Meanhile, the end result doesn't look THAT much better than the PS3, with its measly GeForce 7900 series.
This is typical. I don't even understand what this story is about. Yes, you need a $300 GPU in your PC to play a brand new AAA title for a brand new console generation. This happens every generation and for about a year the console people will be shouting "Nanner nanner bo bo" at us... But next year we'll only need a $150 card, and the year after that a $75 card. They'll still need their console and its price wont get cut in half every year.
How do PC gamers address this problem? We don't play AAA titles designed for a console the same year that console was released. They suck for PC anyway.
I played this game for years. For those of you that haven't I thought I'd provide some perspective...
The game is so difficult, that even using the DFHACK utility to completely cheat and make my dwarves invincible, I still died every time. It's likely the most complex game ever created by a long shot.
So they want the advantages of being a corporate entity without the limitations? That's reprehensible and indefensible.
advantages? It's required. They'd go bankrupt without it and you know it.
The closest comparison would be the souths Jim Crowe laws from back in the day.
Sure you can vote, you just have to recite the constitution from memory! Sure you can have religious freedom! You just can't stay in business if you do!
Corporation - a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.
i.e. It's a way for more than one person to own a business.
I'm often surprised at the number of people that will spout off about topics when the don't even know the definitions of the words they're using. If you own a family business and want to share ownership, it has to be a corporation. If it isn't, it will be under the ownership of one family member and there will be a legal and tax nightmare when that person dies.
They did not ask to be put into the situation where they control the womans healthcare. The government forced them, by law, to provide health care. Then the government forced them, by law, to include contraceptive devices that abort a fertilized fetus. (many of the contraceptive devices covered kill the post-fertilized egg) Their only option out was to pay a fine that would go directly to paying for the very same services they oppose.
From their point of view the government just required them to pay for their employees to have the ability to murder babies. Now, you can disagree with that point of view, I know I do. But it really is their point of view. They really do view it has killing babies. That's a violation of their ability to freely express their religion. The government could have addressed this a dozen different ways. Exempting them from the penalties if they didn't provide the care would have been the simplest. But they didn't. The whitehouse should have seen this coming, they should have provided a religious exemption, but they didn't.
Your idea of what's "trendy" is simply wrong. Trendy = Sales. So if one persons playing what you think is trendy and not making money and the other is playing something that you think isn't trendy but is making money, the markets move and you just don't realize it yet. Which is part of the problem. It's really really really hard to figure out where the trends are. Who would have thought speed metal would take off in the late 80s? and then die overnight when Nirvana released their second album?
It's the perfect libertarian excuse for corporate abuse. You don't have to go along with the abuse. You can just live like an Amish person and avoid the abuse if you really want to. It's all your "choice".
Says the guy that has no clue what Libertarians believe.
It's about liberty... including liberty from business and even other citizens. Anyone that understood and followed libertarian ideals would want this sort of practice stopped.
Progressive's been offering Snapshot, an OBD-II dongle you plug in and allow to monitor your driving. They get the data periodically and can give you discounts for safe driving.
Bet they can also up your rates for "normal" driving too!
My understanding is that they mail it to you... you drive around a bit and mail it back. Not quite the same thing.
I'm pretty sure everyone DOES want to be a successful indie dev like notch... the problem is the chances of that happening are pretty slim. I don't do "games" so I'm not really in that boat, but I am a musician however. I'm damn good to. The problem isn't that you're not good enough, or don't put in enough time... there are plenty of people that are very smart, very creative, and put in enormous amounts of time. What has to happen is that what you are interested in and doing has to, completely by random, end up being the "Thing" one year.
How many silly puzzle games were there before Tetris took off? It wasn't that tetris found some magical formula that, if discovered a few years earlier would have gotten just as huge. It's the combination of the programers skill, the design of the game, the hardware coming out at the right time and most importantly, the publics fickle interests just so happened to swing in the right direction at the same time that game came out.
In music, if you were a Banjo player in the 80s and 90s, you'd be hard pressed to find work. Fast forward to todays music sceen and even pop starts are featuring Banjo in the background... who'd have thunk it. How are you supposed to prepare for something like that? It takes 10yrs to get good at an instrument. But the time you do, public interest has shifted.
Luck is the most important part of commercially successful art. As such, being an independent is very risky.
Do we know who exactly came up with the concept for Donkey Kong?
