"You may permit a maximum of ten (10) computers or other electronic devices (each a "Device") to connect to the Workstation Computer to utilize the services of the Product solely for File and Print services, Internet Information Services, and remote access
This just slays me. For the last two years I am just dumb-struck by how much MS is pushing us back in time, not forward. For all their PR and hype about how wonderful things are, it is all just BS lately. Only 10? Hmmm - I seem to recall Windows for Workgroups 3.11 being able to handle at least 50 -- more actually, depending on what you were doing. We had printers and file locations shared off Win3.11 computers all over the place. I remember, one room full of dumb terminals, with just a floppy boot disk, a shaved down copy of WordPerfect 5.1, and a few NET USE commands that allowed a whole department of secretaries access to file storage and printing. I cannot fathom with all of the technological leaps and bounds that have occurred in the last decade why they are doing this, other than greed. Maybe it's "If they exceed 10, then they have to buy more OS licenses, or better yet a server" WTF????
At a time when more and more families have multiple computers in the house, the older ones being passed down to the kids, why on earth would they pull this now? I have 7 computers at home, my entire house is networked, even the garage. What about smart refigerators, tvs and such, that allow you to print whatever out? I'll tell you what MS, I'll allow as many computer connections to my shared printer as I please, and if your OS locks me out after 10, then I will think it truely a piece of trash. And the home version -- utterly useless -- another grab at getting more $$ out of innocent families and consumers who don't know any better, to force them to go back and pay $100 more for the Pro version. Nice work MS.
While I'm on my rant, let me throw in a little 2K bashing. Don't get me wrong, I think some of the functionality built in to AD is pretty sweet, if you wanted to use it. But MS has decided it is the ONLY way to get things done. In the past, there were many ways to approach a task, and as a consultant you got to pick which method of computing/access/production worked best. But those options are gone now. Like printing. It's cool that you can manage printers and assign them to people, if that's what you wanted to do. But tell my again, why, why, why, in this day and age, I am writing VB scripts just to get a network printer out???? I handle enough user accounts, I really don't want to manage computer accounts now too. That should be my choice. And now of course, the home user is faced with the lovely task of managing user accounts. Really a bad move MS.
Does anyone remember back when, if you wanted to get a printer to work you had to go to the back of the book and get the printer codes? Or modems, you needed the AT command to access one. Those days are long gone, and I don't miss them. But here I am, using little VB scripts that seem vaugly familiar to the old batch files of days gone by. And what is that stupid ConPrt utility again?? Why on earth do I have to leave the OS, go to a resource kit, just to be able to allow users (who don't have access to the printer folder) to print? Come on MS - this is not rocket science. We have been setting up printers for so many years now. It's real simple, when a printer is installed, you ask: Is this printer just for you, or for everyone who sits here? Third party vendors have been doing it for years. I have a team of 5, and not one of them understands VB scripting, but they were great little ghosters, knew how to put printers on and move the computers out. Now they can't make a move unless I get everything ready for them. Utterly useless, unless of course, I send them out for training and pay big buck for some MS classes - or maybe this is part of the big picture too?
For all of it's advanced possibilities, I often feel like I am back in mainframe land. And why do I think that this home/pro thing is not working? Because of 'word on the street'. I have long lost count over the number of home users I know who tell me they can't stand XP, have spent hours upon hours on the phone with tech support, just to get something as simple a shared printer connected, which they had working fine until they tried to bring XP into the mix. And then they spend even more $$ to bring it in to a shop, to have the drive reformatted so they can put Win98 back on!
We have trudged through lame names like My Computer and My Network Places. Now we get ".NET My Services". Is there a MS manager out there who got a bonus for that idea? I don't know - it's like a murky security blanket. Microsoft keeps saying it's mine, but I know it really belongs to them.
Actually, it's about time. Concert traders have been doing this for many years - taping then trading shows with the band permission. There is no reason why the music can't adopt this method in a easier, commercial form. My only worry is that if they are offering this, then they may stop the trading of shows from fans.
My latest gripe is in WinXP, if you use Explorer and try to get to Network Places (besides the fact that they keep changing the name!). You now have to right-click on Network Places and choose Explore again. Didn't I already do that? Come on Microsoft - that is not better security, that's reduced functionality. Learn the difference.
Actually, the codes were pretty sweet. Much like web pages are today, with begin and end tags around everything. It allowed you to use macros to zoom right in on certain text elements and rip through a document for automatic changes. That is much harder to do in Word. And after all these years, Word still can't give you multiple headers/footers on the same page. They say they can, but all it is a different first page, or different odd or even. Some publishers have multiple headers and footers on the same page, such as titles, then chapters that change, and maybe another line under that changes again.
One of the biggest draw backs for a windows word processors is time at the keyboard. In a high production industry, like insurance, where people get paid to simply enter enormous amounts of data daily, whenever you pick up your hand to put it on the mouse, and have to click something, you have lost time. That's why most of those types of jobs still have dos/terminal based programs so the data just gets posted directly. None of this horsing around with the mouse. And believe it or not, these jobs are often timed with a stopwatch, to make sure performance is at peak.
Oh yeah, and next time you are in need of a lawyer, ask them what type of software they use. You would be surprised at how many are still using WordPerfect 5.1.
My old 8088 had one that burst, and the damn thing continued to run for another two years. I gave it away to someone, and it was still running. I wish I had thought to take a picture of it though.
Sleep apnea is one thing... my husband has that, and can talk to me (or fight with me) in his sleep and not remember a word. But I had a uncle with severe sleep narcolepsy - and let me tell you that is such a trip. He was the type that would come over for family festivities, and you would always find him sprawled out in the middle of the floor of our basement. You could jump up and down on him, and he would never wake up. We were kids, and we would go upstairs to declare, 'Uncle Eddy is sleeping again.' But sometimes, he would sit in a chair, be half asleep (we were never sure) and start gabbing. We swear he was speaking a foreign language sometimes. He would have full conversations with you - it was very weird. His head would move back and forth, like he was really into this conversation he was having. You would try to talk to him, and sometimes he would respond, but always in a language of his own. Diagnosis wasn't good back then, but finally after many years, he was diagnosed, and put on breathing machines (same as sleep apnea) and such. But it was so bad he was not allowed to drive, because he could fall asleep at the wheel in an instant and not be in control of sleep. He never hit drowsy, he either slept in a dream state, or he didn't sleep at all.
We do this with neighbor school districts. We also backup all buildings, over the WAN and at night, to a file on the hard drive of another building. We do this in two places, so backups criss-cross. Because of the size and time it takes, this can only happen at night and only one building per night, so there is a downside. But if a building goes down, I know I have a secondary (besides the tape in that building) to fall back on.
I hope this invalidates that patent on the breast cancer gene, discussed here.
It is just stunning to me that could be issued in the first place. And the company was actually using their patent to try and stop others from treating the gene, because it was their gene? Human body parts of any kind should not be patented. This may sound sexist, but I think if that was a testicle gene the patent never would have been issued. (sort of like the viagra vs birth control debacle)
the patent claims as Ameritech's original idea the concept of having elements on a web page that don't change, yet apply directly to other parts of the page that do change.
