I have had no problem with PayPal when I was on the buying side. When I was on the selling side, things haven't been so great and the web is full of horror stories.
In my mind I see many more buyers than sellers and PayPal seems to be going after having/keeping that critical mass of users and counting on sellers having to use their services if they want to reach out to buyers. Much like Facebook and Twitter are worthless if your friends/relatives aren't using it and it's almost required for you to be there if all of them are too (otherwise you start to miss stupid cat pictures).
So PayPal offers buyers much more risk protection than it does for sellers (which are fewer individuals than buyers).
The same goes for credit cards. Buyers love them but I've met very few business people who don't have complaints about MasterCard, Visa, etc. They don't have much option though: buyers rarely work in their stores with real cash, everyone wants to use the plastic cards and checks are just too insecure to accept.
All of this calls for more... regulation? I don't know but the horror stories seem to be getting worse as much as PayPal tries to impose crazy rules on everybody. I saw crazy here because they seem to be trying to enforce a least common denominator on all the World, that is, they choose the most strict rules in some country and enforce that on their whole service when it's clear that such things don't apply everywhere.
As it's evident, PayPal is also trying to protect itself from lawsuits but it might be getting exactly the opposite result in the near future.
The TPs and the Latitudes compared equally in price here.
I should have mentioned that I was shopping for a home laptop capable of heavy tasks but also games. I wasn't so worried about it being made of titanium or something. Sorry about omitting that information.
I have used TPs at work (hint: big blue) and I love them but for an individual it's hard to sell. I did get overnight on-site warranty coverage with the Dell XPS though.
Except we do not want the insects to vanish from Earth as that would impact biodiversity. We just want them to stay away from that corn field (or at least keep it to a minimum that they coexist).
The difference was that in the beginning, they supported SOPA (+1 activity). Now they are just going to be neutral but they still believe SOPA is right.
To reserve it they would have to protest SOPA actively, just like they did when they supported it actively. That is not going to happen so this is all a public stunt.
"Vote with your dollars" is, almost always, something companies can't undo without lots of work. GoDaddy is expecting this is easy to do.
You seem to ignore the huge bridge between high school and PhD. There is plenty of time in between for students to learn that stuff.
There is no point in forcing high schoolers to learn how to dissect an animal if very few will be doctors and vets. IMHO, all the animals spared of useless procedures are well worth it.
If people couldn't understand how dangerous driving and talking/typing on your cellphone is after all the accidents, studies, etc... I would get angry too.
I think it would be easy for any judge to see that the system as created doesn't offer any fail safe provisions and, if it can't be proven to be "with fraudulent intent", as least the justice system could be used to force Google and the big labels to modify the system. The way it is today, there is no pressure since the users being affect aren't big enough plus there is a bunch of people saying Google is doing the right thing. It's not a system that is bound to fix itself without some external force propelling change.
Looks like it's the standard process that the intent of the video is never analysed. Wouldn't it be right to keep the video up if it was an educational video and the author was not trying to make money out of it? Wouldn't it constitute fair use? I'm asking these not because I know the answer but because they should be asked whenever a complaint is made. But they aren't. Over and over.
There is always a way to make it right (or less wrong). The law requires Google to do something and that something, when done properly, will cost Google to decrease profits because they would have to invest in someone with an actual brain (i.e. a human being) to accept the complaints, analyze and act accordingly (perhaps requesting the big labels to submit additional evidence and/or reject it right away). That is a cost of Google offering the service it does, with the law that government decided was to be followed. Life is not fair, right?
The fact that Google seems to automatically take down videos at the first sight of a complaint from the big labels explains what's happening but it doesn't justify it. Users have the right to be treated fairly and some users clearly are NOT. That doesn't mean Google is always wrong or always right.. it means this specific situation needs addressing (since it happens so often).
The small user (or let's say, the less paying customer) is demanding a fair treatment. Right now the balance is pending on way only.
The initial comment to which I was replying said the following "how dare Google cater more towards the people who pay them actual money than the people who use their service for free" (note the sarcasm).
I was exposing the opinion that just because some people pay Google to do something, it doesn't offer a free pass on Google to do "something" (where something is actually something "bad"). Any money > $0.
