After watching the Retardicans the past few months, I'm really glad he is in office. If it were McCain right now we'd already be rounding Arabs up into concentration camps (whoops "internment camps"), the uber-rich would have had their taxes entirely removed, and they'd have made it a jailable offense to not have a job.
As it is, we still have to deal with Paul Ryan's insane "budget plan" which consists of mainly more tax breaks to his billionaire masters paid for by switching grandma from Ramen to Alpo.
I help my friends with their PCs all the time. I do it out of the kindness of my heart. I help my parents when I can.
But when I help them, I also educate them. I show them what I'm doing. I doublecheck to make sure they've got up to date virus protection, up to date OS, properly locked down home network (PC direct into cable modem = AUGH).
And I tell them look - I'm your friend. I'm helping you out. But I get a ton of people asking for this every day. Coworkers constantly ask for "help" with their personal machines. Friends-of-friends. Friends want someone to help their mom, or their aunt too. I could make a full-time job of "helping friends" with their computer and NEVER MAKE A FUCKING DIME. So I have to limit it. And that means that I'll gladly help a friend out, provided that they're not just being total morons about this stuff and doing crap I warned them not to do.
Is it a bit rough? Sure. Do I want to be a 24/7 free "tech help center" for anyone who has my cell number? Fuck no.
In conclusion, if you didn't read the link the first time, fuck you. I guarantee if you treated a doctor, lawyer, carpenter, or car mechanic the way you treat the IT/Computer people, they'd tell you to fuck off as well.
DDoS is also an unacceptable practice whose consequences are impossible to predict.
Sigh.
The consequences are quite simple: people can't get to the website for a while, either because the traffic isn't getting there or the server just crashes. Eventually it comes back up.
"DDoS" via LOIC - where all the participants are willing (a DDoS via botnet of hijacked computers being something else because the resources to launch it are stolen resources) - is no different than:
- The Retardican/Rea Tardier "virtual march on washington" a couple years ago that tied up the congressional phone banks for days. - Holding a protest that shuts down a main street outside a building. - Holding a sit-in protest at a business that "denies service" to customers who can't get through the area.
I don't condemn DDoS. As far as I'm concerned, it's a protest action. The moment we start criminalizing protest actions, we cease to be a free society and fall right in to the trap of the MafiAA/Repukelican corporate fascism model.
All that's actually happening is fans of one game are voting it up, whilst voting other games they don't like down.
The real problem is that there is zero accountability in the system to stop fraudulent voting, though. If I'm a fan of Game X, and I tried Game Y and hated it, I can give them bad reviews. If I am a fan of game X, and think it should be on the "highest rated games", should I be downrating the current highest-rated games merely to give my favorite a boost? Well, I'm being dishonest if I do. I should at least try the game first.
If someone is making fraudulent logins and downrating over and over (which is what the article writers suspect), is this a problem? Yes. And if a game which has a previously steady rating level over several months (I'm leaving out the usual "company X paid the magazines for a good review and put an embargo on reviews below X level, real-world reviews say otherwise about a month after release date phenomenon) suddenly gets a slew of one-star reviews, then it's not unrealistic to wonder if shenanigans are afoot.
for every "android" app, there are a hundred or two hundred devices that developers have to hope it works on. I've had a few that didn't work on my phone already.
Not only that, but some companies are pulling shitty tactics on the consumer. Want to have tethering on your Android phone through Sprint? They want an extra $30 per month. Or you can just temp-root it and use free tethering software. Oh yeah, and Sprint's sales reps are actually bringing up the rooting option because so many customers have been pissed off about the extra "tethering subscription" ass-hattery that they have given up on trying to sell it.
You forgot: unstated but administratively sanctioned) which side has an admin willing to abuse his powers first to "win" the argument by banning the other side.
Don't worry. It's pretty much just like you imagine it. I haven't seen any changes in years of checking in even after reading what I link you to - and he's pretty much 100% accurate on how Wikipedia really works.
