Dear Phroggy Please refrain from using words like "retarded" in the near future unless you are specifically looking to start a flame war. I was looking for a discussion, not waiting for someone I don't know to start being rude. Thank you.
I thought a flame war might be entertaining. Sorry.
That said, the first thing that will happen when this gets through is that sites in the UK will be blocked only to be replaced by sites overseas that cannot be taken down (which is what i was saying in the first place). The spamming business is an international one.
Having them hosted overseas where they "can't be taken down" isn't really any worse than having them hosted in the UK where they can be taken down but not actually taking them down, is it? And of course they can be taken down, if they're hosted in other countries - they can be taken down by ISPs in those countries. That may not happen, but the more ISPs that start forming policies like the UK policy under discussion here, the harder it will be to find an ISP that doesn't. It will never be impossible, but the more inconvenient it is for the spammers, the better.
Meanwhile, if all the spammers get funneled onto only a handful of ISPs, the rest of us just blackhole them.:-D
Yeah, we're nowhere near there yet. But, this is a step in the right direction, not a step backwards. Many more steps will, of course, be needed to have any significant impact.
I, for one, welcome our new copyright infringing, ip thieving, file-sharing, socialist, everyone-share-and-share alike overlords. I guess the RIAA bribe, I mean campaign contribution, didn't make it through on time.
In theory it sounds nice. However, there are several problems here. First, the offending web site may be hosted by an ISP that doesn't give a damn. It may be overseas. It may be in Russia, or North Korea for that matter. If it is in a non-british jurisdiction all they can do is block access to it. There is no way to take it down. The link may be a referral.
You're being retarded.
Of course you can get spam that links to a web site hosted in Russia or North Korea. This isn't about them. This is about getting spam that links to a web site hosted in the UK. They're not trying to stop all spam, they're trying to make sure that 1) spammers with web sites hosted in the UK don't make money from stupid gullible people that buy stuff from spammers, 2) spammers with web sites hosted in the UK will be inconvenienced by having to move their site elsewhere if they want to continue spamming, and 3) spammers who need web hosting won't try to do business in the UK, because they know they'll just be shut down.
As others have already noted, the linked address may be that of someone the spammer doesn't like, resulting in the shutdown or blocking of an innocent web site.
This is an issue, and I've seen it happen. Hopefully this new policy will be enforced carefully, and ISPs will try to contact their customers before taking action.
With so many potential problems, I doubt whether this initiative has a chance of succeeding.
Of course it will succeed, because the goals of this plan are the ones I listed above, not whatever your goals are.
People with this attitude (it's not that rare) in open source projects should be told thanks for their contributions, but your efforts are no longer needed, and shown the door.
That's a pretty stupid idea. Do you know anything about how (and why) open source development works? People code because they like it. If somebody doesn't feel like coding something, you're suggesting that the Mozilla project should make them unwelcome, and not accept the code they DO feel like writing?
If you want something done, that nobody wants to do, you have to either do it yourself, or PAY somebody to do it for you. If you want that bug fixed, and can't fix it yourself, consider donating to the Mozilla Foundation, so they can afford to pay people to fix bugs nobody wants to fix.
Actually, he has a very interesting point. If the direction Microsoft wants to go in the future is not down an x86-compatible path, VirtualPC frees them from the backwards compatibility nightmare - not just the nightmare of moving to a significantly different operating system, but the nightmare of moving to a new CPU architecture. Microsoft could release a (for example) PowerPC version of Windows, which would run on PowerPC hardware, running native Win/PPC apps, with legacy Win32/x86 apps running alongside them in emulation. Not that they'd be likely to choose PowerPC, but Intel and AMD would probably love to move to a better RISC architecture of their own, and with Microsoft's support, it could be done.
There was a rumor that Microsoft was considering supporting original XBox games (x86-based) on the XBox Next (PowerPC-based), using VirtualPC to accomplish it.
Not only that, but they can run previous versions of Windows -- or at least some of the sub-systems -- under Longhorn, thereby allowing backwards compatibility without having to design it directly into Longhorn's own APIs. (Like Apple did when they went to OS X, I believe).
