Funny you should mention the first-born thing. When I signed up for my iPhone at the Apple Store, the salesperson handed me what I believe was a Windows Mobile device (all traces of the Windows UI were masked by a generic one, but the on-screen keyboard was a dead giveaway) with about a 3-inch touch screen on which to read the terms and conditions for the AT&T service. As I pretended to read through it all, I muttered out loud, "must agree to use Windows Mobile... transferral of naming rights of my first born... second mortgage on my house... third mortgage on my soul... sounds ok to me... I'll take the black one."
Social Security says an erroneous death record can be removed only when it is presented with proof that the original record was entered in error.
"Uh, hello? I'm here. I'm alive. What more proof do you need?"
"You have to prove that the record was entered in error, sir."
"You mean I have to find the data entry clerk and get a notarized statement that he didn't mean to mark me as dead? What if he meant to do it, because he's become mad with power?"
"Then you're dead, sir."
"If I'm dead, why are you still calling me 'sir?'"
"It's in the handbook: 'All male customers must be addressed as sir, regardless of age, national origin, ethnicity, or disability.' I think being dead would qualify as a disability. Anyway, it's not worth losing my job over. Next in line!"
Recent Super Deed
Rising from the dead. What? That's pretty frickin impressive! Have you ever risen from the dead? I didn't think so. Shut up, Netscape, or Windows Vista Sensei will kill you again in the tradition of his ancestors.
Occupation
Eating the brains of its users, and infecting them with the same viral marketing ads that we enjoy on MSN sites.
Work History
Started out life as a supposed "do-gooder," showing the lost and clueless denizens of the Internet how to get around and communicate. Lost its way though when it fell in with a bad crowd of "Free Software" hooligans who sat around drinking free beer or something. Found its true calling in the afterlife, redirecting wayward computer users back to the Microsoft homestead.
Thing About It That Would Surprise Most People
Purple is its favorite color. No, really. Seriously. That's the color its user's faces turn as it eats their brains.
Favorite Pet
No pets... it devoured them all and has now become Microsoft's pet.
Worst Fear
That the number 1 search term on Yahoo is "Google"
Maybe I am just evil, but I would not have posted this if I worked for a site that generated a lot of revenue through banner ads.
You would if you worked for Yahoo.
Microsoft
You'd come out of the "how do we get Microsoft to leave us alone without subjugating ourselves to Google" brainstorm meeting determined to convince Microsoft that online advertising is not the next big thing, it's the next big inflated idea that's about to burst and take a lot down with it. A huge part of Microsoft's reasoning behind the acquisition is that online advertising is about to take off, and if they can't kill Google now they'd better buy the #2 player so they have a larger piece of that pie. So you'd quietly see to it that this report about the value of ad clicks gets a lot of attention right after Microsoft announces it's going to pursue a hostile takeover.
Shareholders
Shareholders believe Yahoo has been losing value because it's losing to Google in the ad space, so Yahoo would want to point out that ads aren't the whole game for them. This report downplays the value of online advertising in the future, which would allow Yahoo to suggest that its premium, subscriber services will be a significant source of revenue. This is a bad idea, though, in my opinion. I've been subscribing to their premium services for years, but recently decided to cancel them after someone hijacked my Yahoo account, changed my password and began impersonating me through IM, email and other services during the three days it took them to get me back into my account. And in the aftermath, Yahoo has ignored every email I've sent about this. Bottom line: Yahoo lacks the security and customer service to maintain subscription-based services, and as this happens to more people they will also drop the services.
I work for a Mortgage company and I can tell you that we may never use Vista. Hopefully we can hold on to XP long enough for Microsoft to pull it's head out of its ass.
Funny, I was under the impression that Microsoft was waiting for the mortgage industry to pull its head out of its ass so the general public can afford to pay for a decent version of Windows. Pot, meet Kettle.
Or perhaps they're looking to the mortgage industry to come up with a better business model for Microsoft to copy, because "foreclosing" on people's PCs doesn't seem to be making them any money.
