Been there, done that, you don't know the full context, and you've convinced me you're some sort of an idiot. I have other things to do with my time than read more than 10 lines of your drivel. Does/. have an option to ignore your existence?
You sound like it's a rare thing, but the book has sold very well and many people have read it. His previous book also provided a lot of insight into what's wrong in BushCo.
You called the support staff stupid and you're that surprised that they dropped the nice facade?
No, I did not, and I'm offended by your apparently poor reading ability combined with wannabe rude fingers. In my response to a useless response from Cashette, I suggested two possible interpretations of the situation. My first comment in that exchange contained no hint of impoliteness.
It is possible that I was remembered for previous reports of problems and suggestions, though I had not sent anything to "support" at Cashette for some months. Their previous responses were mostly useless and irrelevant, though polite enough.
In my search for other users of the Cashette email system, I have so far found three active ones (who have used those addresses in public in the last two weeks)--not counting a bunch of spam posts using Cashette accounts. I think the entire exchange and Cashette's approaching bankruptcy are evidence in favor of the point of the original article.
However, even if he felt I was rude in response to his irrelevant reply, a rude response was not going to do any good. Actually, I worked in technical support for a couple of years, and I never lost my patience with or temper at a customer--though I admit that the other employees started automatically giving me all of the toughest cases and the customers who could never be satisfied. I did what I could, and didn't let it bother me that some people apparently go through their entire lives without being satisfied by anything...
At least nothing came up in a search for "fake"--but I'm ignoring the anonymous cowards, so maybe they have the insights?
Anyway, it's obvious that if this is really a war (pretending that America was seriously threatened by the late Saddam and that a war was called for), and if you know how your enemy is acting, then this is an obvious case for seeding Google with fake intelligence to find out if the insurgents take the bait. It's called counterintelligence, even if you take "military intelligence" as an oxymoron. Actually, by doing it cleverly in narrow time windows and tracing the IPs for specific fake images, they could even get very specific data on the people who are supporting the insurgents.
On the other hand, pretending that Dubya's politically filtered appointees are more competent than the insurgents, then we could also out-think them to figure out where the true images will encourage the insurgents to attack, and plan for counterattacks at those targets. Of course the problems there are that the insurgents are rather cunning, quite determined, have wide popular support, and are quick to change their tactics.
The *REAL* problems of our situation in Iraq are *NOT* related to Google. The real problems are that Dubya's handlers regard themselves as being safe from paying any legal penalties for their perpetual and fanatical determination to ignore reality, while Dubya's incompetence compounds every mistake. If you haven't read The One Percent Doctrine, then you should read it just to see what happens when someone who is not as qualified as a college intern is frequently intervening at the highest levels of the decision-making processes.
[Actually a newsgroup post I was planning to circulate more widely, only to discover there aren't many Cashette users left. However no time to edit it just now. And anyway, this is/...]
Sorry for the non-topical addition to the discussion, but since you are a current user of Cashette, it is possible that we share motivations as regards email. Also, there's the warning part...
Regarding the motivations part, I hate spam, but I would like to have an email address that could be used in public without being flooded with spam. Since spam is fundamentally an economic problem, only economic solutions can be truly effective, so I was optimistic Cashette might offer a real solution.
I used Cashette for several years, but I am convinced it is now a one-man operation on the verge of disappearing into bankruptcy, so I would both like to warn you and to ask if you know of a good alternative. Or perhaps some of the other readers know of a truly good email system for use in the newsgroups?
My own Cashette account has been destroyed or locked, so you can't reply via email (since I haven't yet decided on a new public-use email system). I will watch this thread using Google Groups to see if there are any public replies to this branch.
However, I think it may be helpful to review Cashette's sad story. The main feature of Cashette was an economic model of email. I think prepaid email would be even better, but Cashette was using a kind of challenge-and-response approach with penalty payments for spammers. (By the way, Cashette still owes me some money, but I regard that as a minor grievance at this point. Probably a dollar, or maybe a buck and a half. I certainly hope you [the Cashette user] aren't hoping to make any money off of it...) Cashette has always been kind of flaky, and I've reported a number of problems over the years, some of which were fixed. I've also offered a number of suggestions, though I don't recall that any of them were adopted.
