I find it pretty easy to avoid Amazon for everything, including (e-)books. Perhaps it's an advantage of living in a small country, but many online shops, including very small ones, offer next-day delivery: order before 21:00 and your package will most likely (not guaranteed) arrive the next day by regular mail. In contrast, Amazon still ships to NL from the UK or DE I think, so it is not as fast. For fast delivery, I order from a local shop. For obscure stuff I can't get here or for great deals I order direct from the far east (China, HK, or preferably Japan as their mail service is unbelievably fast). I've ordered from Amazon perhaps twice in the last 3 years.
Indeed, and this started well before online shopping. For large purchases like appliances, people would go to a reputable store and get good advise on what to buy, then make their purchase at a cut rate outlet staffed by snotty kids.
I've seen worse artwork (or simply no artwork whatsoever) on e-books from reputable authors and publishers. Perhaps because they didn't have the rights to distribute the original artwork of the print version electronically, they just slapped on something they had lying around.
At least most of them have stopped charging more for electronic versions of a book... And they even sell them outside the US now.
Their customers (like me) are happy because the Apple stuff works well for them. There's annoyances like proprietay cables, and frustration over the reluctance of Apple to open up some of their APIs; we have custom keyboards and widgets at last, but still no Siri. But for me, those are minor. I've tried Android as well on a phone and tablets, and hated it. A friend of mine (who switched from Apple to Android) explained it well: "The advantage of Android is that you are free to tweak everything to your liking. The disadvantage is that you have to". For me, Apple's garden suits me well enough to not really even notice the wall that rings it. Complain about Apple's design choices, questionable business policies, their treatment of consumers, and the locked-down environment, and I'll agree. But my next phone will still be an iPhone because I want one that'll do what I want it to, right out of the box.
I did keep the Android tablet... the ability to just grab files from my local NAS, work with them, move them, that's something sorely missing on the iPad.
What is the purpose of introducing any new transaction system (other than being the owner of it and collecting transaction fees and BIG DATA):
- Is it faster? Most existing transaction systems are already fast (at least as fast as BTC transactions)
- Is it cheaper? This allows you to lower transaction fees, and makes microtransactions possible
- Does it have a lower barrier to entry for small time merchants? This is where existing systems often fall short. PayPal is not too bad (it's bad for other reasons), and there are other payment processors available accepting credit cards and whatnot, but registering to receive payments yourself remains a PITA.
- Is it easy to use? Existing systems (Paypal, iDeal) and payment processors are already getting quite good at integrating well into the sales process.
- Can it do offline transactions securely? I don't think BTC can do this... For a time, offline transactions were seen as important by our banks, and they added an electronic wallet to our bank cards for small transactions at market stalls, parking meters and the like. However that thinking has been overtaken by events; adding a payment terminal and internet connection to anything has become so cheap that most places just have mobile connected terminals instead of offline ones.
BTC was set up as anonymous and decentralized, but for the likes of IBM, I fail to see what the attraction of that would be. So indeed... why are they doing this?
They have been told that their business model is illegal by judges in several jurisdictions. Over here they are still operating and just pay the fines (I think it's €10.000 a pop, no pun intended). But legislators are looking at Uber with interest as well: some are already trying to figure out if and how Uberpop's model could be made legal. They think a few small changes in the law and perhaps a few additional requirements for Uberpop cabs is all it takes.
I think the popularity of the service and the eagerness with which some legislators want to legalize it, go to show how much the existing taxi services are hated.
The prices for the Apple watch are in line with what I'd expect (and am prepared) to pay for a decent looking watch (not the straps though, the pricing of those is what I'd expect of Apple, and nowhere near reasonable). The design of the watch isn't to my liking, but even if it were more like say the Moto 360, what I have big problems with is paying 4 figures for a watch that will likely be obsolete in a few years. Forget about that dumb modular cell phone idea, what we need is a good looking, well designed smart watch that allows us to swap out the guts every few years for a couple hundred. Even if we have to go to an Apple store to have it done.
The bible has plenty of similar peace loving statements of equality and acceptance. The difference is not what exactly is in each holy book, but how followers interpret those words: as laws, suggestions or stories. Christians and jews generally do not go around killing non-believers and transgressors of holy law, nor do many of them think they should. Muslims however have frequent and violent clashes over holy texts (with each other), and in many muslim countries the nastiest kinds of holy rules have been set into law. In addition, many of the "moderate" muslims who might profess to be against violently taking the law into their own hands, will still proclaim the koran to be law over and above the law of men, and will explicitly agree with (for example) a death sentence for apostacy.
