what really excites me about this sort of initiative is the scientific possibilities that this data in anonymized form can provide.
With aggregates of this data containing all recorded dimensions (age, location, race, family history, weight, nationality, diet, etc. etc.) instead of having to perform decade long studies scientists could potentially test out hypothesis in seconds by running queries against an existing database.
IMO this could quite possibly be the most important thing we could do to accelerate scientific understanding of the causes of illness.
I think the reason that Google wants to purchase DoubleClick is because DoubleClick is more pervasive than Google in the display advertising market.
Theoretically though, if they were to start targeting doubleclick ads using page content the same way they do with adwords then ads would likely become more relevant. Are they really so irrelevant now? They aren't for me, overall relevancy is way higher than through other mediums.
I do have the same negative opinion of marketing. Advertising is probably not the correct way to go about funding information distribution.
Having the source code doesn't automatically mean you can detect funny business. There can be heavy layers of obfuscation that makes source code just as unreadable.
The article states that Google is not complaining that MS is bundling desktop search. They are complaining that it's difficult to turn off and therefore installing another desktop search utility severely affects computer performance due to double indexing.
One reason I can think of is because the average computer user doesn't have the vast technical skills necessary to setup their remote control and tv card on linux. Not to mention that MythTV is another little hell in setting up.
I'm just looking at the website you mentioned and I'm curious what a 'Web bug' is...
Is this post really interesting? did anybody actually look at the trustix link? Is there really evidence of DoubleClick using cookies to obtain users personal information? If so, how? Aren't cookies basically just key value pairs that a domain can store on a users browser to access later?
Are cookies really spyware? Is every site on the internet that uses cookies spyware? I believe that's most of the internet... I don't know but it just seems like the quality of peoples opinions on this issue is quite poor due to a general intellectual laziness and a willingness to assume the worst.
The site also mentions that DoubleClick acquired Abacus direct and announced plans to tie together web-identities with Abacus's already existing database on real people. Rightfully there was an outcry and laws should have been passed to protect peoples privacy, but I don't know that any laws were passed. And the site doesn't mention that DoubleClick chose not to follow through with this plan due to the privacy concerns.
So what does this amount to? DoubleClick is basically a marketing technology company that provides advertisers with technologies to profile users by their browsing habits over the ad networks. The data is not identifiable and does not even belong to DoubleClick. If you don't like it you can opt-out and basically you will get ads that aren't relevant to you instead of ones that are more relevant to you. And that's about it. My biggest gripe would be with the fact that their technology enables publishers and advertisers to make ads that annoy the hell out of me. Although I think that has improved over the past few years.
Well I don't know the details all that well, perhaps someone has some more damning evidence against them, but it should be laid out. Because so far the conversation has been more hysterical than informative. It's also a somewhat depressing reflection of the current crop of Slashdotters maybe... Am I getting old or are the threads dumbed down relative to 4-5 years ago?
it's really not DoubleClick. The person you should be annoyed with is the publisher. They are responsible for not irritating their customers. DoubleClick simply delivers a product which is manufactured by an ad agency and sold by a publisher (i.e. website). I fail to see how what DoubleClick does in serving the ads and supporting the desired form factors is evil. DoubleClick could exist perfectly well in an industry that chose not to annoy you. Oh and those annoying ads. They are what makes the people whose content you consume eat. So when you block them basically you're freeloading. It might not be hip or geeky to say so but it's irrefutably the truth.
If you find ads annoying. Stop going to that site.
Well this is an excellent question. Actually Van Jacobson is on google video with a presentation on this precise pet peeve of yours.
The main concern I have with the idea, at least with how Van Jacobson presents it is that with information addressed by content rather than location, it's slightly more challenging to locate it. At least with the IP system you can route closer towards your destination at each hop up and then down... But data without an authoritative source is basically lost. If you don't have it, you don't really have any reason to inquire about it with any one node over any other. There is a space for peer to peer data systems, and he does have a point over those live media feeds getting saturated. The truth is that all data should be potentially torrented. That's why bittorrent may be one of the most fascinating and potentially effective inventions in the modern(internet) software era (last 10 years).
