I can tell you that 99% of the illegal or 'gray area' activities like SPAM that go on in the online porn community are likely performed by less than 1% of the companies.
A vast majority of operators I speak with are firmly against SPAM because it simply doesn't result in profit. For one, customers who join up as a result of SPAM, result is a much higher chargeback rate on credit card purchases, and in general being on the receiving end of traffic from SPAM is more than a nightamre dealing with 1000s of pissed of system admins.
Also, porn site operators want to maintain legitimate mailing lists to keep their customers informed, but that is now a pipe dream, as even customer support is difficult over e-mail because much of it gets caught up in SPAM filters.
Personally I won't do contract work for any porn company that uses SPAM because those are the ones that usually try to beat me out of a check. Also, they are the least likely to be around in 6 months, because most of them go under very quickly. In addition, I get sick of moving apps from host to host to host as they routinely get booted for sending, or being associated with SPAM.
I read an article several weeks ago where the man being interviewed, I believe he may have been European, expressed the following opinion (from memory)...
"In the future all of Europe will be like a 3rd world country, China will be the blue collar for the World, India will be the white collar worker for the world, and the US will be the innovators and middle managers"
Ok, I don't agree totally with the part about Europe, and he left quite a few innovative and important countries out of that list (Japan, Canada, etc), but I think his point was that as the economy becomes more and more global, it is inevitible that the now 'global workforce' will be broken up into the most cost effective 'divisions'.
I think the 'global workforce' has been in effect for quite a whhile now for many types of manufacturing, but with the ever quickening pace of IT accomplishments, the march towards a truely global worforce also quickens.
I think it will happen, sooner than later, and some people are in denial, and/or not willing to adapt.
I agree with you. I wouldn't be surprised if the first 'colony on the moon' was actually serving a primarily military purpose. Not sure how I feel about it though. I guess it has something to do with being the first, or someone else will.
I think with the Chinese putting a man in space, followed by anouncements of an ambitious drive towards space, the Bush administration collectively crapped its pants.
Presidents are so concerned with protecting their legacy. Dubyah doesn't want to be the president responsible for "losing space to the communists", but rather the president who "forged the space program ahead in a bold new direction and [insert more rhetoric here]"
Look, I think it would be really cool to have people on Mars, I just don't think it is useful in any way besides giving sci-fi geeks chubbies.
Someone else asked on/. Thinking 20 years from now, what will humans be able to do in space that robots won't be able to?
I can't believe that NASA is even considering abandoning the Hubble.
Let me get this straight. They are going to abandon a working spacecraft, that continues to revolutionize deep space imaging, on the whim of a politician spewing typical election year rhetoric?
I think anything and everything should be done to maintain the Hubble for as long as possible, or until it truely becomes obsolete. I could understand the decision if they had a far superior telescope already in space and functioning, but this seems a bit off the wall.
Not sure if I interpreted the article correctly, but it seems they won't have a superior telescope in space for 1 or 2 years after the Hubble has been abandoned?
Also, the tree hugger in me has to ask. Why are we willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to colonize other planets, when we are slowly destroying our own. Seems like our priorities are just a bit out of whack.
I think you took that a bit too literally, but I do agree with your points.
I simply meant that if recipients are not able to remove themselves from the list by SOME means.
Remember, I am referring to the points system for sentencing (Federal guidelines) once the spammer has been caught and convicted. So they get more time in jail if they didn't have the means to opt out available. Whether or not the opt out idea as a whole works or not is an entirely different discussion in my opinion.
Also, I feel email address privacy is an entirely different issue in and of itself, but definitely directly related to spam.
This may be a stretch, but making an opt out option (that actually works) a requirement MAY lead to a longer trail of clues to lead to a spammer. Now whether or not people decide to use the option is up to them. I would recommend not using it based on the currect climate, but that may change for the better as time goes on.
In the end, email user education is probably the best tool against spam. Spammers survive on the ignorance and or carelessness of end users. Just like a wide spread disease, the cure to spam may be education of the masses.
