The free only thing is temporary. Once they flip the switch to allow developers to charge, the developer will get 70% of the revenue and Google will keep the other 30% as a listing fee.
This is very similar to Apple's app store, where I believe the developer gets 70% as well, but the other 30% might be carved up slightly differently inside of Apple. As the developer, who cares, you're still getting 70% of whatever you charge.
Now look at Denver(or Salt Lake City for that matter) on the map. Tell me what the likelihood of getting from Podunk Nebraska Or Tucson Arizona to Denver in the next 3-5 years? Verizon is probably looking at the 3 million people in the metro area as not worth the investment. I hear you, brother.
I live in Denver and the choices are Comcast or Qwest DSL, and Qwest offers shitty speeds (max 1.5Mbps down) compared to Comcast. Some areas Qwest covers have something like 7Mbps available.
I asked a friend of mine that works for Qwest to look into getting me a faster DSL speed. He did some digging and told me if I want a faster connection I should move to Highlands Ranch. Great.
So, as of right now, I'm suffering with Comcast, although I'm about to dump them for TV thanks to their HD multiplexing and lack of HD channels compared to other providers. I'd love to switch away from them completely, but nobody else in the area can offer anything close to what Comcast currently does.
"Preventive" is a real word. "Preventative" is a made up word. Yes, I know it's probably in some dictionary somewhere, but it's not the correct term.
Someone is going to want to respond with "language evolutionates (see how dumb it is to add extra suffixes?), deal with it." I don't want to hear it. The word is preventive.
Sure, anyone can ask for ID, the issue here is requiring it.
Visa's merchant rules state fairly clearly that the merchant cannot require ID as a condition of completing the transaction. MasterCard's states, as you quoted, "A merchant must not refuse to complete a MasterCard card transaction solely because a cardholder who has complied with the conditions for presentment of a card at the POI refuses to provide additional identification information..." I think it's pretty clear that both companies do not want their merchants requiring extra ID beyond the card.
Sure, they say there are extenuating circumstances where the requirement of ID is acceptable, but without reading MC's full rules, I'm guessing it's the same as Visa: You can require ID when the card is not signed, or some toolbag has written "see ID" thinking that solves something.
Having an ID that matches the name on the card means nothing, and it actually would hinder some people from using their cards appropriately. You still don't believe me, yet Visa took my statement and is looking into the incident. If it was acceptable to Visa for Circuit City to require seeing my ID before completing my transaction, don't you think Visa would have just told me I was an idiot when I called them to report the issue?
I know I'm posting this a day late, so it's bound to not get seen by many people, but what you just said is incorrect.
Read the linked PDF and you'll see that it states "... merchants cannot make make an ID a condition of acceptance. Therefore, merchants cannot refuse to complete a purchase transaction because a cardholder refuses to provide ID. Visa believes merchants should not ask for ID as part of their regular card acceptance procedures." In other words, the store is free to ASK for ID, but they cannot DEMAND it in order to complete the credit card transaction. Sure, the store is free to refuse your business, but that holds the risk of losing the ability to accept Visa in the future.
Anecdotal evidence follows: Just last week I was, ironically, in a Circuit City to purchase a video game. I overheard the cashier harassing another customer about showing ID, so I knew what to expect. Their signature machine has a sticker on it that states "We require ID for all credit card purchases." Anyhow, when it was my turn to check out, the conversation went something like this, after I handed over my Visa:
Cashier: I need to see your ID. Me: You know, technically you can't require me to do that. Cashier: Yes I can, it's the law. Me: Actually, that's incorrect. There's no law that states that. What happens if I don't show you ID? Cashier: Then I don't have to take your credit card. At this point, someone was waiting in line behind me that was nice enough to let me go in front of him. Consequently, I didn't want to hold him up after he was nice to me. Me: I'm going to show you my ID this time, but realize that this is going against your store's merchant agreement with Visa, and there is no law to enforce this. Cashier: Well, I'm pretty sure it's a law, it is in California. (I'm not sure what that means, since we're in Colorado). Me: It's not a law there either.
