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why I’m giving up on non-moderated social bookmarking (and most likely going back to slashdot)

December 20, 2005 by Saar Drimer
A few weeks ago I’ve written some criticism of reddit.com that got some attention and was moderated up quite a bit over there (it’s at a 105-point standstill and now off the top page.) I was happy to know that people mostly agreed with what I had to say and in general responded in a positive manner. I could write more about the aftermath of that post, but it’s no use… I’m giving it up socially “democratic” bookmarking services. (I know I am using this term loosely, so don’t get all caught up on the definitions.)

Let me explain…
Overall, within the last few weeks I have concluded that non-moderated social bookmarking of the reddit type are a time-wasting hype that will soon (i.e. 9-12 months) make way to some other hype and be forgotten. Bold statement, some may say, based on the fact that Yahoo! just purchased del.icio.us for $25mil… but I’m sticking to it (del.icio.us isn’t the same as reddit/digg, to be fair.) People (with lack of time to spare) will soon want to go back to the good-ol’ days of moderated content providers (i.e. slashdot,) with all their shortcomings of the occasional dupes and some old content. Admit it though, in general it does the job very well. Why? Because it is specialized and moderated! No silly news and content about why Bush burped in China, 10 Mind-Numbing Quotes By Tom Delay, Lindsey Lohan’s constant expression, the next 1.2234GB iPod Nano or why Python eats Lisp for breakfast with AJAX sprinkled on top. I don’t care about that crap. When I do want crap news I visit CNN or BBC.

Just to be clear and avoid some flaming from the minions: social bookmarking is a good thing… but not for me, not anymore and I’m willing to wager I am not the only one. At the end of the day, the whole “social” part doesn’t work in sifting through the content to bring out the best. Nonetheless, I will keep self-posting content that I believe is good because it is great for traffic and exposure.

So, I’m giving up reddit, digg and all the rest and getting my geek news from slashdot with the horrific two day delay after everyone and their grandmother blogged about them in the “blogosphere.” The rest of my info needs I get on demand from Google and from my favorite weblogs.
Category rants, tech | Tags: | 3 Comments
It’s nice when someone rationalizes failure without throwing dirt

December 14, 2005 by Saar Drimer

Ari Paparo‘s article explains the failure of Blink.com to become the del.icio.us of today back in 1999. He is lamenting now that Yahoo! purchased del.icio.us (for $25mil?) about what he and his colleagues failed to see back then. It is always refreshing to read people’s account of failure without them throwing dirt at the ones that succeeded… saying stuff like “we were wrong” instead of… “they are idiots with a lot of luck” or “we were visionaries before our time.” People who can do that, like Ari, are commendable…. I thank him for the insights.

Category reviews, tech | Tags: | No Comments
old game got me nostalgic

December 5, 2005 by Saar Drimer

I bumped into a page (via digg) with pictures of old game controllers. I never had a proper game console, and I thank my parents for it; they have always outfitted me with good PCs which were/are much more interesting. The following picture is of a game that I remember being addicted to and that got me very frustrated. That damn Donkey Kong! Mine was orange too… did it come in other colors?

<sad feeling of youth long gone>Damn! Look what I found! I had a whole bunch of these games. I was never any good, but it didn’t keep me from trying.<still feeling it>

Category personal, tech | Tags: | 1 Comment
“Don’t copy that floppy!”

November 27, 2005 by Saar Drimer

In 1992, the “software publisher’s association” released this video to educate youth on the “hazards” of software piracy. It’s so early 90′s it cracked me up. It tried to be hip with a rap theme… just watch it (the lyrics of the outrageous song are here.)

It contains all the basic arguments that we hear today about file-sharing:

1. Responsibility: Piracy will kill the industry because there will be no incentive for creativity (from the video: “welcome to the end of the computer age! booooha ha ha.”)

2. Sympathy: You are stealing from the nice artists/programmers who are working hard to produce a fine product for you (in the video there are 3 programmers and one lawyer interview.)

3. Threat: Piracy is illegal (video: “You can make one backup and install the software only on one PC.”)

4. Benefit: If you buy the product you get all the goodies (video: “you’ll get the manual and all…”)

Well guess what? The software industry is alive and is doing quite well. Music will also prevail.

