Vastly superior methods for stopping spam have existed since well before captchas were invented. They still exist today. I've written about them at great length (elsewhere), as have others.
I guess it's just an oversight on your part, that you didn't include a link, right?
The problem is not that these methods don't exist, or aren't effective, or aren't well-understood; the problem is that people refuse to invest the effort to learn them.
Well, I would love to learn them. Unfortunately, every alternative method I heard about, was either less effective or did simply solve a different problem altogether.
Classic hydro is not what people usually think when they talk about 'renewable'.
Of course it is. What are you talking about?
It's also not without environment issues
Nothing is without issues.
And all of the German investments into renewables could have been _easily_ beaten by 6 modern nuclear power plants.
Maybe. But we don't build those because we don't know what to do with all the nuclear waste. We still have no idea what to do with the amount we already have! See 'environmental issues' above.
In short, renewable energy in Germany is a total failure.
"In 2012 haben regenerative Energien nach den Daten der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Energiebilanzen rd. 137 Mrd. kWh bzw. 23 Prozent zum Brutto-Stromverbrauch beigetragen (2011: rd. 20 Prozent) und sind damit zweitstärkster Energieträger nach der Braunkohle."
So renewables climbed to 23% in 2012 - up from 20% in 2011.
Anyhow, Apple stores all passwords in their keychain and this is easily snooped.
It's not *their* keychain. It's *your* keychain. It's local on your device. Of course it will end up in the backup. But the whole point of the keychain is, that it's encrypted, so that shouldn't be a problem, even if you choose not to encrypt your backups.
And how is the keychain "easily snooped"? That's news to me. Please elaborate.
Well, yes. If you *allow* access to the keychain - it can be read. Would be pretty useless otherwise.
but ultimately Apple should have been honest with themselves (and with developers) from the outset - that they weren't going to stick at 320x480 forever. Had they done this there would be no need for said aforementioned ugly hack.
That wouldn't have changed anything. Developers are not going to build apps for devices that don't exist. That would cost time and money for no apparent benefit whatsoever. Not going to happen.
Then there is iOS. They painted themselves into a corner on that. They can't easily introduce real multitasking, can't break away from iTunes or support standard protocols like MTP. They are stuck with a bunch of odd resolutions and encouraged developers to target them all directly, resulting in debacles like the black bars when they went widescreen.
I get the feeling you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. iOS already has 'real' multitasking. Apple actively restricts apps from using it. To change that they could simply remove those restrictions. No idea what you are getting at with respect to iTunes either. iOS devices don't have to be connected to iTunes any more if you don't want. As for MTP - that seems to be a Microsoft protocol. Why exactly should Apple support that? And why do you think they couldn't if they wanted to? And please explain how other systems have better support for different screen resolutions. While you can expect to have any of very few different resolutions on a iOS device, it is of course possible to design UIs that support arbitrary resolutions. But the idea that you can design *one* UI that works on all devices is exactly the reason why so many Android apps suck on a tablet. When you have substantially more space, you *should* design your UI differently. iOS has strong support for this. You can design a view such that is simply scales with the device or you can use different views for different resolutions. And I'm not sure anyone has anything as powerful as Autolayout.
Beyond that, I highly suggest you go take some remedial English classes, bucko. If for some reason you think my rant is irrelevant,
I'm not a native english speaker, just FYI. And I didn't say your rant was irrelevant. I said it's unintelligible. I also doubt I'd learn the phrases you used in any proper english class.
I also understood, that you don't have to pay for the game. You are still wasting your own time with it and from the sound of it it seems you are a drag on the other players just trying to make a buck on the auction house. So I stand by my recommendation. You really should stop playing.
but the challenge has been ratcheted up for raid content.
No, it hasn't. Raids got easier, too.
Let me make an analogy -- it's like a ping-pong match played against a wall with a 24-man team. For the leader that might be an exciting test of his skill in managing a group, but for the players it's just hitting a ball against a wall.
Actually, that's fine. Really. Some people like to lead but most are content to follow. Yes, to get a team together that works is a challenge in itself. But it can be done and then everyone will have fun.
I might like to play WoW if it focussed more on the story and quests and less on trying to waste my time. Blizzard won't win any points with it's hardcore fans if it redesigned the game to make it more enjoyable for people like me, but they might just eek out another two or three years of earnings from it if they did.
They already did. And you are right - 'hardcore' players don't like it.
But you might want to give it another try. Travel distances have been cut down significantly. If you do have to travel a wider distance, you'll get a mount or some other means to speed it up. Quest lines are straight forward and everything is easy, even for a badly equipped character.
Maybe you'll like it. Personally, I think questing it's rather boring now.
You have obviously never played WoW and it shows in your post. You simply don't know what you are talking about.
