Argh...I wasn't expecting a well-reasoned and thought out answer...
"I think you're being optimistic"
It's my father, he has a genetic predisposition to being optimistic. I tend to temper it with a healthy cynicism. The major problem with W3c ratification is that there's no requirement to build anything into a browser; given that MS have actually stated that they won't be developing IE6 further (even for compliance to W3c standards) and the general inertia of people using the things that's bundled with their OS. Expect more Microsoft HTML(tm) in the future.
Seriously, though, there isn't necessarily that much of a curve with using something with a Flash flavour if you can find the right tools, and since the opening of SWF there have been a proliferation.
Obviously you might be looking for a flat learning curve, but check out The Ming Pages and OpenSWF for a bit more information.
It's important to note that I'm not a fan of Flash, per se, but in terms of market/desktop penetration for a vector format, it's the absolute daddy.
"Flash - probably extremely good at this sort of thing, as vector graphics and user interaction are its big target. However, we have no in-house expertise, and the end-users will all be professionals who may very well not have Flash installed (and furthermore, their firewall may not even give them HTTP access to download it)"
plus
"So go with VML and mandate the use of IE."
You might want to check when the Flash Plugin was _bundled_ with IE and Netscape, sparky. I take your comments on Flash, though, as it can be a bitch to integrate; (I'm a PHP Developer that left his IDE tools with Windows 3.11) although it's getting easier since the SWF format was opened.
Note that you mention the w3C 'official' status of SVG against VML; SVG is 'more likely' to be supported in future browsers and extended to provide more functionality whereas VML will be likely killed when people no longer see a use for it, and this 'future-proofing' tends to be important to anyone that's tried to find a decently priced COBOL hacker.
"When it comes time to harden a system WELL, or set up an IDS so that it's actually useful, or write a virus scanner that will actually work 2 days after it's released onto the market... it helps to have a clue what you're doing."
Of course, they'll look at you first when something bad happens, because your resume would be skirting legality, similar to the automechanic that can break into a car in seconds flat, and heaven forfend that they need a fall guy...
"U.S. - uses the English system of measure whereas the rest of the world uses the more intuitive metric system"
Including England. I wasn't taught the imperial system at all, and generally you're expected to use SI notation for anything interesting and pick up imperial measurements if you're dealing with American Companies.
"MS and Disney represent a large body of people. These people depend on Office and Mickey to provide them with a paycheck. These people then spend their money in Florida and Washington which creates jobs for other prople. MS and Disney hope these laws will boost their profit. That, in turn, will keep the economy in their areas firm.
You may or may not like IP for philosophical reasons. You may not like MS or Disney for philosophical reasons. You may belive that these laws will be ineffective and, therefore, a waste of time. But you cannot blame these companies for trying to keep their source of income strong."
On the whole, that sounds fairly accurate, but for a couple of things; it is not the remit of a company to translate the wishes of the employees into representation to government. The relationship between the populace and government should be through indirect representation.
That's the spirit in which the constitution was written, government by the people, for the people. Instead you have corporations acting in a fashion that would have made a turn of the century plantation manager blush.
The worst aspect of it is the entire world considers your democracy morally and ideologically bankrupt because corruption is actually considered part of the process. Any other country where a representative of the people receives money to promote an agenda, and you can track their election successes on how much they've salted away tends to become regarded as a rogue nation.
So it's time for you to clean house. Mobilise. Gather statistics and make sure that everyone gets them, from the TV researchers to opposition senators. Find out how many Unix admins are in a particular city. Gather well-informed comment as to what software patents are actually doing...
Do anything but bitch on Slashdot about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
Hell, 350 letters to any major news network might get a flicker of interest, and what do you have to loose?
"'Who the hell are you communists! Get off my doorstep. I listen to the ARTISTS not communists like you!'"
Please, old chap, you're letting the side down.
The copyright holders in almost every case are the record companies. Those contracts that every starstruck artist signs tend to include the transfer of rights to the holding label/company, which means that the RIAA actually represents the copyrights of the artists, something that they point out while raping both the consumers and the artists.
