What company to bash..?

h_howee · 01-30-2008, 06:18 PM

For french class, we've been given an assignment where we have to write an argumentative text in the form of a letter to some company as a complaint. The problem is there aren't any companies that I have any complaints against. I originally searched for some that purposely inhibits Linux or some of its features but found none.
Any1 know of a company I can bash for the purpose of this assignment?

dwks · 01-30-2008, 06:30 PM

Since lots of people are going to suggest it, I thought I'd suggest it first: Microsoft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft#Criticism

**CornedBee** · 01-30-2008, 06:32 PM

Quote:

I originally searched for some that purposely inhibits Linux or some of its features but found none.

No? Until very recently, ATI's Linux drivers were thought beyond all repair. (They were, actually. ATI completely rewrote them.) There is still a very nasty bug in video playback - let's just say that since my Radeon 9800 got fried, I can't play videos properly anymore, since the X1600 suffers from massive problems in the video overlay department.

Other hardware vendors, too, release sub-standard drivers for Linux. Can't be too hard to find one.

Elysia · 01-30-2008, 06:37 PM

Microsoft. What more do we need to say?
Can't make consoles. OS market monopoly. Release awfully buggy software. Spies of on us without our consent (Vista, it's in the TOS so you must agree to it if you wish to use the OS). Illegal business practices, yada, yada, yada. And so on.

Neo1 · 01-31-2008, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysia

Can't make consoles.

I disagree, i think the Xbox is an awesome piece of kit!

But back on topic, bash Apple for pushing out the turd that is Macbook Air, what a joke...

Elysia · 01-31-2008, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo1

I disagree, i think the Xbox is an awesome piece of kit!

I mean hardware reliability. They took resources away from reability and testing to rush the console to market.

**Salem** · 01-31-2008, 07:16 AM

The pricing structures of some telco's leave a lot to be desired.

mike_g · 01-31-2008, 10:09 AM

How about Sony? Their software either litters your hardisk with hidden stuff it wont uninstall, or it litters your hardisk with hidden stuff it wont uninstall and installs a rootkit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_So...ection_scandal

ethic · 01-31-2008, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo1

I disagree, i think the Xbox is an awesome piece of kit!

...

It's a horribly engineered machine.

Does it have to be a complaint against general business practices,
or can you write a letter to the Taco Bell corporation for giving you
food poisoning?

Neo1 · 02-01-2008, 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ethic

It's a horribly engineered machine.

Do you even own an Xbox? My own Xbox is quite alot more stabile than most of my friends' PS2s, never ever had any problems with it...

Quote:

I mean hardware reliability. They took resources away from reability and testing to rush the console to market.

So do i... And no, the xbox wasn't rushed to the market? It came out 1½ year after its competitors? What do you mean?

zacs7 · 02-01-2008, 02:45 AM

> My own Xbox is quite alot more stabile than most of my friends' PS2s
Depends which version you have, the 'heat problem fixed' one -- or the original. I'd agree that the xbox is horrid, but it does look nice -- i'll give it that.

> So do i... And no, the xbox wasn't rushed to the market? It came out 1½ year after its competitors? What do you mean?
Still 1.5 years slower than Microsoft would have liked.

I'd second Sony, used to be awesome Japanese quality, now it's cheap crap made in China. Not to mention their other conundrums.

Elysia · 02-01-2008, 04:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo1

Do you even own an Xbox? My own Xbox is quite alot more stabile than most of my friends' PS2s, never ever had any problems with it...

So do i... And no, the xbox wasn't rushed to the market? It came out 1½ year after its competitors? What do you mean?

Suppose it depends on which console you mean. I was originally aiming at the 360.
The the Xbox itself was a big fat console that was poorly engineered too. It was just basically a computer in a box.
I'll also agree on Sony. Crap quality with high prices. Killer of lik-sang, installer of rootkits.

Mario F. · 02-01-2008, 04:58 AM

> The problem is there aren't any companies that I have any complaints against.

