... keep shaving my head to finish what I thought Nature started? You mean I might have the full head of hair I never had? Huzzah! I eagerly look forward to squandering money on hair tonic and barbers!
I think this Didier Stevens (if that's his name, didn't follow the link myself) counts as a troll, whether he's claiming to do research or not. He can't explain or document WHY those 409 people followed the ad. His "research" doesn't prove that those 409 people are stupid and clueless, because he can't document WHY they clicked on his ad.
More likely than not, those were the *most* intelligent of the 260,000 people that saw it, and were completely stunned and disbelieving that anyone could place such an ad, and thus were compelled by curiosity to investigate the ad (no doubt with extreme caution).
I, frankly, would like to hear from some of those 409 people. Their story is probably much more interesting than reports of this troll's "research".
Does the fact that Comcast is no longer paying the Microsoft Piper mean that customers can expect a fee reduction? Their profits are already more inflated than Bush's ego.
Instead of whining about too many LEDs - good grief - why not take up a crusade against power-sucking wall warts (AC adapters) or against the Windows Registry, perpetuated by Microsoft and aided and abetted by software developers everywhere (think: Symantec apps, for instance). Regarding the latter, I had a mind to start an org years ago, call it the Data Independence Initiative, that would create and encourage an open standard for the structure and location of application data and configurations, especially with an eye to making backups easier.
Blacklists don't work. It's too easy to poison them, both by those who are simply ignorant or misguided and by those who are specifically intent on the blacklist's corruption.
What's to stop the spammers from poisoning this blacklist with so many good addresses or URLs that it becomes useless and has to be shut down, after wasting millions of francs and getting people's hopes up for nothing?
I greatly admire Graham-Cumming and have used PopFile for years, but this just doesn't sound like one of his more productive ideas.
Offering OSS as Web services would validate the Web-services scheme as a means for commercial software vendors to collect monthly or annual SUBSCRIPTION fees for non-OSS software. That is a prospect over which software publishers have been salivating for years. The whole upgrade-or-else scheme to generate that cash flow and profits never really worked out, because too many stubborn SOBs like me looked at the bubblegum improvements in the upgrades and simply said, "Thanks, but no thanks." So they've been desperate to find another scheme. They've been watching the consistent cash flow and huge profits reaped by "content" publishers and thinking, "Geez, if only we could repackage our software as 'content', we could demand a subscription fee and make TONS of money." If Big Software can manage to "re-educate" people's perception of software, in the same way that, say, Big Pharma re-educates people about how to treat illness so that only their patented products seem viable (making people forget about folk medicine, etc.), then they'll win the war. Re-packaging software as Web services is actually Big Software's latest attempt at doing that, because Web services then "feel" more like content to people, and as we all know people are already indoctrinated to paying regular fees for content.
If OSS providers indulge in the same software-as-a-service route, it will validate that scheme and ultimately be handing a huge monetary victory to Big Software, a victory that will completely overshadow the small gains that OSS has made in recent years. Is that what we want?
Might I suggest that the solution in this instance is for these "laypeople" to become *involved* in the process, as proofreaders and editors with a special focus on readability for laymen? A layman is indeed an expert, in the sense that he better understands the needs of his fellow layman peers than do specialists in other areas.
IE 7 requires Windows XP as a minimum requirement. I'm using Windows 2000 (the result of an earlier protest of Windows XP on the day of its release). I'm stuck with IE6 until I'm ready to migrate back to Linux, unless I decide to waste money on an eBay copy of XP in the meantime... which ain't likely to happen because the reason for my original protest of it is still valid.
I find it hypocritical that so many people, especially Slashdotters, who loudly bitched and whined about the 'evil' activation scheme in Windows XP have in fact wound up using it anyway. I hate people whose ethics fly out the "Windows" at the first hint of inconvenience.
Thanks for trying, but I've already been-there-done-this.
