Who cares about kids? Why are they so freakin special? If you want a button, have it be a button to notify the police of illegal activity, period. Crimes are being committed against all sorts of people. Kids are nothing special.
It's the damn parents that are responsible for their kids. Don't have time to watch them? Don't have kids!
I've had first-hand experience in the tech support outsourcing of my company's hosting business. The outsourcing firms, one after another, have been nothing short of headaches and incompetencies.
Take for instance, Suresh, an Indian tech support staff we've hired. He starts off working hard and does great work. Then, after a few weeks I start noticing that he sometimes doesn't come in on time, or is slow in answering support tickets. I reprimand him. He gets better for a few days... then he's off doing the same thing again.
My guess? I think he's taking on multiple clients even though he's a hired tech for our company. Since he's over there in India there's no way to ensure that he's not.
This problem has resurfaced with each and every outsourcing company and hired Indian tech.
BPO (business process outsourcing), as fancy as it sounds, is not something viable, unless you are over there watching these clowns. Our company will be shutting down all outsourcing to India and will be hiring only in-house.
Lazy and incompetent are adjectives I would use on these Indian guys. I don't mean to be racist or anything. It's probably due to the nature of the outsourcing model in general. Either way, our company is through with it. The lure of short-term savings ends up being a long-term headache. Not worth it.
Rebates are a scam, and the only reason you were getting great deals is because countless other people are getting ripped off, to help pay for your free cd's. For every $1 you have saved, probably $100 or more had been taken in by these companies offering rebates.
Ban Google for possible "fraud" concerns? If that's the case, eBay should ban Paypal and itself!! Those two are the main gateways of fraud if there ever was one.
Do not EVER buy anything from O2. This company is shady in its business practices.
Here's my story:
I bought an O2 Atom in Hong Kong a while back. Within 2 weeks the unit was broken and wouldn't turn back on. I went all the way to their repair center, and had to wait in line for over 2 hours to get service. And then they told me I'd have to come back another day. This is fine. However, when they notified me to go back, it was in the form of a specific date and specific few hours. I told the tech if I can come later since that time period was too restrictive. He wouldn't promise me anything. I'm like WTF! If the unit is fixed and is back at the repair center, why such a small window of time to pick up the unit?
Then, after I'd moved to Beijing, after about 2 months, the unit broke AGAIN. What an awful piece of machinary. So, I called up the O2 support line at 011-852-800-968-205. For hours on end it was not working, or was busy. Strange isn't it? So finally, after about 20 tries, about a day later, I finally get through. The tech told me it was ok to send the unit in via postal mail.
So, off I went sending the unit to Hong Kong's repair center. Now suddenly they refused to accept the package. Their initial claim was that there might be some sort of "tariff". I called up DHL and they told me there's no such thing. No tariff was due and nobody said that to the O2 Zone repair center.
Ok so now I'm getting worried, so I called up O2 and assured them there's no tariff due, and told DHL to make sure to tell O2 that there's no tariff for accepting the unit.
DHL tries again the next day. Once again it's rejected!!!! WTF!!!
This time, the excuse was that there's no "contact person". The day earlier I explicitly asked the O2 person on the phone who the contact person and phone number was. He told me to give them the support number 011-852-800-968-205. As for a contact person, he said there would be no such person, because any tech can accept it.
Now it's beginning to be clear to me that something fishy is going on with this O2 company. They tell me there's no contact person needed, and that if there are problems, to contact that number. Yet they refused the package again!
So, to recap, O2's product broke down on me TWICE within 4 months. Each time I went to get it repaired, there was some sort of obstacle, one after another. Is this pure coincidence, or purposeful neglect? You tell me.
All I know is, I'm NEVER EVER buying another crap from O2 again. You go ahead if you want to, but you might hear the echo "I told you so" later on...
Hey Paypal, I hope you die a horrible death, you and eBay. I'm laughing as we speak! Google is finally getting rid of this huge evil conglomerate called eBay and Paypal.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out! BAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAA
Yes, but it's the merchants that foot the bill, not the credit card companies, nor Paypal. Would it be fair if some mom-and-pop shop pay for the mistakes of Paypal? I think not.
