Common usage of "recommend" implies a benefit to the person being recommended to.
Wow. No. Common usage of "recommend" is precisely what the definition said:
to present as worthy of confidence, acceptance, use, etcto represent or urge as advisable or expedient
The person making the 'recommendation' presents it as worthy or represents it as advisable. That doesn't imply that it actually is, nor that the person making the recommendation believes it.
In your example the salesperson can reasonably assume this to be true, as many people want more than one pen for cheap, but in the case of extended warranties the salesperson knows it is very unlikely to be beneficial to the customer.
Why should it matter what the sales person **assumes** to be true about how useful something will be to you. As long as they don't actually deceive you they are in the clear here.
It is ultimately up to us to decide whether something is useful to us, or whether it is worth a given price. Otherwise, who will you entrust to decide this? The government? Make the retailer accountable so that they can only sell us things we need? Get real.
The intention is to trick the customer into buying something they don't need,
The intention is to convince the customer. You can't say trick unless there is deception. And there is nothing wrong with convincing people to buy something they don't need or even want. The entire contents of most stores is filled with stuff we don't need, and advertising and sales reps to convince us we do. Our entire system works like this.
If you don't like it fine, but you can't single out office depot here.
Not at all. The true reason the salesperson recommends the extended warranty is because they get commission. The reason given in the script is an unrelated fact, so by following the script the salesperson is lying.
No. By following the script the sales person is giving you a true reason why you might want to buy it. It doesn't happen to be the reason he wants to sell it to you, but what has that got to do with anything?
The true reason the store exists at all is to extract money from customers. So if I walk in an ask to buy a single pen, and an employee suggests buying the 3 pack for twice the price 'because you get 2 for the price of 1' he isn't lying to me. Its the truth, and perhaps even a good reason to buy the 3 pack.
The fact that he makes more money from the sale this way is the reason he suggested it, but that doesn't make the rest of the conversation a lie.
The clients aren't just purchasing a skillset, they're buying complete privacy. You can pay as much as you want to a professional whatever, but that's no guarantee that someone with deeper pockets won't pay them to betray you or divulge information you'd rather were kept private.
Same applies to the Dollhouse. So Echo gets erased (at least that's what you are promised) but even if that's true:
The organization knows you hired her, knows what the skillset was, knows where she is every minute, has a handler just around the corner, and quite likely makes a copy of her memory prior to erasing her.
Any particular reason why you have such complete trust for an underground illegal corporation that habitually constructs and deconstructs people's minds for money? They'll keep your dirty little secrets... they promised.
Or you could just suspend some disbelief. I mean virtually every crime drama show on television uses completely implausible technology to zoom into reflections of reflections on photos.
Sure suspend some disbelief. I can do that... but I shouldn't have to inject stupid directly into my brain through my eye socket though.
I can't watch CSI either, despite really liking the first season. Partly because the forensics rapidly degraded into pure fiction instead of being based on science never mind science fiction. Well... that and it became an unwatchably bad soap-opera plus super-hero-action show complete with supervillains. Give it another season or two and we'll see them take on the Riddler and the Joker in their Batman or Iron Man suits. Then again, I might be able to watch it again if it dropped any pretense of being a show about forensics.
Do you understand why these things are called "priceless"?
Yes. You do realize that 'priceless' art objects are bought and sold quite regularly, and most are insured as well. Both require that a price be agreed upon.
I'm frankly not entirely sure where the Elgin Marbles were in the Dollhouse, nor who the 'client' was. But, if it was indeed Greece, and they were being stolen from the Britsh Museum (where they actually currently are) and given the ongoing controversy surrounding the fact that Britain has them and Greece doesn't -- well.. I'm sure if Greece were willing to buy them back for a fair market value the British Museum would be happy to return them, especially if a deal to have them return to Britain for exhibitions from time to time could be worked out...
(Meanwhile, if Greece just goes and steals them back that's going to be rather awkward to explain...)
One thing I found confusing about that episode is why they would need a made-to-order professional thief, instead of just hiring one.
That applies to most of the episodes. I mean, the whole fantasy-date thing; sure I can see the rich-and-stupid shelling out for that, and a fantasy-date/human-hunt again, again sure; but a made-to-order negotiator? Why wouldn't you just hire the best real one instead of effectively trusting 'some programmer' with your daughter's life? and what about the scene at the beginning? a made-to-order mid-wife? That one doesn't even begin to make sense. I can't even theorize why I wouldn't just hire the best real one's.
I guess the idea was that it's less risky to have your professional thief be programmed not to double-cross you...
Then they should have gone all-in and had a made-to-order professional antiquities expert too. Things would have gone much smoother... Not much point in a team where only the safe-cracker is guaranteed not to double-cross you.
There's this FBI guy running around who can't find the "company" to save his life, but when a ditzy pop stars handler wants an unobtrusive bodyguard he just stumbles in off the street wad of cash in hand?
Say what now?
And just how much is the 'service' supposed to cost. Ballpark even. I mean, illegal underground operation, science fiction technology, a small army of backup,... they allude the prices are high. And they should be. Damned high. I can't see it being less than millions, even 10s of millions.
I'm betting its significantly higher than a Britney Spears wannabe can afford for a bodyguard. And easily much much more than the ransom cost from the other episode as well.
At least the other two episodes were bearable in this regard... what would a lunatic pay for a dream date/human hunt? Sure, sky's the limit on a lunatic. Or to steal priceless artifacts...well they -are- priceless (buy you know, if they're willing to throw that much cash out to get them, theu could probably just BUY them back.
But a 'popstar bodyguard' or 'negotiator for the rich and famous'? Those don't really add up at all.
If I didn't have a PVR, I probably wouldn't be watching at all, it took me until last night to get around to watching Friday's episode...
So vendor lock-in is OK as long as you do it to yourself?
No more or less OK than relying on Microsoft Exchange, PowerPoint, SQL Server, GarageBand, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Flash, Silverlight, Lotus Notes...
