The only way out of this is for a conscientious credit agency to drum into their employees the significance of their work, and the vital importance of their reports to every subject. hands up who thinks that's going to happen?
Not me, for one. It's in the best interest of any business to keep their customers happy. Who are the customers of the CRA's? Not me and you (unless you run a business that requires credit checks). We've become a commodity -- let me correct that: information about us has become a commodity, to be bought and sold for profit at the whim of these credit agencies.
You can try to fight it. I mess with their databases (a last name like "St. Charles" lends itself to tampering -- "BLUE STCHARLES" vs. "BLUE ST.CHARLES" vs. "BLUE ST. CHARLES" vs "BLUE CHARLES" vs. "CHARLES BLUE" -- I have gotten mail in all of these formats). Next time you have to fill out a form, "accidentally" drop a digit from your phone number or "accidentally" transpose a digit in your zip code or address. Use SSNs that begin with 8 or 9 (almost none of these were, or ever will be issued) -- unless you REALLY have to give your SSN. Also, refuse to give out this information. When the clerk at the store asks for your ZIP code or phone number, politely say "no thanks". If they insist, give them a ZIP code with a letter in it (tell 'em you're from Zimbabwe). Mess with their databases in any way possible.
Your best bets: Pay with cash. Buy local (and I don't mean your local Sears or Circuit City). -bluebomber
Corporations are big, giant money making machines and nothing else. So don't expect anything else from them.
You were doing ok, up until "...and nothing else". Don't forget that corporations are run by people. Some corporations, in fact, are one-man operations. Sure, their purpose is for the owner to make money (in the case of for-profit corporations). But many corporations also recognize the need to be socially responsible. There are corporations in existence which (while remaining profitable) do community-oriented things: making donations, allowing employees to perform volunteer work on company time, etc. Balancing the needs of stakeholders (defined as shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers, and the community) in a corporation is one of the jobs of corporate management. Apparently you have only had experience with poor management that focusses solely on the shareholders and not the other stakeholders (I have had this same experience on occasion).
Please excuse me for being (slightly) off-topic...
There's a mistaken assumption that in order to "make it", one must cater to Windows users.
From a certain (i.e. business) perspective, the only way to increase Linux market share is to take from the market share that Windows currently holds. Therefore, this assumption is not necessarily mistaken.
...if you want a Windows-esque experience, use Windows.
You are making an assumption that, in order to cater to Windows users, one must provide a Windows-esque experience. This is simply not the case. The original question was for a tutorial, aimed at Windows users, that would help them be productive with Linux.
Unix is obtuse, arcane, and very empowering to use.
I'm not so sure about this statement. I've worked with both Unix (various varieties) and Windows (various varieties). Using Unix, complicated things are complicated; sometimes sort-of simple things are also complicated. Using Windows, there are a great many easy-to-use applications; there are some very cool "Wizards" to help new users (and sometimes even gurus like me!). But to do something moderately complicated is not very easy to do. (Ever try to set up an NT box as a router? A Linux box?)
It'd be a mistake to castrate usability in the name of "user friendliness".
I definitely agree with this! But I'm not sure that it is part of this discussion. We should be talking about tutorials and training and such, not necessarily usability. The two are related but do not necessarily need to go hand-in-hand. -bluebomber
More likely, though, at some point before you get an offer elsewhere they will get nervous about losing you entirely and start to be reasonable.
If you get to the point where you have interviewed at other companies, DO NOT accept a counteroffer or other peace offerings! You are obviously dealing with morons (which of course is rather common). I just got out of a situation where they don't bother to try to keep anyone happy until they decide to leave... It just doesn't work that way. You've got to keep your employees content all the time, not just when they decide to leave. Best of luck with the job search! (I pretty much expect your management to botch the situation.)
I think we should detonate a nuke in the atmosphere over the Middle East. Sure, the EMP would cause all kinds of collateral damage, but it is the only way we can be sure to wipe out the PS2's!!
<rant>
Why the hell does Mozilla need an IRC client?? Whatever happened to the idea of doing one thing and doing it well? If I want an IRC client, I can find a good one that works and fits my needs!! </rant>
Sorry. Just tweaks me when I see this crap and think about the bloated mess that is Mozilla...
Another good one: get a grape. Slice it almost in half -- the two hemispheres should be connected by just a bit of skin. Place the grape in the microwave for a few seconds. Watch the pretty arc between the grape halves.
Sure/. is not a local forum. But aren't the local issues similar all across the country? You named two school/education-related issues; most of the country is going to be voting on school-related issues (violence, funding, censorship, etc) this year and every year. These are local but Universal. Slashdot is a wonderful forum for us to realize that we are all fighting the same battles and to learn which battles are being won where and how. -bluebomber
Re:Libertarianism the new Republicism bur more evi
on
Should You Vote?
