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User: adrianbye

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  1. Re:Those evil cubans! on Michael Moore's New Film Leaked To BitTorrent · · Score: 1

    I was in Cuba a couple of weeks ago, and I speak fluent spanish. Here's some blog postings about what I thought and saw, including pics and videos:

    http://www.adrianbye.com/2007/05/15/why-i-firmly-d isagree-with-the-system-in-cuba/

    http://www.adrianbye.com/2007/05/14/things-worth-v isiting-in-cuba/

  2. Re:Motley Fool profiled the Odyssey corp. on Sunken Treasure Worth $500 Million Found Off England · · Score: 1

    And what is interesting about the stock at over $8, the company is still only valued at $390M, despite this apparently being a $500M find. We could also assume they will find more of these in future, but the market is not prepared to value that.

  3. Re:Right back atcha! on 30th Anniversary of Gates' Letter to HCC · · Score: 1

    On this page you can see the some early motivation for open source. Another user got annoyed at Gate's comments and decided to write his own, to be freely shared:

    http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/ho mebrew/V2_04/homebrew_V2_04_p9.jpg/

  4. Re:Right back atcha! on 30th Anniversary of Gates' Letter to HCC · · Score: 1

    On this page in the 4th issue you can see someone else coming in with open source style motivation after seeing Bill Gate's letter. Basically he got annoyed and decided to code his own:

    http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/ho mebrew/V2_04/homebrew_V2_04_p9.jpg:

  5. Incentivized clicks are bad on Google, Skype and the Future of IM · · Score: 1

    In the article he says:

    > Every time you click on an ad you get
    > a free minute of long distance. Sounds
    > like a good idea for the home user who
    > wants to talk to his family in India.

    In online advertising, you generally don't want incentivized clicks like this, because the users are not really interested in the ad.. therefore the sites paying for the clicks don't sell, and people get upset because the quality of the traffic goes down.

    A move like this would devalue all of google's pay per click advertising. They definitely won't do it.

  6. Re:Not the same on Concert to be Performed from Beyond the Grave · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > He would steep his hands and forearms
    > in steaming hot water to loosen them
    > and increase the circulation.

    He most likely had a repetitive strain injury (RSI) from his piano playing, and this was how he reduced the pain. That his arms came out burnt red may indicate the level of pain he felt.

  7. Its about the licensing on Paramount Says Enterprise Cancellation Is Final · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If the fans could have made a deal which somehow involved pushing more merchandise, then this might have worked. Its all about the licensing - the studios make little money on the actual series with the big money coming from ties to the show. That is evidenced by this comment from the article:

    "We believe the franchise is still very vital as evidenced by the fans' demand for books, DVDs and all sorts of related merchandise."

  8. Traffic costs are rising on Ask Jeeves Bought for $2 billion · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With the costs/value of traffic rising, sites that have a lot of traffic are being bought. Their value should increase significantly over the next few years. This is also why about.com was bought recently.

  9. Re:Repaid already? on US to Pay to go to ISS · · Score: 1
    War is fucking bad, it should always be avoided at all costs. If you don't understand that war is never necessary, unless if for self-defense when someone attacks you, then I would say that your country should get an history before trying to tamper with world affairs.

    Maybe you should learn a little history.

    From the wikipedia article "major causes of WWII":

    Appeasement: A major part of the blame for the war lies with English and French politicians. Both these nations repeatedly followed a policy which not only gave Hitler what he wanted and therefore made him more likely to push for more, but also gave the Germans time to rearm. Hitler himself said that when he reoccupied the Rhineland, "that the Army had a standing order to retreat" if the French showed any resistance.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_I I

  10. Re:um...pay per unique visit? Hello??? on Google Battles Fraudulent Clicks · · Score: 1

    Unique can be determined 2 ways:

    - via a cookie

    - via the IP address + browser agent

    The cookie can be easily deleted from the client. The second can be faked using proxies and rewriting the browser agent.

    Its a difficult problem to solve.

    Additionally, despite what others here say - this model is here to stay. PPC advertising is the backbone of Google's success. They're not going to just drop it because of fraud problems.

  11. Re:Grassroots Marketing on Firefox Seeks Full Page Ad in New York Times · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I hope they've got someone who understands direct response marketing helping out.

    - they should have a unique firefox URL listed in the ad, so they can track downloads from the ad to determine the effectiveness. This should be a unique DOMAIN, not just a path, because many people strip off the path when its used in print advertising.

    - they should consider running 3-4 different versions of the ad in the NYTimes (the NYTimes should be able to offer this), each to a different URL, and compare downloads per ad.

    - the pages need to be optimized so its clear, quick and easy for users to get to a download

    - why start with the NYtimes? Why not try some cheaper media first (like local newspapers), to see how the responses are.. and if it works, to scale up to more expensive papers like the NY times.

    When you have actual metrics, you know the usefulness of the campaign. You can say "our $20k spent resulted in 50k downloads, want to contribute to our next campaign?"

