You know what would be awesome? If somebody were to set up a phone bank to which we could forward telemarketing calls to tie up the agents' time without having to actually stay on the phone feigning interest. It wouldn't have to be too fancy - just a basic IVR that did something like this:

Joe Blow: Hello?
Telemarketer: Hello! My name is Jim and I'm...
Joe Blow: Oh, hi Jim. Can you hold on a sec? I want to forward you to my other phone because I don't like to keep this line tied up. It'll just take a sec.
Telemarketer: Uh, sure, no problem.
[forward to 555-whatever]
[ring ring]
IVR: Thanks for waiting - I really need to keep that other line open. So what can I do for you?
Telemarketer: Oh, uh, as I was saying, my name is Jim and I'm calling on behalf of...
IVR: Oh, oops - can you hold on a second? Somebody's at the door. Be right back, thanks!
Telemarketer: Oh, um... ok
...[random delay between 1 and 5 minutes]...
IVR: Sorry, I'm back. My neighbor Shirley is looking for her dogs again. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Telemarketer: Oh, no problem sir. So, as I was saying, I'm calling on behalf of The Human Fund. We see that you donated...
IVR: Oh, crap. I have to get the roast out of the oven. Can you hold on a sec again? Sorry - thanks!
Telemarketer: Uhhh, ok I guess...
...[random delay]...

...and so on. Surely such a service wouldn't be too terribly expensive or difficult to run these days, would it?

For the love of God, why do people insist on build entire websites in Flash? Sure, it's pretty and shiny, but it also breaks navigation, as anybody who's ever made the mistake of hitting the back button from 4 levels deep into a Flash-only site knows all too well. And good luck bookmarking an internal page for future reference, or God forbid, trying to explain to somebody else how to get to said internal page, especially if the idiot designer decided to make his links shaped like bunnies and rainbows because standard buttons with text labels are just too utilitarian.

This is why people learned to hate Flash-heavy sites. Flash is fine if used appropriately, but site navigation belongs in standard HTML that provides a predictable user experience.

I don't think it would work very well with those flopping around inside the case.

People also want to see movies starring A-list celebrities, and made by/with expensive directors, producers, scripts and scores.

Take your $18 million movie and add in two stars, correspondingly high-end producer and director, a script based on a popular franchise and a world-class score, perhaps with an original song by a top pop star, and you're well over $100 million, even if you cut everything else to the bone. Add in the CGI fest and you're easily over $200M.

And what's up with their $100 "promotioal" price, and the claim that "an empty 500 GB Seagate hard drive usually sells for $140"? It took me all of 20 seconds to find a 500 GB Seagate on Newegg for $54.99 with free shipping.

Or create an army of your clones and send them to rob a few banks, then kill each other off, thus framing you for multiple counts of bank robbery, murder and violation of human cloning proscription.

Boy, are you in trouble, buddy.

Presumably this is because the sales staff have their performance measured based largely on their ratio of add-on sales to total unit sales. Typically these things apply not only to the floor sales staff, but also bubble up to their supervisors, the shift managers, the store manager and the district manager, which tends to make such contrivances endemic to the organization. This way everybody in the chain gets credit for whatever sales incentives are in place while shifting the discount to a less-noticed line item in the management reports.

There was something posted a couple months ago about very similar schemes being practiced at either Staples or Office Depot.

Actually, as with most class action settlements, everybody is opted in by default, and you must explicitly opt out in order to retain your rights to sue on your own. Didn't hear about the settlement in time to file a claim or opt out? Gee, that's a shame.

From the table at the bottom of the official settlement page:

Exclude Yourself: Get out of the Class You may ask to get out of the Class and keep your right to sue on your own about the claims in the lawsuit.

Do Nothing: You remain in the Settlement. You get no money or compensation and give up your right to sue about the claims in the lawsuit.

Here's a bit by Schneier on how to recognize plaintext. Basically, plaintext looks like plaintext, either because it's intelligible lanugage, or because it matches the characteristics of a standard document format (headers, layout, etc.)

How one would go about programming a computer to recognize plaintext, I have no idea, but presumably somebody smarter than me has worked it out.

Never happen. All it takes is one accident after the cuts, and all fingers point back to the Congressmen who championed the cost cutting bill. No politician worth his salt will put himself in the position to be the target of a statement like this:

Actually, it probably would be more like coupons for $50 off a retail purchase of Windows 7. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs' lawyers, having successfully consolidated the various claims into a class action, would receive several million in cash under the terms of the settlement.

Loost. Duh.

It's actually usually an internal control imposed by the auditors as an anti-fraud measure. The idea is that individuals with certain levels of access and responsibility sometimes are in a position to defraud their employer and cover it up by cooking the books. It can be extremely difficult to uncover such a scheme if the employee is always at their desk. By forcing everybody to take vacation, the company makes it much more likely that any such schemes will be uncovered while another person is doing the thief's job.

I hadn't heard of being forced to take your leave at specific times on short notice, but that would make the control more effective by limiting the ability to hide things from the guy who covers the job while the thief is away. That being the case, it's not surprising that the companies with such policies include banks.