Well, you can't. Because for YOU to benefit, you have to expose your identity. Which means you leave the anonymous world of Freenet, and return to the accountability and responsibility of Real Life (tm).
Yes, but here's the problem with ALL of these: 1) They are not ubiquitous 2) They are not general purpose 3) They are not anonymous
Who needs encryption? You fucking do. Now that companies are going after traders directly, anybody who trades any files illegally is going to need plausible deniability. ANYBODY. If you get the latest Apalachian Stomp disc, you're breaking the law. This is fine as long as the people who have the legal ability to fine or imprison you are willing to ignore your activities, or can't prove you did them.
They aren't. And they can.
So everybody needs encryption (UBIQUITOUS) for trading every type of file (GENERAL PURPOSE), and still remain ANONYMOUS.
If you use a proxy, they know YOU used a proxy. If you use SSL, they know YOU used SSL. If you used Freenet...who knows what you did!
And your speed argument is bullshit...My cable line is limited to 256 kbit, and i can download from Freenet just as fast, and usually faster, than I do from most other P2P apps. Besides, the fastest conceivable rate that your hard drive can POSSIBLY save data is 133 meg/second. With processors at 3.2 GHz, that leaves 24 clock cycles per byte to handle encryption, which should be plenty.
I think what YOU saw was the slowness of any new node on the system. It's gotten MUCH better in the last three months. Give it a try, before Hillary Rosen calls.
I don't get this argument. "I like the idea of freedom, but I also like the idea of controlling it." Whoa buddy. You can't CONTROL freedom, by definition. You also can't make somebody ELSE free -- freedom is a choice you make for yourself, a choice to mind your own fucking business and not expect somebody else to mind it for you. If want to be uncontrolled, you have to agree not to control anybody else, either.
My friend (who, ironically, is now in the marines) used to LOVE to tell us how the perfect communism utopia was also perfect anarchy, where people minded their own business because if they didn't, other people would put a stop to it. Freenet's got a slightly different take on this. The data it spreads cannot "hurt" anybody. Only its use can be construed as harmful. So if there's data on your computer, and you're not using it, it's not harming you.
If you're not ready for that, you're not ready to release your "sensitive information." Besides, that kind of information is begging to be controlled, and it's begging to be known. Freenet's anonymity and self-cleaning do not lend themselves to this.
In freenet, you are ALWAYS searching. You're searching for a KEY, that LOOKS like a URL but doesn't have any information about where it's stored, that translates to a piece of data. When you make a request, you tell your fellow clients what you're looking for, and they either return it, or keep looking for you.
The problem with "keyword" searching over freenet is that somebody, somewhere has to index everything -- make a list of keywords, associate them by "URL," etc. On the internet, the indexing is performed by spiders that work for massive database engines. On Freenet, there's not really any way to perform indexing without exposing the data inside keys being passed back and forth.
To get around this, applications have been written to publish indexes of the data to common KEYs (like "INDEX07162003"), so you can download them and maintain a search engine on your own PC. One such application is Frost. They work pretty damned well.
In the early days of freenet, OFF freenet spiders created search engines, but these are by nature not anonymous -- and they were kind of crap. There was also some experimentation with english language keys -- eg, KSK@GPL.txt -- but the problem was that people were uploading FALSE data on top of what was supposed to be there. So most freenet content is now published using a private/public key system, so only change requests from the initial producer are honored.
The result is this system which works in the exact opposite way of the regular internet. On the regular internet, the client can only handle static content, so manipulation is handled by the server. On Freenet, the content on the server is static, so manipulation is handled by the client. You don't get the full understanding of how strange this is until you've used some of the funkee freenet messaging systems.
Actually, it will have your knowledge and your consent. You know that Freenet has, is, and will be used to deliver content you don't agree with. You consent to allow this, or you don't use freenet.
It sounds like you are not ready to be free. The first step towards freedom is the release of control. As long as somebody is able to make a decision affecting somebody else's use of the medium, then it is not free. It is censorship -- and it doesn't matter how righteous you want to get about it, it's absolutely anthithetical to Freenet.
