Your Tivo by default will tell Tivo the company what it is recording. Tivo the company uses this to compile aggregated data of what their subscribers are recording. This means they can say how many subscribers recorded Friends last night, but not which ones.
You can request that Tivo the company not collect this data from you.
Even so, I suspect the viewing habits of most folks here would just cause most marketting companies to throw out our data as "abberations" or "noise."
Disney's had the rights to 'Kiki's Delivery Service' for how many years now?
Granted, Ghibli wanted to do Japanese releases before US ones... I can understand that, and am OK with it.
But I've had my Kiki's Japan-R2 DVD since it was released in Japan, almost TWO YEARS AGO.
Totoro is a wierd case because of the FOX deal. But then there's Porco Rosso, which has also been out for the better part of a year.
Note that the Japanese release of Kiki and Porco came with Japanese and English voices, and English subtitling. Porco even comes sub/dubbed in French as well. All Disney had to do was put the menus into English, translate the DVD cover artwork, and voila - instant R1 release.
So, where are they?
And while we're on this topic, where's Disney's theatrical release of Laputa/Castle In The Sky that they were saying would be in US theaters TWO YEARS AGO.
I'm glad that Disney released Spirited Away in the US, but come on now... Disney has said again and again that they will release the movies in the US, only to blow every schedule they've made. Now, they don't even bother pretending to have a schedule for releasing the films in the US. I tried giving them the benefit of the doubt before, but it's clear what Disney is saying to the US market...
I say screw them. They had their chance to do a R1 release, but it's clear to me that if I ever want to see Laputa on DVD, it's going to have to come from Japan.
I've seen screenshots and I can tell there's a red tint to the video - especially when you see the clouds in the opening credits. Clouds should not be pink!
If even my set of "insensitive" gaijin eyes can see that the video has too much red in it, I'm sure to the "sensitive" eyes of the Nihonjin it's going to look downright bloody.
Well, both Disney and Ghibli have claimed that they've "adjusted" the picture to look better on DLP projectors, which they claim are a large part of their market in Japan.
They further claim that these projectors don't handle reds properly, which is why they increased the reddness of their video.
Furthermore, they claimed that consumers could always just adjust their TV sets.
No, I don't know what Disney/Ghibli was smoking. Most of the folks I know in Japan still have standard TVs because their rooms are too small to put a projector into them. (think about it, would you buy a projector for a 7' room that costs 2x a good TV? I don't think so...)
Bah, you can turn off the suggestions feature if you don't like it.
I only use it as a way to guesstimate how much free space is left on my Tivo.
The *real* power of Tivo is simply telling it to record your show by NAME instead of by TIME/CHANNEL. Tivo will then do the rest. It'll build up its list of what to record based on your choices. It will also figure out how to resolve conflicts by taking the lowered numbered show. You can override its decisions of course.
Yeah, you can still Tivo to record Comedy Central at 11pm every weeknight, but for the most part, why bother? I've really got no idea when half my shows air anymore. All I know is that when I come home, there's something good on the Tivo.
You really wouldn't want to turn your Tivo "off" anyways, since you don't know when it's going to record a program you want. (for instance, some of my shows end up being recorded at 2am when they rerun.)
There's also the Tivo Suggestions feature, which means Tivo will "guess" you'll like a certain show if you like similar shows (eg. if it thinks you like cooking shows, it'll record stuff like 'Emiril Live'.) The algorithm isn't particularly smart at first...for best results, you should go through and give thumb ratings to lots of shows to give Tivo an idea what you like. Any show you tell Tivo to record automatically gets a thumbs-up rating.
If you don't want to be bothered at all, just turn the Suggestions feature off.
If nothing else, Tivo will continually record "live TV" which is a sliding 30 minute buffer.
At any rate, it's to your advantage to have a full HD of stuff at all times. If nothing else, it gives you more options besides the current lineup. Also, while watching a pre-recorded show, you can leave your Tivo to record newer shows for you. After about a month of having Tivo, I didn't watch live TV anymore. My HD was full of stuff I wanted watch already.
There are already ads in the Tivo - even if you're a lifetime subscriber.
The Tivo Showcases are promos for various shows on given networks, with convient little buttons for you to click to add them to your Tivo's To-Do list. The networks pay Tivo to have a Showcase.
Also Tivo has also been pushing promotional material, like ads for 8 Mile, Gold Member, BMW, etc. which show up at the bottom of your main menu. No big deal, though. You're not forced to watch these ads. Your Tivo will automatically record a special ad program every Sunday morning at 4am to pick up new content - this is not, NOT *NOT* part of your data partition, so these ads don't impact your storage capacity.
