...the countries of the Middle East continue to do nothing in the way of advancing science. However, the are still sucking money out of the ground in the form of a thick, black sludge.
Is your point that U.S. presidents can be pieces if shit or that Brazil has a good president? You seem to have changed points mid-discussion. You started out endorsing the Brazilian president, but then resorted to attacking Clinton when I pointed out that the Brazilian president wasn't such a great guy.
And he has also embezzled millions of tax dollars into offshore bank accounts...
My Brazilian girlfriend, who is watching me type this, who lived there until 3 years ago, is far more aware of the political conditions and the effect of having Fernando Henrique Silva Cardoso as President of the country than you will ever be.
Cubans, Dominicans, Columbians, Nicaraguans, Chileans, Argentinians, Costa Ricans, Mexicans, El Salvadorians, Venezuelans, Brazilians, Ecuadorians, Bolivians, Paraguayans, Uruguayans, Panamanians, Hondurans and I'm probably missing a couple countries.
And I don't mean shook-their-hand kind of met. I mean dated/schooled/played/worked with kind of knew.
"please don't generalize"
I wonder, is a generalization still a generalization if it's true? By definition, of course it is. But since the word 'generalization' has become associated with racism, it now supposedly doesn't ring true. Meaning that if a person generalizes, that person is obviously wrong... It's really odd. We accept generalizations in every aspect of life until it's used to sum up human behavior.
I've never said nor will I ever say that ALL Latins are shitbags, because I know, better than most people in the U.S. that it isn't true. However, I've also experienced what Latin influence can do, and it didn't change things for the better. It's a simple fucking fact, and I really couldn't care less anymore who that fact offends.
"...and don't say all those countries are shitholes. there are good sides and bad sides to everyplace, including the US."
Yes, there are, but there is NOWHERE in the U.S. that compares to Nordeste in Brazil or the slums of Mexico City. Their bad side is MUCH FUCKING WORSE than ours.
"I am currently in the US, for example, and find it great that there is money to be made. But in my case (and in the case of 95% of the latin americans that I know), this country is the last place to live for a long time, especially if you want to raise a family."
And it is people like you that are ruining the country. Come here, make your money and run. And while doing so, expect the Americans to treat you with a smile. WHY can't you make money in YOUR country? Do you EVER think about it? Try to change it? Or are you like every other defeatist Latin I know that would rather whine about the condition of their country and how it CAN'T be changed rather than getting off your ass and changing it? I suppose it's much easier to come to America, make money and fucking COMPLAIN the entire time about how bad it is here.
The last place to raise a family? Are you on fucking crack? Haiti might be the LAST place to raise a family, or Ethiopia or even some villiage in Honduras, but the LAST PLACE sure as fuck isn't America.
"...you know many latins, but aparently you have never been there."
Been all over it. Cruised the coast, went camping in the Amazon, slept in the rain forest, hiked in the mountains.
"...and the opinions of latin america you are hearing comes from those who left..."
No, the opinions are coming from me, from what I've seen and experienced.
"(how many people love a place and leave it, eh?)"
I couldn't agree more. So WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FUCKING LATINS ON THIS SIDE OF THE BORDER?!?
Do you equate American people with the American government? You shouldn't. They aren't the same. If the government continues pissing us off, we WILL change it. That is one of the most important differences between America and Americans and other countries.
Of course they do. I'm not talking about individuals. I'm talking about ratios. The ratio of fuckheads to good people is remarkably higher in other countries. High enough to adversely affect the overall living conditions. Obviously, all Americans aren't good people, but there are enough good ones to counteract the actions of the bad. This is not the case in South America, Africa, etc.
"I sincerely hope that this doesn't reflect the way most americans think."
Yeah, black hunting is one of our cop's favorite hobbies. Like you say, our cops kill blacks EVERY DAY... Fucking jackass. Do you really believe that? Even in self-defense I doubt a black person is killed by the police on a daily basis, much less as an act of racism as you are implying.
