Re:A Store Employee Who Pays Attention?
on
iWarez
·
· Score: 1
Well, yeah. asv108 didn't recognize that it was not a store employee who observed the pirace, that an actual store employee did nothing about it, and that the kid wasn't actually caught, but walked out the door with it. Hemos didn't review and edit, which is nothing new, it seems/. editors hit approve or reject and that's the limit of their involvement.
There was a computer store in Michigan, where I once lived, where the owners employed a bunch of young computer geeks who regularly copied and distributed software among themselves, even special order stuff. The guy seemed concerned that his store wasn't generating enough revenue so he was slow to order new titles. Hard to sell what everyone already has a copy of. The thing that's so funny about this is that even a big CompUsa store employee appears to have the same lack of interest in his store's own welfare.
You're telling me that a CompUSA employee caught the kid and knew what the kid was doing?
This is the remarkable part, actually knew what the kid was doing, whereas at most stores around here, you could probably be reformatting the drive and installing Linux and they would only ask if you needed help, while secretly hoping you don't so they can run off to another aisle. Probably a dot com victim who's actual first reflex was, "Don't steal that, it'll ruin your life!"
A Store Employee Who Pays Attention?
on
iWarez
·
· Score: 0
May be this is a good thing for making people hang on to their slightly obsolete electronics as long as they can... Hell. I would bet some enterprising type is going to China to pick up old computers from the rivers beds.
Aye! There's irony in what you write. Back in the 1930's the western silver lobbyists were pushing the US government to legislate to keep the price of silver up. An enterprising secretary of the treasury did that, by buying silver from China, which was attempting to get off the silver standard. The cash was put into a New York bank, which served china to purchase arms in the fight against the japanese, during WW II. So, in effect, to prop up silver prices the chinese government was able to finance it's war effort. Legislation can has had, and can have some peculiar affect, perhaps in this case, beneficial to the chinese (though unlikely in that example) or rogue manufacturers, which supply the black market.
If I were a hardware manufacturer, I'd be quite leery of this kind of legislation.
Typically this has been what kills such legislation or holds it up. I.e. the V-Chip is such a success story. Long getting approved, few choose to buy these units if it's an option. Particularly because this is an election year, it may be a tough sell, once people start connecting ideas like 'new technology won't sell' and 'loss of jobs'.
Imagine Joe Consumer, with an opportunity to buy a post SSSCA music playing device.
Absolutely.
Joe walks into Best Buy, eyeballs the new MP3 players, as a salesman walks up. "Hi, can I help you want anything?", asks the salesman. Joe replies, "Yeah, can you explain to me why these cost more but do less than the one I already have?"
Imo it will mainly generate a "blak market" suplied by products not "usa made".
I.e. Canadian or Mexican imports.
Customs Agent Bob: "Hey, Jack, I just found 5 K's of coccain in a spare tire!"
Customs Agent Fred: "That's nothing, Arnold just caught a guy with a false gas tank full of DVD burners, he's beating the hell out of the driver with a spiked maul, wanna go watch?"
Customs Agent Bob: "Wow, cool! Sure, I'll just let this guy off with a warning and be there in a second."
Fritz Hollings, as old (and wise as he should be) fails to understand that you pass this legislation and you will make many americans criminals, simply because they won't go for the officially sanctioned electronics. Futher the market for old technology devices, which can't be covered by such a law, will thrive. Way to prop up the used VCR market, Fritz.
Ok, Lemme be the first to toss this out: Slashdot has been whispering about subscription service coming up where you can pay a nonminal fee to get ad free content. Neat? I don't think so, not the bit about paying, but about losing the cool ads. I can't speak for everyone, but I actually like those ThinkGeek ads and have put together a tidy list of things I'll buy once I have my taxes paid off.
(I *really* want that THX sound system for a PC)
I'd be willing to kick in a few bucks to prop up Slashdot, but as long as they don't have those horrible X10 pr0n cam or casino pop-under ads, I'm pretty cool with them, all I ask is don't make them gaudy, i.e. flashing, I keep a few extra windows open on the desktop just to drop over those, ads like that could be giving away gold by the pound and I wouldn't notice, because my first reflex to anything flashing is to bury it.
I fail to see how a comic artist's "rant" about economy is newsworthy. Perhaps an attempt to plug one's own site?
Maybe if he'd done a comic on how it, apparently, fails.
