Manufacturers do everything they can to not support your product. Saves money. I worked for a Gateway phone support outsourcer for a year. The only times I recall having callers tell me I was really doing a wonderful job of helping them was when I was blurring the edges or straight out breaking the rules that had been handed down from on high. Gateway's replacement warranty is 30 days, no exceptions. Not to say that I didn't blur that line more than a few times. I don't know if it's true for all companies, but at least at Gateway no one department knew what another was doing. I had the power to replace parts, but only by going through a seperate order entry department. If they didn't like the way I filled out a form, it got kicked back to me... that's if they were kind enough not to just bury it. I'll NEVER buy a system from a big corporation. They're far too big to give a damn or even notice who they step on.
Yes, but in this case the problem isn't whether or not Average Joe knows what it is, but if it will work for him (or her). People WILL be excited about it... if it's useful for them.
At the moment, competing standards make it pretty close to useless. Want to buy ten different devices that all do the same thing just so you can be guaranteed connectivity at any given place? (And then hope that your message actually gets SENT somewhere, and not eaten by a server that doesn't like to play with the other children)
...will never make it into law. As soon as someone points out the old standard, that you can't hold a company responsible for what the end users do, it will drop. It's just like blaming the phone company because people do drug deals over the phone. Hell, we might as well extend it out to INSANE levels, and say that since the FBI can and does perform wiretaps, they should be sued any time the phone is used for a crime, as they COULD have prevented it.
Sounds like the whole "new economy" business model! Just swap "marketing push" for "fraud scheme" and "dot com" for "con artist," and you've got a tasty little nugget.
Uh-oh... I see another bit of witty-the-first-time-you-hear-it-but-then-gets-rea lly-annoy jargon for the new world... dot con artist.
Not quite as cool as the actual car system that play actual MP3 files, but playing MP3 encoded disks is definitely a step in the right direction. Huzzah!
Ahhhhh, finally I can read slashdot, play quake, and download my pr0n with gnutella all at once. (while avoiding the wall of shame of course)
Slight rant follows, skip to next comment if you don't want to hear ranting: I just have to question, is this really stuff that matters? I mean sure it may be a slow news day but is a link to a commercial site really worthy of our esteemed/. ? They've got news over at Kuro5hin.org...
What, you mean babelfish.altavista.com isn't GOOD enough for you??
I mean it will work fine until we try to open up trade relations with another country and end up insulting their women and complementing their sexy sheep by accident.
But seriously, it seems more than likely that English will fall into place as the world trade language. I'm thinking back to a lame video I saw a few years back in high school (one that I didn't sleep through) that showed how English was already becoming a world language. Many trades are made in it, and I'm pretty sure air traffic controllers in almost every country have to speak it.
And then there's the fact that no American is going to bother to learn another language. There's the old joke: A person who speaks three languages is trilingual, two, bilingual, and a person who speaks one language is an American.
I think the worse problem (even then goatse.cx) is the surprising number of people linking to file:///c:\nul\nul or c:\con\con... I'm sure they didn't want to have rules with this and all that, but they should have thought of THAT before GPFing a bunch of PCs out there.
The basic run-down: each visitor is presented with a website, seemingly at random. They are then asked to select another website that they feel is related to the one displayed.
Well sort of, but actually it just says to submit a site that you think would LINK to the site displayed. And in the wacky world o' the internet, you know that you can find links from anything to almost anything.
Am I the only one who's ever played link games over the web? Trying to follow one site to a totally unrelated one only by clicking links on each of the intervening sites? Come on, it's fun? No, I'm not a loser... hey come back guys... guys?
-Mad Dreamer
Re:Ask yourself this: Where did the MP3 come from?
on
MP3.com Loses In Court
·
· Score: 1
So really it's all a legal technicality. Asking where something 'came from' in computer terms is just fiddling the words. When I move an MP3 from my C: drive to my D: drive, I'm creating a totally new set of 1's and 0's on the D: drive, and deleting the original set of 1's and 0's on the C: drive.
