Smaller, lighter, more fuel-efficient jets, going to more localized airports (further removing some of the terrible centralization our system suffers from now), are probably the best way of limiting the consequences of an attack.
I agree to some point but what about "overall" safety. I do not have statistics in front of me right now but I know there are many times more general aviation accidents then commercial planes accidents. I would assume that if the percentages stayed the same, many more people would die on those small less structured, less maintained, and less experienced airlines then with the big carriers even with terrorism added in. On that note, you could consider the amount of people that die in car accidents yearly per mile traveled and come up with some really interesting results. I guess mentally, we feel safer dealing with true accidents then wondering about what could be done by someone on purpose. Imagine the impact on lives if the money and effort we put into fighting terrorism went into fighting some common diseases or cancers that thousands of people die from every year. I would actually consider that based on how our war on terrorism appears to be going, I think we would have a better progress on some much needed cures.
I'm not against fighting terrorism, just throwing out some thoughts and trying to look at this big picture.
Permanent cookie? I set cookies to delete automatically when closing FF and have used some combination of tools or manually doing it at least weekly for years. I doubt mine is anything close to permanent.
I am not sure I completely understand the parents description or your rebuttal of power loss over long lines but... Transmitting power over a wire at higher voltage does lower the power loss overall. Power line loss is referred to as "I^2(R)" or I squared R loss. Power = Current^2 x Resistance. Power used by the transmission line will go down if current goes down. How do you get current to go down? Raise the voltage (P=IE). Therefore, increase voltage on the line and the resistive loses on that line will go down.
P=IE and E=IR therefore, P=I^2(R)
I have no idea about the other stuff he was talking about.
STFU! Usenet? Nothing to see here RIAA/MPAA, please move along.
I almost hate to talk about this subject, not because I feel seasoned or elite but only because I do fear a potential radar sighting. At a very slow but steady pace, the brontosaurus that is Usenet, is getting more flexibility on the front end. The days of manually saving and piecing together messages in the right order and piping them to the right converter went away well over a decade ago. It can now be just a few clicks if you choose. The fact that in order to have a reasonable quality of Usenet service requires a monthly fee is the only thing I believe that is keeping it under that radar but that same more centralized consolidated pay service is easier to attack and shut down.
When the comet comes, the brontosaurus will have to adapt or die.
If the devs hadn't fixed it in a reasonable amount of time, then it's time to go public and make sure they have a reason to fix it. That time hadn't come.
That is a major issue and who determines how much time it enough. Maybe these guys at the presentation know the information is already out there in other circles? Maybe some vendors are refusing to work with them and blew them off or are not even acknowledging a problem exists. Maybe another wireless chip had the same problem and it was fixed. Maybe they were going to release it 6 months ago but waited until now. I don't know, do you? You are just hearing about this today but what would you consider a good time frame or what significant trigger would you consider accepable for the information to finally reach you? I believe we have way to little information and details to determine what a reasonable amount of time is. General information on wireless technology flaws (802, bluetooth, iR etc) does float around in security circles so the concept is not new at all.
Yes, everyone is safer with an exploit only known to the underground crackers. I guess you truly believe in what you do not know can't hurt you. For every group that comes forward with a crack, they very well may be 10 groups that have been actively exploiting this very same thing and have NOT come forward. Some people derive their excitement, fortune, and notoriety by reporting flaws and others get the same thing by using and exposing those flaws. Are you really willing to take your chances on what percentage of each exists?
I take my 4x4 off road and ride bikes and quads as well. What does it hurt to have a dirt path to ride off road? Okay, maybe some grass missing and maybe some ruts here and there left behind by a dirt bike or quad. Is it really destroying the land? I'd say it takes of the layer of growth that may have been there but even that will get covered by the falling of leaves and the growth will return the next spring and summer if the path stops being used and that growth that is there is a mixture of whatever blew there anyway, not exactly someones flower garden. Maybe in hard clay it may take two years but there is no actual destruction. Driving through someones yard is a little different but in the woods, there is enough fallen and decayed trees and weeds around that a dirt path should not stand out or be considered an eye sore. If it is an open field, what is there besides 2 to 3 feet brown grass?
