I made a similar mistake once trying to load Barnes And Noble's website where I typed in barnesNnoble.com. The woman in the photo definitely WASN'T reading a book! This wasn't at a presentation, luckily, but unfortunately I was new at my job and obviously didn't want my boss to walk in and see this on my screen. Also, unfortunately, these were the days before pop-up blockers so every window I closed opened another window with another woman-not-reading. Finally, I managed to close one of the windows before it got the JavaScript onunload code processed.
(BTW, you can't replicate this now as, some years back, Barnes and Noble got a hold of the BarnesnNoble.com domain name.)
"The slide came in so fast that half the people in the room were laying on the floor bleeding before we could react. And then the embedded video started.... Oh, god!!! The video!!!!!" *collapses sobbing*
I'm counting the people who began showing symptoms while in the US but who actually caught it abroad. You're right, though, calling this a "crisis" looks even more ridiculous when you notice that only 2 people have caught it while in the US and those two people were closely working with someone who clearly had Ebola.
So if you're going to an area where Ebola is running rampant? Be very concerned and take all available precautions. If you're treating someone who clearly has Ebola? Be very concerned and take all available precautions. If you're Joe Citizen walking down the street? Don't be worried about Ebola (despite the politicians foaming at the mouth about it or the media trying to whip up a panic over it) and go about your business.
In addition, working on an open source project could be a resume-booster both in where you have worked (3 years at Firm X, 4 years at Company Y, and 5 years contributing to Popular Open Source Project Z) and what skills you have (using an up-to-date technology on the open source project while your day job still is stuck on OLDER_TECHNOLOGY).
Except that some companies seem to be bringing Indian workers to the US with promises of high paying (for India, at least) jobs. When they get here, the jobs mysteriously aren't there and they are put in houses with a bunch of other guys until a job arises. They are told not to leave the house for anything (food is brought to them) and they are kept from returning home. (One guy needed to return home to see his dying father and they denied him this.) The companies might be fined for their actions, but clearly they don't care because they pay the fine and keep on doing what they've been doing.
I don't care how much "better" the job that these workers may eventually get is, they are human beings and shouldn't be treated like product stock, stuffed in a "storage room" until needed.
The bible distinguishes between 'The Lord' and 'God'
The reason for this is much more mundane. In the original Hebrew, God has many names depending on whether God is being referred to as someone who judges sins, as merciful, etc. These don't all translate perfectly from Hebrew to English so sometimes "Lord" is used and sometimes "God" is used - depending on the translation. No need to bring in space aliens and further complicate matters when a simple translation explanation will do.
Sadly, even with these tactics you can't win. Ken Ham and folks like him are so wrapped up in their own world that they can trot out every last little Biblical quote and theologian's opinion that supports them. Never argue crazy with a crazy man. Some people can be convinced and should be taught. Others won't ever be convinced by anything and should just be ignored (or fought against if they try to foist their beliefs on others).
By that measure, you could never win in a debate against Ham. He admitted it himself. They were both asked what it would take for them to accept the other's opinion. Bill Nye replied evidence. Lots of evidence would be needed, of course, but theoretically it could be done. (You could start by finding bunny remains where T-Rex should be. Or an apatosaurus that lived only 5,000 years ago.) Ken Ham, meanwhile, replied that nothing would change his mind. You could pull up a mound of evidence the size of Mount Everest and compare it to the mound of his "evidence" the size of an anthill he would still insist that he was right.
You can't "win" a debate against someone like that. In fact, there was no real point to the entire thing except for raising money and publicity for Ken Ham.
We're talking about people who think the bible is literal truth when it comes to Genesis. However, when it comes to how Jesus acted and said how to act, they make up different rules to rationalize their actions.
It doesn't matter if you and I think the Biblical accounts of Jesus are true. If they say the Bible is literally true, they can't then decide that Jesus really meant Y when he said X.
In this case, the "solution" to the throttling was to get a non-unlimited plan. In the "pulled over for speeding" analogy, this would be like two cars driving down the road at the same speed. One car is pulled over because he didn't pay as much to the Police Benevolent Association.
I doubt Ello would do anything as crass as to let you spam thousands of random strangers. However, in most social networking sites such as Facebook, you cannot even mass-message thousands of people who are in your Facebook friends list. That's the kind of feature that some Facebook users, and some Ello users, would presumably be willing to pay for.
