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'I'll Make Their Life Miserable': Tech CEO Bullies Low-income Vendors By His Home (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes an article on The Guardian that has caused a spark on social media: A Silicon Valley tech CEO has sparked backlash for comments slamming local fruit vendors, saying he would "make their life miserable" and "destroy" their produce if they were stationed near his house -- making him the latest wealthy Californian entrepreneur to publicly rail against low-income people. Mark Woodward, CEO of software company Invoca, published -- and later deleted -- a Facebook post saying that he would have no qualms about aggressively harassing unauthorized fruit sellers in his neighborhood if they got near his home. "I would go out there and make their life miserable. I would do whatever it took to make them leave. If that meant destroying some of their produce, or standing out there with signs to chase everyone away, Or just making them very uncomfortable, I would do that in a heartbeat."
And when we have no home no job no doctor. We will just hang at your place and go head and call the cops the jail will give us room and board + a doctor.
what an asshole.
Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
How should this thread play out? Are unlicensed vendors the noble poor today? Are we supposed to be pro-regulations or anti-regulations?
Whilst understandable, (I don't want people trying to sell things outside my house), destroying stuff is a bit of a dick move.
Full disclosure, I haven't read the article yet.
...Invoca is a software company based in Santa Barbara, California that develops a Software as a Service platform for marketers...
Yeah, so, to guy is pretty much an asshat anyway.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
So, are you saying that zoning laws are bad. Or are you saying that poor people can ignore them because they're poor? Can I, a-non-poor-but-not-rich-person, also ignore zoning and commerce laws at my discretion?
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Funny how supposedly intelligent people get so caught up in their successes at exploiting the rules, that they forget the rules can be thrown out the window at any moment by any person.
Hopefully someone will beat the shit out of him.
Should we pay attention to every rant? Even if it's a CEO of a company?
When I am ranting, I spew all kind of nonsense, threatening to exterminate all life on Earth, etc. Does it mean something beside the fact that I have a temper so hot that I can't restraint myself from public display of expressing it.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
News at 11.
"advertises its leadership team as the 'big brains and small egos creating amazing technology".
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Did anyone else notice the checkbox to disable ads for high karma users is now gone on Slashdot?
It stopped working a few weeks ago, and now it's just gone altogether.
Some people get ahead by acting obnoxious. It takes all types, I suppose.
-Bob-
"FRUIT VENDOR!!! Your cart is still in our way! We will give you one more hour to move it from our area. Do not test our patience anymore!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Nope, I still have the option when I'm logged in.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Modern app appers ONLY eat apps, NOT LUDDITE FRUIT!
Apps!
I still have the checkbox on mine.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Shortly if not already, I think that will be or is former CEO. With such an egregious comment, quite possibly former company altogether.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
The need for a special permission (license) from the government is what makes such vendors especially miserable — even those, who apply for and receive such licenses, are in constant fear of having them revoked. The Executive government can do that at a drop of a hat, without bothering with the occasionally obstreperous Judiciary — somehow selling what's yours to willing buyers is not a right in this country, you need permission.
Calling a buddy (or a politician, to whom you've donated) in the town-hall to lean on the objectionable vendor to "ask" him to move or have his license not renewed, is how this sort of harassment is normally achieved — announcing your plans on Facebook is, actually, refreshingly honest of this guy.
To fight against this sort of bullying, we need the "Stand you ground" laws — with the right to bear arms properly restored...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I really suggest it is done again to make these snooty asshats act more civilized. All it will take is couple of these rich assholes dangling from a noose on CNN with thousands of angry poor people below them cheering will suddenly make the rest of them across the country find their politeness filters and turn them back on almost instantly.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Look, I fully agree with your generalization because as a normal person I don't have to be concerned with a public image. Once you are in the public spotlight the game changes, and everything you do will be scrutinized because at that level you sell your image. Celebrities, including CEOs are not smarter than other people. Sometimes quite the opposite, because they get caught up in their image and neglect the basics.
It's like the guy in SF who publicly wanted to be a "thought leader" and then starts bashing homeless people. I have no sympathy for that person, because their goal was to be a public voice. The contract for selling your soul for loads of cash and public spotlights is messy. The next guy should be a whole lot more careful about what they say, and read the contract.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
What a prick. How dare those people not be rich like him?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It's a shame to hear things like this. If the fruit vendors are breaking zoning laws, then the proper civil authorities should take action. This does not excuse this type of attitude from him or others like him. I know disdain for the poor extends far beyond the "rich", we are all capable of being cold and uncaring, but not everyone is, thankfully. Even people who just ignore people struggling to make it, while perhaps not speaking ill of them are showing apathy by the lack of even caring.
