Since Amazon has lately been showing what they REALLY think of their customers, I've been boycotting them. When I bought a computer upgrade last month I made sure to buy it from Newegg, regardless of price differences (which were minor) or sales tax.
This just gives me more impetus to keep doing it. Thanks, Newegg.
I'd been occasionally reading several authors at CNET (including Greg Sandoval), but... now I skip over the CNET section on freshnews.org and find better things to read.
A shame, I really liked a lot of the stuff they wrote. I hope those authors end up working for publishers with fewer cranial-rectal inversion issues.
I've been getting occasional "please come back to CNET" e-mails from them (probably because I rarely actually log in, so my account activity has been non-existent even though I'd been viewing the site a lot). I'm thinking of replying. Something along the lines of "go pound sand".
Also thinking of adding cnet.com to my site blocker so I don't wander in accidentally. Guess I'll do that now.
So... the US is acting in good faith by using bribery and bullying to get what they want, but Antigua is acting in bad faith by standing up for itself?
Sounds like a typical bully to me. Always beating or extorting lunch money out of the smaller kids but whining about how unfair people are being when the teacher is looking.
One problem with the "real names only" is figuring out what a "real name" is. For example, I know a young lady whose last name is Student. When she applied to FB, they rejected her application and insisted that she provide them ID before they'd allow her into the boyz club.
Whereas, when I applied they just let me in. Apparently "Nonken" is pretty common (Huh? What?) but Student isn't.
When I was running a BBS I once got a logon application from a guy named Joker. Looked it up... yep, there were several in the phone book. I wonder how many Jokers have been refused by FB?
But I have to wonder: if everybody has to use a real name, and prove it, what's the story behind this?
In the meantime, using your real name is no guarantee of civility. I've met a lot of people who are assholes in person, never mind hiding behind a computer. (Cue Dark Helmet...)
Of course this has all been said before, but the comment is buried under half a ton of garbage. I don't expect anybody to read it. Except maybe Officer Obie.
(P.S. Ms. Student has recently married. I asked her if FB would let her join now that she has a "real" name. She just laughed.)
"...try to overlay an analog view on a digital world."
I've had people tell me, straight-faced, that they got better bass response using high-quality AC3 cables than cheap ones.
...
So. This morning I was looking at an online photo a customer had sent of a competitor's product, a direct link to the competitor's website. Curious, I tried to view more pictures by removing the filename from the end of the URL. It didn't work, I got an error page; so I backed out to the homepage, from where I was able to find the gallery.
OMG did I just hack their website?!
Some people apparently think so. Sometimes that trick works if the site's administrators haven't locked out the ability to view file directories. Sometimes it doesn't. But is it hacking? Seems to me I vaguely remember some people being prosecuted for doing similar things.
It's not a hack, and it's a natural thing to try if you're just trying to find what files are available. Sometimes it's allowed me to, for example, find documents that were intended to be available, but were mis-named on the site's html, or its name generation code was broken, or some such. Is it hacking then?
Probably. Anything you try that doesn't have a direct stamp of approval from every level of government is hacking, if somebody gets irritated.
We've gone from an open society to a permission-based society. Instead of "all is permitted unless prohibited" it's now "all is prohibited unless permitted." Goes nicely with our change from "innocent until proven guilty" to "guilty until proven innocent." Or more like "guilty if accused." Proving innocence doesn't seem to do anything except piss off the government that's of the politicians, by the politicians and for the rich.
In Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte makes a point about HDTV (which was pretty new at the time). Everybody's energy was focussed on trying to figure out what the resolution and aspect ratio should be.
But technology is to the point where it doesn't matter. My computer can resize a video on-the-fly from whatever size the video is in to whatever size my monitor is. It can even fix the aspect ratio of the movie if it was processed badly.
As a specific example, I'm sure many of you have heard me whine about a 20-year-old American movie that I tried to buy on DVD, and could only find it in PAL format, region 2. (That's a pretty long release window. How much extra money are they making from that delay, again?) I ripped it and played it on my regular TV (old-style NTSC, not HD) from my computer. The playback was nearly seamless despite the different aspect ratio and refresh rate. Why? Because the technology Just Works and has for over a decade.
