User #4: Has auto update off, but will manually apply updates periodically. Applies updates selectively because from experience some updates actually break things or otherwise impair performance.
For example, last patch Tuesday there was MS06-15. MS06-15's fix installs a new COM monitoring program 'Verclsid.exe' that as it turns out, is conflicting with a lot of applications, many of which are still being discovered. Initially there was the HP Share-To-Web applications and various HP peripherals, but then some NVIDIA video cards started encountering the problem. After I manually chose to install it on my Compaq Laptop, thinking security patches were a good idea (silly me!), stuff started working very weird, hanging in explorer and applications mysteriously locking up, etc. Also heard from a friend with an IBM laptop that had all sorts of lock-up problems the week following that Patch Tuesday (autoupdate was on on that system). Her Outlook locked up completely, as did Explorer. Microsoft's solution to these problems is to insert "bypass list" entries in the registry for specific applications, but it's clear they do not yet know all of what is affected by this new program, as my friend has NO HP software nor an NVIDIA card. Backing out the MS06-15 fix sure cured the problem though, and was a heck of a lot easier than searching a bunch of cryptic registry entries to apply. The Verclsid.exe executable appears to be designed to fix vulnerabilities in IE & Outlook's use of COM.
I don't use PC based email at all, nor IE-- primarily because IE's incessant popup warnings make IE unusable if you try to turn off ActiveX (which is another gaping security hole), and I don't trust email programs that aren't inherently text-only (I use 'elm' on a hosted Unix shell account for "important" stuff, and hotmail, gmail or yahoo for subscription/login responses). Rather than go down the road of finding bypass entries for all my applications I chose the more reliable approach-- to uninstall the Verclsid fix. My friend uninstalled ALL last patch-Tuesday fixes and turned off autoupdate because her system was essentially completely hosed by the autoupdates. The Verclsid.exe "fix," IMHO is a performance hogging kludgy rubber-band & bailing wire band-aid piece of crap that never would have made it out of Alpha testing, if they ever bothered to do any.
At work, the IT department some time ago sent out an edict forbidding the installation of XP SP2 due to application incompatibilities. This is in a US national corporation with 6000+ employees, most of which work on an MS OS all day. Guess they're not using autoupdate, eh?
Since I now refuse to install the MS06-15 fix, I cannot use auto update anymore as it will override my choice on that. On the other hand, if there are WGA hooks already in my system or hidden in future individual updates that I WOULD like to install, OR if I don't happen to connect my laptop up to a network for months at a time (known to happen) so WGA can "phone home," will my system suddenly stop working? Don't forget, this is the OS that came with the laptop I bought in the last 6 months, a major brand from a major retailer, so I presume it's legit (WGA says so, so far)... Can you spell-- C L A S S A C T I O N?...
With this sort of stuff Microsoft shows they are the same kind of clumsy amateurs in their business as the Bush administration is in theirs. The only difference is, the Bush admin's only been at it for a handful of years...
Because a good system will have features that attract *both* sellers and bidders. No sniping, you'll have less bidders and the sellers will be unhappy for that. You need both seller-friendly and bidder-friendly features, as otherwise it becomes one-sided, the bidders will bid less because it's impossible for them to get a good deal. The chance of getting a good deal is what keeps many bidders interested... The ability to snipe is actually the true genius of the eBay system-- without it, it never would have achieved the success it has, IMHO...
No, YOU don't understand how to snipe. Very few items are actually *rare* on eBay. Miss one, another will come along soon enough. Do your research, find out what the average rate is, figure out what you'd like to pay at LESS than that going rate, then snipe that amount. Don't get it? Snipe the next one. Before long you will get one that's been ignored by enough bidders that you'll get the lowball price. I've often aquired things for far less than the average rate because I'm patient and do not telegraph my interest in advance by bidding early.
When you outbid someone before the close, they get an email which will often prod bidders into thinking-- "can't let this *^$#)$ get away with that, I'll outbid him back."
The ability to snipe is specifically a *bidder friendly* feature that without, eBay would *have* no bidder friendly features, it would all be seller-friendly and IMHO, downright bidder-UNfriendly because of it. It's nice that an auction actually has a bidder friendly feature, even if it wasn't intended to be that originally. It would be a HUGE mistake for them to change that, as they would lose a lot of bidders (myself included)...
That possibility of getting a "good deal," is the real genius of eBay. Without it it's just another take-you-for-all-they-can-get auctioneering service. If eBay stops doing that-- all their competition has to do is *start* doing it and it will steal considerable traffic away from eBay...
,,,happening...," it sends up a red flag that says to me, "credibility alert!." There was a similar discussion on PBS between someone from Amazon and someone with an anti-neutrality stance (exactly who, I didn't catch).
While certainly one can be unnecessarily paranoid, to suggest that such things as cautioned by the Amazon rep essentially "can't" happen as the other guy keep arguing, is too far in the other extreme (or even worse, the argument that "market forces" won't let it happen).
Also, a comment was made about Amazon "pulling" customers into their site, which I thought was completely bogus-- while Amazon advertises, so does Home Depot and it's up to the customers to decide to go there to shop-- having different roads into the stores cost a different amount to travel over is a closer analogy than Amazon "going out" to customers and having to sometimes pay more to do that.
The internet is a similar resource to the public airwaves and/or public utilities or the public highway system. It is essential that equal access is maintained and that the resource does not end up maniuplated by corporate greed...
