I remember when putting a video on the internet was a _big deal_.
Anyone remember realplayer?
Seriously, say what you will about youtube.. but what it's done for the internet is astounding.
Also wikipedia! Remember when finding information about something took effort! I remember spending hours trunging through a valley of geocities and angelfire pages and a minefield of ads.. now it's just there, and despite critisism, is usually accurate enough for casual purposes.
If a utility could be sued for downtime by most of their users, you'd be paying a _lot_ more for your internet and cable.
That's really what it's about.. you are getting cheap internet in exchange for not having a solid service level agreement in place. As I said in my original post, if you want a solid service agreement where they are contractually bound to provide you a certain level of service, and are penalized for breaches of said service.. you can get it.. but not for $30 a month.
Im not a lawyer, but I think "service level agreements" is the key phrase there. With my residential internet, my service agreement is clearly stating that while they make best effort, if it goes down for a month or something, tough beans. You can only enforce what is agreed upon.
You can get service agreements that are more "heads will roll if we go down", this is usually what you are paying for if you get a T1 line.
Sure, but when you sign those terms I assume you also agree that they can kill your account for any time for any reason (I've never read them as I don't use facebook, but this seems a pretty standard "cover your ass" clause in most TOS).
No matter how engrained a free service becomes in your life, unless you have a contract with the provider I can’t see how you are in any way entitled to damages when it’s taken away from you.
And at least in the google case I can sympathize. I still think google has the right to do so, but I can feel for the small business that suddenly loses it’s income stream because google lowers their rank. This is a social networking site... get a grip and/or a life.
voting with your wallet is for 'old people' isn't it?
Sadly, yup.. but more because it has become completely ineffective.
This applies to all areas. Everything is a big chain.. the guy behind the counter is some high school kid making minimum wage and probably doesn't give a shit if you are satisfied. Storming out of a store shouting "well I'll just take my business elsewhere" has very little impact. The days where the people you dealt with on a regular basis gave any kind of shit about your business are gone.
Likewise, boycotts are generally pointless unless you get a very large number of people together or at least get some press coverage. Even if _every single person_ who knew about sony's various evil deeds never paid them another dime, it probably wouldn't even make a blip on their revenue charts.
Individually boycotting a large corporation might give you a warm fuzzy "I did good" feeling, but no point deluding ourselves that it makes any kind of difference.
NOTE: I don't buy BD disks either.. but that's more because it's not something I'm interested in.
I guess this could have been an attempt to spread some malware or something (by poisoning popular projects)?
Off topic: how many people actually download directly from sourceforge any more. I have to imagine the majority of users (even before the mass ubuntu influx) get their stuff second hand through their favorite distro’s repository these days. I know I haven’t been there with any regularity since my `ol slackware days *tugs pants up past waist*.
More money then most with an _engineering degree_ and probably some serious student debt? Although if he's been unemployed for a year then maybe he wasn't very good/not employable.. or the job market for engineers has taken an even bigger nose dive then I thought.
For what reason? To waste money on electricity? Prematurely kill their computers by running them 24/7?
Same reason people did it back in the usenet and IRC days and do Folding@Home and SETI. Some people just get a kick out of it.
And I doubt that running a computer 24/7 has a serious impact on it's longevity. Computers tend to go obsolete long before they "wear out".. and if something does break (psu, hard drive, mobo caps), it was probably going to break regardless of whether it was shutdown every day (infact, in some cases that might actually cause it to break faster).
I don’t really get (and the article didn’t really seem to explain) how these elite uploaders of the pirated content receive this ad-revenue. Are they saying that the people who post the bulk of the infringing torrents on various networks receive ad-revenue from the indexing sites (where the ads would be displayed)? I don’t understand how ad revenue flows from the indexing sites to the users who upload the content.
It almost seems like these guys asked themselves “why do they do it”, looked at a torrent site, saw the ads, and just said “ah, that’s why” and wrote a paper.
