I've always felt that when it comes to technology, it's how we use it that really counts.
This new (kinda-sorta - at least when it comes to automobiles for common domestic use) technology is the same way.
Bad drivers will remain bad drivers and will use this system as an excuse for futher poor driving (this assumes that they use it all all, or know that it is there - if they paid for it).
Good drivers (esp the tech savvy) will use this technology judiciously in situations where it may prove useful (i.e. along the lines that the manufacturers have) to make driving safer.
It's not only the issue of proper encryption, but securing the host machines the server(s) and the data from any manner of problems:
1) software issues, as in: Is the software reliable AND secure from this perspective 2) hardware issues, as in: Is the hardware relaible AND secure (insert your choice of weakest link issue here) 3) stability of power issues (closely related to #2) 4) connectivity/reliability of connectivity issues 5) audit trail of the data (preferably at both ends of the 'net) 6) the integrity of those managing the system (this one coule be considered fairly closely related to #5) 7) the unknown (insert your choice fear and/or uncertainty here)
I don't know about the rest of you, but that looks like a plenty of room for Murphy's Law to me...
The Pentagon most certainly did the right thing (this time).
As the owner and operator of a small college bookstore in the U.S., I can tell you that customer service is at the top of my list as long as I will not lose money in the long run on the endevor.
I know that the impression of "Gouging" in the eyes of the student (whether true or not) sours students away from my store - usually permanently. News of honest and fair customer service travels fast; news of gouging and dishonest/unfair business practice travels even faster.
For example, students who buy a defective book in any shape or form (as long as they bought it from my store, and are not trying to pass off on me an on-line purchased book; that's why they have to have a receipt) will typically get an exchange with little or no questions asked.
I agree with you completely on the sentimnt of "gouging." When selling back used textbooks, I usually find it best in the long run to give students the information they need to make an informed decision. When your college bookstore offered you $16.00 for a $120.00 textbook it was probably because of one of two circumstances:
1) the book was not on course for the following term (no demand for the book at your school) or 2) the bookstore already had as many copies of your book as it needed for the following term, so they weren't going to buy a book at an on-course value when the likihood of selling your book to another student is low. If they don't sell your book to a student next term, they can't return it to you later - so they won't assume the risk.
When a book is not "on-course" most college stores (including mine) typically sell these "wholesale" books to a wholesaler (in my case MBS, Missouri Book Services). The wholesaler pays us what we pay you, plus a 20% commission on the sale. So in your case, we would have made $3.20 on the sale of your book. Your book then sits in a very large warehouse until another college bookstore calls them up and says "We need book X" (your book) and they sell it at a profit to that store, which sells it as a used book.
I can tell you that at my bookstore if your book was "on-course" you would have gotten 1/2 the new value (in this case $60.00) and we would have re-sold it for $90.00 used (25% off the new price), regardless of whether you had bought the book new or used. The ideal scenario for me is to buy back books at their "on-course" value because we make money and the student is happy with the good compensation. Unfortunately this is not common because books are usually not "on-course" (though they tend to be more often at larger schools because of frequently repeating/rotating classes).
It is true that no bookstore will knowingly buy back a book that has gone into a new edition (or will soon be doing so). No bookstore that wants to stay in business for long will buy a book they can't sell again, and you're right to be put-off by the fact that new editions come out so frequently. Publishers do this to thwart the used-book market, which you wanted to take part in (and yes, I know frequent new editions do annoy just about everyone except the publishers).
You certainly did the right thing to sell it on your own for $50.00 This is, in fact what we will recommend to students who have an on-course book that we already have enough of.
Although this kind of direct re-selling thing hurts my business I would be *very* reluctant to complain about it because of the tremendous negative impact it would have on the goodwill I need with the student body and the college community to stay in business. Students like you are, in my opinion, reacting to textbook (and higher-ed tuition) pricing that is increasing at a pace that exceeds that of other commodities in society. College Tution costs so much nowadays that after students like yourself are done paying tuition (or, more likely, taking out yet-another-college-loan), they have less and less patience each year for the cost of textbooks and bookstore explinations for them, whether the explination is legitimate or not.