I get several emails from "University of Phoenix" a week, always mark them as junk, but Hotmail's filter never seems to learn how to recognize them. Makes me wonder what do they actually do with the messages flagged as junk? Seems like all they do is move them into your junk folder, and do not update any recognition capabilities based on that... In fact, I get dozens of repeat spams a week that I all mark as junk and the filter never gets any better. I've concluded that the Hotmail spam filter is next to useless... And at the same time, as the OP said, mail responses from login registrations often are caught in the filter...
I remember when I went to college in (well, we won't say exactly when), IBM had given the college I attended a mainframe for free for the students to use, with about 80 terminals. Then, DEC made an issue of it because it was unfair competition, so IBM simply started charging for it instead (at least at my college, it kinda backfired on DEC)...
Now however, IBM benefits from open source, and might just remember that they were involved in a case that could be a precident for such giveaways. Either that, or realize that the lid's now off and start giving free linux computers to schools all over again... Microsoft is not the only one who can play that particular game...
I've only identified one task they're good for so far.
If you're a professor who needs to present an application to students over the web for some purpose-- such as a simple physics equation simulator or some kind of calculator for instance, you can't assume that all your students are going to have PCs. So, by implementing something in Java it will run on PCs and Macs and most anything else...
I've seen a few of these, and they're usually pretty quirky but they apparently work on any platform. I've yet to encounter another need for that kind of platform independence, and I'm not a professor so I've not needed to do this, but it would appear to be about the only tool for the job so it is defacto also the best tool for the job.
On the other hand, No way would I buy a commercial package written in Java. A long time ago I realized that if you buy a computer, there are packages written expressly for your machine, and there are "ports" which are written to run on a variety of machines. Generally, the native packages perform far better and are not afraid to take full advantage of the special features of the hardware which is why I chose the machine in the first place. Now there are exceptions, I've seen packages that come in both Mac and PC versions that both seem to be well done (and largely native-coded too, BTW), that are worth buying. But I've yet to see a Java program that is anywhere near the quality or performance of a Photoshop, or a Maya or even a Star Office or a first-person shootemup or flight simulator. Is there anyone actively working on such products in Java? Or even in.NET managed code? Wake me up when there are, and then ask me if I'd buy such a package...
Would you feel better if a corporation were to do this sort of datamining? No doubt, there are some that already are, to various extents. How about an individual? A stalker? A terrorist? Your mother? Your kids?
How long before there's a commercial service that will collect and charge for access to your "internet dossier?" Hasn't it already happened?
How about a service that will intentionally obfuscate your "internet dossier" by posting on your behalf, massive amounts of erroneous information that will dilute your real information into the background noise? Would you pay for such a service?
Perhaps we should all just shut up now because we've already said too much. To paraphrase Adam Ant, "Unplug the internet and do yourself a favor..."
First, it was the automated checkout at the Kroger: "Please place the item in the bag." Gosh, I hadn't thought of that!
Actually-- I often get a chuckle out of the automated checkout stations. I recall one day where there was a back up and watched a 30-something guy and his young son become completely flummoxed by the system. They didn't realize that you have to leave your purchases on the little platform so it can monitor what you're buying for the correct weight. The kid was fidgety and kept picking up the bag with their items causing the system to output a message that was somewhat obscure as to what it needed them to do, so they ended up in an endless loop of confusion until I told them that they have to leave the stuff on the "scale." They then asked "where's the scale" as of course, it's just a little platform, and doesn't exactly *look* like a "scale," so I clarified my comment and it finally got them going.
At first, I thought that these automated checkout stations at the groceries in lieu of live checkers was a really bad idea that the stores chose because they didn't have to pay as many salaries and makes you-- the customer (or *consumer* in this case) do their work for them. So I initially boycotted them because of tha But after watching them in operation for awhile, I've realized that they probably cost the companies *more* than live checkers do because they have to have at least as many people involved to keep them running and help people through them and make sure people don't steal stuff, and the gear itself has got to be rather expensive as well to buy and maintain-- so I patronize them now because I'd like to prolong the agony-- and see these idiot companies waste their time on them and piss customers off with them a little longer before they realize what a dumb idea it is. Now, I often get a chuckle out of watching people get confused by these systems.
The groceries that are the most successfull in my area are going the opposite direction-- better human customer service, rather than more automated (among other things). I've seen the manager at Trader Joe's get on the horn and announce to the entire staff, "All hands on deck," where everyone in the store immediately went up to the checkstands (all of which were open) and began helping out by bagging or whatever until the lines which had gotten a little long were whittled down to size-- it took about 2 minutes and everyone was then back to what they were doing previously, shortly thereafter. Of course, you probably can't do that in a union shop which may be one reason the unions have been taking a nosedive, but it impressed the heck out of me-- I only go to the "automated checkout" stores when TJ's is either way out of the way or I'm after something TJ's doesn't have (I've never been loyal to a grocery before this). The biggest chain using the automated systems has had recent news that it's not doing so well and is likely to be fire-saled to a competitor-- no wonder, they have neither the best prices nor the best service-- the worst of all possible worlds. Just because you've made it to the upper eschelons of corporate management doesn't mean you aren't a moron. (It just means you're a highly paid moron.)
Automated checkout systems actually work a little better in building materials stores, where the people who are buying stuff there are at more likely to be at least a little mechanically inclined, and can figure the darn things out. Stalls at automated grocery checkouts due to confusion are pretty routine, in my experience...
As I recall, communist governments have had a habit of encouraging the populace to root out the dissenters and miscreants in their midst. And, there is some portion of the populace that will not only comply, but do so enthusicastically and perhaps use it as an attempt to demonstrate how they are themselves loyal party members keeping their own noses clean and therefore should be rewarded or promoted.
They do. That's exactly why the government pulls crap like this. They are motivated out of fear, and nothing else.
