While I recognize that Google Browser Sync was significantly more comprehensive than just bookmarks, I am surprised that no one bringing up bookmark-syncing replacements has brought up GMarks, a Firefox plugin that syncs with Google Bookmarks.
The link above is its addon page. Its features are listed here, and the project's homepage is here. I've used it for quite some time, and am satisfied with it. It's not amazingly earth-shatteringly innovative, but it gets the job done.
Just wait until the skeletons in Obama's closet in Illinois start coming out. It's a contest to see if the national media can keep the local media (Sun-Times, Trib, Herald) and prosecutors quiet long enough.
Whitewater and the Clinton-esque cover-up was *nothing* compared to this stuff.
What are you waiting for, then? Well?
*crickets*
Yeah, I didn't think so. You go on wishing... the rest of us will elect Obama, and start repairing the damage done to America over the past 8 years. Neo-conservatism-- nay, crypto-fascism-- has had its day. It's time to move on.
Exactly. I'm still searching through RFC's to confirm it, but I do not see how (or when) NDRs became Evil. I've administered mail servers for many years (though not recently, admittedly) and it is news to me.
This is spreading BAD misinformation about Internet protocols. C'mon, guys,/. can do better than this!
How is my secondary or tertiary MX host supposed to know which addresses I will accept? Mind reading? If it's not accepting *@mydomain.com, then there's a problem. That would be broken.
I'm talking about external, off-site backup MX hosting here. I don't see how they'd have access to a user list, especially if the primary server is down or unreachable.
I don't get this article, I really don't. When mail arrives for a domain, and the main mail server for the domain is unreachable, it is supposed to be sent to the lower-priority MX hosts for that domain. They are required to accept it, and forward it to the primary MX for the domain once it becomes available. That's how MX records are supposed to work.
Let me repeat that: they are required to unconditionally accept mail for the domain. So, unless I am missing something here, every single secondary mail host on the Internet should exhibit the behaviour mentioned in the article.
If I'm wrong, or I've missed something, please by all means correct me. But this really seems like a tinfoil-hat tempest in a teapot. Since when is it considered bad form to send a NDR?
Where are my mod points when I need them? Well-written, sir. (And apparently, based on your nick, from my own backyard.)
An interesting speculation. Wishful thinking aside, there does seem to be a certain degree of oddly panicky behaviour coming out of Redmond lately. Well, perhaps "panicky" is too strong a word, but something's Just Not Right. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next year or two, especially if the gPhone (or whatever) has as much of an effect on things as I suspect it will... not to mention the deep, deep threat to MS's business model that Google Apps represents (over the long-term).
Matt Marlon of Traffic Power was arrested for running a mortgage scam, not for [...] Yes. Exactly. But that just furthers his POINT, Venik. Black hat SEO is just another scam, albeit one that is not illegal. Unethical, but not illegal.
It does not surprise me in the least that someone involved in black hat SEO was also involved in outright criminal activity. Loose ethics are loose ethics, no matter the business.
A side note to other posters... please keep in mind, guys: standard, ethical SEO and black hat SEO are NOT the same. Neither he nor I are talking about all-- or even most-- SEO methods.
I've seen a number of vitriolic posts talking about those horrible sex offenders, as if they knew exactly what one was.
You don't. Trust me, you don't. Yes, it includes rapists, child molesters, etc... but the actual set of offenses that cause someone to be called a "sex offender" also includes stupid little things like flashing, victimless crimes like newlyweds making hanky-panky in a technically-public area, questionable crimes like public urination... all sorts of things that infuriate the puritanical elements of our society. It makes a nice, easy-to-administer Scarlet Letter for everyone the puritans hate.*
I would not have as much problem with this law if it actually applied only to the rapists and child molesters. Unfortunately, it does not.
* The label is also often used to repress closeted gays... "Those durned fagnits, having sex in the parks! This'll learn 'em!"
that bloated, piss-stained, corporate catamite Um... I scrolled back to the article to see what link you were talking about, expecting to find Fox News or some equally worthless "news" outlet. Instead I find... the Arizona Daily Star?
You seriously regard the Arizona Daily Star as a hideous news source? Wow. Get some perspective, man. We could do far worse. (He could have quoted the Tucson Citizen, for example.)
I suspect the change of news source by the/. editor was due to the rather extreme nature of the blog you linked to. (Please note, I'm a extreme liberal as well, but bias is bias.) The Daily Star has a more NPOV version.
