Personally, I think someone should come out with a standard called WhiteJaw. I envision it as having the capability of wirelessly communicating with various accessories such as cell phones and PDAs. I see a potentially HUGE market for it.
Someone needs to get on the ball and make something that'll help computers and printers communicate back and forth, too.
When was the last time you heard of Abercrombie sending out a press release complaining about a decline in sales, citing a link with kids sharing their clothes... ?
Only in America would we have personal liberties taken away under the guise of fighting the war on terror, or am I wrong? Surely, I am. Video game ban in Greece, anyone? There are other countries that pull this shit. America is not alone. Anyone that's reading this from Canada, a European Union country, China ( can they even read slashdot? ) or any other nation, really, thinking that your shit doesn't stink, wake up. Ignorance isn't bliss, it's a nightmare.
But here's the real question: Why? What incentives are there for the leaders in OUR government to take away personal liberties? Do they get more money? Do they feel safer as a result? Are they power-crazy? Do they feel as if they're "doing something" instead of standing around "ignoring" an issue? It really boggles my mind. If someone can answer any of these questions for me, you'd earn my utmost respect.
The thing that really blows my mind is how we have so many new laws as result of the attacks on 9/11. I don't feel any more secure due to them. So why were they enacted? I certainly don't feel any safer knowing that murder is a serious crime if I'm walking around alone at night in a seedy part of a town I've never visited before. And I don't feel any safer knowing airline passengers can't carry toe clippers onto 747s.
There are two things I have learned from these attacks. Not only have I firmly cemented my anti-racist core, but furthermore, I have found, for lack of better words, that I am a "Logic Elitist." What's this, you ask? I have a strong hatred for those who can't backup their reasoning with sound, logical conclusions and reasoning. I hate stupid people.
We shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. -PJ O'Rourke
Only in America would we have personal liberties taken away under the guise of fighting the war on terror, or am I wrong? Surely, I am. Video game ban in Greece, anyone? There are other countries that pull this shit. America is not alone. Anyone that's reading this from Canada, a European Union country, or any other nation, really, thinking that your shit doesn't stink, wake up.
But here's the real question: Why? What incentives are there for the leaders in OUR government to take away personal liberties? Do they get more money? Do they feel safer? Do they feel as if they're "doing something" instead of standing around "ignoring" an issue? It really boggles my mind. If someone can answer any of these questions for me, you'd earn my utmost respect.
The thing that really blows my mind is how we have so many new laws as result of the attacks on 9/11. I don't feel any more secure due to them. So why were they enacted? I certainly don't feel any safer knowing that murder is a serious crime if I'm walking around alone at night in a seedy part of a town I've never visited before. And I don't feel any safer knowing airline passengers can't carry toe clippers onto 747s.
There are two things I have learned from these attacks. Not only have I firmly cemented my anti-racist core, but furthermore, I have found, for lack of better words, that I am a "Logic Elitist." What's this, you ask? I have a strong hatred for those who can't backup their reasoning with sound, logical conclusions and reasoning. I hate stupid people.
We shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. -PJ O'Rourke
I watched a news report that stated music sales have fallen 13% from last years numbers.
I work for a major clothing chain.
My manager recently commented on how our business has fallen off around 13% compared to last years numbers.
Coincidence?
Maybe we should start arresting school girls who share eachothers clothing plus those damn thrift shop owners who profit from the resale of shirts and jeans. They're cutting into the original retail seller's profits.
Who cares how easy HTML is to code "by-hand" when the results end up being mauled?
The print industry relies on PDF because of its precision... across different platforms.
Anyone who is design-oriented as opposed to code-oriented scoffs at the idea of coding HTML by hand anyway. I know I do. Then again, I can code it if need be. I hate it though.
Here's what I want, and for whatever reason, can't have. It's great that CPUs are almost up to several ghz now, yet something as fundamental to the Internet as a web browser is *still* going through growing pains. It's like the web is going to be stuck in the late 90's IE/Netscape 4 lala land... forever.
My wish list:
Dedication - I don't need my web browser to check my mail, get on IRC, do the laundry, or clean my dishes. I want it to browse the web, and browse it well.
Consistancy - Maybe I'm the only one who can't stand how most browsers lack even the simplest consistancy across platforms. IE for Windows has all sorts of widgets that IE for Mac does not... and vice versa. The same is true for Mozilla, albeit in more of a "behind-the-scenes" sort of way. CSS is a cross-platform nightmare.
