Finally, I was waiting for the "I have no hands, you insensitive clod" meme. But seriously I assume that the scanner works in a similar manner to shining a srtong flashlight through your skin. The light isn't strong enough to burn, but it can shine through your hand. As a security measure, sounds like you could just knock someone unconscious and scan their hand, as a security device it would work best paired with some sort of voice recognition. The nice thing about voice recognition would be that if you were stressed such as having a gun to your head, it would be practically impossible to speak clearly and calmly in your usual manner.
Just to let you know this isn't a fault only with Paypal. Any credit card company will also bounce back any charges without a signed slip that the customer admits signing. I run a gas station and almost monthly we have someone dispute credit card charges from the pay at the pumps. Mastercard/visa will charge back to me anything that a customer disputes, because I don't have a signed slip. At times even a signed slip has been charged back because teh customer disputes the signature.
I had an AOL account for far too long, but when I finally decided that I wanted to cancel after several months of inactivity, I told them that I was recieving child pornography through AOL, and I wanted to stop any association with them. It worked, I only had to speak to one person and never got charged again.
AOL charged by the hour for their basic services. You could pay more for their "premium" services if you wanted to, but the basic cost was still pretty steep. If I recall correctly in 1995 AOL cost $4.95 an hour.
The parent mentioned using email like a phone call. I agree, but I think that education is necessary to stop scams on either medium. People buy crap from spammers, give their info to phishers, AND they buy crap from telephone sales. There is a duty to educate people about crooks who contact them through any medium. I would tell anyone to NOT respond to any message, whether phone or email or snail mail, if it was unsolicited. When anyone unsolicited comes to your door, calls your phone number, sends you an e-mail, sends you a postal card, etc., just don't respond. If you are concerned contact the company directly. That won't solve everything, but it will keep people safer.
What makes this poll doubly worthless is that as the parent says, most Americans don't know how congress works, but what is worse is that they know even less about how the interweb thing works. What a day, on the same page in slashdot there are stories about China censoring the web and stories about the USA public wanting our government to do the exact same thing.
I think you point out the trap that befell Lucas, but you also explain how an audience can overanalyze a piece of art. I am reminded of high school English class, where teh instructor had us read William Carlos WIlliams poem "So much depends upon the red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water besides the white chickens" He then asked us all what we thought it meant. Because it was "poetry" several students stridently argued how the "red" wheel barrow was "evil" and the white chickens were "good" and other crap. It was funny. But that is exactly what the audience has done to Star Wars.
I couldn't agree more about the fact that not all retail/tradespeople are stupid. But level of intelligence does not correlate with knowledge of or attention to your job. There are far to many clerks who don't care about their jobs. Whether that is because of poor pay or whatever reason, it is these clerks who give other a bad reputation. There is no shame in doing any job as long as you do it to the best of yoru ability, whether it is janitor, best buy salesman, or engineer.
That's why I convert all my "money" into gold and hide it under a big rock in my basement. Seriously, I agree that what gives value to the virtual goods is that they are in demand and can be exchanged for other goods or service, but the moat important point you mentioned is "general acceptance". Virtual goods have a limited market and only have value within that limited market. They are not generally traded for other goods and services withing the larger economy. They have an equivalent "value" in my eyes to movie rental coupons and to tickets to a sporting event, but in different ways. With movie rental coupons you gain no real property and they are only truly valuable to people with vcrs, not many people trade them, but if you really liked watching movies you would enjoy them. Tickets to a sporting event confer no real property, but they can be traded for real money because they have a greater general acceptance. Also the rarer the ticket, the higher the trade in value in money.
Pronounicng "mandriva" as "mandriver" is an example of rhotic dialect. Those of us in the Northeast part of the USA talk that way, and that is how I say "mandriva" if I am not thinking about it. See the wikpedia article if you are interested in it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rho tic_accents
Isn't Apu the friendly neighborhood convenience store clerk that sells Marge Simpson wiggle pens?
