It's not a credit transaction per se. You are granting the the store permission to take money out of your bank account electronically any time they want. You are trusting that they will actually only do this when appropriate, but you have no way to be sure. And once you grant them access to your account, the only way to cease their access is to close your bank account and create a new one.
A number of people have had major complaints with companies that do this sort of thing - because they may and do just keep charging your bank account for things you are no longer subscribing to or use or want. And while you can tell them to stop - they still have access to your account and you can't make them stop. Period.
Thanks, but I don't want anyone but myself to have access to withdraw directly from my account.
I think that the blog community got way, way ahead of this story.
While I hate the blogging community as much as anyone else, you can hardly blame them when the hyperbole from Schwartz's blog was so thick. After all, who the would have construed "the world is about to change" to mean "we're sticking a google bar in our stupid JRE package"?
I wonder how many people were outsourced to fund the R&D for this revolutionary idea?
Netscape is Firefox with a crappier interface and jammed full of commercialized tie-ins to AOL/Netscape. It was a terrible choice to include instead of Firefox.
A Gamestop/EB merger would do nothing to the used games market. Gamestores make all their profit on used games - that's why they love when you bring your new purchases back for a tradein. They might getw a couple bucks or five profit on a new game. Then it gets returned and they can sell it for $20+ and make a good $10-$15 profit on top of the original $5 when they sold it the first time.
And, personally, I think that's great. Not everyone wants to spend $60/game - and some people simply can't.
This band sucks, to be sure - but here you go and spoil their entire publicity campaign by comparing them to the completely crap-drivel emo-shit that is REM and Death Cab for Cutie.
I know everyone claims "oh, they're a huge successful popular band, because they were the ones who sang flagpole sitta!". But that's just one song. One accomplishment. Big frigging deal. And on top of that, it's a pointless, meaningless, stupid song.
But hey, if pop-music is your sort of thing, more power to you.
I wouldn't be so sure. They'll get extra publicity, thousands of people will hear them for the first time, and may come to the next concert on their your, where they will pay $8-10 for a ticket.
Yeah, sure.
Thousands of people will hear them for the first time and go pay for a ticket to see them on their next tour? Do you mean the $8 tickets that get you in to see three other crappy bands on their "tour" at their single show at the Crocodile Cafe (which is a teeny tiny little cafe that serves hashbrowns at breakfast and burgers for lunch)?
I really don't see what everyone is getting all giddy for over this. If this were a big successful artist making this statement, that'd be impressive. But this is a few nobodies claiming to make a statement when they're really just exploiting it to get some publicity to begin with. It's kind of like on a movie set. The director doesn't give a shit if the extras walk off and don't come back unless their demands are met. But if the starring actor walks off, those demands are considered. See, in this situation Harvey Danger is the extra. Nobody cares. Nobody listens. They play rare shows at shitty little venues where they probably pick up $80 on a night and split it four ways.
These guys aren't going to make any money. And they wouldn't be an ignored artist on a major label - because no major label would sign these bunch of nobodies up (except, of course, the indie labels they've already worked with). I don't think many people outside of the northwest have even heard of them - and even those who have probably couldn't tell you where they had heard the name "harvey danger" before and certainly wouldn't identify it with a band.
Wake me up when an artist that people actually want to hear and labels want to sign thumbs their nose at everyone and gives their music away for free on DRMless MP3 over the net.
How exactly is this band saying "screw you" to the RIAA?
The last successful song they had was almost EIGHT YEARS AGO. They've only put out maybe three albums in more than ELEVEN YEARS. This is not a band record companies are beating down the door to sign up. They were a big deal for a very brief time among college age people back in the mid to late 90s. Nothing more.
This is a lot like the school dork saying "I'm going to show those cheerleaders once and for all. I won't take ANY to the homecoming dance!".
Yeah, they're such a huge success that they play cafes and other small venues and have to give their music away for free to get attention. It's probably less to do with "making a point to the RIAA" as it does "making lemonade out of no RIAA label being willing to carry us any longer".
