Quote: Fascism was typified by attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life.
That sounds EXACTLY like what is happening in the US (and other countries) even as we speak. And all in the name of "freedom", which is not EVEN an ironic joke.
Yeah, and did I not say if I was looking for something, I'd go look? Where, exactly, were you expecting me to look?
Even Froogle listing are 'ads'.
The difference is, I can choose WHEN to look at ads (/ listings / whatever), and I can focus ONLY on the item in which I have an interest. AND I can check out the competition at the same time. I can also control (to a certain extent) the type and content of the information I see, depending on where I choose to look.
At best, I ignore those ads which do make it through. At worst, I mark the advertised company as one with whom I'll not do business. (ANY company advertising via email spam goes on the latter list.)
Define "useful". Frankly, if I'm looking for a product, I'll go look for it. In the meantime, I do not want YAA (yet another ad) shoved under my face.
There is no content of which I can conceive that I personally would find useful. For many years I found everything I needed in the yellow pages, without ever once opening any junk mail.
How is that different now that it's in my face, not even hidden discreetly in an envelope I can discard unopened?
Ads - targeted or otherwise - are a waste of bandwidth, at best. Thank GOD for AdBlocker! (Not too mention the S/WAN communities, who have been responsible for securing my wireless connections for some years - without tracking my behaviour.)
If YOU could please RTFA, you'd see that the entire purpose of the new product is to secure, that's right, wireless connections.
And the FAQ specifically says the software is a) available at "Google WiFi locations", and b) connects to their server.
Most damingly (for your opinion) is the statement:...older wireless LAN adapter drivers prevent Google Secure Access from detecting that you're connected to the Google WiFi network...
The "Google WiFi network" is clearly not the same as "Google Secure Access", and does obviously involve deploying hardware.
The company I worked for was just starting to deploy signature pads (to Service Merchandise, at that time), when I left, so I don't know all the details.
However, I did know a gentleman at that time who was responsible for recreating digital signatures from the store data, in order to print mock receipts, probably to cover this issue.
Presumably the digital signature + the actual transaction are watermarked, hashed, signed and/or whatever, in such a way as to be able to demonstrate conclusively that a given signature belongs on a given receipt.
(BTW, I believe that stores typically don't retain the 'original receipts' in question; they are generally warehoused by the merchant account processor.)
I'm currently involved in e-tailing, and we're painfully aware of chargeback policies in that world. Verified by Visa / MasterCard Secure looked like potential solutions, but they're overpriced, and the latter, at least, is a complete joke.
If I were a B&M merchant, I'd be very leery of accepting RFID cards; I see a lot of potential for those merchants to get screwed.
Now, let's see; where did I put my long-distance RFID reader, anyway?:)
Not quite. The way the credit card world actually works is that when you dispute a charge, the processor (usually a 3rd party) has 45 days to produce a signed receipt (not considering MOTO here, which has different rules).
If a signed (original) receipt cannot be produced, the consumer is automatically awarded the chargeback. And the merchant is screwed. If a valid receipt can be found with your signature, and you've just claimed fraud, you're the one who is [potentially] screwed.
Having seen the inner works of such a receipt-retrieval setup I can tell you that they lose your original more often than they'd care to admit....
As a merchant as well as a consumer, I think this sucks. However, it can be useful for e.g. those times when the store gives you their copy, instead of the 'customer copy'. Chargeback disputes MUST produce the 'original' in order to be prevented.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you were going for 'funny'.
Because certainly otherwise your argument is quickly broken down. Uzis have no other function than to a) put holes in things or b) threaten to put holes in things.
WinFS is capable of being a file system [well, this IS microsoft, so....YMMV] whether or not any of these supposed hooks exist. Or 'threaten to exist'.;)
Thanks. And on re-reading, I spotted the catch. The quote to which I referred actually reads "no cumbersome moving parts" (emphasis mine).