I understand that people liter and leave stuff behind when they should not but please do not associate that with the off road vehicles. I have about 700 feet of woods that fronts to a county road. I can pull out and entire garbage can of bottles, cans, and fast food packages from the drainage ditch and from far into my property as well every month. I assume people attempt to get around the open container laws by getting rid of the beer bottles after they are empty and if the bottle breaks on a tree they get bonus points. Maybe we should ban all cars on public roads as well because those people leave a mess too.
My brother in law and his wife have Comcast and they still only use the AOL browser. I just do not understand. No thanks after no thanks offer. I guess they actually like it. I installed FF for them and they NEVER use it. They must think they are still on dial-up or something and do not understand they can use the internet without using the AOL software. They can't blame it on the email address either because they use yahoo for that, of course using the AOL software over the Comcast connection to get to yahoo. I found a ton of porn on their machine as well and was contemplating telling them they can get that with FF as well.
When I've been in the sticks and had to use my phone, I always seem to find a useable analog signal. I may have to stand on the roof of my car, lift my left leg, and hold head at a certain angle but it will eventually work. Odd thing on that though. I've never had an analog signal greater then 1 bar. My question, where the hell are these analog transmitters that I always have a usable signal but never a good one. Freaky.
A trick I've used to get better range from my car alarm transmitters, hold the transmitter against your cheek and raise your other arm. You will get at least 25% more distance, really.
You will not be taken down, you will be investigated. If nothing at your house is found or proof that you were downloading the illegal material can not be found, you are clear. I know, reality here. It still takes your time and effort to defend yourself. I feel there will be no jail time, only a big pain in the ass trying to stay out of jail. If you lend out your car to someone and they commit a crime, it would seem to be easy to prove you were not driving it at the time. Proving who was or was not actually using what bandwidth and when is a lot harder and a lot harder to defend yourself against. If you were doing something illegal online, it would make sense to have an open access point. That would make a great defense. Of course that defense would be rendered useless if they find 20 GB of kiddy porn on your hard drive and on a stack of dvds inconspicuously labeled "Data Backup" laying around everywhere. That concept is probably while areas are trying to pass laws to stop open access points. The authorities are trying to close up that defense tactic. I bet the punishment for an open access is much less then having kiddy porn though.
I'm not trying to downplay a potential accories and more functionality for the iPod but realistically, this thing seems pretty stupid. Maybe there is a up an dcoming market for connecting to an iPod for the sole purpose of using its storage capacity. It would seem more logical for the device to accept various SD cards or usb sticks though. Imagine going to Wal-Mart or Starbucks and being able to plug into a docking station and recieving coupons, the daily menus, movie trailers etc.. How about a car dealer to instantly get a vehicle brochure or whatever. Those seem like neat concepts but plugging in a plain old usb drive would be my first choice for these types of services. The PSP (for the same price) seems like a much better choice for this specific video application. Add to the fact that it even connects to the readily available LINKSYS wireless network and I'm not sure but I believe it even plays games;).
Owning and using credits cards is not bad. Paying with and only using cash is not necessary and really quite a PITA from some folks. I understand your references point, if you don't have credit cards, you won't use them and you can't build up a debt. Well, cure the problem and do not use a band-aid. Stop spending more then you have and you will not build up a debt regardless of if you have revolving credit cards or not. I average about $1000 month on my personal AMEX, it has the capability to revolve but I pay it every month. I get the benefit of being able to dispute charges, up to one extra year of warranty coverage, and get 90 days of lost or accidental damage insurance for everything I buy on it. I also have a check card and a debit card, those do not revolve and are directly attached to my checking account but armed with those three, I have flexibility and I NEVER have to carry more then $10 in cash. One could argue that when you actually use cash from your pocket, you are less likely to buy stupid things you may not really need. I sort of agree with that but I'll still stick with my non revolving plastic.
If the solution was really that simple, you just proved the parents post. The referenced Cisco world class support team took nine months to diagnose and fix a problem that a random person on/. could have fixed in 30 seconds.
