I hired a contracting firm to level my house. They screwed it all up and cracked the slab. This was a well-known national company. They said it wasn't their fault and they weren't going to pay to fix it. I had pictures before and after and gave them 48 hours to agree to help fix the situation. They blew me off.
So I acquired the domain (companyname)sucks.com and put up a before-and-after set of pictures along with my side of the story.
24 hours later, they agreed to settle with me. I paid them $6000 for their work. They gave me over $14,000 as part of the settlement and maintained the guarantee on their work.
I know these days people think that "nobody cares" and for the most part, I agree. But part of this has to do with many companies who have factored customer laziness and unwillingness to protest into their business model. I refuse to let crappy contractors or other businesses get the better of me, and if more people did this, these companies wouldn't get away with the stuff they do.
So if someone screws you over, give them every chance to fix the situation. If they still don't, feel free to tell everyone that you think they suck. Which reminds me, I got screwed over by this company in Arkansas: Big Impressions - and I will never do business with them again. And until they resolve my situation, I'll make it public I think they're sleazebags until the end of time.
Darl McBride, chief executive of SCO Group Inc., says he sometimes carries a gun because his enemies are out to kill him.
If this isn't proof-positive that this guy is a few meg short of a gig, I don't know what is.
Nobody wants to kill McBride. He's doing a pretty good job of destroying himself.
SCO is like an infinte loop. We're just waiting for their resources to get eaten at which point we'll all roast marshmellows over their core dump.
McBride and SCO are more hated than Microsoft
Ok, let's not get carried away here. SCO's antics, while reprehensible and immoral, are nowhere near as threatening to the future of open source as Microsoft's. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not getting bombarded on a daily basis from worm-infected SCO machines. Microsoft has that dubious distinction and therefore deserves top honors.
I wish I had something inciteful to say, but I don't. However, I have to jump at the chance to type, "exegesis". It's just such a cool word. I wonder how long it will be before Fox News claims they own it.
You couldn't pick a better name for such a utility.
I don't have a "TV". I have "Tivo". People who get Tivo instantly change their viewing habits, bypassing all the tons of crap and commercials that they're bombarded with. It's so profound, it's not considered "television". The TV and Cable channels have such a high signal-to-noise ratio that they're not worth watching any more.
Now if this broadcast flag starts to affect Tivo, that could be a problem. But I imagine people will find a way to hack Tivos to bypass it anyway.
Have you noticed, there are so many commercials now that when you return from a commercial break, quite often the show gives you a recap of the last few scenes you viewed before the commercials? Is that crazy or what? I never noticed this until I was able to skip over the commercials.
So I wonder, when a show aires on a particular channel at a particular time, is the MPAA claiming that this program is only licensed to be viewed at that exact moment on that exact channel? Doesn't "FAIR USE" come into play for consumers?
Yahoo turned into a mafia site several years ago when they started charging people for listings in their directory, and then would reject sites if they were listed in other categories (after you paid a hefty non-refundable fee). Screw 'em. I sold off my stock a long time ago and don't expect them to go anywhere. It's too little, too late. Let's hope that Google doesn't get so mercinary that they blow their market share like Yahoo did.
Yahoo is dead. They have a decent mail service which everyone uses to hide their identity while they troll for mistresses online, but other than that, the site is useless.
Ok, this guy wants to exploit 911 for a game? Let's all jump on the bandwagon. Abstract strategy-oriented games seem so passe now, let's just create more reactive flinchers... Here are some ideas:
* SUV Gauntlet - Negotiate your Honda/Toyota through city streets crowded with sun-blocking SUVs to get to the gas station before all the fuel is gone. (Think Spy Hunter with the Zepplin music that Cadillac has now stolen)
* Airport Confiscation - Monitor a moving X-Ray belt scoring points for removing any useful object that could be used as a weapon. (Think Tapper)
* Neo-Conservative Invasion - Hoards of self-righteous republicans try to stop you from getting to the voting booth. (Think Robotron with patriotic music, the "brain wave" would be little Ashcrofts using Patriot missles)
* Legend of Ronco - Navigate through an old Chinese warehouse assembling the missing pieces to put together the next big infomercial product.
