I have to say I agree with you, even if you re-read what I posted. Google returns good search results, but also isn't populated with bad marketing concepts that ruin your day. My point was that if Microsoft took over, it would certainly populate google with the same kind of advertising that Microsoft used on Hotmail, when it bastardized *that* service.
I find it especially funny that this amazing company can't be accessed from my computer due to their use of Shockwave Flash, which I removed because it is being systematically abused by large websites for popup ads.
I'm guessing their current plans are equally as amazing!
OpenGoogle.com would become a reality if that ever happened. Microsoft would simply push users away to a free, opensource service using possibly better algorhythms.
Remember folks... the only reason people use Google is because it's not bastardized with corporate greed (or at least it has engineered the proper tact levels to offset any money-making going on!).
Do you really have a clue as to how Spamcop works?
Yup. Spamcop was protecting people by going after the spammers. That is a good thing!
By anti-spam corporations, I meant programs like Outlook for Office that has anti-spam features. These are marketed features that would not exist if spam was anihillated, like it should be!
Hotmail subscriptions offer more features to protect against spam, if you pay extra.
Without spam, there isn't a reason for users to be enticed to pay money to prevent it.
Without viruses, there isn't a reason for users to be enticed to pay money to prevent them.
Please don't misunderstand me. I think the anti-spam movement is a great thing. It's the companies who are making money off spam, in the guise of being anti-spam, that piss me off.
To ensure the safety of the voter. A voter can be persecuted for voting the "wrong" way.
The assumption that someone with power will use their power against the public, is the cornerstone of the current system. And it's wrong.
The notion that votes can be used against voters is what gives power to the people behind the scenes, because with the doors closed, they can maintain that what they are doing is for our benefit. As soon as the doors close, you know that someone is up to no good.
To correct this, we must make the information public to everyone, and accessible to everyone, and we must celebrate it, as we would our own freedom. Make it illegal to mess with anyone based on their vote. How hard is that?
Voting is supposed to be anonymous. Can you give me one good reason why this is true? If society voted for the right candidate, instead of voting out the jerk that didn't do his job last time, things would be better off.
If everyone had access to the votes, to see who voted for who, wouldn't it be a better election? Assuming there is corruption (as in, we had better keep these secret or they will be misued), is the same as welcoming corruption.
We must focus the intent of society toward a dissolution of corruption, by invoking policy that dissolves selective power, by default.
What's wrong with either of those? The system would collapse and go back to a state of anarchy. We would get to have a huge shift of current power and there would be a good chance we'd get it right the second time. Hell, at least the Oil barrons would go broke.
In Canada, we use hand-marked paper ballots for provincial and federal elections. They are counted by a committee of sorts, composed of representatives of various parties and the (theoretically neutral) elections staff. It would take widespread, systematic shenanigans to alter the outcome of a typical election.
In Canada Conservatives (Republicans) and Liberals (Democrats), are the same thing. When I talk about Lib candidates, it's the same as talking about Bush's best friends.
I worked on the Ontario Election this year. Let me tell you what our candidate was up against: 1. The Lib cheated his ass off. 2. The Lib was a known celebrity. 3. The Lib bussed in voters from out of the riding. 4. The Libs kicked over our signs every day. 5. The Libs ran through voting halls in larger areas yelling "VOTE [Lib Candidate's Name]", on E-Day. 6. The Lib had his TV influence trick our candidate that a TV interview was cancelled, when it wasn't. They told our candidate that the interview was changed to a phone chat. When he called, they asked him what his platform was. When he was done explaining it, the TV announcer said, "Oh, but how are you going to pay for all that?", and HUNG UP ON OUR CANDIDATE. The TV announcer then said, [Our Candidate's Name], are you there??? He hung up!" 7. Paper or electronic, elections are always rigged to favor the people with the money, and the Lib had a lot of it to spread around. 8. There was talk that the Lib had a bunch of people voting twice and three times. Once the votes are counted, who could audit it?
