I didn't actually mean that Shotwell had any support for it (I've never used it). I simply meant to say that "If you're going to be using PNG because it has lossless picture encoding, you might as well use TIFF or DNG".
You just said Mars' gravity was only one third of Earth's, so considering it already left Earth's atmosphere, why would the probe have a problem with a one-third-puss-gravity well?
Well, depends if you want to be a general image manager, or a photo manager. You, know, as in, pictures, with uneven edges and graduated colours.
You know, the kind of stuff that PNG utterly and completely sucks at?
Anyone who considers PNG for storing pictures needs to stop, right away. PNG has one advantage: it's a lossless format (as opposed to JPEG). But then you could use TIFF, or DNG. I don't care what you use, be it Lightroom, F-spot or Shotwell; PNG does not bring *any* benefit to managing pictures.
PNG is excellent for screenshots, and most computer-generated stuff (powerpoint, whatever, anything that is mostly made of straight lines and edges). However, it will suck in terms of size as soon as you confront with photographic material. Most PNG's will have between 5 and 10 times the size of the same JPEG, with absolutely no noticeable difference in quality.
The whole point about photography is that you don't need ultimate quality. Shoot in RAW, convert to DNG upon import, and keep it as DNG. Then, once you're finished with your post, export the final result to JPEG, once, and share that.
Don't bloody talk about lack of PNG support. Lack of RAW and DNG support is damaging for a "photo manager". PNG never has and never will be a plus or minus point for a photo manager.
PS: Why convert to DNG upon import? Full metadata support instead of using sidecar files. DNG is an open file format which does not require reverse engineering (as opposed to most proprietary RAW files), and you have the added benefit that should you require sharing a DNG, any professional photographer will be able to open it (as opposed to say if he's a Canon-only photog, or Nikon-only).
the modern [...] education system [...] attempt[s] to provide broad-ranging bases of abstract knowledge to the students who actually want to learn, and are capable of doing so.
(Editing mine)
Sure. And there is are degrees for that. Math degrees. Physics degrees. Teaching abstract stuff is useless unless you explain, at some point, how those theories can be applied to real world situations.
What you end up with are stupid problems where all the variables are given (or easily findable) in the context of the problem, and absolutely NO "education" of how to find the variables, nor anything else. What you end up with are kids (or young adults) who can probably work a Laplace transform with their eyes closed (90% of the transforms we had to work with were Z-transforms, in other words, ideal scenarios you will NEVER come across when measuring crap), but would never realise that they can use a Laplace transform (and the inverse to calculate the phase delay of a [insert something here].
Current schools (and more specifically, current math and physics, at least in France), do not ask students to formulate questions, or the problems they have to solve themselves. Everything is spoon-fed. The "application of math processes to the world around us" is a sham, a complete utopia that very few teachers have been able to achieve, and sadly I've never met a single one.
Lack of initiative: After finishing a lecture, immediately 5 hands go up; students asking to re-explain the whole thing at their desk.
Lack of perseverance
Lack of retention: Teachers have to re-explain concepts every 3 months or so. Once they've remembered the formula and aced 10 exercises, they think they store it, but really, the same memory spot gets used for whatever the teacher will explain next.
Aversion to word problems: Students are usually unable to explain how the problem is setup. They can't paraphrase, because they don't understand.
Eagerness to formula: Students just want to take their TI-5billion, store a small app that will spit out the result.
The problem is that when students get fed bite-sized problems, that are solvable within 10 minutes (so that the teacher can do a handful in an hour), you completely kill the student's ability to think for longer than 10 minutes. And we do this again, and again, and again. What's even worse, the studies I was talking about in my previous post (GP), we received a "cheat sheet" that had all the formulas for the duration of the degree. Want to know what's even worse? The damn cheat sheet was provided during the exam. Don't believe me? Here is a copy of the exam paper I had a few years ago. Pages 8 'till 14 are standard formulas to help us. That's 6 pages in a 14 page exam.
