Years ago, I used to work for CompUSA corporate in Atlanta, GA. When they got bought out by the holding company that recently liquidated the company (took years longer than I thought it would), CompUSA fired all their corporate, education, and government sales staff. Oddly enough, I kept my job along with a few others in the southeast, albeit with more responsibilities and better pay. The vast majority of folks working for them weren't so lucky. They got their pink slips on a Monday morning, if I recall correctly, with no advance warning.
Essentially, it's like you put it: let's lay off everybody in the company who had anything to do with generating sales out of three huge markets, and who cares about the personal relationships they had built with customers (especially with respect to public sector folks)? Oh, I forgot to mention... lots of people were offered a "chance" to keep their job if they felt like relocating to Dallas, TX where CompUSA was building a multimillion dollar call center to centralize all their corp/gov/edu sales operations. What a bargain, right?
On the many occasions I visited that new call center on business, I got the distinct impression that things were, well, about as fucked up as a football bat. They had it all; an entire hotel rented out for six months housing only CompUSA employees, a new SAP rollout that kept mysteriously screwing up orders large and small (while sucking up untold amounts of contractor labor and prompting Microsoft execs to hold fun-filled meetings about revoking CompUSA's large account reseller status), midlevel managers running around trying to figure out whether their charges were coming or going.
Let's be fair in Circuit City's case, though... the old expressions goes: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
The whole post was meant in jest, sort of a way of making light of frustration with voting systems in general. See my earlier response in the same vein.
Thanks for the reply! I knew there were a lot of outstanding issues related to nanotech being used within the human body, but your post is the first detailed reply I've received on the topic. I appreciate it.
Okay, so let's say the regulations stipulate they can't grow larger than 30% by purchasing a competing provider. Does that mean they don't get in trouble if they simply acquire new customers into their existing business and grow too large?
I wonder how long until we see the creation of nanobots that can actually repair tissue (or construct new sections of it) at the cellular level using the raw materials around them (maybe via introduction of non-toxic "feeder compounds" into the bloodstream).
"Desktops really don't need all the power they have now, perhaps one percent of users outside of gamers actually use it."
This will hold true until we see the development and adoption of widespread general purpose distributed computing, in which case every desktop is a server, too.
Quoth the article header: " On the same day the FCC voted 3 to 2 (by a different split) to cap the size of any cable company at 30% of the nationwide market, a limit Comcast is up against."
How the hell does that work, anyhow? Does the ISP start turning down new subscribers ("Sorry folks, we're all full up on business here, please try our competition")?
I've got to be misunderstanding it somehow. Please help me out here.
It was supposed to be a humorous reference to grossly rigged elections of the past. Oddly, everyone seems to be taking it pretty seriously by offering repeated explanations of ballot observers. Wow.
The truth is even funnier. In the linked article, clicking on the link to "BigPond Office" takes you to docs.google.com. Wow. Wonder if the author intended to link to this site instead...
To quote what I feel is the best part of the article:
"The action also seems to be driven by a lack understanding of what BigPond Office is actually about. As a hosted online application, BigPond Office is useful for people who want to access their documents from different machines; it's not really a viable alternative to Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. BigPond Office is competing with the likes of Google Docs, and is really only of interest to BigPond users who can access BigPond Office without using up their monthly bandwidth quota. It's highly unlikely that someone would download OpenOffice, instead of signing up for BigPond Office."
I don't think it's a misunderstanding on the part of their management at all. They want to significantly increase the cost of acquiring what they (right or wrong) believe to be a competing product by making said acquisition expensive in terms of bandwidth cost. What to do?
Get a large group of like-minded people together and burn a shitload of OO.org CDs. Pass them out like candy to anyone who asks for them. Send a copy to your local newspapers with an explanation of what BigPond is doing. Maybe put up a custom web site (the domain screwbigpond.org.au comes to mind) where people can sign up to have a copy of OO.org mailed to them for el cheapo.
Quoth the article header: "people who spend thousands of dollars on hi-fi gear..."
No kidding. When you blog it, be sure to notify all 500 people who might actually be likely customers for this service.
Compressed lossless audio formats are cool, and in my opinion will probably exceed lossy formats in use in the near future, but not until the average person's bandwidth is a little bit higher. Sure, I'm sitting here on a 6 Mb/s connection, but a lot of folks still aren't.