"...your presidents..."
Afraid I have to agree with you here. Our last few presidents have been tools. Much worse than the genius saints that have been running your country, I'm sure...
"...your position about the other countries..."
...and their positions about us. It's odd that the rest of the world can have anti-American sentiments but if an American has an anti-NameAnyCountry attitude, we're considered imperialistic.
"Angels? Wake up and smell the coffe!"
I said compared to Central/South Americans, not in and of ourselves. I love when people twist the words of others to try to make their own point.
"ALL group of people (thus imagine an ENTIRE COUNTRY) will have different behaviours inside it..."
No shit, Captain Obvious. The very point of this post is that they ARE NOT like us and many of the ways they are different, specifically the ways they run their countries, are worse.
"Microsoft is American."
Yep. And what *exactly* stopped a company in your country, or ANY country, from doing what Microsoft did, eh? You're sounding like a sore loser. Maybe, just *maybe*, the people in your country don't have the mental capacity to pull it off. Nah, that couldn't be it...
"DMCA too."
Again, Americans created the industry over which the DMCA imposes its (poorly constructed) will. Yeah, it does suck, but we'll fix it eventually. It has to do with a legal need being filled by people that are woefully incompetent from a technical standpoint. Never attribute to maliciousness what can be explained away by ignorance or stupidity.
Don't fool yourself about Central/South Americans.
I was born and raised in Miami. I've seen first-hand what Latin influence can do. As a group they are, hands down, the most corrupt people I've ever encountered. Since I wasa child, I watched Miami go from a really nice place to live in the 70's (until I was 16 years old, we NEVER locked the doors in our house or on our cars; now I wouldn't even walk inside my house without setting the alarm on my car) to the crime-infested political laughing stock of the nation shithole city it is now. And yes, most of this is due to Latin influence. They run Miami like they would run Managua. It's their way.
When I worked independently installing networks, EVERY Latin customer I had, and this was over 100, refused to pay the normal licensing fees for software. And before you go nutty about Windows, I don't mean only Windows. Anti-Virus software, proprietary software specific to their business, ANYTHING. Literally 100% of them refused to pay for their software. When I explained it was illegal, they explained they didn't care.
I've gone to school with Latins. I've dated Latins. I've grown up and worked intimately with Latins. Some of my best friends are Latins. But as a group, they are fuckheads.
Yes, the girls are hot. Half the girls I've dated have been Latin. Incindentally, the last 3 I've dated were Brazilian. But that might be their strongest virtue.
One of the greatest flaws inherent in most smart people is their know-it-all attitude. Most of the opinions towards Central/South America are written by Middle Americans that have had about as much exposure to Latins as I've had to Nepalese. So please, before you, yes YOU, the dork hacker cunt sitting in Ohio at the keyboard who has never so much as seen a Latin eye-to-eye aside from jerking off to a Jennifer Lopez video, tell me how wrong I am, consider the source.
There is a reason Latins are flocking to America. They are fleeing a gigantic shithole. The novelty of the hot chicks walking around topless will quickly fade when they tax your income at 40% and you have to pay someone to be your security/body guard so no one kidnaps/kills/mugs you or cleans out your house. The fact that your computer is running Linux will mean fuckall to the glue-sniffer carrying it out of your backdoor.
I still can't figure out why Americans are so down on themselves. We're not bad folks. If you compare us to other cultures, we're pretty good people. Perhaps not compared to Tibetans, but compared to Latins we are angels. I think self-hate is trendy in America right now. Hopefully we'll snap out of it in the next decade or so. It's a shame to live in a country with all the opportunity we have and not be happy about it.
"No wonder the rest of the world is sick to death of wealthy, white American technocrats. The *only* reason we keep swollowing your shit is because it's rammed down our throats."
No, the reason you keep swallowing is because WE ARE THE ONLY REMAINING SUPERPOWER AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO IMPOSE OUR RED WHITE and BLUE WILL WHEREVER AND WHENEVER THE FUCK WE WANT TO.
