It depends, how much you are willing to pay wether it is tech-supports work to hold you hand or wether it isn't.
Car anology time. If you hail a cab, you pay enough that you shouldn't have to care even about the most basic things of operating a car like speed limits or fuel. If you rent a car, you pay slightly less, but you are supposed to know the road laws and put in your own gas, although you should be able to count on it to have a full tank when you first got it.
Lease a car and you pay even less, but know you got to remind youselve about oil levels as well, buy the car and you are even cheaper but you know need to maintain the car yourselve and if you turn it into to the garage because it makes a funny sound, you can expect the garage to charge you for discovery time.
The same works in IT. Tech support is often also responsible for basic maintenance, that is, just because a guy is from tech support doesn't mean he has nothing else to do then answer questions. Even if he is, how many people is he servicing?
Are you (or your company) willing to actually PAY for the amount of handholding you require?I once had the luxury of having a REAL secretary, just for me. I was considered so expensive that the company was willing to pay someone fulltime (and secretaries don't come cheap) to do all the non-tech tasks for me. You would be amazed at how this is different from having a office worker who you can ask things.
For instance, he took care (yeah male) by himself of things like keeping my office supplied, you don't know how luxurious it is to have someone who keeps the printer working for you until you got to order your own catridges again. My time was precious, precious enough to warrent the costs of hiring an extra person to make sure I spend my hours on my task and not supporting myself.
The biggest problem I see with tech support is often simply down to budget, you seem to have 100 dollar questions but are only willing to spend 10. Sorry, but you ain't gonna get what you want unless you are willing to spend.
If I was willing to do support (not on your life) I could easily arrange it for you to have the pefect IT setup where you would never have to read a manual or do a patch or wait arround for tech support to come around. Mind you, it would cost you.
IBM is famous for its excellent support, you got a problem, they come, 24/7 year around, but be prepared for some screaming for accounts when you actually use that support.
I have used them a few times when I was confronted with managers who don't understand a problem unless it comes with a huge price tag, and they are excellent, but the price per hour came to about 500 euro's per hour, all to say that the server was fine, the problem was in the software, just as I had been saying all along.
Tech support can only deliver what you are willing to pay for, and while I do not know you, I find it fairly easy to assume that you are unwilling to pay for it.
Don't expect a doorman to hail you a cab at a motel.
There once was a time when most trucks had TWO people in the cabin, the driver and the "bijrijder" (no idea what the english word his, but his job is to lend a hand). There also used to be "relaxed" schedules. Upon arrival the trucker would be directed to the kantine and be given real coffee and perhaps something to eat while his truck was loaded/unloaded.
Nowadays even trucks with frequent stops and for innercity work do NOT have a "bijrijder", an extra set of eyes, a person who can go out of the cabin and direct traffic, a person who keeps the driver awake and alert. The schedules are intense while the number of delays has only increased. Unless the loading/unloading is at a wharehouse the trucker now often has to help with the loading/unloading.
This all makes for drivers who are tired, overworked and in constant fear of their jobs being taken by whatever is the next low wage country where none of the rules apply.
All in pursuit of the almighty buck. Notice how especially trucks from companies like DHL and other delivery firms that are always pushing the limits drive incredibly unsafely. I know how the routine goes, deliver 100 packages and next day they give you 110. Deliver them, and you get 120. Traffic jam? Just work overtime, that is increasinly hard to get overtime PAY for. The odd thing is that if you look at maintenance records this practive is very bad as the trucks are pushed way too hard and this actually costs a lot of money. Plus the invevitable accidents really start to affect business.
But hey, the package has to be delivered NOW and for as little money as possible.
That is the reason many truckers are a danger on the road.
It is the same reason tech support (who are on orders to handle as many calls as possible) often just says "reboot/reinstall" and tries to hangup.
Want good service/behaviour? Stop squeezing the margins, introduce strict laws and make sure people ain't forced to push the limits just to make a living, because they won't always get it right and a rude tech support guy is bad enough but an asleep driver of a truck is another thing altogether.
My opinion of people who use social networking sites is already pretty low, you just lowered it even further.
If you are upset about this, you should quit facebook. They are the ones that started this program.
To explain just how stupid you are, in the real world this would the equivelant of "politician A you elected puts in effect a law that requires libraries to record your book withdrawals. You find out about this. You stop going to libraries. You vote again for politician A".
We're using anybody's definition of "bad guy" which means "whoever was in the pickup truck", right?
Try to grow up a bit and realize that human history has been full of "we just killed them, so they must be the baddies, else we wouldn't have killed them".
Can I tell you a little secret about life? It is pointless.
You are born, you die. In between you have to work a lot of hours to... well to postpone the dying part or at least make the dying part less unpleasant.
Luckily, in the west we have become good enough at postponing death that we have some spare hours in our days. So we got to waste them, some watch sports, some have sex, some read books and some play games.
It is ALL useless.
Blogging got to rank near the top of most useless activities and as such you are in no position to critize second life players. You are a pot, so keep quiet about the color of kettles.
I wish people were a little bit more honest about their personal time wasters. Friend of mine follows all the soccer tournaments in the world, yet thinks playing games is a waste of time. Eheh.
Stop blogging mate and save the world or accept that you are wasting your time just as much as people who care about some silly online game.
Yes this exists in Japan. QR Codes are an "open" patent, the company that owns the patent has published the details so that anyone can implement it and doesn't enforce its patent except for the name.
This means it is IMPLEMENTED on a LOT of phones.
So what does this western company do? Implement it on Windows Mobile 5 or 6.
