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Way to go Nordstrom! They refuse to get involved with Christmas until AFTER Thanksgiving! Now if only everyone else will follow along.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

Rather than preventing the problem, many companies are satisfied (and make tons of profit) by inventing new services to attack the symptoms rather than the problem.

Don't waste your time or money. Get a credit freeze and don't worry about all the snake oil.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

A fairly clever video maker has created a tutorial on copyright law using, of all things, Disney movie clips. It's humorous and informative which is a good combination 🙂

Just be careful because the speed that he switchs between clips might make you convulse.

RIAA

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Here's a little summary of the battle between the RIAA and university students. Looks like things are getting harder and harder for the RIAA meaning as their exploits become more public, less people are willing to bend over and take their abuse.

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This is funny and informative. I didn't know that the total number of Vista machines is near the same number of Macs out there. What's that? Under 5% market pentatration? Ouch.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

As it should. No better way to encourage voters than to give them e-voting machines that have been proven faulty.

Anyway, let's hope a well placed lawsuit or two can set them back on the right track.

George W. Bush

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This covers it pretty well. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, watchdog groups sued the Whitehouse for records that they believe will prove that Bush and company lied and generally did bad things. The Whitehouse claims to have deleted all e-mail records from that time.

Imagine that.

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Walmart has tried selling a computer based on a Linux OS before, but this time it seems to be taking. the gPC runs with very light specs (by today's standards), but becuase the system and programs require less memory and processing power, the net result is competitive with today's more beefy machines.

Personally, I'm blogging about this article just for this line alone:

Even at the low end, however, image is everything. The gPC is built using tiny components, but put inside a full-size case because research indicates that Wal-Mart shoppers are so unsophisticated they equate physical size with capability.

Ha!

(Image copyright Jeremy Duffy)

Consumeraffairs.com has an article today about extended warranties. With the way they present it, I wonder why anyone would ever buy one.

It turns out that I mostly agree with them. I sold extended warranties for a long time and I can guarantee that you'll get your money's worth in some specific cases, but unless you know your rights very well and push for them in the face of opposition from the store and the company, you probably will never recoup your costs.

If you don't have the tenacity to fight for your warranty terms, you're better off avoiding the expense.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

A type of home energy production, this is similar to standard wind turbines in that it produces electricity from wind, but it can be mounted very low to the ground and spins no matter what direction the wind is blowing (even up). This is pretty cool if it works as well as it seems.

I second the commentor on the article who suggested that these could be mounted on lampposts all over the city to generate power.