My favorite is the machines with digital signatures that the clerk never even sees. I always sign with a false name when I see these things, just to underscore the absurdity of it.
Unless they think I really am Chuck D. I'm sure he often mascarades as a nerdy suburban white boy in a button down. I guess you'd call this "Security of the First World." Hope it doesn't make me a Public Enemy.
Re:Gemstones as investments.
on
The Diamond Age
·
· Score: 3, Informative
And let's not forget where the diamonds come from: slave and near slave labor in the darkest regions on the world, supporting some of the richest men. Diamonds are as bad as indigo and spice in the 18th century. But of course, DeBeers dumps so much money into the television chances are you've never heard of it. Programming that exposes the human rights issues surrounding diamond mining and transportation is like derailing a money train.
Check out the national geographic article on the subject from last year. It's very thorough.
Which is why I couldn't conscionably give my wife a diamond engagement ring (she also flat out told me not to). "Here, a symbol of our love: torture, murder and a massive corporate cartel." I got her a sapphire instead, and let me tell you, 2 months salary buys a HUGE fuck-off sapphire.
I would love to see chemical diamonds more perfect than their foreign counterparts take over the world. I would love to see debeers falter and their practices exposed --- soon as that advertising budget goes away, this will be front page shit. I would love to see the end to strip mining and jacked up monopolies.
Well, 50k is not so bad when you consider the following:
1) Your house is paid for. Your student loans are paid for. I mean, you wouldn't be so crass as to save up a million and then not pay off your debt, would you?
2) You don't need to get a loan for expensive purchases -- you can use a portion of your principle. This can be fairly big. Rates are absurdly low right now -- i've seen car rates at 4% -- but even with that 4%, on a three year loan on a 30,000$ car you're spending 1900 or $50 per month on interest. You reduce your monthly "allowance" from the principle to reflect this loss, but you're still up $50 per month over us shlubs paying for their cars.
3) Because you have cash on hand, you can afford to get a lower deductible for your insurance. Not that you necessarily have to do this, but the difference is often a 50% reduction.
These are pretty big things...housing and transportation are the biggest numbers in everybody's checkbook. My monthly budget for "food, folks and fun" would be nearly one and a half times larger if it weren't for these three things. And I'm living quite comfortable on a bit more than $50k NOW.
Oh come on. You work in a store where you get commission for PC sales. You get a further commission for software tie ins. Someone is looking to buy an inexpensive Linux based PC. Would you:
a) Learn as much as you can about the unit, so that you can get interested parties to buy this machine and enjoy their experience, knowing full well that they will never return to your store once purchasing it as you sell no Linux software
or
b) Try to mask the situation by making the operating system a tie-in, allowing the user to think they are getting a bargain while you are getting more money, as well as a repeat customer grateful for your having "warned them" about the PC's "shortcomings," and having "saved them money"
Well, no wonder you reformed. The windows key is the most positively useful GUI tool on the keyboard! It provides two keystroke access to many of the most common functions:
Window-R: Run menu Window-S: Search menu Window-M: Minimize everything Window-E: Windows Explorer Window-D: Expose desktop (as in, hides windows marked always on top, for hiding porno when the boss is around)
The window key does so much more than just open the start menu. I can't believe that you didn't think to look into it more...what kind of a developer are you that you don't do research before reacting irrationally towards a minor inconvenience?
I want horizontal scrolling so I can increase my easily readable area without buying an 80 column card.
Jokes aside, I don't like word wrap for code and I prefer 4 line indents for readability. Which means things are quickly disappearing off to the right of my screen. I do a lot of HOME and arrow keying which would be much more succinctly done with an analog horizontal scroll. Which means I might be able to lower my resolution from UNGODLY HUGE to MIGHT NOT GIVE ME PERMANENT EYE STAIN.
I've worked out for about ten years. I never really got any bigger than I was in high school. Then, a few months ago, I started a new diet that had mariginally more protein. I felt better, so I started going to the gym more. A month later I'd dropped ten pounds and put on a visible amount of muscle. When I ceased the diet (actually cut out meat for a while), I kept seeing gains. It was the increased activity, not just the diet, that caused the results.
Chemicals or diets or certain exercises are NEVER all it takes to get "big." It's a combination of a huge number of things...and to say just a hormone was all it took is critically simplifying things. It may have helped activate his gains, but he also may have stepped up his weight training because he felt it was working (like with caffeine supplements). He may have been doing things wrong -- I know a LOT of guys (and more girls) at my gym who do things wrong and have for years. They're wasting their money on products like this that will never help them until they learn to lift slower, or more controlled, or with a greater number of reps per set.
