I understand what Katz is saying. However, my point is that it is because of the volume of support requests that there are "dozens of automated menus" and "[waits] on hold [for] hours at a time". It is because of the complexity of the technology that such measures exist in computer tech support and that they don't in the sofa industry.
I worked for a Future Shop as tech support for two years. We had to work directly with AST, Acer, IBM and various peripheral manufacturers. The problem for our customer's was not us, but the manufacturers. Even though they sold their product in Canada their level of service for Canadian customers was appalling(sp?). In most cases the customers would contact us about how poor the service they had experienced from the manufacturer was and we would take over for them and contact the manufacturer ourself.
The advantage for our customers was twofold.
1) we had reseller direct numbers so we could avoid the long queues that regular customers had to deal with
2) we had better knowledge of the product and causes of the problems so it was easier for us to deal with the weak tech support diagnostic process that occurred at the manufacturers
All in all, our customers (and I certainly don't speak for all Future Shop locations, or current conditions) were much better off contacting us.
The comparison in the article of the sofa to the computer industry is ludicrous. The reason somebody doesn't have to "call up the store that sold you a sofa to ask where the legs are" is because people are well aquainted with sofas and how they work.
The problem with the tech industry is the lack of knowledge of the end consumer. It is the complexity of the technology that is causing the need for tech support unlike any other industry. You don't see a sticker for 24hr technical support on a couch now do you?
Until the end user is better educated in how computers work (read: take a fuckin class), tech support workers will be overworked and the quality of tech support will look poor because of the sheer volume they must process.
When I worked as a tech support person I received 30-50 calls per 10hr shift, the majority of which required long periods of time to resolve due to the damage originally caused by the customer's trying to do things they didn't understand the consequences of and then their infamiliarity with the technology when I was stepping them how to fix it. If customers were only contacting tech support for 'real' problems as opposed to ones caused by user error and lack of knowledge, the perception of quality of tech support (specifically in response time) would drastically rise.
As much as this a very accurate and useful point to make I think most people who read Slashdot are going to go 'duh'. I mean it's very obvious to those of us who grew up in such a life and contemplated escaping it all ourselves.
If this editorial piece were in a major newspaper or on the six o'clock news - it would be substantially more useful. This is really a case where Mr. Katz is preaching to the converted (again).
To make this piece useful I encourage everyone to print it out and mail it into your local newspapers and news stations. And perhaps the people who really need to be reading this kind of essay will get the opportunity.
The Dev Tools (including the one I use) are linked through a LAN to our computer (each one is registered to the MAC address of the network card of the computer it is licensed for) and thus you can open a file on 'host0' which is a directory mapped on your hard drive and write out the image from video memory that way.
This looks really neat, and quite reasonable. I've been claiming for quite sometime now that the tech stocks are going to cause serious problems on the stock market in the very near future.
I believe that this is a result of what Shiller refers to as herd mentality. The same phenomenon that has led to the insane IPOs is going to bring the market down. At some point some number of people are all going to bail on tech stocks at approximately the same time. The 'herd' who are trading from their home computer will nearly instantly begin selling their stocks.
We've seen this happen already a few times in the last six months to differing degrees. I find it very likely that the biggest 'crash' is in the imminent future.
Fuck off, it's power and usefulness are, in alot of ways, better than Java and C++ for a skilled programmer.
The key is that it is easy to write shitty VB code that does something, it's alot harder to write shit C++ or Java code and still have it do something useful.
VB is actually a very powerful tool when used for specific purposes. I personally believe that in Windows programming the best/fastest way to create an windows application is to write the interface in VB and the computations in C++.
The reason Yahoo can profit from this is because of their business plan. Like most web companies out there, a large part of their income comes from banner ads, thus when people are browsing the illegal auctions yahoo is racking up the banner ad views and consequently making money off of it.
I think you are sadly mistaken if you believe Corel's headquarters are still in Canada. Several years ago Corel moved their world headquarters to Dublin, Ireland for tax and wage reasons.
I agree that AOL is not in itself evil, and perhaps it is even a useful service for a select subsection of the populace. I certainly wouldn't want to use it myself but I hold no grudges against AOL. I am super happy that the lawsuit was launched and even happier that it was won...it sets a wonderful precedent that could, in the future, lead to an (almost) spam free internet community.
It seems to me that AOL oughta be passing that money on to the actual people who received the spam. I'm sure their argument was that it was wasting precious space on their servers, but they are still not the people who really suffer from having to wade through the spam every day.
