Won't the users pay the price in the long run when corporations see that 99.9% of their website visitors are IE users, and implement future IE-specific features that Microsoft has made sure alternative browsers are unable to implement?
As I see it, this is similar to other forms of discrimination -- people are being forced to look like the majority (in this case, IE users) so that they don't get treated differently.
As I don't have children accessing the Internet through my PC, I've not had a need to look at and experiment with filters and know very little about them. What I have heard is that these filters are based on blacklists/whitelists and/or keywords.
It seems to me that this is getting it all wrong. Traditional e-mail spam filters that work in a similar way have a lot of misses and a high risk of false positives, which is why people are now looking at "bayesian" type filters. Isn't it time the filtering industry came up with a more intelligent type of filter for porn? Hardcore porn images and movies are a much bigger concern than URLs and text in sites, yet current filters focus on the latter. Most porn looks very similar -- surely the technology is available to perform an analysis of images and movies and block them directly. Indeed, this type of analysis exists in software to identify similar images, such as ODIN Professional, which I use every so often.
While I believe a lack of parental supervision is the core of the problem, filters could be effective tools, and it seems to me that the industry needs to do a bit of innovating.
We receive over half a million incoming e-mails a month - so far the filter has blocked about 900 a week, which is about 1 in 180, much less than 1%
If only 1 in 180 messages are classed as spam, why are they using the filter in the first place? If the average amount of spam received across the board is less than 1%, then those MPs who complained of being inundated with spam must be few in number.
Why should the whole system suffer because of those MPs? They should implement their own filters if they have a problem.
The helpdesk has only received a handful of unblocking requests.
Not surprising. How are people supposed to know they're missing out on important e-mail messages if they never receive them because of the filter?
Incidentally, my ISP uses a spam filter which is completely transparent to the user. Any messages that get filtered, legitimate or otherwise, I never even know about. Most users don't even know the filter is in place. I'll be leaving them when my contract is up, being sure to first check up on the practices of any new ISP I choose.
I thought this was interesting. From Willamette Week's article:
"Actually, we couldn't snatch Katz's garbage, because she keeps it right next to her house, well away from the sidewalk. To avoid trespassing, we had to settle for a bin of recycling left out front."
From Mayor Vera Katz's press release in response to the article:
"My trash and recycling receptacles are picked up not from a curbside location, but from my private property. Both receptacles were covered. Willamette Week trespassed on my private property, opened up my trash and recycling receptacles and rifled through my trash and recycling, and took several items."
So, who to believe? The journalist or the politician? In all seriousness, a difficult choice.
Intuit's sister program, Quicken, is headed down the same course. Here's the situation with the Australian version of Quicken 2002, which is produced by the local distributor Reckon:
1) Forced registration and machine-specific activation, or the program stops running after X times. 2) Forced collection of personal details during registration. In fact, if you just tell it your phone number, their automated system will tell you your address (unless you have an unlisted number). 3) Forced telephone reactivation upon reinstallation. You can't reactivate over the Internet (this only works for the first installation). 4) No right to sell your legitimate, boxed copy of the software to someone else if you no longer wish to use it (Kapital is the same in this regard, despite the company's claims).
If you give them a fake name and address, you'd better remember them, otherwise you won't be able to reactivate. And, for your information, there is no QUICKEN.INI workaround in the Australian version, and no "cracks" available.
Don't be surprised if us Aussies are a test market for this, and the rest of the world is next. I switched to GnuCash, but as far as I can tell, most other users have been perfectly willing to take it up the arse.
I tried my best to get into using my PC as a PVR, excited about the idea of chopping out the bits I don't want (ads, etc.) and having all the recorded programs sorted in directories by name instead of sprawled across VHS tapes.
After around six months of experimentation with my All-in-Wonder Radeon and a copy of ShowShifter (which was better than ATI's TV software), there was one thing I could not escape -- the picture quality just looked bad. Whether I maximized the TV display on the PC or output the video (either via composite or s-video) to my 34cm or 68cm TV, the quality was simply YUCK. Very soft, poor colour reproduction, and pathetic bleeding of bright parts of the image (which I clearly see demonstrated in screenshots of other TV card reviews). And this was before I compressed anything. Whenever I tried out DVD on my PC, outputting to a TV, the result was also poor -- an soft image clearly inferior to my standalone DVD player.
All in all, my VHS tapes were easily superior to anything my PC and ALL-in-Wonder could spit out.
There are a couple of features that were elaborated on in the 'Instantly Available PC' initiative years ago that work around the volativity of DRAM to provide a rapid resume type function (i.e. your computer resumes to its previous state, with all your apps open as they were, without having to go through the Windows boot process). Suspend-to-Disk (S4) dumps the RAM content to disk and resumes from there. Suspend-to-RAM (S3) actually maintains the RAM content using the ATX power supply's +5VSB current, and even though the computer appears completely off, the RAM is powered as long as the PC is connected to the mains. As one might expect, S3 is much faster than S4, but is vulnerable if a power outage occurs. Both of these features have been plagued hardware and driver issues (particularly sound card-related), but things are improving.
