Tell you what, Nanny State, you criminalize the phone. But in exchange I want massive reductions in my car insurance because now everyone is safe and snug.
First off they have this robotic system called 'Max' who's a ripoff from central casting for a cool dude selling breakfast cereal. Next, you HAVE TO go through their automated fix steps NO MATTER WHAT. Step by step, even if you're calling back to check on the status of a prior incident. You HAVE TO start from zero every damn time. When you finally get to the point where you can speak to a person you get 'Sandra' or Michael aka Mishwaneth or Rajiv.
Did I mention that all the automated steps are voice response which has maybe a 50% hit rate? Yeah - talk to your phone like a retarded child, endlessly repeating yourself. Lots of joy.
Now here's the fun part. They really don't speak the King's English all that well. Ok maybe it's the King's English if your King is George III. In seven, SEVEN attempts at STEP 1 to repeat the spel-ling-of-my-name...... 'Sandra' could not get it right. Could not get the spelling of my SIX LETTER last name right as I spelled it out to her.
Started screaming and cursing and just hung up.
Back to the beginning start over.......until I reached 'Sam'. Well 'Sam' at least spoke English. We're on minute 20 of this project so far.
My question was pretty simple. I had called a week and a half prior to start the return process on a 'red ring of lights' hardware failure. Their process is to charge you USD$140, send you a prepaid mailing carton. You put the broken console in the box and they send you a new one. So I was calling to divine where on Ganesh's Grey Earth this carton was. 8 calendar days seems enough for UPS to send an empty box. As it turns out the box came that day.
Let me add too that they send you the box, fully assembled that you will send back to them. Dick move, Xbox, dick move. The box has to be left on the porch, it gets wet it gets knocked around. Yeah I understand it had foam braces inside the box but you should send me a collapsed box compact enough for the Postal Service to put in the mailbox.
So word to the wise. Xbox support, while it's kewl and XXXXXXXTREEEEEME and radical is the worst of any I have ever encountered. Worse than Sprint PCS and that is saying alot. I would rate Sprint PCS slightly above Gitmo in the customer service department. And Xbox is that bad, or worse.
As an 11 year resident of this blighted shithouse I'd like to point out that:
You pay a sales tax on your car. Also an annual property tax on your car via a statement sent to your house. You pay separate registration, plate and inspection fees each year. We have the highest gas taxes in the south. The tax is pegged to a factor on the wholesale cost so it generally goes up no matter what the price of gas does, otherwise. It is of course adjusted every time the retail price does go up though so you're guaranteed to pay the highest possible price all of the time. By the way we typically lead the country in malfunctioning gas pumps too - about 1 in 12 is cheating you as reported in earlier N&O stories. I myself recently put 18 gallons into a 15.5 gallon tank. The only recourse though is to fill out some massive paperwork and then sue the retailer - up to the disputed value of the fuel, in this case about $7.50. The state's assumption of responsibility stops at the certification sticker on the pump. If it's there, it must be right.
It is also not permissible under law to sue your own car insurance company if they flat out refuse to pay a claim. Nor is there any arbitration mechanism. I'm guessing there's a lot of insurance salesmen in the state legislature.
Last but not least, the Great State of Redneckistan still employs the old Boss Hogg method of revenue enhancement: traffic tickets. Cities and counties OPENLY hand out tickets for the fines. In Raleigh NC population 350,000 the police write more than 2,000 tickets per day everyday. That number spikes to about 5,000 tickets per day once the city exhausts their fuel budget for the year like they did after Katrina.
We're also the home of THE MOST expensive interstate highway ever built, in the history of the US. I-540 represents more than $30 million per mile because of fraud, theft, shoddy work, delays and other factors. The thing I think that sticks in my craw though is this nonsense claim that all these taxes, fines, fees are for road improvement. Anyone who drives in NC knows that the roads are all crap. The state is one huge work zone where nothing ever gets fixed, ever. The stretch of I-40 from RTP to Hillsborough has been 'under construction' since 1995 with no apparent progress at all other than annual 'emergency repairs' made to fix shoddy work from the last contractor. This results in lane closures and massive delays as each 'unplanned project' results in small sections of the roads being closed. The reason for making so many work zones though is of course revenue as the speed limit of 45 mph results in $500-$1000 fines for each speeder.
So a $2500 fine for not buying gasoline? That's nothing. He should be happy he wasn't ticketed or arrested in this fascist police RED state. Fuck North Carolina.
Everyone knows that. Here in NC it's a felony to tape cops who come to your own house, for instance if you have a surveillance camera at the front door and the cop comes to your door to talk to you or serve a warrant it is in fact illegal for the homeowner to record that 'interaction' in any way.
Also, the state legislature is working on a bill to exempt all police from all traffic violations at all times if they are in their official vehicles whether they are on duty or pursuing someone or not.