Islam is not a religion like any other, not by a long shot. From a humanitarion point of view it is worse than the others both in word and in practice. With that said, every person deserves to be treated according to their own actions and convictions, not to those of others.
If you could fluctuate the luminosity of a star to announce your presence, then it would make more sense to make it flash prime numbers. Or encode such a message by varying the frequency, or by stopping and starting the device that produces the effect. Well, maybe they are doing just that, and I suppose that a pulsing star or the machine that makes it pulse doesn't exactly stop on a dime, so it may be worth keeping an eye on that thing for a couple of years, and watch for changes.
We (for certain values of "we") hate obvious or overly broad patents, and those exist for hardware as well as software. The purpose of patents is (or at least was) to benefit society. Rewarding inventors with a temporary monopoly in exchange for sharing their inventions is a means to achieve that benefit and not a goal in itself. And the rewards should be for brilliant ideas or difficult/expensive research, not for stuff that anyone can come up with ("obvious to a person skilled in the art").
The interesting thing about Turkey is that there is (was) a more or less common belief / acceptance of in the secular state as founded by Kemal(Atatürk), with the military having a specific charge to defend that secularity if necessary. They have stepped in before when things got a bit too religious, but the ease with which Erdogan has swept aside those military, cultural and constitutional defenses shows how hard it is to actually defend against a popular leader with followers united through faith. It's also a valuable lesson on the fragility of democracy. Erdogan purportedly said: "Democracy is like riding a tram: once you reach your destination, you get off"; now he may not have actually said it, but he is certainly acting it.
Other than the fact that it's proprietary, I do like the Lightning connectors. Especially compared to those damn 4 dimensional USB connectors: try to plug it in, fail, reverse, fail *again*, reverse once more, *then* it will go in.
The article asserts that having "good" methods of suicide (including a viable assisted-suicide scheme such as you describe) isn't going to make a difference in these spur-of-the-moment cases, where people apparently tend to pick whatever method of suicide lies close to hand rather than stop and think about what the most effective method would be. The idea is that if you make people stop and think, they'll think better of it. I'm all in favour of an assisted suicide scheme, but there appears to be merit in the idea of removing at least some ready means of suicide in order to allow desperate people to come to their senses.
That works both ways. If a loved one is in dire and apparently incurable anguish, mental or physical, then it would be selfish of me to ask that they hang on just for the sake of the ones they leave behind. A suicide rarely affects only the deceased, but I maintain that ultimately each person should be allowed to make that decision for themselves, rather than having it made for them. (Of course that shouldn't stop one from convincing the afflicted that there is hope, if there is indeed hope to be bad).
There's a big difference between promoting gun safety at home, and putting it into law. The latter comes with regular, mandatory police inspections of gun owners' homes, to ensure guns are kept according to the rules. This is what we have in the Netherlands, where it's hard to get a gun license in the first place. Now I am not against such rules and inspections personally, but I can see how "freedom loving" gun owners in the US would object to that. However, the few of such gun owners that I know do voluntarily practise and advocate safe gun ownership, especially around kids.
If you see any bill with "freedom", "family", "patriot" or "protection" on it, your first inclination should be to think that there's something evil hidden in the bill. And more often than not you'd be right.
An anonymous currency, that allows you to set up an exchange in any country, and without any oversight whatsoever. The whole thing is trust based. Would you leave your cash with any random stranger in some Thai web cafe for safekeeping? Even if you see others do the same, seemingly without worry? Because leaving any significant amount of BTC in an exchange amounts to the same thing.
It seems to be particularly bad for electronic components. When I search for parts that are rare or hard to get from a local supplier, Google often returns lots of links to legitimate web shops and price comparison sites that claim to have the part in stock or have price info on it, but in fact haven't. Sometimes the first shop that actually has the part in its catalogue won't appear until page 3 of the search results.
I have my doubts about this new algorithm improving things though.
Now I understand Amazon's idea of putting 3d printers on trucks. The factory of the future will be ship or container based, so it can be moved to whichever country provides the cheapest labour at any one time.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple: you create a second abomination to hunt down and kill the first one. So there's really nothing to worry about
I find it pretty easy to avoid Amazon for everything, including (e-)books. Perhaps it's an advantage of living in a small country, but many online shops, including very small ones, offer next-day delivery: order before 21:00 and your package will most likely (not guaranteed) arrive the next day by regular mail. In contrast, Amazon still ships to NL from the UK or DE I think, so it is not as fast. For fast delivery, I order from a local shop. For obscure stuff I can't get here or for great deals I order direct from the far east (China, HK, or preferably Japan as their mail service is unbelievably fast). I've ordered from Amazon perhaps twice in the last 3 years.
