You miss the key point through all of this and it is best illustrated by your use of the term 'your money.' For socialists/fascists/etc, at no point is it really 'your money.'
Of course there is 'your money' if fascism, genius. It merely depends if you are a member of the fascist elite or not. If you are a member of the Glorious Leadership Cast, then 'your money' (and absolute power) is exactly what you have. For everyone else, they are just meat for the grinder. Like, say, foreign wars, led on false pretenses, in far-away, sandy, places.
I think most people who condemn society for moving in that direction gleefully support the policies that allow the police state to manifest - universal healthcare, high taxes on the 'rich', public education, mass transit, government sponsorship of arts, denying individual rights to self defense, etc.
That is because one has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. Listen closely, Mr. Deluded Greedertarian, for I will try to go slowly: there is no 'police' but instead social justice and increased economic efficiency, among others, in univesal healthcare. Nor there is any 'police' in mass transportation, but there is sane energy policy and infrastructure for increasing employment and small business opportunities. No 'police' in public education either, but there is an equal opportunity to those born in unfortunate circumstances, opportunities for personal growth, not to mention improving the quality of workforce for the economic engine of the society: business. No 'police' in arts (government sponsored or otherwise) and only a delusional, far out lunatic would even associate 'police' with arts.
In short, you just made shit up to try to associate all the obstacles to your personal greed and desire to dominate others with something which is nearly universally acknowledged as evil. As a matter of fact, you do not have any problem with police states, as long as you would be the one doing the policing, that much is clear from your position of extreme selfishness, sociopathic delusions and greed.
As to the rich and the corporations, they already have private thugs, they call "private security force". You merely want to remove from those private armies any restrictions that might still exist on them. And of course hope (vainly) that you will to get to own and command such an army, accountable to noone but you, and you are, in your libertarian greetopia, accountable to noone but your most base animalistic instincts which you term "individual rights to defense" (read: wanton agression towards and subjegation of those weaker then you). And spare me cries of "libertarian non-violence pacts" and similar nosense because you believe none of that crap and are merely trying to remove any obstacles to perpetrate all sorts of violence on others, physical and economic both. Had you the control of the government, police state would be first thing you would do, one powered and financed by a band of rich fascist cohorts. Just like the ones established by the various tin-pot dictators in Latin America, which took your template and applied it literally: no healthcare, no education, no arts, no taxes for the rich. Just kleptocracy and fascism.
And as to IngSoc, the term "Socialism" as it was understood by Orwell has far more to do with Germany's National Socialism, aka Fascism, a very close cousin of Radical Repulican Neo-conservatism, which have about as much common with modern forms of socially-aware democratic governments as you do have with the concepts of wisdom and intelligence, which is next to nothing.
As to taxes, rich are are required to pay more because they use the graces of society more. And that is on top of the wee little issue of the capitalist engine of free-market simply shutting down when excessive accumulation of wealth occurs, the very reason for which things like inheretance taxes exist in the first place. A lesson in basics of the capitalist society, learned the hard way at the time of the Robber Barons, a lesson which you are hell-bent on forgetting and repeating, with all the pain and sufferring it brought back then, in the hopes of somehow profiting on the way.
1. Repeal all donation restrictions and dismantle the FEC
2. Allow anyone (including foreigners and corporations) to finance any candidate in any amount
3. Restrict politicians to their minimum Constitutional powers, so that money has no effect since they're virtually prevented from helping their donators.
4. Allow any candidate that can get on a ballot to join in any government-funded debate.
Now THAT is a fine recipe for the return of The Feudal Lords (disguised as corporations). Could you explain, perchance, how exactly would that "properly restrained government... that can do no harm", say, stop corporations from forming oligarchies, cartels and downright globe-spanning monopolies, complete with heavilly armed private armies to rule us with an iron fist? How about having a band of billionaires using their "free speech money" purchasing all the media outlets and censoring anyone who is opposed to their agendas of making themselves into New Royalty? Sure there would be some whining voices in the corners of the Net (assuming ISPs are not also bought) but they would be easily portrayed as "lunatic commies" by the howling media noise machine with its 500-channel direct-feed tube to the average Joe Sixpack's so-called "brain".
This whole Libertarian, Anarcho-capitalist and similar troglodyte "self-reliance", "total freedom", "self-made man" (aka "everyone for himself: longest knife wins edition") idiocy has to be relegated where it belongs: the Flat Earth Society Annual Meetings. Instead it gets modded "Insightful". Sigh.
They have the trademark, which they "police" somewhat in order to maintain its integrity.
So, as you see, you are wrong.
Well, from what I hear, it has something to do with the fact that the copyright/trademark law in Korea, for better or worse, is rather quirky from the point of view of FOSS. Hence the Korean site is "unaffiliated".
Just forget being modded up:) When it's bad FOSS news then it has no affiliation with the community. When it's good news everything is just super-duper-dandy.
I see your way of thinking. Next on the news: "Kid dowloads Mozilla source code, changes a line in main.c, compiles, runs, Mozilla crashes! Ballmer does a monkey dance! News at 11".
What you apparently missed is the wee little difference between Microsoft and Mozilla (or any other FOSS project): anyone can distribute modified FOSS code from their website of the minute. It is that old conservative stand-by, the "personal responsibility" of the users to make sure that they are not downloading something from Joe Hacker's home page, even though sometimes Joe Hacker is doing his darnest to make his page look "official". That is why all of these fancy MD5 checksums and PGP signatures on them official binaries. Next thing I will hear is that someone posted instructions how to login as root and do "rm -rf/", followed by people complaining about useless nature of FOSS "communtity" in preventing idiots from executing the instructions.
