i quite agree, but I've never seen an advert that I've been tempted to click on. The problem with targeted advertising is for people like me - geeky types who tend to know where to get what they want for the cheapest you can get it - it just doesn't work. I've never googled something, noticed a text advert (which I don't block, as they aren't intrusive) and clicked through.
I guess google isn't relying on my demographic to click the button though.
they only make money if you click the ads, when was the last time you did that? Not trying to trap you, but I'm interested to know if anyone ever actually clicks banner ads because I sure as hell don't.
I can't put my finger on it, but something about that acid2 test reminds me of drugs.... you have to wonder what the web standards people do for a good time.
heh, funnily enough I followed the Bitmap Brothers in my Amiga days. I had most of their stuff, but only ever played the God demo that came on Amiga Format (a UK based Amiga magazine, back in the day). Hah, I just thought of another incredibly gorgeous game, Magic Pockets. For me, Amigas where the computers that kept on giving.
while people do watch dreadful shows I've found that the last reason is that they are stupid. Among my friends the number 1 reason for watching crap TV is that they've spent the whole day working/studying and they just want to switch their brain off. The aforementioned tv genres are pretty good for tuning in and dropping out to.
there's a very simple and unfortunate reason that Bhopal has never been rectified, it happened 20 years ago. Peoples memories are short if you ask them to remember something that happened which didn't directly affect them such a long time a go then you'll just get blank stares, like I do whenever I mention Bhopal to any of my friends. Even though I consider them intelligent, informed people.
indeed, but then when has any large company ever apologized for their behaviour? Check this out for the greatest apology from a multi-national - that never happened.
unfortunately they probably are not. yeah they drop 65m but often a large company like this will simply bulldoze through a smaller opponent, having the money and manpower to ignore niggles like this. After all this isn't going to appear on the front page of the newspapers tomorrow, so apart from the money the damage to MS is minimal. No one is going to put them on their knee and give their hide a good tanning, and that is what annoys me than anything. Money makes a poor substitute for apologies to me, even 65m of it. tag this post "idealistic" but I would be happy with an honest apology and handshake, that was earnestly meant.
I remember actually salivating over Xenon II for the Amiga. That and a few other Amiga games such as Shadow of the Beast were and will always be the most gorgeous games I've ever played. I also remember seeing the mode 7 fx in Contra wars for the snes, the first time the plane zoomed over. Pant wettingly good at the time.
does anyone else think that the logo similarity to the gaper is not accidental? I know if I was a bored illustrator/designer sitting around having to do asinine sites like captain copyright I would be tempted to add little extras like that.
I've always been slightly puzzled by the inclusion of reviews on slashdot as they are incredibly hit and miss in terms of content. This proves that, and just what the bleedin' hell is going with those horizontal dividers Timothy? They're hideous. 100 years in the CSS stylepolice dungeons.
I'll give your review a nice round 1 out of 5 Timothy, you get the one point for making the effort to write it and -4 for writing such appallingly bad print.
I do kind of agree with you, but I see a slippery slope that the Government would not be able to keep it's feet even upon.
I certainly don't expect privacy in a public place, but I do expect my civic rights to be upheld. I know that there is already very good facial recognition software that can pick people out of crowds in public places etc. What if the Government decides that they don't just run a camera on every street corner, but that they have a facial recognition database. What if they then decide that they don't just use it to catch dangerous terrorists but some guy who hasn't kept up to date on his taxes. Can you imagine the amount of abuse this kind of system is open to?
And further to that, if you like your privacy so much then be sure to make your fences higher, not lower because I promise you that every single webcam will be able to rotate and point into your living room/bedroom/backyard.
Am I paranoid? Yes. Do I have reason to be? Definitely!
i can understand why you are not a big fan of analogy, as yours is neither apt or correct. the difference between a kind neighbour and a curtain twitching fingerman is massive. If my neighbour sees someone breaking into my house and reports it to the police this is out of a sense of kindness and civic duty. Arguably people who watch the webcams are exactly the same, but the difference to me is that these people are actively participating in something that goes beyond the scope of their responsibility as private citizens. There is an obvious sense of voyeuristic pleasure/power in the whole idea which I find incredibly offensive.
