Face it, maybe.01% of all the counterfeiting going on is done on some little inkjet by some guy using photoshop
The treasury dept says different, and I believe them. Counterfeiting used to be an art, practiced by a skillful few. Nowadays its teenagers and general dipshits photocopying a 20 to buy some beer and a pack of smokes.
With no exposed optical surface to get scratched, durability could be a lot better than optical discs.
Yeah, the last thing the movie industry wants is me buying 4 replacement copies of Scooby Doo every time the kids destroy it.
Last I read about thin film holography, it was very tempermental with regard to climate conditions, ie; it doesnt like to get too cold or warm else the film warps.
Which I assume is collector jargon for demilitarized, as in, it's got all the same gizmos and whizbangs as seen in major motion pictures such as Top Gun or Iron Eagles.
Hell, manufacturers warrantees generally dont even care about proof of purchase. Every mfg warrantee I've ever done (mostly HDDs and a Sony discman) they checked the serial to see if it was covered.
The stores return policy can be whatever they want (within the law).. But what store doesnt allow returns with a gift reciept after christmas? (Or any time of the year)..
The cashier will still be there, they'll call 'em attendants, or whatever..
Self checkout lines are everywhere now, but you still need humans around. On the surface, they keep you honest, but I always need them to reset the stupid machine everytime I accidentally lean on the bagging area and it starts flipping out "unexpected item in bag! danger danger will robinson"..
Or I buy something thats too light, and it doesnt recognize that I bagged it..
It's just another barcoding method..
Frankly, though, this whole website looks like some kind of bunko job, the FAQ is vague and reeks of someone looking to squander some investor bucks. I'll believe it when I see it in production..
I'm talking mainly about the retailers who ask for name, address, phone number, email etc, when you try to buy something.
I went to Circuit City to buy a TV, took out enough cash to pay for it, walked in, told the guy which I wanted, and we walked to the little sales terminal. He asked "can I have your name and address?" And I said, "no, you can have $499 plus tax". He started telling me how the computer "requires" it.. Gimme a break.
What you need to do is know when to walk away. I grabbed a sales circular by the door on my way out (because Best Buy would match the price)..
In the states, I've noticed that Best Buy stopped asking, they must have got the message, for instance.
It wastes the clerks time, annoys customers, and the marketing value of the collected data would come nowhere close to the amount of cold, hard, stinky cash walking out the door.
It's just the tip of the privacy iceburg, sure, but it annoying, and a good place to start sending a message.
Dunno if you're being sarcastic or not, but I seriously had them refuse to sell me an AA battery, paying with cash, because I wouldnt give them all that info.
I said "man, I dont have time for this, I'm trying to catch a train. I just need a battery for my walkman "
And the guy said "Sir we cant sell anything without this information."
I put the cash on the counter and the battery in my pocket, and said "whatever keep the change" and the guy threatened to call the cops.
Yeah, well at least the assholes at radio shack cant refuse to sell me a AA battery because I refuse to give them my full name, address, phone number, etc, etc..
The dell has a (much) faster video system, faster CPU, twice as much (faster) ram. The Apple has a bigger screen (frankly I find the 17" powerbooks too blurry for gaming, but thats just me and I haven't seen the Dell), and a slightly bigger HDD..
Of course, if you were to buy it for gaming, PC does have the edge so far as game selection. I know Apple's selection isnt as awful as say, linux, but noone can deny the PC library is much bigger.
The Apple is about 2 lbs lighter, but then the Dell has interchangable chassis plates to customize it to impress your friends.
Of course, one should realize that the Dell's price is likely to keep falling as competition increases and production costs drop. I've never seen Apple's prices drop (not counting second hand units).
To me, both are a waste of cash. But then, I hate laptops.
Why, whenever people discuss Open vs Closed source models, does it get simplifed to Linux vs Windows?
Because it's an easier argument to make, sure.
But it's a logical phallacy, arguing from the specific to the general. Linux is more scrutinized and secure than windows, therefore all Open Source must be.
I see OSS being a better model for large, high profile projects, like Linux or OpenOffice.
But SourceForge is chock full of little do nothing apps that nobody gives a rats ass about. Who knows what kind of goofy code has been buried in one of those billions of throwaway, weekend projects? Noone is auditing that stuff.
Someone could one day stumble across a little app, and say "hey cool, an app to rename all my mp3 files!", and find out later that it repartitioned his hard drive, raped his hamster, and left the toilet seat up. Either by fault or by purpose.
