Yeah, and what happens if one of these named terrorists has a buddy who works for the BBC, or better yet, works there himself?
One would think that a terrorist cell coming across detailed intel on their daily movements and stuff would be like gold to them. They would then know exactly what the gov't knows about them, and what they don't know. At the same time, they know how the gov't tracks them and all kinds of other details that might help them evade surveillance efforts on their group.
Think of how many people at the BBC actually get to look at that stuff, make copies, sell it to other news outlets, etc? I'm sure it would go around the office a few times.
Good thing it was £1000 then. But I do agree that the data is the most important part.
As for the camera, he bought a Nikon Coolpix... hardly a "good camera system". They could have just given him the exact same one back, minus the memory card!
My Canadian ISP (MTS Allstream) gives unlimited plans. I download all kinds of stuff, and lots of it, and I've NEVER ONCE gotten an email or anything saying I've approached any kind of limit. I used to host my own website as well as FTP & SSH, no port blocking (other than 25), no complaints about that.
We used to have Shaw a number of years ago, and no issues with them either. I do, however, know some people who have received email saying "You've exceeded 100gb* transfer this month" (not sure on the exact number) but nothing comes of it unless you do it repeatedly, month after month after month... or at least that's what I've been told by a Shaw insider.
As an example, Platz der deutschen Einheit, Kassel (Square of German Unity) used to be called Adolf-Hitler-Platz. That's what a friend of mine who lives there told me.
I mean come on, if you lived on Hilterallee, Goebbelsstraße or Mengeleplatz, wouldn't you want it changed too?
Not only that, the East German city of Chemnitz was renamed to Karl-Marx-Stadt during communism, but reverted to the previous name after the wall fell. Same with Eisenhüttenstadt, which was renamed to Stalinstadt.
I'm sure there are way more examples, but that's all I could come up with in 2 minutes.
It's not the Records Manager's job to go through their email, but rather together with Legal and/or IT, implement an email and electronic records retention policy, and do periodic (preferably annual) audits to see to what degree people are complying, what areas can be improved on, etc. You will get the people who hate change, but most will take to the new system and those that simply won't are dealt with eventually by time.
To do this successfully, you absolutely need someone high up in Legal who has the ear of the Board to back you 100%, and give your bark some bite. When Legal speaks, everyone listens. You also need IT to be backing you 100%. Without them helping users as much as possible to ease into the new systems and ways of doing things, your users will be bitter about the changes and be less likely to comply.
Never mind the electronic storage, you'd be surprised at how many people PRINT their emails "JUST IN CASE!" It's unbelievable that one person does it, let alone more than one. People also photocopy things incessantly and keep 100 copies of random crap they were working on 10 years ago in their desk drawers "JUST IN CASE!" Just in case of what exactly? If there was ever a legal discovery process, those copies could be incredibly useful to the opposition, especially if the originals had already been destroyed according to your retention schedule. There are a fuck load of ticking legal time-bombs in desks just like yours in offices everywhere...
Users aren't meant to be making those decisions, the Records Management department should be... that is if you even have one! If you leave everything up to the users, you WILL have a cluster fuck of records.
I work in Records Management at a large company with many different divisions in diverse fields. RM is completely left up to us. We manage well over 10,000 boxes and there's only 3 of us. We alone determine when something is to be destroyed (but require authorization from dept heads to be shredded), how long it's kept, etc.
Disclaimer: We work mainly with paper records, but the exact same principles apply to electronic records.
You need a retention schedule. Look at your national, state/provincial and municipal laws to determine the minimum legally required length of time each TYPE of record is to be kept. Employee time cards are different from pension plans, sales invoices and legal files. It's not *always* 7 years either. Some are less, some are more, some are permanent. Also, you don't have to shred when the law says it's time if there's a valid business reason to keep that set of records. I mean, let's get this straight. You don't HAVE TO shred at all, but you're digging yourself a deep hole if you do... "You can get in just as much trouble by keeping records too long as you can by destroying them too quickly." - Dr. Mark Langemo
If this was all left up to individuals, they would just keep everything. I've seen what this is like, and it's pathetic, maddening and counter productive. Things must be properly named and catalogued down to the file level when put in storage, or you will NEVER find ANYTHING without an exhaustive search EVERY time. It might be alright when it's on your desk or in your local filing area and you know what's where, but when you archive it, you can't assume the guy looking for your file you need knows anything about it. We need explicit details or else we can't help you. At my company we require everyone to fill out a nice sheet detailing the contents of their box, the type of records, dates (most remember dates above all else), sender's name, dept, etc.
We are by no means a perfect operation here, but we're far better than 90% of other companies out there.
There is a series of excellent seminars done by Dr. Mark Langemo (sorry no links) to teach you how to deal with records. Also check out ARMA International if you're looking to get in touch with other Records Managers in your area. They have local chapters all over the place.
To summarize, if your company doesn't have a Records Manager, HIRE ONE NOW and give him/her the resources to get your records under control! Check out ARMA, they have jobs posted on their site. There are also many companies out there that will help you clean up your stuff and get you started on the right track.
