Probably not, if only for the fact that I would bet that there's some little disclaimer, somewhere inside the CD documentation or on the case liner saying that it's going to install the software and that by using the CD on a windows platform you, by default, agree to that action.
Capitalism 102: It doesn't matter if the company goes under or not because someone, invariably in the process, got paid in a big way. THAT is how it is done in the real world.
I'm so glad I was never part of that account. You guys (if you did indeed work for the company I'm talking about) pretty much made the company and gave them the perfect marketing tool (support is great!) that they pimp to this day. Ya'll were pretty enthusiastic about it too.
I hear today it's a shell of what it used to be in the mid-late 90's.
The temperature continues to climb after dark because of air currents. The sun has alot to do with climate but a great deal of that energy gets shuffled around in the form of sea and air currents.
That's why in places like Florida it can be 90 in the middle of the night sometimes, there's a gargantuan river of hot water transferring billions of watts of energy north and it's name is, The Gulf Stream.
No, not everyone has the capacity or the insight to achieve greatness, that's one of those fallicies the Dr. Spock parenting generation sold to the young.
Chances are you will not be greatness.
Chances are you will be completely ordinary.
Insight cannot be taught.
But I do agree on one point: it's not good to drop out before getting at least a High School diploma, that's for damn sure.
I work for an educational institution and we just happen to have several of those SMART technologies boards. I've seen them in action and maintained them and it seems like it just degenerates into another tool that teachers can use to lecture, except now they can use Powerpoint in class.
The students, on the other hand, rarely seem to get any value out of it unless the teacher doing the teaching is really goood, which brings us back to the core principle: Good teachers can convey knowledge with very few whiz bang doohickies.
That he should wait until spring..Ya'no, because that whole North sea leg (not to mention the stretch in the north Atlantic) would be somewhat chilly..to say the least.
The memo clearly stated that the pastor demanded that these people be terminated. Nowhere does it mention that this demand was solicited by Microsoft. I'm finding it hard to understand exactly what you're getting at.
Also, you're blaming the entire group for what usually amounts to on-the-fringe leadership that thinks they can get away with it. There's a parallel between this and the fundies that are running the country. Not every Christian is a zealot, but the zealots have the moxy to get on tv and unreasonably demand things.
There's no difference in the gay community either, so stop generalizing.
That provision was garbage though. How could one possibly hope to comply and enforce something like that.
Yeah, but it's not done right...because if it was, I'd be spending more of my time actually using the pc as a tool rather than trying to get the tool itself to work properly. Also, a core concept of creating a tool to help with various aspects of life (which computers, in their corest essence, are) is that it be intuitive.
I'll agree, it's always good to know how the internals of the tool work, but at the end of the day..I just need it to go and fulfill it's function properly. I shouldn't have to become a friggen developer to pull that off.
And that last paragraph in your post above is proof in the pudding that you're a Zealot and the same ilk as the guys who derided me for asking questions about BSD when I took interest in it a couple years back. How can you possibly assume that I have no concept of how the computer functions on a deeper level? You do that with all the people who try to reach out and say 'what can this do for me above and beyond a Microsoft product'? Do you take that attitude with anyone who points out something that's easy on Windows and harder on *nix alternatives? You must not be very good at converting people to the cause then.
Just to let you know, I've been using Fedora Core 3 for a while now, and 2 before it and I've gotten along nicely with both.
I guess my point in the original post was: There are certain aspects of computing..and this is gonna be hard to stomach if you're too wrapped up in your own Zealotry..but..there's certain aspects of computing that Microsoft did right..One of those things is making program installs damn near mindless (we can kvetch about how well it works after it's installed at a later time..'cuz God knows I have enough complaints of my own with that company). I like hitting next, next, next, and..the vast majority of the time..the computer not whining about this or that library file..or whatever..being missing.
Is that too much to ask? Seriously..I want an answer.
..there's thousands of people who seemingly cannot..or will not come to a consensus on how to design an easy to use, one click installer packaging system that doesn't require the end user to hunt down dependency after dependency, thereby scaring away the non-geek..and sometimes even the geeks..that would otherwize be willing to be more open to using OSS in their places of work and home lives.
Seriously, I love the OSS movement, I really really do. It embodies so much spirit of what the internet, in an idealistic world should be. Free exchange of information and ideas..building one on top of the other in a collaborative effort that spans the globe..
Yet for some reason, the geeks in charge of bringing us this can't seem to get their acts together. Until that happens, *nix will never be as widely accepted as the geeks in this world dream of.
