rickmb

6 ms·

1.
by rickmb 14y ago
That chart is utterly misleading. There is no such thing as an EU-wide law. Most EU countries have much more extensive consumer protection. The only real difference is that with AppleCare you can contact Apple directly instead of the seller
2.
by rickmb 14y ago
Although they are absolutely right, it should also be said that Apple is far from unique. Many electronics shops and manufactures have warranty policies and try to sell extra warranty whilst EU consumer laws already mandate minimal warranty
3.
by rickmb 14y ago
Sometimes it takes a shock for people to reconsider their position, especially if what they're really doing is defending their own lack of action. Let's not run to judge the people who posted in that thread many months ago. Personally, I ga
4.
by rickmb 14y ago
Those waters were murky from the beginning. Always have been, always will be. Also, "illegal" is not a constant, often arbitrary and usually serves only the interests of those that want to maintain the status quo. If curiosity and creativit
5.
by rickmb 14y ago
Not signing up for a service that wants significant OAuth access to my Twitter (or any other) account without giving me neither a reason nor an alternative.
6.
by rickmb 14y ago
If it wasn't for the conversation here on HN, I would have assumed the whole site was just a referral-scam. Not just a paywall, but a scam, since there is zero warning upfront until after you've subscribed. And please, unless what you do is
7.
by rickmb 14y ago
And people wonder why serious PHP developers (yes, those exist) avoid Smarty like the plague...
8.
by rickmb 14y ago
favicon is only forgotten by those that never check their logs. (Which should be part of the checklist, check your friggin' logs instead of assuming you never miss anything.)
9.
by rickmb 14y ago
It is definitely optional: http://www.freenews.fr/spip.php?article12949 (even with my limited French I find the original text less confusing than google translate, ). But yes, the fact that it's on by default is questionable. However, mos
10.
by rickmb 14y ago
Alarmist bullshit headline. From what I can figure out, this ISP merely provides a modem/router with a built-in optional adblocker. I don't see anything wrong with that in particular, especially in the context where virtually all display
11.
by rickmb 14y ago
However, most clients will only agree to pay for building what they need after you've first built what the want. Very few businesses are interested in getting paid once if they can get paid twice, so this pattern is perpetuated to the mutua
12.
by rickmb 14y ago
Great tip. I couldn't find it through D&B's own website (the search result found our companies but only tried to sell me shit), but apparently we have DUNS numbers without ever applying for it.
13.
by rickmb 14y ago
I stopped using Dzone ages ago. It has become a mixture of spam and dangerously stupid disinformation. It's being heavily gamed and the owners don't care.
14.
by rickmb 14y ago
At least those bother to acknowledge their customers, even if their response is wrong. At least it gives you a chance to fight back. Google simply utterly ignores any kind of complaint. There is no worse way to treat people than to complete
15.
by rickmb 14y ago
I wonder if Google's malware warnings have ever been reviewed by lawyers. Because this entire feature smells like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
16.
by rickmb 14y ago
By describing the cultural differences within the US as "vastly different", you are basically just confirming the idea of Americans not understanding the depth of cultural diversity in Europe. I'm very well aware of the significant differen
17.
by rickmb 14y ago
Just to be sure I checked Amazon before writing my "pro piracy" rant elsewhere. It's a) not available in my country, and b) between any specific mp3 offering and telling me the usual "fuck of, you're from the wrong country", and no point do
18.
by rickmb 14y ago
And this once again is why I still prefer to "pirate" music. Most "legal" services are either very vague about format, quality and DRM, not available in my country and/or have a limited collection. The effort involved in buying something le
19.
by rickmb 14y ago
What's worse, were it gets specific on country and regulation, it still gets it wrong, seemingly deliberate. It's a political anti-regulation rant. Nothing more.
20.
by rickmb 14y ago
So how did entrepreneurs like Sarkozy and Berlusconi ever get elected? Get off it. Entrepreneurs aren't worshiped like gods by default just for being entrepreneurs, that's all.
21.
by rickmb 14y ago
What strikes me about this article is the utter lack of understanding . It is a highly subjective, very politicized and ideologically tainted description without any kind of understanding, and some of the attempts at interpretation of cult
22.
by rickmb 14y ago
Somewhat different context. The Netherlands has privatized the postal service ages ago. The interest in artificially propping up what remains of this relic beyond the current monopoly license on light weight letters is minimal.
23.
by rickmb 14y ago
Shouldn't the US Postal Service have died a long time ago? It always amazes me how the US as self-proclaimed champions of the free market and technological progress still holds on to outdated, bureaucratic nationalized monopolies like the p
24.
by rickmb 14y ago
I don't believe Google is any better. The confrontational way Google treats countries that actually try to protect their citizens rights and privacy against Google's invasive practices has me believing more and more that Google is just op
25.
by rickmb 14y ago
When everything is idling, my Skype client in OSX is almost always on top. It just seems to steadily eat CPU, not all that much, but all the damn time. I've learned to shut it down when I need to preserve battery life.
26.
by rickmb 14y ago
What is so hard to believe about this? Capitalism is not a force of nature. Countries have an enormous amount of legislation in place to ensure companies can do business, and invest huge amounts of money in services supporting the private s
27.
by rickmb 14y ago
The 800 pound gorilla Facebook and the average German teenage girl (to name just an example) aren't exactly equal consenting parties. The law is there to protect individual citizens against the ruthless exploitation by major corporations
28.
by rickmb 14y ago
The scale of the problem isn't in itself an argument for doing or not doing something about. The emotional impact is most definitely an important factor, and not something that can simply be argued away with numbers. Most people don't live
29.
by rickmb 14y ago
Not only is Shuttleworth's reference to McCarthyism extremely distasteful (and something he should be apologizing for), the bitter irony is that he's doing exactly what he accuses the free software fundamentalists of, to quote the man himse
30.
by rickmb 14y ago
> I'm moving all of my machines and family/friend machines in the next few months to Win8 So you're pushing expensive closed systems on everyone around you, but you're thanking Google for the "forced motivation"?

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