My Nostradamus is very rusty from my freshmen theology classes 10 years ago but...
Wasnt there some prediction about a great conflict involving world powers would be started by a man in a blue turban, who killed with fire in the sky ?
MAN this is cool..
wait.. i'm having a vision..
a saturday morning cartoon, we could have a big floating arm with a smiling face on it, solve a big floating rubic-cube (also with a face on it), every time an evil villian drops it and messes up the colours. !!
its a marketing coup* !!!
I used to own a business in upstate CT selling hobby supplies, magic cards etc.
when I opened up.. ALL of the other stores in the area spewed dogma to their customers how 'that new guy' didn't have a good store, didn't have a lot of inventory, etc.
Did that assure them of keeping those customers ? hell no.. gamers & hobbiests, being people, were curious, and took a look to see. When they came in MY store , some would bait me and say 'what do you think about so-and-so downtown?' to which I would reply, 'they have a nice store, I used to shop there before I owned this place, but now I carry everything I used to buy there.. come over here.. look at this new game we just got in (etcetc)'
i acknowledged that they exsisted, and shifted the topic to get them excited about something else. (and to put their $$ in my pocket.) rather than waste my energy bitching about my competition, I chose to spend it selling my product, and giving the customer service.
Thats why when a kid came in six months later and said to me 'so-and-so two towns over is selling all this stuff at 50% off.. what do you think of that!'
I was able to reply 'sounds like he is going out of business, has he gotten (fill in the new product name sitting on my shelf) in yet ? no ?!! well take a look at how cool this is...' (as i hand them the box and watch them reach for their wallet.)
gotta love when the company who used to give you unlimited overtime.. says they will fire you if you are either 1 min early or late logging into your phone.
Re:Talk is cheap...be the solution, not the proble
on
Sean In The Middle
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My wife is a teacher , and honestly , most of the administration hate her.. she is smart, and attractive - and doesn't put up with their power-pushing, totlatarian tactics.
she is also.. a DAMN good teacher, she teaches in a HORRIBLE school.. her classroom is missing the glass out of several windows.. yet the school building is probally in better shape than the homes these kids come from.
the principal is truely an underachiever (i have met him.. he was a christian bible thumper who wanted to bring religion BACK into school.. and at one point hinted STRONGLY that my wife (who is pagan) had better make sure she didn't have any 'pentagrams' on her or she would get fired.
her head of the department.. who has had tenure for 3 years LESS than my wife, is of the same mindset - and (THE WOMAN IS 40 YEARS OLD) spends a lot of time spreading roumours about my wife to other teachers and staff.
When you have a staff that is as bad as the students.. well.. maybe you guys are beginning to see my point.
oddly enough (not really)
something of note that was NOT mentioned.. was that in 1996 Peter (and I say Peter, becuase I wen't out drinking with him..) Came to Games-Workshop HQ in Nottingham UK (I was working there at the time) and had a few days with Tom Kirby and John Stallard. Two of the up and ups in Games Workshop. (both great fellows)
Peter was curious how GW did it, they had a LOT of $$ , and 10 years later were still turning a profit. John and Tom proceeded to pop almost every bubble that he had with his 'ideas' of how to open his chain of retail store (and only 1 or 2 of them in the seattle area were the gaming 'meccas' that he planned to make them)
(Games-Workshop has over 150 store worldwide.. and EACH one turns a profit. ) originally they were ALL going to be like that.
Those stores (from talking to the managers in them.. ) were HORRIBLE ! there was NO management, no organization. I talked to an ex-employee after he left, who said that he routenely let his friends walk out with *BOXES* of cards.. BOXES !
But they grilled Peter, and told him how GW did things, and (amazingly enough) Peter saw the light. (This was just before Pokemon, actually - the marketing stratagies for Pokemon and Magic reflect the results of this meeting.)
as for the coorporate environment, for a company that used to manufacutre knock-off roleplaying games in Peter's Garage, they went a long way, really fast. and wasted a lot of $$ enroute.
as another aside. Ironically enough, Peter came to the UK to talk to John and Tom, becuase Games-Workshop (pre-pokemon) was the best selling line *IN* his megga-store. (beating out magic sales) soley due to a US Sales Rep named Jim Kitchen, (and then Sean (last name eludes me) who replaced Jim when he went to Canada.) both these 2 gentlemen were able to help the store manager in the megga-store organize his inventory, and generate enough interest in the product to make it the store's #1 seller.. which, I guess, is how I know this story *grin*
heh...
I spent almost 2 years across the pond , and I moved back *chuckle*
but you have a good point.. (cultural standings aside) people go where they are comfortable, and where they feel they will understand the way things work.
'You should also NEVER mix up the words Knackered, and Knickers.. especially if the girl your talking to can move faster than you, and is freakishly strong.'
I have my own woes.. victim of red tape.. and it cost me well over $10k to get it fixed.
Student loans . that was the culperate. (please don't flame me for spelling mistakes, and say you didn't get your $$ worth:P im in a hurry.)
I attended Marist College on a full scholarship for 2 years, then I transferred to CT State University (Central) and thats where the trouble started. A state school, they didnt send some kind of paperwork or something, and when they tried to fix it.. it was too late. I was enrolled in school, but as far as the loan companies were concerned, I wasn't. I routienly recieved letters to my DORM ROOM ADDRESS, saying.. now that you are out of school, don't you think you should pay your bills.?
