This has changed recently. If you don't have an S number already, (which I do, and my wife didn't), when you go to renew, you have to specifically ask to keep your SSN on your license, otherwise they will assign you an S number. When my wife got her new license this year, we got her SSN number off of her number.
>There was a proposal to fill the gap in our naval force structure with "arsenal ships" that would hold large numbers of cruise missiles, but they were also made of carbon fiber, and I think the plan hasn't ever taken form.
Actually, it has, but rather than ships, it's submarines. info more info The Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and Georgia are all being converted to SSGN from SSBN, and will carry about 150 tomahawks each.
Actually, this is exactly why there needs to be a union for non-manangerial hourly employees. Most people I know how fit in that description (not myself, I'm salaried) are not in a position to be negotiating with an employer. There's a reason why they are working in $30k tech support jobs. Usually it is due to an inability to find other, better paying work. When it comes down to no job, or an hourly job for $30k, most people will take the job. When you attempt to negotiate a raise, or more pay, and the response is "screw you, take it or leave it" most people don't have the option to leave it. A union brings a balance of power to an employees ability to earn a livable wage. With no unions, and rules such as this, employees have no bargaining position.
These rules only hurt people who have the most to lose. And they don't 'help the economy', they only help those who don't need any more help, the business owners.
If you live in Boston (whether you're from here, or you're just visiting as a college student) this is a great read for someone that knows the city well. I've lived here most of my life, and was still very impressed with the overall level of accuracy of his city layout. All those little streams that I never noticed before (I'm not talking about the muddy. everyone knows about that.) Also, his description of moving up Commonwealth Ave, on a bike, in rush hour, was spot on.
It also depends on where you live. I know from past experiences, here in MA, it's not legal to do more than confirm dates of employment, with out prior (I believe written) permission. If I don't list you as a reference, all you can do is confirm whether or not I was an employee, and on what dates. Of course, if you list your references, and none are from your last job, most employers will assume that something is suspicious.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755.--The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, vol. 6, p. 242 (1963).
The first time you register a car in MA, you are required to pay 5% sales tax on that car (no matter where you bought it. Tax free NH be damned!) So, if your rich uncle gave you the car, you'd still have to pay sales tax on it.
So, you would have already paid tax on the car, and would be in the system as having paid the tax, and therefore would not be red flagged.
Course, insurance rates are high enough in MA (set by the state) to keep you from being able to drive that car you clearly can't afford.
From:http://www.state.ma.us/rmv/regs/reg2.htm "Fees To transfer a plate from one vehicle to another of the same type, the fee is $15.00. A $50.00 title fee and the applicable sales tax will also be collected." and "The sales tax for a private sale is calculated at 5% of the purchase price or the National Automotive Dealer Association (NADA) trade-in value, whichever is higher."
with many of these chip mods, your car will no longer pass emissions inspections.
Interestingly enough, I'm on my 3rd VW that I chipped, one OBDI car and two ODB2 cars. Since here in MA they do full emissions checks on all cars post-1983, I tend to keep my slips with the emissions outputs. Despite my initial suprise, all three cars did as well, or better with the chips.
With the exception of the newest car, a turbo, the change in gas milage was negligible, as well. The Turbo, on the other hand, as required a careful foot on the accelerator (chipped and non-chipped) in order to keep MPG down. Once that thing goes into positive pressure, even the OEM software dumps the gas in like crazy.
I honestly believe that a properly tuned and maintained engine is always going to get better emissions than one that has been treated poorly and not maintained. And, I've seen the slips that bear it out.
The only addendum I'd add is that I only know about VWs and I only deal with shops that have quite a bit of experience burning chips, such as APR and GIAC. There are plenty of other shops out there, especially in the Asian import market, who are more than happy to sell you cheap HP gains, without care for your emissions, or your engine.
I just finished a cross-country trip myself a few weeks ago, and there are some places that you simply have to go to, geek or otherwise.
Hoover Dam. It's pretty geeky. They loved answering all of the technical questions I could throw at them. Plus, it's huge. Very impressive visual sight. And(!) it's right next to Vegas. While I wasn't interested in gambling, the sheer creativity, and overwhelming light and neon, and just general crap, is impressive.
Grand Canyon. The anti-geeky place. Low low tech. Yet, of all the places I've been to in this country, the grand canyon takes the cake. We were there at sundown, and it's difficult to describe. A friend who was travelling with me put it best. "It looks fake."