Tabbed browsing - Sure, some have it.
SpellCheck - In text entry forms such as this one. See above.
Pop-up supression - Moz rocks at this.
Crash-Proofing - I'm probably asking too much to have a browser that doesn't crash. With that said, how about adding some functionality to aid in crash recovery, such as automatically re-loading the sites and pages you were looking at before the crash took place? Automatically. History logs don't count.
OS Integration - IE/Windows. Yeah. Their integration sucks. (rant) Am I the only one who feels that Internet Explorer and Outlook (Express) on Windows should NOT be tied into that platform as much as they are? Especially at a default setting. Hell, if OE was dumbed down by stripping it of what the Microsoft programmers probably thought was "smart design," I'm sure 90% of the exploits targeted towards it would vanish. Then again the same would be true for Office, like Word macros. But anyway...
finally...
HTML - Design a web page. Then watch as different browsers maul your design. They'll use different fonts, different spacing... in short, HTML sucks. And most browsers implementation of CSS as well. I say throw the whole thing out and start from scratch. PDF or something.
who is sick of listening to the people preaching about how television is nothing but a content wasteland, and how they're somehow better off without it. Expecially those who take an arrogant, "I'm better than you," air to their rant.
If I were to apply that same logic to the Internet, then I'd shout from the rooftops that the Internet is a vast sea of shitty content. But guess what... for all of the "bad" stuff on the net, there sure is a lot of positive here (Internet) as well.
how about emailing (insert news organization of your choice here) and telling them that you don't agree with their coverage?
Point them in the direction of things you want them to cover more. Cover less.
I'm almost positive that they'll be receptive to a group of people that start to question their pratice(s). They need you. You don't need them. They know this. Drop them a note or two.
and I noticed a banner in the window that caught my eye.
This pretty much sums it all up. They offer FREE code retrieval.
Back when I had a Jeep Wrangler, I bought a Haynes service manual that showed me what its codes were. I could easily obtain the error messages through a morse-code system.
To see what the diagnostic computer felt was wrong, you turned the ignition key so that it went off/on/of/on/of/on. After the third and final "on," the check engine light would flash a certain number of times, which corresponded to a specific problem code.
... that would mean 33. 33 stood for Air Conditioning, IIRC. That code would always come back since my Jeep didn't have an A/C unit plugged into the diagnostic box.
Frankly, it pisses me off that the Telecom Act hasn't forced the powers that be into ONE FLAT FUCKING RATE FOR ALL PHONE CALLS. Local, long distance, Caller ID, Three-Way, Anonymous Block, and the whole slew of features on telephone lines should be included standard. Not $10 here, and $5 there, depending on the feature, and where you are located in the good ol US of A.
It's 2002 now.
ISPs can give users UNLIMITED SERVICE for one low monthly fee. Why can't voice calls be the same? Why aren't they now?
Oh wait, I know why. Greed. You already knew the answer too, I'm sure.
But guess what kids, the Teleco Act of 1996 has helped ruin not only OUR telecommunications, but OUR airwaves. The airwaves don't belong to ClearChannel. They belong to us CITIZENS. That's why the FCC was created, right? To protect and look after the use of OUR electromagnetic spectrum? Yeah. That's precisely why they were founded. Are they following their mandate as of late? NO.
The FCC should have been the one to be on top of this regional/local teleco monopoly bullshit a long time ago. They broke up AT&T's stranglehold on LD a long time ago, and that did drive prices down. On a local level, however... nothing has changed.
The next logical step is to kill kaaza...but then what? Gnutella? How does the RIAA expect to kill it? ISP-side measures here we come.
The thing that pisses me off the most about this is that I was paying for Audiogalaxy's gold membership. The RIAA could have asked Audiogalaxy to charge $6 instead of $3 a month and ask for half to cover royalties and such.
Who wants to have a piece of hardware mounted to a random point in your car so you can get the stations? I understand it's a solution for older cars... but it's pretty pricy if you ask me. For the price they're charging for the hardware, it should, at least, be TINY.
Tech companies can cram a hard drive and mp3 decoder into a footprint that's about the size of a deck of cards, but the current satellite solutions are about the size of a 10 disc CD changer, if not larger. What the hell is up with that?
