Though now that you mention it, I *would* like to block them on my Zaurus, simply because they screw up the rendering of the page on the tiny screen.
Why don't you contact Google about that? They seem to care about PDA users, and I'm sure they would gladly work on fixing it if they knew it was a problem.
Why in the hell would you want to block Google ads? They're often relevant and useful and if you're not interested, it's trivial not to look at them.
Admittedly, they sometimes aren't what you're looking for. Like if you're trying to find the game Dumbbell, and you search for dumbbell+game, you get a few ads for exercise equipment on the side.
But that is a case of searching for something specific. If you want to search for something more general, like a place to get cheap custom-built computers online, the text ads can be a great help. In the search results you might find companies that sell nothing online and have only a page saying Stop by our store in Nowhereland for price estimates, whereas a company with a text ad has something substantial online, can help you even if you don't reside in Nowhereland (and most Google searchers don't), and likely even has somewhat of a clue.
I suppose if you search only for specific things, then the ads might not be of interest to you. Still, why bother to block them? You won't save load time and you won't save your eyes, because text-ads don't hurt either one of them. Google has occasional ads; so what?
Sorry to be a little off-topic here, but I was looking at the moderation totals for the parent post:
40% Interesting
20% Troll
20% Informative
Aren't they supposed to add up to 100%, not 80%? I saw another post on this discussion where the totals added up to 90%.
Back to the original topic, the article in question is co-authored with another person and doesn't make any apparently outrageous or slanderous claims, so I wouldn't worry overlong about its accuracy. However, I don't exactly hold Mr. Markoff in the highest esteem either.
You have to wonder if they think anyone who has specifically made an effort to block this kind of ad will respond to it.
Then again, I once heard that door-to-door solicitors often try to go to houses with NO SOLICITING signs on them, assuming that there are people who put such signs up because they know they are weak-willed and can be talked into buying things. I don't know if it's true. I have a no soliciting sign up, and I block pop-up ads and the like, because I find them annoying and am not interested.
Why do you expect Google to send a cease and desist letter? Look at all the company logos at http://slashdot.org/topics.shtml. AMD, America Online, Amiga, Apple, Be, Caldera, Compaq, Corel, Debian, Digital, Nintendo, GNU, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Sun, etc. don't seem to have any problem with their logos as icons. They're used to distinguish articles related to those companies and their products, so it's clearly fair use.
As another European, I'd like to point out that in some major European countries you can get arrested for merely possessing items with swastikas on them.
What countries are those? That seems extreme, especially considering that the swastika had a positive meaning until it was abused by the Nazis.
Is a goatse redirect when someone posts a link to their site [bananachan.com] which they think is on topic, but someone else doesn't think it's on topic?
those Elite hollywood message boards should take notice of my site because the scripts are ABOVE AVERAGE QUALITY!
You really need to RTFA; it's all about how Hollywood is corrupt and they make stuff based on hype, not quality, often without reading the scripts they talk about.
Or were you suggesting that the scripts on your web site are actually bad and those Hollywood bastards will never know?
I had a friend who made a 3D (wireframe) tank game in QuickBASIC. He called it QBTANK. You had to be the first tank to get to the flag on each level, and you could shoot other tanks to slow them down.
I don't believe it was ever finished, sadly. Isn't that a pity?
One way to reduce the amount of spam even sent would be for the spammers to use some goddamn common sense and prune their address lists. What use is "20% off on ink cartridges" (in USA only) for a.se (Sweden) address?
Spammers lack this 'common sense' because most of the time they aren't spamming their own stuff, they're sending spam for some other sucker who is paying them. That sucker might have been enticed by how his spam will reach 100,000 people, and might have been less willing to pay if the obviously non-US addresses were eliminated, leaving only, say, 60,000 recipients.
Or if you're a really smartass mathematician like me, you'll say 'integer,' because every integer from 1 to 10 is also a natural number, and you can save two syllables by saying integer instead!
I somewhat doubt that would lead to profit. But is it really a security concern? I would imagine that if you are generating random numbers for crypto, you at least know what CPU you are using and can be sure it's not a cheapo knockoff with a crap PRNG.
Interestingly enough, when asked to pick a number from 1 to 10, more people seem to pick 7 than anything else. My source is an unscientific poll, but I trust its general accuracy because I have noticed similar results myself. 7, 4, 5, 6, 3, 8, 2, 9, 10, 1. While the differences among 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 could be off and the order of those probably cannot be trusted, 7 is definitely picked much more often than any of those five, which in turn are more likely picks than the four nearest either of the extremes.
It isn't just one to ten either; I've noticed that when you ask people to pick a number from N to M, where N to M are relatively close together, a particular answer seems to come up more often than others; for example, 12 comes up often among numbers from 1 to 15. Can anyone suggest an explanation for this?
Publicly traded companies tend to be evil. When companies go bad, it's almost always because they're trying to satisfy the stockholders above all else. Google is good because they don't have stockholders to report to, so they concentrate on having a high quality service and satisfying the users.
Just look at the Slashdot articles about corporations that intimidate people with threats of frivolous lawsuits, pay for bad legislation (DMCA, copyright length extensions, etc.), lie about their finances, and so on. Nearly all the time they do things like that, it's for the stockholders.