So, she wrapped up the sale and pretty much ignored me for the rest of the transaction. She was on the phone with another employee and even asked, "That credit card thing where we have to take ID is a law, right?" The subject of her conversation quickly changed, so I can only assume that the person on the other end of the phone informed her that it is actually not a law.
I took my game and receipt, left the store (thankfully this one doesn't check receipts), went home, reviewed the "Rules for Visa Merchants" PDF, and called my Visa-issuing bank. Surprisingly, the CSR told me that the store was allowed to require ID. I hung up, contemplated keeping my business with that company, and called Visa directly. In case anyone else wants the right number for this, I believe it was 1-800-VISA-911. I told the person the details of what happened, and I was transferred to someone who specifically deals with this issue. That person took the name, address, and phone number of the store and informed me that they would be opening an investigation into the event and I would get a report within ten business days.
So, based on the fact that Visa is going through the effort to contact the store and find out their policies, I believe that Visa takes their rules seriously, and they do not allow merchants to require ID as a condition of accepting Visa. Based on the rules, they can only require ID if the card is unsigned (or has that lame "See ID" written on it) to verify that the person that's signing the card in the cashier's presence is who he says he is, but that's a wholly different can of worms that is unrelated to this case.
I'm looking forward to my report coming within the next week or so.
Incidentally, another interesting case to consider is when the embossed name on the card does not match the signature. According to Visa's rules, it doesn't have to, which would be the case where I have an account that I allow someone else to use. The account and card is in my name, but the authorized user is someone else. What good does showing ID do in this case, where the only thing that the ID can sh
I went out and bought a few of the n:Vision soft white bulbs because of their high rating. "Slow to warm" is true. When I first turned this on, I thought I was jaundiced because the light was actually too yellow. After a good warmup, they're a little better, but I still might try something a little brighter and bluer.
In December 2005, Shell requested that Internet Archive remove her www.profane-justice.org site from its database, with which request Internet Archive complied. Shell subsequently demanded a payment of $100,000 for plaintiff's unauthorized copying. In response, plaintiff commenced this lawsuit, seeking a declaratory judgment that its activities did not infringe Shell's copyright. Shell, proceeding pro se, counterclaimed, asserting that Internet Archive's copying of her site gave rise to claims of copyright infringement, conversion, civil theft and RICO. Shell also asserted that the Internet Archive's activities breached the contract formed between the parties as a result of plaintiff's act of copying portions of defendant's site, which act purportedly constituted an acceptance of the site's terms and conditions of use.
Internet Archive took the site down per their opt-out policy when she requested it. She then decided that she'd pursue a lawsuit because she had this weak "contract" on her page. The courts ended up dropping most of her ridiculous claims, leaving pretty much only the copyright claim, which we've seen before with the Internet Archive.
This seems to me to be a money grab, especially with the wide-sweeping claims she filed. If her past actions are messed up and she doesn't want them in the Archive, then she should just ask them to remove her site. Guess what, that's what she did. People shouldn't put things online that might come back to bite them.
According to this, she requested that the site be removed from the Archive in December, 2005, and they complied. They're actually countersuing her. They moved to have her claims dropped for various reasons, but the court chose to only drop the ones related to conversion, civil theft and the RICO claims. The issue of breach of contract and copyright infringement still apply.
I think it's absolutely ridiculous that this can go forward, especially when there are two established methods to stop the Archive's activity: The opt-out, which will remove history, and robots.txt (which she didn't use and appears to still not use), which will prevent that spider from ever archiving her site again.
Her site shows up in Google, I wonder why she hasn't sued them? Could it be that she likes the exposure of the big search engine, but doesn't want any history of her site archived by the Internet Archive?
Which "Object Oriented Analysis & Design" book are you referring to? The others are all pretty easy to find, but this one is a generic enough name that there are several iterations of it out there.
