And even when they don't use the same "network" they're very often sharing towers. The few towers that are around here are mostly shared. Towers get shared more when you get out of the city where installing a new tower is more expensive for lower returns, lots of sharing goes on there.
Japan's recent disasters have unfortunately drawn away the public eye from the middle east and now this. Almost a shame that way. The public (and the media) only have so big of an attention span. There's just too much going on around the world right now for everything to get the coverage it deserves.
Makes me wonder if wikileaks had intended to publish this leak some days earlier and postponed it when Japan jumped the charts?
And then we have that Hollywood Patriot Act that is going to fly completely under the public's radar.
A common good rule of thumb is to only pay attention to coupons, discounts, and sales for things you were already going to buy. The best use of coupons and sales is to look for them after you already have figured out what you are buying, as a way to lower the cost you were already committing to. If you see a coupon or sale and then think to yourself, "Hmmm, should I buy that? It's such a good deal!" then you're a sucker.
And that's what the companies want you to do, make an impulse buy from the lure of the coupon. Coupons are advertising in disguise, that only provide value to that rare breed of intelligent consumer that knows how best to use them.
it's changeable, but costly. Transformers are designed around the frequency of the power they handle. To standardize would require a lot of big expensive multimillion dollar monster transformers to be replaced. And if you do some research on the big scare of a nasty magnetic storm damaging transformers, they lay out the gory details of just how few of these can get manufactured a year.
Even if Japan had unlimited money and immediately ordered all the units they'd need, it would probably be at least 10 years before they got most of them manufactured. Cost was probably the big factor for them not standardizing 100 yrs ago, but now it's more a matter of calendar time required. And then you have to replace smaller units all over the place - at the substations, and the trashcans up on the poles too. It's a huge undertaking.
It's a little different than that but same effect. Contract law does not allow you to stipulate you can change the terms of the contract during its effect without consequence. They CAN stipulate they have the right to make chances, but with consequence. The consequence being the other party can say "hell no" and void the contract instantly. That's why whenever your credit card wants to chance terms on you they have to send you 80 pages of fine print with the changes buried deeply, but somewhere it says 'if you don't accept these terms, call xxxx and cancel your card'. The contracts almost always say they have that right of change, but only occasionally do they advise you of your right to void the contract if they do. (they don't have to tell you, but you always have that right) They're counting on your ignorance of contract law.
Cell phone contracts work that way also. They can specify early termination fees, and reserve the right to change conditions of the contract, but if they DO exercise their change right, you have 30 days to object to the changes. Then either they back off the changes, or the contract is voided without penalty to either party, including ETF. I've seen several people get out of their ETF when their provider wanted to chance terms. (usually to add a cap or change minutes or rates, but sometimes it's a very minor change like requiring arbitration etc)
In all of those examples, the first TWO reps they talked with both told him he was going to get an ETF even when he explained the facts. It always took a manager to say "actually you're right, you're off the hook". I don't know if they just don't educate their infantry for "plausible deniability" or if they're flat out told to lie. But you'll never get that answer from the first drone you talk to. Just one of the many pages from their rulebook of how to play dirty.
Their eula may have also said he owes them his firstborn. Just because it's in the eula doesn't mean it's enforceable. Too many people have this kneejerk reacction when they hear "eula". And businesses WANT you to believe that of course.
Look in ANY eula and you will find something along the lines of "and if any part of this is unenforceable, it doesn't affect the enforceability of anything else". That's because all eula are littered with unenforceable agreements. Some points you are agreeing legally to, and others should be taken as more of a "and we really don't want you doing this but can't stop you so we're going to try to scare you into not doing it". The problem is of course sorting them out. If contract law didn't allow that "granular exclusion" they'd stop the scare tactics because they'd have something to lose if you could find something absurd in the eula. But they have nothing to lose and so they do it. (as is so often the reasoning in big business)
I watched someone get out of a cell phone contract because they changed his unlimited data to limited. They pointed to the contract he'd signed and of course nowhere in the fine print does it remind you that "if one party changes terms of the contract, the other party can void it". They never tell you your rights. They always tell you your limitations, plus a few things they'd like you to do, and call it all part of the "agreement".
if I had it to design myself, I'd make it so that apps could do in-game purchases that would require a call to the store API. That would pause the game and pop up a purchase area that didn't look like the game, that required their password for access. Then within that area they could buy items. Then leave that area to return to the game. Then require the password next time they wanted to go there.
