Slashdot Mirror

Back in 2000, this was the original plan of a Washington, DC startup called ZebraPass. They failed spectacularly.

I know Google prides itself on not dirtily manipulating its search results, but I think they should make an exception in this case. I would like to see a search for this astroturfing corporate website (that is, www.tableausoftware.com) return these results:

• Questions Not Asked in Tableau Marketing Meetings
• Create Your Own Tableau Ad Here (Must Contain a Google Reference)
• Share your stories about Tableau

Proof? Here you go. Pud was in the Google offices just a few days ago...

• pic 1
• pic 2
• pic 3
• The tender babes

Who wants to take a guess as to when Roxio aka Napster will be making an appearance as an official fucked company?

RTFA.
The buyback is at the strike price, not at market prices.

Which means that the holders will get *something* for their options. Remember, until you're able to exercise & then sell them, they're just promises. And promises sometimes get broken

Chip H.

At least we're keeping Pud busy... ;)

Sorry, that's not a perception issue and it's not one that can be changed internally. It's a quality/cost issue and they are beaten.

On avoiding the trappings of size: "Nothing solves 'big company' ills quite like a strong focus on accountability ....

Notice is issued for the first round of layoffs. If firing someone for posting pictures of Apples on the loading dock is any indication of things to come, the layoffs will have nothing to do with the bottom line.

This whole memo belongs in fucked company.

slashdot sucks. malda sucks, editors fucksticks. the "news" here is lamer than shit.

Actual email from Lori, an "ISD People Director," to Wal-Mart Associates:

From: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 10:13 AM
To: ISD All Information Systems
Subject: Inappropriate us of restrooms

Dead ISD Associates,

We continue to hear complaints about the DGTC restrooms being unavailable for use while they are being cleaned. Many of you have asked why the restrooms are cleaned so often during the day, or why we cannot leave them open for use while they are being cleaned. I think that it is important that I share with you the juvenile and disrespectful behavior of a few of your fellow associates so that you can understand why. This note will not be a pretty one, but hopefully you will be as outraged by this behavior as we have been, and help us to stop these few associates who's poor behavior is effecting so many others.

In recent weeks we have had associates clog the toilet bowls with nearly a whole roll of toilet tissue, urinate on the floor and walls, smear human waste on the walls, and leave human waste on the floor or in receptacles not meant for waste. One day an associate left a note taped to the stall which read "A nice cake is waiting for you". Inside the stall was a mound of waste left on top of the toilet. For a few days we tried to leave the restrooms open while the custodial associates were cleaning. We had several incidents where the custodial associates were shown disrespect. One associate used the urinal right next to where the custodian was cleaning and sprayed urine on the custodial associate's arm. We have a duty to provide an harassment free work environment for all associates, and could not continue to allow the restrooms be open during cleaning after these incidents took place. The general practice across the Home Office is to close the restrooms while they are being cleaned.

We don't know who is responsible for this behavior, but do know that peers holding each other accountable to do what is right is a core principle in our Wal-Mart Culture, and the only way we will stop this. Don't tolerate it if you happen to see or hear about behavior that you know is wrong. Let your manager or a member of the people group know if you are aware of who left the note regarding the "nice cake" in the bathroom (it happened to be the 1st floor men's bathroom at the blue wall.) This incident was clearly a malicious act.

Thank you for your support. We know that you will be as concerned as we are to have this happening in our building. This behavior demonstrates a lack of respect for our facilities crew and for all ISD Associates.

Lori xxxxxxx
ISD People Director
Phone: xxx xxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxx xxxx
Email: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Confidential

See the scanned image here:
http://www.fuckedcompany.com/images/cake.html

So...in contrast, in order of importance, here's how most companies hire people:

1) Internal referrals--Employees or stakeholders refer their friends and acquaintances. Even if the company you work for were offering a huge referral bonus, you'd still be hesitant to refer Bubba, your friend with corn in his teeth, for the sales manager position becaues it would ultimately reflect poorly on you.