One could argue that Mozilla Foundation should be in the business of stomping out these "fan" sites which distibute officially looking binaries, and it might come to that. But it will still not solve this "problem" since it will be next to impossible to track down every mis-informed enthusiast with a web page who is thinking that he is doing "a service" to the "community" by distibuting his mis-compiled/infected/otherwise fubar binaries.
Interesting that you totally skipped the part where I have SOLD items at a fraction of their value.
No, I have simply misunderstood your statement. I thought you were reselling them at the full market value, like everyone else who was arguing with me here.
You're just more self-righeous human trash. This conversation is over.
I would be, if I was advocating the other position. But I am not. If you are not reselling them at a crazy profit and merely passing them on at a reasonable one, while still many times below market value (although I am having a hard time imaginging the mechanics of such a business), you are only practicing a strange type of trade and if anything, are being a victim of others. The "fence" part still applies if you are not keeping records or track of your sources.
I've bought AND sold items at a fraction of their market price in the past year. Nothing unwholesome about it; sometimes you need money fast.
Err, if you do not see the contradiction inherent in your statement, there is nothing I can do to help you. Let me translate what you just said into plain language: "I ripped off some people who were in need, nothing unwholesome about it, cause I got away with the loot, and I, me and mine are the only things that count! Yeah!".
According to you, I'm a fence, and probably a thief too.
You are a dishonest trader at the least. The "fence" part depends on how well you were keeping track and documenting the sources of your purchases.
Yeah. Lay off the self-righeousness.
No, you mean "Become a budding sociopath, like me, for fun and profit". Well, some of us have this thing called "a conscience" which, for better or worse, makes us into, what you would probably term, "bleeding heart socialists". And this very aspect of our personalities, none other, is which divides the so called "right" and "left".
Actually, I was thinking about normal retail. Retail often has 5-10x markup on its products, just to cover operating costs.
That is a highly unusual markup for typical goods. Most stores would be extremely happy with 20%, which is considered "very, very good" for most items. I am exempting the so called "luxury" stores (read "idiot bait") which routinely sell, say, a leather bag which costs $20 to make for $8000 because it has a meaningless name of a "designer" of the hour engraved on it. That is simply a scam and beyond this discussion.
During my days as a dealer of professional electronic eqiupment, we were sometimes lucky to get 5%. You are probably thinking useless, Chinese, plastic crap which sells at $5 but costs $.50. That is true, but you forget that for these items the overhead is very significant due to the cost related to the sheer volume required to make resonable profit on this, such as handling, storage and transportation. And when you factor these costs, the profit shrinks back to the 20% range, not to mention the steep competetive pressure on this, since just about any idiot can order this junk from one of a zillion Chinese slave-labour outfits, thus making these generic, undistinguishable from each other items extremely price point sensitive.
Also, game shops that buy back your old games have the same problem. They won't call you back if your game doesn't sell.
Again, apples and oranges. The games have additional, unique to them legal risks involving possible violations of the so called "intellectual property" rights, thus exposing the store to all sorts of troubles. That is why very few stores even bother with this.
You are incredibly stupid. Go back and read the post where you were accused of such, when you learn how to read.
Oh, I am sorry, it was "tsm_sf" accusing the "Karma Farmer" of being me, or so it appears. I had my tin-foil hat wearing participants of this brawl confused. In your defense, you were "only" making the snide, cowardly remarks in paralell to my posts, like the one I replied to. My bad.
Ponder the fact that when everyone calls you a fucktard, you probably are.
Ah yes, the "everyone" crowd made up of a fraction of slashdot posters. On this particular thread, this being mainly you, with something like 90% of your posts containing words "fuck", "idiot", "troll" etc. But in your estimate, you also apparently included those who merely politely disagree with me. But that is to be expected. In your view, even those who explicitely agree with me are also "calling me names". Otherwise it would be impossible for you to claim that "everyone" did so, right? That fiction is clearly necessary for you to maintain your delusion of grandieur, the one in which the whole world revolves around your rear end and in which everyone applauds you all the time. With deference, naturally. If you keep this up, your ego will soon snuff out the sun. Have mercy on your neighbours.
I like how he uses a ludicrous strawman example and then (falsely) calls others on arguments he calls strawmen, but aren't.
He's a tool and a troll.
I just noticed, when replying to someone, that you are running this lovely side-commentary about my posts. Being clearly too cowardly to actually confront me directly, you are reduced to making these nebulous snide remarks, without actually having to present any logical arguments.
And then, you, who are engaged in this utterly childlish and dishonest activity, dare to call me a "troll".
That is, in addition to accusing some random bystanders of being me in disguise. Which only exposes the very conceited way in which your rotten psyche operates. You simply assumed that I would be engaged in something you would do and thus are projecting your ways onto me.
I hear thieves are always whining that people are stealing from them, and seeing themselves as "victims" of theft, are, in their convoluted way, "justifying" to themselves their thievish ways.
Lets see, that makes Baseball cards sales, and diamond wholesalers in close to in the market of "dishonest practice".
Of course. Both are scams for the gullible. Both of these types of items have value which is arbitrarily assigned to them trough hype, connivery, lack of basic unerstanding of commerce etc, instead by true supply/demand equations. If anything, the baseball cards are more resembling of a marketplace although their supply is also completely artifically constrained. Thiose things are in the same boat as the 1970s "pet rock".
