Have to agree with you here. Star Trek turned into a guy-friendly soap opera.
Man, I miss TNG one hour pop-psychology question style episodes where 9 out of 10 episodes neatly wrap up without any need for continuity or story arcs.
i think everyone agrees about this but its the same thing that keeps the steering wheel as a standard control mechism for the car
why change something so level when so far it works
note, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be changed, but refactoring code is one of the most ignored aspects of software and hardware development simply because you gotta include backwards compatibility
Have to disagree here. Isn't not being re-inforced, its being smacked over yur head with a hammer.
I always thought the BCC miniseries got it right - a super human, mega powerful robot, and he looks like a vending machine. (Ditto for the ship computer.)
An exellent example of how a lack of resources can often help the creative process rather than hinder it. When you can do anything you want, you can often overshoot the mark.
You're absolutely right from a 'here and now' standpoint, but there always exists a tipping point whereby the atomsphere or environment in which you work, 'well intended', or not, gets in the way of your employees actually being able to generate revenue for the business.
This is why I'm not entirely worried about this kinda stuff - ultimately, if people arn't in any mood to spend money or make money, the system fails. You see these kinds of corrections all the time, where a proactive measure designed to increase return on investment (say, through corperate computer use policies) surprisingly achieves the opposite.
I find the issue of Windows potentially forwarding Microsoft data that *I* have legal access to, but not Microsoft, much more interesting. If I mistakeningly send confidential customer information to Microsoft due to a confusing or misleading interface in Windows, who's at fault here? Do the potential costs on the economy due to the legal implications of the above supercede the benifit to the economy from MS supposedly being able to produce more stable versions of Windows?
The better we get at shuttling, aggregating, summarizing data, the more we have to codify rules surrounding data and privacy access, the more expensive and convoluted things get to maintain and enforce. At what point does the the housecleaning become more expensive than the value these capabilities provide us with? And isn't this one of those age old influences on where people choose to invest or incorperate? If it's too expensive to follow the rules you supported, you can effectively price your entire economy out of hte market.
go for it, but by now, the copyright would be useless
People seem to miss the fact that being the first to do something can often make the 'yeah, but i can do that' arguments irrelevent becayse the demand on such a small variation of an existing well known work would be, do whatever degree, proportianly smaller.
I do believe that John Cage also composed a piece in which many (dont remember how many, but 20+ rings a bell) metronomes were set at different tempos, and ran together for some predetermined amount of time. People may scoff that something that seems so trivial, but hey, we can't model physics in computers yet (or we'd all be playing midi-enabled better-than-selmer electronic saxomaphone.) These works were created awhile ago, and I don't see why the results wouldn't be interesting.
I think that science is a process of trying things to satisfy an original hypothesis through a reproducable 'perfroamnce', so it hardly seems fair to hold artists up to some standard whereby the results (ie, the performance) of their hypothesis' (ie, their compositions) must result in something mind boggling. Humans are constantly engaged in a process of coming up with an idea and seeing what happens with you do it.
Finally, musicians, artists get pumped through a similar industry that celebrities do - its depressing that the marketability of their works creates a heavy bias on the viewer or listener. Ideas can be interesting even if the final product doesn't mesh with current accepted tastes. I dont blame people for hating 'haute' culture, such as art, food, music, and such, but its not fair to say that the artists are to blame. Robert Crumb is an excellent example of somebody who can only be hurt by increased exposure and mainstream acceptance. John Cage, etc, the list goes on.
Regressive testing checks to make sure that while you're adding or fixing existing functionality, that you're not breaking other functionality in the system.
This can happen when developer A fixes a bug, and developer B either overwrites the change or assumes developer A made a mistake turns it back to the way it was.
Regressive bugs are often the product of a failure in team communication or a weak development process; idealy you'd never have any regressive bugs, but this ain't a perfect world, and I ain't a perfect coder.;)
Yet another staple of my childhood turned into a downward marketing graph. I'll be boycotting the movie, because there was absolutely not one reason to make it. It's doubly evil because the only reason the current incarnation of the movie treatment (there have been MANY) wasn't made earlier is because, sadly enough, Doulas Adams would only have let this happen over his dead body.
