I feel -exactly- like that, but a long email complaint resulted in a 1 line reply that said 'one of our representatives has already handled this issue'.
In the box I'm returning the camera in, I have a 2 page letter (10pt font without much whitespace) and every email theyve sent me and the tracking information and all that..
I'm definately not happy, despite the many successful orders they've had with me in the past. To a degree, I do feel responsible since I cancelled the first order, but I'm sure people do that all the time and I did it after about 2 minutes, literally.
I'd love to talk to a manager or something, but most of the time you get outsourced reps. I've goten an american twice in about 10 calls.
I kept hoping they'd say just to keep the extra memory card or something.
Everything's so automated these days, its like in star wars where the planet is deleted from the database and nobody believes it was ever there. They kept saying to click the return this order button, but the order hadn't shipped according to the computer, so that option wasnt available.. It took a few calls to get that point across.. Outsourcing and automation were the two big annoyances of this process. Besides that, when my first card declined on the order due to the first order having been charged to it (I had overnight shipping on the order) the automated system said it would try again tomorrow. If someone wants overnight shipping, you darn well better call them when a card declines or something else is in the way.
Anyway, I posted this mostly to vent, but also as a warning for others to be careful with large orders- eg make sure you order it right the first time.
Thank you for your concern/support- its better than amazon's done.
I am -not- happy with amazon as of lately. I ordered a Canon EOS 20D and a Lexar memory card (~$1,500 total), cancelled the order a few minutes later (before billing or shipping or anything) because I wanted to change memory cards.. When I placed the new order, the credit card didn't have enough room left since they'd already charged it. No problem, I called and paid with a visa. The online system showed only the new order, but never showed it shipped. The next day, I received two cameras, apparently from the old order on the old card and the new order on the new card. The order status still didnt know the one camera had shipped, let alone two. The old order had disappeared completely because it was cancelled.
In any case, I tried to call their support (via the click to call me thing) and their system would call me (Estara.com) and when it tried to transfer me to amazon I'd get a fast busy.. So I tried about 15 times, and it finally blocked me as an abuser. Very nice.
I gave it a new number and got through, and the pakistani representative assured me i had not received one camera, let alone two.. After a while of arguing I hung up and emailed instead, which didn't get me a response.. So I called the next day and talked to another pakistani who while continually saying 'this was by our hand' never really got things fixed. She said she'd schedule a ups pickup and email me more information.. A day later, no email and no UPS pickup.. So I called back and they're going to send a ups shipping label which I should get in three days and itll go back ups ground.. So in 10 days, when they receive the extra camera, I can get my $1,500 back. Meanwhile, during the thanksgiving shopping rush yesterday and for the christmas shopping season, I'm $1,500 short, and am going to miss my rent payment.
On top of that, amazon closed my account because they thought someone else accessed it. When I called about that, they said theyd probably closed it to keep my cards from being charged again.
to me, yellow is almost orange or on the way to red, whereas green to me says secure.. I think IE is on the right track and firefox is the one that needs to change.
Need some sort of quantum music distrobution system such that intercepting the specially encoded stream by anything other than the destination player would ruin the bits.
seems like there's always something every month or two in the news about a stabbing or mugging on bart. do you have a tv or are you too eco-friendly?
fwiw, I'm not a racist, and I never said anything about people of color being the ones to be afraid of. I'm actually generally more afraid of some of the drug crazed white guys;o)
BART is a decent system in terms of acessibility, diversity in locations, and cost, but BART can be a scary place depending on who you are and what you're carrying.
If I'm by myself, not carrying anything gadgety or money and I'm not dressed for the city, it's not so bad (24 year old white male). When I have to carry a laptop or dress up for the city, especially late at night, it can be a little nerve wracking depending on the people in the car. I usually try to get on in the car behind the driver and sit in the rear facing seats at the front if I really have anything of value. The thought crossed my mind in the past of carrying a taser or similar defense weapon, but despite my and other peoples' fears, BART isn't that bad of a place if you're careful, stuff doesn't happen -that- often.
