Blog updates for stupidity
2.24.06
Gone
You know that sinking feeling you get when you have an "Oops!" moment? Like the one NASA had when they lost that first probe to Mars. Oops! Or when Storagereview.com accidently dropped their database. Oops!!! Even I did it before with my comments table.
Welp, it's happened again. I lost everything from August 05 to this post. Poof. Into the ether. I just so happened to have backup on my desktop to put some content back here. I may have a more recent backup, but nothing from 2006, maybe even December 2005.
So, if you're reading this, and don't have an automated archiving process...hint, hint!!!
8:11 pm in 7.22.05
UPS delivery man harddrive toss
Take one harddrive, mix with some sophisticated home surveillance equipment, and add a pinch of idiot UPS delivery man...what do you get?
Must see "closed-circuit" tv! You can count on brown!
4.14.05
Strike two for 911 dispatchers
Seems like Waco, TX is one "c" short when it comes to 911 dispatchers. This brilliant dispatcher kindly offered to shoot the woman's daughter when the mother called in for officer assistance. Yeah, she didn't find it funny either.
Like to hear it? Here it go!
3.7.05
Extremely stupid thieves
My wife received an application for a new credit card today. The envelope had one of those dumby cards in it. You know, the ones that look and (almost) feel like a real card, but isn't.
Well, just before she threw it away, she noticed what looked like carbon paper residue over where the card inside the envelope was. Someone actually tried to copy the card's numbers by rubbing them off! Idiots!
Now, I can only assume that these letters are processed and packaged without human intervention. So that assumption would only leave a postal worker with hands on access before it gets to the house. Makes you wonder...
12.10.04
How to kill and get paid for it!
A father backing up his SUV (badly I might add) rolls over his own daughter.
Father decides to sue Nissan/Infinity, feeling it's their fault because his SUV wasn't equiped with the option of a rear camera or sensor to detect objects behind it.
I once had a Mormon tell me, "deception is a slippery pole to hell." Well, I don't believe in hell, but the point fits this instance like a glove.
11.30.04
Poof, they're gone!
It sure is amazing how quickly you can delete all the comments on your website, simply by changing "AND" to "OR".
Fortunatly I had a fairly recent back up, though I still lost a few.
10.8.04
Oh, it expired 10/6/04
Yeah, sometimes those little domain renewals just slip your mind!
6.25.04
I'm the jerk
So, here I am at work doing a software upgrade on a digital voice recorder. Now, anyone familiar with a Wordnet Series 3 knows that the alarm buzzer can drive someone crazy. That's the point of an alarm, right?
Well, doing this upgrade required that I disable the recording service...thus causing the buzzer to sound. Thing is, you can't disable the buzzer. This upgrade took around 15 minutes.
Person 1: "Can you turn that buzzer off?"
Me: "No, it can't be turned off."
Person 2: "Can't that thing be turned off?"
Me: "No, it's a piezoelectric buzzer and it can't be turned off."
Person 2: Confused look.
Me: "No, it can't be turned off."
Person 3 after hearing Person 2: "God, Daniel, can you turn that off?"
Me: "No."
Person 4: "How long is that going to be going?"
Me, getting very annoyed: "Don't know, but I'm working on it."
Person 5 walks over to my desk: "C'mon with me, let's go turn the sound off."
Me: "I can't."
Person 5: "Well then, do you mind if I go turn it off?"
Me: "You can't."
Well, the upgrade is complete and the buzzer turns off. It was at this point that I begin to wonder what type of jerk these people think I am. Like, I really wanted to hear that sound myself. Have a bit more common sense that that.
6.23.04
Note to self
When upgrading one aspect of your web server, upgrade the web server itself.
Oh, and while your at it, make sure you actually configure it in what we'll from now on call, "the right way."
6.14.04
Outsourcing fast food
I've noticed recently that fast food drive-thrus are using a recorded voice to greet customers. Often times, these recordings are suggestive selling commercials you are forced to sit through before you are able to talk to a real person. Now, I'm not trying to be picky about the type of service I recieve from a grease-n-go restaurant, but I find it really impersonal to not even be welcomed by a live human. I can only assume that:
1. The drive-thru is soooo busy/lazy that they need help to simply say "hello" and state the current promotion...before they get your order wrong.
2. Corporations care so little about their customers that they feel that flesh and blood is worth too much to be wasted on petty, paying customers.
Likely, a little of both is probably true. The power of the dollar has been seen as the "root of all sorts of injurious things" for thousands of years. It wasn't until recently, though, that the injury has been boldly showing its insult face to face. While I'm not going to get into the whole debockle of [1]outsourcing, I've been very plain in feeling that a company's public face should not be the point of it.
Tech support (public face) should be peers of the customer they are supporting. Why? Simple. They are the ones that leave the lasting impression of anything further about the company and their service. Shouldn't the same ring true about fast food places? I already expect to get my order wrong by an ignorant teen that doesn't appreciate "work ethic." Now I have to get use to getting my order wrong after I listen to the faux person, without the lasting benefit of a warm, "Welcome Taco Bell. You wanna try our new chicken Chalupa?"
[1] Assumed outsourcing to other countries.