It's Christmas Eve and there's only 37 houses listed? It would have made more sense to post this three weeks ago in order to get the word out.
But not to scrooge anyone's Christmas fun, Here's a display put together by an electrical engineer in Ohio that's worth checking out (link goes to a.wmv. Also a Snopes article with more details).
Another relavant analogy is to Huxley's Brave New World. As Neil Postman wrote in the forward to Amusing Ourselves to Death:
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one... Orwell feared the truth would be concealed from us, Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. In 1984... people are controlled by inflicting pain, in Brave New World they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
There's actually a psychological phenomena describing this... ignore facts that don't fit preconceived notions and both recognize and remember better ones that do.
The Salvation Army is a missionary branch of the Christian church, that just happens to do charitable work. The Salvation Army Mission Statement reads:
The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.
I'm not about to perputrate the falsehood that religious persons have a monopoly on charitable acts. How about giving to a charity that is more concerned about distributing aid rather than using it as a guise to spew dogma?
This review is useless. It's paragraph after paragraph of some unknown web weenie exhalting a $200 "marketing kit". No where does the reviewer actually discuss the content of the book. It's an invaluable reasource for web professionals... yeah, yeah... don't be turned off by it's (never actually stated) price.... yeah, yeah... The author is a SEO genius... Ok, we get it! Now tell us something of substance!
I'm sorry but my astro-turfing, sealth marketing spidey sense is on high alert at the moment. This is neither newsworthy or nerdy. How does a pointless review of unknown book by an unknown publisher get the marquee treatment at one of the most widely read sites on the 'net? And who's this "samzenpus" editor?
Hey, I run a technology business of my own; I understand the need to get the word out. Hell, I've even plugged it here on Slashdot before. But I never try to sneak anything under the radar; if I'm trying to promote something, I'm not ashamed to admit it. Who knows? Maybe some people might actually appreciate being informed about a product or service they'd find valuable. These "Slashvertisements" are getting out of hand.
Why can't they track the referrals themselves? When creating Adwords, you input two URLs: one that's show in the bottom of the ad, and one that the clicker is actually sent to. You set the first parameter to http://www.fuzzybritchesbandit.com/ and the second to http://www.fuzzybritchesbandit.com?campaign=adword s. You then compare your HTTP logs against Google's clickthrough reports.
This would ensure that you aren't getting charged for clicks where there are none. But there's also the possiblity that some sort of script *is* clicking just to drive your bill up. Now if this company has paid Google a half million dollars, they should have some pretty substantinal visitor data to mine. They should know what the typical visitor does once they arrive, e.g. the mean time spent on the site is 8.5 minutes, they're 76% likely to click on the features page first and then page second. Sooo... If they getting a bunch of clickthroughs from the same IP and the path/time through the site for each session is either a) identicial to the other sessions from that IP (a stupid bot that takes the same path everytime) or b) dramatically varies from the metrics of typical visitor (a semi-stupid bot that randomly traverses the site), then you know something is bunk.
Like others have said, just saying "we have a lot of people from the same IP address" isn't good enough to pursue a claim of fraud. You'd think a webhost with a half-million dollar advertising budget would have the technicial staff who could tell them the same thing.
Umm... what's the question again? You did resign in a professional manner. Is this the first real IT job that you've had? What you experienced is standard operating procedure for any organization with even a half-assed security policy. They aren't your computers. Why are you taking it so personally, esp. since they've paid you for those two extra weeks?::rolls eyes::
What I'd like to know is what didn't make the front page because this got posted instead?
The US Treasury issues what are called "cash management bills" which are t-bills that have a term of only a few days. Given the fact that gov't securities aren't exactly the highest yeilding, why would anyone bother to invest in them for only a few days at a time? Large corporations that regularly need to move massive amounts of money around use them as a temporary holding spot. For example, if you have $10M in payroll that will be disbursed on Friday, you might park those funds in a CMB on a Tuesday, generating a few thousand dollars more in interest than it would have in the payroll account. No, it's not a lot of money, but even a large organzation wouldn't mind earning an extra hundred-thousand or so by year's end.
