Can these sites sue google when it goes out of business for not listing their site anymore?
Well, one spam-farm company tried to sue them when Google changed it's system and they "lost their business". Google won of course, but actually blocking or devaluing certain sites could be seen as abuse of their monopoly in the eyes of the law.
The most under-utilized feature of Google I think has to be excluding keywords.
You've been able to do this for a long time in most search engines. Personally, I find myself often including the words -"buy" or -"search results" in Google to avoid all the spam.
I don't understand why Google isn't doing that sort of filtering already.
They could get sued. It's an interesting thing legally, it's not really been tested yet. If Google deliberately block a site from appearing in it's results based on a matter of taste (i.e. they think it's poor content), then they leave themselves open to legal action.
And that is the curse of Google. It's downfall started about six months ago. It's still great for solving technical problems but trying to get product reviews or searching on any brand-name etc for info is a waste of time. Just the official page and a hundred links to "portal" sites that have wormed their way up page-rank, each trying to sell you something.
It was inevitable I suppose. Once the lay public got their hands on it en-mass, the search-spammers targetted it. Once the google users hit a certain critical mass, it all went downhill.
Perhaps we should just keep the next best thing to ourselves...?;-)
Shouldn't these features have been part of XP from the beginning though? That's like saying the brakes on my Ford are a new "feature". I suppose......
Oh dear gawd. Wait a minute...people complain because they include a free web-browser and it goes to court.
Now they add more bundled software, and a highly modded user pipes up "should have been there from the begining"? Jesus. Which is it then?
I wonder if this will raise any new "monopoly" charges though with everyone from Norton Internet Security to Pop-up blocker companies' business going down the drain - virtually overnight.
I hear your pain, but there are unrestricted products out there. For example, buy an Xbox, chip it and install Xbox Media Player. You can play just about any audio and video format on it, including DivX/XviD and mpeg2. Beats any stand-alone player on the market by far, and it's under 200 UKP all-in. (Xbox + chip). Also can stream video across your home network.
Was planning on getting a deck that included DVD-Ram thanks to the random access feature, especially suitable for computer files and archiving, but which can also be used for audio and video creation for playback in the living room.
Get a DVD +/-R combo drive and look into Packet Writing/UDF sortware such as DirectCD. I've been using CD-RW with random read/write access for many years, and I'm sure the same features work in the DVD world with DVD-RW.
Portable mp3 stereo playback? We'll wait to see what becomes popular.
Get a mobile phone with mp3 playback. Mine has zero restrictions on copying music to and from it, and get this...it's a Microsoft Smartphone. Takes an SD-card flash memory, so you can carry multiple cards around. You already carry a phone (don't you?), so why carry another gadget?
I'll be taking a cd with mp3s on it to the local electronics outlet in the next few months to see if there are problems playing mp3s on several car stereo decks in the price range we can afford.
I didn't have any hassle getting my mp3 player for the car; it's not had a problem with any track I've thrown at it, hopefully you will find the same. Google Groups is handy for finding out other peoples experiences with products.
Not all of us use Linux as our primary desktop. I do have one as a dev box, but other than that, it's Windows on the desktop and Linux for servers.
You can use cdparanoia for a good rip under Windows using CDex. Highly recommended ripper. I also suggest using the R3mix VBR quality preset, which did very well in blind-tests against uncompressed audio.
Any SAM launched against an urban flyover target will carry a payload large enough to completely obliterate the target.
Nope. Go look at the 747 Pan-Am flight 103 that was blown up by a bomb 15 or so years ago.
The entire cockpit & first-class deck landed intact in a field. The body obliterated a street in the small town of Lockerbie. This was from a bomb detonated at normal operating altitude.
Planes are large things, to shoot one down without causing injury on the ground, you'd need to essentially vapourise it. That's gonna be a big SAM.
Pre-emption is striking before the enemy strikes. Attacking Cuba would have been a simple invasion, not pre-emption, since it's pretty likely that Cuba would not have attacked us directly in a way that threatened our existence.
No, I wouldn't say it was "pre-emtive" either, that's just the point of the plan. To dupe the public. Try a google for "Remember the Maine" for another similar example, wrt to the USA.
If you are trying to draw some sort of comparison between this and 9/11 you are showing either gross ignorance of current events, or paranoia.
Wasting my time replying to an AC, but thought this was worth mentioning.
No, I don't think 9/11 was one big conspiricy. That's just being silly. However, it's not the first time a government has used a completely unrelated incident as justification for another. That's my point.
You seldom see movies made about Americans who are good, courageous, and hard working.
Balls. Every second movie out of the US proclaims how great the US is. The good guy always wins etc.
The US has done some terrible things, particularly to Native Americans, but we aren't even close to the worst.