Furthermore, most of the replacement decks out there with XM/Sirrus tuners built-in look kitschy. Hell, the entire car audio section of my Crutchfield catalog seems completely rice-burner oriented.
I wish the car audio manufacturers would realize that not everyone who wants a new deck for XM/Sirrus has a Civic.:/ I want a simple and elegant deck, not something that looks like a 747 jet landing strip... at night.
Contracts, corporate shadyness, and the like...
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
Perhaps this is off the topic of Best Buy... but it deals with corporate shenanigans nevertheless.
Two years ago, when I had AOL, I subscribed under the Bring Your Own Access $10/mo. plan. When I received one of the very last bills from them, my statement reflected a change that I did not want.... I had been moved to the $10/5hrs/month plan. My original plan was unlimited, the new only allowed for 5 hours of usage a month. You can probably see where this is leading.
The total for the previous month came to a whopping $160, which I knew must be a mistake. Hoping to clear it up with AOL, I called and explained the situation.
Unfortunately, they didn't think of it as a problem.
I talked to three regular-level customer support reps, plus a supervisor, all with the same result... being stuck paying $160 for a change that I had not initiated.
AOL persistently insisted that I had changed the information myself, and their fraud department refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
Frustrated, I called my credit card company and explained the situation... I was not going to let AOL essentially steal $150 from me ($160 - $10 = $150.)
To my avail, the credit card company promptly shut down my old card/account plus blocked any attempts for AOL to charge against it. They then established a new card/account, and finally prohibited AOL from charging to the new in the case that they obtained my new information!
Say what you want about me having AOL at the time, but I stress two things: first, it was not my primary ISP. Second, more importantly, they tried to screw me. With the help of my bank, I fought back.
...feel like a slap in the face here in America. Other countries, such as Germany, have high speed limits. Think autobahn. And you don't hear about out-of-control highway fatality numbers, either.
Highway speeds, in America, have become nothing more than a money-generation trap.
Furthermore, so has the drinking age. They've (thoughtfully?) set-up a scheme to make money because they know college kids want to drink... and know more than half are under the age of 21.
The real surprise, to me, is in the laws regarding teenage pregnancy... excuse me... the lack thereof. It's ok for some fifteen year old girl to have a baby. That isn't against the law. There are no fines associated with it.
But if some college kids want to throw a party, the campus Beer Gestapo rushes in.
Anyways... these black boxes are a Good Thing(TM). They'll help analyze what went wrong. They'll help to eliminate a he-said-she-said situation where both drivers feel that the other is at fault.
Insurance companies should push to include a GPS system so that a car can be recovered in the event of theft... but make sure that said device is mig-welded to that car. What would be the point if a knowledgeable car thief knew where this box was, and could just rip it out. This would result in less theft claims... and could perhaps help eliminate fraud.
All web browsers suck. I don't care which platform you're on.
It's 2002 now... and the web, moreovere, webbrowsers, have had over five years to mature. Yet there isn't a single browser out there that is a respectful mix of standards-based compatiblity, ease of use, and speed. Why?
Don't feed me that line that you can't have everything in one package because once you add-in all of the features, things must slow down. Phooey. We can get Quake to run @ 92837423947fps, but can't get a kickass browser in the market. WTF is *that* all about?
And looking upon the IE alternatives...
-Netscape 6.2? Get real. I would probably look upon it more favorably if it were coded to take advantage of Quartz/Aqua & Carbon/Cocoa in OSX. I'd also like to mention that its scrolling bar is *way* too narrow...
-OmniWeb? They want me to pay them ~$30 for an incomplete browser... yah right. Try fixing your java & CSS support, guys.
-Opera? You're kidding right? It's in the same class as Omni, if you ask me.
-IE? It has wronfully become the litimus test for web-development. Yet... is a necessary evil. The majority of browsers out there are IE. Why wouldn't your site be geared towards it?:(
I've said it before, and I'll say it again... the *ONLY* competition IE has is Netscape.
What really boggles my mind is that this likes to render in a variety of ways depending on which os, browser, and platform you use. That to me is just pathetic.
Stupid as this sounds... I'd rather build a webpage based on PDF. Then I'd at least know it would look the same no matter where it loaded. And would scale so it wouldn't be tethered to a set screen resolution.
Top Three Guaranteed ways to earn unwarranted karma:
~#3~
"MTV (TRL) / VH1(Top20) contribute to the downward spiral the industry is in..."
