> Yeah really, to sabotage this business model, have the client download the image, but send it straight to/dev/null...
That's why I call it YASIBM. It's the same deal that C(l)ue(less)Cat discovered: if the customer can find a workaround, the customer will find a workaround. And use it.
If you don't want your e-business to be YASIBM, then you need to do one of the following:
use a scheme that the users can't work around, or
use a scheme that won't hurt you too much if the users do work around it.
Notice that users do work around televison commercials, but the t-business model is designed where the networks don't die when that happens. By contrast, e-business is trying a more heavy-handed approach, and companies are dying as a result.
Like everything else in life, e-businesses need to consider the difference between what they can do and what they should do. (In this case, I use "should" in the sense of "if they are smart" rather than "if they are ethical".)
> Taking a leak during a TV commercial is different, and here's why: Web sites usually get paid per banner impression.
OK, you've convinced me that the e-advertising business is based on YASIBM (Yet Another Stupid Internet Business Model). I'm having a little trouble working up any sympathy for them, as the saying goes.
One reason is the distracting animations that make it hard to read the content I went to the site to read in the first place. Another reason is that I do most of my surfing over a dialup connection to a not particularly fast ISP, and I dislike having to wait for images to download just so I can read the content I went to the site to read in the first place.
Notice that a solution to both of my complaints would be to use simple text for ads. Sometimes "simpler" works better than "in-your-face". Text ads may not be quite so quick to catch the eye, but then they aren't catching my eye at all as it is. (I turn off automatic image downloading, and I quit visiting sites altogether if they make me wade through too much annoyance to get to the subject matter.)
> First, unless you absolutely must, don't declare a major.
I've got nothing against that strategy (I'm fond of the "scenic route" approach to life, myself), but be careful about it if you want to finish in less than six years. I know of reputable schools where the CS major has prereq chains 9 semesters deep, and enrollment pressure at some of those schools means that you aren't guaranteed the courses you want even when you're a senior. (I know guys that have had to stay an extra semester just to take one class that they needed, and I've heard of people that had to stay two extra semesters for the same reason.)
> To do this, there are only two (legal) solutions I can think of:
Equally important, or perhaps more so, is for us to learn to control our appetites. So long as the short-term gratification of being able to watch TPM in all its digitized glory is more valuable to us than the long-term decrement in our constitutional/traditional rights and privileges, then we'll keep making the trade until we don't have any rights or privileges left.
Learn to say 'no' when corporations start peddling goodies with strings attached.
That's not to say you shouldn't support the EFF too: I got my cap & T-shirt last week.
If I link to an "illegal" site, does that make my site "illegal" too? If so, what happens when you link to my site?
The whole internet is supposedly within 7 hops of any page. It looks like the courts have just ruled the internet illegal.
Ah, well. Free speech was a nasty ideal anyway. You could end up with people criticising their governments or something. Maybe even going so far as to criticise a corporation or a consortium.
> The chief claim made by Allchin was that free software and open source (FS/OS) do not innovate.
Of course, if he had come right out and said it he would have been proven wrong immediately, so instead he couched it in an incoherent rant about patriotism and government-funded software.
He should hire a speech writer. That would let him make his "chief claim" clearly in the future, as well as shield him against saying things that show him up as an idiot.
> No thread participant could provide an example of a new user-facing product category that had originated in the FS/OS world.
I like that "a new user-facing product category" restriction. Why is "user-facing" the only arena where innovation matters, and why do you have to create an entirely new "product category" to qualify as innovative? Could it be that you thought you had a better chance of winning the argument if you redefined it on your own terms?
And what are you going to say next year? Narrow the argument still further?
BTW, how many product categories are there? Is "game" a product category? Or "strategy game"? Or "wargame"? Or "wargame covering WWII"? What does it take to qualify as an innovation?
Also, please tell us how often any given company creates "a new user-facing product category"? When I walk into CompUSA, I see hundreds of games, but it looks like they're all clones of about 5 trendsetters. And even those trendsetters are manifestations of categories that have been around for years (or decades, in some cases).