Graceland. It's not tech at all. Well, it's not 2000's tech, it's 1973 tech. A weird sort of time warp. Fun, and worth going to.
St Louis Arch. (but only if you go up in it) Now that was a fun engineering model. The guides knew all of the engineering behind how it was built, the materials used and the overall architecture. I've been up in higher things (it's only 630 feet ((192m)) but the "barrel" elevators are bizarre, and the 'room' at the top kept making me queasy. Fun stuff.
Chicago. Great town, great architecture. If you're an engineering geek (vs. an electronics geeks) there's all sorts of neat stuff to keep you occupied and entertained there. Plus you can go up in the Sear's Tower.
DC. See the million other threads about the Smithsonian museums. 'nough said.
New York. Surprisingly geeky, all dressed up like a hipster. (though they think it's not cool to admit how wired they really are.) You have to go.
Boston. MIT, Harvard (ok they're not geeky, but they're smart), the Big Dig, and a surprising number of geek businesses. Very technology inclined city.
There's alot more out there, and there's a lot more places that are 100s and 100s of miles of nothing.
The 3600 miles we drove was a long drive. I can't see how it would be possible to hike it. The sheer vastness of the Western States would either kill you, or bore you silly. The trains aren't as good as in Europe, but they're better than the buses and they go to most major cities.
You might even want to consider figuring out how to buy a car or a motorcycle when you get here and using that to get around.
I'd rather work for a company that's in business two years down the road, than work for a company that got lost in the dust.
But, ultimately I think the answer to the question lies in the actual type of work being done. Throwing together a quick app convert some data from one format to another, for one time use, is very different from building mission critical applications.
The end result and the time required to meet that result will ultimately determine the correct approach, on a case by case basis.
Congress is made up of two houses: the House of Representatives, and the Senate.
Both Senators and Representatives are Congressmen, however, Senators prefer to be known as Senators, rather than associating with the Rabble in the House of Representatives.
Actually, Someone has purchased the domain. But, as it's a domain squatter in Belize, I'm sure google will do nothing, until a site shows up there. Don't forget, lawyers cost money. Can't send the attack dogs out after everyone.
Actually, my last job was as a Sr QA Engineer at a company that made games for kids. I tested games for a living.
It gets old. Fast. "Oh, what a hard job, playing games all day." was the typical comment I heard from everyone. Well, guess what, it's not hard job. It's a job that requires a large amount of manual testing. Playing the same sections, over and over and over for 70 hours a week. It's not that it's hard, or rather, its not harder than any other QA job, and it's technically easier than other QA jobs I've had that were more automation focused.
Manual software testing sucks, whether its playing games, testing enterprise applications, or any other task repeated over and over, week after week. Then, when you find abnormal behavior, you have to 1. create a reproducible test case for the developer, and 2. build that test case into whatever automation (if any) tool you have, for when the scripts run. After a while, it's just a job, and it isn't really that different than sorting mail at the post office.
After a few years of it, I decided it would more fun as a consultant, working on enterprise web software.
And guess, what?
I was right. Analyzing business logic is more fun than playing the same game over and over for months.
I travel quite a bit as part of my job. No less than 3 weeks every 2 months on the road, usually more. These trips are usually for a business week at a time, and require me to fly on MY time, i.e. Sundays, and sometimes Friday night red-eyes back from the left coast.
The miles are some of the things that make the job worthwhile. I could make just as much money, sitting on my ass writing code. The miles somewhat make up for the fact that I'm away from home for extended periods at a time. Too often people who never travel for work, or maybe take one business trip every two years, look at it as glamerous. It's not. It's work, only, unlike you, I dont get to go home at night. I drive my rental car back to my hotel, eat in the lobby and watch a movie on my notebook.
If I wasn't at least getting the miles for my trips (which pay for my vacations), I wouldn't be travelling.
Simple enough.
It's also interesting to note from his CV, that he's only an Associate Professor. ASU might want to make sure this guy's on a tenure track (if he wasn't before, I'm sure he is now.)
Also from his CV: "1996-t/n Linux Consultant in Arizona"
There are a large number of products in the market that are available to do automated testing.
Companies such as RSW Software, Segue, Rational and a million others out there, offer products that will do exactly what you want. The market is vast, and the offerings vary greatly (in features and price), so you'll have to pick you own.
