The thing looks pretty big and heavy, I wonder how a similar size/weight Lithium Ion battery would stack up against it. Is the new technology really better at the moment?
I swear, I've heard about so many instances of this exact same attack, I stop feeling sorry for the idiots who are surely going to get fired for this.
If it's not people who don't really understand how postscript works, it's people who don't realise those 4MB word files contain more than just the visible part of the document....
Indeed, I have experienced plenty of poor customer service from domestic customer service service centres here in the UK, from the likes of Amazon (Slough) and Barclays (Scotland, Glasgow I think.) I often think that most poor customer service is from companies whose whole "customer service" ethos is around saving money, which includes mostly not speaking to customers and fobbing you off when you do get through to a customer service rep.
While most customer service problems (e.g. where's the product I ordered?) can be handled by front line phone monkeys, I firmly believe that every call centre should have a hard core of reps who are empowered to actually make decisions involving money, so if in their opinion a customer has experienced especially bad service do something to compensate them, and make this sort of decision on the spot rather than "I'll call you back".
Sadly, India is often associated with poor service, because it is exactly these companies who have the no service ethos that choose to outsource customer care. I'm out here in India at the moment, and believe me the people you speak to on the phone are much better at speaking and understanding English than the general populous.
Having said that, it does appear that India has turned mediocrity in to an art form. I've never seen any job done especially well over here. Everything from building projects to software engineering, corners are cut. There doesn't appear to be such a concept as perfectionism here. So perhaps this isn't the right nation to be trusting such a core function as keeping your customers happy?
If you're coming straight from university, you can do much worse than a few years of full time employment. Pay off those depts, gain some valuable experience so that people will take you seriously, it'll help you with what ever you may want to do later in life.
As for what sort of employment, I'm biased because I work in it, but I think the Mobile Phone software industry is very up and coming right now, its where all the excitment is going to be in the next few years.
Can I claim 5 dollars for every byte. A byte after all is 8 bits worth of data...
Well at least it'd motivate them to slim down their document formats.
Nobody calls the fee for getting a passport "a tax on leaving the country", yet you can't leave the country without one.
Just pay your 35 quid, and you have an ID for 10 years, which is perfect for proving your age a pubs, clubs and off licenses. Sounds like a good deal to me.
Now, if they only added a digital signing/encryption blackbox with unique key embedded it would be perfect.
The problem is, none of that is in the best commerical interests of comcast, so they won't do it.
Actually contacting people costs money because a human has to pick up the phone. Terminating their service costs money for obvious reasons, and charging them for a dubious "service" is likely to get your customer angry at you and waste time and money in calls to your help line.
In the short term, automated blocking and letting the user ride along is blissful ignorance is the only viable strategy. Isn't capitalism great?
I have a theory about that. Just like every program attempts to expand until it can read mail, I believe every Linux hacker attempts to develop software until his/her desktop is like those shown in hackers.
Cases in point:
+ Enlightenment
+ xscreensaver, despite screensavers being redundant and the being a duplicate of xlock, people develop ever more sophisticated xscreensaver hacks
+ Bootspash, where previously we had useful messages
This is Davies' law. Though not the Davies' law that states that no matter how much faster processors get, after Windows is loaded there will be the processing power and RAM available to applications equivalent to a Sinclair ZX-81.. different Davies.
The US is already a major user of Linux. Pick any major distribution, what language is it in? What country does it originate from?
Well, if we are picking at random from major disributions (especially if you choose a weighted average) then there is a good chance you'll get a distribution from France (Mandrake), Germany (Knoppix, SuSe), Internationally Developed (Debian, Gentoo). The only really major distribution I can think of that comes from the USA is Redhat, or possibly Slackware, which is only major in historical terms.
Yes most of these distributions can be localised to American English, but of course that is not the only locale they support. Every one of the above distributions supports more than one language.
How cheap you can get it would depend on exactly how much of the system you are willing/able to build yourself.
Being a pseudo-skilled electronics tinkerer myself, the immediate solution that sprang to mind was two PCs stocked with as many PCI sound boards as would fit (probably 5 apeice) with a row of switches hooked up to the parallel port on each.
I don't know how Linux handles more than one sound board, but I'm sure the majority of the drivers do it well, so Linux would be the obvious choice due the vast array of command line music players available. The PCs wouldn't need to be more than say P133s at the very most. Total cost? Perhaps 400 GBP if you brought the sound cards new.
You would of course need to write software that polled the paralell port for button presses at, say, 1KHz. Or if you were feeling really enthusiastic you might write a kernel driver and make use of the interupt line.
In addition to the software, you'd need to build some cabinets to keep the play button and headphones securely anchored in place. A few square metres of MDF costs next to nothing, and with application of glue and nails, might even look moderately attractive.
Of course, as I say, this really relies on you being able to learn (or already know) the skills involved, namely some C coding, a little trivial electronics and crude DIY show style joinery. There may also be issues I'm not considering, e.g. local health and safety laws. With this in mind, your mileage may vary.
Oh come on, just because a few people abuse patents you think they should be abolished?