I saw something that looks similar (but I suspect is a different, though equally cool phenomenon) last December in Cupertino, CA driving west on I-280 (facing the Santa Cruz mountains).
It looked like the clouds were emerging from the mountains as fine jets that got wider as they got further into Silicon Valley. Anyone know what this is?
(At the time I thought perhaps they were clouds of flying monkeys from Microsoft's Mac Business Unit -- which is in those mountains -- descending upon Apple's main campus -- which is about a mile behind the vantage point of those pictures)
It's OK to use a Mac (a sleek, beautiful machine that's often not taken seriously) that's pretending to be a PC, but not vice versa (did you not hear about the disasterous attempt called Vista?).
Likewise, it's OK to be a woman (a sleek, beautiful machine that's often not taken seriously) pretending to be a man, but not vice versa (did you not hear about the disasterous attempt called Richard Simmons?).
I believe this is where a scene from the movie GATTACA was filmed (when Uma Thurman's character shows Ethan Hawke's the spectacle of the sunrise in a sea of mirrors). There's some neat satellite imagery of it on Google maps.
Interesting to note that just a few miles east of there is a town called Hinkley, made infamous by the movie Erin Brokovich as the place where giant utility PG&E allegedly tried to cover up their activities that contaminated the local groundwater with hexavalent chromium.
Just think, one of America's finest attempts at environmentally-friendly energy coincidentally about 15 miles east of one of its most notorious screw-ups -- in the middle of the desert with a whole lot of nothing in between. It seems there's a fine line between pride and shame.
No, "Our planet spins, and the spin should twist the dimple, slightly" explains leap years, daylight savings time, and the previously inexplicable 1.42-minute-per-month gain on my employer's time clock.
"A three-sided vortex (once limited to the greater Bermuda area but in recent years expanded to be anchored at Crawford, TX, Washington, DC, and Baghdad due to depletion of the ozone layer) into which pour vast sums of the rest of the world's time and money" explains the Bermuda Triangle.
IIRC, SCOTUS was asked to "fast-track" the case, bypassing some of the appeals process in the interest of time -- since a year or two is an eternity or two in the computer industry. They decided against fast-tracking it and said it should go through the normal appeals process before returning to SCOTUS. So they didn't reject the case, they just rejected the option of giving it special treatment.
how they intend to enforce the judgement. Try keeping tabs on the biggest information company in the world and you'll see where the problem lies.
The DOJ isn't going to enforce anything where MS is concerned because the company bought the Bush administration. It shouldn't have to babysit Microsoft anyway.
Microsoft's PR goons work hard to broaden this topic to derail any conversation non-lawyers might attempt, so here's the obligatory recap to head off the trolls and astroturfers:
It is not illegal to obtain a monopoly in a particular market. However, it is illegal to use that monopoly to crush competition and move into other markets.
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found Microsoft guilty of abusing its monopoly power and ordered to company split into two entities -- one would be centered around the Windows product and the other would be centered around Office.
An appeals court threw out the breakup ruling on the grounds that Jackson was biased (he granted interviews to reporters prior to releasing his decision, a practice that is frowned upon in legal circles but one that Jackson has championed in the past as important to keeping the public informed about the decisions made in the courts). However, it affirmed the judgment that Microsoft abused its monopoly.
The case was sent to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in search of a new, unbiased remedy. Kollar-Kotelly initially urged the two sides (Microsoft on one side, the U.S. Department of Justice and 18 state attorneys general on the other) to reach a settlement on their own, with a highly-regarded judge arbitrating. IIRC, these talks went nowhere and the case returned to Kollar-Kotelly.
A regime change took place (George W. Bush was appointed President of the United States, with a non-trivial amount of financial assistance from Microsoft and its employees), and the DOJ, which ultimately reports to the president, conveniently reached a settlement that:
benefits Microsoft
costs Microsoft nothing
aids some consumers in the short term
hurts all consumers in the long term
Nine state attorneys general (who feel they have more important things to worry about during their terms in office) have signed on to the settlement. The remaining nine refused to accept the settlement and the case has essentially forked.
