My crazy theory: we are all doomed. Dumb or brilliant, at this point, having kids is cruel.
"Their" crazy theory: on some fatefull day (probably in the lifetimes of our "childrens children"), these psychotic shaved apes will suddenly overthrow eons of conditioning and instinct, and begin placing social objectives before personal greed. Specifically: using technology, we will somehow repair the mess made by our prior technology.
The difference: I accept that mine is a crazy theory.
After all, you don't see me complaining about the fact that spellcheck and "grammar" check have made me the functioning illiterate you see today.
Re:The biggest problem with click fraud...
on
When Ads Go Wandering
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, I did violate the TOS. Here's what I did...
I was new the whole AdSense thing, and working with a site using some really ugly (aka 4am) CSS code. For some reason, the ads were acting goofy, so I kept testing them myself. Naturally, I assumed a $100 billion corporation would have the common sense to ignore hits coming in from my IP, being that I was meanwhile logged in to Google in another tab.
The next day I noticed I had "earned" like $0.50. I knew this was a mistake, as noone even knew where the website yet was (as I say, it wasn't done). I emailed Google (although they do everything they can can to distract you with FAQs first. I wrote an email, explained my mistake, recieved NO RESPONSE.
Two months later, just as I was nearing the "payout" amount, I was zapped.
Now, in all fairness, I did violate the ToS. In fact, I probably triggered some automated "scam" alert. However, I must think that "clicking your own ads" is a common mistake of any developer (personally, I've clicked *everything* 10 times before my OCD mind can let go of a project).
What pisses me off is: a) dicking me around for two months after I had messed up (just boot me, and save my time!) b) snubbing me both when seeking help and offering it and c) shattering my faith in Google's "ethics". (I was a Google fanboy before 90% of you posers even knew what the page rank algorithm was).
On principle, I have often thought about just using a bot farm to generatate a zillion hits (and a healthy 0.2% CTR) and making myself a multi-millionaire, before *not* being mailed the check. Just think how much I could make selling the screenshots before they shut me down!
Mark my words: this entire thing is a scam. I have turned from fanboy to bitter, bitter cynic. I fear Google is a one-trick pony, and worse still, they stole that trick from Overature in the first place.
And, before we all go on a rant why corporations are *supposed* to be scumbags, remember: THEY made the claim to have "superior ethics" LONG before I ever challenged that claim. In other words, don't sell me a lemon, and I won't have reason to describe you as a "crooked used car salesman".
Fair enough?
The biggest problem with click fraud...
on
When Ads Go Wandering
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
...is that companies like Google and Yahoo! have refused to take it seriously.
Many people, including myself, suggest that this is because these companies are earning big money off of those clicks, regardless of how they are obtained.
As someone who was banned from Google's "magic money machine" without reason or cause, only to find a company unwilling to talk to you about it...it changes your opinion of things. That's all I can say.
I agree with every syllable, I've just avoided talking about "the boomers" because, as a collective, they so disgust me that I am likely start vomiting blood.
Like I said, anyone *playing* dumb is doing just that- playing. If I get angry, it is only because I fear these morons are literally playing with my life at this point. If that doesn't piss you off, consider: your life hangs in the balance too.
These are *facts*, and any sensible person has been aware of them for some time. Sure, details vary. Sure, we might not *really* be doomed until 2106. But am I only the one who likens us (myself included) to a herd of lemmings marching off a cliff?
For arguments sake, say we abolished all of the countless ways we are currently pumping carbon into our atmosphere *right this second*. Would it make any difference? How long would it take for the Earth's natural ecology to undo the damage?
Perhaps it's a case of being "too smart for my own good", but IMO, once you've fucked up something as big as the Earth, it's time to just lay back and accept that, maybe, just maybe, our inevitable extinction is for the best.
We need to start a new website: how America lost its way, and how we, the people, can fix it. I'm talking a proactive, non-partisn think-tank with a modest budget but effective (shared) management.
...thinking...