The main problem I perceived with Cashette was that the system still collected and displayed spam, though in a special folder. If it's there, I feel obliged to scan the folder for false positives, and that basically negated the main spam-free virtue of Cashette. I offered several suggestions for enhancements to improve the value of Cashette. Actually, I should be more precise and note that it actually became unrealistic even to scan for false positives. As noted in the following email, the volume of spam became very large.
At first, I was thanked for the suggestions, though as noted, I don't believe any were adopted. Finally, the response was not thankful and polite, but extremely rude, as shown below. I thought about it for a while. I asked for an apology, and didn't get it. I conclude that Cashette is down to one BOFH and is on the verge of going away. Hence I prepared this post for other Cashette users.
(However, there already seem to be very few users of Cashette, so perhaps my experiences are too typical and this warning is too late? I laugh to recall that I once attempted to defend the reputation of Cashette. You seem to be only the second Cashette-based poster I could find...)
Let me repeat my main query: Can you recommend a good email system that can be used in public places such as the newsgroups without being inundated with spam?
Now for your entertainment and amusement, and certainly not to help the reputation of Cashette, here is my recent correspondence with the BOFH of Cashette. Sorry about the layout problems, but that's just another one of the bugs in Cashette.
From: Cashette Support To: Shannon Jacobs Sent: Tue Nov 28 21:17:37 PST 2006 Subject: Re: Currently 2,390 blocked messages
> You're a bitch. Go fuck yourself and then go to hell. Have a nice day.
> ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Shannon Jacobs" > To: "Cash
Must be another truly devout Rushevik projecting your dickheadedness from your cowardly anonymity, eh? You had to protect your moderation abuse, right?
But it only took a few moments of Googling and reading to determine that it was signed by...
Turn the page and there is the society's blunt rejection letter, signed by the Honorary Secretary at the time, Terry Bolin, now Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales. Terry Bolin must feel like the person who said Einstein was dumb or that the Beatles couldn't sing.
...but I finally fell up? Anyway, it's been a long strange trip, though I feel like I've mostly done well enough.
However, this topic does remind me of two particular rejections. The best one I ever received was from H-P back in their glory days. They didn't tell me why they weren't interested, though I suspect my refusal to relocate was probably key (and then I wound up relocating to Japan?), but the letter itself was really wonderful. It's really hard to write a rejection letter like that, that really doesn't bruise the ego--and mine is terribly fragile.
The second rejection was from MIT. I asked why, and we actually exchanged several letters about it. At least they were up front about it. I came across that correspondence some years later, and upon reflection, I agree with them. Mostly.
Oh, you want to know why MIT bounced me? As I recall it, they said they wanted more personal maturity than I had in those days. Actually, probably more than I have now, but that's a different sordid story. The point was that MIT wants people who already know where they want to go, and MIT intends to help them get there as quickly as possible. I still respect them in the morning. Mostly.
I'm confident my trip would have been long and strange in any case.
Typical seti@home level thinking. What the article says is not that we could not detect them, but only that we could not detect them if they were making no attempt to be detected and were only 'leaking' the same amount and kind of electromagnetic radiation that we've emitted in the extremely short time since we started doing it.
Think of it differently. Assume that there was any case of a civilization that had benefited from radio contact with a different civilization. If such a case existed, it would seem to be natural for them to try to return the favor by contacting other civilizations. If a relatively small power plant (and we already have thousands of really large power plants) were devoted to such a project, it could produce a beacon that would be easily detectable throughout our galaxy with our present technology. (Okay, you need to assume it runs for a relatively long time to reach the entire galaxy.)
So what does it mean that we have not detected any such radio beacon? Well, evidently there isn't any beacon to be detected. No civilizations? No benefit received? Or some reason to keep quiet?
