The site has been updated to do what you say, more or less. There are now green icons beside almost all titles (these seem to be totally pure clean) and a yellow icon besides one requiring some attention during installation: irfanview, winamp, acrobat reader. The unpleasant stuff can be easily avoided through quite blatant options during download and install. More in the site's FAQ
The site currently allows user comments (through CGI). So for every title listed, users can can add to the related public comments. There is already lots of useful info accumulating in there.
There is also a general suggestion place under comments for the what's new section. People are suggesting software there for possible additions.
But part of the point of the site is, the admin does review the software personally so there is control in that respect over the listed contents.
That is why CleanSoftware.org links to the original sites. This is in the FAQ too under "What other tips do you have to help keep my computer spyware/adware free?"
(I run CleanSoftware.org). Thanks everyone for the suggestions, it will take me a while -- a few hundred posts here, about 400 emails -- but I will at least skim everything and definitely add more software to the site. Already I have seen plenty of titles that I am familiar with and in retrospect don't know how I missed, so expect a good few dozen more titles quite soon.
Someone else also suggested to me, I will probably add a visual rating to each title indicating where there might have to be user care during installation. For example, IrfanView is clean freeware if you simply make sure that the ebay ads aren't selected. Similarly, WinAmp is clean if you uncheck the listener tracking box. These options are very clear and honest but are worth noting. Other software will be green flags (nothing to beware of).
I also like the parent's idea about a what's new type of section, so that's something I will add so that occasional visitors can see what has changed recently.
Anyway, Slashdot people, thanks for visiting my site and hope you will come back and find some new additions. Tell your friends. [ And my ISP can handle the traffic, don't worry, it's not costing me for excessive bandwidth]
I'll give you an example. I have contributed development time to my favourite UNIX open source projects because I am helping build a product that I can use free rather than pay some other company for their solution. For my business I now use all kinds of free software that has been built with community support. This is saving me operating costs in the long term. (I am willing to spend time/money on free software, because in the long term it will save money).
The difference wasn't in the hardware. It was in the people... it was an adventure and it was a dream.
I agree with you. Look at the incredible computation abilities we now have, it really boggles the mind. We have made leaps forward in speed, miniaturization, and power usage. Materials science has also brought us an entirely new set of possibilities since then. Now, if we had a real goal -- like to start human exploration of space in earnest (longer missions, more frequent), I think we could really do some amazing things.
Personally I think we're being really stupid by not funding more space exploration. Yes, I know people on earth are starving. But both you and I know that it's not the starving Ethiopians competing with NASA or ESA for funding...
My guess is that the lack of "public conern" status comes from an uncertainty in their model... the models used are always improving. If the models are much more solid and they're still seeing 1/200 chance of collision, they might well start shitting their pants.
Nothing happens by chance. Chance is simply a statiscal tool
OK, then you go and analyze all the forces acting on the asteroid, and every other piece of dust it interacts with on its orbit, then we'll ditch probabilities.
In the mean time, probability/chance provides an estimate when not all inputs can be considered.
What is the point of posts (and news items, etc.) like this?
While the population obsesses about rather small threats (terrorism, nuclear bombs, SARS, west nile virus) people tend to ignore major threats like, oh I don't know, human near-extinction in several decades. Sit and think about the odds given and you should find it extremely unnerving, unless you have no sense of probabilities. On the order of 1/100 or 1/1000 are not reassuring odds. And the scale of the event is enormous.
It's a problem of motivating people to non-immediate problems. Like environmental issues, these are not things that engage us now. OTOH terrorism and SARS puts people in an acute panic. With something like asteroids, environmental damage people have to start working on problems now even though there appears to be no good reason to do so.
So getting back to your question, why post about this and why make people aware of a looming future threat? Because hopefully, physicists, mathematicians, and engineers out there realize that this is quite important and might take part in coming up with solutions that could (yes) save earth. And maybe people will make the connection that humans striving for space travel, exploration, and colonization of space is also an activity that can save our ass -- rather than waste precious precious money.
And everyone else can realize, damn, life may well be shorter than we all expect, and be grateful that they and everyone else they know is still alive.
