He was asked to come back to the store and pay the installation charge on the stereo he originally wanted, which was recommended in the first place, when this unit would not fit and a more expensive model was installed instead (he paid the difference). The store reneged on a verbal agreement that they would not charge him for installation because of the mixup.
I have not heard in my thirty odd years one succinct, consise argument as to why Quebec should separate. Not one. I asked my Quebec relatives the same question and they could not either. They just throw their hands up in the air and say something to the effect that they currently receive a raw deal from Confederation.
As far back as you go in Canadian history be it Lower Canada or Quebec, the distinctive and unique nature of Quebec has been recognized and furthered by careful consideration and compromise on the part of the rest of Canada. There is no real grievance that Quebec has to separate. They have control of their own immigration and other unique powers, a substantial cash flow from the Federal Government in the form of tranfer payments and a unique and favored position in Canada. In short, they are stronger in Canada than out.
The handful of arguments that have been presented sound like those from a disgruntled teenager who hasn't grown up to realize the wisdom of his parents.
Is the witnesses could have exercised their constitutional right to not testify against themselves (similar to the U.S. constitution). Then, if the inquiry desired to do so (I assume), they could have compelled their testimony in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
If I was a witness before the inquiry and faced criminal charges that is what I would have done. No publication ban, no trial, no problem (maybe).
First, we do not have grand juries in Canada and the trappings of secrecy therein, but we do have a process called preliminary inquiry which achieves the same function and is open to the public like all our courts are. Publication bans are routinely ordered to protect the rights of the accused until the conclusion of the trial.
Now the Gomery Inquiry is a legal tribunal initiated by parliament to investigate possible corruption surrounding advertising contracts given to certain agencies that are believed to be loyal to the ruling Liberal Party. Extremely damaging testimony was recently given by witnesses during the inquiry and the judge invoked a publication ban to protect the rights of those witnesses who face certain criminal prosecution. Note that the ban does not remain in force forever and, while I don't agree with it, the testimony will eventually be made public.
The crux of the matter is while the rights of potentially accussed persons are protected we are likely to face another election in the very near future before the information is made public. Without the knowledge of the testimony the public may be heading into an election with more questions than answers. Does the right of the public to know the substance of the allegations made during the inquiry outweigh the rights of accused persons?
I think the publication ban does more harm then good as speculation swirls around the subject and the real truth remains hidden. In the meantime, the Liberal minority goverment is probably happy with things the way they are considering the potential damange to their reputation.
My brother bought a stack of recordable CDs from a retailer in Vancouver close to five years ago. Of course, the advertised price at the time was a phenomenal deal and against my protestations and the angst inducing mail in rebate requirement for the "sale" price he bit and purchased the CDs, filled out the form and mailed in all the required bullshit.
Needless to say months later still no check. Down to the store he goes only to find out from the retailer that this is common problem and that most companies contract out their rebates to "fulfilment centres" where "fulfilment" is anything but.
We get into the "I told you so" conversation and I jokingly mention that he should sue. Note that by this point he'd called, mailed a letter or two and been generally frustrated. He looked into the matter and decided that he would file a small claims suit. According to him, they are incredibly easy to file in BC with only a few sticking points such as the legal name of the entity you wish to make a claim against and the type of business presence the company maintains in BC.
A few days after (and $100 later for filing costs) he sent a copy of the statement of claim to the company offices in Vancouver he received a nice phone call from the company offering to send him a check for the rebate and the cost of his filing fee (which was claimed in his statement of claim). He never got to stand before a judge, but he did get his satisfaction.
Now, why would someone go through all this for the $10 rebate on a stack of $25 CD-Rs? Well, he's the guy that decided half way through university that instead of engineering he wanted to become a dentist, so he did. He's one of those anal retentive types that keeps, files and remembers everything. Which is a good thing if you're a dentist, I suppose.
Although I haven't heard of any lawsuits in Canada.
It seems like a coincidence, but since the inception of the no late fees policy I have never seen Blockbuster less busy. It is a veritable ghost town at my local stores, even on Tuesdays the big release day of the week.
