a few seconds to get lubed up.
So, in true Slashdot spirit, here is my contribution:
Obligatory Slashdot comment #3: Beowulf clusters
Man, I'd like to see a Beowulf cluster of these!
What Freenet needs is a legal "killer app" -- some feature available nowhere else that will entice millions of normal individuals to install the client on their computer. The "shared bandwidth" idea is a good start -- you just need to get enough useful content on there to make it worthwhile for people to install. But it's just important that the content be legal, so it doesn't end up getting all sorts of bad publicity. (Unfortunately, the media is quick to jump on the backs of anything that could potentially threaten them -- especially when you consider megacorporations like AOL Time Warner that own just about everything. For example, Warner Music hates Napster, so they could get CNN to run stories about how evil Napster is and how it hurts the poor defenceless little record labels. But I'm probably just paranoid.)
If benchmarks are done in Photoshop, what good is that for the huge percentage of the population that doesn't use Photoshop? To get a good benchmark, you need to test a variety of similar operations on both platforms. The applications you choose will never be identical -- even Photoshop, while at the same version number on both platforms, could simply be better optimized for the Mac. Print a document in Word XP on the PC and Word 2001 on the Mac -- different versions, but still pretty close. Navigate the file system in Explorer and in Finder -- two completely different applications, but they're representative of the user experience, and should be included in the benchmark.
My personal favourite ad-busting program (Windows/Linux/Mac) is WebWasher. It removed everything that has ever annoyed me (scripts that run on close, scripted changes of the window size, status bar, scripts that prevent you from using the right mouse button, cookies, looping gif animations, and of course banners, popups, cookies) and is free for personal use. Every advertising annoyance gone. (With the additional help of Ad-Aware, of course.) Of course, Mozilla could probably do that all as well (as others have mentioned), but WebWasher is a cross-browser solution.
I've heard that DVDs didn't look quite as good as laserdiscs when they first came out, but now that encoding techniques have had time to mature a bit more, DVD surpasses laserdisc in terms of video/audio quality. (Admittedly, it's not exactly an unbiased source.)
Is the problem with stereo separation common to all MP3s or just the ones encoded in joint stereo mode? I noticed a huge difference between joint stereo and full stereo, especially on headphone. (The difference is bigger with certain types of music than others.) Unfortunately, I have noticed that many encoding tools steer users towards joint stereo, saying it results in better sounding output at a lower bitrate. I am usually unable to tell the difference between MP3 files at 128 kbps and 160 kbps, but I've had 128 kbps full stereo files that sound better than 160kbps joint stereo files.
I recommend that everyone -- not just Canadians -- take a little bit of their time to ensure that laws like the DMCA don't become a reality here. If one country takes a stand against DMCA-type laws, it will make it that much easier for other nations to say "no" to corporate protectionism.
I read an article the other day saying that the CRIA (Canadian-RIAA) was quoting American rulings against Napster in their attempts to shut down internet accounts of people using services such as OpenNap. If you take that in the other direction, and say "other countries have rejected the notion that copy protection should go so far", that's extra ammunition for you.
I believe the DMCA to be undemocratic, by allowing corporations to essentially create their own laws. What's that, RIAA, you hate the idea of fair use (the ability to copy CDs for your own personal use), but can't get government to pass a law making it illegal? No problem -- just add a trivial encryption scheme to your CDs, and voila -- anyone who bypasses the encryption to make a legal copy of the CD has broken the law.
Note that the Canadian government is looking for public comments on these new proprosals... (see article for details)
I believe you all know what to do...
The gas, brake, and steering wheel all operate the same, so you can move from one car to the other without much trouble -- the major differences are under the hood, and on the surface. On the other hand, moving from an automatic to a manual transmission isn't something that you can do without a bit of relearning.
I didn't say that all computers should be identical (I want my Ferarri gaming machine while my friends prefer a cheap Ford for word processing), but if each make of car had a different method for starting the engine, it would get annoying pretty fast.