Fermi was no fool. His paradox is worth serious consideration.
Slashdot - where nerds wait for someone to open a segue to their favorite rant.
I just have to say that sig really captures the true spirit of/.
The only competition is the spirit of using mod points vindictively.
Yes, I know the post is off topic, so you don't have to use a mod point to prove both of my points. In case you are also rather dull or poorly educated, let me note that "I just have to say" is a literary device by which an author deliberately signifies his overwhelming compulsion to go off topic.
However, that pedantic quasi-humorous comment has now made this post highly topical as regards the original post. That would evidently leave you vindictive moderators in the lurch, eh?
No, really, he did sponsor the publication of a book called (using Romaji) Insutanto Ra-men No Himitsu, or the Secrets of Instant Ramen. I read it back in 1998. It was pretty clear that the company had helped sponsor it, though it was published as part of a very popular series of children's books. The 'secrets' series are educational manga (comic books) for kids, and include such classics as the Secrets of Bread (the food) and the Secrets of Fish (the animals) and the Secrets of Earthquakes. The Secrets of Instant Ramen was actually a pretty good one, though it was a bit too slanted in featuring Ando-san's life story so prominently. It really was a moving struggle for him to invent the first instant ramen, and there were many battles after that...
What's to get upset about? It was a such a romantic video!
However, it should have included testicles with the first penises. And maybe the should have been angled more upwards? Just some minor tweaks and it could be the next Love Story.
My recent Linux experience has been Ubuntu and Fedora, but currently I'm only using Ubuntu. Mostly Edgy Eft, but one machine still has Dapper Drake on it.
The main problem I've run into in all of the Linux environments has been enabling the Japanese input modes. It has always been possible, but it rarely works right out of the box. This is obviously a big problem if you need to work with Japanese, and it's the main area where the Ubuntu experience comes up short of the Windows experience for general users.
Other than that, I'd say that Ubuntu is delivering about 85% of the real-world functionality of Windows, and Fedora was a little below that. Of course, that's a very subjective evaluation, but it addresses the main goal of the Ubuntu project. (I don't know so much about Fedora, and only used it for a few weeks.) The de facto Microsoft monopoly on office data files continues to be my main hindrance to abandoning Windows. Another significant problem is with Microsoft's cursed DRM (which is being used by many websites).
My other ongoing problem has been disk space. Ubuntu says you can live with a few GBs, but I don't recommend going below 4 GB for the Ubuntu partition, and I don't think I'll do any future machines with less than 5 GBs.
One concern about Ubuntu is that I think the new Edgy Eft isn't as good as the Dapper Drake. They need to make sure that they are getting better and better, not just being different on an arbitrary schedule. All in all, I think it was mostly a mistake for me to go to Edgy Eft so soon. Not enough of a hassle to justify the hassle of downgrading any of the machines, but...
What part of the only good spammer is a dead spammer don't you understand?
Seriously, I really have mixed feelings about this one. It's just so difficult to imagine a spammer doing anything good. My philosophy is that all things have at least two sides, but a good side of a spammer? That's a serious strain on my philosophy...
On the other hand, I strongly believe my personal information should belong to me, and the government should have to show probable cause before seizing *ANY* part of it. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments are not just a good idea. They're the law, and rightfully so.
I read the comments in search of "you ain't seen nothing yet" examples, but nadda. Come on, can't we do better (= worse) than the original article? So much for the collective wisdom of/.
I've actually been chasing this one spamming idiot around for months. It's really weird in that he's the only spammer that seems to bother that address, and he's a totally small-scale nuisance level spammer. Kind of a throwback to the old days of 10 years ago? He per force switches ISPs, websites, and DNS services continually, sometimes gets bounced out for a few days, but keeps right on coming back for more. It's actually sort of nice to find at least one spammer that stupid.
Of course, the big fear is that he'll get a lightbulb and figure out how to sell his email addresses to a *REAL* spammer.
