Good bye. (originally About buying books, etc., especially at amazon's)

[peter.s]

This is probably no news for most fellow posters here, but perhaps it's worthwile to remember, before buying the wrong edition or at the wrong price.

I

Look at the attached pdf please; you see a common phenomenon at amazon's, which is some crooks trying to sell books which are NOT out of print, to "idiots", i.e. customers not searching deeply enough, at two times the original price, be it for really used book, or for brand-new books declared as "used", in order to sidestep national book price binding legislation.

I did the search in amazon, with full title, in order to make a concise screenshot of just these two offerings one after the other, so you will not "fall" for this scheme here.

But ordinarily, you search otherwise, and amazon will present you with lists of books, and then those offerings, official price for new book, and some deluded offer for the same book, will NOT necessarily follow each other, but other books often will be in-between.

(The example is from the German amazon site, but I have seen this phenomenon on the USA/GB/F amazon sites, too.) (And see below point V.)

II

When the book really is out of print, there are two alternatives: Too few buyers, or many buyers. In the latter case, why would you pay twice or thrice the price for the former edition, when the new edition is highly probably imminent? In the former case, well, it might be cheap, then buy, but if some sellers think they can make a big benefit, why not photocopy the book from your library (if really you need it in full and permanently), which is perfectly legal in such cases. (Of course, this doesn't apply to "photographic monographies" and other coffee table books.)

III

amazon itself is not really honest in its prices: They often say, you will safe x p.c. from original price, when in fact that price is only slightly higher than their price, or in other words, they invent some "original" price which even the original source does not ask for. This being said, in spite of their lying about the original price and your savings percentage, often amazon.com has got highly interesting prices, but not for European customers (and downloads "to" Europe are forbidden, i.e. not available without U.S. credit cards, street addresses, and so on), whilst amazon in Europe, most of the time, is not of real interest, since some dealer or another will send it out for less, often for much less than what amazon.de or .fr ask for it.

IV

This (III) is particularly true with offerings from both dealers and individuals on the amazon platform: The same out-of-print book on amazon will often be several times more expensive on amazon, than on "competing" marketplaces, the quotation marks being the explanation for this phenomenon, or in simpler words, other marketplaces ain't quite real competitors for amazon anymore, and thus... This being said, never buy on amazon too quickly: First, try individual sellers, by a regular google search, or, for books, alternative platforms.

V

Speaking of google, there is another, big disadvantage related to point I above: When you don't search from within amazon, but when you search for a book in google, and then are redirected to amazon (which you will invariably be, as if other booksellers didn't even exist anymore), in many instance, this "amazon hit by google" will be the alternative, totally overpriced offering, and without any indication of, let alone a link, to the "real" one, the one for the new book at a regular price; in fact, my google search for the book in the pdf went straight to the overpriced "used" book offering (alone), and this not having been the first time, I thought it was time I shared some advice to not fall into frequent amazon traps.

VI

Similar with ancient editions. In 99 p.c. of all cases somebody wants to buy some book, he's after the current, most recent edition, some very rare exceptions proving this rule. Now, these google links to amazon will NOT cater for this need, but in many instances, they showed me the amazon page for some ancient edition of that book, and whilst in theory, such amazon pages would have a line, near the top, saying, "from this book, there is a more recent edition available; would you like to go the relevant page?" or something like that, I can confirm I've seen this line in some cases, but in the majority of such cases I did NOT see that line, so when in amazon, you'll have to search again for that same book, and look at the hits with a sharp eye, and you never know for sure:

When it says, it's from 2012: For a monography, that's quite recent, and in most cases, that's the (unique) edition you're looking for; but for a textbook, in 2014, that might even be TWO editions too old, not just one, an intermediary edition having been published in 2013, and the current one being from April, 2014. Similar for monographies: If what google shows you in amazon, is from 2004, there could be very well be some "revised and enlarged" edition from 2009, so be careful in amazon, and especially "coming" from google.

