Considering my first meeting today was regarding how best to redesign the mail system to make it easier to comply withsubpoenas in the future. Step one of that redesign: turn off the backups!
Just more proof that the 'e' in email doesn't stand for 'electronic', it's 'evidence'.
Several people have already pointed out the legal issues re: SOX compliance when installing POS software like this. Another piece of advice is: if they don't listen and insist on installing this package, fire the client.
Some clients just aren't worth keeping. Ones who don't take your advice seriously, and are willing to do things that will put themselves, and possibly you, in legally precarious positions, just aren't worth hanging onto. If they insist on going this route, and you've done everything you can to show them why it's a bad idea to install software like this (and do make sure you've gone out of your way to explain the situation thoroughly, in terms they can understand), then you'll just have to let them know you cannot in good conscious support their decision, and are terminating your support contract.
How often does someone go looking for a doorknob, a picture frame, and a KVM all at once?
Have you not noticed the recent Wal*Mart ad campaign? "I went in for chips and salsa, and walked out with this great deck furniture." Or "I went in for hemorhoids cream, and walked out with a new car." That kind of thing.
The point is, when someone's in the mood to browse and spend, the more products you can put in front of them, the more they'll buy. "Stack 'em high and watch 'em buy" is a retail maxim. Why do you think Fry's Electronics (for those unfortunate enough to have one near them) load up their check out lanes with all kinds of random junk? This is just more of the same, present as many products as possible, and people will inevitably buy them. It's just how our culture is.
Since I don't have any mod points to score you +1 Insightful, I'll just chime and say this is exactly why the plan will fail. Too much money is being made right now by companies providing broadband service. So any plan to have the Feds build their own network is going to be lobbied out of existance.
The only way I see this working is if Pelosi suggests increasing funding to the Rural Phone Bank, and instructing them to grant more loans and bonds to companies providing broadband service, not just telephone service. If they do that, then it could work. But it would still cost an awful lot, and I fail to see how the government would gain a return on their investment.
Yes, because it never happens that a company's customer support reps don't follow the written guidelines published by said company. Just because somebody somewhere wrote something, doesn't mean that's the policy that's actually followed. Go cruise the BBB Online sometime, and see how many places get hit for not following through on their stated policies.
People die on a mass scale from rouge [sic] states, not from rouge [sic] individuals.
I think 9/11 put the lie to that statement.
The war on terrorism is going so well that osama is still not caught after about 4.5 years. That war is not going so well. The US operations in Iraq acts as a wonderful recruitment tool for terrorist organizations. Preventing someone from becoming a terrorist is all about winning hearts and minds. We lost that battle a while ago. Terrorists don't use advanced technology to kill people. They use the guns and weapons the US sold to them in the 60's 70's 80's, or whenever we sold them weapons, or they use other methods such as planes.
While we haven't caught OBL yet, we have disrupted his organization and brought down the Taliban, the folks who were letting him hide in plain site. Granted, it's not as good as actually catching him, but since he is a rogue individual and not the head of state of, say, Germany, it's easier for him to hide. It took 20 years to catch the Unibomber, it might take that long or longer to get Osama.
US operations in Iraq provide propaganda for terrorists, sure, but it also serves as a useful way to keep the focus of terrorists somewhere other than the US. It's also a war of attrition, where they sacrifice their young in suicide attacks while we attempt to minimize our own losses. Eventually, we'll win if only because all potential terrorists are dead, at which point the people who want to live in peace in Iraq (and elsewhere) will be able to do so. Hopefully that time will come sooner rather than later. I do agree, though, about the hearts and minds bit. I'm not convinced we're doing enough to make friends over there, or if we are the idiots in the military/government aren't doing enough to share those successes with the folks back home.
Most terrorists use whatever weapons they have at hand. IEDs, by definition, are not weapons we sold "to them", and the most common weapons used by insurgents and/or terrorists are AK-47s and RPGs, both either of Russian manufacture or derivatives of Russian originals. Not that the Russians are supplying them directly, those just happen to be the most common, cheap, weapons around the world.
Nothing like finally slipping into the zone to get some real work done when everybody leaves for lunch when suddenly there is the blaring overhead, "Will the owner of a black jeep please come to the front desk? Your lights are on."
Especially since, if you just wait a little while, the lights on that jeep will magically go off! It's a self-correcting problem!
True, if the stock is convertible that's an option. It usually isn't, and the previous post didn't make it clear one way or the other.
FYI, I got a Series 7 and Series 65 last year when I contemplated a career change from IT to finance. But I quickly got irritated with the other brokers and went back to computers. I think even a resident of Mos Eisley would be put off by the sort of scum and villany you find in any brokerage operation, let alone a certain one previously owned by the largest charge card and travel services company in the world...