The point of the grandparent post, I think, was not specifically that a publicly traded company is barred from doing research, but that such a company cares more about profits than its customers. That is a perspective that doesn't usually lend itself to research in this field.
Google should be using PNG, only 7193 bytes for the logo then.
PNG still isn't as widely supported as GIF. Before you flame me, yes, I know every major browser supports PNG, but some minor browsers do not. Seeing as how there was a post a few comments up about how Google's index uses in such a way as to avoid phrases breaking on PDAs, I think they care about minor browsers.
But remember, the logo doesn't make as much of an impact as everything else because it's cached until 2038.
Re: OT moderation suggestion
on
Legacy-Free PCs
·
· Score: 1
It seems like this would give the earlier posts (more of) an advantage. Why not display the comments in random order as well?
Slashdot Mirror
Admittedly, they sometimes aren't what you're looking for. Like if you're trying to find the game Dumbbell, and you search for dumbbell+game, you get a few ads for exercise equipment on the side.
But that is a case of searching for something specific. If you want to search for something more general, like a place to get cheap custom-built computers online, the text ads can be a great help. In the search results you might find companies that sell nothing online and have only a page saying Stop by our store in Nowhereland for price estimates, whereas a company with a text ad has something substantial online, can help you even if you don't reside in Nowhereland (and most Google searchers don't), and likely even has somewhat of a clue.
I suppose if you search only for specific things, then the ads might not be of interest to you. Still, why bother to block them? You won't save load time and you won't save your eyes, because text-ads don't hurt either one of them. Google has occasional ads; so what?
40% Interesting
20% Troll
20% Informative
Aren't they supposed to add up to 100%, not 80%? I saw another post on this discussion where the totals added up to 90%.
Back to the original topic, the article in question is co-authored with another person and doesn't make any apparently outrageous or slanderous claims, so I wouldn't worry overlong about its accuracy. However, I don't exactly hold Mr. Markoff in the highest esteem either.
Then again, I once heard that door-to-door solicitors often try to go to houses with NO SOLICITING signs on them, assuming that there are people who put such signs up because they know they are weak-willed and can be talked into buying things. I don't know if it's true. I have a no soliciting sign up, and I block pop-up ads and the like, because I find them annoying and am not interested.
Why do you expect Google to send a cease and desist letter? Look at all the company logos at http://slashdot.org/topics.shtml. AMD, America Online, Amiga, Apple, Be, Caldera, Compaq, Corel, Debian, Digital, Nintendo, GNU, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Sun, etc. don't seem to have any problem with their logos as icons. They're used to distinguish articles related to those companies and their products, so it's clearly fair use.
What countries are those? That seems extreme, especially considering that the swastika had a positive meaning until it was abused by the Nazis.
I agree, that wasn't exactly a fair categorisation. The GNU project is not a supporter of open source.
No, this is a goatse redirect. ;)
You really need to RTFA; it's all about how Hollywood is corrupt and they make stuff based on hype, not quality, often without reading the scripts they talk about.
Or were you suggesting that the scripts on your web site are actually bad and those Hollywood bastards will never know?
I don't believe it was ever finished, sadly. Isn't that a pity?
Spammers lack this 'common sense' because most of the time they aren't spamming their own stuff, they're sending spam for some other sucker who is paying them. That sucker might have been enticed by how his spam will reach 100,000 people, and might have been less willing to pay if the obviously non-US addresses were eliminated, leaving only, say, 60,000 recipients.
(That could have used a <BR> or two as well.)
I believe you mean sequel.
Of course, they would never have considered it before the OGG format had DRM support.
Or if you're a really smartass mathematician like me, you'll say 'integer,' because every integer from 1 to 10 is also a natural number, and you can save two syllables by saying integer instead!
I somewhat doubt that would lead to profit. But is it really a security concern? I would imagine that if you are generating random numbers for crypto, you at least know what CPU you are using and can be sure it's not a cheapo knockoff with a crap PRNG.
It isn't just one to ten either; I've noticed that when you ask people to pick a number from N to M, where N to M are relatively close together, a particular answer seems to come up more often than others; for example, 12 comes up often among numbers from 1 to 15. Can anyone suggest an explanation for this?
I removed the comment and all the unnecessary newlines, making it even smaller!
Just look at the Slashdot articles about corporations that intimidate people with threats of frivolous lawsuits, pay for bad legislation (DMCA, copyright length extensions, etc.), lie about their finances, and so on. Nearly all the time they do things like that, it's for the stockholders.
The point of the grandparent post, I think, was not specifically that a publicly traded company is barred from doing research, but that such a company cares more about profits than its customers. That is a perspective that doesn't usually lend itself to research in this field.
Maybe the moderator(s) hadn't heard of Google News and thought it was a joke. The description does sound kind of joke-like.
PNG still isn't as widely supported as GIF. Before you flame me, yes, I know every major browser supports PNG, but some minor browsers do not. Seeing as how there was a post a few comments up about how Google's index uses in such a way as to avoid phrases breaking on PDAs, I think they care about minor browsers.
But remember, the logo doesn't make as much of an impact as everything else because it's cached until 2038.
It seems like this would give the earlier posts (more of) an advantage. Why not display the comments in random order as well?
His neck doesn't look much like a bottle to me.
RTFC. "Yes, there are USB adapters for all of these things..."
Submit this to Ask /., why don't you? Then everyone will see it and it won't be off-topic.