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The fundamental problem is the mentality that "the customer is always right". That wasn't even what was originally said, all those years ago in Macy's. It was more along the lines of, don't argue with the customer in public.

If something is broken, or wrong, or whatever - of course, you should be able to send it back. However, when it comes to abuse, the retail world needs to grow a spine. Just as an example: There is an online clothing retailer where I live. They have trendy stuff, and quickly became very popular with young women. The last I heard, a year or so ago, fully half of the clothes were returned. Some anonymous interviews with their customers revealed the reason: Lots of them would order 3 or 4 outfits, wear them out, or to parties, or whatever - show off something new - and then return the outfits, only to order more.

The same thing happens in other branches, although non-clothing is a bit less personal. Who hasn't received a piece of electronics, or a toy, or whatever where the packaging has clearly been opened? If shop like the clothing retailer I mentioned stay in business, the only way they can do it is by sending out those very same articles again to the next customer. Sold as if they were new, not due to some shady middleman, but directly by the stores themselves.

So we all pay the price for this crap. Getting (hopefully lightly) used stuff sold to us as new. And generally paying higher prices, because the associated costs have to be covered somehow. If you aren't familiar with the site NotAlwaysRight, you should have a look. It's where people in retail get to tell the stories of some of the customers they have to deal with. It's funny, sure, but it's also freaking sad...

They found that between 1991 and 2016, adolescents who spent more time on electronic communication and screens -- social media, texting, electronic games, the internet -- were less happy, less satisfied with their lives and had lower self-esteem. TV watching, which declined over the nearly two decades they examined, was similarly linked to lower psychological well-being.

Perhaps this is backwards. A lower pscyhological well-being is linked to TV watching, social media, texting, electronic games, the internet, etc.

When you look it it this way, it becomes a "complete surprise" to everyone, because there's no way someone a bit more depressed would become more interested in a hobby that feels less stressful, doesn't have a chance of resulting in more anxiety, provides a guaranteed amount of comfort, etc.

Compare this to real live where you deal with people upset that something purple was purple, the various stories from voices from the hellmouth, the small but extremely hazardous chance your life partner becomes crazy, etc.

Go to your public library, install the "Video DownloadHelper" add-on in Firefox, and download from Youtube in glorious 1080p to your hearts content.

Which requires buying a laptop in addition to the desktop computer and mobile devices that you may already own. I don't think extensions like that are available for an iPhone or iPad. And good luck getting your library to let you bring in a desktop computer, even if you can fit it on your bike.

The one kernel of truth in your joke is that sometimes you do have to reorient the Wi-Fi AP to improve signal coverage. And sometimes you have to unplug and reseat cables in order to get devices into an operable state. One phone rep recommended disconnecting the USB line and "shaking the bad bits out".

even so you can download an game off peak when some ISP are cap free

If you plan to go this route, satellite is in my experience far more likely to include unmetered off-peak use than cellular.

and you can say download an game / parts of it at places with free WiFi.

If your computer happens not to be a laptop, which is likely for a gamer because laptop GPUs tend to be underpowered in both senses, watch people point and laugh at someone bringing in a desktop computer to download a game. That's the vibe I get from Not Always Right, Geekologie, and Paradoxoff.

Customers are frequently wrong, and sometimes their actions are outright hostile.

Quite. I find this page to be a fun insight into the world of stupid customers.

You really should have more respect for fast food workers.

Especially when you look at Not Always Right and see what $#!+ they have to go through.

'If kids can't socialize, who should parents blame? Simple: They should blame themselves.

My parents should not be blamed because everyone else is a sociopathic nutcase.

Here's how I view socializing:

• Return on investment: What benefit do I get for going to a social gathering, compared to me staying at home and playing/working on a computer?
• Stress: Using a computer is less stressful than meeting people at a social gathering. Computers are highly predictable and can (eventually) be fixed, while people tend to be hard to get along with.
• Acceptance:Computers completely accept you (as long as cost of becoming skynet is 9999999). People will instead call you a computer nerd or "teacher's pet" simply because you want to read a book.

I've had enough years "socializing", developing Stockholm Syndrome (with being forced to attend school and told the diploma was doing me a favor), and dealing with Random crazies. My basic social needs are handled with my computer, and a software compiler.

