Yea I agree. It seems like there is a random element to it that would be nice to eliminate sometimes.
I would recommend e-mailing Tim Westergren (he authors the welcome e-mails and is the founder of Pandora) and make some suggestions.
Tim has replied personally to my suggestions, and to a friends suggestions.
My guess is over the next few years theyll streamline Pandora and it will become really impressive.
I would like to try last.fm and compare though (I think I prefer a scientific approach over a community approach... I think I blame people for how bad radio tends to be... seems like putting them back in the picture as a bad idea).
Good points. Unfortunately from my perspective the answer is creating new radio stations or telling it less often what you don't like and more often what you do.
My main motivation is that I have difficulty stomaching radio because of repeats. I very rarely listen to radio (a day out of every 3 months at best). Unfortunately when I do listen most of the songs that are played are the same songs that were played the last time I listened. There are a number of songs that are played that I've heard on the same station YEARS previous. Nothing new and nothing interesting (for me at least).
The worst part is I have no influence over the radio, I can't choose what kind of music they play other than a genre (at best). I have great difficulty finding new music or even music I like using solely the radio, MTV and anything I can get my hands on.
From my view Pandora is essential to finding new music. The more I find that I like the more stations I can have and the more additional music I can find, etc...
However, I do not tend to listen to popular music (country, rap, general pop, pop alternative...). So that probably skews my view a bit too.
I've heard their are community based services like Pandor that are pretty good too. You might try one of those??
Agreed.
The RIAA does many lame and evil things and they are likely a part of the problem.
In fact I submit that a lot of the things they get paid for are more extortion money (think music mophia) than a fee paid for a service or license.
Apparently the RIAA even makes money on blank cassette tapes... and if you ever buy the 'music' CDRs, notice that they are more expensive. This added expense is an extortion charge from or big brother Gido at the RIAA.
Hell, look at all the extortion money they are getting from file sharing 'pirates'... wait a minute aren't pirates historically the ones taking money from relatively defenseless citizens of port cities & towns??
Hmmm interesting.
Have you considered any of the wireless services? Clearwire is looking pretty good these days (although my house is outside the local coverage area). Using Wireless internet (not WiFi, not wireless networking but wireless internet service) you can drive around and be connected the whole time...
In fact one of the people signed up for the mailing group of www.bsdg.org was actually broadcasting video from his car just to prove how cool it is.
I'd guess eventually there will be an overlap of services and we may all be paying for wireless internet so we can use our portable VOIP phones wherever we go.
Actually I think the business model of normal radio is being out performed by services such as Pandora. Normal radio (even if it's over the internet) is limited to the tastes of the people choosing the music. Additionally they tend to play to the lowest common denominator. They play a very small set of songs for a very long time and rarely bring in new content.
Where Pandora is designed to introduce you to new music and have an enormous playlist.
My opinion is based on 10 years as a computer professional. I have predominantly performed some level or type of support working with end users. Which means I may be a little biased.
My opinion: It is important that there is a balance between security and freedom. The best balance maximizes productivity. "FREEDOM!"(Mel Gibbson, Bravehart) On one side we have the users freedom to do whatever they want. This can and will cause hits to productivity in a number of ways. It's my opinion that the most significant of these ways is the productivity hit of viruses, spyware, and problems caused by the install of unapproved programs.
SECURITY (sorry can't think of a qoute) On the security side productivity can be hampered by having to go through red tape to do your job, having to get special permission for important job related functions, or simply limiting your otherwise boundless resources.
After seeing and experiencing what I have I beleive the best is to provide all protection possible that doesn't limit freedom. Then make policies regarding misuse of the equipment. Create limitations as needed based on abuses that decrease productivity (if everyone is using internet radio they won't stop and it is hurting network bandwidth start blocking those sites or services).
And I didn't really mean it as a jab... just using it in the normal non RMS way seemed amusing, sorry.
And I agree that the Open Source Community (which I definitely agree exists) is the force which has created the momentum that most Open Source projects have. I'd also like to see the American business world wake up and realize a lot of the software they are paying through the nose for can be replaced with software that is as good, nearly as good, or better than what they are paying for. Then I'd like to see them realize that not only is there a lot of good software but it can be easily modified, extended, or fixed at their whim....
I got the impression his point was not that there actually is no community but that business should be focusing on the return on investment that open source software provides.
Open source is better than free. Free software is usually just that, free(Please Stallman forebear on the hitmen). Which usually means its like most other free things, there are other strings attached or it sucks. Open source software however is the sharing and improving of tools for personal benefit, interest, or devotion to the cause (who really cares as long as good & useful tools are created).