Some degree of vendor lock-in is pretty much just a part of life for any business. Deal with it.
Why should corporate end users or IT departments be forced to use Internet Explorer?
They are always free to port their enterprise intranet to something else. And I expect most that are even somewhat forward looking ARE doing just that.
ActiveX needs to go away.
Why should corporate IT departments be forced to port a working system they are happy with on your schedule?
ActiveX needs to go away. There's no reason for any of it anymore.
Um, yes there most certainly is a MAJOR problem with internal enterprise apps using it. It means that everyone is chained to running MS-Windows and IE *only* on the desktops and every possible device that connects to that internal enterprise application.
I doubt anyone starts new projects in ActiveX today. And when those activeX projects WERE started there weren't many options.
To get that level of functionality a few years back it was either ActiveX or Java. And at the time Java was quite a bit slower, and clumsier than the equivalent solution in ActiveX, and there were all kinds of disputes between Sun and Microsoft over Java and the JVM.
So ActiveX was actually a fairly good decision at the time.
I'm sure over time, enterprises are looking to rewrite things, to support blackberries and iphones, and Mac PCs, but that's beside the point. They've ALREADY got ActiveX, and would prefer it not be turned off on them.
Perhaps a company might want some additional choice.
I'm curious why doesn't that include giving them the choice to run activeX?
Given the compatibility issues that ActiveX has in IE8, then it probably won't matter what Microsoft will do in the future. In all reality no site should be depending on ActiveX.
No external public facing site should rely on activeX. There is really nothing wrong with internal enterprise apps using it.
If it breaks without it, then fix the site.
You mean build the enterprise intranet application from scratch? When its working perfectly fine exactly the way it is? That will be a pretty tough sell.
Yup. And it's prohibited by their rules, so the best way to get rid of it is to report it.
No. The best way to get rid of it is to change the rules.
So... looking at the fees; Right now its 8.75% on the first 25, and 3.5% on 25.01 to 1k and 1.5% on 1k+
Fee on an auction that was $20+$5 is $1.75 Fee on an auction that was $1+$24 is $0.09
Fee on an auction that was $3+$3 is $0.26 Fee on an auction that was $0.01+$6 is $0.00
No wonder people gamed the system.
Solve the problem trivially:
Charge 5.75% on the first 25$ including shipping. (For categories like books, games, dvds, toys, collectibles, etc, etc)
Under this regime:
Fee on an item that is $20+$5 is 1.43. Fee on an item that is $1+$24 is 1.43.
Fee on an item that is $3+$3 is 0.35 Fee on an item that is $0.01+$4.99 is 0.35
For people who were playing by the rules it amounts it changes things a bit, price goes up 9 cents on a cheap item; but goes down around 32 cents for items closer to 25. Overall, its a pretty fair change.
But for people who were gaming the system, well, now they can't.
And now there is actually an incentive to combine shipping on multiple orders to a single buyer, as their ebay fees would go down accordingly, and their profit actually goes up slightly. Under the current regime where people are taking their profit in shipping, they actually either lose money when combining shipping or piss off buyers by refusing to do so.
And by removing all the gaming and improving the customer experience, ebay will easily come out ahead.
- List it for 99 cents and $5 ship/handling - Or 1 cent and $6 ship/handling
Personally I'd much rather buy a $6.01 item with free shipping than a 0.01 item with $6 shipping. It just feels more upfront and honest.
I despise "1 cent item plus $20 shipping and handling listings". If you want 20 bucks just fucking come out and say so. Do you think I'm going to be so stupid as to latch onto the 1 cent item because its such an awesome deal, and my brain will cease functioning before I figure out what the actual final cost is?
Out of curiosity though... is this to game ebay's commission structure? ie... if I pay 1 cent plus 20 shipping and handling does the seller get to keep more money than if it was 15.01$ plus $5 shipping?
If that's the case I don't really blame the seller for doing this. But it still annoys me because the stuff I buy on ebay is usually based on price, and if everything is 1 cent, and then I have to go and read what the shipping is, and whether the seller will combine shipping on multiple items... wastes my time and makes ebay less useful.
The web-user; email, web, and IM (99% of reviews fall into this category)
No. The 'web user' is a myth. Most 'web users' use those apps most of the time, but the vast majority uses at least one or two other apps from time to time.
My sister is a web user... except she has a sony mp3 player. Her Sony requires windows software to sync... maybe it'll work with Amaraok... who knows.
My mom is a web user except she works with a financial adviser over tax season to help. She needs excel for this. Maybe Calc will do, we're not sure.
My wife is a 'web user' except she uses iTunes with her ipod, and likes to play "Intellivision Lives!" (an intellivision emulator and games). She also uses iphoto.
My mother in law is a web user, except she runs a small home business and needs her Simply Accounting.
My father is a web user, except, he has an ipod touch, and uses the itunes music store, and has a digital camera.
My father in law is a web user, but he too has an ipod, and a digital camera.
I could go on and on... the point however is that there really is almost no one who is *just* an email/web/IM user. In reality, almost everyone has at least one thing more than that.
Whether its a digital camera or an ipod or personal tax or accounting software or some game they like.
And its that one thing that makes life complicated.
Maybe linux can meet the demand... Amarok is fine for older ipods if you don't use the itunes music store. Amarok is ok for newer ipods, although its a lot more flakey...and maybe linux can't meet the demand: pretty much everyone with a touch downloads a few free apps. And the the Tax / Accounting software is a bit of dealbreaker.
My wifes Intellivision emulator doesn't run in Wine, but I was able to install a linux emulator, and then copy the bios and rom files from the CD... but it was not newbie friendly.
But it's not like Apple isn't very upfront about their policies,
1) What does that matter? If ford was 'upfront' about having to buy exxon gas, you think that would somehow make it ok?