Can't you pretend?
Anyway, a good target for your assignment is your ISP. Lots of grounds for complaining there. Announced transfer speeds not being what they say, ADSL users phone charges not being exactly as announced, too much use of fine print in contrats, lack of some basic services like NNTP, et cetera

Elysia · 02-01-2008, 05:09 AM

Now that would depend on where you live. Lots of complaints against US broadband dealers like AT&T, but in other countries, the situation is a little better.

whiteflags · 02-01-2008, 06:07 AM

Google. They make money off of advertising on the internet and simply spammed that everywhere. Those suggested links when you search for something are also paid for so that Google will display them. There are people paying $50 for a click on a link! And it's just a tax on the consumer, because Google has to be paid somehow. So the company's will raise the price of their products to pay.

To make matters worse, there are web sites run by people whose only job is to figure out how to mess with the text on pages to get them indexed in Google higher. It becomes a contest and not about content sometimes. Such waste for so little in our economy cannot be tolerated.

They also sold out to China and their oppression of its citizens.

01-30-2008, 06:18 PM	#1
h_howee ex-SPEEDCUBER Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 265	What company to bash..? For french class, we've been given an assignment where we have to write an argumentative text in the form of a letter to some company as a complaint. The problem is there aren't any companies that I have any complaints against. I originally searched for some that purposely inhibits Linux or some of its features but found none. Any1 know of a company I can bash for the purpose of this assignment? __________________ Please let me know if there's any part of my code I can change for optimization OS: Windows XP and Ubuntu IDE: wxDev-C++ and CodeBlocks Compiler: GNU GCC
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01-30-2008, 06:30 PM	#2
dwks Frequently Quite Prolix Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 7,698	Since lots of people are going to suggest it, I thought I'd suggest it first: Microsoft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft#Criticism __________________ dwk Seek and ye shall find. quaere et invenies. "Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it." -- Alan Perlis "Testing can only prove the presence of bugs, not their absence." -- Edsger Dijkstra "The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing." -- John Powell Other boards: DaniWeb, TPS Unofficial Wiki FAQ: cpwiki.sf.net My website: http://dwks.theprogrammingsite.com/ Projects: codeform, xuni, atlantis, nort, etc.
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01-31-2008, 07:16 AM	#7
Salem and the hat of Jobseeking Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: The edge of the known universe Posts: 21,710	The pricing structures of some telco's leave a lot to be desired. __________________ If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
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01-31-2008, 10:09 AM	#8
mike_g Dr Dipshi++ Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: On me hyperplane Posts: 1,219	How about Sony? Their software either litters your hardisk with hidden stuff it wont uninstall, or it litters your hardisk with hidden stuff it wont uninstall and installs a rootkit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_So...ection_scandal
mike_g is offline

02-01-2008, 02:45 AM	#11
zacs7 Woof, woof! Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 3,297	> My own Xbox is quite alot more stabile than most of my friends' PS2s Depends which version you have, the 'heat problem fixed' one -- or the original. I'd agree that the xbox is horrid, but it does look nice -- i'll give it that. > So do i... And no, the xbox wasn't rushed to the market? It came out 1½ year after its competitors? What do you mean? Still 1.5 years slower than Microsoft would have liked. I'd second Sony, used to be awesome Japanese quality, now it's cheap crap made in China. Not to mention their other conundrums. __________________ "I.T. gets the chicky-babes" - M. Kelly bakefile \| vim
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02-01-2008, 04:58 AM	#13
Mario F. (?<!re)tired Join Date: May 2006 Location: Portugal Posts: 5,661	> The problem is there aren't any companies that I have any complaints against. Can't you pretend? Anyway, a good target for your assignment is your ISP. Lots of grounds for complaining there. Announced transfer speeds not being what they say, ADSL users phone charges not being exactly as announced, too much use of fine print in contrats, lack of some basic services like NNTP, et cetera __________________ Originally Posted by brewbuck: Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.
Mario F. is offline

02-01-2008, 06:07 AM	#15
whiteflags MENTAL DETECTOR Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: United States Posts: 3,295	Google. They make money off of advertising on the internet and simply spammed that everywhere. Those suggested links when you search for something are also paid for so that Google will display them. There are people paying $50 for a click on a link! And it's just a tax on the consumer, because Google has to be paid somehow. So the company's will raise the price of their products to pay. To make matters worse, there are web sites run by people whose only job is to figure out how to mess with the text on pages to get them indexed in Google higher. It becomes a contest and not about content sometimes. Such waste for so little in our economy cannot be tolerated. They also sold out to China and their oppression of its citizens.
whiteflags is offline

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