·
· Score: 1
I'm going for Nader because he want's the federal government to work especially with publically funding elections, establishing a living wage, and providing universal healthcare to 80-100 mil uninsured Americans.
I think Nader's brand of government has been tried a few times. They called it Communism. It didn't work. Ok, maybe Communism is too harsh. Let's call it Socialism, currently practised in varying degrees all over Europe (and to a slightly lesser extent in the US). Now, someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the health care system in Britain and elsewhere on the Continent just plain suck? I've heard horror stories about waiting lists and people (read: "rich", desperate people) needing to go overseas (read: the US) to have not-uncommon medical procedures performed.
Don't get Browne's politics mixed up. He most certainly would cut federal funding to hospitals and abortion clinics. He'd also cut highway funding, school funding, and funding for every other ILLEGAL federal program. Funding hospitals and roads and schools is NOT the job of the Federal Government. It is in fact prohibited by the Constitution, which was ignored for most of the 20th Century. Why do you want someone in (INSERT NAME OF FAR-AWAY STATE HERE) dictating how people in (INSERT YOUR LOCALITY HERE) should run their hospitals!???!
we abandoned this fucking stupid (sorry) system of having the first and most decisive primaries in the tiniest states
Oh yeah, I forgot that the only reason Bush is the Republican candidate is because he won in NH. Wait, we voted for McCain. Now I remember, Bush is the Republican candidate because he raised INSANE amounts of money before a single vote had been cast. Forget the primaries, Bush was anointed two years ago by the GOP Money Machine and The Media.
You say that lots of people fail to respect the First Amendment. Hey, there's nine others in the Bill of Rights! Too many people forget about the Second, the Fourth, the Fifth (both halves), and the Sixth. And don't even get me started on the Ninth (overused) and Tenth (ignored for the past 90 years).
-bluebomber
A Libertarian Government is *the* lesser evil.
on
Should You Vote?
·
· Score: 1
This is a time to ensure the lesser of two evils, not to make a principled stand !
I have voted this way before. Never again. There is no such thing as the lesser of two evils in this election. Both Gore and Both scare the living s*** out of me. To me, the only real choice you have is Nader or Browne. Voting for Browne is voting to throw out the last 75 years of illegal laws and beauracracy.
If they invest at 6%, then keeping that extra $1.49 for two months means they made 1.49 cents.
If Amazon is only getting a 6% return on their money, they aren't long for this world. They should be able to reinvest the cash internally at a rate approaching 30%! Ignoring compounding, that's five times what you give: almost $0.075. This means that for every 13k customers they bilk this way, they earn $1000. I'm not sure that's significant, but take it fwiw.
Trouble is, now that the cat's out of the bag, we'll soon see an "Amazon-Price-Watch" website appear, by which the "people who don't know each other" can trade info. Now, if this could be done in secret (ie: Amazon doesn't know about it) then those "people" could basically pull a sorta "social-engineering" hack to drive Amazon's prices down. What would it take to do something like that?
If you wrote an application the combined the functionality of IRC and gnutella, with a little extra, you could pull this off. The difficulty would be in collecting a sufficiently large amount of data. Of course, in order to collect enough data, it would be impossible to do this "in secret", and Amazon would either end the program (not a bad thing...) or try something else (probably a lawsuit against the authors of the software...).
The way I see it (as a layperson with a teeny bit of legal education), what they did in the DVD case is a breach of contract. You agreed to buy something at a given price. They want to welch on the deal.
I say screw 'em. What would their reaction be if you said, "Oh, oops, that was a glitch in my browser, I only wanted to pay $30 for that book, not $50! My bad."
Actually there have been several cases against major gun manufacturers by families of murder victims... tatctics have been to attack gun
marketing and safety shortcomings (not unlike tobacco suits?).
Why in hell would CPQ want to be the next DEC??? Sure, the idea of being a tottering old dinosaur seems romantic. Until you think about it. Then it just sucks.
My understanding is that there was a (Supreme?) Court ruling many moons ago that said that, while states are allowed to charge a sales tax, they can only force businesses that do business in that state to *collect* the tax for the state.
Which is why you'll see forms that charge sales tax only for residents of, say, Georgia and Pennsylvania: that business does business in GA and PA.
Either way, the purchaser is responsible for paying the tax on items they purchased but have not paid tax on -- items ordered through a catalog or purchased out-of-state. (This also depends on the specific laws of your your state.)
