It isn't. You can refuse to except any type of currency you wish to refuse. If someone wanted to pay you with $100 worth of pennies, would you accept it?
Haven't you seen those signs on gas stations that say they won't take any bills larger than $20?
That doesn't have a bloody thing to do with eBay as a company.
It is most likley the seller and/or his buddies bidding to raise the price of the auction.
And as far as eBay "price gouging" doesn't anyone realise that eBay isn't selling the bloody item?? Sure the system may be flawed and/or unfair but I really, really doubt that it was done intentionally, by eBay, in order to "make" people bid a bit more in order to collect a few cents extra on auctions where this happens, and probably most of those go beyond the automatic bid increment to a higher price anyway so that it isn't important anyway.
Either way I would guess that there is a good design reason for it to be set up this way.
eBay as a company stands to gain very little by using this as a "price gouging technique".
There's a fundamental flaw with the point that you're trying to make.
In your "typical work day...in the 1840s" the day starts at 7:00am? and ends at "sunset". Which is obviously much more than 8 hours of work.
Since I'd guess these workers weren't paid by the hours, then even with the different breaks, they did a good eight hours worth of work.
Since these days everyone thinks they should only work 8 hour days, if that, then they should be working all of those eight hours.
If they wanted to be at work for 15 hours, and only actually work eight of those hours and get paid the same amount then I'd bet that'd be okay. But nobody actually wants to do that, they want to be at work for eight hours, only work five of those hours and get paid for all eight.
That's because Wal*Mart does not care. They've always had theft, they'll always have theft and they have the shrinkage built directly into the pricing structure.
I can't imagine trying to "support" linux. You'd get calls every five minutes asking why the game they just bought won't work, and why you fucked up their computer.
Back when I used to run a PC repair shop, I charged $29 for a "tune up" or getting their pc cleaned up by removing spy ware, turning off the 100 things running on start up, etc.
Note that this was 3 years ago, and I was located in a small town in Ohio.
Charging a base rate was a lot easier than hourly for this type of thing because I had a ton of people wanting it done. A lot of times it would only take 10-15 minutes of my time, sometimes it took an hour, but it all worked out in the end.
For other service I charged $39/hour in-house and $49/hour on-site.
I don't know anything about the economy in NYC, but I hope this is helpful.
No, I am not assuming that. This happened in a MAJOR RESORT AREA. There is very little chance that she previously knew this person. Therefore, she wouldn't be able to help them even if they released the photos and found her.
There is no reason to release photos of her, none at all. I can not see any real gain from exposing her.
This would be greatly useful if the suspect was already a registered offender and was actually the one renting the hotel room.
It's highly possible, and it isn't that I don't encourage the search. I was playing devil's advocate, as I often do, while pointing out that it wasn't "that easy" now that they know the hotel where they were taken.
All right, let's assume you're terrible at photo editing. Now, assume the picture is of your daughter.
Who do you choose:
1. The person most qualified to do a wonderful editing job.
2. The person most qualified to view the original images.
That sounds useful. I know if I were an young girl I would want all of my friends knowing that I was molesting at Disney World.
I bet her parents would love it too.
Even if they found her, not only would it make her life a nightmare, she probably wouldn't be able to help them anyway.
Even if she hadn't repressed the memory completely, she still wouldn't be able to give them enough useful information to find the person that did it.
A good friend of mine, and her little sister were molested by their father. The older one had repressed the memory and believed it had never happened to her (This is true, I know what her reaction was when she found out that it did happen, and she's still screwed up now). Her little sister told their mother, and while charges were being filed, etc. the local newspaper decided to print a nice story about the man that molested his daughter. Not only did it (more than likely) screw her up for life, they had to move 120 miles away to get rid of the embarassment of her peers.
Cases like these are *very* sensitive and have to be handled with a lot of foresight. The privacy of that poor little girl is much more important than catching the guy that did this to her.
You can bitch and moan all you want about it, but I've witnessed what this does to people firsthand, and it isn't right.