I think he's premature, like many things about media, content and the net. Audiences are looking for different things on the net. Sure, in the early days almost everything worked, but once the novelty wore off there was, and is, focus on what apparently works. Don't move too fast to condemn the net, but rather than focusing entirely on what doesn't work, try to figure out what does. I'm getting a kick out of flash animated mini-films, I'd even kick in a subscription if I could be guaranteed a regular feed of neat animations via the web, and they certainly are getting more polished, as opposed to the crude stuff from a couple years ago.
Bottom line, be patient, markets sometimes take years to develop.
For years companies which no longer exist pushed the middle or high end of markets, often with high ideals and flowery speech. The low end, as evidenced by heavily discounted CPU's has made AMD a lot of inroads, the performance of their Athlon and Duron CPU's doesn't hurt either. Intel's acknowledging this, after who knows how much revenue they let slip along with market share.
Rambus stock Price about 7.42 a share, watch it drop when the bell sounds. While they aen't dead, check the stories of their other technologies below, they'll certainly be hurt with a lack of confidence on the part of investors. I wonder how all those stockholder suits are doing...
Ok, we planned for Hammer and we fully embraced DDR, now go over and spy on AMD again, this time use a car, instead of taking months to walk there and back!"
"This is the market calling, we want fast and cheap RAM."
"Oh, yes, we finally listened. I was concerned you might be Rambus Attorney's trying to sue us over breach of contract."
"Nope, not us, we don't care, but wait until their stock gets two about 20 a share, anyone who still cares about Intel getting into bed with the devil might!"
In the USA one is protected from GOVERNMENT censorship ONLY, not the censorship by
one's next door neighbor nor the censorship by the contributors to the local art gallery.
The government is by the people. If you are the only one in town who views pr0n as art and the other 99 people view it as filth, and the town leadership represents the 99%, you will have to defend your right. This may take your time, your money (in hiring an attorney to defend you, or to fight whatever local statute you've had your collection siezed, possibly court fees) and you may ultimately lose any goodwill among your neighbors. So it's not just a matter of law, it is financial and political.
narrow-minded idiots all over the planet trying to turn back the clock.
This is one of the worse and most overused cliches, almost as bad as the constant use of "For the first time since..." Ideas change over time and what's acceptable follows. At one time what was very much acceptable may not be now, in reference to within the USA. I have examples of newspaper comic strips which were syndicated and widely distributed in the 1930's which would herald a flood of outrage letters to features editors if run today, simply because they may depict a child getting drunk. Very much the same, Foster Brooks was funny as a drunk on TV, but that's unacceptable now, but lovers talk of jumping from bed to bed and not knowing who the father is, etc. is now acceptable, at least to network censors.
One of the primary reasons, IMHO, why there's the appearance of so much censorship in the USA is because there are a lot of people coming up with ideas. Rather than out in the field or factory all day, and coming home too tired to care, americans have lots of leisure time, also it is one country which has embraced the internet rapidly, bringing millions into it. Trolls or artists, that's up to the reader to decide. Censorship is usurping the readers freedom to decide, perhaps acceptable in cases regarding children, but it's the symptom of subcultures populated with people who don't consider who may be in their audience (or are just to damned to care) and despotic people who would project their own set of values on everyone. As hard as one extreme pushes, equally hard the other pushes back. The context of the battle changes, but the field remains the same and always will.
I just posted this in response to a poste from poemofatic (dunno) under Unintended Results From U.S. Hardware Dumps In Asia, which was run earlier, but seems relevent here, too, particularly considering the tack taken by anti-snot's post.
..how about a surcharge at the time of purchase to pay for disposal? Businesses could make a living disposing of these things according to some guidelines.
Sort of the California Redemption value, eh? You'd have to make it enough or stuff would still end up in dumps.
Glass, aluminum and even composite containers have the CRV charged, a few cents. I regularly saw a couple men going through the dumpsters and recycling bins at my old apartment complex, collecting cans. I had a couple six packs of beer bottles ready for recycling and left them out by the dumpster, where they could easily get them, but the left them in favor of lighter aluminum. So I had to take them over the the glass bin. Two grocery bags full of bottles is about $2, whereas at 10c each it's a tidy sum in Michigan and you
rarely see a returnable can or bottle lie idle for long.
I've long felt that composite containers, let along PC circuit boards, are a problem to recycle due to the various compounds they are made of, and difficult to break down. If there were any regulation passed which taxed things, it should be to discourage things like juice boxes, which are often plastic, aluminum and paper all bonded together. Tax the companies which use such packaging, to encourage development and use of recyclable packaging. A similar strategy should be applied to electronics, as I expect there currently is none at all, even a small step is a step.