It is interesting to note how this seems to fall in line with the Microsoft trial. If it is the case (as it seems to be) that this crypto export allowance has only been given to Netscape it would seem like the government is starting to work towards breaking the Microsoft dominance by giving its compeititors an advantage (if only in a PR sense).
It's kinda funny, I was watching NBC just before I came online and I saw the ad for this show and I thought...fuck, how irresponsible can anyone be. There is already enough panic and worry about what's going to happen without some network trying to make a bigillion dollars by inciting panic in people.
If anything does happen at New Year's and people do panic/riot I think NBC oughta be liable for inciting a riot. It's absolutely the most idiotic thing anyone has ever thought up.
makes me seriously consider whether google is that good of a search engine or not. if shit like that is in there, then who's to say that it is doing crap like that all over.
For a cyberphilosophy class that I took last year I had to do a book report and I did it on Snow Crash. If you want a much more in depth (and useful) analysis of the book from a philosophical point of view you should check it out. NOTE: There is a little bit of spoiler in the paper.
Frankly this is not very interesting, and not all that worrisome as explained by most other people who have already posted, so I won't go into the details again.
However, this article makes me think that the guy who's job to write stuff on privacy issues on the net came up empty in the actual real security issues department and said, hey I can still write an article about why people aren't worried about an issue...in other words writing about privacy on a non privacy issue.
He says that the EFF among others has not responded to this latest "privacy threat", perhaps he should have thought for a moment and realized...they aren't responding because there is nothing to respond to.
Your Test-drive account will remain active for 30 days from your registration date.
That's just super, the idea is there, and a really good idea it is, but only allowing 30 days to use this kind of defeats the purpose. I don't have anything I want to test right this minute, but I know in the future I might, deffinetly would be a plus if this was some form of permanent account.
Even if they were to say, "accounts that are inactive for 30 days are deleted" that would be fine, but to provide only a 30 day usability period is not exactly the greatest.
Did you even bother to read the article or ever follow the discussion when this came up before. The recording industry is the lobby that is pushing for this levy. They love, nearly 100% of the levy will be distributed between the record labels in Canada.
Next time, read the article before stating complete falsehoods.
So Lucas' lawyers sent out cease and desist orders to a couple hundred bootleggers. If they (or this Moira Gunn who wrote the article) think that what Lucas managed to do is control the flow of information on the internet they are dreaming.
If you want a copy of TPM you will be able to find it on the net or on irc and there ain't a damn thing that Lucas can do about it.
To quote Gunn "So, the next time someone tells you -- `You just can't stop information from being passed around the Internet!` -- think twice. We can stop most of it with a little determination." Ms. Gunn you obviously have no clue exactly how the internet works so don't try to spout off some Lucasian propoganda which has no basis in reality.
What Katz neglects to mention in his article is the other major effect that the mp3 revolution is having on the music industry. Small bands like my own ( Billingsgate) have been able to reach an international audience using mp3's and avoiding selling ourselves out to a major label. For established artists, this influx of small bands into the common market is going to force these established artists to rebel against their labels to continue competing against the incoming army of small bands. On that note, please check out my band's music at mp3.com. --Random Brainwaavs
I didn't say anything has to be balanced in "exact" proportion; Lucas' gender "imbalance" (and its even in the crowd scenes!), all politics aside, is completely unrealistic. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far,far away...with less than 3% women"??
Further, anyone who makes the naive claim that it's "just a movie" has obviously missed the extent to which these films have influenced the creative consciousness of an entire generation - or did you not notice the hundreds of people lining up for hours and even days to get tickets, or the generation of little boys growing up with Star Wars bedsheets, backpacks, etc.
As for the claims regarding racism, your charming concluding "fuck you" suggests that you're pretty much okay with hate-mongering in general, and therefore aren't worth arguing with.
There are a few female Jedi's in the movie but since none of them speak they don't really count anyways. There is one on the council who is shown for apx. 1 sec. And there are two standing on the steps of the Naboo palace during the celebration at the end who the camera pans past and are visible for about 1.5 sec.
It's not about quotas, it is about the fact that one of the two genders of humanity was absent from the movie. To go even further all the men and women with the exception of the token black man were all white.
Lucas likes his own race and gender and does feel that it is necessary to give children who are not white males a place to imagine themselves in this movie.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand what Katz is saying. However, my point is that it is because of the volume of support requests that there are "dozens of automated menus" and "[waits] on hold [for] hours at a time". It is because of the complexity of the technology that such measures exist in computer tech support and that they don't in the sofa industry.
This is completely incorrect.