"But the same laws also apply to an 18 year old having sex with his 16 year old girlfriend."
Actually they don't. In most states the age of consent is 16. http://ageofconsent.com/ Yes, some states are still 18, California for example. But most states have written in the law to be reasonable. Since a kid that just turned 18 having sex with his girlfriend who is still 17 and sending him to prison is obviously ridiculous.
Right, because nine year olds usually take pictures of themselves naked, or have their friends do it, and then post it to the internet for all of the paedohiles in the world to swap and trade and rejoice.
I don't really see them knowing where it took place as real helpful.
First of all, I kind of doubt either of them live in the area, given that it's a resort area and that a hotel room is one of them.
Secondly, they don't know when the pictures were taken. They don't even have a good idea. They *think* they were taken between 2001 and 2002. There isn't a chance an employee would remember it, and there's no way in hell they have security tapes from that old. Most people that are still using analog means use less than a dozen tapes and rotate them, and a digital means of storing recordings would have to be overwritten after a couple of weeks.
Do some calculations and figure out how much space it would take to store 5 years worth of even low quality recordings. And even if it *was* available, nobody is going to watch two years worth of recordings, from multiple cameras.
Hell I didn't even want to watch four days worth of tapes to figure out which of our employees was stealing liquor.
Let's see, we have photographs of a nine year old girl being molested, what's the first concern, the quality of the editing job, or the privacy of the victim?
BSD (even if it's dead, hehe) and Linux aren't usable for most people.
A machine running MS DOS with no internet connection is even more secure, but it isn't useful.
A car with no engine won't get stolen, but I can't drive it anywhere to use it.
Look at it this way:
I could give my girlfriend a new computer, sans operating system and a windows disc, she could install it, install her software and do all the things she wants to do with it in a couple of hours. I can't give her a linux cd and expect the same results.
Now do you honestly think she'll give a fuck about how secure the system is if she can't even use it?
Unless I missed something he didn't once say that Windows was currently secure, or that it has been in the past.
What he did say was "we can always do better" and "There is a lot more to do."
He also went on to say that Longhorn should be more secure.
Since none of you actually think about anybody but yourselfs in terms of what people want, let me explain it to you.
Most people (see: Users, Windows), don't want to give up usability for security. I currently use Linux, and have for years. I'm pissed off about the recent local root exploits and thought about switching to a BSD (namely OpenBSD), for security. But, after talking to a good friend of mine decided that I didn't want to compromise some of the usability of Linux for the security of *BSD.
Sure Windows sucks for a lot of reasons, but there's obviously more reasons that people are still using it.
It's the same reason that people drive cars with automatic tranmissions. A manual transmission has a number of benefits, but people just don't want the hassle.
Windows is prone to a lot of problems due to the default "administrator" account. But do you really think people want to log in to it to install software? Do you think they actually understand the difference? I doubt it.
The way Bill Gates takes credit for the advances of PC hardware.
The marketshare of Windows is the reason for many "hardware advancements". Without a standardised operating system, hardware would have never been standardisted, and thus would have been unable to progress.
How the solution to crappy software si faster updates.
Almost any company will only make products that are as good as the customer wants them. This is why people buy economy priced cars and everyone is not driving BMWs. Sure a BMW is better, but it costs a lot more to produce and few people are willing to spend the extra money to own one. Would you be willing to pay three times as much for Windows if it were a much better product? I doubt it. Everyone complains because it costs $99 now.
How the price of windows is pretty much dependent on how big you are (compare the retail price with the price paid by big companies)
This is true for everything, in every business. When you buy in bulk, you get discounts. It's a common business practise.
So, screw the little and small, cuddle the big !
Would you buy a car that your neighbour built himself for one fifth the price of a "mass produced" car that you knew you'd never be able to find anyone to work on it? That doesn't make any sense. When you're buying a product that is going to need support you'll generally want a product that will have support available. Buying/using products that aren't widely used isn't a great practise. Especially in business.