This format of class/summary/facts and/or legal argument should be repeated for each reply to a particular class of work proposed.
You'll notice that only 50 comments made it in on the first round. Now you're supposed to comment on the accepted comments. Format is everthing. When they say number the class, they mean it. Start the paragraph with a 1. class, 2. class, etc.(although I notice they are not asking for a number this time?)
--Provide a fact, a legal argument, or something from the news, or incident that happened.
--A summary means your paragraph must start with "In summary" or identify the paragraph as a summary paragraph. --Don't forget to include your name on the attachment. This time they are also adding "whether in opposition, support, amplification or correction", so state it. Missing just one of these steps will get your comment rejected. (Mine was rejected, but after correction (I added the words 'In summary') they were accepted. We still don't know how many were actually submitted the first round.
I like the MicroPets - a little out of your price range, but you might have fun if you train them a little first. I also like the mini robots for 6.95 (look down the page). I like the mini racers too, but again pricey, and there can only be a few possible frequencies. Might be good to pick from a variety of items so people can ooh and ahh over each others geek toy. Remember to hit fatwallet.com first to look for discounts or free shipping, and always, if your buying a lot, just call for bulk discounts. At my wedding, we gave traditional gifts to the adults, but each kid got a toy where they could scroll the paper and draw. They made some cute things that I could keep. Also, instead of the traditional guest book, I had one with lots of blank pages, (it had nice prints here and there, but no lines) - and it was passed around during the entire reception. People wrote nice notes and drew hearts, kids drew pictures - it came out really nice.
Really, I do. I have always felt that the concept of P2P would lead to the sharing and distribution of many types of information, not just music or thieved software. The RIAA would like everyone to believe that - P2P=piracy software. How stupid. P2P is far from perfect in design and security, but it is only a few years old. Who knows what its future holds? I believe there was a link on here a while back about IBM or someone using P2P to distibute company information and databases on a intranet. I hope more companies find legitmate ways to make P2P work for them. Each time someone does, it discredits the RIAA's piracy claim.
they said, would think the site's author wrote the content they arrive at, thus destroying our reputation, causing confusion.
I've always thought this argument was so bogus. If ppl land on your site, and can't tell where they are, then you haven't written your pages very well. Look at Salon, or NY Times, it doesn't matter where you land, you know exactly where you are, can find a clear menu to any other part of the site, and there are small ads on each page. If that one page isn't compelling or informative enough to encourage ppl to stay around a little longer -- then again it is poor design. How a judge could ever rule against deep linking is beyond me. "Get thee to web design class" he should have said. Really, if you're on a bus, or eating out, and someone leaves the business section of a paper laying around, don't you think you would know what paper it came from? (I'm not bitching to the poster here, just in general)
In my experience people don't want to see certifications they want experience.
This is so true. My resume is project based, with a small snippet of equipment/OS/software near the end. But one thing I keep on my resume, is my early certification in Windows 3.1., among others. I keep it there because it shows longevity, even though it is long expired. When I got certified, there were less than 1000 msce and certified ppl in the world combined. Last time I checked a few years back, that number was well over 100k, making competition extremely difficult in the certification area. But I still know that there are less than 1000 that could possibly have a 3.1 on their resume. I always explain at an interview my reason for keeping it there, and people are usually very receptive to it.
Around 2 years ago I purchased the real RealPlayer, because I was going to do some video development with it. I bought it online, and the purchase process was horrendous. After I clicked buy it, I was taken to a screen with a ton of things checked off for me, including signing up for their monthly subscription for realplayer maintenance - the gold package I think it was. I unchecked everything, but when I clicked next, there was another screen with different things and the gold player was checked on again. I unchecked everything again. Third screen, same thing.
Since I'm in tech, I would like to think I have some idea what's going on and not get tripped up by this stuff. But I can't imagine how the average user gets through this. Anyway, on the next months credit card bill, there it was, 11 and change charge for RealPlayer maintenence. I swear I unchecked everything. I wish I had taken screen shots to prove it. So I go on their web site to try and cancel. To get to my user account was very difficult (of course I wasn't aware I really had one so I had to figure it out) Under subscription maintenence, I finally found the option to cancel. I click cancel. Up pops a phone number to call to actually get it canceled. I was very busy, lots to do, and I think they counted on that. I had planned to cancel when I got home, but of course I forgot. I kept thinking about it at work, but when I got home I would forget again. Three more months went by, before I finally remembered on the weekend to sit down and take care of it. I had to go through the online process again to get the number, which I finally called and got it cancelled, which of course the guy tried to sell me real player again! Never, never, never again!!!
I can't remember the name of the company, but last year I had just installed IIS, then ran to the store. By the time I got back, around 45min later, I had already been hit by CodeRed. There was a message on my screen saying 'You have been infected by CodeRed. We did not infect you. Your server is trying to infect us. Please look on your hard drive to prove how open your system is. You can click here for more help. Again, we did not infect you.' (something like that anyway.) They left a small folder in my WINNT/system folder that had a link to them. Once I clicked their link they had other links on how to remove it, you could download the script they wrote so you to could load it and detect other people infecting you. And they had stats on how many servers had tried to infect them already (around 2000), and they explained more how they were only trying inform those that were attempting to infect them to be more aware about codered. I have the link and script at home, not with me here. Sorry.
I should me modding, but I have to comment because I don't see a certain point here. We still need to write and bitch because we still have the DMCA on our backs. That these two sides are teaming up leaves me with a sneaky feeling. I want to think it is for the best, but it is about 4 years too late. We have asked for an agreement between parties for years. Now we have the DMCA. We need further legislation to either eliminate it or reduce its power. For the RIAA and tech side to say they will back of legislation, leave the burden squarely on the backs of the public. Support Bouchers bill!