That would help create a division between the game and the store. Right now with completely in-game purchasing, the kids don't see the purchase as anything other than just another button to click in the game. It needs to have a completely different, consistent look to it, that says "you are not in the game right now, you are in the STORE, spending REAL MONEY".
Another alternate implementation could be to just make such an area to "fund" the game. Then the game devs could implement their own in-game experience store, but that would draw on the funds transferred from the store. That would allow the parents to say "ok Timmy I've put $10 into your Smurfs store, spend it wisely!" That would actually be a good experience for the kids... they need to learn the value of money. It would also relieve the parents of having to mess with the store every time their kid wanted to buy their pet grasshopper a different color of shoes for a quarter etc.
I'm surprised the Shield Law doesn't apply to places like twitter. They function very much the same, an a source of information is known to the publisher but is anonymous to the public, to protect that source.
We have a Digital Millenium Copyright Act, we need a Digital Millennium Shield Law. Funny how we get new laws all the time to make more acts illegal due to advances in technology, but never seem to get new protective laws due to advances in technology. Makes me think the legal system considers the constitution more of a nuisance and shackle than anything else. We have a constitution that's got 1700's era protections but is full of 2000's era loopholes.
The contract is "I give you $$, you give me license".
All contracts require benefit of both parties, that's why we occasionally see things being sold for $1, because it forms a contract.
If the contract is breached, either party can demand a return. The contract is returned, AND SO IS THE MONEY. Things are reset to what they were prior to the contract, the benefits to both parties are returned.
It's no different than when a company refunds you for something you bought, you have to return the item. You can't just refuse to return your part of the bargain. Try getting a return on an item without bringing the item back in. Naturally they're entitled to their return as much as you are. Same for licensing. But they do try to hide that or make it very difficult. Look at all the fights we see over software licenses being returned like when people buy a pc with windows and then try to return windows. They usually make it a PITA or outright refuse till the class action hits them. It can be very hard to return software, but legally it's allowable. And nowadays basically all software is licensed not sold, primarily to make more hoops for the consumer to jump through for returns, and to try to build some facade of "I still have control over this after I've sold it to you".
If he paid for it, then they're telling him he can't USE it, he should be entitled to demand a refund. That simple. He didn't pay for the privilege of getting banned. Does anyone know if he sought a refund?
urine contains a substantial number of dead red blood cells, swept from the bloodstream by the kidneys. since adult blood cells discard their nucleus to create more room to carry oxygen and nutrients, they don't live too long without a nucleus, so the body goes through quite a few of them every day.
usually when they test things that are up in power they'll put a cinder block behind it. good videos on youtube showing CW lasers creating a nice orange glowing spot on the block after a few sec.
If you look back, people had a FIT over photocopiers at the time, book publishers mainly. Just imagine what will happen when material printers start becoming practical?
That's the problem when a company gets to a certain size, they have so much money that they can outbid anyone with a more genuine or legitimate interest could afford.
It's like walking into a car rental place to pick up the car you've reserved, as a guy runs past you up to the desk and demands a car. Sorry sir all our cars are reserved. "How about $1000 for a reserved car?" Guess you're walking now aren't you? It's not fair, but I suppose that's how it works.
MS is behind, and is trying to buy market position. And it'll probably work to a degree. But that doesn't help us, the consumer. What it means is that products that normally wouldn't be in our face so much due to lower quality, will be. And things we take for granted when making buying decisions won't work the same. That leads to the consumer getting less than they paid for and were expecting.
