I sympathize with the effort involved when confronted with new words, but I reject the attitude of berating people for using different terms in different fields.
Wrong. That isn't my attitude. My point was that the article summary was vague, incomplete, and poorly written. Rather than explaining any of the "why are they googlebombing", it basically only states that they are googlebombing. Granted, once you understand the background, the foreground makes sense, but as a summary directed at users who may not be into blogs, it was completely ineffective. Why? Slashdot isn't exactly the center of the blogging universe. A good writer, when speaking to an audience outside his field, will take that into account and fill out the summary with an explanation.
Oh, and one other thing, the terms discussed here are nothing like "variegated" -- that word has been in our vocabulary since Latin was common - here's $5, you are obviously smart. It has been my experience though that smart people show off their vocabulary. Brilliant people adjust their vocab to that audience and are able to make complicated matters understandable whether using newspaper level vocab, or Nature level vocab. I'm not saying I'm in that crowd, I'm not, but my work brings me into contact with both types frequently. The former are somewhat useless -- the latter are gold.
Bloggers bug me. The caption should be understandable by blog-free geeks, not just those on the inside. A concise one sentence explanation clearly describing WHY the bloggers are doing this would make the whole thread much more useful. As it is, I had to spend 10 minutes trying to figure out why bloggers were googlebombing the wiki. Please, when a reason exists for some fact, state the damn reason clearly! Example: Bloggers, frustrated by poker sites posting spam in the comments sections which follow blog entries, decided to fight back by displacing comment-spammer's rank in google searches..... then insert the rest of the caption.
And you who are about to say that it already says that -- it does ONLY if you approach the paragraph with that knowledge. For someone outside the blogging community - it's just confusing. Last, if you still like it as is, fine, that's why I don't read blogs. Too often they are crypitc and snooty.
I love my computers. That's why I buy the paper version newspapers. When I'm sitting at the lunch counter reading a paper I invested a whole 50 cents in buying, I don't get upset when I spill ketchup, soup, or coke all over it.
Have you ever played mousetrap? It was exactly this sort of contraption game. I'm sure it was insipired by RG's cartoons, but it is in the realm of possibility that one might not have seen RG's cartoons (they are very old) but had played with moustrap as a kid. That would make the person unaware of RG connection.
Here's my simplified definition of libertarianism: do you want you want as long you don't harm someone else. Being a libertarian is not the same as advocating "do what you want" -- that would be anarchy.
So, these guys harmed their customers -- lower the boom. It's simple really.
The jail time would not be for writing software. That would be silly. However, FRAUD does warrant jail time. The method is mere detail and ultimately unimportant.
We all stereotype because it is an adaptive behavior. It is safe to be wary of the strange/unusual -- dangerous to walk up to every live animal, reach out, pat it on the head and ask "are you a nice beast?". And then of course, as individuals, tribes, whatever, we've been in competition for resources (and thus a threat to each other) for as long as we've existed.
The type of person born with a personality that does not allow any prejudgment probably gets killed off before reproductive age.
But the RIAA are greedy bastards. They are going to want to profit out of this somehow too. True, they are scaring the pants off of many file sharers, but in typical corporate fashion, there needs to be money involved too. They must have some plan for getting more cash with less billable legal hours.
Forgive me. I'm a lawyer. When I read the article, the "gravy train" alarm went off in the back of my head. I'd wager this is set up on a contingent basis... in other words, win something, lawyer takes a percentage. This means free legal representation to the RIAA, and millions in revenue for both of the lawyers and the RIAA. Let's do the math, $3-8000 per case, settlement fee at 25-33% per settlement. Multiply that by 1000s of cases for as long as you want to work. The RIAA doesn't need to pay a lawyer a cent out of it's existing coffers, it just gives up a percentage of money it wouldn't have gotten without the suit. That's a good deal for the RIAA.
And all a lawyer would need for this would be a geek to snag the data who was articulate and had appropriate credentials to make a good expert witness (just in case a trial is needed), a small office, a telephone, and a paralegal earning $30 - 50k per year (more or less depending on the market) to handle settlement calls. Personally, I'd set up in a small town, could get rent for $1000, a receptionist for $8/hr, and a paralegal for under $30k. A pure profit machine.
And then the spyware/adware companies sue you for libel, slander, and defamation. Who cares if it's not true? You'll still get soaked for the legal bills. Oh, and where is the money for this anti-spyware organization going to come from?