You said short story - this is not comics, but here goes:
I think my husband is addicted to eBay
It all started one day when I noticed my husband, Mark, was spending a little more time than usual checking his email. I wandered into the office to see what he was up to. "What're you doing Honey?" "I'm just surfing on eBay." "For anything in particular?" "Sticks. Pool sticks. Mickey found a good deal on a Huebler, so now I'm trying to find one." That's my hubby: like the matching pea in a pod, whatever his best friend Mickey had, Mark would soon possess, and vice versa. "How much?" "Mickey got his for $175.00. Then he found a Meucci for Carol. Some models retail for twice that." I shook my head a little, gave him a kiss on the cheek and said, "Ok, have fun." Just a couple of days later he was at it again. "What are you looking for now?" I quizzed. "Sticks." "But, I thought you found one the other night." "I did. Now I'm looking for one for you." He looked up at me with a pleading glance, "You want your own pool stick, Honey?" "But, I don't play pool often enough to own my own stick." "I can get you a purple one!" he beamed as he tried to appeal his case to me. "Honey, I don't need a stick. I hardly ever go out when you shoot pool. I can just borrow yours when I do." The next night he was at it again. "Honey! I want to show you something!" He shouted from upstairs. Once upstairs Mark proudly turned the monitor toward me so he could display his new find. "Look Honey, a purple one!" He clicked the Back arrow, and then clicked on a web link he had saved. "And here's a green one. You like green, don't you?" I could already tell that I was going to be the proud owner of a Huebler whether I wanted one or not. "I found a neat trick. Look." he said as he pointed to the monitor. "A lot of people spell Huebler wrong. So if you search for the stick using the misspelling, you'll find a bunch that hardly anyone is bidding on, because most people are searching for the real name. See, the purple one is spelled 'Hubler'. It's only up to $75.00, and there's only three people bidding on it." He clicked another link, "And here's a Meucci, but it's spelled 'Meuchie', so the search function can't find it." "You're already bidding on the stick? But I told you I didn't want one." "But it's a great stick. Trust me honey. Now we can all have our own." "You can have two if you really want them, but I don't need one. And, by the way, what are all of those boxes that keep showing up in the mail?" He flashed a big, proud grin, "Car parts." "You're buying car parts online? Isn't that a little expensive? Can't you just go to the junkyard like you usually do?" "But you can't find the kind of parts I need in a junkyard. I ordered ashtrays for my Monte Carlo. You can't get '87 ashtrays from any of the junkyards around here. And I found door locks for it too. They're the kind with the knobs on the end instead of the straight ones." "How much for new door locks?" I asked. "Fourteen bucks, plus shipping." I rolled my eyes. "Whatever! I'm going back downstairs." A few days later Mark called for me to come upstairs again. "Don't tell me, eBay. What did you find now?" "Just because I love you so much, and you're the most wonderful wife in the world..." he bribed as he turned the monitor toward me. There on the display was an enlarged photo of a diamond ring. "Do you like it?" "Honey", I pronounced the syllables distinctly putting a little emphasis on the 'eee' part, "That's very sweet of you, but I don't need another ring." I held up my ring finger to him, presenting a seven-diamond marquee band, "You just bought me this one a few months ago, and I love it. You know I don't wear a lot of jewelry." "But, I would get it for you if you wanted it. You know, most wives would be happy that their husband wanted to buy them a new ring." "I leaned down to kiss him, "Then you should be glad I'm not like most wives. Please, no ring. Ok?" "Ok. Your loss." Over the next few weeks there were more rings for him to show me. Mark had moved onto gemstones, prodding with, "You want a birthstone don't you?" I finally caved on the birthstone, if he could get it for under $50.00, which he did. It was surprisingly nice for the money. Apparently the woman selling it forgot to put in a reserve price on the item. This meant that she would have to sell it at whatever the final bid was. Then there was the pretty sapphire with a triangle shaped diamond on either side for $175.87. The diamonds were.3 carats, small but noticeable, and definitely not little chips surrounded by a lot of setting the way so many of them are. Clicking on the photos to enlarge them is important in order to catch this detail. If a photo is too blurry and doesn't provide a detailed description of the carat weight, it's not worth looking at. To win this one, Mark had three separate browsers open, each with small increments in price. He had learned that a modem, even at 56k, could only go so fast. So Marked prepped his browsers, and then when the auction began nearing the last minute he would Submit, Submit, Submit. He came within 20 seconds of the end of the auction. The bidder before him came in at 25, losing by just 5 seconds. Yes, I was being educated on the intricacies of eBay on a daily basis now. I had to admit I was happy with some of his little finds for me. But the small packages were starting to show up daily. I had long lost count over the past few months. I had given up on asking about car parts and paintball guns, and had insisted on no more jewelry. Since we were the proud owner of two new (used) Hueblers, I felt safe there would be no more of those. I was wrong. Even though each pool cue came with it's own case, Mark claimed he needed to buy a special case that could carry two sticks. Ok, I reasoned; that made some sense. But what were we going to do with the two empty single cases? Then he needed a stick just for breaking. I tried to argue that one down by pointing out that a bar cue was quite sufficient for the task, but lost to his enthusiastic and passionate energy. After a few months and I don't know how much money, I got paged upstairs again. "Your Mom likes these, doesn't she?" he asked, as he pointed to a listing of Caroling dolls, better known as 'suffocating people' around here. That's my clever Honey's nickname for them because he says when you put them in a glass display case, they all look like they're gasping for air. Putting his generous spirit aside, my hands were on my hips now. I had had enough. "Honey! You're buying for my mother now? Don't you think you're taking this eBay stuff a little too far?" I glared at him in a way that only an angry wife can, "Honey, I think you are addicted to eBay. You haven't stopped since you started. You've run out of things to buy (thank God!), so now your shopping for other people. You need to stop. You know I love you, but you need to stop. I don't want to see another package come into this house!" A dark cloud seemed to settle on the house for the next couple of days. Mark moped about. He shopped, but didn't bid. I swear he was going through withdrawal. I felt guilty, but we had a deal as husband and wife. We gave each other a lot of leeway with our lives; we trusted each other completely to always do the right thing for the marriage. But if one of us decided the other was starting to cross from the gray into the black, and was called up on it, they would stop whatever the offending thing was. End of story; no arguments. Sulking, yes. Arguing, no. Finally, I couldn't take his misery anymore. "Honey, listen: you can't possibly need anything else from eBay. You've bought it all already." He just scowled, and mumbled something I probably didn't want to hear anyway. "Why don't you look for things that you can sell, instead of trying to buy everything? Maybe you can sell the pool cases you have left over?" A seed planted; I left. After a few days, I noticed Mark was digging through our closets and rummaging up in the attic. He had managed to dig out a couple of items that might sell on eBay. Digital camera in hand, he photographed his items and dutifully posted them to the site. Not a bad beginning, but now he was on a new quest. If we weren't using it anymore and it contained even a nominal value, he was selling it. He had in the garage some of his own car parts, left over from cars long gone, that he posted. Amazingly everything sold and sold quickly. I guess you need to know your automobiles, but there are some models of cars that are harder to find parts for than others. And there are silly things (to me anyway), like the fact that a 1987 Corolla was sold with small mirrors and large mirrors. Apparently the large ones are hard to find and he just happened to have a couple. He had a spare alternator from an old car that got totaled before he ever got to put it in, and it too sold quickly. Mark had only bought a couple of items for himself in the last couple of months, for which I said nothing. The tides had shifted and the balance restored. The money was coming in now instead of going out. On one very rare day, our teenage daughter, Cherie, decided to clean her room. Two large garbage