This rebate nonsense continues because businesses know a lot of customers won't redeem them and the unclaimed cash is money in the seller's pockets. I think the real solution is for states to require all unreclaimed rebate funds by default go to the state (a concept called 'escheat'). I predict rebates would become either nonexistent or rare.
I remember back some years ago during Apartheid, Polaroid got raked over the coals for selling products to the government of South Africa for making ID cards. All they did was sell product to a government and that got them accused of facilitating oppression. Now, Microsoft is an active and willing partner in oppression and the reaction in the mainstream media doesn't approach that earlier firestorm.
If in the name of lower greenhouse gas emissions we start putting photovoltaic cells all over the place, won't their dark surfaces do the same thing as the trees?
A six-month renewal of the Patriot Act would put another renewal squarely in the middle of election season. I'm thinking both sides are going to try to tar the other with it ("You want to give the terrorists free reign!" No, you want to trample the freedoms of the American people!"). Should be an interesting screaming match.
I think I would rather it go to the police than the army. Does anyone else agree?
From that commment I infer that you don't like the military. So would you rather 1) Have soldiers, but leave them more vulnerable to enemy fire than necessary, or 2) Not have soldiers?
1) Would be either sick, stupid, or (my pick) both. Even if you think soldiers are subhumans and therefore not entitled to protection, if you acknowledge their necessity why wouldn't you protect the investment you have in them? It costs a huge amount of money to train and equip them and if they die or are incapacitated, you've wasted that money.
2) Would be rather foolish in my opinion. Do you think, just as one example, that the cops can get you out when some lunatic group or tin-pot dictator decides you'll make a dandy hostage?
... unless you have infinite space and money. Nobody's a "programmer" these days. Your choice of books depends on what you're doing: embedded microprocessor systems, php server pages, capturing and analyzing video, etc. I have hundreds of books on everything from java to html to Flash to Visual C++. Not having enough space to keep them all at hand, I pack the ones not in current use away and when I start doing that type of work again, I bring them back out. About the only universal books I can think of are the Knuth series, or the "Mythical Man-Month" types, and even those you won't typically consult more than once a year, or at least that's my experience.
Yes, the "junk" information may hide spammers and whatnot, but in my experience it's just people who want to post pictures of their kids online without worrying about "Internet weirdos."
In my case, I take advantage of the registrar's confidentiality for my personal domain because I had started getting snail mail, email, and phone calls that resulted from the info presented in the domain registration record. I get enough of that crap without handing my info to those scum on a silver platter.
Without going into details all I can say is that your mental picture is wrong and if you don't believe me then all I can say is "too bad". However it is a mainframe and it runs very well and processes about 3 million transactions per day (if I remember correctly).
I was using hyperbole for humor. My main beef is with the lack of a machine interface so that records can be accessed without having to parse responses intended for humans.
Recent work had me creating a program that processes data coming from NCIC. It's unbelievable how primitive it is. They can't even supply it in machine-readable form yet, I have to use screen-scraping techniques. I have this mental picture of the main server room populated with vacuum-tube Univac equipment maintained by Grace Hopper.
If the purpose of rebates isn't to con a certain percent of people who won't turn them in, then let's do this: all unclaimed rebates escheat (legal term that means property without an owner reverting to the state). We do this with unclaimed bank accounts where the owner can't be found, so it isn't a radical step. Plus, if the legit rebate holder ever comes forward with a claim, the state can hand it over.
I'm betting that rebates would suddenly disappear from the face of the earth.
Charging broadcasters more for static-free cable and satellite tv channels
Charging businesses for having their customer's phone calls actually get through 100% of the time instead of 75%
Charging postal mailers extra for having their mail get put in the recipient's box instead of the gutter
Interesting thing is, my city government thought of this decades ago. Every time I hear some local politician on the radio, he's saying that if we want ALL the potholes filled or ALL the trash picked up, that's going to cost us extra.
These guys sound like they think there's a way to stop it. Short of their fellow scientists organizing a formal shunning of research data that's web-published, what could actually prevent a researcher from putting his/her results on the web? Particularly if they get turned down by the journals? If I had devoted a lot of time and effort to some research and couldn't get a journal to publish it, you can bet that I'd publish it in web form rather than just let it rot.
Re:How long did it take Halo to make it to the PC?
on
Prepping For The 360
·
· Score: 1
How long did it take Halo 2 to come to the PC? Oh wait. It never did, and it's never coming.
I didn't ask about Halo 2, I asked about Halo. As an indicator of how long it might take IF it ever happens.
How long did it take Halo to make it to the PC?
on
Prepping For The 360
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
I detest console games and would much rather play them on a PC, so I'll wait for the X-Box 360 games to be ported. How long did Halo take to go from X-Box to the PC?
