They further show that the number of downloads on BitTorrent can be predicted by the scores of game reviewers.
Since the link is blocked at work, it would be nice if the summary actually included what the link was. I assume higher reviews correlate to higher piracy. Which is another way of saying popular games are pirated more than unpopular games, which is another way of saying popular games are popular, which ultimately says fuck all.
No, you are missing the point. Again, web ads aren't TV ads. Google sells click-throughs, TV ads don't. Advertisers want to know that those click-throughs are unique.
TV ads aren't web ads. TV ads don't pay for click-throughs. TV ads are limit to ~30 seconds, a banner ad on a website is [usually] there the entire time you're on the site.
If most companies weren't already exclusively Windows. A wholesale replacement of all Windows computers with Linux computers would be a lengthy and hugely disruptive process, not to mention the costs of retraining and the risks of finding you can't run some enterprise critical software or piece of hardware. A phased replacement isn't much better either as you still need to train people, some of the risk may be offset, but having an IT department need to support two OS's instead of one increases costs.
So in short, I think difficult economic times make companies less likely to take a risk. And switching to Linux from Windows would be seen (rightly or wrongly) as a huge risk. A new company starting from scratch, or a company that already has a significant mix of Linux boxes, maybe.
If all Google cares about is collecting and marketing my data, why the hell should they care if i use a pseudonym or not as long as they know who i am?
They probably don't care, per se, but their customers do. Their customers don't get all their marketing data exclusively from Google (although Google would probably like that). They want to be able to link the data from Google to data from other sources and a real name is one of the better keys (but by no means sufficient by itself) for making that connection.
In fact allowing pseudonyms and multiple accounts would only help Google in that regard. If i've got three active accounts, UserA, UserB and UserC, then Google can sell ads to me three different times, and to the company paying for the ads it will look like Google put marketing material in front of three different sets of eyes. So that's good for me (in terms of letting me use pseudonyms) good for Google (in terms of selling ads) and actually pretty neutral for the company buying the advertising (realistically, they'd probably rather have the ad shown to three different people, but gods know they never had and problem with showing the same ad to the same person over and over and over again and hoping it will stick that way.)
No, it's pretty bad for the customer. They've paid three times for an ad to the same person. If you can't see why Google's customers would be unhappy about that then you don't understand business. This alone might be a good argument (from the customers POV) for insisting Google gets their user's real names, or at least, some unique identifier.
And why do you think Hotmail, Excite or Sonic give you "free" e-mail? I'll give you a clue, it has something to do with using your data for their own ends, just like Google and Facebook.
Some may be better or worse than others, but you are living in a fantasy world if you think anybody is giving you e-mail for free. Either you pay for it with real cash, or they use your data to serve up ads.
I'm not being smug. Most user don't know what a macro is, nor do they care, and that's okay. It's a failing of Excel and, I suspect, CDF that they are too complicated and take too much time to learn and use for most users. It's not that those users are dumb, they just have different priorities.
I downloaded it and it's 101 MB. Still huge, but not as big as yours. What OS are you using? (Windows XP here). Also, it seems to insist on installing to the C drive, so I canceled the install. Our corporate overlords only give us a very tiny C drive to play with.
Yeah, they seem to be abusing the term "free" and "public" in a manner that I don't think most people would expect. From the licensing page:
Computable Document Format (CDF) is a free public format, and under the Wolfram FreeCDF terms of use, your CDF documents along with their content are freely redistributable to anyone using the Wolfram CDF Player.*
And that asterisk?
*FreeCDF terms automatically apply to CDF files created by Wolfram products, but do not allow:
Charging others for using your CDFs
Preventing others from republishing or redistributing CDFs that you give them
Removing our logo or other displayed branding
Which looks suspiciously like their "free public format" is, in fact, closed and proprietary.
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing bloodier than the Windows / Mac / Linux religious wars are the internal Linux wars.
Crap. Linux, not Linus. Typing to type while eating lunch. Why oh why can't we have a fucking edit button.
TFA doesn't claim Linus is doomed, it simply claims the opportunity to gain significant traction on the desktop is being lost to fragmentation.
They further show that the number of downloads on BitTorrent can be predicted by the scores of game reviewers.
