First off, how in the hell do they charge so little for something with an LCD?
They don't. The shops which sell these things pay more than $20 for them. They can "sell" them at $20 because people have to return them to get their photos. Once they have the camera back, they can repackage and resell it again for $20. And again. And again. Until it gets too scratched up, dirty, or gross to sell any more.
There hasn't been some magical advance in technology to make these things so cheap. They aren't. It's just that there's a big incentive to return the camera (i.e., you can't get your photos if you don't).
Do you really think the camera shop just tosses a perfectly good, reusable digital camera in the trash after a single use?!
I think it would be a great idea to make that company have a decent recycling program for the items that just load our land fills.
You realize they would have to raise their prices in order to pay for such a program, right? Everything is a "great idea" when it doesn't cost anything.
How about we move away from disposable products, period? But this is offtopic, since the cameras are reused, not disposed of. The term "Disposable digital camera" is a complete fucking misnomer.
Is it possible to make something like this that's more trouble to hack than it's worth?
Even if they did, I can still take advantage of the system by buying thousands of cameras, disassembling them and selling the parts at a profit.
This business model is completely screwy, and won't last much longer. They'll have to move to a true renting model where you are required to return the camera.
If the individual parts of the camera are collectively worth significantly more than $20 (which is probably the case), I think you could make a lucrative business out of buying these cameras and parting them out on Ebay.
Eventually, this would probably force the market into a true renting model where you have to return the camera.
I am stunned how many people are eating up the GMail service even here, one of the most blatent privacy removing things you can sign up for. WTF?
There is a difference between the government and corporations impinging on our privacy without our knowledge or consent, and a willful choice to give up privacy in return for specific things.
Are you saying we should not be allowed to make a free choice? Nobody has been coerced into using GMail.
I fear that for Google, going fully profit and opening to investors might in the long run have a negative impact...
I don't intend this as an insult, but No Shit, Sherlock. Now that Google is public, it has a legal responsiblity to make as much money as fast as possible.
It's hard to stay "cool" and respectable when your shareholders can sue you at any moment if they feel you aren't making enough money. How would you behave if you were under such pressure?
I don't blame higher-ups at Google in the slightest. They've had their day in the sun, it was fun, and now they are cashing out their well-deserved (in my opinion) millions. Expect Google to descend now into the same type of mediocrity, facelessness and exploitative behavior we see in all other public corporations. They face lawsuits if they do not.
To Slashdot readers who invest in the stock market: you have no right to complain about the behavior of publically traded corporations. You are the ones who drive them to act the way they do -- you demand it.
Can someone explain to me, without being ruder than necessary, why the SEC allows this practice?
The same reason I can stand on a street corner and offer lemonade for $125 a glass.
We do not need or want a government "consumer stupidity shield" which dictates which prices are fair and which are not. That would be the antithesis of a capitalist system.
Would you like it if there was somebody in the checkout line at Safeway who examined your purchases and every so often said "Stop! You can't buy that, it's a rip off!" Personally, I'd probably punch a guy like that in the face.
It is up to the investor to determine whether a stock is worth its price. If you as an investor want a stock, but the price is too high, then you don't really want the stock, do you?
I mean who gives a flying fuck! Why is it you idiots make a huge fucking deal about showing your ID to get on a plane!
Think of it like pain. Each person has a different threshold for pain. There are some things which one person barely feels at all, which another person would experience as terrible pain.
Tolerance for intrusions into our private lives is also a variable, like tolerance for pain. Some of us guard our privacy quite closely, while others seem willing to publish all the details of their most private thoughts right out in public (witness LiveJournal).
You're simply one of the people with a very high tolerance for privacy intrusion. The problem is, right now the entire country is on Privacy Morphine from the 9/11 attacks and the events in Iraq. It's much easier to buy the line of bullshit that we must give up more and more rights in exchange for protection against threats like that.
As any drug user can tell you, it's really stupid to make important decisions while doped, and here we are, the United States, making the decision to toss away all the things we enjoy about our lives in exchange for barely any real security at all. And one day I think you'll hit that threshold where you suddenly realize "I can't tolerate this level of government intrusion," but by then it will be too late. The drugs the United States is taking are some strong ones, and the kinds of decisions that are being made are not the kind that can easily be backed out of.
If travelling anonymously is a universal right, the system of driving licences is a human-rights atrocity of gigantic scale.
It's nothing of the sort. The purpose of a driver's license is not track your whereabouts, it's a license to drive. When you pull out of your driveway and go to work, is there somebody waiting there to check your ID and ask where you are going?
Then again, this could come in handy. I think I'm going to tell my boss that I have a right to make over $200,000 a year.
I love this type of argument -- I call it the "Hey, let's draw a completely stupid and unjustified analogy and hope the other guy just doesn't notice" method.
There is a unique form of ignorance that only happens among the ultra-liberal reactionary
If wanting to fly from Los Angeles to Atlanta without identifying myself to three different authorities makes me an ultra-liberal reactionary, then I'll gladly call myself one.
