"A whole lot. Every business around now knows that they need a web site to stay in business."
Yay! A WWW full of corporate sites trying to tell me why their product is so good an I should go out and buy it. Mix in some stupid contests and games so there's even more incentive.
"Every university has and has had a web site for quite a while. I don't think that they make any money off of them"
I suppose they don't make any money from advertising campaigns either then. The point of a university web site is to provide a service to the students as incentive to choose your university over another. Say you're narrowed your choice down to 2 universities that are pretty comparable. You then find that one of them has a web site that allows you to browse class schedules, pay bills, register online and even take classes while the other has nothing. Which one's going to get your money?
I'm talking about sites like slashdot or skinz.org where their product is their web site content. They only have 4 options that I can think of.
1. Charge people for the content
2. Collect money through advertising
3. Come up with some physical product to sell
4. Find someone that wants to fund you for no other reason than the good you provide
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that slashdot couldn't survive on #1 alone. #2 is what everyone hates and wants to block. #3.. come on, how many slashdot shirts, pens and mugs are people really going to buy? As for #4, well that's great if you can find it but not too likely. I know someone that runs a mailing list service and pays for the T1 out of his own pocket with no advertising or anything. It started as a hobby and desire to provide a service for the technical community. I think it's great but there's no way I could justify spending that much money on something like that.
"No only do I, for example, get my 2 MB ADSL for 70 UKP Month"
Good for you. I get 768k down/128k up for about $90 a month because it's a business account (the only way I can get a static IP and run a server).
Aside from the fact that it's not cheap, 128k up won't serve shit. It works for me because my web site doesn't get a lot of hits and mainly exists for my own use.
I checked into business class cable services in my area and they were more expensive.
Before someone points it out to me, I know I could save money by downgrading my DSL to residential service and finding a good hosting company but that's just not as fun.:)
I find this attitude really amusing. If you took away advertising and then every web site that didn't make a profit shut down, what exactly do you think would be left?
"Yeah, maybe you set up Proxomitron to render the ads but not actually *display* them... which is fine by providers, because the ad impression is still counted."
The problem there is that if everyone starts using something like Proxomitron to render ads but not display them, it will only be a matter of time before advertisers realize this and pay even less (if anything at all) for ad impressions.
Maybe that's because the people with mod points can tell the difference between insightful and immature self-centered 'everybody should give me stuff for free' posts.
Interestingly enough, you were modded Insightful because your post sounds more like you're in the "it sucks but we need it" category.
I'm about at the same level as you. I've used Phoenix/Firebird for quite a while now and haven't seen pop-ups/pop-unders in quite a long time. If I pick up a magazine and flip through it, I don't find an advertisement page laying on my lap when I put the magazine down (unless it's one of those subscription cards). Same with my TV. When I turn it off, it doesn't really stay on and show an add so I'm forced to turn it off again. I don't really expect my web browsing experience to be any different. I don't mind seeing plain old tasteful banner ads but I get annoyed when they try taking over my browser.
Granted, relying on the good faith of people as part of your business model really isn't a good business model but that's the best source of revenue for some web sites. I don't look forward to the alternative where every web site requires you to subscribe or is nothing more than an advertising campaign for a company that is expected to not directly generate revenue. i.e. coke.com is there to help encourage people to drink coke but really serves no other purpose. Other sites like slashdot aren't just a big advertising campaign for something else so they have to generate money somehow. Other than going to a pay-only model, advertising is really all they've got. Not enough people are actually going to buy a slashdot t-shirt or slashdot coffee mug to support the site.
That's a great idea. It got me thinking..
I can throw some magnets/coils in and around my car tires. Then I can use the electricity generated to power my car without gas. I'm gonna be rich!;)
"Physicist John Cramer of the University of Washington in Seattle has created audio files of the event which can be played on a PC"
The next time someone is talking about back when they were a kid and had to walk 10 miles up hill to school in the snow wearing ratty old worn out shoes.