I walked away from that election with a whole new look at politics. Wag the Dog is so accurate. They even had a kitten involved when Lib leader Dalton McGuinty was accused of being a kitten eater by a Tory (PC/Republican). I have to admit, I think that the person who did it was a Lib dressed as a Tory, for publicity.
Let's just say... there isn't much freedom in North America, even if they say there is. You can say whatever you want, but every time there is an election you still get gangraped by the people with money. You think that's bad? After the election, they take as much money as they can and pocket it, or give it to their buddies.
Canada is so corrupt that our Prime Minister was elected on a Red Book of lies. He wrote down his platform and put it in something they called The Red Book. If you read it today, you'll see that not one fucking thing was done in that book he promised!!! He said, GST will be dropped. He said he'd stop free trade! The list goes on!!!/steps off soap box
Someone has to protect the public from the people who regularly misuse their power online. To this day, that was Spamcop. Now as many of the anti-spam groups go offline, the public is getting pelted with more and more spam, and viruses.
This whole thing reminds me of the war on drugs. If the cops wanted to really stop the drugs from existing on the streets, they could. But they don't have any incentive for that because it works against their budgets to pull all the drugs off the streets.
The police profit from the drug war, so they have to keep it going. They bust the guys at the top, but that just creates a vacuum, so they wait for it to be filled, and bust the next idiot who steps in. See how this connects to the anti-spam and anti-virus corporations profit from buggy Microsoft software and OS gaping holes. If this was a cover of an O'Reilly book, it would be a stippled drawing of one spider eating a hundred flies, and another spider selling tickets, and a few million other flies buzzing around, with a long line of spiders waiting with money for the guy selling tickets.
The situation is like this: the day anyone with money really cares about quality of life online, is the day that delivering quality of life online is very profitable.
It all has to get much worse before it will ever get any better.
I really hope E-voting becomes a trustworthy standard. With the right people, this could become a reality. It would enable us to move democracy into a new era, where the public could vote on each policy.
Download the power of government to everyone, so that fairness becomes the new standard. Inform the public based on true logic, not stupid logic, like "if you vote for this, you will be good looking."
E Voting could allow us to venture into true democracy, where the people actually run things, instead of the few who profit from the losses of everyone.
I mean... if you BANK online, what's so bad about voting online? Seriously. My theory is that if it's not safe enough to vote online, then it is not safe enough to vote anyway. If the corruption is there to the point where you can't post a ballot online, then the same must be true with any form of electoral process.
If E Voting became a standard, we could have elected officials at all levels of government, not just the top. The problem with the way things are today, is that when you've got Mr. X who has been in the CIA for thirty years, his power is too great. He can make things happen so that it doesn't matter if the top official wants it or not, the will of these mystery men always railroad democracy for the common population.
But who's going to clean up government?
Who is going to make the world a better place?
It has to be the geeks. We have to be the ones to take the power back and download it to the masses, because most geeks believe in equality, and respect for everyone. And we're smarter than most of the corporations who are running things now.
I propose a Geekocracy. Let's shed this Duhmocracy.
You wanna know how gullable people are? As a joke last year, I coded a little password checking program, at my site. Users could check their password against a list of a million common English words, to see if their passwords were secure. There was a database with a million words in it, and each time someone put in their password, the site would tell them if it was in the list. It would also tell them that if they are stupid enough to give out the password to just anyone, then it's certainly not secure!
People would show up and type in something that looked like a real password, and then type in another password as a message to me -- along the lines of Fuck You on a Silver Platter, Asshole.
Hackinthebox.org posted the site and a pile of gullable flies* showed up to check their passwords. I'm guessing people from HiB would send the site to other unsuspecting people, as a joke. Thing is, eventually some pretty scared people were emailing me. I took it down after while. It was getting to be more annoying than fun.
There is always someone out there who is greedy or scared enough to be scammed online -- it's just sad when it happens to someone you know.
* flies: a fly is someone who gets stuck in the web, and a spider is someone who owns it.
Sneaky Networks... that crank up the volume on breaks.