Rogers Video, their main competitor and where I rent now, is always busy. I haven't rented from Blockbuster for quite some time as they never seem to have the movie or game I want in stock and Rogers Video has a much better selection of older and hard to find movies.
IE does have a print preview, but of course it does not differentiate between frames in print preview mode. It would be nice and more intuitive if it delineated the frames and let you choose to print the specified frame rather than right clicking in the frame itself and selecting print.
And I ageee with the parent comment that IE needs a page scaling feature. Firefox has had the "shrink to fit" and "page scaling" options for sometime now.
This coming from the guy who told everyone to "lighten up, it's a kids movie" due to the savage criticism about the craptastic Phantom Menace. It's not an exact quote and I don't have time to find it, but it seems a little odd to me that his answer to the criticism of Phantom Menace was that it is a movie for kids and then produce a PG-13 sequel. Which is it?
Is that why this has been proposed and subsequently derailed for THREE YEARS, mainly from the vehement objections of ISPs, telecommunications companies and civil libertarians? Also, the article is completely wrong about warrantless access to data. Yes, data retention would be required but a warrant would be required to access any of the information. The intention is to create a legislative and technological parallel to what already exists for telephone tapping. It's not a cake walk to obtain a warrant either, you have to prove that you cannot acquire the information any other way.
I don't have time for search for links, but this issue has been in the news off and on since late 2001 and with a minority government is probably headed nowhere.
California is a SLAPP (stategic lawsuits against public participation) state. I read somewhere that CastleCop is considering a SLAPP counter claim which would result in the original suit getting tossed and costs awarded. SLAPP legislation is intended to protect speech on matters of public interest in circumstances such as this.
I am not saying a SLAPP counter claim would be easy or cheap for CastleCop, but as I understand it SLAPP counterclaims are almost always successful, especially when the SLAPP action concerns pure speech.
Microsoft, realizing that Sony would have a defensive strategy for Halo 3, then responds by launching Halo 4 and 5 simultaneously. Sony replies with a salvo of Grand Tourismo 5 and Final Fantasy: Who Gives a Fuck. Microsoft, in a visionary move, rolls out Halo: Live, featuring gun shaped controllers that fire live rounds of plastic bullets. The Xbox 360 attachment is required, similar to 3D goggles. Sony parries the thrust with the Sony Kikkosan Anal Pumper...
is the mandate of "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee" is keeping this information from the public, not protecting the public's information.
California is a SLAPP (stategic lawsuits against public participation) state. CastleCop could file a SLAPP counter claim and have the original suit tossed and costs awarded. The SLAPP legislation is intended for circumstances such as this, matters of public interest, and the discussion of what constitutes Spyware may never see the light of day.
I am not saying the counter claim would be easy or cheap, but it is definitely something that iSearch should consider.
My mom buys ink cartridges by the dozen at Costco to print her embroidery patterns, at least she did until I bought her a Konica color laser printer last Christmas. It set me back about C$700, but I was tired of seeing her spend C$60 or so a month on ink and the laser printer paid for itself in one year.
Even after printing nearly, what, a thousand color pages she still has 90% of her original toner. It's probably safe to say that she may never buy toner again. At this cost, it just doesn't make any sense to buy an ink jet printer when you can go years or decades between toner replacements. Hell, the printer will probably fail before the toner gives out.
Even HP sells a sub C$1000 color laser with individual color replacement packs.
but you can FAST FORWARD through the commercials, if fact if you keep the FFWD pinned, so to speak, it only takes a moment to get to the main menu. I agree that it is utterly frustrating that you cannot "skip" the commercials, but not as bad as you make out. I have yet to see a DVD that does not permit fast forwarding through commercials, if that's even possible in the DVD standard.
Note I have only viewed the Canadian version of Shrek 2, which contains both English and French audio tracks, so the American version might be different.
the convoluted European political system? Dutch Parliament, European Parliament, Council of Ministers, my head is spinning. It all sounds like some retro Soviet political wet dream.
Anyway, the Dutch Parliament, which I assume speaks for the Dutch people, decided against software patents. OK, so why should they end up with software patents after all is said and done if the Dutch Parliament voted against them? Do the individual governments of the member states not retain their sovereignty in the EU? I realize that for the EU to function as, well, the European Union, it has to have some political will. How far does this politcal will extend?
