As an ad seller I was concerned about getting accurate numbers that I could confidently and ethically quote to clients.
I have opted to price my ads based on 'unique viewers' in a month regardless of page views etc. Its people my advertisers want to sell to so its people I should count.
I use Google Analytics (formally Urchin) and because it relies on javascript I avoid having to filter out spiders since they don't run the scripts. I would imagine that it is the same for these traffic inflating malware. I assume they are simply issuing get requests and dumping the response.
Yes I miss counting people who surf with javascript disabled (like me) but it is a very small price to pay for cleaner numbers.
The only downside is when a potential client asks why my competitor gets [some big number of hits] while I say I only get [some much much smaller number]. Trying to answer that without sounding like I am calling my competitor a lier isn't so easy:)
Ya, I've never really understood this drive towards e-voting in the US. In Canada we know the results of the election before going to bed. Isn't that fast enough? Its not as if society is going to be any better off if it takes half the time to count the votes.
I guess my question is who is leading the charge for eVoting and why? (other then the election machine companies themselves I mean).
Well you knew that the CRTC was on crack when they approved Fox News but banned Aljazeera. In side by side comparisons with my newspeak-O-meter Fox News was the clear leader in dishing out dis/mis-information.
Lets hope they redeem themselves with a sensible decision here.
Thats what I felt about Virgin Galactic. Handsome dardevil playboy billionair takes over the universe. The only way Richard Branson's life could be more like a 50's sci-fi novel is if he had a secrete identity as a super spy.
Hmm...If I come to an untimly end, question Branson first.
Thank you Copid. It annoys me to no end that Christians figure that if there is no divine declaration about right/wrong or good/evil that the sky will fall and our heads will explode and we will all turn into cannibals.
because the ramifications of such a foundation (or lack thereof) of right and wrong aren't pretty or pleasant.
I profoundly disagree.
In a relativistic world, what right does anyone have to claim anything is right or wrong?
I think most people use their conscience. But if yours is broken or you just don't trust it, then I suppose out sourcing to a sky daddy might get you through.
With the church your not allowed to engage in moral relativism which I think accounts for all the hypocrisy.
My submission to them would be along those lines. Its not an improvement to their algo, its a marketing exercise.
Send each subscriber one random free movie. If they fill out a review questionaire they'll get another free movie the next month. The free movie would be some seldom requested movie from the back catalog.
If the subscriber liked the movie they will refer friends to it, and also netflix collects review information on less requested movies increasing the chances that it would be "reccomended" by their algo.
The purpose would be to help move less popular movies and releive burdon on the more popular titles. And well increase $$$
I think the point of all the DVD by mail companies is to grab as many subscribers as they can before downloading movies is commonplace. If they can cover costs while increaing their market share and loyalty, then when distribution costs evaporate the value of each loyal customer will shot through the roof. Sow today reap tomorrow.
"Google's Brazilian affiliate" I would imagine that this affiliate is charted in Brazil, so then it should be expected that it should comply with Brazillian law otherwise they could/should just pull their charter.
Where the data actualy resides is interesting because wouldn't it be cached in several locations in Brazil? Perhaps even on equipment owned by said affiliate?
I don't think it would be un-thinkable (unreasonable?) for a country to insist that data entering the country, reside in the country for some specified amount of time to allow it to fall within their jurisdiction.
I am not in favor of limiting information flows, however we are still a world of nations and those states have an interest in, and a right to be able to enforce their laws wether those laws were made by dictate or democratic legislation. Before I hear anyone say that some regimes are invalid because of their nature, I would suggest first checking to see if they are currently recognized as states by the US or other western nations.
I for one, wrote letters to keep harmfull information out of Canada, but they gave FoxNews a broadcast license anyway.
I have not researched his specific journalistic credentials but since when are journalists not 'experts'? Don't journalists often travel the world, interview people in power as well as those on the street. Don't they spend weeks researching stories to arrive at Truth.
Wasn't it journalists who broke watergate open?
I am sure there are hack journalists just like there are hack professors. Given a bit of time I think I could discover a few dozen names of journalists who brought us a better truth then the experts.
Wal-Mart should chill out. What portion of their overall sales are from information based products?
