I want them to patent the entire Amazon shopping experience: Finding 10 things through their site that you want, and seem resonably priced, then getting to the checkout, and realizing that each item is from a different store, with it's own shipping and handling, and then seeing the $55 shipping and handling quote, and abandoning your shopping cart in a rage. Can that be patented?
Har- don't laugh. I know I will use it for an excuse to not call people back, or to do the fake call drop on my cell. "I didn't hang up- it was the solar flares..."
Low frequency products: Soap, Condoms
High Fequency Items: Lube, Dirty Magazines...
This is a more serious issue now that many of us (18-35) don't have land line phones, just cells.
I am glad that the audio out is good, but what I worry about more, in any protable device, is durability. If it is dropped while fumbling for keys, will it still work? And also some degree of water proofing. For me, portable music devices are mainly for running etc. So I want to be assured that it can get some (or a lot) of sweat on it and still work fine.
RE your post: The nano is $250- just buy one. As an intern you likely have bigger issues such as no employer-provided health insurance.
A couple points:
If you are filing a claim, most likely you lost your computer (if you ever had one). Thus you will likely use gov't (library computers, FEMA computer "labs") These will have ie most likely.
Will Mozzilla, Opera (and others) or Microsoft give greater corporate donations to the relief efforts. I am not saying that this should have anything to do with it, but something to ponder.
Many (by all means not all) of the people who will be filing claims were very poor, or very old. Two groups that tend to have little experience with computers. I wonder what percentage of people will need assistance registering for claims. Here is the biggest Karma boost possible: George Bush Caused the hurricane, using airplanes manufactured with no-bid contracts by Halliburton. These airplanes, using Microsoft software, and with Rumsfeld, Gates and Bolton at the controls, flew around in circles causing the hurricane. This was to draw attention away from not only the missteps in Iraq- but also Microsofts deceptive practices. Does that get me a +10000 informative?
This is not just a computer issue. It is a general security issue. If a newspaper knows of a place vulnerable to terrorism, should they notify the gov't before notifying the people?
Keep in mind, all this "they knew it was a problem and did nothing" about the Levees in NOLA, is going to be rehashed with the borders, i.e. when something bad (terrorits, bird flu, whatever) comes over in an illegal immigrant, you are going to hear about how we knew the risks and no one did anything.
We are a reactive, not a proactive society.
I am actually not married to my cousin, nor my sister. In fact MARRYING your cousin is ILLEGAL in Ohio, yet is is legal in California!!!http://www.cousincouples.com/info/mostppl.htm
If you are going to insult me, get your facts straight. And then go fuck yourself.
On the internet and creativity thing- I will play devil's advocate- What about situations where instead of having to figure out on their own what something is/does/means, a kid can just look it up on the internet? What does that do for creativity?
Please, please explain something to me about these hyphenated names. I live in the midwest, so we don't see much of this silliness. But please indulge me:
Lets says an offspring or Berners-Lee marries an offspring of another hypenated name family, let's call them Smith-Jones. Would the last name of their children be Smith-Jones-Berners-Lee? This could of course go on forever, until names are so long that we would need smaller fonts or wider paper. Seriously. Ridiculous.
How do you figure our whose name goes first? By height? Alphabetically?
And also, I believe that anything that increases your kids chance of getting the shit kicked out of him on the playground, whether it is giving him a ridiculous first name, or a hyphenated last name, is cruel. On the other hand, maybe if I have more coffee, I will stop acting like such an asshole.
And on a related note- Sugar in your gas tank won't hurt your motor- It will just clog your fuel filter and your car won't run due to a clogged fuel filter. And even if it gets past the filter and into the motor, it won't hurt the motor.
Wait- is this offtopic? Can anything be offtopic when the posted article is so bad that there is nothing to reply to, except to point out its shortcomings?
I hope that we don't end up getting rid of the hard copies for archival purposes...
I am not a ginat Rall fan, but he has a good point in this article...
Cultural Suicide via Digitalization
Ted Rall
NEW YORK--Compact discs won't skip. They'll play even if you scratch them. Unless you break them or set them on fire, they'll last forever. That's the sales pitch the recording industry used to convince America to switch from vinyl records to CDs. But, as anyone who owns a hairy dog or cat knows, CDs do skip. And as anyone who uses them to store computer files knows, digital data stored on them eventually vanishes in a mysterious phenomenon called "data rot." "With proper care this Compact Disc will last a lifetime," promised the packaging on the first digital recordings. Now experts wonder whether they'll make it 20 years.