"But Freenet could be used by pornographers, theives, or terrorists!" True. It can also be used by artists, musicians and governments. It is a tool of the oppressed, with absolutely no background checks. Hell, if I had the ability to censor Freenet, I'd stop every picture of Hitler, every hateful word, and everything pro-conservative and I'd refuse to serve requests for these things, either. In fact, self censoring scripts have been proposed to allow users to "ban" offensive keys. However, none of them would work. Because data flows over and around the machines that won't serve it. New keys will be created daily to lift the ban.
If you don't like it, use the WWW. Freenet is a big, scary idea. A big data bath of absolute freedom. I feel I'm responsible and patriotic enough to use it -- because if even one intelligent, oppressed thought floats to the surface amid the gallons of smut, it'll be worthwhile.
Uh, no. Freenet wasn't designed to prevent this. Of COURSE Freenet lets you know what machines have connected to you, and what they've requested. Otherwise it couldn't send it to them -- it runs over TCP/IP, not magic! But this information -- the IP of the machine requesting an item from a datastore -- has absolutely no bearing on WHO did the intial request, or who will receive it in the end. Freenet clients make a request for a file, and the clients pass that request on as if it was there own.
So there's no difference between passing on a request, and making one yourself. Requesting a file becomes an anonymous activity, because you don't really have any idea how far this web goes. All you know is the requested "depth" cut off, so requests don't go more than N requests deep. And individual clients can (and do) rewrite this value. SO there's no way to tell if the client you've exploited is the first or a member on a chain of requests.
In fact, the best exploit for freenet would be a "sting," where you control all of the clients except for a handful. Then you know that these clients are doing all the dread. But it'd be really hard to establish this kind of "web of mistrust," considering that most freenet users populate their initial nodes either through the freenet website or through friends of theres. At that point, it's probably easier to get one of those friends to blab on you then it is to get evidence through technical means.
Data insertion works similar. If you have information in your datastore, there's no way to prove that you put it there. In fact, since you can explicitly exclude your own datastore from insertions, it's less likely that you'll have it if you inserted it. So if you have data in your store, it's equally likely that it was "pushed" to you to serve as it is that you downloaded it yourself. In fact, it's probably more likely, as freenet is receiving insert requests (more or less "uploads") all day, but only downloading when you're interacting with it.
Freenet's about PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY, which in a free (as in, bill of rights and supreme court) society should be enough to keep you out of prison. The difficulty of identifying computers is no different from regular peer to peer...the difficulty lies in IDENTIFYING them.
And as for buffer overflows...you don't know much about Java, do you? Individual applications can't become overfull due to automatic checking by the VM. So the unless the VM has bugs, the client is about as invulnerable as you can hope for. Plus, lots of us have looked at the key code for Freenet. I didn't trust it until I built it myself.
Well, walmart has a bunch of Lindows PCs for sale on their website, but that doesn't mean they're selling a lot of them. I'd have to say that they probably aren't selling many of them at all...or else they'd have them for sale at their retail outlets as well.
Considering how long (at least a year) they've been experimenting with these machines, I'd have to say that the fact that they're still just an "internet only" sale is evidence that the experiment is looking fairly grim.
How about a much larger nation with far less centralization? How about environmental and regulatory concerns for any cabling project? Plus there's the cost...I worked on a plow crew down near NYC, for 6 conduits of fiber, we had a crew of 20 work for 4 months 6 days a week, 12 hours per day, at $30 per hour. And that was the cheapest rate. And we were only going the 60 miles from the tappanzee to newburgh.
Plus we need more power for repeaters, routers, etc. We'd need to have more hubs and more technicians manning them. There's just no way.
Which is why going over existing phone lines, cable lines, and power lines is such a good idea. Now if we can get all three going at the same time in all areas, we might see prices drop and speeds increase. But America is so big -- and broadband demand so low -- that the only way any company can thrive in most areas is by establishing a local monopoly.
Of course, Freenet's not the easiest thing in the world to use. It's getting better, but the high rate of key return failure is disheartening. Still, it's better than requesting a file on KaZaa, only to find out that the user isn't really trading.
A dark, ominous project called "Google" is already doing this, with chilling results.
If you use this tool with my nickname, "das megabyte," you will get my name, address, and phone number within minutes. You may even discover some of my other aliases and projects.
It takes a little parsing. But that's why we've got highly paid DBAs, no?
