a new survey reports that 70% of UK broadband users would stop using P2P if they received a warning from their ISP. Good example the wrong conclusion from interesting data. It should read "a new survey reports that 70% of UK broadband users say they would stop using P2P if they received a warning from their ISP." They might not stop. What people say and what they actually do are often vastly different things. Polls can be accurate but you have to be very careful about what questions are asked and what the results actually mean.
What does an opportunity to review them mean exactly? Should have added the word "reasonable" in there. Otherwise you end up with a scene from a Douglas Adams book involving a basement without stairs and a sign saying "beware of cougar".
IANAL, but how does clicking a button on a VB form constitute a legally binding signature? A signature isn't the only way to legally agree to something. There are verbal contracts, contracts and licenses agreed to by an action (think GPL), the Uniform Commercial Code which sets the terms of many sales unless both parties expressly agree to some alternative arrangement, and others. A signature is just one way (albeit a common one) to acknowledge your agreement to something.
In college I asked a law professor about EULAs and his take was that (generally speaking) EULAs are enforceable only if the buyer has had an opportunity to review them prior to the sale. I think this is a reasonable argument, especially since in practice you cannot return opened boxes of software. He would be the first to acknowledge that this has not been widely tested in court however so take what I'm saying with however much NaCl suits you.
I think I'm responding to a troll but whatever...
China owns American hand, foot, and soul. Oh please. Yes, China's economy is important to the US. Guess what? Works the other way too. An export economy doesn't work very well if they have no one to export to. Sure they have hundreds of billions in US debt. So what? Who are they going to sell it to? If they dump it, they would tank their own economy. They buy that debt to maintain the stability of their own currency. The best they can do is slowly diversify but they don't "own" the US any more than the US owns China. Know who the biggest US trading partner is? Hint: it's not China. So are you saying Canada is really who owns US?
China is not a democracy. Neither is the US.
China has blatant censorship and other policies that Americans hate. Americans like pretending such policies don't exist here. I don't hear a lot of pretending in the media these days. Having personally spent time in China I can assure you there is a BIG difference in the censorship policies between the US and China. Does the US overreact on censorship sometimes? Absolutely. But I'm not going to get thrown in jail, even now, for criticizing congress or even our current sad excuse for a president unless I physically threaten someone.
China is one of the few contries that have a military that can take ours and who is not a trustworthy friend. I think you vastly overestimate the Chinese military. Unless we plan on invading China or neighboring countries, China's force projection capabilities are quite limited. They have no blue water navy to speak of compared with the US so they can't really send troops a great distance. Sure they've got a large army in terms of manpower but their equipment is not widely up to date and they have no way to move said large army out of their region of the world. The only thing China has worth worrying about is nukes and they aren't insane enough to try nuking the US given the retaliation that would come. The US would be nuts to invade China but the US has no reason to want to either.
Nobody makes a $40B+ offer just to screw with another company. That's WAY too much money. While business disruption might be a desirable side effect, especially if the merger doesn't go through, it isn't why MS made the offer. When MS tried to buy Intuit, it was because they wanted to dominate personal finance software, not because they wanted to screw with Intuit. If memory serves they were blocked from the merger by the government due to the effective monopoly the merger would cause.
If I was a shareholder (I'm not) and it ever came out that MS was doing that with their cash hoard instead of finding market beating investment opportunities, I'd have my lawyer on the phone faster than you could say "class action lawsuit".
Not to mention that it should be done under a poorly lit desk with insufficient room for more than one arm at a time while someone tries to do work around you during the contest.
Who is hurt more from retaliatory feedback, the honest seller making their living on eBay who has 10000 feedback or the honest buyer with under 100 feedback who is retaliated against by a bad seller? How about the seller with 100 feedbacks retaliated by the bad buyer? The policies are the same for them as the guy with 10,000 and I've been in both situations. It works both ways. My point is that it's not a good policy but it needs to be fair to BOTH buyer and seller, regardless of size or number of feedbacks. Personally I think the whole feedback system should be overhauled. It's too one-size-fits-all as presently designed.
Plus, a seller with 10,000 feedbacks and a high positive rating is pretty unlikely to be a shady operation. Not impossible of course but it's very rare they are a bad egg. Usually the problems the volume sellers run into are people who don't bother to actually read the terms of the auction which happens ALL the damn time. The other common problem is if the delivery carrier screws up somehow which is fairly common. Neither is the fault of the seller but the seller gets blamed anyway. Not to say volume sellers don't screw up, of course they do. The honest guys usually struggle with inventory management and descriptions. But they should have the same rights to respond to accusations of misconduct (justified or not) as anyone else.
the Facebook 'privacy' issues have really had more to do with the perception of privacy Right. That's why the CEO publicly apologized for the news feed and beacon and there has been widespread discussion about a host of other issues and concerns. Companies that are responsible with privacy issues pretty much don't typically get this much bad press. It's not just once or twice.