Companies like Apple, Lenovo, HP actually give money to schools just like Nike does. I supposed Microsoft at least gives a discount in lieu of payment. So there's not a lot of incentive to stick with them if there are any alternatives.
Which leads me to believe that the so called experts rarely, if ever, actually consult with Mac owners. I think this is a big part of the wave of professional iPhone haters that have come out recently. I never heard anyone complain as bitterly as these people do when the first Mobile Windows/Pocket PC phones came out, in fact they were falling over themselves gushing with praise for the Treo W's without even having used one first.
Clearly their business model bears that out. No one completely cares what their customers say do or want, 100% entirely. It's a continuum. Redmond happens to care far less than most because they don't actually have to. They can make more money by ignoring their customers and developing their products more exactly however the hell they want. I would do the same. But that's what it is and the fanboys and Linux & Apple haters need to understand that.
Proof? Is this a court of law? With all sorts of other pundit running around demanding I meet their expectations? Mmm I must have misplaced that memo from the People's Republic of Bong.
This is backlash from the FCC's sole singleminded focus on boob accidents and naughty words and essentially turning over the entire business regulatory end of industry over to the lobbyists. The head of the FCC is an openly Evangelical Christian Bush appointee who's personal candidacy was soaked in calls for 'family values', 'restraint' and Christian wholesomeness.
Sure, we'll let you run Linux, but it's as-is and there's no warranty. If you want support you need to buy Redmond's code. Sorry. Go pimp your ride somewhere else.
I don't really care that you have to apply money to the problem. I don't rebuild my car or do more than the simplest of large appliance repair either. I don't understand why this is a negative. Shouldn't it just be a buyer decision like purchasing an extended warranty?
You're right I did exaggerate. I said $25 it's really $22.74, sorry my bad.
Maybe the wrong people are complaining though
on
Internet Tax Imminent?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I mean isn't the parking meter approach to everything specifically a Libertarians' wet dream? Everything is pay as you go. Sounds to me that the complainers are being a tad disingenuous.
Is this driven by the phone companies?
on
Internet Tax Imminent?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It sounds like it. Take a look at your landline phone bill. Mine $50 + $25 in taxes. This is part of what's driving internet phone. I think the phone companies are just looking for internet users to subsidize their rates and then of course the state gets their cut.
By the way check with your locality. Most cities get a cut of your cable bill too. Cary, NC gets about 15% of Time Warner's billable off the top as an 'access fee'. So you're being taxed at least twice and now maybe three times. By God I love living in a Red State that hates the guldurn gubmint and them thar commie taxes.
Most of you are the same people who think it's no big deal if MySpace mistakenly calls you a sex offender. Now all of a sudden a little bit of spam gets your dander up? I guess the free hand of commerce is massaging your prostate.
Try explaining to your boss how you're not really a sex offender even though "The computer says you are one." Sometimes I think your perfect Libertarian paradise here sounds a little bit like a scene from Hell in the Twilight Zone.
What with the new look that everyone hates, moderation up the wazoo, ever oppressive naughty word filters and sponsored links. Looks to be like ol Drunk Drew is getting ready to sell out, cash in, and drink up.
Either ban it or criminalize it or shut the fuck up already.
Yes, eleventy 3 billion trillion% of everyone on the internet is a high on crack hardon in one hand mouse in the other child rapist with his evil sites on your virgin sons and daughters. Clearly we need to criminalize everyone's access to everything and ban the use of the internet forever. By everyone. Everywhere. For the children.
All of this crap is political grandstanding for the soccermoms, the security dads and the other assholes who think that being a paranoid insane repressive asshole is possibly the best thing since the invention of the wheel.
I give up - let's devote every last dollar and every last functioning brain synapse in America to the final solution of the massive torrent of billions of child sexual assaults and murders now occurring every second, everywhere. Simultaneously.
When the remote control cupholder breaks because of the talking onboard GPS that's when fat lazy stupid Americans will worry. Me? I'm waiting for the first death caused by being locked in your own car or better yet, being arrested and possibly tasered by the cops while attempting to break out of your own locked car.
When retarded meets evil it can only come crashing down to what is eventually everyone's benefit. I say make it illegal to even hear a snip of copywrited music without paying a royalty and submitting for a license. I also want to see all music on TV and at all public events of all kinds flat out criminalized. Last and certainly not least all ISPs who knowingly or unknowingly carry any form of copywrited material must be immediately shut down from all operations. There is no reason why carriers should get a pass whereas all their customers are being dragged into court. Sue everyone, imprison everyone, everywhere at all times.
Let me get this straight the carriers are objecting to people, their paying customers using the service they pay for because it gets in the way of how the carriers want to screw people in the future? Wow sucks to be them.
Slashdot Mirror
Tell you what, Nanny State, you criminalize the phone. But in exchange I want massive reductions in my car insurance because now everyone is safe and snug.
