I mean, here I was thinking about features like "stable 3D hardware support" or "more support for video in and out hardware", or "the ability to type international characters the same way in both xterm and gaim"...
But we have DROP SHADOWS!
WOO!
That's a great way to use CPU cycles previously wasted on my actual work!
The message I got certainly looked like spam; I was just idly curious. If it hadn't been right near a letter from my real lawyer, I wouldn't even have spotted it.
Or Doom 3, for that matter.
(It's actually a text adventure from 1980.)
The ESA has not returned calls. I'm talking to my lawyer to ask whether I can sue them.
The best ever was the Handera 330, with the LiOn battery. 320x240 display, ran forever with the backlight on given the LiOn battery. It's been discontinued, of course.
I assume that some of them are bad, and some are good. Some of my friends have worked with outsourced code that was unbelievably bad; on the other hand, I've seen awful code in the US.
I think there's a bit of everything in that; some actual bad code, some poor communications, some just about everything.
What's particularly shocking about this is that Forbes is normally pro-business, and their stance on this amounts to one of the most virulently anti-business stances you could hold. To deny the plain intent of the junk fax law, to eliminate junk faxes, is to hold that businesses have no right to control of their own fax machines, or the use of their own toner. This is an incredibly stupid position, held by someone who is either an idiot or a scoundrel. I speak as charitably as I can without being dishonest.
I may be wrong; it looks like this account was created recently. Now I'm confused; I don't go to Yahoo!, so I don't think it was me. I wonder what happened.
Call Yahoo! at 408-349-3300 if you want to talk to a real person.
Since it's a toll call, I'm posting a partial map of the voice mail system.
Extension 2 for Yahoo! customer support, then option 2 for customer support. This will tell you to use the web page for free support. They don't want you to talk to a real person. Sub-option 5 (report abuse) tells you to send email, and does not let you talk to a real person. Sub-option 4 puts you on hold with a recorded message saying "Prodigy values your membership. Please hold for the next available agent." I've now been on hold for maybe 15 minutes with this... This is a bad option if it doesn't get you to the right person. I hung up and tried again... This time it worked.
They will not close an account for you. If someone has created an account which forwards to you, but you don't have all the personal information, there is nothing you can do. They don't care.
Also, they claim that this account was created in September of this year - actually, it wasn't, it was created a long time ago to sign up for a Yahoo! group, around 2001. So, they're recreating old accounts!
I used to have a Yahoo! account with the account ID "nospamever_assholes". I asked them to close it. They said it was closed, but now they're spamming the address it forwarded to.
But since I tossed all the account info, I can't log in to set my prefs back, and they refuse to close it for me.
If it can be produced programatically, it can be described. If there is a mechanism for an algorithmic machine to produce or read the data, it can be documented.
At best, this comes out to the defense "but we designed it so badly that it's hard to document".
It's still a fatal flaw, and I believe it was a major component of what killed Psion.
They refused repeatedly to make the gcc source available, around '97-'99. They eventually made available a huge binary download which may well have also had modified source, but as I recall, you still needed a magic cookie that could only be used in that particular development environment. You couldn't just build a cross-compiler.
The problem is that the WINC library is not remotely comparable to real documentation of the file format. "Compiles on windows" is not an open format. "Here is a definition of what every byte in the file means" is an open format.
Important message from Belkin: In response to a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers, Belkin Corporation apologizes for the concern this has caused and is taking action to address the issue. To allay customers' worries, Belkin will offer a firmware upgrade that will be available via download from its website (www.belkin.com) on November 17, 2003. This upgrade will rid the redirect completely so that no additional browser windows will appear during the router's installation process. Questions can be directed to our dedicated networking customer support line at 877-736-5771 or e-mailed to kannynmc@belkin.com.
(end quote)
FWIW, it wasn't "spam". It was "hijacking". An important distinction.
I'd call it fairly solidly non-open. When I had a Psion, Psion refused to document their file formats; they insisted that the only way to examine their data was to run code *on EPOC* which used the class interfaces to serialize and deserialize.
As a result, programs to convert data to and from Psion PDAs were difficult to write third-party stuff.
I liked the formfactor, I liked the idea of a real multitasking OS, but the fact is, Palm was a hell of a lot more open than Psion was, back in the day, and I don't think all that much has changed.
To add insult to injury, the only way to develop for Psion was to use Visual C++ with a special downloaded version of gcc, for which source was unavailable for a long time. I got this, to look at it, and it took me a year to get off their spam list.
Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! have all done that. At least once, and I think more than once in eBay's case. Yahoo! recently sent me mail saying, in part:
You received this email because the information for the account
nospamever_assholes indicates that Yahoo! may contact you about
building web sites for personal or professional use.
No. You support companies who DON'T DO OBVIOUSLY IMMORAL STUFF IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Keep in mind, this "apology" is timed to coincide with the beginning of the ad season for tax software. It, like everything else Intuit does, is unrelated to any truth, built only to make you feel the way they think will make them the most money.
They spam, they lie, they hijack computers. Their "apologies" have never amounted to anything in the past; why should they now?
If they extend the apology to include paying for professional removal of their malware, that might actually be meaningful. As is? Words are cheap, and words from liars mean nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, here I was thinking about features like "stable 3D hardware support" or "more support for video in and out hardware", or "the ability to type international characters the same way in both xterm and gaim"...
But we have DROP SHADOWS!
WOO!
That's a great way to use CPU cycles previously wasted on my actual work!
Yeah, but I would guess it has to be someone OTHER than me. :)
The Verisign Corollary already exists.
No publication, no libel. And you can't publish it yourself and then sue for libel.
IANAL, but come on now.
The message I got certainly looked like spam; I was just idly curious. If it hadn't been right near a letter from my real lawyer, I wouldn't even have spotted it.