It is a well known facts that diamond mines produce many times the amount of the market demand quantity of diamonds, and so vast multi-national cartels which control 100% of the market are stockpiling literally metric tons upon metic tons of diamonds in order to manipulate the retail price. If true supply/demand mechanisms were allowed to take effect, the price of cut diamonds would be close to that of high-quality quartz. There are even at this point several companies capable of manufacturing diamonds which are for all practical purposes indistinguishable from the real thing and which have to be now artifically marked so that the dealers do not get confused. It is one of the examples of a complete and utter failure of laissez-faire capitalist marketplace and a prime example of what happens if the governments are not aggressively busting cartels, oligarchies and monopolies, which, contrary to what various wacky libertarians will tell you, are the natural apex of progression of laissez-faire capitalist corporate structures.
However, the change in price by a factor of 4 isn't that far from any number of reputable business practices you see all the time.
Skip the word "reputable" and we will agree. Diamonds, baseball cards, mass "pop" culture and similiar scams, pyramid schemes and other marketplace aberrations are not "honest" nor "reputable" business.
by the way-- are the only brick and mortar places to find used games nowadays in most places in the US,
Actually, this specific problem could be related to the legal risk factor, which such a place as EB is exposing itself to by trading in DRM/"Intellectual Property" encumbered material. It is a can full of lawsuits waiting to happen.
Except that we don't have a tradition of keeping store invoices to have on hand in case of resale.
In which case you are probably also not entitled to warranty or insurance coverage, and what not. Also, in absence of a retail receipt, there are still ways to determine ownership. For example if someone reports a laptop with a certain serial number as stolen and subsequently you are found to be selling it, the courts will decide that there is high probability of you being in possession of stolen goods. Plain common sense. That is why it is prudent to keep track of the serial numbers and to retain the receipts. Personaly I keep the receipts until the moment the unit is either sold or destroyed.
Of course. Sane government would be cost aware and not allow itself to be pushed around by wacky monopolies into exorbitant expenditures which bring nothing positive to the operation of government. But that is another discussion.
It's not a 'wild exception' to get deals like that. It was a somewhat unusually low price, as
it's more typical to pay $5-6 each for similar machines at similar auctions (Dell Optiplexes with Pentium III processors, 128M of RAM...)
Listen, we are talking apples and oranges here. In the case of $5 computers, the very act of unpacking, dusting and checking them out, adds some serious value to the damn things. The work of putting these silly things on eBay, combined with the handling, brings your "profit" margin to something like 20% as the rest is the cost of labour. If you had sold them "unchecked", "as-is", "no clue if it even runs" for $80, then my hat off to your salesmanship. Still, you have a documented, legitimate source of these. And that makes all the difference. Not to mention that this is nothing like dealing with recent equipment at $1100 a pop. Deals of $300 -> $1100 are rarely available to amateurs from legitimate sources, specially if these sources happen to be restricted to a nervous female who wont look you in the eye.
The presence of a serial number is nothing like a title document.
Of course it is not, but it is sufficient to track down stolen goods. If you buy a laptop, the invoice from the store has the serial number on it, which for most items is equivalent to a "title document", at least as far as identification of the original ownership is concerned.
Similar markup in price, and an entirely legitimate undertaking.
Yes, err, except you bought the things bulk in an auction. Complete with proof of purchase, not to mention the outraged school board trustees pulling their hair out at the outrageous misuse of school funds and what not.
I am sure you can find more examples of army surplus or some other, wonderful, government related boondoglery. But these do not constitute "common" activities, "wild exceptions" are more likely and virtually all are accompanied by reams of paperwork, leaving no doubt whatsoever as to what occured.
Think of me as you want, but when I'm lucky enough to find something on ebay with with a 'buy it now' of $5 I'm going to buy it for $5 even if I've seen the same item in similar condition selling for $30 or more.
In that context you are OK as the whole mechanics of eBay sale indicates that the seller is aware of the going market prices (from the very eBay itself) and is commiting regardless. You are also covered legally because the eBay transaction is your "proof of purchase". Should the item be stolen, you have a reliable way of deflecting the law onto the seller.
Things turn ugly when you are the seller on eBay as it was the case of the anti-hero of the article, since now you need the record of your "upstream" source of the items.
As far as I'm concerned the ebay buyer and seller are the innocent people who got scammed. For all we know she knew he had a hobby of buying and selling electronics and fast talked him into thinking she was the legal owner of the laptop, after all she was a thief trying to sell off stolen goods.
The buyer, yes. You did notice that the law was not interested in him, he had his "proof of purchase". The seller, no. He was involved in a shady, face-to-face, cash only deal where even he (according to the article) felt the lady was acting "suspicious". And yet, overpowered by his greed, he decided to forego any inquiries into the source of the laptop and accepted her word at face value and demanded no identification of her. At best he was reckless, but more likely, he was quite acutely aware of the shady nature of the deal and yet gambled on not getting caught. And lost.
Where did all the info on the ebay seller come from? The post has a link to CNN which says nothing of the ebay seller and the purchase and sale price.
From the Slashdot writeup. But it would not be the first time if the Slashdot editors are out to lunch.
... but realized that it's probably only a minority of Slashdot readers who, at least when it comes to buying a computer at a suspiciously low price, would act in either a reasonable or prudent manner.
You can say that again. It never ceases to amaze me how much of an intrinsic disparity there seems to exist in many Slashdotters, who appear to be otherwise very intelligent people, capable of complex abstract reasoning when it comes to science and technology, but who at the same time possess all the moral skills and societal graces of a baboon.
He's obviously not a legitimate business,he's a college kid possibly trying to make some spending money.
All the more reason for him to be on the lookout for scams and stolen goods. Last thing a kid in college wants is a rap sheet.
