I like to think that I'm a reasonably well-informed and educated person. I take an interest, greater or lesser, in a great many things, including politics and the world around us.
I have, in several elections, gone to the polling station, taken my ballot to the little booth and after unfolding it, I re-fold it and return it to the clerk for her to put into the ballot box. I vote, but I make no mark on the ballot at all if, in my opinion, no candidate is worthy of receiving my vote.
I think you're looking for the word laptop. A bootable GNU/Linux CD won't do you any good when the computer has a bad network card (or any of a million other hardware faults).
I've been sent to houses where the customer's computer is literally in pieces, laying all over the floor. Case here, hard drive there, motherboard over there, etc. Why? "It didn't work so I asked Little Johnny next door to fix it for me."
"Show that the problem is with their own equipment, and that I'm not responsible for it." Always a good one : if there was no powersurge (a UPS works wonder to avoid losing equipment to those), no changes in the configuration nor the equipment, and everything has been rebooted and checked just ffs, and it still doesn't work, then saying that it's my equipment is pure BS.
I do some occasional tech work for a cable tv/ISP company. A couple of weeks back I borrowed my wife's laptop (I don't have one myself) and took it to a job so I could plug it in and show the customer that the connection was working.
No fight, no problem, not arguments. "Sorry, sir, but this is working. See how I can browse the web? Here's CNN, here's youtube. Looks like it's definitely something with your computer. I don't do computer service work myself, but I can recommend a shop that does good work if you like."
It's really not that difficult to do, and the customer is happy with the service from my end.
When I arrive to find the internet connection working properly and the problem is with a Frontpage site they're building (although the customer reported that the internet is down) I get a little pissed. I'm pissed at level 1, level 2 and the customer.
Why? I do some occasional tech work for a cable tv/ISP company and they pay me exactly the same amount for a service call. Any service call. They send me a work order, I walk out the door and solve the problem. And collect a flat fee. Doesn't matter if I reboot the customer's computer, change a network card, or just tighten up a loose connection. It's all the same to me. Except that some go faster than others, of course. The five minute jobs sort of make up for the 4-hour jobs.
Though I do consider the News's purpose to inform about issues of importance; not just issues of interest.
The News's purpose is to move money out of your pocket (or someone else's pocket) and into theirs. Selling ads, selling newspapers on the corner, selling coupons... From the point of view of the media owners, the product is the advertising. The filler is the stuff that goes between the ads (i.e. content).
"Educating the public" isn't on the radar screen at all, unless it can sell more newspapers or get more eyeballs on the television screen.
Hello from the Great White North. We use letter-size (and legal-size, and ledger-size) paper here too. I don't know where I would have to go to purchase A4 paper if I needed some. Nobody around here carries it that I've ever seen.
just like everywhere but the US metric is the standard.
We have a strange "mostly metric" system where goods in shops are sold by kilogram and whatnot, but I can still go to the lumberyard and buy a an 8-foot 2x4 and a 4x8 sheet of 3/4 inch plywood. And that's how it's written up on the bill, too. However, butter comes in 453 gram packages. That's what the label says. Convert that number from grams to pounds and see what you get....
the local authority requires it to have a 20:1 "guest" to staff ratio. They have a few people who'll take minimum wage (untaxed, cash-in-hand) to do the job
Somehow I have difficulty believing this. If the "staff" is being paid under the table, then there is no paper trail. If the "local authority" requires a certain staffing level, how does this meet their requirement?
I would never dream of giving anyone an automatic payment out of my account. You're just giving them a pipeline to siphon whatever they want, whenever they want.
I know of one guy who had several thousand dollars taken out of his account without by a utility company for repairs to a damaged service line. He had to sue them to get it back.
I'd rather owe them money instead of trying to get a refund. That way they have to chase me instead of the other way around.
I have two Motorola modems that are supplied by and owned by the cable company here. One is a regular cable modem and one looks the same but it's twice as thick. That's the VOIP modem for my phone service. It has a battery pack in it for battery backup. I'm not entirely sure why they gave me two separate modems but my theory is that the VOIP modem is on a different subnet with battery backup all the way down the line to the central office, while the regular Internet modem is just that and if the power is off, tough luck.