I never said you were the worse. That again is silly. However, most Americans cannot see their country doing wrong. Ever. That creates a serious problem.
It's to bad that hating my country is so fashionable right now. We're actually a pretty good bunch. But people always need an enemy, and I guess we'll be it for awhile.
I know. Most Yanks I've met have been good folks. In fact, all of them. However, the image your gov. puts forward is what a lot of folk see. And right now, it ain't too pretty unfortunately.
Once you dispose of Bush, we'll have a whole lot more respect for you!;-)
Oh, for fecks sake. Iraq was simple to work out. Here:
The USA is very dependant on Saudi oil
The USA supports and arms the current government in Saudi
The terrorists do not support the current dictatorship in Saudi, and attack the USA for this
Most of the terrorists funding comes from Saudi because of this
So, the USA needs Saudi oil. However, Iraq has all the oil they need. They just couldn't get to it due to the sanctions against Iraq.
So, remove Saddam, remove sanctions, remove dependance on Saudi oil. They aren't "stealing" the oil. They just want access to it.
Remove USA troops from Saudi, remove Bin Laden hatred of the USA. That's all the terrorists want; the removal of US troops from Saudi. Bin Laden says this in every one of his speaches, you know, the ones Bush won't let you hear.
With the US army now consolidating in Iraq, a former enemy of Saudi, US/terrorist relations should settle out some.
instead, they chose to expand the war by attacking the US. This was a decision that led to the eventually ruin of Japan. It was a decision made by Japan, not America. It's easy to say "America should have known they'd make that decision" but it apparently wasn't so obvious at the time.
Bollocks. What other outcome can you expect when you enact a shipping embargo on an island nation with as recent perchant for warfare?
Pearl Harbour was one of the biggest lies in history. I think the Yanks are the only ones that still get taught their "version" of events in school. "Unprovoked". "Radio silence". All lies.
Please indulge me with your conspiracy theories for my amusement.
Try googling for Opereration Northwood, one that did get declassified. Basically, your gov. wanted to shoot down civilian planes and shipping to justify a pre-emtive invasion of Cuba. It went all the way up to Kennedy, who was the only one that thought it morally reprehensible, and stopped it.
Quote from the original document:
The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.
The sad thing is, this all sounds strangely familiar...
And remember, this is one of the few that did get declassified. God knows what else your country has done. Despite the image presented by Hollywood, the USA is one of the most morally reprehensible countries on the planet. Your self-denial and ignorance of the problem makes it even worse.
I'm a Peet's Sumatra fan so I went to my local Peet's and had them blend a 50/50 mix of decaf Sumatra with a regular Sumatra. This alone cut my consumption by half and I didn't even notice the missing caffeine.
Jesus. You sound like a junkie. Seriously. Your mix & match is so much alike junkie mentality. "Hey, have you tried mixing 30% coke, 30% H and some MDMA? Blow your mind man!!".
Well this will improve the chance of catching a previously stolen car.
Hmm, doubt it. Complicated cars with computer systems like this are hard to steal. On the other hand, cheaper cars without it are relatively easy to steal.
Region encoding on current DVDs is optional. If the media companies thought it was in their best interests to press just one DVD, they'd do it.
Kind-of, yes. It is optional, but the studios were of course the ones that demanded it, otherwise they refused to touch DVD. It's obvious that they will try to push this arm-twisting further with next-gen formats; they've been watching the RIAAs troubles closely I'm sure.
However, I think they have missed the boat. There are too many DVD players out there, the format is here to stay. VHS to DVD brought a lot of advantages. However, DVD is pretty damn good, and a well encoded disk looks great. Consumers won't buy into the next thing until there is an advantage for them. Capacity isn't all that big a deal at the moment. With the fear of sounding like the famous quote, I think 9GB will be adequate for the time being.
Besides, ever noticed how many two disk editions there are that are two DVD-5s (sindle layer)? They could put the same content on a single DVD-9 (double layer), however the "two disk!!" aspect acts as a selling point to the consumer for that product and increaces the perceived value of it with little real cost increase to production.
It's a bit like CDs. They are everywhere, and the format is going to be around for a long while. And as CDs have no protection (ditto DVDs with DeCSS), it will be the thorn in the side for the industry for a long time to come.
I predict multi-format players to be the next big thing, not some new restricted format. People will want to be able to play any media they download from the internet on their TV, just like many of us already do with the Xbox Media Player or similar devices.
The funny thing is, I wouldn't say we did have bad teeth. We don't have whiter than white hollywood teeth, but to me that looks unnatural. Especially when you are watching a period movie!!
Thanks to the NHS, everyone under 16, everyone in full time education and everyone on welfare gets free dental treatment. If anyone here has bad teeth, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Personally, I only have one filling yet I still open the odd bottle of beer with my teeth in emergencies!!