An if anybody try to complain, file a lawsuit for patent infringment..... surely there is a patent covering what you are doing now !
Big companies will have a cartel of patents, only the small fish will be left out. A pity that the "people" do not know/care about this.
Big companies get patents because they come up with original ideas and they patent them. It isn't their fault that someone else didn't come up with the idea first or was too lazy to patent it.
Just remember that Microsoft was, at one time, a small company. They obviously did *something* right.
Quit your bitching, because it really doesn't matter. Microsoft is here, they own a majority of the desktop market, and they're not going away anytime soon. Linux, or other free software, is not a viable replacement at this point. I believe everyone already knows that.
Microsoft is not the first huge company to dominate an entire market.
I could have sworn the brand was "Kentucky Fried Chicken" and not "Colonel Sanders Chicken".
Weird.
What the hell is wrong with you people?
on
The Hundred-Buck PC
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Did any of you actually read the article?
It says "Mr. Negroponte's idea is to develop educational software and have the portable personal computer replace textbooks in schools"
The computers aren't meant to surf the web. They're meant to be used for EDUCATION.
I'm sure you all know how much textbooks cost. Then figure having to have a separate textbook for each subject. Now figure that in order for those to be useful they have to be replaced every few years.
For the (approximate) cost of two regular textbooks you can provide a computer that can replace many, many textbooks for years to come.
Is education one of the many things these countries need?
Absolutely.
Is this $100 computer a viable and more sensible replacement?
Of course.
These computers are aimed at a specific problem, and by helping with that problem you'll have access to working on -many- other problems that these countries face.
How do you determine if another (human) male is "dominant" by observation? If someone is twice your size then they're going to be able to dominate you physically, which is really what matters to primates.
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't. You can refuse to except any type of currency you wish to refuse. If someone wanted to pay you with $100 worth of pennies, would you accept it? Haven't you seen those signs on gas stations that say they won't take any bills larger than $20?
You also pay for phone service. You don't pay to use AIM. I think that's a bit of a difference.
There is, it's called "the lottery".
That doesn't have a bloody thing to do with eBay as a company.
It is most likley the seller and/or his buddies bidding to raise the price of the auction.
And as far as eBay "price gouging" doesn't anyone realise that eBay isn't selling the bloody item?? Sure the system may be flawed and/or unfair but I really, really doubt that it was done intentionally, by eBay, in order to "make" people bid a bit more in order to collect a few cents extra on auctions where this happens, and probably most of those go beyond the automatic bid increment to a higher price anyway so that it isn't important anyway.
Either way I would guess that there is a good design reason for it to be set up this way.
eBay as a company stands to gain very little by using this as a "price gouging technique".
There's a fundamental flaw with the point that you're trying to make.
In your "typical work day...in the 1840s" the day starts at 7:00am? and ends at "sunset". Which is obviously much more than 8 hours of work.
Since I'd guess these workers weren't paid by the hours, then even with the different breaks, they did a good eight hours worth of work.
Since these days everyone thinks they should only work 8 hour days, if that, then they should be working all of those eight hours.
If they wanted to be at work for 15 hours, and only actually work eight of those hours and get paid the same amount then I'd bet that'd be okay. But nobody actually wants to do that, they want to be at work for eight hours, only work five of those hours and get paid for all eight.
That's because Wal*Mart does not care. They've always had theft, they'll always have theft and they have the shrinkage built directly into the pricing structure.
I can't imagine trying to "support" linux. You'd get calls every five minutes asking why the game they just bought won't work, and why you fucked up their computer.
Back when I used to run a PC repair shop, I charged $29 for a "tune up" or getting their pc cleaned up by removing spy ware, turning off the 100 things running on start up, etc.
Note that this was 3 years ago, and I was located in a small town in Ohio.
Charging a base rate was a lot easier than hourly for this type of thing because I had a ton of people wanting it done. A lot of times it would only take 10-15 minutes of my time, sometimes it took an hour, but it all worked out in the end.
For other service I charged $39/hour in-house and $49/hour on-site.