I believe that George Micheal has also had disputes with his record company over what actually gets released, and I'm wholly amused by the scramble to recoup losses over Aaliyah's pre-contract expiration.
I wish someone would make the distinction to the record companies that the majority of people have NO problem with supporting the artists, it's just the robbing bastards at the top of the food chain who employ the lawyers to beat people over the head.
This is an interesting concept. They're actually illegal tab arrangements?
What's the figure on the number of possible variants that can exist?
Some people might remember that the Fields of the Nephilim 'reused' the rhythm guitar section from 'Ace of spades' by Motorhead...I wonder if anything happened there?
"While it show that some people may have too much time on their hands, it also raises questions of privacy rights, Internet activism and data integrity."
That it does, and personally I promoted the idea amongst my peers in the UK because we already answer a whole raft of questions for demographics under the threat of a whopping fine for fibbing.
The cute thing is that our political structure has mutated into something that consists of a large amount of mediocrity, and the assumption that the people will do as they're told and supply, without question, any and all information requested.
Nu-huh
Although recent studies have suggested that people will give away things like their passwords at the drop of the hat. The register did a story on the piss-poor attitude towards social engineering in this country.
We also occasionally swap customer loyalty cards as a method of 'tainting' the marketing information that stores collect, partly out of sheer schadenfreude and partly because if this trend continues, choice will be honed to a fine needle-point of majority acceptance.
The main point behind the Jedi thing was apart from anything else, it showed the power of a large majority of people working together.
I spotted your website address on another site, so I thought I'd take a look, all I can say is amen to the first line.
"Everyone hates spam... "
Could you tell me if it's possible for the emarketersamerica to ensure that they have an 'optout' list run from a publically available server that would be honoured? That way you could ensure that everything you send doesn't become lumped in with UCE.
Toodles,
xxxxxxxx
I'm not really expecting a reply back, but why don't you guys form yourselves into state action groups and keep hammering the point home that corporations/non-profit organisations don't vote?
I suspect that Florida should be the first port of call
"How come countries don't have nuclear bomb testing anymore? Because it affects the entire world."
Actually more likely that they can't afford it, or political pressure has been brought by the haves against the have nots. You might recall some sabre-rattling between Pakistan and India a couple of years ago before the US started to play mediator.
"Why don't all the countries come together to eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs?"
Ah, you mean by refusing to talk to each other for several years, then only acting when it appears that spam is freely available on the black market, allowing for countries without spam to manufacture suitcase spam for making political points amongst the spamless disenfranchised peoples of the world?
"The internet is worldwide and it affects us all."
Oh do give over. You have less than 30% penetration in most of the G8 nations, and the idea of a global community tends to be tainted by the kiddiots that want to 0wnz boxes. Start by inserting CD-R's into your local script kiddie and you stop the next problem in it's tracks.
"We don't need an ICANN."
We need an ICANN without a vested interest, but that's like asking for an honest government.
"We just need the countries to come together and recognize that EVERYONE is involved and EVERYONE should do their part."
Individual states would do for a start. I've been lobbying my MP for as long as I can remember because the simple fact is that _everyone_ hates spam, even the spammers. However, making laws against it will simply drive the marketers underground, so you have to really hit the advertising businesses rather than the spammers.
Of course, I am slightly interested in something that would make advertising illegal, but only from a vicarious and slightly vicious angle.
"Gainward's CoolFX cooling solution fits on all GeForce FX 5800, 5600 and 5200 cards whose boards use the NVIDIA reference design and have the holes necessary for mounting the cooling elements."
"Somebody has been reading too many X-men comic books."
How many is too many?
Spurious comment aside, it's been shown that genetic traits such as the Kenyan gene that allows for sustained aerobic exercise produce excellent long distance runners, and the whole superpower cold war during the eighties produced olympic atheletes that were shaving tenths of seconds off times for huge investment.
So perhaps rather than putting money into things which have no real human benefit (millimetre wave radar, and *do not* get me started on the whole idea of 'defence') it would be interesting if there was some kind of move towards body modification as a means of getting an edge in competitive games.