There is a definite difference in magnitude between someone breaking into my house and the problem of people border hopping, the two shouldn't be compared.
Also on a separate note I didn't allude to before has anyone thought about the repercussions of allowing the US Government to go through with this. If it proves successful after launched (and I am not arguing the possible efficacy of the program) then can you imagine the possible other applications for this kind of policing. "A webcam on every corner, for your safety!"
there are plenty of alternatives to thepiratebay and always have been. torrentspy.com comes to mind, mininova.org, newnova.org, isohunt.com, newtorrents.info, eztvefnet.org.
Check out this episode of diggnation and you can catch a bunch of guys really going for it. very amusing, they look like absolute idiots... do I want a go? Hell yes!
the only people who have ever suggested convergence was a good idea were the Industry pundit and the Industry itself.
Of course there will always be a market for bells & whistles, but as we become technologically mature - generationally - we realize the usefulness of compartmentalizing objects into discreet uses. It saves us money, patience & having to listen to snake oil about how the razringrockrblockr (TM) will change our lives. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want my life dictated to me by a 1inch thick slab of plastic and microchips.
I wonder, on the other hand how many people these days would see fit to drop their mobiles altogether. It's something I consider now and then, as I don't have much use for it that can't be fulfilled through other methods such as the Internet and a normal land-line telephone. There is also an obvious pleasure to being non-contactable at times; This simply can't be achieved by switching off your rockr or blueberry because you then have this itch in the back of your mind as to who's calls you could be missing.
If we look at examples of attempted convergence there haven't been many successful ones. Ovens are still ovens, we don't have coffee machines that read us the news and our TVs (god help us) are still just the dumb boxes sitting in the corner of the living room. It seems the place for natural convergence is communication, which leads to the diversity of computer software both on our PCs and phones. As communication is such a complex multifaceted problem we organize it using calendars, texting, todo lists, instant messenging, pictures, videos etc. The list of comm methods is endless because in the way that seems to be the main target for convergence, better more meaningful talk. Hell in japan you can buy pillows that are connected to your partners over the internet, when you hug it they feel it. Talk about alienation.
my laptop (acer aspire 1520) inverter went and it's out of warranty so the only way to get it fixed is to send if off to Acer and get charged a massive service charge for a part that only costs a fraction of that. However it's extremely rare and I can't get hold of it so I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. Basically what I'm saying is that laptop companies know your laptop is going to fail and that chances are it's going to be a part only they can fix, so they have a captive audience who has no choice but to use them.
there is always a play between privacy and the necessity for governments to know whats going on with their citizens. I won't argue that we have lost civil rights in the UK in the past ten years. I'm certainly not trolling though. in the UK we do have a sense of civil freedom and we do seem to take it more seriously than the US. You might not find it as important to your every day life as I do, so you may not pay as much attention to it. I guess it all depends on perspective.
I actually don't think there is something wrong with employers reading business emails because at any given time we are being employed by them to do their bidding. If you are spending your time writing your personal emails when you should be doing TPS report then that's your problem. However I do have a problem if the Government ask your employer for their email records and they say yes.
This is something I will fight to prevent. If you feel that there isn't enough done for civil rights in the UK stand up and be heard.
you do realize they meant the arms of a bear, you know the eight foot boo boo that ate your picnic lunch.
I'll be here all night folks!
seriously i've never understood how you US folks have become so proud of having the right to keep a weapon in your house so that you could potentially kill someone else, yourself and your kitchen sink too. I can see that Americans are fiercely proud of their righ to bear arms, but look at it like this, this is part of a constitution - correct me if I'm wrong, i'm not american so I could be talking hot air - written a long time ago which it seems is quite innefective now. Isn't another part of that constitution tp protect your right to not be wiretapped without a warrant? Patently the constitution is failing. Or you are failing to live up to the constitution. Either way America's long lasting obsessive love relationship with guns (which murder tens of thousands of americans every year) seems misplaced on a piece of paper that isn't even valued these days.