In this case, we should possess our own personal data, and unauthorized possession should be theft, just like someone broke into your house and stole your computer. I have about 300 GB of storage at home, and I'm quite sure that all the personal information that companies 'own' about me could easily be stored on MY premises.
I didn't make that part clear enough. Fox News is just turning things completely on their heads. The old MSM was based on integrity, in that they wanted to find out and report the truth, and they also had to build their credibility, which is what the main article is actually focused on, in that the NY Times realized that their credibility was being destroyed by biased 'reporting'. (Not to imply that they had much credibility left.) However, Fox News never made any pretense of having any impartiality except for their bogus motto/logo. Fox just created something that looked like a news network and expected people to think it automatically had some credibility. Certain advertisers are willing to support the scam. I haven't checked, but I'd assume they're the same companies that support Rushbaugh.
Actually, the more interesting assault on reality involves the destructive redefinition of the linguistic modeling of reality. A very prominent example is that the word "liberal" has been completely redefined, but I actually received an interesting example in my email yesterday. Any form of disagreement with Dubya means I'm a Bush-hater, and my correspondent (a wealthy neo-GOP) insists that he gets to define my mental reality for me. He even included a list of new equivalences for "hate", stuff like disdain or disapproval or disrespect. Me, I think such word games are fundamentally intellectually dishonest. If I actually hated Dubya, I even think I'd be the first person to know it. The meaning of existing words should be respected, and if you need to describe a new concept (such as BushCo, Rushevik, Bushevik, and Rushbaugh), then you should go ahead and make it clear why a new term is needed--and then you should attempt to be consistent in how it is used to convey clear meanings, not to destroy old ones.
Not just the NYT, but all MSM is pretty much asset free. Their only assets are integrity and credibility. Do they write the truth? And does anyone believe anything they write, regardless of the truth value.
Unfortunately, there is a fundamental dysfunction when advertising is introduced as a revenue source. Advertising agencies have *NO* integrity, though they're eager to fake sincerity. They want to rent the MSM credibility, but in so doing, they have succeeded in dragging the MSM down to their own level. First they destroyed the credibility of their own advertising platform, and then with venues like Fox (AKA FAUX) News, they destroyed the integrity, too.
So when was the last time you bought a paper? When was the last time you believed a newspaper ad?
But MS screws the users. As usual. That's what happens when any one company has so much power to abuse. In the absense of real competition the old versions of their own products are just nuisances that prevent them from ramming new garbage down our throats.
Frankly I'm sick and tired of it. I have installed Ubuntu Linux as a cross-boot on many of my machines. Unfortunately, several things are still making it hard for me to abandon Microsoft completely. One of them is actually Microsoft's DRM being used by a website whose content I like (though the website itself reeks like the proverbial big dog's m0e). (Does anyone have a solid connection inside Comedy Central that they're willing to contact?)
The "Militant" is going in the right direction, but not far enough. Rather Microsoft conceives of the OS (and all components thereof) as weapons to smite the (imaginary or already destroyed) opposition. When you're building weapons, of course you build them as big and hairy as possible--and now we have the computer equivalent of little old ladies trying to swat flies with a trench mortar.
I think it's highly suspicious that no comments have been moderated as funny. Have all of us lost our senses of humor? Or has Microsoft infiltrated and taken over/., too? Or is it really that serious and sombre topic?
I like my freedom, but you can't have freedom without choice, and Microsoft is dedicated to eliminating our choices. I really think the only thing that limits Microsoft is the lack of an army, so they can't actually ignore the various governments.
A very harmful secondary effect is that they are greatly limiting the rate at which software evolves and develops. In the absence of meaningful competition, they have no sincere reason to change or improve anything.
Increasing shareholder value is not the ultimate goal of mankind.
Re:Centralized Email
on
Spam is Dead
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Spammers' perspective of the cost of sending email. What's another 10 million spams if they think their cost is zero? It matters because that's how they 'figure' their RoI. If they get another $39 for their verbal Viagra substitute spammed to the extra 10 million people, then they divide by zero and think their RoI is 'infinite'. Of course, the flaw is that email is *NOT* really free, and millions of other people are bearing the costs for the spammer.
