Re:Redifference between uppercase and lowercase
on
Verbing Weirds Google
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Isn't this similar to the very common vacuum manufacturer "Hoover". Everyone I know says they will "hoover the carpet" e.g. "I'll google for it".
Again, it is similar to Xerox being used when photocopy was meant. I'm not sure if "making a xerox" is used so much nowadays thanks to the proliferation of photocopy machines but it certainly was common.
Having said that my old copy of bookshelf has TM next to the term. Same for Xerox.
...in horror movies where the dumbass is going down to the basement and everyone could vote to have them sit upstairs and watch the Big Game instead...coz that's how it would be in real life right, riiiiight;-)
Maybe I'm being too cynical but I seriously doubt anything will change.
The worst that will happen from MS's POV is that they'll waste a bunch of money on lawyers and maybe pay a big fine...and *possibly* have to publish documentation for some stuff they don't currently publish.
I'm pretty sure it will be a harder punishment than the US gave them but it won't be enough to hurt.
Nothing will change, just like nothing has changed since the US anti-trust stuff.
No, but we were naive in thinking that people would do the right thing. Experience was as usual a fine teacher.
Ah yes, so you think you are smarter than the TVGuide people.
They attempt to charge businesses tens of thousands of dollars per month to use their TV guide data and then they allow (probably due to ignorance) people to use perl scripts (and similar) to scrape their entire site and use it in their own competing products (there are several). Not only that but they give their content away for free on their web site yet they charge good money for the same content in their magazines.
I couldn't say whether we are smarter than the tvguide.com people but I can say that what they do is plain dumb and it's something we don't do. They would do themselves a favour if they dropped the crummy advertising and switched to subscription. At least that way the site could justify it's own existence and a 'user' would be transformed into a 'customer'.
(Incidenatlly, removing advertising and viewing 'users' as 'customers' has a big, and positive, impact on the way a web site business operates. From both customer and our POV it's been great.)
Actually much of the data (episode and movie descriptions) is unique to us, and if not to us then to our core suppliers.
So, you are wrong. The times and the programmes names are probably fine but then there is the question of access to the server...it's a terms and conditions of use thing. If you don't like the terms of a particular supplier for your products then shop elsewhere.
I do feel pissed off every time we catch someone stealing our content and using it in their own tools. Copyright notices and T&C's are all well and good but they do NOTHING to stop someone from trawling your site.
As an owner and publisher I *can* say how my content is to be used because that's the licence I grant, it's MY choice. If I wanted it to be freely copied and used in any way then I would release it into the public domain...and it will be a cold day in hell when that happens.
The information (in our case TV listings) is costly to collect. I guess the spongers don't realise that or they just don't give a fuck.
I've found the solution is to a) implement technology to try to prevent it, and b) complain directly to their ISPs.
Both of the above solutions work but are themselves costly in terms of the technology and the time taken. These are two things we'd rather not spend our time and money on, and they distract us from creating great software.
At the end of the day if everyone trawled web sites for content then there would be no web sites supplying the content. The people trawling often request thousands or tens of thousands of pages in a very short space of time. The costs in terms of bandwidth and slow service to legitimate customers soon add up.
Our downloadable software TV guide (DigiGuide) did in the past have unencrypted data files. We didn't honestly expect someone to take our content and build a (possibly competing ) product around our data but they did. The data is now encrypted and should someone crack the encryption then we just change it and their hard work is wasted.
I feel sorry for web sites like TVGuide.com because they probably think they have some very loyal users that spend a lot of time on their site and read a lot of pages...instead they just have people sucking their content and paying them nothing for it. Ignorance is probably bliss for them.
Aww crap. I *had* fond memories of it until followed your link.
Damn it was awful;-)
I prefered my old VIC20 with built in assembler - now that was groovy. If it crashed you could reset it and hold down a key to prevent it from wiping the memory when it restarted. It was the VIC20 that got me started commercial programming - selling stuff to Commodore Computing International magazine. Oh the memories...
