Are you saying that no government regulation was necessary during that period? For example, without the Pure Food and Drug Act, the meat industry would have naturally corrected itself based on market forces? Pardon the pun, but it seems difficult to swallow after what was (eventually) proven true in Sinclair's The Jungle.
Whether the FDA and other agencies have grown too large is a different issue. Some regulation will always be necessary because the basis of capitalism is growing profit by any means necessary. Having regulations changes that to "by any legal means necessary".
How about ZFS with your RAID controllers in single drive mode (or worst case JBOD)? Let ZFS handle the vdevs as mirrors or raidz1/2 as you wish. ZFSforLinux is rapidly maturing and definitely stable enough for a home nas. Or go the OpenIndiana route if that's what you're comfortable with.
My 4TB setup has actually been a joy to maintain since committing to ZFS, with BTRFS waiting in the wings. The only downside is biting the bullet and using modern CPUs and 4-8GB memory. Recommissioning old hardware isn't the ideal way to go, ymmv.
Then that's simply buyer's remorse, same as overpaying for any product or service and regretting it later. Which is tough luck to them, they should have negotiated better or just picked one of the other 100 TLDs. Having said that, $1200 isn't unreasonable and is below par with average domain sales these days listed at dnjournal.com.
What you're really implying is that it was extortion which would be criminal. It's not, they could have simply registered the domain before the seller did.
So whether you personally like the free market system or not has no bearing on the reality of how macroeconomics works. Supply/demand, scarcity of resources and all that.
The seller offered it for sale, your employer wanted it and obviously thought the price was fair enough. So they bought it. The profit margin is of no significance, only that the buyer and seller got what they wanted.
No different than any other transaction of goods or services in a capitalistic scenario.
1) Parked domains rarely show up in indexes. Google filters them heavily. The only way to get to one is through direct navigation. Like if someone wants to buy car parts, they type in "carparts.com". Then they click a link and get the result they were looking for. There's no "harm" or "screwing" involved unless the click was fraudulent. The domain owner has no control over that unless they're stupid enough to click it themselves. Then they get caught, have their parking account banned and the payment gets clawed back.
2) The state of physical property is completely different than domains. Someone parking "carz.com" has absolutely no effect on the owner of "cars.com".
Bottom line is that parking is a minor issue that you guys are blowing way out of proportion. The real issue was how the scammers were buying parking accounts and defrauding the advertiser. Direct your rage where it belongs, the advertiser getting screwed directly by the scammer, not the guy who parks his domain.
Sounds like you're unhappy about the situation. Out here in the real world it's called capitalism.
And I'd bet the you'd feel much differently if you owned a multi-million dollar domain like beautiful.com. But you can't because P&G registered it back in 1995 and has been using a worthless redirect on it ever since then. Since they're hurting society by hogging the domain, maybe if you ask nicely they'll transfer it to you at no charge?
Btw there's actually a phrase for what you're feeling: "domain envy". It's no different than those that lament not buying MSFT back in the early '90s.
Let's say you own "redcars.com" and have it parked with Google, Parklogic or other parking service. The PPC ads shown on the site are from Google or Yahoo ad feeds that were negotiated by the parking company. You get a portion of the revenue generated when a legitimate click occurs, the parking company gets some and the feed provider keeps the rest. If using Adsense for Domains then Google keeps the latter two cuts.
The scammers will offer you $1000 for your account at the parking company. You agree, take the money and give the scammer your login info.
They then push fake traffic to the domain, run up the clicks and collect the proceeds from the parking company. The parking company then gets stuck with unhappy customers (advertisers) from the ad feed which affects their revenue. Ideally the scammer is long gone and has collected more money in parking revenue than it cost to buy the account.
The owner of Parklogic (Michael Gilmour) wrote a series of articles exposing this. The scammers retaliated.
"Domainers" have nothing to do *directly* with the scam. But some do take the $1-3k payoff without realizing what exactly is going on.
