From ::moox::

Tired of SprintPCS dropping your calls????

Recently, due to a job change, I needed to switch cell-phone carriers. At the time, I was having a large number of calls dropped by SprintPCS, in addition to not having adequate coverage in the new areas I traveled for work. When I called SprintPCS to cancel, the customer service representative gave me one hell of a run around - she even threatened to not let me cancel my account - WTF? Finally, in a last-ditch effort to keep me from canceling, she told me how I could get credits for dropped calls and thus lower my bill. The procedure is easy - every time I had a call dropped, I simply needed to do the following :

* Call *2 on your SprintPCS phone (calls customer solutions)
* When greeted by “Claire” (their automated customer service system) and asked what you need help with, simply reply “Dropped Call Credit”
* Sprint will then credit your account 1 minute of airtime at the highest local rate, usually $0.50

The rep went on to tell me “this was permissible for up to 20 times per billing cycle.� Do the math and you will see that it will save you $10.00 per bill. Additionally, if you have a family share plan you can repeat this for each line, saving you an additional $10.00 per line during each billing cycle. The rep stated that even she “does this every month, regardless of whether or not she has had 20 dropped calls. It saves [her] $10.00 per month!�

I wish I had known about this sooner given the large number of dropped calls I have had with SprintPCS from day one…

Just thought that was interesting enough to post, I don’t have Sprint PCS to try it, but it seems legit. Might as well take advantage of a company so screwed up!

CNN.com - Virtual property yields $100,000 - Nov 10, 2005

Well not exactly burn, but the next best thing! Look, I have made some nice cash selling accounts to massively multiplayer games, even items, but $100,000 to buy a virtual property? This leaves me with no choice.

I am going to unveil the “SUPER FABULOUS GAME WHERE EVERYONE GETS RICH”. See, me as the developer will create this virtual world. Early adopters of this world, if they can tear themselves from World of Warcraft, will pay me a little money for my product, virtual land. This should be considered an investment. Then they can charge later adopters money, and they can charge others, and so on and so on … in a big huge PYRAMID.

Sound like a good idea? Yeah, too bad its illegal.

ETA until government regulation of online games which have connections to real monetary deals .. ?? years and counting.

CNN.com - Parents: Online newsgroup helped daughter commit suicide - Nov 10, 2005

19 year old decides she wants to commit suicide. She, like any smart person of her generation, decides to research it and invariably finds the topic she wishes to know more about on the internet. The group, called ASH for alt.suicide.holiday, is made up of people who support and research methods for suicide. She posts 100 messages in 9 weeks. In a somewhat group collaboration (that is, after all, what the internet is all about) she outlines her entire plan for suicide. She carries it out, as planned. Parents are outraged!

Now, there are two types of people that want to commit suicide. The first type is your emo that doesn’t want to die and is just depressed and wants to cry out for help, attention, or because suicide is “cool” somehow. They [b]attempt[/b] suicide, or talk and think about it, but rarely carry it out. They don’t even bother to find out the best way.

The second type genuinely wants to commit suicide. They research it, find the tools to do it, and then actually do it. These people, in their minds, have genuine reasons they want to die. Whether they are appropriate to us as a society is another question (and whether that even matters is yet another). This girl is in the second category.

Look, the group did not brainwash your daughter into committing suicide. She obviously wanted to commit suicide before she came there. They helped her achieve her goal. If anyone is to blame it is either the person who commits suicide (for the hurt they cause their loved ones) or people who wanted her to live and said nothing. The group on the internet consists of people in neither of these categories.

Religious consequences aside, I have a hard time figuring suicide as the fault of anyone except the person committing suicide. She was 19 years old after all, old enough to make her own decisions, under the law.

This is the kind of BS reporting that makes the old men in congress want to create laws making sure this doesn’t happen again. No thanks. I would gladly pay a few 19 year old girls who want to commit suicide as a price for my unencumbered freedom of speech on the internet.