Hey, I'm not saying that fossil fuel plants are any better than nuclear power plants; I'm just saying that both are worse than power plants that don't rely on mining and end up with pollutants (in once case, air pollution and in the other case, radioactive waste that needs to be stored away somewhere).
Actually, I think I remember reading about a study that compared people who watched a lot of TV versus people who read a lot (UPDATE: I did read about a study. It was this one). The readers still weighed less. One possible reason? Ever tried munching on a bunch of food and reading at the same time? I have. It isn't easy. For those of you who haven't tried it, let me tell you that reading a borrowed library book and eating soup at the same time is a *very* bad idea.:-L
Also, book reading is *still* less sedentary. You're flipping pages, more of your brain is being used (and your brain uses energy). TV watching is possible the *least* calorie burning activity you can engage in. You burn more calories when you're asleep or standing than you do while watching TV.
Finally, don't forget that TV is constantly bombarding you with advertisements for food and drink. It's easy to be encouraged to eat or drink a lot while watching TV.
The device harnesses the tidal energy of the sea in the same way windmills tap into the power of air currents. The generator consists of ten metre diameter blades which rotate as water passes over them. These in turn drive a generator to produce electricity. The whole mechanism is held aloft by a 20 metre steel column anchored to the seabed.
Have any studies been done on how these windmills might affect marine life living in that area? The unfortunate thing is that no source of electricity that I have seen is purely "clean". All of them can have an ecological footprint. I am, however, glad to see that these new forms of energy supply are being explored, as there is no question in my mind that fuel-based (both fossil and nuclear) energy sources have a larger and more disruptive ecological footprint.
Say "I could care less" out loud. Listen to the intonation. It's a *sarcastic* statement, although subtly so. For further info, read Stephen Pinker's excellent Language Instinct, where among other things he dubunks this and other nonsensical grammar "no-nos."
I talked to someone from West Virginia. Mining jobs around there are plentiful, but exclusive. That means in some areas that if you want a job, you mine. And there are more people willing to work thant here are jobs, so the starting wage is very, very low -- sometimes less than $10/hour for strip mining.
When I read "network outages", I assume the poster meant computers/servers on their network going down. Now I'm guessing they meant network routers, judging by this similar posting. It looks like before you could dialup directly into AT&T's system, thus avoiding the need to use a network connection in the hopefully rare case that no network connection is available.
My suggestion is to set up a dialup account that gives limited text-based access, so that you can send the alert messages through that system. So long as the dial-up company is different than the provider of the routers' connection, that connection should stay up. And if both ISPs are down at the same time, that probably means you've got bigger problems than just your own network being down. I don't know where you'd start your search (well, I mean of course google obviously, but beyond taht...) but I'm sure you could easily find text-based internet access for around $10/month, which isn't all that much. Also, you'd have access to a remote machine you could use to test latency and other network availability issues.
Unless TAP behaves very differently than normal text messaging, shouldn't these instructions work (taken from AT&T's Text messaging howo):
Address the e-mail to the 10-digit wireless phone number followed by @mobile.att.net. For example, if the phone's number is 206.123.4567, then the e-mail address is: 2061234567@ mobile.att.net.
Assuming that TAP works the same way of course.
If not, obviously I'm some kind of idiot.
Even so, it seems like it makes a lot of common sense to allow direct e-mail to text message.
Just because an artists' label is overseen by the RIAA doesn't mean that it's not good music that you should listen to.
I mean, the US Government does some pretty lousy things. Does that mean you should never go to the Smithsonian, or a public library, or collect Social Security?
No, it simply means that organize activism against the actions and behavior that you don't like. Boycotts won't work in this case -- I don't think there would ever be enough momentum there to affect their sales on a large scale. Yes, the fact that a lot of people are swapping MP3s has affected sales, but most of these people are not swapping for politically-motivated purposes.
An easy way to get RIAA-controlled music without supporting the RIAA is to buy used CDs rather than new ones. That way, you're supporting the local music store, which often does a lot of good in the community, supporting and promoting local musicians.