People can make public whatever information about themselves they choose and I support that. But if a company is going to make money from potentially sensitive information then they have a responsibility to be careful with their policies and technology. I don't get the warm fuzzies about Facebook being especially responsible (hence I'm not a user) and I'm clearly not the only one. Perhaps it's overblown but I'm not about to take chances with a company with a poor track record or even just a perception of a poor track record with my personal information. If you don't care, you'll hear no argument from me.
I haven't seen a company this determined to shoot themselves in the foot with bad policy since Real Networks. You'd think they would think Facebook might have realized at least some people actually do care about balancing utility with privacy.
Ebay has no reason to cater to sellers. Are you kidding me? They have as much reason to cater to sellers as buyers. There isn't one without the other. Screw either buyers OR sellers over and eBay no longer has a market and with it no longer has a business. That said, eBay makes their money primarily from the sellers so it makes some sense to be at least a little concerned about sellers needs.
As long as buyers continue to choose ebay over other auction sites... Please study network effects and try again. People buy on ebay because that is where the buyers AND sellers are. It's the same reason the NYSE and NASDAQ are difficult to supplant as marketplaces. The buyers go where the sellers are and vice versa. You cannot have one without the other and transactions naturally gravitate to where the most buying and selling action is. Network effects are the ONLY reason eBay continues to be as successful as they are. It's certainly not their policies and it is certainly not their technology.
Make it so a buyer cannot leave any feedback for a seller unless the seller has already left feedback for the buyer. Terrible idea because only the buyer actually knows when the transaction is complete. A transaction is only complete when the buyer receives (paid for) goods and accepts delivery of them. A seller should never leave feedback prior to a buyer acknowledging via feedback that a transaction was completed. Otherwise the seller is opening himself to unjustified negative feedback with no means of redress. Any seller who leaves feedback first is quite simply foolish.
Auctions need to be extended 5 minutes after the last successful bid. Then sniping and snipers go away. ABSOLUTELY. This would be a great idea. After all, in a normal in-person auction they don't stop the bidding until they have reasonably determined that there are no more bids. The sale should go to the highest bidder, not the highest bidder closest to an arbitrary time deadline.
making it so that the seller had to leave feedback about the buyer first... Doesn't work because only the buyer actually knows when the transaction is complete. The transaction is complete when the buyer receives and accepts the item. The seller and eBay have no way of determining this state, only the buyer does. Thus if a seller were to leave feedback first, the seller would leave himself open to unjustified negative feedback. As someone who has sold over 10,000 items on eBay, trust me that there are lots of buyers who will abuse sellers given the chance.
If I walk into a brick and mortar store do they have the right to investigate my background and decide to tell me that they do not want to sell their goods to me because I did something they do not like in my past? Wrong comparison. Try going to a high dollar Southeby's auction without getting pre-qualified as a legitimate bidder. Trust me, you aren't going to be allowed to bid on the Monet painting without proving you can pay for it. Even in low dollar auctions if you don't pay you won't be allowed back to the next auction. Furthermore, a bricks and morter store can see you and that provides information about your trustworthiness. If you are behaving in a suspicious manner they have every right to refuse the sale. Lots of retailers keep track of problem customers and refuse them service if they step over the line. The whole reason for the feedback system is so buyers AND sellers can have information about the other party in the transaction. If this information is asymmetrical (favoring the buyers in this case) then the sellers are going to get screwed more often. Trustworthiness information should be transparent.
There are only 2 relevant ratings, they paid or not. Bullshit. I've had buyers give me a negative feedback complaining about my shipping speed literally 1 minute after the auction closed and before they had even paid. I'm not supposed to be able to respond to that? There are lots of crappy things a buyer can do besides not pay.
I disagree. This will help rid of the bad (scammer) sellers on Ebay who use retalitory feedback to keep their ratings good. At the cost of hurting LOTS more honest sellers who now will get hammered by irrational or crooked buyers without any means of redress. I absolutely guarantee you this will do NOTHING to combat fraud and will only hurt honest sellers. Retaliatory feedback is a useful thing to honest sellers against dishonest buyers. The scammers need to be addressed of course but this policy will fix nothing.
