Recently in Stupidity in General Category

I have had a long-time beef with Verizon (for reasons I won't go into here) and here is yet one more story that gives me reason not to ever even consider the thought of using them.  For those of you who have ever been to some kind of Photoshop conference (especially the NAPP ones), you most certainly probably know who Ben Willmore is.  Over the past year, Ben had decided to sell his home and live aboard a motor-home full-time.  Ben has been blogging his travels and experiences throughout the entire process and it's been fun to watch where he is going and what he's doing.  I can't help but feel green with envy at him being able to do something so cool! :-)

In any case, in these days we all need to be connected and Ben is no exception.  Ben decided to get his broadband fix by using Verizon's EVDO broadband service.  So apparently "unlimited" access is not really "unlimited" in today's corporate contracts or advertising.  This is actually not unusual, but it doesn't make it right.  Corporate America is fast and furious to take your money and hold you to ridiculous contracts when it is in their favor, but lord help you if you try to actually use the service you are paying for in any kind of "unlimited" capacity.

"I've been using a Verizon EVDO card since I started living on the bus. It seems that they don't like people who actually need to use the net for their daily business life. I just received notice that they will cut off service for my card starting on 9/6/2006 because I used 10 Gigabytes of bandwidth over the last 30 days. I guess they have no idea that some people actually have to upload/download high resolution photography and do business on the net. I guess getting the satellite dish has become a major priority right now."

This is just WRONG.  It's time that the public began to hold these corporations to their advertising.  If you don't really mean UNLIMITED, then dammit, DO NOT say it is and then cry wolf when someone attempts to actually use it for business.  If you are going to cut someone off, at least have the common courtesy to give them a warning before just canceling their contract.  So the funny thing is that I am sure there are many of you out there that signed up for that EVDO service with "unlimited" data, yet for some reason need to or want to cancel, but are afraid to get hit with the penalties for doing so.  Why not give Verizon a taste of their own medicine and start jamming that pipe?  ;-)  Now I am not advocating violating the terms of your service agreement, but surely they can't prevent you from say...uploading content via FTP to your server, or some other creative use of mega-sized files that need to be sent somewhere right?  Let Verizon cancel you and you just got out of your contract.  They like games?  Just play them right back people.

You can check out the rest of the story on Ben's site and while you are at it, go ahead and subscribe to his feed!  Let him know bisonium.com sent ya and you support him in the fight for what's right.

Technorati Tags: Clueless, EVDO, Mobility, Peripherals, Stupidity, Verizon, Wireless

Technorati Tags: Automobiles, Comedy, Video

Yes folks, the good-ol white-hood wearing boys in Missouri are still alive and well. What kind of country is it where we live in a place in which fire-fighters will let someone's home / property burn while the owner pleas with them and even offers them money to help him put out the fire? Last time I checked, as a public servant, your primary duty is to protect and serve right? It just so happens to be that this poor soul who's home was on fire was a hispanic fellow you see. The AP story won't tell you flat out, but it just seems awful clear that this is a case of "yer kind don't belong here boy". The fire fighters claim that this person did not pay his membership dues and as such, was not entitled to fire-fighting "protection."

I hate to play that race card, but this kind of shit really burns me a new one. There is absolutely no excuse for something like this to happen in today's day and age. This is just dumb-ass hillbilly back-woods stupidity. There just isn't a polite way to put it. It sure would be a shame if that hispanic fella happened to be a doctor while one of those firefighters was fighting for his own life in the ER. I bet ya things would play out a little different if that firefighter hadn't paid his insurance that month huh? What ever happened to human decency and just plain old doing the right thing in America?

Technorati Tags: Ethics, Raciscm, Stupidity

Things have been a bit hectic around these parts lately, so I apologize for the lack of fresh content every day.  Don't forget to check out my posts on Gearlive.com and the I4U Network.  I am spending most of my time blogging over there lately. 

So back to the point here.  I get these feeds from Simply Hired coming into my RSS News Aggregator, just to see what's happening out there and what people are looking for in my field.  I happened to stumble across this job posting and I just had to ask, are people really this stupid?  Just look at the job description:

DAVIS / FAIRFIELD Apple Expert: MUST BE NEARBY Reply to: job-132969328@craigslist.org Date: 2006-02-11, 11:32AM PST

Work Part or Full Time. Word for Apple OS X Needed. Ongoing technical support is part time. Days and or evenings according to your schedule. If you prefer full time, most of your days will be researching diverse electronic products online, and communicating with engineers plus manufacturers of conusmer related electronics.