Our society is based on co-operation, and nothing else. This is a tenuous relationship. If the masses decide to support some other system en massse, then these people are out of jobs, power, and influence.
There are not enough soldiers, guns, or bombs to kill people into submission. If you do decide to utilize violence to maintain power, you have to utilize a lot of finesse to make yourself look legitimate. If you are clumsy, it will easily backfire, because nobody wants to live under tyranny.
Our government currently exists by providing a basic level of service and protection from harm, but also by propaganda extolling its vitures and proclaiming alternatives as some form of insanity.
Yes, and secrecy is crucially important as it allows them to hide the fact most important to them-- how incompetent they are. And it should be no surprise, as when what it takes to get elected is to convince the populace you know the answers to the problems, that means you must also convince yourself that you know those answers, but since the answers are in fact really hard to find and subject to change, the odds you are incompentent in your government job are a virtual certainty and thus the crucial need for secrecy.
In addition, not just three-letter-agencies, but entire industries have evolved protected by such "need" for secrecy. Given human nature, that such secrecy is mostly just used to cover up plain old goofing off or otherwise embezzling value out of the system would seem to me to be pretty darn likely. The more secret your job is the less likely anyone can tell if it's really useful, if you're any good at it or even if you're doing it or not. The guy from Denmark had it right-- transparency actually makes the job easier, but it's not about making the job easier, it's about self-interest and a big chunk of these guys would lose their jobs if there was that kind of transparency in the US.
Well, if you have a government that is itself so paranoid that it believes the Chinese government is implanting bugs in every laptop, that secrets can be kept by a bureaucracy, that laptops aren't a bad place for a bureaucracy to keep secrets, and that bulk monitoring phone call traffic is not only legal but a productive use of their time, perhaps the thought that such a government might just listen in on your calls and get confused about who's who and what's what and think you're talking about some nefarious activity, just ain't so crazy.
Also, suppose some NSA guy listens in on a random phone call and happens to hear a guy tell his lawyer that his company is about to go bankrupt because the CFO ran away with $$$. What's to keep him from immediately going out and selling the stock short? Remember, there are several *secret* organizations (i.e., bureaucratic) out there staffed by people who are trained and encouraged to not tell anyone what they are doing. Don't you think the likelihood that some people within such an organization may have a lack of scruples (a top secret clearance doesn't guarantee they don't), and find it all too convenient to add some of their *own* autonomous secret behaviour that takes advantage of their position? Who is going to "out" them or whistleblow on their activities? Do you trust the administrators of such programs to be able to detect such things, to be spotless in their behavior themselves, and to do the right, fair and honest thing when problems are discovered?
The problem is, the non-governmental "solutions" are just as broken as the govermental ones, but also there are fewer checks and balances against them. The closer you get to anarchy, the easier it is for independent "gangs" to form and move to exert control over something. In government, you have gangs too, but those gangs that have a little more transparency and they can at least theoretically be removed or altered via democratic processes.
The idea that market forces can keep independent gangs in line is a myth that is dispelled as soon as you look very close at corporate-gang behaviors, especially once they start getting large enough to either exert significant control over a market, or collude with their peers to shut down the smaller competition. Often products do not succeed due to their inherent quality, but rather the quality of the marketing applied to them or the quality of the control a company has over the marketplace. Perhaps you'd be comfortable selecting a medical procedure based on the most persistent marketing rather than its success rate? You won't even *know* the success rate unless they're regulated into telling you, just like food companies had to be regulated into telling you the ingredients of their products.
Sure the government system sucks, but the reason we *know* it sucks is largely due to the transparency it has. Other systems suck too, but you may not know how much they suck if there's no means to impose some transparency of the processes. "Voting with your dollars," just won't do it.
The other day I got an email purportedly from Bank of America (and I am a customer), that had a "click her to login" link on it. Reading it in html, the link looked legit. I couldn't see how it may have been obfuscated to a clone site. On the other hand, I consider any email that contains a "click here to login" to be either a phish or created by complete morons, and in this case either possibility seems about equally likely. Either the phishers are getting smarter or the banks are getting dumber, but the net result is about the same.
But B of A have instituted a new means of protection at login, which may have given them the bravado to try this kind of email-- they have a picture and a keyword that they use in addition to the password and ID-- you enter your ID and if you don't get the picture you expect or the keyword you expect you shouldn't use your password to login. It's some attempt to protect against phishing, but it's not at all clear to me that the technique is foolproof. Perhaps B of A thinks it is so there's no risk at using a 'click here' but I ain't clickin' on it nohow...
Yes, you cannot ignore the user, but you must protect him from himself without his knowing about it. Otherwise you become an adversary as soon as that protection gets in the way of usability.
Another problem is that the jury is still out on the effectiveness of a lot of security measures IT pros have become accustomed to. There are lots of conflicting goals. Passwords that expire often and in so doing cause users to have to write them down and/or invent ways to defeat login timeouts so they can stay always logged-in. Remote administration tools that induce additional vulnerabilities into the system. Restricting software updates in order to maintain more software control. Using "master" admin passwords in all users systems, that don't expire (IT pros often can't keep track of dozens of passwords any better than users can). Antivirus software that by its very nature can't keep up with the latest viruses in the wild. And I'm sure there are plenty more...
Security professionals who think the solution is control or even education of users, are the ones who are "stupid.". If your ratio of IT personnel:users is at least 2:1 then maybe, IF you can keep your users from looking for better jobs. A "secure" system must be one where it doesn't matter what the users do, and at the same time still be "usable". Control-freak IT edicts merely motivate users to view IT staff as adversaries and look for convenient workarounds, which often the IT people are completely oblivious to.