There's no reason we can't do the same for television sets and whatever high-resolution format we use to connect to them. The source has to communicate what it's sending and the TV has to adapt. Big deal! My 6-year-old laptop can do that standing on its head, and still receive e-mail in the background. If they came up with a flexible connection like that, the manufacturers could incrementally improve both their sources and their televisions -- and do it completely transparently.
The technology isn't even just lying around; millions of instances get shipped daily, every time somebody buys a computer.
Going back to Being Digital, Negroponte's point is that worrying about the resolution is wasteful and pointless, when the real challenge is providing better content. Everybody's worried about how many pixels the screen should have, but nobody's worried about what we're going to watch on our shiny new HDTVs.
Basically, the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" philosophy is based on the assumption that everybody else is moral, ethical and honest and, moreover, shares your morals and ethics.
"With the type of logic displayed by the government in this case, in the near future could we see single mothers going after condom manufacturers for child support?"
Higher crime rates in cities because of higher atmospheric lead concentrations?
Really?
Hey, I gotcher correlation right here, pal.
You know what happens when you put too many rats in a cage? They fight. Often brutally. They not only kill each other, they eat their own young. Not each others' young, their own.
Humans are the only animals that do this to themselves. On purpose.
Perhaps this should be eliminated as a variable before blaming crime on heavy metal poisoning. Sheesh.
The author has obviously been sniffing too many exhaust fumes.
On the post: Newegg's 'Screw Patent Trolls!' Strategy Leads To Victory
This just gives me more impetus to keep doing it. Thanks, Newegg.
On the post: CNET: You Can't Trust Our Reviews, But You Can Trust Our News! Honestly!
A shame, I really liked a lot of the stuff they wrote. I hope those authors end up working for publishers with fewer cranial-rectal inversion issues.
I've been getting occasional "please come back to CNET" e-mails from them (probably because I rarely actually log in, so my account activity has been non-existent even though I'd been viewing the site a lot). I'm thinking of replying. Something along the lines of "go pound sand".
Also thinking of adding cnet.com to my site blocker so I don't wander in accidentally. Guess I'll do that now.
On the post: 10 Years Later: Antigua May Finally (Really) Set Up Official 'Pirate' Site To Get Back What US Owes In Sanctions
Sounds like a typical bully to me. Always beating or extorting lunch money out of the smaller kids but whining about how unfair people are being when the teacher is looking.
Boo-hoo, US. I feel for you. Boo-hoo.
On the post: TechCrunch Admits That Using Facebook Comments Drove Away Most Of Their Commenters
Whereas, when I applied they just let me in. Apparently "Nonken" is pretty common (Huh? What?) but Student isn't.
When I was running a BBS I once got a logon application from a guy named Joker. Looked it up... yep, there were several in the phone book. I wonder how many Jokers have been refused by FB?
But I have to wonder: if everybody has to use a real name, and prove it, what's the story behind this?
In the meantime, using your real name is no guarantee of civility. I've met a lot of people who are assholes in person, never mind hiding behind a computer. (Cue Dark Helmet...)
Of course this has all been said before, but the comment is buried under half a ton of garbage. I don't expect anybody to read it. Except maybe Officer Obie.
(P.S. Ms. Student has recently married. I asked her if FB would let her join now that she has a "real" name. She just laughed.)
On the post: HP Wasn't Going To Let A Little Fraud Stand In The Way Of Acquiring Autonomy
Re:
On the post: Finnish Activists May Force Parliament To Vote On Crowdsourced New Copyright Law
Re:
On the post: The War On Computing: What Happens When Authorities Don't Understand Technology
I've had people tell me, straight-faced, that they got better bass response using high-quality AC3 cables than cheap ones.
...
So. This morning I was looking at an online photo a customer had sent of a competitor's product, a direct link to the competitor's website. Curious, I tried to view more pictures by removing the filename from the end of the URL. It didn't work, I got an error page; so I backed out to the homepage, from where I was able to find the gallery.
OMG did I just hack their website?!