It would be funny if lobbyists were able to make the point with Bush that restricting stem cell funding might allow other countries to leap ahead of the U.S. and patent and market stem cell technology, locking them out of potentially lucrative products.
I wonder which lobby would have more influence -- corporate or Christian? Right now, I'd say Christian cause the funding is not there.
until I arrived at a local electronics store and noticed a pile of returned Sony NetMD players sitting in the discount bin. Against my better judgement, I bought one and I am still sorry for doing so.
As a MiniDisc player, the unit was great will exceptional battery life and great sound quality. When I attempted to use the NetMD functions of the unit, the reason for so many returns became obvious, mainly to do with the absolutely atrocious software that is used to transfer MP3 or WMA files to the unit (as many are aware, the NetMD players convert MP3s or WMA files to Atrac before uploading to the MD player). It took nothing less than a miracle to find a way around the nearly useless software after Googling for a while, but I did. If I hadn't found the Simpleburner/Nero work-around to Sonicstage, I would have returned the unit just like the other dozen players sitting in the return bin.
From my own experiences, I think simple economics and word of mouth had the most impact on Sony's decision. After all, if your biggest competitor and market leader, Ipod, is not forcing MP3 copy restrictions on their player, how do you expect your model to work?
Many years ago, probably the late 80's, I was at a restaurant in Vancouver waiting for a friend who appeared to be late. I was directed to the restaurant courtesy phone and was miffed when I discovered that the call from the restaurant to his home was long distance (Vancouver had some weird long distance rules back then, now fixed). Anyway, the courtesy phone had a long distance restrictor device attached so I pulsed dialed manually by clicking the receiver. All my tapping caused some curious looks from people in the restaurant waiting area, but it worked.
I believe digital switches are much less tolerant and "manual" rotary dialing will no longer work now on digital circuits.
It seems that some here are completely missing the point.
The author, Cory Doctorow, was directed to an AA 'security counter' before checking in at the AA counter in Gatwick airport, not on arrival in the U.S., was interogated by an AA security officer and was asked to provide personal information on A BLANK PIECE OF PAPER. If I was Cory I would have been as upset as he was and I believe he asked the security officer some reasonable questions. The entire process was bizarre to my thinking.
Many have pointed out that you are asked for an address in your destination country, but by an INS offical not an airline employee, on an official customs form and certainly not before you board your flight. The only country that I know of that has customs pre-clearance to the U.S. is Canada, where the customs and immigration process is handled in Canada by American INS agents before you board your plane to the U.S. Upon arrival, you step off the plane and into the airport, no customs.
I didn't see anyone mention this before, but every ISP I have ever had business with prohibits bulk email in their terms of service, regardless of the CANSPAM act.
I don't know who Atriks contracts for internet service, but dollars to donuts I bet their terms of service prohibit bulk emailing.
"Speed Kills" promo in British Columbia...
on
Newsy Numbers
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Reminds me of an anti-speeding promotion run by the Government of British Columbia a few years ago. They distributed flyers at malls and meetings that contained, among other things, a pie chart with the various causes of accidents broken down by percentage and accordingly sized pie wedge with a large bolded heading, "Speed Kills" or somesuch. The "speeding" wedge was colored red and greatly blown up for dramatic effect, while such other causes as "following too closely" and "unsafe lane changes" remained normal sized even though their percentages were GREATER than the "speeding" category.
I pointed this out to the police constable attending the display and he came back with the excuse that, "Speed exacerbates these driving behaviors", which I have to concede is true but it's impossible and simplistic to say that speeding was the cause of the accident, otherwise why would these other categories exist?
There is a great book by A. K. Dewdney called, "200% of Nothing", that talks about chart abuse and other statistical ills. I found it quite an interesting read as it turned a few of the rusty mathematical gears and made me think. You can find it at Amazon or any good library.
Slashdot Mirror
He was asked to come back to the store and pay the installation charge on the stereo he originally wanted, which was recommended in the first place, when this unit would not fit and a more expensive model was installed instead (he paid the difference). The store reneged on a verbal agreement that they would not charge him for installation because of the mixup.