Without discussion or debate humanity has committed itself to the wholesale digitalization of its collective cultural and historical information base. Music, movies, manuscripts, everything from letters between presidents to merchants' financial transactions are currently created and stored in strictly digital form--a development that fulfills George Orwell's prophecy that history would become mutable, now with a few keystrokes. Even more terrifying than the likelihood that the digitalization of history will be abused in the service of tyranny is the certainty that we are setting the stage for the greatest loss of knowledge since the destruction of the Royal Library at Alexandria.
Continued here.... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050824/cm_ucru/afat eworsethandeath
And another thing- I'll make the math simple. Lets use the round number 100,000 for the number of american troops in Iraq. Let's also, for the sake of argument, say that all 100,000 are Guard. (of course it is nothing even remotely close to 100%...) Now, there are, to use another round number, 500,000 in the National Guard. So the 100,000 is the entire National Guard! Hmmmmmm. That is awesome math.
The three people it might affect every year isn't a big deal. If anything, I did them, and everyone else, a favor.
Dude, seriously, what are you doing on slashdot? Didn't you know that hot babes from all over the world are trying to email us all day every day?
Honestly, for me, email is like the phone- the list of people that I want to have access to me isn't that long. Not because I am a hot commodity, but because I don't like being disturbed.
It is your computer- you can restrict access however you want. If you only want to accept email from people over 6 feet tall and white, it is up to you. It is your computer! What a concept!
Anyhow- good luck with the wedding. (Or as my mom told me, "you aren't planning for a wedding, you are planning for a marriage..." Big difference...)
Maybe because they are all in Iraq. Should I bother posting facts to refute that false assumption, or would it be a waste of time....
Do you truly believe that statement and you are just uninformed, and as such would be ammenable to facts to the contrary? Or is it just a knee jerk reaction from someone who has never served?
The Guard is ready to serve in any domestic emergency, contrary to the propaganda you hear from Al Franken....
I can understand how you may be under that misconception, however Guard units are designed to be anywhere in the world within a matter of hours. Sorry if I sound like a know it all, but this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart...
Check out a bit about our history in conflicts here: http://www.1800goguard.com/whatistheguard/whatis_h istory.html Try moving thousands of people, from a branch that was never designed to be mobile far beyond state borders Read a bit about our federal mission, if interested, here:
http://www.arng.army.mil/about_us/protecting_our_w orld.asp then figure out which state national guards have experience/training with water rescue then coordinate the efforts of all of those remaining with no clear high level chain of command. This would take about 5 minutes. The Army is not inept, as is the common misconception. The commanders know exactly who is trained to do what...
As far as leadership: (I'm pretty sure theres no General of the National Guard.)
see this link for structure: http://www.arng.army.mil/about_us/organization/
Director of the Army National Guard, Lieutenant General Clyde A. Vaughn
Brigadier General Frank J. Grass
Deputy Director of the Army National Guard, Brigadier General Frank J. Grass
Colonel Matthew L. Murphy
Chief of Staff of the Army National Guard, Colonel Matthew L. Murphy
Command Chief Warrant Officer of the Army National Guard, Chief Warrant Officer Five Poyas Haynes
Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard, Command Sgt. Maj. John D. Gipe
Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard, Command Sgt. Maj. John D. Gipe
http://www.arng.army.mil/Leaders/
Who needs a free hotspot when we can go "war boating"
What I don't understand is why we aren't mobilizing Guard units from other states, for example, Ohio. I would love to go and help out. (One can't always leave work to go help the Red Cross, but when the Guard calls, you pretty much have to answer the pager, employer be damned....)
Sort of makes one want a freeplay radio... at least to listen to what is going on. (ccradio.com)
And I do feel for all the suffering, but although there were quite a few people who couldn't get out, a lot of people stayed willingly after the call to evacuate...
Most crimes are solved because the criminal tells someone, or does something stupid. Please allow me to clarify- I should have said, most crimes that are solved are solved because the criminal does something stupid.
Unfortunately, much crime is not solved: Keep in mind that cleared means "solved". This is from 2000 (http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/cius2000.h tm)
Index Crime Clearances
* Law enforcement agencies nationwide reported a 20.5-percent Crime Index offense clearance rate for 2000. The clearance rate for violent crimes was 47.5 percent; property crimes had a clearance rate of 16.7 percent.
