Here are my spam stats, generated with Rob Park's excellent mboxstats:
Jul 01, 2003 102 Jul 02, 2003 84 Jul 03, 2003 83 Jul 04, 2003 87 Jul 05, 2003 64 Jul 06, 2003 62 Jul 07, 2003 81 Jul 08, 2003 95 Jul 09, 2003 73 Jul 10, 2003 90 Jul 11, 2003 88 Jul 12, 2003 84 Jul 13, 2003 77 Jul 14, 2003 110 Jul 15, 2003 122 Jul 16, 2003 112 Jul 17, 2003 84 Jul 18, 2003 112 Jul 19, 2003 103 Jul 20, 2003 83 Jul 21, 2003 92 Jul 22, 2003 89 Jul 23, 2003 103 Jul 24, 2003 86 Jul 25, 2003 91 Jul 26, 2003 90 Jul 27, 2003 66 Jul 28, 2003 98 Jul 29, 2003 92 Jul 30, 2003 95 Jul 31, 2003 98 Aug 01, 2003 97 Aug 02, 2003 93 Aug 03, 2003 66 Aug 04, 2003 83 Aug 05, 2003 80 Aug 06, 2003 76 Aug 07, 2003 107 Aug 08, 2003 85 Aug 09, 2003 59 Aug 10, 2003 63 Aug 11, 2003 75 Aug 12, 2003 63 Aug 13, 2003 68 Aug 14, 2003 71 Aug 15, 2003 58 Aug 16, 2003 75 Aug 17, 2003 63 Aug 18, 2003 51 Aug 19, 2003 34 Aug 20, 2003 62 Aug 21, 2003 60 Aug 22, 2003 66 Aug 23, 2003 67 Aug 24, 2003 64 Aug 25, 2003 65
There's no getting around it -- the quantity of spam that has decreased in the past couple of weeks.
Note that the corpus is my UCE folder for my primary e-mail address. I do not use any RBLs to block, but I do use SpamAssassin to filter, and then I hand-review my UCE folder daily, weeding out viruses and the occasional legitimate message.
-Waldo Jaquith
In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. Sorry about that.
My mother, who is an essayist for National Public Radio, wrote an essay ("Turn Off The Lights") on this topic some years ago. To her surprise, there turned out to be a whole organization dedicated to the problem of our over-lit world, The International Dark Sky Organization. Shortly after her essay was broadcast, they seized her like some kind of a messiah; I imagine that they were pleased to have a non-astronomer care. She spoke at one of their meetings, IIRC, and we (my family) still follow the organization and now do our best to speak on behalf of them, having low-key conversations with neighbors, business owners, and municipal officials, extolling the values of darkness. I think, maybe, it's catching on.
Let's say that you're a chump, and you have a cheap renter's policy. If you have, say, $20k in possessions, live on non-coastal property, get a $1,000 deductible, and a policy with, say, Travelers, then you'll pay about $200/year for coverage. Not a bad deal. Unless you start building up claims. If you file a claim for the $2,000 loss of your Powerbook, getting you $1,000 in coverage, your premium on renewal is going to climb to something closer to $400/year. If you've already had a claim, or you have to use your insurance for something important (robbery, fire, whatever), then your premium could climb to many hundreds or thousands of dollars each year. Even if you go to a new carrier, that claim history will follow you around. If you have a decent carrier, or you own your home, your annual policy will cost much more, maybe a grand or two each year. In that case, filing a claim for spilling soda in your laptop is really stupid, because your premium could go up to $3k-$4k annually, or the carrier could simply non-renew your coverage, since you're filing what amounts to nuisance claims.
Or you could use insurance for what it's meant for -- catastrophic losses. A tip: If you can do without whatever you've lost, or you can afford to replace it yourself, don't file a claim. You'll regret it later.
The book may be interesting (I haven't read it), but Linear B is boring. Lots of records of goats changing hands and the like. I started on it until I realized that there wasn't anything written in Linear B that I actually wanted to read. I found Egyptian Hieroglyphics far more interesting.
I thought that the name "Softmart" was familiar, so I did some poking around. Seems that was a good instinct.
Software provider Softmart will face up to $1 million in fines after pleading guilty to bilking Microsoft in a phony rebate scheme in 1995. [...] According to court documents, Sloane ordered reluctant employees to submit phony sales reports to Microsoft and Symantec in late June and early July of 1995 that amounted to close to $1.2 million.
