I predict that in 20 years, our practical fusion powered flying cars will run on Linux using touch screens, on our way to the space elevator for our vacation on the moon.
Based on the presumption that only one side of the conflict would benefit from more efficient widespread communications. There is no reason to believe that Hitler's message of hatred would not have benefitted at least as much.
If the book is available new, then buying it puts money directly in to the pocket of the author. The OP made the distinction that the book was not available in a way that would do that. Buying a new book and grabbing a pirated etext is a whole different set of ethical considerations.
Re:lowest common denominator
on
Houses With Tails
·
· Score: 0, Troll
I'd be more worried about the clueless moron who sets up an unsecured wireless router in his unit, so the neighbor across the street can download his child porn. Then, since it will all likely be behind a firewall of some sort with a single public IP address, the FBI will be kicking in everyone's doors looking for the perv.
At least as likely is one of the neighbors setting up a spam operation, and getting everyone cut off for spamming (because, again, it'll all be on a single IP address).
If they're doing that sort of thing on a regular basis, disputing the charge is trivial. I had it happen once with a one-time membership fee at a web site that was not only turned in to a recurring membership, but double charged, to boot. I didn't even have to fill out the usual chargeback paperwork when I called my credit card company. It was the usual, skeptical, "Well, let me just pull this up and see what we have" attitude until I told him which charge, and he pulled up the chargeback history on that merchant, and told me "The credit will be on your account by tomorrow."
From the sounds of it, classmates.com is either in, or rapidly headed to, that category.
I'd ask my boss for documentation on how much revenue is lost for downtime when, say, a sales drone's desktop is down. Or the mail server is down. Or whatever. If he can't provide that, it is impossible to provide the analysis he's asking for. And that information is not within your ability to determine. If you boss does not grasp this immediately, when you put it in those terms, start circulating resumes, because you work for an idiot. If he does, he'll do his own job instead of passing part of it on to you.
(If he provides that information, then you have what you need.)
I may have mentioned I've been doing retail management (and above) for 25+ years now.
You haven't. I can tell.
Yeah, some retailers do things your way. They tend to be outfits like Fry's, which also feel the need to hire door nazis to search through your bags on the way out. Not to stop shoplifters, mind you, but to cut down on (but never eliminate) theft by employees.
Anything that requires a key requires basically any lackey who works in that department to unlock. No seniority at all.
Having been involved in retail management for 25+ years, I can tell you, with certainty, that if it's worth locking up at all, it's worth your minimum wage sales drone's effort to steal. Far more theft in most retails stores is by employees than by customers.
At many stores security usually does an audit at the end of each night to check for theft in all locked areas
And at far more, that would require hiring security personnel (who are more expensive to employ, and a lot more expensive to hire, since there's no point in hiring a security person who hasn't been vetted with a background check, unless you want them to organize the employee theft ring) specifically to review those tapes, because most stores that have anything worth locking up have quite a bit worth locking up. And, generally speaking, a lot of it is dispersed enough that it's not under a camera. Cameras (and recording systems) are rather expensive, especially if you expect to be able to actually identify even someone you know in the video, and installing them is a lot more expensive. At most retailers that even have security cameras, less than 10% of the total sales floor is recorded by one. And your minimum wage employees won't even have to figure out which lockup cases aren't watched, since that will be part of their orientation (if you know how to run your store).
The only solution to virtually any security/shoplifting problem in a retail store is, ultimately, to spend money. Generally quite a bit of it. Which comes out of your 3-5% profit margin.
I can tell you have never worked in retail management. Now you have to a) train all your cashiers not simple "call a manager/whatever to open the lockup case," but rather at least two (or maybe more) tiers of "if customer wants x, call manager, but if customer wants y, call Joe the Department Manager, but if customer wants z, call Barb the Head Cashier." You also have to train the manager, Joe, and Barb in all this, as well. And no training is perfect (and cashier and sales rarely make more than minimum wage, with expected effects on their skill set), so you also back up the lines with each error made. Plus, you now have multiple lockup cases, which a) require more management to keep functioning properly, and b) require yet more multiple levels of training, different for different employees, as to what goes in which case.
Plus, you're now gow multiple sets of security systems, all different, to maintain, both physically, and as part of your security policy.
All in an industry with a net profit margin under 5%, and often under 3%.
If you've never run a retail store, you cannot even imagine the value of economy of scale, and consistenty in training across all employee positions. And few things cost you money faster than a stoppage at a cash register because the minimum wage cashier can't remember who has the key to the right lockup case (or even which lockup case the goods are in).
I don't think you realize how cheap those blister packs are, or the economy of scale in packaging everything a given manufacturer makes in the same kind of packaging (even if not the same size). Different kinds of packaging require different kinds of very expensive machines to handle, and that means different assembly lines that can't be easily converted to a product that uses the other kind of packaging. And so on.
