"Wanting to use an ad-supported business model doesn't buy you a right to anyone's eyeballs"
No, and not wanting to see ads doesn't buy you a right to anyone's content. They put banners there so they don't have to charge you. Many sites give you the option of paying to not see the ads, at which point I would say ad blocking cross the line into theft because you are taking a non-free product (that being an alternate version of the site) without paying.
Not using the website is the ethical decision. If you aren't contributing to the business the business has no desire or obligation to contribute to you.
People who block ads are not much different than spammers. They are abusing the nature of the internet to get something at the expense of another. I hope you read the TOS on every site you block ads for, as you could be in breach of contract if usage dictates that you can't block ads.
If you don't like ads, don't visit sites with ads. Stealing their bandwidth not only hurts the site, but hurts those who are actually being honest and viewing the ads or opting out, if available.
CAPTCHA (or whatever you want to call it) has a flaw. It only requires a human to be involved in one part of the test. A smart human will use code to distill out the rest of the process and be presented with a simple two column display, one with the image and the other with an input. This human can then blast through dozens of verifications per minute, easily a thousand per hour. Granted this is better than a thousand per minute, but in many cases, not much better.
When I tell people of this they typically have one or both of the following responses:
1. Nobody would sit there typing in codes for hours. Wrong, if there is gain to be had, then people will do it and have done it. If there is enough gain, someone could simply hire temps to do this all day.
2. Hackers/crackers aren't smart enough to do all that. Wrong, hackers are as smart as anyone else. Again, if there is gain to be had, it will be had.
It is a barrier to entry, but it's a surmountable one that the academic types seemingly ignore with hands over their ears yelling "la la la la".
So the inept driver that is driving erratically and dangerously pulls directly in front of someone that is fully under control but happens to be doing 2mph over the limit, guess who the boxes will say is at fault?
Re:I think the real problem with these games
on
The Trouble with MMORPGs
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Games are about competing. Not necessarily winning, but at least competing. There are other aspects, like socializing, but if that was the ultimate goal then Sony would just be charging $15/month to get on IRC servers (you could argue that this is what being an entertainer in SWG is).
The designer's challenge is this: What basis will players compete on? The answers are a combination of several factors, each with pros and cons.
Time (e.g. EverQuest)
Pros - Simple, fair in the sense that regardless of all other variables, someone can always get ahead just by playing.
Cons - Leads to grinding, also unfair in the sense that there is a wide disparity between the amount of time various players have available.
Physical skill (e.g. Quake)
Pros - Interesting gameplay
Cons - If you aren't as skilled as other players, you'll quickly grow tired of being beaten and having no perceivable way to win.
Intelligence (e.g. Chess)
Pros - Very interesting gameplay
Cons - The same people will always win, and there is nothing those other people can do about it.
Knowledge (e.g. Trivial Pursuit)
Pros - Related to intelligence, but you can gain an edge by studying/learning.
Cons - Takes a lot of time outside of the game to get better at the game.
So no matter what you pick or what combination you pick it in, there are downsides. I haven't really read a cogent article on how to really improve games, they all just say "don't do this or this or that", this one included. What exactly is your alternative to killing rats at level 1, killing dragons? Then what do you kill at level 50? So you want to get rid of levels, now where is my sense of progress? You want more content, which is expensive to develop, are you willing to sacrifice something else for a great storyline?
What I'm trying to say here is that games aren't necessarily broken, they are just faced with challenges. It used to be all about graphics and effects, but we've kind of gotten over that hump, I run SWG at lowest possible detail and it still looks so great I never think about the graphics. Groundbreaking games like GTA3 have really spoiled us and raised our expectations, but we need to realize that the current games are better than the previous ones, often marvelously so, and if you don't temper your whining with some praise you sound pretty ignorant.
Could anyone say what additional legal rights (if any) come from licensing a piece of machinery? Also I've never heard of a license to have something physical. There are permits, issued by municipalities, and there are leases and rental agreements, but licenses?
Also, I assume their design is patented or copyrighted, which to me would seem sufficient for giving them legal grounds to prevent duplication.
Agreed. It should be obvious to everyone right now that there is no simple single solution to spam. Anyone with good problem solving skills knows that the next step is to look for simple solutions to pick off the "low hanging fruit". The legal method (this one or otherwise) is simply a step to stop a certain percentage of spammers. If a good technical solution can only deal with 95% of spam, now you have something to do with some of that other 5%.