Wait a sec...Bush the elder and Clinton the wise appeared on TV together holding hands, and the "Illuminati" nuts like us are *still* "conspiracy theorists".
Screw this! I'm off to play some WoW instead...
...wait a second, I think I'm begining to undertand this game...
Bush is evil, yes, yes, but stop blaming him for Global Warming.
You want the truth? This is *my* fault. In fact, just yesterday I noticed the bathroom light was on, and I figured "oh well, not worth getting up" and left it on.
Anyone under the age of 30, intelligent enough to use a computer, who intentionally reproduced despite the COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD STATE OF AFFAIRS, should be very, very ashamed of themselves. Anyone attempting to "play dumb" or "blame politics", doubly so.
Republicans are evil. So are Democrats, Libertarians and Anarchists. In fact, anyone who willingly subscribes to any doctrine to represent them entirely, as opposed to thinking freely and clearly based on the plethora of information made freely available to all of us, is evil.
In other news, Windows Vista sucks. True, I haven't actually tried it yet, but I have already made up my mind on that "issue".
Re:Hacking is a lot like life...
on
Hacker Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
Now you have me all curious about it (the true achilles heel of "our kind").
To be fair, I'm about to start repaying about $30k in student loans for what I feel was a sub-par education, so I'm a tad *bitter* with the *system* right now.
However, as I made the transition between hacker and programmer, I noticed the same issue. As soon as I had a problem with a particular function, say preg_match_all, it would force me to go RTFM and actually *learn* something. Same with hacking- until I needed to exploit a CDMA tower, I had no interest in them.
If *I* were a boss, I'd hire experience over education every day (and I say that as a bona-fide college graduate). I'm sure the old-school UNIX gurus and sys admins around here can give me an "amen" to this one.
Re:Hacking is a lot like life...
on
Hacker Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
I believe you meant to say l33t-ist...
Joking aside: you are also correct: we all started somewhere. For me, it was a 286 ps/2 and a copy of "QBasic for dummies who want to learn Qbasic". I did not mean to suggest that experience could replace "book knowledge"- sometimes it can't. I'm just saying, telling these kids that $4000 = hacker is anything but ethical.
P.S. If memory served, that Qbasic book cost less than $5...a better value IMO.
Don't feel bad. This comment was too hysterical for these bitter sys admins.
I laughed though.
Hacking is a lot like life...
on
Hacker Boot Camp
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
As a reformed "script kiddie", who once ran havok on your servers back in the 90's (sorry about that by the way) I must tell you that stories like this make me laugh. In my experience, the essence of all "hacking" is the same: the pursuit of an answer to a question.
Eventually, I discovered that the "real" hackers grew-up and got "real" jobs, so I did the same. However, like most hardcore IT people I know (not the MCSE morons), this inquisitive nature still lies at the heart of...well...me (whatever that is).
Point being: like life, hacking can't be taught, it must be experienced.
And just like life, it can be experienced 2nd-hand (via books or "training"), or, we can grow balls and go make some mistakes ourselves. The "wackos" like me will always opt for option B, and computers have nothing to do with this.
I live on Long Island, NY where Optimum// Dolan rules with an iron first. I get my TV, hi-speed Internet (worth the hype) and VoIP all on the same bill, and until now I have been happy to pay my "Dolan Tax" in hopes of toppling the "Nynex Empire".
I'm not a big fan of TV (cartoons on DVD mostly) but HBO does some stuff that is truly excellent so I use the "on demand" feature now and again.
The cable service allows me to see the schedule of "live" programs, about 20 hours in advance in fact, but as best I can tell, no actual DVR service is being offered at this time. This is especially odd to me, considering that "on demand" is essentially the same sort of "push" technology which I expect is what television (as a whole) will look like in 30 years. It would even appear as though the cable box *is* equipped with some sort of DVR capability, but again, like I said, if it does exist I am too stupid to figure it out, and it certainly isn't being advertised yet.
