I recently had to call Qwest to get my password reset (forgotten passwords happen to the best of us), and they hardly blinked when I told them I wanted to also change my email address. It would take five minutes and half a set of balls to hijack my Qwest account.
It was frightening how easy it was. I don't know why we're so inclined to trust people over the phone.
The hero might be better, but I'm actually disappointed with the hardware of my HTC Touch/G1. The damn sliding screen mechanics are over complicated and almost immediately stopped being straight.
I also have a cracked screen (entirely my own butterfingered fault, although it was rather easy to crack), but surprisingly it still works perfectly.
Android, on the other hand, has been an absolute joy, and I'll never go back.
The real problems I've encountered have been with T-Mobile. I'm annoyed at their exclusion of tethering software. Also, their handset insurance is total bullshit. It costs $6/month, but has a $110 deductible. The price to have my screen repaired is $140. I'm glad I didn't get the insurance, because they don't make the deductible clear anywhere, and I would have been PISSED to have been paying $6/month to save $30.
I think it also has something to do with the fact that face-to-face techs are actually trained (however poorly), while phone techs seem to mostly just be reading lines out of a troubleshooting wizard-type-app.
I once called Dell support and said "hey, my backlight is out on my screen, I need someone to come replace it." And the guy said "well, let's run through some quick checks." Two hours and countless stupid troubleshooting steps later (Is the power light on? Is it plugged in? Have you tried rebooting?, he said "looks like your backlight is out, we'll send someone to replace it." I said "yeah, that's what I said when I called."
[nightmarescenario]Gunmen invade faraday-caged school and nobody knows until the bad guys want them to, because they invaded the office with a landline first, and all cell phones are blocked.[/nightmarescenario]
Any sort of communications jamming in even semi-public spaces is stupid. These schools should try a little harder with good old fashioned discipline first, before they start running to lazy, expensive, technological overkill solutions.
I can say that CD-Rs are pretty unreliable past about 5 years. I recently tried to open some old graphics files from our CD-R archives at work, and it didn't go so well.
Everything I was trying to open recently was about 7 years old, and about half the discs wouldn't even read, or would throw errors when I tried to actually copy anything off them.
It also opened up the issue of file formats...what the hell am I going to do with an Aldus Pagemaker file from 2001? Nothing in Adobe CS3 had any idea what to do with it. I think that's what that extension was, anyway. Archiving photos and videos is pretty safe as far as file formats go. A BMP is crappy and gigantic next to a TIFF or PNG, but you can still open it.
Proprietary layout formats though...they get old faster than cheese in a hot car.
Why would the carrier need to route messages and data coming through their systems *back* to their systems to read them? They are, after all, the carrier of all this data in the first place. Why can't they just sniff around in it in the middle?
Something smells fishy.
Re:Software Projects vs. Traditional Projects
on
Why New Systems Fail
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· Score: 1
I think it has something to do with the fact that it's easier for bigshot investors/CEOs/bigwigs to wrap their head around physical problems brought up by engineers.
If a structural engineer says "this cabling isn't strong enough, we need this other type and it will cost X more," that's a pretty concrete statement. And nobody wants to argue with a structural engineer.
If a software engineer says "we should just buy X software package so I won't have to spend the next 2 weeks reinventing the wheel," a bad manager could pretty easily decide that they would rather pay their own people $2,000 to get a crappy knockoff of a tool they could have bought for $1,000. Then when that crappy reinvented wheel breaks they can just blame the coder who didn't even want to write it in the first place.
Also people at the top rarely understand software, and can't be bothered to even learn the basics. Saying "do it" and expecting it to magically get done does not make a good manager.
There isn't much of a correlation. That's exactly the problem with BMI.
I'm a pretty lean guy, with about 9% body fat, but my BMI consistently hovers right on the border between normal and overweight, just because I'm also denser than most people. If I judged my fitness by BMI and acted accordingly I'd probably wind up hurting my overall fitness and general health by starving myself into losing muscle mass.