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Category security, tech | Tags: | No Comments
automatic, on-line plagiarism checks and essay services

November 24, 2005 by Saar Drimer

A leading examination board is launching a pilot project to scan pupils’ GCSE and A-level coursework in an attempt to prevent plagiarism undermining the value of school qualifications. source.

Professors have been doing that for years, especially on computer code projects where it is relatively easy. This was mostly local and plagiarism was still hard to prove unless it was a 1-to-1 copy, or near to it. Today, many on-line services provide ready or custom made essays (“remember to change my names, dates and IDs to yours”) and some provide the comparisson service. I was surprised to find that even MA dissertations were available (for about $8000!)

turnitin.com seems to be the big-dog of plagiarism detection. These services are good in that they deter otherwise honest people from cheating in a moment of weakness. They may also help catch perpetual cheaters that shouldn’t get away with it. Here are my further observations:

1. I think that universities/institutions would rather ignore cheating if they can, even if it is right in front of their eyes. This is because they are either delusional about it by refusing to believe there could actually be cheating going on in their super-duper-establishment, or they are afraid that it would taint its reputation if reported. If major cases of plagiarism or data falsification occur that can be ignored no longer, they are reported. If there are minor cases they will slap someone on the wrist and make the issue go away as fast as they can with the least amount of people knowing about it.

In short, institutions would like to verify that the people they admit are not cheaters, but will be light on accusations once they are already in.

2. As the database increases, more innocent people would be accused of cheating:

Turnitin already claims more than 7 million subscribers worldwide, and compares submissions with a database of books and journals as well as more than 4.5bn web pages. It also checks them against its own library of more than 10m previously submitted papers.

It is inevitable that some unfortunate, hard-working souls would have their lives ruined by an algorithm. When people blindly rely on technology, it would be hard for the accused to prove that the work was actually theirs.

3. Since this is a profitable business, there is an incentive to figure out the comparison algorithm and create services that make sure you will not get flagged. I’m sure we’ll see these in coming years. If the process of modifying the “base work” takes more, or equal, time to writing it from scratch, then the detection system should be considered a success. However, given the problem, this would be almost impossible to achieve.

Category tech | Tags: | 3 Comments
Paul Graham on “Web 2.0″ and other internety stuff

November 19, 2005 by Saar Drimer

Sometimes a buzz-term pops out of nowhere and I try my best to ignore it for as long as I can. I don’t wikipedia it and blink on all article titles with this term in them. I don’t know why I do it. Maybe because I am waiting for the buzz to go away and if the term survives, then it is worth my time to read about it. I hate marketing micky-mouse bullshit.

“Web 2.0” is one of these buzz-terms that has been buzzing in my internet ears. Paul Graham is a consistently good writer and when he writes, I read. So, his new article, simply entitled “Web 2.0″ caught my attention. It’s time to see what the hell “Web 2.0″ is all about and if there is a “Web 3.0″ sequel in the plans. As I come to expect, Paul is very insightful and thorough. Enjoy. Here’s a quote:

I think everyone would agree that democracy and Ajax are elements of “Web 2.0.” I also see a third: not to maltreat users. During the Bubble a lot of popular sites were quite high-handed with users. And not just in obvious ways, like making them register, or subjecting them to annoying ads. The very design of the average site in the late 90s was an abuse. Many of the most popular sites were loaded with obtrusive branding that made them slow to load and sent the user the message: this is our site, not yours.

Category tech | Tags: | No Comments
Sony is pissing from the jumping board

November 17, 2005 by Saar Drimer

Very brief recap: Sony included malicious code with a handful of CD‘s. This code covertly installed itself on any computer the CD was inserted and put it in harm’s way, especially when you use Sony’s tool to remove it.

Geek outcry ensued. And some suing ensued.

Sony is now applogizing.

If you’ve read this weblog regularly, you noticed that I’m not big into corporate bashing. Even Microsoft has a right to be evil if that’s how they decide to make a buck. The market will decide their fate. Even Google will become evil one day, you’ll see. Ok, back to Sony.

