Actually, you are not entirely correct either. Tech support and billing are NOT shared across all of Canada. Tech support for SaskTel Sympatico is handled by a call center located in Regina, Saskatchewan about 2 blocks from where I now sit. I worked there for over a year. They do not handle calls from other provinces and no calls to technical support from Saskatchewan are routed outside of the province. I believe Telus and BCTel (when they were seperate) shared a call center, but that had NOTHING to do with Bell, Telux and BC agreed to that on their own. Telus approached SaskTel about joining in as well, but SaskTel preferred to keep it internal.
Here is what is shared -
800 number - though each province routes it where they will
Domain - all use sympatico.ca (ie sk.sympatico.ca) as opposed to sympatico.sk.ca
Actually, Bell Canada is not trying to provide DSL service to all of Canada. I live in Saskatchewan and I pay my DSL bill to Sasktel, not Bell. Now it is true that SaskTel and Bell have some agreements, but Bell has nothing to do with the high-speed service out here. I believe they only service Ontario, though they may have taken on some of the maritimes as well. The Sympatico service, to which I believe you are referring was an agreement between the telco's to provide similar look and feel to their respective customers with long term plans of allowing local dial up anywhere in the country. However, aside from the websites which were mostly mirrored with a bit of regional info added, everything was maintained by the individual telco. Every province was responsible for its own server, tech support, installation, etc. SaskTel was also the first province in Canada to provide DSL, as well as being one of the best converage areas in the world. Tisdal, a town of about 5000 people has DSL.
On that note, in 3 years of DSL service with SaskTel, I've had about 20 hours of downtime. This does not include the day of downtime I've experienced when moving. I used to use the local Cable company but found I'd lose service for 30 or so seconds at least once a night, which gets very annoying when gaming.
Went to see Monsters Inc. this weekend at a local Famous Players theatre. There was a note up at the ticket counter saying there would be no refunds to tickets purchased for Monsters Inc because of the SW Ep2 Trailer.
Obviously I can't accept that. Thus I have a paradox.
No, I don't believe you have a paradox. Just because you can't accept something to be true, does not mean it isn't.
Of course, I don't like the idea that our lives are laid out for us either. But I think there's a flaw in your logic above. I can agree with what you said, about randomness to a point. As your model (be it of the Universe or of a raindrop falling) grows more complex, it becomes in effect, random. Since there are possibly millions of variables involved, there is no way (at least with current limitations) to accurately predict a model with that many variables (for example, weather).
However, aside from that (which is still arguably unrandom), there is also free will, or choice. While many factors will affect what your choices in life are, there is no way to predict what any given person will do in a given situation.
Just some thoughts on a VERY interesting topic which will probably be on my mind for the next while.
Since its slashdotted, I can't see all the details, but folks have added quite a bit to the base mp3-carputer. If you get a full screen, and a GPS receiver, you can do in dash GPS, others have added movies, wireless internet, games, etc. All available on the fly. However, this is FAR from original as another poster pointed out. Check out MP3Car.com. There's a bulletin board and examples. These guys have been making DC-DC power supplies and plexiglass cases for a long time.
Saw an add last night from Futureshop. Along with your purchase of Windows XP, they're offering 128MB Ram, and McAfee Virus Scan. You can see the promotion on their website. I find this quite funny. If you're going to run XP, you need more memory and a virus scanner!
I was actually on a tour of the telco facilities in Ottawa about 18 months after that happened. The tour guide explained to us what happened. It was a dropped tool, apparently a wrench, but it wasn't on the switch, but on a set of the batteries themselves.
The batteries look like a bunch of oversized car batteries hooked together, but there is no insulation on the wires, just bare metal. As such, when the wrench dropped and connected +ve and -ve, sparks flew.