I'm not sure how relevant this is, and this comment will undoubtably be buried as a 1 in a sea of other 1's and 0's (no pun intended) but...
In this case, because Mike Rowe was not the plaintiff, he wouldn't have lost any money (under the loser-pays-all system) if Microsoft had lost - it would have been the other way around:-). Even then, in this case it would have gone before ICANN arbitration and their ruling would have been the end of it, for all practical purposes.
Now if you mean his propensity to sue would be diminished by the loser pays all system then, yes, I see your point, but I'd imagine the system really does work both ways, as I alluded to above.
After having seen the very meticulous and detailed work of this site and the lego of the Nebuchadnezzer (http://www.brickfrenzy.com/space_neb.html) I would live to see a Lego animation movie ALA thunderbirds style, or something like that.
Anyone know if there are any works in this vein or WIP?
I think Microsoft's main complaint here, and I agree with them, is that if you want to use the popular iTunes service, you have no choice but to use an iPod.
It probably would be more fair to all to be able to use the iTunes service without having to use an iPod exclusively, but that would require all the other mp3 player types to play nice with each other (very unlikely) and iTunes (Apple) probably is not inclned to be this accomodating given the fact that their distribution product (iTunes) is doing just fine, thank-you.
In essence, Microsoft is complaining about the same type of quasi-monopolistic practices that it has been engaing in for quite some time, which make them the quintisential case of the pot-calling-the-kettle-black.
the web-provider which has this article on it (Yahoo!, no big surprise there) has many of the same type of annoying/insulting multi-colored advertisments that the article talks about AOL working so hard to stop?
Dude, try 100.00 or more for delievry to the South Pole, and that would be for petrol for a car, not the very high octane for a plane that is required.
Also, they don't just keep fuel for sale at the depot for bums like him who can't plan for flight contingencies properly. He had no reasonable expactation to even be able to buy fuel from a research station. It's not like he landed a at a Sunoco or something.
While you are techincally and gramatically correct, don't feel so proud of your mastery of the English Language: You and the parent poster are merely engaging in wordsmithing and this seems to be missing the point.
The pilot shouldn't have been so careless with his fuel estimates for contingencies. He's getting off light: he could have been dead.
All this bitching to be "nice" to this man thus far sounds like sentimental ranting to me.
You think they should "give in" after doing what they probably felt legally obligated to do? Tell me sir, at what point would *you* have stopped giving him aid to "discourage tourism"? What would you have done instead? Refuse him shelter after letting him land? that sounds like grounds for a lawsuit to me. Refusing to let him land when he was in distress also sounds like a lawsuit or, at the very least, VERY bad publicity.
Perhaps you would have charged him for room and board for his uninvited stay, to cover your expenses (which I'm sure are huge down there), but even though I would want to do that, I wonder if even that is legal, if he landed under distress.
So being that neither you or I are a lawyer, I'd suggest leaving kind-enough alone.
"Everyone seems to be missing the point. The libraries are selling the books rather than putting them on the shelves! They do this because of commercial pressure. If everyone donated their old CDs and videos to the library, it would be unnecessary to rent or buy any of the older ones; you could borrow them."
I think YOU are the one missing the point: your library is about serving the needs of the community, and obtaining/maintaining the steady finances to do it. Most common citizens don't donate good stuff they like to libraries. By the time they do many are out of date/fashion or are irrelevant to the community they serve.
My wife works at a library. I don't know the internals of how your library operates, but one rule most libraries use with media/services of any type is circulation/use:
A book/CD/DVD/reference source has to earn its keep. If it does not circulate or get used (or if it does not cirulate/get used often enough) it is sold or disposed of, or discontinued.
By your implication, ALL libraries shlould be keeping ALL of their media/services regardless of use. That would be a waste of taxpayer dollars and all libraries would soon run out of space. How many people want to browse 1986 Scientific American in the cobwebs?