Fox Network Admins Last year Boston Public was milked for all it was worth. They skimped on it, put off the premier till like November. This year they learned and had the premier early on. Fox ruined Dark Angel, too, by cutting the budget and playing the surprise game.
The Surprise Game Guess what? Your show isn't on tonite because we have this *insert stupid special or network excuse*. Stick to the fucking schedule or fuck off I'm playing Quake.
Stupidity How many shows started off in the first year with a bang but lost all credability in the second year? Dark Angel. Boston Public. Ally McBeal. Shit, most of the shows being launched are totally stupid, except for a couple. Enterprise was stupid in the first year, but at least now it's getting really good, imho.
Repitition Keep playing all the same shows on cable or sat and you get a lot of bored viewers who just tune out. Re-runs and double-ups are a sleeping networks answer to bad planning and dwindling budgets. Problem is, it's the cause and the some idiots at the networks think it's the answer -- at the same time!
The Video Game Market is Flooded There are so many titles out right now for video games. It's the best it has ever been, and even while every game is like a varriant of about five archetypes, at least there is a variety that hasn't been there before, among copy-cats. The games that will stick out are going to break ground, no questions asked.
DooM 3 When DooM 3 comes out, who will want to watch TV at all? The DooM 3 experience is like watching TV or a film, but controlling the characters and propelling the storyline. Id Software is setting the bar for the new video games, and that can only mean one thing. We are aiming toward an eventual fusion between film and video game, that brings them closer than they have ever been. People are going to say FUCK commercials, give me more action and less bullshit. Stop wasting my time.
It's my money... I'll always spend it on the number one value. To me, that is GAMES.
The shows that really have mastered how to create an experience worthy of my time are CSI and CSI Miami. They know quality, and they will build loyalty of an audience as along as they keep giving us what we come to see... quality.
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I'm proud of IBM. Back when I was computing on my TI 99/4A, I used to root for Compaq and the other "clones" because IBM was the man. Looks like they are the most forward thinking corporation on the planet. Either that or their just as greedy as they've ever been and free software slaves in open source spell PROFIT! That was sarcasm. Or was it?
The article, as written, seems to be one pageblock after another. This has to be the most annoying slashdot article I've seen to date.
I would like Slashdot users to invent a strategy for posting articles from sites that require login/passwords... sites like the New York Times. You can't have an article that requires this, and the google link leads to a hacked-down version of the article.
I have a NYT account somewhere, but it's going to take me fifteen minutes to dig up my old username and password. This is a pain in the ass.
"Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace."
Pretty simple here to argue that the text we want is not reasonably available in the commercial marketplace, because their delivery system is all wrong. I signed up already for a NYT account, but they keep asking me for a password and username I forget. Who cares about that? Seriously.
What difference does it make if I sign up to their website, or if I don't? I'm still not paying any money! Who does?
"I wonder how much of that was duplicate data. How many copies of the Matrix are floating around online? Did they count FTP mirror sites as separate data?"
Not to mention all the websites online that only have keywords aimed to hack google, and nothing else, but maybe links to OTHER void pages by the same author/group/company!!
The Nokia 7700 will also support the Nokia Streamer SU-6 accessory, the first mobile IP Datacast receiver designed to demonstrate the mobile phone television experience using the DVB-H network.
Sounds great! What would be really cool, is if you could set up tivo at home and phone it!
Let me be the first to say, DUDE I'M GETTING A DELL! But maybe I'll just get an iPod instead. Mac commercials are cooler. It's the commercials, not the product, right guys?
Slashdot Mirror
I may post it sometime. I'll msg you if I do.
I have to say I agree with you, even if you re-read what I posted. Google returns good search results, but also isn't populated with bad marketing concepts that ruin your day. My point was that if Microsoft took over, it would certainly populate google with the same kind of advertising that Microsoft used on Hotmail, when it bastardized *that* service.
I find it especially funny that this amazing company can't be accessed from my computer due to their use of Shockwave Flash, which I removed because it is being systematically abused by large websites for popup ads.
I'm guessing their current plans are equally as amazing!
