Is larceny a felony? I believe you can only make a citizen's arrest for a felony-level crime
Actually, in most states you can make a "citizen's arrest" for any crime, except quasi-criminal offenses like traffic violations. I would not try it though, you make yourself susceptible to a serious liability for false arrest.
On the other hand, you could probably make a (weak) case for that being a robbery, aggravated by being committed while in possession of a firearm;) I wouldn't try that either.
Next time a cop pulls you over, whip out a tape recorder and politely tell them that you are making a record of everything.
In most cases this is likely to get you a very professionally issued ticket for every possible violation they can find (checked that tread wear lately?). As opposed to the stern warning and "pass" that is the norm for most pullovers. Sure, there are plenty of jerks in uniform out there, but the bulk of them respond well to a polite driver that shows some remorse. Being a bit of a lead-foot myself, that has worked well for me on MANY occasions. I would try that instead.
Being a nerd, remember getting mistreated by bullies back in school?
I used to kick the shit out of the bullies, they pretty much left me alone after the first one got a serious black eye in a very public confrontation in the school yard and went home crying. I think his Mommy loaned him some makeup as the black eye was covered up the next day.
....and most people that would have a camera secretly mounted in their car are likely to be nerds;) Most non-nerds can't set the clock on their VCR let alone install a camera and recorder. I can picture my Dad trying this, "hmmm, can't do this honey, there is no channel 3 on the car radio."
The ones who know just enough to think they know it all. These are often contract people, beta testers, accounting ilk, tech support bozos,
Generally, if you are "under attack" by people like this you probably wrote UIs that are too complicated, buggy code that does not work well in the real world (you know, that place outside the lab), etc. In other words, crappy in one way or the other.
Most good developers try to develop a good relationship with these types (OK, maybe except the accountants) so that their code is as good as it can be. I consider it a huge success when these folks stop bothering me because the code is good, not because they dread coming to talk to me about a problem. My suggestion to you is to find the gems within those ranks, develop a good relationship, help them bring you better bugs (if you think there are not any bugs you are wrong) and you will be a much better developer for it.
Bottom line, I find the developers that hate tech support and beta testers generally do so because they have the most to hide. On that note, not surprising you posted as an AC.
VolumeOne in Chicago has been in this business since 1997
Fascinating link, and yes, I would agree, it looks like they are doing pretty much the same thing. BUT, it looks like they have not gone anywhere with it. Their web site mentions "stores opening in 1998", and my calendar says 2001. I checked the Chicago phone books from 1998 and 2001 and there is no listing for "Volume One". They mention a store being built (once again 1998) on Broadway in Chicago, and I can't recall ever seeing it and there is no address listed. It sure looks like they have not updated their site in 4 years, not a good sign for a new business.
I am quite glad you posted, as it surely shows this is no new concept. I guess it shows there are clearly major barriers to entering this business, as it seems a very good idea and is obviously having problems (perhaps technical, financial, legal, or "D. All of the Above"). It would be real interesting to hear what is causing the problem.
The other thing that I felt I should mention (but forgot) is that Broadband prices, as they come down
Actually, broadband prices are not dropping anymore, they are stabilizing and even going up in some cases, especially with DSL. It is getting harder and harder to find those $40-50/month deals and they will probably go away entirely soon.
Don't want to really dispute your point though. If my recollection serves me right, if you take Covad's losses in the past couple quarters and divide that by the number of installed lines, the number is ~$4,500 !!! Yeah, you can measure that alot of ways, and figure in a lot of supposed "one-time" factors, but that number is staggering no matter how you slice it.
You are not the only one. This does indeed sound a bit too "convenient". It certainly would not surprise me if this was an intentional leak. I think the same thing every time I see a leak from Apple prior to a launch, then the inevitable story that "heads rolled after Jobs had a shit-fit". This kind of thing makes great PR "buzz". I am quite confident MS has some of the top PR talent in the world at their disposal and they certainly earned their money if this is an intentional effort.
