they use the phone # as a key to get to name, address, etc. At least within my experience, they ask the phone, and then read the name off the screen to verify. If you've got somebody else's old phone #, you just have to say something when they say "steve smith?" and that isn't your name.
As to the irrelevance issue--from a business point of view, it doesn't matter why you returned item X. If they consistently lose money selling stuff to you, then you're not a valuable customer. They're using a discriminatory (in the economic, not legal, sense) return policy to encourage the folks they perceive as good customers to shop there. They don't use a blanket restock strategy because for most customers it's not a good practice. As for chasing away customers--if they're not good customers anyway, that's a benefit, not a problem...
If you return enough stuff to make the list they've got every reason not to want your business...
This seems to me a valid and reasonable use of a database. They are, after all, in business to make money, not to provide you with toys that you can play with for a few days and then return.
ps--yea, yea, I can feel the libertarian flame beginning already, but I don't remember coming across any constitutional right to a liberal return policy
you say--"I prefer to judge things using my own senses rather than accept the stories told by others."
but that's just the problem with the modern world-- most of the things that are of any significance to science (e.g.--DNA; electronics, nanotech, etc) are not perceivable with human senses... Our perception of many things depends on interpreting the results presented by machines--and those results are at least potentially succeptible to being faked.
If you're going to depend on your unaided senses for certainty, then the moon landing absolutely must be a fake. Take a look at the moon tonight--can you see the lander up there? If senses are the only thing to be trusted, then how could it possibly be proven to have happened (or not, for that matter)?
which brings us back to: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
what these guys did was the functional equivalent of disconnecting the odometer to circumvent the mileage limitations in the lease, thereby avoiding the excess mileage fee....
a) you have no clue what you're talking about b) you have no clue about physics c) gyro based servo control does not rely on air resistance for damping
One of the most important aspects of the segway design is that its footprint is not significantly larger that that of a pedestrian... A bike is 4 to five feet long, and the same width; nearly triple the size
one fairly common use for such things is to do low level engineering functions--sizing parts, or coming up with a BOM, or even some limited design functionality. They also sit at the core of many businesses. The documents aren't for the rote work of plugging in some customer's name, they're used to figure out what you need to buy, and when.
These documents are often specific to an individual product or product line, are typically moderately complex, require intimate knowledge of the issues involved, and are generated over time at the expense of a considerable number of manhours. They tend to be full of formulas and macros. Error checking such documents is a nightmare, and enormously costly--and if there are ANY errors, the costs can be enormous--missed shipping deadlines, wrong parts ordered,etc. Migrating them to a new platform just to make the IT guys life easier is a nearly sure path to business suicide.
Does the article cover something of extreme interest to nerds? YES, duh! +2 Does the article cover some aspect that nobody knew about before? YES. +1 Is the article posted on a for-free fan site? YES. +1 Did the article come from an evil corporation? Popular Science is owned by AOL Time Warner and we all know how/. feels about them. YES. +5 Does the article cover somebody/. respects? WETA, yup,/. respects them. Hmmm... -2
Not that your service to the country isn't valuable, but you need to recalibrate your sense of poverty (and the minimum wage)--nobody making anything near minimum wage is in a position to be buying new computers of any flavor.
Here in Maine, the minimum wage is $6.90 per hour--assuming an average of 23 working days per month, that comes to $$1269.60 per month--before taxes. After payroll taxes (FICA, etc), that would come to about $1100 per month take-home. Even working 2 jobs would barely bring in what you're making--and without the numerous benefits (housing, medical, paid vacation, etc) that come with a military job.
Your sense of the poverty line isn't very good either-- in Maine, for a family of 4, it's $23,500 gross income... your NET exceeds that
D. Starting at the earlier of the release of Service Pack 1 for Windows XP or three months
after the entry of this Final Judgment, Microsoft shall disclose to ISVs, IHVs, IAPs,
ICPs, and OEMs, for the sole purpose of interoperating with a Windows Operating
System Product, via the Microsoft Developer Network ("MSDN") or similar
mechanisms, the APIs and related Documentation that are used by Microsoft Middleware
to interoperate with a Windows Operating System Product.
a) 200,000 Euro's is chump change--holding a conference or two for a couple dozen people to study/debate the matter would eat up most of that
b) you acknowledge that no professional would invest money without research, so what, you're suggesting that government should be run by amateurs?
c) supposing we accept your notion that they shouldn't spend any money on it, how, precisely do you propose to develop the arguement for adopting OSS at the government level?