Are you willing to ignore the massive issues of privacy that are being abused not just by your government but by you, the populace who your government works for just for the right to bear a weapon you could potentially murder your neighbour with.
I think there are certain places where they are very useful and important. In the UK we have a terrible drinking culture which means comes turning out time there are *lots* of fights and drunken brawls. CCTV gives the Police the ability to check what is happening in the city centre any time of the day. If only the police cared. that's another story though.
The main problem and my main concern with CCTV in the UK are the laws surrounding it. Or rather the lack of any coherent set of laws. Among other things I don't think CCTV actually has an effect to lower drunken fighting, it just means it gets captured in all it's now infamous glory for the world to watch. The uk is a country of scrappers it seems, and it does embaress me.
you see being able to own handguns as a good thing, i on the other hand think that it is by it's nature a bad thing. We don't have a gun culture in the UK and so we don't suffer a massive amount of gun related deaths.
Of course there are things that every country do and don't do, but privacy is a massively important issue for me and so I am glad to live in the UK. Privacy laws are as far as I'm concerned a good measure of the health of a nation. A government who refuses to permit it's populace the simplest of privacies has taken a wrong step somewhere.
You can't pull germany out of a hat and say look, this country won't allow it's populace free speech on this matter. The holocaust is a significantly different matter from whether or not I have some guy breathing down my neck when I make phonecall. I think what I am trying to say is that a good Government knows where privacy and freedom begins and when it's overstepping it's mark. Its extremely important that we don't forget the Holocaust so that it never happens again. In places like Germany and Austria there are strict laws about denying the holocaust, if you disagree with that don't live there.
I disagree with the US policy on privacy so I won't live that. It's a shame because as a tech orientated person the US is very attractive, but ethically I think I would feel ashamed to live there.
Slashdot Mirror
i quite agree, but I've never seen an advert that I've been tempted to click on. The problem with targeted advertising is for people like me - geeky types who tend to know where to get what they want for the cheapest you can get it - it just doesn't work. I've never googled something, noticed a text advert (which I don't block, as they aren't intrusive) and clicked through.
I guess google isn't relying on my demographic to click the button though.
they only make money if you click the ads, when was the last time you did that? Not trying to trap you, but I'm interested to know if anyone ever actually clicks banner ads because I sure as hell don't.
I can't put my finger on it, but something about that acid2 test reminds me of drugs.... you have to wonder what the web standards people do for a good time.
heh, funnily enough I followed the Bitmap Brothers in my Amiga days. I had most of their stuff, but only ever played the God demo that came on Amiga Format (a UK based Amiga magazine, back in the day). Hah, I just thought of another incredibly gorgeous game, Magic Pockets. For me, Amigas where the computers that kept on giving.
thanks very much i appreciate this. i'm gonna download it and upload to google video and youtube.
while people do watch dreadful shows I've found that the last reason is that they are stupid. Among my friends the number 1 reason for watching crap TV is that they've spent the whole day working/studying and they just want to switch their brain off. The aforementioned tv genres are pretty good for tuning in and dropping out to.
there's a very simple and unfortunate reason that Bhopal has never been rectified, it happened 20 years ago. Peoples memories are short if you ask them to remember something that happened which didn't directly affect them such a long time a go then you'll just get blank stares, like I do whenever I mention Bhopal to any of my friends. Even though I consider them intelligent, informed people.
indeed, but then when has any large company ever apologized for their behaviour? Check this out for the greatest apology from a multi-national - that never happened.
unfortunately they probably are not. yeah they drop 65m but often a large company like this will simply bulldoze through a smaller opponent, having the money and manpower to ignore niggles like this. After all this isn't going to appear on the front page of the newspapers tomorrow, so apart from the money the damage to MS is minimal. No one is going to put them on their knee and give their hide a good tanning, and that is what annoys me than anything. Money makes a poor substitute for apologies to me, even 65m of it. tag this post "idealistic" but I would be happy with an honest apology and handshake, that was earnestly meant.
