"All stores have better credit offerings than Visa and Mastercard anyway."
No they don't. Stores offer their own credit cards for people who aren't qualified to get a Visa or Mastercard (and that's saying something). This is reflected in the super-high interest rates that store cards feature.
The second problem with store cards is that they're only good at a particular store, or related stores. You're better off having one credit card that works everywhere, rather than having a myriad of cards which just makes you look less creditworthy for situations where you really need to borrow (ie mortgage, car loan).
To chime in here...do the above and MAKE SURE YOU PUT THE CD ON YOUR CREDIT CARD. CC companies do not like chargebacks. Make the retailers hurt for selling defective merchandise.
"I'm probably being cynical, but I wouldn't be surpised if the tax deductions were more valuable to the company than the money spent pressing and storing the extra CDs."
Just a bit cynical:) There is no wrangling involved, just normal accounting. The cost to produce your product, regardless of how many items you sell, is your cost of goods sold (CGS). It's all tax deductible. That's how it works for any business that sells things. For a service business, CGS is typically the salaries you pay to your professional staff.
When it's all said and done, excess inventory means your costs were too high and you won't make as much money, so I don't think they would like it.
I did a little math recently and found that if I got DirecTV but kept the cable modem, I'd save about $15 a month - and that considers that Comcast would raise my cable modem fee by $10/mo for doing so. I'd get the same channels I have now (all the basic ones + 7 channels of HBO).
I guess the savings would depend upon your cable company and channel packages you want to get.
If the cable company thinks they can successfully charge me $10 extra per month for extra IP addresses ($5 per extra address: gf's comp + Tivo), they're crazy. Here is what will happen:
1. Cable gets cut - no more basic + digital package + cable modem: Cable Co will lose $115/mo
"Corps are the opposite of family owned businesses."
Wrong...most corps *are* family-owned businesses. Only a small number(about 12,000 or so) are the publicly-traded behemoths that you read about in the paper. However, it is those behemoths doing most of the damage to our land and culture.
"Why does the vision of the future have to be so passified? Why can't it be kind of rugged? I'd feel pretty damned fruity (ala Ed Begly Jr) driving around in one of these plastic-turds."
Maybe because more of us are confident in our sexuality and no longer need gas-guzzling penis extensions? Just a thought...
That's what I thought until I read about the case...apparently the coffee was a shitload hotter than what one would normally expect to be "hot coffee." Hence, the burns, skin grafts, etc.
More details on the BeOS issue from their press release:
MENLO PARK, Calif. -- February 19, 2002 -- Be Incorporated (NASDAQ:BEOS) announced today it has filed suit against Microsoft Corporation for the destruction of Be's business resulting from the anticompetitive business practices of Microsoft. The lawsuit alleges, among other claims, that Microsoft harmed Be through a series of illegal exclusionary and anticompetitive acts designed to maintain its monopoly in the Intel-compatible PC operating system market and created exclusive dealing arrangements with PC OEMs prohibiting the sale of PCs with multiple preinstalled operating systems. Be has retained the law firm of Susman Godfrey L.L.P. on a contingent fee basis to represent Be and to seek recovery of damages for the benefit of the company and its stockholders. The suit has been filed in the United States District Court in San Francisco.
I *highly* recommend reading the lawsuit filing brief, as it outlines in great detail exactly what MS did to Be, ranging from restrictive OEM deals to manipulation of the market for Be's stock that would make Martha Stewart look like a saint.
You know, I'm really busy at work today, but I felt compelled to reply to this. Sure, they disappeared in 1985, but if they have future selves living in the future with kids and all, that obviously means that they came back to the present (1985) eventually. I don't see any holes in the plot here...
was the Tengen version of Tetris that came in the snazzy black cartridge that all Tengen games came in. Nintendo tried to put the clamps on Tengen because they refused to get licenses to make games for the NES.
As a result, I remember that game being very hard to acquire even way back when. It would typically go for $100 at Funco...back when Funco only existed as a mail order company that advertised in the gaming mags.
Just to butress the above poster...the big hair went out in the 1980s and with the exception of the far northeastern corner next to NYC, no one has a squawky accent. Most of state's land is farms and forests.
Some of those cars probably did have numberplates (license plates), but they were only on the back. Different states have different rules. I know that Illinois and Pennsylvania only require plates on the back. In my home state of New Jersey, you must have them on both sides and a tax disc (actually a square) on your inner windshield. If you're a New Jersey resident with only one license plate on, you are very likely to get pulled over.