$11 of handling? What did they do? Balance it on their head for an hour before shipping it? Warehousing isn't free. Packing materials, especially for fragile items, most definitely are not free. Labor to pack items is not free. Delivery to the appropriate carrier is not free. Insurance is not free. I can go on and on.
$11 handling? Pack a large china set safely sometime and tell me how much it cost you. $11 handling is nothing weird at all. Hell I've shipped large artwork where the box alone cost $50 or even $100. (extreme example but not unusual)
IMHO the seller ought to leave feedback as soon as they have received payment. I always do when I'm selling something, it seems fair. I admire your sense of fairness and I'm not trying to be rude but if you do what you describe you are either inexperienced, naive, or just being stupid. Seriously, I'm trying to help you here. The transaction isn't complete until the buyer receives and accepts the product. What are you going to do when the buyer lies about not receiving the product? How about if UPS destroys the box and the buyer is pissed at you for it even though it isn't your fault? What about if the buyer lies about the product not working or being "not as described"? What if the buyer is just an irrational prick who gives you a negative for no good reason? I've received unjustified negative feedback for all these things. If you are giving feedback before the transaction is truly complete, you are being seriously foolish. Most buyers are honest but there are plenty of real jerks out there. I would advise you to protect yourself.
In my eyes the seller's only business with leaving you feedback is how you payed for the item. If you are an honest buyer I agree with you. Problem is there are a LOT of dishonest buyers out there. I made my living for 2 years selling on eBay and you would not believe the number of crooked buyers there are. Nobody is perfect but in my experience about 70-80% of negative feedback left by buyers is flat out unjustified. Usually it is either part of a scam or it is one of those customers you simply cannot please no matter what you do.
I've had people leave negative feedback about our shipping speed the same day they purchased the item and before it had even been paid for! Exactly what as a seller is a seller supposed to do about that? Especially if they are new to selling? If you've only sold 20 items buyers will absolutely screw you. They sure did with us when we started. The transaction is supposed to be fair for both parties, buyer and seller. Buyers should not have some magical right to screw the seller just because they feel like it and vice-versa. This new feedback policy is stupid and only hurts sellers with little/no benefit to buyers.
As someone who both sells and buys on ebay, I have to say this is a change I welcome. Most of the bad sellers out there use retalitory feedback as an essential part of their scam. And what about the good sellers? Do we no longer care about them?
I made my living off eBay for 2 years and trust me when I say there are at least as many crooked buyers as there are sellers. Arguably more in fact because the way eBay is set up its easier to be a crooked buyer than a crooked seller. Yes, we left retaliatory feedback for buyers who gave us unjustified negative feedback. Nobody is perfect but there are way too many people who will try to screw sellers over if the sellers have no means of redress. Want to get something for free of eBay? Buy with PayPal and use the magic words "not as described". Send back an empty box (for proof of return) and PayPal will automatically give the money back. Happened to us multiple times. Oh, and "not as described" works for cases of buyers remorse too, even if it was completely accurately described and you have a no return policy. After all, eBay doesn't know and doesn't give a shit.
In disclosure I'm quite bitter against eBay. They raise rates every six months like clockwork. Some of their (and especially PayPals) dispute resolution policies are insane. They screw honest sellers in a variety of ways (I'll enumerate if anyone's interested) and basically make it nearly impossible to make any money selling on eBay. Being a Power Seller is nearly worthless. We sold literally millions of dollars of products on eBay, they made hundreds of thousands of dollars on our work, had a 99.6% positive feedback and eBay treated us like garbage the whole time.
Some folks have suggested that feedback not appear until both parties have left feedback. Not a bad idea but unlikely to be a panacea either. High volume sellers simply don't have time to leave honest and accurate feedback for every transaction. There just aren't enough hours in the day and the cost/benefit just doesn't justify spending the time. Plus I guarantee that some people will leave negative feedback no matter what (think "feedback trolls") without any redress if it is unjustified. At least until recently sellers could make a case that they were being unfairly treated.
If you think being strapped, with 400 people, into a steel tube with windows at 35000 feet is bad, imagine how much fun your fellow passengers are going to be strapped into a tube with *no* windows at mach 5 would be. Frankly only a fraction of the passengers in a 747 or A380 get a window seat anyway so I see little practical difference. Getting a center seat in a 747 just sucks, especially if you have some *ahem* large people on either side of you. True it's nice to have some idea what's going on outside but you can (theoretically) solve that problem with video screens to some degree. As you rightly point out, neither experience would be fun but all other things being equal, I want the ride to be shorter. I would never suggest just make it faster at the expense of reliability. Safety is paramount. I'm willing to make small compromises in comfort in exchange for a (significantly) shorter trip but only to a point. Generally if you are traveling by air time is important to you and the purpose of the trip is the destination, not the journey. At least that's the way I see it. Perhaps you feel differently.