It also is damaging to Nokia's brand, because they're basically damaging their reputation by accepting what amounts to a bribe to let MS's lower quality product sell under Nokia's better reputation. For many companies, (and I think this includes cell phone manufacturers) their brand is their most valuable company asset. The net result is MS's brand increases in value, and Nokia's lowers. They must think that's worth $1B. But that's a lot of moola, and Nokia's in something of a decline as of late, so maybe they're right and this is the most responsible decision. I can name a dozen former partners of MS and can't think of a single one that came out a winner as a result, time will tell how Nokia fairs but it doesn't look promising. We've gone over several discussions here recently about the perils of partnering with MS, my money's still on the same bet there - MS will benefit and their new "partner" will take a kick in the junk.
if I got a wakeup call and wasn't quite firing on all cylinders just yet I'd be hard pressed to figure out if I was hearing Kirk or someone trying to book me a flight with pricewatch
I also noticed the eyes were a little unnatural. But I also noticed they were a great improvement from the usual. They had a very high gloss look to them, almost wet looking. Usually the eyes look very dry. These to me almost looked TOO glossy.
I was also extremely impressed. Until you see some of the jerky movements a bit into the demo, there's no way you'd think it wasn't real. Realisting looking hair. Even the teeth are naturally a little uneven. None of that "final fantasy plastic skin" CGI look at all. The skin and hair look great.
I don't understand why it's taken this long to figure out those basic concepts. Maybe they were getting a lot of "I don't know, it just doesn't look REAL" from people, but I know if they'd have asked ME I'd have told them immediately several issues they needed to fix. And this seems to address most of them. Right now the jerky major movements are the biggest issue.
I am much more interested worst case speeds, cause that's when you feel a problem.
Since it's solid state, there are no seek penalties. Speeds decrease as the reads become more random over the surface of the drive, and in particular when you only want a small amount of data (a few k) where the drive has to read in an entire flash block which could be say, 64k. So the drive is reading a lot more data than its passing to the computer.
I'd also like to know the random access speeds, and in particular small random write speed; the typical bottleneck of SSDs in general, and the new 22 nm process in particular.
Again sequential is going to work better than random since it will be making 100% use of the read/write operation. Writing to a part of a cell for example, requires reading the entire cell, integrating in the changed data, and reflashing it, which is significantly slower than just reflashing the entire cell in one operation.
Cell size isn't going to be too big, and most operations are on a much larger scale. Launching a 2mb binary is going to be almost 100% sequential reading. Writing is often the same way, occurring in large enough blocks to not have any cell overhead. Then you're just limited by the speed of flashing.
iirc, the beagle explorer to mars failed to jetteson a heat shield. And that specific problem has happened at least once more at mars when a probe did a flyby but didn't get the shield ejected and just took pictures of the inside of the cover.
Surprisingly common problem. You'd think they would have gotten a bit more focused on it by now?
The problem with not being ethical is that he didn't think it was wrong.
Chances are very near zero he didn't realize it was wrong/illegal. He just thought the rewards were worth the risks. He may still have millions in foreign accounts, and may still consider it having been worth the risk in retrospect.
And now not only has he learned some lessons on what got him caught, but he also likely has a good deal of startup capital for his next "business venture", or at the very least a nice retirement nest egg.
The penalties for acts that adversely affect so many innocent people are far too soft. I wouldn't mind him having been sentenced to life. Considering the outrageous money that sort of thing can raise, the penalty has to be a deterrent to the offense or it serves little purpose. Is millions of dollars worth the chance of four years in jail, or even the CERTAINTY of four years in jail? Many would say yes. And that's why spam is still a problem four years later.
That district in texas is to patents what china used to be for spam... and sadly it's probably about money for more than the patent trolls. I wonder just how much money court fees etc bring into that district from the gobs of patent suits filed there every year? They must have an army of judges and a campus of courtrooms, and I get the impression they're about on par with those "wedding chapels" in las vegas, practically with a drive-thru window.