I'd have to believe that companies are certainly using rebates as another way to float cash. Rebates regularly take months to return, which is certainly more lucrative that the CMB shell game. Every fraction of a penny counts when you're dealing with that many pennies... I mean, haven't you seen Superman 3?;-)
Setting the call quality to the highest setting means that the G.711 codec is used, which consumes 64k/s per conversation. That's generally not a problem with a home user who only has one call happening at a time, but it will easily overwelm the standard small-business broadband connection which might only have 128-256kps upstream bandwidth. Setting the call quality lower is probably using the iLBC or the GSM codec. GSM is commonly used for cell conversations, iLBC is a variable rate codec designed for VoIP. They both consume far less bandwidth, but you're right, the call quality sucks.
An alternative is to use the G.729a codec, which is almost as good as G.711, but only uses 8kbps per channel (plus TCP overhead). This is a far better solution, but the reason you don't seen VoIP providers offering G.729a is because it's patent protected and therefore requires that the provider purchase a license for each concurrent channel in use.
Ugh... I really wish this topic got posted next week isntead of now. Forgive the blatent plug, but I've recently started a VoIP service that caters exclusively to small-businesses and solves the exact problem presented in this thread. It's similar to a Vonage-type setup but we support G.729a, plus all the features of a business phone system (voicemail, auto-attentant, transfers between extensions, etc). All of the systems engineering is done and tested and we're accepting customers, but our website won't be unnveiled for another couple of weeks. Five extension plans start at $224/mo. and scale up to 25 extension plans. We're focusing mainly on offering the plans through a network of small VAR resellers who want to earn a monthly commission. If anyone wants more info, drop me a line at resellers@brightideavoip.com.
From the time the FCC released the new rules, VoIP providers only had four months to provide E911 services to all of their customers. Wireless carriers (who have considerably more clout and better paid lobbyists), were given ten years to comply. Still think it's fair to start slapping fines on an industry that's barely out of the gate?
If I were designing the system, the service would call you first and when you answered, it would say "This is Google Click-to-call. Press 1 to connect to the advertiser, press 2 if you didn't make this request". If you pressed 2, it would blacklist the number for a while.
The biggest bummer for some advertisers is that I doubt that it'll work for callers behind a phone system and without a direct number. The callback number will just go to a receptionist or to IVR (auto-attendant) greeting. There goes much of B2B market.
I'd love to know the technology behind this. Given Google's commitment to FOSS, I would venture to guess that they are using Asterisk somewhere in the mix since it's one of the most flexible and mature open source telephony projects. However, Asterisk isn't known for scaling very well when you start talking about enterprise level installs. In fact, one of the biggest complaints of the Asterisk community is that VoIP providers routinely hack the source to improve scalability and stability, but then never release those changes back to the project. If indeed Google is using Asterisk, it will be interesting to see how much they support the developer community.
How would you honestly describe the IT job market to students considering this major?
What part? IT's a *big* field. My experience with community college IT programs are that they are closer to resembling vocational training (a heavy emphasis both on hands-on stuff and earning certifications) than prepping students for a transfer to a 4-year university. A more academic CSE track, while still IT, is a world apart. They also both attract a different breed of techie.
A lot of people were pumped through technicial schools during the bubble. Many of those people were only chasing the supposed promise of big bucks in the IT field. Educational institutes make some pretty good money on their (and the tax payers') backs as well. I worked with enough of these people to become a bit bitter about the whole thing. If you're trying to drum up the same type of business from the same type of people, I can't say I wish you much luck. The world is always in need of throughly educated people who have a genuine interest in technology though.
The $US3 million needed for the exhibit was met by private charitable donations.
