Not a totally invalid point, if expressed somewhat poorly. On the other hand, if you NEED the Thawte certificate on the front page to ensure that we have one, you're probably not the average/.'er, which is, after all, the target audience here.
I promise I'll be more careful in the future, mom.
Why? Because if you, as a consumer, buy from a reseller who does NOT comply with MAP advertising, the probability that your product will NOT be supported is very high. This is very common among manufacturers who impose MAP pricing, and you as a consumer should be aware of it.
From our point of view, of course, there are always Garmin's lawyers. As a *legitimate* operation, flying in the face of those requirements cannot possibly help us in the long run; we're not prepared to disappear and come back under yet another domain name.
But either way, thank you for validating my previous post; you pretty much made my case for me.
Speaking as an on-line store player, MAPs are a tremendous pain. We http://theboyz.biz/ don't sell much Garmin, for example, even though we can often beat others prices on it.
The reason? We're not allowed to _advertise_ that our prices are lower. That's means the Froogle feed, as well as any robots, must also see the MAP price. Even if you could get your site to display "$20 or less", all the robots would simply spot $20, and ignore the rest.
And much on-line shopping is search-engine driven.
It would not be *nearly* as frustrating if it wasn't trivial to go Froogle prices that are higher than ours - but lower than what we can advertise.
We also show the real price after you add the product to your shopping cart (blocked via robots.txt for crawlers). But then again, we have a shipping cost preview from the shopping cart, too -- I *hate* having to fill out all kinds of stuff just to find out that shipping is a ripoff.
Spoken like someone who has never actually *tried* to install a Linux system. It's like saying that you wouldn't be able to drive the Ferrari, because you can't afford one.
I finally got all the (infamous) oil leaks stopped on my '84 Jag, so now I'm worried about rust, too.:)
Good points both about doing your own work and how much easier the older vehicles are in that regard. Damnit, Jim, I'm a geek, not a mechanic!
There is also often an abundance of references, as well as groups of others to provide advice (and sometimes assistance). I don't know that I would have gotten this far without jag-lovers.org, for example.
Re:Let it fall....
on
Hope for Hubble
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Bad analogy, actually. Many studies have shown that it is, in fact, cheaper to maintain a used car (per year) than the cost of making car payments for that same year.
My experiences (save for the time I threw a head bolt through the hood;) have supported this.
Note that my (current) car is old enough to drink legally; this is not hypothetical.
Duh. Like he or she said, IBM was responsible for most of the advances in drive technology over the past 50 years.
Oh yea, I forgot - nobody EVER got fired for buying IBM.
I love it how people can spray comments like "responsible for most of the advances in drive technology over the past 50 years" without ever doing any actual research on the subject.
I guess you didn't read e.g. the article KingSkippus linked to. Dated 1/5/03, that article reads, in part:
IBM had lost more than $500 million over the last two years in the hard drive business, which is notoriously competitive and yields thin margins.
"successful product lines"?!? Like the Deskstar?;)
I remember talking to some HDS folks (mostly field grunts and account reps) about the deal, and they seemed to think it was a good thing. But the substance of those conversations escapes me now.
Well, ONE of us is definitely wrong. Of course, it looks like only ONE of us RTFA, too. And I quote:
n response, a Microsoft spokesperson told BetaNews, "The Commission contends that open source vendors are excluded. This is an area that warrants further discussion with the Commission. This is an example of an issue that is nuanced and complex and these issues revolve around finding a way to strike a balance on protecting IP rights and making these technologies more broadly available."
It is NOT about MickeySoft's code, it's about their asinine requirements that no one who licenses their technology can release source code.
But that's about what I expect from the average/.'er.
Yes, you are. MS is trying to prohibit ANY open source project from providing code for any parts of 'their' technology. It is NOT about MS's source code, it's about everyone else's.
I suggest you re-read your merchant account agreement.... If I dispute a "card present" credit card transaction, and you cannot provide a signed receipt within a fixed period of time, in all odds you will eat that charge -- even if it was perfectly legitimate.
I at least partially agree with that. It *is* easier to write self-documenting code in COBOL.
However, it's never been a panacea. I've seen some very obfuscated COBOL in the real world. And even e.g. the input file layouts can be pretty useless when there are 25 different record types in the file, and the field names are all "XYZ PIC X(5)."
There are some types of programs for which I'd still prefer COBOL. However, I try to avoid those projects.;)
I've long been a believer in using the right tool (or language) for the job. The problem I saw with COBOL is that shops which use it tend to use it almost exclusively. Which makes economical sense - it's harder to maintain a multilingual stable of programmers - but does force it into totally unsuitable applications.