Slashdot Mirror
And even when they don't use the same "network" they're very often sharing towers. The few towers that are around here are mostly shared. Towers get shared more when you get out of the city where installing a new tower is more expensive for lower returns, lots of sharing goes on there.
I was just thinking the same thing with the minors on the internet, "we haven't finished brainwashing them yet."
Japan's recent disasters have unfortunately drawn away the public eye from the middle east and now this. Almost a shame that way. The public (and the media) only have so big of an attention span. There's just too much going on around the world right now for everything to get the coverage it deserves.
Makes me wonder if wikileaks had intended to publish this leak some days earlier and postponed it when Japan jumped the charts?
And then we have that Hollywood Patriot Act that is going to fly completely under the public's radar.
All quite a shame really...
A common good rule of thumb is to only pay attention to coupons, discounts, and sales for things you were already going to buy. The best use of coupons and sales is to look for them after you already have figured out what you are buying, as a way to lower the cost you were already committing to. If you see a coupon or sale and then think to yourself, "Hmmm, should I buy that? It's such a good deal!" then you're a sucker.
And that's what the companies want you to do, make an impulse buy from the lure of the coupon. Coupons are advertising in disguise, that only provide value to that rare breed of intelligent consumer that knows how best to use them.
it's changeable, but costly. Transformers are designed around the frequency of the power they handle. To standardize would require a lot of big expensive multimillion dollar monster transformers to be replaced. And if you do some research on the big scare of a nasty magnetic storm damaging transformers, they lay out the gory details of just how few of these can get manufactured a year.
Even if Japan had unlimited money and immediately ordered all the units they'd need, it would probably be at least 10 years before they got most of them manufactured. Cost was probably the big factor for them not standardizing 100 yrs ago, but now it's more a matter of calendar time required. And then you have to replace smaller units all over the place - at the substations, and the trashcans up on the poles too. It's a huge undertaking.
It's a little different than that but same effect. Contract law does not allow you to stipulate you can change the terms of the contract during its effect without consequence. They CAN stipulate they have the right to make chances, but with consequence. The consequence being the other party can say "hell no" and void the contract instantly. That's why whenever your credit card wants to chance terms on you they have to send you 80 pages of fine print with the changes buried deeply, but somewhere it says 'if you don't accept these terms, call xxxx and cancel your card'. The contracts almost always say they have that right of change, but only occasionally do they advise you of your right to void the contract if they do. (they don't have to tell you, but you always have that right) They're counting on your ignorance of contract law.
Cell phone contracts work that way also. They can specify early termination fees, and reserve the right to change conditions of the contract, but if they DO exercise their change right, you have 30 days to object to the changes. Then either they back off the changes, or the contract is voided without penalty to either party, including ETF. I've seen several people get out of their ETF when their provider wanted to chance terms. (usually to add a cap or change minutes or rates, but sometimes it's a very minor change like requiring arbitration etc)
In all of those examples, the first TWO reps they talked with both told him he was going to get an ETF even when he explained the facts. It always took a manager to say "actually you're right, you're off the hook". I don't know if they just don't educate their infantry for "plausible deniability" or if they're flat out told to lie. But you'll never get that answer from the first drone you talk to. Just one of the many pages from their rulebook of how to play dirty.
Their eula may have also said he owes them his firstborn. Just because it's in the eula doesn't mean it's enforceable. Too many people have this kneejerk reacction when they hear "eula". And businesses WANT you to believe that of course.
Look in ANY eula and you will find something along the lines of "and if any part of this is unenforceable, it doesn't affect the enforceability of anything else". That's because all eula are littered with unenforceable agreements. Some points you are agreeing legally to, and others should be taken as more of a "and we really don't want you doing this but can't stop you so we're going to try to scare you into not doing it". The problem is of course sorting them out. If contract law didn't allow that "granular exclusion" they'd stop the scare tactics because they'd have something to lose if you could find something absurd in the eula. But they have nothing to lose and so they do it. (as is so often the reasoning in big business)
I watched someone get out of a cell phone contract because they changed his unlimited data to limited. They pointed to the contract he'd signed and of course nowhere in the fine print does it remind you that "if one party changes terms of the contract, the other party can void it". They never tell you your rights. They always tell you your limitations, plus a few things they'd like you to do, and call it all part of the "agreement".
if I had it to design myself, I'd make it so that apps could do in-game purchases that would require a call to the store API. That would pause the game and pop up a purchase area that didn't look like the game, that required their password for access. Then within that area they could buy items. Then leave that area to return to the game. Then require the password next time they wanted to go there.