If it's the users who are so dumb, why is it your brilliant software that's got the bugs?
Forcing arrogant developers to do their own tech support is about the best possible management practice I can think of--consider it a forced course in humility
If I could get a beachfront house in CA for $400k I'd jump on it it a second....
time to recalibrate your real-estate-o-meter--the correct # probably has an additional zero
as a general rule, seawalls cause more damage overall (say within a 1 mile radius) than they prevent locally. In general, the benefit that accrues to your personal beach comes at the expense of the next guy down the line...
it becomes an escalation thing--your seawall pushes the damage over to your neighbor, who is then forced to build a seawall, which pushes the damages down to the next guy. If carried to the extreme, you get a line of seawalls instead of a coast--something the army corp of engineers has learned to its dismay in more than one location....
This happens because the currents that are important for beach building move laterally to the beach, carrying sand along. A sea wall interupts that current for the builders benefit, but to the overall detriment of the system
They're not looking to create a new tax, they're attempting to prevent a new technology from eliminating a current tax.
In most states, one of the current paradigms for taxation is "tax the purchase of goods by end users"--aka retail. To the extent that you buy your furby online instead of at toysRus, you subvert the current paradigm, and deprive the taxing authority of money that they'd been counting on..... (Note: I didn't address whether government "deserves" the money in any way.)
I fail to see any reason why a purchase from JoesDiscountRetail.com should be any more or less worthy of taxation that something bought at the corner store
Slashdot Mirror
they use the phone # as a key to get to name, address, etc. At least within my experience, they ask the phone, and then read the name off the screen to verify. If you've got somebody else's old phone #, you just have to say something when they say "steve smith?" and that isn't your name.
As to the irrelevance issue--from a business point of view, it doesn't matter why you returned item X. If they consistently lose money selling stuff to you, then you're not a valuable customer. They're using a discriminatory (in the economic, not legal, sense) return policy to encourage the folks they perceive as good customers to shop there. They don't use a blanket restock strategy because for most customers it's not a good practice. As for chasing away customers--if they're not good customers anyway, that's a benefit, not a problem...
If you return enough stuff to make the list they've got every reason not to want your business...
This seems to me a valid and reasonable use of a database. They are, after all, in business to make money, not to provide you with toys that you can play with for a few days and then return.
ps--yea, yea, I can feel the libertarian flame beginning already, but I don't remember coming across any constitutional right to a liberal return policy
you say--"I prefer to judge things using my own senses rather than accept the stories told by others."
but that's just the problem with the modern world-- most of the things that are of any significance to science (e.g.--DNA; electronics, nanotech, etc) are not perceivable with human senses... Our perception of many things depends on interpreting the results presented by machines--and those results are at least potentially succeptible to being faked.
If you're going to depend on your unaided senses for certainty, then the moon landing absolutely must be a fake. Take a look at the moon tonight--can you see the lander up there? If senses are the only thing to be trusted, then how could it possibly be proven to have happened (or not, for that matter)?
which brings us back to: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
capped odometer == leased car
what these guys did was the functional equivalent of disconnecting the odometer to circumvent the mileage limitations in the lease, thereby avoiding the excess mileage fee....
a) you have no clue what you're talking about
b) you have no clue about physics
c) gyro based servo control does not rely on air resistance for damping
FWIW, a bike is not smaller....
One of the most important aspects of the segway design is that its footprint is not significantly larger that that of a pedestrian... A bike is 4 to five feet long, and the same width; nearly triple the size
That would work just fine...
the only trouble is that you would also acquire the status of persona-non-grata, which would effectively bar you from ever going to Canada again...
you're way off base on spreadsheets...
