I was on the internet back then, much as, I suspect, a significant portion of slashdot users. The facts seem about right, but the writing makes me wonder if the article is a hoax.
As I recall, Hormel was cool about this, simply stating that spam could be Unsolicited Commercial Email, as long as everybody left SPAM alone.
Hormel would be okay with "anti-spam" software, but not "anti-SPAM".
What changed? Whatever. Hormel should have acted twelve years ago. I liked them for being cool about the internet use, and for making a product that tastes good grilled with pineapple on kabobs.
I'd rather call unwanted email advertisements "UCE" anyway.
Agreed. I've read a few pieces on how Youtube owes a debt to shows like America's Funniest Home Videos. Shows like AFV and the occasionally "World's Best Commercials" share a format for a reason. Essentially, the idea is "Here's thirty seconds to two minutes of something entertaining. It's not a show, but you'll get a kick out of it anyway." Then, they add a host (either someone funny, likable, attractive, or Bob Saget) and you get pure television gold.
I watched Napoleon Dynamite on my Sprint Sanyo MM5600. I'm fairly sure the screen is less than 2" diagonal, and I left the movie letterboxed. It was engaging enough for Napoleon Dynamite's needs. The screen on a DS is fairly pleasant, on the DS Lite, even more so. I see value in this, but understand that it might not be for everyone.
I like the slider idea. I think it'd be great, even for stories outside of tech. I was baffled for a day or two by the current events in Isreal and Lebanon, until I could look up some more information on the players. The news sources I follow jumped in like Hezbollah had been a recognized extra curricular club in my high school. Having the ability to move the slider to stupid would have been nice.
Yep. My Key Lime was ordered the day after the Stevenote announced it. Being a later model, the plastic on the handle showed some hairline cracks, but never turned into anything more, even though I did use the handle.
I used to be on the P1 list, and it seemed like everyone with a Rev.1 had the handles falling to bits.
My Clamshell iBook arrived with scuffs on the plastic, running along the edge of the rubber. There were cracks around the Apple logo, and one of the feet hovered just above the surface. The Apple rep tried to convince me I was okay with these problems. I never even thought about going to Apple with my discolored palm prints.
As silly as the PB&J question may have seemed, I can assure you that question was very, very good. I had a stint selling Audio/Video equipment at Circuit City.
I present to you, my side of a typical post-sale telephone call for the connection of a new DVD player to an existing television:
Do you see your dvd player? Do you see your television? Are you in a place where you can access the back of both? Do you see any connectors? Are they round? Is one of the connectors yellow? Okay, acknowledging that they're silver and shiny, are the centers of any of the connectors you see yellow? Do you see the cables you bought? Have you opened the package yet? Open the package. Just insert your thumbs in the top and pull apart briskly. Do you see the cable with the yellow band? Pick up the cable with the yellow band at the connector. No, it doesn't matter which end. Yes, you can remove the twist tie from the cable. I'm not sure, you usually twist it counter-clockwise. Well, do you have wire cutters? No! NO! You do not need to cut the wire itself! Just cut the twist tie. Yes, so plug that wire into the... The yellow one, yes we're still working with that one. Plug that wire into your DVD player. Into the connector that is silver on the outside and yellow on the inside. Yes. Okay? Now, look on the back of the TV. Do you see a connector that is yellow - in the center? Okay, plug the connector opposite... Yes, that means the other end... Plug that connector into the yellow-centered connector on the back of the tv. Do you see the other cables that came in the package you bought? Do you see a white label with black arrows on the wire? Pick up the cable by the red connector on the end of the wire indicated by the arrow. No... See the direction the arrow is pointing in? Fine, pick it up near the arrow label. Following the wire in the direction the arrow is pointing, find the connector with the red band. On the back of the tv, do you see a connector, near the yellow-centered connector you just used, that has a red center? Ok, plug into that. Now, hanging off the same wire, on the same end, is a black connector. You don't see it? Well, are there two connectors on the end of the wire? What color is the other connector? Yeah, I guess you could call that blue. Next to the red-centered connector you just used there is a... No, you're not looking for a blue connector this time. I know, but you're not likely to even have a blue connector. You have a blue connector? And a green connector? Next to the red connector? When you were in the store, you told me that you had only composite connections on your tv. That sounds like component. Well, the component does give a better picture, and may let you enjoy progressive scan, depending on your tv. I'm not making things complicated. Your tv has different capabilities than you said it had. Yes, you can get