Perhaps he's not doing an effective job? I mean, look at Microsoft these days. They have one of the worst reputations, offer little innovation, and is delaying Vista again and again.
Then there's the little prick called Google, who's practically eating their asses for lunch.
So, rather than continue losing, perhaps he's yielding power to someone else to give them a shot?
It's funny how we are propping up this company by constantly giving them publicity. They know this is working in their favor, because once the game is released (if ever), it would just be as popular as ever.
Should we punish these vaporware companies by leaving them in the trash, and never talk about them again?
This kind of tool is cool and all, but it doesn't solve all problems. There are a bunch of users out there who surf the internet with the "I DON'T GIVE A SHIT" attitude, on purpose. These people download anything and everything with absolute disregard. Why do they do this? Here are some of the bigger reasons:
1) It's not their computer (their employer's, internet cafe's, school's, library's, etc.) so they don't care.
2) They go around with the thinking, "I'm nobody important, so why would they hack me? They only hack VIPs."
These users are JUST AS BIG a problem as the hackers, phishers, and scammers, for they enable and encourage botnets, theft, etc. Too often these idiot end users and incompetent systems admins are left alone. I say we go for a "tough love" policy. F*ck around the net? Get your computer/network completely blocked. Want to get it unblocked? Read a long-ass pamphlet regarding the safeguarding of your computer/network, take a quiz, and sign a paper agreeing to follow stricter guidelines. If you get warned repeatedly, you're either fined or taken offline permanently.
Now THAT, would get everyone's attention, and force morons off the net, where they don't belong.
Dear Telecoms, Really now, do you actually think putting lipstick on a chicken will fool us into thinking it's no longer a chicken? Let's see now... many years ago you tried to screw us consumers over by asking the government to treat data packets over dial-up modems differently than regular voice traffic. You were slapped upside the head then, and now you want us to kick you in the nuts too?
Look, a packet is a packet is a packet is a packet. It doesn't matter if that packet is a 0 or a 1. It doesn't matter if that packet is an analog signal or digital signal. It doesn't matter if that packet comes from Yahoo or Fuck-the-telecoms.com. The pipe is there. It flows. End of story. You are nothing BUT a common carrier of packets.
Don't try to put lipstick on yourselves, because you're not fooling anybody, especially not with the awful stench you carry around.
First, it's ridiculous for these telcos to try and double dip. I collocate my web servers at a data center. I'm already paying for all incoming/outgoing bandwidth to my sites. The end user is already paying for all of his incoming/outgoing bandwidth. Where in this equation do you see someone not paying?
Second, are we at the point where the internet is no longer working due to mass flooding of traffic from XXX internet site? No not even close. So why are these greedy telcos trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist?
Third, if we allow the arbitrary tiering of the internet, it will ONLY benefit the large telcos and give them further power in monopolizing. They already have monopoly powers in local areas granted by the government. I as a Joe Public consumer have no choice in selecting my internet provider (DSL/cable). Since this government-granted monopoloy is already in place, these telcos should expect NOTHING more than net neutrality.
Lastly, if we allow the tiering of the internet, then what right would we have to complain when one day, country X decides that it wants to give traffic preference to their local competitors? This is beginning to sound like censorship isn't it? "Yeah that's right. We at [INSERT COUNTRY] don't like what you are saying about [SUCH AND SUCH], so we're going to throttle you to death. Hey it's only fair right? Afterall, you allow your own country to do the same."
Think this through. These politians are either bought (political WHORES) or they are incompetent/stupid. Either way, reject internet tiering. If one greedy ISP/telco wants to call it quits, let them. There's already more than enough profit for a nearby competitor to jump right in.
Whoever is designing the layout over at escapistmagazine.com (article site) should be FIRED immediatly. Reading that article has been pure torture. I had to move ridiculously close to my monitor, squint my eyes, and end up with a sore back just to read the words. By the time I was at page 2, I'd closed the stupid site and vowed never to return. And no I wasn't able to increase the font size from my browser's settings either, because whoever is in charge of designing the site over there has fixed the font size, not allowing anyone to resize the text.
Escapistmagazine.com obviously doesn't have the "Secret Sauce".
