If that is true, then why do all the big record labels have hundreds of millions in revenue each year and only a handful of performing artists ever bring in more than a million in their entire lifetime?
Even middle men provide a service - if bands don't want access to a large, well-advertised and well-capitalized market base then they don't have to sign with one of those "middlemen."
That's a terrible way to describe the situation. It's like saying, "if you don't want to use this pass through the mountains, then you don't have to pay the $100,000 toll that the people who are squatting in the pass are demanding." These "middle men" of the MAFIAA have intentionally manipulated the market such that all access to the market must pass through them. If these "middle men" were not there in the first place, then there would be no need for the 'services' they provide (payola, etc).
complaining that costs are an issue now will not impress judges who see a precedent in prior complience with RIAA demands.
Why? This precedence is not the legal kind - rulings by other higher courts. It was simply cooperation on the part of the uni's.
Seems to me that just as strong an argument could be made that in the past the uni's complied with the MAFIAA's requests as (a) a show of good faith and (b) it was inexpensive and feasible to do so. Now that the MAFIAA's demands have become unreasonable and they are taking previous acts of cooperation for granted, the uni's should no longer feel obligated to cooperate.
Not that I disagree with your original premise that people who ought to be taking the mission of the university seriously have ignored it purely for budgetary reasons, just that past performance should not be a guarantee of future performance.
Crushed dry ice with some room-temperature water will do the same thing, without the harsh chemicals.
Yep, youtube is loaded with videos of kids doing just that. Ran across them when I was looking for videos of people mixing mentos and soda in their bellies (most of those videos are anticlimatic).
I know I'll be modded down to -infinity on this, but seriously - my Mac G5 has kernel panicked more than my Windows XP box (keep in mind my G5 has done this maybe twice last year?)
<mac-fanboi>It is pretty rare for a computer that is turned off to panic.</mac-fanboi>
Whether it's a disability or not, I think we should seriously consider segregating the two populations and putting them in different classrooms. I bet that, to achieve their best, they'll need radically different teaching methods.
Or, it could just as easily be that to achieve their best, they need to interact with people who don't think like they do (that goes for either group).
If all it takes is a few minutes online to get your money back then it will be abused heavily.
Less so than when all it takes is a few minutes online to find a cracked version. There is no perfect answer that will guarantee that everyone who plays the game pays up. There are only ways to try to maximize the number of people who do pay, regardless of who plays. Its better to get 10% of a million players to pay than it is to get 100% of 1,000 players.
As for holding on to the money of customers for a month, the developer would actually be losing money through processing fees, in addition I don't know if it costs the seller to issue a credit card refund.
Just delay the charges in the first place. Give them 30 days or whatever to try it out and if the seller does not hear back from the buyer after the trial period, the charges are processed. It is a similar model to the monthly recurring charge - many people will just let it slide because they don't remember to cancel within the alloted time period.
Why should the value available on a smart card actually be something that can be changed by the person holding the card. Shouldn't the card just have an ID, and that ID is tied to an account, which is tied to a person.
With a correct implementation - that uses good cryptography - it is quite possible to have secure stored value cards. One upside to stored value cards, especially to slashdot readers, is that they help to protect our right to travel because they can be just as anonymous as cash.
The paid support is for businesses who can't waste their time scouring the Internet and posting in forums for solutions.
Or it is for businesses that do not have the budget for admins smart enough to scour the net. Some companies are penny-wise and pound-foolish - the budget for employees is completely different from the budget for hardware and software. At the places that are understaffed (because the HR department won't pay even market-rates, much less premium rates for premium talent) it can be much easier to slip a 3-5 year 5x8 or even 7x24 support contract in on the same PO has a system purchase than it is to hire good talent.
I have absolutely no complaint for Southwest airlines---cheap tickets, excellent service (especially compared to most other airlines)---least of all, not for "ruthless attitude",
That must have been a while ago, a couple of years back they changed the expiration date generation rules to always be at least a month out so in the case you described the expiration would have been a month and three days at a minimum. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a 'race condition' of sorts with really short expirations since the handling does through at least one extra hop (orbiscom which is the backend processor for all disposable cards regardless of which bank you have your account with) and maybe you ran into something like that. Although I occasionally have a merchant try to double-charge me back-to-back (day of the order and then again day of the shipment with a brand new charge) and those always fail too (causing the merchant to call me and complain that my card didn't work, when it was really their billing system), so I dunno.