Needless to say.. with 2 more years of school, and no solution on the horizon, the loans went into default. (the original loans were 2 semester loans of $1200 each.. in federal student grants)
by the time I had a stable job, and had finished school, both were in default, and I paid roughly $7500 to pay them off (all at once)
My 2nd problem was a third student loan through Sallie mae. (for my senior year) for $2400.
After my schooling (i was hit by a car) i recieved a large settlement (far from fair since I couldnt walk for MONTHS). this is what allowed me to pay the previous loans (and their STAGGERING collection fees) I figured I would try to get my remaining loan covered.. and promptly sent them a check for $1000 (the remaining balance). Sallie Mae cashed it, but the person crediting my account forgot a zero. Needless to say.. I now had a deliquent payment, and by the time I was able to get them to AGREE it was their error (involving an attourney) THAT loan went into default. (i certainly wansnt going to give them an extra $900 for their mistake)
while THAT one i didnt have to pay anything for.. its on my credit reports, becuase the company they 'sold' it to.. is now out of business, and can't be reached to verify that the debt was paid.
god bless red tape.
my advice to future students.. take loans from family, or work through school.. DONT get any student loans. These problems took me over 8 years to fix.. and im JUST beginning to get my credit fixed.
funny how they never seem to report all the bills i *DO* pay on time.. or the 3 paid off car loans.
if anyone notices.. i said 8 years.. past the 7 year deadline, becuase if there is ANY activity on a debt..(even if you pay it off. or if its sold to another company) it resets the 7 year counter. so they can keep this stuff going forever.
The ironic thing is, E-bay encourages you to contact the bidders in its 'promotional' e-mail. especially if you have a high-reserve auction, and no one is near the reserve. (In that situation they wouldn't get their $$, untill the product sold.. since you could keep auctioning it eternally.
I sold 4 UO accounts on e-bay (yeah yeah.. im a greedy bastard) and only ONE of the auctions was sold to the highest bidder.
The first one the winner contacted me once, then vanished, no $$ no nothing. SO I sold to the next one down in the list.
The second auction was the same deal.
the third auction went great.. the high bidder acutally BOUGHT the account.
and the fourth action I was contacted by someone with more money than common sence, and ended the auction early. (for a lot of too ! so e-bay didn't get their cut.)
Honestly, in the end.. I still had to pay auction fees for all these auctions. Not to mention the countless times I have gotten stiffed in the past as well. (probally about 8 auctions of the 50 or so i have bought/sold in.. have gone bad - not a very good ratio.)
Is quite possible though, that they are attempting to get rid of the 'buy a car for $4.99' people.. where the user is redirected to another web page with idems for sale, if they open the auction. those have been multiplying latley - and i can see where that is just BLATENT disregard of e-bay. (but really, would *you* buy from a site like that?
oh.. come to think of it.. there was a lot of talk about that too..
I dunno.. after about 10 mins my eye's started to glaze over, so i probally got it all wrong.. whomever though to make a 3 hour meeting on that stuff for EVERY employee.. i dunno:P
thanks for the clarification though.. just dont tell anyone here.. or i might have to sit through it again.
Having just attended a mandatory patent meeting in a fortune 500, (for powertools , not programs) I have to say that patents are a wierd animal.
according to our patent lawyer (we have three) who gave the speech. We should submit EVERY new idea we have to the patent office.. just in case its a 'good one'.
he then went on for another 2 hours about how we lost revenue from the 'snakelight(tm)adjustable flashlight'.
One interesting point is things like the above example: using Snakelight as an adjective.. not a noun. Apparently you can loose your patent rights if something is clasified as a basic object. (for example Scotch Tape... is appreviated as Scotchtape (especially in the north) to mean clear cello-tape.
This explains why, growing up in the town where lego's are manufatcured.. we were corrected to call them Lego building blocks... and not simply the venacular 'lego's'.
you can also loose patents if for example, you don't actully USE your patent. Stanly tools (in new britian CT) lost their patent on their black & yellow colour trademark (allowing dewalt to start making handtools) simply becuase they started producing tools that were NOT black & yellow.. but clear , or red.. etc.
all I can say is that if anyone things Objects are confusing.. dont even TALK to a patent lawyer.. my head was spinning for days after that one.
Your in the barrow. The room is cast in shadows. You see a dagger, and a lanturn here. There is a wooden door to the north which is closed. :>
GOD i spent HOURS as a kid on those games.. I was the first of my 'geek' friends to solve zork on my c64. (mainly due to a few days spent at home coughing into a bowl of chicken soup *cough cough* mom.. im sick.)
Really though.. in a way.. having always been a 'reading creature' i think the text games had a certain kind of magic to them. They were the precurser to muds as a text rich environment. How many other games let you recurse three levels when your looking at a picture on the wall? (think flatheads) Great.. thanks/... now im all nostalgic today:(
i have not read the report yet.. but during my 'tour' at MIT as a potental student, the tour guide mentioned that zork was based on the MIT campus.. and that the writers had gone there. (maybe why they chose this as a project?)