VII

Similar to the previous problem: Many alternative sellers in the amazon marketplace hide the fact they are selling outdated editions. It's ok they present previous or even ancient editions on the page of the current edition, but then, in the short description text you'll seen when you click their offer, only some honest sellers indicate their offer is for such an outdated edition, whilst the majority of them simply don't fee obliged to mention this very important fact, and that's why, by buying books from amazon marketplace, you'll get into lots of trouble, on many occasions, especially since the two biggest booksellers on that marketplace on amazon.de both give a dime for informing their customers about these flaws of their offerings, and they both have been doing this this perfectly illegal way systematically and for years now, without amazon (which is in perfect knowledge of these ongoings) doing anything about this abuse of its customer base, just as in ancient times ebay allowed crook sellers to administer retaliation evaluations on buyers who dared giving those crooks a bad evaluation for having had them.

VIII

ebay learned from the negative effects of this on turnover, and even on amazon, with their refund-no-questions-asked system, it's the buyers who today treat (especially individual) sellers not well: If ever you're sufficiently criminally-minded, it's up to you to "buy" some coffee table book on amazon, tear out the pages you're after, then send it back as "defective", and amazon will refund you, the seller being ripped-off at 100 p.c. (and there are very expensive coffee table books on amazon...) Thus, my last point is about the risks of SELLING on amazon, and it's even worse for the seller: Many books are just between 10 and 20$, so registered mail is not justified, and what to do if the buyer just pretends he didn't get the book? And of course, amazon is much too expensive for the seller... but then, e.g. priceminister.com, in France, is even more expensive, but that's another matter.



Anyway, in one sentence: On amazon, don't ever be sure that price and edition are the correct ones before having checked and re-checked (especially elsewhere).


EDIT: As you can see in the screenshot, it's the same book, but with the title slightly changed/rearranged, and that's how many of such "double entries" in the amazon db are created, notwithstanding the identical ISBN (!), but you've got such double entries even with identical title lines, and then with some irrelevant add-ons there, which seem to have been added on purpose, in order to create the "twin", to which google will then mislead buyers... (And yes, the ISBN thing should prevent all this...) (And of course, "neu" = "new" and "gebraucht" = "used".)

[Curt]

This is old time style: In my Internet browser's toolbar, I have a button that goes straight to my Amazon account's Wishlist. Whenever I come across a book that I would like to have, I click that button. Once in a while I will go through the list and spend some time surfing for other vendors. I used to just click "Buy" at Amazon's, but last year they more than doubled the "Handling & Shipment"-rates, so I have stopped buying at Amazon's. The last book I purchased overseas would cost me $17.50 (plus the book) to have shipped to me from  Amazon USA. The same book at Thriftbooks.com was less than $5 for handling and shipping!

---------------

Thank you, Peter, for your thorough review. Just like Google, Amazon is a huge business, and therefore without conscience, or forms of "neighbourly love" - yeah, apropos, English The Corporate Language cannot translate Nächstenliebe properly...

[peter.s]

Curt, you're right, googling for book titles is old style, thank you for the hint; I use FF, and there should be some other add-in for the "amazon button".

Also, thank you for completing my list with your remarks about shipping costs from amazon.com = U.S. to Europe, and which is another reason I'm so fond of the German inter-university-library lending system (cost per book: 1,50€, about 2,15$: I'm sure this is the best such system in Europe).

Of course, there would be the question to WHICH amazon those buttons would take you, and if then the amazon search line would be focussed. In fact, in my macro system,  I have direct "buttons" (menus with shortcuts) to amazon.com/co.uk/de/fr, but the problem is, I have been too lazy to then script a mouse click into the search line (direct focus to website elements is a big flaw in AHK), so I must click manually, whilst in google and almost anywhere else, the search line is focussed automatically; of course, I don't go over the google page, but by direct one-key to the browser search line, but I acknowledge my current system, for amazon, isn't ideal, especially since after that (very quick) first amazon page, I then have to "surf" to other amazon pages anyway.