Same with my.mp3.com. I suppose I could put in a CD that I own, and actually upload it to them. In which case all the little 1's and 0's on that CD would be read, and a signal would go out through my modem that tells my.mp3.com what 1's and 0's to create brand new on their servers. Then later if I wanted to listen to that "same" song, their server would read those same 1's and 0's that were created new on their end and stream them back to me, where they would be read, used, and discarded.
In this instance, there's one individual copy on my CD, another on my.mp3's servers, and another that is created, read, and then destroyed by my computer as it is 'streamed'. (or possibly goes into a cache somewhere, but that's just technicalities)
So is it not EXACTLY the same if I have a CD, send them just the beam-it code, which tells them which set of 1's and 0's on their computers I can have access to, and then stream it from there. There are still the three copies. Information on a computer doesn't 'come from' anywhere. It is created in the memory brand new on that computer when it is put there.
But of course, I suppose that's just not the issue in this case. Here in america, we have higher ideals than mucking about in technicalities. We worship the almighty dollar!
I guess I must not be as smart as a lawyer, cuz I just don't get it! How could a service that allows you to listen to an mp3 of music that you already own be infringing copyright? my.mp3 only lets you hear what you've already shown it that you own, or am I getting something wrong here?
Sure, you could borrow a friend's CD and add that I suppose, but you could also make a tape of it and play it in your car. That doesn't make tapes illegal, just the act of dubbing. I don't know of anyway to get music that you didn't pay for through my.mp3.
But hell, let's all keep heading down this road and keep fighting technology we don't understand. Maybe we should stick to something simple like banging two rocks together to make music. Of course then someone would copyright rocks, and if you tried to play the same rocks in a different place you'd get sued.
Look at what the Nazi party name is an acronym for: the National Socialist party. Hitler described himself as a socialist all his politcally active life. His addidtion to socialism was to make in nationist rather than internationalist.
You should be more focused on the fact that he was a National Socialist. Sure he was socialist insofar as he was for the good people of Germany (defined in limited lines that they were) but the 30's and 40's were periods of intense nationalistic feelings throughout western Europe. The rhetoric of the true people tied by blood and soil to their land. (This was, of course, why Jews made such an easy target, as they weren't "true" Germans, they had their own national identity) That's what the national part is about.
So he may have had Socialist in the party name, but that was only to say that he was for the good working people of Germany, as long as they were 'real' Germans. He was never a true socialist, and his politics were very very far out on the right wing.
Finally, I found a use for my college education! Yipee!
Ok offtopic somewhat but I have to complain. After I posted that,/. decided it didn't want me using HTML. GRRRR...
Anyway, since it was on the subject of people who know what they're doing, I don't want to look totally ignorant... here's that AGAIN...
How about:
Not everyone is as savvy as your average cookbook reader. Many, many people need McDonald's (or something like McDonald's) to get their daily nutrition.
Wait, I've got a better one. How about: Not everyone is as savvy as your average airline pilot. Many, many people need TWA (or something like TWA) to get from Boise to Calcutta.
Anyone can switch around the contents of a metaphor to make it sound right, but lets face it. I bet you weren't born with a keyboard in hand either. You had to start somewhere. The reason this post was moderated up is that being elitist won't get us anywhere. I don't like AOL any more than the next guy, but I have to admit that I was pretty fond of Prodigy the first time I used it years and years and years ago.
The simple fact that all us l33t slashdotters are loath to admit is that we ALL started out there as a person equal in knowledge to a shuddering AOLer afraid to put the shiny round thing into the big scary computer.
It's the truth. Knowledge, by definition, is learned. I'd rather start with Dr. Suess than Dr. Freud.