You arrange with a realtor to purchase a home, and until you move in, their sign is still up with a big "SOLD" on it.
<horror>OH MY GOD!!! They're using your lawn to advertise their goods and services! Those evil perverts!</horror>
Your argument is bullshit. Once your website is up, it's up. If it's not up, it's not up and you shouldn't bitch about what might come up while it's not set up.
It looks even more unprofessional for someone to type in your URL and come up with something like this or this. I'd say this is somewhat more reassuring, although the pop-up windows and ads are a pain in the ass. If I really wanted to give my customers more value, I'd set up a coming soon page that looked more like this.
I guess if the register.com people had thought things through, they might have figured that some people might be shocked/upset/surprised by a "Coming Soon" page loaded with ads and popups (yeah, they could have used a little more restraint in that area -- 4 popups? Come on!!). Something a little more reserved probably would not have drawn as much attention. On the other hand, domain registration is a fairly new arena, and it's harder to define terms like ownership, property, and rights. I don't think the swapping MP3s is a good analogy. Regardless of the technology, it's still plainly illegal. 50 Cent could care less if you correctly attribute the music you stole. On the other hand, what is domain ownership, and what does it entail? There aren't clear guidelines or rules in this area. I think certainly a Coming Soon page should be expected in these cases -- and it would certainly be appropriate in those cases for the registrar to identify itself, including promotional links back to its own website; the only bad thing I see about it was register.com's zeal in using it as an advertising space. They could have been a ton more subtle.
Now paying someone $25k to audit security is a perfectly legitimate business undertaking. So, how is providing that service for free necessarily "damage."
Here's a harsh example: If I charged you for sex, I could easily get $100/hour. How about I have sex with you, without your consent, for free?
As someone who oversees a few websites, I can tell you that there is plenty to do already without having to worry about some hacker breaking in to my system.
The faulty lock isn't a good analogy. A better analogy is that you have a normal working lock, and the person is an extremely adept locksmith who also knows how to circumvent security systems. Don't think "This Old House", think "Mission Impossible".
These servers weren't left totally out in the open, otherwise people would be hacking into the NY Times *all the time*. I mean, wouldn't it be tempting to be able to put any message you wanted, up for viewing to many millions of people?
I'm sure the NY Times spends a whole lot on security, and does a pretty good job at it. This Adrian fellow is a really good hacker; that's all there is to it. Any system that must connect to the Internet is inherently insecure. The people at the NY Times have probably made a very careful balance between making their servers secure, and making it possible for employees to access it from the thousands of locations across the globe where they have staff, reporters, subscription offices, and distribution and printing centers.
I think anyone who blames the NY Times in this case is expecting too much. I'd like to see how *your* computers handle a hacking attach from this guy.
Re:Uh - shouldn't they sue themselves?
on
Adrian Lamo Surrenders
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Hmmm... I have a feeling they didn't leave the site open. They just didn't make it unhackable.
It seems like this Adrian fellow is a pretty adept hacker. It's probably not easy to break into Yahoo and similar sites.
Here's a good analogy: Say someone is a great locksmith, and he breaks into your house, snoops around, reads private information that you have locked up in your cabinets, and then uses your phone to make a bunch of long distance phone calls. Should this person be held liable, even if they are willing to give you, for free, a "Brand New Burglar Detection System"?
Hell, yeah, they should. I personally have a hard time believing that Lexis Nexus really would have charged NY Times $300,000 for the searches that Adrian did -- surely they can't be that expensive -- but otherwise I believe that yes, he should pay for his actions.
If someone breaks into my car and crashes it into someone's house, I shouldn't be held liable, he should. Just because I left it unlocked (or locked it, but didn't use the Club) does not make me culpable.
And yeah, the New York Times had a real image problem when one of their reporters turned out to be a real idiot. It's possible that a few of their advertisers jumped ship. But it seems like they're doing fine now, especially since they were so open about their mistake and showed a willingness and intent to improve.
If Adrian is such a great damn hacker, why doesn't he just go straight to the corporations and say, "Look, I know that I can hack into your system. How about you pay me to make it more secure." Rather than hacking in, and then saying, "Hey, let me make it up to you by showing how to secure it for free." See, that way, he gets money instead of going to jail.