There are smart spammers, but there are a TON of dumb spammers who are only doing this because someone showed them how and said its legal and easy. Now those people have to consider that what they are doing is illegal. Many will continue to do so, but many will stop, and thats a Good Thing in my opinion.
As far as the unintended aspect, thats a tricky one. There are many times when accidents are punishable. If you accidentally send a mail to your do-not-mail list, should you be punished? If you accidentally leave your car in drive and it runs someone over should you be punished?
The other unintended consequence (especially given the FBI's recent track record) is that this will be used beyond the scope of fighting spam. That, of course, is a risk with any law, and dismissing this one based on that fear, without specific examples, is unreasonable.
You the customer have recourse, it's called your wallet. Just find an ISP that guarantees you they won't accept any paid spam. If you can't find one, start one:)
"The AT&T logo is a good example of branding. Show the globe part of the logo to people and most of them will know it's AT&T. The same goes for the Coca-Cola "wave" and the Nike check mark. Those are brands."
Close, but you are talking about trademarks. Those are simply one part of branding (specifically part of "brand awareness"). Branding is establishing your name and being able to leverage that establishment. One of the all-time best brands is Apple. The fact that they can successfully run ads without any text on them speaks for their logo, but the fact that they can launch an online music store and have millions of sales instantly speaks for their brand. Lots of people have grown to like their products, and if you love your OS X you figure you'll like iTunes because "its from Apple".
Of course branding goes both ways, which is the reason that when someone says "there is no such thing as bad press" you can be sure they aren't very business savvy. If Hyundai came out with a $100,000 luxury car that was better than a BMW or Mercedes, it would take a LONG time for it to gain acceptance, because its tough to shift a brand that far (from a price-conscious consumer to a brand-conscious one). This is why Toyota has Lexus, Honda has Acura, etc.
Flipping again, strong brands can be a boon even if they aren't based on truth. Honda has a reputation of reliability, Jaguar has a reputation for unreliability. The truth is that Jaguar is more reliable than a Honda (I wouldn't buy either but that's a different story). [Ref 2001 Vehicle Dependability Study at http://www.jdpower.com/cc/auto/releases/search.asp ?CatID=1 ] The reputation is likely due to past history, but its also due to the fact that Jaguar doesn't mention it in their marketing, while Honda does so heavily.
I think you are confusing Java with applets. JSP (especially under Resin) is so fast and so efficient that I still have a hard time believing that some of the servers I work with can keep up. One is running a data-driven applicatino on a PPRO180 handling 8-10000 sessions a day, thats just crazy.
PHP has it's place, its great for multi-user web hosting companies where Java's architecture is a poor choice. It's not great for enterprise development, and every time someone who is fresh off writing their forum site suggests it I just have to pull out the long list of security problems PHP has/does have and the discussion ends immediately.
Why do PHP people feel the need to get into enterprise development? Java people aren't out there pushing for fansites and homepages to switch over, because they know its a bad choice.
1. Flat rate - You list requirements, charge a price, they pay you at the end or at milestones. DO NOT DO THIS if you are a student, as no matter how smart you are you will make mistakes in your scoping, since scoping is 99% experience based, and you will get hosed and/or not get paid.
2. Hourly rate - Set goals, give estimates for milestones, get paid as you go. If they don't pay, you stop working and you're only out a few weeks of effort. If they pay, you're golden. This is the way you, as an inexperienced professional developer should go.
3. Salary - You commit to give them X hours of time per week and they can assign you tasks however you want. You get a fairly stable income, but the company will probably not want to do this because there is high upside risk for them, especially if contracts are involved and you aren't as capable as they/you think. Also it puts the management onus on them. The type of person/people you are working with determines if that's a good or bad thing.
I don't know about lectures, but I've been watching baseball games at 3x speed (and skipping commercials) for a while now. I watch the dramatic situations (like most of last nights Boston/Oakland game) in full speed to fully appreciate the tension, but I find I can easily watch a whole game in like 45-60 minutes, without missing anything (except the inane banter).
What really endeared me to the movies was how much the movie was like the images in my head. When I saw the shire in the first preview, it was as if someone had stolen my brain. The horsemen, Gandalf, Boromir, among others were all practically printouts of my mental imagery. The only exception was Gollum, who is close but I always imagined him a little darker and slimier and generally more evil.
You mean these "senators", who I hear are sometimes "elected" by the "people", did something in the "interest" of these "people"? What about the sacred rulings of the FCC? I mean come on, the guy who runs that is the son of a general! Plus he had the support of at least two other members of this agency, and all for naught.
