I'm quite impressed that a pigeon can do 100km in 2.5 hours though, I had no idea they were *that* fast...
I think you are easily impressed. By bird standards, that's not that fast, only 24mph. It does explain, however, why the most common birds I see my greyhounds (44mph) chowing down on are pigeons... Of course, it also helps that pigeons are so stupid that they try to outrun the dogs, rather than gain altitude.
Haha. You had me going there for a minute, with the comment about "several courses on wound ballistics". But if you actually believe there's such a thing as a "hypersonic shock wound", then... well. The entire concept is a fantasy [mindspring.com]. It apparently spread from tall-tales spun by marksmen in the Korean/Vietnam wars.
No, not a fantasy. I spent more than a few days in class staring at stop-motion photos of projectiles passing through clear gelatin blocks. The diameter of the cavity behind the path of a 5.56 round is sometimes up to 20-30 times the diameter of the projectile itself. All of my training was based on laboratory data and post-mortem examinations. I never heard anything from marksmen.
On the other hand, the "tumbling" of the 5.56 *is* a myth. If it really tumbled, you wouldn't be able to hit the broad side of a barn with it, and the rand would be pitiful.
NATO soldiers are not allowed to use shotguns, hollowpoint bullets, or anti-personnel lasers, because, perversely, they might leave the target alive. The 5.56mm rounds fired from an M16 are required to be jacketed to reduce their chance of tearing off an arm or leg, making nonlethal injuries more treatable.
Um, wrong.
First, shotguns *are* currently used by military security patrols. They're not used by field troops because of the extremely short range. In WWI, they were used in trench warfare.
Second, hollowpoints are *more* destructive, not less. Solid rounds tend to punch through, damaging only those things directly in path, and many times imparting only a fraction of their energy into the target. Hollow points #1 expand to a wider path, and #2 impart more of their energy (usually all of it) into the target, due to the greater surface area. This causes far greater damage.
As for 5.56 mm rounds being required to be jacketed, actually, *all* small-arms rounds are required to be jacketed, from long before the 5.56 was even on the drawing board. (Pre-dates the Geneva convention.) The 5.56mm is most dangerous due to the incredible *velocity* (up to 3,200fps) it carries. When hitting a solid body, a hypersonic shock wave follows the projectile, creating damage far removed from the actual path of the projectile. A hit in the thigh has been known to cause thrombosis of the major arteries well up into the abdomen and chest. (Fluids transmit shock waves *very* efficiently.) Also, that same hit, in the meat of the thigh, where the projectile itself never impacted the bone, can easily pulverize the femur, from the shock waves alone.
No comment on the lasers, that's out of my area of expertise.
And yes, I *have* taken several courses on wound ballistics.
I have no control of *my* ISP's policies and no choice in my area.
Yet, you expect everyone else's ISP to deal with your ISP's pollution. Your lack of choice is not my problem. Your ISP allowing a flood of sewage to enter my network *is* my problem. I choose to deal with it by blocking. I suggest you actually try to talk to your ISP before you find yourself on a rather exclusive intranet.
I'm pretty sure it's email worms from infected users setting off their alarms, is it really so hard to filter these
Is it really so hard for *your* ISP to filter these before they pollute someone else's network? You ISP's mail server should be filtering for these, and they should be blocking outbound port 25 from clients unless specifically requested by the client.
I have no problem with folks sending their own mail out if they know what they're doing, and they specifically request it. But I have a HUGE problem with ISPs leaving port 25 open for every jughead on their system. If all of the ISPs followed this rule, the spam problem would decrease by 75% or more.
The Java VMs are distributed as *binaries*, because Sun's too much of a prig to open-source it. This means it was compiled for the "lowest common denominator" x86 system, probably Pentium (not II or III).
In contrast, OpenSSH is distributed as source, which means it was compiled *on my system, for my system*.
One of java's largest advantages is that it knows everything about your hardware, so theoretically it should always be fairly well optimized for it.
This is a joke, right? Java doesn't "know" any more about your hardware than vi does.