How do expect people to use the hardcore math they're being taught[1] in real life applications when you *never* ask them to find the variables themselves, *never* ask them "what would be interesting to know about this [insert object]?".
[1]: I shall put aside for once the fact that is utterly ridiculous to try and teach the inner workings of Fourier and Laplace to guys who just got a degree in a branch because they failed math and physics. You don't need Fourier, Laplace and whatever we were taught in order to write java sockets.
PS: I loved maths when I lived in Belgium. I participated in what is roughly the equivalent of spelling bee but for maths. Competition math, on a national level. When I moved to France, I started hating it with a passion. Coincidence? Racist maths? I think not. Stupid education system where theoretical knowledge trumps real-life application, yes sir.
I did a quick course after the equivalent of high school. Mostly because I was bored, and my buddies were going that route.
I'm one of those guys who's not particularly bad at math, but just sucks at the way it's being taught in school. Anyway, this is a course mostly directed towards students who completed electronics and electrotechnics degrees. Those degrees are aimed at people who have a "scientific" mind, but didn't score well enough in math and science in the previous years. Something for everyone, right?
The first day of that degree, our math teacher informed us that most of us were going to fail math. Not because we were bad or stupid, not because we'd be smoking drugs and getting wasted every weekend, but quite simply because the stuff he'd be required by law to teach us was way out of our league, and that he expected almost half the class to be dumped by the end of the first semester.
What he aimed for, was not for most of us to ace, he would be trying to get us to not fail too badly. Out of 24 students who started the course, 10 dropped out by the end of the first year, partly because they didn't like CS, but mostly because they were completely drowned in math and physics. Out of 10 students who got to the final exams in the end, 2 or 3 passed Math.
The problem is that (in France), what the teacher has to teach the students is decided by some fat guys in suits who haven't seen nor remember what a student looks like for the past 20-30 years. They are stuck, getting insane requests from the industry, about 10 years too late, and trying to work out what might help. By the time the new stuff reaches the teachers and students, 15 or 20 years have passed. What you end up with are continuously deprecated degrees, where students come out, filled with hope and joy based on the lies their schools and teachers told them for the past few years, and are hit in the face during their first job interviews (if they ever get one) where they realise that nothing they've learned will be useful.
Now, I got my degree, and most of friends did as well (only 1 didn't get it, as I recall, so 10%), but seriously, what's the point of giving uber-hard math, where kids just drop off and don't give a shit anymore, and doesn't stop them from getting their diploma in the end anyway? I went to maybe 3 math classes in my last year, and still got my diploma with flying colours. It's not about making it easier, it's about making it useful.
Just look at the dashboard, or wherever the onboard computer displays the range left.
It's not like you can look at the fuel gauge, and say "Oh right, 2 gallons left, and this car does 30mpg, so I'd better find some fuel within 60 miles". You just see the little light go on, and stop at the next station.
I've been flying a lot over the past two years, read that as on average 4 international flights per month. I usually wore a suit and was cleanly shaven, and never got into trouble. I only have a couple of occasions where I was asked to "follow us, sir".
1- Heathrow Airport, flying to the Ukraine. I forgot to take my laptop out of my bag when going through security. They asked me to follow them, with bag and everything. They swiped the bag for explosives, I got to pet a dog and had a closer body search. I don't forget the laptop anymore.
2- Flying from Brisbane to London (long flight, so no suit). I was "randomly selected" by a very cute border security agent in high heels and a massive kiwi rugby player (he looked the part). They asked me to open my bag, swiped it for drugs and explosives, and I was on my way. On the same trip, I stopped in Bangkok, and I was checked again by security while re-embarking. At the end of the trip, in Heathrow, my bags were searched by customs. A few hours later I had to fly out from Stansted airport, and guess what? Yup, security checked me again.
I consider myself as an experienced traveller. I'm not stressed when flying. I'm a young white caucasian male, and I don't really believe there is much of a bias when travelling. I don't know how many times dark-skinned people get checked (well, except for the Ukraine, where an Iraqi-born colleague of mine was being asked for his passport every 500 meters, in the middle of the city), but I'd really hope that it's not as much as you imply.