Re:Bad questions, what did they expect?
on
Spy Girl In Game Stores
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I definitely agree that in reatil there is a huge swing in who gets help from the clek and who gets ignored. But I have not noticed this in tech retail as much as in places like Home Depot. But in Hom eDepot it is the reverse - the clueless customers get the most help. I usually know what I want in teh store, but if I need help, there is no one to even ask a question; if my wife goes there, almost every time a clerk will ask her if she needs help. Now, I can understand that the usually male clerk would prefer to talk to a female, but I think the clerks are instructed that if Suzy Housewife walks in to help her find whatever she needs because she is the member of the household who will decide to buy new wallpaper, etc. Being clueless has also helped for me at the pool store. I just bought a house with a pool, knew nothing about taking care of it, walked into the pool store, said I was clueless, they tested teh water, talked with me for about 10 minutes, and I bought about $50.00 in chemicals. maybe I was robbed, but I couldn't see how 10 minutes of time was made up for in $50 in sales
The parent post is one of the more insightful I have read on Slashdot. Non technical people learn "the computer" by rote memorization. They learn the keystrokes, but not the meanings behind teh keystrokes. What is interesting is that they can really become quite proficient at things without knowing what they are doing. The best example I see is my cashiers who operate various point of sale systems. They know what buttons to press on the touch screen or to swipe a card, press "5", then "enter", then press "4", and they are really really fast at it. I am much slower whenever they need my help with something because I look at the menus and think about what I am doing. This is slower for every day use, but the only way to figure out any problems.
I have trained dozens of cashiers on systems as simple as an adding machine and pen and paper up to touch screen point of sale systems. Cashiers for the most part will do whatever they think is the easist and quickest.The cashiers who learned without the aid of modern technology can count back change and actually think through out of the ordinary situations. They learned to operate that way, becuase it was the easist way to do their job. cashiers who trained with touch screen POS systems that make change etc., for the most part are unable to handle anything out of the ordinary.The ones who learn to do things mentally, actually take pride in the skill. My cashiers make between $9 to $12 an hour full time/401k/health etc., so they aren't exactly at the losing end of teh shitter. But what I believe is that whatever job you are doing, you should do it as well as you can, you will enjoy it more. There is nothing more soul crushing that working half assed all the time. The cashiers who rely total on the POS, they don't last and are miserable. The cashiers who use their heads are happier, make more money, and can advance. The attitude of not being paid enough to care is what hampers people, not the what they are getting paid.
Why is it that when I see something deserving of mod points I never have any. Federal laws will NOT help the matter, they will just make things more cumbersome and convoluted. What I am waiting to see is a class action suit, there wil be one filed some time, I am sure. There is a huge pot of money for some enterprising lawyers to go after if they can somehow prove negligence. A law suit will definitely change the habits of companies keeping personal data.
Chemical assault should definitely be illegal, but there are already laws in most countries banning spraying random chemicals on people. I had a knee jerk reaction to the sentiment of "Oh oh, this drug can do bad things, better ban it." Regarding personal use of the drug, why not? Personally, while I can be outgoing, I am not that comfortable doing it. My wife says that when I am trying to be outgoing I get my "salesman's voice". This fear stems from not trusting that other people don't think I am a dork. It is unjustified and irrational. It can be overcome through practice, but just imagine if there was a drug (that didn't make you stupid) which could alleviate it. That is exciting.
It's not a new chemical, it is used to induse labor, and it is release by lactating women to help breastfeed babies. The second point regarding "a law should be passed", is probably not the best way to deal with it. There is a real debate regarding the effectiveness of laws to control chemicals that people use to change moods. This is indeed a dangerous chemical, and should not be administered randomly, but it makes as much sense to do that as it would to administer alcohol randomly.