Anyway: to my point- it just occured to me that Sir Dolan would *not* want his viewers using a DVR for live television. I pay an extra $5 (I think) for HBO on demand, but using a DVR to avoid commercials at primetime is another animal entirely. In fact, if I was Dolan, I would go OUT OF MY WAY to keep DVR out of my viewers hands. Let's have no delusions here- if he pisses off his advertisers, he pisses off everybody- the whole "pecking order" has been watching TiVo with a nervous eye.
Perhaps TiVo is a fraud, some reminent of dot-com scams that deserves to die a violent death. Then again, perhps someday our children will all be using a Dolan-and-chronies-sponsored DVR to watch seasme street 2015 (complete with "clickable" targeted ads embeded at the right of the screen).
Not trying to be an ass, but I peeked at your blog at noticed you were using the Kubrick theme. Personally, with so many SPAM blogs out there, I have begun to automatically associate that theme with junk (not fair I know, but it's the truth.)
Ironically, if we could power our homes, cars and computers on good-intentioned/. posts, both Global Warming AND the Iraq War might be moot points.
Joking aside: we're doomed, and you all know it. These fools won't stop eating themselves to death, I don't see them walking to Krispe Kreme anytime soon.
"I love my kids!"...just not enough to take any responsibility for issues we have *all* been aware of for well over 50 years...
This species is getting exactly what it deserves. No reason to get bent out of shape about it.
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My crazy theory: we are all doomed. Dumb or brilliant, at this point, having kids is cruel.
"Their" crazy theory: on some fatefull day (probably in the lifetimes of our "childrens children"), these psychotic shaved apes will suddenly overthrow eons of conditioning and instinct, and begin placing social objectives before personal greed. Specifically: using technology, we will somehow repair the mess made by our prior technology.
The difference: I accept that mine is a crazy theory.
After all, you don't see me complaining about the fact that spellcheck and "grammar" check have made me the functioning illiterate you see today.
Actually, I did violate the TOS. Here's what I did...
I was new the whole AdSense thing, and working with a site using some really ugly (aka 4am) CSS code. For some reason, the ads were acting goofy, so I kept testing them myself. Naturally, I assumed a $100 billion corporation would have the common sense to ignore hits coming in from my IP, being that I was meanwhile logged in to Google in another tab.
The next day I noticed I had "earned" like $0.50. I knew this was a mistake, as noone even knew where the website yet was (as I say, it wasn't done). I emailed Google (although they do everything they can can to distract you with FAQs first. I wrote an email, explained my mistake, recieved NO RESPONSE.
Two months later, just as I was nearing the "payout" amount, I was zapped.
Now, in all fairness, I did violate the ToS. In fact, I probably triggered some automated "scam" alert. However, I must think that "clicking your own ads" is a common mistake of any developer (personally, I've clicked *everything* 10 times before my OCD mind can let go of a project).
What pisses me off is: a) dicking me around for two months after I had messed up (just boot me, and save my time!) b) snubbing me both when seeking help and offering it and c) shattering my faith in Google's "ethics". (I was a Google fanboy before 90% of you posers even knew what the page rank algorithm was).
On principle, I have often thought about just using a bot farm to generatate a zillion hits (and a healthy 0.2% CTR) and making myself a multi-millionaire, before *not* being mailed the check. Just think how much I could make selling the screenshots before they shut me down!
Mark my words: this entire thing is a scam. I have turned from fanboy to bitter, bitter cynic. I fear Google is a one-trick pony, and worse still, they stole that trick from Overature in the first place.
And, before we all go on a rant why corporations are *supposed* to be scumbags, remember: THEY made the claim to have "superior ethics" LONG before I ever challenged that claim. In other words, don't sell me a lemon, and I won't have reason to describe you as a "crooked used car salesman".
Fair enough?
...is that companies like Google and Yahoo! have refused to take it seriously.
Many people, including myself, suggest that this is because these companies are earning big money off of those clicks, regardless of how they are obtained.
