At this point, it really doesn't matter if the guy was scamming them or not. The cost of the bad press, fraudulent though it may be, far exceeds the cost of just replacing the drive. Imagine that they had taken a number of scenarios, and the cost to them at each point: 1. they hand the guy a new drive, sign off the receipt and say buh-bye. cost: ~$50 for new drive. 2. they give the guy some store credit, etc. after a bit more negotiation. cost: ~$100 for extra employee time, etc. 3. they tell him to screw off and incur a one-time cumulative loss equivalent to a day's worth of sales at just one store. This is probably in the neighborhood of a $10,000-$50,000 loss, depending on what day it happens (i.e. normal/slow day vs. a holiday).
Is it really worth even a $10000 loss to tell some guy who claims to have received floor tiles that he's "shit out of luck"?
As it turns out, any computer that any of us has is ~50 years more advanced than sputnik also. As for launching into space yourself, that's a bit expensive, something like $700-$1000/kg with 1000 kg payload...plus the 30 million in r&d for the launch vehicle and related reconnaissance. (source: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/395/1)
is there any estimate on how long it will take all these projects combined to scan the entire existing catalog of books, accounting for expansion and development of better technologies to do the scanning, etc?
All this price cut does is highlight the fact that you can still get a Wii and a few games or accessories for that price. Add in the new first-person sword/lightsaber action here now or coming soon, and I can't imagine any kid that wouldn't rather get a wii. Super-realistic graphics on a car racing game pale in enjoyment compared to reinacting famous swordfights with virtual characters.
There are tons of street races and drunk drivers on the road, since this guy actually had his faculties about him and was essentially a professional race driver, It shouldn't be considered as horrible for what he did, not that it wasn't extremely dangerous. I'd rather see more of him on the road vs. 10,000 drunk drivers after the big football game. I've had fancy cars pass me at 120 mph on the highway, and as long as they pass w/o hitting anyone, i'm more or less indifferent. It's the drunk, on drugs, randomly swerving, way too tired, hopelessly distracted, etc drivers who cause these guys (and everyone else) to wreck.
OR, you put up 2 sets of panels on either side of the earth and get power 24/7... when one panel is blocked, the other one is in full sunlight. Maybe the rub is to not transmit the power by a beam, but with a very long nanotube cable.
I can't believe anyone would bother with a whole-disk encryption that had a back door password/etc... This would violate any sort of security requirements about sensitive data. The whole point is that if someone steals the pc, it becomes a useless brick, not that they can magically "recover" all the millions of SSN's on there or whatever else isn't supposed to be there in the first place.
The trouble with something like the internet is that it's "good enough", and due to it's current sheer size, creating a replacement that works better and can handle that kind of volume would be VERY expensive. It's better to replace the pieces that absolutely need packet guarantees as needed, and work outward from there. As the demand for such a service increases, the money to pay for the infrastructure replacements will become available. No company is going to throw down the multiple, multiple billions needed to get a brand new, highly "beta" internet going, when there's still so much $ to be made from the current (albeit slightly broken) version.
USA Today may as well run a cover story slamming punching bags and their far-too-realistic simulation of actually using your fist to hit something that's meant to be the equivalent of a human. Or perhaps they should ban the sport of MMA, because anyone that fights in the ring is just training to fight elsewhere. How about banning the army? All those kids learning to shoot real guns at real people, surely all of these things must be just as harmful as a video game about simulating killing people, right? Or just maybe, there's a chance that by engaging in gameplay, people can let out frustration that OTHERWISE might lead to bad things. That would be much more understandable.
It isn't the training of killers that kills people, it's the killer's will to actually go out and kill. If they don't know how to aim a gun properly, it will just take more tries. I wouldn't use a gun that way despite knowing how to aim it... USA today apparently doesn't know the difference.
Forget suspicious behavior, how about if it can identify a crime in progress? That would be pretty great by itself. I think if you can identify crimes automatically, then maybe you can talk about identifying pre-crime behavior.
or worse, deliberately ship with a critical security hole. What's the incentive to patch only the genuine machines if you have a huge contingency of non-legit installs that are being used in a bot-net to assault the genuine machines for new deficiencies at all times?
Why not just let everyone patch their systems, and shut off the "non genuine" check or whatever is blocking this? Why wouldn't you want people to patch the systems? Doesn't an unpatched and infected system equate more directly to lost revenue than a "non-genuine" flagged system?
Slashdot Mirror
My favorite pen-sword retort:
"just because 'the pen is mightier than the sword', that doesn't mean you can win a sword fight with a pen."
If you think you'll continue to have sex just for that, you must not have lived with her for very long.
"unable to set profitable rates" = "unable to rip everyone off anymore"
grunka-lunka-dunkity-dahfitable,
we don't care if your service is profitable!
At this point, it really doesn't matter if the guy was scamming them or not. The cost of the bad press, fraudulent though it may be, far exceeds the cost of just replacing the drive. Imagine that they had taken a number of scenarios, and the cost to them at each point:
1. they hand the guy a new drive, sign off the receipt and say buh-bye. cost: ~$50 for new drive.