I also don't understand your quip about payed-for ready-made entertainment. The whole world is full of it. Be it movies, TV shows, commercial music, entertainment parks and what have you. Why would you single out a multiplayer online game?
Then, let me tell you, WoW is not "very, very slowly evolving". It's actually evolving faster than some people would like it to. And no, you don't have to pay for every little addition to the game. There have been Classic, BC, WotLK, Cataclysm and MoP. That's it for more than seven years. And unless you started with Classic, you won't have payed full price for all installments either.
It's also not true that there is almost no feedback from players. In fact, I think one of the problems is, that they are pandering to the player's wishes too much.
On the plus side, it trained me to recognize grind and skinner box style gameplay that virtually all MMOs since have used to string people along - long travel distances, infrequent spawns, equipment that degrades, time sinks everywhere.
Travel distances in WoW are short these days. You can fly almost everywhere. Even if you can't there's a flight point seemingly around every corner. Spawns are so frequent, that you can actually farm 'rares'; not to mention normal mobs - those will sometimes respawn on top of your feet if you don't move out of the way fast enough. Equipment does not degrade. It get's damaged and you'll have to repair it. But you get more than enough gold to cover the repair costs and you can actually buy mounts with merchants that will do those repairs (it's a single button click to repair everything at once; AND there are add-ons that automate even that).
In my opinion they made the game too easy. I remember when I started, every battle was an actual challenge. Now you just rush through everything. It's almost impossible to die unless you run headlong into a bunch of enemies. In the past, quest mobs at the end of a quest chain usually were elite mobs, and really tough. Now you don't even notice they are anything special. Dungeons are especially bad. I'm leveling my monk at the moment, playing a healer, and it's downright boring most of the time. The biggest challenge is to keep close to the tank while he is churning through the mobs. Now, I like the actual new content. Even the boss fights are rather interesting - or would be if it wasn't for the fact, that you can do it all in LFR where it is possible to ignore most of the mechanics. And when I've already killed the bosses countless times in LFR that makes the normal 10 man raid much less interesting. At least for me. They also dumbed down some classes so much that it gets annoying. I remember when they banned the first heal bots. Now you can select a heal bot as a spec. Just play a disci priest. You don't even need to target who you want to heal; it's automatic. I'm also miffed about the changes to the fire mage. I chose that spec because I found it more interesting than the others. More choices to make in a fight. But they really did their best to dumb it down to a similar level as all the other specs with almost no choice what to do at any given moment. Something procs - you need to use it almost instantly.
Still, I don't see anything that could replace WoW for me. So if I decided to stop playing, I'd probably not pick up anything else in it's stead.
Once upon a time, power utilities ran their lines overhead. One result of this is that trees falling in storms and other similar events would disrupt power. Thankfully, this construction technique has been abandoned in all but a few third world countries.
I wouldn't exactly call Japan a third world country... (Just search for "Japan Power Lines".)
Unfortunately, you didn't answer the question that was asked. Yes, the advertisers paid, and I could understand if they expected something in return. But, how can you claim an entitlement that you gave nothing to get?
As a German citizen I'm entitled to everything German law says I am. I don't need any additional justification.
It's the same as human rights: Anyone is entitled to them. You don't need any justification.
But does the law require the use of any specific technological method?
It doesn't. It is already established that email is sufficient. It is *not* established, that web forms are sufficient. The vzbv argues that they are not. If Google disagrees, this will go to court to see who's right.
Slashdot Mirror
The ASCII art CAPTCHA is also much easier to read then weird image CAPTCHAs.
ASCII art should be rather easy to beat. Just blur the image and increase contrast.
Vastly superior methods for stopping spam have existed since well before captchas were invented.
They still exist today. I've written about them at great length (elsewhere), as have others.
I guess it's just an oversight on your part, that you didn't include a link, right?
The problem is not that these methods don't exist, or aren't effective, or aren't well-understood; the problem is that people refuse to invest the effort to learn them.
Well, I would love to learn them. Unfortunately, every alternative method I heard about, was either less effective or did simply solve a different problem altogether.
Classic hydro is not what people usually think when they talk about 'renewable'.
Of course it is. What are you talking about?
It's also not without environment issues
Nothing is without issues.
And all of the German investments into renewables could have been _easily_ beaten by 6 modern nuclear power plants.
Maybe. But we don't build those because we don't know what to do with all the nuclear waste. We still have no idea what to do with the amount we already have! See 'environmental issues' above.
In short, renewable energy in Germany is a total failure.
It's not.