I have not heard in my thirty odd years one succinct, consise argument as to why Quebec should separate. Not one. I asked my Quebec relatives the same question and they could not either. They just throw their hands up in the air and say something to the effect that they currently receive a raw deal from Confederation.
As far back as you go in Canadian history be it Lower Canada or Quebec, the distinctive and unique nature of Quebec has been recognized and furthered by careful consideration and compromise on the part of the rest of Canada. There is no real grievance that Quebec has to separate. They have control of their own immigration and other unique powers, a substantial cash flow from the Federal Government in the form of tranfer payments and a unique and favored position in Canada. In short, they are stronger in Canada than out.
The handful of arguments that have been presented sound like those from a disgruntled teenager who hasn't grown up to realize the wisdom of his parents.
Is the witnesses could have exercised their constitutional right to not testify against themselves (similar to the U.S. constitution). Then, if the inquiry desired to do so (I assume), they could have compelled their testimony in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
If I was a witness before the inquiry and faced criminal charges that is what I would have done. No publication ban, no trial, no problem (maybe).
First, we do not have grand juries in Canada and the trappings of secrecy therein, but we do have a process called preliminary inquiry which achieves the same function and is open to the public like all our courts are. Publication bans are routinely ordered to protect the rights of the accused until the conclusion of the trial.
Now the Gomery Inquiry is a legal tribunal initiated by parliament to investigate possible corruption surrounding advertising contracts given to certain agencies that are believed to be loyal to the ruling Liberal Party. Extremely damaging testimony was recently given by witnesses during the inquiry and the judge invoked a publication ban to protect the rights of those witnesses who face certain criminal prosecution. Note that the ban does not remain in force forever and, while I don't agree with it, the testimony will eventually be made public.
The crux of the matter is while the rights of potentially accussed persons are protected we are likely to face another election in the very near future before the information is made public. Without the knowledge of the testimony the public may be heading into an election with more questions than answers. Does the right of the public to know the substance of the allegations made during the inquiry outweigh the rights of accused persons?
I think the publication ban does more harm then good as speculation swirls around the subject and the real truth remains hidden. In the meantime, the Liberal minority goverment is probably happy with things the way they are considering the potential damange to their reputation.
The article is probably a joke, but nevermind.
My brother bought a stack of recordable CDs from a retailer in Vancouver close to five years ago. Of course, the advertised price at the time was a phenomenal deal and against my protestations and the angst inducing mail in rebate requirement for the "sale" price he bit and purchased the CDs, filled out the form and mailed in all the required bullshit.
Needless to say months later still no check. Down to the store he goes only to find out from the retailer that this is common problem and that most companies contract out their rebates to "fulfilment centres" where "fulfilment" is anything but.
We get into the "I told you so" conversation and I jokingly mention that he should sue. Note that by this point he'd called, mailed a letter or two and been generally frustrated. He looked into the matter and decided that he would file a small claims suit. According to him, they are incredibly easy to file in BC with only a few sticking points such as the legal name of the entity you wish to make a claim against and the type of business presence the company maintains in BC.
A few days after (and $100 later for filing costs) he sent a copy of the statement of claim to the company offices in Vancouver he received a nice phone call from the company offering to send him a check for the rebate and the cost of his filing fee (which was claimed in his statement of claim). He never got to stand before a judge, but he did get his satisfaction.
Now, why would someone go through all this for the $10 rebate on a stack of $25 CD-Rs? Well, he's the guy that decided half way through university that instead of engineering he wanted to become a dentist, so he did. He's one of those anal retentive types that keeps, files and remembers everything. Which is a good thing if you're a dentist, I suppose.
Although I haven't heard of any lawsuits in Canada.
It seems like a coincidence, but since the inception of the no late fees policy I have never seen Blockbuster less busy. It is a veritable ghost town at my local stores, even on Tuesdays the big release day of the week.
Rogers Video, their main competitor and where I rent now, is always busy. I haven't rented from Blockbuster for quite some time as they never seem to have the movie or game I want in stock and Rogers Video has a much better selection of older and hard to find movies.