* Hurrydating Man - Avoid rejection as you move through a maze inhabited by bitter 30-something women. Watch out for the pet cats! (Think Bezerk with music by Kenny G)
* Grand Theft Cable - Avoid police as you wire the neighborhood with free cable TV.
* Store Wars - Score big points for invading rural towns and driving small shopowners out of business.
* Pedestrian - An update to the classic Frogger game where you try to cross an American street without getting run over.
* THC Scavenger Hunt - Frantically search an apartment for your pot after you forgot where you stashed it the previous night.
Sure, you can infect RSS feeds with advertisements. Feel free. RSS is a whitelisted service where sites choose which sources they want to feature. You put ads in your feed, you get blacklisted. Feel free. It will help us separate the sleazebags from the honorable sources of information.
I saw somewhere that the next MS OS has antivirus software built in. Is this a Symantec product? If so, that explains their position, if not, then Symantec's comments seem akin to suicide.
Is it possible that articles like this are a setup to set the stage for taking action, not against hackers, but web sites and publishing companies that divulge information on system vulnerabilities?
This is the one argument that seems to make sense out of Microsoft's goofy statements. If they establish the impression that publishing vulnerabilities is the key factor in creating problems, they can go after their critics as the cause, instead of tracking down the actual hackers.
"It's a myth that hackers find the holes," said Nigel Beighton, who runs a research project for security firm Symantec that attempts to predict which vulnerabilities will be exploited next.
I find it kind of weird that Symantec is backing Microsoft up on this goofy propaganda. You'd think, since they are in the business of protecting peoples' computers, they wouldn't make such a ridiculously stupid statement.
I've dealt with at least a dozen major VC firms in the last 15 years. I'm not maligning them. Don't act so insecure, reactive or defensive. Whatever issues you have aren't relative to this discussion. I never blamed VCs in the first place so pay attention Mr. Yippie.
The problem is GREED and lack of common sense. Kind of like the same lack of common sense that leads someone such as yourself to say "utter hippie bullshit". Let me fill you in on another hippie BS concept: RTFM before you go off defending something that wasn't the object of the discussion in the first place.
Before putting MP3.com on the level of the Phantom Game Console (saying the CEOs are crooks only trying to exploit venture capitol), you should look at what they are doing
Ha ha. Someone exploiting venture capitalists? That's like a dog trying to exploit Purina. VCs are in the risk business and are all about exploitation.
MP3.COM is not necessarily the best example of the dot-com-ponzi-scheme, but it still applies. Like most of the early dot-coms, someone has what appears to be a good idea, but somewhere along the way, the "financial types" take over and morph the company from an honest venture into a shell company for living the high life. This is what happened to MP3.com as well as most of the others.
Interestingly enough, I purchased a rackmount server from eBay a few years back and was quite amused to find the tag, "property of etoys.com" on it. A nice artifact from the era of dot-com-greed, where tech people were promised hummers and videogames in return for playing alone with crooked, greedy financial vultures.
I don't have any doubt there were some sincere principals involved in MP3.com early on, but they sold their souls to corporate greed. I can't say that it's evil to do so; it's more sad than anything else because that's the way you cross to the "next level" in the big business world unfortunately. What is most appalling about the dot-com boom is how many people suspended their common sense.
People don't realize that most of the early dot coms were basically Ponzi Schemes.
You look at these pictures of perverse excess and luxury that seemingly had little to do with their business model but you are ignoring the fact that "appearing" to be wildly successful to the point of wasteful spending was THE most substantive part of these companies' business models.
The scheme involved inflating the value and impression of the company long enough to snag another greedy investor or corporation and then hand the mess off to them. It was inevitable that at some point, the pyramid scheme would collapse in on itself. The trick is to just make sure you get out before it does, or more appropriately, make sure you're not stupid enough to let your sense of greed lull you into believing any of these people know what they're doing.
When I see things like this, it makes it a lot easier for me to live with myself knowing that while I could have over-hyped my dot-com and made a bundle, it was not the right thing to do, even though I admit that any individual or company dumb enough to purchase or pump capital into a business with no tangible revenue stream deserves to get ripped off.
If the advertisers don't get any responses, they won't use that spammer again.