Tell casual exercisers that x and x drug causes you to get big and they'll take the drug and start slacking. Which is the opposite of what you want to do. Steroid users get ungodly huge, but they still have to work out...usually even more heavily. Some programs I've heard of require a minimum of 4 hours of strength training per day to do any good at all, and a massive amount of protein...you can take Sweet Tarts with that much exercise and you'll see a gain. Steroids only help you get bigger than your genetics would normally allow, but chances are you aren't at that peak yet.
You forgot about the "constant lifting, proper diet and professional trainer" parts of the equation.
Causation does not equal correlation. It wasn't the feather that made dumbo fly. Draw your own conclusion about the war on terror (run in the same way and by the same people as the highly successful war on drugs).
They have done this already. Google for it. It is a dumb idea, tape decks are absolute crap and the industry should be discouraged from relying on them.
Uh, I run every day with my iPod. Took it out skating with me as well, but got nervous after about the third time I landed on it. Neither of these activitys is counterindicated by the manual...it says "don't drop it," but it's definitely okay for use at the gym.
Whereas I couldn't go running with my Muvo. The power output was so low that I could barely hear the music over my own breathing -- and the sound of WSUK or whatever piece of shit top 40 station they play at my gym.
No, you couldn't. RTFA man. The "royal family" of Sealand are amazingly spineless and their approval is required for any and all new clients.
So yes, while you're right in theory, you're wrong in practice. Because havenco is essentially lying on their AUP. Something almost every shitty hosting company does.
Re:Instead, better choices from current companies?
on
Build-to-Order Cars?
·
· Score: 0
I think my wife would disagree with you. But she always has a controversial opinion of such things.
Wll, I hate to mention this but the car industry is interested in selling cars. All the time. They're not in the business of waiting 20 years for yours to finally break so they can sell you another one at a really, really cheap price.
Styling is the industry's way of trying to get people to pay for the innovations that are allowing cars to run for extended periods without issue. Because if you get tired of it, you'll get a new one even if it's not broken. If they spent the money making the car even more reliable, there's really nothing in it for them. Warranties are going as high as 100,000 miles these days. Their desire is to get your car that far, and anything further is your own worry.
Economy cars have gotten bigger because the tiny little economy cars of the 1980s are deathtraps. Smaller economy cars had no crumple zones, no airbages and were poorly reinforced, which helped lower the cost at the price of, well, you. Besides, improvements in engine technology have today's 120 hp engines getting 20% better economy then your precious Tercel. So why would you want a smaller one? Bigger engine can push bigger (but not too big), safer car more efficiently with more maneuvering speed. Better car!
I drive a 1973 Super Beetle as my second car. It is a tiny thing with a 45 hp engine. My main car is a 3200 lb Passat with a 197 hp engine. The passat gets about 10 mpg better than the beetle, due to fuel injection, turbo charging, higher compression, more efficient transfer and smarter emissions. It's also more comfortable, very reliable (in 100,000 miles, it has only been in the shop for tires and brakes) and I don't think it's ostenateous. Though it is a very nice shade of blue.
If you want a car that's DESIGNED to run forever (instead of a fluke like your Tercel, if you look up the Used Car Buyer's Guide info on that model it's generally considered to be a shitbox), get a Volvo. The average age of retention on those is 16 years, and they price them accordingly. Get a 6 year loan -- they're as low as 4% these days -- and drive a car that's safe as well as long lived.
Why not? My wife is no stronger than your average spindle muscled/. nancy boy, yet she can do 90% of the repairs on her subaru alone. She performs this through the magic of a good compressor and a pipe at the end of a breaker bar.
Though I guess it's fashionable to poo-poo the strength of slashdotters. Like no bodybuilders or professional kickboxers have ever read a fucking website.
What the market really needs is a truly beautiful shell for a relatively low price with a choice of engine sizes ranging from small and fuel efficient to 12 cylinder twin turbo monsters.
VW/Audi has been doing this for year -- several different models of car running from the same chassis with different market sectors. I'm sure other car companies are doing this too, VW/Audi's just the only one I follow.
