"Learned what? How expensive is advertising? How expensive do you expect the fine to be? Do the math."
There's no such thing as bad publicity. Even if they get a lot of bad press, there will still be a lot of pictures circulated with the butterfly and its association with microsoft.
"What bugs me is the two stories about the Linux Grafitti was all about a good advertising scheme, and this is about 'vandalization'. Petty narrowmindedness is annoying."
The microsoft signs are made with appliqués that are just stuck to walls by static electricity. The ones on sidewalks are can be peeled off. This creates undue waste and probably could create hazards for people who try to nagivate over the sidewalk appliqués in wheelchairs. I expect the people in butterfly suits create an annoyance for all.
The linux campaign was done with biodegradable chalk. Big difference. No harmful waste. Less hazard for transportation, although some say that chalk makes rodes more slippery. And as far as I know, they didn't have people in Tux suits swarming around and creating more distractions.
Both of them create visual distractions and probably shouldn't have been attempted in the first place without authorisation from the city. But the IBM campaign was definitely better thought out than this microsoft one.
I've seen sillier ones. Like this one day on Bay Street in Toronto there were these guys and gals walking around in skimpy pyjamas handing out flyers for... whatever they were advertising.
"I don't know about other registrars, but GoDaddy allow you to lock your domain to prevent transfers and ownership-details changes. You have to log-in to their web admin stuff and turn the lock off prior to making any account changes. Technically pretty simple, but gives me warm fuzzies all the same."
You can do a similar thing with DirectNIC, who has been managing my domain names for almost a year now. (They are great, btw, with lots of extra free features, and a non clueness person answered my e-mail to them at 10PM on New Year's Eve. And please don't ask me what I was doing administering domain names on New Year's Eve.:-)
Basically, fraudulent transfers where the registrar says you authorised and you didn't really authorise it automatically go through if you don't actively repsond to a confirmation e-mail. With DirectNIC, you can turn on "secure mode" where the transfers are automatically denied unless you reply to the confirmation e-mail.
"I'm personally sick of this argument that people talk louder or make profane/personal comments into cell phones. Not everyone does and quite a few people at resturants who have maybe had a bit too much to drink can be just as loud or make profane remarks to the other people in their party."
I think the true argument about people talking too loud or about personal things on cell phones was very well summarised by Dan Briody:
"Thou shalt not subject defenseless others to cell phone conversations. When people cannot escape the banality of your conversation, such as on the bus, in a cab, on a grounded airplane, or at the dinner table, you should spare them. People around you should have the option of not listening. If they don't, you shouldn't be babbling."
That's really what a lot of the complaints are about but most people haven't been able to articulate it.
"If they're really going to implement a technology to "block" cellphones, they'll probably leave it turned on all the time, even when you're at the gate. That will force you to "roam" on their network at $3.99 per minute, even if you are in your own service area."
I can see it now. Companies with the morality of Verisign and Gator would set up their own "cell" networks in high traffic buildings and block out the traditional networks, just like on the airplace. The would secretly charge people $3.99+ per minute whenever they make a call from that location. Of course the person would be none the wiser.
It sound just like a sneaker, more mobile version of slamming.
"This is a damn interesting point. Will there be a point in time when Microsoft will cease to issue re-activation keys for XP? Will it be the same date as when they stop supporting it? Does your software have a ticking time bomb inside it waiting to go off?"
Windows XP keys will probably cease being offered in, I predict, 2006. MSFT already terminated Windows 95 support five years after it was released and win98 support is slated to die in 2003. It makes sense that key generation is part of supporting the product because you have to support the people whose key will not work for whatever reason which requires people trained in the workings of that OS.
I suggest you start stockpiling key generators for XP.
"So the question is, what on earth will compell them to drop Windows on the desktop? Because it's sure as hell not any of the issues we've seen so far."