Please note that most European countries have a VAT (Value Added Tax) which is not quite the same as a sales tax.
In regards to the Federal Sales Tax, I read that one of the proposals would mail a rebate check (monthly/quarterly/yearly -- I'm not sure) to all taxpayers, thus making it less regressive than a plain old sales tax. -bluebomber
What likely happened here is that AOL has/had a policy to reflexively block anyone who implements the protocol and tries to talk to their servers without their permission, which is arguably llegal
Now, that gets the Dumb Statment of the Day award.
No, I think you should re-read that. What the original poster meant was that "trying to talk to their [AOL's] servers without permission" is arguably illegal. Which is, of course, arguable.
I agree with your statement, but you might want to read a post twice before you flame someone...
Slashdot Mirror
Not me, for one. It's in the best interest of any business to keep their customers happy. Who are the customers of the CRA's? Not me and you (unless you run a business that requires credit checks). We've become a commodity -- let me correct that: information about us has become a commodity, to be bought and sold for profit at the whim of these credit agencies.
You can try to fight it. I mess with their databases (a last name like "St. Charles" lends itself to tampering -- "BLUE STCHARLES" vs. "BLUE ST.CHARLES" vs. "BLUE ST. CHARLES" vs "BLUE CHARLES" vs. "CHARLES BLUE" -- I have gotten mail in all of these formats). Next time you have to fill out a form, "accidentally" drop a digit from your phone number or "accidentally" transpose a digit in your zip code or address. Use SSNs that begin with 8 or 9 (almost none of these were, or ever will be issued) -- unless you REALLY have to give your SSN. Also, refuse to give out this information. When the clerk at the store asks for your ZIP code or phone number, politely say "no thanks". If they insist, give them a ZIP code with a letter in it (tell 'em you're from Zimbabwe). Mess with their databases in any way possible.
Your best bets: Pay with cash. Buy local (and I don't mean your local Sears or Circuit City).
-bluebomber
-bluebomber
You were doing ok, up until "...and nothing else". Don't forget that corporations are run by people. Some corporations, in fact, are one-man operations. Sure, their purpose is for the owner to make money (in the case of for-profit corporations). But many corporations also recognize the need to be socially responsible. There are corporations in existence which (while remaining profitable) do community-oriented things: making donations, allowing employees to perform volunteer work on company time, etc. Balancing the needs of stakeholders (defined as shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers, and the community) in a corporation is one of the jobs of corporate management. Apparently you have only had experience with poor management that focusses solely on the shareholders and not the other stakeholders (I have had this same experience on occasion).
Please excuse me for being (slightly) off-topic...
-bluebomber
Did they just get /.-ed or what?
-bluebomber
Right. Because Windows has provided "install, but don't commit" functionality for YEARS. Give me a break.
-bluebomber
Except maybe to the Communists (RMS?), it should seem perfectly legit to make money off home users... or have I missed something?
-bluebomber
From a certain (i.e. business) perspective, the only way to increase Linux market share is to take from the market share that Windows currently holds. Therefore, this assumption is not necessarily mistaken.
You are making an assumption that, in order to cater to Windows users, one must provide a Windows-esque experience. This is simply not the case. The original question was for a tutorial, aimed at Windows users, that would help them be productive with Linux.
Unix is obtuse, arcane, and very empowering to use.
I'm not so sure about this statement. I've worked with both Unix (various varieties) and Windows (various varieties). Using Unix, complicated things are complicated; sometimes sort-of simple things are also complicated. Using Windows, there are a great many easy-to-use applications; there are some very cool "Wizards" to help new users (and sometimes even gurus like me!). But to do something moderately complicated is not very easy to do. (Ever try to set up an NT box as a router? A Linux box?)
It'd be a mistake to castrate usability in the name of "user friendliness".
I definitely agree with this! But I'm not sure that it is part of this discussion. We should be talking about tutorials and training and such, not necessarily usability. The two are related but do not necessarily need to go hand-in-hand.
-bluebomber
If you get to the point where you have interviewed at other companies, DO NOT accept a counteroffer or other peace offerings! You are obviously dealing with morons (which of course is rather common). I just got out of a situation where they don't bother to try to keep anyone happy until they decide to leave... It just doesn't work that way. You've got to keep your employees content all the time, not just when they decide to leave. Best of luck with the job search! (I pretty much expect your management to botch the situation.)
-bluebomber
Umm... did you ever watch Rocky and Bullwinkle? Boy do I feel old...
-bluebomber
I think we should detonate a nuke in the atmosphere over the Middle East. Sure, the EMP would cause all kinds of collateral damage, but it is the only way we can be sure to wipe out the PS2's!!
