>> I've got see-ID on the back of my cards too. Sometimes they'll flip the card over and pretend to look at it, then give it back without asking for ID. Amazing.
Funny. My primary MasterCard check card was issued to me in 2000, and won't expire until late next year. After years of daily use (I rarely carry cash), there are a few chunks missing from the magnetic strip, and the bottom left corner has a 1/2 inch crack. More importantly, swipes through too many bad card readers has completely destroyed the signature box. Underneath where my signature used to be, under the writeable stuff, appears the word "VOID" repeatedly. That's all mine says: "VOID VOID VOID VOID VOID VOID VOID".
Like you, sometimes they'll flip the card over and pretend to look at it, then they'll give it back without asking for ID. Hehe.
My bank changed names two years ago, and let anyone get a free new card who wanted one. But, as long as this one still works, why bother?
>> I've always been surprised that its made it since its margins are actually very low.
While I haven't looked into their financials, I suspect that they actually -weren't- making it, at least not the way they would want.
That's why they sold out to eBay. Paypal alone might not make much money, but Paypal is -vital- to eBay's success. The money order process sucks, and I hated taking personal checks. Without some way to easily draw money from my standard accounts, eBay wouldn't get any of my business.
>> it's impossible to legally block mail getting delivered to someone living on your property
It's not impossible. Granting power of attorney for finances to someone, for example, can allow someone to open and process your mail for you. If you are deemed to be in a dimished mental state and thus unable to manage your own finances, they can continue to open your mail through their power and wouldn't necessarily need to tell you about every piece of mail they opened.
The question, then, is who has such powers over a child. Without being a lawyer, I would postulate that a parent or guardian could in many situations argue that they had such rights, depending on the age and mental state of their kids. And I suspect that in many cases the courts would agree with them.
>> Second, when most consumers purchase an iPod, they are purchasing a device that will, within 2-3 years, need to be sent in for "repair" because there is no removable battery. Genius! A $250-$500 device that lasts 2 years and will need "repair" for something that is, what I consider, a design flaw - whether you do it yourself or send it to Apple.
This is the only time (ever) when Best Buy's extended warranty scam is the way to go. Pay the extra 10% when you buy the thing, then in two years when it stops working take it back. They will repair or replace it - but they don't bother to repair, so they replace with the closest available model. If you previously had a 15 GB iPod - well, that model isn't made anymore, so you get the closest, the 20 GB model. Voila, free upgrade (plus the cost of the warranty two years prior).
Sure, it is a design flaw in the iPod, but its not that hard to avoid.
>> joe twelvepack doesn't use his computer for anything that he can't do without.
In other words, you are saying that beer delivery via the internet, when it arrives, will be the "killer app" that drives the masses to secure computing? That the BBFOD (bitter beer face of death) will be the virus that finally brings about a secure operating system?
Are you implying that, if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia, Stalin would have had enough extra troops after WWII to move into the northern Europe, occupying Sweden and Finland? Then, given how many more US troops were required to defeat Hitler without Soviet help, the United States was left in a weaker position compared to USSR that later prevented the Soviet collapse in 1991?
In other words, if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia, Linux today would be greatly changed because Linus would have been a Soviet citizen in a communist state?
It's a hassle for us because my wife uses iTunes + iPod, but I have a MP3 player (that plays in a cassette deck! it's small but good for my needs).
Anyway, it's not like it's hard to get around, but it's enough to call a "hassle". Burn a rewritable CD with the songs, then rip them back. I can't hear the quality loss when played in a cassette deck in a convertible anyway.
>> For that matter, why would he get upset with a piece of hardware being used that his company doesn't even compete against.
A lot of people keep asking this. I don't know for certain, but I strongly suspect that Microsoft gets a bit of money for every player sold that has WMA format support. If not, I -know- they get a bit of money for every song sold in WMA format. Not many of those songs being sold for iPod users, eh?
Don't look at competition on a product-to-product basis. Look at it on a dollar-to-dollar basis.