Its not like they have to be worried about someone opening up a Tent/Towel/[Any physical product here] downloading service. Although... I for one will relish the day I can download a case of beer.
Yes but this has always been the case with subscription based sites. If I charge users a fee for access to my content then Google/Yahoo/MSN, etc would automatically be unable to access the content.
Since the subscription TOS could specifically forbid reprinting of any portion of the content, search engines that *wanted* to index the site should be exepected to pay some form of licensing fee.
The keyword here is *wanted*. Does any search engine really WANT to index your site? Not really, they simply want to be able to provide access to a larger sub-set of the internet then the other guys.
So if a suitable large number of content sites hide their content from search engines behind registration or subscripiotn forms, then perhaps one of the underdog search engines might decide to try paying for access so they could boast about having a larger index to search.
The only way I see this happening is if ad revenue dried up sufficiently so that you can make more money from the consumers of information then you can by consumers of eyeballs.
Good history and overview. But whatever the history, NetNeutrality today is about preserving an important aspect of the public sphere. Almost all of our "public spaces" are actually heavily mediated "commercial" zones. (Malls, greenbelts around towers, etc).
When I think of NetNeutrality I think of Hyde Park, or Peoples Park. The net is an important public space that needs to be preserved at almost any cost.
IANAAP, however my hunch is that dark matter/energy is bunk. I think it is a case of giving a name to some unknown cause which ends up limiting the lines of inquiry. Suddenly its about finding "x-matter" instead of figuring out why the calculations don't add up. It could be some new form of matter/energy, OR maybe we just made a mistake in some early assumptions of galaxy composition or dynamics.
I am a freelancer and it is sometimes hard to get clients to pay for proper (secure) work. When I was starting out and a client asked me for a cheaper option I would lay out the options and the risks. I justified it by saying "Hey I told them the risks and its their system and their decision."
I don't do that anymore. Its like telling kids they can play in traffic if they really want to and are aware of the risks.
If they won't pay to have it built right they can hire someone else.
Its amazing the number of times I have got away with...
Clerk: I need to record some personal information.
Me: Ok
Clerk: Name?
Me: Karl Marx
Clerk: Birthday?
Me: 1818
Clerk: What?
Me: Do you really give a shit?
Clerk: Um no not really "smiles and types it in"
Its much easier to use some boring name and other believable info but somehow its not as much fun.
It used to be my typically cynical response that everything could be traced back to the greed for dollars. However, if you think about the tremendous amounts of money and power many institutes and individuals have you can imagine that some form of higher calling takes over. If you have a couple billion dollars, or even a couple hundrend million, you can effectivly set yourself and your family up pretty comfortably for many generations. So what drives a person after that? Beliefs are pretty strong things and I don't doubt that "Gods work" is the prime directive for many of these people, and that the money and power are only means to those ends.
Well lets assume your an advertiser. You get a bill from Google saying you received x clicks and you owe y dollars. Your only going to continue your adWords account after you check your logs and your order book and see if those clicks are converting to sales and making you money.
adWords has probably been running long enough now that I doubt all the ad dollars are from new, and as yet disillusioned, advertisers. Many advertiser continue their accounts every month after month. I have seen posts by many who love their adWords accounts and swear by its success for them.
So the number of invalid clicks must be small enough that people still get a good ROI. People would and do leave the program if it is not making money for them, regardless of the level of invalid clicks.
In addition, since the ads are sold by a type of auction its a self-regulating system. The cost of the clicks is based on their value and/or their speculative value. What else do you need?
My personal experience with Telus is excellent. When their loyalty group calls (about once a year) I clear some time to talk to them. Its the job of the person calling to find out if I am having any problems or if they can do anything to make the service better. Typically they find some new program or another that ends up saving me money. I run my consultancy from home and I make a living over thier pipes, both phone and internet, so they are my most important supplier.
No I am not a shill for Telus, nor am I an employee,or own any shares etc, etc. I just think they are a good and fair company.
There is nothing wrong with a company saying if you sign up for a longer term we'll give you better pricing. I make similair offers to my clients. Heck if I know I can count on reoccuring income over some specific duration I'll cut them a discount. Seems like a fair offer for both parties.
