But of course Windows CE is not based on Windows NT, but iOS is based on OSX. So it is entirely possible that what an OS is "based on" is a lot less important than what the user experience looks like.
Doesn't Microsoft dominate the OS marketshare, wasn't Windows 7 a huge hit
Take a poll on people about who is more [insert positive phrase] , Apple, Google, Microsoft and some others and Apple and Google will show up more highly ranked than MS. It is their brand that is tarnished - their desktop OS monopoly is not threatened. Windows version xxx will dominate, no matter how crappy. They got away with XP for 6 years with only fairly minor updates, and it still captured almost all of the market.
Come on CNN atleast don't make link baiting so obvious
Hey, they have to eat!:) To be fair to CNN, Wall Street is eating MSFT alive.
In the correct, Wilson-era sense yes. The commenter that I was answering was - I'm almost certain - referring to the present day politics of the "left".
The progressives are bringing up initiatives in several states to where a person can legally vote even if they are here legally.
If you heard this secondhand, then you need to check out your sources before spouting off.
There is one city - not state - putting this up for vote: Portland, Maine. And it only applies to the local elections. Other cities and states do this, and have in fits and starts over the last 150 years or so.
It is a GOOD thing for the residents of a city to be involved in local politics. Let localities decide who is an is not a "citizen" of their region. That's not "progressives" - that's good old-fashioned individual liberty tea-party style talk.
What boxed/internet software are you running that comes with Mac AND PC versions (let alone Linux or BSD)? Sure, Quicken is delivered this way, as were the old Blizzard games... but "lock-in" has been the norm since they were distributing software on floppy disks. Dual-format install CDs have long been the exception rather than the rule.
You buy an App on the App Store, you are just as "locked in" as you were if you bought Microsoft Office at Staples.
people thinking about purchasing Macs should be very careful about buying something so spendy.
I disagree with your advice. First, Macs are usually priced plus or minus 15% relative to the equivalent PC - so they are "spendy", but not really any more spendy then other higher-end hardware. Second, even if Apple went full-evil and locked down the computer in the next OS update, you'd still have a nice Intel machine that can run Linux, Windows, etc. And I can't imagine why you'd load that "update" onto the machine, anyway!
I think the whole point of ethics is to try to remove "perspective".
But he is reducing the average spending power of the dollar
No, he's not. He takes a book out of a thrift shop or library sale that MIGHT measure their customers in the thousands - more likely hundreds. His impact is roughly (number_of_people_impacted * price_delta). Apply that same formula to the millions of shoppers on Amazon and on balance he is providing a service. What he's doing is at the heart of what any merchant does: takes a good from one place to another where it is more valuable. In doing so, you drive down the price and increase availability at the destination at the expense of the local price and availability.
Another way to look at it is that you were very lucky for a while, enjoying artificially low prices at the expense of everyone else. I'm all for helping the poor become educated, but I don't think that enforcing market inefficiency is the way to go about it. If there is something about the selection at public libraries that is lacking, perhaps that is a good place to start.
As I said, if this starts to impact the thrift shops negatively, they can simply ban electronic scanners. It all comes down to marketing strategy.
You are mistaken, apparently you've never tried it. By all means, go to your library and walk up with a mint condition used book and ask to donate it. You'll be turned away.
Most public libraries in the United States accept gift books with the proviso that the library is free to decide whether to keep the book in the library's collection, put it in a book sale to raise funds for the library, or discard it. Persons seeking to donate books to libraries are encouraged to contact their local library and ask about donating books to it.
So I'd say that your library is either very well funded, or they have some other bug up their butt. In any case, it's a local problem. We donated books all the time in Manhattan - there was no room in our tiny apartment.
You could, but the postage will be more than the price of the books, let alone the price after credit for trade in.
If the approximately $2 in shipping is too rich for you, then this guy is indeed impacting your hobby and you'll need to rethink the library. Or if enough customers like you complain, perhaps you can get the sellers to adopt a no-electronics policy. He's still not doing anything unethical.
You don't see the difference between making a transaction in which both parties agree to the terms and outright property theft?
If the thrift shop has a "no scanners" policy and he surreptitiously scans, that's another thing - but he's not doing anything wrong, ethically or otherwise.