bags were placed in the garage, and I knew I would need to go through them. She had a bad habit of throwing away small items that were still perfectly good, instead of putting them in the yard sale pile. Sure enough, there were a couple of small wooden boxes stuffed in the bags along with a lot of leftover school papers and used notebooks. I pulled the boxes out and placed them on top of the trash barrels then tied the bags back up. It wasn't too long before Mark eyed the boxes and brought them over to his workbench. Inside one of the boxes was a large plastic bag. It was filled with what looked to be pen tips, the kind that are used on old fountain pens. He asked me where they came from. I recalled Cherie was attempting to learn calligraphy at one point, so they must have come from then. But they were very old pen tips. Someone must have given them to her a long time ago. Mark diligently went on eBay and did a little research. Lo and behold, these ???? pen tips were for sale all right, and were selling well. He found one guy who sold a dozen tips for $45.00. We had fifty tips in the bag. It turned out that they were indeed very old, and were not in production anymore. Mark thought about this for a while. Should he sell the whole bag with all fifty tips in one fell swoop? Or should he farm them out a little at a time? If he sold them all, he might get a good price, but who would want to buy them? Possibly another dealer. But it seemed feasible to him that an ordinary person would have no use for fifty tips. His research showed that they lasted about two to three years, depending on use. So he opted to sell them in smaller quantities. Digital photos ready, he posted his newfound treasure. He placed three separate auctions with three pen tips each. He made sure he clearly listed the name brand and model numbers, and in the photo he had one of the tips out of the box so it could be properly viewed. Wow! Who knew so many people were hot for pen tips? After seven days on auction, his top one sold for $26.00. Imagine, $26.00 for just three pen tips that were on their way out to the trash. The other two sets sold for $19.00 and $17.00. And he still had forty-one left to sell. It was nice to see the smile back. Clearly on a different path now, Mark was always looking for something good to post. Jewelry and pool cues were no longer on his mind. The only thing he bought lately were old novels written by Norah Lofts, that his mother loved to read. Since they were written in the 70's and are very hard to find, eBay proved to be the perfect hunting ground. One weekend we were at the closing end of a yard sale of a co-worker who was moving away. As most good yard-sellers do, they try to unload a lot of stuff at the end, or they throw it away. The man gifted Mark with a car model kit that he had never built. The box was fairly ratty, but the model kit itself was still inside its protective plastic bag. It was of a 1969 Corvette, 1/20th scale. It had all of the decals and came with real rubber wheels, which, so I am told, are supposed to be fairly rare. Mark took his photos. He now had a large piece of wood painted a light cream color, so he would always have a clean backdrop to clearly display his items. He tried to research the Corvette model, but he couldn't find one just like it. He looked at some of the prices that other models were going for, and they auctioned for anywhere between fifteen and one hundred dollars. Mark preferred to start his auctions off with a very low bid, and let the auction take off. If he wanted $25.00 for an item, he would start it at $5 or $10 and let the bidders bring it up. He noticed if he started too high, or placed a high reserve on an item, the final sale price never really crept up. There is something about winning an auction from another person that fuels the bidding process. A master at this now, Mark dutifully typed up the full description so it would be ready to copy and paste into the eBay auction description form. He didn't leave anything out, even describing that the original owner was into Vettes but never found the time to build the model, and that he didn't want to keep it for himself because he too, did not have the time to do it any justice. Apparently this model was also unique in that it could be built three ways: blown dragster, exciting custom and stock open 427 roadster (whatever any of that means - I just copied this stuff from his description). It also had vinyl seatbelts and floor mats, which most model makers don't bother with anymore. In addition to his detailed description, he cross-linked his advertising by mentioning to check his 'other auction' for the 1969 Corvette Model, on an old Corvette Dealer brochure that he had also picked up at the yard sale and vice versa. (Who knew old dealer brochures were collectible?) The auction began with a starting bid of $6.00. Within one day it was up to $56.00. By the end of the third day, it had gone over the $150.00 mark. Then Mark received an email from a gentleman in Argentina. It turned out that Mark had listed that he would only ship to the United States or Canada. Mark quickly realized that it was a little silly to cut himself so short, when his auction was being viewed by the entire world. The guy from Argentina mentioned that he would like to bid on the model, but Mark said he couldn't. So, Mark quickly corrected this by sending an email back and basically saying, "Hey, if you don't mind paying the extra for foreign shipping, go ahead and bid on it." Then he posted a correction to his auction description and mentioned that he would indeed ship to a foreign country, but to please remember that it was a lot more costly to do so. And so the bidding war began. The next day the auction heated up again and at last glance had reached $203.00. Considering the bid increments were only $1.00 each that demonstrated a fairly active day. By the end of the seventh day, Mark's new determined friend in Argentina had worked the final sale to $247.00. He was going to own that Corvette model and nothing was going to stop him. And so the story goes: a dusty little model car kit, pulled from the trash at the last minute, started out at $6.00 and ended up selling for $247.00 plus another $25.00 to ship by air. Yes, life is good around here again. Hubby is happy. Wife is happy. Man in Argentina is happy. And the kid? Well -- we never did tell her about the pen tips.:)
I work in a school system and am surrounded by old hardware and software - but it's fading fast. So how exactly do you capture stuff off of an old 386 or AppleIIe, or TRS80? I still have a ton of 5 1/4 disks with things like the 'Game of Life' and the old Leisure Suit Larry.
Personally I think GTA should get a good old fashioned "R" or even an "X" just like movies. Why isn't M enough? Because even the old doom with just guns versus fake monsters and grainy blood is a "M". This leads parents to believe that all "M"s are the same. Many of today's games have gone over the top - GTA with its "sexual themes" and language. That is no longer just an "M", and even so, is slaughtering innocent people and picking up prositutes an appropriate theme for a 17 year-old? 18? I'm not even sure if there some 21 year-olds that can handle it. I talked to one boy (16) "It's cool. It's funny. It makes me laugh." How nice.
The difference between the Dooms and Quakes and today's games, is the more realistic graphics. Blood was just grainy bits in the old games, now the emphasis is on cool 'exit wounds'. Basically how real can they make it - so it is no longer just gaming, but for some a real virtual world. From the article:
'distribution control so that minors don't get access to inappropriate material'.
The problem I have with this is that it is often the parents who are doing the purchasing for their kids. Parents really don't pay attention. How do you handle it when people you know buy games that you know are not appropriate for kids, then give them to their kids? Then go on and brag, "I just got Johnny GF vice - it was hard to get but we he had it under the tree for Christmas!" My uncle's sister just got it for her 10 year-old son. And even my best friends, who are somewhat involved in tech and should know better, bought it for their 14 year-old. Do you say something? Or just let it go? I sort of blurted out "No prositutes for you" in a joking manner, to one of the boys in front of the parents, hoping the word would stick in their head. How lame.
Re:This is interesting...
on
Dow vs. Parody
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· Score: 2
Your ISP doesn't necessarily have to put up with that. They also have a right to decide what content they will host on their servers.
You miss the point - they didn't take the site down (a customer of theirs for many years) because they wanted to, they took it down because they were forced to after being hit with the DMCA. The safe harbor provisions in the DMCA makes them take it down, or be sued themselves. To me this all equals web censorship. Whether the site is right or wrong, there were other ways Dow could have approached this - they went for the 'Let's silence our enemy' tactic.