In other words: What are your sources? From personal experience, I rarely saw anyone get asked to go to the little room, and the few times did see it, I rarely noticed an overwhelming part of specific ethnic groups. Until flying back from Oz, I would've completely agreed with you. Since then, I'd say I'm about even with anyone else.
That or they just didn't like my "I'm the bomb" t-shirt and "I heart Oss^H^Hbama" stickers.
Sounds like humanity is a bit of drunk football team crashing your place for a party. Once they know where the fridge is, and once it's empty, it suddenly ends up in the pool.
If you're going to pretend to be anti-american, at least spell with -ise instead of -ize. Also throw in a few u's wherever possible. "Amoung", "poupular", "moust".
Sincerely
A brit.
Re:They are waiting for copyright to expire in 2
on
The Hobbit On Hold
·
· Score: 1
Also, Tolkien was British, and his work was published in the UK. US Copyright law is worth balls all, especially when it comes to extensions.
Of course, for business trips and the like, that kind of thing may not work out. However, I've often found that corporate overlords dictate hotel choices when flying for business anyways so its not like you get to make the choice based on internet or any other thing that you value.
Depends what your job is. Hotels are part of job perks, and you shouldn't understimate the value of a good hotel/expense allowance when considering a new job.
Reviewing and negotiating the travel policy before you sign up for the job can mean the difference between sleeping in a Best Western and wanking to MTV, and having the St. Regis bar fix you a quick sandwich if you get there at 1AM because of delayed flight or late night with the customer.
For the past two years, I've been traveling abroad an average of 2-3 weeks per month. It may sound stupid, but one of the few ways to keep your sanity is by being allowed to stay in hotels that have the same standards everywhere. There's nothing more disgusting and utterly demotivating than having to sleep in a bed where you wonder if the sheets have been changed.
In other words, if you have to travel a lot, and the company won't pay for proper accomodation, it's time to take your ass (literally) elsewhere.
The same rule applies to personal travel; if you have to lower your standards in order to get away, maybe you shouldn't be getting away, you should just get creative. I've done a bit of couch-surfing, especially when I was a student, and it just doesn't work as a couple. You're often in the middle of the living room of a 60 sq ft flat, and you wake up everytime the host goes for a piss, or because he's a street cleaner and goes to work at 3AM. Granted, I never did it when I was single, and the website wasn't as popular and overflowing with offers as it is now, but heck, I'm not a student anymore. I can pay for a decent hotel and not eat Ramen Noodles for the rest of the month.
It clearly shows that overall, Marriott is the one that offers most free wifi over the range of their different hotel types (60% of the range offers free access). The horizontal bars on the bottom show the repartition of each hotel type per mother company, and how the wifi costs maps across them.
In case you didn't know, hotel companies offer different types of hotels. I'm sure you've heard of the Holiday Inn, which has horrible standards, and maybe you've even come across the Crowne Plaza (the one in Manchester, UK has excellent service. You can break down half the room and they won't charge you for it). Well, even though they have very different standards, they are from the same mother company.
If someone showed up at your house and told you that your water could kill because of some microbe you have never heard of that they claim is getting into your pipes and the only way to make yourself safe is to install this helpful filter that they are selling would you believe them?
Probably not, but then again you're not being very insightful by asking this on/., where readers are by essence critical than the average joe.
There still is something called social compliance, a term coined by scammers but which is quite close to what this link describes. Also read up on this. Social compliance means that people will very easily accept your position of authority provided that you are in the right place, with the right attitude, costume and speech. One quite famous example of this is by BBC show The Real Hustle, where one of the hosts pretends to be with the company that provides parking spaces, and sells "special day passes". If you pay for an hour it's 2 GBP, if you pay for a day it's 10 instead of 16 [1]. The "pass" that he gives to people is an extremely simple ticket, it doesn't even hold a magstripe. By the time people start using the cards, he's long gone, and suddenly people have to try and explain to the parking manager why they're using cards that have utterly no value. Why did people buy them? Because he's wearing a hi-vis jacket, has a clipboard and gives out pieces of paper.