IE does have a print preview, but of course it does not differentiate between frames in print preview mode. It would be nice and more intuitive if it delineated the frames and let you choose to print the specified frame rather than right clicking in the frame itself and selecting print.
And I ageee with the parent comment that IE needs a page scaling feature. Firefox has had the "shrink to fit" and "page scaling" options for sometime now.
This coming from the guy who told everyone to "lighten up, it's a kids movie" due to the savage criticism about the craptastic Phantom Menace. It's not an exact quote and I don't have time to find it, but it seems a little odd to me that his answer to the criticism of Phantom Menace was that it is a movie for kids and then produce a PG-13 sequel. Which is it?
Is that why this has been proposed and subsequently derailed for THREE YEARS, mainly from the vehement objections of ISPs, telecommunications companies and civil libertarians? Also, the article is completely wrong about warrantless access to data. Yes, data retention would be required but a warrant would be required to access any of the information. The intention is to create a legislative and technological parallel to what already exists for telephone tapping. It's not a cake walk to obtain a warrant either, you have to prove that you cannot acquire the information any other way.
I don't have time for search for links, but this issue has been in the news off and on since late 2001 and with a minority government is probably headed nowhere.
California is a SLAPP (stategic lawsuits against public participation) state. I read somewhere that CastleCop is considering a SLAPP counter claim which would result in the original suit getting tossed and costs awarded. SLAPP legislation is intended to protect speech on matters of public interest in circumstances such as this.
I am not saying a SLAPP counter claim would be easy or cheap for CastleCop, but as I understand it SLAPP counterclaims are almost always successful, especially when the SLAPP action concerns pure speech.
Microsoft, realizing that Sony would have a defensive strategy for Halo 3, then responds by launching Halo 4 and 5 simultaneously. Sony replies with a salvo of Grand Tourismo 5 and Final Fantasy: Who Gives a Fuck. Microsoft, in a visionary move, rolls out Halo: Live, featuring gun shaped controllers that fire live rounds of plastic bullets. The Xbox 360 attachment is required, similar to 3D goggles. Sony parries the thrust with the Sony Kikkosan Anal Pumper...
is the mandate of "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee" is keeping this information from the public, not protecting the public's information.
California is a SLAPP (stategic lawsuits against public participation) state. CastleCop could file a SLAPP counter claim and have the original suit tossed and costs awarded. The SLAPP legislation is intended for circumstances such as this, matters of public interest, and the discussion of what constitutes Spyware may never see the light of day.
I am not saying the counter claim would be easy or cheap, but it is definitely something that iSearch should consider.
My mom buys ink cartridges by the dozen at Costco to print her embroidery patterns, at least she did until I bought her a Konica color laser printer last Christmas. It set me back about C$700, but I was tired of seeing her spend C$60 or so a month on ink and the laser printer paid for itself in one year.
Even after printing nearly, what, a thousand color pages she still has 90% of her original toner. It's probably safe to say that she may never buy toner again. At this cost, it just doesn't make any sense to buy an ink jet printer when you can go years or decades between toner replacements. Hell, the printer will probably fail before the toner gives out.
Even HP sells a sub C$1000 color laser with individual color replacement packs.
but you can FAST FORWARD through the commercials, if fact if you keep the FFWD pinned, so to speak, it only takes a moment to get to the main menu. I agree that it is utterly frustrating that you cannot "skip" the commercials, but not as bad as you make out. I have yet to see a DVD that does not permit fast forwarding through commercials, if that's even possible in the DVD standard.
Note I have only viewed the Canadian version of Shrek 2, which contains both English and French audio tracks, so the American version might be different.
when you can buy an entire roll of SCO stock at your local supermarket? Available in 6, 12 or 24 roll packages.
My guess is the Vonage computers have a hard time understanding the Indian operators accent, until they're outsourced, of course.
the convoluted European political system? Dutch Parliament, European Parliament, Council of Ministers, my head is spinning. It all sounds like some retro Soviet political wet dream.
