So I guess everyone who sends mail to a user list is a spammer?
Come on. These users did not just mistakenly enter their address. They fill out an account form where the checkboxes for email are clearly marked. Their email addresses are not shared with anyone. Each mail that goes out to them has full details on how to unsubscribe. If they don't want to login to their account on the website to unsubscribe, they can reply, and it's read and handled by a human being. In addition, the emails contain no intentional misspellings or bayes word games.
I get tons of spam every day and I can tell the difference.
I handle bulk emailings to people who signed up at my client's website. They are a legitimate business and unsubscribe those who reply or use the web form. But you invariably get spam bounces and other errors (here are some numbers).
I was amused to find in the bounce mailbox one day an auto-reply from a person who offered to read our message if we'd deposit $5 into his account via Paypal. I don't remember the website, but I wonder if anyone has ever paid $5 to have their email delivered.
Some real companies might be willing to pay $0.05 to $0.15 if it really meant their message was being read. Our small business probably couldn't afford it though. And I'd hate to see the whole email system become pay-per-view.
There is a quirky mapping tool that will let you take GPS tracks and waypoints and plot them onto Terraserver aerial photos.
It's not open source and only for Windows, but it's free: USAPhotoMap
I wrote about it a couple monts ago in my blog. It may be better now...haven't had a chance to try it lately. My main complaint at the time was that the Terraserver maps were not publishable, legally speaking, but I later learned they are.
Any open source tools out there that do something similar? I'd love to build one myself if I had the time.
One of the reasons I use MySQL is because it's easy to deal with remotely. phpMyAdmin is a robust tool for working with an online database. The phpPgAdmin tool is way behind in features and usability. I have one site on Postgres, but it's a lot harder to work with because of this.
I'm not really up on eBay scam techniques, but you can pad your feedback fairly cheaply by buying lots of $0.99 junk, then using that high rating to rip someone off on an expensive item.
I think it would be cool if you paid for cable usage like you do for electricity...for how much you use. Give me access to every channel, and charge me by the minute. If I really like a certain show, I'll be willing to pay for it. If I go on vacation for a couple weeks, I pay nothing.
It might also cut down on the mindless hours people spend in front of their TVs.
The replies make some good points as to where the holdup occurs. I guess I would've rewritten the Slashdot blurb to say: "it's not a component shortage that's causing the delays, it's assembly and distribution schedules."
Cincinnati had a large Germanic population in the early years. This use of 'please' comes from the German word 'bitte' which can mean please in the usual sense but also the 'come again?' sense.
People landed on the moon a few years before I was born. I grew up to the early space shuttle program and fantastic photos from Voyager. Back then, I figured we be back to the moon by 2000 and to mars by 2010. Surely the common man would have been able to experience earth orbit by then.
Here we are in 2004 and basically nothing new has happened with manned space exploration. It's depressing to think that it'll take until 2020 just to get back to the moon! Will humans even reach Mars in my lifetime now?
All those dollars wasted on blowing up Iraq that could've been put toward much grander goals in space!
I guess I need to start building a Mars transport in my garage since nobody else is going to bother.
It would be nice to see your maps plotted on Digital Raster Graphic (DRG) maps. Though you'd probably need more horsepower to serve them up. And despite being public domain U.S. government data, they are pretty difficult to get for free.:(
I have found free DRG data and plotted GPS routes on them for trip reports on my website. I haven't found any tools for doing this that will let me make up these maps and publish the result with no strings attached, so I've settled for overlaying my GPS track onto the map with Photoshop.
If anyone knows of a free/cheap tool where I can feed it my GPS track data and a public-domain DRG TIFF file, and plot the result, let me know.
Storing GPS data in each photo seems like overkill to me. If the subject is distant, like a mountain, the lat/lon won't really convey what you want. And maybe I don't want someone to know the GPS coordinates of my house if I take a picture of my dog on the couch.:)
Watch out for that 1 year warranty. My Apex player had only like 90 days for parts and labor. When it died after 6 months, they wanted $40 to fix it under the year warranty.