Thank god this made the bottom of the list. I'm so sick at seeing every girl at uni wearing this disgusting uniform. Few women can pull off this fashion, on most it looks revolting. Yeah for sure I'm not that attractive either but, then again, I'm not revealing my belly and ass crack for you.
It's clear now. We'll be seeing a lot more of britney spears and paris hilton in bikinis, mini skirts and prom dresses... possibly while they watch CNN, the simpsons, or listen to 'YMCA' on their ipods.
DNA is a copy of the old dna with the shortened protein buffers around the edges. Sexual reproduction solves this by using the redundancy of the two sets of DNA
Yeah, sex rocks. Take some time this holiday season to appreciate the wonders of sex!
This is the type of fear mongering (government's wish, media's job) that keeps giving the state more and more power; to monitor more, have less legal accountability, sidestep the courts alltogether, and do pretty much whatever else they know they shouldn't get away with because "it's a different world now, and terrorists are everywhere".
I call bullshit. There aren't more terrorists than there were decades ago; the country is not more dangerous. The rights and freedoms in the west are the crowning achievement of civilization, and it makes me cringe to see how quickly these freedoms are taken away. Secret courts and shadow governments? They exist in the USA! It's no secret! You can be held for years without knowing the charges against you.
Dark Alleys of the Internet... come on. If I write my note on a piece of paper and deliver it to my friend, I challenge any spy agency in the world to (covertly) intercept that message.
I have noticed that prices are dropping here in Canada in the last month or so
Might be due to the plummeting US dollar. This year, suddenly everything imported from the US got about 20% cheaper over a few months. Compared to two years ago, everything imported from the US is over 30% cheaper. If anything, retailers will be slow to pass on that (also as they hoard some extre earnings).
I don't think the sepcifications are too bad at all. Most people don't do very high end stuff on their computers. There are millions of students worldwide that would be satisfied with something that surfs the web, runs word processors and basic graphics programs, does email, and runs some simple games.
I could do all that on my 386 with DOS; so you sure as hell can do all that with a system at these specs.
OK, but what I'm suggesting here is that if there is a correlation between MPAA initiative and disappearance of the sites, maybe that "solution" can be extended into the spam realm.
i.e. if the MPAA did something, or induced a situation which resulted in these sites shutting down, then perhaps a similar situation can be induced w.r.t. spam that would shut down long running spammers' sites.
Mind you the MPAA has a bit of a head start, since WIPO/DMCA legislation in the US and EU gives corporations lots of power. Heaven forbid that the government would similarly be in favor of making spamming illegal.
That's one insightful anonymous coward. It's true, it's all about money and lobbying. If I had a $300 million yearly advertising budget, I could get you to believe that pigs can fly.
Morality, social norms, and consumer behaviour can all be manipulated with the money and influence. I don't personally think there is anything wrong with copying media for personal use; the MPAA thinks otherwise, and is using money (advertising + legal action + government lobbying) to get their way.
I'm rather impressed that the MPAA (or its equivalent corporations globally) are actually successful in shutting down these web sites! After all, look at all the spammers web sites that have been operational for years, and that is while continually advertising themselves in millions of irritating emails. If only it were that easy to shut them down too.
Douglas Adams' classic geek book, I'm buying it for a geek girl. I found that Chapters (Canada) sells the entire trilogy in 4 parts for $6 or so. Yeah, I'm a cheap geek. I've already received the shipment, it really is the whole damn set of books for $6.
Sounds cool, reminds me of Warp Records' Bleep site. Of course, that's only for music under their label (lots of really good electronica). What amazed me is Warp Records knows how to properly encode audio, they actually use lame w/VBR and some tweaks to make excellent MP3s (I have bought a few albums there).
I am entirely unfamiliar with the issue of spam as it pertains to blogs. Are spammers placing ads (as in, posting their URLs) to random peoples' blogs? Or is the problem that they are just polluting the comment list with random garbage?
If the issue is posting of URLs, then it should be a simple matter of the blog site checking any URLs against SURBL, a spam URL blocklist.
What am I missing here? When did this become such a huge issue?
This holiday season, don't forget what a real audio CD is! A true audio CD doesn't have track errors and doesn't try to hide data or offer mixed data modes (DRM or low quality/crippled audio): it's just pure, sweet 16-bit 44KHz samples.