That was back when we put money into the programs, rather than having politicians look at NASA as "ooh look we can cut them and posture around."
Retardicans and Dumbicrats alike are responsible for the shoddy state of today's program - which was a bargain when we put appropriate money into it and did more good than any of their millions of pet projects.
I mean, I remember all the shovelware crap that had the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" on it back in the day.
And their remark about EA is spot on. They're responsible for most of the boring shovelware crap that clogs up the Live Marketplace today and makes it hard to find where the good stuff is hiding.
Secondary problem: the ISPs in the US are actively pursuing policies (Comcrap and AT&T's "monthly bandwidth cap" crap for instance) that make it very painful to use Tor in other senses.
Make yourself an exit node and watch your traffic skyrocket...
The MafiAA usually try out their latest "fuck the consumer" crap in Canadia before they bring it down here. The Canadians aren't used to fighting back.
This is just one of those short sighted things we do because missiles are more exciting that basic science.
Welcome to the world the Retardicans are currently creating.
Remember, in their minds, all kids should sit in a classroom using bible-approved textbooks and being taught how Jesus's most important doctrine was to give your money to the Retardican Robber Baron Masters.
Compare to the sheer amount of handouts the Retardicans have handed to their robber baron oil buddies.
Then wonder why the American scientific and education communities keep getting hosed by the Retardicans, party of tax breaks for billionaires paid for by pay cuts to the poor and middle class.
The right-wing robber barons running the Retardican Party today have bamboozled a lot of people into the "yay free trade" idea while they gleefully exploit people and reenact slavery with deplorable conditions, zero safety, zero environmental laws - basically, everything we tried to do trying to clean up the US going down the shitter as they send all the jobs to places they can get away with what we told them we would no longer put up with here.
The left-wingers embraced "free trade" along with "no borders whee". The phrase "useful idiots" applies. As the trade unions declined thanks to robber baron crony infiltration of state governments (this incident in Wisconsin being just the latest in a long line), the shipping overseas of jobs got worse and worse.
For the last 15-20 years, the decline has been hidden by the ever-increasing rise in "easy credit." That's why the robber barons were quietly lobbying state governments to get rid of Usury laws, along with quietly backing left-wing groups who wanted to lower the requirements for people to get credit so that "credit" could be handed out like candy to people who had no chance in hell of paying back the loans they were taking out (credit cards, "low income housing subsidies", etc).
Welcome to today. We in the middle are paying the price. Retardicans are the party of tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the middle class, Democraps are the party of the useful idiots for the robber barons. And don't even get me started on the Retardican/KochBros front group known as the Ree Tardiers, or their kook leaders like Crazy Uncle Ron and Sarah "Oh look I can see russia from my house watch me skin this moose" Palin.
A heavy accent that I have trouble understanding is one thing.
The problems I have are: - I have usually waited on hold over 30 minutes just to get "support" on the line. - They then can't "transfer" me to someone else. No, I'm supposed to call again, wait another 30+ minutes, and play Incompetent-Indian-Roulette yet again.
- When I ask for the supervisor, being told either "there is no supervisor right now", being hung up on, or getting someone who is obviously lying (I am NOT joking when I say that on at least 4 occasions one of these incompetents has picked up the line and said some variant of "Hello, name is supervisor, you asked to speak?"
- Being completely fucking unable to escalate the call to someone who knows what they are doing when it is obvious the trained monkey reading the script will not ever get the problem solved, because they "cannot transfer" out of their call center nor can they give me the number for the department I really need to reach.
- Getting a fake name. This really bugs the hell out of me. Don't come on with a thick-as-fuck accent and then claim your name is "Jim" or "Bob" or "Susan." We know you're lying to us and as a customer, once you lie to me and I catch you in it, I'm going to assume you may be lying about anything else you say.
Here's a transcript of what I usually get from Indian call centers:
Indian Incompetent [with heavily garbled Indian-Engrish Accent]: "Hello, you thank for customer support calling, my name is Bob."