It costs more to do business in Canada. Taxes, transportation costs, labour costs, all are generally higher than the comparable cost of business in the USA. Therefore, goods cost more due to factors other than the exchange rate.
I reported a cable outtage to Comcast for my parents once and the idiot tech said they couldn't proceed without the subscribers SSN.
The (Canadian) cable company that I do some occasional tech work for can look up subscriber records by account number (of course), name, street address or telephone number. Telephone number lookup is generally about as fast as account number. Name or street address generally takes about one minute.
Hopefully ATI hardware is, and this time around ATI/AMD's open source commitment is sincere.
Hear hear.
I would like nothing better than to be able to recommend ATI hardware as an alternative to Intel on Linux boxes. The more choices there are the better it will be.
Unfortunately, as I said, Intel seems to be the only game in town right at this moment.
Intel has released comprehensive driver docs for a long time, and their driver still sucks.
It's my understanding that the current performance (or lack thereof) of Intel graphic chipsets on Linux is due merely to the capabilities of the graphic chipsets themselves, not the driver.
I always try to get Intel graphic chipsets on every computer that I buy. I don't do gaming and I do Linux exclusively, so Intel is the answer to "what graphic chipset should I get" at the moment.
It's dead simple to make it work and it's adequate for what I do.
may be a bit of a stretch. I get free services from a cable tv/internet company as I described in another post but I still have to pay long distance charges, probably because they have to pay for it themselves.
Lifetime internet/VOD/cableTV/phone service in exchange for a box on my lawn?
That may actually be happening somewhere that neither you nor I know about.
30 or 40 years back, an old great-aunt of mine lived in a high-rise condominium where the cable TV company had their equipment (dishes and whatnot) on their roof. Everyone in the building got free cable TV.
For the past several years I have been doing occasional tech work for a cable TV/internet company. A few months ago, they offered me free services (phone, internet, TV). Up to that point, I didn't have any services from them at all, actually. It's a carrot to keep me working for them, of course, and since I wasn't paying them anything before either, they aren't even foregoing any revenue.
The point is, you might be able to get certain free services if you have something of value to them to exchange. Free services are cheaper for them to provide than cash.
I was too busy making sure the installation guy that was inside didn't steal anything.
That's different. I do some occasional tech work for a cable tv/Internet company and have always been amazed at the number of people who let me into their house, say "It's over there", and then disappear completely. If I need to ask a question or something I end up wandering through the whole house looking for them, and then discover they're out in the back yard mowing the lawn.
I have a hard time believing that the Nigerian goverment is really doing all that much about it.
30 years ago I received my first Nigerian Scam letter. Air mail, and actually from Nigeria. I still remember it clearly. It was well typed on a sheet of official stationery, and stated that the sender had money from overcharging on a Nigerian government contract that he wished to get out of the country.
I found the address for the Nigerian Consulate in my country and mailed the letter to them, along with a note stating that if this was a scam they should look into arresting the sender, and if it wasn't a scam they should arrest the sender for stealing money from their government.
I received no response whatsoever from the consulate.
And this was 30 years ago when the Nigerian Scam was new and few had ever seen it before.
The Nigerian government wasn't interested in investigating and prosecuting anyone back then when scams were small-time and when they might have actually been able to deal with it before it got to be the Nigerian national industry.
We would like for everyone to inform themselves and make an educated decision about the candidates,
I like to think that I'm a reasonably well-informed and educated person. I take an interest (greater or lesser in a great many things, including politics and the world around us.
I have, in several elections, gone to the polling station, taken my ballot to the little booth and after unfolding it, I re-fold it and return it to the clerk for her to put into the ballot box. I vote, but I make no mark on the ballot at all if, in my opinion, no candidate is worthy of receiving my vote.
I personally think that people returning a lost bill are a little stupid.