Right now, they are running with 4 different chassis for pretty much all their cars. The New Beetle/Convertible, Jetta, Golf/GTI, Jetta Wagon and Cabrio all run on a chassis called A4. THey all use the same engine mounts, wheels, shocks, etc. Their more "upscale" autos run on a chassis called B5 or a similar model in aluminum called B6 -- the Passat, A4, S4 and A6. The exterior body is quite different, to accomodate for different engine sizes -- the 4.2 V8 from an A6 would never fit in a B5 trunk, there's no room, but only due to the exoskeleton. But it does mean that the same underpinnings make up cars ranging from 110 hp (the 1.9l TDI) up through 330 (for a nicely tuned 2.7l V6 biturbo).
As for why good looking cars can't be cheaper: well, that would be fairly stupid of the car companies, to not maximize their profits by selling cars for less than what people want to pay for them. If you'll sell the same number of cars for $25k that you do selling them for $32k, why on earth would you take the cheaper rate?
Acutally, very few people perform automotive mods themselves these days. At the track I go to, I'd say 85% of cars are modded the same way by the same hadful of sport dealers. Of course, it's the other 15% that tend to burn them, but most people like the idea of spending a little extra to get it done RIGHT. After all, who wants to drop $5900 on a turbo mod, get halfway through it, and torch the engine? Better to make AAA Autospyd or XXX-trem Grafick Kreations do the work, and take the liability.
Plus, some of these assholes are modding LEASED CARS. You don't want to break your car, that's true, but you SURE AS SHIT don't want to break the bank's car.
Re:Instead, better choices from current companies?
on
Build-to-Order Cars?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Face it, kid. You wanted a Volkswagen. You just didn't know it.
Only car company I know of where, if you want, you can still get a car with a sunroof but no leather, alloys with no chrome or woodgrain package, CD without the premium stereo, and of course a manual transmission WITH all wheel drive (though I think you have to go Audi for that this model year, but it comes with a 6 speed, woo woo) on the fuel efficient 4 cylinder turbo.
I love getting exactly what I want in a car (the huge list of standard options is great too, because I do in fact want keyless entry but if offered the chance to cheap out of paying for it, I would have. Yes, I sometimes like being denied a choice). Of course, this also means that selling one of these cars to somebody used to the stratification of "economy, standard, luxury" is pretty tough. "It's got the sunroof, the computer, the alloys, but no leather? How am I supposed to impress the folks at the country club unless my car smells like a sweaty stockyard?"
Oh. And there are a TON of VW dealers who will order your car for you in exactly the configuration you want, if they don't have it. Capital City VW in NY and Scott VW in RI are two I'm thinking of. You just have to be willing to pay MSRP. That's all. Still cheaper than having the whole thing built on demand i'd guess.
I work in.NET all day long. It is a very complex and expensive way to solve the simple problem of device interaction. Most of the time, you'll save money and heartache by going with a free solution and hiring better developers (yes, I realize that is a self deprecating statement).
Web services and web forms are neat ideas. But if you are a clever developer, and not a button masher, they are sorely limited -- and the API is not designed well if you want to work around them.
As for "seamlessly interacting with partners," this is a crock of horseshit. There is no magic interaction layer with.NET or webservices...it's just code over soap which is xml over http over tcp/ip. Adding the extra layer means having to know an extra layer of crap before you can get things to work, even if it is slightly easier to read an xml schema then documentation on a wire protocol or some RFC. If your partners can't integrate with older, well documented protocols, they're not going to be able to integrate SOAP any easier.
That said, I love.NET. For the IDE, and for C#, which is Visual Basic for people who actually paid attention in college. The combination of the two have really helped me pump out software in record time, with absloutely no help from ado.net ("abstraction" must be another word for "useless slowdown" in redmond).
Yeah, I've got an idea how they're preventing this: it's probably a shitty camera. That's how they prevent re-use of non-digital disposables. Before I bought a real camera, I used to buy a single one shot camera and a few rolls of film when on vacation. It is a simple matter to get the film out of the disposable (which is really just an everyday single lens camera with a carboard wrapper). It was usually pretty simple to wind new film back into the cam. Since I didn't care too much for quality, I basically got a camera for the price of film.
I never kept the camera because it wasn't worth it. Turning in the camera got THAT roll developed for "free" and it wasn't a great camera to start with. A 2 MP camera, in THIS day and age, isn't that good either, especially considering it's probably interpolated from a 1 MP viewable (that's an assumption based on how GODAWFUL cheap $11 is these days).
Slashdot Mirror
Killing a person who has assumed your identity...wouldn't this be suicide? Which is only illegal if you're unsuccessful?
My favorite is the machines with digital signatures that the clerk never even sees. I always sign with a false name when I see these things, just to underscore the absurdity of it.