I'm a Java programmer, and Java has come a long way, and is plenty stable enough for a lot of things. However, there isn't a chance in hades that I'd use it for a system-level app like SSH, or for an extremely high-load app like Apache. Sorry, it's just not there yet.
Until the do not call list got enacted, I'd have gladly eaten twice as much spam just to get control of my phone back. I still get the occasional spam call.
I don't use IM much, so can't comment there.
SMS spam, not very much, but I've gotten text message spams before. It's a legal grey area, and a few folks are taking advantage of it. Getting them at 3:00am is wonderful for raising my blood pressure 50 points or so.
Postal spam? Holy spamola Batman! Over 4/5ths of my daily mail goes straight into the shredder. not only that, some of that stuff is downright dangerous from a privacy standpoint. Credit card offers, "checks" from my credit card company, etc...
Fax? Cripes, I don't even *have* a fax machine, yet I still have problems with fax spam. Nothing like a 2:00am phone call that answers with beeps because some jackass is using a sequential autodialer. Even more annoying, I have two phone lines with numbers just a few hundred apart. If I get one, I know another one is coming in 15-20 minutes.
Truth is, on an individual message basis, email spam is the *least* objectionable when compared to the others. The problem is that email spam is a veritable firehose at full blast. If I got telemarketer calls at the same rate as I get spam, my phone would be unusable 24/7. As it is, with using four blocklists on my server, and using spamassassin on what gets past that, with very high scores (15+) sent automagically to/dev/null, I'm *still* dealing with 100+ spam messages a day.
The point is, other mediums have this problem. The difference is that with other mediums, there's a much greater "bandwidth" limitation, and the cost to the sender is much higher. Thus, they tend to be more self-limiting.
The result? A housing development that looks "cookie cutter" now will look completely different in 5 to 10 years.
Not anymore. With local governments practically requiring Home Owner's Associations for all new developments, you're practically guaranteed that the development will look the same in 20 years as it did the day it was built. I should know, my current house is in one of those developments, and is 18 years old. The only thing about the houses that is in any way unique is the outside light fixtures, and that's because #1, the original ones were crap and were pretty much trash in 5 years, #2, they were ugly, and #3, they were one of the few things not specifically covered in the HOA bylaws. Everything else, including the color of the exterior, is very explicitly defined, and varying from it will get you a letter from the HOA. Ignoring the letter will land you in court for breach of contract.
It's called copyright violation, which is a domestic civil law violation and it's neither illegal nor morally wrong to do it across national boundries. Websites want to be copied.
Try again. It's very definitely illegal, though it may be difficult to prosecute. As for morally wrong? Well, I guess if you have no morals it wouldn't be. However, I think most other folks would disagree. Maybe when you move out of your mom's house and start having to earn your own keep you'll feel the same.
I don't see doctors making websites about what idiots we are when we call them for medical advice.
Maybe not websites, but I've read a couple of books like that. Having worked in the medical field, I can tell you that sysadmin/user stories have nothing on doctor/patient stories. I have literally been in pain from laughing while reading those books.
The #2 funniest stories are those written by police officers, usually those who worked in mid-sized towns.
I AM NOT A LAWYER, but I've done just enough study to be really dangerous:) (A little knowledge and all that).... but there exists laws on the books which result in the mechanic being able to put a lean on your car in this case.
Very little knowledge, apparently.
He can put a lien on the car. And in fact, most repair shops have that clause right in the work order you sign. Partly, you're signing permission to do the work. But more importantly to the dealer, you are signing that they have a lien on the vehicle until you pay up.
The poster was talking about the data that wasn't covered by the warrant,
The data is irrelevant. The only relevant thing is whether it is reasonable that I might find the data in the place I'm searching, and that the place is covered by the warrant.
OK, assume the police have a warrant for data X, let's assume it's the source files for a worm. The warrant specifies that I can search the ISP where it is believed the data may be found. Data X could reasonably be located on the ISP's servers, so they search server A. In the process, they come across data Y, source files for a different worm/virus that had been released some months ago.
End result, fully admissable evidence against whomever had posession/created that data, even though it wasn't specifically what they were looking for at the time.