So far, Tivo has managed to stay on the good side of the networks, unlike Sonic Blue, who got into hot water for their "commercial skip" feature. it makes no sense for Tivo (or any PVR maker) to piss off the networks...
The big thing that PVRs change is the whole "must see" lineup. You're no longer tied to your couch because favorite show is one right now. This puts a big crimp in the way Networks are used to thinking in, since using a PVR means you may not watch their Thursday night line up until Sunday morning.
PVRs also threaten the whole "lead-in" concept where they'll put a not-so popular show between two popular programs in hopes that you won't switch away. Since PVRs only record what you tell them to, you won't be recording those extra programs anyways.
Worse still, since many cable programs re-run at later times/dates, using a PVR means you'll actually be able to watch *more* TV that you're actually interested in.
It's too bad the Nielsens don't take PVRs into account otherwise the Networks would learn that is actually a good thing... They no longer have to just fight for your eyeballs between 8-10pm when all they have to do is rerun their programs at 2am, and folks will record them. (IE - there's no reason to go off-air...)
So what happens when her "husband" tries using the stove in the kitchen, starts a fire, and burns to death?
This actually happend to my first pair of Sims... The fire spread quickly and eventually destroyed the house and was threatening my sim-neighborhood!
I had to go build a wall in the middle of the fire with a telephone on it so one of my sims could "visit" the dead couple and call the fire department....
That's actually standard policy at a lot of places.
Giving out a reference is viewed as a risk by HR, since if you didn't get the job, they're afraid that you'll sue them for giving out a bad reference.
As a result, many places I've worked at had a policy that no one was allowed to give out references. You could confirm if the person had worked at the company between X and Y dates, but all other questions were to be sent to HR, where the operator would say they don't give out references and would hang up.
Being the two-faced scum HR are, hiring managers were required to call the list of references provided by a prospective employee and ask the same questions they themselves couldn't answer for any of their former-employees...
Many people will still do personal references so long as you call their private cellphone and not their office number.
I don't usually bother with extras, other than commentary tracks (which don't appear to be here...) so to me it's 5 discs for $100. $20 still isn't that bad.
Also, consider that most places lop 20% off MSRP, so you'll probably see places selling this for $79.99.
Well, to be honest, Outlaw Star, Tenchi, and Pilot Candidate were all originally editted for Toonami. Adult Swim didn't exist yet.
When Adult Swim was created, they needed to fill the space, so they took some pre-existing shows.
Since Toonami airs during 4-6pm, it had different standards than Adult Swim. Cowboy Bebop, for instance, was brought over specifically for Adult Swim. All things considered, they did very, very little to it.
As for the original audiences, Mobile Suit Gundam, Yuu Yuu Hakusho and Pilot Candidate were targetted originally at boys, 8-12. The shows aired at various times after school in Japan.
Inu-Yasha seems to have a following of both boys and girls from jr. high and up.
Outlaw Star was aimmed at college aged males, and aired on latenight TV in Japan.
Tenchi was aimmed at highschool and college students.
And if CN would ever stop dropping Gundam halfway through, people would realize there's more to the show than just Amuro's whining while he blows stuff up.
Heck, wasn't CN going to run Char's Counterattack at some point? Not that it'll make any sense since no one will have seen what's *really* going on with Char, what happend at the end of the war, why Amuro and Char really hate each other, not to mention what happend in Zeta (though, that's Bandai's fault, not CN's)
Re:Suit and Tie do not make the programmer.
on
Suit Up Or Ship Out?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
At one of my previous jobs, I was employee #4. I was also the first engineer on staff.
When I was asked to meet the board, I asked if I should wear a suit. Their response was "Heavens no! You're supposed to be our engineer!"
Depending on the investors, they might be disturbed if they *don't* see the second group...
Suits don't fool anyone. If you don't got it, you don't got it.
Live you, I"ve been using WinAmp on my PC, and as a result, have my music in a rather deep directory system. Directories and filenames define my storage methodology.
Unfortunatly, neither of these are understood by Creative...
The Creative software only reads ID3 tags (and even then, has problems) which causes some tracks to play out of order. Furthermore, the filesystem on the devices is *FLAT*
You have no directories. You must put all tracks into a flat filesystem, and the system keeps track of which tracks are in an "album" This sorta maps to what I call directories...but not exactly, since my ID3 tags aren't always filled in.