As someone who was banned from Google's "magic money machine" without reason or cause, only to find a company unwilling to talk to you about it...it changes your opinion of things. That's all I can say.
I agree with every syllable, I've just avoided talking about "the boomers" because, as a collective, they so disgust me that I am likely start vomiting blood.
Like I said, anyone *playing* dumb is doing just that- playing. If I get angry, it is only because I fear these morons are literally playing with my life at this point. If that doesn't piss you off, consider: your life hangs in the balance too.
These are *facts*, and any sensible person has been aware of them for some time. Sure, details vary. Sure, we might not *really* be doomed until 2106. But am I only the one who likens us (myself included) to a herd of lemmings marching off a cliff?
For arguments sake, say we abolished all of the countless ways we are currently pumping carbon into our atmosphere *right this second*. Would it make any difference? How long would it take for the Earth's natural ecology to undo the damage?
Perhaps it's a case of being "too smart for my own good", but IMO, once you've fucked up something as big as the Earth, it's time to just lay back and accept that, maybe, just maybe, our inevitable extinction is for the best.
Damn it, I've fallen victim to my hubris yet again!
Good thing I don't vote. I'd hate to mess the system up any worse.
We need to start a new website: how America lost its way, and how we, the people, can fix it. I'm talking a proactive, non-partisn think-tank with a modest budget but effective (shared) management.
...thinking...
Wait a sec...Bush the elder and Clinton the wise appeared on TV together holding hands, and the "Illuminati" nuts like us are *still* "conspiracy theorists".
Screw this! I'm off to play some WoW instead...
...wait a second, I think I'm begining to undertand this game...
Bush is evil, yes, yes, but stop blaming him for Global Warming.
You want the truth? This is *my* fault. In fact, just yesterday I noticed the bathroom light was on, and I figured "oh well, not worth getting up" and left it on.
Anyone under the age of 30, intelligent enough to use a computer, who intentionally reproduced despite the COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD STATE OF AFFAIRS, should be very, very ashamed of themselves. Anyone attempting to "play dumb" or "blame politics", doubly so.
You got it exactly right.
Republicans are evil. So are Democrats, Libertarians and Anarchists. In fact, anyone who willingly subscribes to any doctrine to represent them entirely, as opposed to thinking freely and clearly based on the plethora of information made freely available to all of us, is evil.
In other news, Windows Vista sucks. True, I haven't actually tried it yet, but I have already made up my mind on that "issue".
Do you have showers at the office?
I would do this in a heartbeat, but I *hate* being sweaty and trying to sit still.
Anything similar for PHP?
I stopped using "real" languages years ago. ;)
Now you have me all curious about it (the true achilles heel of "our kind").
To be fair, I'm about to start repaying about $30k in student loans for what I feel was a sub-par education, so I'm a tad *bitter* with the *system* right now.
However, as I made the transition between hacker and programmer, I noticed the same issue. As soon as I had a problem with a particular function, say preg_match_all, it would force me to go RTFM and actually *learn* something. Same with hacking- until I needed to exploit a CDMA tower, I had no interest in them.
If *I* were a boss, I'd hire experience over education every day (and I say that as a bona-fide college graduate). I'm sure the old-school UNIX gurus and sys admins around here can give me an "amen" to this one.
I believe you meant to say l33t-ist...
Joking aside: you are also correct: we all started somewhere. For me, it was a 286 ps/2 and a copy of "QBasic for dummies who want to learn Qbasic". I did not mean to suggest that experience could replace "book knowledge"- sometimes it can't. I'm just saying, telling these kids that $4000 = hacker is anything but ethical.
P.S. If memory served, that Qbasic book cost less than $5...a better value IMO.
Don't feel bad. This comment was too hysterical for these bitter sys admins.
I laughed though.
As a reformed "script kiddie", who once ran havok on your servers back in the 90's (sorry about that by the way) I must tell you that stories like this make me laugh. In my experience, the essence of all "hacking" is the same: the pursuit of an answer to a question.
