Text 2166, 130 rader
Skriven 2004-11-26 13:42:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
   Kommentar till text 2140 av mark lewis (1:3634/12)
Ärende: Science 1/2
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 >  MvdV> The way it is presented is misleading. Never mind what your
 >  MvdV> dictionary says. It is misleading because everyone else that
 >  MvdV> presents information this way does indeed provide the actual
 >  MvdV> up to date information.

 > not everyone else... one example is my filebases on my
 > system... the html pages are updated at least once a day
 > during nightly maint... more than once a day if i manually
 > run the process...

Your point?

 >  MvdV> If I surf to the online telephone book, I get real time
 >  MvdV> access to the telco's data base.

 > and how often is that updated?? /that's/ the real question...

Often enough for the information to be accurate it seems. Let me put it this
way: I have never gotten a telephone number that was out of date. Nor have a
heard from anyone having that happen to him.

 >  MvdV> I get the actual numbers, not those from last month.

 > what about from yesterday?

No.

 >  MvdV> If I go to the site of my bank to look at my account, I get
 >  MvdV> what is in my account NOW, not what was in it three weeks
 >  MvdV> ago.

 > the same but different... that's critical data that must be
 > able to be accessed rapidly... however, i wonder if you
 > take a look at your account right now, then run down to the
 > store and spend 10 euros out of your account on something,
 > and then come back and look at your account again, is it
 > accurate??

As far as I know: yes.

 > we're talking just a few minutes, here... i won't even go into
 > the fact that the banking industry exchanges info only once a
 > day when they do the processing of the credits and debits between

Not here. When I pay with my card in a shop, the machine makes on-line contact
with the bank's computer and the amount is deducted immidiately. When the words
"you hve payed" appear on the display, it has been deducted from my account.

The banks advertise with it. There is this aTV commercial about a guy who goes
to an ATM to withdraw. He is refused because his account is overdrawm. He then
goes to the end of the que again and while he is in the que, takes out his cell
phone, contacts the bank via WAP, transfers money from his savings account into
his regular account and when he gets to the ATM again, the machine pays out.
All in a matter of a minute.

Point is that the information is up to date enough to serve the needs of the
customer. Something that can not be said about the on-line echolist.

 >  MvdV> If I surf to the site of a postal order company I get
 >  MvdV> today's prices, not those at the beginning of the month.

 > again, a bit different than what we're discussing... like
 > the banking info, that's critical data... the elist data is
 > not so important that lives may be lost...

It is critcal to those who use it to see if a tag has expired...

 >  MvdV> It is what people expect when data is presented that
 >  MvdV> way. And therefore not living up to that expectation without
 >  MvdV> explicitly saying so is misleading.
 >
 > actually, you might be surprised how much stuff is handled
 > in a non-realtime way and made to appear that it is in
 > realtime... even in the retail industry...

That could be and it does not matter if the user gets presented with accurate
information anyway. Having a price list updated only at midnight is all right
as long as the store does not change the price in the middle of the day.

 >  MvdV> I am sure that if a postal order company here would charge the
 >  MvdV> customer more than the listed price on their site - claiming
 >  MvdV> that the customer should have known that the information was
 >  MvdV> only updated once a month and that he should have used some
 >  MvdV> other means to get the actual up to date price - would be in
 >  MvdV> deep shit with the overseer.

 > no doubt... that's probably why they only update the online
 > data occasionally... if they didn't, they'd have folk
 > playing "stock market" on them and speculating on the
 > lowest price to mail something somewhere...

Could be. Point is that they see to it that the customer is presented with the
correct price.

 >  MvdV> And now of course you are going to tell me that the echolist
 >  MvdV> is produced in the US and not in The Netherlands... <sigh>

 > why "of course"??

Because the "here is not there" is one of your standard responses. Now of
course that I predicted you would use that, you defy me by not doing so. And
that too was predictable... ;-)

 > i'm more likely to point out that you should think about your
 > examples, statements, and the subtlities of them and the
 > associated examples you give...

There is nothing wrong with my examples. Contrary to the elist they present the
customer with information that is up to date enough to be usable.

 > the elist data is not so "critical" that it requires
 > realtime access...

It is critical for those that are put in a bad light over it.

What happened is pretty obvious in hindsight. The tag of FMAIL_HELP had expired
and disappeared from the echolist. Scott and I both noticed this and
independent of each other thought we'd secure it to avoid some asshole like Roy
Witt grabbing it.

Scott beat me to it. No problem.

What I do have a problem with it that I get labelled as a hijacker over it
because the information in the on-line e-list led me to believe the tag was
still free.

Cheers, Michiel

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