2)External recruiters--Headhunters might be shit-shoveling pond scum, but they sometimes have value. Employers may have good relationships with certain recruiters, trusting their judgement. At the very least, you'd expect a recruiter to somewhat prescreen each applicant, as to not tarnish their reputation.

3) Solicited applicants--An employer puts an ad in the paper or on a job site. Motivated job seekers match a few keywords and send along their resumes.

4) Unsolicited applicants--Job seekers esnd resumes to employers who have not asked for them. These applicants are viewed either as having a genuine interest in the company, or as being desperate. Usually the latter.

213) Refer.com--Somebody whom the employer doesn't turslt and has never met, refers somebody that they don't trust and have never met. The person whose resume gets passed along doesn't even know they're applying for the job. Random people scour resume banks and refer thousands you people, hoping to get a hit. Employers get inundated with the lowest-quality resumes possible.

I have been to the websites, and have read through various pages. I still stand by what I've said. And my reason is simple. During the dotcom era, I signed up and used service after service that was as well developed as this one. There were voice mail systems, virtual desktops, remote apps, email systems, photo galleries, remote file storage locations.
It's almost ALL GONE. Missing, gone, kaput. Want the proof? Look here.
I think it's a great idea, and I've written papers on such location-free computing. Here it is after the boom is over, and I would be concerned, and some people won't know to be.

OT:

SCO is on FuckedCompany with the usual foul commentary. Enjoy!

http://comments.fuckedcompany.com/phpcomments/inde x.php?newsid=107640&sid=1&page=1&parentid=0&crapfi lter=1

Do a Dunn & Bradstreet on the company. Any liens, lawsuits, good credit?
Ask to speak to someone who would be your peer at the company. Find out what they think.
Search Fuckedcompany
Onorus drug testing policies are a bad sign.
What do the restrooms look like?

For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here

Some of the latest enteries:
livejournal.com - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
www.gpf-comics.com - Comic mirrored.
smh.com.au - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
www.clutchfans.com - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
www.freeciv.org - Freeciv ANSI client
www.rav4world.com - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
www.retrocrush.com - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
westcoaster.net - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
www.meowpawjects.com - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
miceage.com - Disney merges with Walmart
www.badgerbadgerbadger.com - Badgers replaces with zombies
skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
fool.com - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
launch.com - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
MetaFilter.com - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
www.ddrkc.com - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
brownpau.com - March for Web Standards
www.beyondunreal.com - ut2k4 production suspended
globetechnology.com - Microsoft Solitaire
www.modernwiccan.com - Randomized Color Scheme
bbs.fuckedcompany.com - Site shutting down
www.diary-x.com - looks like diaryland!
theprp.com - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
mpx200.org - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
www.macosxhints.com - triple G5 Powermacs
www.slyfx.com - AOL buys slyfx
palminfocenter.com - Palms for toddlers.
www.carniola.org - fake news story
eikenes.alvestrand.no - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
defunctgames.com - Pimps At Sea fox xbox

For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here

Some highlites:
livejournal.com - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
www.gpf-comics.com - Comic mirrored.
smh.com.au - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
www.clutchfans.com - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
www.freeciv.org - Freeciv ANSI client
www.rav4world.com - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
www.retrocrush.com - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
westcoaster.net - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
www.meowpawjects.com - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
miceage.com - Disney merges with Walmart
www.badgerbadgerbadger.com - Badgers replaces with zombies
skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
fool.com - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
launch.com - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
MetaFilter.com - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
www.ddrkc.com - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
brownpau.com - March for Web Standards
www.beyondunreal.com - ut2k4 production suspended
globetechnology.com - Microsoft Solitaire
www.modernwiccan.com - Randomized Color Scheme
bbs.fuckedcompany.com - Site shutting down
www.diary-x.com - looks like diaryland!
theprp.com - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
mpx200.org - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
www.macosxhints.com - triple G5 Powermacs
www.slyfx.com - AOL buys slyfx
palminfocenter.com - Palms for toddlers.
www.carniola.org - fake news story
eikenes.alvestrand.no - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
defunctgames.com - Pimps At Sea fox xbox

This kind of existed back during the incubation days of Napster, and the RIAA (or members of) got it shut down.