OpenGoogle.com would become a reality if that ever happened. Microsoft would simply push users away to a free, opensource service using possibly better algorhythms.
Remember folks... the only reason people use Google is because it's not bastardized with corporate greed (or at least it has engineered the proper tact levels to offset any money-making going on!).
There we were on the same page after all! :)
I made ya a friend for your trouble.
That's good advice.
The drug war is a sham because you can never completely cut off supply.
I agree!
The only way to kill drug crime is to flood the market with cheap drugs so that its no longer profitable for criminals,...
Spoken like someone who doesn't have any kids.
I like this second part better.
Do you really have a clue as to how Spamcop works?
Yup. Spamcop was protecting people by going after the spammers. That is a good thing!
By anti-spam corporations, I meant programs like Outlook for Office that has anti-spam features. These are marketed features that would not exist if spam was anihillated, like it should be!
Hotmail subscriptions offer more features to protect against spam, if you pay extra.
Without spam, there isn't a reason for users to be enticed to pay money to prevent it.
Without viruses, there isn't a reason for users to be enticed to pay money to prevent them.
Please don't misunderstand me. I think the anti-spam movement is a great thing. It's the companies who are making money off spam, in the guise of being anti-spam, that piss me off.
If you tolerate the censorship of those with whom you disagree then you are no better than the censors.
Which is exactly why I said the NRA has a right to free speech.
I have mixed emotions about this. I dislike the NRA, and I am even creating a DooM 3 mod, lampooning them.
But they have a right to free speech.
To ensure the safety of the voter. A voter can be persecuted for voting the "wrong" way.
The assumption that someone with power will use their power against the public, is the cornerstone of the current system. And it's wrong.
The notion that votes can be used against voters is what gives power to the people behind the scenes, because with the doors closed, they can maintain that what they are doing is for our benefit. As soon as the doors close, you know that someone is up to no good.
To correct this, we must make the information public to everyone, and accessible to everyone, and we must celebrate it, as we would our own freedom. Make it illegal to mess with anyone based on their vote. How hard is that?
Open Source, Open Politics.
Voting is supposed to be anonymous.
Can you give me one good reason why this is true? If society voted for the right candidate, instead of voting out the jerk that didn't do his job last time, things would be better off.
If everyone had access to the votes, to see who voted for who, wouldn't it be a better election? Assuming there is corruption (as in, we had better keep these secret or they will be misued), is the same as welcoming corruption.
We must focus the intent of society toward a dissolution of corruption, by invoking policy that dissolves selective power, by default.
What's wrong with either of those? The system would collapse and go back to a state of anarchy. We would get to have a huge shift of current power and there would be a good chance we'd get it right the second time. Hell, at least the Oil barrons would go broke.
Where would industry be without government?
In Canada, we use hand-marked paper ballots for provincial and federal elections. They are counted by a committee of sorts, composed of representatives of various parties and the (theoretically neutral) elections staff. It would take widespread, systematic shenanigans to alter the outcome of a typical election.
/steps off soap box
In Canada Conservatives (Republicans) and Liberals (Democrats), are the same thing. When I talk about Lib candidates, it's the same as talking about Bush's best friends.
I worked on the Ontario Election this year. Let me tell you what our candidate was up against:
1. The Lib cheated his ass off.
2. The Lib was a known celebrity.
3. The Lib bussed in voters from out of the riding.
4. The Libs kicked over our signs every day.
5. The Libs ran through voting halls in larger areas yelling "VOTE [Lib Candidate's Name]", on E-Day.
6. The Lib had his TV influence trick our candidate that a TV interview was cancelled, when it wasn't. They told our candidate that the interview was changed to a phone chat. When he called, they asked him what his platform was. When he was done explaining it, the TV announcer said, "Oh, but how are you going to pay for all that?", and HUNG UP ON OUR CANDIDATE. The TV announcer then said, [Our Candidate's Name], are you there??? He hung up!"
7. Paper or electronic, elections are always rigged to favor the people with the money, and the Lib had a lot of it to spread around.
8. There was talk that the Lib had a bunch of people voting twice and three times. Once the votes are counted, who could audit it?
