It's not just Lexmark that are guilty of the "loss leader" tactics, many many companies engage in it. McDonalds, for example, do it with their entire menu. Pretty much their entire menu is a loss leader to sell Coke. The cost of the syrup + water + staff overhead is absolutely miniscule in comparison to what they charge for it. Lose 30c per Big Mac, gain $1.50 per Coke.
Unfortunately my work-stressed brain can't think of any other examples offhand, but this strategy is far more common than people think.
Decoding an mp3 file is not a heavy task, even a 486 CPU would manage that.
Not quite. Many years ago, I upgraded from a Pentium 100/16MB RAM machine to a P2-400/64MB RAM beast. I kept the old P100 machine around for playing MP3s while I was gaming on the newer PC. Running Winamp under Win95 on that machine was awful, it would stay pegged at about 80% CPU usage. One weekend I upgraded (?) the box to Win98, from that point on it wouldn't play MP3s without skipping, hissing, popping or crackling.
I've never really noticed this at all! I'm on a 1.5/256 DSL link with Internode, and downloads from sites with a lot of bandwidth (eg Gmail) will generally fill my pipe. Bittorrent will pretty much always max out my connection if I let it....
Eventually, as banks find higher profit in not providing physical branches, most people will be forced to do their banking online. In ten years I think we'll find there's not much choice. We'll actually have to pay extra fees NOT to do it that way.
Clearly you've never dealt with an Australian bank. Getting cash out over the counter from a human being can cost you anywhere between $1 and $5. Want to get a bank cheque because you're buying a car? $10 fee. The privilege of having an account with the bank? $5 per month "account keeping" fee. Use an ATM or EFTPOS terminal on a different bank's network, $1.50.
The situation here in Australia with banks gouging fees and charges has just gotten ridiculous. With a bit of research and careful planning, you can minimise the amount of fees you're paying, but for Grandma who's been using the same passbook since 1967, can't use a computer and hates talking to machines on the phone, that simply isn't an option.
17,856 just among the top ten patent holders. Even assuming that nobody else patented anything (which we know is false), that equates to 50 odd patents every day. Exclude weekends, public holidays, and that jumps to 70 patents per day. Just for the top 10 patent holders.
How long does it really take to evaluate a patent? I would think it takes several days, at the very least.
I'm not aware of a single repository for credit reporting data, though I don't work in the finance industry. I think our system works slightly differently in that we don't put as much emphasis on "credit". Most of our credit purchases are done via credit cards, which then makes it the financial institution's job to keep track of their own customers.
I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't share good and bad risk type information amongst themselves though.
As for the third question, identity theft seems as much of a problem here as it is in the US. Access to one source of compromised information generally reveals a multitude of data about a person. There's no reason that couldn't be used maliciously.
Do they have companies similar to Experian, TransUnion or Equifax?
I've never heard of those companies.
Here in Australia, we generally use combinations of ID to prove who we are. If I was to apply for a credit card, I would need several different documents to prove who I was. I'd probably need my birth certificate (or a certified legitimate copy), my driver's license or passport, my Medicare (Government-run health care) card, and at least two things with my current address.
Advantages and disadvantages I guess. There's no single point for failure (like a SSN), but it's a hassle keeping all your forms of ID up to date and secure.
You'd suffer from the Gnutella network's biggest problem as well, fake files. Using this method it would be very easy to start spoofing files. That's the beauty of a centralised web repository of.torrent files, they are guaranteed to point to known good copies of files.
According to their press release, they're releasing source code to 500 patented processes. Sure, that's good, they may have a cookie.
But further on in their press release, we see why. In 2004 IBM were granted 3,248 patents, 1,314 more patents than any other company. 2004 was the fourth year in a row they've been granted 3000+ patents. So in the last four years, they've been granted more than TWELVE THOUSAND patents. They have also received more patents than any other company for twelve consecutive years.
Given that IBM has been around since the 1940s, it's not unreasonable to suppose that they're in possession of up to 30,000-40,000 patents. Kinda puts that 500 in perspective.