So it's presumably a mechanical devices -- which is supported by the link another person posted, regarding the effort to provide eyewear to 3rd-world countries, where the glasses (which use this lens, apparently) are 'dialed in' for each user, and then locked at that setting. Because there is no need for an optician to grind the lenses, it's an ideal solution for some parts of the world.
Thanks for the PDF offer, btw. I do want to go back and look at the diagrams (and I'm surprised no one has posted a patent link), but I can wait for the server to stop smoking first.;)
You MIGHT be correct - except that if you had bothered to read TFA, you would have seen that it specifically talks about NOT using electricity to change the shape of the lens.
A pretty handy difference, for things like cell phones.
I read the article twice, trying to figure it out. There was a quote about 'a single drop of water and no moving parts', while it was pointed out later that there was no electricity involved, as was traditionally the case with water lenses.
Yes, _something_ has to be doing it -- which is why I started reading the comments here, in hopes of somebody in the know dishing out more details.
Instead, it seems that most people are assuming it's one of the many other liquid lens stories, likely as a result of it being/.'d.
(I didn't realize their server was limited, or I wouldn't have closed that page, and could repost the article.)
Sorry, I do tend to get a little contentious; it seems to be a self-defense mechanism on/.;)
I don't consider $100M chump change either -- but I might, if I was billing $1,800M...
And I think the original comment ('luncheon budget') is my answer to using Occam's razor in real life. What is beyond dispute, though, is that the article is high on FUD, and low on facts.
Personally, I'd have to speculate that this is because it is, in fact, a minor switch. I've yet to see an article with this type of bias (in either direction) which didn't go out of its way to make the project/effort larger than it actually is. If this had been e.g. a complete organizational change, I would have expected to see it trumpeted a lot louder. (Who, me? Cynical? Nah.)
I have to admit, though, that I was surprised to see the actual numbers. Still not a 'multi-billion' dollar corp, but some darned impressive revenue figures. Of course, if anything, I'm an anti-fashion diva, and yet even I likely have a TH-inspired piece of clothing or two. Ubiquity is a powerful attribute!
(BTW, and FWIW, most of the [non/. readers] with whom I've discussed this thread have basically said "I didn't even know TH had a website".)
Ok, let's theorize that your interpretation is correct. In which case, to be switching that much infrastructure to Windows, it would mean the company had already 'bet the business' on Linux, or it would not have that extensive an infrastructure to convert.
Given that one poster - supposedly familiar with their operations - says they flip-flop every 6 months, I *suppose* your interpretation is correct. More likely, though, this is a tempest-in-a-teapot kind of story, and affects a very limited portion of their setup. IMHO, anyway.
Even if their website is 100% of their retail sales (which is absurd, given that they do have B&M stores),that's still 23% of their 'total income'.
If they make HALF their retail sales on their website, that's about the 1/8th AC posits. If web sales are, say, 20% of the total (which I still think is high, but is more realistic, anyway), that's less than 5% of their total income.
Which is pretty much what I said in the first place, though I do appreciate you providing the numbers to back it up....
To be fair, Tommy Hilfiger is not exactly a minor player in its field. However, I can't believe that its web revenue is more than a small percentage of its overall income - 'betting the company' is as absurd as 'multibillion-dollar corporation'.
And I can believe that the switch was because of larger lunch (and after hours) budgets, having seen it in operation too many times before. And, from his remarks, he was obviously well prepped.
I don't work in the industry, but I have read the literature on the CDMA devices. It is also my understanding that the cellphone network requires accurate timestamps in order to generate proper billing records.
In practice, I have never found the time displayed on my phone to be incorrect (as compared to an NTP-synched box). I also regularly find time.twc.weather.com as the primary source in my NTP list(s) -- notable as that *is* a CDMA-based box.
I'll tell you what - I promise not to say "I told you so" when/if the judge takes Novell's requests seriously, and actually does something about them.
