I view it like checks and balances. Apple makes a lot of dough from it's software, which is based on OSS. The KHTML guys are doing it because of other reasons, of which I would like ot believe that they just want to write great open-source software (bless you folks).
Apple wants to make some use of OSS code in their software, but they don't want to contribute back, which is not cool. Groups like KHTML then show some static, and viola, we have a webkit site from Apple.
Antone Gonsalves from InternetWeek gives some advice to avoid this:
Internet shoppers who want the best prices should delete cookies as often as possible. That's because the less online merchants know about you, the less likely they'll be able to figure out how much you're willing to pay.
Anyway, I'm not against companies taking advantage of technology to boost revenues. Heck, it would be naive to expect businesses to do anything else. But I do have a problem with failing to disclose the information you gather and the reasons for gathering it.
I agree with the study's recommendation that retailers be required by law to disclose their data-gathering practices. Companies that don't have full disclosure, while continuing to take what they can from customers, are the real "bottom feeders."
Is it equipped with enough life boats so when it hits the iceberg, half the boat will be left in the freezing water? Better yet, is it equipped with enough guns to smite Celine Dion before she releases another "hit"?
Remember Carmack promising us real-time rendering for full CG movies? Can you imagine a game with the visuals of the Shrek series?
Personally, as an old-skool gamer, I'm hoping that if it ever comes to that, gameplay won't completely be forgotten, as the ratio of gamplay to graphics seems to diminish every day.
'It is similar to the sociological consequences of the Prohibition period in the U.S. (during the 1920s).'
This has some interesting implications; however, I don't think it'll be interpreted the same here in the states. See, Prohibition was viewed as the government taking away a liberty right, or the right to be left alone. Here is the Man telling me I can't buy alcohol.
Downloading MP3's is viewed as taking the "property" of somebody else. In other words, if I want to buy and drink alcohol, then who is the government to stop me? But if I want to take somebody's property (as defined by IP laws), then obviously, this changes things.
I do think that "jail time" people for downloading some music is ridiculous. Downloading music will never stop, this cycle will always continue. It's like the 55MPH speed limit. Nobody follows is, and yet the police still try to enforce it. Some of us will pay fines, and others will get away scott free.
Re:Obligatory
on
Blank Keyboard
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· Score: -1, Redundant
Dammit, you stole my gratuitously blatant and overly redundant comment! Hence, I shall rename it, the "NE" key!
...is still the education of users. I can't tell you how many e-mails get stuck in our company SPAM filters that mimick phony PayPal accounts. You get that one user who thinks the message is real, and there goes your identity.
I had a virus like that once, it was called M$.W!nd0ws.ME. It was horrible, once it infected your computer, it would display this wretched blue screen filled with hieroglyphics and demanded that you hit some arcane character sequence.
This one was a little different than the virus talked about in the story. You had to already drop $99 bucks for it and then it STILL crashed your PC.
Hey, Dell and IBM tech support might be a joke, but you know what, Michael Dell can now afford to buy 13 giant mansions with beer fountains instead of 12! OK! OK! Now do you see why outsourcing is great? Who cares about people or American tech jobs, because Michael Dell really needed that extra mansion!
Yeah, Steve's kinda right on this - podcasting is neat & all, but the breathy overstatement of how it will change out lives is a wee bit overdone.
Finally, somebody with a little common sense! Honestly, how many people out there actually use the internet to listen to people's podcasts? I surely don't. It's faster to skim through articles in a blog than to listen to some amateur whine about how he thinks Walmart is the ultimate evil in the world.
Damn submitter trolling again. Macs have never been expensive, always remember the difference between price and value.
That's why Apple released the Mac Mini, right? Apple needed a "cheap Mac" to attract more customers, because their other macs were so inexpensive? Your comment is a clear example of "head-in-the-clouds trolling" or trolling based on fiction instead of facts.
After listening to Bill Gates forcast the death of one of the most popular electronic devices of all time (the IPOD) and then listen yesterday to Young Frankenstein lookalike, Steve Ballmer, forcast the death of Google, it's hard to take anything seriously that comes from a MS exec's mouth.