>> If a critical mass of Mac mini systems end up in TV rooms across America, a few game developpers will probably gravitate towards exploiting that market, and Apple may find themselves selling a popular game console entirely by accident.
Funny, instead of a PC-based video capture system I was quoting out, now I'm thinking about an Mac Mini instead. It will look much nicer for the cost, and (unlike the muck I've run into with WDM versus VFW) it will just all work.
So yes, some PC Windows/Linux people might end up with a Mac Mini in their TV room.
Some do. But others don't see $2-$3 a month in income worth their time, especially if the former customer is taking a good email address.
You might have a new potential customer that wants steve@myisp.com. If all your good addresses are tied up with low-income forwarding, your new customers end up with steve10389@myisp.com.
On the other hand, I could offer something like that on my domain. $3 a month for email forwarding from just one customer would pay 50% of my domain and hosting costs.
One of my college professors told this story in class 5-6 years ago...
He had a rotary dial phone, and refused to pay for touch tone service. At one point, the phone company (BellSouth) started calling and trying to sell him touch tone service for ~$1.50 a month, but he refused. He didn't need it. Why should he pay for it?
As it turns out, he was apparently the only person in that area that did not have touch-tone service. BellSouth told him that maintaining the old equipment to support his line was costing them money. So, since he refused to pay for the service, they gave it to him for free.
(I don't work for the phone company, so I don't vouch for the story's technical accuracy.)
I give them to Goodwill. Seriously. Goodwill, Dell, and the city of Austin signed a deal last year whereby Goodwill accepts any computer products for recycling (or resale at their computer store in town). If I lived in Austin, they would even pick them up at my house.
Central Texas residents outside the Austin city limits can also participate in the program by dropping off their unwanted computers at any of the 37 Goodwill locations in Central Texas.
^^ That's what we do. I used to give Goodwill the working stuff, but stick the broken things in a closet. Now I can give them everything and they sort it out.
Posted again, since the question is asked again and again...
----- Disclaimer ----- With a court order to specifically track this guy, I have no problem with them using a GPS transponder attached to his vehicle. This is in reply to parent poster's quote "it's a little absurd to expect privacy while you're on the road." It sounds like the parent poster would be fine if the government put GPS trackers on every car, because they could tail every person with a cop already. -----/Disclaimer -----
You don't get to be "private" in public, per se, but I do feel it is important that you be able to be "anonymous" in many cases.
"So, how can you be anonymous when you have a license plate?" you might ask.
Simple, there are 300 million people in the country and, at any given time, no one -cares- to read your plate and track where you are. If you commit a crime, or if someone with a similar car committed a crime, then sure, a police officer might see your car and check your plates. But, if they don't match, the officer will move on. The event is eventually forgotten and there is no "proof" that the event ever happened.
Automatic location tracking changes that. 25 years from now, someone can go back to a GPS database and see where you were last night. This where anonymity is lost.
Let's assume you buy pr0n from a shop. Your license plate is visible to all who care to look, but again, -no one cares-. Now add a GPS tracker, and, at a later date, the names of every person who ever visited the store can be retrieved. There goes your political career.
Let's assume you go to church. Again, outside of the church itself -no one cares-. But, add a tracker, and the government knows everyone who visted a certain mosque, ever. Or, they know everyone who attended mass last weekend.
In summary, yes, if there is reason to care, the government can already track you in public. But this takes the efforts of a human, which means it is rare, costly, and, most importantly, not permanent. Eliminate human involvement from the monitoring and it becomes routine, pervasive, and, worst of all, permanent.
--- Update --- Since the last time I posted this in response to the same question, a judge has agreed with me!
On election day, some people were copying down the license plate numbers of people voting (in Ohio IIRC). A judge ordered them to stop. Although they were driving on public roads to polling places on public property open to the public, a judge recognized that they had the right not be tracked.
>> Now if only someone could build an AGP device thats PC card size or smaller... get me a radeon x800 for my (imaginary) Powerbook G5.
AGP is completely obsolete, even at ~2.1 GB/s at 8x. PCI Express is ~310 MB/s _per lane_. With a PCIe x16, PCI Express hits 4 GB/s, easily beating AGP's best rate.