Just to clarify, what Apple did was make these available:
1) A complete API set called Cocoa, derived from NeXTStep (which GNUStep is also based on) 2) Another complete API called Carbon, derived from the classic Mac OS Toolbox with some things taken out (e.g. stuff that directly touches the hardware) and some new things added in 3) CarbonLib for classic Mac OS, which is the new things added as mentioned above. Carbon applications can, in theory, run completely natively on either Mac OS X or Mac OS 9 with CarbonLib. 4) Classic is an emulation environment that runs on Mac OS X and boots Mac OS 9 inside the emulator. It's integrated into the OS so it doesn't run inside a window (except while booting), things like drag&drop between native and emulated apps works, and the Mac OS 9 Finder doesn't run. Any classic Mac OS apps that aren't Carbon-compatible, and don't try to touch the hardware too much, should work fine inside Classic, because it's really a hacked up Mac OS 9.
Owning VirtualPC would allow Microsoft to implement an emulation layer similar to Classic on Mac OS X. To make it appear seamless to the user would require quite a bit of hacking, of course.
My experience was the opposite - in Spain, "tu" was quite common, while in Guatemala, "Usted" was used almost exclusively when dealing with people you either didn't know, or had any kind of professional relationship with. I don't think you can group all of "Latin America" together; the culture varies a lot between countries, or even within countries.
But people have not agreed on any standard, and even if they did there is little chance most sites would change to follow it.
Uhh, hello? Right here. People don't follow it because browsers don't support it (Mozilla does but it's turned off by default I think; Firefox, Safari and MSIE don't; Opera supports Next but doesn't appear to support other buttons well).
Yes, they're listening, and they're scared - the reason it's taking so long to bring iTMS to the rest of the world is, the record companies are scared of Apple getting a monopoly in online music distribution, which would give Apple a lot of power over them. They're comfortable with their own oligopoly; someone else having that much leverage frightens them.
Likely the next iPod will be an Airport Express-enabled, so you can wirelessly stream music from your iPod to your stereo.
As kick-ass as that would be, I'm afraid it won't be happening soon. Someone somewhere pointed out that running a WiFi card would seriously drain batteries, so with the current design it could only last for a couple hours without needing to recharge - unless you kept the iPod plugged in. Except, guess what? You usually charge the battery with a FireWire cable, which connects to your computer... which can play music via AirPort Express from iTunes. Until there's a major breakthrough in battery technology, wireless connectivity in the iPod just isn't practical.
I find it a confusing and jarring experience when OS X finder switches view mode based on the previous way I was viewing some folder, because I don't remember how I last viewed a folder, I'm thinking in a browser/viewer type framework (but I realise my experience may not be typical of the average user). How usable is this for the average person?
The Mac OS 9 Finder was spatial, and worked well. The Mac OS X Finder is not spatial, but has had spatial functionality grafted onto it - however, this is implemented poorly enough that it's not really usable, so I get along without. As you point out, the biggest problem with Mac OS X's implementation is the inconsistent way it switches back and forth between spatial folder windows and non-spatial browser windows. The solution (IMHO) is to provide both, but keep them clearly separated - if I double-click a folder in a browser window, it should open the folder in the browser window (with modifier keys to make it open in a new browser window, or to open a spatial folder window); if I double-click a folder in a spatial folder window, it should open in a new spatial folder window (exactly where it did last time, with modifier keys to close the parent window and to open a new browser window showing that folder's contents).
Anyone who says Windows 95 is spatial has probably never used Mac OS. Opening folders in new windows doesn't mean it's spatial, because they don't stay where you put them consistently enough to be useful. With Mac OS, windows don't open in "seemingly random locations" - they open exactly where you left them last time. If you don't like them there, move them to where you want them, and they'll stay there for next time. Admittedly, this behavior is NOT always ideal - and for those times when it isn't, a good non-spatial file browser would be good to have AS WELL (see the shareware app Greg's Browser for Mac OS).
Could be. In Portland we call it I-5; I've never heard it called Highway 5 before.
Re:I'll help the FBI out with catching them.
on
NYT on Spam Cops
·
· Score: 1
Nothing. The guy selling the widgets is funding the crime. You want to arrest the guy who pays to have his wife killed, and not the actual killer? Well, its better to get both, but one's better than nothing.
Rule #1: Spammers lie.