Once it's in the trash it's free game for anyone who wants it.
If this is a written policy on the campus and the students are aware of it and signed off on it in their agreements with the college, then by all means. Except that this has nothing to do with the problem at hand. If he was buying one such "found" items (and I am not sure what the legalities of selling found items are) he would still need some sort of record confirming that it was so. In that case the cops would simply leave him be and go after her. And we would not be having this discussion.
I consider it clear that she's guilty, but it is understandable that someone will accept something no questions asked if they're poor and they can make a profit.
That is a very dangerous and wrongheaded attitude. No one is suggesting that people who can use such gifts do not accept them, only that they are aware of the need to keep proper, hoever minimal, records of them. Because otherwise not only you are exposing yourself to legitimate charges of possession of stolen goods, but also to all sorts of abuse of the legal system from various underhanded individuals, who might find it advantageous to "give" you things, with which they can later harm you greatly by notifying the police of their "stolen" status.
I can only state that this guy didn't do anything evil.
That is where we disagree. At best, he was reckless. More likely, his greed got the better of him.
$300 is not completely unreasonable if a bit lowball a price for recent used computer.
But it is sufficiently low for the kind of laptpop in question to prompt additional scrutiny and record-keeping. Unless of course one is either reckless or downright dishonest. See above.
My stated rationals do hold water if you want to lump me in with your fictional resident Slashdot moral juveniles feel free.
Unfortunately, its not just me. It's the law too. And while I am just a random poster on Slashdot and you have nothing to fear from me, the law is another matter alltogether.
Buying/selling a 'slightly used' (whatever that means) laptop for $300 isn't uncommon - even if it is a rather decent laptop.
Err, no. Buying computers from shady strangers for $300 and then immediately selling them for $1100 is not "common" in the civilized parts of the society.
Buying/selling a 'slightly used' corvette for $10 resides solely in the land of fancy.
Since people seem not to comprehend that this is an exaggeration to make the point obvious, let's say it was $10000 for a 2005 "slightly-used" Corvette wich sells, used, for $40000 (I am guessing here). Is it ok now? It would be the same ratio as for the laptop, 1/4th the price. Happy now? Still think there would be nothing suspicious for someone to sell a $40000 fair-market value ($60000 retail) car for $10000 and you would not ask any question of him? Would you accept his word and not bother taking his personal details?
Hell, I sold a perfect Powerbook 17 (purchased by me at the local Apple store) for roughly half the price I could have gotten for it...
And if the buyer did not check you out, he is a complete fool.
Basic Capitalism: buy low, sell higher. That's it.
Err, no. There are also these niceties like laws and all those property rights and all these related risks affecting the price, all sorts of other factors dealing with quality, item's origin, customer's preceptions, brand recognition, marketing, advertising, consumer education etc etc etc. What you describe is a never-never land fantasy. A gross over-simplification for the benefit of a kindergarten class.
Anything you else you have in your personal business strategy is your unique perogative. What you call greedy business practice (and yes, no doubt it is) is shrewd business.
Only if you have no repeat customers and you do not mind getting hauled to the city jail once in a while (assuming you keep records as incomplete as our anti-hero had).
Very long time now? Didn't you get on another poster about intentionally implying grand vagueries?
I will be specific. Running on 15th year now.
I too run my own business. Fortunately I don't sell goods, rather services. But you can bet I'm not going to undervalue myself because I don't want people to think I charge to much. If they find my services worth the money, then they hire me. If they don't, I don't get their business. Period.
That has nothing to do with the topic of discussion. In your case, it would be similar if you were to offer your services as, say, a doctor at 1/4th going hourly rate and the clinic who hired you did not bother to check your credentials for fear of spoiling such a good deal. Following which a little "oops" occured involving a surgical saw and someone's leg. I dont think there would be anyone here defending the clinic from accusations of negligence.
And give it a rest already. Clearly you think everyone else is wrong, we get it. Move on. Your 3 dozen+ indignant replies just make you look more and more like you have very little insight into the real world and someone that should end up on just about everyone's ignore/foe list.
For your low user ID you are remarkably unaware of the nature of Slashdot. Nearly every "discussion" on nearly every topic here is like this. If people were to heed this advice, no one would ever post due to fear of being disagreed with, or worse, the unspeakable terror of getting put on someone's foe list.
Just so you know, these posts consume very little of my time and I consider the whole thing as a form of mildly amusing enterntainment, with a side benefit of improving my ability to spar in a polemic.
Certain types of property (such as your "slightly used corvette") have well-established systems for establishing that someone has valid title to it.
Most property has, laptops for example do have serial numbers, that is how the one which is being discussed in the article was identified. Which is precisely the point to demolish the AC parent's inane assertion that "the lowest price" is the only thing that counts in a market transaction. Legal considerations and subsequent risk factors play a significant role in assessing the legitimacy and viability of a purchase. Something which many people here on Slashdot have difficulties grasping, it seems.
So, how many copies of drivers licenses do you have? Does every piece of gear that ever came thru your hands have a tracking number?
You bet that every single thing I bought from shady characters for cash has some documentation (actually that would be very few things since I do not buy crap from strange characters as a rule).
How much did your portable photocopier cost?
Why would it need to be "portable"? My office one does very well, thank you. And if I were in a business of reselling used computers, I sure would not be doing so on foot and at random locations but in my office.
Did you get a copy of the license of the guy who sold you your last batch of blank cdrom?
I did not need to. The store receipt is quite sufficient for this purpose. Or are you to imply that you routinely buy batches of CD-ROMS from trunks of cars parked in dark alleyways?