Actually, yes we do. Donkey Kong was the first project by Shigeru Miyamoto. In fact, this was also the first appearance of Miyamoto's Mario character that has been continually reused ever since.
You're proving his point. Miyamoto didn't even know how to code at the time. The real programmers names are lost to time.
Miyamoto had high hopes for his new project, but lacked the technical skills to program it himself; instead, he conceived the game's concepts, then consulted technicians on whether they were possible. He wanted to make the characters different sizes, move in different manners, and react in various ways. However, Yokoi viewed Miyamoto's original design as too complex.Yokoi suggested using see-saws to catapult the hero across the screen; however, this proved too difficult to program. Miyamoto next thought of using sloped platforms and ladders for travel, with barrels for obstacles. When he asked that the game have multiple stages, the four-man programming team complained that he was essentially asking them to make the game repeat, but the team eventually successfully programmed the game.
You've no idea how many times I've finished a big project, walked into the presentation meeting and had whomever my boss was at the time, who had been at hooters during most of the project and use phrases like "It was a lot of work but I'm glad you like what I have done.
And of course, as soon as there's an error somewhere... he didn't write that bit... it was me.:-)
I'm the biggest privacy nut there is... but figuring out when I'm coming and going? come on... 8am to 5pm I'm at work. Wow! You've totally just invaded my privacy!!!
No, the real issue is what the NSA is doing. They're reading my damned mail, listening to my calls. This story and others like it are just red herrings to make us think we're addressing privacy issues when all we're doing is changing how consumer products operate. I don't care if Google knows more about be so they can better target ads at me. The real problem is the information being collected by the government with the goal of capturing, imprisoning, torturing and even killing their targets.
Once the NSA is no longer an agency, I'll care about Google. Until then, if I'm concerned, I'll just not use their products. How do I "not use" the NSA?
Right, the US has gone completely off the rails in recent years. "oh, this guy stole some credit card numbers... Let's kidnap him, fly him out of the country and try him in some random court outside the country! Yea! Go USA!"
Seriously? It'd be one thing if he blew something up... but credit card fraud?
Apparently those involved in organised crime are using the cheapest possible pre-payphones and sim cards swapping from one to another throughout the day. So police are looking for the odd phone out, coming from locations where tracked suspect persons are. So tracking all calls and eliminating the non-suspect ones to leave the ones they are looking for. So tracking the criminal activity associated with pre-pay phones and sim cards is a little more tricky than the movies make out.
Thats not relevant. If criminals figured out how to smuggle drugs deep inside a thier brain stems, that wouldn't give the government the excuse to put up road blocks and perform brain surgery on everyone that happened by.
They can use SSNs for ANYTHING, which is what's so scary about having yours stolen. They can open credit cards, take out insurance policies, even look for jobs in your name. Essentially, an SSN is a person's identity.
Right... the problem isn't SSNs, or even the security of them... it's the fact that creditors will ruin your credit over the internet with nothing more than a 9 digit number and having never met you in person or even mailing you a letter. The majority of SSN fraud is done on the SSN of people who are dead. And not like "died last month" as in, dead for decades or even longer. The creditors don't even check to see if you're still alive before issuing a loan. There are more rigorous checks on your identity when you sign up for an online game than there are for getting a $50k loan. It's nuts.
electronic keypads should randomize the numeric order and that the device should not mirror the letter typed on the inout line or on the keypad.
OR... you could just walk around as you type throwing off their algorithm and not introduce another overly complicated and insanely annoying security feature that would simply push people into not securing their devices at all.
It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
If they had not asked, DC probably would never have noticed that their logo was used there. On top of that, even if they had, I doubt they would have acted on it. Suing a grieving family over a harmless supposed trademark violation isn't too good for the company's reputation.
If they tried to use the logo now, after having been denied permission, DC would probably have no choice but to sue since this is in the public spotlight.
This would have been a total non-issue had they just done it and not asked anyone or publicized it.
I'd just do it anyway. Fuck them, let them sue me. If they took me to court and made me take it off, I'd ware a "Fuck DC Comics" Tshirt as I chiseled it off my dead sons gravestone by hand over a period of days and invite every media org in the country to tape me while I did it.
Yes, you can go to prison, without trial, for over 10 years, for possessing a $4 watch
was that the SOLE reason? or just a contributing factor?? did you know that ALL men and women in prison breathe air??