The last time I checked, Viacom didn't own any record labels. For being such an integral part of the devolution of music, they aren't that attached to it.
~#2~
"... the music industry only offers pre-selected artists... making a mockery of the whole system..."
The record labels can use their marketing muscle to promote the hell out of an artist, but if music listeners (consumers) deem the music to be bad, no amount of marketing can keep said artist in the limelight for too long. Artists may artificially be placed at the top, but without sales & popularity, they don't stick around.
~#1~
"...the music out there today sucks... no wonder music sales aren't stellar anymore..."
Easy to say when you think myopically. Yet, Slashdotters like to mod this kind of trite comment up. Why? I have yet to figure this out. This sort of comment is simply a stab at the mainstream, spoken from someone high upon a perch of musical elitism.
Typical American cheering for the underdog... until the underdog gets too popular. (insert eye-roll here)
Is the whole time-shifing issue. the "piracy" issue.
It's a non-issue.
What broadcasters need to come to grips with here is that when something is BROADCASTED... to several MILLION people... you've just distributed your PRODUCT for FREE.
I don't care how you try to justify it through an advertizing formula... the END USER gets NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox for free. After you buy the TV, that is...:P
It really pisses me off to read about NBC, CBS, ABC, et al all upset over the VCR... and now more recently PVRs... when they all refuse to aknowledge this simple fact... If they broadcast it... and I have the means to watch it... I have every right to do with it how I please.
Newspapers are out and about... have been for centuries. They aren't trying to force you to buy special goggles to read the daily.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but FireWire isn't USB. *cough*
Personally, I think someone should come out with a standard called WhiteJaw. I envision it as having the capability of wirelessly communicating with various accessories such as cell phones and PDAs. I see a potentially HUGE market for it.
Someone needs to get on the ball and make something that'll help computers and printers communicate back and forth, too.
When was the last time you heard of Abercrombie sending out a press release complaining about a decline in sales, citing a link with kids sharing their clothes... ?
Only in America would we have personal liberties taken away under the guise of fighting the war on terror, or am I wrong? Surely, I am. Video game ban in Greece, anyone? There are other countries that pull this shit. America is not alone. Anyone that's reading this from Canada, a European Union country, China ( can they even read slashdot? ) or any other nation, really, thinking that your shit doesn't stink, wake up. Ignorance isn't bliss, it's a nightmare.
But here's the real question: Why? What incentives are there for the leaders in OUR government to take away personal liberties? Do they get more money? Do they feel safer as a result? Are they power-crazy? Do they feel as if they're "doing something" instead of standing around "ignoring" an issue? It really boggles my mind. If someone can answer any of these questions for me, you'd earn my utmost respect.
The thing that really blows my mind is how we have so many new laws as result of the attacks on 9/11. I don't feel any more secure due to them. So why were they enacted? I certainly don't feel any safer knowing that murder is a serious crime if I'm walking around alone at night in a seedy part of a town I've never visited before. And I don't feel any safer knowing airline passengers can't carry toe clippers onto 747s.
There are two things I have learned from these attacks. Not only have I firmly cemented my anti-racist core, but furthermore, I have found, for lack of better words, that I am a "Logic Elitist." What's this, you ask? I have a strong hatred for those who can't backup their reasoning with sound, logical conclusions and reasoning. I hate stupid people.
We shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. -PJ O'Rourke
Only in America would we have personal liberties taken away under the guise of fighting the war on terror, or am I wrong? Surely, I am. Video game ban in Greece, anyone? There are other countries that pull this shit. America is not alone. Anyone that's reading this from Canada, a European Union country, or any other nation, really, thinking that your shit doesn't stink, wake up.
But here's the real question: Why? What incentives are there for the leaders in OUR government to take away personal liberties? Do they get more money? Do they feel safer? Do they feel as if they're "doing something" instead of standing around "ignoring" an issue? It really boggles my mind. If someone can answer any of these questions for me, you'd earn my utmost respect.
The thing that really blows my mind is how we have so many new laws as result of the attacks on 9/11. I don't feel any more secure due to them. So why were they enacted? I certainly don't feel any safer knowing that murder is a serious crime if I'm walking around alone at night in a seedy part of a town I've never visited before. And I don't feel any safer knowing airline passengers can't carry toe clippers onto 747s.