* Among violent crimes, the offense of murder had a clearance rate of 63.1 percent and was the most frequently cleared offense in 2000. The aggravated assault clearance rate was 56.9 percent; 46.9 percent of forcible rapes and 25.7 percent of robberies were also cleared.
* For property crimes, 18.2 percent of larceny-thefts were cleared in 2000. Motor vehicle theft was cleared at a rate of 14.1 percent; burglary, the offense least often cleared, had a clearance rate of 13.4 percent.
* Arson had a clearance rate of 16.0 percent in 2000.
* In 2000, Index offenses involving only juvenile offenders (under 18 years of age) accounted for 19.3 percent of the overall Crime Index offenses cleared. Additionally, juveniles were held accountable for 12.2 percent of all violent crimes cleared and 22.1 percent of the total property crimes cleared. Murder had the least juvenile involvement with 5.3 percent of the offenses cleared. Juveniles, however, were most often involved in the crime of arson, representing 45.9 percent of the total arson offenses cleared.
Most crimes are solved because the criminal tells someone, or does something stupid. (I don't mean miniscule stupid things like you see on TV with CSI, I mean really dumb things...)
Sure there are some good, and thus rich criminals out there. But the majority of them are fairly dumb.
One of the problems is bussing in general- A lot of kids live right near a school, but are bussed accross town in the interest of diversity.
The other, is why can't kids walk a couple miles or ride their bikes, rather than ride a bus. That has of course secondary consequences of health.
As the parent says- school is babysitting to a lot of people- How many people take the day off from work if schools are closed for a snow day? A lot. With all the single working parents and dual income families, you aren't going to see (forced) at home schooling take off in any appreciable volume.
I love it when the first post gets modded redundant! At least I can get some pleasure out of the fact that I, unlike the mod, know what redundant means! Of course, that and $2 will get me a cup of coffee...
In all seriousness, this numbers are only going to go up as we get more and more of our TV, Newspapers, Movies and Music over the net...
Who would have thought....
It just goes to show how big something can get in a relatively short period of time.
I plan to do my part towards getting the three terabits a second by downloading some porn and music this afternoon.
Sometimes I get the sense from the Slashdot crowd that something isn't worth doing because perfection is impossible, perfect security being a prime example. I would like to ask, does that mean we quit using security measures?
I believe you and I are on the same page. My point is, that no security is perfect. Not that it means we shouldn't secure our possesions, but rather that if someone really wants something, and is willing to go to any means to get it, then they are likely to succeed...
My point was that any security can be defeated, and if people are willing to break out the scanner and learn photoshop, they are likely to get what they want through that or other means.
We all need to decide for ourselves what we believe our personal level of security needs to be, whether it is a wide open door, or a deadbolt lock. What does worry me, are people who have our info without our experessed permission (i.e. data brokers) and are lax with security...
Hopefully though, this discovery will further bring to light all the lax security that companies that control our personal information have. It would be nice to see data brokers and banks start to care about security a little more.
And the fact that if your info gets out and someone exploits it, it is such a hassle to clear your good name/credit.
That being said- locks only keep honest men out... In the military locks are known as "delaying devices" If someone wants your info, and are willing to break out the scanner and start graphics manipulation to get it, well, they are likely to get it. But wouldn't it just be easier to hit strangers about the head with a sock of nickels and take their cash?
Can't sites just prevent hotlinking? I thought this was common. Anyhow, the worst offender is a site called a m i n a k e d . c o m
(obviously w/o the spaces, I don't want to be responsible for people clicking it at work...)
They even have an interface to view the most pictures from individual directories....
Keep in mind that lawsuits have become a "legitimate" revenue stream for many companies.... So of course you would sue the company with the most money, not necessarily the biggest offender...
It would be interesting to see the breakdown on people who are starting to dislike google. What percent are genuinely upset about their business practices, and what percent are upset that they are doing well (sort of like when a new band gets big, and the "original" fans say they have "sold out") No man! I heard of them first! Let me show you this receipt for a band t-shirt dated THREE days before the new song charted, dude!
There is a group of people who will never like any company or group that is succesful. And there will always be people who attack the leaders just because they are leading, whether it is the NY Yankees (I try not to be one of them, but alas, I live in Ohio and I am a Cleveland fan) or google.
