I have no ill feelings towards Geek Squad. I know many of those who work in corporate and make up the core of the company and have tremendous respect for them. They are good people. I have met Robert Stephens on several occassions and he even took me and some fellow Agents out for beer and wings. I believe he is a true visionary and an inspiration to speak with. I think Geek Squad is a fantastic company and I will always look back at my employment with pride.
My animosity is directed soley at Best Buy. I worked for Best Buy before Geek Squad and saw the slow change in the way Geek Squad was operated having joined Geek Squad so early after BB's purchase of it. I resent how Best Buy has taken a company I fiercely believed in and reproduced the worst practises I feel Best Buy employs in it.
I took this awful management class and they talked about Geek Squad like its some sort of Business miracle. We even had to watch a video where they talk about the company and its structure. Aside from their marketing they are really nothing special and time will tell on that as well.
Actually, before Best Buy sunk its venomous teeth into it, Geek Squad really was. It was started in Minneapolis almost 15 years ago by a guy (Robert Stephens) on a bike. The cars, the image, the attitude of the company was all Robert's ideas. They were doing flat-rate pricing before practically everyone and they had Agents whose technical skills would eat the lunches of everyone on Slashdot. The main Minneapolis newspaper retired the "Best Computer Support" category from their annual "Best Of" issue because Geek Squad destroyed the competition every single year. They were supporting the Rolling Stones, Ice Cube, and scores of Hollywood stars because of the phenomenal service they provided and the general counter-cultural "cool" they oozed (this was before Geeks were vogue). They really were a fine lesson in branding and customer service back then.
I had the great fortune of being one of the first Agents hired after Best Buy purchased the company. My badge number gets awed looks from other Agents as the latest hires are in the 3600s and mine is in the mid 100s. We only had about 70 Agents nationwide at that point (Agent badge numbers are never reused) and the 800-number was still staffed by technically compentent people who actually knew computer repair. I had to go through a difficult technical interview and three personal interviews before I got the job. So did everyone else at that time. No one knew who we were and we had to work fucking hard to prove ourselves to the customers. I worked with brilliant and dedicated people and only answered to the higher-ups in Geek Squad.
Fast forward 4 years to the present. Best Buy had done what every soulless corporation does with a great idea. They commodomized the shit out of it, dilluted the quality with shoddy hiring practices, and drove away the best talent by only looking at the bottom line.
They gave all the jag-offs in the store the Geek Squad uniform and made the old Tech Benches into Geek Squad precincts, even though they were staffed with the same underpaid, uneducated, and lazy "techs" that gave Best Buy such a horrible reputation for computer repair. Us old-schoolers screamed bloody murder we they made this decision 2 years ago because we knew what would happen - our great reputation would be pulled into the mud by these knuckle-draggers. Guess what? IT WAS.
I can fix just about anything, set-up any consumer electronic device to work with any computer, and expertly train anyone on about two dozen diffent software titles. Instead of doing that, I spend most of my time fixing other Agent's fuck-ups and soothing angry customers for "Customer Loyalty". Why? Because I can fix shit properly and I'm good with people. Nowadays, Best Buy store managers hire the on-site Agents and generally look for people who will do their bidding, rather than those who know computers or have demonstrable customer service skills. Most of these new guys won't spend the time to improve their skills or learn new technologies. They either restore or have me do the "hard jobs". And God forbid they should download demo software to learn so they can provide trainings.
Best Buy management has had the worst affect on Agent morale and employee retention. They focus only on scorecards, holding Agents responsible for missed budgets even though the in-store sales team is expected to generate 70% of the revenue, rewarding Agents who unnecessarily rape their customers with preposterous upselling, and generally ignore technically skilled Agents or those who provide outstanding customer service. At the corporate level, overhiring has led to hour slashing that has wiped out my last three pay raises. I'
The only thing O'Reilly seems to be a critic of is those who disagree with his opinion, particularly when it comes to respectful, reasoned, and informed discussion. The most unfair criticism of him is that he is a right-wing nut. Actually, he is a blowhard who undercuts any legitimate points he inadvertently might make with his bullying behavior and insulting dismissal of anyone who disagrees with him, no matter how correct they may be. The biggest criticism I could level at him is that he is partly responsible for the horrific decline in civilized disagreement in the US.
To sum up; there is no debate on global warming. The debate is on the details.