I think the funniest thing that ever happened to me on bart was some pothead on the platform was trying to sell me weed, but he must have been completely baked because he first asked "hey man, wanna buy some pot?", and when I said no, he continued "then wanna buy some weed?", again I said no and he continued "how about some mary jane?".. he sort of faded out and walked off at that point. It was sort of funny in retrospect.
But what if we're already in the matrix.. that would be a direct neural interface inside a direct neural interface... Talk about a mind bender.. or should I say 'spoon bender'?
Actually, as soon as that sound was broadcast the first time, it became a public performance and thus falls under automatic copyright.
Unfortunately for the designers of the system, that tone was first aired in 2 Live Crew's first album and the navy now owes over $100M in royalties. The RIAA has brought suit to at least 15 end users of the system, and two or three grandmothers of those users.
me? I think the parent post is hillarious. Military and cruise ships using 150 decibel brown noise weapons? Now that's an idea!
Reminds me of an old joke... Now this isn't the exact version, but its as close as I can remember...
Whenver the captain of an old spanish galleon was heading into battle, he always asked his assistant to fetch him his red pants so that if he were to be injured and bleed, his crewmen would not see the blood and lose hope. One day, they were heading into battle against a massively powerful enemy. The captain saw the assistant already going to fetch the red pants and shouted, "Stop! This time, get me my brown pants!"
Another post says new york wants him to pay taxes on his full income.
I think whatever state the company your working for is in, despite your physical location, is the state who you should pay taxes to- for the time worked for that company only- and not have to pay it again in your home state.
Now here's a bonus question, I'm an independant contractor from Iowa, but my main client is out of california. I'm technically an employee of myself, but am receiving 'employment'/work from CA. Am I exempt from CA taxes? My tax man thinks so.
follow up: one cause is AIS which basically makes it so your cells dont accept androgens and an XY male with this has somewhat deformed (mostly internally), but female reproductive organs. This is related in that not receiving the hormones has the same effect as not being able to 'process/use' them.
Actually, if you do some research or talk to a doctor, you'll find out that even a female (fetus with XX chromosomes) in the presence of certain chemicals in utero will form as a male (speaking physically here), or a male (fetus with XY chromosomes) without the presence of those chemicals will form as a female (physically). There are hormones/chemicals that must be present at certain times in order for the basic tissues that form the sex organs to do the things they're supposed to do.
I once took a class that explained all this with the correct chemicals/hormones and terms, none of which I remember- though I'm sure of the basic concept at hand here.
What would prevent the kiddie down the street from buying a 1000 watt transmitter, radiating himself and his neighbors, overmodulating his signal and washing out half the FM radio spectrum within a nearby radius?
There is no way to mandate computer networked transmitters, or to enforce things from the transmitter side.
The fcc handles figuring out land topology, power, assignments, and a myriad other factors involved in assigning a frequency and maximum power- for the entire country's radio space over several ghz of spectrum.
What does open source really have to do with this anyway? Sure, open source could theoretically implement the system he talks about, but the post is more about the supposed irrelevance of the fcc and is using OSS as a buzzword to generate hype.
My thought wasn't necessarily in the DVD realm, or even in the next 2-5 years.
But I don't see why the industry couldn't come up with a way to embed a unique signature in every disc, even if it meant burning every copy (32x, 64x burns in the future? or perhaps an ability to generate a pressed cd directly from an image).
Current burner technology isn't there, and current pressing technology probably isnt (don't know much about it).. but youd think with the money they claim to be losing, they could invest heavily in developing such a technology and it would pay off with minimal work.
Every disc would essentially have a serial number and theyd scan your card and scan the serial on the disc like when you buy a product service plan or an expensive piece of hardware. DVD's R and up require ID anyway and movies R rating are a lot less likely to be pirated. So you can the dvd, scan the id, scan the serial barcode, and you're done. The store would then be responsible for uploading the serial number to a central tracking server marking it as sold (or returned, etc).
