A good example is a guy I know (not mentioning names for abvious reasons) that switched and claimed it was great. Yet, he had to make so many concessions.
It's okay, we all know CmdrTaco pretty well. I'm sure he won't be offended.
Ralsky said he includes a link on each e-mail he sends that lets the recipient opt out of any future mailings. He said 89 million people have done just that over the past five years, and he keeps a list of them that grows by about 1,000 every day. That list is constantly run against his master list of 250 million valid addresses.
I'm not so sure I believe him, frankly. If it's true, though, this is one of the most honest things a spammer can do, and I'll congratulate him for it.
Ralsky has other ways to monitor the success of his campaigns. Buried in every e-mail he sends is a hidden code that sends back a message every time the e-mail is opened. About three-quarters of 1 percent of all the messages are opened by their recipients, he said. The rest are deleted....and this is one of the least honest, although if he's only using it to verify effectiveness (open and respond vs. open and delete vs. delete outright), then I suppose that's acceptable.
I hate spam. This comes as no surprise, but at the same time, I must grudgingly acknowledge the spammers' right to do business the way that they do it. Publishing a phone number invites telemarketers, publishing my address invites junk mail, and publishing my email address invites spam; it's the cost of that convenience. The spammers have their tools to get through to me, and I have mine to combat them, and that's all fair.
However, I think a certain integrity is encumbent on the profession. If you must send spam, I expect you to honor my unsubscription requests and not redistribute my address after I do so. Don't use my computer as a mail server without permission. Don't use dirty tricks to get my friends' and family's email addresses from my account. Don't pretend your advertisements are anything but what they are.
Do this much, and I'll at least respect your business. Lie and cheat to get further ahead, and you just might get another box of feces on your doorstep.
they just need to raise sufficient barriers so that an equal-copy version is harder to get than walking to the store and buying one. ...because this is so much easier than just lowering prices to achieve the same effect.
How about encouraging webmasters and web designers to avoid requiring them unless absolutely necessary?
Define "absolutely". Some form or frame functionality requires JS to work, but it's possible to retool the site to not use those kinds of forms or frames at all. ActiveX is a good idea whenever you have plugin content to display. Flash is "necessary" if you want animations, but the animations aren't "necessary" from a content-centric point of view.
And besides all that, you're missing the point, which is that those active content features are enabled by default in IE -- so they're still security issues. Even if my Web site doesn't use them, another hostile Web site will. You can encourage all the designers and webmasters you like, but it won't resolve the security issue.
That's called "bending the truth". For your friend to have had a possession of iDVD without having purchased a mac with a DVD burner in built, he must have pirated the software.
As for not supporting other DVD burners, there's two reasons for this. One is because Apple wants to propel sales of SuperDrive-equipped Macs, which is within their rights to do (after all, the iDVD software is completely free). Those who want to use external third-party burners may pay big bucks for DVD Studio Pro. The second reason is because Apple needs to support drivers for all those other burners, and they'd rather spend their time right now developing the software. iTunes followed the same curve: it initially only supported Apple-branded CD burners, then gradually expanded its support for third-party burners as the software matured.
However, it is possible to buy a SuperDrive (Pioneer DVR-105) direct from its manufacturer and install it in a G4 Mac. So upgrading isn't completely out of the question, it's just a very narrow range of options.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just build one of those?
Yes, and it's also cheaper to build your own house, your own car, your own deck, your own kitchen, and your own septic system. That doesn't mean it's not worth a few extra bucks to *most* people to let someone else do the learning and dirty work.
These types of devices will never make it into my home entertainment system until they at east fit in my AV cabinet with my other components. 17 inches people. It's not that hard.
Maybe not *your* system; however there are plenty of folks out there buying Nintendo GameCubes despite the non-AV dimensions that your argument fails to hold up. Besides, with the heat that this PC must generate, I can guarantee you wouldn't want to stack your carousel CD player on top of this thing.
There's a real story - beginning, middle, and end. It spreads over the full 5 seasons.