Unless they think I really am Chuck D. I'm sure he often mascarades as a nerdy suburban white boy in a button down. I guess you'd call this "Security of the First World." Hope it doesn't make me a Public Enemy.
And let's not forget where the diamonds come from: slave and near slave labor in the darkest regions on the world, supporting some of the richest men. Diamonds are as bad as indigo and spice in the 18th century. But of course, DeBeers dumps so much money into the television chances are you've never heard of it. Programming that exposes the human rights issues surrounding diamond mining and transportation is like derailing a money train.
Check out the national geographic article on the subject from last year. It's very thorough.
Which is why I couldn't conscionably give my wife a diamond engagement ring (she also flat out told me not to). "Here, a symbol of our love: torture, murder and a massive corporate cartel." I got her a sapphire instead, and let me tell you, 2 months salary buys a HUGE fuck-off sapphire.
I would love to see chemical diamonds more perfect than their foreign counterparts take over the world. I would love to see debeers falter and their practices exposed --- soon as that advertising budget goes away, this will be front page shit. I would love to see the end to strip mining and jacked up monopolies.
Well, 50k is not so bad when you consider the following:
1) Your house is paid for. Your student loans are paid for. I mean, you wouldn't be so crass as to save up a million and then not pay off your debt, would you?
2) You don't need to get a loan for expensive purchases -- you can use a portion of your principle. This can be fairly big. Rates are absurdly low right now -- i've seen car rates at 4% -- but even with that 4%, on a three year loan on a 30,000$ car you're spending 1900 or $50 per month on interest. You reduce your monthly "allowance" from the principle to reflect this loss, but you're still up $50 per month over us shlubs paying for their cars.
3) Because you have cash on hand, you can afford to get a lower deductible for your insurance. Not that you necessarily have to do this, but the difference is often a 50% reduction.
These are pretty big things...housing and transportation are the biggest numbers in everybody's checkbook. My monthly budget for "food, folks and fun" would be nearly one and a half times larger if it weren't for these three things. And I'm living quite comfortable on a bit more than $50k NOW.
The reason he could not find the counsel is they were on the planet corsucand.
Oh come on. You work in a store where you get commission for PC sales. You get a further commission for software tie ins. Someone is looking to buy an inexpensive Linux based PC. Would you:
a) Learn as much as you can about the unit, so that you can get interested parties to buy this machine and enjoy their experience, knowing full well that they will never return to your store once purchasing it as you sell no Linux software
or
b) Try to mask the situation by making the operating system a tie-in, allowing the user to think they are getting a bargain while you are getting more money, as well as a repeat customer grateful for your having "warned them" about the PC's "shortcomings," and having "saved them money"
Eh, i like litestep, but don't have time (or the admin rights) to play around with alternative desktops.
So i'm stuck with win"blows" 2k. At least I've been able to fend off the conspiracy to install XP on my machine.
Well, no wonder you reformed. The windows key is the most positively useful GUI tool on the keyboard! It provides two keystroke access to many of the most common functions:
Window-R: Run menu
Window-S: Search menu
Window-M: Minimize everything
Window-E: Windows Explorer
Window-D: Expose desktop (as in, hides windows marked always on top, for hiding porno when the boss is around)
The window key does so much more than just open the start menu. I can't believe that you didn't think to look into it more...what kind of a developer are you that you don't do research before reacting irrationally towards a minor inconvenience?
Oh wait. You're in IT now, aren't you?
I want horizontal scrolling so I can increase my easily readable area without buying an 80 column card.
Jokes aside, I don't like word wrap for code and I prefer 4 line indents for readability. Which means things are quickly disappearing off to the right of my screen. I do a lot of HOME and arrow keying which would be much more succinctly done with an analog horizontal scroll. Which means I might be able to lower my resolution from UNGODLY HUGE to MIGHT NOT GIVE ME PERMANENT EYE STAIN.
I've worked out for about ten years. I never really got any bigger than I was in high school. Then, a few months ago, I started a new diet that had mariginally more protein. I felt better, so I started going to the gym more. A month later I'd dropped ten pounds and put on a visible amount of muscle. When I ceased the diet (actually cut out meat for a while), I kept seeing gains. It was the increased activity, not just the diet, that caused the results.