First off they have this robotic system called 'Max' who's a ripoff from central casting for a cool dude selling breakfast cereal. Next, you HAVE TO go through their automated fix steps NO MATTER WHAT. Step by step, even if you're calling back to check on the status of a prior incident. You HAVE TO start from zero every damn time. When you finally get to the point where you can speak to a person you get 'Sandra' or Michael aka Mishwaneth or Rajiv.
Did I mention that all the automated steps are voice response which has maybe a 50% hit rate? Yeah - talk to your phone like a retarded child, endlessly repeating yourself. Lots of joy.
Now here's the fun part. They really don't speak the King's English all that well. Ok maybe it's the King's English if your King is George III. In seven, SEVEN attempts at STEP 1 to repeat the spel-ling-of-my-name...... 'Sandra' could not get it right. Could not get the spelling of my SIX LETTER last name right as I spelled it out to her.
Started screaming and cursing and just hung up.
Back to the beginning start over.......until I reached 'Sam'. Well 'Sam' at least spoke English. We're on minute 20 of this project so far.
My question was pretty simple. I had called a week and a half prior to start the return process on a 'red ring of lights' hardware failure. Their process is to charge you USD$140, send you a prepaid mailing carton. You put the broken console in the box and they send you a new one. So I was calling to divine where on Ganesh's Grey Earth this carton was. 8 calendar days seems enough for UPS to send an empty box. As it turns out the box came that day.
Let me add too that they send you the box, fully assembled that you will send back to them. Dick move, Xbox, dick move. The box has to be left on the porch, it gets wet it gets knocked around. Yeah I understand it had foam braces inside the box but you should send me a collapsed box compact enough for the Postal Service to put in the mailbox.
So word to the wise. Xbox support, while it's kewl and XXXXXXXTREEEEEME and radical is the worst of any I have ever encountered. Worse than Sprint PCS and that is saying alot. I would rate Sprint PCS slightly above Gitmo in the customer service department. And Xbox is that bad, or worse.
Is abandon ship and let it crash and burn? Yeah I'd say that's a worst case scenario. Thanks for the tip Captain Obvious.
As an 11 year resident of this blighted shithouse I'd like to point out that:
You pay a sales tax on your car. Also an annual property tax on your car via a statement sent to your house. You pay separate registration, plate and inspection fees each year. We have the highest gas taxes in the south. The tax is pegged to a factor on the wholesale cost so it generally goes up no matter what the price of gas does, otherwise. It is of course adjusted every time the retail price does go up though so you're guaranteed to pay the highest possible price all of the time. By the way we typically lead the country in malfunctioning gas pumps too - about 1 in 12 is cheating you as reported in earlier N&O stories. I myself recently put 18 gallons into a 15.5 gallon tank. The only recourse though is to fill out some massive paperwork and then sue the retailer - up to the disputed value of the fuel, in this case about $7.50. The state's assumption of responsibility stops at the certification sticker on the pump. If it's there, it must be right.
It is also not permissible under law to sue your own car insurance company if they flat out refuse to pay a claim. Nor is there any arbitration mechanism. I'm guessing there's a lot of insurance salesmen in the state legislature.
Last but not least, the Great State of Redneckistan still employs the old Boss Hogg method of revenue enhancement: traffic tickets. Cities and counties OPENLY hand out tickets for the fines. In Raleigh NC population 350,000 the police write more than 2,000 tickets per day everyday. That number spikes to about 5,000 tickets per day once the city exhausts their fuel budget for the year like they did after Katrina.
We're also the home of THE MOST expensive interstate highway ever built, in the history of the US. I-540 represents more than $30 million per mile because of fraud, theft, shoddy work, delays and other factors. The thing I think that sticks in my craw though is this nonsense claim that all these taxes, fines, fees are for road improvement. Anyone who drives in NC knows that the roads are all crap. The state is one huge work zone where nothing ever gets fixed, ever. The stretch of I-40 from RTP to Hillsborough has been 'under construction' since 1995 with no apparent progress at all other than annual 'emergency repairs' made to fix shoddy work from the last contractor. This results in lane closures and massive delays as each 'unplanned project' results in small sections of the roads being closed. The reason for making so many work zones though is of course revenue as the speed limit of 45 mph results in $500-$1000 fines for each speeder.
So a $2500 fine for not buying gasoline? That's nothing. He should be happy he wasn't ticketed or arrested in this fascist police RED state. Fuck North Carolina.
Everyone knows that. Here in NC it's a felony to tape cops who come to your own house, for instance if you have a surveillance camera at the front door and the cop comes to your door to talk to you or serve a warrant it is in fact illegal for the homeowner to record that 'interaction' in any way.
