As an employee of a major (so called)"spyware" company, I guess I'm not the guy to change your minds on this site. But I've got to say, you seem to keep making the same error. Not all "Spyware" companies are as bad as each other. Slashdot likes to pretend we're all cowboys who should be "rounded up" and "run out of town" or "lynched".
Our company is pretty clear what we do, we trade our program for some customer info. No drive by installations, no obfuscated terms and conditions, no download and install of other programs.
I don't blame you guys for your attitude, it must suck to work tech support on some of the machines that are worst affected by the cowboys. But we're not all like that. Remember that. At its heart we're just trying to make a living by offerring our customers better advertising, like Google Adwords. We'd all like to see legislation to herd out the cowboys. You've got more to worry about privacy issues from other things, people just use our companies as a smokescreen.
It's a pretty open secret that your IP address is logged and shared among vast sectors of cyberspace, to piece together your browsing habits, porn proclivities, etc. Hell, the technology was probably set up by you guys. Compared with that, is our buying of your browsing habits so much worse? get some priorities.
Spyware has a caring face, and this voice is not heard enough on Slashdot. For more info, look at a previous post I made on this subject here. Thanks for reading.
Mobile phones are on their way out. In 5 years, it's clear that no-one will need or want a mobile phone. No matter how manufacturers try to paper over the cracks with the latest "Nth Generation" all singing all dancing wonder phone, mobile phones are dead in the water. Soon they will be viewed as an amusing 20th century anachronism like we view trouser presses.
You see, the whole concept is simply flawed. Mobile phones are gradually becoming more and more like laptops. People will realise that if they want the functionality.. they can just buy a laptop. With Wi-fi points covering more and more of the country and VoiP protocols becoming more sophisticated and inexpensive, the niche will be gone.
In Cornwall, England, we seem to be strangely ahead of the game. No one I know has a mobile phone. We are extremely well covered for Wi-fi and access is practically free. When we want to take or place a call, we simply drive or walk to a hotspot and go through the laptop. Needless to say, we can surf, post to Slashdot, view pornography and play games on the laptops, and we aren't restricted to nasty two colour, miniscule screens. The other obvious advantage is the sound. Even 'polyphonic' ringtones sound shit. J. S. Bach is turning in his grave. Even the slightly tinny speakers on my laptop play a better startup ringtone than the phones.
If you're reading this and have shares in a Telecom company, or a secondary company which supplies Telecom companies or even invests in Telecom companies, I would seriously sell your shares as soon as possible. If Cornwall is any judge (and it is), they will only go downhill from here. I personally read a message similar to this one, just before the great Internet Cornwall.com bubble burst, and I regret to this day that I didn't believe the poster and take out my money immediately. Learn from my mistakes.
Telecom executives are literally queueing up to jump off skyscrapers at this present time as their long term business plans begin the last spiral down the plughole. Like a fat pig in freefall, mobile phones have no chance.
Golf balls with dimples DO NOT fly further than perfectly smooth balls. The dimples are present on golf balls for historical reasons only. The increase in dimpled golf ball flight was seen in earlier, flawed, experiments because 1)The golf balls once dimpled were slightly lighter, and 2) The people hitting the spherical balls were tired after hitting the dimpled one. Check the Urban Legends site here for a fuller and more comprehensive write up.
Spam is the USA's problem. Greater than 70% of the spam I recieve in my inbox comes from the USA (stats courtesy of the fantastic Spamhaus). The CAN-SPAM legislation is too lenient and unenforcable, it cannot stop the problem. Hell, the US courts are now sidingwith the spammers!!
It's an unpopular opinion, but the USA is to blame for the SPAM epidemic. When they get their own house in order, the worldwide spam problem will stop, I guarantee it. Until we see some effective legislation, Spam will continue to be a greater and greater problem.
There must surely be prosecutions resulting from this hostile action by the Spanish Tourist industry. No matter how little respect you have for the average beer and boobs tourist, I think getting them drunk then shoving a RFID implant in them is too harsh. Fair enough if these people had actually volunteered for this, their choice, but to prey on them like some overbloated Spanish parasite is repellant. I will be boycotting onions until this blatant illegality is quashed.
I am sick of the attitude on this site to Directed Advertising Programs (DAP) or
"Spyware" to give it the biased, pejorative term you all favour. There is
nothing wrong with Directed Advertising, or the programs we use to create it.
There is, however, a directed campaign to destroy this profitable market, egged
on by people who view software only in terms of their own political motivations
and zealotry. It is sad that the predominant opinion on this site has been so
easily swayed into thinking as directed, but perhaps not surprising. A brief
glance at the history of Slashdot has shown that dissenting voices are rapidly
quelled and expelled.