2) I'm sorry, where is clearly published that only way you can legally load an app is through their app store. Sure they mention they have an app store and they make great efforts to tell us how great it is, but where does it say, "And if you don't think its great too, tough shit, that's the only option."
What we have here, per your analogy, is people knowing these Ford limitations and buying them* anyways after deciding that the benefits of buying Ford outweigh the negatives you've just listed.
I disagree.
1) Most people aren't aware of these limitations before they buy the iphone. Slashdot types are, most people aren't.
2) Even if they -did- buy them knowing the terms, they can still argue its wrong, and fight to have them removed. The fact that Ford disclosed their illegal exxon gas tying program to you upfront doesn't make it any less an illegal tying. Whether you bought the ford or not.
[....] That's why i think the price of games should decrease faster than the price for movies.
The price of games did decrease faster. A new movie on DVD 10 years ago was what? $16 or so. Today the same title is ~$10. A new game, 10 years ago... $40-50, today most are released as Downloadable content for between 5 and 15.
Or, if that combined with the breeding patterns of small red crustaceans in the Mediterranean are causing global warming and the last breeding pair of such crustaceans was destroyed 24 months ago for a dinner meeting by the UN on climate control?
I recognized most of the memes, but this one seems new.
I, for one, welcome our small red crustacean climate-controlling overlords.;)
Because finances aside, if they go completely under and fail to release such a thing it is possible the most culpable individuals (read: executives) could potentially face criminal charges for fraud and theft. It's an outside chance, but it's also fairly trivial to write a nuclear option patch that completely defeats the possibility.
You'll want to do some research into how a corporate bankruptcy actually proceeds.
If they go completely under, they are REQUIRED not to go and devalue the company assets so that they can be sold to pay back creditors, bond holders, and maybe even shareholders. Most of the time, the bankrupt company is picked up for pennies on the dollar by another company interested in some element or other.
Releasing a 'nuclear option patch' to give away all the games is simply not an option.
The trustees over seeing the bankruptcy would have to approve the release of such a patch, and it would never happen, because it would significantly devalue the asset. As the assets were sold off, ownership of the steam servers, customer accounts, and whatnot would eventually end up in some other companies portfolio, and it would be entirely up to them what to do with it. (Former) Valve executives would not have any say in the matter, and if they wanted to shut it down they could. Its just that simple. Valve has no contracted obligation to its subscribers to release a patch if the service shuts down, and the new owner is not bound by something the former exec's " informally said -they- would do if -they- shut it down".
In reality-land there are very few scenarios where the current Valve-execs would be shutting it down -themselves-.
Not true - you are free to take the game elsewhere, as you are free to install on as many machines as you please.
But you have to activate them online after doing so. And if you have more than one game in your account, and you playing one of them online, your wife or kids can't play another one online. Offline mode is a pain, doesn't always work, and of course, restricts you to games that can be played offine.
If you get a new machine, just copy over the STEAM folder and run the.exe - it'll just work, even off a USB stick.
After you connect to the steam service to activate them, of course. Otherwise pirating steam games would be as simple as just copying someone's steam folder...its not.
You also do not need to connect to STEAM to play - once it's installed, and you've run it once, you can play it in offline mode from that point on.
Offline mode is flaky. And only applies to offline games. And you need to connect before you can go offline.
and if Valve ever goes out of business, they have already developed and tested a "kill switch" patch for the client, to remove all activation requirements.
Pure fantasy. Under what circumstances would valve go out of business and activate this feature?
If they are bought up, it will be up to the new owners, not Valve. The moment they are even in talks to sell Valve, their is absolutely no chance in hell they would be allowed to devalue the company by 'freeing' up all the activated games. Same if they go into bankruptcy protection - they are obligated to operate the business in such a way as to preserve their assets for their shareholders and creditors to sell off...again unlocking all the games would NEVER be allowed.
What does that leave? Valve's owners get old, bored, and decide to just shut it down instead of selling it off? What are the odds of that happening? Seriously.
Thats really the problem with UAC. It comes up so often for no good reason, and gives no information to the user why it even came up.
Really? I almost never get a UAC prompt I don't expect. I do agree it should explain more about what it is trying to do.
The only people with the technical skill to make intelligent choices about it don't need it.
Yes and no. Its true only people with technical skill will know whether the UAC prompt is expected or not. However, when a technical person gets one he doesn't expect, that a sign of well, UN-expected, activity going on. And yes, technical people do need that. If I run something and I don't expect a UAC prompt, and I get one, that's real red flag.
Of course, the problem in some ways is not even MS's fault. The reality is most Windows programs are doing things that trigger UAC prompts for no good reason. In the linux world, if an text editor or card game or whatever app required you to su every time you ran it, even when it didn't perform any functions that actually needed su level privileges, people would be pissed.
Precisely. Once the software ecosystem catches up, the only time you will see Vista UAC prompt is when you are installing software, installing hardware, or performaning genuine system admin stuff. Even today, as long as you stick to new "Vista aware software" you really don't see Vista UAC prompts for no reason. None of the software I use requires needless UAC prompts.
And the majority of UAC prompts I see are the result of auto-updates. And MS should start build a windows update site for 3rd parties and encourage companies to integrate with it. So I can authorize firefox, adobe reader, java updates all with one UAC prompt, instead of a separate one for each application.
I think everyone agrees, UAC as it stands is a clusterfuck.
I don't think its a clusterfuck. Its not perfect... I'd like to be able to see device manager without a UAC prompt (and only require one to make a change). I'd like more information on what exactly a program is doing that needs an elevation. But overall, its a very good first effort. MS had a much harder problem to solve than linux... on linux if an app tries to do something its not supposed to the OS just disallows it outright. That's ideal, but its just not an option on Windows... too much legacy stuff would just silently break... UAC's prompt is an acceptable transitional work around. Longer term, I think Windows will be able to move towards a *nix like system, but clearly that's not a jump they could just do all at once.