Indeed, and this started well before online shopping. For large purchases like appliances, people would go to a reputable store and get good advise on what to buy, then make their purchase at a cut rate outlet staffed by snotty kids.
I've seen worse artwork (or simply no artwork whatsoever) on e-books from reputable authors and publishers. Perhaps because they didn't have the rights to distribute the original artwork of the print version electronically, they just slapped on something they had lying around.
At least most of them have stopped charging more for electronic versions of a book... And they even sell them outside the US now.
Their customers (like me) are happy because the Apple stuff works well for them. There's annoyances like proprietay cables, and frustration over the reluctance of Apple to open up some of their APIs; we have custom keyboards and widgets at last, but still no Siri. But for me, those are minor. I've tried Android as well on a phone and tablets, and hated it. A friend of mine (who switched from Apple to Android) explained it well: "The advantage of Android is that you are free to tweak everything to your liking. The disadvantage is that you have to". For me, Apple's garden suits me well enough to not really even notice the wall that rings it. Complain about Apple's design choices, questionable business policies, their treatment of consumers, and the locked-down environment, and I'll agree. But my next phone will still be an iPhone because I want one that'll do what I want it to, right out of the box.
I did keep the Android tablet... the ability to just grab files from my local NAS, work with them, move them, that's something sorely missing on the iPad.
What is the purpose of introducing any new transaction system (other than being the owner of it and collecting transaction fees and BIG DATA):
- Is it faster? Most existing transaction systems are already fast (at least as fast as BTC transactions)
- Is it cheaper? This allows you to lower transaction fees, and makes microtransactions possible
- Does it have a lower barrier to entry for small time merchants? This is where existing systems often fall short. PayPal is not too bad (it's bad for other reasons), and there are other payment processors available accepting credit cards and whatnot, but registering to receive payments yourself remains a PITA.
- Is it easy to use? Existing systems (Paypal, iDeal) and payment processors are already getting quite good at integrating well into the sales process.
- Can it do offline transactions securely? I don't think BTC can do this... For a time, offline transactions were seen as important by our banks, and they added an electronic wallet to our bank cards for small transactions at market stalls, parking meters and the like. However that thinking has been overtaken by events; adding a payment terminal and internet connection to anything has become so cheap that most places just have mobile connected terminals instead of offline ones.
BTC was set up as anonymous and decentralized, but for the likes of IBM, I fail to see what the attraction of that would be. So indeed... why are they doing this?
They have been told that their business model is illegal by judges in several jurisdictions. Over here they are still operating and just pay the fines (I think it's €10.000 a pop, no pun intended). But legislators are looking at Uber with interest as well: some are already trying to figure out if and how Uberpop's model could be made legal. They think a few small changes in the law and perhaps a few additional requirements for Uberpop cabs is all it takes.
I think the popularity of the service and the eagerness with which some legislators want to legalize it, go to show how much the existing taxi services are hated.
The prices for the Apple watch are in line with what I'd expect (and am prepared) to pay for a decent looking watch (not the straps though, the pricing of those is what I'd expect of Apple, and nowhere near reasonable). The design of the watch isn't to my liking, but even if it were more like say the Moto 360, what I have big problems with is paying 4 figures for a watch that will likely be obsolete in a few years. Forget about that dumb modular cell phone idea, what we need is a good looking, well designed smart watch that allows us to swap out the guts every few years for a couple hundred. Even if we have to go to an Apple store to have it done.
The bible has plenty of similar peace loving statements of equality and acceptance. The difference is not what exactly is in each holy book, but how followers interpret those words: as laws, suggestions or stories. Christians and jews generally do not go around killing non-believers and transgressors of holy law, nor do many of them think they should. Muslims however have frequent and violent clashes over holy texts (with each other), and in many muslim countries the nastiest kinds of holy rules have been set into law. In addition, many of the "moderate" muslims who might profess to be against violently taking the law into their own hands, will still proclaim the koran to be law over and above the law of men, and will explicitly agree with (for example) a death sentence for apostacy.