I feel the last part is in this spirit, encourage design for recycling, put the burden on the designer and manufacturer, because once it's in the end user's hands, he has little reason to recycle it, unless there was a core deposit, like on auto parts, to encourage return.
Of course this could be trickier for those of us who by seperate components and build our systems.
Filtering, as the article (yeah, I read it) states it's not 100% successful, particularly since their list will be updated every 24 hours.
Two things come to mind...
pr0n spam mutates as defenses against it rise, same as bacteria and viruses mutate as the imune system of the body learns how to identify and fight them. It will evolve, and given the 24 hour window in the extremely fast world of the internet it's a bit optimistic, like trying to hold sand in a fishing net. "Hello, here are the biology specimens you request! If they meet your interest you may find more at..."
The only 100% successful way to fight it is to limit the amount of email students may receive and have censors review every piece of email. "Welcome, Reverend Falwell, here's your workstation."
..how about a surcharge at the time of purchase to pay for disposal? Businesses could make a living disposing of these things according to some guidelines.
Sort of the California Redemption value, eh? You'd have to make it enough or stuff would still end up in dumps.
Glass, aluminum and even composite containers have the CRV charged, a few cents. I regularly saw a couple men going through the dumpsters and recycling bins at my old apartment complex, collecting cans. I had a couple six packs of beer bottles ready for recycling and left them out by the dumpster, where they could easily get them, but the left them in favor of lighter aluminum. So I had to take them over the the glass bin. Two grocery bags full of bottles is about $2, whereas at 10c each it's a tidy sum in Michigan and you rarely see a returnable can or bottle lie idle for long.
I've long felt that composite containers, let along PC circuit boards, are a problem to recycle due to the various compounds they are made of, and difficult to break down. If there were any regulation passed which taxed things, it should be to discourage things like juice boxes, which are often plastic, aluminum and paper all bonded together. Tax the companies which use such packaging, to encourage development and use of recyclable packaging. A similar strategy should be applied to electronics, as I expect there currently is none at all, even a small step is a step.
A few survive out in my neck of the woods by reselling PacBell's DSL. i.e. Covad and Cruzio.
On another note, Riordan, Mayor of L.A. and running for Govenor of Ca. has made noises about considering internet sales tax (Ca. state sales tax is already about 8.25%) Regardless of your leanings, there's something to think about. Typically California has been a trend setting state, probably due to the large % of USA population found here, about 33 million people.
Unrelated, but pretty cool, so far, I've caught an eBay thief, just days after lamenting my being taken... read my journal about it.
"Granted, this isn't a PC chip, but one wonders how long it will be before we hear 'dude, you've got a 110GHz Dell!'
What's the standard IBM response? 10 years to market, IIRC. Taken the time to fully develop the technology to manufacture more than one transistor in a lab, and distribute it as part of a chip.
3: their phone lines will be clogged and they
won't be able to make any sales.
If only we could get the same number of people to call that number that attack every site that's published on here... Of course, the circuit would probably overload are a relatively small number of callers.
I have a spam I need to send out:
Hello friend!
Do you respond to unsolicited emails?
Do you expect to fight: baldness, lack of virility, debt, weight, lack of bust size, or nose hemorroids by responding to, and even paying totally unqualified, unregistered, unethical people? Well worry no more! Save time, by pulling several hundred dollars out of your bank account and giving it to the first homeless person you meet! You'll not only accomplish the same thing, but possibly end up doing some good for someone worse off than yourself!
If you choose to ignore this missive and pursue unsolicited offers, just remember this, you're not only incredibly naive, but you're adding to a problem, which plagues others. May your computer suffer harddrive failure and rats eat the insulation from your phone line.
So how many, rough percentage-wise are written by rank amateurs pretending to be Dewey, Cheatham & Howe?
Assuming you got one, and I'm pretty sure I know someone who did, if they aren't signed by a member of a state bar or plaing fantasy, any recourse, other than telling them where to shove it?
Examples may include, "Dear Sir/Madam, our attorney has advised us that what you are doing violates etc etc etc...", which, IMHO is hardly a C&D rather wishful thinking.
Slashdot Mirror
There was a computer store in Michigan, where I once lived, where the owners employed a bunch of young computer geeks who regularly copied and distributed software among themselves, even special order stuff. The guy seemed concerned that his store wasn't generating enough revenue so he was slow to order new titles. Hard to sell what everyone already has a copy of. The thing that's so funny about this is that even a big CompUsa store employee appears to have the same lack of interest in his store's own welfare.