Slashdot Mirror
I want them to patent the entire Amazon shopping experience: Finding 10 things through their site that you want, and seem resonably priced, then getting to the checkout, and realizing that each item is from a different store, with it's own shipping and handling, and then seeing the $55 shipping and handling quote, and abandoning your shopping cart in a rage. Can that be patented?
Har- don't laugh. I know I will use it for an excuse to not call people back, or to do the fake call drop on my cell. "I didn't hang up- it was the solar flares..."
Low frequency products: Soap, Condoms
High Fequency Items: Lube, Dirty Magazines...
This is a more serious issue now that many of us (18-35) don't have land line phones, just cells.
Or hang your arm out the window of your car while driving 70 on the highway in the rain- Those rain drops can sting....
I am glad that the audio out is good, but what I worry about more, in any protable device, is durability. If it is dropped while fumbling for keys, will it still work? And also some degree of water proofing. For me, portable music devices are mainly for running etc. So I want to be assured that it can get some (or a lot) of sweat on it and still work fine.
RE your post: The nano is $250- just buy one. As an intern you likely have bigger issues such as no employer-provided health insurance.
A couple points:
If you are filing a claim, most likely you lost your computer (if you ever had one). Thus you will likely use gov't (library computers, FEMA computer "labs") These will have ie most likely.
Will Mozzilla, Opera (and others) or Microsoft give greater corporate donations to the relief efforts. I am not saying that this should have anything to do with it, but something to ponder.
Many (by all means not all) of the people who will be filing claims were very poor, or very old. Two groups that tend to have little experience with computers. I wonder what percentage of people will need assistance registering for claims.
Here is the biggest Karma boost possible: George Bush Caused the hurricane, using airplanes manufactured with no-bid contracts by Halliburton. These airplanes, using Microsoft software, and with Rumsfeld, Gates and Bolton at the controls, flew around in circles causing the hurricane. This was to draw attention away from not only the missteps in Iraq- but also Microsofts deceptive practices. Does that get me a +10000 informative?
This is not just a computer issue. It is a general security issue. If a newspaper knows of a place vulnerable to terrorism, should they notify the gov't before notifying the people?
Keep in mind, all this "they knew it was a problem and did nothing" about the Levees in NOLA, is going to be rehashed with the borders, i.e. when something bad (terrorits, bird flu, whatever) comes over in an illegal immigrant, you are going to hear about how we knew the risks and no one did anything.
We are a reactive, not a proactive society.
I am actually not married to my cousin, nor my sister. In fact MARRYING your cousin is ILLEGAL in Ohio, yet is is legal in California!!! http://www.cousincouples.com/info/mostppl.htm
If you are going to insult me, get your facts straight. And then go fuck yourself.
On the internet and creativity thing- I will play devil's advocate- What about situations where instead of having to figure out on their own what something is/does/means, a kid can just look it up on the internet? What does that do for creativity?
Please, please explain something to me about these hyphenated names. I live in the midwest, so we don't see much of this silliness. But please indulge me:
Lets says an offspring or Berners-Lee marries an offspring of another hypenated name family, let's call them Smith-Jones. Would the last name of their children be Smith-Jones-Berners-Lee? This could of course go on forever, until names are so long that we would need smaller fonts or wider paper. Seriously. Ridiculous.
How do you figure our whose name goes first? By height? Alphabetically?
And also, I believe that anything that increases your kids chance of getting the shit kicked out of him on the playground, whether it is giving him a ridiculous first name, or a hyphenated last name, is cruel. On the other hand, maybe if I have more coffee, I will stop acting like such an asshole.
And on a related note- Sugar in your gas tank won't hurt your motor- It will just clog your fuel filter and your car won't run due to a clogged fuel filter. And even if it gets past the filter and into the motor, it won't hurt the motor.
Wait- is this offtopic? Can anything be offtopic when the posted article is so bad that there is nothing to reply to, except to point out its shortcomings?
I hope that we don't end up getting rid of the hard copies for archival purposes...t eworsethandeath
I am not a ginat Rall fan, but he has a good point in this article...