So, yes, PCIe x1 is effectively replacing PCMCIA in the ExpressCard format. But don't ask for someone to invent anything new for AGP - instead ask for a x16 ExpressCard format large enough for video card manufacturers.
(I doubt they'd bother due to the cost vs return, but at least you'd be asking the correct question.)
As a follow up, note that, for other jobs, a high school diploma does the same thing. Don't think you need one to get a cashier's job? At some companies, they figure that if you can sit through boring (to you) classes for four years, you can sit behind a cash register for four more.
A GED in this case is just as good or better. It shows that, while you may have dropped out once, you went back later and did what you had to do to recover. Again, the willingness to put yourself through this means you can do it at a job.
Re:I hate college
on
Defining Google
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Unless you are in a field where a college education is necessary (i.e. doctor, engineer in most cases), your college education tells your prospective employer one thing:
This person can tolerate a certain level of bullshit to receive compensation.
That's it. My wife's job has nothing to do with her degree (music degree for an IT job), but her company would not have hired her without it. For some employers, the fact that you can go through the crap that is some college classes, deal with university financial aid, stupid graduation requirements, idiotic nonsense policies, all to get a piece of paper at the end that qualifies you for some jobs, means that you'll go through the same level of muck at the job, and tolerate it, for your paycheck.
Employers want people who will stick through the boring parts of work. A college degree can show that you will do this.
>> Editors! There are a lot of freely available (open source, freeware, etc.) editors out there. EMacs, Jove, VIM, Elvis, VILE/XVile/WinVile, NVI, Scintilla, and others too countless to name. I haven't seen ANY of these encumbered by SpyWare.
I don't think it would be worth any spyware author/coder/company's time to put it in VIM. How many clueless Windows users are ever going to use an editor like that? Certainly not enough to target.
Why don't they do this? Because they don't *want* to waste time with griefers. This is exactly what griefers want.
I got into an argument once with someone who insisted that all servers should be open PvP, any levels, to make it easy for folks like him who had fun jumping lower level characters on merchant runs.
Then, when told that it was stupid with no repercussions, he came up with this: 1. If I kill lower level merchant characters, then I'll become an outlaw in the town, and I'll have to sneak around in underground tunnels and stuff! 2. If the people I'm killing don't want to PvP, then they can form into big anti-PvP teams and come try to kill me.
His suggestions for "punishment" were just more fun for him. The second one is about what you suggest.
For real punishment? Put his character in jail. Make it stay there for 4 hours of in-game time. While in jail, make him play some trivial game that requires a human to be at the keyboard the whole time, but is otherwise incredibly boring. Have it involve making belt buckles, or picking up soap. When he decides it isn't fun and doesn't want to do it anymore, he'll either quit the game or stop griefing.
They might have internal web pages that won't work. At my company, the Java-based viewer for Agile CM only works in IE. The Oracle timecards interface also doesn't work in Firefox - the timecards pages pop up blank in Firefox.
It is fairly easy to go through and evaluate the impact of the change, but if anything does need to be rewritten, it attaches $$$ to the migration cost.
Indeed, he is a disgusting pig, that, somehow, has turned out to be on my side of upcoming Freedom Wars.
It doesn't mean that I like him. It just means that he and I both understand: he has a right to exist, and I have a right to dislike him. And both of us will defend each other's rights, because if I let the (capital R) Right take him then I know I'll be next.
I work for a company that makes instruments for other engineers. Unlike some of our competitors, we try to be conservative in our specifications.
For example, on one of my products where crosstalk was a necessary spec, we took the worst value measured on any engineering sample and published it as the "average" value. Ideally, any customer who tests our specs (and, with engineers for customers, they will test our specs) will find our products to consistently be "better than average" compared to our own specifications.
Some of our competitors (judging from their products that we've evalutated) do not add any margin whatsoever. This might give them more sales from people who just read the spec sheets and place an order, but in the long run our company builds the reputation for quality which drives our success.