This is the remarkable part, actually knew what the kid was doing, whereas at most stores around here, you could probably be reformatting the drive and installing Linux and they would only ask if you needed help, while secretly hoping you don't so they can run off to another aisle. Probably a dot com victim who's actual first reflex was, "Don't steal that, it'll ruin your life!"
Hoax! ;)
Aye! There's irony in what you write. Back in the 1930's the western silver lobbyists were pushing the US government to legislate to keep the price of silver up. An enterprising secretary of the treasury did that, by buying silver from China, which was attempting to get off the silver standard. The cash was put into a New York bank, which served china to purchase arms in the fight against the japanese, during WW II. So, in effect, to prop up silver prices the chinese government was able to finance it's war effort. Legislation can has had, and can have some peculiar affect, perhaps in this case, beneficial to the chinese (though unlikely in that example) or rogue manufacturers, which supply the black market.
Typically this has been what kills such legislation or holds it up. I.e. the V-Chip is such a success story. Long getting approved, few choose to buy these units if it's an option. Particularly because this is an election year, it may be a tough sell, once people start connecting ideas like 'new technology won't sell' and 'loss of jobs'.
Imagine Joe Consumer, with an opportunity to buy a post SSSCA music playing device.
Absolutely.
Joe walks into Best Buy, eyeballs the new MP3 players, as a salesman walks up. "Hi, can I help you want anything?", asks the salesman. Joe replies, "Yeah, can you explain to me why these cost more but do less than the one I already have?"
Customs Agent Bob: "Hey, Jack, I just found 5 K's of coccain in a spare tire!"
Customs Agent Fred: "That's nothing, Arnold just caught a guy with a false gas tank full of DVD burners, he's beating the hell out of the driver with a spiked maul, wanna go watch?"
Customs Agent Bob: "Wow, cool! Sure, I'll just let this guy off with a warning and be there in a second."
Fritz Hollings, as old (and wise as he should be) fails to understand that you pass this legislation and you will make many americans criminals, simply because they won't go for the officially sanctioned electronics. Futher the market for old technology devices, which can't be covered by such a law, will thrive. Way to prop up the used VCR market, Fritz.
(I *really* want that THX sound system for a PC)
I'd be willing to kick in a few bucks to prop up Slashdot, but as long as they don't have those horrible X10 pr0n cam or casino pop-under ads, I'm pretty cool with them, all I ask is don't make them gaudy, i.e. flashing, I keep a few extra windows open on the desktop just to drop over those, ads like that could be giving away gold by the pound and I wouldn't notice, because my first reflex to anything flashing is to bury it.
Maybe if he'd done a comic on how it, apparently, fails.
I think he's premature, like many things about media, content and the net. Audiences are looking for different things on the net. Sure, in the early days almost everything worked, but once the novelty wore off there was, and is, focus on what apparently works. Don't move too fast to condemn the net, but rather than focusing entirely on what doesn't work, try to figure out what does. I'm getting a kick out of flash animated mini-films, I'd even kick in a subscription if I could be guaranteed a regular feed of neat animations via the web, and they certainly are getting more polished, as opposed to the crude stuff from a couple years ago.
Bottom line, be patient, markets sometimes take years to develop.
Rambus stock Price about 7.42 a share, watch it drop when the bell sounds. While they aen't dead, check the stories of their other technologies below, they'll certainly be hurt with a lack of confidence on the part of investors. I wonder how all those stockholder suits are doing...
Ok, we planned for Hammer and we fully embraced DDR, now go over and spy on AMD again, this time use a car, instead of taking months to walk there and back!"
"This is the market calling, we want fast and cheap RAM."
"Oh, yes, we finally listened. I was concerned you might be Rambus Attorney's trying to sue us over breach of contract."
"Nope, not us, we don't care, but wait until their stock gets two about 20 a share, anyone who still cares about Intel getting into bed with the devil might!"
In the USA one is protected from GOVERNMENT censorship ONLY, not the censorship by one's next door neighbor nor the censorship by the contributors to the local art gallery. The government is by the people. If you are the only one in town who views pr0n as art and the other 99 people view it as filth, and the town leadership represents the 99%, you will have to defend your right. This may take your time, your money (in hiring an attorney to defend you, or to fight whatever local statute you've had your collection siezed, possibly court fees) and you may ultimately lose any goodwill among your neighbors. So it's not just a matter of law, it is financial and political.