I have to say.. good views (except that joystick thing)
I have been a gamer *forever* Oddesy II (anyone remember that), atari, intellivision, colecovision, nintendo (enough ancient history.)
I also did the d&d etc stint. a little LRP (hangs head in shame at past geek activities), board games galore (risk, chess, monopoly -- no one ever badmouthed THOSE games!!)
Then we have the 'real' games: soccer, triatholon, paintball etc. All of which I have taken part in.
I even (in 1993) opened a game shop.. selling magic cards (wahoo! Cha-CHING!) Games-workshop, TSR stuff, video games, etc etc etc
two of my jobs have been with gaming companies, and I spent a year overseas with one of them setting up their japanese division.
all before I was 26
all in all, I have to agree, the lessions i learned in early video games: patience, persistance, and petulanche (heh) paid off.
I learned important lessions, strategy. I learned not to overextend myself, to fortify my borders/assets. Things that helped me in business. I learned to abandon lost skirmishes, so I could concentrate my attention on the larger image to 'win'. I learned to plan ahead, to 'read' my opponents. And more importantly, I learned to *learn* - on the fly, and often with only seconds to spare. As everyone knows.. there is *no* time to spare when your quaking with
l33td00dz *chuckle*. (If only I had learned to spell ! ) Gaming has both been good to me, and been good for me.
even that one summer at age 13.. where I didn't see another human for over 3 weeks.
Saddly.. thats not me, that would be the microsoft nazi's that controll our IT department. *NO UNIX FOR YOU!*
however.. i *DO* thank you for the ammunition, considering the person who wrote that page was REALLY trying to discredit me a few weeks ago because the new site has some problems with netscape 6.0.
finally, someone who supports my movement away from cubes.
I have probally been a lucky guy. All the companies I have worked for (for the most part) have been of the 'war room' mentality
Games-Workshop - WarRoom
@Home - WarRoom
Black&Decker - WarRoom (more or less)
ProxiCom (on loan)- WarishRoom
Actually @home (Comcast division) was the one that started out NOT as a WarRoom. It was cubicle world, and i'll tell you.. productivity was horrible. (nothing like having absolute privace when you want to play a little quake eh ?) but I moved to the web side, and that was like a bullpen. It was great. If I was having a code problem - I just had to say 'HEY!' and someone might have an answer.
C.H.I.M.P's abounded, so we might not even have to look away from our screens. Pr0n surfing, and goofing off was not activly discouraged, but when all your companions are busting a$$ to meet deadline - you feel a LOT more guilty looking at e-bay, (or slashdotting i suppose *grin*)
at the contractors im working with now (for the new blackanddecker.com site), its a low cubicle wall place.. in nice ordly rows, with lots of caffinated beverages for free in the kitchen. Its a more-or-less war room environment. There are tv's here, and people talk to each other more readily. (The graphics part of the company was busily setting up a slot car track about 30 mins ago.. smelled of Ozone galore !) However, in the last week (of crunch time) i have probally worked 60+ hours with this site.. and honestly.. its been a HELL of a lot easier to do so, than if i was stairing at the grey fabric covered walls of a cube.
Last week (admist a spontanious poll of how many people had a sock monkey as a kid - so far its 28 vs 20.. close race - 2 voted "what the hell is a sock monkey", prompting for some RATHER interesting drawings on the 'warboard' )
we were here untill midnight (with some chineese food as fortification.) Much easier, and actually kind of FUN. Although I kinda glad that im not expected to do that it every day.
I'm all for the war room, sides.. its easier to shoot your boss with a nerfball when you can see him all the time.
Problem is I keep working for large corperations.. they are all stuck in the windows frame of mind.
apache is SOO much more flexable, easily configured, easier to write cutstom apps for. This book sounds like it could be a good buy. (I will certainly buy it for a desktop guide, if nothing else.) Im shocked O'Riley let this one get away though.
I had previously worked for a fairly large 'gaming' company in the UK. and wanted to leave that and get back into my major (programming). I had prepaired myself to take a year off, and study up. then I got an e-mail from @home saying they needed college educated people to help them out.
i figured.. what the hell.. free cable.
i spent 2 years in their call center, then moved to publishing/writing webpages & backend ASP pages.After that I moved on to another company that offered to pay me what I was worth. (Even with my spelling mistakes.. smarta$$es *grin*
from what friends there tell me.. its actually gotten WORSE:P but the number combination to push you to the top of the call queue still works!
having been former tech support (for @home even) i have always been constantly amazed at the hoops that both the customers , and the employees are made to jump through.
For example, in Comcast's division of @home.. if you score less than 90% on a random montitered call's QA (quality assurance) you are immediatly disqualified from ANY bonus pay that month. So, if you forget to ask "is there anything else I can help you with today?" EVEN if the customer (who has been screaming at you for the last 5 mins about how he is going to get a lawyer becuase his cable service just shut off when his wife backed into the green box outside - dont laugh.. true story) hangs up.. you are expected to say those words.. just in case.
call center people were written up for being 30 seconds late to work. And also penalized if they stayed more than 5 mins overtime. (it was more benificial to hang up the phone (and then say "is there anything else I can help you with today?" ) and log out on time ..than to actually FIX a problem and wind up going over.