So if you buy something that's marketed as or implied to be an "audio CD" (maybe according to the section of the store you bought it from) check it out to make sure it works with your computer's CD player and that you can save the original audio tracks to your hard drive.
If that doesn't work, you have not bought an audio CD but have been fooled by false advertising or misleading marketing. Return the "audio CD" to the store you bought it from an insist on a refund. You have solid backing with this one, stick up for your consumer rights.
For those that say I'm being difficult, in this instance it's not an issue of P2P evangelism or even copyright disputes. This is an issue of consumer rights -- if a vendor tricks you into buying something under false pretenses, you have a right to get your money back.
Slashdot Mirror
The site has been updated to do what you say, more or less. There are now green icons beside almost all titles (these seem to be totally pure clean) and a yellow icon besides one requiring some attention during installation: irfanview, winamp, acrobat reader. The unpleasant stuff can be easily avoided through quite blatant options during download and install. More in the site's FAQ
The site currently allows user comments (through CGI). So for every title listed, users can can add to the related public comments. There is already lots of useful info accumulating in there.
There is also a general suggestion place under comments for the what's new section. People are suggesting software there for possible additions.
But part of the point of the site is, the admin does review the software personally so there is control in that respect over the listed contents.
That is why CleanSoftware.org links to the original sites. This is in the FAQ too under "What other tips do you have to help keep my computer spyware/adware free?"
(I run CleanSoftware.org). Thanks everyone for the suggestions, it will take me a while -- a few hundred posts here, about 400 emails -- but I will at least skim everything and definitely add more software to the site. Already I have seen plenty of titles that I am familiar with and in retrospect don't know how I missed, so expect a good few dozen more titles quite soon.
Someone else also suggested to me, I will probably add a visual rating to each title indicating where there might have to be user care during installation. For example, IrfanView is clean freeware if you simply make sure that the ebay ads aren't selected. Similarly, WinAmp is clean if you uncheck the listener tracking box. These options are very clear and honest but are worth noting. Other software will be green flags (nothing to beware of).
I also like the parent's idea about a what's new type of section, so that's something I will add so that occasional visitors can see what has changed recently.
Anyway, Slashdot people, thanks for visiting my site and hope you will come back and find some new additions. Tell your friends. [ And my ISP can handle the traffic, don't worry, it's not costing me for excessive bandwidth]
I'll give you an example. I have contributed development time to my favourite UNIX open source projects because I am helping build a product that I can use free rather than pay some other company for their solution. For my business I now use all kinds of free software that has been built with community support. This is saving me operating costs in the long term. (I am willing to spend time/money on free software, because in the long term it will save money).
Personally I think we're being really stupid by not funding more space exploration. Yes, I know people on earth are starving. But both you and I know that it's not the starving Ethiopians competing with NASA or ESA for funding...
My guess is that the lack of "public conern" status comes from an uncertainty in their model... the models used are always improving. If the models are much more solid and they're still seeing 1/200 chance of collision, they might well start shitting their pants.
In the mean time, probability/chance provides an estimate when not all inputs can be considered.
It's a problem of motivating people to non-immediate problems. Like environmental issues, these are not things that engage us now. OTOH terrorism and SARS puts people in an acute panic. With something like asteroids, environmental damage people have to start working on problems now even though there appears to be no good reason to do so.
So getting back to your question, why post about this and why make people aware of a looming future threat? Because hopefully, physicists, mathematicians, and engineers out there realize that this is quite important and might take part in coming up with solutions that could (yes) save earth. And maybe people will make the connection that humans striving for space travel, exploration, and colonization of space is also an activity that can save our ass -- rather than waste precious precious money.
And everyone else can realize, damn, life may well be shorter than we all expect, and be grateful that they and everyone else they know is still alive.
10. low-rise jeans
Thank god this made the bottom of the list. I'm so sick at seeing every girl at uni wearing this disgusting uniform. Few women can pull off this fashion, on most it looks revolting. Yeah for sure I'm not that attractive either but, then again, I'm not revealing my belly and ass crack for you.
That's because their zeitgeist is more of a pop culture / marketing / fun-review-of-trends thing. I wouldn't take it too seriously.