How is it that they can find fossilized dung from the era, but not fossilized grass? Why would grass be exempt from fossilization when a lot of other stuff apparently isn't? Just wondering.
... as much as I worry about government. The UK is already talking about recording the location of every vehicle at all times. That's a lot more intrusive to me than my boss tracking me via an "RFID" tag. I can always quit a job. It's not as easy quitting a country.
>>Before anyone sets up any kind of web site, I strongly advise you to purchase an Umbrella Liabliity Insurance Policy.
Will this also work for copyright infringement, I.E. P2P, BITTORRENT, ECT? If so, this might be a good investment for us all.
Speaking from near-total ignorance, I'm guessing no. Slander/libel is a tort, while copyright infringement is a criminal case. I've never heard of insurance that would defend you against prosecution for criminal acts. In fact, I'd argue that such insurance would be a bad thing, since it would make people more likely to commit crimes.
As I said, though, this opinion is straight from my butt.
I have to ask: why is it that someone that wants his privacy, and takes steps to ensure it, automatically "hiding from somthing"?
What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
Nobody said he was guilty of anything. In the normal course of things, your privacy comes from being one fish in a big school, with nobody paying you any attention. If you're going to extraordinary measures, it means you: 1) think your activities are illicit, 2)somebody is or will be surveilling you, or 3)somebody is or will be trying to find you. Hence my question
One of my importer/exporter customers already pulls his battery when hitting the road. Before dumping the battery back in, he picks a random sim card. I set every sim card to ring the same voice mail on "Missed Calls" so he can easily find out what he missed.
I have to ask: what's this guy hiding from? And doesn't going to this kind of trouble pretty much scream, "I'M UP TO SOMETHING!"?
Which is the reason why ONE SINGLE country should NOT be in control of internet domains.
So the answer is to put it into the hands of a bunch of squabbling nationalist factions? I have the feeling the days of sinking the.XXX domain would seem like heaven by comparison.
(For those who don't get the pun, the title is a parody of "Almost Heaven, West Virginia" sung by John Denver.)
... was the guy who responded to one of these emails, saying that the money would really come in handy, as he was in dire financial straits. As the series progressed, he escalated it to the point where he had killed his girlfriend (he sent the 419er a picture of her blood-soaked "body" in a bathtub), and now needed the money to flee the country. Meanwhile, the 419er is still trying to get some money out of him. One of the funniest things I've ever read on the net.
If someone were arrested and tried on the basis of this information, wouldn't the government have to provide to the defense the details of how it was done? If I were the defense attorney, I'd be demanding the details of how the information was encoded, what information was there, and how they traced it to my client. Once that's out in the trial, it's a short step to putting it on the web.
Slashdot Mirror
This rebate nonsense continues because businesses know a lot of customers won't redeem them and the unclaimed cash is money in the seller's pockets. I think the real solution is for states to require all unreclaimed rebate funds by default go to the state (a concept called 'escheat'). I predict rebates would become either nonexistent or rare.
I remember back some years ago during Apartheid, Polaroid got raked over the coals for selling products to the government of South Africa for making ID cards. All they did was sell product to a government and that got them accused of facilitating oppression. Now, Microsoft is an active and willing partner in oppression and the reaction in the mainstream media doesn't approach that earlier firestorm.
All I'm sayin' is that the burners on my stove glow a little brighter than last year. Coincidence? I think not ...
If in the name of lower greenhouse gas emissions we start putting photovoltaic cells all over the place, won't their dark surfaces do the same thing as the trees?
A six-month renewal of the Patriot Act would put another renewal squarely in the middle of election season. I'm thinking both sides are going to try to tar the other with it ("You want to give the terrorists free reign!" No, you want to trample the freedoms of the American people!"). Should be an interesting screaming match.
From that commment I infer that you don't like the military. So would you rather 1) Have soldiers, but leave them more vulnerable to enemy fire than necessary, or 2) Not have soldiers?
1) Would be either sick, stupid, or (my pick) both. Even if you think soldiers are subhumans and therefore not entitled to protection, if you acknowledge their necessity why wouldn't you protect the investment you have in them? It costs a huge amount of money to train and equip them and if they die or are incapacitated, you've wasted that money.
2) Would be rather foolish in my opinion. Do you think, just as one example, that the cops can get you out when some lunatic group or tin-pot dictator decides you'll make a dandy hostage?