Get your acts together, because you're on to a good thing.
If this isn't a clear call to overhaul the patent system, I have no idea what is. In a way it should be amusing to see what happens with this..if say another firm tries to give support or build a system for a municipality that's looking to upgrade their response systems and Microsoft sues them.
I think, in that case, it would crack the whole controversy wide open. Think about the field day the media would have the first time a county commissioner or a mayor gets on the national news and says that they have to spend ridiculous amounts of money, or forego upgrading at all because some private firm isn't allowing them to without first paying them extortion money.
And don't even start about if those systems were to fail at a critical time such as during a disaster. The fallout would be hugely destructive to MS.
Microsoft would be foolish to try to enforce this...but a certain part of me wants them to deny reason and try, if for nothing else but the huge media circus that would ensue.
Not necessarily. The Dark side wins when the majority play an honest game and someone who has ill intention breaks the rules to aquire the most amount of wealth, power..whatever..in the shortest amount of time.
When the majority of firms are part of the 'dark side' then it makes more sense to go counter what they do and just let the integrity and quality of your work speak for you. Eventually, the people get fed up with the dark side shitting on them and then they turn to you as a shining example of how to do it right..without anyone getting hurt in the process.
Or so it should work in a perfect world. Either way, with the general distrust and malaise people have towards corporate America, any firm that plays a good game is alright with me.
I hardly think requiring a company to state "This product has not undergone quality control testing, it is being sold as is" is hardly meddling.
It just requires the slummy OEM's to state it upfront. I have no problem with a requirement that forces the company to say "Let the buyer beware", nor do I see how it meddles with the free market in any way more drastically than companies and individuals harnessing law to prop up out of date business models or to protect monopolies..which are inherently bad for the free market.
Humans don't play the fair game, therefore a perfect free market is just as utopian (and unachievable) as a pure libertarian state, communism or Rand driven Objectivist theory.
20 percent of a market purchasing a product is hardly 'market saturation'. This whole report sounds like a not so thinly veiled ploy by jupiter research to cause volatility in the market..and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bunch of coke addled suits down on Wall Street at this very moment laughing at the shares being thrown around.
And yet, they still maintain that just because you look spiffy in a suit, your job is any more glamorous than a typical gig as a dealer in a casion.
The entire country is run by a handful of firms that control most of the copper and fiber backbone. That's hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines in the hands of a tiny group of firms, so you wanna tell me again that the government is over-regulating things?
Don't use the fear of bible America to push erroneous free market drivel. It's unbecoming. If the local municipality gets demands from it's constituents to provide a low cost alternative and it decides to provide it, don't go demonizing the government..point at the private entities and ask them to get on the ball and bring prices down.
Yeah, but linux still loses because of one big thing (among others): Windows is completely fire and forget.
I don't have to go out and find software to play MP3s and then spend a ridiculous amount of time downloading RPMs...and Bin files and whatever..compiling, reading the errors, re-compiling..whatever..to get it to work. I challenge one Linux user to tell me that the mplayer install, for instance, isn't byzantine and confusing. Font files? So I have to download this...and then install that..oh, but I'm missing the glib files so gmplayer won't compile properly..oh so I have to download that, but now that has dependencies too....Unacceptible.
I really think the community needs to address this, because it's the single most harrowing problem for anyone who may be looking to jump into *nix as a new user migrating from Microsoft based products...and I don't say this as someone who wants to flame Linux or BSD, or whatever. I'm a geek working in a Novell/Microsoft shop and I'm constantly looking for a reason to justify the use of Linux in any facet of our operations, it's just so hard to wrap your skull around when you're immersed in other technologies.
And that brings me to my second big gripe about *nix and another count on why Microsoft will always win if the status quo is maintained: There are no great communicators in the Linux community. There is no voice to explain to the masses why this is a better option than allowing Microsoft a stranglehold on the market. There is no voice rallying the masses of disaffected geeks out there to create something like a common, easy to use, installer..to provide for two levels, one simple and one complex, to cater to how the user wants to use his/her system (One day I just hit "next" all the way through, the next I work on compiling it myself..depending on my mood). Most of the forums dedicated to *nix culture are filled to the brim with assholes who couldn't convey the concepts they cheerlead for in plain English to save their lives. BSD is a perfect example of this. FreeBSD was actually my first foray into a *nix platform by way of my friend giving me a bought copy that he had laying around. I read the manual...hard to understand, so I hit the forums out there on the internet. At every step I was berated and talked down to even though I had valid questions on how the technology worked. I got frustrated and walked away. (I'm using FC3 now on my primary computer at home and it works well enough..)