As someone who spend from 96 to 2000 testing web apps, (I was actually QAing websites and early web applications in 96), I disagree with your comment (paraphrased) that a tool cant replicate careful manual testing. Personally, I believe on very large and dynamic sites, manual testing simply cant give you the same coverage as a well designed automated test. Humans just cant move fast enough.
However, the underlieing issue is that testing, manual and automatic, is only as good as the test plans they are based around. Without someone writing good quality test plans, with (some) review from the developers themselves, then it doesn't matter how much you test, you're still going to miss bugs.
Few years back, I spent three months there on business. I can't tell you the number of times I would be sitting in a pub, and an old pensioner, would come up to me and say "Thank You." To which, at first, the would get a blank stare.
Then, he would go on and I would realized that I was being thanked for something that my countrymen did fifty years ago, simply because I had an American accent.
When was the last time you thanked a citizen of France for that help, back in the Revolutionary War?
It's been a few years, but I've used earpieces that have built in bone condution mikes, and I believe these are pretty common. (we used them in a club I worked in.)
Basically, it's an ear piece that fits in your ear, and the mike is built in. Somehow (don't know how) it picks up the vibration of your jaw.
So, if you can buy this tech for cheap at radio shack, then someone, somewhere has to have miniturized it to fit on the rest of the piece.
And, as an added bonus, it doesn't pick up background noise, so you can mumble under your breath in a crowded club, and the people at the other end can hear you fine.
Slashdot Mirror
This has changed recently.
If you don't have an S number already, (which I do, and my wife didn't), when you go to renew, you have to specifically ask to keep your SSN on your license, otherwise they will assign you an S number. When my wife got her new license this year, we got her SSN number off of her number.
AARP is an incredibly strong lobby as well. It would be interesting to see them lobbying against the illegal pharmacies.
>There was a proposal to fill the gap in our naval force structure with "arsenal ships" that would hold large numbers of cruise missiles, but they were also made of carbon fiber, and I think the plan hasn't ever taken form.
Actually, it has, but rather than ships, it's submarines.
info
more info
The Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and Georgia are all being converted to SSGN from SSBN, and will carry about 150 tomahawks each.
Talk about projection of power ashore...
Actually,
this is exactly why there needs to be a union for non-manangerial hourly employees. Most people I know how fit in that description (not myself, I'm salaried) are not in a position to be negotiating with an employer. There's a reason why they are working in $30k tech support jobs. Usually it is due to an inability to find other, better paying work. When it comes down to no job, or an hourly job for $30k, most people will take the job.
When you attempt to negotiate a raise, or more pay, and the response is "screw you, take it or leave it" most people don't have the option to leave it.
A union brings a balance of power to an employees ability to earn a livable wage. With no unions, and rules such as this, employees have no bargaining position.
These rules only hurt people who have the most to lose. And they don't 'help the economy', they only help those who don't need any more help, the business owners.
If you live in Boston (whether you're from here, or you're just visiting as a college student) this is a great read for someone that knows the city well. I've lived here most of my life, and was still very impressed with the overall level of accuracy of his city layout. All those little streams that I never noticed before (I'm not talking about the muddy. everyone knows about that.)
Also, his description of moving up Commonwealth Ave, on a bike, in rush hour, was spot on.
It also depends on where you live. I know from past experiences, here in MA, it's not legal to do more than confirm dates of employment, with out prior (I believe written) permission. If I don't list you as a reference, all you can do is confirm whether or not I was an employee, and on what dates.
Of course, if you list your references, and none are from your last job, most employers will assume that something is suspicious.
Holy crap. /.! Great post, thanks for the information.
I think that's the first time I've ever actually learned something totally new from
I think Benjamin Franklin put it best in 1755.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755.--The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, vol. 6, p. 242 (1963).
Bartleby
I would guess you don't live in MA.
:http://www.state.ma.us/rmv/regs/reg2.htm
The first time you register a car in MA, you are required to pay 5% sales tax on that car (no matter where you bought it. Tax free NH be damned!) So, if your rich uncle gave you the car, you'd still have to pay sales tax on it.
So, you would have already paid tax on the car, and would be in the system as having paid the tax, and therefore would not be red flagged.