I saw a story a while back on/. (it will remain nameless, but was not MS or Apple) that was almost certainly an intentional plant designed to get some free PR. If it wasn't intentional, it should have been, it was f--king brilliant! I know the PR person for the product, saw her in the hall, confronted her, she denied it and turned away giggling.
So true, BUT, the "always on" nature of Cable/DSL is a feature that makes it so much more usable. It is kind of hard to call someone at the other end if they are not online.
Also, you would be surprised (I was shocked) how many of the current VoIP products use non-compressed codecs. I tried one that my company was developing over a 2B ISDN connection (bandwidth choked by a 115.2 serial port) and it was practically unusable (64K codec plus IP overhead was too much). I guess the hardware to do the compression made the phones too expensive. Hopefully that shit goes away.
You can buy SIP based phones (3Com has one, probably others). Ethernet connected phones with an IP address using the IETF SIP protocol. I believe their is open-source server out there t (basically DNS like to link a "phone number" to an IP address). I also know of a masquerading module for SIP too if you are behind a Linux based masquerading box.
Basically do a google search for SIP. One URL I know of off the top of my head is http://www.siphappens.com/.
I think this stuff is mostly commercial now, but I imagine quite a bit of work is being done on SIP in the open source world to get it affordable. Most of the real expense is doing a linkup to the PSTN, but if you remain strictly IP costs should be reasonable as soon as the phone hardware is commoditized.
Re:Don't put much hope in Peapod...
on
Webvan Out Of Gas
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· Score: 1
... because their operational area is smaller than it used to be.
That may very well be their saving grace. One common thread amongst the dot-bombs were their management's thirst for rapid expansion. Most got themselves so deeply in debt the interest was eating up any profits, and the rapid growth caused them to lose focus and things get out of hand quickly.
From what I understand Peapod recognized that as they were feverishly expanding, contracted a bit and set themselves on a much more sane growth plan. Hopefully it works.
you can be sure all those soccer moms weren't going to have their precious affluent offspring working in warehouses packing meat.
Good analysis, but I disagree with this point. I grew up in an affluent area north of Chicago. Almost everyone I knew worked as a teenager. We cut lawns, shoveled snow, worked at gas stations, delivered groceries, ot whatever. Most of my friends parents were executives of some sort, but it was not only "OK" to work, it was pretty much expected if you are 16 or older, the harder the labor the better.
I now live on the northwest side of Chicago, decidedly middle-class. Despite there being dozens of teenage kids in the neighborhood, I can't find one interested in cutting my lawn (I travel a lot and often let it go too long), and it is a tiny lot to cut and I was willing to pay good money. A friend who runs a local 7-11 kind of place has a bitch of a time getting good part-time help.
I thought "maybe it is the damn spoiled kids of the '90s/'00s". Nope, not the case. My parents, and friends who live 10 miles north of me still have no problem finding some rich kid to cut their lawn, work in their stores, etc. I think it is a "teach your kid the value of a buck and good work ethic before they get access to the trust fund" thing. Basically, I disagree with your generalization. Maybe it is different in Atlanta. If they put a Webvan warehouse in the north suburbs of Chicago there would be a constant supply of rich kids lining up to work.
Perhaps, though, all ISPs hire from the same pool of technical support chimps?
Actually, the one time I called Mindspring DSL support, I got a really bright guy who took the initiative to dupe my problem and got engineering to fix it within an hour or so. I am quite confident I could call them again and get an idiot. I am also sure there are bright people at Cox support, as well as AT&T and Comcast.
Also, in defense of support people, usually the problem is in management. Often the support people are measured on call volume and not call quality. If they hang with you too long they will be penalized, even if the net gain to the company, saving an expensive truck roll in your example, would be sizable if they spent the extra 5 minutes with you on the phone.
Having worked in and around Tech support operations for years I can assure you there are bright people in almost every organization, and no shortage of dumb ones. The same could be said of marketing, sales, and even programmers (met many that are dumb as bricks).