There are two things I have learned from these attacks. Not only have I firmly cemented my anti-racist core, but furthermore, I have found, for lack of better words, that I am a "Logic Elitist." What's this, you ask? I have a strong hatred for those who can't backup their reasoning with sound, logical conclusions and reasoning. I hate stupid people.
We shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. -PJ O'Rourke
I watched a news report that stated music sales have fallen 13% from last years numbers.
I work for a major clothing chain.
My manager recently commented on how our business has fallen off around 13% compared to last years numbers.
Coincidence?
Maybe we should start arresting school girls who share eachothers clothing plus those damn thrift shop owners who profit from the resale of shirts and jeans. They're cutting into the original retail seller's profits.
Who cares how easy HTML is to code "by-hand" when the results end up being mauled?
The print industry relies on PDF because of its precision... across different platforms.
Anyone who is design-oriented as opposed to code-oriented scoffs at the idea of coding HTML by hand anyway. I know I do. Then again, I can code it if need be. I hate it though.
ALL web browsers suck.
Here's what I want, and for whatever reason, can't have. It's great that CPUs are almost up to several ghz now, yet something as fundamental to the Internet as a web browser is *still* going through growing pains. It's like the web is going to be stuck in the late 90's IE/Netscape 4 lala land... forever.
My wish list:
Dedication - I don't need my web browser to check my mail, get on IRC, do the laundry, or clean my dishes. I want it to browse the web, and browse it well.
Consistancy - Maybe I'm the only one who can't stand how most browsers lack even the simplest consistancy across platforms. IE for Windows has all sorts of widgets that IE for Mac does not... and vice versa. The same is true for Mozilla, albeit in more of a "behind-the-scenes" sort of way. CSS is a cross-platform nightmare.
Tabbed browsing - Sure, some have it.
SpellCheck - In text entry forms such as this one. See above.
Pop-up supression - Moz rocks at this.
Crash-Proofing - I'm probably asking too much to have a browser that doesn't crash. With that said, how about adding some functionality to aid in crash recovery, such as automatically re-loading the sites and pages you were looking at before the crash took place? Automatically. History logs don't count.
OS Integration - IE/Windows. Yeah. Their integration sucks. (rant) Am I the only one who feels that Internet Explorer and Outlook (Express) on Windows should NOT be tied into that platform as much as they are? Especially at a default setting. Hell, if OE was dumbed down by stripping it of what the Microsoft programmers probably thought was "smart design," I'm sure 90% of the exploits targeted towards it would vanish. Then again the same would be true for Office, like Word macros. But anyway...
finally...
HTML - Design a web page. Then watch as different browsers maul your design. They'll use different fonts, different spacing... in short, HTML sucks. And most browsers implementation of CSS as well. I say throw the whole thing out and start from scratch. PDF or something.
I hope Mac Publishing, LLC is next.
who is sick of listening to the people preaching about how television is nothing but a content wasteland, and how they're somehow better off without it. Expecially those who take an arrogant, "I'm better than you," air to their rant.
If I were to apply that same logic to the Internet, then I'd shout from the rooftops that the Internet is a vast sea of shitty content. But guess what... for all of the "bad" stuff on the net, there sure is a lot of positive here (Internet) as well.
The very same is true for television.
Moderation: 4-Insightful, 2343293847-Flamebait
OK. I'm lost. So the arrestors are there... or not?
The end of this post sounds like a conspiracy theory.
... elections have nothing to do with the physical means in which you vote... it has to do with who counts them.
but what I want to know:
was Apple able to strong arm the removal of the bullshit MPEG-4 money making scheme that its patent holders initially pressed?
replaced the lightning arrestor...?
Why didn't they simply add the box after the lightning resistor?
I remember about 10 years ago, during a major storm, lightning stuck close to the house and killed all of the phones.
Our house is about 60 years old...
Obviously you never heard of the failed Circuit City format called Divx. It's where the "DivX" codec got its name.
Oh yeah, it failed.
and took the time to respond here on /.
how about emailing (insert news organization of your choice here) and telling them that you don't agree with their coverage?
Point them in the direction of things you want them to cover more. Cover less.
I'm almost positive that they'll be receptive to a group of people that start to question their pratice(s). They need you. You don't need them. They know this. Drop them a note or two.
Keep it short, sweet, and to the point.
and I noticed a banner in the window that caught my eye.
This pretty much sums it all up. They offer FREE code retrieval.
