Do we think the network that runs "The O.C." had to pay for the chance to double its viewership in the 18 and under demographic, or is it a symbiotic relationship?
Probably not, because the demographic they already have represents exactly the demographic Star Wars has targeted since day one.
The people responsible at Paramount think this is just a show and we want to tell them, it is not.
Somebody's forgetting that television shows were developed not to entertain, but to keep people around for the ads. That has not changed for half a century, except in its sophistication.
These people exemplify the worst trait of science fiction TV show fans- they don't realize that it is JUST A TV SHOW. It's not a religion, or a philosophy. It's a TV show. Made by a business. Played out by actors.
Yep, and it's not only closed source, it's proprietary; to develop for it, you need to buy the eval kit and license the technology.
Furthermore, not a single slashdot reader seems to have noticed that the article is one giant piece of astroturf. The submitter's website plainly lists his address in Palo Alto, which just happens to be the site of PARC, the Xerox research center that developed the technology. Coincidence? I seriously doubt it.
Oh, and this technology is mostly used in color copiers for printing out the machine's serial number in pure yellow so you can't see it..but the document can be traced back to you (this is supposedly for the Secret Service to chase down people making color copies of US currency and whatnot, but that's a bullshit excuse now that these copiers all have currency detectors and refuse to copy currency). They don't point it out specifically, but there are various hints dropped in the FAQ about it.
DNS information leaking off the DHCP server on a cluster facing interface to the LAN facing interface and promptly bringing all the Windows clients on the network to a grinding halt that request a DNS server allocation via DHCP
You have DHCP server turned on for your outward-facing interface (assuming you're using an OS X Server box as a gateway/firewall). The documentation covers this pretty clearly (actually- it's in one of the tabs for the DHCP/Netboot server, I believe "interfaces", and you just uncheck the outbound interface. NOT rocket science), along with clearly explaining how DHCP can run wild if not set up properly.
If push comes to shove, restrict the DHCP server to only answering MAC addresses of machines in the cluster.
Until 10.3, you weren't missing much. 10 through 10.2 were...disasters. 10.3 was more polished, but still has lots of clunky issues...for example, you have to do manual mucking around in Open Directory to add a standalone printer with an LPR queue. Not terribly hard, just unnecessary- which makes you wonder, "and why couldn't someone have spent a day on making a wizard for this?"
Netbooting setup is also a complete disaster- it was horrible in 10.2, and it's not much better in 10.3, with a lot of parameters not very well explained, etc. Editing plists and tweaking the Open Directory reminded me of the days of editing the Windows registry, and on a Mac, there's something fundamentally wrong with that.
In a few months, this book will be mostly useless
on
Mac OS X Server Panther
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
...because Tiger server will be out. From what I've heard, there are a couple of things that will make people really want to jump for this one...like centralized management of Software Updates.
I love how everything is disposable these days. Lithium Ion, for example...the wonder technology that lasts only a year or two. Hard drives that suddenly aren't designed for "continuous or heavy duty use". Capacitors in everything from stereos to motherboards that last a few years before leaking all their electrolyte out and maybe starting a fire.
Plasma TVs are being pushed like crazy, but the things burn out, guaranteed. A friend of mine said a coworker dropped well over $4,000 on a top of the line plasma screen from Sony several years ago. One day, he pushed the power button, there was a fizz noise, and...that was that. He said sometimes they go dim, or parts stick on or off like a defective LCD, etc...sometimes it just doesn't turn on one day.
Since when was that acceptable? We pay 4-8 times less for a dishwasher, refridgerator, washer, or drier...and they are considered "major appliances", and expected to last at least a decade!
I know at least in Massachusetts there's an "implied merchantability"(implied warranty, to grossly simplify) on any product...and wouldn't you expect a TV, devices which traditionally last decades, to last more than 3-4 years?
No thanks. I don't donate to people who claim to own data.
Glad someone else noticed this bit:
"Use of LIGO and GEO data - Data supplied for analysis with Einstein@Home are not to be used for any other purpose without the consent of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC)."
I love it when projects paid for with public money think they can control how their stuff is used.
With all the outdoor sports (windsurfing, hiking, mountain biking, skiing) in the area, sports-minded geeks should be flocking to apply for a job at the new facility
The Yahoo story I read (several days ago) said that maybe 100 jobs would be created. Not a lot, folks...and that's 100 jobs total. Not "100 techie jobs"...100 -jobs-.
