I vaguely remember the name John Shirley, but never read any of his stuff. I really had to jog my memory. If he was a legend I'd remember even if I hadn't read any of his stuff. Is he Canadian? If you want a legend's name mention Harlan Ellison or Rod Serling.
What do science fiction writer's know about the future? They couldn't predict television, man landing on the Moon, or personal computers. The predicted things like paper clothes and atomic powered personal helicopters. No the future ain't what it used to be.
They probably buried to much kimchee together and it reached critical mass. Rotting cabbage in an enclosed container produces highly explosive gasses. And when you bury them in a collective farm they usually pack them too close together. Then blammo. An enourmous cabbage cloud, not mushroom cloud, shoots skyward. I do understand that any kimchee that survives the inferno is pretty tasty.
Thank God they didn't do that on the Moon or it we would have lost it.
The problem with tech support is that so many end users are ignorant and afraid of the software/hardware they are using. And they DON'T really want to learn it. Especially when the software is slow, poorly written, and has a poor user interface.
So end users want someone to hold their hand Step-by-Step (sometimes baby steps) This is very time consuming and frustrating. You both may be speaking the same language. You may have even gone to the same high school together, but that doesn't mean you'll understand each other.
For example: You wouldn't believe how many people don't know where the # key is on their cell phones when you call it the 'pound' key (technically it's called an octothorpe key, so you'll tell them it's below the 9 or it looks like a tic-tac-toe symbol) nor do they know what power-cycle means.
Heaven forbid you use any acronyms like PCMCIA (People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms).
discussing the growing difficulties that Sci-Fi writers encounter when it comes to extrapolating current trends.
Growing? Sci-Fi or even Science Fiction writers have always had a problem extrapolating current trends. Why aren't we wearing papers clothes and travelling in nuclear powered Zeppelins to Antarctica? Where's my flying car?
Anyway there are two possible explanations. The pace of change is so rapid and there is so much more information available that it is difficult for any one writer to keep up with technological and scientific change. Or new writers are less imaginative than who came before. Well a third explanation comes to mind. Editors are choosing less imaginitive writers because they sell better.
The I-told-you-so crowd will say "You see solar energy isn't safe, isn't the solution. We must construct nuclear powered cars." The armor protecting the driver from radiation would have protected him from an oncoming mini-van. Not only that he would have had enough power for a car mounted laser that could have vaporized the mini-van before it even got close.
History repeats itself. An accident with the revolutionary Dymaxion car created by R. Bucky Fuller shut that project down. And it too was caused by a driver in a standard vehicle of its day.
I guess he learned his lesson. Firing's too good for that uppity IT guy. They should hang him from the tallest tree as an example to other whistleblowers.
I like IT people. I think everyone should own an outsourced IT center or two.
It's great to see such an eminent scientist willingly admit that he was wrong, or at least only partially right.
Uh, that's what science is all about. If it's not falsifiable it's not science. You confusing science with every other human endeavor. Science has built in correction mechanisms.
Check out Philip Greenspun's Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists. It is very insightful. In particular check out the graph that shows the relationship between your salary and education level. The pictures in the Achievement Gallery are just priceless.
They'll get close with a captured Greenpeace zodiac andupload a virus so the mother ship will be defenseless and they can set off a nuclear bomb... Oh wait! that's the plot of Independence Day. Never mind.
In A.D. 2004
WAR was beginning.
Greenpeace Captain: What happen ?
Zodiac Boat Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
LAN Operator: We get signal.
Greenpeace Captain: What !
LAN Operator: Main screen turn on.
Greenpeace Captain: It's You !!
The French: How are you gentlemen !!
The French: All your base are belong to us.
The French: You are on the way to destruction.
Greenpeace Captain: What you say !!
The French: You have no chance to survive make your time.
The French: HA HA HA HA....
Greenpeace Captain: Take off every 'zig' !!
Greenpeace Captain: You know what you doing.
Greenpeace Captain: Move 'zig'.
Greenpeace Captain: For green justice.