It sounds like Amazon has patented what amounts to the mail order business of sending a product to an address other than your own? Didn't Sears figure out how to do this in the fscking 1800's?!?!
Come one, there *must* be a mail order industry group willing to initiate a lawsuit against them for this phony patent.
"not legal. The EULA specifically says it's legally bound to the hardware it was bought with"
IANAL, but in the valuation of a partnership for estate or gift tax filing purposes, if a partnership agreement (a contract) has terms that are more restrictive than the default statutes where the parternship was formed, then those restrictive terms are invalid - and we're talking about real contracts that you actually have to sign here.
I wonder if a similar parallel or precedent has ever been established in the realm of copyrights...that is, has a court ever thrown out a EULA because its terms were more restrictive than standard copyright law? Any lawyers care to comment?
My dad almost clicked on one and he was running BeOS, with its very distinctive short, yellow tabs...a newbie is going to be fooled no matter what OS you put on his computer.
At work one day, I had to spend five minutes convincing someone that those popups were fake error messages and that there was nothing to worry about.
It's pretty safe to assume that everyone here on/. knows the score, but you would be amazed at the general ignorance of society at large when it comes to computers, the internet & everything related - they don't know anything other than the crap that is spoon-fed to them.
I don't know anything about the tech behind it, but it is quite possible to detect what radio station you are tuned into. Supposedly, some ratings services go out in vans with antennas and take a measure of what stations people in cars listen to.
Perhaps our UK friends can help here...doesn't the BBC use a similar technology to find people who aren't paying their TV license fee? I saw this happen on The Young Ones once.
"The doctor, who is, for all intents and purposes, not there?"
The doctor is there and is fully responsible for anything that goes wrong. Don't forget that this robot is nothing more than a tool chosen by the doctor.
Slashdot Mirror
"All stores have better credit offerings than Visa and Mastercard anyway."
No they don't. Stores offer their own credit cards for people who aren't qualified to get a Visa or Mastercard (and that's saying something). This is reflected in the super-high interest rates that store cards feature.
The second problem with store cards is that they're only good at a particular store, or related stores. You're better off having one credit card that works everywhere, rather than having a myriad of cards which just makes you look less creditworthy for situations where you really need to borrow (ie mortgage, car loan).
To chime in here...do the above and MAKE SURE YOU PUT THE CD ON YOUR CREDIT CARD. CC companies do not like chargebacks. Make the retailers hurt for selling defective merchandise.
"I'm probably being cynical, but I wouldn't be surpised if the tax deductions were more valuable to the company than the money spent pressing and storing the extra CDs."
:) There is no wrangling involved, just normal accounting. The cost to produce your product, regardless of how many items you sell, is your cost of goods sold (CGS). It's all tax deductible. That's how it works for any business that sells things. For a service business, CGS is typically the salaries you pay to your professional staff.
Just a bit cynical
When it's all said and done, excess inventory means your costs were too high and you won't make as much money, so I don't think they would like it.
You act as if "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (2001) was never made!
I did a little math recently and found that if I got DirecTV but kept the cable modem, I'd save about $15 a month - and that considers that Comcast would raise my cable modem fee by $10/mo for doing so. I'd get the same channels I have now (all the basic ones + 7 channels of HBO).
I guess the savings would depend upon your cable company and channel packages you want to get.
If the cable company thinks they can successfully charge me $10 extra per month for extra IP addresses ($5 per extra address: gf's comp + Tivo), they're crazy. Here is what will happen:
1. Cable gets cut - no more basic + digital package + cable modem: Cable Co will lose $115/mo
2. Mini-dish goes up and DSL comes in.
Your .sig is incorrect - You *do* know that OS X is based on FreeBSD and not Linux, right?
"Corps are the opposite of family owned businesses."
Wrong...most corps *are* family-owned businesses. Only a small number(about 12,000 or so) are the publicly-traded behemoths that you read about in the paper. However, it is those behemoths doing most of the damage to our land and culture.
"Why does the vision of the future have to be so passified? Why can't it be kind of rugged? I'd feel pretty damned fruity (ala Ed Begly Jr) driving around in one of these plastic-turds."
Maybe because more of us are confident in our sexuality and no longer need gas-guzzling penis extensions? Just a thought...