Look at most of the things spammers are promoting. It's obvious many of them are working on a "commission" basis with loan offers and affiliate things for online med companies, etc. They don't get paid in advance. If they get ONE SINGLE sale, it makes things worth it because they steal other peoples' bandwidth and do little more than press a few buttons. The crime is stealing bandwidth; trying to stop people from being stupid and purchasing penis enlargement pills would be a total waste of time.
There's absolutly no evidence to support that. In all likelihoood, better filtering = more spam. Filtering does little to discourage spamming; if anything it promotes more sophisticated spamming methods.
At least in America, we have this neat thing called the Fair Credit Billing Act. It protects us from unauthorized charges. It doesn't work very well with ATM and Debit cards unfortunately, so the smart consumer does NOT use ATM or Debit cards (or does so very sparingly). Banks are heavily pushing ATM and Debit cards when they are unquestionably in the consumers' worst interests. When you are a victim of a fraudulent charge with an ATM or debit card, the burden is on you to seek justice in order to collect your lost money. With traditional credit cards (at least in the U.S.) the burden is on the merchant - if they can't prove it's a legit transaction, you don't have to pay - BIG DIFFERENCE. Most consumers don't know that the "fraud protection" most credit card companies promote is actually mandated by Federal Law.
The moral of this story: Don't use ATM and Debit cards. Use a traditional credit/charge card and you are much better protected in cases of fraud.
As an ISP that has to try to do my best to provide my clients with "spam free" e-mail, I have to pass these costs onto the clients, whether they're in the form of charges for additional bandwidth or ineffective server-side filtering systems.
When you filter e-mail at the client or server side based on content, the spammers have no idea that their efforts are truly ineffective. At least RBLs send them a message. Content-based filtering is TOTALLY, TOTALLY ineffective. Yea, it makes the spam go away for a short period, but adds the burden of having to deal with legitimate mail being blocked and you still have to waste 70+% of resources you wouldn't normally need to handle legitimate e-mail. When you're not managing systems that are constantly under attack, you might not realize what a complete fucking mess it is.
On any given day, I have at least 20-30 probes and attempts to DOS my open ports into breaking down and giving these spammers some form of access. I'm having to build new systems to handle the existing load, not because my clients' need more resources, but the spammers progressively eat up more and more system resources. E-mail IS an almost-instanteous communication medium. BUT, because of spammers, it no longer is in many cases, especially with larger ISPs. The spammers, because the authorities won't shut them down, are screwing everything up and content-based filtering is something they LOVE because it's completely ineffective in the long run.
client/server-side filtering does NOT solve the problem!
The biggest problem with spam is the invasion of third party computers on the Internet. The ILLEGAL activity spammers perpetrate by breaking into machines, forging headers and hijacking servers.
Any filtering method does not address this most serious problem, and even if you do not see any spam in your inbox, you're still paying for the bandwidth and system resources these spammers steal.
Stop with the filtering algorhythms and take some of that energy and contact your local Attorney General, DA and FBI and demand that they prosecute these people who are BREAKING THE LAW.
I'm sure many here know what I'm talking about. Having done tech support for many years, I noticed that I started to develop a certain tone in my voice, a subtle condescending ring to statements when I would try to help a customer, for example, who claimed to have a problem, and noted there was an 'error message' but didn't think the actual error message was worth remembering. In these situations, it's SO hard to not just want to call the customer a complete idiot. Many help desk people have this recurring frustration which eventually leads to the classic "computer nerd arrogance". What can you do about it? I noticed that I started carrying this tone into other conversations and it was getting very annoying. Unfortunately, the condescending approach to dealing with many problem users ended up being very effective in making them aware that much of these problems could be solved themselves and that they weren't paying attention.
Eventually I got away from having to do so much tech support but to this day, I'm aware that my personality is affected by years of dealing with idiots who refused to even pay attention to the problem as it was clearly described to them.
If you're in this field, you need to be aware that this subtle personality mod can happen. It's driven home when you see skits like SNL's "Nick Burns, your company's computer guy."
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't Amex's "Blue" card supposed to have all that fancy-schmancy "fraud protection"? So much for marketing hype.