This being said, there is that above-described risk of getting, by google, to "bad" amazon pages, and I'm not sure using "buy from amazon buttons" will overcome that problem; as said, even from within amazon, you sometimes get "bad" pages...

"Nächstenliebe", well, I find wrong translations, too, from altruism to charity, but there is a problem. I know exactly what you mean, i.e. a minimum of loyalty, of "deliberate thrustworthyness beyond what the law imposes on you", of "deliberate interest in the real interest of the customer" (vs. alleged interest which at the end of the day is the interest of the seller/marketplace), of "solidarity with the other party's interests", but "Nächstenliebe" is rarely used these times, in German, and exclusively with regards to real and wrong charity, i.e. with regards to voluntary work with homeless people or elderly in institutions and such, and also, wrongly, with regards to charity "galas" where rich people give to charity - hence the problems of today's dictionaries: Their lack of applying translations just mirror the fact that this term has almost vanished from the German language, except for this receded use, and most of the time you'll hear this word, it'll be with respect to "Mother Teresa" anyway (i.e. improper use if you know about the background and details of her work...)

This being said, 90 p.c. of the time, I use the different amazon sites for my bibliography needs, before then searching the inter-library system anyway, and not for buying; I have to say that without to that exceptionally good system, i.e. in (most?) other countries, this would probably be quite different.


I missed another aspect of the amazon world: E-books and their prices.

sideline: The German book market in general.

In Germany, both book and e-book prices are bound by law, which means that the respective publisher sets the price, then everybody, for "new" books/e-books at least (see above for "new" vs. "really used" vs. "allegedly used"), must neither call for higher (! see the pdf, and the alleged "used" state in there), nor for lower prices. This means, for the German book market, that the big players, i.e. amazon, but also the big "chains" (which also sell by internet, but which mainly are present in the best parts of the big cities) will make tremendous benefits, on the detriment of the "nice little bookstore", which today are gone for the most of them: In those German cities I know, more than 80 p.c. of them have closed.

Why is this so? There's a very precise reason to it: The big players, amazon et al, get about 60 to 65 p.c. off that "bound" price from the respective publishers, whilst the "little bookstore" just gets 30 to 35 p.c. off that same price (and most of the time, it's not more like 29 p.c. instead of 32 or more), either from the publisher or from some intermediate which in turn gets the full 65 p.c. from the publisher...

So why are there intermediates, to begin with? Those, which are called "Barsortiment(er)" (()=plural), store any book from big publishers, and deliver them, to the bookstore, the next day, whilst from the publisher (= same price for the bookstore), that would take anything from some days to 6 weeks (= publishers kicking away bookstores this way, in spite of the fact it would have been in the publisher's interest to deliver directly!) - of course, the "customer experience" is quite different between "next day" and "somewhere in the future".

The attentive reader will have become aware of my saying, "store any book from big publishers": bingo! And this means many bookstore will tell you, "this book doesn't exist", whenever you ask them for a book from some little publisher, since they do not want to command it from them, and the intermediates refuse to stock them for immediate delivery (notwithstanding the fact the little publisher is "willing" to give them their 65 p.c. off final price).

Of course, the German government tells people lots of rubbish about this (as for any subject there is), in the line of "the bound price preserve the little bookstore", which is a big lie in light of the above: It would HAVE been true if not just the end/customer price was bound, but if the purchase price was identical for every reseller was identical, too, and so, as with many other things, German legislation is just bound to play the play of the big players, little bookstores being the victims of this policy as well as every reader in Germany... ;-)

Now for those e-book prices:

From the U.S., you know that a book might cost 30$, with the e-book costing about 9$, this price difference being much smaller for textbooks, though, but then, it's perhaps 30$ vs. 18$. As said above, amazon.com e-books are not available for European customers.