Plus, at the retail end, anything the requires a key to sell requires, if not a manager, at least a senior employeed who has been vetted more throughly than the average cahsier.
I have a friend who used to reduce fractions on his checks. So 44 cents would be 11/25. Used to, until a bank teller didn't catch it, and it messed up his otherwise perfect-for-30-years bank account records. Then his head exploded, and took out the entire building.
I don't recall any details, but there is a SCOTUS ruling that civil forfeiture laws (in this case, seizing several hundred thousand dollars for violating import laws requiring the declaration of money) were, in fact, criminal penalties, and thus subject to the constitutional restrictions on excessive fines.
Actually, what the *AA would need to do is what they are doing now: lobby Congress to make pretty much all copyright infringement criminal, with a federal law enforcement bureaucracy (copyright czar) to enforce and prosecute. This has been the IP's goal for some time, as it removes the cost of enforcement from the "victim" and places it on the public. Which is to say, they not only want to put you in prison for playing your own CD for your friends on your own stereo without a performance license, they want to force you to pay for your own prosecution with your taxes.
In order for it to be 100 times colder, you must know what it is 100 times colder than. Since it is literally impossible to be 100 times colder than the 3 degree Kevlin that is the background temperature of space, and there is no other obvious number, it is meaningless.
How about "x.x degrees colder than . .."? That would be technically accurate, and actually say something.
Erring on the side of caution would be not implementing social programs that will seriously damage the economy, and ultimately contribute to famine in places already in danger of it, because a theory we can't really support might possibly be true, an because cinnamon flavored ponies fly out of Al Gore's butt.
Steven Novella deconstructs this nonsense with his usual thoroughness. The executive summary is that Jones got a lot of facts wrong, and that mutation is overrated as a factor in evolution anyway.
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I predict that in 20 years, our practical fusion powered flying cars will run on Linux using touch screens, on our way to the space elevator for our vacation on the moon.
Yeah, I'm holding my breath.
Based on the presumption that only one side of the conflict would benefit from more efficient widespread communications. There is no reason to believe that Hitler's message of hatred would not have benefitted at least as much.
If the book is available new, then buying it puts money directly in to the pocket of the author. The OP made the distinction that the book was not available in a way that would do that. Buying a new book and grabbing a pirated etext is a whole different set of ethical considerations.
I'd be more worried about the clueless moron who sets up an unsecured wireless router in his unit, so the neighbor across the street can download his child porn. Then, since it will all likely be behind a firewall of some sort with a single public IP address, the FBI will be kicking in everyone's doors looking for the perv.
At least as likely is one of the neighbors setting up a spam operation, and getting everyone cut off for spamming (because, again, it'll all be on a single IP address).
Forensically, it's as useful as saying "this bullet came out of this model pistol." Not conclusive by itself, but one piece of a larger puzzle.
99% of criminal investigation is eliminating who didn't do it, and this can be useful for that.
If they're doing that sort of thing on a regular basis, disputing the charge is trivial. I had it happen once with a one-time membership fee at a web site that was not only turned in to a recurring membership, but double charged, to boot. I didn't even have to fill out the usual chargeback paperwork when I called my credit card company. It was the usual, skeptical, "Well, let me just pull this up and see what we have" attitude until I told him which charge, and he pulled up the chargeback history on that merchant, and told me "The credit will be on your account by tomorrow."
From the sounds of it, classmates.com is either in, or rapidly headed to, that category.
I'd ask my boss for documentation on how much revenue is lost for downtime when, say, a sales drone's desktop is down. Or the mail server is down. Or whatever. If he can't provide that, it is impossible to provide the analysis he's asking for. And that information is not within your ability to determine. If you boss does not grasp this immediately, when you put it in those terms, start circulating resumes, because you work for an idiot. If he does, he'll do his own job instead of passing part of it on to you.
(If he provides that information, then you have what you need.)
That must be why I said it was to reduce EMPLOYEE theft. Dumbass.
I may have mentioned I've been doing retail management (and above) for 25+ years now.
You haven't. I can tell.
Yeah, some retailers do things your way. They tend to be outfits like Fry's, which also feel the need to hire door nazis to search through your bags on the way out. Not to stop shoplifters, mind you, but to cut down on (but never eliminate) theft by employees.
Anything that requires a key requires basically any lackey who works in that department to unlock. No seniority at all.
Having been involved in retail management for 25+ years, I can tell you, with certainty, that if it's worth locking up at all, it's worth your minimum wage sales drone's effort to steal. Far more theft in most retails stores is by employees than by customers.