And that's tragic when you think about it, 'cuz the whole concept of Open Source is beautiful. It stands boldy in the face of those who would turn our computers from the wonderful tools of creation that they are into second generation boob-tubes. A concept like that deserves a unified front. A concept like that deserves more than the community is seemingly willing to give.
Now, I'm a computer geek and I got fed up and said the hell with it, how do you think someone who just may be looking for a more stable option to do simple tasks at home is going to feel?
So you guys can flame this and mod me down if you feel it necessary, but I just gave you a typical Microsoft immersed IT guy POV and I have a feeling I'm not alone.
Someone, somehow..has to come out of the community of *nix users and bridge the divide. Prove to me why I should take the time to deal with all the headaches of Linux instead of just double clicking "Setup" and watching it go...or better yet, just eliminate those headaches entirely.
Although I found the justification for the Hootie and the Blowfish tape hilarious, he should be flogged with a bamboo cane for burning that tetris disk. That thing was a fucking museum piece!
Once again, I'll ask you like I asked in the first response:
Have you ever been a scared kid involved with gun violence?
And what difference does it make if anyone died or not? Two people got shot for chrissakes.
Seriously, I really hope nothing bad ever happens to you, cuz if you live around like minded people, you're gonna get the 'well you should have known better' than a helping hand.
And plus, all I asked for in the original post is that Vonage make it a priority and the state force them to comply if they don't.
All 911 operations are done out of..wait for it..call centers, and yes I did work at one in the tech industry (not for 911) and the group of people I worked with (this was back in the mid 90's) were actually pretty sharp human beings, but I digress..
I don't disagree with you that Vonnage asks for your location so that they can get you setup properly in 911. What if she didn't know that? What if one of the people that got shot knew that but was unable to speak and tell her to get the cell?
Simple fact of the matter is, it's pretty damn easy to tell where packets are coming from, especially a system like this. In the event of an emergency they should have some kind of failsafe that tells the operators where the packets were originating from. It would honestly not be that hard to do between Vonnage and the users.
Oh, and your cell example kind of falls flat because you don't have to tell the company that gives you service where exactly you are. The same should be true for VOIP. Because, and maybe this is just me, but I don't remember having to call up Nextel and tell them where exactly I was when I called 911 from a streetcorner deep in NYC. I told the 911 operators that after the call had been routed.
VOIP should be able to do this. Normal telcos are required to have 911 connectivity and they don't ask the user (in the case of cell phones) where the hell they are when they call in, it just gets routed properly.
Another thing: Have a little compassion...For some reason I'm willing to bet you're libertarian. I can only hope you don't get jacked on a cold street that you don't know the name of some day. Been there and it's not fun, but thank god the Cell people could locate me by the location of my phone, or I wouldn't be writing this post..'cuz I'd be dead.
I would think that this girl grabbed for the first phone she could find..because..yano..her loved ones were dying from gunshot wounds and that's a pretty scary thing for a kid to witness and have to handle at a moment's notice.
Something tells me that you've never been a scared kid confronted with gun violence. Seeing as how I have, I'm going to politely tell you to STFU because I'm willing to bet the closest you've ever gotten to being that scared is when that camper took you out for the 3rd time in a row in Halo because you just can't learn to keep your head down.
Oh, and just for clarity (and so you don't hurt yourself):
Your stapler is not a communication device
Please.. stop for a minute, and think about the scenario that this happened in. Just think about it for a minute.
I'm sorry, but if you're an aspiring telco player, integration into emergency services should be priority number one. If they can do it with cell towers, they can do it with VOIP and there's absolutely no excuse.
The simple fact is, we've all been trained to call 911 in the event of emergency..and sorry, but all phones should be able to reach it in one form or another. I don't care if you have to open a call center to forward the calls to the proper local authorities, you do it, and that's that.
This kind of feature should have been in place before vonage even went live and I hope that the state forces them to comply. Now.
The more we substitute machines in for what we used top practice and do on our own, the duller our sense will become.
In certain circumstances, computers can help, but overall, its not training the mind to do anything, just taking the workload off the mind so it atrophies.
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Probably not, if only for the fact that I would bet that there's some little disclaimer, somewhere inside the CD documentation or on the case liner saying that it's going to install the software and that by using the CD on a windows platform you, by default, agree to that action.