Microsoft tried to force public acceptance of the settlement by announcing that it has already met the conditions. However, Kollar-Kotelly has yet to approve the settlement.
On Nov. 1, 2002, after 4:00 p.m. EST, Kollar-Kotelly is expected to announce her opinions in both cases.
My View (as a journalist and engineer who has been closely watching this case for over four years)
Microsoft often complains that it's being "punished for being successful" to draw attention from the focus of the case, so let's get this out of the way: I don't care about punishment. I want to see a remedy that protects the market and consumers.
When a person is convicted of driving under the influence, the authorities don't just hand his keys back and say "we'll be watching you." They take away his license for the benefit of society.
Since MS has demonstrated that it can not handle a monopoly responsibly, an effective remedy must remove the company's ability to violate anti-trust laws in the future. It doesn't get any second chances (as an an irresponsible driver might) because its illegal actions were well-planned and driven by malice (with intent to destroy its competitors, illustrated by such colorful metaphors as "cut off Netscape's air supply").
If Kollar-Kotelly announces such a remedy, Microsoft will complain that the government is inappropriately interfering with a market it doesn't understand, and it will try to discredit Kollar-Kotelly by accusing her of bias or incompetence.
No matter what her opinions turn out to be, this will not be the end of the case. Whichever of the three sides is displeased will appeal to SCOTUS and it will be at least another year or two before we see a definitive decision.
However, tomorrow's news will help shape the central arguments of the SCOTUS fight.
You think your images are safe, but they're not. Anyone determined enough to get your images can use a program like curl to tell your server it came from whatever URL you are looking for and pass itself off as any browser out there. My software uses this feature to grab comic strips from tight-fisted Web sites.
Referrer information may be annoying to you, but it's an extrememly useful tool. If taken away one restricts opportunities for the site operator to personalize and protect content on their site. Not a huge loss, but it isn't really as great a privacy issue as you seem to believe.
Thank you for that FUD, but we hear it all the time: "give us all your personal data or you will lose functionality." BS. As a Web site owner, you have no right to know what site I visited before yours. There are many powerful things you can do with that information.
For instance, if a person goes from a Monster.com search page to his Yahoo mail account, Yahoo now knows where the person is looking for a job, what type of job he is looking for, etc. (it's all encoded in the URL). Yahoo also has access to his address book and all his email messages.
I see a scenario where Yahoo subtly threatens to email your boss to let him know you're thinking about quitting... unless you upgrade your account/add more storage space. It won't happen tomorrow, but Yahoo is sleazy enough to try something like that and they have the information... all they need is the technology to make that connection.
That's just one example, but it illustrates the point that referrer information is none of your business. You only want it because you can profit from it without any complaints from your audience.
Another example:
A lot of people apparently email the URL of my site to their friends. In my site logs, I often see the email addresses of the person who sent the message and the poor sap who clicked the link. These people have no idea they have divulged their email addresses to me via referrer info. If they wanted me to have that info, they would have given it to me. Sometimes I also see the subject of the message, which is particularly funny when it was sent by a competitor along the lines of "Have you seen what <insert_url_here> is doing?"
But as you said, "it isn't really as great a privacy issue as you seem to believe." It's worse than you realize.
Bottom Line
Companies will do just about anything to make an extra buck. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that they use technology against users to that end. But it's a two-way street -- people just need to wake up and start using technology to protect themselves.
I have a theory that house.gov is actually set up to make it difficult to find your representative (the fewer people who know their Rep's name, record and contact information, the fewer differing opinions the Rep has to deal with). First, house.gov makes you go to usps.com to find your zip plus four, then you have to copy it or write it down, return to house.gov and fill out a form (it asks for both your zip plus four and your state, as though the zip plus four alone isn't specific enough). Filling out that form takes you to either a standard house.gov page that tells you your rep's name and district or a custom page somewhere on the Rep's site. Then, depending on the page the form returned, you have to find the list of Reps by district, and locate your district to find his home page.
