Geekinetic - News From the Technological Fringe

eBay's Business Ethics or Lack Thereof

C.S. Magor — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:46:29 -0700

What's the problem? In case you didn't know, eBay owns Paypal and Paypal charges some rather excessive fees. If you are using Paypal within country, the fees are a little steep. They are charged at the point of receipt, so the merchant is hit with them and they can be expensive. The fees are not capped and are a percentage of the transaction. The more the merchant earns for a sale, the more Paypal earns. If you are making a so called, "cross borders payment," the fee effectively doubles. On top of that Paypal takes a 3% cut on the exchange rate.

If I live in Australia and receive a payment of USD 1,000 from the United States, I can expect to take a hit of around USD 40. I will receive USD 960 instead of USD 1,000. Now, if I want to deposit that USD 960 into my bank account, Paypal will give me an exchange that is 3% below the market rate. A single transaction has netted them almost USD 50; that is considerably more than the cost of an international wire.

Some people can't help but use Paypal. It is the international currency of professional bloggers and it is an effective way to accept credit card transactions without a merchant account. It allows a large number of casual folks to conduct business online. I begrudgingly use it, but would switch to Google Checkout in a heartbeat if it were offered here in Japan.

The thing is that in Australia, people do have choices; very good ones, in fact. Internet banking is huge in Australia and there are plenty of secure ways for merchants to accept transactions. Not to mention the fact that accepting credit card transactions is a whole lot cheaper. There is little wonder that only 25% of Australian eBay users use Paypal.

I'm Back!

C.S. Magor — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:16:39 -0700

I have returned after a break, which I at least feel is well deserved. If you frequent Uberreview, the site where most of my writing goes, you will have seen a ton of my work; but I had not done anything here. This was for numerous reasons unrelated to blogging. I had to write and grade a ton of papers and I had to prepare two new freelancers for work as medical and scientific editors.

In other words, I have been a busy man, but I will have a few free hours this next week in which I can start to work on some new posts.

Mario Brothers Car, Fanboy Vehicle Art At Its Best

C.S. Magor — Sat, 17 May 2008 08:04:16 -0700

All the way from Russia comes this car which is utterly unremarkable except for the fact that it has one of the most awesome Mario Brothers murals I have ever seen. The detail is great and it is good to see a diehard Nintendo fanboy that is not afraid to show his or her true colors. [Console Newz via Albotas, New Launches]

TASER Point of View Camera Patented, Could Bring an End to Excessive Tasings

C.S. Magor — Sat, 17 May 2008 07:56:38 -0700

The folks over at TASER have a new patent on their hands that it looks like they will be putting into their stun guns before too long. It is an embedded camera, designed to capture the circumstances under which the less-lethal device is used.

After watching the Don't Tase Me Bro video and countless others like it, most of us have the sense that the TASER is being overused. If you ask me, voicing an opinion or being visibly upset is not a reason to be tased. These are less-lethal weapons that should be used to prevent the use of deadly force. In other words they are weapons that can be pulled out in place of guns, not because reasoning with a person is too inconvenient.

While I doubt that an onboard camera will bring unwarranted tasings to a complete stop, it is likely that it will decrease them, which makes this a very nice patent. [The Danger Room via DVICE]

Firefox 3 RC1 Has Landed

C.S. Magor — Sat, 17 May 2008 07:45:57 -0700

If you are currently testing Mozilla Firefox 3, it is high time that you downloaded the update, Release Candidate 1. If they are putting out release candidates, then there is a pretty good chance that we are going to see a real release before long. [Life Hacker]

Jealous Husband Who Put Wife on eBay Under Investigation for Harassment

C.S. Magor — Thu, 15 May 2008 07:41:03 -0700

Paul Osborne, a 44-year-old Englishman was so devastated at the thought that his wife of 24 years might be having an affair, that he packed her things, put them on the curb. It all started with some rumors that he heard and allegedly confirmed by snooping through her email account. He gave her a second chance, but again became convinced and this time took more drastic action: he put her on eBay.

According to Paul: “In a fit of rage I put the advert on eBay. I later took it off because I realized it wasn’t the right thing to do. I was just so angry.”

We can all agree that it was the wrong thing to do, but you have to feel for the guy, who after being married for 24 years discovered emails in his wife's account between her and another man where, "They had been discussing their sex life together and making plans for the future."

For future reference John, the appropriate course of action would have been to consult a competent divorce attorney. [Daily Telegraph]

Dell Not Shelving the XPS

C.S. Magor — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:58:20 -0700

Being the geek that I am I once considered purchasing an Alienware ALX notebook. Sure, you pay a lot for what you get, but so do people buying Mac Book Pros. The trouble was, no matter how much I wanted one, I couldn't get one. You can't get Alienware in Japan. When Dell assimilated the Alienware brand, I hoped that things would change; they didn't. Dell, on the other hand, has an awesome reach here; particularly in the education sector.

If you put the two together, it is quite obvious that it would be a bad move on the part of Dell to eliminate the XPS range entirely. The time should come some time in the future, but right now, they are not ready. The XPS range will not disappear until Alienware has the same reach as Dell and that is not coming for a while yet, at least.

According to Anne B. Camden of Dell:

"XPS remains an important Dell
brand with its heritage of premium performance. While closely
associated with gaming, in the last year XPS has expanded well beyond a
gaming brand – look at the XPS One, our first entry into the all-in-one
market, the XPS M1330, an industry leading ultraportable or the XPS
420 desktop, designed for multi-media activities. How the WSJ missed
all this is a little beyond us."

So there you have it, straight from the mouth of a Dell PR flunky, XPS is not going anywhere, not for the time being at least. The Wall Street Journal got it wrong. [Your Blog (DELL) via Blorge]

China's Supersized Space Vegetables Raise Eyebrows and Questions

C.S. Magor — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:11:30 -0700

USAF Colonel Proposes Massive Military Botnet

C.S. Magor — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:11:07 -0700

USAF Col. Charles W. Williamson III has proposed a plan for a massive military-controlled botnet that could be used to launch attacks at hostile networks. His vision involves turning otherwise unusable machines into a powerful cyber-weapon, stripping them down to the bare essentials and turning them onto aggressors.

In his own words:
"America needs a network that can project power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than hunks of metal and plastic."

In Col. Charles W. Williamson III's plan, the hard drives of the military botnet machines would be removed in order to conserve power and create a more environmentally-friendly weapon. Does it sound like a good idea? Think about it carefully and then consider the following.

The botnets that are used in attacks on government networks tend to be comprised of hijacked computers belonging to regular folks like you or me. It is our computers that the good Colonel would like to render into hunks of metal and plastic, not those of some aggressive foreign state or tangible adversary. [Armed Forces Journal via The Register]

Microsoft IE8 Gets a Timely ActiveX Security Boost

C.S. Magor — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:44:39 -0700