That kind of sucks that an automated enforcement system can nab you out of state. Aren't there state-level data protection laws in the US? In Canada, I can run all the red light & mobile enforcement cameras out of province that I want, though I don't just it case, and the tickets get thrown out because they are not allowed to obtain any information on me from my insurer or my provincial gov't (in my case, same thing). If I am pulled over by an actual officer that's another story. You get the points and have to pay if you get a ticket anywhere in Canada or the US.
There was a case a while back of an Alberta man driving his truck here in Winnipeg and got flashed by a red light camera. He came back shortly thereafter with a rifle and shot the camera and was caught on tape doing so. The police were completely baffled by his reaction stating that he wouldn't have even received a ticket because he's from out of province, but he was arrested for a string of firearms offenses instead. Haha idiot!
A few years ago my sister got a parking ticket with my mom's car at the university. She wasn't a student there, and she neglected to pay it for whatever reason. A notice was mailed to my mom, so she phoned the university parking office and asked how they got her name and address. The parking office said they had her address on file. She asked again about her name. They were waffling on the question for a bit, so I told her to remind them of the data protection laws and she did, and finished with "If you got it from MPI (our public auto insurer), both of you will be seeing me in court." They immediately reversed the ticket and closed the issue right then and there. Part of the truth behind the story is that I used to be a student there and had a few different cars listed on my parking pass in case I was using any of them on any given day, my mom's included. To add cars to your pass, the parking office just asked for plate numbers, no registration details, owner's name or address. So where they got the *registered owner's name and home address* from is still unknown, but my guess is illegally through a contact at MPI.
Why didn't we sue? Because we aren't American and don't need to make a living off of suing others. Yeah what they did may have been illegal, but for the cost of a parking ticket we never actually ended up having to pay, it's not worth the enormous amounts of time or legal expenses. A huge payoff isn't even guaranteed either. Though, if time and money were no objects, yes I think we would have done it on principle alone.
Well, to make back the extra investment even faster, buy the car when it's 5 years old. At that point you're not really paying any depreciation anymore, and you're actually buying the car for what it's worth.
Also if you're Canadian, now and for the next couple years are excellent times to get a car/truck/motorcycle in the US. Very substantial savings to be had, even on a new one, but I'm mainly talking about used.
Yes, but you're not considering another important factor: diesel engines have a far greater life expectancy than any gas motor. Yeah, call out that guy with the million mile Corolla or whatever, but he's a very rare exception.
Check any classified section/buy & sell car guide magazine and you'll see all the diesel cars have like 200,000+ km on the clock, many over 300,000km. How many gas cars do you see with that many kms? Would you actually want to buy any of them? A properly maintained diesel engine will last well over 600,000km. I know a guy who has a VW diesel out of a '79 Rabbit in his garage on an engine stand. Original EVERYTHING, never changed one gasket, one bolt... nothing except oil and coolant. The thing has 637,000km on it. The car disintegrated around the motor. It was being held together with aircraft cable and had to be junked about 10 years ago.
If you're willing to drive the same car for 10-15 years (God forbid!) then the initial cost of the diesel model is far outweighed by the fuel savings and you save the cost of buying a new car every 5 years or so. Do you really think your Smart Car will last 15 years?
And no, maintenance on a diesel is not any more expensive than a gas motor if you pay attention to your maintenance schedule. We have a 2002 Jetta TDI. I do most of the work yourself, have a good source for a decently priced parts (avoid the stealerships at all costs!), and know a good mechanic for the harder stuff. It's the same cost as our 1997 Golf gasser (1.8L non-turbo). One word of advice though: DO THE TIMING BELT EXACTLY WHEN IT SAYS TO OR ELSE YOU'LL BE VERY, VERY SORRY AND POOR!!! No, I'm not speaking from experience, but I know someone who has, and yeah it wasn't pretty.
Fuel mileage... 50L/1100km regularly (80/20 highway/city). On Friday gas was $1.40/L and diesel was $1.21! Fucking oil companies gauging the living shit out of us!
What are you talking about? Minas Ithil (aka Minas Morgul) & Minas Tirith aren't opposed on either side of the Gap of Rohan, they are opposed across Ithilien and the Anduin on the borders of Mordor. The Gap of Rohan is where Isengard stands.
To me the two towers were always Isengard and Barad-dûr, the two towers which are eventually defeated by the good guys. Same as is shown on the DVD cover.
They aren't too concerned with the speed. It's good enough for them. Plus one can't download anything anymore or else the ISP will shortly be handing over one's details to the UK MAFIAA and one will get dragged over the proverbial coals.
Either way, the best part of their deal is the long distance package: 50 countries unlimited anytime calling up to 1 hour per call then you start paying, or just hang up and call back for free. She can call me any time from home for nothing. In fact it costs her more to call a UK mobile than to call me in Canada. That really shouldn't be the case, but it is.
Where I live, everything to the city on the land line is long distance, but on my cell it's local. We have unlimited Canada & US long distance (so does she!), but the UK ain't free, that's for sure.
You think that's bad? My gf (gasp!) lives in Luton (~50mi north of London on the M1) in the L&D border area and only gets about 1-1.5mbps DSL (BT & Tiscali are both saying blame it on an ancient crappy exchange). She pays for up to 8mbps through Tiscali but doesn't get anywhere near it. Still £20/mo including the phone with a great long distance deal is nothing to shake a stick at. Better than what I get here in Canada... we pay $80 total for all that. That's twice the price. Our DSL is faster (6d/1u), but our long distance package isn't nearly as good as hers... and I actually live in the sticks!