How so? I run a small movie theatre. I pick up people's wallets, watches, paper money, bank cards, you-name-it (I even picked up a "free bra club" card the other day, believe it or not), on the auditorium floor after the shows are over. Anything "significant" that hasn't got someone's name on it I put in a cupboard behind the counter for a couple of months and if someone comes to claim it they can have it back. If it's got your name on it (or your bank's name, or whatever) I try to phone you to tell you to come and pick up your stuff.
I've returned "loose" twenty dollar bills, but never have had anyone ask for a $10 bill or smaller.
find a good reference book, write a few practice programs, and voila.
The first step is the problem, as far as I can see.
I have done a bit of searching and have even asked a few times on Slashdot (when the subject comes up):
Where do you find a currently available and useful Cobol reference and/or tutorial?
Everything that I've ever managed to find is either out-of-print or apparently irrelevant, and I've never had anyone attempt to answer my question here on Slashdot, either.
Any programmer that can't learn COBOL in a few weeks is not much of a programmer
What current resources are available for someone who wants to learn COBOL?
I have done some cursory searching on-and-off for good books or tutorials and have never managed to find anything that wasn't out-of-print or apparently irrelevant.
it sounds like she assisted him in his escape. That, too, is a crime.
Is it a crime, though, to fail to cooperate or assist in re-capture? For example, if she refuses to say anything to law enforcement at all, and they can't prove that she wasn't forced to do whatever she did, if anything, can she be held liable for a crime?
"I'm not telling you where my husband is, or even if I know where he is." Is that criminal in and of itself?
Slashdot Mirror
I like to think that I'm a reasonably well-informed and educated person. I take an interest, greater or lesser, in a great many things, including politics and the world around us.
I have, in several elections, gone to the polling station, taken my ballot to the little booth and after unfolding it, I re-fold it and return it to the clerk for her to put into the ballot box. I vote, but I make no mark on the ballot at all if, in my opinion, no candidate is worthy of receiving my vote.
And I am Canadian.
I think you're looking for the word laptop. A bootable GNU/Linux CD won't do you any good when the computer has a bad network card (or any of a million other hardware faults).
I've been sent to houses where the customer's computer is literally in pieces, laying all over the floor. Case here, hard drive there, motherboard over there, etc. Why? "It didn't work so I asked Little Johnny next door to fix it for me."
"Show that the problem is with their own equipment, and that I'm not responsible for it." Always a good one : if there was no powersurge (a UPS works wonder to avoid losing equipment to those), no changes in the configuration nor the equipment, and everything has been rebooted and checked just ffs, and it still doesn't work, then saying that it's my equipment is pure BS.
I do some occasional tech work for a cable tv/ISP company. A couple of weeks back I borrowed my wife's laptop (I don't have one myself) and took it to a job so I could plug it in and show the customer that the connection was working.
No fight, no problem, not arguments. "Sorry, sir, but this is working. See how I can browse the web? Here's CNN, here's youtube. Looks like it's definitely something with your computer. I don't do computer service work myself, but I can recommend a shop that does good work if you like."
It's really not that difficult to do, and the customer is happy with the service from my end.
When I arrive to find the internet connection working properly and the problem is with a Frontpage site they're building (although the customer reported that the internet is down) I get a little pissed. I'm pissed at level 1, level 2 and the customer.
Why? I do some occasional tech work for a cable tv/ISP company and they pay me exactly the same amount for a service call. Any service call. They send me a work order, I walk out the door and solve the problem. And collect a flat fee. Doesn't matter if I reboot the customer's computer, change a network card, or just tighten up a loose connection. It's all the same to me. Except that some go faster than others, of course. The five minute jobs sort of make up for the 4-hour jobs.
Though I do consider the News's purpose to inform about issues of importance; not just issues of interest.
The News's purpose is to move money out of your pocket (or someone else's pocket) and into theirs. Selling ads, selling newspapers on the corner, selling coupons... From the point of view of the media owners, the product is the advertising. The filler is the stuff that goes between the ads (i.e. content).