Now that the NY TImes has pressed charges, I don't see anything that will get him out of this situation. He probably won't get a lot of time in jail, and hopefully he will be able to work out some kind of agreement where he offers his technical expertise and knowledge to offset some of the costs he incurred.
It's just that the first 20 minutes are mind numbingly boring, unless you like watching a bunch of people jumping around in ape suits.
I think that this was an expertly written article. I also think that it's perfectly okay that he couldn't sit through all of 2001. I couldn't. Sorry; I just think the opening scene is borrrring.
He also is probably young. For someone raised on the special effects of the eighties and nineties, the special effects in 2001 aren't impressive; they're just hokey.
Yeah, yeah Stanley Kubrick is a brilliant director; whatever. The point is, just because something is regarded as great doesn't mean everyone will (or should) enjoy it.
Even though the author may not have managed to watch through the entire movie, he did take the time to research its plot, and gave a fairly accurate summary -- certainly enough to explain the "Kubrick" reference in the tile.
There was an article on this nearly a year ago. As soon as I saw this, I assumed I was looking at a dupe. However, the earlier battery was developed in England, and part of the goal was to eventually have the battery run not off of pure sugar, but rather garbage. As you can imagine, witty comments about Mr. Fusion and the general cleaniness level of geeks ensued.
Hmmm, maybe Microsoft can figure a way around this, but generally when you donate services rather than tangible items, you get screwed concerning tax writeoffs.
At our business, we put in hours and hours of work into free websites for non-profits, only to find out that we couldn't get any tax deductions for services rendered.
Not a penny.
I'm not sure how the tax code works exactly in this respect, but the only amount they can deduct is the amount of money spent to salary the workers, which they would be doing anyway even if they were working in Microsoft proper. If Microsoft is already reporting the salaries for these workers (and I'm sure they would be!) then they can't take any further deductions for these workers, even if all the work they do is "donated". And for services rendered, they can only deduct for the real cost associated with them, such as costs for printing and various tangible goods.
Please let me know if this is not the case, because it'd never hurt to be able to deduct the work we've done.:-) Every resource online I've found, however, suggests that these sorts of donations can't get tax writeoffs.
The reverse is not true, apparently. Say I give someone 10 hours of web work in exchange for a free meal worth $75. The IRS sees this as a barter exchange, and technically I have to report the full value of the time as income. So I would have to report fair-market value of ten hours of web work (around $450-700) as income. *grrrrr*
There's this idea of colors, right? And we came up with the term "color" to describe what we see when a certain wavelength of light hits our eyes.
Unless I'm mistaken, *nothing* "has" a color, it just either reflects light of a specific wavelength or emits light of a specific wavelength, which we humans perceive as color.
Since the definition of color has everything to do with visual perception, why not just say that things are the color we perceive them to be? Because, after all, grass *is* green. Ask any 5 year old.
If you're hot at 72, then maybe you're wearing an extra layer, um, under the skin?
I am quite chilly at 70 degrees. Shorts at that temperature would be out of the question.
The truth is, strong AC isn't all that healthy. I don't even put it on at home. Who wants to have to wear a long sleeve shirt all the time in the middle of the summer?
In the winter, 69 degrees is fine because it's cold outside too, so there isn't the shock to the system when coming in from the warm outdoors.
I think there are some people who are "warm" people, some people who are cold people. I do know people who bring sweaters to work just to deal with a bunch of people who turn the ACs down. I guess I understand your perspective -- they can do something about being to cold, but you can't do anything if you're too hot -- but I think calling 72 degrees too warm is a stretch.
Also, cooling an office building down to 69 degrees, especially during the very hot days of summer, uses a lot of energy. Goodness knows that we could conserve a little bit of that these days.
I was going to suggest that he do a google search, then I saw that it returns a bunch of crap. I'm guessing that this guy tried google, and didn't find anything useful. That's why he's actually asking a bunch of thinking humans what ideas they might have.