I remember actually salivating over Xenon II for the Amiga. That and a few other Amiga games such as Shadow of the Beast were and will always be the most gorgeous games I've ever played. I also remember seeing the mode 7 fx in Contra wars for the snes, the first time the plane zoomed over. Pant wettingly good at the time.
a true pirate starts drinking before the sun hits the yard-arm. yarrrr
does anyone else think that the logo similarity to the gaper is not accidental? I know if I was a bored illustrator/designer sitting around having to do asinine sites like captain copyright I would be tempted to add little extras like that.
I've always been slightly puzzled by the inclusion of reviews on slashdot as they are incredibly hit and miss in terms of content. This proves that, and just what the bleedin' hell is going with those horizontal dividers Timothy? They're hideous. 100 years in the CSS stylepolice dungeons.
I'll give your review a nice round 1 out of 5 Timothy, you get the one point for making the effort to write it and -4 for writing such appallingly bad print.
I do kind of agree with you, but I see a slippery slope that the Government would not be able to keep it's feet even upon.
I certainly don't expect privacy in a public place, but I do expect my civic rights to be upheld. I know that there is already very good facial recognition software that can pick people out of crowds in public places etc. What if the Government decides that they don't just run a camera on every street corner, but that they have a facial recognition database. What if they then decide that they don't just use it to catch dangerous terrorists but some guy who hasn't kept up to date on his taxes. Can you imagine the amount of abuse this kind of system is open to?
And further to that, if you like your privacy so much then be sure to make your fences higher, not lower because I promise you that every single webcam will be able to rotate and point into your living room/bedroom/backyard.
Am I paranoid? Yes. Do I have reason to be? Definitely!
i can understand why you are not a big fan of analogy, as yours is neither apt or correct. the difference between a kind neighbour and a curtain twitching fingerman is massive. If my neighbour sees someone breaking into my house and reports it to the police this is out of a sense of kindness and civic duty. Arguably people who watch the webcams are exactly the same, but the difference to me is that these people are actively participating in something that goes beyond the scope of their responsibility as private citizens. There is an obvious sense of voyeuristic pleasure/power in the whole idea which I find incredibly offensive.
There is a definite difference in magnitude between someone breaking into my house and the problem of people border hopping, the two shouldn't be compared.
Also on a separate note I didn't allude to before has anyone thought about the repercussions of allowing the US Government to go through with this. If it proves successful after launched (and I am not arguing the possible efficacy of the program) then can you imagine the possible other applications for this kind of policing. "A webcam on every corner, for your safety!"
I have a problem with the public being employed to be fingermen, and to do a job which should be the governments responsibility.
maybe this guy should watch a bit more closely http://www.youtube.com/v/5gP8nHSJnKw
there are plenty of alternatives to thepiratebay and always have been. torrentspy.com comes to mind, mininova.org, newnova.org, isohunt.com, newtorrents.info, eztvefnet.org.
Check out this episode of diggnation and you can catch a bunch of guys really going for it. very amusing, they look like absolute idiots... do I want a go? Hell yes!
Bring on that printer
*sticks on "still" by the geto boys*
the only people who have ever suggested convergence was a good idea were the Industry pundit and the Industry itself.
Of course there will always be a market for bells & whistles, but as we become technologically mature - generationally - we realize the usefulness of compartmentalizing objects into discreet uses. It saves us money, patience & having to listen to snake oil about how the razringrockrblockr (TM) will change our lives. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want my life dictated to me by a 1inch thick slab of plastic and microchips.
I wonder, on the other hand how many people these days would see fit to drop their mobiles altogether. It's something I consider now and then, as I don't have much use for it that can't be fulfilled through other methods such as the Internet and a normal land-line telephone. There is also an obvious pleasure to being non-contactable at times; This simply can't be achieved by switching off your rockr or blueberry because you then have this itch in the back of your mind as to who's calls you could be missing.
