Hello Best Buy manager. We here at slashdot are familiar with the concept of astroturfing and it does not work here. Certainly not when it is so obvious (posted from a user account created today).
There's no positive option which allows you to disagree with the fraudulent fine print and keep the product.
There's no requirement that you buy the product. You seem to think that stores have some ability to force people to buy things and then shove agreements at them which they have no control over. If you're so impulsive that you just have to buy whatever you see no matter how undesirable the terms of purchase are, then get used to being screwed. Nothing will save you from yourself.
You know, you're supposed to claim all online purchases on your tax returns anyway.
If anyone actually does this, please reply to this post (logged in). I'm just curious to see if there are more than about 3 people in the country who pay this 'voluntary tax'.
When you are about to buy anything, you must know how much the real market value of the item is before you purchase it. This is the only guaranteed way to keep from getting ripped off. If you find out that a certain car has been selling for about $15,000, then no "sales guy reality distortion" techniques will be able to convince you to pay $20,000. If you rely on the salesman to tell you how much something costs, prepare to get fleeced, no matter how much of a skilled negotiator you are.
Yea, like some script kiddie is going to report a counterattack to the police. If you fought off a mugging attempt, would you even care if the would-be mugger went to the police? Let some hacker report you for hacking back. That means they have to identify themselves, which means you can prosecute as well. This is a non-issue.
Well, you know what that means, launch a counterattack! The hacker is probably not a large corporation either. Seriously, this is the type of situation that leads to vigilante justice; when someone knows that there is no legal course of action that can be taken. But if you really wanted to take legal action against someone who caused you harm on the internet, and that person were in your country, you could always file a civil suit. Large corporation or not, if you can document damages that are the fault of another person, you've got a good chance in civil court.
This would of course explain why you post at 0 by default. Certainly your karma didn't get so low by posting shit like this now did it? Oh wait, maybe you are a troll afterall.
It's mainly government projects that are so incredibly inflated in cost. Look at how much it costs to build a public school and compare the cost to a similarly sized and equipped office building. Not even close. In most areas, the law requires that all labor be either unionized or paid the prevailing union rates. Combine this with the inflated bids and sweetheart deals for politically connected contractors and it's difficult to build even a small school for less than $100 million in some places.
Since this is how government work is typically done, it's no surprise that e-voting would follow a similar pattern. Hell, my county government spent $300,000 to put up their first website that was nothing more than a collection of static pages with a searchable index (which didn't work).
Anyone who is buying a camera for non professional use wants the most features for the least amount of money. A modern camera with all the latest features with a hard metal case would cost a few grand. Would you pay this much for something to use to take vacation photos? When people complain that they don't make things like they used to, they fail to factor in the price difference. Cameras used to be a lot more expensive than they are now, factoring in inflation, and the same can be said for just about any device.
In my opinion the worst offender is the garbage site known as msn.com. Almost every article is either straight off the wire feeds or a disguised advertisement. I guess they figure that since the writers they have on staff write such uninspired mindless garbage for their original "content" that it might as well just be an ad since nobody would consider msn to be a reliable source of information.
I've always said the main reason that advertising is so effective is because advertising companies have been so effective at selling corporate management on the effectiveness of advertising. Not to mention, it really feeds the egos of the board members to see their company's name in a super bowl commercial. Somehow I think that if it could be accurately quantified as to exactly how much return on investment a company could expect from ads, a lot of people would be very disappointed.
That's funny. When I went to the UK a few years ago, I thought there was some sort of national ice shortage. Drinks seemed to be served slightly chilled with one ice cube. I requested extra ice, which meant I got a second little cube. I think cold drinks are more popular in the states, mainly because the country is hotter than most of Europe, and definitely more so than the UK.
Like they say, you get what you pay for. I'd rather pay $.99 a song and get to keep it rather than paying $.50 for a crippled song that comes from a company with a dodgy past. Somehow I doubt this will cut into Apple's sales that much.
Also important: educate companies who do business on the web to never send out legitimate requests for account updates via email. Most large companies would not do this, but some of the smaller players do not think about how this could cause major confusion and problems for users.
This is the real reason for the ID requirement. It has little to do with safety and security but a lot to do with airline revenue. After the TWA-800 crash, it seemed like a good time to introduce requirements for passengers to show ID. It was airlines that wanted this, but they didn't want to push it out on their own and make themselves look like the bad guys. So they persuaded the FAA, which wasn't too difficult, to start requiring IDs right after passengers were already worried about air safety. The only real purpose for IDs is to make sure nobody is flying on someone else's ticket. Apparently if you cannot use the ticket that you PAID FOR, someone else can't use it either and airlines are perfectly justified in just keeping your money rather than having someone else fly in that seat.