My LG4600 has a cable available (~50$) that allows you to use mp3s/images to your hearts content. BitPim rules. It is a bit techy tho, certainly nothing easy.
I had an older phone whos manual told you how to create ringtons on the phone (mono of course) but it was disabled on the phone!
Phone Companies are very big fans of locking the consumer out of what should be the coolest features on the phones.
> dire consequences to our failure to accomodate their insidious behaviour
Hahahahahahahaha. Thats cute. Hyperbolic, ill-informed, ideological, silly, etc, but cute.
Cookies are intrusive? Please. Processes are intrusive. ActiveX ads are intrusive. Overlay flash ads are intrusive. Cookies are nothing. If you really think cookies are Our (tm) way of putting Evil (tm) onto your computer, you should pity us for not being able to devise anything more intrusive than that.
Why not? Does being blind from birth imply a brain problem, or just a problem with the data collection device?
Or is it that not seeing the inside of the womb for 9 months damages your ability to process visual images for the rest of your life? Seems like a pretty big stretch to me.
I'm so sorry you havn't caught on yet that my actual parent post had nothing to do with ad blocking. I have no problem with ad blocking, so you 'gloating' about it is more cute than rebellious.
What argument? I've posted at least 5 replies here which pointed out that if you wanted to BLOCK ads, go for it. I got no problem with that. Its if you're not blocking them, deleting cookies isn't really that useful.
No offence, but the shouting match was started long ago. I don't like it either, but if you're working today for/most/ companies (not all, of course) you can only compete with a marketing department and advertising budget. To not advertise is suicide.
There does exist the IAB (there are a few policy papers there,) but the industry has yet to really formalize a code of strict ethics. I hear you loud and clear. I don't really think the IAB is the solution - it appears too much like a vested industry shrill to me.
I guess I can ratify my involvement with the industry knowing that I AM picky about what happens on my computer, and that I DONT condone sneaky or unethical behaviour in order to increase marketshare. If I wasn't working my job, you wouldn't want some apolitical automaton working my job. Without saying too much, I'm glad I'm here, because I get to directly influence the direction of a technology I think has wide potential for abuse.
I will note, however, that Microsoft has done a wonderful job of allowing marketers and advertisers to walk over their machines. Cookies is nothing when you consider the adware and spyware crap that actually RUNs on your computer and silently transmits information to who knows where. You point out that it is the Gators and such that really ruin it, and I couldn't agree more. Net advertising has earned a very poor reputation in part its so easy to abuse an advertising users' computer.
And in case I'm implying this, I'm not anybody important. I'm just a lone developer working in a very fascinating industry. I find seperating the moral code from the source code to be one helluva cool problem.
- advertisers are interested in actions which may occur many requests after the click
- using cookies just makes it harder to game the system. its not impossible, it just requires more technical knowledge.
- the cookie allows us to use generic clickthru tags which makes it less likely that users will get the idea to ticker with the URL parameters
- as noted above, the cookie allows us to implement frequency tracking. despite the fact that people dont believe in such a thing (see some of the other posts) I can assure you that middle to top tier advertisers almost always use frequency capping to prevent user burnout.
I would actually be interested in hearing how you propose that end users would even KNOW they were receiving targeted advertising?
You can receive targeted advertising without the need for a cookie. What differentiates non targeted vs targeted? Would you feel better if you got ads that you had no interest in at all? I mean, what if we could target *away* from users... I can't see how users would want this.
> Sorry, not buying it. More money for publisher means more ads for publisher, not fewer. The business of business is making money. In other words, "if it works, milk it."
Not true. If this were true, you would get a popup on every page you visit. Trust me, there is inventory on every site you visit that goes unsold to keep a proper balance between earning money and not alientating the sites' users.
> I've become mostly immune to advertising
Pretty hard to prove or refute this, but I will point out that there are tons of studies that point out the more subconcious effects of advertising, etc.
> Or is that exactly what you're trying to accomplish here, to tie the referrer to the ad so proper credit can be generated, even in the presence of said malware?