The test is, if the target of the search could reasonably be located where the found evidence was, and the place being searched was under the scope of the original warrant, any evidence found, regardless of its relationship to the crime being investigated, is admissable. If I have a warrant to search your car for a gun, and I find a few grams of heroin, it's admissable. If I get a warrant for your neighbor's place, because someone saw you throw stolen goods over his fence, and I find his meth lab, it's admissable.
In the United States, due process requires that the evidence collected by the warrent only be used against the people the warrent was issued against. There's no real point to keeping the data around, since they couldn't use it to convict anyone, even if they find a crime.
Wow, where did you get that line of crap from? Any evidence discovered in the execution of a legally issued and legally executed search warrant is admissable in *any* court proceeding. If you stashed your kiddie porn in your employer's filing cabinets, who was coincidentally being searched for evidence of financial fraud, you'd better believe that they are admissable. As long as the warrant covers the area being searched, it's fair game.
And yes, I have first-hand experience with search warrants and their execution.
come on, spam isn't THAT bad. Yes, its annoying, yes it takes time away from real things, but is it really so bad that you'd actually want to flog someone publicly?
Heck, I'd consider that a very *light* penalty, maybe for first-time offenses. For second offense, rubbing their back down in chili-pepper oil before flogging. For a third offense, I'd say they were completely unsalvageable, which would rate a public hanging. (Yes, I'm very serious.)
stealing from who though? they're certainly not stealing from me.
They are most certainly stealing from me. They utilize my bandwidth, which I pay for. They also cause me several hours/month of customer support time, educating customers on how to deal with spam, tweaking filters, etc. And, a couple hours a week in system maintenance time, clearing mail queues of undeliverable bounces, etc. All of this time *could* have been spent on things resulting in billable hours, instead, it's time completely lost. This means that either I have to eat it, or I have to pass the cost on to my customers, or a mixture of both.
So yes, spammers are thieves, and I'm afraid that your delicate sensibilities would be severely offended by what I'd *really* do to one of them if I ever had the opportunity.
The U.S. would have had the spies shot for espionage, had things been the other way around.
Really, that's fascinating. Can you cite an example of this?
The US has caught a large number of spies in the last half-century. I can't recall any of them being shot... Deported or imprisoned, yes. Shot, no.
Spying and espionage are a fact of life in the political world. All countries deal with it, most in a civilised manner, usually through exchanges with the other country, who usually has caught one or more of our own spies.
Videotron has been a cess-pit from the day I first heard of them. They have the distinction of being one of the first entries in my private mail server spam block list. I've only had one customer request in five years to unblock them, which I did for 24 hours. After that, the customer requested that I place them back in the block list. They decided any possible gain from being able to communicate with Videotron's customers wasn't worth the flood of spam that comes from them.
The fact that they're continuing to screw their customers is certainly no surpise to me.
No, but they recently purchased a special ambulance just for those big patients. Extra-wide heavy-duty stretcher, hydraulic lifts, and extra-heavy-duty suspension.
They won't even dispatch that vehicle unless the patient weighs at least 600 pounds. As it is, it's one of the busiest vehicles in the fleet.
Before they got that vehicle, they would put the patient on a heavy canvas tarp, and put them on the floor of the ambulance after removing the stretcher and it's mounting hardware. Regular stretchers would just collapse under the weight, even if you could fit the patient on it.
Shit, I bet my wife could easily kick the average male geek's ass in a contest like that. She works for an ambulance company, with a female partner, lifting stretchers all day with patients weighing up to 800 pounds (no shit). Though I will admit that when the patient exceeds 350 pounds, they get another crew (2 EMTs) to help lift, though this is the same limit that the *guys* use to request additional assistance.
While the extreme limits of strength are influenced by male/female, the "normal" range is determined far more by excercise.
1.) As far as I know a company can not refuse to tell you the information contained in your file. Thus, when Aunt Betty calls in and the topic of her PPQ comes up, she'll be mad as hell when she finds out she's categorized as "vapid bafoon."
As far as I know, unless I'm in a federally-regulated industry (credit reporting, banking, etc), there's nothing that says I even have to admit I have a file on you, let alone have to disclose what's in it.