"Educating the public" isn't on the radar screen at all, unless it can sell more newspapers or get more eyeballs on the television screen.
Everywhere *BUT* the US A4 is the standard,
Hello from the Great White North. We use letter-size (and legal-size, and ledger-size) paper here too. I don't know where I would have to go to purchase A4 paper if I needed some. Nobody around here carries it that I've ever seen.
just like everywhere but the US metric is the standard.
We have a strange "mostly metric" system where goods in shops are sold by kilogram and whatnot, but I can still go to the lumberyard and buy a an 8-foot 2x4 and a 4x8 sheet of 3/4 inch plywood. And that's how it's written up on the bill, too. However, butter comes in 453 gram packages. That's what the label says. Convert that number from grams to pounds and see what you get....
the local authority requires it to have a 20:1 "guest" to staff ratio. They have a few people who'll take minimum wage (untaxed, cash-in-hand) to do the job
Somehow I have difficulty believing this. If the "staff" is being paid under the table, then there is no paper trail. If the "local authority" requires a certain staffing level, how does this meet their requirement?
If it's not on paper, it didn't happen.
Same in Canada. All the ISPs cap at 60GB or so.
Incorrect.
Sask Tel offers high speed DSL service with no cap whatsoever.
Really.
I've had it here for the past 7 years or so (ever since it became available in my town.)
I had it on automatic payment (big mistake)
I would never dream of giving anyone an automatic payment out of my account. You're just giving them a pipeline to siphon whatever they want, whenever they want.
I know of one guy who had several thousand dollars taken out of his account without by a utility company for repairs to a damaged service line. He had to sue them to get it back.
I'd rather owe them money instead of trying to get a refund. That way they have to chase me instead of the other way around.
I have two Motorola modems that are supplied by and owned by the cable company here. One is a regular cable modem and one looks the same but it's twice as thick. That's the VOIP modem for my phone service. It has a battery pack in it for battery backup. I'm not entirely sure why they gave me two separate modems but my theory is that the VOIP modem is on a different subnet with battery backup all the way down the line to the central office, while the regular Internet modem is just that and if the power is off, tough luck.
It costs more to do business in Canada. Taxes, transportation costs, labour costs, all are generally higher than the comparable cost of business in the USA. Therefore, goods cost more due to factors other than the exchange rate.
it's the children that will be supporting the childless when the childless retire and rely on social security to make it from month to month.
Why would ANYONE retire and rely on social security, childless or not? Isn't that what savings are for? You know -- retirement funds and all that?
Or am I missing something?
I reported a cable outtage to Comcast for my parents once and the idiot tech said they couldn't proceed without the subscribers SSN.
The (Canadian) cable company that I do some occasional tech work for can look up subscriber records by account number (of course), name, street address or telephone number. Telephone number lookup is generally about as fast as account number. Name or street address generally takes about one minute.
Hopefully ATI hardware is, and this time around ATI/AMD's open source commitment is sincere.
Hear hear.
I would like nothing better than to be able to recommend ATI hardware as an alternative to Intel on Linux boxes. The more choices there are the better it will be.
Unfortunately, as I said, Intel seems to be the only game in town right at this moment.
Intel has released comprehensive driver docs for a long time, and their driver still sucks.
It's my understanding that the current performance (or lack thereof) of Intel graphic chipsets on Linux is due merely to the capabilities of the graphic chipsets themselves, not the driver.
I always try to get Intel graphic chipsets on every computer that I buy. I don't do gaming and I do Linux exclusively, so Intel is the answer to "what graphic chipset should I get" at the moment.
It's dead simple to make it work and it's adequate for what I do.
The rest of your list I can see, but this:
free landline long distance
may be a bit of a stretch. I get free services from a cable tv/internet company as I described in another post but I still have to pay long distance charges, probably because they have to pay for it themselves.
Lifetime internet/VOD/cableTV/phone service in exchange for a box on my lawn?
That may actually be happening somewhere that neither you nor I know about.