The spammer told the widget maker that he runs a perfectly legitimate, above-board opt-in mailing list, and although every message has a working unsubscribe link, most of his clientele have been so pleased with his service so far that they have no desire to unsubscribe, and some of them even refer their friends. As described, this is perfectly legal, and it should be. Such mailing lists do exist, although most aren't specifically for advertising.
It seems to me that those guys may have been the sole sources of all the spam going through Direcway to my account. Are there any other Direcway subscribers here that had the same experience, was the whole thing just an extraordinary coincidence, or did Direcway find the holy grail of anti-spam?
I would agree that those guys were probably the sole sources of your spam, but it has nothing to do with DirecWay, and you won't see any pattern comparing to other DirecWay subscribers. Spammers don't care what ISP you're on; they'll spam any e-mail address they can find. It just so happens that these guys had yours, and (fortunately for you) nobody else did (though don't be surprised if that changes). Other people may have a similar experience (they were also getting spam only from these two guys), but most people won't have noticed (they may have been getting spam from these guys, but they were also getting spam from others). It has nothing to do with your ISP (although some ISPs may block spam more successfully than yours).
Verisign controls.fr ccTLD? Since when? I thought it was AFNIC (www.afnic.fr) whol looked after.fr?
Verisign Global Registry Services manages the root zone, which does indeed contain both.com and.fr. Verisign GRS also manages the.com and.net zones, and AFNIC manages the.fr zone, but the root zone is the absolute top of the hierarchy above top-level domains.
iTunes depends heavily on QuickTime. They'd need to port QuickTime before they could port iTunes. Porting QuickTime would be non-trivial. Although, now that they've ported it to two other platforms (Windows and Mac OS X), porting to one more should at least be a familiar experience for them...
Once QuickTime is ported and works well, adding iTunes on top of it shouldn't be hard.
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Dear Phroggy Please refrain from using words like "retarded" in the near future unless you are specifically looking to start a flame war. I was looking for a discussion, not waiting for someone I don't know to start being rude. Thank you.
:-D
I thought a flame war might be entertaining. Sorry.
That said, the first thing that will happen when this gets through is that sites in the UK will be blocked only to be replaced by sites overseas that cannot be taken down (which is what i was saying in the first place). The spamming business is an international one.
Having them hosted overseas where they "can't be taken down" isn't really any worse than having them hosted in the UK where they can be taken down but not actually taking them down, is it? And of course they can be taken down, if they're hosted in other countries - they can be taken down by ISPs in those countries. That may not happen, but the more ISPs that start forming policies like the UK policy under discussion here, the harder it will be to find an ISP that doesn't. It will never be impossible, but the more inconvenient it is for the spammers, the better.
Meanwhile, if all the spammers get funneled onto only a handful of ISPs, the rest of us just blackhole them.
Yeah, we're nowhere near there yet. But, this is a step in the right direction, not a step backwards. Many more steps will, of course, be needed to have any significant impact.
I, for one, welcome our new copyright infringing, ip thieving, file-sharing, socialist, everyone-share-and-share alike overlords. I guess the RIAA bribe, I mean campaign contribution, didn't make it through on time.
This is precisely why judges aren't elected.
In theory it sounds nice. However, there are several problems here. First, the offending web site may be hosted by an ISP that doesn't give a damn. It may be overseas. It may be in Russia, or North Korea for that matter. If it is in a non-british jurisdiction all they can do is block access to it. There is no way to take it down. The link may be a referral.
You're being retarded.
Of course you can get spam that links to a web site hosted in Russia or North Korea. This isn't about them. This is about getting spam that links to a web site hosted in the UK. They're not trying to stop all spam, they're trying to make sure that 1) spammers with web sites hosted in the UK don't make money from stupid gullible people that buy stuff from spammers, 2) spammers with web sites hosted in the UK will be inconvenienced by having to move their site elsewhere if they want to continue spamming, and 3) spammers who need web hosting won't try to do business in the UK, because they know they'll just be shut down.
As others have already noted, the linked address may be that of someone the spammer doesn't like, resulting in the shutdown or blocking of an innocent web site.
This is an issue, and I've seen it happen. Hopefully this new policy will be enforced carefully, and ISPs will try to contact their customers before taking action.
With so many potential problems, I doubt whether this initiative has a chance of succeeding.
Of course it will succeed, because the goals of this plan are the ones I listed above, not whatever your goals are.