What, exactly, did he do wrong ethically? And by what school of ethics? Or did he just ruin your hobby? Or do you just like to use vulgar words in your posts?
Maybe you read A LOT of books and give them to the local thrift store in exchange for credit on books you haven't read yet (many do this).
Couldn't you do the same thing, only sell your books on Amazon Marketplace, also buying new ones on Amazon Marketplace, and essentially just pay postage? This just makes your initial capital outlay higher and vastly increases the number of books you have access to.
The publishing industry has made sure that your local library can't accept secondhand book donations so the selection is limited as are the number of copies.
This does not seem to be true in the US. Are you in another country?
How can someone increasing supply not drive prices down, if only by a little bit?
I'd bet: n_l * p_l << n_w * p_w
where n_l is the number of people locally impacted by the higher price, p_l is the local change in price, n_w is the number of people worldwide impacted by the lower price, and p_w is the change in price downward for the Amazon shoppers.
I have a hard time calling this guy a dickhead just because he's blowing someone's marketing strategy. I don't get mad at the gray-haired coupon clippers at Walgreens, either.
He raises the ASP by moving a book from the cheapest local market to the most expensive global one.
I think it is a value judgment. He raises the price in a local market where, at best, a few thousand people are offered the price. He simultaneously lowers the price for millions of people who shop on Amazon. What is "better"? Protecting the price for a few at the expense of millions is how I view coming down on this guy.
These scanners aren't doing the poor any favors at all.
We already have a social structure to make books available to the poor - a public library.
All this guy did is identify and profit from an inefficiency in the market. If you get worked up and indignant every time someone does this, prepare for a very disappointing life. In my opinion (and I know you didn't ask), your indignation should be aimed at your locality for not providing these same books for free via a public library. Why were you, as a poor person, going through thrift shops instead of borrowing from the library? The answer to that question is the actual problem here.
"Free markets" are about the worst way to educate and bring poor people out of poverty.
Okay, but in the process the guy is providing money to local libraries, which provide books to the poor and uneducated for free. Presumably if this book was so popular with the poor and uneducated, the library wouldn't be selling it.
Basically he is making it harder and more expensive to acquire books and thus education
He might be making it more expensive for the 100-1000 or so people that were going to attend the local library sale, but he then increases supply to the Amazon Marketplace, which will reduce the price for the millions who shop on Amazon.
Black canned olives are artificially ripened using lye, so sterilizing meat with ammonia doesn't sound too far fetched.
I'm not sure that I follow. These are completely different substances. Lye is used to cure many things, not just olives.
Anyway, this just emphasizes why it is irresponsible not to check facts - even those which sound plausible. If you were editing the story and feeling a bit lazy, you might not have checked on the "soaked in ammonia" claim.
I didn't mean to imply that the picture was wrong - I was trying to target the text...
However, I will say that since they did absolutely no fact-checking whatsoever, I have no confidence that the picture is correct, either. In either case, I eat lots of yucky-looking things that are very delicious so I'm not sure why the picture is even relevant. Indian food in particular, while one of my favorite things to eat, looks like something the cat barfed up.
Then we're all doomed. Those "news" sites are just aggregation blogs which do about as much fact-checking as Google News's automatic robot. Just last week Huff Post actually reposted the kind of trash you get in your in-box from your grandmother - that first week she has email, when she's still tying in ALL CAPS. There are now TWO correction updates, and they STILL don't have the facts right. Would it have killed them to at least run a check on Snopes? Does anyone really think that they "soak" food in ammonia?
Certainly not during the nipple-removing procedure.
Re: Facebook Is Down
on
Facebook Is Down
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
behaviour that was once rightfully considered crazy/creepy is now mainstream.
I agree that creepy people can be exceptionally creepy on Facebook and pals - but I did nothing creepy. Had I tracked down each of these people for no real reason other than curiosity... that would be creepy. But all I did was post a class picture... not creepy at all, even 10 or 15 years ago that would have been pretty acceptable.
Slashdot Mirror
But of course Windows CE is not based on Windows NT, but iOS is based on OSX. So it is entirely possible that what an OS is "based on" is a lot less important than what the user experience looks like.