Sounds very similar to the recent increase in media coverage regarding the "debate" over evolution. The media's inability to grasp the arguments has less to do with complex science and more to do with increasing circulation and viewers by propping up a fabricated debate by treating the motivations of the "two sides" as equal. As with evolution, this supposed debate is actually verified science vs. entrenched interests (fundamentalist theology in evolution, economic power in global warming). The only thing the media is not understanding (perhaps willfully) is that they should not be treating this as a discussion about the science behind the issues.
My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt....
"Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.
Good thing you only sell wholesome, profanity-free music to our impressionable youth! Hate for them to hear any of that naughty language!
Thanks for the info. I've been considering this. I know nothing about competitve martial arts but I took enough martial arts in college to know it's out there and would probably be the stress relief I need at this point. Know of any good schools that have teams that perform competitively?
Strange, I always thought my violent impulses came from my bosses making ridiculous demands while constantly criticizing my performance, my company overworking me while cutting my hours to make sure our stock price doesn't drop 10 cents, my customers treating me like dirt because I have to quote prices they consider outrageous to fix the computers their little demons fucked up by downloading free music, and my SO bitching that I work too much but then complaining when I can't afford to take her out for dinner every third night.
... anyone know if there are Geek Fight Clubs in Chicago??
The moment you say Law people assume it means an absolute fact, which, in a sense, it is. However, it is still a theory in the sense that it makes a prediction and as far as we know holds true but it is only for one specific event whereas a theory describes a series of events.
Coincidentally, this is the quote of the day when I logged into Google -
"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."
The music industry is shooting themselves in the foot, once again, with these lawsuits. Conceivably, many of the people being targeted in these lawsuits are using versions of Kazaa/Limewire/iMesh for which they have paid. The more computer-illiterate among them don't know the difference between paying for an ad-free program and paying for music.
As an on-site computer technician, I've talked with many parents who didn't understand they were still taking a risk by letting their children download from Limewire Pro. They think since they paid for the program, they have paid for the music. They don't under the difference between peer-to-peer programs and legitimate music download services.
I often think that the RIAA is going to turn many novice computer users off from online purchasing altogether because they are going after the unsophisticated user who doesn't understand copyright and what constitutes a legitimate channel and what does not. If they really want to stop online piracy, they need to go after the makers of the software, not the poor people they duped into believing that they had "purchased" music.
Since you got several of the creator's wrong, you'll forgive me if I take your opinions with a grain of salt. And while those are good titles, if you think those (with the exception of "Maus") are the best offerings of the medium in the last two decades, your knowledge of comics is pretty shallow. Check out Craig Thompson's "Blankets", Chris Ware's "Jimmy Corrigan", Daniel Clowes' "Eightball" serials, Jason Lute's "Jar of Fools", Seth's "It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken", or anything done by the late, great Will Eisner for examples of transcendent comics.
This function does a document.write of an embed tag pointing to a swf file. http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/ffp.swf
Sounds like an easy solution - don't use Flash or Shockwave with Firefox. I don't have either installed with FF and I haven't had any problems with the site. If a site requires that plug-in, I just open IE to view it.
I'm one of those "incompentant (sic) know-nothings from Geek Squad" and I can say that, after 2 years of doing in-home service and racking up close to 1000 different clients in that time, customer issues will always arise but a person who knows what they are doing can ward off most of these "know-nothing" customers (notice a trend in your attitude here?) before problems begin. Like a good doctor, a good computer tech will not only cure but immunize as well. Switch their default browser to Firefox and delete their icons and shortcuts to IE. Set security defaults to appropriately high levels. Install the common plug-ins and import bookmarks and cookies so they won't see a difference in performance. Set Windows to download and install updates automatically (at 5pm not 3am). Set up auto-updating and auto-scanning with Norton and Spy Sweeper. Install a software firewall for them. Provide them with tip sheets that explain how to scan and remove spyware and viruses with that software and what online behaviors to avoid.
Ultimately, education is the key. A reasonably competent tech can talk with their clients while they work. I encourage people to ask me questions, regardless of whether or not it is related to what I am fixing. For every 10 alpha geeks I've met only 1 would have anything that approaches an end-user friendly way of talking about computers. If you can't boil down this stuff to the basics and employ analogies to help your customers understand the dangers of being online and what behaviors they need to change, then it says more about you than them. Should your doctor tell you that you are at risk for myocardial infarction due to a diet and lifestyle that will increase arterial plaque levels resulting in atherosclerosis or should he say that if you don't cut out the McDonald's and Marlboro Lights you're going to have a heart attack? And should he consider you a "know-nothing" if you can't understand the former? A lot of my customers have told me the education I provided while fixing their problems was worth the price of the service alone. But then again, I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't have to know what BIOS, chipset drivers, or non-ECC RAM means if all you want to do is surf the internet and write holiday letters in Word.
