While certainly the Constitution and Bill of RIghts was not meant to apply to all persons everywhere, there is still a distinction in language between person and citizen that one needs to remain aware of. For instance, in determining the representation quoted, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person and were clearly not citizens. Also "Indians" who were taxed were included and they were not citizens either. Also, felons were not considered "free persons" so that was in fact was made as a distinction as well.
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
as someone who has been on academic search committees, a position announcement in IEEE is a must. how about they increase the fee charged and target the announcements based on the journal subject. so, if an employer is looking for someone with a background in nanotech, the job announcement will show up with results found in IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology or related journals.
this would avoid concerns about bias that commercial ads might have and also further the mission of a professional organization.
... does anyone think that this could get to the point where it could be considered price-fixing? we know the record companies have a history of this or is this a completely different situation.
I can understand them asking why he wanted to know this information, but the questions concerning if he belongs to perfectly legal organizations are really troubling (if he is to be believed). Should belonging to a watchdog group (UT Watch) or communicating with the ACLU make any difference at all in the investigation of a Joint Terrorism Task Force? How is that relevant? There has been an ongoing trend of using new powers granted to "fight terrorism" to harass people and squelch dissent.
I sent them this note on Jan 9th and didn't get a response until Jan 15th. Notice it didn't really address what I said.
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 6:00 PM
To: umg@umusic.com
Subject: "Super Audio CD"
To whom it may concern,
I am extremely disappointed in UMG's recent decision to copy protect compact discs in a format that is incompatible with the Mac and Linux operating systems and with DVD players.
I am an avid music collector with over 2,000 CD's in my collection, many of them under the UMG and subsidiary labels. I use my Mac and DVD player to listen to CD's, and thus your recent policy has essentially blocked me from
listening to the new "Super Audio CD" format. I will certainly not be purchasing your products while this state of affairs continues and may
very well choose to not purchase your products in the future for your clear lack of regard for the situation of millions of your consumers.
---the response
Date: Tue Jan 15, 2002 09:42:23 AM
To:
Subject: RE: "Super Audio CD"
This CD may not be playable in a limited number of CD players. UMG is currently working with our technology providers to achieve 100% playability in all players, and hopes to have MAC playability in the
future.
You can help us by emailing the make, model of the player and a description of the problem.
Music Help Online Support
---
Why would they think that a CD player would play something that is not in fact a CD?
The way you phrase this, it sounds like you pay label price on everything you buy.
No I don't. Again, we are not talking about one's ability to try to convince a salesperson or manager to give a discount. We are talking about official policy of a company that refuses to reveal the criteria. To me the issue is clear, if they revealed how they were doing this I would have no problem with it.
So you are saying this is exactly like buying a car from a car dealership?
auto sales are usually put in a slighlty different category than pure 'retail'. but even so, the price difference in buying a car is due to bargaining. try going to a book store, clothing store. consumer electronics store, etc. and try to haggle over the price.
again, the situation is different because one is not bargaining with Amazon. you are given a specific price that can be different that what other people are charged. on what basis is the decision made? we have no idea.
I think the issue here isn't that they're doing it -- charging less for some customers, more for others -- but that we don't *know* the criteria. Yes, that is exactly my point. I know seniors or students may get a certain discount at movie theaters or whatever. Fine. In these situations the criteria is public and I can make my judgements based on that information. The precise problem here is that we have no idea why Amazon is charging certain individuals more than others.
This is completely normal practice in the brick and mortar retail business, whay bash Amazon for it?
This is absolutely not normal business practice in retail stores. The issue here is not that Amazon is analyzing the buying patterns of consumers in the aggregate and changing prices based on this information. The problem is that they are using some secret criteria to charge people different prices as individuals.
Imagining going into Borders and being charged a different price for the same book as the person in front of you in the check out line. That is analogous to what is happening here.
Frankly, if this happened in a 'bricks and mortar' retail store and the store would not release the criteria it was using to make their individual pricing decision how long to you think it would take before someone filed a discrimination suit?