Say "no" to people who want big sites for very little money, say no to people who say "I just want this eensy teensy weeensy little site, so I don't think I should pay all that much", say no to people who say "I've noticed that yahoo only charges $20 to make it myself per month, but I'd rather have someone who knows what they're doing manage it, but I'd like to keep the price pretty low."
Notice the pattern here?
You should say no to people who don't want to pay (much) money for their website.
You're not going to make money off of them, not unless you grow to a company making hundreds or thousands of websites a year, which will be a pain and probably require hiring on more people. You will make money by making a few (20-40) good websites and charging them a decent price for them.
Also, if people don't pay much for their website, they don't see it as all that valuable, and they don't put much time and effort into marketing it or involving it in their business. Which car would you willing spend more effort and money maintaining? a '89 Porsche, or an '89 Cavalier?
If they do see their website as valuable, then they see you as someone not valuable, because you're a chump who gives away good things for no cost. People who use their websites a lot will call you all the time, because they'll feel they're more important than you are.
And there are always customers where there is no "yes" price that makes it profitable. Unfortunately, there are crazy people in the world, and some of them somehow manage to run businesses. Even if they offer you what seems a nice tidy sum, run away, because in the end they will suck the life force from you.
Prospects who've said no to a quote generally don't call me back. They usually are shopping on price and aren't interested in the extras that our company offers -- like superior programming and customer service.
The second to last paragraph also is good from a sales standpoint, because people like it when you express genuine interest in what they do in their business -- it makes them feel that they're working with someone who will make a website that works for their business, not just a generic site.
I agree wholeheartedly with the final paragraph; unfortunately there are a lot of people who don't even like itching over the price.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, I'm not saying that fossil fuel plants are any better than nuclear power plants; I'm just saying that both are worse than power plants that don't rely on mining and end up with pollutants (in once case, air pollution and in the other case, radioactive waste that needs to be stored away somewhere).
Actually, I think I remember reading about a study that compared people who watched a lot of TV versus people who read a lot (UPDATE: I did read about a study. It was this one). The readers still weighed less. One possible reason? Ever tried munching on a bunch of food and reading at the same time? I have. It isn't easy. For those of you who haven't tried it, let me tell you that reading a borrowed library book and eating soup at the same time is a *very* bad idea. :-L
Also, book reading is *still* less sedentary. You're flipping pages, more of your brain is being used (and your brain uses energy). TV watching is possible the *least* calorie burning activity you can engage in. You burn more calories when you're asleep or standing than you do while watching TV.
Finally, don't forget that TV is constantly bombarding you with advertisements for food and drink. It's easy to be encouraged to eat or drink a lot while watching TV.
The device harnesses the tidal energy of the sea in the same way windmills tap into the power of air currents. The generator consists of ten metre diameter blades which rotate as water passes over them. These in turn drive a generator to produce electricity. The whole mechanism is held aloft by a 20 metre steel column anchored to the seabed.
Have any studies been done on how these windmills might affect marine life living in that area? The unfortunate thing is that no source of electricity that I have seen is purely "clean". All of them can have an ecological footprint. I am, however, glad to see that these new forms of energy supply are being explored, as there is no question in my mind that fuel-based (both fossil and nuclear) energy sources have a larger and more disruptive ecological footprint.
Say "I could care less" out loud. Listen to the intonation. It's a *sarcastic* statement, although subtly so. For further info, read Stephen Pinker's excellent Language Instinct, where among other things he dubunks this and other nonsensical grammar "no-nos."
I can't access the "google" news stories as the site has been slashdotted.
Anyone have a mirror?
I talked to someone from West Virginia. Mining jobs around there are plentiful, but exclusive. That means in some areas that if you want a job, you mine. And there are more people willing to work thant here are jobs, so the starting wage is very, very low -- sometimes less than $10/hour for strip mining.
I meant shell access. Actually, a lot of ISPs do *not* provide this.
My brother found this out when he was looking for ISPs that offered shell access, as he was using a IIgs at the time.