We may not be legally obligated to help others, but in my mind it's the right thing to do. I know I could be doing more, and am just as guilty. I'm not an advocate of handouts that breed dependency, but for crying out loud, if a chance to buy someone's product is there, that's hardly a bad thing to consider. But to go out of one's way to not only not care, but intentionally add to one's suffering is just sad. I wonder how he would feel if he were reduced to poverty, how his attitude would change. There is more to life than what one owns, it's the kind of person one is that really matters. Wealthy and poor people alike live but a short time and blow away like dust in the wind, but how we live defines us far more that what we have accumulated.
I've still got it, but ticking it does nothing. It's back again on the next reload, unticked.
Submitting a comment doesn't add it to the discussion, either - it just goes "Working...". Reloading the page shows the comment, though.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Invoca - Call Tracking & Analytics - 1-888-989-4996
www.invoca.com
Invoca provides complete call intelligence. Drive, track and automate inbound calls for better leads, greater marketing insight, and more customers.
I swear if these low life marketers got anywhere near my home I would go out there and make their life miserable. I would do whatever it took to make them leave. If that meant destroying some of their servers, or standing out there with signs to chase everyone away, Or just making them very uncomfortable, I would do that in a heartbeat.
Normally I'd be against what you're suggesting...but sometimes (like today) I'm inclined to endorse it wholeheartedly, and maybe even open a KickStarter to fund such a project. All we need is a snappy name for it...
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
maybe you went on a drunken trolling spree you don't remember and lost your karma?
It if really was an illegal fruit vendor, then I sorta wish it was easier for them to be legal fruit vendors. I don't know if things are different on the West Coast, but I rather like roadside fruit-stands. And I certainly like them a heck of a lot more than roadside panhandlers.
Did anyone else notice the checkbox to disable ads for high karma users is now gone on Slashdot?
It stopped working a few weeks ago, and now it's just gone altogether.
I still see it. I don't use it because I use Adblock, but it's still there at the top-right of the page.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It's been broken for ages. The new owners said it was something they'd look into. It's still broken. You only get the checkbox if you're "good". On the face it it, this means karma, but Slashdot admins have been known to fuck with users's post score, standing, and account permissions administratively (outside the user-controlled karma system), including the deletion of posts.
Ditto.
On both Firefox and IE.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I've still got it, but ticking it does nothing. It's back again on the next reload, unticked.
Submitting a comment doesn't add it to the discussion, either - it just goes "Working...". Reloading the page shows the comment, though.
I noticed this too...I thought it was just me.
It just shows "Working" forever, but as you said, reloading the page shows the comment was added.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It still doesn't work though.
Through luck and some hard work, my family and I are fortunate enough to be able to live in "the nice part of town." We're by no means rich; we make decent salaries, but we're not doctors or executives. Therefore we're always waiting for the career-instability shoe to drop and don't "act rich" for the most part. However, because we live in that nice part of town, we have a lot of interactions with people who are doctors, lawyers, executives and so on. A lot of them are nice normal people who just happen to have lots of money. They even let their kids hang out with ours! :-) But, there seems to come a point where someone just has so much that they turn into a clone of this guy. It's a small fraction of the population, but they're quite noticeable.
I've seen this in my job dealing with executives of large companies as well. Once you get to that level, everything in your life is taken care of for you. Your transportation is arranged for you, meals are handled, house is managed by a staff, family is cared for by a staff, and so on. Anything even slightly out of place like a street vendor is an emergency that needs to be dealt with immediately and harshly. This rant sounds like something a typical "new money" tech CEO would say to one of his friends, but now the world gets to hear how he really feels. It's just further proof that the executive crowd is completely disconnected from reality, and explains things like massive layoffs with no regard to the impact on the business or the individuals.
"They mark only the latest example of a male tech CEO making aggressive, insensitive and tone-deaf remarks about people less fortunate than them."
Really? Do we have to throw gender into this?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
One-percenter scumbag. You so worried your multi-million-dollar house will drop a few thousand bucks or something? Or is your problem 'MUH AESTHETICS'? This guy needs to have the shit slapped out of him.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Well put.