Your idea is merely a recipe for the rich getting richer. John Q. Inventor invents a new improved foo, then Big Foo Corp. comes along and reverse engineers his foo, and begins manufacturing them on a scale poor old John can never compete with. Economies of scale ensure the small business can never win.
So John either has the option of going honourably bankrupt, or of selling his idea to Big Foo Corp. in the first place to save them the reverse engineering costs. Either way, its a waste of his time.
Patents work. Its just that the US patent office is incredibly lax in investigating patent applications. This is easily solved by means of a massive cash injection. Though god knows where tha t money will come from.... (Further rant on republican fiscal policy clipped)
The only working client I've actually found is one2ohmygod which is a java client. Works really nicely.
I added a song download button (see the project page's feature request forum for my crumby patch) and if and when my flatmates start upgrading to the new itunes, I'll add itunes new auth support (if someone else doesn't first).
Yes, the name sucks, but the client works nicely:)
Let me get this straight. You seriously believe that thousands of years before the industrial revolution, god commanded Noah and his nearest and dearest to build a boat entirely of wood, that would be larger than any later wooden battleships. Putting this into context, god commanded the Ark to be 300 cubits in length, which is roughly 140 metres, whereas at the battle of Trafalgar Nelson's flagship was about 65 metres in length.
Once he'd and his mates had accomplished this amazing feat of nautical engineering never to be equalled before or since, he then went around the world rounding up 2 of every type of animal and loaded them on this Ark, and somehow it didn't sink? Whats more, Noah was able to identify the sexes of hundreds of different species, and even identify those that reproduced asexually thousands of years before the enlightenment.
Then you believe that somehow it rained so much, that the entire earth was covered, something which would involve the melting and evaporation of the entire polar ice caps.
Now, once this boat of his was afloat, you seriously believe he managed to survive for 40 days and 40 nights on what food could be stored in the ship, as well as keeping his mates and all the animals alive durinmg this period.
Then you believe that the flood waters receeded leaving no trace of this world covering flood.
Even the most die hard christian fundamentalists would have a job believing so much patent bullcrap. Please, if you want to be christian then at least be one of the ones that whines "well, you ren't supposed to take it all litterally" every time you are challenged.
I was told it was mostly projectionists who make the cam rips anyway. After all, if you were paid three fifths of bugger all to do a boring job, wouldn't you bolster your income in this way?
Slashdot Mirror
Jesus, be a little more enthusiastic, would you?
Can't you see that this brings us closer to the laudable goal of making both goth and emo extinct over the next 200 years?
The thing looks pretty big and heavy, I wonder how a similar size/weight Lithium Ion battery would stack up against it. Is the new technology really better at the moment?
I swear, I've heard about so many instances of this exact same attack, I stop feeling sorry for the idiots who are surely going to get fired for this.
If it's not people who don't really understand how postscript works, it's people who don't realise those 4MB word files contain more than just the visible part of the document....
Indeed, I have experienced plenty of poor customer service from domestic customer service service centres here in the UK, from the likes of Amazon (Slough) and Barclays (Scotland, Glasgow I think.) I often think that most poor customer service is from companies whose whole "customer service" ethos is around saving money, which includes mostly not speaking to customers and fobbing you off when you do get through to a customer service rep.
While most customer service problems (e.g. where's the product I ordered?) can be handled by front line phone monkeys, I firmly believe that every call centre should have a hard core of reps who are empowered to actually make decisions involving money, so if in their opinion a customer has experienced especially bad service do something to compensate them, and make this sort of decision on the spot rather than "I'll call you back".
Sadly, India is often associated with poor service, because it is exactly these companies who have the no service ethos that choose to outsource customer care. I'm out here in India at the moment, and believe me the people you speak to on the phone are much better at speaking and understanding English than the general populous.
Having said that, it does appear that India has turned mediocrity in to an art form. I've never seen any job done especially well over here. Everything from building projects to software engineering, corners are cut. There doesn't appear to be such a concept as perfectionism here. So perhaps this isn't the right nation to be trusting such a core function as keeping your customers happy?
In the UK it is already a crime under the 1988 Data Protection Act, under the heading of recklessly disclosing personal information.
Thats why this never happens in the UK.
If you're coming straight from university, you can do much worse than a few years of full time employment. Pay off those depts, gain some valuable experience so that people will take you seriously, it'll help you with what ever you may want to do later in life.
As for what sort of employment, I'm biased because I work in it, but I think the Mobile Phone software industry is very up and coming right now, its where all the excitment is going to be in the next few years.
Like this one
or this one
Yes, thats right. The first walkman phone. Other than the Sendo X2... and the HTC C550... Keep on smoking that weed, guys.
Can I claim 5 dollars for every byte. A byte after all is 8 bits worth of data... Well at least it'd motivate them to slim down their document formats.
So, Linux TCO is greater, eh?
You've never met a Briish Rail employee, have you?
ok, I am biased.
For example, if their websever were using OSS, doubtless I'd be able to RTFA rather than getting 500 internal server error.
