And so what do they intend to do with it? Your business with them is complete. Now the only reason they have to keep it is for the purposes of tracking you and privacy invasion.
Businesses are required to retain a lot of records for a long time. Here in Norway, I believe the minimum length is 10 years. The exact level of detail and length of retention might vary by law and interpretation. Thus, they might not have your data just to invade your privacy. In contrast, I'm pretty sure (without knowing almost anything about the company you discuss) that this is not why. It's much more likely to be a variation of "we have records, we have to have records and no extra work please".
In your country, do contractors and repair people carry plastic card terminals around with them?
No, you get the bill and pay with giro. These are almost exclusively handled electronically these days - although earlier mailing them in was common. Or delivering them to the bank. Cheques haven't been used here in Norway since the early eighties. Some delivery services (packages, pizza,...) have portable terminals, though.
They aren't getting the loan for making more Tesla Roadsters... but for their new Tesla Model S sedan. Which is a lot more affordable (and useful) than the Roadster. Still more pricey than a normal car, but it's definitely going in the right direction.
It could even be a hit here in Norway, as it will be exempt from all normal car taxes (which easily make most cars 2 times or more expensive than in the US) - it will even be exempt from the VAT (25%). Exporting US cars again would be nice, wouldn't it?
No, it doesn't - read it again. They have a license to use it if they get it. You don't have to distribute it to them. You have an obligation to provide source (or a written offer thereof) to anyone to whom you distribute the program. They, in turn, have similar obligations to whomever they distribute it to. Usually, this isn't much of an issue... but if you are e.g. selling customized solutions based on GPL software, your obligation is to your customer. Not to an unrelated third party.
GPL'd software can be ethically sold if the source is available.
Source doesn't need to be generally available either. You have an obligation to provide the ones you distribute the program to with the source code - either included, or upon request. They must be made aware of their rights. You have no obligation to a third party. If the ones you sell the product to distribute the program, they are the ones with the obligations for the new set of licensees.
What's the point then? Why release a 2.5" drive when it won't fit in 90% of devices that take 2.5" drives?
Demonstrating technical leadership... first to 1 GB. Hoping this will promote sales of other drives.
It can be (and is) offered as a small, portable USB drive.
Some laptops can support it (or be designed that way, for future products).
Other products, like media players or other appliances, could also be a target market
The development was made anyway... I doubt the number of platters is the most significant part of development costs. They can release a standard form factor 650 GB drive too.
Let's not let the facts get in the way of rabid fanboyism! After all, Linux is 100%, completely secure! There are magical GPL fairies in the kernel that protect it from any and all attacks, even when the app in question is from a 3rd party.
You misunderstand. I know there is a product trading under a false disguise. I'm just disputing it has anything to do with actual Parmesan. I bought that miserable product once when I lived in the US. It tasted like sawdust, nothing like the real product. Then I looked closer on it, and realized it was just a fake... like Ralph Laurem, Barbi, S0ny, Appie - but allowed to use the real name. It seems that the US cares very much about trademarks and copyrights otherwise - but not about protected names from Europe, identifying specific products.
And the sawdust taste? Not so surprised anymore when I looked at the list of contents. There are things there that has nothing to do in Parmesan... like cellulose. In a cheese. Somehow, I doubt the rest of the method has been used either... including the aging.
It's sad that a lot of Americans don't know what the real product should be, and identify it with substandard products using fake names.
There is no "Kraft Parmesan". There is a product called something like it - even containing cellulose if I recall correctly - but it is not Parmesan cheese. Kraft's abomination is an attempt to identify a crappy, industrialized low quality item as a high quality, hand made product of specific origin. In other news: It is only champagne if you make it from special grapes from a special region in a special way. If it isn't, it is sparkling wine.
I am now exceedingly glad I waited to purchase a new HDD for my laptop.
The drive is 2.5 inches, but it is 12.5 mm rather than the standard 9.5 mm thick - so it is unlikely to fit in a laptop. On a side note, I wish they started using metric proper instead of this mix of metric and legacy measurements.