For this is the beginning of the end of the MPAA/RIAA.
Think about it. They are giving in, even if it's only a little. Inch by inch, they will eventually be forced to realize that switching to a non-centralized online distribution format will make them more money.
No, not as much money as they once made per film, but more money TODAY, than they would otherwise lose to online piracy (which often is caused by users not having the choice to buy online cheaply). Need proof? Just look at what iTunes did for the music industry.
Um, no. Depriving someone of their property seems very immoral, copying information not so much. In fact I argue that using the government force to prop up the business model that is scarcity of information is the behaviour that is immoral - unless you (anyone) have an arguement justifying the morality of using that force.
One can argue that all of earth's natural resource belong to no one, and thus, physical theft is no theft at all.
Fact is, one can always find creative ways to circumvent a definition that they don't like. However that really doesn't change anything. When you copy someone else's intellectual "property" without consent, you are depriving them money that they could have made from you. You are also depriving them of money that they could be making from someone else (if you are allowed to pirate their works, it follows that every other willing customer will have the right to do the same). Put in that sense, it becomes very physical, as money can be used to purchase "physical" items.
With that said, there IS a difference between intellectual "property" and physical "property". I would favor a system similar to patents, where copyrights have a physical, reasonable, non-extendable expiration date.
I have Skype but I can't seem to figure out how to use SkypeOut for free. What do I need to do to activate this feature?
Btw, I'm not in the U.S. right now. Could this be the reason? Perhaps Skype is auto-detecting me as not being in the states so it's not letting me have it for free?
Slashdot Mirror
Who cares about kids? Why are they so freakin special? If you want a button, have it be a button to notify the police of illegal activity, period. Crimes are being committed against all sorts of people. Kids are nothing special.
It's the damn parents that are responsible for their kids. Don't have time to watch them? Don't have kids!
People dumber than fish have been known to become presidents....
Wtf? Zune? With a name like that, why would anybody even care to buy?
Welcome to the year 2000. Now get lost aoHELL. Nobody needs you, ando nobody cares that you're history.
Spin my nipple nuts and call me Sally.
I've had first-hand experience in the tech support outsourcing of my company's hosting business. The outsourcing firms, one after another, have been nothing short of headaches and incompetencies.
Take for instance, Suresh, an Indian tech support staff we've hired. He starts off working hard and does great work. Then, after a few weeks I start noticing that he sometimes doesn't come in on time, or is slow in answering support tickets. I reprimand him. He gets better for a few days... then he's off doing the same thing again.
My guess? I think he's taking on multiple clients even though he's a hired tech for our company. Since he's over there in India there's no way to ensure that he's not.
This problem has resurfaced with each and every outsourcing company and hired Indian tech.
BPO (business process outsourcing), as fancy as it sounds, is not something viable, unless you are over there watching these clowns. Our company will be shutting down all outsourcing to India and will be hiring only in-house.
Lazy and incompetent are adjectives I would use on these Indian guys. I don't mean to be racist or anything. It's probably due to the nature of the outsourcing model in general. Either way, our company is through with it. The lure of short-term savings ends up being a long-term headache. Not worth it.
Rebates are a scam, and the only reason you were getting great deals is because countless other people are getting ripped off, to help pay for your free cd's. For every $1 you have saved, probably $100 or more had been taken in by these companies offering rebates.
Ban Google for possible "fraud" concerns? If that's the case, eBay should ban Paypal and itself!! Those two are the main gateways of fraud if there ever was one.
You're on Slashdot. Your left hand can't give you AIDS. So, no... it won't be free for you.
Just a follow-up. I just tried submitting a query via their "contact us" form at:
r m.vm/topic/service
http://www.seeo2.com/support/template/ContactUsFo
The form loads alright, but it doesn't work!!! Another coincidence right?
Do not EVER buy anything from O2. This company is shady in its business practices.
Here's my story:
I bought an O2 Atom in Hong Kong a while back. Within 2 weeks the unit was broken and wouldn't turn back on. I went all the way to their repair center, and had to wait in line for over 2 hours to get service. And then they told me I'd have to come back another day. This is fine. However, when they notified me to go back, it was in the form of a specific date and specific few hours. I told the tech if I can come later since that time period was too restrictive. He wouldn't promise me anything. I'm like WTF! If the unit is fixed and is back at the repair center, why such a small window of time to pick up the unit?