The circumstances of their original detention are often a mystery. Many of the Guantanamo detainees were captured by locals and literally sold to the US Military. In many cases they have testimony of the group that captured these guys, but many question if it was more of a local dispute and one sect was trying to get another detained... etc... So your question is hard to answer in that way.
In 16 cases however, the only still existing physical evidence against those detainees is the watch that was found on them when they were captured. So is it the only evidence against them? Not really... there's questionable eye witness testimony from people that could likely never be found again if they're even still alive that was relayed to random military personnel in the middle of a war zone. But in the case of all Guantanamo detainees, the burden of proof is on the prisoner. They are required to prove they are not terrorists. They've no access to lawyers, research, the internet, newspapers and often the evidence against them is "Classified" so they're not even allowed to view that.
Detainee 154, Mazin Salih Musaid Al Awfi: Millions and millions of people have these types of Casio watches. If that is a crime, why doesn’t the United States arrest and sentence all the shops and people who own them? This is not a logical or reasonable piece of evidence.
Detainee 298, Salih Uyar: If it is a crime to carry this watch, your own military personnel also carry this watch. Does this mean they’re just terrorists as well?
Detainee 651, Usama Hassan Ahmend Abu Kabir: I have a Casio watch due to the fact that they are inexpensive and they last a long time. I like my watch because it is durable. It had a calculator and was waterproof, and before prayers we have to wash up all the way to my elbows.
They accidentally captured a German car salesman. Flew him out of the country, tortured him for months. Realized he was the wrong guy, but kept him anyway. The only reason he's still alive is because Condoleezza Rice accidentally found out about him and immediately ordered his release. You don't even need to have a scary looking watch. Simply being detained, and knowing how the process works is a threat to national security, so if they capture you by mistake, they'll hold you forever so you can't reveal what happened.
but in the fine print the watch requires its own subscription and raises your rate by more than the watch is worth.
Citation?
The watch doesn't have a cellular radio, like some tablets do. It can't consume data directly.
It doesn't have a cellular radio and neither do that tablets. The idea is, you wifi tether your table/watch to your phone. But, to get the deal, you need a larger data package because the tablet/watch will cause you to consume more data. Or at least, that's what they tell you. It clearly wont cause you to use more data, but they hit you with the deal at the checkout so you don't have time to really think about it. It's usually proposed like: *you go in to get a new phone and contract and are almost done with the purchase* Salesman:"Oh, hey, do you want a free tablet? There's a deal going on right now..." You:"Free you say? Hell yea!" Salesman:"Ok, let me write that... it's not letting me apply it... oh, you only have the 1gig data plan. You need the 2gig plan to qualify. But that's only an extra $10" You:"$10 for a tablet? I could sell that on craigslist even if I didn't need it! Sold!" *you get your first bill* -activation fee for the tablet even though there was nothing to "activate" -that $10 is monthly, they weren't exactly clear on that -you asked for insurance on the phone and they gave it to you for the tablet as well, doubling the cost of the insurance *you start banging your head on your desk as you realize you just paid over $300 for a $150 tablet*
They've tried the same scam on me twice now. Luckly I work with salespeople all day long and know if the word "Free" leaves a salesmans lips I'm about to get scammed.
But still you can have 2 tickets and due to traffic you can get to one site right away and the other will take 1 hour to get to but after going to one site traffic frees up and you can get to that 1 hour site in to 10-20 min.
that's of minor concern. You need to understand how this stuff was done prior to these systems.
15yrs ago, the tech would drive into work, pick up a stack of work orders off a printer, get in his van and head out in whichever route he thought best. You'd not see the guy for 4hrs, then he'd head back in, grab another stack and so on.
Now he doesn't even come in. He just looks at his phone and heads to the specified location. The phone even links the location to google maps. Now he can't get lost. The app tells the office where he's at, not that they care... but if he's been on the same ticket for 6hrs they can see he's at the house or if he stopped by a local lake to do some fishing which is something that actually happened quite frequently prior to dispatching software. I used to have to schedule dispatches with other companies we did buisness with and it was common back in the 90s for the tech not to show up on time so, if they were on main street or near the center of town, I'd have the customer stick their head out the front door and look for the techs van. They'd often be at a local don-nut shop or bar waiting for the appointment and get too busy chatting. The customer would have to run down and get them. It was insanely frustrating. Now the dispatcher can update the ticket and make the techs phone chirp.
Traffic delays aren't that big of a deal in comparison.
Some times it can be better to let the tech see the full job list and plan there own day based on local info.