I am sure that at some point it was mentioned that the discounted introductry price was contingent on a specific term. Maybe they didn't hear it, maybe they forgot, or maybe you skipped it by avoiding their install CD. I recently signed up for a new service at Telus and the rep was very clear that it involved a three year term. I was more then happy to accept it because I have always received excellent service from them and can't imagine switching during that time. The pacge they offered me was obvioulsy a defensive move against Skype. So thank you Skype for saving me $20/month even if I don't use you:)
Frankly I can't belive this post made it into the daily digest. "Person argues with phone company over bill." Now thats news!
btw: for those that suggested not paying, the poster did mention that Telus is also the phone company and will not separate the billing, so not paying means not having a phone either.
How many apps were written for mySQL before it had stored procedure support? Didn't that force everyone to use dynamic SQL in code?
I use ASP with MSSQL and my baseline security habit for web apps starts with cleansing user inputs for cross-site scripting before populating my ado command object which then executes a stored procedure. The sql account used from the web site is only ever granted execute permissions for the stored procedures and never to any direct access to any underlying table or view. I especially like this last
feature ('permission chaining' in MSSQL). Even if someone managed to compromise the site and retreive my db connection string, the account they harvest is only able to run my prepared statements.
I beleive this provides a reasonable starting place for a secure web app. If there is some other foundation step I am missing, please enlighten me. Developing an app with dynamic sql in code seems like a very bad thing to do. At one point I searched for two days looking for a comprehensive report of how to escape user input for dynamic sql and leave no holes and was unable to find any. They all missed one or two tricks that you can find on sites exposing SQL injection attacks.
We were wrong for supporting a dictator. We were wrong for deposing said dictator.
Well in the case of Iraq wasn't it the same dictator?
However I think that is beside the point, I think the poster a few levels down got it right. Do what your going to do to protect your interests but stop wrapping it in some noble goal of freedom and democracy, because it isn't.
Slashdot Mirror
Ya but to bad we all shop at US websites
As an ad seller I was concerned about getting accurate numbers that I could confidently and ethically quote to clients.
:)
I have opted to price my ads based on 'unique viewers' in a month regardless of page views etc. Its people my advertisers want to sell to so its people I should count.
I use Google Analytics (formally Urchin) and because it relies on javascript I avoid having to filter out spiders since they don't run the scripts. I would imagine that it is the same for these traffic inflating malware. I assume they are simply issuing get requests and dumping the response.
Yes I miss counting people who surf with javascript disabled (like me) but it is a very small price to pay for cleaner numbers.
The only downside is when a potential client asks why my competitor gets [some big number of hits] while I say I only get [some much much smaller number]. Trying to answer that without sounding like I am calling my competitor a lier isn't so easy
Ya, I've never really understood this drive towards e-voting in the US. In Canada we know the results of the election before going to bed. Isn't that fast enough? Its not as if society is going to be any better off if it takes half the time to count the votes. I guess my question is who is leading the charge for eVoting and why? (other then the election machine companies themselves I mean).
Well you knew that the CRTC was on crack when they approved Fox News but banned Aljazeera. In side by side comparisons with my newspeak-O-meter Fox News was the clear leader in dishing out dis/mis-information.
Lets hope they redeem themselves with a sensible decision here.
I'd be much more interested in hearing about good inventions in retrospect. They tell you about those kind when they hand out the noble prize.
If this promising research converts to a real cure they stand a good chance of getting one.
Thats what I felt about Virgin Galactic. Handsome dardevil playboy billionair takes over the universe. The only way Richard Branson's life could be more like a 50's sci-fi novel is if he had a secrete identity as a super spy.
Hmm...If I come to an untimly end, question Branson first.
Thank you Copid. It annoys me to no end that Christians figure that if there is no divine declaration about right/wrong or good/evil that the sky will fall and our heads will explode and we will all turn into cannibals.
because the ramifications of such a foundation (or lack thereof) of right and wrong aren't pretty or pleasant. I profoundly disagree.
In a relativistic world, what right does anyone have to claim anything is right or wrong?
I think most people use their conscience. But if yours is broken or you just don't trust it, then I suppose out sourcing to a sky daddy might get you through.
With the church your not allowed to engage in moral relativism which I think accounts for all the hypocrisy.