  12. Re:VoIP is available for UK users now on NYT Reviews VoIP: Vonage, Packet8, VoicePulse · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One reason I can think of is power outages. Normal phones and cell phones usually work during power outages, while you need an UPS to be able to use VoIP when the power is out. I would never rely on VoIP alone when it comes to emergency calls. Actually Vonage doesn't work well at all when there are power outages. The line gets a LOT of noise in it when running off a backup power source such as a UPS. Packet8 does not have this problem, unfortunately their network is not very reliable yet.

  13. Re:Google changing search results for profit? on Fortune Magazine On Google Growing Up · · Score: 1

    This is stupid.

    The reason why the high value keywords are getting caught in the filters is because more of those sites are trying to game the index.

  14. Re:I Don't Think Microsoft Is This Issue on Will Google Become Another Netscape? · · Score: 1

    Google appliance, google answers, etc is irrelevant.

    Yes, google may "just have" ad revenue, but the ad revenue they have is extremely targeted and global. Nobody else knows *exactly* what you are looking for, but google does, and can make money from showing the right ad at the moment the searcher is looking for something.

    Yahoo, and other general advertising supported models can't show the range of targeted advertising that google can. They just have to hope there's a fit due to demographics or click tracking. But they can't do a direct match like google can.

  15. Re:Worthwhile uses: Finding defendants? on Amazon Launches Full Text Book Search · · Score: 1

    You can't require them to attribute you. If they quoted a portion of your work, its fair use. If they quoted a lot of it verbatim, its copyright infringement.

    But they are legally allowed to take your ideas and use them however they want, unless you have a patent.

  16. Windows based solutions? on Living Life in Fast-Forward · · Score: 1

    So are there any better windows based solutions other than Windows Media Player? I couldn't find anything while searching.

  17. Re:Is October 1st in Australia like our April 1st? on Snail Mail As E-Mail · · Score: 1

    Bad idea. Oh, also, the company will be out of business in six months.

    Really? So companies providing maildrop services won't exist? Try doing a search for 'mail drop' or 'mail forwarding', and you'll see some companies that have been around a little longer than 6 months.

  18. Re:Who cares? on NYT on RFID · · Score: 1


    Case in point: the explosion of predatory lenders after they successfully repealed the usury laws. Lenders were making a profit before, based on the spread in interest rates. Now they are making obscene profits.


    You might want to study some Adam Smith, my friend. The invisible hand is very powerful: http://plus.maths.org/issue14/features/smith/

  19. Re:Who cares? on NYT on RFID · · Score: 1

    The sad part is, people don't see any value in privacy, because they don't realize the benefits it allows. Being anonymous allows you to have your turn next in line, and receive the same amount of respect as a person who is twice as affluent as your are. Once your personal worth is on the table with everyone else's, your value in society has just been broadcasted, and you will wait until those more worthy have been served no matter how long you've been waiting. You may never be served at that rate...

    Oh, but you'll just head on to their competitors, right? Think again. They bought the same list. They also know that you'll be more desperate than before since they knew where you were coming from... Now they can really ream your wallet *IF* they decide you're worth having as a customer


    This is not true. If a market appears of people wanting to buy, (ie not being served by the original company) a new company will appear to serve it.

  20. Re:Must... control... fist... of... death... on SCO's Open Letter to Open Source Community · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Talk about out of context! The assertion that the code is owned by SCO is made only by Mr. McBride, who neglected to mention that it has already been found and removed.

    Actually this is a good thing. When they're resorting to exaggerations like this, it shows how little SCO really has.

  21. Re:eBay policy on Testing The Right To Resell Downloaded Music · · Score: 1
    He could also go ahead and sell it on clickbank. They're designed for selling electronically downloadable products.

    The only problem would be that the sale would not be an auction. But he'll have an idea of the price people will pay for this from the eBay auction.

  22. Re:Getting worse on The Growing Field Guide To Spam Techniques · · Score: 1

    I now use Qurb for spam filtering. Its really simple - it creates a whitelist from all addresses in your sent mail & addressbook, and continues to build it from people you reply to.

    Those messages go into your inbox. Everything else goes into a special folder, which doesn't set off the new message notifications.

    This won't work well for large volumes of spam (200+ per day), but for smaller volumes it works great.

  23. Re:stuff like this on Broken Saints Finale Available · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What is happening is that it is becoming easier for individuals to get their content out.

    In the past it was much harder - and thus we had record company royalties of 5%-12%. The reason those rates are so low is that getting content out by traditional methods is hard. But now that is changing and the balance of power is shifting to the artists.

    Its a good thing.

  24. Re:Hormel will probably lose. on Hormel Sues Over SpamArrest Name · · Score: 1
    The judge will probably rule there is no confusion between the two. Spam has taken on an entirely different generic meaning w.r.t email, that is unlikely to be confused with the popular luncheon meat. Hormel should have enforced their trademark much earler to stop the alternative usage of the word "Spam".

    Exactly. Just like you can have "Apple Computer", and "Apple records". Trademarks are divided by context/category.

    Hormel's SPAM is food related, internet spam is tech related.

  25. Re:Read this before bashing SCO on SCO Protest And Anti-Protest In Provo · · Score: 1
    had some fun with the "rivalry", and went on their merry way happy

    .. this is why you went to the protest? I thought there are billions of dollars at stake, along with the future of unix..