I have AT&T Broadband as a provider right now (used to be Mediaone until they were bought). They have a strict policy of only allowing one routable IP per customer,
AT&T in many areas will sell you additional IPs for ~$5/month. Perhaps that is just a local reg (low on IPs in your area perhaps) ow whoever you talked to is an idiot (or both).
Absolutely. Let's just hope he gets the "swift kick" he deserves, a few people learn their lesson and the world moves on. I am quite confident that a decent lawyer will get him an appropriately light sentence (small fine, maybe some "community service" and he apparently already lost his job). I assume the folks responsible for the prosecution are probably reasonably aware of what RC5 is by now and are mostly looking to get some buzz on the topic and put some fear in others considering the same thing.
Now, I gotta go now, have to take down all those mirrors I got running on my employer's computers;) Heh, heh. Just kidding, but I think most of us have crossed "the line" in the past, perhaps not as grossly though.
I know I've never heard of any programmer getting bonuses because the program got downloaded fifty zillion times on the Internet...
Really? Programmers on successful projects often get bonuses, promotions, better equipment and other perks. Programmers on unsuccessful projects often don't. If you find yourself an exception to this, I would suggest working on your negotiation skills, or at least consider where you would be and how much you would be getting paid if your product did not do well (perhaps the link is not as directly related).
It would seem reasonable that radio talent doing ads for a large audience be compensated better than a similar one doing an ad that does not get wide coverage. Sure, there are guzzillions of exceptions to this statement, but in the long run I am quite confident this is the case.
If your point is that talent should not receive substantially extra pay simply because it is on the Internet (and does NOT substantially increase the audience) then I would agree with you. There is a suggestion that might be the case.
Heh. I have run into the 12345 syndrome before. I worked on a product where one of its' functions was to deliver local weather, and the forecast you were delivered was based on zip (inserted as a value in the URL when it calls the CGI). All we required in the registration app was for the user to enter the zip (all else was optional). Many, many people registered as 12345.
I almost died laughing when tech support escalated a bunch of tickets that customers were not getting the proper weather forecast. Not surprisingly, the vast majority were complaining about getting Schnenectady weather instead of their own city's weather. I looked up the zips for Schnenectady and noticed they were in the 123xx range and deduced the cause pretty quickly. Needless to say, most people corrected their entry over time and front-line support was able to handle this one by themselves in the future;)
On a related note, I could never figure out why anyone would care about providing an accurate zip code. The ability to violate privacy with that info is pretty limited (at least here in the US where a zip narrows you down to tens or hundreds of thousands of people). All I ever used that data for was to provide Marketing pretty maps they could add to the thier Powerpoint presos. Had we had inteliigent marketers (we did not) they could maybe do some cross-referencing to advertisements and whether they were effective or not. Seems pretty harmless to me, maybe I am just not devious enough to see the dark side to this.
You have a fine point, but there is a problem. The theory works in that there seems to be nice concentrations in both London and Germany. But if you go to the middle you find yourself in Holland. The beer in Holland is "tolerable at best" (the pot is much better though).
You might have to settle for a slight deviation and go down to Belgium.
One thing I haven't see in this thread is mention of people still using pencil and paper for calculations! Even that seems to be a lost art. No, I am not talking about "high math", but the simple stuff (ya know, multiplication and division, etc.). At work when I do math on the back of paper (often the back of a napkin or some meeting handout) people look at me like I am some sort of Luddite. Yeah, I'll use xcalc, etc. if it is handy and I am in a hurry, but make a point out of using pencil and paper often enough that I don't lose the touch.
I often think when doing job interviews if I should give them ten math problems (not too hard, but hard enough to test their skills) and not let them use a calculator. This might separate the wheat from the chaff, but worry I might not find many under 35 pass;)
I would love to go back to the Web the way it was in 1993 - 94. No Porn. No Ads. No Bullshit. No Morons. No Commercialism. Just Net.