I worked for a Future Shop as tech support for two years. We had to work directly with AST, Acer, IBM and various peripheral manufacturers. The problem for our customer's was not us, but the manufacturers. Even though they sold their product in Canada their level of service for Canadian customers was appalling(sp?). In most cases the customers would contact us about how poor the service they had experienced from the manufacturer was and we would take over for them and contact the manufacturer ourself.
The advantage for our customers was twofold.
1) we had reseller direct numbers so we could avoid the long queues that regular customers had to deal with
2) we had better knowledge of the product and causes of the problems so it was easier for us to deal with the weak tech support diagnostic process that occurred at the manufacturers
All in all, our customers (and I certainly don't speak for all Future Shop locations, or current conditions) were much better off contacting us.
The comparison in the article of the sofa to the computer industry is ludicrous. The reason somebody doesn't have to "call up the store that sold you a sofa to ask where the legs are" is because people are well aquainted with sofas and how they work.
The problem with the tech industry is the lack of knowledge of the end consumer. It is the complexity of the technology that is causing the need for tech support unlike any other industry. You don't see a sticker for 24hr technical support on a couch now do you?
Until the end user is better educated in how computers work (read: take a fuckin class), tech support workers will be overworked and the quality of tech support will look poor because of the sheer volume they must process.
When I worked as a tech support person I received 30-50 calls per 10hr shift, the majority of which required long periods of time to resolve due to the damage originally caused by the customer's trying to do things they didn't understand the consequences of and then their infamiliarity with the technology when I was stepping them how to fix it. If customers were only contacting tech support for 'real' problems as opposed to ones caused by user error and lack of knowledge, the perception of quality of tech support (specifically in response time) would drastically rise.
As much as this a very accurate and useful point to make I think most people who read Slashdot are going to go 'duh'. I mean it's very obvious to those of us who grew up in such a life and contemplated escaping it all ourselves.
If this editorial piece were in a major newspaper or on the six o'clock news - it would be substantially more useful. This is really a case where Mr. Katz is preaching to the converted (again).
To make this piece useful I encourage everyone to print it out and mail it into your local newspapers and news stations. And perhaps the people who really need to be reading this kind of essay will get the opportunity.
Ok as I read through the comments there are a few points that I'd like to clear up as untrue.
1) The NWN engine is an internally developed engine based on the omen engine which powered MDK2
2) NWN is not the sequel to BG2. It is an entirely new game based on the 3rd edition AD&D and has nothing to do with the BG story.
3) The plan, as last revealed to the employees, is to ship all 4 binaries in one box, thus all versions will be complete and shipped at the same time.
** please note all comments are my own opinion and may not reflect the official stance of BioWare Corp., Interplay, or any other related companies.
Marc Audy
BioWare Corp.
Programmer - MDK2:Armageddon
The Dev Tools (including the one I use) are linked through a LAN to our computer (each one is registered to the MAC address of the network card of the computer it is licensed for) and thus you can open a file on 'host0' which is a directory mapped on your hard drive and write out the image from video memory that way.
This looks really neat, and quite reasonable. I've been claiming for quite sometime now that the tech stocks are going to cause serious problems on the stock market in the very near future.
I believe that this is a result of what Shiller refers to as herd mentality. The same phenomenon that has led to the insane IPOs is going to bring the market down. At some point some number of people are all going to bail on tech stocks at approximately the same time. The 'herd' who are trading from their home computer will nearly instantly begin selling their stocks.
We've seen this happen already a few times in the last six months to differing degrees. I find it very likely that the biggest 'crash' is in the imminent future.
Fuck off, it's power and usefulness are, in alot of ways, better than Java and C++ for a skilled programmer.
The key is that it is easy to write shitty VB code that does something, it's alot harder to write shit C++ or Java code and still have it do something useful.
VB is actually a very powerful tool when used for specific purposes. I personally believe that in Windows programming the best/fastest way to create an windows application is to write the interface in VB and the computations in C++.
The reason Yahoo can profit from this is because of their business plan. Like most web companies out there, a large part of their income comes from banner ads, thus when people are browsing the illegal auctions yahoo is racking up the banner ad views and consequently making money off of it.
I think you are sadly mistaken if you believe Corel's headquarters are still in Canada. Several years ago Corel moved their world headquarters to Dublin, Ireland for tax and wage reasons.
I agree that AOL is not in itself evil, and perhaps it is even a useful service for a select subsection of the populace. I certainly wouldn't want to use it myself but I hold no grudges against AOL. I am super happy that the lawsuit was launched and even happier that it was won...it sets a wonderful precedent that could, in the future, lead to an (almost) spam free internet community.