It seems that the whole deal was set up by then-CEO of Softmart Richard Sloane, who was never charged. He resigned his position but, as of 2000, still owned 100% of the privately-held business. See the CMP Techweb story for details.
What's amazing is that not only does Microsoft continue to do business with Softmart, but the federal government is willing to reward this behavior. Weirder still, Softmart was actually tied to Microsoft further: they were one of the half-dozen companies to which Microsoft farmed out the telephone support for Windows 95 upon its release, according to this guy's homepage and this other guy's resume.
2 points to the first person that can tie Softmart to the Bush administration!
I now present you with your own link for your perusal. http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/14/19 20236&mode=thread
Don't look now, your agenda is showing.
I already linked to that in my original post -- that's what you were replying to in the first place. My Ask Slashdot submission asked if my interest in OSS and belief that it has a place in government was something that would be useful in a campaign. The answer was a resounding "no," and that was that. That's not an agenda, that's a question.
I can't make this clearer: I have only once addressed the topic of OSS in my city, using the exact words contained in the speech to which I linked. You can attempt to invent alternate truths, but it's getting a bit silly at this point.
I read your plank last year and it certainly was a major issue you were trying to push.
No, it wasn't a major issue. It wasn't even a minor issue. I never mentioned it once in a single debate, speech, or interview. Nowhere did it appear anywhere on my platform. You obviously have no idea of what you're talking about.
Someone who thinks that OSS solutions are better than CSS solutions is almost by definition a zealot. That you are trying to change it at the government level cements you as an OSS zealot.
My proposal is that OSS be considered along with other proposals. That's hardly zealotry. That's just good fiscal policy.
Looks like your plank doesn't really excite the voters. Perhaps the computer systems that the city uses isn't such a big deal to anyone but zealots like yourself?
It wasn't a plank, and I'm no zealot. Thanks for playing, smart guy.
In a short speech to the Charlottesville (VA, USA) City Council last week, I proposed the consideration of open source via an internal bid approach, considering the results alongside traditional proposals. I haven't gotten any results or response yet (it's only been a week, after all), but based on the thoughtful nods and scribblings of the councilors while I was talking, I feel good about it.:)
I'd be interested in hearing if anybody else has convinced their municipality to consider the use of open source on a project-by-project basis and, if so, how they went about it. I'm not so naive to think that a mere speech will do the trick, so I'll need some ammunition for the follow-up.
The sound meter seems pretty useless to me, but i guess, since a phone typicly has a microphone build in (d'oh), all it takes is a piece of software.
Actually, that could be really useful if it works slightly differently than as advertised. Frequently, I will be using my phone in a semi-public (or, worse yet, public) place, and after hanging up, I'll realize that I've been more or less screaming into the mouthpiece. I have no idea of why I do this, but if grocery store phone-talkers are any indicator, this is a common behavior. I'd like to see a sound meter built into a phone that monitors the volume of my own speech. When I get too damned loud, the phone would gently beep at me, or light up a little light at the base of the handset, thus reminding me that I'm being annoying.
ummm, MS changed the world of comuting, but I don't see them opening up there research.
Well, yeah, but who would want to replicate their model of commuting: travelling in a car with the the hood welded shut that requires a restart every few miles?
What makes you think the Dave Matthews Band's knowledge and acceptance matters? It doesn't matter. The only question is who holds the copyright on the lyrics...
Dave Matthews does, although some of the songs are held by him in collaboration with other band members.
You're an idiot. Stop reading Slashdot. Get a lawyer. NOW.
And you're a rude bastard. It's swell that your daddy is a judge, and I'm sure that's given you a whole lot of exposure to this, but I've got a legal firm that I've paid a whole lot of my company's money to ensure that everything's A-OK. If it's not, then their E&O will cover me.:)
See, all of this makes a lot more sense when you stop assuming that I have the IQ of water fowl.
What's your goal here? To continue to run your Website? To not need to kneel down and kiss the MPA's boots? To make a stand and defend a sane interpretation of copyright law? All of them are admirable goals. In your shoes, I'd probably have the same ones.
How are you going about achieving your goal? By tweaking lawyers. By tweaking lawyers who have already implicitly threatened serious legal action. By tweaking lawyers who work for a massive and well-funded organization who have already implicitly threatened serious legal action.
FOR FUCK'S SAKE, WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?
