The daily life of most admins include something called "Talking To Managers".
Having a shiny toy with brightly coloured lights on it is a vital part of that excercise for many of us. We NEED this. We NEED it to have the Fisher-Price logo on it and play short musical bits when you push on the buttons. We NEED to be able to say "Here is a pretty picture. You like pretty pictures, don't you? The brightly coloured parts show bad people. Oooh, brightly coloured. Look at the picture. Do you like the picture? Good, now there are a few things we need to discuss about next year's budget..."
Automated monitoring systems that handle problems for you make you (and themselves) look unnecessary. Pretty pictures with lights can be used to show everybody you work for just how important you really are.
All a pirate has to do is pay the kid making minimum wage running the projector a couple hundred pounds to let the pirate sit in the booth and record from there!
And what if the pirate *is* the kid running the projector?
Them: "How may we help you?" You: "Please unblock TCP port 25, both ways" Them: "Um, what?" You: "I need you to unblock TCP port 25. It's blocked on your network." Them: "Oh. Okay, um, what version of Windows are you running?" You: "It doesn't matter what I'm running, I just need you to unblock a port." Them: "Can you right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'?" You: "No, I'm not going to do that. All I need is for you to unblock a port. My mail isn't getting through because TCP port 25 is blocked." Them: "Oh! I understand now. *flip flip* Our mail server runs on port 110, not 25. That must be your problem." You: "I know that, but I'm not trying to connect to your POP3 server. I just need you to open TCP port 25 so that my SMTP server will work." Them: "Uh... We don't support SMPT mail. Only POP." You: "Look. There is a port blocked on your network. I need it unblocked. Is there anybody there who can help me?" Them: "Your port isn't working?" You: "Yes. It isn't working and I need it fixed." Them: "I don't think I can help you. Maybe you should take your computer to a technician and get that port fixed." You: "I don't think you --" Them: *click*
This would be a whole lot funnier if I hadn't had that exact conversation with a phone monkey at Bell last year when they thought it would be a great idea to quietly block port 25 inbound for all of their customers. It took me three calls to even get transfered to somebody who knew what a TCP port was and even he was surprised to find that it was being blocked.
"The sixth movie in the series also features Anakin's transformation into evil Darth Vader and his baby son, Luke, being smuggled to safety to the desert planet Tatooine."
Holy crap! Darth Vader is Luke's father? Way to spoil the ending for me, guys.
The North American version of Cleavage II has been flooded with professional farmers since before it was released. Want a character leveled for you? Don't have enough money in the game? Just cough up the cash. (Link contains images of Dark Elves. May not be work safe.) Want a job? They're hiring. (That last one may be an ad for a porn version of Gilligan's Island instead. I don't read Chinese as well as I could.) Want something to whine about? No problem. There are reports about organizations like Adena Farming Inc. all over the official boards.
Any time there is profit to be made by ruining an online economy, there will always be people lining up to make it.
I have just secured the patent for "Telling a joke using a networked computer". Jeremy White now owes me $20 but it doesn't look like you are in any danger.
I believe that Clarke said that in "Childhood's End", a story about the end of the world and the entire human race. It's a nice quote, but hardly a reassuring reference.
All you need now is to provide every farmer in the third world with their own cars so they will have a cigarettel lighter to run this off of. Either that or hook up a nice, simple, reliable electric grid to every home.
Of course, if you could do that then you wouldn't have a problem in the first place.
I see things differently. Consider this: Big companies don't _want_ technically knowledgable users as customers. They're too much trouble.
Nerds tend to think they can get away with paying a flat rate for basic service and then actually using it. They don't buy extras like additional email addresses, they don't pay for a service that blocks all incoming packets with the evil bit set, they won't bring their computers in twice a year to have the hard drives rotated and they keep harassing the monkeys on tech support with awkward questions and don't accept that every network outage is really their fault and can be fixed by just turning their modem off for long enough.
The kind of customer a company like Comcast wants has no clue what he is doing but only that he has to pay for it. He believes that if he pays an extra $10 a month for a 3Mb connection instead of 1.5Mb then his instant messages will come in faster. When programs like Kazaa stop working for him because his ISP is blocking ports at random without telling anybody he will think it's his own fault. And he'll probably be too embarassed to say anything about it.
I don't think that Comcast as a company would be shedding any tears at all if they drove away all of the technically knowledgable trouble-makers and were left with nothing but clueless users who don't know what they're doing and don't complain about anything.
"I'm so angry at my ISP that I'm going to give them even more money so maybe they will provide the kind of service I was supposed to be getting in the first place."
I think you're their kind of customer. How much more will you cough up when they start screwing with your "business class" service?
Slashdot Mirror
Good idea. It could come right after the spelling class.
Who knows? May be you might even win this time.
Progress is, of course, one of the signs that we are entering the end times.