Its surprising that they were able to stay running as long as they did since fully 1/2 of their batteries were toast after that incident. Its also surprising that after six months Ottawa's batteries still had no insulation on the connectors. Over 2 years later, our batteries on our switch (server 5 T1 lines) are still bare metal as well. Of course that's a much smaller setup, but it is serviced by Bell Canada:).
Mass and weight are two related but very different aspects of an item. On Earth they are the same, but in 0g, weight = 0, while mass remains the same.
So for example, if you weigh 220lbs (equivalent to a mass of 100Kg) on Earth, and we're to travel to a moon or plaent with.5g, your weight would be 110lbs, while your mass would stay at 100Kg.
I had to think about this for a minute, but look at the following. If the weight to energy ratio of jet fuel is better than hydrogen, they'd need to carry more hydrogen. More fuel adds more weight, and thus you need more fuel to carry the extra weight.
Security and freedom are inversely related. If you have a very secure safe environment, you've more than likely given up a lot of personal freedom. On the other hand, if you have complete personal freedom, chances are you are vulnerable to these (and other) kinds of attacks.
The question then becomes, where is the balance. What amount of freedom are you willing to give up to feel safe?
One of the biggest holdbacks here, is that for some strange reason, we have to have in-house space for all our teleworkers. Now we're a fairly small office, only about 500 users, with about 15 teleworkers (which I was until recently, in charge of, from a systems standpoint).
In this case, there's no real savings, in fact its more expensive. Sometimes I just don't understand Government thinking.
Re:Kudos to Slashdot and the Slashteam
on
Handling the Loads
·
· Score: 2
As another Canadian I know exactly what you mean. This still feels like a bad dream or something that didn't really happen, though obviously it did.
As a side note, today, Canada has declared a National Day of Mourning, the last one being over 30 years ago. Jean Chretien gave a speech to the American Ambassador to Canada, Paul Celucci. I can't find a link to his entire speech. However, CBC is quoting some of his words here. Probably the most touching part of Paul's speech was when he said (referring to Canada), "You truly are our closest friend".
Canada also observed 3 minutes of silence for those lost in Tuesday's attack. I'd just like to issue a quick note of thanks for all of us that observed those three minutes.
Canadian and Mexican borders are now being closed according to news sources (CBC, NBC). Some are still open, but will soon be closed to ALL ground traffic.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien expressed his horror at the news that the United States has been the victim of multiple terrorist attacks :
"I was stricken by news and television pictures coming from the United States this morning. It is impossible to fully comprehend the evil that would have conjured up such a cowardly and depraved assault upon thousands of innocent people. There can be no cause or grievance that could ever justify such unspeakable violence. Indeed, such an attack is an assault not only on the targets but an offense against the freedom and rights of all civilized nations.
All Canadians are praying that the brave firefighters and rescue crews who currently on the scene will be successful in limiting the casualties. We stand ready to provide any assistance that our American friends may need at this very, very difficult hour and in the subsequent investigation.
Aline joins me in offering, on behalf of all Canadians, our deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and to the American people.
- 30 -
PMO Press Office: (613) 957-5555
This document is also available on the following Web site:
http://pm.gc.ca
I agree, some of the best parts of TOS and even to some extent TNG was the run-ins with the "Prime Directive". It would be interesting to see this series start out with out a prime directive, or at least one that was poorly thought out. Then, as a season finale/priemere run through a bad situation where a prime directive was needed after seeing the outcome of the actions of the federation. I think this would make for an exciting few episodes.
Um, no its not. If you want to take their hard work and make money off of it, then their going to make some money off it as well. If you don't charge for it (product or service) then use as you'd like!
Q: Exactly how is the new SPL structured? Who has to pay under the SPL?
A: You are free to download and use the software for free under the SPL, and like the GPL you have access to source code. We encourage input and modification to the source code. Under the SPL we do expect to get back any changes that are made to the code. If you intend on building a product offering and reselling it for revenues in the market, you then owe Sistina a license fee for the use of GFS. Also if you build infrastructure that supports an outsourcing service - you also owe us a license fee on that infrastructure.