The fact that it could have been very straightforward and standardized suggests that the process is difficult because it is in the Rep's interest to make it difficult.
The Senate is much simpler in this regard, but that's due in part to the fact that you only need to know your state to find your senators.
I was writing a script that helps people identify their senators and
representatives when I noticed an error on:
http://www.senate.gov/ senators/senator_by_state.cfm
If you look at the source code of the page, there is a link to former
Senator Moynihan's site (http://moynihan.senate.gov) listed immediately
before the link to Hillary Clinton's site. It doesn't show up on the
page because there is no text inside the erroneous anchor tag, but it
should still be corrected because I don't think Moynihan's coming back.
Plus, it's confusing my script.:o)
Actually, many members use their Web sites to keep their constituents informed of the decisions made on their behalf and, sometimes, the reasons for those decisions. Congressman Mike Honda is a good example of a Rep. who posts a well-thought-out explanation of his decision whenever he casts a controversial vote. I'd like to see more members follow his lead in this respect. Beyond that, I'd like to see them publish such information in RDF format (http://<member's Web site>/news.rdf), but it's probably too much to ask that they implement this before Nov. 5, and many will balk at the idea of making themselves more visible to voters.
Are they just giving away the upgrade or the entire package? If it's the whole OS that's a pretty good deal... heck I'm betting it will sway a lot of people who are thinking of buying a new PC into buying a Mac.
Um... no. This won't entice anyone to "switch." If you buy a new Mac, it's going to come with Jaguar anyway.
This is only useful for people who (a) already have the hardware and (b) didn't consider Jaguar to be worth the upgrade price.
A year from now, parents will be lined up at Toys 'R Us locations only to find that Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il have pre-ordered 90% of the shipping units.
CNN is owned by AOL, and it's under the knife. AOL has been talking to Disney about merging some of Disney-owned ABC News's operations with CNN's to cut costs.
It's not hard to imagine a scenario where an AOL executive tells CNN to start running stories that support the media industry's demands for favorable treatment by Congress. CNN would claim that its "ethics" would never allow such a thing to occur, but cross-promotion is the whole reason AOL has formed its empire, and if it comes to a choice between the axe and "bending the ethics," I'm sure CNN will be quite flexible.
We already know there's a powerful telepath living on a planet there and he needs a space ship. If there had been a black hole in the center of the galaxy, you'd think someone would have mentioned it.
Intel Marketing Drone: "It's not about the bits. Bits are just little little tiny pieces of information, and they're just getting to 64 of them. Our processors, on the other hand, can do more than 2.5 BILLION cycles per second. You can't even imagine how powerful that is. Just take my word for it and ignore this insignificant little collection of bits."
Heckler: "I can rev my car's engine as fast as I want so long as I'm not going anywhere."
The woman in the picture looks like she's in the middle of a commercial for a yeast-infection or genital-herpes remedy. "With Windows, I don't have to be afraid to tell people what operating system I use. And that's a weight off my shoulders, so I can spend more time enjoying life."
"It's about more and better." Wow. That's substantial and profound. I thought she said she was a "professional writer."
Most of the page is devoted to explaining how to use wizards. If you need to explain how to use your wizards, your need to fire your usability team.
She finishes her pitch by talking about installing drivers and finding more programs to convert her Mac documents every day: "I discover more treats daily. For example, Word Converters are helping me transfer old document files, Microsoft Works files, and even AppleWorks files. It will be an ongoing process, but I'm thrilled so far." In other words, she still hasn't been able to convert all her documents, and she expects it to be a long, ongoing process... and this is why Windows is "better?"
Personally, I don't think Microsoft wrote this. I think someone from Saturday Night Live broke into the MS server room and uploaded this.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny you should mention the first-born thing. When I signed up for my iPhone at the Apple Store, the salesperson handed me what I believe was a Windows Mobile device (all traces of the Windows UI were masked by a generic one, but the on-screen keyboard was a dead giveaway) with about a 3-inch touch screen on which to read the terms and conditions for the AT&T service. As I pretended to read through it all, I muttered out loud, "must agree to use Windows Mobile... transferral of naming rights of my first born... second mortgage on my house... third mortgage on my soul... sounds ok to me... I'll take the black one."