Then, after I'd moved to Beijing, after about 2 months, the unit broke AGAIN. What an awful piece of machinary. So, I called up the O2 support line at 011-852-800-968-205. For hours on end it was not working, or was busy. Strange isn't it? So finally, after about 20 tries, about a day later, I finally get through. The tech told me it was ok to send the unit in via postal mail.
So, off I went sending the unit to Hong Kong's repair center. Now suddenly they refused to accept the package. Their initial claim was that there might be some sort of "tariff". I called up DHL and they told me there's no such thing. No tariff was due and nobody said that to the O2 Zone repair center.
Ok so now I'm getting worried, so I called up O2 and assured them there's no tariff due, and told DHL to make sure to tell O2 that there's no tariff for accepting the unit.
DHL tries again the next day. Once again it's rejected!!!! WTF!!!
This time, the excuse was that there's no "contact person". The day earlier I explicitly asked the O2 person on the phone who the contact person and phone number was. He told me to give them the support number 011-852-800-968-205. As for a contact person, he said there would be no such person, because any tech can accept it.
Now it's beginning to be clear to me that something fishy is going on with this O2 company. They tell me there's no contact person needed, and that if there are problems, to contact that number. Yet they refused the package again!
So, to recap, O2's product broke down on me TWICE within 4 months. Each time I went to get it repaired, there was some sort of obstacle, one after another. Is this pure coincidence, or purposeful neglect? You tell me.
All I know is, I'm NEVER EVER buying another crap from O2 again. You go ahead if you want to, but you might hear the echo "I told you so" later on...
Hey Paypal,
I hope you die a horrible death, you and eBay. I'm laughing as we speak! Google is finally getting rid of this huge evil conglomerate called eBay and Paypal.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out! BAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAA
Skyseer? What kind of queer name is that? They should've just gone with the obvious choice, "Skynet".
Arnold's already in place. The future of LA is coming.
Yes, but it's the merchants that foot the bill, not the credit card companies, nor Paypal. Would it be fair if some mom-and-pop shop pay for the mistakes of Paypal? I think not.
I see another possibility of him stepping down...
Perhaps he's not doing an effective job? I mean, look at Microsoft these days. They have one of the worst reputations, offer little innovation, and is delaying Vista again and again.
Then there's the little prick called Google, who's practically eating their asses for lunch.
So, rather than continue losing, perhaps he's yielding power to someone else to give them a shot?
It's funny how we are propping up this company by constantly giving them publicity. They know this is working in their favor, because once the game is released (if ever), it would just be as popular as ever.
Should we punish these vaporware companies by leaving them in the trash, and never talk about them again?
This kind of tool is cool and all, but it doesn't solve all problems. There are a bunch of users out there who surf the internet with the "I DON'T GIVE A SHIT" attitude, on purpose. These people download anything and everything with absolute disregard. Why do they do this? Here are some of the bigger reasons:
1) It's not their computer (their employer's, internet cafe's, school's, library's, etc.) so they don't care.
2) They go around with the thinking, "I'm nobody important, so why would they hack me? They only hack VIPs."
These users are JUST AS BIG a problem as the hackers, phishers, and scammers, for they enable and encourage botnets, theft, etc. Too often these idiot end users and incompetent systems admins are left alone. I say we go for a "tough love" policy. F*ck around the net? Get your computer/network completely blocked. Want to get it unblocked? Read a long-ass pamphlet regarding the safeguarding of your computer/network, take a quiz, and sign a paper agreeing to follow stricter guidelines. If you get warned repeatedly, you're either fined or taken offline permanently.
Now THAT, would get everyone's attention, and force morons off the net, where they don't belong.
Dear Telecoms,
Really now, do you actually think putting lipstick on a chicken will fool us into thinking it's no longer a chicken? Let's see now... many years ago you tried to screw us consumers over by asking the government to treat data packets over dial-up modems differently than regular voice traffic. You were slapped upside the head then, and now you want us to kick you in the nuts too?