I didn't say I believed them, but I'd say it would be worth looking into. Perhaps they're just fabricating some super vague memory that would apply to just about anyone, sorta like those 'talk to your dead relatives' shows on TV. I have no idea on the details. I heard about it Coast to Coast AM one night a long time ago.
There are also people who report out of body experiences while attached to medical equipment showing that they're clinically dead (no brain activity or heart beat) who recall exact conversations had between doctors and nurses, and small verifiable details about the room, contents, what people were wearing, etc, all while the machines are saying they're dead. They also reported being out of their bodies and being able to float around the room and stuff. There are many reported and medically confirmed cases of this happening. Obviously the being able to float around the room bit can't be verified, but the details can be. Again, I'm not saying I believe them, but it may be worth looking into if so many are independently reporting the phenomenon. I also heard this on Coast to Coast, they've had multiple shows about this.
The movie The Island deals with a couple interesting concepts relating to memory.
Firstly, the clones are all given memories of a false past life (through audio and video stimulation) to ensure their mental well-being. The memories consisted of a childhood, and being rescued from the aftermath of a biological war or something, and being brought to this facility to recover. The story goes that they tried to just grow human bodies with no active minds or something, but that didn't work and whole batches were lost. They had to give them social interaction, jobs, education, and also keep them physically fit (for the health of their yet-to-be-harvested organs) in order for the clones to have any useful lifespans. The existing clones were told that new people are being constantly rescued from "outside". The clones were like insurance policies, and when the policy holder had an accident or required a transplant, the clone would 'win' a trip to "The Island", another implanted memory. The Island is a utopian paradise free of disease. Everyone is implanted with this desire.
Secondly, it deals with the concept of cellular memory. Ewan MacGregor's clone character remembered things that his counterpart did in real life. The clone knew how to drive a car very well, despite not having any prior experience. The clone also drew a perfect copy of a boat sketch done by the real person. He, having an American accent, was also able to speak exactly like the real person, who had a Scottish accent. In fact in the end he fooled the hired guns out to kill him into killing the real person instead.
I once heard of people in real life experiencing things like this after receiving organ transplants. They claim to have memories from the donor's life, some even claim to have changed preferences for things, like food. Upon investigation, they found out that the donor's preferences matched the ones they now preferred.
Yeah when I lived in Germany, they always did the weighing at the checkout. I never shopped at the big supermarkets like Real or the super-sized Edekas or Aldis because I lived too far away from the large shopping centres and didn't have a car. I just shopped at the small local stores around the corner. They never really had problems with identifying the produce. If they were unsure they usually referred to a guide with pictures to find the right code. If they still couldn't find it they just asked you or someone else. Didn't take long.
Same deal in Canada. I can't speak for the whole country, and have no idea how its done anywhere else, but in Winnipeg at the various Superstore locations I've been to, they have about 4-6 self-checkout kiosks which have the computer scales built in, but definitely are not smart whatsoever. Real Human Beings® still exist as cashiers in far greater numbers. Safeway seems to get the idea that people are better. Their recent store renovations (to the darker more luxurious look with wooden floors and all that) don't have any of the self-checkout kiosks at all. Maybe their next round of renos will put everyone out of a job, who knows.
For bulk purchases, like at Safeway buying a bag of candies or spices from the bulk bins, you still are asked to write down the number on the twist tie, but if you forget, don't worry about it, they can look it up in their guide. Very easy.
Once in the UK, we tried using the self-checkouts at Tesco and they were the hugest pieces of garbage on earth. The machine supervisor/manager guy basically waited beside us the whole time and constantly had to intervene where the machine screwed up. Double-scanning and not sensing the items in the bagging area were par for the course. Took about 10 minutes extra just to do that while people with full carts who went to the Real Human Beings® after we'd started were already loading their cars before we were finished wasting our lives with relatively few items vs. vastly inferior technology. The least the supervisor/manager could have done was to void everything and take us to a proper cashier to get it done in no time. Hopefully they've fixed those things up by now.
Moral of the story: go see the Real Human Beings® because they are harder, better, faster, stronger.. well maybe better and faster. Plus you can chat with them, or chat them up as the case may be, not have them talk down at you in some stupid disembodied voice. Human interaction is much more pleasant than interacting with a computer. I know this is Slashdot, and that may not be a universally held view, but it is the truth. Even Slashdotters have to emerge from their dens and get some food sometime...
As long as the dish is still pointed properly, you will have no problems. If it's out of alignment, realign it. This is a very simple job, only takes 30 mins tops.
Check around in your local stores to see which brands of FTA receivers they carry. Good makes are Viewsat, nFusion, Coolsat and Sonicview among others. I'm not sure what the FTA scene in Europe is like, but it's quite popular in Canada/US. Many just load up a helpful firmware to the box and point it at 82/91 (Bell) or 110/119 (Dish) to possibly decode some of the encrypted signals that are being beamed onto their property without their permission. No idea if you can do that with Sky, but if that's your intent, check into it. The best part is that satellite TV is download only, so you're safe as long as your TV license is paid up.
I figured you were French because you've capitalized your last name. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've only ever seen French people do that.
