"Google is not better than us," said Jim Lanzone, an Ask Jeeves senior vice president. "We are both operating at a world-class level. We just have a different flavor."
Exactly. Just like smoked salmon and spam just have different flavors.
I admit it's been years since I bothered to go to askjeeves. When last I made it a habit to go there every few months, typing any term whatsoever (like "hairball justice") would result in the most prominent links asking me "Would you like to shop for hairball justice online?"
I should say that what M$ is doing is pure Capitalism; Do one thing as a CEO: "MAXIMISE SHAREHOLDER VALUE." The OSS movement undermines this, and this is why M$ will be against free software.
Yes, this explains why Microsoft behaves as it does. It's deplorable how the current corporate/legal environment allows the decoupling of 'the quest for money' from 'the preservation of the common good'.
What would you do if you were in M$' shoes? I will answer that. You'd do the same thing.
Whether I personally would is only a matter of speculation to people other than myself; I know I wouldn't. Whether I'd find myself in M$'s shoes to start with is an even bigger question.
But the really interesting questions are those which lead to the implementation of better policy. Explaining MS's behavior in terms of cashflow is like Darwin's explanation of evolution; it thoroughly explains the operation of a domain decoupled from social constructs like morality or the greatest good for the greatest number. If anybody needed to understand why MS does what it does, cashflow is indeed the explanation. If anyone thinks that this explanation excuses MS on a moral level or obviates the need for policy that will reign MS in, they're kidding themselves.
The report said any reward should come from taxpayer funds because collection of civil penalties from spammers will not be enough to finance the system
Right there the FCC has certified this as a good way to make money via fraud. All fraudsters have to do is find someone willing to be the fall guy - i.e. "become" a spammer - in return for a percentage of the reward when they're "turned in". With the above paragraph, the FCC has made the business case for this by saying that the reward will outweigh the penalty.
Although available to anyone, dmail is initially being targeted at several
niche sectors where its properties are particularly relevant. These include education, friends/family, teenage and corporate markets.
So they're only targeting a few niche markets. Just businesses, families, education, friends, and teenagers. They've sure picked their battles discerningly. I hope someday they expand to some market that includes me. (I don't work, I have no friends, I have no family, I'm uneducated, and I'm no longer a teen.)
The problem with viral campaigns like VoteOrNot is that it is too easy to have multiple on-line personalities.
I've been thinking about this problem, in the context of polling. I'd like to make it easier to conduct polls, essentially because the usual polls are too easily worded/spun/suppressed to the financial and political aims of the media conglomerates who conduct them. So the issue as I frame it is: how can one conduct a poll where people can participate from a wide variety of geographic locations, without requiring people to submit personal information, but preventing people from voting thousands of times?
My current thinking on this involves two types of approaches:
Set up telephony equipment to accept incoming calls from poll voters (whereupon they dial in their vote via DTMF). Initially allow votes to be placed from any phone number, but require callerID and allow votes from any given phone number only once. (I've not yet thought through problems involving the spoofing of callerID.) This allows people to just pick up a phone and dial; a payphone, a work phone, whatever. Yes people can vote more than once, but they can't vote hundreds of times, or even tens of times; people don't have that kind of phone access. And because people can vote from any phone, they're not giving up privacy. A call placed from a residence could be argued as having been done by someone who doesn't actually live there.
The second part involves an analog of the hashcash approach. Have a website where voting takes place, but make any given voter spend five minutes clicking through randomly generated screens with trivially solved questions (what's 2+2, what color is this dot, how many dots are there, etc). Again, people can vote more than once, but realistically most won't.
when a foot soldier (cop) confront's you. the ONLY thing you was is whatever it takes for him to become happy and go away. You DO NOT FIGHT with a cop, peace officer, soldier, whatever. You will not win anything.
I sort of agree, but think I'd put it in less extreme terms.