Look into the SuperCard family of products... I'm at work, so I can't offer much in the way of links, but if you do a little googling and some research at scdev.org, you'll find quite a bit of information.
One of the Tony Hawk series already did... I think it was Tony Hawk's Underground 2, on the Boston level.
There's a place where you can jump through an apartment window... On one side is a guy in his apartment with a goat, but on the other side is the Star Wars Kid doing his act.
I had a friend tell me this was the greatest game ever. I picked it up when I had some store credit at Best Buy thanks to an Xmas gift error. I took it home and put it on my 52" widescreen TV, and the graphics were horrible. Add to that controls that I personally think suck royal ass, and I wonder how this game got so much drool factor from the gaming community.
Granted, I've never seen it on a blurry old-school TV, so I have no idea if that helps to make it look better or not. Even so, I hate the controls and what seems to me to be a lack of emotion through the whole game.
January 2nd: In a satirical press release, Despair, Inc. announces plans to sue millions of Internet users who have used the:-( symbol in email, violating the company's trademarked logo. (2001)
January 26th: Slashdot.org, a widely read news site, reports Despair's emoticon lawsuit as fact. Despair is besieged with hundreds of outraged emails, most using the:-( symbol. (2001)
January 29th: The NY Times reports that Despair's attempts to satirise frivolous intellectual property lawsuits instead served to demonstrate the gullibility and rashness of geeks. (2001)
January 30th: German TV News reports that a greedy American company is suing millions for using:-( symbols in email, prompting a new flood of complaints written in German. (2001)
February 5th: Despair announces it will compromise with trademark violators by manufacturing and selling Frownies (TM) -- legal:-( symbols which cna be used in email -- at a price of $0.00. (2001)
Stupid consumers combined with a little bit of marketing.
The actual return rate on rebates is much lower than you'd expect it to be. The companies that process the rebates have extremely strict rules for the rebate submission. Usually, you're required to have the original sales receipt, UPC codes from the product, and a properly filled out rebate form. If there are any mistakes in any part of the process, they can void the rebate without blinking an eye. Some rebates are nearly impossible (or at the least, extremely difficult) to adhere to. I recently missed out on a $10 rebate because I didn't realize that the form had to be sent in within 10 days of purchase. The item shipped UPS Ground, which took (I believe) 6 days to get here. Consequently, I only had four days to get all of the rebate items together and sent out. Granted, that's my fault, but it's still pretty strict.
The company that sells a $30 item with a $30 rebate is banking on a few factors: A) The promise of "free" gets people to buy the item. Since the return rate is less than 100%, the company is still making money off of the people that fail to return the rebate form or mess it up in some way. If only 50% of rebates actually make it back to the consumer, then that $30 is effectively selling for $15, not free.
B) Some stores use it to lure people in with the hopes that the $30 purchase will lead to other impulse purchases while in the store. Some even go so far as to raise the prices on the non-"free" items to balance the potential loss on the "free" items. Often times, the "free" items are only present in limited quantities, so the absolute worst risk is known, and the company can figure on doing much better than that.
For some reason, "Free after rebate" is more attractive to people than "50% off" or some other sale. People don't factor in the failure rate of the rebate process...
It's almost like that recall equation in Fight Club.:)
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing states that the current US currency is 2.61" x 6.14" x.0043". It takes 12.5M twenties to make $0.25B. 12.5M twenties then equals about 498 cubic feet.
According to Volkswagen, the new Beetle is 161.1" x 67.9" x 59.0", which works out to about 373 cubic feet. Since the volume of the car is somewhat less than its bounding box, I'd say that $0.25B in $20 bills is significantly larger than a VW bug.
A bug is probably closer to a quarter billion in fifties, which would be about 199 cubic feet.
I just rented "Meet the Fockers" last night, and it basically does this if you select "Extended Version" instead of "Theatrical Version".
Whenever a deleted scene would have appeared, it will stop the movie, show the deleted scene, and then pick back up where it left off. It's not at all seamless, and is a bit jarring, to the point where I turned it off after the third one so I could enjoy the rest of the movie. On a second pass, it might be worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
The free only thing is temporary. Once they flip the switch to allow developers to charge, the developer will get 70% of the revenue and Google will keep the other 30% as a listing fee.