Also, the suggestion in this article to provide “disincentives” to the people uploading the bulk of pirated content is kind of obvious and silly. If the media industry had any way of actually doing this, it would have been done a long time ago. I think it’s already recognized by most people that the bulk of pirated content originates from a small number of sources. I can’t imagine that big media hasn’t been trying unsuccessfully to shut this group down for quite a while.
Unless I’m missing something, this whole article comes across as another one of these ridiculous studies where after 3 years of research and a few million dollars they reveal that fire is hot and scissors can be sharp. I file this right next to
The fact that a large majority of people (even some very smart people) really get into this stuff depresses me. The whole celebrity worship thing is quite disturbing. I just don't understand the attraction!
Facebook who owns your photos, Google who can read your mail and your local supermarket who knows what you buy and when.
This is where the whole "personal decision" bit of my post comes in. I actually don't have a problem with any of that (I don't have a facebook account.. but if I did.. they can have my pictures.. even the one of me in a toga at that party), but obviously some people do care about this stuff.
Privacy nuts think that everyone should be paranoid about their data.. they arn't. Social networking has taken off because people love to spout out their whole lives for everyone.
I agree these are things everyone should think about and make a decision on what info they are ok with giving away.. but I think "they can have it" is a valid response for a _lot_ of people. Just because you've come to the decision that your preference in tomato soup is no ones business doesn't mean others are going to share the sentiment.
I'm more for legislating that sites have to be forthcoming, and offer some kind of opt-out (like this header would provide). I honestly think if facebook had a big "look.. we take all your data and sell it to people so they can sell you junk.. and we give you farmville" sign when you signed up, people would read it, nod, click ok, and get on with their life.
I'm also all for legislation that would put limits on how long the data can be stored for.
Chances are you're required to have a Facebook or Google account to keep your job
I somewhat disagree, but it's irrelevant. You could enable this header and happily browse the puritan internet.
I agree.. most sites who's primary purpose is to drag you in so you can see their wall of ads tend to suck, and some of the best source of information have a/~someusername/ in the URL..
But there are several sites that really do dump the money back into producing content and/or paying the insane bandwidth/hardware costs that come from running a really popular site. There are even a few that I pay a (non-trivial) subscription to.
Oh I'm sure lots of advertisers would just ignore the header.. and probably even use it as a datapoint, but if enough of the really big ones (aka google) implement it, would really take the teeth out of online tracking.
The problem is that sites would be justified (imo) to then not offer you service based on this.
“We support this site with ad revenue. Tracking is part of that. No Tracking, no service”.
This is fine really. People aren’t entitled to web content. In many cases your privacy is what you are trading for it, and you should be made aware of this and have the option to decline. This kind of header (and possibly others like it) would let you specify in what you are ok with, and let a site then decide whether it’s enough to grant you access.
The problem is that people don’t like this... they want the privacy _and_ the content.. so people would probably just go back to using ad-blockers and cookie deleters as soon as they start getting rejected access messages.
Of course the opposite could happen as well. Web traffic could plummet as everyone enables the feature.. causing a site owner to re-think whether web tracking makes sense for them.
Personally I don’t mind being tracked. Somewhere out there, someone has a very detailed profile of what makes me tick.. and really it’s not doing me much harm that I can see. I read an article about raising my new pet dog and I every other ad I see for the next 2 weeks is about obedience training.. creepy but doesn’t hurt me. This is a personal decision however, and I think people do have the right to be paranoid about their data and should have the option to opt out.
I'm talking more when you go back to the middle of a story that was covered in one movie and introduce something that wasn't part of the original using another movie.
it feels more like you are one of those people who dislike something when/if it becomes popular.
First Matrix: Is Popular My post indicates I like it Your post indicates I don't like it (because it's popular)
Second and Third Matrix: Not so popular (rotten tomatoes 40% etc) My post indicates I don't like them Your post mkaes no statement, but I would assume the inverse that I should like things which are unpopular if I dislike things which are popular.