Easy, we must bribe Osama bin Laden to thank Americans everywhere for using Microsoft products because they allows him to easily determine the vulnerabilities of the United States' financial markets and operate covert bank accounts. He could end by blessing Microsoft.
"As a street level tech mostly working on MS boxes I can be a tad upset about the "auto update" feature.. i've made so much money in billable hours on boxes that just needed windows updates and a disk defrag that i can't even count.. i usually charge $50 for this service and explain what i did and that they need to do it themselves evey once in a while... well i still get reapeat calls to do it about once every 10-12 months on most boxes..and they don't want to be bothered by learning to click on it themselves.. hey..let the little guy make a buck..:)"
Add a pass of Ad-Aware and you'll get a good picture of how I made the money to pay for my first year university books. If it's a family and they have kids, Ad-aware always turns up a bunch of sextracker cookies along with bonzi buddy, gator, cydoor, etc. I wonder how ethical it is to benefit from the ignorance of other people about the dangers malware/spyware/trojans/etc?
"Who the heck is going to buy a used network card?? You can pick up a realtek 8139x based card for $10 CDN retail, and probably for close to the price of a pack of gum online;)"
Hah, this would be even better becausae Realtek cards often wreak havoc when people on Resnets have them. Often they will spontaneously change their MAC addresses WITHOUT user interference. Personally I prefer a non-crappy network card. 3Com, Dlink, etc.
"I was going to say that Microsoft could compliment it's "Switch to XP" ad campaign with "Linux Crashes", but that would be too easy."
Seriously, they're not going to draw attention to their #1 competitor by smearing it, especially when most of their customer base has never even heard of it.
Here, once and for all, is a log scale mathematics explanation. I'm still a student so I remember something about it:
Sound level is how loud a sound is to human ears. It can be measured in dB and an increase of 10 dB sounds ten times louder to human ears.
Sound intensity measures the energy of the sound, often in W/m^2. (Watts per metre squared.) If you multiply the sound intensity by the face area of your eardrum, you'll get the number of Joules per second (W = J/s) that your ear is perceiving. This scale is linear with human hearing perception, so double the intensity means it sounds twice is loud.
The Equation: B = 10log(I/Io)
B = sound level in dB
I = sound intensity in W/m^2
Io = sound floor of human hearing, Io = 1x10^-12 W/m^2
So, doing the math, 40dB = 1.0 x 10^-8 W/m^2.
And 31 dB = 1.26x10^-9 dB
So therefore, 40 dB is 7.94 times more intense, and therefore 7.94 times louder to human ears.
(7.94 = 1.0 x 10^-8 / 1.26x10^-9 )
Note: the previous poster's comment about one being 2,512 times quieter than the other was for different values, and this information does not override that person's (correct) calculation.
"Has any other/.er made a comparable system? How has it lasted?"
Last May or June I invested in some good cooling equipment and reduced the sound level of my system by about 20 dB. Frankly my solution is not as elegant or inexpensive as this guy but at least the machine is more portable and you don't need access to a wood shop.
I replaced the noisy-as-hell stock heatsink (coller master or whatnot) on my CPU with an Alpha 8045 and artic silver 3 thermal compound and then put a vantec stealth fan* on top of it. The great thing is that this HS is 80mmx80mm so you can use an 80mm fan as opposed to the standard 60mm fan. This means that it's possible to get greater airflow with lower speeds and thus lower noise.
I also replaced my other case fans with Vantec Stealths and got some light machine oil and lubed up all the fans' bearings to eliminate any tiny fan noises.
At an overall cost of CAD$120 or so, my box actually runs cooler than before and I don't get headaches when working.
My one mistake was usnig a slot loading DVD drive because the slot lets noise from inside the machine get out easily.
*Yes, I know that Panaflos are cheaper and only a tiny bit less well performing.
"I just finished telling our co-op student that very thing. He's convinced that since he's done it before with no problems, that it's perfectly ok. He remained steadfast until I told him he would be on the hook for any motherboard that got damaged in doing it.:)"
Sh!t !!!