I know what I'm doing.:) I've been involved in two high-profile ACLU-backed free speech cases (Schleiffer v. City of Charlottesville, Microsystems v. Scandanavia Online), once as a plaintiff, once as a defendant, and I've certainly learned a great deal about freedom of speech. More relevantly, I've known Dave Matthews Band and their management for years, and they have no problem with anything on my website, tablature or otherwise.
While knowledge about point the first is amusing, point the second is the ace up my sleeve.:)
I run a Dave Matthews Band fan site, nancies.org (a non-profit, non-stock corporation), and we provide both lyrics and tablature. These tabs are provided to us by site users, who interpret live and studio performances as best as they can. We have them for a variety of instruments, but mostly guitar. Anyhow, I got the following letter last week:
From: "David Hall" To: "Waldo Jaquith" Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 3:31:50 PM US/Eastern
Dear Waldo:
It has come to our attention that you have been engaging in the practice of posting illegal tab arrangements on your website. Unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted musical compositions constitutes infringement under the United States copyright law, and the law provides substantial remedies to rights owners. Whenever printed music is copied or distributed on the Internet without permission, you are stealing from composers, publishers and music retailers.
It is essential to the future of printed music that the copyright law be upheld by all. Composers, arrangers, publishers and dealers are losing a significant percentage of their income because of illegal photocopying. This loss of revenue ultimately means that less and less printed music is available for sale, short print runs mean higher prices for what is available, and dealers are no longer able to afford to carry large stocks of music.
As a webmaster, you hold a special responsibility to understand and uphold the laws regarding what can and cannot be posted to your website. We urge you to practice compliance with copyright law so that no further action is necessary on behalf of music rights owners. Such compliance will benefit all of us in the music community - students and educators, creators, publishers and retailers.
Sincerely, David Hall Sales Manager, eCommerce www.halleonard.com
Never one to take this kind of nonsense sitting down, I replied immediately.
From: Waldo Jaquith Date: Wed May 7, 2003 4:31:06 PM US/Eastern To: David Hall
David,
Make me. I dare you. Just try it. Seriously. I'll own you.
I'll be very disappointed if I don't get a nastygram in the mail from you within a few weeks, because that will rob me of the opportunity to waste lots of your money by using up your attorney's time.
Don't let me down, Dave!
Kisses, Waldo Jaquith
I've been checking my mail but, still, nothing.:) Sometimes, you've got to take these companies in hand.
If they'd just take Jackson off the twenty, I'd be happy. If you're not aware, this is the guy that was responsible for deporting many of the native americans to Oklahoma.
OK, we'll do that. Just name a president that is without flaw or a disputed reputation, and we'll use him.
meaningless without knowing what the numbers where before the switch.
What they were before the switch is hardly relevant -- I'm comparing the effectiveness of text ads to banner ads, but the effectiveness of text ads now to text ads before. To answer your question, the numbers were the same before the switch -- we were lucky to break 1%.
Could the reason be no one is interesed in the product? or that everyone who saw the add and was interested went there in the first week and had no reason to go back?
I guess you didn't see the site. It's, as I said, a self-serve text ad system. There's an ever-changing parade of text ads for a series of different products. We've seen hundreds of different ads. Legal services, CDs, website hosting, consulting, little-known bands...we've seen it all. It's altogether possible that people are uniformly disinterested in all of these products and services, but it strikes me as more likely that people simply aren't looking at the advertisements any more.
Never clicked on an ad, never read banners if I become aware they are ads, always disable cookies, grudgingly enable them if I have to to visit a page, then delete them afterwords, have a huge hosts file to dump ads, run junkbusters, never reply to spam...
keep on trying to find ways to waste my time if you must...odd way to pass your time though.
Soo...you donate cash to websites, then? Or do you live with your mother and survive on free samples given out in grocery stores?
On one of my websites, we switched to book-your-own text ads a few months ago. For the first month, the clickthru rates were astounding -- 5%-15% on some of them. Now, we're lucky to break 1%. The reason, of course, is obvious: they were new and interesting, and people noticed them because of that. Now, they are neither new nor interesting. They remain an amusing thing on the site, but they're not paying the bills, I'm afraid. All that we can do from here is continue to switch it up: move them around on the site, offer formats with bigger text, more words, etc. But that's not a solution, just a stall tactic.
I want a script that will mount a loopback device that appears to be a CD, and will fool the CD burner built into iTunes into believing that it is one. Then I want an AppleScript that will "burn" (which will be really fast, because no actual burning is required) the audio files onto the CD, rip them off again as MP3s, add them to my iTunes library and archive and/or erase the original AAC file.
