There is/was a popular scam that involved getting people to look at their Windows error log in order to convince them that they needed "help." It was quite effective because the average user easily accepts that errors are the same as problems.
Fortunately, many of the scammers aren't to bright either and are easily played if they think you're a mark. I get those calls every now and then and drew with them until they are clearly really pissed. Then I tell them I'm bored and thank them for the free entertainment. That causes them to blow a gasket and I start laughing and hang up. You can go many ways with the game and if you slowly and progressively win their trust ask all kinds of strange questions.
Not sure if that analogy works as it is more a practical vs. theoretical split.
Designing things isn't practical? Are you an arts graduate?
No, an engineer. I was referring to design being an exercise in theoretical knowledge while maintaining / repairing is more of a practical skill. It has nothing to do with weather the item designed is practical. Given how many engineers have designed cars to make them as hard a possible to repair (Remove the air filter to replace a headlight bulb? The trunk trim to replace a tail light? reallY?) "practical" may not be in their toolbox.
It is as simple as programing as a vocation vs a profession.
More like cheap source of labor vs. more expensive one. Companies don't have to pay as much and get a ready supply to replace them as technologies change.
Think car mechanic vs engineer. One can fix an engine or even put it together the other designs it. Of course the best is when you have an engineer that is also a mechanic.
Not sure if that analogy works as it is more a practical vs. theoretical split. Perhaps more like quick change oil guy vs a mechanic. One can do one or two things cheaply and the other understand the underlying concepts and can actually troubleshoot and solve problems based on experience and training.
Maybe some places don't care, but usually there's some kind of dollar cost to companies that do a lot of at-will terminations that result in unemployment compensation.
Yes, their premiums rise as claims increase, to a point. At that point, it is cheaper to layoff employees, let them collect unemployment, and then rehire them when demand picks back up since you've already maxed out your premiums. Seasonal employment is perfect for this, with employees getting a paid vacation through unemployment knowing they will be rehired when the season restarts. It's an economically rational approach to the problem of seasonal demand and low wage workers that works out well for both sides.
So what to do? Buy good chocolate. A bar should be anywhere from $5-$15. You can't make really good chocolate without using great cocoa. You can't get great cocoa without paying a significant premium to the farmers -- often 2-4 times the NY or London terminal price. So you know they are paid well. You simply can't have a $1-2 chocolate bar after if has been run though the supply chain (stores, distributors, the factory, various cocoa brokers, etc.) and know the farmers were paid well no matter the certification.
Correct. The problem is not that there is a coach shortage but that there is a shortage of cheap cocoa. High end producers who want to make good chocolate pay a premium and get what they need. Mars, which doesn't really produce chocolate but a brown substance to cover filings, can't.
In the US, FOIA requests can be denied on the basis of privacy violations (exemption 6), and law enforcement information (which this qualifies, I think) can be denied if its release could endanger the life or physical safety of any individual. http://www.foia.gov/faq.html#e...
Except that it is a state FOIA request; which may have the limits. The problem is most people are not sympathetic to strippers; and unlike gun owners who managed to get carry permit applications exempt, the lack a powerful lobby.
...Any such devices like this would be removed from any car I buy...
Agreed! But the key work here is 'buy' - the implication being you buy it outright, and are the owner.
On the other hand, if you are financing through the dealer, the RO (registered owner) is the dealer, not you.
Not quite true. The seller has a lean on the vehicle but you are the owner. If the dealer was still the legal one that could open them up for liability in the event of an accident, etc.
A constitutionalist (you know, the supreme law of the land, the thing they all swore to uphold) would also notice that no part of the Constitution granted authority to do such a thing: An application of Sarbanes-Oxley needs to involve interstate commerce in some fashion.
Fishing is distinctly intrastate commerce (if commerce at all!), and cannot be covered by federal law. Criminal law is supposed to be a state issue.
Not necessarily. the US Federal government has jurisdiction over coastal waters and thus federal law would apply.
The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution also requires "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." I doubt 20 years prison listed in the statute is ever warranted.
