In Canada, book sellers were happily getting away with charging 25%+ extra for U.S. books. They blamed it on the disparity in the dollar, when $1CAD was $0.80USD.
Then the CAD went up. At some points being worth more than the USD. Book prices stayed the same. Some even went up. They started blaming it then on the cost of transportation, difference in market size, etc. Often even for books that had a bigger local market.
Beyond that, I got to deal with series that were generally 1-book short (often in the middle), were mixed with paperback/hardcover, and the growing tendency to stock the latest "bubblegum" authors. I also found more recently many books containing terrible grammar, flow, and glaring typos.
So really, my answer is FUCK EM. I bought approx 100 books in the last year. I found TONS of book by authors I've never heard of, that I'd never seen on the shelves, and frankly that beat the pants off the local books all for a lower price. Even better, with Kindle I can shop the U.S. or CAD stores, and the only extra I pay for buying the US store is the exchange.
We still get screwed on Amazon's local non-book selection though.
Re:New technology makes old technology obsolete.
on
The Price of Amazon
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· Score: 2
Have you tried a local "Dollar Store?"
They have USB cables of various sorts, including A->B, micro/mini-USB charging cables, iDevice (pre-iphone5) charging cables, etc For the ones that are more "cheap stuff" than actual $1 stores, they also carry stuff like HDMI cables etc.
Maybe what would work better might be some form of common interface for a media "box" to attach to a TV.
Rather than running as a separate unit, have a dock etc where you could install such a device where it would be able to get power, display output, and possible use the TV remote etc.
USB has been around for quite awhile in various incarnations, so maybe a hybrid USB+HDMI type interface might work.
How useful is the information on the letter? I've never been ID'ed when delivering a package, and anyone can drop an envelope in the mailbox with whatever details they want on the cover. What's to stop somebody from creating a package/letter/etc containing something nasty with somebody else's details on it?
Some people are pretty much perpetually on-call, but there are lots of other situations that can be fairly long-lasting. For somebody with a seriously ill family member, a movie might give some sense of normalcy in life, but you're still going to want to be contacted in the event of a sudden change in medical condition. Put the phone on vibrate, sit near the aisle, and it's shouldn't be a major inconvenience to anyone (any more than a bathroom break).
Is that going to be a common thing? No, but it's still important.
The phones issue is similar to those that illegally park in handicap stalls, leave shopping carts strewn about a parking lot, take 25 things through the express 12-item checkout, or big trucks through the "cars only" gas pump. The problem is exacerbated by a lack of enforcement or caring on the part of the establishment. If jerks can get away with being jerks, then they will. If businesses were more willing to deal with jerks they'd be less inclined to take advantage.
You don't even have to be hostile in doing so. In regards to the express checkout, the best response I heard from a clerk was "and which 12 of these items are you checking out today, ma'am".
One thing about code though, is that's it's often more re-usable than an essay or an article.
In some cases, you might favour writing a function/module/etc that's slightly more complex but able to service more scenarios. That allows the code to be more useful in the future, either in anticipation of growth in the current project or for use in future projects.
Actually, I would say that it's equally unprofessional and sexist to assume that somebody who's physically attractive can't be intelligent and/or knowledgeable about your product. While it's often true that supermodels tend to not be software engineers, it's equally true that many software engineers tend to not be good public speakers, etc.
What you want is somebody who *presents* good in public. This includes knowledge of product, personal appearance, and ability to speak to a customer or crowd. Being good-looking doesn't preclude you from being a good rep, it just enhances the other skills in various ways.
"Things like sticking keys on a keyboard by hand, packing playing cards in boxes manually etc. the sort of work that was automated in the early 20th century in the west."
It's not just an issue of pay and monotony, some of the jobs involved chemicals that were damaging to humans, such as the neurotoxin n-hexane. Yes, you could employ a dozen people to do the dangerous, life-threatening, health-destroying job that 1 robot can do, but there is a line.
This reminds of a lot of games or game-engines that have been open-sources, especially those from ID Software, etc. That leaves people perfectly able to look at the code behind the game, modify it, etc. It doesn't allow them to release their own copy of Doom or Quake as the resources (images, meshes, etc) are still the property of ID.