Slashdot Mirror
>> I've got see-ID on the back of my cards too. Sometimes they'll flip the card over and pretend to look at it, then give it back without asking for ID. Amazing.
Funny. My primary MasterCard check card was issued to me in 2000, and won't expire until late next year. After years of daily use (I rarely carry cash), there are a few chunks missing from the magnetic strip, and the bottom left corner has a 1/2 inch crack. More importantly, swipes through too many bad card readers has completely destroyed the signature box. Underneath where my signature used to be, under the writeable stuff, appears the word "VOID" repeatedly. That's all mine says: "VOID VOID VOID VOID VOID VOID VOID".
Like you, sometimes they'll flip the card over and pretend to look at it, then they'll give it back without asking for ID. Hehe.
My bank changed names two years ago, and let anyone get a free new card who wanted one. But, as long as this one still works, why bother?
>> I've always been surprised that its made it since its margins are actually very low.
While I haven't looked into their financials, I suspect that they actually -weren't- making it, at least not the way they would want.
That's why they sold out to eBay. Paypal alone might not make much money, but Paypal is -vital- to eBay's success. The money order process sucks, and I hated taking personal checks. Without some way to easily draw money from my standard accounts, eBay wouldn't get any of my business.
>> it's impossible to legally block mail getting delivered to someone living on your property
It's not impossible. Granting power of attorney for finances to someone, for example, can allow someone to open and process your mail for you. If you are deemed to be in a dimished mental state and thus unable to manage your own finances, they can continue to open your mail through their power and wouldn't necessarily need to tell you about every piece of mail they opened.
The question, then, is who has such powers over a child. Without being a lawyer, I would postulate that a parent or guardian could in many situations argue that they had such rights, depending on the age and mental state of their kids. And I suspect that in many cases the courts would agree with them.
>> Second, when most consumers purchase an iPod, they are purchasing a device that will, within 2-3 years, need to be sent in for "repair" because there is no removable battery. Genius! A $250-$500 device that lasts 2 years and will need "repair" for something that is, what I consider, a design flaw - whether you do it yourself or send it to Apple.
This is the only time (ever) when Best Buy's extended warranty scam is the way to go. Pay the extra 10% when you buy the thing, then in two years when it stops working take it back. They will repair or replace it - but they don't bother to repair, so they replace with the closest available model. If you previously had a 15 GB iPod - well, that model isn't made anymore, so you get the closest, the 20 GB model. Voila, free upgrade (plus the cost of the warranty two years prior).
Sure, it is a design flaw in the iPod, but its not that hard to avoid.
The legal system disagrees with you:
Illegal to record license plates of voters in South Dakota
There are easily more examples, but since you said *no one*, I figured one example would do.
>> joe twelvepack doesn't use his computer for anything that he can't do without.
In other words, you are saying that beer delivery via the internet, when it arrives, will be the "killer app" that drives the masses to secure computing? That the BBFOD (bitter beer face of death) will be the virus that finally brings about a secure operating system?
Are you implying that, if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia, Stalin would have had enough extra troops after WWII to move into the northern Europe, occupying Sweden and Finland? Then, given how many more US troops were required to defeat Hitler without Soviet help, the United States was left in a weaker position compared to USSR that later prevented the Soviet collapse in 1991?
In other words, if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia, Linux today would be greatly changed because Linus would have been a Soviet citizen in a communist state?
"What if" scenarios are fun...
It's a hassle for us because my wife uses iTunes + iPod, but I have a MP3 player (that plays in a cassette deck! it's small but good for my needs).
Anyway, it's not like it's hard to get around, but it's enough to call a "hassle". Burn a rewritable CD with the songs, then rip them back. I can't hear the quality loss when played in a cassette deck in a convertible anyway.
>> For that matter, why would he get upset with a piece of hardware being used that his company doesn't even compete against.
A lot of people keep asking this. I don't know for certain, but I strongly suspect that Microsoft gets a bit of money for every player sold that has WMA format support. If not, I -know- they get a bit of money for every song sold in WMA format. Not many of those songs being sold for iPod users, eh?
