The article says (or implies) that they tell who they are so that when the gambler wonders why there is a charge from some fabric store on his card and contacts that vendor, he doesn't challenge the charge.
Still seems like that should go out via the channels of the gambling site and not the help desk of the fake store. but I'm not a pro money launderer so maybe I'm missing something else.:D
> staff who answered helpdesk numbers on the sites said the outlets did not sell the product advertised, but that they were used to help process gambling payments
"Nice job moron! You blew our cover!"
How do you not train your people on day 1 of the job at a money laundering outfit, that you don't admit to anyone that you're not a real shop. If anyone should call in complaining that they didn't get their goods (I'm assuming cops ordered items and called in to inquire about the order), apologize, say that item's been backordered, and give them a refund. I'm pretty amused by how dumb they were to admit that outright!
Oh come on. Rails 4 has been out for over 3 years ( http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/... ) not counting beta versions. If you haven't been bothered to update your public-facing application to 4.x in 3 years then yes, you're on your own. If you were one of the volunteers donating your time to run the Rails project would you want to support every version forever? You can always feel free to pay a developer yourself to fix any security holes that may turn up in Rails 3 in the future. And heck, you could sell those patches to other laggards!
Is the robot "face" screen going to be showing the live video of the person's face? If so, since presumably you don't have a Steadicam operator staying directly in front of each human being represented by robots at all times, this is going to look weird. It will be hard to even keep your face in frame as you naturally move around, swivel your chair, etc. Even if your face can somehow be properly framed, the front of your robot face (which itself swivels) will keep showing the sides of your face as you turn to look at various people.
This can be avoided at the great expense of losing the live video of the person--you can just put a static picture of the person's face on the bot, but this seems a big step back from a regular videoconference--you can't see the person's facial expressions.
Not to mention, this enhances a SINGLE nonverbal body language feature (direction of head pointing) while utterly destroying all other nonverbal information you get from a plain old videoconference, including overall posture, hand gestures, etc. The robot can't fold its arms, make a gesture, tilt its head side to side, etc.
I disagreed that the "average household" was already equipped to disassemble iPhones until this snag. The "eyeglasses repair" argument doesn't hold water either because it takes other tools to work on iPhones as well, and most people just buy them in kits at very little expense when they order their replacement parts.
He seems to operate in a world where the "average" person cares at all about taking their gadgets apart.
> just because something's little means you can't take it apart? What a bunch of bullshit.
And yet, the OP that I replied to claimed that having a screw that isn't a typical shape means you can't take it apart. Even though anyone can buy a proper screwdriver for it for under $5 online.
From what I can tell, OP thinks he is ENTITLED to Apple using only screws for which he already owns the screwdrivers. If Apple does not comply, they're big meanies who are betraying Steve Wozniak.
For the record, MY point wasn't that you can't take it apart, my point was that he shouldn't be comparing modern tech to the Apple I and Apple II computers that Wozniak built. Just because you can take something apart doesn't mean that anyone but a brilliant engineer can perform any useful "creative mods" on it the way people did in 1978. This is what I meant by tinker-friendly. Tinker-friendly devices are pretty rare these days because there's no significant market for that. Of course, "many" people (maybe 0.05% of the population at large) are qualified to replace batteries and other parts, and I predict that these people are capable of shutting up and buying a damn screwdriver. It would be far from the first time they've bought a specialized tool for working on a tiny electronics device. Most Apple hardware geeks already have spudgers, various small screwdrivers, etc. Usually these things come for free in little kits. Someone else pointed out that Nintendo is no different in using a 3-sided screw.
As a side note, Phillips screws are shitty thanks to their intentionally-designed propensity to "cam out." Go look up the difference between PoziDriv and Phillips. Personally, I'd rather buy a $5 screwdriver than deal with the crappiness that is a stripped Phillips head.
the average household does not have a pentalobular screwdriver... the days of Apple encouraging the user and hobbyist to open up their products and tinker and learn are over. Wozniak's Apple is dead. This is no conspiracy. This is simply fact; the final screw in the hobbyist's ass is yet more unneeded evidence indicating this.
The average household? Seriously? The average household has never stocked ANY tiny screwdrivers, be they Phillips like the old screws, Torx, or this "new" one. The average household has a #2 Phillips, an old fashioned slotted screwdriver for stupid things like switchplates that still use them, and a hammer. Probably a few leftover allen wrenches from Ikea. Anything more exotic than that pretty much requires a trip to Radio Shack, or a $5 order from some website. Therefore, almost nothing has changed. In fact, I got a nice little screwdriver for FREE with the kit the times I changed batteries and screens and things. The average household doesn't disassemble electronics, not least because they would rather not void their warranty.
