Whoa Whoa Whoa there... I suggest you look up the definition of Common Sense. Actually I did for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense
"Common sense (or, when used attributively as an adjective, commonsense, common-sense, or commonsensical), based on a strict construction of the term, is what people in common would agree: that which they "sense" in common as their common natural understanding. Some use the phrase to refer to beliefs or propositions that in their opinion they consider would in most people's experience be prudent and of sound judgment, without dependence upon esoteric knowledge or study or research, but based upon what is believed to be knowledge held by people "in common", so: the knowledge and experience most people have, or are believed to have by the person using the term."
Common Sense varies based upon culture. Early American culture dictated that blacks were inferiors. Other cultures dictate that women are inferiors. Others..well...you get the idea.
Gee...could it be that this is a product advertisement? Oh...wait....yep.....I think.....yeah it is.
Honestly...you could respect it more if it were an act of social commentary?? Please.
Lighten up a little bit. Comparing a guy trying to sell his blenders by annihilating an iPhone (fucking hilarious btw) to a cameraman laughing at his friend breaking his ankle? I'm just going to stop right here and assume you were being ridiculous on purpose.
So in the event that the person perpetrating the infringement is located in another country I'd like you to explain me how to apply the laws of the USA to this specific individual. The problem is that there is not a global body of government that dictates what the world should and shouldn't do. One purpose of the internet is to circumvent traditional borders and barriers to provide for ease of communication globally.
So here we are...we have a virtual Global Internet community with almost nil global regulation and we have several highly regulated societal bodies that all want control. Until these real world regulatory bodies decide to unite and form global regulations for interactions in a VIRTUAL space, you can shut the hell up. The only other option is disallowing interactions between currently existing regulatory bodies (*cough*China*cough*) which annihilates the primary function of the internet.
-- The events taking place at Tiananmen Square were a tragedy that the Chinese Government should be ashamed of and make public apology for. (forcing the Chinese Government to censor things is fun!)
The fact that "some of her favorites" included Dan Brown novels points to an obvious character flaw (well..at LEAST one) and a serious lack of intelligence. He made an accurate judgement call based upon the fact that he had never met someone previously who enjoyed a Dan Brown that didn't occasionally have fits of chest slapping/attempts to bite their own ear. While this may be a stereotype, and you are OBVIOUSLY the self-righteous asshole who says "Stereotypes are bad!! You should judge every person you meet for the person they are INSIDE!!!!!1!", I and 95% of the rest of humanity couldn't give a fuck. Stereotypes exist because they work. For example:
Man sees bear. Man recognizes that bear could possibly maul and/or kill man. Man finds ways to avoid or escape an encounter with said bear.
Stereotype is defined as: 4. Sociology. a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.
Just because 1 in 1000 bears may be cuddly and playful rather than deadly and violent does not make the stereotype incorrect.
Also, by ending things at this point and not "taking a chance" as you would likely put it, he is saving time and possible heartache for her rather than taking advantage of her and presenting himself as a pseudo-cultured, pompous, self-important cock, then using this false image of himself to take advantage of her and use her until he is done with her and kicking her to the curb.
Did I sum up your method of preying on women correctly or did I miss something?
Instead of being a prickface about his comment, you could have decided to take it for face value, in the manner that he intended it...in other words, to be humorous.
Pattern analysis of audible sound waves created by a data set of seismic movements...I don't know exactly what benefit it provides, but it could be that the translation helps to eliminate bad data better than just analyzing the raw data and predicting based on assumed importance of certain data. I do know, however, that a lot of experts, whose entire lives revolve around studying volcanos, are very interested and excited about this... which leads me to two conclusions:
1) It is likely that this COULD be revolutionary for the prediction of volcanic eruptions. And...
2) You are a moron.
"Google doesn't HAVE to save everyone's search and IP in order to provide their service and stay in business."
First, Google doesn't 'search' IPs...beside the point, though.