Dude, I'd like to point out that I *NEVER* back up my data. Any of it. I consider a hard drive loss a way of figuring out what was really important to me.
Oh, except writing. I back that up by printing it out. Or postin it to slashdot.
XP is crap. Sorry, TRUE XP is crap. If you've heard of XP and think it's a good idea, do not make the mistake of reading anything about it. Just continue doing the part you heard about and thought was a good idea (like constant interaction with the customer or collaboration). Do not take the logical step and attempt to become a disciple of XP. You will either find yourself doing some of the stupidest things imaginable, or you will go insane. Visit softwarereality.com and you'll see what I mean.
Slashdot has always been this way. It's still got the good stories, at least my 30+ posts per month seem to suggest I care about them.
It's just that Slashdot has an audience of computer nerds. SCO is threatening to dismantle a piece of software that means a lot to the community, so obviously, we're watching everything they do. Microsoft is the biggest company on the planet, and anything they do has great ramifications on us and our industry. So obviously, we're going to eye them closely.
And of course moderators are going to cull stories that don't agree with their personal beliefs. Even with meta-mod, moderators are totally anonymous and therefore they can have no fear when hitting the "Troll" button on viable stories with a dissenting point of view. In fact, I think the rarity of this is a testament to the honor of those mods who do read at -1.
I read at 2, because I don't care what newbies, radicals and cowards have to say. I should be a republican.
Oh, and if you want to read really interesting, informational or insightful posts, add me as a friend;).
You know, I knew I'd get that french bit wrong. I spoke french for 8 weeks to get my diploma then promptly forgot it all, except "Ou se trouve le bain?"
"To bombard" is a verb, not a phrase. You can tell it's not a phrase because it has neither a subject nor an object. You make a good point that the alternate definition for the verb seems to fit by context clues, terse though they are. But in noun form, "bombard" doesn't mean that. It means "a late medieval cannon used to hurl stones." So how is using a verb as a noun correct?
It's not. You can't substitute actions for things or ideas. If asked for a pencil, I can't hand a person "to write." I can't argue that Heigel makes great strides in the field of "think." The word "bombard" therefore is either used wrong contextually, or it's just silly.
"Bombast" is a noun which is graphically and phonetically similar to "bombard," so it's easy to mix the two up. In the context of that sentence, "bombast" is beautiful, since it means "long-winded rhetoric." Like this post i'm penning now, but unlike the one I penned before it. That was succinct, though it was kind of bitchy. Je me excuse.
Therefore, the correction stands. And I'll thank you not to correct my correction incorrectly.
Uh, duh? I've only used the handle for 11 fucking years, you think I don't know it's grammatically incorrect? I just don't care.
"Die Megabyte" may be correct, but the homograph in english doesn't mean "the Megabyte" anymore, it means "I command this Megabyte to perish." So I erred on the side that made more sense in my primary language, and was only SLIGHTLY false in the secondary. The result has been about one joker a year who tells me my grammar's wrong, vs probably a dozen jokers a month asking why I wanted to kill 8,388,608 bits.
Other countries do this ALL THE TIME with English. How about Spanish: "El blue jeans," in which "blue jeans" is not a plural term, or "El Camping," in which "Camping" is a noun. And really it's nothing more than a curiosity -- it hardly makes them foolish.
Well, I think the problem here is not necessarily the simplification of language. After all, how do you simplify Hertz? "Cycles per second" is more confusing, and "Operations per second" is increasingly false. Can't very well simplify "Bytes" either...and the ways people try to explain them are stupid. Like the MP3 player rhetoric..."32 MB = 10 mp3s." By whose account?
No, I think the problem here is twofold: first, we're dealing with a completely different industry here. Things don't necesarily have physical analogues anymore. A "bigger" hard drive is the same physical size, it can hold more data because it's stored more densely inside. Until somebody understand this, they'll never understand storage. But maybe they don't need to know. Other industries aren't expected to explain this...shit, i didn't know what a carburetor was until last week. I could still buy and operate a car. Most people only need to know what size their hard drive is once it's full. Trying to explain to them the difference between hard drive sizes is a headache they don't need when buying a computer...Apple's methodology of "good, better, best" is really all most people need...and if "good" isn't cheap enough, strip it further until it is. Give us fewer intermediate choices, and you'll be surprised how many people go for the "best" option.