You think that's weird? Wait a few weeks, until you get used to it. Then sit down at somebody else's computer, and just TRY to surf the Web.
People with this attitude (it's not that rare) in open source projects should be told thanks for their contributions, but your efforts are no longer needed, and shown the door.
That's a pretty stupid idea. Do you know anything about how (and why) open source development works? People code because they like it. If somebody doesn't feel like coding something, you're suggesting that the Mozilla project should make them unwelcome, and not accept the code they DO feel like writing?
If you want something done, that nobody wants to do, you have to either do it yourself, or PAY somebody to do it for you. If you want that bug fixed, and can't fix it yourself, consider donating to the Mozilla Foundation, so they can afford to pay people to fix bugs nobody wants to fix.
Actually, he has a very interesting point. If the direction Microsoft wants to go in the future is not down an x86-compatible path, VirtualPC frees them from the backwards compatibility nightmare - not just the nightmare of moving to a significantly different operating system, but the nightmare of moving to a new CPU architecture. Microsoft could release a (for example) PowerPC version of Windows, which would run on PowerPC hardware, running native Win/PPC apps, with legacy Win32/x86 apps running alongside them in emulation. Not that they'd be likely to choose PowerPC, but Intel and AMD would probably love to move to a better RISC architecture of their own, and with Microsoft's support, it could be done.
There was a rumor that Microsoft was considering supporting original XBox games (x86-based) on the XBox Next (PowerPC-based), using VirtualPC to accomplish it.
Very interesting possibilities.
Not only that, but they can run previous versions of Windows -- or at least some of the sub-systems -- under Longhorn, thereby allowing backwards compatibility without having to design it directly into Longhorn's own APIs. (Like Apple did when they went to OS X, I believe).
Just to clarify, what Apple did was make these available:
1) A complete API set called Cocoa, derived from NeXTStep (which GNUStep is also based on)
2) Another complete API called Carbon, derived from the classic Mac OS Toolbox with some things taken out (e.g. stuff that directly touches the hardware) and some new things added in
3) CarbonLib for classic Mac OS, which is the new things added as mentioned above. Carbon applications can, in theory, run completely natively on either Mac OS X or Mac OS 9 with CarbonLib.
4) Classic is an emulation environment that runs on Mac OS X and boots Mac OS 9 inside the emulator. It's integrated into the OS so it doesn't run inside a window (except while booting), things like drag&drop between native and emulated apps works, and the Mac OS 9 Finder doesn't run. Any classic Mac OS apps that aren't Carbon-compatible, and don't try to touch the hardware too much, should work fine inside Classic, because it's really a hacked up Mac OS 9.
Owning VirtualPC would allow Microsoft to implement an emulation layer similar to Classic on Mac OS X. To make it appear seamless to the user would require quite a bit of hacking, of course.
See bugs 173804 and 188922.
Funniest comment I've seen in awhile.
My experience was the opposite - in Spain, "tu" was quite common, while in Guatemala, "Usted" was used almost exclusively when dealing with people you either didn't know, or had any kind of professional relationship with. I don't think you can group all of "Latin America" together; the culture varies a lot between countries, or even within countries.
Yes.
But people have not agreed on any standard, and even if they did there is little chance most sites would change to follow it.
Uhh, hello? Right here. People don't follow it because browsers don't support it (Mozilla does but it's turned off by default I think; Firefox, Safari and MSIE don't; Opera supports Next but doesn't appear to support other buttons well).
In what version was it dropped?
I am running Mozilla 1.7 and the feature is still in there.
It works on Slashdot!
Mozilla has it, but not Firefox. Safari doesn't either.
Even OS X, which does at least ship with developer tools in every box really makes no mention of them.
Um, explain to me how 800MB of documentation counts as no mention?
I wonder if the RIAA's listening?
Yes, they're listening, and they're scared - the reason it's taking so long to bring iTMS to the rest of the world is, the record companies are scared of Apple getting a monopoly in online music distribution, which would give Apple a lot of power over them. They're comfortable with their own oligopoly; someone else having that much leverage frightens them.
Likely the next iPod will be an Airport Express-enabled, so you can wirelessly stream music from your iPod to your stereo.
