Secondly, you underestimate the power of local support. I'm definitely not waving the Geek Squad flag here, but with some purchases it's better to go with a local vendor for faster support.
A good friend of mine works for a local independent high-end A/V shop(maybe 15 employees total, including installers), and he runs in to this on a daily basis. Their main consumer base is composed of people who want to buy quality equipment from a sales staff that actually knows their shit, and go to a place where "customer service" doesn't mean beating somebody over the head with extended warranties. And from personal experience it seems most of these customers have at one point been burned or fucked-over by the Best Buys and the Circuit Cities of the world and just want to talk to an informed employee in a low pressure environment.
There is no rebuttal that will appease a customer that walks in the door with a printout from a fly-by-night online retailer or eBay seller quoting a receiver at 1/2 price off of a unit that normally retails for $2000. There is absolutely no way to compete with that from a pure price standpoint. What those people fail to recognize is that if something goes wrong...if the unit ships damaged...or if you need help in designing or setting up your system...THAT is where the local stores have a distinct advantage.
Personally, when it comes to buying things that I am 100% confident in my ability to fix or setup myself (computers, car parts, etc.), then it's time to fire up Firefox and break out the credit card. But if I am going to make a big purchase and I am still unsure about the advantages and disadvantages to certain products, or if I just want to see it in person and play with it, then it is pretty hard to beat a reputable (key word) B&M store.
I worked in an internal ATM Help Desk department for one of the biggest 5 banks in the US for about a year and a half, and you bring up some really good points regarding banks. Man, what an absolutely miserable 1.5 years of my life. One important thing I pulled away from the experience though is that I learned how frequently ATMs have mechanical failures, and to [i]always[/i] get a receipt with your transaction. Always. And that banks pay their employees absolute shit.
ATMs are stocked with a LOT of cash at some point of the day, sometimes multiple times. Although i never really got to get a GOOD look at the machines, i was assured by everyone and the techs who went out to service them that "they don't make mistakes." Now, check my signature The amount of cash can actually vary greatly and depends on the market/location and what the machine goes through on an average week or month. An ATM in the middle of the sticks may only do one or two transactions a day max, and will probably only have a small amount ($5-10K) in bills. Some ATMs in more populated areas (suburban gas stations, etc.) may get stocked with $20K and will get replenished weekly. High-traffic areas (front gate at Disney World, water parks in Texas, satellite ATMs for special events like concert festivals) may get $100K+ and easily can tear through that in a couple of days.
We worked with the techs directly on the phone all day and sorry to say but whoever you talked to was definitely not telling the truth. The normal "route" guys (think of the guys driving armored trucks doing cash swaps at your local convenience store) are generally very uneducated, are on a tight time schedule, and only care about one thing: swapping cash and pulling deposits. If something breaks they'll do minimal troubleshooting like re-seating cassettes or possibly rebooting the ATM, but that's it. Anything past that and we'd have to put in a call to their dispatch to get an actual tech out there and the ATM may be partially or totally incapacitated for days. Depending on the company the 2nd level techs generally knew their shit but still needed some assistance to figure out what was going on. A lot of the problems at this point were jammed/broken cassettes, dispenser units failing, keypads failing (big PITA since a lot of newer ATMs store their 3DES keys in the keypad itself), and so on. Just like cars, ATMs are highly mechanical and a lot of belts and whatnot fail over time.
If you are even short changed at an ATM, make sure to report it immediately to the branch if they are operating under normal business hours. If they are closed, call it in immediately and find out what you are required to do. Under normal circumstances you will get your money either through credit to your account or cash on the spot. Without doubt. And this is exactly where having the receipt on-hand is an absolute MUST. Call your customer service# and report it immediately. The CSR will file a form for you called a Regulation E form, which is a federal form that has to be filled out if there is any kind of electronic discrepancy. They'll ask for your transaction# which is printed right on the receipt. You give the CSR that, along with the amount requested and amount received, and they should be able to see exactly what happened. Most of the time the ATM will catch the mistake and reverse the charge immediately...in the trans logs for example you would see a withdrawal attempt for $20, see an immediate posting for $20R (R = reversal), and everything is gravy. Filing the Reg E just covers your ass. In the event that the ATM doesn't recognize the mistake, file the Reg E and the route will have to do a cash audit on the machine, where they'll see it's $20 off. We'd shut the machine down at this point.
What sucked was when the techs would very occasionally mis-load the cassettes with the wrong denomination. Say, $20s instead of $5s. Then it turned into an accounting nightmare and somebody on the cash servicer side would get in deep shit for that.
As hard as it is to believe, Diebold actually makes some of the better ATMs out there. Their techs are some of the more knowledgeable ones out there, compared to companies like Fujitsu and NCR.
Definitely more trendy tastes. A report was recently published saying that VW drivers are more likely to be iPod owners than any other group of car owners in the US. I'd post the link but I'm at work and the VW forum I found the link on is blocked.
Basically the demographic that Apple aimed for (and nailed perfectly) was the hipster in their 20s who was listening to the latest indie rock CD while driving in their new Jetta on the way to Starbucks. And despite claiming such influential independence, the above group tends to make identical purchases. Whether it's beer (Heinekin or Amstel Light), music (The Strokes), automobiles (VW Jetta or Golf, but it's always the 2.0L since they don't actually care about the engine), or where they buy their clothes (Urban Outfitters).
Of course that's a gigantic generalization, but there is a definite hipster target market.