Quit being so dramatic. "Wozniak's Apple," as you put it, existed in a world where computers cost a lot of money, were only purchased by skilled electronics experts or those planning to become experts, and needed to be modified to do pretty much anything. That world has been gone for more than 20 years. Today, computers (and tiny computers called "smartphones") are a mature technology, of which the target market is 99.9% made up of NON-experts, who don't take things apart and don't want to. The fact that it's been this long and you still expect there to be some kind of huge "enthusiast" contingent who are soldering things onto the boards of their Apple IIs, just ends up sounding naive.
The market has gone towards simple, integrated, and (especially in portable devices like laptops and cell phones)--SMALL. You can't have those things and still be "tinker-friendly." Will a few people still take these devices apart to tinker and to perform some repairs (like the battery) more cheaply? You bet. I do it too.
I think if Apple were trying to screw those people, they would seal the iPhone completely so that you had to break plastic to open it, and, coat the board in epoxy like they do with some consoles.
Why on earth should "Wikipedia" (I assume you meant the Wikimedia Foundation) make any money off anything? That whole organization exists to enrich themselves (I'm referring to everyone who draws a salary from WMF) from the work of the actual contributors(normal people who write the content), none of whom are paid for their trouble.
You're right, and it was a hilarious technicality of poor wording, since obviously the intent of the license wasn't to grant them a license to knock off the concept but rather to write software FOR the platform.
However, have there been successful "look and feel" suits? I was under the impression that no one had won any similar cases. I chose a poor one as an example, didn't I.
Show me a "new idea" in software and I'll show you some no-account who claims he "thought of it first" but didn't have the motivation or skills, either to implement it right, or to successfully bring it to market.
Sure there are occasional examples of some freeware widget being copied and made into part of the OS, but more often than that, they just buy the relevant IP from the guy who created it. However if you think Apple is the only company to ever reimplement a "good idea" independently, without the blessing of some "inventor of the idea," then you're delusional and just have an axe to grind with Apple on some holy-war grounds.
Let me guess, you think Apple "stole" the desktop metaphor, mouse, etc. from Xerox PARC... but Microsoft was just using an obvious evolutionary idea when they suddenly developed Windows after examining the Mac prototypes they were given.
Apple (and Jobs) are no saints. But they've been on both sides of those battles, and are no worse than any other tech firm when it comes to originality. There are just not that many whole-cloth brand new ideas in our industry! The best things are refinements of other things. Think about it--Apple didn't invent MP3 players, and Microsoft didn't invent CP/M. In both cases, the concept of something crappy was taken, improved upon, and released as something less crappy (iPod, and MS-DOS).
Schwab Bank refunds all ATM fees. Liquor stores, McDonald's, other banks. It comes back automagically at the end of the month. I still can't figure out what mechanism they use to figure out what part of the withdrawal is the fee, but it works great. In effect, I have access to like a zillion free ATMs, whereas even customers of the biggest banks only have that bank's ATM fleet. I can use them *all* for free, plus the random non-bank ATMs.
For deposits, you mail checks in.
I also keep a B of A account which, when opened online under a certain promotion, has no recurring fee or direct deposit requirements. I use this B of A account whenever I need to deposit cash, or get a check into the bank more quickly. Then I can use the Schwab online tool to ACH the money into my Schwab account.
I doubt Apple look too closely for prior art and are more interested in counting the filthy
Oh, so today we're mad at Apple for dastardly approving apps that they should have rejected on the grounds of software look-and-feel... because that totally holds up in court, not to mention it's totally Apple's job to ensure that every app has no resemblance to any other software ever published. Got it!
I'm glad you posted, because I think I missed that memo and was still cursing those Apple jerks for rejecting too many apps, because "All Apps Deserve To Be Approved" and "Apple Is Oppressing People With Their Walled Garden."
Hahaha. Welcome to religion. You're thinking ethics, not morality. Some ethical schools of thought ask if harm was caused in order to judge whether an act was ethical.
Morality is a term for an artificial set of arbitrary rules, some of which, under some cultures, align with harm (example: punching a bystander in the face = immoral and causes harm), but many of which are 100% arbitrary. Example: harassing gay people = moral to Westboro Baptist Church, but causes harm. Example: masturbating = immoral to many nuts (including some Christians and other religions), but obviously harmless.