Yes, it is primarily used to prevent fraud and make the barrier to entry higher for defrauding tracking systems. There are a few other reasons to use cookies tho (such as tracking conversions which may happen many requests away from the click.)
> Regarding the tying of personal user identification to cookies, isn't that exactly what the buyout by doubleclick of (crap, memory failing, but there was a company with a huge personal database that doubleclick was trying to buy about two years ago.) Sigh, the ravages of age.
I remember what you're talking about, but my recollection here is that doubleclick was quickly spanked. There was a definate PR backlash.
> One thing I find incredibly distracting is motion.
No argument here. Most publisher networks allow publishers to filter out banner 'types' from their tag rotation.. ie, adult ads, casino ads, shakey ads, flash ads, 'windows dialog' ads, etc.
Hey, you definately win the most level headed and logical reply to my parent post. I can't believe how many people intepreted that as an opportunity to 'nyah, nyah, I use AdBlock.'
If we dont show you an ad, we dont need to track/count you. Its a non issue. You wanna block ads, go for it. (Hell, you can even opt out of cookies on each ad network if you like.)
But if you are seeing ads, its my informed opinion that it really is in the users' interests not to wipe ad cookies.
> You make it sound like every banner click goes to exactly the same URL, and that destination only knows where to redirect you based on what the cookie says.
Thats exactly what I'm saying. On ad networks prone to account fraud, you have to set up some hoops to prevent accounts from inflating their own stats. Obviously, its more work, but thats how its done.
To say NOTHING of conversion tracking. Do you work in the industry or are you just explaining the simplest way of counting a user and redirecting them to an ultimate URL?
Slashdot Mirror
Have to agree with you here. Star Trek turned into a guy-friendly soap opera.
Man, I miss TNG one hour pop-psychology question style episodes where 9 out of 10 episodes neatly wrap up without any need for continuity or story arcs.
i think everyone agrees about this but its the same thing that keeps the steering wheel as a standard control mechism for the car
why change something so level when so far it works
note, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be changed, but refactoring code is one of the most ignored aspects of software and hardware development simply because you gotta include backwards compatibility
Its not Volvo. Stop using that name. Its Ford.
Why be so pedantic, especially when you're not even right?
div by zero, brain explodes
Have to disagree here. Isn't not being re-inforced, its being smacked over yur head with a hammer.
I always thought the BCC miniseries got it right - a super human, mega powerful robot, and he looks like a vending machine. (Ditto for the ship computer.)
An exellent example of how a lack of resources can often help the creative process rather than hinder it. When you can do anything you want, you can often overshoot the mark.
You're absolutely right from a 'here and now' standpoint, but there always exists a tipping point whereby the atomsphere or environment in which you work, 'well intended', or not, gets in the way of your employees actually being able to generate revenue for the business.
This is why I'm not entirely worried about this kinda stuff - ultimately, if people arn't in any mood to spend money or make money, the system fails. You see these kinds of corrections all the time, where a proactive measure designed to increase return on investment (say, through corperate computer use policies) surprisingly achieves the opposite.
I find the issue of Windows potentially forwarding Microsoft data that *I* have legal access to, but not Microsoft, much more interesting. If I mistakeningly send confidential customer information to Microsoft due to a confusing or misleading interface in Windows, who's at fault here? Do the potential costs on the economy due to the legal implications of the above supercede the benifit to the economy from MS supposedly being able to produce more stable versions of Windows?
The better we get at shuttling, aggregating, summarizing data, the more we have to codify rules surrounding data and privacy access, the more expensive and convoluted things get to maintain and enforce. At what point does the the housecleaning become more expensive than the value these capabilities provide us with? And isn't this one of those age old influences on where people choose to invest or incorperate? If it's too expensive to follow the rules you supported, you can effectively price your entire economy out of hte market.
I like how you denounce the use of the word Xtreme and use the word "sensual activator" in the same post with a straight face.
If you're simply lamenting on how common place it has become to masturbate with words, you might wanna repair them glass windows and start again!