Cruel and unusual. It may be cruel but it is not unusual, so a strict constructionist would say it was OK.
This is already being tested in the courts. There's not yet (as far as I know) a test for marijuana intoxication, only detection that you've used marjuana at some point in the past few days/weeks, so there's little justification for testing for marijuana when it's already legal for recreational and/or medicinal use. It's particularly controversial when an employee uses marijuana medicinally -- cough medicine is going to affect employee performance much more than smoking pot over the weekend.
Legality is irrelevent to on the job testing. A valid medical reason would mor ethan likely give the employee a pass but recreational use could still result in adverse actions.
I feel like I've lost my entire cultural identity in effort to be part of the culture I've spent the majority of the last decade in.
Translation: I want to impose my culture on my team mates.
No, more like I am always acutely aware of my differences and it can be uncomfortable. Until you have been their it is hard to understand but one day you may find yourself there even if your just "the old guy."
Let's ignore race for a moment. What's the percentage of people in tech who came from a single parent home? Ditto for the population at large? How many people in tech had welfare crack whores for mothers? The population at large? What's the percentage of people in tech where education was a priority for the family? The population at large?
the real question is "how do we identify and support talent that may not be able to reach their potential without help?" It is easy to dismiss people but the reality is if someone cares and helps people can overcome the odds.
I have about nine engineers working for me. I appreciate the work they do, and -- as someone who's a vastly less qualified engineer than they are -- deeply respect and admire their skills.
At my company, my job as a manager is defined to be all about attracting and retaining great engineers, and giving them context (and then they figure out what they're going to do with that context). So retaining them is, quite simply, my job.
That said, these engineers don't _belong_ to me or my company. They're human beings, and if I want them to work for me I should be willing and able to compete for them every. single. day. And that means that I don't win by making it harder for them to know what's out there in the job market that's better than the job they've got here -- I win by making this job the bast damned job they could want.
Trying to keep recruiters away from my engineers as a way to have a lock on them feels oddly similar to Apple suing Samsung to not have their competing product on the market.
I think we are closer than our comments appear. To me, it's not that you are keeping recruiters away from them; it's simply that if someone is hired to fill a vacant slot for you their loyalty should be to you and not use their position to your detriment. I would expect a good recruiter to learn your staffing needs, what current skills you have on staff, etc. to find the best fit candidate. For that recruiter then to go after you staff seems to me to be a conflict of interest and it would be unethical for them to tell someone else in their firm to go after them as well. however, I would think it perfectly OK for a recruiter at the same firm to independently reach out to your talent and try to poach them.
It's the same as what I do in consulting. A client has every right to expect I won't use what I learn about their company to help a fellow consultant at one of their competitors and it would be unethical for me to offer a competitor information on them I have learned while working for the client. To me, it's a matter of putting the client's interests first.
As a manager myself I fully agree with your comments concerning a manager's role and would not want to be a roadblock to their understanding the job market or having other recruiters contact them.
I disagree. It depends on the agreement. I would want one where the recruiter for my open positions can't recruit or recommend my staff for open positions they have at other firms. I do not think it is unreasonable for me to expect the recruiter not to have a colloquia say "I hear your in at X. I need someone who can do Y and they are noted for that. Help me find someone..." You are either working for me or for someone else. Plain and simple. If the firm does work for competitors other recruiters certainly can poach my staff, just without the help from mine; and a non-compete that would lock out the entire firm (assuming it is reasonably large) would be unreasonable.
Foisting your politics on your customers, eh? Stripe was one of my favorite services - to the point I never even thought about using any other payment processor. I see that may need to change...
Who said it has anything to do with politics? I support gun rights and I probably would have made the same decision. The potential liability and government oversight is simply not worth it. They are making a very sane and reasonable business decision. Just because it conflicts with your political beliefs doesn't mean it is a political decision. They might even share your political beliefs but still have come to the same reasoned business decision that the downside outweighs the upside.
Plus I should point out that you are trying to foist your politics off on Stripe. Why should they be forced to share your political beliefs? Why should they be forced to pick a side?