It seems to me that AOL oughta be passing that money on to the actual people who received the spam. I'm sure their argument was that it was wasting precious space on their servers, but they are still not the people who really suffer from having to wade through the spam every day.
It is interesting to note how this seems to fall in line with the Microsoft trial. If it is the case (as it seems to be) that this crypto export allowance has only been given to Netscape it would seem like the government is starting to work towards breaking the Microsoft dominance by giving its compeititors an advantage (if only in a PR sense).
It's kinda funny, I was watching NBC just before I came online and I saw the ad for this show and I thought...fuck, how irresponsible can anyone be. There is already enough panic and worry about what's going to happen without some network trying to make a bigillion dollars by inciting panic in people.
If anything does happen at New Year's and people do panic/riot I think NBC oughta be liable for inciting a riot. It's absolutely the most idiotic thing anyone has ever thought up.
makes me seriously consider whether google is that good of a search engine or not. if shit like that is in there, then who's to say that it is doing crap like that all over.
For a cyberphilosophy class that I took last year I had to do a book report and I did it on Snow Crash. If you want a much more in depth (and useful) analysis of the book from a philosophical point of view you should check it out. NOTE: There is a little bit of spoiler in the paper.
Frankly this is not very interesting, and not all that worrisome as explained by most other people who have already posted, so I won't go into the details again.
However, this article makes me think that the guy who's job to write stuff on privacy issues on the net came up empty in the actual real security issues department and said, hey I can still write an article about why people aren't worried about an issue...in other words writing about privacy on a non privacy issue.
He says that the EFF among others has not responded to this latest "privacy threat", perhaps he should have thought for a moment and realized...they aren't responding because there is nothing to respond to.
Your Test-drive account will remain active for 30 days from your registration date.
That's just super, the idea is there, and a really good idea it is, but only allowing 30 days to use this kind of defeats the purpose. I don't have anything I want to test right this minute, but I know in the future I might, deffinetly would be a plus if this was some form of permanent account.
Even if they were to say, "accounts that are inactive for 30 days are deleted" that would be fine, but to provide only a 30 day usability period is not exactly the greatest.
Did you even bother to read the article or ever follow the discussion when this came up before. The recording industry is the lobby that is pushing for this levy. They love, nearly 100% of the levy will be distributed between the record labels in Canada.
Next time, read the article before stating complete falsehoods.
So Lucas' lawyers sent out cease and desist orders to a couple hundred bootleggers. If they (or this Moira Gunn who wrote the article) think that what Lucas managed to do is control the flow of information on the internet they are dreaming.
If you want a copy of TPM you will be able to find it on the net or on irc and there ain't a damn thing that Lucas can do about it.
To quote Gunn "So, the next time someone tells you -- `You just can't stop information from being passed around the Internet!` -- think twice. We can stop most of it with a little determination."
Ms. Gunn you obviously have no clue exactly how the internet works so don't try to spout off some Lucasian propoganda which has no basis in reality.
Well excuse me for a moment while I go out and get a patent for all devices that display images downloaded from the internet regardless of format.
--Random Brainwaavs
What Katz neglects to mention in his article is the other major effect that the mp3 revolution is having on the music industry. Small bands like my own ( Billingsgate) have been able to reach an international audience using mp3's and avoiding selling ourselves out to a major label. For established artists, this influx of small bands into the common market is going to force these established artists to rebel against their labels to continue competing against the incoming army of small bands. On that note, please check out my band's music at mp3.com. --Random Brainwaavs
I didn't say anything has to be balanced in "exact" proportion; Lucas' gender "imbalance" (and its even in the crowd scenes!), all politics aside, is completely unrealistic. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far,far away...with less than 3% women"??
Further, anyone who makes the naive claim that it's "just a movie" has obviously missed the extent to which these films have influenced the creative consciousness of an entire generation - or did you not notice the hundreds of people lining up for hours and even days to get tickets, or the generation of little boys growing up with Star Wars bedsheets, backpacks, etc.
As for the claims regarding racism, your charming concluding "fuck you" suggests that you're pretty much okay with hate-mongering in general, and therefore aren't worth arguing with.
There are a few female Jedi's in the movie but since none of them speak they don't really count anyways. There is one on the council who is shown for apx. 1 sec. And there are two standing on the steps of the Naboo palace during the celebration at the end who the camera pans past and are visible for about 1.5 sec.
It's not about quotas, it is about the fact that one of the two genders of humanity was absent from the movie. To go even further all the men and women with the exception of the token black man were all white.
Lucas likes his own race and gender and does feel that it is necessary to give children who are not white males a place to imagine themselves in this movie.