It makes perfect sense for Google to store searches because I'm sure their targeted advertising system (read: the way they make $$$$$$$) depends largely on some sort of advanced analysis of "your search history + what you are currently searching for = what you're most interested in buying". Even if I'm completely wrong about the previous statement, stored results also allow them to analyze popular subjects to evaluate new or strong markets/technologies that they should be involved in developing or maintaining. All large businesses love using data analysis to find trends and they literally have the largest data set in the world which is equivalent to having the largest balls...ever.
Keep in mind that attempting to single out an individual (accurately) or even 'flag' search results is way too ineffective because, as previously stated, too many false positives exist (unless all someone searches, ever, revolves around one specific topic...in which case, that someone sucks at teh internet). However, to analyze a market your only concern is popularity and you filter according to your business' particular goals or direction.
It is all part of the 'Google > all' strategy...they have everything that is most important to the entire world at their fingertips because of it. They can analyze by region and subject and determine when, where, and what they should focus on.
I say it is just absolutely fucking brilliant business.
Of course...love of Hitler DEFINITELY influenced his decision to wipe out Jews. Gandhi and Buddha were TOTALLY right!! Especially since the majority of Germans under Hitler's rule embraced his notions of the Master Race. Gandhi and Buddha are dead and didn't accomplish much with their life other than providing an opposite end to the spectrum of 'violence solves all'. The only lesson this teaches us is that balance is necessary. Not balance between good and evil, but a 'breaking point' of sorts that is necessary for humanity to move forward without killing itself.
You represent one extreme of the spectrum and you're right in some ways:
If everyone just got along there would be no violence. If everyone loved one another we would have harmony and tranquility.
You're forgetting that even though humans may believe in fantasies, every single human on the face of the planet has at some point acted using the intuitive survival mechanism. Because of this, a willful great evil can exist and become a standard in any society due to self preservation (or preservation of family at the cost of one's own life). In other words "I'm not going to let my family die (or myself) because of some belief this dictator or that has...someone will take care of him and I'll be quiet while it is going on to see myself and my family survive." This is a natural instinct and until every human on the face of the planet overcomes it, they will still be sheep led to the slaughter.
I'm not saying I believe in violence as an answer...I'm not saying Buddha or Gandhi were incorrect...I'm saying that the majority of humanity still acts based upon instinct and instinct tells us to survive. Until a majority is able to act against instinct and force the rest of humanity to comply based upon a peaceful means...all it takes is one charismatic individual acting out of instinct, chemical imbalance, conditioned rage, or whatever to cause an entire society to collapse.
More to the point of this article, instead of quoting Buddha or Gandhi as a sort of "spiritual one-upmanship", I'll point out that the original poster never said one thing about having irritated the old codger in question at all and instead pointed to the unjust irritation that he experienced on a daily basis because of this person. In my opinion you should be speaking to the person causing the disturbance rather than the complainee, especially in the circumstance that he has done nothing wrong. If you're willing to spend your entire life tracking down people like this and explaining to them the teachings of Buddha and Gandhi, then I have the utmost respect and admiration for you. However, I suspect that in the situaiton that your child was threatened by someone with intent to take his/her life, you would react like every single member of humanity and provide self-sacrifice as an alternate means to your child's death. If this is the case, I commend you for being human. If you're the type to attempt to reason with psychopaths or just accept their actions and pity the person who perpetrated the act, I have nothing but disgust for you.
It is PROVEN scientifially, theoretically, or any other way you slice it that not all of humanity is equal in thought processes and proper chemical balance. I don't care one bit about whether or not Gandhi or Buddha were ahead of their time in their thinking because I happen to agree. The only issue is that their philosophies are not applicable from a modern standpoint and therefore should be referenced with that in mind. The world is not a pretty place and by adhering strictly to these teachings you're saying 'I care more about my would-be assailants than I do about innocents.' Even the view that they need more 'help' than the rest, still kills good people every single day. In essence, you are wrong, but you are the type that will say 'everyone is entitled to their own opinion' to be as non-confrontational as possible (of course while maintaining the 'holier than thou' attitude). There are moral right and wrongs
So what you're saying is that you don't have enough respect for your own skill level to charge a customer what they are willing to pay for the knowledge it has taken you years to acquire? If a customer is willing to pay $250 for supported off the shelf software and have it installed to help secure their system, they have obviously had virus/spyware issues in the past and have no idea how to combat it. Over 40% of new PC purchases at Best Buy had this install done and 90% of customers thought it was one of the best purchases they ever made. I'll agree about the $12/hr bullshit though. I worked at the Geek Squad for a year as the Senior tech and I was only making $16/hr.