I hired a contracting firm to level my house. They screwed it all up and cracked the slab. This was a well-known national company. They said it wasn't their fault and they weren't going to pay to fix it. I had pictures before and after and gave them 48 hours to agree to help fix the situation. They blew me off.
So I acquired the domain (companyname)sucks.com and put up a before-and-after set of pictures along with my side of the story.
24 hours later, they agreed to settle with me. I paid them $6000 for their work. They gave me over $14,000 as part of the settlement and maintained the guarantee on their work.
I know these days people think that "nobody cares" and for the most part, I agree. But part of this has to do with many companies who have factored customer laziness and unwillingness to protest into their business model. I refuse to let crappy contractors or other businesses get the better of me, and if more people did this, these companies wouldn't get away with the stuff they do.
So if someone screws you over, give them every chance to fix the situation. If they still don't, feel free to tell everyone that you think they suck. Which reminds me, I got screwed over by this company in Arkansas: Big Impressions - and I will never do business with them again. And until they resolve my situation, I'll make it public I think they're sleazebags until the end of time.
Darl McBride, chief executive of SCO Group Inc., says he sometimes carries a gun because his enemies are out to kill him.
If this isn't proof-positive that this guy is a few meg short of a gig, I don't know what is.
Nobody wants to kill McBride. He's doing a pretty good job of destroying himself.
SCO is like an infinte loop. We're just waiting for their resources to get eaten at which point we'll all roast marshmellows over their core dump.
McBride and SCO are more hated than Microsoft
Ok, let's not get carried away here. SCO's antics, while reprehensible and immoral, are nowhere near as threatening to the future of open source as Microsoft's. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not getting bombarded on a daily basis from worm-infected SCO machines. Microsoft has that dubious distinction and therefore deserves top honors.
Well, if SCO says Microsoft isn't funding them, we should undoubtely put that truth in proper context with all the other truths SCO has been claiming.
I wish I had something inciteful to say, but I don't. However, I have to jump at the chance to type, "exegesis". It's just such a cool word. I wonder how long it will be before Fox News claims they own it.
You couldn't pick a better name for such a utility.
I probably mixed that up. I meant high noise-to-signal ratio. Thanks for pointing that out.
I don't have a "TV". I have "Tivo". People who get Tivo instantly change their viewing habits, bypassing all the tons of crap and commercials that they're bombarded with. It's so profound, it's not considered "television". The TV and Cable channels have such a high signal-to-noise ratio that they're not worth watching any more.
Now if this broadcast flag starts to affect Tivo, that could be a problem. But I imagine people will find a way to hack Tivos to bypass it anyway.
Have you noticed, there are so many commercials now that when you return from a commercial break, quite often the show gives you a recap of the last few scenes you viewed before the commercials? Is that crazy or what? I never noticed this until I was able to skip over the commercials.
So I wonder, when a show aires on a particular channel at a particular time, is the MPAA claiming that this program is only licensed to be viewed at that exact moment on that exact channel? Doesn't "FAIR USE" come into play for consumers?
Amen
Yahoo turned into a mafia site several years ago when they started charging people for listings in their directory, and then would reject sites if they were listed in other categories (after you paid a hefty non-refundable fee). Screw 'em. I sold off my stock a long time ago and don't expect them to go anywhere. It's too little, too late. Let's hope that Google doesn't get so mercinary that they blow their market share like Yahoo did.
Yahoo is dead. They have a decent mail service which everyone uses to hide their identity while they troll for mistresses online, but other than that, the site is useless.
Ok, this guy wants to exploit 911 for a game? Let's all jump on the bandwagon. Abstract strategy-oriented games seem so passe now, let's just create more reactive flinchers... Here are some ideas:
* SUV Gauntlet - Negotiate your Honda/Toyota through city streets crowded with sun-blocking SUVs to get to the gas station before all the fuel is gone. (Think Spy Hunter with the Zepplin music that Cadillac has now stolen)
* Airport Confiscation - Monitor a moving X-Ray belt scoring points for removing any useful object that could be used as a weapon. (Think Tapper)
* Neo-Conservative Invasion - Hoards of self-righteous republicans try to stop you from getting to the voting booth. (Think Robotron with patriotic music, the "brain wave" would be little Ashcrofts using Patriot missles)
* Legend of Ronco - Navigate through an old Chinese warehouse assembling the missing pieces to put together the next big infomercial product.
