Sounds like a very good reason for me to remain cell-phone-free.
I've been cell-free for about 3 years. I was an early adopter (still have my Bagphone!) and have had service three times, but not currently. I keep running into the situation where I just don't need the damn thing and can't see paying $30+/mo. to blather away banal chatter because I'm bored and feel the need to communicate with someone else. I do take along a phone on long trips as they still work for 911 calls if I'm in dire need.
That's pretty assuming. I generally don't expend the synaptic energy to determine what's use versus any other classification of internet activity. Same as I don't question what people do with a newspaper (You read the funnies, you do the crossword, you read the sports section, what!?!?!? You don't read the editorial?!? Blasphemer, why do you throw away your quarter?) I think classification/judging use of the internet is for statisticians and R&D people who are trying to pigeon hole net users, possibly for marketing potential.
Thing is, people's use of the internet is dynamic. They go where they want to, until the fine something else they'd rather do, or obstructed (registrations,lots of annoying ads, etc.) and move along.
Very true. Advertising on unlimited broadband is merely a nuisance. Full video, multi-MB sized advertising on a metered low-speed connection should be a crime. Why should people have to *pay* to receive corporate advertising?
I'm on a 56K dialup, you can bet I'll cease to visit sites which do this. It's bad enough trying to selectively use Flash (I keep a script to rename the plug-in when I want/don't want) if these are coming as animated gifs then it's a sure thing I won't be waiting around to watch it.
With the recent fsckups of ebay, putting ads on pages and bloating them otherwise it's a matter of time until I can't handle that, either. Auctions, particularly those hosted on ebay, suffer from high bandwidth requirements.
The whole idea of internet advertizing is going in the wrong direction. You want to get your message across? Make it simple. You want to drive people away? Make it big and annoying (like pop-ups) seems there's a clue here for anyone willing to listen, if people are blocking pop-ups it's because they don't like them. Force people to view your ad content and make it large or annoying and you might as well shut your site down.
Most of these people probably do not use the Internet for something truly worthwhile. By that I claim that instead of doing research or reading various news sources to gain an unbiased perspective on the world around us, people mostly are just forwarding silly emails, chatting mindlessly with their peers, searching for pornography, and downloading crappy quality pirated music files.
Or reading and posting on slashdot, but yeah, I see your point.
Here's a point for you to consider: who judges what use is use rather than just fiddling around?
The other interesting bit is how much of this 'use' happens at work...
Who exactly are the victims? Everybody that received the spam? That's a lot of people
Indeed, and like a class action suit, those who sign up for a claim are entitled, those who don't get zip, unless the judgement calls for a full disbursement and recipients need not apply. I've been on the end of both types, got $7.50 from Sears, some coupon from Microsoft, and a couple thousand from some scumbag venture capitalists.
What they need is an "anti-spam" department. Partially gov't funded to start things off, but also supported by the proceeds of whatever spammers get busted/fined. I don't think I'd see part of the pie for nailing spammers, but I wouldn't mind donating my portion to nailing some more.
No, what they need is a good law and enforcement, nothing more is necessary, but we can't seem to get one or both.
when government keeps fines, etc, this is revenue that they get to keep *instead of* raising taxes.
Bad precedent. This creates a conflict of interest, say the Highway patrol is about to lose $25 million in funding, but ticket procedes go into their fund, thus they focus heavily on giving out tickets until their loss is replaces. Nope, can't allow that, tickets go into general funds for this reason.
So, if we listened to you, net taxes would be higher, as we'd lose out on the stupid anduseless distribution costs of first getting the fine money to the people, and then re-collecting it from the people in terms of taxes.
Geez. Ever thought about studying goverment before commenting on it? Fines should never be included in a planned governmental budget, I don't know what kind of evil regime you plan, but I want no part of it.
his proposed solution hardly calls for "justice"--rather, it rewards those with information.
You're joking, right? One of the most effective ways to stop an activity is to hit it where it's motivation lies, i.e. money. Make spamming unprofitable and people will shy away from it, after all, they're in it for money. Handing out some share of the fines isn't rewarding, to me, it's paying for the hours I've lost cleaning that shit from my mailboxes and the service problems I've endured while they plied their trade.