When I read "network outages", I assume the poster meant computers/servers on their network going down. Now I'm guessing they meant network routers, judging by this similar posting. It looks like before you could dialup directly into AT&T's system, thus avoiding the need to use a network connection in the hopefully rare case that no network connection is available.
My suggestion is to set up a dialup account that gives limited text-based access, so that you can send the alert messages through that system. So long as the dial-up company is different than the provider of the routers' connection, that connection should stay up. And if both ISPs are down at the same time, that probably means you've got bigger problems than just your own network being down. I don't know where you'd start your search (well, I mean of course google obviously, but beyond taht...) but I'm sure you could easily find text-based internet access for around $10/month, which isn't all that much. Also, you'd have access to a remote machine you could use to test latency and other network availability issues.
Never mind; I see you don't want to use a network connection, so you couldn't send e-mail.
Of course, you could dial into a *nix server and then use sendmail; you could send the message out that way...
Without disclosing any sensitive info, exactly why can't you use a network connection?
If not, obviously I'm some kind of idiot.
Even so, it seems like it makes a lot of common sense to allow direct e-mail to text message.
*sigh*
Just because an artists' label is overseen by the RIAA doesn't mean that it's not good music that you should listen to.
I mean, the US Government does some pretty lousy things. Does that mean you should never go to the Smithsonian, or a public library, or collect Social Security?
No, it simply means that organize activism against the actions and behavior that you don't like. Boycotts won't work in this case -- I don't think there would ever be enough momentum there to affect their sales on a large scale. Yes, the fact that a lot of people are swapping MP3s has affected sales, but most of these people are not swapping for politically-motivated purposes.
An easy way to get RIAA-controlled music without supporting the RIAA is to buy used CDs rather than new ones. That way, you're supporting the local music store, which often does a lot of good in the community, supporting and promoting local musicians.
Here's a better analogy:
You arrange with a realtor to purchase a home, and until you move in, their sign is still up with a big "SOLD" on it.
<horror>OH MY GOD!!! They're using your lawn to advertise their goods and services! Those evil perverts!</horror>
Your argument is bullshit. Once your website is up, it's up. If it's not up, it's not up and you shouldn't bitch about what might come up while it's not set up.
It looks even more unprofessional for someone to type in your URL and come up with something like
this or this. I'd say this is somewhat more reassuring, although the pop-up windows and ads are a pain in the ass. If I really wanted to give my customers more value, I'd set up a coming soon page that looked more like this.
I guess if the register.com people had thought things through, they might have figured that some people might be shocked/upset/surprised by a "Coming Soon" page loaded with ads and popups (yeah, they could have used a little more restraint in that area -- 4 popups? Come on!!). Something a little more reserved probably would not have drawn as much attention. On the other hand, domain registration is a fairly new arena, and it's harder to define terms like ownership, property, and rights. I don't think the swapping MP3s is a good analogy. Regardless of the technology, it's still plainly illegal. 50 Cent could care less if you correctly attribute the music you stole. On the other hand, what is domain ownership, and what does it entail? There aren't clear guidelines or rules in this area. I think certainly a Coming Soon page should be expected in these cases -- and it would certainly be appropriate in those cases for the registrar to identify itself, including promotional links back to its own website; the only bad thing I see about it was register.com's zeal in using it as an advertising space. They could have been a ton more subtle.
Now paying someone $25k to audit security is a perfectly legitimate business undertaking. So, how is providing that service for free necessarily "damage."
Here's a harsh example: If I charged you for sex, I could easily get $100/hour. How about I have sex with you, without your consent, for free?
As someone who oversees a few websites, I can tell you that there is plenty to do already without having to worry about some hacker breaking in to my system.
The faulty lock isn't a good analogy. A better analogy is that you have a normal working lock, and the person is an extremely adept locksmith who also knows how to circumvent security systems. Don't think "This Old House", think "Mission Impossible".
These servers weren't left totally out in the open, otherwise people would be hacking into the NY Times *all the time*. I mean, wouldn't it be tempting to be able to put any message you wanted, up for viewing to many millions of people?