If you threatened the stores with no longer selling your company's dvd's at their location if they sold one without scanning it or had 'excessive' shoplifting of the dvd's, the stores would guard those assets pretty heavily- much like they did for the harry potter release.
There are watermarks that survive microphone+cam recording in theaters. If it can survive that, I'm pretty sure it would survive a re-encoding. If someone put enough time in, theoretically the watermark could probably be disturbed though.
I fully expect at some point in time every disc you buy will have a unique watermark and will be somehow attached to your credit card at purchase so that the only way to get around it is to buy in cash or shoplift, even then theyll still know which disk it originated from and likely pin it to the ip it first came from.
For me, I have very few clients, one of which makes up the bulk of my income. I was sort of forced into contracting when that primary client couldn't afford to hire me full time with benefits.
The working from home is very nice, and yet due to my 11.5 month old, I am far less productive. There's something nice to having a real office to go (away) to.
As a contractor, make damn sure you have enough potential clients that can support your needs- for me, if my main client dumps me, I'm toast and there is no clause in the deal that they have to give me x-weeks notice since I'm not an employee.
Anyway, contracting has its plusses- and if you've got a good client base, it can definately be better than working in a cubicle. But you're also off on your own and you assume all of the risk.
So if you decide to wing it, work really hard to get and keep clients.
Slashdot Mirror
I feel -exactly- like that, but a long email complaint resulted in a 1 line reply that said 'one of our representatives has already handled this issue'.
In the box I'm returning the camera in, I have a 2 page letter (10pt font without much whitespace) and every email theyve sent me and the tracking information and all that..
I'm definately not happy, despite the many successful orders they've had with me in the past. To a degree, I do feel responsible since I cancelled the first order, but I'm sure people do that all the time and I did it after about 2 minutes, literally.
I'd love to talk to a manager or something, but most of the time you get outsourced reps. I've goten an american twice in about 10 calls.
I kept hoping they'd say just to keep the extra memory card or something.
Everything's so automated these days, its like in star wars where the planet is deleted from the database and nobody believes it was ever there. They kept saying to click the return this order button, but the order hadn't shipped according to the computer, so that option wasnt available.. It took a few calls to get that point across.. Outsourcing and automation were the two big annoyances of this process. Besides that, when my first card declined on the order due to the first order having been charged to it (I had overnight shipping on the order) the automated system said it would try again tomorrow. If someone wants overnight shipping, you darn well better call them when a card declines or something else is in the way.
Anyway, I posted this mostly to vent, but also as a warning for others to be careful with large orders- eg make sure you order it right the first time.
Thank you for your concern/support- its better than amazon's done.
I am -not- happy with amazon as of lately. I ordered a Canon EOS 20D and a Lexar memory card (~$1,500 total), cancelled the order a few minutes later (before billing or shipping or anything) because I wanted to change memory cards.. When I placed the new order, the credit card didn't have enough room left since they'd already charged it. No problem, I called and paid with a visa. The online system showed only the new order, but never showed it shipped. The next day, I received two cameras, apparently from the old order on the old card and the new order on the new card. The order status still didnt know the one camera had shipped, let alone two. The old order had disappeared completely because it was cancelled.
In any case, I tried to call their support (via the click to call me thing) and their system would call me (Estara.com) and when it tried to transfer me to amazon I'd get a fast busy.. So I tried about 15 times, and it finally blocked me as an abuser. Very nice.
I gave it a new number and got through, and the pakistani representative assured me i had not received one camera, let alone two.. After a while of arguing I hung up and emailed instead, which didn't get me a response.. So I called the next day and talked to another pakistani who while continually saying 'this was by our hand' never really got things fixed. She said she'd schedule a ups pickup and email me more information.. A day later, no email and no UPS pickup.. So I called back and they're going to send a ups shipping label which I should get in three days and itll go back ups ground.. So in 10 days, when they receive the extra camera, I can get my $1,500 back. Meanwhile, during the thanksgiving shopping rush yesterday and for the christmas shopping season, I'm $1,500 short, and am going to miss my rent payment.