IMO the benefits are what he was touting. Suggesting to business that they ignore the source and look at the value.
My view of what he said might be clouded by what I think as well...
I agree there appear to be many misunderstandings regarding Open Source software.
My experience so far has been with IT management who seem to fear the unknowns of 'free' software. There is a basic lack of ability to evaluate the product as a product and not based on it's source and/or lack of marketing. It seems that managers (and I've heard this from them before) think that when you get something for free you get what you pay for. Suggesting that it isn't valuable because they don't pay for it.
Case in point: Fairly recently during the initial feature investigation phases of a fairly large development project myself & 2 of the developers (I am a Buisness Systems Analyst/QA person) were recommending MYSQL over Oracle as the licensing cost (this was just before the announcement of OracleXE) for a few hundred clients was going to be in the order of 100K to 300K. We told them that there is excellent support for it for only 5K/year.
Essentially the response was "Eventhough it is much slower we will go with SQL Server because it's licensing is only 80K for the server".
Interesting business decisions... what happend to return on investment?
Fortunately Oracle XE saved the additional hundreds of thousands so we still have a high performance database option. And we could have had MYSQL 5.0 for 5K a year that performs in some ways better than Oracle (which I think we still paid 50K for).
Ummm what does the use of their abilities have to do with the imperical evidence that there are major security flaws in IE?
Ad hominem attacks only detract from the issue.
Please remember that there have been multiple warnings by CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) that IE is an insecure application.
The issue here really is not an IE issue but a security issue. CERT issues warnings when there is a significant computer related security risk.
This is only continued security weakness as security experts have advised that there might be, (and of course IE is far from the only application with security weaknesses).
Since the law has been in force for 3 years I hope companies & individuals alike who are protected by the law (EU affiliated countries) will consider their spam retroactively and start sueing the hell out of all the American spammers. Not clear wether this law can reach the Asian spammers.
Too bad our own government (the US that is) wimped out and decided not to protect us from them.
-Crossing my fingers the EU will kill the spammers
My opinion is faster broadband will allow more robust services to be provided on the interent.
SERVICES:
VOIP most likely the primary service to be adopted with TV(Podcasts etc...) & radio (http://www.pandora.com/ etc...) services receiving more real success.
Future services might be the real adoption of video services delivered with VOIP, & much wider adoption of video casting... (getting access to your DVR from anywhere on the internet)
SURFING:
However I think faster broadband will NOT be likely to increases visits to any given website.
While I agree that, on the surface, this seems like it shouldn't be illegal, if this where beleived it could cost Mr. Seigenthaler career opportunities. And, though unlikely, potentially even legal problems.
My main dissapointment here, however, is that this will decrease the trust of the value of the information on Wikipedia.
I have a few friends (these are geeks as well mind you) who don't trust Wikipedia because essentially, 'anyone can write there'. They beleive that there is not enough valid information there; Too much opinion.
Of course my response is that even published encyclopedias can include bad information based on opinion. By giving a published encyclopedia no room for doubt we are opening ourselves up to beleif in error, just as we are by not using critical thought processes when reading a Wikipedia entry.
So back to my dissapointment. Stunts like this while both funny & stupid are also devaluing the otherwise fairly valuable content of Wikipedia.
I agree with all parts of your comment accept the MS Word spellchecker Vs. Open Office. I have not been using OpenOffice a lot so I could just be flat out wrong, however I HAVE been using Word for many years (since Office 95). I am currently using Word 2003 with SP2 for Office 2003. I find problems in Word's spellchecking weekly and sometimes daily. There are words that if I look them up they are spelled correctly that are marked as incorrect, and the other way around (which could be my fault but I doubt it as I rarely add anything to the dictionary).
My main point is Microsofts product should be nearly flawless and I doubt it's much better than Open Office in the end.
But the articles point about speed and size is definitely accurate. Not worth 300$ though.
Neither are as good at text documents as Wordperfect.
OK so I'm sure this has been said a few hundred times already but... how do bugs make OpenOffice any different than Microsoft Office??
Has this guy used MS Office lately??
Just Friday(12-9) AT WORK. I used Open Office to write a part of a testing plan document because of a very lame BUG in WORD 2003.
For those intersted, bug details:
Word, when changing the font for a numbered list was DELETING THE NUMBERING.
Quite irritating. Open Office 2.0 of course had no such issue. Additonally I was able to save the fixed document as a.doc for 2003 and it works great in Word 2003.