The other problem is marketting terms. They're garbage. What's the XP in Athlon XP? What's a Centrino? Will an Airport Xtreme Base Unit be faster than my 850+ 802.11g wireless ethernet gateway and cable modem router? Stop confusing people, guys, you're not making any sales because those of us who are bright enough to understand what you're saying aren't impressed by it, and those of us who don't understand it aren't buying it. Don't list the number of PCI ports when you sell a computer...it should have enough that this isn't a selling point. Don't tell us the speed and latency of the ram inside the computer, or how much cache the chip has, if it's always the same for that "level" of computer. Like a car, these should be in a spec sheet somewhere, but not on the side of the box. The side of the box should be used to explain what the product inside does.
"Airport Extreme -- With the right card inside your computer (one that says '802.11g' somewhere on the box), this device will allow you to use your internet connection anywhere within 300 feet. It's all done with radio waves and it won't interfere with your TV reception and is about the same speed as using a wire. So you don't have to string wires all over your house or office, or keep all your computers in the same cramped room."
Shit, I'd buy one, simply on account of the honesty.
It's embarrassing that I understood that enough to offer a correction. I think you meant "Bombast" and not "Bombard." Bombast is pretentious rhetoric. Bombard, as a noun, is a 14th century cannon.
Again it's proven that using complex words incorrectly is more embarrassing than using simple ones correctly. "Better to be silent and thought a fool," etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Hehe...on freenet, 90% of the content is rants about how much we hate the creators of freenet.
The other 10% is porn. Just like the real internet!
Well, you can't. Because for YOU to benefit, you have to expose your identity. Which means you leave the anonymous world of Freenet, and return to the accountability and responsibility of Real Life (tm).
AND THEN THEY GOT YA!
Yes, but here's the problem with ALL of these:
1) They are not ubiquitous
2) They are not general purpose
3) They are not anonymous
Who needs encryption? You fucking do. Now that companies are going after traders directly, anybody who trades any files illegally is going to need plausible deniability. ANYBODY. If you get the latest Apalachian Stomp disc, you're breaking the law. This is fine as long as the people who have the legal ability to fine or imprison you are willing to ignore your activities, or can't prove you did them.
They aren't. And they can.
So everybody needs encryption (UBIQUITOUS) for trading every type of file (GENERAL PURPOSE), and still remain ANONYMOUS.
If you use a proxy, they know YOU used a proxy. If you use SSL, they know YOU used SSL. If you used Freenet...who knows what you did!
And your speed argument is bullshit...My cable line is limited to 256 kbit, and i can download from Freenet just as fast, and usually faster, than I do from most other P2P apps. Besides, the fastest conceivable rate that your hard drive can POSSIBLY save data is 133 meg/second. With processors at 3.2 GHz, that leaves 24 clock cycles per byte to handle encryption, which should be plenty.
I think what YOU saw was the slowness of any new node on the system. It's gotten MUCH better in the last three months. Give it a try, before Hillary Rosen calls.
So don't use Freenet!
I don't get this argument. "I like the idea of freedom, but I also like the idea of controlling it." Whoa buddy. You can't CONTROL freedom, by definition. You also can't make somebody ELSE free -- freedom is a choice you make for yourself, a choice to mind your own fucking business and not expect somebody else to mind it for you. If want to be uncontrolled, you have to agree not to control anybody else, either.
My friend (who, ironically, is now in the marines) used to LOVE to tell us how the perfect communism utopia was also perfect anarchy, where people minded their own business because if they didn't, other people would put a stop to it. Freenet's got a slightly different take on this. The data it spreads cannot "hurt" anybody. Only its use can be construed as harmful. So if there's data on your computer, and you're not using it, it's not harming you.
If you're not ready for that, you're not ready to release your "sensitive information." Besides, that kind of information is begging to be controlled, and it's begging to be known. Freenet's anonymity and self-cleaning do not lend themselves to this.
Well, that's sort of wrong.
In freenet, you are ALWAYS searching. You're searching for a KEY, that LOOKS like a URL but doesn't have any information about where it's stored, that translates to a piece of data. When you make a request, you tell your fellow clients what you're looking for, and they either return it, or keep looking for you.