a picture out of those cables. No, it will still look much better than VHS. Alright. So, the red connector, erm, the red-centered connector you plugged the red-banded wire into - that wasn't labelled "R" or "Right" was it? What was it labelled? Ah, well, let's look for a red-centered connector that is labelled "Right" or "R", probably close to the yellow connector we used earlier. Yellow-centered then. No? Nothing? Well, read off the labels of all the red-centered connectors back there. No. No. "Right Audio"? That's your connector. Plug the red-banded wire into there. No, Don't use the other end of the cable. Unplug the red-banded connector you plugged in elsewhere on the back of the tv. Plug that into the "Right Audio" connection. Now, the black... sorry, "blue" banded connector. Yes, on that end. Yes. Plug that into the white-centered connector that has to be next to the connector you just used. Alright, now, to the other end of the cables we just used. This
I would only want to do CPA for things that are remarkably likely to happen. I wouldn't want, for example, to have my income depend on someone ordering a laptop. In fact, Google already offers referral links for Firefox (w/ Google Toolbar, natch), Google Pack, and Picasa. (They offer it for adwords and adsense, but I find that a less likely action.) These links require not just a click, but a specific result, like downloading the app and installing it, or signing up for a certain advertising program. These are fairly likely actions, I think, and even that doesn't yield strong results. Even on a site where I have a feature that is legitimately non-IE friendly, and I offer the Firefox link right below, I don't get a strong result.
I used to work retail. I've seen the instruction sheets that go to the legit secret shoppers (there are a lot of scams out there). They vary quite a bit. Generally, the instructions are to go into the store, ask questions looking for key points and phrases, only buying if they actually want something, or they buy a small item, take it home for a couple days, then return it, rating the store on that aspect of the transaction.
Resturaunts cover (usually advance) the secret shopper's bill.
I wonder if this "grinding" technique is available to civilian consumers. I bet it would be preferred by the most active of us. Besides, grinding actually sounds more appealing to me than having a "flap" cut into my eye.
I could have called my elected officials and complained. I follow the local news, the national news, a handful of news sites, slashdot and digg and I hear about this after it has passed? I'm angry. I'm angry at the TV news for covering instead of this:
Broken horse legs, (and how randy that horse is)
McFever (Mc Pheever?)
The Brangelina and Tomkat spawn
The effects of mentos on diet soda.
Britney's inability to use a baby seat
A story on "trunking", the hot fad among hip youngsters, where kids ride around in car trunks
And a story from an internet security expert who calls a browser "that thing above your webpage"
Where the hell to the well-informed get their news? I actually have either MSNBC or CNN on during my working hours, and hard news only represents about 30% of their programming; everything else is human interest and punditry.
I agree. I think the problem is not the lack of facial expressions and body language - collectively, "nonverbal cues." The problem, I suspect, is the simultaneous lack of nonverbal cues and the reduction of contentiousness in writing encouraged by the immediacy of the medium. When a letter takes days to reach its recipient, ten minutes of review is a minor effort. When an email takes fewer than a dozen seconds, the number of messages exchanged increases, the length of each message is reduced, and language can fall into a casual, conversational style with proofreading becoming a bore. Misunderstandings will happen. Over time, language will adapt.
I completed about four tests before I started to get the feeling that I was actually working on training their filter. I felt like I should be charging a fee. Most of the tests are bogus. One email asked me to add some addresses to the "TW mailing list". I don't have context - in this scenario, do I work for an employer who has a "TW mailing list"? Do I manage it? The answer has everything to do with the way I'd rank it. In fact, most of the emails referred to specific people, and knowing or not knowing them would control the rating on the email.
I've been using it quite a bit today. While you cannot download with the free service, streaming seems to work quite well. I even listened to an album, and the intersitial ads (which had no audio) only came up four times while listening to a 13 track album. Plus, it's great to be able to put a link into a message board or email when talking about a certain track.
I think it's a good thing. Now, if they can keep it from being annoying even after they have some advertisers, it will be amazing.
I don't think elementary schools are pushing programming any more, but no programming might just be better than line-numbered BASIC. BASIC doesn't teach proper modern programming skills. It's bad for them. I am hearing from some young kids who are taking Java in high school. That's awesome. I wish I'd been able to learn Java in school without being corrupted by Apple BASIC.