Doesn't Microsoft dominate the OS marketshare, wasn't Windows 7 a huge hit
Take a poll on people about who is more [insert positive phrase] , Apple, Google, Microsoft and some others and Apple and Google will show up more highly ranked than MS. It is their brand that is tarnished - their desktop OS monopoly is not threatened. Windows version xxx will dominate, no matter how crappy. They got away with XP for 6 years with only fairly minor updates, and it still captured almost all of the market.
Come on CNN atleast don't make link baiting so obvious
Hey, they have to eat! :) To be fair to CNN, Wall Street is eating MSFT alive.
Actually, it is 'progressive'.
In the correct, Wilson-era sense yes. The commenter that I was answering was - I'm almost certain - referring to the present day politics of the "left".
The progressives are bringing up initiatives in several states to where a person can legally vote even if they are here legally.
If you heard this secondhand, then you need to check out your sources before spouting off.
There is one city - not state - putting this up for vote: Portland, Maine. And it only applies to the local elections. Other cities and states do this, and have in fits and starts over the last 150 years or so.
It is a GOOD thing for the residents of a city to be involved in local politics. Let localities decide who is an is not a "citizen" of their region. That's not "progressives" - that's good old-fashioned individual liberty tea-party style talk.
Maybe it was a pun?
Not likely to be a lockdown, but it is a lock-in.
What boxed/internet software are you running that comes with Mac AND PC versions (let alone Linux or BSD)? Sure, Quicken is delivered this way, as were the old Blizzard games... but "lock-in" has been the norm since they were distributing software on floppy disks. Dual-format install CDs have long been the exception rather than the rule.
You buy an App on the App Store, you are just as "locked in" as you were if you bought Microsoft Office at Staples.
people thinking about purchasing Macs should be very careful about buying something so spendy.
I disagree with your advice. First, Macs are usually priced plus or minus 15% relative to the equivalent PC - so they are "spendy", but not really any more spendy then other higher-end hardware. Second, even if Apple went full-evil and locked down the computer in the next OS update, you'd still have a nice Intel machine that can run Linux, Windows, etc. And I can't imagine why you'd load that "update" onto the machine, anyway!
That depends on perspective.
I think the whole point of ethics is to try to remove "perspective".
But he is reducing the average spending power of the dollar
No, he's not. He takes a book out of a thrift shop or library sale that MIGHT measure their customers in the thousands - more likely hundreds. His impact is roughly (number_of_people_impacted * price_delta). Apply that same formula to the millions of shoppers on Amazon and on balance he is providing a service. What he's doing is at the heart of what any merchant does: takes a good from one place to another where it is more valuable. In doing so, you drive down the price and increase availability at the destination at the expense of the local price and availability.
Another way to look at it is that you were very lucky for a while, enjoying artificially low prices at the expense of everyone else. I'm all for helping the poor become educated, but I don't think that enforcing market inefficiency is the way to go about it. If there is something about the selection at public libraries that is lacking, perhaps that is a good place to start.
As I said, if this starts to impact the thrift shops negatively, they can simply ban electronic scanners. It all comes down to marketing strategy.
You are mistaken, apparently you've never tried it. By all means, go to your library and walk up with a mint condition used book and ask to donate it. You'll be turned away.
Ahem, from the ALA themselves:
So I'd say that your library is either very well funded, or they have some other bug up their butt. In any case, it's a local problem. We donated books all the time in Manhattan - there was no room in our tiny apartment.
You could, but the postage will be more than the price of the books, let alone the price after credit for trade in.
If the approximately $2 in shipping is too rich for you, then this guy is indeed impacting your hobby and you'll need to rethink the library. Or if enough customers like you complain, perhaps you can get the sellers to adopt a no-electronics policy. He's still not doing anything unethical.
You don't see the difference between making a transaction in which both parties agree to the terms and outright property theft?
If the thrift shop has a "no scanners" policy and he surreptitiously scans, that's another thing - but he's not doing anything wrong, ethically or otherwise.
What, exactly, did he do wrong ethically? And by what school of ethics? Or did he just ruin your hobby? Or do you just like to use vulgar words in your posts?