Placing them in cages in the center of a busy suburban divided road or in a shopping mall near where the crime was committed. You can place big signs above them with their name, address, and what crimes they committed. This would help in two ways. Gets the criminal into the public view so he can be publicly humiliated and face the public while still in "jail" and let the common folks see that people who commit crimes and get caught really do get punished. Put them in the open so people can see other people actually doing time. It might make that teenager about to do a car jacking remember what happens if he gets caught and he can reevaluate his decision if the crime is worth the punishment. Right now jail time and jail life is completely hidden from view and probably not something people will think about at all. The US had a history of public hangings and I believe many countries still practice that. I am not talking about execution or death to the criminal, just a portable jail cell.
There are some down sides though, the criminal could strip down and start masturbating in front of all the pretty looking teens walking by in the mall and in the center of the divided highway, some of the crime victims might be hiding in the weeds across the street shooting paint balls at the criminal. Obviously not a perfect solution and it needs some work but I think it might work.
I did not think ATM/Debit cards or transactions with a pin added a cost to the store. I thought only credit cards had the fee based on the log (Visa, MC, AMEX etc..).
I agree, if more then one person is in line I will go to a regular cashier. Some things I've noticed as a frequent user of self checkout at my local Wal-Mart. The scanner at the self-checkout must have some type of delay built in, either that or you have to bag and wait for the weight calculation before you can scan other items. This is a pain if you have many of the same thing and they are light. You will notice a real cashier flying through items. You can NOT do that in self checkout. I specifically recall one item that offered 33% more free but must have had the same UPC as the regular size. It would not be accepted by the bag sensor and I had to wait for a cashier. I had five of them and she had to approve every one of them individually.
I tried the self checkout at Home Depot once. I only had a few items all had bar codes. I gave up and have not used it there since. Maybe my bad experience with them was isolated.
I do not consider myself one of the idiots you talk about because 90% of the time I can fly through the line but I feel the self checkout is not quite as good as it could. I guess the stores have to balance convenience and security so the limitations I notice are more then likely by design.
I believe they were as well. My point was, there was already a limited selection (very limited) of "live cd" Windows methods available before the recent talks about Vista.
Some people use a computer as a hobby as well and like to see what is available to them and actually try to pick up experience with different things. I actually ENJOY trying out new things and messing around with the computer and the software.
Why do people build models, play with small gauge trains, collect coins, or read fictional books? It seems like a complete waste of time and money. Oh, I see, the same exact reasons! A hobby and maybe take the experience and knowledge and even make some money from it if possible (sell or restore stuff or more experience for future job opportunity's).
That is definatly not the norm from my experience. You stated plural installs but do you happen to remember the distro and versions? That would be distro I myself would avoid testing on my own dual boot computer as well. I've installed quite a few dual boots and I vaguely remember one of the "Windows friendly" Linuxes like Lycoris, Lindows, or Linspire (could be wrong) not directly asking where to put the boot loader, I don't remember if it used LILO or Grub either. I later found it does ask but in plain non geek english, not in technical terms and I misunderstood what it was asking. That does suck!
I've had a new XP install on hdb1 wipe out a W2K install on hda1. When the XP install was done, niether would boot ever again. I followed the directions I had but the process obviously did not work as planned. I was able to boot with Knoppix and copy off the data I needed from the tanked W2K partition.
I cancelled the insurance on my home. One year later other than saving $550 I have not had a single problem. I wasn't robbed, it didn't burn down, and no hurricanes, floods, or earthquakes hit me either...
Just because the "worst" didn't happen, doesn't mean it won't.
You analogy does not fit here, in fact almost opposite for several reasons.
1) Insurance is the only option to limit catastrophic PHYSICAL loss. Computer data loss is recoverable if you have a backup, there is no way to revert to a previous version of your house if it burns down or "restore" a single stolen device missing from the safe. Theft, stealing, copyright comes to mind here. Physical things are lost and must be replaced. Data can be copied and restored. Of course both could happen at once and your only copies of your data could be stolen and no amount of money or insurance in the world can buy or reproduce your data (photos etc..)
