This is only true for books that are already in existence or new books that are not giong through the publishing system at all. For new works, especially large technical books/creating/reviewing/editing/... the material is a ot of the initial cost so while I'd expect an ebook to be cheaper than the dead-tree version I wouldn't expect it to be significantly cheaper upon first release. Even converting an existing older book to ebook formats (or an existing ebook to other ebook formats) is not free of work - someone needs to review the result of the conversion and make fixes as needed when parts come out badly. Of course some time after release I would expect the ebook versions to drop in price as the continue costs of making/storing/distributing them is not nearly as large as it is for physical units.

When you see an ebook more expensive than the paper version it is often that the paper version's price is being controlled by "heck, we need to shift these things out of the warehouse before they are worth even less and so we can make room for new stuff" which isn't a factor with non-physical items so the companies involved quietly forget about them and don't have any such reason to adjust the prices. In this instance the ebook price should be falling by that point too IMO, though I have no objection to physical books being cheaper under "fire sale" conditions (but if the condition lasts, especially if more dead tree editions are being produced, then the eBook price is a rip off being used to subsidise the paper version).

Of course this case isn't about how ebooks are prices compared to physical books (at least not directly). It is about the publishers and some distributors colluding to fix prices higher than they should be (irrespective of any ebook/physical differences).

I think he was meaning that they should not have joined the real-world group, an action that resulted in them being added by one of their contacts to the facebook group about the real world group.

The problem is people can associate you with things on fb and other people will believe it without question. In this case it was something true that people did not want announced at this time, in other cases it could be something fictitious but potentially damaging if people who see it do not see it for the lie/joke/what-ever that it is ("asdf is a member of I Fucking Love Rape Porn"). In the case of true information that people are being careful about distributing, like in this case, fb privacy issues are potentially affecting their real life choices not just online behaviour.

"If you don't want it know, don't post it" doesn't work when others can effectively post "it" to all your contacts for you. The obvious technical solution is for fb to verify all/em> links to you (in comments and responses, additions to groups, ...) like they do when you are tagged in an image - though that may be clunky for many users so they'd just turn it off and still be exposed to the problem.

Deliberate griefing is generally much more specific and targeted. The harm caused is usually deliberate, or at least appreciated by the perpetrator. Bothering individual recipients (or groups) is the whole point.

Spam is more of a scatter-gun problem raising the noise/signal barrier. The sender usually doesn't see how each individual message could be a problem to the recipient even if they don't want it or simply doesn't care.

In my mind it is similar to the difference between littering (smokers flicking their dead butts on the floor) and deliberate damage (some prick using a cig to set light to a bin). One is a relatively careless action affecting many in a small way (but it soon adds up), the other is a deliberate attempt to bother a few people or damage something.

Deliberate griefing could be considered a sub-set of a larger spam problem I suppose.

(back on topic: this case seems to be neither really: from what I gather the original person told the joke on what should be a "private" page among friends (terrible and unoriginal as the joke is, that in itself should not be an offence - many of us share terrible and sometimes "over the line" jokes between friends), one of those "friends" chose to forward on a screenshot of the joke to people who would be upset by it - IMO that person should be arrested and the former just needs to be more careful who he "friend"s)

That is how it should be, yes. Though I'm careful not to post anything that I wouldn't say loudly to a friend while chatting in a the middle of a public place full of people I don't know. There are various ways for the things I post to be brought to the attention of people who might not like them despite my best efforts to keep my less savoury posts "friends only".

Deliberate griefing and spam are *not* the same thing.

IIRC is was posted to a page intended for the dispersal of information/support for people affected by the ongoing case. If that is correct it wasn't just lacking in taste, it was a deliberate attempt to cause further pain to those already suffering.

I'll defend anyone's right to tell that sort of joke amongst their own friends (though I'd also defend their friends right to introduce them to a knuckle sandwich too!), but to put it in a public place, specifically a public place where people affected by the case are likely to be present, is a dick move that needs to be addressed - it is on a par with the deliberate offence the West Boro fuckwits set out to cause IMO.

It depends on the place it was posted. If it were posted in a private page then it is just a terrible joke between like minded people, no worse than a joke over a beer in a pub.

If it were posted on a known venue for sick jokes, then again I would consider it perfectly normal (on the basis that if you visit a venue for offensive jokes then you should expect to find jokes that might offend you) and any complaint should be handled by civil procedures.

