Actually, spamming of blogs/message boards is successfully used by spammers. The goal however is not that the spam will be seen by people reading the blog, but rather that the spammer's website will get a high ranking on google.
It works on the same principle as googlebombing (like the miserable failure thing), except you post stuff like video poker (so that, in this example, google searches for "video poker" lead to the spammer's website). It works because many bloggers use default settings for everything, which makes it easy to write a spamming script. All you need is a list of URLs of blog sites running the same blogging software.
As for the comment spam being deleted, the spammers easily fly under the radar by focusing on older stories that no one (except Google's spiders) is looking at.
One last thing, just to be clear -- the for-profit spammers aren't using the GNAA scripts. Those scripts focus on posting thousands of comments, all to the same weblog. Such a crapflood would be ignored by PageRank and therefore be useless. The for-profit spam scripts focus on posting one comment each to as many different weblogs as possible.
I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business.
Many bookstores make more money selling coffee than they do selling books. If the small record stores want to stay in business, perhaps they should take a hint from the bookstores and open a coffee shop in the store?
Actually... you could make so much money selling coffee you wouldn't need to sell any CDs at all. So here's my business idea: Put a coffee shop in your record store. If someone comes in, buys a cup of coffee, and burns some CDs, look the other way just like Borders looks the other way when someone buys a cup of coffee and reads a book they don't intend to buy.
Just make sure it's a USED cd store so customers don't have to bother with that pesky shrinkwrap on new CDs.
Do you feel safe sticking $100+ into a vending machine? I mean, it's a pain enough to try and stick a single dollar bill into a Coke machine, but try sticking five or six twenties in there.
I take it you've never been to Vegas. The slot machines accept any kind of currency you want to put in, including $100 bills. And they're easy to use, because they use higher quality bill acceptors than the coke machines use. I would imagine that if software vending machines ever accepted cash (which those who have RTFA know the ones CompUSA is using don't) they would spend the extra money to get the better quality bill acceptors like the ones the casinos use.
Also, it's not just casinos. Subway systems, grocery store automated checkouts, etc. all do a better job of accepting your money than the cheap dollar bill acceptors on coke machines.
I don't know about lawsuits, but a number of European car makers (BMW, Porsche, etc.) regularly pay fines for failing to comply with the CAFE standards because it would cost them a lot more to increase their cars' gas mileage than it does to just pay the fine.
According to Wil here's an industry that doesn't care about it's customers.
Wrong. Remember that the TV networks' customers are the advertisers, not the viewers. The networks care very much about the things that are important to their customers (viewer demographics, ratings, etc.)
Viewers aren't customers of the television industry any more than prisoners are the customers of the private prison industry.
Don't pay ten million dollars or more for a computer from IBM when...
The CDC 1604 can be yours for five easy payments of just $299,999! Just call the number on your screen!
BUT WAIT!
If you order the revolutionary new CDC 1604 within the next seven minutes, we'll knock one full payment off the purchase price! That's right, this revolutionary new computing technology can be yours for just four easy payments of just $299,999! Call now, operators are standing by!
Oh, wait, that's just American piss water "beer" too... too bad the companies that make real beer don't have enough money to buy stadium naming rights.
If you can find a way of copying my Ipod that doesn't deprive me of the ability to use my Ipod, I won't complain. In fact, how would I even know you did anything?
On the other hand, if you steal my Ipod (so I can't use it anymore) I'll call the cops, just as a record label would call the cops if you broke into their building and destroyed all their copies of the latest britney spears album.
It varies by state, and it varies by the type of gambling you're doing. In the US, casino gambling is usually 18 or 21 depending on the state you're in (Nevada is 21 btw) but lotteries and horse racing are almost always 18.
This site has more details on minimum gambling ages in different US states.
Also remember this is only the US. The minimum drinking age of 21 is extremely rare (Europe is 18 or 16 depending on the country, Canada is 18 or 19 depending on the province, Mexico is 18, Asia has various drinking ages almost always less than 21... Even Singapore (which bans importation of chewing gum) has a drinking age of 18). Gambling laws outside the US are also generally much less strict, with minimum ages of 18 (or less) and allowing gambling in many more places than in the US (in most parts of the US, you have to drive to an Indian reservation to gamble in a casino).
This is why the only gambling you should ever do online is sports betting. It's unlikely that some offshore casino is going to be able to fix a major sporting event.
Most of all, don't play online poker or anything else where you're playing against other gamblers that might cheat. Cheating is bad enough in online games where you're not playing for money; you can imagine how bad the cheating problem must be if $5 or $10 or $100 a hand is at stake.