It's probably unwise to engage in outright physical contact with an officer. Not that they're supermen - they aren't - but they are in better shape than average, they're often armed, they can call for backup, and in the short term (before due process gets fully ironed out) their judgement is generally deferred to.
In this case of a priest using wireless outside a library, physical contact does not sound like an issue. The question then becomes: is it worth the effort to explain whatever your position is to the approaching officer? I'd say the answer is yes IF the concepts involved are simple and familiar (not only are officers not supermen, they're even further from being Einsteins). A good thing to try to explain: "officer, I was making a perfectly legal left turn and that guy ran a red light." A bad thing to try to explain: "officer, as weirdly as spectrum has been treated in the history of our legal framework, its similarity to property is a false one for the following three reasons...."
you reply with, "Thank you officer! I did not know! I will comply right away!"
Personally, I think that's a little too much boot-licking. Officers are there ostensibly to serve the public. Citizens who conduct themselves politely are entitled to the respect of an officer. Yes, I know that some officers are buttheads, but if you don't actually become belligerent with them they will still have a very difficult time parlaying their unresolved childhood issues into a trip to jail for you. Presume your entitlement to respect when you likewise give respect. Don't pretend officers have a higher moral ground; that leads to a big brother state. If you've really done nothing wrong, don't give attitude... but don't send the message that an officer puffing his chest is a welcome thing.
Sponsored research is not automatically bad.... there are a number of areas where interest is not widespread beyond the industry players in that industry, so they are the only ones who will foot the bill.
And their being the only ones who will foot the bill makes the results trustable how?
Seems like a poignant chance to (re)bring up John Gilmore's
interview
(recently
covered
by Slashdot). John is highly concerned about the US government's increasing restrictions on the ability of supposedly free people to go from place to place in what was once a free country.
can't see how this hurts apple - more people have incentive to use the AEx, Apple doesn't have to support their use of it that way, and the protected music is still protected. Hizzah?
I'm glad this has been cracked and fully support it, but if the question is "why would Apple be opposed" then I'd point out the similarity of the relationships between iTunes/AirportExpress and InternetExplorer/IIS. Why would Microsoft oppose Apache or Mozilla? Because their existence takes away Microsoft's ownership of the end-to-end web browsing experience, thereby depriving them of the ability to lock in people and direct their experience to the greatest benefit of the corporation. Ditto Apple; this crack means they no longer own the end-to-end experience from iTunes to AirportExpress.
That it was a mind-numbingly simple change doesn't make his actions any less malicious
But he didn't introduce any new mechanism of infection, and the original was already out there. I'll bet it's possible to run simulations where introducing this variant would not ultimately affect the total number of machines infected by either variant. If so, that may or may not make his actions less "malicious" (a term denoting intent) but may very well make his actions have a zero net cost to society; it's the difference between getting famous and adding to damage.
There's a new solution to the age old problem of physical movement within a virtual world.
IIRC it's not exactly new
Agreed, and it's not 'age old' either. The author of the article seems to use stock phrases without realizing that words actually are supposed to MEAN something, not just provide a grammatically correct setting for other words.
(Homer begins sinking into the tar pit) Lisa: Dad! You're sinking. Homer: Huh? Marge: Someone get a rope to pull him out! Homer: Naw, that's OK. I'm pretty sure I can struggle my way out. First I'll just reach in and pull my legs out, now I'll pull my arms out with my face. (Homer submerges completely)
Boycott Disney movies (shouldn't be too hard - there isn't any nudity in them, right?)
I must have the director's cuts of some of those Disney movies, because I just got through watching The Jungle Book and there wasn't a stitch of clothing on that oh-so-friendly bear. Also, in Dumbo they try to draw your attention away from it but if you freezeframe it you see that the mouse doesn't have pants on, just a shirt...
*I* pay the bills, monthly through my cable channel. If that's not enough to support the networks, I'd vastly prefer that they cut out ads and increase prices, giving me the option to simply pay or go without. That the ad companies hand money to the networks does not give them the moral high ground; they're not doing us any favors, they're leeching off of society. The advertisers vastly prefer the status quo, and are terrified of the day when they won't be given the chance to shove ads down the world's throat.