Word defense:
Now in the defense of Word I'm sure there was a work around... However, this is not the only annoying odd functionality I've run into. How long has Word existed? How long has Open Office existed??
Summary:
I would dare say this goes the otherway as well: Why is MS Office so successful when its still as buggy as it is.
I might also add, Why is MS Word so successful when everyone I have ever talked to who used WordPerfect before Word was on the scene, still misses Wordperfect?!?
Microsoft technology...
Lets review the acronymn: Asynchronous Javascript And XML
If there are any here who still beleive this is a 'Microsoft technology' I have a great new news site for you to get your geek news:http://www.msn.com/ .
-ME®
Saying that all elected officials & voters are evil is sure an easy way out. Takes a lot more work to actually have a say doesn't it?
Can't promise my numbers are completely accurate but last I heard an elected official and their associated aids etc... consider a letter from one person as representing the views of at least 10 people. And an e-mail slightly less weighty.
Now consider the influence of a group like the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org/ ). Hundreds if not thousands of voters agreeing on a topic, times ten, if they each send a letter of complaint to the applicable elected officials. The voices of 10 people may not be much but try 10 20 or 30 thousand. Hell if the number of people participating gets past the 10,000 mark I think it's likely their influence would overshadow any lobyying by the recording industry.
Giving up is no solution. If you want to give up then I recommend more listening & less speaking. Otherwise actually make your voice heard instead of idly complaining.
The RIAA is attempting to use intimidation and scare tactics to kill peoples desire to use the infrastracture that can destroy their lucritave industry.
Intimidation & scare tactics that are making them lots of money... kind of like organized crime.
If you haven't seen a BSOD since 2001 does that mean you are using windows 2000? Windows 2000 is quite stable. However it has been my experience, having supported a few hundred XP machines since XP came out, that XP makes BSODs much more likely. Remember the wonderful features of ME that mutilat... errr made 98 so excessively unstable (not that it was stable before)?? Those features have been added to 2000 to make XP (or should I say to make XP less stable).
However, the instabilities of XP aside, the real stability difference between Windows OSs & Linux OSs that I see is the stability of the Kernel. With Windows it is easier & more common for any software to crash the kernel. The Linux Kernel on the other hand is not easy to crash particularly by crashing ancillary software.
I personally still use Windows for a workstation but if I needed a high availability server I most certainly would NOT choose Windows. Aside from inherent instabilities Windows requires: a reboot for every major security patch, weekly or bi-weekly reboots to reclaim resources (unless 2003 resolved this), and why waste resources on a GUI when a GUI is not necessary?
I've been an interested but passive observer on the debate regarding software patents. Now I am 95% against software patents and interested in doing something to stop them.
It's too bad the patent process can't be more selective, allowing a patent to be placed on something that is an industry standard should get an enormous red X stamped on the patent immediately, (I'd like to stamp a big red X on the head of the idiot who filed for this patent).
Well heres the story of the rise, decline, and potential fall, of the no-call registry for my state, (and likely the US as a whole):
RISE: My local state had a no-call registry that was EXTREMELY effective. It allowed non-profit organizations to call anytime before 9pm anyday of the week but anyone else could face serious fines, (much like what it sounds like Australia is planning). This was EXTREMELY effective.
DECLINE: However, later there was a national registry created and all of the state registries where pulled into the national list.
FALL: THEN the lobbying money of the telemarketing companies & companies who benefit from them had the laws surronding the registry questioned and subsequently weakend.
Now we receive telemarketing calls occassionally, which is much better than before the registries but definitely not as good as the state controlled registry (as usual the states do tend to do things well that the federal government tends to screw up).
So I suppose the moral is: it depends on what the laws stipulate. If the laws could be changed to support an actual no-call list which entialed stiff penalties for calls at anytime I would conjecture high success. In your case I suspect it will be very successful for the times telemarketing is not allowed.
-ME®
Re:I liked Internet Explorer 7 the first time...
on
IE7 Bugs and Reviews
·
· Score: 1
:D Beautifully stated. I'm fairly certain the protos don't use IE.:D
Slashdot Mirror
Hey thatoneguy
Yea I agree. It seems like there is a random element to it that would be nice to eliminate sometimes.
I would recommend e-mailing Tim Westergren (he authors the welcome e-mails and is the founder of Pandora) and make some suggestions.
Tim has replied personally to my suggestions, and to a friends suggestions.
My guess is over the next few years theyll streamline Pandora and it will become really impressive.
