Google has earned a lot of respect from web users. I genuinely believe them when they say "Don't Be Evil." I always laughed at anyone who complained that Google would misuse any data they collect about their users.
Google is trustworthy but secretly listening to a user's microphone sets a dangerous precedent. If other software firms see this and think it's acceptable and legal they will start doing it too. Oh, terrific, I'd love to have Microsoft listening to my microphone...
I retract the comment about Nintendo. I seem to remember reading an interview where they said consumers are not interested in a new technology, and that the will not be putting out a next generation console in 2005 or 2006. However, I tried to look up that interview and have been unable to find it. In the process, I read that they are indeed intending to release a next generation console in 2005 or 2006.
However everybody I know considers the GameCube a joke for some reason. And you're right, I guess I'm no longer in Nintendo's target audience.
Everyone seems to be saying "but what we really need is better gameplay (and better stories)." I for one would like to post that I WELCOME THIS CONTINUED IMPROVEMENT IN *GRAPHICS*. People are making the mistake that developers have to pick ONE of good graphics, sound, storyline, or gameplay. But they are NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE! You're looking at the game the whole time you're playing it, graphics cannot possibly hurt the gameplay. Nice graphics create better immersion -- which ties into the story. Focus on the graphics AND the gameplay. It can easily be done. Obviously the graphics programmers and artists are going to be working on the graphics, but the other members of the team (like designers) will take care of the gameplay, sound, and story. Don't go the way of Nintendo and believe people are not interested in technological innovation. They are, and they are ALSO interested in gameplay, story, and sound. We can have excellence in all four.
I just want to point out that searching email is not some brillant new idea Google had. If you have a Yahoo account, login to your mail, go to the inbox, and click "Search Mail." You have the option of it searching the full text of all messages. There's even an advanced search.
My point is simply that Google allowing you to search your mail is not some huge innovation.
HOWEVER the 1 gigabyte storage limit is awesome! (My Yahoo mail account has only 6mb)
The sad fact is that most people don't read _any_ text in any box that pops up on the screen. They just zero in on the "yes" "no" "cancel" boxes and randomly pick whichever one they think will make the pop-up go away the quickest.
You have an excellent point. I was going to post asking if Gator and other adware were really still extremely common. It's been a long time since I had Gator (Claria?)-ware on my computer. But you're right most people don't read anything they are asked on a computer. The only reason I have not gotten this stuff is because I have taken steps to prevent it. (Using ad-aware, using pop-up blockers, the obvious stuff) I guess many, many people have not took the 'obvious' steps.
I know someone who works at the front desk at a gym/swimming pool. He says they have recently banned all cell phones after discovering people had been discretely taking pictures of children in the change room and sending them off immediatly, destroying the evidence. This jamming device would be useful in this situation.
On the other hand, is there a liability issue when someone phones for an ambulance and their cellphone is jammed?
We have not had an attack serious yet to warrant this barrage of virus alerts. Of all the 'major attacks' over the last year, I got hit by one of them (blaster), which I was able to fix in a short period of time. The patch for Blaster's vulnerability was out like a month before Blaster came out, it's people's own fault for not patching.
You get 6.0mb's of space and then I think then an extra meg before they start rejecting your mails. If you check your email every few days (I check mine about twice every day) then you can empty it yourself (by clicking the empty link). The reason they don't empty it is because it's possible a legitmate email you wanted could get put in the bulk folder. Also if you leave messages in your bulk mail for a long time, it says:
"With SpamGuard turned on, Yahoo! Mail will deliver bulk mail messages to this folder and delete them after 30 days."
Yahoo has been doing a fantastic job of filtering spam. Of the hundreds (a thousand?) spam messages I get each week, only a handful make it to my inbox. The rest get put in the bulk mail folder. However, without their excellent filtering, email would be unusable.
I was impressed to read that he donated 26 BILLION to charity. And that he's invested millions and millions of dollars into research for an AID vaccine. I think that is just about the best way the money can be spent.
In the grand scheme of things GPL'd software is better for the world. This is obvious.
However I cannot stop myself from thinking about MYSELF. Be selfish for a moment. Proprietary software makes more money, which puts programmers into jobs with good salaries. With the tech industry doing pretty crappy right now, we need all the jobs we can get. A world with only propreitary software is a world where us programmers have jobs, and decent pay.
I don't like having to say that, but I'm afriad it's a truth I have to acknowledge. If anybody can give me a good counter-argument (besides 'hey buddy you're an idiot') I'd be glad to hear it.
The article mentions Canada as one of the countries that jobs are being "offshored" to. Canada is not off shore, and Canadian labor costs are not cheaper than the US. But if jobs are really being sent to Canada, then as a Canadian, I no longer find this offshoring nearly as troubling as I did before.:)
Search engines have been doing this for years. I used to run a small website and researched extensivly how to raise search-engine rankings (can bring enourmous traffic). Most search engines have always tried to stop people from spamming their results. Google does this to, in order to bring us better results. They also don't try to hide it -- read some of the about google information on the site. It says attempting to manually boost your pagerank will usually cause you to be penalized.
Interesting. Reminds me off how John Carmack said he wants to but hundreds of thousands of dollars of rocket fuel (or something) from a loss-making company but they won't sell it to him because they think they could be liable if someone gets hurt.
Slashdot Mirror
People will pay for a 5-digit ID?!
Google has earned a lot of respect from web users. I genuinely believe them when they say "Don't Be Evil." I always laughed at anyone who complained that Google would misuse any data they collect about their users.
Google is trustworthy but secretly listening to a user's microphone sets a dangerous precedent. If other software firms see this and think it's acceptable and legal they will start doing it too. Oh, terrific, I'd love to have Microsoft listening to my microphone...