I would be beyond fucking annoyed -- I would call it what it fucking is: tresspassing. In U.S. Law - if someone ships you an item, on purpose or by accident, they can't demand it back (only unless a contract was signed beforehand hand and purchase doesnt fulfill it).
If you buy an illegal item, it could theoretically be repossessed. If you buy a stolen ring and the police found out, you could be in trouble if you did so knowingly. If you did it unknowingly, I'm sure the original owner could get it back as well - as it was not the seller's to sell. Same applies here...
It would have been better if Amazon had just substituted the books, though... I'm sure there are other editions of these well known works. And if copyright laws hadn't been so twisted by money the last couple of years, these books would also have been public domain many years ago.
Is this why amazon offers DRM-free MP3s to its customers at lower prices than DRM-laden itunes (something like $0.75 per song on big albums)
There is no DRM on the iTunes store either. The price seems about even too - although as Amazon isn't even available, it's irrelevant for me and I only did a quick search and compared some Michael Jackson albums featured by both rather prominently. I'm sure they both have a varying selection of cheaper albums.
Firefox makes users jump through hoops for a reason. Once upon a time, webmasters were terrible at keeping websites up to date, and browsers didn't work very hard to make it apparent. If the website is built and operated correctly, users never see a damn thing.
I much preferred the old way. Most of my exposure to their annoying hoops is when I find something on google - and https doesn't really add any value other than privacy when I e.g. read messages on a mailing list I found that way. I don't want a "10 click add a permanent certificate" procedure there. I know what I'm doing, a page "Unsigned certificate - go back / ignore this session / add permanent exception" would be much better. I'm obviously never ever going to use it to send sensitive information or purchase anything - but neither am I going to send a request to a webmaster of a page I just found among many others on Google.
But for an even greater sense of "small part in a big war", I humbly direct you to Decent: Freespace and Freespace 2. It's a shame Volition went under - I'd really love another chapter in that story.
I liked them too. Good games, but just not as good as TIE Fighter (I completely agree with you X-Wing Alliance, btw). You can buy Freespace and Freespace 2 pretty cheap from Good Old Games - DRM free, and working with the newest Windows versions.
Can't say the same for Tie Fighter, unfortunately... my collector series CD (the one I bought originally is long gone... with the manual and story) doesn't install without tricks, and with tricks it's crashing when running 3D.
I'm looking forward to these releases... and like many others here, there are some jewels I look forward to even more than the rest.
Day of the Tentacle was the best of all their adventures... the jokes, the plot, the characters - and even the voice acting - were unsurpassed. I was lucky enough to get the CD edition in the mid-nineties, and it's one of the gaming experiences that are burned into my mind - like the Baldur's Gate series and Gabriel Knight: Sins Of the Fathers.
Tie Fighter... X-Wing was good, and you were playing the good side. But Tie Fighter... the story was better, the game mechanics and graphics were better and you got to fly all sort of new ships. And it was balanced just right... for a game, anyway. And there were large battles going around you. The game was the ultimate space combat "sim" for me.
No, it's not. When you tax a business, that tax becomes a cost of doing business. Then, the price of everything that business sells is calculated so as to recover all the costs of doing business, including taxes. In the long run, taxing business just makes them collect the money from their customers and pass it on to the state. If you don't believe this, learn something about how businesses work in The Real World.
You aren't taxing the business here. You are taxing the customer - in particular, you're making sure he is paying the tax he is obligated to. In particular, you are avoiding discriminating local businesses who contribute to their local societies and provide jobs there. You level the playing field.
If you believe that the price of everything is just based on the costs (including taxes), you need to study a bit beyond what you've done currently. A perfect market is a very rare thing... prices are set to maximize profits.
Look at e.g. Microsoft - prices are set to what they believe is the optimal price to maximize current and future profits (maintain market dominance). If Microsoft's tax schemes (offshoring profits to avoid paying taxes) are suddenly invalid, this doesn't change what the optimal price is... so if they could no longer avoid taxes, it would affect their profits. Not product prices.