This is very similar to Apple's app store, where I believe the developer gets 70% as well, but the other 30% might be carved up slightly differently inside of Apple. As the developer, who cares, you're still getting 70% of whatever you charge.
Now look at Denver(or Salt Lake City for that matter) on the map. Tell me what the likelihood of getting from Podunk Nebraska Or Tucson Arizona to Denver in the next 3-5 years? Verizon is probably looking at the 3 million people in the metro area as not worth the investment. I hear you, brother.
I live in Denver and the choices are Comcast or Qwest DSL, and Qwest offers shitty speeds (max 1.5Mbps down) compared to Comcast. Some areas Qwest covers have something like 7Mbps available.
I asked a friend of mine that works for Qwest to look into getting me a faster DSL speed. He did some digging and told me if I want a faster connection I should move to Highlands Ranch. Great.
So, as of right now, I'm suffering with Comcast, although I'm about to dump them for TV thanks to their HD multiplexing and lack of HD channels compared to other providers. I'd love to switch away from them completely, but nobody else in the area can offer anything close to what Comcast currently does.
Do you happen to have the name of any of these apps? This is exactly something I've been desiring for my WM6 phone.
"Preventive" is a real word. "Preventative" is a made up word. Yes, I know it's probably in some dictionary somewhere, but it's not the correct term.
Someone is going to want to respond with "language evolutionates (see how dumb it is to add extra suffixes?), deal with it." I don't want to hear it. The word is preventive.
Save oxygen. Use fewer syllables.
Sure, anyone can ask for ID, the issue here is requiring it.
Visa's merchant rules state fairly clearly that the merchant cannot require ID as a condition of completing the transaction. MasterCard's states, as you quoted, "A merchant must not refuse to complete a MasterCard card transaction solely because a cardholder who has complied with the conditions for presentment of a card at the POI refuses to provide additional identification information..." I think it's pretty clear that both companies do not want their merchants requiring extra ID beyond the card.
Sure, they say there are extenuating circumstances where the requirement of ID is acceptable, but without reading MC's full rules, I'm guessing it's the same as Visa: You can require ID when the card is not signed, or some toolbag has written "see ID" thinking that solves something.
Having an ID that matches the name on the card means nothing, and it actually would hinder some people from using their cards appropriately. You still don't believe me, yet Visa took my statement and is looking into the incident. If it was acceptable to Visa for Circuit City to require seeing my ID before completing my transaction, don't you think Visa would have just told me I was an idiot when I called them to report the issue?
I know I'm posting this a day late, so it's bound to not get seen by many people, but what you just said is incorrect.
Read the linked PDF and you'll see that it states "... merchants cannot make make an ID a condition of acceptance. Therefore, merchants cannot refuse to complete a purchase transaction because a cardholder refuses to provide ID. Visa believes merchants should not ask for ID as part of their regular card acceptance procedures." In other words, the store is free to ASK for ID, but they cannot DEMAND it in order to complete the credit card transaction. Sure, the store is free to refuse your business, but that holds the risk of losing the ability to accept Visa in the future.
Anecdotal evidence follows:
Just last week I was, ironically, in a Circuit City to purchase a video game. I overheard the cashier harassing another customer about showing ID, so I knew what to expect. Their signature machine has a sticker on it that states "We require ID for all credit card purchases." Anyhow, when it was my turn to check out, the conversation went something like this, after I handed over my Visa:
Cashier: I need to see your ID.
Me: You know, technically you can't require me to do that.
Cashier: Yes I can, it's the law.
Me: Actually, that's incorrect. There's no law that states that. What happens if I don't show you ID?
Cashier: Then I don't have to take your credit card.
At this point, someone was waiting in line behind me that was nice enough to let me go in front of him. Consequently, I didn't want to hold him up after he was nice to me.