To be honest, I am not all that dissapointed in the way the web, and Internet as a whole, turned out. No, I don't like ads, but I mentally filter them out. I admit, I really do dislike these X10 popup ads (and similar Verizon ads on Accuweather), hopefully few buy or even click through and that practice will go away.
But, I completely disagree with totally de-commercializing the web. It is commercialization that indirectly pays for a big chunk of the bandwidth and infrastructure of the net. I really like being able to find out product information on the web (for almost anything). I often buy things, research travel options, etc. on the web. I'd much rather research this stuff on the net than pollute the world driving around to stores.
What I really hope is some genius figures out the right combination of useful ads that don't annoy (much at least), but are effective, so we can carry on, enjoy both the commercial and non-commercial aspects of the Internet at a reasonable cost and high performance.
Basically, I respectfully disagree with your view of how the Internet should move back in time. I know it seems silly, but perhaps the brain-trust in this forum can help figure out how to help the stupid marketers be less annoying while still helping fund the growth and maintenance of the net.
Folks, hate to burst your bubble and thwart the various racist and otherwise improper statements here, but this happens all the time, here in the US of A and everywhere else for that matter. It is human nature to take the easy route (use someone else's work) and most commercial vendors don't want to admit it and subject their code to GPL (or whatever). I don't agree with it, don't condone it, and will stop it when I can, but trust me the Chinese are far from the only violators of the sacred sacraments of the GPL.
Maybe you folks are the exception, but.....many times the issue is you expect to land a big job paying monster bucks right out of the gate. Set your sights a little lower, get a lower paying job to get started, take advantage of whatever opportunities you have to learn on or off the job, and keep your eyes open.
You are not likely to find the job of your dreams in the paper, on monster.com or whatever. Jobs are almost always filled by referrals by someone who worked with you once. My advice is to take a low paying, entry-level, job that is probably "beneath you", work your ass off, have a good attitude, someone will almost certainly notice and give you the break you are looking for. One of the best guys I ever worked with was a kid fresh out of the military, no degree, working in our warehouse. I'll skip the long story and just say his superior attitude got him a long way, he skipped the intermediate jobs and was well on his way to success as a networking guy. He makes a shitload of cash now. I could give you a dozen stories quite similar.
Bottom line, there are always jobs for computer savvy people. If you can't find one you like, find one you don't like (or is beneath you) where you are likely to get noticed, then weasel your way up. Don't consider a degree and/or cert as the magic key, just one of the keys to the many doors you will need to open.
In case anyone is interested, the State of Connecticut found the practice illegal and has asked Acme to voluntarily sign a cease and desist order:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20010702/tc/car_re ntal_gps_speeding_fines_illegal_1.html
so they created a product and sold it at cost hoping to make money as an ISP... unfortunately it caught up with them.
Just as an FYI, it wasn't "cost". No matter how you calculate "cost" this sucker was orders of magnitude below cost. We did a "BOM analysis" and came up with an estimate of $450 just for the parts (in bulk). That is before paying for all those infomercials, Super Bowl ad, design cost, support, lawyers, etc. Right before they went into a coma they had 180 employees. YIKES.
I am sure many business school professors are looking for the right case studies for their students to study the Internet boom, this is certainly one to look at as an extreme example. It is absolutely the most absurd dot-bomb I have seen, and that is saying something. Even if there weren't stupid enough to make it so easy to hack, and everyone signed up for service, they still were not headed for profitability.
Here here. That is exactly what I do....works great.
I have a yahoo address that I post with, use when I buy online, etc. It gets spam all the time, I open it only when I am bored and end up deleting 95% of it. My personal email goes to friends, gets one or two spams a week, I can handle that no problem.
I really wish all these folks who get all bent out of shape about spam would focus their energy on more abusive marketers like telemarketers who wake us up and interrupt us and mass-mailers who negate the effects of our conservation efforts and kill our trees. I don't like spam, but I consider it a much lesser evil than other methods.