How about: Not everyone is as savvy as your average cookbook reader. Many, many people need McDonald's (or something like McDonald's) to get their daily nutrition. Wait, I've got a better one. How about: Not everyone is as savvy as your average airline pilot. Many, many people need TWA (or something like TWA) to get from Boise to Calcutta. Anyone can switch around the contents of a metaphor to make it sound right, but lets face it. I bet you weren't born with a keyboard in hand either. You had to start somewhere. The reason this post was moderated up is that being elitist won't get us anywhere. I don't like AOL any more than the next guy, but I have to admit that I was pretty fond of Prodigy the first time I used it years and years and years ago. The simple fact that all us l33t slashdotters are loath to admit is that we ALL started out there as a person equal in knowledge to a shuddering AOLer afraid to put the shiny round thing into the big scary computer. It's the truth. Knowledge, by definition, is learned. I'd rather start with Dr. Suess than Dr. Freud. -MadDreamer
This should have been expected, it's just a further part of the process of everything technological slowly melting together. Game boxes are becoming computers, computers are becoming game boxes, entertainment centers are becoming obsolete.
This is all leading to that eventual day when all your computing power and entertainment value will all fit on a little card (probably branded AOL/Time Warner) that slips in your back pocket, and then we'll all accidentally lose them in our sofas and society will disintegrate and we'll be back to the dark ages.
Reality check: AOL has 22 million accounts, and each of those accounts can have up to 7 screen names. Conservative estimate... let's say that makes about 100 million screen names floating around out there.
Now at any time any one of these screen names can decide to create a web page chock full o' MP3s, or one of the many MP3 private chat rooms. Of course, when AOL is informed, they crush the web page, wipe out the chat room, and kill the screen name at fault, if not the entire account. (Of course most of these accounts are AOLamers who fancy themselves 'hackers' and will just go use another stolen password to get on and do the same again)
Now there's no love lost between me and AOL (I work for them, I KNOW how much I despise them) but, this isn't about personal feelings. This is about simple logical thought. Can you think of a way to balance user freedom to create web pages and chat rooms and yet also avoid the creation of illegal MP3, warez, and porn rooms?
These things happen every day and AOL does, in fact, remove them every day. I know, I have a few friends working in the community action team department who spend their days doing just that.
So before you go poking AOL with sticks becuase they should be able to control to the letter what any of 22 million people are doing at any time, consider first the logistical difficulties behind getting even one million people to do any one thing correctly at once!
While I can't really speak for anything other than my own small niche, the University of Oklahoma has a hard nosed professor who teaches the required second year intro course, and he said the kind of things that should be taught in every course.
He always tried to keep the focus on well researched, fair stories. I assume that there's probably at least one or two good professors in every school, and then as one gets higher and higher in the ranks one learns that the standards that seem so sensible aren't really enforced out in the news world. It's the problem that crops up in every job in history, standards slowly relax, and people slowly grow accustomed to relaxed standards. Sad... but true.
There is information available on AOL that tries to educate users, but I agree, it's very limited and never goes in deep about subjects like those you mention.
The really wacky part is that AOL likes to treat its technical support staff the same way. (I know, I'm writing this post on an AOL computer at a call center while talking to AOL members) AOL has tools that tell us exactly what to do "and that will fix the problem". Do we see where this is going? Yes, that RARELY if ever fixes the problem, and at the point that dumbly quoting to a user what the screen tells us ends, and actual human knowledge and ingenuity takes over all of the tech support staff are sorely undereducated.
It seems almost as if AOL wants to hide the technical workings of their products from their own technical staff. They want undereducated sweet voices to repeat what a poorly programmed tool says more than they want actual, intelligent, educated technicians to fix problems.
Now if they're this way with their own staff, do we really want them deciding what is important for the media world? (he said, desperately trying to avoid a -1 offtopic)
Well, actually its "URL" is aol://1722:welcome, but try pointing your browser to that and it will look at you funny and shake its head. It's out there, but it can only be accessed through the AOL software.
When I was young, I had few friends. I didn't get along with everyone else. I sat in the corner reading. I played Doom religiously. I listened to God knows what kind of music. I liked sci-fi, horror, crazy off-kilter stuff. I never liked to speak up in class, I tried to stay back from the crowd. I continued this way until the last semester of my senior year of high school.
By the way, I also graduated valedictorian and went to college on a scholarship.
Most of my small circle of friends were the same way. And yes, they almost all graduated well and received scholarships as well.