Slashdot Mirror
"You may permit a maximum of ten (10) computers or other electronic devices (each a "Device") to connect to the Workstation Computer to utilize the services of the Product solely for File and Print services, Internet Information Services, and remote access
This just slays me. For the last two years I am just dumb-struck by how much MS is pushing us back in time, not forward. For all their PR and hype about how wonderful things are, it is all just BS lately. Only 10? Hmmm - I seem to recall Windows for Workgroups 3.11 being able to handle at least 50 -- more actually, depending on what you were doing. We had printers and file locations shared off Win3.11 computers all over the place. I remember, one room full of dumb terminals, with just a floppy boot disk, a shaved down copy of WordPerfect 5.1, and a few NET USE commands that allowed a whole department of secretaries access to file storage and printing. I cannot fathom with all of the technological leaps and bounds that have occurred in the last decade why they are doing this, other than greed. Maybe it's "If they exceed 10, then they have to buy more OS licenses, or better yet a server" WTF????
At a time when more and more families have multiple computers in the house, the older ones being passed down to the kids, why on earth would they pull this now? I have 7 computers at home, my entire house is networked, even the garage. What about smart refigerators, tvs and such, that allow you to print whatever out? I'll tell you what MS, I'll allow as many computer connections to my shared printer as I please, and if your OS locks me out after 10, then I will think it truely a piece of trash. And the home version -- utterly useless -- another grab at getting more $$ out of innocent families and consumers who don't know any better, to force them to go back and pay $100 more for the Pro version. Nice work MS.
While I'm on my rant, let me throw in a little 2K bashing. Don't get me wrong, I think some of the functionality built in to AD is pretty sweet, if you wanted to use it. But MS has decided it is the ONLY way to get things done. In the past, there were many ways to approach a task, and as a consultant you got to pick which method of computing/access/production worked best. But those options are gone now. Like printing. It's cool that you can manage printers and assign them to people, if that's what you wanted to do. But tell my again, why, why, why, in this day and age, I am writing VB scripts just to get a network printer out???? I handle enough user accounts, I really don't want to manage computer accounts now too. That should be my choice. And now of course, the home user is faced with the lovely task of managing user accounts. Really a bad move MS.
Does anyone remember back when, if you wanted to get a printer to work you had to go to the back of the book and get the printer codes? Or modems, you needed the AT command to access one. Those days are long gone, and I don't miss them. But here I am, using little VB scripts that seem vaugly familiar to the old batch files of days gone by. And what is that stupid ConPrt utility again?? Why on earth do I have to leave the OS, go to a resource kit, just to be able to allow users (who don't have access to the printer folder) to print? Come on MS - this is not rocket science. We have been setting up printers for so many years now. It's real simple, when a printer is installed, you ask: Is this printer just for you, or for everyone who sits here? Third party vendors have been doing it for years. I have a team of 5, and not one of them understands VB scripting, but they were great little ghosters, knew how to put printers on and move the computers out. Now they can't make a move unless I get everything ready for them. Utterly useless, unless of course, I send them out for training and pay big buck for some MS classes - or maybe this is part of the big picture too?
For all of it's advanced possibilities, I often feel like I am back in mainframe land. And why do I think that this home/pro thing is not working? Because of 'word on the street'. I have long lost count over the number of home users I know who tell me they can't stand XP, have spent hours upon hours on the phone with tech support, just to get something as simple a shared printer connected, which they had working fine until they tried to bring XP into the mix. And then they spend even more $$ to bring it in to a shop, to have the drive reformatted so they can put Win98 back on!
That actually felt good -- thank you.
We have trudged through lame names like My Computer and My Network Places. Now we get ".NET My Services". Is there a MS manager out there who got a bonus for that idea? I don't know - it's like a murky security blanket. Microsoft keeps saying it's mine, but I know it really belongs to them.
Actually, it's about time. Concert traders have been doing this for many years - taping then trading shows with the band permission. There is no reason why the music can't adopt this method in a easier, commercial form. My only worry is that if they are offering this, then they may stop the trading of shows from fans.
My latest gripe is in WinXP, if you use Explorer and try to get to Network Places (besides the fact that they keep changing the name!). You now have to right-click on Network Places and choose Explore again. Didn't I already do that? Come on Microsoft - that is not better security, that's reduced functionality. Learn the difference.
Actually, the codes were pretty sweet. Much like web pages are today, with begin and end tags around everything. It allowed you to use macros to zoom right in on certain text elements and rip through a document for automatic changes. That is much harder to do in Word. And after all these years, Word still can't give you multiple headers/footers on the same page. They say they can, but all it is a different first page, or different odd or even. Some publishers have multiple headers and footers on the same page, such as titles, then chapters that change, and maybe another line under that changes again.
One of the biggest draw backs for a windows word processors is time at the keyboard. In a high production industry, like insurance, where people get paid to simply enter enormous amounts of data daily, whenever you pick up your hand to put it on the mouse, and have to click something, you have lost time. That's why most of those types of jobs still have dos/terminal based programs so the data just gets posted directly. None of this horsing around with the mouse. And believe it or not, these jobs are often timed with a stopwatch, to make sure performance is at peak.
Oh yeah, and next time you are in need of a lawyer, ask them what type of software they use. You would be surprised at how many are still using WordPerfect 5.1.
My old 8088 had one that burst, and the damn thing continued to run for another two years. I gave it away to someone, and it was still running. I wish I had thought to take a picture of it though.
Sleep apnea is one thing ... my husband has that, and can talk to me (or fight with me) in his sleep and not remember a word. But I had a uncle with severe sleep narcolepsy - and let me tell you that is such a trip. He was the type that would come over for family festivities, and you would always find him sprawled out in the middle of the floor of our basement. You could jump up and down on him, and he would never wake up. We were kids, and we would go upstairs to declare, 'Uncle Eddy is sleeping again.' But sometimes, he would sit in a chair, be half asleep (we were never sure) and start gabbing. We swear he was speaking a foreign language sometimes. He would have full conversations with you - it was very weird. His head would move back and forth, like he was really into this conversation he was having. You would try to talk to him, and sometimes he would respond, but always in a language of his own. Diagnosis wasn't good back then, but finally after many years, he was diagnosed, and put on breathing machines (same as sleep apnea) and such. But it was so bad he was not allowed to drive, because he could fall asleep at the wheel in an instant and not be in control of sleep. He never hit drowsy, he either slept in a dream state, or he didn't sleep at all.
We do this with neighbor school districts. We also backup all buildings, over the WAN and at night, to a file on the hard drive of another building. We do this in two places, so backups criss-cross. Because of the size and time it takes, this can only happen at night and only one building per night, so there is a downside. But if a building goes down, I know I have a secondary (besides the tape in that building) to fall back on.
I hope this invalidates that patent on the breast cancer gene, discussed here.
It is just stunning to me that could be issued in the first place. And the company was actually using their patent to try and stop others from treating the gene, because it was their gene? Human body parts of any kind should not be patented. This may sound sexist, but I think if that was a testicle gene the patent never would have been issued. (sort of like the viagra vs birth control debacle)
the patent claims as Ameritech's original idea the concept of having elements on a web page that don't change, yet apply directly to other parts of the page that do change.