Don't look at competition on a product-to-product basis. Look at it on a dollar-to-dollar basis.
Or instead of a TV series that no one has heard of, how about an example from literature? =)
Metamorphosis
>> If a critical mass of Mac mini systems end up in TV rooms across America, a few game developpers will probably gravitate towards exploiting that market, and Apple may find themselves selling a popular game console entirely by accident.
Funny, instead of a PC-based video capture system I was quoting out, now I'm thinking about an Mac Mini instead. It will look much nicer for the cost, and (unlike the muck I've run into with WDM versus VFW) it will just all work.
So yes, some PC Windows/Linux people might end up with a Mac Mini in their TV room.
Some do. But others don't see $2-$3 a month in income worth their time, especially if the former customer is taking a good email address.
You might have a new potential customer that wants steve@myisp.com. If all your good addresses are tied up with low-income forwarding, your new customers end up with steve10389@myisp.com.
On the other hand, I could offer something like that on my domain. $3 a month for email forwarding from just one customer would pay 50% of my domain and hosting costs.
One of my college professors told this story in class 5-6 years ago...
He had a rotary dial phone, and refused to pay for touch tone service. At one point, the phone company (BellSouth) started calling and trying to sell him touch tone service for ~$1.50 a month, but he refused. He didn't need it. Why should he pay for it?
As it turns out, he was apparently the only person in that area that did not have touch-tone service. BellSouth told him that maintaining the old equipment to support his line was costing them money. So, since he refused to pay for the service, they gave it to him for free.
(I don't work for the phone company, so I don't vouch for the story's technical accuracy.)
I'm not going to post it again here. But please read my reply to your other post. It applies here, too.
d =11341658
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=135845&ci
Posted again, since the question is asked again and again...
/Disclaimer -----
----- Disclaimer -----
With a court order to specifically track this guy, I have no problem with them using a GPS transponder attached to his vehicle. This is in reply to parent poster's quote "it's a little absurd to expect privacy while you're on the road." It sounds like the parent poster would be fine if the government put GPS trackers on every car, because they could tail every person with a cop already.
-----
You don't get to be "private" in public, per se, but I do feel it is important that you be able to be "anonymous" in many cases.
"So, how can you be anonymous when you have a license plate?" you might ask.
Simple, there are 300 million people in the country and, at any given time, no one -cares- to read your plate and track where you are. If you commit a crime, or if someone with a similar car committed a crime, then sure, a police officer might see your car and check your plates. But, if they don't match, the officer will move on. The event is eventually forgotten and there is no "proof" that the event ever happened.
Automatic location tracking changes that. 25 years from now, someone can go back to a GPS database and see where you were last night. This where anonymity is lost.
Let's assume you buy pr0n from a shop. Your license plate is visible to all who care to look, but again, -no one cares-. Now add a GPS tracker, and, at a later date, the names of every person who ever visited the store can be retrieved. There goes your political career.
Let's assume you go to church. Again, outside of the church itself -no one cares-. But, add a tracker, and the government knows everyone who visted a certain mosque, ever. Or, they know everyone who attended mass last weekend.
In summary, yes, if there is reason to care, the government can already track you in public. But this takes the efforts of a human, which means it is rare, costly, and, most importantly, not permanent. Eliminate human involvement from the monitoring and it becomes routine, pervasive, and, worst of all, permanent.
--- Update ---
Since the last time I posted this in response to the same question, a judge has agreed with me!
On election day, some people were copying down the license plate numbers of people voting (in Ohio IIRC). A judge ordered them to stop. Although they were driving on public roads to polling places on public property open to the public, a judge recognized that they had the right not be tracked.
Not to be obvious, but...
>> What would interest someone to host a mac rumor site at 13 !?
The Mac?
>> Now if only someone could build an AGP device thats PC card size or smaller... get me a radeon x800 for my (imaginary) Powerbook G5.