So i write the program that does foo, and if i decide that it could potentially be useful to someone else except me, i release it as open-source.
Yup, that. When I write something useful for my own purposes, and I think that somebody else might find it useful, I share it. In exchange (in a distant way), other people share things with me. All of our lives are consequently simplified. It's that simple.
hell, even over broadband it'd be annoying to have to sync my home directory with the.mac server... I've got at least 1GB of things in my Documents folder, almost 10GB in music, and god knows how much in the movies dir.
Slashdot Mirror
Here are my spam stats, generated with Rob Park's excellent mboxstats:
Jul 01, 2003 102
Jul 02, 2003 84
Jul 03, 2003 83
Jul 04, 2003 87
Jul 05, 2003 64
Jul 06, 2003 62
Jul 07, 2003 81
Jul 08, 2003 95
Jul 09, 2003 73
Jul 10, 2003 90
Jul 11, 2003 88
Jul 12, 2003 84
Jul 13, 2003 77
Jul 14, 2003 110
Jul 15, 2003 122
Jul 16, 2003 112
Jul 17, 2003 84
Jul 18, 2003 112
Jul 19, 2003 103
Jul 20, 2003 83
Jul 21, 2003 92
Jul 22, 2003 89
Jul 23, 2003 103
Jul 24, 2003 86
Jul 25, 2003 91
Jul 26, 2003 90
Jul 27, 2003 66
Jul 28, 2003 98
Jul 29, 2003 92
Jul 30, 2003 95
Jul 31, 2003 98
Aug 01, 2003 97
Aug 02, 2003 93
Aug 03, 2003 66
Aug 04, 2003 83
Aug 05, 2003 80
Aug 06, 2003 76
Aug 07, 2003 107
Aug 08, 2003 85
Aug 09, 2003 59
Aug 10, 2003 63
Aug 11, 2003 75
Aug 12, 2003 63
Aug 13, 2003 68
Aug 14, 2003 71
Aug 15, 2003 58
Aug 16, 2003 75
Aug 17, 2003 63
Aug 18, 2003 51
Aug 19, 2003 34
Aug 20, 2003 62
Aug 21, 2003 60
Aug 22, 2003 66
Aug 23, 2003 67
Aug 24, 2003 64
Aug 25, 2003 65
There's no getting around it -- the quantity of spam that has decreased in the past couple of weeks.
Note that the corpus is my UCE folder for my primary e-mail address. I do not use any RBLs to block, but I do use SpamAssassin to filter, and then I hand-review my UCE folder daily, weeding out viruses and the occasional legitimate message.
-Waldo Jaquith
In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. Sorry about that.
My mother, who is an essayist for National Public Radio, wrote an essay ("Turn Off The Lights") on this topic some years ago. To her surprise, there turned out to be a whole organization dedicated to the problem of our over-lit world, The International Dark Sky Organization. Shortly after her essay was broadcast, they seized her like some kind of a messiah; I imagine that they were pleased to have a non-astronomer care. She spoke at one of their meetings, IIRC, and we (my family) still follow the organization and now do our best to speak on behalf of them, having low-key conversations with neighbors, business owners, and municipal officials, extolling the values of darkness. I think, maybe, it's catching on.
-Waldo Jaquith
Haaaahhhaaaaah haha ha ha ha!
*snort*
HAAAAAhaahahahahaaa!
*tear*
Aahhh...
*wipes eyes*
Gosh, that's funny.
No, seriously, how much do they want?
-Waldo Jaquith
Let's say that you're a chump, and you have a cheap renter's policy. If you have, say, $20k in possessions, live on non-coastal property, get a $1,000 deductible, and a policy with, say, Travelers, then you'll pay about $200/year for coverage. Not a bad deal. Unless you start building up claims. If you file a claim for the $2,000 loss of your Powerbook, getting you $1,000 in coverage, your premium on renewal is going to climb to something closer to $400/year. If you've already had a claim, or you have to use your insurance for something important (robbery, fire, whatever), then your premium could climb to many hundreds or thousands of dollars each year. Even if you go to a new carrier, that claim history will follow you around. If you have a decent carrier, or you own your home, your annual policy will cost much more, maybe a grand or two each year. In that case, filing a claim for spilling soda in your laptop is really stupid, because your premium could go up to $3k-$4k annually, or the carrier could simply non-renew your coverage, since you're filing what amounts to nuisance claims.