Will the product be used in connection with weapons of mass destruction, i.e. nuclear applications, missile technology, or chemical or biological weapons purposes?
Yes
No
Do they actually think the terrorists are going to say "yes" here? If our enemies are that dumb, we don't have much to worry about anyway.
Or maybe Bush is hoping someone (doesn't matter who) will select "Iraq" as the country where the product will be used, say "yes" to the WMD question, and Dubya will have his "proof" that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction.
Not to mention credit bureau's, the BMV (or DMZ depending on your state), etc. etc.. Stop spreading your FUD
I've heard stories about people in Korea not seeing their family members for 50 years because of the DMZ, but I never realized they were just waiting in line for their driver's license. And I thought is was bad wasting a Saturday afternoon at the DMV/MVD/BMV/whatever. Guess I shouldn't complain.
1. Meteorite hits Earth. It hits an empty lot, so nobody is hurt or killed. 2. Unfortunately, the empty lot is in downtown Islamabad. Pakistani government mistakes it for an incoming nuclear strike from India, and retaliates with missile strikes on Bangalore and Calcutta. 3. Indian government sees incoming missiles, retaliates against Pakistan. 4. Lather rinse repeat. 5. One of the missiles goes off course and hits North Korea. 6. North Korea thinks it's from the US, and hits Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. 7. Bush assumes the missiles are coming from France, and orders nuclear strikes on Paris. 8. World War III goes on like this for 24 more hours. 9. Human race (and everything else except cockroaches) extinct. 10. ??? 11. Profit!
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, spamming of blogs/message boards is successfully used by spammers. The goal however is not that the spam will be seen by people reading the blog, but rather that the spammer's website will get a high ranking on google.
It works on the same principle as googlebombing (like the miserable failure thing), except you post stuff like video poker (so that, in this example, google searches for "video poker" lead to the spammer's website). It works because many bloggers use default settings for everything, which makes it easy to write a spamming script. All you need is a list of URLs of blog sites running the same blogging software.
As for the comment spam being deleted, the spammers easily fly under the radar by focusing on older stories that no one (except Google's spiders) is looking at.
One last thing, just to be clear -- the for-profit spammers aren't using the GNAA scripts. Those scripts focus on posting thousands of comments, all to the same weblog. Such a crapflood would be ignored by PageRank and therefore be useless. The for-profit spam scripts focus on posting one comment each to as many different weblogs as possible.
There's absolutely nothing in Antarctica for the cops to hide behind.
Minimum qualifications:
Must be licensed to practice medicine in this state
Ten or more years experience as a surgeon
1,500 hours or more lifetime video game experience
Must be available to work nights, weekends and holidays
Finished GTA3 or GTA: Vice City
U.S. Citizen
Pass drug screening
Pass Level 9, Height 5 in Tetris
Starting salary for this position is two million PP monthly.
I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business.
Many bookstores make more money selling coffee than they do selling books. If the small record stores want to stay in business, perhaps they should take a hint from the bookstores and open a coffee shop in the store?
Actually... you could make so much money selling coffee you wouldn't need to sell any CDs at all. So here's my business idea: Put a coffee shop in your record store. If someone comes in, buys a cup of coffee, and burns some CDs, look the other way just like Borders looks the other way when someone buys a cup of coffee and reads a book they don't intend to buy.
Just make sure it's a USED cd store so customers don't have to bother with that pesky shrinkwrap on new CDs.
Do you feel safe sticking $100+ into a vending machine? I mean, it's a pain enough to try and stick a single dollar bill into a Coke machine, but try sticking five or six twenties in there.
I take it you've never been to Vegas. The slot machines accept any kind of currency you want to put in, including $100 bills. And they're easy to use, because they use higher quality bill acceptors than the coke machines use. I would imagine that if software vending machines ever accepted cash (which those who have RTFA know the ones CompUSA is using don't) they would spend the extra money to get the better quality bill acceptors like the ones the casinos use.
Also, it's not just casinos. Subway systems, grocery store automated checkouts, etc. all do a better job of accepting your money than the cheap dollar bill acceptors on coke machines.
I don't know about lawsuits, but a number of European car makers (BMW, Porsche, etc.) regularly pay fines for failing to comply with the CAFE standards because it would cost them a lot more to increase their cars' gas mileage than it does to just pay the fine.
Did anyone ever come back from vacation to find $10,485,750 worth of tickets on their windshield?
According to Wil here's an industry that doesn't care about it's customers.