YOU MUST BE IN OR WEST OF DAVIS.

Sample Issues Needing Your Help:

1) State of windows. When a document is opened in word, he would like it to be placed in a certain location every time and the window to be maximized. Upon reopening, the files often ignore the size it was last saved in.

2) Default Zoom. When a document is opened, he would like the zoom to always be 125%.

3) When pasting from Word to Apple's Mail program, formatting is not always as expected.

4) When using file save as to make a change in the name of the document, the newly created file rarely will go into the correct folder.

Please email me if you can solve these problems. Thank You.

Now did you catch that?  Am I really reading this?  The level of stupidity when it comes to people posting jobs these days is astounding.  The best ones are those that want the skill-set of 3 high-level professional people and also want you to be the manager and end up offering $30,000 a year to do it.  A perfect example of this practice can be found here.  The interesting question there is WHO (if anyone) actually responds to these ads.  Stupidity seems to be taking over the world, and most of the idiots appear to be in management.  Go figure.  For those of you managers with a brain and some common sense, I applaud you.  Consider yourselves a rare breed.

The morons in charge of the federal government  have yet again fallen victim to the brain flatulance that impedes progress in this great nation of ours.  As if it isn't already difficult enough to find a good job and make yourself stand out from the rest of the crowd, the federal government has just added some additional barriers to helping you find a job.

New federal guidelines meant to standardize how employers track data on the diversity of their job-applicant pool are taking effect starting today for jobs at federal contractors -- and similar rules will kick in later this year at U.S. companies with more than 50 employees. And resumes and search approaches that worked perfectly well before may no longer do the trick.

Yet another addition to the idiots that are the reason we have so many problems in the USA.  Litigation happy attorneys and morons who file this kind of lawsuit should themselves be thrown in jail for wasting tax dollars on foolish things like this.

So this idiot files a law because Apple doesn't adorn their product with warning labels that playing your iPod too loud is bad for your hearing.  Does any normal competent adult actually need to be told this?  Like everyting else in this society, people just refuse to accept any responsibility for their own actions and expect others to pay for their stupidity.  So wait, I guess I should go sue the US Navy for exposing me to all the jet noise for the years I served in the Navy huh?  Or wait, maybe I should sue the National Guard because firing my weapon made too much noise and scared me.  Come on people....when are we going to say enough is enough and just slap these morons silly and be done with it?  The full story is after the jump...

Jon Maddox gives us an update on Henrico County's woes after switching to Dell and dumping their iBooks.  All I have to say is: I'm GLAD it is happening to them.  SUCKS TO BE HENRICO.  Now FIRE every idiot that was involved in the decision making process to go all Dell.  There's nothing better than watching your tax dollars being thrown in the garbage I tell you...

After a much publicized move from Apple iBooks to Dell Laptops, it looks the Henrico county school system isn't having much fun with the Dells.

This is what I've heard from a buddy of mine that works hand in hand with the computers.

About 100 dells are reimaged each week in henrico and after 5 months, the Dells have the same amount of laptops being sent in for repairs as we did once the iBooks turned 4 years old.

Wow, well no one saw that coming. Duh. We all know that Dell laptops are made very very "cost effectivly" and couldn't last one year under the stress of high school students. Especially when they know they aren't theirs. Thats one of the reasons Negroponte wants the $100 laptop to be owned by its users, so they last longer.

And like Gruber said "PCs typically cost less than Macs because they're pieces of crap, not because Intel CPUs are less expensive than IBM's or Freescale's."

Hey there blogsphere and friends,

It's been a few days since my last post, things here have been utterly insane.  In addition to running my business, I decided to accept an offer of employment that was too good to turn down.  So back to working 2 jobs I go!  It's all good though, I am learning more each day and I work with some absolutely great people.

But the real story behind this post is that the main reason I haven't been able to post much is because Bellsouth has completely screwed my DSL service and they have no clue what to do about it.  Yeah, you read right...Bellsouth doesn't have a clue.  Surprise surprise. 

The nightmare begins after the jump....