If they do stay they will just Pass the Extra cost on to the consumer, i.e YOU
That's a myth. Amazon takes the price they can - the price they believe would give them the biggest profit. Today, many vendors already do collect the sales tax, so it would just even the scales a bit... making sure that Amazon would get their advantage from scale, efficient operations and name recognition - instead of that plus a tax advatange.
Also, it should be noted that the sales tax is paid by the consumer. Amazon wouldn't pay, they just wouldn't enable the customer to avoid paying what the local state requires him to.
I realize that taxes are a necessary evil, but let us not spread that evil any further that it has already gone. Every time the government sucks a penny out of the economy we are all the worse for it
Are you? Is everyone worse off if the government sucks out pennies for e.g. basic education? Police? Roads? I agree on too much taxes being bad, but a certain level of public services is necessarry, and to everyone's gain.
Also, how about "enough to cover the costs in the long run" rather than a large, permanent deficit? The size of the costs is one issue, but the US has been undertaxed for many years when one considers how much money the US wants to spend.
For Amazon, this is certainly not about complexity. It's about the sales tax - it will no longer have a "discount" compared to local brick and mortar stores, by avoiding this extra cost that they have to pay. Thus, it will either lose some of its edge - or reduce its profits.
A good exemple that sometimes the market is unable to find the most optimal solution and someone has to regulate.
While I agree that some regulation is necessary - among other things to maintain healthy competition and free markets - they didn't actually regulate it. They hinted that they might, so the vendors found a solution themselves instead. A gentle, but firm, push in the right direction.
On the other hand, although KDE uses Qt as a basis, it's otherwise nearly unsponsored (at least, to the degree of corporations actually contributing to it; Nokia's contributions seem to extend to their licensing of Qt allowing people to use it, and largely end there). Okay, that's a bit of a big "but"
That's a pretty big but... and KDE also has other corporate sponsors. Mandriva (Mandrake), Novell (SUSE), Nokia (Trolltech), Intel, Canonical / Mark Shuttleworth are or have been sponsors, and not just by contributing QT.
Slashdot Mirror
And so what do they intend to do with it? Your business with them is complete. Now the only reason they have to keep it is for the purposes of tracking you and privacy invasion.
Businesses are required to retain a lot of records for a long time. Here in Norway, I believe the minimum length is 10 years. The exact level of detail and length of retention might vary by law and interpretation. Thus, they might not have your data just to invade your privacy. In contrast, I'm pretty sure (without knowing almost anything about the company you discuss) that this is not why. It's much more likely to be a variation of "we have records, we have to have records and no extra work please".
In your country, do contractors and repair people carry plastic card terminals around with them?
No, you get the bill and pay with giro. These are almost exclusively handled electronically these days - although earlier mailing them in was common. Or delivering them to the bank. Cheques haven't been used here in Norway since the early eighties. Some delivery services (packages, pizza, ...) have portable terminals, though.
They aren't getting the loan for making more Tesla Roadsters... but for their new Tesla Model S sedan. Which is a lot more affordable (and useful) than the Roadster. Still more pricey than a normal car, but it's definitely going in the right direction.
It could even be a hit here in Norway, as it will be exempt from all normal car taxes (which easily make most cars 2 times or more expensive than in the US) - it will even be exempt from the VAT (25%). Exporting US cars again would be nice, wouldn't it?
Open source only means that the source is available to the users of the product.
There are plenty of commercial products where you can have the source... but no other rights, and having to sign NDAs etc.
No, it doesn't - read it again. They have a license to use it if they get it. You don't have to distribute it to them. You have an obligation to provide source (or a written offer thereof) to anyone to whom you distribute the program. They, in turn, have similar obligations to whomever they distribute it to. Usually, this isn't much of an issue... but if you are e.g. selling customized solutions based on GPL software, your obligation is to your customer. Not to an unrelated third party.
GPL'd software can be ethically sold if the source is available.
Source doesn't need to be generally available either. You have an obligation to provide the ones you distribute the program to with the source code - either included, or upon request. They must be made aware of their rights. You have no obligation to a third party. If the ones you sell the product to distribute the program, they are the ones with the obligations for the new set of licensees.