I totally agree. Phrack used to be THE e-zine when it came to anything related to computer security and the like. As you mentioned, their buffer overflow in issue 49 is hands-down one of the best explanations of how stack overflows work, and is usually referenced in any current article dealing with the subject.
One thing that turned me away from Phrack a while back (around Y2K-ish?) was the total lack of editing and their focus on newbish-related topics. Older copies of the e-zine contained a plethora of articles on advanced computer security topics, and were very well-written. Looking through the last few issues of Phrack it's painfully obvious that's not the case anymore. Current articles are geared towards script kiddies and are written in broken english.
Of course maybe I'm just biased because I fell out of the "underground" scene around the time that the accessability of Phrack-related information became magnitudes easier to obtain and the scarcity factor was lost.
That's a big IF, mi amigo. Getting into a top-10 law school is very, very hard. Even top-25 is more selective that most can deal with.
Besides, most CS grads would make horrible lawyers in general for one significant reason: they have horrible communication skills. Lawyers have to be intelligent and very analytical (a trait many with CS degrees have), but also be able to effectively communicate ideas with others (a trait very few CS holders have in my experience).
Keep in mind this is coming from someone who has a CS degree from undergrad, and a few of my friends (and one of my siblings) have attended the top law schools in the US. Let me tell you this, you'd be hard-pressed to find a group of more rabid alphas that people in competitive law schools. And somehow "CS geek" and "rabid alpha male/female" rarely refer to the same person.
Whoops, better check before I hit 'submit' next time...
I must admit, I'm one of the people asking myself this very question currently. Over the last week or so I built my own AMD box, a decent little rig to do basic surfing/office work on and do a bit of occasional gaming and coding on. All the gear is really normal commodity HW so it's not like I'm running some super obscure stuff or anything.
Know how long it's taken me to get Windows up and running on it? I still haven't. I've installed XP 4 seperate times to get the basic rig and an iPod up and running. This weekend I'll spend the entire time trying 2K on it to see if that's any better. Each time a new driver or app is installed, something catostrauphic occurs and it becomes easier to start from scratch than to roll back drivers and troubleshoot. Everything from onboard LAN to firewire cards to USB mice. All stuff that's meant to be run on 2K/XP, but evidently can't. Or at least won't very well.
I mainly run linux boxes, so I forgot how god damn troublesome Windows can be. And the real kicker? For the amount that this box ended up costing me, I could have just bought a Mac Mini for $500 and have it Just Work(tm). I'm far from being computer illiterate, so I can only imagine how hard it would be for a normal lus3r to do this.
What has this taught me? Windows can kiss my ass, next time I'm gettin' a Mac.
Here's my take (given that I haven't RTFA, it ain't worth much)...to hell with EA. Seriously. I'm not a huge gamer or console freak, so I don't spend a lot of money on games. Maybe 2 or 3 a year max, so it's not like my money matters in that much in the grand scheme of things.
That being said, after reading all of the crap that EA has been putting their employees through, I refuse to buy a game from them anymore. The last sports game I bought was Tiger Woods Golf 2004 for my PS2, and that WILL be the last game I'll buy from EA. Period. I refuse to give my money to a company that gets away with the slave labor antics and rediculous headcutting that EA has graced us with. While all those 100-hour-a-week programmers get sent to unemployment, EA's CEO still gets his 7-figure salary and a fat bonus. And YES, I realize that my Old Navy jeans are made in China and my polo shirt was made in some third-world country. Exploitation goes on worldwide, and I've come to terms with it. This is just one battle that I choose to let affect my purchasing decisions.
So basically EA, fuck you. I'll take my $100 a year that I would have spent on your products and go to one of the two or three remaining competitors left in console gaming. Or maybe I'll go buy some basement-made games like Uplink instead. Or maybe I'll just say screw you all and go buy used NES games, which still entertain me way more than your 'Sports Title $YEAR' titles ever will. Either way EA, you can kiss my money goodbye.
Heh, funny you mention that because I actually live in Minneapolis. Born and raised, baby! You're right though. There's definitely an assload of talent in the metro area. Unforunately I'm unemployed atm so I usually don't have the cash to go hang out at the 400 Bar, Triple Rock, First Ave and 7th Street Entry (between intermetient closings) and other places where decent acts can be found for $5 covers.
Talent is definitely abound though. One needs not look any farther than seeing Atmosphere live or listening to old Husker Du records to see that.
Just got done reading the interview, and it's nice to see that some musicians are still pretty grounded and down to earth. By far my favorite quote in the article is this:
WN: Your critics might say that it's easy for you to say that, given that you're already a commercial success.
Tweedy: I'm grateful that I've sold enough to have a house, take care of my kids and live decently. But that's a gift, not an entitlement.
Those last three words blew me away. Although I'm not a huge Wilco fan, I definitely appreciate where they're coming from. To me at least, they embody what a True Musician consists of. Somebody who plays music for the sake of making music. Somebody who if they make enough money playing at clubs and hawking CDs to make a living, then GREAT! But if not, they'll still be playing on the weekends and at nights when they're done with their 9-to-5.
Now contrast that with Britney Spears or Ashley Simpson. Think they'd be singing in their garage if their "music" career never took off? Fuck no. Since they only care about entertaining and not making music, they'd probably be just another coked-out stripper on the LA Strip, telling you how they're going to make it big and be somebody between lapdances and serving you a $10 cocktail.
Regardless, it's glad to know there's still a few bands out there who are in it for the love.
