When I was at Sprint I heard the story of a cut fiber line. They go to check out the location and the ground is disturbed where the cut is. The tech thought the culprits left before they got there. When they dig down they find a dead decaying horse. The farmer buried his horse on the edge of his property without knowing he cut the fiber.
Another farmer put up a new fence and used the fresh laid fiber line as a guide. He proceeded to cut the fiber numerous times over a half mile with his fence posts. Talk about a costly fence post error.
Even if the $180 was actually owed, if they failed to contact you for 2 years or more, then they have lost the legal right to the money. Also ask for documentation on the debt so you know what the debt is about, if they can't prove the debt they can't collect it. No matter what you do, don't pay a single penny to the company no matter how much they threaten you. Paying any money will reset the 2 year clock. BTW, I would not trust any website of these collection companies, only do certified return receipt postal mail so you have a paper trail of your efforts.
I had a bogus debt and a collection agency tried to collect it. I asked for documentation and they sent me a screen capture of the account balance window, it showed $0.00 was owed. I sent their own documentation back to them as proof I didn't owe the debt. My collection account was resold every few months and a new collection agency would try the same thing. This kept on for 4 YEARS.
I would suggest performing a series of small steps to improve all around health. Like...
Taking the stairs (helps if you work on the 4th floor)
Park as far away from the entrance to your work place. Those extra hundred feet to/from work every day adds up.
During the workday, go to the bathroom on the far side of the building (or another floor). Every step counts.
Beware of the jelly donuts that show up on Fridays at the workplace. Those things contain hundreds of calories. Just think of how much exercise is needed to break even after eating that donut.
Fast food is evil. The reason it is called fast food is because it kills you fast and turns to belly fat fast.
No one over the age of 20 should drink non-diet cola (unless it is mixed with alcohol).
Learn to snack on healthy stuff. Snack on fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, just don't snack on processed crud.
Vegetables are our friends. They fill us up so we don't eat junk.
Eat breakfast. It really is the most important meal of the day. Cereal has lot of nutrients and is generally healthy. Eat a reasonable serving (most people eat 2-3 times the serving size and kill any health benefits of the healthy breakfast. BTW, eat cereal from a smaller bowl, you will eat less.
Ease into exercise. It take a long time to get fit. People expect too much too soon and usually injure themselves in the process. (I use to do this until I took it easy and allow myself to improve slowly but steadily.)
My top weight was 197 when I was in my late twenties. I knew the longer I waited the tougher it would be to lose weight. I'm 33 now and weight 157 and feel awesome. I lost the first half of my weight through exercise, but the second half was due to quality eating once I was married.
Our current pace of exploring the cosmos is equal to camping. You take everything with you, and then you rush back home once your beer and hot dogs have run out. This is not going to cut it. We really are not learning much about getting of this rock with these camping expedition, but it is a necessary prerequisite to the next step of exploration. Overtime, the technology, knowledge, and the willingness to expand out into the cosmos will arise. It is going to take a "Burn the Boats" approach to go someplace and just make it work. Then, and only then do we start to have a lifeboat off this planet we call earth.
Me: Seems like your computer is having problems, lets reboot the computer and see if that will fix the problem. User: Am I allowed to do that? Me: Sure. User: Ok then. Bang, Bang heard in the background on the phone Me: STOP!!! STOP DOING THAT!!! (Me screaming into phone) User: Whats wrong, I'm booting the computer. (User was kicking the computer tower that was under the desk.)
After reading the other comments the consensus seems to be, "it depends on your situation". I won't reiterate the others messages, but I'll state my situation.
I use to work for Sprint, but all our IT developer positions were outsourced to IBM. We were all offered IBM positions, but I accepted the severance package instead. I had three reasons, 1) I disagreed with managment with how they dealt with the outsourcing, 2) I don't have a wife/kids 3) I was ready for something else (I'm only 29).
Lifetime employment is an farce. Playing it safe will reward you with stability, but being bold can reward you with riches that stability alone cannot provide.