What? To get money out of them after the Govt. has already cleaned them out? You forget, when it comes to civil and and Govt., the Govt. always gets it's due first and civil can have anything left, assuming there is anything.
Best to put it in the legal code, right up front, the victim gets a share.
If they want public faith in these iniatives and participation in tracking down spammers, how about fining the spammers and turning a portion of the procedes over to the victims? I'd be all over that in a heartbeat. If you don't sign on, you get zip, otherwise it'd be about 0.05 cents for each of us, know what I mean?
One of my general bitches about Fed/State/Local laws is that the goverment fines vermin and keeps the money for itself.
We're finally tossing the last of our original Macs. Some are Mac Plus, or a little newer, but it's remarkable how much use one could get out of those things. Can't quite say the same about PC's as we're chucking crates of those that are only 3-5 years old.
TheForce is reporting that Mayhew's contract contains a stipulation that he must also appear in Episodes 7, 8, and 9.
Nothing a few million $ couldn't rectify.
So what would Episodes 7-9 be like...
<Daydream Sequence>
Star Wars, Episode 7: A New Threat
Synopsis: Luke and Leia get married and head off on a honeymoon, leaving Han Solo and Chewbacca
to watch over selection of the new senate. Han Solo gets bored and starts hyperspace download site of music and video content against the wishes
of the immensely powerful IGRIMPAA (Inter Galactic Recording Industry and Motion Picture Artists Association), a thinly veiled group of thugs and bandits who have kept
entertainers in thrall. Big cruisers appear out of hyperspace around Coruscant and Jar Jar Bings, in their employe serves subpoenas, furthering audience animosity.
Star Wars, Episode 8: Just An Awufl Mess
Synopsis: Luke and Leia return to Coruscant and find the IGRIMPAA firmly running things, Han Solo and Chewbacca rotting in prison and several worlds in outright rebellion. Luke procedes to
reform a Jedi council, but finds space cruiser bombs going off all over the place. President Jar Jar Binks attempts to alay Luke's concerns, until it's found Leia has an ePod loaded with bootleg
tunes from Naboo. Jar Jar reveals well kept secret that he is master of dark side and cuts off Luke's other hand in epic lightsabre battle. Han and Chewy come to rescue and all flee to the a distant world only to find another massive Deathstar built with
IGRIMPAA profits.
Star Wars, Episode 9: Last of the Red-Hot Jedi
Synopsis: Luke and Leia's child, Xyzzy, demonstrates great skill with the force and greater skill with the source, hacks into DeathStar and shuts it down, in a bit of a special effects let-down, just see big ball with lights go out, no explosion. Luke and Leia return to
Coruscant, along with Han and Chewbacca and in a final battle Luke duels with Jar Jar, both slice each other in half and last threat is brought to an end, except for offspring of Skywalkers, who demonstrates a slight inclination to power and position and a bit of an angry streak. We've been here before, no?
About what might happen should the Martian government get their hands on the rover. They will most likely have to destroy it to cover up the fact that their planet has been visited by machines from another planet. Let's just hope we can get a picture of their leaders before they disconnect the cameras!
While they may:
Be highly advanced in technology
Have weapons capable of destroying every city on earth in a matter of seconds
Be ruthless and waiting for their chance to invade and colonize earth and enslave humanity
The also:
Have massive credit card debt
Small members
Interest in Nigerian Money-making schemes
So, there is a chance we can be saved, if only all spammers would unite.
Isn't our current, dying, spacestation; international? Whats wrong with making the moon project a collaboration between the US, China and India? Oh yeah, Bush doesn't know they exist, or if he does he doesn't care!
Why settle for a neglected ISS when you can neglect a moon station, too! (Hmm. I'm currently reading Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, interesting..)
Yesterday I heard some whitehouse staffer, in defense of the Mars/Moon initiative say of Bush, "He likes to think big thoughts." Yeah, well how about that deficit, that's a pretty big thought. Oh, wait, Cheney said to Paul O'Neill, "Deficits don't matter." Guess I'm wrong again.
This _IS_ the leader that wants to do it for re-election reasons, however. He doesn't want to be a dud/non-visionary like his father. Especially in an election year.