YES! Exactly! I would love to find out who funded this study.
I've worked for telcos (CLECs) and ISPs. Bandwidth is not truly a scarce commodity, and yet the telcos charge through the nose for it, supported by the regulatory agencies.
Light up the dark fiber, use more efficient transmission methods... and while you're at it, modernize bandwidth prices that were set back in the stone age!
You're wrong to do that when all you know is what you saw on tv or read here. Veeeery wrong. I gather you didn't read the article. I did read the article. And the articles it linked to. And the articles THOSE articles linked to. And did some searching online. And read news reports and blogs, including the (verifiable) transcript of the police report.
I'm not assuming she is guilty of causing this girl's suicide. But she has admitted to some pretty awful things. It is those awful things for which she is being, and should be, shunned.
Whoa there. Did I publish her name? No. Did I publish a link to a page with her name? No. Did I state that she should be lynched publically? No.
You are sensationalizing and demonizing. Stop it. Most posters here have actually been against the publishing of the woman's name. You are also creating a false dichotomy. So people are either for her lynching, or they are for justice? And if she's cleared of any illegal doings by the courts, that means she's an angel?
I said I am unsure about it all. This is not a woman I would want my kids anywhere near, that much is clear to me. Do I agree with the hysterical bloggers calling for her immediate execution? No. This issue has already been awash in hysteria. That's kind of the point of TFA, and is why TFA states it may have been unwise to withhold the name, as withholding the name merely inflamed the mob. Let's not make the hysteria worse, shall we?
You spoke of tar and feathers, all the while applying it to me. Hyperbole does not further your argument. Take a deep breath, and reread my original post. Reality is rarely black and white.
Identities are concealed, as in this case, to protect the accused from community backlash. Folks often forget that the accused have rights as well. Forgeting to protect those rights, and encouraging a community backlash before they've had their day in court... Well that's headed back to bad old days of lynching and vigilante justice. I can understand that, certainly. However, in this case, there wasn't going to be a day in court. The DA originally decided not to pursue charges. Only after the recent attention have they decided to review the case. What does the community do then? I'm not surprised the outrage built as far as it did.
Personally, I suspect no charges were filed because of the fact most of the shenanigans were online only, and poorly understood by the officials involved. That's only speculation on my part, though.
This is a pretty messed up situation. The woman mentioned in the article summary is the mother of an ex-friend of Megan (the girl that committed suicide), and posed as a boy ("Josh") on MySpace trying to keep tabs on what Megan was saying about her daughter (Megan's ex-friend).
Whether the woman created the "Josh" account is not up for debate-- it's from the police report*. Likewise, whether she pretended to be interested in the 14-year-old girl is not debatable. What is debatable is whether she was the person logged in to the "Josh" account when the taunting messages were sent, especially given three people from her family posed as "Josh", and were complicit in the deceit. Complicating matters, Megan's mother said the Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time to Megan, by the mother's account, minutes before the suicide. (It's abundantly clear she will never forgive herself for this.)
As I said, it's pretty messed up. Were the mainstream media right in concealing the identity of the woman? I'm not so sure. It seems to me that too many times identities have been concealed, preventing true community backlash against perpetrators. It's clear the woman was at least partially culpable-- she didn't accidentally make the Josh character fall in love with Megan. On the other hand, the local community is already shunning the woman and her family, so is Internet Outrage really accomplishing any more?
* Unintentionally leaked by CNN, and transcribed by a blogger using frame capture.
Would it be possible for a class-action defamation lawsuit based on Ballmer's public comments? It strikes me that it would be more successful than an individual suit, since no one entity is responsible for the whole of Linux. The class defamed would be all developers or companies that had contributed code to Linux.
The suit would make sense to me, but I imagine that the legal system might not have provisions for a class action of this nature. It might explain why Microsoft feels comfortable creating this FUD... no one can sue them for it.
Take two minutes to read the article; these are for-profit commercial pirates. They're selling shit-quality DVD compilations of classic TV shows, often ripped directly from TVLand and other cable channels. This is very much a for-profit copyright infringement ring. You misread his post. What you stated above is his POINT. They aren't going after the commercial pirates like these. Instead, they are choosing to go after housewives, but pursue penalties determined by laws that were created with commercial pirates in mind.
Obviously, they aren't THAT concerned with recouping lost sales. They'd much rather intimidate their customers.
Gah, where's my mod points when I need 'em?