And for those who don't remember "flagpole sitta"... I can only say "lucky you".
I have a website with a large community. I don't charge for the service I offer. I'm not legally a 501c3 or anything (haven't done the paperwork), but I don't sell anything or make any money and that isn't even the intent.
Anyway, I have a problematic user who has done everything under the sun since I disabled their account several years ago to disrupt the site. They've spread rumors, lies, harassed my members, created dozens of false accounts and harassed people, called the police and made claims about our site that weren't true (or even realistic or sane) and, recently I found out, registered my domain name. The exact domain name - just as a.net instead of a.com. He doesn't use it, but clearly he has it registered as a threat to do something with it.
What bothers me even more is that another person put up a site that does the same thing as mine and took my name, but altered it slightly. If I were a big corporation, I could probably do something about it. After all, if I'm McDonald's, you can't open a fast food chain of your own selling the same foold and calling yourself McDonald (without the s). They've been doing "business" for almost three years while I've been around for almost seven. They came directly after - and were started by one of my own site's former members. The reason this pisses me off is that I get people frequently who complain about my site or a problem with their account and it goes on and on for quite some time - arguing back and forth - before they realize they're at the wrong website and that their account is actually at the competing site.
To give you an example of the difference between the two names - it would be like someone opening a website called "Monolith.com" to compete with a much older site called "Monolithic.com" - both serving the same group of people, offering the same exact service and benefitting off the similarities in name.
But hey, if you don't make a profit (or any money at all) and you've already invested tens of thousands of dollars into it, who can afford another couple thousand for trademark filing, wait a year for it to take effect, then pay thousands to a lawyer to file a claim against the two people who are 1) squatting on a domain with my business name with malicious intent and 2) essentially taking my name with the slightest modification and duplicating what I do?
Best advice: Take whatever pays the most. Houses, cars, vacations, dates, wives, children, food and hobbies are not free. If you're concerned about "prestige", what is more prestigious than money? Geek prestige only counts in certain circles. Money prestige counts everywhere. Plus, if you make a lot of money, you can afford to have fun rather than trying to pretend to be humble and enjoy things that aren't really all that fun.
It's not about putting a dent in current crime. It's about putting a dent in future liberty. Wear us down a little each day until we have nothing left and are used to it through social conditioning and indoctrination through school and television to groom our children for acceptance of it.
I watched a couple episodes yesterday (Sci-Fi ran all the episodes, I guess) and I just felt that the characters were unimpressive and lacking charisma. The only character that seemed to have anything to his presentation was the tall guy that they took onto their ship as a partner or whatever, after he originally tried to hold them up at gunpoint.
You are one of the stupidest people I've ever seen on Slasdot. Congratulations.
Either you believe in God (like most of the world) or you believe that humans evolved - and that therefor believing in God makes your procreation more likely.
So you can't believe in god and evolution? Strange, because I know plenty of people who do. And how does not believing in god reduce procreation? Evolution by its nature requires procreation. Evolution happens in increments and those increments are generations and generations don't occur if reproduction doesn't occur.
And which god do you have to believe in to make your procreation more likely? Just the Christian one?
Either way, what is the advantage of not believing in God? OK, choose a religion that doesn't cramp your style, perhaps, but either way, belief is provably better.
Wow. "Belief is provably better"? Talk about an oxymoron. You're saying that it is provable that belief (lack of proof) is a better thing? Simply amazing. So you think, rather than seeking out the truth and reality and fact of the world around us, we should just "believe" in things? That's idiotic. Belief is ignorance at its essence. "Belief" in god or "belief" in creation or "belief" in evolution is all equally wrong. Belief has no business in any of it. There is either evidence to support something or there is not. The difference being that there is significant evidence supporting evolution and none - in fact the basis of it relies entirely on accepting the lack of evidence - with religion or creation.
Why do you want to make people unhappy?
I don't. I'm agnostic. I don't go around making people unhappy by cramming my religion down their throat, hanging them, shooting them, crucifying them or trying to take away their freedoms and instruct them how to live their lives based on my religious "morality".