Those jobs won't be doing sexy things. The only reason you put a facility in the middle of nowhere is because it's cheap in terms of space. Skilled labor is virtually nonexistant and relocation expensive.
Google strikes me as being like the Army. They talk a great talk(in Google's case, innovation, exciting workplace, etc; in the Army's, it's "defending freedom" and "jobs skills") and show you eye candy galore, and when you actually get in, you spend your time wading in shit (metaphorically in Google's case).
Nevermind the locals are going to hate you because you're making twice what they are and you're "some city kid", etc. Experience has told me, "trickle down" is never popular until you forcibly remind people (for example, I've heard of companies exchanging cash to silver dollars for employees to use in the local town, to demonstrate to the community just how much of their income comes from employees).
Interestingly, Motorola is not locking themselves into Apple's iTunes, but also support Real Player.
Or, alternatively, "Interestingly, Nokia has locked themselves into Microsoft's Windows Media Player and Motorola has not done so"
...or how about, "Interestingly, the device will support a wide number of formats"?
Really getting tired of slanted stories.
It's pretty big news that the Motorola device supports stuff other than WMP formats. Why? Because generally MS contracts for that sort of thing go as follows: "License WMP, get the technology really, really cheap, get lots of support from us, we'll practically write it all for you. Now, dump everything else, or the deal's off." Motorola told 'em to go screw.
Sorry, but you're wrong. The creator of the work holds the copyright.
Not if he or she was hired to do the work. It's called "work for hire". If SBC said "here's $50k, design and build us a monument", the artist is shit out of luck; SBC owns the work UNLESS they signed a contract saying the artist keeps copyright.
Furthermore, it's not the city's job to enforce copyright, unless the city owns the copyright. It's a civil (not criminal) matter- and entirely up to the copyright holder to enforce.
Read up on photo.net on copyright, and learn a few things about practical matters of copyright, not what a section or two of US code says.
They haven't even gotten there yet and they're already looking for reasons to control who goes there and how. Safety is the given reason but it will take a lot to convince me that setting themselves up as "recognized" experts/authority figures isn't the true motivation.
Ding ding ding.
If this were Delta, American Airlines, and JetBlue, wouldn't we be screaming blue-bloody-murder that airlines can't be trusted to develop safety regs? What about chemical companies and chemical handling procedures? Corporations and financial reporting standards? Nightclubs and fire safety regs?
There are hundreds if not thousands of examples where businesses (and entire industries) of all sizes willfully (and gleefully) ignore the public interest, safety, and so on.
This seems like an excellent way to make sure there are space-company-friendly rules in place, by writing them before anyone else does and saying "well, ours are already written, and we're the experts!" Wrong. Much as I dislike NASA- they are the experts, they've been down the "safety" path before (including the pressure to go on with the show routine; do we honestly think things won't be WORSE with a corporation making that decision?) and they've been working with commercial travel(aka airlines) for a long, long time. They're certainly more qualified than John Carmack.
No, it's still there
Slight goof: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/
Nothing like a bio for the current CEO, but leaving the text/link for the old CEO.
GNOME 2.10 Beta 1 is the first pre-release intended for wide public scrutiny before the final release in March. It is packed full of tasty GNOME goodness. This release is a feature frozen snapshot primarily intended for wide public scrutiny before the final GNOME 2.10 release in March.
To those who say the Slashdot staff are resting on their laurels, I present you with what I believe to be the first case of single-story duplicity!
Ignoring the grandstanding title and the fact that the author astroturfed his own "article" and site, here's a quote:
A more farfetched, but very real possibility, is
that computers or workers at airports and train
stations also use these same networks to make
everything tick. If that is the case, it might be
possible for an intelligent high school student to
start changing train timetables or rerouting baggage.
And his evidence for this is, what? His own personal opinion? He's been watching Hackers too much if he thinks the schedule board at South Station is networked; it's a -flip- chart (seriously, stick around for 5-10 minutes, and watch it update itself). I'd be amazed if it had anything better than a dedicated thinnet connection to an ancient PC. It's not like some kid with mad h@x0r skills is going to go bippity-boop and put up "TRAIN TO FUCKVILLE 4:20". No. That happens in Hollywood, where people "launch the genetic algorithmic viral defenses!". It does not happen in the real world.