We think the Sistina Public License strikes a happy medium. Our users are free to download, use our technology, and alter the source code as before with the GPL. or service offerings with our technology will owe us a license fee.
So in other words, if your're going to use our hard work to make a buck, we want some of that money. Doesn't sound like a bad licensing scheme to me at all. If your going to use it and put it in freely available software, then go ahead.
A few years ago, as a summer job, I was offering my expertise in helping people purchase a computer.
The first question I always asked was "What do you want to do with your computer." This gave me a starting point. If it was gaming, the machine was always a more powerful machine than the folks who were looking to do word processing and internet access (we're talking mid-90's here).
I remember one guy being quite shy about saying that he wanted to play games, I had to admit that I did a lot of gaming before he would. As a result he ended up being very happy with his machine, and as I recall, he didn't have to put a dime into that machine for over a year!
I thought he missed a "d" as in "deceased". I guess he's thinking the "Living Dead Movies" were about the unfortunate people that died of AIDS/HIV and are now rising from their graves wanting brains!
"It's Canadian-built and it's as good as anything NASA's got," he says, adding with a grin. "And a lot cooler-looking."
Of course here, he is referring to the space suit. Read the paragraph before:
He has lined up a space suit for his first trip on the rocket, designed by a Vancouver manufacturer of deep-sea diving suits.
"It's Canadian-built and it's as good as anything NASA's got," he says, adding with a grin. "And a lot cooler-looking."
We're not trying to outdo NASA, we're trying to overcome that psychological barrier: that you can't go into space without all sorts of government technology and funding."
Yup, that's sort of the whole point of the X-Prize. Civillians designing things that until now were only done by Gov't contractors
"People at NASA and Boeing have started calling us up and saying: 'Hey, can I take a look at this?'
How is this a "High expectation"? I'd say that's pretty impressive already!
"This is going to change history - I'm certain of that." Are you saying that you don't think a civillian made aircraft reach sub-orbit will leave its mark on history?
That is a concern, definitely, but vasectomies are (potentially) reversable - any medical experts out there care to comment?
As for birth control, yes, I'm lucky, my girlfriend is very good with the Pill. Though she fogot once, and we had to go without for a time, but better that than an accident. True, condoms are an option, but I'd rather wait a week than use one. Thank god I don't have to worry about taking a pill everyday. The chances of me remembering more than a couple days a week are pretty slim.
As my SO and myself have already discussed, once we have the children we want, I will be getting a vasectomy. If you and your SO are married or plan to stay together for the rest of your lives, this is something you two should consider.
Of course this causes some concern for me, but its safer for the guy to go through this than for the women to be fixed - sorry forget the name of the procedure on women.
Exactly. Laughing at others, while maybe not morally correct, is something everyone does. I've done a lot of tech support and had some of those calls you've read on various tech-support laugh it up sites (including a mouse as a foot-pedal... I'm not kidding, I actually had that call).
For those that have done end user support, we know these people call in with a lot of very simple problems. As long as you don't laugh at them there's no harm, no foul.
Remember, these questions come from people who are new to a world that we work with everyday. Its okay to laugh as long as you keep the user happy and working. I don't do much tech support any more, but when I do, I often hear the line, "this might be stupid, but...". First of all its not stupidity, its simply lack of experience.
Slashdot Mirror
Those aren't criminals, they're government employees that are spamming. Wait until they discover DDoS.
Here is what is shared -
On that note, in 3 years of DSL service with SaskTel, I've had about 20 hours of downtime. This does not include the day of downtime I've experienced when moving. I used to use the local Cable company but found I'd lose service for 30 or so seconds at least once a night, which gets very annoying when gaming.
Went to see Monsters Inc. this weekend at a local Famous Players theatre. There was a note up at the ticket counter saying there would be no refunds to tickets purchased for Monsters Inc because of the SW Ep2 Trailer.