(You do know that happiness commonly maps to religion, right?) Why do you want to make them more likely to die? (You do know that religious people (at least certain faiths) live longer, right?)
You do know that's bullshit, right? You do know that populations in which creationism is the overwhelming "belief" have a higher rate of crime and death and pregnancy and STDs, right? You do know that everything you just stated is fucking head-in-ass backwards and baseless, right?
In other words - Kennedy could promote vision and enthusiasm from his fellow politicians and constituents when it came to exploration and scientific accomplishment, whereas Bush can only seem to promote vision and enthusiasm among those politicians and constituents when it comes to blowing up brown people and sticking religious artifacts in court rooms?
Second, what does war overseas have to do with security and freedom at home? Why is it such a hard concept for people like you to grasp? Defense is the most efficient means of safety. Defense is financially more efficient than offense. Defensive measures last longer than offensive ones.
I'm not bitching about how long this "war" as you call it (when exactly has congress declared war? In fact, I recall much ballyhooing by Bush and his cronies back in the day about how this was specifically NOT a war) is taking. I'm bitching about the fact that we're wasting so much money on it at all. How about we work on fortifying our defenses and making our country safer rather than blowing the shit out of whatever country we feel like at the time and pissing everyone else off at the same time?
You're the ones who act like this "war" is some 30-minute tv-sitcom. You give up all common sense to follow what your news pundits and warmongering politicians are telling you. You are somehow twisted around into believing that securing Iraq somehow has ANYTHING to do with 9/11 (none of the terrorists came from Iraq, you fucking retard). You've been fooled into somehow thinking that shooting up Iraq or any other country will make our own country safe and it doesn't. The only thing we've accomplished is to weaken our own liberties and safety and security.
If I'm worried about my home being robbed, I secure my home. I don't go out beating the shit out of every other person in my neighborhood hoping that they won't ever come bother me and my house again. It simply isn't an efficient or effective way of dealing with things.
And, again, there's still the whole "the terrorists didn't come from Iraq" thing. If you really want to talk about security, you would talk about attacking Saudi Arabia. You know, the place where they were all from.
My apartment was robbed this one time. So what I did was got a gun and went to an apartment complex across town and started shooting everyone that looked like a thief and a criminal. Granted, some people would say I should have spent my time and money securing my apartment better, but I wanted to fight criminals on their own turf. I'm sure I'll never ever get robbed again, because criminals only exist where I attack them at and I'm sure they won't break into my apartment again while I'm away from home fighting their kind.
You're kidding, right? More immigrants come into the country illegally than legally now (1.5 million versus 1.2 million) and I'm supposed to believe that the reason we haven't had a disaster by foreign hands in the last few years is because of our great security? We can't even keep unarmed families with children and no supplies walking across some dirt into our country, much less trained criminal agents.
Just because nothing has happened doesn't mean you've prevented anything, either.
And when was the last time I was attacked in the U.S.? I'm attacked here daily. Whether it's on an intellectual level by the religious zealots in this country trying to overturn liberty and scientific common sense in favor of "god's way", senators and politicians raping me of my liberties and privacy or the corporations that they do much of the raping on the behalf of - trust me, I'm attacked all the fucking time.
Then again, you're probably one of those "You have to give up some freedom to get security" types who is so pussified that you'll go along with anything your government tells you as long as they say it's for your own safety.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a credit transaction per se. You are granting the the store permission to take money out of your bank account electronically any time they want. You are trusting that they will actually only do this when appropriate, but you have no way to be sure. And once you grant them access to your account, the only way to cease their access is to close your bank account and create a new one.
A number of people have had major complaints with companies that do this sort of thing - because they may and do just keep charging your bank account for things you are no longer subscribing to or use or want. And while you can tell them to stop - they still have access to your account and you can't make them stop. Period.
Thanks, but I don't want anyone but myself to have access to withdraw directly from my account.
You mis-wrote "past 513 years".
I think that the blog community got way, way ahead of this story.