30 or 40 years back, an old great-aunt of mine lived in a high-rise condominium where the cable TV company had their equipment (dishes and whatnot) on their roof. Everyone in the building got free cable TV.
For the past several years I have been doing occasional tech work for a cable TV/internet company. A few months ago, they offered me free services (phone, internet, TV). Up to that point, I didn't have any services from them at all, actually. It's a carrot to keep me working for them, of course, and since I wasn't paying them anything before either, they aren't even foregoing any revenue.
The point is, you might be able to get certain free services if you have something of value to them to exchange. Free services are cheaper for them to provide than cash.
I was too busy making sure the installation guy that was inside didn't steal anything.
That's different. I do some occasional tech work for a cable tv/Internet company and have always been amazed at the number of people who let me into their house, say "It's over there", and then disappear completely. If I need to ask a question or something I end up wandering through the whole house looking for them, and then discover they're out in the back yard mowing the lawn.
It's my understanding that the current problem is detailed here:
/usr/sbin/sshd | grep bella'
http://www.securiteam.com/exploits/5MP0E20CAM.html
And to check for it you can run 'strings
I have a hard time believing that the Nigerian goverment is really doing all that much about it.
30 years ago I received my first Nigerian Scam letter. Air mail, and actually from Nigeria. I still remember it clearly. It was well typed on a sheet of official stationery, and stated that the sender had money from overcharging on a Nigerian government contract that he wished to get out of the country.
I found the address for the Nigerian Consulate in my country and mailed the letter to them, along with a note stating that if this was a scam they should look into arresting the sender, and if it wasn't a scam they should arrest the sender for stealing money from their government.
I received no response whatsoever from the consulate.
And this was 30 years ago when the Nigerian Scam was new and few had ever seen it before.
The Nigerian government wasn't interested in investigating and prosecuting anyone back then when scams were small-time and when they might have actually been able to deal with it before it got to be the Nigerian national industry.
We would like for everyone to inform themselves and make an educated decision about the candidates,
I like to think that I'm a reasonably well-informed and educated person. I take an interest (greater or lesser in a great many things, including politics and the world around us.
I have, in several elections, gone to the polling station, taken my ballot to the little booth and after unfolding it, I re-fold it and return it to the clerk for her to put into the ballot box. I vote, but I make no mark on the ballot at all if, in my opinion, no candidate is worthy of receiving my vote.
And I am Canadian.
I personally think that people returning a lost bill are a little stupid.
How so? I run a small movie theatre. I pick up people's wallets, watches, paper money, bank cards, you-name-it (I even picked up a "free bra club" card the other day, believe it or not), on the auditorium floor after the shows are over. Anything "significant" that hasn't got someone's name on it I put in a cupboard behind the counter for a couple of months and if someone comes to claim it they can have it back. If it's got your name on it (or your bank's name, or whatever) I try to phone you to tell you to come and pick up your stuff.
I've returned "loose" twenty dollar bills, but never have had anyone ask for a $10 bill or smaller.
find a good reference book, write a few practice programs, and voila.
The first step is the problem, as far as I can see.
I have done a bit of searching and have even asked a few times on Slashdot (when the subject comes up):
Where do you find a currently available and useful Cobol reference and/or tutorial?
Everything that I've ever managed to find is either out-of-print or apparently irrelevant, and I've never had anyone attempt to answer my question here on Slashdot, either.
Any programmer that can't learn COBOL in a few weeks is not much of a programmer
What current resources are available for someone who wants to learn COBOL?
I have done some cursory searching on-and-off for good books or tutorials and have never managed to find anything that wasn't out-of-print or apparently irrelevant.
it sounds like she assisted him in his escape. That, too, is a crime.
Is it a crime, though, to fail to cooperate or assist in re-capture? For example, if she refuses to say anything to law enforcement at all, and they can't prove that she wasn't forced to do whatever she did, if anything, can she be held liable for a crime?
"I'm not telling you where my husband is, or even if I know where he is." Is that criminal in and of itself?