What most of these frauds rely on are "the bait". It's an age old trick, but the snake-oil seller needs someone to start buying first (and usually a big amount). This makes the others believe a/ it's a bargain, b/ the sale was validated by one (so they think) legitimate buyer, c/ there is scarcity because 20 items were sold in one go -- they might lose out if they don't act fast.
Appeals to trust and obbey authority: This is roughly what I explained above. People are inclined to believe anything that seems legit, and which does not give them any reason to doubt. If it looks real, smells real, feels real and sounds real, it must be real. Also, people want to be led, this dramatises the above. This sadly also explains why phishing actually works.
Visceral triggers: Again, what I explained above, scammers will play the most basic instincts and feelings of people in order to fool them. Greed, fear, avoidance of pain, desire to be liked, etc. This causes instinctive, impulsive behaviour, which means people buy first, ask questions later.
Scarcity cues: Same as explained in the example above, by making people feel as if the product may run out soon, they have instinctive pressure building up to make a decision fast. This can also work by making the offer seem highly personal. If you, and only you are in for a particular deal, you're not lucky: you just need to make sure no-one else gets it.
Induction of commitment: By making people take small steps, individual steps that aren't very difficult to accomplish, the scammer push the victim into a guilt-trip for pulling out. The further they go, the harder it is for them to pull out. This also works if the victim already gave money. You're more inclined to give me 200 USD for "processing" if you've already given me $10, $20 and $50. (This BTW is used by casinos too, that's why the cheapest fruit machines are at the front, the big money losers are hidden in the back.)
Pot odds: May sound stupid, but everyone makes those calculati
This CustomizeGoogle feature saves you from the hassle of paging through Google web search results. Whenever you navigate to the end of the page, you dont have to hit the next button. CustomizeGoogle automatically fetches next set of results and appends them to the bottom of the page.
Slashdot Mirror
You are a little confused. Please reread the Wikipedia article on Hanyu Pinyin.
No, no; he was right at the time he posted his comment. But then I decided he shouldn't be, so now he isn't.
Its a lot easier to sit back and wait for someone else to set a legal president and jump on the moving band wagon
Which band wagon is that? The President's or preceding President?
I didn't actually mean that Shotwell had any support for it (I've never used it). I simply meant to say that "If you're going to be using PNG because it has lossless picture encoding, you might as well use TIFF or DNG".
Duh dude.
You just said Mars' gravity was only one third of Earth's, so considering it already left Earth's atmosphere, why would the probe have a problem with a one-third-puss-gravity well?
Seriously, bro, THINK!
Well, depends if you want to be a general image manager, or a photo manager. You, know, as in, pictures, with uneven edges and graduated colours.
You know, the kind of stuff that PNG utterly and completely sucks at?
Anyone who considers PNG for storing pictures needs to stop, right away. PNG has one advantage: it's a lossless format (as opposed to JPEG). But then you could use TIFF, or DNG. I don't care what you use, be it Lightroom, F-spot or Shotwell; PNG does not bring *any* benefit to managing pictures.
PNG is excellent for screenshots, and most computer-generated stuff (powerpoint, whatever, anything that is mostly made of straight lines and edges). However, it will suck in terms of size as soon as you confront with photographic material. Most PNG's will have between 5 and 10 times the size of the same JPEG, with absolutely no noticeable difference in quality.
The whole point about photography is that you don't need ultimate quality. Shoot in RAW, convert to DNG upon import, and keep it as DNG. Then, once you're finished with your post, export the final result to JPEG, once, and share that.
Don't bloody talk about lack of PNG support. Lack of RAW and DNG support is damaging for a "photo manager". PNG never has and never will be a plus or minus point for a photo manager.