10) I merely inherited this code, but I'm not responsible for it. 9) All the developers of the original code have been laid off, so we need to rewrite it to understand it. 8) Sorry, IT has no more maintenance hours to support this application, but we still have development hours to rewrite it. 7)[insert new tech buzzword here] is the future, the old platform of [insert old tech buzzword here] is passe. 6) If we rewrite the application, we'll have more features, less cost, and better quality...I promise. 5) What were they thinking, I have a clear vision of the solution now. 4) What was I thinking, I have a clear vision of the solution now. 3) The customer changed the requirements and a rewrite is required. 2) Prior mismanagement lead us to this position, but the current management can support us in this rewrite. 1) I need to justify my job, this application should be rewritten.
In my experience stored procedures are the way to go but please take care with maintenance activities. Since database objects can't list external dependencies like internal dependencies (e.g. views/procedures/trigger/etc). Without knowing the dependencies a certain about amount of fear creeps into maintenance work. The fear of updating a procedure and breaking other web pages (or the lack of time for analysis) sometimes cause copies of the same procedure to be create with slight changes but under different names. Over time these "new" procedure become a problem since it just leads to more "fear" of change. Fear is greatest problem when dealing with an application code base.
Of course with good execution and experienced programmers this (and all issues) are not a problem, but over time poor execution and less experienced programmers will compromise the integrity of an application design.
The productivity of the American IT worker is fine, poor management causes IT workers to lose value.
IT workers need to convince management to remove obstacles that reduce productivity. I doubt jobs that are offshored have to deal with the volume of administrative overhead as we do in the states. Ultimately, focusing on the customer (not the administrative processes) is what brings value to the worker and the company.
The parent post has some good points. To make Neo's connection to the Matrix via remote connection possible we can look at evolution as being the reason. The effect of generations of humans being jacked into the system, the human biology evolving to the point to actually send/receive radio waves. To the others around Neo, he may seems like a God, but it just evolution adapting to the environment.
Remember, Neo's purpose (according to the architect) was to return to the source for reinsertion of the prime program back into the Matrix. Perhaps that is what the Machine God is doing at the end. The prime program was split between Neo and Smith, and once the code was reunified (when Neo was absorbed), then the Prime Program was usable to reinitialize the Matrix, thus defeating Smith.
I think the access that the Machine God has to Neo would be like console access on a computer. Sure you can do things on a remote computer (in this case it would be hardwired human), but even more could be done with the direct access when Neo is absorbed by Smith. Having direct access to Smith allows the Machine God the backdoor for reinsertion of the prime program.
...it will be easy to spot the terrorist hiding WMD since they'll have huge collection of frogs, reptiles, birds and sharks with frickin' "laser" beams attached to their heads protecting their lair of WMD.
The discussion on the yeast in the story seems like the easy part (IANABC-I am not a Biologist-Chemist), but making a cockroach that has enough power, is controllable (either remotely or through AI), and is actually useful would be the hard part.
The civilized world has more to fear from the development of technology like this than the terrorists do. A cockroach is less of a threat to a terrorist hiding in a cave (they can find a new cave or have a pet snake to eat the cockroaches), verses nations that have nuclear powerplants, mass transit systems, and airplanes that could fall victim to a terrorist controlled cockroach-bots that likes to munch on wires/circuit boards and fuel lines.
Development of miniature cockroach robots will initially be by First World nations, but the technology will proliferate much easier than nuclear capability ever did. It would be easier to hide a cockroach-bot program than a nuclear program, and a cockroach-bot will be more useful.
The mandate to be published is tainting the integrity of professors. Being published is valid only for the right reason of stating new angles to an argument, in my humble opinion. If publication is for the sake of being published, then it is a waste of time. What is worse is being published only for discussing the trendy technology at the time only to get new funding.
How does this relate to Newton? I think a modern Newton would keep quiet until seeing the proverbial apple falling, only then would he/she feel the need to publish.