AGP is completely obsolete, even at ~2.1 GB/s at 8x. PCI Express is ~310 MB/s _per lane_. With a PCIe x16, PCI Express hits 4 GB/s, easily beating AGP's best rate.
So, yes, PCIe x1 is effectively replacing PCMCIA in the ExpressCard format. But don't ask for someone to invent anything new for AGP - instead ask for a x16 ExpressCard format large enough for video card manufacturers.
(I doubt they'd bother due to the cost vs return, but at least you'd be asking the correct question.)
As a follow up, note that, for other jobs, a high school diploma does the same thing. Don't think you need one to get a cashier's job? At some companies, they figure that if you can sit through boring (to you) classes for four years, you can sit behind a cash register for four more.
A GED in this case is just as good or better. It shows that, while you may have dropped out once, you went back later and did what you had to do to recover. Again, the willingness to put yourself through this means you can do it at a job.
Unless you are in a field where a college education is necessary (i.e. doctor, engineer in most cases), your college education tells your prospective employer one thing:
This person can tolerate a certain level of bullshit to receive compensation.
That's it. My wife's job has nothing to do with her degree (music degree for an IT job), but her company would not have hired her without it. For some employers, the fact that you can go through the crap that is some college classes, deal with university financial aid, stupid graduation requirements, idiotic nonsense policies, all to get a piece of paper at the end that qualifies you for some jobs, means that you'll go through the same level of muck at the job, and tolerate it, for your paycheck.
Employers want people who will stick through the boring parts of work. A college degree can show that you will do this.
>> Editors! There are a lot of freely available (open source, freeware, etc.) editors out there. EMacs, Jove, VIM, Elvis, VILE/XVile/WinVile, NVI, Scintilla, and others too countless to name. I haven't seen ANY of these encumbered by SpyWare.
I don't think it would be worth any spyware author/coder/company's time to put it in VIM. How many clueless Windows users are ever going to use an editor like that? Certainly not enough to target.
Why don't they do this? Because they don't *want* to waste time with griefers. This is exactly what griefers want.
I got into an argument once with someone who insisted that all servers should be open PvP, any levels, to make it easy for folks like him who had fun jumping lower level characters on merchant runs.
Then, when told that it was stupid with no repercussions, he came up with this:
1. If I kill lower level merchant characters, then I'll become an outlaw in the town, and I'll have to sneak around in underground tunnels and stuff!
2. If the people I'm killing don't want to PvP, then they can form into big anti-PvP teams and come try to kill me.
His suggestions for "punishment" were just more fun for him. The second one is about what you suggest.
For real punishment? Put his character in jail. Make it stay there for 4 hours of in-game time. While in jail, make him play some trivial game that requires a human to be at the keyboard the whole time, but is otherwise incredibly boring. Have it involve making belt buckles, or picking up soap. When he decides it isn't fun and doesn't want to do it anymore, he'll either quit the game or stop griefing.
They might have internal web pages that won't work. At my company, the Java-based viewer for Agile CM only works in IE. The Oracle timecards interface also doesn't work in Firefox - the timecards pages pop up blank in Firefox.
It is fairly easy to go through and evaluate the impact of the change, but if anything does need to be rewritten, it attaches $$$ to the migration cost.
Indeed, he is a disgusting pig, that, somehow, has turned out to be on my side of upcoming Freedom Wars.
It doesn't mean that I like him. It just means that he and I both understand: he has a right to exist, and I have a right to dislike him. And both of us will defend each other's rights, because if I let the (capital R) Right take him then I know I'll be next.
I work for a company that makes instruments for other engineers. Unlike some of our competitors, we try to be conservative in our specifications.
For example, on one of my products where crosstalk was a necessary spec, we took the worst value measured on any engineering sample and published it as the "average" value. Ideally, any customer who tests our specs (and, with engineers for customers, they will test our specs) will find our products to consistently be "better than average" compared to our own specifications.
Some of our competitors (judging from their products that we've evalutated) do not add any margin whatsoever. This might give them more sales from people who just read the spec sheets and place an order, but in the long run our company builds the reputation for quality which drives our success.