I write in VB.NET 2005. I feel like it's all stagnant. The welcome page in the application hasn't updated since November, most code examples are referring to VB6, what little I can find on VB.NET 2005 is about the public beta, and recent posts to boards regarding the language reveals that many think the software is still in beta even though it was released about five months ago.
Clickonce deployment is one of the most exciting things I've seen in ages, but aside from a couple little exercises I wrote, I've only seen one application deploy with it. I love the idea of deploying trusted Windows apps in much the way Java is used today. Clickonce apps run in a sandbox. The Clickonce security handler needs help - if you run a program that tries to use permissions it hasn't asked declared needing, instead of prompting the user to approve the higher trust level (the behavior shown in the documentation) the Clickonce handler crashes!
Frankly, I'm tired of trying to find decent documentation. I have yet to get COM code that works - the samples on the site are pockmarked with errors. It seems like I'm almost working in a vacuum. I need a book that doesn't suck.
I remember the cries about XP. "It won't support MP3! It will keep the music I rip in DRM-Protected WMA!"
I like XP. There. I said it. I like Windows XP. I use Yahoo Music Engine to fill my MTP music player with rented music. I code in.NET 2.0. Starz on Real lets me download DRM-locked video. I play GTA III. I think Microsoft has some good software. I've even worked in a Microsoft environment.
I am not a Microsoft fanboy. I have used Macs in the past. I have used Linux in the past. Right now, I have several pieces of hardware that are not likely to get signed drivers from their vendors. If Microsoft keeps their hard-line on unsigned drivers, I will probably not move to Vista. I bought my current laptop because it will support Vista, but I am not afraid to stay on XP until it no longer serves me, and I am not afraid to go back to Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
I was on the internet back then, much as, I suspect, a significant portion of slashdot users. The facts seem about right, but the writing makes me wonder if the article is a hoax.
As I recall, Hormel was cool about this, simply stating that spam could be Unsolicited Commercial Email, as long as everybody left SPAM alone.
Hormel would be okay with "anti-spam" software, but not "anti-SPAM".
What changed? Whatever. Hormel should have acted twelve years ago. I liked them for being cool about the internet use, and for making a product that tastes good grilled with pineapple on kabobs.
I'd rather call unwanted email advertisements "UCE" anyway.
Agreed. I've read a few pieces on how Youtube owes a debt to shows like America's Funniest Home Videos. Shows like AFV and the occasionally "World's Best Commercials" share a format for a reason. Essentially, the idea is "Here's thirty seconds to two minutes of something entertaining. It's not a show, but you'll get a kick out of it anyway." Then, they add a host (either someone funny, likable, attractive, or Bob Saget) and you get pure television gold.
I watched Napoleon Dynamite on my Sprint Sanyo MM5600. I'm fairly sure the screen is less than 2" diagonal, and I left the movie letterboxed. It was engaging enough for Napoleon Dynamite's needs. The screen on a DS is fairly pleasant, on the DS Lite, even more so. I see value in this, but understand that it might not be for everyone.
I like the slider idea. I think it'd be great, even for stories outside of tech. I was baffled for a day or two by the current events in Isreal and Lebanon, until I could look up some more information on the players. The news sources I follow jumped in like Hezbollah had been a recognized extra curricular club in my high school. Having the ability to move the slider to stupid would have been nice.
Yep. My Key Lime was ordered the day after the Stevenote announced it. Being a later model, the plastic on the handle showed some hairline cracks, but never turned into anything more, even though I did use the handle.
I used to be on the P1 list, and it seemed like everyone with a Rev.1 had the handles falling to bits.
My Clamshell iBook arrived with scuffs on the plastic, running along the edge of the rubber. There were cracks around the Apple logo, and one of the feet hovered just above the surface. The Apple rep tried to convince me I was okay with these problems.
I never even thought about going to Apple with my discolored palm prints.
Is Apple getting a little better?
As silly as the PB&J question may have seemed, I can assure you that question was very, very good. I had a stint selling Audio/Video equipment at Circuit City.
I present to you, my side of a typical post-sale telephone call for the connection of a new DVD player to an existing television:
Do you see your dvd player?
Do you see your television?