Security fails because many of the problems are essentially intractible given 1) security pros do not have control over all aspects that govern security (such as user behavior, or design of the software and network, or connection with outside networks), and 2) more than one computer connected together can relatively easily produce mathematically chaotic and complex behaviors, and especially when there are bugs or misconfigurations involved.
That's not to say there is no hope in the future of security, but it's one hell of a tougher problem than many people seem to think it is.
That's a function that's too important to leave to the connection provider. And ironic as well, as providers have been working hard to make sure they aren't held responsible for your ability to access questionable sites through them (pr0n, hate, etc.)., yet they seem to want to take on the responsibility to spam block for you. They're either responsible for the content or they're not, they can't have it both ways.
WRT spam blocking, if I don't have complete control over it it's time to find a new ISP.
Hotmail on the other hand, I use as a throw away email address, and have been marking stuff spam there for years and it still doesn't get blocked (repeat junk ads from U. of Phoenix, among others). Obviously *their* tech is useless for that anyway...
I really liked RahXephon. The music in particular was pretty great, and the role of music in the story was pretty darn interesting I thought. I thought it wrapped up pretty well in the end too-- better than Eva at any rate (though I saw Eva after RahXephon)...
But don't forget that these things were 1) a TV *series*, that could extend for additional seasons, and 2) were based on Mangas that are often serializations as well. Plots of these things are often not concieved more than one or two episodes in advance. So if the plot gets funky now and then, that should be no particular surprise. Do you get pissed off if the last Star-Trek TV episode of the season doesn't wrap everything up neatly?
This solves a nonexistent problem as far as I'm concerned. I've been installing Linux systems for about 15 years and I've *never* installed Java on one. Also, never found anything that didn't work because of it. I've yet to find a reason to even *notice* it wasn't installed until this article.
The Java "killer app" never materialized. Just like.NET-- it's trying to solve a problem that users just don't have.
I went into a Lowes once. Just once. Was shopping for an AC plug end I could put on a cord I had that needed one. The cheapest one was about $8.95. Went to a couple other hardware stores and found the same one for less than $2. Later noticed that for about an entire summer there were picketers outside with a banner complaining about employee treatment. Rule 1 for good customer service in my book is 1) in order to keep your customers happy, you must keep your employees happy. Employee morale shows up in the store and I often take note of it. Never went to Lowes again.
On the other hand, I've noticed that there does seem to be knowledgable staff at OSH, and didn't notice a large discrepancy in prices (though I didn't do a thorough comparison).
The trend away from expert staff is due to the fact that most people prefer to shop on price. The internet has only accellerated this trend. Hardware and furniture are a couple of the holdout industries that have found that you can be successful resisting this trend somewhat, if your customers don't notice your prices are a bit high. OSH and Lowes seem to be bucking the trend, while Home Depot is riding the wave. In my area, there are Home Depot's every few miles it seems, and I only know of one Lowes and one OSH in my area (neither are convenient).
The reason furniture and hardware are holdouts is their biggest customer base is older, and tend to have more expectations of service. Electronics however, is quite the opposite so when a regular OSH customer goes into Frys or Best they are shocked at the difference in service. But those buying on price will go to Home Depot, Frys and Best or other more cutthroat retailers and not notice the difference at all...
On the other hand, the company who HAS figured out how to do service and low price at once is Trader Joes. THEY've got it figured out, though whether or not their techniques would work with electronics or not I don't know. Their employees are always in a REALLY good mood-- not a Moony-cult type good mood though, a *genuinely* good mood. Not sure why but I'll wager it has something to do with the way they are treated by the company. Prices are low because they don't just accept all brands of everything, but hand-select good quality products. I mean, how many brands of cheerios and sodas do you need anyway? They don't rent their shelf space to outsiders, buy in quantity and private label the majority of things so you aren't too confused and/or tempted by brand issues. WRT service-- I remember one day where I was shopping in TJ's and the lines were a bit long though all the checkstands were OPEN (when was the last time you saw THAT in a traditional grocery store). The manager got on the horn and said "all hands on deck-- everyone to the front of the store" or something like that, and all the stock people came up to the front and helped bag and within a couple of minutes the lines were processed and the logjam quickly averted-- only taking a few moments out of the stock people's time to address the problem. I go to TJ's almost exclusively over other grocery retailers-- good service, good products and good price.
The trouble is....the service industry in the US has gone to hell!! This was not the case in recent past...(ok, I'm getting older, but, doesn't seem THAT long ago to me). You actually DID used to expect knowledgeable sales people in most any area of sales. People who sold clothes used to know a bit about clothes...used to people selling consumer electronics DID know a bit about the products they sold.
It's quite simple really-- customers prefer to shop on price over any other factor. Consequently, retail margins have become razor-thin and won't pay for anything but low wage staff. And the internet has accellerated the trend as shopping on price is far easier and more thorough.
Part of this trend is the increase in the super-warehouse store with the auto-checkout kiosks, again retailers trying to deal with the small margins by reducing staff expense and increasing volume.
Retail management no doubt realize that most buyers know some 14-year-old geek who can figure out what they need so no point in paying for expert staff. Your mistake is not finding a 14-year-old geek to explain it to you and instead expecting something out of retail staff besides answers to "how much is it" and "do you have it in stock".
Even better-- the TVs will come with a motion detector-- if anyone gets up to go to the fridge or bathroom during a commercial, it'll signal your cable provider to charge you extra for that "service" on your next bill...
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Actually, it's user #4 I'm worried about:
User #4: Has auto update off, but will manually apply updates periodically. Applies updates selectively because from experience some updates actually break things or otherwise impair performance.