Look, a packet is a packet is a packet is a packet. It doesn't matter if that packet is a 0 or a 1. It doesn't matter if that packet is an analog signal or digital signal. It doesn't matter if that packet comes from Yahoo or Fuck-the-telecoms.com. The pipe is there. It flows. End of story. You are nothing BUT a common carrier of packets.
Don't try to put lipstick on yourselves, because you're not fooling anybody, especially not with the awful stench you carry around.
First, it's ridiculous for these telcos to try and double dip. I collocate my web servers at a data center. I'm already paying for all incoming/outgoing bandwidth to my sites. The end user is already paying for all of his incoming/outgoing bandwidth. Where in this equation do you see someone not paying?
Second, are we at the point where the internet is no longer working due to mass flooding of traffic from XXX internet site? No not even close. So why are these greedy telcos trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist?
Third, if we allow the arbitrary tiering of the internet, it will ONLY benefit the large telcos and give them further power in monopolizing. They already have monopoly powers in local areas granted by the government. I as a Joe Public consumer have no choice in selecting my internet provider (DSL/cable). Since this government-granted monopoloy is already in place, these telcos should expect NOTHING more than net neutrality.
Lastly, if we allow the tiering of the internet, then what right would we have to complain when one day, country X decides that it wants to give traffic preference to their local competitors? This is beginning to sound like censorship isn't it? "Yeah that's right. We at [INSERT COUNTRY] don't like what you are saying about [SUCH AND SUCH], so we're going to throttle you to death. Hey it's only fair right? Afterall, you allow your own country to do the same."
Think this through. These politians are either bought (political WHORES) or they are incompetent/stupid. Either way, reject internet tiering. If one greedy ISP/telco wants to call it quits, let them. There's already more than enough profit for a nearby competitor to jump right in.
Ok which senator got scammed by some fat ugly gay man pretending to be a shy 18 year old virgin chick?
You know that's probably the reason this bill is being introduced.
Whoever is designing the layout over at escapistmagazine.com (article site) should be FIRED immediatly. Reading that article has been pure torture. I had to move ridiculously close to my monitor, squint my eyes, and end up with a sore back just to read the words. By the time I was at page 2, I'd closed the stupid site and vowed never to return. And no I wasn't able to increase the font size from my browser's settings either, because whoever is in charge of designing the site over there has fixed the font size, not allowing anyone to resize the text.
Escapistmagazine.com obviously doesn't have the "Secret Sauce".
RIM = BlackBerry
Steve Jobs = Jobs
Apple = Fruit
Berry = Fruit
RIM + Steve Jobs = Rim Job
RIM + Apple = Dingle Berry
For this is the beginning of the end of the MPAA/RIAA.
Think about it. They are giving in, even if it's only a little. Inch by inch, they will eventually be forced to realize that switching to a non-centralized online distribution format will make them more money.
No, not as much money as they once made per film, but more money TODAY, than they would otherwise lose to online piracy (which often is caused by users not having the choice to buy online cheaply). Need proof? Just look at what iTunes did for the music industry.
Um, no. Depriving someone of their property seems very immoral, copying information not so much. In fact I argue that using the government force to prop up the business model that is scarcity of information is the behaviour that is immoral - unless you (anyone) have an arguement justifying the morality of using that force.
One can argue that all of earth's natural resource belong to no one, and thus, physical theft is no theft at all.
Fact is, one can always find creative ways to circumvent a definition that they don't like. However that really doesn't change anything. When you copy someone else's intellectual "property" without consent, you are depriving them money that they could have made from you. You are also depriving them of money that they could be making from someone else (if you are allowed to pirate their works, it follows that every other willing customer will have the right to do the same). Put in that sense, it becomes very physical, as money can be used to purchase "physical" items.
With that said, there IS a difference between intellectual "property" and physical "property". I would favor a system similar to patents, where copyrights have a physical, reasonable, non-extendable expiration date.
I have Skype but I can't seem to figure out how to use SkypeOut for free. What do I need to do to activate this feature?
Btw, I'm not in the U.S. right now. Could this be the reason? Perhaps Skype is auto-detecting me as not being in the states so it's not letting me have it for free?