IMHO, the arts and sciences should be supported by private donations, not corporate sponsors. Professional sports have been utterly ruined by sponsorship. I'd hate to see the arts go down the same drain, esp. in situations like this. Can you imagine Dali being turned down by a gallery who said his work might not fit the status quo as dictated by Standard Oil? (yes I know he was Spanish) Sometimes good art and good science fly in the face of public opinion. Institutions who increasingly seek more and more of their budget from corporations are doing an extreme disservice to themselves and to the public.
Admittedly, I don't know who you are and I haven't read any of your books. Worse, I didn't read your study itself, only its conclusions as reported second-hand by the press. However my lack of knowledge of your backgound is probably consistant with most Slashdot readers and the IT industry as a whole. I have to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are a capable, respected researcher elsewise MS wouldn't have approached you in the first place.
Could you please explain why you decided to risk drawing your objectivity into question by undertaking this project? Your findings may be 100% valid. And MS may very well have straight-up told you: "Please print whatever you find, even if it casts Windows in a bad light." However, who's going to believe it, even if it were true? If I were in your shoes, I'd be affraid that making a deal like this would ruin my career. If I don't tell MS what they want to hear, word would get out that I don't play ball. If I do report what's in the sponsor's best interest, a lot of people start accusing me of being a shill. Seems like a lose-lose proposition.
I don't think that the debate isn't so much about whether video games inspire people to go on crime sprees (which is only the aspect that the CSI episode seems to address). Most of us agree that they can. Just like a violent movie, booze, extremely stressful situtation, etc. can push a person already with a few screws loose over the edge. The question is: Do video games make killers? And if so (and that's a big if) where does the line between social conditioning and personal responsiblity lay?
Anyhow, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to throw up your arms over this show. Knowing CSI, I doubt that they're going to devote much airtime into exploring the social and moral issues surrounding the debate. The focus of the show isn't the same as Law & Order, which is a bit more far reaching.
Liquor companies regularly hire models to go into hot nightspots to consume their products as conspicuously as possible. Bating guys with fake dates isn't a whole lot different, they're both just forms of astroturfing.
And not all people go on dates with the sole purpose of trying to locate their "soulmate". A lot of people, esp. young professionals who are very focused on their career, are simply looking for someone to have a good time with. e.g., the dates are about having fun, not interviewing perspective spouses.
Also... Match.com is owned by Ticketbastard--I wouldn't put anything past them.
Well, there's a difference between putting a photographer on the payroll and hiring him just for your wedding. If the photographer worked for a studio, the studio owner would actually own the images, not the guy who snapped them. The term "employee" (which was used in the article) has a very specific legal definition. Google "employee contractor IRS" to see exactly how well-defined it is.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by a programmer who sued his former employer for changing his programs' source code.
I RTFA, but don't understand how the programmer could claim copyright on something he wrote while being employed by this company. All work produced by a person during the course of his/her employment is owned by the employer, not the employee. Unless this guy had a special employment contract, or coded in his free time?
The defacto application used by law-enforcement agencies to do these things is EnCase, if anyone is interested. It's major bucks though, and don't expect to be able to download a demo version.;-)
I'm using a pure VoIP and subscribing to Voicepulse's Connect service to handle the PSTN interface. I'm also just using the Xten Lite softphones right now while I'm configuring everything. Before I go live I plan to pickup some Cisco VoIP phones off of Ebay.
I'm a long time IT guy. When I first played with Linux a decade or so ago, I couldn't get my Matrox video card to work with X Windows using a Slackware distro. So, I gave it up. Some time later, I gave Red Hat a shot. It installed this time, but then I just sat there and twidled my thumbs. Now what? I couldn't find anything practical to do with it. Windows did everything I needed it to. Years later I tried again, this time with Gentoo. I could get things to compile, so I gave up again.
This week I just installed Open SuSe 10.0. Why again? Because I really wanted to run Asterisk. I'm a total Linux moron, but it only took me a day or so to install the OS and compile and configured Asterisk. A few hours later, I had a full featured PBX system working and soon to be rolled into production for my small business, for free.
