Enough already with the talking boxes. First, it was the automated checkout at the Kroger: "Please place the item in the bag." Gosh, I hadn't thought of that! Then I went to the ATM the other day and it started talking to me. Strangely enough, although the bank is based in Charlotte, NC, and I'm pretty sure it's a Diebold machine, it was talking to me in a slightly British-sounding female voice. Thank god nobody walks where I live, or we'd have those evil "walk now, walk now, walk now" pedestrian signals.
If I want to talk to an inanimate object in my house, I'll continue to address the cat. And I sure as hell don't want my house talking to me.
Feh. She probably won't even open the pod bay door.
1) At CompUSA, I was given a card that offered me 100 free downloads, over the course of 30 days. When I tried to sign up, that turned into 50 downloads/14 days. To their credit, after questioning them, they did offer me the additional 50 songs if I signed up, which I did. (But the trial was still for only 14 days).
2) My renewal date was listed on my account as April 14th. Being a good procrastinator, I still had a large chunk of that 100 songs on my account on the 14th. I scanned through the listings that day while working, but because of the corporate net-nanny, I couldn't download till I got home. Which I started to do, and then POOF, my "available balance" changed. The renewal (and conversion of my account to paid status, and $9.99 charge to my card) had gone through at 6:04 PM. WTF? I guess it was midnight somewhere, or something.
3) They have two albums by Glen Tilbrook (previously of Squeeze). But they weren't listed together. The name was spelled the same, there was no discernible difference. If you searched on his name, you'd find one of them, but if you found him listed as an influence or a "worked with" for somebody else, you'd find the other one. Made me wonder what else I might not have been finding.
I still believe they have a great idea (although I liked it better a long time ago when you could buy individual tracks without the subscription). Right now I'd say they're a little shaky on the customer service side, and there might be a few bugs in their database. So it was not quite a joyful experience for me.
With both the Gameboy and SNES, however, there was a game inside the box when you got home from the store. At the time, you could hardly go wrong with Super Mario Brothers, and Tetris spawned a million sore thumbs.
I used to work with a guy who would have been happy if no calls were ever allowed to get to a real live person. I think there should be no barriers at all. We used to fight, a lot; but his side of the table controlled the budget, so guess who won?
Of course now I just work with people who think adding speech recognition to a system means re-recording the prompts so that they say "press or say 1."
[Full disclosure for the following comment -- I program voice response systems for a living. However, I only implement what they force me to, and sometimes that sucks.]
From that page:
We will soon publish a list of the best and worst mass-market consumer companies in the US based on how long it takes to get to a human on the phone and on the quality of support received.
That's very nice, but it doesn't seem like a very intelligent way to measure customer service. As a trivial example, suppose you want to know your credit card balance. A decently programmed voice response system can give you that information quickly and clearly, and in much less time than it would take to get the same data from a human. If you're lucky, the IVR won't even try to sell you something that you don't need.
Yes, I know that there are times when the available pre-programmed options are not useful and speaking to a representative is the only option. But do you want to have to wait in queue for an agent who has to handle ninety-twelve "what is my balance?" calls before it's your turn? Now ask yourself why the call centers are being outsourced to overseas providers...
This "I only will deal with a human" attitude is pointless. Better to demand that corporations fix their IVR systems, because they're not going away. (And maybe I'll get hired to write more VUI specs instead of having to implement what 'the business' thinks it wants.)
Sure, everybody always talks about how well-written the Infocom games were, but the packaging was a stroke of marketing genius. I still have the copy of "Hitchhiker's" that I bought for my Atari 800, with the peril-sensitive sunglasses and the piece of pocket fluff. Hmmm, $500, eh?
I also have a fair number of issues of The New Zork Times (or whatever they were forced to rename it), and if I look hard enough, I could probably find my "I Got The Babel Fish" t-shirt.
"A year later on May 1, 1964, the BASIC computer programing language (as demonstrated above) was born and for the first time computers were taken out of the lab and brought into the community."
I just had a two week experience dealing with the Windows Update "support team." The code was downloading OK, but something was preventing the updates from installing. After reporting my problem, the first guy had me check a bunch of settings, reboot, try to update (failed), go into safe mode, do some other stuff, reboot, try to update (failed), send him some files, download the patches direct from some links he sent me, etc.
Then I got "escalated." The second guy had me try some more stuff, send some more files, etc. Then he tried to tell me that WU wouldn't work because I had an OEM/pre-installed version of XP. Ummm, yeah, OK "Dustin." First of all, just about every copy of XP out there is an OEM version, since you can't hardly buy a mass market PC without XP being pre-installed. Therefore, if your little story was true, don't you think there'd be some mention of it on the web? Little weasel just wanted to get the ticket closed so he could get a gold star or something. Oh yeah, he also told me I'd have to order a CD that had the updates on it. OK, so the CD was free, but according to the order page, it only included updates through October 2003. Nice. What about the hugely critical flaw that was just patched at the beginning of this month?