I had to use an AZERTY keyboard once while fixing a friend's laptop. It was so hard to do anything that I just installed US English while I was working on it. I forgot to remove and she immediately said "What's wrong here? You made it worse! I can't type anything!" so had to remove it haha. What I hated most was if you had caps lock on (or what appears to be caps lock) and you type numbers (non-numpad), you get the symbols instead! Very annoying!
As for Linux, I'm sure the keyboard layout exists. I think it's a standard layout. The only issue is as you said, you're using the AZERTY keyboard. I guess when typing on Slashdot you just have to remember to use &euro: (the : should be a ; obviously).
Install the English-International keyboard layout (comes with Windows). € is right ALT (ALT GR on some keyboards) + 5. For the £, rALT + SHIFT + 4. For ¥, rALT + -.
There's loads of symbols and accented letters available as a simple keystroke combo (eg. rALT + r = ®, rALT + 2 = ) instead ALT + (eg. ALT + 129 = ü, + 130 = é). You'll also have to get used to typing a space after you type an apostrophe or quotation mark, or else you'll get an acute accent or umlaut on certain letters. There are some other eccentricities as well, so it takes some getting used to, but I have a hard time typing on any other keyboard layout. Other than the rALT keystroke combos, the layout remains standard US English.
I've been using it for about 4 years now to switch between typing in English and German, though I still can't really type in French on anything but the Canadian French layout.
Not exactly the same one I saw on TV, but very similar. Basically it's a sort of satellite dish sized collector that follows the sun around all day. The dish is focused on a point that has a UV filter, and from there fibre optic lines are run from the collector to the various parts of your building/house and are used to supplement the existing electric light system. Obviously only useful during the day, but the makers were saying that people felt better working inside because there was natural sunlight (minus UV) indoors.
The system in the link is said to use 2W/day.
Very neat stuff, but would it not have to be tied to a light meter to flick on the regular lights when a thick cloud passes over or something. I believe they still work just fine on an overcast day.
Manitoba Hydro built, maintains and operates two microwave networks that run from Winnipeg to the north. They use them to control northern dams from the central control office in Winnipeg. I know someone who was involved in the implementation of remote switching of manually operated dams back in the 70's who was actively involved with the microwave system. He said the latency is VERY low. They can switch things almost instantly from Winnipeg, over 1000km away.
They have used it in the past (maybe still do) to send TV and radio signals to repeaters up north so the folks up there could watch live TV/hear live radio. They also use it for phones as well until quite recently (upgraded to fibre optics since). Which is why the phone company (MTS) helped pay for/build it too. Much cheaper than running thousands of kilometers of copper. The guy I know had a friend in the control office in Winnipeg who sent up various Winnipeg radio stations over the microwave on a subcarrier of the CBC TV signal. Apparently the CBC never even noticed hehe. I think they had to modify their radios, but there were all electronics specialists anyways working on the remote switching stuff, so it was peanuts for them.
I'm not sure where the poster is located or where his remote sites are, but perhaps there's a utility company that might have some spare capacity on an existing microwave network they'd be willing to sell?
Paying with a cell phone? Hell, we can pay by text here... in Winnipeg of all places.
Many US, Canadian and UK cities are served by Verrus for paying parking in certain parking lots (even on street in some places, but not here) with a cell phone by dialling a number and having an account with them, easily setup online. Here in Winnipeg they also offer pay by text. The only other place they offer that is in the UK. I pay by phone Mon-Fri for parking downtown, and it's super convenient. Saves hauling around $5 in change and having to stop at the ticket machine on the way into the lot.
Within the last couple years, the City of Winnipeg instituted a set of brand new parking machines, eliminating most if not all old on-pole parking meters. You can pay by credit card, coins, and as of at least May, by phone. You can even pay your fine online.
What we DON'T have is the wireless signs that show number of spots free. In San Francisco, with a metro population of 7 some million, compared to Winnipeg's paltry 694,000, and a population density more than 4.5 times higher than Winnipeg, finding a space is likely a lot harder. We usually just need to drive around the block to find some, never mind the fact that the number of surface parking lots here is very high.
That may be, but I still don't agree with them keeping the records indefinitely IFF they don't have to. The law may say that those records are to be kept indefinitely, though I doubt that's the case, but I can't say for sure because I don't know. If they can be destroyed after a certain period, it sounds like a legal risk to keep records too long.
While it's data freely given by users, it can be used to track their habits over time, just waiting to fall into the hands of a future government whose intentions are not so benign. Think a lifetime of search/browsing habits at the government's fingertips to weed out any potential threats to their regime (terror, political... thought police kinda stuff). I'm not scaremongering, it could happen.
Unfortunately the cost of storing electronic data has dropped so low that large companies like Google/Facebook/Microsoft/etc can easily afford to just keep them indefinitely, whether they have to or not. It may come back to bite them in the ass later, or more likely come back to bite all of our asses...
A nice little 3.5 year IT boondoggle that cost a cool $70 million and cost one board member of 19 years his job. It all just came to light last month. It made some pretty big headlines around these parts as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, and what happens if one of these named terrorists has a buddy who works for the BBC, or better yet, works there himself?
One would think that a terrorist cell coming across detailed intel on their daily movements and stuff would be like gold to them. They would then know exactly what the gov't knows about them, and what they don't know. At the same time, they know how the gov't tracks them and all kinds of other details that might help them evade surveillance efforts on their group.