Walking/public transport saves me money, helps the environment, and leaves me distinctly less stressed than my motoring colleagues.
I'd welcome a universal ID so I could actually identify myself without demands for documents I have no intention of ever owning.
Nobody calls the fee for getting a passport "a tax on leaving the country", yet you can't leave the country without one. Just pay your 35 quid, and you have an ID for 10 years, which is perfect for proving your age a pubs, clubs and off licenses. Sounds like a good deal to me. Now, if they only added a digital signing/encryption blackbox with unique key embedded it would be perfect.
Actually contacting people costs money because a human has to pick up the phone. Terminating their service costs money for obvious reasons, and charging them for a dubious "service" is likely to get your customer angry at you and waste time and money in calls to your help line.
In the short term, automated blocking and letting the user ride along is blissful ignorance is the only viable strategy. Isn't capitalism great?
I have a theory about that. Just like every program attempts to expand until it can read mail, I believe every Linux hacker attempts to develop software until his/her desktop is like those shown in hackers. Cases in point: + Enlightenment + xscreensaver, despite screensavers being redundant and the being a duplicate of xlock, people develop ever more sophisticated xscreensaver hacks + Bootspash, where previously we had useful messages This is Davies' law. Though not the Davies' law that states that no matter how much faster processors get, after Windows is loaded there will be the processing power and RAM available to applications equivalent to a Sinclair ZX-81.. different Davies.
Woah. If the course is lectured by Angelina Jolie, I'll cough up my 4KUSD in about 3 seconds flat ;)
Well, if we are picking at random from major disributions (especially if you choose a weighted average) then there is a good chance you'll get a distribution from France (Mandrake), Germany (Knoppix, SuSe), Internationally Developed (Debian, Gentoo). The only really major distribution I can think of that comes from the USA is Redhat, or possibly Slackware, which is only major in historical terms.
Yes most of these distributions can be localised to American English, but of course that is not the only locale they support. Every one of the above distributions supports more than one language.
Check your assumptions, boy.
Being a pseudo-skilled electronics tinkerer myself, the immediate solution that sprang to mind was two PCs stocked with as many PCI sound boards as would fit (probably 5 apeice) with a row of switches hooked up to the parallel port on each.
I don't know how Linux handles more than one sound board, but I'm sure the majority of the drivers do it well, so Linux would be the obvious choice due the vast array of command line music players available. The PCs wouldn't need to be more than say P133s at the very most. Total cost? Perhaps 400 GBP if you brought the sound cards new.
You would of course need to write software that polled the paralell port for button presses at, say, 1KHz. Or if you were feeling really enthusiastic you might write a kernel driver and make use of the interupt line.
In addition to the software, you'd need to build some cabinets to keep the play button and headphones securely anchored in place. A few square metres of MDF costs next to nothing, and with application of glue and nails, might even look moderately attractive.
Of course, as I say, this really relies on you being able to learn (or already know) the skills involved, namely some C coding, a little trivial electronics and crude DIY show style joinery. There may also be issues I'm not considering, e.g. local health and safety laws. With this in mind, your mileage may vary.
I'm slightly bummed that Novel aren't becoming a company of pimps.
Your idea is merely a recipe for the rich getting richer. John Q. Inventor invents a new improved foo, then Big Foo Corp. comes along and reverse engineers his foo, and begins manufacturing them on a scale poor old John can never compete with. Economies of scale ensure the small business can never win.
So John either has the option of going honourably bankrupt, or of selling his idea to Big Foo Corp. in the first place to save them the reverse engineering costs. Either way, its a waste of his time.
Patents work. Its just that the US patent office is incredibly lax in investigating patent applications. This is easily solved by means of a massive cash injection. Though god knows where tha t money will come from.... (Further rant on republican fiscal policy clipped)
The only working client I've actually found is one2ohmygod which is a java client. Works really nicely.
I added a song download button (see the project page's feature request forum for my crumby patch) and if and when my flatmates start upgrading to the new itunes, I'll add itunes new auth support (if someone else doesn't first).
Yes, the name sucks, but the client works nicely :)
Once he'd and his mates had accomplished this amazing feat of nautical engineering never to be equalled before or since, he then went around the world rounding up 2 of every type of animal and loaded them on this Ark, and somehow it didn't sink? Whats more, Noah was able to identify the sexes of hundreds of different species, and even identify those that reproduced asexually thousands of years before the enlightenment.
Then you believe that somehow it rained so much, that the entire earth was covered, something which would involve the melting and evaporation of the entire polar ice caps.
Now, once this boat of his was afloat, you seriously believe he managed to survive for 40 days and 40 nights on what food could be stored in the ship, as well as keeping his mates and all the animals alive durinmg this period.
Then you believe that the flood waters receeded leaving no trace of this world covering flood.
Even the most die hard christian fundamentalists would have a job believing so much patent bullcrap. Please, if you want to be christian then at least be one of the ones that whines "well, you ren't supposed to take it all litterally" every time you are challenged.
So, will this make any difference what so ever?