That's actually all the needs to be said. THe problem is the industry is set up so that everyone still gets a piece of the action. If the publisher started selling the same books that BN has, but for much less money, BN would probably stop carrying that publisher, which is a perfectly legit business practice. If I paid $5 instead of $25, I wouldn't really mind the limitations.
Your point about a huge company like IBM putting all it's eggs in one basket is very valid. The notable difference between this and an SSL certificate is that email is a push, while web is a pull.
Switching ISPs isn't really a problem. The vast majority of spam isn't sent through an ISPs mail server, they almost all have stringent controls in place. Its the people that set up DSL/Cable/Colo mail servers that generate most of the spam, and this would force them to buy a new certificate every day or two, which pretty much blows the budgets of alot of spammers. If someone went ahead and got a whole bunch of certificates, there would hopefully be a much better paper trail for litigation, and the veil of forgery and anonyminity would be greatly weakened.
I can see this becoming a "preferred" transport method. So when you send your mail, if your server uses it, it will see if the destination server uses it, and if not, will revert to SMTP. Once it reached a critical mass (through the help of MSFT, sendmail, postfix, etc all adopting it) it would be a pretty effective way to flag messages as spam (or not).
Actually that is the case. Spammers aren't going to be able to fake hotmail and yahoo addresses anymore, and they will have to pay $$ for each domain they get, which will probably last a day or two before its blacklisted, and makes tracking them down easier (if CAs are at all cooperative and/or proactive).
They can't fix the printer because YOU can fix the printer. Unfortunately that's all you do now, because you're the only on-site tech left. Everything that doesn't have to be done on-site is now done from a different timezone.
The relationship stuff is nice, but the guy that makes the call to replace you doesn't know you, has probably never even seen your name, and doesn't think the reparte you have with your cubemates is worth $40,000/year.
About the English, they can speak it very well, often being indistinguishable from someone who grew up here. And like I said, its the skeleton onsite staff that faces the clients, and the backoffice staff that handles the real problems.
About the developers, don't worry about us, we're doing fine. The real developers that is. There were lots of posers out there for a while, but the population has been culled and the best of us were never really in any danger.
Agreed. Another tactic is to simply lay it all on the table in simple terms. "I'm booked up till next Thursday afternoon." It puts things in a context anyone can understand and if you are specific it's hard for them to argue with you or fault you for it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Wanting to use an ad-supported business model doesn't buy you a right to anyone's eyeballs"
No, and not wanting to see ads doesn't buy you a right to anyone's content. They put banners there so they don't have to charge you. Many sites give you the option of paying to not see the ads, at which point I would say ad blocking cross the line into theft because you are taking a non-free product (that being an alternate version of the site) without paying.
Not using the website is the ethical decision. If you aren't contributing to the business the business has no desire or obligation to contribute to you.
People who block ads are not much different than spammers. They are abusing the nature of the internet to get something at the expense of another. I hope you read the TOS on every site you block ads for, as you could be in breach of contract if usage dictates that you can't block ads.
If you don't like ads, don't visit sites with ads. Stealing their bandwidth not only hurts the site, but hurts those who are actually being honest and viewing the ads or opting out, if available.
This is like Fox News, the story doesn't tell you anything more than the headline did. Weak.
CAPTCHA (or whatever you want to call it) has a flaw. It only requires a human to be involved in one part of the test. A smart human will use code to distill out the rest of the process and be presented with a simple two column display, one with the image and the other with an input. This human can then blast through dozens of verifications per minute, easily a thousand per hour. Granted this is better than a thousand per minute, but in many cases, not much better.
When I tell people of this they typically have one or both of the following responses:
1. Nobody would sit there typing in codes for hours. Wrong, if there is gain to be had, then people will do it and have done it. If there is enough gain, someone could simply hire temps to do this all day.
2. Hackers/crackers aren't smart enough to do all that. Wrong, hackers are as smart as anyone else. Again, if there is gain to be had, it will be had.
It is a barrier to entry, but it's a surmountable one that the academic types seemingly ignore with hands over their ears yelling "la la la la".
So the inept driver that is driving erratically and dangerously pulls directly in front of someone that is fully under control but happens to be doing 2mph over the limit, guess who the boxes will say is at fault?
The designer's challenge is this: What basis will players compete on? The answers are a combination of several factors, each with pros and cons.