I'm having trouble figuring out why this topic made the main page...I guess it could be that this is a sincere question but it seems more like another bid for support in bashing the Geek Squad.
Scope of repairs for Geek Squad agents consists of all software issues and hard drive, RAM, Video Card, PSU, & CD/DVD drive replacement. Basically if it is available in the store it can be replaced or installed on paid services. For service plan repairs the majority of hardware can not be replaced in-store due to inventory limitations and in the event that a system restore is required; if a customer does not have their restore CD/DVD, the restore partition has been corrupted, or the HDD neededs replacement (obviously this leaves no restore partition) then the unit is shipped to the vendor in the event it is under mfg warranty or to DEX if under service plan warranty only.
On another note, I can tell you from the CONSTANT issues I dealt with on a day to day basis that the blame goes back and forth between 3rd party repair centers and store techs. I'm assuming that the original poster works for a company called DEX (Data Exchange Corporation) as they are the primary 3rd party center used for issues beyond the scope of in-store repairs. Literally 25% of the computers shipped to DEX returned unrepaired, misrepaired, misdiagnosed, and some didn't even return at all. Between 3 and 8 hours every single day I was sending emails, calling DEX, checking tracking numbers, and dealing with upset customers because of these problems. When you say that the Geek Squad sends you issues that you shouldn't have to work on I'd really like to know a percentage here. If you can honestly tell me that over 25% of the computers you receive have these minor issues, I'll lay down the flaming sword here. And if you want to talk about spelling, I've probably seen around six to seven THOUSAND service tags from DEX and around 500 of them had proper spelling...don't EVEN get me started there.
Unfortunately, however, all the anti-Geek Squad sentiment out there isn't all that unfounded any more. I have a pretty good idea of why (I did work there for quite some time) but don't go any further if you don't like to read.
One of the primary focuses of Best Buy training is sales. When 'agents' are hired they are expected to have a high level of technical knowledge and all other training focuses on processes and sales. Being that Best Buy is a non-comission sales environment the training is not nearly as viscious as some other comission sales jobs, but it actually works better. What the training actually encompasses is gaining the ability to relate the knowledge you have to the customer. During my entire time at Best Buy I was never once encouraged to do anything unethical or take advantage of customers' lack of knowledge. I was lucky to be at a decent store...the problem lies in the fact that a lot of the management staff at a lot of stores does not take this approach and typically force employees to sell more and most expensive or get out.
Another glaring problem is the fact that Best Buy's original service techs were largely incompetent and extremely underpaid. Before the Geek Squad was unleashed, Best Buy lost money from services every single year. Upon Geek Squad's roll-out, a lot of the original service techs were given immediate promotions or transferred directly across to supervisory positions because of the need to get/keep bodies behind the counter. The good came from the fact that more positions were available and largely at a higher pay rate. Because this was a new venture into the services sector, customers with previous experience with Best Buy services were largely suspicious and still retained a good amount of hatred for anything related to Best Buy and service. Business began to pick up, but was still rather slow in relation to the number of positions filled and available. During this time, qualifications and technical knowledge were fairly strict requirements because of the overflow of applicatio
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Whoa Whoa Whoa there... I suggest you look up the definition of Common Sense. Actually I did for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense
"Common sense (or, when used attributively as an adjective, commonsense, common-sense, or commonsensical), based on a strict construction of the term, is what people in common would agree: that which they "sense" in common as their common natural understanding. Some use the phrase to refer to beliefs or propositions that in their opinion they consider would in most people's experience be prudent and of sound judgment, without dependence upon esoteric knowledge or study or research, but based upon what is believed to be knowledge held by people "in common", so: the knowledge and experience most people have, or are believed to have by the person using the term."