So yes, sounds like a great idea, lets reward those students who are in every class, the ones who look for any reason to go to the teacher and say, "He's reading a dirty book!"
(And just because it happens to have a strange title or weird cover art doesn't make it dirty, for those of you who were wondering)
Let's give them just another reason to feel good for going to 'tattle' on someone, in fact, let's reward them for it.
It's a dog eat dog world! Let's teach them that early. Weed out the weak, what do they accomplish? Bunch of freaks hiding in the corners!
But that's just the point, if you posted on your high traffic website that I was a child molestor and it was untrue (don't we hope) and you had nothing to back it up, then that's you yourself trying to defame me in the eyes of others. Proving that this action actually harmed me in some way may be tougher, but that would be my problem.
In this situation you have a bunch of anonymous yahoos from a school who didn't like said professor posting their views in a public forum. If I want to go out in the street and scream that Slashdot sucks, I can do it, and Slashdot can sue me if their readership suddenly drops due to my crusade (yeah, right!) but they certainly can't sue the city for having a street there for me to scream in.
I do think that the proprietor of the website should work on a better filtering system, surely the content of the class has no relation to childish reviews that simply try to insult the teacher.
All I can say is thank God that we still have the first amendment right to say that any professor who is suing the website over the words of others must suck. You suck professor!
(Now prove that I've just libeled you in a court of law) (Didn't think so)
Slashdot Mirror
Don't give it control of a manned space mission... "Open the pod bay doors, Cyc..."
Manufacturers do everything they can to not support your product. Saves money. I worked for a Gateway phone support outsourcer for a year. The only times I recall having callers tell me I was really doing a wonderful job of helping them was when I was blurring the edges or straight out breaking the rules that had been handed down from on high. Gateway's replacement warranty is 30 days, no exceptions. Not to say that I didn't blur that line more than a few times. I don't know if it's true for all companies, but at least at Gateway no one department knew what another was doing. I had the power to replace parts, but only by going through a seperate order entry department. If they didn't like the way I filled out a form, it got kicked back to me... that's if they were kind enough not to just bury it. I'll NEVER buy a system from a big corporation. They're far too big to give a damn or even notice who they step on.
Yes, but in this case the problem isn't whether or not Average Joe knows what it is, but if it will work for him (or her). People WILL be excited about it... if it's useful for them.
At the moment, competing standards make it pretty close to useless. Want to buy ten different devices that all do the same thing just so you can be guaranteed connectivity at any given place? (And then hope that your message actually gets SENT somewhere, and not eaten by a server that doesn't like to play with the other children)
-Mad Dreamer
...will never make it into law. As soon as someone points out the old standard, that you can't hold a company responsible for what the end users do, it will drop. It's just like blaming the phone company because people do drug deals over the phone. Hell, we might as well extend it out to INSANE levels, and say that since the FBI can and does perform wiretaps, they should be sued any time the phone is used for a crime, as they COULD have prevented it.
-Mad Dreamer
Sounds like the whole "new economy" business model! Just swap "marketing push" for "fraud scheme" and "dot com" for "con artist," and you've got a tasty little nugget.
a lly-annoy jargon for the new world... dot con artist.
Uh-oh... I see another bit of witty-the-first-time-you-hear-it-but-then-gets-re
-Mad Dreamer
Not quite as cool as the actual car system that play actual MP3 files, but playing MP3 encoded disks is definitely a step in the right direction. Huzzah!
-Mad Dreamer
And MSNBC gets the award for stupidest headline with their report on this story, entitled 'Telescope spots huge space bone'.
Was it wrong that it took me five minutes to stop laughing at this?
-Mad Dreamer
Ahhhhh, finally I can read slashdot, play quake, and download my pr0n with gnutella all at once. (while avoiding the wall of shame of course)
/. ? They've got news over at Kuro5hin.org...
Slight rant follows, skip to next comment if you don't want to hear ranting:
I just have to question, is this really stuff that matters? I mean sure it may be a slow news day but is a link to a commercial site really worthy of our esteemed
Anyhow, keep up the good news.
