Fine, Creationists want to play scientists. I wont be mean and will keep an open mind.
Please give me a scientific experiment that can hold up to the Scientific Method that is in direct relationship to Creationism.
Oh, and the final answer cannot be God, since God does not exist on this plane of existence and thus God's existence cannot be proved nor disproved. And you will also lose points for say that because the eye is complex, there must be a creator. Give me an actual experiment that can pass the scientific method peer review please.
When I did support for Dell, I actually got a call for 0xDEADBEEF. I walked up to my boss and told him I quit (I didn't quit though). I don't remember what my resolution was though, except that there was no reason for them to have it on their computer.
I think most of you who have replied to this post have don't get the point.
I myself have a parent that uses XP, but I also have a background in tech support for Internet and OS, and I can tell you that few people like to change to something different. I can agree Ubuntu is safer and better, but some people, especially those advance in their years, refuse to learn and will panic at the first sign of trouble.
Those few that have helped your parents to use Ubuntu, I think that is an achievement, but not everyone can be as successful as you. And just because someone chooses to use XP instead of a Linux distro for their parents doesn't make them a troll or a n00b, they just know it is easier for them to have them use XP.
This is how I feel about my mother, she is use to the Windows Interface. If I switch it on her, no matter how much training I give her, she would never be happy with it. It has taken me years just to teach her to use Firefox, and yes I know Ubuntu is more secure and as I teach her how to do things with it, she wouldn't have as many problems, she would not be happy with it and just refuse to do anything to help herself.
There are few people who really want to learn anything about computers, they simply want it to do what they desire and that's it. And once they get use to a certain feel of something, that's all they want to do. I remember back when I did dial up support (the horror), I had a customer call in that wanted to help as they didn't understand how to use it. So I set up their dial-up through IE and got them online but they were disappointed as there was no interface like AOL had and decided to cancel just for that reason. I could have tried to explain how this was better than AOL and you could get all of the same kind of AOL features through the internet, but they hung up before I could try. They were comfortable in their little bubble and that is how most computer illiterate people are.
Built for gamers, bought by old people who think the more money something is, the less that will go wrong with it (and boy are they mad when they have to call into tech support).
When I did support for Dell, a few years back, I use to joke that their XPS top of the line machines, mainly the 700 series, was more of an overpriced space heater than an actual computer.
Believe it not, nerds may be the target audience, but nerds don't buy these kinds of computers. Generally it is old people who buy these kinds of computers.
Basically it comes down to, the more money a computer it is, the assumption that there will be less wrong with it. Unfortunately, the opposite is true when it comes for computers.
That is awesome, I already have MechCommander 2, and I know Microsoft released the Source Code for MC2 for XNA, but actually releasing the games legally, that is awesome.
You have a couple of choices, as I am sure many will give you.
You can do shareware, while they do limit total gameplay, it is free and there are some out there that are really fun.
You can do demos. Now an days they are time based, but back in the day they were level based.
There are also Open Source games that have been released in the last few years, such as Freespace and Freespace 2. Of course, they had their source code released but people have made some good mods off of those. You can try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games
You can also try abondonware games, though the trick there is not all will work with XP properly and you would need to use an emulation software such as DOSBox.
Another option you can do, which is not a game in it self, and was recently a discussion on Slashdot is GameMaker. You can download a trial for it and provide some tutorials for it and kids can make their own games.
Actually, I have used this program to teach younger kids, between the age of 8 - 15.
It was a summer class broken up into two week segments, I was there for the first two weeks. The website for game maker has tutorials and we taught them that, we had a better understanding of the tutorials so we could give them more insight. After two weeks they were able to make their own games understanding how to use the tools.
GameMaker is good in the respect that while there are tools to set up gravity or movement, the tutorials help set up if/then statements for collision detection and loops. After the tutorials, there is a programing language in GameMaker that can allow you to do more, I didn't teach that but I do believe it can be taught to kids, at least the ones who excel at GameMaker.
It is simple and very good to for children in learning, and from there can be directed to other languages.