I would like to try last.fm and compare though (I think I prefer a scientific approach over a community approach... I think I blame people for how bad radio tends to be... seems like putting them back in the picture as a bad idea).
Hey Kittyflipping
Good points.
Unfortunately from my perspective the answer is creating new radio stations or telling it less often what you don't like and more often what you do.
My main motivation is that I have difficulty stomaching radio because of repeats. I very rarely listen to radio (a day out of every 3 months at best). Unfortunately when I do listen most of the songs that are played are the same songs that were played the last time I listened. There are a number of songs that are played that I've heard on the same station YEARS previous. Nothing new and nothing interesting (for me at least).
The worst part is I have no influence over the radio, I can't choose what kind of music they play other than a genre (at best).
I have great difficulty finding new music or even music I like using solely the radio, MTV and anything I can get my hands on.
From my view Pandora is essential to finding new music. The more I find that I like the more stations I can have and the more additional music I can find, etc...
However, I do not tend to listen to popular music (country, rap, general pop, pop alternative...). So that probably skews my view a bit too.
I've heard their are community based services like Pandor that are pretty good too. You might try one of those??
Agreed. The RIAA does many lame and evil things and they are likely a part of the problem. In fact I submit that a lot of the things they get paid for are more extortion money (think music mophia) than a fee paid for a service or license. Apparently the RIAA even makes money on blank cassette tapes... and if you ever buy the 'music' CDRs, notice that they are more expensive. This added expense is an extortion charge from or big brother Gido at the RIAA. Hell, look at all the extortion money they are getting from file sharing 'pirates'... wait a minute aren't pirates historically the ones taking money from relatively defenseless citizens of port cities & towns?? Hmmm interesting.
Have you considered any of the wireless services?
Clearwire is looking pretty good these days (although my house is outside the local coverage area).
Using Wireless internet (not WiFi, not wireless networking but wireless internet service) you can drive around and be connected the whole time...
In fact one of the people signed up for the mailing group of www.bsdg.org was actually broadcasting video from his car just to prove how cool it is.
I'd guess eventually there will be an overlap of services and we may all be paying for wireless internet so we can use our portable VOIP phones wherever we go.
Actually I think the business model of normal radio is being out performed by services such as Pandora.
Normal radio (even if it's over the internet) is limited to the tastes of the people choosing the music.
Additionally they tend to play to the lowest common denominator.
They play a very small set of songs for a very long time and rarely bring in new content.
Where Pandora is designed to introduce you to new music and have an enormous playlist.
www.pandora.com
Anybody else agree/disagree?
Good question PipBoy3000 (isn't that from Fallout??, great game but its been a long time...).
Whatever the motivation I am extremely happy someone is fighting against it.
DRM in the OS is going too far. Maybe it's time to adopt FreeBSD??
(Whoops should have been Highlander (with an R))
Hey Cliff
My opinion is based on 10 years as a computer professional. I have predominantly performed some level or type of support working with end users. Which means I may be a little biased.
My opinion:
It is important that there is a balance between security and freedom. The best balance maximizes productivity.
"FREEDOM!"(Mel Gibbson, Bravehart)
On one side we have the users freedom to do whatever they want. This can and will cause hits to productivity in a number of ways. It's my opinion that the most significant of these ways is the productivity hit of viruses, spyware, and problems caused by the install of unapproved programs.
SECURITY (sorry can't think of a qoute)
On the security side productivity can be hampered by having to go through red tape to do your job, having to get special permission for important job related functions, or simply limiting your otherwise boundless resources.
After seeing and experiencing what I have I beleive the best is to provide all protection possible that doesn't limit freedom. Then make policies regarding misuse of the equipment. Create limitations as needed based on abuses that decrease productivity (if everyone is using internet radio they won't stop and it is hurting network bandwidth start blocking those sites or services).
Good luck.
No Problem
...
And I didn't really mean it as a jab... just using it in the normal non RMS way seemed amusing, sorry.
And I agree that the Open Source Community (which I definitely agree exists) is the force which has created the momentum that most Open Source projects have.
I'd also like to see the American business world wake up and realize a lot of the software they are paying through the nose for can be replaced with software that is as good, nearly as good, or better than what they are paying for.
Then I'd like to see them realize that not only is there a lot of good software but it can be easily modified, extended, or fixed at their whim.
Hey Akoma
I got the impression his point was not that there actually is no community but that business should be focusing on the return on investment that open source software provides.
Open source is better than free. Free software is usually just that, free(Please Stallman forebear on the hitmen). Which usually means its like most other free things, there are other strings attached or it sucks.
