Yes, there are donation options. We considered saving the cord blood for both our children, at our expense and through donation, we chose neither option. My wife's obstetrician was very helpful in informing us of all our options.
Like many have pointed out, if something were to happen the cost would be irrelevant. But our research at the time indicated that there are very few uses for cord blood, and it was not something that could be kept for more than 10 years. We decided that the cost was too high given what this "insurance policy" was going to cover.
We decided not to donate after reading the contract's fine print, giving the organization rights to do anything they wanted with the blood. They did not enumerate what types of research they did; this made us feel very uncomfortable. Because there were no restrictions on what could be done with the blood we decided against making the donation.
I don't disagree that under a normal workload getting people access to their email within their first day or two on the job should be expected. But this is not a normal work week at the White House (imagine if almost every employee in your hospital were to be swapped out at one time). They are creating accounts for hundreds of users across multiple networks. Many users will receive three or more accounts. Government regulations mandate that the paper trail for approvals be tracked for many years. On top of all this you are fielding tech support calls from users with broken or missing PC components, so your down time is almost zero, if not negative.
Referring to your original post, it is easy to say it should just take three minutes, but there are a lot of other complicating factors with swapping out a Presidential administration. There is a lot of red-tape in government IT, for good reason. Imagine the headlines if someone were to be granted access to information they were not supposed to have.
You are leaving out a large part of the account creation process. You need to collect the individuals name and the various access they will require. Then route this information through at least two approval steps, a manager to approve the request, then someone in HR or security to verify (double check) that the person does indeed need all the access being requested. This then gets routed an admin for implementation, then finally needs to be delivered to the user. Lather, rinse and repeat several hundred times. This amount of work is enough to overwhelm the best IT offices.
Disagree. EVERY customer has a right to either (1) testdrive the product prior to purchase or (2) return the product if it's crap. Since the media does not allow number 2, I choose number 1. I download it first, I try it, and if it's any good then I buy it.
You do not have a right to test or return anything. Most businesses offer these options to their customers because it is good for their business. Most people will not drop serious money on items like a car or TV without being able to see it work before hand, so they offer a test drive option. A good restaurant will permit you to send something back, or they may comp. your meal if you don't like it, but they are not required to do so.
I agree that media companies are taking advantage of the current rules, but you have other options before you buy a movie. You could read a review or watch the trailer to name two.
Some time ago I was running a batch job and the system returned the message, "The system is unwilling to process your request." I figured it was tired of running my programs, and wanted to quit for the day.
I don't think Google will want these data centers growing too big. One of the incentives to moving offshore is to avoid taxes. Towns require governments. Governments require money, so they levy taxes. Even if the town's citizens didn't feel the need to incorporate, attract a large enough population and the nearest country will extend their territorial claim, so they can tax them. Smaller is going to be better from a business perspective.
I overlooked the distances involved. As long as you are close enough to shore this could become part of a reasonable commute. Anyway you decide to staff the ship, I think manpower is easily solved.
How many people are required to maintain a server farm today? Of those people how many actually need to be co-located with the hardware, vs. how may people are just there for convenience? I suspect you would only need a small number of people to live with the equipment. You would divide the staff into an on-shore and off-shore team. You could run the off-shore team like an oil rig, where you work in shifts for several months. The add costs of supplying the off-shore team, and possibly larger salaries, should be offset by the reduced land costs.
While I too find what this man has allegedly done to be despicable, I am going to take the high road and say that we should not infer his guilt because he will not grant access to his laptop. He is simply refusing to assist the prosecution in the case against him. The case does appear to have merit, and I hope he is punished, but I also hope that the judge and jury do not convict simply because he exercised his rights under the law.
Do you happen to know what the solution is supposed to be? My understanding is that the cable cards do not provide two-way communication with the cable company, and that the FCC and cable companies still cannot agree on a two-way cable card standard. If this is all true the solution is more like years away.
I understand your concern, and I see the point you are trying to make. Where should the madness end? Let me preface this by stating that I really don't shop for may games. My children are still young, so we don't venture much past PG movies and games rated E. I could not tell you how many games with objectionable material are on store shelfs with out voluntary labels. Perhaps it is best to let the free market decide by voting with their dollars. I would love to see the industry self-mandate the ESRB rating system. The problem seems to be (according to the NY legislature anyhow) is that too many objectionable games are not labeled. I believe the market is large enough now that some kind of regulation is required. The question is will the software game industry get its tail in gear and get all their members on board with a rating system (like the motion picture industry) or does the government need to step in and do it for them?
Like many others here I don't see this as a huge government intrusion. NY is requiring that labels be applied and tools made available to help parents keep material they deem inappropriate from their kids.