Circumventing a heat transfer mechanism? Isn't that outlawed by the DMCA?
The song "Cleveland Rocks" was used on the Drew Carey show but it was performed by the band "Presidents of the United States".
And we all know that nobody around here would ever suggest that a President of the United States was full of crap.
The daily life of most admins include something called "Talking To Managers".
Having a shiny toy with brightly coloured lights on it is a vital part of that excercise for many of us. We NEED this. We NEED it to have the Fisher-Price logo on it and play short musical bits when you push on the buttons. We NEED to be able to say "Here is a pretty picture. You like pretty pictures, don't you? The brightly coloured parts show bad people. Oooh, brightly coloured. Look at the picture. Do you like the picture? Good, now there are a few things we need to discuss about next year's budget..."
Automated monitoring systems that handle problems for you make you (and themselves) look unnecessary. Pretty pictures with lights can be used to show everybody you work for just how important you really are.
-- Konstantin Chernenko, reviewing the new "Invade Afganistan" game in 1984.
I envy your optimism.
Them: "How may we help you?"
You: "Please unblock TCP port 25, both ways"
Them: "Um, what?"
You: "I need you to unblock TCP port 25. It's blocked on your network."
Them: "Oh. Okay, um, what version of Windows are you running?"
You: "It doesn't matter what I'm running, I just need you to unblock a port."
Them: "Can you right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'?"
You: "No, I'm not going to do that. All I need is for you to unblock a port. My mail isn't getting through because TCP port 25 is blocked."
Them: "Oh! I understand now. *flip flip* Our mail server runs on port 110, not 25. That must be your problem."
You: "I know that, but I'm not trying to connect to your POP3 server. I just need you to open TCP port 25 so that my SMTP server will work."
Them: "Uh... We don't support SMPT mail. Only POP."
You: "Look. There is a port blocked on your network. I need it unblocked. Is there anybody there who can help me?"
Them: "Your port isn't working?"
You: "Yes. It isn't working and I need it fixed."
Them: "I don't think I can help you. Maybe you should take your computer to a technician and get that port fixed."
You: "I don't think you --"
Them: *click*
This would be a whole lot funnier if I hadn't had that exact conversation with a phone monkey at Bell last year when they thought it would be a great idea to quietly block port 25 inbound for all of their customers. It took me three calls to even get transfered to somebody who knew what a TCP port was and even he was surprised to find that it was being blocked.
My new ISP has clue.
I've never heard of "X-Windows", but it does sound a lot like the X Window System.
Was this customer at Stonehenge, by any chance?
If Episode III is "Birth of the Empire", then that would make the two before it "Painful Contractions of the Empire".
Holy crap! Darth Vader is Luke's father? Way to spoil the ending for me, guys.
Any time there is profit to be made by ruining an online economy, there will always be people lining up to make it.
I have just secured the patent for "Telling a joke using a networked computer". Jeremy White now owes me $20 but it doesn't look like you are in any danger.
I believe that Clarke said that in "Childhood's End", a story about the end of the world and the entire human race. It's a nice quote, but hardly a reassuring reference.
Are you saying that writing fiction and working for the government are somehow different?
Wow. Another "That's not funny" post.
Those are _always_ amusing.
Apparently, this movie was released three days ago.
Why are we just hearing about it now?
All you need now is to provide every farmer in the third world with their own cars so they will have a cigarettel lighter to run this off of. Either that or hook up a nice, simple, reliable electric grid to every home.
Of course, if you could do that then you wouldn't have a problem in the first place.
What HIV really needs is the ability to read email.
I hate to break it to you, but you may also want to change the combination on your luggage to something other than "1 2 3 4 5".
You'll pay more taxes, but support fewer wars.
It's up to you to decide which is more important.
I see things differently. Consider this: Big companies don't _want_ technically knowledgable users as customers. They're too much trouble.
Nerds tend to think they can get away with paying a flat rate for basic service and then actually using it. They don't buy extras like additional email addresses, they don't pay for a service that blocks all incoming packets with the evil bit set, they won't bring their computers in twice a year to have the hard drives rotated and they keep harassing the monkeys on tech support with awkward questions and don't accept that every network outage is really their fault and can be fixed by just turning their modem off for long enough.
The kind of customer a company like Comcast wants has no clue what he is doing but only that he has to pay for it. He believes that if he pays an extra $10 a month for a 3Mb connection instead of 1.5Mb then his instant messages will come in faster. When programs like Kazaa stop working for him because his ISP is blocking ports at random without telling anybody he will think it's his own fault. And he'll probably be too embarassed to say anything about it.
I don't think that Comcast as a company would be shedding any tears at all if they drove away all of the technically knowledgable trouble-makers and were left with nothing but clueless users who don't know what they're doing and don't complain about anything.
I think you're their kind of customer. How much more will you cough up when they start screwing with your "business class" service?