So you can't activate the PS4 somewhere with a connection? It only needs that connection once.

Satellite Internet equipment costs so much that a "connection once" will cost you the price of 24 months of service with a hefty ETF. It'd be more practical to haul the PS4 into a coffee shop like someone did with a computer.

There's a site called "The Customer is Not Always Right," (it's hilarious by the way, but I digress) which talks about customers doing all sorts of insane things. Well, they have numerous situations that took place in game stores, simply around kids being bought copies of "Grand Theft Auto" (multiple versions) by their parents. Heck, if you search for "Grand Theft Auto" on their site, then you see almost exclusively that.

actually going to the game

Cable is far cheaper per year than season tickets for you and junior to two sports. Attending games in person is also impractical for people who follow an out-of-market team, such as fans who moved away from their favorite team, fans of the team associated with the university that a family member attends, and fans whose favorite player got traded to another team.

or streaming it where available

It probably isn't available. If it's shown OTA or on a national or regional sports network in your area, it's blacked out online.

or going to venues that screen the game.

That depends on how many other people at Buffalo Wild Wings want to watch the same game that you and junior want to watch, and restaurant food is still more expensive than home-cooked food. Or if by "venues" you mean a neighbor's house, that eventually gets ruled out as well.

Alas, most people cashing bad checks and not paying their bills do that because they simply can't afford otherwise. Now I'm not saying that there's a large group of dumbfucks out there who have the means to be current on everything but chose to do otherwise due to laziness and/or stupidity. This certainly happens and you can read a lot about it. Heck, my neighbor is a nurse and he has bad credit in spite of earning ~$80k/year. He simply can't get himself to pay the bills! He'll let the bills accumulate for a couple of months, then when he feels like it he'll pay them. He also has a whole lot of useless crap that he buys. So yes, I do realize there's many people like that. But for most, it's simply that their minimum wage doesn't pay enough, and no matter what they'd "cut", they can't, short of living on the street.

I have YET to meet a single person that has gotten rid of their PCs for a [expletive] tablet

And I have yet to meet another regular user of a home theater PC within the sample set of my extended family. But as you're aware, that doesn't mean they don't exist, just as the lack of people switching from PC to iPad among your sample set doesn't mean people like this don't exist:

My daughter told me that if I bring in my old computer and my printer, I can trade my computer for an iPad, and you’ll set it up with my printer.

For ATMs, you don't really need much besides a 4 or 5 digit PIN. It's not usable in any other context, and the devices that are authorized to submit PINs are somewhat regulated. Historical data shows that 4 digit PINs are sufficient at keeping bank losses at manageable levels, and that's that.

I think that all too often the technical solutions to people problems such as you propose don't really work, because at the source it's not really about any sort of an absolute impossibility, but about willingness of people to actually expend some effort on keeping them safe. We're talking about stuff that's fairly easy, but people will come up with all sorts of reasons why it's a hassle for them. No matter how simple and easy you make it, people will still claim it's a hassle. For an eye opener, read some technology and other stories from notalwaysright.com.

There's no need for biometrics, everyone has got their brain already. Use it or lose it.

Biggest non MMO PC game I have seen yet is Max Payne 3 at 30 GB, RAGE is second at 21 GB. Most games are 7-8 GB, roughly the size of a dual layer DVD that Xbox games are made on.

I was referring to Metal Gear Solid 4 for PlayStation 3, which is about as big as the Max Payne 3 you mentioned.

With USB 3 and cheap flash, we could see scenarios where you go into "Future GameStore" with your 128-512 GB USB 3.0 stick you bought for $20 and have your game loaded on it at 90MB/sec.

A customer brought in her MP3 player and the store wouldn't sell her music for it. So if stores aren't willing to sell music to be loaded onto a carried-in storage device, what makes you think they're willing to do that for PC games?

OMG! Imagine how many years have been wasted to like, fucking Atlas Shrugged man.. If everyone who read it took like, 30 hours to read it that'd be like, a million years in wasted man hours. Whaooo...

That's nothing, I *weep* to think of the millions of man-years (not to mention IQ points) wasted by the Twilight series...

Those books are indeed full of vampires...time vampires!