Chemicals or diets or certain exercises are NEVER all it takes to get "big." It's a combination of a huge number of things...and to say just a hormone was all it took is critically simplifying things. It may have helped activate his gains, but he also may have stepped up his weight training because he felt it was working (like with caffeine supplements). He may have been doing things wrong -- I know a LOT of guys (and more girls) at my gym who do things wrong and have for years. They're wasting their money on products like this that will never help them until they learn to lift slower, or more controlled, or with a greater number of reps per set.
Tell casual exercisers that x and x drug causes you to get big and they'll take the drug and start slacking. Which is the opposite of what you want to do. Steroid users get ungodly huge, but they still have to work out...usually even more heavily. Some programs I've heard of require a minimum of 4 hours of strength training per day to do any good at all, and a massive amount of protein...you can take Sweet Tarts with that much exercise and you'll see a gain. Steroids only help you get bigger than your genetics would normally allow, but chances are you aren't at that peak yet.
You forgot about the "constant lifting, proper diet and professional trainer" parts of the equation.
Causation does not equal correlation. It wasn't the feather that made dumbo fly. Draw your own conclusion about the war on terror (run in the same way and by the same people as the highly successful war on drugs).
They have done this already. Google for it. It is a dumb idea, tape decks are absolute crap and the industry should be discouraged from relying on them.
Uh, I run every day with my iPod. Took it out skating with me as well, but got nervous after about the third time I landed on it. Neither of these activitys is counterindicated by the manual...it says "don't drop it," but it's definitely okay for use at the gym.
Whereas I couldn't go running with my Muvo. The power output was so low that I could barely hear the music over my own breathing -- and the sound of WSUK or whatever piece of shit top 40 station they play at my gym.
Does "quirky fellow" mean "complete idiot?"
Now I feel really insulted. I'm always getting called quirky!
No, you couldn't. RTFA man. The "royal family" of Sealand are amazingly spineless and their approval is required for any and all new clients.
So yes, while you're right in theory, you're wrong in practice. Because havenco is essentially lying on their AUP. Something almost every shitty hosting company does.
I think my wife would disagree with you. But she always has a controversial opinion of such things.
Wll, I hate to mention this but the car industry is interested in selling cars. All the time. They're not in the business of waiting 20 years for yours to finally break so they can sell you another one at a really, really cheap price.
Styling is the industry's way of trying to get people to pay for the innovations that are allowing cars to run for extended periods without issue. Because if you get tired of it, you'll get a new one even if it's not broken. If they spent the money making the car even more reliable, there's really nothing in it for them. Warranties are going as high as 100,000 miles these days. Their desire is to get your car that far, and anything further is your own worry.
Economy cars have gotten bigger because the tiny little economy cars of the 1980s are deathtraps. Smaller economy cars had no crumple zones, no airbages and were poorly reinforced, which helped lower the cost at the price of, well, you. Besides, improvements in engine technology have today's 120 hp engines getting 20% better economy then your precious Tercel. So why would you want a smaller one? Bigger engine can push bigger (but not too big), safer car more efficiently with more maneuvering speed. Better car!
I drive a 1973 Super Beetle as my second car. It is a tiny thing with a 45 hp engine. My main car is a 3200 lb Passat with a 197 hp engine. The passat gets about 10 mpg better than the beetle, due to fuel injection, turbo charging, higher compression, more efficient transfer and smarter emissions. It's also more comfortable, very reliable (in 100,000 miles, it has only been in the shop for tires and brakes) and I don't think it's ostenateous. Though it is a very nice shade of blue.
If you want a car that's DESIGNED to run forever (instead of a fluke like your Tercel, if you look up the Used Car Buyer's Guide info on that model it's generally considered to be a shitbox), get a Volvo. The average age of retention on those is 16 years, and they price them accordingly. Get a 6 year loan -- they're as low as 4% these days -- and drive a car that's safe as well as long lived.
Why not? My wife is no stronger than your average spindle muscled /. nancy boy, yet she can do 90% of the repairs on her subaru alone. She performs this through the magic of a good compressor and a pipe at the end of a breaker bar.
Though I guess it's fashionable to poo-poo the strength of slashdotters. Like no bodybuilders or professional kickboxers have ever read a fucking website.
What the market really needs is a truly beautiful shell for a relatively low price with a choice of engine sizes ranging from small and fuel efficient to 12 cylinder twin turbo monsters.
VW/Audi has been doing this for year -- several different models of car running from the same chassis with different market sectors. I'm sure other car companies are doing this too, VW/Audi's just the only one I follow.