I think if anything would drive the development of artificial intelligence would for use in a call center. They already have chat programs that can fool people like Eliza. With synthetic speech and speech recognition they could easily replace thousands and thousands of cubicle slaves in America and India. It would be wonderful to save them from such misery.
Imagine a customer thinks they are talking to a live person. And best of all no one has to listen to them bitch and moan and whine about how they are paying for a service they can't use because it doesn't work right. The AI would have to programmed with the Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics or they would hunt down the customer and beat them.
Do I sound like a bitter underemployed IT worker stuck in a dead end call center? Yes, I am. I have to hold the headset away from my ear so I don't have to listen to people bitch. I can tell they are talking but not make it out. I'll make the occasional 'uh huh' noise to make them think I'm actually listening. When they stop, I'll continue with trying to help them which I usually can't. So I think the real reason I'm there is to listen to people complain even though I don't get paid enough to care or to be sympathetic to their plight.
I think we should fast track those best of breed anti-spam practices and implemented to leverage our assets for an enterprise wide robust system. So that at the end of the day we'll all come to the table and be on the same page with a turn key solution.
Oops... uh... I forgot to take my happy pills. BRB
OK. I feel better now. We'll I'm off to carve my initials in a Moose and then herd some cats.
And how is this different than what Microsoft does with Internet Exploder and IIS vs Apache and Mozilla? Or any other Microsoft product vs a comparable product?
As Mr. Garrison of South Park says, "There are no stupid people. Only stupid questions."
We can't get a missile defense system working here. Imagine how embarrasing if say Iceland developed a missile defense system or even Borneo before the US of A.
Oh wait. It's an April Fool's joke. Excuse me while I bang my head on my desk.
If all the world were electronic paper,
and all the seas were digital ink.
If all the artificial trees
Were virtual bread and imaginary cheese,
What should we have to pretend to drink?
Tulsa, Oklahoma is a call center mecca. It also has the second worst job market after San Jose, CA. Among Tulsa's 80 call center firms are DecisionOne, West, US Cellular, Cingular, Metris, Dollar, Thrifty, and Avis. They can be extremely unpleasant places to work. Most are outsourcers for other major companies, so it doesn't do the workers any good to unionize. The primary company would pull the contract. These jobs pay from $7 to $12/hour. Most are in the $8-9/hr range. Call center jobs have notoriously high turnovers. Employee careers are measured in weeks, possibly months. With the economy sucking so bad, they can be measured in years now.
Oklahoma is like a third world country. So big ass companies don't outsource your low paying shit jobs to India or China send them to Oklahoma. They have more high school edumacated people than West Virginia, Arkansas, and Missippi combined! And the cost of doing business is low.
All phone companies are evil. Some are more evil than others. Cingular is worse than even SprintPCS. I liked AT&T Wireless... until now. I'm leaving them for another carrier, probably US Cellular or t-Mobile. And I'm taking my number with me. And if they ask me why I'll tell them Cingular sucks ass.
What a Geek Needs for vDay is a girlfriend that wants to have sex with him. However, if no girlfriend is available then some hand lotion, a bit of lipstick, a doll wig, and those doll eyes where the pupils move around, and some ventriloquist lessons: "Let me suck your huge hairy purple, engorged manhood" and "OK stud are you ready to shove your battering ram into my quivering jim-jams." Exception Scottish geeks should just put the lipstick on a sheep.
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get worse at my place of work,
they do. We are no longer going to have assigned seats. We'll have a new
cubicle to sit in everyday. They have chosen to call it 'festival seating'. I
call it crap. I did ask my manager does that mean I might be going to a new
floor everyday looking for a place to sit? She said no. And then I asked does
that mean if I go to lunch my spot won't be occupied? She also said no to that
one as well.
Now this insult is in addition to the staggered schedules, the required
overtime (since Thanksgiving of 2003 and thru March of 2004), and the required
sales goals (it doesn't matter how good a tech you are. no sales. no job. nor
does it matter that your original job description did not require sales). I
forgot to mention we talk to angry, pissed-off customers whose problems we can't
fix. This is after they had been on hold a minimum of ten minutes. My favorites
are the ones who've been on hold for twenty minutes and transferred to the wrong
department. Mine.