Common Sense varies based upon culture. Early American culture dictated that blacks were inferiors. Other cultures dictate that women are inferiors. Others..well...you get the idea.
No way...it's fuckin Craig! Craig Christ. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPdFrW076R0
Gee...could it be that this is a product advertisement? Oh...wait....yep.....I think.....yeah it is.
Honestly...you could respect it more if it were an act of social commentary?? Please.
Lighten up a little bit. Comparing a guy trying to sell his blenders by annihilating an iPhone (fucking hilarious btw) to a cameraman laughing at his friend breaking his ankle? I'm just going to stop right here and assume you were being ridiculous on purpose.
The problem is that Vista won't run on Vista in protected mode.
So in the event that the person perpetrating the infringement is located in another country I'd like you to explain me how to apply the laws of the USA to this specific individual. The problem is that there is not a global body of government that dictates what the world should and shouldn't do. One purpose of the internet is to circumvent traditional borders and barriers to provide for ease of communication globally.
So here we are...we have a virtual Global Internet community with almost nil global regulation and we have several highly regulated societal bodies that all want control. Until these real world regulatory bodies decide to unite and form global regulations for interactions in a VIRTUAL space, you can shut the hell up. The only other option is disallowing interactions between currently existing regulatory bodies (*cough*China*cough*) which annihilates the primary function of the internet.
--
The events taking place at Tiananmen Square were a tragedy that the Chinese Government should be ashamed of and make public apology for.
(forcing the Chinese Government to censor things is fun!)
Nuclear warfare due to escalating tensions over filesharing and the sticky issue of international copyright law FTW.
The fact that "some of her favorites" included Dan Brown novels points to an obvious character flaw (well..at LEAST one) and a serious lack of intelligence. He made an accurate judgement call based upon the fact that he had never met someone previously who enjoyed a Dan Brown that didn't occasionally have fits of chest slapping/attempts to bite their own ear. While this may be a stereotype, and you are OBVIOUSLY the self-righteous asshole who says "Stereotypes are bad!! You should judge every person you meet for the person they are INSIDE!!!!!1!", I and 95% of the rest of humanity couldn't give a fuck. Stereotypes exist because they work. For example:
Man sees bear.
Man recognizes that bear could possibly maul and/or kill man.
Man finds ways to avoid or escape an encounter with said bear.
Stereotype is defined as: 4. Sociology. a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.
Just because 1 in 1000 bears may be cuddly and playful rather than deadly and violent does not make the stereotype incorrect.
Also, by ending things at this point and not "taking a chance" as you would likely put it, he is saving time and possible heartache for her rather than taking advantage of her and presenting himself as a pseudo-cultured, pompous, self-important cock, then using this false image of himself to take advantage of her and use her until he is done with her and kicking her to the curb.
Did I sum up your method of preying on women correctly or did I miss something?
Instead of being a prickface about his comment, you could have decided to take it for face value, in the manner that he intended it...in other words, to be humorous.
Below me.
Pattern analysis of audible sound waves created by a data set of seismic movements...I don't know exactly what benefit it provides, but it could be that the translation helps to eliminate bad data better than just analyzing the raw data and predicting based on assumed importance of certain data. I do know, however, that a lot of experts, whose entire lives revolve around studying volcanos, are very interested and excited about this... which leads me to two conclusions:
1) It is likely that this COULD be revolutionary for the prediction of volcanic eruptions. And... 2) You are a moron.
Pretty sure they are caching by most pageviews or popularity...not caching or storing the IP that sends the initial request.
Clever. First-posting Google's stored search terms of 'first post'..someone has to have searched that before though. Kudos anyway hehe.