Right now, they are running with 4 different chassis for pretty much all their cars. The New Beetle/Convertible, Jetta, Golf/GTI, Jetta Wagon and Cabrio all run on a chassis called A4. THey all use the same engine mounts, wheels, shocks, etc. Their more "upscale" autos run on a chassis called B5 or a similar model in aluminum called B6 -- the Passat, A4, S4 and A6. The exterior body is quite different, to accomodate for different engine sizes -- the 4.2 V8 from an A6 would never fit in a B5 trunk, there's no room, but only due to the exoskeleton. But it does mean that the same underpinnings make up cars ranging from 110 hp (the 1.9l TDI) up through 330 (for a nicely tuned 2.7l V6 biturbo).
As for why good looking cars can't be cheaper: well, that would be fairly stupid of the car companies, to not maximize their profits by selling cars for less than what people want to pay for them. If you'll sell the same number of cars for $25k that you do selling them for $32k, why on earth would you take the cheaper rate?
Acutally, very few people perform automotive mods themselves these days. At the track I go to, I'd say 85% of cars are modded the same way by the same hadful of sport dealers. Of course, it's the other 15% that tend to burn them, but most people like the idea of spending a little extra to get it done RIGHT. After all, who wants to drop $5900 on a turbo mod, get halfway through it, and torch the engine? Better to make AAA Autospyd or XXX-trem Grafick Kreations do the work, and take the liability.
Plus, some of these assholes are modding LEASED CARS. You don't want to break your car, that's true, but you SURE AS SHIT don't want to break the bank's car.
Face it, kid. You wanted a Volkswagen. You just didn't know it.
Only car company I know of where, if you want, you can still get a car with a sunroof but no leather, alloys with no chrome or woodgrain package, CD without the premium stereo, and of course a manual transmission WITH all wheel drive (though I think you have to go Audi for that this model year, but it comes with a 6 speed, woo woo) on the fuel efficient 4 cylinder turbo.
I love getting exactly what I want in a car (the huge list of standard options is great too, because I do in fact want keyless entry but if offered the chance to cheap out of paying for it, I would have. Yes, I sometimes like being denied a choice). Of course, this also means that selling one of these cars to somebody used to the stratification of "economy, standard, luxury" is pretty tough. "It's got the sunroof, the computer, the alloys, but no leather? How am I supposed to impress the folks at the country club unless my car smells like a sweaty stockyard?"
Oh. And there are a TON of VW dealers who will order your car for you in exactly the configuration you want, if they don't have it. Capital City VW in NY and Scott VW in RI are two I'm thinking of. You just have to be willing to pay MSRP. That's all. Still cheaper than having the whole thing built on demand i'd guess.
I work in .NET all day long. It is a very complex and expensive way to solve the simple problem of device interaction. Most of the time, you'll save money and heartache by going with a free solution and hiring better developers (yes, I realize that is a self deprecating statement).
.NET or webservices...it's just code over soap which is xml over http over tcp/ip. Adding the extra layer means having to know an extra layer of crap before you can get things to work, even if it is slightly easier to read an xml schema then documentation on a wire protocol or some RFC. If your partners can't integrate with older, well documented protocols, they're not going to be able to integrate SOAP any easier.
.NET. For the IDE, and for C#, which is Visual Basic for people who actually paid attention in college. The combination of the two have really helped me pump out software in record time, with absloutely no help from ado.net ("abstraction" must be another word for "useless slowdown" in redmond).
Web services and web forms are neat ideas. But if you are a clever developer, and not a button masher, they are sorely limited -- and the API is not designed well if you want to work around them.
As for "seamlessly interacting with partners," this is a crock of horseshit. There is no magic interaction layer with
That said, I love
One word, Mexico!
Which, if you "buy American," is probably where your car was assembled, from Japanese parts.
Ahhhhh. So the target audience is "idiots."
I'm mistaken. I *IS* a good business model.
Yeah, I've got an idea how they're preventing this: it's probably a shitty camera. That's how they prevent re-use of non-digital disposables. Before I bought a real camera, I used to buy a single one shot camera and a few rolls of film when on vacation. It is a simple matter to get the film out of the disposable (which is really just an everyday single lens camera with a carboard wrapper). It was usually pretty simple to wind new film back into the cam. Since I didn't care too much for quality, I basically got a camera for the price of film.
I never kept the camera because it wasn't worth it. Turning in the camera got THAT roll developed for "free" and it wasn't a great camera to start with. A 2 MP camera, in THIS day and age, isn't that good either, especially considering it's probably interpolated from a 1 MP viewable (that's an assumption based on how GODAWFUL cheap $11 is these days).