While I hate the blogging community as much as anyone else, you can hardly blame them when the hyperbole from Schwartz's blog was so thick. After all, who the would have construed "the world is about to change" to mean "we're sticking a google bar in our stupid JRE package"?
I wonder how many people were outsourced to fund the R&D for this revolutionary idea?
Yes, it was so good that it made an astonishingly small $10m at the box office this weekend.
So much for all the firefly fanboys.
I told you it was canceled for a reason in the first place. It sucked.
Netscape is Firefox with a crappier interface and jammed full of commercialized tie-ins to AOL/Netscape. It was a terrible choice to include instead of Firefox.
A Gamestop/EB merger would do nothing to the used games market. Gamestores make all their profit on used games - that's why they love when you bring your new purchases back for a tradein. They might getw a couple bucks or five profit on a new game. Then it gets returned and they can sell it for $20+ and make a good $10-$15 profit on top of the original $5 when they sold it the first time.
And, personally, I think that's great. Not everyone wants to spend $60/game - and some people simply can't.
News site pundits?
What kind of "news" site talks about bungie potentially putting a Halo character into DOA?
Maybe they just meant "videogaming" sites.
In Soviet Russia, customers pay you!
This band sucks, to be sure - but here you go and spoil their entire publicity campaign by comparing them to the completely crap-drivel emo-shit that is REM and Death Cab for Cutie.
I know everyone claims "oh, they're a huge successful popular band, because they were the ones who sang flagpole sitta!". But that's just one song. One accomplishment. Big frigging deal. And on top of that, it's a pointless, meaningless, stupid song.
But hey, if pop-music is your sort of thing, more power to you.
No, no, no! Don't you see?! They're a HUGE SUCCESSFUL GROUP OF MUSICIANS!
Why, they're as successful and relevant and interesting and crucial to music and the industry as the Presidents of the USA and Ugly Kid Joe!
*snicker*
Then again, morons around here get chubs over They Might Be Giants, which I can't stand any more than I can stand the Harvey Danger garbage.
I wouldn't be so sure. They'll get extra publicity, thousands of people will hear them for the first time, and may come to the next concert on their your, where they will pay $8-10 for a ticket.
Yeah, sure.
Thousands of people will hear them for the first time and go pay for a ticket to see them on their next tour? Do you mean the $8 tickets that get you in to see three other crappy bands on their "tour" at their single show at the Crocodile Cafe (which is a teeny tiny little cafe that serves hashbrowns at breakfast and burgers for lunch)?
I really don't see what everyone is getting all giddy for over this. If this were a big successful artist making this statement, that'd be impressive. But this is a few nobodies claiming to make a statement when they're really just exploiting it to get some publicity to begin with. It's kind of like on a movie set. The director doesn't give a shit if the extras walk off and don't come back unless their demands are met. But if the starring actor walks off, those demands are considered. See, in this situation Harvey Danger is the extra. Nobody cares. Nobody listens. They play rare shows at shitty little venues where they probably pick up $80 on a night and split it four ways.
These guys aren't going to make any money. And they wouldn't be an ignored artist on a major label - because no major label would sign these bunch of nobodies up (except, of course, the indie labels they've already worked with). I don't think many people outside of the northwest have even heard of them - and even those who have probably couldn't tell you where they had heard the name "harvey danger" before and certainly wouldn't identify it with a band.
Wake me up when an artist that people actually want to hear and labels want to sign thumbs their nose at everyone and gives their music away for free on DRMless MP3 over the net.
How exactly is this band saying "screw you" to the RIAA?
The last successful song they had was almost EIGHT YEARS AGO. They've only put out maybe three albums in more than ELEVEN YEARS. This is not a band record companies are beating down the door to sign up. They were a big deal for a very brief time among college age people back in the mid to late 90s. Nothing more.
This is a lot like the school dork saying "I'm going to show those cheerleaders once and for all. I won't take ANY to the homecoming dance!".
Seriously. Come on.