Your post seems backwards. I'm actually kind of swaying with the crowd on this one, liking the popular movie and disliking the unpopular ones. You have accused me of being some kind of non-conformist when I'm actually conforming like a sheep.
I just hope they don't make a prequel.. I really hate those. Or cover some time period that was glanced over (I hate those too). Stories have a start and end. Going back and telling some part of it in the middle or before the origional start always feels weird, and in the worst cases can wreck the original story.
The fact that Neo kinda like.. dies.. at the end of the third one kind of limits the possibilities of the character. They can always do the lame "he wasn't really dead" thing.. but people hate that.
Sad thing is, even though most people equate the two existing sequels to the experience of having a lightly chilled olive fork rammed into your eye this movie will get its audience. The first matrix was just that damn good that they can keep cranking out shitty sequels and people will watch them, knowing full well that they are going to suck.
The whole actor worship thing is huge. Personally I think it's stupid, but the masses like it. Just look at all the shows and magazines based around celebrity gosip. You can't write an article about some synthetic actors opinion on breakfast cereal.
And personally I hate synthetic music. I like an actual human with talent playing a real instrument/singing. Obviously this is a personal thing, a lot of people like synthetic music and I'm sure it takes talent to make synthetic music.. but I can't imagine I'm alone in this.
Compared to the cost of solid dev processes, QA, and formal testing.. not even close. And that's not even getting into the turn around time for new features.
The other key here is that they don't really lose the money, they just don't make it. Compare this to avionics, medical, or military.. where a screw up can kill someone/derail a project/terminate a contract and put entire offices of people out of work. This is where you see the serious QA and code signing and multiple levels of review and testing.
Slashdot Mirror
Applet, even though applicable, has way too much stigma attached to it from the Java days.
I remember when putting a video on the internet was a _big deal_.
Anyone remember realplayer?
Seriously, say what you will about youtube.. but what it's done for the internet is astounding.
Also wikipedia! Remember when finding information about something took effort! I remember spending hours trunging through a valley of geocities and angelfire pages and a minefield of ads .. now it's just there, and despite critisism, is usually accurate enough for casual purposes.
If a utility could be sued for downtime by most of their users, you'd be paying a _lot_ more for your internet and cable.
That's really what it's about.. you are getting cheap internet in exchange for not having a solid service level agreement in place. As I said in my original post, if you want a solid service agreement where they are contractually bound to provide you a certain level of service, and are penalized for breaches of said service.. you can get it.. but not for $30 a month.
Im not a lawyer, but I think "service level agreements" is the key phrase there. With my residential internet, my service agreement is clearly stating that while they make best effort, if it goes down for a month or something, tough beans. You can only enforce what is agreed upon.
You can get service agreements that are more "heads will roll if we go down", this is usually what you are paying for if you get a T1 line.
Sure, but when you sign those terms I assume you also agree that they can kill your account for any time for any reason (I've never read them as I don't use facebook, but this seems a pretty standard "cover your ass" clause in most TOS).
Hasn’t this been tried with google?
No matter how engrained a free service becomes in your life, unless you have a contract with the provider I can’t see how you are in any way entitled to damages when it’s taken away from you.
And at least in the google case I can sympathize. I still think google has the right to do so, but I can feel for the small business that suddenly loses it’s income stream because google lowers their rank. This is a social networking site... get a grip and/or a life.
voting with your wallet is for 'old people' isn't it?
Sadly, yup.. but more because it has become completely ineffective.
This applies to all areas. Everything is a big chain.. the guy behind the counter is some high school kid making minimum wage and probably doesn't give a shit if you are satisfied. Storming out of a store shouting "well I'll just take my business elsewhere" has very little impact. The days where the people you dealt with on a regular basis gave any kind of shit about your business are gone.
Likewise, boycotts are generally pointless unless you get a very large number of people together or at least get some press coverage. Even if _every single person_ who knew about sony's various evil deeds never paid them another dime, it probably wouldn't even make a blip on their revenue charts.