Yeah, sure beats this for a campaign slogan, "Vote Bush, because 50% of every tax dollar just pays interest on the debt and in another four years it'll be 75% of each dollar, but 'hey', we'll have a full employment of foreign engineers building economies in their home countries because NASA outsourced engineering and nation building is a good thing."
It's not 1984 yet, so at least let us think we still have voting power until the paperless voting machines invisibily take our rights away.
You didn't see in the news the bit about airports scanning background information on passangers as threats, did you? That information has to be collected and stored. We're getting there.
If you are going to waste $820 million dollars why not build sh!t right here in our deserts on THIS country? Let's see if we can get life to survive in the harshest areas RIGHT the fsck here.
Have you ever been to the desert southwest? It's already taxed and the water is about to run out (no fair trying to drain the Great Lakes or divert Mississippi river water.) Growth in the southwest has boomed in the past two decades. Las Vegas is over 1 million and litterally living off the Colorado River. You can drill wells, but the water still has to come from the same place.
Not too likely people will want to live on other planets, but you know industry is just itching to get a peek at any advantage to be gained by getting something somewhere else, cheaply and selling it here. Seems a long way off to get make money in space, but someone will find a way and take advantage of economy of scale. Then people will simply follow to live near work.
It should have been started long ago, it's overdue.
Now is a bad time to do it, thanks to reckless spending and slashing revenue.
The motivation isn't purely political, it's because China and India are expressing interest and it 'looks bad' if the USA lets anyone get a leg up, in short it's for selfish pride.
This isn't the leader to kick it off, but he's the only one who has.
I feel the same frustration and exasperation, it comes with being educated.
I bought a putzy little 40Gb Que USB drive a while back, it's depressing how long it takes to transfer stuff to/from it, but makes a good archive drive, particularly for large transfers.
Max sustained transfer rate :
FireWire 800: up to 55MB/s
FireWire 400: up to 35MB/s
USB 2.0: up to 34MB/s
OK, is backup/archive solution, but 5 to 8 hours to transfer all disk, how do you back this up?:-)
Does anyone else see a fundamental flaw in the assumptions about the potential market?
Also, remind you of the suit George Jeton wore through all kinds of punishment when he thought he was going to die, then his wife washed it instead of dry cleaning, destroying it before it could get the Goodspacekeeping Seal?
It's SO gibberish it automatically gets deleted. I wonder what the strategy behind that is. Same goes for using alternate characters, anything outside ascii 32 to 126 goes in the bin.
I guess obfuscating their own message so much to foil spam filters has caught up with them, as their message is lost in their methods.
100% of screeners that wind up on the 'net are leaked by Academy members... they're the only ones who are authorized to have them to begin with.
Easy to dump on, but sometimes copies go missing in the mail or are 'borrowed' by friends/family. Tags just trace it to the academy member who that copy was sent to. It's another thing to investigate and find what really happened.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been cell-free for about 3 years. I was an early adopter (still have my Bagphone!) and have had service three times, but not currently. I keep running into the situation where I just don't need the damn thing and can't see paying $30+/mo. to blather away banal chatter because I'm bored and feel the need to communicate with someone else. I do take along a phone on long trips as they still work for 911 calls if I'm in dire need.
That's pretty assuming. I generally don't expend the synaptic energy to determine what's use versus any other classification of internet activity. Same as I don't question what people do with a newspaper (You read the funnies, you do the crossword, you read the sports section, what!?!?!? You don't read the editorial?!? Blasphemer, why do you throw away your quarter?) I think classification/judging use of the internet is for statisticians and R&D people who are trying to pigeon hole net users, possibly for marketing potential.
Thing is, people's use of the internet is dynamic. They go where they want to, until the fine something else they'd rather do, or obstructed (registrations,lots of annoying ads, etc.) and move along.
I'm on a 56K dialup, you can bet I'll cease to visit sites which do this. It's bad enough trying to selectively use Flash (I keep a script to rename the plug-in when I want/don't want) if these are coming as animated gifs then it's a sure thing I won't be waiting around to watch it.