I believe somewhere Abrams was quoted as saying that he was going to make some fans angry, either that or that he wasn't using the Trek lore.
I think the problem is that all stories in a sci-fi TV show and movies have already been done and what we see is people copying eachother. I started to see the same show between all the different series like Star Trek Voyager and Star Gate, so I concluded they started to run out of ideas and stole from others.
So enters JJ Abrams. He was instructed to do something new, and instead of trying to do something new in the given franchise, he decided to change the franchise and do something new. I am very skeptical about that and seeing the trailer I am certain to be disappointed as I am myself a big fan of Trek despite the disappointment of Voyager and Enterprise (and just for note, I actually loved Voyager when it was on TV but within the last year I realized they only have a few solid episodes and most of the others was just pointless plot).
I am giving JJ Abrams a chance to tell a Trek story, though so far I am disappointed. If he blows this chance I am giving him, I will then refer to JJ Abrams as another Uwe Boll: Destroyer of Franchises.
I read through some of these and I think the majority of you do not understand. Tech support is a curse, once you get in, if you are not out within 6 months, you are stuck there.
For me, I was in Tech Support for 4 years before I got out. I have Bachelor's of Science for Computers, so clearly I was over qualified to work there. My first Tech support job was that of Dial-Up support, followed by DSL support, and finally Dell Computer support. I did try other jobs but was often turned down, and I am sure many of you will comment that maybe I sucked or I didn't write my resume the correct way. Or perhaps that no one wants to hire someone from tech support.
Now many of you commented on the Scripting aspect. Yes there are many tech support jobs where people read from a script to do troubleshooting, but they are all not like that. I was fortunate in my job to not have a script for troubleshooting (I did for opening and closing though, no avoiding that one).
One other aspect to touch on before my main point, is that you can also try to move up in the company and get a management role and try to switch jobs that way, but often times that means selling out. What I mean by that, is very rarely someone who is able to fix problems is promoted. Usually someone who can follow the call metrics the best is promoted up, such as call time and transfer rate. Some would look at that as, they can solve problems faster than others, but unfortunately, it is not the case, because if you ask these people help on an advanced issue, they will stare at you with a blank expression. They are simply cheating the system, because that is what Call Centers want. They don't care if you fix the problem, they care that you answer the phones, because the majority of them are paid on how fast you can answer the phone. Their metric is based on how long after a call reaches their queue to actually get the call answered by an agent. The companies I worked for, it was usually 2 minutes. And I have been in situations where we were over 100 calls in queue and we had our Supervisors hover over us to pass the call on. So you work in an environment that cares more about a call answered than actually fixing a problem, and when you call up they pass the buck somewhere else. ex. It is Microsoft fault, it is your OEM's fault, it is your ISP fault. It is not that the agent is incompetent, but that the company will not let them help you fix it. But there are many agent who cannot fix it, and these are the ones that have you check to see if the power cord of your computer is plugged in for a no Internet issue.
Now for me, I did tech support for 4 years believing the only way for me to leave was to start my own business (which I was on the way to do), but I did get out of it. I am now a Field Engineer (fancy way of saying Field Tech) that does work for SuperMarkets. I got the opportunity to apply for this job because I had a friend who already did IT support for the company. I was later told that I got the job because of where I lived and the fact that I had an A+ cert (which honestly I consider useless but for companies, it looks good on paper). And my point of contact at that job who I knew from college gave me a really good recommendation.
From there, many might say, just get your certs, then companies will hire you. Not true. I knew many who has their MCSE (also useless), Net+, CCNA, that were over qualified to do Tech Support also stuck there.
So to the original poster of this article, I understand perfectly what you are going though and I have some helpful advice.
1) Get to know those in your call center. Become buddy buddy with them, as they may lead you to a better call center or out of the career field.
2) Keep in contact with those you went to college with. Maybe down the road they can help you get a job at their company.
3) Prepare to wait awhile doing what you are doing. Sometimes you can quickly get in and out of the job, other times you must pay your due
Slashdot Mirror
Please give me a scientific experiment that can hold up to the Scientific Method that is in direct relationship to Creationism.