-Mad Dreamer
What, you mean babelfish.altavista.com isn't GOOD enough for you??
I mean it will work fine until we try to open up trade relations with another country and end up insulting their women and complementing their sexy sheep by accident.
But seriously, it seems more than likely that English will fall into place as the world trade language. I'm thinking back to a lame video I saw a few years back in high school (one that I didn't sleep through) that showed how English was already becoming a world language. Many trades are made in it, and I'm pretty sure air traffic controllers in almost every country have to speak it.
And then there's the fact that no American is going to bother to learn another language. There's the old joke: A person who speaks three languages is trilingual, two, bilingual, and a person who speaks one language is an American.
-Mad Dreamer
I think the worse problem (even then goatse.cx) is the surprising number of people linking to file:///c:\nul\nul or c:\con\con... I'm sure they didn't want to have rules with this and all that, but they should have thought of THAT before GPFing a bunch of PCs out there.
-Mad Dreamer
The basic run-down: each visitor is presented with a website, seemingly at random. They are then asked to select another website that they feel is related to the one displayed.
Well sort of, but actually it just says to submit a site that you think would LINK to the site displayed. And in the wacky world o' the internet, you know that you can find links from anything to almost anything.
Am I the only one who's ever played link games over the web? Trying to follow one site to a totally unrelated one only by clicking links on each of the intervening sites? Come on, it's fun? No, I'm not a loser... hey come back guys... guys?
-Mad Dreamer
So really it's all a legal technicality. Asking where something 'came from' in computer terms is just fiddling the words. When I move an MP3 from my C: drive to my D: drive, I'm creating a totally new set of 1's and 0's on the D: drive, and deleting the original set of 1's and 0's on the C: drive.
Same with my.mp3.com. I suppose I could put in a CD that I own, and actually upload it to them. In which case all the little 1's and 0's on that CD would be read, and a signal would go out through my modem that tells my.mp3.com what 1's and 0's to create brand new on their servers. Then later if I wanted to listen to that "same" song, their server would read those same 1's and 0's that were created new on their end and stream them back to me, where they would be read, used, and discarded.
In this instance, there's one individual copy on my CD, another on my.mp3's servers, and another that is created, read, and then destroyed by my computer as it is 'streamed'. (or possibly goes into a cache somewhere, but that's just technicalities)
So is it not EXACTLY the same if I have a CD, send them just the beam-it code, which tells them which set of 1's and 0's on their computers I can have access to, and then stream it from there. There are still the three copies. Information on a computer doesn't 'come from' anywhere. It is created in the memory brand new on that computer when it is put there.
But of course, I suppose that's just not the issue in this case. Here in america, we have higher ideals than mucking about in technicalities. We worship the almighty dollar!
-Mad Dreamer
I guess I must not be as smart as a lawyer, cuz I just don't get it! How could a service that allows you to listen to an mp3 of music that you already own be infringing copyright? my.mp3 only lets you hear what you've already shown it that you own, or am I getting something wrong here?
Sure, you could borrow a friend's CD and add that I suppose, but you could also make a tape of it and play it in your car. That doesn't make tapes illegal, just the act of dubbing. I don't know of anyway to get music that you didn't pay for through my.mp3.
But hell, let's all keep heading down this road and keep fighting technology we don't understand. Maybe we should stick to something simple like banging two rocks together to make music. Of course then someone would copyright rocks, and if you tried to play the same rocks in a different place you'd get sued.
-MadDreamer
-Mad Dreamer
Look at what the Nazi party name is an acronym for: the National Socialist party. Hitler described himself as a socialist all his politcally active life. His addidtion to socialism was to make in nationist rather than internationalist.
You should be more focused on the fact that he was a National Socialist. Sure he was socialist insofar as he was for the good people of Germany (defined in limited lines that they were) but the 30's and 40's were periods of intense nationalistic feelings throughout western Europe. The rhetoric of the true people tied by blood and soil to their land. (This was, of course, why Jews made such an easy target, as they weren't "true" Germans, they had their own national identity) That's what the national part is about.