4. The preferred stock holders begin to slowly sell off their shares, gaining massive profits from the initial price surge.
Umm, no, I don't think so. Preferred stock has a par value which doesn't fluctuate, it's always $100 per share. You can buy/sell preferred for more or less than this, but due to the nature of the beast, it's not going to go wildly ballistic after an IPO. In fact, since the dividend rate from preferred stock is set in stone, even if the company triples its profits in a given year and pays out more in dividends to common stock holders, the preferred stock holders don't get an extra dime.
So holders of preferred stock can't cash out and gain "massive profits". Preferred stock actually has more in common with bonds than common stock, except that in the event of bankruptcy the preferred stock holders get prior claim to the corporation's assets.
Preferred stock is usually held by very conservative investors who are looking to stabilize their income. Think "retirees" and "pension funds".
See, I knew getting that Series 7 would come in handy!
The difference between working and playing a game - or at least, our perception of the difference - is a lot simpler than most people realize. It's a matter of the pattern of rewards. If you are RANDOMLY rewarded for your efforts, it's a game, and "fun." If you are rewarded on a set, predefined schedule, it's "work."
I don't know about that, the first one sounds an awful lot like a dot-com I worked at once, and that was no fun at all!
You go to college, work your arse off, earn lots of money, die without kids, the race doesn't get your genes. You're a single parent living on state benefit with 12 kids... big contribution to the gene pool.
Except that you've offered no evidence that any of the traits that led to person A working hard or person B collecting welfare have any basis in their respective genes. Those traits might be purely psychological, in which case it doesn't matter how many children either of them have, there's no overall change to the genepool either way.
Just something to think about next time someone says that being poor is an evolutionary advantage. Without environmental pressures (many of which we've removed through society safety nets), there's no way to say what's an advantage and what isn't.
I'd also like to take a moment and encourage those of you who have worked hard and achieved a certain level of prosperity to consider adoption. You can't pass on your genes that way, but you can pass on your memes, and in today's society that's just as important.
In this case, I think a $6,000 payment to JC Penny (a department store) is quite unusual.
Not in these days of high interest credit cards and low interest second mortgages/equity lines of credit, it's not! When my ex-wife and I found ourselves over our heads in credit card debt, we took out a second mortgage and paid off almost $40k in credit card debt in two weeks. Previously we had only paid maybe a $100 a month or so, now we were sending checks of eight or nine grand to various credit cards. That was in 2001, early 2001, so maybe that's why no alarm bells went off.
2. Our founding fathers were for free trade between the states, but wanted tariffs to protect American workers.
I think they would have seen tariffs as protecting American interests, which is exactly the same thing. Just read some of Hamilton's writings on the mercantilist system, for instance.
Enron is a shining example of corporate success, if only they didn't get caught. Hell, even getting caught hardly did anything. The people most responsible are still walking free, enjoying their riches.
The Enron trial is proceeding, several former directors and officers are either in prison or have paid fines. The top two are getting their day in court, and just like any other defendent the government has to prove their guilt first, then we hang 'em.
Was he "kidnapped"? No, he was captured by the Northern Aliance in Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban.
Was he tortured? Not likely, though his lawyer claims he was put in "highly coercive" holding conditions, which led to his confessing. What this means exactly is unclear. However, it does not appear he was tortured, per se, merely made very uncomfortable. Possibly due to conditions aboard a warship at sea (having served in the Navy, I remember the racks in the brig not being very soft when I had to clean the brig in the normal course of my duties).
Was he ever sent to Gitmo? Nope. He spent time on the USS Peleliu before being sent back to the states for his trial.
In short, none of the alleged actions ever happened to him.
China doesn't have the authority to kidnap US citizens without probable cause and send them it Gitmo without trial to be tortured or killed so it doesn't matter. Well, technically neither does the US, but that doesn't seem to be stopping Bush.
Name one US citizen to whom any of this has happened.
Note: Jose Padilla doesn't count, 'cause he never set foot in Gitmo, and he's never been tortured.
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Considering my first meeting today was regarding how best to redesign the mail system to make it easier to comply withsubpoenas in the future. Step one of that redesign: turn off the backups!
Just more proof that the 'e' in email doesn't stand for 'electronic', it's 'evidence'.
Several people have already pointed out the legal issues re: SOX compliance when installing POS software like this. Another piece of advice is: if they don't listen and insist on installing this package, fire the client.
Some clients just aren't worth keeping. Ones who don't take your advice seriously, and are willing to do things that will put themselves, and possibly you, in legally precarious positions, just aren't worth hanging onto. If they insist on going this route, and you've done everything you can to show them why it's a bad idea to install software like this (and do make sure you've gone out of your way to explain the situation thoroughly, in terms they can understand), then you'll just have to let them know you cannot in good conscious support their decision, and are terminating your support contract.
