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Project Audit considered Moribund
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I've seen the term “moribund” used a few times to describe various packages and executables, but no one has come out and defined “moribund software”. So let me have a crack. Moribund Software is code that is neither maintained nor used, and is not likely to be either in the future. It may be buggy – or maybe there's not enough “there” in the codebase to have bugs in it. Instead, there's a paltry few features fleshed out to prototype stage, but not beyond. Software becomes moribund because turns out not to be necessary - either to the author(s) or anyone else. Or so I think, because these sentiments are what I pretty think of Project Audit.
Essay Spam 2 - when people don't read
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Someone hasn't been paying attention. I write a post describing essay writing firms; I also condemn them wholeheartedly as cheaters and frauds. Then some idiot comes along and adds not one, nor two, but six comments with six links to six different writing firms. I am confident it is only one idiot (or one idiot and friends), because it is statistically improbably for six random strangers to comment using the same email address. I am also certain that the email address belongs to spammer, because I emailed the address to ask why he was representing six different firms. No denials. No "It's not me!". No "Delete the comments - I don't care." Just silence - sometime golden, but in this case suspicious.
Oil S[l]ickness
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Don't be like me. Don't forget there's still an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It slipped my mind. I guess it's not newsworthy, because news about the event would almost seem repetitive. ("Spill still there. Except larger.") You might as well call it olds. Thank you, Joe Bageant, for bringing it back into focus for me. It might be a brief mention in a blog post - a one paragraph withering slam at the inattention of his fellow Americans [1] - but "Oil Spill" is back in my memory banks for now.
The problem with the slick - no, a problem with the slick (articles are important, kids!) is that it is hard to feel the magnitude of the thing if you don't live near it. When a ship leaked 30 tonnes of oil onto Moreton Island and the Sunshine Coast, it was easy for me to visualize the size of the disaster. It was only 100 or so kms away from me. But I've never been to the Gulf. The nearest I've been is Dallas, I was only 11 at the time, and it was just for a week. What do you do to get your empathy on for Gulf-deprived individuals like myself?
Unparanoid Android I - Choosing a Phone
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I'm no gadget freak. These days, I don't have the money to buy shiny new toys. But touchscreen phones are nice. So when the opportunity came up to get one without no extra fees, why not take it?
Last Monday, I decided to get myself a new mobile. My two year plan with Vodafone, my existing provider, was nearly up. For another twenty four month contract, they'd throw in a new phone for free. I've had very few problems with them, and they're no Optus nor Telstra. The existing plan was how I scored my existing beast - a Nokia N95, a smartphone with the standard numeric keypad - which would be handed to my wife. So why should I choose? I decided to go HTC: their latest touchscreen models run Google Android, an operating system derived from Linux. It was either that or the iPhone, and I didn't want to buy Apple. By their website, I knew Vodafone was stocking the things; so off to the shop I went, accompanied by wife. The two choices were the HTC Legend and the HTC Desire, with Desire preferred by me. Which to choose?
I never considered Microsoft when choosing a new phone
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There were reasons. I didn't trust Microsoft to do a good job creating an bleeding-edge new phone - one that would compete with Apple or Google for novelty, ingenuity or flair. On current evidence, it appears I was right. The night I bought the Legend was the night I learned about the Kin, and what a muddled design it has! But I'd never thought the company would come out and call one of its phones an "ad-serving machine"! According to Rik Myslewski of The Register, that's what Microsoft has labeled its Windows Phone 7 smartphone OS - due for release this year.
Microsoft's smartphone OS will provide advertisers with three levels of ad-serving "opportunities" in addition to standard browser-based ads, and in a radical departure from the tacks taken by either Apple's app-based iAds, scheduled to launch next Thursday, or Google's browser-centric world, two of Windows Phone 7's ad-delivery systems will enable ads to be sent outside of either apps or the browser.
Yes, three levels of advertising. To summarise, there's App based advertising, like the sex spam I got from one application before I uninstalled it. Then there are "tiles", which are ads that can be pinned onto the desktop. The grand finale is "toast" - ads that can blast out from the phone even if no apps are running in the background. It reminds me of the old concept of "push technology" - users "pull" pages from the web, so why can't the web "push" them back as well? What a success it was too. As Rik Myslewski writes:
All well and good, but from where we sit, this Windows Phone 7 scheme appears to be exploring new frontiers in advertising intrusiveness. If Microsoft doesn't make it easy and transparent to opt out of 'toast', that word might well describe the fate of its upcoming "ad-serving machine."
I think the damage has already been done. People hate ads, and "Ad-serving machine" is a PR disaster. It is a memorable and damaging phrase admitted by the company itself about one of its products. All you need is social networking to distribute it around the world.