ATTBI in the northeast (formerly MediaOne territory) doesn't care what you do on their network, as long as you're not breaking their network or the law. Run servers, set up home networks, share access with your neighbor. It's all "allowed"...technically, it's all prohibited by their AUP/TOS, but they generally look the other way.
I run HTTP and NNTP servers out of my home. When I'm working real jobby-type jobs, I also run an SSH server. I used to run SMTP and POP3 servers, but something went bad, and I haven't had the time to work on it to make it work again. You can't tell me that the guys sitting up in their NOC don't know that I'm doing all this, either. =)
I've had plenty of techs out to my home to fix stuff (both contractors and geniuine AT&T employees), and not only do they not care what I'm doing (in the sense that they're not going to shut me down for doing it), some of them have even asked me what I do with all this equipment, and seem really interested to hear more about it. =)
BECAUSE IT'S HARD AND TAKES TIME. TIME MEANS IT COSTS THE CLIENT.
You know what else costs the client? Lost business from all the users that can't access the client's web site.
I have no qualms about taking my business elsewhere when a company tells me that they don't want my business by coding a site that doesn't work in my browser.
The proof is in the pudding, of course. I just really resent any legislation which tries to pander to the lowest common denominator because of the overreacting soccer moms screaming "think of the children!"
But that's just the thing. Traffic laws are a whole other ballgame. Traffic laws need to be created to create a safe driving environment for others.
If laws are created that prevent you from talking on your cell phone while driving, that only applies to public streets. You can drive around on your own property (or someone else's property, with their permission) and talk on a cell phone all you like.
I'm with you. All these anti-gun laws, anti-drug laws, etc. are bullcrap. They have no place in this country, and the "Save the children!" argument is nothing short of a front for the banning of something that people don't like.
The banning of cell phones while driving is done to ensure the safety of those around you. It's not like someone looked at people talking on a cell phone while driving, thought "Hey, no fair!" and decided to outlaw it. Accidents happened because of it.
And, just for your own edification, practically ALL traffic laws cater to the lowest common denominator. Speed limits are good example of this. It doesn't automatically make them a bad idea.
Oddly enough, it's usually the people that react the way you just did that really can't drive and talk on a cell phone at the same time (they think they can, and they're very adamant about it, but in reality, they can't).
how do other/.ers feel about a company profiting from data emitted by the cellphone that they paid for?
Hopefully they feel the same way about how the television and radio stations are profitting from data "emitted" by your car that you paid for when they fly over the traffic jam and look down.
You haven't bought a new computer lately... have you? WinXP is ALREADY LOADED... sheesh...
That's not "loaded," that's "installed."
Loading is the process of reading the program from disk into memory. Installing is the process of copying the program from its installation medium to the computer's hard disk.
If you're buying your computers with Windows already "loaded," then I'd like to know what your secret is for getting the computer from the store to your house, fully set up and powered on the whole way.
Well, they still have other uses other than gaming...none of which can be easily reproduced...epecially since you've decided the numpad was no longer necessary.
The only key you mentioend that I don't use frequently is the Scroll Lock key (besides the Windows key and the Context Menu key (the one you called the "Thing Next To Windows"), which I don't consider real keys anyhow;).
(But what about games??? you cry. Ever heard of WASD?)
Yes, I have. Ever heard of left-handed people? We can't use the WASD configuration (not easily, anyhow) because we have our left hand on the mouse.
The whole friggin numeric keypad
That's the most asinine thing I've ever heard. I don't personally know anyone who doesn't use the numpad for entering numbers.
Finally, switch escape with caps lock
Funny how you don't suggest removing the Caps Lock key, considering it's the most useless key, second only to the Scroll Lock key. It's a hell of a lot less useful than 90% of the keys you suggested removing.
Here's an idea: get a clue, and the consider revising your list.
What that means, basically, is that it's hard to speak and think at the same time.
With the advent of the Internet and global communications, I think it's become painfully evident that a majority of the people also have trouble typing and thinking at the same time. =)
If you're too smart to listen to me and my steps, then fix it yourself.
Deal, but only if you agree to listen to me when I tell you that the problem isn't on my end, and that I'm only calling you to make you aware of the problem so you can start working on it.
Don't keep me on the phone for 20 minutes (putting me on hold every 2), keep telling me that the problem is on my end, only to eventually tell me "Oh, whoops! My bad. The problem is on our end. Sorry 'bout that. I guess it's an outage/widespread problem/etc. We'll get right on it. Call back in a couple of hours for a status update if the service isn't restored."
If you're just calling to let us know a router/server/etc. is down, rest assured that as a multimillion dollar corporation, we have monitoring systems in place and someone already knows.