Now in Germany (similar in France), when the book is 30.95€, the e-book is 28.95 euro, or 29.45€, and that applies to almost any e-book sold in Germany, being it a translation, or be it written in German (so there are no "hidden costs" to be "covered", it's just plain greed).

And this means that in Europe, you should always have a look at amazon.co.uk, and search for the English version of the e-book, the latter often being available on Continental amazon sites, too, perhaps at slightly higher prices but which in any case are not as cheap as on amazon.com (the TVA on books in Germany is currently 7 p.c., on e-books it's been 19 p.c., but I think they changed that, or are willing to do so? Anyway, that doesn't explain a price difference of merely 5 or 7 p.c. to the bound book).

Which arises an additional question: Are there alternative U.S. e-book sources, priced as amazon.com, but from thich the e-books are available to European customers? (Of course, we then don't speak of the Kindle format here, but who cares? With all due respect, I looked at Kindle's, and was far from delighted!) But this alternative availability to Europe could be prevented for legal reasons, i.e. U.S. publishers sell the "Oversea's right" to their Irish-tax-free subsidiary, and which then is the sole proprietor of those European rights, incl. e-book rights, and they are free to sell at some price they deem suitable for European "customers". (Just compare Adobe sw prices in Europe with their respective U.S. counterparts.)

I spoke about "importing goods" in some other thread, some weeks ago, and there's a base problem, but which seems to be connected to such "rights for different territories" considerations:

There currently is no U.S. reseller who's got a daily (or, in the beginning, weekly) container shipped to Europe, and with prices 10 p.c. above the U.S. price plus taxes (neither there is for electronics goods and such, so we pay twice the price here, sometimes thrice the price).

And, to say it all, even sharing transportations costs from the U.S. to Europe, once a month, for some fellow customer group, would only be realistic within a big country like Germany, since even within Europe, from one country to the next, D to DK, B to F, A to CH, will cost another fortune in additional transportation costs: The whole "European Union" is just there in order to ripp off hundreds of millions of "innocent" people not seeing that once in while, they could stop this never-ending outrage from which citizens don't have but big disadvantages... DK at least having been smart enough to preserve its money... and they don't exclusively vote for perverted cynics up there neither: kudos to DK for preserving your common sense! (Whilst German electorate is an abomination.)

Ok, this thread was meant to be about hints to better buy pc books, sw and electronics... but from the above, you will have understood why I so much praise the German inter-university book lending system: Any book I get from there is a book I wasn't totally ripped off for. (And btw, in the Scandinavian countries, book prices are even more obscene than on the Continent.)

[mouser]

For amazon, i look for used books that are basically just the cost of shipping.
There are tons of books where there are so many used copies that they fall into this category.

There are also a lot of books (usually academic ones) that fall into a different category -- where they are very expensive, but where an occasional used copy will pop up for pennies, if you are willing to be patient and wait a few months.  This can make the difference between a $200 used copy and a $2 used copy.  The trick is catching that low priced copy before someone else grabs it.  For that, I swear by the camelcamelcamel addon for amazon, that i have written about here.

[Curt]

For amazon, i look for used books that are basically just the cost of shipping.

-I too used to do this when Amazon's handling + shipping fee was much lower than now - from my office chair I can see a handful of shells full of books from Amazon.  However, the method really doesn't work when the book is a dime but the shipping is $17.50 - and the seller never has more than the one reasonably priced book, that I want.

----------

The Internet prices on ebooks is nothing but greedy fraud.
Internet ebook customers, unite!

[peter.s]

I

mouser, thank you so much for the link, seems very interesting in theory, must look if it works with amazon.de/.fr, too.

For textbooks, there's a difficulty, since you've got some project, then you'll need some books around it, and it's not realistic then to wait many months for those books to gather. Second problem, and that's where you seem to be much better off than are Curt and myself, you seem to be located in the U.S., where all the "real important stuff" is so much cheaper than around here, and for me, it's exactly as Curt says:

Even if the book is cheap, shipping is incredibly expensive, and most of the time, you don't even find a second item to buy with it, in order to bring shipping costs in some more reasonable relation to "the price of the item itself".