Slashdot Mirror
Been there, done that, you don't know the full context, and you've convinced me you're some sort of an idiot. I have other things to do with my time than read more than 10 lines of your drivel. Does /. have an option to ignore your existence?
You sound like it's a rare thing, but the book has sold very well and many people have read it. His previous book also provided a lot of insight into what's wrong in BushCo.
No, I did not, and I'm offended by your apparently poor reading ability combined with wannabe rude fingers. In my response to a useless response from Cashette, I suggested two possible interpretations of the situation. My first comment in that exchange contained no hint of impoliteness.
It is possible that I was remembered for previous reports of problems and suggestions, though I had not sent anything to "support" at Cashette for some months. Their previous responses were mostly useless and irrelevant, though polite enough.
In my search for other users of the Cashette email system, I have so far found three active ones (who have used those addresses in public in the last two weeks)--not counting a bunch of spam posts using Cashette accounts. I think the entire exchange and Cashette's approaching bankruptcy are evidence in favor of the point of the original article.
However, even if he felt I was rude in response to his irrelevant reply, a rude response was not going to do any good. Actually, I worked in technical support for a couple of years, and I never lost my patience with or temper at a customer--though I admit that the other employees started automatically giving me all of the toughest cases and the customers who could never be satisfied. I did what I could, and didn't let it bother me that some people apparently go through their entire lives without being satisfied by anything...
At least nothing came up in a search for "fake"--but I'm ignoring the anonymous cowards, so maybe they have the insights?
Anyway, it's obvious that if this is really a war (pretending that America was seriously threatened by the late Saddam and that a war was called for), and if you know how your enemy is acting, then this is an obvious case for seeding Google with fake intelligence to find out if the insurgents take the bait. It's called counterintelligence, even if you take "military intelligence" as an oxymoron. Actually, by doing it cleverly in narrow time windows and tracing the IPs for specific fake images, they could even get very specific data on the people who are supporting the insurgents.
On the other hand, pretending that Dubya's politically filtered appointees are more competent than the insurgents, then we could also out-think them to figure out where the true images will encourage the insurgents to attack, and plan for counterattacks at those targets. Of course the problems there are that the insurgents are rather cunning, quite determined, have wide popular support, and are quick to change their tactics.
The *REAL* problems of our situation in Iraq are *NOT* related to Google. The real problems are that Dubya's handlers regard themselves as being safe from paying any legal penalties for their perpetual and fanatical determination to ignore reality, while Dubya's incompetence compounds every mistake. If you haven't read The One Percent Doctrine , then you should read it just to see what happens when someone who is not as qualified as a college intern is frequently intervening at the highest levels of the decision-making processes.
[Actually a newsgroup post I was planning to circulate more widely, only to discover there aren't many Cashette users left. However no time to edit it just now. And anyway, this is /...]
Sorry for the non-topical addition to the discussion, but since you are a
current user of Cashette, it is possible that we share motivations as
regards email. Also, there's the warning part...
Regarding the motivations part, I hate spam, but I would like to have an
email address that could be used in public without being flooded with spam.
Since spam is fundamentally an economic problem, only economic solutions can
be truly effective, so I was optimistic Cashette might offer a real
solution.
I used Cashette for several years, but I am convinced it is now a one-man
operation on the verge of disappearing into bankruptcy, so I would both like
to warn you and to ask if you know of a good alternative. Or perhaps some of
the other readers know of a truly good email system for use in the
newsgroups?
My own Cashette account has been destroyed or locked, so you can't reply via
email (since I haven't yet decided on a new public-use email system). I will
watch this thread using Google Groups to see if there are any public replies
to this branch.