Let's say company X advertises on Y-program. Where is the falsehood in advertising the fact that X advertises on Y-program? There is none. You would only get in trouble if you said something like "X advertises on Y-program AND X-founder's wife is an inside trader making money illegally" (presuming you have no information confiming everything after the "AND" -- if everything after the and is confirmably true -- no trouble). Truth, not presenting in a misleadin fashion, is an absolute defense.
Perhaps you are tempted to say "they'll sue anyway!" Maybe, but if their suit was that baseless, they would end up paying your attorney fees and perhaps face additional sanctions for a frivolous suit.
Last, if I knew of such a list, I'd support it with a monetary donation. I don't even use P2P programs - I just think spyware is bad in general and I'd be happy to help anyone fighting it. A wiki model perhaps? With screenshot evidence posted by submitters. Throw in a nice upstanding company willing to donate a little bandwidth and you're set.
You know, companies will not advertise in a way that costs them money -- that is a result completely the opposite of the adertiser's intent. Make the advertising technique counterproductive and guess what -- we win!
Since we're talking about non-physical goods, there's no shipping address, and even if there was, what says you aren't shipping it to a friend in another state. The only thing I could think of would be if you could validate the "home" address of the credit card and base it on that address, but there are ways around that as well.
I live in Washington State just a stone's throw south of the border. Anyway, WA get's its money -- at least every iTune I buy costs me $1.07 (99 cents plus our 8ish % tax). I need to get myself a credit card with an Oregon address - perhaps that would save me the tax.
In addition to the respondant who asks "why would we need yet another x86 bootable cd" -- have you ever tried to use a system running off a bootable Linux CD? I'm the first to admit that these live CDs are great for the "wow - everything works" test, but I tried using Knoppix on cd on a PIII 600ish laptop - everything worked but it took about forever for Konqueror to load up off the cd. Same interminable wait for starting up any other program. I think it goes without saying that running the OS off a HD is going to be a heck of a lot faster, probably fast enough to be usable.
I'm awfully tempted too. I've been keeping my backups for my various computers on a firewire enclosure for an old laptop drive -- this seems like it would be worth playing with.
I had lexis for a while. now westlaw, but for the lexis service, I have no recollection of giving them my SS#. We had to give firm name, lawyers who would use it, credit card unless we wanted to pay by check. But SS#... not that. Aside from a credit card number, everything they got on me is already in the phone book. The problem here is with their subsidiary which is trying to collect information without people's assent. The subsidiary should be sued to hell by anyone who is affected. The irony would be if the plaintiffs' lawyers did their research on Lexis. *wild cackling*
You gotta read deeply to get this, but it's hilarious. Apparently, the system works best if you stick reflective dot stickers on you hat, glasses... or even forehead. I suppose it does finally provide an objective basis for getting an eyebrow piercing -- except the dots might be less silly looking.
Good post, but one quibble. Macs do have games. At least for casual "gamers" like me. I don't quite feel right calling myself any kind of gamer, but so be it. Right now, I'm in the middle of playing CSI on my PB. Truth is, the only game I've really had much interest in since the mid 90s is Civilization, and that's available for Mac. I also have the standard KDE card games set up on the PB as well. So, for my admitedly low key needs, my PB is way more of a game machine than any of my Linux machines. And if I really want anything more, I do have a PS2 (but I should sell it due to lack of use).
Interesting thing about CSI, it's basically a text adventure with pictures. I was watching the captions and it occurred to me that I could have just as much fun playing a text adventure in Terminal, and it wouldn't cost $30. That's what I'll do next.
I suppose I would modify your "no games" comment to be something like "no games suitable for teenage boys". But then, someone would argue that for all intents and purposes, that equates to "no games". C'est la vie.
I don't want to sit next to an open case with whirring harddisks and fans anymore.
I recently got a PB and it's a real sweet machine. Not that I hate my desktop, but it is starting to get finicky. For example, I did my backups this weekend which means the side is off the desktop box. Why? It crashes during the gzipping if I don't take the side off. I've added fans and all that but it very reliably fails (as in 100% of the time) during backups if the side is on. My PB completed the backup, without any disassembly, in almost complete silence (doubly sweet was the fact I just had to spend about 60 seconds modifying my desktop backup script). Out of laziness, I haven't put the sides back on my desktop and yes, the noise is pretty loud.