We were expected (for less than 25k a year) to trouble shoot everything from ipstacks and regestry problems- to router errors, all the way down the line to.. 'no mam..please use the RIGHT button on the mouse.. its the one furthest away from your thumb if your using your RIGHT hand.) All the while trying to calm down pissed off customers (sometiems rightly so , sometimes ONLY becuase they had $$.
and then there is the idiot factor. People are written up for the most assassine reasons.. just to make an example. I was always in the top 5 (of 120+ people) for sales/tech assistance. yet one day I myself was written up becuase i refused to call a customer Dr.So-and-so. (the only reason i refuesed is because he had stated to me that he would report me to my supervisor if i didnt stop calling him *MR* so-and-so. I figured anyone THAT irrational, wasnt going to listen to my suggestions anyways, gimmi an old lady over a DR anytime.. at least the old ladys are willing to read manuals, and TRY.)
man.. just thinking about those poor souls still stuck in tech support reminds me why i NEVER bother them with my problems. I would rather learn it myself, then force them to read the canned scripts they are told to use in place of 'I don't know'
There is SOO much more i could say.. but i *like* my job now.. so im gonna get back to it;P
somethings were certainly done a LOT better than the 1984 version.. (where there just wasn't enough time) and the SFX were a lot better. The costuming - well.. i just never pictured paul wearing a leather leaotard when he was walking around in the desert.
I have to say the dialog between characters is a lot better.. however.. no matter HOW faithful they planned to be to the book there is just too much there.
I reread the dinner party section as an example(page 142 for those that own the book:P) and there was a LOT there that was left out. the whole byplay where the smugglers side with the atredies, (and scare the crap out of the banker(the guy dressed in purple) who is trying to bait paul, and where paul shocks everyone by maneuvering him into a corner (verbally). Not to mention the whole plot of jessica being the traider. (and 1 sentance abotu 'imperial conditiong' certainly doesnt due justice to HOW deep that betrayel had to go.)
im also a little dissapointed at the death of duncan (ESPECIALLY if they are going to film the other books), and a lot of the political intrigue is gone. I mean , i read the books.. i *knew* he was going to die.. but when I watched it . i had NO idea he was just killed. (till the 2nd time) with a plot line THAT important to the book.. you would think they would have made it a bit more clear.
paul acting like a brat is ok.. since he WAS.. untill he went to the desert. (even if I'm not sure how he just appeared there.. without a stillsuit - commercials are great)
i would also have like to seen the 30 mins they took out for the american version ( nudity smudity.. im hoping they put some plot back in.)
all in all.. we have to take all this with a grain of salt . its a movie.. not the book.. when is a movie EVER as good as what you can imagine by reading the book ? ill watch the epispode tonight.. but it will be a flip on tuesday.. the girl in dark angel is kinda cute:P
A few years ago I worked for a company Games-Workshop, and they sent me from the US to their offices in Nottingham UK.
I never got a visa myself, and I was in charge of trying to hire staff from Japan. It was a HORRIBL process. In order to get them (and they were about 1000LB each) we had to prove that the japanese lads could provide a service that no out of work Englishman could do. (at the time.. there was a job shortage in europe.. i dont know how it is now.)
In fact , being a US citizen, they couldn't even GET me a visa.. so I was permanantly on 'Training Trips' (i had to go back to the US every 30 days - which worked out nice for me)
they also had to pay me from the US office.
so I dont know how easy it would be now. However, The company im working in conjunction with NOW (proxicom) has offices in both london and france and can move staff from their DC/NYC/Cali offices to there in times of need. Im not sure how that works, but you might want to look into contracting positions that post overseas.
I remember doing a science experiment in HS about this. (I was on Cape Cod.. so lots of waves around)
One of the professors was REALLY keen on this stuff, and there was an after school ECHO type club that got involved in trying to use tide swells to turn a turbine.
The wind tunnel thing i never thought of.. which was probally stupid considering you could never hold a notebook still to write notes.. should have been obvious.
They had windmills that they set up.. which would power some of the lights across the beachs (charging nicad batteries SLOWLY to store the electricity. That got funded by the state I think..or one of the conservation societies.. I dont remember which.. that was quite some time ago:(
but from a guy born to a town that revolved around the sea.. this sounds like a great way to keep us from screwing it up even more.
What *I* want is a way to buy a cell phone by using my CD player.
I'm wondering how long it takes to see our car stero come with a button marked BUY, so when you hear a song you like, it will do it auto-magically. (I would say one-touch-cdpurchacing, but we all know how quickly the patent police would strip search me with a cactus.)
even better:P radios that charge you.10 (taken from your bank account.. with wireless tech.) for every song the radio plays..
I just got a Great idea! Lets take some music, and engrave it onto a semi-flexable surface about 12" around, preferabally made of plastic for durability. We could play it back using a needle to read the grooves! The nostalgic hippies would EAT IT UP !
i'm not sure i need yet ANOTHER excuse to never leave my house.. hell.. last week I blinked and it was thursday!
Slashdot Mirror
My Nostradamus is very rusty from my freshmen theology classes 10 years ago but ...
Wasnt there some prediction about a great conflict involving world powers would be started by a man in a blue turban, who killed with fire in the sky ?
heh .. i semi-intentionally juxtaposed :P
..