For example, on your file, I would put MBA after your name. I'm sure you would find that flattering, but to me, it means "Makes Bad Assumptions".
So the gist is they outsourced to a CommunityCollege who then outsourced it to a website. The coder who answered the website not only didn't know what he was doing and tried to get someone else to help him, he probably had no idea the significance of the data to begin with. Since nobody who had a clue actually hired him. Outsourcing something that important is exactly what is wrong. I've seen companies outsource jobs that were essential to the well being of the company and nobody in charge (CEO,CIO) will admit that the reason the business failed was due to putting something critical in the hands of others who didn't have the same priorities as them.
Outsourcing it wasn't the screw-up. Truth is, if you don't have the talent in-house to do such a project, you really don't have a choice. The screw-up was in not outsourcing it to a proper development shop.
First, you should be sure anyone you contract to actually has the available talent, and time, to perform the job.
Second, if you're outsourcing, the contract you sign should specifically prohibit sub-contracting without your express knowledge and permission. They're going to be a whole lot less likely to outsource to Apu at the quickee mart if they have to get your permission first, or risk being sued for breach of contract.
Third, as has been mentioned before, unless there's some unbelievably good reason for it, you should never give live "customer" information to an outsource. Even working in-house, I've never used live data in a development system. Part of the initial project plan is creating a test data set.
Oh, and outsourcing anything critical to an educational institution is always a stupid move. At best, you're going to get work done by students, who've never done a real job before. At worst, students tend to have lower ethical standards than employees, if at least for no other reason than they're not getting paid as much as a regular employee. But also, they're not under the same contractual obligations as a regular employee would be (NDA, etc.). Critical jobs should always be handled by professionals.
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I'm quite impressed that a pigeon can do 100km in 2.5 hours though, I had no idea they were *that* fast...
I think you are easily impressed. By bird standards, that's not that fast, only 24mph. It does explain, however, why the most common birds I see my greyhounds (44mph) chowing down on are pigeons... Of course, it also helps that pigeons are so stupid that they try to outrun the dogs, rather than gain altitude.
Haha. You had me going there for a minute, with the comment about "several courses on wound ballistics". But if you actually believe there's such a thing as a "hypersonic shock wound", then... well. The entire concept is a fantasy [mindspring.com]. It apparently spread from tall-tales spun by marksmen in the Korean/Vietnam wars.
No, not a fantasy. I spent more than a few days in class staring at stop-motion photos of projectiles passing through clear gelatin blocks. The diameter of the cavity behind the path of a 5.56 round is sometimes up to 20-30 times the diameter of the projectile itself. All of my training was based on laboratory data and post-mortem examinations. I never heard anything from marksmen.
On the other hand, the "tumbling" of the 5.56 *is* a myth. If it really tumbled, you wouldn't be able to hit the broad side of a barn with it, and the rand would be pitiful.
That depends entirely on the state, Some states, the plate is passed with the vehicle. Until recently, that was the case in Arizona.
NATO soldiers are not allowed to use shotguns, hollowpoint bullets, or anti-personnel lasers, because, perversely, they might leave the target alive. The 5.56mm rounds fired from an M16 are required to be jacketed to reduce their chance of tearing off an arm or leg, making nonlethal injuries more treatable.
Um, wrong.
First, shotguns *are* currently used by military security patrols. They're not used by field troops because of the extremely short range. In WWI, they were used in trench warfare.
Second, hollowpoints are *more* destructive, not less. Solid rounds tend to punch through, damaging only those things directly in path, and many times imparting only a fraction of their energy into the target. Hollow points #1 expand to a wider path, and #2 impart more of their energy (usually all of it) into the target, due to the greater surface area. This causes far greater damage.
As for 5.56 mm rounds being required to be jacketed, actually, *all* small-arms rounds are required to be jacketed, from long before the 5.56 was even on the drawing board. (Pre-dates the Geneva convention.) The 5.56mm is most dangerous due to the incredible *velocity* (up to 3,200fps) it carries. When hitting a solid body, a hypersonic shock wave follows the projectile, creating damage far removed from the actual path of the projectile. A hit in the thigh has been known to cause thrombosis of the major arteries well up into the abdomen and chest. (Fluids transmit shock waves *very* efficiently.) Also, that same hit, in the meat of the thigh, where the projectile itself never impacted the bone, can easily pulverize the femur, from the shock waves alone.
