You may have never had an amex, but I've had one for several years, and corporate cards w/ various employers. I've had only very good experiences dealing with amex as a consumer; the couple of questions have been dealt with in a very timely and friendly manner. I've never heard a bad experience from anybody with them. I met concert promoter in LA who had one of the higher end cards with no limits; one time a venue hadn't received their pre-payment and was threatening to pull the plug on his show; he had them run a $20,000 charge onto his card and it went through just fine. Try doing that with a standard visa/mc and see how far you get.
I agree, a call to the bank would solve any reasonable fraud. But it's a heck of a lot easier to make sure the fraud never shows up in the first place. Try re-using a 1-time number from amex and see how far you get. I guarentee it'll never show up on my bill, and I won't have to call amex to get it off. Not to mention those annoying little one-off frauds, when an employee decides to have a little small fun with a number; that's happened to a friend of mine. When 1000 numbers get out, there's no issue. But try telling visa that that one-time charge of $50 to a legit software download site isn't really yours. I'd rather have the company try to run the number and have AMEX automatically decline it. Anyway, I've had nothing but good luck with my amex, and get nifty points to boot. If a vendor doesn't want to take it, no skin off my back. I'll just find another vendor;)
I totally agree that AMEX's policy is very vendor un-friendly-- problem is, the internet's a big place, and when online you're usually buying a commodity that can be bought elsewhere. And from a customer's standpoint, I'm not as much worried about other customers defrauding the supplier (though I probably should be, to keep costs down). I'm far more worried about suppliers/whomever defrauding me, selling my info, or "losing" it. So if a merchant won't take my 1-time AMEX number (generated by the handy-dandy smartcard reader on my desk, and fraud-proof since it's only good for one transaction), I'll try to find another merchant who will. My real number doesn't end up in anybody's database, to be snarfed at random when they forget to secure their machines.
I've never had to deal with an ID-theft or fraud (knocks on wood). My GF has, and it was absolute hell. She now gets a phone contact any time her credit gets run, on the assumption it's a fraud. From my point of view, preventing this makes going to a little extra bit of trouble, finding alternate vendors, whatever, very much worth the small amount of extra time. Just my $0.02
That's pretty much it, but it's not sue the government, it's sue each other. Pretty much, the patentor has to sue an infriger, who will then do everything they can to have the court decide that the patent is invalid. Net cost to the USPTO: $0
Have you ever seen a patent application? I don't know about you, but I can't go through 200 pages of legallese with supporting documentation in a day without missing something.
Light amplification through stimulated emission of radiation (LASER) has nothing to do with
RAdioDetection And Ranging. Totally different parts of the EM spectrum there, ya know. A laser-based speed detection system can pinpoint one car from another from a half mile, but a form of radar it ain't.
Just because the plane's on the ground doesn't mean that everything's done with-- you know, things like radios for talking with the tower. Just peachy when some ass talking on his nextel phone does that three-click blast when it loses signal, interferes with the ground control tower telling your pilot to stop, the runway he's getting ready to taxi across is hot, he doesn't hear it, and you get squished. That's why they make you wait until the damn plane is parked, duh?
Signal strength vs. distance is proportional to the surface area of a sphere. As you go away from the source, the surface area goes up by the square of the radius.
No, I'm not kidding. It's not the five minutes it takes the guy to pump my gas-- it's the fourty-five minutes waiting on him to pump the gas of the cars ahead of me in line. I'm not making this up. Early January, 1997, driving back after New Years, so there were lots of travelers on the road. I was on the 84 going between Boise and Portland (to get back up to Seattle). It was fairly late at night, and I stopped for gas, don't remember where. It was between Pendleton and The Dalles. Seeing as how that's a relatively sparse section, there's not a huge number of gas stations. And when I found one, there were, I dunno, maybe fifteen cars waiting for gas. And one guy working pumping gas for everybody. The station had like six pumps, which could have gotten all of us on our way in a few minutes. But no, monkey boy has to pump all our gas for us, because Oregonians only trust highly trained pump monkeys with that dangerous gasoline. So I wait my turn.
After that, I've always avoided filling up in OR if at all humanly possible. I do stop as I drive through for food, usually Oakland or Sutherlin. I usually plan my trips to get through Portland well before rush hour, if not I'll do the 205 rather than the 5. It's not that I oppose the price, or worry about the five minutes. I just find it ridiculously stupid that the state won't let me pump my own gas, and I'd rather not subsidize that sort of idiocy.