The problem with "keyword" searching over freenet is that somebody, somewhere has to index everything -- make a list of keywords, associate them by "URL," etc. On the internet, the indexing is performed by spiders that work for massive database engines. On Freenet, there's not really any way to perform indexing without exposing the data inside keys being passed back and forth.
To get around this, applications have been written to publish indexes of the data to common KEYs (like "INDEX07162003"), so you can download them and maintain a search engine on your own PC. One such application is Frost. They work pretty damned well.
In the early days of freenet, OFF freenet spiders created search engines, but these are by nature not anonymous -- and they were kind of crap. There was also some experimentation with english language keys -- eg, KSK@GPL.txt -- but the problem was that people were uploading FALSE data on top of what was supposed to be there. So most freenet content is now published using a private/public key system, so only change requests from the initial producer are honored.
The result is this system which works in the exact opposite way of the regular internet. On the regular internet, the client can only handle static content, so manipulation is handled by the server. On Freenet, the content on the server is static, so manipulation is handled by the client. You don't get the full understanding of how strange this is until you've used some of the funkee freenet messaging systems.
Actually, it will have your knowledge and your consent. You know that Freenet has, is, and will be used to deliver content you don't agree with. You consent to allow this, or you don't use freenet.
It sounds like you are not ready to be free. The first step towards freedom is the release of control. As long as somebody is able to make a decision affecting somebody else's use of the medium, then it is not free. It is censorship -- and it doesn't matter how righteous you want to get about it, it's absolutely anthithetical to Freenet.
"But Freenet could be used by pornographers, theives, or terrorists!" True. It can also be used by artists, musicians and governments. It is a tool of the oppressed, with absolutely no background checks. Hell, if I had the ability to censor Freenet, I'd stop every picture of Hitler, every hateful word, and everything pro-conservative and I'd refuse to serve requests for these things, either. In fact, self censoring scripts have been proposed to allow users to "ban" offensive keys. However, none of them would work. Because data flows over and around the machines that won't serve it. New keys will be created daily to lift the ban.
If you don't like it, use the WWW. Freenet is a big, scary idea. A big data bath of absolute freedom. I feel I'm responsible and patriotic enough to use it -- because if even one intelligent, oppressed thought floats to the surface amid the gallons of smut, it'll be worthwhile.
Uh, no. Freenet wasn't designed to prevent this. Of COURSE Freenet lets you know what machines have connected to you, and what they've requested. Otherwise it couldn't send it to them -- it runs over TCP/IP, not magic! But this information -- the IP of the machine requesting an item from a datastore -- has absolutely no bearing on WHO did the intial request, or who will receive it in the end. Freenet clients make a request for a file, and the clients pass that request on as if it was there own.
So there's no difference between passing on a request, and making one yourself. Requesting a file becomes an anonymous activity, because you don't really have any idea how far this web goes. All you know is the requested "depth" cut off, so requests don't go more than N requests deep. And individual clients can (and do) rewrite this value. SO there's no way to tell if the client you've exploited is the first or a member on a chain of requests.
In fact, the best exploit for freenet would be a "sting," where you control all of the clients except for a handful. Then you know that these clients are doing all the dread. But it'd be really hard to establish this kind of "web of mistrust," considering that most freenet users populate their initial nodes either through the freenet website or through friends of theres. At that point, it's probably easier to get one of those friends to blab on you then it is to get evidence through technical means.
Data insertion works similar. If you have information in your datastore, there's no way to prove that you put it there. In fact, since you can explicitly exclude your own datastore from insertions, it's less likely that you'll have it if you inserted it. So if you have data in your store, it's equally likely that it was "pushed" to you to serve as it is that you downloaded it yourself. In fact, it's probably more likely, as freenet is receiving insert requests (more or less "uploads") all day, but only downloading when you're interacting with it.
Freenet's about PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY, which in a free (as in, bill of rights and supreme court) society should be enough to keep you out of prison. The difficulty of identifying computers is no different from regular peer to peer...the difficulty lies in IDENTIFYING them.
And as for buffer overflows...you don't know much about Java, do you? Individual applications can't become overfull due to automatic checking by the VM. So the unless the VM has bugs, the client is about as invulnerable as you can hope for. Plus, lots of us have looked at the key code for Freenet. I didn't trust it until I built it myself.