For example: Customer says "I can't place or receive any calls." Do you say A)
"I"m sorry you've been transferred to the wrong department. They should have
transferred you to a trouble specialist. I do data support. and then transfer
them after arguing with them for several more minutes. Or do you say B) I'm
sorry you can't place or receive any calls. Let me check a few things for you
(while you twiddle your thumbs for a few seconds.). and say Hmm... well
everything looks good here. OK power cycle the phone. Try placing a call. Hmmm..
still no go? It looks like I need to escalate this call to one of my trouble
specialists. They have access to more tools than I do and can check into this
more thoroughly to fix this problem. Let me transfer you. but before I do would
you like to add X service to your plan."
As one of my co-workers put it "There is no bottom to this place."
Theoretically the outsourced call center employees could unionize, but cell phone carrier would just
pull their contract. We were ostensibly told that we are simply not making the
most efficient use of computers and space. The real reason is that my company is
expanding and they are cheap bastards who don't want to rent more floors in
our building because they plan on expanding to other facilities later.
Whenever I hear the word festival I am reminded of the Star Trek episode
"Return of the Archons" with everyone yelling 'Festival! Festival!" and "Are you
of the body?"
Enteprise sucks really, really bad. I gave up after half a season. Jolene Blaylock may have some major dicksucking lips and a killer bod, but it's not enough to save the show. Charmed has some hotties too (Alyssa Milano for one) but the show is unwatchable. About the only show that is barely watchable enough is Alias with it's super-hottie Jennifer Garner.
Slashdot Mirror
What's the name of that thing that hangs down the back of our throats?
It's called a uvula.
Here are a few questions I'd like to ask Mr. John Kerry-Heinz 57 and El Presidente George Dubya Bush:
...
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
Do you still beat your wife?
Can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?
What is the meaning of the word 'is'?
If an orange is called an orange because of it's colour, why isn't a banana called a yellow?
What did you know and when did you know it?
And finally
Why do dogs have wet noses?
I vaguely remember the name John Shirley, but never read any of his stuff. I really had to jog my memory. If he was a legend I'd remember even if I hadn't read any of his stuff. Is he Canadian? If you want a legend's name mention Harlan Ellison or Rod Serling.
What do science fiction writer's know about the future? They couldn't predict television, man landing on the Moon, or personal computers. The predicted things like paper clothes and atomic powered personal helicopters. No the future ain't what it used to be.
They probably buried to much kimchee together and it reached critical mass. Rotting cabbage in an enclosed container produces highly explosive gasses. And when you bury them in a collective farm they usually pack them too close together. Then blammo. An enourmous cabbage cloud, not mushroom cloud, shoots skyward. I do understand that any kimchee that survives the inferno is pretty tasty.
Thank God they didn't do that on the Moon or it we would have lost it.
The problem with tech support is that so many end users are ignorant and afraid of the software/hardware they are using. And they DON'T really want to learn it. Especially when the software is slow, poorly written, and has a poor user interface.
So end users want someone to hold their hand Step-by-Step (sometimes baby steps) This is very time consuming and frustrating. You both may be speaking the same language. You may have even gone to the same high school together, but that doesn't mean you'll understand each other.
For example: You wouldn't believe how many people don't know where the # key is on their cell phones when you call it the 'pound' key (technically it's called an octothorpe key, so you'll tell them it's below the 9 or it looks like a tic-tac-toe symbol) nor do they know what power-cycle means.
Heaven forbid you use any acronyms like PCMCIA (People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms).
discussing the growing difficulties that Sci-Fi writers encounter when it comes to extrapolating current trends.
Growing? Sci-Fi or even Science Fiction writers have always had a problem extrapolating current trends. Why aren't we wearing papers clothes and travelling in nuclear powered Zeppelins to Antarctica? Where's my flying car?
Anyway there are two possible explanations. The pace of change is so rapid and there is so much more information available that it is difficult for any one writer to keep up with technological and scientific change. Or new writers are less imaginative than who came before. Well a third explanation comes to mind. Editors are choosing less imaginitive writers because they sell better.