Stop trying to be reasonable, this is/. I agree that companies often make decision based on risks to the company; decisions that are independent of politics. For example, many of the local gun shops do not allow firearms to be carried by the customer, yet they certainly support gun rights. Many gun shows do not allow people to carry as well. Even the NRA does not allow visitors to carry firearms into their building, though they may have changed that policy recently. I think it is clear that business decisions concerning risk often outweigh politics.
Separate from the fact that the EU "right to be forgotten" is applicable to search engines and not the publishers; the Washington Post is a US publisher and thus not subject to EU laws.
While some overselling is reasonable since everyone won't come at the same time nor stay the entire day
Why is it reasonable? If customers pay for the right to be there the entire day, why should the promoter be allowed to gamble on whether a critical mass of attendees will exceed the building's capacity? If promoters want to bet on margins and keep a negative float, they should get a license to trade financial instruments.
Done properly it has no impact on the customer experience. While you cannot accurately predict what any one person will do you can get a pretty good idea of aggregate behavior; so identify your peak and sell accordingly. If 90% of the purchased ticket is the max load then selling selling extra ticket that take them close to the capacity is reasonable. With enough historical data they can avoid issues and maximize attendance revenue. Problems only arise if they oversell without planning properly.
I run some auto diagnostic software on a Mac using a VM running WindowsXP. If these devices are backwards compatible a Stream 7 would be an ideal device to replace my Mac. It's cheap, portable and has enough screen space even with the small screen to display diagnostic results. A micro USB -> USB adapter would to let me connect to the OBDC and a bluetooth keyboard would complete the setup. The 11 has full size USBand a keyboard but if the 7" works there is no need to shell out an additional $100.
I run some auto diagnostic software on a Mac using a VM running WindowsXP. If these devices are backwards compatible a Stream 7 would be an ideal device to replace my Mac. It's cheap, portable and has enough screen space even with the small screen to display diagnostic results. A micro USB -> USB adapter would to let me connect to the OBDC and a bluetooth keyboard would complete the setup. The 11 has full size USBand a keyboard but if the 7" works there is no need to shell out an additional $100.
True, but the Wright Flyer couldn't be used for a lot of things either nor could Goddard's rockets reach space; but they were important first steps. Aviation is built on incremental steps and who knows where SpaceShip Two will lead? I have no idea where it will go but that is no reason not to try and see.
We took those first steps over half a century ago. If you'r building a Wright Flyer TODAY, you're not going to be learning much, are you?
SpaceShip two could be considered the Wright Flyer of today. Both had very little utility beyond showing what might be possible, and lead to a revolution in aviation.
So? Many early flights were for thrills (and money) as well. By your logic, Lindbergh's flight was just for thrills since we already knew how to reach France by boat.
"By my logic" nothing. What I am actually saying that if we had jets crossing the Atlantic already, then yes, Lindbergh's flight would be just for thrills and we wouldn't learn a damn thing from it.
Since Lindbergh didn't use a jet your analogy makes no sense. However, to continue my point, people were flying across the Atlantic years before Lindbergh and yet his flight was a useful in advancing aviation.
A better solution would have been to NOT SELL TICKETS TO MORE PEOPLE THAN YOUR VENUE CAN ACCOMMODATE.
I know it's a wild and crazy idea but it just might be crazy enough to work.
While some overselling is reasonable since everyone won't come at the same time nor stay the entire day, at some point you need to cutoff sales because the sheer numbers of tickets sold would indicate a high probability of capacity issues. It sounds like they sold at least 20% more than the previous year; a simple analysis of traffic patterns would have told them what the likelihood of reaching capacity would be and indicate when to cutoff sales to avoid problems.
The organizers apparently work at an airline in real life.;-)
While I realize your statement is mad in jest, had they worked at an airline they may not have had such a problem. Airlines are actually very good at capacity control; what throws them off is usually weather or mechanical issue start disrupt the flow of passengers. When that happens they have to redo schedules and often will cancel flights, even when a plane is at the gate, to maximize the number of people getting to their destination.
I was *at* the con when this went down, was in the rotunda where the marshal/police were, and listened in on all the conversations. The fire marshal is completely to blame for this, he's an idiot.