There is a huge difference between a "registrar" and "registry". If a registrar charges $9 for a domain registration, they pay around $7.50 to the registry (Verisign) and ICANN. The $1.50 is the registrar's profit, no more. The $7.50 is used by the registry to maintain infrastructure for DNS, etc. So there is no way for a registrar to register a domain for 20 cents.
What you may be thinking of is "tasting". In that case the domain could be "returned" for a small fee after parking for a week or so. But that was reigned in and essentially eliminated last year.
That's incorrect and overly inflammatory. Parklogic serves as a middleman between advertiser feeds and domain owners who wish to display a parked page. He may also own domain names but his company serves as a parking platform beyond any of those personal domains.
They maintain the server infrastructure, negotiate contracts with advertiser feeds from Google, Yahoo, etc. Same with Whypark, Sedo and many others. As a matter of fact, Google offers the exact same service if you're willing to use their DNS.
Also, there is a difference between parking "cellphones.com" and "verzion.com". One is a perfectly legitimate generic and the other is typosquatting (profiting off a trademarked term). The latter can be claimed via the UDRP process, Verizon is not at the mercy of a squatter in any way. Trademark holders can also file federal lawsuits.
You may disagree that the owner of "cellphones.com" should profit from the domain. That's equivalent to thinking that a property owner should not be able to profit through renting to others in a free market (btw, domains are considered property). But at least recognize that there is a clear distinction between "sewer scum" and legitimate domain owners that choose to use a domain as they see fit.
There are candelabra torpedo CFLs that don't look too bad (try 1000bulbs or similar site). The problem is the height @5.25in (for 40-60w) not fitting in certain fixtures. Plus the bulkiness factor, although I've become accustomed to them where they did fit.
There are also spiral 4" 60W bulbs that will fit space limited fixtures which aren't too noticeable, like in a ceiling mounted fixture. I put a set of warm white x4 in the kitchen as a test and the light output is more than satisfactory. The good ones have little noticeable warmup time. But aesthetically they only work for out-of-the-way locations like ceilings.
Even then passing the initial wife test involves her not seeing the fixture with the bulbs turned off. Otherwise it's game over before it started.
Like it or not, Palin and Bachmann are the face of the party. Mostly due to their numerous appearances on a certain cable news station that is "friendly" to their positions.
Willing to bet that most folks would find it difficult to come up with another name that's readily associated with the Tea Party.
Simply put, squatting is limited to registering vreizon.com then putting up cell phone ads. Wanting cars.com just because you want it, doesn't make the owner a squatter (even if the domain is parked or has no content). Nor is the person who registers a domain, then someone else comes along and files a trademark on the term for UDRP purposes.
Similar to real estate, domain names are property and operate under the concept of capitalism.
Domain names are IP not RP. Economically speaking, it is very different from real estate. Real estate is finite, expensive, and owned permanently unless transferred. Domain names are infinite, cheap, and are only available for rent.
It seems like almost every English dictionary word is registered as a domain right now. Any domain that expires is immediately snatched up by squatters. This is an unfortunate problem.
Btw, you can do the same as the "squatters". Just go to namejet.com or snapnames.com and bid for the names you want. There's nothing magical about the process, when a name drops it goes into auction. If it's a good name then expect to pay many thousands of dollars to outbid the others that want it. Doesn't get more fair than that.
And even if you applied for a trademark after the fact, (theoretically) it holds no water in the UDRP process.
The UDRP process is almost exclusively based on trademarks. While I'm not aware of any specific cases, it seems unlikely that a trademark holder would be denied the right to a domain against a squatter who had no trademark at all.
For reference, scan through dnw.com sometime (not my site). UDRPs are denied all the time because the claimant registers a trademark on a term, then tries to hijack the exact match domain from someone who registered the domain name earlier. As a matter of fact, there is a penalty for such behavior called 'reverse domain name hijacking'. Unfortunately it's not enforced enough.
Domains are valuable. If you want to direct your frustration at anyone, direct it at the corps and deep pockets that are trying to corrupt the whole process. If you own a good name you're automatically a target for defending it. And all the costs associated with the defense.