Technology is changing fast. When game systems were first introduced, graphics and game play were simple. It was easier for parents to know what they were buy for their kids. Now games immerse us a realistic-virtual world. There are hundreds of titles available. Games could have any combination of nudity, language and violence. I see this as a case where the people of NY, acting through their elected government, are asking for better tools to help them be better parents. I don't see where government is restricting content.
If you want to design a game where naked hookers run through the city, cutting the heads off small children, eating their livers, while smoking a crackpipe, then package it in a box with cute bunnies on the cover, great! Please put a label on it so I can decide if it is appropriate for an 8 year old.
I enjoy reading alternate history, specifically books written by Harry Turtledove. He has a series of books written specifically for young-adults. I have not read any of them, so I cannot say how appropriate they may be for your children, but I find the author has a talent for writing historically accurate books, with thought provoking twists. These may not the "classics" you are looking for, but fun to read nonetheless.
You are correct. I don't believe that it would show intent; however it could reveal networks in the making. If John and Mark have no known ties to each other, but are observed spending an abnormal amount of time together, you could reasonably infer that they have become friends. It does not mean that if John is a known terrorist that Mark will become one too. But it could be useful information in the future, so if Mark were to be found with a trunk full of explosives, you could investigate John, to see if he supplied them.
I have seen TV documentaries on this process, but I do not remember the name of the program. Similar to the Navy's process, the aircraft is has most of its fluids drained, and are often wrapped with a protective membrane to keep it out of the elements. They are taken out to large boneyards where they just sit until they are either re-commissioned, or scrapped. In some cases, they are cannibalized for parts, but since the entire F117 fleet is being retired, I doubt this will happen. I suppose they could be sold at some future point, but I don't believe we export any stealth technology right now.
And I doubt anybody will get fired for this failure and Harris will probably still get paid millions and millions in profits for letting this project get out of hand. I have spent the last 10 years of my career doing some form of government contracting. I struggle with this question often. What do you do when your customer tells you to do something that you know will not work, or could be done a better way? A responsible manager will attempt to move the customer in the right direction. But what happens when the customer insists it be done their way? You cannot refuse to do the work, you have a legal contract binding you to do it. I do not mean to imply that the contractor is not responsible for what they produce, just highlight the fact that it is rarely a black and white situation.
He points to a dress rehearsal held in May 2007 as when "development and scoping problems emerged." The bureau then identified "more than 400 new or clarified technical requirements," he said, which were delivered to Harris on Jan. 16.
It appears that the government shares some of the blame. 400 new/modified requirements tells me they didn't have good idea of what they needed the system to do. A system is only as good as the specification provided.
More specifically, the President cannot submit any legislation. His budget must be submitted for consideration by a member of the House of Representatives (since all monetary bills must originate in the House). His only constitutional power is to sign or veto the bills as presented to him.
My understanding that the 10k threshold policy has been recently modified. Banks must report any "suspicious" transactions. Odds are, depositing 9,999 is going to draw just as much attention, or even 5k, every other week too. Everyones bank accounts probably show a regular pattern of activity. If you have been getting paid 3k every other week for the last 3 years, then "extra" deposits show up, for any ammount, you are going to get reported.
In Fairfax County, VA, the average precinct had 2000 some people cast ballots during the last presidential election. When you consider there were four (or more) offices on the ballot, plus three (or more) bond questions, that adds up to a lot of votes to be counted. It gets even more complicated when you are allowed to vote for up to three people for one office (our school board has 12 members). I believe that counting 14,000+ votes with a computer is just more accurate, and faster, than a system that relies only hand counting.
In my opinion, a hybrid system is far better. Computerized ballots, with a paper trail, allows us the ability to count the votes fast, but also the ability to audit the results by sampling the paper trail and comparing it to the computer produced results. This statistical sampling validates if the system is working properly. If the statistics don't come close the computer results, then you can hire the bean-counters to count all the paper ballots.
I agree with you. Most voting precincts, that I have seen, have at least two voting machines. In my precinct you wait in one line to register (where your "order/number" is assigned), then a second to wait for the next available machine, a random event. For our last primary there were four machines, two for each party. For the last presidential election, there were more than fifteen. I do not see any reliable way for one to use the time/date stamp to map a specific ballot to a specific voter, especially when your assignment to a machine is random.
For as long as people have been voting, there have been individuals trying to stuff the ballot box. Paper is no more foolproof than any other medium. I personally prefer a hybrid of computers and paper. You can use the computers for the quick number crunching, and then compare to the paper ballots if necessary or desired. Any system is susceptible to fraud. A good system is one that is transparent to the public, with lots of checks and oversight.