As for libraries never having the most recent movies, again, I dont know how your library operates, but ours either has the great movies (like Finding Nemo, the Matrix reloaded, LOTR-2 towers, and Scarface) or it will get them for us through a huge consortium of participating area libraries. How long you have to wait is another matter.
And, yeah, I reserve all this on-line.
You may be dissapointed that your community doesn't share it's media with your libraries more, or that your library provides (at least in your opinion) poor service or buys poor media, but please don't generalize to the populace at large.
As for Mega-Corporations buying their old/unwanted titles, if that means more money than John or Jane citizen is willing to pay so Libraries can keep better stacks, so much the better.
If you don't like your library's policies, complain to the board or directors or the municipality/politicians, but don't blame Amazon; in this case they're not part of the problem, they're part of the solution.
That article in Extreme Tech *looked* interesting until I noticed the date: June 2001.
Just goes to show the poster's point about the lack of truly revolutionary development in the battery field. But *please*, don't describe a two year old article as an "overview."
Ahem. I believe you are referring to *WHITE COLLAR* criminals.
Last time I checked, most *criminal* convicts in the joint have a history of violent behavior, difficulty with anger management, and difficulty expressing strong emotions in a constructive fashion. Don't believe me? Check the type of crowd inhabiting your local county jail.
White-collar criminals, OTOH, often fit the above pattern you describe: these individuals typically have no problem being nice to the people they *know*. They also usually don't get caught, and when they do, sentencing is often light/lenient because of their reputation in the community, unless the crime is so heinous that it trumps their goodwill (example would be serial killers, pedophiles, and modern day robber-barons, like Kennuth Lay).
White collar criminals have a very wierd/multi-faceted sense of ethics/values. When their behavior applies to those outiside of what they care about (friends/family/community/kiwanis club, whatever) they're just as guilty as any other CRIMINAL out there: they just want their goods/serivices/cash and/or fame, and if other people get hurt in the process, they often have a perplexing (or just plain stupid/greedy) excuse to justify it.
The difference is the Almighty Dollar... In the Courts and Govermment - at the Local, County, State and Federal level, the NYSE and NASDAQ - you get the idea... The higher up you go, the worse it gets.
The Golden Rule: He who has the Gold makes the Rules
Bluecurrent will probably not be stupid enough to go after Microsoft or any other comapny with very deep pockets for legal defense and/or counter suits (not to mention the media coverage).
Instead, count on seeing the law firms who will "represent" this company going after smaller companies/individuals who cannot or do-not want to deal with the financial headaches and ping-pong style litigation in civil court.
Unfortunately, you will typically find that any substantial governmental body in the U.S. has an allocated, and legal, budget to advertise, campaign for, or promote any agenda or issue.
It makes me shake my head to see this kind of propaganda being handed out on a federal website, but the USDOJ is excersizing their legal, first amendment rights.
If the ads in Windows Messenger 6.0 for WindowsXP bother you, then just go ahead and disable them. The modifications prevent those annoying ads from showing in the "MSN MESSENGER" panel.
You'll need a hex-editor to make the changes yourself, at this site: http://www.windows-help.net/microsoft/messe nger6-r emove-ad.html
I have only tested this modification with v. 6.0.0602 of MSN Messenger so I'm not sure if it works with later builds.
I found the directions easy and I never see any ads now. As for additional spware that it may contain... who knows?
Slashdot Mirror
I've always felt that when it comes to technology, it's how we use it that really counts.
This new (kinda-sorta - at least when it comes to automobiles for common domestic use) technology is the same way.
Bad drivers will remain bad drivers and will use this system as an excuse for futher poor driving (this assumes that they use it all all, or know that it is there - if they paid for it).
Good drivers (esp the tech savvy) will use this technology judiciously in situations where it may prove useful (i.e. along the lines that the manufacturers have) to make driving safer.
.
for a bit of voter humor check this out (flash plug-in required):
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/voting.html
.