Personally, I kind of liked the fact that they're monitoring my account for atypical transactions. The alternative is much worse.
No it's not. At least not for you, it is for the bank, which is why I get annoyed every time they say "for your protection" - uh, uh it is for THEIR protection and they shouldn't patronize me by lying about it.
Absolute worst case, you end up losing $50 - that's federal law. In almost all cases, the bank waives that fee so that you owe nothing - they or the merchant that took the fraudulent transaction are on the hook. Now compare that to a situation in which you absolutely need your credit card to work and any delay or hassle could screw things up - last minute plane tickets, car repairs during an interstate road trip, paying for a night out with a girl you really want to impress, getting in a very short term sale price, etc.
I have experienced the same thing as "smallshot" describes too many times. How stupid is it that you just authenticated with a username and password immediately before making the transaction and then they want you to authenticate over the phone using weaker credentials like billing address, the size of your last bill, etc - ALL information that anyone who has your username and password can look up the bank's website? One time I actually logged in while they were on the phone and read the information off their own website back to them because I couldn't remember the size of my last monthly bill.
Perhaps there is more to the story. Like, did he use the same number at the same merchant? Because the name is slightly misleading - they are more like 'merchant locked' numbers with a set credit limit rather than 'disposable.' So if the limit was high enough for him to make both charges at the same merchant, that would fit your description and fit the parameters of the system.
My experience is the opposite of yours - I regularly use them for situations with re-occurring charges that I do not want to re-occur. Like certain usenet providers that do not offer a monthly plan. So I make my own monthly plan by generating a new number with just enough of a credit limit for one month. I've been doing that for about four years now, so that's close to about 80 blocked attempts to recharge a number twice from just that merchant alone (sometimes I skip a month or two and go without usenet service), none of those second charges have ever gone through.
I am a religious user of disposable credit card numbers. The numbers are user-generated using a little flash-applet that I requires a login and password. They are linked, at the bank's end, to my 'real' credit card account be it visa or mastercard.
I have never signed up for verified by visa, but I have found that every time I use a disposable number linked to my visa account that it automagically passes the verified by visa tests - I'll see the verified by visa web page come up, and without any other actions on my part, it says that I passed or was verified or whatever and my transaction goes through just fine.
You're still ignoring the fact that it's very difficult to check large numbers of people's DNA.
Yeah, basically because no one is even suggesting that passports would contain DNA - only fingerprints and retinal scans type information. There isn't a fast way to do DNA comparisons anywhere on the horizon so there is no value to putting the information on a passport.
And even worse, they are not protecting their stolen data
Clearly, the answer is to pass a law requiring that phishers disclose all breaches of the personal data they have collected. That will undoubtly shame them into increasing their security to better protect our personal information.
Sure biometric identity shopping ought to be harder because the 'keyspace' is larger. But, I expect that as long as the gender is right and the age is +/- 25 years, it will still work for a couple of reasons - (a) absolute faith in the machine, even today people often trust the computer over their own eyeballs and (b) passports have a 10 year life time, a lot of physical changes can occur in ten years, a guy could lose 50 pounds, go bald, grow/shrink a few inches, etc. All rational and easily accepted explanations for why the passport photo looks so different from the passport holder. A good biometric match and a dye-job for the impersonator's hair will probably be sufficient for anything less than an arrest.
Fingerprinting in Japan didn't start until late last year, so I'm not sure how you got biometric data put in your passport a couple of years ago.
And:
(a) the japanese put the results in their systems, not australia's and not on the passport itself (b) us customs takes prints but doesn't do a comparison with anything but their own database and it ain't a real-time lookup either
so one way or another there must be more to the story.
How about the government leaves us alone and sees to its actual responsibilities and, oh i don't know, obeys its own laws and attempts to embody American ideals?
With a username like that, of course that's what you would say. Not fooled!
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still waiting for jbosh, the Jason BOurne SHell, to be released. I hear it can really kick some ass.
The real money is in concerts.
If that is true, then why do all the big record labels have hundreds of millions in revenue each year and only a handful of performing artists ever bring in more than a million in their entire lifetime?
Even middle men provide a service - if bands don't want access to a large, well-advertised and well-capitalized market base then they don't have to sign with one of those "middlemen."