Slashdot Mirror
Is larceny a felony? I believe you can only make a citizen's arrest for a felony-level crime
;) I wouldn't try that either.
Actually, in most states you can make a "citizen's arrest" for any crime, except quasi-criminal offenses like traffic violations. I would not try it though, you make yourself susceptible to a serious liability for false arrest.
On the other hand, you could probably make a (weak) case for that being a robbery, aggravated by being committed while in possession of a firearm
Next time a cop pulls you over, whip out a tape recorder and politely tell them that you are making a record of everything.
In most cases this is likely to get you a very professionally issued ticket for every possible violation they can find (checked that tread wear lately?). As opposed to the stern warning and "pass" that is the norm for most pullovers. Sure, there are plenty of jerks in uniform out there, but the bulk of them respond well to a polite driver that shows some remorse. Being a bit of a lead-foot myself, that has worked well for me on MANY occasions. I would try that instead.
Being a nerd, remember getting mistreated by bullies back in school?
I used to kick the shit out of the bullies, they pretty much left me alone after the first one got a serious black eye in a very public confrontation in the school yard and went home crying. I think his Mommy loaned him some makeup as the black eye was covered up the next day.
....and most people that would have a camera secretly mounted in their car are likely to be nerds ;) Most non-nerds can't set the clock on their VCR let alone install a camera and recorder. I can picture my Dad trying this, "hmmm, can't do this honey, there is no channel 3 on the car radio."
The ones who know just enough to think they know it all. These are often contract people, beta testers, accounting ilk, tech support bozos,
Generally, if you are "under attack" by people like this you probably wrote UIs that are too complicated, buggy code that does not work well in the real world (you know, that place outside the lab), etc. In other words, crappy in one way or the other.
Most good developers try to develop a good relationship with these types (OK, maybe except the accountants) so that their code is as good as it can be. I consider it a huge success when these folks stop bothering me because the code is good, not because they dread coming to talk to me about a problem. My suggestion to you is to find the gems within those ranks, develop a good relationship, help them bring you better bugs (if you think there are not any bugs you are wrong) and you will be a much better developer for it.
Bottom line, I find the developers that hate tech support and beta testers generally do so because they have the most to hide. On that note, not surprising you posted as an AC.
VolumeOne in Chicago has been in this business since 1997
Fascinating link, and yes, I would agree, it looks like they are doing pretty much the same thing. BUT, it looks like they have not gone anywhere with it. Their web site mentions "stores opening in 1998", and my calendar says 2001. I checked the Chicago phone books from 1998 and 2001 and there is no listing for "Volume One". They mention a store being built (once again 1998) on Broadway in Chicago, and I can't recall ever seeing it and there is no address listed. It sure looks like they have not updated their site in 4 years, not a good sign for a new business.
I am quite glad you posted, as it surely shows this is no new concept. I guess it shows there are clearly major barriers to entering this business, as it seems a very good idea and is obviously having problems (perhaps technical, financial, legal, or "D. All of the Above"). It would be real interesting to hear what is causing the problem.
The other thing that I felt I should mention (but forgot) is that Broadband prices, as they come down
Actually, broadband prices are not dropping anymore, they are stabilizing and even going up in some cases, especially with DSL. It is getting harder and harder to find those $40-50/month deals and they will probably go away entirely soon.
Don't want to really dispute your point though. If my recollection serves me right, if you take Covad's losses in the past couple quarters and divide that by the number of installed lines, the number is ~$4,500 !!! Yeah, you can measure that alot of ways, and figure in a lot of supposed "one-time" factors, but that number is staggering no matter how you slice it.
Am I the only person that smells a rat here?
/. (it will remain nameless, but was not MS or Apple) that was almost certainly an intentional plant designed to get some free PR. If it wasn't intentional, it should have been, it was f--king brilliant! I know the PR person for the product, saw her in the hall, confronted her, she denied it and turned away giggling.