Prior art? Now here's a button that doesn't do anything! (and I believe this came out around late 94/95)
This format of class/summary/facts and/or legal argument should be repeated for each reply to a particular class of work proposed.
You'll notice that only 50 comments made it in on the first round. Now you're supposed to comment on the accepted comments. Format is everthing. When they say number the class, they mean it. Start the paragraph with a 1. class, 2. class, etc.(although I notice they are not asking for a number this time?)
--Provide a fact, a legal argument, or something from the news, or incident that happened.
--A summary means your paragraph must start with "In summary" or identify the paragraph as a summary paragraph.
--Don't forget to include your name on the attachment.
This time they are also adding "whether in opposition, support, amplification or correction", so state it.
Missing just one of these steps will get your comment rejected.
(Mine was rejected, but after correction (I added the words 'In summary') they were accepted. We still don't know how many were actually submitted the first round.
I like the MicroPets - a little out of your price range, but you might have fun if you train them a little first. I also like the mini robots for 6.95 (look down the page). I like the mini racers too, but again pricey, and there can only be a few possible frequencies. Might be good to pick from a variety of items so people can ooh and ahh over each others geek toy. Remember to hit fatwallet.com first to look for discounts or free shipping, and always, if your buying a lot, just call for bulk discounts. At my wedding, we gave traditional gifts to the adults, but each kid got a toy where they could scroll the paper and draw. They made some cute things that I could keep. Also, instead of the traditional guest book, I had one with lots of blank pages, (it had nice prints here and there, but no lines) - and it was passed around during the entire reception. People wrote nice notes and drew hearts, kids drew pictures - it came out really nice.
Windows does its damndest to prevent users from accidently encountering any confusing internals.
Except for when windows gives the blue screen of death. That's enough to scare the average user away.
Really, I do. I have always felt that the concept of P2P would lead to the sharing and distribution of many types of information, not just music or thieved software. The RIAA would like everyone to believe that - P2P=piracy software. How stupid. P2P is far from perfect in design and security, but it is only a few years old. Who knows what its future holds? I believe there was a link on here a while back about IBM or someone using P2P to distibute company information and databases on a intranet. I hope more companies find legitmate ways to make P2P work for them. Each time someone does, it discredits the RIAA's piracy claim.
they said, would think the site's author wrote the content they arrive at, thus destroying our reputation, causing confusion.
I've always thought this argument was so bogus. If ppl land on your site, and can't tell where they are, then you haven't written your pages very well. Look at Salon, or NY Times, it doesn't matter where you land, you know exactly where you are, can find a clear menu to any other part of the site, and there are small ads on each page. If that one page isn't compelling or informative enough to encourage ppl to stay around a little longer -- then again it is poor design. How a judge could ever rule against deep linking is beyond me. "Get thee to web design class" he should have said. Really, if you're on a bus, or eating out, and someone leaves the business section of a paper laying around, don't you think you would know what paper it came from?
(I'm not bitching to the poster here, just in general)
In my experience people don't want to see certifications they want experience.
This is so true. My resume is project based, with a small snippet of equipment/OS/software near the end. But one thing I keep on my resume, is my early certification in Windows 3.1., among others. I keep it there because it shows longevity, even though it is long expired. When I got certified, there were less than 1000 msce and certified ppl in the world combined. Last time I checked a few years back, that number was well over 100k, making competition extremely difficult in the certification area. But I still know that there are less than 1000 that could possibly have a 3.1 on their resume. I always explain at an interview my reason for keeping it there, and people are usually very receptive to it.
Around 2 years ago I purchased the real RealPlayer, because I was going to do some video development with it. I bought it online, and the purchase process was horrendous. After I clicked buy it, I was taken to a screen with a ton of things checked off for me, including signing up for their monthly subscription for realplayer maintenance - the gold package I think it was. I unchecked everything, but when I clicked next, there was another screen with different things and the gold player was checked on again. I unchecked everything again. Third screen, same thing.
Since I'm in tech, I would like to think I have some idea what's going on and not get tripped up by this stuff. But I can't imagine how the average user gets through this. Anyway, on the next months credit card bill, there it was, 11 and change charge for RealPlayer maintenence. I swear I unchecked everything. I wish I had taken screen shots to prove it. So I go on their web site to try and cancel. To get to my user account was very difficult (of course I wasn't aware I really had one so I had to figure it out) Under subscription maintenence, I finally found the option to cancel. I click cancel. Up pops a phone number to call to actually get it canceled. I was very busy, lots to do, and I think they counted on that. I had planned to cancel when I got home, but of course I forgot. I kept thinking about it at work, but when I got home I would forget again. Three more months went by, before I finally remembered on the weekend to sit down and take care of it. I had to go through the online process again to get the number, which I finally called and got it cancelled, which of course the guy tried to sell me real player again! Never, never, never again!!!
I can't remember the name of the company, but last year I had just installed IIS, then ran to the store. By the time I got back, around 45min later, I had already been hit by CodeRed. There was a message on my screen saying 'You have been infected by CodeRed. We did not infect you. Your server is trying to infect us. Please look on your hard drive to prove how open your system is. You can click here for more help. Again, we did not infect you.' (something like that anyway.) They left a small folder in my WINNT/system folder that had a link to them. Once I clicked their link they had other links on how to remove it, you could download the script they wrote so you to could load it and detect other people infecting you. And they had stats on how many servers had tried to infect them already (around 2000), and they explained more how they were only trying inform those that were attempting to infect them to be more aware about codered. I have the link and script at home, not with me here. Sorry.
I should me modding, but I have to comment because I don't see a certain point here. We still need to write and bitch because we still have the DMCA on our backs. That these two sides are teaming up leaves me with a sneaky feeling. I want to think it is for the best, but it is about 4 years too late. We have asked for an agreement between parties for years. Now we have the DMCA. We need further legislation to either eliminate it or reduce its power. For the RIAA and tech side to say they will back of legislation, leave the burden squarely on the backs of the public. Support Bouchers bill!
They found 'Gladiator' only a few decades ago.
You said short story - this is not comics, but here goes:
.3 carats, small but noticeable, and definitely not little chips surrounded by a lot of setting the way so many of them are. Clicking on the photos to enlarge them is important in order to catch this detail. If a photo is too blurry and doesn't provide a detailed description of the carat weight, it's not worth looking at. To win this one, Mark had three separate browsers open, each with small increments in price. He had learned that a modem, even at 56k, could only go so fast. So Marked prepped his browsers, and then when the auction began nearing the last minute he would Submit, Submit, Submit. He came within 20 seconds of the end of the auction. The bidder before him came in at 25, losing by just 5 seconds. Yes, I was being educated on the intricacies of eBay on a daily basis now. :)
I think my husband is addicted to eBay
It all started one day when I noticed my husband, Mark, was spending a little more time than usual checking his email. I wandered into the office to see what he was up to. "What're you doing Honey?"
"I'm just surfing on eBay."
"For anything in particular?"
"Sticks. Pool sticks. Mickey found a good deal on a Huebler, so now I'm trying to find one." That's my hubby: like the matching pea in a pod, whatever his best friend Mickey had, Mark would soon possess, and vice versa.