It still needs to get fixed either way, but yes the tech can skip a job. There are stats involved so if you skip lots of them you're going to have to explain why. The rulesets are somewhat complicated, it doesn't just pick the closest one... How old is the ticket? Is it a major piece of equipment? Etc... They can even merge the tickets on the fly... are these 10 sites out of service because of that other ticket down the line? etc...
This isn't a small system. It manages hundreds of techs all over the country and there's a backend of engineers, ticket jockies, records keepers, mapping engineers, facility techs, etc... I'm pretty sure all companies that maintain large networks of equipment operate this way now. I can guarantee you UPS and Fedex have similar systems, as well as the power companies, railroads, etc... I even saw a heavy equipment manufacturer that used such a system to dispatch their service techs to do repairs on customers bulldozers and such.
This is how dispatching works now, that's why this stories funny. It would be more of a story if they were doing something different.
The smart watches I've seen are coming bundled with phones now as part of a gimmick to get people to pay more. "Get the blah blah blah plan and a smart watch is included!" but in the fine print the watch requires its own subscription and raises your rate by more than the watch is worth. They do the same thing with the "Free tablet!" nonsense. They tell you that you only have to sign up for this program that costs an extra $10 a month and you get a free tablet... what a deal! but $10/month times 24 month contract = $240 for a tablet that cost them less than $150. The data package they made you pay for to get it is complete nonsense and costs them nothing. It's pure profit.
I see people walking around with the watches at work and can only think "You're proudly displaying the fact that you got scammed"
Slashdot Mirror
Meanhile, the end result doesn't look THAT much better than the PS3, with its measly GeForce 7900 series.
This is typical. I don't even understand what this story is about. Yes, you need a $300 GPU in your PC to play a brand new AAA title for a brand new console generation. This happens every generation and for about a year the console people will be shouting "Nanner nanner bo bo" at us... But next year we'll only need a $150 card, and the year after that a $75 card. They'll still need their console and its price wont get cut in half every year.
How do PC gamers address this problem? We don't play AAA titles designed for a console the same year that console was released. They suck for PC anyway.
I played this game for years. For those of you that haven't I thought I'd provide some perspective...
The game is so difficult, that even using the DFHACK utility to completely cheat and make my dwarves invincible, I still died every time. It's likely the most complex game ever created by a long shot.
So they want the advantages of being a corporate entity without the limitations? That's reprehensible and indefensible.
advantages? It's required. They'd go bankrupt without it and you know it.
The closest comparison would be the souths Jim Crowe laws from back in the day.
Sure you can vote, you just have to recite the constitution from memory!
Sure you can have religious freedom! You just can't stay in business if you do!
Corporation - a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.
i.e. It's a way for more than one person to own a business.
I'm often surprised at the number of people that will spout off about topics when the don't even know the definitions of the words they're using. If you own a family business and want to share ownership, it has to be a corporation. If it isn't, it will be under the ownership of one family member and there will be a legal and tax nightmare when that person dies.
They did not ask to be put into the situation where they control the womans healthcare. The government forced them, by law, to provide health care. Then the government forced them, by law, to include contraceptive devices that abort a fertilized fetus. (many of the contraceptive devices covered kill the post-fertilized egg) Their only option out was to pay a fine that would go directly to paying for the very same services they oppose.
From their point of view the government just required them to pay for their employees to have the ability to murder babies. Now, you can disagree with that point of view, I know I do. But it really is their point of view. They really do view it has killing babies. That's a violation of their ability to freely express their religion. The government could have addressed this a dozen different ways. Exempting them from the penalties if they didn't provide the care would have been the simplest. But they didn't. The whitehouse should have seen this coming, they should have provided a religious exemption, but they didn't.
Ironically you're kind of proving my point.
Your idea of what's "trendy" is simply wrong. Trendy = Sales. So if one persons playing what you think is trendy and not making money and the other is playing something that you think isn't trendy but is making money, the markets move and you just don't realize it yet. Which is part of the problem. It's really really really hard to figure out where the trends are. Who would have thought speed metal would take off in the late 80s? and then die overnight when Nirvana released their second album?
It's the perfect libertarian excuse for corporate abuse. You don't have to go along with the abuse. You can just live like an Amish person and avoid the abuse if you really want to. It's all your "choice".
Says the guy that has no clue what Libertarians believe.
