It is always cool to catch a theif, and particularly someone who preys on people who don't have much money to pursue these things. And while I sympathize with those who say he shouldn't have sent it COD to begin with, we all make mistakes sometimes, and at least he did what he could to correct it. And if he had protected himself, this guy wouldn't have gotten caught.
There's a couple of simple things he missed, though:
1) As someone else pointed out, he did have the delivery address. While that could have been a drop, it wasn't, and even if it was, someone lived there and could have been used to trace him.
2) As soon as the second person turned up with a $3,000 item, the total value was over the $5,000 minimum the FBI and Secret Service needed to go after it, so they could have been immediately contacted. Also, when they know there's a pattern, they're more likely to get involved.
Frankly, I'd rather see money going to youth oriented or poverty oriented organizations than elitist (and I consider Farscape to be elitist) arts (if you can call Farscape that). Now, if Farscape had a program to help aspiring animators from poor back-grounds break into the world of professional animation, that would be another thing.
I'm not a high end Geek, got into a bit later. I'm 33 and I need the money. I'm an Access developer because Access comes very cheap to non-profits (http://www.techsoup.org/DiscounTech/default.asp?c g=home&sg=dt&visit=1)
where I've spent most of my working life, and because it's a decent product. And frankly, it's easier to get a mid-range job when you have Windows skills.
And yeah, games are a good reason too.
And frankly, Wintel is easy, and cheaper than Apple products. Linux is, let's be realistic, just starting to come into it's own. It's a great server, but there's tons of stuff for Wintel, and not so much for Linux yet.
There are companies that publish works by Shakespere. Thus, any free publications of Shakespere cut into their profits.
There are companies that produce Bibles. Thus, anyone who gives away the Bible is cutting into their profits.
Since the rights in the Constitution have been basically given away to corporations anyway, it seems only fair that only they should have the exclusive right to publish them. It's only fair that only those who actually use the rights therein should have to pay for them, and conversely only those who actually pay for them should have the rights.
Why is it that when a new technology comes out, the first thought is "How do we use this for advertising?". Don't we have better things to worry about? Can't we figure out new technology that doesn't have advertising applications? I'm tired of being advertised to by everyone at every moment. When I go to the supermarket, the little things that separate different people's purchases have ads on them (someone on/. surely knows the technical name for those things). At the height of the.com boom, the whole BART stations were wrapped in advertising for one company. Now the toy I buy for my kids is going to start yapping "Buy Doritos, Buy Doritos" everytime Buffy comes on. Who knows what it'll say if I accidently turn on a Christian station.
So, let's see, they basically cut the ribbon into two pieces, one dangling from the top and one attached to the bottom. Whoops. The one attached to the ground station, say 50-65000 feet below, falls. Damage is done to ground station and probably a lot of stuff around it, ships and aircraft approaching.
The push-pull between the ground and the orbiting station is disrupted. Gone, basically, and what happens? Well, for starters, there's wind currents, ripple effect from the blast, lack of anchor at the bottom, basically massive disruption to anyone on or attached to the ribbon going up. Possibly the orbiting station will lose it's connection to the ground and start to drift. I'm saying that you're looking at a substatial disruption in operations, not to meantion a considerable loss of life. Just the number of lawyers necessary to figure this all out would probably sink any island that it was anchored on.
Work for a Non-Profit Organization. I'm a database developer at an NPO. The benefits typically are good, you get more of a feeling of actually accomplishing something, or at least working for an org that is accomplishing something, and if you're a techie, everybody loves you because they can't turn on their monitor, much less create a simple Access Query.
Since this probably applies to non-profits as well, I'll answer from that world. As a non-profit techie, I can tell you that 99% of computers donated to non-profits are not worth the time. The only way they would be worth the time is if you installed Linux on them, and 99% of non-profit organizations don't want to deal with Linux.
I have actually had people recently want to give my organization 486's. If I had all the time in the world, sure, it would worth salvaging for parts, maybe using it as a low-end box of some sort. But the truth is, I don't have time. And most non-profits don't have a techie who can make that little 8086 in the corner work. Or even that P-133, with Win95 and Office 95 and 8 megs of RAM, with a 28.8 modem work. It's just not in their job description.
Now, if people give us new machines, well that's great. But the fact is, they don't. And if they do, they usually come with the damn licenses etc.