It sounds like the organizers didn't properly keep track of occupancy levels and overloaded some floors, resulting in the fire marshall stepping in to fix the situation. The real idiots are the organizers who failed to be sure they could properly control the crowds; especially since they knew the number of tickets sold and could gauge expected attendance and plan accordingly.
To reduce the number of people, the fire marshal ordered anyone leaving the con could not reenter for any reason, and decided that going to the ground floor constituted leaving the con... despite having con functions on the ground floor.
As long as the ground floor and the building were not at capacity that is a perfectly reasonable response.
I innocently went down the escalator to check out the [ground floor] kids area and was marooned. No jacket, no cell phone, and no car keys to get into my vehicle and it was 'friggin cold outside.
Next time, don't leave your stuff somewhere when you wander away. Simple solution.
A better solution would have been to stop letting new people in, while letting the steady stream of outgoers reduce the number.
They were doing just that; except they were not letting anyone in. Letting people go in and out does nothing to solve the overcrowding problem. By not letting people who left the upper floors back in, they addressed the occupancy issue. Once the occupancy levels were within the legal limits and under control, then they can let people in.
There was no fire, no emergency, no need to be a complete prick to people who were already at the con.
This was the fire marshal being ignorant and inflexible. He's an idiot.
The fire marshall's job is to minimize the potential for loss of life due to overcrowding, inadequate exits, etc. before a fire breaks out. Fires are pretty inflexible themselves and don't really care if they inconvenience someone.
Responsibility for this lies with the organizers. The knew what the advance sales were, what previous attendee patterns were and the venue capacity; they could have put plans in place to deal with the crowds and maybe even work with the venue and fire marshall to be sure there were no issues. They may have done that but clearly were not properly prepared based on what happened.
Slashdot Mirror
Greed.
There is/was a popular scam that involved getting people to look at their Windows error log in order to convince them that they needed "help." It was quite effective because the average user easily accepts that errors are the same as problems.
Fortunately, many of the scammers aren't to bright either and are easily played if they think you're a mark. I get those calls every now and then and drew with them until they are clearly really pissed. Then I tell them I'm bored and thank them for the free entertainment. That causes them to blow a gasket and I start laughing and hang up. You can go many ways with the game and if you slowly and progressively win their trust ask all kinds of strange questions.
barrel and paper by the ton. Uber cannot win this fight.
Designing things isn't practical? Are you an arts graduate?
No, an engineer. I was referring to design being an exercise in theoretical knowledge while maintaining / repairing is more of a practical skill. It has nothing to do with weather the item designed is practical. Given how many engineers have designed cars to make them as hard a possible to repair (Remove the air filter to replace a headlight bulb? The trunk trim to replace a tail light? reallY?) "practical" may not be in their toolbox.
It is as simple as programing as a vocation vs a profession.
More like cheap source of labor vs. more expensive one. Companies don't have to pay as much and get a ready supply to replace them as technologies change.
Think car mechanic vs engineer. One can fix an engine or even put it together the other designs it. Of course the best is when you have an engineer that is also a mechanic.
Not sure if that analogy works as it is more a practical vs. theoretical split. Perhaps more like quick change oil guy vs a mechanic. One can do one or two things cheaply and the other understand the underlying concepts and can actually troubleshoot and solve problems based on experience and training.
Maybe some places don't care, but usually there's some kind of dollar cost to companies that do a lot of at-will terminations that result in unemployment compensation.
Yes, their premiums rise as claims increase, to a point. At that point, it is cheaper to layoff employees, let them collect unemployment, and then rehire them when demand picks back up since you've already maxed out your premiums. Seasonal employment is perfect for this, with employees getting a paid vacation through unemployment knowing they will be rehired when the season restarts. It's an economically rational approach to the problem of seasonal demand and low wage workers that works out well for both sides.
So what to do? Buy good chocolate. A bar should be anywhere from $5-$15. You can't make really good chocolate without using great cocoa. You can't get great cocoa without paying a significant premium to the farmers -- often 2-4 times the NY or London terminal price. So you know they are paid well. You simply can't have a $1-2 chocolate bar after if has been run though the supply chain (stores, distributors, the factory, various cocoa brokers, etc.) and know the farmers were paid well no matter the certification.