I called "bullshit" on his answer and requested further "escalation." Luckily, the next guy sent me an updated copy of some system file or other and it seems to have resolved the problem.
I just have to wait until the next time there's a patch for a critical flaw in XP to see if that's true. And we know there's going to be a next time.
My TiVo doesn't make a phone call to communicate to the mothership. It uses my broadband connection.
Now in my case, that's a DSL line, but there's no call setup going on, so ANI is not an issue.
Can they still track me? Of course they can. Do I care? Not particularly. I wasn't even watching the game at home. If they are checking on me, they are probably bored spitless. "Oh geez, he's watching Angel again."
> (Of course it's still possible for someone to steal a smartcard, but at least it requires a separate attack on each patient rather than a single attack on the entire database.)
Right. That's why this guy is in the ambulance to begin with -- somebody attacked him to steal his smartcard and left him unconscious.
Re:Learning the etymology of a word helps a lot
on
A Word a Day
·
· Score: 5, Informative
That's a nicely backformed etymology, but the word comes from Mrs. Malaprop, a character noted for her misuse of words in R. B. Sheridan's 1775 comedy The Rivals.
Now it might be argued that Sheridan named his character based on reasoning similar to the above derivation, but without the character, it is entirely possible that we'd be using another term.
Re:Shania was lip syncing, I'm sure of it.
on
Superbowl XXXVII
·
· Score: 1
The beady eyed Canadian sang "God Bless America," the Dixie Chicks sang the national anthem.
Slashdot Mirror
It could be SCO, Apple, Microsoft, or all the open-source developers in the world, but it would still be a POS.
Actually, the US Government fiscal year ends on 30 September. Any company is free to choose its own fiscal year.
/. headline!
And hey, let's hear it for yet another barely parsable
29 months -- Spirit and Opportunity have been on Mars since January of 2004.
Heh, I was wondering if somebody would notice that. He's 15 years old. He doesn't move much.
Enough already with the talking boxes. First, it was the automated checkout at the Kroger: "Please place the item in the bag." Gosh, I hadn't thought of that! Then I went to the ATM the other day and it started talking to me. Strangely enough, although the bank is based in Charlotte, NC, and I'm pretty sure it's a Diebold machine, it was talking to me in a slightly British-sounding female voice. Thank god nobody walks where I live, or we'd have those evil "walk now, walk now, walk now" pedestrian signals.
If I want to talk to an inanimate object in my house, I'll continue to address the cat. And I sure as hell don't want my house talking to me.
Feh. She probably won't even open the pod bay door.
I'll dissent . . .
1) At CompUSA, I was given a card that offered me 100 free downloads, over the course of 30 days. When I tried to sign up, that turned into 50 downloads/14 days. To their credit, after questioning them, they did offer me the additional 50 songs if I signed up, which I did. (But the trial was still for only 14 days).
2) My renewal date was listed on my account as April 14th. Being a good procrastinator, I still had a large chunk of that 100 songs on my account on the 14th. I scanned through the listings that day while working, but because of the corporate net-nanny, I couldn't download till I got home. Which I started to do, and then POOF, my "available balance" changed. The renewal (and conversion of my account to paid status, and $9.99 charge to my card) had gone through at 6:04 PM. WTF? I guess it was midnight somewhere, or something.
3) They have two albums by Glen Tilbrook (previously of Squeeze). But they weren't listed together. The name was spelled the same, there was no discernible difference. If you searched on his name, you'd find one of them, but if you found him listed as an influence or a "worked with" for somebody else, you'd find the other one. Made me wonder what else I might not have been finding.
I still believe they have a great idea (although I liked it better a long time ago when you could buy individual tracks without the subscription). Right now I'd say they're a little shaky on the customer service side, and there might be a few bugs in their database. So it was not quite a joyful experience for me.
With both the Gameboy and SNES, however, there was a game inside the box when you got home from the store. At the time, you could hardly go wrong with Super Mario Brothers, and Tetris spawned a million sore thumbs.
"Spread over 860 pages and divided into a whooping 37 chapters" I'd prefer a book that does not whoop, especially over the course of 37 chapters.
Guess who said it?
Ummmm, nobody? .
Believe me, I have.
I used to work with a guy who would have been happy if no calls were ever allowed to get to a real live person. I think there should be no barriers at all. We used to fight, a lot; but his side of the table controlled the budget, so guess who won?