For example, last patch Tuesday there was MS06-15. MS06-15's fix installs a new COM monitoring program 'Verclsid.exe' that as it turns out, is conflicting with a lot of applications, many of which are still being discovered. Initially there was the HP Share-To-Web applications and various HP peripherals, but then some NVIDIA video cards started encountering the problem. After I manually chose to install it on my Compaq Laptop, thinking security patches were a good idea (silly me!), stuff started working very weird, hanging in explorer and applications mysteriously locking up, etc. Also heard from a friend with an IBM laptop that had all sorts of lock-up problems the week following that Patch Tuesday (autoupdate was on on that system). Her Outlook locked up completely, as did Explorer. Microsoft's solution to these problems is to insert "bypass list" entries in the registry for specific applications, but it's clear they do not yet know all of what is affected by this new program, as my friend has NO HP software nor an NVIDIA card. Backing out the MS06-15 fix sure cured the problem though, and was a heck of a lot easier than searching a bunch of cryptic registry entries to apply. The Verclsid.exe executable appears to be designed to fix vulnerabilities in IE & Outlook's use of COM.
I don't use PC based email at all, nor IE-- primarily because IE's incessant popup warnings make IE unusable if you try to turn off ActiveX (which is another gaping security hole), and I don't trust email programs that aren't inherently text-only (I use 'elm' on a hosted Unix shell account for "important" stuff, and hotmail, gmail or yahoo for subscription/login responses). Rather than go down the road of finding bypass entries for all my applications I chose the more reliable approach-- to uninstall the Verclsid fix. My friend uninstalled ALL last patch-Tuesday fixes and turned off autoupdate because her system was essentially completely hosed by the autoupdates. The Verclsid.exe "fix," IMHO is a performance hogging kludgy rubber-band & bailing wire band-aid piece of crap that never would have made it out of Alpha testing, if they ever bothered to do any.
At work, the IT department some time ago sent out an edict forbidding the installation of XP SP2 due to application incompatibilities. This is in a US national corporation with 6000+ employees, most of which work on an MS OS all day. Guess they're not using autoupdate, eh?
Since I now refuse to install the MS06-15 fix, I cannot use auto update anymore as it will override my choice on that. On the other hand, if there are WGA hooks already in my system or hidden in future individual updates that I WOULD like to install, OR if I don't happen to connect my laptop up to a network for months at a time (known to happen) so WGA can "phone home," will my system suddenly stop working? Don't forget, this is the OS that came with the laptop I bought in the last 6 months, a major brand from a major retailer, so I presume it's legit (WGA says so, so far)... Can you spell-- C L A S S A C T I O N?...
With this sort of stuff Microsoft shows they are the same kind of clumsy amateurs in their business as the Bush administration is in theirs. The only difference is, the Bush admin's only been at it for a handful of years...
Because a good system will have features that attract *both* sellers and bidders. No sniping, you'll have less bidders and the sellers will be unhappy for that. You need both seller-friendly and bidder-friendly features, as otherwise it becomes one-sided, the bidders will bid less because it's impossible for them to get a good deal. The chance of getting a good deal is what keeps many bidders interested... The ability to snipe is actually the true genius of the eBay system-- without it, it never would have achieved the success it has, IMHO...
No, YOU don't understand how to snipe. Very few items are actually *rare* on eBay. Miss one, another will come along soon enough. Do your research, find out what the average rate is, figure out what you'd like to pay at LESS than that going rate, then snipe that amount. Don't get it? Snipe the next one. Before long you will get one that's been ignored by enough bidders that you'll get the lowball price. I've often aquired things for far less than the average rate because I'm patient and do not telegraph my interest in advance by bidding early.
When you outbid someone before the close, they get an email which will often prod bidders into thinking-- "can't let this *^$#)$ get away with that, I'll outbid him back."
The ability to snipe is specifically a *bidder friendly* feature that without, eBay would *have* no bidder friendly features, it would all be seller-friendly and IMHO, downright bidder-UNfriendly because of it. It's nice that an auction actually has a bidder friendly feature, even if it wasn't intended to be that originally. It would be a HUGE mistake for them to change that, as they would lose a lot of bidders (myself included)...
That possibility of getting a "good deal," is the real genius of eBay. Without it it's just another take-you-for-all-they-can-get auctioneering service. If eBay stops doing that-- all their competition has to do is *start* doing it and it will steal considerable traffic away from eBay...
,,,happening...," it sends up a red flag that says to me, "credibility alert!." There was a similar discussion on PBS between someone from Amazon and someone with an anti-neutrality stance (exactly who, I didn't catch).
While certainly one can be unnecessarily paranoid, to suggest that such things as cautioned by the Amazon rep essentially "can't" happen as the other guy keep arguing, is too far in the other extreme (or even worse, the argument that "market forces" won't let it happen).
Also, a comment was made about Amazon "pulling" customers into their site, which I thought was completely bogus-- while Amazon advertises, so does Home Depot and it's up to the customers to decide to go there to shop-- having different roads into the stores cost a different amount to travel over is a closer analogy than Amazon "going out" to customers and having to sometimes pay more to do that.
The internet is a similar resource to the public airwaves and/or public utilities or the public highway system. It is essential that equal access is maintained and that the resource does not end up maniuplated by corporate greed...
I get several emails from "University of Phoenix" a week, always mark them as junk, but Hotmail's filter never seems to learn how to recognize them. Makes me wonder what do they actually do with the messages flagged as junk? Seems like all they do is move them into your junk folder, and do not update any recognition capabilities based on that... In fact, I get dozens of repeat spams a week that I all mark as junk and the filter never gets any better. I've concluded that the Hotmail spam filter is next to useless... And at the same time, as the OP said, mail responses from login registrations often are caught in the filter...