You are aware, of course, that in English the word primer is pronounced with a short i when the meaning is an introductory schoolbook, and with a long I otherwise (as in a surface coating or priming a pump).
So no, no loss of suspension of disbelief. Just a realization that Jodie knows English (unlike, of course, most slashdotters)
When I drive from Washington to Cali, I NEVER fill up in Oregon. I don't want to waste my time waiting for the incredibly-slow moving guy to get around to filling up my tank. So it's fill the tank up in Vancouver (WA, not BC), and then fill it again in Yreka, ~330 miles. No sweat, and no waiting on the bizarre full-service-only thing.
If they really want to raise the gas tax in OR, they should drop the mandatory full service requirement and raise the tax a few cents a gallon. The savings in labor would allow prices to stay the same with no hit on the station's bottom line. Admittedly, there will be some unemployment from the loss of gas-pumping jobs, but that hasn't really hurt any other state's economy. And come on folks, pumping gas?
Would a good next job be one of those extra perks and bonuses that are gone? Not that your boss would have to give you a bad recomendation and risk you going after him. He just has to say something like "Archfeld was an excellent worker. He requested and was assigned 40 hours of work a week, and chose not to work overtime". All completely true and legal, you can't go after him for slandering you. But if I was ref checking on a potential hire and was told that, I'd wouldn't give you a second glance. I'd assume that you were there for your 40 and no more, and I can do a lot better than that in this job climate.
So drive three miles, swap plates. Drive three more miles, swap plates again. Every time you stop and swap plates, it's gonna take you several minutes of being stopped. And you're still gonna have "hot" plates (assuming the ones you "picked up" earlier have been reported as stolen). Whether it's through detecting the stolen car, the stolen plates, taking time to swap plates, or through somebody seeing you swap plates on the side of the road and calling the cops, the system is putting the car thief at a disadvantage, and the police at an advantage. Which is the whole point, I think.
If you want a good perspective bender, check out Wicked: The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire. It totally re-draws the whole Oz story from a different direction, makes you think about how good and evil depend on the perspective you take, and who you believe. One of the best books I've read in a while
Um, yeah. Slashdotters observe proper netiquette. And put a whole page of whitespace into your post and watch your post get modded to -1 in about three seconds.
Going on a year with no copper, and loving it. I think the abilitity to do so depends on where you live, your carrier, etc. It's been two years since I used a payphone, and that was b/c I was outside of the country prior to GSM phones becomeing available in the US.
I only have a cell phone, no wired line. I have two roommates sharing a house, and we've all got our individual cells. If we had a landline, we'd have to worry about getting messages to the right person, who pays what part of the bill, etc. etc. Just an extra bill I'd have to pay at the end of the month. It's a lot easier for there not to be a landline at all. Coverage where I live is great, reception is great, I've never had a problem. When I talk to my parents on my cell, there is a lot of static-- because they live out in the country with ancient copper, and the static on their line makes ME go "What, What did you say?" Whether it's on my cell, or on my copper line at work.
People already scream at the price for the upgrades within Jaguar. If Apple spends more on development, they'll have to price it higher. I suspect the number of people who'll spend $4000 on a laptop would change very little.
If your boss will tolerate a nipple pointing device rather than a touchpad, go for the toshiba 4010. Good performance (for a PIII), excellent quality and support, and a great screen. Weighs nothing, with a silver colored magnesium case. With wireless, two PC card slots, built-in DVD/CDRW, and a battery that'll make it ~3 hours.
Do you realize that you just suggested to the poster that he should replace his currently working solution with the destruction/abandonment of five animals, engaging in household renovation, and otherwise altering behaviors that are enjoyable? (shakes head) slashdot. Jeez, the guy has anecdotal evidence that the breeze works for his wife. There can be all sorts of individual case reasons why it works in this situation, but it does. So why not accept that in this particular case, given lack of contrary evidence, the Ionic breeze is producing the desired results? Disregarding a datapoint without reason is just as bad science as asserting a general rule from an anecdotal response.
I don't think, in general, customers have so much sympathy for a for-profit business that they'll put themselves out for the for-profit business' interests. I've never suggested that there's any excuse for mistreating another person. Please point out to me where I've ever suggested that a salesperson, service person, manager, or any other human being should be mistreated, spoken to harshly, or an any other way have their day made harder? I haven't.