2) The parent poster is BETTER protected now then before. According to this article, antivirus protection is only about 20% effective (if I read that correctly). The parent decided instead of relying on that and the cost associated with AV protection, come up with a system for backup and restore. Depending on the backup solution, the parent is NOW protected from a virus outbreak, a hard drive failure, someone accidently deleting a file, maybe even if his house gets flooded and the computers float downstream, etc.. Bottom line, the parent is BETTER protected as a whole now then he was before.
Suffice it to say: people do NOT want to change, and will put up with amazing amounts of wasted time and inconvenience to avoid doing so.
I do not fully agree, it is not that the people do not want to change, they do not want to spend the effort themselves on the change. People are not afraid of change, they are afraid of the unknown. If a 300 person office was switched from IE to Firefox over night, not many users would care provided you gave some tips and tricks ahead of time and they knew it was coming. Your grandma would not mind using either a Mac or a PC but she is not going to buy the other just to change. If you went in and switched, gave a few minutes of this is how you do what you need, there would probably not be a problem.
On that note, some people really do want specific things to go a specific way. Consider a trackball user. He can use a mouse, knows how to use a mouse and has used one many times before. Bottom line, still wants his trackball back! I do not know if there is a direct relationship between someone with strong physical habits, wants, and needs compared to something visual like a software application. Does the guy that has to have the trackball have to use IE as well or would he happily use that trackball to navigate around FF if you gave it to him?
The accessory manufacturers are going to go after the iPod demographic because those are the types of people most likely to spend more $ on kitchy add-ons, since they (knowingly and sometimes proudly) paid the "Apple premium" for their iPod
I completely disagree. Making an accessory for an iPod is a good market decision regardless of the amount of disposable income of those who own one may have. I'm sure people with a car valued at over $100K have a lot of disposable income as well but generating enough income on third party sales of an add on for every one of those cars would not be easy because of the limited volume. A company can make an add on and everyone that already owns an iPod is a potential customer. Another advantage is Apple appears to be keeping the docking port compatible across different model lines. This allows more companies (including car makers with the optional built in docking ports) to take a chance that they will at least get their money back or even make money from the add on that uses that. Add the quantity of iPods with the quantity and variety of add-ons and the overall experience and usefulness of the iPod is much better, a synergy. The cellular phone and accessories market follows the same trends. The more popular phones have the most and least expensive add on which makes those phones even more popular. Chicken or the egg?
Take this concept a bit further and to separate Apple from the mix for a bit. If all portable audio makers followed a standard for a docking port and remote control, the consumer would benefit even more. Imagine buying any portable audio player and being able to "dock" it into that $200 speaker system or on the dash of your car. The consumers would get more choice and flexibility and the third party products to interface with would be more plentiful and cheaper. You can always use the line out or headphone jack but that is not as elegant and unified with things like steering wheel buttons. Of course this will never happen because this whole thing is all profit driven. The "universal" interface would be patented and require a license to be paid to some group for every device made and the implementation would never reach a critical mass. Some companies would feel they can stay proprietary and not use the "universal system" because they think they have enough market share by themselves would hamper acceptance as well (think about the past practices of Sony and Apple). It is a shame because it really is a good idea. Back to a cellular phone example. Compare the price and availability of a standard jack (2.5mm 3 tip plug) headset for hands free to a phone that uses some proprietary hands free device with its own connector. Which is cheaper and more readily available? The critical mass has been reached for that specific application and almost every cordless and cellular phone made now uses the same standard. Power adapters for cellular phones are getting to that point but slower.
In summary and to get back on topic;). I believe the high quantity of iPods makes the third party market, not the income of those with an iPod.
So when you do send in the all required information, you are considered incompetetent because you did not keep hounding them if you do not receive your rebate? If you have to call and resend or fax the copies you made with the same exact information you sent them the first time, the consumer is not the one with the problem. Your expectations are too low
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Smaller, lighter, more fuel-efficient jets, going to more localized airports (further removing some of the terrible centralization our system suffers from now), are probably the best way of limiting the consequences of an attack.