But none of this has much to do with rebooting. What are the most common reasons for rebooting? Because some program, newly installed update, or configuration change demands it, or because the OS or application stuffs up the system. In both cases, the volativity of RAM has no effect on whether or not you need to reboot.
I'm terribly confused. Here in Australia, virtually any VHS casette I've ever purchased states something to the description of of "The copyright proprieter has licensed this video for home use only. Any unauthorised hiring is strictly prohibited." I've always been under the impression that video stores have to obtain a copy that allows hiring (the only difference being the license) at a presumably higher price.
Has something changed with DVD? Is there actually going to be _less_ copyright control over this format than for VHS or am I misinterpreting the court victory?
Nice to see a website dedicated to this issue. I find that whenever it's raised, all but the most discerning TV viewers (or those who hate the viral nature of branding in general) simply don't care and think you're being petty.
Here in Australia our major broadcast TV channels were watermark-free until the Seven network added one a couple of years ago. After much initial complaint (mainly visible in newspaper letter pages and Australian TV newsgroups) people have just learned to live with it, and it hasn't had a negative effect on their ratings at all.
Seven's watermark is transparent and not as annoying as most, but the scary thing is the precedent it sets. None of our other broadcast TV channels has one yet, but from Seven's experience it's clear that viewers will take it up the ass, and one suspects they'll use the introduction of digital TV as an excuse to introduce watermarks. Most channels have already begun to add show-specific watermarks during news, sport, breakfast, and music programs.
As for the local cable/satellite providers, they've had watermarks from day one (except on the primary movie channels). When I contacted my provider to complain about watermarks, they told me they existed for "copyright reasons", not for branding, though I believe it's a bit of both. The watermarks were one of the main reasons I unsubscribed from the service when my contract was up - I got tired of watching nature documentaries where the elephants had giant "Discovery Channel" logo goiters protruding from their heads.
What irks me is why these watermarks are suddenly so necessary when we've done fine without them for the past 50 years. It seems nothing is sacred anymore, and that TV programs are no longer a form of artistic expression, but branded, commercial product.
In the end, your average commercial TV viewer who just wants to sit down to some mind numbing entertainment after a hard day's work doesn't give a damn about artistic integrity.
Thankfully, there are two government-owned channels, the ABC and SBS, which are a bit of a haven for people who like quality programming, but my fear is if the watermarks proliferate on commercial networks they're likely to show up on these two channels as well.
Slashdot Mirror
...this gives everyone more time to save up for a video card capable of running the damn thing :)
Won't the users pay the price in the long run when corporations see that 99.9% of their website visitors are IE users, and implement future IE-specific features that Microsoft has made sure alternative browsers are unable to implement?
As I see it, this is similar to other forms of discrimination -- people are being forced to look like the majority (in this case, IE users) so that they don't get treated differently.
As I don't have children accessing the Internet through my PC, I've not had a need to look at and experiment with filters and know very little about them. What I have heard is that these filters are based on blacklists/whitelists and/or keywords.
It seems to me that this is getting it all wrong. Traditional e-mail spam filters that work in a similar way have a lot of misses and a high risk of false positives, which is why people are now looking at "bayesian" type filters. Isn't it time the filtering industry came up with a more intelligent type of filter for porn? Hardcore porn images and movies are a much bigger concern than URLs and text in sites, yet current filters focus on the latter. Most porn looks very similar -- surely the technology is available to perform an analysis of images and movies and block them directly. Indeed, this type of analysis exists in software to identify similar images, such as ODIN Professional, which I use every so often.
While I believe a lack of parental supervision is the core of the problem, filters could be effective tools, and it seems to me that the industry needs to do a bit of innovating.
From the article:
We receive over half a million incoming e-mails a month - so far the filter has blocked about 900 a week, which is about 1 in 180, much less than 1%
If only 1 in 180 messages are classed as spam, why are they using the filter in the first place? If the average amount of spam received across the board is less than 1%, then those MPs who complained of being inundated with spam must be few in number.
Why should the whole system suffer because of those MPs? They should implement their own filters if they have a problem.
The helpdesk has only received a handful of unblocking requests.
Not surprising. How are people supposed to know they're missing out on important e-mail messages if they never receive them because of the filter?
Incidentally, my ISP uses a spam filter which is completely transparent to the user. Any messages that get filtered, legitimate or otherwise, I never even know about. Most users don't even know the filter is in place. I'll be leaving them when my contract is up, being sure to first check up on the practices of any new ISP I choose.
I thought this was interesting. From Willamette Week's article:
"Actually, we couldn't snatch Katz's garbage, because she keeps it right next to her house, well away from the sidewalk. To avoid trespassing, we had to settle for a bin of recycling left out front."
From Mayor Vera Katz's press release in response to the article:
"My trash and recycling receptacles are picked up not from a curbside location, but from my private property. Both receptacles were covered. Willamette Week trespassed on my private property, opened up my trash and recycling receptacles and rifled through my trash and recycling, and took several items."