.. i haven't been the same since.
bally/midway . bally/williams
i know its a different company, but my subconcious refuses to believe.
its all cause of the mortal kombat jokes in the Revenge from mars game
MAN this is cool .. .. i'm having a vision ..
.. this is pretty damn neat.
wait
a saturday morning cartoon, we could have a big floating arm with a smiling face on it, solve a big floating rubic-cube (also with a face on it), every time an evil villian drops it and messes up the colours. !!
its a marketing coup* !!!
* all sarcasm is strictly intended.
really though
why the hell did you guys stop making pinball games/parts then :P and go on to casino games :P
I used to own a business in upstate CT selling hobby supplies, magic cards etc. .. ALL of the other stores in the area spewed dogma to their customers how 'that new guy' didn't have a good store, didn't have a lot of inventory, etc. .. gamers & hobbiests, being people, were curious, and took a look to see. When they came in MY store , some would bait me and say 'what do you think about so-and-so downtown?' to which I would reply, 'they have a nice store, I used to shop there before I owned this place, but now I carry everything I used to buy there .. come over here .. look at this new game we just got in (etcetc)' .. what do you think of that!' ...' (as i hand them the box and watch them reach for their wallet.)
when I opened up
Did that assure them of keeping those customers ? hell no
i acknowledged that they exsisted, and shifted the topic to get them excited about something else. (and to put their $$ in my pocket.) rather than waste my energy bitching about my competition, I chose to spend it selling my product, and giving the customer service.
Thats why when a kid came in six months later and said to me 'so-and-so two towns over is selling all this stuff at 50% off
I was able to reply 'sounds like he is going out of business, has he gotten (fill in the new product name sitting on my shelf) in yet ? no ?!! well take a look at how cool this is
ahhh .. I see you used to work for @home too.
.. says they will fire you if you are either 1 min early or late logging into your phone.
gotta love when the company who used to give you unlimited overtime
My wife is a teacher , and honestly , most of the administration hate her .. she is smart, and attractive - and doesn't put up with their power-pushing, totlatarian tactics. .. a DAMN good teacher, she teaches in a HORRIBLE school .. her classroom is missing the glass out of several windows.. yet the school building is probally in better shape than the homes these kids come from. .. he was a christian bible thumper who wanted to bring religion BACK into school .. and at one point hinted STRONGLY that my wife (who is pagan) had better make sure she didn't have any 'pentagrams' on her or she would get fired. .. who has had tenure for 3 years LESS than my wife, is of the same mindset - and (THE WOMAN IS 40 YEARS OLD) spends a lot of time spreading roumours about my wife to other teachers and staff. .. well .. maybe you guys are beginning to see my point.
she is also
the principal is truely an underachiever (i have met him
her head of the department
When you have a staff that is as bad as the students
oddly enough (not really) something of note that was NOT mentioned .. was that in 1996 Peter (and I say Peter, becuase I wen't out drinking with him ..) Came to Games-Workshop HQ in Nottingham UK (I was working there at the time) and had a few days with Tom Kirby and John Stallard. Two of the up and ups in Games Workshop. (both great fellows)
Peter was curious how GW did it, they had a LOT of $$ , and 10 years later were still turning a profit. John and Tom proceeded to pop almost every bubble that he had with his 'ideas' of how to open his chain of retail store (and only 1 or 2 of them in the seattle area were the gaming 'meccas' that he planned to make them) (Games-Workshop has over 150 store worldwide .. and EACH one turns a profit. ) originally they were ALL going to be like that. .. ) were HORRIBLE ! there was NO management, no organization. I talked to an ex-employee after he left, who said that he routenely let his friends walk out with *BOXES* of cards .. BOXES !
Those stores (from talking to the managers in them
But they grilled Peter, and told him how GW did things, and (amazingly enough) Peter saw the light. (This was just before Pokemon, actually - the marketing stratagies for Pokemon and Magic reflect the results of this meeting.)
as for the coorporate environment, for a company that used to manufacutre knock-off roleplaying games in Peter's Garage, they went a long way, really fast. and wasted a lot of $$ enroute.
as another aside. Ironically enough, Peter came to the UK to talk to John and Tom, becuase Games-Workshop (pre-pokemon) was the best selling line *IN* his megga-store. (beating out magic sales) soley due to a US Sales Rep named Jim Kitchen, (and then Sean (last name eludes me) who replaced Jim when he went to Canada.) both these 2 gentlemen were able to help the store manager in the megga-store organize his inventory, and generate enough interest in the product to make it the store's #1 seller.. which, I guess, is how I know this story *grin*
heh ... .. (cultural standings aside) people go where they are comfortable, and where they feel they will understand the way things work. .. especially if the girl your talking to can move faster than you, and is freakishly strong.'