On top of that, amazon closed my account because they thought someone else accessed it. When I called about that, they said theyd probably closed it to keep my cards from being charged again.
So f**k you amazon!
to me, yellow is almost orange or on the way to red, whereas green to me says secure.. I think IE is on the right track and firefox is the one that needs to change.
Need some sort of quantum music distrobution system such that intercepting the specially encoded stream by anything other than the destination player would ruin the bits.
Btw, this is somewhat tongue in cheek.
true, but that's not to say that the surrounding violence doesnt percolate into the bart system. Still have to go through richmond for many stops.
I didn't know richmond was worse than oakland, i figured oakland was worse.
seems like there's always something every month or two in the news about a stabbing or mugging on bart. do you have a tv or are you too eco-friendly?
;o)
fwiw, I'm not a racist, and I never said anything about people of color being the ones to be afraid of. I'm actually generally more afraid of some of the drug crazed white guys
BART is a decent system in terms of acessibility, diversity in locations, and cost, but BART can be a scary place depending on who you are and what you're carrying.
If I'm by myself, not carrying anything gadgety or money and I'm not dressed for the city, it's not so bad (24 year old white male). When I have to carry a laptop or dress up for the city, especially late at night, it can be a little nerve wracking depending on the people in the car. I usually try to get on in the car behind the driver and sit in the rear facing seats at the front if I really have anything of value. The thought crossed my mind in the past of carrying a taser or similar defense weapon, but despite my and other peoples' fears, BART isn't that bad of a place if you're careful, stuff doesn't happen -that- often.
I think the funniest thing that ever happened to me on bart was some pothead on the platform was trying to sell me weed, but he must have been completely baked because he first asked "hey man, wanna buy some pot?", and when I said no, he continued "then wanna buy some weed?", again I said no and he continued "how about some mary jane?".. he sort of faded out and walked off at that point. It was sort of funny in retrospect.
I'm trying to remember my electronics classes, but doesn't the capacitance drop in half if you put capacitors in series?
But what if we're already in the matrix.. that would be a direct neural interface inside a direct neural interface... Talk about a mind bender.. or should I say 'spoon bender'?
Actually, as soon as that sound was broadcast the first time, it became a public performance and thus falls under automatic copyright.
Unfortunately for the designers of the system, that tone was first aired in 2 Live Crew's first album and the navy now owes over $100M in royalties. The RIAA has brought suit to at least 15 end users of the system, and two or three grandmothers of those users.
me? I think the parent post is hillarious. Military and cruise ships using 150 decibel brown noise weapons? Now that's an idea!
Reminds me of an old joke... Now this isn't the exact version, but its as close as I can remember...
Whenver the captain of an old spanish galleon was heading into battle, he always asked his assistant to fetch him his red pants so that if he were to be injured and bleed, his crewmen would not see the blood and lose hope. One day, they were heading into battle against a massively powerful enemy. The captain saw the assistant already going to fetch the red pants and shouted, "Stop! This time, get me my brown pants!"
IIRC for a long time, Gateway was solely out of SD, wasn't it?
Another post says new york wants him to pay taxes on his full income.
I think whatever state the company your working for is in, despite your physical location, is the state who you should pay taxes to- for the time worked for that company only- and not have to pay it again in your home state.
Now here's a bonus question, I'm an independant contractor from Iowa, but my main client is out of california. I'm technically an employee of myself, but am receiving 'employment'/work from CA. Am I exempt from CA taxes? My tax man thinks so.
follow up:
t y_syndrome
o rypages/intersex/sd2.htmlo rypages/intersex/sd3.html0 0074.htm
one cause is AIS which basically makes it so your cells dont accept androgens and an XY male with this has somewhat deformed (mostly internally), but female reproductive organs. This is related in that not receiving the hormones has the same effect as not being able to 'process/use' them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivi
check these links as well:
http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/specialties/categ
http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/specialties/categ
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole
Actually, if you do some research or talk to a doctor, you'll find out that even a female (fetus with XX chromosomes) in the presence of certain chemicals in utero will form as a male (speaking physically here), or a male (fetus with XY chromosomes) without the presence of those chemicals will form as a female (physically). There are hormones/chemicals that must be present at certain times in order for the basic tissues that form the sex organs to do the things they're supposed to do.