No comment on the lasers, that's out of my area of expertise.
And yes, I *have* taken several courses on wound ballistics.
I have no control of *my* ISP's policies and no choice in my area.
Yet, you expect everyone else's ISP to deal with your ISP's pollution. Your lack of choice is not my problem. Your ISP allowing a flood of sewage to enter my network *is* my problem. I choose to deal with it by blocking. I suggest you actually try to talk to your ISP before you find yourself on a rather exclusive intranet.
No, he's right. And you're right.
Cox has implemented outbound port 25 blocks, but not uniformly throughout their entire network.
For me, it wasn't too big a deal, since I have my own mail servers at a colocation facility, I use a non-standard port for my outgoing mail.
I'm pretty sure it's email worms from infected users setting off their alarms, is it really so hard to filter these
Is it really so hard for *your* ISP to filter these before they pollute someone else's network? You ISP's mail server should be filtering for these, and they should be blocking outbound port 25 from clients unless specifically requested by the client.
I have no problem with folks sending their own mail out if they know what they're doing, and they specifically request it. But I have a HUGE problem with ISPs leaving port 25 open for every jughead on their system. If all of the ISPs followed this rule, the spam problem would decrease by 75% or more.
OK, you really are a troll.
The Java VMs are distributed as *binaries*, because Sun's too much of a prig to open-source it. This means it was compiled for the "lowest common denominator" x86 system, probably Pentium (not II or III).
In contrast, OpenSSH is distributed as source, which means it was compiled *on my system, for my system*.
One of java's largest advantages is that it knows everything about your hardware, so theoretically it should always be fairly well optimized for it.
This is a joke, right? Java doesn't "know" any more about your hardware than vi does.
I'm a Java programmer, and Java has come a long way, and is plenty stable enough for a lot of things. However, there isn't a chance in hades that I'd use it for a system-level app like SSH, or for an extremely high-load app like Apache. Sorry, it's just not there yet.
What country do *you* live in????
/dev/null, I'm *still* dealing with 100+ spam messages a day.
Until the do not call list got enacted, I'd have gladly eaten twice as much spam just to get control of my phone back. I still get the occasional spam call.
I don't use IM much, so can't comment there.
SMS spam, not very much, but I've gotten text message spams before. It's a legal grey area, and a few folks are taking advantage of it. Getting them at 3:00am is wonderful for raising my blood pressure 50 points or so.
Postal spam? Holy spamola Batman! Over 4/5ths of my daily mail goes straight into the shredder. not only that, some of that stuff is downright dangerous from a privacy standpoint. Credit card offers, "checks" from my credit card company, etc...
Fax? Cripes, I don't even *have* a fax machine, yet I still have problems with fax spam. Nothing like a 2:00am phone call that answers with beeps because some jackass is using a sequential autodialer. Even more annoying, I have two phone lines with numbers just a few hundred apart. If I get one, I know another one is coming in 15-20 minutes.
Truth is, on an individual message basis, email spam is the *least* objectionable when compared to the others. The problem is that email spam is a veritable firehose at full blast. If I got telemarketer calls at the same rate as I get spam, my phone would be unusable 24/7. As it is, with using four blocklists on my server, and using spamassassin on what gets past that, with very high scores (15+) sent automagically to
The point is, other mediums have this problem. The difference is that with other mediums, there's a much greater "bandwidth" limitation, and the cost to the sender is much higher. Thus, they tend to be more self-limiting.
The result? A housing development that looks "cookie cutter" now will look completely different in 5 to 10 years.
Not anymore. With local governments practically requiring Home Owner's Associations for all new developments, you're practically guaranteed that the development will look the same in 20 years as it did the day it was built. I should know, my current house is in one of those developments, and is 18 years old. The only thing about the houses that is in any way unique is the outside light fixtures, and that's because #1, the original ones were crap and were pretty much trash in 5 years, #2, they were ugly, and #3, they were one of the few things not specifically covered in the HOA bylaws. Everything else, including the color of the exterior, is very explicitly defined, and varying from it will get you a letter from the HOA. Ignoring the letter will land you in court for breach of contract.