Actually this is really similar to what I was getting at here...I just approached it from a business-specific standpoint.
"Google doesn't HAVE to save everyone's search and IP in order to provide their service and stay in business."
First, Google doesn't 'search' IPs...beside the point, though.
It makes perfect sense for Google to store searches because I'm sure their targeted advertising system (read: the way they make $$$$$$$) depends largely on some sort of advanced analysis of "your search history + what you are currently searching for = what you're most interested in buying". Even if I'm completely wrong about the previous statement, stored results also allow them to analyze popular subjects to evaluate new or strong markets/technologies that they should be involved in developing or maintaining. All large businesses love using data analysis to find trends and they literally have the largest data set in the world which is equivalent to having the largest balls...ever.
Keep in mind that attempting to single out an individual (accurately) or even 'flag' search results is way too ineffective because, as previously stated, too many false positives exist (unless all someone searches, ever, revolves around one specific topic...in which case, that someone sucks at teh internet). However, to analyze a market your only concern is popularity and you filter according to your business' particular goals or direction.
It is all part of the 'Google > all' strategy...they have everything that is most important to the entire world at their fingertips because of it. They can analyze by region and subject and determine when, where, and what they should focus on.
I say it is just absolutely fucking brilliant business.
Of course...love of Hitler DEFINITELY influenced his decision to wipe out Jews. Gandhi and Buddha were TOTALLY right!! Especially since the majority of Germans under Hitler's rule embraced his notions of the Master Race. Gandhi and Buddha are dead and didn't accomplish much with their life other than providing an opposite end to the spectrum of 'violence solves all'. The only lesson this teaches us is that balance is necessary. Not balance between good and evil, but a 'breaking point' of sorts that is necessary for humanity to move forward without killing itself.
You represent one extreme of the spectrum and you're right in some ways:
If everyone just got along there would be no violence.
If everyone loved one another we would have harmony and tranquility.
You're forgetting that even though humans may believe in fantasies, every single human on the face of the planet has at some point acted using the intuitive survival mechanism. Because of this, a willful great evil can exist and become a standard in any society due to self preservation (or preservation of family at the cost of one's own life). In other words "I'm not going to let my family die (or myself) because of some belief this dictator or that has...someone will take care of him and I'll be quiet while it is going on to see myself and my family survive." This is a natural instinct and until every human on the face of the planet overcomes it, they will still be sheep led to the slaughter.
I'm not saying I believe in violence as an answer...I'm not saying Buddha or Gandhi were incorrect...I'm saying that the majority of humanity still acts based upon instinct and instinct tells us to survive. Until a majority is able to act against instinct and force the rest of humanity to comply based upon a peaceful means...all it takes is one charismatic individual acting out of instinct, chemical imbalance, conditioned rage, or whatever to cause an entire society to collapse.
More to the point of this article, instead of quoting Buddha or Gandhi as a sort of "spiritual one-upmanship", I'll point out that the original poster never said one thing about having irritated the old codger in question at all and instead pointed to the unjust irritation that he experienced on a daily basis because of this person. In my opinion you should be speaking to the person causing the disturbance rather than the complainee, especially in the circumstance that he has done nothing wrong. If you're willing to spend your entire life tracking down people like this and explaining to them the teachings of Buddha and Gandhi, then I have the utmost respect and admiration for you. However, I suspect that in the situaiton that your child was threatened by someone with intent to take his/her life, you would react like every single member of humanity and provide self-sacrifice as an alternate means to your child's death. If this is the case, I commend you for being human. If you're the type to attempt to reason with psychopaths or just accept their actions and pity the person who perpetrated the act, I have nothing but disgust for you.