My submission to them would be along those lines. Its not an improvement to their algo, its a marketing exercise.
Send each subscriber one random free movie. If they fill out a review questionaire they'll get another free movie the next month. The free movie would be some seldom requested movie from the back catalog.
If the subscriber liked the movie they will refer friends to it, and also netflix collects review information on less requested movies increasing the chances that it would be "reccomended" by their algo.
The purpose would be to help move less popular movies and releive burdon on the more popular titles. And well increase $$$
I think the point of all the DVD by mail companies is to grab as many subscribers as they can before downloading movies is commonplace. If they can cover costs while increaing their market share and loyalty, then when distribution costs evaporate the value of each loyal customer will shot through the roof. Sow today reap tomorrow.
"Google's Brazilian affiliate" I would imagine that this affiliate is charted in Brazil, so then it should be expected that it should comply with Brazillian law otherwise they could/should just pull their charter.
Where the data actualy resides is interesting because wouldn't it be cached in several locations in Brazil? Perhaps even on equipment owned by said affiliate?
I don't think it would be un-thinkable (unreasonable?) for a country to insist that data entering the country, reside in the country for some specified amount of time to allow it to fall within their jurisdiction.
I am not in favor of limiting information flows, however we are still a world of nations and those states have an interest in, and a right to be able to enforce their laws wether those laws were made by dictate or democratic legislation. Before I hear anyone say that some regimes are invalid because of their nature, I would suggest first checking to see if they are currently recognized as states by the US or other western nations.
I for one, wrote letters to keep harmfull information out of Canada, but they gave FoxNews a broadcast license anyway.
I have not researched his specific journalistic credentials but since when are journalists not 'experts'? Don't journalists often travel the world, interview people in power as well as those on the street. Don't they spend weeks researching stories to arrive at Truth.
Wasn't it journalists who broke watergate open?
I am sure there are hack journalists just like there are hack professors. Given a bit of time I think I could discover a few dozen names of journalists who brought us a better truth then the experts.
Wal-Mart should chill out. What portion of their overall sales are from information based products?
Its not like they have to be worried about someone opening up a Tent/Towel/[Any physical product here] downloading service. Although... I for one will relish the day I can download a case of beer.
Yes but this has always been the case with subscription based sites. If I charge users a fee for access to my content then Google/Yahoo/MSN, etc would automatically be unable to access the content.
Since the subscription TOS could specifically forbid reprinting of any portion of the content, search engines that *wanted* to index the site should be exepected to pay some form of licensing fee.
The keyword here is *wanted*. Does any search engine really WANT to index your site? Not really, they simply want to be able to provide access to a larger sub-set of the internet then the other guys.
So if a suitable large number of content sites hide their content from search engines behind registration or subscripiotn forms, then perhaps one of the underdog search engines might decide to try paying for access so they could boast about having a larger index to search.
The only way I see this happening is if ad revenue dried up sufficiently so that you can make more money from the consumers of information then you can by consumers of eyeballs.
Good history and overview. But whatever the history, NetNeutrality today is about preserving an important aspect of the public sphere. Almost all of our "public spaces" are actually heavily mediated "commercial" zones. (Malls, greenbelts around towers, etc).
When I think of NetNeutrality I think of Hyde Park, or Peoples Park. The net is an important public space that needs to be preserved at almost any cost.
IANAAP, however my hunch is that dark matter/energy is bunk. I think it is a case of giving a name to some unknown cause which ends up limiting the lines of inquiry. Suddenly its about finding "x-matter" instead of figuring out why the calculations don't add up. It could be some new form of matter/energy, OR maybe we just made a mistake in some early assumptions of galaxy composition or dynamics.
t ml
Besides, didn't those guys from the University of Victoria already debunk dark matter?
http://www.martlet.ca/old/archives/051124/news8.h
I am a freelancer and it is sometimes hard to get clients to pay for proper (secure) work. When I was starting out and a client asked me for a cheaper option I would lay out the options and the risks. I justified it by saying "Hey I told them the risks and its their system and their decision."
I don't do that anymore. Its like telling kids they can play in traffic if they really want to and are aware of the risks.
If they won't pay to have it built right they can hire someone else.
Its amazing the number of times I have got away with...