Your states are weird (i mean the Parent and GP). In California, school zones are "25 When Children Are Present." My traffic school I recently did taught me that means anytime you can see a kid from the road, even in the middle of the night.
I think it's a sensible law because it doesn't make you slow down when no kids are present.
55 and 65 speed limits, on the other hand... stupid. especially since you never get a ticket for going 5-10 over. They should start ticketing us for doing 66 in a 65. Laws would change REAL FAST. Instead, we depend on the lax enforcement to not be bankrupted by fines, however technically we're ALL criminals, because you can't drive under the speed limit on any freeway. Except during traffic jams.
To be fair, if Palin's personal email account was "hacked," (as in "guessed because of being an easy password") i think it was the fault of her own naive password habits and therefore reason to laugh at her.
Obama's Twitter, on the other hand, is obviously not actually used by him. Hate to break it to you, but the POTUS does not tweet. Some staffer, probably some young intern, is in charge of posting the official tweets from the press office each day. We should be laughing at that guy right now. If it had been something the President did himself then yes we should be laughing at him and I would be the first to have a chuckle. It's good to laugh.//I hate Palin and wish a moose would eat her.
England hasn't been part of Europe for 10,000-20,000 years. It's no more a part of Europe than Madagascar is a part of Africa just because of proximity, or Guadeloupe a part of Europe just because it is ruled by a European country.
Note: Membership in the EU also does not imply being part of Europe. Europe is a continent. Well, half a continent.
Hilariously, this same question came up recently in a thread I was involved in.
under current British rule, I'm not so sure it would actually be all that different today.
No matter how much you personally disagree with the policies of Her Majesty's Government, at least the officials who run it were duly elected by their constituents.
Slashdot Mirror
The article says (or implies) that they tell who they are so that when the gambler wonders why there is a charge from some fabric store on his card and contacts that vendor, he doesn't challenge the charge.
Still seems like that should go out via the channels of the gambling site and not the help desk of the fake store. but I'm not a pro money launderer so maybe I'm missing something else. :D
> staff who answered helpdesk numbers on the sites said the outlets did not sell the product advertised, but that they were used to help process gambling payments
"Nice job moron! You blew our cover!"
How do you not train your people on day 1 of the job at a money laundering outfit, that you don't admit to anyone that you're not a real shop. If anyone should call in complaining that they didn't get their goods (I'm assuming cops ordered items and called in to inquire about the order), apologize, say that item's been backordered, and give them a refund. I'm pretty amused by how dumb they were to admit that outright!
Oh come on. Rails 4 has been out for over 3 years ( http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/... ) not counting beta versions. If you haven't been bothered to update your public-facing application to 4.x in 3 years then yes, you're on your own. If you were one of the volunteers donating your time to run the Rails project would you want to support every version forever? You can always feel free to pay a developer yourself to fix any security holes that may turn up in Rails 3 in the future. And heck, you could sell those patches to other laggards!
Somehow I think this will become The Future the same way SmarterChild and its kin did.
Is the robot "face" screen going to be showing the live video of the person's face? If so, since presumably you don't have a Steadicam operator staying directly in front of each human being represented by robots at all times, this is going to look weird. It will be hard to even keep your face in frame as you naturally move around, swivel your chair, etc. Even if your face can somehow be properly framed, the front of your robot face (which itself swivels) will keep showing the sides of your face as you turn to look at various people.
This can be avoided at the great expense of losing the live video of the person--you can just put a static picture of the person's face on the bot, but this seems a big step back from a regular videoconference--you can't see the person's facial expressions.
Not to mention, this enhances a SINGLE nonverbal body language feature (direction of head pointing) while utterly destroying all other nonverbal information you get from a plain old videoconference, including overall posture, hand gestures, etc. The robot can't fold its arms, make a gesture, tilt its head side to side, etc.
I think this idea is quite a stretch.
What the hell are you blabbering about?
YET.
ftfy
I disagreed that the "average household" was already equipped to disassemble iPhones until this snag. The "eyeglasses repair" argument doesn't hold water either because it takes other tools to work on iPhones as well, and most people just buy them in kits at very little expense when they order their replacement parts.
He seems to operate in a world where the "average" person cares at all about taking their gadgets apart.
> just because something's little means you can't take it apart? What a bunch of bullshit.
And yet, the OP that I replied to claimed that having a screw that isn't a typical shape means you can't take it apart. Even though anyone can buy a proper screwdriver for it for under $5 online.