What's the point then? Why release a 2.5" drive when it won't fit in 90% of devices that take 2.5" drives?
Let's not let the facts get in the way of rabid fanboyism! After all, Linux is 100%, completely secure! There are magical GPL fairies in the kernel that protect it from any and all attacks, even when the app in question is from a 3rd party.
Maybe not fairies, but you do have mechanisms like SElinux - which can run web browser plugins in a confined mode.
You misunderstand. I know there is a product trading under a false disguise. I'm just disputing it has anything to do with actual Parmesan. I bought that miserable product once when I lived in the US. It tasted like sawdust, nothing like the real product. Then I looked closer on it, and realized it was just a fake... like Ralph Laurem, Barbi, S0ny, Appie - but allowed to use the real name. It seems that the US cares very much about trademarks and copyrights otherwise - but not about protected names from Europe, identifying specific products.
And the sawdust taste? Not so surprised anymore when I looked at the list of contents. There are things there that has nothing to do in Parmesan... like cellulose. In a cheese. Somehow, I doubt the rest of the method has been used either... including the aging.
It's sad that a lot of Americans don't know what the real product should be, and identify it with substandard products using fake names.
There is no "Kraft Parmesan". There is a product called something like it - even containing cellulose if I recall correctly - but it is not Parmesan cheese. Kraft's abomination is an attempt to identify a crappy, industrialized low quality item as a high quality, hand made product of specific origin. In other news: It is only champagne if you make it from special grapes from a special region in a special way. If it isn't, it is sparkling wine.
I am now exceedingly glad I waited to purchase a new HDD for my laptop.
The drive is 2.5 inches, but it is 12.5 mm rather than the standard 9.5 mm thick - so it is unlikely to fit in a laptop. On a side note, I wish they started using metric proper instead of this mix of metric and legacy measurements.
I would be beyond fucking annoyed -- I would call it what it fucking is: tresspassing. In U.S. Law - if someone ships you an item, on purpose or by accident, they can't demand it back (only unless a contract was signed beforehand hand and purchase doesnt fulfill it).
If you buy an illegal item, it could theoretically be repossessed. If you buy a stolen ring and the police found out, you could be in trouble if you did so knowingly. If you did it unknowingly, I'm sure the original owner could get it back as well - as it was not the seller's to sell. Same applies here...
It would have been better if Amazon had just substituted the books, though... I'm sure there are other editions of these well known works. And if copyright laws hadn't been so twisted by money the last couple of years, these books would also have been public domain many years ago.
Is this why amazon offers DRM-free MP3s to its customers at lower prices than DRM-laden itunes (something like $0.75 per song on big albums)
There is no DRM on the iTunes store either. The price seems about even too - although as Amazon isn't even available, it's irrelevant for me and I only did a quick search and compared some Michael Jackson albums featured by both rather prominently. I'm sure they both have a varying selection of cheaper albums.
Firefox makes users jump through hoops for a reason. Once upon a time, webmasters were terrible at keeping websites up to date, and browsers didn't work very hard to make it apparent. If the website is built and operated correctly, users never see a damn thing.
I much preferred the old way. Most of my exposure to their annoying hoops is when I find something on google - and https doesn't really add any value other than privacy when I e.g. read messages on a mailing list I found that way. I don't want a "10 click add a permanent certificate" procedure there. I know what I'm doing, a page "Unsigned certificate - go back / ignore this session / add permanent exception" would be much better. I'm obviously never ever going to use it to send sensitive information or purchase anything - but neither am I going to send a request to a webmaster of a page I just found among many others on Google.
But for an even greater sense of "small part in a big war", I humbly direct you to Decent: Freespace and Freespace 2. It's a shame Volition went under - I'd really love another chapter in that story.
I liked them too. Good games, but just not as good as TIE Fighter (I completely agree with you X-Wing Alliance, btw). You can buy Freespace and Freespace 2 pretty cheap from Good Old Games - DRM free, and working with the newest Windows versions.
Can't say the same for Tie Fighter, unfortunately... my collector series CD (the one I bought originally is long gone... with the manual and story) doesn't install without tricks, and with tricks it's crashing when running 3D.