Germany is NOT 40% renewable. It's about 15% renewable and falling rapidly,
That's a lie.
http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=22764
"In 2012 haben regenerative Energien nach den Daten der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Energiebilanzen rd. 137 Mrd. kWh bzw. 23 Prozent zum Brutto-Stromverbrauch beigetragen (2011: rd. 20 Prozent) und sind damit zweitstärkster Energieträger nach der Braunkohle."
So renewables climbed to 23% in 2012 - up from 20% in 2011.
In 2012 Germany imported 43,8 TWh and *exported* 66,6 TWh.
So we have a net *export* of 22,8 TWh.
http://www.tarifometer24.com/news-energie/strommarkt/stromhandel-deutschland-2012-wieder-mehr-europaischer-export-als-import/45298/
Anyhow, Apple stores all passwords in their keychain and this is easily snooped.
It's not *their* keychain. It's *your* keychain. It's local on your device. Of course it will end up in the backup. But the whole point of the keychain is, that it's encrypted, so that shouldn't be a problem, even if you choose not to encrypt your backups.
And how is the keychain "easily snooped"? That's news to me. Please elaborate.
Well, yes. If you *allow* access to the keychain - it can be read. Would be pretty useless otherwise.
but ultimately Apple should have been honest with themselves (and with developers) from the outset - that they weren't going to stick at 320x480 forever. Had they done this there would be no need for said aforementioned ugly hack.
That wouldn't have changed anything. Developers are not going to build apps for devices that don't exist. That would cost time and money for no apparent benefit whatsoever. Not going to happen.
Then there is iOS. They painted themselves into a corner on that. They can't easily introduce real multitasking, can't break away from iTunes or support standard protocols like MTP. They are stuck with a bunch of odd resolutions and encouraged developers to target them all directly, resulting in debacles like the black bars when they went widescreen.
I get the feeling you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.
iOS already has 'real' multitasking. Apple actively restricts apps from using it. To change that they could simply remove those restrictions.
No idea what you are getting at with respect to iTunes either. iOS devices don't have to be connected to iTunes any more if you don't want. As for MTP - that seems to be a Microsoft protocol. Why exactly should Apple support that? And why do you think they couldn't if they wanted to?
And please explain how other systems have better support for different screen resolutions. While you can expect to have any of very few different resolutions on a iOS device, it is of course possible to design UIs that support arbitrary resolutions. But the idea that you can design *one* UI that works on all devices is exactly the reason why so many Android apps suck on a tablet. When you have substantially more space, you *should* design your UI differently. iOS has strong support for this. You can design a view such that is simply scales with the device or you can use different views for different resolutions. And I'm not sure anyone has anything as powerful as Autolayout.
the thing about wow and similar games is that the world is a carnival that never changes at all, it's not dynamic.
It does change. It's not dynamic though, that's true.
this is a long term failure and a reason why eve gains players as wow loses them - because in eve politics matter somewhat,
The politics are the reason I'm never going to play a game like EVE. It's too much like a second life.
Beyond that, I highly suggest you go take some remedial English classes, bucko. If for some reason you think my rant is irrelevant,
I'm not a native english speaker, just FYI. And I didn't say your rant was irrelevant. I said it's unintelligible. I also doubt I'd learn the phrases you used in any proper english class.
I also understood, that you don't have to pay for the game. You are still wasting your own time with it and from the sound of it it seems you are a drag on the other players just trying to make a buck on the auction house. So I stand by my recommendation. You really should stop playing.
but the challenge has been ratcheted up for raid content.
No, it hasn't. Raids got easier, too.
Let me make an analogy -- it's like a ping-pong match played against a wall with a 24-man team. For the leader that might be an exciting test of his skill in managing a group, but for the players it's just hitting a ball against a wall.
Actually, that's fine. Really. Some people like to lead but most are content to follow. Yes, to get a team together that works is a challenge in itself. But it can be done and then everyone will have fun.
That's actually quite funny. :)
Even though I don't think adding a new continent to Azeroth really is a problem. It's not like the alliance or the horde have satellites in orbit ...
Also, as I already mentioned somewhere else in this thread, I happen to like the pandaren. :}
I might like to play WoW if it focussed more on the story and quests and less on trying to waste my time. Blizzard won't win any points with it's hardcore fans if it redesigned the game to make it more enjoyable for people like me, but they might just eek out another two or three years of earnings from it if they did.
They already did. And you are right - 'hardcore' players don't like it.
But you might want to give it another try. Travel distances have been cut down significantly. If you do have to travel a wider distance, you'll get a mount or some other means to speed it up. Quest lines are straight forward and everything is easy, even for a badly equipped character.
Maybe you'll like it. Personally, I think questing it's rather boring now.
You have obviously never played WoW and it shows in your post. You simply don't know what you are talking about.