Actually, the story was spread out over four seasons, owing to the fact that Straczynski wasn't certain a fifth season would be paid for until about four episodes before the end of the fourth. The fifth season connects with the other four, and carries on the plotlines developed there, but it also feels tacked-on and epilogous (?) because, essentially, it is.
Sure, their special effects budget wasn't as rich as $T.
JMS was proud to inform fans that in every single season, B5 came in under budget due to the heavy use of computer-gemerated graphics instead of the models "Star Trek" and its ilk were dependent upon. I'd say he very effectively did more with less.
I can get spam filtering as part of upgrading my free MSN account to MSN 8 for only $10/month! (Just trying to figure out what the MS trolls will have to say about this one)
Besides the obvious fact that Mozilla costs $0 per month, you mean?
I assume you mean a command-line only interface? Because frankly, neither KDE nor Gnome have strongly distinguished themselves from the Win95-style interface. A non-Linux user's first reaction at laying eyes on either one would be: "Oh, um, this must be my Start Menu here in the lower left corner."
C'mon, power users don't buy eMachines. If you're selling Linux to Joe Consumer then you either have to make it highly Windows-like or uniquely easy to use on its own. Apple does the latter. Almost everyone else does the former.
If the above article is indeed factual, the irony presented is simply amazing. Here Disney is, along with the big movie buisness, lobbying for laws that stop consumers from performing the same act performed here.
Pixar is being sued, not Disney. Disney is and always has been little more than a distributor for Pixar's movies. They offer minimal creative input on the stories and take a chunk of the money from the resultant toy market, but that's about the limit of Disney's involvement in things.
The difference is easy to remember if you adhere to the following formula: 100% of Pixar's current output is great, while 95% of Disney's current output is crap.*
(* "Lilo & Stitch" is the notable exception, which is funny because the more I watch it, the more it reminds me of a Pixar film instead of a Disney one.)
As for Transformers, its a bastard thing, but since it was mostly made by US people for the US market, I says it doesn't qualify.
Then how about "Robots in Disguise", the movie, and the other non-imported TF cartoons animated by Japanese studios (Headmasters, Victory, Beast Wars Neo, etc.)?
Perhaps you missed the implication that this is a test case, and if it succeeds (for BMG) they'll be implementing the same policy in the US, and then globally. So imports of CDs will only increase in the short term, if at all.
Why don't we stop allowing registration-required links on the front page? Including free-registration.
Slashdot itself requires a free registration to post even off-topic comments like that one, so besides being needlessly elitist, it would be just a bit hypocritical.
Re:Call that a pun'kin chucker?
on
Howl-o-ween
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Incidentally, the pun'kin chucker article in the Slashdot headling quotes its creator as believing it could shoot a pumpkin five miles. I sincerely doubt it; the record-holder shoots a 5- to 10-lb. pumpkin only(!) three-quarters of a mile, and it's the size of a semi trailer. Wind resistance is pretty strong on an unaerodynamic ten-pound gourd once you get it moving.
Ironically, this is typical of Linux advocate's thinking.
"All you need to run this free software is standard PC hardware! And these CDs, of course. Well, you'll probably want to partition your hard drive beforehand, too. Be sure you know the specs of your components so you can configure the OS correctly. And do you know how to configure your own broadband Internet connection? No, you can't use AOL on this, but here's a great web-based tool that's also free and you only need to compile it once or twice...."
Slashdot Mirror
A good example is a guy I know (not mentioning names for abvious reasons) that switched and claimed it was great. Yet, he had to make so many concessions.
It's okay, we all know CmdrTaco pretty well. I'm sure he won't be offended.
You mean that the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief is a genuine possibility!?
Dam, time to get my soul in order again....
Let's show our sympathies regarding the loss of one of the fastest computer networks in Europe by Slashdotting their web servers!
Ralsky said he includes a link on each e-mail he sends that lets the recipient opt out of any future mailings. He said 89 million people have done just that over the past five years, and he keeps a list of them that grows by about 1,000 every day. That list is constantly run against his master list of 250 million valid addresses.
