I had this happen once from a movie ticket purchase on Fandango. Bought some movie tickets, then a week later got an $80 charge from some place I had never heard of. I made a very loud argument to Fandango about enabling my credit card number to be fraudulently used, etc, etc. Within 2 two days I had all my money returned and some extra for the trouble, several free movie tickets, and a promise from Fandango that they would change the way companies advertise when they are sharing financial information, and indeed they did. People just need to just stay on top of their accounts, understand their rights and loudly speak up your intention of fully enforcing your rights and usually that's all it takes.
Against my better judgement I upgraded early on - I'm usually the type to wait awhile and see what people find. However, I have to say, I've not had any issues other then a 4.5 hour download for the updated packages. I've been running it a couple days now and not once has anything crashed or given me a problem. Perhaps it's the fact I'm using a nearly 4 year old laptop though, so all the drivers are fairly stable now.
Not sure where you got your information about Jefferson. Even though he repealed the whiskey tax he was still able to reduce the national debt by one third. Now his personal life was a bit different, he died greatly in debt.
It's the same argument heard again. It's really nothing more then a dislike of change. Deep inside most people don't like it, but even that changes as change becomes more rapid, it becomes more easily adopted. Putting a telephone in every home was resisted by many people. It would destroy the fabric of socialization. Why go visit the person when you can just call them. The fact that many prefer texting now vs talking, it's the same argument as the phone really. Someday perhaps we'll have fully interactive holograms doing our visiting of each other and we rarely have face to face interactions. Will this be bad? I'm sure it will be considered so at the time. But then they'll remember that back in the day, when people talked less and texted more, we didn't get stupid. Or back when the that talking box on the wall made as all quit "dropping in" unannounced and broke up our socializing habits.... Fear of change is the only stupid thing here....
I work from home for a company that isn't in my state, but I also do independent work and have my own small company. I don't want a seperate machine for each place, so for my main employer, I have a monthly stipend added to my pay for the use of personal computers, printers, office supplies, etc. This way I still own the equipment, but I also get some money for it's wear and tear, etc. Of course this means I pay for repairs and supplies out of pocket when they are needed, but over time it evens out.
I don't know about Chicago, but the blocks in Portland are small, at most you have to walk 4 car lengths to get to a box. I'm not sure about you, but walking 8 car lengths out of my way (to the box and back) does not really tax my time or physical endurance. Consider it 2 minutes of exercise for the day.
Just because one doesn't want DRM on something doesn't mean that one is going to "steal" the content either. How many people have cut CD's and DVD's, that they bought, into a digital format so they can use them on other devices they bought. Did they steal them? When I buy music, or a movie, or a book, I believe I should be able to use it on whatever device I want, but that doesn't mean I'm a pirate and stealing revenue from the company at all.
The real issue is never directly addressed though. Who owns what you buy? If you buy a CD is it your CD? Obviously you don't own the rights to the music on it, but what about the physical CD? You can give it away, sell it, use it as a frisbee. You own it. DRM takes that away. You do not own what you buy. At any time your right to use it can be revoked for any reason. Look up Amazon and 1984, look up Wal-Mart and MP3's (though they reversed their decision and didn't lock out previously purchased music).
My issue against DRM is not so that I can "steal" things, but so that I OWN what I buy, use it where I choice, and can't have it revoked at any time, or if I want to sell off my collection of movies, mp3's or books, that I can do that too, because I bought them.
I've always said there are two types of people. Those that produce most of the work tend to stick with what works, and those that innovate tend to always try the newest things at the cost of production. Both types of people are needed. If it were for the lower producing innovators we'd still be living in caves, after all, they worked great for our needs. So one group doesn't change that fast but gets the drudgery done, the other group doesn't get as much done, but keeps us moving forward.
I'd love to impose such a system. I spend hours sometimes correcting pages to work correctly across the browsers, making a tweak for this or a tweak for that one. I'd love to just write code that is compliant and say if you can't see this, tough, get a browser that works right. But the realities of the marketplace won't allow this. You won't get people switching browsers, you'll get calls from angry customers, or lose business altogether. If everyone did it at once, it would cause MS to suffer, but it would also cause a lot of businesses to get a lot of angry calls. I provide e-mail services to people, only a POP3 server. If their internet goes down and they can't get their e-mail, they assume it's a problem with my server and call me. As much as I'd love to tell them to leave me alone and call the people that are causing the real problem, I can't do that. I have to help step them through the problem and then help point them to the proper person to call to fix it.
Standards compliance as a developer is a lovely dream. As a customer, it doesn't mean anything, they just want it to work and if it doesn't, it's your fault. Doesn't matter what part breaks in the chain, it's your fault. Ford sells a new car and a part made by some third party breaks during the warranty period Ford doesn't say "sorry, not our part", they have to fix it.
Oh - I already got the computer - it was just a couple thousand dollars. I was able to open a credit card with 0% interest for a year and then only 7.99% afterwards, I was just commenting that Dell doesn't offer good interest rates no matter how good your credit is.