I agree to some point but what about "overall" safety. I do not have statistics in front of me right now but I know there are many times more general aviation accidents then commercial planes accidents. I would assume that if the percentages stayed the same, many more people would die on those small less structured, less maintained, and less experienced airlines then with the big carriers even with terrorism added in. On that note, you could consider the amount of people that die in car accidents yearly per mile traveled and come up with some really interesting results. I guess mentally, we feel safer dealing with true accidents then wondering about what could be done by someone on purpose. Imagine the impact on lives if the money and effort we put into fighting terrorism went into fighting some common diseases or cancers that thousands of people die from every year. I would actually consider that based on how our war on terrorism appears to be going, I think we would have a better progress on some much needed cures.
I'm not against fighting terrorism, just throwing out some thoughts and trying to look at this big picture.
Permanent cookie?
I set cookies to delete automatically when closing FF and have used some combination of tools or manually doing it at least weekly for years. I doubt mine is anything close to permanent.
I am not sure I completely understand the parents description or your rebuttal of power loss over long lines but... Transmitting power over a wire at higher voltage does lower the power loss overall. Power line loss is referred to as "I^2(R)" or I squared R loss. Power = Current^2 x Resistance. Power used by the transmission line will go down if current goes down. How do you get current to go down? Raise the voltage (P=IE). Therefore, increase voltage on the line and the resistive loses on that line will go down.
P=IE and E=IR therefore, P=I^2(R)
I have no idea about the other stuff he was talking about.
STFU!
Usenet? Nothing to see here RIAA/MPAA, please move along.
I almost hate to talk about this subject, not because I feel seasoned or elite but only because I do fear a potential radar sighting. At a very slow but steady pace, the brontosaurus that is Usenet, is getting more flexibility on the front end. The days of manually saving and piecing together messages in the right order and piping them to the right converter went away well over a decade ago. It can now be just a few clicks if you choose. The fact that in order to have a reasonable quality of Usenet service requires a monthly fee is the only thing I believe that is keeping it under that radar but that same more centralized consolidated pay service is easier to attack and shut down.
When the comet comes, the brontosaurus will have to adapt or die.
If the devs hadn't fixed it in a reasonable amount of time, then it's time to go public and make sure they have a reason to fix it. That time hadn't come.
That is a major issue and who determines how much time it enough. Maybe these guys at the presentation know the information is already out there in other circles? Maybe some vendors are refusing to work with them and blew them off or are not even acknowledging a problem exists. Maybe another wireless chip had the same problem and it was fixed. Maybe they were going to release it 6 months ago but waited until now. I don't know, do you? You are just hearing about this today but what would you consider a good time frame or what significant trigger would you consider accepable for the information to finally reach you? I believe we have way to little information and details to determine what a reasonable amount of time is. General information on wireless technology flaws (802, bluetooth, iR etc) does float around in security circles so the concept is not new at all.
Yes, everyone is safer with an exploit only known to the underground crackers. I guess you truly believe in what you do not know can't hurt you. For every group that comes forward with a crack, they very well may be 10 groups that have been actively exploiting this very same thing and have NOT come forward. Some people derive their excitement, fortune, and notoriety by reporting flaws and others get the same thing by using and exposing those flaws. Are you really willing to take your chances on what percentage of each exists?
I've seen acres of land ripped up by dirt bikes,
I take my 4x4 off road and ride bikes and quads as well. What does it hurt to have a dirt path to ride off road? Okay, maybe some grass missing and maybe some ruts here and there left behind by a dirt bike or quad. Is it really destroying the land? I'd say it takes of the layer of growth that may have been there but even that will get covered by the falling of leaves and the growth will return the next spring and summer if the path stops being used and that growth that is there is a mixture of whatever blew there anyway, not exactly someones flower garden. Maybe in hard clay it may take two years but there is no actual destruction. Driving through someones yard is a little different but in the woods, there is enough fallen and decayed trees and weeds around that a dirt path should not stand out or be considered an eye sore. If it is an open field, what is there besides 2 to 3 feet brown grass?