Individually boycotting a large corporation might give you a warm fuzzy "I did good" feeling, but no point deluding ourselves that it makes any kind of difference.
NOTE: I don't buy BD disks either.. but that's more because it's not something I'm interested in.
Of course.. but developers of software projects don't make a good target for malware injection.
What the hell did sourceforge ever do to anyone?
I guess this could have been an attempt to spread some malware or something (by poisoning popular projects)?
Off topic: how many people actually download directly from sourceforge any more. I have to imagine the majority of users (even before the mass ubuntu influx) get their stuff second hand through their favorite distro’s repository these days. I know I haven’t been there with any regularity since my `ol slackware days *tugs pants up past waist*.
More money then most with an _engineering degree_ and probably some serious student debt? Although if he's been unemployed for a year then maybe he wasn't very good/not employable.. or the job market for engineers has taken an even bigger nose dive then I thought.
For what reason? To waste money on electricity? Prematurely kill their computers by running them 24/7?
Same reason people did it back in the usenet and IRC days and do Folding@Home and SETI. Some people just get a kick out of it.
And I doubt that running a computer 24/7 has a serious impact on it's longevity. Computers tend to go obsolete long before they "wear out".. and if something does break (psu, hard drive, mobo caps), it was probably going to break regardless of whether it was shutdown every day (infact, in some cases that might actually cause it to break faster).
Augh! What the heck happened to the rest of my words!
I don’t really get (and the article didn’t really seem to explain) how these elite uploaders of the pirated content receive this ad-revenue. Are they saying that the people who post the bulk of the infringing torrents on various networks receive ad-revenue from the indexing sites (where the ads would be displayed)? I don’t understand how ad revenue flows from the indexing sites to the users who upload the content.
It almost seems like these guys asked themselves “why do they do it”, looked at a torrent site, saw the ads, and just said “ah, that’s why” and wrote a paper.
Also, the suggestion in this article to provide “disincentives” to the people uploading the bulk of pirated content is kind of obvious and silly. If the media industry had any way of actually doing this, it would have been done a long time ago. I think it’s already recognized by most people that the bulk of pirated content originates from a small number of sources. I can’t imagine that big media hasn’t been trying unsuccessfully to shut this group down for quite a while.
Unless I’m missing something, this whole article comes across as another one of these ridiculous studies where after 3 years of research and a few million dollars they reveal that fire is hot and scissors can be sharp. I file this right next to
Amen.
The fact that a large majority of people (even some very smart people) really get into this stuff depresses me. The whole celebrity worship thing is quite disturbing. I just don't understand the attraction!
Facebook who owns your photos, Google who can read your mail and your local supermarket who knows what you buy and when.
This is where the whole "personal decision" bit of my post comes in. I actually don't have a problem with any of that (I don't have a facebook account.. but if I did.. they can have my pictures.. even the one of me in a toga at that party), but obviously some people do care about this stuff.
Privacy nuts think that everyone should be paranoid about their data.. they arn't. Social networking has taken off because people love to spout out their whole lives for everyone.
I agree these are things everyone should think about and make a decision on what info they are ok with giving away.. but I think "they can have it" is a valid response for a _lot_ of people. Just because you've come to the decision that your preference in tomato soup is no ones business doesn't mean others are going to share the sentiment.
I'm more for legislating that sites have to be forthcoming, and offer some kind of opt-out (like this header would provide). I honestly think if facebook had a big "look.. we take all your data and sell it to people so they can sell you junk.. and we give you farmville" sign when you signed up, people would read it, nod, click ok, and get on with their life.
I'm also all for legislation that would put limits on how long the data can be stored for.
Chances are you're required to have a Facebook or Google account to keep your job
Nope. Probably happens, but I've never seen that.
I somewhat disagree, but it's irrelevant. You could enable this header and happily browse the puritan internet.
I agree.. most sites who's primary purpose is to drag you in so you can see their wall of ads tend to suck, and some of the best source of information have a /~someusername/ in the URL ..