The main tactic of this set of opponents is to characterise the whole of
the DAP field as being identical to the behaviour of the worst behaving
and borderline criminal companies operating in the DAP field. Every movement has
its lunatic fringe, and Directed Advertising is no different. Saying that every
Directed Advertising company has software which breaks your computer, or does
stealth drive by installations, or repeatedly reinstalls itself without
permission, is simply untrue. It is similar to proclaiming that every Open
Source project or figure is a pirate, virus writer or criminal, because there
are likewise those fringe elements that give everyone a bad name.
Looking at Directed Advertising rationally, we see it is not the horrific
invasion of our privacy it is painted as. At its heart, Directed Advertising
piggybacks on a useful application that people wish to install. Often the
snobbery and arrogance of DAP opponents is evident here, as they sneer at users
who might want a novelty on their desktop. Now, according to common Slashdot
groupthink, to offer this useful program for a small dollar amount, or to
release it as shareware for a limited period, is OK. Not brilliant, because it
is not *heavenly chorus* Open Sourced *heavenly chorus* (with all-too-common
handout message begging for donations), but OK.
Instead of these two options, DA programs are offered as free, as in $, but
"cost" something: if you would like to use our program, we would like to "trade"
use of the program in return for information that would allow us to display more
effective advertising. In our product we offer, this deal is spelt
out to customers repeatedly. It involves the trading of an immaterial
asset; your preferences, the things you buy, for a material one; our program.
It is thus analogous to the GPL: it trades an immaterial asset; your freedom
to do as you wish with a GPL product (it restricts it), with a material one; the
GPL'd software itself. We trade our software(material) for your consumer
information(immaterial). Thus we create wealth. This concept is familiar,
and approved of by nearly all Slashbots. But they do not take the time to look
at DAP in this light. It is easier to give a knee jerk response than consider
the rights and wrongs of something. It is always easier to be guided by raw
emotion, however misplaced, rather than cool logic.
Where is the loser in this deal? The customer gets two benefits, the use of the
program itself, and better advertising. Who really wants to be bombarded by
advertising for things you will never need nor buy, totally unsuited to your
preferences? This suits neither you or the companies themselves. (To those that
say how much they hate advertising in all its forms and would rather not see
any, I say: Who is paying for the majority of the bandwidth on the popular sites
you enjoy? Infrastructure costs money. Serving a page to somebody costs money.
The Internet is free at the point of use, once the appropriate equipment has
been bought, thanks in large part to advertising.) Ask yourself really: when the
choice is between 1)unsuitable advertising or 2)interesting and useful
advertising which do you prefer? Google's adwords are often held up as a model
for good advertising. We are the same.
It is a popular but erroneous misconception that our customers are gullible,
st
I'm glad to see such projects like this get off the ground, to show the public that those who study the Klingon race as revealed in Star Trek AREN'T the stereotype of a bunch of fat losers with too much time on their hands.
I am not sure I really appreciate the levity they show though. Although it is useful to make the odd "wacky quip", it is important to stress that the study of the Klingon language and literature is a serious, difficult subject. We true scholars tend to look down on those who learn a few words to throw around at conventions, without appreciating the subtlety and beauty of the Klingon language.
As we say.."Dr'ad Muhr. Drahd Mhay." (DRUH-AHD MOO-UHR. DRUH-AHD MEEY), which means, roughly, "To each warrior, his own Keldar Beast." The significance of which could be usefully translated to "To each his own", though that does not capture the full spirit of the original Klingon. Alas, few modern languages do!
I've used Firefox before and think its a great browser, but I have a number of worries about it. I mentioned a few of them before. I've looked into it a bit more now, and the more I discovered the more worried I've become. Basically Firefox has the capacity to give very bad press to many more Open Source products, to tar them with it's dirty brush, should certain features of the browser be publicised widely.
That's a contentious point, so before you moderate me as flamebait please give me an opportunity to explain. My previous post on this subject resulted me in getting terrible karma because people unfairly called me a troll. If it is trolling to point out potential problems that we should all be wary of then, yes, I am a troll.
A brief summary of my previous post would be to say that certain features of Firefox make it too easy to misuse the web browser to surf for pornography. It was rightly pointed out at that time by respondants that the power to misuse came from the individual, not the computer program. But I've since discovered that actual Mozilla supported extensions such as this one, "Magpie" or this one "Prev/Next image", which are actually given web space and bookmarked by default by the Mozilla developers themselves can only be useful in the context of searching for and downloading hardcore or violent pornography. For the Mozilla developers to support these two extensions is similar to them offering a "Porno" button theme. If they would not support a sexually explicit theme on their homepage, why are they giving space to extensions which allow you to easily fetch pornographic pictures? Let me reiterate: these extensions are only useful in that context. What is the difference? Does this not give indirect approval of these activities? I think it does.
Pornography is destroying the Internet and the moral health of this nation. By offering openly these functionalities, by publicising and supporting them as mainstream, the Mozilla Developers are commiting a grave moral error. How long is it until some paid Microsoft shill notices them and publicly calls Firefox "the browser of the perverted"? That would be an entirely supportable conclusion. And it would reflect badly not only on Mozilla, but other Open Source projects too.