Isaac Newton would have found a position somewhere where his eccentricity would have been accepted. The very nature of being eccentric leads itself to being adverse to accepting normalcy.
I'm confident that Newton would have found his way into a field that would have afforded him the opportunity to stretch his eccentricity. Will Bill Gates be remember 300 years from now, or will the the people behind new ideologies,concepts, or the creators of the next next social revolution be remember? Only history will tell us.
I hope sometime soon we can all move to a more compact keyboard arrangement. I see laptops, and see the compact keyboard and I'm in envy. I hope this bulky set of push buttons we call a keyboard has seen the last of its days in the near future.
I hope alternative input method start to catch on, like the iGesture mouse pad or more optimal keyboards. If I could have a keyboard that was similar to a lego set, which would allow me to layout my keys in the exact order (and angle) I want, I would probably double my productivity.
Ergonomic keyboard seem to tell me "I should work this way", when I want to work another way. The time will come soon when a user finally can communicate with a computer in a more optimal way.
I think the next big step is searching like Anderton [Tom Cruise] in Minority Report did. I consider this spatial searching, being able to search by moving things around physically in the virtual area around you.
Spatial searching is more like daily searching activities outside of computers. I know the best way to order the information around me on my desk/home/etc. On a computer you're restricted by files types, other application windows, etc. You are force into an organization style dictated by which ever OS you are using. Being able to spatially organize/search data in a virtual space would increase my productivity by an order of magnitude.
I have never seen anything like Minority Report Search in real life. I've seen 3D windows managers, VR, etc but all of those attempts continue the restrictions of the 2D concepts they are trying to improve upon.
...many years ago a caller and a problem with their computer. I told her the only thing to do with that problem was to "reboot" the computer. She made me confirm that's what I wanted her to do, so she did it.
At this time I start hearing a "clunk, clunk" coming through the handset. Well, to say the least she was kicking her computer, since I told her to "boot" her computer.
At the beginning of movies or performances, an usher should stand at the front of the theater with a microphone and talk to the audience. The usher should say:
"Welcome to tonights performance. Will everyone please pull out your cell phones and turn them off or to vibrate. Please enjoy the show."
Even better would be this:
"Welcome to tonights performance. Will everyone turn to the person on your right and left and introduce yourselves and please ask each other to turn cell phones off or to vibrate."
I believe this would work much better, having the message in a movie advertisement will never work. When a person is watching anything in a theatre, they are set in "Passive Mode". Having a real life person tell you something would get a much better response out of people.
I am willing to bet that 80% of people innocently forget to turn there phone off or to vibrate, 15% say they never receive phone calls and would say "what is the chance of receiving a phone call during the movie". The last 5% of peope lack common sense, and I doubt a law will help these people find it.
From the way it was explained to me, Sprint (then called United Telecom) in the early 80's was only a local telco (small one at that), and there was a partnership between United Telcom (local telco operations), GTE (long distance), and Southern Pacific Railroad (they had the right of way for the fiber drops).
They started building this network before the breakup of ATT. Once the breakup of ATT. The network that was being built was a long distance network, and GTE wanted out since it could provide long distance now since ATT was required to lease out part of its network to competitors. Souther Pacific wanted out since, it is a railroad company, not a telecom company.
The partners were slowly bought out by United Telecom, and this is where the name Sprint was picked up, because Sprint was the old name of GTE's Long Distance.
A similar thing happened with Sprint PCS, it was originally a partnership between Comcast, TCI, and Sprint. Sprint sold off their old Analog Cellular network (I think to Alltel). The cable partners joined because they feared the Baby Bells power, and want in on an alternative solution. As time went on, the cable companies were bought out by Sprint. I guess the cable partners started to realize that with the possibility of cable modems, they already owned an alternative to the baby bells.
This is how it was explained to me, let me know if there are any mistake in it.
Re:I don't know about you...
on
Happy Odd Day!
·
· Score: 2
Statistically you have a good chance. Less than half of all people that have lived have died. So if this keeps up you might live to 1-1-3111.
