He (the GP post) started trolling another thread (admittedly in the mostly useless Idle section) with a whole series of these posts. This one seems to be more thought out and reasonable than the other ones did though, so it avoids the simple mod of Troll or Flamebait (although OT is a possibility). If he makes a habit of posting these in every article then he'll be deserving of a Troll mod. His major problem near as I can tell, is that there aren't enough categories of -1 mods, so he complains when something pointless gets modded Troll or Flamebait because he doesn't feel the post meets his exacting definition of Troll or Flamebait (even though Troll is a pretty generic moderation for anything someone does to purposefully illicit a negative response). Ultimately the reason for the upmod or downmod doesn't matter all that much, as it's really just a way of indicating the groups opinion on whether a comment is useful (or entertaining) or not.
Yeah, until the bestbuy guys try to figure out why all the keyboards and mice have a 1/16" coating of grease on them...
This is a new problem? Hell, half of the keyboards in the store by me are missing keys, and the other half are so grimy it's hard to read the labels. Now, a layer of grease on the actual merchandise boxes, that would be something new.
Well, go ask the same questions of Apple employees in an Apple store. Replace 'vista' with 'leopard'. It would serve the same purpose.
In my experience the guys at the Apple store would at least attempt to answer your questions honestly. I've had some really interesting discussions with some of them regarding the compatibility and differences between Linux and OS X, and they often try to convince people to buy whatever meets their needs best even if it's cheaper than what the customer was originally looking at.
My experience in Best Buy on the other hand is that if you seem to know what you're doing they'll more or less leave you alone, and attempt to answer your questions as best as possible, but if you ask for advice about which product to buy they'll try to steer you towards the most expensive option, preferably with as many addons and extras as possible. Of course, that's not always the case in either store, but it's the general rule.
Interestingly, the guys at Best Buy are generally more "technical" than their equivalents at the Apple store, but simultaneously less likely to give good advice concerning a purchase. The Apple guys don't know much about the technical side of anything outside a select few pieces of Apple hardware, but are well versed in the pluses and minuses of everything they sell, if not all the gritty details.
>went in there once trying to get a "real" modem (not a winmodem) and I got told first, that there was no difference between a real modem and a winmodem (lie),
You have seriously unrealistic expectations of minimum wage salespeople. How about you do your own homework before going to the store? Is that too much to ask of the self-entitled crowd? Seems so.
Saying "I don't know" to a technical question is acceptable. Bullshitting and saying that it doesn't make a difference in the hopes of fobbing something off on someone and getting a bit of commission is not. When I've asked technical questions of various people at stores they usually tell me they don't know, or that they need to go ask "one of the technical guys" which is perfectly fine, it's the assholes that try to talk down to you and convince you that your a moron and they know exactly what they're talking about even when they have no clue that are the problem.
For $20/hr they could just set-out a couple of boxes of free pizza every hour with the Vista logo emblazoned on the box.
... That's actually a really good idea, at least better than the recent ads and this new "Guru" idea. Good thing you don't work for Microsoft, or they might actually be managing to hold on to more of their customers.
They control the product, the store and the whole experience for a reason... to make them look extremely polished and extremely in control.
Well, if I ever had a reason to try out an Apple product, you've just destroyed it in that one sentence. What about if I want to use a computer but don't *want* to be controlled?
FTA: The good thing is that Microsoft will be able to get Windows explained appropriately on the sales floor.
Oh my God, does this sound ominous. Any Best Buy employee explaining Windows "inappropriately" will be taken out back by a Windows Guru and "evangelized".
It's Windows we're talking about here; not OSX.
Precisely, if it was OS X it would be the customers taking the employee outback, not the company rep.
Record companies decided to piggie-back on the digital culture with zero understanding of it and now they are bitching about it behaving as it has always done. Digital means infinitely copyable widely distributable at next to no cost.
To borrow a quote, "Information wants to be free".
Excuse my ignorance, but what's the significance of 15-20 Hz. flashing lights? Is that one of the frequencies that tends to trigger seizures or what, and if so what bearing does that have on America exporting crap law?
Technically, theft of music would be shoplifting a CD. I believe you're referring to copyright infringement, as very few people actually steal music these days, it's much simpler to just download it.
He had to have seen the tag line on the front page, not to mention in the title bar. I'm still trying to figure out how he got any connection at all between slashdot and hockey, the two, so far as I know, have nothing in common. Then again, to be fair, I know next to nothing about hockey, so maybe there's something in the name slashdot that actually does sound like something to do with hockey, but only if you're a total hockey nut.
While the general public may not need to know this, the companies that would try to bury this piece of knowledge are doing more harm to themselves and their customers: government and business agencies that depend on security.
You clearly misunderstand what government security is designed to protect the government from. Here's a hint, the TSA isn't there to stop terrorists, it's there to prop up the publics confidence in the safety of flying, it's just a happy coincidence that it sometimes catches terrorists as well. As long as people still perceive RFID passports as secure, and that you're required to have one, it's serving its purpose for the TSA, never mind that it's an empty gesture.