> This may be a sign that MS care less about Linux than they used to - perhaps they are even abandoning a possible dot net port to Linux given the fact that Linus seems to be tanking at the moment
Yeah, you're right. After Microsoft's execs announced that Linux was "crummy" and "anti-American", nobody seems to use it anymore.
Bill can sleep easier at night now, knowing that his people closed down a scam that suckered people into not having to pay for their software.
Alas, when the author claims that "Our genes show that scientific creationism cannot be true", he grossly underestimates the ability of "scientific" creationists to ignore facts that conflict with (their interpretation of) divine revelation.
If you ever decide you want a quick synopsis of the creationist mode of thought, drop over to talk.origins and look a the asinine arguments and lame rhetorical tricks that creation advocates use over and over again, ever failing to address the actual evidence that is brought up to refute their claims.
You can also find out a lot about creationists and evolution by reading some of the FAQs at talkorigins.org. --
Slashdot Mirror
That's why I call it YASIBM. It's the same deal that C(l)ue(less)Cat discovered: if the customer can find a workaround, the customer will find a workaround. And use it.
If you don't want your e-business to be YASIBM, then you need to do one of the following:
- use a scheme that the users can't work around, or
- use a scheme that won't hurt you too much if the users do work around it.
Notice that users do work around televison commercials, but the t-business model is designed where the networks don't die when that happens. By contrast, e-business is trying a more heavy-handed approach, and companies are dying as a result.Like everything else in life, e-businesses need to consider the difference between what they can do and what they should do. (In this case, I use "should" in the sense of "if they are smart" rather than "if they are ethical".)
--
> hehehe that's pretty funny, but my zip drive works fine with 2.4.2
And mine with 2.4.0
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> Well, for starters, you would have to pay for most sites.
I didn't have to pay for most sites back before the Web went all-commercial.
Or rather, "almost" all-commercial. Some of the most useful sites that I visit now still don't have ads, and I still don't have to pay to visit them.
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> Taking a leak during a TV commercial is different, and here's why: Web sites usually get paid per banner impression.
OK, you've convinced me that the e-advertising business is based on YASIBM (Yet Another Stupid Internet Business Model). I'm having a little trouble working up any sympathy for them, as the saying goes.
--
> In effect, people who block banner ads are biting the hand that feeds them in a most immature and selfish manner.
Is it also immoral to get up to take a leak during a television commercial? Or to use "technological means" to flip to another station?
--
> You all know that without banner ads, the web wouldn't be what it is today.
Who says the Web is better now than what it used to be?
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> People don't, I think, mind ad banners.
I mind them.
One reason is the distracting animations that make it hard to read the content I went to the site to read in the first place. Another reason is that I do most of my surfing over a dialup connection to a not particularly fast ISP, and I dislike having to wait for images to download just so I can read the content I went to the site to read in the first place.
Notice that a solution to both of my complaints would be to use simple text for ads. Sometimes "simpler" works better than "in-your-face". Text ads may not be quite so quick to catch the eye, but then they aren't catching my eye at all as it is. (I turn off automatic image downloading, and I quit visiting sites altogether if they make me wade through too much annoyance to get to the subject matter.)
--
> First, unless you absolutely must, don't declare a major.
I've got nothing against that strategy (I'm fond of the "scenic route" approach to life, myself), but be careful about it if you want to finish in less than six years. I know of reputable schools where the CS major has prereq chains 9 semesters deep, and enrollment pressure at some of those schools means that you aren't guaranteed the courses you want even when you're a senior. (I know guys that have had to stay an extra semester just to take one class that they needed, and I've heard of people that had to stay two extra semesters for the same reason.)
--
> It is?
You realize, of course, that every word was made up by someone?
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> coincidence != causation
Maybe mass extinctions cause comet impacts.
--
Like most of us, ESR is a language bigot.
I hope that will be taken as "explanatory" rather than as "flamebait", but I have to say it regardless of how anyone takes it.