As for used textbook prices in Europe, a typical example is, new 49€, used 47,50 plus 3 postage = 50,50€ - that's totally nuts, but I insist it's a typical example.

On the other hand, your sw seems to be of the highest interest for getting photographic monographies and such books which are simply too expensive (original price 120€ (but "you" were too short-sighted to buy it, now 800€, but sometimes 180€...), so your sw is of the highest interest, as said, thank you so much!

Btw, it would be of interest to know if in the U.S., it's possible to get to out-of-print books in such an inter-libraries lending system, as in Germany. I am asking because often, some out-of-print books text books (which originally were perhaps 30, 60 or 80€) on amazon.de are at 400, 600 or 800€, but invariably from U.S. sellers; whilst Europeans would get such a book  from the inter-library lending system and then (legally) photocopy it in full, instead of paying several hundred euro for it. (Of course, this doesn't apply to art and photo books and to literary first editions and such.) Thus my question being, is it impossible to get to such out-of-print books in the U.S., hence those exaggerated prices, or are such sellers simply out for "dumb", i.e. uninformed readers who don't know better? Also, university library access might not be as easily possible for "post-graduates", but here in Germany, that inter-library lending system does include almost any public library, i.e. from any public library of your town, you'll get ANY such book, from any university library in Germany (but it's 2,50€ instead of 1,50€ then), and even Europe-wide (but that would be 35€ after all).

II

In general, there must be some other amazon sw's, for adjusting your OWN prices there whenever some other offering there enters the market with a lower price than yours. If somebody knows about such sw, please let us know.

On the other hand, it's NOT a good idea to reset the price from 35$ to 29,87 whenever there is a new offer for 29,88, but that's what people do with such sw.

Rather, the item should be withheld, for a while, waiting the 29,88 item is off the market, and then you enter your item anew, again for 35$ - that's what smart realtors do with houses when the seller has got the time to wait.

But for 35$ items such a strategy should indeed be automated...

III

The black bear cubs story of the week, in 21 pics (number 4 is very cute, 5 is overcute, don't miss 7 to 9 and 13/14 either, but number 3 is uber cute!):

http://www.adn.com/2014/06/14/3514527/bear-trio-in-east-anchorage.html

[peter.s]

I

From the original subject, "buying from amazon", this thread stretched a little bit to "selling on amazon", too, which is not a bad thing, I think.

In fact, I own lots of books I never ever look into anymore, and I see that many amazon sellers sell books for 1 cent or 1€, plus 3€ package and postage, including amazon fees and real postage around 1 to 2€, and I think you better give them to your municipal library instead, in bulk, than waste your time with individual selling efforts in these cases.

For a buyer, almost every other book selling platform is of far more interest, since prices there are significantly lower than on amazon (cf. amazon's fees, and especially conditions); for a seller, in light of the prices you can get, amazon is far more interesting than any alternative selling platform, and probably in spite of the difference in conditions:

That difference being, regular (but "minor", by comparison) selling platforms treat profs. like profs. and individuals like individuals, meaning, they don't interfere with the separate LEGAL conditions applying to both groups of sellers: In Germany / the European Union, e.g., buying from a prof. means the buyer has a right to 14 days of reflection, and can return the goods/book to the prof. seller, AND (which is the real risk here), it's up to the seller to prove in which state the goods had been when he sent them, AND there is an additional prof./commercial sellers' risk: It's him to bear the risk of any vanishing of the goods-in-its-travel: TO the buyer, and even BACK FROM the buyer (thus you see the immense risks any prof. seller bears under such legislation).