Me: "Yes I'm calling about a problem with my [insert name of product here]. The error lights are on in the following sequence [read them code sequence]."
Indian Incompetent: "So I am hearing you are problem having with [insert name of WRONG product]. Is this correct?"
Me: "No, that is NOT correct, the problem is with [insert CORRECT name of product]."
Indian Incompetent: "Please allow a moment. [sticks me on hold for 3 minutes] Now I am hearing that you are problem having with [correct name of product this time]. Yes?"
Me: "Yes. The problem is [repeat error code sequence]."
Indian Incompetent: "So I am hearing that error lights flashing you are seeing, is this correct?"
Me: "YES. They are flashing in [repeat sequence again]."
Indian Incompetent: "Ok so what sequence are the lights flashing?"
This can go on for pages. And this is the normal type of crap I get from them. Doesn't matter what company - Xbox support is actually one of the fucking worst you can find. I used to be able to call between noon and 4 and get a competent call center from Mormon country, but apparently MS decided the Mormons were too competent and fired them all.
The left-wingers "open borders" types are the bleeding-hearts who conveniently forget the damage caused all around by their policies. These are the idiots like Clinton who thought NAFTA was a good idea. The right-wing robber baron types (that run the Retardican party these days) gleefully exploit "free trade" to ship jobs away and re-create slavery wherever they can.
The end result is, the people in the middle get fucked over.
Of course, it wasn't always this way. Before the robber barons started in with union-busting (Wisconsin is just the latest in a long line of that sort of crap, most of which has flown very much under the radar), the left wing used to stand against "global free trade" and actually did things to protect the working class. Now, good fucking luck with that one.
Every time I have to deal with products using Indian call centers for "customer service", I come away aggravated. They can't imagine any problem that isn't on their fucking script, they have no idea what to do when the problem isn't on the script, and when you ask to speak to their supervisor they either lie and put the guy from the next folding-table over on the line "yes this is supervisor" or else they just fucking hang up on you. Trying to get something advance RMA'ed? Good fucking luck hoping they ever write your address down correctly even after you spell it out letter by letter.
Chinese or Korean-manufactured? Might as well hang a sign on it saying "expect it to fucking break and not work properly after the first month, and good luck getting the company to ever bother honoring their fucking warranty." And yes that includes Apple, who dicked me around for 3 months trying to claim my ipod "got wet" (it didn't, Apple just deliberately uses hypersensitive moisture strips that trigger on their own if you live anywhere that the humidity gets above 50% with any regularity).
Oh, and you nice wonderful left-wing fucktards who love the "no borders, one world government" movement? Remember, those nice cheapy products come on the backs of slave labor, tiny wages, zero worker safety protection laws, and zero environmental protection laws.
"Free trade" is a tool of the robber barons, nothing more.
People without the brainpower to realize that this is not a word, annoy me.
I think the "system" is designed to swallow all money you throw at it and beg for more, regardless of quantities. It's a bottomless pit. Saying you will fill it with more people doesn't stop it from being bottomless.
You've been hanging around the Tea Party/Ree Tardy crowd too much. "The System" works more-or-less as it is intended to work: to try to balance the schizophrenic, contradictory desires of the population.
Seriously, look at the aggregate set of various polls. Here's a good article that helps sum it up. The problem is not "too much government." The problem is that everyone wants certain things but can't agree how to pay for it.
Slashdot Mirror
After watching the Retardicans the past few months, I'm really glad he is in office. If it were McCain right now we'd already be rounding Arabs up into concentration camps (whoops "internment camps"), the uber-rich would have had their taxes entirely removed, and they'd have made it a jailable offense to not have a job.
As it is, we still have to deal with Paul Ryan's insane "budget plan" which consists of mainly more tax breaks to his billionaire masters paid for by switching grandma from Ramen to Alpo.
They got arrested.
Then the arrests got thrown out.
On behalf of all of us... fuck you.