How about in the middle of someone's living room? "Hello, can we come in? We have to kill the evil dark hag of hell.
Reminds me of a strange British law, right of way. If a path has been used commonly for X number of years, it is considered a public right of way. If you build a house on it and block access, people can demand to pass through. I remember a TV show about it that had footage of a family having a picnic in someone elses front room due to this!!
I wonder what slashdot trolls are like in the real world.
At a guess, probably bored and lonely, and not very sociable. They get their kicks out of winding up others, but in the real world that behaviour would get their legs broken.
I for one welcome trolls to the real world. Could someone capture it to DV and post it here?;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, if it contains as much bad science and irresponible research methods as the ones on second-hand smoking, then we don't have to worry.
You know; that's exactly what a lot of other junkies do to rational their habit. I do it with cigarettes.
Caffine is addictive. You are dependant on it. You are a drug addict.
(ps can you leave all us smokers alone now...?) ;-)
Hey, not all of us snack with junk food, nor are all of us hooked on sugary soft drinks!
Some of us even drink water. Try it for a week. You won't look at a syrypy soft drink the same way, once you get your taste buds back.
My Microsoft powered mobile has been able to play DivX for almost a year now. Nothing new there.
The devices are stop-gap measures anyway. Once most folk have next-gen mobiles, there will be no need for carrying a separate media player.
Well, one spam-farm company tried to sue them when Google changed it's system and they "lost their business". Google won of course, but actually blocking or devaluing certain sites could be seen as abuse of their monopoly in the eyes of the law.
You've been able to do this for a long time in most search engines. Personally, I find myself often including the words -"buy" or -"search results" in Google to avoid all the spam.
They could get sued. It's an interesting thing legally, it's not really been tested yet. If Google deliberately block a site from appearing in it's results based on a matter of taste (i.e. they think it's poor content), then they leave themselves open to legal action.
And that is the curse of Google. It's downfall started about six months ago. It's still great for solving technical problems but trying to get product reviews or searching on any brand-name etc for info is a waste of time. Just the official page and a hundred links to "portal" sites that have wormed their way up page-rank, each trying to sell you something.
It was inevitable I suppose. Once the lay public got their hands on it en-mass, the search-spammers targetted it. Once the google users hit a certain critical mass, it all went downhill.
Perhaps we should just keep the next best thing to ourselves...? ;-)
Oh dear gawd. Wait a minute...people complain because they include a free web-browser and it goes to court.
Now they add more bundled software, and a highly modded user pipes up "should have been there from the begining"? Jesus. Which is it then?
I wonder if this will raise any new "monopoly" charges though with everyone from Norton Internet Security to Pop-up blocker companies' business going down the drain - virtually overnight.
My point exactly. They just can't win, can they?
All you need to do is stop it's ability to fly. Most missles don't even touch the target, they detonate in proximity to it.
Was planning on getting a deck that included DVD-Ram thanks to the random access feature, especially suitable for computer files and archiving, but which can also be used for audio and video creation for playback in the living room.
Get a DVD +/-R combo drive and look into Packet Writing/UDF sortware such as DirectCD. I've been using CD-RW with random read/write access for many years, and I'm sure the same features work in the DVD world with DVD-RW.
Portable mp3 stereo playback? We'll wait to see what becomes popular.
Get a mobile phone with mp3 playback. Mine has zero restrictions on copying music to and from it, and get this...it's a Microsoft Smartphone. Takes an SD-card flash memory, so you can carry multiple cards around. You already carry a phone (don't you?), so why carry another gadget?
I'll be taking a cd with mp3s on it to the local electronics outlet in the next few months to see if there are problems playing mp3s on several car stereo decks in the price range we can afford.
I didn't have any hassle getting my mp3 player for the car; it's not had a problem with any track I've thrown at it, hopefully you will find the same. Google Groups is handy for finding out other peoples experiences with products.
You can use cdparanoia for a good rip under Windows using CDex. Highly recommended ripper. I also suggest using the R3mix VBR quality preset, which did very well in blind-tests against uncompressed audio.
Nope. Go look at the 747 Pan-Am flight 103 that was blown up by a bomb 15 or so years ago.
The entire cockpit & first-class deck landed intact in a field. The body obliterated a street in the small town of Lockerbie. This was from a bomb detonated at normal operating altitude.
Planes are large things, to shoot one down without causing injury on the ground, you'd need to essentially vapourise it. That's gonna be a big SAM.
No, I wouldn't say it was "pre-emtive" either, that's just the point of the plan. To dupe the public. Try a google for "Remember the Maine" for another similar example, wrt to the USA.
