I'm sorry to hear that you've had a bad experience.
HSBC is not simply a British bank, no more than Citibank is an American bank. Both operate globally, and thus call centres may be located anywhere. Last time I checked, globally, collections people are often obnoxious and arrogant.
The way to get a corporation to stop calling is as follows (for future reference, and so you don't have to block numbers).
Don't say that someone they are trying to reach is unknown. Depending on the culture and the knowledge that they are calling to the workplace at a Fortune 500 company, they will assume that you don't know. If that person is unfamiliar to you, say you'll check, put them on hold, and if they don't work there, come back and say they are not employed there.
Let everyone know that a collections agent has tried to call for whatever person (be sure you wrote the name down that they were trying to reach).
Because collections agents don't trust anyone, they will call a second time. If a new person answers, if they are informed of this, then they should first get the name of the person calling, a contact number (in case we get disconnected), and any other pertinent information, such was what office they are calling from. After that, inform them that on (whatever date) they were already given the accurate information that such employee doesn't work there.
You have two options at this point. I recommend using both. Before ending that call, notify the person calling that this will be considered harassment if they continue to call. Note that if they need written confirmation that they should send a letter requesting that to your corporate headquarters with a return envelope, postage-paid included. And then, using the call back number you have received, call back, request a supervisor, and let the supervisor know the same thing.
At this point, you now have sufficient documented ground for suing for harassment. Should a call happen again, contacting the headquarters of whatever company and notifying them that they have now entered into harassment and should consider that every time they contact hereafter is yet another instance and they are currently easily subject to a lawsuit, should end it. If not, go to court.
I work for a Fortune 500 company myself. The best part, in my experience, is the idiot who dials again and again, failing to understand that numbers were transposed. I have, on occasion, managed to look up the number for the person in question (realising that likelihood). When I get the right number, the calls stop, too.
The term alien refers to a classification. Kinda like terrorist. Or missionary. Or student.
If one is forbidden by law from being in that status, then one is considered illegal in that class. Illegal terrorists may in their own country or others be considered legal. There are both legal and illegal missionaries in many countries worldwide. In some places in this world, being a student may well be illegal by ethnicity, religion, or gender.
Just because the term alien has been used more recently to refer to extraterrestrials, its original meaning as extranational or foreigner.
"Let me guess, you voted for bush."
But, really underlining the lack of any argument, you have chosen to attack my politics. Which means you didn't even both to click to my website to know who I am at all. In the last election I contributed money to the Kerry campaign, which, had Kerry been managed right, might well have won. Looking to the next election, right now I like both Obama and Edwards. Clinton is a panderer, but apparently that raises money, as we can see with Mitt Romney, whom, if the Republican candidate, will get to hear about flip-flopping candidates from Massachusetts.
But politics is another category. And real issues are not for cowards.
We are talking about aliens who are not here legally. Hence they are not legal aliens. Their alien status is that of illegal, hence the term illegal aliens.
They are not illegal people, but as aliens, they are illegal.
Avoiding using legal terms and engaging in politically correct usages results in, what I find as somebody who is handicapped, or disabled, awfully insulting. Call me physically challenged to my face, and I'll be sure to show you what DOES work, as you fall on your ass.
In my experience, MBNA / Bank of America have not been that great for credit cards. I used to get a ton of crap from MBNA, and I can be pretty sure those people have infested BoA's credit division.
My best suggestion would be to work with HSBC. A properly set up programme with them would possibly enable same/similar card services globally. I've had no problems with HSBC's customer service, aside from the occasional glitch in a VoIP connection to a call centre.
Otherwise, I've had pretty good experience with GE Money Bank and Citibank (as far as credit cards go). Chase, though, I avoid like the plague. So, if LinuxFund gets a Chase card, well, forget me then.
Public networks are the issue, not the Internet. So, it doesn't f*cking matter. Do you work for Verizon or something? You have posted all over the place with the same stupid argument. Yeah, it doesn't work if it is a PRIVATE network, but if it is a PUBLIC network, then so be it.
Hence, any system that used two phones and then sent the data across a public network, ostensbily in digital format, would work.