I don't use IE6 on a regular basis, it's a fallback and for testing. Firefox is the standard. It's not a 'production' machine, it's a 'personal' machine. Regardless, I'd like to have IE patched for all known vulnerabilities, but this stupid bug is preventing me from patching IE6 and I will not upgrade the OS just to get a new version of IE. Upgrading to Vista will never be an option.
What you described is a well-known and provable phenomenon in its own right: science as religion.
Sometimes even scientists make stuff up simply because it lets them sleep easier at night. Making stuff up as simple THEORIES to be challenged is fine, but to become dogmatic about it, as this article suggests some have already become dogmatic about dark matter, is not part of the Scientific Method and process.
The patch for IE 6 SP1 fails, but it does so quietly: keeps reappearing in the update list even after it's allegedly been installed. My only recourse was to finally disable and ignore that update to keep it from reappearing. This is the second time this has happened with an IE 6 SP1 update.
"Intelligent traffic control" might start with roundabouts (not old-school traffic circles), which the backward and idiotic city planners in the U.S. are stubborn to adopt. Think about it: roundabouts are inherently self-adjusting to competing traffic flow - no cross-traffic means no idling at a pointless red light - and REQUIRE NO POWER to function. Think about that: no lights to replace, no sensor coils in the road to power, no poorly predictive electronics to power and fail, no maintenance crews.
Here in my county, virtually ALL the significant streets have concrete dividing opposing lanes of traffic, with almost no breaks in them for left-turn traffic, out of some misguided notion that left turns anywhere other than an intersection have to be prevented. If one doesn't know EXACTLY where one is going - even sometimes when one does - one winds up having to travel past the destination just to make a U-TURN to get back to where one wanted to go, and often there are signs prohibiting the necessary u-turn! This county deliberately set out to interdict traffic flow at every opportunity and make it less efficient by design. The only "roundabouts" that exist here are miniature old-school types, used specifically to, once again, interdict traffic.
Funny thing, this: when I'm in my car behind the wheel, it already has this advanced predictive feature. By extension, my car has an IQ of 145, so it doesn't have to wait for technology to catch up.
BTW, exactly how is this a technology that competes directly with hybrid technology? Did it not occur to anyone that it would be perfectly feasible to design a hybrid vehicle with this predictive feature that would still be more fuel-efficient than a non-hybrid car with the same feature?
To those who don't think Americans and American "intelligence" agencies have been anything but intelligent in the last six or seven years, here's your proof to the contrary. Oh, and here's your sign.
Yes, I see your point, that if a product is sufficiently "incremental" that it will succeed commercially, then it's not necessary for the producer to patent anything but rather simply license existing patent(s). If the product's incremental improvement is successful enough commercially, then the patent licensing is merely an expense, and both patent holder and incremental inventor benefit from the success of the product.
Well, at least that's the way it might work. There's also the distinct possibility that the patent holder will be hostile to the licensing request. What happens then? Does the incremental inventor just tuck his tail between his legs and slink home with his toys, or does he produce in spite of it and risk being sued?
That last brings to mind what Walt Disney did in the 1930s(?) to gain legitimacy for his Mickey Mouse brand, in the face of an existing patent by a toy manufacturer. To my knowledge Disney never attempted to license it first, though, he just produced anyway and dared them to sue him (which they did and lost).
Slashdot Mirror
Can I get a bigger third leg instead of a fourth one?
... keep shaving my head to finish what I thought Nature started? You mean I might have the full head of hair I never had? Huzzah! I eagerly look forward to squandering money on hair tonic and barbers!
I think this Didier Stevens (if that's his name, didn't follow the link myself) counts as a troll, whether he's claiming to do research or not. He can't explain or document WHY those 409 people followed the ad. His "research" doesn't prove that those 409 people are stupid and clueless, because he can't document WHY they clicked on his ad.