Now, all this is different, under the law, for sales emanating from an individual seller to an individual buyer, in which that individual seller just resells his stuff he doesn't need anymore, to some other individual: Here, both the transportation risks and the question "in what state was the good when the seller sent it out" remains at the "biz between individuals" level, and there is no automatic "buyer's claims are deemed to be true" assumption: Whoever wants something from some other guy, has to prove the conditions for his claim, which means the buyer both cannot damage the goods, then pretend that was their original condition, nor is loss of the goods automatically imputed to the seller.

Now what makes the difference between any other such platform, and amazon, is the fact that amazon's conditions state that ANY seller on their platform is considered a prof. seller, not an individual one, with the above conclusions applying.

In other words, selling your unwanted books on amazon means, you'll get the very highest possible price in your situation, but you incur risks that you would not elsewhere.

II

Well, at the end of the day, it's NOT necessary to take off your regularly-priced book from amazon whenever there is some real cheap alternative offer; yours will simply not be taken into consideration while that alternative offer remains on offer there.

There are some sw products for amazon available, you'll find them by googling "amazon (selling,seller) (software,tool)". Some seller use sw that indeed follows other sellers' prices, mechanically, which is ridiculous, but here and there, could make a real benefit to the potential buyer: 29,99, 29,98, 29,97...1,34...

It's evident that for somebody like myself, who simply wants to sell let's say, 3,000 of his 10,000 or so books, some OTHER kind of sw would be most helpful: Getting the ISBN into the sw, then have the sw set up some reasonable offering price for any such book, which means if there are 10 offerings between 1 cent and 2€, FORGET IT, but if there are some 3 offerings between 25$ and 38$, LIST THEM, in order for yourself making a decision at which price you should offer the book in question... and then, of course, automatically entering your books, at the price you will have decided upon, into the amazon system (and hoping for the best, re the above legal/contractual considerations). ( The same would apply to "long-playing records"; I've got some 1,300 of them in mint condition which I would like to get rid of... ;-) )

THAT would be some real useful amazon sw for many of us I suppose... ( I'm searching... ;-) )

III

And don't miss pic 3 referred-to above: Despite fatal underexposure of mommy's face, it's a masterpiece since it's the apotheosis of the idea of motherhood, cubs implicitly trusting mommy to get for them what's needed; it's the perfect "mirror view" (have a better term for it? let us know!) to this short vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzgpeLFf4z4

[mouser]

A gentle suggestion that it's better to split up posts (especially longish posts) into logical pieces.  The shorter and more concise and focused a post is, the easier it is to read, digest, and respond to.
For example there are some nice animal threads on the forum that would be a better place for your #3s.

[peter.s]

mouser, you didn't get my point.

I think sw/computering is a lesser science, an auxiliary science: It's always been about HOW to do things, and not about WHAT things should we do?

So, in the light of being aware of the relative value of my contributions, I've taken the liberty to do "something additional", too, and in a form that could not have harmed anybody, and which was easy to span if really somebody abhorred that part of what I had to say.

You know, over there in that outlinersw forum (and I'm certainly one expert on outliners questions, world wide), some 2 people who had been there from day 1 I turned up there, had been a little bit jealous, since up to then, their descriptive-only "expert" style had assured them "expert status" over there, which they weren't eager to give up, notwithstanding the fact that constructive collaboration is NOT about who's the commander-in-chief in some place.

From that unnecessary original clash, some adversities emerged, and whilst my original contributions over there were not affected, my comments on third parties' interests clearly were, rather often, i.e. I became somewhat aggressive against said "third parties" because I had been aggressed, without the slightest reason, re my original thinkings re outliners and which are, as to their published character, unparalleded world-wide, which means that it is perfectly possibly that without sharing their respective thinkings, there may be quite some superior outliner thinkers than I am out there but who don't share their ideas; this being said, I've never been censored over there, nor here in this forum, with those thinkings: I've just been ignored, so I don't have the slightest reason to complain.