It is too expensive and to crazy.
SF has for a long time encouraged the crazy and now that it is too expensive for normal people much less low income people to live it is become a very unpleasant place to live.
Time for the tech companies to spread out a bit and find more reasonable places to have facilites.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Streisand... paging Barbara Streisand...
(I mean, seriously... do people who come into money just abruptly lose sight of all common sense?)
The fruit stand just needs to call itself WeFruit and provide an app. Their business model is to deliver fruit to where people are walking.
I don't consider them unregulated or unlicensed. I just call them "fruit sharing" companies or "fruit aggregators".
"They mark only the latest example of a male tech CEO making aggressive, insensitive and tone-deaf remarks about people less fortunate than them. "
Your forgot to mention he is white. That makes him racist too.
Yeah. I assumed this was a browser upgrade issue on my end. Glad to know it's the site instead.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Wait a second.... Aren't these 'unlicensed fruit vendors' just an earlier version (or perhaps the latest) of Uber or perhaps food trucks? And everyone loves what Uber is doing to the taxi economy, right?
1) Displace standard selling practices (stores)
2) Provide goods at strategic locations, mobile
3) Fill a demand (people are buying fruit, else the carts would not be there)
4) Allow people to use their own resources to generate an income (fruit vs. cars).
Lots of hypocrisy in both the CEO's rant and in these Slashdot replies regarding zoning.....
I would wager that if there was an 'app' to call the fruit vendors, folks would be all over this, handing them truckloads of money......
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
The last few weeks the fruit vendors have returned and have stationed themselves for up to 10 hours a day across from our house. What used to be a few boxes of strawberries has become the equivalent of a small market.
We're at the 4-way stop on Pine & Cottle so traffic which is already bad has become worse. Further we now have complete strangers watching our homes, knowing what time we leave for work, what time our kids leave for school and what packages arrive from Fed Ex or UPS etc. We have watched the sellers urinate in our neighbors yard and have had to pick up the trash they leave behind.
In the past the police would stop by and within a minute the fruit sellers would leave and wouldn't return for weeks and sometimes months. Now the police say they cannot do anything as they are under-resourced and refer us to the permit department at the City which of course tell us they cannot do anything and ask us to call the police.
3 weeks ago the house next to the cart was burgled. The owners (in their 90's) have lived in the house for over 40 years and nothing like this has happened in the time we've lived here (17 years). Probably a coincidence but in my experience when blight is allowed to occur it grows.
We talk about keeping business alive in Willow Glen yet businesses like Laredo Market which pays taxes, rent and employs people lose out to un-permitted street carts with questionable merchandise and generate zero dollars for the community.
I have had to temper anger with some of our neighbors who exasperated by the complete lack of action by the City to take the matter into their own hands but I know that will escalate the issue which may in fact get the neighbors into trouble with the police.
I know there are trolls here who'll accuse me of being a privileged WG blah blah blah - I'll expect and ignore those comments. I just hate to see the community we have all worked hard to proudly call Willow Glen being failed by a City that are supposed to protect us.
We'd appreciate any advice and hopefully this thread may help if one day you look out your window and they have set up in front of your house.
I don't consider them unregulated or unlicensed. I just call them "fruit sharing" companies or "fruit aggregators".
From TFA, people were complaining how the fruit vendors were "watching our homes, knowing what time we leave for work, what time our kids leave for school and what packages arrive from FedEx or UPSâ."
Well, all that information is just marketing data :)
He's selling SaaS solutions to marketeers. I doubt they give a fuck about how he treats humans, they're used to far worse.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are some issues here that may apply. Is the vendor blocking traffic? Some placements will generate traffic congestion. That makes the vendor non-harmless. Is the vendor on private property without permission? That's a bad idea all around, not so much because "hey someone is selling stuff" but because it sets a negative precedent about the right to control what one owns. Blocking the sidewalk? That's no good either. The sidewalk seems to me to be something you can reasonably share -- it's public property, which means the vendor has a stake in it as well -- but if you block the sidewalk, you've gone too far. I don't think it's too much to ask that a vendor arrange their business such that the sidewalk and the road both remain traversible without requiring detour or delay.