With the recent fsckups of ebay, putting ads on pages and bloating them otherwise it's a matter of time until I can't handle that, either. Auctions, particularly those hosted on ebay, suffer from high bandwidth requirements.
The whole idea of internet advertizing is going in the wrong direction. You want to get your message across? Make it simple. You want to drive people away? Make it big and annoying (like pop-ups) seems there's a clue here for anyone willing to listen, if people are blocking pop-ups it's because they don't like them. Force people to view your ad content and make it large or annoying and you might as well shut your site down.
Exactly, someone's got to be the adults around here...
Or reading and posting on slashdot, but yeah, I see your point.
Here's a point for you to consider: who judges what use is use rather than just fiddling around?
The other interesting bit is how much of this 'use' happens at work...
S'cuse me, heard the latest Archie & Jughead is at the 7-11.
Indeed, and like a class action suit, those who sign up for a claim are entitled, those who don't get zip, unless the judgement calls for a full disbursement and recipients need not apply. I've been on the end of both types, got $7.50 from Sears, some coupon from Microsoft, and a couple thousand from some scumbag venture capitalists.
What they need is an "anti-spam" department. Partially gov't funded to start things off, but also supported by the proceeds of whatever spammers get busted/fined. I don't think I'd see part of the pie for nailing spammers, but I wouldn't mind donating my portion to nailing some more.
No, what they need is a good law and enforcement, nothing more is necessary, but we can't seem to get one or both.
Bad precedent. This creates a conflict of interest, say the Highway patrol is about to lose $25 million in funding, but ticket procedes go into their fund, thus they focus heavily on giving out tickets until their loss is replaces. Nope, can't allow that, tickets go into general funds for this reason.
So, if we listened to you, net taxes would be higher, as we'd lose out on the stupid anduseless distribution costs of first getting the fine money to the people, and then re-collecting it from the people in terms of taxes.
Geez. Ever thought about studying goverment before commenting on it? Fines should never be included in a planned governmental budget, I don't know what kind of evil regime you plan, but I want no part of it.
his proposed solution hardly calls for "justice"--rather, it rewards those with information.
You're joking, right? One of the most effective ways to stop an activity is to hit it where it's motivation lies, i.e. money. Make spamming unprofitable and people will shy away from it, after all, they're in it for money. Handing out some share of the fines isn't rewarding, to me, it's paying for the hours I've lost cleaning that shit from my mailboxes and the service problems I've endured while they plied their trade.
What? To get money out of them after the Govt. has already cleaned them out? You forget, when it comes to civil and and Govt., the Govt. always gets it's due first and civil can have anything left, assuming there is anything.
Best to put it in the legal code, right up front, the victim gets a share.
One of my general bitches about Fed/State/Local laws is that the goverment fines vermin and keeps the money for itself.
We're finally tossing the last of our original Macs. Some are Mac Plus, or a little newer, but it's remarkable how much use one could get out of those things. Can't quite say the same about PC's as we're chucking crates of those that are only 3-5 years old.
(Disclaimer: Not my auction, not related.)
It's for hand control, so you could, after a few years of playing games, have arms like Popeye and legs like Olive Oyl.
Nothing a few million $ couldn't rectify.
So what would Episodes 7-9 be like...
<Daydream Sequence>
Star Wars, Episode 7: A New Threat
Synopsis: Luke and Leia get married and head off on a honeymoon, leaving Han Solo and Chewbacca to watch over selection of the new senate. Han Solo gets bored and starts hyperspace download site of music and video content against the wishes of the immensely powerful IGRIMPAA (Inter Galactic Recording Industry and Motion Picture Artists Association), a thinly veiled group of thugs and bandits who have kept entertainers in thrall. Big cruisers appear out of hyperspace around Coruscant and Jar Jar Bings, in their employe serves subpoenas, furthering audience animosity.
Star Wars, Episode 8: Just An Awufl Mess
Synopsis: Luke and Leia return to Coruscant and find the IGRIMPAA firmly running things, Han Solo and Chewbacca rotting in prison and several worlds in outright rebellion. Luke procedes to reform a Jedi council, but finds space cruiser bombs going off all over the place. President Jar Jar Binks attempts to alay Luke's concerns, until it's found Leia has an ePod loaded with bootleg tunes from Naboo. Jar Jar reveals well kept secret that he is master of dark side and cuts off Luke's other hand in epic lightsabre battle. Han and Chewy come to rescue and all flee to the a distant world only to find another massive Deathstar built with IGRIMPAA profits.