PS: Why convert to DNG upon import? Full metadata support instead of using sidecar files. DNG is an open file format which does not require reverse engineering (as opposed to most proprietary RAW files), and you have the added benefit that should you require sharing a DNG, any professional photographer will be able to open it (as opposed to say if he's a Canon-only photog, or Nikon-only).
the modern [...] education system [...] attempt[s] to provide broad-ranging bases of abstract knowledge to the students who actually want to learn, and are capable of doing so.
(Editing mine)
Sure. And there is are degrees for that. Math degrees. Physics degrees. Teaching abstract stuff is useless unless you explain, at some point, how those theories can be applied to real world situations.
What you end up with are stupid problems where all the variables are given (or easily findable) in the context of the problem, and absolutely NO "education" of how to find the variables, nor anything else. What you end up with are kids (or young adults) who can probably work a Laplace transform with their eyes closed (90% of the transforms we had to work with were Z-transforms, in other words, ideal scenarios you will NEVER come across when measuring crap), but would never realise that they can use a Laplace transform (and the inverse to calculate the phase delay of a [insert something here].
Current schools (and more specifically, current math and physics, at least in France), do not ask students to formulate questions, or the problems they have to solve themselves. Everything is spoon-fed. The "application of math processes to the world around us" is a sham, a complete utopia that very few teachers have been able to achieve, and sadly I've never met a single one.
Dan Meyer summarises this exceptionally well.
The problem is that when students get fed bite-sized problems, that are solvable within 10 minutes (so that the teacher can do a handful in an hour), you completely kill the student's ability to think for longer than 10 minutes. And we do this again, and again, and again. What's even worse, the studies I was talking about in my previous post (GP), we received a "cheat sheet" that had all the formulas for the duration of the degree. Want to know what's even worse? The damn cheat sheet was provided during the exam. Don't believe me? Here is a copy of the exam paper I had a few years ago. Pages 8 'till 14 are standard formulas to help us. That's 6 pages in a 14 page exam.
How do expect people to use the hardcore math they're being taught[1] in real life applications when you *never* ask them to find the variables themselves, *never* ask them "what would be interesting to know about this [insert object]?".
[1]: I shall put aside for once the fact that is utterly ridiculous to try and teach the inner workings of Fourier and Laplace to guys who just got a degree in a branch because they failed math and physics. You don't need Fourier, Laplace and whatever we were taught in order to write java sockets. PS: I loved maths when I lived in Belgium. I participated in what is roughly the equivalent of spelling bee but for maths. Competition math, on a national level. When I moved to France, I started hating it with a passion. Coincidence? Racist maths? I think not. Stupid education system where theoretical knowledge trumps real-life application, yes sir.
I did a quick course after the equivalent of high school. Mostly because I was bored, and my buddies were going that route.
I'm one of those guys who's not particularly bad at math, but just sucks at the way it's being taught in school. Anyway, this is a course mostly directed towards students who completed electronics and electrotechnics degrees. Those degrees are aimed at people who have a "scientific" mind, but didn't score well enough in math and science in the previous years. Something for everyone, right?
The first day of that degree, our math teacher informed us that most of us were going to fail math. Not because we were bad or stupid, not because we'd be smoking drugs and getting wasted every weekend, but quite simply because the stuff he'd be required by law to teach us was way out of our league, and that he expected almost half the class to be dumped by the end of the first semester.
What he aimed for, was not for most of us to ace, he would be trying to get us to not fail too badly. Out of 24 students who started the course, 10 dropped out by the end of the first year, partly because they didn't like CS, but mostly because they were completely drowned in math and physics. Out of 10 students who got to the final exams in the end, 2 or 3 passed Math.
The problem is that (in France), what the teacher has to teach the students is decided by some fat guys in suits who haven't seen nor remember what a student looks like for the past 20-30 years. They are stuck, getting insane requests from the industry, about 10 years too late, and trying to work out what might help. By the time the new stuff reaches the teachers and students, 15 or 20 years have passed. What you end up with are continuously deprecated degrees, where students come out, filled with hope and joy based on the lies their schools and teachers told them for the past few years, and are hit in the face during their first job interviews (if they ever get one) where they realise that nothing they've learned will be useful.