If we look at examples of attempted convergence there haven't been many successful ones. Ovens are still ovens, we don't have coffee machines that read us the news and our TVs (god help us) are still just the dumb boxes sitting in the corner of the living room. It seems the place for natural convergence is communication, which leads to the diversity of computer software both on our PCs and phones. As communication is such a complex multifaceted problem we organize it using calendars, texting, todo lists, instant messenging, pictures, videos etc. The list of comm methods is endless because in the way that seems to be the main target for convergence, better more meaningful talk. Hell in japan you can buy pillows that are connected to your partners over the internet, when you hug it they feel it. Talk about alienation.
LCD inverter board and they won't sell it to me because they want to charge through the nose for it.
my laptop (acer aspire 1520) inverter went and it's out of warranty so the only way to get it fixed is to send if off to Acer and get charged a massive service charge for a part that only costs a fraction of that. However it's extremely rare and I can't get hold of it so I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. Basically what I'm saying is that laptop companies know your laptop is going to fail and that chances are it's going to be a part only they can fix, so they have a captive audience who has no choice but to use them.
there is always a play between privacy and the necessity for governments to know whats going on with their citizens. I won't argue that we have lost civil rights in the UK in the past ten years. I'm certainly not trolling though. in the UK we do have a sense of civil freedom and we do seem to take it more seriously than the US. You might not find it as important to your every day life as I do, so you may not pay as much attention to it. I guess it all depends on perspective.
I actually don't think there is something wrong with employers reading business emails because at any given time we are being employed by them to do their bidding. If you are spending your time writing your personal emails when you should be doing TPS report then that's your problem. However I do have a problem if the Government ask your employer for their email records and they say yes.
This is something I will fight to prevent. If you feel that there isn't enough done for civil rights in the UK stand up and be heard.
you do realize they meant the arms of a bear, you know the eight foot boo boo that ate your picnic lunch.
I'll be here all night folks!
seriously i've never understood how you US folks have become so proud of having the right to keep a weapon in your house so that you could potentially kill someone else, yourself and your kitchen sink too. I can see that Americans are fiercely proud of their righ to bear arms, but look at it like this, this is part of a constitution - correct me if I'm wrong, i'm not american so I could be talking hot air - written a long time ago which it seems is quite innefective now. Isn't another part of that constitution tp protect your right to not be wiretapped without a warrant? Patently the constitution is failing. Or you are failing to live up to the constitution. Either way America's long lasting obsessive love relationship with guns (which murder tens of thousands of americans every year) seems misplaced on a piece of paper that isn't even valued these days.
Are you willing to ignore the massive issues of privacy that are being abused not just by your government but by you, the populace who your government works for just for the right to bear a weapon you could potentially murder your neighbour with.
there is no sense in it.
I think there are certain places where they are very useful and important. In the UK we have a terrible drinking culture which means comes turning out time there are *lots* of fights and drunken brawls. CCTV gives the Police the ability to check what is happening in the city centre any time of the day. If only the police cared. that's another story though.
The main problem and my main concern with CCTV in the UK are the laws surrounding it. Or rather the lack of any coherent set of laws. Among other things I don't think CCTV actually has an effect to lower drunken fighting, it just means it gets captured in all it's now infamous glory for the world to watch. The uk is a country of scrappers it seems, and it does embaress me.
you see being able to own handguns as a good thing, i on the other hand think that it is by it's nature a bad thing. We don't have a gun culture in the UK and so we don't suffer a massive amount of gun related deaths.
Of course there are things that every country do and don't do, but privacy is a massively important issue for me and so I am glad to live in the UK. Privacy laws are as far as I'm concerned a good measure of the health of a nation. A government who refuses to permit it's populace the simplest of privacies has taken a wrong step somewhere.
You can't pull germany out of a hat and say look, this country won't allow it's populace free speech on this matter. The holocaust is a significantly different matter from whether or not I have some guy breathing down my neck when I make phonecall. I think what I am trying to say is that a good Government knows where privacy and freedom begins and when it's overstepping it's mark. Its extremely important that we don't forget the Holocaust so that it never happens again. In places like Germany and Austria there are strict laws about denying the holocaust, if you disagree with that don't live there.
I disagree with the US policy on privacy so I won't live that. It's a shame because as a tech orientated person the US is very attractive, but ethically I think I would feel ashamed to live there.