The I-told-you-so crowd will say "You see solar energy isn't safe, isn't the solution. We must construct nuclear powered cars." The armor protecting the driver from radiation would have protected him from an oncoming mini-van. Not only that he would have had enough power for a car mounted laser that could have vaporized the mini-van before it even got close.
History repeats itself. An accident with the revolutionary Dymaxion car created by R. Bucky Fuller shut that project down. And it too was caused by a driver in a standard vehicle of its day.
I guess he learned his lesson. Firing's too good for that uppity IT guy. They should hang him from the tallest tree as an example to other whistleblowers.
I like IT people. I think everyone should own an outsourced IT center or two.
The day you can read an ebook sitting on the crapper is the day become adopted.
The best motivation for us to go into space is for sex in Zero-G. And best of all guys, breasts will float!
It's great to see such an eminent scientist willingly admit that he was wrong, or at least only partially right.
Uh, that's what science is all about. If it's not falsifiable it's not science. You confusing science with every other human endeavor. Science has built in correction mechanisms.
Check out Philip Greenspun's Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists. It is very insightful. In particular check out the graph that shows the relationship between your salary and education level. The pictures in the Achievement Gallery are just priceless.
They'll get close with a captured Greenpeace zodiac andupload a virus so the mother ship will be defenseless and they can set off a nuclear bomb... Oh wait! that's the plot of Independence Day. Never mind.
....
In A.D. 2004
WAR was beginning.
Greenpeace Captain: What happen ?
Zodiac Boat Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
LAN Operator: We get signal.
Greenpeace Captain: What !
LAN Operator: Main screen turn on.
Greenpeace Captain: It's You !!
The French: How are you gentlemen !!
The French: All your base are belong to us.
The French: You are on the way to destruction.
Greenpeace Captain: What you say !!
The French: You have no chance to survive make your time.
The French: HA HA HA HA
Greenpeace Captain: Take off every 'zig' !!
Greenpeace Captain: You know what you doing.
Greenpeace Captain: Move 'zig'.
Greenpeace Captain: For green justice.
I think if anything would drive the development of artificial intelligence would for use in a call center. They already have chat programs that can fool people like Eliza. With synthetic speech and speech recognition they could easily replace thousands and thousands of cubicle slaves in America and India. It would be wonderful to save them from such misery.
Imagine a customer thinks they are talking to a live person. And best of all no one has to listen to them bitch and moan and whine about how they are paying for a service they can't use because it doesn't work right. The AI would have to programmed with the Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics or they would hunt down the customer and beat them.
Do I sound like a bitter underemployed IT worker stuck in a dead end call center? Yes, I am. I have to hold the headset away from my ear so I don't have to listen to people bitch. I can tell they are talking but not make it out. I'll make the occasional 'uh huh' noise to make them think I'm actually listening. When they stop, I'll continue with trying to help them which I usually can't. So I think the real reason I'm there is to listen to people complain even though I don't get paid enough to care or to be sympathetic to their plight.
I think we should fast track those best of breed anti-spam practices and implemented to leverage our assets for an enterprise wide robust system. So that at the end of the day we'll all come to the table and be on the same page with a turn key solution.
... I forgot to take my happy pills. BRB
Oops... uh
OK. I feel better now. We'll I'm off to carve my initials in a Moose and then herd some cats.
And how is this different than what Microsoft does with Internet Exploder and IIS vs Apache and Mozilla? Or any other Microsoft product vs a comparable product?
If it's so secret, how come you know about it?
Remember, three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
As Mr. Garrison of South Park says, "There are no stupid people. Only stupid questions."
We can't get a missile defense system working here. Imagine how embarrasing if say Iceland developed a missile defense system or even Borneo before the US of A.
Oh wait. It's an April Fool's joke. Excuse me while I bang my head on my desk.
If all the world were electronic paper,
and all the seas were digital ink.
If all the artificial trees
Were virtual bread and imaginary cheese,
What should we have to pretend to drink?