That's not squatting. And even if you applied for a trademark after the fact, (theoretically) it holds no water in the UDRP process.
Bottom line is if someone else registered the domain first, then you can either make him/her an offer to buy it, or pick another one. Similar to real estate, domain names are property and operate under the concept of capitalism.
FYI, that link is for an older edition of "Computer Networks". The fifth edition was published last year. For those interested, search Amazon for ISBN 0132126958.
Agree, I started scanning with a Scansnap 500 back in 2008. Definitely correct about the filing software; it's an ancient MFC app but it works nicely. So I use a dedicated VM (Win XP) for it since I wasn't able to get it to run in Wine reliably. Scans are then stored on the host ubuntu machine and accessed through a networked drive. Maybe they've updated to a more cross-platform solution, haven't checked in a long time.
Now everything gets scanned on it, from bills to old books, then shredded. There's barely a bit of paper around the house anymore.
Nightly cron+rsync packs the docs into a tar, then stored with regular backups daily, and a truecrypt version on Amazon S3 monthly. Since the storage+transmission costs are less than $35/year, paying for storing stuff I'll never need to see again on S3 isn't a problem. It's more effort to cull the old than to just keep it in the archive. The key is to set up the filing binders intelligently in the beginning so stuff is (realistically) accessible when needed.
For reference, 40,000 pages is only about 8GB with average settings (no OCR, etc.). Pick+rollers runs $50 every 25k sheets iirc.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you saying that no government regulation was necessary during that period? For example, without the Pure Food and Drug Act, the meat industry would have naturally corrected itself based on market forces? Pardon the pun, but it seems difficult to swallow after what was (eventually) proven true in Sinclair's The Jungle.
Whether the FDA and other agencies have grown too large is a different issue. Some regulation will always be necessary because the basis of capitalism is growing profit by any means necessary. Having regulations changes that to "by any legal means necessary".
The Wikipedia entry for 'pleonasm' is over 3000 words long.
How about ZFS with your RAID controllers in single drive mode (or worst case JBOD)? Let ZFS handle the vdevs as mirrors or raidz1/2 as you wish. ZFSforLinux is rapidly maturing and definitely stable enough for a home nas. Or go the OpenIndiana route if that's what you're comfortable with.
My 4TB setup has actually been a joy to maintain since committing to ZFS, with BTRFS waiting in the wings. The only downside is biting the bullet and using modern CPUs and 4-8GB memory. Recommissioning old hardware isn't the ideal way to go, ymmv.
Just a thought.
Then that's simply buyer's remorse, same as overpaying for any product or service and regretting it later. Which is tough luck to them, they should have negotiated better or just picked one of the other 100 TLDs. Having said that, $1200 isn't unreasonable and is below par with average domain sales these days listed at dnjournal.com.
What you're really implying is that it was extortion which would be criminal. It's not, they could have simply registered the domain before the seller did.
So whether you personally like the free market system or not has no bearing on the reality of how macroeconomics works. Supply/demand, scarcity of resources and all that.
The seller offered it for sale, your employer wanted it and obviously thought the price was fair enough. So they bought it. The profit margin is of no significance, only that the buyer and seller got what they wanted.
No different than any other transaction of goods or services in a capitalistic scenario.
1) Parked domains rarely show up in indexes. Google filters them heavily. The only way to get to one is through direct navigation. Like if someone wants to buy car parts, they type in "carparts.com". Then they click a link and get the result they were looking for. There's no "harm" or "screwing" involved unless the click was fraudulent. The domain owner has no control over that unless they're stupid enough to click it themselves. Then they get caught, have their parking account banned and the payment gets clawed back.
2) The state of physical property is completely different than domains. Someone parking "carz.com" has absolutely no effect on the owner of "cars.com".