Back when I had a Jeep Wrangler, I bought a Haynes service manual that showed me what its codes were. I could easily obtain the error messages through a morse-code system.
To see what the diagnostic computer felt was wrong, you turned the ignition key so that it went off/on/of/on/of/on. After the third and final "on," the check engine light would flash a certain number of times, which corresponded to a specific problem code.
flash - flash - flash
*pause*
flaah - flash - flash
... that would mean 33. 33 stood for Air Conditioning, IIRC. That code would always come back since my Jeep didn't have an A/C unit plugged into the diagnostic box.
Anyways... the Jeep was a '91. I miss it so much.
*tear*
It amazes me that a judge can order big tobacco to pay a smoker $15m for damages related to smoking, yet people couldn't sue their teleco. Ok, so I'm not so amazed. It's the fucked up patchwork of American laws that simply baffles me sometimes.
Frankly, it pisses me off that the Telecom Act hasn't forced the powers that be into ONE FLAT FUCKING RATE FOR ALL PHONE CALLS. Local, long distance, Caller ID, Three-Way, Anonymous Block, and the whole slew of features on telephone lines should be included standard. Not $10 here, and $5 there, depending on the feature, and where you are located in the good ol US of A.
It's 2002 now.
ISPs can give users UNLIMITED SERVICE for one low monthly fee. Why can't voice calls be the same? Why aren't they now?
Oh wait, I know why. Greed. You already knew the answer too, I'm sure.
But guess what kids, the Teleco Act of 1996 has helped ruin not only OUR telecommunications, but OUR airwaves. The airwaves don't belong to ClearChannel. They belong to us CITIZENS. That's why the FCC was created, right? To protect and look after the use of OUR electromagnetic spectrum? Yeah. That's precisely why they were founded. Are they following their mandate as of late? NO.
The FCC should have been the one to be on top of this regional/local teleco monopoly bullshit a long time ago. They broke up AT&T's stranglehold on LD a long time ago, and that did drive prices down. On a local level, however... nothing has changed.
The next logical step is to kill kaaza...but then what? Gnutella? How does the RIAA expect to kill it? ISP-side measures here we come.
The thing that pisses me off the most about this is that I was paying for Audiogalaxy's gold membership. The RIAA could have asked Audiogalaxy to charge $6 instead of $3 a month and ask for half to cover royalties and such.
The idoicy in all of this astonishes me.
Hey kids, look! FUD!
... look (physically) awful.
:(
:/ I want a simple and elegant deck, not something that looks like a 747 jet landing strip... at night.
I hope this isn't rated off-topic
Who wants to have a piece of hardware mounted to a random point in your car so you can get the stations? I understand it's a solution for older cars... but it's pretty pricy if you ask me. For the price they're charging for the hardware, it should, at least, be TINY.
Tech companies can cram a hard drive and mp3 decoder into a footprint that's about the size of a deck of cards, but the current satellite solutions are about the size of a 10 disc CD changer, if not larger. What the hell is up with that?
Furthermore, most of the replacement decks out there with XM/Sirrus tuners built-in look kitschy. Hell, the entire car audio section of my Crutchfield catalog seems completely rice-burner oriented.
I wish the car audio manufacturers would realize that not everyone who wants a new deck for XM/Sirrus has a Civic.
Perhaps this is off the topic of Best Buy... but it deals with corporate shenanigans nevertheless.
Two years ago, when I had AOL, I subscribed under the Bring Your Own Access $10/mo. plan. When I received one of the very last bills from them, my statement reflected a change that I did not want.... I had been moved to the $10/5hrs/month plan. My original plan was unlimited, the new only allowed for 5 hours of usage a month. You can probably see where this is leading.
The total for the previous month came to a whopping $160, which I knew must be a mistake. Hoping to clear it up with AOL, I called and explained the situation.
Unfortunately, they didn't think of it as a problem.
I talked to three regular-level customer support reps, plus a supervisor, all with the same result... being stuck paying $160 for a change that I had not initiated.
AOL persistently insisted that I had changed the information myself, and their fraud department refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
Frustrated, I called my credit card company and explained the situation... I was not going to let AOL essentially steal $150 from me ($160 - $10 = $150.)
To my avail, the credit card company promptly shut down my old card/account plus blocked any attempts for AOL to charge against it. They then established a new card/account, and finally prohibited AOL from charging to the new in the case that they obtained my new information!