I spent almost 2 years across the pond , and I moved back *chuckle*
but you have a good point
'You should also NEVER mix up the words Knackered, and Knickers
I have my own woes .. victim of red tape .. and it cost me well over $10k to get it fixed. :P im in a hurry.) .. it was too late. I was enrolled in school, but as far as the loan companies were concerned, I wasn't. I routienly recieved letters to my DORM ROOM ADDRESS, saying .. now that you are out of school, don't you think you should pay your bills.? .. with 2 more years of school, and no solution on the horizon, the loans went into default. (the original loans were 2 semester loans of $1200 each .. in federal student grants) .. and promptly sent them a check for $1000 (the remaining balance). Sallie Mae cashed it, but the person crediting my account forgot a zero. Needless to say .. I now had a deliquent payment, and by the time I was able to get them to AGREE it was their error (involving an attourney) THAT loan went into default. (i certainly wansnt going to give them an extra $900 for their mistake) .. its on my credit reports, becuase the company they 'sold' it to .. is now out of business, and can't be reached to verify that the debt was paid. .. take loans from family, or work through school .. DONT get any student loans. These problems took me over 8 years to fix .. and im JUST beginning to get my credit fixed. .. or the 3 paid off car loans. .. i said 8 years .. past the 7 year deadline, becuase if there is ANY activity on a debt ..(even if you pay it off. or if its sold to another company) it resets the 7 year counter. so they can keep this stuff going forever.
Student loans . that was the culperate. (please don't flame me for spelling mistakes, and say you didn't get your $$ worth
I attended Marist College on a full scholarship for 2 years, then I transferred to CT State University (Central) and thats where the trouble started. A state school, they didnt send some kind of paperwork or something, and when they tried to fix it
Needless to say
by the time I had a stable job, and had finished school, both were in default, and I paid roughly $7500 to pay them off (all at once)
My 2nd problem was a third student loan through Sallie mae. (for my senior year) for $2400.
After my schooling (i was hit by a car) i recieved a large settlement (far from fair since I couldnt walk for MONTHS). this is what allowed me to pay the previous loans (and their STAGGERING collection fees) I figured I would try to get my remaining loan covered
while THAT one i didnt have to pay anything for
god bless red tape.
my advice to future students
funny how they never seem to report all the bills i *DO* pay on time
if anyone notices
The ironic thing is, E-bay encourages you to contact the bidders in its 'promotional' e-mail. especially if you have a high-reserve auction, and no one is near the reserve. (In that situation they wouldn't get their $$, untill the product sold .. since you could keep auctioning it eternally. .. im a greedy bastard) and only ONE of the auctions was sold to the highest bidder. .. the high bidder acutally BOUGHT the account. .. I still had to pay auction fees for all these auctions. Not to mention the countless times I have gotten stiffed in the past as well. (probally about 8 auctions of the 50 or so i have bought/sold in .. have gone bad - not a very good ratio.) .. where the user is redirected to another web page with idems for sale, if they open the auction. those have been multiplying latley - and i can see where that is just BLATENT disregard of e-bay. (but really, would *you* buy from a site like that?
I sold 4 UO accounts on e-bay (yeah yeah
The first one the winner contacted me once, then vanished, no $$ no nothing. SO I sold to the next one down in the list.
The second auction was the same deal.
the third auction went great
and the fourth action I was contacted by someone with more money than common sence, and ended the auction early. (for a lot of too ! so e-bay didn't get their cut.)
Honestly, in the end
Is quite possible though, that they are attempting to get rid of the 'buy a car for $4.99' people
oh .. come to think of it .. there was a lot of talk about that too .. .. after about 10 mins my eye's started to glaze over, so i probally got it all wrong .. whomever though to make a 3 hour meeting on that stuff for EVERY employee .. i dunno :P .. just dont tell anyone here .. or i might have to sit through it again.
I dunno
thanks for the clarification though
Having just attended a mandatory patent meeting in a fortune 500, (for powertools , not programs) I have to say that patents are a wierd animal.
according to our patent lawyer (we have three) who gave the speech. We should submit EVERY new idea we have to the patent office .. just in case its a 'good one'. .. not a noun. Apparently you can loose your patent rights if something is clasified as a basic object. (for example Scotch Tape ... is appreviated as Scotchtape (especially in the north) to mean clear cello-tape. .. we were corrected to call them Lego building blocks ... and not simply the venacular 'lego's'.
he then went on for another 2 hours about how we lost revenue from the 'snakelight(tm)adjustable flashlight'.
One interesting point is things like the above example: using Snakelight as an adjective
This explains why, growing up in the town where lego's are manufatcured
you can also loose patents if for example, you don't actully USE your patent. Stanly tools (in new britian CT) lost their patent on their black & yellow colour trademark (allowing dewalt to start making handtools) simply becuase they started producing tools that were NOT black & yellow .. but clear , or red .. etc.
all I can say is that if anyone things Objects are confusing .. dont even TALK to a patent lawyer .. my head was spinning for days after that one.
Your in the barrow. The room is cast in
:>
shadows. You see a dagger, and a lanturn here.
There is a wooden door to the north which is closed.
GOD i spent HOURS as a kid on those games .. I was the first of my 'geek' friends to solve zork on my c64. (mainly due to a few days spent at home coughing into a bowl of chicken soup *cough cough* mom .. im sick.)
Really though .. in a way .. having always been a 'reading creature' i think the text games had a certain kind of magic to them. They were the precurser to muds as a text rich environment. How many other games let you recurse three levels when your looking at a picture on the wall? (think flatheads) Great .. thanks /. .. now im all nostalgic today :(
i have not read the report yet .. but during my 'tour' at MIT as a potental student, the tour guide mentioned that zork was based on the MIT campus .. and that the writers had gone there. (maybe why they chose this as a project?)