There are a lot of cheap shots and snide remarks aimed at "The Guvmint", "The Man", etc. This guy sounds like he's about 19, not to mention he's just admitted to logging into places he knew he didn't belong AND changing settings (he changed the back, but still...) Sounds like a great federal inditement to me.
Some googling shows he's in his very early 20's(graduated from Harvard in 2004 in "3 years", which means he's maybe 21 now), runs some consulting company. Sounds like he's just out to promote his business like every other story submitter these days...
I'm not one to follow up my own posts, but I found something very interesting reading the PDF more closely.
DVD-R media is probably the hottest market right now (even NIST/LoC admit CD media is nearly useless in terms of storage capacity), and note that NIST used the least number of samples, couldn't get any information on composition other than "it's Cyanine based" (gee, thanks), and DID NOT name this mysterious "D2" sample that was so much better than the others?
Sounds like NIST doesn't want to burn any bridges. Not even a mention of dual-layer media, either...I'd love to see how long that stuff lasts, especially since it's something like 5 times more expensive than single-layer media.
As others have noted, the technologies used in the media are never printed on the packaging. Furthe, like many commodity items, the wrapper has nothing to do with who actually made the media. One spindle of Brand Y disks can be made by Manufacturer A, and the spindle twice its size, with the same labelling, also from Brand Y- will be made by Manufacturer Z. It is extremely difficult to be an educated consumer under these conditions.
It happens in lots of other places- gasolene is not "made" by Mobil; Mobil, Hess, Shell, Sunoco etc contract to area distributors. The distributors buy from whoever is the cheapest or distributes to their area; they slosh-mix any company-specific additives, if any, on the way to the station. Milk? Guess what- federal law requires that the bottling plant's registration number be printed on every bottle of milk. Next time you're in the store, notice how the brand name and generic store brand milk have the same prefix on that stamped number? Notice the brand name milk is pretty expensive compared to the store brand stuff? Dirty little secret of the milk industry, in plain view.
When I need CD-R/DVD-R media, I don't want to have to spend an hour sitting on some webforum reading posts to find out what the most reliable media looks like this week and where to buy it. I want to walk into a store, see "gold type cyno-whatever", see it's $2 more for a spindle of 20 than the other stuff, and walk out.
Though I'm sure there is collusion among manufacturers at the moment, it's only a matter of time before one manufacturer realizes they can market their product based on media type/chemistry thanks to this report educating buyers (the major PC mags will probably pick this up in an issue or two).
What bugs me is how bad my DVD-R disks SMELL. I have to hold the spindle at arm's length when I open the cakebox, and leave the room until the disk is done, because it reeks. I want to know what the hell makes it smell so bad...or, then again, maybe I don't...
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but...Wow, that's mature. It is an open standard, with free (both open and closed source) readers for virtually every platform in existence. The paper contains images, charts, and so on. PDF is a perfectly acceptable choice, particularly if it was a report which was not originally designed for the web.
Unfortunately, seems they slightly missed the point- the charts and other line art...well...aren't. They're screen-resolution bitmaps. Oh well.
First of all, the mac mini is cooled passively... It is designed to dispate the heat of what stuff Apple put in there. I know the attitude might be to do it for the sake of doing it, but why ruin a perfectly good mac-mini through overheating with it, with a relatively small gain in performance.
How can you get modded Informative and not even read the article? The modification just bumps the 1.25 to 1.42, which is also a stock speed. The 1.25 and 1.42 are identical cases and whatnot...so it couldn't possibly overheat more than a stock 1.42 would.
The author says you can take it to 1.5, but that it caused glitches.
As for warranty- mod it in a year when you want something to console you for owning a machine with close to the worst warranty in the business (1 year lots-of-questions-asked...and 90 days telephone support.)
Even if a third world worker can spend an entire year decoding CAPTCHAs for $1000/year doing one every 8 seconds, they can still only decode 900,000 CAPTCHAs per year, and that has a cost of 1.1 cents per 10 CAPTCHAs. That would mean that emailing 40,000,000 people a piece of spam would cost $44,000. Suffice it to say, spammers do NOT make $.001 per spam sent; not even close.
