Forgot your password?

Comment: Re:I don't see the problem (Score 1) 545

by egburr (#45313723) Attached to: A Plan To Fix Daylight Savings Time By Creating Two National Time Zones

Actually, many A/Cs now do run according to the clock. For the past 10 years, my thermostat has been programmable on a weekly schedule, and thanks to our government changing the weekends of the DST changes, I have had to manually reset its clock 4 times a year: correct it for not shifting on the right weekend in the spring, correct it again when it shifts automatically on the wrong weekend, correct it for shifting automatically on the wrong weekend in the fall, and correct it again when the right weekend arrives.

I recently upgraded to a wi-fi capable one (so much easier to program the schedule through a web interface), and it will change correctly on its own (I assume, since this weekend will be the first DST change since I've had it).

I would still prefer to get rid of the DST shift altogether.

Comment: Re:Officer dickhead is a dickhead. (Score 1) 1440

by egburr (#44936703) Attached to: Georgia Cop Issues 800 Tickets To Drivers Texting At Red Lights

The one time I got bumped from behind, a very light bump (no visible damage to my car), my glasses flew off my head, and I was probably rolling a good 5 seconds before I even realized I was moving and stuck my foot back on the brake; I hadn't even realized it had come off. The three cars behind me were crunched up pretty bad, but the police offer didn't even believe I'd been hit. So, yeah, I can easily believe your foot can come off the brake when you get bumped.

Comment: e or paper, each has its place (Score 1) 323

by egburr (#44530759) Attached to: Have eBooks Peaked?

I don't buy many ebooks, mainly because I can often get the same book on paper for the same price (or less!) than the ebook. With the drawbacks of the ebook (difficult or impossible to share, may be disappeared at any time, cannot resell, etc.), I am not willing to pay the same for the ebook as I am for the paper book.

I do own a kindle and have read a few books on it. But overall, there's just something about the paper book that is a better reading experience.

What I do like about ebooks is that I can keep one loaded on my phone, so I always have a book available on the spur of the moment when I have an unexpected 10+ minutes of idle time.

+ - How good a job did I do? Just "satisfied" isn't good enough.

Submitted by egburr
egburr writes "I've been working in a customer service / tech support role for many years. Initially, we had a survey rating system that made sense. Great ratings were wonderful, good ratings were okay, and even neutral ratings didn't hurt much, while bad ratings were definitely something to worry about. Over time, that changed to a system with five ratings: very satisfied, satisfied, neutral, dissatisfied, and very dissatisfied. The problem is that ONLY a very satisfied rating is good, while everything else is very bad. I never thought much about it other than that it seems to be a very poor system.

Recently, however, I've been noticing many places seem to have adopted that same system, and the customer service people are a lot more blatant about asking for a very satisfied rating with some even telling me how the system works and that if I couldn't give a very satisfied rating they would prefer that I not respond to the survey at all. I used to give accurate assessments when I completed these surveys, but anymore I feel that I have to say "very satisfied" in order to give the person a good rating if I thought they earned better than a "dissatisfied".

So, I've been wondering, who came up with such a stupid system? What does it really tell you about how good a job was done? What can we do to get a more sane rating system implemented? Does anyone out there have a better system in use where you work? Heck, I would even prefer a system with just two ratings (satisfied and dissatisfied) over what we have now."

Comment: Re:Ever hear of a "map"? (Score 3, Insightful) 516

by egburr (#39466045) Attached to: NHTSA Suggestion Would Cripple In-Car GPS Displays



I love my GPS just for that.


Comment: give me more evaluation tmie (Score 1) 523

by egburr (#38519990) Attached to: Why We Agonize Over Buying $1 Apps

I don't pay $4 for a coffee or a latte; it's not that hard to make my own. I don't like paying $2 for a soft drink at a restaurant when I can buy a full 2-liter bottle for $1.25; often times I choose to stick to water instead, which is probably better anyway.

