Dead beat bidders are truely a problem on ebay, but the worse ones are the ones that take part in the growing number of "malicious bidders" on Ebay that look for auctions about to close, then bid amounts to make sure they win. Then after winning these auctions.. within seconds they leave negative feedback.. sometimes very derogative and containing personal attacks.
This wouldn't be so bad if Ebay then had some efficient system to then remove these, as even though the feedback was left seconds or minutes after the auction.. sometimes they will not remove them.. or take excessively long amounts of time to remove the feedback. If they do at all.
Ebay I personally think is going to have make some changes in customer service or they are are going to risk losing business to other sites.. or people will simply stop using it with their constantly increasing fees and absoblutely horriblecustomer service that basically feeds you back to FAQs that tell you can't email customer service as the FAQ according to them answers your question. Then if you do get to email them.. an automated system sometimes searches for keywords and responds with form letters.. Arg..
I am one of those odd Computer Science & History double majors..Currently working on my senior thesis..
I tried something similar to what you are going to try, or are attempting..
I have ended up writing a paper on the the life of Alan M. Turing..(basic founder of modern comp sci)
The History department wouldn't go for it the whole history of computing idea.. so before you get to far into it.. if not already.. consider the following..
1) I ran into the problem of no one in the History Dept was willing to mentor my project thesis..as keeping the
"Historical" approach to it, as well as primary materials to be used.. , and it was also so very recent...
2) Is this going to be taught as a History Class or as a Computer Science or an MIS class? As that would be three completely different classes in itself.. I am TA'n a Computer Law and Ethics class and its really sad what seniors and juniors in computer science are turning in as far as their writing skills.. analytical ability when writing.. etc.. some of them don't even know how to use a word processor, but they know how to code(well some of them), which is just sad..
3) Though a lot of computing history has been in the last 5 to 10 years.. you shouldn't spend too much time on it..
4) Break the class into topics and show the evolution of thoughts from start to finish.
A suggested Topic Breakdown in no particular order.. mostly just a braindump..
1) Introduction, what is a computer, and the originations and overview.
(Don't over dumb the "what is a computer part", or over technicalize it either)
a) The Word Meaning
b) Early Thought
c) Mechanical Computers
2) Basic Ethics of Computers, Setting a baseline to what the class will be taught on.
3) Early Computers Pre-1940
4) Birth Of the Computer as we Know it
a) The Impact of WWII
1) IBM's Role in the Holecaust
(Don't know a lot of detail, but have heard that they were hired by Germany to help them track down the Jews in pre-war years)
2) Artillery Projection
3) Cryptology
4) Massive Influx into Research Funding for the first time..
b) Post War Thought - From Concept to Reality
c) Impact of the Cold War
1) Large Numbers of "SuperComputers"
2) Need for Networking
3) Need for Mass Storage
d) From Vacuum Tube to Transisitor
e) The Impact of the Space Race
f) Academic Research
5) The major computer manufactors and their originations.. and evolution
1) IBM and their eventual monopoly
2) Intel
3) The Former Cray Computers
4) Unisys
5) Sun Micro Systems
6) Microsoft
7) Motorolas
8) Compaq DEC (VMS)
6) Birth of the Personal Computer 1979-1992
A) The major early players (Describe the Differences in Platforms (I.e. Differnet OSs, Different Processor Base, Corporate Methods, Pros/Cons)
1) Commodore (1979-1994)
2) Apple (1979-Current)
3) IBM (1981->) and its compatibles
4) Misc Others
5) The First Wave of PC computermanufactorers dies off.. (approx 1985-1989)
6) Description of Apps and Hardware Available to them
7) The role of Mainframes and networking in general during this time..
7) The Web Boom (1992-2001(current) (It may be over, or next period may be beginning)
A) The Early Web Years 1992-1996
1) Early Online Services (AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe) and BBSs
How things were done before the Internet ( I personally ran a BBS through 1996)
2) Internet before the Web
i) Government Origins
ii) Telnet, Gopher, and FTP, early utils available.
iii) Birth of HTML and the Web Browser (1992-93)
Lynx, Mosaic, Netscape, and later IE.
3) The Web Initially (1992-1995/96)
i) Very Basic, Plain HTML, Slow, Expensive
ii) Very little E-Commerence
iii) Still Mainly used by Academics, Government, and Just starting to catch on.
B) The explosion..
1) E-Commernce
Created a demand for Access and Demand for Web Servers
2) Linux Birth and Unix Revival (Begins)
3) Wide Spread Access
4) Cheap PCs
5) Faster Access (Broadband)
6) Hardware Getting Exponentially better and cheaper every few months
7) Inceased Availability of Software
8) GUI Interfaces, though introduced in 1985 by Commodore on their Amiga PCs, 1986 on Mac, and 1987 or so in MS Windows. Xerox has one
of the original ideas.. but they only were using it on their copiers and such..