Actually, there's an unintended consequence of having ubiquitous mobile phone reception: it's much easier to locate bodies in piles of rubble.
It sounds pretty strange, but friends/family constantly ringing your mobile phone to check that you're OK tends to lead rescuers straight to you. Morbidly, it's also much easier to recover corpses this way as well (still-charged phones attached to corpses).
I agree with the two previous replies, in that good broadband can be had in Austalia. Currently I'm connected with Internode on a 1500/256k line, with absolutely no data limits. We comfortably exceed 80 gigs a month of downloading, with no bandwidth or financial penalties. It does cost us $150 per month though.
So chin up, and remember the golden rule of telecommunications in Australia: Avoid Telstra.
Mate, we're already getting screwed by having to play on US servers (mostly on Blackrock!). When they won't go to the expense of providing us a proper place to play the game, why on earth would they lower prices?
Personally, I think Sony should be given the Perennial Loser award. Seriously, they've dropped the ball so many times in the last decade by trying force proprietary standards on a market that doesn't want or need them. For example: ATRAC, Minidisc, MemoryStick, the list goes on.
I take it you haven't played a lot of World of Warcraft then:P
More than 3-4 clicks on an NPC usually results in "stop clicking me", "you're rocking the boat", "you're making me sea-sick", "*sound of vomit splattering*" style dialogue:)
Cool story, though when I first heard it, the programmer was one of their head honchos (can't remember his name).
Slashdot Mirror
It's not just Lexmark that are guilty of the "loss leader" tactics, many many companies engage in it. McDonalds, for example, do it with their entire menu. Pretty much their entire menu is a loss leader to sell Coke. The cost of the syrup + water + staff overhead is absolutely miniscule in comparison to what they charge for it. Lose 30c per Big Mac, gain $1.50 per Coke.
Unfortunately my work-stressed brain can't think of any other examples offhand, but this strategy is far more common than people think.
Not trolling or flaming, but the correct phrase is to "up the ante".
:)
Anti and ante are two very different things
Decoding an mp3 file is not a heavy task, even a 486 CPU would manage that.
Not quite. Many years ago, I upgraded from a Pentium 100/16MB RAM machine to a P2-400/64MB RAM beast. I kept the old P100 machine around for playing MP3s while I was gaming on the newer PC. Running Winamp under Win95 on that machine was awful, it would stay pegged at about 80% CPU usage. One weekend I upgraded (?) the box to Win98, from that point on it wouldn't play MP3s without skipping, hissing, popping or crackling.
I've never really noticed this at all! I'm on a 1.5/256 DSL link with Internode, and downloads from sites with a lot of bandwidth (eg Gmail) will generally fill my pipe. Bittorrent will pretty much always max out my connection if I let it....
Eventually, as banks find higher profit in not providing physical branches, most people will be forced to do their banking online. In ten years I think we'll find there's not much choice. We'll actually have to pay extra fees NOT to do it that way.
Clearly you've never dealt with an Australian bank. Getting cash out over the counter from a human being can cost you anywhere between $1 and $5. Want to get a bank cheque because you're buying a car? $10 fee. The privilege of having an account with the bank? $5 per month "account keeping" fee. Use an ATM or EFTPOS terminal on a different bank's network, $1.50.
The situation here in Australia with banks gouging fees and charges has just gotten ridiculous. With a bit of research and careful planning, you can minimise the amount of fees you're paying, but for Grandma who's been using the same passbook since 1967, can't use a computer and hates talking to machines on the phone, that simply isn't an option.
I would imagine some form of DRM would be necessary at the very least.
17,856 just among the top ten patent holders. Even assuming that nobody else patented anything (which we know is false), that equates to 50 odd patents every day. Exclude weekends, public holidays, and that jumps to 70 patents per day. Just for the top 10 patent holders.
How long does it really take to evaluate a patent? I would think it takes several days, at the very least.