On Twitter, this "feature" is known as a Promoted Tweet. You pay Twitter some money and they put your tweet at the top of a bunch of people's feeds regardless of whether this person follows you or not. I've seen promoted tweets appear in my stream for entities whose philosophies I completely disagree with but they appear there because they paid Twitter money. This might be a way that Ello could get by the "no advertising" rule - just redefine what is an "ad." i.e. "We're never going to show banner ads. This is just a message for a product/service/company that we were paid to put at the top of everyone's feeds. That's COMPLETELY different than showing you an ad!"
(I actually signed up for Ello but only to reserve my commonly used pseudonym. Since my sign-up, I haven't used it at all.)
I love when stores ask me to sign up for their store-brand credit cards for X% off my purchase: "No thanks, my credit is frozen thanks to being an identity theft victim."
The responses to this are very telling. You have the script readers who are just repeating what they were trained to say - these people don't know how to respond to this because it isn't in the script. Then you have the people who actually get interested and will ask you questions about what happened or express sympathies for what you went through.
As a victim of identity theft, I definitely WON'T be giving CurrentC my SSN, driver's license number, and direct access to my bank account. All that's left for identity theft to take place is to tie your date of birth in there somewhere. (Perhaps as proof that you're a certain age.)
I'm sure they'll get some suckers to use the system and will file some press released about how fantastic uptake has been (massaging the stats to make it look great), but unless they make some radical changes this will die a painful death. The only question is: What will happen first? Will they kill it or will it get hacked exposing all of these peoples' information and bank accounts to some malicious individuals?
If there weren't laws in place forcing them to indemnify/limit the customer exposer against fraud, do you think they would bother?
I don't think any corporation would. Hence why strong consumer protections are a great thing.
And some corporations will actively work against the fraud victim to protect themselves. When my identity was stolen, the thieves opened a Capital One credit card in my name. Through a fluke (they paid for rush delivery of the card and THEN changed the address), it wound up at my house instead of to them. When I called Capital One to report it, they first insinuated that my wife might have opened it in my name without telling me. (Their reasoning? A woman called claiming to be me and asking for a $5,000 cash advance on the non-activated card. Not suspicious at all!) When it became clear that it really *was* fraud, they agreed to close the card out but refused to give me any details about the account, like the address that the people changed the account to. (According to them, they'd be liable if I went there and did something to those people.) They even gave the police the run-around by insisting they call a voice mail line that was never answered.
Now imagine if they didn't NEED to, by law, close that account. The thieves could request another card, get it delivered to them, and have a blast running up a tab on my credit file. Since closing the account would "hurt" their business (one less credit card active), I'm sure they would have loved to have just kept it open regardless of whether it was fraudulent or not.
Between that and my credit agency experiences, having my identity stolen quickly showed me that these two types of companies care only about making money for themselves and care exactly 0% about the people who might be impacted by their quest for more money.
I'll third the ATM-not-debit card. My bank "helpfully" sent me a debit card. I told them to send me another one that was ATM-only.
When I pay for something using plastic, I use my credit card. The worst that can happen there is thieves get my number, run up my balance, and my card is rejected. As soon as I spot the fraudulent charges, my credit card company will - by law- reverse them. I believe the law states that I'm liable for the first $50 at most, but I don't know of any credit card companies that actually hold to that. Even if they did, paying $50 would be better than having your bank account emptied because some low life got your debit card.
Side note: I also pay my credit card bills in full every month. Something I'm sure the credit card companies hate since I don't incur any late payment fees. I never put more on my card than I can afford to pay. The credit card is just a convenient stand in for taking money out of my bank account - not a magical get-everything-you-ever-wanted-for-free pass.
We see this response in other areas - such as the Ebola "crisis" also. So far around 9 people in the US have come down with Ebola. In all cases, the people were working closely with people with Ebola. So far, none of the Ebola victims' friends, family, or random people on the street that they bumped into have gotten Ebola. Any yet, many people are acting like it is the zombie apocalypse. Did that man just sneeze? Does he have the Ebola? I feel a little warm, I must be coming down with Ebola!
Politicians looking to use fear to secure themselves more political power and media outlets who use fear to get more viewers are just exasperating the issue.
Jokes aside, that was the intent of the terrorists - to scare us and make us afraid of them.
Unfortunately for them, we wouldn't have been afraid (for long) with just the one attack on 9-11. Fortunately for them (and unfortunately for us), the government and media has latched onto the whole "scare the people" routine and are playing it for all it's worth.
