Seriously Overpriced Books 154
Josh Baugher
sent us a link to a book (that none of you ought to buy!) over
at Amazon. By our good buddy Bill Gates,
but Check out that List Price.
So you thought he got rich simply by enforcing a monopoly on the
computer industry! Update: 03/23 01:15 by CT : Doh! Its a set of 24 books- so
its only $40 a book. Practically a bargain. Go pad Bills
pocket if you like.
Server Edition? (Score:1)
David Cornette
dcornett@isilzha.ne.mediaone.net
Server Edition? (Score:1)
Note that if you want to let your friends read it, you'll also need to buy a license for the standard edition for each person who opens it.
Read the Fine Print (Score:2)
Sorry but it seems like we can't complain about Gates on this one.
damn! (Score:1)
not even for college books! (Score:1)
Something fishy about the URL (Score:1)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/04461680
Its the exact same entry. Prank? Clickthrough? I couldn't tell you. Either way I don't think I like the smell of it.
Overprice (Score:1)
Either way, I'm willing to bet that within a year or two it'll be in the $5 bargain bin.
Wait a week... (Score:1)
What, precisely are 'digital numbers' (Score:1)
Apparently (Score:2)
If you pay $500 to read what Gates has to say, you fail.
Overprice (Score:1)
I reviewed it at Amazon (Score:1)
Appendix A: Windows Source Code (Score:1)
This can't be for real... (Score:1)
jaraxle
A little bit of fun... (Score:1)
jaraxle
"Training package" (Score:1)
Personally, I can't wait until they come out with
a "little red book" of Mr. Gates's "wisdom."
Barnes and Noble (Score:1)
The price reduction must be because B&N uses ASP pages while Amazon does not.
Inflation in the USA? (Score:1)
what happened to the US-Dollar? It's DM 52,36 at amazon.de, which used to be somewhat like 30 to 32 bucks.
Nah, even that's way to expensive for a book by Gates. I read "The Road Ahead" when I found it for DM 8,50 (around $5 - before Inflation
COBOL Revenue (was:What the hell...?) (Score:1)
Yeah, but think of the money you (or your great-great-.......-great-Grandchildren) can sell this book for, when Y10K comes along ;-)
If there is still money then. Cobol surely is gonna stick around that long.
Ralph
Perhaps this is autographed/numbered? (Score:1)
Aren't you excited now?
Overpriced Ones at That... (Score:1)
Microsoft is just giving the customer what they want. By bundling the books together, they add value to the package.
The fact that you can buy the books separately does not mean that the whole thing is not one whole integrated book.
It's a display set (Score:1)
Either that, or this is for the special 25-user license edition.
Anyone still overpaying Amazon? (Score:1)
LOOK AT THE URL!!!! (Score:1)
So for this one they'd make $75 per book bought by them, not a bad deal.
Cheez
Slashdot clickthrough? (Score:1)
... or a crack (Score:1)
which raises the question ... (Score:1)
Why in the fuck would anyone want 40 copies of this shit!?!
Is this an educational discount?
As if ...
I am The Author (Score:1)
IT'S REAL! (Score:1)
I doubt it'd be accepted, but...
LOOK AT THE URL!!!! (Score:1)
It has slashdot in it. Go to www.amazon.com, search for the book, and it's $18. (You also get to see it's picture). This has to be a joke
$40 * 24 != $504 (Score:1)
Price is for 24 copies (Score:1)
hmm...
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Resume [iren.net]
Overpriced Ones at That... (Score:1)
$504/24 = $21 which means you'll pay more if you buy them in bulk..
Which means that if you buy them in bulk they are twice as sure of your IQ.
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Resume [iren.net]
IT'S REAL! (Score:3)
http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~bganno n/booksearch/ [purdue.edu] and found that:
Barnes-n-Noble is selling it for $504.00
Amazon is selling it for $504.00
Shopping.com is selling it at: $489.60
BuyBooks.com is comes in at the least at: $432.00
I can't believe it!
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Resume [iren.net]
This can't be for real... (Score:1)
this is from 'man ftpd'
SYNOPSIS
ftpd [ -d ] [ -v ] [ -l ] [ -ttimeout ] [ -Tmaxtimeout ] [
-a ] [ -A ] [ -L ] [ -i ] [ -o ] -uumask ]
so just edit
Read the Fine Print (Score:1)
YE GAD! (Score:1)
which raises the question ... (Score:1)
Stop me! (Score:1)
No, it's Slashdot's deal with amazon.com (Score:1)
URL 101, part II - Mangled URLs (Score:1)
Amazon uses it to identify the site from which the buyer came, so it can pay it(the site) some percentage of the book price if a sale is completed.
It is a joke! (Score:1)
As someone has already pointed out. The price is for 24 copies of the book.
-cpc-
The Business of Speed (Score:1)
on video and then not rent it.
do
nothing
loop
Real price (Score:1)
Check it out.
vr
Speed of Thought (Score:1)
K.
-
Bill the Philosopher (Score:1)
Licensing! (Score:1)
Same price w/o the /. Here's the URL (Score:1)
Why is costs so much... multiple books! (Score:1)
Overprice (Score:1)
Server Edition? (Score:1)
Why are u complaining about price? (Score:1)
Slashdot clickthrough? (Score:1)
-Augie, has had the Amazon.com button on his site for three or four months now and is the only person who ever clicked through it!
Making in.ftpd not timeout users. (Score:1)
An easier solution is to make your FTP client send the NOOP command every other minute (with standard Berkeley or GNU inet-utils ftp, use the `quote noop' command). This keeps the connection active.