From what I can tell, OP thinks he is ENTITLED to Apple using only screws for which he already owns the screwdrivers. If Apple does not comply, they're big meanies who are betraying Steve Wozniak.
For the record, MY point wasn't that you can't take it apart, my point was that he shouldn't be comparing modern tech to the Apple I and Apple II computers that Wozniak built. Just because you can take something apart doesn't mean that anyone but a brilliant engineer can perform any useful "creative mods" on it the way people did in 1978. This is what I meant by tinker-friendly. Tinker-friendly devices are pretty rare these days because there's no significant market for that. Of course, "many" people (maybe 0.05% of the population at large) are qualified to replace batteries and other parts, and I predict that these people are capable of shutting up and buying a damn screwdriver. It would be far from the first time they've bought a specialized tool for working on a tiny electronics device. Most Apple hardware geeks already have spudgers, various small screwdrivers, etc. Usually these things come for free in little kits. Someone else pointed out that Nintendo is no different in using a 3-sided screw.
As a side note, Phillips screws are shitty thanks to their intentionally-designed propensity to "cam out." Go look up the difference between PoziDriv and Phillips. Personally, I'd rather buy a $5 screwdriver than deal with the crappiness that is a stripped Phillips head.
I still hold out hope for Google.
LOLOLOL!
(Sorry for using a URL shortener but Slashdot seems to have screwed up their crappy comment system and I can't f***ing paste. WHAT THE HELL.)
the average household does not have a pentalobular screwdriver... the days of Apple encouraging the user and hobbyist to open up their products and tinker and learn are over. Wozniak's Apple is dead. This is no conspiracy. This is simply fact; the final screw in the hobbyist's ass is yet more unneeded evidence indicating this.
The average household? Seriously? The average household has never stocked ANY tiny screwdrivers, be they Phillips like the old screws, Torx, or this "new" one. The average household has a #2 Phillips, an old fashioned slotted screwdriver for stupid things like switchplates that still use them, and a hammer. Probably a few leftover allen wrenches from Ikea. Anything more exotic than that pretty much requires a trip to Radio Shack, or a $5 order from some website. Therefore, almost nothing has changed. In fact, I got a nice little screwdriver for FREE with the kit the times I changed batteries and screens and things. The average household doesn't disassemble electronics, not least because they would rather not void their warranty.
Quit being so dramatic. "Wozniak's Apple," as you put it, existed in a world where computers cost a lot of money, were only purchased by skilled electronics experts or those planning to become experts, and needed to be modified to do pretty much anything. That world has been gone for more than 20 years. Today, computers (and tiny computers called "smartphones") are a mature technology, of which the target market is 99.9% made up of NON-experts, who don't take things apart and don't want to. The fact that it's been this long and you still expect there to be some kind of huge "enthusiast" contingent who are soldering things onto the boards of their Apple IIs, just ends up sounding naive.
The market has gone towards simple, integrated, and (especially in portable devices like laptops and cell phones)--SMALL. You can't have those things and still be "tinker-friendly." Will a few people still take these devices apart to tinker and to perform some repairs (like the battery) more cheaply? You bet. I do it too.
I think if Apple were trying to screw those people, they would seal the iPhone completely so that you had to break plastic to open it, and, coat the board in epoxy like they do with some consoles.
> I doubt Wikipedia makes any money off of this
Why on earth should "Wikipedia" (I assume you meant the Wikimedia Foundation) make any money off anything? That whole organization exists to enrich themselves (I'm referring to everyone who draws a salary from WMF) from the work of the actual contributors(normal people who write the content), none of whom are paid for their trouble.
You're right, and it was a hilarious technicality of poor wording, since obviously the intent of the license wasn't to grant them a license to knock off the concept but rather to write software FOR the platform.
However, have there been successful "look and feel" suits? I was under the impression that no one had won any similar cases. I chose a poor one as an example, didn't I.
Show me a "new idea" in software and I'll show you some no-account who claims he "thought of it first" but didn't have the motivation or skills, either to implement it right, or to successfully bring it to market.
Sure there are occasional examples of some freeware widget being copied and made into part of the OS, but more often than that, they just buy the relevant IP from the guy who created it. However if you think Apple is the only company to ever reimplement a "good idea" independently, without the blessing of some "inventor of the idea," then you're delusional and just have an axe to grind with Apple on some holy-war grounds.