Depends entirely on the product/service you are purchasing. If it is a commodity type item or a service, then the major reason for the purchase will be salesman/company integrity. Also if the product is not something that you will be self supporting, then salesman trust and company trust is very important. That is one of the biggest reasons that many companies shy away from open source/non-microsoft products. Unless a company is dealing with a vendor they trust or they have someone inhouse they trust, they will not try something that is out of the ordinary.
Actually I have a Brazillian coworker that gathereed up all the OLD hardware that we had collecting dust in the corners. By old I mean P200s and and 15 inch CRTs. Whenever he gets enough hardware he ships it back home and his relatives either use it or distribute it to local schools.
This could actually help improve the translations of the Bible. Because you could load in the enourmous amount of ancient literature into the database. The program could "learn" the Aramaic, the New Testament Greek, the Hebrew,the Latin Vulgate, and a modern language. I imagine this would be akin to translating from multiple documents, using multiple dictionaries and mulitple concordances. That would be almost impossible to do manually, but the results would be very interesting.
Naive as it may be, unacceptable for me is requiring identification. Acceptable is requiring semi-intrussive searches such as this x-ray. I don't care if the fellow sitting next to me is named Sheikh Omar Kill-The-Infidels, Maxwell the Martian, or Bob Smith; what I care about is wether he is armed or has explosives. These xrays are not related to any database that any government or corporation has access to, it is not like a "no fly" list that doesn't work. Get rid of the "no fly" list, get rid of identification requirements, and INCREASE actual searches, as unobtrusively as possible for the majority of people and outright searches for anyone marked suspicious by the unobtrusive search.
I think that figure may be like the RIAA figures of loss. Also, this loss may include money that Visa/Mastercard collected from a merchant in a fraudulent transaction where the merchant was the one getting screwwe.
I was never forced to read Conrad, but enjoyed reading his works for fun. What I find most amazing is that he was born Polish; I believe English was his THIRD language. I don't believe that he learned English until he was in his twenties, after learning French.
Slashdot Mirror
Finally, I was waiting for the "I have no hands, you insensitive clod" meme. But seriously I assume that the scanner works in a similar manner to shining a srtong flashlight through your skin. The light isn't strong enough to burn, but it can shine through your hand. As a security measure, sounds like you could just knock someone unconscious and scan their hand, as a security device it would work best paired with some sort of voice recognition. The nice thing about voice recognition would be that if you were stressed such as having a gun to your head, it would be practically impossible to speak clearly and calmly in your usual manner.
Just to let you know this isn't a fault only with Paypal. Any credit card company will also bounce back any charges without a signed slip that the customer admits signing. I run a gas station and almost monthly we have someone dispute credit card charges from the pay at the pumps. Mastercard/visa will charge back to me anything that a customer disputes, because I don't have a signed slip. At times even a signed slip has been charged back because teh customer disputes the signature.
I had an AOL account for far too long, but when I finally decided that I wanted to cancel after several months of inactivity, I told them that I was recieving child pornography through AOL, and I wanted to stop any association with them. It worked, I only had to speak to one person and never got charged again.
AOL charged by the hour for their basic services. You could pay more for their "premium" services if you wanted to, but the basic cost was still pretty steep. If I recall correctly in 1995 AOL cost $4.95 an hour.
The parent mentioned using email like a phone call. I agree, but I think that education is necessary to stop scams on either medium. People buy crap from spammers, give their info to phishers, AND they buy crap from telephone sales. There is a duty to educate people about crooks who contact them through any medium. I would tell anyone to NOT respond to any message, whether phone or email or snail mail, if it was unsolicited. When anyone unsolicited comes to your door, calls your phone number, sends you an e-mail, sends you a postal card, etc., just don't respond. If you are concerned contact the company directly. That won't solve everything, but it will keep people safer.
What makes this poll doubly worthless is that as the parent says, most Americans don't know how congress works, but what is worse is that they know even less about how the interweb thing works. What a day, on the same page in slashdot there are stories about China censoring the web and stories about the USA public wanting our government to do the exact same thing.