Can both Disney and Pixar live without the other?"
Without question Pixar can do fine on their own without Disney's help distributing. The real question is, can Disney survive without Pixar? As my magic-8 ball says, "Outlook not so good."
Pixar's done enough impressive work over the course of the last 5 or 6 years to estabilish a firm role as #1 in the animated film niche. Their track record is near flawless, with each film building on and improving the underlying technologies used to create each flick. Honestly, who here doesn't dream of running through Pixar's renderfarms like a kid in a candystore? Point is, every movie pretty much kicks ass at the box office. And that's what counts from a business perspective.
Disney, on the otherhand, might take a huge hit. Their only real role with these movies has been to distribute the films, and each time Pixar releases a new feature they become less and less dependent on Disney's reputation as a backer to ensure success. What else has Disney done lately? Yeah they pull in boatloads of money through merchandising via Disneyworld, toys, and shit like that. Depending on Mickey Mouse dolls for income though isn't a strong business model. And with each crappy film that tanks, I bet Michael Eisner's feeling better and better about jumping ship in a year.
But then again, I'm too lazy to quote numbers and statistics to back up anything I've said. In reality I've just never been impressed with Disney, even as a child, and wouldn't mind seeing them sweat a bit when Pixar high tails it.
How much easier is this going to be to make convincing fake IDs? In college I had a nice little hobby of supplying...ah...replacement IDs for friends from states that still used laminated IDs (this was a while back). When I stopped making them, practically every state except NJ, Maine, and Indiana went to credit card style plastic blanks. For a pretty dime you could buy printers that would print on those plastic blanks, but the big issue was you still needed a convincing hologram.
So assuming you have access to a printer like that these days, what's to stop someone with $99 from picking up this kit and printing replica holograms on top of the ID? Other than the "get caught, go to jail for a while" reprecussion.
Way to generalize there buddy. FYI, I'm from the midwest and definitely didn't vote for Bush. According to CNN,
my state (MN) along with WI, MI, IL, and possibly IA voted democrat. And even though states like ND and SD went republican, those were only a few electoral votes each. The big one that didn't go democrat was OH as well all know now. So next time try not to blanket an entire fucking geographical region.
Regardless, I agree with your statement about GWB. From what I've seen talking with republicans too, it's a one-sided deal. Of course the GOP'ers don't LIKE Kerry, but they don't savagely loathe him. Compare that to all the democrats who not only disapprove of Bush, but actually HATE him.
But yeah, this doesn't reflect too highly upon our country. Whereas before the rest of the world gave us a chance, thinking "well they don't have control of their country, Bush stole it...", now we proved to the world that we had a chance to reclaim our country and didn't. Therefore, we've sort of validated everything that's happened in the last four years.
With a language like PHP that has a very active developer community associated with it, why plop down for a book like this when websites like THIS ONE exist and give all the documentation that you'd need when learning the language? I realize that it's handy in having a hardcover book to read (hell, I've got my fair share right next to my unemployed ass) and reference...but still.
the WRX is a great relatively cheap car. A good friend of mine bought one a couple years ago, and for about $3K in mods he has a VERY fast car (comparable to a stock STi) that handles better than practically everything on the road that's affordable, with exception of the Evo.
For DIY people like me, the fun part is in installing the parts. Journey, not the destination. There's a certain sense of satisfaction knowing that your car's 1.5" lower because YOU put your coilovers on.
But, as always YMMV. And honestly, I'm surprised this topic even was brought up. People have been modifying cars decades before people even dreamed of computers. So it's not like this is a new subject. Hell, NASCAR was born from the bootleggers pimping out their cars to outgun cops chasing them. Think those cars were stock?;)
I definitely agree with you. Even though I share the same viewpoint as Stewart on practically everything, it'll be nice when the election comes to an end.
The show still has the witty intelligent sense of humor it had in the past, it's just that the crowd's changed for the worse. Dunno how familiar you are with The Man Show, but the exact thing happened with the crowd (even though they're waaaaaaaaay different shows). Everytime the hosts would start anything that even RESEMBLED a joke, immediately the crowd would start yelling, clapping, hootin' and hollerin'. And now The Daily Show's turned into that.
The worst part happens when he's interviewing a "foe" of the audience, and before Steward even completes a question or counter-argument, the crowd erupts for a minute or two. Wouldn't be a huge deal if it was an hour of commercial-free programming, but when Stewart literally has the guest on for MAYBE 3 or 4 minutes, every second counts.
That being said, the show still rocks and (sadly?) is my main non-internet source for current events.
Read the transcript on Fark yesterday, and my jaw hit the ground as soon as Stewart started talking. I admit right off the bat that I'm a huge Stewart fan, mainly because his "fake news" show is more informative (IMHO) than any other real news show on television these days. That aside, Stewart's also a VERY quick guy who's a force to be reckoned with when it comes to a battle of the wits.
Even if you're not a Stewart fan, you gotta give him credit for going on a popular show like Crossfire, and absolutely calling out the hosts and the rest of the media ON THEIR SHOW for being irresponsible journalists! Even more props for calling one of the hosts a "dick" on CNN. Gotta love when the Crossfire crew starts attacking the integrity of The Daily Show and Stewart immediately fires back that they're preceeded by a crank call program with puppets.
Regardless, I highly suggest anyone even remotely interested in politics and journalism read the transcript.
