This sounds like a envy issue "Oh no, somebody has a bigger than I have. Mommy, I want a toy like that." And mommy gives in, because mommy does not like the whining.
The language one is something I do not get. They do a seach on location, then guess what language people speak. Well, I live in Belgium. I work in Brussels. Brussels is officially bi-lingual. So they first send me to google.be, while I typed google.com. Next they present me with Dutch, while Brussels is bi-lingual and more French.
The fact that they transfer me to google.be is not the worst. The worst part is that I have my brower set as English. Instead of needing to do a search in their database about my IP, they could just use that and I will not have any issues when I travel in Europe.
Yes, I know that it will be correct for 95% of the people. If they look at the language setting of the brower, it would be 99.99%. The rest will be either using a browser that does not have a language setting, or have set it wrong somehow.
But the writing was on the wall for a long time. Anybody remember dejanews and how it got raped? Google I,age on how that does censorship? How google naps does not allow the superior classic settings.
It is clear that it alwas was "I don' give a fuck." instead of "Do no evil.".
Prices are crazy in the US. When I look what I pay in Europe for the sae distance in flight, Europe is much cheaper.
And now check prices from e.g. Brussels to NYC to Brussels. Now do the same for NYC to Brussels to NYC.
These are basically the same flights. Flying from Europe to the US and back is cheaper than US to Europe and back. Check them out on https://www.google.com/flights...
I think there is more going on than them being nice to customers.
Privacy in cell phone communications? Is this a repost from the 90-ies when we thought that Echelon was just a weird dream of people with tin-foil hats?
And no, it will not stop. It will get much, much, much worse, bercause people do not comprehand that privacy is such a basic right that it was taken for granted when writing the US constitution. Without privacy, the rest is meaningless.
People are giving away their privacy for fake 'likes'. People do not understand that once you give it away, you can't get it back. And not only do you give yours away, you give away that of everybody else as well.
Ah, the old "It has never happend, so it never will" argument. This would work if they would make sound decisions, but they don't.
It only needs one that IS crazy enough to use them for some fake reason. Wars have been faught for fake reason for millenia. Weapons have been invented that were going to put an end to all wars.
At some point somebody will press the button. No idea who it will be. No idea if it will be a single thing or something that will escalate to the downfall of the human kind. No idea when or how, but it WILL happen.
And if you are so sure that it keeps people safe, why not give everybody some?
I learned this with the first Internet Bubble, so here it goes. You start a company. You make 1billion shares. You sell one share to your mom for 40USD. BOOM! your company is worth 40 billion.
In Europe we have organisations where the workers unite and they are able to strike the companies with their demands. But that would be socialism and that is bad, right?
OK, perhaps a bit sparce on the details of the transaction. Beside the bankaccount numer and the amount, you also can enter a message. There are several option. e.g. "free" where you write anything you like. Some characters are forbidden. SO you can write something like "Hotel reservation for houghi on 31/12/2015".
Next you have a structured message for Belgium. This is intended for ciomputers. The receiving company will read it and know what the payment was for. This is in the form (In Belgium) as 123/4567/89012.
There are some restriction. e.g. the last two numbers are a checksum and it is the rest of the number devided by 97. (Same as for bank acount numbers in Belgium)
This could be an account for e.g. you credit card, or directed to a specific order you placed.
Ther is also a structured message for international use, but I have no idea how that works.
This has been in place for since ever I can remember. At least in Belgium. Just where yoiu used to fill out the paper, you now fill out a form.
Next to that are the automatic debits a company can do from your bank account. You give the OK to do payment fopr e.g. your provider and the take the money. Most will give you a reduction of 1EUR per bill, because they are not allowed to charge extra for billing. Since 2013 they are handled by the companies and not by the banks anymore. You can refuse them, but that will cost you and does not mean any less obligation to pay. When you do not have enough money, it will be refused as well.
Also it is possible to have a permanent order for e.g. your rent. You can also plan payments in the future and they will be handled as long as there is enough on your account.