Check out the extensions for yourself and try to justify them as anything other than porn gatherers. Then join me in mailing the Firefox team, to help them back on the right path (No reply as of 04/24, and it has been about a month). Having a major open source project associate itself publicly with perversion and pornography, with the exploitation and degradation of women, is no way to gain respect.
I used to be a huge fan of Apple. I'd surf for the latest Apple news. I'd evangelise friends and family about the beautiful design and simplicity of interface. I used to defend Apple through post and mod (on this forum and others) against what I percieved as the trollish attacks of people who were basically jealous that we could afford what they wanted. I saw myself as one of the elite, a cut above the rest. But recently - what's happened to MY Apple? Where did it go, the company that got where it was by creating great products and respecting us customers?
Firstly, I couldn't understand why the company I had invested in and believed in would do something so crass as to associate with the RIAA. To take part in the humiliation of kids who were forced to appear. Forced, by the threat of huge legal costs to settle whether they're guilty or not. Hell, our legal system seems to think kids that young are too young to understand the full implications of their actions. So why did Apple associate itself with the exploitation of those minors? Why was no-one fired...who is running the Apple PR strategy for god's sake?
Remember the Big Brother Apple Superbowl ad? It was like a breath of fresh air. It gives me goosebumps even now to watch it. Compare and contrast with the RIAA/ iTunes one to see how far we've fallen. I feel like Apple has become almost like Microsoft, a corporate behemoth who'll rip off anyone for a quick buck.
And as for the shabby way they treated Karelia, the developers of Watson, well I thought it was breathtaking. Are Apple overwhelmed with great developers for their platforms or something? No, I didn't think so. So to steal innovation from Watson and release it as part of the OS in Sherlock? That's not only stupidly short sighted, wrong and counter productive, it's Microsoftian. Then to repeat it again with Proteron and LiteSwitch X.... disgusted is the only word. And that stuff about suing the Netflix shareware guy? So much for corporate ethics.
Despite what this article says I've got to say this about the iPod - it's cheap and nasty. I was less annoyed by the shocking battery problems (I was one of the few who were lucky enough not to have any) than the cheap and tinny earphones. Even the Mini seems to be badly hacked together, once you get past the admittedly elegant outer stylings. They have a good product in the iPod - but it should have been great. The old Apple would have made sure it was perfect before releasing it. The new Corporate Apple is throwing these things out before they're ready. I feel any respect I used to have for Apple has just evaporated.
Apple started as a bunch of hobbyists who held themselves to high standards not only morally but also in the design of their computer systems and software. Apple still tries to pretend it is like that, but it seems to me it's more and more like a disgusting and depraved monster hiding behind a smiling mask.
Baystar were convinced by MS to invest in SCO, yes. This suited Microsoft, to fund a company with a anti-Linux policy. Did Baystar know what they were getting into? I don't personally think so. I guess when you're an investment company and the Redmond beast suggests you look at another company as a good punt, then that's going to have some weight. Whether a company has IT litigation experience is irrelevant: you can buy litigation experience. It's called lawyers.
There is a smokescreen here. Baystar have, I think, realised how weak SCO's case is. I think the suggestions that Darl is going to be moved or fired point that he's going to be the scapegoat in the future when SCO gets flushed out of the bowl.
Microsoft are NOT going to buy SCO, as it makes no sense whatsoever. They don't want the SCO business, and they don't want any SCO liabilities. They might try to prop them up by buying licenses or punting more investors their way, but I don't see either of those things happening. Firstly, they got too much publicity from doing both of these things. And secondly, what VC firm is going to touch SCO with a barge pole, after what has happened to Baystar?
Oh, and I guarantee 60% of what I've just said will probably be wrong.
There is no mention of the fact that, for the first time in history, we have two openly gay astronauts together on the space station circling the earth. When you contrast that with the publicity given to the first British woman in space, I think we can all see the agenda and bias in this reporting.
Russian Gennady Padalka and U.S. Michael Fincke are both openly practicing homosexuals, and proud of it. It's a shame this historic moment has been overlooked deliberately by the media. Though I am surprised at Slashdot, which is generally extremely sympathetic and adult about the homosexual phenomenon.
It's a shame when campaigners for gay rights, who have been lobbeying so insistently for this opportunity, finally succeed in getting gays into space, only to be ignored and underreported by all serious news venues.
This thing is clearly a chick magnet, and if you can't get them on the first pass, you can always crank it up to 88 mph and go back in time to try it again!
Please use phrases in the story outline the average slashdotter can understand. All this talk of "chicks" and making a "pass" is incomprehensible gobbledegook to the average Slashdot nerd. Though "you can always crank it" is perfectly OK.
P.S. The birds won't be impressed by a replica DeLorean, just like they were probably unimpressed with a glow in the dark TRON costume. Except that hacker goth chick Raven.