...and this is one of the least honest, although if he's only using it to verify effectiveness (open and respond vs. open and delete vs. delete outright), then I suppose that's acceptable.
I'm not so sure I believe him, frankly. If it's true, though, this is one of the most honest things a spammer can do, and I'll congratulate him for it.
Ralsky has other ways to monitor the success of his campaigns. Buried in every e-mail he sends is a hidden code that sends back a message every time the e-mail is opened. About three-quarters of 1 percent of all the messages are opened by their recipients, he said. The rest are deleted.
I hate spam. This comes as no surprise, but at the same time, I must grudgingly acknowledge the spammers' right to do business the way that they do it. Publishing a phone number invites telemarketers, publishing my address invites junk mail, and publishing my email address invites spam; it's the cost of that convenience. The spammers have their tools to get through to me, and I have mine to combat them, and that's all fair.
However, I think a certain integrity is encumbent on the profession. If you must send spam, I expect you to honor my unsubscription requests and not redistribute my address after I do so. Don't use my computer as a mail server without permission. Don't use dirty tricks to get my friends' and family's email addresses from my account. Don't pretend your advertisements are anything but what they are.
Do this much, and I'll at least respect your business. Lie and cheat to get further ahead, and you just might get another box of feces on your doorstep.
...when we have Janie Porche to obsess over instead?
they just need to raise sufficient barriers so that an equal-copy version is harder to get than walking to the store and buying one. ...because this is so much easier than just lowering prices to achieve the same effect.
It's fun and easy to kill your Sims. Make your point by targetting the corporate employees specifically.
How about encouraging webmasters and web designers to avoid requiring them unless absolutely necessary?
Define "absolutely". Some form or frame functionality requires JS to work, but it's possible to retool the site to not use those kinds of forms or frames at all. ActiveX is a good idea whenever you have plugin content to display. Flash is "necessary" if you want animations, but the animations aren't "necessary" from a content-centric point of view.
And besides all that, you're missing the point, which is that those active content features are enabled by default in IE -- so they're still security issues. Even if my Web site doesn't use them, another hostile Web site will. You can encourage all the designers and webmasters you like, but it won't resolve the security issue.
That's called "bending the truth". For your friend to have had a possession of iDVD without having purchased a mac with a DVD burner in built, he must have pirated the software.
Um, no. iDVD is freely downloadable from Apple's Web site.
As for not supporting other DVD burners, there's two reasons for this. One is because Apple wants to propel sales of SuperDrive-equipped Macs, which is within their rights to do (after all, the iDVD software is completely free). Those who want to use external third-party burners may pay big bucks for DVD Studio Pro. The second reason is because Apple needs to support drivers for all those other burners, and they'd rather spend their time right now developing the software. iTunes followed the same curve: it initially only supported Apple-branded CD burners, then gradually expanded its support for third-party burners as the software matured.
However, it is possible to buy a SuperDrive (Pioneer DVR-105) direct from its manufacturer and install it in a G4 Mac. So upgrading isn't completely out of the question, it's just a very narrow range of options.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just build one of those?
Yes, and it's also cheaper to build your own house, your own car, your own deck, your own kitchen, and your own septic system. That doesn't mean it's not worth a few extra bucks to *most* people to let someone else do the learning and dirty work.
These types of devices will never make it into my home entertainment system until they at east fit in my AV cabinet with my other components. 17 inches people. It's not that hard.
Maybe not *your* system; however there are plenty of folks out there buying Nintendo GameCubes despite the non-AV dimensions that your argument fails to hold up. Besides, with the heat that this PC must generate, I can guarantee you wouldn't want to stack your carousel CD player on top of this thing.
There's a real story - beginning, middle, and end. It spreads over the full 5 seasons.
Actually, the story was spread out over four seasons, owing to the fact that Straczynski wasn't certain a fifth season would be paid for until about four episodes before the end of the fourth. The fifth season connects with the other four, and carries on the plotlines developed there, but it also feels tacked-on and epilogous (?) because, essentially, it is.
Sure, their special effects budget wasn't as rich as $T.