Tech skills may get your foot in the door, but customer service is what will make or break you with in-home computer repair. Diligence, patience, and understanding are necessities in this line of work and based on your post, lacking those qualities may be the reason you are doing low-level tech support making 1/5 of what you were.
And a quick note about cost. Your price most likely reflected the quality of your service - too low. We charge by the job and warranty our work for a reason: it benefits us to know our shit cold because we don't get anything extra if we don't do it right the first time or take 3 more hours than necessary to complete it. We aren't the cheapest service by far but we know what we are doing. Plus, a higher cost helps us accomodate the clueless user who has us back out a week later because they downloaded Kazaa and have pop-ups again. My customers don't get an invoice in that case, just a stern (but polite!) warning that what they did caused the problem and while this visit is a freebie, the next one will not be.
What's the end result of all of this? I look forward to my job each day, I have extremely satisfied customers, and I sleep well at night because I know my customers receive their money's worth, both in service and education. Do me a favor - stick with your support job because I know you'll just be sending more people our way.
The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of
Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so
"profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the
Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying
it as well.
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic
(absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law
(gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed)or some
variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So
we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the
rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that
once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are
leaving.
As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the
different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these
religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will
go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since
people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all
souls go to Hell.
With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of
souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of
change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order
for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of
Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase
until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in
Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes
over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman
year that, " it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and
take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number
2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has
already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has
frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is
therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existance
of a devine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting
"Oh my God."
The industry estimates the value of albums downloaded by Web surfers worldwide was between $37 million and $44 million.
The piece of information I want the most at this point is the source of these numbers. Everytime I read these articles and come across figures such as these, I smell bullshit. Are they pulling these numbers out of their arses? Is it fuzzy math? (i.e. one download equals one lost album sale) If it's the latter, I say they need to start producing *real* numbers, and not these mystical figures. IMO, claiming one lost album sale for every download is like charging a retail burglar for the MSRP value of every single item in the store, regardless of whether or not it was actually stolen.
SciFi is rerunning the entire series from the start beginning March 31, 4 or 5 days a week at midnight.
This is so fucking stupid. They could have done this for the last year in order to build up the viewership they claimed was lacking due to the show's serial storytelling. Start Season 1 running at 9pm Eastern and Season 3 at 12pm Eastern and enable people who want to watch the show to catch up! Market the hell out of it and BAM! Perhaps they could have enabled enough people to get up to speed to enjoy the final season blow-out while massively increasing viewership. The Sci-Fi channel's actions lead me to believe they wanted to bury this show all along.
This is one Sci-Fi fan they have pissed off and alienated - I'll lend my eyeballs to more deserving channels and, as others have already declared, I'll swipe all their programming off the Internet before I ever watch their channel again.
No one has this kind of trouble with cell phones, game consoles, or DVD players.
Ack, holy shit, switch jobs with me for a day! I used to think the same thing until twelve months of unemployment moved me from programming into computer/electronics repair. I work in the Services department of a major consumer electronics store and it really opened my eyes. It's not that computers are too complex; it's that some people mix with technology as well as oil does with water. Here's a short list of ID10T errors and FUBARed equipment I've seen in the last week NOT related to computers:
Removed a Compact Flash card from an Epson printer that was inserted into the PCMCIA adapter slot, without the adapter.
Had to instruct a customer that placing DVDs in shiny side down is the only way they will play, and no, it won't damage them.
Refused return of cell phone from customer who didn't understand that "Keylock" is a feature and that no, Nokia doesn't make "shitty numbers".
Removed 10 CDs from a 5-disc changer because the customer thought it would take more than five because "you stack them in some players" ("that's called a 'magazine' loader, sir").
Refused return of digital camera from customer who said zoom didn't work ("you need to switch to optical zoom, sir").
Refused return of Palm PDA with Bluetooth from customer who complained that he couldn't wirelessly connect to his home computer (he was 45 miles away).