Microsoft has many sins upon their heads, in the software realm. However, countless program incompatibilities because software designers have no clue what "multi user" really is - is not Microsoft's (direct) fault. Vista was in beta for an extended period of time. Then they pushed an open beta. It's not like they made these changes behind closed doors and shipped it. Yes, exactly! And the "Application Data" and "Local Settings" directories have been there for much longer... but I still see new programs come out that insist on writing to their directory (or a subdir) in Program Files. There's no damn excuse at this point.
Please note: I am no MS apologist. Vista is a steaming pile of DRM-flavored dung. But let's not yell at MS for something they actually did RIGHT.
Your experience mirrors my own working as a senior sysadmin for a few ISPs in the dot-com era, one of which started just as you describe (but ended up being Corporate Hell).
What consumers need is some kind of a neutral audit service. Does the company have cash flow to stay in business? (Perhaps posting a bond to make sure their bills are paid?) Do they have "best practices" procedures in place to prevent stupid accidents like the one we had with the UPS? Hell, do they even have the facilities they claim to have? Then consumers could look at the audit and know what they're getting into. I agree. I'd really like to see that, too. The problem is getting consumers to care enough to pay attention to the audits. Too much of the time, the customers are just going for the cheapest service they can find. It's not until they're bit (as in TFA) that they even begin to care.
In my opinion, this would only work if the audits (and the agency reporting them) were mandated by the government. However, I'm kinda lukewarm on bringing the government into this sort of thing, given the level of corruption we've seen recently in the US.
Since it was not a proper, formal, legal takedown notice-- and the SFWA President has admitted as such, as you are aware-- perhaps you can point this out to scribd.com, and avoid the 10-day wait? I can somewhat understand the initial CYA approach they took, but since the original notice was not formal, and you have formally asserted ownership of the content, there is no reason to observe the 10-day wait, in my opinion.
Pointing out that they reacted prematurely to an incorrectly-drafted illegal takedown notice may expidite the reaction.
Yes, people should believe in evolution but we are lying if we tell them it's because they can see the evidence for themselves. Arguably no person has the time or expertise to evaluate the evidence in all the disparate disciplines which make the case for evolution so strong. The reason we should believe in evolution is because the experts in fields from geology, to genetics, to astrophysics all endorse theories in their fields supportive of evolution. In other words figuring out what sort of science we should accept is a lot like figuring out how to treat cancer. You don't go read the research papers and prescribe yourself a course of chemotherapy. Rather you use what you know about people and society to find a doctor you think knows this area better than you do. Only when you have specific reason to think that the medical profession as a whole is suffering from some bias does it make sense for a non-expert to look at the data themselves. Wow. That's a really amazingly good point. I wish I had some mod points to give you.
I think the source of that particular aspect of the problem is (at least partly) from the American ideals of self-sufficiency and equality, taken too far. Equality should not mean that "everyone's opinion is equal", but I believe it has come to mean that, at least in the minds of a lot of people. I work in an expert field, and now that I think of it, I have seen this-- particularly in upper management-- far too often.
The tendency of most popular news media to trot out endless "experts", with no (or questionable) credentials, merely to provide "both sides of the story" can't have helped, either.
Well, that depends on what the default for the program is. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the default is to use DRM, if they're using a MS product to do the transfer from the camcorder.
(Note that this is merely supposition on my part. I seem to remember, though, Windows Media Player defaulting to apply DRM when ripping CD's with it.)
Yes, but not because of file-sharing. He is decrying the aseptic nature of online interaction, as he sees it, producing cold, unfeeling music. (Sorry, I'm too lazy to copy and paste the direct quote.) I don't happen to agree with him, but I do understand his point.
You mentioned above that he was one of the people representing file-sharing as a horribly big deal, implying he was concerned about profits. He's not. It's the lack of human, in-person interaction he has a problem with.
Slashdot Mirror
While I recognize that Google Browser Sync was significantly more comprehensive than just bookmarks, I am surprised that no one bringing up bookmark-syncing replacements has brought up GMarks, a Firefox plugin that syncs with Google Bookmarks.
The link above is its addon page. Its features are listed here, and the project's homepage is here. I've used it for quite some time, and am satisfied with it. It's not amazingly earth-shatteringly innovative, but it gets the job done.
Whitewater and the Clinton-esque cover-up was *nothing* compared to this stuff.
What are you waiting for, then? Well?*crickets*
Yeah, I didn't think so. You go on wishing... the rest of us will elect Obama, and start repairing the damage done to America over the past 8 years. Neo-conservatism-- nay, crypto-fascism-- has had its day. It's time to move on.