The author is right that:

... unlike cable TV, no one is selling the content that gets shared on P2P services. This difference distinguishes P2P sharing. We should find a way to protect artists while permitting this sharing to survive.

... but there exists more irony in the crushing of mp3.com (which matches his paid piracy example) than there is with comparing the industry's history to modern file sharing systems (though the former probably contributed in part to the proliferation of the latter).

No sense beating a dead horse over how poorly the RIAA has reacted to emerging technologies I guess.

Why does a "market push" usually occur when your food is so bad you have to change your company name or you raise your fees becuase your stock tanked? I'd say that's what's happening here
too...

This is a pretty stupid comment. Outsourcing and offshoring are different things.

Hmmm... I was making an observation about current usage and you come back with an argument ad lexicon?

Outsourcing is when a company subcontracts the work... [explanation of "outsourcing" and "offshoring"]

Yes, I have a dictionary too.

I'm going to go out on a limb and charitably guess that English is your second language? There is a subtle distinction between a word's definition and what its current usage might be. A dictionary is the reference for a definition, and reflects common usage of a word at the time the dictionary was written. Since most word definitions in dictionaries were written more than a few years ago, it is no surprise that usage may differ from the dictionary definition, especially for a word such as "outsourcing" that has taken on new meaning recently. And let's be realistic. Despite what the dictionary says, when an American technology worker in 2004 loses his job because of "outsourcing", everyone knows what just happened.

Technically we should say "offshoring" but that word is relatively unknown.

Please stop modding up ignorance as "Insightful."

One of the hallmarks of a /. newbie: scolding the moderators and telling them how they should be doing their job. One soon learns not to do that!

When Pud was getting sued by PrintCafe, he changed his WHOIS info. Funniest thing I'd read in a while.

Here's the link:

http://www.fuckedcompany.com/printcafe.html

The name of the startup is Strangeberry Just because of their job-titles they must be building something cool Chief Hackberry, Chief Wiseberry, Chief Smartberry. [...] Anybody got anymore ideas on what this could be?

The makings of another fucked company?

Maybe USD $3.5M doesn't go as far as it used to...

F*cked Company is reporting 40% layoffs happening at there.com.

FuckedCompany.com has a nice little blurp on it, as well as the letter sent out to users. See the current mp3.com homepage for a cheezy rendition of mp3.com's future.

I don't know what works but I know what doesn't work.

Micron bought out Dominion Semiconductor, a joint Toshiba-IBM memory fab plant in Manassas, VA in early 2002. As time went on, production went down, work on a second process lab was all but halted and the plant effectively stopped production early in 2003 (I had a family member that worked there). In the same time frame, they also cut production in their main plant in Idaho. The goal at was to also buy or merge with cash strapped Hynix in Korea but that was shot down by the Korean government. I believe their goal was either to move production out of the US or to buy who they could and join forces with those they could not. In that time frame, memory prices were extremely low, companies were failing and Micron saw a chance to gobble up the competition. The gamble failed when the Hynix buy fell through. Interestingly enough, they applied for and have recieved government funds related to memory dumping.
They had a goal of getting memory prices to a certain level and could not do it with competitors.

PS.. Crucial is Micron

Not to mention Wal-Mart's persecution of the Mad Pooper!

or why would it be a bad thing for a company (my company is going full VOIP next week)
-VOIP is proving to be very expensive to setup
-VIOP requires T1 (and up) lines if you want any decent voice quality and be able to handle a decent amount of load
-You are only as good as your Internet line is :)(as it is proving to be with our company on the test phase, the lines are proving to be *flaky* and we cannot afford to have the internet down under any circumstances now, because we need to be on the phones all the time.).
-We have to connect two offices together, so now we need to purchase very expensive Hardware, and setup pretty complicated VPNs (etc..) to make VIOP work between our offices
- Everyone seems to be incompetent when it comes to guaranteeing anything. They're all doing this for the first time.
- I am an enthusiast when it comes to technology, but as IT manager I voted against VOIP for now, since my research showed that the bottom line cost would be high, and it's too early for a company to rely 100% on a new technology such as VIOP (especially when your primary business is being on the phone with customers all day)
- To be honest, when I did the calculation of the total monthly cost for everything it came to be pretty astronomical. My decision was *overwritten* with that of the CEOs
- When we have it all setup, look for our company's name on Fuckedcompany. I'll be posting it up there Cheers.