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
If only Creative implemented a *real* filesystem on their player, this thing would truely be an iPod killer.
I've tried getting Japanese (kanji) to show up in it, and apparentally unless your OS supports the language, it won't work. I'm running Win2k, which is unicode underneath so it's technically capable...but the application doesn't use unicode.
I don't want to have to grab a copy of Win2k-J in order to get Creative's 2-bit POS software to work properly...
Ugh, Play Center is the worst aspect of the Creative MP3 player line.
I notice the Zen uses the same crappy software as my Nomad3.
It's buggy, it doesn't handle standard ID3 tags properly (and it *only* reads ID3 tags - not the file name) and contrary to Creative's website, their software does *NOT* support foreign character sets (eg. Japanese.)
Why couldn't they just make this thing show up like a HD under Windows? Microsoft's Explorer works a whole lot better than Creative's cheap knock-off.
I've got the 40GB version, and yes you can use it as a standard HD.
SORT OF...
Unlike the other HD-based player I've used, the Nomad does not appear as a removable storage device under Windows (big mistake, Creative.) Instead you have to use this wonky piece of software from Creative that looks and acts like a poor version of Explorer (big mistake, Creative.)
Likewise, you have to use Creative's playcenter software to transfer MP3s to/from the player. This is the same software used with Creative's other MP3 players, so if you've ever used one of those, you know what a pain in the rear it is...
The stupid software packages don't quite understand the concept "network." So while something like F:\mymusic\ will work, \\my_server\mymusic will not. Again, big mistake Creative. I've filed several bug reports with them over this.
On the upside, the actual playback of the files is superior to the Neo Jukebox player (http://www.ssiamerica.com/products/neojukebox/ind ex.shtml) and the firewire makes transfers painless, compared to the USB-only interface of the Neo.
How long does it take you to figure out if a message is spam and hit the delete key? Let's say 1 second - and that you never make a mistake and delete a legitimate piece of mail.
I get 100 spams a day, so I'd be spending 100 seconds each day just hitting the delete key. Over the course of a year, that's just over *10 hours* of my time.
What's an hour of your time worth to you? Breaking my current salary and benefits down into $$/hour, I come up with something in the area of $90-100/hr.
Am I being compensated for spam? No. In fact, *I'M* *PAYING* for this privelege! Don't you find that a little bit wrong?
Nevermind burning your deleted/spam mail to CD.
Nevermind the problems of having your email account fill-up with so much spam while you're on vacation that you start bouncing legitimate messages.
Nevemind the fact that if you work for a company, it's still costing them real $$$ to have you - their employee - sit at your desk and Just Hit Delete.
Nevermind that despite the fact that equipment costs have dropped through the floor, the average ISP now charges $25/mo. for the same account that used to cost $20 just a few years ago... Where's the extra money going you ask? Into the additional servers and bandwidth needed to deal with spam - the unwanted messages you want everyone to "JHD".
Personally, I don't think its the spammers we should be going after primarily.
We *should* be going after the companies that are using spam to advertise.
Use the laws on *them*. Boycott them if applicable.
Granted, this won't end spam entirely, but it would certainly get rid of a large portion of the spammers' business.
Can't stay in business without customers and income...at least, not for very long.
At the same time, I say we should also start going after the ISPs that continue harbor known spamming customers. AT&T, Sprint, UU.Net/Worldcom, Level3, Verio, and Verizon, are just a few ISPs that continue to host customers who have generated 1000s and 1000s of complaints due to their spamming activities. They continue to provide service to their spamming customers only as long as it's profitable for them to do so.
I say if an ISP has a history of ignoring complaints about harrassment coming from their customer, they should be considered willing accomplices of a crime, and tried accordingly. Between the legal fees and negative publicity, it shouldn't be long before the ISPs themselves are driving spammers off their servers with large pointy sticks.
Slashdot Mirror
Your Tivo by default will tell Tivo the company what it is recording. Tivo the company uses this to compile aggregated data of what their subscribers are recording. This means they can say how many subscribers recorded Friends last night, but not which ones.
You can request that Tivo the company not collect this data from you.
Even so, I suspect the viewing habits of most folks here would just cause most marketting companies to throw out our data as "abberations" or "noise."
Disney's had the rights to 'Kiki's Delivery Service' for how many years now?
Granted, Ghibli wanted to do Japanese releases before US ones... I can understand that, and am OK with it.
But I've had my Kiki's Japan-R2 DVD since it was released in Japan, almost TWO YEARS AGO.