True, but the rich do end up buying more stuff, and more expensive stuff, so they do pay more total sales tax than lower income people. In most areas, I believe items such as food and certain other essentials are not taxed.
Software engineering is a HELL OF A LOT OF MATH! There's no getting around that. Besides, getting experience in business and software engineering are polar opposites. I don't see how you were unemployable with a math and CS degree. I think you just weren't looking at the right companies. Places like Symantec are always hiring, especially with the current emphasis on security. If a 4 year CS degree leaves you unemployable, I don't see how a masters would make it any better. Unless you're doing highly specialized development, a masters won't be worth the time or money.
If you really want to lose some Karma fast, just post a conservative viewpoint on a hot button political issue. That post, along with several other posts of yours, will be modded -1 Overrated continuously.
If not for the tin foil hat brigade that usually moderates on Slashdot, this interesting but off topic story would have been properly moderated as offtopic. How does a fingerprint scanning lock compare to Nazism? If someone wants your fingerprints, they can get them from just about anything you have touched. Ever seen the police shows where they take someone in for questioning, offer them a can of soda, then take the can when they finish it and place it in a plastic bag? I realize the slope can be slippery, but this is simply not a civil rights issue, no matter how much some people might want it to be. And if you really don't like it, don't visit the Statue of Liberty!
I'm not sure it would be a good idea to make them completely non-transferable. If I die right after something of mine gets patented, I'd like to think my kids could benefit from my hard work. I do agree that patent ownership transfer needs to be restricted so that patents are not just bought and traded like any other commodity item. There could be certain circumstances created for the transfer of patents, such as inheritance like I mentioned. The original holder should be able to sell it to a company that intends to use it. Perhaps the rule could say that if you buy a patent and don't make use of the idea in a commercially available product within a couple of years, you lose the patent. This type of thing would make the patent parasite business a lot less attractive.
I don't see why this is offtopic. These ideas are no more ridiculous than the one click ordering patent, or most software patents in general, for that matter.
Slashdot Mirror
Hello Best Buy manager. We here at slashdot are familiar with the concept of astroturfing and it does not work here. Certainly not when it is so obvious (posted from a user account created today).
There's no positive option which allows you to disagree with the fraudulent fine print and keep the product.
There's no requirement that you buy the product. You seem to think that stores have some ability to force people to buy things and then shove agreements at them which they have no control over. If you're so impulsive that you just have to buy whatever you see no matter how undesirable the terms of purchase are, then get used to being screwed. Nothing will save you from yourself.
You know, you're supposed to claim all online purchases on your tax returns anyway.
If anyone actually does this, please reply to this post (logged in). I'm just curious to see if there are more than about 3 people in the country who pay this 'voluntary tax'.
When you are about to buy anything, you must know how much the real market value of the item is before you purchase it. This is the only guaranteed way to keep from getting ripped off. If you find out that a certain car has been selling for about $15,000, then no "sales guy reality distortion" techniques will be able to convince you to pay $20,000. If you rely on the salesman to tell you how much something costs, prepare to get fleeced, no matter how much of a skilled negotiator you are.
In other news, a Porsche performs better than a Ford Focus. Nevermind the 'slight' price difference.
Yea, like some script kiddie is going to report a counterattack to the police. If you fought off a mugging attempt, would you even care if the would-be mugger went to the police? Let some hacker report you for hacking back. That means they have to identify themselves, which means you can prosecute as well. This is a non-issue.
Well, you know what that means, launch a counterattack! The hacker is probably not a large corporation either. Seriously, this is the type of situation that leads to vigilante justice; when someone knows that there is no legal course of action that can be taken. But if you really wanted to take legal action against someone who caused you harm on the internet, and that person were in your country, you could always file a civil suit. Large corporation or not, if you can document damages that are the fault of another person, you've got a good chance in civil court.
Aw, come on. You could have found a better example than that!
This would of course explain why you post at 0 by default. Certainly your karma didn't get so low by posting shit like this now did it? Oh wait, maybe you are a troll afterall.
It's mainly government projects that are so incredibly inflated in cost. Look at how much it costs to build a public school and compare the cost to a similarly sized and equipped office building. Not even close. In most areas, the law requires that all labor be either unionized or paid the prevailing union rates. Combine this with the inflated bids and sweetheart deals for politically connected contractors and it's difficult to build even a small school for less than $100 million in some places.