To state that it is impossible - on any basis - is patently absurd. Go tell a judge what he can't do, and he's pretty likely to do it just to spite you. Too bad you're not on SCO's legal team, and can't express that opinion to the judge at hand.
This is not what the submitter wanted to know. However, for all of you who have proposed hardware GPS-based solutions, you might want to note that there are also companies making similar hardware which get their time signal from the CDMA cellphone signals.
CDMA in turn gets its time from GPS, but is far easier to receive in most locations - no need to run an antenna cable up to the roof. They also tend to be cheaper.
Many things that were once considered 'extraordinary' are now frightfully commonplace, and that trend is simply getting worse.
I don't believe I missed your point, nor do I believe Novell has, which is why I pointed out their explicit request in that regard.
<shrug> Restating my other posts in this thread, no one can presume to predict the outcome of the courts anymore, and no one will know the answer(s) until it/they happen.
None of which rules out the possibility of the judge taking fiduciary action on all or some of Novell's claims. If nothing else, SCO seems to be annoying at least some of the judiciary, which is never a good idea. (Not sure how much this judge knows about SCO's other cases; I haven't really been following them since I closed my short in SCOX.;)
Honestly, I don't have the highest hopes that this will be the crushing blow it could be. On the other hand, I do see at least a chance that SCO could see some of its war chest frozen, or perhaps a temporary injunction with e.g. all expenditures subject to court approval.
As you say, we'll have to wait and see. Legal decision do seem to make less and less sense these days.
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Geez, didn't you even READ the Wikipedia article?
Quote: Fascism was typified by attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life.
That sounds EXACTLY like what is happening in the US (and other countries) even as we speak. And all in the name of "freedom", which is not EVEN an ironic joke.
Ah, well, excuse me for my imprecision. Please amend my original post to read:
Unsolicited ads - targeted or otherwise - are a waste of bandwidth, at best.
And if you can't see the many obvious differences between looking in the yellow pages and having banner ads flashing all the time, well....
Yeah, and did I not say if I was looking for something, I'd go look? Where, exactly, were you expecting me to look?
Even Froogle listing are 'ads'.
The difference is, I can choose WHEN to look at ads (/ listings / whatever), and I can focus ONLY on the item in which I have an interest. AND I can check out the competition at the same time. I can also control (to a certain extent) the type and content of the information I see, depending on where I choose to look.
At best, I ignore those ads which do make it through. At worst, I mark the advertised company as one with whom I'll not do business. (ANY company advertising via email spam goes on the latter list.)
Define "useful". Frankly, if I'm looking for a product, I'll go look for it. In the meantime, I do not want YAA (yet another ad) shoved under my face.
There is no content of which I can conceive that I personally would find useful. For many years I found everything I needed in the yellow pages, without ever once opening any junk mail.
How is that different now that it's in my face, not even hidden discreetly in an envelope I can discard unopened?
Ads - targeted or otherwise - are a waste of bandwidth, at best. Thank GOD for AdBlocker! (Not too mention the S/WAN communities, who have been responsible for securing my wireless connections for some years - without tracking my behaviour.)
If YOU could please RTFA, you'd see that the entire purpose of the new product is to secure, that's right, wireless connections.
...older wireless LAN adapter drivers prevent Google Secure Access from detecting that you're connected to the Google WiFi network...
And the FAQ specifically says the software is a) available at "Google WiFi locations", and b) connects to their server.
Most damingly (for your opinion) is the statement:
The "Google WiFi network" is clearly not the same as "Google Secure Access", and does obviously involve deploying hardware.
The company I worked for was just starting to deploy signature pads (to Service Merchandise, at that time), when I left, so I don't know all the details.
:)
However, I did know a gentleman at that time who was responsible for recreating digital signatures from the store data, in order to print mock receipts, probably to cover this issue.
Presumably the digital signature + the actual transaction are watermarked, hashed, signed and/or whatever, in such a way as to be able to demonstrate conclusively that a given signature belongs on a given receipt.