Open source software however is the sharing and improving of tools for personal benefit, interest, or devotion to the cause (who really cares as long as good & useful tools are created).
IMO the benefits are what he was touting. Suggesting to business that they ignore the source and look at the value.
My view of what he said might be clouded by what I think as well...
I agree there appear to be many misunderstandings regarding Open Source software.
My experience so far has been with IT management who seem to fear the unknowns of 'free' software.
There is a basic lack of ability to evaluate the product as a product and not based on it's source and/or lack of marketing.
It seems that managers (and I've heard this from them before) think that when you get something for free you get what you pay for. Suggesting that it isn't valuable because they don't pay for it.
Case in point:
Fairly recently during the initial feature investigation phases of a fairly large development project myself & 2 of the developers (I am a Buisness Systems Analyst/QA person) were recommending MYSQL over Oracle as the licensing cost (this was just before the announcement of OracleXE) for a few hundred clients was going to be in the order of 100K to 300K.
We told them that there is excellent support for it for only 5K/year.
Essentially the response was "Eventhough it is much slower we will go with SQL Server because it's licensing is only 80K for the server".
Interesting business decisions... what happend to return on investment?
Fortunately Oracle XE saved the additional hundreds of thousands so we still have a high performance database option. And we could have had MYSQL 5.0 for 5K a year that performs in some ways better than Oracle (which I think we still paid 50K for).
Ummm what does the use of their abilities have to do with the imperical evidence that there are major security flaws in IE?
Ad hominem attacks only detract from the issue.
Please remember that there have been multiple warnings by CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) that IE is an insecure application.
The issue here really is not an IE issue but a security issue. CERT issues warnings when there is a significant computer related security risk.
This is only continued security weakness as security experts have advised that there might be, (and of course IE is far from the only application with security weaknesses).
Since the law has been in force for 3 years I hope companies & individuals alike who are protected by the law (EU affiliated countries) will consider their spam retroactively and start sueing the hell out of all the American spammers.
Not clear wether this law can reach the Asian spammers.
Too bad our own government (the US that is) wimped out and decided not to protect us from them.
-Crossing my fingers the EU will kill the spammers
My opinion is faster broadband will allow more robust services to be provided on the interent.
SERVICES:
VOIP most likely the primary service to be adopted with TV(Podcasts etc...) & radio (http://www.pandora.com/ etc...) services receiving more real success.
Future services might be the real adoption of video services delivered with VOIP, & much wider adoption of video casting... (getting access to your DVR from anywhere on the internet)
SURFING:
However I think faster broadband will NOT be likely to increases visits to any given website.
While I agree that, on the surface, this seems like it shouldn't be illegal, if this where beleived it could cost Mr. Seigenthaler career opportunities. And, though unlikely, potentially even legal problems.
My main dissapointment here, however, is that this will decrease the trust of the value of the information on Wikipedia. I have a few friends (these are geeks as well mind you) who don't trust Wikipedia because essentially, 'anyone can write there'. They beleive that there is not enough valid information there; Too much opinion. Of course my response is that even published encyclopedias can include bad information based on opinion. By giving a published encyclopedia no room for doubt we are opening ourselves up to beleif in error, just as we are by not using critical thought processes when reading a Wikipedia entry.
So back to my dissapointment. Stunts like this while both funny & stupid are also devaluing the otherwise fairly valuable content of Wikipedia.
-ME®
I agree with all parts of your comment accept the MS Word spellchecker Vs. Open Office.
I have not been using OpenOffice a lot so I could just be flat out wrong, however I HAVE been using Word for many years (since Office 95).
I am currently using Word 2003 with SP2 for Office 2003.
I find problems in Word's spellchecking weekly and sometimes daily.
There are words that if I look them up they are spelled correctly that are marked as incorrect, and the other way around (which could be my fault but I doubt it as I rarely add anything to the dictionary).
My main point is Microsofts product should be nearly flawless and I doubt it's much better than Open Office in the end.
But the articles point about speed and size is definitely accurate.
Not worth 300$ though.
Neither are as good at text documents as Wordperfect.
OK so I'm sure this has been said a few hundred times already but... how do bugs make OpenOffice any different than Microsoft Office?? Has this guy used MS Office lately??
.doc for 2003 and it works great in Word 2003.
Just Friday(12-9) AT WORK. I used Open Office to write a part of a testing plan document because of a very lame BUG in WORD 2003.