Honestly, I'm a pretty big geek when it comes to hardware & goodies of that nature, and my main desktop is a PII 333MHz w/192MB of PC100 RAM. And for practically everything I need it for, it works perfect. I'm not a huge programmer so really I only compile either stupid shit that I wrote that's of minimun size or source for an app that I'll never need to recompile. And my only other computer is a PIII 1GHz laptop that burns the shit outta my lap if it's on for more than 30 minutes.
My point is, computing has reached a point where the AVERAGE person doesn't need to upgrade anymore. It used to be that the newest killer apps would require an upgrade of some sort. More memory, an updated OS, or if it was called for, an entirely new system. Who remembers checking the back of a software box back in the day and nothing thinking "wow, I wonder what my fps will be", but instead "jesus, will this even RUN on my 386???" Nowadays really the only person who needs to buy the latest and greatest are gamers...and they're such a small percentage of overall computer buyers and users that they're negliable at best.
I think computer companies are starting to realize this and they're starting to freak out a tad. The real limiting factor with the majority's computing experience is how fast their net connection is, not what CPU they're using or what GFX card is under the hood. This isn't to say of course that when/if I get a job, I won't be throwing my money away at CrapUSA on a sweet video card. It's just that we've hit a maturity in computers where it doesn't pay to update every 1.5 years if all you're doing is checking email, writing shit and downloading the occasional mp3.
Although the other 160 +3s have pointed these out, the following are just a few things I've picked up over the years:
Major in more than one thing. My sister graduated in May with a Sociology degree, and is having an impossible time finding work. Econ and Business degrees are probably the most applicable to the real world, so think about those. English, Lit, Communications & friends show that you know how to convey ideas well to others.
Bring cheap shit. Lock your doors. Keep renters insurance. Keep backups. All of these file under one central dogma: Use Common Sense / Shit Happens . Every single time I went joyriding on an unlocked bike in undergrad to get from one dorm to another, it was because somebody didn't use their head. Yes I'm a bad person.
Drink. Party. Have a good time. The last week before we graduated we had a "Senior Week" where all the seniors joined in on barcrawls. It was actually sad seeing people let loose for the first time ever, with graduation looming 4 days away. Seriously. I specifically remember hearing one guy turn to me and say, "Why didn't I do this earlier in college?"
Grades matter...but they're not everything. The amount of work generally required to go from a C+ to a B is generally pretty small. To go from a B to an A- though, is different. 3.0 is the magic number for a lot of grad schools and the like. Plus (in the US at least) that's the cutoff for driving insurance discounts. Getting into schools with a 2.9 or 2.8 isn't impossible, it's just a lot more work. Trust me on this one.
Meet people. Hook up with as many chicks/dudes as possible (depending on preference). Not surprisingly, parties are a great place to get your pinky stinky. Just try to use common sense, even if you're blotto'ed.
NETWORK WITH YOUR FRIENDS. Believe me, every single friend with a good job got it from networking. Make sure you keep tabs on as many people as possible from college, and don't be afraid to hit them up for possible job leads. I'm currently doing this (again) after putting off grad school for a bit.
Just remember: these WILL be the best days of your life. I didn't believe it when I went into college, but coming out I quickly came to that realization. Don't blow it. Take advantage of everything around you. And if you're at a big school, don't be fooled by the 4-and-out mentality. Unfortunately I went to a small private college where unless you had an extra $35K/yr to blow, you HAD to get out in 4 years. Take your time, learn what you want to. And don't forget to smile when you're walking around campus.
I realize you're joking, but it's funny you mention this. I graduated back in '01 with a degree in Biology and CS. The Biology was because when I entered, I wanted to go the pre-med route (like over a 1/3 of my freshman class) but by the time I realized that it wasn't the route I wanted to go, I had invested too much time to simply drop all that I'd learned. And with CS, it has always been something that's interested me, so why not?
I graduate, and the bubble busts. It's nearly impossible in MN to get a job working with computers without 3-5 experience at that time, and hasn't gotten much better. I worked various IT gigs for consulting firms, getting whored out to major corps for 3-6 month gigs at $40/hr while they pay me $12 with absolutely no benefits (good thing I'm diabetic, huh?).
Recently I checked into graduate programs. I get accepted into a Masters program for CS, and should be starting in two weeks. Know what I'm doing? Deferring and am very seriously considering applying to graduate nursing programs here in MN.
For the amount of work that it takes to even GET a job working with computers these days, it's not worth it. And even if you're lucky enough to land one, you're constantly on edge and looking over your shoulder, wondering if your boss is planning on dumping your job and paying Samir in India to do it for a fraction of the cost. Plus working insanely long hours isn't my idea of a good time, at least not for that payscale.
Compare that with nursing. Starting pay is real nice, and it's definitely feasable to find a gig working three 12-hour days. That's 36 hours, fulltime, full benefits, with a four-day weekend. And the way HMOs are set up now, everything's so autonomous that you don't have to worry about dealing with dickhead doctors very much (which is why I quit the pre-med route to begin with).
So even though you jest, don't dismiss nursing as a bullshit profession.
Granted I didn't RTFA, but just reading the headline I'm not surprised. The funny thing (to me, at least) is that YES, a mod chip will allow you to technically play copied games, who really cares? What percentage of the general population has a modded PS2 or XBox? Definitely a small, small minority. Of all people I know who have consoles (from little kids to grandparents), I can only think of one or two people who have modded thier equipment.