I'm no fan of licenses per se, I think they are counter-productive on almost every level I can think of other than as a means of extracting money from the business community (and often that's counter productive as well), but if you're selling food, cooked or otherwise, I *am* a fan of inspection. If you haven't passed a recent inspection for handling, storage, cleanliness and refrigeration / prep as would be considered reasonable practice for whatever it is you are selling, I'd prefer you weren't allowed to sell, and if I can't have that, I'd at LEAST like to know about it so I can avoid your enterprise. Likewise healthcare, sexual services, etc. You should have the right to conduct business, but that should be tempered with the responsibility to do so in a safe and sane manner that takes the health and welfare of your customers into account as much as possible.
IMHO, most communities go way, way, too far when it comes to who can do what, where. And they do this to create "sanitized" zones where the "undesirables" are prevented from sullying the space they consider to be theirs. I find that attitude generally despicable if the space is public. If the space is private, then it should be 100% up to the owner, not the community, how that space is used. You want to spend a zillion bucks on a big house? Fine. Guy next to you wants to put up a rusty old junker on blocks right next to the property line? Fine. You don't like it? Should have bought more property (and perhaps less house) so your tender little eyes wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of photons you don't like. Some high fences would help too.
Anyway. It seems to me that the high road almost inevitably consists of giving your fellow human beings some room to exist and hopefully exercise some opportunity to improve their lot. I'm really pretty tired of "me first" explanations for what amounts to casual maltreatment of others. I understand and agree with concerns about private property you own. Beyond the boundaries of your own property, my sympathies for complaints about actions of others that do not directly pick your pocket or break your leg drop off dramatically.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If the vendors are illegal, they should just call the police/HOA to get rid of them.
Dude, you REALLY don't want to hassle poor independent fruit sellers
Be a mensch, buy some fruit, and give him a tip on a prime location elsewhere.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Wouldn't you just know this guy runs some shitty internet marketing company. http://www.invoca.com/ Had to be that, right.
So if anyone is using this guys shitty internet marketing firm, please stop, cancel his service and let him feel what it is like to be poor with very few options available to one who is poor. I grew up extremely poor. One simply does not know what it is like through empathy or sympathy. Racist Limousine Liberals disgust me.
Since this guy also advocates theft (destruction of peoples property) from poor people, I see little reason for any compassion whatsoever. If he wasn't the "lowest form of life on the internet," that is, a marketing skank, I'm sure he'd happily be selling poisoned baby formula in Africa.
He absolutely deserves everything that is going to be coming his way. I hope the right people make it happen.
Yeah, Woodward sounds like a jerk, but what does his being male, tech, or CEO have to do with any of this? And since when is being a CEO a matter of luck, as opposed to a matter of risk taking and business acumen? And since when is Willow Glen a "tony" neighborhood, rather than your average, slightly out of the way, Silicon Valley suburban area?
How do you think Ivana Trump or Hillary Clinton would behave if they found illegal street vendors in front of their mansions? Of course, they wouldn't get into a shouting match with street vendors, not that any street vendors would even venture into their exclusive neighborhoods, they'd send their lackeys to do it for them.
And let's not forget that the reason these street vendors are "disadvantaged" is because government regulations impose costly and onerous licensing requirements on them in the first place.
Glad to see it's not just me! This behavior coincided with me installing a new AdBlock in my browser (after a browser upgrade after an OS upgrade no less) and I thought there was some weird interaction between that and the site's scripting.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Both sides of this argument are deeply entrenched.
1) There are a lot of people in San Francisco that care about the homeless. They are seen as the noble poor, and in San Francisco, the homeless get a real leg up in financial terms. Although this has resulted in more homeless moving into San Francisco, many are just displaced from their dwellings due to the outrageous costs for apartments. One bedroom apartments that are not too terribly nice are going for 3.5k to 4k per month.
2) Some of the homeless here have no regard for laws. Public urination is everywhere. Get off at the Civic Centre of BART, and you are quickly greeted by a strong waft of urine in the air followed by billowing clouds of marijuana. Walk out of the BART station in the early morning, and you have to be careful to not step on a needle that a junky dropped.
There is certainly room and a need to help people who are in genuinely difficult situation. Counseling to help addictions and strong policing to enforce current laws are needed. However, taking the law into one's own hands and destroying another person's property as Mr. Woodward says he will, is not the answer.