If we use the logic in the initial comment that "a service provider is correct in doing what the customer that pays more demands" then we can extrapolate it to a situation where a murder victim doesn't have enough money to counter the offer of a killer's client and is shot in the head instead.
Of course that is an extreme situation in that it doesn't make any sense. Nobody would say the killer was correct... and I can anticipate some criticism that "Google is not killing anyone". It is not.
On the other hand, for your argument to make sense we have to believe that Google actually doesn't know it's infringing harm to innocent people (that shared public domain videos which were claimed my corrupt big labels as theirs exploiting the law). I find that very hard to believe.. because to believe in that I would have to accept the fact that all complains Google receives go to/dev/null... in which case that would actually show Google doesn't care about its users as much as people expect (note I'm not saying that this is happening, I'm just following the argument).
What would be "right" of Google to do then? I guess that actually placing a human being with a brain and some experience in copyright claims to handle the complaints from big labels would make sense instead of blinding trusting a greedy corporation to the detriment of a single user trying to share something useful with the rest of the society.
So perhaps it was not obvious what I meant about unethical behavior and that adjective could be out of place but it doesn't change the fact that Google is not doing the "right thing" (tm).
But since these videos are not trying to make money for the government (unless they are advertising taxes!), shouldn't that be automatically under fair / education use?
Even if a copyrighted song was used in a slide show for a video explaining some public policy on school, or a science video, how does that constitutes a infringement?
Slashdot Mirror
When I saw this a few days ago, it was so obviously clear that it was a fake that I didn't bother to watch until the end.
And now it shows in Slashdot. Jesus.
I have had no problem with PayPal when I was on the buying side. When I was on the selling side, things haven't been so great and the web is full of horror stories.
In my mind I see many more buyers than sellers and PayPal seems to be going after having/keeping that critical mass of users and counting on sellers having to use their services if they want to reach out to buyers. Much like Facebook and Twitter are worthless if your friends/relatives aren't using it and it's almost required for you to be there if all of them are too (otherwise you start to miss stupid cat pictures).
So PayPal offers buyers much more risk protection than it does for sellers (which are fewer individuals than buyers).
The same goes for credit cards. Buyers love them but I've met very few business people who don't have complaints about MasterCard, Visa, etc. They don't have much option though: buyers rarely work in their stores with real cash, everyone wants to use the plastic cards and checks are just too insecure to accept.
All of this calls for more... regulation? I don't know but the horror stories seem to be getting worse as much as PayPal tries to impose crazy rules on everybody. I saw crazy here because they seem to be trying to enforce a least common denominator on all the World, that is, they choose the most strict rules in some country and enforce that on their whole service when it's clear that such things don't apply everywhere.
As it's evident, PayPal is also trying to protect itself from lawsuits but it might be getting exactly the opposite result in the near future.
The TPs and the Latitudes compared equally in price here.
I should have mentioned that I was shopping for a home laptop capable of heavy tasks but also games. I wasn't so worried about it being made of titanium or something. Sorry about omitting that information.
I have used TPs at work (hint: big blue) and I love them but for an individual it's hard to sell. I did get overnight on-site warranty coverage with the Dell XPS though.
I'm glad the ThinkPad T line hasn't been changed much except for upgrades. The other product lines on the other hand, have suffered enormously.
In my last laptop upgraded I decided to go with a Dell XPS because the ThinkPad T was overpriced here.
It's not smart now we all know how it works. Let's get you back a few million years ago as a bacteria and let you be smart there :)
Except we do not want the insects to vanish from Earth as that would impact biodiversity. We just want them to stay away from that corn field (or at least keep it to a minimum that they coexist).
My bad, I thought this discussion had delved into high schools. If they are banning it in universities, that's bad!
The difference was that in the beginning, they supported SOPA (+1 activity). Now they are just going to be neutral but they still believe SOPA is right.
To reserve it they would have to protest SOPA actively, just like they did when they supported it actively. That is not going to happen so this is all a public stunt.
"Vote with your dollars" is, almost always, something companies can't undo without lots of work. GoDaddy is expecting this is easy to do.
On a related note, today I worked 28.8 million milliseconds.