That, sir, is pure genius. I'm stealing that one the next time something like this comes up at my work.
We haven't even invented a self repleneshing beer can.
We have if you drink Budweiser, Miller, or Coors. Just unzip and replenish!
Cell Phone adoption and use (once only for the elite, now any idiot can have one.)
I seem to recall it mostly being idiots who had cell phones when they first came out. Maybe that's just me.
We already got one such quote about everything being invented already, there's not really much room for another.
I'm sorry, were you trying to be ironic?
How often does someone go looking for a doorknob, a picture frame, and a KVM all at once?
Have you not noticed the recent Wal*Mart ad campaign? "I went in for chips and salsa, and walked out with this great deck furniture." Or "I went in for hemorhoids cream, and walked out with a new car." That kind of thing.
The point is, when someone's in the mood to browse and spend, the more products you can put in front of them, the more they'll buy. "Stack 'em high and watch 'em buy" is a retail maxim. Why do you think Fry's Electronics (for those unfortunate enough to have one near them) load up their check out lanes with all kinds of random junk? This is just more of the same, present as many products as possible, and people will inevitably buy them. It's just how our culture is.
Since I don't have any mod points to score you +1 Insightful, I'll just chime and say this is exactly why the plan will fail. Too much money is being made right now by companies providing broadband service. So any plan to have the Feds build their own network is going to be lobbied out of existance.
The only way I see this working is if Pelosi suggests increasing funding to the Rural Phone Bank, and instructing them to grant more loans and bonds to companies providing broadband service, not just telephone service. If they do that, then it could work. But it would still cost an awful lot, and I fail to see how the government would gain a return on their investment.
Yes, because it never happens that a company's customer support reps don't follow the written guidelines published by said company. Just because somebody somewhere wrote something, doesn't mean that's the policy that's actually followed. Go cruise the BBB Online sometime, and see how many places get hit for not following through on their stated policies.
I've always loved the quote, "A common household item that you might be holding right now causes cancer, the full story at 10*."
*I think this comes from Ellen Degeneres, but am not certain.
People die on a mass scale from rouge [sic] states, not from rouge [sic] individuals.
I think 9/11 put the lie to that statement.
The war on terrorism is going so well that osama is still not caught after about 4.5 years. That war is not going so well. The US operations in Iraq acts as a wonderful recruitment tool for terrorist organizations. Preventing someone from becoming a terrorist is all about winning hearts and minds. We lost that battle a while ago. Terrorists don't use advanced technology to kill people. They use the guns and weapons the US sold to them in the 60's 70's 80's, or whenever we sold them weapons, or they use other methods such as planes.
While we haven't caught OBL yet, we have disrupted his organization and brought down the Taliban, the folks who were letting him hide in plain site. Granted, it's not as good as actually catching him, but since he is a rogue individual and not the head of state of, say, Germany, it's easier for him to hide. It took 20 years to catch the Unibomber, it might take that long or longer to get Osama.
US operations in Iraq provide propaganda for terrorists, sure, but it also serves as a useful way to keep the focus of terrorists somewhere other than the US. It's also a war of attrition, where they sacrifice their young in suicide attacks while we attempt to minimize our own losses. Eventually, we'll win if only because all potential terrorists are dead, at which point the people who want to live in peace in Iraq (and elsewhere) will be able to do so. Hopefully that time will come sooner rather than later. I do agree, though, about the hearts and minds bit. I'm not convinced we're doing enough to make friends over there, or if we are the idiots in the military/government aren't doing enough to share those successes with the folks back home.
Most terrorists use whatever weapons they have at hand. IEDs, by definition, are not weapons we sold "to them", and the most common weapons used by insurgents and/or terrorists are AK-47s and RPGs, both either of Russian manufacture or derivatives of Russian originals. Not that the Russians are supplying them directly, those just happen to be the most common, cheap, weapons around the world.
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
Sounds like the kind of thing a Skaven clan leader would say...
Guess this means these guys can't peddle their wares in the volunteer state anymore. Pity.
Nothing like finally slipping into the zone to get some real work done when everybody leaves for lunch when suddenly there is the blaring overhead, "Will the owner of a black jeep please come to the front desk? Your lights are on."
Especially since, if you just wait a little while, the lights on that jeep will magically go off! It's a self-correcting problem!
True, if the stock is convertible that's an option. It usually isn't, and the previous post didn't make it clear one way or the other.