Since this is how government work is typically done, it's no surprise that e-voting would follow a similar pattern. Hell, my county government spent $300,000 to put up their first website that was nothing more than a collection of static pages with a searchable index (which didn't work).
Is their computar borken?
Anyone who is buying a camera for non professional use wants the most features for the least amount of money. A modern camera with all the latest features with a hard metal case would cost a few grand. Would you pay this much for something to use to take vacation photos? When people complain that they don't make things like they used to, they fail to factor in the price difference. Cameras used to be a lot more expensive than they are now, factoring in inflation, and the same can be said for just about any device.
In my opinion the worst offender is the garbage site known as msn.com. Almost every article is either straight off the wire feeds or a disguised advertisement. I guess they figure that since the writers they have on staff write such uninspired mindless garbage for their original "content" that it might as well just be an ad since nobody would consider msn to be a reliable source of information.
I've always said the main reason that advertising is so effective is because advertising companies have been so effective at selling corporate management on the effectiveness of advertising. Not to mention, it really feeds the egos of the board members to see their company's name in a super bowl commercial. Somehow I think that if it could be accurately quantified as to exactly how much return on investment a company could expect from ads, a lot of people would be very disappointed.
That's funny. When I went to the UK a few years ago, I thought there was some sort of national ice shortage. Drinks seemed to be served slightly chilled with one ice cube. I requested extra ice, which meant I got a second little cube. I think cold drinks are more popular in the states, mainly because the country is hotter than most of Europe, and definitely more so than the UK.
Like they say, you get what you pay for. I'd rather pay $.99 a song and get to keep it rather than paying $.50 for a crippled song that comes from a company with a dodgy past. Somehow I doubt this will cut into Apple's sales that much.
Also important: educate companies who do business on the web to never send out legitimate requests for account updates via email. Most large companies would not do this, but some of the smaller players do not think about how this could cause major confusion and problems for users.
This is the real reason for the ID requirement. It has little to do with safety and security but a lot to do with airline revenue. After the TWA-800 crash, it seemed like a good time to introduce requirements for passengers to show ID. It was airlines that wanted this, but they didn't want to push it out on their own and make themselves look like the bad guys. So they persuaded the FAA, which wasn't too difficult, to start requiring IDs right after passengers were already worried about air safety. The only real purpose for IDs is to make sure nobody is flying on someone else's ticket. Apparently if you cannot use the ticket that you PAID FOR, someone else can't use it either and airlines are perfectly justified in just keeping your money rather than having someone else fly in that seat.
Holy crap, I checked out this guy's posting history. Trolland must be very bored to sit around constantly pasting together slashdot stories.
True, but the rich do end up buying more stuff, and more expensive stuff, so they do pay more total sales tax than lower income people. In most areas, I believe items such as food and certain other essentials are not taxed.
Software engineering is a HELL OF A LOT OF MATH! There's no getting around that. Besides, getting experience in business and software engineering are polar opposites. I don't see how you were unemployable with a math and CS degree. I think you just weren't looking at the right companies. Places like Symantec are always hiring, especially with the current emphasis on security. If a 4 year CS degree leaves you unemployable, I don't see how a masters would make it any better. Unless you're doing highly specialized development, a masters won't be worth the time or money.
If you really want to lose some Karma fast, just post a conservative viewpoint on a hot button political issue. That post, along with several other posts of yours, will be modded -1 Overrated continuously.
If not for the tin foil hat brigade that usually moderates on Slashdot, this interesting but off topic story would have been properly moderated as offtopic. How does a fingerprint scanning lock compare to Nazism? If someone wants your fingerprints, they can get them from just about anything you have touched. Ever seen the police shows where they take someone in for questioning, offer them a can of soda, then take the can when they finish it and place it in a plastic bag? I realize the slope can be slippery, but this is simply not a civil rights issue, no matter how much some people might want it to be. And if you really don't like it, don't visit the Statue of Liberty!
I'm not sure it would be a good idea to make them completely non-transferable. If I die right after something of mine gets patented, I'd like to think my kids could benefit from my hard work. I do agree that patent ownership transfer needs to be restricted so that patents are not just bought and traded like any other commodity item. There could be certain circumstances created for the transfer of patents, such as inheritance like I mentioned. The original holder should be able to sell it to a company that intends to use it. Perhaps the rule could say that if you buy a patent and don't make use of the idea in a commercially available product within a couple of years, you lose the patent. This type of thing would make the patent parasite business a lot less attractive.
I don't see why this is offtopic. These ideas are no more ridiculous than the one click ordering patent, or most software patents in general, for that matter.