Could this be why I have a machine with an intermittently working PS/2 keyboard port? I'm almost certain it's been hot plugged.
(Just for the record, I've probably hot plugged PS/2 keyboards hundreds of times but I can only think of this one instance where it POSSIBLY caused a problem.)
"He shouldn't have any problem paying the fine.
After all, he got rich on the Internet and you can too."
According to the article, he sold pamphlets for $40 in quantities of 30-50 per week for about a year. This was while sending 100K to 1M e-mails per week. So, at best, he's getting a 0.04% response rate.
Doing the math assuming an average for 40 sales pe week, he made $1600/wk, or $83,200 per year before expenses.
Since the fine is $98k, his losses, before expenses, are $14,800. Ha ha! Spamming doesn't pay!
Slashdot Mirror
There's no such thing as bad publicity. Even if they get a lot of bad press, there will still be a lot of pictures circulated with the butterfly and its association with microsoft.
The microsoft signs are made with appliqués that are just stuck to walls by static electricity. The ones on sidewalks are can be peeled off. This creates undue waste and probably could create hazards for people who try to nagivate over the sidewalk appliqués in wheelchairs. I expect the people in butterfly suits create an annoyance for all.
The linux campaign was done with biodegradable chalk. Big difference. No harmful waste. Less hazard for transportation, although some say that chalk makes rodes more slippery. And as far as I know, they didn't have people in Tux suits swarming around and creating more distractions.
Both of them create visual distractions and probably shouldn't have been attempted in the first place without authorisation from the city. But the IBM campaign was definitely better thought out than this microsoft one.
I've seen sillier ones. Like this one day on Bay Street in Toronto there were these guys and gals walking around in skimpy pyjamas handing out flyers for ... whatever they were advertising.
I've been infected by slashdotitis, dammit!
My, time does fly!
You can do a similar thing with DirectNIC, who has been managing my domain names for almost a year now. (They are great, btw, with lots of extra free features, and a non clueness person answered my e-mail to them at 10PM on New Year's Eve. And please don't ask me what I was doing administering domain names on New Year's Eve. :-)
Basically, fraudulent transfers where the registrar says you authorised and you didn't really authorise it automatically go through if you don't actively repsond to a confirmation e-mail. With DirectNIC, you can turn on "secure mode" where the transfers are automatically denied unless you reply to the confirmation e-mail.
Whoops, the correct link for Dan Briody should be: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/05/26/ 000526opwireless.xml
I think the true argument about people talking too loud or about personal things on cell phones was very well summarised by Dan Briody:
"Thou shalt not subject defenseless others to cell phone conversations. When people cannot escape the banality of your conversation, such as on the bus, in a cab, on a grounded airplane, or at the dinner table, you should spare them. People around you should have the option of not listening. If they don't, you shouldn't be babbling."
That's really what a lot of the complaints are about but most people haven't been able to articulate it.
I can see it now. Companies with the morality of Verisign and Gator would set up their own "cell" networks in high traffic buildings and block out the traditional networks, just like on the airplace. The would secretly charge people $3.99+ per minute whenever they make a call from that location. Of course the person would be none the wiser.
It sound just like a sneaker, more mobile version of slamming.
Windows XP keys will probably cease being offered in, I predict, 2006. MSFT already terminated Windows 95 support five years after it was released and win98 support is slated to die in 2003. It makes sense that key generation is part of supporting the product because you have to support the people whose key will not work for whatever reason which requires people trained in the workings of that OS.
I suggest you start stockpiling key generators for XP.
Easy, we must bribe Osama bin Laden to thank Americans everywhere for using Microsoft products because they allows him to easily determine the vulnerabilities of the United States' financial markets and operate covert bank accounts. He could end by blessing Microsoft.
The preceeding was a joke.