The odds of your worst case scenario actually happening though would be like being hit by lightning, an asteroid, and a falling piano simultaneously on the day you won the lottery.
The MLC/SLC write cycles are the "guarnateed minimums". Both SLCs and MLCs typically last 4-5x longer than those minimums. And the curve stretches the other way too, with many reaching 10x longer than the minimum. The odds of getting an a drive that was up exclusively of of "minimum write" cells is simply non-existent.
So your your 249 days is probably more like 1245 days for that VAST majority of hard drives. (5x249). or 3 and half years, which isn't bad at all compared to a hard drive.
No Script is about MY having the choice of whether to run an arbitrary program on MY computer. I set up the whitelist, and I decide whether to make an exception.
My ruff & reddy rules of usage: 1.. 2.. 3... ...
And people moan that Vista's UAC gets in their way too much?
I plan to buy a new LCD and I will choose something with DVI instead of HDMI just because DRM.
Do you know what you are talking about?
The DRM is HDCP, not HDMI. DVI is compatible with HDCP, and most new DVI panels support HDCP over DVI.
If you go out of your way to find one that doesn't, you are just being a twit. Not having HDCP support just means you can't play HDCP content; it doesn't strip HDCP protection from a signal or anything like that.
If you don't play and don't intend to ever play HDCP content, then it doesn't matter in the least whether or not your panel supports it or not, because its not going to affect you in the slightest. Having HDCP support doesn't automatically encrypt not HDCP content.
I'm curious what monitors are currently on your short list of possible buys?
The only monitors at newegg that I can find that don't support HDCP are the lowest end consumer junk TN panels that only have 1 VGA input. And no digital inputs at all.
The year of ubuntu on the designer workstation?? *ubuntu 9.04 beta 4 64bit It's pretty pretty fast and stable.
Your going to look pretty silling sitting there with your no-name brand 17" VGA monitor with a cheap 6-bit TN panel trying to convince people you are a "professional graphics designer".
Cheaper drives (which mgmt is sure to require) have 1,000 write cycles (assuming the worst). For certain high-traffic files, that means (assuming 30 writes in a day) a whole 33 days of use.
If that were true. Then an SSD hard drive couldn't run a linux mail server for a small business for more than a couple minutes thanks to the various log files.
1) The maximum write cycles for a block was around 10,000 in 1994. And about 100,000 in 1997. But in 2009 you think 1000? No. Its currently in the millions, even for the cheap SSDs.
2) Look up wear levelling.
3) Look up the MTBF on an SSD vs a spinning platters type.
I've seen studies that have calculated that modern drives will could write continuously at maximum speed for 50+ years before exhausting wear levelling and hitting write cycle limits.
The odds of it failing from something else long before then are much greater. Getting a mere 5+ years of life and easily beating your average spinning disk hard drive is a no brainer.
As such, outsourcing like this is not without precedent,
Depends on -how- precisely its outsourced.
If the governement hires google to manage its cloud apps to an SLA including that the data belongs to the government and is not googles data playground, that's an acceptable scenario. Google does offer such services... although I'm not sure what the terms are or what can be negotiated... but I'm sure an entity the size of the federal government could get whatever terms it wanted for a price.
The government outsourcing to google such that everyone signs up for a gmail account and uses their ad supported cloud apps where they data mine any information they can... that's a completely different, and unprecedented scenario.
When people object to the govt outsourcing to google, they are referring to the 2nd scenario.
So how do you justify the fact that a 10 years old game is worth 15 dollars/euros ?
Why would you think I should have to justify the price?
Fight Club is a 10 year old movie. To the River was 'Book of the Year' 10 years ago. Supernatural by Santana was release 10 years ago (Grammy in 2000).
These are all for sale at prices in the same range as DLC. Why should the video game be some arbitrary price that "pleases you". And if we're going to go and start justifying prices, why is Fight Club cheaper than a book?
If you don't think its worth $15 don't buy it. Obviously a lot of people think its worth that much and are buying it. I'm sure I don't have to explain how a market sets prices.
I'll grant that copyright is an artificial distortion of the market, and there is a lot of stuff in copyright that should be out now, but games from the last couple generations of consoles? Get real. The owners should be able to charge what they want for them. I'm all for copyright reform, but even I think 10 years is too short.
However, it worries me when i see Pikmin (a Gamecube game) re-released as a Wii Game for no reason
It was released because it was a good game that a LOT of people have never played. Even though the Wii plays GC games, most Wii owners do not have a GC controller and memory card, so a Wii port of significant GC games will get those games into more peoples hands. If you played it on the GC, and nothing has been added... don't buy it.
I fear that game companies will sell us again all of their games with each new console
How is that any different than reselling us DVDs as blurays, or VHS as DVDs, or cassettes as CDs? You don't have to buy them. Some people who didn't get them last time want them, some people want the convenience of the newer versions. Yes, eventually they should be public domain, and yes I think its wrong for a company to milk the same games for 100+ years. But 10+? I'm ok with 10+.
What about it? Oh... because in additional to selling a gazillion licenses to MS Office, they also have a free web-app-cloud-service-thingy-a-la-google-in-beta-testing that most people have never heard of?
However, the point stands that Microsoft is more than willing to sell licenses of Microsoft office to anyone that has the slightest interest in buying one.
This is in stark contrast to google, which might offer some sort of web apps server/appliance to the DoD if they ask... but they don't talk about that, and they fully expect the VAST majority to use their hosted (by them) apps.
Sure, ok, you are right in a pedantic sense. Microsoft does offer services, and is even looking into expanding that aspect of their business. And maybe one day it will be as hard to get a standalone app from microsoft as it is from google.
I'd much rather have a VW Sharan that gets 7 and still gets 40+ to the gallon
I honestly can't figure out what 'gets 7' or 'will ride 7' is in reference too... After googling the Sharan the only thing that makes sense is that you mean 7 passengers?