I don't know anything about the economy in NYC, but I hope this is helpful.
I thought "SF" stood for "SourceForge". :(
No, I am not assuming that. This happened in a MAJOR RESORT AREA. There is very little chance that she previously knew this person. Therefore, she wouldn't be able to help them even if they released the photos and found her.
There is no reason to release photos of her, none at all. I can not see any real gain from exposing her.
It will not help them catch him.
This would be greatly useful if the suspect was already a registered offender and was actually the one renting the hotel room.
:)
It's highly possible, and it isn't that I don't encourage the search. I was playing devil's advocate, as I often do, while pointing out that it wasn't "that easy" now that they know the hotel where they were taken.
I should probably use disclaimers.
All right, let's assume you're terrible at photo editing. Now, assume the picture is of your daughter.
Who do you choose:
1. The person most qualified to do a wonderful editing job.
2. The person most qualified to view the original images.
There's a perfect reason for that, they'd like to grab the guy without anyone knowing who the girl is.
5 87220/
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=138469&cid=11
Feel free to read a comment I made a couple of minutes ago.
You HAVE to protect the children. Exposing and publicly embarassing them could be more traumatising than what actually happened to them.
That sounds useful. I know if I were an young girl I would want all of my friends knowing that I was molesting at Disney World.
I bet her parents would love it too.
Even if they found her, not only would it make her life a nightmare, she probably wouldn't be able to help them anyway.
Even if she hadn't repressed the memory completely, she still wouldn't be able to give them enough useful information to find the person that did it.
A good friend of mine, and her little sister were molested by their father. The older one had repressed the memory and believed it had never happened to her (This is true, I know what her reaction was when she found out that it did happen, and she's still screwed up now). Her little sister told their mother, and while charges were being filed, etc. the local newspaper decided to print a nice story about the man that molested his daughter. Not only did it (more than likely) screw her up for life, they had to move 120 miles away to get rid of the embarassment of her peers.
Cases like these are *very* sensitive and have to be handled with a lot of foresight. The privacy of that poor little girl is much more important than catching the guy that did this to her.
You can bitch and moan all you want about it, but I've witnessed what this does to people firsthand, and it isn't right.
"But the same laws also apply to an 18 year old having sex with his 16 year old girlfriend."
Actually they don't. In most states the age of consent is 16. http://ageofconsent.com/ Yes, some states are still 18, California for example. But most states have written in the law to be reasonable. Since a kid that just turned 18 having sex with his girlfriend who is still 17 and sending him to prison is obviously ridiculous.
Don't talk out of your ass.
Right, because nine year olds usually take pictures of themselves naked, or have their friends do it, and then post it to the internet for all of the paedohiles in the world to swap and trade and rejoice.
What the fuck?
I don't really see them knowing where it took place as real helpful.
First of all, I kind of doubt either of them live in the area, given that it's a resort area and that a hotel room is one of them.
Secondly, they don't know when the pictures were taken. They don't even have a good idea. They *think* they were taken between 2001 and 2002. There isn't a chance an employee would remember it, and there's no way in hell they have security tapes from that old. Most people that are still using analog means use less than a dozen tapes and rotate them, and a digital means of storing recordings would have to be overwritten after a couple of weeks.
Do some calculations and figure out how much space it would take to store 5 years worth of even low quality recordings. And even if it *was* available, nobody is going to watch two years worth of recordings, from multiple cameras.
Hell I didn't even want to watch four days worth of tapes to figure out which of our employees was stealing liquor.
Let's see, we have photographs of a nine year old girl being molested, what's the first concern, the quality of the editing job, or the privacy of the victim?
Well you do have to understand that I wouldn't dare hand her any Linux CD sans Slackware. But that's just because I have a personal bias to it. :)
BSD (even if it's dead, hehe) and Linux aren't usable for most people.
A machine running MS DOS with no internet connection is even more secure, but it isn't useful.
A car with no engine won't get stolen, but I can't drive it anywhere to use it.
