The difference is that it costs companies a significant amount of money to send out a large amount of advertiements via U.S. mail. It is relatively cheap to hook up a computer and send out thousands of spam messages a day through a dial-up connection.
Additionally, there is far more oversight over people who advertise with Federal mail. For instance, requesting that you be removed from third-class mailing lists generally works. A company doesn't want to waste money sending advertisments to someone who is so against them that they will take the time to request they not be contacted. Generally a physical address is valid and not a "spam catcher". Note how most bulk mailings are addressed " Or Current Resident", so the physical spammers don't really benifit from discovering an address is "valid".
Internet spammers are always up to all sorts of dirty tricks, such as adding addresses to mailing lists when the receive a request to remove the address.
I think there are some responses in the same vein, but I thought I would relate my own experience.
I was put in charge of setting up web kiosks at my university. We ended up using Redhat because of its package system. I believe it was called "kickstart". I am not a huge fan of Redhat in general and I know there are other distributions with simial features, but Redhat's kickstart is a pretty cool system. Basically, we created a floppy that specified which packages we wanted. We kept these packages on an ftp server with some scripts that were run to configure the machine after the packages were installed. Anytime the hard drive became corrupted or whatever, you would just boot the machine with the floppy in it and get a fresh install.
I don't remember all the configuration stuff we did, but I am sure you can find some good information on the web. Basically, the initab spawned the X server so it was always up. We used fvwm as a window manager because most people are familiar with a Windows 9x interface. There was a shortcut on the desktop to kill the X server if it was becoming messed up and it would just respawn.
Only a few dirs were writeable, such as netscape cache dirs and the like. Umm..that's all I can remember right now. It wasn't the most secure thing in the world, but we never experienced any problems.
I know this may seem difficult to believe, but bad vision is usually due to chronic tension in the muscles of the eyes.
The reason I find it hard to believe is because it is completely untrue. Laser eye surgery is largly intended for people with near-sightedness( myopia ). The cause of myopia is having "too powerful" eyesight. This causes up close objects to come into clear focus, but distant objects are blurred.
This vaugely reminds me when Nintendo was sued over their use of the Kong in "Donkey Kong" by the owners of King Kong. If I remember correctly, Nintendo won the case.
My copy of 1984 includes an excellent essay preceding the novel. I forget the author at this point. However, his main point was that when George Orwell was not just targeting Facist or Communist regimes with his book.
If I remember correctly, the original version included a preface by Orwell in which he discussed the UK's goverment increasing monitoring of its own citizens. This edition was CENSORED in the UK and the book was not allowed to be released in the UK until the preface was removed. This in a supposedly "free" western republic.
As a Rage Against the Machine lyric goes, "They don't need to burn the books, they just remove them."
If you check out Who owns what you can see that huge major media conglomerates control just about everything you read/hear/see.
I certainly don't think we have "progressed" to the state that 1984 predicts, but if anyone doesn't think it's possible just because we are a "democracy", they are sorely mistaken.
From http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/drillbits/ 4_16/vs.html In a new study by the EPA, the average fuel efficiency for cars made in 1999 was only 23.8 miles per gallon, the lowest it has been since 1980.
The study found that average fuel economy was highest in 1987 and 1988, when it reached an average of 25.9 miles per gallon. The figure has been falling since then, and has accelerated its downward rate in recent years.
The 23.8 miles per gallon figure for 1999 cars represents a 0.6 mile per gallon drop from 1998 models - the steepest decline since the EPA began keeping records in 1975.
We do indeed have the technology to lower fuel consumption, however, the SUV craze and a disregard for the enviroment in general have nullified whatever science has given us.
The fact is, unless we undergo a radical change of mindset, we are going to experience a very different world within the near future. Science and technology will not be able to save us. In many cases, technological achievments only hasten our doom.
But we won't be able to destroy the planet. It is really far more resilient than most people believe. Surely we will destroy ourselves and we will have instigated some major enviromental changes, but we won't end the planet. The Earth will regenerate and new species will flourish.
I don't quite agree with this argument. The word "Allah" simply means God. Certainly, it implies Islam, but that is merely a cultural difference, not a religous one. Cultural differences aside, "Allah" no more suggests Islam than "God" suggests Christianity. The simple phrase "Under God" could be applied to almost any major religion and doesn't really suggest any particular religion or ideology. The only reason people think of Christianity is because that IS the prevelant religion.
Well, pardon me for saying so, but I think it was extremely "stupud" of Verio. That was a completely moronic thing to do and was not at all sneaky in any way. Hell, hitting consumers over the head with a blunt object unitl the bowed to the almighty Verio would be more sneaky than this fodder.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference is that it costs companies a significant amount of money to send out a large amount of advertiements via U.S. mail. It is relatively cheap to hook up a computer and send out thousands of spam messages a day through a dial-up connection.