Eventually, I discovered that the "real" hackers grew-up and got "real" jobs, so I did the same. However, like most hardcore IT people I know (not the MCSE morons), this inquisitive nature still lies at the heart of...well...me (whatever that is).
Point being: like life, hacking can't be taught, it must be experienced.
And just like life, it can be experienced 2nd-hand (via books or "training"), or, we can grow balls and go make some mistakes ourselves. The "wackos" like me will always opt for option B, and computers have nothing to do with this.
I live on Long Island, NY where Optimum // Dolan rules with an iron first. I get my TV, hi-speed Internet (worth the hype) and VoIP all on the same bill, and until now I have been happy to pay my "Dolan Tax" in hopes of toppling the "Nynex Empire".
I'm not a big fan of TV (cartoons on DVD mostly) but HBO does some stuff that is truly excellent so I use the "on demand" feature now and again.
The cable service allows me to see the schedule of "live" programs, about 20 hours in advance in fact, but as best I can tell, no actual DVR service is being offered at this time. This is especially odd to me, considering that "on demand" is essentially the same sort of "push" technology which I expect is what television (as a whole) will look like in 30 years. It would even appear as though the cable box *is* equipped with some sort of DVR capability, but again, like I said, if it does exist I am too stupid to figure it out, and it certainly isn't being advertised yet.
Anyway: to my point- it just occured to me that Sir Dolan would *not* want his viewers using a DVR for live television. I pay an extra $5 (I think) for HBO on demand, but using a DVR to avoid commercials at primetime is another animal entirely. In fact, if I was Dolan, I would go OUT OF MY WAY to keep DVR out of my viewers hands. Let's have no delusions here- if he pisses off his advertisers, he pisses off everybody- the whole "pecking order" has been watching TiVo with a nervous eye.
Perhaps TiVo is a fraud, some reminent of dot-com scams that deserves to die a violent death. Then again, perhps someday our children will all be using a Dolan-and-chronies-sponsored DVR to watch seasme street 2015 (complete with "clickable" targeted ads embeded at the right of the screen).
Thanks for some free education. I had no idea TiVo had been around so long.
...to learn that TiVo hadn't turned a profit yet? I was.
Are there any other popular gadgets (besides blackberry) caught up in stuff like this?
Not trying to be an ass, but I peeked at your blog at noticed you were using the Kubrick theme. Personally, with so many SPAM blogs out there, I have begun to automatically associate that theme with junk (not fair I know, but it's the truth.)
Just an FYI: http://www.alexking.org/software/wordpress/theme_b rowser.php. You raise excellent points in your blog, I would hate for other people to miss them for asthetic reasons.
VERY deep pockets.
I wasted my life savings on this dream. Beware fellow geeks: your enemy is more powerful than you know.
Ironically, if we could power our homes, cars and computers on good-intentioned /. posts, both Global Warming AND the Iraq War might be moot points.
Joking aside: we're doomed, and you all know it. These fools won't stop eating themselves to death, I don't see them walking to Krispe Kreme anytime soon.
"I love my kids!"...just not enough to take any responsibility for issues we have *all* been aware of for well over 50 years...
This species is getting exactly what it deserves. No reason to get bent out of shape about it.
Off topic: great tunes, man. Keep on keepin on.
Seriously, I'm not on the payroll. As a Genesis/Nectar/Pink Floyd fan, this is some quality stuff IMO. Check the sig above.
My fiance hates the computer, and spends about an hour per week using the Internet (mostly for email).
She gets at least 32 messages a day, the bulk of which are chain emails (jokes, forward these or we'll shoot this kitten, etc).
I get too many to count, I'd guess in the neighborhood of 250 /day. For once, the number used in TFA look pretty accurate (if not modest) to me.
I don't care that you don't care.
I figured you'd want to know.
After season six...but to be fair- what could possibly be better than season six?
...except maybe Futurama...