Bugger. so I don't have much constructive to say what with my current state of mind, except that most of the other replies are rudely and stupidly dismissive of the idea. It both resonates and feels like the future, but it's not a trivial problem. Actually it most certainly is... it's just a matter of stating it so that it is trivial.
If you'd sent them to some suburb in Virginia or Ohio, or just about any where else in the country apart from the cultural islands of San Francisco and New York, perhaps they would have felt differently about how wonderful the USA was. Essentially San Francisco and New York are the anti-americas.
I would say that xbox came pretty close. A very impressive product all in all.
I've sort of always admired microsoft hardware actually. Software on the other hand, that's another story..
I'm not so sure. I think that C++ is probably the opposite of what you suggest... although I guess that can't be true either. The statement 'to problem solve' is too general. C/C++ when you absolutely must squeeze everything out of the hardware that you possibly can, regardless of whether it means a rewrite each time the general community figures out faster way of doing things. But most of the time, for your average problem, far better I think to use a higher level language like java, ruby, c#. Then you solve the problem more quickly, more robustly, and more concisely, and usually since you're coding to standard API's you get automatic performance gains when your dependencies show up with newer better versions or when your sandbox figures out a faster way to allocate objects or garbage collect. The right tool for the right job my man. I think.
actually I had a DOS(for games) OS/2 dual boot configuration in the mid 90's:). Although that may have had something to do with my dad working for IBM.
My comment really wasn't intended as an attack on Sony (although I do wish people wouldn't do this), or an allegation that what they were doing is unique. Only that blabbering on about the causes of the delay etc. sort of misses the point. Even on slashdot it seems that often people get caught in the trap of arguing within a box, rather than looking at the big picture. People have very short memories I guess. A lot like the goldfish doing a full circle of his bowl and thinking: 'hey! this is new!'.
I don't believe the console is really all that far behind schedule. Well at least not from Sony's internal point of view. I've always assumed that this was going to happen. The whole 2006 target was simply a marketing ploy to divert attention from the 360 and encourage customers to wait it out. I believe they did the exact same thing for the ps2 launch, with the same bullshit tech videos etc, for the exact same reason. The sad part is how many people don't see it for what it is... sort of like the liberation of Iraq;).
I'm not sure what your tastes are like but off the top of my head I can think of a few suggestions:
Sin City, Oldboy, Wedding Crashers, Old Skool, Before Sunset..
god I can never think of them when I want to...
Winged Migration, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the room, Lost in Translation...
hey can others add to this list?
I'm pretty much for nuclear power at this point in our history. However I have to wonder why the government needed to provide the industry with liability protection. Especially when the reactors are so safe. Surely the only outcome of that sort of law is to reduce the safety of plants.
The title of this news item struck me as a fantastic idea. But then the body left me disappointed as it's not at all what I had in mind.
A stock market for digital music could be a pretty good way to cut out the middle men in the industry. The issue is that bands need label money to produce and promote their albums. But if there was a stock market for digital music, bands would receive funding the same way as a public company. They would upload their demos onto some sort of market site, and then individual investors who liked the sound of it could buy shares.
I recognize that there would be some added complexity. Bands perhaps get more from labels than just funding; things like production and marketing expertise. This would have to be provided by some alternative means, and there would need to be some protections against fraud. But it does seem like a more democratic and dynamic way of funding music production. Most importantly it protects us from the monopolistic power of the big labels to set pricing and content. There's all sorts of bonuses to this sort of scheme that I can envisage but can't be bothered to mention right now (plus I'm at work).
just an idea,
a lesson I learned a long time ago: Girlfriend does not have to know what goes into the box. It's the magical part of your life where you can invest all the cash you want without her knowing the difference. Assuming that is, that you have the good sense to own a case without a window into it.
Besides, it's 'girlfriend', not 'wife'. She shouldn't have a say in the matter (yes I'm not that naive, I know that's not the way it is, but it's important that we keep in mind the way it should be).
Slashdot Mirror
what really excites me about this sort of initiative is the scientific possibilities that this data in anonymized form can provide. With aggregates of this data containing all recorded dimensions (age, location, race, family history, weight, nationality, diet, etc. etc.) instead of having to perform decade long studies scientists could potentially test out hypothesis in seconds by running queries against an existing database. IMO this could quite possibly be the most important thing we could do to accelerate scientific understanding of the causes of illness.