But there are several sites that really do dump the money back into producing content and/or paying the insane bandwidth/hardware costs that come from running a really popular site. There are even a few that I pay a (non-trivial) subscription to.
Oh I'm sure lots of advertisers would just ignore the header.. and probably even use it as a datapoint, but if enough of the really big ones (aka google) implement it, would really take the teeth out of online tracking.
The problem is that sites would be justified (imo) to then not offer you service based on this.
“We support this site with ad revenue. Tracking is part of that. No Tracking, no service”.
This is fine really. People aren’t entitled to web content. In many cases your privacy is what you are trading for it, and you should be made aware of this and have the option to decline. This kind of header (and possibly others like it) would let you specify in what you are ok with, and let a site then decide whether it’s enough to grant you access.
The problem is that people don’t like this... they want the privacy _and_ the content.. so people would probably just go back to using ad-blockers and cookie deleters as soon as they start getting rejected access messages.
Of course the opposite could happen as well. Web traffic could plummet as everyone enables the feature.. causing a site owner to re-think whether web tracking makes sense for them.
Personally I don’t mind being tracked. Somewhere out there, someone has a very detailed profile of what makes me tick.. and really it’s not doing me much harm that I can see. I read an article about raising my new pet dog and I every other ad I see for the next 2 weeks is about obedience training.. creepy but doesn’t hurt me. This is a personal decision however, and I think people do have the right to be paranoid about their data and should have the option to opt out.
It's ok within the same movie..
I'm talking more when you go back to the middle of a story that was covered in one movie and introduce something that wasn't part of the original using another movie.
Still confused..
it feels more like you are one of those people who dislike something when/if it becomes popular.
First Matrix:
Is Popular
My post indicates I like it
Your post indicates I don't like it (because it's popular)
Second and Third Matrix:
Not so popular (rotten tomatoes 40% etc)
My post indicates I don't like them
Your post mkaes no statement, but I would assume the inverse that I should like things which are unpopular if I dislike things which are popular.
Your post seems backwards. I'm actually kind of swaying with the crowd on this one, liking the popular movie and disliking the unpopular ones. You have accused me of being some kind of non-conformist when I'm actually conforming like a sheep.
Uh.. except that the first matrix was very popular.. which is why they are talking about a 4'th and 5'th sequel...
And the 2'nd and 3'rd sequels were widely panned.. rotten tomatoes has the third one 40%.
Infact I actually don't get how your post relates at all... please explain further.
Also, how do you want to continue this story?
I just hope they don't make a prequel.. I really hate those. Or cover some time period that was glanced over (I hate those too). Stories have a start and end. Going back and telling some part of it in the middle or before the origional start always feels weird, and in the worst cases can wreck the original story.
The fact that Neo kinda like.. dies.. at the end of the third one kind of limits the possibilities of the character. They can always do the lame "he wasn't really dead" thing.. but people hate that.
For the love of the great fire cactus.
Sad thing is, even though most people equate the two existing sequels to the experience of having a lightly chilled olive fork rammed into your eye this movie will get its audience. The first matrix was just that damn good that they can keep cranking out shitty sequels and people will watch them, knowing full well that they are going to suck.
The whole actor worship thing is huge. Personally I think it's stupid, but the masses like it. Just look at all the shows and magazines based around celebrity gosip. You can't write an article about some synthetic actors opinion on breakfast cereal.
And personally I hate synthetic music. I like an actual human with talent playing a real instrument/singing. Obviously this is a personal thing, a lot of people like synthetic music and I'm sure it takes talent to make synthetic music.. but I can't imagine I'm alone in this.
Compared to the cost of solid dev processes, QA, and formal testing.. not even close. And that's not even getting into the turn around time for new features.
The other key here is that they don't really lose the money, they just don't make it. Compare this to avionics, medical, or military.. where a screw up can kill someone/derail a project/terminate a contract and put entire offices of people out of work. This is where you see the serious QA and code signing and multiple levels of review and testing.