Me: I'm going to show you my ID this time, but realize that this is going against your store's merchant agreement with Visa, and there is no law to enforce this.
Cashier: Well, I'm pretty sure it's a law, it is in California. (I'm not sure what that means, since we're in Colorado).
Me: It's not a law there either.
So, she wrapped up the sale and pretty much ignored me for the rest of the transaction. She was on the phone with another employee and even asked, "That credit card thing where we have to take ID is a law, right?" The subject of her conversation quickly changed, so I can only assume that the person on the other end of the phone informed her that it is actually not a law.
I took my game and receipt, left the store (thankfully this one doesn't check receipts), went home, reviewed the "Rules for Visa Merchants" PDF, and called my Visa-issuing bank. Surprisingly, the CSR told me that the store was allowed to require ID. I hung up, contemplated keeping my business with that company, and called Visa directly. In case anyone else wants the right number for this, I believe it was 1-800-VISA-911. I told the person the details of what happened, and I was transferred to someone who specifically deals with this issue. That person took the name, address, and phone number of the store and informed me that they would be opening an investigation into the event and I would get a report within ten business days.
So, based on the fact that Visa is going through the effort to contact the store and find out their policies, I believe that Visa takes their rules seriously, and they do not allow merchants to require ID as a condition of accepting Visa. Based on the rules, they can only require ID if the card is unsigned (or has that lame "See ID" written on it) to verify that the person that's signing the card in the cashier's presence is who he says he is, but that's a wholly different can of worms that is unrelated to this case.
I'm looking forward to my report coming within the next week or so.
Incidentally, another interesting case to consider is when the embossed name on the card does not match the signature. According to Visa's rules, it doesn't have to, which would be the case where I have an account that I allow someone else to use. The account and card is in my name, but the authorized user is someone else. What good does showing ID do in this case, where the only thing that the ID can sh
After reading this test:
_ improvement/4215199.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home
I went out and bought a few of the n:Vision soft white bulbs because of their high rating. "Slow to warm" is true. When I first turned this on, I thought I was jaundiced because the light was actually too yellow. After a good warmup, they're a little better, but I still might try something a little brighter and bluer.
It appears her site is at http://www.profane-justice.org/
s e456.cfm
Check out this article here: http://www.phillipsnizer.com/library/cases/lib_ca
According to this, she requested that the site be removed from the Archive in December, 2005, and they complied. They're actually countersuing her. They moved to have her claims dropped for various reasons, but the court chose to only drop the ones related to conversion, civil theft and the RICO claims. The issue of breach of contract and copyright infringement still apply.
I think it's absolutely ridiculous that this can go forward, especially when there are two established methods to stop the Archive's activity: The opt-out, which will remove history, and robots.txt (which she didn't use and appears to still not use), which will prevent that spider from ever archiving her site again.
Her site shows up in Google, I wonder why she hasn't sued them? Could it be that she likes the exposure of the big search engine, but doesn't want any history of her site archived by the Internet Archive?
He doesn't know how to use the three seashells!
Which "Object Oriented Analysis & Design" book are you referring to? The others are all pretty easy to find, but this one is a generic enough name that there are several iterations of it out there.
Thanks!
Jerry? Is that you?
How's the popcorn?
Look into the SuperCard family of products... I'm at work, so I can't offer much in the way of links, but if you do a little googling and some research at scdev.org, you'll find quite a bit of information.
One of the Tony Hawk series already did... I think it was Tony Hawk's Underground 2, on the Boston level.
There's a place where you can jump through an apartment window... On one side is a guy in his apartment with a goat, but on the other side is the Star Wars Kid doing his act.
Lucky.
I'm with you.
I had a friend tell me this was the greatest game ever. I picked it up when I had some store credit at Best Buy thanks to an Xmas gift error. I took it home and put it on my 52" widescreen TV, and the graphics were horrible. Add to that controls that I personally think suck royal ass, and I wonder how this game got so much drool factor from the gaming community.