As if some other country would be a better superpower. Who would you rather be in power? Russia? China?? You think you'd get a fair deal from them?!?
Stupid cunts. The rest of the world should be happy as fuck that the U.S. is large and in fucking charge.
Now drink up those gallons of Made in the U.S.A. cum, bitch.
While Mr. Ellison is rightfully angry about the wholesale theft of his intellectual property. But he, like so many others before him, are confusing fights.
He is fighting against the publishing of copyrighted material on the Internet without any sort of compensation to the author. Many people agree with him and feel every bit as strongly about protecting the rights of artists.
The mistake he and others are making is by lumping the pirates in with the people who merely want multiple ways to view and access creative works they have paid for, all while increasing the profit to the artist himself, and cutting out the bloodsucking middlemen.
It's too bad this distinction isn't made more often.
Oracle and other high-end databases get a great deal more lab testing than open source alternatives do. They are also tested in environments that open source testers wouldn't be in. Want to test a billion transactions today? Let's use Amazon's inventory...
Also, database companies that charge outrageous fees for their software tend to hire the best database programmers because they can afford them because they charge outrageous fees for their software...
And never forget accountability. If my database crashes, I WANT someone to point at and say, "FIX YOUR DAMN PRODUCT!" With open source, I don't have that.
Having said all that, open source databases are great for many, even most projects. But Oracle and the like are best used when you need all the bells and whistles and most importantly, someone to blame other than yourself for implementing it. "But boss, I swear MySQL works great, most of the time..." No thanks. I'll take Oracle and a scapegoat.
"We are using PCCHIPS M810LMR mainboard as the development platform."
That figures. The one motherboard I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy is the one they have this working on. Anyone familiar with hardware can tell you what complete pieces of crap PC Chips motherboards are. Hopefully they'll get the BIOS working on ASUS boards soon.
This may be a bit off topic, but it's an irresistable question: Who are the smartest individuals in the computer technology field as a whole?
I'm one of those mile-wide, foot-deep computer people. Like many, I have no choice but to learn a bit of every discipline to be effective at what I do. I'm a hybrid between a network engineer, administrator and programmer. Again, while I do a bit of everything, I'm only *really* good at a few things.
It seems to me that the common perception is that programmers are the smartest group in the computer technology field. In my experience with programming, I've learned that much of it is simple logic merged with absolutely grueling repetition. This is not to say there aren't brilliant, very creative programmers, because there are. But from my experience, I would say that programming has more to do with a personality type than it does with raw intelligence.
A good programmer needs to be methodical and precise, but s/he does not need to be a genius, or even of far above average intelligence. Anyone can learn to speak a language, but not everyone can be poets. I believe the same holds true for programmers. I've written perfectly stable, functional code, and hated every second of writing it. I could be a full-time programmer if I wanted too, but I simply dislike the activity.
A reason for this perception may be because people deal directly with software. People that play Quake will intimately experience the programming of Carmack. But for Quake to run as well as it does, it also takes chipset programmers, CPU designers, hardware engineers, etc. etc. etc. on down the line. Carmack gets (much deserved) credit for his creations, but no one ever gives a thought to the other people that are instrumental in the delivery of quality software. Programmers are like quarterbacks. They get too much credit for victories, and conversely, too much blame for failures.
Does anyone else sense the subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle smugness of the average programer? Perhaps I simply am perceiving things incorrectly.
They're missing the point. People don't ignore banner ads because they're too small, they do it because they're annoying.
When I first used the Internet, all the banner ads caught my eye. After a few days, only the really flashy ones did. Now, years later, my eyes/brain ignore them automatically. They don't even register. The ones that force themselves to be obvious just annoy me even more, and at that point I'm ready to NOT buy whatever is on my screen, even if it's something cool.