I had read about this as a rumor on some site yesterday, being pointed there about some layoffs at Vivendi I think.

I hope this doesn't hurt the Nullsoft guys that much, since Winamp5 is now in beta testing according to their forums

Actual email from Lori, an "ISD People Director," to Wal-Mart Associates:

From: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 10:13 AM
To: ISD All Information Systems
Subject: Inappropriate us of restrooms

Dead ISD Associates,

We continue to hear complaints about the DGTC restrooms being unavailable for use while they are being cleaned. Many of you have asked why the restrooms are cleaned so often during the day, or why we cannot leave them open for use while they are being cleaned. I think that it is important that I share with you the juvenile and disrespectful behavior of a few of your fellow associates so that you can understand why. This note will not be a pretty one, but hopefully you will be as outraged by this behavior as we have been, and help us to stop these few associates who's poor behavior is effecting so many others.

In recent weeks we have had associates clog the toilet bowls with nearly a whole roll of toilet tissue, urinate on the floor and walls, smear human waste on the walls, and leave human waste on the floor or in receptacles not meant for waste. One day an associate left a note taped to the stall which read "A nice cake is waiting for you". Inside the stall was a mound of waste left on top of the toilet. For a few days we tried to leave the restrooms open while the custodial associates were cleaning. We had several incidents where the custodial associates were shown disrespect. One associate used the urinal right next to where the custodian was cleaning and sprayed urine on the custodial associate's arm. We have a duty to provide an harassment free work environment for all associates, and could not continue to allow the restrooms be open during cleaning after these incidents took place. The general practice across the Home Office is to close the restrooms while they are being cleaned.

We don't know who is responsible for this behavior, but do know that peers holding each other accountable to do what is right is a core principle in our Wal-Mart Culture, and the only way we will stop this. Don't tolerate it if you happen to see or hear about behavior that you know is wrong. Let your manager or a member of the people group know if you are aware of who left the note regarding the "nice cake" in the bathroom (it happened to be the 1st floor men's bathroom at the blue wall.) This incident was clearly a malicious act.

Thank you for your support. We know that you will be as concerned as we are to have this happening in our building. This behavior demonstrates a lack of respect for our facilities crew and for all ISD Associates.

Lori xxxxxxx
ISD People Director
Phone: xxx xxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxx xxxx
Email: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Confidential

See the scanned image here:
http://www.fuckedcompany.com/images/cake.html

Actual email from Lori, an "ISD People Director," to Wal-Mart Associates:

From: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 10:13 AM
To: ISD All Information Systems
Subject: Inappropriate us of restrooms

Dead ISD Associates,

We continue to hear complaints about the DGTC restrooms being unavailable for use while they are being cleaned. Many of you have asked why the restrooms are cleaned so often during the day, or why we cannot leave them open for use while they are being cleaned. I think that it is important that I share with you the juvenile and disrespectful behavior of a few of your fellow associates so that you can understand why. This note will not be a pretty one, but hopefully you will be as outraged by this behavior as we have been, and help us to stop these few associates who's poor behavior is effecting so many others.

In recent weeks we have had associates clog the toilet bowls with nearly a whole roll of toilet tissue, urinate on the floor and walls, smear human waste on the walls, and leave human waste on the floor or in receptacles not meant for waste. One day an associate left a note taped to the stall which read "A nice cake is waiting for you". Inside the stall was a mound of waste left on top of the toilet. For a few days we tried to leave the restrooms open while the custodial associates were cleaning. We had several incidents where the custodial associates were shown disrespect. One associate used the urinal right next to where the custodian was cleaning and sprayed urine on the custodial associate's arm. We have a duty to provide an harassment free work environment for all associates, and could not continue to allow the restrooms be open during cleaning after these incidents took place. The general practice across the Home Office is to close the restrooms while they are being cleaned.