Seems like we have to choose between two different categories of risks. We get to tolerate either:
(1) Closed electronic voting systems that suffer from numerous problems, such as lack of accountability. No way to tell if the company producing the systems and collecting the data was paid to alter the results.
(2) Pen and paper voting systems that suffer from numerous problems, such as lack of accountability. No way to tell if the guys collecting and tabulating the ballots were paid to alter the results.
So far, nobody's mentioned projects like the Open Voting Consortium in this discussion. This might be a perfect time to point Colorado officials in the right direction. Just a thought...
Kinda reminds me of the way kids like to take a 1984 Honda Accord and try for the fast-n-furious look. Maybe if Microsoft plasters a big Nike swoosh across the Vista's packaging, bolts a Flowmaster fart-pipe to the box, and mounts it on custom rims people will like it more.
You know, this situation is frequently avoided by using package management software (apt comes to mind) that checks for signatures on packages by default and warns you if (1) the signature is bad, or (2) the signature can't be verified.
Of course, this doesn't help any if a complex package gets compromised in some very subtle way and winds up getting signed by the releasers anyhow, but at least in that case you can point the finger elsewhere.
Quote: formerly known as Diebold Election Systems . ..
Funny how some companies change their name and expect to carry on their shady, underhanded, public-trust-violating business practices with few or no consequences. Wonder how often this happens in other industries related to government contracting.
Your post is exactly the reason I like to encourage people to look at the whole spectrum of a politician's activities, instead of focusing on a hot special interest issue. A lot of Slashdotters spend a lot of time complaining that special interests in Washington control everything, but are quick to support a politician on the merits of a single day's "work."
Thank you for your post; it's just what I'd hoped for in a reply.
Why couldn't you hook into their API (presuming it's made available) and design your own apps for sharing data? This seems like a pretty good deal to me; you get all the benefits of a hosted app, without having to trust that host to completely satisfy all your data sharing and manipulation needs. What more do you want?
Slashdot Mirror
Years ago, I used to work for CompUSA corporate in Atlanta, GA. When they got bought out by the holding company that recently liquidated the company (took years longer than I thought it would), CompUSA fired all their corporate, education, and government sales staff. Oddly enough, I kept my job along with a few others in the southeast, albeit with more responsibilities and better pay. The vast majority of folks working for them weren't so lucky. They got their pink slips on a Monday morning, if I recall correctly, with no advance warning.
Essentially, it's like you put it: let's lay off everybody in the company who had anything to do with generating sales out of three huge markets, and who cares about the personal relationships they had built with customers (especially with respect to public sector folks)? Oh, I forgot to mention... lots of people were offered a "chance" to keep their job if they felt like relocating to Dallas, TX where CompUSA was building a multimillion dollar call center to centralize all their corp/gov/edu sales operations. What a bargain, right?
On the many occasions I visited that new call center on business, I got the distinct impression that things were, well, about as fucked up as a football bat. They had it all; an entire hotel rented out for six months housing only CompUSA employees, a new SAP rollout that kept mysteriously screwing up orders large and small (while sucking up untold amounts of contractor labor and prompting Microsoft execs to hold fun-filled meetings about revoking CompUSA's large account reseller status), midlevel managers running around trying to figure out whether their charges were coming or going.
Let's be fair in Circuit City's case, though... the old expressions goes: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
The whole post was meant in jest, sort of a way of making light of frustration with voting systems in general. See my earlier response in the same vein.
Thanks for the reply! I knew there were a lot of outstanding issues related to nanotech being used within the human body, but your post is the first detailed reply I've received on the topic. I appreciate it.
Don't forget the sequel novels: "Artery", "Hemoglobin", and the final installment in the series, "The Platelet Conspiracy".
Okay, so let's say the regulations stipulate they can't grow larger than 30% by purchasing a competing provider. Does that mean they don't get in trouble if they simply acquire new customers into their existing business and grow too large?
I wonder how long until we see the creation of nanobots that can actually repair tissue (or construct new sections of it) at the cellular level using the raw materials around them (maybe via introduction of non-toxic "feeder compounds" into the bloodstream).
"Desktops really don't need all the power they have now, perhaps one percent of users outside of gamers actually use it."
This will hold true until we see the development and adoption of widespread general purpose distributed computing, in which case every desktop is a server, too.
Quoth the article header: " On the same day the FCC voted 3 to 2 (by a different split) to cap the size of any cable company at 30% of the nationwide market, a limit Comcast is up against."