You are not the only one. This does indeed sound a bit too "convenient". It certainly would not surprise me if this was an intentional leak. I think the same thing every time I see a leak from Apple prior to a launch, then the inevitable story that "heads rolled after Jobs had a shit-fit". This kind of thing makes great PR "buzz". I am quite confident MS has some of the top PR talent in the world at their disposal and they certainly earned their money if this is an intentional effort.
I saw a story a while back on
So true, BUT, the "always on" nature of Cable/DSL is a feature that makes it so much more usable. It is kind of hard to call someone at the other end if they are not online.
Also, you would be surprised (I was shocked) how many of the current VoIP products use non-compressed codecs. I tried one that my company was developing over a 2B ISDN connection (bandwidth choked by a 115.2 serial port) and it was practically unusable (64K codec plus IP overhead was too much). I guess the hardware to do the compression made the phones too expensive. Hopefully that shit goes away.
You can buy SIP based phones (3Com has one, probably others). Ethernet connected phones with an IP address using the IETF SIP protocol. I believe their is open-source server out there t (basically DNS like to link a "phone number" to an IP address). I also know of a masquerading module for SIP too if you are behind a Linux based masquerading box.
.
Basically do a google search for SIP. One URL I know of off the top of my head is http://www.siphappens.com/
I think this stuff is mostly commercial now, but I imagine quite a bit of work is being done on SIP in the open source world to get it affordable. Most of the real expense is doing a linkup to the PSTN, but if you remain strictly IP costs should be reasonable as soon as the phone hardware is commoditized.
... because their operational area is smaller than it used to be.
That may very well be their saving grace. One common thread amongst the dot-bombs were their management's thirst for rapid expansion. Most got themselves so deeply in debt the interest was eating up any profits, and the rapid growth caused them to lose focus and things get out of hand quickly.
From what I understand Peapod recognized that as they were feverishly expanding, contracted a bit and set themselves on a much more sane growth plan. Hopefully it works.
you can be sure all those soccer moms weren't going to have their precious affluent offspring working in warehouses packing meat.
Good analysis, but I disagree with this point. I grew up in an affluent area north of Chicago. Almost everyone I knew worked as a teenager. We cut lawns, shoveled snow, worked at gas stations, delivered groceries, ot whatever. Most of my friends parents were executives of some sort, but it was not only "OK" to work, it was pretty much expected if you are 16 or older, the harder the labor the better.
I now live on the northwest side of Chicago, decidedly middle-class. Despite there being dozens of teenage kids in the neighborhood, I can't find one interested in cutting my lawn (I travel a lot and often let it go too long), and it is a tiny lot to cut and I was willing to pay good money. A friend who runs a local 7-11 kind of place has a bitch of a time getting good part-time help.
I thought "maybe it is the damn spoiled kids of the '90s/'00s". Nope, not the case. My parents, and friends who live 10 miles north of me still have no problem finding some rich kid to cut their lawn, work in their stores, etc. I think it is a "teach your kid the value of a buck and good work ethic before they get access to the trust fund" thing. Basically, I disagree with your generalization. Maybe it is different in Atlanta. If they put a Webvan warehouse in the north suburbs of Chicago there would be a constant supply of rich kids lining up to work.
Perhaps, though, all ISPs hire from the same pool of technical support chimps?
Actually, the one time I called Mindspring DSL support, I got a really bright guy who took the initiative to dupe my problem and got engineering to fix it within an hour or so. I am quite confident I could call them again and get an idiot. I am also sure there are bright people at Cox support, as well as AT&T and Comcast.
Also, in defense of support people, usually the problem is in management. Often the support people are measured on call volume and not call quality. If they hang with you too long they will be penalized, even if the net gain to the company, saving an expensive truck roll in your example, would be sizable if they spent the extra 5 minutes with you on the phone.
Having worked in and around Tech support operations for years I can assure you there are bright people in almost every organization, and no shortage of dumb ones. The same could be said of marketing, sales, and even programmers (met many that are dumb as bricks).