If the fruit vendors were responding to calls from an app by people who want fruit but are too busy/lazy/whatever to go to the store and buy it (which, in most suburban areas, DOES require driving a car or calling Uber), would there be such a fuss? So make it a pro-bono activity for some developer in between gigs - develop an app for fruit and veggie street vendors so you can have it delivered, or find out when they'll be in the area? Would that make it OK in the eyes of an over-funded online advertising vendor?
Yeah, this guy is talking out his ass, but I'm pretty sure it's because he knows he'll never have to back his words up with actions. Seriously, where do you usually see fruit/ice cream carts? Here in the San Fernando Valley, it's usually around the lower income areas, such as manufacturing districts, public parks, cheaper housing. I've never seen a fruit cart in my lower middle class neighborhood, let alone the richy rich areas. I doubt the 1%ers anywhere would eat off one of those carts anyway, when they can just have their PA go down to Whole Foods and pick up a truck load of whatever. There's just not enough foot traffic or eager customers for the carts in these areas, so they simply have no incentive to be there. This guy is just inventing a scenario where he thinks he sounds tough and can rally his kind against the poors, but would most likely get his ass kicked if he started destroying someones livelyhood.
Unfortunately, revolution these days is impossible, and even though Bastille Day has come and gone, something like that is never going to happen again. All that will happen is the rich assholes just have a few more mercenaries, a lot fewer people shouting at them, and organ banks worldwide strangely full.
Actually the French Revolution was the work of rich assholes who wanted to be on the same level with bankrupt noble assholes and clerical assholes. It was wanted by the bourgeoise, which evolved into robber barons, ubercapitalists and ultimately the One Percenters.
Maybe I need to start double posting my signature it seems it's not being displayed for some people.
-- /. Please fix.
Disable advertising broken. Minimum threshold broken
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Wow, does this summary have an axe to grind or what? It's probably because there's not enough women working for him. And they make less. Fuck I hate this new breed of editorial journalism. RIP free media.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I have one right here. Browser incompatibility or filtered off too much?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
CEO's are arshehole$. Who knew...
this is what happens when people who haven't had to work from "the ground up" get too much money, too much power, and too little humility/wisdom to see what is beyond their nose. California is becoming not only a tech power house, but a breeding round for perhaps the most amoral generation in the history of the United States of America. If he had said, "Let them it cake", I would have at least given him credit for being clever.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
He has every right to keep these people off his property. A residential neighborhood is not for business.
In my neighborhood we got more and more of these people who started aggressively selling, as well as selling drugs and fighting with each other over who had a right to be on a street corner. It quickly became a nuisance.
Don't believe the lies about these being poor innocent people just trying to make a buck. The ones we dealt with were ruthless, and it wasn't until we got more cops coming through regularly that they finally dispersed and went elsewhere.
A year ago, 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi was getting ready to sell fruits and vegetables in the rural town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia.
Bouazizi was the breadwinner for his widowed mother and six siblings, but he didn't have a permit to sell the goods. When the police asked Bouazizi to hand over his wooden cart, he refused and a policewoman allegedly slapped him.
Angered after being publicly humiliated, Bouazizi marched in front of a government building and set himself on fire.
His act of desperation resonated immediately with others in the town. Protests began that day in Sidi Bouzid, captured by cellphone cameras and shared on the Internet.
Within days, protests started popping up across the country, calling upon President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his regime to step down. About a month later, he fled.
The momentum in Tunisia set off uprisings across the Middle East that became known as the Arab Spring.
Sure, but he can always do that. In fact, they can even be armed goons — with licenses to carry, whereas their victim is unlikely to be.
Well, it will not equalize it completely, but it will reduce the disbalance. You only need 2-3 unarmed goons to overpower an unarmed victim. If you allow both sides to carry, the math changes — you'll now need more than 5, probably closer to 10 goons. And they know, some of them may very well "get it", which raises the stakes even higher.
And then, of course, the goons can already be armed — so letting the victim defend himself is a net win for equality.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
ads? hahahahaha
I grew up in the Mexican state of California. It was very common to see illegals out on street corners, usually near Home Depot or the county hospital, selling strawberries and a few other goods. They didn't bother anyone and were never a nuisance. They also didn't appear to be trying to run a business, I equate what they were doing to being less involved than a kid running a lemonade stand. If someone were doing something like putting up a large wooden stand to operate a business I would take offense, but if its someone that took up an opportunity to buy a crate of fruit from their employer to sell and make a few bucks on the side, I couldn't care less. My only concern is them not being legal residents or blocking the sidewalk. I stopped shopping at Home Depot due to how bad the crowds of illegals were getting there.