Having tabbed browsing is equivalent to having 200 shortcuts on your desktop
This makes no sense at all. Not having tabbed browsing is the epitome of disorder. For example, I might have three browser windows open. One for slashdot, one for work, one for porn. The slashdot window has the main page, the next tab the thread I'm reading, the next the article just in case I might want to RTFA. Using tabs in this manner promotes organization. Simply having 15 windows open promotes the messy desktop you (and I) abhor. And worse - it makes [alt][tab] window swapping an exercise in Russian Roulette!
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong. That isn't my attitude. My point was that the article summary was vague, incomplete, and poorly written. Rather than explaining any of the "why are they googlebombing", it basically only states that they are googlebombing. Granted, once you understand the background, the foreground makes sense, but as a summary directed at users who may not be into blogs, it was completely ineffective. Why? Slashdot isn't exactly the center of the blogging universe. A good writer, when speaking to an audience outside his field, will take that into account and fill out the summary with an explanation.
Oh, and one other thing, the terms discussed here are nothing like "variegated" -- that word has been in our vocabulary since Latin was common - here's $5, you are obviously smart. It has been my experience though that smart people show off their vocabulary. Brilliant people adjust their vocab to that audience and are able to make complicated matters understandable whether using newspaper level vocab, or Nature level vocab. I'm not saying I'm in that crowd, I'm not, but my work brings me into contact with both types frequently. The former are somewhat useless -- the latter are gold.
Bloggers bug me. The caption should be understandable by blog-free geeks, not just those on the inside. A concise one sentence explanation clearly describing WHY the bloggers are doing this would make the whole thread much more useful. As it is, I had to spend 10 minutes trying to figure out why bloggers were googlebombing the wiki. Please, when a reason exists for some fact, state the damn reason clearly! Example: Bloggers, frustrated by poker sites posting spam in the comments sections which follow blog entries, decided to fight back by displacing comment-spammer's rank in google searches. .... then insert the rest of the caption.
;-)
And you who are about to say that it already says that -- it does ONLY if you approach the paragraph with that knowledge. For someone outside the blogging community - it's just confusing. Last, if you still like it as is, fine, that's why I don't read blogs. Too often they are crypitc and snooty.
Grrrrrr. How's that for bitterness!
I love my computers. That's why I buy the paper version newspapers. When I'm sitting at the lunch counter reading a paper I invested a whole 50 cents in buying, I don't get upset when I spill ketchup, soup, or coke all over it.
There's news on AM? That's news to me!
This was covered on slashdot a long time agao.
But yes, it can see through clothing to some extent.
Have you ever played mousetrap? It was exactly this sort of contraption game. I'm sure it was insipired by RG's cartoons, but it is in the realm of possibility that one might not have seen RG's cartoons (they are very old) but had played with moustrap as a kid. That would make the person unaware of RG connection.
re mlesko. I'm grumpy tonight so I didn't read it. Executive summary request: was it a funny parody of bad advertising or sadly real?
Here's my simplified definition of libertarianism: do you want you want as long you don't harm someone else. Being a libertarian is not the same as advocating "do what you want" -- that would be anarchy.
So, these guys harmed their customers -- lower the boom. It's simple really.
Amen Brother
The jail time would not be for writing software. That would be silly. However, FRAUD does warrant jail time. The method is mere detail and ultimately unimportant.
Wow - the things people go through. I just use my computers. But then, I don't use windows.
Why? Were you a recipient? Make sure you spellcheck your resume before sending it to anyone.
We all stereotype because it is an adaptive behavior. It is safe to be wary of the strange/unusual -- dangerous to walk up to every live animal, reach out, pat it on the head and ask "are you a nice beast?". And then of course, as individuals, tribes, whatever, we've been in competition for resources (and thus a threat to each other) for as long as we've existed.
The type of person born with a personality that does not allow any prejudgment probably gets killed off before reproductive age.
Ah hell. I wouldn't be there. I'd just call in at 4:30 to scold or praise as results required. ;-)
This is cracking me up. ;-)
Forgive me. I'm a lawyer. When I read the article, the "gravy train" alarm went off in the back of my head. I'd wager this is set up on a contingent basis
And all a lawyer would need for this would be a geek to snag the data who was articulate and had appropriate credentials to make a good expert witness (just in case a trial is needed), a small office, a telephone, and a paralegal earning $30 - 50k per year (more or less depending on the market) to handle settlement calls. Personally, I'd set up in a small town, could get rent for $1000, a receptionist for $8/hr, and a paralegal for under $30k. A pure profit machine.