My Father told me two things (among others):

1. Pissing in the pool is one thing, but pissing from the jumping board is going too far (this is an allegory, pissing in the pool is naughty too, I gathered that much.)

2. Never buy Sony, because they have proprietary hardware that is incompatible with other manufacturers’ and their technical support sucks.

Shit hit the fan pretty bad for Sony because they pissed in the pool and got caught. But now they are issuing an apology blaming someone else for the splatter and thus elevated themselves to the jumping board. I despise inacountability and sleaziness which is oozing from Sony like never before. So as much as I tried to follow my Father’s first recommendation, I am now following the second.

Sony, you lost me as a customer.

Category rants, tech | Tags: | No Comments
mapping zombies from comment spam

November 10, 2005 by Saar Drimer

Spam mostly come from zombie computers. Weblog comment spam comes from zombie networks as well.

I am getting about 40 a day now; all of which are put in my moderation box because they contain words that are in my blacklist (these people are not very creative on the content front.) The IP address that the comment came from is recorded and contained in the email I get notifying me a new comment has been posted. Although it won’t point to the spammer, I though it would be nice to map where the spam is coming from using the Google maps API. In a more effective and useful form, bloggers may send a dedicated webpage their comment spam and it will add the IP to the map/database. WordPress or other tools can be made to send a copy of the email to this website automatically upon detection of comment spam (there is really no privacy issue here.) I think that would be neat and may help in some way to identify spammers. If anyone is interested in making this happen, let me know, I’ll contribute what I can.

SM pointed me to mailinator.com which is a on-time-e-mail service that is very cool… and also to hostip.info for getting IP information… go there and see if they got your location right.

Category blogging, ideas, tech | Tags: | 3 Comments
casino cheating – technology makes it better

November 6, 2005 by Saar Drimer

A “retired” profesional casino cheater is giving his 2 cents on the use of technology to mitigate the casino losses due to him and his likes (like putting RFID tags in all chips.) It’s insightful. In line with my fascination with unintended consequences, this rings very true:

Marcus argued that technology is still only as good as the casino’s workers, who he fooled for years. If cheaters don’t draw too much attention to themselves, quickly getting onto and then away from the table, it’s unlikely their records will be checked. “And even if they do check, I’d be long gone,” Marcus said. In fact, having technology to fall back on is actually making pit bosses and dealers less attuned to what might be happening right under their noses, he argued. “These people rely upon their technology too much,” he said. “There is no room for maneuver in their thinking. I don’t have to fool the camera or the technology, I only have to fool the dealer or his pit boss. If I fool them, the technology doesn’t come into play.”

_{(emphasis mine)}

As with other examples such as this one, the eventual outcome will be more loss due to cheating not less. Casinos will stop training their pit bosses to spot cheating until they’ll notice the reverse trend. Meanwhile, creative cheaters will enjoy more earnings.

Category security, tech | Tags: | No Comments
H-1B visa holders are paid less

October 26, 2005 by Saar Drimer

It’s been proven that H-1B workers get paid less than their American counterparts in similar jobs.

When you look at computer job titles by state, California has one of the biggest differentials between OES salaries and H-1B salaries. The average salary for a programmer in California is $73,960, according to the OES. The average salary paid to an H-1B visa worker for the same job is $53,387; a difference of $20,573.

Well, that was my “working assumption” to date, although when I was an H-1B worker I know I was treated fairly with regards to salary (and any other respect.) Actually, every other visa worker I know was not getting robbed. But it was never a secret that this fact was prevalent.

I’ve always viewed working in the US as a privilege, not a right. I also believe that as a whole, we are responsible for our own situation. So, if a worker thinks (and they typically know) they are getting short-changed, they could resign or not accept the job. What this means is that although foreign workers are getting paid less, they still come/stay to/in the US since they think it is still worth it. Fact.

The bottom line is this: Sure, it’s unfair, but people make their choices and they decided that the price for living in Silicon Valley is worth it to them. It sounds bad on paper, but there is not much that can be done about it, we all sign personal contracts.

(through Slashdot.)

Category tech | Tags: | 2 Comments

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