It's about liberty... including liberty from business and even other citizens. Anyone that understood and followed libertarian ideals would want this sort of practice stopped.
What you're talking about are anarchists.
Progressive's been offering Snapshot, an OBD-II dongle you plug in and allow to monitor your driving. They get the data periodically and can give you discounts for safe driving.
Bet they can also up your rates for "normal" driving too!
My understanding is that they mail it to you... you drive around a bit and mail it back. Not quite the same thing.
I'm pretty sure everyone DOES want to be a successful indie dev like notch... the problem is the chances of that happening are pretty slim. I don't do "games" so I'm not really in that boat, but I am a musician however. I'm damn good to. The problem isn't that you're not good enough, or don't put in enough time... there are plenty of people that are very smart, very creative, and put in enormous amounts of time. What has to happen is that what you are interested in and doing has to, completely by random, end up being the "Thing" one year.
How many silly puzzle games were there before Tetris took off? It wasn't that tetris found some magical formula that, if discovered a few years earlier would have gotten just as huge. It's the combination of the programers skill, the design of the game, the hardware coming out at the right time and most importantly, the publics fickle interests just so happened to swing in the right direction at the same time that game came out.
In music, if you were a Banjo player in the 80s and 90s, you'd be hard pressed to find work. Fast forward to todays music sceen and even pop starts are featuring Banjo in the background... who'd have thunk it. How are you supposed to prepare for something like that? It takes 10yrs to get good at an instrument. But the time you do, public interest has shifted.
Luck is the most important part of commercially successful art. As such, being an independent is very risky.
The Russians will release the complete Snowden Archive.
The Russians don't have the complete Snowden Archive. Not even Snowden has it. It was passed over to 3 journalists in hong kong before he left.
Actually, yes we do. Donkey Kong was the first project by Shigeru Miyamoto. In fact, this was also the first appearance of Miyamoto's Mario character that has been continually reused ever since.
You're proving his point. Miyamoto didn't even know how to code at the time. The real programmers names are lost to time.
Miyamoto had high hopes for his new project, but lacked the technical skills to program it himself; instead, he conceived the game's concepts, then consulted technicians on whether they were possible. He wanted to make the characters different sizes, move in different manners, and react in various ways. However, Yokoi viewed Miyamoto's original design as too complex.Yokoi suggested using see-saws to catapult the hero across the screen; however, this proved too difficult to program. Miyamoto next thought of using sloped platforms and ladders for travel, with barrels for obstacles. When he asked that the game have multiple stages, the four-man programming team complained that he was essentially asking them to make the game repeat, but the team eventually successfully programmed the game.
You've no idea how many times I've finished a big project, walked into the presentation meeting and had whomever my boss was at the time, who had been at hooters during most of the project and use phrases like "It was a lot of work but I'm glad you like what I have done.
And of course, as soon as there's an error somewhere... he didn't write that bit... it was me. :-)
I'm the biggest privacy nut there is... but figuring out when I'm coming and going? come on... 8am to 5pm I'm at work. Wow! You've totally just invaded my privacy!!!
No, the real issue is what the NSA is doing. They're reading my damned mail, listening to my calls. This story and others like it are just red herrings to make us think we're addressing privacy issues when all we're doing is changing how consumer products operate. I don't care if Google knows more about be so they can better target ads at me. The real problem is the information being collected by the government with the goal of capturing, imprisoning, torturing and even killing their targets.
Once the NSA is no longer an agency, I'll care about Google. Until then, if I'm concerned, I'll just not use their products. How do I "not use" the NSA?
Replying to myself - as it turns out, the plot thickens:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Right, the US has gone completely off the rails in recent years. "oh, this guy stole some credit card numbers... Let's kidnap him, fly him out of the country and try him in some random court outside the country! Yea! Go USA!"
Seriously? It'd be one thing if he blew something up... but credit card fraud?
Apparently those involved in organised crime are using the cheapest possible pre-payphones and sim cards swapping from one to another throughout the day. So police are looking for the odd phone out, coming from locations where tracked suspect persons are. So tracking all calls and eliminating the non-suspect ones to leave the ones they are looking for. So tracking the criminal activity associated with pre-pay phones and sim cards is a little more tricky than the movies make out.
Thats not relevant. If criminals figured out how to smuggle drugs deep inside a thier brain stems, that wouldn't give the government the excuse to put up road blocks and perform brain surgery on everyone that happened by.