Perhaps one out of every thousand banner ads I see contains an ad for something I'm interested in. But they are generally things I've read/heard about already. Television commercials work because they take over your entire screen, are targeted at a specific group of viewers, and are usually semi-entertaining to watch. Banner ads just use bandwidth, slow down the page loading and just basically get in the way.
Entertainment on the Internet usually comes in the form of reading. Yes, some sites stream video/audio, but for the most part, the viewer is reading something. You watch things on TV, not read them. It's far less annoying to have 'watching' interrupted than reading interrupted. Can you image a book that had a paragraph on each page automatically morph into an advertisement? Ick.
We are the only species to ever inhabit Earth that has a chance to protect itself against an event as catastrophic as a comet/meteor/asteroid slamming into the planet and ending life as we know it.
However...
Our species also uses its spare time to do things like this, this, and even this so I wouldn't exactly get my hopes up if a comet was screaming our way...
The jackasses at ICANN could have made this so much easier by implementing a.XXX (or.SEX or.???) TLD. Lawmakers could have forced anyone who displayed porn on their sites to use a.XXX site, levying stiff fines against those that don't comply. Then, the only thing needing blocking would be.XXX instead of trying (terrifically unsuccesfully) to create software that bans any potentially 'harmful' site.
I know they're trying to ban more than porn. I'm sure they don't want 3rd graders able to read about how to make an oven cleaner explosive, but porn represents 95+% of their problems.
Slashdot Mirror
It's been up for 7 years and all it took was 30 seconds on /.'s front page to bring it down.
On the bright side, I'm sure that 90K will come back in spades.
Red ink flows like a...
Nevermind.
Where do I sign up?
...the countries of the Middle East continue to do nothing in the way of advancing science. However, the are still sucking money out of the ground in the form of a thick, black sludge.
Is your point that U.S. presidents can be pieces if shit or that Brazil has a good president? You seem to have changed points mid-discussion. You started out endorsing the Brazilian president, but then resorted to attacking Clinton when I pointed out that the Brazilian president wasn't such a great guy.
Are you sure you have a point?
Knunov
P.S. For what it's worth, I loathed Clinton.
And he has also embezzled millions of tax dollars into offshore bank accounts...
My Brazilian girlfriend, who is watching me type this, who lived there until 3 years ago, is far more aware of the political conditions and the effect of having Fernando Henrique Silva Cardoso as President of the country than you will ever be.
Knunov
"What kind of Latin's did you meet?"
Cubans, Dominicans, Columbians, Nicaraguans, Chileans, Argentinians, Costa Ricans, Mexicans, El Salvadorians, Venezuelans, Brazilians, Ecuadorians, Bolivians, Paraguayans, Uruguayans, Panamanians, Hondurans and I'm probably missing a couple countries.
And I don't mean shook-their-hand kind of met. I mean dated/schooled/played/worked with kind of knew.
"please don't generalize"
I wonder, is a generalization still a generalization if it's true? By definition, of course it is. But since the word 'generalization' has become associated with racism, it now supposedly doesn't ring true. Meaning that if a person generalizes, that person is obviously wrong... It's really odd. We accept generalizations in every aspect of life until it's used to sum up human behavior.
I've never said nor will I ever say that ALL Latins are shitbags, because I know, better than most people in the U.S. that it isn't true. However, I've also experienced what Latin influence can do, and it didn't change things for the better. It's a simple fucking fact, and I really couldn't care less anymore who that fact offends.
"...and don't say all those countries are shitholes. there are good sides and bad sides to everyplace, including the US."
Yes, there are, but there is NOWHERE in the U.S. that compares to Nordeste in Brazil or the slums of Mexico City. Their bad side is MUCH FUCKING WORSE than ours.
"I am currently in the US, for example, and find it great that there is money to be made. But in my case (and in the case of 95% of the latin americans that I know), this country is the last place to live for a long time, especially if you want to raise a family."