I walked away from that election with a whole new look at politics. Wag the Dog is so accurate. They even had a kitten involved when Lib leader Dalton McGuinty was accused of being a kitten eater by a Tory (PC/Republican). I have to admit, I think that the person who did it was a Lib dressed as a Tory, for publicity.
Let's just say... there isn't much freedom in North America, even if they say there is. You can say whatever you want, but every time there is an election you still get gangraped by the people with money. You think that's bad? After the election, they take as much money as they can and pocket it, or give it to their buddies.
Canada is so corrupt that our Prime Minister was elected on a Red Book of lies. He wrote down his platform and put it in something they called The Red Book. If you read it today, you'll see that not one fucking thing was done in that book he promised!!! He said, GST will be dropped. He said he'd stop free trade! The list goes on!!!
And needless to say, there will be lots of trojaned computers.
How many do we have on Macs and Linux boxes? Let's bill Bill Gates.
Someone has to protect the public from the people who regularly misuse their power online. To this day, that was Spamcop. Now as many of the anti-spam groups go offline, the public is getting pelted with more and more spam, and viruses.
This whole thing reminds me of the war on drugs. If the cops wanted to really stop the drugs from existing on the streets, they could. But they don't have any incentive for that because it works against their budgets to pull all the drugs off the streets.
The police profit from the drug war, so they have to keep it going. They bust the guys at the top, but that just creates a vacuum, so they wait for it to be filled, and bust the next idiot who steps in. See how this connects to the anti-spam and anti-virus corporations profit from buggy Microsoft software and OS gaping holes. If this was a cover of an O'Reilly book, it would be a stippled drawing of one spider eating a hundred flies, and another spider selling tickets, and a few million other flies buzzing around, with a long line of spiders waiting with money for the guy selling tickets.
The situation is like this: the day anyone with money really cares about quality of life online, is the day that delivering quality of life online is very profitable.
It all has to get much worse before it will ever get any better.
I really hope E-voting becomes a trustworthy standard. With the right people, this could become a reality. It would enable us to move democracy into a new era, where the public could vote on each policy.
Download the power of government to everyone, so that fairness becomes the new standard. Inform the public based on true logic, not stupid logic, like "if you vote for this, you will be good looking."
E Voting could allow us to venture into true democracy, where the people actually run things, instead of the few who profit from the losses of everyone.
I mean... if you BANK online, what's so bad about voting online? Seriously. My theory is that if it's not safe enough to vote online, then it is not safe enough to vote anyway. If the corruption is there to the point where you can't post a ballot online, then the same must be true with any form of electoral process.
If E Voting became a standard, we could have elected officials at all levels of government, not just the top. The problem with the way things are today, is that when you've got Mr. X who has been in the CIA for thirty years, his power is too great. He can make things happen so that it doesn't matter if the top official wants it or not, the will of these mystery men always railroad democracy for the common population.
But who's going to clean up government?
Who is going to make the world a better place?
It has to be the geeks. We have to be the ones to take the power back and download it to the masses, because most geeks believe in equality, and respect for everyone. And we're smarter than most of the corporations who are running things now.
I propose a Geekocracy. Let's shed this Duhmocracy.
You wanna know how gullable people are? As a joke last year, I coded a little password checking program, at my site. Users could check their password against a list of a million common English words, to see if their passwords were secure. There was a database with a million words in it, and each time someone put in their password, the site would tell them if it was in the list. It would also tell them that if they are stupid enough to give out the password to just anyone, then it's certainly not secure!
People would show up and type in something that looked like a real password, and then type in another password as a message to me -- along the lines of Fuck You on a Silver Platter, Asshole.
Hackinthebox.org posted the site and a pile of gullable flies* showed up to check their passwords. I'm guessing people from HiB would send the site to other unsuspecting people, as a joke. Thing is, eventually some pretty scared people were emailing me. I took it down after while. It was getting to be more annoying than fun.
There is always someone out there who is greedy or scared enough to be scammed online -- it's just sad when it happens to someone you know.