If so few people do it, why does the government care? Because big companies put big pressure on the gov't to make sure nothing inteferes with their buisness model. And if that means squashing a 1% minority group who decided to make changes to their PS2 or XBox THAT THEY'RE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO DO UNDER FAIR USE, then so be it. "Fuck 'em", the company says. It's their way or the highway.
"That would be directly equivalent to somebody going to an ATM and getting money out without putting any in," Brad Anderson, Best Buy's chief executive, said in a recent interview. "Those customers, they're smart, and they're costing us money."
That's the price you pay for making us customers jump through more hoops than a fucking circus poodle to get our product at the advertised price. Honestly, most of the time when I send rebates back to the company I totally expect to never see my check in the mail. It's such an arduous process now that I don't even bother most of the time. Look, a 50-pk of CD-Rs for $3.99! Oh wait, it's actually $50.99 + tax, but after a measly $1 instant rebate and a shitload of 6-12 week waiting periods, I MIGHT get the advertised price. Or, more likely, I might get hosed and never get those rebate checks in the mail...leaving me paying about a buck a CD.
Honestly if someone takes the time to do a bit of research and sift through the ads in order to get free shit from promotional deals from companies like BestBuy that have horseshit customer service to begin with (anyone else remember the Native American dude arrested for trying to get his instant rebate on his pre-ordered NVidia card a while back?), then more power to 'em. Or maybe I'm just bitter because I've gotten screwed on so many of these rebate deals in the past.
In my rather limited experience in the real world (I'm only 25), I've come to hate one thing above all other Dilbertesq torture devices: the cubicle.
Seriously, I hate those fucking things. Drab, immoralizing grey-colored pieces of shit plastic that offer the illusion of privacy. You realize quickly it's an illusion whenever someone walks by and stares over your shoulder at whatever's on your monitor. Or depending on how they're facing, people peek over the sides and gawk while rambling about stuff you really don't give two shits about. And the minute you try to personalize them by bringing some *gasp* COLOR into your miniture world via posters, you get bitched at by management for inappropriate material. Wow, an 8x11 of me snowboarding in CO is inappropriate? Good thing I left my Barely Legal in the car.
As someone else already posted, L-shaped desks against a wall in an open environment is awesome. Take down the barriers, you MBA fucks! If someone really needs their own space, give them a personal office. And while you're at it, put as many windows in as possible. And hire an interior decorator...just because you furnished your house for under $400 with piss-stained Goodwill furnature, King of Decore you are not.
Make the place friendly, open (with as much natural light as possible), and comfortable. Granted the dot-com is dead and not everybody gets to play with pinball machines and ride segways around the office...but that doesn't mean your office environment needs to be modeled after Office Space.
Although I only skimmed the article, I thought it did point out some major setbacks/failures brought on by the FCC in the past. You're right about without regulation anarchy resulting though. If spectrums were a total free-for-all, there's no telling how messed up shit would get. Next time you microwave that burger, don't be surprised if your WIFI device melts instead of the cheese or your TV grows legs and starts chasing you out the door.
There's gotta be a compromise somewhere. The FCC could definitely use an overhaul...maybe it's time to oust people like Powell and bring in a team of scientists and researchers that are motivated by technological progress and compliance for the average person instead of making sure they don't piss off Sony, Comcast and Clear Channel?
Honestly, I would have modded this as redundant, but felt that the original author should at least get credit for coming up with a witty post (instead of another unoriginal AC bastard).
Is anyone else as disturbed as I am by this bullshit? Honestly, I can't believe this. FTA, "One paragraph described the type of information that FBI agents could request under the law". Great! So we're not allowed to know what the FBI can gather on us?
Too bad the mass public doesn't know that these kind of government antics are going on right underneath their noses.
Slashdot Mirror
Secondly, you underestimate the power of local support. I'm definitely not waving the Geek Squad flag here, but with some purchases it's better to go with a local vendor for faster support.
A good friend of mine works for a local independent high-end A/V shop(maybe 15 employees total, including installers), and he runs in to this on a daily basis. Their main consumer base is composed of people who want to buy quality equipment from a sales staff that actually knows their shit, and go to a place where "customer service" doesn't mean beating somebody over the head with extended warranties. And from personal experience it seems most of these customers have at one point been burned or fucked-over by the Best Buys and the Circuit Cities of the world and just want to talk to an informed employee in a low pressure environment.
There is no rebuttal that will appease a customer that walks in the door with a printout from a fly-by-night online retailer or eBay seller quoting a receiver at 1/2 price off of a unit that normally retails for $2000. There is absolutely no way to compete with that from a pure price standpoint. What those people fail to recognize is that if something goes wrong...if the unit ships damaged...or if you need help in designing or setting up your system...THAT is where the local stores have a distinct advantage.
Personally, when it comes to buying things that I am 100% confident in my ability to fix or setup myself (computers, car parts, etc.), then it's time to fire up Firefox and break out the credit card. But if I am going to make a big purchase and I am still unsure about the advantages and disadvantages to certain products, or if I just want to see it in person and play with it, then it is pretty hard to beat a reputable (key word) B&M store.
We worked with the techs directly on the phone all day and sorry to say but whoever you talked to was definitely not telling the truth. The normal "route" guys (think of the guys driving armored trucks doing cash swaps at your local convenience store) are generally very uneducated, are on a tight time schedule, and only care about one thing: swapping cash and pulling deposits. If something breaks they'll do minimal troubleshooting like re-seating cassettes or possibly rebooting the ATM, but that's it. Anything past that and we'd have to put in a call to their dispatch to get an actual tech out there and the ATM may be partially or totally incapacitated for days. Depending on the company the 2nd level techs generally knew their shit but still needed some assistance to figure out what was going on. A lot of the problems at this point were jammed/broken cassettes, dispenser units failing, keypads failing (big PITA since a lot of newer ATMs store their 3DES keys in the keypad itself), and so on. Just like cars, ATMs are highly mechanical and a lot of belts and whatnot fail over time.