Slashdot Mirror
Common usage of "recommend" implies a benefit to the person being recommended to. Wow. No. Common usage of "recommend" is precisely what the definition said: to present as worthy of confidence, acceptance, use, etc to represent or urge as advisable or expedient The person making the 'recommendation' presents it as worthy or represents it as advisable. That doesn't imply that it actually is, nor that the person making the recommendation believes it. In your example the salesperson can reasonably assume this to be true, as many people want more than one pen for cheap, but in the case of extended warranties the salesperson knows it is very unlikely to be beneficial to the customer. Why should it matter what the sales person **assumes** to be true about how useful something will be to you. As long as they don't actually deceive you they are in the clear here. It is ultimately up to us to decide whether something is useful to us, or whether it is worth a given price. Otherwise, who will you entrust to decide this? The government? Make the retailer accountable so that they can only sell us things we need? Get real. The intention is to trick the customer into buying something they don't need, The intention is to convince the customer. You can't say trick unless there is deception. And there is nothing wrong with convincing people to buy something they don't need or even want. The entire contents of most stores is filled with stuff we don't need, and advertising and sales reps to convince us we do. Our entire system works like this. If you don't like it fine, but you can't single out office depot here.
Not at all. The true reason the salesperson recommends the extended warranty is because they get commission. The reason given in the script is an unrelated fact, so by following the script the salesperson is lying.
No. By following the script the sales person is giving you a true reason why you might want to buy it. It doesn't happen to be the reason he wants to sell it to you, but what has that got to do with anything?
The true reason the store exists at all is to extract money from customers. So if I walk in an ask to buy a single pen, and an employee suggests buying the 3 pack for twice the price 'because you get 2 for the price of 1' he isn't lying to me. Its the truth, and perhaps even a good reason to buy the 3 pack.
The fact that he makes more money from the sale this way is the reason he suggested it, but that doesn't make the rest of the conversation a lie.
The clients aren't just purchasing a skillset, they're buying complete privacy. You can pay as much as you want to a professional whatever, but that's no guarantee that someone with deeper pockets won't pay them to betray you or divulge information you'd rather were kept private.
Same applies to the Dollhouse. So Echo gets erased (at least that's what you are promised) but even if that's true:
The organization knows you hired her, knows what the skillset was, knows where she is every minute, has a handler just around the corner, and quite likely makes a copy of her memory prior to erasing her.
Any particular reason why you have such complete trust for an underground illegal corporation that habitually constructs and deconstructs people's minds for money? They'll keep your dirty little secrets... they promised.
Or you could just suspend some disbelief. I mean virtually every crime drama show on television uses completely implausible technology to zoom into reflections of reflections on photos.
Sure suspend some disbelief. I can do that... but I shouldn't have to inject stupid directly into my brain through my eye socket though.
I can't watch CSI either, despite really liking the first season. Partly because the forensics rapidly degraded into pure fiction instead of being based on science never mind science fiction. Well... that and it became an unwatchably bad soap-opera plus super-hero-action show complete with supervillains. Give it another season or two and we'll see them take on the Riddler and the Joker in their Batman or Iron Man suits. Then again, I might be able to watch it again if it dropped any pretense of being a show about forensics.
Do you understand why these things are called "priceless"?
Yes. You do realize that 'priceless' art objects are bought and sold quite regularly, and most are insured as well. Both require that a price be agreed upon.
I'm frankly not entirely sure where the Elgin Marbles were in the Dollhouse, nor who the 'client' was. But, if it was indeed Greece, and they were being stolen from the Britsh Museum (where they actually currently are) and given the ongoing controversy surrounding the fact that Britain has them and Greece doesn't -- well.. I'm sure if Greece were willing to buy them back for a fair market value the British Museum would be happy to return them, especially if a deal to have them return to Britain for exhibitions from time to time could be worked out...
(Meanwhile, if Greece just goes and steals them back that's going to be rather awkward to explain...)
One thing I found confusing about that episode is why they would need a made-to-order professional thief, instead of just hiring one.
That applies to most of the episodes. I mean, the whole fantasy-date thing; sure I can see the rich-and-stupid shelling out for that, and a fantasy-date/human-hunt again, again sure; but a made-to-order negotiator? Why wouldn't you just hire the best real one instead of effectively trusting 'some programmer' with your daughter's life? and what about the scene at the beginning? a made-to-order mid-wife? That one doesn't even begin to make sense. I can't even theorize why I wouldn't just hire the best real one's.
I guess the idea was that it's less risky to have your professional thief be programmed not to double-cross you...
Then they should have gone all-in and had a made-to-order professional antiquities expert too. Things would have gone much smoother... Not much point in a team where only the safe-cracker is guaranteed not to double-cross you.
I can't figure the premise out.
There's this FBI guy running around who can't find the "company" to save his life, but when a ditzy pop stars handler wants an unobtrusive bodyguard he just stumbles in off the street wad of cash in hand?
Say what now?
And just how much is the 'service' supposed to cost. Ballpark even. I mean, illegal underground operation, science fiction technology, a small army of backup,... they allude the prices are high. And they should be. Damned high. I can't see it being less than millions, even 10s of millions.
I'm betting its significantly higher than a Britney Spears wannabe can afford for a bodyguard. And easily much much more than the ransom cost from the other episode as well.
At least the other two episodes were bearable in this regard... what would a lunatic pay for a dream date/human hunt? Sure, sky's the limit on a lunatic. Or to steal priceless artifacts...well they -are- priceless (buy you know, if they're willing to throw that much cash out to get them, theu could probably just BUY them back.
But a 'popstar bodyguard' or 'negotiator for the rich and famous'? Those don't really add up at all.
If I didn't have a PVR, I probably wouldn't be watching at all, it took me until last night to get around to watching Friday's episode...
So vendor lock-in is OK as long as you do it to yourself?
No more or less OK than relying on Microsoft Exchange, PowerPoint, SQL Server, GarageBand, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Flash, Silverlight, Lotus Notes...