Or you could use insurance for what it's meant for -- catastrophic losses. A tip: If you can do without whatever you've lost, or you can afford to replace it yourself, don't file a claim. You'll regret it later.
-Waldo Jaquith
The book may be interesting (I haven't read it), but Linear B is boring. Lots of records of goats changing hands and the like. I started on it until I realized that there wasn't anything written in Linear B that I actually wanted to read. I found Egyptian Hieroglyphics far more interesting.
Plus, KMT rocks my socks. Take that, Linear B!
-Waldo Jaquith
What's amazing is that not only does Microsoft continue to do business with Softmart, but the federal government is willing to reward this behavior. Weirder still, Softmart was actually tied to Microsoft further: they were one of the half-dozen companies to which Microsoft farmed out the telephone support for Windows 95 upon its release, according to this guy's homepage and this other guy's resume.
2 points to the first person that can tie Softmart to the Bush administration!
-Waldo Jaquith
I now present you with your own link for your perusal. http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/14/19 20236&mode=thread
Don't look now, your agenda is showing.
I already linked to that in my original post -- that's what you were replying to in the first place. My Ask Slashdot submission asked if my interest in OSS and belief that it has a place in government was something that would be useful in a campaign. The answer was a resounding "no," and that was that. That's not an agenda, that's a question.
I can't make this clearer: I have only once addressed the topic of OSS in my city, using the exact words contained in the speech to which I linked. You can attempt to invent alternate truths, but it's getting a bit silly at this point.
-Waldo Jaquith
I read your plank last year and it certainly was a major issue you were trying to push.
No, it wasn't a major issue. It wasn't even a minor issue. I never mentioned it once in a single debate, speech, or interview. Nowhere did it appear anywhere on my platform. You obviously have no idea of what you're talking about.
Someone who thinks that OSS solutions are better than CSS solutions is almost by definition a zealot. That you are trying to change it at the government level cements you as an OSS zealot.
My proposal is that OSS be considered along with other proposals. That's hardly zealotry. That's just good fiscal policy.
-Waldo Jaquith
Looks like your plank doesn't really excite the voters. Perhaps the computer systems that the city uses isn't such a big deal to anyone but zealots like yourself?
It wasn't a plank, and I'm no zealot. Thanks for playing, smart guy.
-Waldo Jaquith
In a short speech to the Charlottesville (VA, USA) City Council last week, I proposed the consideration of open source via an internal bid approach, considering the results alongside traditional proposals. I haven't gotten any results or response yet (it's only been a week, after all), but based on the thoughtful nods and scribblings of the councilors while I was talking, I feel good about it. :)
:) Hey, and I keep my campaign promises, too...even though I wasn't elected. ;)
I'd be interested in hearing if anybody else has convinced their municipality to consider the use of open source on a project-by-project basis and, if so, how they went about it. I'm not so naive to think that a mere speech will do the trick, so I'll need some ammunition for the follow-up.
Hey, funny -- this really follows up nicely on the Ask Slashdot on the topic that I submitted a year and a half ago.
-Waldo Jaquith
The sound meter seems pretty useless to me, but i guess, since a phone typicly has a microphone build in (d'oh), all it takes is a piece of software.
Actually, that could be really useful if it works slightly differently than as advertised. Frequently, I will be using my phone in a semi-public (or, worse yet, public) place, and after hanging up, I'll realize that I've been more or less screaming into the mouthpiece. I have no idea of why I do this, but if grocery store phone-talkers are any indicator, this is a common behavior. I'd like to see a sound meter built into a phone that monitors the volume of my own speech. When I get too damned loud, the phone would gently beep at me, or light up a little light at the base of the handset, thus reminding me that I'm being annoying.
-Waldo Jaquith
Hey, that guy has my name as his last name. Weird.
-Waldo Jaquith
I've got the solution: the TeXOS(tm)!
Slogan: Crash-free -- Donald Knuth guarantees it!
-Waldo Jaquith
ummm, MS changed the world of comuting, but I don't see them opening up there research.
Well, yeah, but who would want to replicate their model of commuting: travelling in a car with the the hood welded shut that requires a restart every few miles?
-Waldo Jaquith
What makes you think the Dave Matthews Band's knowledge and acceptance matters? It doesn't matter. The only question is who holds the copyright on the lyrics...
