Stick this in your “cloud” and smoke it.

Everywhere you look these days you hear about that newfangled cloud thing…. and most people ask what the hell is the cloud. I tell them its a pile of shit buzzword. Watching TV you see the Microsoft commercials about the cloud and how you can access your stuff at home…  Or your job… or the moon whatever the fuck.. Here’s and example of said “cloud”

For those whom have had there head buried in the sand or are quite possibly dead… this innovation is as old at the internet it self(of current not arpanet you silly ass).. its called network storage. Introduced in the 1980s

 

Network-attached storage
Connects to Local Area Network via:

Hard Drives via one of:

Common manufacturers HP
NetApp
Dell
Cisco
Netgear
CTERA
Sun Microsystems
Introduced 1980’s

 

 

Yes this amazing new cloud of bullshit buzzwords yay!

And this.. hmm this is not “cloud” like .. the fact these people are accessing there pc at home tells me …. Remote desktop .. YAY MORE OLD TECH CALLED CLOUD! Mind you the guy says “I just brought up our PC at home” yeah… that’s safe.. you’re flying to who the hell knows where and your leaving a PC on 24/7 while your away from the house, when the PC overheats and sets the house on fire – Your house will be a cloud! YAY CLOUD!!

This should be called the windows FartCloud technology

It’s the Cloud! ZOMG!

Microsoft’s idea of the cloud is pretty much rebranding old technology and calling it new.. Some of the other cloud innovations here are just blatantly scary , Such as software as a service .. that’s pretty much a baaaaaaaaaaaaad thing.. Your Office software you bought.. You know the 365 one … You don’t own it. at least the could portion.. also when Office 366 comes out.. and they shut down 365 … Forced upgrade… since your only paying for a service. your stuck in an upgrade cycle for money …  Also you will have zero expectations of privacy .. Your account gets hacked? your shit is good as stolen.

What companies are banking on is that you buy into the cloud without any research thinking “Hey this is cool wizbang tech!”

When it comes down to office level this is going to be a nightmare.. as to finding your document or having documents that are not supposed to be public leaking out to the public, since the information would be on the “cloud” it maybe a passworded folder and you give it out and someone cleans out the office bank account because the boss left the banking information in the “Cloud”.

Better yet.. this is all on the internet.. the office connection goes down and productivity goes to zero since no one can access the files..

All these “cloud” services are going to open a black hole when some random company hosting your cloud goes out of business and you cant access your data anymore. not to mention there will likely be a monthly/yearly price to pay for this rather than paying a one time costs.. Its Like renting a car that you have no control over and only can do simple things on like turn on the lights and honk the horn yet your paying a cost X infinity , rather than a one time license cost. These companies will at first seem cheaper than buying software outright but when you figure that over a period of months or even years . the “cloud” costs will greatly exceed the software costs.

And I’ve said it many times… the cloud is just rehashed shit with rainbow farts and ponies with glitter just to stuplify the average user into thinking he is getting something better than it really is.

The risks building a company around the cloud is just insanely risky … From buying ultra cheap terminals that can only access the cloud, to having to build a connection that can handle massive amount of data throughput. if you have a company of 100 people all using the fartcloud you need 100 networked computers that has a zero lag time connection to manipulate data. if you have a crowd-sourced project with lag you will have 50 people fixing one problem and not realized that the other 50 just did the same thing and wasted about an hours of productivity due to each person wasting 30 seconds fixing a problem that was fixed by 1 person.

The idea of the cloud is just totally not a good idea in its current form since corporations are not looking at this as a productivity tool but more as a subscription for cash run.. since they have to sell nothing and get a fuckton of money.

 

In the end I really hope people understand what the cloud is and its not anything new nor is it worth it in any means of the word.

Gamestop – the new Moviestop of deceptive advertising.

Gamestop is really pissing me off lately. It seems that gamestop is actually not run by humans. Seriously.

I went into gamestop about a week ago and I ended up getting aggravated to the point of asking if they have secret binary rituals to which this went right over the workers head.

on July 3rd I went into gamestop figuring I’d try out dragon age, the price was right.  so I went down and and attempted to pick it up, boy did that turn out to be a lesson in how not to do customer service. Now if you do a quick scan of the price of Dragon age you will see that its 37.98 or so, When I went to game stop it was 39.99 or so i thought.

When I am on the gamestop site and I look for a game I’ve always used a simple method. Search it and find my system. So looking up Dragon age at first look you see.

You’d think “oh cool its $40 . Not so fast there.

I went down the gamestop picked the game up and brought it to the desk.  Figuring I had the edge card it would run me about $36 Dollars or so . Again not so fast. the Borg at the register goes “41.23 “. Me not thinking started to hand my card over and it struck me . I Said 41.23?  with the edge card that doesn’t sound right.  Than it came.. Well what the computer says is what the price is  we have no control over that and if you have found a price otherwise I can compare it.  I open My phone and show him the listing for dragon age and apparently I must be tuned into the incorrect universe because the guy goes , well you see  we don’t use the prices from the gamestop site, that’s a different company. At this point i Just wanted to get away from this great example of a Android, I ask him if that’s even legal at the point of that question he answers a condescending tone, I just work here I don’t set the prices the computer does. What the hell. is gamestop short for judgement day, every time you ask a question you are refered to the computer.

I pay the higher price for the purchase and my friend goes “hey lets stop across the street” .  The Gamestop across the street tends to be more caring in its customers rather than treat them like biological anomalies that need digital input.  I must of looked pissed because the person working asked if I needed help with something. I explained everything above and he took his time and gave me the price difference without speaking of the grand and mighty computer.  So I went home and decided to see what was going on. I Searched the game and it was only when i clicked game to the second page of the game itself.