I never suggested that anyone had an inalienable right to anything. I would never advocate taking something that belonged to someone else. Esp. not a bass amp. The world does not revolve around me, it revolves around the center of mass of the Sol-earth system. Nor do I expect anyone to go to unreasonable lengths to make me happy. I don't feel entitled to anything. I keep my agreements, and I expect others to keep theirs. That includes agreements to service merchandise under warranty. I expect someone who's sold me something under warranty to do their best to fix it if it's not working. As per the agreement made when I purchased the item from them. The people I work for expect me to do my best to service them. I would suggest that asking a customer to ignore your stock of batteries that are sitting there doing nothing, and asking them to hold onto a non-functioning machine, under warranty, for a week while you order The Exact Same Thing As The One On Your Shelf is being more than a bit unreasonable. If the system you've set up produces, as a byproduct, unsatisfied customers, then I'd suggest that you try to see if there's a way to alter your system to produce satisfied customers. Like the computer store I've been using for some time now, who has on more than one occasion replaced a defective part with one from stock. Their system can handle it, they get a happy customer who spreads the word. If your system can't handle it, no big deal. Your choice. But don't expect to maintain happy customers if you're not willing to invest the time into developing a system that works for both you and the customer.
Consider a store operating both retail and service functions. Could be an Apple(tm) store, or a car dealership. To borrow from another thread, how would you feel if you had a broken steering wheel, and took it to your dealer under warranty. Say they have a stack of perfectly good, new steering wheels sitting there. But those are for customers who want to have a spare steering wheel. They will have to order one for you, and ask, "Would you be kind enough to drive around with a broken wheel for a couple of weeks?" I strongly suspect you'd be more than mildly annoyed at the situation and the dealer. I know I would be. And I probably wouldn't come back. No lack of common courtesy. No lack of decency. But an unsatisfied customer who probably won't be coming back. Not because you couldn't do something, but because you wouldn't.
Again, this is a business-customer relationship. And in the real world, people don't fundamentally care about a for-profit business' problems. Not that people are mean, or impolite, or jackasses. But they have their own problems, and any business who appeals to a customer's altruism rather than trying to please that customer is not one I'd like to invest in. I save my sympathy for people who need it, not businesses. I have my list of charities, and last time I checked, for-profit businesses weren't on it.
Slashdot Mirror
Mono that just goes "beep"?
You may have never had an amex, but I've had one for several years, and corporate cards w/ various employers. I've had only very good experiences dealing with amex as a consumer; the couple of questions have been dealt with in a very timely and friendly manner. I've never heard a bad experience from anybody with them. I met concert promoter in LA who had one of the higher end cards with no limits; one time a venue hadn't received their pre-payment and was threatening to pull the plug on his show; he had them run a $20,000 charge onto his card and it went through just fine. Try doing that with a standard visa/mc and see how far you get.
;)
I agree, a call to the bank would solve any reasonable fraud. But it's a heck of a lot easier to make sure the fraud never shows up in the first place. Try re-using a 1-time number from amex and see how far you get. I guarentee it'll never show up on my bill, and I won't have to call amex to get it off. Not to mention those annoying little one-off frauds, when an employee decides to have a little small fun with a number; that's happened to a friend of mine. When 1000 numbers get out, there's no issue. But try telling visa that that one-time charge of $50 to a legit software download site isn't really yours. I'd rather have the company try to run the number and have AMEX automatically decline it. Anyway, I've had nothing but good luck with my amex, and get nifty points to boot. If a vendor doesn't want to take it, no skin off my back. I'll just find another vendor
I totally agree that AMEX's policy is very vendor un-friendly-- problem is, the internet's a big place, and when online you're usually buying a commodity that can be bought elsewhere. And from a customer's standpoint, I'm not as much worried about other customers defrauding the supplier (though I probably should be, to keep costs down). I'm far more worried about suppliers/whomever defrauding me, selling my info, or "losing" it. So if a merchant won't take my 1-time AMEX number (generated by the handy-dandy smartcard reader on my desk, and fraud-proof since it's only good for one transaction), I'll try to find another merchant who will. My real number doesn't end up in anybody's database, to be snarfed at random when they forget to secure their machines.
I've never had to deal with an ID-theft or fraud (knocks on wood). My GF has, and it was absolute hell. She now gets a phone contact any time her credit gets run, on the assumption it's a fraud. From my point of view, preventing this makes going to a little extra bit of trouble, finding alternate vendors, whatever, very much worth the small amount of extra time. Just my $0.02
That's pretty much it, but it's not sue the government, it's sue each other. Pretty much, the patentor has to sue an infriger, who will then do everything they can to have the court decide that the patent is invalid. Net cost to the USPTO: $0
Have you ever seen a patent application? I don't know about you, but I can't go through 200 pages of legallese with supporting documentation in a day without missing something.