Also, some fellow posters over there, and here, have made me rethink my communication "skills", and my postings, for some time, clearly showed that I don't see no further reason to aggress "third parties" for sheer absence of their being perfect, or, worse even, for sheer frustration that my own original efforts do not encounter the attention I would originally hoped for, and from my purely subjective pov, I had thought that the constructive value of my contributions had been enhanced accordingly.

This being said, ANY constructive effort in the IM, or more broadly, in the pc matter, lack of the above-mentioned prob, which is that ANY IT "answer" could never overcome the fact that IT is "organizational matters", without any additional value to humanity (and the day AI will take over, that'll be a whole other thing: we'll speak of additional probs there, not of some "solution" to humankind's current probs); some fellow poster over in the Ultra Recall forum once said, "We're discussing first-world probs here", and except for the fact that there is no such dichotomy "third vs. first world" to begin with, he was so right: There's a definive world between organisational sciences, and those which really could hopefully some day lessen this tiny world's probs, and we should acknowledge the philosophical difference between the two. You know, some German politician some day, some years ago, reproached to some fellow politician, that the alleged qualities that other had had, were qualities that "would enable you to run a concentration camp" - of course, this was more than inappropriate style-wise, but it was not wrong for that, since, indeed, the qualities the public saw in that man, were in that second line of reliability, determination, and so on, but NOT in the line of helping Germany (for instance, and for a start) to become better in any way: there a conceptual difference between some Montesquieu, e.g., and some German (or any other) politician who even tries to be helpful, and any "organizational science", btw., is eager to help anybody, any which way it can, and the treatment the Snowden-Obaba affair got within this forum, says a lot about this aspect of what I'm trying to express.

This being said, I'm perfectly aware that from a technical pov, auxiliary sciences are far from "inferior", intellectually: I'm perfectly aware that for real good coding, a superior IQ is more than helpful.

But then, wholeheartedly accepting that within the framework of such a "technical" forum like this one, some "speech standards" should be upheld, I had thought to be able to "counterweight" some (very limited and very easy to ignore for not-interested parties) "personal touch" paragraphs by some thinking which, as stated above, is perhaps really original, but then, which is original in its being shared; I'm very sorry my assumption was erroneous, and of course, I accept the owner of this forum not sharing my illusions.

This being said, mouser, don't be mistaken: Your manners are polite, as have been mine, these last times, but when somebody asks for thoughts about stardard parts within standard file formats, and muses about the safety of standard encryption sw being weakened by those, and then you recommend a standard book on encryption (which does not treat that specific prob): Prepare yourself to get off with such a polite way of saying of, "don't bother us here with this specific prob", but don't assume we don't see what's going on.

I respect IQ; I respect not having been censored; I thank you very warmly for being treated well, and it's with no hard feeling whatsoever I'm leaving this forum, after having left that other one, also without no hard feelings.

And I will NOT repeat those harsh words with which Prof. Manfred Kühn once left that other one for good, "I don't need this.": The point is different:

In order to think freely, you need to be felt entirely accepted within the frame of expression you will have set for yourself, and this frame, for me, here and lately, had been decidedly constructive to the max, with suppression of any possible, and totally unnecessary, aggression, and with just a NOTE of (pleasant, I had hoped) "individual OT plus" -

the owner of this forum having decided that this is not an acceptable deal for him, I humbly accept his pov. Goodbye, no hard feeling on my side: Obviously, what I had to offer, under my little bunch of different "noms de plume", simply was not good enough to counterweight my idiosyncrasies: Wholeheartedly accepted.

[40hz]

Am I the only reader here who is utterly confused by this entire thread?

[mouser]

Let me start by saying: Don't leave.

This forum is filled to with eccentrics, oddballs, weirdos, nerds, etc.  Many are experts in one area and novices in another.  Some are young kids and others are little old ladies.  And we try to all get along and embrace our eccentricities.

No one is immune from some criticism and gentle prodding, and each of us has to find our place here, and find a way to get something beneficial from this place, and at the same time make this place more useful to others.  We can ALL benefit from advice, guidance, constructive criticism.