"You have to prove that the record was entered in error, sir."
"You mean I have to find the data entry clerk and get a notarized statement that he didn't mean to mark me as dead? What if he meant to do it, because he's become mad with power?"
"Then you're dead, sir."
"If I'm dead, why are you still calling me 'sir?'"
"It's in the handbook: 'All male customers must be addressed as sir, regardless of age, national origin, ethnicity, or disability.' I think being dead would qualify as a disability. Anyway, it's not worth losing my job over. Next in line!"
**Yahoo Zombie Guy®**
Recent Super Deed
Rising from the dead. What? That's pretty frickin impressive! Have you ever risen from the dead? I didn't think so. Shut up, Netscape, or Windows Vista Sensei will kill you again in the tradition of his ancestors.
Occupation
Eating the brains of its users, and infecting them with the same viral marketing ads that we enjoy on MSN sites.
Work History
Started out life as a supposed "do-gooder," showing the lost and clueless denizens of the Internet how to get around and communicate. Lost its way though when it fell in with a bad crowd of "Free Software" hooligans who sat around drinking free beer or something. Found its true calling in the afterlife, redirecting wayward computer users back to the Microsoft homestead.
Favorite Food
Braaaaaiiiinnnss....
Favorite Band
No longer listens to music.
Thing About It That Would Surprise Most People
Purple is its favorite color. No, really. Seriously. That's the color its user's faces turn as it eats their brains.
Favorite Pet
No pets... it devoured them all and has now become Microsoft's pet.
Worst Fear
That the number 1 search term on Yahoo is "Google"
Microsoft
You'd come out of the "how do we get Microsoft to leave us alone without subjugating ourselves to Google" brainstorm meeting determined to convince Microsoft that online advertising is not the next big thing, it's the next big inflated idea that's about to burst and take a lot down with it. A huge part of Microsoft's reasoning behind the acquisition is that online advertising is about to take off, and if they can't kill Google now they'd better buy the #2 player so they have a larger piece of that pie. So you'd quietly see to it that this report about the value of ad clicks gets a lot of attention right after Microsoft announces it's going to pursue a hostile takeover.
Shareholders
Shareholders believe Yahoo has been losing value because it's losing to Google in the ad space, so Yahoo would want to point out that ads aren't the whole game for them. This report downplays the value of online advertising in the future, which would allow Yahoo to suggest that its premium, subscriber services will be a significant source of revenue. This is a bad idea, though, in my opinion. I've been subscribing to their premium services for years, but recently decided to cancel them after someone hijacked my Yahoo account, changed my password and began impersonating me through IM, email and other services during the three days it took them to get me back into my account. And in the aftermath, Yahoo has ignored every email I've sent about this. Bottom line: Yahoo lacks the security and customer service to maintain subscription-based services, and as this happens to more people they will also drop the services.
"Mr. Potato Head? Mr. Potato Head! Back doors are not secrets!"
Or perhaps they're looking to the mortgage industry to come up with a better business model for Microsoft to copy, because "foreclosing" on people's PCs doesn't seem to be making them any money.
- Photo 1
- Photo 2
- Photo 3
- Photo 4
It looked like the clouds were emerging from the mountains as fine jets that got wider as they got further into Silicon Valley. Anyone know what this is?(At the time I thought perhaps they were clouds of flying monkeys from Microsoft's Mac Business Unit -- which is in those mountains -- descending upon Apple's main campus -- which is about a mile behind the vantage point of those pictures)
It's OK to use a Mac (a sleek, beautiful machine that's often not taken seriously) that's pretending to be a PC,
but not vice versa (did you not hear about the disasterous attempt called Vista?).
Likewise, it's OK to be a woman (a sleek, beautiful machine that's often not taken seriously) pretending to be a man,
but not vice versa (did you not hear about the disasterous attempt called Richard Simmons?).