And if I had a dollar for every person who wanted to return a cell phone because they get an occasional dropped call ("no ma'am, that's related to the service coverage, not the phone") or lost PDA data because they took the batteries out ("no sir, it's not like your 'hard drive' [read: computer]") I would have retired to Key West by now.
Someone please put a bullet in the goddamn music industry already. If the first reaction from these empty suits is fear of copyright infringement rather than excitement about new revenue channels, then they have overstayed their usefulness. Shit man, 30 or 100 hours on a single disc? The possibilities are endless.
How about the Billboard Top 100 Singles by year on a single disc. As a huge fan of 80's music, I would rather drop $50 for each disc to get the hits from '84, '85, and '86 rather than several hundred dollars on individual discs or crappy compilations that are 80% filler anyway.
How about releasing a band's entire back catalog on one of these discs, complete with liner notes, lyrics and videos for $100. The Complete Pink Floyd. The Complete Led Zepellin. The Complete Iron Maiden (no snickering).
How about releasing The Essential Tour Compilation. Take the top 25 live shows from a band's previous tour and add travel diaries, interviews, and massive picture galleries. I'd drop a c note on that.
The best part is that this will fit seemlessly into how I already use my music. I curse those stacks and stacks of CDs that take up space in my closet, no longer used because I prefer the freedom a 24x CD-RW drive, dual 100GB hard drives, and a RioVolt that plays MP3 CDs give me.
The music industry has had its collective head up its collective arse for way too long. The technology is there just begging to be used in new and interesting ways, but they're still crunching the numbers with an abacus! Give me a fair price, flush the DRM bullshit and stop calling me a fucking "pirate" and maybe I'll help save your pathetic industry.
Slashdot Mirror
My animosity is directed soley at Best Buy. I worked for Best Buy before Geek Squad and saw the slow change in the way Geek Squad was operated having joined Geek Squad so early after BB's purchase of it. I resent how Best Buy has taken a company I fiercely believed in and reproduced the worst practises I feel Best Buy employs in it.
Actually, before Best Buy sunk its venomous teeth into it, Geek Squad really was. It was started in Minneapolis almost 15 years ago by a guy (Robert Stephens) on a bike. The cars, the image, the attitude of the company was all Robert's ideas. They were doing flat-rate pricing before practically everyone and they had Agents whose technical skills would eat the lunches of everyone on Slashdot. The main Minneapolis newspaper retired the "Best Computer Support" category from their annual "Best Of" issue because Geek Squad destroyed the competition every single year. They were supporting the Rolling Stones, Ice Cube, and scores of Hollywood stars because of the phenomenal service they provided and the general counter-cultural "cool" they oozed (this was before Geeks were vogue). They really were a fine lesson in branding and customer service back then.
I had the great fortune of being one of the first Agents hired after Best Buy purchased the company. My badge number gets awed looks from other Agents as the latest hires are in the 3600s and mine is in the mid 100s. We only had about 70 Agents nationwide at that point (Agent badge numbers are never reused) and the 800-number was still staffed by technically compentent people who actually knew computer repair. I had to go through a difficult technical interview and three personal interviews before I got the job. So did everyone else at that time. No one knew who we were and we had to work fucking hard to prove ourselves to the customers. I worked with brilliant and dedicated people and only answered to the higher-ups in Geek Squad.
Fast forward 4 years to the present. Best Buy had done what every soulless corporation does with a great idea. They commodomized the shit out of it, dilluted the quality with shoddy hiring practices, and drove away the best talent by only looking at the bottom line.
They gave all the jag-offs in the store the Geek Squad uniform and made the old Tech Benches into Geek Squad precincts, even though they were staffed with the same underpaid, uneducated, and lazy "techs" that gave Best Buy such a horrible reputation for computer repair. Us old-schoolers screamed bloody murder we they made this decision 2 years ago because we knew what would happen - our great reputation would be pulled into the mud by these knuckle-draggers. Guess what? IT WAS.
I can fix just about anything, set-up any consumer electronic device to work with any computer, and expertly train anyone on about two dozen diffent software titles. Instead of doing that, I spend most of my time fixing other Agent's fuck-ups and soothing angry customers for "Customer Loyalty". Why? Because I can fix shit properly and I'm good with people. Nowadays, Best Buy store managers hire the on-site Agents and generally look for people who will do their bidding, rather than those who know computers or have demonstrable customer service skills. Most of these new guys won't spend the time to improve their skills or learn new technologies. They either restore or have me do the "hard jobs". And God forbid they should download demo software to learn so they can provide trainings.