Of course, not every state requires reimbursing for excess electricity pumped into the grid.
The advantage of reducing solar panel costs is not enough, but works well when people have energy-efficient homes. Energy-efficient appliance are great. A washing machine that uses only the water it needs, and spins out the clothes really well saves you money on drying. Especially if you've got coldwater detergent. Instant-on water heaters are fantastic. Solar-powered attic fans for ventilation. Cellulose-based insulation. Never mind CFLs, LCD TVs and monitors, and LEDs!
I'm buying a new house soon, and I'm looking to replace all the main lights with CFLs. While I won't have cash to make all the improvements upfront, I'm planning on putting in solar tube skylights in my bathroom and possible my living room (maybe the master bedroom, and the office). So, during the day, in rooms with little or no outside light, I get light, without the heat. I plan to check the windows, and get heat-reflective films for them (if they aren't already). The attic fan and cellulose insulation in the attic will happen. I'm also looking at eventually building my own greenhouse with grow lights that are powered by a solar battery backup. I want my tomatoes and peppers and such locally, and in mid-winter that means I need to grow my own.
Lastly, with the reduction in power usage, I should manage to get down to about 600 kWh or less a month. The average house of the size I'm buying uses 1000 kWh. If I figure an average (in the southern US) of about 4 hours of good light a day for solar (annual, not each day), with a battery backup solution, a 4 kW system should be fine. That, with battery backup runs easily $40k installed. If new tech comes in the time I'm raising that cash that lowers the investment to even only $10k, over the life of the panels, I will come out ahead.
It's not that they have to grapple with the fact that album sales will be down as some kind of weird thing that happened with digital music.
The reality is that they've been pushing singles for airplay for som many years, that they have created 'albums' that have a few singles, and the rest is just songs. For most artists, there is really no crafting of an album. The reason that CD sales for releases from the 60's and 70's have remained pretty consistent is that they are albums. I can't envision listening to a number of songs without hearing them in their sequence from good albumcraft.
But for most of the artists on the radio today, forget it. Can you imagine listening to some of the insipid crap they fill CDs with these days, again and again? They've be better off picking six good songs to string together, rather than three singles and eleven waste of time tunes.
If this happens, then it will be a simple matter of resellers and such moving their product internationally, and then selling it from either Canada or Mexico, both members of NAFTA.
Yeah, it'll really hurt mom and pops, but many companies are now auctioning off their excess on eBay, and this would just encourage a new infrastructure, which will inevitably move more capital out of the U.S.
I hate Verizon to begin with for SO many reasons. So I'll put that up front.
That said, reading through the patent and the claims, it doesn't really look like anything all that original. The concept of translating POTS to IP to POTS had already existed by 1999. As far as I recall, Sprint, MCI, UUNet, and such were already engaged in that, as was good old AT&T. As for a public subscriber system, no, but internally I do believe they already had that tech in place.
Additionally, Verizon envisioned a PC using software, not a hardware device that needs no PC. Again, from the software (which I remember using a lot of voice chat back then when it first came out), there isn't really any technological improvement.
To me, it's like trying to patent peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Peanut butter is there, and jelly is there, and the bread is there, and it's a natural progression, but it's like, well, we were the first to throw it on paper and file, and it's ridiculous.
There is no actual INVENTION by Verizon in this patent, but simply a PROGRESSION or MERGING of then current technology.
The Linksys boxes that provide service for Vonage, AT&T, and more are beyond Verizon's vision at that point. If I were to say that Vonage had to change anything, it would be software on the PC to make calls, and possibly minute billing.
Regarding mobile connections, though, the government did mandate the systems that have to be used. Finland has good interoperability. In the US, with very little regulation on technical standards, we end up with systems that aren't interoperable. That's one of the main reasons text messaging took forever, because we have widely different standards between carriers. The whole Sprint/Nextel merger has been interesting, as the two companies used and still use different methods.