On the contrary, you DON'T have monitoring systems in place for most problems. You find out there's a problem when the call queue jumps from 10 to 200 in the span of 30 seconds. After you field a few calls, then you know precicely what the problem is.
If you just want an RMA, tell me all the steps you've already tried so I can mark them off the checklist.
And try to make me go through them anyway. Might as well save yourself the trouble and skip the whole 'checklist' part; it's just an added step for you.
Oh, and if you missed a step, don't be pissed when I insist you try it.
Deal, so long as that step is actually pertinent to the problem. If I'm calling because my mouse isn't working, expect me to tell you where you can shove your script when you start suggesting that I check the connections on my monitor. Might as well have me go check the level of my transmission fluid, or whether or not my dog has to go for a walk, since it's just as relevant.
And, just FYI, I've worked in many call centers in my life, so I have some experience to back up my knowledge. Don't even bother telling me I'm wrong, because I know otherwise. You're not BS'ing this former phone jockey.
Re:Facts for the Less Informed
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Consumer price protection laws only deal with intentional false advertisement of product. They exempt the retailer if the ad was simply a mistake...
Those are the laws against false advertising.
There are laws in most places (I believe they even exist at the federal level, and since for everyone except residents of MN, this would be a federal issue, due to interstate commerce) that force retailers to honor prices even if they're the product of an honest mistake.
I'm afraid you are distorting the facts.
No, not at all.
Re:Facts for the Less Informed
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 1
Ah, yes . . . thanks rosewood. There are so many facts, it's hard to keep them all straight. =)
Facts for the Less Informed
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Rather than reply to each individual post where someone has made a grave error because they're not aware of the facts, I'm putting them in one post for easy reference:
Best Buy advertised the VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti4600 for preorder at the price of $129.99 (plus applicable sales tax) on their website (bestbuy.com) on Wednesday, February 6, 2002.
Over 2,000 customers placed orders for the card at this special price.
These customers were greeted with confirmation web pages, confirmation e-mail messages, issued order numbers, and some even received backorder confirmation e-mail messages (some even received multiple backorder confirmations).
Within hours, Best Buy pulled the offer, and "corrected" what they later called a "pricing error."
Cancellation e-mails were sent out, and cited a "systems error" for the mistake.
Best Buy issued a press released (only published at news.com) which blamed "human error" for the mistake.
Customers who called Best Buy to inquire about the order cancellation were told that VisionTek would not allow Best Buy to sell the cards at the originally agreed-upon price (Best Buy was falsely accusing VisionTek of illegal price-fixing tactics).
Best Buy does have a disclaimer on their web site in the form of their Terms of Service Agreement.
Best Buy has actually changed their Terms of Service since this entire fiasco began.
Best Buy's Terms of Service do not supercede federal, state, and local consumer protection laws, which (in many cases) specifically outlaw this type of activity.
Best Buy's Terms of Service exist for the sole purpose of tricking customers into surrendering their consumer rights. The way consumer law is written, customers must exercise their rights; if they surrender them, the company in question is not required to adhere to these laws.
"E-tailers" are subject to the same rules, regulations, and laws that apply to their brick-and-mortar cousins. (See the FTC's Dot Com Disclosures)
Best Buy has stated that absolutely no one will be receiving the card at the previously agreed-upon price, yet well over 140 customers have already done so.
Best Buy is ignoring its customers at this point. E-mails go unanswered, and phone calls are greeted with a promise to escalate the call, but the customer must wait for someone to contact them; this, of course, never happens.
At least one person has already taken this to Small Claims Court. He had his first hearing a couple of weeks ago, but Best Buy requested a continuance, which was granted.
A class action lawsuit is still an option, and one that may be used.
There are more facts that are pertinent, but these are the most commonly misunderstood or ignored pieces of information.
Fact of the matter is, though, that the current methods of profiling criminals and preventing horrific criminal acts work, and they work well . . . but only when they have the proper funding.
The tragic events of September 11th had a lot of root causes, and we can debate about them until the cows come home (I would've said "...until Larry Ellison goes insane," but that's clearly already happened), but no one can deny that there's a pretty good chance (and by that I mean the chance was about as good as the sun rising tomorrow) that if Clinton hadn't cut the budget on the CIA, they would have known this was going to happen, and they could have taken steps to prevent it.
It's unfortunate that this happened before Bush had a chance to fix what Clinton had broken, but truth be told, re-funding the CIA was just one item on a laundry list of necessary resources that Clinton raped mercilessly, and Bush feels the need to fix them all (I can't say that I blame him). I'm sure he would have gotten around to it "eventually," but he was too busy nursing the U.S. military back to health.