Er, make that 15 miles west. Apparently I have no sense of direction.
I believe this is where a scene from the movie GATTACA was filmed (when Uma Thurman's character shows Ethan Hawke's the spectacle of the sunrise in a sea of mirrors). There's some neat satellite imagery of it on Google maps.
Interesting to note that just a few miles east of there is a town called Hinkley, made infamous by the movie Erin Brokovich as the place where giant utility PG&E allegedly tried to cover up their activities that contaminated the local groundwater with hexavalent chromium.
Just think, one of America's finest attempts at environmentally-friendly energy coincidentally about 15 miles east of one of its most notorious screw-ups -- in the middle of the desert with a whole lot of nothing in between. It seems there's a fine line between pride and shame.
No, "Our planet spins, and the spin should twist the dimple, slightly" explains leap years, daylight savings time, and the previously inexplicable 1.42-minute-per-month gain on my employer's time clock.
"A three-sided vortex (once limited to the greater Bermuda area but in recent years expanded to be anchored at Crawford, TX, Washington, DC, and Baghdad due to depletion of the ozone layer) into which pour vast sums of the rest of the world's time and money" explains the Bermuda Triangle.
The Associated Press is reporting the story, not TBO.com (see same exact story here on Yahoo news).
See Chevron's press release here.
See U.S. Federal Gov't press release on this here.
Ambrose Buse
abuse@hotmail.com
IIRC, SCOTUS was asked to "fast-track" the case, bypassing some of the appeals process in the interest of time -- since a year or two is an eternity or two in the computer industry. They decided against fast-tracking it and said it should go through the normal appeals process before returning to SCOTUS. So they didn't reject the case, they just rejected the option of giving it special treatment.
Microsoft's PR goons work hard to broaden this topic to derail any conversation non-lawyers might attempt, so here's the obligatory recap to head off the trolls and astroturfers:
- It is not illegal to obtain a monopoly in a particular market. However, it is illegal to use that monopoly to crush competition and move into other markets.
- Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found Microsoft guilty of abusing its monopoly power and ordered to company split into two entities -- one would be centered around the Windows product and the other would be centered around Office.
- An appeals court threw out the breakup ruling on the grounds that Jackson was biased (he granted interviews to reporters prior to releasing his decision, a practice that is frowned upon in legal circles but one that Jackson has championed in the past as important to keeping the public informed about the decisions made in the courts). However, it affirmed the judgment that Microsoft abused its monopoly.
- The case was sent to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in search of a new, unbiased remedy. Kollar-Kotelly initially urged the two sides (Microsoft on one side, the U.S. Department of Justice and 18 state attorneys general on the other) to reach a settlement on their own, with a highly-regarded judge arbitrating. IIRC, these talks went nowhere and the case returned to Kollar-Kotelly.
- A regime change took place (George W. Bush was appointed President of the United States, with a non-trivial amount of financial assistance from Microsoft and its employees), and the DOJ, which ultimately reports to the president, conveniently reached a settlement that:
- Microsoft tried to force public acceptance of the settlement by announcing that it has already met the conditions. However, Kollar-Kotelly has yet to approve the settlement.
- On Nov. 1, 2002, after 4:00 p.m. EST, Kollar-Kotelly is expected to announce her opinions in both cases.
My View (as a journalist and engineer who has been closely watching this case for over four years)- benefits Microsoft
- costs Microsoft nothing
- aids some consumers in the short term
- hurts all consumers in the long term
Nine state attorneys general (who feel they have more important things to worry about during their terms in office) have signed on to the settlement. The remaining nine refused to accept the settlement and the case has essentially forked.Microsoft often complains that it's being "punished for being successful" to draw attention from the focus of the case, so let's get this out of the way: I don't care about punishment. I want to see a remedy that protects the market and consumers.
When a person is convicted of driving under the influence, the authorities don't just hand his keys back and say "we'll be watching you." They take away his license for the benefit of society.
