Sorry to nit-pick, but it's not 80% coming from Windows Machines... It's 80% coming from compromised Windows machines... The other 20% may also be Windows or Mac, or Linux... OK, it's most likely Windows, but their aren't really any stats to support what the other 20% actually are... The 80% cited are compromised boxes which means their owners most likely are unaware what their systems are actually doing.
As for the "spyware"... Well... That's just more aggrevation that we can all agree to loath.
I'd like to think that MS Windows was losing a little more ground, but I think they're still well above 90% at the consumer level. (No really, I don't have anything against MS... I just think that monoculture is probably not the best path on the global scale.)
Actually, if you think about it, you have to wonder what other systems account for the other 20%... Seriously... Most alternative computer users (eg *nix, Mac, etc...) are less suceptable to being "p0wned", and their users are too busy trying to get legitamate work done to be messing about with the menial task of spreading spam.
I'm only guessing, but spammers (for lack of any better talents) probably use MS Windows too (but not the "zombie" kind) to hurl out their pitards. If you take that into account, spam can probably be traced back to an MS Windows machine nearly 100% of the time.
I will confess: Like most statistics, these are just my personal observations, and have no known degree of accuracy.
Yeah, I remember visiting that site a while back when I was trying to find the origin for the "Fanimutation" SWF of "Yatta". They did a great cover of TMBG's "Destination Moon" too. A nice site to kill a little time.
As for the article post, the link is currently pointing to 24.204.89.28 which belongs to Cablelynx... Live and learn! I guess it's not too bright of an idea to put a cable modem link on the front page of Slashdot... Of course, you could put the link in a sig at the end of a reply and watch it get completely ignored...
Or is that why the article emphasises the [emphasis added] "customer's live fingerprint scan," in case ripped off thumbs begin to make it out into the wild. On the bright side, I suppose that they can rest easily knowing that illegal songs can only outnumber legal songs by a mere 10:1 (Give or take a few for the superpolydigital and digitless among us).
Sorry to quote so much for a digression, but as a person who had a couple of fingers severed (fortunately recovered and reattached in my case), I can't help but wonder what implications this would have for those who are actually missing their digits.
OK, sounds grizzly and all, but yeah... People do lose their body parts once in a while. And what happens when you accidentally get burned or cut on your fingers and have to have them bandaged up so they can heal? What if they become scarred?
Of course the article itself is mostly the same old FUD I've seen before, and it was pretty light on the actual details. Somehow I doubt the ultimate viability of biometrics such as this because at some point a class action suit by either the congenitally deformed or physically injured would result in a massive hemmorage of profits by any company looking to adopt such measures.
Iris scanners for those with cataracts, anybody? I'll just start carrying a few band-aids around and apply them immediately before dealing with fingerprint scanners: "Sorry, I've got a really nasty cut that's infected with a bunch of puss and gore! Wanna see? No? Didn't think so...":-P
Without patents to protect drug makers they'd never want to spend the hundreds of millions needed to develop a drug.
Every once in a great while, the pharmaceuticals come up with a halfway decent idea, but how many different prescription allergy medications do we really need? Louis Pasture came up with the first vaccine for anthrax well over a century ago, and yet Bayer is sitting on the Cipro patent like it was something new. We've got a quazi-effective erection pill, a myriad of anti-depressants that kill your erection, and yet there's still no cure for cancer. Virtually every diet pill ever conceived has eventually been pulled off the shelf, and heaven forbid they come up with a cure for stupidity, less the people wake up and smell the burning coffee.
In the area of pharmaceuticals, all we've seen are reformulations and rehashed drugs that just "shift" the side effects around. "Ask your doctor about prescription Foo to see if it's right for you."
It's not modern medicine. It's the same old scam that's been around since the days of the apothicary... Only back then they sold drugs that were potent enough to kill you quicker.
Yeah, they need patents to protect their investments, because next year they'll have to invent another pill to replace the last one that was shown to increase the risk of liver disease, kidney failure, breast cancer, prostate enlargement, fatigue, and poverty.