I have AT&T Broadband as a provider right now (used to be Mediaone until they were bought). They have a strict policy of only allowing one routable IP per customer,
AT&T in many areas will sell you additional IPs for ~$5/month. Perhaps that is just a local reg (low on IPs in your area perhaps) ow whoever you talked to is an idiot (or both).
Absolutely. Let's just hope he gets the "swift kick" he deserves, a few people learn their lesson and the world moves on. I am quite confident that a decent lawyer will get him an appropriately light sentence (small fine, maybe some "community service" and he apparently already lost his job). I assume the folks responsible for the prosecution are probably reasonably aware of what RC5 is by now and are mostly looking to get some buzz on the topic and put some fear in others considering the same thing.
;) Heh, heh. Just kidding, but I think most of us have crossed "the line" in the past, perhaps not as grossly though.
Now, I gotta go now, have to take down all those mirrors I got running on my employer's computers
I know I've never heard of any programmer getting bonuses because the program got downloaded fifty zillion times on the Internet...
Really? Programmers on successful projects often get bonuses, promotions, better equipment and other perks. Programmers on unsuccessful projects often don't. If you find yourself an exception to this, I would suggest working on your negotiation skills, or at least consider where you would be and how much you would be getting paid if your product did not do well (perhaps the link is not as directly related).
It would seem reasonable that radio talent doing ads for a large audience be compensated better than a similar one doing an ad that does not get wide coverage. Sure, there are guzzillions of exceptions to this statement, but in the long run I am quite confident this is the case.
If your point is that talent should not receive substantially extra pay simply because it is on the Internet (and does NOT substantially increase the audience) then I would agree with you. There is a suggestion that might be the case.
Heh. I have run into the 12345 syndrome before. I worked on a product where one of its' functions was to deliver local weather, and the forecast you were delivered was based on zip (inserted as a value in the URL when it calls the CGI). All we required in the registration app was for the user to enter the zip (all else was optional). Many, many people registered as 12345.
;)
I almost died laughing when tech support escalated a bunch of tickets that customers were not getting the proper weather forecast. Not surprisingly, the vast majority were complaining about getting Schnenectady weather instead of their own city's weather. I looked up the zips for Schnenectady and noticed they were in the 123xx range and deduced the cause pretty quickly. Needless to say, most people corrected their entry over time and front-line support was able to handle this one by themselves in the future
On a related note, I could never figure out why anyone would care about providing an accurate zip code. The ability to violate privacy with that info is pretty limited (at least here in the US where a zip narrows you down to tens or hundreds of thousands of people). All I ever used that data for was to provide Marketing pretty maps they could add to the thier Powerpoint presos. Had we had inteliigent marketers (we did not) they could maybe do some cross-referencing to advertisements and whether they were effective or not. Seems pretty harmless to me, maybe I am just not devious enough to see the dark side to this.
You have a fine point, but there is a problem. The theory works in that there seems to be nice concentrations in both London and Germany. But if you go to the middle you find yourself in Holland. The beer in Holland is "tolerable at best" (the pot is much better though).
You might have to settle for a slight deviation and go down to Belgium.
Wonderful thread.
;)
One thing I haven't see in this thread is mention of people still using pencil and paper for calculations! Even that seems to be a lost art. No, I am not talking about "high math", but the simple stuff (ya know, multiplication and division, etc.). At work when I do math on the back of paper (often the back of a napkin or some meeting handout) people look at me like I am some sort of Luddite. Yeah, I'll use xcalc, etc. if it is handy and I am in a hurry, but make a point out of using pencil and paper often enough that I don't lose the touch.
I often think when doing job interviews if I should give them ten math problems (not too hard, but hard enough to test their skills) and not let them use a calculator. This might separate the wheat from the chaff, but worry I might not find many under 35 pass
I would love to go back to the Web the way it was in 1993 - 94. No Porn. No Ads. No Bullshit. No Morons. No Commercialism. Just Net.