That would help create a division between the game and the store. Right now with completely in-game purchasing, the kids don't see the purchase as anything other than just another button to click in the game. It needs to have a completely different, consistent look to it, that says "you are not in the game right now, you are in the STORE, spending REAL MONEY".
Another alternate implementation could be to just make such an area to "fund" the game. Then the game devs could implement their own in-game experience store, but that would draw on the funds transferred from the store. That would allow the parents to say "ok Timmy I've put $10 into your Smurfs store, spend it wisely!" That would actually be a good experience for the kids... they need to learn the value of money. It would also relieve the parents of having to mess with the store every time their kid wanted to buy their pet grasshopper a different color of shoes for a quarter etc.
I'm surprised the Shield Law doesn't apply to places like twitter. They function very much the same, an a source of information is known to the publisher but is anonymous to the public, to protect that source.
We have a Digital Millenium Copyright Act, we need a Digital Millennium Shield Law. Funny how we get new laws all the time to make more acts illegal due to advances in technology, but never seem to get new protective laws due to advances in technology. Makes me think the legal system considers the constitution more of a nuisance and shackle than anything else. We have a constitution that's got 1700's era protections but is full of 2000's era loopholes.
The contract is "I give you $$, you give me license".
All contracts require benefit of both parties, that's why we occasionally see things being sold for $1, because it forms a contract.
If the contract is breached, either party can demand a return. The contract is returned, AND SO IS THE MONEY. Things are reset to what they were prior to the contract, the benefits to both parties are returned.
It's no different than when a company refunds you for something you bought, you have to return the item. You can't just refuse to return your part of the bargain. Try getting a return on an item without bringing the item back in. Naturally they're entitled to their return as much as you are. Same for licensing. But they do try to hide that or make it very difficult. Look at all the fights we see over software licenses being returned like when people buy a pc with windows and then try to return windows. They usually make it a PITA or outright refuse till the class action hits them. It can be very hard to return software, but legally it's allowable. And nowadays basically all software is licensed not sold, primarily to make more hoops for the consumer to jump through for returns, and to try to build some facade of "I still have control over this after I've sold it to you".
If he paid for it, then they're telling him he can't USE it, he should be entitled to demand a refund. That simple. He didn't pay for the privilege of getting banned. Does anyone know if he sought a refund?
urine contains a substantial number of dead red blood cells, swept from the bloodstream by the kidneys. since adult blood cells discard their nucleus to create more room to carry oxygen and nutrients, they don't live too long without a nucleus, so the body goes through quite a few of them every day.
usually when they test things that are up in power they'll put a cinder block behind it. good videos on youtube showing CW lasers creating a nice orange glowing spot on the block after a few sec.
If you look back, people had a FIT over photocopiers at the time, book publishers mainly. Just imagine what will happen when material printers start becoming practical?
It still astounds me that the (current interpretation of the) law allows someone to own all the rights to a number
That's the problem when a company gets to a certain size, they have so much money that they can outbid anyone with a more genuine or legitimate interest could afford.
It's like walking into a car rental place to pick up the car you've reserved, as a guy runs past you up to the desk and demands a car. Sorry sir all our cars are reserved. "How about $1000 for a reserved car?" Guess you're walking now aren't you? It's not fair, but I suppose that's how it works.
MS is behind, and is trying to buy market position. And it'll probably work to a degree. But that doesn't help us, the consumer. What it means is that products that normally wouldn't be in our face so much due to lower quality, will be. And things we take for granted when making buying decisions won't work the same. That leads to the consumer getting less than they paid for and were expecting.