Cheers,
Joshua.
Error. (Score:1)
Overprice (Score:1)
People will pay $500... (Score:1)
I know many who will.
People will think "If I read this book I can be a gazillionaire too!"
But as noted before,
this is for a 24 pack of books.
(why would anyone buy that quantity?
do they think this will make them 24 times as rich as bill gates?
maybe multiply their chance to be rich by 24?
maybe build a mountain of books?)
---
Gates is releasing the source code!! (Score:1)
This can't be for real... (Score:1)
And, I hear it won't run linux.
BTW: The link in Taco's article may seem like a prank to you if you noticed the clickthrough url that refrences slashdot. You think, eh, this is a hack?
Read the Fine Print (Score:1)
sub hello()
MsgBox ("Hello world.")
End Sub
Skevin
I LOVE MICROSOFT! (Score:1)
I do love Microsoft though. Just think all the fun we would be missing out on if we didn't have Microsoft to laugh at. If it weren't for Microsoft we may not have Open Source. Maybe we would just have really high quality commercial software and os's. What then? What would the world be like if we never had a Microsoft? I digress.
What the hell...? (Score:1)
Read the Fine Print (Score:1)
do you refer to? I don't see a lot size anywhere
on that page.
Read the Fine Print (Score:1)
set. Those are called encyclopedea
Disclaimer (Score:1)
--
Aron Burrell - ronnie@cflug.geeksanon.ab.ca
This can't be for real... (Score:1)
However, if you enter amazon.com normally and search for the book, it is displayed with the actual list price.
READ THE LINK (Score:1)
Do you see the word SLASHDOT in that, me too. That's right, I think the kids over at Amazon wanted to see how long it would take before
If you think media people don't have attitude or humor, you haven't heard of the ADDY awards.
mage...
This can't be for real... (Score:1)
Mike
--
Appendix A: Windows Source Code (Score:1)
Mike
--
Free BOOK (Score:1)
Mike
--
Another Amazon overpricing story (Score:1)
RealAudio link:
http://www.timecast.com/channels/comedy/shearer
Ummmmm..... (Score:1)
There are lots of things that I can say that would require space in the 'hundreds of pages' range.
Are you trying to say that all books are unnecessary, that all books can be whittled down to a coupla paragraphs...?
Somehow, I doubt it...
--
- Sean
Depends. (Score:1)
As with everything MS, every new version tends to introduce a fair amount of bloat.
If you use the original v1.0, you can get it down pretty small. Actually, versions 1 through 4 basically "compile" it to a form of Bytecode, then package it up with the interpreter embedded in the
The size of these things has steadily increased from about 100k (I think) for VBRun100.dll up to almost a meg for VB40032.dll.
But in any case, the program itself was not much more than what you have above. In fact, it was sometimes smaller than the actual VB code.
Versions 5 and 6, however, offer the ability to do a "true" compilation (into native code). Although the program will run faster (95 times out of 100), it all of a sudden requires huge globs of "things" to run.
Exactly what these "things" are tends to vary... for the most part, they are dll's and ActiveX components. Most of which are not required by your actual program (assuming you are using the Hello World example above).
However, not requiring them and not having them are 2 different things.
Microsoft, aiming VB at the lowest common denominator, tends to lump everything it thinks you may (ie: commonly) need into the package whether you ask for it or not.
The result is that the size of your executable + associated DLL's all of a sudden mushrooms to the vicinity of 2 1/2 megs.
Of which you only need (for your simple "Hello World" program) MSVBVM50.dll (the Virtual Machine stuff -- it actually is Java-like in that respect -- "native code" is a "bit" of a misnomer), which clocks in at 1.28 megs. But don't even think of trying to get rid of the rest. It has so many dependency tables that reference the other crap that deleting them will break your program irrecoverably (unless you put 'em back).
So is there a way to get rid of them? Yes, futz around with the options a whole bunch before you compile. You will also have to add and remove a few lines from your project (*.vbp) files by hand (the IDE doesn't offer the option), as well as a couple of other config files. But don't do it unless you know what you're doing. You won't succeed.
And me? I know because I have to work with this shit (and that's what it is) for a living.
YUCK! LEMME OUTTA HERE!!!
--
- Sean
Decisions, decisions . . . (Score:1)
This can't be for real... (Score:1)
We can (and will) ALWAYS complain. (Score:1)
Review it? (Score:1)
Just Think! (Score:1)
BarenesAndNoble (Score:1)
Read the Fine Print (Score:1)
Overpriced Ones at That...Value-added (Score:1)
Laff.
Price is for 24 copies (Score:2)
U save $216. (Score:1)
Don't forget that this book is pitched to the crowd that thinks Win98 is really swell.
Not all that expensive (Score:1)
What a cool service! (Score:1)
I was tempted to make a joke about the $700 book,
something like "it's for a 20 user license".
I'm glad I didn't.
Oh MY GOD!!!! (Score:1)
Why is costs so much... multiple books! (Score:1)
Barnes and Noble (Score:1)
On the other hand, Amazon runs their entire website on 3 Sun Servers with Oracle.
I wonder how much each paid for their setups?
w/ integrated tome explorer (Score:1)
Same old sh... (Score:1)
$500 for 1/24/40/whatever copies of Bill Gates' whatever is just too good a target to leave alone.
Free BOOK (Score:1)
Lets do billy boy a good deed and scan the book/release it in pdf form. One of us can do it and just put it on a public ftp site (i'm sure god would pity you -- honest). If we get enough books out.. no one would buy the real thing. And he would become real famous (um)
another version, same book $480 cheaper? (Score:1)