Please, please please....SOMEONE tell me that this is a BAD joke.  This DEMOCRAT did NOT just say that we Americans must just "learn to deal with it" when it comes to losing our jobs to overseas companies in the name of CORPORATE GREED.  I would expect this from a Republican.  Did someone actually vote this idiot into office?  So now that we must deal with being unemployed because we actually want to be able to afford a home and feed out children, where is this training, education and tax incentive he is talking about?  What about those people who are out of work NOW because of this?  Don't those tax paying AMERICANS have a right to work and not live in fear that their job will be outsourced? 

"Critics in the West say outsourcing puts skilled people out of work just so big companies can save money. But supporters argue that it actually creates jobs by helping companies grow faster. "

Are you seriously kidding me?  So now that these companies have "grown faster", where are the jobs?  Are we supposed to believe that those put out of work by outsourcing were re-hired into better positions?  Who the hell are we kidding here?

This is the most classic example of why each and every American on this planet needs to get out and VOTE.  If we only let the rich and corrupt have a vote in society, you have no right to bitch and complain about losing your job.

Senator calls outsourcing of white-collar jobs a fact of life:

Sen. Max Baucus, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, said Friday that outsourcing white-collar jobs to low-wage countries such as India has become a global fact of life -- and that America must learn to live with it.

Read the rest after the jump...

Here we go again with more legal stupidity.  So let me get this straight...now WE are supposed to HELP the studios preserve evidence of something that has never happened, so that THEY can win a case against us?  Lately, this country has become a land of "GUILTY until proven innocent".  It seems that only large organizations and corporations with huge money, legal teams, and political influence get any "justice".  Something is just fundamentally WRONG here.  You know it's getting really bad when there is now a TV show on ABC, In Justice,  based on this very concept.  The show is VERY good by the way, the pilot was excellent last night.  It's just a shame that there are actually innocent people in prison because the very system that is supposed to protect them, and give them life and liberty, has FAILED them.  Does the constitution even exist anymore?  As of lately, it just seems that anyone from the President on down can make (or break) the law as they please.

[ via Tech Republic ]

| Police blotter: Alleged eDonkey pirate gets trial | Latest Technology News from TechRepublic.com:

"Police blotter" is a weekly report on the intersection of technology and the law.

What: A Philadelphia man with a cable modem is sued by Paramount Pictures for alleged copyright infringement of a movie through the eDonkey file-sharing network.

When: U.S. District Judge Thomas O'Neill in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled on Dec. 2.

Outcome: O'Neill denied each side's requests for summary judgment, clearing the way for an eventual civil trial.

Summary: Paramount detected a copy of its Jim Carrey movie "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" on the eDonkey network on Dec. 23, 2004. That was a week after it was released in theaters.

More after the jump...

Today's "idiot's in authority" post comes from Akron, OH.  Yes folks, these people are actually charging this young whipper-snapper with a FELONY for allegedly creating a website that linked to his school, and directing people to hit the F5 button.  For those of you Mac heads here, F5 on a PC is the refresh button on the browser.  Wow, I never knew refreshing a browser would cause catastrophic harm to a schools computer system!  Gimme a break.  What morons.  This is the problem with judges, law enforcement, and other idiots in authority that don't know anything about technology.  This is just as bad as what happened to Kevin Mitnick.  Due to these people's lack of understanding of technology and how systems work, they are wrongfully prosecuting someone for what amounts to the same as TP'ing someone's house on Halloween.  This isn't exactly the equivalent of launching a DOS attack folks.  All this can do is bring the web server to a crawl.  And I got news for ya, if the school's entire system is tied in to the web server and they don't have a separate pipe for that server, then the moron that should be prosecuted is the "IT guy" for the school or district.

[ via Digg ]

Student arrested for deadly F5 attack:

Lake County High school senior has been charged for linking to his school website (http://lake.stark.k12.oh.us/hs) and telling people to hit F5 multiple times, No word about survivors.

This is a few months old, but pretty insane, so why not post it right?  In what has to be one of the most grand examples of why there should be stricter birth control in the world, this idiot takes the cake, errrrr, should I say the donughts....

[ via Ch. 6 News - Orlando, FL ]

Man Caught On Tape Sprinkling Fecal Matter On Pastries

A cab driver in Dallas, Texas, was allegedly caught on surveillance video sprinkling dried fecal matter on cookies and pastries at a grocery store.