... he gets what he's got coming, and that it is really violent and painful for him...
Why do you think "panic rooms" are now fashionable among the rich?
It's the real life version of him -> http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Cro_Threadstrong
Did anyone else notice the checkbox to disable ads for high karma users is now gone on Slashdot?
It stopped working a few weeks ago, and now it's just gone altogether.
I still see it. I don't use it because I use Adblock, but it's still there at the top-right of the page.
I don't use it because I use a scriptblocker, because I'm actually concerned with security and not just being a freeloader.
Of course, some wag is going to follow up, slashdot itself is a huge slashvertisement ....
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Yes the guy is a jerk. Yes his vitriol is uncalled for. And yes, people write things that they *think are only read by their friends so they write accordingly.
But let's get one thing straight --> neighborhood vendors are often annoying. This is not a racial, economic, rich-poor, or tin foil hat agenda statement at all --> their presence is 'often' an great contributor to annoying things in the immediate area.
Do you like loud shouting & promotion of wares? Do you like bells, drums, whistles, and broadcast music to get customers to look at them? Do you like the non-shopping opportunists that enjoy the cover a shopping crowd offers? Do you like people cutting across your yard & even leaning on your car, house, or apartment? Strangers talking to your kids? Do you like the trash left behind by shoppers after they finish their yummy snacks & drinks? If you like these things then by all means let vendors set up on your street. If not, then help legislate them to the local park or church parking lot, whatever.
I've been on BOTH sides of this and believe me, put sellers in an open area set up for vending; not on a street corner (even if that's where the customers live).
http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/forbidden-fruit-the-trouble-with-those-guys-who-sell-strawberries-on-street-corners/Content?oid=2174725
But unwanted competition with local businesses and potential health threats aren't the only reasons the cops are concerned. Police believe most of these street vendors are victims themselves. Lombardo speculates that many are paying back debts to "coyotes," the people who helped them across the border. They are like slaves, she says, forced to sell fruit on the streets, making less than San Francisco's $9.79 [2009] minimum hourly wage.
http://www.sbsun.com/article/ZZ/20091123/NEWS/911239857
Many vendors prepared food in filthy and unsanitary conditions, said sheriff's Sgt. Maggie Finneran.
Raw and cooked meats and perishable foods were stored unrefrigerated, often in open containers.
Meat that was tested was found to be of unknown origin or determined not fit for human consumption, she said, also adding that none of the vendors had access to water or hand or equipment sanitizers.
"Nothing was refrigerated or on ice," she said. "It was incredible to see. There was no sanitation whatsoever.
Really, I think it's about time for shit-piles like Woodward to take a cap.
Can I make Mark Woodward's life miserable until Invoca leaves the Internet? I don't want him in my virtual neighborhood.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
First, the title is all wrong. He doesn't bully anyone, he says he would bully someone if blah blah. Second, this is framed as someone powerful against someone weak for no reason. Obviously everyone is inclined to side with the 'weak,' but really one person wants the laws to be followed and another is breaking the laws. Is anyone arguing the laws are wrong? Not really, they are just saying this guy is an asshole for wanting them to be enforced and using aggressive language while saying so. So what.
It's a heartless thing to say- but that doesn't justify taking away responsibilities for ones actions- or taxation- which is little more than theft.
We should get rid of taxation AND government spending. The poor in the United States are an insignificant cost and it's most carious to attack them or have this be the talking point. It would be better to get rid of the police, military, public-funded education, and similar utterly unnecessary programs.
We don't need social security when people plan for there future. We don't need police when people plan for there own security. We don't need a huge standing military when we don't intervene in foreign affairs. We don't need public-funded education when the majority could otherwise afford private schooling if the government didn't steal the financial means to educate our children.
There are very few things that we really need a central body for and if you look back at history we did just fine without. Today you would think it would be crazy if there wasn't a state police force and yet within the last 100 years we didn't have a state police in New Hampshire. Within the last 100 years we didn't have social security. Within the last 100 years we didn't have the biggest military force on the planet and managed just fine. We didn't always have public schooling either and with average wages what they are the majority could afford private schooling if the government didn't steal it.
I've noticed that whole "waiting" thing too...when it first started, I accidentally double-posted until I realized it was actually posting but the refresh was just jacked.