Look at it this way:
I could give my girlfriend a new computer, sans operating system and a windows disc, she could install it, install her software and do all the things she wants to do with it in a couple of hours. I can't give her a linux cd and expect the same results.
Now do you honestly think she'll give a fuck about how secure the system is if she can't even use it?
Of course not.
Unless I missed something he didn't once say that Windows was currently secure, or that it has been in the past.
What he did say was "we can always do better" and "There is a lot more to do."
He also went on to say that Longhorn should be more secure.
Since none of you actually think about anybody but yourselfs in terms of what people want, let me explain it to you.
Most people (see: Users, Windows), don't want to give up usability for security. I currently use Linux, and have for years. I'm pissed off about the recent local root exploits and thought about switching to a BSD (namely OpenBSD), for security. But, after talking to a good friend of mine decided that I didn't want to compromise some of the usability of Linux for the security of *BSD.
Sure Windows sucks for a lot of reasons, but there's obviously more reasons that people are still using it.
It's the same reason that people drive cars with automatic tranmissions. A manual transmission has a number of benefits, but people just don't want the hassle.
Windows is prone to a lot of problems due to the default "administrator" account. But do you really think people want to log in to it to install software? Do you think they actually understand the difference? I doubt it.
The way Bill Gates takes credit for the advances of PC hardware.
The marketshare of Windows is the reason for many "hardware advancements". Without a standardised operating system, hardware would have never been standardisted, and thus would have been unable to progress.
How the solution to crappy software si faster updates.
Almost any company will only make products that are as good as the customer wants them. This is why people buy economy priced cars and everyone is not driving BMWs. Sure a BMW is better, but it costs a lot more to produce and few people are willing to spend the extra money to own one. Would you be willing to pay three times as much for Windows if it were a much better product? I doubt it. Everyone complains because it costs $99 now.
How the price of windows is pretty much dependent on how big you are (compare the retail price with the price paid by big companies)
This is true for everything, in every business. When you buy in bulk, you get discounts. It's a common business practise.
So, screw the little and small, cuddle the big !
Would you buy a car that your neighbour built himself for one fifth the price of a "mass produced" car that you knew you'd never be able to find anyone to work on it? That doesn't make any sense. When you're buying a product that is going to need support you'll generally want a product that will have support available. Buying/using products that aren't widely used isn't a great practise. Especially in business.
An if anybody try to complain, file a lawsuit for patent infringment..... surely there is a patent covering what you are doing now !
Big companies will have a cartel of patents, only the small fish will be left out. A pity that the "people" do not know/care about this.
Big companies get patents because they come up with original ideas and they patent them. It isn't their fault that someone else didn't come up with the idea first or was too lazy to patent it.
Just remember that Microsoft was, at one time, a small company. They obviously did *something* right.
Quit your bitching, because it really doesn't matter. Microsoft is here, they own a majority of the desktop market, and they're not going away anytime soon. Linux, or other free software, is not a viable replacement at this point. I believe everyone already knows that.
Microsoft is not the first huge company to dominate an entire market.
I could have sworn the brand was "Kentucky Fried Chicken" and not "Colonel Sanders Chicken". Weird.
Did any of you actually read the article? It says "Mr. Negroponte's idea is to develop educational software and have the portable personal computer replace textbooks in schools" The computers aren't meant to surf the web. They're meant to be used for EDUCATION. I'm sure you all know how much textbooks cost. Then figure having to have a separate textbook for each subject. Now figure that in order for those to be useful they have to be replaced every few years. For the (approximate) cost of two regular textbooks you can provide a computer that can replace many, many textbooks for years to come. Is education one of the many things these countries need? Absolutely. Is this $100 computer a viable and more sensible replacement? Of course. These computers are aimed at a specific problem, and by helping with that problem you'll have access to working on -many- other problems that these countries face.
How do you determine if another (human) male is "dominant" by observation? If someone is twice your size then they're going to be able to dominate you physically, which is really what matters to primates.