I understand that people liter and leave stuff behind when they should not but please do not associate that with the off road vehicles. I have about 700 feet of woods that fronts to a county road. I can pull out and entire garbage can of bottles, cans, and fast food packages from the drainage ditch and from far into my property as well every month. I assume people attempt to get around the open container laws by getting rid of the beer bottles after they are empty and if the bottle breaks on a tree they get bonus points. Maybe we should ban all cars on public roads as well because those people leave a mess too.
My brother in law and his wife have Comcast and they still only use the AOL browser. I just do not understand. No thanks after no thanks offer. I guess they actually like it. I installed FF for them and they NEVER use it. They must think they are still on dial-up or something and do not understand they can use the internet without using the AOL software. They can't blame it on the email address either because they use yahoo for that, of course using the AOL software over the Comcast connection to get to yahoo. I found a ton of porn on their machine as well and was contemplating telling them they can get that with FF as well.
When I've been in the sticks and had to use my phone, I always seem to find a useable analog signal. I may have to stand on the roof of my car, lift my left leg, and hold head at a certain angle but it will eventually work. Odd thing on that though. I've never had an analog signal greater then 1 bar. My question, where the hell are these analog transmitters that I always have a usable signal but never a good one. Freaky.
A trick I've used to get better range from my car alarm transmitters, hold the transmitter against your cheek and raise your other arm. You will get at least 25% more distance, really.
You will not be taken down, you will be investigated. If nothing at your house is found or proof that you were downloading the illegal material can not be found, you are clear. I know, reality here. It still takes your time and effort to defend yourself. I feel there will be no jail time, only a big pain in the ass trying to stay out of jail. If you lend out your car to someone and they commit a crime, it would seem to be easy to prove you were not driving it at the time. Proving who was or was not actually using what bandwidth and when is a lot harder and a lot harder to defend yourself against.
If you were doing something illegal online, it would make sense to have an open access point. That would make a great defense. Of course that defense would be rendered useless if they find 20 GB of kiddy porn on your hard drive and on a stack of dvds inconspicuously labeled "Data Backup" laying around everywhere.
That concept is probably while areas are trying to pass laws to stop open access points. The authorities are trying to close up that defense tactic. I bet the punishment for an open access is much less then having kiddy porn though.
I'm not trying to downplay a potential accories and more functionality for the iPod but realistically, this thing seems pretty stupid. Maybe there is a up an dcoming market for connecting to an iPod for the sole purpose of using its storage capacity. It would seem more logical for the device to accept various SD cards or usb sticks though. ;).
Imagine going to Wal-Mart or Starbucks and being able to plug into a docking station and recieving coupons, the daily menus, movie trailers etc.. How about a car dealer to instantly get a vehicle brochure or whatever. Those seem like neat concepts but plugging in a plain old usb drive would be my first choice for these types of services.
The PSP (for the same price) seems like a much better choice for this specific video application. Add to the fact that it even connects to the readily available LINKSYS wireless network and I'm not sure but I believe it even plays games
Owning and using credits cards is not bad. Paying with and only using cash is not necessary and really quite a PITA from some folks.
I understand your references point, if you don't have credit cards, you won't use them and you can't build up a debt. Well, cure the problem and do not use a band-aid. Stop spending more then you have and you will not build up a debt regardless of if you have revolving credit cards or not. I average about $1000 month on my personal AMEX, it has the capability to revolve but I pay it every month. I get the benefit of being able to dispute charges, up to one extra year of warranty coverage, and get 90 days of lost or accidental damage insurance for everything I buy on it. I also have a check card and a debit card, those do not revolve and are directly attached to my checking account but armed with those three, I have flexibility and I NEVER have to carry more then $10 in cash. One could argue that when you actually use cash from your pocket, you are less likely to buy stupid things you may not really need. I sort of agree with that but I'll still stick with my non revolving plastic.
If the solution was really that simple, you just proved the parents post. The referenced Cisco world class support team took nine months to diagnose and fix a problem that a random person on /. could have fixed in 30 seconds.