Subject: Quantum Cryptography prevents fund transfer: please help
Minister of Hope Church
Plot 555
Misau Street
PMB 437
Garki, Abuja, FCT NIGERIA
Dear Mr. Sir,
REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of top cryptographic scientist Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African to create PGP key in 1991. He became very depressed when got no messages, but amassed large fund as consultant military encryptionist to prevent interception of top messages in late nineties.
In the 14-years since he has been working, he has accumulated pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in an encrypted trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. Unfortunately expert accidentally forgot domestic cryptic key and cannot access legitimate funds from Nigeria. In order to access the his bank account we need your assistance.
Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account or subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.
Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20 percent of the transferred sum, while 10 percent shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction. You will be mandated to remit the balance 70 percent to other accounts in due course.
Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us include downpayment in this financial quarter.
Please acknowledge the receipt of this message via my direct number 234 (0) 9-234-2220 only.
Yours Sincerely, Father Bakare Tunde
Pastor, Hope Church
As ever, Britain shows the rest of the world just how to do news properly. The good old BBC, paid through the British Taxpayers TV tax, immune to influence and dedicated to accuracy and quality just can't be beat by the tinpot commercial wasteland that most countries call news. Yep, thanks to the wonders of the Internet even Americans could in theory be well informed.
...Czechoslovakian port of Commodore 64 BASIC interface finally arrives.
This says it all really. There ARE no Hungarian Apple users. It is April again already, yes?
Slightly off-topic: KDE and Gnome
on
GNOME for Grandma
·
· Score: 0, Interesting
I don't want to start a flamewar here, but isn't there a huge duplication of effort and needless competition created by having two competing windows managers? It seems to me at some point the two will have to be merged, for the good of linux as a whole. Really, I don't want any Gnome fans or KDE zealots arguing over which one to use, but for my 2 cents I'd go with Gnome. Although it is uglier it is (seems?) more functional and stable.
I don't understand why there are two anyway? I saw in the news X is forking too, Redmond must be rubbing their hands in glee. How hard is it for these guys to work together? That's the beauty of e-mail, because you get as long as you need to write a reply, it's always less confrontational than face to face. And these guys can't even get on civilly even with e-mail!
In fact, to follow your point to its logical conclusion. where are the Slashbots recommending that GPL-using companies "find a better business model."?
I understand why the GPL needs to be used now, so Microsoft can't just take all our innovation, repackage it and sell it with advertising. But when Microsoft is gone, will we be left with something a bit dangerous?
I mean, this pooling of labour thing is very admirable, but as a lasting solution haven't we shown the world there are better, more efficient systems? It just seems a bit unsuitable, it makes me uncomfortable. Capitalism has got us where we are, it seems a shame to throw it away in an overreaction to the danger of Microsoft.
I just heard the sad news about Christina Aguilera. It's really sad such a vibrant and sexy young girl has been afflicted with haemorrhoids. I couldn't help but feel it was inevitable with the sortofclothes she wore - it's simply too dangerous to get your ass that cold.
I'm glad they're airbrushing her heavy reddish grapes out of her latest music video. Apparently they peek out when she's wearing towel shorts. At least she can continue her work while seeking treatment. Anyway, good luck Christina.
I'm so sick of the shit written on this site about "spyware" or Directed Advertising as I prefer to call it.
There is nothing wrong with Directed Advertising, get it?
But it steals personal information
No it doesn't. First of all, how is it stealing when we clearly state in our EULA what we're doing? Is it stealing if I come up and ask you for 10 bucks and you give me it? No.
Secondly, users want our softwares functionality They like our little monkey. They want a useful search bar. Now we can 1)charge them $ for it or 2)"Charge" them no money, but rather ask them if we can use their data to make adverts which are more successful. We go down the second route. So they pay no money up front, and get better adverts about stuff they might be interested in. So everyone wins, except those arsehole privacy advocates who can't believe people might actually like and want our software. It's their choice. But you feel the need to impose your choice on them. To fill their heads with horro stories. Never mind that this is totally unconstituitional.
The GPL is a license which makes use of the same principle. Instead of charging people to use GPL'd software, you "charge" them by agreeing to set free their own personal hard work and sweat. Thus anyone who supports the GPL understands and supports this "intellectual currency". But when we do it, it's bad. Hypocrites.
Hey - wait, it also breaks my computer
No shit. I bet I could point to 100 times as many Open Source projects out there that could severly fuck up your computer. But that's OK, is it? Slashdot continually presents the extremely bad directed advertising programs as the norm, like telling ghost stories to kids, just to give us all a bad name. None of our software breaks anything. One or two real amateurs way out on the fringe do fuck things up. But don't tar us all with the same brush.
My company, who I've been working for for the past 6 years, doesn't do that sort of thing. We're up front, and we're rewarded with a huge database of information that people have chosen to give us as a result. So stop spreading the FUD. Let's face it, if we offered you a job, you would jump at the chance. And who exactly is writing all this shitty code? Hypocrites.
