Doesn't this repetition cost these companies valuable time and thus money? Is it really that hard to make a support system that will hold on to my information as my call is transferred through your organization?
Quite the contrary: they think that by making it as hard for you as possible, you'll give up and they'll get rid of your complaint without having to do anything. Joke's on them, though; as soon as you find a company that treats you right, they won't have your complaining -- or business -- to worry about anymore.
I agree, especially on the trust-for-customers front. It far from rare that I get a cracked disc, and they never have a problem sending out the replacement even before I've sent the cracked one back.
But it goes beyond that. Once, I had a bout of (what I surmised in retrospect to be) mail theft: someone stealing the Netflix envelopes out of my mailbox. I reported to Netflix that I had not received a batch, and they sent them out again, no questions asked. They got stolen again, and this time Netflix suspended the account and wanted to talk to me on the phone. I was expecting to get read the riot act about stealing their discs, but in fact, they wanted see if I could get an alternative pickup location set up, or whatever. I ended up getting a locking mailbox, told them so, and things were off and running again. Painless as possible.
(Which is far from what I can report about the Post Office when I tried to engage their help...)
Ergonomic keyboards have the keys in the positions your hands are supposed to be. It's a neutral position. There's plenty of research as to this, but really you just need to look at the position your arms and wrists take when you use one.
My wrists are straight when I use my non-"ergonomic" keyboard. Not bent up, or down, or inward, or outward. I don't know who's teaching people to type with their wrists bent, but they're responsible for a lot of pain.
It is true that there were some predictions of an "imminent
ice age" in the 1970s, but a cursory comparison of those warnings and today's reveals a huge difference.
Today,
you have a widespread
scientific consensus, supported by national academies and all the major
scientific institutions, solidly behind the warning that the temperature is
rising, anthropogenic CO2 is the primary cause, and it will worsen
unless we reduce emissions.
In the 1970s, there was a book in the popular press, a few articles
in popular
magazines, and a small amount of scientific speculation based on the
recently discovered glacial
cycles and the recent slight cooling
trend from air pollution blocking the sunlight. There were no daily
headlines. There was no avalanche of scientific articles. There were no United
Nations treaties or commissions. No G8 summits on the dangers and possible
solutions. No institutional pronouncements. You could find broader "consensus" on a coming alien invasion.
In one case, we know the impact is very likely; in the other, it is very unlikely. In one case, the downside of making the "safe" choice is negligible; in the other, it probably costs you your job.
Which is exactly the point. What is the downside of doing something about the climate? Getting off foreign energy? Cleaner air? Loads and loads of green technology jobs? Yeah, sounds terrible, let's not risk it.
So a vote for a Democrat or a Republican is a wasted vote. You might as well stay home and be painted by the corporate media as "apathetic".
I used to split my votes between Democrats and Republicans. Now I split them between Greens and Libertarians.
You might as well make another copy of this, only swap "Republicans" and "Libertarians", swap "Democrats" and "Greens", and change "apathetic" to "fringe". No third party will ever take hold because of our winner-take-all, first-past-the-post mindset.
We seriously need to change to Approval Voting, and possibly a Parliamentary system.
Really though, sales tax is always a regressive tax
It doesn't have to be, though. You could just as easily enact tax brackets of whatever structure you wanted on sales prices -- for example, exclude the first $50 of an item's price, then tax the rest at 10%, or set up bands of increasing rates for increasing price levels, or what-have-you.
It would greatly complicate the process of (verifying the accuracy of how the computer went about) computing the tax amount, but it could certainly be done. Of course, this only makes it progressive with respect to consumption, not with respect to income (perhaps this is what you meant?). There is also the sticky wicket of buying in quantity ("a case of DVD+Rs for $400" giving a tax of X vs. 1000 repetitions of "one DVD+R for $0.40" giving a tax of almost nothing).
Whatever freedoms Bush might have curtailed, this forum gets awful silent when it's time to thank Republicans or blame Democrats.
1858 comments in the thread at the moment. From what I can see, the vast majority are howling about how great it is that we can have more and more guns floating around.
So far as I'm concerned, every time a law-abiding citizen is killed because he was unable to legally acquire a firearm with which to defend himself, the people who prevented him are partly responsible for his death.
You could equally well say that those who allow guns to proliferate in a society in the first place are responsible for enabling the criminals to facilitate their crimes. After all, if buying a gun had to be done on the black market, and so they cost $75,000 each, few criminals would consider them worth the cost.
But all this is academic. If you want to live in the real world, look at the correlation between gun proliferation and gun deaths. Doesn't take a genius to understand that the more guns are around, the more people are going to get shot. The USA is living proof of that.
Their thin-film solar panel stock is currently sold out until 2009 since several large municipal solar power generation plants bought their stock already.
I keep hearing this, but you'd think if they had so many payments coming in already, they could afford to expand production. Get on it, guys!