And you know what, this is perfectly OK. If you want to learn from the engine, you can. If you want to modify the game, anyone with the original disk can play with your mod. If you want to fix a vulnerability or add features to an application, you can.
I'm not sure how licensable HTML is, but I'd imagine that one could come up with something that works perfectly fine without the original markup, and you're still capable of finding/fixing bugs in the back-end source. I've always found one of the advantages of GPL to be that you can dig into the inner workings of software, and deal with issues as needed. This doesn't change that.
Around here, we don't have any B&N stores, so the main competitors were Chapters (Kobo + physical store/books) and Amazon (Kindle, or internet-order).
Frankly, I'm fairly disgusted with the price of books in Canada. The mark-up over U.S. prices is usually at least 20%, often higher, even when the Canadian dollar was higher. Amazon - on the other hand - allows me to shop both the U.S. and Canadian store, meaning I could get U.S. prices and just pay the conversion/exchange rate. While many e-book prices still suck compared to their physical counterparts, you'll still find some things with crazy prices in physical medium compared to eBook (for example Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" trilogy. $15 for the dead-tree version at local bookstores, or $22 for all three on Kindle. On the Nook store you won't see ANY of that series, Chapters is either $38 or $25 (I can't tell which because they seem to have the same damn thing twice,
In general, Amazon tends to work well in terms of convenience, price, and selection compared to the competitors.
What's the last AMD you bought? I've traditionally been an nVidia user but haven't had major driver issues with AMD for a long time.
I do admit I almost never buy the latest-and-greatest cards (too damn expensive from either vendor compared to performance), but there's still within a relevant timespan (a year of first release).
For latest-and-greatest, I've had issues with both nVidia and AMD cards.
I've always liked the concept of the waste-based-biofuels, as it would scale with population. * More people = more consumption = more poop * More poop = more sewage = more fuel
If they can ever get it working, it deals with both a fuel issue and a waste issue.
I don't see it likely that Sony will, but the video card vendor etc might but putting a bit more work into the BSD drivers, which is to everyone's benefit.
Indeed. The best is whatever works for you. BSD: Good if you want high availability/adoption and don't care if derived projects are OSS. Linux: Good if you want high availability but no closed-source spinoffs.
I've often wondered how this meshes with the concept of Mens Rea. If intent is supposed to be a part of committing a crime, but laws are so numerous and/or vague that nobody even knows what they are, how can you be of guilty mind when you're not aware of "obscure law X"?
Compounding of laws when existing laws work seems to be a growing issue. For example, locally we've had a "driving with undue care and attention" law for qutie awhile (a.k.a unsafe driving, dicking around with something else when you should be paying attention to the road).
We now new laws specifically targetted at those that drive while using handheld devices (cellphones, etc). However the former laws pretty much already covered this but were just rarely enforced. The new laws, similarly rarely enforced.
But hey, now if they really want to nail you, in theory they could probably hit you with both.
I would just been happy to see them (reasonably) enforce the first law.
Phones and tablets are a threat to those in the gaming market, but not in the console gaming market (or at least not for awhile). The most loss is in the portable arena. Your iPhone/Android might not replace a high powered console, but a gameboy or PSP is a different matter. It's much more convenient to use a device you're already carrying around than to lug a portable along too.
In the future though, the upgrade trend may favor mobiles over consoles, a next-gen phone/tablet chipsets will come or much faster than new consoles. We're not there yet, though, as quality, price, and storage have a ways to come.
Of course if console game makers continue to insist on shovelware with pay-to-advance, ads, nasty DRM etc, then the borders between the two may shrink even faster.
Slashdot Mirror
In Canada, book sellers were happily getting away with charging 25%+ extra for U.S. books. They blamed it on the disparity in the dollar, when $1CAD was $0.80USD.
Then the CAD went up. At some points being worth more than the USD. Book prices stayed the same. Some even went up.
They started blaming it then on the cost of transportation, difference in market size, etc. Often even for books that had a bigger local market.