If you have to work remotely on a DB via a dialup connection, web interfaces are kind of nice. The alternatives being ssh and using the DB's shell or some client GUI tool. I didn't care for pgAdmin 2, hopefully 3 is better.
They're probably screwed. Colleges can charge you whatever they want. Back in my college days, we had an "engineering computing fee" of $100 per quarter. I found out that this applied even when my entire quarter consisted of poetry and linguistics. I had so many uses for the CAD systems and number crunching that summer!
That's about all the calls I get now...these pseduo-non-profit voice messages.
I'm guessing we'll start seeing a lot more of these tactics now that the regular telemarketers can't call.
We'll get lots of calls from "non-profit" organizations and charities where the large % of the donation goes to the fund-raising company.
We'll get surveys with leading questions designed to promote some specific company, and "vote Bob Smith for congress sponsored by AT&T. Members of our campaign staff can help you save on long distance."
I don't know what's up with Dell keyboards lately, but my Inspiron 5100's keyboard will not recognize the right ctrl key in combo with several keys in the upper left corner. 5150 users report the same problem.
Lots of posts on the Inspiron keyboard forums...none very good.
How hard is it to make a keyboard? Heck, those preceeded the computer!:)
Slashdot Mirror
So I guess everyone who sends mail to a user list is a spammer?
Come on. These users did not just mistakenly enter their address. They fill out an account form where the checkboxes for email are clearly marked. Their email addresses are not shared with anyone. Each mail that goes out to them has full details on how to unsubscribe. If they don't want to login to their account on the website to unsubscribe, they can reply, and it's read and handled by a human being. In addition, the emails contain no intentional misspellings or bayes word games.
I get tons of spam every day and I can tell the difference.
I handle bulk emailings to people who signed up at my client's website. They are a legitimate business and unsubscribe those who reply or use the web form. But you invariably get spam bounces and other errors (here are some numbers).
I was amused to find in the bounce mailbox one day an auto-reply from a person who offered to read our message if we'd deposit $5 into his account via Paypal. I don't remember the website, but I wonder if anyone has ever paid $5 to have their email delivered.
Some real companies might be willing to pay $0.05 to $0.15 if it really meant their message was being read. Our small business probably couldn't afford it though. And I'd hate to see the whole email system become pay-per-view.
Doh! I read "Hi-Res satellite imaging" from the description and figured they were doing something more sophisticated.
There is a quirky mapping tool that will let you take GPS tracks and waypoints and plot them onto Terraserver aerial photos.
It's not open source and only for Windows, but it's free: USAPhotoMap
I wrote about it a couple monts ago in my blog. It may be better now...haven't had a chance to try it lately. My main complaint at the time was that the Terraserver maps were not publishable, legally speaking, but I later learned they are.
Any open source tools out there that do something similar? I'd love to build one myself if I had the time.
Mmmm...Heisen-burger.
One of the reasons I use MySQL is because it's easy to deal with remotely. phpMyAdmin is a robust tool for working with an online database. The phpPgAdmin tool is way behind in features and usability. I have one site on Postgres, but it's a lot harder to work with because of this.
I'm not really up on eBay scam techniques, but you can pad your feedback fairly cheaply by buying lots of $0.99 junk, then using that high rating to rip someone off on an expensive item.
I think it would be cool if you paid for cable usage like you do for electricity...for how much you use. Give me access to every channel, and charge me by the minute. If I really like a certain show, I'll be willing to pay for it. If I go on vacation for a couple weeks, I pay nothing.
It might also cut down on the mindless hours people spend in front of their TVs.
I have two clients on Rackspace and I've been happy with their service. It may be sort of pricey, but their support is responsive and helpful.