How the hell does that work, anyhow? Does the ISP start turning down new subscribers ("Sorry folks, we're all full up on business here, please try our competition")?
I've got to be misunderstanding it somehow. Please help me out here.
It was supposed to be a humorous reference to grossly rigged elections of the past. Oddly, everyone seems to be taking it pretty seriously by offering repeated explanations of ballot observers. Wow.
The truth is even funnier. In the linked article, clicking on the link to "BigPond Office" takes you to docs.google.com. Wow. Wonder if the author intended to link to this site instead...
That, my friend, is what SSL is all about.
To quote what I feel is the best part of the article:
"The action also seems to be driven by a lack understanding of what BigPond Office is actually about. As a hosted online application, BigPond Office is useful for people who want to access their documents from different machines; it's not really a viable alternative to Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. BigPond Office is competing with the likes of Google Docs, and is really only of interest to BigPond users who can access BigPond Office without using up their monthly bandwidth quota. It's highly unlikely that someone would download OpenOffice, instead of signing up for BigPond Office."
I don't think it's a misunderstanding on the part of their management at all. They want to significantly increase the cost of acquiring what they (right or wrong) believe to be a competing product by making said acquisition expensive in terms of bandwidth cost. What to do?
Get a large group of like-minded people together and burn a shitload of OO.org CDs. Pass them out like candy to anyone who asks for them. Send a copy to your local newspapers with an explanation of what BigPond is doing. Maybe put up a custom web site (the domain screwbigpond.org.au comes to mind) where people can sign up to have a copy of OO.org mailed to them for el cheapo.
Be creative.
Quoth the article header: "people who spend thousands of dollars on hi-fi gear..."
No kidding. When you blog it, be sure to notify all 500 people who might actually be likely customers for this service.
Compressed lossless audio formats are cool, and in my opinion will probably exceed lossy formats in use in the near future, but not until the average person's bandwidth is a little bit higher. Sure, I'm sitting here on a 6 Mb/s connection, but a lot of folks still aren't.
Seems like we have to choose between two different categories of risks. We get to tolerate either:
(1) Closed electronic voting systems that suffer from numerous problems, such as lack of accountability. No way to tell if the company producing the systems and collecting the data was paid to alter the results.
(2) Pen and paper voting systems that suffer from numerous problems, such as lack of accountability. No way to tell if the guys collecting and tabulating the ballots were paid to alter the results.
Sucks.
So far, nobody's mentioned projects like the Open Voting Consortium in this discussion. This might be a perfect time to point Colorado officials in the right direction. Just a thought...
I was going to vote, but heard some guy named Chad hung himself in the booth. Must have been the frustration of it all.
Kinda reminds me of the way kids like to take a 1984 Honda Accord and try for the fast-n-furious look. Maybe if Microsoft plasters a big Nike swoosh across the Vista's packaging, bolts a Flowmaster fart-pipe to the box, and mounts it on custom rims people will like it more.
"Impeachment" sounds so... nasty. Let's change the term to "devoting", which has a nice neutral ring to it.
You know, this situation is frequently avoided by using package management software (apt comes to mind) that checks for signatures on packages by default and warns you if (1) the signature is bad, or (2) the signature can't be verified.
Of course, this doesn't help any if a complex package gets compromised in some very subtle way and winds up getting signed by the releasers anyhow, but at least in that case you can point the finger elsewhere.
Quote: formerly known as Diebold Election Systems . . .
Funny how some companies change their name and expect to carry on their shady, underhanded, public-trust-violating business practices with few or no consequences. Wonder how often this happens in other industries related to government contracting.
Parent is troll. Do not click link.
I expected Vista to be the cause of countless stories on Slashdot. Apparently I'm in the wrong line of work, seeing as how I can see the future...
Your post is exactly the reason I like to encourage people to look at the whole spectrum of a politician's activities, instead of focusing on a hot special interest issue. A lot of Slashdotters spend a lot of time complaining that special interests in Washington control everything, but are quick to support a politician on the merits of a single day's "work."
Thank you for your post; it's just what I'd hoped for in a reply.
Why couldn't you hook into their API (presuming it's made available) and design your own apps for sharing data? This seems like a pretty good deal to me; you get all the benefits of a hosted app, without having to trust that host to completely satisfy all your data sharing and manipulation needs. What more do you want?
You can find Chris Dodd's voting record on this site. I live in CT, by thw way.