Since the link is blocked at work, it would be nice if the summary actually included what the link was. I assume higher reviews correlate to higher piracy. Which is another way of saying popular games are pirated more than unpopular games, which is another way of saying popular games are popular, which ultimately says fuck all.
No, you are missing the point. Again, web ads aren't TV ads. Google sells click-throughs, TV ads don't. Advertisers want to know that those click-throughs are unique.
The same thing will happen on tv.
TV ads aren't web ads. TV ads don't pay for click-throughs. TV ads are limit to ~30 seconds, a banner ad on a website is [usually] there the entire time you're on the site.
If most companies weren't already exclusively Windows. A wholesale replacement of all Windows computers with Linux computers would be a lengthy and hugely disruptive process, not to mention the costs of retraining and the risks of finding you can't run some enterprise critical software or piece of hardware. A phased replacement isn't much better either as you still need to train people, some of the risk may be offset, but having an IT department need to support two OS's instead of one increases costs.
So in short, I think difficult economic times make companies less likely to take a risk. And switching to Linux from Windows would be seen (rightly or wrongly) as a huge risk. A new company starting from scratch, or a company that already has a significant mix of Linux boxes, maybe.
Agreed!
If all Google cares about is collecting and marketing my data, why the hell should they care if i use a pseudonym or not as long as they know who i am?
They probably don't care, per se, but their customers do. Their customers don't get all their marketing data exclusively from Google (although Google would probably like that). They want to be able to link the data from Google to data from other sources and a real name is one of the better keys (but by no means sufficient by itself) for making that connection.
In fact allowing pseudonyms and multiple accounts would only help Google in that regard. If i've got three active accounts, UserA, UserB and UserC, then Google can sell ads to me three different times, and to the company paying for the ads it will look like Google put marketing material in front of three different sets of eyes. So that's good for me (in terms of letting me use pseudonyms) good for Google (in terms of selling ads) and actually pretty neutral for the company buying the advertising (realistically, they'd probably rather have the ad shown to three different people, but gods know they never had and problem with showing the same ad to the same person over and over and over again and hoping it will stick that way.)
No, it's pretty bad for the customer. They've paid three times for an ad to the same person. If you can't see why Google's customers would be unhappy about that then you don't understand business. This alone might be a good argument (from the customers POV) for insisting Google gets their user's real names, or at least, some unique identifier.
You really think they care about my name when they target me for advertising?
Yes. Or did you really think that Google was the only place the advertisers were getting information on you from?
And why do you think Hotmail, Excite or Sonic give you "free" e-mail? I'll give you a clue, it has something to do with using your data for their own ends, just like Google and Facebook.
Some may be better or worse than others, but you are living in a fantasy world if you think anybody is giving you e-mail for free. Either you pay for it with real cash, or they use your data to serve up ads.
Pirates & Ninjas, obviously!
REALLY?
They don't own my emails
If you use GMail, then they do. If you don't use GMail, then good for you, obviously the GP argument doesn't apply to you.
Really? Putting all your data in the hands of a third-party means they could arbitrarily shut you out for whatever reason they want. Film at 11.
Sorry, how is that even remotely relevant? It wasn't NBC, GE's (former) media arm.
Freedom of the press doesn't mean they are free to commit crimes.
I'm not being smug. Most user don't know what a macro is, nor do they care, and that's okay. It's a failing of Excel and, I suspect, CDF that they are too complicated and take too much time to learn and use for most users. It's not that those users are dumb, they just have different priorities.
But they are still programs created by you. It would be like Microsoft saying anything created in Visual Studio belongs to them.
Thank you. Yes. I did read the FAQ (before I originally posted), and I'm glad you've finally taken your own advice.
I downloaded it and it's 101 MB. Still huge, but not as big as yours. What OS are you using? (Windows XP here). Also, it seems to insist on installing to the C drive, so I canceled the install. Our corporate overlords only give us a very tiny C drive to play with.
That struck me too. Most user have no clue what a macro is, let alone how to make one.
Funny thing. I've been poking around their website and I can't find this publicly available open documentation anywhere...
Yeah, they seem to be abusing the term "free" and "public" in a manner that I don't think most people would expect. From the licensing page:
And that asterisk?
Which looks suspiciously like their "free public format" is, in fact, closed and proprietary.
From TFA: