I work as a teacher at a Swedish high school equivialent. Our high schools are non-mandatory and have different focus areas; ours focuses on IT and economy. Every student has their own laptop and there's Wifi available. The speed is good enough for people to play WoW with minor lag.
For us teachers, there's a constant battle against students online habits. Sure, during lessons you can hardball it and tell them that "no, you aren't taking notes, you're chatting on MSN" - but we can't do anything about what they do at home.
The main problem is that they are dead tired when they come to school because they've been playing WoW all night. They aren't strong-willed enough to stand up against the guilds way of entraping you (take part in all raids or gtfo), and the parents seem powerless aswell.
We are planning an awareness capaign for the parents about this, but won't try to control the students for the parents.
In conclusion, yes the kids lives will be made difficult because of WoW. Their education is strongly suffering from it. I wouldn't call their lives ruined, though.
If privacy is removed from the workplace, potential whistleblowers will not be able to do disclose information when companies do things that break laws (wether moral or juridical).
That was Finland, and they co-operated with the Nazi's against Soviet. The Finns were highly tactically superior, but lost quite a bit of their land (roughly between a third and a fourth). Later during the war tried to take it back, but they failed and had to pay huge amounts of money to Soviet.
I agree though, it's still a mess. I'm pretty experienced, and I get confused by it. Quick, which is newer, a Foofra QXV5024351GL or a Wibble RG188716912B?
Urg, I hate that. All the audio software companies do it, which makes it really hard to have a look at their site to check which of their umpteen products fit you the best.
Otherwise, buying a laptop-size keyboard will make your dreams come true unless you use the numpad keys a lot. Makes Enter/CR/Newline and all other keys a lot easier to reach, but might make it a little harder to do CTRL-X combos.
I've seen people here at slashdot tell their banks they don't need their SSNs, and after a discussion get their point accepted (as I gather it should be). Since these i-names would be commercial, they certainly wouldn't become a requirement anytime soon.
There's nothing to say they won't, ever, though. Any business has the right to decline doing business with anybody, and thus you can be exiled if you don't cough up the $20/yr.
It is superior to apple's firmware in all but two areas: Can't handle video playback on the v5 players (yet), and obviously isn't compatible with Apple's FairPlay DRM. Also has lots and lots of functions
Not being able to play their iTunes-bought songs on this firmware sure is a bite in the ass for all the people who suggested that FairPlay really wasn't that bad. Aswell as everybody else.:/
YouTube does have fullscreen capability. The encoding, though, is still as bad as before, so you're just enlarging pixels. I wouldn't pay for better encoding, either, because I don't need it - but I'm certain a lot of others would.
Perhaps it would be an advanced form of Internet radio, where each user gets a personalized stream of the music they like, and Google uses their context and marketing technology to make a tidy profit off of the millions of attentive ears. And of course, the music content they included would have to be free...
Google does deliver the ads. The personalization occurs using "social algorithms", your data is collected using a plugin for your mp3 player. The radio is free and personalized. There are personal radiostations and "friends of.." radiostations for every person. There are radiostations for every artist. There are radiostations for every tag (but don't expect any widely popular tags like emo or indie to get you any good, specific, results).
The devs of last.fm own, but I shit on most of the community. Still, just for the music it is worth it.
but MS would get paid and not the adware companies
Disregarding all other aspectes of this, I'd say that's a good thing. I'd rather most people's punch-the-monkey gaming brings revenue to a company doing something "constructive" rather than something destructive.
Now, wether the adware companies are more constructive than MS are, considering monopoly pushing and such, is a question for another day.
create a state of perpetual fear, stir up hatred of the enemy, torture people, have an ongoing war, control information, and basically convince you to willingly see things that are false.
Perpetual fear is what seems to be the latest and greatest trend. Torture? Gitmo.
Ongoing war? Terrorism is the concept of using threat of violence and fear to force political change. A war waged against a concept will not end unless it is declared over, as it does not have a specific set of goals to achieve but instead is targeted at an enemy that could be anywhere. Anywhere.
Hatred of the enemy isn't achieved in all of the populace, and neither has controll of information been established yet. I believe that hatred will come as information is controlled. Nobody will be able to express differing opinion, and thus can not convince anybody that the war on this and that enemy is really unnecessary. Bystanders and deserters will be shot. 2 minutes of hate.
I don't really think that doublethink is necessary for Big Brother to reign supreme, even though it is necessary for it to be a carbon copy of the Orwellian "prototype". Like you said, it's not here yet, but I think we've traveled far enough down the road for it to be closer to there than to home.
Oh great, it'll be encrypted! Praise the lord, finally they found a way to get rid of all of those "freedom fanboys" who want to use their own applications to interface with our networks. Pfft, good riddance.
As I expected, the list blocks Google ads. If everyone downloaded this list and used AdBlock, Google would die. In case you did not know it, 99.99% of Google's income is from Google ads, based on their public reports for share holders, etc.
