This would be really cool until my SO's toddler latched on to it. She just loves PEZ. Might end up in the outside, maybe the basement. Or maybe, she'd just hammer on it till 'candy' came out.
For a couple months, I didn't use any plastic in day to day purchases. Kept cash in my wallet and added a few hundred every time it got below 300, so I was walking around with enough for 98% of the day to day purchases I make.
Pulling cash out for a purchase is much different than plastic. It's brings it home to you that it's real where the plastic is just... well plastic. It didn't take too long to figure out some of the stupid places I was spending by doing this.
I'm back to using debit and credit cards for most things, but I find it's with a different point of view. - I try to ask myself "would I pay cash for this?" and now sometimes I just don't buy things I might have before...
>>Ever connect to your home account from work? Leave a PuTTY window open all day? Remember, it's a judge with a law degree who'll be making the decision, not a geek with a BSCS.
And that is exactly why I never, ever do anything personal at work.
I had our legal department give me a letter clarifying the IP agreement between us. Essentially it says: company time==company property and everything else is mine, so my source code never touches their hard drives and I don't even talk about my outside interests at work.
If it's worth real cash and they can take it, colour it gone. It's not right, it's not fair, but it would be seen as "good business" in some quarters...
at least they limited the patent to web site activity:
<<A web site system includes an event history server system that persistently stores event data reflective of events that occur/SNIP
I'd hate to have to turn my bash history off to remain legit.:-)
After reading 3 lines of it, I'm thinking it's so vaguely worded that there must be *lots* of server-side code that counts as prior art.. Hell the "shopping cart" project a lot of us did in college probably counts. It used session IDs and User IDs and persistent storage...
I get some crap by searchmachine.com or something like that. I suspect it varies depending on who your DNS server is paid to pimp^H^H^H^H redirect malformed requests for...
>> the last thing they want is for it to become common for people to protect themselves by deliberately contaminating these private databases.
I think this already happens to a degree. I feel completely free to fill out false info on this stuff and I know I'm not alone. IF enough spurious personal data is introduced, it won't stop the stores from tracking overall purchase patterns, but will make it un-reliable to mine these databases for personal data.
>> the cops may care about the purchases as evidence, but the store doesn't care, it's not an invasion of privacy it's an offer, you don't have to take the offer.
If the stores are really only interested in anonymous data to analyse purchase patterns, then why do they link the purchase data individuals??
Why even bother with the "loyalty" programs? You can collect data on every single sale that is processed and analyze it till your balls fall off. Nothing is stopping a business from holding anonymous data and using it to their benefit.
So why bother? I'm sure it isn't to help law enforcement, because it costs money and these are businesses we are talking about - they don't make any money from policing. Personally identifiable information is held in the hopes of either:
i. offering consumers targeted advertising or ii. selling the data to another company.
usage of the data against you by the long arm of the law is just an added bonus...
Which country shouldn't make any difference at all. Regardless of wether the work is done in India or Indiana Your contract should have milestones. If they miss one without a damn good reason, (i.e. you made significant changes after spec) they aren't doing their job. Pull the plug and walk away.
>> I wonder how much of getting away with this is done by using open proxies laid down on zombies by $WORM_OF_THE_MONTH.
I was just reading a link on webmasters world about this kind of fraud. The best guesses there seemed to agree the fraudulent click campaigns were launched through bot-nets.
These are real companies, cutting cheques for amounts in the millions. I wonder what kind of involvement their respective legal departments have in assessing the risk of fines/lawsuits to balance against the potential of profit?
The numbers must look O.K. even if the ethics don't...
a pen drive the size of a fricken postage stamp that happens to fit right inside my camera.
I'm impressed. and looking forward to owning this - I find myself transferring pictures directly from the camera to a PC often, and it wastes charge on my batteries. This won't.
There's the important part, I think. Any measure of a program's simplicity based on how many "lines" it is fails to take into account the level of abstraction the language itself provides. I mean how many instructions are called with those 15 lines?
I'm Canadian. I live in Canada, which is a part of North America. Consequently, I know many Canadians. Every Canadian I know refers to people from the U.S.A. as "Americans", but never would refer to fellow Canadians as "American".
You forgot another easy and popular method of dialing internationally -"adult_chat.exe" or mebbe "russianbrides.dll"..
Sure, none of the users actually _know_ they're making a long distance calls till the bill comes in, but what the hell. That'll teach 'em to surf those nasty urls...
He's trying for the laugh, but I bet the AC is right. I'd love to see stats on O/S and browser for/. vistors. You _know_ the average visitor is gonna be using IE on Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
This would be really cool until my SO's toddler latched on to it. She just loves PEZ. Might end up in the outside, maybe the basement. Or maybe, she'd just hammer on it till 'candy' came out.
I think it's cool, but I I'll pass....
Parent is right.
For a couple months, I didn't use any plastic in day to day purchases. Kept cash in my wallet and added a few hundred every time it got below 300, so I was walking around with enough for 98% of the day to day purchases I make.
Pulling cash out for a purchase is much different than plastic. It's brings it home to you that it's real where the plastic is just... well plastic. It didn't take too long to figure out some of the stupid places I was spending by doing this.
I'm back to using debit and credit cards for most things, but I find it's with a different point of view. - I try to ask myself "would I pay cash for this?" and now sometimes I just don't buy things I might have before...
>>Ever connect to your home account from work? Leave a PuTTY window open all day? Remember, it's a judge with a law degree who'll be making the decision, not a geek with a BSCS.
And that is exactly why I never, ever do anything personal at work.
I had our legal department give me a letter clarifying the IP agreement between us. Essentially it says: company time==company property and everything else is mine, so my source code never touches their hard drives and I don't even talk about my outside interests at work.
