It seems a college student from Michigan has accidently opened an email they received from their aunt. It is better just to go to the article written by The Onion. Thank god for The Onion.
Quality journalism is dying off and The Onion is one of the last outfits that can tell a story truthfully, and accurately.
I think I’d rather get v1@gr4 spam then be subjected to an email forward. At least the spam is funny…
…from The Onion
I know its been a few days since there have been any posts. I am sorry. I take full responsibility.
You see… my internet went down on Thursday night and I immediately called Comcast. After a couple of no shows my internet has just been fixed!
I would just like to take the time to thank Comcast for their great support and the quality service I received. In some countries internet is not even available so it is perfectly acceptable for them to be rude and unavailable to me. Thanks guys.
So, I now have internet again and will continue to post nonsense. Of course… there is still a lingering billing problem I’ve had for the last 5 months that is still unresolved. That’s OK though. I understand. Comcast is a cable and internet company, not an accounting firm!
… from My tortured life
A little while ago the Motion Picture ASSociation of America, or MPAA, went to Washington to have them pass a law. They said illegal downloaders were attracted to university networks like flies on shit. They claimed 44% of all illegal movie downloads originated on college campuses. The real figure is a tad lower.
From the article:
It seems the real figure is closer to 15 per cent and since a lot of students live off campus it means that about five per cent of P2P piracy is done using university networks.
Wrong? Nah. The MPAA might of been a bit over zealous… maybe… but definitely not wrong. Would you call George Washington wrong, for fighting the nazi’s in World War I and ending slavery? No. Would you call Louis Armstrong wrong for flying across the Atlantic — only to have his baby eaten. No. Would you call George Bush Jr. wrong? Of course not. Unless you are a ultra-liberal movie-pirate. And we don’t mean Johnny Depp.
… from The INQUIRER
As more and more people begin to use Microsoft’s Vista operating system more and more people are realizing that it sucks, and they want to move back. Web magazine, InfoWorld, agrees and has started the Save Windows XP petition.
I myself run Vista and have found that it is a pain in my ass. Doing simple things, that were perfected in 1992 — like moving files — are slow and painful.
Vista’s SP1 is in beta now and should be coming soon… any day now… any time guys. SP1 should fix most of the annoyances (we hope). According to Vista SP1’s details it will increase performance when copying and extracing files and get rid of that annoying 10 second delay when pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del to logon.
We don’t understand what the big deal is though. Windows XP was just becoming a secure, stable operating system — naturally it was time to move forward. If we didn’t we’d stagnate as a people. Anyways, everyone needs to just stop their bitching. Vista is a great OS once you disable those stupid User Account Controls (UAC), disable the Desktop Window Manager (DWM — the “wow”), and pretty much everything else that makes Vista act like Vista.
… from The INQUIRER
It’s time for burning man again… Another year of the overpriced bastardized version of what was, the original burning man. Last year I looked into attending and nearly died when I saw the astronomical ticket prices.
This year burning man will set you back at least $250 but probably upwards of $300+. What exactly is all that money for? You don’t really provide anything. I’m in a fucking desert.
Maybe the extra change is to pay overtime to all the law enforcement agencies patrolling the event? Not one, but five different law enforcement agencies are at burning man.
Instead of attending burning man we will be setting fire to a large bush in our backyard. Tickets start at $2.75.
Read the article for a step-by-step account of the ordering process. It will leave you on the edge of your seat.
… from Geek Gestalt @ CNet News
Okay so this article has nothing to do with the fact that TSA officials are underpaid and undertrained but search for “tsa underpaid” and “tsa undertrained” but that is important to keep in mind when you read this.
The TSA has just purchased 12 of these units — with the option to buy more — that are capable of passively scanning foot traffic for weaponry. We don’t know how accurate the image above is but if that is true then these things are really impressive. We’re also very impressed these units passed some kind of public health screening, assuming there was one.
I mean really… if cell phones cause cancer, wtf do these things do? We’re guessing either alter our DNA to turn us all into super soldiers to one day fight the Russians or give us cancer. We are pretty sure its one of the two, maybe even both, but our money is on cancer.
We’re just happy all this homeland security has made us more secure. You can’t argue with the fact that there hasn’t been another terrorist attack. Suck it.
… from DVICE
Ticketmaster has “aquired” TicketsNow for $265 million. Thanks to their astronomical convenience charge they were able to come up with the money after selling 18 tickets to the Van Halen reunion tour stop in Omaha, Nebraska. Coincidently, this was the total number of tickets sold for the event.
… from Domain Name News
The Recording Association Industry of America (RIAA) has sued a lot of people in their time. You could even say they’ve sued more people than that guy you see on TV who helps people who have slipped and fallen. Why are they so so-happy? It turns out some people like music and share it with others on the intarwebs. Ya… the heathens, we know.
What makes this current case special is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been trying to kill the RIAA’s “making available” case. Making available means that Jeffrey and Pamela Howell had turned some of their CDs into MP3s and placed them in their KaZaA share folder. The RIAA’s investigative arm, SafeNet (formely MediaSentry), found this songs and downloaded them.
You have a CD. You tell your friend that you will burn him a copy. You get sued, even before you give the copy to your friend. You see, the RIAA has no proof that any copies were actually downloaded by anyone and therefore no proof that any copyright infringement actually occurred. At least, that is the claim that EFF makes.
From the article:
Because the law specifically gives copyright owners the ability to control copies distributed “to the public,” the music labels need to show that such distribution took place. The EFF points out that the copyright holder itself can hardly be considered “the public,” and goes on to claim that “an authorized agent acting on behalf of the copyright owner also cannot infringe any rights held by that owner.” Their conclusion is therefore that ”where the only evidence of infringing distribution consists of distributions to authorized agents of the copyright owner, that evidence cannot, by itself, establish that other, unauthorized distributions have taken place.”
Pretty crafty are those EFF attorneys. It seems the money we donated is being well spent. As you can tell there was no sex in this article, but let’s be real here, why else would you read something like this? You’d rather watch a gopher fart on YouTube or something.
For any stupid lawsuit:
… from ars technica
Apparently I am not the only one experiencing ulcers and insomnia because of call centers.
From the article:
Are you frustrated when you called a company and found out that you’ve been routed to an Indian call center?
Well, your frustration’s nothing to what’s afflicting those on the other end of the line: heart attacks, ulcers, and insomnia.
Also from the article, which is from some Telegraph article… :
Miss Aggarwal, an English graduate, said she planned to quit, tired of wishing customers a good morning only to hear: “Oh, I’m through to India am I? Put me through to someone who can understand English, you f****** cow.”
We understand being frustrated. We understand being angry. What we don’t understand is why you’d take it out on someone who is making your daily salary in a month. Why not direct that anger and hated someplace else? Where it is much more deserved. The ones who are hiring these people, overcharging for their service, and skimping when it comes to support.
If you get an Indian call center. Just remember, it could be worse. You could get an American call center being run by Comcast.
For bad call centers and people who dish out (undeserved) insults to the operator:
… from Neatorama