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It is always cool to catch a theif, and particularly someone who preys on people who don't have much money to pursue these things. And while I sympathize with those who say he shouldn't have sent it COD to begin with, we all make mistakes sometimes, and at least he did what he could to correct it. And if he had protected himself, this guy wouldn't have gotten caught. There's a couple of simple things he missed, though: 1) As someone else pointed out, he did have the delivery address. While that could have been a drop, it wasn't, and even if it was, someone lived there and could have been used to trace him. 2) As soon as the second person turned up with a $3,000 item, the total value was over the $5,000 minimum the FBI and Secret Service needed to go after it, so they could have been immediately contacted. Also, when they know there's a pattern, they're more likely to get involved.
between Crichton and Someone Who Actually Knows the science he's writing about:
Crichton - "So, is what I'm proposing possible, or even theoretical, given today's science?"
SWAK: "Well..."
Crichton: "Good enough for me! Bye"
[Click]
Frankly, I'd rather see money going to youth oriented or poverty oriented organizations than elitist (and I consider Farscape to be elitist) arts (if you can call Farscape that). Now, if Farscape had a program to help aspiring animators from poor back-grounds break into the world of professional animation, that would be another thing.
I'm not a high end Geek, got into a bit later. I'm 33 and I need the money. I'm an Access developer because Access comes very cheap to non-profits (http://www.techsoup.org/DiscounTech/default.asp?c g=home&sg=dt&visit=1)
where I've spent most of my working life, and because it's a decent product. And frankly, it's easier to get a mid-range job when you have Windows skills.
And yeah, games are a good reason too.
And frankly, Wintel is easy, and cheaper than Apple products. Linux is, let's be realistic, just starting to come into it's own. It's a great server, but there's tons of stuff for Wintel, and not so much for Linux yet.
There are companies that publish works by Shakespere. Thus, any free publications of Shakespere cut into their profits. There are companies that produce Bibles. Thus, anyone who gives away the Bible is cutting into their profits. Since the rights in the Constitution have been basically given away to corporations anyway, it seems only fair that only they should have the exclusive right to publish them. It's only fair that only those who actually use the rights therein should have to pay for them, and conversely only those who actually pay for them should have the rights.
Why is it that when a new technology comes out, the first thought is "How do we use this for advertising?". Don't we have better things to worry about? Can't we figure out new technology that doesn't have advertising applications? I'm tired of being advertised to by everyone at every moment. When I go to the supermarket, the little things that separate different people's purchases have ads on them (someone on/. surely knows the technical name for those things). At the height of the .com boom, the whole BART stations were wrapped in advertising for one company. Now the toy I buy for my kids is going to start yapping "Buy Doritos, Buy Doritos" everytime Buffy comes on. Who knows what it'll say if I accidently turn on a Christian station.
So, let's see, they basically cut the ribbon into two pieces, one dangling from the top and one attached to the bottom. Whoops. The one attached to the ground station, say 50-65000 feet below, falls. Damage is done to ground station and probably a lot of stuff around it, ships and aircraft approaching. The push-pull between the ground and the orbiting station is disrupted. Gone, basically, and what happens? Well, for starters, there's wind currents, ripple effect from the blast, lack of anchor at the bottom, basically massive disruption to anyone on or attached to the ribbon going up. Possibly the orbiting station will lose it's connection to the ground and start to drift. I'm saying that you're looking at a substatial disruption in operations, not to meantion a considerable loss of life. Just the number of lawyers necessary to figure this all out would probably sink any island that it was anchored on.
Work for a Non-Profit Organization. I'm a database developer at an NPO. The benefits typically are good, you get more of a feeling of actually accomplishing something, or at least working for an org that is accomplishing something, and if you're a techie, everybody loves you because they can't turn on their monitor, much less create a simple Access Query.
Since this probably applies to non-profits as well, I'll answer from that world. As a non-profit techie, I can tell you that 99% of computers donated to non-profits are not worth the time. The only way they would be worth the time is if you installed Linux on them, and 99% of non-profit organizations don't want to deal with Linux.
I have actually had people recently want to give my organization 486's. If I had all the time in the world, sure, it would worth salvaging for parts, maybe using it as a low-end box of some sort. But the truth is, I don't have time. And most non-profits don't have a techie who can make that little 8086 in the corner work. Or even that P-133, with Win95 and Office 95 and 8 megs of RAM, with a 28.8 modem work. It's just not in their job description.
Now, if people give us new machines, well that's great. But the fact is, they don't. And if they do, they usually come with the damn licenses etc.