- Using harvesting software. - Not providing means to opt out. - Using stealth email address verifiers. - Forging headers, etc, etc. - Using spam as an ends to break other criminal laws.
I also feel that ISPs should take some of the heat, if not criminal, at least financially, if it can be proved they had knowledge of the operation, or are blatantly spam friendly. Sure most spammers are off shore, but lots operations start off at US ISPs before they get smart, or are forced offshore.
One last thought. I swear I get more spam now than I did before the law went into effect. Anyone else have this feeling?
Thanks for clearing that up, that makes sense to me. Sort of a split vision of the future.
There are so many Linus interviews that I don't have the time or desire to read every one of them. =)
I'm thinking there must be a theme of the corporate application developers focusing on Linus's vision for this year, whereas those interested in Linux desktop for the common man focus on Linus' long term vision.
When an article focuses on one angle or the other without being too specific about the target audience, I guess it can lead to confusion.
There seems to be a lot of different interpretations of Linus' views of the future of Linux floating around. There was a recent post on/. entitled "Linus says 2004 is the year of the Linux Desktop" or something like that. That seems to be a bit of a conflict with this article.
Can someone clarify his view for me? I don't follow Linux very closely, but am genuinely curious what Linus' real thoughts on the future of Linux for the desktop are.
It blows my mind that the recording industry has yet to realize that consumers ultimately control the direction of most markets, especially entertainment. I can see why they are so rattled. They are just a middle man between the talent and the listener.
I have noticed a trend of more artists hitting the road to actually work for a living by selling tickets to concerts. This puts the labels almost completely out of the loop.
Found it very odd that they didn't mention UPC even once in the article. Wouldn't it make sense to have support for UPC while EPC is phased in over time?
The phone is actually another Chinese population control device.
After the birth of his first child, Ho Chen takes a digital picture with his new smartphone. The smartphone senses a baby picture has been taken, and upon its return to Chen's pocket, it radiates his testicles to ensure he will not procreate ever again.
I for one do not worry about my area of coding being shipped offshore anytime soon. Not sure the best way to describe it, but I guess "small-business custom integration web application development" works.
You take the business knowledge you should have been absorbing along your career path, and do contract work for existing small businesses which require your business knowledge. These companies usually have a unique business model or idea they are trying to leverage the Internet for expanding their revenue.
There will always be small businesses that don't have the luxury of their business model fitting into one of the software packages that was pieced together my a megolithic company that outsources all of their "coding" offshore.
Believe me, there is an extreme shortage of programmers with real business knowledge in ANY area of business. I know because I have been trying to find one to hire for over a year. Not one candidate has shown more than a shred of ability to take a raw idea, and make it a real application that will integrate with the existing business.
If you can take a business idea and apply to an existing business, without having to be taught that business, you are a value added programmer, and you will always have a job. Although maybe as a project manager =)
that is the most ridiculous article i have ever read.
they spent over $300 on parts that they could have purchased for under $100, and $100s on parts that aren't even necessary, all the while skimping on drives?
i thought they were building a storage server, not a gamer and pr0n surfer's wet dream
I used to drive to Boston from Philadelphia and back at least twice a month for nearly 2 years. I definitely developed a Zen ability to pick the fastest route over the GWB. My number one trick was exactly what you said. Whichever way the arrow is pointing, go the other way.
It was almost a euphoric feeling to fly past 2 miles of cars backed up in the EXPRESS side. Just watch out for the a-holes that cut over using the emergency vehicle only breaks in the divider.
For those of you that wonder why I didn't take the TZB? Well I tried both, and the GWB was almost always faster, expecially since I was usually driving later at night. Plus, what is a more beatiful drive than the Cross-Bronx Expressway?
I don't know... quite a few of my family members have "camera phones", and they use the camera feature quite a bit.
They primarily use the camera feature to obtain a quick snapshot for photo caller id, which I think is really cool... but also to take fun pictures to send each other.
