Yeah, just wish it would happen here. I'm a Masshole stuck with Charter. They charged me $5 each month for 12 months while refusing to send me the router they were billing me for.
In the meantime, I used my own, but I finally got fed up with it (and it was then a $60 sum they owed me) and started in on their customer service. 3 hours of demanding supervisors, being offered 30 days refund, etc, I finally gave in and told them they didn't need to lift a finger. I was also told I should've complained sooner, to which I replied with dates and times of phone calls made--and they continued to claim I didn't try. So, I filed a chargeback and a BBB complaint, and that solved it.
Interestingly enough, after being given the run around repeatedly, they called me back and left a message saying they'd decided to give me the $60. They also figured out where the recordings of those calls I supposedly never made went. I told them not to worry, the credit card company already fixed it for me.
Fuck them.
I also recently went after Sprint for surreptitiously splitting my phone plan into two plans, neither with the features I signed up for and more than twice the cost. Fuck them.
I loathe dealing with utilities, and it's worth every last penny you can stick to them for their flagrantly illegal business practices. I'm not going to lay down to let them kick me, and neither should any other person.
I wouldn't say that no one should ever attempt it on their own. I've written a few implementations of various algorithms, some of my own design.
As an educational exercise. Not in real, in-the-wild, software. I find it fascinating, challenging, and mathematically intriguing--but I have no illusions about the security of the code or my own (lack of) cryptographic prowess.
What it does give me though, is a much better understanding of why I'd want to use a professional cryptographer's code over my own. That's valuable, because it keeps out the temptation to write crypto in a production environment.
Google is in a position to rank information and present it as they see fit. Now, that doesn't imply they are presenting deliberately ideologically biased results, but it does mean they are in a position of power. Power can, and often is, abused.
This fact alone warrants continued scrutiny and critical assessment of their value to us versus the potential or actual costs their actions might cause.
No, you need to grow up. We are adults here, and we learned in elementary school what homonyms are. How many words would you have us invent to alleviate the existence of homonyms and cater to your puerile mind, which immediately has to seek out discriminatory meanings in words that sound or are spelled the same, but have different definitions? How many times would you have us redefine existing terms when some asshole decides to create a discriminatory homonym based on it?
Grow up.
The right to offend is more important than the right to not be offended. That's a requirement for adults, unless you'd rather be treated by a child, with parents to tell you what you should like and what you should be offended by.
The rest of us will just use our brains and decide for ourselves, preserving our liberties and freedom of speech, even (especially) if we have to preserve it for people like you.
You don't get to decide how other people structure their resources.
And if we're at that point, maybe something drastically needs to change. Civil and criminal liability for damages resulting from altered resource locators that fraudulently misrepresent the resource being served?
This is the root of why I stick around. Anyone can (and does) say anything here. I am free to read it all and make my own decision on who's an idiot and who I want to talk to.
I love my TI-89. I still use it daily. There's a lot to be said for multiple decades of practice on a calculator. Even the emulator of it on my phone, for when I don't have it handy, isn't the same.
It doesn't need to be particularly fast or do huge calculations--that's what programming something else is for. But nothing beats a good calculator for immediate results.
I find myself in general disgust at the disproportionately high level of amplification available to corporations (as compared with individual citizens) for the purpose of influencing the legal and regulatory environment.
However, you have an excellently argued defense of lobbying activities, and, though not personally in agreement with all your points, I wish I had mod points for you. +1, Insightful.
We had a shared computer, initially a Commodore 64, then an IBM clone. I also had an IBM PS/2 and Tandy 1000 to myself (salvage/hand-me-down from my grandfather who worked for Digital). Started at 4, with the BASIC reference manual (PET BASIC), and went from there (library books at first).
The best parts were the phone line battles with my parents. We had two phone lines, so I'd secretly wire an extension from one, down in the basement, and run it aaaaall the way upstairs. Then, it'd be discovered by phone or ISP logs or physical search... and we'd do it all over again. I'd use any sort of free ISP when I couldn't use Q-link (later AOHell).
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, just wish it would happen here. I'm a Masshole stuck with Charter. They charged me $5 each month for 12 months while refusing to send me the router they were billing me for.
In the meantime, I used my own, but I finally got fed up with it (and it was then a $60 sum they owed me) and started in on their customer service. 3 hours of demanding supervisors, being offered 30 days refund, etc, I finally gave in and told them they didn't need to lift a finger. I was also told I should've complained sooner, to which I replied with dates and times of phone calls made--and they continued to claim I didn't try. So, I filed a chargeback and a BBB complaint, and that solved it.
Interestingly enough, after being given the run around repeatedly, they called me back and left a message saying they'd decided to give me the $60. They also figured out where the recordings of those calls I supposedly never made went. I told them not to worry, the credit card company already fixed it for me.
