2007-02-15
2007-02-14
Dealing with telemarketers
Tired of credit card/personal loan/real estate solicitations?
The primary purpose of any response to a telemarketer should not be anger or criticism. It should be to waste their time without wasting yours!
The most effective way of doing this is to simply express interest, ask them to please hold for a minute or two, press the mute button on the phone, and then ignore the phone for some time. And if you can come back once in a minute or so and say "just 1 minute more please...", all the better!
If enough people do this, we can make a big impact on their moronic employers. Please pass the word.
Alternatively, you can trade time for entertainment and actually talk to them. Ask them about themselves. Their job. What do they get paid? Does their family like it?
Be genuinely curious and interested. And friendly. Don't get angry or insulting. They'll just hang up and move on to the next victim. You have to keep them busy.
Sometimes you get a real idiot. My favourite is when I confused the heck out of one poor girl by asking her to punch in her ATM pin code in order to be able to speak to me about my (non-existent) credit card! I told her until she does that I cannot believe that she is who she claims to be. [She punched in something but then she hung up.]
But all these methods require you to be engaged actively, instead of just letting your telephone be busy for a few minutes. For calls while at work, nothing beats telling them to please hold on...
:-)
2007-02-08
why is...
the Times of India, with a history of not getting along with the Tata group, sucking up big-time to Ratan Tata?
2007-01-23
How to piss off a teenage son...
well actually, "he started it" :-)
By constantly fighting with a girl who is half his age, his sister!
I finally got tired of it. And decided if he wants to act like a little girl, I will treat him like one.
No more LOTR. No more Star Wars. No more Harry Potter. No more cricket. Manchester United? -- dream on!
So I rigged up squid (the proxy server that all his web accesses are forced to use) so that any accesses to his favourite sites (espnstar, cricinfo, jkrowling, etc) are immediately redirected to barbie, barney, sesame street, etc.
You should have seen his face, says my wife!
2007-01-10
The youngest...
Two of the youngest adults in my extended family have suddenly become the oldest, today.
2007-01-09
(malware) Internet Explorer Unsafe for 284 Days in 2006 - Security Fix
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/01/internet_explorer_unsafe_for_2.html
"For a total 284 days in 2006 (or more than nine months out of the year), exploit code for known, unpatched critical flaws in pre-IE7 versions of the browser was publicly available on the Internet. Likewise, there were at least 98 days last year in which no software fixes from Microsoft were available to fix IE flaws that criminals were actively using to steal personal and financial data from users
...
In contrast, Internet Explorer's closest competitor in terms of market share — Mozilla's Firefox browser — experienced a single period lasting just nine days last year in which exploit code for a serious security hole was posted online before Mozilla shipped a patch to remedy the problem
:-)
2007-01-01
A vegetarian I know sent me the following link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20061215/hl_hsn/kidswithhighiqsgrowuptobevegetarians
The first thing that came to my mind when I read the article was "aahaa! This proves that Bush is really stupid" :-)
And then it hit me: I had just linked someone's personal preference into a semi-objective indictment of that person simply because I don't agree with that preference.
That's bad. Very bad. I need to be more careful when justifying my opinions.
PS: the article also said "There was no difference in IQ score between strict vegetarians and those who said they were vegetarian but who said they ate fish or chicken" so if the vegetarian who sent it to me was trying to score a point against me it didn't work! Since I hardly, if ever, eat red meat, and this kind of empirical study does not tip on a binary (yes/no) scale, I can certainly claim to fit this category.
2006-12-25
(criminal) The irony of Sony DRM
Just over a year ago, the Sony rootkit DRM scandal broke, depicting how an arrogant Sony BMG had chosen to subvert the security of millions of PCs in order to protect their intellectual property through DRM. If an individual had done it, this would be considered a serious crime, but Sony got away with what amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist.
Like many like-minded people, I started a personal boycott of all Sony products from then on. I had never bought Sony stuff before anyway -- too little bang for the buck, if you ask me -- so this was only a symbolic gesture.
Recently, I wanted to buy a small, mains-operated, single-piece (no separate speakers) table-top stereo with a digital FM tuner. All other features were negotiable/optional.
After weeks of searching, literally the only brand that offered anything like this turned out to be a Sony. Since the boycott was over a year old, I gritted my teeth and bought it....
...and found the following text in the user manual:
Music discs encoded with copyright protection technologies
This product is designed to playback discs that conform to the Compact Disc (CD) standard. Recently, various music discs encoded with copyright protection technologies are marketed by some record companies. Please be aware that among those discs, there are some that do not confirm to the CD standard and may not be playable by this product.
Delicious!
2006-12-14
It is so cool...
...to have a son who's taller and handsomer than me :-) And I see his lanky figure, slightly stooped like many tall people are, and flashback to how he was when he was born, and at 2, and at 4, and all sorts of other memories...
Man, what a rush!
Note to myself: go see a psychiatrist. Second non-technical blog-post in as many weeks, Something seriously wrong...
2006-12-12
DNA - After Hrs - Tom Cruise tops least favourite poll - Daily News & Analysis
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1068650
Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise is trying his best to change his image but most Americans still consider him too strange and have voted him the least favourite star in a recent poll.Only 12 percent of respondents said they would make a big effort to watch any of his movies and 34 percent said they would not see one at all [emphasis mine - Sita]. They were creeped out by his passion for Scientology, reports pagesix.com.
Good to know there are people like me in the US too :-)
Now why can't Americans show the same good sense and intelligence when selecting presidents?
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