Not true with Dell - I have a credit score of almost 800 but Dell still wouldn't offer me anything under 22%, so I just used a different financing method. Though in Dell's credit they didn't try to bait and switch me, the details were quite clear from the beginning.
Project Vote Smart http://www.vote-smart.org/ already has factual information on candidates and incumbents for offices in the US. Want to see how they voted, where they get thier money, how they stand on an issue? If the information is available it will be there. While it doesn't necessarily say if a candidate is lying or not, you certainly can find out some more information about that candidate and perhaps find out if they lied about something or not.
OK, so this might be offbased, but it seems to me the RIAA is doing everything it can to kill the current business model of music sales - all in the name of piracy. But it seems to me that they want to try to lay the foundation of pay to play music based systems. In otherwords, you can play any song anytime you want, anywhere, but you pay a fee to play that song. Maybe only a penny, maybe a nickle, who knows, but the thing is that it provides them with a more constant stream of income. I think most people would reject such a system though, so they are trying to kill the current system to make a void to bring in these pay to play systems. Just a thought - and I could be as crazy as the RIAA to have it even....
I think this is one of the patents refered to in the article - it seems a pretty obvious "invention" to me - gotta wonder about some of these patents.
------
Secure method and system for communicating a list of credit card numbers over a non-secure network
Abstract
A method and system for securely indicating to a customer one or more credit card numbers that a merchant has on file for the customer when communicating with the customer over a non-secure network. The merchant sends a message to the customer that contains only a portion of each of the credit card numbers that are on file with the merchant. The message may also contain a notation explaining which portion of each of the credit card numbers has been extracted. A computer (38) retrieves the credit card numbers on file for the customer in a database (40), constructs the message, and transits the message to a customer location (10) over the Internet network (30) or other non-secure network. The customer can then confirm in a return message that a specific one of the credit card numbers on file with the merchant should be used in charging a transaction. Since only a portion of the credit card number(s) are included in any message transmitted, a third party cannot discover the customer's complete credit card number(s).
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5715399.WKU.&OS=PN/5715399&RS=PN/ 5715399
I've had a Civic Hybrid for about 18 months now and it's been a great little car. I've put about 33,000 miles on it driving from Portland, OR to Helena, MT and back and also from Portland, OR to San Diego, CA several times. It's great to go about 450 miles - sometimes more - on a single tank of gas that costs about $22. It has no problems going over mountain passes and has plenty of power - unless your into racing or something. I get more mpg in the city then on the highway, but even in the worst case situations I've still gotten better then 41 or 42mpg. Usually getting around 45 to 47mpg.
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I had this happen once from a movie ticket purchase on Fandango. Bought some movie tickets, then a week later got an $80 charge from some place I had never heard of. I made a very loud argument to Fandango about enabling my credit card number to be fraudulently used, etc, etc. Within 2 two days I had all my money returned and some extra for the trouble, several free movie tickets, and a promise from Fandango that they would change the way companies advertise when they are sharing financial information, and indeed they did. People just need to just stay on top of their accounts, understand their rights and loudly speak up your intention of fully enforcing your rights and usually that's all it takes.
Against my better judgement I upgraded early on - I'm usually the type to wait awhile and see what people find. However, I have to say, I've not had any issues other then a 4.5 hour download for the updated packages. I've been running it a couple days now and not once has anything crashed or given me a problem. Perhaps it's the fact I'm using a nearly 4 year old laptop though, so all the drivers are fairly stable now.
Not sure where you got your information about Jefferson. Even though he repealed the whiskey tax he was still able to reduce the national debt by one third. Now his personal life was a bit different, he died greatly in debt.
It's the same argument heard again. It's really nothing more then a dislike of change. Deep inside most people don't like it, but even that changes as change becomes more rapid, it becomes more easily adopted. Putting a telephone in every home was resisted by many people. It would destroy the fabric of socialization. Why go visit the person when you can just call them. The fact that many prefer texting now vs talking, it's the same argument as the phone really. Someday perhaps we'll have fully interactive holograms doing our visiting of each other and we rarely have face to face interactions. Will this be bad? I'm sure it will be considered so at the time. But then they'll remember that back in the day, when people talked less and texted more, we didn't get stupid. Or back when the that talking box on the wall made as all quit "dropping in" unannounced and broke up our socializing habits.... Fear of change is the only stupid thing here....
I work from home for a company that isn't in my state, but I also do independent work and have my own small company. I don't want a seperate machine for each place, so for my main employer, I have a monthly stipend added to my pay for the use of personal computers, printers, office supplies, etc. This way I still own the equipment, but I also get some money for it's wear and tear, etc. Of course this means I pay for repairs and supplies out of pocket when they are needed, but over time it evens out.
I don't know about Chicago, but the blocks in Portland are small, at most you have to walk 4 car lengths to get to a box. I'm not sure about you, but walking 8 car lengths out of my way (to the box and back) does not really tax my time or physical endurance. Consider it 2 minutes of exercise for the day.