"How much?"
"Mickey got his for $175.00. Then he found a Meucci for Carol. Some models retail for twice that."
I shook my head a little, gave him a kiss on the cheek and said, "Ok, have fun."
Just a couple of days later he was at it again. "What are you looking for now?" I quizzed.
"Sticks."
"But, I thought you found one the other night."
"I did. Now I'm looking for one for you." He looked up at me with a pleading glance, "You want your own pool stick, Honey?"
"But, I don't play pool often enough to own my own stick."
"I can get you a purple one!" he beamed as he tried to appeal his case to me.
"Honey, I don't need a stick. I hardly ever go out when you shoot pool. I can just borrow yours when I do."
The next night he was at it again. "Honey! I want to show you something!" He shouted from upstairs. Once upstairs Mark proudly turned the monitor toward me so he could display his new find.
"Look Honey, a purple one!"
He clicked the Back arrow, and then clicked on a web link he had saved. "And here's a green one. You like green, don't you?" I could already tell that I was going to be the proud owner of a Huebler whether I wanted one or not.
"I found a neat trick. Look." he said as he pointed to the monitor. "A lot of people spell Huebler wrong. So if you search for the stick using the misspelling, you'll find a bunch that hardly anyone is bidding on, because most people are searching for the real name. See, the purple one is spelled 'Hubler'. It's only up to $75.00, and there's only three people bidding on it." He clicked another link, "And here's a Meucci, but it's spelled 'Meuchie', so the search function can't find it."
"You're already bidding on the stick? But I told you I didn't want one."
"But it's a great stick. Trust me honey. Now we can all have our own."
"You can have two if you really want them, but I don't need one. And, by the way, what are all of those boxes that keep showing up in the mail?"
He flashed a big, proud grin, "Car parts."
"You're buying car parts online? Isn't that a little expensive? Can't you just go to the junkyard like you usually do?"
"But you can't find the kind of parts I need in a junkyard. I ordered ashtrays for my Monte Carlo. You can't get '87 ashtrays from any of the junkyards around here. And I found door locks for it too. They're the kind with the knobs on the end instead of the straight ones."
"How much for new door locks?" I asked.
"Fourteen bucks, plus shipping."
I rolled my eyes. "Whatever! I'm going back downstairs."
A few days later Mark called for me to come upstairs again.
"Don't tell me, eBay. What did you find now?"
"Just because I love you so much, and you're the most wonderful wife in the world..." he bribed as he turned the monitor toward me. There on the display was an enlarged photo of a diamond ring. "Do you like it?"
"Honey", I pronounced the syllables distinctly putting a little emphasis on the 'eee' part, "That's very sweet of you, but I don't need another ring." I held up my ring finger to him, presenting a seven-diamond marquee band, "You just bought me this one a few months ago, and I love it. You know I don't wear a lot of jewelry."
"But, I would get it for you if you wanted it. You know, most wives would be happy that their husband wanted to buy them a new ring."
"I leaned down to kiss him, "Then you should be glad I'm not like most wives. Please, no ring. Ok?"
"Ok. Your loss."
Over the next few weeks there were more rings for him to show me. Mark had moved onto gemstones, prodding with, "You want a birthstone don't you?" I finally caved on the birthstone, if he could get it for under $50.00, which he did. It was surprisingly nice for the money. Apparently the woman selling it forgot to put in a reserve price on the item. This meant that she would have to sell it at whatever the final bid was.
Then there was the pretty sapphire with a triangle shaped diamond on either side for $175.87. The diamonds were
I had to admit I was happy with some of his little finds for me. But the small packages were starting to show up daily. I had long lost count over the past few months. I had given up on asking about car parts and paintball guns, and had insisted on no more jewelry. Since we were the proud owner of two new (used) Hueblers, I felt safe there would be no more of those.
I was wrong. Even though each pool cue came with it's own case, Mark claimed he needed to buy a special case that could carry two sticks. Ok, I reasoned; that made some sense. But what were we going to do with the two empty single cases? Then he needed a stick just for breaking. I tried to argue that one down by pointing out that a bar cue was quite sufficient for the task, but lost to his enthusiastic and passionate energy.
After a few months and I don't know how much money, I got paged upstairs again. "Your Mom likes these, doesn't she?" he asked, as he pointed to a listing of Caroling dolls, better known as 'suffocating people' around here. That's my clever Honey's nickname for them because he says when you put them in a glass display case, they all look like they're gasping for air.
Putting his generous spirit aside, my hands were on my hips now. I had had enough. "Honey! You're buying for my mother now? Don't you think you're taking this eBay stuff a little too far?" I glared at him in a way that only an angry wife can, "Honey, I think you are addicted to eBay. You haven't stopped since you started. You've run out of things to buy (thank God!), so now your shopping for other people. You need to stop. You know I love you, but you need to stop. I don't want to see another package come into this house!"
A dark cloud seemed to settle on the house for the next couple of days. Mark moped about. He shopped, but didn't bid. I swear he was going through withdrawal. I felt guilty, but we had a deal as husband and wife. We gave each other a lot of leeway with our lives; we trusted each other completely to always do the right thing for the marriage. But if one of us decided the other was starting to cross from the gray into the black, and was called up on it, they would stop whatever the offending thing was. End of story; no arguments. Sulking, yes. Arguing, no.
Finally, I couldn't take his misery anymore. "Honey, listen: you can't possibly need anything else from eBay. You've bought it all already." He just scowled, and mumbled something I probably didn't want to hear anyway. "Why don't you look for things that you can sell, instead of trying to buy everything? Maybe you can sell the pool cases you have left over?"
A seed planted; I left.
After a few days, I noticed Mark was digging through our closets and rummaging up in the attic. He had managed to dig out a couple of items that might sell on eBay. Digital camera in hand, he photographed his items and dutifully posted them to the site. Not a bad beginning, but now he was on a new quest. If we weren't using it anymore and it contained even a nominal value, he was selling it.
He had in the garage some of his own car parts, left over from cars long gone, that he posted. Amazingly everything sold and sold quickly. I guess you need to know your automobiles, but there are some models of cars that are harder to find parts for than others. And there are silly things (to me anyway), like the fact that a 1987 Corolla was sold with small mirrors and large mirrors. Apparently the large ones are hard to find and he just happened to have a couple. He had a spare alternator from an old car that got totaled before he ever got to put it in, and it too sold quickly. Mark had only bought a couple of items for himself in the last couple of months, for which I said nothing. The tides had shifted and the balance restored. The money was coming in now instead of going out.
On one very rare day, our teenage daughter, Cherie, decided to clean her room. Two large garbage bags were placed in the garage, and I knew I would need to go through them. She had a bad habit of throwing away small items that were still perfectly good, instead of putting them in the yard sale pile. Sure enough, there were a couple of small wooden boxes stuffed in the bags along with a lot of leftover school papers and used notebooks. I pulled the boxes out and placed them on top of the trash barrels then tied the bags back up.