This is a non-story.
Is: "Google gives employees 400$ google phone for christmas instead of 1000$ cash bonus",interesting at all?
I think the reason that Google wants to purchase DoubleClick is because DoubleClick is more pervasive than Google in the display advertising market. Theoretically though, if they were to start targeting doubleclick ads using page content the same way they do with adwords then ads would likely become more relevant. Are they really so irrelevant now? They aren't for me, overall relevancy is way higher than through other mediums. I do have the same negative opinion of marketing. Advertising is probably not the correct way to go about funding information distribution.
Having the source code doesn't automatically mean you can detect funny business. There can be heavy layers of obfuscation that makes source code just as unreadable.
check out intellij idea. Version 7 just came out. Costs money but there's a trial version. It's the most pleasant programming environment I know.
OffStar.
The article states that Google is not complaining that MS is bundling desktop search. They are complaining that it's difficult to turn off and therefore installing another desktop search utility severely affects computer performance due to double indexing.
One reason I can think of is because the average computer user doesn't have the vast technical skills necessary to setup their remote control and tv card on linux. Not to mention that MythTV is another little hell in setting up.
Is this post really interesting? did anybody actually look at the trustix link? Is there really evidence of DoubleClick using cookies to obtain users personal information? If so, how? Aren't cookies basically just key value pairs that a domain can store on a users browser to access later?
Are cookies really spyware? Is every site on the internet that uses cookies spyware? I believe that's most of the internet... I don't know but it just seems like the quality of peoples opinions on this issue is quite poor due to a general intellectual laziness and a willingness to assume the worst.
The site also mentions that DoubleClick acquired Abacus direct and announced plans to tie together web-identities with Abacus's already existing database on real people. Rightfully there was an outcry and laws should have been passed to protect peoples privacy, but I don't know that any laws were passed. And the site doesn't mention that DoubleClick chose not to follow through with this plan due to the privacy concerns.
So what does this amount to? DoubleClick is basically a marketing technology company that provides advertisers with technologies to profile users by their browsing habits over the ad networks. The data is not identifiable and does not even belong to DoubleClick. If you don't like it you can opt-out and basically you will get ads that aren't relevant to you instead of ones that are more relevant to you. And that's about it. My biggest gripe would be with the fact that their technology enables publishers and advertisers to make ads that annoy the hell out of me. Although I think that has improved over the past few years.
Well I don't know the details all that well, perhaps someone has some more damning evidence against them, but it should be laid out. Because so far the conversation has been more hysterical than informative. It's also a somewhat depressing reflection of the current crop of Slashdotters maybe... Am I getting old or are the threads dumbed down relative to 4-5 years ago?
it's really not DoubleClick. The person you should be annoyed with is the publisher. They are responsible for not irritating their customers. DoubleClick simply delivers a product which is manufactured by an ad agency and sold by a publisher (i.e. website). I fail to see how what DoubleClick does in serving the ads and supporting the desired form factors is evil. DoubleClick could exist perfectly well in an industry that chose not to annoy you. Oh and those annoying ads. They are what makes the people whose content you consume eat. So when you block them basically you're freeloading. It might not be hip or geeky to say so but it's irrefutably the truth. If you find ads annoying. Stop going to that site.
Well this is an excellent question. Actually Van Jacobson is on google video with a presentation on this precise pet peeve of yours. The main concern I have with the idea, at least with how Van Jacobson presents it is that with information addressed by content rather than location, it's slightly more challenging to locate it. At least with the IP system you can route closer towards your destination at each hop up and then down... But data without an authoritative source is basically lost. If you don't have it, you don't really have any reason to inquire about it with any one node over any other. There is a space for peer to peer data systems, and he does have a point over those live media feeds getting saturated. The truth is that all data should be potentially torrented. That's why bittorrent may be one of the most fascinating and potentially effective inventions in the modern(internet) software era (last 10 years). Bugger. so I don't have much constructive to say what with my current state of mind, except that most of the other replies are rudely and stupidly dismissive of the idea. It both resonates and feels like the future, but it's not a trivial problem. Actually it most certainly is... it's just a matter of stating it so that it is trivial.