:)
Dave Matthews does, although some of the songs are held by him in collaboration with other band members.
You're an idiot. Stop reading Slashdot. Get a lawyer. NOW.
And you're a rude bastard. It's swell that your daddy is a judge, and I'm sure that's given you a whole lot of exposure to this, but I've got a legal firm that I've paid a whole lot of my company's money to ensure that everything's A-OK. If it's not, then their E&O will cover me.
See, all of this makes a lot more sense when you stop assuming that I have the IQ of water fowl.
-Waldo Jaquith
What's your goal here? To continue to run your Website? To not need to kneel down and kiss the MPA's boots? To make a stand and defend a sane interpretation of copyright law? All of them are admirable goals. In your shoes, I'd probably have the same ones.
How are you going about achieving your goal? By tweaking lawyers. By tweaking lawyers who have already implicitly threatened serious legal action. By tweaking lawyers who work for a massive and well-funded organization who have already implicitly threatened serious legal action.
FOR FUCK'S SAKE, WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?
I know what I'm doing.
While knowledge about point the first is amusing, point the second is the ace up my sleeve.
-Waldo Jaquith
Never one to take this kind of nonsense sitting down, I replied immediately.I've been checking my mail but, still, nothing.
-Waldo Jaquith
If they'd just take Jackson off the twenty, I'd be happy. If you're not aware, this is the guy that was responsible for deporting many of the native americans to Oklahoma.
OK, we'll do that. Just name a president that is without flaw or a disputed reputation, and we'll use him.
-Waldo Jaquith
"Now, we're lucky to break 1%"
meaningless without knowing what the numbers where before the switch.
What they were before the switch is hardly relevant -- I'm comparing the effectiveness of text ads to banner ads, but the effectiveness of text ads now to text ads before. To answer your question, the numbers were the same before the switch -- we were lucky to break 1%.
Could the reason be no one is interesed in the product? or that everyone who saw the add and was interested went there in the first week and had no reason to go back?
I guess you didn't see the site. It's, as I said, a self-serve text ad system. There's an ever-changing parade of text ads for a series of different products. We've seen hundreds of different ads. Legal services, CDs, website hosting, consulting, little-known bands...we've seen it all. It's altogether possible that people are uniformly disinterested in all of these products and services, but it strikes me as more likely that people simply aren't looking at the advertisements any more.
-Waldo Jaquith
Never clicked on an ad, never read banners if I become aware they are ads, always disable cookies, grudgingly enable them if I have to to visit a page, then delete them afterwords, have a huge hosts file to dump ads, run junkbusters, never reply to spam...
keep on trying to find ways to waste my time if you must...odd way to pass your time though.
Soo...you donate cash to websites, then? Or do you live with your mother and survive on free samples given out in grocery stores?
-Waldo Jaquith
On one of my websites, we switched to book-your-own text ads a few months ago. For the first month, the clickthru rates were astounding -- 5%-15% on some of them. Now, we're lucky to break 1%. The reason, of course, is obvious: they were new and interesting, and people noticed them because of that. Now, they are neither new nor interesting. They remain an amusing thing on the site, but they're not paying the bills, I'm afraid. All that we can do from here is continue to switch it up: move them around on the site, offer formats with bigger text, more words, etc. But that's not a solution, just a stall tactic.
-Waldo Jaquith
iTunes will not permit AAC tracks to be converted to MP3. At least, not on either of my two computers. Have you found that you can do otherwise?
-Waldo Jaquith
I have a LazyWeb Request.
:)
I want a script that will mount a loopback device that appears to be a CD, and will fool the CD burner built into iTunes into believing that it is one. Then I want an AppleScript that will "burn" (which will be really fast, because no actual burning is required) the audio files onto the CD, rip them off again as MP3s, add them to my iTunes library and archive and/or erase the original AAC file.
Bring it on.
-Waldo Jaquith
So i write the program that does foo, and if i decide that it could potentially be useful to someone else except me, i release it as open-source.
Yup, that. When I write something useful for my own purposes, and I think that somebody else might find it useful, I share it. In exchange (in a distant way), other people share things with me. All of our lives are consequently simplified. It's that simple.
-Waldo Jaquith
hell, even over broadband it'd be annoying to have to sync my home directory with the .mac server... I've got at least 1GB of things in my Documents folder, almost 10GB in music, and god knows how much in the movies dir.
One word: rsync.
-Waldo Jaquith