I have to say .. good views (except that joystick thing)
I have been a gamer *forever* Oddesy II (anyone remember that), atari, intellivision, colecovision, nintendo (enough ancient history.)
I also did the d&d etc stint. a little LRP (hangs head in shame at past geek activities), board games galore (risk, chess, monopoly -- no one ever badmouthed THOSE games!!)
Then we have the 'real' games: soccer, triatholon, paintball etc. All of which I have taken part in.
I even (in 1993) opened a game shop .. selling magic cards (wahoo! Cha-CHING!) Games-workshop, TSR stuff, video games, etc etc etc
two of my jobs have been with gaming companies, and I spent a year overseas with one of them setting up their japanese division.
all before I was 26
all in all, I have to agree, the lessions i learned in early video games: patience, persistance, and petulanche (heh) paid off. I learned important lessions, strategy. I learned not to overextend myself, to fortify my borders/assets. Things that helped me in business. I learned to abandon lost skirmishes, so I could concentrate my attention on the larger image to 'win'. I learned to plan ahead, to 'read' my opponents. And more importantly, I learned to *learn* - on the fly, and often with only seconds to spare. As everyone knows .. there is *no* time to spare when your quaking with
l33td00dz *chuckle*. (If only I had learned to spell ! ) Gaming has both been good to me, and been good for me.
even that one summer at age 13 .. where I didn't see another human for over 3 weeks.
Saddly .. thats not me, that would be the microsoft nazi's that controll our IT department. *NO UNIX FOR YOU!*
however .. i *DO* thank you for the ammunition, considering the person who wrote that page was REALLY trying to discredit me a few weeks ago because the new site has some problems with netscape 6.0.
*sigh* gotta love iis
finally, someone who supports my movement away from cubes.
I have probally been a lucky guy. All the companies I have worked for (for the most part) have been of the 'war room' mentality
Actually @home (Comcast division) was the one that started out NOT as a WarRoom. It was cubicle world, and i'll tell you .. productivity was horrible. (nothing like having absolute privace when you want to play a little quake eh ?) but I moved to the web side, and that was like a bullpen. It was great. If I was having a code problem - I just had to say 'HEY!' and someone might have an answer.
C.H.I.M.P's abounded, so we might not even have to look away from our screens. Pr0n surfing, and goofing off was not activly discouraged, but when all your companions are busting a$$ to meet deadline - you feel a LOT more guilty looking at e-bay, (or slashdotting i suppose *grin*)
at the contractors im working with now (for the new blackanddecker.com site), its a low cubicle wall place .. in nice ordly rows, with lots of caffinated beverages for free in the kitchen. Its a more-or-less war room environment. There are tv's here, and people talk to each other more readily. (The graphics part of the company was busily setting up a slot car track about 30 mins ago .. smelled of Ozone galore !) However, in the last week (of crunch time) i have probally worked 60+ hours with this site .. and honestly .. its been a HELL of a lot easier to do so, than if i was stairing at the grey fabric covered walls of a cube.
Last week (admist a spontanious poll of how many people had a sock monkey as a kid - so far its 28 vs 20 .. close race - 2 voted "what the hell is a sock monkey", prompting for some RATHER interesting drawings on the 'warboard' )
we were here untill midnight (with some chineese food as fortification.) Much easier, and actually kind of FUN. Although I kinda glad that im not expected to do that it every day.
I'm all for the war room, sides .. its easier to shoot your boss with a nerfball when you can see him all the time.
Problem is I keep working for large corperations.. they are all stuck in the windows frame of mind.
apache is SOO much more flexable, easily configured, easier to write cutstom apps for. This book sounds like it could be a good buy. (I will certainly buy it for a desktop guide, if nothing else.) Im shocked O'Riley let this one get away though.
I was changing carriers
I had previously worked for a fairly large 'gaming' company in the UK. and wanted to leave that and get back into my major (programming). I had prepaired myself to take a year off, and study up. then I got an e-mail from @home saying they needed college educated people to help them out.
i figured .. what the hell .. free cable.
i spent 2 years in their call center, then moved to publishing/writing webpages & backend ASP pages.After that I moved on to another company that offered to pay me what I was worth. (Even with my spelling mistakes .. smarta$$es *grin*
from what friends there tell me .. its actually gotten WORSE :P but the number combination to push you to the top of the call queue still works!
having been former tech support (for @home even) i have always been constantly amazed at the hoops that both the customers , and the employees are made to jump through.
For example, in Comcast's division of @home .. if you score less than 90% on a random montitered call's QA (quality assurance) you are immediatly disqualified from ANY bonus pay that month. So, if you forget to ask "is there anything else I can help you with today?" EVEN if the customer (who has been screaming at you for the last 5 mins about how he is going to get a lawyer becuase his cable service just shut off when his wife backed into the green box outside - dont laugh .. true story) hangs up .. you are expected to say those words .. just in case.
call center people were written up for being 30 seconds late to work. And also penalized if they stayed more than 5 mins overtime. (it was more benificial to hang up the phone (and then say "is there anything else I can help you with today?" ) and log out on time . .than to actually FIX a problem and wind up going over.
