Some idiot is out there taking flash pictures of the eclipse.
Category: Tech
Stop flashing me
As one of the many working stiffs who can access the internet from work but has to share a connection, I would like to make a request of the corporate world at large:
STOP REQUIRING FLASH TO VIEW YOUR SITE!!!!!!
Everything I look at on the net while at work has to go through a server in northern CA, which doesn’t have Flash capability and probably never will, because it would be even slower if the 250 people using it were allowed to view bandwidth-hogging all-Flash sites. With the economy being what it is, bandwidth costs being what they are, and connection power needing to be split at most offices, I’m not sure any company should be upping the ante this far in the name of pretty pictures. And the defense that people can look at it at home isn’t too great, either, since DSL is out of reach of more working stiffs than web geeks want to admit, and Deity-of-Your-Choice only knows when it might creep into affordability.
So, please do what you used to do, and keep your non-Flash site online after the upgrade, instead of routing us to a page exhorting the wonders of Flash and attempting to bully us into downloading it. (Baaaa.) You’ll widen your audience with very little effort–and hey, aren’t non-Flash sites easier to maintain?
It Really Works — Not!
I spend a lot more time dealing with spam than I used to, mainly so that all our customers won’t have to. (Most of it is spent adjusting or training the server’s spam filters.) As a result, I often look through spam that I used to just delete. One had a real gem of an unsubscribe notice:
Don’t want to receive our emails anymore? It’s very easy to oppt out. And yes, doing so really will allow you to opppt out. We aren’t just saying that so that we can put on the facade that we’re legitimate advertsers, whilst laughing away, blatantly ignoring remvve requests. If you remove your name from our list, you definitely will be remm,oved. Your name will be marked as r,emoved in our email database, and you won’t receive mail again. We don’t really know how more clearly we can explain this. Just take our word for it. Otherwise, continue toreceive these emails. Now is your chance to opp,t out. Do so by clicking this UNSUBCRIBE link. P.S. – It really works
The best part was the URL:
http:// /optout.php?mail=(my email address)
Now, you don’t have to be a net guru to realize that there is no way that link could possibly work!
It sounds to me like they might be laughing away, blatantly ignoring remove – excuse me, remvve – requests.
The mind boggles…
From a recent spam:
Increase Beast size by 2 cups Guaranteed
Tech Support
I had an email conversation with someone over the last two days, which, in another industry, might have gone something like this:
Customer: “My light won’t turn on.”
Me: “Make sure it’s plugged in.”
Customer: “It still desn’t work.”
Me: “Try changing the bulb.”
Customer: “No, it still doesn’t work.”
…
Customer: “Hey, I plugged it in, and it worked!”
I have to wonder: did this person misread my advice as “make sure it’s unplugged?” Did he simply ignore it? Did he think it meant “check to see whether it’s plugged in, but don’t change the situation one way or the other?”
Why do you call up tech support if you aren’t willing to follow the directions we give you?
The worst part is, he probably thinks he solved it himself and we didn’t help at all.
To the stars…
Well, the critics have started coming out, claiming that manned space flight isn’t worth the risk and space exploration (at least with human crews) should be written off as a bad idea.
How can you look up at the night sky and not think it’s worth it?
Or is it because so many of us live in cities where you can’t see the stars for the lights and smog?
Are we so afraid to dream?
Are we so afraid to fly?
I’m reminded of a slogan I’ve seen at science-fiction conventions:
The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us will go to the stars.
Earth to the self-righteous….come in, people….
<RANT>
Okay. For all you holier-than-thou smarty-pantses out there, here’s a question. If an average-sized couch cushion were to hit a brick wall at 15 mph, would you think at first glance that the brick wall might be damaged?
I thought not.
So leave me the FUCK alone with your judgmental snippetiness about how YOU would have aborted the launch (let alone how you would have even seen the insulation incident they only saw on video LATER) and how could I even THINK that maybe Mission Control didn’t think they had sufficient reason to effectively waste a large chunk of what little funding they had because “human life was on the line.” Human life is on the line every time you get in your car, but that doesn’t stop normal people from driving to work. (No, I’m not normal. Thanks for asking.) Human life is on the line every time a new medication gets sold to any demographic outside who it was originally tested with, and it’s a hell of a lot more people at risk, with a lot less knowledge of what they’re getting into, than the seven people on board the shuttle. Yes, it was a tragedy. Yes, it was technically preventable. And yes, hindsight is 20/20. So, as I said, get off your high horse. There’s too many of those around lately and it’s getting hard for a good objective fact-finding scientist to breathe.
</RANT>