Slashdot Mirror
As an employee of a major (so called)"spyware" company, I guess I'm not the guy to change your minds on this site. But I've got to say, you seem to keep making the same error. Not all "Spyware" companies are as bad as each other. Slashdot likes to pretend we're all cowboys who should be "rounded up" and "run out of town" or "lynched".
Our company is pretty clear what we do, we trade our program for some customer info. No drive by installations, no obfuscated terms and conditions, no download and install of other programs.
I don't blame you guys for your attitude, it must suck to work tech support on some of the machines that are worst affected by the cowboys. But we're not all like that. Remember that. At its heart we're just trying to make a living by offerring our customers better advertising, like Google Adwords. We'd all like to see legislation to herd out the cowboys. You've got more to worry about privacy issues from other things, people just use our companies as a smokescreen.
It's a pretty open secret that your IP address is logged and shared among vast sectors of cyberspace, to piece together your browsing habits, porn proclivities, etc. Hell, the technology was probably set up by you guys. Compared with that, is our buying of your browsing habits so much worse? get some priorities.
Spyware has a caring face, and this voice is not heard enough on Slashdot. For more info, look at a previous post I made on this subject here. Thanks for reading.
Mobile phones are on their way out. In 5 years, it's clear that no-one will need or want a mobile phone. No matter how manufacturers try to paper over the cracks with the latest "Nth Generation" all singing all dancing wonder phone, mobile phones are dead in the water. Soon they will be viewed as an amusing 20th century anachronism like we view trouser presses.
You see, the whole concept is simply flawed. Mobile phones are gradually becoming more and more like laptops. People will realise that if they want the functionality.. they can just buy a laptop. With Wi-fi points covering more and more of the country and VoiP protocols becoming more sophisticated and inexpensive, the niche will be gone.
In Cornwall, England, we seem to be strangely ahead of the game. No one I know has a mobile phone. We are extremely well covered for Wi-fi and access is practically free. When we want to take or place a call, we simply drive or walk to a hotspot and go through the laptop. Needless to say, we can surf, post to Slashdot, view pornography and play games on the laptops, and we aren't restricted to nasty two colour, miniscule screens. The other obvious advantage is the sound. Even 'polyphonic' ringtones sound shit. J. S. Bach is turning in his grave. Even the slightly tinny speakers on my laptop play a better startup ringtone than the phones.
If you're reading this and have shares in a Telecom company, or a secondary company which supplies Telecom companies or even invests in Telecom companies, I would seriously sell your shares as soon as possible. If Cornwall is any judge (and it is), they will only go downhill from here. I personally read a message similar to this one, just before the great Internet Cornwall
Telecom executives are literally queueing up to jump off skyscrapers at this present time as their long term business plans begin the last spiral down the plughole. Like a fat pig in freefall, mobile phones have no chance.
Golf balls with dimples DO NOT fly further than perfectly smooth balls. The dimples are present on golf balls for historical reasons only. The increase in dimpled golf ball flight was seen in earlier, flawed, experiments because 1)The golf balls once dimpled were slightly lighter, and 2) The people hitting the spherical balls were tired after hitting the dimpled one. Check the Urban Legends site here for a fuller and more comprehensive write up.
Spam is the USA's problem. Greater than 70% of the spam I recieve in my inbox comes from the USA (stats courtesy of the fantastic Spamhaus). The CAN-SPAM legislation is too lenient and unenforcable, it cannot stop the problem. Hell, the US courts are now siding with the spammers!!
It's an unpopular opinion, but the USA is to blame for the SPAM epidemic. When they get their own house in order, the worldwide spam problem will stop, I guarantee it. Until we see some effective legislation, Spam will continue to be a greater and greater problem.
There must surely be prosecutions resulting from this hostile action by the Spanish Tourist industry. No matter how little respect you have for the average beer and boobs tourist, I think getting them drunk then shoving a RFID implant in them is too harsh. Fair enough if these people had actually volunteered for this, their choice, but to prey on them like some overbloated Spanish parasite is repellant. I will be boycotting onions until this blatant illegality is quashed.
I am sick of the attitude on this site to Directed Advertising Programs (DAP) or "Spyware" to give it the biased, pejorative term you all favour. There is nothing wrong with Directed Advertising, or the programs we use to create it. There is, however, a directed campaign to destroy this profitable market, egged on by people who view software only in terms of their own political motivations and zealotry. It is sad that the predominant opinion on this site has been so easily swayed into thinking as directed, but perhaps not surprising. A brief glance at the history of Slashdot has shown that dissenting voices are rapidly quelled and expelled.
The main tactic of this set of opponents is to characterise the whole of the DAP field as being identical to the behaviour of the worst behaving and borderline criminal companies operating in the DAP field. Every movement has its lunatic fringe, and Directed Advertising is no different. Saying that every Directed Advertising company has software which breaks your computer, or does stealth drive by installations, or repeatedly reinstalls itself without permission, is simply untrue. It is similar to proclaiming that every Open Source project or figure is a pirate, virus writer or criminal, because there are likewise those fringe elements that give everyone a bad name.