Think of how many people at the BBC actually get to look at that stuff, make copies, sell it to other news outlets, etc? I'm sure it would go around the office a few times.
Good thing it was £1000 then. But I do agree that the data is the most important part.
As for the camera, he bought a Nikon Coolpix... hardly a "good camera system". They could have just given him the exact same one back, minus the memory card!
My Canadian ISP (MTS Allstream) gives unlimited plans. I download all kinds of stuff, and lots of it, and I've NEVER ONCE gotten an email or anything saying I've approached any kind of limit. I used to host my own website as well as FTP & SSH, no port blocking (other than 25), no complaints about that.
We used to have Shaw a number of years ago, and no issues with them either. I do, however, know some people who have received email saying "You've exceeded 100gb* transfer this month" (not sure on the exact number) but nothing comes of it unless you do it repeatedly, month after month after month... or at least that's what I've been told by a Shaw insider.
Either way, MTS seems pretty "unlimited" to me.
Sure they did! All over the place.
As an example, Platz der deutschen Einheit, Kassel (Square of German Unity) used to be called Adolf-Hitler-Platz. That's what a friend of mine who lives there told me.
I mean come on, if you lived on Hilterallee, Goebbelsstraße or Mengeleplatz, wouldn't you want it changed too?
Not only that, the East German city of Chemnitz was renamed to Karl-Marx-Stadt during communism, but reverted to the previous name after the wall fell. Same with Eisenhüttenstadt, which was renamed to Stalinstadt.
I'm sure there are way more examples, but that's all I could come up with in 2 minutes.
It's not the Records Manager's job to go through their email, but rather together with Legal and/or IT, implement an email and electronic records retention policy, and do periodic (preferably annual) audits to see to what degree people are complying, what areas can be improved on, etc. You will get the people who hate change, but most will take to the new system and those that simply won't are dealt with eventually by time.
To do this successfully, you absolutely need someone high up in Legal who has the ear of the Board to back you 100%, and give your bark some bite. When Legal speaks, everyone listens. You also need IT to be backing you 100%. Without them helping users as much as possible to ease into the new systems and ways of doing things, your users will be bitter about the changes and be less likely to comply.
Never mind the electronic storage, you'd be surprised at how many people PRINT their emails "JUST IN CASE!" It's unbelievable that one person does it, let alone more than one. People also photocopy things incessantly and keep 100 copies of random crap they were working on 10 years ago in their desk drawers "JUST IN CASE!" Just in case of what exactly? If there was ever a legal discovery process, those copies could be incredibly useful to the opposition, especially if the originals had already been destroyed according to your retention schedule. There are a fuck load of ticking legal time-bombs in desks just like yours in offices everywhere...
Users aren't meant to be making those decisions, the Records Management department should be... that is if you even have one! If you leave everything up to the users, you WILL have a cluster fuck of records.
I work in Records Management at a large company with many different divisions in diverse fields. RM is completely left up to us. We manage well over 10,000 boxes and there's only 3 of us. We alone determine when something is to be destroyed (but require authorization from dept heads to be shredded), how long it's kept, etc.
Disclaimer: We work mainly with paper records, but the exact same principles apply to electronic records.
You need a retention schedule. Look at your national, state/provincial and municipal laws to determine the minimum legally required length of time each TYPE of record is to be kept. Employee time cards are different from pension plans, sales invoices and legal files. It's not *always* 7 years either. Some are less, some are more, some are permanent. Also, you don't have to shred when the law says it's time if there's a valid business reason to keep that set of records. I mean, let's get this straight. You don't HAVE TO shred at all, but you're digging yourself a deep hole if you do... "You can get in just as much trouble by keeping records too long as you can by destroying them too quickly." - Dr. Mark Langemo
If this was all left up to individuals, they would just keep everything. I've seen what this is like, and it's pathetic, maddening and counter productive. Things must be properly named and catalogued down to the file level when put in storage, or you will NEVER find ANYTHING without an exhaustive search EVERY time. It might be alright when it's on your desk or in your local filing area and you know what's where, but when you archive it, you can't assume the guy looking for your file you need knows anything about it. We need explicit details or else we can't help you. At my company we require everyone to fill out a nice sheet detailing the contents of their box, the type of records, dates (most remember dates above all else), sender's name, dept, etc.
We are by no means a perfect operation here, but we're far better than 90% of other companies out there.
There is a series of excellent seminars done by Dr. Mark Langemo (sorry no links) to teach you how to deal with records. Also check out ARMA International if you're looking to get in touch with other Records Managers in your area. They have local chapters all over the place.
To summarize, if your company doesn't have a Records Manager, HIRE ONE NOW and give him/her the resources to get your records under control! Check out ARMA, they have jobs posted on their site. There are also many companies out there that will help you clean up your stuff and get you started on the right track.
That kind of sucks that an automated enforcement system can nab you out of state. Aren't there state-level data protection laws in the US? In Canada, I can run all the red light & mobile enforcement cameras out of province that I want, though I don't just it case, and the tickets get thrown out because they are not allowed to obtain any information on me from my insurer or my provincial gov't (in my case, same thing). If I am pulled over by an actual officer that's another story. You get the points and have to pay if you get a ticket anywhere in Canada or the US.