Saying that being against piracy is being against sharing is exactly the same sort of BS that organizations like the RIAA use.
I get the impression you may think that using "the same kind of bs" is a problem. I wouldn't agree. I'd only think of it as a problem if it was the only counter-argument offered against the RIAA... but it's not, there's quite a lot of healthy philosophical opposition to be had as well. IMO the combination of good philosophy and a bit of guerilla mudslinging is fine, and maybe even required in terms of the attention span and accuity of the wide audience that these messages ultimately have to reach.
This issue of sharing vs piracy terminology is one where I don't worry about "sinking" to anyone's level. People who share music do so for a variety of reasons including lofty philosophy vs the simple desire not to pay; while the RIAA would gladly impoverish the human race in perpetuity and kill a wonderful sharing technology, just for the sake of not having to adapt to a new economic environment. I think people on my side of this fence have a long way to go before we'll have sunk as far.
They also have no bearings, so they should last much longer than previous attempts. In fact, engineers don't give a predicted lifespan on these models.
Marketer: So what's the predicted lifespan for these models? Engineer: We're, uh, not giving one. Marketer: Because it's so long? Engineer: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. And now I have to go. (leaves) Marketer: (calling after him) I'll hold you to that!
Gotta love the hypocrisy of/.. Apple threatens to invoke the DMCA against Real, and there's applause and cheers. Creative licenses a software patent to id, and there's mass boycotts threatened.
Well *everything's* hypocritical if you go to the trouble of remembering it.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe this will give Clusty the crown.
A neutron walks into a bar and order a drink. When has asks what he owes, the bartender says "for you, no charge."
I admit it's been years since I bothered to go to askjeeves. When last I made it a habit to go there every few months, typing any term whatsoever (like "hairball justice") would result in the most prominent links asking me "Would you like to shop for hairball justice online?"
Yes, this explains why Microsoft behaves as it does. It's deplorable how the current corporate/legal environment allows the decoupling of 'the quest for money' from 'the preservation of the common good'.
Whether I personally would is only a matter of speculation to people other than myself; I know I wouldn't. Whether I'd find myself in M$'s shoes to start with is an even bigger question.
But the really interesting questions are those which lead to the implementation of better policy. Explaining MS's behavior in terms of cashflow is like Darwin's explanation of evolution; it thoroughly explains the operation of a domain decoupled from social constructs like morality or the greatest good for the greatest number. If anybody needed to understand why MS does what it does, cashflow is indeed the explanation. If anyone thinks that this explanation excuses MS on a moral level or obviates the need for policy that will reign MS in, they're kidding themselves.
Right there the FCC has certified this as a good way to make money via fraud. All fraudsters have to do is find someone willing to be the fall guy - i.e. "become" a spammer - in return for a percentage of the reward when they're "turned in". With the above paragraph, the FCC has made the business case for this by saying that the reward will outweigh the penalty.
I've been thinking about this problem, in the context of polling. I'd like to make it easier to conduct polls, essentially because the usual polls are too easily worded/spun/suppressed to the financial and political aims of the media conglomerates who conduct them. So the issue as I frame it is: how can one conduct a poll where people can participate from a wide variety of geographic locations, without requiring people to submit personal information, but preventing people from voting thousands of times?
My current thinking on this involves two types of approaches:
I sort of agree, but think I'd put it in less extreme terms.
It's probably unwise to engage in outright physical contact with an officer. Not that they're supermen - they aren't - but they are in better shape than average, they're often armed, they can call for backup, and in the short term (before due process gets fully ironed out) their judgement is generally deferred to.