For example, my uncle and I went fishing. A mutual friend was being a baby and didn't want to come because he thought the fishing would be bad because of low tides. My uncle caught a nice redfish, so I snapped a half-way decent picture of the fish and sent it to our friend to piss him off.
Of course the image quality of the lower-end phones is no where near spectacular, but it isn't supposed to be.
It probably didn't take long for word to spread to wanted criminals and sex offenders to stay away from the cameras.
I'm sure the technology works great. Although might be serving as more of a deterant than a virtual cop.
It would be interesting to know if crime has gone down in the areas where the cameras are mounted, considering that wanted criminals may be avoiding those areas to stay off camera.
Or you could just shop at Wal-Mart. I buy name brand, quality products like Levi's for at least 50% less than at the mall. Personally I wear Wrangler jeans becaue they are exactly the same and only cost $15/pair.
They also have many high quality generic brands like Earth Shoe. I bought some Nike hiking sneaker rip-offs for $17.88, and they are some of the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned.
The trick is to not buy into the hype. If you won't wear Wrangler jeans because you think you are *supposed* to wear Levi's, then you are just throwing your hard earned money out the window.
You could download the entire Godzilla collection AND the source code to reveal the secrets of Mecha Godzilla's supreme intellect, all in under an hour from Kazaa!
Slashdot Mirror
I can tell you that 99% of the illegal or 'gray area' activities like SPAM that go on in the online porn community are likely performed by less than 1% of the companies.
A vast majority of operators I speak with are firmly against SPAM because it simply doesn't result in profit. For one, customers who join up as a result of SPAM, result is a much higher chargeback rate on credit card purchases, and in general being on the receiving end of traffic from SPAM is more than a nightamre dealing with 1000s of pissed of system admins.
Also, porn site operators want to maintain legitimate mailing lists to keep their customers informed, but that is now a pipe dream, as even customer support is difficult over e-mail because much of it gets caught up in SPAM filters.
Personally I won't do contract work for any porn company that uses SPAM because those are the ones that usually try to beat me out of a check. Also, they are the least likely to be around in 6 months, because most of them go under very quickly. In addition, I get sick of moving apps from host to host to host as they routinely get booted for sending, or being associated with SPAM.
I read an article several weeks ago where the man being interviewed, I believe he may have been European, expressed the following opinion (from memory)...
"In the future all of Europe will be like a 3rd world country, China will be the blue collar for the World, India will be the white collar worker for the world, and the US will be the innovators and middle managers"
Ok, I don't agree totally with the part about Europe, and he left quite a few innovative and important countries out of that list (Japan, Canada, etc), but I think his point was that as the economy becomes more and more global, it is inevitible that the now 'global workforce' will be broken up into the most cost effective 'divisions'.
I think the 'global workforce' has been in effect for quite a whhile now for many types of manufacturing, but with the ever quickening pace of IT accomplishments, the march towards a truely global worforce also quickens.
I think it will happen, sooner than later, and some people are in denial, and/or not willing to adapt.
Why don't they just call the 800 number and request remote hands?
In my experience, companies with a legitimate claim send out subpoenas, not threatening letters.
If I received a similar letter from SCO, it would be in the shredder before I finished reading it.
IMO that reply letter was a waste of paper and ink, but I can understand why some feel the need to 'fire back'.
I enjoyed your comments. I think you make a lot of sense.
I thought of a good analogy for your thinking. Software contractors bad mouth old software to get contracts for writing new software.
Even though the current software just needs to be updated, that won't generate nearly as much revenue as a complete re-write.
I see this all the time. Many contractors bail once you tell them you just want an update. They want to deal with suckers with deep pockets.
Or how about cell phones. Once they are out dated, just chuck 'em. Even though they work fine, the mentality is if its not the best, its crap.
I agree with you. I wouldn't be surprised if the first 'colony on the moon' was actually serving a primarily military purpose. Not sure how I feel about it though. I guess it has something to do with being the first, or someone else will.