Seriously though, when we were testing our server components it happily handled 200 requests for dynamic content per second (not static images or HTML) without flinching.
So I guess this is special because they used the wrong tool (java) to get a mediocre performance, woohoo!... they deserve another taste of slashdot.
I think they are just publicity whores looking for a bit more limelight.
An alternative would be a case-mod contest with action packed 3-D live animation of the modifications in progress and quotes from the contestents; "Um yeah, like we hacked the case with a jigsaw and added some blue neons right, and now it runs and looks cooler".
Maybe even a contest to make the smallest distro right from downloading the latest mandrake linux to booting up on a 486DX66 with 32MB ram. Should be a fascinating spectator sport.
I can hear it now "The stuff I stole no longer works, I want my money back".
Somehow I doubt anyone will go to court over the fact that their stolen music and movies no longer work. I also doubt that you could take a new PC back to the store and get a refund because it refuses to play your stolen media.
DRM is here to stay. It may not be perfect yet and there are almost certainly some giant-sized problems to overcome but it ain't going away.
If I go to a walmart.com, and change the mian page to say wilmart instead of walmart, should I go to jail? be fined?
Personaly, I think I should be fined 100 bucks plus the cost to 'scrub' there system. That is reasonable. Putting me in jail for 5 years, is not reasonable.
I think the biggest issue that most people have is of honesty.
Normal, and honest, people have little desire to spraypaint (virtually or physically) walmart so someone that did it would have to fit into a different category than "normal and honest". With that in mind there is the ever present question of; What else did the little turd do whilst he was there.
This results in an entire system rebuild as the only safe option. If you change *anything* you may as well change everything because the net result is the same - a distinct lack of trust in the system causing a desire to start over.
The next question issue is almost certainly one of what is socially acceptable. In most countries vandalising someone elses property is unacceptable and some form a deterrence is needed. A minor slap on the wrist is never enough.
Using analogies distorts our viewpoint. If you spraypaint the wall of a store then the extent of the damage is fairly clear. The same is not true for computer systems...unless auditing is used but even then how can you know that the auditing hasn't been tampered with along with the remainder of the system.
The costs associated with a computer breakin can mount up very quickly. Changing passwords, reinstalling from the metal up and trying to figure out how it happened and how to prevent it can come out at a shocking price tag. And that could be just for changing "walmart" to "wilmart".
Anything I come up with I'll post to my journal [slashdot.org], if you're interested...
I am, thanks. But don't you think it would be even better to create a freshmeat/sourceforge project for the specs as that way we (anyone interested) can see progress - and maybe people in your (our) position in the future (but with time to hack code) could actually start implementing it?
I did read it, I just didn't comment on it. I appreciate the effort you have already put in analysing existing products.
I only have 12GB of MP3s so my problems are much less than yours.
That's kind of what I'm attempting to do with the parent post...
Posting on slashdot is a long way short of actually *doing* something about it. But you knew that already.
I appreciate the time aspect because I too have a number of exciting/interesting projects I'd love to spend time on but sadly there is none spare (gah, and here I am posting).
I think it's gotta be worth starting your project merely by creating a detailed spec. Perhaps even going whole-hog and doing some screen mockups etc. (and yes, I did read the feature list) Doing that may attract people but certainly knocking on their door is best.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't this similar to the very common vacuum manufacturer "Hoover". Everyone I know says they will "hoover the carpet" e.g. "I'll google for it".
Again, it is similar to Xerox being used when photocopy was meant. I'm not sure if "making a xerox" is used so much nowadays thanks to the proliferation of photocopy machines but it certainly was common.
Having said that my old copy of bookshelf has TM next to the term. Same for Xerox.
There is a reason for this, which has nothing to do with PHB's attitude, but more wth the Grad's attitude that he thinks he knows it all.