That's a terrible way to describe the situation. It's like saying, "if you don't want to use this pass through the mountains, then you don't have to pay the $100,000 toll that the people who are squatting in the pass are demanding." These "middle men" of the MAFIAA have intentionally manipulated the market such that all access to the market must pass through them. If these "middle men" were not there in the first place, then there would be no need for the 'services' they provide (payola, etc).
Ivins was at least as smart as Lisa Nowak, who planned her crime attempt meticulously. Sure, people laughed about her using adult diapers,
Yet another case of the media hyping a false report.
The diapers were BABY diapers, in a box in the backseat of her car left over from a hurricane evacuation a few years prior. No way they would fit an adult woman, even one who was air force fit.
complaining that costs are an issue now will not impress judges who see a precedent in prior complience with RIAA demands.
Why?
This precedence is not the legal kind - rulings by other higher courts. It was simply cooperation on the part of the uni's.
Seems to me that just as strong an argument could be made that in the past the uni's complied with the MAFIAA's requests as (a) a show of good faith and (b) it was inexpensive and feasible to do so. Now that the MAFIAA's demands have become unreasonable and they are taking previous acts of cooperation for granted, the uni's should no longer feel obligated to cooperate.
Not that I disagree with your original premise that people who ought to be taking the mission of the university seriously have ignored it purely for budgetary reasons, just that past performance should not be a guarantee of future performance.
Crushed dry ice with some room-temperature water will do the same thing, without the harsh chemicals.
Yep, youtube is loaded with videos of kids doing just that.
Ran across them when I was looking for videos of people mixing mentos and soda in their bellies (most of those videos are anticlimatic).
I know I'll be modded down to -infinity on this, but seriously - my Mac G5 has kernel panicked more than my Windows XP box (keep in mind my G5 has done this maybe twice last year?)
<mac-fanboi>It is pretty rare for a computer that is turned off to panic.</mac-fanboi>
Whether it's a disability or not, I think we should seriously consider segregating the two populations and putting them in different classrooms. I bet that, to achieve their best, they'll need radically different teaching methods.
Or, it could just as easily be that to achieve their best, they need to interact with people who don't think like they do (that goes for either group).
Or hold all public events in the middle of huge, 2-inch deep lakes.
That won't work once they've invented flying carpets.
I keep my Red Bull inside my very, very overclocked computer case.
Ever tasted that weird green liquid they use for so-called water-cooling?
Its really Red Bull.
If all it takes is a few minutes online to get your money back then it will be abused heavily.
Less so than when all it takes is a few minutes online to find a cracked version. There is no perfect answer that will guarantee that everyone who plays the game pays up. There are only ways to try to maximize the number of people who do pay, regardless of who plays. Its better to get 10% of a million players to pay than it is to get 100% of 1,000 players.
As for holding on to the money of customers for a month, the developer would actually be losing money through processing fees, in addition I don't know if it costs the seller to issue a credit card refund.
Just delay the charges in the first place. Give them 30 days or whatever to try it out and if the seller does not hear back from the buyer after the trial period, the charges are processed. It is a similar model to the monthly recurring charge - many people will just let it slide because they don't remember to cancel within the alloted time period.
However good the cryptography such a card would be vulnerable to a "known plaintext" attack.
AES is believed to be resistant to known plaintext attacks.
Why should the value available on a smart card actually be something that can be changed by the person holding the card. Shouldn't the card just have an ID, and that ID is tied to an account, which is tied to a person.
With a correct implementation - that uses good cryptography - it is quite possible to have secure stored value cards. One upside to stored value cards, especially to slashdot readers, is that they help to protect our right to travel because they can be just as anonymous as cash.
The paid support is for businesses who can't waste their time scouring the Internet and posting in forums for solutions.
Or it is for businesses that do not have the budget for admins smart enough to scour the net. Some companies are penny-wise and pound-foolish - the budget for employees is completely different from the budget for hardware and software. At the places that are understaffed (because the HR department won't pay even market-rates, much less premium rates for premium talent) it can be much easier to slip a 3-5 year 5x8 or even 7x24 support contract in on the same PO has a system purchase than it is to hire good talent.
I don't have to wait in line to pee - just get off the highway; and it goes on and on. ...
Too much information.
I have absolutely no complaint for Southwest airlines---cheap tickets, excellent service (especially compared to most other airlines)---least of all, not for "ruthless attitude",
Well, southwest won't let strippers and hooters girls fly on their planes. Seems like a big downside to me.
Maybe there is more to the story.
Based on their response to the absurd goverment mandated security policies they obviously have someone working there with more than half a brain.