And if you're dependant upon a presription drug just to stay alive... Oh buddy... Do I feel for those people. That's gotta suck to know that every day of your life you have to "milk Thufir's cat". Something tells me that you're probably going to defend those big corperations and their patents with your life... Litterally.
(You could defend them with mod points too, but it's still obvious that you're shilling.)
I'm primarily an end user, not a developer. If someone wanted to release OSS with some sort of obfuscated spy-code then I certainly wouldn't know it. Sure, someone out there would probably discover it, and shriek about it, or just rewrite it, or deal with it in their own personal way... Open Source Software just means you can see the source code, (modify it, recompile it, etc...). It doesn't necessarily mean you can understand it.
Even if I could comprehend other people's source code, it's pretty dry reading, and far too many lines for me to sit down and emerse myself in the plot.
Personally I'm surprised that you don't see more spyware under OSS... But then... How would *I* know?
I was thinking the exact same thing. According to the post "because eyeBlog uses eye-contact to start and stop recording, users do not need to sift through hours of footage to find interesting segments". After seeing these bulky goggles, I'm thinking "Who would want to have a conversation with someone wearing such silliness?"
The person who wears this will have social hadicap, and will most likely be the unspoken subject of conversations when people say, "Whatever you do, don't make eye contact."
I agree with you, it's just not practical enforce that much control over night. But let's look at a post we might see in 5 years:
Obviously what we need are armed security gaurds maintaining a bead on the general population at all times. They should shoot first and ask questions never in order to prevent any possible terrorist action. Also, civilians should be required to wear leg-iron restraints at all times as a visible sign of their patriotism and compliance with the law. Those without said manicals would be shot because only a terrorist or potential terrorist would want to defy the law in such a way.
While we're at it, let's just make sure there's a convenient exclusion clause in their for those who have significant power and influence, because we wouldn't want to burden them with any additional responsibilities.
Of course if I were to make such a statement today, a lot of you people would think I was being a troll... But one day someone will seriously propose such an action, it will gain support, and people will actually have to come up with compelling reasons as to why this is not a good idea. Their arguments will likely be dismissed as the rants of a tinfoil-hat-wearing alarmist, but someone might listen and stave off the mandate just long enough to get voted out of office.
Environmentally speaking the lithium currently in use is probably more of a threat, and cadmium is most definitely not something you want to eat.
We produce tons of sulfur waste every day simply because it's an abundant element to begin with. It may not smell nice when mixed with other things (as pure sulfur in its crytal form is nearly oderless), but it doesn't pose a significant health risk.
Heavy metals, petrolium distilates, and other exotic chemicals are still the greatest threat to landfill leaching.
All in all, with only 300 charges, I'll keep my fingers crossed they come up with something better.
What really annoys me is that fact that there are millions of morons out there who will "pirate" commercial software (and especially dog crap like Windows) when they could legitimately obtain free or open source software that's just as good or better for the same or less money and effort.
As a satisfied Mandrake user, I'd love to completely agree with you, but my experience has been daunting so far as finding worthy candidates for OSS. Here in Ohio there are a lot of people who have a limited concept as to what a computer is, how it can be used, and what it takes to maintain one. Many of them get ahold of an old Pentium or *gasp* 486, and then come to me to see if I can get them hooked up to the internet.
"[So-and-so] told me you might be able to get me online with that free e-mail... Jeeno... Jano..."
"Juno."
"Yeah, that's it! So can you help me out?"
With those old machines, I could install a non-licensed copy of 95/98/Me, but they don't want to put any money into it at all. (I don't even think anyone offers free access anymore.) Hense, I've adopted a "Sorry, I'm using Linux" line that gets me off the spot.
As for those people who go out and buy new machines, it automatically comes with the MS tax preinstalled, so their system is legit and qualified for the updates no matter what. Occasioanlly they still come to me crying about some problem, and once again I tell them, SIUL. To be honest, I don't really know the XP environment enough to be of significant help like I was for the 95/98/Me versions.
Now could I "convert" them over to Linux? DOUBTFUL. They get so branded, that they act lost and on the verge of tears if they can't find those familiar icons to their spyware infested programs and proprietary internet connections.