(BTW, I believe that stores typically don't retain the 'original receipts' in question; they are generally warehoused by the merchant account processor.)
I'm currently involved in e-tailing, and we're painfully aware of chargeback policies in that world. Verified by Visa / MasterCard Secure looked like potential solutions, but they're overpriced, and the latter, at least, is a complete joke.
If I were a B&M merchant, I'd be very leery of accepting RFID cards; I see a lot of potential for those merchants to get screwed.
Now, let's see; where did I put my long-distance RFID reader, anyway?
Not quite. The way the credit card world actually works is that when you dispute a charge, the processor (usually a 3rd party) has 45 days to produce a signed receipt (not considering MOTO here, which has different rules).
If a signed (original) receipt cannot be produced, the consumer is automatically awarded the chargeback. And the merchant is screwed. If a valid receipt can be found with your signature, and you've just claimed fraud, you're the one who is [potentially] screwed.
Having seen the inner works of such a receipt-retrieval setup I can tell you that they lose your original more often than they'd care to admit....
As a merchant as well as a consumer, I think this sucks. However, it can be useful for e.g. those times when the store gives you their copy, instead of the 'customer copy'. Chargeback disputes MUST produce the 'original' in order to be prevented.
;) Actually, the parent comment was at +4 Funny when I replied - I see it's been mod'd down since...
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you were going for 'funny'.
;)
Because certainly otherwise your argument is quickly broken down. Uzis have no other function than to a) put holes in things or b) threaten to put holes in things.
WinFS is capable of being a file system [well, this IS microsoft, so....YMMV] whether or not any of these supposed hooks exist. Or 'threaten to exist'.
Thanks. And on re-reading, I spotted the catch. The quote to which I referred actually reads "no cumbersome moving parts" (emphasis mine).
;)
So it's presumably a mechanical devices -- which is supported by the link another person posted, regarding the effort to provide eyewear to 3rd-world countries, where the glasses (which use this lens, apparently) are 'dialed in' for each user, and then locked at that setting. Because there is no need for an optician to grind the lenses, it's an ideal solution for some parts of the world.
Thanks for the PDF offer, btw. I do want to go back and look at the diagrams (and I'm surprised no one has posted a patent link), but I can wait for the server to stop smoking first.
You MIGHT be correct - except that if you had bothered to read TFA, you would have seen that it specifically talks about NOT using electricity to change the shape of the lens.
A pretty handy difference, for things like cell phones.
I read the article twice, trying to figure it out. There was a quote about 'a single drop of water and no moving parts', while it was pointed out later that there was no electricity involved, as was traditionally the case with water lenses.
/.'d.
Yes, _something_ has to be doing it -- which is why I started reading the comments here, in hopes of somebody in the know dishing out more details.
Instead, it seems that most people are assuming it's one of the many other liquid lens stories, likely as a result of it being
(I didn't realize their server was limited, or I wouldn't have closed that page, and could repost the article.)
Except that the previous article talked about an oil-and-water lens, and specifically mentioned using 40V to alter the shape.
THIS article says it has no moving parts, and does not use electricity to deform the lens - a valuable attribute in things like camera phones.
Sorry, I do tend to get a little contentious; it seems to be a self-defense mechanism on /. ;)
/. readers] with whom I've discussed this thread have basically said "I didn't even know TH had a website".)
I don't consider $100M chump change either -- but I might, if I was billing $1,800M...
And I think the original comment ('luncheon budget') is my answer to using Occam's razor in real life. What is beyond dispute, though, is that the article is high on FUD, and low on facts.
Personally, I'd have to speculate that this is because it is, in fact, a minor switch. I've yet to see an article with this type of bias (in either direction) which didn't go out of its way to make the project/effort larger than it actually is. If this had been e.g. a complete organizational change, I would have expected to see it trumpeted a lot louder. (Who, me? Cynical? Nah.)