Totoro is a wierd case because of the FOX deal. But then there's Porco Rosso, which has also been out for the better part of a year.
Note that the Japanese release of Kiki and Porco came with Japanese and English voices, and English subtitling. Porco even comes sub/dubbed in French as well. All Disney had to do was put the menus into English, translate the DVD cover artwork, and voila - instant R1 release.
So, where are they?
And while we're on this topic, where's Disney's theatrical release of Laputa/Castle In The Sky that they were saying would be in US theaters TWO YEARS AGO.
I'm glad that Disney released Spirited Away in the US, but come on now... Disney has said again and again that they will release the movies in the US, only to blow every schedule they've made. Now, they don't even bother pretending to have a schedule for releasing the films in the US. I tried giving them the benefit of the doubt before, but it's clear what Disney is saying to the US market...
I say screw them. They had their chance to do a R1 release, but it's clear to me that if I ever want to see Laputa on DVD, it's going to have to come from Japan.
LOL.
No idea where you got that from...
I've seen screenshots and I can tell there's a red tint to the video - especially when you see the clouds in the opening credits. Clouds should not be pink!
If even my set of "insensitive" gaijin eyes can see that the video has too much red in it, I'm sure to the "sensitive" eyes of the Nihonjin it's going to look downright bloody.
They're asking for a replacement disc *AND* another 10,000yen.
(btw, the disc was originally 4500Yen, not 8000.)
A replacement makes sense. I don't know where this 10000Yen thing comes from...pain and suffering?
Well, both Disney and Ghibli have claimed that they've "adjusted" the picture to look better on DLP projectors, which they claim are a large part of their market in Japan.
They further claim that these projectors don't handle reds properly, which is why they increased the reddness of their video.
Furthermore, they claimed that consumers could always just adjust their TV sets.
No, I don't know what Disney/Ghibli was smoking. Most of the folks I know in Japan still have standard TVs because their rooms are too small to put a projector into them. (think about it, would you buy a projector for a 7' room that costs 2x a good TV? I don't think so...)
Bah, you can turn off the suggestions feature if you don't like it.
I only use it as a way to guesstimate how much free space is left on my Tivo.
The *real* power of Tivo is simply telling it to record your show by NAME instead of by TIME/CHANNEL. Tivo will then do the rest. It'll build up its list of what to record based on your choices. It will also figure out how to resolve conflicts by taking the lowered numbered show. You can override its decisions of course.
Yeah, you can still Tivo to record Comedy Central at 11pm every weeknight, but for the most part, why bother? I've really got no idea when half my shows air anymore. All I know is that when I come home, there's something good on the Tivo.
You really wouldn't want to turn your Tivo "off" anyways, since you don't know when it's going to record a program you want. (for instance, some of my shows end up being recorded at 2am when they rerun.)
There's also the Tivo Suggestions feature, which means Tivo will "guess" you'll like a certain show if you like similar shows (eg. if it thinks you like cooking shows, it'll record stuff like 'Emiril Live'.) The algorithm isn't particularly smart at first...for best results, you should go through and give thumb ratings to lots of shows to give Tivo an idea what you like. Any show you tell Tivo to record automatically gets a thumbs-up rating.
If you don't want to be bothered at all, just turn the Suggestions feature off.
If nothing else, Tivo will continually record "live TV" which is a sliding 30 minute buffer.
At any rate, it's to your advantage to have a full HD of stuff at all times. If nothing else, it gives you more options besides the current lineup. Also, while watching a pre-recorded show, you can leave your Tivo to record newer shows for you. After about a month of having Tivo, I didn't watch live TV anymore. My HD was full of stuff I wanted watch already.
There are already ads in the Tivo - even if you're a lifetime subscriber.
The Tivo Showcases are promos for various shows on given networks, with convient little buttons for you to click to add them to your Tivo's To-Do list. The networks pay Tivo to have a Showcase.
Also Tivo has also been pushing promotional material, like ads for 8 Mile, Gold Member, BMW, etc. which show up at the bottom of your main menu. No big deal, though. You're not forced to watch these ads. Your Tivo will automatically record a special ad program every Sunday morning at 4am to pick up new content - this is not, NOT *NOT* part of your data partition, so these ads don't impact your storage capacity.
So far, Tivo has managed to stay on the good side of the networks, unlike Sonic Blue, who got into hot water for their "commercial skip" feature. it makes no sense for Tivo (or any PVR maker) to piss off the networks...
The networks just don't "get it" yet.