Eheh, why not implement it on the iPhone and go for an even more limited audience? (Sorry fanboys, but even with its massive success the iPhone is still only a tiny part of the market, although it is possible that with just 1 phone Apple will get a share that reaches while digits)
Hint, MS ain't exactly owning the market for mobile phones, especially those owned by youths. What advertiser is going to include a bloody ugly area in their carefully designed ad that can't be used by 95% of phones. (Getting real market share data from MS in this area is next to impossible, they are very reluctant to release hard figures)
If this canadian company had any smarts they would at least get it to run on Symbian (the majority OS) and preferably do it so that it simply runs on anything that has a camera. That is what the Japanese did.
Without this, this will just be another, it worked in Japan and failed in the west tech stories. Remember i-mode anyone?
I would also try to launch this in europe where carriers are slightly less restrictive about third party software on "their" phones.
At number 4 is the 80 gb iPod classic, decidely old tech that is only 4 dollars cheaper then the zune but, well also a LOT older.
So the Zune 2.0 can't even beat an iPod that is now several years old and delivers only the most basic music player, no wi-fi, no video no nothing and STILL customers like it better.
Residuals are part of the income for writers. I am SURE writers would MUCH prefer to get an engineers (you are a proper one and not one of the MSCE's I hope) salary then their own highly complex contracts.
The entertainment industry just does not work that simple. The "real" salary, is kept very low and entertainers then have to negiotate for a percentages of virtually everything all of it designed to 'officially' keep the costs down in case it is a flop and reward success, but really is there so the studio can screw everyone.
Check such cases as the Spiderman movie not actually making a profit. Yes that blockbuster hit. Sadly the original creator had signed a contract that gave him a percentage of profits so there weren't any.
Perhaps it would be better to have simple straight forward contracts X money for X hours work, but currently the industry just doesn't work that way.
Say that as an engineer you work on a bridge and instead of just getting a big pile of cash based on the amount of work you get 1% of toll proceeds. Would you then not have the right to complain if they suddenly decide to exclude passenger cars from paying toll on that bridge?
Well, you can see Amy's obscene tatoo.
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Futurama Returns!
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I am just waiting for the EU/JP release, with full frontol alien nudity of the female kind.
Says it all really that the US is fine with multiple horrible murders, but not nipples. Offcourse in europe we are different, we welcome nipples, but balk at the slightest bit of blood.
The japanese? Well, they got some tentacles in the movie.
There is the truth and there is fairy tales, shiver for the darkness in the cellar all you want, but keep your pathetic childhood fantasies to yourselve and out of real life.
ID is idiotic, even as an insane theory it contradicts itself, lies and just plain does NOT make sense.
Believing in ID is like believing in fortune telling, tarot cards and all that mumbo jumbo. Believe in Santa Claus all you want but I do not want you in a position of leadership of any kind if you do.
Does anyone really want say a president who believes for a second that Santa Claus exists and you could therefor fix your national debt by being nice all year? Offcourse not, yet we have had leaders who consulted "the stars" for their decisions, or worse listened to "god". Fine, meditate all you want, but the moment you claim to hear actual voices, it is time for the men in the white coats.
Evolution is a theory, but ID is bunk, a fairy tale for those who can't accept that we are so much walking meat. Believe in god all you want, some fine people (and lot more crazies) but stop trying to fit science into it. It don't work, pure common sense makes it impossible.
Would you also fire this person if she dared to question wether Santa Claus was real. Ssssh, better not tell anyone that the easter bunny don't really exist. Keep your demented ideas out of my real world.
Tolerate your kind? Sure, like I tolerate the crazy who walks through the city muttering at everyone. You are free to life, just don't try to influence a single aspect of my life because you are insane.
And if this sounds trollish or like flamebait, try to picture just how serious this is. The above poster SERIOUSLY believes that the earth is a few thousand years old, that dinosaurs and man lived happily together, that dinosaurs weren't meat eaters. Do you REALLY want someone that delusional in a position of authority?
Change GOD and Jesus Christ and all that with say Greys and Area 51. While it may make for some intresting stories, do you REALLY want someone who truly believes in that to run your life?
I am NOT talking about someone who thinks their might be alien life, just the same as I am not talking about those who believe in a god, I am talking about people who absolutly believe the most insane theories regardless of evidence or common sense. Would you really want a future leader who reads tarot cards or thinks horoscopes should guide national policy?
Remember that story about the single crossing of the bering strait a while back? That deals with a far longer timespan then ID allows, do you really want to defend a person who was going "LALALALA" with his fingers in his ears to ignore that story?
He asks for tolerance, ask yourselve what you are being tolerant too. It is one thing to do "yes small child, there really is Santa Claus" and quite another to say "Yes Mr President, there really is a Santa Claus".
Tours are done by the agent, not the record company. Most of what you ask is done by the agent/manager of a band. Try to learn a little bit more about how the music industry works please.
What does this mean, if I read it correctly is this really the state department responsible for prosecuting CRIMINAL cases who has launched ON THEIR OWN an investigation of RIAA methods?
Is Oregon some red state of the US? Is the prosecutor involved to old to care about his career?
I hate to get excited over nothing but this seems like a major setback for the RIAA and their underhanded tactics. A real criminal investigation? Neat.
Most of the comments are negative, but I detect a patern, ALL of the NEGATIVE comments seem to be from people who don't want to get the label child-killer attached to them.
Nobody from the child-saver group of players seems to NOT want this label.
Just an intresting obeservation I think. Make of it what you will.
They are the beneficiaries of this new law. That has been the problem with the copyright laws from the beginning, those who form the public opinion (Not just news agencies, but media in general) are in mostly FOR these laws.