Now, I got my degree, and most of friends did as well (only 1 didn't get it, as I recall, so 10%), but seriously, what's the point of giving uber-hard math, where kids just drop off and don't give a shit anymore, and doesn't stop them from getting their diploma in the end anyway? I went to maybe 3 math classes in my last year, and still got my diploma with flying colours. It's not about making it easier, it's about making it useful.
Just look at the dashboard, or wherever the onboard computer displays the range left.
It's not like you can look at the fuel gauge, and say "Oh right, 2 gallons left, and this car does 30mpg, so I'd better find some fuel within 60 miles". You just see the little light go on, and stop at the next station.
I read it as "Marston in Armadillo Performs..." Guess I've been playing Red Dead Redemption just a tiny bit too much.
Actually, I agreed with you until quite recently.
I've been flying a lot over the past two years, read that as on average 4 international flights per month. I usually wore a suit and was cleanly shaven, and never got into trouble. I only have a couple of occasions where I was asked to "follow us, sir".
1- Heathrow Airport, flying to the Ukraine. I forgot to take my laptop out of my bag when going through security. They asked me to follow them, with bag and everything. They swiped the bag for explosives, I got to pet a dog and had a closer body search. I don't forget the laptop anymore.
2- Flying from Brisbane to London (long flight, so no suit). I was "randomly selected" by a very cute border security agent in high heels and a massive kiwi rugby player (he looked the part). They asked me to open my bag, swiped it for drugs and explosives, and I was on my way. On the same trip, I stopped in Bangkok, and I was checked again by security while re-embarking. At the end of the trip, in Heathrow, my bags were searched by customs. A few hours later I had to fly out from Stansted airport, and guess what? Yup, security checked me again.
I consider myself as an experienced traveller. I'm not stressed when flying. I'm a young white caucasian male, and I don't really believe there is much of a bias when travelling. I don't know how many times dark-skinned people get checked (well, except for the Ukraine, where an Iraqi-born colleague of mine was being asked for his passport every 500 meters, in the middle of the city), but I'd really hope that it's not as much as you imply.
In other words: What are your sources? From personal experience, I rarely saw anyone get asked to go to the little room, and the few times did see it, I rarely noticed an overwhelming part of specific ethnic groups. Until flying back from Oz, I would've completely agreed with you. Since then, I'd say I'm about even with anyone else.
That or they just didn't like my "I'm the bomb" t-shirt and "I heart Oss^H^Hbama" stickers.
"Longest existing prior art" and "erection" in parent and grand parent. No doubt, this a discussion on /. about patents.
I wonder though, Skapare, how well do you know AC that you can assert he is indeed the longest?
Streak is a sharp-looking device with a black front and candy-apple red back that unfortunately shows fingerprints easily.
Man, you can't have a single article about a mobile device on Slashdot without Apple being mentioned these days.
"I don't know who the drunks are who write and edit" (fixed that for you)
Oh the irony of a grammar complaint coming from one who fails to live by his own rules.
Sounds like humanity is a bit of drunk football team crashing your place for a party. Once they know where the fridge is, and once it's empty, it suddenly ends up in the pool.
Listen mate,
If you're going to pretend to be anti-american, at least spell with -ise instead of -ize. Also throw in a few u's wherever possible. "Amoung", "poupular", "moust".
Sincerely
A brit.
Also, Tolkien was British, and his work was published in the UK. US Copyright law is worth balls all, especially when it comes to extensions.
Or maybe you just watched JJ Abrams' presentation at TED and forgot about it?
I'm confused, is this the one with Ricky Gervais or Steve Carell?
Well, https has an s, so it's obviously plural. So for Secure HTTP, in Latin, you'd have to type httpii://
Gosh, you two are so cute :)
/.