So no matter what you pick or what combination you pick it in, there are downsides. I haven't really read a cogent article on how to really improve games, they all just say "don't do this or this or that", this one included. What exactly is your alternative to killing rats at level 1, killing dragons? Then what do you kill at level 50? So you want to get rid of levels, now where is my sense of progress? You want more content, which is expensive to develop, are you willing to sacrifice something else for a great storyline?
What I'm trying to say here is that games aren't necessarily broken, they are just faced with challenges. It used to be all about graphics and effects, but we've kind of gotten over that hump, I run SWG at lowest possible detail and it still looks so great I never think about the graphics. Groundbreaking games like GTA3 have really spoiled us and raised our expectations, but we need to realize that the current games are better than the previous ones, often marvelously so, and if you don't temper your whining with some praise you sound pretty ignorant.
Could anyone say what additional legal rights (if any) come from licensing a piece of machinery? Also I've never heard of a license to have something physical. There are permits, issued by municipalities, and there are leases and rental agreements, but licenses?
Also, I assume their design is patented or copyrighted, which to me would seem sufficient for giving them legal grounds to prevent duplication.
Agreed. It should be obvious to everyone right now that there is no simple single solution to spam. Anyone with good problem solving skills knows that the next step is to look for simple solutions to pick off the "low hanging fruit". The legal method (this one or otherwise) is simply a step to stop a certain percentage of spammers. If a good technical solution can only deal with 95% of spam, now you have something to do with some of that other 5%.
There are smart spammers, but there are a TON of dumb spammers who are only doing this because someone showed them how and said its legal and easy. Now those people have to consider that what they are doing is illegal. Many will continue to do so, but many will stop, and thats a Good Thing in my opinion.
As far as the unintended aspect, thats a tricky one. There are many times when accidents are punishable. If you accidentally send a mail to your do-not-mail list, should you be punished? If you accidentally leave your car in drive and it runs someone over should you be punished?
The other unintended consequence (especially given the FBI's recent track record) is that this will be used beyond the scope of fighting spam. That, of course, is a risk with any law, and dismissing this one based on that fear, without specific examples, is unreasonable.
You the customer have recourse, it's called your wallet. Just find an ISP that guarantees you they won't accept any paid spam. If you can't find one, start one :)
"The AT&T logo is a good example of branding. Show the globe part of the logo to people and most of them will know it's AT&T. The same goes for the Coca-Cola "wave" and the Nike check mark. Those are brands."
p ?CatID=1 ] The reputation is likely due to past history, but its also due to the fact that Jaguar doesn't mention it in their marketing, while Honda does so heavily.
Close, but you are talking about trademarks. Those are simply one part of branding (specifically part of "brand awareness"). Branding is establishing your name and being able to leverage that establishment. One of the all-time best brands is Apple. The fact that they can successfully run ads without any text on them speaks for their logo, but the fact that they can launch an online music store and have millions of sales instantly speaks for their brand. Lots of people have grown to like their products, and if you love your OS X you figure you'll like iTunes because "its from Apple".
Of course branding goes both ways, which is the reason that when someone says "there is no such thing as bad press" you can be sure they aren't very business savvy. If Hyundai came out with a $100,000 luxury car that was better than a BMW or Mercedes, it would take a LONG time for it to gain acceptance, because its tough to shift a brand that far (from a price-conscious consumer to a brand-conscious one). This is why Toyota has Lexus, Honda has Acura, etc.
Flipping again, strong brands can be a boon even if they aren't based on truth. Honda has a reputation of reliability, Jaguar has a reputation for unreliability. The truth is that Jaguar is more reliable than a Honda (I wouldn't buy either but that's a different story). [Ref 2001 Vehicle Dependability Study at http://www.jdpower.com/cc/auto/releases/search.as
I think you are confusing Java with applets. JSP (especially under Resin) is so fast and so efficient that I still have a hard time believing that some of the servers I work with can keep up. One is running a data-driven applicatino on a PPRO180 handling 8-10000 sessions a day, thats just crazy.
PHP has it's place, its great for multi-user web hosting companies where Java's architecture is a poor choice. It's not great for enterprise development, and every time someone who is fresh off writing their forum site suggests it I just have to pull out the long list of security problems PHP has/does have and the discussion ends immediately.
Why do PHP people feel the need to get into enterprise development? Java people aren't out there pushing for fansites and homepages to switch over, because they know its a bad choice.
Why does /. not show years? Or not have the option to show them that I can find?
The subject pretty much sums it all up.