Best Buy management has had the worst affect on Agent morale and employee retention. They focus only on scorecards, holding Agents responsible for missed budgets even though the in-store sales team is expected to generate 70% of the revenue, rewarding Agents who unnecessarily rape their customers with preposterous upselling, and generally ignore technically skilled Agents or those who provide outstanding customer service. At the corporate level, overhiring has led to hour slashing that has wiped out my last three pay raises. I'
Sounds very similar to the recent increase in media coverage regarding the "debate" over evolution. The media's inability to grasp the arguments has less to do with complex science and more to do with increasing circulation and viewers by propping up a fabricated debate by treating the motivations of the "two sides" as equal. As with evolution, this supposed debate is actually verified science vs. entrenched interests (fundamentalist theology in evolution, economic power in global warming). The only thing the media is not understanding (perhaps willfully) is that they should not be treating this as a discussion about the science behind the issues.
Funniest thing I've read all day!
Good thing you only sell wholesome, profanity-free music to our impressionable youth! Hate for them to hear any of that naughty language!
Thanks for the info. I've been considering this. I know nothing about competitve martial arts but I took enough martial arts in college to know it's out there and would probably be the stress relief I need at this point. Know of any good schools that have teams that perform competitively?
Strange, I always thought my violent impulses came from my bosses making ridiculous demands while constantly criticizing my performance, my company overworking me while cutting my hours to make sure our stock price doesn't drop 10 cents, my customers treating me like dirt because I have to quote prices they consider outrageous to fix the computers their little demons fucked up by downloading free music, and my SO bitching that I work too much but then complaining when I can't afford to take her out for dinner every third night.
... anyone know if there are Geek Fight Clubs in Chicago??
Robert Heinlein said it best in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress:
TANSTAAFL.
(There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)
Heartiest laugh I've had while reading Slashdot in YEARS!
Coincidentally, this is the quote of the day when I logged into Google -
"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."
- Stephen Jay Gould
The music industry is shooting themselves in the foot, once again, with these lawsuits. Conceivably, many of the people being targeted in these lawsuits are using versions of Kazaa/Limewire/iMesh for which they have paid. The more computer-illiterate among them don't know the difference between paying for an ad-free program and paying for music.
As an on-site computer technician, I've talked with many parents who didn't understand they were still taking a risk by letting their children download from Limewire Pro. They think since they paid for the program, they have paid for the music. They don't under the difference between peer-to-peer programs and legitimate music download services.
I often think that the RIAA is going to turn many novice computer users off from online purchasing altogether because they are going after the unsophisticated user who doesn't understand copyright and what constitutes a legitimate channel and what does not. If they really want to stop online piracy, they need to go after the makers of the software, not the poor people they duped into believing that they had "purchased" music.
I'm a hedonistic Zen Buddhist
Which tells me you either don't know what hedonism is or you don't know what Buddhism is.
That's like saying you're a meat-eating vegan.
Since you got several of the creator's wrong, you'll forgive me if I take your opinions with a grain of salt. And while those are good titles, if you think those (with the exception of "Maus") are the best offerings of the medium in the last two decades, your knowledge of comics is pretty shallow. Check out Craig Thompson's "Blankets", Chris Ware's "Jimmy Corrigan", Daniel Clowes' "Eightball" serials, Jason Lute's "Jar of Fools", Seth's "It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken", or anything done by the late, great Will Eisner for examples of transcendent comics.
Sounds like an easy solution - don't use Flash or Shockwave with Firefox. I don't have either installed with FF and I haven't had any problems with the site. If a site requires that plug-in, I just open IE to view it.
Ultimately, education is the key. A reasonably competent tech can talk with their clients while they work. I encourage people to ask me questions, regardless of whether or not it is related to what I am fixing. For every 10 alpha geeks I've met only 1 would have anything that approaches an end-user friendly way of talking about computers. If you can't boil down this stuff to the basics and employ analogies to help your customers understand the dangers of being online and what behaviors they need to change, then it says more about you than them. Should your doctor tell you that you are at risk for myocardial infarction due to a diet and lifestyle that will increase arterial plaque levels resulting in atherosclerosis or should he say that if you don't cut out the McDonald's and Marlboro Lights you're going to have a heart attack? And should he consider you a "know-nothing" if you can't understand the former? A lot of my customers have told me the education I provided while fixing their problems was worth the price of the service alone. But then again, I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't have to know what BIOS, chipset drivers, or non-ECC RAM means if all you want to do is surf the internet and write holiday letters in Word.