Some degree of vendor lock-in is pretty much just a part of life for any business. Deal with it.
Why should corporate end users or IT departments be forced to use Internet Explorer?
They are always free to port their enterprise intranet to something else. And I expect most that are even somewhat forward looking ARE doing just that.
ActiveX needs to go away.
Why should corporate IT departments be forced to port a working system they are happy with on your schedule?
ActiveX needs to go away. There's no reason for any of it anymore.
Clearly there -is-.
Um, yes there most certainly is a MAJOR problem with internal enterprise apps using it. It means that everyone is chained to running MS-Windows and IE *only* on the desktops and every possible device that connects to that internal enterprise application.
I doubt anyone starts new projects in ActiveX today. And when those activeX projects WERE started there weren't many options.
To get that level of functionality a few years back it was either ActiveX or Java. And at the time Java was quite a bit slower, and clumsier than the equivalent solution in ActiveX, and there were all kinds of disputes between Sun and Microsoft over Java and the JVM.
So ActiveX was actually a fairly good decision at the time.
I'm sure over time, enterprises are looking to rewrite things, to support blackberries and iphones, and Mac PCs, but that's beside the point. They've ALREADY got ActiveX, and would prefer it not be turned off on them.
Perhaps a company might want some additional choice.
I'm curious why doesn't that include giving them the choice to run activeX?
Given the compatibility issues that ActiveX has in IE8, then it probably won't matter what Microsoft will do in the future. In all reality no site should be depending on ActiveX.
No external public facing site should rely on activeX. There is really nothing wrong with internal enterprise apps using it.
If it breaks without it, then fix the site.
You mean build the enterprise intranet application from scratch? When its working perfectly fine exactly the way it is? That will be a pretty tough sell.
Yup. And it's prohibited by their rules, so the best way to get rid of it is to report it.
No. The best way to get rid of it is to change the rules.
So... looking at the fees;
Right now its 8.75% on the first 25, and 3.5% on 25.01 to 1k and 1.5% on 1k+
Fee on an auction that was $20+$5 is $1.75
Fee on an auction that was $1+$24 is $0.09
Fee on an auction that was $3+$3 is $0.26
Fee on an auction that was $0.01+$6 is $0.00
No wonder people gamed the system.
Solve the problem trivially:
Charge 5.75% on the first 25$ including shipping. (For categories like books, games, dvds, toys, collectibles, etc, etc)
Under this regime:
Fee on an item that is $20+$5 is 1.43.
Fee on an item that is $1+$24 is 1.43.
Fee on an item that is $3+$3 is 0.35
Fee on an item that is $0.01+$4.99 is 0.35
For people who were playing by the rules it amounts it changes things a bit, price goes up 9 cents on a cheap item; but goes down around 32 cents for items closer to 25. Overall, its a pretty fair change.
But for people who were gaming the system, well, now they can't.
And now there is actually an incentive to combine shipping on multiple orders to a single buyer, as their ebay fees would go down accordingly, and their profit actually goes up slightly. Under the current regime where people are taking their profit in shipping, they actually either lose money when combining shipping or piss off buyers by refusing to do so.
And by removing all the gaming and improving the customer experience, ebay will easily come out ahead.
The solution is to change the rules.
- List it for 99 cents and $5 ship/handling
- Or 1 cent and $6 ship/handling
Personally I'd much rather buy a $6.01 item with free shipping than a 0.01 item with $6 shipping. It just feels more upfront and honest.
I despise "1 cent item plus $20 shipping and handling listings". If you want 20 bucks just fucking come out and say so. Do you think I'm going to be so stupid as to latch onto the 1 cent item because its such an awesome deal, and my brain will cease functioning before I figure out what the actual final cost is?
Out of curiosity though... is this to game ebay's commission structure? ie... if I pay 1 cent plus 20 shipping and handling does the seller get to keep more money than if it was 15.01$ plus $5 shipping?
If that's the case I don't really blame the seller for doing this. But it still annoys me because the stuff I buy on ebay is usually based on price, and if everything is 1 cent, and then I have to go and read what the shipping is, and whether the seller will combine shipping on multiple items... wastes my time and makes ebay less useful.
The web-user; email, web, and IM (99% of reviews fall into this category)
No. The 'web user' is a myth. Most 'web users' use those apps most of the time, but the vast majority uses at least one or two other apps from time to time.
My sister is a web user... except she has a sony mp3 player. Her Sony requires windows software to sync... maybe it'll work with Amaraok... who knows.
My mom is a web user except she works with a financial adviser over tax season to help. She needs excel for this. Maybe Calc will do, we're not sure.
My wife is a 'web user' except she uses iTunes with her ipod, and likes to play "Intellivision Lives!" (an intellivision emulator and games). She also uses iphoto.
My mother in law is a web user, except she runs a small home business and needs her Simply Accounting.
My father is a web user, except, he has an ipod touch, and uses the itunes music store, and has a digital camera.
My father in law is a web user, but he too has an ipod, and a digital camera.
I could go on and on... the point however is that there really is almost no one who is *just* an email/web/IM user. In reality, almost everyone has at least one thing more than that.
Whether its a digital camera or an ipod or personal tax or accounting software or some game they like.
And its that one thing that makes life complicated.
Maybe linux can meet the demand... Amarok is fine for older ipods if you don't use the itunes music store. Amarok is ok for newer ipods, although its a lot more flakey...and maybe linux can't meet the demand: pretty much everyone with a touch downloads a few free apps. And the the Tax / Accounting software is a bit of dealbreaker.
My wifes Intellivision emulator doesn't run in Wine, but I was able to install a linux emulator, and then copy the bios and rom files from the CD... but it was not newbie friendly.
But it's not like Apple isn't very upfront about their policies,
1) What does that matter? If ford was 'upfront' about having to buy exxon gas, you think that would somehow make it ok?