I believe they made a simple mistake, but they should have known about this before hand. The worst thing a company can do is upset their target audience. After this Corel will be tarnished in the community. Corel is a company and wants to make money, but they should understand the market before racing to release a product and looking foolish in the process.
This reminds me of the people that fall for the Good Times Email Virus, they eat it up hook line and sinker. They always feel like they are doing the world a service.
There should be clue that an email is a hoax or spam when:
1 The message tells you to forward it to all your friends,family,coworkers,pets,support group,etc...
2 It is coming from AOL
3 The header of the email is 3 pages long with forwarding addresses.
4 The header of the email reveals it came from Outlook
Slashdot Mirror
When I was at Sprint I heard the story of a cut fiber line. They go to check out the location and the ground is disturbed where the cut is. The tech thought the culprits left before they got there. When they dig down they find a dead decaying horse. The farmer buried his horse on the edge of his property without knowing he cut the fiber.
Another farmer put up a new fence and used the fresh laid fiber line as a guide. He proceeded to cut the fiber numerous times over a half mile with his fence posts. Talk about a costly fence post error.
Even if the $180 was actually owed, if they failed to contact you for 2 years or more, then they have lost the legal right to the money. Also ask for documentation on the debt so you know what the debt is about, if they can't prove the debt they can't collect it. No matter what you do, don't pay a single penny to the company no matter how much they threaten you. Paying any money will reset the 2 year clock. BTW, I would not trust any website of these collection companies, only do certified return receipt postal mail so you have a paper trail of your efforts.
I had a bogus debt and a collection agency tried to collect it. I asked for documentation and they sent me a screen capture of the account balance window, it showed $0.00 was owed. I sent their own documentation back to them as proof I didn't owe the debt. My collection account was resold every few months and a new collection agency would try the same thing. This kept on for 4 YEARS.
I would suggest performing a series of small steps to improve all around health. Like...
My top weight was 197 when I was in my late twenties. I knew the longer I waited the tougher it would be to lose weight. I'm 33 now and weight 157 and feel awesome. I lost the first half of my weight through exercise, but the second half was due to quality eating once I was married.
Good Luck,
Brian
Our current pace of exploring the cosmos is equal to camping. You take everything with you, and then you rush back home once your beer and hot dogs have run out. This is not going to cut it. We really are not learning much about getting of this rock with these camping expedition, but it is a necessary prerequisite to the next step of exploration. Overtime, the technology, knowledge, and the willingness to expand out into the cosmos will arise. It is going to take a "Burn the Boats" approach to go someplace and just make it work. Then, and only then do we start to have a lifeboat off this planet we call earth.
-B
Me: Seems like your computer is having problems, lets reboot the computer and see if that will fix the problem.
User: Am I allowed to do that?
Me: Sure.
User: Ok then.
Bang, Bang heard in the background on the phone
Me: STOP!!! STOP DOING THAT!!! (Me screaming into phone)
User: Whats wrong, I'm booting the computer. (User was kicking the computer tower that was under the desk.)
The sad part of this story is that it's true.
After reading the other comments the consensus seems to be, "it depends on your situation". I won't reiterate the others messages, but I'll state my situation.
I use to work for Sprint, but all our IT developer positions were outsourced to IBM. We were all offered IBM positions, but I accepted the severance package instead. I had three reasons, 1) I disagreed with managment with how they dealt with the outsourcing, 2) I don't have a wife/kids 3) I was ready for something else (I'm only 29).
Lifetime employment is an farce. Playing it safe will reward you with stability, but being bold can reward you with riches that stability alone cannot provide.
-Brian
10) I merely inherited this code, but I'm not responsible for it.
9) All the developers of the original code have been laid off, so we need to rewrite it to understand it.
8) Sorry, IT has no more maintenance hours to support this application, but we still have development hours to rewrite it.
7)[insert new tech buzzword here] is the future, the old platform of [insert old tech buzzword here] is passe.
6) If we rewrite the application, we'll have more features, less cost, and better quality...I promise.