Star Wars, Episode 9: Last of the Red-Hot Jedi
Synopsis: Luke and Leia's child, Xyzzy, demonstrates great skill with the force and greater skill with the source, hacks into DeathStar and shuts it down, in a bit of a special effects let-down, just see big ball with lights go out, no explosion. Luke and Leia return to Coruscant, along with Han and Chewbacca and in a final battle Luke duels with Jar Jar, both slice each other in half and last threat is brought to an end, except for offspring of Skywalkers, who demonstrates a slight inclination to power and position and a bit of an angry streak. We've been here before, no?
</Daydream Sequence>
While they may:
Be highly advanced in technology
Have weapons capable of destroying every city on earth in a matter of seconds
Be ruthless and waiting for their chance to invade and colonize earth and enslave humanity
The also:
Have massive credit card debt
Small members
Interest in Nigerian Money-making schemes
So, there is a chance we can be saved, if only all spammers would unite.
They're on Mars! D'oh! How am I supposed to get them there?</Homer>
Why settle for a neglected ISS when you can neglect a moon station, too! (Hmm. I'm currently reading Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, interesting..)
Yesterday I heard some whitehouse staffer, in defense of the Mars/Moon initiative say of Bush, "He likes to think big thoughts." Yeah, well how about that deficit, that's a pretty big thought. Oh, wait, Cheney said to Paul O'Neill, "Deficits don't matter." Guess I'm wrong again.
Yeah, sure beats this for a campaign slogan, "Vote Bush, because 50% of every tax dollar just pays interest on the debt and in another four years it'll be 75% of each dollar, but 'hey', we'll have a full employment of foreign engineers building economies in their home countries because NASA outsourced engineering and nation building is a good thing."
It's not 1984 yet, so at least let us think we still have voting power until the paperless voting machines invisibily take our rights away.
You didn't see in the news the bit about airports scanning background information on passangers as threats, did you? That information has to be collected and stored. We're getting there.
Have you ever been to the desert southwest? It's already taxed and the water is about to run out (no fair trying to drain the Great Lakes or divert Mississippi river water.) Growth in the southwest has boomed in the past two decades. Las Vegas is over 1 million and litterally living off the Colorado River. You can drill wells, but the water still has to come from the same place.
Not too likely people will want to live on other planets, but you know industry is just itching to get a peek at any advantage to be gained by getting something somewhere else, cheaply and selling it here. Seems a long way off to get make money in space, but someone will find a way and take advantage of economy of scale. Then people will simply follow to live near work.
The program is the right thing to do.
It should have been started long ago, it's overdue.
Now is a bad time to do it, thanks to reckless spending and slashing revenue.
The motivation isn't purely political, it's because China and India are expressing interest and it 'looks bad' if the USA lets anyone get a leg up, in short it's for selfish pride.
This isn't the leader to kick it off, but he's the only one who has.
I feel the same frustration and exasperation, it comes with being educated.
Max sustained transfer rate :
FireWire 800: up to 55MB/s
FireWire 400: up to 35MB/s
USB 2.0: up to 34MB/s
OK, is backup/archive solution, but 5 to 8 hours to transfer all disk, how do you back this up? :-)
Also, remind you of the suit George Jeton wore through all kinds of punishment when he thought he was going to die, then his wife washed it instead of dry cleaning, destroying it before it could get the Goodspacekeeping Seal?
Me neither... gimme!
I guess obfuscating their own message so much to foil spam filters has caught up with them, as their message is lost in their methods.
Easy to dump on, but sometimes copies go missing in the mail or are 'borrowed' by friends/family. Tags just trace it to the academy member who that copy was sent to. It's another thing to investigate and find what really happened.
Wasn't awful enough the first time? Try, try again Starship Troopers 2
I can just see the motto for the company that does this - "On Kaboom Spaceflights you'll probably make it."