* Hurrydating Man - Avoid rejection as you move through a maze inhabited by bitter 30-something women. Watch out for the pet cats! (Think Bezerk with music by Kenny G)
* Grand Theft Cable - Avoid police as you wire the neighborhood with free cable TV.
* Store Wars - Score big points for invading rural towns and driving small shopowners out of business.
* Pedestrian - An update to the classic Frogger game where you try to cross an American street without getting run over.
* THC Scavenger Hunt - Frantically search an apartment for your pot after you forgot where you stashed it the previous night.
I'm holding out for the combo television/garbage-disposal, at which point I expect to come home and find the entire unit gone.
Sure, you can infect RSS feeds with advertisements. Feel free. RSS is a whitelisted service where sites choose which sources they want to feature. You put ads in your feed, you get blacklisted. Feel free. It will help us separate the sleazebags from the honorable sources of information.
This should make a great immunity challenge for NBC's upcoming: Survivor: Supreme Court
I saw somewhere that the next MS OS has antivirus software built in. Is this a Symantec product? If so, that explains their position, if not, then Symantec's comments seem akin to suicide.
Is it possible that articles like this are a setup to set the stage for taking action, not against hackers, but web sites and publishing companies that divulge information on system vulnerabilities?
This is the one argument that seems to make sense out of Microsoft's goofy statements. If they establish the impression that publishing vulnerabilities is the key factor in creating problems, they can go after their critics as the cause, instead of tracking down the actual hackers.
I find it kind of weird that Symantec is backing Microsoft up on this goofy propaganda. You'd think, since they are in the business of protecting peoples' computers, they wouldn't make such a ridiculously stupid statement.
What utter hippie bullshit.
I've dealt with at least a dozen major VC firms in the last 15 years. I'm not maligning them. Don't act so insecure, reactive or defensive. Whatever issues you have aren't relative to this discussion. I never blamed VCs in the first place so pay attention Mr. Yippie.
The problem is GREED and lack of common sense. Kind of like the same lack of common sense that leads someone such as yourself to say "utter hippie bullshit". Let me fill you in on another hippie BS concept: RTFM before you go off defending something that wasn't the object of the discussion in the first place.
Before putting MP3.com on the level of the Phantom Game Console (saying the CEOs are crooks only trying to exploit venture capitol), you should look at what they are doing
Ha ha. Someone exploiting venture capitalists? That's like a dog trying to exploit Purina. VCs are in the risk business and are all about exploitation.
MP3.COM is not necessarily the best example of the dot-com-ponzi-scheme, but it still applies. Like most of the early dot-coms, someone has what appears to be a good idea, but somewhere along the way, the "financial types" take over and morph the company from an honest venture into a shell company for living the high life. This is what happened to MP3.com as well as most of the others.
Interestingly enough, I purchased a rackmount server from eBay a few years back and was quite amused to find the tag, "property of etoys.com" on it. A nice artifact from the era of dot-com-greed, where tech people were promised hummers and videogames in return for playing alone with crooked, greedy financial vultures.
I don't have any doubt there were some sincere principals involved in MP3.com early on, but they sold their souls to corporate greed. I can't say that it's evil to do so; it's more sad than anything else because that's the way you cross to the "next level" in the big business world unfortunately. What is most appalling about the dot-com boom is how many people suspended their common sense.
People don't realize that most of the early dot coms were basically Ponzi Schemes.
You look at these pictures of perverse excess and luxury that seemingly had little to do with their business model but you are ignoring the fact that "appearing" to be wildly successful to the point of wasteful spending was THE most substantive part of these companies' business models.
The scheme involved inflating the value and impression of the company long enough to snag another greedy investor or corporation and then hand the mess off to them. It was inevitable that at some point, the pyramid scheme would collapse in on itself. The trick is to just make sure you get out before it does, or more appropriately, make sure you're not stupid enough to let your sense of greed lull you into believing any of these people know what they're doing.
When I see things like this, it makes it a lot easier for me to live with myself knowing that while I could have over-hyped my dot-com and made a bundle, it was not the right thing to do, even though I admit that any individual or company dumb enough to purchase or pump capital into a business with no tangible revenue stream deserves to get ripped off.