Personally on the really long flights I prefer an aisle seat so I can get up and walk about easier. I flew coach one time from Saint Louis -> Detroit -> Tokyo -> Bangkok. The Detroit->Tokyo leg is about 12+ hours in the air. In a 747 you (generally) can't plug in a laptop and there is no network capability anyway, they have limited movie options, so your only real entertainment is reading or perhaps an ipod. I also have a back problem that makes sitting still for many hours in a row... well, let's just say it's uncomfortable and makes sleeping difficult. A fellow who went on some of these trips is 6'7" (just over 2 meters) tall which just doesn't easily fit in any coach seat. There are worse ways to travel but long plane rides just aren't designed for comfort.
Why would this be a better option than a regular flight? Aside from being a relatively short trip... You can stop right there. I'd HAPPILY pony up to cut a 12,000 mile trip time by 2/3. I've flown from the US to Japan, China, Thailand, and Singapore and several other similar routes multiple times. Not just for business either. One such flight should be enough to convince you that anything which makes the trip faster is worthwhile. Trust me that spending 12+ hours in the air (often with 24+ hour trips once layovers are considered) with 400 of your "closest friends" is just no fun at all. Flying first/business class makes it a little more bearable but only a little. If you want to get there slowly, go really slow and take a boat like the Queen Mary 2. Otherwise the plane should go as fast as we can safely and economically make it go.
"for social security and tax purposes - not for identification".
Go get a new one. They don't say that anymore. Mine still does. Not that it matters of course...
I can't imagine why people think a SS card is any sort of sensible way to authenticate identity. Of all the important documents I have that one would probably be the easiest to forge.
Funny story - when my wife voted in the last presidential election she was asked for some sort of ID. So she presented her passport which should satisfy anyone right? The idiot holding the voter registration books said "no, no, you need a government issued ID." !!?!?! Thankfully the person sitting next to her wasn't such a retard and explained what a passport was. Really inspired confidence in the the election process.
Nokia does develop software and lots of it
on
Nokia Buys Trolltech
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· Score: 5, Informative
Nokia does not make OS'es or IDE's. Nokia doesn't make operating systems? What do you think their phones run on? Nokia owns nearly 50% of Symbian which is an operating system. They also have other cell phones that run on different operating systems developed by them. Cell phones are just a specialized computer. True, they make use of some open source stuff but they develop a LOT more of what they use themselves or via subsidiaries. I attended a presentation made by the CEO of Nokia and he indicated that Nokia had over 14,000 software workers (this was about 5 years ago) alone. Now I can't verify that claim but I have little reason to doubt it. He made the claim that Nokia basically is a software company that happens to make cellular phones. A bit of an exaggeration perhaps but only a bit.
Slashdot Mirror
Who wants to bet a lot of the pages look like:
"This page left intentionally blank"
In college I asked a law professor about EULAs and his take was that (generally speaking) EULAs are enforceable only if the buyer has had an opportunity to review them prior to the sale. I think this is a reasonable argument, especially since in practice you cannot return opened boxes of software. He would be the first to acknowledge that this has not been widely tested in court however so take what I'm saying with however much NaCl suits you.
Nobody makes a $40B+ offer just to screw with another company. That's WAY too much money. While business disruption might be a desirable side effect, especially if the merger doesn't go through, it isn't why MS made the offer. When MS tried to buy Intuit, it was because they wanted to dominate personal finance software, not because they wanted to screw with Intuit. If memory serves they were blocked from the merger by the government due to the effective monopoly the merger would cause.
If I was a shareholder (I'm not) and it ever came out that MS was doing that with their cash hoard instead of finding market beating investment opportunities, I'd have my lawyer on the phone faster than you could say "class action lawsuit".
Not to mention that it should be done under a poorly lit desk with insufficient room for more than one arm at a time while someone tries to do work around you during the contest.
THE RAIN
--found in Architect's Creek Hut, Westland Nat'l Park, New Zealand
It rained and rained and rained
The average fall was well maintained
And when the tracks were simple bogs,
it started raining cats & dogs
After a drought of half an hour
We had a most refreshing shower,
And then most curious thing of all,
A gently rain began to fall!
Next day but one was fairly dry
Save for one deluge from the sky
Which wetted the party to the skin
And then, at last, the rain set in.