Tech skills may get your foot in the door, but customer service is what will make or break you with in-home computer repair. Diligence, patience, and understanding are necessities in this line of work and based on your post, lacking those qualities may be the reason you are doing low-level tech support making 1/5 of what you were.
And a quick note about cost. Your price most likely reflected the quality of your service - too low. We charge by the job and warranty our work for a reason: it benefits us to know our shit cold because we don't get anything extra if we don't do it right the first time or take 3 more hours than necessary to complete it. We aren't the cheapest service by far but we know what we are doing. Plus, a higher cost helps us accomodate the clueless user who has us back out a week later because they downloaded Kazaa and have pop-ups again. My customers don't get an invoice in that case, just a stern (but polite!) warning that what they did caused the problem and while this visit is a freebie, the next one will not be.
What's the end result of all of this? I look forward to my job each day, I have extremely satisfied customers, and I sleep well at night because I know my customers receive their money's worth, both in service and education. Do me a favor - stick with your support job because I know you'll just be sending more people our way.
"Remember Jerry, it's not a lie if you believe it."
That was Blair Tefkin, not Molly Ringwald. And that magical visitor kid ending ruined the entire series for me. I'd prefer that they leave it alone.
The piece of information I want the most at this point is the source of these numbers. Everytime I read these articles and come across figures such as these, I smell bullshit. Are they pulling these numbers out of their arses? Is it fuzzy math? (i.e. one download equals one lost album sale) If it's the latter, I say they need to start producing *real* numbers, and not these mystical figures. IMO, claiming one lost album sale for every download is like charging a retail burglar for the MSRP value of every single item in the store, regardless of whether or not it was actually stolen.
This is so fucking stupid. They could have done this for the last year in order to build up the viewership they claimed was lacking due to the show's serial storytelling. Start Season 1 running at 9pm Eastern and Season 3 at 12pm Eastern and enable people who want to watch the show to catch up! Market the hell out of it and BAM! Perhaps they could have enabled enough people to get up to speed to enjoy the final season blow-out while massively increasing viewership. The Sci-Fi channel's actions lead me to believe they wanted to bury this show all along.
This is one Sci-Fi fan they have pissed off and alienated - I'll lend my eyeballs to more deserving channels and, as others have already declared, I'll swipe all their programming off the Internet before I ever watch their channel again.
Ack, holy shit, switch jobs with me for a day! I used to think the same thing until twelve months of unemployment moved me from programming into computer/electronics repair. I work in the Services department of a major consumer electronics store and it really opened my eyes. It's not that computers are too complex; it's that some people mix with technology as well as oil does with water. Here's a short list of ID10T errors and FUBARed equipment I've seen in the last week NOT related to computers:
And if I had a dollar for every person who wanted to return a cell phone because they get an occasional dropped call ("no ma'am, that's related to the service coverage, not the phone") or lost PDA data because they took the batteries out ("no sir, it's not like your 'hard drive' [read: computer]") I would have retired to Key West by now.
Given America's inability to track down Osama bin Laden's whereabouts for nearly two years, I say leave it as is.
How about the Billboard Top 100 Singles by year on a single disc. As a huge fan of 80's music, I would rather drop $50 for each disc to get the hits from '84, '85, and '86 rather than several hundred dollars on individual discs or crappy compilations that are 80% filler anyway.
How about releasing a band's entire back catalog on one of these discs, complete with liner notes, lyrics and videos for $100. The Complete Pink Floyd. The Complete Led Zepellin. The Complete Iron Maiden (no snickering).
How about releasing The Essential Tour Compilation. Take the top 25 live shows from a band's previous tour and add travel diaries, interviews, and massive picture galleries. I'd drop a c note on that.
The best part is that this will fit seemlessly into how I already use my music. I curse those stacks and stacks of CDs that take up space in my closet, no longer used because I prefer the freedom a 24x CD-RW drive, dual 100GB hard drives, and a RioVolt that plays MP3 CDs give me.
The music industry has had its collective head up its collective arse for way too long. The technology is there just begging to be used in new and interesting ways, but they're still crunching the numbers with an abacus! Give me a fair price, flush the DRM bullshit and stop calling me a fucking "pirate" and maybe I'll help save your pathetic industry.