They can use SSNs for ANYTHING, which is what's so scary about having yours stolen. They can open credit cards, take out insurance policies, even look for jobs in your name. Essentially, an SSN is a person's identity.
Right... the problem isn't SSNs, or even the security of them... it's the fact that creditors will ruin your credit over the internet with nothing more than a 9 digit number and having never met you in person or even mailing you a letter. The majority of SSN fraud is done on the SSN of people who are dead. And not like "died last month" as in, dead for decades or even longer. The creditors don't even check to see if you're still alive before issuing a loan. There are more rigorous checks on your identity when you sign up for an online game than there are for getting a $50k loan. It's nuts.
a customized quadcopter drone that uses a GPS, camera and inertial systems to fly into position .....
Yup, hate to break it to you rocket scientists at NASA, but there is a slight flaw in this design for use on Mars.
I'd suspect those rocket scientists planned to, oh, I dunno, put GPS satellites into orbit around mars prior to landing the rover?
I love armchair paleoclimatologists...
I love armchair climatologists.
I love everyone. Give me a hug.
electronic keypads should randomize the numeric order and that the device should not mirror the letter typed on the inout line or on the keypad.
OR... you could just walk around as you type throwing off their algorithm and not introduce another overly complicated and insanely annoying security feature that would simply push people into not securing their devices at all.
It doesn't have a cellular radio and neither do that tablets.
Tons of tablets have cellular radios. You have no idea what you're talking about.
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Touch-e-Reader-Touch-Screen-3G-Special-Offers/dp/B005890G8O
https://www.apple.com/pr/libra...
http://www.samsung.com/uk/cons...
put down the joint and re-read my post, very very slowly.
It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
If they had not asked, DC probably would never have noticed that their logo was used there. On top of that, even if they had, I doubt they would have acted on it. Suing a grieving family over a harmless supposed trademark violation isn't too good for the company's reputation.
If they tried to use the logo now, after having been denied permission, DC would probably have no choice but to sue since this is in the public spotlight.
This would have been a total non-issue had they just done it and not asked anyone or publicized it.
I'd just do it anyway. Fuck them, let them sue me. If they took me to court and made me take it off, I'd ware a "Fuck DC Comics" Tshirt as I chiseled it off my dead sons gravestone by hand over a period of days and invite every media org in the country to tape me while I did it.
Yes, you can go to prison, without trial, for over 10 years, for possessing a $4 watch
was that the SOLE reason? or just a contributing factor?? did you know that ALL men and women in prison breathe air??
The circumstances of their original detention are often a mystery. Many of the Guantanamo detainees were captured by locals and literally sold to the US Military. In many cases they have testimony of the group that captured these guys, but many question if it was more of a local dispute and one sect was trying to get another detained... etc... So your question is hard to answer in that way.
In 16 cases however, the only still existing physical evidence against those detainees is the watch that was found on them when they were captured. So is it the only evidence against them? Not really... there's questionable eye witness testimony from people that could likely never be found again if they're even still alive that was relayed to random military personnel in the middle of a war zone. But in the case of all Guantanamo detainees, the burden of proof is on the prisoner. They are required to prove they are not terrorists. They've no access to lawyers, research, the internet, newspapers and often the evidence against them is "Classified" so they're not even allowed to view that.
Detainee 154, Mazin Salih Musaid Al Awfi: Millions and millions of people have these types of Casio watches. If that is a crime, why doesn’t the United States arrest and sentence all the shops and people who own them? This is not a logical or reasonable piece of evidence.
Detainee 298, Salih Uyar: If it is a crime to carry this watch, your own military personnel also carry this watch. Does this mean they’re just terrorists as well?
Detainee 651, Usama Hassan Ahmend Abu Kabir: I have a Casio watch due to the fact that they are inexpensive and they last a long time. I like my watch because it is durable. It had a calculator and was waterproof, and before prayers we have to wash up all the way to my elbows.
What's worse is, you don't even need to have a watch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...
They accidentally captured a German car salesman. Flew him out of the country, tortured him for months. Realized he was the wrong guy, but kept him anyway. The only reason he's still alive is because Condoleezza Rice accidentally found out about him and immediately ordered his release. You don't even need to have a scary looking watch. Simply being detained, and knowing how the process works is a threat to national security, so if they capture you by mistake, they'll hold you forever so you can't reveal what happened.
but in the fine print the watch requires its own subscription and raises your rate by more than the watch is worth.
Citation?