Let me guess, you think Apple "stole" the desktop metaphor, mouse, etc. from Xerox PARC... but Microsoft was just using an obvious evolutionary idea when they suddenly developed Windows after examining the Mac prototypes they were given.
Apple (and Jobs) are no saints. But they've been on both sides of those battles, and are no worse than any other tech firm when it comes to originality. There are just not that many whole-cloth brand new ideas in our industry! The best things are refinements of other things. Think about it--Apple didn't invent MP3 players, and Microsoft didn't invent CP/M. In both cases, the concept of something crappy was taken, improved upon, and released as something less crappy (iPod, and MS-DOS).
Schwab Bank refunds all ATM fees. Liquor stores, McDonald's, other banks. It comes back automagically at the end of the month. I still can't figure out what mechanism they use to figure out what part of the withdrawal is the fee, but it works great. In effect, I have access to like a zillion free ATMs, whereas even customers of the biggest banks only have that bank's ATM fleet. I can use them *all* for free, plus the random non-bank ATMs.
For deposits, you mail checks in.
I also keep a B of A account which, when opened online under a certain promotion, has no recurring fee or direct deposit requirements. I use this B of A account whenever I need to deposit cash, or get a check into the bank more quickly. Then I can use the Schwab online tool to ACH the money into my Schwab account.
Oh, so today we're mad at Apple for dastardly approving apps that they should have rejected on the grounds of software look-and-feel... because that totally holds up in court, not to mention it's totally Apple's job to ensure that every app has no resemblance to any other software ever published. Got it!
I'm glad you posted, because I think I missed that memo and was still cursing those Apple jerks for rejecting too many apps, because "All Apps Deserve To Be Approved" and "Apple Is Oppressing People With Their Walled Garden."
Oh, let me guess, 9/11 was an inside job too!
And Obama's birth certificate is FAKE!
Did I miss any? I actually hadn't ever heard that new conspiracy theory before. Thanks, I'll add it to the collection.
Hahaha. Welcome to religion. You're thinking ethics, not morality. Some ethical schools of thought ask if harm was caused in order to judge whether an act was ethical.
Morality is a term for an artificial set of arbitrary rules, some of which, under some cultures, align with harm (example: punching a bystander in the face = immoral and causes harm), but many of which are 100% arbitrary. Example: harassing gay people = moral to Westboro Baptist Church, but causes harm. Example: masturbating = immoral to many nuts (including some Christians and other religions), but obviously harmless.
Your states are weird (i mean the Parent and GP). In California, school zones are "25 When Children Are Present." My traffic school I recently did taught me that means anytime you can see a kid from the road, even in the middle of the night.
I think it's a sensible law because it doesn't make you slow down when no kids are present.
55 and 65 speed limits, on the other hand... stupid. especially since you never get a ticket for going 5-10 over. They should start ticketing us for doing 66 in a 65. Laws would change REAL FAST. Instead, we depend on the lax enforcement to not be bankrupted by fines, however technically we're ALL criminals, because you can't drive under the speed limit on any freeway. Except during traffic jams.
Okay, after talking to my only English friend, I've decided to concede your point and admit you into Europe. Congratulations.
So if an ancient, no-longer-existing land bridge is enough, is North America a part of Asia too then?
To be fair, if Palin's personal email account was "hacked," (as in "guessed because of being an easy password") i think it was the fault of her own naive password habits and therefore reason to laugh at her.
Obama's Twitter, on the other hand, is obviously not actually used by him. Hate to break it to you, but the POTUS does not tweet. Some staffer, probably some young intern, is in charge of posting the official tweets from the press office each day. We should be laughing at that guy right now. If it had been something the President did himself then yes we should be laughing at him and I would be the first to have a chuckle. It's good to laugh. //I hate Palin and wish a moose would eat her.
England hasn't been part of Europe for 10,000-20,000 years. It's no more a part of Europe than Madagascar is a part of Africa just because of proximity, or Guadeloupe a part of Europe just because it is ruled by a European country.
Note: Membership in the EU also does not imply being part of Europe. Europe is a continent. Well, half a continent.
Hilariously, this same question came up recently in a thread I was involved in.
I think your argument is a rational one. Is the theme in question the default one?
under current British rule, I'm not so sure it would actually be all that different today.
No matter how much you personally disagree with the policies of Her Majesty's Government, at least the officials who run it were duly elected by their constituents.
China does not have real elections (in that you have a choice of more than one party to vote for).
Please don't try to compare the UK with China.