Oh, and the final answer cannot be God, since God does not exist on this plane of existence and thus God's existence cannot be proved nor disproved. And you will also lose points for say that because the eye is complex, there must be a creator. Give me an actual experiment that can pass the scientific method peer review please.
What part of your body were you shaving to make you think of '6666'?
Go into the C:\ and delete anything that is not a picture file or an *.exe.
When I did support for Dell, I actually got a call for 0xDEADBEEF. I walked up to my boss and told him I quit (I didn't quit though). I don't remember what my resolution was though, except that there was no reason for them to have it on their computer.
Also changed the path directory of My Documents to the D:\
I think most of you who have replied to this post have don't get the point.
I myself have a parent that uses XP, but I also have a background in tech support for Internet and OS, and I can tell you that few people like to change to something different. I can agree Ubuntu is safer and better, but some people, especially those advance in their years, refuse to learn and will panic at the first sign of trouble.
Those few that have helped your parents to use Ubuntu, I think that is an achievement, but not everyone can be as successful as you. And just because someone chooses to use XP instead of a Linux distro for their parents doesn't make them a troll or a n00b, they just know it is easier for them to have them use XP.
This is how I feel about my mother, she is use to the Windows Interface. If I switch it on her, no matter how much training I give her, she would never be happy with it. It has taken me years just to teach her to use Firefox, and yes I know Ubuntu is more secure and as I teach her how to do things with it, she wouldn't have as many problems, she would not be happy with it and just refuse to do anything to help herself.
There are few people who really want to learn anything about computers, they simply want it to do what they desire and that's it. And once they get use to a certain feel of something, that's all they want to do. I remember back when I did dial up support (the horror), I had a customer call in that wanted to help as they didn't understand how to use it. So I set up their dial-up through IE and got them online but they were disappointed as there was no interface like AOL had and decided to cancel just for that reason. I could have tried to explain how this was better than AOL and you could get all of the same kind of AOL features through the internet, but they hung up before I could try. They were comfortable in their little bubble and that is how most computer illiterate people are.
Built for gamers, bought by old people who think the more money something is, the less that will go wrong with it (and boy are they mad when they have to call into tech support).
When I did support for Dell, a few years back, I use to joke that their XPS top of the line machines, mainly the 700 series, was more of an overpriced space heater than an actual computer.
Believe it not, nerds may be the target audience, but nerds don't buy these kinds of computers. Generally it is old people who buy these kinds of computers.
Basically it comes down to, the more money a computer it is, the assumption that there will be less wrong with it. Unfortunately, the opposite is true when it comes for computers.
That is awesome, I already have MechCommander 2, and I know Microsoft released the Source Code for MC2 for XNA, but actually releasing the games legally, that is awesome.
You have a couple of choices, as I am sure many will give you.
You can do shareware, while they do limit total gameplay, it is free and there are some out there that are really fun.
You can do demos. Now an days they are time based, but back in the day they were level based.
There are also Open Source games that have been released in the last few years, such as Freespace and Freespace 2. Of course, they had their source code released but people have made some good mods off of those. You can try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games
You can also try abondonware games, though the trick there is not all will work with XP properly and you would need to use an emulation software such as DOSBox.
Another option you can do, which is not a game in it self, and was recently a discussion on Slashdot is GameMaker. You can download a trial for it and provide some tutorials for it and kids can make their own games.
Actually, I have used this program to teach younger kids, between the age of 8 - 15.
It was a summer class broken up into two week segments, I was there for the first two weeks. The website for game maker has tutorials and we taught them that, we had a better understanding of the tutorials so we could give them more insight. After two weeks they were able to make their own games understanding how to use the tools.
GameMaker is good in the respect that while there are tools to set up gravity or movement, the tutorials help set up if/then statements for collision detection and loops. After the tutorials, there is a programing language in GameMaker that can allow you to do more, I didn't teach that but I do believe it can be taught to kids, at least the ones who excel at GameMaker.