For those intersted, bug details:
Word, when changing the font for a numbered list was DELETING THE NUMBERING. Quite irritating. Open Office 2.0 of course had no such issue. Additonally I was able to save the fixed document as a
Word defense:
Now in the defense of Word I'm sure there was a work around... However, this is not the only annoying odd functionality I've run into. How long has Word existed? How long has Open Office existed??
Summary:
I would dare say this goes the otherway as well: Why is MS Office so successful when its still as buggy as it is. I might also add, Why is MS Word so successful when everyone I have ever talked to who used WordPerfect before Word was on the scene, still misses Wordperfect?!?
LOL
Microsoft technology...
Lets review the acronymn: Asynchronous Javascript And XML
If there are any here who still beleive this is a 'Microsoft technology' I have a great new news site for you to get your geek news:http://www.msn.com/ .
-ME®
I also completely agree with KarmaOverDogma.
Saying that all elected officials & voters are evil is sure an easy way out.
Takes a lot more work to actually have a say doesn't it?
Can't promise my numbers are completely accurate but last I heard an elected official and their associated aids etc... consider a letter from one person as representing the views of at least 10 people. And an e-mail slightly less weighty.
Now consider the influence of a group like the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org/ ). Hundreds if not thousands of voters agreeing on a topic, times ten, if they each send a letter of complaint to the applicable elected officials. The voices of 10 people may not be much but try 10 20 or 30 thousand.
Hell if the number of people participating gets past the 10,000 mark I think it's likely their influence would overshadow any lobyying by the recording industry.
Giving up is no solution. If you want to give up then I recommend more listening & less speaking. Otherwise actually make your voice heard instead of idly complaining.
-ME®
I completely agree.
The RIAA is attempting to use intimidation and scare tactics to kill peoples desire to use the infrastracture that can destroy their lucritave industry.
Intimidation & scare tactics that are making them lots of money... kind of like organized crime.
-ME®
If you haven't seen a BSOD since 2001 does that mean you are using windows 2000? Windows 2000 is quite stable.
However it has been my experience, having supported a few hundred XP machines since XP came out, that XP makes BSODs much more likely. Remember the wonderful features of ME that mutilat... errr made 98 so excessively unstable (not that it was stable before)?? Those features have been added to 2000 to make XP (or should I say to make XP less stable).
However, the instabilities of XP aside, the real stability difference between Windows OSs & Linux OSs that I see is the stability of the Kernel. With Windows it is easier & more common for any software to crash the kernel. The Linux Kernel on the other hand is not easy to crash particularly by crashing ancillary software.
I personally still use Windows for a workstation but if I needed a high availability server I most certainly would NOT choose Windows. Aside from inherent instabilities Windows requires: a reboot for every major security patch, weekly or bi-weekly reboots to reclaim resources (unless 2003 resolved this), and why waste resources on a GUI when a GUI is not necessary?
-ME®
And price watch, and ebay, and yahoo(the shopping cart), and hotornot, etc... etc...
:D
etc...
Not rediculous though, very valid claim, Amazon was the first to use a form to allow users to rate something, I'm just sure of it!
-ME®
I've been an interested but passive observer on the debate regarding software patents.
Now I am 95% against software patents and interested in doing something to stop them.
It's too bad the patent process can't be more selective, allowing a patent to be placed on something that is an industry standard should get an enormous red X stamped on the patent immediately, (I'd like to stamp a big red X on the head of the idiot who filed for this patent).
It's hard to keep stupidity down... apparently
-ME®
Well heres the story of the rise, decline, and potential fall, of the no-call registry for my state, (and likely the US as a whole):
RISE:
My local state had a no-call registry that was EXTREMELY effective. It allowed non-profit organizations to call anytime before 9pm anyday of the week but anyone else could face serious fines, (much like what it sounds like Australia is planning).
This was EXTREMELY effective.
DECLINE:
However, later there was a national registry created and all of the state registries where pulled into the national list.
FALL:
THEN the lobbying money of the telemarketing companies & companies who benefit from them had the laws surronding the registry questioned and subsequently weakend.
Now we receive telemarketing calls occassionally, which is much better than before the registries but definitely not as good as the state controlled registry (as usual the states do tend to do things well that the federal government tends to screw up).
So I suppose the moral is: it depends on what the laws stipulate.
If the laws could be changed to support an actual no-call list which entialed stiff penalties for calls at anytime I would conjecture high success. In your case I suspect it will be very successful for the times telemarketing is not allowed.
-ME®
:D :D
Beautifully stated. I'm fairly certain the protos don't use IE.