I don't like paying $1 for an app, because of the insanely short return period. Other than the very basic features, which I should already know about before I buy it, it's hard to figure out I dislike the app until well after the return period is up. If I could have a few days to evaluate it and return it for a full refund if I don't like it, I'd be a lot more willing to spend that $1 up front.

Comment: Re:It's a prop! (Score 1) 227

by egburr (#38503058) Attached to: Warner Bros Sued For Pirating Louis Vuitton Trademark

but that's the whole point. Do you really think a bottle of Jack Daniels in a movie really contains Jack Daniaels or even real whiskey? Do you think some guy in a white house set that some other character calls "Mr. President" is really the president or even an actual politician? What makes the "Louis Vuiton" bag so special that the prop has to be an actual LV bag?

Comment: It's a prop! (Score 1) 227

by egburr (#38497800) Attached to: Warner Bros Sued For Pirating Louis Vuitton Trademark

It's just a prop. Do props have to be the real thing? Should we sue because the nuclear sub in a movie isn't a real nuclear sub? How about an intergalactic space ship? Maybe we should go back to obvious props like laundry detergent being labeled "SOAP" and soda pop being labeled "COLA" and so on.

Or maybe expand the standard disclaimer "any resemblence to real people or events is uninentional" to add "or objects".

Comment: Re:"Lending" something with no cost to reproduce (Score 1) 150

by egburr (#37935886) Attached to: Amazon Launching eBook Lending Program, Publishers Unenthusiastic

"The cost of reproducing and distributing an ebook is a good approximation of zero so the notion of lending makes a lot less sense."

That's what I would have thought, too, except that the prices of ebooks are typically higher than the physical book in the bookstore down the street. Apparently, that server costs a lot more to maintain than all that paper costs to ship.

Comment: Re:first sale doctrine is dead? (Score 1) 150

by egburr (#37935824) Attached to: Amazon Launching eBook Lending Program, Publishers Unenthusiastic

Yeah. The one 2 blocks from my house is long gone. "Going to the bookstore" has for years been "going to Borders". I know it's gone. I just have to re-train my internal labeling system inside my head. The Barnes & Noble down the street is not nearly as convenient, and I don't go nearly as often. It's just as easy to visit the used book store a few miles away as it is to visit B&N.

Comment: Re:Stupid (Score 1) 150

by egburr (#37934556) Attached to: Amazon Launching eBook Lending Program, Publishers Unenthusiastic

I don't think it's so dumb. Why should I buy a book that's permanently attached to me if I only expect to read it one time? Maybe if I like it enough and want to re-read it, I'll go buy it. A good book will be permanently mine, while a lesser book will be returned.

It's easy enough to pirate ebooks already. Amazon makes it easy to buy books, and soon borrow them, so there is little incentive to pirate them. I agree that a nice organized ebook store can be better than piracy. However, many ebooks currently are priced higher than the same physical book; this does not do much to encourage the purchase of the ebook.

A lending library for ebooks will at least let you decide if the book is worth purchasing before you are committed to a non-refundable purchase.

Comment: first sale doctrine is dead? (Score 1) 150

by egburr (#37934446) Attached to: Amazon Launching eBook Lending Program, Publishers Unenthusiastic

I'm still waiting for the used ebook market to claw it's way to life. Unfortunately, it seems as if the first sale doctrine has been derailed by DRM to become the only sale doctrine.

I love my kindle, but I am reluctant to buy new books unless I am absolutely sure I will like them. At Borders (I guess Barnes & Noble now) I flip through the book, which I can to a limited extent with Amazon. However, with ebooks, I can not take a stack of finished books to the used book store and sell them for a fraction of the cost, and then buy more used books at half the original price. What really bugs me, though, is that the ebooks are often priced higher than the ones in Borders! As much as I like my knidle, I'm still more inclined to browse the used book store than to buy new ebooks.

One good thing from this is that I've been re-reading a bunch of the classics lately, since they're all free.