We don't know who is responsible for this behavior, but do know that peers holding each other accountable to do what is right is a core principle in our Wal-Mart Culture, and the only way we will stop this. Don't tolerate it if you happen to see or hear about behavior that you know is wrong. Let your manager or a member of the people group know if you are aware of who left the note regarding the "nice cake" in the bathroom (it happened to be the 1st floor men's bathroom at the blue wall.) This incident was clearly a malicious act.

Thank you for your support. We know that you will be as concerned as we are to have this happening in our building. This behavior demonstrates a lack of respect for our facilities crew and for all ISD Associates.

Lori xxxxxxx
ISD People Director
Phone: xxx xxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxx xxxx
Email: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Confidential

See the scanned image here:
http://www.fuckedcompany.com/images/cake.html

This kind of cake =)

Actual email from Lori, an "ISD People Director," to Wal-Mart Associates:

From: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 10:13 AM
To: ISD All Information Systems
Subject: Inappropriate us of restrooms

Dead ISD Associates,

We continue to hear complaints about the DGTC restrooms being unavailable for use while they are being cleaned. Many of you have asked why the restrooms are cleaned so often during the day, or why we cannot leave them open for use while they are being cleaned. I think that it is important that I share with you the juvenile and disrespectful behavior of a few of your fellow associates so that you can understand why. This note will not be a pretty one, but hopefully you will be as outraged by this behavior as we have been, and help us to stop these few associates who's poor behavior is effecting so many others.

In recent weeks we have had associates clog the toilet bowls with nearly a whole roll of toilet tissue, urinate on the floor and walls, smear human waste on the walls, and leave human waste on the floor or in receptacles not meant for waste. One day an associate left a note taped to the stall which read "A nice cake is waiting for you". Inside the stall was a mound of waste left on top of the toilet. For a few days we tried to leave the restrooms open while the custodial associates were cleaning. We had several incidents where the custodial associates were shown disrespect. One associate used the urinal right next to where the custodian was cleaning and sprayed urine on the custodial associate's arm. We have a duty to provide an harassment free work environment for all associates, and could not continue to allow the restrooms be open during cleaning after these incidents took place. The general practice across the Home Office is to close the restrooms while they are being cleaned.

We don't know who is responsible for this behavior, but do know that peers holding each other accountable to do what is right is a core principle in our Wal-Mart Culture, and the only way we will stop this. Don't tolerate it if you happen to see or hear about behavior that you know is wrong. Let your manager or a member of the people group know if you are aware of who left the note regarding the "nice cake" in the bathroom (it happened to be the 1st floor men's bathroom at the blue wall.) This incident was clearly a malicious act.

Thank you for your support. We know that you will be as concerned as we are to have this happening in our building. This behavior demonstrates a lack of respect for our facilities crew and for all ISD Associates.

Lori xxxxxxx
ISD People Director
Phone: xxx xxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxx xxxx
Email: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Confidential

http://www.fuckedcompany.com/images/cake.html

Does anyone remember the whole Dot-Com Bubble?

Billions in venture capital were sent to silicon valley back in the late 90s in the hope that anything and everything internet-related could be profitable, and were worth investing in the same style that brick-and-mortar companies were. We heard all kinds of great things from leading economists who were really misleading us to manipulate the market, short the stock, and fuck everyone else over. Then, in 1999, after the Microsoft ruling, the whole thing kind of collapsed.

As for today, just a few of the giants of e-commerce stand... so many companies went out of business on the predictions not far off from the ideas that we'd have groceries delivered to us over the internet (WebVan) or that we could actually stream TV-quality video over 28.8 kbps (Pixelon). It's never going to happen again, so the golden age of marketing ideas on the internet and obtaining massive capital influx is over.