Capitalism 102: It doesn't matter if the company goes under or not because someone, invariably in the process, got paid in a big way. THAT is how it is done in the real world.
Someone worked for C*****gys. ;)
I'm so glad I was never part of that account. You guys (if you did indeed work for the company I'm talking about) pretty much made the company and gave them the perfect marketing tool (support is great!) that they pimp to this day. Ya'll were pretty enthusiastic about it too.
I hear today it's a shell of what it used to be in the mid-late 90's.
The temperature continues to climb after dark because of air currents. The sun has alot to do with climate but a great deal of that energy gets shuffled around in the form of sea and air currents.
That's why in places like Florida it can be 90 in the middle of the night sometimes, there's a gargantuan river of hot water transferring billions of watts of energy north and it's name is, The Gulf Stream.
No, not everyone has the capacity or the insight to achieve greatness, that's one of those fallicies the Dr. Spock parenting generation sold to the young.
Chances are you will not be greatness.
Chances are you will be completely ordinary.
Insight cannot be taught.
But I do agree on one point: it's not good to drop out before getting at least a High School diploma, that's for damn sure.
I work for an educational institution and we just happen to have several of those SMART technologies boards. I've seen them in action and maintained them and it seems like it just degenerates into another tool that teachers can use to lecture, except now they can use Powerpoint in class.
The students, on the other hand, rarely seem to get any value out of it unless the teacher doing the teaching is really goood, which brings us back to the core principle: Good teachers can convey knowledge with very few whiz bang doohickies.
That he should wait until spring..Ya'no, because that whole North sea leg (not to mention the stretch in the north Atlantic) would be somewhat chilly..to say the least.
The memo clearly stated that the pastor demanded that these people be terminated. Nowhere does it mention that this demand was solicited by Microsoft. I'm finding it hard to understand exactly what you're getting at.
Also, you're blaming the entire group for what usually amounts to on-the-fringe leadership that thinks they can get away with it. There's a parallel between this and the fundies that are running the country. Not every Christian is a zealot, but the zealots have the moxy to get on tv and unreasonably demand things.
There's no difference in the gay community either, so stop generalizing.
That provision was garbage though. How could one possibly hope to comply and enforce something like that.
Yeah, but it's not done right...because if it was, I'd be spending more of my time actually using the pc as a tool rather than trying to get the tool itself to work properly. Also, a core concept of creating a tool to help with various aspects of life (which computers, in their corest essence, are) is that it be intuitive.
I'll agree, it's always good to know how the internals of the tool work, but at the end of the day..I just need it to go and fulfill it's function properly. I shouldn't have to become a friggen developer to pull that off.
And that last paragraph in your post above is proof in the pudding that you're a Zealot and the same ilk as the guys who derided me for asking questions about BSD when I took interest in it a couple years back. How can you possibly assume that I have no concept of how the computer functions on a deeper level? You do that with all the people who try to reach out and say 'what can this do for me above and beyond a Microsoft product'? Do you take that attitude with anyone who points out something that's easy on Windows and harder on *nix alternatives? You must not be very good at converting people to the cause then.
Just to let you know, I've been using Fedora Core 3 for a while now, and 2 before it and I've gotten along nicely with both.
I guess my point in the original post was: There are certain aspects of computing..and this is gonna be hard to stomach if you're too wrapped up in your own Zealotry..but..there's certain aspects of computing that Microsoft did right..One of those things is making program installs damn near mindless (we can kvetch about how well it works after it's installed at a later time..'cuz God knows I have enough complaints of my own with that company). I like hitting next, next, next, and..the vast majority of the time..the computer not whining about this or that library file..or whatever..being missing.
Is that too much to ask? Seriously..I want an answer.
..there's thousands of people who seemingly cannot..or will not come to a consensus on how to design an easy to use, one click installer packaging system that doesn't require the end user to hunt down dependency after dependency, thereby scaring away the non-geek..and sometimes even the geeks..that would otherwize be willing to be more open to using OSS in their places of work and home lives.
Seriously, I love the OSS movement, I really really do. It embodies so much spirit of what the internet, in an idealistic world should be. Free exchange of information and ideas..building one on top of the other in a collaborative effort that spans the globe..
Yet for some reason, the geeks in charge of bringing us this can't seem to get their acts together. Until that happens, *nix will never be as widely accepted as the geeks in this world dream of.
Get your acts together, because you're on to a good thing.