It wasn't too long before Mark eyed the boxes and brought them over to his workbench. Inside one of the boxes was a large plastic bag. It was filled with what looked to be pen tips, the kind that are used on old fountain pens. He asked me where they came from. I recalled Cherie was attempting to learn calligraphy at one point, so they must have come from then. But they were very old pen tips. Someone must have given them to her a long time ago.
Mark diligently went on eBay and did a little research. Lo and behold, these ???? pen tips were for sale all right, and were selling well. He found one guy who sold a dozen tips for $45.00. We had fifty tips in the bag. It turned out that they were indeed very old, and were not in production anymore.
Mark thought about this for a while. Should he sell the whole bag with all fifty tips in one fell swoop? Or should he farm them out a little at a time? If he sold them all, he might get a good price, but who would want to buy them? Possibly another dealer. But it seemed feasible to him that an ordinary person would have no use for fifty tips. His research showed that they lasted about two to three years, depending on use. So he opted to sell them in smaller quantities.
Digital photos ready, he posted his newfound treasure. He placed three separate auctions with three pen tips each. He made sure he clearly listed the name brand and model numbers, and in the photo he had one of the tips out of the box so it could be properly viewed. Wow! Who knew so many people were hot for pen tips? After seven days on auction, his top one sold for $26.00. Imagine, $26.00 for just three pen tips that were on their way out to the trash. The other two sets sold for $19.00 and $17.00. And he still had forty-one left to sell. It was nice to see the smile back.
Clearly on a different path now, Mark was always looking for something good to post. Jewelry and pool cues were no longer on his mind. The only thing he bought lately were old novels written by Norah Lofts, that his mother loved to read. Since they were written in the 70's and are very hard to find, eBay proved to be the perfect hunting ground.
One weekend we were at the closing end of a yard sale of a co-worker who was moving away. As most good yard-sellers do, they try to unload a lot of stuff at the end, or they throw it away. The man gifted Mark with a car model kit that he had never built. The box was fairly ratty, but the model kit itself was still inside its protective plastic bag. It was of a 1969 Corvette, 1/20th scale. It had all of the decals and came with real rubber wheels, which, so I am told, are supposed to be fairly rare.
Mark took his photos. He now had a large piece of wood painted a light cream color, so he would always have a clean backdrop to clearly display his items. He tried to research the Corvette model, but he couldn't find one just like it. He looked at some of the prices that other models were going for, and they auctioned for anywhere between fifteen and one hundred dollars. Mark preferred to start his auctions off with a very low bid, and let the auction take off. If he wanted $25.00 for an item, he would start it at $5 or $10 and let the bidders bring it up. He noticed if he started too high, or placed a high reserve on an item, the final sale price never really crept up. There is something about winning an auction from another person that fuels the bidding process.
A master at this now, Mark dutifully typed up the full description so it would be ready to copy and paste into the eBay auction description form. He didn't leave anything out, even describing that the original owner was into Vettes but never found the time to build the model, and that he didn't want to keep it for himself because he too, did not have the time to do it any justice. Apparently this model was also unique in that it could be built three ways: blown dragster, exciting custom and stock open 427 roadster (whatever any of that means - I just copied this stuff from his description). It also had vinyl seatbelts and floor mats, which most model makers don't bother with anymore. In addition to his detailed description, he cross-linked his advertising by mentioning to check his 'other auction' for the 1969 Corvette Model, on an old Corvette Dealer brochure that he had also picked up at the yard sale and vice versa. (Who knew old dealer brochures were collectible?)
The auction began with a starting bid of $6.00. Within one day it was up to $56.00. By the end of the third day, it had gone over the $150.00 mark. Then Mark received an email from a gentleman in Argentina. It turned out that Mark had listed that he would only ship to the United States or Canada. Mark quickly realized that it was a little silly to cut himself so short, when his auction was being viewed by the entire world. The guy from Argentina mentioned that he would like to bid on the model, but Mark said he couldn't. So, Mark quickly corrected this by sending an email back and basically saying, "Hey, if you don't mind paying the extra for foreign shipping, go ahead and bid on it." Then he posted a correction to his auction description and mentioned that he would indeed ship to a foreign country, but to please remember that it was a lot more costly to do so. And so the bidding war began.
The next day the auction heated up again and at last glance had reached $203.00. Considering the bid increments were only $1.00 each that demonstrated a fairly active day. By the end of the seventh day, Mark's new determined friend in Argentina had worked the final sale to $247.00. He was going to own that Corvette model and nothing was going to stop him. And so the story goes: a dusty little model car kit, pulled from the trash at the last minute, started out at $6.00 and ended up selling for $247.00 plus another $25.00 to ship by air.
Yes, life is good around here again. Hubby is happy. Wife is happy. Man in Argentina is happy. And the kid? Well -- we never did tell her about the pen tips.
Oh yeah, copyright 2003 by me
I work in a school system and am surrounded by old hardware and software - but it's fading fast. So how exactly do you capture stuff off of an old 386 or AppleIIe, or TRS80? I still have a ton of 5 1/4 disks with things like the 'Game of Life' and the old Leisure Suit Larry.
Personally I think GTA should get a good old fashioned "R" or even an "X" just like movies. Why isn't M enough? Because even the old doom with just guns versus fake monsters and grainy blood is a "M". This leads parents to believe that all "M"s are the same. Many of today's games have gone over the top - GTA with its "sexual themes" and language. That is no longer just an "M", and even so, is slaughtering innocent people and picking up prositutes an appropriate theme for a 17 year-old? 18? I'm not even sure if there some 21 year-olds that can handle it. I talked to one boy (16) "It's cool. It's funny. It makes me laugh." How nice.
The difference between the Dooms and Quakes and today's games, is the more realistic graphics. Blood was just grainy bits in the old games, now the emphasis is on cool 'exit wounds'. Basically how real can they make it - so it is no longer just gaming, but for some a real virtual world. From the article:
'distribution control so that minors don't get access to inappropriate material'.
The problem I have with this is that it is often the parents who are doing the purchasing for their kids. Parents really don't pay attention. How do you handle it when people you know buy games that you know are not appropriate for kids, then give them to their kids? Then go on and brag, "I just got Johnny GF vice - it was hard to get but we he had it under the tree for Christmas!" My uncle's sister just got it for her 10 year-old son. And even my best friends, who are somewhat involved in tech and should know better, bought it for their 14 year-old. Do you say something? Or just let it go? I sort of blurted out "No prositutes for you" in a joking manner, to one of the boys in front of the parents, hoping the word would stick in their head. How lame.
Your ISP doesn't necessarily have to put up with that. They also have a right to decide what content they will host on their servers.
You miss the point - they didn't take the site down (a customer of theirs for many years) because they wanted to, they took it down because they were forced to after being hit with the DMCA. The safe harbor provisions in the DMCA makes them take it down, or be sued themselves. To me this all equals web censorship. Whether the site is right or wrong, there were other ways Dow could have approached this - they went for the 'Let's silence our enemy' tactic.