Also food pills, silver jumpsuits and dodgy physics.
Being mildly extropian, I say lets get rid of this silly idea of purity and go full bore for human modification. The spin-offs produced by direct sponsorship could possibly have some really cool consequences.
Much as Mr Coward really annoys me, I have to agree that the current rash of 'remakes' is stretching the 'homage' line beyond snapping point, and one reason why I've thus far resisted the urge to check out the damage wrought by Tim Burton in Planet of the Apes. I've resorted to humming loudly with my fingers in my ears and changing the subject when people ask me if I'd watched it.
I have absolutely no fear that this trend will end soon, but there are some fantastic books not produced by JK Rowling that could possibly glean a good screenplay as long as Hollywood can be forceably beaten about the head and neck with a big book of cliches.
BTW, if there was point to this, would anyone like to engage in some drift over which books _should_ be considered for screenplay?
Speculatively bought on DVD, something which provoked forehead slapping after I watched it twice. The narrative is stilted, and some sections plainly make no sense, special effects are lovely, but they tried to build interplay between the characters that just didn't happen...by the end of it the only person I wanted to survive was Angela Bassett because of my recommendation below.
Event Horizon should have been titled 'Hellraiser in space!'...Virtually the same plot with the addition of past history and the confrontation of people with the bad choices they made. However, the ship rocked.
My recommendation is 'Strange Days'. I don't know how it did at the box office, and it's strangely dated because it was set prior to 2000, but it had a wonderful plotline and Angela Bassett kicking bottom.
OD
Re:LUNIX SUCKS!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
on
State of the E-nion
·
· Score: 0
A troll, I know...
"here is yet another linux turd that can't even do what windows did last century"
"this is not an application for a patent on online advertising"
Correct, although it appears to be based on every search engine's system of allowing paid links, which I believe goes back to Yahoo and AltaVista circa 1998.
Bezos has just sunk to a new low in terms of the crowd of idiots trying to patent things after the fact. For shame.
"You know, I'm really really unimpressed seeing that no one cared for months until a few americans started getting sick."
Well, don't mistake media interest for total interest, otherwise you won't get your virus warnings until close to the trigger date, and you'll believe the entire output of CNN.
"The international health community still only gives a **** if it affects the people giving them the most money."
Which explains the massive effort into killing smallpox and polio back in the day when it was assumed that the military was on the same side as the people doing the curing. You seem to jumbling up the WHO with Biotech and pharmecutical companies in a delightfully blanket fashion there. Unavoidably there is going to be a higher concentration on the nations with the highest GDP, but this is along the lines of complaining that it's unfair that you get some of the best Indian food in the UK.*
On the lower end of the scale there's no doubt that someone, somewhere will hand over some cash to someone who is in a terrorist group, but while the various lobby groups try to demonise file sharing by saying that it magically 'funds' terrorism is sorta avoiding the more obvious problem that large scale money laundering or investment banking is where the real terrorist money comes from.
So far everyone's just looked a bit embarrassed when it's been pointed out that that bank accounts all over the world hold terrorist money.
As for funding terrorism, I believe that the US has handed out cash to 'rogue nations' for as long as memory stretches.
Now, it might be possible to point out that Microsoft supports terrorism by selling legitimate copies of windows to terrorists and is therefore funded by them...
Slashdot Mirror
"Has it been used elsewhere in sci-fi?"
Endlessly, but then we do have a process called StereoLithography which is routinely used to create 3D models from plans.
Slow news day on Slashdot, obviously.
How it apparently works
Argh...I wasn't expecting a well-reasoned and thought out answer...
"I think you're being optimistic"
It's my father, he has a genetic predisposition to being optimistic. I tend to temper it with a healthy cynicism. The major problem with W3c ratification is that there's no requirement to build anything into a browser; given that MS have actually stated that they won't be developing IE6 further (even for compliance to W3c standards) and the general inertia of people using the things that's bundled with their OS. Expect more Microsoft HTML(tm) in the future.
Seriously, though, there isn't necessarily that much of a curve with using something with a Flash flavour if you can find the right tools, and since the opening of SWF there have been a proliferation.