And it is people like you that are ruining the country. Come here, make your money and run. And while doing so, expect the Americans to treat you with a smile. WHY can't you make money in YOUR country? Do you EVER think about it? Try to change it? Or are you like every other defeatist Latin I know that would rather whine about the condition of their country and how it CAN'T be changed rather than getting off your ass and changing it? I suppose it's much easier to come to America, make money and fucking COMPLAIN the entire time about how bad it is here.
The last place to raise a family? Are you on fucking crack? Haiti might be the LAST place to raise a family, or Ethiopia or even some villiage in Honduras, but the LAST PLACE sure as fuck isn't America.
"...you know many latins, but aparently you have never been there."
Been all over it. Cruised the coast, went camping in the Amazon, slept in the rain forest, hiked in the mountains.
"...and the opinions of latin america you are hearing comes from those who left..."
No, the opinions are coming from me, from what I've seen and experienced.
"(how many people love a place and leave it, eh?)"
I couldn't agree more. So WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FUCKING LATINS ON THIS SIDE OF THE BORDER?!?
Knunov
Do you equate American people with the American government? You shouldn't. They aren't the same. If the government continues pissing us off, we WILL change it. That is one of the most important differences between America and Americans and other countries.
Knunov
"Every country/society has good and bad people."
Of course they do. I'm not talking about individuals. I'm talking about ratios. The ratio of fuckheads to good people is remarkably higher in other countries. High enough to adversely affect the overall living conditions. Obviously, all Americans aren't good people, but there are enough good ones to counteract the actions of the bad. This is not the case in South America, Africa, etc.
"I sincerely hope that this doesn't reflect the way most americans think."
I'm sure it's not. And it's a shame it isn't.
Knunov
"...the black people your cops kill everyday..."
Yeah, black hunting is one of our cop's favorite hobbies. Like you say, our cops kill blacks EVERY DAY... Fucking jackass. Do you really believe that? Even in self-defense I doubt a black person is killed by the police on a daily basis, much less as an act of racism as you are implying.
"...your presidents..."
Afraid I have to agree with you here. Our last few presidents have been tools. Much worse than the genius saints that have been running your country, I'm sure...
"...your position about the other countries..."
...and their positions about us. It's odd that the rest of the world can have anti-American sentiments but if an American has an anti-NameAnyCountry attitude, we're considered imperialistic.
"Angels? Wake up and smell the coffe!"
I said compared to Central/South Americans, not in and of ourselves. I love when people twist the words of others to try to make their own point.
"ALL group of people (thus imagine an ENTIRE COUNTRY) will have different behaviours inside it..."
No shit, Captain Obvious. The very point of this post is that they ARE NOT like us and many of the ways they are different, specifically the ways they run their countries, are worse.
"Microsoft is American."
Yep. And what *exactly* stopped a company in your country, or ANY country, from doing what Microsoft did, eh? You're sounding like a sore loser. Maybe, just *maybe*, the people in your country don't have the mental capacity to pull it off. Nah, that couldn't be it...
"DMCA too."
Again, Americans created the industry over which the DMCA imposes its (poorly constructed) will. Yeah, it does suck, but we'll fix it eventually. It has to do with a legal need being filled by people that are woefully incompetent from a technical standpoint. Never attribute to maliciousness what can be explained away by ignorance or stupidity.
Love,
Knunov
Not all. Just most. My Latin friends are great people, but they are the exceptions, not the rule.
Don't fool yourself about Central/South Americans.
I was born and raised in Miami. I've seen first-hand what Latin influence can do. As a group they are, hands down, the most corrupt people I've ever encountered. Since I wasa child, I watched Miami go from a really nice place to live in the 70's (until I was 16 years old, we NEVER locked the doors in our house or on our cars; now I wouldn't even walk inside my house without setting the alarm on my car) to the crime-infested political laughing stock of the nation shithole city it is now. And yes, most of this is due to Latin influence. They run Miami like they would run Managua. It's their way.