At many stores security usually does an audit at the end of each night to check for theft in all locked areas
And at far more, that would require hiring security personnel (who are more expensive to employ, and a lot more expensive to hire, since there's no point in hiring a security person who hasn't been vetted with a background check, unless you want them to organize the employee theft ring) specifically to review those tapes, because most stores that have anything worth locking up have quite a bit worth locking up. And, generally speaking, a lot of it is dispersed enough that it's not under a camera. Cameras (and recording systems) are rather expensive, especially if you expect to be able to actually identify even someone you know in the video, and installing them is a lot more expensive. At most retailers that even have security cameras, less than 10% of the total sales floor is recorded by one. And your minimum wage employees won't even have to figure out which lockup cases aren't watched, since that will be part of their orientation (if you know how to run your store).
The only solution to virtually any security/shoplifting problem in a retail store is, ultimately, to spend money. Generally quite a bit of it. Which comes out of your 3-5% profit margin.
Retail's a bitch of a business.
I can tell you have never worked in retail management. Now you have to a) train all your cashiers not simple "call a manager/whatever to open the lockup case," but rather at least two (or maybe more) tiers of "if customer wants x, call manager, but if customer wants y, call Joe the Department Manager, but if customer wants z, call Barb the Head Cashier." You also have to train the manager, Joe, and Barb in all this, as well. And no training is perfect (and cashier and sales rarely make more than minimum wage, with expected effects on their skill set), so you also back up the lines with each error made. Plus, you now have multiple lockup cases, which a) require more management to keep functioning properly, and b) require yet more multiple levels of training, different for different employees, as to what goes in which case.
Plus, you're now gow multiple sets of security systems, all different, to maintain, both physically, and as part of your security policy.
All in an industry with a net profit margin under 5%, and often under 3%.
If you've never run a retail store, you cannot even imagine the value of economy of scale, and consistenty in training across all employee positions. And few things cost you money faster than a stoppage at a cash register because the minimum wage cashier can't remember who has the key to the right lockup case (or even which lockup case the goods are in).
I don't think you realize how cheap those blister packs are, or the economy of scale in packaging everything a given manufacturer makes in the same kind of packaging (even if not the same size). Different kinds of packaging require different kinds of very expensive machines to handle, and that means different assembly lines that can't be easily converted to a product that uses the other kind of packaging. And so on.
Plus, at the retail end, anything the requires a key to sell requires, if not a manager, at least a senior employeed who has been vetted more throughly than the average cahsier.
I have a friend who used to reduce fractions on his checks. So 44 cents would be 11/25. Used to, until a bank teller didn't catch it, and it messed up his otherwise perfect-for-30-years bank account records. Then his head exploded, and took out the entire building.
I don't recall any details, but there is a SCOTUS ruling that civil forfeiture laws (in this case, seizing several hundred thousand dollars for violating import laws requiring the declaration of money) were, in fact, criminal penalties, and thus subject to the constitutional restrictions on excessive fines.
Actually, what the *AA would need to do is what they are doing now: lobby Congress to make pretty much all copyright infringement criminal, with a federal law enforcement bureaucracy (copyright czar) to enforce and prosecute. This has been the IP's goal for some time, as it removes the cost of enforcement from the "victim" and places it on the public. Which is to say, they not only want to put you in prison for playing your own CD for your friends on your own stereo without a performance license, they want to force you to pay for your own prosecution with your taxes.
That nobody has mentioned the Museum of Hoaxes, which documents all these and more. Much, much more.
People like you are the reason America is falling behind in science.
In order for it to be 100 times colder, you must know what it is 100 times colder than. Since it is literally impossible to be 100 times colder than the 3 degree Kevlin that is the background temperature of space, and there is no other obvious number, it is meaningless.
How about "x.x degrees colder than . . ."? That would be technically accurate, and actually say something.
It's a scientific article using terminology that is scientifically meaningless. That means the article is meaningless.
A thousand years ago, it was commonly understood that the sun revolved around the earth. That didn't make it correct.
Yes. A few degrees above absolute zero. Which means taht "100 times colder" is, of course, physically impossible, or meaningless.
This is what happens when your science reporter flunked high school science.
Any system that would reject a post on quantum physics by Stephen Hawking because he did the research himself is just plain stoopid.
I predict that the only thing Blizzard will do is continue to bill his credit card for $5,700 every six months.
Erring on the side of caution would be not implementing social programs that will seriously damage the economy, and ultimately contribute to famine in places already in danger of it, because a theory we can't really support might possibly be true, an because cinnamon flavored ponies fly out of Al Gore's butt.
Steven Novella deconstructs this nonsense with his usual thoroughness. The executive summary is that Jones got a lot of facts wrong, and that mutation is overrated as a factor in evolution anyway.