If the advertisers don't get any responses, they won't use that spammer again.
Look at most of the things spammers are promoting. It's obvious many of them are working on a "commission" basis with loan offers and affiliate things for online med companies, etc. They don't get paid in advance. If they get ONE SINGLE sale, it makes things worth it because they steal other peoples' bandwidth and do little more than press a few buttons. The crime is stealing bandwidth; trying to stop people from being stupid and purchasing penis enlargement pills would be a total waste of time.
Better filtering ~= fewer spammers
There's absolutly no evidence to support that. In all likelihoood, better filtering = more spam. Filtering does little to discourage spamming; if anything it promotes more sophisticated spamming methods.
At least in America, we have this neat thing called the Fair Credit Billing Act. It protects us from unauthorized charges. It doesn't work very well with ATM and Debit cards unfortunately, so the smart consumer does NOT use ATM or Debit cards (or does so very sparingly). Banks are heavily pushing ATM and Debit cards when they are unquestionably in the consumers' worst interests. When you are a victim of a fraudulent charge with an ATM or debit card, the burden is on you to seek justice in order to collect your lost money. With traditional credit cards (at least in the U.S.) the burden is on the merchant - if they can't prove it's a legit transaction, you don't have to pay - BIG DIFFERENCE. Most consumers don't know that the "fraud protection" most credit card companies promote is actually mandated by Federal Law.
The moral of this story: Don't use ATM and Debit cards. Use a traditional credit/charge card and you are much better protected in cases of fraud.
As an ISP that has to try to do my best to provide my clients with "spam free" e-mail, I have to pass these costs onto the clients, whether they're in the form of charges for additional bandwidth or ineffective server-side filtering systems.
When you filter e-mail at the client or server side based on content, the spammers have no idea that their efforts are truly ineffective. At least RBLs send them a message. Content-based filtering is TOTALLY, TOTALLY ineffective. Yea, it makes the spam go away for a short period, but adds the burden of having to deal with legitimate mail being blocked and you still have to waste 70+% of resources you wouldn't normally need to handle legitimate e-mail. When you're not managing systems that are constantly under attack, you might not realize what a complete fucking mess it is.
On any given day, I have at least 20-30 probes and attempts to DOS my open ports into breaking down and giving these spammers some form of access. I'm having to build new systems to handle the existing load, not because my clients' need more resources, but the spammers progressively eat up more and more system resources. E-mail IS an almost-instanteous communication medium. BUT, because of spammers, it no longer is in many cases, especially with larger ISPs. The spammers, because the authorities won't shut them down, are screwing everything up and content-based filtering is something they LOVE because it's completely ineffective in the long run.
client/server-side filtering does NOT solve the problem!
The biggest problem with spam is the invasion of third party computers on the Internet. The ILLEGAL activity spammers perpetrate by breaking into machines, forging headers and hijacking servers.
Any filtering method does not address this most serious problem, and even if you do not see any spam in your inbox, you're still paying for the bandwidth and system resources these spammers steal.
Stop with the filtering algorhythms and take some of that energy and contact your local Attorney General, DA and FBI and demand that they prosecute these people who are BREAKING THE LAW.
I'm sure many here know what I'm talking about. Having done tech support for many years, I noticed that I started to develop a certain tone in my voice, a subtle condescending ring to statements when I would try to help a customer, for example, who claimed to have a problem, and noted there was an 'error message' but didn't think the actual error message was worth remembering. In these situations, it's SO hard to not just want to call the customer a complete idiot. Many help desk people have this recurring frustration which eventually leads to the classic "computer nerd arrogance". What can you do about it? I noticed that I started carrying this tone into other conversations and it was getting very annoying. Unfortunately, the condescending approach to dealing with many problem users ended up being very effective in making them aware that much of these problems could be solved themselves and that they weren't paying attention.
Eventually I got away from having to do so much tech support but to this day, I'm aware that my personality is affected by years of dealing with idiots who refused to even pay attention to the problem as it was clearly described to them.
If you're in this field, you need to be aware that this subtle personality mod can happen. It's driven home when you see skits like SNL's "Nick Burns, your company's computer guy."