Transfer from and to your savings account is basicaly the same thing. It just is that the owner is the same person, but they are two different accounts.
You can still do payment with the paper slip, but I believe most banks will charge you for it. Cash payments are possible at the post office and works in basicaly the same way. That will just cost a bit more.
I don't get checks. Seriously, I don't get it. In Europe, we don't use them since several years.
I just log on into my bank, I type in the number of the other bank account. I type in the amount and (after some security stuff) it is done.
I can do this to every bank account in Europe easily. Probably also to the rest of the world.
This means no handling of any paper. 24/7 access. I never payed any fees for this. Between personal accounts in Belgium it happens on the same day. When writing it to a business acount, it takes thwo to three days. These are working days.
The real reason these are working days is that the USofA needs access to this data and that takes some time and they don't work during the weekend. Technically it would be possible to do the transfers instantly.
These are standard requirements in Europe and I was with Citibank before it was sold and closed and they did the same.
Perhaps not for the end-consumer, but it might be worth something on where they are places in a brick store. Do they get the middle shelf, the top shelf or the bottom shelf?
If they are licecenced, they could better negotiate to get the middle shelf or better placement in the store in any other way.
Now they either need to pay extra or somebody else gets that place.
Brands pay serious money to get visability. There is a reason Coca-Cola does their own stocking in many stores. Why are magazines places where they are?
So yes, it does matter for them. Due to this 'pop culture' they made a lot. Now they will not and loose a lot.
I heard it on the radio while in a car, so no source.
Facebook said it anted to work with the police toi find a solution.
My questions: why work with the police? They are not the ones who have a problem with it. They are not the people who have a solution for you. To me it is clear Facebook does not have a clue or is trying US tactics. There is a 'gerechtelijke politie', but they do investigations. They are not people who look for solutions. They are the ones take assets if the law requires to do so.
This is basically an open and shut case. Even even easier than a person running a trafic light on camera.
The other thing is: there is an easy solution: STOP DOING IT.
Well, I remember when they once told the truth to the question "Do you do illegal thing". The anser was: "Yes, now fuck off."
I think they lie out of habit, because telling the truth would be so much easier and nothing would change, because how many times have they been caught and what has changed?
If you pirate their stories, they would be happy, because that is a way to distribute their images.
becaise what they are about is not pirating IP. What they want is free (as in beer for the receiver) distribution of content. This results now in issues with copyright.
So they encourage you to 'pirate' the content, because that would mean they get more readers for less cost and are able to charge more.
The issue I have is the limit in length and the fact that there is no clicking. It will basically be just shouting heatlines, without any content. Or "FoxNews on streroids."
To me the conclusion is different. While it was worth it, to me it was because it showed that people do not care Not realy. It showed to those that were incriminated that they can answer with "So wo do illegal things, what are you going to do about it?" It is like a quaterback bully that everybodyy knows he shouldn't bully, but nobody does anything, because they like seeing a game that they win more than anything.
How many people have gone to the streets? Who trew (metaphorically) tea into a harbour over this? Why got send to the (methaphorical) guillotine over this?
Al it is is a discusion subject.
Like illeteracy are not reading are essentially the same thing, so is not knowing about this and knowing but not doing anything about it.
We, the people of the world, can't even use the excuse "We didn't know". We do not have the luxery of being abel to say "We were just following orders.". Instead we, th people of the world, as a whole, shake our heads and switch the chanel and in some extreme situations, post our dislikes (as I do now)
As we have no excuses and we also take no action, it makes us worse. It does not just makes us acomplices.
Perhaps first sort out and see that the current rights of the current citizens are not only well defined, but also respected. Not only by law, but by intention as well. (Looking at you every country in the world)
Perhqps they qre looking to sell or cashing in. On Imgur, the image hosting sister site of Reddit, there are now sponsored postings possible as well as removal of images and messages that were previously allowed.