I'm not aware of a single repository for credit reporting data, though I don't work in the finance industry. I think our system works slightly differently in that we don't put as much emphasis on "credit". Most of our credit purchases are done via credit cards, which then makes it the financial institution's job to keep track of their own customers.
I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't share good and bad risk type information amongst themselves though.
As for the third question, identity theft seems as much of a problem here as it is in the US. Access to one source of compromised information generally reveals a multitude of data about a person. There's no reason that couldn't be used maliciously.
Do they have companies similar to Experian, TransUnion or Equifax?
I've never heard of those companies.
Here in Australia, we generally use combinations of ID to prove who we are. If I was to apply for a credit card, I would need several different documents to prove who I was. I'd probably need my birth certificate (or a certified legitimate copy), my driver's license or passport, my Medicare (Government-run health care) card, and at least two things with my current address.
Advantages and disadvantages I guess. There's no single point for failure (like a SSN), but it's a hassle keeping all your forms of ID up to date and secure.
You'd suffer from the Gnutella network's biggest problem as well, fake files. Using this method it would be very easy to start spoofing files. That's the beauty of a centralised web repository of .torrent files, they are guaranteed to point to known good copies of files.
According to their press release, they're releasing source code to 500 patented processes. Sure, that's good, they may have a cookie.
But further on in their press release, we see why. In 2004 IBM were granted 3,248 patents, 1,314 more patents than any other company. 2004 was the fourth year in a row they've been granted 3000+ patents. So in the last four years, they've been granted more than TWELVE THOUSAND patents. They have also received more patents than any other company for twelve consecutive years.
Given that IBM has been around since the 1940s, it's not unreasonable to suppose that they're in possession of up to 30,000-40,000 patents. Kinda puts that 500 in perspective.
Actually, there's an unintended consequence of having ubiquitous mobile phone reception: it's much easier to locate bodies in piles of rubble.
It sounds pretty strange, but friends/family constantly ringing your mobile phone to check that you're OK tends to lead rescuers straight to you. Morbidly, it's also much easier to recover corpses this way as well (still-charged phones attached to corpses).
You posted this in the BBC story comments earlier today. Nobody cared the first time, either.
I agree with the two previous replies, in that good broadband can be had in Austalia. Currently I'm connected with Internode on a 1500/256k line, with absolutely no data limits. We comfortably exceed 80 gigs a month of downloading, with no bandwidth or financial penalties. It does cost us $150 per month though.
So chin up, and remember the golden rule of telecommunications in Australia: Avoid Telstra.
I just happen to be on a "lemon" server that was undergoing horrid lag and restarts for weeks.
;)
I'm gunna take a wild guess and suggest you're on Blackrock
Mate, we're already getting screwed by having to play on US servers (mostly on Blackrock!). When they won't go to the expense of providing us a proper place to play the game, why on earth would they lower prices?
You recommended Seagate?!?! Obviously you never had one of their Horrorcuda (Barracuda) drives!
Should've gone with Western Digital....
Personally, I think Sony should be given the Perennial Loser award. Seriously, they've dropped the ball so many times in the last decade by trying force proprietary standards on a market that doesn't want or need them. For example: ATRAC, Minidisc, MemoryStick, the list goes on.
Looks like this only works under SP2. I'm also running XP SP1 and had the same problems getting the exploit to work :)
Welcome to the brave new world of ThoughtCrime.
So true. I wonder what ever happened to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
I take it you haven't played a lot of World of Warcraft then :P
:)
More than 3-4 clicks on an NPC usually results in "stop clicking me", "you're rocking the boat", "you're making me sea-sick", "*sound of vomit splattering*" style dialogue
Cool story, though when I first heard it, the programmer was one of their head honchos (can't remember his name).
I particularly enjoyed the "none of our members are named Frank" line. Clearly they aren't old enough to have learnt about pseudonyms at school yet ;)
You called your son Gollum?!?
This is the same one I get as well :(
Asshats. As if anyone is going to purchase their junk.