I was amazed at how easy both the OS and Asterisk were to install and configure. I really think that the usability of modern distros has improved dramatically. That isn't really what's keeping adoption down. In my case, and I suspect many others, it was internia. I didn't really want to use Linux until I found something it did that Windows didn't do, Asterisk.
I think it's time that many OSS developers stop trying to play catchup with MS; you're already there. If you don't set the bar any higher than trying to reinvent the functionality already present in Windows, the masses will never take notice. There seems to be this idea that people hate MS and/or Windows and are looking for any excuse to move to OSS (Lindows is a perfect example of this mentality). I don't think this is the case. I'm not looking for a reason to abandon Windows, I need a reason to move to Linux. And the best way to get my interest is offering me things that Windows can't.
For the record, all my liberal friends tell me constantly that Fox News is oh-so-biased and CNN is oh-so-great, without EVER citing a single example for either case. It's just become conventional wisdom for them without question.
For each of the three misperceptions [about the war in Iraq], the study found enormous differences between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS, who held the fewest by far. Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception, compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in between.
Slashdot Mirror
It's Christmas Eve and there's only 37 houses listed? It would have made more sense to post this three weeks ago in order to get the word out.
.wmv. Also a Snopes article with more details).
But not to scrooge anyone's Christmas fun, Here's a display put together by an electrical engineer in Ohio that's worth checking out (link goes to a
This review is useless. It's paragraph after paragraph of some unknown web weenie exhalting a $200 "marketing kit". No where does the reviewer actually discuss the content of the book. It's an invaluable reasource for web professionals... yeah, yeah... don't be turned off by it's (never actually stated) price.... yeah, yeah... The author is a SEO genius... Ok, we get it! Now tell us something of substance!
I'm sorry but my astro-turfing, sealth marketing spidey sense is on high alert at the moment. This is neither newsworthy or nerdy. How does a pointless review of unknown book by an unknown publisher get the marquee treatment at one of the most widely read sites on the 'net? And who's this "samzenpus" editor?
Hey, I run a technology business of my own; I understand the need to get the word out. Hell, I've even plugged it here on Slashdot before. But I never try to sneak anything under the radar; if I'm trying to promote something, I'm not ashamed to admit it. Who knows? Maybe some people might actually appreciate being informed about a product or service they'd find valuable. These "Slashvertisements" are getting out of hand.
Why can't they track the referrals themselves? When creating Adwords, you input two URLs: one that's show in the bottom of the ad, and one that the clicker is actually sent to. You set the first parameter to http://www.fuzzybritchesbandit.com/ and the second to http://www.fuzzybritchesbandit.com?campaign=adword s. You then compare your HTTP logs against Google's clickthrough reports.
This would ensure that you aren't getting charged for clicks where there are none. But there's also the possiblity that some sort of script *is* clicking just to drive your bill up. Now if this company has paid Google a half million dollars, they should have some pretty substantinal visitor data to mine. They should know what the typical visitor does once they arrive, e.g. the mean time spent on the site is 8.5 minutes, they're 76% likely to click on the features page first and then page second. Sooo... If they getting a bunch of clickthroughs from the same IP and the path/time through the site for each session is either a) identicial to the other sessions from that IP (a stupid bot that takes the same path everytime) or b) dramatically varies from the metrics of typical visitor (a semi-stupid bot that randomly traverses the site), then you know something is bunk.
Like others have said, just saying "we have a lot of people from the same IP address" isn't good enough to pursue a claim of fraud. You'd think a webhost with a half-million dollar advertising budget would have the technicial staff who could tell them the same thing.
Umm... what's the question again? You did resign in a professional manner. Is this the first real IT job that you've had? What you experienced is standard operating procedure for any organization with even a half-assed security policy. They aren't your computers. Why are you taking it so personally, esp. since they've paid you for those two extra weeks? ::rolls eyes::
What I'd like to know is what didn't make the front page because this got posted instead?