The big thing that PVRs change is the whole "must see" lineup. You're no longer tied to your couch because favorite show is one right now. This puts a big crimp in the way Networks are used to thinking in, since using a PVR means you may not watch their Thursday night line up until Sunday morning.
PVRs also threaten the whole "lead-in" concept where they'll put a not-so popular show between two popular programs in hopes that you won't switch away. Since PVRs only record what you tell them to, you won't be recording those extra programs anyways.
Worse still, since many cable programs re-run at later times/dates, using a PVR means you'll actually be able to watch *more* TV that you're actually interested in.
It's too bad the Nielsens don't take PVRs into account otherwise the Networks would learn that is actually a good thing... They no longer have to just fight for your eyeballs between 8-10pm when all they have to do is rerun their programs at 2am, and folks will record them. (IE - there's no reason to go off-air...)
'Diamonds Are Forever' was the movie about the space laser using diamonds.
The trailer for Die Another Day reminded me of a mixture of 'Diamonds Are Forever' and 'Goldmember', only with a diamond themed disco, not a gold one.
Who said it was the children who liked Hello Kitty?
I know plenty of *women* who like Hello Kitty stuff.
Also, in Japan, cute = user friendly. Hello Kitty = cute.
If you want something to sell in Japan, paint it Hello Kitty Pink.
So what happens when her "husband" tries using the stove in the kitchen, starts a fire, and burns to death?
This actually happend to my first pair of Sims... The fire spread quickly and eventually destroyed the house and was threatening my sim-neighborhood!
I had to go build a wall in the middle of the fire with a telephone on it so one of my sims could "visit" the dead couple and call the fire department....
Microsoft has come out and said that mod-chips are used for piracy - ie. theft.
Therefore they're banning mod'd Xboxes.
But they also seem to be banning a number of people who *don't* have a mod'd Xbox.
Isn't that like calling these innocent people "thieves?"
Isn't that slander?
That's actually standard policy at a lot of places.
Giving out a reference is viewed as a risk by HR, since if you didn't get the job, they're afraid that you'll sue them for giving out a bad reference.
As a result, many places I've worked at had a policy that no one was allowed to give out references. You could confirm if the person had worked at the company between X and Y dates, but all other questions were to be sent to HR, where the operator would say they don't give out references and would hang up.
Being the two-faced scum HR are, hiring managers were required to call the list of references provided by a prospective employee and ask the same questions they themselves couldn't answer for any of their former-employees...
Many people will still do personal references so long as you call their private cellphone and not their office number.
What is it with folks who think there's only room for either DS9 or B5, but not BOTH?
They're very different shows, with different aims, strengths, and weaknesses.
I may think B5 is better than DS9, but I still like DS9 a lot.
Heck, even JMS said he liked DS9.
It's 6 discs, but disc 6 is nothing but extras.
I don't usually bother with extras, other than
commentary tracks (which don't appear to be here...) so to me it's 5 discs for $100. $20 still isn't that bad.
Also, consider that most places lop 20% off MSRP, so you'll probably see places selling this for $79.99.
Well, to be honest, Outlaw Star, Tenchi, and Pilot Candidate were all originally editted for Toonami. Adult Swim didn't exist yet.
When Adult Swim was created, they needed to fill the space, so they took some pre-existing shows.
Since Toonami airs during 4-6pm, it had different standards than Adult Swim. Cowboy Bebop, for instance, was brought over specifically for Adult Swim. All things considered, they did very, very little to it.
As for the original audiences, Mobile Suit Gundam, Yuu Yuu Hakusho and Pilot Candidate were targetted originally at boys, 8-12. The shows aired at various times after school in Japan.
Inu-Yasha seems to have a following of both boys and girls from jr. high and up.
Outlaw Star was aimmed at college aged males, and aired on latenight TV in Japan.
Tenchi was aimmed at highschool and college students.
And if CN would ever stop dropping Gundam halfway through, people would realize there's more to the show than just Amuro's whining while he blows stuff up.
Heck, wasn't CN going to run Char's Counterattack at some point? Not that it'll make any sense since no one will have seen what's *really* going on with Char, what happend at the end of the war, why Amuro and Char really hate each other, not to mention what happend in Zeta (though, that's Bandai's fault, not CN's)
At one of my previous jobs, I was employee #4. I was also the first engineer on staff.
When I was asked to meet the board, I asked if I should wear a suit. Their response was "Heavens no! You're supposed to be our engineer!"
Depending on the investors, they might be disturbed if they *don't* see the second group...
Suits don't fool anyone. If you don't got it, you don't got it.