Take Futurama, it shows a future that is truly nasty where nobody has any morals whatsoever. What is the ONE thing they all seemed to get worked up about, the one time the show tried to send a morale message? The evils of napster and how the geeks enslaved those poor stars.
Expecting the media to report on this kinda stuff is like expecting a news story on "newsreaders make way to much money new study shows. Could be replaced by trained chimp".
What next, expect politicians to rant about their own pay increases?
Google Windows Vista Capable and you get MS own page which currently states the following (Bold added for emphasis)
Windows Vista Capable and Premium Ready PCs
What is a Windows Vista Capable PC?
A new PC running Windows XP that carries the Windows Vista Capable PC logo can run Windows Vista. All editions of Windows Vista will deliver core experiences such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security, and reliability. All Windows Vista Capable PCs will run these core experiences at a minimum. Some features available in the premium editions of Windows Vistalike the new Windows Aero user experiencemay require advanced or additional hardware.
A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:
A modern processor (at least 800MHz).
512 MB of system memory.
A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.
Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs
Some Windows Vista Capable PCs have been designated Premium Ready. These PCs will provide an even better Windows Vista experience, including the Windows Aero user experience. Features available in specific premium editions of Windows Vista, such as the ability to watch and record live TV, may require additional hardware.
A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor).
1 GB of system memory.
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum), Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.
40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
DVD-ROM Drive.
Audio output capability.
Internet access capability.
I do NOT know if this page has been changed since the ad campaign was started but in its current form it is quit clear that Windows Vista Capable means just the bare bones of Vista and that if you want everything you need a Vista Premium Ready machine.
Yes it is weasly, but that is marketing for you, buyer beware.
Does anyone know if MS had the same text at launch, if so, then the case is without merit. If not then quit a few games are in trouble, because they ALWAYS show the screenshots at the highest setting, that may be impossible on the minimum requirements they list on the box.
Now if you excuse me, I have to chastise myself for defending Microsoft.
Look, as your nick suggests on slashdot we use real men's anologies namely cars. Guy stuff. Not clothing and most certainly not womens clothing and MOST DEFINITLY NOT TRYING THEM ON.
Yes I know the temptation can be great when you feel that soft lace... Eh, how about them Yankees eh.
When jocks inject large amounts of toxic liqued into women to get them to loose control over their bodies, that is just guys being guys, but when nerds do it "CALL THE COPS". For the humor impaired, alcohol is far easier to obtain in large doses then insect venom
I say enough is enough, we have to strike back. Revenge of the nerds!
Mmm, sounds like a good title for a movie, what is the number for hollywood?
Seriously, play a game like Call of Duty and check the casualties, you wipe out more people then took part in the actuall battles.
As for WoW, I think WW2's 50 million might just get you "we won't kill you on sight" faction standing.
BUT I think there is a difference, fighting/killing by itself ain't bad. Martial art sports, even boxing can be great character builders, the "thing" is to respect your opponent and to know that you should never abuse your strength.
In games, well it all depends what you are doing it for. Carmageddon was a fun game, but for me the most fun came from the insane stunts you could pull rather then driving over people, in many ways that just got in the way.
GTA has always had a bad rep, not entirely undeserved I think, the GTA were you play a black guy had you playing a petty minded hoodlum with absolutly no redeeming qualities. One mission you killed a music producer and his girlfriend because he didn't give your friend a contract. Oh yeah, fight the good fight!
I think that might be the key, why do you play a violent game. Compare it to hunting, some people hunt for food, some people hunt because they believe it allows them to be close to nature remind themselves meat comes from animals and not the supermarket, and some hunt because they like making small animals suffer or feel the power they have from holding a big gun to shoot a duck.
The first kind I can life with, the second kind should just visit a butchershop but the third kind should not be allowed to hold a gun or even a stick.
I know plenty of regular players, but the thing is, these people also play non-violent games at times. They enjoy gaming and sometimes that game is violent. There is another group of players who seem to be unable to enjoy anything else but play violent games.
Playing manhunt doesn't worry me, if you can ONLY play manhunt and when given a copy of the sims can do nothing but set your sims on fire, perhaps you got issues.
Then again, so far there is little evidence that actuall killers are gamers. Lets face it, sitting in front of a PC/console isn't exactly building up the muscles is it. I could go out there and enact my violent tendencies and become a brutal serial rapist, but I fear that those 15yr olds would kick my ass all over town, teengirls are so mean these days.
IF you can't find your own position on a map of the area less then 1km across, you SUCK. My god, even females should be able to do this.
Hint, look around you for any landmarks, then look on the tiny area of the map you KNOW you are on thanks to this new tech and voila, you found where you are.
If you can't even do that, find a nearby river and drown yourselve and stop being a disgrace to the species. Whatever that may be.
If they were so advanced, how come the lebanese army, who were smart enough to keep the press away, did manage to beat them? The simple fact is that Israel could NOT use its military might because of the media. Lebanon had no such concerns and simply shelled the hell out of the strongholds casualty rates be damned. They did it with old tech that these "advanced" missles you claim exist should have been able to take out easily. So how come the lebanese could use ancient troop carriers as the M117 to fire on the stronghold unopposed except some small arms fire? Had hizbollah used up all its advanced missles already?
No, Israel lost the media war, Reuters was the most effective enemy weapon and Israel has no weapon against that because there are always people like you that swallow propoganda whole.
If the hezbollah weapons are so advanced why are there missles incapable of hitting anything in terror strikers? They can only use them against civilian targets because they are the only big enough to at least have a change of hitting anything, if the weapons were so advanced they could try military targets instead.