Plus, a seller with 10,000 feedbacks and a high positive rating is pretty unlikely to be a shady operation. Not impossible of course but it's very rare they are a bad egg. Usually the problems the volume sellers run into are people who don't bother to actually read the terms of the auction which happens ALL the damn time. The other common problem is if the delivery carrier screws up somehow which is fairly common. Neither is the fault of the seller but the seller gets blamed anyway. Not to say volume sellers don't screw up, of course they do. The honest guys usually struggle with inventory management and descriptions. But they should have the same rights to respond to accusations of misconduct (justified or not) as anyone else.
People can make public whatever information about themselves they choose and I support that. But if a company is going to make money from potentially sensitive information then they have a responsibility to be careful with their policies and technology. I don't get the warm fuzzies about Facebook being especially responsible (hence I'm not a user) and I'm clearly not the only one. Perhaps it's overblown but I'm not about to take chances with a company with a poor track record or even just a perception of a poor track record with my personal information. If you don't care, you'll hear no argument from me.
I haven't seen a company this determined to shoot themselves in the foot with bad policy since Real Networks. You'd think they would think Facebook might have realized at least some people actually do care about balancing utility with privacy.
$11 handling? Pack a large china set safely sometime and tell me how much it cost you. $11 handling is nothing weird at all. Hell I've shipped large artwork where the box alone cost $50 or even $100. (extreme example but not unusual)
I've had people leave negative feedback about our shipping speed the same day they purchased the item and before it had even been paid for! Exactly what as a seller is a seller supposed to do about that? Especially if they are new to selling? If you've only sold 20 items buyers will absolutely screw you. They sure did with us when we started. The transaction is supposed to be fair for both parties, buyer and seller. Buyers should not have some magical right to screw the seller just because they feel like it and vice-versa. This new feedback policy is stupid and only hurts sellers with little/no benefit to buyers.
I made my living off eBay for 2 years and trust me when I say there are at least as many crooked buyers as there are sellers. Arguably more in fact because the way eBay is set up its easier to be a crooked buyer than a crooked seller. Yes, we left retaliatory feedback for buyers who gave us unjustified negative feedback. Nobody is perfect but there are way too many people who will try to screw sellers over if the sellers have no means of redress. Want to get something for free of eBay? Buy with PayPal and use the magic words "not as described". Send back an empty box (for proof of return) and PayPal will automatically give the money back. Happened to us multiple times. Oh, and "not as described" works for cases of buyers remorse too, even if it was completely accurately described and you have a no return policy. After all, eBay doesn't know and doesn't give a shit.
In disclosure I'm quite bitter against eBay. They raise rates every six months like clockwork. Some of their (and especially PayPals) dispute resolution policies are insane. They screw honest sellers in a variety of ways (I'll enumerate if anyone's interested) and basically make it nearly impossible to make any money selling on eBay. Being a Power Seller is nearly worthless. We sold literally millions of dollars of products on eBay, they made hundreds of thousands of dollars on our work, had a 99.6% positive feedback and eBay treated us like garbage the whole time.
Some folks have suggested that feedback not appear until both parties have left feedback. Not a bad idea but unlikely to be a panacea either. High volume sellers simply don't have time to leave honest and accurate feedback for every transaction. There just aren't enough hours in the day and the cost/benefit just doesn't justify spending the time. Plus I guarantee that some people will leave negative feedback no matter what (think "feedback trolls") without any redress if it is unjustified. At least until recently sellers could make a case that they were being unfairly treated.
Personally on the really long flights I prefer an aisle seat so I can get up and walk about easier. I flew coach one time from Saint Louis -> Detroit -> Tokyo -> Bangkok. The Detroit->Tokyo leg is about 12+ hours in the air. In a 747 you (generally) can't plug in a laptop and there is no network capability anyway, they have limited movie options, so your only real entertainment is reading or perhaps an ipod. I also have a back problem that makes sitting still for many hours in a row... well, let's just say it's uncomfortable and makes sleeping difficult. A fellow who went on some of these trips is 6'7" (just over 2 meters) tall which just doesn't easily fit in any coach seat. There are worse ways to travel but long plane rides just aren't designed for comfort.
I can't imagine why people think a SS card is any sort of sensible way to authenticate identity. Of all the important documents I have that one would probably be the easiest to forge.
Funny story - when my wife voted in the last presidential election she was asked for some sort of ID. So she presented her passport which should satisfy anyone right? The idiot holding the voter registration books said "no, no, you need a government issued ID." !!?!?! Thankfully the person sitting next to her wasn't such a retard and explained what a passport was. Really inspired confidence in the the election process.