If you'd sent them to some suburb in Virginia or Ohio, or just about any where else in the country apart from the cultural islands of San Francisco and New York, perhaps they would have felt differently about how wonderful the USA was. Essentially San Francisco and New York are the anti-americas.
I say exactly the same thing now too. Except my final line goes: "because it removes ME from the responsibility of fixing it."
anal sex is nice. At least from my end of things.
I would say that xbox came pretty close. A very impressive product all in all. I've sort of always admired microsoft hardware actually. Software on the other hand, that's another story..
I'm not so sure. I think that C++ is probably the opposite of what you suggest... although I guess that can't be true either. The statement 'to problem solve' is too general. C/C++ when you absolutely must squeeze everything out of the hardware that you possibly can, regardless of whether it means a rewrite each time the general community figures out faster way of doing things. But most of the time, for your average problem, far better I think to use a higher level language like java, ruby, c#. Then you solve the problem more quickly, more robustly, and more concisely, and usually since you're coding to standard API's you get automatic performance gains when your dependencies show up with newer better versions or when your sandbox figures out a faster way to allocate objects or garbage collect. The right tool for the right job my man. I think.
actually I had a DOS(for games) OS/2 dual boot configuration in the mid 90's :). Although that may have had something to do with my dad working for IBM.
My comment really wasn't intended as an attack on Sony (although I do wish people wouldn't do this), or an allegation that what they were doing is unique. Only that blabbering on about the causes of the delay etc. sort of misses the point. Even on slashdot it seems that often people get caught in the trap of arguing within a box, rather than looking at the big picture. People have very short memories I guess. A lot like the goldfish doing a full circle of his bowl and thinking: 'hey! this is new!'.
I don't believe the console is really all that far behind schedule. Well at least not from Sony's internal point of view. I've always assumed that this was going to happen. The whole 2006 target was simply a marketing ploy to divert attention from the 360 and encourage customers to wait it out. I believe they did the exact same thing for the ps2 launch, with the same bullshit tech videos etc, for the exact same reason. The sad part is how many people don't see it for what it is... sort of like the liberation of Iraq ;).
so basically when does a pile become a heap?
I'm not sure what your tastes are like but off the top of my head I can think of a few suggestions: Sin City, Oldboy, Wedding Crashers, Old Skool, Before Sunset.. god I can never think of them when I want to... Winged Migration, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the room, Lost in Translation... hey can others add to this list?
I'm pretty much for nuclear power at this point in our history. However I have to wonder why the government needed to provide the industry with liability protection. Especially when the reactors are so safe. Surely the only outcome of that sort of law is to reduce the safety of plants.
The title of this news item struck me as a fantastic idea. But then the body left me disappointed as it's not at all what I had in mind. A stock market for digital music could be a pretty good way to cut out the middle men in the industry. The issue is that bands need label money to produce and promote their albums. But if there was a stock market for digital music, bands would receive funding the same way as a public company. They would upload their demos onto some sort of market site, and then individual investors who liked the sound of it could buy shares. I recognize that there would be some added complexity. Bands perhaps get more from labels than just funding; things like production and marketing expertise. This would have to be provided by some alternative means, and there would need to be some protections against fraud. But it does seem like a more democratic and dynamic way of funding music production. Most importantly it protects us from the monopolistic power of the big labels to set pricing and content. There's all sorts of bonuses to this sort of scheme that I can envisage but can't be bothered to mention right now (plus I'm at work). just an idea,
actually, going by history, that's a rather good set of ratings for launch games.
a lesson I learned a long time ago: Girlfriend does not have to know what goes into the box. It's the magical part of your life where you can invest all the cash you want without her knowing the difference. Assuming that is, that you have the good sense to own a case without a window into it.
Besides, it's 'girlfriend', not 'wife'. She shouldn't have a say in the matter (yes I'm not that naive, I know that's not the way it is, but it's important that we keep in mind the way it should be).
Couldn't agree more, xbox controller is much better in that respect. End up using the dpad for driving games on ps2.