Well look at that, Heilein was right yet again, just ahead of his time as usual.
Re:Non-Tech Percent of Web Traffic from Chrome
on
Google Chrome, Day 2
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· Score: 1
Actually you'll be glad to know it doesn't appear to send back the URLs you visit, rather it pulls down an updated list of "bad" URLs on a regular basis and checks against a local list. It leaves a process running in the background (even when it's closed) that dials home for the updated list every few minutes, which is something several people have noticed and complained about, but it does avoid the exact behavior you're trying to claim they're doing.
Furthermore, it's open source, if you don't like the behavior, disable it. I also don't follow your comment about the password generator, what does that have to do with anything?
One thing about movies on USB keys: At least they won't be scratched like they can be on DVDs.
That's a good point. The couple USB keys I own are just about the most durable pieces of electronics I've ever run across. They've been dropped, stepped on, run through both the washer and dryer repeatedly (I'll remember to check my pockets one of these days), and still work perfectly. I have some DVDs that have been scratched just from trying to play them, and if you look at them cross eyed they skip.
Can't rip it, can't archive it, can't move it to my HDD without the dongle. And if the flash drive gets damaged, who you gonna call?
The pirate bay.
Re:Non-Tech Percent of Web Traffic from Chrome
on
Google Chrome, Day 2
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· Score: 1
BTW, Firefox automatically updates itself as well, and both Firefox and IE will call back to various servers if you enable the anti-phishing features. The reason they released a browser is because they want to increase the performance of web applications, which is one of their primary markets. In particular they're trying to increase the market penetration of google gears. They don't need to harvest your browsing data, they already have all that thanks to all the sites using google analytics. Stop being so paranoid, your browsing habits aren't that interesting.
Re:Non-Tech Percent of Web Traffic from Chrome
on
Google Chrome, Day 2
·
· Score: 1
It defaults to sending the data to google because it's a beta release. If you're using it, presumably you're fine with doing beta testing for google, and it makes sense to send performance data to them. When they release a non-beta version, if they still have that option on by default, then maybe you'll have something to complain about.
Slashdot Mirror
He (the GP post) started trolling another thread (admittedly in the mostly useless Idle section) with a whole series of these posts. This one seems to be more thought out and reasonable than the other ones did though, so it avoids the simple mod of Troll or Flamebait (although OT is a possibility). If he makes a habit of posting these in every article then he'll be deserving of a Troll mod. His major problem near as I can tell, is that there aren't enough categories of -1 mods, so he complains when something pointless gets modded Troll or Flamebait because he doesn't feel the post meets his exacting definition of Troll or Flamebait (even though Troll is a pretty generic moderation for anything someone does to purposefully illicit a negative response). Ultimately the reason for the upmod or downmod doesn't matter all that much, as it's really just a way of indicating the groups opinion on whether a comment is useful (or entertaining) or not.
Yeah, until the bestbuy guys try to figure out why all the keyboards and mice have a 1/16" coating of grease on them...
This is a new problem? Hell, half of the keyboards in the store by me are missing keys, and the other half are so grimy it's hard to read the labels. Now, a layer of grease on the actual merchandise boxes, that would be something new.
Well, go ask the same questions of Apple employees in an Apple store. Replace 'vista' with 'leopard'. It would serve the same purpose.
In my experience the guys at the Apple store would at least attempt to answer your questions honestly. I've had some really interesting discussions with some of them regarding the compatibility and differences between Linux and OS X, and they often try to convince people to buy whatever meets their needs best even if it's cheaper than what the customer was originally looking at.
My experience in Best Buy on the other hand is that if you seem to know what you're doing they'll more or less leave you alone, and attempt to answer your questions as best as possible, but if you ask for advice about which product to buy they'll try to steer you towards the most expensive option, preferably with as many addons and extras as possible. Of course, that's not always the case in either store, but it's the general rule.
Interestingly, the guys at Best Buy are generally more "technical" than their equivalents at the Apple store, but simultaneously less likely to give good advice concerning a purchase. The Apple guys don't know much about the technical side of anything outside a select few pieces of Apple hardware, but are well versed in the pluses and minuses of everything they sell, if not all the gritty details.
>went in there once trying to get a "real" modem (not a winmodem) and I got told first, that there was no difference between a real modem and a winmodem (lie),
You have seriously unrealistic expectations of minimum wage salespeople. How about you do your own homework before going to the store? Is that too much to ask of the self-entitled crowd? Seems so.
Saying "I don't know" to a technical question is acceptable. Bullshitting and saying that it doesn't make a difference in the hopes of fobbing something off on someone and getting a bit of commission is not. When I've asked technical questions of various people at stores they usually tell me they don't know, or that they need to go ask "one of the technical guys" which is perfectly fine, it's the assholes that try to talk down to you and convince you that your a moron and they know exactly what they're talking about even when they have no clue that are the problem.