Almost true. Natural rights (such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) exist independent of governments; legal rights (such as copyrights or patent rights) don't exist without them.
Also, governments can't take away natural rights. They can violate them, but they can't take them away.
They're *offsetting* *reductions* of *increases*? Well, I guess that makes sense if the decreases in reversing the upticks in reduction rates have oh dear I've gone cross-eyed.
Slashdot Mirror
Bush took his primary Presidential philosophy from Nixon ("If the President does it, then that means that it is not illegal."), and most of his cabinet too. To paraphrase Newton, if Bush has been able to damage this country so badly, it is only because he has stood on the shoulders of ogres.
Quite the contrary: they think that by making it as hard for you as possible, you'll give up and they'll get rid of your complaint without having to do anything. Joke's on them, though; as soon as you find a company that treats you right, they won't have your complaining -- or business -- to worry about anymore.
I agree, especially on the trust-for-customers front. It far from rare that I get a cracked disc, and they never have a problem sending out the replacement even before I've sent the cracked one back.
But it goes beyond that. Once, I had a bout of (what I surmised in retrospect to be) mail theft: someone stealing the Netflix envelopes out of my mailbox. I reported to Netflix that I had not received a batch, and they sent them out again, no questions asked. They got stolen again, and this time Netflix suspended the account and wanted to talk to me on the phone. I was expecting to get read the riot act about stealing their discs, but in fact, they wanted see if I could get an alternative pickup location set up, or whatever. I ended up getting a locking mailbox, told them so, and things were off and running again. Painless as possible.
(Which is far from what I can report about the Post Office when I tried to engage their help...)
Remind me again...what does MAC stand for?
Not just a different part. The coolest part, with all the discussion salons and oxygen bars.
My wrists are straight when I use my non-"ergonomic" keyboard. Not bent up, or down, or inward, or outward. I don't know who's teaching people to type with their wrists bent, but they're responsible for a lot of pain.
Unfortunately for us Americans, no one ever went broke by selling out.
(From: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/23/18534/222)
Which is exactly the point. What is the downside of doing something about the climate? Getting off foreign energy? Cleaner air? Loads and loads of green technology jobs? Yeah, sounds terrible, let's not risk it.
Because he has decided to dedicate his whole career to it? Chrichton has not, last I checked.
Laws do nothing without people who enforce them.
And what you appear to be saying is that there are already a lot of guns out there, so we should have more guns out there. Yikes.
We tried having weak governments before. Didn't work. Twice.
You might as well make another copy of this, only swap "Republicans" and "Libertarians", swap "Democrats" and "Greens", and change "apathetic" to "fringe". No third party will ever take hold because of our winner-take-all, first-past-the-post mindset.
We seriously need to change to Approval Voting, and possibly a Parliamentary system.
It doesn't have to be, though. You could just as easily enact tax brackets of whatever structure you wanted on sales prices -- for example, exclude the first $50 of an item's price, then tax the rest at 10%, or set up bands of increasing rates for increasing price levels, or what-have-you.
It would greatly complicate the process of (verifying the accuracy of how the computer went about) computing the tax amount, but it could certainly be done. Of course, this only makes it progressive with respect to consumption, not with respect to income (perhaps this is what you meant?). There is also the sticky wicket of buying in quantity ("a case of DVD+Rs for $400" giving a tax of X vs. 1000 repetitions of "one DVD+R for $0.40" giving a tax of almost nothing).
Where "not working" = "not taking enough guns off the street".
The insurgency doesn't have a lot of success with guns. Most of their "scores" are made with IEDs.
Are you suggesting bombs be legalized?
I can't believe you just argued that anyone should be allowed to have nukes as long as they're insured.
And then you got modded up for it, too.
What the hell kind of bloodthirsty freaks do we have running around Slashdot these days?
1858 comments in the thread at the moment. From what I can see, the vast majority are howling about how great it is that we can have more and more guns floating around.
Where is this silence you mentioned?
And we didn't?
You could equally well say that those who allow guns to proliferate in a society in the first place are responsible for enabling the criminals to facilitate their crimes. After all, if buying a gun had to be done on the black market, and so they cost $75,000 each, few criminals would consider them worth the cost.
But all this is academic. If you want to live in the real world, look at the correlation between gun proliferation and gun deaths. Doesn't take a genius to understand that the more guns are around, the more people are going to get shot. The USA is living proof of that.
Didn't you hear? Something magical happened and the rule of law ceased to exist.
Almost true. Natural rights (such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) exist independent of governments; legal rights (such as copyrights or patent rights) don't exist without them.
Also, governments can't take away natural rights. They can violate them, but they can't take them away.
Meh. Call me when they've perfected the robotic skin flute player.
They're *offsetting* *reductions* of *increases*? Well, I guess that makes sense if the decreases in reversing the upticks in reduction rates have oh dear I've gone cross-eyed.