Correct. The problem is not that there is a coach shortage but that there is a shortage of cheap cocoa. High end producers who want to make good chocolate pay a premium and get what they need. Mars, which doesn't really produce chocolate but a brown substance to cover filings, can't.
In the US, FOIA requests can be denied on the basis of privacy violations (exemption 6), and law enforcement information (which this qualifies, I think) can be denied if its release could endanger the life or physical safety of any individual. http://www.foia.gov/faq.html#e...
Except that it is a state FOIA request; which may have the limits. The problem is most people are not sympathetic to strippers; and unlike gun owners who managed to get carry permit applications exempt, the lack a powerful lobby.
...Any such devices like this would be removed from any car I buy...
Agreed! But the key work here is 'buy' - the implication being you buy it outright, and are the owner.
On the other hand, if you are financing through the dealer, the RO (registered owner) is the dealer, not you.
Not quite true. The seller has a lean on the vehicle but you are the owner. If the dealer was still the legal one that could open them up for liability in the event of an accident, etc.
A constitutionalist (you know, the supreme law of the land, the thing they all swore to uphold) would also notice that no part of the Constitution granted authority to do such a thing: An application of Sarbanes-Oxley needs to involve interstate commerce in some fashion.
Fishing is distinctly intrastate commerce (if commerce at all!), and cannot be covered by federal law. Criminal law is supposed to be a state issue.
Not necessarily. the US Federal government has jurisdiction over coastal waters and thus federal law would apply.
The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution also requires "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." I doubt 20 years prison listed in the statute is ever warranted.
Cruel and unusual. It may be cruel but it is not unusual, so a strict constructionist would say it was OK.
Also remember many jobs will drug test you.
This is already being tested in the courts. There's not yet (as far as I know) a test for marijuana intoxication, only detection that you've used marjuana at some point in the past few days/weeks, so there's little justification for testing for marijuana when it's already legal for recreational and/or medicinal use. It's particularly controversial when an employee uses marijuana medicinally -- cough medicine is going to affect employee performance much more than smoking pot over the weekend.
Legality is irrelevent to on the job testing. A valid medical reason would mor ethan likely give the employee a pass but recreational use could still result in adverse actions.
I feel like I've lost my entire cultural identity in effort to be part of the culture I've spent the majority of the last decade in.
Translation: I want to impose my culture on my team mates.
No, more like I am always acutely aware of my differences and it can be uncomfortable. Until you have been their it is hard to understand but one day you may find yourself there even if your just "the old guy."
Let's ignore race for a moment. What's the percentage of people in tech who came from a single parent home? Ditto for the population at large? How many people in tech had welfare crack whores for mothers? The population at large? What's the percentage of people in tech where education was a priority for the family? The population at large?
the real question is "how do we identify and support talent that may not be able to reach their potential without help?" It is easy to dismiss people but the reality is if someone cares and helps people can overcome the odds.
I have to admit that I still disagree with you.
I have about nine engineers working for me. I appreciate the work they do, and -- as someone who's a vastly less qualified engineer than they are -- deeply respect and admire their skills.
At my company, my job as a manager is defined to be all about attracting and retaining great engineers, and giving them context (and then they figure out what they're going to do with that context). So retaining them is, quite simply, my job.
That said, these engineers don't _belong_ to me or my company. They're human beings, and if I want them to work for me I should be willing and able to compete for them every. single. day. And that means that I don't win by making it harder for them to know what's out there in the job market that's better than the job they've got here -- I win by making this job the bast damned job they could want.
Trying to keep recruiters away from my engineers as a way to have a lock on them feels oddly similar to Apple suing Samsung to not have their competing product on the market.