No, keep dreaming kid. If Israel had been allowed to go all out, Hizbollah would have been dead within a week. When the lebanese finally did their job, even they managed it. The trick is to keep the media out of the way. Without a camera Hizbollah cannot fight.
The iraq war has turned into a civil war. The US just stirred up a hornet nest that Saddam had managed to keep quiet, roughtly the same happened when the USSR collapsed. The US mistake was in thinking that countries that were at peace when ruled by a dictatorship would be at peace when 'liberated' from that dictatorship.
They were wrong.
Now as for how long this is going to last. I don't know, how long do other civil wars last? Like oh say, Korea, Ireland, baskenland etc etc.
If you think the insurgents are just fighting the US then arabs must be the most stupid people in history, it is generally accepted that you fight the enemy by blowing them up, NOT your own people. I am not quit sure the german blitzkrieg would have been that effective had they used it against their own lines. "Look frenchies, we just machine gunned half our own troops, are you ready to surrender yet!"
If you like Iraq has become a gangland with the US in the role of police, sure they are the enemy of every gang, but that hardly stops the gangs from fighting each other.
The press like Reuters who have been shown time and time again to be far to easily manipulated into showing what one side wants to be shown in exchange for exclusive access. It is just as bad when Reuters gets all friendly with Hezbollah as when Fox rides with the troops. The press is supposed to be objective but it ALSO supposed to be investigating, IS what I am being SHOWN the truth?
The simple fact is that Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon were different wars depending on which side you were following. The US (and allies) and Israel were fighting a military war, the Insurgents, taliban and hezbollah are fighting a media war. The military war can claim impressive casualty rates (number of enemy soldiers killed vs own losses) but the media war has proven far more effective, especially when the media shows military casualties as civilian. Civilians who take an active part in a war, for instance as a human shield,loose their civilian status and become legitimite targets, this is far too often ignored. When the media becomes so incompetent as to classify the living as death and accept that the same child was killed at multiple times and locations, well what hope does a military campaign have of getting the support it needs?
War is hell, Star Trek showed us that if it isn't, you have no reason to avoid it. The military know this, the press doesn't. They want to sell headlines (or rather the ads around the headlines) and so they write whatever they think will sell. The truth be damned. How many times has reuters been caught lying now?
Swallowing reuters propoganda is just as bad as swallowing US or Israeli propoganda. Yet far to many people are incapable of this and it makes the media war the most effective method of fighting today. I am not suprised that Wired tries to blame it on "the geeks", anything to switch the blame from themselves.
Lets be honest here, how exactly is the US losing at the moment? So it has lost over 3000 soldiers so far. Is it running out? No, and while the war is costing a fortune it also means lots of people are making money from it. I am sure you could have calculated that WW2 cost the US a fortune, yet it is widely accepted that it also boosted the economy. The US ain't loosing because its enemies have shown zero capacity to wear it down. It ain't losing the military war, it is loosing the media war.
At most at a military level the current conflict is a stalemate and that is only because the US is constrained by the media war from going all out. The same thing happened to Israel in Lebanon, had they simply been able to ignore themedia they would have steamrolled across Hezbollah, the same as the lebanese army did afterwards. You noticed that the lebanese made sure to keep the media away when they shelled the Hezbollah stronghold including "civilians". No media, no outcry at this extremely brutal attack that saw Hezbollah as powerless as they really are when there isn't a camera present.
The US mistake is that they want to be popular and fight a war at the same time. You can't, it is the same mistake parents make when they want to be friends with their kids. When you fight a war you are saying, "don't fight, or we will kill you". You are NOT the nice guy. You can't be. When you fire a weapon you will be killing people, men, women, childeren and on a photo it is very hard to see a mangled corpse as one that minutes ago was "a legitimate target". How do you fight an enemy that knows this and puts its civilians around every possible target and hauls death bodies around for propoganda purposes? You can't.
This war is NOT about US military tactics, it is about propoganda, and the US just ain't good enough at it. But you won't hear Wired about that, it might just invite questions about their own reporting.
The chinese know this, they are fighting a very brutal war in Tibet, but since they don't give a shit about public opinion and have arranged the world so that the world cannot protest about it, they get away with it. The US and Israel can't just ig
First clue, no link to prove it. Second clue, totally unrelated to the story. Third clue, wrapping explosives around a cellphone won't do shit. Fourth clue, cellphones as part of a remote detonator system have been used widely, by terrorists. They are highly unreliable, why should one of the most advanced military forces use it? There are better methods.
It is probably flamebait because of the way he mentions it. Trying to inject an unrelated matter into the discussion.
Yet people do, there was an intresting case of a palestinian girl a while back, she was treated in Israel for something, then was recruited and tried to get into Israel with a bomb belt, she was caught at a checkpoint and tried to blow herself up but the device didn't work (the vid of it is amusing to watch until you realize you are watching a young girl trying to turn herself into so much red goo). The irony being that she tried to blow up the people who helped her. No, she was not raped by Israeli soldiers, no her brothers were not shot. As normal as is possible to be in that warzone, she was (well still is thanks to a bad bomb and Israel not shooting heron sight) a normal girl
If you try to make sense of her story, it pretty much becomes clear that yes, she is mentally ill. (well or an average teen girl, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference. Is there one?)
I wonder how many others like her did succeed. Simply disturbed teens who got taken advantage off.
Is there really that much difference between the way this girl was recruited and how loverboy's operate (young men who get girls to fall in love with them and then get them to prostitute themselves)? Both seem to prey on the emotionally unstable.
Read the testimony of McVeigh (Oklohoma bomber) are these the words of a sane person?
There are plenty of mentally ill/disturbed people around people desperate for anyone to tell them what to do.