Are you in a place where you can access the back of both?
Do you see any connectors?
Are they round?
Is one of the connectors yellow?
Okay, acknowledging that they're silver and shiny, are the centers of any of the connectors you see yellow?
Do you see the cables you bought?
Have you opened the package yet?
Open the package.
Just insert your thumbs in the top and pull apart briskly.
Do you see the cable with the yellow band?
Pick up the cable with the yellow band at the connector.
No, it doesn't matter which end.
Yes, you can remove the twist tie from the cable.
I'm not sure, you usually twist it counter-clockwise.
Well, do you have wire cutters?
No! NO! You do not need to cut the wire itself! Just cut the twist tie.
Yes, so plug that wire into the...
The yellow one, yes we're still working with that one.
Plug that wire into your DVD player.
Into the connector that is silver on the outside and yellow on the inside.
Yes.
Okay?
Now, look on the back of the TV.
Do you see a connector that is yellow - in the center?
Okay, plug the connector opposite...
Yes, that means the other end...
Plug that connector into the yellow-centered connector on the back of the tv.
Do you see the other cables that came in the package you bought?
Do you see a white label with black arrows on the wire?
Pick up the cable by the red connector on the end of the wire indicated by the arrow.
No... See the direction the arrow is pointing in?
Fine, pick it up near the arrow label. Following the wire in the direction the arrow is pointing, find the connector with the red band.
On the back of the tv, do you see a connector, near the yellow-centered connector you just used, that has a red center?
Ok, plug into that.
Now, hanging off the same wire, on the same end, is a black connector.
You don't see it?
Well, are there two connectors on the end of the wire?
What color is the other connector?
Yeah, I guess you could call that blue.
Next to the red-centered connector you just used there is a...
No, you're not looking for a blue connector this time.
I know, but you're not likely to even have a blue connector.
You have a blue connector?
And a green connector?
Next to the red connector?
When you were in the store, you told me that you had only composite connections on your tv. That sounds like component.
Well, the component does give a better picture, and may let you enjoy progressive scan, depending on your tv.
I'm not making things complicated. Your tv has different capabilities than you said it had.
Yes, you can get a picture out of those cables.
No, it will still look much better than VHS.
Alright.
So, the red connector, erm, the red-centered connector you plugged the red-banded wire into - that wasn't labelled "R" or "Right" was it?
What was it labelled?
Ah, well, let's look for a red-centered connector that is labelled "Right" or "R", probably close to the yellow connector we used earlier.
Yellow-centered then.
No?
Nothing?
Well, read off the labels of all the red-centered connectors back there.
No.
No.
"Right Audio"? That's your connector. Plug the red-banded wire into there.
No, Don't use the other end of the cable. Unplug the red-banded connector you plugged in elsewhere on the back of the tv. Plug that into the "Right Audio" connection.
Now, the black... sorry, "blue" banded connector.
Yes, on that end.
Yes.
Plug that into the white-centered connector that has to be next to the connector you just used.
Alright, now, to the other end of the cables we just used.
This
I would only want to do CPA for things that are remarkably likely to happen. I wouldn't want, for example, to have my income depend on someone ordering a laptop. In fact, Google already offers referral links for Firefox (w/ Google Toolbar, natch), Google Pack, and Picasa. (They offer it for adwords and adsense, but I find that a less likely action.) These links require not just a click, but a specific result, like downloading the app and installing it, or signing up for a certain advertising program. These are fairly likely actions, I think, and even that doesn't yield strong results. Even on a site where I have a feature that is legitimately non-IE friendly, and I offer the Firefox link right below, I don't get a strong result.
I used to work retail. I've seen the instruction sheets that go to the legit secret shoppers (there are a lot of scams out there). They vary quite a bit. Generally, the instructions are to go into the store, ask questions looking for key points and phrases, only buying if they actually want something, or they buy a small item, take it home for a couple days, then return it, rating the store on that aspect of the transaction.
Resturaunts cover (usually advance) the secret shopper's bill.
I was shopping for a new ISP this morning, and AT&T lost out only by failing to have a particularly local dialup number.
I wonder if this "grinding" technique is available to civilian consumers. I bet it would be preferred by the most active of us. Besides, grinding actually sounds more appealing to me than having a "flap" cut into my eye.
- Broken horse legs, (and how randy that horse is)
- McFever (Mc Pheever?)