Beyond that, I got to deal with series that were generally 1-book short (often in the middle), were mixed with paperback/hardcover, and the growing tendency to stock the latest "bubblegum" authors. I also found more recently many books containing terrible grammar, flow, and glaring typos.
So really, my answer is FUCK EM. I bought approx 100 books in the last year. I found TONS of book by authors I've never heard of, that I'd never seen on the shelves, and frankly that beat the pants off the local books all for a lower price. Even better, with Kindle I can shop the U.S. or CAD stores, and the only extra I pay for buying the US store is the exchange.
We still get screwed on Amazon's local non-book selection though.
Have you tried a local "Dollar Store?"
They have USB cables of various sorts, including A->B, micro/mini-USB charging cables, iDevice (pre-iphone5) charging cables, etc
For the ones that are more "cheap stuff" than actual $1 stores, they also carry stuff like HDMI cables etc.
Maybe what would work better might be some form of common interface for a media "box" to attach to a TV.
Rather than running as a separate unit, have a dock etc where you could install such a device where it would be able to get power, display output, and possible use the TV remote etc.
USB has been around for quite awhile in various incarnations, so maybe a hybrid USB+HDMI type interface might work.
we all know the unions would never accept minimum wage
My wife is union and makes minimum wage
How useful is the information on the letter?
I've never been ID'ed when delivering a package, and anyone can drop an envelope in the mailbox with whatever details they want on the cover.
What's to stop somebody from creating a package/letter/etc containing something nasty with somebody else's details on it?
Maybe some things have been going slowly downhill throughout human history...
Some people are pretty much perpetually on-call, but there are lots of other situations that can be fairly long-lasting.
For somebody with a seriously ill family member, a movie might give some sense of normalcy in life, but you're still going to want to be contacted in the event of a sudden change in medical condition. Put the phone on vibrate, sit near the aisle, and it's shouldn't be a major inconvenience to anyone (any more than a bathroom break).
Is that going to be a common thing? No, but it's still important.
The phones issue is similar to those that illegally park in handicap stalls, leave shopping carts strewn about a parking lot, take 25 things through the express 12-item checkout, or big trucks through the "cars only" gas pump. The problem is exacerbated by a lack of enforcement or caring on the part of the establishment. If jerks can get away with being jerks, then they will. If businesses were more willing to deal with jerks they'd be less inclined to take advantage.
You don't even have to be hostile in doing so. In regards to the express checkout, the best response I heard from a clerk was "and which 12 of these items are you checking out today, ma'am".
So basically, adding USB to the multi-card slots that already exist on most laptops.
Laptops of Yore would do SD, Memory-Stick, XD, and often CF, etc.
One thing about code though, is that's it's often more re-usable than an essay or an article.
In some cases, you might favour writing a function/module/etc that's slightly more complex but able to service more scenarios. That allows the code to be more useful in the future, either in anticipation of growth in the current project or for use in future projects.
Actually, I would say that it's equally unprofessional and sexist to assume that somebody who's physically attractive can't be intelligent and/or knowledgeable about your product. While it's often true that supermodels tend to not be software engineers, it's equally true that many software engineers tend to not be good public speakers, etc.
What you want is somebody who *presents* good in public. This includes knowledge of product, personal appearance, and ability to speak to a customer or crowd. Being good-looking doesn't preclude you from being a good rep, it just enhances the other skills in various ways.
Indeed. Netflix current works for Mac users... what's going to happen to them?
"The ultimate goal of our endeavours should be to produce wealth for human being"
Oh it does, just a select few human beings and generally not the species as a whole.
"Things like sticking keys on a keyboard by hand, packing playing cards in boxes manually etc. the sort of work that was automated in the early 20th century in the west."
Also, things like loading airport baggage.
It's not just an issue of pay and monotony, some of the jobs involved chemicals that were damaging to humans, such as the neurotoxin n-hexane. Yes, you could employ a dozen people to do the dangerous, life-threatening, health-destroying job that 1 robot can do, but there is a line.
This reminds of a lot of games or game-engines that have been open-sources, especially those from ID Software, etc.
That leaves people perfectly able to look at the code behind the game, modify it, etc. It doesn't allow them to release their own copy of Doom or Quake as the resources (images, meshes, etc) are still the property of ID.