Some people apparently think so. Sometimes that trick works if the site's administrators haven't locked out the ability to view file directories. Sometimes it doesn't. But is it hacking? Seems to me I vaguely remember some people being prosecuted for doing similar things.
It's not a hack, and it's a natural thing to try if you're just trying to find what files are available. Sometimes it's allowed me to, for example, find documents that were intended to be available, but were mis-named on the site's html, or its name generation code was broken, or some such. Is it hacking then?
Probably. Anything you try that doesn't have a direct stamp of approval from every level of government is hacking, if somebody gets irritated.
We've gone from an open society to a permission-based society. Instead of "all is permitted unless prohibited" it's now "all is prohibited unless permitted." Goes nicely with our change from "innocent until proven guilty" to "guilty until proven innocent." Or more like "guilty if accused." Proving innocence doesn't seem to do anything except piss off the government that's of the politicians, by the politicians and for the rich.
Sorry for the rant, I'm in a bad mood.
On the post: Skateboard Legend Stacy Peralta Demonstrates His Latest Trick: Cashing In By Going Direct-To-Fan
On the post: Some People Still Can't Seem To Question Their Car's GPS
On the post: Old EMI Email Shows They Knew That Giving Away Songs For Free Leads To More Sales
Re:
On the post: Yet Another Study: 'Cracking Down' On Piracy Not Effective
On the post: Amazon Patent Looks To Make Receiving Lousy Gifts A Thing Of The Past
Re: Outlook
On the post: The Lesson Of 3D TV: For 4K TV, The Key Is The Implementation
But technology is to the point where it doesn't matter. My computer can resize a video on-the-fly from whatever size the video is in to whatever size my monitor is. It can even fix the aspect ratio of the movie if it was processed badly.
As a specific example, I'm sure many of you have heard me whine about a 20-year-old American movie that I tried to buy on DVD, and could only find it in PAL format, region 2. (That's a pretty long release window. How much extra money are they making from that delay, again?) I ripped it and played it on my regular TV (old-style NTSC, not HD) from my computer. The playback was nearly seamless despite the different aspect ratio and refresh rate. Why? Because the technology Just Works and has for over a decade.
There's no reason we can't do the same for television sets and whatever high-resolution format we use to connect to them. The source has to communicate what it's sending and the TV has to adapt. Big deal! My 6-year-old laptop can do that standing on its head, and still receive e-mail in the background. If they came up with a flexible connection like that, the manufacturers could incrementally improve both their sources and their televisions -- and do it completely transparently.
The technology isn't even just lying around; millions of instances get shipped daily, every time somebody buys a computer.
Going back to Being Digital, Negroponte's point is that worrying about the resolution is wasteful and pointless, when the real challenge is providing better content. Everybody's worried about how many pixels the screen should have, but nobody's worried about what we're going to watch on our shiny new HDTVs.
Personally, I vote for this series.
On the post: Yes, You've Got Something To Hide
That's a pretty big assumption.
On the post: Pirated Buildings In China And The Rise Of Architectural Mashups
On the post: Developer Of Bookmaking Software Gets Full Kim Dotcom Treatment For 'Promoting Gambling'
Re:
On the post: Developer Of Bookmaking Software Gets Full Kim Dotcom Treatment For 'Promoting Gambling'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Good Precedent?
"Guns primary function is to maim/kill people."
[citation needed]
On the post: Developer Of Bookmaking Software Gets Full Kim Dotcom Treatment For 'Promoting Gambling'
Re: Re: Re: Good Precedent?
On the post: Developer Of Bookmaking Software Gets Full Kim Dotcom Treatment For 'Promoting Gambling'
Re: Who Knows....
Maybe.
On the post: Unintended Consequences, Lead And Crime
Really?
Hey, I gotcher correlation right here, pal.
You know what happens when you put too many rats in a cage? They fight. Often brutally. They not only kill each other, they eat their own young. Not each others' young, their own.
Humans are the only animals that do this to themselves. On purpose.
Perhaps this should be eliminated as a variable before blaming crime on heavy metal poisoning. Sheesh.
The author has obviously been sniffing too many exhaust fumes.
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