We were expected (for less than 25k a year) to trouble shoot everything from ipstacks and regestry problems- to router errors, all the way down the line to .. 'no mam ..please use the RIGHT button on the mouse .. its the one furthest away from your thumb if your using your RIGHT hand.) All the while trying to calm down pissed off customers (sometiems rightly so , sometimes ONLY becuase they had $$.
and then there is the idiot factor. People are written up for the most assassine reasons .. just to make an example. I was always in the top 5 (of 120+ people) for sales/tech assistance. yet one day I myself was written up becuase i refused to call a customer Dr.So-and-so. (the only reason i refuesed is because he had stated to me that he would report me to my supervisor if i didnt stop calling him *MR* so-and-so. I figured anyone THAT irrational, wasnt going to listen to my suggestions anyways, gimmi an old lady over a DR anytime .. at least the old ladys are willing to read manuals, and TRY.)
man .. just thinking about those poor souls still stuck in tech support reminds me why i NEVER bother them with my problems. I would rather learn it myself, then force them to read the canned scripts they are told to use in place of 'I don't know'
There is SOO much more i could say .. but i *like* my job now .. so im gonna get back to it ;P
somethings were certainly done a LOT better than the 1984 version .. (where there just wasn't enough time) and the SFX were a lot better. The costuming - well .. i just never pictured paul wearing a leather leaotard when he was walking around in the desert.
I have to say the dialog between characters is a lot better .. however .. no matter HOW faithful they planned to be to the book there is just too much there.
I reread the dinner party section as an example(page 142 for those that own the book :P) and there was a LOT there that was left out. the whole byplay where the smugglers side with the atredies, (and scare the crap out of the banker(the guy dressed in purple) who is trying to bait paul, and where paul shocks everyone by maneuvering him into a corner (verbally). Not to mention the whole plot of jessica being the traider. (and 1 sentance abotu 'imperial conditiong' certainly doesnt due justice to HOW deep that betrayel had to go.)
im also a little dissapointed at the death of duncan (ESPECIALLY if they are going to film the other books), and a lot of the political intrigue is gone. I mean , i read the books .. i *knew* he was going to die .. but when I watched it . i had NO idea he was just killed. (till the 2nd time) with a plot line THAT important to the book .. you would think they would have made it a bit more clear.
paul acting like a brat is ok .. since he WAS .. untill he went to the desert. (even if I'm not sure how he just appeared there .. without a stillsuit - commercials are great)
i would also have like to seen the 30 mins they took out for the american version ( nudity smudity .. im hoping they put some plot back in.)
all in all .. we have to take all this with a grain of salt . its a movie .. not the book .. when is a movie EVER as good as what you can imagine by reading the book ? ill watch the epispode tonight .. but it will be a flip on tuesday .. the girl in dark angel is kinda cute :P
A few years ago I worked for a company Games-Workshop, and they sent me from the US to their offices in Nottingham UK.
I never got a visa myself, and I was in charge of trying to hire staff from Japan. It was a HORRIBL process. In order to get them (and they were about 1000LB each) we had to prove that the japanese lads could provide a service that no out of work Englishman could do. (at the time .. there was a job shortage in europe .. i dont know how it is now.)
In fact , being a US citizen, they couldn't even GET me a visa .. so I was permanantly on 'Training Trips' (i had to go back to the US every 30 days - which worked out nice for me)
they also had to pay me from the US office.
so I dont know how easy it would be now. However, The company im working in conjunction with NOW (proxicom) has offices in both london and france and can move staff from their DC/NYC/Cali offices to there in times of need. Im not sure how that works, but you might want to look into contracting positions that post overseas.
I remember doing a science experiment in HS about this. (I was on Cape Cod .. so lots of waves around)
One of the professors was REALLY keen on this stuff, and there was an after school ECHO type club that got involved in trying to use tide swells to turn a turbine.
The wind tunnel thing i never thought of .. which was probally stupid considering you could never hold a notebook still to write notes .. should have been obvious.
They had windmills that they set up .. which would power some of the lights across the beachs (charging nicad batteries SLOWLY to store the electricity. That got funded by the state I think ..or one of the conservation societies .. I dont remember which .. that was quite some time ago :(
but from a guy born to a town that revolved around the sea .. this sounds like a great way to keep us from screwing it up even more.
What *I* want is a way to buy a cell phone by using my CD player.
I'm wondering how long it takes to see our car stero come with a button marked BUY, so when you hear a song you like, it will do it auto-magically. (I would say one-touch-cdpurchacing, but we all know how quickly the patent police would strip search me with a cactus.)
even better :P radios that charge you .10 (taken from your bank account .. with wireless tech.) for every song the radio plays ..
I just got a Great idea! Lets take some music, and engrave it onto a semi-flexable surface about 12" around, preferabally made of plastic for durability. We could play it back using a needle to read the grooves! The nostalgic hippies would EAT IT UP !
i'm not sure i need yet ANOTHER excuse to never leave my house .. hell .. last week I blinked and it was thursday!
heh .. yeah .. thats a copywrite thing :P
at my currant job - we are told to do the same thing.
if a word becomes widly used to decribe an object (noun) you can loose your patent on it.
IE: Snakelight, or WhiteOut, or ScotchTape etc.
*I* still say legos, but then again, I voted Illegally too :(
I'm hungry, wheres the paste