But, as someone who lived in Finland during the period of severe broadband growth, I agree that competition can easily work. The problem in the US is a matter of infrastructure problems, more than anything. I live in California and CANNOT get DSL, yet my parents live 10 miles outside a town of 1100 people in South Dakota and can get DSL. (Never mind that they live a mile and a half down a dirt road, too.)
Of course, part of me wonders if Finland hasn't simply benefitted from such cold weather forcing a 'build it right the first time' mentality. The last time I saw something truly fail was that Italian-designed Pendolino train.
Yet another reason to get a security clearance. If you have it, encrypt your stuff and say that seizure by a private entity without security clearance would be a violation of national security. Stealing state secrets is a crime if they take it.
I guess they can then wait for the TS/SCI cleared FBI agent who has the requisite clearances. Make the BSA burn money while they wait on their lawyers.
Just because this administration decided to cave on MS as a monopoly, doesn't mean the next one will. With the limited time support and the fact that your really don't OWN your copy (you licensed it, remember?), you're easily forced into upgrading. What's funny is that MS didn't pursue this stuff early on, because piracy increased their market share.
I will congratulate any company that runs Linux, buys a bunch of PCs, gets a security clearance, and gets audited. This would be so sweet. Heck, just to burn the BSA's money, I'd be willing to 'rat out' a couple fully-compliant companies who don't own any BSA software.
I don't agree with piracy, but then again, I don't like corporate monopolization of the business world, either.
Years ago, we always had problems with Fujitsu/Siemens stuff. We had staff who bought their own notebooks, and then they were horrified at the replacement costs for parts, like an external floppy.
I've not had experience with HP for parts, but I know that I've had an easy time with Dell. I was able to order a replacement keyboard for my laptop, with minimal hassle (and that was in Switzerland, replacing a US keyboard with a Finnish one). Other places I've worked, we had it pretty easy getting replacement motherboards and so on.
Aside from a few co-workers I would consider friends, I'm pretty well unavailable when on vacation. I will shut off the cell phone and leave behind if I can. I might check my e-mail, but probably not. I won't spend more than 5-10 minutes a day looking at any of it, even if there's a critical project.
Chances are, the building could burn down, the company move, or whatever, and I wouldn't know it while I'm away. Even better, now that I telecommute, I may well not realise it when I get back.
Ok, I'm all for private money vs. public funding for projects.
The question I'm still wondering about is whether or not funding more projects that burn fuel and pollute our atmosphere are really worthwhile? I'm sure this would help all kinds of corporations, but will this really do anything to solve any of the problems we currently have? We still face problems of undereducation, unemployment, civil unrest, disease, starvation, and international strife. Can't we put money into private enterprise that might solve some of these issues and help people here?
Personally, I think space exploration is a worthwhile endeavor, but AFTER we make life a little better for the next generation.
I'm a big fat Firefox fanboy, and yes, it's still a memory hog. Now I do have extensions installed, and it's not so bad if I shut off Firefox occasionally, but then again, I find that shutting down my machine occasionally is good for my Windows box anyway. (Due to space issues, my Linux box is currently in the closet so haven't tested there yet.)
I loaded up IE 7 on this machine, checked out some sites that had been kludged to work in IE 6 and Firefox and Opera, etc. (standards, followed by kludge) and watched them look like crap. That's to be expected. I noticed that Google's Web Accelerator worked with IE 7, which it doesn't with FF 2.0. But, otherwise, it wasn't impressive. It was.... expected?
And, everyone should go and meta-moderate, because this parent post clearly is not Troll. I hate fanboy moderators getting mod points because people (including me) don't meta-moderate.
How long until we see countries leaving the EU? I mean, I really like the idea of a common currency, but given the number of problems and the obvious attempts to create a single government to rule over Europe, how long until the UK decides to leave?
Can anyone point out to me how the UK benefits from being in the EU (as opposed to the EEA)? When (not if) the Conservatives come back to power, what reason do they have to remain in a union that subsidises crappy French farming?
Too many problems of history are wrapped up in the EU. Germans are afraid of their past, and so is everyone else. France wants to get the EU Constitution so it can try to run Europe as a rebuilding of Napoleon's empire. A lot of poorer nations have joined to get subsidies. It sounds really nice, but the cost is egregious.