In that spirit, please accept what turns out to be very generic advice given to many forum participants over the many years we've been around -- advice I would do well to remember myself sometimes -- which is that brevity and conciseness are often worth their weight in gold.  It's not something that everyone has to be enslaved to all the time -- but it is something worth spending some effort on -- especially for those of us who can be verbose.

Anyway, the main point i'm trying to make is that, for better or worse, is that once you make yourself at home here we don't like to let you go

[mouser]

Am I the only reader here who is utterly confused by this entire thread?

Unlikely.  Which is partly why I was trying to encourage peter to make fewer points per post, and make it easier for the rest of us to cogitate on them.

[40hz]

^That much at least I did get.

Oh well. So it goes I guess. 

[wraith808]

^     

[TaoPhoenix]

Peter, you are clearly quite bright. Few of us are used to your detailed style of posts. But per another thread, I gave you one of my "Mouser Bucks" because I recognized you have a lot to offer the forum.

Your language style reminds me of some older British writers such as Edward Gibbon. In that style, honed for a different age, there are a lot of subordinate sentences underneath the "headline" points.

So it looks like something began to drift wrong in this and maybe other threads. I certainly say a fair number of things! But an easy fix is to chop up your posts so that people can pick and choose which sections drift into their own lengthy discussions, and the others are quietly read and pondered. So just hit "post" several times, and there's even a thread where we like to notice "When Peter S hits his 100th post" (because we like fun numbers)!

[ewemoa]

Am I the only reader here who is utterly confused by this entire thread?

Unlikely.

FWIW, although it required noticeable effort to read for me (he he, getting old), I found the content understandable and interesting.

[40hz]

Am I the only reader here who is utterly confused by this entire thread?

Unlikely.

FWIW, although it required noticeable effort to read for me (he he, getting old), I found the content understandable and interesting.

Excellent! Going forward, you can be our 'official' Rosetta Stone. 

[wraith808]

Am I the only reader here who is utterly confused by this entire thread?

Unlikely.

FWIW, although it required noticeable effort to read for me (he he, getting old), I found the content understandable and interesting.

Excellent! Going forward, you can be our 'official' Rosetta Stone. 

I think Mouser and Tao pinned it down.  After a while, you get critted by walls of text, and it becomes difficult to read... so you stop.  But of course, unless you're just posting to get things down, it can feel lonely after a while as no one responds if no one reads.

[mouser]

But of course, unless you're just posting to get things down, it can feel lonely after a while as no one responds if no one reads.

That of course, is the most cruel and ironic problem with writing long posts -- sometimes the more work you put into writing a long post, the less likely it is that others will be able to absorb it all and be able to respond..

[cschw]

Too right.

(btw- congrats on 33,000!  Is there a thread that one posts in when they hit 33k?)

[tomos]

Is there a thread that one posts in when they hit 33k?

I think you covered it
but,
for the record:
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2625.msg357764#msg357764

[40hz]

But of course, unless you're just posting to get things down, it can feel lonely after a while as no one responds if no one reads.

That of course, is the most cruel and ironic problem with writing long posts -- sometimes the more work you put into writing a long post, the less likely it is that others will be able to absorb it all and be able to respond..

I think therein lies the fundamental difference between posting in a forum and posting for a blog.

Forums are a conversation. Blogs are more a meditation, lecture, ramble.

If you want to go long, get a blog.

[wraith808]

But of course, unless you're just posting to get things down, it can feel lonely after a while as no one responds if no one reads.

That of course, is the most cruel and ironic problem with writing long posts -- sometimes the more work you put into writing a long post, the less likely it is that others will be able to absorb it all and be able to respond..

I think therein lies the fundamental difference between posting in a forum and posting for a blog.

Forums are a conversation. Blogs are more a meditation, lecture, ramble.

If you want to go long, get a blog.

Great breakdown!