If you are even short changed at an ATM, make sure to report it immediately to the branch if they are operating under normal business hours. If they are closed, call it in immediately and find out what you are required to do. Under normal circumstances you will get your money either through credit to your account or cash on the spot. Without doubt. And this is exactly where having the receipt on-hand is an absolute MUST. Call your customer service# and report it immediately. The CSR will file a form for you called a Regulation E form, which is a federal form that has to be filled out if there is any kind of electronic discrepancy. They'll ask for your transaction# which is printed right on the receipt. You give the CSR that, along with the amount requested and amount received, and they should be able to see exactly what happened. Most of the time the ATM will catch the mistake and reverse the charge immediately...in the trans logs for example you would see a withdrawal attempt for $20, see an immediate posting for $20R (R = reversal), and everything is gravy. Filing the Reg E just covers your ass. In the event that the ATM doesn't recognize the mistake, file the Reg E and the route will have to do a cash audit on the machine, where they'll see it's $20 off. We'd shut the machine down at this point.
What sucked was when the techs would very occasionally mis-load the cassettes with the wrong denomination. Say, $20s instead of $5s. Then it turned into an accounting nightmare and somebody on the cash servicer side would get in deep shit for that.
As hard as it is to believe, Diebold actually makes some of the better ATMs out there. Their techs are some of the more knowledgeable ones out there, compared to companies like Fujitsu and NCR.
Basically the demographic that Apple aimed for (and nailed perfectly) was the hipster in their 20s who was listening to the latest indie rock CD while driving in their new Jetta on the way to Starbucks. And despite claiming such influential independence, the above group tends to make identical purchases. Whether it's beer (Heinekin or Amstel Light), music (The Strokes), automobiles (VW Jetta or Golf, but it's always the 2.0L since they don't actually care about the engine), or where they buy their clothes (Urban Outfitters).
Of course that's a gigantic generalization, but there is a definite hipster target market.
One thing that turned me away from Phrack a while back (around Y2K-ish?) was the total lack of editing and their focus on newbish-related topics. Older copies of the e-zine contained a plethora of articles on advanced computer security topics, and were very well-written. Looking through the last few issues of Phrack it's painfully obvious that's not the case anymore. Current articles are geared towards script kiddies and are written in broken english.
Of course maybe I'm just biased because I fell out of the "underground" scene around the time that the accessability of Phrack-related information became magnitudes easier to obtain and the scarcity factor was lost.
Besides, most CS grads would make horrible lawyers in general for one significant reason: they have horrible communication skills. Lawyers have to be intelligent and very analytical (a trait many with CS degrees have), but also be able to effectively communicate ideas with others (a trait very few CS holders have in my experience).
Keep in mind this is coming from someone who has a CS degree from undergrad, and a few of my friends (and one of my siblings) have attended the top law schools in the US. Let me tell you this, you'd be hard-pressed to find a group of more rabid alphas that people in competitive law schools. And somehow "CS geek" and "rabid alpha male/female" rarely refer to the same person.
Know how long it's taken me to get Windows up and running on it? I still haven't. I've installed XP 4 seperate times to get the basic rig and an iPod up and running. This weekend I'll spend the entire time trying 2K on it to see if that's any better. Each time a new driver or app is installed, something catostrauphic occurs and it becomes easier to start from scratch than to roll back drivers and troubleshoot. Everything from onboard LAN to firewire cards to USB mice. All stuff that's meant to be run on 2K/XP, but evidently can't. Or at least won't very well.
I mainly run linux boxes, so I forgot how god damn troublesome Windows can be. And the real kicker? For the amount that this box ended up costing me, I could have just bought a Mac Mini for $500 and have it Just Work(tm). I'm far from being computer illiterate, so I can only imagine how hard it would be for a normal lus3r to do this.
What has this taught me? Windows can kiss my ass, next time I'm gettin' a Mac.
That being said, after reading all of the crap that EA has been putting their employees through, I refuse to buy a game from them anymore. The last sports game I bought was Tiger Woods Golf 2004 for my PS2, and that WILL be the last game I'll buy from EA. Period. I refuse to give my money to a company that gets away with the slave labor antics and rediculous headcutting that EA has graced us with. While all those 100-hour-a-week programmers get sent to unemployment, EA's CEO still gets his 7-figure salary and a fat bonus. And YES, I realize that my Old Navy jeans are made in China and my polo shirt was made in some third-world country. Exploitation goes on worldwide, and I've come to terms with it. This is just one battle that I choose to let affect my purchasing decisions.
So basically EA, fuck you. I'll take my $100 a year that I would have spent on your products and go to one of the two or three remaining competitors left in console gaming. Or maybe I'll go buy some basement-made games like Uplink instead. Or maybe I'll just say screw you all and go buy used NES games, which still entertain me way more than your 'Sports Title $YEAR' titles ever will. Either way EA, you can kiss my money goodbye.
Talent is definitely abound though. One needs not look any farther than seeing Atmosphere live or listening to old Husker Du records to see that.