I once took a class that explained all this with the correct chemicals/hormones and terms, none of which I remember- though I'm sure of the basic concept at hand here.
odd.. considering we're all girls for a certain period of time. Unsure of # of days, but I think its towards the end of the first trimester?
Exactly, except that the fcc is there to fox hunt and stop the offender now.
What would prevent the kiddie down the street from buying a 1000 watt transmitter, radiating himself and his neighbors, overmodulating his signal and washing out half the FM radio spectrum within a nearby radius?
There is no way to mandate computer networked transmitters, or to enforce things from the transmitter side.
The fcc handles figuring out land topology, power, assignments, and a myriad other factors involved in assigning a frequency and maximum power- for the entire country's radio space over several ghz of spectrum.
What does open source really have to do with this anyway? Sure, open source could theoretically implement the system he talks about, but the post is more about the supposed irrelevance of the fcc and is using OSS as a buzzword to generate hype.
While resilin sounds interesting, the article seems a bit hyped up...
"If humans had such pads they could leap 100-storey buildings"
That sounds like unsubstantiated exxageration- eg no reality behind it. Now it may be true, but seems highly improbable to me?
I hope resilin does neat things, but I'd rather read about it in Science magazine or Scientific American.
"It's a sailboat you idiot!"
Come on, this is ford we're talking about. The steering is known to lock up after only 20 months, not 20 years!
My thought wasn't necessarily in the DVD realm, or even in the next 2-5 years.
But I don't see why the industry couldn't come up with a way to embed a unique signature in every disc, even if it meant burning every copy (32x, 64x burns in the future? or perhaps an ability to generate a pressed cd directly from an image).
Current burner technology isn't there, and current pressing technology probably isnt (don't know much about it).. but youd think with the money they claim to be losing, they could invest heavily in developing such a technology and it would pay off with minimal work.
Every disc would essentially have a serial number and theyd scan your card and scan the serial on the disc like when you buy a product service plan or an expensive piece of hardware. DVD's R and up require ID anyway and movies R rating are a lot less likely to be pirated. So you can the dvd, scan the id, scan the serial barcode, and you're done. The store would then be responsible for uploading the serial number to a central tracking server marking it as sold (or returned, etc).
If you threatened the stores with no longer selling your company's dvd's at their location if they sold one without scanning it or had 'excessive' shoplifting of the dvd's, the stores would guard those assets pretty heavily- much like they did for the harry potter release.
There are watermarks that survive microphone+cam recording in theaters. If it can survive that, I'm pretty sure it would survive a re-encoding. If someone put enough time in, theoretically the watermark could probably be disturbed though.
I fully expect at some point in time every disc you buy will have a unique watermark and will be somehow attached to your credit card at purchase so that the only way to get around it is to buy in cash or shoplift, even then theyll still know which disk it originated from and likely pin it to the ip it first came from.
For me, I have very few clients, one of which makes up the bulk of my income. I was sort of forced into contracting when that primary client couldn't afford to hire me full time with benefits.
The working from home is very nice, and yet due to my 11.5 month old, I am far less productive. There's something nice to having a real office to go (away) to.
As a contractor, make damn sure you have enough potential clients that can support your needs- for me, if my main client dumps me, I'm toast and there is no clause in the deal that they have to give me x-weeks notice since I'm not an employee.
Anyway, contracting has its plusses- and if you've got a good client base, it can definately be better than working in a cubicle. But you're also off on your own and you assume all of the risk.
So if you decide to wing it, work really hard to get and keep clients.
You start with something very true and right on, and then jump to a strange place after that.
By nature, open source software cannot have copy protection, at least not in source form.
As far as "shrinkwrap licensed", I'm not sure exactly what you mean?