There was a case a while back of an Alberta man driving his truck here in Winnipeg and got flashed by a red light camera. He came back shortly thereafter with a rifle and shot the camera and was caught on tape doing so. The police were completely baffled by his reaction stating that he wouldn't have even received a ticket because he's from out of province, but he was arrested for a string of firearms offenses instead. Haha idiot!
A few years ago my sister got a parking ticket with my mom's car at the university. She wasn't a student there, and she neglected to pay it for whatever reason. A notice was mailed to my mom, so she phoned the university parking office and asked how they got her name and address. The parking office said they had her address on file. She asked again about her name. They were waffling on the question for a bit, so I told her to remind them of the data protection laws and she did, and finished with "If you got it from MPI (our public auto insurer), both of you will be seeing me in court." They immediately reversed the ticket and closed the issue right then and there. Part of the truth behind the story is that I used to be a student there and had a few different cars listed on my parking pass in case I was using any of them on any given day, my mom's included. To add cars to your pass, the parking office just asked for plate numbers, no registration details, owner's name or address. So where they got the *registered owner's name and home address* from is still unknown, but my guess is illegally through a contact at MPI.
Why didn't we sue? Because we aren't American and don't need to make a living off of suing others. Yeah what they did may have been illegal, but for the cost of a parking ticket we never actually ended up having to pay, it's not worth the enormous amounts of time or legal expenses. A huge payoff isn't even guaranteed either. Though, if time and money were no objects, yes I think we would have done it on principle alone.
Well, to make back the extra investment even faster, buy the car when it's 5 years old. At that point you're not really paying any depreciation anymore, and you're actually buying the car for what it's worth.
Also if you're Canadian, now and for the next couple years are excellent times to get a car/truck/motorcycle in the US. Very substantial savings to be had, even on a new one, but I'm mainly talking about used.
Yes, but you're not considering another important factor: diesel engines have a far greater life expectancy than any gas motor. Yeah, call out that guy with the million mile Corolla or whatever, but he's a very rare exception.
Check any classified section/buy & sell car guide magazine and you'll see all the diesel cars have like 200,000+ km on the clock, many over 300,000km. How many gas cars do you see with that many kms? Would you actually want to buy any of them? A properly maintained diesel engine will last well over 600,000km. I know a guy who has a VW diesel out of a '79 Rabbit in his garage on an engine stand. Original EVERYTHING, never changed one gasket, one bolt... nothing except oil and coolant. The thing has 637,000km on it. The car disintegrated around the motor. It was being held together with aircraft cable and had to be junked about 10 years ago.
If you're willing to drive the same car for 10-15 years (God forbid!) then the initial cost of the diesel model is far outweighed by the fuel savings and you save the cost of buying a new car every 5 years or so. Do you really think your Smart Car will last 15 years?
And no, maintenance on a diesel is not any more expensive than a gas motor if you pay attention to your maintenance schedule. We have a 2002 Jetta TDI. I do most of the work yourself, have a good source for a decently priced parts (avoid the stealerships at all costs!), and know a good mechanic for the harder stuff. It's the same cost as our 1997 Golf gasser (1.8L non-turbo). One word of advice though: DO THE TIMING BELT EXACTLY WHEN IT SAYS TO OR ELSE YOU'LL BE VERY, VERY SORRY AND POOR!!! No, I'm not speaking from experience, but I know someone who has, and yeah it wasn't pretty.
Fuel mileage... 50L/1100km regularly (80/20 highway/city). On Friday gas was $1.40/L and diesel was $1.21! Fucking oil companies gauging the living shit out of us!
What are you talking about? Minas Ithil (aka Minas Morgul) & Minas Tirith aren't opposed on either side of the Gap of Rohan, they are opposed across Ithilien and the Anduin on the borders of Mordor. The Gap of Rohan is where Isengard stands.
Have a look at this map.
To me the two towers were always Isengard and Barad-dûr, the two towers which are eventually defeated by the good guys. Same as is shown on the DVD cover.
They aren't too concerned with the speed. It's good enough for them. Plus one can't download anything anymore or else the ISP will shortly be handing over one's details to the UK MAFIAA and one will get dragged over the proverbial coals.
Either way, the best part of their deal is the long distance package: 50 countries unlimited anytime calling up to 1 hour per call then you start paying, or just hang up and call back for free. She can call me any time from home for nothing. In fact it costs her more to call a UK mobile than to call me in Canada. That really shouldn't be the case, but it is.
Where I live, everything to the city on the land line is long distance, but on my cell it's local. We have unlimited Canada & US long distance (so does she!), but the UK ain't free, that's for sure.
You think that's bad? My gf (gasp!) lives in Luton (~50mi north of London on the M1) in the L&D border area and only gets about 1-1.5mbps DSL (BT & Tiscali are both saying blame it on an ancient crappy exchange). She pays for up to 8mbps through Tiscali but doesn't get anywhere near it. Still £20/mo including the phone with a great long distance deal is nothing to shake a stick at. Better than what I get here in Canada... we pay $80 total for all that. That's twice the price. Our DSL is faster (6d/1u), but our long distance package isn't nearly as good as hers... and I actually live in the sticks!