Those last three words blew me away. Although I'm not a huge Wilco fan, I definitely appreciate where they're coming from. To me at least, they embody what a True Musician consists of. Somebody who plays music for the sake of making music. Somebody who if they make enough money playing at clubs and hawking CDs to make a living, then GREAT! But if not, they'll still be playing on the weekends and at nights when they're done with their 9-to-5.
Now contrast that with Britney Spears or Ashley Simpson. Think they'd be singing in their garage if their "music" career never took off? Fuck no. Since they only care about entertaining and not making music, they'd probably be just another coked-out stripper on the LA Strip, telling you how they're going to make it big and be somebody between lapdances and serving you a $10 cocktail.
Regardless, it's glad to know there's still a few bands out there who are in it for the love.
Without question Pixar can do fine on their own without Disney's help distributing. The real question is, can Disney survive without Pixar? As my magic-8 ball says, "Outlook not so good."
Pixar's done enough impressive work over the course of the last 5 or 6 years to estabilish a firm role as #1 in the animated film niche. Their track record is near flawless, with each film building on and improving the underlying technologies used to create each flick. Honestly, who here doesn't dream of running through Pixar's renderfarms like a kid in a candystore? Point is, every movie pretty much kicks ass at the box office. And that's what counts from a business perspective.
Disney, on the otherhand, might take a huge hit. Their only real role with these movies has been to distribute the films, and each time Pixar releases a new feature they become less and less dependent on Disney's reputation as a backer to ensure success. What else has Disney done lately? Yeah they pull in boatloads of money through merchandising via Disneyworld, toys, and shit like that. Depending on Mickey Mouse dolls for income though isn't a strong business model. And with each crappy film that tanks, I bet Michael Eisner's feeling better and better about jumping ship in a year.
But then again, I'm too lazy to quote numbers and statistics to back up anything I've said. In reality I've just never been impressed with Disney, even as a child, and wouldn't mind seeing them sweat a bit when Pixar high tails it.
So assuming you have access to a printer like that these days, what's to stop someone with $99 from picking up this kit and printing replica holograms on top of the ID? Other than the "get caught, go to jail for a while" reprecussion.
Regardless, I agree with your statement about GWB. From what I've seen talking with republicans too, it's a one-sided deal. Of course the GOP'ers don't LIKE Kerry, but they don't savagely loathe him. Compare that to all the democrats who not only disapprove of Bush, but actually HATE him.
But yeah, this doesn't reflect too highly upon our country. Whereas before the rest of the world gave us a chance, thinking "well they don't have control of their country, Bush stole it...", now we proved to the world that we had a chance to reclaim our country and didn't. Therefore, we've sort of validated everything that's happened in the last four years.
Scary times indeed.
Just curious.
For DIY people like me, the fun part is in installing the parts. Journey, not the destination. There's a certain sense of satisfaction knowing that your car's 1.5" lower because YOU put your coilovers on.
But, as always YMMV. And honestly, I'm surprised this topic even was brought up. People have been modifying cars decades before people even dreamed of computers. So it's not like this is a new subject. Hell, NASCAR was born from the bootleggers pimping out their cars to outgun cops chasing them. Think those cars were stock? ;)
The show still has the witty intelligent sense of humor it had in the past, it's just that the crowd's changed for the worse. Dunno how familiar you are with The Man Show, but the exact thing happened with the crowd (even though they're waaaaaaaaay different shows). Everytime the hosts would start anything that even RESEMBLED a joke, immediately the crowd would start yelling, clapping, hootin' and hollerin'. And now The Daily Show's turned into that.
The worst part happens when he's interviewing a "foe" of the audience, and before Steward even completes a question or counter-argument, the crowd erupts for a minute or two. Wouldn't be a huge deal if it was an hour of commercial-free programming, but when Stewart literally has the guest on for MAYBE 3 or 4 minutes, every second counts.
That being said, the show still rocks and (sadly?) is my main non-internet source for current events.
Even if you're not a Stewart fan, you gotta give him credit for going on a popular show like Crossfire, and absolutely calling out the hosts and the rest of the media ON THEIR SHOW for being irresponsible journalists! Even more props for calling one of the hosts a "dick" on CNN. Gotta love when the Crossfire crew starts attacking the integrity of The Daily Show and Stewart immediately fires back that they're preceeded by a crank call program with puppets.
Regardless, I highly suggest anyone even remotely interested in politics and journalism read the transcript.
My point is, computing has reached a point where the AVERAGE person doesn't need to upgrade anymore. It used to be that the newest killer apps would require an upgrade of some sort. More memory, an updated OS, or if it was called for, an entirely new system. Who remembers checking the back of a software box back in the day and nothing thinking "wow, I wonder what my fps will be", but instead "jesus, will this even RUN on my 386???" Nowadays really the only person who needs to buy the latest and greatest are gamers...and they're such a small percentage of overall computer buyers and users that they're negliable at best.
I think computer companies are starting to realize this and they're starting to freak out a tad. The real limiting factor with the majority's computing experience is how fast their net connection is, not what CPU they're using or what GFX card is under the hood. This isn't to say of course that when/if I get a job, I won't be throwing my money away at CrapUSA on a sweet video card. It's just that we've hit a maturity in computers where it doesn't pay to update every 1.5 years if all you're doing is checking email, writing shit and downloading the occasional mp3.
Major in more than one thing. My sister graduated in May with a Sociology degree, and is having an impossible time finding work. Econ and Business degrees are probably the most applicable to the real world, so think about those. English, Lit, Communications & friends show that you know how to convey ideas well to others.