To be honest, I am not all that dissapointed in the way the web, and Internet as a whole, turned out. No, I don't like ads, but I mentally filter them out. I admit, I really do dislike these X10 popup ads (and similar Verizon ads on Accuweather), hopefully few buy or even click through and that practice will go away.
But, I completely disagree with totally de-commercializing the web. It is commercialization that indirectly pays for a big chunk of the bandwidth and infrastructure of the net. I really like being able to find out product information on the web (for almost anything). I often buy things, research travel options, etc. on the web. I'd much rather research this stuff on the net than pollute the world driving around to stores.
What I really hope is some genius figures out the right combination of useful ads that don't annoy (much at least), but are effective, so we can carry on, enjoy both the commercial and non-commercial aspects of the Internet at a reasonable cost and high performance.
Basically, I respectfully disagree with your view of how the Internet should move back in time. I know it seems silly, but perhaps the brain-trust in this forum can help figure out how to help the stupid marketers be less annoying while still helping fund the growth and maintenance of the net.
Folks, hate to burst your bubble and thwart the various racist and otherwise improper statements here, but this happens all the time, here in the US of A and everywhere else for that matter. It is human nature to take the easy route (use someone else's work) and most commercial vendors don't want to admit it and subject their code to GPL (or whatever). I don't agree with it, don't condone it, and will stop it when I can, but trust me the Chinese are far from the only violators of the sacred sacraments of the GPL.
Maybe you folks are the exception, but.....many times the issue is you expect to land a big job paying monster bucks right out of the gate. Set your sights a little lower, get a lower paying job to get started, take advantage of whatever opportunities you have to learn on or off the job, and keep your eyes open.
You are not likely to find the job of your dreams in the paper, on monster.com or whatever. Jobs are almost always filled by referrals by someone who worked with you once. My advice is to take a low paying, entry-level, job that is probably "beneath you", work your ass off, have a good attitude, someone will almost certainly notice and give you the break you are looking for. One of the best guys I ever worked with was a kid fresh out of the military, no degree, working in our warehouse. I'll skip the long story and just say his superior attitude got him a long way, he skipped the intermediate jobs and was well on his way to success as a networking guy. He makes a shitload of cash now. I could give you a dozen stories quite similar.
Bottom line, there are always jobs for computer savvy people. If you can't find one you like, find one you don't like (or is beneath you) where you are likely to get noticed, then weasel your way up. Don't consider a degree and/or cert as the magic key, just one of the keys to the many doors you will need to open.
Hope this helps, best of luck.
In case anyone is interested, the State of Connecticut found the practice illegal and has asked Acme to voluntarily sign a cease and desist order: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20010702/tc/car_re ntal_gps_speeding_fines_illegal_1.html
so they created a product and sold it at cost hoping to make money as an ISP ... unfortunately it caught up with them.
Just as an FYI, it wasn't "cost". No matter how you calculate "cost" this sucker was orders of magnitude below cost. We did a "BOM analysis" and came up with an estimate of $450 just for the parts (in bulk). That is before paying for all those infomercials, Super Bowl ad, design cost, support, lawyers, etc. Right before they went into a coma they had 180 employees. YIKES.
I am sure many business school professors are looking for the right case studies for their students to study the Internet boom, this is certainly one to look at as an extreme example. It is absolutely the most absurd dot-bomb I have seen, and that is saying something. Even if there weren't stupid enough to make it so easy to hack, and everyone signed up for service, they still were not headed for profitability.
What a bunch of morons, they deserved this fate.
Here here. That is exactly what I do....works great.
I have a yahoo address that I post with, use when I buy online, etc. It gets spam all the time, I open it only when I am bored and end up deleting 95% of it. My personal email goes to friends, gets one or two spams a week, I can handle that no problem.
I really wish all these folks who get all bent out of shape about spam would focus their energy on more abusive marketers like telemarketers who wake us up and interrupt us and mass-mailers who negate the effects of our conservation efforts and kill our trees. I don't like spam, but I consider it a much lesser evil than other methods.