Anyway, the Dutch Parliament, which I assume speaks for the Dutch people, decided against software patents. OK, so why should they end up with software patents after all is said and done if the Dutch Parliament voted against them? Do the individual governments of the member states not retain their sovereignty in the EU? I realize that for the EU to function as, well, the European Union, it has to have some political will. How far does this politcal will extend?
Just asking.
"National PC Recycling Plan Proposed, Again". So, you could say the plan has been "recycled". Ba doom doom.
That's what you get from reading too much Fark...
It would be funny if lobbyists were able to make the point with Bush that restricting stem cell funding might allow other countries to leap ahead of the U.S. and patent and market stem cell technology, locking them out of potentially lucrative products.
I wonder which lobby would have more influence -- corporate or Christian? Right now, I'd say Christian cause the funding is not there.
until I arrived at a local electronics store and noticed a pile of returned Sony NetMD players sitting in the discount bin. Against my better judgement, I bought one and I am still sorry for doing so.
As a MiniDisc player, the unit was great will exceptional battery life and great sound quality. When I attempted to use the NetMD functions of the unit, the reason for so many returns became obvious, mainly to do with the absolutely atrocious software that is used to transfer MP3 or WMA files to the unit (as many are aware, the NetMD players convert MP3s or WMA files to Atrac before uploading to the MD player). It took nothing less than a miracle to find a way around the nearly useless software after Googling for a while, but I did. If I hadn't found the Simpleburner/Nero work-around to Sonicstage, I would have returned the unit just like the other dozen players sitting in the return bin.
From my own experiences, I think simple economics and word of mouth had the most impact on Sony's decision. After all, if your biggest competitor and market leader, Ipod, is not forcing MP3 copy restrictions on their player, how do you expect your model to work?
Many years ago, probably the late 80's, I was at a restaurant in Vancouver waiting for a friend who appeared to be late. I was directed to the restaurant courtesy phone and was miffed when I discovered that the call from the restaurant to his home was long distance (Vancouver had some weird long distance rules back then, now fixed). Anyway, the courtesy phone had a long distance restrictor device attached so I pulsed dialed manually by clicking the receiver. All my tapping caused some curious looks from people in the restaurant waiting area, but it worked.
I believe digital switches are much less tolerant and "manual" rotary dialing will no longer work now on digital circuits.
It seems that some here are completely missing the point.
The author, Cory Doctorow, was directed to an AA 'security counter' before checking in at the AA counter in Gatwick airport, not on arrival in the U.S., was interogated by an AA security officer and was asked to provide personal information on A BLANK PIECE OF PAPER. If I was Cory I would have been as upset as he was and I believe he asked the security officer some reasonable questions. The entire process was bizarre to my thinking.
Many have pointed out that you are asked for an address in your destination country, but by an INS offical not an airline employee, on an official customs form and certainly not before you board your flight. The only country that I know of that has customs pre-clearance to the U.S. is Canada, where the customs and immigration process is handled in Canada by American INS agents before you board your plane to the U.S. Upon arrival, you step off the plane and into the airport, no customs.
I didn't see anyone mention this before, but every ISP I have ever had business with prohibits bulk email in their terms of service, regardless of the CANSPAM act.
I don't know who Atriks contracts for internet service, but dollars to donuts I bet their terms of service prohibit bulk emailing.
Reminds me of an anti-speeding promotion run by the Government of British Columbia a few years ago. They distributed flyers at malls and meetings that contained, among other things, a pie chart with the various causes of accidents broken down by percentage and accordingly sized pie wedge with a large bolded heading, "Speed Kills" or somesuch. The "speeding" wedge was colored red and greatly blown up for dramatic effect, while such other causes as "following too closely" and "unsafe lane changes" remained normal sized even though their percentages were GREATER than the "speeding" category.
I pointed this out to the police constable attending the display and he came back with the excuse that, "Speed exacerbates these driving behaviors", which I have to concede is true but it's impossible and simplistic to say that speeding was the cause of the accident, otherwise why would these other categories exist?
There is a great book by A. K. Dewdney called, "200% of Nothing", that talks about chart abuse and other statistical ills. I found it quite an interesting read as it turned a few of the rusty mathematical gears and made me think. You can find it at Amazon or any good library.