Again, they are cheap to the point that even with OSS you can't make the machine useful. (I'm sorry, but without internet access, I fail to see a computer as anything but an orphaned box in the middle of a wasteland.)
It's not about the rabble wanting to break the law. They just want the internet for nothing, and that's just not the way it works... Even with OSS like Linux.
If anyone ever shows genuine interest, I'd be more than happy to share Lycoris, Mandrake, Knoppix, or any other free OSS with them, set them up, and help them along when they got stuck... But this is Ohio. I might as well teach Shakespear to chimps.
Well, not the article itself mind you: Make a +5 comment and have a hyperlink to your site in the post. I prefer to use it in the sig in case I ever have the need to change/remove it.
The bots *DO* read Slashdot comments, and give preferential treatment to posts that receive high scores. If you don't know how to add anything constructive to a conversation, you probably shouldn't attempt this, because it's a waste of time for yourself and everyone else.
In my own experience, it works like a charm to attract the bots like Google, Slurp, AJ, and the like, however it generally does little to attract actual people who are mostly too wary of potential troll links.
Don't get me wrong, I like getting visited by Google, but I'd prefer real people. I suppose having a site worth visiting wouldn't hurt either...;-)
You know, that's about the heart of it right there. Not only do I feel that my letter is not going to be considered, I also get the nagging feeling that it gets placed into a permanent folder that will be used against me in the future should they ever need to demonize those on the "wrong" side of an issue.
It's not the current adminisration that scares me as much as the future administration that gets elected via overwhelming individual apathy and power hungry corporate greed.
You are right. It was an easy read, and it was sensible. If this bill is to survive, they will probably have to amend it with at least 40 more pages of unrelated pro-corporate incomprehensible rights-stripping text.
But who am I kidding. This bill couldn't make it if you gave every member of congress a free blowjob from the Victoria Secret's model pool.
I'll just enjoy the wonderful warm fuzzy feeling it gave me to just imagine that common sense would prevail.
Which goes back to my OP, and the parent of my OP. Because of idiots exploiting the simplistic nature of the advertising model, the honest people will suffer, and everyone will lose in this issue of "Tragedy of the Commons Today".
Highering people (regardless of nationality) to click on your site's ads is akin to promising a company to hang their flyers on people's doors, but instead throwing them in the trash.
Perhaps the real solution is one that has existed in the real world all along. Simply investigate a prospective website before wasting your money trying to advertise on them. There's still a possibility of getting conned, but you'll find that in all aspects of life.
Shall we eat at the usual "Taco Bell" or "Akbars Taco Palace" in the abandoned gas station? Once you're sick of eating at T.B., you're going to be tempted to try Akbar's, but you'll most likely want to ask a few people if they've tried it, and your first visit will probably be more of a taste-test rather than a chummle-fest that could lead to uncertain disaster... You know how it goes.
What gets me is that making an honest living usually doesn't require any more effort than making a dishonest living, but people who use dishonesty in the hopes to get ahead only make it harder in the future for everyone including themselves because no one can trust anyone anymore.
"So come on down to Akbar's Taco Palace- 'It's a trap! (TM)'"
Pay per sale would be nice, but it's not entirely a practical solution. Here's why:
Assume I'm honest and don't hire "Click Through Inflators (TM)", and I make a business deal to post XYZ's ad on my site. (Just play along... I don't have ads on my site.)
User N clicks on it and visits XYZ.
They look around, and are interested, but need time to think about it.
They bookmark the page, or just make a mental note of the site.
Now they close the browser, clear the cookies, terminate the connection, and go to bed...
A day or two later User N is still thinking about what (s)he saw.
They dial up their ISP, and type in the URI, Click the Bookmark, or just Google for the page.
Now they make the purchase, but my website is not going to be able to receive credit because the user's IP is dynamic, their cookies where munched by an anti-spyware program, and the method they used to return to the page was not through my site because my site would most likely rotate ads.
Now *I'm* the one getting ripped off. It was my bandwidth that introduced the customer to the seller, and I get *nothing* for it.