2) I'm sorry, where is clearly published that only way you can legally load an app is through their app store. Sure they mention they have an app store and they make great efforts to tell us how great it is, but where does it say, "And if you don't think its great too, tough shit, that's the only option."
What we have here, per your analogy, is people knowing these Ford limitations and buying them* anyways after deciding that the benefits of buying Ford outweigh the negatives you've just listed.
I disagree.
1) Most people aren't aware of these limitations before they buy the iphone. Slashdot types are, most people aren't.
2) Even if they -did- buy them knowing the terms, they can still argue its wrong, and fight to have them removed. The fact that Ford disclosed their illegal exxon gas tying program to you upfront doesn't make it any less an illegal tying. Whether you bought the ford or not.
[....] That's why i think the price of games should decrease faster than the price for movies.
The price of games did decrease faster. A new movie on DVD 10 years ago was what? $16 or so. Today the same title is ~$10. A new game, 10 years ago... $40-50, today most are released as Downloadable content for between 5 and 15.
Or, if that combined with the breeding patterns of small red crustaceans in the Mediterranean are causing global warming and the last breeding pair of such crustaceans was destroyed 24 months ago for a dinner meeting by the UN on climate control?
I recognized most of the memes, but this one seems new.
I, for one, welcome our small red crustacean climate-controlling overlords. ;)
Because finances aside, if they go completely under and fail to release such a thing it is possible the most culpable individuals (read: executives) could potentially face criminal charges for fraud and theft. It's an outside chance, but it's also fairly trivial to write a nuclear option patch that completely defeats the possibility.
You'll want to do some research into how a corporate bankruptcy actually proceeds.
If they go completely under, they are REQUIRED not to go and devalue the company assets so that they can be sold to pay back creditors, bond holders, and maybe even shareholders. Most of the time, the bankrupt company is picked up for pennies on the dollar by another company interested in some element or other.
Releasing a 'nuclear option patch' to give away all the games is simply not an option.
The trustees over seeing the bankruptcy would have to approve the release of such a patch, and it would never happen, because it would significantly devalue the asset. As the assets were sold off, ownership of the steam servers, customer accounts, and whatnot would eventually end up in some other companies portfolio, and it would be entirely up to them what to do with it. (Former) Valve executives would not have any say in the matter, and if they wanted to shut it down they could. Its just that simple. Valve has no contracted obligation to its subscribers to release a patch if the service shuts down, and the new owner is not bound by something the former exec's " informally said -they- would do if -they- shut it down".
In reality-land there are very few scenarios where the current Valve-execs would be shutting it down -themselves-.
Not true - you are free to take the game elsewhere, as you are free to install on as many machines as you please.
But you have to activate them online after doing so.
And if you have more than one game in your account, and you playing one of them online, your wife or kids can't play another one online.
Offline mode is a pain, doesn't always work, and of course, restricts you to games that can be played offine.
If you get a new machine, just copy over the STEAM folder and run the .exe - it'll just work, even off a USB stick.
After you connect to the steam service to activate them, of course. Otherwise pirating steam games would be as simple as just copying someone's steam folder...its not.
You also do not need to connect to STEAM to play - once it's installed, and you've run it once, you can play it in offline mode from that point on.
Offline mode is flaky. And only applies to offline games. And you need to connect before you can go offline.
and if Valve ever goes out of business, they have already developed and tested a "kill switch" patch for the client, to remove all activation requirements.
Pure fantasy. Under what circumstances would valve go out of business and activate this feature?
If they are bought up, it will be up to the new owners, not Valve. The moment they are even in talks to sell Valve, their is absolutely no chance in hell they would be allowed to devalue the company by 'freeing' up all the activated games. Same if they go into bankruptcy protection - they are obligated to operate the business in such a way as to preserve their assets for their shareholders and creditors to sell off...again unlocking all the games would NEVER be allowed.
What does that leave? Valve's owners get old, bored, and decide to just shut it down instead of selling it off? What are the odds of that happening? Seriously.
Thats really the problem with UAC. It comes up so often for no good reason, and gives no information to the user why it even came up.
Really? I almost never get a UAC prompt I don't expect. I do agree it should explain more about what it is trying to do.
The only people with the technical skill to make intelligent choices about it don't need it.
Yes and no. Its true only people with technical skill will know whether the UAC prompt is expected or not. However, when a technical person gets one he doesn't expect, that a sign of well, UN-expected, activity going on. And yes, technical people do need that. If I run something and I don't expect a UAC prompt, and I get one, that's real red flag.
Of course, the problem in some ways is not even MS's fault. The reality is most Windows programs are doing things that trigger UAC prompts for no good reason. In the linux world, if an text editor or card game or whatever app required you to su every time you ran it, even when it didn't perform any functions that actually needed su level privileges, people would be pissed.
Precisely. Once the software ecosystem catches up, the only time you will see Vista UAC prompt is when you are installing software, installing hardware, or performaning genuine system admin stuff. Even today, as long as you stick to new "Vista aware software" you really don't see Vista UAC prompts for no reason. None of the software I use requires needless UAC prompts.
And the majority of UAC prompts I see are the result of auto-updates. And MS should start build a windows update site for 3rd parties and encourage companies to integrate with it. So I can authorize firefox, adobe reader, java updates all with one UAC prompt, instead of a separate one for each application.
I think everyone agrees, UAC as it stands is a clusterfuck.
I don't think its a clusterfuck. Its not perfect... I'd like to be able to see device manager without a UAC prompt (and only require one to make a change). I'd like more information on what exactly a program is doing that needs an elevation. But overall, its a very good first effort. MS had a much harder problem to solve than linux... on linux if an app tries to do something its not supposed to the OS just disallows it outright. That's ideal, but its just not an option on Windows... too much legacy stuff would just silently break... UAC's prompt is an acceptable transitional work around. Longer term, I think Windows will be able to move towards a *nix like system, but clearly that's not a jump they could just do all at once.