My father likes to tell the story of his and my mother's honeymoon. The whole thing was a disaster (my mother ended up with an injured neck during a hike). When their return flight was rerouted to another city entirely, my father had enough and loudly complained to a flight attendant about his wife's injured neck. The plane landed but didn't go to the hanger. Instead, the plane was surrounded and people boarded the plane, came to him, and asked if they were the ones who needed medical attention. As they left the plane, my father whispered to my mother "I guess they found the bomb."
Turns out a passenger heard this and reported it. When my parents went to collect their checked baggage, they found it on one side in chains. After the "bomb threat" and luggage turning up that nobody claimed (my parents having gone right to the hospital), the police suspected their suitcase of containing a bomb. After examining it, they let him go with his luggage. Nowadays, he'd probably be arrested for making a terrorist threat or would have his luggage blown up as a "preventative measure."
They might be able to survive in a competitive market, but it isn't 100% certain that they would. Plus, they would need to put more effort into improving service (both speeds and customer service) and prices would be forced down. Why do all that when you can just buy... I mean, lobby politicians to set the rules such that you are the only service provider in the area. You and your fellow mob bosses... I mean, big telecoms can divide up the country into territories so everyone can keep from competing anywhere. Finally, any upstarts that threaten to change the status quo can be sued into oblivion by your lawyers. That's so much better than actually competing - providing you are a big telecom and not a customer.
And if you think I'm joking, they were looking into making the seats some sort of glorified thin bench with a back instead of the seats they have today. Sure they would be so hard to sit in that the current seats would look like the height of comfort, but the airlines would save a few bucks. (Don't worry, though. Ticket prices won't go down.)
I don't have a fear of heights, but I do have a fear of falling. I'm fine looking out of a 20 story window but a 2nd floor balcony terrifies me. During flights I'm fine. Looking out the window might as well be looking at a screen showing the view of the Earth from above the clouds. It's during takeoff and landing that my fears kick in. When we're rising up or dropping down my brain keeps screaming "This shouldn't be happening! We're going to crash!!!!"
If your house crashes to the ground, chances are it was thrown around by a tornado. On the upside, you'll squash and evil witch and get to follow a yellow brick road while having some weird adventures.
Slashdot Mirror
I made a similar mistake once trying to load Barnes And Noble's website where I typed in barnesNnoble.com. The woman in the photo definitely WASN'T reading a book! This wasn't at a presentation, luckily, but unfortunately I was new at my job and obviously didn't want my boss to walk in and see this on my screen. Also, unfortunately, these were the days before pop-up blockers so every window I closed opened another window with another woman-not-reading. Finally, I managed to close one of the windows before it got the JavaScript onunload code processed.
(BTW, you can't replicate this now as, some years back, Barnes and Noble got a hold of the BarnesnNoble.com domain name.)
Weaponized PowerPoint?
"The slide came in so fast that half the people in the room were laying on the floor bleeding before we could react. And then the embedded video started.... Oh, god!!! The video!!!!!" *collapses sobbing*
I'm counting the people who began showing symptoms while in the US but who actually caught it abroad. You're right, though, calling this a "crisis" looks even more ridiculous when you notice that only 2 people have caught it while in the US and those two people were closely working with someone who clearly had Ebola.
So if you're going to an area where Ebola is running rampant? Be very concerned and take all available precautions.
If you're treating someone who clearly has Ebola? Be very concerned and take all available precautions.
If you're Joe Citizen walking down the street? Don't be worried about Ebola (despite the politicians foaming at the mouth about it or the media trying to whip up a panic over it) and go about your business.
In addition, working on an open source project could be a resume-booster both in where you have worked (3 years at Firm X, 4 years at Company Y, and 5 years contributing to Popular Open Source Project Z) and what skills you have (using an up-to-date technology on the open source project while your day job still is stuck on OLDER_TECHNOLOGY).
Except that some companies seem to be bringing Indian workers to the US with promises of high paying (for India, at least) jobs. When they get here, the jobs mysteriously aren't there and they are put in houses with a bunch of other guys until a job arises. They are told not to leave the house for anything (food is brought to them) and they are kept from returning home. (One guy needed to return home to see his dying father and they denied him this.) The companies might be fined for their actions, but clearly they don't care because they pay the fine and keep on doing what they've been doing.
I don't care how much "better" the job that these workers may eventually get is, they are human beings and shouldn't be treated like product stock, stuffed in a "storage room" until needed.
And "Adonai", in turn, is spoken as Hashem (literally "The Name") whenever it isn't used in prayer.