In this case of a priest using wireless outside a library, physical contact does not sound like an issue. The question then becomes: is it worth the effort to explain whatever your position is to the approaching officer? I'd say the answer is yes IF the concepts involved are simple and familiar (not only are officers not supermen, they're even further from being Einsteins). A good thing to try to explain: "officer, I was making a perfectly legal left turn and that guy ran a red light." A bad thing to try to explain: "officer, as weirdly as spectrum has been treated in the history of our legal framework, its similarity to property is a false one for the following three reasons...."
you reply with, "Thank you officer! I did not know! I will comply right away!"
Personally, I think that's a little too much boot-licking. Officers are there ostensibly to serve the public. Citizens who conduct themselves politely are entitled to the respect of an officer. Yes, I know that some officers are buttheads, but if you don't actually become belligerent with them they will still have a very difficult time parlaying their unresolved childhood issues into a trip to jail for you. Presume your entitlement to respect when you likewise give respect. Don't pretend officers have a higher moral ground; that leads to a big brother state. If you've really done nothing wrong, don't give attitude... but don't send the message that an officer puffing his chest is a welcome thing.
Exactly. Like remember Talisman from siggraph '96? That would have rocked if micro$oft hadn't screwed the pooch on execution. Kudos.
And their being the only ones who will foot the bill makes the results trustable how?
Seems like a poignant chance to (re)bring up John Gilmore's interview (recently covered by Slashdot). John is highly concerned about the US government's increasing restrictions on the ability of supposedly free people to go from place to place in what was once a free country.
(apologies for being offtopic, but) I just had to note that the parent post is number ten million!
So this guy developed a freakin' microchip rather than go with a software splitter? I must be mis-understanding something here...
... stealing music makes baby jesus cry.
I'm glad this has been cracked and fully support it, but if the question is "why would Apple be opposed" then I'd point out the similarity of the relationships between iTunes/AirportExpress and InternetExplorer/IIS. Why would Microsoft oppose Apache or Mozilla? Because their existence takes away Microsoft's ownership of the end-to-end web browsing experience, thereby depriving them of the ability to lock in people and direct their experience to the greatest benefit of the corporation. Ditto Apple; this crack means they no longer own the end-to-end experience from iTunes to AirportExpress.
But he didn't introduce any new mechanism of infection, and the original was already out there. I'll bet it's possible to run simulations where introducing this variant would not ultimately affect the total number of machines infected by either variant. If so, that may or may not make his actions less "malicious" (a term denoting intent) but may very well make his actions have a zero net cost to society; it's the difference between getting famous and adding to damage.
I must have the director's cuts of some of those Disney movies, because I just got through watching The Jungle Book and there wasn't a stitch of clothing on that oh-so-friendly bear. Also, in Dumbo they try to draw your attention away from it but if you freezeframe it you see that the mouse doesn't have pants on, just a shirt...
*I* pay the bills, monthly through my cable channel. If that's not enough to support the networks, I'd vastly prefer that they cut out ads and increase prices, giving me the option to simply pay or go without. That the ad companies hand money to the networks does not give them the moral high ground; they're not doing us any favors, they're leeching off of society. The advertisers vastly prefer the status quo, and are terrified of the day when they won't be given the chance to shove ads down the world's throat.
I get the impression you may think that using "the same kind of bs" is a problem. I wouldn't agree. I'd only think of it as a problem if it was the only counter-argument offered against the RIAA... but it's not, there's quite a lot of healthy philosophical opposition to be had as well. IMO the combination of good philosophy and a bit of guerilla mudslinging is fine, and maybe even required in terms of the attention span and accuity of the wide audience that these messages ultimately have to reach.
This issue of sharing vs piracy terminology is one where I don't worry about "sinking" to anyone's level. People who share music do so for a variety of reasons including lofty philosophy vs the simple desire not to pay; while the RIAA would gladly impoverish the human race in perpetuity and kill a wonderful sharing technology, just for the sake of not having to adapt to a new economic environment. I think people on my side of this fence have a long way to go before we'll have sunk as far.
Well *everything's* hypocritical if you go to the trouble of remembering it.