Well I just realized how long I have spent replying to this.. and I need to get back to what I was working on.. but if you want more ideas, etc.. email
me.. I have a few books.. though I wouldn't recommend the book I am currently using in the class I am TA'n, as it is more a computer ethics class book.. but it ain't
bad overall..
It could be quite a project though.. have fun.. Let me know what you go with..
But as I said I gotta go and get some things done so I can get out of college this semester..
The ability to have a diverse social life again is definetly important I believe to a CompSci/Engineeer, contrary to widespread belief.
I personally am on the job hunt myself, as I will be graduating from college in May, and I for some unknown reason, I chose to go to school in North Dakota of all places. I guess I figured I would be so bored I would spend all my time studying.. which I was basically right.
From living here (ND) I definetly know I personally would like someplace where there will be a variety of social activities to partake in, and they will not be so restricted. As for here,
you have a choice of movies, bowling (but not on league nights), and the bars (which close at 1am and aren't generally open on Sundays).. as ND has a lot of Blue laws also that say pretty much little can be open on Sunday, though it had laxed up in the last 10 years supposedly.
But other things I am personally am considering in the job hunt is more things that will directly and indirectly effect ones ability to have a social life.
1)Salary and Benefits Package of Employer
2)Cost of Living
3)General Location and Available Recreation Opt.
4)Blue Laws & Other So Called "Morality Laws"
5)Having a Good Cultural Mix and not a ethno-centricly concentrated population (ND + UT).
6) State Income Taxes and Sales Tax in that part. location. (Would actually be #3-4 if ranked in importance).
Taxes is one thing that really suprised me when taking into account the cost of living and evaluating potential employers. As taxes, and especially not sales taxes are always considered into a cost of living estimate. And if your sales
taxes are high, that amount adds up rather quickly. I originally left a state with currently no sales tax to go to school, but I have seen
state sales taxes as high as 7.1%, plus local sales taxes in the places I have evaluated so far.
I guess I got a little off topic, but yes.. it does effect severly in my opinion my decision to
take a job with an employer, as unless I am able to enjoy that little time I do spend away from work, I want to be able to do more than just sit at home if I want.
Slashdot Mirror
Dead beat bidders are truely a problem on ebay, but the worse ones are the ones that take part in the growing number of "malicious bidders" on Ebay that look for auctions about to close, then bid amounts to make sure they win. Then after winning these auctions.. within seconds they leave negative feedback.. sometimes very derogative and containing personal attacks.
This wouldn't be so bad if Ebay then had some efficient system to then remove these, as even though the feedback was left seconds or minutes after the auction.. sometimes they will not remove them.. or take excessively long amounts of time to remove the feedback. If they do at all.
Ebay I personally think is going to have make some changes in customer service or they are are going to risk losing business to other sites.. or people will simply stop using it with their constantly increasing fees and absoblutely horrible customer service that basically feeds you back to FAQs that tell you can't email customer service as the FAQ according to them answers your question. Then if you do get to email them.. an automated system sometimes searches for keywords and responds with form letters.. Arg..
Anyways.. you get the point.
Volhav
I tried something similar to what you are going to try, or are attempting..
I have ended up writing a paper on the the life of Alan M. Turing..(basic founder of modern comp sci)
The History department wouldn't go for it the whole history of computing idea.. so before you get to far into it.. if not already..
consider the following..
1) I ran into the problem of no one in the History Dept was willing to mentor my project thesis..as keeping the
"Historical" approach to it, as well as primary materials to be used.. , and it was also so very recent...
2) Is this going to be taught as a History Class or as a Computer Science or an MIS class? As that would be three completely different classes in itself.. I am TA'n a Computer Law and Ethics class and its really sad what seniors and juniors in computer science are turning in as far as their writing skills.. analytical ability when writing.. etc.. some of them don't even know how to use a word processor, but they know how to code(well some of them), which is just sad..
3) Though a lot of computing history has been in the last 5 to 10 years.. you shouldn't spend too much time on it..
4) Break the class into topics and show the evolution of thoughts from start to finish.
A suggested Topic Breakdown in no particular order.. mostly just a braindump..
1) Introduction, what is a computer, and the originations and overview.
(Don't over dumb the "what is a computer part", or over technicalize it either)
a) The Word Meaning
b) Early Thought
c) Mechanical Computers
2) Basic Ethics of Computers, Setting a baseline to what the class will be taught on.
