in addition it's worthwhile to note that today microsoft.com has ~100k of images, the other 2 are very image-light. also, the big sites that get millions of hits per day seem better at slimming down content, while many sites that get less hits seem oblivious that their 200k.bmp logo is a waste of bandwidth. also, large files such as flash and video are more prevalent these days.
the trend has certainly been up, but lately big sites' main pages seem to be slimming down, due to CSS as well as a tendency to store style and javascript in separate file
they did investigate the myth that a human could give birth to (iirc) an octopus. it turned out that the human stomach is too harsh of an environment for nearly all animals, save for tapeworms (and a few others). the "octopus" myth was likely started by the extraction of a many tapeworms, which, when wrapped together could appear to the untrained observer to look like a single animal with many tentacles.
looks like an implementation of Michael Zalewski's Juggling With Packets concept, the storing of data in buffers of publicly available services for use as a filesystem.
you're right. i went to my local library a few weeks ago trying to find particular, pretty mainstream books on computer science and a little logic/math. not only did they not have the books, but they didn't have anything in the genre. oh well, perhaps i was being nieve.
they're trying to solve the problem of verifying the legitimacy of a hardcopy document, not verifying that the person holding it is legit or preventing softcopy fraud. those are separate issues.
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
(x) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
(x) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
(x) Wow, this might work!
the method can be summed up as follows: start with a simple one-sentence summary of a story
Firefox Changes Mandate Version Upgrade
Because we're geeks (and slashdot needs to report "new" news everyday), add version numbers
Firefox 1.1 Changes Mandate Version Upgrade To 1.5
But that's too long and informative... we could try shortening and leave the details for the article:
Firefox 1.1 Changes
or
Firefox 1.1 Update
But that's not inflammatory... We need a one-word summation that will scare/startle people immediately upon reading it, but is not too far from the truth
Slashdot Mirror
haha, yeah, they were too busy playing videogames to respond.
Life is hilariously cruel.
cancel your subscription. that'll get your point across.
in addition it's worthwhile to note that today microsoft.com has ~100k of images, the other 2 are very image-light. also, the big sites that get millions of hits per day seem better at slimming down content, while many sites that get less hits seem oblivious that their 200k .bmp logo is a waste of bandwidth. also, large files such as flash and video are more prevalent these days.
according to archive.org/waybackmachine:
html size (doesn't include images/dependencies)
slashdot.org yahoo.com microsoft.com
1996 - 7k 11k
1997 - 9k -
1998 23k 10k 20k
1999 35k 10k 20k
2000 36k 12k 17k
2001 41k 16k 21k
2002 39k 17k 28k
2003 39k 32k 31k
2004 51k 33k 38k
Today 19k 14k 22k
the trend has certainly been up, but lately big sites' main pages seem to be slimming down, due to CSS as well as a tendency to store style and javascript in separate file
my God, this one will be unstoppable.
they did investigate the myth that a human could give birth to (iirc) an octopus. it turned out that the human stomach is too harsh of an environment for nearly all animals, save for tapeworms (and a few others). the "octopus" myth was likely started by the extraction of a many tapeworms, which, when wrapped together could appear to the untrained observer to look like a single animal with many tentacles.
hey, that's how my job works now!
xml and db2 tend to complicate things more than simplify them
looks like an implementation of Michael Zalewski's Juggling With Packets concept, the storing of data in buffers of publicly available services for use as a filesystem.
http://www.doxygen.org/ is great.
click click click clack clack click!
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Ultimate Acceptance
Microsoft is somewhere around 3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief
you're right. i went to my local library a few weeks ago trying to find particular, pretty mainstream books on computer science and a little logic/math. not only did they not have the books, but they didn't have anything in the genre. oh well, perhaps i was being nieve.
http://www.winfield.demon.nl/
they're trying to solve the problem of verifying the legitimacy of a hardcopy document, not verifying that the person holding it is legit or preventing softcopy fraud. those are separate issues.
Support web standards and democracy, Don't click on the evil blue 'e'
also, a nice icon saying 'e'vil using the blue e will help get the word out
you don't even need firefox runni
we even have a war in Afghanistan!
Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (x) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
(x) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
(x) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
(x) Wow, this might work!
the method can be summed up as follows: start with a simple one-sentence summary of a story
Firefox Changes Mandate Version Upgrade
Because we're geeks (and slashdot needs to report "new" news everyday), add version numbers
Firefox 1.1 Changes Mandate Version Upgrade To 1.5
But that's too long and informative... we could try shortening and leave the details for the article:
Firefox 1.1 Changes
or
Firefox 1.1 Update
But that's not inflammatory... We need a one-word summation that will scare/startle people immediately upon reading it, but is not too far from the truth
Firefox 1.1 Scrapped
give me a console with less impressive hardware and costs $99 instead...
probably just typing on a rock