Bottom line is that parking is a minor issue that you guys are blowing way out of proportion. The real issue was how the scammers were buying parking accounts and defrauding the advertiser. Direct your rage where it belongs, the advertiser getting screwed directly by the scammer, not the guy who parks his domain.
Sounds like you're unhappy about the situation. Out here in the real world it's called capitalism.
And I'd bet the you'd feel much differently if you owned a multi-million dollar domain like beautiful.com. But you can't because P&G registered it back in 1995 and has been using a worthless redirect on it ever since then. Since they're hurting society by hogging the domain, maybe if you ask nicely they'll transfer it to you at no charge?
Btw there's actually a phrase for what you're feeling: "domain envy". It's no different than those that lament not buying MSFT back in the early '90s.
Let's say you own "redcars.com" and have it parked with Google, Parklogic or other parking service. The PPC ads shown on the site are from Google or Yahoo ad feeds that were negotiated by the parking company. You get a portion of the revenue generated when a legitimate click occurs, the parking company gets some and the feed provider keeps the rest. If using Adsense for Domains then Google keeps the latter two cuts.
The scammers will offer you $1000 for your account at the parking company. You agree, take the money and give the scammer your login info.
They then push fake traffic to the domain, run up the clicks and collect the proceeds from the parking company. The parking company then gets stuck with unhappy customers (advertisers) from the ad feed which affects their revenue. Ideally the scammer is long gone and has collected more money in parking revenue than it cost to buy the account.
The owner of Parklogic (Michael Gilmour) wrote a series of articles exposing this. The scammers retaliated.
"Domainers" have nothing to do *directly* with the scam. But some do take the $1-3k payoff without realizing what exactly is going on.
There is a huge difference between a "registrar" and "registry". If a registrar charges $9 for a domain registration, they pay around $7.50 to the registry (Verisign) and ICANN. The $1.50 is the registrar's profit, no more. The $7.50 is used by the registry to maintain infrastructure for DNS, etc. So there is no way for a registrar to register a domain for 20 cents.
What you may be thinking of is "tasting". In that case the domain could be "returned" for a small fee after parking for a week or so. But that was reigned in and essentially eliminated last year.
That's incorrect and overly inflammatory. Parklogic serves as a middleman between advertiser feeds and domain owners who wish to display a parked page. He may also own domain names but his company serves as a parking platform beyond any of those personal domains.
They maintain the server infrastructure, negotiate contracts with advertiser feeds from Google, Yahoo, etc. Same with Whypark, Sedo and many others. As a matter of fact, Google offers the exact same service if you're willing to use their DNS.
Also, there is a difference between parking "cellphones.com" and "verzion.com". One is a perfectly legitimate generic and the other is typosquatting (profiting off a trademarked term). The latter can be claimed via the UDRP process, Verizon is not at the mercy of a squatter in any way. Trademark holders can also file federal lawsuits.
You may disagree that the owner of "cellphones.com" should profit from the domain. That's equivalent to thinking that a property owner should not be able to profit through renting to others in a free market (btw, domains are considered property). But at least recognize that there is a clear distinction between "sewer scum" and legitimate domain owners that choose to use a domain as they see fit.
Is that Klingon for "stick with Gmail"?
Do you have the ISBN or author for that textbook? TIA.
True, but it's still much less than the 300+% efficiency (i.e. coefficient of performance) you get from powering from a heat pump.
There are candelabra torpedo CFLs that don't look too bad (try 1000bulbs or similar site). The problem is the height @5.25in (for 40-60w) not fitting in certain fixtures. Plus the bulkiness factor, although I've become accustomed to them where they did fit.
There are also spiral 4" 60W bulbs that will fit space limited fixtures which aren't too noticeable, like in a ceiling mounted fixture. I put a set of warm white x4 in the kitchen as a test and the light output is more than satisfactory. The good ones have little noticeable warmup time. But aesthetically they only work for out-of-the-way locations like ceilings.
Even then passing the initial wife test involves her not seeing the fixture with the bulbs turned off. Otherwise it's game over before it started.