Cultural Suicide via Digitalization
Ted Rall
NEW YORK--Compact discs won't skip. They'll play even if you scratch them. Unless you break them or set them on fire, they'll last forever. That's the sales pitch the recording industry used to convince America to switch from vinyl records to CDs. But, as anyone who owns a hairy dog or cat knows, CDs do skip. And as anyone who uses them to store computer files knows, digital data stored on them eventually vanishes in a mysterious phenomenon called "data rot." "With proper care this Compact Disc will last a lifetime," promised the packaging on the first digital recordings. Now experts wonder whether they'll make it 20 years. Without discussion or debate humanity has committed itself to the wholesale digitalization of its collective cultural and historical information base. Music, movies, manuscripts, everything from letters between presidents to merchants' financial transactions are currently created and stored in strictly digital form--a development that fulfills George Orwell's prophecy that history would become mutable, now with a few keystrokes. Even more terrifying than the likelihood that the digitalization of history will be abused in the service of tyranny is the certainty that we are setting the stage for the greatest loss of knowledge since the destruction of the Royal Library at Alexandria.
Continued here.... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050824/cm_ucru/afa
Ohio National Guard to join relief efforts At least 1,500 to assist after hurricane; Coast Guard also deploying troops
www.ohio.com
And another thing- I'll make the math simple. Lets use the round number 100,000 for the number of american troops in Iraq. Let's also, for the sake of argument, say that all 100,000 are Guard. (of course it is nothing even remotely close to 100%...) Now, there are, to use another round number, 500,000 in the National Guard. So the 100,000 is the entire National Guard! Hmmmmmm. That is awesome math.
The three people it might affect every year isn't a big deal. If anything, I did them, and everyone else, a favor.
Dude, seriously, what are you doing on slashdot? Didn't you know that hot babes from all over the world are trying to email us all day every day?
Honestly, for me, email is like the phone- the list of people that I want to have access to me isn't that long. Not because I am a hot commodity, but because I don't like being disturbed.
It is your computer- you can restrict access however you want. If you only want to accept email from people over 6 feet tall and white, it is up to you. It is your computer! What a concept!
Anyhow- good luck with the wedding. (Or as my mom told me, "you aren't planning for a wedding, you are planning for a marriage..." Big difference...)
Maybe because they are all in Iraq.
Should I bother posting facts to refute that false assumption, or would it be a waste of time....
Do you truly believe that statement and you are just uninformed, and as such would be ammenable to facts to the contrary? Or is it just a knee jerk reaction from someone who has never served?
The Guard is ready to serve in any domestic emergency, contrary to the propaganda you hear from Al Franken....
I can understand how you may be under that misconception, however Guard units are designed to be anywhere in the world within a matter of hours. Sorry if I sound like a know it all, but this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart...h istory.html
w orld.asp
Check out a bit about our history in conflicts here: http://www.1800goguard.com/whatistheguard/whatis_
Try moving thousands of people, from a branch that was never designed to be mobile far beyond state borders Read a bit about our federal mission, if interested, here: http://www.arng.army.mil/about_us/protecting_our_
then figure out which state national guards have experience/training with water rescue then coordinate the efforts of all of those remaining with no clear high level chain of command. This would take about 5 minutes. The Army is not inept, as is the common misconception. The commanders know exactly who is trained to do what...
As far as leadership:
(I'm pretty sure theres no General of the National Guard.)
see this link for structure: http://www.arng.army.mil/about_us/organization/
Director of the Army National Guard, Lieutenant General Clyde A. Vaughn
Brigadier General Frank J. Grass Deputy Director of the Army National Guard, Brigadier General Frank J. Grass
Colonel Matthew L. Murphy Chief of Staff of the Army National Guard, Colonel Matthew L. Murphy
Command Chief Warrant Officer of the Army National Guard, Chief Warrant Officer Five Poyas Haynes
Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard, Command Sgt. Maj. John D. Gipe Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard, Command Sgt. Maj. John D. Gipe
http://www.arng.army.mil/Leaders/
Who needs a free hotspot when we can go "war boating"
What I don't understand is why we aren't mobilizing Guard units from other states, for example, Ohio. I would love to go and help out. (One can't always leave work to go help the Red Cross, but when the Guard calls, you pretty much have to answer the pager, employer be damned....)
Sort of makes one want a freeplay radio... at least to listen to what is going on. (ccradio.com)
And I do feel for all the suffering, but although there were quite a few people who couldn't get out, a lot of people stayed willingly after the call to evacuate...
Most crimes are solved because the criminal tells someone, or does something stupid.h tm)
Please allow me to clarify- I should have said, most crimes that are solved are solved because the criminal does something stupid.
Unfortunately, much crime is not solved:
Keep in mind that cleared means "solved". This is from 2000
(http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/cius2000.