Finally! A sane, informative, non-vitriolic, thoughtful reply. Thank you. :-)
I don't think I personally agree with the theory, but at least it's clearly a consensus, and I can live with that.
Exactly. I'm still searching through RFC's to confirm it, but I do not see how (or when) NDRs became Evil. I've administered mail servers for many years (though not recently, admittedly) and it is news to me.
/. can do better than this!
This is spreading BAD misinformation about Internet protocols. C'mon, guys,
Which RFC would this be? I'm not asking you to quote it-- I'm looking through them now-- the RFC number (or vague title) would be enough.
How is my secondary or tertiary MX host supposed to know which addresses I will accept? Mind reading? If it's not accepting *@mydomain.com, then there's a problem. That would be broken.
I'm talking about external, off-site backup MX hosting here. I don't see how they'd have access to a user list, especially if the primary server is down or unreachable.
I don't get this article, I really don't. When mail arrives for a domain, and the main mail server for the domain is unreachable, it is supposed to be sent to the lower-priority MX hosts for that domain. They are required to accept it, and forward it to the primary MX for the domain once it becomes available. That's how MX records are supposed to work.
Let me repeat that: they are required to unconditionally accept mail for the domain. So, unless I am missing something here, every single secondary mail host on the Internet should exhibit the behaviour mentioned in the article.
If I'm wrong, or I've missed something, please by all means correct me. But this really seems like a tinfoil-hat tempest in a teapot. Since when is it considered bad form to send a NDR?
Where are my mod points when I need them? Well-written, sir. (And apparently, based on your nick, from my own backyard.)
An interesting speculation. Wishful thinking aside, there does seem to be a certain degree of oddly panicky behaviour coming out of Redmond lately. Well, perhaps "panicky" is too strong a word, but something's Just Not Right. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next year or two, especially if the gPhone (or whatever) has as much of an effect on things as I suspect it will... not to mention the deep, deep threat to MS's business model that Google Apps represents (over the long-term).
It does not surprise me in the least that someone involved in black hat SEO was also involved in outright criminal activity. Loose ethics are loose ethics, no matter the business.
A side note to other posters... please keep in mind, guys: standard, ethical SEO and black hat SEO are NOT the same. Neither he nor I are talking about all-- or even most-- SEO methods.
I've seen a number of vitriolic posts talking about those horrible sex offenders, as if they knew exactly what one was.
You don't. Trust me, you don't. Yes, it includes rapists, child molesters, etc... but the actual set of offenses that cause someone to be called a "sex offender" also includes stupid little things like flashing, victimless crimes like newlyweds making hanky-panky in a technically-public area, questionable crimes like public urination... all sorts of things that infuriate the puritanical elements of our society. It makes a nice, easy-to-administer Scarlet Letter for everyone the puritans hate.*
I would not have as much problem with this law if it actually applied only to the rapists and child molesters. Unfortunately, it does not.
* The label is also often used to repress closeted gays... "Those durned fagnits, having sex in the parks! This'll learn 'em!"
You seriously regard the Arizona Daily Star as a hideous news source? Wow. Get some perspective, man. We could do far worse. (He could have quoted the Tucson Citizen, for example.)
I suspect the change of news source by the
YES! Exactly! I would love to find out who funded this study.
I've worked for telcos (CLECs) and ISPs. Bandwidth is not truly a scarce commodity, and yet the telcos charge through the nose for it, supported by the regulatory agencies.
Light up the dark fiber, use more efficient transmission methods... and while you're at it, modernize bandwidth prices that were set back in the stone age!
I'm not assuming she is guilty of causing this girl's suicide. But she has admitted to some pretty awful things. It is those awful things for which she is being, and should be, shunned.
Whoa there. Did I publish her name? No. Did I publish a link to a page with her name? No. Did I state that she should be lynched publically? No.
You are sensationalizing and demonizing. Stop it. Most posters here have actually been against the publishing of the woman's name. You are also creating a false dichotomy. So people are either for her lynching, or they are for justice? And if she's cleared of any illegal doings by the courts, that means she's an angel?
I said I am unsure about it all. This is not a woman I would want my kids anywhere near, that much is clear to me. Do I agree with the hysterical bloggers calling for her immediate execution? No. This issue has already been awash in hysteria. That's kind of the point of TFA, and is why TFA states it may have been unwise to withhold the name, as withholding the name merely inflamed the mob. Let's not make the hysteria worse, shall we?