I think you point out the trap that befell Lucas, but you also explain how an audience can overanalyze a piece of art. I am reminded of high school English class, where teh instructor had us read William Carlos WIlliams poem "So much depends upon the red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water besides the white chickens" He then asked us all what we thought it meant. Because it was "poetry" several students stridently argued how the "red" wheel barrow was "evil" and the white chickens were "good" and other crap. It was funny. But that is exactly what the audience has done to Star Wars.
I couldn't agree more about the fact that not all retail/tradespeople are stupid. But level of intelligence does not correlate with knowledge of or attention to your job. There are far to many clerks who don't care about their jobs. Whether that is because of poor pay or whatever reason, it is these clerks who give other a bad reputation. There is no shame in doing any job as long as you do it to the best of yoru ability, whether it is janitor, best buy salesman, or engineer.
That's why I convert all my "money" into gold and hide it under a big rock in my basement. Seriously, I agree that what gives value to the virtual goods is that they are in demand and can be exchanged for other goods or service, but the moat important point you mentioned is "general acceptance". Virtual goods have a limited market and only have value within that limited market. They are not generally traded for other goods and services withing the larger economy. They have an equivalent "value" in my eyes to movie rental coupons and to tickets to a sporting event, but in different ways. With movie rental coupons you gain no real property and they are only truly valuable to people with vcrs, not many people trade them, but if you really liked watching movies you would enjoy them. Tickets to a sporting event confer no real property, but they can be traded for real money because they have a greater general acceptance. Also the rarer the ticket, the higher the trade in value in money.
Pronounicng "mandriva" as "mandriver" is an example of rhotic dialect. Those of us in the Northeast part of the USA talk that way, and that is how I say "mandriva" if I am not thinking about it. See the wikpedia article if you are interested in it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rho tic_accents
Isn't Apu the friendly neighborhood convenience store clerk that sells Marge Simpson wiggle pens?
I definitely agree that in reatil there is a huge swing in who gets help from the clek and who gets ignored. But I have not noticed this in tech retail as much as in places like Home Depot. But in Hom eDepot it is the reverse - the clueless customers get the most help. I usually know what I want in teh store, but if I need help, there is no one to even ask a question; if my wife goes there, almost every time a clerk will ask her if she needs help. Now, I can understand that the usually male clerk would prefer to talk to a female, but I think the clerks are instructed that if Suzy Housewife walks in to help her find whatever she needs because she is the member of the household who will decide to buy new wallpaper, etc. Being clueless has also helped for me at the pool store. I just bought a house with a pool, knew nothing about taking care of it, walked into the pool store, said I was clueless, they tested teh water, talked with me for about 10 minutes, and I bought about $50.00 in chemicals. maybe I was robbed, but I couldn't see how 10 minutes of time was made up for in $50 in sales
The parent post is one of the more insightful I have read on Slashdot. Non technical people learn "the computer" by rote memorization. They learn the keystrokes, but not the meanings behind teh keystrokes. What is interesting is that they can really become quite proficient at things without knowing what they are doing. The best example I see is my cashiers who operate various point of sale systems. They know what buttons to press on the touch screen or to swipe a card, press "5", then "enter", then press "4", and they are really really fast at it. I am much slower whenever they need my help with something because I look at the menus and think about what I am doing. This is slower for every day use, but the only way to figure out any problems.
I have trained dozens of cashiers on systems as simple as an adding machine and pen and paper up to touch screen point of sale systems. Cashiers for the most part will do whatever they think is the easist and quickest.The cashiers who learned without the aid of modern technology can count back change and actually think through out of the ordinary situations. They learned to operate that way, becuase it was the easist way to do their job. cashiers who trained with touch screen POS systems that make change etc., for the most part are unable to handle anything out of the ordinary.The ones who learn to do things mentally, actually take pride in the skill. My cashiers make between $9 to $12 an hour full time/401k/health etc., so they aren't exactly at the losing end of teh shitter. But what I believe is that whatever job you are doing, you should do it as well as you can, you will enjoy it more. There is nothing more soul crushing that working half assed all the time. The cashiers who rely total on the POS, they don't last and are miserable. The cashiers who use their heads are happier, make more money, and can advance. The attitude of not being paid enough to care is what hampers people, not the what they are getting paid.