As kick-ass as that would be, I'm afraid it won't be happening soon. Someone somewhere pointed out that running a WiFi card would seriously drain batteries, so with the current design it could only last for a couple hours without needing to recharge - unless you kept the iPod plugged in. Except, guess what? You usually charge the battery with a FireWire cable, which connects to your computer... which can play music via AirPort Express from iTunes. Until there's a major breakthrough in battery technology, wireless connectivity in the iPod just isn't practical.
I find it a confusing and jarring experience when OS X finder switches view mode based on the previous way I was viewing some folder, because I don't remember how I last viewed a folder, I'm thinking in a browser/viewer type framework (but I realise my experience may not be typical of the average user). How usable is this for the average person?
The Mac OS 9 Finder was spatial, and worked well. The Mac OS X Finder is not spatial, but has had spatial functionality grafted onto it - however, this is implemented poorly enough that it's not really usable, so I get along without. As you point out, the biggest problem with Mac OS X's implementation is the inconsistent way it switches back and forth between spatial folder windows and non-spatial browser windows. The solution (IMHO) is to provide both, but keep them clearly separated - if I double-click a folder in a browser window, it should open the folder in the browser window (with modifier keys to make it open in a new browser window, or to open a spatial folder window); if I double-click a folder in a spatial folder window, it should open in a new spatial folder window (exactly where it did last time, with modifier keys to close the parent window and to open a new browser window showing that folder's contents).
Anyone who says Windows 95 is spatial has probably never used Mac OS. Opening folders in new windows doesn't mean it's spatial, because they don't stay where you put them consistently enough to be useful. With Mac OS, windows don't open in "seemingly random locations" - they open exactly where you left them last time. If you don't like them there, move them to where you want them, and they'll stay there for next time. Admittedly, this behavior is NOT always ideal - and for those times when it isn't, a good non-spatial file browser would be good to have AS WELL (see the shareware app Greg's Browser for Mac OS).
Could be. In Portland we call it I-5; I've never heard it called Highway 5 before.
Nothing. The guy selling the widgets is funding the crime. You want to arrest the guy who pays to have his wife killed, and not the actual killer? Well, its better to get both, but one's better than nothing.
Rule #1: Spammers lie.
The spammer told the widget maker that he runs a perfectly legitimate, above-board opt-in mailing list, and although every message has a working unsubscribe link, most of his clientele have been so pleased with his service so far that they have no desire to unsubscribe, and some of them even refer their friends. As described, this is perfectly legal, and it should be. Such mailing lists do exist, although most aren't specifically for advertising.
Rule #1: Spammers lie.
Are you still sure the widget maker is at fault?
It seems to me that those guys may have been the sole sources of all the spam going through Direcway to my account. Are there any other Direcway subscribers here that had the same experience, was the whole thing just an extraordinary coincidence, or did Direcway find the holy grail of anti-spam?
I would agree that those guys were probably the sole sources of your spam, but it has nothing to do with DirecWay, and you won't see any pattern comparing to other DirecWay subscribers. Spammers don't care what ISP you're on; they'll spam any e-mail address they can find. It just so happens that these guys had yours, and (fortunately for you) nobody else did (though don't be surprised if that changes). Other people may have a similar experience (they were also getting spam only from these two guys), but most people won't have noticed (they may have been getting spam from these guys, but they were also getting spam from others). It has nothing to do with your ISP (although some ISPs may block spam more successfully than yours).
Anyone remember the Nintendo PowerGlove? It was ultrasonic rather than gyroscopic or optical...
If you have a Mac, check out a shareware app called MP3 Rage.
Verisign controls .fr ccTLD? Since when? I thought it was AFNIC (www.afnic.fr) whol looked after .fr?
.com and .fr. Verisign GRS also manages the .com and .net zones, and AFNIC manages the .fr zone, but the root zone is the absolute top of the hierarchy above top-level domains.
Verisign Global Registry Services manages the root zone, which does indeed contain both
iTunes depends heavily on QuickTime. They'd need to port QuickTime before they could port iTunes. Porting QuickTime would be non-trivial. Although, now that they've ported it to two other platforms (Windows and Mac OS X), porting to one more should at least be a familiar experience for them...
Once QuickTime is ported and works well, adding iTunes on top of it shouldn't be hard.
I have an even easier solution that works just as well as yours does:
1. Open iTunes.
2. Find your M4P file in the Purchased Music playlist.
3. Click play.
That's it!