It's called copyright violation, which is a domestic civil law violation and it's neither illegal nor morally wrong to do it across national boundries. Websites want to be copied.
Try again. It's very definitely illegal, though it may be difficult to prosecute. As for morally wrong? Well, I guess if you have no morals it wouldn't be. However, I think most other folks would disagree. Maybe when you move out of your mom's house and start having to earn your own keep you'll feel the same.
I don't see doctors making websites about what idiots we are when we call them for medical advice.
Maybe not websites, but I've read a couple of books like that. Having worked in the medical field, I can tell you that sysadmin/user stories have nothing on doctor/patient stories. I have literally been in pain from laughing while reading those books.
The #2 funniest stories are those written by police officers, usually those who worked in mid-sized towns.
I AM NOT A LAWYER, but I've done just enough study to be really dangerous :) (A little knowledge and all that). ...
but there exists laws on the books which result in the mechanic being able to put a lean on your car in this case.
Very little knowledge, apparently.
He can put a lien on the car. And in fact, most repair shops have that clause right in the work order you sign. Partly, you're signing permission to do the work. But more importantly to the dealer, you are signing that they have a lien on the vehicle until you pay up.
The poster was talking about the data that wasn't covered by the warrant,
The data is irrelevant. The only relevant thing is whether it is reasonable that I might find the data in the place I'm searching, and that the place is covered by the warrant.
OK, assume the police have a warrant for data X, let's assume it's the source files for a worm. The warrant specifies that I can search the ISP where it is believed the data may be found. Data X could reasonably be located on the ISP's servers, so they search server A. In the process, they come across data Y, source files for a different worm/virus that had been released some months ago.
End result, fully admissable evidence against whomever had posession/created that data, even though it wasn't specifically what they were looking for at the time.
The test is, if the target of the search could reasonably be located where the found evidence was, and the place being searched was under the scope of the original warrant, any evidence found, regardless of its relationship to the crime being investigated, is admissable. If I have a warrant to search your car for a gun, and I find a few grams of heroin, it's admissable. If I get a warrant for your neighbor's place, because someone saw you throw stolen goods over his fence, and I find his meth lab, it's admissable.
In the United States, due process requires that the evidence collected by the warrent only be used against the people the warrent was issued against. There's no real point to keeping the data around, since they couldn't use it to convict anyone, even if they find a crime.
Wow, where did you get that line of crap from? Any evidence discovered in the execution of a legally issued and legally executed search warrant is admissable in *any* court proceeding. If you stashed your kiddie porn in your employer's filing cabinets, who was coincidentally being searched for evidence of financial fraud, you'd better believe that they are admissable. As long as the warrant covers the area being searched, it's fair game.
And yes, I have first-hand experience with search warrants and their execution.
Yup, but they were OUR citizens, not foreign spies, and were given a full trial before execution. Not summarily shot, as was implied.
Care to try again?
come on, spam isn't THAT bad. Yes, its annoying, yes it takes time away from real things, but is it really so bad that you'd actually want to flog someone publicly?
Heck, I'd consider that a very *light* penalty, maybe for first-time offenses. For second offense, rubbing their back down in chili-pepper oil before flogging. For a third offense, I'd say they were completely unsalvageable, which would rate a public hanging. (Yes, I'm very serious.)
stealing from who though? they're certainly not stealing from me.
They are most certainly stealing from me. They utilize my bandwidth, which I pay for. They also cause me several hours/month of customer support time, educating customers on how to deal with spam, tweaking filters, etc. And, a couple hours a week in system maintenance time, clearing mail queues of undeliverable bounces, etc. All of this time *could* have been spent on things resulting in billable hours, instead, it's time completely lost. This means that either I have to eat it, or I have to pass the cost on to my customers, or a mixture of both.
So yes, spammers are thieves, and I'm afraid that your delicate sensibilities would be severely offended by what I'd *really* do to one of them if I ever had the opportunity.