Yeah, they're such a huge success that they play cafes and other small venues and have to give their music away for free to get attention. It's probably less to do with "making a point to the RIAA" as it does "making lemonade out of no RIAA label being willing to carry us any longer".
And for those who don't remember "flagpole sitta"... I can only say "lucky you".
Of course, trademarks are EXPENSIVE.
.net instead of a .com. He doesn't use it, but clearly he has it registered as a threat to do something with it.
I have a website with a large community. I don't charge for the service I offer. I'm not legally a 501c3 or anything (haven't done the paperwork), but I don't sell anything or make any money and that isn't even the intent.
Anyway, I have a problematic user who has done everything under the sun since I disabled their account several years ago to disrupt the site. They've spread rumors, lies, harassed my members, created dozens of false accounts and harassed people, called the police and made claims about our site that weren't true (or even realistic or sane) and, recently I found out, registered my domain name. The exact domain name - just as a
What bothers me even more is that another person put up a site that does the same thing as mine and took my name, but altered it slightly. If I were a big corporation, I could probably do something about it. After all, if I'm McDonald's, you can't open a fast food chain of your own selling the same foold and calling yourself McDonald (without the s). They've been doing "business" for almost three years while I've been around for almost seven. They came directly after - and were started by one of my own site's former members. The reason this pisses me off is that I get people frequently who complain about my site or a problem with their account and it goes on and on for quite some time - arguing back and forth - before they realize they're at the wrong website and that their account is actually at the competing site.
To give you an example of the difference between the two names - it would be like someone opening a website called "Monolith.com" to compete with a much older site called "Monolithic.com" - both serving the same group of people, offering the same exact service and benefitting off the similarities in name.
But hey, if you don't make a profit (or any money at all) and you've already invested tens of thousands of dollars into it, who can afford another couple thousand for trademark filing, wait a year for it to take effect, then pay thousands to a lawyer to file a claim against the two people who are 1) squatting on a domain with my business name with malicious intent and 2) essentially taking my name with the slightest modification and duplicating what I do?
Wild Gorillas Impress With Their Tools
Heheheheh....
News flash: CEOs, corporate executives and politicians also more likely to cheat, shoplift.
Best advice: Take whatever pays the most. Houses, cars, vacations, dates, wives, children, food and hobbies are not free. If you're concerned about "prestige", what is more prestigious than money? Geek prestige only counts in certain circles. Money prestige counts everywhere. Plus, if you make a lot of money, you can afford to have fun rather than trying to pretend to be humble and enjoy things that aren't really all that fun.
Fire up google and search for "home weather meter computer kit".
Wow amazing! It's like a knowledge index for websites that returns results for stuff you want to know about!
It's not about putting a dent in current crime. It's about putting a dent in future liberty. Wear us down a little each day until we have nothing left and are used to it through social conditioning and indoctrination through school and television to groom our children for acceptance of it.
See, that I would actually watch.
I watched a couple episodes yesterday (Sci-Fi ran all the episodes, I guess) and I just felt that the characters were unimpressive and lacking charisma. The only character that seemed to have anything to his presentation was the tall guy that they took onto their ship as a partner or whatever, after he originally tried to hold them up at gunpoint.
You are one of the stupidest people I've ever seen on Slasdot. Congratulations.
Either you believe in God (like most of the world) or you believe that humans evolved - and that therefor believing in God makes your procreation more likely.
So you can't believe in god and evolution? Strange, because I know plenty of people who do. And how does not believing in god reduce procreation? Evolution by its nature requires procreation. Evolution happens in increments and those increments are generations and generations don't occur if reproduction doesn't occur.
And which god do you have to believe in to make your procreation more likely? Just the Christian one?
Either way, what is the advantage of not believing in God? OK, choose a religion that doesn't cramp your style, perhaps, but either way, belief is provably better.