You've obviously never visited the People's Republic of Berkeley
Light amplification through stimulated emission of radiation (LASER) has nothing to do with RAdio Detection And Ranging. Totally different parts of the EM spectrum there, ya know. A laser-based speed detection system can pinpoint one car from another from a half mile, but a form of radar it ain't.
Another fun thing to do with lOX. Just remember, fire first and then oxygen.
Just because the plane's on the ground doesn't mean that everything's done with-- you know, things like radios for talking with the tower. Just peachy when some ass talking on his nextel phone does that three-click blast when it loses signal, interferes with the ground control tower telling your pilot to stop, the runway he's getting ready to taxi across is hot, he doesn't hear it, and you get squished. That's why they make you wait until the damn plane is parked, duh?
Nope, 1/(r^2)
It's called the inverse square law for a reason.
Signal strength vs. distance is proportional to the surface area of a sphere. As you go away from the source, the surface area goes up by the square of the radius.
"Look to the Koreans for that..."
At first I thought you were trying to be funny. You do realize that Samsung is a Korean company, right?
No, I'm not kidding. It's not the five minutes it takes the guy to pump my gas-- it's the fourty-five minutes waiting on him to pump the gas of the cars ahead of me in line. I'm not making this up. Early January, 1997, driving back after New Years, so there were lots of travelers on the road. I was on the 84 going between Boise and Portland (to get back up to Seattle). It was fairly late at night, and I stopped for gas, don't remember where. It was between Pendleton and The Dalles. Seeing as how that's a relatively sparse section, there's not a huge number of gas stations. And when I found one, there were, I dunno, maybe fifteen cars waiting for gas. And one guy working pumping gas for everybody. The station had like six pumps, which could have gotten all of us on our way in a few minutes. But no, monkey boy has to pump all our gas for us, because Oregonians only trust highly trained pump monkeys with that dangerous gasoline. So I wait my turn.
After that, I've always avoided filling up in OR if at all humanly possible. I do stop as I drive through for food, usually Oakland or Sutherlin. I usually plan my trips to get through Portland well before rush hour, if not I'll do the 205 rather than the 5. It's not that I oppose the price, or worry about the five minutes. I just find it ridiculously stupid that the state won't let me pump my own gas, and I'd rather not subsidize that sort of idiocy.
You are aware, of course, that in English the word primer is pronounced with a short i when the meaning is an introductory schoolbook, and with a long I otherwise (as in a surface coating or priming a pump).
So no, no loss of suspension of disbelief. Just a realization that Jodie knows English (unlike, of course, most slashdotters)
When I drive from Washington to Cali, I NEVER fill up in Oregon. I don't want to waste my time waiting for the incredibly-slow moving guy to get around to filling up my tank. So it's fill the tank up in Vancouver (WA, not BC), and then fill it again in Yreka, ~330 miles. No sweat, and no waiting on the bizarre full-service-only thing.
If they really want to raise the gas tax in OR, they should drop the mandatory full service requirement and raise the tax a few cents a gallon. The savings in labor would allow prices to stay the same with no hit on the station's bottom line. Admittedly, there will be some unemployment from the loss of gas-pumping jobs, but that hasn't really hurt any other state's economy. And come on folks, pumping gas?
Would a good next job be one of those extra perks and bonuses that are gone? Not that your boss would have to give you a bad recomendation and risk you going after him. He just has to say something like "Archfeld was an excellent worker. He requested and was assigned 40 hours of work a week, and chose not to work overtime". All completely true and legal, you can't go after him for slandering you. But if I was ref checking on a potential hire and was told that, I'd wouldn't give you a second glance. I'd assume that you were there for your 40 and no more, and I can do a lot better than that in this job climate.
So drive three miles, swap plates. Drive three more miles, swap plates again. Every time you stop and swap plates, it's gonna take you several minutes of being stopped. And you're still gonna have "hot" plates (assuming the ones you "picked up" earlier have been reported as stolen). Whether it's through detecting the stolen car, the stolen plates, taking time to swap plates, or through somebody seeing you swap plates on the side of the road and calling the cops, the system is putting the car thief at a disadvantage, and the police at an advantage. Which is the whole point, I think.
If you want a good perspective bender, check out Wicked: The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire. It totally re-draws the whole Oz story from a different direction, makes you think about how good and evil depend on the perspective you take, and who you believe. One of the best books I've read in a while
Um, yeah. Slashdotters observe proper netiquette. And put a whole page of whitespace into your post and watch your post get modded to -1 in about three seconds.