...and not even remotely close to 1%(I'd guess less than.1%) of all email addresses use that stupid auto-responder "reply back to this email to email me" method.
Let's put it this way- almost all the bulk-emailing services now offer this outsourced service. They wouldn't if it didn't make them money, moron.
I had a conversation with a senior executive at a former employer.
He told me that, just as companies were outsourcing tech support to India/China/etc, companies which handled mass-emailing were also outsourcing work to have people sit there and recognize CAPTCHAs as well as respond to those stupid validation things some people try with their email (ie, you have to respond back to some silly email from their server saying "yes, I do ACTUALLY want to email you"). The mass-emailing companies would forward all the responses they got to a mailing to the company, and rooms of people would go through them all.
Very little training was required for the CAPTCHAs, and only rudimentary English for the email-response things.
Slashdot Mirror
Probably not, because the demographic they already have represents exactly the demographic Star Wars has targeted since day one.
The people responsible at Paramount think this is just a show and we want to tell them, it is not.
Somebody's forgetting that television shows were developed not to entertain, but to keep people around for the ads. That has not changed for half a century, except in its sophistication.
These people exemplify the worst trait of science fiction TV show fans- they don't realize that it is JUST A TV SHOW. It's not a religion, or a philosophy. It's a TV show. Made by a business. Played out by actors.
Yep, and it's not only closed source, it's proprietary; to develop for it, you need to buy the eval kit and license the technology.
Furthermore, not a single slashdot reader seems to have noticed that the article is one giant piece of astroturf. The submitter's website plainly lists his address in Palo Alto, which just happens to be the site of PARC, the Xerox research center that developed the technology. Coincidence? I seriously doubt it.
Oh, and this technology is mostly used in color copiers for printing out the machine's serial number in pure yellow so you can't see it..but the document can be traced back to you (this is supposedly for the Secret Service to chase down people making color copies of US currency and whatnot, but that's a bullshit excuse now that these copiers all have currency detectors and refuse to copy currency). They don't point it out specifically, but there are various hints dropped in the FAQ about it.
Seems like he's actually -with- the program..
dance?
(I'm pretty sure that's the original song before the first site or two "sold out").
Man, I can't believe I just talked about hamsters selling out.
You have DHCP server turned on for your outward-facing interface (assuming you're using an OS X Server box as a gateway/firewall). The documentation covers this pretty clearly (actually- it's in one of the tabs for the DHCP/Netboot server, I believe "interfaces", and you just uncheck the outbound interface. NOT rocket science), along with clearly explaining how DHCP can run wild if not set up properly.
If push comes to shove, restrict the DHCP server to only answering MAC addresses of machines in the cluster.
Until 10.3, you weren't missing much. 10 through 10.2 were...disasters. 10.3 was more polished, but still has lots of clunky issues...for example, you have to do manual mucking around in Open Directory to add a standalone printer with an LPR queue. Not terribly hard, just unnecessary- which makes you wonder, "and why couldn't someone have spent a day on making a wizard for this?"
Netbooting setup is also a complete disaster- it was horrible in 10.2, and it's not much better in 10.3, with a lot of parameters not very well explained, etc. Editing plists and tweaking the Open Directory reminded me of the days of editing the Windows registry, and on a Mac, there's something fundamentally wrong with that.
...because Tiger server will be out. From what I've heard, there are a couple of things that will make people really want to jump for this one...like centralized management of Software Updates.
Panther was released in October of 2003, folks...
Plasma TVs are being pushed like crazy, but the things burn out, guaranteed. A friend of mine said a coworker dropped well over $4,000 on a top of the line plasma screen from Sony several years ago. One day, he pushed the power button, there was a fizz noise, and...that was that. He said sometimes they go dim, or parts stick on or off like a defective LCD, etc...sometimes it just doesn't turn on one day.
Since when was that acceptable? We pay 4-8 times less for a dishwasher, refridgerator, washer, or drier...and they are considered "major appliances", and expected to last at least a decade!
I know at least in Massachusetts there's an "implied merchantability"(implied warranty, to grossly simplify) on any product...and wouldn't you expect a TV, devices which traditionally last decades, to last more than 3-4 years?
Glad someone else noticed this bit:
"Use of LIGO and GEO data - Data supplied for analysis with Einstein@Home are not to be used for any other purpose without the consent of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC)."