Fuck them.
I also recently went after Sprint for surreptitiously splitting my phone plan into two plans, neither with the features I signed up for and more than twice the cost. Fuck them.
I loathe dealing with utilities, and it's worth every last penny you can stick to them for their flagrantly illegal business practices. I'm not going to lay down to let them kick me, and neither should any other person.
Damn it. Posting to undo moderation. +1 Insightful, also.
I wouldn't say that no one should ever attempt it on their own. I've written a few implementations of various algorithms, some of my own design.
As an educational exercise. Not in real, in-the-wild, software. I find it fascinating, challenging, and mathematically intriguing--but I have no illusions about the security of the code or my own (lack of) cryptographic prowess.
What it does give me though, is a much better understanding of why I'd want to use a professional cryptographer's code over my own. That's valuable, because it keeps out the temptation to write crypto in a production environment.
Education is the answer, not rote avoidance.
Google is in a position to rank information and present it as they see fit. Now, that doesn't imply they are presenting deliberately ideologically biased results, but it does mean they are in a position of power. Power can, and often is, abused.
This fact alone warrants continued scrutiny and critical assessment of their value to us versus the potential or actual costs their actions might cause.
I'd never heard of that. TIL. +1, Interesting.
I've never seen a whole cloak made out of spiderweb! Much less a flying one.
Neato.
I've been trawling through the comments, and I think I like this the best. Concise and on-point.
Well said.
They already cried wolf, saying Android would be open source. Well, that pipe dream got shot down pretty much right out of the gate.
Fuck you Google. Never again. Microsoft spent decades pulling this shit; why would we fall for it from you?
I agree. Fuck you Google; you did this with Android, and we know better now.
Bravo. Well said.
No, you need to grow up. We are adults here, and we learned in elementary school what homonyms are. How many words would you have us invent to alleviate the existence of homonyms and cater to your puerile mind, which immediately has to seek out discriminatory meanings in words that sound or are spelled the same, but have different definitions? How many times would you have us redefine existing terms when some asshole decides to create a discriminatory homonym based on it?
Grow up.
The right to offend is more important than the right to not be offended. That's a requirement for adults, unless you'd rather be treated by a child, with parents to tell you what you should like and what you should be offended by.
The rest of us will just use our brains and decide for ourselves, preserving our liberties and freedom of speech, even (especially) if we have to preserve it for people like you.
"It'd be a shame if anything happened to your island."
You don't get to decide how other people structure their resources.
And if we're at that point, maybe something drastically needs to change. Civil and criminal liability for damages resulting from altered resource locators that fraudulently misrepresent the resource being served?
Well played, sir, well played.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
This is the root of why I stick around. Anyone can (and does) say anything here. I am free to read it all and make my own decision on who's an idiot and who I want to talk to.
I'm pretty sure that the golden rule of Slashdot has always been Voltaire's line about defending speech one disagrees with.
I love my TI-89. I still use it daily. There's a lot to be said for multiple decades of practice on a calculator. Even the emulator of it on my phone, for when I don't have it handy, isn't the same.
It doesn't need to be particularly fast or do huge calculations--that's what programming something else is for. But nothing beats a good calculator for immediate results.
I find myself in general disgust at the disproportionately high level of amplification available to corporations (as compared with individual citizens) for the purpose of influencing the legal and regulatory environment.
However, you have an excellently argued defense of lobbying activities, and, though not personally in agreement with all your points, I wish I had mod points for you. +1, Insightful.
We had a shared computer, initially a Commodore 64, then an IBM clone. I also had an IBM PS/2 and Tandy 1000 to myself (salvage/hand-me-down from my grandfather who worked for Digital). Started at 4, with the BASIC reference manual (PET BASIC), and went from there (library books at first).
The best parts were the phone line battles with my parents. We had two phone lines, so I'd secretly wire an extension from one, down in the basement, and run it aaaaall the way upstairs. Then, it'd be discovered by phone or ISP logs or physical search... and we'd do it all over again. I'd use any sort of free ISP when I couldn't use Q-link (later AOHell).
"Hey, let's just say we got DDOSed. No one will ever know afterward! We're the government!"
I'm not surprised, and they have a dangerous mentality as government officials in committing a fraud on the American people.
You don't. If you can't code, if you don't grok the architecture and where the pieces fit and why, you don't understand.
If you don't know arithmetic, you don't know calculus.
Information of the right sort has material value. Try arguing otherwise to the SEC.
3 of those CDs are AOL drink coasters. The remaining one just contains the instructions on how to build your own EMACS from scratch in 7 days.
Vi all the way.
'Nuff said.
Absolutely. Do you really want to teach your young children that the car is a video game console?