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Comment Re:UK Law is clear (Score 2) 617

I think in this type of situation, it's a reasonable expectation that the recipient should return the PS Vita too. They paid £19.99 and got sent a completely different item; it isn't as if the PS Vita was priced at £19.99 in error and the company mistakenly fulfilled the order.

It's only reasonable if the company is compensating them for the expense and time of sending it back. Personally, I would only consider it if the company was at least offering to send me the correct merchandise after refunding my £19.99 in exchange for the return. I'd probably hold out for a check for £19.99 in addition to a full refund and shipment of my intended purchase item. I'd call it a "restocking fee". If I had mistakenly ordered a PS Vita and then sent it back, the company would charge me a "restocking fee" too.

If they refused to compensate me, I'd just sell the Vita, buy the correct game from someone else, and pocket the difference. I would see this as fair, because it would require additional effort to obtain the item I had paid for but not received, and I would expect to be compensated for that.

When I lose something, I offer a reward to get it back. I don't threaten the person who found it.

Sadly, I see similar situations happen all the time. Companies make a mistake with their pricing online and don't fulfil the order and the people who thought they were getting a 40" TV for £50 start talking about their "right" to buy it for that price.

That's because it's dangerously close to a bait-and-switch, which is illegal. It's only not illegal if it is genuinely a mistake. If you're advertising a 40" TV for $50 without any conditions, then customers do, in fact, have the right to buy it for that price. If it is an honest mistake, and the company does not ship the item, but simply refunds the customer's money, the customer has still been harmed. The company has wasted the customer's time.

Let's turn it around a bit: if the customers had asked to return the game they bought and accidentally sent a PS Vita to the company, would the customers be arguing that their mistake represented an "unsolicited gift"?

The company would probably send it back, not because it's their duty under the law, but because it makes good business sense. If they didn't send it back they would lose that customer forever, and they would badmouth the company to others. It could easily end up costing them more than the value of the item.

On the other hand, other than the legal threats, the customers have no incentive to send the devices back. If Zawi refuses to ever do business with them again, they'll just buy stuff from someone else.

Comment Re:Market share (Score 2) 15

I ask because since the Sharp Zaurus days I have wanted a phone which runs 'proper' Linux, a Linux kernel with glibc, X-windows, GTK, QT, etc... I wanted something that I could easily 'port' desktop apps over just by recompiling.

Sounds like you have wanted the N900. X11, Qt, GTK, SDL, Java, and even Mono are all available in the extras repo and easily installable through apt-get.

Sailfish uses Wayland and QT. I'm not sure if GTK is available in the Mer repos. You could probably get XWayland rocking on it.

My very limited understanding of Sailfish is that it is just a Linux kernel with webkit dropped on top of it to run HTML5 apps not unlike Google Chrome. Was I mistaken?

Yes. You were very mistaken. This is a good description of WebOS, not Sailfish.

Sailfish uses Wayland and QT. I believe Python is preinstalled. I'm not sure if GTK is available in the Mer repos. You could probably get XWayland rocking on it. Sailfish is the closest thing to 'proper' Linux available for phones right now, even closer than Ubuntu Phone.

Submission + - Windows chief struggles to explain the consumer value proposition of Windows (citeworld.com) 2

mattydread23 writes: Microsoft's new Windows chief Terry Myerson gave a presentation to financial analysts today, and one asked him a very good question: When I see all these mobile Windows devices — phones, tablets, convertibles — in Best Buy, why should I want one? What's the consumer value proposition of Windows devices? His struggle to answer the question shows that there may not BE a good answer. Back when Windows was all we had, we used it for everything. Now, a lot of functions — communication, gaming, web browsing — can be served by other platforms better, cheaper, or both. This is a tough question, but one Microsoft has to solve if the Windows brand is to remain relevant.

Comment Re:resistive touchscreen Luddites. (Score 3, Insightful) 109

One of the reasons I bought the n900 rather than one of the others was the wonderful resistive touchscreen. It was an excellent choice, as it was so much more precise than the capacitive screens on all the iOS and Android devices at the time. I could actually use the tiny UI elements in desktop apps running from a debian chroot.