-bluebomber
Also, keep in mind that WorldNetDaily is about as far-right as you can get -- not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)
-bluebomber
Why the hell does Mozilla need an IRC client?? Whatever happened to the idea of doing one thing and doing it well? If I want an IRC client, I can find a good one that works and fits my needs!!
</rant>
Sorry. Just tweaks me when I see this crap and think about the bloated mess that is Mozilla...
-bluebomber
Another good one: get a grape. Slice it almost in half -- the two hemispheres should be connected by just a bit of skin. Place the grape in the microwave for a few seconds. Watch the pretty arc between the grape halves.
-bluebomber
There are many others...
-bluebomber
Sure /. is not a local forum. But aren't the local issues similar all across the country? You named two school/education-related issues; most of the country is going to be voting on school-related issues (violence, funding, censorship, etc) this year and every year. These are local but Universal. Slashdot is a wonderful forum for us to realize that we are all fighting the same battles and to learn which battles are being won where and how.
-bluebomber
I think Nader's brand of government has been tried a few times. They called it Communism. It didn't work. Ok, maybe Communism is too harsh. Let's call it Socialism, currently practised in varying degrees all over Europe (and to a slightly lesser extent in the US). Now, someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the health care system in Britain and elsewhere on the Continent just plain suck? I've heard horror stories about waiting lists and people (read: "rich", desperate people) needing to go overseas (read: the US) to have not-uncommon medical procedures performed.
Don't get Browne's politics mixed up. He most certainly would cut federal funding to hospitals and abortion clinics. He'd also cut highway funding, school funding, and funding for every other ILLEGAL federal program. Funding hospitals and roads and schools is NOT the job of the Federal Government. It is in fact prohibited by the Constitution, which was ignored for most of the 20th Century. Why do you want someone in (INSERT NAME OF FAR-AWAY STATE HERE) dictating how people in (INSERT YOUR LOCALITY HERE) should run their hospitals!???!
-bluebomber
Oh yeah, I forgot that the only reason Bush is the Republican candidate is because he won in NH. Wait, we voted for McCain. Now I remember, Bush is the Republican candidate because he raised INSANE amounts of money before a single vote had been cast. Forget the primaries, Bush was anointed two years ago by the GOP Money Machine and The Media.
You say that lots of people fail to respect the First Amendment. Hey, there's nine others in the Bill of Rights! Too many people forget about the Second, the Fourth, the Fifth (both halves), and the Sixth. And don't even get me started on the Ninth (overused) and Tenth (ignored for the past 90 years).
-bluebomber
I have voted this way before. Never again. There is no such thing as the lesser of two evils in this election. Both Gore and Both scare the living s*** out of me. To me, the only real choice you have is Nader or Browne. Voting for Browne is voting to throw out the last 75 years of illegal laws and beauracracy.
-bluebomber
If Amazon is only getting a 6% return on their money, they aren't long for this world. They should be able to reinvest the cash internally at a rate approaching 30%! Ignoring compounding, that's five times what you give: almost $0.075. This means that for every 13k customers they bilk this way, they earn $1000. I'm not sure that's significant, but take it fwiw.
-bluebomber
If you wrote an application the combined the functionality of IRC and gnutella, with a little extra, you could pull this off. The difficulty would be in collecting a sufficiently large amount of data. Of course, in order to collect enough data, it would be impossible to do this "in secret", and Amazon would either end the program (not a bad thing...) or try something else (probably a lawsuit against the authors of the software...).
-bluebomber
I say screw 'em. What would their reaction be if you said, "Oh, oops, that was a glitch in my browser, I only wanted to pay $30 for that book, not $50! My bad."
-bluebomber
How about this? Or this?
-bluebomber
-bluebomber
Which is why you'll see forms that charge sales tax only for residents of, say, Georgia and Pennsylvania: that business does business in GA and PA.
Either way, the purchaser is responsible for paying the tax on items they purchased but have not paid tax on -- items ordered through a catalog or purchased out-of-state. (This also depends on the specific laws of your your state.)
Please note that most European countries have a VAT (Value Added Tax) which is not quite the same as a sales tax.
In regards to the Federal Sales Tax, I read that one of the proposals would mail a rebate check (monthly/quarterly/yearly -- I'm not sure) to all taxpayers, thus making it less regressive than a plain old sales tax.
-bluebomber
Now, that gets the Dumb Statment of the Day award.
No, I think you should re-read that. What the original poster meant was that "trying to talk to their [AOL's] servers without permission" is arguably illegal. Which is, of course, arguable.
I agree with your statement, but you might want to read a post twice before you flame someone...