It also is damaging to Nokia's brand, because they're basically damaging their reputation by accepting what amounts to a bribe to let MS's lower quality product sell under Nokia's better reputation. For many companies, (and I think this includes cell phone manufacturers) their brand is their most valuable company asset. The net result is MS's brand increases in value, and Nokia's lowers. They must think that's worth $1B. But that's a lot of moola, and Nokia's in something of a decline as of late, so maybe they're right and this is the most responsible decision. I can name a dozen former partners of MS and can't think of a single one that came out a winner as a result, time will tell how Nokia fairs but it doesn't look promising. We've gone over several discussions here recently about the perils of partnering with MS, my money's still on the same bet there - MS will benefit and their new "partner" will take a kick in the junk.
if I got a wakeup call and wasn't quite firing on all cylinders just yet I'd be hard pressed to figure out if I was hearing Kirk or someone trying to book me a flight with pricewatch
I also noticed the eyes were a little unnatural. But I also noticed they were a great improvement from the usual. They had a very high gloss look to them, almost wet looking. Usually the eyes look very dry. These to me almost looked TOO glossy.
I was also extremely impressed. Until you see some of the jerky movements a bit into the demo, there's no way you'd think it wasn't real. Realisting looking hair. Even the teeth are naturally a little uneven. None of that "final fantasy plastic skin" CGI look at all. The skin and hair look great.
I don't understand why it's taken this long to figure out those basic concepts. Maybe they were getting a lot of "I don't know, it just doesn't look REAL" from people, but I know if they'd have asked ME I'd have told them immediately several issues they needed to fix. And this seems to address most of them. Right now the jerky major movements are the biggest issue.
Since it's solid state, there are no seek penalties. Speeds decrease as the reads become more random over the surface of the drive, and in particular when you only want a small amount of data (a few k) where the drive has to read in an entire flash block which could be say, 64k. So the drive is reading a lot more data than its passing to the computer.
Again sequential is going to work better than random since it will be making 100% use of the read/write operation. Writing to a part of a cell for example, requires reading the entire cell, integrating in the changed data, and reflashing it, which is significantly slower than just reflashing the entire cell in one operation.
Cell size isn't going to be too big, and most operations are on a much larger scale. Launching a 2mb binary is going to be almost 100% sequential reading. Writing is often the same way, occurring in large enough blocks to not have any cell overhead. Then you're just limited by the speed of flashing.
iirc, the beagle explorer to mars failed to jetteson a heat shield. And that specific problem has happened at least once more at mars when a probe did a flyby but didn't get the shield ejected and just took pictures of the inside of the cover.
Surprisingly common problem. You'd think they would have gotten a bit more focused on it by now?
Chances are very near zero he didn't realize it was wrong/illegal. He just thought the rewards were worth the risks. He may still have millions in foreign accounts, and may still consider it having been worth the risk in retrospect.
And now not only has he learned some lessons on what got him caught, but he also likely has a good deal of startup capital for his next "business venture", or at the very least a nice retirement nest egg.
The penalties for acts that adversely affect so many innocent people are far too soft. I wouldn't mind him having been sentenced to life. Considering the outrageous money that sort of thing can raise, the penalty has to be a deterrent to the offense or it serves little purpose. Is millions of dollars worth the chance of four years in jail, or even the CERTAINTY of four years in jail? Many would say yes. And that's why spam is still a problem four years later.
That district in texas is to patents what china used to be for spam... and sadly it's probably about money for more than the patent trolls. I wonder just how much money court fees etc bring into that district from the gobs of patent suits filed there every year? They must have an army of judges and a campus of courtrooms, and I get the impression they're about on par with those "wedding chapels" in las vegas, practically with a drive-thru window.
why don't the popup blockers stop that crap anyway?
Yep, it's just a fad, don't worry, it'll go away like any other problem if you just ignore it long enough.