When I worked independently installing networks, EVERY Latin customer I had, and this was over 100, refused to pay the normal licensing fees for software. And before you go nutty about Windows, I don't mean only Windows. Anti-Virus software, proprietary software specific to their business, ANYTHING. Literally 100% of them refused to pay for their software. When I explained it was illegal, they explained they didn't care.
I've gone to school with Latins. I've dated Latins. I've grown up and worked intimately with Latins. Some of my best friends are Latins. But as a group, they are fuckheads.
Yes, the girls are hot. Half the girls I've dated have been Latin. Incindentally, the last 3 I've dated were Brazilian. But that might be their strongest virtue.
One of the greatest flaws inherent in most smart people is their know-it-all attitude. Most of the opinions towards Central/South America are written by Middle Americans that have had about as much exposure to Latins as I've had to Nepalese. So please, before you, yes YOU, the dork hacker cunt sitting in Ohio at the keyboard who has never so much as seen a Latin eye-to-eye aside from jerking off to a Jennifer Lopez video, tell me how wrong I am, consider the source.
There is a reason Latins are flocking to America. They are fleeing a gigantic shithole. The novelty of the hot chicks walking around topless will quickly fade when they tax your income at 40% and you have to pay someone to be your security/body guard so no one kidnaps/kills/mugs you or cleans out your house. The fact that your computer is running Linux will mean fuckall to the glue-sniffer carrying it out of your backdoor.
I still can't figure out why Americans are so down on themselves. We're not bad folks. If you compare us to other cultures, we're pretty good people. Perhaps not compared to Tibetans, but compared to Latins we are angels. I think self-hate is trendy in America right now. Hopefully we'll snap out of it in the next decade or so. It's a shame to live in a country with all the opportunity we have and not be happy about it.
Knunov
"No wonder the rest of the world is sick to death of wealthy, white American technocrats. The *only* reason we keep swollowing your shit is because it's rammed down our throats."
No, the reason you keep swallowing is because WE ARE THE ONLY REMAINING SUPERPOWER AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO IMPOSE OUR RED WHITE and BLUE WILL WHEREVER AND WHENEVER THE FUCK WE WANT TO.
As if some other country would be a better superpower. Who would you rather be in power? Russia? China?? You think you'd get a fair deal from them?!?
Stupid cunts. The rest of the world should be happy as fuck that the U.S. is large and in fucking charge.
Now drink up those gallons of Made in the U.S.A. cum, bitch.
The free-thinking and non-bootlicking citizens of Tampa should consider using one of these high-tech camera-disabling products.
While Mr. Ellison is rightfully angry about the wholesale theft of his intellectual property. But he, like so many others before him, are confusing fights.
He is fighting against the publishing of copyrighted material on the Internet without any sort of compensation to the author. Many people agree with him and feel every bit as strongly about protecting the rights of artists.
The mistake he and others are making is by lumping the pirates in with the people who merely want multiple ways to view and access creative works they have paid for, all while increasing the profit to the artist himself, and cutting out the bloodsucking middlemen.
It's too bad this distinction isn't made more often.
Oracle and other high-end databases get a great deal more lab testing than open source alternatives do. They are also tested in environments that open source testers wouldn't be in. Want to test a billion transactions today? Let's use Amazon's inventory...
Also, database companies that charge outrageous fees for their software tend to hire the best database programmers because they can afford them because they charge outrageous fees for their software...
And never forget accountability. If my database crashes, I WANT someone to point at and say, "FIX YOUR DAMN PRODUCT!" With open source, I don't have that.
Having said all that, open source databases are great for many, even most projects. But Oracle and the like are best used when you need all the bells and whistles and most importantly, someone to blame other than yourself for implementing it. "But boss, I swear MySQL works great, most of the time..." No thanks. I'll take Oracle and a scapegoat.
/. already covered that story.
"We are using PCCHIPS M810LMR mainboard as the development platform."