Heh. "Snotty VC" in the blurb reminded me of 1999, when I was employee #4 at a software startup. The company makes software for a specific type of business. Through tests we had done, we could prove that we were capable of increasing profits for companies in the target market by 25%-100%.
Unfortunately, as I said, it was 1999. Smart VCs like John Doerr had seen good business opportunities in companies like Yahoo!, Amazon, AOL, and others, and made huge wads of $$$ for their firms through shrewd investments. The clueless wannabe VCs apparently missed the point that-- internet or not-- the success of investors like Doerr was based on careful evaluation of business plans and business models. The Doerr wannabes apparently said to themselves "John Doerr made a lot investing in internet companies, so we have to do the same." I figure that's how multiple internet pet shops and ridiculous internet businesses got funded, with many even going to IPO without having anything resembling profit in the foreseeable future or even a decent roadmap to achieving profitability. In /. terms, many of these companies did indeed leave out step 4 before claiming that step 5 would be "Profit!"
Getting back to how this was relevant to my personal experience, the founders of the company (employees #1 and #2) would make their presentation to some VC, again, showing that the company's software could produce billions of dollars of value for companies in the target market, and the response was almost always the same: "OK, but what's your internet story?"
Most of them were really snotty, saying that "these days," anything that isn't internet-based doesn't have a chance, or something equally short-sighted and clueless. But they said it with such authority and such snottiness that it would make even the strong of stomach want to vomit.
At the time, I said "Let's just change the name of the company to 'e-(Real Name of Company)-dot-com' and we'll be swimming in money!
After that, I became a big fan of F**kedCompany, which now seems to include non-dot-coms a lot more than it used to. Back in the day, it was more focused on reporting disasters in dot-coms that probably never should have been funded. Every time I saw another online business with no clear sustainable revenue stream (the $$$ from idiot VCs desperate to pour money into anything dot-com doesn't count-- it has been proven not to have been sustainable) go down the toilet, with an amusing report on F**kedCompany, I would snicker and say to myself "Yeah, I've got your internet story RIGHT HERE!"

--Mark

Just click and pick any other random listing.

Moreover.com is a company that's been around for a few years, in the business of crawling news websites and sorting the headlines into newsfeeds. They used to have a very open API so that programmers and website designers could use their database for free, but they've since pulled down that information. (However, I notice tht a screen saver I wrote for myself back 4 years ago using their headlines for my area still works very well to this day...)

Moreover can hardly be called biased... Fucked Company also uses them for newsfeeds as well. If you can please both Pud and Bill at the same time, you must be doing something right.

Get a clue buddy, digital cameras don't cost $10.99 to make, and if you try and abuse this, this will stop!
This brings me to an interesting point. If the product was being sold as a rental, then shame on those that abuse the rental. If it's being sold like a disposable camera then shame on Ritz for not being honest. In fact, if Ritz isn't selling it as a rental, then guess what: they are getting what they asked for.

It's not ethical to do the iOpener model:

* Sell product as product.
* Force consumer to use product your way with your $ervice.

If you are going to sell a rental, just be clear about it. That is the difference between DirectTV and the infamous iOpener . In DirectTV's case it is clear to the consumer at the time of purchase that their service is required to make it work. In the case of the iOpener the product was sold as a cheap computer. When you got home you found out it was useless without their expensive ISP service. Hackers then hacked it and eliminated the need for their product to use iOpener's service. The market forced the iOpener people to be honest and when they did, consumers just didn't like their deal and the iOpener people ended up (warning profanity)here.

Ethics do matter. If you are honest people can bargain and enter into agreements with you. If you are deceptive and someone calls your bluff you are left with an empty bag or worse, with heavy fines.

Boooo - ring. I enjoy good trolling like the next slashdotter, but yours was just flaccid and stale. Visit FC and learn some trolling basics, and only then come back, kiddo.

I would like to share with you a story - a story of pain, rejection, denial, loneliness, and perhaps, at the end, triumph and a happy ending. This story begins just three short years ago...

I was in my senior year of highschool, and as was the style at the time, I was very much interested in computers. I loved to take them apart, figure out how they worked, write programs with Microsoft's fine development environment, Visual Studio [microsoft.com]. As was also the style at the time, I loved to read webpages, in particularly, Slashdot.org [slashdot.org]. Perhaps you can guess what happened next. I began to slowly change - I developed an unhealthy obsession with computers, began to dislike and openly question America's policies, started shamelessly pirating music [napster.com] and software [gnu.org], and most dangerously, got turned on to that most deviant operating system of all - Linux.