The business model fails because I have no incentive at all now to put their ad on my page knowing that I can only get paid if there is a definitive paper-trailed sale attributed to my site, and that can be rather difficult to impossible for me to prove if the sale isn't absolutely spontaineous. Just imagine the horror of a deal if the advertising site is actually a brick and mortor type of establishment. I can't wait for Taco Bell to post an ad banner on my page. YUM!
But if you're still sure about this, then I'll call my local TV station and ask them to show my ads, and I'll pay them according to my revenue. I'm sure they'll jump at the offer.
And it potentially closes another chapter in what looked to be a promising business model. Some sites rely completely on advertising for their upkeep. Without it, they're just a hobby.
Even though the idea is to use those non-American Indians as if they were somehow inferior, they are still humans and still have every bit the ability to identify and overcome computer automated Turing tests, so "unqualified leads" won't be so easily detected.
What a shame... Advertisers will realize they are being scammed, and potentially abandon the use of 3rd part websites since there would be no automated way to detect the difference between a human who's actaully interested and a human who'd just hired to look interested. (Yeah, they could try to see them via IP address blocks, but even a mildly talented troll can overcome this...)
I rather liked the idea that you could do what you enjoyed and have advertisers pay for it all. Now advertisers won't trust you because they think they're gonig to get burnt. It just goes to show you, any idiot can burn down a barn.
I was just wondering... What was Google's response to SCO's approach? I'd like to think is was FOAD.
Other than that, I find the whole Google speculation game to be a bit curious. It almost reminds me of my elementary school days on the playground when we had contests to see who could top the last guy's claim while still maintaining some credibility.
In the coming weeks, I wouldn't be surprised to see reports that Google has more servers than all other servers combined, and that their bandwidth is twice that of the entire federal government.
What their competitor did is tantamount to hanging an advertisement for their business under AXA's streetside sign.
Not quite. Since the "Adwords" are apprearing on Google's site it's more like a competitor renting the billboard next to the one that AXA rented.
I don't see what the big deal is myself... Google is a search result engine, and should be free to post results as they see fit. Don't like it? Simple-- Don't promote or use them.
But to SUE them?! Nonsense.
I wonder if Google has insurance against frivolous lawsuits like this. Maybe they should call AXA to see if they offer that kind of policy.:-P
From the article:"The tendency to treat computers as human could lead to people favouring or even blindly accepting computer-generated information, to the point of depending on it over superior alternatives, warned Prof Sundar."
This is clearly demonstrated daily on sites like Slashdot, Fark, and the many, many other sites that post links to the news they want you to view. Of course, I'm partial to Slashdot, but I imagine there are those who actually read "The Onion" and think it's real too.
I think the scary part is where the good professor actually cites the existance of "superior alternatives" without actually giving examples of them. Would he consider T.V. to be "superior"?
Yeah, I've got a nice wardrobe full of tinfoil hats, but I don't trust any single source unless their information is consistent with information I already know to be accurate. Even then I prefer to have multiple sources that don't look like "cut and paste" jobs.
And yeah... I'm seriously in love with my computer too. I built it and named it "Belchfire".
Most people are sheep and blindly follow "the directions," even when those directions result in nonfunctioning items. They blame the nonfunctionality on themselves, rather than on the design.
I will disagree on one point. The sheep these days never accept blame, and make claim that the designer was an idiot, and it's obviously just junk.
And I do agree with your point about OSS. Many times it would almost take a genious to follow those directions to the letter, but even if you did, it would most likely fail. You have to think on your feet to spot little details for your particular situation (as everyone has their own unique situation) and make adjustments.
The musical genius recognizes that the markings on the paper are one genius talking to another genius, saying, "Hey, look at this idea," and interprets the music.
That reminds me of Mozart's "Ein musikalischer Spass". Only now people are starting to realize the true genious behind it. Ironic that any
"bird brain" could have figured it out.;-)
Naturally, I'm partial to jokes... even subtle ones.
Slashdot Mirror
It couldn't be anymore dangerous than checking your e-mail in Outlook...