JMS was proud to inform fans that in every single season, B5 came in under budget due to the heavy use of computer-gemerated graphics instead of the models "Star Trek" and its ilk were dependent upon. I'd say he very effectively did more with less.
I can get spam filtering as part of upgrading my free MSN account to MSN 8 for only $10/month! (Just trying to figure out what the MS trolls will have to say about this one)
Besides the obvious fact that Mozilla costs $0 per month, you mean?
'No thanks, I'll go with the genuine thing.'
I assume you mean a command-line only interface? Because frankly, neither KDE nor Gnome have strongly distinguished themselves from the Win95-style interface. A non-Linux user's first reaction at laying eyes on either one would be: "Oh, um, this must be my Start Menu here in the lower left corner."
C'mon, power users don't buy eMachines. If you're selling Linux to Joe Consumer then you either have to make it highly Windows-like or uniquely easy to use on its own. Apple does the latter. Almost everyone else does the former.
Oh do give it a rest. You know what will happen once you get a post in motion around here.
I don't think he understood; perhaps you need to be more forceful.
If the above article is indeed factual, the irony presented is simply amazing. Here Disney is, along with the big movie buisness, lobbying for laws that stop consumers from performing the same act performed here.
Pixar is being sued, not Disney. Disney is and always has been little more than a distributor for Pixar's movies. They offer minimal creative input on the stories and take a chunk of the money from the resultant toy market, but that's about the limit of Disney's involvement in things.
The difference is easy to remember if you adhere to the following formula: 100% of Pixar's current output is great, while 95% of Disney's current output is crap.*
(* "Lilo & Stitch" is the notable exception, which is funny because the more I watch it, the more it reminds me of a Pixar film instead of a Disney one.)
I don't like it when SF is used as a platform for pro-life/creationist crap.
Fair enough. I, in turn, don't like it when it's used as a platform for atheist or pantheist crap, which tends to occur far more often.
As long as one of the 13 servers in your hints/cache file responds, your name server will download the updated list on startup.
Can someone tell me why thirteen is the magic number of servers? And why that number apparently hasn't changed in all these years?
As for Transformers, its a bastard thing, but since it was mostly made by US people for the US market, I says it doesn't qualify.
Then how about "Robots in Disguise", the movie, and the other non-imported TF cartoons animated by Japanese studios (Headmasters, Victory, Beast Wars Neo, etc.)?
It's like in the UK, every vacumn cleaner is usually referred to as a "hoover". Or in the US "Xerox". You cannot buy that brand recognition
Speaking only for myself, my hoover is made by Eureka, I xerox papers on a Canon copier and my favorite kleenex are have a Puffs logo on the box.
Brand recognition is great to have, but it's not nearly the same thing as money.
Imports of CDs from the US goes up
Perhaps you missed the implication that this is a test case, and if it succeeds (for BMG) they'll be implementing the same policy in the US, and then globally. So imports of CDs will only increase in the short term, if at all.
So if the hardware manufacturers support ogg, they can say that their device holds 2*x songs instead of x.
They already do this when referring to Microsoft's WMA format. And I'm pretty sure they're getting that codec for free, too.
Why don't we stop allowing registration-required links on the front page? Including free-registration.
Slashdot itself requires a free registration to post even off-topic comments like that one, so besides being needlessly elitist, it would be just a bit hypocritical.
Incidentally, the pun'kin chucker article in the Slashdot headling quotes its creator as believing it could shoot a pumpkin five miles. I sincerely doubt it; the record-holder shoots a 5- to 10-lb. pumpkin only(!) three-quarters of a mile, and it's the size of a semi trailer. Wind resistance is pretty strong on an unaerodynamic ten-pound gourd once you get it moving.
Ironically, this is typical of Linux advocate's thinking.
"All you need to run this free software is standard PC hardware! And these CDs, of course. Well, you'll probably want to partition your hard drive beforehand, too. Be sure you know the specs of your components so you can configure the OS correctly. And do you know how to configure your own broadband Internet connection? No, you can't use AOL on this, but here's a great web-based tool that's also free and you only need to compile it once or twice...."