Obviously you might be looking for a flat learning curve, but check out The Ming Pages and OpenSWF for a bit more information.
It's important to note that I'm not a fan of Flash, per se, but in terms of market/desktop penetration for a vector format, it's the absolute daddy.
"Flash - probably extremely good at this sort of thing, as vector graphics and user interaction are its big target. However, we have no in-house expertise, and the end-users will all be professionals who may very well not have Flash installed (and furthermore, their firewall may not even give them HTTP access to download it)"
plus
"So go with VML and mandate the use of IE."
You might want to check when the Flash Plugin was _bundled_ with IE and Netscape, sparky. I take your comments on Flash, though, as it can be a bitch to integrate; (I'm a PHP Developer that left his IDE tools with Windows 3.11) although it's getting easier since the SWF format was opened.
Note that you mention the w3C 'official' status of SVG against VML; SVG is 'more likely' to be supported in future browsers and extended to provide more functionality whereas VML will be likely killed when people no longer see a use for it, and this 'future-proofing' tends to be important to anyone that's tried to find a decently priced COBOL hacker.
Anyone else tickled by the fact that downloading the whitepaper requires an email address?
"If you genuinely believe some poor kid deserves to be banged up and have his life wrecked because he dropped your Orc in the sea then Get A Life."
.NET by the end of the week...
Orc in the sea today, carding AOL accounts tomorrow, programming
OD
"When it comes time to harden a system WELL, or set up an IDS so that it's actually useful, or write a virus scanner that will actually work 2 days after it's released onto the market... it helps to have a clue what you're doing."
Of course, they'll look at you first when something bad happens, because your resume would be skirting legality, similar to the automechanic that can break into a car in seconds flat, and heaven forfend that they need a fall guy...
OD
"U.S. - uses the English system of measure whereas the rest of the world uses the more intuitive metric system"
;)
Including England. I wasn't taught the imperial system at all, and generally you're expected to use SI notation for anything interesting and pick up imperial measurements if you're dealing with American Companies.
Km/H is just wrong, though.
OD
"MS and Disney represent a large body of people. These people depend on Office and Mickey to provide them with a paycheck. These people then spend their money in Florida and Washington which creates jobs for other prople. MS and Disney hope these laws will boost their profit. That, in turn, will keep the economy in their areas firm.
You may or may not like IP for philosophical reasons. You may not like MS or Disney for philosophical reasons. You may belive that these laws will be ineffective and, therefore, a waste of time. But you cannot blame these companies for trying to keep their source of income strong."
On the whole, that sounds fairly accurate, but for a couple of things; it is not the remit of a company to translate the wishes of the employees into representation to government. The relationship between the populace and government should be through indirect representation.
That's the spirit in which the constitution was written, government by the people, for the people. Instead you have corporations acting in a fashion that would have made a turn of the century plantation manager blush.
The worst aspect of it is the entire world considers your democracy morally and ideologically bankrupt because corruption is actually considered part of the process. Any other country where a representative of the people receives money to promote an agenda, and you can track their election successes on how much they've salted away tends to become regarded as a rogue nation.
So it's time for you to clean house. Mobilise. Gather statistics and make sure that everyone gets them, from the TV researchers to opposition senators. Find out how many Unix admins are in a particular city. Gather well-informed comment as to what software patents are actually doing...
Do anything but bitch on Slashdot about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
Hell, 350 letters to any major news network might get a flicker of interest, and what do you have to loose?
OD
"'Who the hell are you communists! Get off my doorstep. I listen to the ARTISTS not communists like you!'"
Please, old chap, you're letting the side down.
The copyright holders in almost every case are the record companies. Those contracts that every starstruck artist signs tend to include the transfer of rights to the holding label/company, which means that the RIAA actually represents the copyrights of the artists, something that they point out while raping both the consumers and the artists.
Some further reading;
Prince Versus Warners
Same thing, different angle (with popups)
I believe that George Micheal has also had disputes with his record company over what actually gets released, and I'm wholly amused by the scramble to recoup losses over Aaliyah's pre-contract expiration.