5) What were they thinking, I have a clear vision of the solution now.
4) What was I thinking, I have a clear vision of the solution now.
3) The customer changed the requirements and a rewrite is required.
2) Prior mismanagement lead us to this position, but the current management can support us in this rewrite.
1) I need to justify my job, this application should be rewritten.
In my experience stored procedures are the way to go but please take care with maintenance activities. Since database objects can't list external dependencies like internal dependencies (e.g. views/procedures/trigger/etc). Without knowing the dependencies a certain about amount of fear creeps into maintenance work. The fear of updating a procedure and breaking other web pages (or the lack of time for analysis) sometimes cause copies of the same procedure to be create with slight changes but under different names. Over time these "new" procedure become a problem since it just leads to more "fear" of change. Fear is greatest problem when dealing with an application code base.
Of course with good execution and experienced programmers this (and all issues) are not a problem, but over time poor execution and less experienced programmers will compromise the integrity of an application design.
The productivity of the American IT worker is fine, poor management causes IT workers to lose value.
IT workers need to convince management to remove obstacles that reduce productivity. I doubt jobs that are offshored have to deal with the volume of administrative overhead as we do in the states.
Ultimately, focusing on the customer (not the administrative processes) is what brings value to the worker and the company.
The parent post has some good points. To make Neo's connection to the Matrix via remote connection possible we can look at evolution as being the reason. The effect of generations of humans being jacked into the system, the human biology evolving to the point to actually send/receive radio waves. To the others around Neo, he may seems like a God, but it just evolution adapting to the environment.
Remember, Neo's purpose (according to the architect) was to return to the source for reinsertion of the prime program back into the Matrix. Perhaps that is what the Machine God is doing at the end. The prime program was split between Neo and Smith, and once the code was reunified (when Neo was absorbed), then the Prime Program was usable to reinitialize the Matrix, thus defeating Smith.
I think the access that the Machine God has to Neo would be like console access on a computer. Sure you can do things on a remote computer (in this case it would be hardwired human), but even more could be done with the direct access when Neo is absorbed by Smith. Having direct access to Smith allows the Machine God the backdoor for reinsertion of the prime program.
...it will be easy to spot the terrorist hiding WMD since they'll have huge collection of frogs, reptiles, birds and sharks with frickin' "laser" beams attached to their heads protecting their lair of WMD.
The discussion on the yeast in the story seems like the easy part (IANABC-I am not a Biologist-Chemist), but making a cockroach that has enough power, is controllable (either remotely or through AI), and is actually useful would be the hard part.
The civilized world has more to fear from the development of technology like this than the terrorists do. A cockroach is less of a threat to a terrorist hiding in a cave (they can find a new cave or have a pet snake to eat the cockroaches), verses nations that have nuclear powerplants, mass transit systems, and airplanes that could fall victim to a terrorist controlled cockroach-bots that likes to munch on wires/circuit boards and fuel lines.
Development of miniature cockroach robots will initially be by First World nations, but the technology will proliferate much easier than nuclear capability ever did. It would be easier to hide a cockroach-bot program than a nuclear program, and a cockroach-bot will be more useful.
The mandate to be published is tainting the integrity of professors. Being published is valid only for the right reason of stating new angles to an argument, in my humble opinion. If publication is for the sake of being published, then it is a waste of time. What is worse is being published only for discussing the trendy technology at the time only to get new funding.
How does this relate to Newton? I think a modern Newton would keep quiet until seeing the proverbial apple falling, only then would he/she feel the need to publish.
Isaac Newton would have found a position somewhere where his eccentricity would have been accepted. The very nature of being eccentric leads itself to being adverse to accepting normalcy.
I'm confident that Newton would have found his way into a field that would have afforded him the opportunity to stretch his eccentricity. Will Bill Gates be remember 300 years from now, or will the the people behind new ideologies,concepts, or the creators of the next next social revolution be remember? Only history will tell us.