Behrouz Nahidmobarekeh, 49, is on trial for allegedly throwing the feces on pastries at a Fiesta grocery store.  Police said that during an investigation, they found a pile of human feces by his bed. Investigators believe Nahidmobarekeh would dry the feces, either by microwave or just letting it sit out, grate it up with a cheese grater and then sprinkle it at the store.

"(We are) unable to identify him; just a young boy, maybe 3 years old, on the surveillance tape you can see him eating one of the cookies and that's the worst part about it ,I think."

Attorneys in the case were unclear about a motive in the case. Prosecutors will show a surveillance videotape of the defendant, which shows him sprinkling a substance on the food. The FBI arrested Nahidmobarekeh but turned the case over to local prosecutors after they determined it was not a national security issue.

[ via Leftlane News ]

In the category of idiotic beyond belief, the Seattle po po has surpassed how low a cop can stoop to get a ticket...

State trooper poses as panhandler to ticket drivers

Seattle police were busy serving and protecting this weekend by posing as the homeless in an effort to catch motorists not wearing their seat-belts. On Saturday, a trooper stood on a street corner in Spanaway, Pierce County, and helped bust 30 people for not wearing their seat belts. The trooper, wearing plain clothes and a cardboard sign around his neck that read “Happy Holidays Buckle Up,” was able to keep a close eye on passing traffic. Some motorists, seeing a man on the roadside wearing a sign, offered him money, apparently figuring he was a panhandler, the State Patrol said. The trooper refused the money and issued tickets to drivers who hadn’t buckled up. John Strait, a law professor at Seattle University, said while he didn’t think the tactic was a violation of privacy rights, but he aptly pointed out that the operation “sounds tacky.” “I’m not sure it’s great public policy,” he said. [Via The Newspaper]

For you 24 fans, no this is not the CTU you are thinking of.  This is Colorado Technical University's online program.  I have been considering furthering my education and getting an advanced degree and found this program, which so far looks pretty decent.  All was going well on the phone interview until I asked the million dollar question: "Does your curriculum work on a Mac?"  All I heard was silence.  After consulting with the manager, the answer was NO.  You must use an IBM I was told.  Interesting.  I didn't realize IBM was an operating system.

So let me ask you this my blogsphere friends...don't you think that an online university should be able to not only be platform agnostic and work across the board on Mac, Linux and Windows, but also not be tied to one vendor and the limitations of proprietary software in an education environment?  Common sense would dictate that they use open source technologies and teach fundamental principals rather than specific vendor platforms (unless that is the course, like an MCSE certification or something).

This was quite an eye opener for me.  Could Microsoft have bought their way into the school by providing "incentives" to the school?  Or was it simply an oversight from an IT manager without the foresight to think that there might be some potential students out there that have not necessarily drank the Microsoft Kool-Aid, and actually own a Mac or Linux box?

If you have done the online university thing, what school did you use?  Anyone have a solid recommendation for an online school with a solid name and IT program?  Chime in via the comments link.

OMG...I think I am going to lose control of my bladder!  This has to be one of the funniest letters I have ever seen.  I can just imagine the executives reading this letter.  This is one you don't want to miss...make sure to click on the link at the bottom.

[ via Jeff Nolan ]

Complaint from seat 29E:

I had tears reading this letter to Continental Airlines. Anyone who has ever sat in a seat in close proximity to the airplane lav knows exactly what this guy is talking about. What the hell is it about people not being conscious of the fact that their ass is in somebody's face when standing around in the aisle? This would be a good time to review my 20 simple rules for air travel.

Link via RealTechNews: Complaint from seat 29E.

This is one of those things that has been pissing me off for quite some time.  What the hell is the problem with these idiots that make their show 1:01:00?  It completely screws up the Tivo and causes you to potentially miss a show if you don't catch the goof.  Glad to see Tivo fighting back!

[ via Gizmodo ]

TiVo Now Prevents Overlaps:

TiVo's 7.2.1 software update will now include overlap protection, which will prevent you from missing the beginning of a show if it overlaps with another, less important, show in your schedule. Big deal? Kind of. This essentially solves the problem of TV programmers tacking on an extra minute or so to foil PVRs and piss off TiVo owners.