Like it or not, Palin and Bachmann are the face of the party. Mostly due to their numerous appearances on a certain cable news station that is "friendly" to their positions.
Willing to bet that most folks would find it difficult to come up with another name that's readily associated with the Tea Party.
Hypothesis: Dickishness is directly proportional to the speed of a person's internet connection.
Conclusion: Proven. Elevate to theory.
Suing in the nude?
With super hot paralegals of course.
Bravo.
There's something oddly recursive about that statement.
Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
That's not squatting.
What isn't squatting?
Simply put, squatting is limited to registering vreizon.com then putting up cell phone ads. Wanting cars.com just because you want it, doesn't make the owner a squatter (even if the domain is parked or has no content). Nor is the person who registers a domain, then someone else comes along and files a trademark on the term for UDRP purposes.
Similar to real estate, domain names are property and operate under the concept of capitalism.
Domain names are IP not RP. Economically speaking, it is very different from real estate. Real estate is finite, expensive, and owned permanently unless transferred. Domain names are infinite, cheap, and are only available for rent.
It seems like almost every English dictionary word is registered as a domain right now. Any domain that expires is immediately snatched up by squatters. This is an unfortunate problem.
I was speaking in terms of how the courts view domains:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-223597.html
More recently, where all this is headed:
http://www.domainnamenews.com/legal-issues/are-domain-names-considered-property-or-not/2917
Btw, you can do the same as the "squatters". Just go to namejet.com or snapnames.com and bid for the names you want. There's nothing magical about the process, when a name drops it goes into auction. If it's a good name then expect to pay many thousands of dollars to outbid the others that want it. Doesn't get more fair than that.
And even if you applied for a trademark after the fact, (theoretically) it holds no water in the UDRP process.
The UDRP process is almost exclusively based on trademarks. While I'm not aware of any specific cases, it seems unlikely that a trademark holder would be denied the right to a domain against a squatter who had no trademark at all.
For reference, scan through dnw.com sometime (not my site). UDRPs are denied all the time because the claimant registers a trademark on a term, then tries to hijack the exact match domain from someone who registered the domain name earlier. As a matter of fact, there is a penalty for such behavior called 'reverse domain name hijacking'. Unfortunately it's not enforced enough.
Domains are valuable. If you want to direct your frustration at anyone, direct it at the corps and deep pockets that are trying to corrupt the whole process. If you own a good name you're automatically a target for defending it. And all the costs associated with the defense.
That's not squatting. And even if you applied for a trademark after the fact, (theoretically) it holds no water in the UDRP process.
Bottom line is if someone else registered the domain first, then you can either make him/her an offer to buy it, or pick another one. Similar to real estate, domain names are property and operate under the concept of capitalism.
Luckily there are mod points for insightful.
FYI, that link is for an older edition of "Computer Networks". The fifth edition was published last year. For those interested, search Amazon for ISBN 0132126958.
A fair and insightful review. Next time you get a machine with an Nvidia card, give it another try. Makes a difference.
Agree, I started scanning with a Scansnap 500 back in 2008. Definitely correct about the filing software; it's an ancient MFC app but it works nicely. So I use a dedicated VM (Win XP) for it since I wasn't able to get it to run in Wine reliably. Scans are then stored on the host ubuntu machine and accessed through a networked drive. Maybe they've updated to a more cross-platform solution, haven't checked in a long time.
Now everything gets scanned on it, from bills to old books, then shredded. There's barely a bit of paper around the house anymore.
Nightly cron+rsync packs the docs into a tar, then stored with regular backups daily, and a truecrypt version on Amazon S3 monthly. Since the storage+transmission costs are less than $35/year, paying for storing stuff I'll never need to see again on S3 isn't a problem. It's more effort to cull the old than to just keep it in the archive. The key is to set up the filing binders intelligently in the beginning so stuff is (realistically) accessible when needed.
For reference, 40,000 pages is only about 8GB with average settings (no OCR, etc.). Pick+rollers runs $50 every 25k sheets iirc.