I wish someone would make the distinction to the record companies that the majority of people have NO problem with supporting the artists, it's just the robbing bastards at the top of the food chain who employ the lawyers to beat people over the head.
OD
"illegal tab arrangements on your website."
This is an interesting concept. They're actually illegal tab arrangements?
What's the figure on the number of possible variants that can exist?
Some people might remember that the Fields of the Nephilim 'reused' the rhythm guitar section from 'Ace of spades' by Motorhead...I wonder if anything happened there?
OD
"While it show that some people may have too much time on their hands, it also raises questions of privacy rights, Internet activism and data integrity."
That it does, and personally I promoted the idea amongst my peers in the UK because we already answer a whole raft of questions for demographics under the threat of a whopping fine for fibbing.
The cute thing is that our political structure has mutated into something that consists of a large amount of mediocrity, and the assumption that the people will do as they're told and supply, without question, any and all information requested.
Nu-huh
Although recent studies have suggested that people will give away things like their passwords at the drop of the hat. The register did a story on the piss-poor attitude towards social engineering in this country.
We also occasionally swap customer loyalty cards as a method of 'tainting' the marketing information that stores collect, partly out of sheer schadenfreude and partly because if this trend continues, choice will be honed to a fine needle-point of majority acceptance.
The main point behind the Jedi thing was apart from anything else, it showed the power of a large majority of people working together.
Oddly Drac (Peoples front of Jedi)
"Or, could you imagine the germs on the mouse or trackpad. Or you were in New York where no one washes their hands. Or porn...."
I need to wash my porn?
OD
To: Admin@emarketersamerica.org
I spotted your website address on another site, so I thought I'd take a look, all I can say is amen to the first line.
"Everyone hates spam... "
Could you tell me if it's possible for the emarketersamerica to ensure that they have an 'optout' list run from a publically available server that would be honoured? That way you could ensure that everything you send doesn't become lumped in with UCE.
Toodles,
xxxxxxxx
I'm not really expecting a reply back, but why don't you guys form yourselves into state action groups and keep hammering the point home that corporations/non-profit organisations don't vote?
I suspect that Florida should be the first port of call
OD
"How come countries don't have nuclear bomb testing anymore? Because it affects the entire world."
Actually more likely that they can't afford it, or political pressure has been brought by the haves against the have nots. You might recall some sabre-rattling between Pakistan and India a couple of years ago before the US started to play mediator.
"Why don't all the countries come together to eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs?"
Ah, you mean by refusing to talk to each other for several years, then only acting when it appears that spam is freely available on the black market, allowing for countries without spam to manufacture suitcase spam for making political points amongst the spamless disenfranchised peoples of the world?
"The internet is worldwide and it affects us all."
Oh do give over. You have less than 30% penetration in most of the G8 nations, and the idea of a global community tends to be tainted by the kiddiots that want to 0wnz boxes. Start by inserting CD-R's into your local script kiddie and you stop the next problem in it's tracks.
"We don't need an ICANN."
We need an ICANN without a vested interest, but that's like asking for an honest government.
"We just need the countries to come together and recognize that EVERYONE is involved and EVERYONE should do their part."
Individual states would do for a start. I've been lobbying my MP for as long as I can remember because the simple fact is that _everyone_ hates spam, even the spammers. However, making laws against it will simply drive the marketers underground, so you have to really hit the advertising businesses rather than the spammers.
Of course, I am slightly interested in something that would make advertising illegal, but only from a vicarious and slightly vicious angle.
Drac
"Dude, thats a FX5800 ultra."
From Tom's Hardware...
"Gainward's CoolFX cooling solution fits on all GeForce FX 5800, 5600 and 5200 cards whose boards use the NVIDIA reference design and have the holes necessary for mounting the cooling elements."
"Somebody has been reading too many X-men comic books."
How many is too many?
Spurious comment aside, it's been shown that genetic traits such as the Kenyan gene that allows for sustained aerobic exercise produce excellent long distance runners, and the whole superpower cold war during the eighties produced olympic atheletes that were shaving tenths of seconds off times for huge investment.