The U.S. would have had the spies shot for espionage, had things been the other way around.
Really, that's fascinating. Can you cite an example of this?
The US has caught a large number of spies in the last half-century. I can't recall any of them being shot... Deported or imprisoned, yes. Shot, no.
Spying and espionage are a fact of life in the political world. All countries deal with it, most in a civilised manner, usually through exchanges with the other country, who usually has caught one or more of our own spies.
Videotron has been a cess-pit from the day I first heard of them. They have the distinction of being one of the first entries in my private mail server spam block list. I've only had one customer request in five years to unblock them, which I did for 24 hours. After that, the customer requested that I place them back in the block list. They decided any possible gain from being able to communicate with Videotron's customers wasn't worth the flood of spam that comes from them.
The fact that they're continuing to screw their customers is certainly no surpise to me.
Hehe, my wife's nose is just slightly off-line. She got it broken, twice, with a hockey stick, while playing pond hockey as a kid.
Though I suspect that a few falls related to training horses in hunter-jumper competition didn't help things.
Umm, no, there would be no issue at all.
Microsoft bought a license to the SCO code, remember?
No, but they recently purchased a special ambulance just for those big patients. Extra-wide heavy-duty stretcher, hydraulic lifts, and extra-heavy-duty suspension.
They won't even dispatch that vehicle unless the patient weighs at least 600 pounds. As it is, it's one of the busiest vehicles in the fleet.
Before they got that vehicle, they would put the patient on a heavy canvas tarp, and put them on the floor of the ambulance after removing the stretcher and it's mounting hardware. Regular stretchers would just collapse under the weight, even if you could fit the patient on it.
Shit, I bet my wife could easily kick the average male geek's ass in a contest like that. She works for an ambulance company, with a female partner, lifting stretchers all day with patients weighing up to 800 pounds (no shit). Though I will admit that when the patient exceeds 350 pounds, they get another crew (2 EMTs) to help lift, though this is the same limit that the *guys* use to request additional assistance.
While the extreme limits of strength are influenced by male/female, the "normal" range is determined far more by excercise.
1.) As far as I know a company can not refuse to tell you the information contained in your file. Thus, when Aunt Betty calls in and the topic of her PPQ comes up, she'll be mad as hell when she finds out she's categorized as "vapid bafoon."
As far as I know, unless I'm in a federally-regulated industry (credit reporting, banking, etc), there's nothing that says I even have to admit I have a file on you, let alone have to disclose what's in it.
For example, on your file, I would put MBA after your name. I'm sure you would find that flattering, but to me, it means "Makes Bad Assumptions".
So the gist is they outsourced to a CommunityCollege who then outsourced it to a website. The coder who answered the website not only didn't know what he was doing and tried to get someone else to help him, he probably had no idea the significance of the data to begin with. Since nobody who had a clue actually hired him. Outsourcing something that important is exactly what is wrong. I've seen companies outsource jobs that were essential to the well being of the company and nobody in charge (CEO,CIO) will admit that the reason the business failed was due to putting something critical in the hands of others who didn't have the same priorities as them.
Outsourcing it wasn't the screw-up. Truth is, if you don't have the talent in-house to do such a project, you really don't have a choice. The screw-up was in not outsourcing it to a proper development shop.
First, you should be sure anyone you contract to actually has the available talent, and time, to perform the job.
Second, if you're outsourcing, the contract you sign should specifically prohibit sub-contracting without your express knowledge and permission. They're going to be a whole lot less likely to outsource to Apu at the quickee mart if they have to get your permission first, or risk being sued for breach of contract.
Third, as has been mentioned before, unless there's some unbelievably good reason for it, you should never give live "customer" information to an outsource. Even working in-house, I've never used live data in a development system. Part of the initial project plan is creating a test data set.
Oh, and outsourcing anything critical to an educational institution is always a stupid move. At best, you're going to get work done by students, who've never done a real job before. At worst, students tend to have lower ethical standards than employees, if at least for no other reason than they're not getting paid as much as a regular employee. But also, they're not under the same contractual obligations as a regular employee would be (NDA, etc.). Critical jobs should always be handled by professionals.