I would tend to agree. I assume that most of the people who wait tend to owe the gov't money. But waiting until the last day because you want to save a few pennies in interest, or because you want to stick it to them is just silly. Think of the amount of money you will have to pay in penalities because you e-filed one minute after Midnight, or your car broke down on the way to the post office.
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3. No guarantee of how well these cells survive in the cryogenic environment.
The literature we received at the time (2003) indicated that the blood could be saved for no more than 10 years.
Yes, there are donation options. We considered saving the cord blood for both our children, at our expense and through donation, we chose neither option. My wife's obstetrician was very helpful in informing us of all our options.
Like many have pointed out, if something were to happen the cost would be irrelevant. But our research at the time indicated that there are very few uses for cord blood, and it was not something that could be kept for more than 10 years. We decided that the cost was too high given what this "insurance policy" was going to cover.
We decided not to donate after reading the contract's fine print, giving the organization rights to do anything they wanted with the blood. They did not enumerate what types of research they did; this made us feel very uncomfortable. Because there were no restrictions on what could be done with the blood we decided against making the donation.
I don't disagree that under a normal workload getting people access to their email within their first day or two on the job should be expected. But this is not a normal work week at the White House (imagine if almost every employee in your hospital were to be swapped out at one time). They are creating accounts for hundreds of users across multiple networks. Many users will receive three or more accounts. Government regulations mandate that the paper trail for approvals be tracked for many years. On top of all this you are fielding tech support calls from users with broken or missing PC components, so your down time is almost zero, if not negative.
Referring to your original post, it is easy to say it should just take three minutes, but there are a lot of other complicating factors with swapping out a Presidential administration. There is a lot of red-tape in government IT, for good reason. Imagine the headlines if someone were to be granted access to information they were not supposed to have.
You are leaving out a large part of the account creation process. You need to collect the individuals name and the various access they will require. Then route this information through at least two approval steps, a manager to approve the request, then someone in HR or security to verify (double check) that the person does indeed need all the access being requested. This then gets routed an admin for implementation, then finally needs to be delivered to the user. Lather, rinse and repeat several hundred times. This amount of work is enough to overwhelm the best IT offices.
Disagree. EVERY customer has a right to either (1) testdrive the product prior to purchase or (2) return the product if it's crap. Since the media does not allow number 2, I choose number 1. I download it first, I try it, and if it's any good then I buy it.
You do not have a right to test or return anything. Most businesses offer these options to their customers because it is good for their business. Most people will not drop serious money on items like a car or TV without being able to see it work before hand, so they offer a test drive option. A good restaurant will permit you to send something back, or they may comp. your meal if you don't like it, but they are not required to do so.
I agree that media companies are taking advantage of the current rules, but you have other options before you buy a movie. You could read a review or watch the trailer to name two.
Some time ago I was running a batch job and the system returned the message, "The system is unwilling to process your request." I figured it was tired of running my programs, and wanted to quit for the day.
I don't think Google will want these data centers growing too big. One of the incentives to moving offshore is to avoid taxes. Towns require governments. Governments require money, so they levy taxes. Even if the town's citizens didn't feel the need to incorporate, attract a large enough population and the nearest country will extend their territorial claim, so they can tax them. Smaller is going to be better from a business perspective.
I overlooked the distances involved. As long as you are close enough to shore this could become part of a reasonable commute. Anyway you decide to staff the ship, I think manpower is easily solved.
How many people are required to maintain a server farm today? Of those people how many actually need to be co-located with the hardware, vs. how may people are just there for convenience? I suspect you would only need a small number of people to live with the equipment. You would divide the staff into an on-shore and off-shore team. You could run the off-shore team like an oil rig, where you work in shifts for several months. The add costs of supplying the off-shore team, and possibly larger salaries, should be offset by the reduced land costs.
While I too find what this man has allegedly done to be despicable, I am going to take the high road and say that we should not infer his guilt because he will not grant access to his laptop. He is simply refusing to assist the prosecution in the case against him. The case does appear to have merit, and I hope he is punished, but I also hope that the judge and jury do not convict simply because he exercised his rights under the law.
Do you happen to know what the solution is supposed to be? My understanding is that the cable cards do not provide two-way communication with the cable company, and that the FCC and cable companies still cannot agree on a two-way cable card standard. If this is all true the solution is more like years away.
I understand your concern, and I see the point you are trying to make. Where should the madness end? Let me preface this by stating that I really don't shop for may games. My children are still young, so we don't venture much past PG movies and games rated E. I could not tell you how many games with objectionable material are on store shelfs with out voluntary labels. Perhaps it is best to let the free market decide by voting with their dollars. I would love to see the industry self-mandate the ESRB rating system. The problem seems to be (according to the NY legislature anyhow) is that too many objectionable games are not labeled. I believe the market is large enough now that some kind of regulation is required. The question is will the software game industry get its tail in gear and get all their members on board with a rating system (like the motion picture industry) or does the government need to step in and do it for them?