Well, walmart has a bunch of Lindows PCs for sale on their website, but that doesn't mean they're selling a lot of them. I'd have to say that they probably aren't selling many of them at all...or else they'd have them for sale at their retail outlets as well.
Considering how long (at least a year) they've been experimenting with these machines, I'd have to say that the fact that they're still just an "internet only" sale is evidence that the experiment is looking fairly grim.
How about a much larger nation with far less centralization? How about environmental and regulatory concerns for any cabling project? Plus there's the cost...I worked on a plow crew down near NYC, for 6 conduits of fiber, we had a crew of 20 work for 4 months 6 days a week, 12 hours per day, at $30 per hour. And that was the cheapest rate. And we were only going the 60 miles from the tappanzee to newburgh.
Plus we need more power for repeaters, routers, etc. We'd need to have more hubs and more technicians manning them. There's just no way.
Which is why going over existing phone lines, cable lines, and power lines is such a good idea. Now if we can get all three going at the same time in all areas, we might see prices drop and speeds increase. But America is so big -- and broadband demand so low -- that the only way any company can thrive in most areas is by establishing a local monopoly.
Well, the thing about freenet is, it isn't. Either. You have to be networked to use it, and that ain't free.
However, once you've paid to become networked, you're free to network over freenet to your heart's desire.
Ha! Well then I guess it's good that, on Freenet, you'll never find me!
The latest version of freenet I downloaded doesn't even have an option for permanent nodes; i thought it got phased out for this very reason!
Agreed. Forget Udpp2p. Freenet's already here, it's bigger, it's faster, it's better...don't waste your time.
Of course, Freenet's not the easiest thing in the world to use. It's getting better, but the high rate of key return failure is disheartening. Still, it's better than requesting a file on KaZaa, only to find out that the user isn't really trading.
Of course. The liberal media like Fox News, Hannity and Colmes, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Those bleeding hearts run everything!
They're in it with the Jews and the Communists...and the Druids!
A dark, ominous project called "Google" is already doing this, with chilling results.
If you use this tool with my nickname, "das megabyte," you will get my name, address, and phone number within minutes. You may even discover some of my other aliases and projects.
It takes a little parsing. But that's why we've got highly paid DBAs, no?
Dude, I'd like to point out that I *NEVER* back up my data. Any of it. I consider a hard drive loss a way of figuring out what was really important to me.
Oh, except writing. I back that up by printing it out. Or postin it to slashdot.
XP is crap. Sorry, TRUE XP is crap. If you've heard of XP and think it's a good idea, do not make the mistake of reading anything about it. Just continue doing the part you heard about and thought was a good idea (like constant interaction with the customer or collaboration). Do not take the logical step and attempt to become a disciple of XP. You will either find yourself doing some of the stupidest things imaginable, or you will go insane. Visit softwarereality.com and you'll see what I mean.
Yeah, it's this awesome website called blackmarket.com
I heard about it back in the 90s when I visited Russia.
Slashdot has always been this way. It's still got the good stories, at least my 30+ posts per month seem to suggest I care about them.
;).
It's just that Slashdot has an audience of computer nerds. SCO is threatening to dismantle a piece of software that means a lot to the community, so obviously, we're watching everything they do. Microsoft is the biggest company on the planet, and anything they do has great ramifications on us and our industry. So obviously, we're going to eye them closely.
And of course moderators are going to cull stories that don't agree with their personal beliefs. Even with meta-mod, moderators are totally anonymous and therefore they can have no fear when hitting the "Troll" button on viable stories with a dissenting point of view. In fact, I think the rarity of this is a testament to the honor of those mods who do read at -1.
I read at 2, because I don't care what newbies, radicals and cowards have to say. I should be a republican.
Oh, and if you want to read really interesting, informational or insightful posts, add me as a friend
You know, I knew I'd get that french bit wrong. I spoke french for 8 weeks to get my diploma then promptly forgot it all, except "Ou se trouve le bain?"
It does. As a definite article, "the" identifies scope and completely changes meaning in a sentence. EG:
"I like pizza." General scope. You're saying what you enjoy generally. It does not mean you'll like a specific pie.