Blocking obtrusive ads is justified. Blocking any other ads is not. Did you ever stop to think who's going to pay the bandwidth costs of sites that depend on income from ads? The more popular a site is, the more incredible bandwidth fees they pay (popular sites can't use free hosting, mainly due to their bandwidth needs, etc). Without ads, sites like SourceForge.net or Slashdot.com would have to charge everyone for reading or die too. Think twice before blocking unobtrusive ads. Mass selfishness could bring many popular free sites to an end.
Your argument seems to be that if everybody would block all ads, then sites like Slashdot would not be free (as in beer). I agree with that, but don't think that is even remotely near happening. Consult my other replies as to why I think the chances of that happening are slim. I don't think the far off potential situation should stop us from blocking obtrusive ads using extensions such as AdBlock or Filterset.G
Neither do I think people should be stopped from using lists that block all ads. Of course, if their numbers grow they might pose a threat to "free" service. We, aswell as the content producers, will have to take that then. Magic invisible hand of the market and all that.
Maybe you'll be able to choose between viewing ads or paying money (as http://last.fm/ do)? Maybe we'll know in time.
Ah, yes. If everyone does start blocking google's ads, they will indeed either perish or adapt.
As you might know, Google operate in a market economy environment. This means that they will either have to adapt themselves or their customers. Either one will have to suffice.
Adblocking is for two kind of people:
Those who don't want to be disturbed by ads and those who fanatically avoid seeing ads.
The second group will keep blocking google's ads, but are such a staggering minority that they won't matter; not that they brought any income to begin with.
The first group won't mind google's ads, but will use adblocking software to combat animated gifs and flashbanners literally screaming for their attention.
Hopefully, adblocking of irritating content will become standard, and companies will have to conform to non-obtrusive (preferably text) ads.
I can say that the tech-crowd aren't their main audience because their main audience is what their highest paying advertisers' target audience is. Common sense would have that to be normal internet users, rather than the minority of tech geeks that fiddle with such crazy things as "extensions" or "settings". Another thing that speaks for this is the fact that google haven't done anything about it. They didn't recieve (m)any profitable clicks from this group to begin with, so them not viewing their ads only makes it easier on their, or their customers, bandwidth.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the tech-savvy (those who both know of adblocking and are capable of setting it up) aren't Google's main audience. If all of slashdot started adblocking google, we wouldn't make a dent.
Also, what one should want is an extension API for Opera, not just content blocking. This would enable developers to produce insane amounts of functionality without consulting with Opera or using their resources. Automatic updating of the block-list (similar to filterset.g updater for FF) would obviously be included in this. If they could make both their own extension API aswell as hack up a way to use Firefox extensions (hard but certainly possible), they would grab me by my intestinal cords. I would probably even pay money for their browser.
Slashdot Mirror
I work as a teacher at a Swedish high school equivialent. Our high schools are non-mandatory and have different focus areas; ours focuses on IT and economy. Every student has their own laptop and there's Wifi available. The speed is good enough for people to play WoW with minor lag.
For us teachers, there's a constant battle against students online habits. Sure, during lessons you can hardball it and tell them that "no, you aren't taking notes, you're chatting on MSN" - but we can't do anything about what they do at home.
The main problem is that they are dead tired when they come to school because they've been playing WoW all night. They aren't strong-willed enough to stand up against the guilds way of entraping you (take part in all raids or gtfo), and the parents seem powerless aswell.
We are planning an awareness capaign for the parents about this, but won't try to control the students for the parents.
In conclusion, yes the kids lives will be made difficult because of WoW. Their education is strongly suffering from it. I wouldn't call their lives ruined, though.
If privacy is removed from the workplace, potential whistleblowers will not be able to do disclose information when companies do things that break laws (wether moral or juridical).
Oh okay, I've only seen it on maps and it was a long time ago, so you are probably right.
That was Finland, and they co-operated with the Nazi's against Soviet. The Finns were highly tactically superior, but lost quite a bit of their land (roughly between a third and a fourth). Later during the war tried to take it back, but they failed and had to pay huge amounts of money to Soviet.
And thanks to that, only one third of the world's population was erradicated instead of two thirds.
Otherwise, buying a laptop-size keyboard will make your dreams come true unless you use the numpad keys a lot. Makes Enter/CR/Newline and all other keys a lot easier to reach, but might make it a little harder to do CTRL-X combos.
But what if the marbles go through a series of tubes?
For winds in your back, sunn o)))
I don't not really know if I'm missunderstanding you incorrectly.
I've seen people here at slashdot tell their banks they don't need their SSNs, and after a discussion get their point accepted (as I gather it should be). Since these i-names would be commercial, they certainly wouldn't become a requirement anytime soon.
There's nothing to say they won't, ever, though. Any business has the right to decline doing business with anybody, and thus you can be exiled if you don't cough up the $20/yr.
I laughed, or rather snickered, but Insightful?