I remember when I went to college in (well, we won't say exactly when), IBM had given the college I attended a mainframe for free for the students to use, with about 80 terminals. Then, DEC made an issue of it because it was unfair competition, so IBM simply started charging for it instead (at least at my college, it kinda backfired on DEC)...
Now however, IBM benefits from open source, and might just remember that they were involved in a case that could be a precident for such giveaways. Either that, or realize that the lid's now off and start giving free linux computers to schools all over again... Microsoft is not the only one who can play that particular game...
I've only identified one task they're good for so far.
If you're a professor who needs to present an application to students over the web for some purpose-- such as a simple physics equation simulator or some kind of calculator for instance, you can't assume that all your students are going to have PCs. So, by implementing something in Java it will run on PCs and Macs and most anything else...
I've seen a few of these, and they're usually pretty quirky but they apparently work on any platform. I've yet to encounter another need for that kind of platform independence, and I'm not a professor so I've not needed to do this, but it would appear to be about the only tool for the job so it is defacto also the best tool for the job.
On the other hand, No way would I buy a commercial package written in Java. A long time ago I realized that if you buy a computer, there are packages written expressly for your machine, and there are "ports" which are written to run on a variety of machines. Generally, the native packages perform far better and are not afraid to take full advantage of the special features of the hardware which is why I chose the machine in the first place. Now there are exceptions, I've seen packages that come in both Mac and PC versions that both seem to be well done (and largely native-coded too, BTW), that are worth buying. But I've yet to see a Java program that is anywhere near the quality or performance of a Photoshop, or a Maya or even a Star Office or a first-person shootemup or flight simulator. Is there anyone actively working on such products in Java? Or even in .NET managed code? Wake me up when there are, and then ask me if I'd buy such a package...
Would you feel better if a corporation were to do this sort of datamining? No doubt, there are some that already are, to various extents. How about an individual? A stalker? A terrorist? Your mother? Your kids?
How long before there's a commercial service that will collect and charge for access to your "internet dossier?" Hasn't it already happened?
How about a service that will intentionally obfuscate your "internet dossier" by posting on your behalf, massive amounts of erroneous information that will dilute your real information into the background noise? Would you pay for such a service?
Perhaps we should all just shut up now because we've already said too much. To paraphrase Adam Ant, "Unplug the internet and do yourself a favor..."
First, it was the automated checkout at the Kroger: "Please place the item in the bag." Gosh, I hadn't thought of that!
Actually-- I often get a chuckle out of the automated checkout stations. I recall one day where there was a back up and watched a 30-something guy and his young son become completely flummoxed by the system. They didn't realize that you have to leave your purchases on the little platform so it can monitor what you're buying for the correct weight. The kid was fidgety and kept picking up the bag with their items causing the system to output a message that was somewhat obscure as to what it needed them to do, so they ended up in an endless loop of confusion until I told them that they have to leave the stuff on the "scale." They then asked "where's the scale" as of course, it's just a little platform, and doesn't exactly *look* like a "scale," so I clarified my comment and it finally got them going.
At first, I thought that these automated checkout stations at the groceries in lieu of live checkers was a really bad idea that the stores chose because they didn't have to pay as many salaries and makes you-- the customer (or *consumer* in this case) do their work for them. So I initially boycotted them because of tha But after watching them in operation for awhile, I've realized that they probably cost the companies *more* than live checkers do because they have to have at least as many people involved to keep them running and help people through them and make sure people don't steal stuff, and the gear itself has got to be rather expensive as well to buy and maintain-- so I patronize them now because I'd like to prolong the agony-- and see these idiot companies waste their time on them and piss customers off with them a little longer before they realize what a dumb idea it is. Now, I often get a chuckle out of watching people get confused by these systems.
The groceries that are the most successfull in my area are going the opposite direction-- better human customer service, rather than more automated (among other things). I've seen the manager at Trader Joe's get on the horn and announce to the entire staff, "All hands on deck," where everyone in the store immediately went up to the checkstands (all of which were open) and began helping out by bagging or whatever until the lines which had gotten a little long were whittled down to size-- it took about 2 minutes and everyone was then back to what they were doing previously, shortly thereafter. Of course, you probably can't do that in a union shop which may be one reason the unions have been taking a nosedive, but it impressed the heck out of me-- I only go to the "automated checkout" stores when TJ's is either way out of the way or I'm after something TJ's doesn't have (I've never been loyal to a grocery before this). The biggest chain using the automated systems has had recent news that it's not doing so well and is likely to be fire-saled to a competitor-- no wonder, they have neither the best prices nor the best service-- the worst of all possible worlds. Just because you've made it to the upper eschelons of corporate management doesn't mean you aren't a moron. (It just means you're a highly paid moron.)
Automated checkout systems actually work a little better in building materials stores, where the people who are buying stuff there are at more likely to be at least a little mechanically inclined, and can figure the darn things out. Stalls at automated grocery checkouts due to confusion are pretty routine, in my experience...
--As I recall, communist governments have had a habit of encouraging the populace to root out the dissenters and miscreants in their midst. And, there is some portion of the populace that will not only comply, but do so enthusicastically and perhaps use it as an attempt to demonstrate how they are themselves loyal party members keeping their own noses clean and therefore should be rewarded or promoted.
They do. That's exactly why the government pulls crap like this. They are motivated out of fear, and nothing else.