I'll just reply with something like 'O yea? well this John Cramer guy was making audio recordings back when the universe was created..'
"Why is it legal to pop up unwanted windows under OR over the browser without the Expressed Written Concent of the END USER. "
hrm, replace 'windows' with 'commercials' and replace 'browser' with 'television program'
I really don't see how that's a very good argument unless you think every program should have your 'Expressed Written Concent' before opening new windows. My opinion is if you don't like pop-ups, then either use a browser/add-on that blocks them or don't visit those sites. Why should their be a law against? It's not impossible for a web designer to come up with a good use for pop ups that doesn't involve advertising. Just because it's generally used for something we don't like doesn't mean it should be made illegal.
I personally don't like pop ups and block them with Firebird. I've also had the joy of mistyping a url before I had a browser with pop-up blocking. Perfect example: skinz.org is a place to download Winamp skins and such. I don't remember if it was skins.org or skinz.com but it was certainly not what I wanted.
Maybe it's just me but I don't like the idea of making something illegal just because someone figured out a way to use it for something I don't like. Especially when there are other ways around the problem.
"Either that, or run for president and divulge all this information to the public (not likely)."
What makes you think the president knows everything that's classified? I would expect it to be more like in ID4 where there's stuff that even the president doesn't know. As another example, let's say the JFK assasination was a CIA plot. Do you really think the CIA would tell the president about that?:)
I knew I had seen this idea before. It doesn't use a DDR pad though.
The movie linked in the article appears to be gone but maybe you can find it elsewhere.
Funny how that works. I was born in 77 and work at a university. When I see students with birth dates of 80+, it makes me feel old.;)
Another funny note along those lines.. I was talking to my boss one day who is about 10yrs older than me. Somehow we got on the subject of the bicentinniel quarters and I said something similiar to 'Oh yea, I remember those, they came out when I was born.'
If it make you feel any better..
One time I was helping my friend out at work a bit so he could get done and take off early. I was looking at a computer that this other guy there had been working on. It kept locking up at random times, sometimems before Windows even started booting. I decided to boot into the bios and to check the temperature to see if it was overheating. If I remember right, it was running at 70+C. So I pulled the heat sink off to find that the little slip over the thermal paste was still stuck on there.:)
In this guy's defense, I think he was there mostly for sales/customer relations instead of repair.
The first 2 replies seemed to get the fact that I was making a joke here but I guess not every slashdot reader knows how to have a sense of humour (nothing to be ashamed of though).
If you want my serious thoughts on this patent, try this post.
My guess would be that the 128mb minimum is assuming you will have other stuff (like anti-virus software or firewalls) open using memory and that they don't expect iTunes to use it all by itself.
I've heard talk from people around where I work saying they don't want to support anything that has less than 512 and recommend a gig.
Well, I was going to say that they would have to be different in case the 2nd user ever wanted to change their custom settings. Then I realized that my patent write up doesn't allow for users to change their settings. They only do that on the first access. I'm going to have to start all over now.
Ok, here's my interpretation of claims 11-20. Maybe you can point out where I'm wrong because they don't seem all that specific.
11. obtain the HTML customization info from the user and store it on the server. also assign a unique userid to the user.
12. determine the unique id on the server and sent it back to the client
13. the unique id should be returned as persistent information
14. give the user a pretty HTML form to enter in their preferences
15. add configuration groupings to the form so it's easier to navigate. i.e. stick name and email under a personal section and have a news section for selecting the type of news the user is interested in. (I made up the example>
16. this system should work (although it doesn't have to) over the internet
17. during first access, get the user's preferences and store them. during subsequent accesses, return the customized HTML based on the preferences from the first access
18. I'll admit I got a little confused on this one with it's less than standard syntax of the english language but I think it's basically saying this system should be comprised of a set of instructions stored on computer readable media i.e. a script/program.
19. This seems to be kind of a repeat, although with more details of #18. Basically, do all of this in some computer program.
