Comment Re:I absolutely agree with them (Score 1) 642
If steam can't connect it will ask if you want to start in offline mode.
Comment Re:Scams (Score 1) 199
They should have standards for what they sell or allow to be sold through them though. At least I would hope the most reputable company in the US did.
Selling those books depends on naive people not realising what they are buying. There are about 300000 of them so far and not that many have reviews. Cons usually depend on someone's greed or naivete but that doesn't mean they deserve to get conned or that scammers should be allowed to get away with it.
I never got burned by any of this, but others did. The stuff that costs 1p is never eligible for prime or free shipping, although often there are alternative sellers who can provide free or cheaper shipping.
To be fair, Amazon's customer service has been excellent any time I've needed it.
Comment Scams (Score 2) 199
I've seen all sorts of scams running on Amazon and they don't give a fuck. A few examples that I've seen so far:
Counterfeit items.
Products advertised as £0.01 with the actual cost in a fake shipping charge.
There are hundreds of thousands of "books" which are actually auto generated pamphlets consisting of a main Wikipedia article and some linked articles, selling for £30+ and almost all rated 1 star by anyone who bought one. (Search for Betascript on amazon)
Crap watches selling for £10, supposedly reduced from £50 or whatever. I know someone who bought one of these thinking she was getting a bargain but the watch was barely worth £5 let alone £50.
I'd also include Amazon themselves automatically charging £50 for prime after the free trial. It was stated in the terms but they must have made millions from people who didn't notice.
Comment Re:additional (Score 1) 392
Here's a video explaining sieverts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doTHPDMhWGM
Submission + - Gamer's Delight: Overclocked GTX 580s Rounded-up (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Factory overclocked graphics cards are becoming commonplace now for both NVIDIA and AMD-based designs and they offer a bit more muscle obviously versus their stock counterparts. These factory overclocked GeForce GTX 580 cards from Gigabyte, MSI, and ZOTAC represent some of the most powerful single GPU boards you can buy currently. Each manufacturer has taken the original recipe for the GTX 580 from NVIDIA and spiced it up in order to provide additional performance and features. When compared to reference design models which clock in at 772MHz core and 1002MHz memory, the trio of cards you see tested here sport overclocks that will undoubtedly translate into higher frame rates with a warranty to back them up.
Submission + - Al Franken: ‘They're coming after the Intern (politico.com)
ShadowFoxx writes: Al Franken is purporting to be a champion of net neutrality by regulating and not allowing market sources or more ISP choices drive the freedom of the net. I'd like to hear your opinions /. On if more regulations or freemarket practices is the best answer to drive the freedom of the Internet.
Submission + - Physicists Develop Quantum Public Key Encryption (technologyreview.com)
KentuckyFC writes: "Public key cryptography allows anybody to encrypt a message using a public key but only those with another private key can decrypt the message. That's possible because of certain mathematical functions that are easy to perform in one direction but hard to do in reverse. The most famous example is multiplication. It's easy to multiply two numbers together to get a third but hard to start with the third number and work out its factors. Now Japanese researchers have discovered a quantum problem that is hard to solve in one direction but easy to do in reverse. This asymmetry, they say, could form the basis of a new kind of quantum public key cryptography. Their system is based on the problem of distinguishing between two ensembles of quantum states. This is similar to the problem of determining whether two graphs are identical, ie whether they correspond vertex-for-vertex and edge-for-edge. Increasing the complexity of the graph can always make this problem practically impossible for a quantum computer to solve in a reasonable time. But knowing the structure of a subset of the graph makes this problem easy, so this acts as a kind of private key for decrypting messages."
Submission + - Lord Sugar Appointed New Head Of YouView (eweekeurope.co.uk)
geek4 writes: "Can Lord Sugar steer the much-delayed YouView video-on-demand project to success?
Lord Alan Sugar has been appointed non-executive chairman of long-delayed Internet TV project YouView with immediate effect, replacing former head Kip Meek.
“It has been apparent for some time that the YouView board would benefit from additional expertise in consumer marketing and technology delivery. Lord Sugar supplies this,” said departing Meek, who had been in the job for less than eight months.
Formerly known as Project Canvas, YouView is an internet-connected television platform owned by four broadcasters – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five — along with communications companies Arqiva, BT and Talk Talk.
The project was initially set to launch in 2010, as a hardware-assisted, more open successor to the BBC’s iPlayer video-on-demand application. However, it was pushed back to 2011 before getting postponed again until 2012."
Lord Alan Sugar has been appointed non-executive chairman of long-delayed Internet TV project YouView with immediate effect, replacing former head Kip Meek.
“It has been apparent for some time that the YouView board would benefit from additional expertise in consumer marketing and technology delivery. Lord Sugar supplies this,” said departing Meek, who had been in the job for less than eight months.
Formerly known as Project Canvas, YouView is an internet-connected television platform owned by four broadcasters – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five — along with communications companies Arqiva, BT and Talk Talk.
The project was initially set to launch in 2010, as a hardware-assisted, more open successor to the BBC’s iPlayer video-on-demand application. However, it was pushed back to 2011 before getting postponed again until 2012."
Submission + - Why you shouldn't reboot Unix servers (infoworld.com)
GMGruman writes: "It's a persistent myth: reboot your Unix box when something goes wrong or to clean it out. Paul Venezia explains why you should almost never reboot a Unix server, unlike say Windows."
Submission + - Late Night Gaming Banned in Vietnam (vnanet.vn)
R3d M3rcury writes: Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communication has asked ISPs to block access to on-line games between 10:00PM and 8:00AM. 'The request, made on Wednesday, is another move from the authority to mitigate the side effects of online games. The request follows numerous stiff measures by the ministry to tackle the issue, including cutting internet access to agents at night beginning last September.'
Wikileaks To Name Swiss Bank Tax Evaders 783
eldavojohn writes "The old cliche that the rich and corrupt hold all their money in Swiss bank accounts (to avoid taxation) may finally have a bit of transparency, as the news today is that Wikileaks has been handed a list of account holders tendered by Rudolf Elmer, former banker of Julius Baer. Julian Assange promises a 'full revelation' while Elmer cited his motivation as being: 'I want to let society know how this system works. It's damaging society.' This appears to be real, as Mr. Elmer is soon to appear before a Zurich regional court on charges of coercion as well as violations of Switzerland's strict banking secrecy laws. The public may soon find out that their favorite celebrity, politician or employer doesn't feel responsible to contribute financially to the commonwealth at the expense of privacy."
Comment Re:LastPass (Score 1) 142
What's the difference between this and the wand?
Li-Ion Batteries Get Green Seal of Approval 69
thecarchik writes "It is not an easy task to compare the environmental effects of battery powered cars to those caused by conventionally fueled automobiles. The degree to which manufacture, usage and disposal of the batteries used to store the necessary electrical energy are detrimental to the environment is not exactly known. Now, for the first time, a team of Empa scientists have made a detailed life cycle assessment (LCA) or ecobalance of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, in particular the chemically improved (i.e. more environmentally friendly) version of the ones most frequently used in electric vehicles. Researchers decided to find out for sure. They calculated the ecological footprints of electric cars fitted with Li-ion batteries, taking into account all possible relevant factors, from those associated with the production of individual parts all the way through to the scrapping of the vehicle and the disposal of the remains, including the operation of the vehicle during its lifetime."