Sadly, they *are* likely to have at least some of their patents accepted, even if the more absurd ones wind up on/.'s front page.
And eventually they'll find a way to sue some company or another over one or more of them. If that company settles, rather than attempts to challenge the patent (which can be considerably more expensive), voila! - a profit center.
It's absurd that the only 'ideas' we're allowed to use in programming are those that either haven't already been thought of (and then it would be wise to get your own patent, or at least document prior art) or those that existed before the birth of the hideous cancer known as software patents.
But hey -- I feel so much safer, I guess it's *worth* losing all my rights, eh?
I think at this point Apple has to, and the same logic is possibly what got them into this situation in the first place.
If they DON'T punish the employee(s) who broke their NDA, what message is sent to those - and other - employees regarding their employment contracts?
I think an internal process, where the guilty were given amnesty - and reeducation - might have been a better approach, given the hit Apple is taking in the user community over this. But I don't work there, so....
As I said -- "if you don't tell them where you got it". I never suggested there was any liability on the part of the conveyers of information -- the employee(s) who broke their employment contracts are the the only people who have any liability, per se.
Even if it can be proven that the people involved knew that a crime was being committed, they were not party to the NDA, and thus have no liability.
Unless they try to shield their sources - one or more of whom are actually guilty of something....
It doesn't matter - there is still a link from the magazine to the source, however obfuscated. Appple's only recourse (assuming they feel they need one, with which view I don't necessarily agree) is to follow that chain from the only visible link.
If someone, for example, gives you a stolen TV, and it gets discovered, you will either tell them where you got it, or go to jail. No matter how innocent you are or how much good faith you had in the deal.
Slashdot Mirror
Not a totally invalid point, if expressed somewhat poorly. On the other hand, if you NEED the Thawte certificate on the front page to ensure that we have one, you're probably not the average /.'er, which is, after all, the target audience here.
I promise I'll be more careful in the future, mom.
Why? Because if you, as a consumer, buy from a reseller who does NOT comply with MAP advertising, the probability that your product will NOT be supported is very high. This is very common among manufacturers who impose MAP pricing, and you as a consumer should be aware of it.
From our point of view, of course, there are always Garmin's lawyers. As a *legitimate* operation, flying in the face of those requirements cannot possibly help us in the long run; we're not prepared to disappear and come back under yet another domain name.
But either way, thank you for validating my previous post; you pretty much made my case for me.
Speaking as an on-line store player, MAPs are a tremendous pain. We http://theboyz.biz/ don't sell much Garmin, for example, even though we can often beat others prices on it.
The reason? We're not allowed to _advertise_ that our prices are lower. That's means the Froogle feed, as well as any robots, must also see the MAP price. Even if you could get your site to display "$20 or less", all the robots would simply spot $20, and ignore the rest.
And much on-line shopping is search-engine driven.
It would not be *nearly* as frustrating if it wasn't trivial to go Froogle prices that are higher than ours - but lower than what we can advertise.
We also show the real price after you add the product to your shopping cart (blocked via robots.txt for crawlers). But then again, we have a shipping cost preview from the shopping cart, too -- I *hate* having to fill out all kinds of stuff just to find out that shipping is a ripoff.
Yes, because said idiot did not READ the article before posting. Which part of that didn't you understand?
Next time, try READING the article before posting.
To obtain the key, a passport officer would need to physically scan the machine-readable text that's printed on the passport page beneath the photo...
Idiot.
Spoken like someone who has never actually *tried* to install a Linux system. It's like saying that you wouldn't be able to drive the Ferrari, because you can't afford one.
I finally got all the (infamous) oil leaks stopped on my '84 Jag, so now I'm worried about rust, too. :)
Good points both about doing your own work and how much easier the older vehicles are in that regard. Damnit, Jim, I'm a geek, not a mechanic!
There is also often an abundance of references, as well as groups of others to provide advice (and sometimes assistance). I don't know that I would have gotten this far without jag-lovers.org, for example.
Bad analogy, actually. Many studies have shown that it is, in fact, cheaper to maintain a used car (per year) than the cost of making car payments for that same year.
;) have supported this.
My experiences (save for the time I threw a head bolt through the hood
Note that my (current) car is old enough to drink legally; this is not hypothetical.
As dubious as it sounds, it can also be a matter of, after looking at it indetail, they discovered that there was nothing special about it.
Dubious indeed, given MS's long history of screwing over their technology 'partners' in _exactly_ this way.
Duh. Like he or she said, IBM was responsible for most of the advances in drive technology over the past 50 years.
Oh yea, I forgot - nobody EVER got fired for buying IBM.
I love it how people can spray comments like "responsible for most of the advances in drive technology over the past 50 years" without ever doing any actual research on the subject.