For $20/hr they could just set-out a couple of boxes of free pizza every hour with the Vista logo emblazoned on the box.
... That's actually a really good idea, at least better than the recent ads and this new "Guru" idea. Good thing you don't work for Microsoft, or they might actually be managing to hold on to more of their customers.
They control the product, the store and the whole experience for a reason... to make them look extremely polished and extremely in control.
Well, if I ever had a reason to try out an Apple product, you've just destroyed it in that one sentence. What about if I want to use a computer but don't *want* to be controlled?
Install Linux, otherwise you've got no options.
FTA: The good thing is that Microsoft will be able to get Windows explained appropriately on the sales floor. Oh my God, does this sound ominous. Any Best Buy employee explaining Windows "inappropriately" will be taken out back by a Windows Guru and "evangelized".
It's Windows we're talking about here; not OSX.
Precisely, if it was OS X it would be the customers taking the employee outback, not the company rep.
Someone mod parent up. This is one of the clearest analysis of exactly the forces at work here that I've seen yet.
Record companies decided to piggie-back on the digital culture with zero understanding of it and now they are bitching about it behaving as it has always done. Digital means infinitely copyable widely distributable at next to no cost.
To borrow a quote, "Information wants to be free".
Excuse my ignorance, but what's the significance of 15-20 Hz. flashing lights? Is that one of the frequencies that tends to trigger seizures or what, and if so what bearing does that have on America exporting crap law?
Using that same logic, then you would not have a problem giving your house key to the random people on a social network either.
I think the logic follows that he wouldn't be "friends" with random people on a social network, only those he actually was friends with.
If this is Microsoft's response to the 'I'm a Mac' ads, it should fold up its tent and tell the world to switch to Apple."
Wait, I thought that was why they made Vista?
There's ads on here? I banished all my ads long ago.
Technically, theft of music would be shoplifting a CD. I believe you're referring to copyright infringement, as very few people actually steal music these days, it's much simpler to just download it.
Whereas online, we are already desensitized by much worse things, and I tend to swear in jokes most the time.
So does that make a goatse link the new "fuck you"?
He had to have seen the tag line on the front page, not to mention in the title bar. I'm still trying to figure out how he got any connection at all between slashdot and hockey, the two, so far as I know, have nothing in common. Then again, to be fair, I know next to nothing about hockey, so maybe there's something in the name slashdot that actually does sound like something to do with hockey, but only if you're a total hockey nut.
Twitter, is that you?
While the general public may not need to know this, the companies that would try to bury this piece of knowledge are doing more harm to themselves and their customers: government and business agencies that depend on security.
You clearly misunderstand what government security is designed to protect the government from. Here's a hint, the TSA isn't there to stop terrorists, it's there to prop up the publics confidence in the safety of flying, it's just a happy coincidence that it sometimes catches terrorists as well. As long as people still perceive RFID passports as secure, and that you're required to have one, it's serving its purpose for the TSA, never mind that it's an empty gesture.
Well look at that, Heilein was right yet again, just ahead of his time as usual.
Actually you'll be glad to know it doesn't appear to send back the URLs you visit, rather it pulls down an updated list of "bad" URLs on a regular basis and checks against a local list. It leaves a process running in the background (even when it's closed) that dials home for the updated list every few minutes, which is something several people have noticed and complained about, but it does avoid the exact behavior you're trying to claim they're doing.
Furthermore, it's open source, if you don't like the behavior, disable it. I also don't follow your comment about the password generator, what does that have to do with anything?
Yes, I believe it's something like: :sout='#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=4096,acodec=mp2a,ab=192,scale=1,channels=2,deinterlace,audio-sync}:std{access=file, mux=ps,url="C:\Ghostbusters.ps.mpg"}' vlc:quit
vlc -I dummy "E:\Ghostbusters.avi"
One thing about movies on USB keys: At least they won't be scratched like they can be on DVDs.
That's a good point. The couple USB keys I own are just about the most durable pieces of electronics I've ever run across. They've been dropped, stepped on, run through both the washer and dryer repeatedly (I'll remember to check my pockets one of these days), and still work perfectly. I have some DVDs that have been scratched just from trying to play them, and if you look at them cross eyed they skip.
Can't rip it, can't archive it, can't move it to my HDD without the dongle. And if the flash drive gets damaged, who you gonna call?
The pirate bay.
BTW, Firefox automatically updates itself as well, and both Firefox and IE will call back to various servers if you enable the anti-phishing features. The reason they released a browser is because they want to increase the performance of web applications, which is one of their primary markets. In particular they're trying to increase the market penetration of google gears. They don't need to harvest your browsing data, they already have all that thanks to all the sites using google analytics. Stop being so paranoid, your browsing habits aren't that interesting.
It defaults to sending the data to google because it's a beta release. If you're using it, presumably you're fine with doing beta testing for google, and it makes sense to send performance data to them. When they release a non-beta version, if they still have that option on by default, then maybe you'll have something to complain about.