Say what you want about me having AOL at the time, but I stress two things: first, it was not my primary ISP. Second, more importantly, they tried to screw me. With the help of my bank, I fought back.
...feel like a slap in the face here in America. Other countries, such as Germany, have high speed limits. Think autobahn. And you don't hear about out-of-control highway fatality numbers, either.
Highway speeds, in America, have become nothing more than a money-generation trap.
Furthermore, so has the drinking age. They've (thoughtfully?) set-up a scheme to make money because they know college kids want to drink... and know more than half are under the age of 21.
The real surprise, to me, is in the laws regarding teenage pregnancy... excuse me... the lack thereof. It's ok for some fifteen year old girl to have a baby. That isn't against the law. There are no fines associated with it.
But if some college kids want to throw a party, the campus Beer Gestapo rushes in.
Anyways... these black boxes are a Good Thing(TM). They'll help analyze what went wrong. They'll help to eliminate a he-said-she-said situation where both drivers feel that the other is at fault.
Insurance companies should push to include a GPS system so that a car can be recovered in the event of theft... but make sure that said device is mig-welded to that car. What would be the point if a knowledgeable car thief knew where this box was, and could just rip it out. This would result in less theft claims... and could perhaps help eliminate fraud.
All web browsers suck. I don't care which platform you're on.
:(
It's 2002 now... and the web, moreovere, webbrowsers, have had over five years to mature. Yet there isn't a single browser out there that is a respectful mix of standards-based compatiblity, ease of use, and speed. Why?
Don't feed me that line that you can't have everything in one package because once you add-in all of the features, things must slow down. Phooey. We can get Quake to run @ 92837423947fps, but can't get a kickass browser in the market. WTF is *that* all about?
And looking upon the IE alternatives...
-Netscape 6.2? Get real. I would probably look upon it more favorably if it were coded to take advantage of Quartz/Aqua & Carbon/Cocoa in OSX. I'd also like to mention that its scrolling bar is *way* too narrow...
-OmniWeb? They want me to pay them ~$30 for an incomplete browser... yah right. Try fixing your java & CSS support, guys.
-Opera? You're kidding right? It's in the same class as Omni, if you ask me.
-IE? It has wronfully become the litimus test for web-development. Yet... is a necessary evil. The majority of browsers out there are IE. Why wouldn't your site be geared towards it?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again... the *ONLY* competition IE has is Netscape.
What really boggles my mind is that this likes to render in a variety of ways depending on which os, browser, and platform you use. That to me is just pathetic.
Stupid as this sounds... I'd rather build a webpage based on PDF. Then I'd at least know it would look the same no matter where it loaded. And would scale so it wouldn't be tethered to a set screen resolution.
Top Three Guaranteed ways to earn unwarranted karma:
~#3~
"MTV (TRL) / VH1(Top20) contribute to the downward spiral the industry is in..."
The last time I checked, Viacom didn't own any record labels. For being such an integral part of the devolution of music, they aren't that attached to it.
~#2~
"... the music industry only offers pre-selected artists... making a mockery of the whole system..."
The record labels can use their marketing muscle to promote the hell out of an artist, but if music listeners (consumers) deem the music to be bad, no amount of marketing can keep said artist in the limelight for too long. Artists may artificially be placed at the top, but without sales & popularity, they don't stick around.
~#1~
"...the music out there today sucks... no wonder music sales aren't stellar anymore..."
Easy to say when you think myopically. Yet, Slashdotters like to mod this kind of trite comment up. Why? I have yet to figure this out. This sort of comment is simply a stab at the mainstream, spoken from someone high upon a perch of musical elitism.
Typical American cheering for the underdog... until the underdog gets too popular. (insert eye-roll here)
Is the whole time-shifing issue. the "piracy" issue.
:P
It's a non-issue.
What broadcasters need to come to grips with here is that when something is BROADCASTED... to several MILLION people... you've just distributed your PRODUCT for FREE.
I don't care how you try to justify it through an advertizing formula... the END USER gets NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox for free. After you buy the TV, that is...
It really pisses me off to read about NBC, CBS, ABC, et al all upset over the VCR... and now more recently PVRs... when they all refuse to aknowledge this simple fact... If they broadcast it... and I have the means to watch it... I have every right to do with it how I please.
Newspapers are out and about... have been for centuries. They aren't trying to force you to buy special goggles to read the daily.
Why should TV be so fucking special?