Clerk: I need to record some personal information.
Me: Ok
Clerk: Name?
Me: Karl Marx
Clerk: Birthday?
Me: 1818
Clerk: What?
Me: Do you really give a shit?
Clerk: Um no not really "smiles and types it in"
Its much easier to use some boring name and other believable info but somehow its not as much fun.
It used to be my typically cynical response that everything could be traced back to the greed for dollars. However, if you think about the tremendous amounts of money and power many institutes and individuals have you can imagine that some form of higher calling takes over. If you have a couple billion dollars, or even a couple hundrend million, you can effectivly set yourself and your family up pretty comfortably for many generations. So what drives a person after that? Beliefs are pretty strong things and I don't doubt that "Gods work" is the prime directive for many of these people, and that the money and power are only means to those ends.
The same as befor but with even more hype?
Well lets assume your an advertiser. You get a bill from Google saying you received x clicks and you owe y dollars. Your only going to continue your adWords account after you check your logs and your order book and see if those clicks are converting to sales and making you money.
adWords has probably been running long enough now that I doubt all the ad dollars are from new, and as yet disillusioned, advertisers. Many advertiser continue their accounts every month after month. I have seen posts by many who love their adWords accounts and swear by its success for them.
So the number of invalid clicks must be small enough that people still get a good ROI. People would and do leave the program if it is not making money for them, regardless of the level of invalid clicks.
In addition, since the ads are sold by a type of auction its a self-regulating system. The cost of the clicks is based on their value and/or their speculative value. What else do you need?
My personal experience with Telus is excellent. When their loyalty group calls (about once a year) I clear some time to talk to them. Its the job of the person calling to find out if I am having any problems or if they can do anything to make the service better. Typically they find some new program or another that ends up saving me money. I run my consultancy from home and I make a living over thier pipes, both phone and internet, so they are my most important supplier.
:)
No I am not a shill for Telus, nor am I an employee,or own any shares etc, etc. I just think they are a good and fair company.
There is nothing wrong with a company saying if you sign up for a longer term we'll give you better pricing. I make similair offers to my clients. Heck if I know I can count on reoccuring income over some specific duration I'll cut them a discount. Seems like a fair offer for both parties.
I am sure that at some point it was mentioned that the discounted introductry price was contingent on a specific term. Maybe they didn't hear it, maybe they forgot, or maybe you skipped it by avoiding their install CD. I recently signed up for a new service at Telus and the rep was very clear that it involved a three year term. I was more then happy to accept it because I have always received excellent service from them and can't imagine switching during that time. The pacge they offered me was obvioulsy a defensive move against Skype. So thank you Skype for saving me $20/month even if I don't use you
Frankly I can't belive this post made it into the daily digest. "Person argues with phone company over bill." Now thats news!
btw: for those that suggested not paying, the poster did mention that Telus is also the phone company and will not separate the billing, so not paying means not having a phone either.
How many apps were written for mySQL before it had stored procedure support? Didn't that force everyone to use dynamic SQL in code?
I use ASP with MSSQL and my baseline security habit for web apps starts with cleansing user inputs for cross-site scripting before populating my ado command object which then executes a stored procedure. The sql account used from the web site is only ever granted execute permissions for the stored procedures and never to any direct access to any underlying table or view. I especially like this last feature ('permission chaining' in MSSQL). Even if someone managed to compromise the site and retreive my db connection string, the account they harvest is only able to run my prepared statements.
I beleive this provides a reasonable starting place for a secure web app. If there is some other foundation step I am missing, please enlighten me. Developing an app with dynamic sql in code seems like a very bad thing to do. At one point I searched for two days looking for a comprehensive report of how to escape user input for dynamic sql and leave no holes and was unable to find any. They all missed one or two tricks that you can find on sites exposing SQL injection attacks.
Yes but wouldn't MS also alienate the millions of web site publishers who earn adSense revenue? I certainly would not be very pleased.
We were wrong for supporting a dictator. We were wrong for deposing said dictator.
Well in the case of Iraq wasn't it the same dictator?
However I think that is beside the point, I think the poster a few levels down got it right. Do what your going to do to protect your interests but stop wrapping it in some noble goal of freedom and democracy, because it isn't.