Also, the state legislature is working on a bill to exempt all police from all traffic violations at all times if they are in their official vehicles whether they are on duty or pursuing someone or not.
Companies like Apple, Lenovo, HP actually give money to schools just like Nike does. I supposed Microsoft at least gives a discount in lieu of payment. So there's not a lot of incentive to stick with them if there are any alternatives.
Which leads me to believe that the so called experts rarely, if ever, actually consult with Mac owners. I think this is a big part of the wave of professional iPhone haters that have come out recently. I never heard anyone complain as bitterly as these people do when the first Mobile Windows/Pocket PC phones came out, in fact they were falling over themselves gushing with praise for the Treo W's without even having used one first.
Gee where have I heard that before, Robert McNamara?
Clearly their business model bears that out. No one completely cares what their customers say do or want, 100% entirely. It's a continuum. Redmond happens to care far less than most because they don't actually have to. They can make more money by ignoring their customers and developing their products more exactly however the hell they want. I would do the same. But that's what it is and the fanboys and Linux & Apple haters need to understand that.
Proof? Is this a court of law? With all sorts of other pundit running around demanding I meet their expectations? Mmm I must have misplaced that memo from the People's Republic of Bong.
And your childish obscene screaming proves nothing.
I've never seen real world performance mimic anything ever covered in a review.
This is backlash from the FCC's sole singleminded focus on boob accidents and naughty words and essentially turning over the entire business regulatory end of industry over to the lobbyists. The head of the FCC is an openly Evangelical Christian Bush appointee who's personal candidacy was soaked in calls for 'family values', 'restraint' and Christian wholesomeness.
Sure, we'll let you run Linux, but it's as-is and there's no warranty. If you want support you need to buy Redmond's code. Sorry. Go pimp your ride somewhere else.
I don't really care that you have to apply money to the problem. I don't rebuild my car or do more than the simplest of large appliance repair either. I don't understand why this is a negative. Shouldn't it just be a buyer decision like purchasing an extended warranty?
You're right I did exaggerate. I said $25 it's really $22.74, sorry my bad.
I mean isn't the parking meter approach to everything specifically a Libertarians' wet dream? Everything is pay as you go. Sounds to me that the complainers are being a tad disingenuous.
It sounds like it. Take a look at your landline phone bill. Mine $50 + $25 in taxes. This is part of what's driving internet phone. I think the phone companies are just looking for internet users to subsidize their rates and then of course the state gets their cut.
By the way check with your locality. Most cities get a cut of your cable bill too. Cary, NC gets about 15% of Time Warner's billable off the top as an 'access fee'. So you're being taxed at least twice and now maybe three times. By God I love living in a Red State that hates the guldurn gubmint and them thar commie taxes.
Most of you are the same people who think it's no big deal if MySpace mistakenly calls you a sex offender. Now all of a sudden a little bit of spam gets your dander up? I guess the free hand of commerce is massaging your prostate.
Try explaining to your boss how you're not really a sex offender even though "The computer says you are one." Sometimes I think your perfect Libertarian paradise here sounds a little bit like a scene from Hell in the Twilight Zone.
What with the new look that everyone hates, moderation up the wazoo, ever oppressive naughty word filters and sponsored links. Looks to be like ol Drunk Drew is getting ready to sell out, cash in, and drink up.
Either ban it or criminalize it or shut the fuck up already.
Yes, eleventy 3 billion trillion% of everyone on the internet is a high on crack hardon in one hand mouse in the other child rapist with his evil sites on your virgin sons and daughters. Clearly we need to criminalize everyone's access to everything and ban the use of the internet forever. By everyone. Everywhere. For the children.
All of this crap is political grandstanding for the soccermoms, the security dads and the other assholes who think that being a paranoid insane repressive asshole is possibly the best thing since the invention of the wheel.
I give up - let's devote every last dollar and every last functioning brain synapse in America to the final solution of the massive torrent of billions of child sexual assaults and murders now occurring every second, everywhere. Simultaneously.
When the remote control cupholder breaks because of the talking onboard GPS that's when fat lazy stupid Americans will worry. Me? I'm waiting for the first death caused by being locked in your own car or better yet, being arrested and possibly tasered by the cops while attempting to break out of your own locked car.
When retarded meets evil it can only come crashing down to what is eventually everyone's benefit. I say make it illegal to even hear a snip of copywrited music without paying a royalty and submitting for a license. I also want to see all music on TV and at all public events of all kinds flat out criminalized. Last and certainly not least all ISPs who knowingly or unknowingly carry any form of copywrited material must be immediately shut down from all operations. There is no reason why carriers should get a pass whereas all their customers are being dragged into court. Sue everyone, imprison everyone, everywhere at all times.
Let me get this straight the carriers are objecting to people, their paying customers using the service they pay for because it gets in the way of how the carriers want to screw people in the future? Wow sucks to be them.