Additionally, there is far more oversight over people who advertise with Federal mail. For instance, requesting that you be removed from third-class mailing lists generally works. A company doesn't want to waste money sending advertisments to someone who is so against them that they will take the time to request they not be contacted. Generally a physical address is valid and not a "spam catcher". Note how most bulk mailings are addressed " Or Current Resident", so the physical spammers don't really benifit from discovering an address is "valid".
Internet spammers are always up to all sorts of dirty tricks, such as adding addresses to mailing lists when the receive a request to remove the address.
I think there are some responses in the same vein, but I thought I would relate my own experience.
I was put in charge of setting up web kiosks at my university. We ended up using Redhat because of its package system. I believe it was called "kickstart". I am not a huge fan of Redhat in general and I know there are other distributions with simial features, but Redhat's kickstart is a pretty cool system. Basically, we created a floppy that specified which packages we wanted. We kept these packages on an ftp server with some scripts that were run to configure the machine after the packages were installed. Anytime the hard drive became corrupted or whatever, you would just boot the machine with the floppy in it and get a fresh install.
I don't remember all the configuration stuff we did, but I am sure you can find some good information on the web. Basically, the initab spawned the X server so it was always up. We used fvwm as a window manager because most people are familiar with a Windows 9x interface. There was a shortcut on the desktop to kill the X server if it was becoming messed up and it would just respawn.
Only a few dirs were writeable, such as netscape cache dirs and the like. Umm..that's all I can remember right now. It wasn't the most secure thing in the world, but we never experienced any problems.
I know this may seem difficult to believe, but bad vision is usually due to chronic tension in the muscles of the eyes.
The reason I find it hard to believe is because it is completely untrue. Laser eye surgery is largly intended for people with near-sightedness( myopia ). The cause of myopia is having "too powerful" eyesight. This causes up close objects to come into clear focus, but distant objects are blurred.
More information can be found here.
Laser eye surgery adjusts the shape of the cornea to obtain the correct refraction.
Much information can be found at www.lasik1.com.
This vaugely reminds me when Nintendo was sued over their use of the Kong in "Donkey Kong" by the owners of King Kong. If I remember correctly, Nintendo won the case.
My copy of 1984 includes an excellent essay preceding the novel. I forget the author at this point. However, his main point was that when George Orwell was not just targeting Facist or Communist regimes with his book.
If I remember correctly, the original version included a preface by Orwell in which he discussed the UK's goverment increasing monitoring of its own citizens. This edition was CENSORED in the UK and the book was not allowed to be released in the UK until the preface was removed. This in a supposedly "free" western republic.
As a Rage Against the Machine lyric goes, "They don't need to burn the books, they just remove them."
If you check out Who owns what you can see that huge major media conglomerates control just about everything you read/hear/see.
I certainly don't think we have "progressed" to the state that 1984 predicts, but if anyone doesn't think it's possible just because we are a "democracy", they are sorely mistaken.
From http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/drillbits/ 4_16/vs.html
In a new study by the EPA, the average fuel efficiency for cars made in 1999 was only 23.8 miles per gallon, the lowest it has been since 1980.
The study found that average fuel economy was highest in 1987 and 1988, when it reached an average of 25.9 miles per gallon. The figure has been falling since then, and has accelerated its downward rate in recent years.
The 23.8 miles per gallon figure for 1999 cars represents a 0.6 mile per gallon drop from 1998 models - the steepest decline since the EPA began keeping records in 1975.
We do indeed have the technology to lower fuel consumption, however, the SUV craze and a disregard for the enviroment in general have nullified whatever science has given us.
The fact is, unless we undergo a radical change of mindset, we are going to experience a very different world within the near future. Science and technology will not be able to save us. In many cases, technological achievments only hasten
our doom.
But we won't be able to destroy the planet. It is really far more resilient than most people believe. Surely we will destroy ourselves and we will have instigated some major enviromental changes, but we won't end the planet. The Earth will regenerate and new species will flourish.
I don't quite agree with this argument. The word "Allah" simply means God. Certainly, it implies Islam, but that is merely a cultural difference, not a religous one. Cultural differences aside, "Allah" no more suggests Islam than "God" suggests Christianity. The simple phrase "Under God" could be applied to almost any major religion and doesn't really suggest any particular religion or ideology. The only reason people think of Christianity is because that IS the prevelant religion.
Am I the only one that is scared by this? I think people will eat this stuff up without worrying about the loss of privacy.
Well, pardon me for saying so, but I think it was extremely "stupud" of Verio. That was a completely moronic thing to do and was not at all sneaky in any way. Hell, hitting consumers over the head with a blunt object unitl the bowed to the almighty Verio would be more sneaky than this fodder.