In a few months, they are gonna drop the criminal charge down in a plea and give him a fine w/ probation. In a year it will be wiped off his record if he's good. If he wants to fight it he may win and just get a stern warning to be careful from the judge. $300 is not unreasonable if a bit lowball.
Quite likely but hopefuly he would have learned his lesson, which is the whole point of the excercise. Perhaps some resident Slashdot moral juveniles would also grok some of this. One hopes.
I said "vast volumes" which implies... "vast volumes". Pehreaps hundreds of these "thousands upon thousands" of books of yours. Perheaps more. The term is purposefully imprecise, as to imply a potentially large quantity, without defining it. If I meant "bulk of" I would have said "bulk of" or "majority of" or "lion share of" or some such. All of which are relative terms. You, yourself made that extrapolation and now are attempting to bluster your way out of it.
You're a liar...
Except that I told no lie, you imagined so.
... a moron and a troll. Fuck off.
Ah yes, the inevietable appearance of the word "fuck" once all other "arguments" fail. A sure sign of a great intellect.
Slashdot Mirror
Your delusional state makes me laugh.
You miss the key point through all of this and it is best illustrated by your use of the term 'your money.' For socialists/fascists/etc, at no point is it really 'your money.'
Of course there is 'your money' if fascism, genius. It merely depends if you are a member of the fascist elite or not. If you are a member of the Glorious Leadership Cast, then 'your money' (and absolute power) is exactly what you have. For everyone else, they are just meat for the grinder. Like, say, foreign wars, led on false pretenses, in far-away, sandy, places.
That is because one has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. Listen closely, Mr. Deluded Greedertarian, for I will try to go slowly: there is no 'police' but instead social justice and increased economic efficiency, among others, in univesal healthcare. Nor there is any 'police' in mass transportation, but there is sane energy policy and infrastructure for increasing employment and small business opportunities. No 'police' in public education either, but there is an equal opportunity to those born in unfortunate circumstances, opportunities for personal growth, not to mention improving the quality of workforce for the economic engine of the society: business. No 'police' in arts (government sponsored or otherwise) and only a delusional, far out lunatic would even associate 'police' with arts.
In short, you just made shit up to try to associate all the obstacles to your personal greed and desire to dominate others with something which is nearly universally acknowledged as evil. As a matter of fact, you do not have any problem with police states, as long as you would be the one doing the policing, that much is clear from your position of extreme selfishness, sociopathic delusions and greed.
As to the rich and the corporations, they already have private thugs, they call "private security force". You merely want to remove from those private armies any restrictions that might still exist on them. And of course hope (vainly) that you will to get to own and command such an army, accountable to noone but you, and you are, in your libertarian greetopia, accountable to noone but your most base animalistic instincts which you term "individual rights to defense" (read: wanton agression towards and subjegation of those weaker then you). And spare me cries of "libertarian non-violence pacts" and similar nosense because you believe none of that crap and are merely trying to remove any obstacles to perpetrate all sorts of violence on others, physical and economic both. Had you the control of the government, police state would be first thing you would do, one powered and financed by a band of rich fascist cohorts. Just like the ones established by the various tin-pot dictators in Latin America, which took your template and applied it literally: no healthcare, no education, no arts, no taxes for the rich. Just kleptocracy and fascism.
And as to IngSoc, the term "Socialism" as it was understood by Orwell has far more to do with Germany's National Socialism, aka Fascism, a very close cousin of Radical Repulican Neo-conservatism, which have about as much common with modern forms of socially-aware democratic governments as you do have with the concepts of wisdom and intelligence, which is next to nothing.
As to taxes, rich are are required to pay more because they use the graces of society more. And that is on top of the wee little issue of the capitalist engine of free-market simply shutting down when excessive accumulation of wealth occurs, the very reason for which things like inheretance taxes exist in the first place. A lesson in basics of the capitalist society, learned the hard way at the time of the Robber Barons, a lesson which you are hell-bent on forgetting and repeating, with all the pain and sufferring it brought back then, in the hopes of somehow profiting on the way.
You Sir, disgust me deeply.
Now THAT is a fine recipe for the return of The Feudal Lords (disguised as corporations). Could you explain, perchance, how exactly would that "properly restrained government ... that can do no harm", say, stop corporations from forming oligarchies, cartels and downright globe-spanning monopolies, complete with heavilly armed private armies to rule us with an iron fist? How about having a band of billionaires using their "free speech money" purchasing all the media outlets and censoring anyone who is opposed to their agendas of making themselves into New Royalty? Sure there would be some whining voices in the corners of the Net (assuming ISPs are not also bought) but they would be easily portrayed as "lunatic commies" by the howling media noise machine with its 500-channel direct-feed tube to the average Joe Sixpack's so-called "brain".
This whole Libertarian, Anarcho-capitalist and similar troglodyte "self-reliance", "total freedom", "self-made man" (aka "everyone for himself: longest knife wins edition") idiocy has to be relegated where it belongs: the Flat Earth Society Annual Meetings. Instead it gets modded "Insightful". Sigh.
Which I hear has issues in Korea, as far as FOSS is concerned, which could be the reason for which the Korean site is "unafilliated".
Well, from what I hear, it has something to do with the fact that the copyright/trademark law in Korea, for better or worse, is rather quirky from the point of view of FOSS. Hence the Korean site is "unaffiliated".
I see your way of thinking. Next on the news: "Kid dowloads Mozilla source code, changes a line in main.c, compiles, runs, Mozilla crashes! Ballmer does a monkey dance! News at 11".