I help my friends with their PCs all the time. I do it out of the kindness of my heart. I help my parents when I can.
But when I help them, I also educate them. I show them what I'm doing. I doublecheck to make sure they've got up to date virus protection, up to date OS, properly locked down home network (PC direct into cable modem = AUGH).
And I tell them look - I'm your friend. I'm helping you out. But I get a ton of people asking for this every day. Coworkers constantly ask for "help" with their personal machines. Friends-of-friends. Friends want someone to help their mom, or their aunt too. I could make a full-time job of "helping friends" with their computer and NEVER MAKE A FUCKING DIME. So I have to limit it. And that means that I'll gladly help a friend out, provided that they're not just being total morons about this stuff and doing crap I warned them not to do.
Is it a bit rough? Sure. Do I want to be a 24/7 free "tech help center" for anyone who has my cell number? Fuck no.
In conclusion, if you didn't read the link the first time, fuck you. I guarantee if you treated a doctor, lawyer, carpenter, or car mechanic the way you treat the IT/Computer people, they'd tell you to fuck off as well.
In other words... this is why anti-nepotism laws should be made a requirement of any business over the size of a 10-person "family business."
DDoS is also an unacceptable practice whose consequences are impossible to predict.
Sigh.
The consequences are quite simple: people can't get to the website for a while, either because the traffic isn't getting there or the server just crashes. Eventually it comes back up.
"DDoS" via LOIC - where all the participants are willing (a DDoS via botnet of hijacked computers being something else because the resources to launch it are stolen resources) - is no different than:
- The Retardican/Rea Tardier "virtual march on washington" a couple years ago that tied up the congressional phone banks for days.
- Holding a protest that shuts down a main street outside a building.
- Holding a sit-in protest at a business that "denies service" to customers who can't get through the area.
I don't condemn DDoS. As far as I'm concerned, it's a protest action. The moment we start criminalizing protest actions, we cease to be a free society and fall right in to the trap of the MafiAA/Repukelican corporate fascism model.
However... the DDoS is definitely illegal and barbaric. That is not how Justice works in a civilized society.
Oh?
I seem to remember people "denying service" at lunch counters, banks, etc simply by sitting in the premises in large numbers...
All that's actually happening is fans of one game are voting it up, whilst voting other games they don't like down.
The real problem is that there is zero accountability in the system to stop fraudulent voting, though. If I'm a fan of Game X, and I tried Game Y and hated it, I can give them bad reviews. If I am a fan of game X, and think it should be on the "highest rated games", should I be downrating the current highest-rated games merely to give my favorite a boost? Well, I'm being dishonest if I do. I should at least try the game first.
If someone is making fraudulent logins and downrating over and over (which is what the article writers suspect), is this a problem? Yes. And if a game which has a previously steady rating level over several months (I'm leaving out the usual "company X paid the magazines for a good review and put an embargo on reviews below X level, real-world reviews say otherwise about a month after release date phenomenon) suddenly gets a slew of one-star reviews, then it's not unrealistic to wonder if shenanigans are afoot.
Castle Crashers was one of the first Xbox Live Arcade games
Uhm... say what now?
Xbox360: released November 22, 2005.
Castle Crashers: released August 27, 2008.
Almost THREE YEARS of Xbox Live Arcade games separates the two.
This has been a message from reality. As an additional message: please stop smoking crack.
Ok, here's part of the problem:
for every "android" app, there are a hundred or two hundred devices that developers have to hope it works on. I've had a few that didn't work on my phone already.
Not only that, but some companies are pulling shitty tactics on the consumer. Want to have tethering on your Android phone through Sprint? They want an extra $30 per month. Or you can just temp-root it and use free tethering software. Oh yeah, and Sprint's sales reps are actually bringing up the rooting option because so many customers have been pissed off about the extra "tethering subscription" ass-hattery that they have given up on trying to sell it.
Wikipedia still calls the USA a Democracy
Which is really funny since the appropriate term for the US governmental mode is a Republic.