Both!
You don't go bathing with your wallet.
(sorry)
You might want to try out the open source firmware rockbox (at http://www.rockbox.org/ or some general feature-info at http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WhyRock box ).
:/
It is superior to apple's firmware in all but two areas: Can't handle video playback on the v5 players (yet), and obviously isn't compatible with Apple's FairPlay DRM. Also has lots and lots of functions
Not being able to play their iTunes-bought songs on this firmware sure is a bite in the ass for all the people who suggested that FairPlay really wasn't that bad. Aswell as everybody else.
YouTube does have fullscreen capability. The encoding, though, is still as bad as before, so you're just enlarging pixels. I wouldn't pay for better encoding, either, because I don't need it - but I'm certain a lot of others would.
Use a tripod so you don't have to use such ridiculously high ISO settings, man! (really, wtf)
http://www.last.fm/
Google does deliver the ads. The personalization occurs using "social algorithms", your data is collected using a plugin for your mp3 player. The radio is free and personalized. There are personal radiostations and "friends of.." radiostations for every person. There are radiostations for every artist. There are radiostations for every tag (but don't expect any widely popular tags like emo or indie to get you any good, specific, results).
The devs of last.fm own, but I shit on most of the community. Still, just for the music it is worth it.
-end slashvertisement-
Now, wether the adware companies are more constructive than MS are, considering monopoly pushing and such, is a question for another day.
Ah yes, and just think what they could do with the technology!
I can't wait till I get to play Duke Nukem Forever: Redmond
Perpetual fear is what seems to be the latest and greatest trend. Torture? Gitmo.
Ongoing war? Terrorism is the concept of using threat of violence and fear to force political change. A war waged against a concept will not end unless it is declared over, as it does not have a specific set of goals to achieve but instead is targeted at an enemy that could be anywhere. Anywhere.
Hatred of the enemy isn't achieved in all of the populace, and neither has controll of information been established yet. I believe that hatred will come as information is controlled. Nobody will be able to express differing opinion, and thus can not convince anybody that the war on this and that enemy is really unnecessary. Bystanders and deserters will be shot. 2 minutes of hate.
I don't really think that doublethink is necessary for Big Brother to reign supreme, even though it is necessary for it to be a carbon copy of the Orwellian "prototype". Like you said, it's not here yet, but I think we've traveled far enough down the road for it to be closer to there than to home.
The ending cutscene. Glottis. :'(
Oh great, it'll be encrypted! Praise the lord, finally they found a way to get rid of all of those "freedom fanboys" who want to use their own applications to interface with our networks. Pfft, good riddance.
Seriously, though, this is bad, bad, news.
Your argument seems to be that if everybody would block all ads, then sites like Slashdot would not be free (as in beer). I agree with that, but don't think that is even remotely near happening. Consult my other replies as to why I think the chances of that happening are slim. I don't think the far off potential situation should stop us from blocking obtrusive ads using extensions such as AdBlock or Filterset.G
Neither do I think people should be stopped from using lists that block all ads. Of course, if their numbers grow they might pose a threat to "free" service. We, aswell as the content producers, will have to take that then. Magic invisible hand of the market and all that.
Maybe you'll be able to choose between viewing ads or paying money (as http://last.fm/ do)? Maybe we'll know in time.
Ah, yes. If everyone does start blocking google's ads, they will indeed either perish or adapt.
As you might know, Google operate in a market economy environment. This means that they will either have to adapt themselves or their customers. Either one will have to suffice.
Adblocking is for two kind of people:
Those who don't want to be disturbed by ads and those who fanatically avoid seeing ads.
The second group will keep blocking google's ads, but are such a staggering minority that they won't matter; not that they brought any income to begin with.
The first group won't mind google's ads, but will use adblocking software to combat animated gifs and flashbanners literally screaming for their attention.
Hopefully, adblocking of irritating content will become standard, and companies will have to conform to non-obtrusive (preferably text) ads.
I can say that the tech-crowd aren't their main audience because their main audience is what their highest paying advertisers' target audience is. Common sense would have that to be normal internet users, rather than the minority of tech geeks that fiddle with such crazy things as "extensions" or "settings". Another thing that speaks for this is the fact that google haven't done anything about it. They didn't recieve (m)any profitable clicks from this group to begin with, so them not viewing their ads only makes it easier on their, or their customers, bandwidth.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the tech-savvy (those who both know of adblocking and are capable of setting it up) aren't Google's main audience. If all of slashdot started adblocking google, we wouldn't make a dent.
Also, what one should want is an extension API for Opera, not just content blocking. This would enable developers to produce insane amounts of functionality without consulting with Opera or using their resources. Automatic updating of the block-list (similar to filterset.g updater for FF) would obviously be included in this.
If they could make both their own extension API aswell as hack up a way to use Firefox extensions (hard but certainly possible), they would grab me by my intestinal cords. I would probably even pay money for their browser.