Submission + - Lawsuits Could Turn Chimpanzees Into Legal Persons (sciencemag.org) 1

sciencehabit writes: This morning, an animal rights group known as the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a lawsuit in a New York Supreme Court in an attempt to get a judge to declare that chimpanzees are legal persons and should be freed from captivity. The suit is the first of three to be filed in three New York counties this week. They target two research chimps at Stony Brook University and two chimps on private property, and are the opening salvo in a coordinated effort to grant “legal personhood” to a variety of animals across the United States. If NhRP is successful in New York, it would upend millennia of law defining animals as property and could set off a “chain reaction” that could bleed over to other jurisdictions, says Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, and a prominent critic of animal rights. “But if they lose it could be a giant step backward for the movement. They’re playing with fire.”

Comment Re:What's Jolla? What's Sailfish? (Score 1) 118

I agree. The article and summary are badly written. However, parent was complaining there was no "hint" as to the identities of Jolla and Sailfish. He was so emphatic about the word "hint" that he used the emphasis tag. I simply pointed out that there were plenty of hints available, and that those hints should indicate whether the article might fall within his interests. He could simply ask, "Am I interested in installing an alternative OS on an Android phone?". If yes, research Jolla and Sailfish. If no, don't.

I understand that he didn't really want hints, and that he wanted explicit background information. However, parent's statements were so exaggerated that they undermined his argument by being demonstrably false.

Comment Re:What's Jolla? What's Sailfish? (Score 2, Informative) 118

would it kill you just to give a hint of what Jolla and Sailfish are?

They gave you several hints.

"Jolla CEO Tomi Pienimäki": Hmm. Jolla must be a corporation. That name sounds Finnish.

"If Jolla truly is compatible with Android devices...": Jolla seems to be making some sort of cell phone software.

"Is Jolla going to let individual users to install the Sailfish operating system ..." Sailfish is an operating system for cell phones.

So, Jolla is a Finnish cell phone company that is producing an OS called Sailfish. It will be installable on Android devices. It seems like you would have enough information there to know if you want to know more. They've even provided all the relevant keywords: "Jolla", "Sailfish", which you can enter into a search engine to find more information

Complaining about this makes you appear stupid and lazy.

Comment Re:Where's the outrage?! (Score 1) 255

It isn't a one-click method to install the CM firmware though - just a method of making the installation via PC less painless.

Oooh! Great! Where do I download? I've been looking for ways to make installing 3rd party firmwares more painful. As it stands right now, the process is far too pleasant and enjoyable.

Submission + - The Burning Bridges of Ubuntu (datamation.com)

jammag writes: "Whether Ubuntu is declining is still debatable. However, in the last couple of months, one thing is clear: internally and externally, its commercial arm Canonical appears to be throwing the idea of community overboard as though it was ballast in a balloon about to crash." So claims a top Linux pundit, pointing out instances of community discontent and apparent ham-handeness on Mark Shuttleworth's part. Yet isn't this just routine kvetching in the open source community?

Submission + - NSA Spied On Porn Habits As Part Of Plan To Discredit 'Radicalizers' (huffingtonpost.com)

Jah-Wren Ryel writes: The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA document.

This plan is remarkably similar to the way the FBI tried to blackmail Martin Luther King, aka "the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation," with an audiotape they got by bugging his bedroom.

Submission + - Weapons You Can Build from Items Sold in Airport Stores After the TSA Checkpoint (terminalcornucopia.com)

Jah-Wren Ryel writes: In early-2013, independent security researcher, Evan “treefort” Booth, began working to answer one simple question: Can common items sold in airports after the security screening be used to build lethal weapons? As it turns out, even a marginally “MacGyver-esque” attacker can breeze through terminal gift shops, restaurants, magazine stands and duty-free shops to find everything needed to wage war on an airplane.

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