Our society is based on co-operation, and nothing else. This is a tenuous relationship. If the masses decide to support some other system en massse, then these people are out of jobs, power, and influence.
There are not enough soldiers, guns, or bombs to kill people into submission. If you do decide to utilize violence to maintain power, you have to utilize a lot of finesse to make yourself look legitimate. If you are clumsy, it will easily backfire, because nobody wants to live under tyranny.
Our government currently exists by providing a basic level of service and protection from harm, but also by propaganda extolling its vitures and proclaiming alternatives as some form of insanity.
Yes, and secrecy is crucially important as it allows them to hide the fact most important to them-- how incompetent they are. And it should be no surprise, as when what it takes to get elected is to convince the populace you know the answers to the problems, that means you must also convince yourself that you know those answers, but since the answers are in fact really hard to find and subject to change, the odds you are incompentent in your government job are a virtual certainty and thus the crucial need for secrecy.
In addition, not just three-letter-agencies, but entire industries have evolved protected by such "need" for secrecy. Given human nature, that such secrecy is mostly just used to cover up plain old goofing off or otherwise embezzling value out of the system would seem to me to be pretty darn likely. The more secret your job is the less likely anyone can tell if it's really useful, if you're any good at it or even if you're doing it or not. The guy from Denmark had it right-- transparency actually makes the job easier, but it's not about making the job easier, it's about self-interest and a big chunk of these guys would lose their jobs if there was that kind of transparency in the US.
Well, if you have a government that is itself so paranoid that it believes the Chinese government is implanting bugs in every laptop, that secrets can be kept by a bureaucracy, that laptops aren't a bad place for a bureaucracy to keep secrets, and that bulk monitoring phone call traffic is not only legal but a productive use of their time, perhaps the thought that such a government might just listen in on your calls and get confused about who's who and what's what and think you're talking about some nefarious activity, just ain't so crazy.
Also, suppose some NSA guy listens in on a random phone call and happens to hear a guy tell his lawyer that his company is about to go bankrupt because the CFO ran away with $$$. What's to keep him from immediately going out and selling the stock short? Remember, there are several *secret* organizations (i.e., bureaucratic) out there staffed by people who are trained and encouraged to not tell anyone what they are doing. Don't you think the likelihood that some people within such an organization may have a lack of scruples (a top secret clearance doesn't guarantee they don't), and find it all too convenient to add some of their *own* autonomous secret behaviour that takes advantage of their position? Who is going to "out" them or whistleblow on their activities? Do you trust the administrators of such programs to be able to detect such things, to be spotless in their behavior themselves, and to do the right, fair and honest thing when problems are discovered?
The problem is, the non-governmental "solutions" are just as broken as the govermental ones, but also there are fewer checks and balances against them. The closer you get to anarchy, the easier it is for independent "gangs" to form and move to exert control over something. In government, you have gangs too, but those gangs that have a little more transparency and they can at least theoretically be removed or altered via democratic processes.
The idea that market forces can keep independent gangs in line is a myth that is dispelled as soon as you look very close at corporate-gang behaviors, especially once they start getting large enough to either exert significant control over a market, or collude with their peers to shut down the smaller competition. Often products do not succeed due to their inherent quality, but rather the quality of the marketing applied to them or the quality of the control a company has over the marketplace. Perhaps you'd be comfortable selecting a medical procedure based on the most persistent marketing rather than its success rate? You won't even *know* the success rate unless they're regulated into telling you, just like food companies had to be regulated into telling you the ingredients of their products.
Sure the government system sucks, but the reason we *know* it sucks is largely due to the transparency it has. Other systems suck too, but you may not know how much they suck if there's no means to impose some transparency of the processes. "Voting with your dollars," just won't do it.
The other day I got an email purportedly from Bank of America (and I am a customer), that had a "click her to login" link on it. Reading it in html, the link looked legit. I couldn't see how it may have been obfuscated to a clone site. On the other hand, I consider any email that contains a "click here to login" to be either a phish or created by complete morons, and in this case either possibility seems about equally likely. Either the phishers are getting smarter or the banks are getting dumber, but the net result is about the same.
But B of A have instituted a new means of protection at login, which may have given them the bravado to try this kind of email-- they have a picture and a keyword that they use in addition to the password and ID-- you enter your ID and if you don't get the picture you expect or the keyword you expect you shouldn't use your password to login. It's some attempt to protect against phishing, but it's not at all clear to me that the technique is foolproof. Perhaps B of A thinks it is so there's no risk at using a 'click here' but I ain't clickin' on it nohow...
Yes, you cannot ignore the user, but you must protect him from himself without his knowing about it. Otherwise you become an adversary as soon as that protection gets in the way of usability.
Another problem is that the jury is still out on the effectiveness of a lot of security measures IT pros have become accustomed to. There are lots of conflicting goals. Passwords that expire often and in so doing cause users to have to write them down and/or invent ways to defeat login timeouts so they can stay always logged-in. Remote administration tools that induce additional vulnerabilities into the system. Restricting software updates in order to maintain more software control. Using "master" admin passwords in all users systems, that don't expire (IT pros often can't keep track of dozens of passwords any better than users can). Antivirus software that by its very nature can't keep up with the latest viruses in the wild. And I'm sure there are plenty more...
Security professionals who think the solution is control or even education of users, are the ones who are "stupid.". If your ratio of IT personnel:users is at least 2:1 then maybe, IF you can keep your users from looking for better jobs. A "secure" system must be one where it doesn't matter what the users do, and at the same time still be "usable". Control-freak IT edicts merely motivate users to view IT staff as adversaries and look for convenient workarounds, which often the IT people are completely oblivious to.
