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Comment Re:So we are going to bicker over 3 billion? (Score 1) 245

Sometimes you have to let something die in order to make something greater. If a bank can't survive because it made bad loans, let it go. If it crashes the economy for a while, we will learn from the experence. Maybe we will learn a very important leasson about risk vs. reward. The problem is we wont learn this leason. The leasson we will learn today is "Daddy Government will make it all better... for now."

I wonder why everyone thinks we have "Rights" to physical things. All "Rights" are effemeral; life, liberty, justice, freedom, religion. Nobody has a "right" to a job, money, food, shelter, or medicine. Physical things are needs and wants, not "Rights". Needs and wants need to be supplied by the person, or by charity freely given, and in a socity where their "Rights" are protected they are Free to do so.

Darth Eggbert

Software

Submission + - Setting up an automated slideshow

Darth Eggbert writes: I'm getting married on July 4th (insert joke here) and instead of spending (we are broke) on a photographer I am looking for a solution where I can have my guests, most of whom have very nice digital cameras, easily download their photo's to a laptop which would then be automatically added to a slideshow projected on a screen behind the head table. I already have the laptop, storage, and the projector and screen, what I am looking for is a program that can easily accept a memory card, download its contents, and add it to an ongoing slideshow already running on a separate monitor. The laptop I will be using is a 2 year old HP laptop running Windows XP, 1 gig of ram, and dual monitor capability.

Comment Re:No, it proves there is water vapor (Score 1) 186

First, we have to determine 1) if it is worth spending so much money and, likely, [B]lives [/b] to go visit. And for that you can send a robot and

Many people will volenteer their lives for the chance at going to Mars, please let them worry about the worth of them. I personally would take a 50-50 chance to be the first to stand on another planet. Others might not reqire odds that high.

Spam

Submission + - Vonage spams customers, burns biggest fans (damniwish.com)

Andy Sernovitz writes: "Vonage is harvesting names from their refer-a-friend program for spam. This is happening to thousands of subscribers. This doozy combines spam, theft of customer data, and an incredibly stupid way to turn your loyal fans into enemies. Details here: http://www.damniwish.com/2007/06/vonage-spams-cu.h tml

I am a Vonage customer. In December, 2004 I entered 18 friends' email addresses in their refer-a-friend program. This was clearly intended to be a one-time referral, on an opt-in basis, from me to my friends. 30 months later ....

Vonage crossed all lines of good taste, privacy, and ethics. They send a mass email to my friends — USING MY NAME — in a shameless promotion. In fact, my name was used in the email 3 times, as if I had endorsed the message and gave permission to use my friends' names.
  • Vonage is harvesting names from their refer-a-friend program to send spam promotions.
  • Vonage is violating their customers privacy by using data from customer accounts for a marketing campaign.
  • Vonage has used their customers names for testimonials without permission of the customers.

Wow. Vonage is so evil on so many levels. And stupid.

What they did ...
  • creates massive, insane anger
  • is illegal — violates both CAN-SPAM and privacy statutes
  • perverts the trust of their best customers, those who were willing to recommend them to their friends
  • turns influentials into enemies


(The saddest thing is that Vonage could have been a truly great company. Google great, Salesforce.com great. All they had to do was not be the phone company — a very low bar. But they are so much more horrible that even the phone companies ever were. Worse service, worse support, and a crappy attitude. What a shame.)"

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