The real issue is never directly addressed though. Who owns what you buy? If you buy a CD is it your CD? Obviously you don't own the rights to the music on it, but what about the physical CD? You can give it away, sell it, use it as a frisbee. You own it. DRM takes that away. You do not own what you buy. At any time your right to use it can be revoked for any reason. Look up Amazon and 1984, look up Wal-Mart and MP3's (though they reversed their decision and didn't lock out previously purchased music).
My issue against DRM is not so that I can "steal" things, but so that I OWN what I buy, use it where I choice, and can't have it revoked at any time, or if I want to sell off my collection of movies, mp3's or books, that I can do that too, because I bought them.
Opps - I made a typo on that last comment - should read "If it WEREN'T for the lower producing innovators we'd still be living in caves..."
I've always said there are two types of people. Those that produce most of the work tend to stick with what works, and those that innovate tend to always try the newest things at the cost of production. Both types of people are needed. If it were for the lower producing innovators we'd still be living in caves, after all, they worked great for our needs. So one group doesn't change that fast but gets the drudgery done, the other group doesn't get as much done, but keeps us moving forward.
I'd love to impose such a system. I spend hours sometimes correcting pages to work correctly across the browsers, making a tweak for this or a tweak for that one. I'd love to just write code that is compliant and say if you can't see this, tough, get a browser that works right. But the realities of the marketplace won't allow this. You won't get people switching browsers, you'll get calls from angry customers, or lose business altogether. If everyone did it at once, it would cause MS to suffer, but it would also cause a lot of businesses to get a lot of angry calls. I provide e-mail services to people, only a POP3 server. If their internet goes down and they can't get their e-mail, they assume it's a problem with my server and call me. As much as I'd love to tell them to leave me alone and call the people that are causing the real problem, I can't do that. I have to help step them through the problem and then help point them to the proper person to call to fix it. Standards compliance as a developer is a lovely dream. As a customer, it doesn't mean anything, they just want it to work and if it doesn't, it's your fault. Doesn't matter what part breaks in the chain, it's your fault. Ford sells a new car and a part made by some third party breaks during the warranty period Ford doesn't say "sorry, not our part", they have to fix it.
Oh - I already got the computer - it was just a couple thousand dollars. I was able to open a credit card with 0% interest for a year and then only 7.99% afterwards, I was just commenting that Dell doesn't offer good interest rates no matter how good your credit is.
Not true with Dell - I have a credit score of almost 800 but Dell still wouldn't offer me anything under 22%, so I just used a different financing method. Though in Dell's credit they didn't try to bait and switch me, the details were quite clear from the beginning.
Project Vote Smart http://www.vote-smart.org/ already has factual information on candidates and incumbents for offices in the US. Want to see how they voted, where they get thier money, how they stand on an issue? If the information is available it will be there. While it doesn't necessarily say if a candidate is lying or not, you certainly can find out some more information about that candidate and perhaps find out if they lied about something or not.
OK, so this might be offbased, but it seems to me the RIAA is doing everything it can to kill the current business model of music sales - all in the name of piracy. But it seems to me that they want to try to lay the foundation of pay to play music based systems. In otherwords, you can play any song anytime you want, anywhere, but you pay a fee to play that song. Maybe only a penny, maybe a nickle, who knows, but the thing is that it provides them with a more constant stream of income. I think most people would reject such a system though, so they are trying to kill the current system to make a void to bring in these pay to play systems. Just a thought - and I could be as crazy as the RIAA to have it even....
I think this is one of the patents refered to in the article - it seems a pretty obvious "invention" to me - gotta wonder about some of these patents. ------ Secure method and system for communicating a list of credit card numbers over a non-secure network Abstract A method and system for securely indicating to a customer one or more credit card numbers that a merchant has on file for the customer when communicating with the customer over a non-secure network. The merchant sends a message to the customer that contains only a portion of each of the credit card numbers that are on file with the merchant. The message may also contain a notation explaining which portion of each of the credit card numbers has been extracted. A computer (38) retrieves the credit card numbers on file for the customer in a database (40), constructs the message, and transits the message to a customer location (10) over the Internet network (30) or other non-secure network. The customer can then confirm in a return message that a specific one of the credit card numbers on file with the merchant should be used in charging a transaction. Since only a portion of the credit card number(s) are included in any message transmitted, a third party cannot discover the customer's complete credit card number(s). http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5715399.WKU.&OS=PN/5715399&RS=PN/ 5715399
I think Novell Desktop replaces Ximian Desktop 2, as all links to Ximian go to Novel Desktop now.
I've had a Civic Hybrid for about 18 months now and it's been a great little car. I've put about 33,000 miles on it driving from Portland, OR to Helena, MT and back and also from Portland, OR to San Diego, CA several times. It's great to go about 450 miles - sometimes more - on a single tank of gas that costs about $22. It has no problems going over mountain passes and has plenty of power - unless your into racing or something. I get more mpg in the city then on the highway, but even in the worst case situations I've still gotten better then 41 or 42mpg. Usually getting around 45 to 47mpg.
Oh no! The internet is coming to life and trying to rewrite itself!