The system rates the shows by importance and stops recording the "less important" shows when more important shows start. Works on Series 2 TiVos.

Update: The overlap protection gets a nice dissection at Zatz Not Funny...

TiVo Adds Overlap Protection [PVRBlog]

Yet another reason why buying a Dell is just plain wrong.  How's this for misleading advertising?  Oh - by the way folks....when you order a Macintosh and it says Free Shipping, that means it gets delivered to your DOOR!  ;-)

[ via Techdirt ]

Dell Says Meet Me Half Way On Free Shipping:

I bought my first Dell computer in 1993.  Over the next eight years, between myself and my family, we ended up buying 7 computers from Dell.  In 2000, I swore off Dells after they refused to fix a 3-month old laptop whose screen stopped working (and, yes, I had the extended warranty thing).  Even though Techdirt was going strong at the time, I didn't vent my frustrations here at the time, as it didn't seem right.  However, over time, apparently, it's become quite acceptable to vent your frustrations on blogs, and Dell has been a leading recipient of it in the last year with the "Jeff Jarvis complaint."  That one incident has received so much press that it appears Dell is finally trying to change how they handle service, admitting, basically, that they can't afford to service cheap computers, so they have special phone queues for more expensive machines.  Of course, the "more expensive" part was what many of thought we were buying when we bought the extended warranties.  However, Dell's new plans to cut costs apparently go even further.  The latest plan is to "redefine free shipping" on their cheaper models.  Instead of shipping them all the way to your house, they will only ship the machine to your local Post Office and make you go and get it.  Considering the size of many computer boxes these days, that can be quite a pain.  Instead, they'll end up having a lot of people pay "extra" for home delivery -- while still being able to advertise "free delivery."  It's fine if they want to charge people for delivery.  It's an expense and there's nothing wrong with that.  But, to claim free delivery certainly implies free "home" delivery, so this certainly seems like somewhat misleading advertising.

These are the types of "hackers" that should be terminated with extreme prejudice.  Is there anything sacred in this world?  It is absolutely amazing to think that there are scumbags on this planet that can be this stupid.  Just one more reason to have a Mac....you don't have to worry about these lower than life maggots.

[ via InformationWeek ]

Katrina Scammers Try To Infect PCs, Steal IDs:

Watch out for malicious Web sites posing as news sites, often advertised through spam.

This is yet another example of corporate America (and apparently China) gone wrong.  There is nobody to blame but the corporate greed mongers and idiotic state legislators that allow such ludicrous demands to be met.  Someone explain to me why the taxpayers have to pay to fund courses in Chinese?  Don't they make enough from the students which PAY to go to school?  And lets not even get into Dell, which paved the way for these ludicrous demands.  The solution to this problem is simple.  You want to hold a state hostage?  Go somewhere else.  The trick is making sure that no other state agrees to give in to a corporate entities demands.  There aren't exactly a whole lot of places where you can put a high-tech factory.

[ via The Register ]

China's Lenovo wants North Carolina to pay to keep jobs - report | Channel Register:

Chinese PC maker Lenovo wants to empty the pocketbooks of North Carolina taxpayers and pump their minds full of Asian culture, if the state hopes to keep the company's business.

The Herald-Sun has obtained documents showing that Lenovo expects up to a $14m incentive package to maintain its 1,800 strong workforce in the Research Triangle Park hi-tech area located near Durham. The company, which acquired IBM's PC business in May, appears set to play different states off each other as it decides where to build a new facility. Along with the incentives package, Lenovo requested that North Carolina subsidize courses in Chinese at local universities and create joint programs with schools in China, according to the paper.

More news on the Cobb County homefront. As of Tuesday evening, Superintendent Redden has resigned.  This is just frickin unacceptable.  I am saddened to see that one of the few people who "got it" has been ousted by a bunch of idiots that couldn't see beyond their petty politics to do what was in the best interest for the kids.  Thinking Different was obviously beyond the scope of these people.  Chief Redden, a former Air Force General was grossly overqualified for the position, and that is now obvious.  Chief Redden....hold your head up high and march on.  You've still won the respect of many others and will do well in another district.  Although, why you would want to deal with the crap is beyond me.  Enjoy your retirement and thanks for your service to our great nation.

For the full story via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, click here.