Add a pass of Ad-Aware and you'll get a good picture of how I made the money to pay for my first year university books. If it's a family and they have kids, Ad-aware always turns up a bunch of sextracker cookies along with bonzi buddy, gator, cydoor, etc. I wonder how ethical it is to benefit from the ignorance of other people about the dangers malware/spyware/trojans/etc?
Scratch the poutine. This is not at a Québec university.
Dammit! I might lose marks in a course because of this. I couldn't access the site for electronic submission!
Fortunately for me I haven't bought any of the 8139 based NICs, but thanks for the warning.
Maybe you haven't tried any recent cards. I have had nothing but rock solid reliability from 3Com and Dlink.
Hah, this would be even better becausae Realtek cards often wreak havoc when people on Resnets have them. Often they will spontaneously change their MAC addresses WITHOUT user interference. Personally I prefer a non-crappy network card. 3Com, Dlink, etc.
I laugh at the thought of this...
Seriously, they're not going to draw attention to their #1 competitor by smearing it, especially when most of their customer base has never even heard of it.
That should be 1.26x10^-9 W/m^2
Sound level is how loud a sound is to human ears. It can be measured in dB and an increase of 10 dB sounds ten times louder to human ears.
Sound intensity measures the energy of the sound, often in W/m^2. (Watts per metre squared.) If you multiply the sound intensity by the face area of your eardrum, you'll get the number of Joules per second (W = J/s) that your ear is perceiving. This scale is linear with human hearing perception, so double the intensity means it sounds twice is loud.
The Equation:
B = 10log(I/Io)
B = sound level in dB
I = sound intensity in W/m^2
Io = sound floor of human hearing, Io = 1x10^-12 W/m^2
So, doing the math, 40dB = 1.0 x 10^-8 W/m^2.
And 31 dB = 1.26x10^-9 dB
So therefore, 40 dB is 7.94 times more intense, and therefore 7.94 times louder to human ears.
(7.94 = 1.0 x 10^-8 / 1.26x10^-9 )
Note: the previous poster's comment about one being 2,512 times quieter than the other was for different values, and this information does not override that person's (correct) calculation.
Thank you, and have a nice day :-)
Sorry, I didn't realise that you were comparing it to the 65 dB as opposed to the 40dB.
Check your math. 31db not even 1/10th as loud to human ears than 40 db. (But still it is quieter.)
Last May or June I invested in some good cooling equipment and reduced the sound level of my system by about 20 dB. Frankly my solution is not as elegant or inexpensive as this guy but at least the machine is more portable and you don't need access to a wood shop.
I replaced the noisy-as-hell stock heatsink (coller master or whatnot) on my CPU with an Alpha 8045 and artic silver 3 thermal compound and then put a vantec stealth fan* on top of it. The great thing is that this HS is 80mmx80mm so you can use an 80mm fan as opposed to the standard 60mm fan. This means that it's possible to get greater airflow with lower speeds and thus lower noise.
I also replaced my other case fans with Vantec Stealths and got some light machine oil and lubed up all the fans' bearings to eliminate any tiny fan noises.
At an overall cost of CAD$120 or so, my box actually runs cooler than before and I don't get headaches when working.
My one mistake was usnig a slot loading DVD drive because the slot lets noise from inside the machine get out easily.
*Yes, I know that Panaflos are cheaper and only a tiny bit less well performing.
Sh!t !!!
Could this be why I have a machine with an intermittently working PS/2 keyboard port? I'm almost certain it's been hot plugged.
(Just for the record, I've probably hot plugged PS/2 keyboards hundreds of times but I can only think of this one instance where it POSSIBLY caused a problem.)
According to the article, he sold pamphlets for $40 in quantities of 30-50 per week for about a year. This was while sending 100K to 1M e-mails per week. So, at best, he's getting a 0.04% response rate.
Doing the math assuming an average for 40 sales pe week, he made $1600/wk, or $83,200 per year before expenses.
Since the fine is $98k, his losses, before expenses, are $14,800. Ha ha! Spamming doesn't pay!