More likely than not, those were the *most* intelligent of the 260,000 people that saw it, and were completely stunned and disbelieving that anyone could place such an ad, and thus were compelled by curiosity to investigate the ad (no doubt with extreme caution).
I, frankly, would like to hear from some of those 409 people. Their story is probably much more interesting than reports of this troll's "research".
Count me as one less Vista license. I'm still using Windows 2000 out of protest. My next planned upgrade will be to Kubuntu.
Immediately after my comment gets modded down I get this Slashdot notice:
=====
Minute Work (749085) has made you their foe.
http://slashdot.org/~Minute+Work/
If you'd like to view or edit any of your relationships, go to:
http://slashdot.org/my/friends
http://slashdot.org/my/foes
=====
Way to give yourself away as a lousy moderator, dude.
Does the fact that Comcast is no longer paying the Microsoft Piper mean that customers can expect a fee reduction? Their profits are already more inflated than Bush's ego.
Instead of whining about too many LEDs - good grief - why not take up a crusade against power-sucking wall warts (AC adapters) or against the Windows Registry, perpetuated by Microsoft and aided and abetted by software developers everywhere (think: Symantec apps, for instance). Regarding the latter, I had a mind to start an org years ago, call it the Data Independence Initiative, that would create and encourage an open standard for the structure and location of application data and configurations, especially with an eye to making backups easier.
Blacklists don't work. It's too easy to poison them, both by those who are simply ignorant or misguided and by those who are specifically intent on the blacklist's corruption.
What's to stop the spammers from poisoning this blacklist with so many good addresses or URLs that it becomes useless and has to be shut down, after wasting millions of francs and getting people's hopes up for nothing?
I greatly admire Graham-Cumming and have used PopFile for years, but this just doesn't sound like one of his more productive ideas.
Offering OSS as Web services would validate the Web-services scheme as a means for commercial software vendors to collect monthly or annual SUBSCRIPTION fees for non-OSS software. That is a prospect over which software publishers have been salivating for years. The whole upgrade-or-else scheme to generate that cash flow and profits never really worked out, because too many stubborn SOBs like me looked at the bubblegum improvements in the upgrades and simply said, "Thanks, but no thanks." So they've been desperate to find another scheme. They've been watching the consistent cash flow and huge profits reaped by "content" publishers and thinking, "Geez, if only we could repackage our software as 'content', we could demand a subscription fee and make TONS of money." If Big Software can manage to "re-educate" people's perception of software, in the same way that, say, Big Pharma re-educates people about how to treat illness so that only their patented products seem viable (making people forget about folk medicine, etc.), then they'll win the war. Re-packaging software as Web services is actually Big Software's latest attempt at doing that, because Web services then "feel" more like content to people, and as we all know people are already indoctrinated to paying regular fees for content.
If OSS providers indulge in the same software-as-a-service route, it will validate that scheme and ultimately be handing a huge monetary victory to Big Software, a victory that will completely overshadow the small gains that OSS has made in recent years. Is that what we want?
Might I suggest that the solution in this instance is for these "laypeople" to become *involved* in the process, as proofreaders and editors with a special focus on readability for laymen? A layman is indeed an expert, in the sense that he better understands the needs of his fellow layman peers than do specialists in other areas.
May the best rock lobster win.
IE 7 requires Windows XP as a minimum requirement. I'm using Windows 2000 (the result of an earlier protest of Windows XP on the day of its release). I'm stuck with IE6 until I'm ready to migrate back to Linux, unless I decide to waste money on an eBay copy of XP in the meantime... which ain't likely to happen because the reason for my original protest of it is still valid.
I find it hypocritical that so many people, especially Slashdotters, who loudly bitched and whined about the 'evil' activation scheme in Windows XP have in fact wound up using it anyway. I hate people whose ethics fly out the "Windows" at the first hint of inconvenience.
Thanks for trying, but I've already been-there-done-this.