--
> To do this, there are only two (legal) solutions I can think of:
Equally important, or perhaps more so, is for us to learn to control our appetites. So long as the short-term gratification of being able to watch TPM in all its digitized glory is more valuable to us than the long-term decrement in our constitutional/traditional rights and privileges, then we'll keep making the trade until we don't have any rights or privileges left.
Learn to say 'no' when corporations start peddling goodies with strings attached.
That's not to say you shouldn't support the EFF too: I got my cap & T-shirt last week.
--
If I link to an "illegal" site, does that make my site "illegal" too? If so, what happens when you link to my site?
The whole internet is supposedly within 7 hops of any page. It looks like the courts have just ruled the internet illegal.
Ah, well. Free speech was a nasty ideal anyway. You could end up with people criticising their governments or something. Maybe even going so far as to criticise a corporation or a consortium.
--
> The chief claim made by Allchin was that free software and open source (FS/OS) do not innovate.
Of course, if he had come right out and said it he would have been proven wrong immediately, so instead he couched it in an incoherent rant about patriotism and government-funded software.
He should hire a speech writer. That would let him make his "chief claim" clearly in the future, as well as shield him against saying things that show him up as an idiot.
> No thread participant could provide an example of a new user-facing product category that had originated in the FS/OS world.
I like that "a new user-facing product category" restriction. Why is "user-facing" the only arena where innovation matters, and why do you have to create an entirely new "product category" to qualify as innovative? Could it be that you thought you had a better chance of winning the argument if you redefined it on your own terms?
And what are you going to say next year? Narrow the argument still further?
BTW, how many product categories are there? Is "game" a product category? Or "strategy game"? Or "wargame"? Or "wargame covering WWII"? What does it take to qualify as an innovation?
Also, please tell us how often any given company creates "a new user-facing product category"? When I walk into CompUSA, I see hundreds of games, but it looks like they're all clones of about 5 trendsetters. And even those trendsetters are manifestations of categories that have been around for years (or decades, in some cases).
--
> So what you're saying is that becuase Microsoft hasn't innovated much of anything, it's OK for open-source to follow the same route?
No, he's pointing out that the pot was calling the kettle black.
Try reading in threaded mode now and then.
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> The truth is that lots of evidence suggests that the universe is very young, on the order of less than 10,000 years old.
No way, man. 10Kyears isn't nearly long enough to explain the divergence between homo sapiens and homo trollens.
--
> This may be a sign that MS care less about Linux than they used to - perhaps they are even abandoning a possible dot net port to Linux given the fact that Linus seems to be tanking at the moment
Yeah, you're right. After Microsoft's execs announced that Linux was "crummy" and "anti-American", nobody seems to use it anymore.
Bill can sleep easier at night now, knowing that his people closed down a scam that suckered people into not having to pay for their software.
--
See The Register about it.
--
> Now they can dump it on the market and watch Corel's stock price tank.
Might prove to be a major faux pas, if IBM decides to do what so many people have been suggesting.
--
Dear Mr. Gates,
I've written the next killer app, a 3D Hello World program. Buy me out for half a billion, and I won't release it.
Eagerly awaiting your cash^w reply.
--
> o Fix 48 misspellings of interrupt (André Dahlqvist)...
Maybe they need to add a make spellcheck step to kernel compilation.
--
Yeah, I just submitted an article to The American Journal of Flamebait.
--
And the easter egg is a pop-up that says
--
> I mean, God could have been one half-assed programmer.
He (or she) apparently won the Obfuscated Genome Contest, and got the IP rights to planet earth as the prize.
--
Alas, when the author claims that "Our genes show that scientific creationism cannot be true", he grossly underestimates the ability of "scientific" creationists to ignore facts that conflict with (their interpretation of) divine revelation.
If you ever decide you want a quick synopsis of the creationist mode of thought, drop over to talk.origins and look a the asinine arguments and lame rhetorical tricks that creation advocates use over and over again, ever failing to address the actual evidence that is brought up to refute their claims.
You can also find out a lot about creationists and evolution by reading some of the FAQs at talkorigins.org.
--