I think we are closer than our comments appear. To me, it's not that you are keeping recruiters away from them; it's simply that if someone is hired to fill a vacant slot for you their loyalty should be to you and not use their position to your detriment. I would expect a good recruiter to learn your staffing needs, what current skills you have on staff, etc. to find the best fit candidate. For that recruiter then to go after you staff seems to me to be a conflict of interest and it would be unethical for them to tell someone else in their firm to go after them as well. however, I would think it perfectly OK for a recruiter at the same firm to independently reach out to your talent and try to poach them.
It's the same as what I do in consulting. A client has every right to expect I won't use what I learn about their company to help a fellow consultant at one of their competitors and it would be unethical for me to offer a competitor information on them I have learned while working for the client. To me, it's a matter of putting the client's interests first.
As a manager myself I fully agree with your comments concerning a manager's role and would not want to be a roadblock to their understanding the job market or having other recruiters contact them.
(Anti-poaching agreements, though, are just evil)
I disagree. It depends on the agreement. I would want one where the recruiter for my open positions can't recruit or recommend my staff for open positions they have at other firms. I do not think it is unreasonable for me to expect the recruiter not to have a colloquia say "I hear your in at X. I need someone who can do Y and they are noted for that. Help me find someone..." You are either working for me or for someone else. Plain and simple. If the firm does work for competitors other recruiters certainly can poach my staff, just without the help from mine; and a non-compete that would lock out the entire firm (assuming it is reasonably large) would be unreasonable.
Foisting your politics on your customers, eh? Stripe was one of my favorite services - to the point I never even thought about using any other payment processor. I see that may need to change...
Who said it has anything to do with politics? I support gun rights and I probably would have made the same decision. The potential liability and government oversight is simply not worth it. They are making a very sane and reasonable business decision. Just because it conflicts with your political beliefs doesn't mean it is a political decision. They might even share your political beliefs but still have come to the same reasoned business decision that the downside outweighs the upside.
Plus I should point out that you are trying to foist your politics off on Stripe. Why should they be forced to share your political beliefs? Why should they be forced to pick a side?
Stop trying to be reasonable, this is /. I agree that companies often make decision based on risks to the company; decisions that are independent of politics. For example, many of the local gun shops do not allow firearms to be carried by the customer, yet they certainly support gun rights. Many gun shows do not allow people to carry as well. Even the NRA does not allow visitors to carry firearms into their building, though they may have changed that policy recently. I think it is clear that business decisions concerning risk often outweigh politics.
and St Peter asks him "My car is making a funny noise..."
RIP Tom, you will be missed...
Tom represented the cynicism, sarcasm and realism of many of my engineering brethren. RIP
Yes, a true classic. Interestingly enough, he also has an MBA and PhD in management. he must have been one hell of a professor as well.
Separate from the fact that the EU "right to be forgotten" is applicable to search engines and not the publishers; the Washington Post is a US publisher and thus not subject to EU laws.
While some overselling is reasonable since everyone won't come at the same time nor stay the entire day
Why is it reasonable? If customers pay for the right to be there the entire day, why should the promoter be allowed to gamble on whether a critical mass of attendees will exceed the building's capacity? If promoters want to bet on margins and keep a negative float, they should get a license to trade financial instruments.
Done properly it has no impact on the customer experience. While you cannot accurately predict what any one person will do you can get a pretty good idea of aggregate behavior; so identify your peak and sell accordingly. If 90% of the purchased ticket is the max load then selling selling extra ticket that take them close to the capacity is reasonable. With enough historical data they can avoid issues and maximize attendance revenue. Problems only arise if they oversell without planning properly.
I run some auto diagnostic software on a Mac using a VM running WindowsXP. If these devices are backwards compatible a Stream 7 would be an ideal device to replace my Mac. It's cheap, portable and has enough screen space even with the small screen to display diagnostic results. A micro USB -> USB adapter would to let me connect to the OBDC and a bluetooth keyboard would complete the setup. The 11 has full size USBand a keyboard but if the 7" works there is no need to shell out an additional $100.
Wrong thread. Would be nice to be able to delete a post...