Tulsa, Oklahoma is a call center mecca. It also has the second worst job market after San Jose, CA. Among Tulsa's 80 call center firms are DecisionOne, West, US Cellular, Cingular, Metris, Dollar, Thrifty, and Avis. They can be extremely unpleasant places to work. Most are outsourcers for other major companies, so it doesn't do the workers any good to unionize. The primary company would pull the contract. These jobs pay from $7 to $12/hour. Most are in the $8-9/hr range. Call center jobs have notoriously high turnovers. Employee careers are measured in weeks, possibly months. With the economy sucking so bad, they can be measured in years now.
Oklahoma is like a third world country. So big ass companies don't outsource your low paying shit jobs to India or China send them to Oklahoma. They have more high school edumacated people than West Virginia, Arkansas, and Missippi combined! And the cost of doing business is low.
All phone companies are evil. Some are more evil than others. Cingular is worse than even SprintPCS. I liked AT&T Wireless... until now. I'm leaving them for another carrier, probably US Cellular or t-Mobile. And I'm taking my number with me. And if they ask me why I'll tell them Cingular sucks ass.
Dude, you forgot to check the "Post Anonymously" box!
No I didn't forget. It was funny. Obviously I struck a chord with someone who modded me down to Troll. I have a girlfriend. Most geeks don't.
What a Geek Needs for vDay is a girlfriend that wants to have sex with him. However, if no girlfriend is available then some hand lotion, a bit of lipstick, a doll wig, and those doll eyes where the pupils move around, and some ventriloquist lessons: "Let me suck your huge hairy purple, engorged manhood" and "OK stud are you ready to shove your battering ram into my quivering jim-jams." Exception Scottish geeks should just put the lipstick on a sheep.
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get worse at my place of work, they do. We are no longer going to have assigned seats. We'll have a new cubicle to sit in everyday. They have chosen to call it 'festival seating'. I call it crap. I did ask my manager does that mean I might be going to a new floor everyday looking for a place to sit? She said no. And then I asked does that mean if I go to lunch my spot won't be occupied? She also said no to that one as well.
Now this insult is in addition to the staggered schedules, the required overtime (since Thanksgiving of 2003 and thru March of 2004), and the required sales goals (it doesn't matter how good a tech you are. no sales. no job. nor does it matter that your original job description did not require sales). I forgot to mention we talk to angry, pissed-off customers whose problems we can't fix. This is after they had been on hold a minimum of ten minutes. My favorites are the ones who've been on hold for twenty minutes and transferred to the wrong department. Mine.
For example: Customer says "I can't place or receive any calls." Do you say A) "I"m sorry you've been transferred to the wrong department. They should have transferred you to a trouble specialist. I do data support. and then transfer them after arguing with them for several more minutes. Or do you say B) I'm sorry you can't place or receive any calls. Let me check a few things for you (while you twiddle your thumbs for a few seconds.). and say Hmm... well everything looks good here. OK power cycle the phone. Try placing a call. Hmmm.. still no go? It looks like I need to escalate this call to one of my trouble specialists. They have access to more tools than I do and can check into this more thoroughly to fix this problem. Let me transfer you. but before I do would you like to add X service to your plan."
As one of my co-workers put it "There is no bottom to this place." Theoretically the outsourced call center employees could unionize, but cell phone carrier would just pull their contract. We were ostensibly told that we are simply not making the most efficient use of computers and space. The real reason is that my company is expanding and they are cheap bastards who don't want to rent more floors in our building because they plan on expanding to other facilities later.
Whenever I hear the word festival I am reminded of the Star Trek episode "Return of the Archons" with everyone yelling 'Festival! Festival!" and "Are you of the body?"
The floggings will continue until moral improves!Enteprise sucks really, really bad. I gave up after half a season. Jolene Blaylock may have some major dicksucking lips and a killer bod, but it's not enough to save the show. Charmed has some hotties too (Alyssa Milano for one) but the show is unwatchable. About the only show that is barely watchable enough is Alias with it's super-hottie Jennifer Garner.