There is, however, a reasonable assumption that if you pay 10 bucks for a box on the shelf at Best Buy, that such bad things wont happen, and if they did, you have someone to hold accountable for it.
There's a little deli around the corner that I eat at once or twice a week.
When I go in, the girl says "Hi, steak and cheese lunch with everything to go, right?" And I say "yep". Usually she has it rung up and the cook has it on the griddle before I even make it to the counter.
Sometimes I say "no", and she says "oh, general tso's chicken with fried rice then, right?" being as thats the other thing I get sometimes.
Slashdot is full of geeks who call comic books "graphic novels" and discuss them as if they were great literature.
They consider late night cartoons to be the equivelant of fine cinema, Cheetos and Dr Pepper to be fine cuisine, and 172nd level dungeons and dragons players to be great athletes.
They are not representative of America.
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Plastic may be find for socially isolated geeks, but for the rest of it it doesn't cut it.
"Hey fred, can I borrow five bucks?"
"Ok wheres your credit card swiping machine."
Face it, maybe .01% of all the counterfeiting going on is done on some little inkjet by some guy using photoshop
The treasury dept says different, and I believe them. Counterfeiting used to be an art, practiced by a skillful few. Nowadays its teenagers and general dipshits photocopying a 20 to buy some beer and a pack of smokes.
These will (supposedly) be as cheap as CDs one day. That's the point.
With no exposed optical surface to get scratched, durability could be a lot better than optical discs.
Yeah, the last thing the movie industry wants is me buying 4 replacement copies of Scooby Doo every time the kids destroy it.
Last I read about thin film holography, it was very tempermental with regard to climate conditions, ie; it doesnt like to get too cold or warm else the film warps.
The listing says "never de-milled"
Which I assume is collector jargon for demilitarized, as in, it's got all the same gizmos and whizbangs as seen in major motion pictures such as Top Gun or Iron Eagles.
Yeah, just how it operates:
"MS IS GAYER THEN AIDS!!!11!!!1! OMFG LOLOR U R TEH SUCK!!1!!'
Dedicated professionals my ass.
The warrantee thing is pure bullshit.
Hell, manufacturers warrantees generally dont even care about proof of purchase. Every mfg warrantee I've ever done (mostly HDDs and a Sony discman) they checked the serial to see if it was covered.
The stores return policy can be whatever they want (within the law).. But what store doesnt allow returns with a gift reciept after christmas? (Or any time of the year)..
The cashier will still be there, they'll call 'em attendants, or whatever..
Self checkout lines are everywhere now, but you still need humans around. On the surface, they keep you honest, but I always need them to reset the stupid machine everytime I accidentally lean on the bagging area and it starts flipping out "unexpected item in bag! danger danger will robinson"..
Or I buy something thats too light, and it doesnt recognize that I bagged it..
It's just another barcoding method..
Frankly, though, this whole website looks like some kind of bunko job, the FAQ is vague and reeks of someone looking to squander some investor bucks. I'll believe it when I see it in production..
But you have to get the reader up pretty close to get a reading, it's no more scary than someone running up to you and running a cue cat all over you.
Slashbots act like the shit can be tracked from a secret base on the moon or something.
A former landlord of mine was named "Harry Dyck".
And that's no joke, either.
What she typed in was "Fork that asshole, we got the money".
Is to vote with your wallet.
I'm talking mainly about the retailers who ask for name, address, phone number, email etc, when you try to buy something.
I went to Circuit City to buy a TV, took out enough cash to pay for it, walked in, told the guy which I wanted, and we walked to the little sales terminal. He asked "can I have your name and address?" And I said, "no, you can have $499 plus tax". He started telling me how the computer "requires" it.. Gimme a break.
What you need to do is know when to walk away. I grabbed a sales circular by the door on my way out (because Best Buy would match the price)..
In the states, I've noticed that Best Buy stopped asking, they must have got the message, for instance.
It wastes the clerks time, annoys customers, and the marketing value of the collected data would come nowhere close to the amount of cold, hard, stinky cash walking out the door.
It's just the tip of the privacy iceburg, sure, but it annoying, and a good place to start sending a message.
Dunno if you're being sarcastic or not, but I seriously had them refuse to sell me an AA battery, paying with cash, because I wouldnt give them all that info.
I said "man, I dont have time for this, I'm trying to catch a train. I just need a battery for my walkman "
And the guy said "Sir we cant sell anything without this information."