Looking at Directed Advertising rationally, we see it is not the horrific invasion of our privacy it is painted as. At its heart, Directed Advertising piggybacks on a useful application that people wish to install. Often the snobbery and arrogance of DAP opponents is evident here, as they sneer at users who might want a novelty on their desktop. Now, according to common Slashdot groupthink, to offer this useful program for a small dollar amount, or to release it as shareware for a limited period, is OK. Not brilliant, because it is not *heavenly chorus* Open Sourced *heavenly chorus* (with all-too-common handout message begging for donations), but OK.
Instead of these two options, DA programs are offered as free, as in $, but "cost" something: if you would like to use our program, we would like to "trade" use of the program in return for information that would allow us to display more effective advertising. In our product we offer, this deal is spelt out to customers repeatedly. It involves the trading of an immaterial asset; your preferences, the things you buy, for a material one; our program. It is thus analogous to the GPL: it trades an immaterial asset; your freedom to do as you wish with a GPL product (it restricts it), with a material one; the GPL'd software itself. We trade our software(material) for your consumer information(immaterial). Thus we create wealth. This concept is familiar, and approved of by nearly all Slashbots. But they do not take the time to look at DAP in this light. It is easier to give a knee jerk response than consider the rights and wrongs of something. It is always easier to be guided by raw emotion, however misplaced, rather than cool logic.
Where is the loser in this deal? The customer gets two benefits, the use of the program itself, and better advertising. Who really wants to be bombarded by advertising for things you will never need nor buy, totally unsuited to your preferences? This suits neither you or the companies themselves. (To those that say how much they hate advertising in all its forms and would rather not see any, I say: Who is paying for the majority of the bandwidth on the popular sites you enjoy? Infrastructure costs money. Serving a page to somebody costs money. The Internet is free at the point of use, once the appropriate equipment has been bought, thanks in large part to advertising.) Ask yourself really: when the choice is between 1)unsuitable advertising or 2)interesting and useful advertising which do you prefer? Google's adwords are often held up as a model for good advertising. We are the same.
It is a popular but erroneous misconception that our customers are gullible, st
I'm glad to see such projects like this get off the ground, to show the public that those who study the Klingon race as revealed in Star Trek AREN'T the stereotype of a bunch of fat losers with too much time on their hands.
I am not sure I really appreciate the levity they show though. Although it is useful to make the odd "wacky quip", it is important to stress that the study of the Klingon language and literature is a serious, difficult subject. We true scholars tend to look down on those who learn a few words to throw around at conventions, without appreciating the subtlety and beauty of the Klingon language.
As we say.."Dr'ad Muhr. Drahd Mhay." (DRUH-AHD MOO-UHR. DRUH-AHD MEEY), which means, roughly, "To each warrior, his own Keldar Beast." The significance of which could be usefully translated to "To each his own", though that does not capture the full spirit of the original Klingon. Alas, few modern languages do!
"Flipper" is much better than "Prev/Next image" by the way.
I've used Firefox before and think its a great browser, but I have a number of worries about it. I mentioned a few of them before. I've looked into it a bit more now, and the more I discovered the more worried I've become. Basically Firefox has the capacity to give very bad press to many more Open Source products, to tar them with it's dirty brush, should certain features of the browser be publicised widely.
That's a contentious point, so before you moderate me as flamebait please give me an opportunity to explain. My previous post on this subject resulted me in getting terrible karma because people unfairly called me a troll. If it is trolling to point out potential problems that we should all be wary of then, yes, I am a troll.
A brief summary of my previous post would be to say that certain features of Firefox make it too easy to misuse the web browser to surf for pornography. It was rightly pointed out at that time by respondants that the power to misuse came from the individual, not the computer program. But I've since discovered that actual Mozilla supported extensions such as this one, "Magpie" or this one "Prev/Next image", which are actually given web space and bookmarked by default by the Mozilla developers themselves can only be useful in the context of searching for and downloading hardcore or violent pornography . For the Mozilla developers to support these two extensions is similar to them offering a "Porno" button theme. If they would not support a sexually explicit theme on their homepage, why are they giving space to extensions which allow you to easily fetch pornographic pictures? Let me reiterate: these extensions are only useful in that context. What is the difference? Does this not give indirect approval of these activities? I think it does.
Pornography is destroying the Internet and the moral health of this nation. By offering openly these functionalities, by publicising and supporting them as mainstream, the Mozilla Developers are commiting a grave moral error. How long is it until some paid Microsoft shill notices them and publicly calls Firefox "the browser of the perverted"? That would be an entirely supportable conclusion. And it would reflect badly not only on Mozilla, but other Open Source projects too.
Check out the extensions for yourself and try to justify them as anything other than porn gatherers. Then join me in mailing the Firefox team, to help them back on the right path (No reply as of 04/24, and it has been about a month). Having a major open source project associate itself publicly with perversion and pornography, with the exploitation and degradation of women, is no way to gain respect.
