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I shouldn’t listen to any more news today…

2008-01-18

…because already since the morning, they always talk about the exciting countdown for publishing the name for Nürnberg’s polar bear baby – and even as first, i.e. alledgedly most important news message. And a few days ago, it was always “it opened its eyes today for the first time, first the left eye, then the right.” Aaargh!

Not that I’d be averse to polar bears or animal babies (or both), or against people who outright love them, but must there be always all that fuss about them??

» GEO: “Völlig missratenes Mensch-Tier-Verhältnis” (“Man-beast-relationship gone completely wrong”)

Fewer unsolicited calls

2008-01-06

About half a year ago, I published some statistics about 102 unsolicited phone calls – now it’s time for an update with the data from the rest of the year. The number of such calls to me clearly decreased: to about one third, from 102 in weeks 4-29 to 31 in weeks 30-52 (labeled “~H1” and “~H2” in the following diagrams, because they don’t exactly correspond to the half years).

Maybe thanks to the nice message (implemented with my FRITZ!Box 7170 and my ISDN phone with answering machine) for callers who do not transmit their caller ID which says (translated)

“Good day. You are calling without transmitting your number. Since this is typical for unwanted commercial calls, you are directly – without audible ringing – directed to this answering machine. Please enable your caller ID transmission, or leave a message so you can be called back. Thank you.”

one or more cold call centers kicked me out of their database. :mrgreen:

Of course the “no number => unwanted” conclusion isn’t always 100% sure, but who calls me legitimately can leave a message or try again with caller ID – these (few) cases have been taken into account here.

Here’s a breakdown by weekday, time of day, and calendar week:

Continue Reading »

Your Opinion is Important: Are energy costs too high?

2007-12-31

Translation will follow “next year” ;)

Energieumfrage-Kaffeefahrt Eigentlich hätte der “Gute Rutsch” mein letzter Beitrag vor dem Neujahrs-Countdown sein sollen, aber der Verbraucherschützer in mir musste nochmal zu Wort kommen, denn vorhin hab ich diese Gaunerei in Form einer vermeintlichen “Energie-Umfrage” im Briefkasten gefunden:

“Strom wird teuer, senken Sie mit uns Ihre Energiekosten!

Ihre Meinung ist wichtig! Sind die Energiepreise zu hoch?
Ja / Nein”

Und die Adresse ist diesmal:

Energie-Umfrage
Infozentrale
Postfach 1329
49380 Lohne

Ich fress ’nen Besen samt Raumpflegefachkraft, wenn das nicht nicht dieselbe Masche mit Adressensammeln und Kaffeefahrten ist wie im Juli (und anderswo zu anderen Zeiten) mit der „EU-Staaten Mineralöl-Umfrage“, wo auch ein paar Erfahrungsberichte in den Kommentaren zu finden sind.

Andere Varianten von “Energieumfragen” wurden übrigens auch hier im Antispam-Forum genannt.

:arrow: Also: Nicht mitmachen!
(Wenn ihr nicht verzweifelt auf Werbung und Kaffeefahrtteilnahmemöglichkeiten wartet…)

Scissors help copyright violation and must be forbidden

2007-12-08

As you know, there are laws in many countries forbidding the circumvention of copy protection/DRM functions – thus often standing in the way of sensible, basically allowed use of already paid products by honest customers, putting them down as criminals – and letting them preferrably pay multiple times –; the actual dedicated pirates, though, are hardly held back.

:motz:

Wellington Grey now has a nice little presentation about the consequences of applying this stupidity to physical objects instead of media data, with the example of a CD-ROM sleave’s silly seal, the breaking of which would result in accepting the contract that’s contained on the CD inside…

:dunce:

(via Wil Wheaton)