It's not only the issue of proper encryption, but securing the host machines the server(s) and the data from any manner of problems:
1) software issues, as in: Is the software reliable AND secure from this perspective
2) hardware issues, as in: Is the hardware relaible AND secure (insert your choice of weakest link issue here)
3) stability of power issues (closely related to #2)
4) connectivity/reliability of connectivity issues
5) audit trail of the data (preferably at both ends of the 'net)
6) the integrity of those managing the system (this one coule be considered fairly closely related to #5)
7) the unknown (insert your choice fear and/or uncertainty here)
I don't know about the rest of you, but that looks like a plenty of room for Murphy's Law to me...
The Pentagon most certainly did the right thing (this time).
.
The world would be a pretty ho-hum and stagnant place.
please don't punnish me for this.
.
As the owner and operator of a small college bookstore in the U.S., I can tell you that customer service is at the top of my list as long as I will not lose money in the long run on the endevor.
I know that the impression of "Gouging" in the eyes of the student (whether true or not) sours students away from my store - usually permanently. News of honest and fair customer service travels fast; news of gouging and dishonest/unfair business practice travels even faster.
For example, students who buy a defective book in any shape or form (as long as they bought it from my store, and are not trying to pass off on me an on-line purchased book; that's why they have to have a receipt) will typically get an exchange with little or no questions asked.
I agree with you completely on the sentimnt of "gouging." When selling back used textbooks, I usually find it best in the long run to give students the information they need to make an informed decision. When your college bookstore offered you $16.00 for a $120.00 textbook it was probably because of one of two circumstances:
1) the book was not on course for the following term (no demand for the book at your school)
or
2) the bookstore already had as many copies of your book as it needed for the following term, so they weren't going to buy a book at an on-course value when the likihood of selling your book to another student is low. If they don't sell your book to a student next term, they can't return it to you later - so they won't assume the risk.
When a book is not "on-course" most college stores (including mine) typically sell these "wholesale" books to a wholesaler (in my case MBS, Missouri Book Services). The wholesaler pays us what we pay you, plus a 20% commission on the sale. So in your case, we would have made $3.20 on the sale of your book. Your book then sits in a very large warehouse until another college bookstore calls them up and says "We need book X" (your book) and they sell it at a profit to that store, which sells it as a used book.
I can tell you that at my bookstore if your book was "on-course" you would have gotten 1/2 the new value (in this case $60.00) and we would have re-sold it for $90.00 used (25% off the new price), regardless of whether you had bought the book new or used. The ideal scenario for me is to buy back books at their "on-course" value because we make money and the student is happy with the good compensation. Unfortunately this is not common because books are usually not "on-course" (though they tend to be more often at larger schools because of frequently repeating/rotating classes).
It is true that no bookstore will knowingly buy back a book that has gone into a new edition (or will soon be doing so). No bookstore that wants to stay in business for long will buy a book they can't sell again, and you're right to be put-off by the fact that new editions come out so frequently. Publishers do this to thwart the used-book market, which you wanted to take part in (and yes, I know frequent new editions do annoy just about everyone except the publishers).
You certainly did the right thing to sell it on your own for $50.00 This is, in fact what we will recommend to students who have an on-course book that we already have enough of.
Although this kind of direct re-selling thing hurts my business I would be *very* reluctant to complain about it because of the tremendous negative impact it would have on the goodwill I need with the student body and the college community to stay in business. Students like you are, in my opinion, reacting to textbook (and higher-ed tuition) pricing that is increasing at a pace that exceeds that of other commodities in society. College Tution costs so much nowadays that after students like yourself are done paying tuition (or, more likely, taking out yet-another-college-loan), they have less and less patience each year for the cost of textbooks and bookstore explinations for them, whether the explination is legitimate or not.
I'm not sure how relevant this is, and this comment will undoubtably be buried as a 1 in a sea of other 1's and 0's (no pun intended) but...
:-). Even then, in this case it would have gone before ICANN arbitration and their ruling would have been the end of it, for all practical purposes.