FYI, I got a Series 7 and Series 65 last year when I contemplated a career change from IT to finance. But I quickly got irritated with the other brokers and went back to computers. I think even a resident of Mos Eisley would be put off by the sort of scum and villany you find in any brokerage operation, let alone a certain one previously owned by the largest charge card and travel services company in the world...
4. The preferred stock holders begin to slowly sell off their shares, gaining massive profits from the initial price surge.
Umm, no, I don't think so. Preferred stock has a par value which doesn't fluctuate, it's always $100 per share. You can buy/sell preferred for more or less than this, but due to the nature of the beast, it's not going to go wildly ballistic after an IPO. In fact, since the dividend rate from preferred stock is set in stone, even if the company triples its profits in a given year and pays out more in dividends to common stock holders, the preferred stock holders don't get an extra dime.
So holders of preferred stock can't cash out and gain "massive profits". Preferred stock actually has more in common with bonds than common stock, except that in the event of bankruptcy the preferred stock holders get prior claim to the corporation's assets.
Preferred stock is usually held by very conservative investors who are looking to stabilize their income. Think "retirees" and "pension funds".
See, I knew getting that Series 7 would come in handy!
The difference between working and playing a game - or at least, our perception of the difference - is a lot simpler than most people realize. It's a matter of the pattern of rewards. If you are RANDOMLY rewarded for your efforts, it's a game, and "fun." If you are rewarded on a set, predefined schedule, it's "work."
I don't know about that, the first one sounds an awful lot like a dot-com I worked at once, and that was no fun at all!
All we need to do then is create some genetically modified mice whose urine kills the bacteria.
Followed in short order by snakes to eat the mice, and apes to kill the snakes. Problem solved!
You go to college, work your arse off, earn lots of money, die without kids, the race doesn't get your genes. You're a single parent living on state benefit with 12 kids... big contribution to the gene pool.
Except that you've offered no evidence that any of the traits that led to person A working hard or person B collecting welfare have any basis in their respective genes. Those traits might be purely psychological, in which case it doesn't matter how many children either of them have, there's no overall change to the genepool either way.
Just something to think about next time someone says that being poor is an evolutionary advantage. Without environmental pressures (many of which we've removed through society safety nets), there's no way to say what's an advantage and what isn't.
I'd also like to take a moment and encourage those of you who have worked hard and achieved a certain level of prosperity to consider adoption. You can't pass on your genes that way, but you can pass on your memes, and in today's society that's just as important.
In this case, I think a $6,000 payment to JC Penny (a department store) is quite unusual.
Not in these days of high interest credit cards and low interest second mortgages/equity lines of credit, it's not! When my ex-wife and I found ourselves over our heads in credit card debt, we took out a second mortgage and paid off almost $40k in credit card debt in two weeks. Previously we had only paid maybe a $100 a month or so, now we were sending checks of eight or nine grand to various credit cards. That was in 2001, early 2001, so maybe that's why no alarm bells went off.
Next time you have ramen for dinner and think "woe is me", know that there are people who would kill you in a heartbeat for your $0.10 dinner.
If someone is so desperate they'd kill for ramen, they're better off resorting to cannabilism. And, yes, that happens, too.
2. Our founding fathers were for free trade between the states, but wanted tariffs to protect American workers.
I think they would have seen tariffs as protecting American interests, which is exactly the same thing. Just read some of Hamilton's writings on the mercantilist system, for instance.
Enron is a shining example of corporate success, if only they didn't get caught. Hell, even getting caught hardly did anything. The people most responsible are still walking free, enjoying their riches.
t rial&btnG=Search+News
Then why does this search turn up almost 7000 news results?
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&hs=sMD&q=enron+
The Enron trial is proceeding, several former directors and officers are either in prison or have paid fines. The top two are getting their day in court, and just like any other defendent the government has to prove their guilt first, then we hang 'em.
Was he "kidnapped"? No, he was captured by the Northern Aliance in Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban.
Was he tortured? Not likely, though his lawyer claims he was put in "highly coercive" holding conditions, which led to his confessing. What this means exactly is unclear. However, it does not appear he was tortured, per se, merely made very uncomfortable. Possibly due to conditions aboard a warship at sea (having served in the Navy, I remember the racks in the brig not being very soft when I had to clean the brig in the normal course of my duties).
Was he ever sent to Gitmo? Nope. He spent time on the USS Peleliu before being sent back to the states for his trial.
In short, none of the alleged actions ever happened to him.
China doesn't have the authority to kidnap US citizens without probable cause and send them it Gitmo without trial to be tortured or killed so it doesn't matter. Well, technically neither does the US, but that doesn't seem to be stopping Bush.
Name one US citizen to whom any of this has happened.
Note: Jose Padilla doesn't count, 'cause he never set foot in Gitmo, and he's never been tortured.