I don't know what's worse -- to have a monopoly on one or two things, or to own a smaller chunk of just about everything (let's see... they have the largest internet service, CNN, HBO, Warner Music, Warner Bros, Hanna-Barbera, New Line Cinema, Turner, Winamp, Time, Life, Fortune, People, ICQ, Spinner, MapQuest, Dr Koop, Netscape, Comedy Central, Road Runner, a few sports teams, etc....) Get on their bad side, and they might refuse to run your ads, run biased stories against you on CNN and in all of their magazines, make jokes about you in all their movies, and so on. You'd be seeing the same biased information everywhere you look, and it would be nearly impossible for people to tell what was what. Microsoft, on the other hand, limits their dominance to the area of computers.
You can avoid Microsoft with no problem -- use an operating system other than Windows, and 95% of your problem is solved. What if you want to avoid AOL-Time-Warner? They have more control over the public's mindshare than Microsoft could ever hope to.
To add to this, you always know when you're faced with a Microsoft product -- it's got the logo in a prominent position on the box. With AOL-Time-Warner and its myriad of brands, you never know when you're being fed by the corporate monster.
Remember back in the days of Windows 3.1 when every PC manufacturer would use their own proprietary shell and fill the disk with dozens of applications they decided you should have? When it was nearly impossible to help your friends over the phone because their configuration was completely different from yours?
Standards, in many cases, are a good thing. Sure, it would be nice if they weren't controlled by a single profit-driven corporation, but I find it to be better than the alternative. It is, after all, just a computer. Does your mother care about the operating system behind the computer? If it gets the job done and doesn't cause inconvenience to me personally, that's good enough.
Your hard disk has just crashed. Don't you wish you had used Acmesoft Backup Pro? Only $49.95. (This messages was brought to you by Phoenix BIOS.)
From the article:
The Phantom Menace, mastered by THX for superior sound and picture quality, presented in Anamorphic Widescreen and Dolby 5.1 Surround EX (English), Dolby 2.0 Surround (English and Spanish), and Dolby 2.0 Surround (French, for Canadian release
It lists a bunch of other features too... but nothing that sounds too extraordinary. Just the typical DVD stuff: deleted scenes, a documentary, behind-the-scenes featurettes, a music video, posters, photos, trailer, storyboard, audio commentary.
But anyhow, I thought THX wasn't an actual sound format, but a set of guidelines to make the movie sound and look good?
The article wasn't specific about how the speed is calculated. It's quite possible that the system being used (AirIQ) gets its reading directly from the speedometer of the car. The article mentions that the AirIQ system allows the operator to remotely disable the car (if it goes too fast or leaves the country, for example), so it must be deeply integrated with the car's systems. (They can even lock and unlock the doors remotely.)
Of course, even if the device goes by the speedometer, it still relies on the accuracy of that device. But they probably won't give out tickets unless you are significantly over the limit.
I wonder how many songs on the radio right now will still be performed 180 years from now, as Beethoven's work is?
So they'd buy a second DVD player to play all the new movies they buy while overseas? Then they'd bring that player back with them when they return?
In the old days, people would decorate their houses with souveneirs from their travels. Now, we'll just go to the living room. "There's the DVD player I bought to play the movies I brought back from Japan... and this here is the DVD player I bought during my year in China. Oh, and this little bueaty is the one I picked up in Africa...."
That's what the MPAA would want us to do, apparantly.
I think we'd be safe from that kind of abuse. In order for a company to put smart tags on other pages, they would have to convince the user to download some sort of add-on. The SmartTags database won't be open for the public to modify, and there will certainly be at least a Yes/No prompt before Internet Explorer allows a site to add keywords.
Of course, if Microsoft starts inserting SmartTags on behalf of other sites, there's no guarantee the Republicans won't pay Microsoft lots of money to put links on the Democrat pages. Hopefully they would have some sort of policy to prevent this. But it can't be abused unless Microsoft lets it be abused.
What guarantee are web authors given that the web browser will display a page exactly the way they want? Do Internet Explorer's accessibility features (which allow users to override font sizes and colours) also create a derivative work of the web page?
:-)
Now I can't say I'm too fond of the feature, but I'd say it's up to the user if they want to use a program that provides easy access to other information. This is sort of like the little tool that lets you right-click on any word to do an instant web search on that word.
Natually, I'd be sure to disable this feature on all of my web sites.