Sensual activator. Hehe. I think you've hit on the next marketing buzzword!
go for it, but by now, the copyright would be useless
People seem to miss the fact that being the first to do something can often make the 'yeah, but i can do that' arguments irrelevent becayse the demand on such a small variation of an existing well known work would be, do whatever degree, proportianly smaller.
I do believe that John Cage also composed a piece in which many (dont remember how many, but 20+ rings a bell) metronomes were set at different tempos, and ran together for some predetermined amount of time. People may scoff that something that seems so trivial, but hey, we can't model physics in computers yet (or we'd all be playing midi-enabled better-than-selmer electronic saxomaphone.) These works were created awhile ago, and I don't see why the results wouldn't be interesting.
I think that science is a process of trying things to satisfy an original hypothesis through a reproducable 'perfroamnce', so it hardly seems fair to hold artists up to some standard whereby the results (ie, the performance) of their hypothesis' (ie, their compositions) must result in something mind boggling. Humans are constantly engaged in a process of coming up with an idea and seeing what happens with you do it.
Finally, musicians, artists get pumped through a similar industry that celebrities do - its depressing that the marketability of their works creates a heavy bias on the viewer or listener. Ideas can be interesting even if the final product doesn't mesh with current accepted tastes. I dont blame people for hating 'haute' culture, such as art, food, music, and such, but its not fair to say that the artists are to blame. Robert Crumb is an excellent example of somebody who can only be hurt by increased exposure and mainstream acceptance. John Cage, etc, the list goes on.
Regressive testing checks to make sure that while you're adding or fixing existing functionality, that you're not breaking other functionality in the system.
;)
This can happen when developer A fixes a bug, and developer B either overwrites the change or assumes developer A made a mistake turns it back to the way it was.
Regressive bugs are often the product of a failure in team communication or a weak development process; idealy you'd never have any regressive bugs, but this ain't a perfect world, and I ain't a perfect coder.
Yet another staple of my childhood turned into a downward marketing graph. I'll be boycotting the movie, because there was absolutely not one reason to make it. It's doubly evil because the only reason the current incarnation of the movie treatment (there have been MANY) wasn't made earlier is because, sadly enough, Doulas Adams would only have let this happen over his dead body.
My LG4600 has a cable available (~50$) that allows you to use mp3s/images to your hearts content. BitPim rules. It is a bit techy tho, certainly nothing easy.
I had an older phone whos manual told you how to create ringtons on the phone (mono of course) but it was disabled on the phone!
Phone Companies are very big fans of locking the consumer out of what should be the coolest features on the phones.
> dire consequences to our failure to accomodate their insidious behaviour
Hahahahahahahaha. Thats cute. Hyperbolic, ill-informed, ideological, silly, etc, but cute.
Cookies are intrusive? Please. Processes are intrusive. ActiveX ads are intrusive. Overlay flash ads are intrusive. Cookies are nothing. If you really think cookies are Our (tm) way of putting Evil (tm) onto your computer, you should pity us for not being able to devise anything more intrusive than that.
Why not? Does being blind from birth imply a brain problem, or just a problem with the data collection device?
Or is it that not seeing the inside of the womb for 9 months damages your ability to process visual images for the rest of your life? Seems like a pretty big stretch to me.
Actually, I think when want to know if you're avaiable for an ass-whoopin.
And no jokes, please. It's too obvious.
You're cute when you get ideological.
-1,000,000, Redundant.
Please see other posts. I got karma to burn if it means pointing out that blocking hosts has absolutely not one thing to do with my parent post.
I'm so sorry you havn't caught on yet that my actual parent post had nothing to do with ad blocking. I have no problem with ad blocking, so you 'gloating' about it is more cute than rebellious.
What argument? I've posted at least 5 replies here which pointed out that if you wanted to BLOCK ads, go for it. I got no problem with that. Its if you're not blocking them, deleting cookies isn't really that useful.
No offence, but the shouting match was started long ago. I don't like it either, but if you're working today for /most/ companies (not all, of course) you can only compete with a marketing department and advertising budget. To not advertise is suicide.