It is PROVEN scientifially, theoretically, or any other way you slice it that not all of humanity is equal in thought processes and proper chemical balance. I don't care one bit about whether or not Gandhi or Buddha were ahead of their time in their thinking because I happen to agree. The only issue is that their philosophies are not applicable from a modern standpoint and therefore should be referenced with that in mind. The world is not a pretty place and by adhering strictly to these teachings you're saying 'I care more about my would-be assailants than I do about innocents.' Even the view that they need more 'help' than the rest, still kills good people every single day. In essence, you are wrong, but you are the type that will say 'everyone is entitled to their own opinion' to be as non-confrontational as possible (of course while maintaining the 'holier than thou' attitude). There are moral right and wrongs
So what you're saying is that you don't have enough respect for your own skill level to charge a customer what they are willing to pay for the knowledge it has taken you years to acquire? If a customer is willing to pay $250 for supported off the shelf software and have it installed to help secure their system, they have obviously had virus/spyware issues in the past and have no idea how to combat it. Over 40% of new PC purchases at Best Buy had this install done and 90% of customers thought it was one of the best purchases they ever made. I'll agree about the $12/hr bullshit though. I worked at the Geek Squad for a year as the Senior tech and I was only making $16/hr.
I'm having trouble figuring out why this topic made the main page...I guess it could be that this is a sincere question but it seems more like another bid for support in bashing the Geek Squad.
Scope of repairs for Geek Squad agents consists of all software issues and hard drive, RAM, Video Card, PSU, & CD/DVD drive replacement. Basically if it is available in the store it can be replaced or installed on paid services. For service plan repairs the majority of hardware can not be replaced in-store due to inventory limitations and in the event that a system restore is required; if a customer does not have their restore CD/DVD, the restore partition has been corrupted, or the HDD neededs replacement (obviously this leaves no restore partition) then the unit is shipped to the vendor in the event it is under mfg warranty or to DEX if under service plan warranty only.
On another note, I can tell you from the CONSTANT issues I dealt with on a day to day basis that the blame goes back and forth between 3rd party repair centers and store techs. I'm assuming that the original poster works for a company called DEX (Data Exchange Corporation) as they are the primary 3rd party center used for issues beyond the scope of in-store repairs. Literally 25% of the computers shipped to DEX returned unrepaired, misrepaired, misdiagnosed, and some didn't even return at all. Between 3 and 8 hours every single day I was sending emails, calling DEX, checking tracking numbers, and dealing with upset customers because of these problems. When you say that the Geek Squad sends you issues that you shouldn't have to work on I'd really like to know a percentage here. If you can honestly tell me that over 25% of the computers you receive have these minor issues, I'll lay down the flaming sword here. And if you want to talk about spelling, I've probably seen around six to seven THOUSAND service tags from DEX and around 500 of them had proper spelling...don't EVEN get me started there.
Unfortunately, however, all the anti-Geek Squad sentiment out there isn't all that unfounded any more. I have a pretty good idea of why (I did work there for quite some time) but don't go any further if you don't like to read.
One of the primary focuses of Best Buy training is sales. When 'agents' are hired they are expected to have a high level of technical knowledge and all other training focuses on processes and sales. Being that Best Buy is a non-comission sales environment the training is not nearly as viscious as some other comission sales jobs, but it actually works better. What the training actually encompasses is gaining the ability to relate the knowledge you have to the customer. During my entire time at Best Buy I was never once encouraged to do anything unethical or take advantage of customers' lack of knowledge. I was lucky to be at a decent store...the problem lies in the fact that a lot of the management staff at a lot of stores does not take this approach and typically force employees to sell more and most expensive or get out.
Another glaring problem is the fact that Best Buy's original service techs were largely incompetent and extremely underpaid. Before the Geek Squad was unleashed, Best Buy lost money from services every single year. Upon Geek Squad's roll-out, a lot of the original service techs were given immediate promotions or transferred directly across to supervisory positions because of the need to get/keep bodies behind the counter. The good came from the fact that more positions were available and largely at a higher pay rate. Because this was a new venture into the services sector, customers with previous experience with Best Buy services were largely suspicious and still retained a good amount of hatred for anything related to Best Buy and service. Business began to pick up, but was still rather slow in relation to the number of positions filled and available. During this time, qualifications and technical knowledge were fairly strict requirements because of the overflow of applicatio