Or Doom 3, for that matter. (It's actually a text adventure from 1980.) The ESA has not returned calls. I'm talking to my lawyer to ask whether I can sue them.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columni sts/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_2939654,00.html
Interesting because it covers more than just the simplistic "jobs lost" part of the story.
The best ever was the Handera 330, with the LiOn battery. 320x240 display, ran forever with the backlight on given the LiOn battery. It's been discontinued, of course.
I assume that some of them are bad, and some are good. Some of my friends have worked with outsourced code that was unbelievably bad; on the other hand, I've seen awful code in the US.
I think there's a bit of everything in that; some actual bad code, some poor communications, some just about everything.
I love the attitude. "Only WE have the right to wreck the DNS system completely!"
What's particularly shocking about this is that Forbes is normally pro-business, and their stance on this amounts to one of the most virulently anti-business stances you could hold. To deny the plain intent of the junk fax law, to eliminate junk faxes, is to hold that businesses have no right to control of their own fax machines, or the use of their own toner. This is an incredibly stupid position, held by someone who is either an idiot or a scoundrel. I speak as charitably as I can without being dishonest.
The $1,500 is for deliberately-sent faxes ("knowing or willful"). The $500 is for any unsolicited fax at all, *even if it's an accident*.
Don't respond to illegal behavior with more illegal behavior. Sue the bastards. The law provides for a private right of action; exercise it.
My blog has occasional updates on my personal collection of lawsuits against junk faxers.
To make a long story short, these people are just like any other spammer; they're in it to make a quick buck.
The one small bit overlooked by this piece of alleged anti-spam legislation is that it never tells anyone not to spam.
I may be wrong; it looks like this account was created recently. Now I'm confused; I don't go to Yahoo!, so I don't think it was me. I wonder what happened.
I got an actual phone number.
Call Yahoo! at 408-349-3300 if you want to talk to a real person.
Since it's a toll call, I'm posting a partial map of the voice mail system.
Extension 2 for Yahoo! customer support, then option 2 for customer support. This will tell you to use the web page for free support. They don't want you to talk to a real person. Sub-option 5 (report abuse) tells you to send email, and does not let you talk to a real person. Sub-option 4 puts you on hold with a recorded message saying "Prodigy values your membership. Please hold for the next available agent." I've now been on hold for maybe 15 minutes with this... This is a bad option if it doesn't get you to the right person. I hung up and tried again... This time it worked.
They will not close an account for you. If someone has created an account which forwards to you, but you don't have all the personal information, there is nothing you can do. They don't care.
Also, they claim that this account was created in September of this year - actually, it wasn't, it was created a long time ago to sign up for a Yahoo! group, around 2001. So, they're recreating old accounts!
I used to have a Yahoo! account with the account ID "nospamever_assholes". I asked them to close it. They said it was closed, but now they're spamming the address it forwarded to.
But since I tossed all the account info, I can't log in to set my prefs back, and they refuse to close it for me.
If it can be produced programatically, it can be described. If there is a mechanism for an algorithmic machine to produce or read the data, it can be documented.
At best, this comes out to the defense "but we designed it so badly that it's hard to document".
It's still a fatal flaw, and I believe it was a major component of what killed Psion.
They refused repeatedly to make the gcc source available, around '97-'99. They eventually made available a huge binary download which may well have also had modified source, but as I recall, you still needed a magic cookie that could only be used in that particular development environment. You couldn't just build a cross-compiler.
The problem is that the WINC library is not remotely comparable to real documentation of the file format. "Compiles on windows" is not an open format. "Here is a definition of what every byte in the file means" is an open format.
As of 3:05 AM (Central time), November 11th 2003:
Important message from Belkin:
In response to a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers, Belkin Corporation apologizes for the concern this has caused and is taking action to address the issue. To allay customers' worries, Belkin will offer a firmware upgrade that will be available via download from its website (www.belkin.com) on November 17, 2003. This upgrade will rid the redirect completely so that no additional browser windows will appear during the router's installation process. Questions can be directed to our dedicated networking customer support line at 877-736-5771 or e-mailed to kannynmc@belkin.com.
(end quote)
FWIW, it wasn't "spam". It was "hijacking". An important distinction.
Either way, you lose data. One way, the spammers lose more.
Blacklists may be bad; the alternatives are substantially worse.
I'd call it fairly solidly non-open. When I had a Psion, Psion refused to document their file formats; they insisted that the only way to examine their data was to run code *on EPOC* which used the class interfaces to serialize and deserialize.
As a result, programs to convert data to and from Psion PDAs were difficult to write third-party stuff.
I liked the formfactor, I liked the idea of a real multitasking OS, but the fact is, Palm was a hell of a lot more open than Psion was, back in the day, and I don't think all that much has changed.
To add insult to injury, the only way to develop for Psion was to use Visual C++ with a special downloaded version of gcc, for which source was unavailable for a long time. I got this, to look at it, and it took me a year to get off their spam list.
Ugh.
Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! have all done that. At least once, and I think more than once in eBay's case. Yahoo! recently sent me mail saying, in part:
You received this email because the information for the account
nospamever_assholes indicates that Yahoo! may contact you about
building web sites for personal or professional use.
What idiots.
No. You support companies who DON'T DO OBVIOUSLY IMMORAL STUFF IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Keep in mind, this "apology" is timed to coincide with the beginning of the ad season for tax software. It, like everything else Intuit does, is unrelated to any truth, built only to make you feel the way they think will make them the most money.
They spam, they lie, they hijack computers. Their "apologies" have never amounted to anything in the past; why should they now?
If they extend the apology to include paying for professional removal of their malware, that might actually be meaningful. As is? Words are cheap, and words from liars mean nothing.