Not changing your voicemail PIN is pretty much equivalent to having one of those bathroom locks that can be opened with a penny on your front door. If somebody breaks in it's still illegal, but you share some blame because you're stupid.
Article title is misleading. A bump-map is less exciting than converting 2D to 3D. It's not like it's going to build a perfect model of your head from 15 photos.
Photosynth is far more interesting if you're excited by this concept.
I've never understood the opposition to using existing stem cell lines for research.
Assuming there is a moral problem with destroying embryos, the damage is done. At this point you're pretty much saying "don't eat that cow" when the cow is already dead. Once it's dead you can either eat the cow and have a delicious steak or waste the cow and let it rot.
Same thing with a stem cell. Once the embryo is destroyed you can either waste it...or maybe find ways to cure a zillion diseases. Either way the embryo is still dead.
I appreciate your sentiment, but you come off sounding like a raving loon.
If we're not supposed to base our opinions on a "SINGLE SITE" (which we're not, most discussion revolves around aggregate data), why should we care about your site? Also, what the hell is the topic of your site to attract such a crowd of drooling mouth breathers (as I assume anyone still using IE5 must be)? I want to get in on that action, I bet my click through rates would go through the roof.
What browsers to actively test/support is a decision best handled on a per-site basis. No two sites are the same demographic, and different demographics have different tastes in browsers. My personal site gets about 20% IE, with negligible IE6 and below. I don't even bother testing for it because I don't care. At work on the other hand, we get about 60% IE and I do test for it. What to do depends on the situation...just like it always does.
"Saving" the Earth is a very anthropocentric way of putting it
Assuming you're right we may have accidentally "saved" our own skins, along with a number of other species, but we haven't "saved" the Earth at all. We've impacted the progression of climate and evolution, sure, but the Earth was here for billions of years before us and will be here for billions of years after we're extinct (or off this rock, or evolved into something more exciting if you're feeling optimistic).
We have plenty of power to save or destroy our current ecobiological paradigm, but the Earth itself is a little bigger than us.
Re:Is it just me ?
on
Sunspots Return
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It's you and where you live. Where I live (Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA) we had an unusually warm and dry winter, and are currently in the middle of a slightly hot and unusually humid summer.
I don't like it one bit. Our moisture is supposed to come from melting snow in the mountains...not torrential downpours ruining cars, roofs and vegetation with hail and flooding roads because the ground is too dry and hard to absorb all that at once.
I gots one! I didn't read TFA, but this question still burns hot in my brain-mind.
If a state legislature passes a law that is unconstitutional, can that law be enforced? Let's say a state legislature passes a law stating that shoplifters must have their hands chopped off, is it now legal to start choppin' hands? If it is legal to start choppin' hands, whose heads will get chopped once it gets to federal court to be overturned as cruel and unusual?
It seems to me that there is no accountability for the idiots who pass unconstitutional laws in the first place.
Yeah, it's all well and good that there aren't international corporations fighting it out in the street.
What do I do though when I'm wronged by one of these massive entities? I suck it up and get on with my life. When Allconnect fucked up and cost me $150 what did I do? I called their support line a couple times, and when they refused to help I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and moved on ($150 poorer).
There isn't a damn thing I can do in the face of a massive corporation, even when their negligence has clearly cost me money.
Now what if I had cost them $150? I probably would have wound up facing a debt collection agency. Never mind the fact that to me $150 is a noticeable dent in my income. To them $150 is pretty much nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
It's true.
I recently had to call Qwest to get my password reset (forgotten passwords happen to the best of us), and they hardly blinked when I told them I wanted to also change my email address. It would take five minutes and half a set of balls to hijack my Qwest account.
It was frightening how easy it was. I don't know why we're so inclined to trust people over the phone.
The hero might be better, but I'm actually disappointed with the hardware of my HTC Touch/G1. The damn sliding screen mechanics are over complicated and almost immediately stopped being straight.
I also have a cracked screen (entirely my own butterfingered fault, although it was rather easy to crack), but surprisingly it still works perfectly.