As they say; Hire a student while they still know everything!
"Why I'll never be a Linux User [nylug.org]"
Damn, that is scary. They look so white 'n geeky.
...in horror movies where the dumbass is going down to the basement and everyone could vote to have them sit upstairs and watch the Big Game instead...coz that's how it would be in real life right, riiiiight ;-)
The problem is that you must never, ever reuse the key material for good security so it is always at a premium
hehe, I was looking for a new business idea and now I have it; Selling CDROMs with premium random bits on them.
This is so cool. We could have different levels of randomness starting out from not very random right through to very-very random.
I'm gonna start on the flash intro to the web site, why don't you start the business plan...
;-)
Would that be a Bombay special agent but hold the rice?
;-)
You buy a TV ad during the super bowl (or whatever) and wait for the orders to just roll in.
Maybe I'm being too cynical but I seriously doubt anything will change.
The worst that will happen from MS's POV is that they'll waste a bunch of money on lawyers and maybe pay a big fine...and *possibly* have to publish documentation for some stuff they don't currently publish.
I'm pretty sure it will be a harder punishment than the US gave them but it won't be enough to hurt.
Nothing will change, just like nothing has changed since the US anti-trust stuff.
No, but we were naive in thinking that people would do the right thing. Experience was as usual a fine teacher.
Ah yes, so you think you are smarter than the TVGuide people.
They attempt to charge businesses tens of thousands of dollars per month to use their TV guide data and then they allow (probably due to ignorance) people to use perl scripts (and similar) to scrape their entire site and use it in their own competing products (there are several). Not only that but they give their content away for free on their web site yet they charge good money for the same content in their magazines.
I couldn't say whether we are smarter than the tvguide.com people but I can say that what they do is plain dumb and it's something we don't do. They would do themselves a favour if they dropped the crummy advertising and switched to subscription. At least that way the site could justify it's own existence and a 'user' would be transformed into a 'customer'.
(Incidenatlly, removing advertising and viewing 'users' as 'customers' has a big, and positive, impact on the way a web site business operates. From both customer and our POV it's been great.)
Sorry AC but that would also stop people (rightly and honestly) using legitimate tools like iSiloX, AvantGo, Mazingo, MobiPocket etc.
Anyway, there are better ways.
Um, no, you can't. The publisher decides the terms by which you can use the information. You either agree or disagree.
Actually much of the data (episode and movie descriptions) is unique to us, and if not to us then to our core suppliers.
So, you are wrong. The times and the programmes names are probably fine but then there is the question of access to the server...it's a terms and conditions of use thing. If you don't like the terms of a particular supplier for your products then shop elsewhere.
Try DigiGuide as it does that and much more.
I do feel pissed off every time we catch someone stealing our content and using it in their own tools. Copyright notices and T&C's are all well and good but they do NOTHING to stop someone from trawling your site.
As an owner and publisher I *can* say how my content is to be used because that's the licence I grant, it's MY choice. If I wanted it to be freely copied and used in any way then I would release it into the public domain...and it will be a cold day in hell when that happens.
The information (in our case TV listings) is costly to collect. I guess the spongers don't realise that or they just don't give a fuck.
I've found the solution is to a) implement technology to try to prevent it, and b) complain directly to their ISPs.
Both of the above solutions work but are themselves costly in terms of the technology and the time taken. These are two things we'd rather not spend our time and money on, and they distract us from creating great software.
At the end of the day if everyone trawled web sites for content then there would be no web sites supplying the content. The people trawling often request thousands or tens of thousands of pages in a very short space of time. The costs in terms of bandwidth and slow service to legitimate customers soon add up.
Our downloadable software TV guide (DigiGuide) did in the past have unencrypted data files. We didn't honestly expect someone to take our content and build a (possibly competing ) product around our data but they did. The data is now encrypted and should someone crack the encryption then we just change it and their hard work is wasted.