I have to admit, though, that I was surprised to see the actual numbers. Still not a 'multi-billion' dollar corp, but some darned impressive revenue figures. Of course, if anything, I'm an anti-fashion diva, and yet even I likely have a TH-inspired piece of clothing or two. Ubiquity is a powerful attribute!
(BTW, and FWIW, most of the [non
Ok, let's theorize that your interpretation is correct. In which case, to be switching that much infrastructure to Windows, it would mean the company had already 'bet the business' on Linux, or it would not have that extensive an infrastructure to convert.
Given that one poster - supposedly familiar with their operations - says they flip-flop every 6 months, I *suppose* your interpretation is correct. More likely, though, this is a tempest-in-a-teapot kind of story, and affects a very limited portion of their setup. IMHO, anyway.
Even if their website is 100% of their retail sales (which is absurd, given that they do have B&M stores),that's still 23% of their 'total income'.
If they make HALF their retail sales on their website, that's about the 1/8th AC posits. If web sales are, say, 20% of the total (which I still think is high, but is more realistic, anyway), that's less than 5% of their total income.
Which is pretty much what I said in the first place, though I do appreciate you providing the numbers to back it up....
To be fair, Tommy Hilfiger is not exactly a minor player in its field. However, I can't believe that its web revenue is more than a small percentage of its overall income - 'betting the company' is as absurd as 'multibillion-dollar corporation'.
And I can believe that the switch was because of larger lunch (and after hours) budgets, having seen it in operation too many times before. And, from his remarks, he was obviously well prepped.
This article - http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-5817482.html has better links, including one to the FCC page where it is explicitly spelled out why Continental is in the right.
I don't work in the industry, but I have read the literature on the CDMA devices. It is also my understanding that the cellphone network requires accurate timestamps in order to generate proper billing records.
In practice, I have never found the time displayed on my phone to be incorrect (as compared to an NTP-synched box). I also regularly find time.twc.weather.com as the primary source in my NTP list(s) -- notable as that *is* a CDMA-based box.
YMMV....
I'll tell you what - I promise not to say "I told you so" when/if the judge takes Novell's requests seriously, and actually does something about them.
To state that it is impossible - on any basis - is patently absurd. Go tell a judge what he can't do, and he's pretty likely to do it just to spite you. Too bad you're not on SCO's legal team, and can't express that opinion to the judge at hand.
This is not what the submitter wanted to know. However, for all of you who have proposed hardware GPS-based solutions, you might want to note that there are also companies making similar hardware which get their time signal from the CDMA cellphone signals.
CDMA in turn gets its time from GPS, but is far easier to receive in most locations - no need to run an antenna cable up to the roof. They also tend to be cheaper.
Many things that were once considered 'extraordinary' are now frightfully commonplace, and that trend is simply getting worse.
;)
I don't believe I missed your point, nor do I believe Novell has, which is why I pointed out their explicit request in that regard.
<shrug> Restating my other posts in this thread, no one can presume to predict the outcome of the courts anymore, and no one will know the answer(s) until it/they happen.
None of which rules out the possibility of the judge taking fiduciary action on all or some of Novell's claims. If nothing else, SCO seems to be annoying at least some of the judiciary, which is never a good idea. (Not sure how much this judge knows about SCO's other cases; I haven't really been following them since I closed my short in SCOX.
Honestly, I don't have the highest hopes that this will be the crushing blow it could be. On the other hand, I do see at least a chance that SCO could see some of its war chest frozen, or perhaps a temporary injunction with e.g. all expenditures subject to court approval.
As you say, we'll have to wait and see. Legal decision do seem to make less and less sense these days.
I love the car-into-the-wall analogy. ;)
Let's hope that when SCO unravels for good, the issue of where the money went gets persued - though that rarely seems to happen.
And, from my point of view, you're perfectly correct.
Although since this is a dispute between SCO and Novell, I fail to see how Caldera enters into it.
Yes, I'm aware of the history of Caldera. But you won't find their name in the filings, I don't believe (although I'm too lazy to actually check).