I used to be a huge fan of Apple. I'd surf for the latest Apple news. I'd evangelise friends and family about the beautiful design and simplicity of interface. I used to defend Apple through post and mod (on this forum and others) against what I percieved as the trollish attacks of people who were basically jealous that we could afford what they wanted. I saw myself as one of the elite, a cut above the rest. But recently - what's happened to MY Apple? Where did it go, the company that got where it was by creating great products and respecting us customers?
Firstly, I couldn't understand why the company I had invested in and believed in would do something so crass as to associate with the RIAA. To take part in the humiliation of kids who were forced to appear. Forced, by the threat of huge legal costs to settle whether they're guilty or not. Hell, our legal system seems to think kids that young are too young to understand the full implications of their actions. So why did Apple associate itself with the exploitation of those minors? Why was no-one fired...who is running the Apple PR strategy for god's sake?
Remember the Big Brother Apple Superbowl ad? It was like a breath of fresh air. It gives me goosebumps even now to watch it. Compare and contrast with the RIAA/ iTunes one to see how far we've fallen. I feel like Apple has become almost like Microsoft, a corporate behemoth who'll rip off anyone for a quick buck.
And as for the shabby way they treated Karelia, the developers of Watson, well I thought it was breathtaking. Are Apple overwhelmed with great developers for their platforms or something? No, I didn't think so. So to steal innovation from Watson and release it as part of the OS in Sherlock? That's not only stupidly short sighted, wrong and counter productive, it's Microsoftian. Then to repeat it again with Proteron and LiteSwitch X.... disgusted is the only word. And that stuff about suing the Netflix shareware guy? So much for corporate ethics.
Despite what this article says I've got to say this about the iPod - it's cheap and nasty. I was less annoyed by the shocking battery problems (I was one of the few who were lucky enough not to have any) than the cheap and tinny earphones. Even the Mini seems to be badly hacked together, once you get past the admittedly elegant outer stylings. They have a good product in the iPod - but it should have been great. The old Apple would have made sure it was perfect before releasing it. The new Corporate Apple is throwing these things out before they're ready. I feel any respect I used to have for Apple has just evaporated.
Apple started as a bunch of hobbyists who held themselves to high standards not only morally but also in the design of their computer systems and software. Apple still tries to pretend it is like that, but it seems to me it's more and more like a disgusting and depraved monster hiding behind a smiling mask.
Baystar were convinced by MS to invest in SCO, yes. This suited Microsoft, to fund a company with a anti-Linux policy. Did Baystar know what they were getting into? I don't personally think so. I guess when you're an investment company and the Redmond beast suggests you look at another company as a good punt, then that's going to have some weight. Whether a company has IT litigation experience is irrelevant: you can buy litigation experience. It's called lawyers.
There is a smokescreen here. Baystar have, I think, realised how weak SCO's case is. I think the suggestions that Darl is going to be moved or fired point that he's going to be the scapegoat in the future when SCO gets flushed out of the bowl.
Microsoft are NOT going to buy SCO, as it makes no sense whatsoever. They don't want the SCO business, and they don't want any SCO liabilities. They might try to prop them up by buying licenses or punting more investors their way, but I don't see either of those things happening. Firstly, they got too much publicity from doing both of these things. And secondly, what VC firm is going to touch SCO with a barge pole, after what has happened to Baystar?
Oh, and I guarantee 60% of what I've just said will probably be wrong.
There is no mention of the fact that, for the first time in history, we have two openly gay astronauts together on the space station circling the earth. When you contrast that with the publicity given to the first British woman in space, I think we can all see the agenda and bias in this reporting.
Russian Gennady Padalka and U.S. Michael Fincke are both openly practicing homosexuals, and proud of it. It's a shame this historic moment has been overlooked deliberately by the media. Though I am surprised at Slashdot, which is generally extremely sympathetic and adult about the homosexual phenomenon.
It's a shame when campaigners for gay rights, who have been lobbeying so insistently for this opportunity, finally succeed in getting gays into space, only to be ignored and underreported by all serious news venues.
Shame on you all.
This thing is clearly a chick magnet, and if you can't get them on the first pass, you can always crank it up to 88 mph and go back in time to try it again!
Please use phrases in the story outline the average slashdotter can understand. All this talk of "chicks" and making a "pass" is incomprehensible gobbledegook to the average Slashdot nerd. Though "you can always crank it" is perfectly OK.
P.S. The birds won't be impressed by a replica DeLorean, just like they were probably unimpressed with a glow in the dark TRON costume. Except that hacker goth chick Raven.
Subject: Quantum Cryptography prevents fund transfer: please help
Minister of Hope Church
Plot 555
Misau Street
PMB 437
Garki, Abuja, FCT NIGERIA
Dear Mr. Sir,
REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of top cryptographic scientist Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African to create PGP key in 1991. He became very depressed when got no messages, but amassed large fund as consultant military encryptionist to prevent interception of top messages in late nineties.