Wow. "Belief is provably better"? Talk about an oxymoron. You're saying that it is provable that belief (lack of proof) is a better thing? Simply amazing. So you think, rather than seeking out the truth and reality and fact of the world around us, we should just "believe" in things? That's idiotic. Belief is ignorance at its essence. "Belief" in god or "belief" in creation or "belief" in evolution is all equally wrong. Belief has no business in any of it. There is either evidence to support something or there is not. The difference being that there is significant evidence supporting evolution and none - in fact the basis of it relies entirely on accepting the lack of evidence - with religion or creation.
Why do you want to make people unhappy?
I don't. I'm agnostic. I don't go around making people unhappy by cramming my religion down their throat, hanging them, shooting them, crucifying them or trying to take away their freedoms and instruct them how to live their lives based on my religious "morality".
(You do know that happiness commonly maps to religion, right?) Why do you want to make them more likely to die? (You do know that religious people (at least certain faiths) live longer, right?)
You do know that's bullshit, right? You do know that populations in which creationism is the overwhelming "belief" have a higher rate of crime and death and pregnancy and STDs, right? You do know that everything you just stated is fucking head-in-ass backwards and baseless, right?
"RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today."
In other words - Kennedy could promote vision and enthusiasm from his fellow politicians and constituents when it came to exploration and scientific accomplishment, whereas Bush can only seem to promote vision and enthusiasm among those politicians and constituents when it comes to blowing up brown people and sticking religious artifacts in court rooms?
What are you talking about?
First, we're not in a war.
Second, what does war overseas have to do with security and freedom at home? Why is it such a hard concept for people like you to grasp? Defense is the most efficient means of safety. Defense is financially more efficient than offense. Defensive measures last longer than offensive ones.
I'm not bitching about how long this "war" as you call it (when exactly has congress declared war? In fact, I recall much ballyhooing by Bush and his cronies back in the day about how this was specifically NOT a war) is taking. I'm bitching about the fact that we're wasting so much money on it at all. How about we work on fortifying our defenses and making our country safer rather than blowing the shit out of whatever country we feel like at the time and pissing everyone else off at the same time?
You're the ones who act like this "war" is some 30-minute tv-sitcom. You give up all common sense to follow what your news pundits and warmongering politicians are telling you. You are somehow twisted around into believing that securing Iraq somehow has ANYTHING to do with 9/11 (none of the terrorists came from Iraq, you fucking retard). You've been fooled into somehow thinking that shooting up Iraq or any other country will make our own country safe and it doesn't. The only thing we've accomplished is to weaken our own liberties and safety and security.
If I'm worried about my home being robbed, I secure my home. I don't go out beating the shit out of every other person in my neighborhood hoping that they won't ever come bother me and my house again. It simply isn't an efficient or effective way of dealing with things.
And, again, there's still the whole "the terrorists didn't come from Iraq" thing. If you really want to talk about security, you would talk about attacking Saudi Arabia. You know, the place where they were all from.
But it makes perfect sense!
My apartment was robbed this one time. So what I did was got a gun and went to an apartment complex across town and started shooting everyone that looked like a thief and a criminal. Granted, some people would say I should have spent my time and money securing my apartment better, but I wanted to fight criminals on their own turf. I'm sure I'll never ever get robbed again, because criminals only exist where I attack them at and I'm sure they won't break into my apartment again while I'm away from home fighting their kind.
You're kidding, right? More immigrants come into the country illegally than legally now (1.5 million versus 1.2 million) and I'm supposed to believe that the reason we haven't had a disaster by foreign hands in the last few years is because of our great security? We can't even keep unarmed families with children and no supplies walking across some dirt into our country, much less trained criminal agents.
Just because nothing has happened doesn't mean you've prevented anything, either.
And when was the last time I was attacked in the U.S.? I'm attacked here daily. Whether it's on an intellectual level by the religious zealots in this country trying to overturn liberty and scientific common sense in favor of "god's way", senators and politicians raping me of my liberties and privacy or the corporations that they do much of the raping on the behalf of - trust me, I'm attacked all the fucking time.
Then again, you're probably one of those "You have to give up some freedom to get security" types who is so pussified that you'll go along with anything your government tells you as long as they say it's for your own safety.