Course, insurance rates are high enough in MA (set by the state) to keep you from being able to drive that car you clearly can't afford.
From
"Fees To transfer a plate from one vehicle to another of the same type, the fee is $15.00. A $50.00 title fee and the applicable sales tax will also be collected."
and
"The sales tax for a private sale is calculated at 5% of the purchase price or the National Automotive Dealer Association (NADA) trade-in value, whichever is higher."
with many of these chip mods, your car will no longer pass emissions inspections.
Interestingly enough, I'm on my 3rd VW that I chipped, one OBDI car and two ODB2 cars. Since here in MA they do full emissions checks on all cars post-1983, I tend to keep my slips with the emissions outputs. Despite my initial suprise, all three cars did as well, or better with the chips.
With the exception of the newest car, a turbo, the change in gas milage was negligible, as well. The Turbo, on the other hand, as required a careful foot on the accelerator (chipped and non-chipped) in order to keep MPG down. Once that thing goes into positive pressure, even the OEM software dumps the gas in like crazy.
I honestly believe that a properly tuned and maintained engine is always going to get better emissions than one that has been treated poorly and not maintained. And, I've seen the slips that bear it out.
The only addendum I'd add is that I only know about VWs and I only deal with shops that have quite a bit of experience burning chips, such as APR and GIAC. There are plenty of other shops out there, especially in the Asian import market, who are more than happy to sell you cheap HP gains, without care for your emissions, or your engine.
I just finished a cross-country trip myself a few weeks ago, and there are some places that you simply have to go to, geek or otherwise.
Hoover Dam. It's pretty geeky. They loved answering all of the technical questions I could throw at them. Plus, it's huge. Very impressive visual sight. And(!) it's right next to Vegas. While I wasn't interested in gambling, the sheer creativity, and overwhelming light and neon, and just general crap, is impressive.
Grand Canyon.
The anti-geeky place. Low low tech. Yet, of all the places I've been to in this country, the grand canyon takes the cake. We were there at sundown, and it's difficult to describe. A friend who was travelling with me put it best. "It looks fake."
Graceland.
It's not tech at all. Well, it's not 2000's tech, it's 1973 tech. A weird sort of time warp. Fun, and worth going to.
St Louis Arch.
(but only if you go up in it)
Now that was a fun engineering model. The guides knew all of the engineering behind how it was built, the materials used and the overall architecture. I've been up in higher things (it's only 630 feet ((192m)) but the "barrel" elevators are bizarre, and the 'room' at the top kept making me queasy. Fun stuff.
Chicago.
Great town, great architecture. If you're an engineering geek (vs. an electronics geeks) there's all sorts of neat stuff to keep you occupied and entertained there.
Plus you can go up in the Sear's Tower.
DC.
See the million other threads about the Smithsonian museums. 'nough said.
New York.
Surprisingly geeky, all dressed up like a hipster. (though they think it's not cool to admit how wired they really are.) You have to go.
Boston.
MIT, Harvard (ok they're not geeky, but they're smart), the Big Dig, and a surprising number of geek businesses. Very technology inclined city.
There's alot more out there, and there's a lot more places that are 100s and 100s of miles of nothing.
The 3600 miles we drove was a long drive. I can't see how it would be possible to hike it. The sheer vastness of the Western States would either kill you, or bore you silly. The trains aren't as good as in Europe, but they're better than the buses and they go to most major cities.
You might even want to consider figuring out how to buy a car or a motorcycle when you get here and using that to get around.
Yeah,
we're wicked nerds up here in boston.
There's a reason why the rest of the east coast sends all their smaht kids to new england.
I'd rather work for a company that's in business two years down the road, than work for a company that got lost in the dust.
But, ultimately I think the answer to the question lies in the actual type of work being done. Throwing together a quick app convert some data from one format to another, for one time use, is very different from building mission critical applications.
The end result and the time required to meet that result will ultimately determine the correct approach, on a case by case basis.
changle
something resembling a changle or involving a chang dangler
Somehow I find that definition a little lacking. Using the word being defined in the definition leads to an unusable and unclear definition.
Congress is made up of two houses: the House of Representatives, and the Senate.
Both Senators and Representatives are Congressmen, however, Senators prefer to be known as Senators, rather than associating with the Rabble in the House of Representatives.
Actually,
Someone has purchased the domain. But, as it's a domain squatter in Belize, I'm sure google will do nothing, until a site shows up there.