I'm sure the NY Times spends a whole lot on security, and does a pretty good job at it. This Adrian fellow is a really good hacker; that's all there is to it. Any system that must connect to the Internet is inherently insecure. The people at the NY Times have probably made a very careful balance between making their servers secure, and making it possible for employees to access it from the thousands of locations across the globe where they have staff, reporters, subscription offices, and distribution and printing centers.
I think anyone who blames the NY Times in this case is expecting too much. I'd like to see how *your* computers handle a hacking attach from this guy.
Hmmm... I have a feeling they didn't leave the site open. They just didn't make it unhackable.
It seems like this Adrian fellow is a pretty adept hacker. It's probably not easy to break into Yahoo and similar sites.
Here's a good analogy: Say someone is a great locksmith, and he breaks into your house, snoops around, reads private information that you have locked up in your cabinets, and then uses your phone to make a bunch of long distance phone calls. Should this person be held liable, even if they are willing to give you, for free, a "Brand New Burglar Detection System"?
Hell, yeah, they should. I personally have a hard time believing that Lexis Nexus really would have charged NY Times $300,000 for the searches that Adrian did -- surely they can't be that expensive -- but otherwise I believe that yes, he should pay for his actions.
If someone breaks into my car and crashes it into someone's house, I shouldn't be held liable, he should. Just because I left it unlocked (or locked it, but didn't use the Club) does not make me culpable.
And yeah, the New York Times had a real image problem when one of their reporters turned out to be a real idiot. It's possible that a few of their advertisers jumped ship. But it seems like they're doing fine now, especially since they were so open about their mistake and showed a willingness and intent to improve.
If Adrian is such a great damn hacker, why doesn't he just go straight to the corporations and say, "Look, I know that I can hack into your system. How about you pay me to make it more secure." Rather than hacking in, and then saying, "Hey, let me make it up to you by showing how to secure it for free." See, that way, he gets money instead of going to jail.
Now that the NY TImes has pressed charges, I don't see anything that will get him out of this situation. He probably won't get a lot of time in jail, and hopefully he will be able to work out some kind of agreement where he offers his technical expertise and knowledge to offset some of the costs he incurred.
Yeah, it was a great movie, sure. There, there.
It's just that the first 20 minutes are mind numbingly boring, unless you like watching a bunch of people jumping around in ape suits.
I think that this was an expertly written article. I also think that it's perfectly okay that he couldn't sit through all of 2001. I couldn't. Sorry; I just think the opening scene is borrrring.
He also is probably young. For someone raised on the special effects of the eighties and nineties, the special effects in 2001 aren't impressive; they're just hokey.
Yeah, yeah Stanley Kubrick is a brilliant director; whatever. The point is, just because something is regarded as great doesn't mean everyone will (or should) enjoy it.
Even though the author may not have managed to watch through the entire movie, he did take the time to research its plot, and gave a fairly accurate summary -- certainly enough to explain the "Kubrick" reference in the tile.
There was an article on this nearly a year ago. As soon as I saw this, I assumed I was looking at a dupe. However, the earlier battery was developed in England, and part of the goal was to eventually have the battery run not off of pure sugar, but rather garbage. As you can imagine, witty comments about Mr. Fusion and the general cleaniness level of geeks ensued.
...can be found here.
Hmmm, maybe Microsoft can figure a way around this, but generally when you donate services rather than tangible items, you get screwed concerning tax writeoffs.
:-) Every resource online I've found, however, suggests that these sorts of donations can't get tax writeoffs.
At our business, we put in hours and hours of work into free websites for non-profits, only to find out that we couldn't get any tax deductions for services rendered.
Not a penny.
I'm not sure how the tax code works exactly in this respect, but the only amount they can deduct is the amount of money spent to salary the workers, which they would be doing anyway even if they were working in Microsoft proper. If Microsoft is already reporting the salaries for these workers (and I'm sure they would be!) then they can't take any further deductions for these workers, even if all the work they do is "donated". And for services rendered, they can only deduct for the real cost associated with them, such as costs for printing and various tangible goods.
Please let me know if this is not the case, because it'd never hurt to be able to deduct the work we've done.