You claim to think "realistically" but this is a cop-out for being too lazy to try to change the things that are wrong with the world. You are too scared, stupid, or selfish, and possibly all three.
People like you, who are willing to give up basic freedoms at the drop of a hat because of the latest bogus, vague terrorist "warning" are really, truly dangerous for the future of the United States. You are taking everything that Americans have worked for the last 230 years and tossing it in the shitter without so much as a second thought.
And I think it's fitting that you post as AC, because it's exactly how I feel: I'm surrounded by a swarming mass of faceless, anonymous idiots, all reacting and "thinking," if you can call it that, in exactly the same way.
Given that most AM transmitters tend to be in highly populated areas, it stands to reason that most people who live near AM transmitters live in highly populated areas.
Thus, this study might just be showing that people who live in urban centers have higher a higher rate of certain cancers. Which isn't surprising in the least.
And if the X.509 cert is provided by the manufacturer, then it can also be forged.
No it can't, because the certificate is issued by a globally recognized CA, and only the CA can do that because only the CA has the master keys for creating validated certificates.
If you really believe X.509 certs can be forged to look like CA-issued validated certs, then I highly suggest you stop using HTTPS.
I thought there was a difference between the 2, where internet refers an "inter-network (a link between networks which has not been tied to The Internet), and Internet refers to the "net".
Yes, but it's stupid. The correct solution is to use a different term for an "inter-network" -- I've got a good suggestion, how about "inter-network."
Distinguishing two words by case alone is pretty obviously stupid, since there is no way in speech to tell the difference.
"Which i/Internet did you mean?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I not pronounce that capital 'I' clearly enough?"
So if you take a giant knife and cut your house in half, you now own condos? No. The Internet cut in half is the Internet cut in half, just the same as if you owned a house cut in half.
Notice that the word "house" is not capitalized, however.
The Internet is specifically the one that consists of the public domain space of IP addresses.
I can set up, in my basement, a network of PCs using these supposedly "public domain space" addresses. Believe me, the network configuration tools aren't going to protest and scream, "Nooo! You can't do that!" Do I now possess the Internet?
Would the same apply to the Sun? Or how about Earth?
First, I haven't heard of anybody who capitalizes "sun." But accepting it for the sake of argument, Sun and Earth refer to specific, identifiable entities.
I think you'd be hard pressed to point at something and say "That's the Internet." What if a fiber optic cable gets cut and severs a million systems from the rest of the network? Is that huge chunk part of the "Internet," or not? Is the remaining portion still the "Internet" even though it's lost a large piece of its structure? Suppose we cut a cable which seperates the network into two exactly equally sized halves? Which half is The Internet now?
Consider the ocean. You can fill a glass with ocean water, does that mean you now have "the Ocean" in your glass? If you point your finger at the ocean, are you really pointing at a specific entity, or just some water which happens to be part of the ocean at that moment?
Slashdot Mirror
They don't. The shops which sell these things pay more than $20 for them. They can "sell" them at $20 because people have to return them to get their photos. Once they have the camera back, they can repackage and resell it again for $20. And again. And again. Until it gets too scratched up, dirty, or gross to sell any more.
There hasn't been some magical advance in technology to make these things so cheap. They aren't. It's just that there's a big incentive to return the camera (i.e., you can't get your photos if you don't).
Do you really think the camera shop just tosses a perfectly good, reusable digital camera in the trash after a single use?!
You realize they would have to raise their prices in order to pay for such a program, right? Everything is a "great idea" when it doesn't cost anything.
How about we move away from disposable products, period? But this is offtopic, since the cameras are reused, not disposed of. The term "Disposable digital camera" is a complete fucking misnomer.
Even if they did, I can still take advantage of the system by buying thousands of cameras, disassembling them and selling the parts at a profit.
This business model is completely screwy, and won't last much longer. They'll have to move to a true renting model where you are required to return the camera.
Eventually, this would probably force the market into a true renting model where you have to return the camera.
You take it to the shop, where they download the pictures, repackage the camera and send it out for another use. "Disposable" is largely a misnomer.
Now, straighten your panties.
Help! I can't punch my PIN number into this ATM machine! The LCD display is broken.
There is a difference between the government and corporations impinging on our privacy without our knowledge or consent, and a willful choice to give up privacy in return for specific things.
Are you saying we should not be allowed to make a free choice? Nobody has been coerced into using GMail.
I don't intend this as an insult, but No Shit, Sherlock. Now that Google is public, it has a legal responsiblity to make as much money as fast as possible.
It's hard to stay "cool" and respectable when your shareholders can sue you at any moment if they feel you aren't making enough money. How would you behave if you were under such pressure?
I don't blame higher-ups at Google in the slightest. They've had their day in the sun, it was fun, and now they are cashing out their well-deserved (in my opinion) millions. Expect Google to descend now into the same type of mediocrity, facelessness and exploitative behavior we see in all other public corporations. They face lawsuits if they do not.
To Slashdot readers who invest in the stock market: you have no right to complain about the behavior of publically traded corporations. You are the ones who drive them to act the way they do -- you demand it.