So he may have had Socialist in the party name, but that was only to say that he was for the good working people of Germany, as long as they were 'real' Germans. He was never a true socialist, and his politics were very very far out on the right wing.
Finally, I found a use for my college education! Yipee!
MadDreamer
Ok offtopic somewhat but I have to complain. After I posted that, /. decided it didn't want me using HTML. GRRRR...
Anyway, since it was on the subject of people who know what they're doing, I don't want to look totally ignorant... here's that AGAIN...
How about:
Not everyone is as savvy as your average cookbook reader. Many, many people need McDonald's (or something like McDonald's) to get their daily nutrition.
Wait, I've got a better one. How about: Not everyone is as savvy as your average airline pilot. Many, many people need TWA (or something like TWA) to get from Boise to Calcutta.
Anyone can switch around the contents of a metaphor to make it sound right, but lets face it. I bet you weren't born with a keyboard in hand either. You had to start somewhere. The reason this post was moderated up is that being elitist won't get us anywhere. I don't like AOL any more than the next guy, but I have to admit that I was pretty fond of Prodigy the first time I used it years and years and years ago.
The simple fact that all us l33t slashdotters are loath to admit is that we ALL started out there as a person equal in knowledge to a shuddering AOLer afraid to put the shiny round thing into the big scary computer.
It's the truth. Knowledge, by definition, is learned. I'd rather start with Dr. Suess than Dr. Freud.
-MadDreamer
-Mad Dreamer
How about: Not everyone is as savvy as your average cookbook reader. Many, many people need McDonald's (or something like McDonald's) to get their daily nutrition. Wait, I've got a better one. How about: Not everyone is as savvy as your average airline pilot. Many, many people need TWA (or something like TWA) to get from Boise to Calcutta. Anyone can switch around the contents of a metaphor to make it sound right, but lets face it. I bet you weren't born with a keyboard in hand either. You had to start somewhere. The reason this post was moderated up is that being elitist won't get us anywhere. I don't like AOL any more than the next guy, but I have to admit that I was pretty fond of Prodigy the first time I used it years and years and years ago. The simple fact that all us l33t slashdotters are loath to admit is that we ALL started out there as a person equal in knowledge to a shuddering AOLer afraid to put the shiny round thing into the big scary computer. It's the truth. Knowledge, by definition, is learned. I'd rather start with Dr. Suess than Dr. Freud. -MadDreamer
-Mad Dreamer
This should have been expected, it's just a further part of the process of everything technological slowly melting together. Game boxes are becoming computers, computers are becoming game boxes, entertainment centers are becoming obsolete.
This is all leading to that eventual day when all your computing power and entertainment value will all fit on a little card (probably branded AOL/Time Warner) that slips in your back pocket, and then we'll all accidentally lose them in our sofas and society will disintegrate and we'll be back to the dark ages.
Hail the march of technology!
-Mad Dreamer
-Mad Dreamer
Reality check: AOL has 22 million accounts, and each of those accounts can have up to 7 screen names. Conservative estimate... let's say that makes about 100 million screen names floating around out there.
Now at any time any one of these screen names can decide to create a web page chock full o' MP3s, or one of the many MP3 private chat rooms. Of course, when AOL is informed, they crush the web page, wipe out the chat room, and kill the screen name at fault, if not the entire account. (Of course most of these accounts are AOLamers who fancy themselves 'hackers' and will just go use another stolen password to get on and do the same again)
Now there's no love lost between me and AOL (I work for them, I KNOW how much I despise them) but, this isn't about personal feelings. This is about simple logical thought. Can you think of a way to balance user freedom to create web pages and chat rooms and yet also avoid the creation of illegal MP3, warez, and porn rooms?
These things happen every day and AOL does, in fact, remove them every day. I know, I have a few friends working in the community action team department who spend their days doing just that.
So before you go poking AOL with sticks becuase they should be able to control to the letter what any of 22 million people are doing at any time, consider first the logistical difficulties behind getting even one million people to do any one thing correctly at once!