Granted, I've never seen it on a blurry old-school TV, so I have no idea if that helps to make it look better or not. Even so, I hate the controls and what seems to me to be a lack of emotion through the whole game.
Isn't it obvious?
Management.
From my Despair, Inc. Demotivators calendar:
:-( symbol in email, violating the company's trademarked logo. (2001)
:-( symbol. (2001)
:-( symbols in email, prompting a new flood of complaints written in German. (2001)
:-( symbols which cna be used in email -- at a price of $0.00. (2001)
5 25258&mode=thread
January 2nd: In a satirical press release, Despair, Inc. announces plans to sue millions of Internet users who have used the
January 26th: Slashdot.org, a widely read news site, reports Despair's emoticon lawsuit as fact. Despair is besieged with hundreds of outraged emails, most using the
January 29th: The NY Times reports that Despair's attempts to satirise frivolous intellectual property lawsuits instead served to demonstrate the gullibility and rashness of geeks. (2001)
January 30th: German TV News reports that a greedy American company is suing millions for using
February 5th: Despair announces it will compromise with trademark violators by manufacturing and selling Frownies (TM) -- legal
And the slashdot article that got everyone all riled up:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/01/26/1
Is this just the guy's name on the dev forums, or is it a horrible coincidence?
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0103782/
Michael? Is that you?
I think you mean Elizabeth Swann:
IMDB page for Pirates of the Caribbean
Something like this?
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/7d2b/
Stupid consumers combined with a little bit of marketing.
:)
The actual return rate on rebates is much lower than you'd expect it to be. The companies that process the rebates have extremely strict rules for the rebate submission. Usually, you're required to have the original sales receipt, UPC codes from the product, and a properly filled out rebate form. If there are any mistakes in any part of the process, they can void the rebate without blinking an eye. Some rebates are nearly impossible (or at the least, extremely difficult) to adhere to. I recently missed out on a $10 rebate because I didn't realize that the form had to be sent in within 10 days of purchase. The item shipped UPS Ground, which took (I believe) 6 days to get here. Consequently, I only had four days to get all of the rebate items together and sent out. Granted, that's my fault, but it's still pretty strict.
The company that sells a $30 item with a $30 rebate is banking on a few factors:
A) The promise of "free" gets people to buy the item. Since the return rate is less than 100%, the company is still making money off of the people that fail to return the rebate form or mess it up in some way. If only 50% of rebates actually make it back to the consumer, then that $30 is effectively selling for $15, not free.
B) Some stores use it to lure people in with the hopes that the $30 purchase will lead to other impulse purchases while in the store. Some even go so far as to raise the prices on the non-"free" items to balance the potential loss on the "free" items. Often times, the "free" items are only present in limited quantities, so the absolute worst risk is known, and the company can figure on doing much better than that.
For some reason, "Free after rebate" is more attractive to people than "50% off" or some other sale. People don't factor in the failure rate of the rebate process...
It's almost like that recall equation in Fight Club.
Let's put some real math behind this...
.0043". It takes 12.5M twenties to make $0.25B. 12.5M twenties then equals about 498 cubic feet.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing states that the current US currency is 2.61" x 6.14" x
According to Volkswagen, the new Beetle is 161.1" x 67.9" x 59.0", which works out to about 373 cubic feet. Since the volume of the car is somewhat less than its bounding box, I'd say that $0.25B in $20 bills is significantly larger than a VW bug.
A bug is probably closer to a quarter billion in fifties, which would be about 199 cubic feet.
You turn in YOUR nerd card.
I just rented "Meet the Fockers" last night, and it basically does this if you select "Extended Version" instead of "Theatrical Version".
Whenever a deleted scene would have appeared, it will stop the movie, show the deleted scene, and then pick back up where it left off. It's not at all seamless, and is a bit jarring, to the point where I turned it off after the third one so I could enjoy the rest of the movie. On a second pass, it might be worth it.
You're implying that the editors actually read the articles. Everyone knows that WE don't RTFA, why should the editors?