I didn't say I believed them, but I'd say it would be worth looking into. Perhaps they're just fabricating some super vague memory that would apply to just about anyone, sorta like those 'talk to your dead relatives' shows on TV. I have no idea on the details. I heard about it Coast to Coast AM one night a long time ago.
There are also people who report out of body experiences while attached to medical equipment showing that they're clinically dead (no brain activity or heart beat) who recall exact conversations had between doctors and nurses, and small verifiable details about the room, contents, what people were wearing, etc, all while the machines are saying they're dead. They also reported being out of their bodies and being able to float around the room and stuff. There are many reported and medically confirmed cases of this happening. Obviously the being able to float around the room bit can't be verified, but the details can be. Again, I'm not saying I believe them, but it may be worth looking into if so many are independently reporting the phenomenon. I also heard this on Coast to Coast, they've had multiple shows about this.
It all might be an elaborate hoax too, who knows?
The movie The Island deals with a couple interesting concepts relating to memory.
Firstly, the clones are all given memories of a false past life (through audio and video stimulation) to ensure their mental well-being. The memories consisted of a childhood, and being rescued from the aftermath of a biological war or something, and being brought to this facility to recover. The story goes that they tried to just grow human bodies with no active minds or something, but that didn't work and whole batches were lost. They had to give them social interaction, jobs, education, and also keep them physically fit (for the health of their yet-to-be-harvested organs) in order for the clones to have any useful lifespans. The existing clones were told that new people are being constantly rescued from "outside". The clones were like insurance policies, and when the policy holder had an accident or required a transplant, the clone would 'win' a trip to "The Island", another implanted memory. The Island is a utopian paradise free of disease. Everyone is implanted with this desire.
Secondly, it deals with the concept of cellular memory. Ewan MacGregor's clone character remembered things that his counterpart did in real life. The clone knew how to drive a car very well, despite not having any prior experience. The clone also drew a perfect copy of a boat sketch done by the real person. He, having an American accent, was also able to speak exactly like the real person, who had a Scottish accent. In fact in the end he fooled the hired guns out to kill him into killing the real person instead.
I once heard of people in real life experiencing things like this after receiving organ transplants. They claim to have memories from the donor's life, some even claim to have changed preferences for things, like food. Upon investigation, they found out that the donor's preferences matched the ones they now preferred.
PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper
MBA = Master of Bugger All
Yeah when I lived in Germany, they always did the weighing at the checkout. I never shopped at the big supermarkets like Real or the super-sized Edekas or Aldis because I lived too far away from the large shopping centres and didn't have a car. I just shopped at the small local stores around the corner. They never really had problems with identifying the produce. If they were unsure they usually referred to a guide with pictures to find the right code. If they still couldn't find it they just asked you or someone else. Didn't take long.
Same deal in Canada. I can't speak for the whole country, and have no idea how its done anywhere else, but in Winnipeg at the various Superstore locations I've been to, they have about 4-6 self-checkout kiosks which have the computer scales built in, but definitely are not smart whatsoever. Real Human Beings® still exist as cashiers in far greater numbers. Safeway seems to get the idea that people are better. Their recent store renovations (to the darker more luxurious look with wooden floors and all that) don't have any of the self-checkout kiosks at all. Maybe their next round of renos will put everyone out of a job, who knows.
For bulk purchases, like at Safeway buying a bag of candies or spices from the bulk bins, you still are asked to write down the number on the twist tie, but if you forget, don't worry about it, they can look it up in their guide. Very easy.
Once in the UK, we tried using the self-checkouts at Tesco and they were the hugest pieces of garbage on earth. The machine supervisor/manager guy basically waited beside us the whole time and constantly had to intervene where the machine screwed up. Double-scanning and not sensing the items in the bagging area were par for the course. Took about 10 minutes extra just to do that while people with full carts who went to the Real Human Beings® after we'd started were already loading their cars before we were finished wasting our lives with relatively few items vs. vastly inferior technology. The least the supervisor/manager could have done was to void everything and take us to a proper cashier to get it done in no time. Hopefully they've fixed those things up by now.
Moral of the story: go see the Real Human Beings® because they are harder, better, faster, stronger.. well maybe better and faster. Plus you can chat with them, or chat them up as the case may be, not have them talk down at you in some stupid disembodied voice. Human interaction is much more pleasant than interacting with a computer. I know this is Slashdot, and that may not be a universally held view, but it is the truth. Even Slashdotters have to emerge from their dens and get some food sometime...
As long as the dish is still pointed properly, you will have no problems. If it's out of alignment, realign it. This is a very simple job, only takes 30 mins tops.
Check around in your local stores to see which brands of FTA receivers they carry. Good makes are Viewsat, nFusion, Coolsat and Sonicview among others. I'm not sure what the FTA scene in Europe is like, but it's quite popular in Canada/US. Many just load up a helpful firmware to the box and point it at 82/91 (Bell) or 110/119 (Dish) to possibly decode some of the encrypted signals that are being beamed onto their property without their permission. No idea if you can do that with Sky, but if that's your intent, check into it. The best part is that satellite TV is download only, so you're safe as long as your TV license is paid up.
I figured you were French because you've capitalized your last name. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've only ever seen French people do that.