And you know what, this is perfectly OK. If you want to learn from the engine, you can. If you want to modify the game, anyone with the original disk can play with your mod. If you want to fix a vulnerability or add features to an application, you can.
I'm not sure how licensable HTML is, but I'd imagine that one could come up with something that works perfectly fine without the original markup, and you're still capable of finding/fixing bugs in the back-end source. I've always found one of the advantages of GPL to be that you can dig into the inner workings of software, and deal with issues as needed. This doesn't change that.
Around here, we don't have any B&N stores, so the main competitors were Chapters (Kobo + physical store/books) and Amazon (Kindle, or internet-order).
Frankly, I'm fairly disgusted with the price of books in Canada. The mark-up over U.S. prices is usually at least 20%, often higher, even when the Canadian dollar was higher.
Amazon - on the other hand - allows me to shop both the U.S. and Canadian store, meaning I could get U.S. prices and just pay the conversion/exchange rate. While many e-book prices still suck compared to their physical counterparts, you'll still find some things with crazy prices in physical medium compared to eBook (for example Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" trilogy. $15 for the dead-tree version at local bookstores, or $22 for all three on Kindle.
On the Nook store you won't see ANY of that series, Chapters is either $38 or $25 (I can't tell which because they seem to have the same damn thing twice,
In general, Amazon tends to work well in terms of convenience, price, and selection compared to the competitors.
What's the last AMD you bought? I've traditionally been an nVidia user but haven't had major driver issues with AMD for a long time.
I do admit I almost never buy the latest-and-greatest cards (too damn expensive from either vendor compared to performance), but there's still within a relevant timespan (a year of first release).
For latest-and-greatest, I've had issues with both nVidia and AMD cards.
When my kids go down the cereal aisle at a supermarket, they're not screaming for the brand name cereal like my siblings and I did as children
When I was a kid, we mainly bugged our parents for the sugary, chocolatey cereals. That, or possibly the ones with a toy in the box.
Of course, we only got the chocolate cereal at grandma's house, though even rice-crispies were fun if you added enough spoons of sugar.
Maybe it's more an issue with "in your face" than the "with a camera" part...
I've always liked the concept of the waste-based-biofuels, as it would scale with population.
* More people = more consumption = more poop
* More poop = more sewage = more fuel
If they can ever get it working, it deals with both a fuel issue and a waste issue.
I don't see it likely that Sony will, but the video card vendor etc might but putting a bit more work into the BSD drivers, which is to everyone's benefit.
Indeed. The best is whatever works for you.
BSD: Good if you want high availability/adoption and don't care if derived projects are OSS.
Linux: Good if you want high availability but no closed-source spinoffs.
I've often wondered how this meshes with the concept of Mens Rea.
If intent is supposed to be a part of committing a crime, but laws are so numerous and/or vague that nobody even knows what they are, how can you be of guilty mind when you're not aware of "obscure law X"?
Compounding of laws when existing laws work seems to be a growing issue. For example, locally we've had a "driving with undue care and attention" law for qutie awhile (a.k.a unsafe driving, dicking around with something else when you should be paying attention to the road).
We now new laws specifically targetted at those that drive while using handheld devices (cellphones, etc). However the former laws pretty much already covered this but were just rarely enforced.
The new laws, similarly rarely enforced.
But hey, now if they really want to nail you, in theory they could probably hit you with both.
I would just been happy to see them (reasonably) enforce the first law.
Amusing, but still not as awesome as Jack Daniel's overly polite C&D letter.
Phones and tablets are a threat to those in the gaming market, but not in the console gaming market (or at least not for awhile).
The most loss is in the portable arena. Your iPhone/Android might not replace a high powered console, but a gameboy or PSP is a different matter. It's much more convenient to use a device you're already carrying around than to lug a portable along too.
In the future though, the upgrade trend may favor mobiles over consoles, a next-gen phone/tablet chipsets will come or much faster than new consoles. We're not there yet, though, as quality, price, and storage have a ways to come.
Of course if console game makers continue to insist on shovelware with pay-to-advance, ads, nasty DRM etc, then the borders between the two may shrink even faster.