Slashdot Mirror
While certainly the Constitution and Bill of RIghts was not meant to apply to all persons everywhere, there is still a distinction in language between person and citizen that one needs to remain aware of. For instance, in determining the representation quoted, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person and were clearly not citizens. Also "Indians" who were taxed were included and they were not citizens either. Also, felons were not considered "free persons" so that was in fact was made as a distinction as well.
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
as someone who has been on academic search committees, a position announcement in IEEE is a must. how about they increase the fee charged and target the announcements based on the journal subject. so, if an employer is looking for someone with a background in nanotech, the job announcement will show up with results found in IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology or related journals.
this would avoid concerns about bias that commercial ads might have and also further the mission of a professional organization.
It is actually quite simple to find hardware Macs -
http://guide.apple.com/
... does anyone think that this could get to the point where it could be considered price-fixing? we know the record companies have a history of this or is this a completely different situation.
I can understand them asking why he wanted to know this information, but the questions concerning if he belongs to perfectly legal organizations are really troubling (if he is to be believed). Should belonging to a watchdog group (UT Watch) or communicating with the ACLU make any difference at all in the investigation of a Joint Terrorism Task Force? How is that relevant? There has been an ongoing trend of using new powers granted to "fight terrorism" to harass people and squelch dissent.
I sent them this note on Jan 9th and didn't get a response until Jan 15th. Notice it didn't really address what I said.
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 6:00 PM
To: umg@umusic.com
Subject: "Super Audio CD"
To whom it may concern,
I am extremely disappointed in UMG's recent decision to copy protect compact discs in a format that is incompatible with the Mac and Linux operating systems and with DVD players.
I am an avid music collector with over 2,000 CD's in my collection, many of them under the UMG and subsidiary labels. I use my Mac and DVD player to listen to CD's, and thus your recent policy has essentially blocked me from
listening to the new "Super Audio CD" format. I will certainly not be purchasing your products while this state of affairs continues and may
very well choose to not purchase your products in the future for your clear lack of regard for the situation of millions of your consumers.
---the response
Date: Tue Jan 15, 2002 09:42:23 AM
To:
Subject: RE: "Super Audio CD"
This CD may not be playable in a limited number of CD players. UMG is currently working with our technology providers to achieve 100% playability in all players, and hopes to have MAC playability in the
future.
You can help us by emailing the make, model of the player and a description of the problem.
Music Help Online Support
---
Why would they think that a CD player would play something that is not in fact a CD?
Maybe they were just trying to figure out how to make the paperclip go away?
The way you phrase this, it sounds like you pay label price on everything you buy.
No I don't. Again, we are not talking about one's ability to try to convince a salesperson or manager to give a discount. We are talking about official policy of a company that refuses to reveal the criteria. To me the issue is clear, if they revealed how they were doing this I would have no problem with it.
So you are saying this is exactly like buying a car from a car dealership?
auto sales are usually put in a slighlty different category than pure 'retail'. but even so, the price difference in buying a car is due to bargaining. try going to a book store, clothing store. consumer electronics store, etc. and try to haggle over the price.
again, the situation is different because one is not bargaining with Amazon. you are given a specific price that can be different that what other people are charged. on what basis is the decision made? we have no idea.
I think the issue here isn't that they're doing it -- charging less for some customers, more for others -- but that we don't *know* the criteria.
Yes, that is exactly my point. I know seniors or students may get a certain discount at movie theaters or whatever. Fine. In these situations the criteria is public and I can make my judgements based on that information. The precise problem here is that we have no idea why Amazon is charging certain individuals more than others.
This is completely normal practice in the brick and mortar retail business, whay bash Amazon for it?
This is absolutely not normal business practice in retail stores. The issue here is not that Amazon is analyzing the buying patterns of consumers in the aggregate and changing prices based on this information. The problem is that they are using some secret criteria to charge people different prices as individuals.
Imagining going into Borders and being charged a different price for the same book as the person in front of you in the check out line. That is analogous to what is happening here.
Frankly, if this happened in a 'bricks and mortar' retail store and the store would not release the criteria it was using to make their individual pricing decision how long to you think it would take before someone filed a discrimination suit?
I would highly recommend checking out Bill Schottstaedt's snd.
You also may want to look at Mix. Some of the software here is also great.