Android, on the other hand, has been an absolute joy, and I'll never go back.
The real problems I've encountered have been with T-Mobile. I'm annoyed at their exclusion of tethering software. Also, their handset insurance is total bullshit. It costs $6/month, but has a $110 deductible. The price to have my screen repaired is $140. I'm glad I didn't get the insurance, because they don't make the deductible clear anywhere, and I would have been PISSED to have been paying $6/month to save $30.
I'm still consistently amazed by the lack of basic understanding on the part of most people (especially those who should know better).
"OMG! This little chip -- which was designed to be read from a distance -- can be read from a distance? Why weren't we told?"
NO SHIT! Wake the hell up and smell the coffee.
I think it also has something to do with the fact that face-to-face techs are actually trained (however poorly), while phone techs seem to mostly just be reading lines out of a troubleshooting wizard-type-app.
I once called Dell support and said "hey, my backlight is out on my screen, I need someone to come replace it." And the guy said "well, let's run through some quick checks." Two hours and countless stupid troubleshooting steps later (Is the power light on? Is it plugged in? Have you tried rebooting?, he said "looks like your backlight is out, we'll send someone to replace it." I said "yeah, that's what I said when I called."
But you can't exactly turn off a faraday cage.
[nightmarescenario]Gunmen invade faraday-caged school and nobody knows until the bad guys want them to, because they invaded the office with a landline first, and all cell phones are blocked.[/nightmarescenario]
Any sort of communications jamming in even semi-public spaces is stupid. These schools should try a little harder with good old fashioned discipline first, before they start running to lazy, expensive, technological overkill solutions.
if it is deemed legal
notice issued in 2005 says the sale and use of transmitters that jam cellular or personal communications services is unlawful
Are lawful and legal different? [facepalm]
The team has shown its barcodes can be read from a distance of up to 4m (12ft), although they should theoretically work up to 20m (60ft).
OK...and this is useful/necessary for retailers or libraries why?
What's wrong with QR codes or RFID?
I can say that CD-Rs are pretty unreliable past about 5 years. I recently tried to open some old graphics files from our CD-R archives at work, and it didn't go so well.
Everything I was trying to open recently was about 7 years old, and about half the discs wouldn't even read, or would throw errors when I tried to actually copy anything off them.
It also opened up the issue of file formats...what the hell am I going to do with an Aldus Pagemaker file from 2001? Nothing in Adobe CS3 had any idea what to do with it. I think that's what that extension was, anyway. Archiving photos and videos is pretty safe as far as file formats go. A BMP is crappy and gigantic next to a TIFF or PNG, but you can still open it.
Proprietary layout formats though...they get old faster than cheese in a hot car.
Well, they just want to keep you safe.
I'm sure it was a critical security update.
Until this debt is reversed can Visa leverage it?
Even at a paltry 5:1 they could buy THE WORLD.
Why would the carrier need to route messages and data coming through their systems *back* to their systems to read them? They are, after all, the carrier of all this data in the first place. Why can't they just sniff around in it in the middle?
Something smells fishy.
I think it has something to do with the fact that it's easier for bigshot investors/CEOs/bigwigs to wrap their head around physical problems brought up by engineers.
If a structural engineer says "this cabling isn't strong enough, we need this other type and it will cost X more," that's a pretty concrete statement. And nobody wants to argue with a structural engineer.
If a software engineer says "we should just buy X software package so I won't have to spend the next 2 weeks reinventing the wheel," a bad manager could pretty easily decide that they would rather pay their own people $2,000 to get a crappy knockoff of a tool they could have bought for $1,000. Then when that crappy reinvented wheel breaks they can just blame the coder who didn't even want to write it in the first place.
Also people at the top rarely understand software, and can't be bothered to even learn the basics. Saying "do it" and expecting it to magically get done does not make a good manager.
Step 1: v0.1 Beta
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT!
You didn't know that 10 comes after 99? You also didn't know that 1 comes after 9?
That's super saiyan mogu mogu neko mimi konichiwa counting! (aka "I'm 14 years old and a l33t MAME haxx0r" counting)
I blame Japan.