If it's worth real cash and they can take it, colour it gone. It's not right, it's not fair, but it would be seen as "good business" in some quarters...
>>Someone ran up $2000 dollars worth of condoms on my credit card.
Good god, he must have had a big weekend planned....
at least they limited the patent to web site activity:
<<A web site system includes an event history server system that persistently stores event data reflective of events that occur
I'd hate to have to turn my bash history off to remain legit.
After reading 3 lines of it, I'm thinking it's so vaguely worded that there must be *lots* of server-side code that counts as prior art.. Hell the "shopping cart" project a lot of us did in college probably counts. It used session IDs and User IDs and persistent storage...
>> "Oops! You probably meant to type this domain instead, here's a link. BTW, here are some ads." Who could get mad about that?
That sounds like 'Clippit'
"You look like you're surfing for Donkey Porn. Would you like some help?"
I get some crap by searchmachine.com or something like that. I suspect it varies depending on who your DNS server is paid to pimp^H^H^H^H redirect malformed requests for...
>> guess that your passphrase is "My daughter threw cake at the dog on her second birthday" then it is to look up your kid's date of birth.
make it truly difficult by adding noise to the phrase like:
My daughter threw c^!331ake at... You can remember the phrase and the noise. guessing the combination will be a total bitch...
>> And a single IP address can resolve to tens of thousands of hostnames/urls by using virtual hosts.
Let's not forget dynamic DNS entries. One website, many IPs.
Are the waters muddy enough yet?
>> your purchasing habits over a period of time
You're right - good point.
>> As far as I know, Windows is the only OS that actually makes use of hardware features to protect against buffer overflows.
It's nice that MS is even trying this, but really I think the onus is on the developer. It doesn't matter if were talking microsoft or not.
while((*(szShit++)=*(szHappens++))!='\0');
You can't make assumptions about the data you get passed...
>> the last thing they want is for it to become common for people to protect themselves by deliberately contaminating these private databases.
I think this already happens to a degree. I feel completely free to fill out false info on this stuff and I know I'm not alone. IF enough spurious personal data is introduced, it won't stop the stores from tracking overall purchase patterns, but will make it un-reliable to mine these databases for personal data.
>> Grocer Industry Association of America (GIAA)
wtf? Sounds familiar...
>> the cops may care about the purchases as evidence, but the store doesn't care, it's not an invasion of privacy it's an offer, you don't have to take the offer.
If the stores are really only interested in anonymous data to analyse purchase patterns, then why do they link the purchase data individuals??
Why even bother with the "loyalty" programs? You can collect data on every single sale that is processed and analyze it till your balls fall off. Nothing is stopping a business from holding anonymous data and using it to their benefit.
So why bother? I'm sure it isn't to help law enforcement, because it costs money and these are businesses we are talking about - they don't make any money from policing. Personally identifiable information is held in the hopes of either:
i. offering consumers targeted advertising or
ii. selling the data to another company.
usage of the data against you by the long arm of the law is just an added bonus...
>> Well, long time ago, people felt threatened by machines that were replacing manual labor, so they simply smashed and broke the machines.
I'd love to smash the machines, but then the company would quit paying me. I'll settle for doing a half-assed job of programming the machines.
>> hasn't made it at all clear which country
Which country shouldn't make any difference at all. Regardless of wether the work is done in India or Indiana Your contract should have milestones. If they miss one without a damn good reason, (i.e. you made significant changes after spec) they aren't doing their job. Pull the plug and walk away.
>> I wonder how much of getting away with this is done by using open proxies laid down on zombies by $WORM_OF_THE_MONTH.
I was just reading a link on webmasters world about this kind of fraud. The best guesses there seemed to agree the fraudulent click campaigns were launched through bot-nets.
>> a stake in the profits
These are real companies, cutting cheques for amounts in the millions. I wonder what kind of involvement their respective legal departments have in assessing the risk of fines/lawsuits to balance against the potential of profit?
The numbers must look O.K. even if the ethics don't...
>> woo. a pen drive, how innovative.
a pen drive the size of a fricken postage stamp that happens to fit right inside my camera.
I'm impressed. and looking forward to owning this - I find myself transferring pictures directly from the camera to a PC often, and it wastes charge on my batteries. This won't.
So yeah, it is innovative.
>> by DARPA and the Web
When DARPA started funding the projects that created ARPANET, they were actually called ARPA - Advanced Research Projects Agency. The "D" came later.
For anyone interested, there's tonnes of info on DARPA, BBN and the beginnings of the internet in this book:
Where Wizards Stay Up Late
It's a fun non-techie history.
>> excluding libraries.
There's the important part, I think. Any measure of a program's simplicity based on how many "lines" it is fails to take into account the level of abstraction the language itself provides. I mean how many instructions are called with those 15 lines?
Simple to program != simple program
Dude,
I'm Canadian. I live in Canada , which is a part of North America. Consequently, I know many Canadians. Every Canadian I know refers to people from the U.S.A. as "Americans", but never would refer to fellow Canadians as "American".
Please, buy a globe or atlas.
Journalists do get shot
just not by geeks.
(and why the hell would the hitman need the Glock if he weighed 350 lbs? just wondering...)
>> Virtual Private Network.
More like "Virtual Pirate Network"
You forgot another easy and popular method of dialing internationally -"adult_chat.exe" or mebbe "russianbrides.dll"..
Sure, none of the users actually _know_ they're making a long distance calls till the bill comes in, but what the hell. That'll teach 'em to surf those nasty urls...
>> The vast majority of Slashdotters use Windows
/. vistors. You _know_ the average visitor is gonna be using IE on Windows.
He's trying for the laugh, but I bet the AC is right. I'd love to see stats on O/S and browser for