There does exist the IAB (there are a few policy papers there,) but the industry has yet to really formalize a code of strict ethics. I hear you loud and clear. I don't really think the IAB is the solution - it appears too much like a vested industry shrill to me.
I guess I can ratify my involvement with the industry knowing that I AM picky about what happens on my computer, and that I DONT condone sneaky or unethical behaviour in order to increase marketshare. If I wasn't working my job, you wouldn't want some apolitical automaton working my job. Without saying too much, I'm glad I'm here, because I get to directly influence the direction of a technology I think has wide potential for abuse.
I will note, however, that Microsoft has done a wonderful job of allowing marketers and advertisers to walk over their machines. Cookies is nothing when you consider the adware and spyware crap that actually RUNs on your computer and silently transmits information to who knows where. You point out that it is the Gators and such that really ruin it, and I couldn't agree more. Net advertising has earned a very poor reputation in part its so easy to abuse an advertising users' computer.
And in case I'm implying this, I'm not anybody important. I'm just a lone developer working in a very fascinating industry. I find seperating the moral code from the source code to be one helluva cool problem.
the two big ones:
- advertisers are interested in actions which may occur many requests after the click
- using cookies just makes it harder to game the system. its not impossible, it just requires more technical knowledge.
- the cookie allows us to use generic clickthru tags which makes it less likely that users will get the idea to ticker with the URL parameters
- as noted above, the cookie allows us to implement frequency tracking. despite the fact that people dont believe in such a thing (see some of the other posts) I can assure you that middle to top tier advertisers almost always use frequency capping to prevent user burnout.
I would actually be interested in hearing how you propose that end users would even KNOW they were receiving targeted advertising?
... I can't see how users would want this.
You can receive targeted advertising without the need for a cookie. What differentiates non targeted vs targeted? Would you feel better if you got ads that you had no interest in at all? I mean, what if we could target *away* from users
> Sorry, not buying it. More money for publisher means more ads for publisher, not fewer. The business of business is making money. In other words, "if it works, milk it."
.. ie, adult ads, casino ads, shakey ads, flash ads, 'windows dialog' ads, etc.
Not true. If this were true, you would get a popup on every page you visit. Trust me, there is inventory on every site you visit that goes unsold to keep a proper balance between earning money and not alientating the sites' users.
> I've become mostly immune to advertising
Pretty hard to prove or refute this, but I will point out that there are tons of studies that point out the more subconcious effects of advertising, etc.
> Or is that exactly what you're trying to accomplish here, to tie the referrer to the ad so proper credit can be generated, even in the presence of said malware?
Yes, it is primarily used to prevent fraud and make the barrier to entry higher for defrauding tracking systems. There are a few other reasons to use cookies tho (such as tracking conversions which may happen many requests away from the click.)
> Regarding the tying of personal user identification to cookies, isn't that exactly what the buyout by doubleclick of (crap, memory failing, but there was a company with a huge personal database that doubleclick was trying to buy about two years ago.) Sigh, the ravages of age.
I remember what you're talking about, but my recollection here is that doubleclick was quickly spanked. There was a definate PR backlash.
> One thing I find incredibly distracting is motion.
No argument here. Most publisher networks allow publishers to filter out banner 'types' from their tag rotation
Hey, you definately win the most level headed and logical reply to my parent post. I can't believe how many people intepreted that as an opportunity to 'nyah, nyah, I use AdBlock.'
If we dont show you an ad, we dont need to track/count you. Its a non issue. You wanna block ads, go for it. (Hell, you can even opt out of cookies on each ad network if you like.)
But if you are seeing ads, its my informed opinion that it really is in the users' interests not to wipe ad cookies.
> You make it sound like every banner click goes to exactly the same URL, and that destination only knows where to redirect you based on what the cookie says.
Thats exactly what I'm saying. On ad networks prone to account fraud, you have to set up some hoops to prevent accounts from inflating their own stats. Obviously, its more work, but thats how its done.
To say NOTHING of conversion tracking. Do you work in the industry or are you just explaining the simplest way of counting a user and redirecting them to an ultimate URL?