The reverse is not true, apparently. Say I give someone 10 hours of web work in exchange for a free meal worth $75. The IRS sees this as a barter exchange, and technically I have to report the full value of the time as income. So I would have to report fair-market value of ten hours of web work (around $450-700) as income. *grrrrr*
It's bad enough that you people use an outdated units system like the metric system instead of our superior whim-based system.
But could you stop with using decimal points instead of commas? That's just plain wrong.
One square meter ain't 10 square centimeters, even if you do have significant digits out the the thousandths place.
Hey, here's an interesting idea.
There's this idea of colors, right? And we came up with the term "color" to describe what we see when a certain wavelength of light hits our eyes.
Unless I'm mistaken, *nothing* "has" a color, it just either reflects light of a specific wavelength or emits light of a specific wavelength, which we humans perceive as color.
Since the definition of color has everything to do with visual perception, why not just say that things are the color we perceive them to be? Because, after all, grass *is* green. Ask any 5 year old.
Hmmm... how do I put this gently?
If you're hot at 72, then maybe you're wearing an extra layer, um, under the skin?
I am quite chilly at 70 degrees. Shorts at that temperature would be out of the question.
The truth is, strong AC isn't all that healthy. I don't even put it on at home. Who wants to have to wear a long sleeve shirt all the time in the middle of the summer?
In the winter, 69 degrees is fine because it's cold outside too, so there isn't the shock to the system when coming in from the warm outdoors.
I think there are some people who are "warm" people, some people who are cold people. I do know people who bring sweaters to work just to deal with a bunch of people who turn the ACs down. I guess I understand your perspective -- they can do something about being to cold, but you can't do anything if you're too hot -- but I think calling 72 degrees too warm is a stretch.
Also, cooling an office building down to 69 degrees, especially during the very hot days of summer, uses a lot of energy. Goodness knows that we could conserve a little bit of that these days.
called RTFR:
Read The Friggin' Results.
I was going to suggest that he do a google search, then I saw that it returns a bunch of crap. I'm guessing that this guy tried google, and didn't find anything useful. That's why he's actually asking a bunch of thinking humans what ideas they might have.
That's funny; my brother has facial hair, but I'm the evil one...
Geez,
I guess this guy never had a problem customer.
My advice?
Say "no" all the time.
Say "no" to people who want big sites for very little money, say no to people who say "I just want this eensy teensy weeensy little site, so I don't think I should pay all that much", say no to people who say "I've noticed that yahoo only charges $20 to make it myself per month, but I'd rather have someone who knows what they're doing manage it, but I'd like to keep the price pretty low."
Notice the pattern here?
You should say no to people who don't want to pay (much) money for their website.
You're not going to make money off of them, not unless you grow to a company making hundreds or thousands of websites a year, which will be a pain and probably require hiring on more people. You will make money by making a few (20-40) good websites and charging them a decent price for them.
Also, if people don't pay much for their website, they don't see it as all that valuable, and they don't put much time and effort into marketing it or involving it in their business. Which car would you willing spend more effort and money maintaining? a '89 Porsche, or an '89 Cavalier?
If they do see their website as valuable, then they see you as someone not valuable, because you're a chump who gives away good things for no cost. People who use their websites a lot will call you all the time, because they'll feel they're more important than you are.
And there are always customers where there is no "yes" price that makes it profitable. Unfortunately, there are crazy people in the world, and some of them somehow manage to run businesses. Even if they offer you what seems a nice tidy sum, run away, because in the end they will suck the life force from you.
Prospects who've said no to a quote generally don't call me back. They usually are shopping on price and aren't interested in the extras that our company offers -- like superior programming and customer service.
The second to last paragraph also is good from a sales standpoint, because people like it when you express genuine interest in what they do in their business -- it makes them feel that they're working with someone who will make a website that works for their business, not just a generic site.
I agree wholeheartedly with the final paragraph; unfortunately there are a lot of people who don't even like itching over the price.
Yeah...he must be pretty damn stoned.
He's talking to himself. (Engineer 1, meet engineer 1).