The replies make some good points as to where the holdup occurs. I guess I would've rewritten the Slashdot blurb to say: "it's not a component shortage that's causing the delays, it's assembly and distribution schedules."
And it isn't a component shortage that's causing the delays. It's the huge demand amongst teens...
Huh? If there wasn't a component shortage, why aren't they able to fulfill the "huge demand?"
Cincinnati had a large Germanic population in the early years. This use of 'please' comes from the German word 'bitte' which can mean please in the usual sense but also the 'come again?' sense.
sent it to his eighteen foes
Wow, I don't know anyone who has WebTV and this guy knows 18, all of whom happen to be foes!
Oh yeah, and if you're dialing 911 for your internet access, how is the evil program supposed to post your browser logs to a website?
For some of my consulting work the employer sends me a 1099-MISC and has me down for non-employee compensation.
People landed on the moon a few years before I was born. I grew up to the early space shuttle program and fantastic photos from Voyager. Back then, I figured we be back to the moon by 2000 and to mars by 2010. Surely the common man would have been able to experience earth orbit by then.
Here we are in 2004 and basically nothing new has happened with manned space exploration. It's depressing to think that it'll take until 2020 just to get back to the moon! Will humans even reach Mars in my lifetime now?
All those dollars wasted on blowing up Iraq that could've been put toward much grander goals in space!
I guess I need to start building a Mars transport in my garage since nobody else is going to bother.
It would be nice to see your maps plotted on Digital Raster Graphic (DRG) maps. Though you'd probably need more horsepower to serve them up. And despite being public domain U.S. government data, they are pretty difficult to get for free. :(
:)
I have found free DRG data and plotted GPS routes on them for trip reports on my website. I haven't found any tools for doing this that will let me make up these maps and publish the result with no strings attached, so I've settled for overlaying my GPS track onto the map with Photoshop.
http://boonedocks.net/travel/
If anyone knows of a free/cheap tool where I can feed it my GPS track data and a public-domain DRG TIFF file, and plot the result, let me know.
Storing GPS data in each photo seems like overkill to me. If the subject is distant, like a mountain, the lat/lon won't really convey what you want. And maybe I don't want someone to know the GPS coordinates of my house if I take a picture of my dog on the couch.
Maybe Google is running the 2.2 kernel on all those machines, and is therefore exempt! :) How would SCO know?
Watch out for that 1 year warranty. My Apex player had only like 90 days for parts and labor. When it died after 6 months, they wanted $40 to fix it under the year warranty.
If you have to work remotely on a DB via a dialup connection, web interfaces are kind of nice. The alternatives being ssh and using the DB's shell or some client GUI tool. I didn't care for pgAdmin 2, hopefully 3 is better.
I only wish the phpPgAdmin tool was nearly as useful as the phpMyAdmin tool.
And Twiki is already open source. :)
They're probably screwed. Colleges can charge you whatever they want. Back in my college days, we had an "engineering computing fee" of $100 per quarter. I found out that this applied even when my entire quarter consisted of poetry and linguistics. I had so many uses for the CAD systems and number crunching that summer!
I haven't gotten ahold of the Indiana Jones DVDs yet, but hopefully Jones still shoots the fat guy with the big sword too!
That's about all the calls I get now...these pseduo-non-profit voice messages.
I'm guessing we'll start seeing a lot more of these tactics now that the regular telemarketers can't call.
We'll get lots of calls from "non-profit" organizations and charities where the large % of the donation goes to the fund-raising company.
We'll get surveys with leading questions designed to promote some specific company, and "vote Bob Smith for congress sponsored by AT&T. Members of our campaign staff can help you save on long distance."
Ugh.
I don't know what's up with Dell keyboards lately, but my Inspiron 5100's keyboard will not recognize the right ctrl key in combo with several keys in the upper left corner. 5150 users report the same problem.
:)
Lots of posts on the Inspiron keyboard forums...none very good.
How hard is it to make a keyboard? Heck, those preceeded the computer!