The watch doesn't have a cellular radio, like some tablets do. It can't consume data directly.
It doesn't have a cellular radio and neither do that tablets.
The idea is, you wifi tether your table/watch to your phone.
But, to get the deal, you need a larger data package because the tablet/watch will cause you to consume more data.
Or at least, that's what they tell you. It clearly wont cause you to use more data, but they hit you with the deal at the checkout so you don't have time to really think about it.
It's usually proposed like:
*you go in to get a new phone and contract and are almost done with the purchase*
Salesman:"Oh, hey, do you want a free tablet? There's a deal going on right now..."
You:"Free you say? Hell yea!"
Salesman:"Ok, let me write that... it's not letting me apply it... oh, you only have the 1gig data plan. You need the 2gig plan to qualify. But that's only an extra $10"
You:"$10 for a tablet? I could sell that on craigslist even if I didn't need it! Sold!"
*you get your first bill*
-activation fee for the tablet even though there was nothing to "activate"
-that $10 is monthly, they weren't exactly clear on that
-you asked for insurance on the phone and they gave it to you for the tablet as well, doubling the cost of the insurance
*you start banging your head on your desk as you realize you just paid over $300 for a $150 tablet*
They've tried the same scam on me twice now. Luckly I work with salespeople all day long and know if the word "Free" leaves a salesmans lips I'm about to get scammed.
But still you can have 2 tickets and due to traffic you can get to one site right away and the other will take 1 hour to get to but after going to one site traffic frees up and you can get to that 1 hour site in to 10-20 min.
that's of minor concern. You need to understand how this stuff was done prior to these systems.
15yrs ago, the tech would drive into work, pick up a stack of work orders off a printer, get in his van and head out in whichever route he thought best. You'd not see the guy for 4hrs, then he'd head back in, grab another stack and so on.
Now he doesn't even come in. He just looks at his phone and heads to the specified location. The phone even links the location to google maps. Now he can't get lost. The app tells the office where he's at, not that they care... but if he's been on the same ticket for 6hrs they can see he's at the house or if he stopped by a local lake to do some fishing which is something that actually happened quite frequently prior to dispatching software. I used to have to schedule dispatches with other companies we did buisness with and it was common back in the 90s for the tech not to show up on time so, if they were on main street or near the center of town, I'd have the customer stick their head out the front door and look for the techs van. They'd often be at a local don-nut shop or bar waiting for the appointment and get too busy chatting. The customer would have to run down and get them. It was insanely frustrating. Now the dispatcher can update the ticket and make the techs phone chirp.
Traffic delays aren't that big of a deal in comparison.
Does that look at traffic as well?
Some times it can be better to let the tech see the full job list and plan there own day based on local info.
It still needs to get fixed either way, but yes the tech can skip a job. There are stats involved so if you skip lots of them you're going to have to explain why. The rulesets are somewhat complicated, it doesn't just pick the closest one... How old is the ticket? Is it a major piece of equipment? Etc... They can even merge the tickets on the fly... are these 10 sites out of service because of that other ticket down the line? etc...
This isn't a small system. It manages hundreds of techs all over the country and there's a backend of engineers, ticket jockies, records keepers, mapping engineers, facility techs, etc... I'm pretty sure all companies that maintain large networks of equipment operate this way now. I can guarantee you UPS and Fedex have similar systems, as well as the power companies, railroads, etc... I even saw a heavy equipment manufacturer that used such a system to dispatch their service techs to do repairs on customers bulldozers and such.
This is how dispatching works now, that's why this stories funny. It would be more of a story if they were doing something different.
Me to.
I ware a:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
which is super dorky looking and leads people to ask me about it. So I link them to:
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
Yes, you can go to prison, without trial, for over 10 years, for possessing a $4 watch. It's important people know that.
The smart watches I've seen are coming bundled with phones now as part of a gimmick to get people to pay more. "Get the blah blah blah plan and a smart watch is included!" but in the fine print the watch requires its own subscription and raises your rate by more than the watch is worth. They do the same thing with the "Free tablet!" nonsense. They tell you that you only have to sign up for this program that costs an extra $10 a month and you get a free tablet... what a deal! but $10/month times 24 month contract = $240 for a tablet that cost them less than $150. The data package they made you pay for to get it is complete nonsense and costs them nothing. It's pure profit.
I see people walking around with the watches at work and can only think "You're proudly displaying the fact that you got scammed"