Live you, I"ve been using WinAmp on my PC, and as a result, have my music in a rather deep directory system. Directories and filenames define my storage methodology.
Unfortunatly, neither of these are understood by Creative...
The Creative software only reads ID3 tags (and even then, has problems) which causes some tracks to play out of order. Furthermore, the filesystem on the devices is *FLAT*
You have no directories. You must put all tracks into a flat filesystem, and the system keeps track of which tracks are in an "album" This sorta maps to what I call directories...but not exactly, since my ID3 tags aren't always filled in.
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
If only Creative implemented a *real* filesystem on their player, this thing would truely be an iPod killer.
I've tried getting Japanese (kanji) to show up in it, and apparentally unless your OS supports the language, it won't work. I'm running Win2k, which is unicode underneath so it's technically capable...but the application doesn't use unicode.
I don't want to have to grab a copy of Win2k-J in order to get Creative's 2-bit POS software to work properly...
It's just plain firewire/IEEE1394.
Same reason why Sony calls their firewire ports "iLink".
Ugh, Play Center is the worst aspect of the Creative MP3 player line.
I notice the Zen uses the same crappy software as my Nomad3.
It's buggy, it doesn't handle standard ID3 tags properly (and it *only* reads ID3 tags - not the file name) and contrary to Creative's website, their software does *NOT* support foreign character sets (eg. Japanese.)
Why couldn't they just make this thing show up like a HD under Windows? Microsoft's Explorer works a whole lot better than Creative's cheap knock-off.
I've got the 40GB version, and yes you can use it as a standard HD.
d ex.shtml) and the firewire makes transfers painless, compared to the USB-only interface of the Neo.
SORT OF...
Unlike the other HD-based player I've used, the Nomad does not appear as a removable storage device under Windows (big mistake, Creative.) Instead you have to use this wonky piece of software from Creative that looks and acts like a poor version of Explorer (big mistake, Creative.)
Likewise, you have to use Creative's playcenter software to transfer MP3s to/from the player. This is the same software used with Creative's other MP3 players, so if you've ever used one of those, you know what a pain in the rear it is...
The stupid software packages don't quite understand the concept "network." So while something like F:\mymusic\ will work, \\my_server\mymusic will not. Again, big mistake Creative. I've filed several bug reports with them over this.
On the upside, the actual playback of the files is superior to the Neo Jukebox player (http://www.ssiamerica.com/products/neojukebox/in
The big cost for "JHD" is time. YOUR time.
How long does it take you to figure out if a message is spam and hit the delete key? Let's say 1 second - and that you never make a mistake and delete a legitimate piece of mail.
I get 100 spams a day, so I'd be spending 100 seconds each day just hitting the delete key. Over the course of a year, that's just over *10 hours* of my time.
What's an hour of your time worth to you? Breaking my current salary and benefits down into $$/hour, I come up with something in the area of $90-100/hr.
Am I being compensated for spam? No. In fact, *I'M* *PAYING* for this privelege! Don't you find that a little bit wrong?
Nevermind burning your deleted/spam mail to CD.
Nevermind the problems of having your email account fill-up with so much spam while you're on vacation that you start bouncing legitimate messages.
Nevemind the fact that if you work for a company, it's still costing them real $$$ to have you - their employee - sit at your desk and Just Hit Delete.
Nevermind that despite the fact that equipment costs have dropped through the floor, the average ISP now charges $25/mo. for the same account that used to cost $20 just a few years ago... Where's the extra money going you ask? Into the additional servers and bandwidth needed to deal with spam - the unwanted messages you want everyone to "JHD".
Personally, I don't think its the spammers we should be going after primarily.
We *should* be going after the companies that are using spam to advertise.
Use the laws on *them*. Boycott them if applicable.
Granted, this won't end spam entirely, but it would certainly get rid of a large portion of the spammers' business.
Can't stay in business without customers and income...at least, not for very long.
At the same time, I say we should also start going after the ISPs that continue harbor known spamming customers. AT&T, Sprint, UU.Net/Worldcom, Level3, Verio, and Verizon, are just a few ISPs that continue to host customers who have generated 1000s and 1000s of complaints due to their spamming activities. They continue to provide service to their spamming customers only as long as it's profitable for them to do so.
I say if an ISP has a history of ignoring complaints about harrassment coming from their customer, they should be considered willing accomplices of a crime, and tried accordingly. Between the legal fees and negative publicity, it shouldn't be long before the ISPs themselves are driving spammers off their servers with large pointy sticks.