That must have been a while ago, a couple of years back they changed the expiration date generation rules to always be at least a month out so in the case you described the expiration would have been a month and three days at a minimum. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a 'race condition' of sorts with really short expirations since the handling does through at least one extra hop (orbiscom which is the backend processor for all disposable cards regardless of which bank you have your account with) and maybe you ran into something like that. Although I occasionally have a merchant try to double-charge me back-to-back (day of the order and then again day of the shipment with a brand new charge) and those always fail too (causing the merchant to call me and complain that my card didn't work, when it was really their billing system), so I dunno.
Personally, I kind of liked the fact that they're monitoring my account for atypical transactions. The alternative is much worse.
No it's not. At least not for you, it is for the bank, which is why I get annoyed every time they say "for your protection" - uh, uh it is for THEIR protection and they shouldn't patronize me by lying about it.
Absolute worst case, you end up losing $50 - that's federal law. In almost all cases, the bank waives that fee so that you owe nothing - they or the merchant that took the fraudulent transaction are on the hook. Now compare that to a situation in which you absolutely need your credit card to work and any delay or hassle could screw things up - last minute plane tickets, car repairs during an interstate road trip, paying for a night out with a girl you really want to impress, getting in a very short term sale price, etc.
I have experienced the same thing as "smallshot" describes too many times. How stupid is it that you just authenticated with a username and password immediately before making the transaction and then they want you to authenticate over the phone using weaker credentials like billing address, the size of your last bill, etc - ALL information that anyone who has your username and password can look up the bank's website? One time I actually logged in while they were on the phone and read the information off their own website back to them because I couldn't remember the size of my last monthly bill.
Perhaps there is more to the story. Like, did he use the same number at the same merchant? Because the name is slightly misleading - they are more like 'merchant locked' numbers with a set credit limit rather than 'disposable.' So if the limit was high enough for him to make both charges at the same merchant, that would fit your description and fit the parameters of the system.
My experience is the opposite of yours - I regularly use them for situations with re-occurring charges that I do not want to re-occur. Like certain usenet providers that do not offer a monthly plan. So I make my own monthly plan by generating a new number with just enough of a credit limit for one month. I've been doing that for about four years now, so that's close to about 80 blocked attempts to recharge a number twice from just that merchant alone (sometimes I skip a month or two and go without usenet service), none of those second charges have ever gone through.
I am a religious user of disposable credit card numbers. The numbers are user-generated using a little flash-applet that I requires a login and password. They are linked, at the bank's end, to my 'real' credit card account be it visa or mastercard.
I have never signed up for verified by visa, but I have found that every time I use a disposable number linked to my visa account that it automagically passes the verified by visa tests - I'll see the verified by visa web page come up, and without any other actions on my part, it says that I passed or was verified or whatever and my transaction goes through just fine.
You're still ignoring the fact that it's very difficult to check large numbers of people's DNA.
Yeah, basically because no one is even suggesting that passports would contain DNA - only fingerprints and retinal scans type information. There isn't a fast way to do DNA comparisons anywhere on the horizon so there is no value to putting the information on a passport.
And even worse, they are not protecting their stolen data
Clearly, the answer is to pass a law requiring that phishers disclose all breaches of the personal data they have collected. That will undoubtly shame them into increasing their security to better protect our personal information.
Sure biometric identity shopping ought to be harder because the 'keyspace' is larger. But, I expect that as long as the gender is right and the age is +/- 25 years, it will still work for a couple of reasons - (a) absolute faith in the machine, even today people often trust the computer over their own eyeballs and (b) passports have a 10 year life time, a lot of physical changes can occur in ten years, a guy could lose 50 pounds, go bald, grow/shrink a few inches, etc. All rational and easily accepted explanations for why the passport photo looks so different from the passport holder. A good biometric match and a dye-job for the impersonator's hair will probably be sufficient for anything less than an arrest.
Fingerprinting in Japan didn't start until late last year, so I'm not sure how you got biometric data put in your passport a couple of years ago.
And:
(a) the japanese put the results in their systems, not australia's and not on the passport itself
(b) us customs takes prints but doesn't do a comparison with anything but their own database and it ain't a real-time lookup either
so one way or another there must be more to the story.
How about the government leaves us alone and sees to its actual responsibilities and, oh i don't know, obeys its own laws and attempts to embody American ideals?
With a username like that, of course that's what you would say. Not fooled!