If you are trying to draw some sort of comparison between this and 9/11 you are showing either gross ignorance of current events, or paranoia.
Wasting my time replying to an AC, but thought this was worth mentioning.
No, I don't think 9/11 was one big conspiricy. That's just being silly. However, it's not the first time a government has used a completely unrelated incident as justification for another. That's my point.
You seldom see movies made about Americans who are good, courageous, and hard working.
Balls. Every second movie out of the US proclaims how great the US is. The good guy always wins etc.
The US has done some terrible things, particularly to Native Americans, but we aren't even close to the worst.
I never said you were the worse. That again is silly. However, most Americans cannot see their country doing wrong. Ever. That creates a serious problem.
I know. Most Yanks I've met have been good folks. In fact, all of them. However, the image your gov. puts forward is what a lot of folk see. And right now, it ain't too pretty unfortunately.
Once you dispose of Bush, we'll have a whole lot more respect for you! ;-)
So, the USA needs Saudi oil. However, Iraq has all the oil they need. They just couldn't get to it due to the sanctions against Iraq.
So, remove Saddam, remove sanctions, remove dependance on Saudi oil. They aren't "stealing" the oil. They just want access to it.
Remove USA troops from Saudi, remove Bin Laden hatred of the USA. That's all the terrorists want; the removal of US troops from Saudi. Bin Laden says this in every one of his speaches, you know, the ones Bush won't let you hear.
With the US army now consolidating in Iraq, a former enemy of Saudi, US/terrorist relations should settle out some.
Bollocks. What other outcome can you expect when you enact a shipping embargo on an island nation with as recent perchant for warfare?
Pearl Harbour was one of the biggest lies in history. I think the Yanks are the only ones that still get taught their "version" of events in school. "Unprovoked". "Radio silence". All lies.
Try googling for Opereration Northwood, one that did get declassified. Basically, your gov. wanted to shoot down civilian planes and shipping to justify a pre-emtive invasion of Cuba. It went all the way up to Kennedy, who was the only one that thought it morally reprehensible, and stopped it.
Quote from the original document:
The sad thing is, this all sounds strangely familiar...
And remember, this is one of the few that did get declassified. God knows what else your country has done. Despite the image presented by Hollywood, the USA is one of the most morally reprehensible countries on the planet. Your self-denial and ignorance of the problem makes it even worse.
Jesus. You sound like a junkie. Seriously. Your mix & match is so much alike junkie mentality. "Hey, have you tried mixing 30% coke, 30% H and some MDMA? Blow your mind man!!".
Hmm, doubt it. Complicated cars with computer systems like this are hard to steal. On the other hand, cheaper cars without it are relatively easy to steal.
Which do you think the joyriders will go for?
It produces karma.
What about using the wire directly as the tether? Two is all it takes for video. You'd need to insulate them if you wanted to do loops though!!
Kind-of, yes. It is optional, but the studios were of course the ones that demanded it, otherwise they refused to touch DVD. It's obvious that they will try to push this arm-twisting further with next-gen formats; they've been watching the RIAAs troubles closely I'm sure.
However, I think they have missed the boat. There are too many DVD players out there, the format is here to stay. VHS to DVD brought a lot of advantages. However, DVD is pretty damn good, and a well encoded disk looks great. Consumers won't buy into the next thing until there is an advantage for them. Capacity isn't all that big a deal at the moment. With the fear of sounding like the famous quote, I think 9GB will be adequate for the time being.
Besides, ever noticed how many two disk editions there are that are two DVD-5s (sindle layer)? They could put the same content on a single DVD-9 (double layer), however the "two disk!!" aspect acts as a selling point to the consumer for that product and increaces the perceived value of it with little real cost increase to production.
It's a bit like CDs. They are everywhere, and the format is going to be around for a long while. And as CDs have no protection (ditto DVDs with DeCSS), it will be the thorn in the side for the industry for a long time to come.
I predict multi-format players to be the next big thing, not some new restricted format. People will want to be able to play any media they download from the internet on their TV, just like many of us already do with the Xbox Media Player or similar devices.
Thanks to the NHS, everyone under 16, everyone in full time education and everyone on welfare gets free dental treatment. If anyone here has bad teeth, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Personally, I only have one filling yet I still open the odd bottle of beer with my teeth in emergencies!!
Reminds me of a strange British law, right of way. If a path has been used commonly for X number of years, it is considered a public right of way. If you build a house on it and block access, people can demand to pass through. I remember a TV show about it that had footage of a family having a picnic in someone elses front room due to this!!
At a guess, probably bored and lonely, and not very sociable. They get their kicks out of winding up others, but in the real world that behaviour would get their legs broken.
I for one welcome trolls to the real world. Could someone capture it to DV and post it here? ;-)