Islam is not a religion like any other, not by a long shot. From a humanitarion point of view it is worse than the others both in word and in practice. With that said, every person deserves to be treated according to their own actions and convictions, not to those of others.
Having a more advanced technology doesn't mean that they are more intelligent.
If you could fluctuate the luminosity of a star to announce your presence, then it would make more sense to make it flash prime numbers. Or encode such a message by varying the frequency, or by stopping and starting the device that produces the effect. Well, maybe they are doing just that, and I suppose that a pulsing star or the machine that makes it pulse doesn't exactly stop on a dime, so it may be worth keeping an eye on that thing for a couple of years, and watch for changes.
We (for certain values of "we") hate obvious or overly broad patents, and those exist for hardware as well as software. The purpose of patents is (or at least was) to benefit society. Rewarding inventors with a temporary monopoly in exchange for sharing their inventions is a means to achieve that benefit and not a goal in itself. And the rewards should be for brilliant ideas or difficult/expensive research, not for stuff that anyone can come up with ("obvious to a person skilled in the art").
The interesting thing about Turkey is that there is (was) a more or less common belief / acceptance of in the secular state as founded by Kemal(Atatürk), with the military having a specific charge to defend that secularity if necessary. They have stepped in before when things got a bit too religious, but the ease with which Erdogan has swept aside those military, cultural and constitutional defenses shows how hard it is to actually defend against a popular leader with followers united through faith. It's also a valuable lesson on the fragility of democracy. Erdogan purportedly said: "Democracy is like riding a tram: once you reach your destination, you get off"; now he may not have actually said it, but he is certainly acting it.
Other than the fact that it's proprietary, I do like the Lightning connectors. Especially compared to those damn 4 dimensional USB connectors: try to plug it in, fail, reverse, fail *again*, reverse once more, *then* it will go in.
A tech blog, apparently. And no, I haven't heard of them before either.
The article asserts that having "good" methods of suicide (including a viable assisted-suicide scheme such as you describe) isn't going to make a difference in these spur-of-the-moment cases, where people apparently tend to pick whatever method of suicide lies close to hand rather than stop and think about what the most effective method would be. The idea is that if you make people stop and think, they'll think better of it. I'm all in favour of an assisted suicide scheme, but there appears to be merit in the idea of removing at least some ready means of suicide in order to allow desperate people to come to their senses.
That works both ways. If a loved one is in dire and apparently incurable anguish, mental or physical, then it would be selfish of me to ask that they hang on just for the sake of the ones they leave behind. A suicide rarely affects only the deceased, but I maintain that ultimately each person should be allowed to make that decision for themselves, rather than having it made for them. (Of course that shouldn't stop one from convincing the afflicted that there is hope, if there is indeed hope to be bad).
"Suicide does not end the chances of life getting worse". Well yes, it rather does.
While it's a nice sentiment, it's something to which I would reply: "Please let me be the judge of that".
There's a big difference between promoting gun safety at home, and putting it into law. The latter comes with regular, mandatory police inspections of gun owners' homes, to ensure guns are kept according to the rules. This is what we have in the Netherlands, where it's hard to get a gun license in the first place. Now I am not against such rules and inspections personally, but I can see how "freedom loving" gun owners in the US would object to that. However, the few of such gun owners that I know do voluntarily practise and advocate safe gun ownership, especially around kids.
Power wants to be free
If you see any bill with "freedom", "family", "patriot" or "protection" on it, your first inclination should be to think that there's something evil hidden in the bill. And more often than not you'd be right.
An anonymous currency, that allows you to set up an exchange in any country, and without any oversight whatsoever. The whole thing is trust based. Would you leave your cash with any random stranger in some Thai web cafe for safekeeping? Even if you see others do the same, seemingly without worry? Because leaving any significant amount of BTC in an exchange amounts to the same thing.
It seems to be particularly bad for electronic components. When I search for parts that are rare or hard to get from a local supplier, Google often returns lots of links to legitimate web shops and price comparison sites that claim to have the part in stock or have price info on it, but in fact haven't. Sometimes the first shop that actually has the part in its catalogue won't appear until page 3 of the search results.
I have my doubts about this new algorithm improving things though.
The real question is: was the girl who posted this image able to capitalize on its viral popularity, like the owner of Grumpy Cat?
Now I understand Amazon's idea of putting 3d printers on trucks. The factory of the future will be ship or container based, so it can be moved to whichever country provides the cheapest labour at any one time.