What you apparently missed is the wee little difference between Microsoft and Mozilla (or any other FOSS project): anyone can distribute modified FOSS code from their website of the minute. It is that old conservative stand-by, the "personal responsibility" of the users to make sure that they are not downloading something from Joe Hacker's home page, even though sometimes Joe Hacker is doing his darnest to make his page look "official". That is why all of these fancy MD5 checksums and PGP signatures on them official binaries. Next thing I will hear is that someone posted instructions how to login as root and do "rm -rf /", followed by people complaining about useless nature of FOSS "communtity" in preventing idiots from executing the instructions.
One could argue that Mozilla Foundation should be in the business of stomping out these "fan" sites which distibute officially looking binaries, and it might come to that. But it will still not solve this "problem" since it will be next to impossible to track down every mis-informed enthusiast with a web page who is thinking that he is doing "a service" to the "community" by distibuting his mis-compiled/infected/otherwise fubar binaries.
No, I have simply misunderstood your statement. I thought you were reselling them at the full market value, like everyone else who was arguing with me here.
You're just more self-righeous human trash. This conversation is over.
I would be, if I was advocating the other position. But I am not. If you are not reselling them at a crazy profit and merely passing them on at a reasonable one, while still many times below market value (although I am having a hard time imaginging the mechanics of such a business), you are only practicing a strange type of trade and if anything, are being a victim of others. The "fence" part still applies if you are not keeping records or track of your sources.
Err, if you do not see the contradiction inherent in your statement, there is nothing I can do to help you. Let me translate what you just said into plain language: "I ripped off some people who were in need, nothing unwholesome about it, cause I got away with the loot, and I, me and mine are the only things that count! Yeah!".
According to you, I'm a fence, and probably a thief too.
You are a dishonest trader at the least. The "fence" part depends on how well you were keeping track and documenting the sources of your purchases.
Yeah. Lay off the self-righeousness.
No, you mean "Become a budding sociopath, like me, for fun and profit". Well, some of us have this thing called "a conscience" which, for better or worse, makes us into, what you would probably term, "bleeding heart socialists". And this very aspect of our personalities, none other, is which divides the so called "right" and "left".
That is a highly unusual markup for typical goods. Most stores would be extremely happy with 20%, which is considered "very, very good" for most items. I am exempting the so called "luxury" stores (read "idiot bait") which routinely sell, say, a leather bag which costs $20 to make for $8000 because it has a meaningless name of a "designer" of the hour engraved on it. That is simply a scam and beyond this discussion.
During my days as a dealer of professional electronic eqiupment, we were sometimes lucky to get 5%. You are probably thinking useless, Chinese, plastic crap which sells at $5 but costs $.50. That is true, but you forget that for these items the overhead is very significant due to the cost related to the sheer volume required to make resonable profit on this, such as handling, storage and transportation. And when you factor these costs, the profit shrinks back to the 20% range, not to mention the steep competetive pressure on this, since just about any idiot can order this junk from one of a zillion Chinese slave-labour outfits, thus making these generic, undistinguishable from each other items extremely price point sensitive.
Also, game shops that buy back your old games have the same problem. They won't call you back if your game doesn't sell.
Again, apples and oranges. The games have additional, unique to them legal risks involving possible violations of the so called "intellectual property" rights, thus exposing the store to all sorts of troubles. That is why very few stores even bother with this.
Oh, I am sorry, it was "tsm_sf" accusing the "Karma Farmer" of being me, or so it appears. I had my tin-foil hat wearing participants of this brawl confused. In your defense, you were "only" making the snide, cowardly remarks in paralell to my posts, like the one I replied to. My bad.
Ponder the fact that when everyone calls you a fucktard, you probably are.
Ah yes, the "everyone" crowd made up of a fraction of slashdot posters. On this particular thread, this being mainly you, with something like 90% of your posts containing words "fuck", "idiot", "troll" etc. But in your estimate, you also apparently included those who merely politely disagree with me. But that is to be expected. In your view, even those who explicitely agree with me are also "calling me names". Otherwise it would be impossible for you to claim that "everyone" did so, right? That fiction is clearly necessary for you to maintain your delusion of grandieur, the one in which the whole world revolves around your rear end and in which everyone applauds you all the time. With deference, naturally. If you keep this up, your ego will soon snuff out the sun. Have mercy on your neighbours.
I just noticed, when replying to someone, that you are running this lovely side-commentary about my posts. Being clearly too cowardly to actually confront me directly, you are reduced to making these nebulous snide remarks, without actually having to present any logical arguments.
And then, you, who are engaged in this utterly childlish and dishonest activity, dare to call me a "troll".
That is, in addition to accusing some random bystanders of being me in disguise. Which only exposes the very conceited way in which your rotten psyche operates. You simply assumed that I would be engaged in something you would do and thus are projecting your ways onto me.
I hear thieves are always whining that people are stealing from them, and seeing themselves as "victims" of theft, are, in their convoluted way, "justifying" to themselves their thievish ways.
Ponder that. It might do you some good.
Of course. Both are scams for the gullible. Both of these types of items have value which is arbitrarily assigned to them trough hype, connivery, lack of basic unerstanding of commerce etc, instead by true supply/demand equations. If anything, the baseball cards are more resembling of a marketplace although their supply is also completely artifically constrained. Thiose things are in the same boat as the 1970s "pet rock".