Placing them in cages in the center of a busy suburban divided road or in a shopping mall near where the crime was committed. You can place big signs above them with their name, address, and what crimes they committed. This would help in two ways. Gets the criminal into the public view so he can be publicly humiliated and face the public while still in "jail" and let the common folks see that people who commit crimes and get caught really do get punished. Put them in the open so people can see other people actually doing time. It might make that teenager about to do a car jacking remember what happens if he gets caught and he can reevaluate his decision if the crime is worth the punishment. Right now jail time and jail life is completely hidden from view and probably not something people will think about at all. The US had a history of public hangings and I believe many countries still practice that. I am not talking about execution or death to the criminal, just a portable jail cell.
There are some down sides though, the criminal could strip down and start masturbating in front of all the pretty looking teens walking by in the mall and in the center of the divided highway, some of the crime victims might be hiding in the weeds across the street shooting paint balls at the criminal. Obviously not a perfect solution and it needs some work but I think it might work.
I did not think ATM/Debit cards or transactions with a pin added a cost to the store. I thought only credit cards had the fee based on the log (Visa, MC, AMEX etc..).
I agree, if more then one person is in line I will go to a regular cashier. Some things I've noticed as a frequent user of self checkout at my local Wal-Mart. The scanner at the self-checkout must have some type of delay built in, either that or you have to bag and wait for the weight calculation before you can scan other items. This is a pain if you have many of the same thing and they are light. You will notice a real cashier flying through items. You can NOT do that in self checkout. I specifically recall one item that offered 33% more free but must have had the same UPC as the regular size. It would not be accepted by the bag sensor and I had to wait for a cashier. I had five of them and she had to approve every one of them individually.
I tried the self checkout at Home Depot once. I only had a few items all had bar codes. I gave up and have not used it there since. Maybe my bad experience with them was isolated.
I do not consider myself one of the idiots you talk about because 90% of the time I can fly through the line but I feel the self checkout is not quite as good as it could. I guess the stores have to balance convenience and security so the limitations I notice are more then likely by design.
I believe they were as well. My point was, there was already a limited selection (very limited) of "live cd" Windows methods available before the recent talks about Vista.
Windows PE. http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/programs/sa/ben efits/winpe.mspx
Or Windows PE with modifications. http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
Some people use a computer as a hobby as well and like to see what is available to them and actually try to pick up experience with different things. I actually ENJOY trying out new things and messing around with the computer and the software.
Why do people build models, play with small gauge trains, collect coins, or read fictional books? It seems like a complete waste of time and money. Oh, I see, the same exact reasons! A hobby and maybe take the experience and knowledge and even make some money from it if possible (sell or restore stuff or more experience for future job opportunity's).
That is definatly not the norm from my experience. You stated plural installs but do you happen to remember the distro and versions? That would be distro I myself would avoid testing on my own dual boot computer as well. I've installed quite a few dual boots and I vaguely remember one of the "Windows friendly" Linuxes like Lycoris, Lindows, or Linspire (could be wrong) not directly asking where to put the boot loader, I don't remember if it used LILO or Grub either. I later found it does ask but in plain non geek english, not in technical terms and I misunderstood what it was asking. That does suck!
I've had a new XP install on hdb1 wipe out a W2K install on hda1. When the XP install was done, niether would boot ever again. I followed the directions I had but the process obviously did not work as planned. I was able to boot with Knoppix and copy off the data I needed from the tanked W2K partition.
I cancelled the insurance on my home. One year later other than saving $550 I have not had a single problem. I wasn't robbed, it didn't burn down, and no hurricanes, floods, or earthquakes hit me either...
Just because the "worst" didn't happen, doesn't mean it won't.
You analogy does not fit here, in fact almost opposite for several reasons.
1) Insurance is the only option to limit catastrophic PHYSICAL loss. Computer data loss is recoverable if you have a backup, there is no way to revert to a previous version of your house if it burns down or "restore" a single stolen device missing from the safe. Theft, stealing, copyright comes to mind here. Physical things are lost and must be replaced. Data can be copied and restored. Of course both could happen at once and your only copies of your data could be stolen and no amount of money or insurance in the world can buy or reproduce your data (photos etc..)