You forgot:
unstated but administratively sanctioned) which side has an admin willing to abuse his powers first to "win" the argument by banning the other side.
Don't worry. It's pretty much just like you imagine it. I haven't seen any changes in years of checking in even after reading what I link you to - and he's pretty much 100% accurate on how Wikipedia really works.
That was back when we put money into the programs, rather than having politicians look at NASA as "ooh look we can cut them and posture around."
Retardicans and Dumbicrats alike are responsible for the shoddy state of today's program - which was a bargain when we put appropriate money into it and did more good than any of their millions of pet projects.
I mean, I remember all the shovelware crap that had the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" on it back in the day.
And their remark about EA is spot on. They're responsible for most of the boring shovelware crap that clogs up the Live Marketplace today and makes it hard to find where the good stuff is hiding.
Secondary problem: the ISPs in the US are actively pursuing policies (Comcrap and AT&T's "monthly bandwidth cap" crap for instance) that make it very painful to use Tor in other senses.
Make yourself an exit node and watch your traffic skyrocket...
It'll bleed over into the US soon enough.
The MafiAA usually try out their latest "fuck the consumer" crap in Canadia before they bring it down here. The Canadians aren't used to fighting back.
This is just one of those short sighted things we do because missiles are more exciting that basic science.
Welcome to the world the Retardicans are currently creating.
Remember, in their minds, all kids should sit in a classroom using bible-approved textbooks and being taught how Jesus's most important doctrine was to give your money to the Retardican Robber Baron Masters.
Compare to the sheer amount of handouts the Retardicans have handed to their robber baron oil buddies.
Then wonder why the American scientific and education communities keep getting hosed by the Retardicans, party of tax breaks for billionaires paid for by pay cuts to the poor and middle class.
As I said above: I'm a centrist.
The right-wing robber barons running the Retardican Party today have bamboozled a lot of people into the "yay free trade" idea while they gleefully exploit people and reenact slavery with deplorable conditions, zero safety, zero environmental laws - basically, everything we tried to do trying to clean up the US going down the shitter as they send all the jobs to places they can get away with what we told them we would no longer put up with here.
The left-wingers embraced "free trade" along with "no borders whee". The phrase "useful idiots" applies. As the trade unions declined thanks to robber baron crony infiltration of state governments (this incident in Wisconsin being just the latest in a long line), the shipping overseas of jobs got worse and worse.
For the last 15-20 years, the decline has been hidden by the ever-increasing rise in "easy credit." That's why the robber barons were quietly lobbying state governments to get rid of Usury laws, along with quietly backing left-wing groups who wanted to lower the requirements for people to get credit so that "credit" could be handed out like candy to people who had no chance in hell of paying back the loans they were taking out (credit cards, "low income housing subsidies", etc).
Welcome to today. We in the middle are paying the price. Retardicans are the party of tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the middle class, Democraps are the party of the useful idiots for the robber barons. And don't even get me started on the Retardican/KochBros front group known as the Ree Tardiers, or their kook leaders like Crazy Uncle Ron and Sarah "Oh look I can see russia from my house watch me skin this moose" Palin.
No. They pick a fake name to lie to you.
A heavy accent that I have trouble understanding is one thing.
The problems I have are:
- I have usually waited on hold over 30 minutes just to get "support" on the line.
- They then can't "transfer" me to someone else. No, I'm supposed to call again, wait another 30+ minutes, and play Incompetent-Indian-Roulette yet again.
- When I ask for the supervisor, being told either "there is no supervisor right now", being hung up on, or getting someone who is obviously lying (I am NOT joking when I say that on at least 4 occasions one of these incompetents has picked up the line and said some variant of "Hello, name is supervisor, you asked to speak?"
- Being completely fucking unable to escalate the call to someone who knows what they are doing when it is obvious the trained monkey reading the script will not ever get the problem solved, because they "cannot transfer" out of their call center nor can they give me the number for the department I really need to reach.