It is a well known facts that diamond mines produce many times the amount of the market demand quantity of diamonds, and so vast multi-national cartels which control 100% of the market are stockpiling literally metric tons upon metic tons of diamonds in order to manipulate the retail price. If true supply/demand mechanisms were allowed to take effect, the price of cut diamonds would be close to that of high-quality quartz. There are even at this point several companies capable of manufacturing diamonds which are for all practical purposes indistinguishable from the real thing and which have to be now artifically marked so that the dealers do not get confused. It is one of the examples of a complete and utter failure of laissez-faire capitalist marketplace and a prime example of what happens if the governments are not aggressively busting cartels, oligarchies and monopolies, which, contrary to what various wacky libertarians will tell you, are the natural apex of progression of laissez-faire capitalist corporate structures.
However, the change in price by a factor of 4 isn't that far from any number of reputable business practices you see all the time.
Skip the word "reputable" and we will agree. Diamonds, baseball cards, mass "pop" culture and similiar scams, pyramid schemes and other marketplace aberrations are not "honest" nor "reputable" business.
Apparently not.
by the way-- are the only brick and mortar places to find used games nowadays in most places in the US,
Actually, this specific problem could be related to the legal risk factor, which such a place as EB is exposing itself to by trading in DRM/"Intellectual Property" encumbered material. It is a can full of lawsuits waiting to happen.
In which case you are probably also not entitled to warranty or insurance coverage, and what not. Also, in absence of a retail receipt, there are still ways to determine ownership. For example if someone reports a laptop with a certain serial number as stolen and subsequently you are found to be selling it, the courts will decide that there is high probability of you being in possession of stolen goods. Plain common sense. That is why it is prudent to keep track of the serial numbers and to retain the receipts. Personaly I keep the receipts until the moment the unit is either sold or destroyed.
Of course. Sane government would be cost aware and not allow itself to be pushed around by wacky monopolies into exorbitant expenditures which bring nothing positive to the operation of government. But that is another discussion.
It's not a 'wild exception' to get deals like that. It was a somewhat unusually low price, as it's more typical to pay $5-6 each for similar machines at similar auctions (Dell Optiplexes with Pentium III processors, 128M of RAM...)
Listen, we are talking apples and oranges here. In the case of $5 computers, the very act of unpacking, dusting and checking them out, adds some serious value to the damn things. The work of putting these silly things on eBay, combined with the handling, brings your "profit" margin to something like 20% as the rest is the cost of labour. If you had sold them "unchecked", "as-is", "no clue if it even runs" for $80, then my hat off to your salesmanship. Still, you have a documented, legitimate source of these. And that makes all the difference. Not to mention that this is nothing like dealing with recent equipment at $1100 a pop. Deals of $300 -> $1100 are rarely available to amateurs from legitimate sources, specially if these sources happen to be restricted to a nervous female who wont look you in the eye.
Of course it is not, but it is sufficient to track down stolen goods. If you buy a laptop, the invoice from the store has the serial number on it, which for most items is equivalent to a "title document", at least as far as identification of the original ownership is concerned.
Yes, err, except you bought the things bulk in an auction. Complete with proof of purchase, not to mention the outraged school board trustees pulling their hair out at the outrageous misuse of school funds and what not.
I am sure you can find more examples of army surplus or some other, wonderful, government related boondoglery. But these do not constitute "common" activities, "wild exceptions" are more likely and virtually all are accompanied by reams of paperwork, leaving no doubt whatsoever as to what occured.
In that context you are OK as the whole mechanics of eBay sale indicates that the seller is aware of the going market prices (from the very eBay itself) and is commiting regardless. You are also covered legally because the eBay transaction is your "proof of purchase". Should the item be stolen, you have a reliable way of deflecting the law onto the seller.
Things turn ugly when you are the seller on eBay as it was the case of the anti-hero of the article, since now you need the record of your "upstream" source of the items.
As far as I'm concerned the ebay buyer and seller are the innocent people who got scammed. For all we know she knew he had a hobby of buying and selling electronics and fast talked him into thinking she was the legal owner of the laptop, after all she was a thief trying to sell off stolen goods.
The buyer, yes. You did notice that the law was not interested in him, he had his "proof of purchase". The seller, no. He was involved in a shady, face-to-face, cash only deal where even he (according to the article) felt the lady was acting "suspicious". And yet, overpowered by his greed, he decided to forego any inquiries into the source of the laptop and accepted her word at face value and demanded no identification of her. At best he was reckless, but more likely, he was quite acutely aware of the shady nature of the deal and yet gambled on not getting caught. And lost.
Where did all the info on the ebay seller come from? The post has a link to CNN which says nothing of the ebay seller and the purchase and sale price.
From the Slashdot writeup. But it would not be the first time if the Slashdot editors are out to lunch.
You can say that again. It never ceases to amaze me how much of an intrinsic disparity there seems to exist in many Slashdotters, who appear to be otherwise very intelligent people, capable of complex abstract reasoning when it comes to science and technology, but who at the same time possess all the moral skills and societal graces of a baboon.
It is quite fascinating.
All the more reason for him to be on the lookout for scams and stolen goods. Last thing a kid in college wants is a rap sheet.
Once it's in the trash it's free game for anyone who wants it.
If this is a written policy on the campus and the students are aware of it and signed off on it in their agreements with the college, then by all means. Except that this has nothing to do with the problem at hand. If he was buying one such "found" items (and I am not sure what the legalities of selling found items are) he would still need some sort of record confirming that it was so. In that case the cops would simply leave him be and go after her. And we would not be having this discussion.
I consider it clear that she's guilty, but it is understandable that someone will accept something no questions asked if they're poor and they can make a profit.