The US Treasury issues what are called "cash management bills" which are t-bills that have a term of only a few days. Given the fact that gov't securities aren't exactly the highest yeilding, why would anyone bother to invest in them for only a few days at a time? Large corporations that regularly need to move massive amounts of money around use them as a temporary holding spot. For example, if you have $10M in payroll that will be disbursed on Friday, you might park those funds in a CMB on a Tuesday, generating a few thousand dollars more in interest than it would have in the payroll account. No, it's not a lot of money, but even a large organzation wouldn't mind earning an extra hundred-thousand or so by year's end.
;-)
I'd have to believe that companies are certainly using rebates as another way to float cash. Rebates regularly take months to return, which is certainly more lucrative that the CMB shell game. Every fraction of a penny counts when you're dealing with that many pennies... I mean, haven't you seen Superman 3?
Setting the call quality to the highest setting means that the G.711 codec is used, which consumes 64k/s per conversation. That's generally not a problem with a home user who only has one call happening at a time, but it will easily overwelm the standard small-business broadband connection which might only have 128-256kps upstream bandwidth. Setting the call quality lower is probably using the iLBC or the GSM codec. GSM is commonly used for cell conversations, iLBC is a variable rate codec designed for VoIP. They both consume far less bandwidth, but you're right, the call quality sucks.
An alternative is to use the G.729a codec, which is almost as good as G.711, but only uses 8kbps per channel (plus TCP overhead). This is a far better solution, but the reason you don't seen VoIP providers offering G.729a is because it's patent protected and therefore requires that the provider purchase a license for each concurrent channel in use.
Ugh... I really wish this topic got posted next week isntead of now. Forgive the blatent plug, but I've recently started a VoIP service that caters exclusively to small-businesses and solves the exact problem presented in this thread. It's similar to a Vonage-type setup but we support G.729a, plus all the features of a business phone system (voicemail, auto-attentant, transfers between extensions, etc). All of the systems engineering is done and tested and we're accepting customers, but our website won't be unnveiled for another couple of weeks. Five extension plans start at $224/mo. and scale up to 25 extension plans. We're focusing mainly on offering the plans through a network of small VAR resellers who want to earn a monthly commission. If anyone wants more info, drop me a line at resellers@brightideavoip.com.
From the time the FCC released the new rules, VoIP providers only had four months to provide E911 services to all of their customers. Wireless carriers (who have considerably more clout and better paid lobbyists), were given ten years to comply. Still think it's fair to start slapping fines on an industry that's barely out of the gate?
Ah yes... to hear one of the few "theremin solos" that exist in popular music, check out LedZep's "Whole Lotta Love".
If I were designing the system, the service would call you first and when you answered, it would say "This is Google Click-to-call. Press 1 to connect to the advertiser, press 2 if you didn't make this request". If you pressed 2, it would blacklist the number for a while.
The biggest bummer for some advertisers is that I doubt that it'll work for callers behind a phone system and without a direct number. The callback number will just go to a receptionist or to IVR (auto-attendant) greeting. There goes much of B2B market.
Pure genius.
I'd love to know the technology behind this. Given Google's commitment to FOSS, I would venture to guess that they are using Asterisk somewhere in the mix since it's one of the most flexible and mature open source telephony projects. However, Asterisk isn't known for scaling very well when you start talking about enterprise level installs. In fact, one of the biggest complaints of the Asterisk community is that VoIP providers routinely hack the source to improve scalability and stability, but then never release those changes back to the project. If indeed Google is using Asterisk, it will be interesting to see how much they support the developer community.
A lot of people were pumped through technicial schools during the bubble. Many of those people were only chasing the supposed promise of big bucks in the IT field. Educational institutes make some pretty good money on their (and the tax payers') backs as well. I worked with enough of these people to become a bit bitter about the whole thing. If you're trying to drum up the same type of business from the same type of people, I can't say I wish you much luck. The world is always in need of throughly educated people who have a genuine interest in technology though.