If this isn't a clear call to overhaul the patent system, I have no idea what is. In a way it should be amusing to see what happens with this..if say another firm tries to give support or build a system for a municipality that's looking to upgrade their response systems and Microsoft sues them.
I think, in that case, it would crack the whole controversy wide open. Think about the field day the media would have the first time a county commissioner or a mayor gets on the national news and says that they have to spend ridiculous amounts of money, or forego upgrading at all because some private firm isn't allowing them to without first paying them extortion money.
And don't even start about if those systems were to fail at a critical time such as during a disaster. The fallout would be hugely destructive to MS.
Microsoft would be foolish to try to enforce this...but a certain part of me wants them to deny reason and try, if for nothing else but the huge media circus that would ensue.
Not necessarily. The Dark side wins when the majority play an honest game and someone who has ill intention breaks the rules to aquire the most amount of wealth, power..whatever..in the shortest amount of time.
When the majority of firms are part of the 'dark side' then it makes more sense to go counter what they do and just let the integrity and quality of your work speak for you. Eventually, the people get fed up with the dark side shitting on them and then they turn to you as a shining example of how to do it right..without anyone getting hurt in the process.
Or so it should work in a perfect world. Either way, with the general distrust and malaise people have towards corporate America, any firm that plays a good game is alright with me.
I hardly think requiring a company to state "This product has not undergone quality control testing, it is being sold as is" is hardly meddling.
It just requires the slummy OEM's to state it upfront. I have no problem with a requirement that forces the company to say "Let the buyer beware", nor do I see how it meddles with the free market in any way more drastically than companies and individuals harnessing law to prop up out of date business models or to protect monopolies..which are inherently bad for the free market.
Humans don't play the fair game, therefore a perfect free market is just as utopian (and unachievable) as a pure libertarian state, communism or Rand driven Objectivist theory.
QED.
20 percent of a market purchasing a product is hardly 'market saturation'. This whole report sounds like a not so thinly veiled ploy by jupiter research to cause volatility in the market..and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bunch of coke addled suits down on Wall Street at this very moment laughing at the shares being thrown around.
And yet, they still maintain that just because you look spiffy in a suit, your job is any more glamorous than a typical gig as a dealer in a casion.
We're fucking doomed.
Oh god, shut the fuck up. Seriously, cork it.
The entire country is run by a handful of firms that control most of the copper and fiber backbone. That's hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines in the hands of a tiny group of firms, so you wanna tell me again that the government is over-regulating things?
Don't use the fear of bible America to push erroneous free market drivel. It's unbecoming. If the local municipality gets demands from it's constituents to provide a low cost alternative and it decides to provide it, don't go demonizing the government..point at the private entities and ask them to get on the ball and bring prices down.
Only if you happen to be a chemist.
Yeah, but linux still loses because of one big thing (among others): Windows is completely fire and forget.
I don't have to go out and find software to play MP3s and then spend a ridiculous amount of time downloading RPMs...and Bin files and whatever..compiling, reading the errors, re-compiling..whatever..to get it to work. I challenge one Linux user to tell me that the mplayer install, for instance, isn't byzantine and confusing. Font files? So I have to download this...and then install that..oh, but I'm missing the glib files so gmplayer won't compile properly..oh so I have to download that, but now that has dependencies too....Unacceptible.
I really think the community needs to address this, because it's the single most harrowing problem for anyone who may be looking to jump into *nix as a new user migrating from Microsoft based products...and I don't say this as someone who wants to flame Linux or BSD, or whatever. I'm a geek working in a Novell/Microsoft shop and I'm constantly looking for a reason to justify the use of Linux in any facet of our operations, it's just so hard to wrap your skull around when you're immersed in other technologies.
And that brings me to my second big gripe about *nix and another count on why Microsoft will always win if the status quo is maintained: There are no great communicators in the Linux community. There is no voice to explain to the masses why this is a better option than allowing Microsoft a stranglehold on the market. There is no voice rallying the masses of disaffected geeks out there to create something like a common, easy to use, installer..to provide for two levels, one simple and one complex, to cater to how the user wants to use his/her system (One day I just hit "next" all the way through, the next I work on compiling it myself..depending on my mood). Most of the forums dedicated to *nix culture are filled to the brim with assholes who couldn't convey the concepts they cheerlead for in plain English to save their lives. BSD is a perfect example of this. FreeBSD was actually my first foray into a *nix platform by way of my friend giving me a bought copy that he had laying around. I read the manual...hard to understand, so I hit the forums out there on the internet. At every step I was berated and talked down to even though I had valid questions on how the technology worked. I got frustrated and walked away. (I'm using FC3 now on my primary computer at home and it works well enough..)