I also don't understand your quip about payed-for ready-made entertainment. The whole world is full of it. Be it movies, TV shows, commercial music, entertainment parks and what have you. Why would you single out a multiplayer online game?
Then, let me tell you, WoW is not "very, very slowly evolving". It's actually evolving faster than some people would like it to. And no, you don't have to pay for every little addition to the game. There have been Classic, BC, WotLK, Cataclysm and MoP. That's it for more than seven years. And unless you started with Classic, you won't have payed full price for all installments either.
It's also not true that there is almost no feedback from players. In fact, I think one of the problems is, that they are pandering to the player's wishes too much.
If you play the game at all, my explanation makes perfect sense.
I've been playing since classic and your 'explanation' is basically unintelligible.
The only thing I can get from it is that you really should stop playing. It'd be a boon to both yourself and the people who still like the game.
On the plus side, it trained me to recognize grind and skinner box style gameplay that virtually all MMOs since have used to string people along - long travel distances, infrequent spawns, equipment that degrades, time sinks everywhere.
Travel distances in WoW are short these days. You can fly almost everywhere. Even if you can't there's a flight point seemingly around every corner. Spawns are so frequent, that you can actually farm 'rares'; not to mention normal mobs - those will sometimes respawn on top of your feet if you don't move out of the way fast enough. Equipment does not degrade. It get's damaged and you'll have to repair it. But you get more than enough gold to cover the repair costs and you can actually buy mounts with merchants that will do those repairs (it's a single button click to repair everything at once; AND there are add-ons that automate even that).
Time sinks though - those you will find plenty.
I blame the pandas. From an outside perspective, they make the game look silly.
I rather like the pandaren. Not sure why some people think they are somehow sillier than, say, gnomes or draenei.
In my opinion they made the game too easy. I remember when I started, every battle was an actual challenge.
Now you just rush through everything. It's almost impossible to die unless you run headlong into a bunch of enemies.
In the past, quest mobs at the end of a quest chain usually were elite mobs, and really tough. Now you don't even notice they are anything special.
Dungeons are especially bad. I'm leveling my monk at the moment, playing a healer, and it's downright boring most of the time. The biggest challenge is to keep close to the tank while he is churning through the mobs.
Now, I like the actual new content. Even the boss fights are rather interesting - or would be if it wasn't for the fact, that you can do it all in LFR where it is possible to ignore most of the mechanics. And when I've already killed the bosses countless times in LFR that makes the normal 10 man raid much less interesting. At least for me.
They also dumbed down some classes so much that it gets annoying. I remember when they banned the first heal bots. Now you can select a heal bot as a spec. Just play a disci priest. You don't even need to target who you want to heal; it's automatic.
I'm also miffed about the changes to the fire mage. I chose that spec because I found it more interesting than the others. More choices to make in a fight. But they really did their best to dumb it down to a similar level as all the other specs with almost no choice what to do at any given moment. Something procs - you need to use it almost instantly.
Still, I don't see anything that could replace WoW for me. So if I decided to stop playing, I'd probably not pick up anything else in it's stead.
OS X is an awful desktop.
Yes. Just like democracy is an awful form of government. Unfortunately still better than all the others that have been tried.
Once upon a time, power utilities ran their lines overhead. One result of this is that trees falling in storms and other similar events would disrupt power. Thankfully, this construction technique has been abandoned in all but a few third world countries.
I wouldn't exactly call Japan a third world country ...
(Just search for "Japan Power Lines".)
And according to DoNotTrackMe, TFA has beacons for 5 tracking companies, plus two social media sites.
You missed quite a few.
Ghostery reports 17 (!) beacons:
Adhere, Adobe Digital Marketing, BlueKai, Demandbase, Digg Widget, Disqus, Dynamic Logic, Eloqua, Facebook Connect, Google +1, Google Analytics, Krux Digital, LinkedIn Widgets, New Relic, Quantcast, Scorecard Research Beacon, ShareThis
Nice collection!
Google have an email address. They do respond to emails.
They do not (apart from an auto-reply). That's the whole point.
They're demanding a level of service for something they're getting for free? Really?
Absolutely.
Try the following: Go to a mall near you and start giving away foul food.
I'll bet you'll get sued your ass off - even though the food was all free.
Unfortunately, you didn't answer the question that was asked. Yes, the advertisers paid, and I could understand if they expected something in return. But, how can you claim an entitlement that you gave nothing to get?
As a German citizen I'm entitled to everything German law says I am. I don't need any additional justification.
It's the same as human rights: Anyone is entitled to them. You don't need any justification.
But does the law require the use of any specific technological method?
It doesn't.
It is already established that email is sufficient. It is *not* established, that web forms are sufficient. The vzbv argues that they are not. If Google disagrees, this will go to court to see who's right.