That figures. The one motherboard I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy is the one they have this working on. Anyone familiar with hardware can tell you what complete pieces of crap PC Chips motherboards are. Hopefully they'll get the BIOS working on ASUS boards soon.
This may be a bit off topic, but it's an irresistable question: Who are the smartest individuals in the computer technology field as a whole?
I'm one of those mile-wide, foot-deep computer people. Like many, I have no choice but to learn a bit of every discipline to be effective at what I do. I'm a hybrid between a network engineer, administrator and programmer. Again, while I do a bit of everything, I'm only *really* good at a few things.
It seems to me that the common perception is that programmers are the smartest group in the computer technology field. In my experience with programming, I've learned that much of it is simple logic merged with absolutely grueling repetition. This is not to say there aren't brilliant, very creative programmers, because there are. But from my experience, I would say that programming has more to do with a personality type than it does with raw intelligence.
A good programmer needs to be methodical and precise, but s/he does not need to be a genius, or even of far above average intelligence. Anyone can learn to speak a language, but not everyone can be poets. I believe the same holds true for programmers. I've written perfectly stable, functional code, and hated every second of writing it. I could be a full-time programmer if I wanted too, but I simply dislike the activity.
A reason for this perception may be because people deal directly with software. People that play Quake will intimately experience the programming of Carmack. But for Quake to run as well as it does, it also takes chipset programmers, CPU designers, hardware engineers, etc. etc. etc. on down the line. Carmack gets (much deserved) credit for his creations, but no one ever gives a thought to the other people that are instrumental in the delivery of quality software. Programmers are like quarterbacks. They get too much credit for victories, and conversely, too much blame for failures.
Does anyone else sense the subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle smugness of the average programer? Perhaps I simply am perceiving things incorrectly.
They're missing the point. People don't ignore banner ads because they're too small, they do it because they're annoying.
When I first used the Internet, all the banner ads caught my eye. After a few days, only the really flashy ones did. Now, years later, my eyes/brain ignore them automatically. They don't even register. The ones that force themselves to be obvious just annoy me even more, and at that point I'm ready to NOT buy whatever is on my screen, even if it's something cool.
Perhaps one out of every thousand banner ads I see contains an ad for something I'm interested in. But they are generally things I've read/heard about already. Television commercials work because they take over your entire screen, are targeted at a specific group of viewers, and are usually semi-entertaining to watch. Banner ads just use bandwidth, slow down the page loading and just basically get in the way.
Entertainment on the Internet usually comes in the form of reading. Yes, some sites stream video/audio, but for the most part, the viewer is reading something. You watch things on TV, not read them. It's far less annoying to have 'watching' interrupted than reading interrupted. Can you image a book that had a paragraph on each page automatically morph into an advertisement? Ick.
Go back to the drawing board, folks.
We are the only species to ever inhabit Earth that has a chance to protect itself against an event as catastrophic as a comet/meteor/asteroid slamming into the planet and ending life as we know it.
However...
Our species also uses its spare time to do things like this, this, and even this so I wouldn't exactly get my hopes up if a comet was screaming our way...
"One man was killed when he attempted to chop out a gigantic crystal that fell from the ceiling and crushed him..."
giggle.
...is that they blurred out the vagina. I guess they were trying to make it tasteful.
The jackasses at ICANN could have made this so much easier by implementing a .XXX (or .SEX or .???) TLD. Lawmakers could have forced anyone who displayed porn on their sites to use a .XXX site, levying stiff fines against those that don't comply. Then, the only thing needing blocking would be .XXX instead of trying (terrifically unsuccesfully) to create software that bans any potentially 'harmful' site.
I know they're trying to ban more than porn. I'm sure they don't want 3rd graders able to read about how to make an oven cleaner explosive, but porn represents 95+% of their problems.
Knunov
...the machines in questions were Singers instead of PoS terminals. That way, he could point and say, "Make it sew."
God, I suck. Mod me down, please.
Why would Tux need to build an igloo? He's a penguin...
Knunov