So perhaps they are cleaning up their act to be more actractive for buyers or for advertisers (or both)
Sometimes they WANT you to strike back. Remeber 09/11. The reson they did it becquse they WANTED a war. The thinking behind it is that when the western world would attack a muslim country, the muslim countries would join forces and muslims worldwide woul win that war.
All you need is one idiot. Because if an A-bomb prevents war, why not give them to everybody.
Till now each weapon that woul 'end all wars' has failed in doing so. To me that means it is about when and not if theyare going to be used again.
The 5 catagories are the ones they talk about. There is one more, but that will be come clear. Think Kevin Bacon.
Basicaly the 5 cagagories are how far you are linked to a Terrorist. Lowest level is 5 steps/degrees away and that goes all the way to 1 That means you ARE a terrorist. The TSA only has access to levels 1 to 3. Level 4 and 5 (degrees away from a known terrorist) are for the real police.
The secret level 6 is for the NSA and similar agencies. Those are the names of the people that are 6 degrees away from knowing a terrorist personally.
The list is secret, but the number of those on 'list 6' is known
Increasing their quality ans customer satisfaction is not trocket science. Everybody will know how to do it, The question is why would they do it.
I once worked at a company where they told us they were customer driven and they were. They realy acted upon their (perceived) quality of the customer. If customers were not satisfied, they changed it. The target was 85% satisfaction and we were at 90 or 95% all the time. Qlaity at the time was 65%, where the industry standard was 85%
One day they asked us to do an analyss on how to improve service. So I did just that. Calculated how much more FTE it would be. How much more it would cost. The works to get it to 85%. So the presentation was done and everybody aplauded (OK, they didn't) and said well done. Then I asked why we would do it.
"Becaus ethe industry standard is 85% and we deliver 65%" "Yes, but we are a customer driven company. And the customers are happy with the 65%. All that we would invest in would be in not needed quality." "Point well take. Scrap it."
So I am sure somebody else asked a similar question. Only their motive is not customer satisfaction, it is cost and/or profit.
Somebody will have done the calcuation how much it would cost to increase cuastomer satisfaction and how much they would gain.
The thing is that there are two ways to do business. You sell a lot with crappy quality at a low price or a lot with great quality and a high price (Yes, there will be exceptions). And as people want to pay the least for their whatever, people go to the lowest price most of the time (even if it is more expensive in the long run)
It is the well know run to the bottom and others will notice that this works and will follow.
What is needed to break this? A governement that stands up for the little man against companies and demands (not requests) certain amounts of service. In Belgium things are far from perfect, but number portability is extremely easy. Canceling your subscription is easy and they can not bind you for ever (there is a period that they can demand a fee.) Increase in price means automagicallyan anouncement of end of contract and you can bail for free or join. Price raises are possible but must be reasonable, depending on the service that is offerned.
e.g. the cable company I was with went from Analog to Digital for 2 chanels I watched. I said I did not want that and canceld. It was a change in the contract and they could not do anything about it, even though I had still some months to go. Oh, and they had to write me about the change in contract and how I could cancel.
The downside is (besides all the holidays and free helthcare) that we live in a socialist country.
Just closing my browser deletes my cache and my cookies. I don't even think about it anymore and the moment I would get served, I would most likely still close my PC as I did in the past few years.
It is a setting you can easily set in Firefox. Preference -> Privacy -> History -> Cache (Among other things). A search learns me that the dame is possible with Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome and Opera. I am sure other browser will have a similar feature. So by enabeling this (I do not even know what the default setting is) you have become a criminal.
It will EVENTUALLY translate into revenue? But the CxO needs a new boat NOW. The numbers of this quarter are due in less than 3 months, so we need it now.
Get the golden eggs out of the goose NOW, because there will be at least one in there. Fcuk tomorrow.
Slashdot Mirror
This sounds like a envy issue "Oh no, somebody has a bigger than I have. Mommy, I want a toy like that." And mommy gives in, because mommy does not like the whining.
The first one is google;ca, the second one is google.com. That already gives a different result.
The first one forwards me to google.be.
When I change the ca (or be in my case) I get the same result.