Far from advising xenophobia, I'd still like to point out that US is a fucking big country. Most people in Europe, for example, have no idea what a "fucking big country" is. Even supposedly well of Germans. Given the scale of things, a "homegrown" product in the U.S. may be equivalent from something made elsewhere in Europe for someone from there, for example.

Not knowing how to use an apostrophe has nothing to do with grammar, it has to do with basic literacy.

Too true.

Here's a memorable guide to proper apostrophe usage. Also, IMO all of these guides should literally be required reading for anyone wishing to post to teh interwebs (in English, that is).

I wonder if this story is the cause of this entry to Not Always Right?

Yeah, I saw something like that in NAR. It could just be someone who lives out of the service area of fiber, cable, or DSL and is following sglewis100's advice to upgrade in "any number of places like Starbucks, McDonalds, Barnes and Noble". Otherwise, a 4 GB upgrade on a 5 GB/mo satellite or cellular plan is painful.

When you get bored have a look, how stupid the average public is.

They date from a time when selling music on a large scale needed access to record-pressing factories, big chain store contracts, fleets of distribution trucks

If you're selling to a demographic less likely to have high-speed Internet access, such as jazz or pop-standards to the over-50 set or country music to rural dwellers, you still need the "record-pressing factories, big chain store contracts, fleets of distribution trucks", and the like at least until brick and mortar stores allow people to carry in a PC or digital audio player and buy music.

Besides, you didn't mention promotion. The major labels have long-term relationships with the major FM radio station holding companies, and listening to web radio while away from Wi-Fi coverage, such as in a vehicle, needs a smartphone and data plan. Not everybody is willing to pay $30 extra per month for this yet.

It's selection bias at play, but just go to notalwaysright and weep at the stories there...

Why are we paying truck drivers to haul blu-rays to store shelves when we could be using the internet to deliver the movies for 1/100th the cost?

If you meant to homes, that won't happen any time soon because of ISP-imposed transfer caps. It takes months to transfer a single BD's worth of information over satellite Internet.

If you meant to stores, consider this: If brick-and-mortar retail stores aren't even willing to set up kiosks with a USB port to plug in your digital audio player and buy music, why would they be willing to set up kiosks to buy movies or video games?

that the public is a mass of morons

Well, that at least is a well-known fact. And if you never had the pleasure of working in a customer service job, and never got the chance to discover this fact for yourself..

Then have a look at http://clientsfromhell.net/ and http://notalwaysright.com/

From The Customer is Not Always Right:

Me: “Good afternoon, [Software Company] Tech Support. How can I help you?”

Customer: “I have a complaint about your software. My employees keep exiting the files without saving. I need you to fix that problem with your software.”

Me: “Sir, when you pick to exit the application, it asks you if you are sure you want to exit without saving.”

Customer: “I know. I think they are just hitting enter at the question.”

Me: “Sir, the default is no.”

Customer: “Well, they must be answering yes.”

Me: “Im not sure how we can change the software to make it easier for your employees to understand.”

Customer: “Can you add a second box after the first box, asking if they are really sure they want to lose what they just entered?”

Me: “I can put that request in, sir. But I doubt that development will change the software.”

Customer: “Why not?! Its a bug in your software! I want it fixed!”

There is no cure for stupidity. Example a and 2.

There is no cure for stupidity. Example a and 2.

A few examples:

http://notalwaysright.com/has-faith-but-lost-all-pope/10629

http://notalwaysright.com/because-aramaic-is-sooo-last-millenium/2005

http://notalwaysright.com/heal-the-blind-raise-the-dead-now-a-book-deal/1763

Small warning: If you have never worked as customer service person, then reading that site might shatter your faith in humanity.

A few examples:

http://notalwaysright.com/has-faith-but-lost-all-pope/10629

http://notalwaysright.com/because-aramaic-is-sooo-last-millenium/2005

http://notalwaysright.com/heal-the-blind-raise-the-dead-now-a-book-deal/1763

Small warning: If you have never worked as customer service person, then reading that site might shatter your faith in humanity.

A few examples:

http://notalwaysright.com/has-faith-but-lost-all-pope/10629

http://notalwaysright.com/because-aramaic-is-sooo-last-millenium/2005

http://notalwaysright.com/heal-the-blind-raise-the-dead-now-a-book-deal/1763

Small warning: If you have never worked as customer service person, then reading that site might shatter your faith in humanity.