However, I think it may be helpful to review Cashette's sad story. The main
feature of Cashette was an economic model of email. I think prepaid email
would be even better, but Cashette was using a kind of
challenge-and-response approach with penalty payments for spammers. (By the
way, Cashette still owes me some money, but I regard that as a minor
grievance at this point. Probably a dollar, or maybe a buck and a half. I
certainly hope you [the Cashette user] aren't hoping to make any money off
of it...) Cashette has always been kind of flaky, and I've reported a number
of problems over the years, some of which were fixed. I've also offered a
number of suggestions, though I don't recall that any of them were adopted.
The main problem I perceived with Cashette was that the system still
collected and displayed spam, though in a special folder. If it's there, I
feel obliged to scan the folder for false positives, and that basically
negated the main spam-free virtue of Cashette. I offered several suggestions
for enhancements to improve the value of Cashette. Actually, I should be
more precise and note that it actually became unrealistic even to scan for
false positives. As noted in the following email, the volume of spam became
very large.
At first, I was thanked for the suggestions, though as noted, I don't
believe any were adopted. Finally, the response was not thankful and polite,
but extremely rude, as shown below. I thought about it for a while. I asked
for an apology, and didn't get it. I conclude that Cashette is down to one
BOFH and is on the verge of going away. Hence I prepared this post for other
Cashette users.
(However, there already seem to be very few users of Cashette, so perhaps my
experiences are too typical and this warning is too late? I laugh to recall
that I once attempted to defend the reputation of Cashette. You seem to be
only the second Cashette-based poster I could find...)
Let me repeat my main query: Can you recommend a good email system that can
be used in public places such as the newsgroups without being inundated with
spam?
Now for your entertainment and amusement, and certainly not to help the
reputation of Cashette, here is my recent correspondence with the BOFH of
Cashette. Sorry about the layout problems, but that's just another one of
the bugs in Cashette.
From: Cashette Support
To: Shannon Jacobs
Sent: Tue Nov 28 21:17:37 PST 2006
Subject: Re: Currently 2,390 blocked messages
> You're a bitch. Go fuck yourself and then go to hell. Have a nice day.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Shannon Jacobs"
> To: "Cash
Must be another truly devout Rushevik projecting your dickheadedness from your cowardly anonymity, eh? You had to protect your moderation abuse, right?
...but I finally fell up? Anyway, it's been a long strange trip, though I feel like I've mostly done well enough.
However, this topic does remind me of two particular rejections. The best one I ever received was from H-P back in their glory days. They didn't tell me why they weren't interested, though I suspect my refusal to relocate was probably key (and then I wound up relocating to Japan?), but the letter itself was really wonderful. It's really hard to write a rejection letter like that, that really doesn't bruise the ego--and mine is terribly fragile.
The second rejection was from MIT. I asked why, and we actually exchanged several letters about it. At least they were up front about it. I came across that correspondence some years later, and upon reflection, I agree with them. Mostly.
Oh, you want to know why MIT bounced me? As I recall it, they said they wanted more personal maturity than I had in those days. Actually, probably more than I have now, but that's a different sordid story. The point was that MIT wants people who already know where they want to go, and MIT intends to help them get there as quickly as possible. I still respect them in the morning. Mostly.
I'm confident my trip would have been long and strange in any case.
Typical seti@home level thinking. What the article says is not that we could not detect them, but only that we could not detect them if they were making no attempt to be detected and were only 'leaking' the same amount and kind of electromagnetic radiation that we've emitted in the extremely short time since we started doing it.
Think of it differently. Assume that there was any case of a civilization that had benefited from radio contact with a different civilization. If such a case existed, it would seem to be natural for them to try to return the favor by contacting other civilizations. If a relatively small power plant (and we already have thousands of really large power plants) were devoted to such a project, it could produce a beacon that would be easily detectable throughout our galaxy with our present technology. (Okay, you need to assume it runs for a relatively long time to reach the entire galaxy.)
So what does it mean that we have not detected any such radio beacon? Well, evidently there isn't any beacon to be detected. No civilizations? No benefit received? Or some reason to keep quiet?
Fermi was no fool. His paradox is worth serious consideration.