"I like the pizza." Specific scope. You're saying that you enjoy a specific pie. It does not mean you usually like pizza.
It may not be quite as 'tangible' as nouns and verbs, but it certainly stands for something.
"To bombard" is a verb, not a phrase. You can tell it's not a phrase because it has neither a subject nor an object. You make a good point that the alternate definition for the verb seems to fit by context clues, terse though they are. But in noun form, "bombard" doesn't mean that. It means "a late medieval cannon used to hurl stones." So how is using a verb as a noun correct?
It's not. You can't substitute actions for things or ideas. If asked for a pencil, I can't hand a person "to write." I can't argue that Heigel makes great strides in the field of "think." The word "bombard" therefore is either used wrong contextually, or it's just silly.
"Bombast" is a noun which is graphically and phonetically similar to "bombard," so it's easy to mix the two up. In the context of that sentence, "bombast" is beautiful, since it means "long-winded rhetoric." Like this post i'm penning now, but unlike the one I penned before it. That was succinct, though it was kind of bitchy. Je me excuse.
Therefore, the correction stands. And I'll thank you not to correct my correction incorrectly.
Uh, duh? I've only used the handle for 11 fucking years, you think I don't know it's grammatically incorrect? I just don't care.
"Die Megabyte" may be correct, but the homograph in english doesn't mean "the Megabyte" anymore, it means "I command this Megabyte to perish." So I erred on the side that made more sense in my primary language, and was only SLIGHTLY false in the secondary. The result has been about one joker a year who tells me my grammar's wrong, vs probably a dozen jokers a month asking why I wanted to kill 8,388,608 bits.
Other countries do this ALL THE TIME with English. How about Spanish: "El blue jeans," in which "blue jeans" is not a plural term, or "El Camping," in which "Camping" is a noun. And really it's nothing more than a curiosity -- it hardly makes them foolish.
Well, I think the problem here is not necessarily the simplification of language. After all, how do you simplify Hertz? "Cycles per second" is more confusing, and "Operations per second" is increasingly false. Can't very well simplify "Bytes" either...and the ways people try to explain them are stupid. Like the MP3 player rhetoric..."32 MB = 10 mp3s." By whose account?
No, I think the problem here is twofold: first, we're dealing with a completely different industry here. Things don't necesarily have physical analogues anymore. A "bigger" hard drive is the same physical size, it can hold more data because it's stored more densely inside. Until somebody understand this, they'll never understand storage. But maybe they don't need to know. Other industries aren't expected to explain this...shit, i didn't know what a carburetor was until last week. I could still buy and operate a car. Most people only need to know what size their hard drive is once it's full. Trying to explain to them the difference between hard drive sizes is a headache they don't need when buying a computer...Apple's methodology of "good, better, best" is really all most people need...and if "good" isn't cheap enough, strip it further until it is. Give us fewer intermediate choices, and you'll be surprised how many people go for the "best" option.
The other problem is marketting terms. They're garbage. What's the XP in Athlon XP? What's a Centrino? Will an Airport Xtreme Base Unit be faster than my 850+ 802.11g wireless ethernet gateway and cable modem router? Stop confusing people, guys, you're not making any sales because those of us who are bright enough to understand what you're saying aren't impressed by it, and those of us who don't understand it aren't buying it. Don't list the number of PCI ports when you sell a computer...it should have enough that this isn't a selling point. Don't tell us the speed and latency of the ram inside the computer, or how much cache the chip has, if it's always the same for that "level" of computer. Like a car, these should be in a spec sheet somewhere, but not on the side of the box. The side of the box should be used to explain what the product inside does.
"Airport Extreme -- With the right card inside your computer (one that says '802.11g' somewhere on the box), this device will allow you to use your internet connection anywhere within 300 feet. It's all done with radio waves and it won't interfere with your TV reception and is about the same speed as using a wire. So you don't have to string wires all over your house or office, or keep all your computers in the same cramped room."
Shit, I'd buy one, simply on account of the honesty.
It's embarrassing that I understood that enough to offer a correction. I think you meant "Bombast" and not "Bombard." Bombast is pretentious rhetoric. Bombard, as a noun, is a 14th century cannon.
Again it's proven that using complex words incorrectly is more embarrassing than using simple ones correctly. "Better to be silent and thought a fool," etc.