Since MS has demonstrated that it can not handle a monopoly responsibly, an effective remedy must remove the company's ability to violate anti-trust laws in the future. It doesn't get any second chances (as an an irresponsible driver might) because its illegal actions were well-planned and driven by malice (with intent to destroy its competitors, illustrated by such colorful metaphors as "cut off Netscape's air supply").
If Kollar-Kotelly announces such a remedy, Microsoft will complain that the government is inappropriately interfering with a market it doesn't understand, and it will try to discredit Kollar-Kotelly by accusing her of bias or incompetence.
No matter what her opinions turn out to be, this will not be the end of the case. Whichever of the three sides is displeased will appeal to SCOTUS and it will be at least another year or two before we see a definitive decision.
However, tomorrow's news will help shape the central arguments of the SCOTUS fight.
For instance, if a person goes from a Monster.com search page to his Yahoo mail account, Yahoo now knows where the person is looking for a job, what type of job he is looking for, etc. (it's all encoded in the URL). Yahoo also has access to his address book and all his email messages.
I see a scenario where Yahoo subtly threatens to email your boss to let him know you're thinking about quitting... unless you upgrade your account/add more storage space. It won't happen tomorrow, but Yahoo is sleazy enough to try something like that and they have the information... all they need is the technology to make that connection.
That's just one example, but it illustrates the point that referrer information is none of your business. You only want it because you can profit from it without any complaints from your audience.
Another example:
A lot of people apparently email the URL of my site to their friends. In my site logs, I often see the email addresses of the person who sent the message and the poor sap who clicked the link. These people have no idea they have divulged their email addresses to me via referrer info. If they wanted me to have that info, they would have given it to me. Sometimes I also see the subject of the message, which is particularly funny when it was sent by a competitor along the lines of "Have you seen what <insert_url_here> is doing?"
But as you said, "it isn't really as great a privacy issue as you seem to believe." It's worse than you realize.
Bottom Line
Companies will do just about anything to make an extra buck. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that they use technology against users to that end. But it's a two-way street -- people just need to wake up and start using technology to protect themselves.
The fact that it could have been very straightforward and standardized suggests that the process is difficult because it is in the Rep's interest to make it difficult.
The Senate is much simpler in this regard, but that's due in part to the fact that you only need to know your state to find your senators.
This is only useful for people who (a) already have the hardware and (b) didn't consider Jaguar to be worth the upgrade price.
A year from now, parents will be lined up at Toys 'R Us locations only to find that Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il have pre-ordered 90% of the shipping units.
It's not hard to imagine a scenario where an AOL executive tells CNN to start running stories that support the media industry's demands for favorable treatment by Congress. CNN would claim that its "ethics" would never allow such a thing to occur, but cross-promotion is the whole reason AOL has formed its empire, and if it comes to a choice between the axe and "bending the ethics," I'm sure CNN will be quite flexible.
We already know there's a powerful telepath living on a planet there and he needs a space ship. If there had been a black hole in the center of the galaxy, you'd think someone would have mentioned it.
Heckler: "I can rev my car's engine as fast as I want so long as I'm not going anywhere."
- The woman in the picture looks like she's in the middle of a commercial for a yeast-infection or genital-herpes remedy. "With Windows, I don't have to be afraid to tell people what operating system I use. And that's a weight off my shoulders, so I can spend more time enjoying life."
- "It's about more and better." Wow. That's substantial and profound. I thought she said she was a "professional writer."
- Most of the page is devoted to explaining how to use wizards. If you need to explain how to use your wizards, your need to fire your usability team.
- She finishes her pitch by talking about installing drivers and finding more programs to convert her Mac documents every day: "I discover more treats daily. For example, Word Converters are helping me transfer old document files, Microsoft Works files, and even AppleWorks files. It will be an ongoing process, but I'm thrilled so far." In other words, she still hasn't been able to convert all her documents, and she expects it to be a long, ongoing process... and this is why Windows is "better?"
Personally, I don't think Microsoft wrote this. I think someone from Saturday Night Live broke into the MS server room and uploaded this.