Let's say company X advertises on Y-program. Where is the falsehood in advertising the fact that X advertises on Y-program? There is none. You would only get in trouble if you said something like "X advertises on Y-program AND X-founder's wife is an inside trader making money illegally" (presuming you have no information confiming everything after the "AND" -- if everything after the and is confirmably true -- no trouble). Truth, not presenting in a misleadin fashion, is an absolute defense.
Perhaps you are tempted to say "they'll sue anyway!" Maybe, but if their suit was that baseless, they would end up paying your attorney fees and perhaps face additional sanctions for a frivolous suit.
Last, if I knew of such a list, I'd support it with a monetary donation. I don't even use P2P programs - I just think spyware is bad in general and I'd be happy to help anyone fighting it. A wiki model perhaps? With screenshot evidence posted by submitters. Throw in a nice upstanding company willing to donate a little bandwidth and you're set.
You know, companies will not advertise in a way that costs them money -- that is a result completely the opposite of the adertiser's intent. Make the advertising technique counterproductive and guess what -- we win!
I live in Washington State just a stone's throw south of the border. Anyway, WA get's its money -- at least every iTune I buy costs me $1.07 (99 cents plus our 8ish % tax). I need to get myself a credit card with an Oregon address - perhaps that would save me the tax.
In addition to the respondant who asks "why would we need yet another x86 bootable cd" -- have you ever tried to use a system running off a bootable Linux CD? I'm the first to admit that these live CDs are great for the "wow - everything works" test, but I tried using Knoppix on cd on a PIII 600ish laptop - everything worked but it took about forever for Konqueror to load up off the cd. Same interminable wait for starting up any other program. I think it goes without saying that running the OS off a HD is going to be a heck of a lot faster, probably fast enough to be usable.
I'm awfully tempted too. I've been keeping my backups for my various computers on a firewire enclosure for an old laptop drive -- this seems like it would be worth playing with.
I had lexis for a while. now westlaw, but for the lexis service, I have no recollection of giving them my SS#. We had to give firm name, lawyers who would use it, credit card unless we wanted to pay by check. But SS# ... not that. Aside from a credit card number, everything they got on me is already in the phone book. The problem here is with their subsidiary which is trying to collect information without people's assent. The subsidiary should be sued to hell by anyone who is affected. The irony would be if the plaintiffs' lawyers did their research on Lexis. *wild cackling*
You gotta read deeply to get this, but it's hilarious. Apparently, the system works best if you stick reflective dot stickers on you hat, glasses ... or even forehead. I suppose it does finally provide an objective basis for getting an eyebrow piercing -- except the dots might be less silly looking.
Good post, but one quibble. Macs do have games. At least for casual "gamers" like me. I don't quite feel right calling myself any kind of gamer, but so be it. Right now, I'm in the middle of playing CSI on my PB. Truth is, the only game I've really had much interest in since the mid 90s is Civilization, and that's available for Mac. I also have the standard KDE card games set up on the PB as well. So, for my admitedly low key needs, my PB is way more of a game machine than any of my Linux machines. And if I really want anything more, I do have a PS2 (but I should sell it due to lack of use).
Interesting thing about CSI, it's basically a text adventure with pictures. I was watching the captions and it occurred to me that I could have just as much fun playing a text adventure in Terminal, and it wouldn't cost $30. That's what I'll do next.
I suppose I would modify your "no games" comment to be something like "no games suitable for teenage boys". But then, someone would argue that for all intents and purposes, that equates to "no games". C'est la vie.
Well - Isn't Intel Microsoft's running dog?
Full disclosure: Linux and OSX household here.
I recently got a PB and it's a real sweet machine. Not that I hate my desktop, but it is starting to get finicky. For example, I did my backups this weekend which means the side is off the desktop box. Why? It crashes during the gzipping if I don't take the side off. I've added fans and all that but it very reliably fails (as in 100% of the time) during backups if the side is on. My PB completed the backup, without any disassembly, in almost complete silence (doubly sweet was the fact I just had to spend about 60 seconds modifying my desktop backup script). Out of laziness, I haven't put the sides back on my desktop and yes, the noise is pretty loud.
This makes no sense at all. Not having tabbed browsing is the epitome of disorder. For example, I might have three browser windows open. One for slashdot, one for work, one for porn. The slashdot window has the main page, the next tab the thread I'm reading, the next the article just in case I might want to RTFA. Using tabs in this manner promotes organization. Simply having 15 windows open promotes the messy desktop you (and I) abhor. And worse - it makes [alt][tab] window swapping an exercise in Russian Roulette!