Like many others here I don't see this as a huge government intrusion. NY is requiring that labels be applied and tools made available to help parents keep material they deem inappropriate from their kids.
Technology is changing fast. When game systems were first introduced, graphics and game play were simple. It was easier for parents to know what they were buy for their kids. Now games immerse us a realistic-virtual world. There are hundreds of titles available. Games could have any combination of nudity, language and violence. I see this as a case where the people of NY, acting through their elected government, are asking for better tools to help them be better parents. I don't see where government is restricting content.
If you want to design a game where naked hookers run through the city, cutting the heads off small children, eating their livers, while smoking a crackpipe, then package it in a box with cute bunnies on the cover, great! Please put a label on it so I can decide if it is appropriate for an 8 year old.
I enjoy reading alternate history, specifically books written by Harry Turtledove. He has a series of books written specifically for young-adults. I have not read any of them, so I cannot say how appropriate they may be for your children, but I find the author has a talent for writing historically accurate books, with thought provoking twists. These may not the "classics" you are looking for, but fun to read nonetheless.
You are correct. I don't believe that it would show intent; however it could reveal networks in the making. If John and Mark have no known ties to each other, but are observed spending an abnormal amount of time together, you could reasonably infer that they have become friends. It does not mean that if John is a known terrorist that Mark will become one too. But it could be useful information in the future, so if Mark were to be found with a trunk full of explosives, you could investigate John, to see if he supplied them.
I have seen TV documentaries on this process, but I do not remember the name of the program. Similar to the Navy's process, the aircraft is has most of its fluids drained, and are often wrapped with a protective membrane to keep it out of the elements. They are taken out to large boneyards where they just sit until they are either re-commissioned, or scrapped. In some cases, they are cannibalized for parts, but since the entire F117 fleet is being retired, I doubt this will happen. I suppose they could be sold at some future point, but I don't believe we export any stealth technology right now.
It appears that the government shares some of the blame. 400 new/modified requirements tells me they didn't have good idea of what they needed the system to do. A system is only as good as the specification provided.
So many good and bad languages to pick from. This website contains code samples in just about every known computer language. Cheers!
More specifically, the President cannot submit any legislation. His budget must be submitted for consideration by a member of the House of Representatives (since all monetary bills must originate in the House). His only constitutional power is to sign or veto the bills as presented to him.
My understanding that the 10k threshold policy has been recently modified. Banks must report any "suspicious" transactions. Odds are, depositing 9,999 is going to draw just as much attention, or even 5k, every other week too. Everyones bank accounts probably show a regular pattern of activity. If you have been getting paid 3k every other week for the last 3 years, then "extra" deposits show up, for any ammount, you are going to get reported.
In Fairfax County, VA, the average precinct had 2000 some people cast ballots during the last presidential election. When you consider there were four (or more) offices on the ballot, plus three (or more) bond questions, that adds up to a lot of votes to be counted. It gets even more complicated when you are allowed to vote for up to three people for one office (our school board has 12 members). I believe that counting 14,000+ votes with a computer is just more accurate, and faster, than a system that relies only hand counting.
In my opinion, a hybrid system is far better. Computerized ballots, with a paper trail, allows us the ability to count the votes fast, but also the ability to audit the results by sampling the paper trail and comparing it to the computer produced results. This statistical sampling validates if the system is working properly. If the statistics don't come close the computer results, then you can hire the bean-counters to count all the paper ballots.
I agree with you. Most voting precincts, that I have seen, have at least two voting machines. In my precinct you wait in one line to register (where your "order/number" is assigned), then a second to wait for the next available machine, a random event. For our last primary there were four machines, two for each party. For the last presidential election, there were more than fifteen. I do not see any reliable way for one to use the time/date stamp to map a specific ballot to a specific voter, especially when your assignment to a machine is random.
For as long as people have been voting, there have been individuals trying to stuff the ballot box. Paper is no more foolproof than any other medium. I personally prefer a hybrid of computers and paper. You can use the computers for the quick number crunching, and then compare to the paper ballots if necessary or desired. Any system is susceptible to fraud. A good system is one that is transparent to the public, with lots of checks and oversight.
I would tend to agree. I assume that most of the people who wait tend to owe the gov't money. But waiting until the last day because you want to save a few pennies in interest, or because you want to stick it to them is just silly. Think of the amount of money you will have to pay in penalities because you e-filed one minute after Midnight, or your car broke down on the way to the post office.