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It depends, how much you are willing to pay wether it is tech-supports work to hold you hand or wether it isn't.
Car anology time. If you hail a cab, you pay enough that you shouldn't have to care even about the most basic things of operating a car like speed limits or fuel. If you rent a car, you pay slightly less, but you are supposed to know the road laws and put in your own gas, although you should be able to count on it to have a full tank when you first got it.
Lease a car and you pay even less, but know you got to remind youselve about oil levels as well, buy the car and you are even cheaper but you know need to maintain the car yourselve and if you turn it into to the garage because it makes a funny sound, you can expect the garage to charge you for discovery time.
The same works in IT. Tech support is often also responsible for basic maintenance, that is, just because a guy is from tech support doesn't mean he has nothing else to do then answer questions. Even if he is, how many people is he servicing?
Are you (or your company) willing to actually PAY for the amount of handholding you require?I once had the luxury of having a REAL secretary, just for me. I was considered so expensive that the company was willing to pay someone fulltime (and secretaries don't come cheap) to do all the non-tech tasks for me. You would be amazed at how this is different from having a office worker who you can ask things.
For instance, he took care (yeah male) by himself of things like keeping my office supplied, you don't know how luxurious it is to have someone who keeps the printer working for you until you got to order your own catridges again. My time was precious, precious enough to warrent the costs of hiring an extra person to make sure I spend my hours on my task and not supporting myself.
The biggest problem I see with tech support is often simply down to budget, you seem to have 100 dollar questions but are only willing to spend 10. Sorry, but you ain't gonna get what you want unless you are willing to spend.
If I was willing to do support (not on your life) I could easily arrange it for you to have the pefect IT setup where you would never have to read a manual or do a patch or wait arround for tech support to come around. Mind you, it would cost you.
IBM is famous for its excellent support, you got a problem, they come, 24/7 year around, but be prepared for some screaming for accounts when you actually use that support.
I have used them a few times when I was confronted with managers who don't understand a problem unless it comes with a huge price tag, and they are excellent, but the price per hour came to about 500 euro's per hour, all to say that the server was fine, the problem was in the software, just as I had been saying all along.
Tech support can only deliver what you are willing to pay for, and while I do not know you, I find it fairly easy to assume that you are unwilling to pay for it.
Don't expect a doorman to hail you a cab at a motel.
There once was a time when most trucks had TWO people in the cabin, the driver and the "bijrijder" (no idea what the english word his, but his job is to lend a hand). There also used to be "relaxed" schedules. Upon arrival the trucker would be directed to the kantine and be given real coffee and perhaps something to eat while his truck was loaded/unloaded.
Nowadays even trucks with frequent stops and for innercity work do NOT have a "bijrijder", an extra set of eyes, a person who can go out of the cabin and direct traffic, a person who keeps the driver awake and alert. The schedules are intense while the number of delays has only increased. Unless the loading/unloading is at a wharehouse the trucker now often has to help with the loading/unloading.
This all makes for drivers who are tired, overworked and in constant fear of their jobs being taken by whatever is the next low wage country where none of the rules apply.
All in pursuit of the almighty buck. Notice how especially trucks from companies like DHL and other delivery firms that are always pushing the limits drive incredibly unsafely. I know how the routine goes, deliver 100 packages and next day they give you 110. Deliver them, and you get 120. Traffic jam? Just work overtime, that is increasinly hard to get overtime PAY for. The odd thing is that if you look at maintenance records this practive is very bad as the trucks are pushed way too hard and this actually costs a lot of money. Plus the invevitable accidents really start to affect business.
But hey, the package has to be delivered NOW and for as little money as possible.
That is the reason many truckers are a danger on the road.
It is the same reason tech support (who are on orders to handle as many calls as possible) often just says "reboot/reinstall" and tries to hangup.
Want good service/behaviour? Stop squeezing the margins, introduce strict laws and make sure people ain't forced to push the limits just to make a living, because they won't always get it right and a rude tech support guy is bad enough but an asleep driver of a truck is another thing altogether.
My opinion of people who use social networking sites is already pretty low, you just lowered it even further.
If you are upset about this, you should quit facebook. They are the ones that started this program.
To explain just how stupid you are, in the real world this would the equivelant of "politician A you elected puts in effect a law that requires libraries to record your book withdrawals. You find out about this. You stop going to libraries. You vote again for politician A".
STOP USING FACEBOOK you twit.
We're using anybody's definition of "bad guy" which means "whoever was in the pickup truck", right?
Try to grow up a bit and realize that human history has been full of "we just killed them, so they must be the baddies, else we wouldn't have killed them".
Can I tell you a little secret about life? It is pointless.
You are born, you die. In between you have to work a lot of hours to... well to postpone the dying part or at least make the dying part less unpleasant.
Luckily, in the west we have become good enough at postponing death that we have some spare hours in our days. So we got to waste them, some watch sports, some have sex, some read books and some play games.
It is ALL useless.
Blogging got to rank near the top of most useless activities and as such you are in no position to critize second life players. You are a pot, so keep quiet about the color of kettles.
I wish people were a little bit more honest about their personal time wasters. Friend of mine follows all the soccer tournaments in the world, yet thinks playing games is a waste of time. Eheh.
Stop blogging mate and save the world or accept that you are wasting your time just as much as people who care about some silly online game.
Yes this exists in Japan. QR Codes are an "open" patent, the company that owns the patent has published the details so that anyone can implement it and doesn't enforce its patent except for the name.
This means it is IMPLEMENTED on a LOT of phones.
So what does this western company do? Implement it on Windows Mobile 5 or 6.