This is one of the worse and most overused cliches, almost as bad as the constant use of "For the first time since ..." Ideas change over time and what's acceptable follows. At one time what was very much acceptable may not be now, in reference to within the USA. I have examples of newspaper comic strips which were syndicated and widely distributed in the 1930's which would herald a flood of outrage letters to features editors if run today, simply because they may depict a child getting drunk. Very much the same, Foster Brooks was funny as a drunk on TV, but that's unacceptable now, but lovers talk of jumping from bed to bed and not knowing who the father is, etc. is now acceptable, at least to network censors.
One of the primary reasons, IMHO, why there's the appearance of so much censorship in the USA is because there are a lot of people coming up with ideas. Rather than out in the field or factory all day, and coming home too tired to care, americans have lots of leisure time, also it is one country which has embraced the internet rapidly, bringing millions into it. Trolls or artists, that's up to the reader to decide. Censorship is usurping the readers freedom to decide, perhaps acceptable in cases regarding children, but it's the symptom of subcultures populated with people who don't consider who may be in their audience (or are just to damned to care) and despotic people who would project their own set of values on everyone. As hard as one extreme pushes, equally hard the other pushes back. The context of the battle changes, but the field remains the same and always will.
I feel the last part is in this spirit, encourage design for recycling, put the burden on the designer and manufacturer, because once it's in the end user's hands, he has little reason to recycle it, unless there was a core deposit, like on auto parts, to encourage return.
Of course this could be trickier for those of us who by seperate components and build our systems.
Two things come to mind...
pr0n spam mutates as defenses against it rise, same as bacteria and viruses mutate as the imune system of the body learns how to identify and fight them. It will evolve, and given the 24 hour window in the extremely fast world of the internet it's a bit optimistic, like trying to hold sand in a fishing net. "Hello, here are the biology specimens you request! If they meet your interest you may find more at ..."
The only 100% successful way to fight it is to limit the amount of email students may receive and have censors review every piece of email. "Welcome, Reverend Falwell, here's your workstation."
Sort of the California Redemption value, eh? You'd have to make it enough or stuff would still end up in dumps.
Glass, aluminum and even composite containers have the CRV charged, a few cents. I regularly saw a couple men going through the dumpsters and recycling bins at my old apartment complex, collecting cans. I had a couple six packs of beer bottles ready for recycling and left them out by the dumpster, where they could easily get them, but the left them in favor of lighter aluminum. So I had to take them over the the glass bin. Two grocery bags full of bottles is about $2, whereas at 10c each it's a tidy sum in Michigan and you rarely see a returnable can or bottle lie idle for long.
I've long felt that composite containers, let along PC circuit boards, are a problem to recycle due to the various compounds they are made of, and difficult to break down. If there were any regulation passed which taxed things, it should be to discourage things like juice boxes, which are often plastic, aluminum and paper all bonded together. Tax the companies which use such packaging, to encourage development and use of recyclable packaging. A similar strategy should be applied to electronics, as I expect there currently is none at all, even a small step is a step.
On another note, Riordan, Mayor of L.A. and running for Govenor of Ca. has made noises about considering internet sales tax (Ca. state sales tax is already about 8.25%) Regardless of your leanings, there's something to think about. Typically California has been a trend setting state, probably due to the large % of USA population found here, about 33 million people.
Unrelated, but pretty cool, so far, I've caught an eBay thief, just days after lamenting my being taken... read my journal about it.
Sometimes they have stockholders who would like to see them developing IP, any kind of IP, just something to justify investment.
What's the standard IBM response? 10 years to market, IIRC. Taken the time to fully develop the technology to manufacture more than one transistor in a lab, and distribute it as part of a chip.
1: They'll rethink their position,
2: they'll be forced to remove you, and
3: their phone lines will be clogged and they won't be able to make any sales.
If only we could get the same number of people to call that number that attack every site that's published on here... Of course, the circuit would probably overload are a relatively small number of callers.
I have a spam I need to send out:
To map ad.doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1
Remember, most judges are lawyers, too.
Slashdot Effect: The virtual equivilent of a C&D
Assuming you got one, and I'm pretty sure I know someone who did, if they aren't signed by a member of a state bar or plaing fantasy, any recourse, other than telling them where to shove it?
Examples may include, "Dear Sir/Madam, our attorney has advised us that what you are doing violates etc etc etc...", which, IMHO is hardly a C&D rather wishful thinking.