If Google can take on Microsoft, then more power to them. Many Slashdot readers have been waiting for this for a long time.
If anything, Google is evolving into the new old Yahoo.
I know that people have settled, but has anyone actually prepared a defense and went to court? How did it turn out?
I retract the comment about Nintendo. I seem to remember reading an interview where they said consumers are not interested in a new technology, and that the will not be putting out a next generation console in 2005 or 2006. However, I tried to look up that interview and have been unable to find it. In the process, I read that they are indeed intending to release a next generation console in 2005 or 2006.
However everybody I know considers the GameCube a joke for some reason. And you're right, I guess I'm no longer in Nintendo's target audience.
Everyone seems to be saying "but what we really need is better gameplay (and better stories)." I for one would like to post that I WELCOME THIS CONTINUED IMPROVEMENT IN *GRAPHICS*. People are making the mistake that developers have to pick ONE of good graphics, sound, storyline, or gameplay. But they are NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE! You're looking at the game the whole time you're playing it, graphics cannot possibly hurt the gameplay. Nice graphics create better immersion -- which ties into the story. Focus on the graphics AND the gameplay. It can easily be done. Obviously the graphics programmers and artists are going to be working on the graphics, but the other members of the team (like designers) will take care of the gameplay, sound, and story. Don't go the way of Nintendo and believe people are not interested in technological innovation. They are, and they are ALSO interested in gameplay, story, and sound. We can have excellence in all four.
I just want to point out that searching email is not some brillant new idea Google had. If you have a Yahoo account, login to your mail, go to the inbox, and click "Search Mail." You have the option of it searching the full text of all messages. There's even an advanced search.
My point is simply that Google allowing you to search your mail is not some huge innovation.
HOWEVER the 1 gigabyte storage limit is awesome! (My Yahoo mail account has only 6mb)
Yeah the Gomez stuff turned out to be not as good as it first seemed. I think I'm going to remove it from my sig.
The sad fact is that most people don't read _any_ text in any box that pops up on the screen. They just zero in on the "yes" "no" "cancel" boxes and randomly pick whichever one they think will make the pop-up go away the quickest.
You have an excellent point. I was going to post asking if Gator and other adware were really still extremely common. It's been a long time since I had Gator (Claria?)-ware on my computer. But you're right most people don't read anything they are asked on a computer. The only reason I have not gotten this stuff is because I have taken steps to prevent it. (Using ad-aware, using pop-up blockers, the obvious stuff) I guess many, many people have not took the 'obvious' steps.
Do any Canadian provinces require this yet? I'm 19 and have never filed taxes in my life.
I know someone who works at the front desk at a gym/swimming pool. He says they have recently banned all cell phones after discovering people had been discretely taking pictures of children in the change room and sending them off immediatly, destroying the evidence. This jamming device would be useful in this situation.
On the other hand, is there a liability issue when someone phones for an ambulance and their cellphone is jammed?
We have not had an attack serious yet to warrant this barrage of virus alerts. Of all the 'major attacks' over the last year, I got hit by one of them (blaster), which I was able to fix in a short period of time. The patch for Blaster's vulnerability was out like a month before Blaster came out, it's people's own fault for not patching.
You get 6.0mb's of space and then I think then an extra meg before they start rejecting your mails. If you check your email every few days (I check mine about twice every day) then you can empty it yourself (by clicking the empty link). The reason they don't empty it is because it's possible a legitmate email you wanted could get put in the bulk folder. Also if you leave messages in your bulk mail for a long time, it says:
"With SpamGuard turned on, Yahoo! Mail will deliver bulk mail messages to this folder and delete them after 30 days."
So they do empty it automatically, eventually.
Yahoo has been doing a fantastic job of filtering spam. Of the hundreds (a thousand?) spam messages I get each week, only a handful make it to my inbox. The rest get put in the bulk mail folder. However, without their excellent filtering, email would be unusable.
Microsoft Advises to Type in URLs Rather than Click"
Since the Slashdot effect exists, someone must RTFA.
LOL
Seems like nobody realized that you're making a reference to Microsoft's recent recommendation.
LOL How often to I read something funny and then notice someone modded it insightful or informative?
The can even move up the McLadder and eventually be making 25 cents more than your subordinates.
I was impressed to read that he donated 26 BILLION to charity. And that he's invested millions and millions of dollars into research for an AID vaccine. I think that is just about the best way the money can be spent.
In the grand scheme of things GPL'd software is better for the world. This is obvious.
However I cannot stop myself from thinking about MYSELF. Be selfish for a moment. Proprietary software makes more money, which puts programmers into jobs with good salaries. With the tech industry doing pretty crappy right now, we need all the jobs we can get. A world with only propreitary software is a world where us programmers have jobs, and decent pay.
I don't like having to say that, but I'm afriad it's a truth I have to acknowledge. If anybody can give me a good counter-argument (besides 'hey buddy you're an idiot') I'd be glad to hear it.
The article mentions Canada as one of the countries that jobs are being "offshored" to. Canada is not off shore, and Canadian labor costs are not cheaper than the US. But if jobs are really being sent to Canada, then as a Canadian, I no longer find this offshoring nearly as troubling as I did before. :)
LOL How did the parent get modded informative?
Search engines have been doing this for years. I used to run a small website and researched extensivly how to raise search-engine rankings (can bring enourmous traffic). Most search engines have always tried to stop people from spamming their results. Google does this to, in order to bring us better results. They also don't try to hide it -- read some of the about google information on the site. It says attempting to manually boost your pagerank will usually cause you to be penalized.
Interesting. Reminds me off how John Carmack said he wants to but hundreds of thousands of dollars of rocket fuel (or something) from a loss-making company but they won't sell it to him because they think they could be liable if someone gets hurt.