Eheh, why not implement it on the iPhone and go for an even more limited audience? (Sorry fanboys, but even with its massive success the iPhone is still only a tiny part of the market, although it is possible that with just 1 phone Apple will get a share that reaches while digits)
Hint, MS ain't exactly owning the market for mobile phones, especially those owned by youths. What advertiser is going to include a bloody ugly area in their carefully designed ad that can't be used by 95% of phones. (Getting real market share data from MS in this area is next to impossible, they are very reluctant to release hard figures)
If this canadian company had any smarts they would at least get it to run on Symbian (the majority OS) and preferably do it so that it simply runs on anything that has a camera. That is what the Japanese did.
Without this, this will just be another, it worked in Japan and failed in the west tech stories. Remember i-mode anyone?
I would also try to launch this in europe where carriers are slightly less restrictive about third party software on "their" phones.
At number 4 is the 80 gb iPod classic, decidely old tech that is only 4 dollars cheaper then the zune but, well also a LOT older.
So the Zune 2.0 can't even beat an iPod that is now several years old and delivers only the most basic music player, no wi-fi, no video no nothing and STILL customers like it better.
That gotta hurt.
Residuals are part of the income for writers. I am SURE writers would MUCH prefer to get an engineers (you are a proper one and not one of the MSCE's I hope) salary then their own highly complex contracts.
The entertainment industry just does not work that simple. The "real" salary, is kept very low and entertainers then have to negiotate for a percentages of virtually everything all of it designed to 'officially' keep the costs down in case it is a flop and reward success, but really is there so the studio can screw everyone.
Check such cases as the Spiderman movie not actually making a profit. Yes that blockbuster hit. Sadly the original creator had signed a contract that gave him a percentage of profits so there weren't any.
Perhaps it would be better to have simple straight forward contracts X money for X hours work, but currently the industry just doesn't work that way.
Say that as an engineer you work on a bridge and instead of just getting a big pile of cash based on the amount of work you get 1% of toll proceeds. Would you then not have the right to complain if they suddenly decide to exclude passenger cars from paying toll on that bridge?
I am just waiting for the EU/JP release, with full frontol alien nudity of the female kind.
Says it all really that the US is fine with multiple horrible murders, but not nipples. Offcourse in europe we are different, we welcome nipples, but balk at the slightest bit of blood.
The japanese? Well, they got some tentacles in the movie.
There is the truth and there is fairy tales, shiver for the darkness in the cellar all you want, but keep your pathetic childhood fantasies to yourselve and out of real life.
ID is idiotic, even as an insane theory it contradicts itself, lies and just plain does NOT make sense.
Believing in ID is like believing in fortune telling, tarot cards and all that mumbo jumbo. Believe in Santa Claus all you want but I do not want you in a position of leadership of any kind if you do.
Does anyone really want say a president who believes for a second that Santa Claus exists and you could therefor fix your national debt by being nice all year? Offcourse not, yet we have had leaders who consulted "the stars" for their decisions, or worse listened to "god". Fine, meditate all you want, but the moment you claim to hear actual voices, it is time for the men in the white coats.
Evolution is a theory, but ID is bunk, a fairy tale for those who can't accept that we are so much walking meat. Believe in god all you want, some fine people (and lot more crazies) but stop trying to fit science into it. It don't work, pure common sense makes it impossible.
Would you also fire this person if she dared to question wether Santa Claus was real. Ssssh, better not tell anyone that the easter bunny don't really exist. Keep your demented ideas out of my real world.
Tolerate your kind? Sure, like I tolerate the crazy who walks through the city muttering at everyone. You are free to life, just don't try to influence a single aspect of my life because you are insane.
And if this sounds trollish or like flamebait, try to picture just how serious this is. The above poster SERIOUSLY believes that the earth is a few thousand years old, that dinosaurs and man lived happily together, that dinosaurs weren't meat eaters. Do you REALLY want someone that delusional in a position of authority?
Change GOD and Jesus Christ and all that with say Greys and Area 51. While it may make for some intresting stories, do you REALLY want someone who truly believes in that to run your life?
I am NOT talking about someone who thinks their might be alien life, just the same as I am not talking about those who believe in a god, I am talking about people who absolutly believe the most insane theories regardless of evidence or common sense. Would you really want a future leader who reads tarot cards or thinks horoscopes should guide national policy?
Remember that story about the single crossing of the bering strait a while back? That deals with a far longer timespan then ID allows, do you really want to defend a person who was going "LALALALA" with his fingers in his ears to ignore that story?
He asks for tolerance, ask yourselve what you are being tolerant too. It is one thing to do "yes small child, there really is Santa Claus" and quite another to say "Yes Mr President, there really is a Santa Claus".
Tours are done by the agent, not the record company. Most of what you ask is done by the agent/manager of a band. Try to learn a little bit more about how the music industry works please.
What does this mean, if I read it correctly is this really the state department responsible for prosecuting CRIMINAL cases who has launched ON THEIR OWN an investigation of RIAA methods?
Is Oregon some red state of the US? Is the prosecutor involved to old to care about his career?
I hate to get excited over nothing but this seems like a major setback for the RIAA and their underhanded tactics. A real criminal investigation? Neat.
Most of the comments are negative, but I detect a patern, ALL of the NEGATIVE comments seem to be from people who don't want to get the label child-killer attached to them.
Nobody from the child-saver group of players seems to NOT want this label.
Just an intresting obeservation I think. Make of it what you will.
Good one, the premium listing does seem to suggest that you need an x86 processor but not for basic vista.
Bad me for automatically reading 800mhz cpu as x86.