Maybe you read A LOT of books and give them to the local thrift store in exchange for credit on books you haven't read yet (many do this).
Couldn't you do the same thing, only sell your books on Amazon Marketplace, also buying new ones on Amazon Marketplace, and essentially just pay postage? This just makes your initial capital outlay higher and vastly increases the number of books you have access to.
The publishing industry has made sure that your local library can't accept secondhand book donations so the selection is limited as are the number of copies.
This does not seem to be true in the US. Are you in another country?
How can someone increasing supply not drive prices down, if only by a little bit?
I'd bet: n_l * p_l << n_w * p_w
where n_l is the number of people locally impacted by the higher price, p_l is the local change in price, n_w is the number of people worldwide impacted by the lower price, and p_w is the change in price downward for the Amazon shoppers.
How much (besides taxes) does the average person contribute to a library? I'd bet it buys nowhere near 12 books a year.
I have a hard time calling this guy a dickhead just because he's blowing someone's marketing strategy. I don't get mad at the gray-haired coupon clippers at Walgreens, either.
What is it we say around here about obsolete business models?
He raises the ASP by moving a book from the cheapest local market to the most expensive global one.
I think it is a value judgment. He raises the price in a local market where, at best, a few thousand people are offered the price. He simultaneously lowers the price for millions of people who shop on Amazon. What is "better"? Protecting the price for a few at the expense of millions is how I view coming down on this guy.
These scanners aren't doing the poor any favors at all.
We already have a social structure to make books available to the poor - a public library.
All this guy did is identify and profit from an inefficiency in the market. If you get worked up and indignant every time someone does this, prepare for a very disappointing life. In my opinion (and I know you didn't ask), your indignation should be aimed at your locality for not providing these same books for free via a public library. Why were you, as a poor person, going through thrift shops instead of borrowing from the library? The answer to that question is the actual problem here.
"Free markets" are about the worst way to educate and bring poor people out of poverty.
Okay, but in the process the guy is providing money to local libraries, which provide books to the poor and uneducated for free. Presumably if this book was so popular with the poor and uneducated, the library wouldn't be selling it.
Basically he is making it harder and more expensive to acquire books and thus education
He might be making it more expensive for the 100-1000 or so people that were going to attend the local library sale, but he then increases supply to the Amazon Marketplace, which will reduce the price for the millions who shop on Amazon.
It's me.
Or am I lying?
Or am I hoping that you'll think I'm lying so that you won't know it's really me.
Or is this whole site just a front for a huge government spy ring, and you, srussia, are the only non-government poster?
Black canned olives are artificially ripened using lye, so sterilizing meat with ammonia doesn't sound too far fetched.
I'm not sure that I follow. These are completely different substances. Lye is used to cure many things, not just olives.
Anyway, this just emphasizes why it is irresponsible not to check facts - even those which sound plausible. If you were editing the story and feeling a bit lazy, you might not have checked on the "soaked in ammonia" claim.
I didn't mean to imply that the picture was wrong - I was trying to target the text...
However, I will say that since they did absolutely no fact-checking whatsoever, I have no confidence that the picture is correct, either. In either case, I eat lots of yucky-looking things that are very delicious so I'm not sure why the picture is even relevant. Indian food in particular, while one of my favorite things to eat, looks like something the cat barfed up.
(Huffington Post, Drudge Report, etc)
Then we're all doomed. Those "news" sites are just aggregation blogs which do about as much fact-checking as Google News's automatic robot. Just last week Huff Post actually reposted the kind of trash you get in your in-box from your grandmother - that first week she has email, when she's still tying in ALL CAPS. There are now TWO correction updates, and they STILL don't have the facts right. Would it have killed them to at least run a check on Snopes? Does anyone really think that they "soak" food in ammonia?
Do girls without nipples not giggle?
Certainly not during the nipple-removing procedure.
behaviour that was once rightfully considered crazy/creepy is now mainstream.
I agree that creepy people can be exceptionally creepy on Facebook and pals - but I did nothing creepy. Had I tracked down each of these people for no real reason other than curiosity... that would be creepy. But all I did was post a class picture... not creepy at all, even 10 or 15 years ago that would have been pretty acceptable.