I guess you didn't read e.g. the article KingSkippus linked to. Dated 1/5/03, that article reads, in part:
;)
IBM had lost more than $500 million over the last two years in the hard drive business, which is notoriously competitive and yields thin margins.
"successful product lines"?!? Like the Deskstar?
I remember talking to some HDS folks (mostly field grunts and account reps) about the deal, and they seemed to think it was a good thing. But the substance of those conversations escapes me now.
Old age, ya know...
The reason IBM sold their drive manufacturing division to Hitachi was at least in part because they could not compete.
Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) was making superior drives -- and far better arrays than both IBM and EMC -- *before* the purchase.
So why did Hitachi buy? IIRC, it was because they were interested in some of the patents.
Sorry, my bad:
l /eu_microsoft.reut/?cnn=yes
http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/18/news/internationa
5th paragraph....
Actually, after re-reading the article, I have to concede that, in some respects, it is THE ARTICLE which is confused.
From an earlier, more accurate, article:
It ordered Microsoft to share data protocols with competitors, including open source software companies.
PROTOCOLS. NOT SOURCE CODE.
Well, ONE of us is definitely wrong. Of course, it looks like only ONE of us RTFA, too. And I quote:
/.'er.
n response, a Microsoft spokesperson told BetaNews, "The Commission contends that open source vendors are excluded. This is an area that warrants further discussion with the Commission. This is an example of an issue that is nuanced and complex and these issues revolve around finding a way to strike a balance on protecting IP rights and making these technologies more broadly available."
It is NOT about MickeySoft's code, it's about their asinine requirements that no one who licenses their technology can release source code.
But that's about what I expect from the average
Yes, you are. MS is trying to prohibit ANY open source project from providing code for any parts of 'their' technology. It is NOT about MS's source code, it's about everyone else's.
I suggest you re-read your merchant account agreement.... If I dispute a "card present" credit card transaction, and you cannot provide a signed receipt within a fixed period of time, in all odds you will eat that charge -- even if it was perfectly legitimate.
:) Actually, I noticed that just after I hit submit, and have been waiting for someone to call me on it.
My response? That's what the compiler is for; to catch my typos!
I at least partially agree with that. It *is* easier to write self-documenting code in COBOL.
;)
However, it's never been a panacea. I've seen some very obfuscated COBOL in the real world. And even e.g. the input file layouts can be pretty useless when there are 25 different record types in the file, and the field names are all "XYZ PIC X(5)."
There are some types of programs for which I'd still prefer COBOL. However, I try to avoid those projects.
I've long been a believer in using the right tool (or language) for the job. The problem I saw with COBOL is that shops which use it tend to use it almost exclusively. Which makes economical sense - it's harder to maintain a multilingual stable of programmers - but does force it into totally unsuitable applications.
So what you're really saying is that you don't know COBOL either? :) You could at least have started with the proper IDENIFICATION DIVISION line.....
There are some of us who still remember COBOL (the 6th language I ever learned, I believe, although it's been too many years ago to remember).
Most of us won't admit it any more, though!
Or xpdf...
Sadly, they *are* likely to have at least some of their patents accepted, even if the more absurd ones wind up on /.'s front page.
And eventually they'll find a way to sue some company or another over one or more of them. If that company settles, rather than attempts to challenge the patent (which can be considerably more expensive), voila! - a profit center.
It's absurd that the only 'ideas' we're allowed to use in programming are those that either haven't already been thought of (and then it would be wise to get your own patent, or at least document prior art) or those that existed before the birth of the hideous cancer known as software patents.
But hey -- I feel so much safer, I guess it's *worth* losing all my rights, eh?
I think at this point Apple has to, and the same logic is possibly what got them into this situation in the first place.
If they DON'T punish the employee(s) who broke their NDA, what message is sent to those - and other - employees regarding their employment contracts?
I think an internal process, where the guilty were given amnesty - and reeducation - might have been a better approach, given the hit Apple is taking in the user community over this. But I don't work there, so....
As I said -- "if you don't tell them where you got it". I never suggested there was any liability on the part of the conveyers of information -- the employee(s) who broke their employment contracts are the the only people who have any liability, per se.
Even if it can be proven that the people involved knew that a crime was being committed, they were not party to the NDA, and thus have no liability.
Unless they try to shield their sources - one or more of whom are actually guilty of something....
It doesn't matter - there is still a link from the magazine to the source, however obfuscated. Appple's only recourse (assuming they feel they need one, with which view I don't necessarily agree) is to follow that chain from the only visible link.
If someone, for example, gives you a stolen TV, and it gets discovered, you will either tell them where you got it, or go to jail. No matter how innocent you are or how much good faith you had in the deal.