You spoke of tar and feathers, all the while applying it to me. Hyperbole does not further your argument. Take a deep breath, and reread my original post. Reality is rarely black and white.
Personally, I suspect no charges were filed because of the fact most of the shenanigans were online only, and poorly understood by the officials involved. That's only speculation on my part, though.
More information from a less hysterical view (compared to the bloggers' accounts) is available at http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/17/internet.suicide.ap/index.html. There's also a video clip including an interview with Megan's parents.
This is a pretty messed up situation. The woman mentioned in the article summary is the mother of an ex-friend of Megan (the girl that committed suicide), and posed as a boy ("Josh") on MySpace trying to keep tabs on what Megan was saying about her daughter (Megan's ex-friend).
Whether the woman created the "Josh" account is not up for debate-- it's from the police report*. Likewise, whether she pretended to be interested in the 14-year-old girl is not debatable. What is debatable is whether she was the person logged in to the "Josh" account when the taunting messages were sent, especially given three people from her family posed as "Josh", and were complicit in the deceit. Complicating matters, Megan's mother said the Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time to Megan, by the mother's account, minutes before the suicide. (It's abundantly clear she will never forgive herself for this.)
As I said, it's pretty messed up. Were the mainstream media right in concealing the identity of the woman? I'm not so sure. It seems to me that too many times identities have been concealed, preventing true community backlash against perpetrators. It's clear the woman was at least partially culpable-- she didn't accidentally make the Josh character fall in love with Megan. On the other hand, the local community is already shunning the woman and her family, so is Internet Outrage really accomplishing any more?
* Unintentionally leaked by CNN, and transcribed by a blogger using frame capture.
Would it be possible for a class-action defamation lawsuit based on Ballmer's public comments? It strikes me that it would be more successful than an individual suit, since no one entity is responsible for the whole of Linux. The class defamed would be all developers or companies that had contributed code to Linux.
The suit would make sense to me, but I imagine that the legal system might not have provisions for a class action of this nature. It might explain why Microsoft feels comfortable creating this FUD... no one can sue them for it.
Obviously, they aren't THAT concerned with recouping lost sales. They'd much rather intimidate their customers.
Please note: I am no MS apologist. Vista is a steaming pile of DRM-flavored dung. But let's not yell at MS for something they actually did RIGHT.
In my opinion, this would only work if the audits (and the agency reporting them) were mandated by the government. However, I'm kinda lukewarm on bringing the government into this sort of thing, given the level of corruption we've seen recently in the US.
First off: IANAL, and this is not legal advice.
Since it was not a proper, formal, legal takedown notice-- and the SFWA President has admitted as such, as you are aware-- perhaps you can point this out to scribd.com, and avoid the 10-day wait? I can somewhat understand the initial CYA approach they took, but since the original notice was not formal, and you have formally asserted ownership of the content, there is no reason to observe the 10-day wait, in my opinion.
Pointing out that they reacted prematurely to an incorrectly-drafted illegal takedown notice may expidite the reaction.
In any case, good luck.
If this is not what the programmers intend, it is a bug. If it is what the programmers intend, it is a misfeature.
Once D2 allows for threaded sort by score, I (and others) will switch over. (I really like it, otherwise.)
I think the source of that particular aspect of the problem is (at least partly) from the American ideals of self-sufficiency and equality, taken too far. Equality should not mean that "everyone's opinion is equal", but I believe it has come to mean that, at least in the minds of a lot of people. I work in an expert field, and now that I think of it, I have seen this-- particularly in upper management-- far too often.
The tendency of most popular news media to trot out endless "experts", with no (or questionable) credentials, merely to provide "both sides of the story" can't have helped, either.
Well, that depends on what the default for the program is. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the default is to use DRM, if they're using a MS product to do the transfer from the camcorder.
(Note that this is merely supposition on my part. I seem to remember, though, Windows Media Player defaulting to apply DRM when ripping CD's with it.)
Yes, but not because of file-sharing. He is decrying the aseptic nature of online interaction, as he sees it, producing cold, unfeeling music. (Sorry, I'm too lazy to copy and paste the direct quote.) I don't happen to agree with him, but I do understand his point.
You mentioned above that he was one of the people representing file-sharing as a horribly big deal, implying he was concerned about profits. He's not. It's the lack of human, in-person interaction he has a problem with.