That is a very dangerous and wrongheaded attitude. No one is suggesting that people who can use such gifts do not accept them, only that they are aware of the need to keep proper, hoever minimal, records of them. Because otherwise not only you are exposing yourself to legitimate charges of possession of stolen goods, but also to all sorts of abuse of the legal system from various underhanded individuals, who might find it advantageous to "give" you things, with which they can later harm you greatly by notifying the police of their "stolen" status.
That is where we disagree. At best, he was reckless. More likely, his greed got the better of him.
$300 is not completely unreasonable if a bit lowball a price for recent used computer.
But it is sufficiently low for the kind of laptpop in question to prompt additional scrutiny and record-keeping. Unless of course one is either reckless or downright dishonest. See above.
My stated rationals do hold water if you want to lump me in with your fictional resident Slashdot moral juveniles feel free.
Unfortunately, its not just me. It's the law too. And while I am just a random poster on Slashdot and you have nothing to fear from me, the law is another matter alltogether.
Err, no. Buying computers from shady strangers for $300 and then immediately selling them for $1100 is not "common" in the civilized parts of the society.
Buying/selling a 'slightly used' corvette for $10 resides solely in the land of fancy.
Since people seem not to comprehend that this is an exaggeration to make the point obvious, let's say it was $10000 for a 2005 "slightly-used" Corvette wich sells, used, for $40000 (I am guessing here). Is it ok now? It would be the same ratio as for the laptop, 1/4th the price. Happy now? Still think there would be nothing suspicious for someone to sell a $40000 fair-market value ($60000 retail) car for $10000 and you would not ask any question of him? Would you accept his word and not bother taking his personal details?
Hell, I sold a perfect Powerbook 17 (purchased by me at the local Apple store) for roughly half the price I could have gotten for it...
And if the buyer did not check you out, he is a complete fool.
Basic Capitalism: buy low, sell higher. That's it.
Err, no. There are also these niceties like laws and all those property rights and all these related risks affecting the price, all sorts of other factors dealing with quality, item's origin, customer's preceptions, brand recognition, marketing, advertising, consumer education etc etc etc. What you describe is a never-never land fantasy. A gross over-simplification for the benefit of a kindergarten class.
Anything you else you have in your personal business strategy is your unique perogative. What you call greedy business practice (and yes, no doubt it is) is shrewd business.
Only if you have no repeat customers and you do not mind getting hauled to the city jail once in a while (assuming you keep records as incomplete as our anti-hero had).
Very long time now? Didn't you get on another poster about intentionally implying grand vagueries?
I will be specific. Running on 15th year now.
I too run my own business. Fortunately I don't sell goods, rather services. But you can bet I'm not going to undervalue myself because I don't want people to think I charge to much. If they find my services worth the money, then they hire me. If they don't, I don't get their business. Period.
That has nothing to do with the topic of discussion. In your case, it would be similar if you were to offer your services as, say, a doctor at 1/4th going hourly rate and the clinic who hired you did not bother to check your credentials for fear of spoiling such a good deal. Following which a little "oops" occured involving a surgical saw and someone's leg. I dont think there would be anyone here defending the clinic from accusations of negligence.
And give it a rest already. Clearly you think everyone else is wrong, we get it. Move on. Your 3 dozen+ indignant replies just make you look more and more like you have very little insight into the real world and someone that should end up on just about everyone's ignore/foe list.
For your low user ID you are remarkably unaware of the nature of Slashdot. Nearly every "discussion" on nearly every topic here is like this. If people were to heed this advice, no one would ever post due to fear of being disagreed with, or worse, the unspeakable terror of getting put on someone's foe list.
Just so you know, these posts consume very little of my time and I consider the whole thing as a form of mildly amusing enterntainment, with a side benefit of improving my ability to spar in a polemic.
Most property has, laptops for example do have serial numbers, that is how the one which is being discussed in the article was identified. Which is precisely the point to demolish the AC parent's inane assertion that "the lowest price" is the only thing that counts in a market transaction. Legal considerations and subsequent risk factors play a significant role in assessing the legitimacy and viability of a purchase. Something which many people here on Slashdot have difficulties grasping, it seems.
You bet that every single thing I bought from shady characters for cash has some documentation (actually that would be very few things since I do not buy crap from strange characters as a rule).
How much did your portable photocopier cost?
Why would it need to be "portable"? My office one does very well, thank you. And if I were in a business of reselling used computers, I sure would not be doing so on foot and at random locations but in my office.
Did you get a copy of the license of the guy who sold you your last batch of blank cdrom?
I did not need to. The store receipt is quite sufficient for this purpose. Or are you to imply that you routinely buy batches of CD-ROMS from trunks of cars parked in dark alleyways?
In a few months, they are gonna drop the criminal charge down in a plea and give him a fine w/ probation. In a year it will be wiped off his record if he's good. If he wants to fight it he may win and just get a stern warning to be careful from the judge. $300 is not unreasonable if a bit lowball.
Quite likely but hopefuly he would have learned his lesson, which is the whole point of the excercise. Perhaps some resident Slashdot moral juveniles would also grok some of this. One hopes.
I said "vast volumes" which implies... "vast volumes". Pehreaps hundreds of these "thousands upon thousands" of books of yours. Perheaps more. The term is purposefully imprecise, as to imply a potentially large quantity, without defining it. If I meant "bulk of" I would have said "bulk of" or "majority of" or "lion share of" or some such. All of which are relative terms. You, yourself made that extrapolation and now are attempting to bluster your way out of it.
You're a liar ...
Except that I told no lie, you imagined so.
Ah yes, the inevietable appearance of the word "fuck" once all other "arguments" fail. A sure sign of a great intellect.