If on the other hand it was posted on a public resource, the matter definitely comes under the pervue of the obscene publications act and similar legislation, and if posted to a public page relating in some way to the case in point then it is a deliberate attempt to cause mental harm and shoudl eb prosecuted appropriately.

Of course practically speaking your own facebook page is no less public than a support page for the victims, so that area is a bit more grey than my first statement suggests.

You are banking on:

1. The site bothering to monitor its email with any regularity. Until they see your report, the fake review is still up where potential customers can see it.
2. The site taking your complaint at face value - you could be a genuinely bad business trying to silence genuine complaints by maknig shit up yourself. Until you can convince them of your case, the fake review may still be up where potential customers can see it. Conversly, if you made a genuine bad review it could go the other way and your views could be taken offline at the behest of the bad company until you prove them to be true so your warning won't reach potential customers.
3. The site carrying the bad review not being part of the scheme. Either through association by choice, by actually being the same people when you dig down to details, or by being coerced into co-operating with the criminals, the site could be taking a cut of the proceeds (or just being "protected" themselves).

So unfortunately that woudl not be a generally workable solution.

For reference, search for the many scandals over the years concerning the reviews on sites like TripAdviser, Yell, and their ilk.

I'm pretty sure I heared about this sort of thing happening many years ago, at least as far back in early years of this centurary. No one should be surprised that it is happening: it is basically a traditional protection racket like scheme. When-ever there is something of value to "protect" they will spring up sooner or later.

In fact I'm sure I read (probably here) about a case where someone traced the protection demand to a person in the same state and ended up in court for taking the law into his own hands (finding the perp and beating him to within in inch of his life, having first failed to get local law enforcement to do anything because they didn't understand what the crime actually was).

A single cookie used that way would simply be blocked by the advertisers so it would not pollute their database any more than just filtering out the cookie from your requests completely.

Another option would be to randomly distribute the cookies between users, but that would need some form of shared location to "trade" the cookie informtation which might have legal problems (as it would give the advertisers a nice juicy target to try prosecute for sabotage) and woudl be similarly easy to circumvent anywhere were there is some extra informtaion to check agains (if you are logged infor instance they can include some saltde hash of your accounts details in the cookie and check that before entering the data into their stores, and there may be easy ways to filter the bad data if not logged in too).

Basically trying to pollute the data is going to be a waste of time long term - the only useful thing you can do is simply not provide them with any data by filtering the HTTP(S) requests appropriately.

I'm still aiting to see "this content will be available to you when our ad server tells us you have clicked something" messages when ad servers fail. It can't be far away, we've already had reasonably high profile sites (The Escapist is one that springs to mind) banning users for mentioning AddBlock and similar tools.

He should have bought a 3D printer and made an extension...

I depends on both partner's attitude to poly-amorous relationships. If all are open and happy with the arrangement then it is a goo thing, but if you lead someone on to thinking you are just fucking them but are in fact fucking others too, then that is morally wrong.

There is nothing wrong with toys. But once they get cheap enough (and the raw materials for the printing do too) there are many people who could get good use out of one. Once they get cheap enough (maybe in a year or two at this rate) I'll have one, though I must admit that for me it will be a toy for the most part. I would use it for making customised gifts (for instance customised versions of http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:30487 and http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:22125 for my sister in law who is nuts on ducks and bats) and so forth as well as just "playing". If you consider what I've spent on computer equipment over the years when I don't need a fraction of that power, these things really aren't going to be that extravagant soon.

For more practical uses: Anyone who does art such as model-making and other crafting could make the device pay for itself easily for prototyping (you'd still need to get thing professionally made if you want the final version in bulk, of course). I have friends who pay far too much for figures for their wargames: if the output is high enough resolution to get reasonable detail and it doesn't need too much smoothing/sanding to get a good look then they could save a packet and get customised models as a free extra nice-to-have. Parents could no doubt find many things to do with one, for or with the kids, assuming the materials used are non-toxic enough. Most people don't need their own ink-on-paper printer, but most homes with a computer have one and make use of it - 3D printers may be in the same position in a few years time.

That only works if the hardware can cope with the new software. Firmware updates are usually intended to support bug fixes not major feature changes, so while a lot of hardware will have room for firmware a little larger than it is provided with (to support bug fixes and small new features) you'll not find a lot that has room for a whole new network stack, either in terms of non-volatile storage to hold the code and RAM needed while it is actually running. Much of that kit was bought years ago (for such amounts of money that it surviving a decade was part of the plan) and back then and memory of most sorts was far more expensive than it is now.

I suspect you have never been exposed to civil service bureaucracy.