It floored me. the website was right in one respect but totally misleading in another. “online only” 2nd page in , How deceptive. This is reminding me of movie stop with there pricematching pre-orders , How ever the hell you do that. I am sure a lot of people may go to gamestop and go “oh ill buy it anyways.” but…… there’s an issue, That first page. Advertises the fact of “this used product is …” and not the First more important issue. “Online price only” In order to be non-deceptive . ONLINE ONLY should be followed though EACH and EVERY page. You can’t just put a price out and slap on the last page “Online only” .

Also is the fact of  How can you have an “Online Only price” when the product has been not Available the whole time. On No place in the page does it list the “store price’ nor does it tell you the store price may cost more money, Even walmarts site tells you

Walmart Stores
Pick Up in Your Store

Prices in Store May Vary
That’s all you need.  A simple disclaimer “Prices in store may vary”
having the store slave tell you that his computer will not take my insolence for thinking I was getting some sort of deal.  Gamestopus of Borg Does not want you to pay that price.
I’ve taken some time to cool off before writing about this because of 3 to 4 incidents with the same gamestop can really make the chances of sanity go away.

Capital One… What was in your wallet….

How to start this… 

Capitol one blows Goats 

Back  on November 5th , I called about inquiring on changing a payment due to capitol one making my payment date change. Since i am on Social Security, I normally pay all my bills at the beginning of the month. due to the Oddness of capitol ones business I’d often pay on the 4th to have the payment applied on the 2nd of the month which made no sense to me what so ever. Anyways, I was given Assurances that the pay date would change and the current payment would apply for the month. After that call feeling everything was taken care of I felt everything was going to be OK.. And how wrong i was.

 

The next month .. I goto pay my bills and i find my account has a few charges and fees I was not expecting, One fee for being put over the limit than another fee for late payment that I was assured would not happen, So i made my payment again, to which the payment for this month was applied to the last months payment that i supposedly did not make but was assured it was all set. So i call capitol one again (12/5/07) asking what has happened. after talking to the first person i get transfered to another person. speaking to them with the whole situation , fees/requesting payment change day (Again)/ and about current months payment which was much higher than previous months payment.

First i was told they would remove the fees assessed for the second time, than after a bit i was told the fees were declined from being removed. I explained i have been calling since October with these problems and I told the person to note these things in the computer, not sure if they were just passing me off. Capitol one representative than Said they would issue you me a courtesy -50$ off my account for my problems.

(12/21/07) i call back and notice that they have not given my fees back  nor have they applied the current months payment , instead they apply it to November to which i was told, that also fees were also declined from being removed from my account. at this point i am starting to panic . at this point my mother also speaks to the person and she pays my bill . she gives her account info for her savings, and pays 75 dollars on my bill which brings me up to date with current. 

 

(12/26/07) I go out in the morning to get something using a gift card i received for Christmas, got some lunch, figured I’d go get a coffee but i got a feeling to check my savings account, I was aware of what the balance should of been since i have a piece of paper in my wallet and keep a fairly accurate mental balance in my head but i just wanted to be sure, I goto a local ATM , put in the pin, than proceed to get my account balance to which i lost my mind to, on the paper it said (236.53)- . Me immediately sensing trouble went to the branch and tell the person working that there’s a fairly big problem with my account an that there is money missing, looks it up and says " sir your quite over drawn". I hold my self steady and ask . how in the world could i be over drawn , show the piece of paper and pretty much rattle off the balance that i  knew was correct, thinking i ask  could you print up the last transactions from the account.

 Looking at the paper i immediately spot the problem

### Phone authorization/Capitol One 75.00 12/24/07

I point that out , explain that i never had authorized this and asked if there could be anything done about the fees that were building on the point of capitol ones fault, since they never were given permission to take from the account.

He has me fill out an affidavit to which say i never authorized this , and that it will be investigated , if Proven the fees will be reversed along with the 75 dollars they removed from my account. I head home thinking what to do.

 

I get home immediatly call Capitol One and ask what the hell they did to my account and they never had authorization to remove funds from my banking account, and the funds that should of been withdrawn was from my mothers account. I get immediatly transfered up the line. I repeat the whole sitaution asking why funds that were taken from my account were , the fact they never had authorization and also that i had my bank investigating this as well. I get put on hold while he "checks out what has happened" about 5 minutes later he comes back from the hold and his demenor has changed , almost every sentence starts with "sorry" or "we are sorry" . I tell him that due to the situation my savings account is completely trashed *at the time of the call -331.80*. My mother also is on the line asking what has happened and the fact im on socail security and more than half my income for the next month is already gone due to there fuckup. at this point he says sorry again and tells me to have  my bank send a copy of the funds taken from my account + fees taken because of this .

 

I have a real feeling they fucked up here but the matter is do i trust them to right a wrong when they have not come through 2 other times in a row?

Social Security …my take on it…

Bush Admin. Urges Social Security Fix

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration said in a new report
Monday that Social Security is facing a $13.6 trillion shortfall in
coming years and that delaying reforms is not fair to younger workers.

A report issued by the Treasury Department said that some
combination of benefit cuts and tax increases will need to be
considered to permanently fix the funding shortfall. But White House
officials stressed that President Bush remains opposed to raising taxes.

ahhh social security, How do i know thee. since the 2nd term of George W., He’s had his eye on this issue, but was not able to mess with the system *yet* for the people who stand to make money off it. And right off in starting with this article they are already messing with average joe. “the Shortfall in the coming years.” ? coming years? well fuck whens that? did someone contact the physic network on this one? Maybe next leap year on a full moon with bill clinton playing the sax to the great pumpkin. Magic 8-ball, *Reply hazy, ask again later* (which means yes to certain people.) anyways…

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