-B
I hope sometime soon we can all move to a more compact keyboard arrangement. I see laptops, and see the compact keyboard and I'm in envy. I hope this bulky set of push buttons we call a keyboard has seen the last of its days in the near future.
I hope alternative input method start to catch on, like the iGesture mouse pad or more optimal keyboards. If I could have a keyboard that was similar to a lego set, which would allow me to layout my keys in the exact order (and angle) I want, I would probably double my productivity.
Ergonomic keyboard seem to tell me "I should work this way", when I want to work another way. The time will come soon when a user finally can communicate with a computer in a more optimal way.
I think the next big step is searching like Anderton [Tom Cruise] in Minority Report did. I consider this spatial searching, being able to search by moving things around physically in the virtual area around you.
Spatial searching is more like daily searching activities outside of computers. I know the best way to order the information around me on my desk/home/etc. On a computer you're restricted by files types, other application windows, etc. You are force into an organization style dictated by which ever OS you are using. Being able to spatially organize/search data in a virtual space would increase my productivity by an order of magnitude.
I have never seen anything like Minority Report Search in real life. I've seen 3D windows managers, VR, etc but all of those attempts continue the restrictions of the 2D concepts they are trying to improve upon.
...many years ago a caller and a problem with their computer. I told her the only thing to do with that problem was to "reboot" the computer. She made me confirm that's what I wanted her to do, so she did it.
At this time I start hearing a "clunk, clunk" coming through the handset. Well, to say the least she was kicking her computer, since I told her to "boot" her computer.
It would be timeless to line up for a great railgun shot on someone and the Bat comes along and carries off your Railgun.
Back in the day, I can't tell you how many times that damn bat gave me the red dragon and ran off with the chalice.
Those were the days.
I am willing to bet that 80% of people innocently forget to turn there phone off or to vibrate, 15% say they never receive phone calls and would say "what is the chance of receiving a phone call during the movie". The last 5% of peope lack common sense, and I doubt a law will help these people find it.
From the way it was explained to me, Sprint (then called United Telecom) in the early 80's was only a local telco (small one at that), and there was a partnership between United Telcom (local telco operations), GTE (long distance), and Southern Pacific Railroad (they had the right of way for the fiber drops).
They started building this network before the breakup of ATT. Once the breakup of ATT. The network that was being built was a long distance network, and GTE wanted out since it could provide long distance now since ATT was required to lease out part of its network to competitors. Souther Pacific wanted out since, it is a railroad company, not a telecom company.
The partners were slowly bought out by United Telecom, and this is where the name Sprint was picked up, because Sprint was the old name of GTE's Long Distance.
A similar thing happened with Sprint PCS, it was originally a partnership between Comcast, TCI, and Sprint. Sprint sold off their old Analog Cellular network (I think to Alltel). The cable partners joined because they feared the Baby Bells power, and want in on an alternative solution. As time went on, the cable companies were bought out by Sprint. I guess the cable partners started to realize that with the possibility of cable modems, they already owned an alternative to the baby bells.
This is how it was explained to me, let me know if there are any mistake in it.
Statistically you have a good chance. Less than half of all people that have lived have died. So if this keeps up you might live to 1-1-3111.
I believe they made a simple mistake, but they should have known about this before hand. The worst thing a company can do is upset their target audience. After this Corel will be tarnished in the community. Corel is a company and wants to make money, but they should understand the market before racing to release a product and looking foolish in the process.
-Brian
What kind priorities do your projects have?
Do you spend 50% of your time on enlightenment,25% on gnome, and the rest on other projects.
We all know the strenghs of Enlightenment(customization and etc), but what weaknesses do you see in Enlightenment that you are itching to fix?
This reminds me of the people that fall for the Good Times Email Virus, they eat it up hook line and sinker. They always feel like they are doing the world a service.
There should be clue that an email is a hoax or spam when:
1 The message tells you to forward it to all your friends,family,coworkers,pets,support group,etc...
2 It is coming from AOL
3 The header of the email is 3 pages long with forwarding addresses.
4 The header of the email reveals it came from Outlook