Dr. Thompson:
Admittedly, I don't know who you are and I haven't read any of your books. Worse, I didn't read your study itself, only its conclusions as reported second-hand by the press. However my lack of knowledge of your backgound is probably consistant with most Slashdot readers and the IT industry as a whole. I have to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are a capable, respected researcher elsewise MS wouldn't have approached you in the first place.
Could you please explain why you decided to risk drawing your objectivity into question by undertaking this project? Your findings may be 100% valid. And MS may very well have straight-up told you: "Please print whatever you find, even if it casts Windows in a bad light." However, who's going to believe it, even if it were true? If I were in your shoes, I'd be affraid that making a deal like this would ruin my career. If I don't tell MS what they want to hear, word would get out that I don't play ball. If I do report what's in the sponsor's best interest, a lot of people start accusing me of being a shill. Seems like a lose-lose proposition.
I don't think that the debate isn't so much about whether video games inspire people to go on crime sprees (which is only the aspect that the CSI episode seems to address). Most of us agree that they can. Just like a violent movie, booze, extremely stressful situtation, etc. can push a person already with a few screws loose over the edge. The question is: Do video games make killers? And if so (and that's a big if) where does the line between social conditioning and personal responsiblity lay?
Anyhow, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to throw up your arms over this show. Knowing CSI, I doubt that they're going to devote much airtime into exploring the social and moral issues surrounding the debate. The focus of the show isn't the same as Law & Order, which is a bit more far reaching.
Liquor companies regularly hire models to go into hot nightspots to consume their products as conspicuously as possible. Bating guys with fake dates isn't a whole lot different, they're both just forms of astroturfing.
And not all people go on dates with the sole purpose of trying to locate their "soulmate". A lot of people, esp. young professionals who are very focused on their career, are simply looking for someone to have a good time with. e.g., the dates are about having fun, not interviewing perspective spouses.
Also... Match.com is owned by Ticketbastard--I wouldn't put anything past them.
Well, there's a difference between putting a photographer on the payroll and hiring him just for your wedding. If the photographer worked for a studio, the studio owner would actually own the images, not the guy who snapped them. The term "employee" (which was used in the article) has a very specific legal definition. Google "employee contractor IRS" to see exactly how well-defined it is.
The defacto application used by law-enforcement agencies to do these things is EnCase, if anyone is interested. It's major bucks though, and don't expect to be able to download a demo version. ;-)
I'm using a pure VoIP and subscribing to Voicepulse's Connect service to handle the PSTN interface. I'm also just using the Xten Lite softphones right now while I'm configuring everything. Before I go live I plan to pickup some Cisco VoIP phones off of Ebay.
I'm a long time IT guy. When I first played with Linux a decade or so ago, I couldn't get my Matrox video card to work with X Windows using a Slackware distro. So, I gave it up. Some time later, I gave Red Hat a shot. It installed this time, but then I just sat there and twidled my thumbs. Now what? I couldn't find anything practical to do with it. Windows did everything I needed it to. Years later I tried again, this time with Gentoo. I could get things to compile, so I gave up again.
This week I just installed Open SuSe 10.0. Why again? Because I really wanted to run Asterisk. I'm a total Linux moron, but it only took me a day or so to install the OS and compile and configured Asterisk. A few hours later, I had a full featured PBX system working and soon to be rolled into production for my small business, for free.
I was amazed at how easy both the OS and Asterisk were to install and configure. I really think that the usability of modern distros has improved dramatically. That isn't really what's keeping adoption down. In my case, and I suspect many others, it was internia. I didn't really want to use Linux until I found something it did that Windows didn't do, Asterisk.
I think it's time that many OSS developers stop trying to play catchup with MS; you're already there. If you don't set the bar any higher than trying to reinvent the functionality already present in Windows, the masses will never take notice. There seems to be this idea that people hate MS and/or Windows and are looking for any excuse to move to OSS (Lindows is a perfect example of this mentality). I don't think this is the case. I'm not looking for a reason to abandon Windows, I need a reason to move to Linux. And the best way to get my interest is offering me things that Windows can't.