They are the beneficiaries of this new law. That has been the problem with the copyright laws from the beginning, those who form the public opinion (Not just news agencies, but media in general) are in mostly FOR these laws.
Take Futurama, it shows a future that is truly nasty where nobody has any morals whatsoever. What is the ONE thing they all seemed to get worked up about, the one time the show tried to send a morale message? The evils of napster and how the geeks enslaved those poor stars.
Expecting the media to report on this kinda stuff is like expecting a news story on "newsreaders make way to much money new study shows. Could be replaced by trained chimp".
What next, expect politicians to rant about their own pay increases?
Google Windows Vista Capable and you get MS own page which currently states the following (Bold added for emphasis)
Windows Vista Capable and Premium Ready PCs
What is a Windows Vista Capable PC?
A new PC running Windows XP that carries the Windows Vista Capable PC logo can run Windows Vista. All editions of Windows Vista will deliver core experiences such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security, and reliability. All Windows Vista Capable PCs will run these core experiences at a minimum. Some features available in the premium editions of Windows Vistalike the new Windows Aero user experiencemay require advanced or additional hardware.
A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:
Some Windows Vista Capable PCs have been designated Premium Ready. These PCs will provide an even better Windows Vista experience, including the Windows Aero user experience. Features available in specific premium editions of Windows Vista, such as the ability to watch and record live TV, may require additional hardware.
A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
I do NOT know if this page has been changed since the ad campaign was started but in its current form it is quit clear that Windows Vista Capable means just the bare bones of Vista and that if you want everything you need a Vista Premium Ready machine.
Yes it is weasly, but that is marketing for you, buyer beware.
Does anyone know if MS had the same text at launch, if so, then the case is without merit. If not then quit a few games are in trouble, because they ALWAYS show the screenshots at the highest setting, that may be impossible on the minimum requirements they list on the box.
Now if you excuse me, I have to chastise myself for defending Microsoft.
Look, as your nick suggests on slashdot we use real men's anologies namely cars. Guy stuff. Not clothing and most certainly not womens clothing and MOST DEFINITLY NOT TRYING THEM ON.
Yes I know the temptation can be great when you feel that soft lace... Eh, how about them Yankees eh.
When jocks inject large amounts of toxic liqued into women to get them to loose control over their bodies, that is just guys being guys, but when nerds do it "CALL THE COPS". For the humor impaired, alcohol is far easier to obtain in large doses then insect venom
I say enough is enough, we have to strike back. Revenge of the nerds!
Mmm, sounds like a good title for a movie, what is the number for hollywood?
NOOB!
Seriously, play a game like Call of Duty and check the casualties, you wipe out more people then took part in the actuall battles.
As for WoW, I think WW2's 50 million might just get you "we won't kill you on sight" faction standing.
BUT I think there is a difference, fighting/killing by itself ain't bad. Martial art sports, even boxing can be great character builders, the "thing" is to respect your opponent and to know that you should never abuse your strength.
In games, well it all depends what you are doing it for. Carmageddon was a fun game, but for me the most fun came from the insane stunts you could pull rather then driving over people, in many ways that just got in the way.
GTA has always had a bad rep, not entirely undeserved I think, the GTA were you play a black guy had you playing a petty minded hoodlum with absolutly no redeeming qualities. One mission you killed a music producer and his girlfriend because he didn't give your friend a contract. Oh yeah, fight the good fight!
I think that might be the key, why do you play a violent game. Compare it to hunting, some people hunt for food, some people hunt because they believe it allows them to be close to nature remind themselves meat comes from animals and not the supermarket, and some hunt because they like making small animals suffer or feel the power they have from holding a big gun to shoot a duck.
The first kind I can life with, the second kind should just visit a butchershop but the third kind should not be allowed to hold a gun or even a stick.
I know plenty of regular players, but the thing is, these people also play non-violent games at times. They enjoy gaming and sometimes that game is violent. There is another group of players who seem to be unable to enjoy anything else but play violent games.
Playing manhunt doesn't worry me, if you can ONLY play manhunt and when given a copy of the sims can do nothing but set your sims on fire, perhaps you got issues.
Then again, so far there is little evidence that actuall killers are gamers. Lets face it, sitting in front of a PC/console isn't exactly building up the muscles is it. I could go out there and enact my violent tendencies and become a brutal serial rapist, but I fear that those 15yr olds would kick my ass all over town, teengirls are so mean these days.
IF you can't find your own position on a map of the area less then 1km across, you SUCK. My god, even females should be able to do this.
Hint, look around you for any landmarks, then look on the tiny area of the map you KNOW you are on thanks to this new tech and voila, you found where you are.
If you can't even do that, find a nearby river and drown yourselve and stop being a disgrace to the species. Whatever that may be.
If they were so advanced, how come the lebanese army, who were smart enough to keep the press away, did manage to beat them? The simple fact is that Israel could NOT use its military might because of the media. Lebanon had no such concerns and simply shelled the hell out of the strongholds casualty rates be damned. They did it with old tech that these "advanced" missles you claim exist should have been able to take out easily. So how come the lebanese could use ancient troop carriers as the M117 to fire on the stronghold unopposed except some small arms fire? Had hizbollah used up all its advanced missles already?
No, Israel lost the media war, Reuters was the most effective enemy weapon and Israel has no weapon against that because there are always people like you that swallow propoganda whole.
If the hezbollah weapons are so advanced why are there missles incapable of hitting anything in terror strikers? They can only use them against civilian targets because they are the only big enough to at least have a change of hitting anything, if the weapons were so advanced they could try military targets instead.