So perhaps rather than putting money into things which have no real human benefit (millimetre wave radar, and *do not* get me started on the whole idea of 'defence') it would be interesting if there was some kind of move towards body modification as a means of getting an edge in competitive games.
Retractable claws would be cool, too
Oddly Drac
"Science Fiction is full of stories like this."
Also food pills, silver jumpsuits and dodgy physics.
Being mildly extropian, I say lets get rid of this silly idea of purity and go full bore for human modification. The spin-offs produced by direct sponsorship could possibly have some really cool consequences.
Oddly Drac
Much as Mr Coward really annoys me, I have to agree that the current rash of 'remakes' is stretching the 'homage' line beyond snapping point, and one reason why I've thus far resisted the urge to check out the damage wrought by Tim Burton in Planet of the Apes. I've resorted to humming loudly with my fingers in my ears and changing the subject when people ask me if I'd watched it.
I have absolutely no fear that this trend will end soon, but there are some fantastic books not produced by JK Rowling that could possibly glean a good screenplay as long as Hollywood can be forceably beaten about the head and neck with a big book of cliches.
BTW, if there was point to this, would anyone like to engage in some drift over which books _should_ be considered for screenplay?
OD
"That was a really cool movie."
Speculatively bought on DVD, something which provoked forehead slapping after I watched it twice. The narrative is stilted, and some sections plainly make no sense, special effects are lovely, but they tried to build interplay between the characters that just didn't happen...by the end of it the only person I wanted to survive was Angela Bassett because of my recommendation below.
Event Horizon should have been titled 'Hellraiser in space!'...Virtually the same plot with the addition of past history and the confrontation of people with the bad choices they made. However, the ship rocked.
My recommendation is 'Strange Days'. I don't know how it did at the box office, and it's strangely dated because it was set prior to 2000, but it had a wonderful plotline and Angela Bassett kicking bottom.
OD
A troll, I know...
"here is yet another linux turd that can't even do what windows did last century"
Keep out the cold and allow light in?
OD
...unless they've managed efficiencies approaching the transformer's.
Personally I'm interested in how they regulate the charge into the device itself...throttling with the antenna included in the product?
OD
"this is not an application for a patent on online advertising"
Correct, although it appears to be based on every search engine's system of allowing paid links, which I believe goes back to Yahoo and AltaVista circa 1998.
Bezos has just sunk to a new low in terms of the crowd of idiots trying to patent things after the fact. For shame.
OD
"You know, I'm really really unimpressed seeing that no one cared for months until a few americans started getting sick."
Well, don't mistake media interest for total interest, otherwise you won't get your virus warnings until close to the trigger date, and you'll believe the entire output of CNN.
"The international health community still only gives a **** if it affects the people giving them the most money."
Which explains the massive effort into killing smallpox and polio back in the day when it was assumed that the military was on the same side as the people doing the curing. You seem to jumbling up the WHO with Biotech and pharmecutical companies in a delightfully blanket fashion there. Unavoidably there is going to be a higher concentration on the nations with the highest GDP, but this is along the lines of complaining that it's unfair that you get some of the best Indian food in the UK.*
OD
* I'm biased. Mines a Pasanda.
"What do you do if you buy some weed from a dealer and it turns out to be catnip and oregano?"
Invest in some vicks vaporub and wait for my cold to subside before buying again.
OD
On the lower end of the scale there's no doubt that someone, somewhere will hand over some cash to someone who is in a terrorist group, but while the various lobby groups try to demonise file sharing by saying that it magically 'funds' terrorism is sorta avoiding the more obvious problem that large scale money laundering or investment banking is where the real terrorist money comes from.
So far everyone's just looked a bit embarrassed when it's been pointed out that that bank accounts all over the world hold terrorist money.
As for funding terrorism, I believe that the US has handed out cash to 'rogue nations' for as long as memory stretches.
Now, it might be possible to point out that Microsoft supports terrorism by selling legitimate copies of windows to terrorists and is therefore funded by them...
The argument is only as spurious as theirs.
OD