Conference bridge idiocy

Thu Dec 13 19:06:12 PST 2001

> >Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 14:21:31 -0800
> >From: Jim Hickstein <jxh at jxh.com>
> 
> >Does this happen to you, too?  Does anybody have a cure for it?  (Short of 
> >cutting off their hands, I mean.)  How about a shot at naming the root 
> >cause?
> 
> Telephones (as the root cause).  They are evil.  If you stop using them,
> you won't have this problem.
> 
> :-} (sort of),
> david (does that make me a mysotelephonist?)

That's the root cause of having conference calls, potentially idiocy but
otherwise you have to replace it with IRC or something if your crew is
scattered across twenty timezones.

The root cause of the both-codes-at-the-same-time idiocy is that phone
salespeople can barely keep things straight as it is, so the only way they
have any idea that this is *your* host code is to keep it in the same file
with the join code.  

The continuation of it is because the person responsible to be "host" usually
is non-technical and *always* is busier than a beehive.  So even if they know 
better, at the first sign of stress they forget.

JimH, chopping hands off might help, but a lot of CEOs might have to show 
up at Wall Street gatherings handless.  And it would bring a whole new 
purpose to hands-free telephones.  Eep!

Now if only you could wire the bridge so it would only accept the host code
from pre-approved phones, much the way we can have DHCP assign IPs by MAC
address...

  . | .   Heather Stern                  |         star at starshine.org
--->*<--- Starshine Technical Services - * - consulting at starshine.org
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