Index Crime Clearances * Law enforcement agencies nationwide reported a 20.5-percent Crime Index offense clearance rate for 2000. The clearance rate for violent crimes was 47.5 percent; property crimes had a clearance rate of 16.7 percent. * Among violent crimes, the offense of murder had a clearance rate of 63.1 percent and was the most frequently cleared offense in 2000. The aggravated assault clearance rate was 56.9 percent; 46.9 percent of forcible rapes and 25.7 percent of robberies were also cleared. * For property crimes, 18.2 percent of larceny-thefts were cleared in 2000. Motor vehicle theft was cleared at a rate of 14.1 percent; burglary, the offense least often cleared, had a clearance rate of 13.4 percent. * Arson had a clearance rate of 16.0 percent in 2000. * In 2000, Index offenses involving only juvenile offenders (under 18 years of age) accounted for 19.3 percent of the overall Crime Index offenses cleared. Additionally, juveniles were held accountable for 12.2 percent of all violent crimes cleared and 22.1 percent of the total property crimes cleared. Murder had the least juvenile involvement with 5.3 percent of the offenses cleared. Juveniles, however, were most often involved in the crime of arson, representing 45.9 percent of the total arson offenses cleared.
Most crimes are solved because the criminal tells someone, or does something stupid. (I don't mean miniscule stupid things like you see on TV with CSI, I mean really dumb things...)
Sure there are some good, and thus rich criminals out there. But the majority of them are fairly dumb.
One of the problems is bussing in general- A lot of kids live right near a school, but are bussed accross town in the interest of diversity.
The other, is why can't kids walk a couple miles or ride their bikes, rather than ride a bus. That has of course secondary consequences of health.
As the parent says- school is babysitting to a lot of people- How many people take the day off from work if schools are closed for a snow day? A lot. With all the single working parents and dual income families, you aren't going to see (forced) at home schooling take off in any appreciable volume.
I love it when the first post gets modded redundant! At least I can get some pleasure out of the fact that I, unlike the mod, know what redundant means!
Of course, that and $2 will get me a cup of coffee...
In all seriousness, this numbers are only going to go up as we get more and more of our TV, Newspapers, Movies and Music over the net...
Who would have thought....
It just goes to show how big something can get in a relatively short period of time.
I plan to do my part towards getting the three terabits a second by downloading some porn and music this afternoon.
Sometimes I get the sense from the Slashdot crowd that something isn't worth doing because perfection is impossible, perfect security being a prime example. I would like to ask, does that mean we quit using security measures?
I believe you and I are on the same page. My point is, that no security is perfect. Not that it means we shouldn't secure our possesions, but rather that if someone really wants something, and is willing to go to any means to get it, then they are likely to succeed...
My point was that any security can be defeated, and if people are willing to break out the scanner and learn photoshop, they are likely to get what they want through that or other means.
We all need to decide for ourselves what we believe our personal level of security needs to be, whether it is a wide open door, or a deadbolt lock. What does worry me, are people who have our info without our experessed permission (i.e. data brokers) and are lax with security...
Hopefully though, this discovery will further bring to light all the lax security that companies that control our personal information have. It would be nice to see data brokers and banks start to care about security a little more.
And the fact that if your info gets out and someone exploits it, it is such a hassle to clear your good name/credit.
That being said- locks only keep honest men out... In the military locks are known as "delaying devices"
If someone wants your info, and are willing to break out the scanner and start graphics manipulation to get it, well, they are likely to get it. But wouldn't it just be easier to hit strangers about the head with a sock of nickels and take their cash?
Can't sites just prevent hotlinking? I thought this was common. Anyhow, the worst offender is a site called a m i n a k e d . c o m
(obviously w/o the spaces, I don't want to be responsible for people clicking it at work...)
They even have an interface to view the most pictures from individual directories....
Keep in mind that lawsuits have become a "legitimate" revenue stream for many companies.... So of course you would sue the company with the most money, not necessarily the biggest offender...
It would be interesting to see the breakdown on people who are starting to dislike google. What percent are genuinely upset about their business practices, and what percent are upset that they are doing well (sort of like when a new band gets big, and the "original" fans say they have "sold out") No man! I heard of them first! Let me show you this receipt for a band t-shirt dated THREE days before the new song charted, dude!
There is a group of people who will never like any company or group that is succesful. And there will always be people who attack the leaders just because they are leading, whether it is the NY Yankees (I try not to be one of them, but alas, I live in Ohio and I am a Cleveland fan) or google.