It is simple and very good to for children in learning, and from there can be directed to other languages.
I believe somewhere Abrams was quoted as saying that he was going to make some fans angry, either that or that he wasn't using the Trek lore. I think the problem is that all stories in a sci-fi TV show and movies have already been done and what we see is people copying eachother. I started to see the same show between all the different series like Star Trek Voyager and Star Gate, so I concluded they started to run out of ideas and stole from others. So enters JJ Abrams. He was instructed to do something new, and instead of trying to do something new in the given franchise, he decided to change the franchise and do something new. I am very skeptical about that and seeing the trailer I am certain to be disappointed as I am myself a big fan of Trek despite the disappointment of Voyager and Enterprise (and just for note, I actually loved Voyager when it was on TV but within the last year I realized they only have a few solid episodes and most of the others was just pointless plot). I am giving JJ Abrams a chance to tell a Trek story, though so far I am disappointed. If he blows this chance I am giving him, I will then refer to JJ Abrams as another Uwe Boll: Destroyer of Franchises.
I read through some of these and I think the majority of you do not understand. Tech support is a curse, once you get in, if you are not out within 6 months, you are stuck there.
For me, I was in Tech Support for 4 years before I got out. I have Bachelor's of Science for Computers, so clearly I was over qualified to work there. My first Tech support job was that of Dial-Up support, followed by DSL support, and finally Dell Computer support. I did try other jobs but was often turned down, and I am sure many of you will comment that maybe I sucked or I didn't write my resume the correct way. Or perhaps that no one wants to hire someone from tech support.
Now many of you commented on the Scripting aspect. Yes there are many tech support jobs where people read from a script to do troubleshooting, but they are all not like that. I was fortunate in my job to not have a script for troubleshooting (I did for opening and closing though, no avoiding that one).
One other aspect to touch on before my main point, is that you can also try to move up in the company and get a management role and try to switch jobs that way, but often times that means selling out. What I mean by that, is very rarely someone who is able to fix problems is promoted. Usually someone who can follow the call metrics the best is promoted up, such as call time and transfer rate. Some would look at that as, they can solve problems faster than others, but unfortunately, it is not the case, because if you ask these people help on an advanced issue, they will stare at you with a blank expression. They are simply cheating the system, because that is what Call Centers want. They don't care if you fix the problem, they care that you answer the phones, because the majority of them are paid on how fast you can answer the phone. Their metric is based on how long after a call reaches their queue to actually get the call answered by an agent. The companies I worked for, it was usually 2 minutes. And I have been in situations where we were over 100 calls in queue and we had our Supervisors hover over us to pass the call on. So you work in an environment that cares more about a call answered than actually fixing a problem, and when you call up they pass the buck somewhere else. ex. It is Microsoft fault, it is your OEM's fault, it is your ISP fault. It is not that the agent is incompetent, but that the company will not let them help you fix it. But there are many agent who cannot fix it, and these are the ones that have you check to see if the power cord of your computer is plugged in for a no Internet issue.
Now for me, I did tech support for 4 years believing the only way for me to leave was to start my own business (which I was on the way to do), but I did get out of it. I am now a Field Engineer (fancy way of saying Field Tech) that does work for SuperMarkets. I got the opportunity to apply for this job because I had a friend who already did IT support for the company. I was later told that I got the job because of where I lived and the fact that I had an A+ cert (which honestly I consider useless but for companies, it looks good on paper). And my point of contact at that job who I knew from college gave me a really good recommendation.
From there, many might say, just get your certs, then companies will hire you. Not true. I knew many who has their MCSE (also useless), Net+, CCNA, that were over qualified to do Tech Support also stuck there.
So to the original poster of this article, I understand perfectly what you are going though and I have some helpful advice.
1) Get to know those in your call center. Become buddy buddy with them, as they may lead you to a better call center or out of the career field.
2) Keep in contact with those you went to college with. Maybe down the road they can help you get a job at their company.
3) Prepare to wait awhile doing what you are doing. Sometimes you can quickly get in and out of the job, other times you must pay your due