There isn't much of a correlation. That's exactly the problem with BMI.
I'm a pretty lean guy, with about 9% body fat, but my BMI consistently hovers right on the border between normal and overweight, just because I'm also denser than most people. If I judged my fitness by BMI and acted accordingly I'd probably wind up hurting my overall fitness and general health by starving myself into losing muscle mass.
I think a lot of people do.
Not changing your voicemail PIN is pretty much equivalent to having one of those bathroom locks that can be opened with a penny on your front door. If somebody breaks in it's still illegal, but you share some blame because you're stupid.
Article title is misleading. A bump-map is less exciting than converting 2D to 3D. It's not like it's going to build a perfect model of your head from 15 photos.
Photosynth is far more interesting if you're excited by this concept.
I've never understood the opposition to using existing stem cell lines for research.
Assuming there is a moral problem with destroying embryos, the damage is done. At this point you're pretty much saying "don't eat that cow" when the cow is already dead. Once it's dead you can either eat the cow and have a delicious steak or waste the cow and let it rot.
Same thing with a stem cell. Once the embryo is destroyed you can either waste it...or maybe find ways to cure a zillion diseases. Either way the embryo is still dead.
-Gaze- tracking, not head tracking.
It's watching your pupils, not your whole head.
Now things really will wiggle around when I'm not looking right at them.
How am I supposed to tell the difference between PrivateEye and gremlins?
I appreciate your sentiment, but you come off sounding like a raving loon.
If we're not supposed to base our opinions on a "SINGLE SITE" (which we're not, most discussion revolves around aggregate data), why should we care about your site? Also, what the hell is the topic of your site to attract such a crowd of drooling mouth breathers (as I assume anyone still using IE5 must be)? I want to get in on that action, I bet my click through rates would go through the roof.
What browsers to actively test/support is a decision best handled on a per-site basis. No two sites are the same demographic, and different demographics have different tastes in browsers. My personal site gets about 20% IE, with negligible IE6 and below. I don't even bother testing for it because I don't care. At work on the other hand, we get about 60% IE and I do test for it. What to do depends on the situation...just like it always does.
"Saving" the Earth is a very anthropocentric way of putting it
Assuming you're right we may have accidentally "saved" our own skins, along with a number of other species, but we haven't "saved" the Earth at all. We've impacted the progression of climate and evolution, sure, but the Earth was here for billions of years before us and will be here for billions of years after we're extinct (or off this rock, or evolved into something more exciting if you're feeling optimistic).
We have plenty of power to save or destroy our current ecobiological paradigm, but the Earth itself is a little bigger than us.
It's you and where you live. Where I live (Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA) we had an unusually warm and dry winter, and are currently in the middle of a slightly hot and unusually humid summer.
I don't like it one bit. Our moisture is supposed to come from melting snow in the mountains...not torrential downpours ruining cars, roofs and vegetation with hail and flooding roads because the ground is too dry and hard to absorb all that at once.
I gots one! I didn't read TFA, but this question still burns hot in my brain-mind.
If a state legislature passes a law that is unconstitutional, can that law be enforced? Let's say a state legislature passes a law stating that shoplifters must have their hands chopped off, is it now legal to start choppin' hands? If it is legal to start choppin' hands, whose heads will get chopped once it gets to federal court to be overturned as cruel and unusual?
It seems to me that there is no accountability for the idiots who pass unconstitutional laws in the first place.
Yeah, it's all well and good that there aren't international corporations fighting it out in the street.
What do I do though when I'm wronged by one of these massive entities? I suck it up and get on with my life. When Allconnect fucked up and cost me $150 what did I do? I called their support line a couple times, and when they refused to help I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and moved on ($150 poorer).
There isn't a damn thing I can do in the face of a massive corporation, even when their negligence has clearly cost me money.
Now what if I had cost them $150? I probably would have wound up facing a debt collection agency. Never mind the fact that to me $150 is a noticeable dent in my income. To them $150 is pretty much nothing.