First fight and reconciliation right here on
Of course, for business trips and the like, that kind of thing may not work out. However, I've often found that corporate overlords dictate hotel choices when flying for business anyways so its not like you get to make the choice based on internet or any other thing that you value.
Depends what your job is. Hotels are part of job perks, and you shouldn't understimate the value of a good hotel/expense allowance when considering a new job.
Reviewing and negotiating the travel policy before you sign up for the job can mean the difference between sleeping in a Best Western and wanking to MTV, and having the St. Regis bar fix you a quick sandwich if you get there at 1AM because of delayed flight or late night with the customer.
For the past two years, I've been traveling abroad an average of 2-3 weeks per month. It may sound stupid, but one of the few ways to keep your sanity is by being allowed to stay in hotels that have the same standards everywhere. There's nothing more disgusting and utterly demotivating than having to sleep in a bed where you wonder if the sheets have been changed.
In other words, if you have to travel a lot, and the company won't pay for proper accomodation, it's time to take your ass (literally) elsewhere.
The same rule applies to personal travel; if you have to lower your standards in order to get away, maybe you shouldn't be getting away, you should just get creative. I've done a bit of couch-surfing, especially when I was a student, and it just doesn't work as a couple. You're often in the middle of the living room of a 60 sq ft flat, and you wake up everytime the host goes for a piss, or because he's a street cleaner and goes to work at 3AM. Granted, I never did it when I was single, and the website wasn't as popular and overflowing with offers as it is now, but heck, I'm not a student anymore. I can pay for a decent hotel and not eat Ramen Noodles for the rest of the month.
Have you tried looking at it?
It clearly shows that overall, Marriott is the one that offers most free wifi over the range of their different hotel types (60% of the range offers free access). The horizontal bars on the bottom show the repartition of each hotel type per mother company, and how the wifi costs maps across them.
In case you didn't know, hotel companies offer different types of hotels. I'm sure you've heard of the Holiday Inn, which has horrible standards, and maybe you've even come across the Crowne Plaza (the one in Manchester, UK has excellent service. You can break down half the room and they won't charge you for it). Well, even though they have very different standards, they are from the same mother company.
If someone showed up at your house and told you that your water could kill because of some microbe you have never heard of that they claim is getting into your pipes and the only way to make yourself safe is to install this helpful filter that they are selling would you believe them?
Probably not, but then again you're not being very insightful by asking this on /., where readers are by essence critical than the average joe.
There still is something called social compliance, a term coined by scammers but which is quite close to what this link describes. Also read up on this. Social compliance means that people will very easily accept your position of authority provided that you are in the right place, with the right attitude, costume and speech. One quite famous example of this is by BBC show The Real Hustle, where one of the hosts pretends to be with the company that provides parking spaces, and sells "special day passes". If you pay for an hour it's 2 GBP, if you pay for a day it's 10 instead of 16 [1]. The "pass" that he gives to people is an extremely simple ticket, it doesn't even hold a magstripe. By the time people start using the cards, he's long gone, and suddenly people have to try and explain to the parking manager why they're using cards that have utterly no value. Why did people buy them? Because he's wearing a hi-vis jacket, has a clipboard and gives out pieces of paper.
What most of these frauds rely on are "the bait". It's an age old trick, but the snake-oil seller needs someone to start buying first (and usually a big amount). This makes the others believe a/ it's a bargain, b/ the sale was validated by one (so they think) legitimate buyer, c/ there is scarcity because 20 items were sold in one go -- they might lose out if they don't act fast.
The UK gov published ordered and published a report that tried to explain the psychology behind scams, and why they work (so well). These were the highlights:
This CustomizeGoogle feature saves you from the hassle of paging through Google web search results. Whenever you navigate to the end of the page, you dont have to hit the next button. CustomizeGoogle automatically fetches next set of results and appends them to the bottom of the page.
How could it not be known yet used by one or more government agencies?
Regardless, now I want to go and have a chat with the writers of CSI and Numb3rs, because apparently they have some schweet inside info.