In this case, because Mike Rowe was not the plaintiff, he wouldn't have lost any money (under the loser-pays-all system) if Microsoft had lost - it would have been the other way around
Now if you mean his propensity to sue would be diminished by the loser pays all system then, yes, I see your point, but I'd imagine the system really does work both ways, as I alluded to above.
.
After having seen the very meticulous and detailed work of this site and the lego of the Nebuchadnezzer (http://www.brickfrenzy.com/space_neb.html) I would live to see a Lego animation movie ALA thunderbirds style, or something like that.
Anyone know if there are any works in this vein or WIP?
.
I would mod you to a six if i could
I think Microsoft's main complaint here, and I agree with them, is that if you want to use the popular iTunes service, you have no choice but to use an iPod.
It probably would be more fair to all to be able to use the iTunes service without having to use an iPod exclusively, but that would require all the other mp3 player types to play nice with each other (very unlikely) and iTunes (Apple) probably is not inclned to be this accomodating given the fact that their distribution product (iTunes) is doing just fine, thank-you.
In essence, Microsoft is complaining about the same type of quasi-monopolistic practices that it has been engaing in for quite some time, which make them the quintisential case of the pot-calling-the-kettle-black.
But they just so happen to be right, IMO.
.
the web-provider which has this article on it (Yahoo!, no big surprise there) has many of the same type of annoying/insulting multi-colored advertisments that the article talks about AOL working so hard to stop?
Seems ironic and amusing to me.
.
If I had Mod Points right now I'd give you one. Did you watch the People Vs. Larry Flynt?
.
the URL to this travesty of Justice:8 8_crash13. shtml
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/953
I can't believe that got modded to "5 Insightful."
:
Dude, we have military bases all over the world. Care to travel to them just to see this sign?
U.S. Government Property
No Tresspassing
Violators Will be Prosecuted
That doesn't sound like something I'd care to travel to see.
.
Dude, try 100.00 or more for delievry to the South Pole, and that would be for petrol for a car, not the very high octane for a plane that is required.
Also, they don't just keep fuel for sale at the depot for bums like him who can't plan for flight contingencies properly. He had no reasonable expactation to even be able to buy fuel from a research station. It's not like he landed a at a Sunoco or something.
.
While you are techincally and gramatically correct, don't feel so proud of your mastery of the English Language: You and the parent poster are merely engaging in wordsmithing and this seems to be missing the point.
The pilot shouldn't have been so careless with his fuel estimates for contingencies. He's getting off light: he could have been dead.
.
All this bitching to be "nice" to this man thus far sounds like sentimental ranting to me.
You think they should "give in" after doing what they probably felt legally obligated to do? Tell me sir, at what point would *you* have stopped giving him aid to "discourage tourism"? What would you have done instead? Refuse him shelter after letting him land? that sounds like grounds for a lawsuit to me. Refusing to let him land when he was in distress also sounds like a lawsuit or, at the very least, VERY bad publicity.
Perhaps you would have charged him for room and board for his uninvited stay, to cover your expenses (which I'm sure are huge down there), but even though I would want to do that, I wonder if even that is legal, if he landed under distress.
So being that neither you or I are a lawyer, I'd suggest leaving kind-enough alone.
.
"Everyone seems to be missing the point. The libraries are selling the books rather than putting them on the shelves! They do this because of commercial pressure. If everyone donated their old CDs and videos to the library, it would be unnecessary to rent or buy any of the older ones; you could borrow them."
I think YOU are the one missing the point: your library is about serving the needs of the community, and obtaining/maintaining the steady finances to do it. Most common citizens don't donate good stuff they like to libraries. By the time they do many are out of date/fashion or are irrelevant to the community they serve.
My wife works at a library. I don't know the internals of how your library operates, but one rule most libraries use with media/services of any type is circulation/use:
A book/CD/DVD/reference source has to earn its keep. If it does not circulate or get used (or if it does not cirulate/get used often enough) it is sold or disposed of, or discontinued.