Perhaps this will jog your memory? ;-)
But you're reading Sla--
Oh nevermind... :-/
Maybe, but then they will get a tax exempt status for being a religion, and maybe even qualify for funding under the "faith based initiative".
As for the "spyware"... Well... That's just more aggrevation that we can all agree to loath.
Actually, if you think about it, you have to wonder what other systems account for the other 20%... Seriously... Most alternative computer users (eg *nix, Mac, etc...) are less suceptable to being "p0wned", and their users are too busy trying to get legitamate work done to be messing about with the menial task of spreading spam.
I'm only guessing, but spammers (for lack of any better talents) probably use MS Windows too (but not the "zombie" kind) to hurl out their pitards. If you take that into account, spam can probably be traced back to an MS Windows machine nearly 100% of the time.
I will confess: Like most statistics, these are just my personal observations, and have no known degree of accuracy.
As for the article post, the link is currently pointing to 24.204.89.28 which belongs to Cablelynx... Live and learn! I guess it's not too bright of an idea to put a cable modem link on the front page of Slashdot... Of course, you could put the link in a sig at the end of a reply and watch it get completely ignored...
Sorry to quote so much for a digression, but as a person who had a couple of fingers severed (fortunately recovered and reattached in my case), I can't help but wonder what implications this would have for those who are actually missing their digits.
OK, sounds grizzly and all, but yeah... People do lose their body parts once in a while. And what happens when you accidentally get burned or cut on your fingers and have to have them bandaged up so they can heal? What if they become scarred?
Of course the article itself is mostly the same old FUD I've seen before, and it was pretty light on the actual details. Somehow I doubt the ultimate viability of biometrics such as this because at some point a class action suit by either the congenitally deformed or physically injured would result in a massive hemmorage of profits by any company looking to adopt such measures.
Iris scanners for those with cataracts, anybody? I'll just start carrying a few band-aids around and apply them immediately before dealing with fingerprint scanners: "Sorry, I've got a really nasty cut that's infected with a bunch of puss and gore! Wanna see? No? Didn't think so..." :-P
Every once in a great while, the pharmaceuticals come up with a halfway decent idea, but how many different prescription allergy medications do we really need? Louis Pasture came up with the first vaccine for anthrax well over a century ago, and yet Bayer is sitting on the Cipro patent like it was something new. We've got a quazi-effective erection pill, a myriad of anti-depressants that kill your erection, and yet there's still no cure for cancer. Virtually every diet pill ever conceived has eventually been pulled off the shelf, and heaven forbid they come up with a cure for stupidity, less the people wake up and smell the burning coffee.
In the area of pharmaceuticals, all we've seen are reformulations and rehashed drugs that just "shift" the side effects around. "Ask your doctor about prescription Foo to see if it's right for you."
It's not modern medicine. It's the same old scam that's been around since the days of the apothicary... Only back then they sold drugs that were potent enough to kill you quicker.
Yeah, they need patents to protect their investments, because next year they'll have to invent another pill to replace the last one that was shown to increase the risk of liver disease, kidney failure, breast cancer, prostate enlargement, fatigue, and poverty.
And if you're dependant upon a presription drug just to stay alive... Oh buddy... Do I feel for those people. That's gotta suck to know that every day of your life you have to "milk Thufir's cat". Something tells me that you're probably going to defend those big corperations and their patents with your life... Litterally.
(You could defend them with mod points too, but it's still obvious that you're shilling.)
Even if I could comprehend other people's source code, it's pretty dry reading, and far too many lines for me to sit down and emerse myself in the plot.
Personally I'm surprised that you don't see more spyware under OSS... But then... How would *I* know?
The person who wears this will have social hadicap, and will most likely be the unspoken subject of conversations when people say, "Whatever you do, don't make eye contact."
Of course if I were to make such a statement today, a lot of you people would think I was being a troll... But one day someone will seriously propose such an action, it will gain support, and people will actually have to come up with compelling reasons as to why this is not a good idea. Their arguments will likely be dismissed as the rants of a tinfoil-hat-wearing alarmist, but someone might listen and stave off the mandate just long enough to get voted out of office.