- The Brangelina and Tomkat spawn
- The effects of mentos on diet soda.
- Britney's inability to use a baby seat
- A story on "trunking", the hot fad among hip youngsters, where kids ride around in car trunks
- And a story from an internet security expert who calls a browser "that thing above your webpage"
Where the hell to the well-informed get their news? I actually have either MSNBC or CNN on during my working hours, and hard news only represents about 30% of their programming; everything else is human interest and punditry.There's a Blasphemy category? They lumped Blasphemy with Lies? I always suspected filtering was crazy, now I know.
I agree. I think the problem is not the lack of facial expressions and body language - collectively, "nonverbal cues." The problem, I suspect, is the simultaneous lack of nonverbal cues and the reduction of contentiousness in writing encouraged by the immediacy of the medium. When a letter takes days to reach its recipient, ten minutes of review is a minor effort. When an email takes fewer than a dozen seconds, the number of messages exchanged increases, the length of each message is reduced, and language can fall into a casual, conversational style with proofreading becoming a bore. Misunderstandings will happen. Over time, language will adapt.
Yeah, I saw that. I guess somebody doesn't know about free screenshots from The GIMP, or even the built in ALT+Print Screen.
I completed about four tests before I started to get the feeling that I was actually working on training their filter. I felt like I should be charging a fee. Most of the tests are bogus. One email asked me to add some addresses to the "TW mailing list". I don't have context - in this scenario, do I work for an employer who has a "TW mailing list"? Do I manage it? The answer has everything to do with the way I'd rank it. In fact, most of the emails referred to specific people, and knowing or not knowing them would control the rating on the email.
I'm three days younger than cmdrtaco. This probably means nothing.
I've been using it quite a bit today. While you cannot download with the free service, streaming seems to work quite well. I even listened to an album, and the intersitial ads (which had no audio) only came up four times while listening to a 13 track album. Plus, it's great to be able to put a link into a message board or email when talking about a certain track.
I think it's a good thing. Now, if they can keep it from being annoying even after they have some advertisers, it will be amazing.
I don't think elementary schools are pushing programming any more, but no programming might just be better than line-numbered BASIC. BASIC doesn't teach proper modern programming skills. It's bad for them. I am hearing from some young kids who are taking Java in high school. That's awesome. I wish I'd been able to learn Java in school without being corrupted by Apple BASIC.
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.3; Linux 2.6.10-1.ydl.1; X11; ppc) (KHTML, like Gecko)
No crash for me.
I write in VB.NET 2005. I feel like it's all stagnant. The welcome page in the application hasn't updated since November, most code examples are referring to VB6, what little I can find on VB.NET 2005 is about the public beta, and recent posts to boards regarding the language reveals that many think the software is still in beta even though it was released about five months ago.
Clickonce deployment is one of the most exciting things I've seen in ages, but aside from a couple little exercises I wrote, I've only seen one application deploy with it. I love the idea of deploying trusted Windows apps in much the way Java is used today. Clickonce apps run in a sandbox. The Clickonce security handler needs help - if you run a program that tries to use permissions it hasn't asked declared needing, instead of prompting the user to approve the higher trust level (the behavior shown in the documentation) the Clickonce handler crashes!
Frankly, I'm tired of trying to find decent documentation. I have yet to get COM code that works - the samples on the site are pockmarked with errors. It seems like I'm almost working in a vacuum. I need a book that doesn't suck.
I remember the cries about XP. "It won't support MP3! It will keep the music I rip in DRM-Protected WMA!"
.NET 2.0. Starz on Real lets me download DRM-locked video. I play GTA III. I think Microsoft has some good software. I've even worked in a Microsoft environment.
I like XP. There. I said it. I like Windows XP. I use Yahoo Music Engine to fill my MTP music player with rented music. I code in
I am not a Microsoft fanboy. I have used Macs in the past. I have used Linux in the past. Right now, I have several pieces of hardware that are not likely to get signed drivers from their vendors. If Microsoft keeps their hard-line on unsigned drivers, I will probably not move to Vista. I bought my current laptop because it will support Vista, but I am not afraid to stay on XP until it no longer serves me, and I am not afraid to go back to Linux.
Best Buy's website will also display in-store pricing when it detects an in-store kiosk is browsing the site.