Don't forget, lawyers cost money. Can't send the attack dogs out after everyone.
Actually, my last job was as a Sr QA Engineer at a company that made games for kids. I tested games for a living.
It gets old. Fast.
"Oh, what a hard job, playing games all day." was the typical comment I heard from everyone. Well, guess what, it's not hard job. It's a job that requires a large amount of manual testing. Playing the same sections, over and over and over for 70 hours a week. It's not that it's hard, or rather, its not harder than any other QA job, and it's technically easier than other QA jobs I've had that were more automation focused.
Manual software testing sucks, whether its playing games, testing enterprise applications, or any other task repeated over and over, week after week.
Then, when you find abnormal behavior, you have to 1. create a reproducible test case for the developer, and 2. build that test case into whatever automation (if any) tool you have, for when the scripts run.
After a while, it's just a job, and it isn't really that different than sorting mail at the post office.
After a few years of it, I decided it would more fun as a consultant, working on enterprise web software.
And guess, what?
I was right. Analyzing business logic is more fun than playing the same game over and over for months.
It's very standard practice.
I travel quite a bit as part of my job. No less than 3 weeks every 2 months on the road, usually more. These trips are usually for a business week at a time, and require me to fly on MY time, i.e. Sundays, and sometimes Friday night red-eyes back from the left coast.
The miles are some of the things that make the job worthwhile. I could make just as much money, sitting on my ass writing code. The miles somewhat make up for the fact that I'm away from home for extended periods at a time. Too often people who never travel for work, or maybe take one business trip every two years, look at it as glamerous. It's not. It's work, only, unlike you, I dont get to go home at night. I drive my rental car back to my hotel, eat in the lobby and watch a movie on my notebook.
If I wasn't at least getting the miles for my trips (which pay for my vacations), I wouldn't be travelling.
Simple enough.
The author of this piece maintains this website http://www.hostcompany100.com/goneforg/gradeinflat ion.html
Lots of people are saying "It's not happening here." Take a look at the site and see the numbers for yourself.
Chances are it is happening there, and you just don't know about it, or you're part of the problem.
Caption on the image:
"Important note -- This is a joke! We received this unattributed photo in an e-mail. "
Looks like they know its a joke.
It's also interesting to note from his CV, that he's only an Associate Professor. ASU might want to make sure this guy's on a tenure track (if he wasn't before, I'm sure he is now.)
Also from his CV: "1996-t/n Linux Consultant in Arizona"
How's their business been lately?
Not too good I would suspect.
And most of the other "free internet for ad" companies have already tanked.
Same idea, different mechanism will have the same results.
There are a large number of products in the market that are available to do automated testing.
Companies such as RSW Software, Segue, Rational and a million others out there, offer products that will do exactly what you want. The market is vast, and the offerings vary greatly (in features and price), so you'll have to pick you own.
As someone who spend from 96 to 2000 testing web apps, (I was actually QAing websites and early web applications in 96), I disagree with your comment (paraphrased) that a tool cant replicate careful manual testing.
Personally, I believe on very large and dynamic sites, manual testing simply cant give you the same coverage as a well designed automated test. Humans just cant move fast enough.
However, the underlieing issue is that testing, manual and automatic, is only as good as the test plans they are based around. Without someone writing good quality test plans, with (some) review from the developers themselves, then it doesn't matter how much you test, you're still going to miss bugs.
Good luck.
Few years back, I spent three months there on business. I can't tell you the number of times I would be sitting in a pub, and an old pensioner, would come up to me and say "Thank You." To which, at first, the would get a blank stare.
Then, he would go on and I would realized that I was being thanked for something that my countrymen did fifty years ago, simply because I had an American accent.
When was the last time you thanked a citizen of France for that help, back in the Revolutionary War?
It's been a few years, but I've used earpieces that have built in bone condution mikes, and I believe these are pretty common. (we used them in a club I worked in.)
Basically, it's an ear piece that fits in your ear, and the mike is built in. Somehow (don't know how) it picks up the vibration of your jaw.
So, if you can buy this tech for cheap at radio shack, then someone, somewhere has to have miniturized it to fit on the rest of the piece.
And, as an added bonus, it doesn't pick up background noise, so you can mumble under your breath in a crowded club, and the people at the other end can hear you fine.