I feel sorry for web sites like TVGuide.com because they probably think they have some very loyal users that spend a lot of time on their site and read a lot of pages...instead they just have people sucking their content and paying them nothing for it. Ignorance is probably bliss for them.
They will rename it the "Reboot arm" of course.
You mean "They hired smart people"?
C'mon moderators, quit sleeping at the wheel and mod him up funny.
Aww crap. I *had* fond memories of it until followed your link.
;-)
Damn it was awful
I prefered my old VIC20 with built in assembler - now that was groovy. If it crashed you could reset it and hold down a key to prevent it from wiping the memory when it restarted. It was the VIC20 that got me started commercial programming - selling stuff to Commodore Computing International magazine. Oh the memories...
Oh yeah, now it's burning. Burn baby burn.
... they deserve another taste of slashdot.
Seriously though, when we were testing our server components it happily handled 200 requests for dynamic content per second (not static images or HTML) without flinching.
So I guess this is special because they used the wrong tool (java) to get a mediocre performance, woohoo!
I think they are just publicity whores looking for a bit more limelight.
An alternative would be a case-mod contest with action packed 3-D live animation of the modifications in progress and quotes from the contestents; "Um yeah, like we hacked the case with a jigsaw and added some blue neons right, and now it runs and looks cooler".
Maybe even a contest to make the smallest distro right from downloading the latest mandrake linux to booting up on a 486DX66 with 32MB ram. Should be a fascinating spectator sport.
I can hear it now "The stuff I stole no longer works, I want my money back".
Somehow I doubt anyone will go to court over the fact that their stolen music and movies no longer work. I also doubt that you could take a new PC back to the store and get a refund because it refuses to play your stolen media.
DRM is here to stay. It may not be perfect yet and there are almost certainly some giant-sized problems to overcome but it ain't going away.
I think the biggest issue that most people have is of honesty.
Normal, and honest, people have little desire to spraypaint (virtually or physically) walmart so someone that did it would have to fit into a different category than "normal and honest". With that in mind there is the ever present question of; What else did the little turd do whilst he was there.
This results in an entire system rebuild as the only safe option. If you change *anything* you may as well change everything because the net result is the same - a distinct lack of trust in the system causing a desire to start over.
The next question issue is almost certainly one of what is socially acceptable. In most countries vandalising someone elses property is unacceptable and some form a deterrence is needed. A minor slap on the wrist is never enough.
Using analogies distorts our viewpoint. If you spraypaint the wall of a store then the extent of the damage is fairly clear. The same is not true for computer systems...unless auditing is used but even then how can you know that the auditing hasn't been tampered with along with the remainder of the system.
The costs associated with a computer breakin can mount up very quickly. Changing passwords, reinstalling from the metal up and trying to figure out how it happened and how to prevent it can come out at a shocking price tag. And that could be just for changing "walmart" to "wilmart".
Don't get a dedicated box. Either use a PC based product available now or waht for someone to bring out something truly useful
Anything I come up with I'll post to my journal [slashdot.org], if you're interested...
I am, thanks. But don't you think it would be even better to create a freshmeat/sourceforge project for the specs as that way we (anyone interested) can see progress - and maybe people in your (our) position in the future (but with time to hack code) could actually start implementing it?
I did read it, I just didn't comment on it. I appreciate the effort you have already put in analysing existing products.
I only have 12GB of MP3s so my problems are much less than yours.
That's kind of what I'm attempting to do with the parent post...
Posting on slashdot is a long way short of actually *doing* something about it. But you knew that already.
I appreciate the time aspect because I too have a number of exciting/interesting projects I'd love to spend time on but sadly there is none spare (gah, and here I am posting).
I think it's gotta be worth starting your project merely by creating a detailed spec. Perhaps even going whole-hog and doing some screen mockups etc. (and yes, I did read the feature list) Doing that may attract people but certainly knocking on their door is best.