Must have been a zip drive
Going on a year with no copper, and loving it. I think the abilitity to do so depends on where you live, your carrier, etc. It's been two years since I used a payphone, and that was b/c I was outside of the country prior to GSM phones becomeing available in the US.
I only have a cell phone, no wired line. I have two roommates sharing a house, and we've all got our individual cells. If we had a landline, we'd have to worry about getting messages to the right person, who pays what part of the bill, etc. etc. Just an extra bill I'd have to pay at the end of the month. It's a lot easier for there not to be a landline at all. Coverage where I live is great, reception is great, I've never had a problem. When I talk to my parents on my cell, there is a lot of static-- because they live out in the country with ancient copper, and the static on their line makes ME go "What, What did you say?" Whether it's on my cell, or on my copper line at work.
People already scream at the price for the upgrades within Jaguar. If Apple spends more on development, they'll have to price it higher. I suspect the number of people who'll spend $4000 on a laptop would change very little.
If your boss will tolerate a nipple pointing device rather than a touchpad, go for the toshiba 4010. Good performance (for a PIII), excellent quality and support, and a great screen. Weighs nothing, with a silver colored magnesium case. With wireless, two PC card slots, built-in DVD/CDRW, and a battery that'll make it ~3 hours.
Do you realize that you just suggested to the poster that he should replace his currently working solution with the destruction/abandonment of five animals, engaging in household renovation, and otherwise altering behaviors that are enjoyable? (shakes head) slashdot. Jeez, the guy has anecdotal evidence that the breeze works for his wife. There can be all sorts of individual case reasons why it works in this situation, but it does. So why not accept that in this particular case, given lack of contrary evidence, the Ionic breeze is producing the desired results? Disregarding a datapoint without reason is just as bad science as asserting a general rule from an anecdotal response.
Maybe they could just take away his red Swingline stapler?
I don't think, in general, customers have so much sympathy for a for-profit business that they'll put themselves out for the for-profit business' interests. I've never suggested that there's any excuse for mistreating another person. Please point out to me where I've ever suggested that a salesperson, service person, manager, or any other human being should be mistreated, spoken to harshly, or an any other way have their day made harder? I haven't.
I never suggested that anyone had an inalienable right to anything. I would never advocate taking something that belonged to someone else. Esp. not a bass amp. The world does not revolve around me, it revolves around the center of mass of the Sol-earth system. Nor do I expect anyone to go to unreasonable lengths to make me happy. I don't feel entitled to anything. I keep my agreements, and I expect others to keep theirs. That includes agreements to service merchandise under warranty. I expect someone who's sold me something under warranty to do their best to fix it if it's not working. As per the agreement made when I purchased the item from them. The people I work for expect me to do my best to service them. I would suggest that asking a customer to ignore your stock of batteries that are sitting there doing nothing, and asking them to hold onto a non-functioning machine, under warranty, for a week while you order The Exact Same Thing As The One On Your Shelf is being more than a bit unreasonable. If the system you've set up produces, as a byproduct, unsatisfied customers, then I'd suggest that you try to see if there's a way to alter your system to produce satisfied customers. Like the computer store I've been using for some time now, who has on more than one occasion replaced a defective part with one from stock. Their system can handle it, they get a happy customer who spreads the word. If your system can't handle it, no big deal. Your choice. But don't expect to maintain happy customers if you're not willing to invest the time into developing a system that works for both you and the customer.
Consider a store operating both retail and service functions. Could be an Apple(tm) store, or a car dealership. To borrow from another thread, how would you feel if you had a broken steering wheel, and took it to your dealer under warranty. Say they have a stack of perfectly good, new steering wheels sitting there. But those are for customers who want to have a spare steering wheel. They will have to order one for you, and ask, "Would you be kind enough to drive around with a broken wheel for a couple of weeks?" I strongly suspect you'd be more than mildly annoyed at the situation and the dealer. I know I would be. And I probably wouldn't come back. No lack of common courtesy. No lack of decency. But an unsatisfied customer who probably won't be coming back. Not because you couldn't do something, but because you wouldn't.
Again, this is a business-customer relationship. And in the real world, people don't fundamentally care about a for-profit business' problems. Not that people are mean, or impolite, or jackasses. But they have their own problems, and any business who appeals to a customer's altruism rather than trying to please that customer is not one I'd like to invest in. I save my sympathy for people who need it, not businesses. I have my list of charities, and last time I checked, for-profit businesses weren't on it.