He was probably also the first kid in his class to get a leather jacket and got kicked out of high school after the 12th grade.
..does that mean the drinks are "Free?"
That's what I thought until I read about the case...apparently the coffee was a shitload hotter than what one would normally expect to be "hot coffee." Hence, the burns, skin grafts, etc.
More details on the BeOS issue from their press release:
MENLO PARK, Calif. -- February 19, 2002 -- Be Incorporated (NASDAQ:BEOS) announced today it has filed suit against Microsoft Corporation for the destruction of Be's business resulting from the anticompetitive business practices of Microsoft. The lawsuit alleges, among other claims, that Microsoft harmed Be through a series of illegal exclusionary and anticompetitive acts designed to maintain its monopoly in the Intel-compatible PC operating system market and created exclusive dealing arrangements with PC OEMs prohibiting the sale of PCs with multiple preinstalled operating systems. Be has retained the law firm of Susman Godfrey L.L.P. on a contingent fee basis to represent Be and to seek recovery of damages for the benefit of the company and its stockholders. The suit has been filed in the United States District Court in San Francisco.
Here is a link to the filing brief (pdf file): http://www.beincorporated.com/msft_complaint.pdf
I *highly* recommend reading the lawsuit filing brief, as it outlines in great detail exactly what MS did to Be, ranging from restrictive OEM deals to manipulation of the market for Be's stock that would make Martha Stewart look like a saint.
You know, I'm really busy at work today, but I felt compelled to reply to this. Sure, they disappeared in 1985, but if they have future selves living in the future with kids and all, that obviously means that they came back to the present (1985) eventually. I don't see any holes in the plot here...
was the Tengen version of Tetris that came in the snazzy black cartridge that all Tengen games came in. Nintendo tried to put the clamps on Tengen because they refused to get licenses to make games for the NES.
As a result, I remember that game being very hard to acquire even way back when. It would typically go for $100 at Funco...back when Funco only existed as a mail order company that advertised in the gaming mags.
Just to butress the above poster...the big hair went out in the 1980s and with the exception of the far northeastern corner next to NYC, no one has a squawky accent. Most of state's land is farms and forests.
In Soviet Russia, the screen saves YOU!
Some of those cars probably did have numberplates (license plates), but they were only on the back. Different states have different rules. I know that Illinois and Pennsylvania only require plates on the back. In my home state of New Jersey, you must have them on both sides and a tax disc (actually a square) on your inner windshield. If you're a New Jersey resident with only one license plate on, you are very likely to get pulled over.
Why put access points on birds when we have RFC 1149?
It sounds like Amazon has patented what amounts to the mail order business of sending a product to an address other than your own? Didn't Sears figure out how to do this in the fscking 1800's?!?!
Come one, there *must* be a mail order industry group willing to initiate a lawsuit against them for this phony patent.
Yes, but so long as they keep the beer, hockey players and Red Green flowing, we'll just turn a blind eye :)
"not legal. The EULA specifically says it's legally bound to the hardware it was bought with"
IANAL, but in the valuation of a partnership for estate or gift tax filing purposes, if a partnership agreement (a contract) has terms that are more restrictive than the default statutes where the parternship was formed, then those restrictive terms are invalid - and we're talking about real contracts that you actually have to sign here.
I wonder if a similar parallel or precedent has ever been established in the realm of copyrights...that is, has a court ever thrown out a EULA because its terms were more restrictive than standard copyright law? Any lawyers care to comment?
My dad almost clicked on one and he was running BeOS, with its very distinctive short, yellow tabs...a newbie is going to be fooled no matter what OS you put on his computer.
/. knows the score, but you would be amazed at the general ignorance of society at large when it comes to computers, the internet & everything related - they don't know anything other than the crap that is spoon-fed to them.
At work one day, I had to spend five minutes convincing someone that those popups were fake error messages and that there was nothing to worry about.
It's pretty safe to assume that everyone here on
I don't know anything about the tech behind it, but it is quite possible to detect what radio station you are tuned into. Supposedly, some ratings services go out in vans with antennas and take a measure of what stations people in cars listen to.
Perhaps our UK friends can help here...doesn't the BBC use a similar technology to find people who aren't paying their TV license fee? I saw this happen on The Young Ones once.
"The doctor, who is, for all intents and purposes, not there?"
The doctor is there and is fully responsible for anything that goes wrong. Don't forget that this robot is nothing more than a tool chosen by the doctor.