... unless you have infinite space and money. Nobody's a "programmer" these days. Your choice of books depends on what you're doing: embedded microprocessor systems, php server pages, capturing and analyzing video, etc. I have hundreds of books on everything from java to html to Flash to Visual C++. Not having enough space to keep them all at hand, I pack the ones not in current use away and when I start doing that type of work again, I bring them back out. About the only universal books I can think of are the Knuth series, or the "Mythical Man-Month" types, and even those you won't typically consult more than once a year, or at least that's my experience.
In my case, I take advantage of the registrar's confidentiality for my personal domain because I had started getting snail mail, email, and phone calls that resulted from the info presented in the domain registration record. I get enough of that crap without handing my info to those scum on a silver platter.
I was using hyperbole for humor. My main beef is with the lack of a machine interface so that records can be accessed without having to parse responses intended for humans.
Recent work had me creating a program that processes data coming from NCIC. It's unbelievable how primitive it is. They can't even supply it in machine-readable form yet, I have to use screen-scraping techniques. I have this mental picture of the main server room populated with vacuum-tube Univac equipment maintained by Grace Hopper.
If the purpose of rebates isn't to con a certain percent of people who won't turn them in, then let's do this: all unclaimed rebates escheat (legal term that means property without an owner reverting to the state). We do this with unclaimed bank accounts where the owner can't be found, so it isn't a radical step. Plus, if the legit rebate holder ever comes forward with a claim, the state can hand it over.
I'm betting that rebates would suddenly disappear from the face of the earth.
Interesting thing is, my city government thought of this decades ago. Every time I hear some local politician on the radio, he's saying that if we want ALL the potholes filled or ALL the trash picked up, that's going to cost us extra.
These guys sound like they think there's a way to stop it. Short of their fellow scientists organizing a formal shunning of research data that's web-published, what could actually prevent a researcher from putting his/her results on the web? Particularly if they get turned down by the journals? If I had devoted a lot of time and effort to some research and couldn't get a journal to publish it, you can bet that I'd publish it in web form rather than just let it rot.
I didn't ask about Halo 2, I asked about Halo. As an indicator of how long it might take IF it ever happens.
I detest console games and would much rather play them on a PC, so I'll wait for the X-Box 360 games to be ported. How long did Halo take to go from X-Box to the PC?
How is it that they can find fossilized dung from the era, but not fossilized grass? Why would grass be exempt from fossilization when a lot of other stuff apparently isn't? Just wondering.
... as much as I worry about government. The UK is already talking about recording the location of every vehicle at all times. That's a lot more intrusive to me than my boss tracking me via an "RFID" tag. I can always quit a job. It's not as easy quitting a country.
It was at the time I posted the mirror link. Or maybe I just like going to the trouble of putting up links for no reason.
MirrorDot mirror of the Slashdotted LinuxJournal page.
Will this also work for copyright infringement, I.E. P2P, BITTORRENT, ECT? If so, this might be a good investment for us all.
Speaking from near-total ignorance, I'm guessing no. Slander/libel is a tort, while copyright infringement is a criminal case. I've never heard of insurance that would defend you against prosecution for criminal acts. In fact, I'd argue that such insurance would be a bad thing, since it would make people more likely to commit crimes.
As I said, though, this opinion is straight from my butt.
What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
Nobody said he was guilty of anything. In the normal course of things, your privacy comes from being one fish in a big school, with nobody paying you any attention. If you're going to extraordinary measures, it means you: 1) think your activities are illicit, 2)somebody is or will be surveilling you, or 3)somebody is or will be trying to find you. Hence my question
One of my importer/exporter customers already pulls his battery when hitting the road. Before dumping the battery back in, he picks a random sim card. I set every sim card to ring the same voice mail on "Missed Calls" so he can easily find out what he missed.
I have to ask: what's this guy hiding from? And doesn't going to this kind of trouble pretty much scream, "I'M UP TO SOMETHING!"?
Which is the reason why ONE SINGLE country should NOT be in control of internet domains.
.XXX domain would seem like heaven by comparison.
So the answer is to put it into the hands of a bunch of squabbling nationalist factions? I have the feeling the days of sinking the
(For those who don't get the pun, the title is a parody of "Almost Heaven, West Virginia" sung by John Denver.)
... was the guy who responded to one of these emails, saying that the money would really come in handy, as he was in dire financial straits. As the series progressed, he escalated it to the point where he had killed his girlfriend (he sent the 419er a picture of her blood-soaked "body" in a bathtub), and now needed the money to flee the country. Meanwhile, the 419er is still trying to get some money out of him. One of the funniest things I've ever read on the net.
If someone were arrested and tried on the basis of this information, wouldn't the government have to provide to the defense the details of how it was done? If I were the defense attorney, I'd be demanding the details of how the information was encoded, what information was there, and how they traced it to my client. Once that's out in the trial, it's a short step to putting it on the web.