"The Web is for communicating information, text is the best way of achieving that in most cases and where images are used all that's needed are the trivial additions of alt tags to provide a quick description of what the image contains."
I happen to agree with your premise that the web is for communicating information, but I don't think most people trying to sell something would agree. The bling and color and fonts and position are extremely important to them. The idea that they should try to sell their wares exclusively through verbal persuasion would strike them as lunatic.
I just can't understand how someone as articulate and apparently intelligent as you can so completely miss the point. It isn't about effectiveness. It isn't about annoying or not annoying the advertisee.
What it's about is you knowing enough about individuals to achieve the effectiveness of which you are so proud.
You snoop, and you pry, and you sort and you collate and you trick and you invade. There seems to be nothing that is beneath you.
The things you know about people are none of your damned business.
So take your claims of beneficence, consume excrement and expire.
Back in the 70s I had the priviledge of working with a very bright and skilled compiler designer who happened also to be our company representative to the FORTRAN standards committee. I think his position pretty well summed up the dichotomy between the ugliness and the usefulness of the language: "FORTRAN is a weed. It grows on every computer."
Ya think it's ugly now? You should have seen it in 1958 when, in its infancy, I spent a summer solving a triple integration problem on a 704! It was ugly, but it worked, and some engineer who got the result made a better jet engine because of it.
Thirty five years ago Multics had priviledged processes doing work for non-priviledged processes. It was inherent in the design. Nothing new here. Move along.
I worked for a very smart and well connected fellow in 1971 who claimed that the "silicon disk" was right around the corner. I'm not holding my breath.
"Perhaps the ultimate solution would be to encrypt data as it is entered, before it is saved into RAM, and arrange for programs that use it to decrypt it first."
Sheesh! Where is the input buffer located? The decrypted password en-route the application or site? They're in RAM, of course. What this proposal assures is that the plaintext password will be in RAM more times than if the proposal is not adopted.
An interesting factoid: I have three e-mail addresses. The only one that gets spam is the one hooked to my Slashdot login. It gets loaded up badly. And, I only used it one time, before today. Go figure.
I've had pretty good luck hanging an old external modem on the line. When I'm home to check the CID, the modem is set to pick up on the 4th ring, and I pick up sooner if it's a known caller. Usually I shut it off and let the answering maching do its thing if I'm not home. The automated dialers seem to recognize a modem tone and remove my number from the call list.
Slashdot Mirror
I happen to agree with your premise that the web is for communicating information, but I don't think most people trying to sell something would agree. The bling and color and fonts and position are extremely important to them. The idea that they should try to sell their wares exclusively through verbal persuasion would strike them as lunatic.
I just can't understand how someone as articulate and apparently intelligent as you can so completely miss the point. It isn't about effectiveness. It isn't about annoying or not annoying the advertisee.
What it's about is you knowing enough about individuals to achieve the effectiveness of which you are so proud.
You snoop, and you pry, and you sort and you collate and you trick and you invade. There seems to be nothing that is beneath you.
The things you know about people are none of your damned business.
So take your claims of beneficence, consume excrement and expire.
Back in the 70s I had the priviledge of working with a very bright and skilled compiler designer who happened also to be our company representative to the FORTRAN standards committee. I think his position pretty well summed up the dichotomy between the ugliness and the usefulness of the language: "FORTRAN is a weed. It grows on every computer."
Ya think it's ugly now? You should have seen it in 1958 when, in its infancy, I spent a summer solving a triple integration problem on a 704! It was ugly, but it worked, and some engineer who got the result made a better jet engine because of it.
Plus la change....
Whoosh! : The sound of a joke flying over your head.
Thirty five years ago Multics had priviledged processes doing work for non-priviledged processes. It was inherent in the design. Nothing new here. Move along.
I worked for a very smart and well connected fellow in 1971 who claimed that the "silicon disk" was right around the corner. I'm not holding my breath.
Scotty: "A keyboard? How quaint!"
:)
After which he proceeds to bash out text including superscripts etcetera at an incredible rate of speed.
"Perhaps the ultimate solution would be to encrypt data as it is entered, before it is saved into RAM, and arrange for programs that use it to decrypt it first."
Sheesh! Where is the input buffer located? The decrypted password en-route the application or site? They're in RAM, of course. What this proposal assures is that the plaintext password will be in RAM more times than if the proposal is not adopted.
Sigh....
An interesting factoid: I have three e-mail addresses. The only one that gets spam is the one hooked to my Slashdot login. It gets loaded up badly. And, I only used it one time, before today. Go figure.
I've had pretty good luck hanging an old external modem on the line. When I'm home to check the CID, the modem is set to pick up on the 4th ring, and I pick up sooner if it's a known caller. Usually I shut it off and let the answering maching do its thing if I'm not home. The automated dialers seem to recognize a modem tone and remove my number from the call list.