If you were saying the prayer over bread, you'd say:
Baruch atah Adonai, elohainu melech ha'olom hamotzi melech min ha'aretz.
If you were just reading the same prayer (but weren't about to actually eat bread), you'd say:
Baruch atah Hashem, elohainu melech ha'olom hamotzi melech min ha'aretz.
The reason for this is much more mundane. In the original Hebrew, God has many names depending on whether God is being referred to as someone who judges sins, as merciful, etc. These don't all translate perfectly from Hebrew to English so sometimes "Lord" is used and sometimes "God" is used - depending on the translation. No need to bring in space aliens and further complicate matters when a simple translation explanation will do.
Sadly, even with these tactics you can't win. Ken Ham and folks like him are so wrapped up in their own world that they can trot out every last little Biblical quote and theologian's opinion that supports them. Never argue crazy with a crazy man. Some people can be convinced and should be taught. Others won't ever be convinced by anything and should just be ignored (or fought against if they try to foist their beliefs on others).
By that measure, you could never win in a debate against Ham. He admitted it himself. They were both asked what it would take for them to accept the other's opinion. Bill Nye replied evidence. Lots of evidence would be needed, of course, but theoretically it could be done. (You could start by finding bunny remains where T-Rex should be. Or an apatosaurus that lived only 5,000 years ago.) Ken Ham, meanwhile, replied that nothing would change his mind. You could pull up a mound of evidence the size of Mount Everest and compare it to the mound of his "evidence" the size of an anthill he would still insist that he was right.
You can't "win" a debate against someone like that. In fact, there was no real point to the entire thing except for raising money and publicity for Ken Ham.
We're talking about people who think the bible is literal truth when it comes to Genesis. However, when it comes to how Jesus acted and said how to act, they make up different rules to rationalize their actions.
It doesn't matter if you and I think the Biblical accounts of Jesus are true. If they say the Bible is literally true, they can't then decide that Jesus really meant Y when he said X.
In this case, the "solution" to the throttling was to get a non-unlimited plan. In the "pulled over for speeding" analogy, this would be like two cars driving down the road at the same speed. One car is pulled over because he didn't pay as much to the Police Benevolent Association.
On Twitter, this "feature" is known as a Promoted Tweet. You pay Twitter some money and they put your tweet at the top of a bunch of people's feeds regardless of whether this person follows you or not. I've seen promoted tweets appear in my stream for entities whose philosophies I completely disagree with but they appear there because they paid Twitter money. This might be a way that Ello could get by the "no advertising" rule - just redefine what is an "ad." i.e. "We're never going to show banner ads. This is just a message for a product/service/company that we were paid to put at the top of everyone's feeds. That's COMPLETELY different than showing you an ad!"
(I actually signed up for Ello but only to reserve my commonly used pseudonym. Since my sign-up, I haven't used it at all.)
I love when stores ask me to sign up for their store-brand credit cards for X% off my purchase: "No thanks, my credit is frozen thanks to being an identity theft victim."
The responses to this are very telling. You have the script readers who are just repeating what they were trained to say - these people don't know how to respond to this because it isn't in the script. Then you have the people who actually get interested and will ask you questions about what happened or express sympathies for what you went through.
It's better than a debit card because it gives the merchants tons of information on you whereas a debit card doesn't.
Oh, you meant better for you, not them...
As a victim of identity theft, I definitely WON'T be giving CurrentC my SSN, driver's license number, and direct access to my bank account. All that's left for identity theft to take place is to tie your date of birth in there somewhere. (Perhaps as proof that you're a certain age.)
I'm sure they'll get some suckers to use the system and will file some press released about how fantastic uptake has been (massaging the stats to make it look great), but unless they make some radical changes this will die a painful death. The only question is: What will happen first? Will they kill it or will it get hacked exposing all of these peoples' information and bank accounts to some malicious individuals?
And some corporations will actively work against the fraud victim to protect themselves. When my identity was stolen, the thieves opened a Capital One credit card in my name. Through a fluke (they paid for rush delivery of the card and THEN changed the address), it wound up at my house instead of to them. When I called Capital One to report it, they first insinuated that my wife might have opened it in my name without telling me. (Their reasoning? A woman called claiming to be me and asking for a $5,000 cash advance on the non-activated card. Not suspicious at all!) When it became clear that it really *was* fraud, they agreed to close the card out but refused to give me any details about the account, like the address that the people changed the account to. (According to them, they'd be liable if I went there and did something to those people.) They even gave the police the run-around by insisting they call a voice mail line that was never answered.
