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Comment Re:Poor Design (Score 4, Insightful) 150

Took me 2 minutes to come up with that.

Uh-huh. And in the two years the professional CoH designers and coders were thinking daily about this problem, in their two years of doubtless intensive meetings, not one of them ever once considered your idea. Right? The only possible alternative is that perhaps your two-minute inspiration isn't a perfect solution -- that it may even have unsuspected shortcomings. Nah, that couldn't be. Yeah, they're just dumb.

Comment Incessant Acrobat JavaScript nagging (Score 4, Interesting) 211

by Allen Varney (#27763887) Attached to: Adobe Confirms PDF Zero-Day, Says Kill JavaScript
It's fine that Adobe recommends disabling JavaScript in Acrobat, but it would be nice if, once you disable JavaScript, Acrobat didn't thereupon constantly nag you to re-enable it "from now on for all documents" every time you open a .PDF. "It looks like you've disabled JavaScript! Can we please turn it back on forever, you poor ignorant dimwitted user you?"

Comment Steve Pavlina's dream - synchronicity (Score 1) 532

by Allen Varney (#25965323) Attached to: Teacher Sells Ads On Tests

Don't know if anyone saw this post yesterday by Steve Pavlina on his "Personal Development for Smart People" blog. At the end of a long postmortem about his recent "juice feast" experiment, he described a vivid dream he'd had the week before:

I had a dream that I was taking a class at some school. This school was having budget challenges, so they decided to sell advertising to raise more money. There was an ad network, similar to Google Adsense (actually it could have been Adsense), that placed context-sensitive ads on school assignments. So the teacher of any class could upload an exam to this ad network, the exam would be scanned, and context-sensitive ads would be provided to be printed on the exam. Then the school would get some money based on how many students were in the class to see these ads. For placing a single ad on an exam or assignment, the classroom might earn an extra $5 for its budget. So over the course of a year, each class could earn well over $100 in ad revenue for the school. These are fairly non-intrusive logo/branding ads, so the students wouldn't be overly distracted from seeing ads on their exams and other assignments. [...]
If this dream vision catches on the real world -- there's no reason it can't be done with today's technology -- you might see a little note at the top of your biology exam that says, "Sponsored by Scientific American." Or maybe you're taking a computer programming class, and one of your assignments includes a student discount coupon for a popular programming library. [...].
Would you tolerate context-sensitive ads on your class assignments? What if it meant you paid lower tuition -- or all your textbooks were free? What if it meant your school could afford better educational resources? What if it meant your teachers were better compensated? And what if the department chairs and/or teachers had the discretion of being able to accept or reject individual ads, so they never approved anything they felt was inappropriate?
You know⦠this doesn't sound like such a crazy idea after all.

Sophos Reveals Latest Spam-Relaying Countries 181

Posted by Hemos from the spam-ham dept.
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in more than two years, the United States has failed to make inroads into its spam-relaying problem. The U.S. remains stuck at the top of the chart and is the source of 23.2 percent of the world's spam. Its closest rivals are China and South Korea, although both of these nations have managed to reduce their statistics since Q1 2006. The vast majority of this spam is relayed by 'zombies,' also known as botnet computers."

Army Sent to Fight Millions of Invading Toxic Toads 273

Posted by Hemos from the can-you-lick-them-to-get-high dept.
Reporter writes "The Australian state government called for the army to be deployed against the invasion of toxic toads! Battalions of imported cane toads are marching relentlessly across northern Australia and the West Australian government wants soldiers to intercept the environmental barbarians. From the article: "The toads, Bufo Marinus, were introduced from South America into northeast Queensland state in the 1930s to control another pest: Beetles that were ravaging the sugar cane fields of the tropical northern coasts. But the toads now number in the millions and are spreading westward through the Northern Territory, upsetting the country's ecosystem in their wake. Cane toads have poisonous sacs on the back of their heads full of a venom so powerful it can kill crocodiles, snakes or other predators in minutes." More information about cane toads at Wikipedia."

Jack Thompson's Violent Game Bill Signed Into Law 368

Posted by Zonk from the happy-day-for-media-savvy-lawyers dept.
simoniker writes "Louisiana Democratic Representative Roy Burrell's HB1381 bill, covering violent videogames, has been signed into law by Governor Kathleen Blanco. The law takes effect immediately, the latest in a very long line of video game-related bills specific to one U.S. State. The measure proposed by HB 1381, which was drafted with the help of controversial Florida attorney and anti-game activist Jack Thompson, allows a judge to rule on whether or not a videogame meets established criteria for being inappropriate for minors and be subsequently pulled from store shelves. A person found guilty of selling such a game to a minor would face fines ranging from $100 to $2,000, plus a prison term of up to one year. Needless to say, the ESA will likely be mounting a legal challenge to this bill in the very near future."

Viral Music Videos A Problem For RIAA 182

Posted by Zonk from the what-isn't-a-problem-for-them dept.
prostoalex writes "A few years ago music videos were considered promotional, a tease to get the viewer to buy the whole album. However, now that a commercial market for music videos is springing up, the music industry is not quite happy with YouTube, iFilm, Google Video and other video sharing sites distributing the music videos of famous artists. Billboard magazine says: 'The RIAA estimates that sales of music videos topped $3.7 million in three months, after being introduced in October. Meanwhile, the major labels also are sharing in the profits of ad-supported video-on-demand offerings from AOL, Yahoo, Music Choice and others. That is revenue the music industry is keenly interested in protecting. Hopes are that YouTube and others will ink similar deals with the industry in the long run.'"

Using Laptops to Steal Cars 455

Posted by CmdrTaco from the because-you-shouldn't dept.
Ant writes "Thieves are using laptops/notebooks to steal the most expensive luxury cars. Many of these cars have completely keyless ignitions and door locks, meaning it can all be done wirelessly. Thieves often follow a car until it gets left in a quiet area, and they can steal it in about 20 minutes..."

US Intensifies Fight Against Child Pornography 663

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the embarrassing-repositories dept.
TechnoGuyRob writes "BBC News is reporting that the Bush administration has recently stepped up its measures against child pornography. From the article 'Sadly, the internet age has created a vicious cycle in which child pornography continually becomes more widespread, more graphic, more sadistic, using younger and younger children. [...] Mr. Gonzales also said that he is investigating ways to ensure that ISPs retain records of a user's web activities to track down offenders.'"

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