Thank you.
Mad Dreamer
-Mad Dreamer
Now you can try intouchgroup.com and get to the real site...
It depends on the journalism course.
While I can't really speak for anything other than my own small niche, the University of Oklahoma has a hard nosed professor who teaches the required second year intro course, and he said the kind of things that should be taught in every course.
He always tried to keep the focus on well researched, fair stories. I assume that there's probably at least one or two good professors in every school, and then as one gets higher and higher in the ranks one learns that the standards that seem so sensible aren't really enforced out in the news world. It's the problem that crops up in every job in history, standards slowly relax, and people slowly grow accustomed to relaxed standards. Sad... but true.
-MadDreamer
There is information available on AOL that tries to educate users, but I agree, it's very limited and never goes in deep about subjects like those you mention.
The really wacky part is that AOL likes to treat its technical support staff the same way. (I know, I'm writing this post on an AOL computer at a call center while talking to AOL members) AOL has tools that tell us exactly what to do "and that will fix the problem".
Do we see where this is going?
Yes, that RARELY if ever fixes the problem, and at the point that dumbly quoting to a user what the screen tells us ends, and actual human knowledge and ingenuity takes over all of the tech support staff are sorely undereducated.
It seems almost as if AOL wants to hide the technical workings of their products from their own technical staff. They want undereducated sweet voices to repeat what a poorly programmed tool says more than they want actual, intelligent, educated technicians to fix problems.
Now if they're this way with their own staff, do we really want them deciding what is important for the media world? (he said, desperately trying to avoid a -1 offtopic)
Don't just give me a fish, teach me to fish!
-MadDreamer
Well, actually its "URL" is aol://1722:welcome, but try pointing your browser to that and it will look at you funny and shake its head. It's out there, but it can only be accessed through the AOL software.
After you install it just fire up the cookie tool and delete it! The cookie management tool looks to be one of the more useful new features.
Sure, it's useful, if you like going through and deleting a list of what is likely to be hundreds of cookies one at a time...
I also liked trying to respond to your post and finding that I can't cut and paste (???) and I had to retype your post. (Thank God it was short)
MadDreamer
When I was young, I had few friends. I didn't get along with everyone else. I sat in the corner reading. I played Doom religiously. I listened to God knows what kind of music. I liked sci-fi, horror, crazy off-kilter stuff. I never liked to speak up in class, I tried to stay back from the crowd. I continued this way until the last semester of my senior year of high school.
By the way, I also graduated valedictorian and went to college on a scholarship.
Most of my small circle of friends were the same way. And yes, they almost all graduated well and received scholarships as well.
So yes, sounds like a great idea, lets reward those students who are in every class, the ones who look for any reason to go to the teacher and say, "He's reading a dirty book!"
(And just because it happens to have a strange title or weird cover art doesn't make it dirty, for those of you who were wondering)
Let's give them just another reason to feel good for going to 'tattle' on someone, in fact, let's reward them for it.
It's a dog eat dog world! Let's teach them that early. Weed out the weak, what do they accomplish? Bunch of freaks hiding in the corners!
-Mad Dreamer
But that's just the point, if you posted on your high traffic website that I was a child molestor and it was untrue (don't we hope) and you had nothing to back it up, then that's you yourself trying to defame me in the eyes of others. Proving that this action actually harmed me in some way may be tougher, but that would be my problem.
In this situation you have a bunch of anonymous yahoos from a school who didn't like said professor posting their views in a public forum. If I want to go out in the street and scream that Slashdot sucks, I can do it, and Slashdot can sue me if their readership suddenly drops due to my crusade (yeah, right!) but they certainly can't sue the city for having a street there for me to scream in.
I do think that the proprietor of the website should work on a better filtering system, surely the content of the class has no relation to childish reviews that simply try to insult the teacher.
All I can say is thank God that we still have the first amendment right to say that any professor who is suing the website over the words of others must suck. You suck professor!
(Now prove that I've just libeled you in a court of law) (Didn't think so)
--Mad Dreamer