Security fails because many of the problems are essentially intractible given 1) security pros do not have control over all aspects that govern security (such as user behavior, or design of the software and network, or connection with outside networks), and 2) more than one computer connected together can relatively easily produce mathematically chaotic and complex behaviors, and especially when there are bugs or misconfigurations involved.
That's not to say there is no hope in the future of security, but it's one hell of a tougher problem than many people seem to think it is.
g! (Stupid /. limited subject line)....
That's a function that's too important to leave to the connection provider. And ironic as well, as providers have been working hard to make sure they aren't held responsible for your ability to access questionable sites through them (pr0n, hate, etc.)., yet they seem to want to take on the responsibility to spam block for you. They're either responsible for the content or they're not, they can't have it both ways.
WRT spam blocking, if I don't have complete control over it it's time to find a new ISP.
Hotmail on the other hand, I use as a throw away email address, and have been marking stuff spam there for years and it still doesn't get blocked (repeat junk ads from U. of Phoenix, among others). Obviously *their* tech is useless for that anyway...
I really liked RahXephon. The music in particular was pretty great, and the role of music in the story was pretty darn interesting I thought. I thought it wrapped up pretty well in the end too-- better than Eva at any rate (though I saw Eva after RahXephon)... But don't forget that these things were 1) a TV *series*, that could extend for additional seasons, and 2) were based on Mangas that are often serializations as well. Plots of these things are often not concieved more than one or two episodes in advance. So if the plot gets funky now and then, that should be no particular surprise. Do you get pissed off if the last Star-Trek TV episode of the season doesn't wrap everything up neatly?
This solves a nonexistent problem as far as I'm concerned. I've been installing Linux systems for about 15 years and I've *never* installed Java on one. Also, never found anything that didn't work because of it. I've yet to find a reason to even *notice* it wasn't installed until this article.
The Java "killer app" never materialized. Just like .NET-- it's trying to solve a problem that users just don't have.
But I do get a chuckle over him targeting IE...
I went into a Lowes once. Just once. Was shopping for an AC plug end I could put on a cord I had that needed one. The cheapest one was about $8.95. Went to a couple other hardware stores and found the same one for less than $2. Later noticed that for about an entire summer there were picketers outside with a banner complaining about employee treatment. Rule 1 for good customer service in my book is 1) in order to keep your customers happy, you must keep your employees happy. Employee morale shows up in the store and I often take note of it. Never went to Lowes again.
On the other hand, I've noticed that there does seem to be knowledgable staff at OSH, and didn't notice a large discrepancy in prices (though I didn't do a thorough comparison).
The trend away from expert staff is due to the fact that most people prefer to shop on price. The internet has only accellerated this trend. Hardware and furniture are a couple of the holdout industries that have found that you can be successful resisting this trend somewhat, if your customers don't notice your prices are a bit high. OSH and Lowes seem to be bucking the trend, while Home Depot is riding the wave. In my area, there are Home Depot's every few miles it seems, and I only know of one Lowes and one OSH in my area (neither are convenient).
The reason furniture and hardware are holdouts is their biggest customer base is older, and tend to have more expectations of service. Electronics however, is quite the opposite so when a regular OSH customer goes into Frys or Best they are shocked at the difference in service. But those buying on price will go to Home Depot, Frys and Best or other more cutthroat retailers and not notice the difference at all...
On the other hand, the company who HAS figured out how to do service and low price at once is Trader Joes. THEY've got it figured out, though whether or not their techniques would work with electronics or not I don't know. Their employees are always in a REALLY good mood-- not a Moony-cult type good mood though, a *genuinely* good mood. Not sure why but I'll wager it has something to do with the way they are treated by the company. Prices are low because they don't just accept all brands of everything, but hand-select good quality products. I mean, how many brands of cheerios and sodas do you need anyway? They don't rent their shelf space to outsiders, buy in quantity and private label the majority of things so you aren't too confused and/or tempted by brand issues. WRT service-- I remember one day where I was shopping in TJ's and the lines were a bit long though all the checkstands were OPEN (when was the last time you saw THAT in a traditional grocery store). The manager got on the horn and said "all hands on deck-- everyone to the front of the store" or something like that, and all the stock people came up to the front and helped bag and within a couple of minutes the lines were processed and the logjam quickly averted-- only taking a few moments out of the stock people's time to address the problem. I go to TJ's almost exclusively over other grocery retailers-- good service, good products and good price.
The trouble is....the service industry in the US has gone to hell!! This was not the case in recent past...(ok, I'm getting older, but, doesn't seem THAT long ago to me). You actually DID used to expect knowledgeable sales people in most any area of sales. People who sold clothes used to know a bit about clothes...used to people selling consumer electronics DID know a bit about the products they sold.
It's quite simple really-- customers prefer to shop on price over any other factor. Consequently, retail margins have become razor-thin and won't pay for anything but low wage staff. And the internet has accellerated the trend as shopping on price is far easier and more thorough.
Part of this trend is the increase in the super-warehouse store with the auto-checkout kiosks, again retailers trying to deal with the small margins by reducing staff expense and increasing volume.
Retail management no doubt realize that most buyers know some 14-year-old geek who can figure out what they need so no point in paying for expert staff. Your mistake is not finding a 14-year-old geek to explain it to you and instead expecting something out of retail staff besides answers to "how much is it" and "do you have it in stock".
A popular (and unfortunately, rather effective) strategy for cynical politicos...
Even better-- the TVs will come with a motion detector-- if anyone gets up to go to the fridge or bathroom during a commercial, it'll signal your cable provider to charge you extra for that "service" on your next bill...