By your implication, ALL libraries shlould be keeping ALL of their media/services regardless of use. That would be a waste of taxpayer dollars and all libraries would soon run out of space. How many people want to browse 1986 Scientific American in the cobwebs?
As for libraries never having the most recent movies, again, I dont know how your library operates, but ours either has the great movies (like Finding Nemo, the Matrix reloaded, LOTR-2 towers, and Scarface) or it will get them for us through a huge consortium of participating area libraries. How long you have to wait is another matter.
And, yeah, I reserve all this on-line.
You may be dissapointed that your community doesn't share it's media with your libraries more, or that your library provides (at least in your opinion) poor service or buys poor media, but please don't generalize to the populace at large.
As for Mega-Corporations buying their old/unwanted titles, if that means more money than John or Jane citizen is willing to pay so Libraries can keep better stacks, so much the better.
If you don't like your library's policies, complain to the board or directors or the municipality/politicians, but don't blame Amazon; in this case they're not part of the problem, they're part of the solution.
.
That article in Extreme Tech *looked* interesting until I noticed the date: June 2001.
Just goes to show the poster's point about the lack of truly revolutionary development in the battery field. But *please*, don't describe a two year old article as an "overview."
It's better described as "history."
.
Ahem. I believe you are referring to *WHITE COLLAR* criminals.
Last time I checked, most *criminal* convicts in the joint have a history of violent behavior, difficulty with anger management, and difficulty expressing strong emotions in a constructive fashion. Don't believe me? Check the type of crowd inhabiting your local county jail.
White-collar criminals, OTOH, often fit the above pattern you describe: these individuals typically have no problem being nice to the people they *know*. They also usually don't get caught, and when they do, sentencing is often light/lenient because of their reputation in the community, unless the crime is so heinous that it trumps their goodwill (example would be serial killers, pedophiles, and modern day robber-barons, like Kennuth Lay).
White collar criminals have a very wierd/multi-faceted sense of ethics/values. When their behavior applies to those outiside of what they care about (friends/family/community/kiwanis club, whatever) they're just as guilty as any other CRIMINAL out there: they just want their goods/serivices/cash and/or fame, and if other people get hurt in the process, they often have a perplexing (or just plain stupid/greedy) excuse to justify it.
Although I personally have never had the probelm you describe, if the your Messenger service is getting spammed just disable it:
Control Panel --> Administraive Tools --> Messenger (select Disable).
that's all there is to it.
F.Y.I, any services that depend on Messenger will also be disabled (but I can't think of any offhand...)
.
This may be flamebait but...
The difference is the Almighty Dollar... In the Courts and Govermment - at the Local, County, State and Federal level, the NYSE and NASDAQ - you get the idea... The higher up you go, the worse it gets.
The Golden Rule: He who has the Gold makes the Rules
.
Well, if it IS real I'd call it Franken-fruit.
Bluecurrent will probably not be stupid enough to go after Microsoft or any other comapny with very deep pockets for legal defense and/or counter suits (not to mention the media coverage).
Instead, count on seeing the law firms who will "represent" this company going after smaller companies/individuals who cannot or do-not want to deal with the financial headaches and ping-pong style litigation in civil court.
Likely we will see RIAA style suits instead.
Unfortunately, you will typically find that any substantial governmental body in the U.S. has an allocated, and legal, budget to advertise, campaign for, or promote any agenda or issue.
It makes me shake my head to see this kind of propaganda being handed out on a federal website, but the USDOJ is excersizing their legal, first amendment rights.
If the ads in Windows Messenger 6.0 for WindowsXP bother you, then just go ahead and disable them. The modifications prevent those annoying ads from showing in the "MSN MESSENGER" panel.
e nger6-r emove-ad.html
You'll need a hex-editor to make the changes yourself, at this site:
http://www.windows-help.net/microsoft/mess
I have only tested this modification with v. 6.0.0602 of MSN Messenger so I'm not sure if it works with later builds.
I found the directions easy and I never see any ads now. As for additional spware that it may contain... who knows?