/. Thinking 20 years from now, what will humans be able to do in space that robots won't be able to?
I think with the Chinese putting a man in space, followed by anouncements of an ambitious drive towards space, the Bush administration collectively crapped its pants.
Presidents are so concerned with protecting their legacy. Dubyah doesn't want to be the president responsible for "losing space to the communists", but rather the president who "forged the space program ahead in a bold new direction and [insert more rhetoric here]"
Look, I think it would be really cool to have people on Mars, I just don't think it is useful in any way besides giving sci-fi geeks chubbies.
Someone else asked on
Oh no, a Slashdot superstar is flaming me. I am now too afraid to post ever again (sob).
Actually, since I must now defend myself, I read this article the other day.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3982359/
And my OPINION, is that the President's new space initiative is election year rhetoric.
I can't believe that NASA is even considering abandoning the Hubble.
Let me get this straight. They are going to abandon a working spacecraft, that continues to revolutionize deep space imaging, on the whim of a politician spewing typical election year rhetoric?
I think anything and everything should be done to maintain the Hubble for as long as possible, or until it truely becomes obsolete. I could understand the decision if they had a far superior telescope already in space and functioning, but this seems a bit off the wall.
Not sure if I interpreted the article correctly, but it seems they won't have a superior telescope in space for 1 or 2 years after the Hubble has been abandoned?
Also, the tree hugger in me has to ask. Why are we willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to colonize other planets, when we are slowly destroying our own. Seems like our priorities are just a bit out of whack.
I think you took that a bit too literally, but I do agree with your points.
I simply meant that if recipients are not able to remove themselves from the list by SOME means.
Remember, I am referring to the points system for sentencing (Federal guidelines) once the spammer has been caught and convicted. So they get more time in jail if they didn't have the means to opt out available. Whether or not the opt out idea as a whole works or not is an entirely different discussion in my opinion.
Also, I feel email address privacy is an entirely different issue in and of itself, but definitely directly related to spam.
This may be a stretch, but making an opt out option (that actually works) a requirement MAY lead to a longer trail of clues to lead to a spammer. Now whether or not people decide to use the option is up to them. I would recommend not using it based on the currect climate, but that may change for the better as time goes on.
In the end, email user education is probably the best tool against spam. Spammers survive on the ignorance and or carelessness of end users. Just like a wide spread disease, the cure to spam may be education of the masses.
Bonus points should be given for:
- Using harvesting software.
- Not providing means to opt out.
- Using stealth email address verifiers.
- Forging headers, etc, etc.
- Using spam as an ends to break other criminal laws.
I also feel that ISPs should take some of the heat, if not criminal, at least financially, if it can be proved they had knowledge of the operation, or are blatantly spam friendly. Sure most spammers are off shore, but lots operations start off at US ISPs before they get smart, or are forced offshore.
One last thought. I swear I get more spam now than I did before the law went into effect. Anyone else have this feeling?
Thanks for clearing that up, that makes sense to me. Sort of a split vision of the future.
There are so many Linus interviews that I don't have the time or desire to read every one of them. =)
I'm thinking there must be a theme of the corporate application developers focusing on Linus's vision for this year, whereas those interested in Linux desktop for the common man focus on Linus' long term vision.
When an article focuses on one angle or the other without being too specific about the target audience, I guess it can lead to confusion.
There seems to be a lot of different interpretations of Linus' views of the future of Linux floating around. There was a recent post on /. entitled "Linus says 2004 is the year of the Linux Desktop" or something like that. That seems to be a bit of a conflict with this article.
Can someone clarify his view for me? I don't follow Linux very closely, but am genuinely curious what Linus' real thoughts on the future of Linux for the desktop are.
It blows my mind that the recording industry has yet to realize that consumers ultimately control the direction of most markets, especially entertainment. I can see why they are so rattled. They are just a middle man between the talent and the listener. I have noticed a trend of more artists hitting the road to actually work for a living by selling tickets to concerts. This puts the labels almost completely out of the loop.