No, I don't believe you have a paradox. Just because you can't accept something to be true, does not mean it isn't.
Of course, I don't like the idea that our lives are laid out for us either. But I think there's a flaw in your logic above. I can agree with what you said, about randomness to a point. As your model (be it of the Universe or of a raindrop falling) grows more complex, it becomes in effect, random. Since there are possibly millions of variables involved, there is no way (at least with current limitations) to accurately predict a model with that many variables (for example, weather).However, aside from that (which is still arguably unrandom), there is also free will, or choice. While many factors will affect what your choices in life are, there is no way to predict what any given person will do in a given situation.
Just some thoughts on a VERY interesting topic which will probably be on my mind for the next while.
Since its slashdotted, I can't see all the details, but folks have added quite a bit to the base mp3-carputer. If you get a full screen, and a GPS receiver, you can do in dash GPS, others have added movies, wireless internet, games, etc. All available on the fly. However, this is FAR from original as another poster pointed out. Check out MP3Car.com. There's a bulletin board and examples. These guys have been making DC-DC power supplies and plexiglass cases for a long time.
Saw an add last night from Futureshop. Along with your purchase of Windows XP, they're offering 128MB Ram, and McAfee Virus Scan. You can see the promotion on their website. I find this quite funny. If you're going to run XP, you need more memory and a virus scanner!
The batteries look like a bunch of oversized car batteries hooked together, but there is no insulation on the wires, just bare metal. As such, when the wrench dropped and connected +ve and -ve, sparks flew.
Its surprising that they were able to stay running as long as they did since fully 1/2 of their batteries were toast after that incident. Its also surprising that after six months Ottawa's batteries still had no insulation on the connectors. Over 2 years later, our batteries on our switch (server 5 T1 lines) are still bare metal as well. Of course that's a much smaller setup, but it is serviced by Bell Canada :).
So for example, if you weigh 220lbs (equivalent to a mass of 100Kg) on Earth, and we're to travel to a moon or plaent with .5g, your weight would be 110lbs, while your mass would stay at 100Kg.
I had to think about this for a minute, but look at the following. If the weight to energy ratio of jet fuel is better than hydrogen, they'd need to carry more hydrogen. More fuel adds more weight, and thus you need more fuel to carry the extra weight.
The question then becomes, where is the balance. What amount of freedom are you willing to give up to feel safe?
One of the biggest holdbacks here, is that for some strange reason, we have to have in-house space for all our teleworkers. Now we're a fairly small office, only about 500 users, with about 15 teleworkers (which I was until recently, in charge of, from a systems standpoint). In this case, there's no real savings, in fact its more expensive. Sometimes I just don't understand Government thinking.
As a side note, today, Canada has declared a National Day of Mourning, the last one being over 30 years ago. Jean Chretien gave a speech to the American Ambassador to Canada, Paul Celucci. I can't find a link to his entire speech. However, CBC is quoting some of his words here. Probably the most touching part of Paul's speech was when he said (referring to Canada), "You truly are our closest friend".
Canada also observed 3 minutes of silence for those lost in Tuesday's attack. I'd just like to issue a quick note of thanks for all of us that observed those three minutes.
Canadian and Mexican borders are now being closed according to news sources (CBC, NBC). Some are still open, but will soon be closed to ALL ground traffic.
Immediate
STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien expressed his horror at the news that the United States has been the victim of multiple terrorist attacks :
"I was stricken by news and television pictures coming from the United States this morning. It is impossible to fully comprehend the evil that would have conjured up such a cowardly and depraved assault upon thousands of innocent people. There can be no cause or grievance that could ever justify such unspeakable violence. Indeed, such an attack is an assault not only on the targets but an offense against the freedom and rights of all civilized nations.
All Canadians are praying that the brave firefighters and rescue crews who currently on the scene will be successful in limiting the casualties. We stand ready to provide any assistance that our American friends may need at this very, very difficult hour and in the subsequent investigation.