Of course now I just work with people who think adding speech recognition to a system means re-recording the prompts so that they say "press or say 1."
From that page:
That's very nice, but it doesn't seem like a very intelligent way to measure customer service. As a trivial example, suppose you want to know your credit card balance. A decently programmed voice response system can give you that information quickly and clearly, and in much less time than it would take to get the same data from a human. If you're lucky, the IVR won't even try to sell you something that you don't need.
Yes, I know that there are times when the available pre-programmed options are not useful and speaking to a representative is the only option. But do you want to have to wait in queue for an agent who has to handle ninety-twelve "what is my balance?" calls before it's your turn? Now ask yourself why the call centers are being outsourced to overseas providers
This "I only will deal with a human" attitude is pointless. Better to demand that corporations fix their IVR systems, because they're not going away. (And maybe I'll get hired to write more VUI specs instead of having to implement what 'the business' thinks it wants.)
Verizon Wireless has almost nothing in common with Verizon "The Phone Company."
Sure, everybody always talks about how well-written the Infocom games were, but the packaging was a stroke of marketing genius. I still have the copy of "Hitchhiker's" that I bought for my Atari 800, with the peril-sensitive sunglasses and the piece of pocket fluff. Hmmm, $500, eh?
I also have a fair number of issues of The New Zork Times (or whatever they were forced to rename it), and if I look hard enough, I could probably find my "I Got The Babel Fish" t-shirt.
This may come as a shock to you Stewie, but the magazine writer wasn't a composer either.
Why not donate the GMail invites to GMail4Troops? (http://www.gmail4troops.com). Some slashdot user with a "CleverNickName" is promoting the idea.
You don't have to support the war (dog knows I don't) to support the guys and gals that are stuck over there.
A little bit of RTFA and voila:
"A year later on May 1, 1964, the BASIC computer programing language (as demonstrated above) was born and for the first time computers were taken out of the lab and brought into the community."
Dude. Don't say "goo" and "sex.com" in the same sentence.
> The majority of the 6 plus billion people on this planet have breasts
Nearly 100%, I'd wager.
You mean like this?
.mx link because it had the best graphic. I got my boxes of said kits from the big eToys flameout.)
(I chose the
I just had a two week experience dealing with the Windows Update "support team." The code was downloading OK, but something was preventing the updates from installing. After reporting my problem, the first guy had me check a bunch of settings, reboot, try to update (failed), go into safe mode, do some other stuff, reboot, try to update (failed), send him some files, download the patches direct from some links he sent me, etc.
Then I got "escalated." The second guy had me try some more stuff, send some more files, etc. Then he tried to tell me that WU wouldn't work because I had an OEM/pre-installed version of XP. Ummm, yeah, OK "Dustin." First of all, just about every copy of XP out there is an OEM version, since you can't hardly buy a mass market PC without XP being pre-installed. Therefore, if your little story was true, don't you think there'd be some mention of it on the web? Little weasel just wanted to get the ticket closed so he could get a gold star or something. Oh yeah, he also told me I'd have to order a CD that had the updates on it. OK, so the CD was free, but according to the order page, it only included updates through October 2003. Nice. What about the hugely critical flaw that was just patched at the beginning of this month?
I called "bullshit" on his answer and requested further "escalation." Luckily, the next guy sent me an updated copy of some system file or other and it seems to have resolved the problem.
I just have to wait until the next time there's a patch for a critical flaw in XP to see if that's true. And we know there's going to be a next time.
> Oh well, Salon is (was?) owned by MS, they don't need the money. :)
You're thinking of Slate.
My TiVo doesn't make a phone call to communicate to the mothership. It uses my broadband connection.
Now in my case, that's a DSL line, but there's no call setup going on, so ANI is not an issue.
Can they still track me? Of course they can. Do I care? Not particularly. I wasn't even watching the game at home. If they are checking on me, they are probably bored spitless. "Oh geez, he's watching Angel again."
> (Of course it's still possible for someone to steal a smartcard, but at least it requires a separate attack on each patient rather than a single attack on the entire database.)
Right. That's why this guy is in the ambulance to begin with -- somebody attacked him to steal his smartcard and left him unconscious.
That's a nicely backformed etymology, but the word comes from Mrs. Malaprop, a character noted for her misuse of words in R. B. Sheridan's 1775 comedy The Rivals.
Now it might be argued that Sheridan named his character based on reasoning similar to the above derivation, but without the character, it is entirely possible that we'd be using another term.
The beady eyed Canadian sang "God Bless America," the Dixie Chicks sang the national anthem.