,etc. Migrating them to a new platform just to make the IT guys life easier is a nearly sure path to business suicide.
one fairly common use for such things is to do low level engineering functions--sizing parts, or coming up with a BOM, or even some limited design functionality. They also sit at the core of many businesses. The documents aren't for the rote work of plugging in some customer's name, they're used to figure out what you need to buy, and when.
These documents are often specific to an individual product or product line, are typically moderately complex, require intimate knowledge of the issues involved, and are generated over time at the expense of a considerable number of manhours. They tend to be full of formulas and macros. Error checking such documents is a nightmare, and enormously costly--and if there are ANY errors, the costs can be enormous--missed shipping deadlines, wrong parts ordered
It's Fox...what more did you expect?
everything I know about arithmetic I learned from slashdot...
re-arranging slightly....
/. feels about them. YES. +5 /. respects? WETA, yup, /. respects them. Hmmm... -2
Does the article cover something of extreme interest to nerds? YES, duh! +2
Does the article cover some aspect that nobody knew about before? YES. +1
Is the article posted on a for-free fan site? YES. +1
Did the article come from an evil corporation? Popular Science is owned by AOL Time Warner and we all know how
Does the article cover somebody
That totals up to +3, and so is morally ambiguous
200,000 submissions != 200,000 bugs
is it really so hard to write a cogent article?
Not that your service to the country isn't valuable, but you need to recalibrate your sense of poverty (and the minimum wage)--nobody making anything near minimum wage is in a position to be buying new computers of any flavor.
Here in Maine, the minimum wage is $6.90 per hour--assuming an average of 23 working days per month, that comes to $$1269.60 per month--before taxes. After payroll taxes (FICA, etc), that would come to about $1100 per month take-home. Even working 2 jobs would barely bring in what you're making--and without the numerous benefits (housing, medical, paid vacation, etc) that come with a military job.
Your sense of the poverty line isn't very good either-- in Maine, for a family of 4, it's $23,500 gross income... your NET exceeds that
Dow Jones Business News had it at 1:52 PM--over an hour and a half earlier
"Or why don't we look at one of the many articles that don't require registration"
/. editors to do actual work
because finding a no-register link would require the
a) 200,000 Euro's is chump change--holding a conference or two for a couple dozen people to study/debate the matter would eat up most of that
b) you acknowledge that no professional would invest money without research, so what, you're suggesting that government should be run by amateurs?
c) supposing we accept your notion that they shouldn't spend any money on it, how, precisely do you propose to develop the arguement for adopting OSS at the government level?
If it's the users who are so dumb, why is it your brilliant software that's got the bugs?
Forcing arrogant developers to do their own tech support is about the best possible management practice I can think of--consider it a forced course in humility
If I could get a beachfront house in CA for $400k I'd jump on it it a second.... time to recalibrate your real-estate-o-meter--the correct # probably has an additional zero
it's a "community property" issue....
as a general rule, seawalls cause more damage overall (say within a 1 mile radius) than they prevent locally. In general, the benefit that accrues to your personal beach comes at the expense of the next guy down the line...
it becomes an escalation thing--your seawall pushes the damage over to your neighbor, who is then forced to build a seawall, which pushes the damages down to the next guy. If carried to the extreme, you get a line of seawalls instead of a coast--something the army corp of engineers has learned to its dismay in more than one location....
This happens because the currents that are important for beach building move laterally to the beach, carrying sand along. A sea wall interupts that current for the builders benefit, but to the overall detriment of the system
They're not looking to create a new tax, they're attempting to prevent a new technology from eliminating a current tax.
In most states, one of the current paradigms for taxation is "tax the purchase of goods by end users"--aka retail. To the extent that you buy your furby online instead of at toysRus, you subvert the current paradigm, and deprive the taxing authority of money that they'd been counting on..... (Note: I didn't address whether government "deserves" the money in any way.)
I fail to see any reason why a purchase from JoesDiscountRetail.com should be any more or less worthy of taxation that something bought at the corner store
Ever wonder how they make all those power tools that only draw 1 HP of electrical power, but are rated at 3 or ever 5 HP?
bite me
If designing the interface is trivial, why do so many interfaces SUCK ??
boy, that's the lamest retraction I've ever read...
If you're going to be so ardent in your position, you could at least admit being wrong