Rock on, Pat!

Who's the anti-christ?
agoo-goo-ga-ga, good little rocker...
yes, you are, little pattie, yes you are...

Amazon “I Hate You”

Like so many college students I too buy my books online at Amazon.com. I shop online to try to save a buck or two, and I even find myself trying to resell my used books back; through Amazon, to other college students.
However my latest transaction didn’t go through as smoothly as it should have.

I have an algebra book that I originally purchased for way over $100. However the book doesn’t cost nearly as much now, it’s been a whole 2 years.

The going rate for this book is $0.98. (wow the world of algebra has changed that much!!!!)

That’s right 98 cents; and this isn't the worst part!
I actually managed to sell the book for $2.50 (lucky me)
Amazon credited me $3.49 for shipping (this is how much I can spend up to, to ship it, anything over comes out of my own pocket)

And the grand total comes to $3.39

Now you are probably asking your self, is Amazon that fucking stupid that they can’t add
$2.50 + $3.49, well... the answer is no.

Below you will find a partial e-mail from Amazon.com. It is the break down of their fees. Please if you are not already sitting down, please do, because the stupidity is shocking.

________________________________________

+ Sale Price of the item

+ Shipping Credit

- Variable Closing Fee

- $0.99 Fixed Closing Fee (waived for Pro Merchants)

- Commission of 6-15% of sale price

________________________________________

  = Total deposited to seller's account

For order #058-4138049-8629350, the fees taken were calculated as 

follows:

________________________________________

    $2.50 (Sale Price)

  - $0.38 (Commission of Sale Price)

  - $0.99 (Fixed Closing Fees)

  - $1.23 (Variable Closing Fees) 

  + $3.49 (Shipping Credit)

________________________________________

  = $3.39 (Total deposited to your account)

So this is just FUCKING great. If you are smarter then Amazon, then you have already figured out that I have lost money on this transaction.

Considering I can’t do anything regarding this situation, accept stick my thumb up my ass and rotate
I would like to take this moment to say FUCK AMAZON.

Thank you

Finally - a collection of computer peeves from Lifehacker readers

One entry:

On Windows: why do you take a few minutes to start, then another minute to show a different boot screen, I log in, you show me the desktop and it taked another few minutes before I get to work. Stop teasing me.

More info on why I boycott Sony: these CDs are harmful to your PC

Fred von Lohmann at EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) writes (via BoingBoing):
Sony-BMG has been using copy-protection technology called XCP in its recent CDs. You insert your CD into your Windows PC, click 'agree' in the pop up window, and the CD automatically installs software that uses rootkit techniques to cloak itself from you. Sony-BMG has released a 'patch' that supposedly 'uncloaks' the XCP software, but it creates new problems.

But how do you know whether you've been infected? It turns out Sony-BMG has deployed XCP on a number of titles, in variety of musical genres, on several of its wholly-owned labels.

EFF has confirmed the presence of XCP on the following titles (each has a data session, easily read on a Macintosh, that includes a file called 'VERSION.DAT' that announces what version of XCP it is using). If you have one of these CDs, and you have a Windows PC (Macs are totally immune, as usual), you may have caught the XCP bug.

• Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia)
• Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic)
• Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia)
• Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia)
• Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia)
• Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia)
• Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia)
• The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia)
• Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia)
• Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic)
• Amerie, Touch (Columbia)
• Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic)
• Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy)
• Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
• Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)
• The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia)
• The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic)
• Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy)
• Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic)
• Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia) (labeled as XCP, but, oddly, our disc had no protection)

Several other Sony-BMG CDs are protected with a different copy-protection technology, sourced from SunnComm, including:

• My Morning Jacket, Z
• Santana, All That I Am
• Sarah McLachlan, Bloom Remix Album

This is not a complete list. So how do you recognize other XCP-laden CDs in the wild?

Tip-off #1: on the front of the CD, at the left-most edge, in the transparent "spine", you'll see "CONTENT PROTECTED" along with the IFPI copy-protection logo. A few photos make this clearer.

Tip-off #2: on the back of the CD, on the bottom or right side, there will be a "Compatible with" disclosure box. Along with compatibility information, the box also includes a URL where you can get help. The URL has a telltale admission buried in it: cp.sonybmg.com/xcp. That lets you know that XCP is on this disc (discs protected with SunnComm have a different URL that includes "sunncomm").

If you haven't been infected yet, to protect yourself from XCP in the future, disable "autorun" on your Windows PC. Once you have done so, however, these CDs may not be accessible under Windows unless you have specialized ripping software installed; these CDs are encoded in a way that intentionally confuses standard Windows CD drivers. For a smarter audio grabber for Windows, you may want to consider using Exact Audio Copy, which reportedly can read these CDs if you have turned off autorun and avoided infection by XCP.

I support EFF - and so should you - unless you believe tinfoil hats offer you more protection that you will ever need. For information on donating to EFF, see
http://www.eff.org/support/

Ha-ha! Hummers not selling so well at Thousand Oaks Auto Mall

Having test-driven both the H1 and the H2, I am not one to playa-hate. They are both solid cars, with impressive climbing and off-roading skills. Unfortunately, neither civilian model gets much off-roading exposure, based on how many I see parked at Starbucks and Coffee Bean, and the Hummer has become a poser symbol, like the RAZR will shortly be.
So nothing brought me greater joy than seeing that a local dealer - Hummer of Thousand Oaks - is storing hundreds of unsold H2s and H3s at remote parking lots, so as not to spook the customers. The fine folks at TheMessThatGreenspanMade blog managed to snap some pics of the Hummer rainbow sitting behind a Hyatt in Thousand Oaks. I'll bet the folks living in McMansions in Thousand Oaks are very excited about seeing the Hummers burn through 5 gallons of fuel (that's what - $14?) as they make the 1.1 mile journey from lot to lot and back. And GM is increasing H3 production?

w00t! Red light cameras in Los Angeles unplugged since June

UPDATE: I personally witnessed a red-light camera being refilled with film and tested, around 3:00 a.m. sometime in mid-November 2005, so the red light cameras are back up and operational. Oh well - it was good while it lasted.
Art

With all credit to BoingBoing's Mark Frauenfelder:

Red light cameras in LA have been unplugged since June, reveals councilman:

Mark Frauenfelder: The red light cameras set up at intersections to take pictures of scofflaws have been turned off since June, because the city was unhappy with the level of service the former operator of the cameras had been providing. When councilman Dennis Zine made the news public, several other councilman became upset that he let the cat out of the bag.

Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a former police chief, also said Zine, a former police officer, should not have revealed the information.

"I don't think it was good" that he told, Parks said. "People see those cameras and slow down. It's a deterrent."

Zine's disclosure came during a debate Monday over awarding a contract to a new vendor for the cameras, which photograph red-light-running drivers and their vehicles' license plates.
...
The LAPD has said the cameras reduced the number of accidents at those intersections by 18%. About 64,000 citations, at $271 each in 2002 but eventually hitting $351, were issued in the first four years.

[Mark] wonder[s] about this. About a month ago, [Mark] posted a story about a Canadian journalist who wrote an article criticizing red light and speed cameras in the city, citing statistics that the cameras "raise about $14 million annually for police" but do nothing to reduce traffic injuries. Link