Aline joins me in offering, on behalf of all Canadians, our deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and to the American people.
- 30 -
PMO Press Office: (613) 957-5555
This document is also available on the following Web site:
http://pm.gc.ca
I agree, some of the best parts of TOS and even to some extent TNG was the run-ins with the "Prime Directive". It would be interesting to see this series start out with out a prime directive, or at least one that was poorly thought out. Then, as a season finale/priemere run through a bad situation where a prime directive was needed after seeing the outcome of the actions of the federation. I think this would make for an exciting few episodes.
Um, no its not. If you want to take their hard work and make money off of it, then their going to make some money off it as well. If you don't charge for it (product or service) then use as you'd like!
Q: Exactly how is the new SPL structured? Who has to pay under the SPL? A: You are free to download and use the software for free under the SPL, and like the GPL you have access to source code. We encourage input and modification to the source code. Under the SPL we do expect to get back any changes that are made to the code. If you intend on building a product offering and reselling it for revenues in the market, you then owe Sistina a license fee for the use of GFS. Also if you build infrastructure that supports an outsourcing service - you also owe us a license fee on that infrastructure. We think the Sistina Public License strikes a happy medium. Our users are free to download, use our technology, and alter the source code as before with the GPL. or service offerings with our technology will owe us a license fee.
So in other words, if your're going to use our hard work to make a buck, we want some of that money. Doesn't sound like a bad licensing scheme to me at all. If your going to use it and put it in freely available software, then go ahead.The first question I always asked was "What do you want to do with your computer." This gave me a starting point. If it was gaming, the machine was always a more powerful machine than the folks who were looking to do word processing and internet access (we're talking mid-90's here).
I remember one guy being quite shy about saying that he wanted to play games, I had to admit that I did a lot of gaming before he would. As a result he ended up being very happy with his machine, and as I recall, he didn't have to put a dime into that machine for over a year!
I thought he missed a "d" as in "deceased". I guess he's thinking the "Living Dead Movies" were about the unfortunate people that died of AIDS/HIV and are now rising from their graves wanting brains!
Of course here, he is referring to the space suit. Read the paragraph before:
He has lined up a space suit for his first trip on the rocket, designed by a Vancouver manufacturer of deep-sea diving suits.
"It's Canadian-built and it's as good as anything NASA's got," he says, adding with a grin. "And a lot cooler-looking."
We're not trying to outdo NASA, we're trying to overcome that psychological barrier: that you can't go into space without all sorts of government technology and funding."
Yup, that's sort of the whole point of the X-Prize. Civillians designing things that until now were only done by Gov't contractors
"People at NASA and Boeing have started calling us up and saying: 'Hey, can I take a look at this?'
How is this a "High expectation"? I'd say that's pretty impressive already!
"This is going to change history - I'm certain of that."
Are you saying that you don't think a civillian made aircraft reach sub-orbit will leave its mark on history?
As for birth control, yes, I'm lucky, my girlfriend is very good with the Pill. Though she fogot once, and we had to go without for a time, but better that than an accident. True, condoms are an option, but I'd rather wait a week than use one. Thank god I don't have to worry about taking a pill everyday. The chances of me remembering more than a couple days a week are pretty slim.
Of course this causes some concern for me, but its safer for the guy to go through this than for the women to be fixed - sorry forget the name of the procedure on women.
That doesn't make them suffer, we should force virus writers (at least those that release them) to work tech support at AOL!
For those that have done end user support, we know these people call in with a lot of very simple problems. As long as you don't laugh at them there's no harm, no foul.
Remember, these questions come from people who are new to a world that we work with everyday. Its okay to laugh as long as you keep the user happy and working. I don't do much tech support any more, but when I do, I often hear the line, "this might be stupid, but...". First of all its not stupidity, its simply lack of experience.