In my humble opinion, if we want to stop terrorism from affecting our country, there's one simple thing we can do: stop electing Democrats into important offices. If they want to be selectmen in East Bumdoodle, Utah, let them. When they want to be the President, or a Senator, or a Congressman, we need to "just say no."
Get an encyclopedia. A troll is a mythological creature [britannica.com]. By the way, I couldn't find your definition of troll at either www.dictionary.com [dictionary.com] or www.webster.com [webster.com]. What dictionary were you looking at?
Actually, the definition of "troll" that is in wide use around the Internet can most definitely be found at dictionary.com.
I'd like to request that the Slashdot editors do the right thing and TURN DOWN all stories that link to Ed Stoligo and offtheirrockers.com. Ed is nothing more than a glorified troll. Mod the sonofabitch down, and stop giving him the publicity he craves.
He lures people into his site under the false pretense of an intelligent, mature, reasoned debate, and then resorts to childish insults, baseless accusations, and flames.
I had a go-around with this loser a couple of months back over the whole Best Buy/GeForce4 fiasco, and the kid can't debate for crap. He ignores valid points, makes up his own "facts," and berates those that disagree with him (which is pretty much anyone with half the intelligence that God gave a doorknob, since he's an ignoramus whose favorite past time is visually inspecting his colon, if you get my drift).
Please, for the love of all that is holy, IGNORE HIM!
Slashdot Mirror
ATTBI in the northeast (formerly MediaOne territory) doesn't care what you do on their network, as long as you're not breaking their network or the law. Run servers, set up home networks, share access with your neighbor. It's all "allowed"...technically, it's all prohibited by their AUP/TOS, but they generally look the other way.
I run HTTP and NNTP servers out of my home. When I'm working real jobby-type jobs, I also run an SSH server. I used to run SMTP and POP3 servers, but something went bad, and I haven't had the time to work on it to make it work again. You can't tell me that the guys sitting up in their NOC don't know that I'm doing all this, either. =)
I've had plenty of techs out to my home to fix stuff (both contractors and geniuine AT&T employees), and not only do they not care what I'm doing (in the sense that they're not going to shut me down for doing it), some of them have even asked me what I do with all this equipment, and seem really interested to hear more about it. =)
Looks like Penny Arcade is ahead of the curve =)
I have no qualms about taking my business elsewhere when a company tells me that they don't want my business by coding a site that doesn't work in my browser.
If laws are created that prevent you from talking on your cell phone while driving, that only applies to public streets. You can drive around on your own property (or someone else's property, with their permission) and talk on a cell phone all you like.
I'm with you. All these anti-gun laws, anti-drug laws, etc. are bullcrap. They have no place in this country, and the "Save the children!" argument is nothing short of a front for the banning of something that people don't like.
The banning of cell phones while driving is done to ensure the safety of those around you. It's not like someone looked at people talking on a cell phone while driving, thought "Hey, no fair!" and decided to outlaw it. Accidents happened because of it.
And, just for your own edification, practically ALL traffic laws cater to the lowest common denominator. Speed limits are good example of this. It doesn't automatically make them a bad idea.
Oddly enough, it's usually the people that react the way you just did that really can't drive and talk on a cell phone at the same time (they think they can, and they're very adamant about it, but in reality, they can't).
Loading is the process of reading the program from disk into memory. Installing is the process of copying the program from its installation medium to the computer's hard disk.
If you're buying your computers with Windows already "loaded," then I'd like to know what your secret is for getting the computer from the store to your house, fully set up and powered on the whole way.
Well, they still have other uses other than gaming...none of which can be easily reproduced...epecially since you've decided the numpad was no longer necessary.
Here's an idea: get a clue, and the consider revising your list.
With the advent of the Internet and global communications, I think it's become painfully evident that a majority of the people also have trouble typing and thinking at the same time. =)
Don't keep me on the phone for 20 minutes (putting me on hold every 2), keep telling me that the problem is on my end, only to eventually tell me "Oh, whoops! My bad. The problem is on our end. Sorry 'bout that. I guess it's an outage/widespread problem/etc. We'll get right on it. Call back in a couple of hours for a status update if the service isn't restored."On the contrary, you DON'T have monitoring systems in place for most problems. You find out there's a problem when the call queue jumps from 10 to 200 in the span of 30 seconds. After you field a few calls, then you know precicely what the problem is.And try to make me go through them anyway. Might as well save yourself the trouble and skip the whole 'checklist' part; it's just an added step for you.Deal, so long as that step is actually pertinent to the problem. If I'm calling because my mouse isn't working, expect me to tell you where you can shove your script when you start suggesting that I check the connections on my monitor. Might as well have me go check the level of my transmission fluid, or whether or not my dog has to go for a walk, since it's just as relevant.