It's clear now. We'll be seeing a lot more of britney spears and paris hilton in bikinis, mini skirts and prom dresses... possibly while they watch CNN, the simpsons, or listen to 'YMCA' on their ipods.
This is the type of fear mongering (government's wish, media's job) that keeps giving the state more and more power; to monitor more, have less legal accountability, sidestep the courts alltogether, and do pretty much whatever else they know they shouldn't get away with because "it's a different world now, and terrorists are everywhere".
I call bullshit. There aren't more terrorists than there were decades ago; the country is not more dangerous. The rights and freedoms in the west are the crowning achievement of civilization, and it makes me cringe to see how quickly these freedoms are taken away. Secret courts and shadow governments? They exist in the USA! It's no secret! You can be held for years without knowing the charges against you.
Dark Alleys of the Internet... come on. If I write my note on a piece of paper and deliver it to my friend, I challenge any spy agency in the world to (covertly) intercept that message.
Fear is a manipulation tactic.
I don't think the sepcifications are too bad at all. Most people don't do very high end stuff on their computers. There are millions of students worldwide that would be satisfied with something that surfs the web, runs word processors and basic graphics programs, does email, and runs some simple games.
I could do all that on my 386 with DOS; so you sure as hell can do all that with a system at these specs.
OK, but what I'm suggesting here is that if there is a correlation between MPAA initiative and disappearance of the sites, maybe that "solution" can be extended into the spam realm.
i.e. if the MPAA did something, or induced a situation which resulted in these sites shutting down, then perhaps a similar situation can be induced w.r.t. spam that would shut down long running spammers' sites.
Mind you the MPAA has a bit of a head start, since WIPO/DMCA legislation in the US and EU gives corporations lots of power. Heaven forbid that the government would similarly be in favor of making spamming illegal.
That's one insightful anonymous coward. It's true, it's all about money and lobbying. If I had a $300 million yearly advertising budget, I could get you to believe that pigs can fly.
Morality, social norms, and consumer behaviour can all be manipulated with the money and influence. I don't personally think there is anything wrong with copying media for personal use; the MPAA thinks otherwise, and is using money (advertising + legal action + government lobbying) to get their way.
There are no absolute "right" or "wrongs" here.
I'm rather impressed that the MPAA (or its equivalent corporations globally) are actually successful in shutting down these web sites! After all, look at all the spammers web sites that have been operational for years, and that is while continually advertising themselves in millions of irritating emails. If only it were that easy to shut them down too.
Douglas Adams' classic geek book, I'm buying it for a geek girl. I found that Chapters (Canada) sells the entire trilogy in 4 parts for $6 or so. Yeah, I'm a cheap geek. I've already received the shipment, it really is the whole damn set of books for $6.
Sounds cool, reminds me of Warp Records' Bleep site. Of course, that's only for music under their label (lots of really good electronica). What amazed me is Warp Records knows how to properly encode audio, they actually use lame w/VBR and some tweaks to make excellent MP3s (I have bought a few albums there).
I am entirely unfamiliar with the issue of spam as it pertains to blogs. Are spammers placing ads (as in, posting their URLs) to random peoples' blogs? Or is the problem that they are just polluting the comment list with random garbage?
If the issue is posting of URLs, then it should be a simple matter of the blog site checking any URLs against SURBL, a spam URL blocklist.
What am I missing here? When did this become such a huge issue?
This holiday season, don't forget what a real audio CD is! A true audio CD doesn't have track errors and doesn't try to hide data or offer mixed data modes (DRM or low quality/crippled audio): it's just pure, sweet 16-bit 44KHz samples.
So if you buy something that's marketed as or implied to be an "audio CD" (maybe according to the section of the store you bought it from) check it out to make sure it works with your computer's CD player and that you can save the original audio tracks to your hard drive.
If that doesn't work, you have not bought an audio CD but have been fooled by false advertising or misleading marketing. Return the "audio CD" to the store you bought it from an insist on a refund. You have solid backing with this one, stick up for your consumer rights.
For those that say I'm being difficult, in this instance it's not an issue of P2P evangelism or even copyright disputes. This is an issue of consumer rights -- if a vendor tricks you into buying something under false pretenses, you have a right to get your money back.
???lamron ot kcab ti teg I od woh ,uoy nmad