I run some auto diagnostic software on a Mac using a VM running WindowsXP. If these devices are backwards compatible a Stream 7 would be an ideal device to replace my Mac. It's cheap, portable and has enough screen space even with the small screen to display diagnostic results. A micro USB -> USB adapter would to let me connect to the OBDC and a bluetooth keyboard would complete the setup. The 11 has full size USBand a keyboard but if the 7" works there is no need to shell out an additional $100.
True, but the Wright Flyer couldn't be used for a lot of things either nor could Goddard's rockets reach space; but they were important first steps. Aviation is built on incremental steps and who knows where SpaceShip Two will lead? I have no idea where it will go but that is no reason not to try and see.
We took those first steps over half a century ago. If you'r building a Wright Flyer TODAY, you're not going to be learning much, are you?
SpaceShip two could be considered the Wright Flyer of today. Both had very little utility beyond showing what might be possible, and lead to a revolution in aviation.
So? Many early flights were for thrills (and money) as well. By your logic, Lindbergh's flight was just for thrills since we already knew how to reach France by boat.
"By my logic" nothing. What I am actually saying that if we had jets crossing the Atlantic already, then yes, Lindbergh's flight would be just for thrills and we wouldn't learn a damn thing from it.
Since Lindbergh didn't use a jet your analogy makes no sense. However, to continue my point, people were flying across the Atlantic years before Lindbergh and yet his flight was a useful in advancing aviation.
A better solution would have been to NOT SELL TICKETS TO MORE PEOPLE THAN YOUR VENUE CAN ACCOMMODATE.
I know it's a wild and crazy idea but it just might be crazy enough to work.
While some overselling is reasonable since everyone won't come at the same time nor stay the entire day, at some point you need to cutoff sales because the sheer numbers of tickets sold would indicate a high probability of capacity issues. It sounds like they sold at least 20% more than the previous year; a simple analysis of traffic patterns would have told them what the likelihood of reaching capacity would be and indicate when to cutoff sales to avoid problems.
The organizers apparently work at an airline in real life. ;-)
While I realize your statement is mad in jest, had they worked at an airline they may not have had such a problem. Airlines are actually very good at capacity control; what throws them off is usually weather or mechanical issue start disrupt the flow of passengers. When that happens they have to redo schedules and often will cancel flights, even when a plane is at the gate, to maximize the number of people getting to their destination.
I was *at* the con when this went down, was in the rotunda where the marshal/police were, and listened in on all the conversations. The fire marshal is completely to blame for this, he's an idiot.
It sounds like the organizers didn't properly keep track of occupancy levels and overloaded some floors, resulting in the fire marshall stepping in to fix the situation. The real idiots are the organizers who failed to be sure they could properly control the crowds; especially since they knew the number of tickets sold and could gauge expected attendance and plan accordingly.
To reduce the number of people, the fire marshal ordered anyone leaving the con could not reenter for any reason, and decided that going to the ground floor constituted leaving the con... despite having con functions on the ground floor.
As long as the ground floor and the building were not at capacity that is a perfectly reasonable response.
I innocently went down the escalator to check out the [ground floor] kids area and was marooned. No jacket, no cell phone, and no car keys to get into my vehicle and it was 'friggin cold outside.
Next time, don't leave your stuff somewhere when you wander away. Simple solution.
A better solution would have been to stop letting new people in, while letting the steady stream of outgoers reduce the number.
They were doing just that; except they were not letting anyone in. Letting people go in and out does nothing to solve the overcrowding problem. By not letting people who left the upper floors back in, they addressed the occupancy issue. Once the occupancy levels were within the legal limits and under control, then they can let people in.
There was no fire, no emergency, no need to be a complete prick to people who were already at the con.
This was the fire marshal being ignorant and inflexible. He's an idiot.
The fire marshall's job is to minimize the potential for loss of life due to overcrowding, inadequate exits, etc. before a fire breaks out. Fires are pretty inflexible themselves and don't really care if they inconvenience someone.
Responsibility for this lies with the organizers. The knew what the advance sales were, what previous attendee patterns were and the venue capacity; they could have put plans in place to deal with the crowds and maybe even work with the venue and fire marshall to be sure there were no issues. They may have done that but clearly were not properly prepared based on what happened.