Found it very odd that they didn't mention UPC even once in the article. Wouldn't it make sense to have support for UPC while EPC is phased in over time?
How long do you think it will take the penguins to fire back with a dedaemonizer?
Wait, would that be considered a downgrade to Linux if they already depenguinized? Or would it then be a repenguinizer?
thank you for the insult anonymous coward
The phone is actually another Chinese population control device.
After the birth of his first child, Ho Chen takes a digital picture with his new smartphone. The smartphone senses a baby picture has been taken, and upon its return to Chen's pocket, it radiates his testicles to ensure he will not procreate ever again.
I for one do not worry about my area of coding being shipped offshore anytime soon. Not sure the best way to describe it, but I guess "small-business custom integration web application development" works.
You take the business knowledge you should have been absorbing along your career path, and do contract work for existing small businesses which require your business knowledge. These companies usually have a unique business model or idea they are trying to leverage the Internet for expanding their revenue.
There will always be small businesses that don't have the luxury of their business model fitting into one of the software packages that was pieced together my a megolithic company that outsources all of their "coding" offshore.
Believe me, there is an extreme shortage of programmers with real business knowledge in ANY area of business. I know because I have been trying to find one to hire for over a year. Not one candidate has shown more than a shred of ability to take a raw idea, and make it a real application that will integrate with the existing business.
If you can take a business idea and apply to an existing business, without having to be taught that business, you are a value added programmer, and you will always have a job. Although maybe as a project manager =)
you need to look at more porn, man. maybe you will chill a bit
that is the most ridiculous article i have ever read.
they spent over $300 on parts that they could have purchased for under $100, and $100s on parts that aren't even necessary, all the while skimping on drives?
i thought they were building a storage server, not a gamer and pr0n surfer's wet dream
I used to drive to Boston from Philadelphia and back at least twice a month for nearly 2 years. I definitely developed a Zen ability to pick the fastest route over the GWB. My number one trick was exactly what you said. Whichever way the arrow is pointing, go the other way. It was almost a euphoric feeling to fly past 2 miles of cars backed up in the EXPRESS side. Just watch out for the a-holes that cut over using the emergency vehicle only breaks in the divider. For those of you that wonder why I didn't take the TZB? Well I tried both, and the GWB was almost always faster, expecially since I was usually driving later at night. Plus, what is a more beatiful drive than the Cross-Bronx Expressway?
I don't know... quite a few of my family members have "camera phones", and they use the camera feature quite a bit.
They primarily use the camera feature to obtain a quick snapshot for photo caller id, which I think is really cool... but also to take fun pictures to send each other.
For example, my uncle and I went fishing. A mutual friend was being a baby and didn't want to come because he thought the fishing would be bad because of low tides. My uncle caught a nice redfish, so I snapped a half-way decent picture of the fish and sent it to our friend to piss him off.
Of course the image quality of the lower-end phones is no where near spectacular, but it isn't supposed to be.
It probably didn't take long for word to spread to wanted criminals and sex offenders to stay away from the cameras.
I'm sure the technology works great. Although might be serving as more of a deterant than a virtual cop.
It would be interesting to know if crime has gone down in the areas where the cameras are mounted, considering that wanted criminals may be avoiding those areas to stay off camera.
Or you could just shop at Wal-Mart. I buy name brand, quality products like Levi's for at least 50% less than at the mall. Personally I wear Wrangler jeans becaue they are exactly the same and only cost $15/pair.
They also have many high quality generic brands like Earth Shoe. I bought some Nike hiking sneaker rip-offs for $17.88, and they are some of the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned.
The trick is to not buy into the hype. If you won't wear Wrangler jeans because you think you are *supposed* to wear Levi's, then you are just throwing your hard earned money out the window.
You could download the entire Godzilla collection AND the source code to reveal the secrets of Mecha Godzilla's supreme intellect, all in under an hour from Kazaa!