Now I know many of you must be shaking your head in disgust at this point - "This must just be another one of those M$ trolls, hardee har har," but please, hear me out. This is very important.

As time went on, I got deeper and deeper in the Linux underground. I progressed through the various levels of "distros," from Mandrake, to Suse, to RedHat, finally to Debian, like a drug user going from harmless marijuana to cocaine and heroin. I thought I was so smart; I began sneering at other people who didn't use Linux - "Clueless Windo$e luzers," I would say. I was changing outwardly as well. I became a loner, hunched over the keyboard late into the night with the lights off, listening to my illegally downloaded music [kazaa.com]. All my friends left me after I broke their computers trying to install Linux on them. My hair grew long and unkempt, I stopped bathing and using deodorant, calling them "tools of capitalism and American greed." I got fired from my sysadmin job for installing slackware over the Solaris servers, and installing Debian over the Windows desktops. My bosses told me I cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I would not listen. "How could I be wrong, I'm using Linux?" I thought, "They must be M$ shills." You can see how far gone I was. No girls would look at me, let alone speak to me. I was in a world of pain, anger, and confusion [adequacy.org].

But, then one day, I took a long hard look at myself. I saw that something was wrong, but did not know what. I must confess, for a long time I denied what I knew deep down inside my heart - Linux was the cause of all my troubles. I saw what I had allowed myself to become. I was no longer a human being, I was a Linux Zealot. Instead of judging people by their thoughts, feelings, and actions, I judged them by their choice of Operating System. And so began the long road toward recovery...

I am still not fully recovered from my affliction, for you see, I have only one desktop machine, and cannot install Windows without losing much of my data. That's right, I am healthy enough to admit it, Linux is not for desktop use. I am planning my next desktop machine purchase, which will be an Apple iBook. The one good thing that came out of my years of torment is that I learned the power of Unix. Therefore, I will use MacOSX - a true Unix with excellent support and commercial software backing, something Linux will never have. By paying for my software from now on, I will be supporting the American economy. I want to help get America out of this economic tailspin [www.vasoftware] brought on by open source software [communism.org] and the dot com bust [fuckedcompany.com]. More importantly, I will no longer be an operating system zealot. I wi

He'll find an exhaustive list here.

I like what Pud from FuckedCompany has to say about the subject

When judges make their rulings, they have two things to go by. First, they look at the letter of the law. If the law is clear on a specific point, the Judge will usually rule along those lines.

Oftentimes, the law isn't sufficiently clear about something. So judges generally look for past rulings made on related issues. They then make their ruling based on the precedents that other judges have laid down in the past. Today's ruling on pop-ups is a terribly bad thing, because other judges are likely to use it to decide future pop-up cases.

Of course, as other posters have pointed out, there are tools that users can employ to block all pop-ups. The Mozilla browser can solve this problem once and for all.

I guess the question is, how long most users remain clueless about pop-ups and spam, and ignorant about how to block these intrusions. Right now, it's mainly the tech-savvy population that knows how to do this. But I bet in five years' time, all dominant web and email clients will automatically block pop-ups and spam. With any luck, that will render stupid precedents like today's meaningless, and will send wretched companies like WhenU where they belong.

Is this what you looking for?

I was going to post EXACTLY the same reply. The landscape is covered with the decaying remains of many others.

If you do want to continue, find a niche, a niche that no one has thought of (unlike Real Estate, which everyone has thought of). Maybe plumbers. Maybe sanitation engineers. It's a very competitive business, and no one could fault you for failure in this market (unless you're like Razorfish or Sapient or Verbindand just blow superbucks on luxury accomodations, then you're just retarded).

Offshoring to eliminate 3.3 million jobs in the US per year!

Hi Bill!

(I'm also replying here to your comments on a post of mine, about the fallacy that declining IT employment is being caused by growth of the Indian IT market.)