Um...like making sure you run your Windows Updates. Because if you don't, you're gonna regret it.
Then again, even if you do, you're still going to regret it.
So, I guess the moral of the analogy is that it's better to patch your system and risk your hardware not working properly than having spyware or a virus on your system.
I thought Alienware was going to be kinda creative and maybe make the case out of the shape of a Millenium Falcon, instead of copping out like the bunch of uncreative money grubbers they are and throwing a crappy graphic on the side of their standard case.
I'm sure fanboys everywhere are rejoicing right now.
The biggest problem usually is the virus and/or spyware will corrupt files. Inept Windows users for some reason think defragging a harddrive is the answer to every computer problem in the universe. They defrag, and next thing you know, you can't boot the machine up.
Theoretically, a drive defrag should have no effect on how an operating system runs, only that it is re-sorting the physical drive to make file access faster. But for some reason, it messes things up.
...when you get that idiot (and EVERY company has at least 1 of these guys) who calls you up asking if it's OK to defrag their hard-drive after downloading a virus or installing spyware. Then, when you tell them "NO", they just tell you that they did it anyways.
Now we can just hit a button and restore everything, a few thousand miles away.
The only thing left is to write code to block stupid people from reproducing.
Slashdot Mirror
I view it like checks and balances. Apple makes a lot of dough from it's software, which is based on OSS. The KHTML guys are doing it because of other reasons, of which I would like ot believe that they just want to write great open-source software (bless you folks).
Apple wants to make some use of OSS code in their software, but they don't want to contribute back, which is not cool. Groups like KHTML then show some static, and viola, we have a webkit site from Apple.
Antone Gonsalves from InternetWeek gives some advice to avoid this:
Internet shoppers who want the best prices should delete cookies as often as possible. That's because the less online merchants know about you, the less likely they'll be able to figure out how much you're willing to pay.
Anyway, I'm not against companies taking advantage of technology to boost revenues. Heck, it would be naive to expect businesses to do anything else. But I do have a problem with failing to disclose the information you gather and the reasons for gathering it.
I agree with the study's recommendation that retailers be required by law to disclose their data-gathering practices. Companies that don't have full disclosure, while continuing to take what they can from customers, are the real "bottom feeders."
Hey, I can get a 19" monitor for about $100 bucks, and the LCD version is still about twice that. You'd better believe CRT's aren't going anywhere.
"Alright, what are the three most commonly used passwords?"
;)
"Love, secret, and uh, sex. But not in that order, necessarily, right?"
"Yeah but don't forget God. System operators love to use God. It's that whole male ego thing."
Personally, I like to use "Tehl33th4x0rb0y", because it satisfieds the strong password requirement
Is it equipped with enough life boats so when it hits the iceberg, half the boat will be left in the freezing water? Better yet, is it equipped with enough guns to smite Celine Dion before she releases another "hit"?
Remember Carmack promising us real-time rendering for full CG movies? Can you imagine a game with the visuals of the Shrek series?
Personally, as an old-skool gamer, I'm hoping that if it ever comes to that, gameplay won't completely be forgotten, as the ratio of gamplay to graphics seems to diminish every day.
...towards the future.
Hey, as long as that Tony Little bastard isn't promoting it, I'll do anything.
I personally don't, but there's a good article on Internet Week about it.
i cleID=163106005
http://www.internetweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?art
I'm going to be biased and stick with my Firefox for now.
'It is similar to the sociological consequences of the Prohibition period in the U.S. (during the 1920s).'
This has some interesting implications; however, I don't think it'll be interpreted the same here in the states. See, Prohibition was viewed as the government taking away a liberty right, or the right to be left alone. Here is the Man telling me I can't buy alcohol.
Downloading MP3's is viewed as taking the "property" of somebody else. In other words, if I want to buy and drink alcohol, then who is the government to stop me? But if I want to take somebody's property (as defined by IP laws), then obviously, this changes things.