Based on other comments I don't doubt there is something broken about it. But for me, when mine went away I spent some time searching, trying to figure it out. Gave up and lived with it after a few minutes. Surfed /. for a few days in a row and magically it was back. Then I got busy, life and all that, and hadn't been to /. in months. When I finally came back the ads were back. A few days of consistent visits and one day the box was back and checking it removed the ads.
I chalked it up to a change that basically works like ( good karma + consistent visits = remove ads ). Have no idea if that's right, just the behaviour I observed. I can say, unlike other commenters, that if the box was there and I checked it then it worked and ads were removed. I typically surf /. with Firefox or Seamonkey fwiw.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
And they, in turn, fell under the guillotine of the Jacobins. Oh, how they howled. Every revolution eats its own last.
Or just making them very uncomfortable, I would do that in a heartbeat.
By which he means in about a quarter, when he has to produce another earnings report. I think he's confused by how an ostensibly human heart is supposed to sound.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I understand the idea behind this. However, I reject the assertion that because you bought property next to mine, I have the right to say what you do on it unless it directly affects my health and welfare or the physical state of my property -- interference with water flow, something of yours falls onto my land, etc.
If you decide to live somewhere, the way I see it, I have domain over what I own, and no further. If I want lots of influence, I need to buy buy lots of land. Same thing for noise pollution, etc. Want to get away from it all? See to it that you have an away to get to. Otherwise, insulate and/or buy earplugs. Insulation is highly under-rated. Not only reduces noise, but makes heating and cooling much more efficient.
As for the value of my property as to related to the adjacency to another's property and their doings thereon, again, if I want to control some bit of land, and even gain income by asserting that land will remain in, or out of, some specific state, then again, I need to own that land.
And before anyone jumps me about this, yes, I know how it actually works. What I'm describing here is how I think it should work -- and how I actually act towards my neighbors. Because that, at least, I can control. I'm not an asshole about it, either. The grocery store next door has a tight fit getting a semi in for unloading; the bay faces my property across a not-very-wide parking lot. When we fenced in our lot, I cut a pretty good-sized triangle off the corner of the plot in the sense that the fence cut inside that, in order to give the trucks room to maneuver. I didn't ask them if they needed it, I didn't try to sell it to them, I didn't even mention it to them. The manager of the store came over here the day after the fence went up and asked me "why'd you do that?" and I told him "because your trucks obviously needed the room." Just because you have a right to something doesn't mean you have to hold on to it like a little bitch. And strangely enough, for some reason, the store treats us very well indeed.
Okay, now jump me. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
He can cause grief for the homeless and the like but he should know that many of those folks could care less about going to prison as prison can be better than the life that they have. And some are sort of violent to begin with. We'll see who wins in the end.
Did anyone else notice the checkbox to disable ads for high karma users is now gone on Slashdot?
It stopped working a few weeks ago, and now it's just gone altogether.
Yeah, I noticed that too. I think it's just their cute way of asking us nicely to use AdBlock.
then he won't have to see them anymore. They'd be doing him a favor, right?
Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross
http://i.imgur.com/llvPrt5.png
It's there, and it works. It doesn't make you immune to native slashdot ads, just ads coming from off-site.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"You only get the checkbox if you're "good"."
Wrong. The checkbox came about for those users that participated in a specific /. survey. Our reward was being able to disable ads.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
My guess is that those people you refer to that are clones of this guy are sociopaths. It's a lot easier for sociopaths to get ahead, so many more options are available to them due to their lack of scruples. Though some portion of those will end up in prison if they get caught while doing something unscrupulous.
People with attitudes like this are defective, they have brain bugs polluting their internal cloud. The bay area has so successfully abstracted life and the meaning of money that their inability to deal with the other 99.999% of the real world is nothing but a fantasy tale of fiction.
The hippies won, and lost in a most dramatic fashion. Don't beleive me, take a walk down Haight near Golden Gate Park sometime. Tech people have not enhanced society, they have corrupted it in such a way that we are actively abstracting and data mining a small subset of humanity itself. The bay area bubble does not like things that don't mesh with their entitled childish view of how the world should work beyond their few million people. The things that made the bay area wonderful and worthy of a place in history, have long since been warped, and priced out of reach of the typical individual.