I love it when projects paid for with public money think they can control how their stuff is used.
The Yahoo story I read (several days ago) said that maybe 100 jobs would be created. Not a lot, folks...and that's 100 jobs total. Not "100 techie jobs"...100 -jobs-.
Those jobs won't be doing sexy things. The only reason you put a facility in the middle of nowhere is because it's cheap in terms of space. Skilled labor is virtually nonexistant and relocation expensive.
Google strikes me as being like the Army. They talk a great talk(in Google's case, innovation, exciting workplace, etc; in the Army's, it's "defending freedom" and "jobs skills") and show you eye candy galore, and when you actually get in, you spend your time wading in shit (metaphorically in Google's case).
Nevermind the locals are going to hate you because you're making twice what they are and you're "some city kid", etc. Experience has told me, "trickle down" is never popular until you forcibly remind people (for example, I've heard of companies exchanging cash to silver dollars for employees to use in the local town, to demonstrate to the community just how much of their income comes from employees).
No thanks, I'll pass.
There's clevage, but with the science/tech crowd, the guys have clevage too...and you really do want to skip that.
Or, alternatively, "Interestingly, Nokia has locked themselves into Microsoft's Windows Media Player and Motorola has not done so"
...or how about, "Interestingly, the device will support a wide number of formats"?
Really getting tired of slanted stories.
It's pretty big news that the Motorola device supports stuff other than WMP formats. Why? Because generally MS contracts for that sort of thing go as follows: "License WMP, get the technology really, really cheap, get lots of support from us, we'll practically write it all for you. Now, dump everything else, or the deal's off." Motorola told 'em to go screw.
Not if he or she was hired to do the work. It's called "work for hire". If SBC said "here's $50k, design and build us a monument", the artist is shit out of luck; SBC owns the work UNLESS they signed a contract saying the artist keeps copyright.
Furthermore, it's not the city's job to enforce copyright, unless the city owns the copyright. It's a civil (not criminal) matter- and entirely up to the copyright holder to enforce.
Read up on photo.net on copyright, and learn a few things about practical matters of copyright, not what a section or two of US code says.
Ding ding ding.
If this were Delta, American Airlines, and JetBlue, wouldn't we be screaming blue-bloody-murder that airlines can't be trusted to develop safety regs? What about chemical companies and chemical handling procedures? Corporations and financial reporting standards? Nightclubs and fire safety regs?
There are hundreds if not thousands of examples where businesses (and entire industries) of all sizes willfully (and gleefully) ignore the public interest, safety, and so on.
This seems like an excellent way to make sure there are space-company-friendly rules in place, by writing them before anyone else does and saying "well, ours are already written, and we're the experts!" Wrong. Much as I dislike NASA- they are the experts, they've been down the "safety" path before (including the pressure to go on with the show routine; do we honestly think things won't be WORSE with a corporation making that decision?) and they've been working with commercial travel(aka airlines) for a long, long time. They're certainly more qualified than John Carmack.
No, it's still there Slight goof: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/ Nothing like a bio for the current CEO, but leaving the text/link for the old CEO.
GNOME 2.10 Beta 1 is the first pre-release intended for wide public scrutiny before the final release in March. It is packed full of tasty GNOME goodness. This release is a feature frozen snapshot primarily intended for wide public scrutiny before the final GNOME 2.10 release in March.
To those who say the Slashdot staff are resting on their laurels, I present you with what I believe to be the first case of single-story duplicity!
Ignoring the grandstanding title and the fact that the author astroturfed his own "article" and site, here's a quote:
A more farfetched, but very real possibility, is that computers or workers at airports and train stations also use these same networks to make everything tick. If that is the case, it might be possible for an intelligent high school student to start changing train timetables or rerouting baggage.
And his evidence for this is, what? His own personal opinion? He's been watching Hackers too much if he thinks the schedule board at South Station is networked; it's a -flip- chart (seriously, stick around for 5-10 minutes, and watch it update itself). I'd be amazed if it had anything better than a dedicated thinnet connection to an ancient PC. It's not like some kid with mad h@x0r skills is going to go bippity-boop and put up "TRAIN TO FUCKVILLE 4:20". No. That happens in Hollywood, where people "launch the genetic algorithmic viral defenses!". It does not happen in the real world.