Now imagine if they didn't NEED to, by law, close that account. The thieves could request another card, get it delivered to them, and have a blast running up a tab on my credit file. Since closing the account would "hurt" their business (one less credit card active), I'm sure they would have loved to have just kept it open regardless of whether it was fraudulent or not.
Between that and my credit agency experiences, having my identity stolen quickly showed me that these two types of companies care only about making money for themselves and care exactly 0% about the people who might be impacted by their quest for more money.
I'll third the ATM-not-debit card. My bank "helpfully" sent me a debit card. I told them to send me another one that was ATM-only.
When I pay for something using plastic, I use my credit card. The worst that can happen there is thieves get my number, run up my balance, and my card is rejected. As soon as I spot the fraudulent charges, my credit card company will - by law- reverse them. I believe the law states that I'm liable for the first $50 at most, but I don't know of any credit card companies that actually hold to that. Even if they did, paying $50 would be better than having your bank account emptied because some low life got your debit card.
Side note: I also pay my credit card bills in full every month. Something I'm sure the credit card companies hate since I don't incur any late payment fees. I never put more on my card than I can afford to pay. The credit card is just a convenient stand in for taking money out of my bank account - not a magical get-everything-you-ever-wanted-for-free pass.
We see this response in other areas - such as the Ebola "crisis" also. So far around 9 people in the US have come down with Ebola. In all cases, the people were working closely with people with Ebola. So far, none of the Ebola victims' friends, family, or random people on the street that they bumped into have gotten Ebola. Any yet, many people are acting like it is the zombie apocalypse. Did that man just sneeze? Does he have the Ebola? I feel a little warm, I must be coming down with Ebola!
Politicians looking to use fear to secure themselves more political power and media outlets who use fear to get more viewers are just exasperating the issue.
Yes, but is it open source? I refuse to use any closed source terror.
Jokes aside, that was the intent of the terrorists - to scare us and make us afraid of them.
Unfortunately for them, we wouldn't have been afraid (for long) with just the one attack on 9-11. Fortunately for them (and unfortunately for us), the government and media has latched onto the whole "scare the people" routine and are playing it for all it's worth.
My father likes to tell the story of his and my mother's honeymoon. The whole thing was a disaster (my mother ended up with an injured neck during a hike). When their return flight was rerouted to another city entirely, my father had enough and loudly complained to a flight attendant about his wife's injured neck. The plane landed but didn't go to the hanger. Instead, the plane was surrounded and people boarded the plane, came to him, and asked if they were the ones who needed medical attention. As they left the plane, my father whispered to my mother "I guess they found the bomb."
Turns out a passenger heard this and reported it. When my parents went to collect their checked baggage, they found it on one side in chains. After the "bomb threat" and luggage turning up that nobody claimed (my parents having gone right to the hospital), the police suspected their suitcase of containing a bomb. After examining it, they let him go with his luggage. Nowadays, he'd probably be arrested for making a terrorist threat or would have his luggage blown up as a "preventative measure."
They might be able to survive in a competitive market, but it isn't 100% certain that they would. Plus, they would need to put more effort into improving service (both speeds and customer service) and prices would be forced down. Why do all that when you can just buy... I mean, lobby politicians to set the rules such that you are the only service provider in the area. You and your fellow mob bosses... I mean, big telecoms can divide up the country into territories so everyone can keep from competing anywhere. Finally, any upstarts that threaten to change the status quo can be sued into oblivion by your lawyers. That's so much better than actually competing - providing you are a big telecom and not a customer.
Next up: Seats themselves.
And if you think I'm joking, they were looking into making the seats some sort of glorified thin bench with a back instead of the seats they have today. Sure they would be so hard to sit in that the current seats would look like the height of comfort, but the airlines would save a few bucks. (Don't worry, though. Ticket prices won't go down.)
I don't have a fear of heights, but I do have a fear of falling. I'm fine looking out of a 20 story window but a 2nd floor balcony terrifies me. During flights I'm fine. Looking out the window might as well be looking at a screen showing the view of the Earth from above the clouds. It's during takeoff and landing that my fears kick in. When we're rising up or dropping down my brain keeps screaming "This shouldn't be happening! We're going to crash!!!!"
If your house crashes to the ground, chances are it was thrown around by a tornado. On the upside, you'll squash and evil witch and get to follow a yellow brick road while having some weird adventures.