That fruit vendor likely provides better produce than the local supermarket, but it irritates some neighborhood tech money ego who is too afraid to even try that produce because it does not follow his sense of what reality should be.
There is no app for that vendor, therefore there must be a crime in progress.
Nope, I still have the checkbox.
Wrong.
As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising.
It's supposed to be revealed based on karma. I've lost it several times by tanking my karma to terrible.
Not that the guy gets to be an asshole about and and assault them, but if zoning requires licensing and they dont, well, they are committing a crime and should come back once they have their papers in order..
Funny CEO is too lame to buy a house on a private street. Maybe I'll go look him up in street view. ROFLMAO. Buy private access if you want to control access. What a tard. Public streets are public. Who'da thought?
I really don't think the CEO of a telephone marketing company has any right to consider fruit vendors annoying. Telephone marketing is about as annoying as marketing gets.
Why be nasty about it, just set up a bigger stall selling a greater variety of better, fresher, cheaper fruit, problem solved. When you have bankrupted the competition then you can recruit them to sell contraband to your neighbors.
People like him already make people miserable. He's a blight on society.
Odds are 99:1.
Sounds like we've found the Donald's running mate!
Mark Woodward is Mark Hellbound.
http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/s?t=2&q=camel+eye+needle&b=drb
Like the people who turned off signature display?
He may be an asshole, callous and cruel. But he is right. The people in that community certainly EARNED the right to live and work there. Life isnt fair.. there is no such thing. These people have no business setting up fruit stands.. stand that are almost certainly illegal in his community. This guy pays more in income and property taxes in one year that most of you will make in a lifetime.. that should afford him some level of luxury in his life and return on his investment from the government in the form of properly policing his community. Lets face it.. That measly amount of property and income tax most of you are paying ISNT covering the cost of the local infrastructure.. not even close.andt without him and earners like him.. it would ALL crumble. Dont fool yourselves with you little socialist Bernie Sanders utopian crap.. that community NEEDS this guy and people like his income to survive.
Another euphemism for parasites like "urban outdoorsmen."
Wrong again. But don't let your being wrong stop you from spouting off at the mouth. You seem to have a history of that.
wealth as some sort of mental illness.
Hopefully this CEO will take a well deserved bullet to his face soon.
I am irritated that I was made to read the article based upon the title only to discover later on the "unauthorized" word. I am reminded of a irritating computer science teacher of mine, that I was forced to endure by my parents, who placed as the last question in an exam something like: "If you answer yes to this question you don't have to answer any of the other questions to receive a 100% pass mark, okay?". I know for a fact he was and is not God.
Offer them a job, buy their fruit, cultivate a friendship. I have found through the years that your local people look out for you, make your neighborhood safer because they are the ears and eyes. Yes, I know there are always the other negative stories. But it is true in NYC and it can be true for SV!
CEOs are Sociopaths.
Is it news?
Casteism
I've tanked my karma multiple times and have NEVER lost it.
I have the fucking e-mail where it specifies what our reward would be for taking the Slashdot survey.
You are wrong.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
My answer to temporary light incursion is curtains, generally speaking, as heavy as required. It's an easy problem to solve, and the solution also sources worthy privacy benefits. However, if the laser is powerful enough to do harm, and the beam crosses my property line, much less enters my home, then my feeling is someone needs to be shot, same as with any other innately reckless use of a dangerous instrument.
I'm pretty unhappy with more general light "pollution" -- I think we lose a great deal when we can't see, photograph, and otherwise explore and appreciate the night sky -- but first, it's not something we can solve easily at this point in time, and second, it's not inherently permanent -- the problem goes completely away the instant the lights go off -- so "pollution" is at least somewhat hyperbolic. I'm particularly sensitive to this as I live where there are dark skies, which we came very close to losing because of the Bakken oil development failing to deal with the gas output of the wells over there in any way other than burning it off. Made a huge amount of light. Lucky for us here, oil prices fell so far that the field's economic case turned negative.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You still can use ABP, maybe.
Really?
Go ahead, push that wheel...
But, there is a problem with it.
One pushed, it cannot be stopped and; it goes in a circle.
Beware of the wheel of Karma...
Personally, I'd go out, buy their fruit and produce and, get to know them.
But, I am not afraid of them.
I bet you are.
Stop being afraid of them.
Show a little Love and you will reap benefits that you cannot imagine. In other words, push the wheel the other way.
Try it, you will like it!