We produce tons of sulfur waste every day simply because it's an abundant element to begin with. It may not smell nice when mixed with other things (as pure sulfur in its crytal form is nearly oderless), but it doesn't pose a significant health risk.
Heavy metals, petrolium distilates, and other exotic chemicals are still the greatest threat to landfill leaching.
All in all, with only 300 charges, I'll keep my fingers crossed they come up with something better.
As a satisfied Mandrake user, I'd love to completely agree with you, but my experience has been daunting so far as finding worthy candidates for OSS. Here in Ohio there are a lot of people who have a limited concept as to what a computer is, how it can be used, and what it takes to maintain one. Many of them get ahold of an old Pentium or *gasp* 486, and then come to me to see if I can get them hooked up to the internet.
"[So-and-so] told me you might be able to get me online with that free e-mail... Jeeno... Jano..."
"Juno."
"Yeah, that's it! So can you help me out?"
With those old machines, I could install a non-licensed copy of 95/98/Me, but they don't want to put any money into it at all. (I don't even think anyone offers free access anymore.) Hense, I've adopted a "Sorry, I'm using Linux" line that gets me off the spot.
As for those people who go out and buy new machines, it automatically comes with the MS tax preinstalled, so their system is legit and qualified for the updates no matter what. Occasioanlly they still come to me crying about some problem, and once again I tell them, SIUL. To be honest, I don't really know the XP environment enough to be of significant help like I was for the 95/98/Me versions.
Now could I "convert" them over to Linux? DOUBTFUL. They get so branded, that they act lost and on the verge of tears if they can't find those familiar icons to their spyware infested programs and proprietary internet connections.
Again, they are cheap to the point that even with OSS you can't make the machine useful. (I'm sorry, but without internet access, I fail to see a computer as anything but an orphaned box in the middle of a wasteland.)
It's not about the rabble wanting to break the law. They just want the internet for nothing, and that's just not the way it works... Even with OSS like Linux.
If anyone ever shows genuine interest, I'd be more than happy to share Lycoris, Mandrake, Knoppix, or any other free OSS with them, set them up, and help them along when they got stuck... But this is Ohio. I might as well teach Shakespear to chimps.
The bots *DO* read Slashdot comments, and give preferential treatment to posts that receive high scores. If you don't know how to add anything constructive to a conversation, you probably shouldn't attempt this, because it's a waste of time for yourself and everyone else.
In my own experience, it works like a charm to attract the bots like Google, Slurp, AJ, and the like, however it generally does little to attract actual people who are mostly too wary of potential troll links.
Don't get me wrong, I like getting visited by Google, but I'd prefer real people. I suppose having a site worth visiting wouldn't hurt either... ;-)
It's not the current adminisration that scares me as much as the future administration that gets elected via overwhelming individual apathy and power hungry corporate greed.
But who am I kidding. This bill couldn't make it if you gave every member of congress a free blowjob from the Victoria Secret's model pool.
I'll just enjoy the wonderful warm fuzzy feeling it gave me to just imagine that common sense would prevail.
Of course if the rules are written anything like their license agreements, they'll get their^H^H money.
Highering people (regardless of nationality) to click on your site's ads is akin to promising a company to hang their flyers on people's doors, but instead throwing them in the trash.
Perhaps the real solution is one that has existed in the real world all along. Simply investigate a prospective website before wasting your money trying to advertise on them. There's still a possibility of getting conned, but you'll find that in all aspects of life.
Shall we eat at the usual "Taco Bell" or "Akbars Taco Palace" in the abandoned gas station? Once you're sick of eating at T.B., you're going to be tempted to try Akbar's, but you'll most likely want to ask a few people if they've tried it, and your first visit will probably be more of a taste-test rather than a chummle-fest that could lead to uncertain disaster... You know how it goes.
What gets me is that making an honest living usually doesn't require any more effort than making a dishonest living, but people who use dishonesty in the hopes to get ahead only make it harder in the future for everyone including themselves because no one can trust anyone anymore.
"So come on down to Akbar's Taco Palace- 'It's a trap! (TM)'"
Assume I'm honest and don't hire "Click Through Inflators (TM)", and I make a business deal to post XYZ's ad on my site. (Just play along... I don't have ads on my site.)