The odds of your worst case scenario actually happening though would be like being hit by lightning, an asteroid, and a falling piano simultaneously on the day you won the lottery.
The MLC/SLC write cycles are the "guarnateed minimums". Both SLCs and MLCs typically last 4-5x longer than those minimums. And the curve stretches the other way too, with many reaching 10x longer than the minimum. The odds of getting an a drive that was up exclusively of of "minimum write" cells is simply non-existent.
So your your 249 days is probably more like 1245 days for that VAST majority of hard drives. (5x249). or 3 and half years, which isn't bad at all compared to a hard drive.
No Script is about MY having the choice of whether to run an arbitrary program on MY computer. I set up the whitelist, and I decide whether to make an exception.
My ruff & reddy rules of usage: 1.. 2.. 3... ...
And people moan that Vista's UAC gets in their way too much?
I plan to buy a new LCD and I will choose something with DVI instead of HDMI just because DRM.
Do you know what you are talking about?
The DRM is HDCP, not HDMI. DVI is compatible with HDCP, and most new DVI panels support HDCP over DVI.
If you go out of your way to find one that doesn't, you are just being a twit. Not having HDCP support just means you can't play HDCP content; it doesn't strip HDCP protection from a signal or anything like that.
If you don't play and don't intend to ever play HDCP content, then it doesn't matter in the least whether or not your panel supports it or not, because its not going to affect you in the slightest. Having HDCP support doesn't automatically encrypt not HDCP content.
I'm curious what monitors are currently on your short list of possible buys?
The only monitors at newegg that I can find that don't support HDCP are the lowest end consumer junk TN panels that only have 1 VGA input. And no digital inputs at all.
The year of ubuntu on the designer workstation?? *ubuntu 9.04 beta 4 64bit It's pretty pretty fast and stable.
Your going to look pretty silling sitting there with your no-name brand 17" VGA monitor with a cheap 6-bit TN panel trying to convince people you are a "professional graphics designer".
Cheaper drives (which mgmt is sure to require) have 1,000 write cycles (assuming the worst). For certain high-traffic files, that means (assuming 30 writes in a day) a whole 33 days of use.
If that were true. Then an SSD hard drive couldn't run a linux mail server for a small business for more than a couple minutes thanks to the various log files.
1) The maximum write cycles for a block was around 10,000 in 1994. And about 100,000 in 1997. But in 2009 you think 1000? No. Its currently in the millions, even for the cheap SSDs.
2) Look up wear levelling.
3) Look up the MTBF on an SSD vs a spinning platters type.
I've seen studies that have calculated that modern drives will could write continuously at maximum speed for 50+ years before exhausting wear levelling and hitting write cycle limits.
The odds of it failing from something else long before then are much greater. Getting a mere 5+ years of life and easily beating your average spinning disk hard drive is a no brainer.
As such, outsourcing like this is not without precedent,
Depends on -how- precisely its outsourced.
If the governement hires google to manage its cloud apps to an SLA including that the data belongs to the government and is not googles data playground, that's an acceptable scenario. Google does offer such services... although I'm not sure what the terms are or what can be negotiated... but I'm sure an entity the size of the federal government could get whatever terms it wanted for a price.
The government outsourcing to google such that everyone signs up for a gmail account and uses their ad supported cloud apps where they data mine any information they can... that's a completely different, and unprecedented scenario.
When people object to the govt outsourcing to google, they are referring to the 2nd scenario.
So how do you justify the fact that a 10 years old game is worth 15 dollars/euros ?
Why would you think I should have to justify the price?
Fight Club is a 10 year old movie.
To the River was 'Book of the Year' 10 years ago.
Supernatural by Santana was release 10 years ago (Grammy in 2000).
These are all for sale at prices in the same range as DLC. Why should the video game be some arbitrary price that "pleases you". And if we're going to go and start justifying prices, why is Fight Club cheaper than a book?
If you don't think its worth $15 don't buy it. Obviously a lot of people think its worth that much and are buying it. I'm sure I don't have to explain how a market sets prices.
I'll grant that copyright is an artificial distortion of the market, and there is a lot of stuff in copyright that should be out now, but games from the last couple generations of consoles? Get real. The owners should be able to charge what they want for them. I'm all for copyright reform, but even I think 10 years is too short.
However, it worries me when i see Pikmin (a Gamecube game) re-released as a Wii Game for no reason
It was released because it was a good game that a LOT of people have never played. Even though the Wii plays GC games, most Wii owners do not have a GC controller and memory card, so a Wii port of significant GC games will get those games into more peoples hands. If you played it on the GC, and nothing has been added... don't buy it.
I fear that game companies will sell us again all of their games with each new console
How is that any different than reselling us DVDs as blurays, or VHS as DVDs, or cassettes as CDs? You don't have to buy them. Some people who didn't get them last time want them, some people want the convenience of the newer versions. Yes, eventually they should be public domain, and yes I think its wrong for a company to milk the same games for 100+ years. But 10+? I'm ok with 10+.
OK, how about this one: Office Live
What about it? Oh... because in additional to selling a gazillion licenses to MS Office, they also have a free web-app-cloud-service-thingy-a-la-google-in-beta-testing that most people have never heard of?
However, the point stands that Microsoft is more than willing to sell licenses of Microsoft office to anyone that has the slightest interest in buying one.
This is in stark contrast to google, which might offer some sort of web apps server/appliance to the DoD if they ask... but they don't talk about that, and they fully expect the VAST majority to use their hosted (by them) apps.
Sure, ok, you are right in a pedantic sense. Microsoft does offer services, and is even looking into expanding that aspect of their business. And maybe one day it will be as hard to get a standalone app from microsoft as it is from google.
However today is not that day.
I'd much rather have a VW Sharan that gets 7 and still gets 40+ to the gallon
I honestly can't figure out what 'gets 7' or 'will ride 7' is in reference too...
After googling the Sharan the only thing that makes sense is that you mean 7 passengers?