So, who to believe? The journalist or the politician? In all seriousness, a difficult choice.
Intuit's sister program, Quicken, is headed down the same course. Here's the situation with the Australian version of Quicken 2002, which is produced by the local distributor Reckon:
1) Forced registration and machine-specific activation, or the program stops running after X times.
2) Forced collection of personal details during registration. In fact, if you just tell it your phone number, their automated system will tell you your address (unless you have an unlisted number).
3) Forced telephone reactivation upon reinstallation. You can't reactivate over the Internet (this only works for the first installation).
4) No right to sell your legitimate, boxed copy of the software to someone else if you no longer wish to use it (Kapital is the same in this regard, despite the company's claims).
If you give them a fake name and address, you'd better remember them, otherwise you won't be able to reactivate. And, for your information, there is no QUICKEN.INI workaround in the Australian version, and no "cracks" available.
Don't be surprised if us Aussies are a test market for this, and the rest of the world is next. I switched to GnuCash, but as far as I can tell, most other users have been perfectly willing to take it up the arse.
I tried my best to get into using my PC as a PVR, excited about the idea of chopping out the bits I don't want (ads, etc.) and having all the recorded programs sorted in directories by name instead of sprawled across VHS tapes.
After around six months of experimentation with my All-in-Wonder Radeon and a copy of ShowShifter (which was better than ATI's TV software), there was one thing I could not escape -- the picture quality just looked bad. Whether I maximized the TV display on the PC or output the video (either via composite or s-video) to my 34cm or 68cm TV, the quality was simply YUCK. Very soft, poor colour reproduction, and pathetic bleeding of bright parts of the image (which I clearly see demonstrated in screenshots of other TV card reviews). And this was before I compressed anything. Whenever I tried out DVD on my PC, outputting to a TV, the result was also poor -- an soft image clearly inferior to my standalone DVD player.
All in all, my VHS tapes were easily superior to anything my PC and ALL-in-Wonder could spit out.
End of computer rebooting? What folly.
There are a couple of features that were elaborated on in the 'Instantly Available PC' initiative years ago that work around the volativity of DRAM to provide a rapid resume type function (i.e. your computer resumes to its previous state, with all your apps open as they were, without having to go through the Windows boot process). Suspend-to-Disk (S4) dumps the RAM content to disk and resumes from there. Suspend-to-RAM (S3) actually maintains the RAM content using the ATX power supply's +5VSB current, and even though the computer appears completely off, the RAM is powered as long as the PC is connected to the mains. As one might expect, S3 is much faster than S4, but is vulnerable if a power outage occurs. Both of these features have been plagued hardware and driver issues (particularly sound card-related), but things are improving.
But none of this has much to do with rebooting. What are the most common reasons for rebooting? Because some program, newly installed update, or configuration change demands it, or because the OS or application stuffs up the system. In both cases, the volativity of RAM has no effect on whether or not you need to reboot.
I'm terribly confused. Here in Australia, virtually any VHS casette I've ever purchased states something to the description of of "The copyright proprieter has licensed this video for home use only. Any unauthorised hiring is strictly prohibited." I've always been under the impression that video stores have to obtain a copy that allows hiring (the only difference being the license) at a presumably higher price.
Has something changed with DVD? Is there actually going to be _less_ copyright control over this format than for VHS or am I misinterpreting the court victory?
Nice to see a website dedicated to this issue. I find that whenever it's raised, all but the most discerning TV viewers (or those who hate the viral nature of branding in general) simply don't care and think you're being petty. Here in Australia our major broadcast TV channels were watermark-free until the Seven network added one a couple of years ago. After much initial complaint (mainly visible in newspaper letter pages and Australian TV newsgroups) people have just learned to live with it, and it hasn't had a negative effect on their ratings at all. Seven's watermark is transparent and not as annoying as most, but the scary thing is the precedent it sets. None of our other broadcast TV channels has one yet, but from Seven's experience it's clear that viewers will take it up the ass, and one suspects they'll use the introduction of digital TV as an excuse to introduce watermarks. Most channels have already begun to add show-specific watermarks during news, sport, breakfast, and music programs. As for the local cable/satellite providers, they've had watermarks from day one (except on the primary movie channels). When I contacted my provider to complain about watermarks, they told me they existed for "copyright reasons", not for branding, though I believe it's a bit of both. The watermarks were one of the main reasons I unsubscribed from the service when my contract was up - I got tired of watching nature documentaries where the elephants had giant "Discovery Channel" logo goiters protruding from their heads. What irks me is why these watermarks are suddenly so necessary when we've done fine without them for the past 50 years. It seems nothing is sacred anymore, and that TV programs are no longer a form of artistic expression, but branded, commercial product. In the end, your average commercial TV viewer who just wants to sit down to some mind numbing entertainment after a hard day's work doesn't give a damn about artistic integrity. Thankfully, there are two government-owned channels, the ABC and SBS, which are a bit of a haven for people who like quality programming, but my fear is if the watermarks proliferate on commercial networks they're likely to show up on these two channels as well.