I think you could probably combine all the needed bits into one large "Preparing for the real world" class, which would teach a bunch of useful bits, including things like how to setup a bank account and adminster it properly, how to balance a checkbook and debit/credit card, basics of loans etc. You could also add in fractions and decimals in a /real-world/ like environment by teaching them stuff they will use every day.
I would include a cheatsheet/book with the class, and teach how to use it - Instead of having people memorize useless facts, the class should be about practical stuff and where to find information if you don't know it: Stuff used every day will end up being memorized anyway.

Now, this really should be taught in highschool, and some part at 13 when you're legally allowed to have a debit card and checking acount(though no checks). The part about checks should be taught at 18 as soon as everyone's legally able to get an account.
Hopefully if you did that you wouldn't end up with adults who have no clue how their credit card or other important modern things work(See http://notalwaysright.com/ for some saddening examples).

OK, content is based on location and user preferences.... Maybe if I'm Japanese I want content in Japanese and not in Swahili? How exactly is this "splintering" the net?

If you live in Japan, and you happen to speak Japanese and Spanish, you don't necessarily want to be locked out of articles in Spanish.

If you are visiting Japan but happen to speak English, you don't necessarily want to be locked out of articles in English.

If you're in Canada and speak English, you don't necessarily want to be locked out of articles and especially videos in English *cough*Hulu*cough*.

http://notalwaysright.com/socially-acceptable/9651

Socially Acceptable
Convenience Store | Troy, NY, USA

(The shop I work in has a TV that plays the news 24/7. It has picked up a story about a judge ruling that the Obama health care bill was unconstitutional.)

Customer: “Well good! It is unconstitutional! You can’t force anyone to get health care if they don’t want it. This country is becoming too socialist! We don’t need any socialist programs!”

Me: *avoiding the topic* “Your total comes to [total].”

Customer: “Alright, here you go.”

(The customer hands me her food stamps card.)

I know the cell phone companies (including Apple in this overgeneralization) are a bunch of greedy so-and-so's, but a quick perusal of the stories at (The Customer Is) NotAlwaysRight.com will show why the Water Damage excuse is rather valid.

Such as, the borderline fraudulent:

Why Contracts are a Gazillion Pages Long ...

Me: "Thats right, but there are conditions, one being that the phone cant have any liquid or physical damage. I need to check for that."

Customer: "Fine, here."

(When I open up the phone, it stinks of alcohol.)

Me: "Sorry, this smells like it has alcohol on it."

Customer: "Oh, well, I dropped it in the sink and I know you wont fix it if it has water damage, but I didnt have any ethylated spirits, so I soaked it in vodka for 2 days to dry it out."

And then, the just stupid:

Beefed-Up Technology

(I was a customer at a cell phone store, observing the following exchange.)

Employee: "Im sorry sir, but your phone has water damage, which isnt covered by the warranty. You will have to purchase a new phone."

Customer: "Thats ridiculous! I havent gotten the phone wet!"

Employee: "Have you used the phone in the rain? Sometimes, thats all it takes to get the internals wet enough to damage the device."

Customer: "Well, yes, but that doesnt make any sense! Cows are in the rain all the time and they dont die!"

Employee: "..."

Me: *interjecting* "Sir, cows arent electronic devices."

Customer: *storms out*

(Fair warning, though... My Ghostery plug-in shows a whopping 18 web-watchers on that site. No wonder it won't come up on my phone. Or maybe it's the water damage.)

I know the cell phone companies (including Apple in this overgeneralization) are a bunch of greedy so-and-so's, but a quick perusal of the stories at (The Customer Is) NotAlwaysRight.com will show why the Water Damage excuse is rather valid.

Such as, the borderline fraudulent:

Why Contracts are a Gazillion Pages Long ...

Me: "Thats right, but there are conditions, one being that the phone cant have any liquid or physical damage. I need to check for that."

Customer: "Fine, here."

(When I open up the phone, it stinks of alcohol.)

Me: "Sorry, this smells like it has alcohol on it."

Customer: "Oh, well, I dropped it in the sink and I know you wont fix it if it has water damage, but I didnt have any ethylated spirits, so I soaked it in vodka for 2 days to dry it out."

And then, the just stupid:

Beefed-Up Technology

(I was a customer at a cell phone store, observing the following exchange.)