No, keep dreaming kid. If Israel had been allowed to go all out, Hizbollah would have been dead within a week. When the lebanese finally did their job, even they managed it. The trick is to keep the media out of the way. Without a camera Hizbollah cannot fight.
The iraq war has turned into a civil war. The US just stirred up a hornet nest that Saddam had managed to keep quiet, roughtly the same happened when the USSR collapsed. The US mistake was in thinking that countries that were at peace when ruled by a dictatorship would be at peace when 'liberated' from that dictatorship.
They were wrong.
Now as for how long this is going to last. I don't know, how long do other civil wars last? Like oh say, Korea, Ireland, baskenland etc etc.
If you think the insurgents are just fighting the US then arabs must be the most stupid people in history, it is generally accepted that you fight the enemy by blowing them up, NOT your own people. I am not quit sure the german blitzkrieg would have been that effective had they used it against their own lines. "Look frenchies, we just machine gunned half our own troops, are you ready to surrender yet!"
If you like Iraq has become a gangland with the US in the role of police, sure they are the enemy of every gang, but that hardly stops the gangs from fighting each other.
The press like Reuters who have been shown time and time again to be far to easily manipulated into showing what one side wants to be shown in exchange for exclusive access. It is just as bad when Reuters gets all friendly with Hezbollah as when Fox rides with the troops. The press is supposed to be objective but it ALSO supposed to be investigating, IS what I am being SHOWN the truth?
The simple fact is that Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon were different wars depending on which side you were following. The US (and allies) and Israel were fighting a military war, the Insurgents, taliban and hezbollah are fighting a media war. The military war can claim impressive casualty rates (number of enemy soldiers killed vs own losses) but the media war has proven far more effective, especially when the media shows military casualties as civilian. Civilians who take an active part in a war, for instance as a human shield,loose their civilian status and become legitimite targets, this is far too often ignored. When the media becomes so incompetent as to classify the living as death and accept that the same child was killed at multiple times and locations, well what hope does a military campaign have of getting the support it needs?
War is hell, Star Trek showed us that if it isn't, you have no reason to avoid it. The military know this, the press doesn't. They want to sell headlines (or rather the ads around the headlines) and so they write whatever they think will sell. The truth be damned. How many times has reuters been caught lying now?
Swallowing reuters propoganda is just as bad as swallowing US or Israeli propoganda. Yet far to many people are incapable of this and it makes the media war the most effective method of fighting today. I am not suprised that Wired tries to blame it on "the geeks", anything to switch the blame from themselves.
Lets be honest here, how exactly is the US losing at the moment? So it has lost over 3000 soldiers so far. Is it running out? No, and while the war is costing a fortune it also means lots of people are making money from it. I am sure you could have calculated that WW2 cost the US a fortune, yet it is widely accepted that it also boosted the economy. The US ain't loosing because its enemies have shown zero capacity to wear it down. It ain't losing the military war, it is loosing the media war.
At most at a military level the current conflict is a stalemate and that is only because the US is constrained by the media war from going all out. The same thing happened to Israel in Lebanon, had they simply been able to ignore themedia they would have steamrolled across Hezbollah, the same as the lebanese army did afterwards. You noticed that the lebanese made sure to keep the media away when they shelled the Hezbollah stronghold including "civilians". No media, no outcry at this extremely brutal attack that saw Hezbollah as powerless as they really are when there isn't a camera present.
The US mistake is that they want to be popular and fight a war at the same time. You can't, it is the same mistake parents make when they want to be friends with their kids. When you fight a war you are saying, "don't fight, or we will kill you". You are NOT the nice guy. You can't be. When you fire a weapon you will be killing people, men, women, childeren and on a photo it is very hard to see a mangled corpse as one that minutes ago was "a legitimate target". How do you fight an enemy that knows this and puts its civilians around every possible target and hauls death bodies around for propoganda purposes? You can't.
This war is NOT about US military tactics, it is about propoganda, and the US just ain't good enough at it. But you won't hear Wired about that, it might just invite questions about their own reporting.
The chinese know this, they are fighting a very brutal war in Tibet, but since they don't give a shit about public opinion and have arranged the world so that the world cannot protest about it, they get away with it. The US and Israel can't just ig
First clue, no link to prove it. Second clue, totally unrelated to the story. Third clue, wrapping explosives around a cellphone won't do shit. Fourth clue, cellphones as part of a remote detonator system have been used widely, by terrorists. They are highly unreliable, why should one of the most advanced military forces use it? There are better methods.
It is probably flamebait because of the way he mentions it. Trying to inject an unrelated matter into the discussion.
Yet people do, there was an intresting case of a palestinian girl a while back, she was treated in Israel for something, then was recruited and tried to get into Israel with a bomb belt, she was caught at a checkpoint and tried to blow herself up but the device didn't work (the vid of it is amusing to watch until you realize you are watching a young girl trying to turn herself into so much red goo). The irony being that she tried to blow up the people who helped her. No, she was not raped by Israeli soldiers, no her brothers were not shot. As normal as is possible to be in that warzone, she was (well still is thanks to a bad bomb and Israel not shooting heron sight) a normal girl
If you try to make sense of her story, it pretty much becomes clear that yes, she is mentally ill. (well or an average teen girl, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference. Is there one?)
I wonder how many others like her did succeed. Simply disturbed teens who got taken advantage off.
Is there really that much difference between the way this girl was recruited and how loverboy's operate (young men who get girls to fall in love with them and then get them to prostitute themselves)? Both seem to prey on the emotionally unstable.
Read the testimony of McVeigh (Oklohoma bomber) are these the words of a sane person?
There are plenty of mentally ill/disturbed people around people desperate for anyone to tell them what to do.