Archive by Author

Blogger ethics: proper attribution > accountability

Overall, these results suggest that bloggers do expect a degree of ethical behavior from the community at large, and they practice (or at least they believe they practice) ethical behavior at an even higher rate. There are a number of ways to reconcile this with the poor reception that the proposed formal code of behavior received. It’s possible that the loudest voices on the issue came from a minority within the blogging community, or their were objections to the specific aspects of this code. But the results of the survey suggest that people won’t necessarily demand that the rest of the community adheres to the standards they set for themselves.

via Blogger ethics: proper attribution > accountability – Ars Technica.

Accountability? What’s that? Screw accountability, I say.

Now attribution – THAT’S important. In Uni you learn that plagiarism is bad – to this end, linking back to where you found the original story is seen as proper ethics.

As I’ve always said – credit where credit is due, gentlemen.

Wrong Number Generator

wrong number generator

Feel like driving someone insane in a malicious way? Come on, everybody knows at least one person they’d like to drive bonkers. This Wrong Number Generator is a brilliantly simple way to do just that.

How’s it work? Well, you plug your victim’s phone into one end and run the other end into the wall jack and leave it to do its business. It’ll then intercept any numbers that they dial and replace them with wrong numbers. This will be annoying. But the real coup? It’ll let the right numbers through 25% of the time, making them think that the problem is with their fat, inaccurate fingers, not with the phone itself. All the while you can sit back knowing that you’re causing lots of stress for your poor victim. Sweet.

via VISGORIA.

You can find the original post here.

Farkin Adobe!!

OK, so my last MBP was recently crushed on a flight, totally stuffed, mobo damaged, HD has errors so not much easily retrievable there. So install my Photoshop CS3 onto my new machine. I have it already on the Mac Pro and you are allowed 2 copies, one on a desktop, one on a laptop. Prob is that since my last machine is unusable, I am unable to deregister the old machine.

So when I whack the serial in it balks at me saying I can’t install it. Fair nuf, I think to myself, I’ll just ring em like when you change a part in your PC and have to ring MS.

So the number in the registration part of the Photoshop software says to ring 1800 005 034. After 15 minutes on hold I get a call centre in Bangalore or somewhere where the guy has an attitude and is is rather unhelpful, and after going thru everything proceeds to tell me that I have rung the number for American and Canadian registrations. I try to explain to him that a 1800 number only works in Australia and I have rung the number it told me to ring for Australia. Idiot who cannot comprehend anything that doesn’t match his script continues to insist I ring 1300 550 205. Pissed off I hang up and try it.

Get a recorded message saying that the number is no longer valid and I need to ring 1800 504 … but doesn’t repeat it, so have to ring it back AGAIN to catch the full number and write it down. 1800 504 971. OK, so ring THAT number and INCREDIBLY get a similar message saying THAT number is ALSO invalid, and that I need to ring 1800 614 863. FARK!! How can they so totally stuff it all up?

Phone THAT number and get a bloody recorded message saying that the Aussie line is only open between 9-5 Monday to Friday!! WTF!?!?! How the hell can they justify having global call centres that are open but not service certain countries even though they have legitimately purchased the software? The tool on the phone could even see my details, he just refused to help. What if I was needing the software due to a deadline of something? And they wonder why people pirate their software when they treat legitimate customers with such contempt!

So I ring the first number back, and even after telling them 5 times over that the 1300 number DOES NOT work, the idiot CONTINUES to tell me I need to ring the same bloody number. He just could not comprehend that he was giving out an incorrect number and that there was no one on that number.

via Farkin Adobe!! – MacTalk Forums.

Copy and Paste

That we had to wait two years for the iPhone’s text selection and pasteboard is a good example of one aspect of the Apple way: better nothing at all than something less than great. That’s not to say Apple never releases anything less than great, but they try not to.2 This is contrary to the philosophy of most other tech companies — and diametrically opposed to the philosophy of Microsoft. And it is very much what drives some people crazy about Apple — it’s simply incomprehensible to some people that it might be better to have no text selection/pasteboard implementation while waiting for a great one than to have a poor implementation in the interim.

via Daring Fireball: Copy and Paste.

Better late and completely awesome than early and epically retarded, right?

Right?!

I’d actually go so far as to say that Apple made the decision not to release copy and paste until now, iPhone haters be damned. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, and that applies to the iPhone just as it applies to any other mainstream consumer electronics device. And they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, eh Palm? 😉

Even with all of 3.0’s numerous improvements, it’s hard to think that this shouldn’t have been the OS that shipped with the device back in 07. People have commented that iPhone OS 3.0 should have been there from the start – but look where we’ve come! That, ladies and gentlemen, is progress in it’s finest form.

Nice work, Apple. Kudos.

Intelligent, cynical and embittered women only

I am not an extremely picky guy. Being my dream girl is more a matter of the things you aren’t than the things you are.

My ideal woman:

-when asked about her hobbies, has more to say than, “Like, you know, stuff,” or the always popular “shopping, hanging out, music, friends.”

-can think outside her own head and understand that while her wants and needs are her priority (and there’s nothing wrong with that), those around her have their own desires.

-takes care of herself to some degree. We can’t help certain aspects of our appearance, but if you don’t bathe regularly and have eaten yourself fat it demonstrates a fatal lack of respect for yourself that one would expect to bleed into other aspects of your behavior.

via Intelligent, cynical and embittered women only – YMFY.

Echoed here.