3) Early Computers Pre-1940
4) Birth Of the Computer as we Know it
a) The Impact of WWII
1) IBM's Role in the Holecaust
(Don't know a lot of detail, but have heard that they were hired by Germany to help them track down the Jews in pre-war years)
2) Artillery Projection
3) Cryptology
4) Massive Influx into Research Funding for the first time..
b) Post War Thought - From Concept to Reality
c) Impact of the Cold War
1) Large Numbers of "SuperComputers"
2) Need for Networking
3) Need for Mass Storage
d) From Vacuum Tube to Transisitor
e) The Impact of the Space Race
f) Academic Research
5) The major computer manufactors and their originations.. and evolution
1) IBM and their eventual monopoly
2) Intel
3) The Former Cray Computers
4) Unisys
5) Sun Micro Systems
6) Microsoft
7) Motorolas
8) Compaq DEC (VMS)
6) Birth of the Personal Computer 1979-1992
A) The major early players (Describe the Differences in Platforms (I.e. Differnet OSs, Different Processor Base, Corporate Methods, Pros/Cons)
1) Commodore (1979-1994)
2) Apple (1979-Current)
3) IBM (1981->) and its compatibles
4) Misc Others
5) The First Wave of PC computermanufactorers dies off.. (approx 1985-1989)
6) Description of Apps and Hardware Available to them
7) The role of Mainframes and networking in general during this time..
7) The Web Boom (1992-2001(current) (It may be over, or next period may be beginning)
A) The Early Web Years 1992-1996
1) Early Online Services (AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe) and BBSs How things were done before the Internet ( I personally ran a BBS through 1996)
2) Internet before the Web
i) Government Origins
ii) Telnet, Gopher, and FTP, early utils available.
iii) Birth of HTML and the Web Browser (1992-93)
Lynx, Mosaic, Netscape, and later IE.
3) The Web Initially (1992-1995/96)
i) Very Basic, Plain HTML, Slow, Expensive
ii) Very little E-Commerence
iii) Still Mainly used by Academics, Government, and Just starting to catch on.
B) The explosion..
1) E-Commernce
Created a demand for Access and Demand for Web Servers
2) Linux Birth and Unix Revival (Begins)
3) Wide Spread Access
4) Cheap PCs
5) Faster Access (Broadband)
6) Hardware Getting Exponentially better and cheaper every few months
7) Inceased Availability of Software
8) GUI Interfaces, though introduced in 1985 by Commodore on their Amiga PCs, 1986 on Mac, and 1987 or so in MS Windows. Xerox has one of the original ideas.. but they only were using it on their copiers and such..
Well I just realized how long I have spent replying to this.. and I need to get back to what I was working on.. but if you want more ideas, etc.. email me.. I have a few books.. though I wouldn't recommend the book I am currently using in the class I am TA'n, as it is more a computer ethics class book.. but it ain't bad overall..
It could be quite a project though.. have fun.. Let me know what you go with..
But as I said I gotta go and get some things done so I can get out of college this semester..
Chris Souser aka Volhav
volhav@acerbic.org
I personally am on the job hunt myself, as I will be graduating from college in May, and I for some unknown reason, I chose to go to school in North Dakota of all places. I guess I figured I would be so bored I would spend all my time studying.. which I was basically right.
From living here (ND) I definetly know I personally would like someplace where there will be a variety of social activities to partake in, and they will not be so restricted. As for here, you have a choice of movies, bowling (but not on league nights), and the bars (which close at 1am and aren't generally open on Sundays).. as ND has a lot of Blue laws also that say pretty much little can be open on Sunday, though it had laxed up in the last 10 years supposedly.
But other things I am personally am considering in the job hunt is more things that will directly and indirectly effect ones ability to have a social life.
1)Salary and Benefits Package of Employer
2)Cost of Living
3)General Location and Available Recreation Opt.
4)Blue Laws & Other So Called "Morality Laws"
5)Having a Good Cultural Mix and not a ethno-centricly concentrated population (ND + UT).
6) State Income Taxes and Sales Tax in that part. location. (Would actually be #3-4 if ranked in importance).
Taxes is one thing that really suprised me when taking into account the cost of living and evaluating potential employers. As taxes, and especially not sales taxes are always considered into a cost of living estimate. And if your sales taxes are high, that amount adds up rather quickly. I originally left a state with currently no sales tax to go to school, but I have seen state sales taxes as high as 7.1%, plus local sales taxes in the places I have evaluated so far.
I guess I got a little off topic, but yes.. it does effect severly in my opinion my decision to take a job with an employer, as unless I am able to enjoy that little time I do spend away from work, I want to be able to do more than just sit at home if I want.
Chris Souser
aka Volhav
volhav@acerbic.org