The language one is something I do not get. They do a seach on location, then guess what language people speak. Well, I live in Belgium. I work in Brussels. Brussels is officially bi-lingual. So they first send me to google.be, while I typed google.com. Next they present me with Dutch, while Brussels is bi-lingual and more French.
The fact that they transfer me to google.be is not the worst. The worst part is that I have my brower set as English. Instead of needing to do a search in their database about my IP, they could just use that and I will not have any issues when I travel in Europe.
Yes, I know that it will be correct for 95% of the people. If they look at the language setting of the brower, it would be 99.99%. The rest will be either using a browser that does not have a language setting, or have set it wrong somehow.
But the writing was on the wall for a long time. Anybody remember dejanews and how it got raped? Google I,age on how that does censorship? How google naps does not allow the superior classic settings.
It is clear that it alwas was "I don' give a fuck." instead of "Do no evil.".
Prices are crazy in the US. When I look what I pay in Europe for the sae distance in flight, Europe is much cheaper.
And now check prices from e.g. Brussels to NYC to Brussels.
Now do the same for NYC to Brussels to NYC.
These are basically the same flights. Flying from Europe to the US and back is cheaper than US to Europe and back. Check them out on https://www.google.com/flights...
I think there is more going on than them being nice to customers.
Privacy in cell phone communications? Is this a repost from the 90-ies when we thought that Echelon was just a weird dream of people with tin-foil hats?
And no, it will not stop. It will get much, much, much worse, bercause people do not comprehand that privacy is such a basic right that it was taken for granted when writing the US constitution. Without privacy, the rest is meaningless.
People are giving away their privacy for fake 'likes'. People do not understand that once you give it away, you can't get it back. And not only do you give yours away, you give away that of everybody else as well.
Congress does not care, because we do not care.
Ah, the old "It has never happend, so it never will" argument. This would work if they would make sound decisions, but they don't.
It only needs one that IS crazy enough to use them for some fake reason. Wars have been faught for fake reason for millenia. Weapons have been invented that were going to put an end to all wars.
At some point somebody will press the button. No idea who it will be. No idea if it will be a single thing or something that will escalate to the downfall of the human kind. No idea when or how, but it WILL happen.
And if you are so sure that it keeps people safe, why not give everybody some?
I learned this with the first Internet Bubble, so here it goes.
You start a company. You make 1billion shares. You sell one share to your mom for 40USD. BOOM! your company is worth 40 billion.
In Europe we have organisations where the workers unite and they are able to strike the companies with their demands. But that would be socialism and that is bad, right?
OK, perhaps a bit sparce on the details of the transaction.
Beside the bankaccount numer and the amount, you also can enter a message. There are several option. e.g. "free" where you write anything you like. Some characters are forbidden. SO you can write something like "Hotel reservation for houghi on 31/12/2015".
Next you have a structured message for Belgium. This is intended for ciomputers. The receiving company will read it and know what the payment was for. This is in the form (In Belgium) as 123/4567/89012.
There are some restriction. e.g. the last two numbers are a checksum and it is the rest of the number devided by 97. (Same as for bank acount numbers in Belgium)
This could be an account for e.g. you credit card, or directed to a specific order you placed.
Ther is also a structured message for international use, but I have no idea how that works.
This has been in place for since ever I can remember. At least in Belgium. Just where yoiu used to fill out the paper, you now fill out a form.
Next to that are the automatic debits a company can do from your bank account. You give the OK to do payment fopr e.g. your provider and the take the money. Most will give you a reduction of 1EUR per bill, because they are not allowed to charge extra for billing.
Since 2013 they are handled by the companies and not by the banks anymore. You can refuse them, but that will cost you and does not mean any less obligation to pay.
When you do not have enough money, it will be refused as well.
Also it is possible to have a permanent order for e.g. your rent. You can also plan payments in the future and they will be handled as long as there is enough on your account.
Transfer from and to your savings account is basicaly the same thing. It just is that the owner is the same person, but they are two different accounts.