I had to use an AZERTY keyboard once while fixing a friend's laptop. It was so hard to do anything that I just installed US English while I was working on it. I forgot to remove and she immediately said "What's wrong here? You made it worse! I can't type anything!" so had to remove it haha. What I hated most was if you had caps lock on (or what appears to be caps lock) and you type numbers (non-numpad), you get the symbols instead! Very annoying!
As for Linux, I'm sure the keyboard layout exists. I think it's a standard layout. The only issue is as you said, you're using the AZERTY keyboard. I guess when typing on Slashdot you just have to remember to use &euro: (the : should be a ; obviously).
I meant to say rALT + 2 = superscript 2
It doesn't seem to want to display it properly. Just typing the character shows this: Â
Looks fine in my edit box, but displays differently when I hit preview... strange.
Install the English-International keyboard layout (comes with Windows). € is right ALT (ALT GR on some keyboards) + 5. For the £, rALT + SHIFT + 4. For ¥, rALT + -.
There's loads of symbols and accented letters available as a simple keystroke combo (eg. rALT + r = ®, rALT + 2 = ) instead ALT + (eg. ALT + 129 = ü, + 130 = é). You'll also have to get used to typing a space after you type an apostrophe or quotation mark, or else you'll get an acute accent or umlaut on certain letters. There are some other eccentricities as well, so it takes some getting used to, but I have a hard time typing on any other keyboard layout. Other than the rALT keystroke combos, the layout remains standard US English.
I've been using it for about 4 years now to switch between typing in English and German, though I still can't really type in French on anything but the Canadian French layout.
You laugh, but your idea isn't far off from an actual real-life system.
http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=3085046
Not exactly the same one I saw on TV, but very similar. Basically it's a sort of satellite dish sized collector that follows the sun around all day. The dish is focused on a point that has a UV filter, and from there fibre optic lines are run from the collector to the various parts of your building/house and are used to supplement the existing electric light system. Obviously only useful during the day, but the makers were saying that people felt better working inside because there was natural sunlight (minus UV) indoors.
The system in the link is said to use 2W/day.
Very neat stuff, but would it not have to be tied to a light meter to flick on the regular lights when a thick cloud passes over or something. I believe they still work just fine on an overcast day.
Manitoba Hydro built, maintains and operates two microwave networks that run from Winnipeg to the north. They use them to control northern dams from the central control office in Winnipeg. I know someone who was involved in the implementation of remote switching of manually operated dams back in the 70's who was actively involved with the microwave system. He said the latency is VERY low. They can switch things almost instantly from Winnipeg, over 1000km away.
They have used it in the past (maybe still do) to send TV and radio signals to repeaters up north so the folks up there could watch live TV/hear live radio. They also use it for phones as well until quite recently (upgraded to fibre optics since). Which is why the phone company (MTS) helped pay for/build it too. Much cheaper than running thousands of kilometers of copper. The guy I know had a friend in the control office in Winnipeg who sent up various Winnipeg radio stations over the microwave on a subcarrier of the CBC TV signal. Apparently the CBC never even noticed hehe. I think they had to modify their radios, but there were all electronics specialists anyways working on the remote switching stuff, so it was peanuts for them.
I'm not sure where the poster is located or where his remote sites are, but perhaps there's a utility company that might have some spare capacity on an existing microwave network they'd be willing to sell?
Paying with a cell phone? Hell, we can pay by text here... in Winnipeg of all places.
Many US, Canadian and UK cities are served by Verrus for paying parking in certain parking lots (even on street in some places, but not here) with a cell phone by dialling a number and having an account with them, easily setup online. Here in Winnipeg they also offer pay by text. The only other place they offer that is in the UK. I pay by phone Mon-Fri for parking downtown, and it's super convenient. Saves hauling around $5 in change and having to stop at the ticket machine on the way into the lot.
Within the last couple years, the City of Winnipeg instituted a set of brand new parking machines, eliminating most if not all old on-pole parking meters. You can pay by credit card, coins, and as of at least May, by phone. You can even pay your fine online.
What we DON'T have is the wireless signs that show number of spots free. In San Francisco, with a metro population of 7 some million, compared to Winnipeg's paltry 694,000, and a population density more than 4.5 times higher than Winnipeg, finding a space is likely a lot harder. We usually just need to drive around the block to find some, never mind the fact that the number of surface parking lots here is very high.
That may be, but I still don't agree with them keeping the records indefinitely IFF they don't have to. The law may say that those records are to be kept indefinitely, though I doubt that's the case, but I can't say for sure because I don't know. If they can be destroyed after a certain period, it sounds like a legal risk to keep records too long.
While it's data freely given by users, it can be used to track their habits over time, just waiting to fall into the hands of a future government whose intentions are not so benign. Think a lifetime of search/browsing habits at the government's fingertips to weed out any potential threats to their regime (terror, political... thought police kinda stuff). I'm not scaremongering, it could happen.
Unfortunately the cost of storing electronic data has dropped so low that large companies like Google/Facebook/Microsoft/etc can easily afford to just keep them indefinitely, whether they have to or not. It may come back to bite them in the ass later, or more likely come back to bite all of our asses...
Check out the story here.
A nice little 3.5 year IT boondoggle that cost a cool $70 million and cost one board member of 19 years his job. It all just came to light last month. It made some pretty big headlines around these parts as well.