Posts by Tom 35

You like IE?

Don't forget to thank Firefox, Chrome, Opera...

Without them you would still be using IE 6 (or maybe 5).

There would be a lot less problem with IE if they hadn't decided to duct tap it onto the OS.

student licenses for Photoshop, or home packs of MS Office

That is a different product sku. It's not charging more for the same product in a different place. Or only selling a product in one place.

And a lot of grey market is because something is not available at all. There is lots of stuff on sale in the US that you can't buy in Canada (for example Sansung Canada don't sell laptops/netbooks) so if you want one you have to get one from the US.

The media companies are a big pain for consumers too, look at iTunes. The US and UK sites have loads of stuff (that they will not sell me) that are not available on the iTunes Canada site.

What?

"This cryptogram changes each time based on things like amounts, but also transaction counters."

And how is this unpowered chip going to know any of that? The only thing it could do would be a challenge / response using a secret key.

trying to short-circuit

But that's the whole business model.

They send out blackmail letters to bypass the whole legal process,

Jobs?

Wouldn't those who piously wring their hands over /the children/ be out of a job?

Backwards

"I cannot believe most consumers here want to pay for Google et al to make more money."

I can't believe people expect Google et al to pay for me to use their services.

"customers" who are more trouble than they are worth

I think you have the reason right their.

The 10 plus pages of most TOS can be boiled down to...

If you Bla, Bla, Bla... or if we feel like it your account will be cancelled.

Odd conception of "freedom"

It's better then the idea that Corporations should have the freedom to do anything they want.

Yes governments wanting to control the web is a problem, but it's a DIFFERENT problem.

They wonder why ad rates are dropping? It's because there are too many ads. A site that used to have two ads now has 8, a 30 minute TV show now has about 8 minutes of Ads (and they want to show more of them). Saturday morning used to show cartoons for kids now it's all 30 minute ads for useless crap.

When people are willing to make an effort or even spend money just to avoid your ad you have a problem and the answer is not more ads.

Tell them a story

At work we trade the cards around. Single guy gets a card and uses it for a few months, pass it on to a married co-worker, then one with two babies, then the 50 year old single. At times we do it in reverse.

And there is a box with a few extra cards that get used at random.

I can just hear them saying...

We don't track you... what data? How did that data get there... it was collected by mistake, it was ummm a programming error by a junior coder. We will destroy the data as soon as we are finished with it, I mean as soon as we finish our investigation of how it happened* and make sure it will not happen again.

I seem to remember hearing something like that some place...

*that is, how we got caught

Backwards

It would be more like the customer ordered something collect shipping, But UPS wants to also charge the Trader because they are pushing more boxes onto their trucks.

ISP customers download more then they upload (ISPs have a hissy fit if you upload too much), that's why they sell 6M / 768k service. An ISP that thinks they should be paid at both ends needs a good kicking.

TV footage

Older footage on 16mm film can produce a good HD master, not amazing but better then DVD.

Where you are out of luck in stuff shot on video. Or that was shot on film and edited on Video (unless you still have the film and want to do all the work to recreate the video effects).

28 Days Later for example is not that old (2002) but it was shot on an SD digital video camera. So it's no surprise that the BD looks like crap.

her teleprompter wasn't working?

She was looking at the wrong hand and couldn't find her cheat notes.

Except...

Train stops.

Everyone pulls out their cell

Network falls over and dies.

speed dial

Like the medical lab that managed to program my phone number into their system and kept faxing me peoples test results (most often at 2-3am) and didn't seem to be able to fix it? Once I said I was going to call the local muck raking news paper in the morning if I got another fax they some how fixed the problem.

or Alexander Graham Bell

The first time a ran into a 419 scam attempt was a voice call. We get bogus scams faxed to us at work all the time, people call me (dispute the do not call list) with offers protect my credit, I won a free trip/prize, clean my ducts (I always tell them I don't have any ducks), and a long list of other scams. Snail mail too.

Anything useful will be abused by scammers and crooks. Just have to deal with it as we go.

Nice how they aren't above bringing gay rights and abortion

Well the other side always brings Satin into the argument about gay rights and abortion so fair is fair...

Glasses

I do wear glasses, so am I supposed to wear two pairs at once? Or do they expect me to get contacts so I can wear glasses to watch TV.

But that's a minor point compared to the fact that most of the 3D content available is crap.

IE9

Now with the features of IE6 on XP!

The format is at least half the problem.

"PDF is an important format everybody needs to exchange printable documents"

Yes, the key word being printable. How are you going to print Flash? Video? Audio? Why is that crap in the format other then to give them something new to put on the box of the latest $299 upgrade?

The latest hole is due to Flash. Something I do not even want in a printable document!