- Getting a fake name. This really bugs the hell out of me. Don't come on with a thick-as-fuck accent and then claim your name is "Jim" or "Bob" or "Susan." We know you're lying to us and as a customer, once you lie to me and I catch you in it, I'm going to assume you may be lying about anything else you say.
Here's a transcript of what I usually get from Indian call centers:
Indian Incompetent [with heavily garbled Indian-Engrish Accent]: "Hello, you thank for customer support calling, my name is Bob."
Me: "Yes I'm calling about a problem with my [insert name of product here]. The error lights are on in the following sequence [read them code sequence]."
Indian Incompetent: "So I am hearing you are problem having with [insert name of WRONG product]. Is this correct?"
Me: "No, that is NOT correct, the problem is with [insert CORRECT name of product]."
Indian Incompetent: "Please allow a moment. [sticks me on hold for 3 minutes] Now I am hearing that you are problem having with [correct name of product this time]. Yes?"
Me: "Yes. The problem is [repeat error code sequence]."
Indian Incompetent: "So I am hearing that error lights flashing you are seeing, is this correct?"
Me: "YES. They are flashing in [repeat sequence again]."
Indian Incompetent: "Ok so what sequence are the lights flashing?"
This can go on for pages. And this is the normal type of crap I get from them. Doesn't matter what company - Xbox support is actually one of the fucking worst you can find. I used to be able to call between noon and 4 and get a competent call center from Mormon country, but apparently MS decided the Mormons were too competent and fired them all.
Centrist.
The left-wingers "open borders" types are the bleeding-hearts who conveniently forget the damage caused all around by their policies. These are the idiots like Clinton who thought NAFTA was a good idea.
The right-wing robber baron types (that run the Retardican party these days) gleefully exploit "free trade" to ship jobs away and re-create slavery wherever they can.
The end result is, the people in the middle get fucked over.
Of course, it wasn't always this way. Before the robber barons started in with union-busting (Wisconsin is just the latest in a long line of that sort of crap, most of which has flown very much under the radar), the left wing used to stand against "global free trade" and actually did things to protect the working class. Now, good fucking luck with that one.
Competence differences are the real problem.
Every time I have to deal with products using Indian call centers for "customer service", I come away aggravated. They can't imagine any problem that isn't on their fucking script, they have no idea what to do when the problem isn't on the script, and when you ask to speak to their supervisor they either lie and put the guy from the next folding-table over on the line "yes this is supervisor" or else they just fucking hang up on you. Trying to get something advance RMA'ed? Good fucking luck hoping they ever write your address down correctly even after you spell it out letter by letter.
Chinese or Korean-manufactured? Might as well hang a sign on it saying "expect it to fucking break and not work properly after the first month, and good luck getting the company to ever bother honoring their fucking warranty." And yes that includes Apple, who dicked me around for 3 months trying to claim my ipod "got wet" (it didn't, Apple just deliberately uses hypersensitive moisture strips that trigger on their own if you live anywhere that the humidity gets above 50% with any regularity).
Oh, and you nice wonderful left-wing fucktards who love the "no borders, one world government" movement? Remember, those nice cheapy products come on the backs of slave labor, tiny wages, zero worker safety protection laws, and zero environmental protection laws.
"Free trade" is a tool of the robber barons, nothing more.
Irregardless
People without the brainpower to realize that this is not a word, annoy me.
I think the "system" is designed to swallow all money you throw at it and beg for more, regardless of quantities. It's a bottomless pit. Saying you will fill it with more people doesn't stop it from being bottomless.
You've been hanging around the Tea Party/Ree Tardy crowd too much. "The System" works more-or-less as it is intended to work: to try to balance the schizophrenic, contradictory desires of the population.
Seriously, look at the aggregate set of various polls. Here's a good article that helps sum it up.
The problem is not "too much government." The problem is that everyone wants certain things but can't agree how to pay for it.
And in a country where just 400 people control over 50% of the wealth, we have a major oligarchy problem as it stands.