There are a lot of cheap shots and snide remarks aimed at "The Guvmint", "The Man", etc. This guy sounds like he's about 19, not to mention he's just admitted to logging into places he knew he didn't belong AND changing settings (he changed the back, but still...) Sounds like a great federal inditement to me.
Some googling shows he's in his very early 20's(graduated from Harvard in 2004 in "3 years", which means he's maybe 21 now), runs some consulting company. Sounds like he's just out to promote his business like every other story submitter these days...
DVD-R media is probably the hottest market right now (even NIST/LoC admit CD media is nearly useless in terms of storage capacity), and note that NIST used the least number of samples, couldn't get any information on composition other than "it's Cyanine based" (gee, thanks), and DID NOT name this mysterious "D2" sample that was so much better than the others?
Sounds like NIST doesn't want to burn any bridges. Not even a mention of dual-layer media, either...I'd love to see how long that stuff lasts, especially since it's something like 5 times more expensive than single-layer media.
As others have noted, the technologies used in the media are never printed on the packaging. Furthe, like many commodity items, the wrapper has nothing to do with who actually made the media. One spindle of Brand Y disks can be made by Manufacturer A, and the spindle twice its size, with the same labelling, also from Brand Y- will be made by Manufacturer Z. It is extremely difficult to be an educated consumer under these conditions.
It happens in lots of other places- gasolene is not "made" by Mobil; Mobil, Hess, Shell, Sunoco etc contract to area distributors. The distributors buy from whoever is the cheapest or distributes to their area; they slosh-mix any company-specific additives, if any, on the way to the station. Milk? Guess what- federal law requires that the bottling plant's registration number be printed on every bottle of milk. Next time you're in the store, notice how the brand name and generic store brand milk have the same prefix on that stamped number? Notice the brand name milk is pretty expensive compared to the store brand stuff? Dirty little secret of the milk industry, in plain view.
When I need CD-R/DVD-R media, I don't want to have to spend an hour sitting on some webforum reading posts to find out what the most reliable media looks like this week and where to buy it. I want to walk into a store, see "gold type cyno-whatever", see it's $2 more for a spindle of 20 than the other stuff, and walk out.
Though I'm sure there is collusion among manufacturers at the moment, it's only a matter of time before one manufacturer realizes they can market their product based on media type/chemistry thanks to this report educating buyers (the major PC mags will probably pick this up in an issue or two).
What bugs me is how bad my DVD-R disks SMELL. I have to hold the spindle at arm's length when I open the cakebox, and leave the room until the disk is done, because it reeks. I want to know what the hell makes it smell so bad...or, then again, maybe I don't...
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but...Wow, that's mature. It is an open standard, with free (both open and closed source) readers for virtually every platform in existence. The paper contains images, charts, and so on. PDF is a perfectly acceptable choice, particularly if it was a report which was not originally designed for the web.
Unfortunately, seems they slightly missed the point- the charts and other line art...well...aren't. They're screen-resolution bitmaps. Oh well.
How can you get modded Informative and not even read the article? The modification just bumps the 1.25 to 1.42, which is also a stock speed. The 1.25 and 1.42 are identical cases and whatnot...so it couldn't possibly overheat more than a stock 1.42 would.
The author says you can take it to 1.5, but that it caused glitches.
As for warranty- mod it in a year when you want something to console you for owning a machine with close to the worst warranty in the business (1 year lots-of-questions-asked...and 90 days telephone support.)
You gotta be kidding, right? No, I don't want to bloody record to AIFF and then have to use applescript to feed it to iTunes etc etc...
...and not even remotely close to 1%(I'd guess less than .1%) of all email addresses use that stupid auto-responder "reply back to this email to email me" method.
Let's put it this way- almost all the bulk-emailing services now offer this outsourced service. They wouldn't if it didn't make them money, moron.
I had a conversation with a senior executive at a former employer.
He told me that, just as companies were outsourcing tech support to India/China/etc, companies which handled mass-emailing were also outsourcing work to have people sit there and recognize CAPTCHAs as well as respond to those stupid validation things some people try with their email (ie, you have to respond back to some silly email from their server saying "yes, I do ACTUALLY want to email you"). The mass-emailing companies would forward all the responses they got to a mailing to the company, and rooms of people would go through them all.
Very little training was required for the CAPTCHAs, and only rudimentary English for the email-response things.