20. the above method should support multiple users, storing different preferences for each one
Now if you continue reading, you'll find things right in the text of the patent like "The customization options may include a wide variety of information such as, for example, network addresses (e.g., URLs) of a user's favorite sites, types of news that the user wants to see, display information that determines how the information is presented to the user, stock ticker symbols for which the user wishes to receive stock quotes, or the city for which the user wishes to receive a weather report. The customization information can be virtually arbitrary" and "In view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of our invention may be applied, it should be recognized that the detailed embodiments are illustrative only and should not be taken as limiting the scope of our invention. Rather, we claim as our invention all such embodiments as may come within the scope and spirit of the following claims and equivalents thereto. "
So, can you point out to me some quotes from the patent that make the article writer's comments just hype because I missed them.
If someone would like to bring up points from the patent that prove it's not a broad generalization then by all means go ahead. I'll accept any argument and if it's good enough maybe even change my opinion. Please leave out any arguments based on my poor grammar, general flames or claims that it wouldn't hold up in court. That may be the case but I don't think companies should have to constantly incur the cost of defending themselves in court against ridiculous patents.
yes but keep reading.. "obtaining customization information from a second client computer that is different from the customization information from the first client computer..."
That's where it stops. I'm going to patent a similar system which allows for a third client computer, maybe even 4 or 5 if I'm feeling greedy.
Porn sites should be required to verify age by asking age related questions like the Leisure Suit Larry games did. That way, if the kids are looking at porn, at least they'll get a history lesson too.:)
Slashdot Mirror
"A whole lot. Every business around now knows that they need a web site to stay in business."
Yay! A WWW full of corporate sites trying to tell me why their product is so good an I should go out and buy it. Mix in some stupid contests and games so there's even more incentive.
"Every university has and has had a web site for quite a while. I don't think that they make any money off of them"
I suppose they don't make any money from advertising campaigns either then. The point of a university web site is to provide a service to the students as incentive to choose your university over another. Say you're narrowed your choice down to 2 universities that are pretty comparable. You then find that one of them has a web site that allows you to browse class schedules, pay bills, register online and even take classes while the other has nothing. Which one's going to get your money?
I'm talking about sites like slashdot or skinz.org where their product is their web site content. They only have 4 options that I can think of.
1. Charge people for the content
2. Collect money through advertising
3. Come up with some physical product to sell
4. Find someone that wants to fund you for no other reason than the good you provide
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that slashdot couldn't survive on #1 alone. #2 is what everyone hates and wants to block. #3.. come on, how many slashdot shirts, pens and mugs are people really going to buy? As for #4, well that's great if you can find it but not too likely. I know someone that runs a mailing list service and pays for the T1 out of his own pocket with no advertising or anything. It started as a hobby and desire to provide a service for the technical community. I think it's great but there's no way I could justify spending that much money on something like that.
" Is it just me or do you guys also feel weird after spanking it to an animated character?"
Score 0 huh? Well I guess that means most people with mod points right now feel just fine spanking it to animated characters.
"No only do I, for example, get my 2 MB ADSL for 70 UKP Month"
:)
Good for you. I get 768k down/128k up for about $90 a month because it's a business account (the only way I can get a static IP and run a server).
Aside from the fact that it's not cheap, 128k up won't serve shit. It works for me because my web site doesn't get a lot of hits and mainly exists for my own use.
I checked into business class cable services in my area and they were more expensive.
Before someone points it out to me, I know I could save money by downgrading my DSL to residential service and finding a good hosting company but that's just not as fun.
I find this attitude really amusing. If you took away advertising and then every web site that didn't make a profit shut down, what exactly do you think would be left?
"Yeah, maybe you set up Proxomitron to render the ads but not actually *display* them... which is fine by providers, because the ad impression is still counted."
The problem there is that if everyone starts using something like Proxomitron to render ads but not display them, it will only be a matter of time before advertisers realize this and pay even less (if anything at all) for ad impressions.