Why is it that when I see something deserving of mod points I never have any. Federal laws will NOT help the matter, they will just make things more cumbersome and convoluted. What I am waiting to see is a class action suit, there wil be one filed some time, I am sure. There is a huge pot of money for some enterprising lawyers to go after if they can somehow prove negligence. A law suit will definitely change the habits of companies keeping personal data.
Chemical assault should definitely be illegal, but there are already laws in most countries banning spraying random chemicals on people. I had a knee jerk reaction to the sentiment of "Oh oh, this drug can do bad things, better ban it." Regarding personal use of the drug, why not? Personally, while I can be outgoing, I am not that comfortable doing it. My wife says that when I am trying to be outgoing I get my "salesman's voice". This fear stems from not trusting that other people don't think I am a dork. It is unjustified and irrational. It can be overcome through practice, but just imagine if there was a drug (that didn't make you stupid) which could alleviate it. That is exciting.
It's not a new chemical, it is used to induse labor, and it is release by lactating women to help breastfeed babies. The second point regarding "a law should be passed", is probably not the best way to deal with it. There is a real debate regarding the effectiveness of laws to control chemicals that people use to change moods. This is indeed a dangerous chemical, and should not be administered randomly, but it makes as much sense to do that as it would to administer alcohol randomly.
Depends entirely on the product/service you are purchasing. If it is a commodity type item or a service, then the major reason for the purchase will be salesman/company integrity. Also if the product is not something that you will be self supporting, then salesman trust and company trust is very important. That is one of the biggest reasons that many companies shy away from open source/non-microsoft products. Unless a company is dealing with a vendor they trust or they have someone inhouse they trust, they will not try something that is out of the ordinary.
Actually I have a Brazillian coworker that gathereed up all the OLD hardware that we had collecting dust in the corners. By old I mean P200s and and 15 inch CRTs. Whenever he gets enough hardware he ships it back home and his relatives either use it or distribute it to local schools.
You mean you don't actually pile all the old stuff up in your basement? The yawning chasm of clutter is my solution.
Looks like Google has finally been slashdotted, or well at least a tiny part of Google.
This could actually help improve the translations of the Bible. Because you could load in the enourmous amount of ancient literature into the database. The program could "learn" the Aramaic, the New Testament Greek, the Hebrew,the Latin Vulgate, and a modern language. I imagine this would be akin to translating from multiple documents, using multiple dictionaries and mulitple concordances. That would be almost impossible to do manually, but the results would be very interesting.
Naive as it may be, unacceptable for me is requiring identification. Acceptable is requiring semi-intrussive searches such as this x-ray. I don't care if the fellow sitting next to me is named Sheikh Omar Kill-The-Infidels, Maxwell the Martian, or Bob Smith; what I care about is wether he is armed or has explosives. These xrays are not related to any database that any government or corporation has access to, it is not like a "no fly" list that doesn't work. Get rid of the "no fly" list, get rid of identification requirements, and INCREASE actual searches, as unobtrusively as possible for the majority of people and outright searches for anyone marked suspicious by the unobtrusive search.
I think that figure may be like the RIAA figures of loss. Also, this loss may include money that Visa/Mastercard collected from a merchant in a fraudulent transaction where the merchant was the one getting screwwe.
I was never forced to read Conrad, but enjoyed reading his works for fun. What I find most amazing is that he was born Polish; I believe English was his THIRD language. I don't believe that he learned English until he was in his twenties, after learning French.