I put the cash on the counter and the battery in my pocket, and said "whatever keep the change" and the guy threatened to call the cops.
Radio Shack == fucked up.
If this was real, it would make for some great jokes.
Go ahead, I dare you. Make one "great" joke about not having someones name in the phonebook.
You dont need to have your name listed in the phone book.
You can have the listing read "flancrest enterprises" if you want, or "compuglobal hypermeganet"
Yeah, well at least the assholes at radio shack cant refuse to sell me a AA battery because I refuse to give them my full name, address, phone number, etc, etc..
The system tested in the TechTV article was 3350, it had 1 gig of RAM and the optional battery/subwoofer addon, and some other bells and whistles.
Also, after note the "after $250 mail-in rebate", which I dont think TechTV included - they reported the actual out-of-pocket cost.
The Dell: (from the TechTV article)
* Intel Pentium 4 3.4-GHz processor
* ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128MB DDR Memory
* 1GB DDR 400-MHz dual-channel memory
* 60GB 7,200-rpm hard drive
* Swappable DVD+RW optical drive
* 15.4-inch WUXGA display (1920x1200) with 16:10 aspect ratio
* DVI output
* Integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
* Gigabit Ethernet
* Subwoofer integrated into battery
* 4-pin IEEE 1394
* Interchangeable covers for a custom look
For $3350
The 17" Powerbook: (from Apple's store)
17-inch TFT Display
1440x900 resolution
1.33GHz PowerPC G4
512K L2 cache
512MB DDR333 SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA/100
ATI Mobility Radeon
9600 (64MB DDR)
Backlit Keyboard
Gigabit Ethernet
FireWire 400 & 800
AirPort Extreme built-in
DVI & S-Video out
For 3 grand.
The dell has a (much) faster video system, faster CPU, twice as much (faster) ram. The Apple has a bigger screen (frankly I find the 17" powerbooks too blurry for gaming, but thats just me and I haven't seen the Dell), and a slightly bigger HDD..
Of course, if you were to buy it for gaming, PC does have the edge so far as game selection. I know Apple's selection isnt as awful as say, linux, but noone can deny the PC library is much bigger.
The Apple is about 2 lbs lighter, but then the Dell has interchangable chassis plates to customize it to impress your friends.
Of course, one should realize that the Dell's price is likely to keep falling as competition increases and production costs drop. I've never seen Apple's prices drop (not counting second hand units).
To me, both are a waste of cash. But then, I hate laptops.
Do you know what distillation is?
Boiling off the alcohol, recondensing it, but not boiling off the water.
And how do you boil off the alcohol? Big ass boilers, fired by coal or oil.
.. than an ethanol powered engine?
Why, whenever people discuss Open vs Closed source models, does it get simplifed to Linux vs Windows?
Because it's an easier argument to make, sure.
But it's a logical phallacy, arguing from the specific to the general. Linux is more scrutinized and secure than windows, therefore all Open Source must be.
I see OSS being a better model for large, high profile projects, like Linux or OpenOffice.
But SourceForge is chock full of little do nothing apps that nobody gives a rats ass about. Who knows what kind of goofy code has been buried in one of those billions of throwaway, weekend projects? Noone is auditing that stuff.
Someone could one day stumble across a little app, and say "hey cool, an app to rename all my mp3 files!", and find out later that it repartitioned his hard drive, raped his hamster, and left the toilet seat up. Either by fault or by purpose.
There is, however, a reasonable assumption that if you pay 10 bucks for a box on the shelf at Best Buy, that such bad things wont happen, and if they did, you have someone to hold accountable for it.
Because your a clueless slashbot.
Welchia had a much higher cost in terms of sucking away bandwidth. It brought down more network then the orignal worms did.
They already have that technology!
There's a little deli around the corner that I eat at once or twice a week.
When I go in, the girl says "Hi, steak and cheese lunch with everything to go, right?" And I say "yep". Usually she has it rung up and the cook has it on the griddle before I even make it to the counter.
Sometimes I say "no", and she says "oh, general tso's chicken with fried rice then, right?" being as thats the other thing I get sometimes.
Please dont confuse slashdot with America.
Slashdot is full of geeks who call comic books "graphic novels" and discuss them as if they were great literature.
They consider late night cartoons to be the equivelant of fine cinema, Cheetos and Dr Pepper to be fine cuisine, and 172nd level dungeons and dragons players to be great athletes.
They are not representative of America.
Who actually reads this kind of tripe?