Actually most gamers I know have multiple monitors (typically on multiple machines). One is for email/IRC/web/IM/music and the other is for the game.
1. Flat rate - You list requirements, charge a price, they pay you at the end or at milestones. DO NOT DO THIS if you are a student, as no matter how smart you are you will make mistakes in your scoping, since scoping is 99% experience based, and you will get hosed and/or not get paid.
2. Hourly rate - Set goals, give estimates for milestones, get paid as you go. If they don't pay, you stop working and you're only out a few weeks of effort. If they pay, you're golden. This is the way you, as an inexperienced professional developer should go.
3. Salary - You commit to give them X hours of time per week and they can assign you tasks however you want. You get a fairly stable income, but the company will probably not want to do this because there is high upside risk for them, especially if contracts are involved and you aren't as capable as they/you think. Also it puts the management onus on them. The type of person/people you are working with determines if that's a good or bad thing.
"Massachusetts is proving itself the most technologically inept state in the nation"
There is trolling for press coverage, which is fine (it is a "press" release after all), and then there is completely undermining your statement.
I don't know about lectures, but I've been watching baseball games at 3x speed (and skipping commercials) for a while now. I watch the dramatic situations (like most of last nights Boston/Oakland game) in full speed to fully appreciate the tension, but I find I can easily watch a whole game in like 45-60 minutes, without missing anything (except the inane banter).
What really endeared me to the movies was how much the movie was like the images in my head. When I saw the shire in the first preview, it was as if someone had stolen my brain. The horsemen, Gandalf, Boromir, among others were all practically printouts of my mental imagery. The only exception was Gollum, who is close but I always imagined him a little darker and slimier and generally more evil.
Wow, how do you find the time to inspect the penises of not only a representative sample of SUV drivers, but Java programmers as well. Kudos!
You mean these "senators", who I hear are sometimes "elected" by the "people", did something in the "interest" of these "people"? What about the sacred rulings of the FCC? I mean come on, the guy who runs that is the son of a general! Plus he had the support of at least two other members of this agency, and all for naught.
This is the last straw, I'm moving to Canada.
"Price was the same as hardcover, $24.95 WTF?"
That's actually all the needs to be said. THe problem is the industry is set up so that everyone still gets a piece of the action. If the publisher started selling the same books that BN has, but for much less money, BN would probably stop carrying that publisher, which is a perfectly legit business practice. If I paid $5 instead of $25, I wouldn't really mind the limitations.
Your point about a huge company like IBM putting all it's eggs in one basket is very valid. The notable difference between this and an SSL certificate is that email is a push, while web is a pull.
Switching ISPs isn't really a problem. The vast majority of spam isn't sent through an ISPs mail server, they almost all have stringent controls in place. Its the people that set up DSL/Cable/Colo mail servers that generate most of the spam, and this would force them to buy a new certificate every day or two, which pretty much blows the budgets of alot of spammers. If someone went ahead and got a whole bunch of certificates, there would hopefully be a much better paper trail for litigation, and the veil of forgery and anonyminity would be greatly weakened.
I can see this becoming a "preferred" transport method. So when you send your mail, if your server uses it, it will see if the destination server uses it, and if not, will revert to SMTP. Once it reached a critical mass (through the help of MSFT, sendmail, postfix, etc all adopting it) it would be a pretty effective way to flag messages as spam (or not).
Actually that is the case. Spammers aren't going to be able to fake hotmail and yahoo addresses anymore, and they will have to pay $$ for each domain they get, which will probably last a day or two before its blacklisted, and makes tracking them down easier (if CAs are at all cooperative and/or proactive).
They can't fix the printer because YOU can fix the printer. Unfortunately that's all you do now, because you're the only on-site tech left. Everything that doesn't have to be done on-site is now done from a different timezone.
The relationship stuff is nice, but the guy that makes the call to replace you doesn't know you, has probably never even seen your name, and doesn't think the reparte you have with your cubemates is worth $40,000/year.
About the English, they can speak it very well, often being indistinguishable from someone who grew up here. And like I said, its the skeleton onsite staff that faces the clients, and the backoffice staff that handles the real problems.
About the developers, don't worry about us, we're doing fine. The real developers that is. There were lots of posers out there for a while, but the population has been culled and the best of us were never really in any danger.
Agreed. Another tactic is to simply lay it all on the table in simple terms. "I'm booked up till next Thursday afternoon." It puts things in a context anyone can understand and if you are specific it's hard for them to argue with you or fault you for it.