And that's tragic when you think about it, 'cuz the whole concept of Open Source is beautiful. It stands boldy in the face of those who would turn our computers from the wonderful tools of creation that they are into second generation boob-tubes. A concept like that deserves a unified front. A concept like that deserves more than the community is seemingly willing to give.
Now, I'm a computer geek and I got fed up and said the hell with it, how do you think someone who just may be looking for a more stable option to do simple tasks at home is going to feel?
So you guys can flame this and mod me down if you feel it necessary, but I just gave you a typical Microsoft immersed IT guy POV and I have a feeling I'm not alone.
Someone, somehow..has to come out of the community of *nix users and bridge the divide. Prove to me why I should take the time to deal with all the headaches of Linux instead of just double clicking "Setup" and watching it go...or better yet, just eliminate those headaches entirely.
Although I found the justification for the Hootie and the Blowfish tape hilarious, he should be flogged with a bamboo cane for burning that tetris disk. That thing was a fucking museum piece!
In an upcoming post, I'll laugh at all your small internet penises..or is it Penii..just to reaffirm my geek masculinity.
Once again, I'll ask you like I asked in the first response:
Have you ever been a scared kid involved with gun violence?
And what difference does it make if anyone died or not? Two people got shot for chrissakes.
Seriously, I really hope nothing bad ever happens to you, cuz if you live around like minded people, you're gonna get the 'well you should have known better' than a helping hand.
And plus, all I asked for in the original post is that Vonage make it a priority and the state force them to comply if they don't.
I smell another libertarian.
All 911 operations are done out of..wait for it..call centers, and yes I did work at one in the tech industry (not for 911) and the group of people I worked with (this was back in the mid 90's) were actually pretty sharp human beings, but I digress..
I don't disagree with you that Vonnage asks for your location so that they can get you setup properly in 911. What if she didn't know that? What if one of the people that got shot knew that but was unable to speak and tell her to get the cell?
Simple fact of the matter is, it's pretty damn easy to tell where packets are coming from, especially a system like this. In the event of an emergency they should have some kind of failsafe that tells the operators where the packets were originating from. It would honestly not be that hard to do between Vonnage and the users.
Oh, and your cell example kind of falls flat because you don't have to tell the company that gives you service where exactly you are. The same should be true for VOIP. Because, and maybe this is just me, but I don't remember having to call up Nextel and tell them where exactly I was when I called 911 from a streetcorner deep in NYC. I told the 911 operators that after the call had been routed.
VOIP should be able to do this. Normal telcos are required to have 911 connectivity and they don't ask the user (in the case of cell phones) where the hell they are when they call in, it just gets routed properly.
Another thing: Have a little compassion...For some reason I'm willing to bet you're libertarian. I can only hope you don't get jacked on a cold street that you don't know the name of some day. Been there and it's not fun, but thank god the Cell people could locate me by the location of my phone, or I wouldn't be writing this post..'cuz I'd be dead.
Think about it.
I would think that this girl grabbed for the first phone she could find..because..yano..her loved ones were dying from gunshot wounds and that's a pretty scary thing for a kid to witness and have to handle at a moment's notice.
Something tells me that you've never been a scared kid confronted with gun violence. Seeing as how I have, I'm going to politely tell you to STFU because I'm willing to bet the closest you've ever gotten to being that scared is when that camper took you out for the 3rd time in a row in Halo because you just can't learn to keep your head down.
Oh, and just for clarity (and so you don't hurt yourself):
Your stapler is not a communication device
Please.. stop for a minute, and think about the scenario that this happened in. Just think about it for a minute.
I'm sorry, but if you're an aspiring telco player, integration into emergency services should be priority number one. If they can do it with cell towers, they can do it with VOIP and there's absolutely no excuse.
The simple fact is, we've all been trained to call 911 in the event of emergency..and sorry, but all phones should be able to reach it in one form or another. I don't care if you have to open a call center to forward the calls to the proper local authorities, you do it, and that's that.
This kind of feature should have been in place before vonage even went live and I hope that the state forces them to comply. Now.
The more we substitute machines in for what we used top practice and do on our own, the duller our sense will become.
In certain circumstances, computers can help, but overall, its not training the mind to do anything, just taking the workload off the mind so it atrophies.