You can still do payment with the paper slip, but I believe most banks will charge you for it. Cash payments are possible at the post office and works in basicaly the same way. That will just cost a bit more.
I don't get checks. Seriously, I don't get it. In Europe, we don't use them since several years.
I just log on into my bank, I type in the number of the other bank account. I type in the amount and (after some security stuff) it is done.
I can do this to every bank account in Europe easily. Probably also to the rest of the world.
This means no handling of any paper. 24/7 access. I never payed any fees for this. Between personal accounts in Belgium it happens on the same day. When writing it to a business acount, it takes thwo to three days. These are working days.
The real reason these are working days is that the USofA needs access to this data and that takes some time and they don't work during the weekend. Technically it would be possible to do the transfers instantly.
These are standard requirements in Europe and I was with Citibank before it was sold and closed and they did the same.
Perhaps not for the end-consumer, but it might be worth something on where they are places in a brick store. Do they get the middle shelf, the top shelf or the bottom shelf?
If they are licecenced, they could better negotiate to get the middle shelf or better placement in the store in any other way.
Now they either need to pay extra or somebody else gets that place.
Brands pay serious money to get visability. There is a reason Coca-Cola does their own stocking in many stores. Why are magazines places where they are?
So yes, it does matter for them. Due to this 'pop culture' they made a lot. Now they will not and loose a lot.
Depends. Sometimes I go because I am hungry. Sometimes I go because I want to have a social evening. Then the food is just a nice extra.
If all I want is food, I buy it.
So, sometimes I want the music. Sometimes I don't. That is how I pick the venue. Don't blame others for your own poor choices.
Ask the Belgians if Facebook is able to comply with the applicable laws.
I heard it on the radio while in a car, so no source.
Facebook said it anted to work with the police toi find a solution.
My questions: why work with the police? They are not the ones who have a problem with it. They are not the people who have a solution for you. To me it is clear Facebook does not have a clue or is trying US tactics.
There is a 'gerechtelijke politie', but they do investigations. They are not people who look for solutions. They are the ones take assets if the law requires to do so.
This is basically an open and shut case. Even even easier than a person running a trafic light on camera.
The other thing is: there is an easy solution: STOP DOING IT.
If you can't follow the rules, fuck off.
It has come the situation where the tin-foil hat people are the sane ones.
Well, I remember when they once told the truth to the question "Do you do illegal thing". The anser was: "Yes, now fuck off."
I think they lie out of habit, because telling the truth would be so much easier and nothing would change, because how many times have they been caught and what has changed?
If you pirate their stories, they would be happy, because that is a way to distribute their images.
becaise what they are about is not pirating IP. What they want is free (as in beer for the receiver) distribution of content. This results now in issues with copyright.
So they encourage you to 'pirate' the content, because that would mean they get more readers for less cost and are able to charge more.
The issue I have is the limit in length and the fact that there is no clicking. It will basically be just shouting heatlines, without any content. Or "FoxNews on streroids."
To me the conclusion is different. While it was worth it, to me it was because it showed that people do not care Not realy. It showed to those that were incriminated that they can answer with "So wo do illegal things, what are you going to do about it?" It is like a quaterback bully that everybodyy knows he shouldn't bully, but nobody does anything, because they like seeing a game that they win more than anything.
How many people have gone to the streets? Who trew (metaphorically) tea into a harbour over this? Why got send to the (methaphorical) guillotine over this?
Al it is is a discusion subject.
Like illeteracy are not reading are essentially the same thing, so is not knowing about this and knowing but not doing anything about it.
We, the people of the world, can't even use the excuse "We didn't know". We do not have the luxery of being abel to say "We were just following orders.". Instead we, th people of the world, as a whole, shake our heads and switch the chanel and in some extreme situations, post our dislikes (as I do now)
As we have no excuses and we also take no action, it makes us worse. It does not just makes us acomplices.
It makes us enablerers.