* flies: a fly is someone who gets stuck in the web, and a spider is someone who owns it.
Come see a few shots that *will* impress you.
I disagree strongly with any connection between Doom 3 and Daikatana. That's like comparing Doom 3 to DNF! You insult me, sir! *slap* *slap*
Commercials
... that crank up the volume on breaks.
How many ads are in games? ZERO.
Sneaky Networks
Fox Network Admins
Last year Boston Public was milked for all it was worth. They skimped on it, put off the premier till like November. This year they learned and had the premier early on. Fox ruined Dark Angel, too, by cutting the budget and playing the surprise game.
The Surprise Game
Guess what? Your show isn't on tonite because we have this *insert stupid special or network excuse*. Stick to the fucking schedule or fuck off I'm playing Quake.
Stupidity
How many shows started off in the first year with a bang but lost all credability in the second year? Dark Angel. Boston Public. Ally McBeal. Shit, most of the shows being launched are totally stupid, except for a couple. Enterprise was stupid in the first year, but at least now it's getting really good, imho.
Repitition
Keep playing all the same shows on cable or sat and you get a lot of bored viewers who just tune out. Re-runs and double-ups are a sleeping networks answer to bad planning and dwindling budgets. Problem is, it's the cause and the some idiots at the networks think it's the answer -- at the same time!
The Video Game Market is Flooded
There are so many titles out right now for video games. It's the best it has ever been, and even while every game is like a varriant of about five archetypes, at least there is a variety that hasn't been there before, among copy-cats. The games that will stick out are going to break ground, no questions asked.
DooM 3
When DooM 3 comes out, who will want to watch TV at all? The DooM 3 experience is like watching TV or a film, but controlling the characters and propelling the storyline. Id Software is setting the bar for the new video games, and that can only mean one thing. We are aiming toward an eventual fusion between film and video game, that brings them closer than they have ever been. People are going to say FUCK commercials, give me more action and less bullshit. Stop wasting my time.
It's my money... I'll always spend it on the number one value. To me, that is GAMES.
The shows that really have mastered how to create an experience worthy of my time are CSI and CSI Miami. They know quality, and they will build loyalty of an audience as along as they keep giving us what we come to see... quality.
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I'm proud of IBM. Back when I was computing on my TI 99/4A, I used to root for Compaq and the other "clones" because IBM was the man. Looks like they are the most forward thinking corporation on the planet. Either that or their just as greedy as they've ever been and free software slaves in open source spell PROFIT! That was sarcasm. Or was it?
The article, as written, seems to be one pageblock after another. This has to be the most annoying slashdot article I've seen to date.
I would like Slashdot users to invent a strategy for posting articles from sites that require login/passwords... sites like the New York Times. You can't have an article that requires this, and the google link leads to a hacked-down version of the article.
I have a NYT account somewhere, but it's going to take me fifteen minutes to dig up my old username and password. This is a pain in the ass.
My solution? What if we use the new copyright law that states:
"Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace."
Pretty simple here to argue that the text we want is not reasonably available in the commercial marketplace, because their delivery system is all wrong. I signed up already for a NYT account, but they keep asking me for a password and username I forget. Who cares about that? Seriously.
What difference does it make if I sign up to their website, or if I don't? I'm still not paying any money! Who does?
"I wonder how much of that was duplicate data. How many copies of the Matrix are floating around online? Did they count FTP mirror sites as separate data?"
Not to mention all the websites online that only have keywords aimed to hack google, and nothing else, but maybe links to OTHER void pages by the same author/group/company!!
I'm still waiting for the Canadian Tire version of Microsoft: Billy Bucks.
The Nokia 7700 will also support the Nokia Streamer SU-6 accessory, the first mobile IP Datacast receiver designed to demonstrate the mobile phone television experience using the DVB-H network.
Sounds great! What would be really cool, is if you could set up tivo at home and phone it!
Let me be the first to say, DUDE I'M GETTING A DELL! But maybe I'll just get an iPod instead. Mac commercials are cooler. It's the commercials, not the product, right guys?