2. they give the guy some store credit, etc. after a bit more negotiation. cost: ~$100 for extra employee time, etc.
3. they tell him to screw off and incur a one-time cumulative loss equivalent to a day's worth of sales at just one store. This is probably in the neighborhood of a $10,000-$50,000 loss, depending on what day it happens (i.e. normal/slow day vs. a holiday).
Is it really worth even a $10000 loss to tell some guy who claims to have received floor tiles that he's "shit out of luck"?
Grunka-lunka-dunkity-diphone,
don't get upset about the pricing of the iphone!
I've always wondered, what's happening system-wise when we see "nothing for you to see here" vs. "page not found"?
As it turns out, any computer that any of us has is ~50 years more advanced than sputnik also. As for launching into space yourself, that's a bit expensive, something like $700-$1000/kg with 1000 kg payload...plus the 30 million in r&d for the launch vehicle and related reconnaissance. (source: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/395/1)
is there any estimate on how long it will take all these projects combined to scan the entire existing catalog of books, accounting for expansion and development of better technologies to do the scanning, etc?
Crapola
who-Cares-ia
Compatiblity-break-a-you-face-firefox-a
Guaranteed highest rated show on TV if jar-jar dies an appallingly brutal death in the first 5 minutes.
All this price cut does is highlight the fact that you can still get a Wii and a few games or accessories for that price. Add in the new first-person sword/lightsaber action here now or coming soon, and I can't imagine any kid that wouldn't rather get a wii. Super-realistic graphics on a car racing game pale in enjoyment compared to reinacting famous swordfights with virtual characters.
There are tons of street races and drunk drivers on the road, since this guy actually had his faculties about him and was essentially a professional race driver, It shouldn't be considered as horrible for what he did, not that it wasn't extremely dangerous. I'd rather see more of him on the road vs. 10,000 drunk drivers after the big football game. I've had fancy cars pass me at 120 mph on the highway, and as long as they pass w/o hitting anyone, i'm more or less indifferent. It's the drunk, on drugs, randomly swerving, way too tired, hopelessly distracted, etc drivers who cause these guys (and everyone else) to wreck.
Everyone knows carpal tunnel is caused only by typing done whilst visiting adult sites, which explains why so many of you perverts have it!
In Soviet Russia, gambling legalizes you!
OR, you put up 2 sets of panels on either side of the earth and get power 24/7... when one panel is blocked, the other one is in full sunlight. Maybe the rub is to not transmit the power by a beam, but with a very long nanotube cable.
I can't believe anyone would bother with a whole-disk encryption that had a back door password/etc... This would violate any sort of security requirements about sensitive data. The whole point is that if someone steals the pc, it becomes a useless brick, not that they can magically "recover" all the millions of SSN's on there or whatever else isn't supposed to be there in the first place.
The trouble with something like the internet is that it's "good enough", and due to it's current sheer size, creating a replacement that works better and can handle that kind of volume would be VERY expensive. It's better to replace the pieces that absolutely need packet guarantees as needed, and work outward from there. As the demand for such a service increases, the money to pay for the infrastructure replacements will become available. No company is going to throw down the multiple, multiple billions needed to get a brand new, highly "beta" internet going, when there's still so much $ to be made from the current (albeit slightly broken) version.
USA Today may as well run a cover story slamming punching bags and their far-too-realistic simulation of actually using your fist to hit something that's meant to be the equivalent of a human. Or perhaps they should ban the sport of MMA, because anyone that fights in the ring is just training to fight elsewhere. How about banning the army? All those kids learning to shoot real guns at real people, surely all of these things must be just as harmful as a video game about simulating killing people, right? Or just maybe, there's a chance that by engaging in gameplay, people can let out frustration that OTHERWISE might lead to bad things. That would be much more understandable.
It isn't the training of killers that kills people, it's the killer's will to actually go out and kill. If they don't know how to aim a gun properly, it will just take more tries. I wouldn't use a gun that way despite knowing how to aim it... USA today apparently doesn't know the difference.
From what I hear about Amsterdam, the Dutch really can deal a blow!
Forget suspicious behavior, how about if it can identify a crime in progress? That would be pretty great by itself. I think if you can identify crimes automatically, then maybe you can talk about identifying pre-crime behavior.
or worse, deliberately ship with a critical security hole. What's the incentive to patch only the genuine machines if you have a huge contingency of non-legit installs that are being used in a bot-net to assault the genuine machines for new deficiencies at all times?
Why not just let everyone patch their systems, and shut off the "non genuine" check or whatever is blocking this? Why wouldn't you want people to patch the systems? Doesn't an unpatched and infected system equate more directly to lost revenue than a "non-genuine" flagged system?
In Russia, they spend millions of dollars developing space cable to lower object from space. In America, we just wait for gravity to bring it down!
Everyone will put down that they live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, and the servers will asplode!
I definitely wouldn't want my money within a thousand miles of that "F*** the Jews" facebook group that got so much negative publicity...