In the 14-years since he has been working, he has accumulated pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in an encrypted trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. Unfortunately expert accidentally forgot domestic cryptic key and cannot access legitimate funds from Nigeria. In order to access the his bank account we need your assistance.
Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account or subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.
Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20 percent of the transferred sum, while 10 percent shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction. You will be mandated to remit the balance 70 percent to other accounts in due course.
Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us include downpayment in this financial quarter.
Please acknowledge the receipt of this message via my direct number 234 (0) 9-234-2220 only.
Yours Sincerely, Father Bakare Tunde
Pastor, Hope Church
I wonder how long before a kit is ready to convert regular houses?
I wonder how long before...BOOOOOM!
There's an opt out list for junk snail mail in the UK. It helps a bit.
As ever, Britain shows the rest of the world just how to do news properly. The good old BBC, paid through the British Taxpayers TV tax, immune to influence and dedicated to accuracy and quality just can't be beat by the tinpot commercial wasteland that most countries call news. Yep, thanks to the wonders of the Internet even Americans could in theory be well informed.
Go, go gadget BOOKMARK
Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.
I think I've found the problem...
...Czechoslovakian port of Commodore 64 BASIC interface finally arrives.
This says it all really. There ARE no Hungarian Apple users. It is April again already, yes?
I don't want to start a flamewar here, but isn't there a huge duplication of effort and needless competition created by having two competing windows managers? It seems to me at some point the two will have to be merged, for the good of linux as a whole. Really, I don't want any Gnome fans or KDE zealots arguing over which one to use, but for my 2 cents I'd go with Gnome. Although it is uglier it is (seems?) more functional and stable.
I don't understand why there are two anyway? I saw in the news X is forking too, Redmond must be rubbing their hands in glee. How hard is it for these guys to work together? That's the beauty of e-mail, because you get as long as you need to write a reply, it's always less confrontational than face to face. And these guys can't even get on civilly even with e-mail!
In fact, to follow your point to its logical conclusion. where are the Slashbots recommending that GPL-using companies "find a better business model."?
I understand why the GPL needs to be used now, so Microsoft can't just take all our innovation, repackage it and sell it with advertising. But when Microsoft is gone, will we be left with something a bit dangerous?
I mean, this pooling of labour thing is very admirable, but as a lasting solution haven't we shown the world there are better, more efficient systems? It just seems a bit unsuitable, it makes me uncomfortable. Capitalism has got us where we are, it seems a shame to throw it away in an overreaction to the danger of Microsoft.
I just heard the sad news about Christina Aguilera. It's really sad such a vibrant and sexy young girl has been afflicted with haemorrhoids. I couldn't help but feel it was inevitable with the sort of clothes she wore - it's simply too dangerous to get your ass that cold.
I'm glad they're airbrushing her heavy reddish grapes out of her latest music video. Apparently they peek out when she's wearing towel shorts. At least she can continue her work while seeking treatment. Anyway, good luck Christina.
I'm so sick of the shit written on this site about "spyware" or Directed Advertising as I prefer to call it.
There is nothing wrong with Directed Advertising, get it?
But it steals personal information
No it doesn't. First of all, how is it stealing when we clearly state in our EULA what we're doing? Is it stealing if I come up and ask you for 10 bucks and you give me it? No.
Secondly, users want our softwares functionality They like our little monkey. They want a useful search bar. Now we can 1)charge them $ for it or 2)"Charge" them no money, but rather ask them if we can use their data to make adverts which are more successful. We go down the second route. So they pay no money up front, and get better adverts about stuff they might be interested in. So everyone wins, except those arsehole privacy advocates who can't believe people might actually like and want our software. It's their choice. But you feel the need to impose your choice on them. To fill their heads with horro stories. Never mind that this is totally unconstituitional.
The GPL is a license which makes use of the same principle. Instead of charging people to use GPL'd software, you "charge" them by agreeing to set free their own personal hard work and sweat. Thus anyone who supports the GPL understands and supports this "intellectual currency". But when we do it, it's bad. Hypocrites.
Hey - wait, it also breaks my computer
No shit. I bet I could point to 100 times as many Open Source projects out there that could severly fuck up your computer. But that's OK, is it? Slashdot continually presents the extremely bad directed advertising programs as the norm, like telling ghost stories to kids, just to give us all a bad name. None of our software breaks anything. One or two real amateurs way out on the fringe do fuck things up. But don't tar us all with the same brush.
My company, who I've been working for for the past 6 years, doesn't do that sort of thing. We're up front, and we're rewarded with a huge database of information that people have chosen to give us as a result. So stop spreading the FUD. Let's face it, if we offered you a job, you would jump at the chance. And who exactly is writing all this shitty code? Hypocrites.
Note to mods: -1 Not Groupthink. 'Kthnks
I never even realised there was an Open Source Spyware project.