I just have to say that sig really captures the true spirit of /.
The only competition is the spirit of using mod points vindictively.
Yes, I know the post is off topic, so you don't have to use a mod point to prove both of my points. In case you are also rather dull or poorly educated, let me note that "I just have to say" is a literary device by which an author deliberately signifies his overwhelming compulsion to go off topic.
However, that pedantic quasi-humorous comment has now made this post highly topical as regards the original post. That would evidently leave you vindictive moderators in the lurch, eh?
Logic. What a be-atch.
No, really, he did sponsor the publication of a book called (using Romaji) Insutanto Ra-men No Himitsu, or the Secrets of Instant Ramen. I read it back in 1998. It was pretty clear that the company had helped sponsor it, though it was published as part of a very popular series of children's books. The 'secrets' series are educational manga (comic books) for kids, and include such classics as the Secrets of Bread (the food) and the Secrets of Fish (the animals) and the Secrets of Earthquakes. The Secrets of Instant Ramen was actually a pretty good one, though it was a bit too slanted in featuring Ando-san's life story so prominently. It really was a moving struggle for him to invent the first instant ramen, and there were many battles after that...
What's to get upset about? It was a such a romantic video!
However, it should have included testicles with the first penises. And maybe the should have been angled more upwards? Just some minor tweaks and it could be the next Love Story .My recent Linux experience has been Ubuntu and Fedora, but currently I'm only using Ubuntu. Mostly Edgy Eft, but one machine still has Dapper Drake on it.
The main problem I've run into in all of the Linux environments has been enabling the Japanese input modes. It has always been possible, but it rarely works right out of the box. This is obviously a big problem if you need to work with Japanese, and it's the main area where the Ubuntu experience comes up short of the Windows experience for general users.
Other than that, I'd say that Ubuntu is delivering about 85% of the real-world functionality of Windows, and Fedora was a little below that. Of course, that's a very subjective evaluation, but it addresses the main goal of the Ubuntu project. (I don't know so much about Fedora, and only used it for a few weeks.) The de facto Microsoft monopoly on office data files continues to be my main hindrance to abandoning Windows. Another significant problem is with Microsoft's cursed DRM (which is being used by many websites).
My other ongoing problem has been disk space. Ubuntu says you can live with a few GBs, but I don't recommend going below 4 GB for the Ubuntu partition, and I don't think I'll do any future machines with less than 5 GBs.
One concern about Ubuntu is that I think the new Edgy Eft isn't as good as the Dapper Drake. They need to make sure that they are getting better and better, not just being different on an arbitrary schedule. All in all, I think it was mostly a mistake for me to go to Edgy Eft so soon. Not enough of a hassle to justify the hassle of downgrading any of the machines, but...
What part of the only good spammer is a dead spammer don't you understand?
Seriously, I really have mixed feelings about this one. It's just so difficult to imagine a spammer doing anything good. My philosophy is that all things have at least two sides, but a good side of a spammer? That's a serious strain on my philosophy...
On the other hand, I strongly believe my personal information should belong to me, and the government should have to show probable cause before seizing *ANY* part of it. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments are not just a good idea. They're the law, and rightfully so.
I read the comments in search of "you ain't seen nothing yet" examples, but nadda. Come on, can't we do better (= worse) than the original article? So much for the collective wisdom of /.
Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip
NO TERRIER
I've actually been chasing this one spamming idiot around for months. It's really weird in that he's the only spammer that seems to bother that address, and he's a totally small-scale nuisance level spammer. Kind of a throwback to the old days of 10 years ago? He per force switches ISPs, websites, and DNS services continually, sometimes gets bounced out for a few days, but keeps right on coming back for more. It's actually sort of nice to find at least one spammer that stupid.
Of course, the big fear is that he'll get a lightbulb and figure out how to sell his email addresses to a *REAL* spammer.
In this case, we should possess our own personal data, and unauthorized possession should be theft, just like someone broke into your house and stole your computer. I have about 300 GB of storage at home, and I'm quite sure that all the personal information that companies 'own' about me could easily be stored on MY premises.