Employee: "Im sorry sir, but your phone has water damage, which isnt covered by the warranty. You will have to purchase a new phone."

Customer: "Thats ridiculous! I havent gotten the phone wet!"

Employee: "Have you used the phone in the rain? Sometimes, thats all it takes to get the internals wet enough to damage the device."

Customer: "Well, yes, but that doesnt make any sense! Cows are in the rain all the time and they dont die!"

Employee: "..."

Me: *interjecting* "Sir, cows arent electronic devices."

Customer: *storms out*

(Fair warning, though... My Ghostery plug-in shows a whopping 18 web-watchers on that site. No wonder it won't come up on my phone. Or maybe it's the water damage.)

Bit of a coincidence that the website (The Customer Is) Not Always Right posted this humorous excerpt today: Not Always Right | Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes Not Down Low On The Download

The story below that recently appeared on Not Always Right seems appropriate:

(A customer is wondering why her anti-virus is asking her to purchase the program.)
Me: "What is the name of your anti-virus?"
Customer: "It is [name of a well-known fake anti-virus program]."
Me: "Ma'am, that is a fake anti-virus. Do not purchase that program because it will not protect your computer."
Customer: "No! Why do you want me to disable my anti-virus? I will not get rid of it! It's keeping my computer safe! I already purchased it three times and it still wants me to pay again! All I want to know is how to stop it from asking me to pay!"

The story below that recently appeared on Not Always Right seems appropriate:

(A customer is wondering why her anti-virus is asking her to purchase the program.)
Me: "What is the name of your anti-virus?"
Customer: "It is [name of a well-known fake anti-virus program]."
Me: "Ma'am, that is a fake anti-virus. Do not purchase that program because it will not protect your computer."
Customer: "No! Why do you want me to disable my anti-virus? I will not get rid of it! It's keeping my computer safe! I already purchased it three times and it still wants me to pay again! All I want to know is how to stop it from asking me to pay!"

Meanwhile in Canada: http://notalwaysright.com/north-of-the-moral-border/4097
Sadly, Canada does not have many warm beaches.
Luckily, that rule about bare breasts is also true for most of Europe. :)
(In fact, in Germany, you are legally OK, as long as you put a sock over your dick and balls.)

Instead of tabbing windows, have a screen for each window! ^^

Only if the screen becomes too big to be practical (more than your field of view or more than 360 degrees in both directions), go into the third dimension by stacking things.

Then go one step further:

Group your windows into a tree hierarchy. Or even better: A proper full graph. Depending on the things they belong to.

Now if you could just stop having the difference between opened and closed applications, we would already have that. Just make the task bar and the directory structure of your documents folder the same thing, and act as if everything were open all the time.
Then for consistency, remove the in-application tabbing (like in Firefox), an that would just be redundant.

I wonder why the KDE people did not come up with this before, with all their semantic desktop ideas?
Too much fear of the loud retards at the lower (and closer to Windows) end of the bell curve of their target group? ^^

Oh yeah, Netflix is awesome. When it works. Netflix has the same problem with DRM... it is used to block legitimate consumers from using what they purchase in a legal manner. DRM IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. What the fuck kind of retarded thought process would lead you to that conclusion? DRM is forced upon us by the people who own the "intellectual property" for what is effectively forever and a day from now, in order to get you to keep paying for the same media over and over, and treating it as a license when it suits them, and a purchase when it doesn't. Do you have no self respect? Do you not care about the right you have as a human to participate in a shared culture? Do you really like the fact that DRM prevents current technology from doing what it's actually capable of doing? Would you want a car with a governor on it that kept you from going over 50mph? Why in the hell do you accept that with your digital technology?

There seriously are people that dumb

It's sad because it's true.

It's sad because it's true.

I concur. Especially after having read Not Always Right lately.

I concur. Especially after having read Not Always Right lately.

I'm not sure what screwed up my hyperlink, but I was referring to this site

Maybe I forgot the closing tag or something.

Pfft web design is easy

3. Users must email their manager every 10 minutes to let them know that they're online.

Start with that, then when the boss complains tell him you'll investigate a more suitable solution. Spend 2 days looking at web comics and reading http://www.notalwaysright.com/ then make the RDP session inactivity timeout 10 minutes.

Wait for contract negotiation time.