I'm looking forward to these releases... and like many others here, there are some jewels I look forward to even more than the rest.
Day of the Tentacle was the best of all their adventures... the jokes, the plot, the characters - and even the voice acting - were unsurpassed. I was lucky enough to get the CD edition in the mid-nineties, and it's one of the gaming experiences that are burned into my mind - like the Baldur's Gate series and Gabriel Knight: Sins Of the Fathers.
Tie Fighter... X-Wing was good, and you were playing the good side. But Tie Fighter... the story was better, the game mechanics and graphics were better and you got to fly all sort of new ships. And it was balanced just right... for a game, anyway. And there were large battles going around you. The game was the ultimate space combat "sim" for me.
I'll buy that, its not like Bananas grow on trees.
Indeed, they don't. Banana plants are just weird clones - not trees.
Millions?! What game was that where you were killing several thousand Nazis a session? Spore?
Civilization springs to mind.
Which must be a good thing, because it will make non-psychopaths far less likely to murder someone in real life.
I think desensitization is just as likely...
No, it's not. When you tax a business, that tax becomes a cost of doing business. Then, the price of everything that business sells is calculated so as to recover all the costs of doing business, including taxes. In the long run, taxing business just makes them collect the money from their customers and pass it on to the state. If you don't believe this, learn something about how businesses work in The Real World.
You aren't taxing the business here. You are taxing the customer - in particular, you're making sure he is paying the tax he is obligated to. In particular, you are avoiding discriminating local businesses who contribute to their local societies and provide jobs there. You level the playing field.
If you believe that the price of everything is just based on the costs (including taxes), you need to study a bit beyond what you've done currently. A perfect market is a very rare thing... prices are set to maximize profits.
Look at e.g. Microsoft - prices are set to what they believe is the optimal price to maximize current and future profits (maintain market dominance). If Microsoft's tax schemes (offshoring profits to avoid paying taxes) are suddenly invalid, this doesn't change what the optimal price is... so if they could no longer avoid taxes, it would affect their profits. Not product prices.
If they do stay they will just Pass the Extra cost on to the consumer, i.e YOU
That's a myth. Amazon takes the price they can - the price they believe would give them the biggest profit. Today, many vendors already do collect the sales tax, so it would just even the scales a bit... making sure that Amazon would get their advantage from scale, efficient operations and name recognition - instead of that plus a tax advatange.
Also, it should be noted that the sales tax is paid by the consumer. Amazon wouldn't pay, they just wouldn't enable the customer to avoid paying what the local state requires him to.
I realize that taxes are a necessary evil, but let us not spread that evil any further that it has already gone. Every time the government sucks a penny out of the economy we are all the worse for it
Are you? Is everyone worse off if the government sucks out pennies for e.g. basic education? Police? Roads? I agree on too much taxes being bad, but a certain level of public services is necessarry, and to everyone's gain.
Also, how about "enough to cover the costs in the long run" rather than a large, permanent deficit? The size of the costs is one issue, but the US has been undertaxed for many years when one considers how much money the US wants to spend.
For Amazon, this is certainly not about complexity. It's about the sales tax - it will no longer have a "discount" compared to local brick and mortar stores, by avoiding this extra cost that they have to pay. Thus, it will either lose some of its edge - or reduce its profits.
A good exemple that sometimes the market is unable to find the most optimal solution and someone has to regulate.
While I agree that some regulation is necessary - among other things to maintain healthy competition and free markets - they didn't actually regulate it. They hinted that they might, so the vendors found a solution themselves instead. A gentle, but firm, push in the right direction.
On the other hand, although KDE uses Qt as a basis, it's otherwise nearly unsponsored (at least, to the degree of corporations actually contributing to it; Nokia's contributions seem to extend to their licensing of Qt allowing people to use it, and largely end there). Okay, that's a bit of a big "but"
That's a pretty big but... and KDE also has other corporate sponsors. Mandriva (Mandrake), Novell (SUSE), Nokia (Trolltech), Intel, Canonical / Mark Shuttleworth are or have been sponsors, and not just by contributing QT.