[asterisk-users] $20 Bounty

[Dean Collins]

Ok guys I have to jump in here.

Seems some of you took affront to my $20 paypal bounty.

Not sure how long some of you have been around here but the history
behind the Weather app on the Trixbox (or Asterisk @ home as it used to
be known back then) was that my wife used to always ask me what the
weather was like outside because our NY apartment had double glazed
floor to ceiling windows you couldn't always judge what the temperature
was like.

About the same time I was learning that Asterisk had text to speech
functionality.

Wanting to encourage the community to use this text to speech
functionality more I posted a bounty to see if someone could get the
weather report read to me on my asterisk server.

(sadly I think there is still a lack of text to speech apps for
Asterisk).

I don't remember the original amount of the bounty (or who it was paid
to) but I think it was about $40 to $50 or something like that.

It was a super simple app 'dial *68" a ftp session would download the
flat text file from the national weather service for my preprogrammed
zip code and it would initiate a text to speech event. It was pure
simplicity and perfect.

Once it was posted to the community I don't know how many people have
installed it but I've seen hundreds of variations and install guides
since then.

Every person that has ever come to my office who I've said hey check out
this technology called Asterisk one of the functions I demonstrate along
with voicemail to email and FOP conference rooms is "the weather call"

How many of those people have gone out and installed asterisk I don't
know but the point being it was a cool way to demonstrate advance apps
rather than just plain old dial tone.

Sorry some of you took affront to my $20 bounty and the current cost of
your overpriced coffees.

But my concept was maybe this would be a good way we could demonstrate
Asterisk integration to the Tropo community.

Guess not.
 

 

Regards,

Dean Collins
Cognation Inc
dean at cognation.net
+1-212-203-4357   New York
+61-2-9016-5642   (Sydney in-dial).
+44-20-3129-6001 (London in-dial).


-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of David
Backeberg
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 9:45 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] $20 Bounty

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Bill Michaelson <bill at cosi.com> wrote:
> It's conceivable that the combined effort of these two responders
required
> less than ten minutes of time, yielding a theoretical pay rate of
$120/hour.
>
> I wonder how much effort went into the other responses.

I'm reminded of the allegory about...

EVER HEAR THE STORY of the giant ship engine that failed? The ship's
owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure
out how to fix the engine. Then they brought in an old man who had
been fixing ships since he was a youngster. He carried a large bag of
tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He
inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship's
owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do.
After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled
out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine
lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was
fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten
thousand dollars.

"What?!" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did anything!" So they wrote
the old man a note saying, "Please send us an itemized bill."

The man sent a bill that read,

    Tapping with a hammer...................................$2
    Knowing where to tap................................$9998

_______________________________________________
-- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --

asterisk-users mailing list
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users