And, just FYI, I've worked in many call centers in my life, so I have some experience to back up my knowledge. Don't even bother telling me I'm wrong, because I know otherwise. You're not BS'ing this former phone jockey.
It's called "ReplayTV."
There are laws in most places (I believe they even exist at the federal level, and since for everyone except residents of MN, this would be a federal issue, due to interstate commerce) that force retailers to honor prices even if they're the product of an honest mistake.No, not at all.
Ah, yes . . . thanks rosewood. There are so many facts, it's hard to keep them all straight. =)
Best Buy advertised the VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti4600 for preorder at the price of $129.99 (plus applicable sales tax) on their website (bestbuy.com) on Wednesday, February 6, 2002.
Over 2,000 customers placed orders for the card at this special price.
These customers were greeted with confirmation web pages, confirmation e-mail messages, issued order numbers, and some even received backorder confirmation e-mail messages (some even received multiple backorder confirmations).
Within hours, Best Buy pulled the offer, and "corrected" what they later called a "pricing error."
Cancellation e-mails were sent out, and cited a "systems error" for the mistake.
Best Buy issued a press released (only published at news.com) which blamed "human error" for the mistake.
Customers who called Best Buy to inquire about the order cancellation were told that VisionTek would not allow Best Buy to sell the cards at the originally agreed-upon price (Best Buy was falsely accusing VisionTek of illegal price-fixing tactics).
Best Buy does have a disclaimer on their web site in the form of their Terms of Service Agreement.
At no point during the account-creation or order-placing processes are customers required to read or actively agree to these terms (see Specht vs. Netscape; also see the FTC's Advertising and Marketing on the Internet: Rules of the Road).
Best Buy has actually changed their Terms of Service since this entire fiasco began.
Best Buy's Terms of Service do not supercede federal, state, and local consumer protection laws, which (in many cases) specifically outlaw this type of activity.
Best Buy's Terms of Service exist for the sole purpose of tricking customers into surrendering their consumer rights. The way consumer law is written, customers must exercise their rights; if they surrender them, the company in question is not required to adhere to these laws.
"E-tailers" are subject to the same rules, regulations, and laws that apply to their brick-and-mortar cousins. (See the FTC's Dot Com Disclosures)
Best Buy has stated that absolutely no one will be receiving the card at the previously agreed-upon price, yet well over 140 customers have already done so.
Best Buy is ignoring its customers at this point. E-mails go unanswered, and phone calls are greeted with a promise to escalate the call, but the customer must wait for someone to contact them; this, of course, never happens.
At least one person has already taken this to Small Claims Court. He had his first hearing a couple of weeks ago, but Best Buy requested a continuance, which was granted.
A class action lawsuit is still an option, and one that may be used.
There are more facts that are pertinent, but these are the most commonly misunderstood or ignored pieces of information.
Since when is the truth considered flamebait? *sigh*
Fact of the matter is, though, that the current methods of profiling criminals and preventing horrific criminal acts work, and they work well . . . but only when they have the proper funding.
The tragic events of September 11th had a lot of root causes, and we can debate about them until the cows come home (I would've said "...until Larry Ellison goes insane," but that's clearly already happened), but no one can deny that there's a pretty good chance (and by that I mean the chance was about as good as the sun rising tomorrow) that if Clinton hadn't cut the budget on the CIA, they would have known this was going to happen, and they could have taken steps to prevent it.
It's unfortunate that this happened before Bush had a chance to fix what Clinton had broken, but truth be told, re-funding the CIA was just one item on a laundry list of necessary resources that Clinton raped mercilessly, and Bush feels the need to fix them all (I can't say that I blame him). I'm sure he would have gotten around to it "eventually," but he was too busy nursing the U.S. military back to health.
In my humble opinion, if we want to stop terrorism from affecting our country, there's one simple thing we can do: stop electing Democrats into important offices. If they want to be selectmen in East Bumdoodle, Utah, let them. When they want to be the President, or a Senator, or a Congressman, we need to "just say no."
Nice try though, troll.
*eyeroll*
I'd like to request that the Slashdot editors do the right thing and TURN DOWN all stories that link to Ed Stoligo and offtheirrockers.com. Ed is nothing more than a glorified troll. Mod the sonofabitch down, and stop giving him the publicity he craves.
He lures people into his site under the false pretense of an intelligent, mature, reasoned debate, and then resorts to childish insults, baseless accusations, and flames.
I had a go-around with this loser a couple of months back over the whole Best Buy/GeForce4 fiasco, and the kid can't debate for crap. He ignores valid points, makes up his own "facts," and berates those that disagree with him (which is pretty much anyone with half the intelligence that God gave a doorknob, since he's an ignoramus whose favorite past time is visually inspecting his colon, if you get my drift).
Please, for the love of all that is holy, IGNORE HIM!