Wrong. Remember that the TV networks' customers are the advertisers, not the viewers. The networks care very much about the things that are important to their customers (viewer demographics, ratings, etc.)
Viewers aren't customers of the television industry any more than prisoners are the customers of the private prison industry.
Lucky for Slashdot that Paypal doesn't let you donate a kick in the ass.
Hey, that sounds like a good idea for an April Fools joke! I think I'll write it up so Slashdot can post it next year.
The 8% sales tax comes to $55.92 per Linux installation.
I tried it on Fox too... did you notice how all the news stories showed up on the far right side of the screen?
Don't pay ten million dollars or more for a computer from IBM when...
The CDC 1604 can be yours for five easy payments of just $299,999! Just call the number on your screen!
BUT WAIT!
If you order the revolutionary new CDC 1604 within the next seven minutes, we'll knock one full payment off the purchase price! That's right, this revolutionary new computing technology can be yours for just four easy payments of just $299,999! Call now, operators are standing by!
Have you been taking math lessons from the RIAA?
Baz (Dryer 3) has been off for 8 days.
Doesn't look like there's much of a shortage of dryers at MIT...
Or (more likely) maybe that one's just broken. Someone should call maintenance.
Oh, wait, that's just American piss water "beer" too... too bad the companies that make real beer don't have enough money to buy stadium naming rights.
If you can find a way of copying my Ipod that doesn't deprive me of the ability to use my Ipod, I won't complain. In fact, how would I even know you did anything?
On the other hand, if you steal my Ipod (so I can't use it anymore) I'll call the cops, just as a record label would call the cops if you broke into their building and destroyed all their copies of the latest britney spears album.
It varies by state, and it varies by the type of gambling you're doing. In the US, casino gambling is usually 18 or 21 depending on the state you're in (Nevada is 21 btw) but lotteries and horse racing are almost always 18.
This site has more details on minimum gambling ages in different US states.
Also remember this is only the US. The minimum drinking age of 21 is extremely rare (Europe is 18 or 16 depending on the country, Canada is 18 or 19 depending on the province, Mexico is 18, Asia has various drinking ages almost always less than 21... Even Singapore (which bans importation of chewing gum) has a drinking age of 18). Gambling laws outside the US are also generally much less strict, with minimum ages of 18 (or less) and allowing gambling in many more places than in the US (in most parts of the US, you have to drive to an Indian reservation to gamble in a casino).
Bush will have broadband in everyone's home about the same time he lands humans on Mars.
Windows XP costs $299. Linux costs $699. Therefore Linux is better.
This is why the only gambling you should ever do online is sports betting. It's unlikely that some offshore casino is going to be able to fix a major sporting event.
Most of all, don't play online poker or anything else where you're playing against other gamblers that might cheat. Cheating is bad enough in online games where you're not playing for money; you can imagine how bad the cheating problem must be if $5 or $10 or $100 a hand is at stake.
Or what about people who are from "Idaho"? No one ever wants to take on this persistent myth.
I'm reminded of why I quit buying their stuff and started buying better music instead.
Will the product be used in connection with weapons of mass destruction, i.e. nuclear applications, missile technology, or chemical or biological weapons purposes?
Yes
No
Do they actually think the terrorists are going to say "yes" here? If our enemies are that dumb, we don't have much to worry about anyway.
Or maybe Bush is hoping someone (doesn't matter who) will select "Iraq" as the country where the product will be used, say "yes" to the WMD question, and Dubya will have his "proof" that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction.
Not to mention credit bureau's, the BMV (or DMZ depending on your state), etc. etc.. Stop spreading your FUD
I've heard stories about people in Korea not seeing their family members for 50 years because of the DMZ, but I never realized they were just waiting in line for their driver's license. And I thought is was bad wasting a Saturday afternoon at the DMV/MVD/BMV/whatever. Guess I shouldn't complain.
1. Meteorite hits Earth. It hits an empty lot, so nobody is hurt or killed.
2. Unfortunately, the empty lot is in downtown Islamabad. Pakistani government mistakes it for an incoming nuclear strike from India, and retaliates with missile strikes on Bangalore and Calcutta.
3. Indian government sees incoming missiles, retaliates against Pakistan.
4. Lather rinse repeat.
5. One of the missiles goes off course and hits North Korea.
6. North Korea thinks it's from the US, and hits Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.
7. Bush assumes the missiles are coming from France, and orders nuclear strikes on Paris.
8. World War III goes on like this for 24 more hours.
9. Human race (and everything else except cockroaches) extinct.
10. ???
11. Profit!