2) The parent poster is BETTER protected now then before. According to this article, antivirus protection is only about 20% effective (if I read that correctly). The parent decided instead of relying on that and the cost associated with AV protection, come up with a system for backup and restore. Depending on the backup solution, the parent is NOW protected from a virus outbreak, a hard drive failure, someone accidently deleting a file, maybe even if his house gets flooded and the computers float downstream, etc.. Bottom line, the parent is BETTER protected as a whole now then he was before.
Suffice it to say: people do NOT want to change, and will put up with amazing amounts of wasted time and inconvenience to avoid doing so.
I do not fully agree, it is not that the people do not want to change, they do not want to spend the effort themselves on the change. People are not afraid of change, they are afraid of the unknown.
If a 300 person office was switched from IE to Firefox over night, not many users would care provided you gave some tips and tricks ahead of time and they knew it was coming. Your grandma would not mind using either a Mac or a PC but she is not going to buy the other just to change. If you went in and switched, gave a few minutes of this is how you do what you need, there would probably not be a problem.
On that note, some people really do want specific things to go a specific way. Consider a trackball user. He can use a mouse, knows how to use a mouse and has used one many times before. Bottom line, still wants his trackball back! I do not know if there is a direct relationship between someone with strong physical habits, wants, and needs compared to something visual like a software application. Does the guy that has to have the trackball have to use IE as well or would he happily use that trackball to navigate around FF if you gave it to him?
The accessory manufacturers are going to go after the iPod demographic because those are the types of people most likely to spend more $ on kitchy add-ons, since they (knowingly and sometimes proudly) paid the "Apple premium" for their iPod
;). I believe the high quantity of iPods makes the third party market, not the income of those with an iPod.
I completely disagree. Making an accessory for an iPod is a good market decision regardless of the amount of disposable income of those who own one may have. I'm sure people with a car valued at over $100K have a lot of disposable income as well but generating enough income on third party sales of an add on for every one of those cars would not be easy because of the limited volume. A company can make an add on and everyone that already owns an iPod is a potential customer. Another advantage is Apple appears to be keeping the docking port compatible across different model lines. This allows more companies (including car makers with the optional built in docking ports) to take a chance that they will at least get their money back or even make money from the add on that uses that. Add the quantity of iPods with the quantity and variety of add-ons and the overall experience and usefulness of the iPod is much better, a synergy. The cellular phone and accessories market follows the same trends. The more popular phones have the most and least expensive add on which makes those phones even more popular. Chicken or the egg?
Take this concept a bit further and to separate Apple from the mix for a bit. If all portable audio makers followed a standard for a docking port and remote control, the consumer would benefit even more. Imagine buying any portable audio player and being able to "dock" it into that $200 speaker system or on the dash of your car. The consumers would get more choice and flexibility and the third party products to interface with would be more plentiful and cheaper. You can always use the line out or headphone jack but that is not as elegant and unified with things like steering wheel buttons.
Of course this will never happen because this whole thing is all profit driven. The "universal" interface would be patented and require a license to be paid to some group for every device made and the implementation would never reach a critical mass. Some companies would feel they can stay proprietary and not use the "universal system" because they think they have enough market share by themselves would hamper acceptance as well (think about the past practices of Sony and Apple). It is a shame because it really is a good idea. Back to a cellular phone example. Compare the price and availability of a standard jack (2.5mm 3 tip plug) headset for hands free to a phone that uses some proprietary hands free device with its own connector. Which is cheaper and more readily available? The critical mass has been reached for that specific application and almost every cordless and cellular phone made now uses the same standard. Power adapters for cellular phones are getting to that point but slower.
In summary and to get back on topic
You want to see some ./ people in action? Hop over to google and search for lan party images. Here is a link to get you started.
;)
Be warned, they are not pretty
So when you do send in the all required information, you are considered incompetetent because you did not keep hounding them if you do not receive your rebate? If you have to call and resend or fax the copies you made with the same exact information you sent them the first time, the consumer is not the one with the problem.
Your expectations are too low