You seem to ignore the huge bridge between high school and PhD. There is plenty of time in between for students to learn that stuff.
There is no point in forcing high schoolers to learn how to dissect an animal if very few will be doctors and vets. IMHO, all the animals spared of useless procedures are well worth it.
Please explain how to install GNOME 3 on Fedora 16 or the latest Ubuntu.
Just saying.
That was a joint effort by USAF and RIAA/MPAA. Finally paying off.
There are no innocents in this PR war.
However, yet another war and the US is probably the one ending in complete destruction due to more debt.
If people couldn't understand how dangerous driving and talking/typing on your cellphone is after all the accidents, studies, etc... I would get angry too.
None. That's beside the point and wasn't even mentioned at all.
I think it would be easy for any judge to see that the system as created doesn't offer any fail safe provisions and, if it can't be proven to be "with fraudulent intent", as least the justice system could be used to force Google and the big labels to modify the system. The way it is today, there is no pressure since the users being affect aren't big enough plus there is a bunch of people saying Google is doing the right thing. It's not a system that is bound to fix itself without some external force propelling change.
Looks like it's the standard process that the intent of the video is never analysed. Wouldn't it be right to keep the video up if it was an educational video and the author was not trying to make money out of it? Wouldn't it constitute fair use? I'm asking these not because I know the answer but because they should be asked whenever a complaint is made. But they aren't. Over and over.
Who cares who said it. Doesn't it make sense?
There is always a way to make it right (or less wrong). The law requires Google to do something and that something, when done properly, will cost Google to decrease profits because they would have to invest in someone with an actual brain (i.e. a human being) to accept the complaints, analyze and act accordingly (perhaps requesting the big labels to submit additional evidence and/or reject it right away). That is a cost of Google offering the service it does, with the law that government decided was to be followed. Life is not fair, right?
The fact that Google seems to automatically take down videos at the first sight of a complaint from the big labels explains what's happening but it doesn't justify it. Users have the right to be treated fairly and some users clearly are NOT. That doesn't mean Google is always wrong or always right.. it means this specific situation needs addressing (since it happens so often).
The small user (or let's say, the less paying customer) is demanding a fair treatment. Right now the balance is pending on way only.
The initial comment to which I was replying said the following "how dare Google cater more towards the people who pay them actual money than the people who use their service for free" (note the sarcasm).
/dev/null ... in which case that would actually show Google doesn't care about its users as much as people expect (note I'm not saying that this is happening, I'm just following the argument).
I was exposing the opinion that just because some people pay Google to do something, it doesn't offer a free pass on Google to do "something" (where something is actually something "bad"). Any money > $0.
If we use the logic in the initial comment that "a service provider is correct in doing what the customer that pays more demands" then we can extrapolate it to a situation where a murder victim doesn't have enough money to counter the offer of a killer's client and is shot in the head instead.
Of course that is an extreme situation in that it doesn't make any sense. Nobody would say the killer was correct... and I can anticipate some criticism that "Google is not killing anyone". It is not.
On the other hand, for your argument to make sense we have to believe that Google actually doesn't know it's infringing harm to innocent people (that shared public domain videos which were claimed my corrupt big labels as theirs exploiting the law). I find that very hard to believe.. because to believe in that I would have to accept the fact that all complains Google receives go to
What would be "right" of Google to do then? I guess that actually placing a human being with a brain and some experience in copyright claims to handle the complaints from big labels would make sense instead of blinding trusting a greedy corporation to the detriment of a single user trying to share something useful with the rest of the society.
So perhaps it was not obvious what I meant about unethical behavior and that adjective could be out of place but it doesn't change the fact that Google is not doing the "right thing" (tm).
What part of "offering a free service doesn't grant you the right to be unethical" do you not understand?
But since these videos are not trying to make money for the government (unless they are advertising taxes!), shouldn't that be automatically under fair / education use?
Even if a copyrighted song was used in a slide show for a video explaining some public policy on school, or a science video, how does that constitutes a infringement?
Perhaps we should hate the game creators more.
Not if you are in Europe :)
How dare people demand ethical behavior from Google in a capitalist economy! The horror!