Perhaps first sort out and see that the current rights of the current citizens are not only well defined, but also respected. Not only by law, but by intention as well. (Looking at you every country in the world)
Perhqps they qre looking to sell or cashing in. On Imgur, the image hosting sister site of Reddit, there are now sponsored postings possible as well as removal of images and messages that were previously allowed.
So perhaps they are cleaning up their act to be more actractive for buyers or for advertisers (or both)
Sometimes they WANT you to strike back. Remeber 09/11. The reson they did it becquse they WANTED a war. The thinking behind it is that when the western world would attack a muslim country, the muslim countries would join forces and muslims worldwide woul win that war.
All you need is one idiot. Because if an A-bomb prevents war, why not give them to everybody.
Till now each weapon that woul 'end all wars' has failed in doing so. To me that means it is about when and not if theyare going to be used again.
The 5 catagories are the ones they talk about. There is one more, but that will be come clear. Think Kevin Bacon.
Basicaly the 5 cagagories are how far you are linked to a Terrorist. Lowest level is 5 steps/degrees away and that goes all the way to 1 That means you ARE a terrorist. The TSA only has access to levels 1 to 3. Level 4 and 5 (degrees away from a known terrorist) are for the real police.
The secret level 6 is for the NSA and similar agencies. Those are the names of the people that are 6 degrees away from knowing a terrorist personally.
The list is secret, but the number of those on 'list 6' is known
Increasing their quality ans customer satisfaction is not trocket science. Everybody will know how to do it, The question is why would they do it.
I once worked at a company where they told us they were customer driven and they were. They realy acted upon their (perceived) quality of the customer. If customers were not satisfied, they changed it. The target was 85% satisfaction and we were at 90 or 95% all the time.
Qlaity at the time was 65%, where the industry standard was 85%
One day they asked us to do an analyss on how to improve service. So I did just that. Calculated how much more FTE it would be. How much more it would cost. The works to get it to 85%. So the presentation was done and everybody aplauded (OK, they didn't) and said well done. Then I asked why we would do it.
"Becaus ethe industry standard is 85% and we deliver 65%"
"Yes, but we are a customer driven company. And the customers are happy with the 65%. All that we would invest in would be in not needed quality."
"Point well take. Scrap it."
So I am sure somebody else asked a similar question. Only their motive is not customer satisfaction, it is cost and/or profit.
Somebody will have done the calcuation how much it would cost to increase cuastomer satisfaction and how much they would gain.
The thing is that there are two ways to do business. You sell a lot with crappy quality at a low price or a lot with great quality and a high price (Yes, there will be exceptions). And as people want to pay the least for their whatever, people go to the lowest price most of the time (even if it is more expensive in the long run)
It is the well know run to the bottom and others will notice that this works and will follow.
What is needed to break this? A governement that stands up for the little man against companies and demands (not requests) certain amounts of service. In Belgium things are far from perfect, but number portability is extremely easy. Canceling your subscription is easy and they can not bind you for ever (there is a period that they can demand a fee.) Increase in price means automagicallyan anouncement of end of contract and you can bail for free or join.
Price raises are possible but must be reasonable, depending on the service that is offerned.
e.g. the cable company I was with went from Analog to Digital for 2 chanels I watched. I said I did not want that and canceld. It was a change in the contract and they could not do anything about it, even though I had still some months to go. Oh, and they had to write me about the change in contract and how I could cancel.
The downside is (besides all the holidays and free helthcare) that we live in a socialist country.
Just closing my browser deletes my cache and my cookies. I don't even think about it anymore and the moment I would get served, I would most likely still close my PC as I did in the past few years.
It is a setting you can easily set in Firefox. Preference -> Privacy -> History -> Cache (Among other things).
A search learns me that the dame is possible with Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome and Opera. I am sure other browser will have a similar feature. So by enabeling this (I do not even know what the default setting is) you have become a criminal.
It will EVENTUALLY translate into revenue? But the CxO needs a new boat NOW. The numbers of this quarter are due in less than 3 months, so we need it now.
Get the golden eggs out of the goose NOW, because there will be at least one in there. Fcuk tomorrow.