I don't use IE6 on a regular basis, it's a fallback and for testing. Firefox is the standard. It's not a 'production' machine, it's a 'personal' machine. Regardless, I'd like to have IE patched for all known vulnerabilities, but this stupid bug is preventing me from patching IE6 and I will not upgrade the OS just to get a new version of IE. Upgrading to Vista will never be an option.
"Could this help to bring the prices down on DVD games and movies?"
You're kidding or being sarcastic, right? If the content publishers achieve that kind of monopolistic control, prices will go up, not down.
Could be worse, they could implant them in the backs of their heads... then women would have eyes where they've always claimed they had them.
What you described is a well-known and provable phenomenon in its own right: science as religion.
Sometimes even scientists make stuff up simply because it lets them sleep easier at night. Making stuff up as simple THEORIES to be challenged is fine, but to become dogmatic about it, as this article suggests some have already become dogmatic about dark matter, is not part of the Scientific Method and process.
I think that the world of science has finally hit some kinda ceiling....
The patch for IE 6 SP1 fails, but it does so quietly: keeps reappearing in the update list even after it's allegedly been installed. My only recourse was to finally disable and ignore that update to keep it from reappearing. This is the second time this has happened with an IE 6 SP1 update.
"Intelligent traffic control" might start with roundabouts (not old-school traffic circles), which the backward and idiotic city planners in the U.S. are stubborn to adopt. Think about it: roundabouts are inherently self-adjusting to competing traffic flow - no cross-traffic means no idling at a pointless red light - and REQUIRE NO POWER to function. Think about that: no lights to replace, no sensor coils in the road to power, no poorly predictive electronics to power and fail, no maintenance crews.
Here in my county, virtually ALL the significant streets have concrete dividing opposing lanes of traffic, with almost no breaks in them for left-turn traffic, out of some misguided notion that left turns anywhere other than an intersection have to be prevented. If one doesn't know EXACTLY where one is going - even sometimes when one does - one winds up having to travel past the destination just to make a U-TURN to get back to where one wanted to go, and often there are signs prohibiting the necessary u-turn! This county deliberately set out to interdict traffic flow at every opportunity and make it less efficient by design. The only "roundabouts" that exist here are miniature old-school types, used specifically to, once again, interdict traffic.
Funny thing, this: when I'm in my car behind the wheel, it already has this advanced predictive feature. By extension, my car has an IQ of 145, so it doesn't have to wait for technology to catch up.
BTW, exactly how is this a technology that competes directly with hybrid technology? Did it not occur to anyone that it would be perfectly feasible to design a hybrid vehicle with this predictive feature that would still be more fuel-efficient than a non-hybrid car with the same feature?
"...at some point, everyone will be unilaterally migrated over to Windows Live Hotmail"
What? How dare they! When did Google and Yahoo give 'em permission to do that?
"...it's definitely ranking quite high in my books."
What, you have more than one ledger? That ringing in your ears might be the IRS and SEC calling.
Unforgivable!
- Mensa Grammar Police
To those who don't think Americans and American "intelligence" agencies have been anything but intelligent in the last six or seven years, here's your proof to the contrary. Oh, and here's your sign.
Yes, I see your point, that if a product is sufficiently "incremental" that it will succeed commercially, then it's not necessary for the producer to patent anything but rather simply license existing patent(s). If the product's incremental improvement is successful enough commercially, then the patent licensing is merely an expense, and both patent holder and incremental inventor benefit from the success of the product.
Well, at least that's the way it might work. There's also the distinct possibility that the patent holder will be hostile to the licensing request. What happens then? Does the incremental inventor just tuck his tail between his legs and slink home with his toys, or does he produce in spite of it and risk being sued?
That last brings to mind what Walt Disney did in the 1930s(?) to gain legitimacy for his Mickey Mouse brand, in the face of an existing patent by a toy manufacturer. To my knowledge Disney never attempted to license it first, though, he just produced anyway and dared them to sue him (which they did and lost).