I didn't make that part clear enough. Fox News is just turning things completely on their heads. The old MSM was based on integrity, in that they wanted to find out and report the truth, and they also had to build their credibility, which is what the main article is actually focused on, in that the NY Times realized that their credibility was being destroyed by biased 'reporting'. (Not to imply that they had much credibility left.) However, Fox News never made any pretense of having any impartiality except for their bogus motto/logo. Fox just created something that looked like a news network and expected people to think it automatically had some credibility. Certain advertisers are willing to support the scam. I haven't checked, but I'd assume they're the same companies that support Rushbaugh.
Actually, the more interesting assault on reality involves the destructive redefinition of the linguistic modeling of reality. A very prominent example is that the word "liberal" has been completely redefined, but I actually received an interesting example in my email yesterday. Any form of disagreement with Dubya means I'm a Bush-hater, and my correspondent (a wealthy neo-GOP) insists that he gets to define my mental reality for me. He even included a list of new equivalences for "hate", stuff like disdain or disapproval or disrespect. Me, I think such word games are fundamentally intellectually dishonest. If I actually hated Dubya, I even think I'd be the first person to know it. The meaning of existing words should be respected, and if you need to describe a new concept (such as BushCo, Rushevik, Bushevik, and Rushbaugh), then you should go ahead and make it clear why a new term is needed--and then you should attempt to be consistent in how it is used to convey clear meanings, not to destroy old ones.
Not just the NYT, but all MSM is pretty much asset free. Their only assets are integrity and credibility. Do they write the truth? And does anyone believe anything they write, regardless of the truth value.
Unfortunately, there is a fundamental dysfunction when advertising is introduced as a revenue source. Advertising agencies have *NO* integrity, though they're eager to fake sincerity. They want to rent the MSM credibility, but in so doing, they have succeeded in dragging the MSM down to their own level. First they destroyed the credibility of their own advertising platform, and then with venues like Fox (AKA FAUX) News, they destroyed the integrity, too.
So when was the last time you bought a paper? When was the last time you believed a newspaper ad?
But MS screws the users. As usual. That's what happens when any one company has so much power to abuse. In the absense of real competition the old versions of their own products are just nuisances that prevent them from ramming new garbage down our throats.
Frankly I'm sick and tired of it. I have installed Ubuntu Linux as a cross-boot on many of my machines. Unfortunately, several things are still making it hard for me to abandon Microsoft completely. One of them is actually Microsoft's DRM being used by a website whose content I like (though the website itself reeks like the proverbial big dog's m0e). (Does anyone have a solid connection inside Comedy Central that they're willing to contact?)
The "Militant" is going in the right direction, but not far enough. Rather Microsoft conceives of the OS (and all components thereof) as weapons to smite the (imaginary or already destroyed) opposition. When you're building weapons, of course you build them as big and hairy as possible--and now we have the computer equivalent of little old ladies trying to swat flies with a trench mortar.
I think it's highly suspicious that no comments have been moderated as funny. Have all of us lost our senses of humor? Or has Microsoft infiltrated and taken over /., too? Or is it really that serious and sombre topic?
I like my freedom, but you can't have freedom without choice, and Microsoft is dedicated to eliminating our choices. I really think the only thing that limits Microsoft is the lack of an army, so they can't actually ignore the various governments. A very harmful secondary effect is that they are greatly limiting the rate at which software evolves and develops. In the absence of meaningful competition, they have no sincere reason to change or improve anything. Increasing shareholder value is not the ultimate goal of mankind.
Spammers' perspective of the cost of sending email. What's another 10 million spams if they think their cost is zero? It matters because that's how they 'figure' their RoI. If they get another $39 for their verbal Viagra substitute spammed to the extra 10 million people, then they divide by zero and think their RoI is 'infinite'. Of course, the flaw is that email is *NOT* really free, and millions of other people are bearing the costs for the spammer.