Bring cheap shit. Lock your doors. Keep renters insurance. Keep backups. All of these file under one central dogma: Use Common Sense / Shit Happens . Every single time I went joyriding on an unlocked bike in undergrad to get from one dorm to another, it was because somebody didn't use their head. Yes I'm a bad person.
Drink. Party. Have a good time. The last week before we graduated we had a "Senior Week" where all the seniors joined in on barcrawls. It was actually sad seeing people let loose for the first time ever, with graduation looming 4 days away. Seriously. I specifically remember hearing one guy turn to me and say, "Why didn't I do this earlier in college?"
Grades matter...but they're not everything. The amount of work generally required to go from a C+ to a B is generally pretty small. To go from a B to an A- though, is different. 3.0 is the magic number for a lot of grad schools and the like. Plus (in the US at least) that's the cutoff for driving insurance discounts. Getting into schools with a 2.9 or 2.8 isn't impossible, it's just a lot more work. Trust me on this one.
Meet people. Hook up with as many chicks/dudes as possible (depending on preference). Not surprisingly, parties are a great place to get your pinky stinky. Just try to use common sense, even if you're blotto'ed.
NETWORK WITH YOUR FRIENDS. Believe me, every single friend with a good job got it from networking. Make sure you keep tabs on as many people as possible from college, and don't be afraid to hit them up for possible job leads. I'm currently doing this (again) after putting off grad school for a bit.
Just remember: these WILL be the best days of your life. I didn't believe it when I went into college, but coming out I quickly came to that realization. Don't blow it. Take advantage of everything around you. And if you're at a big school, don't be fooled by the 4-and-out mentality. Unfortunately I went to a small private college where unless you had an extra $35K/yr to blow, you HAD to get out in 4 years. Take your time, learn what you want to. And don't forget to smile when you're walking around campus.
I graduate, and the bubble busts. It's nearly impossible in MN to get a job working with computers without 3-5 experience at that time, and hasn't gotten much better. I worked various IT gigs for consulting firms, getting whored out to major corps for 3-6 month gigs at $40/hr while they pay me $12 with absolutely no benefits (good thing I'm diabetic, huh?).
Recently I checked into graduate programs. I get accepted into a Masters program for CS, and should be starting in two weeks. Know what I'm doing? Deferring and am very seriously considering applying to graduate nursing programs here in MN.
For the amount of work that it takes to even GET a job working with computers these days, it's not worth it. And even if you're lucky enough to land one, you're constantly on edge and looking over your shoulder, wondering if your boss is planning on dumping your job and paying Samir in India to do it for a fraction of the cost. Plus working insanely long hours isn't my idea of a good time, at least not for that payscale.
Compare that with nursing. Starting pay is real nice, and it's definitely feasable to find a gig working three 12-hour days. That's 36 hours, fulltime, full benefits, with a four-day weekend. And the way HMOs are set up now, everything's so autonomous that you don't have to worry about dealing with dickhead doctors very much (which is why I quit the pre-med route to begin with).
So even though you jest, don't dismiss nursing as a bullshit profession.
If so few people do it, why does the government care? Because big companies put big pressure on the gov't to make sure nothing inteferes with their buisness model. And if that means squashing a 1% minority group who decided to make changes to their PS2 or XBox THAT THEY'RE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO DO UNDER FAIR USE, then so be it. "Fuck 'em", the company says. It's their way or the highway.
Honestly if someone takes the time to do a bit of research and sift through the ads in order to get free shit from promotional deals from companies like BestBuy that have horseshit customer service to begin with (anyone else remember the Native American dude arrested for trying to get his instant rebate on his pre-ordered NVidia card a while back?), then more power to 'em. Or maybe I'm just bitter because I've gotten screwed on so many of these rebate deals in the past.
Seriously, I hate those fucking things. Drab, immoralizing grey-colored pieces of shit plastic that offer the illusion of privacy. You realize quickly it's an illusion whenever someone walks by and stares over your shoulder at whatever's on your monitor. Or depending on how they're facing, people peek over the sides and gawk while rambling about stuff you really don't give two shits about. And the minute you try to personalize them by bringing some *gasp* COLOR into your miniture world via posters, you get bitched at by management for inappropriate material. Wow, an 8x11 of me snowboarding in CO is inappropriate? Good thing I left my Barely Legal in the car.
As someone else already posted, L-shaped desks against a wall in an open environment is awesome. Take down the barriers, you MBA fucks! If someone really needs their own space, give them a personal office. And while you're at it, put as many windows in as possible. And hire an interior decorator...just because you furnished your house for under $400 with piss-stained Goodwill furnature, King of Decore you are not.
Make the place friendly, open (with as much natural light as possible), and comfortable. Granted the dot-com is dead and not everybody gets to play with pinball machines and ride segways around the office...but that doesn't mean your office environment needs to be modeled after Office Space.
There's gotta be a compromise somewhere. The FCC could definitely use an overhaul...maybe it's time to oust people like Powell and bring in a team of scientists and researchers that are motivated by technological progress and compliance for the average person instead of making sure they don't piss off Sony, Comcast and Clear Channel?
Honestly, I would have modded this as redundant, but felt that the original author should at least get credit for coming up with a witty post (instead of another unoriginal AC bastard).
Ok kiddies, troll away...
Too bad the mass public doesn't know that these kind of government antics are going on right underneath their noses.