Maybe that's because the people with mod points can tell the difference between insightful and immature self-centered 'everybody should give me stuff for free' posts.
Interestingly enough, you were modded Insightful because your post sounds more like you're in the "it sucks but we need it" category.
I'm about at the same level as you. I've used Phoenix/Firebird for quite a while now and haven't seen pop-ups/pop-unders in quite a long time. If I pick up a magazine and flip through it, I don't find an advertisement page laying on my lap when I put the magazine down (unless it's one of those subscription cards). Same with my TV. When I turn it off, it doesn't really stay on and show an add so I'm forced to turn it off again. I don't really expect my web browsing experience to be any different. I don't mind seeing plain old tasteful banner ads but I get annoyed when they try taking over my browser.
Granted, relying on the good faith of people as part of your business model really isn't a good business model but that's the best source of revenue for some web sites. I don't look forward to the alternative where every web site requires you to subscribe or is nothing more than an advertising campaign for a company that is expected to not directly generate revenue. i.e. coke.com is there to help encourage people to drink coke but really serves no other purpose. Other sites like slashdot aren't just a big advertising campaign for something else so they have to generate money somehow. Other than going to a pay-only model, advertising is really all they've got. Not enough people are actually going to buy a slashdot t-shirt or slashdot coffee mug to support the site.
Come on now, let's all try to keep our movie jokes in this thread related to ST:TMP. ;)
Maybe they'll change it to AskBob.com since that was such a successful product :)
That's a great idea. It got me thinking.. ;)
I can throw some magnets/coils in and around my car tires. Then I can use the electricity generated to power my car without gas. I'm gonna be rich!
"Physicist John Cramer of the University of Washington in Seattle has created audio files of the event which can be played on a PC" The next time someone is talking about back when they were a kid and had to walk 10 miles up hill to school in the snow wearing ratty old worn out shoes.
I'll just reply with something like 'O yea? well this John Cramer guy was making audio recordings back when the universe was created..'
Since we're considering only half of the ship crash landing on earth, what about the end of The Search for Spock?
"Why is it legal to pop up unwanted windows under OR over the browser without the Expressed Written Concent of the END USER. "
hrm, replace 'windows' with 'commercials' and replace 'browser' with 'television program'
I really don't see how that's a very good argument unless you think every program should have your 'Expressed Written Concent' before opening new windows. My opinion is if you don't like pop-ups, then either use a browser/add-on that blocks them or don't visit those sites. Why should their be a law against? It's not impossible for a web designer to come up with a good use for pop ups that doesn't involve advertising. Just because it's generally used for something we don't like doesn't mean it should be made illegal.
I personally don't like pop ups and block them with Firebird. I've also had the joy of mistyping a url before I had a browser with pop-up blocking. Perfect example: skinz.org is a place to download Winamp skins and such. I don't remember if it was skins.org or skinz.com but it was certainly not what I wanted.
Maybe it's just me but I don't like the idea of making something illegal just because someone figured out a way to use it for something I don't like. Especially when there are other ways around the problem.
"Either that, or run for president and divulge all this information to the public (not likely)." :)
What makes you think the president knows everything that's classified? I would expect it to be more like in ID4 where there's stuff that even the president doesn't know. As another example, let's say the JFK assasination was a CIA plot. Do you really think the CIA would tell the president about that?
Since they cancel shows like Farscape but then pick up John Edwards, I'd say they've got the 'fi' part down but need to work on the 'sci'.
I knew I had seen this idea before. It doesn't use a DDR pad though.
The movie linked in the article appears to be gone but maybe you can find it elsewhere.
Funny how that works. I was born in 77 and work at a university. When I see students with birth dates of 80+, it makes me feel old. ;)
Another funny note along those lines.. I was talking to my boss one day who is about 10yrs older than me. Somehow we got on the subject of the bicentinniel quarters and I said something similiar to 'Oh yea, I remember those, they came out when I was born.'