I do think that "jail time" people for downloading some music is ridiculous. Downloading music will never stop, this cycle will always continue. It's like the 55MPH speed limit. Nobody follows is, and yet the police still try to enforce it. Some of us will pay fines, and others will get away scott free.
Dammit, you stole my gratuitously blatant and overly redundant comment! Hence, I shall rename it, the "NE" key!
Ha ha ha, victory is mine!
...is still the education of users. I can't tell you how many e-mails get stuck in our company SPAM filters that mimick phony PayPal accounts. You get that one user who thinks the message is real, and there goes your identity.
I had a virus like that once, it was called M$.W!nd0ws.ME. It was horrible, once it infected your computer, it would display this wretched blue screen filled with hieroglyphics and demanded that you hit some arcane character sequence.
This one was a little different than the virus talked about in the story. You had to already drop $99 bucks for it and then it STILL crashed your PC.
Hey, Dell and IBM tech support might be a joke, but you know what, Michael Dell can now afford to buy 13 giant mansions with beer fountains instead of 12! OK! OK! Now do you see why outsourcing is great? Who cares about people or American tech jobs, because Michael Dell really needed that extra mansion!
*end sarcasm*
Yeah, Steve's kinda right on this - podcasting is neat & all, but the breathy overstatement of how it will change out lives is a wee bit overdone.
Finally, somebody with a little common sense! Honestly, how many people out there actually use the internet to listen to people's podcasts? I surely don't. It's faster to skim through articles in a blog than to listen to some amateur whine about how he thinks Walmart is the ultimate evil in the world.
Damn submitter trolling again. Macs have never been expensive, always remember the difference between price and value.
That's why Apple released the Mac Mini, right? Apple needed a "cheap Mac" to attract more customers, because their other macs were so inexpensive? Your comment is a clear example of "head-in-the-clouds trolling" or trolling based on fiction instead of facts.
Somebody please explain why our government panders to a the terrorist capitol of the world.
After listening to Bill Gates forcast the death of one of the most popular electronic devices of all time (the IPOD) and then listen yesterday to Young Frankenstein lookalike, Steve Ballmer, forcast the death of Google, it's hard to take anything seriously that comes from a MS exec's mouth.
You can kiss your ass goodbye...Always.
You: *picks up phone* Hello?
SPAMMER: Hey Buddy, your woman wants a big one.
You: What?! Who is this? Remove me from your... *beeping* Oh wait a sec, I've got a another call. *click* Hello?
SPAMMER 2: Hi, this is Charles Taylor from Liberia, I need to use your bank account...
You: WTF!? STOP..*beep beep* Hold on. *click*
SPAMMER 3: Hi, thanks for the advice. Could you open this file immediately?
Um...like making sure you run your Windows Updates. Because if you don't, you're gonna regret it.
Then again, even if you do, you're still going to regret it.
So, I guess the moral of the analogy is that it's better to patch your system and risk your hardware not working properly than having spyware or a virus on your system.
I thought Alienware was going to be kinda creative and maybe make the case out of the shape of a Millenium Falcon, instead of copping out like the bunch of uncreative money grubbers they are and throwing a crappy graphic on the side of their standard case.
I'm sure fanboys everywhere are rejoicing right now.
The biggest problem usually is the virus and/or spyware will corrupt files. Inept Windows users for some reason think defragging a harddrive is the answer to every computer problem in the universe. They defrag, and next thing you know, you can't boot the machine up.
Theoretically, a drive defrag should have no effect on how an operating system runs, only that it is re-sorting the physical drive to make file access faster. But for some reason, it messes things up.
...when you get that idiot (and EVERY company has at least 1 of these guys) who calls you up asking if it's OK to defrag their hard-drive after downloading a virus or installing spyware. Then, when you tell them "NO", they just tell you that they did it anyways.
Now we can just hit a button and restore everything, a few thousand miles away.
The only thing left is to write code to block stupid people from reproducing.
...a camera that will etch the image into a chunk of granite!
Let's see somebody try to encrypt stone, baby!
*off to the USPTO