The same reason I can stand on a street corner and offer lemonade for $125 a glass.
We do not need or want a government "consumer stupidity shield" which dictates which prices are fair and which are not. That would be the antithesis of a capitalist system.
Would you like it if there was somebody in the checkout line at Safeway who examined your purchases and every so often said "Stop! You can't buy that, it's a rip off!" Personally, I'd probably punch a guy like that in the face.
It is up to the investor to determine whether a stock is worth its price. If you as an investor want a stock, but the price is too high, then you don't really want the stock, do you?
You've obviously never bought drugs. Let's see the product first :-)
I've always thought there was money to be had in the black market escrow business...
I don't think that's confined to Chicago :-)
Then they can look in your pocket on your corpse and take your ID out, then! What the HELL does that have to do with showing your ID at the gate?
This type of "play dumb and hope the other guy won't notice the glaring hole in my argument" tactic is becoming more popular on Slashdot...
Think of it like pain. Each person has a different threshold for pain. There are some things which one person barely feels at all, which another person would experience as terrible pain.
Tolerance for intrusions into our private lives is also a variable, like tolerance for pain. Some of us guard our privacy quite closely, while others seem willing to publish all the details of their most private thoughts right out in public (witness LiveJournal).
You're simply one of the people with a very high tolerance for privacy intrusion. The problem is, right now the entire country is on Privacy Morphine from the 9/11 attacks and the events in Iraq. It's much easier to buy the line of bullshit that we must give up more and more rights in exchange for protection against threats like that.
As any drug user can tell you, it's really stupid to make important decisions while doped, and here we are, the United States, making the decision to toss away all the things we enjoy about our lives in exchange for barely any real security at all. And one day I think you'll hit that threshold where you suddenly realize "I can't tolerate this level of government intrusion," but by then it will be too late. The drugs the United States is taking are some strong ones, and the kinds of decisions that are being made are not the kind that can easily be backed out of.
It's nothing of the sort. The purpose of a driver's license is not track your whereabouts, it's a license to drive. When you pull out of your driveway and go to work, is there somebody waiting there to check your ID and ask where you are going?
Then again, this could come in handy. I think I'm going to tell my boss that I have a right to make over $200,000 a year.
I love this type of argument -- I call it the "Hey, let's draw a completely stupid and unjustified analogy and hope the other guy just doesn't notice" method.
If wanting to fly from Los Angeles to Atlanta without identifying myself to three different authorities makes me an ultra-liberal reactionary, then I'll gladly call myself one.
You claim to think "realistically" but this is a cop-out for being too lazy to try to change the things that are wrong with the world. You are too scared, stupid, or selfish, and possibly all three.
People like you, who are willing to give up basic freedoms at the drop of a hat because of the latest bogus, vague terrorist "warning" are really, truly dangerous for the future of the United States. You are taking everything that Americans have worked for the last 230 years and tossing it in the shitter without so much as a second thought.
And I think it's fitting that you post as AC, because it's exactly how I feel: I'm surrounded by a swarming mass of faceless, anonymous idiots, all reacting and "thinking," if you can call it that, in exactly the same way.
Right, because all programmers outside Microsoft have superhuman skills and prove that each bug fix they code is correct...
Thus, this study might just be showing that people who live in urban centers have higher a higher rate of certain cancers. Which isn't surprising in the least.
Yes yes, and all TPS reports must have coversheets.
No it can't, because the certificate is issued by a globally recognized CA, and only the CA can do that because only the CA has the master keys for creating validated certificates.
If you really believe X.509 certs can be forged to look like CA-issued validated certs, then I highly suggest you stop using HTTPS.
No, because the RGB and CMY portions are very highly correlated.
Yes, but it's stupid. The correct solution is to use a different term for an "inter-network" -- I've got a good suggestion, how about "inter-network."
Distinguishing two words by case alone is pretty obviously stupid, since there is no way in speech to tell the difference.
"Which i/Internet did you mean?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I not pronounce that capital 'I' clearly enough?"
Notice that the word "house" is not capitalized, however.
Yes, I think the idea of dividing the ocean into separate segments with their own names is silly.
I can set up, in my basement, a network of PCs using these supposedly "public domain space" addresses. Believe me, the network configuration tools aren't going to protest and scream, "Nooo! You can't do that!" Do I now possess the Internet?
First, I haven't heard of anybody who capitalizes "sun." But accepting it for the sake of argument, Sun and Earth refer to specific, identifiable entities.
I think you'd be hard pressed to point at something and say "That's the Internet." What if a fiber optic cable gets cut and severs a million systems from the rest of the network? Is that huge chunk part of the "Internet," or not? Is the remaining portion still the "Internet" even though it's lost a large piece of its structure? Suppose we cut a cable which seperates the network into two exactly equally sized halves? Which half is The Internet now?
Consider the ocean. You can fill a glass with ocean water, does that mean you now have "the Ocean" in your glass? If you point your finger at the ocean, are you really pointing at a specific entity, or just some water which happens to be part of the ocean at that moment?