If it make you feel any better.. :)
One time I was helping my friend out at work a bit so he could get done and take off early. I was looking at a computer that this other guy there had been working on. It kept locking up at random times, sometimems before Windows even started booting. I decided to boot into the bios and to check the temperature to see if it was overheating. If I remember right, it was running at 70+C. So I pulled the heat sink off to find that the little slip over the thermal paste was still stuck on there.
In this guy's defense, I think he was there mostly for sales/customer relations instead of repair.
"Ninety-nine percent of the traffic is pure HTTP (Hypertext Transport Protocol), and so it handles it the way it should."
I don't know where he got his numbers but I have a hard time believing that.
The first 2 replies seemed to get the fact that I was making a joke here but I guess not every slashdot reader knows how to have a sense of humour (nothing to be ashamed of though).
If you want my serious thoughts on this patent, try this post.
My guess would be that the 128mb minimum is assuming you will have other stuff (like anti-virus software or firewalls) open using memory and that they don't expect iTunes to use it all by itself.
I've heard talk from people around where I work saying they don't want to support anything that has less than 512 and recommend a gig.
Well, I was going to say that they would have to be different in case the 2nd user ever wanted to change their custom settings. Then I realized that my patent write up doesn't allow for users to change their settings. They only do that on the first access. I'm going to have to start all over now.
Ok, here's my interpretation of claims 11-20. Maybe you can point out where I'm wrong because they don't seem all that specific.
11. obtain the HTML customization info from the user and store it on the server. also assign a unique userid to the user.
12. determine the unique id on the server and sent it back to the client
13. the unique id should be returned as persistent information
14. give the user a pretty HTML form to enter in their preferences
15. add configuration groupings to the form so it's easier to navigate. i.e. stick name and email under a personal section and have a news section for selecting the type of news the user is interested in. (I made up the example>
16. this system should work (although it doesn't have to) over the internet
17. during first access, get the user's preferences and store them. during subsequent accesses, return the customized HTML based on the preferences from the first access
18. I'll admit I got a little confused on this one with it's less than standard syntax of the english language but I think it's basically saying this system should be comprised of a set of instructions stored on computer readable media i.e. a script/program.
19. This seems to be kind of a repeat, although with more details of #18. Basically, do all of this in some computer program.
20. the above method should support multiple users, storing different preferences for each one
Now if you continue reading, you'll find things right in the text of the patent like "The customization options may include a wide variety of information such as, for example, network addresses (e.g., URLs) of a user's favorite sites, types of news that the user wants to see, display information that determines how the information is presented to the user, stock ticker symbols for which the user wishes to receive stock quotes, or the city for which the user wishes to receive a weather report. The customization information can be virtually arbitrary" and "In view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of our invention may be applied, it should be recognized that the detailed embodiments are illustrative only and should not be taken as limiting the scope of our invention. Rather, we claim as our invention all such embodiments as may come within the scope and spirit of the following claims and equivalents thereto. "
So, can you point out to me some quotes from the patent that make the article writer's comments just hype because I missed them.
If someone would like to bring up points from the patent that prove it's not a broad generalization then by all means go ahead. I'll accept any argument and if it's good enough maybe even change my opinion. Please leave out any arguments based on my poor grammar, general flames or claims that it wouldn't hold up in court. That may be the case but I don't think companies should have to constantly incur the cost of defending themselves in court against ridiculous patents.
yes but keep reading..
"obtaining customization information from a second client computer that is different from the customization information from the first client computer..."
That's where it stops. I'm going to patent a similar system which allows for a third client computer, maybe even 4 or 5 if I'm feeling greedy.
Porn sites should be required to verify age by asking age related questions like the Leisure Suit Larry games did. That way, if the kids are looking at porn, at least they'll get a history lesson too. :)
" My boyfriend!"
He must not be too old or he would have turned into software.