The bleak American IT marketplace is not largely caused by outsourcing. While outsourcing is a phenomenon, Jerry Pournelle's analogy (originally about client/server computing) to teenage sex is apropos: a lot of people are talking about it, a lot of people claim to have done it, but in fact not many have, and a lot of those found it painful. Outsourcing down the road suffers from the intractable problem of communications that I spoke of in my earlier post: you simply can't communicate as well with a coder in Bangalore as you can with a fellow in the next cube.

The real cause of the current malaise
The bleak IT job market at present is caused by the collapse of two bubbles: the dot-com bubble, and the Year 2000 "Crisis". 1998 and 1999 saw a hiring frenzy (and a consulting rate boom) that we will never see again: anybody who could spell "HTML" could get a big-ticket job with a dot-com startup. Stories abounded about college sophomores quitting school to take six-figure positions with high-tech firms. Lots of kids took computer courses in college to cash in on the feeding frenzy, and lots of adults in the working world decided to quit their jobs and join in the gold rush as well.

Meanwhile, there was this Y2K thing...
While the dot-com boom was starting, Business America was getting panicked about the Year 2000 problem. And there were entrepreneurs out there (Ed Yourdon, Gary North, and Mike Hyatt are three that spring to mind) that were consciously fanning the fires of panic, writing about the rioting and calamity that awaited us when the electricity went off and the banking system failed. Corporate CEOs got alarmed, stock market analysts started asking scary questions, the major media got wind of the issue, and the matter ended up in front of Congress. Who passed laws.

The Law of Unintended Consequences
One of those laws permitted corporations to expense the costs of Y2K preparedness, rather than depreciating those expenses out over 5 or 7 years. Depreciating PCs has always been stupid: they are essentially worthless after two years, but accounting rules required keeping them for five. The Y2K rule permitted any savvy CIO to replace essentially every PC on the premises, buy all sorts of new software, and start every project on his five-year wish list--and the corporate finance people would approve. (By expensing the projects and purchases, corporate profits would go down, but "trailing free cash flow" would remain the same. The effect for most corporations would be a significant reduction in taxes, but little or no impact on cash flow.)

In other words, the Y2K tax legislation engendered an IT spending spree. Every IT pro with any modicum of experience was hired on these projects (even thousands of COBOL guys were hauled back out of retirement)--there was essentially full employment in business programming. And while there was full employment in business programming in midtown Manhattan and down on Wall Street, a whole new industry of e-commerce was developing in Greenwich Village and SoHo. (I'm using New York as a metaphor here.) The city was crawling with programmers, and every programmer was making a fortune.

Then the money ran out.
The Y2K projects generally ended first, but they generally ended gradually. The retirees went back to retirement, and the contractors found that they were spending 2-3 weeks "on the bench" where before it had been 2-3 days. Business was still okay, but not great. By the end of 2000, and the beginning of 2001, the dot-coms started to run into trouble. FuckedCompany.com appeared, and the news stories seemed to stop focusing on big IPOs, and started to focus on collapsing dot-coms. Through the spring and summer of 2001 the dot-coms seemed to be collapsing left and right: and a lot of

Click here you lazy shits!

Peterson suggests that this can be abused by swindlers, child abductors, and terrorists to name a few.

Here's an example of an abuse.
Someones posts a negative comment as anonymous to a public trading board or somewhere like FC. The company sues for the AC's information claiming some interpetation of a copyright violation. Who can stop this AC's information from changing hands? Who reviews a case like this to determine if a copyright violation actually occured or not? No one under the current system. The RIAA wants to run by a different set of rules and regulations and under the existing political pressure (money), they are getting special treatment. If you want to look at the exact opposite power of what the RIAA gets, search Google for the horror stories that people have with identity fraud and how hard it is for them to get thier own information from a company or track down accounts opened in thier own fucking name and SSN. The difference? RIAA has lobby money, identity fraud victims do not.

Bingo! Maybe he should ask some dot bombers over at FC what was in their corporate game rooms. Might even be able to pick some stuff up at auction.

The way these clown are going it will be NoFortune 500 soon

I've seen worse business strategies.