User N clicks on it and visits XYZ.
They look around, and are interested, but need time to think about it.
They bookmark the page, or just make a mental note of the site.
Now they close the browser, clear the cookies, terminate the connection, and go to bed...
A day or two later User N is still thinking about what (s)he saw.
They dial up their ISP, and type in the URI, Click the Bookmark, or just Google for the page.
Now they make the purchase, but my website is not going to be able to receive credit because the user's IP is dynamic, their cookies where munched by an anti-spyware program, and the method they used to return to the page was not through my site because my site would most likely rotate ads.
Now *I'm* the one getting ripped off. It was my bandwidth that introduced the customer to the seller, and I get *nothing* for it.
The business model fails because I have no incentive at all now to put their ad on my page knowing that I can only get paid if there is a definitive paper-trailed sale attributed to my site, and that can be rather difficult to impossible for me to prove if the sale isn't absolutely spontaineous. Just imagine the horror of a deal if the advertising site is actually a brick and mortor type of establishment. I can't wait for Taco Bell to post an ad banner on my page. YUM!
But if you're still sure about this, then I'll call my local TV station and ask them to show my ads, and I'll pay them according to my revenue. I'm sure they'll jump at the offer.
Even though the idea is to use those non-American Indians as if they were somehow inferior, they are still humans and still have every bit the ability to identify and overcome computer automated Turing tests, so "unqualified leads" won't be so easily detected.
What a shame... Advertisers will realize they are being scammed, and potentially abandon the use of 3rd part websites since there would be no automated way to detect the difference between a human who's actaully interested and a human who'd just hired to look interested. (Yeah, they could try to see them via IP address blocks, but even a mildly talented troll can overcome this...)
I rather liked the idea that you could do what you enjoyed and have advertisers pay for it all. Now advertisers won't trust you because they think they're gonig to get burnt. It just goes to show you, any idiot can burn down a barn.
Other than that, I find the whole Google speculation game to be a bit curious. It almost reminds me of my elementary school days on the playground when we had contests to see who could top the last guy's claim while still maintaining some credibility.
In the coming weeks, I wouldn't be surprised to see reports that Google has more servers than all other servers combined, and that their bandwidth is twice that of the entire federal government.
Not quite. Since the "Adwords" are apprearing on Google's site it's more like a competitor renting the billboard next to the one that AXA rented.
I don't see what the big deal is myself... Google is a search result engine, and should be free to post results as they see fit. Don't like it? Simple-- Don't promote or use them.
But to SUE them?! Nonsense.
I wonder if Google has insurance against frivolous lawsuits like this. Maybe they should call AXA to see if they offer that kind of policy. :-P
This is clearly demonstrated daily on sites like Slashdot, Fark, and the many, many other sites that post links to the news they want you to view. Of course, I'm partial to Slashdot, but I imagine there are those who actually read "The Onion" and think it's real too.
I think the scary part is where the good professor actually cites the existance of "superior alternatives" without actually giving examples of them. Would he consider T.V. to be "superior"?
Yeah, I've got a nice wardrobe full of tinfoil hats, but I don't trust any single source unless their information is consistent with information I already know to be accurate. Even then I prefer to have multiple sources that don't look like "cut and paste" jobs.
And yeah... I'm seriously in love with my computer too. I built it and named it "Belchfire".
I will disagree on one point. The sheep these days never accept blame, and make claim that the designer was an idiot, and it's obviously just junk.
And I do agree with your point about OSS. Many times it would almost take a genious to follow those directions to the letter, but even if you did, it would most likely fail. You have to think on your feet to spot little details for your particular situation (as everyone has their own unique situation) and make adjustments.
The musical genius recognizes that the markings on the paper are one genius talking to another genius, saying, "Hey, look at this idea," and interprets the music.
That reminds me of Mozart's "Ein musikalischer Spass". Only now people are starting to realize the true genious behind it. Ironic that any "bird brain" could have figured it out. ;-)
Naturally, I'm partial to jokes... even subtle ones.