I grew up in a house with dogs and small children. We NEVER had the lid up. I would get chewed out by my mom for leaving the lid up. So, now, married, I always close the lid and try to get everyone else to.
There are few things I find more disgusting than the dog licking me after drinking out of the toilet bowl. (One of those would be after she ate cat shit.)
When dealing with recruitment agencies, you need to be persistent. It's a two-way street. You need to follow-up with them. The go-getter who calls is going to stick in their head more than the the stack of CVs on their desk. If they don't have your CV in front of them when you call, offer to e-mail it straight away.
The other part is that you need to be selective about the recruitment agency as well. Make sure they are good. Ask if you can talk to others who have worked for them. You don't want to get bound to some crappy company. And companies vary from region to region, so make sure you find out from someone local what the rep is, not from another part of the country.
I hounded my recruiter for weeks and weeks. And he got me a job, partly because I kept up with him, kept my skills fresh in his mind, and reminded him that I could do jobs he was thinking would be boring for me.
Of course I'm not going to buy a Ford Focus because of an ad, but I'm in a demographic that wouldn't buy a Ford Focus in the first place. I'd be more inclined to buy a more upscale and environmentally friendly car. If Mitsubishi had turned their concept Eclipse hybrid into a production vehicle, or someone came up with something equally cool, well, that would speak to me, and the ad would be worthwhile, whereas some of my associates who live in the middle of nowhere would find it awful (they also don't like socially liberal shows like Family Guy).
I've talked to a few people who've been involved in Nielsen ratings, and these were hardly normal people. One family basically only ever watched Charmed on TNT, and then an occasional news broadcast. They really need to start pulling more automated information.
In my home, I have Dish Network, with a dual-tuner DVR. So, I often end up watching two shows from the same timeslot. Yeah, I probably skip through commercials, but I doubt they are getting ratings for both shows at the same time.
The other thing with Nielsen is a failure to get really good demographics. I mean, if Nielsen had a clue, they wouldn't have yanked Family Guy and have to bring it back. They always look at numbers for total viewers, instead of demographics and loyalty. Some of the smaller shows that get yanked could actually charge more for better targetted advertising.
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Not that I think software patents are good by any stretch.
But, I have found that .NET has resulted in some of the lousiest programmers ever. So, ditched another POS would be fantastic.
I'm sorry to hear that you've had a bad experience.
HSBC is not simply a British bank, no more than Citibank is an American bank. Both operate globally, and thus call centres may be located anywhere. Last time I checked, globally, collections people are often obnoxious and arrogant.
The way to get a corporation to stop calling is as follows (for future reference, and so you don't have to block numbers).
At this point, you now have sufficient documented ground for suing for harassment. Should a call happen again, contacting the headquarters of whatever company and notifying them that they have now entered into harassment and should consider that every time they contact hereafter is yet another instance and they are currently easily subject to a lawsuit, should end it. If not, go to court.
I work for a Fortune 500 company myself. The best part, in my experience, is the idiot who dials again and again, failing to understand that numbers were transposed. I have, on occasion, managed to look up the number for the person in question (realising that likelihood). When I get the right number, the calls stop, too.
"And by aliens, you mean people, right ?"
The term alien refers to a classification. Kinda like terrorist. Or missionary. Or student.
If one is forbidden by law from being in that status, then one is considered illegal in that class. Illegal terrorists may in their own country or others be considered legal. There are both legal and illegal missionaries in many countries worldwide. In some places in this world, being a student may well be illegal by ethnicity, religion, or gender.
Just because the term alien has been used more recently to refer to extraterrestrials, its original meaning as extranational or foreigner.
"Let me guess, you voted for bush."
But, really underlining the lack of any argument, you have chosen to attack my politics. Which means you didn't even both to click to my website to know who I am at all. In the last election I contributed money to the Kerry campaign, which, had Kerry been managed right, might well have won. Looking to the next election, right now I like both Obama and Edwards. Clinton is a panderer, but apparently that raises money, as we can see with Mitt Romney, whom, if the Republican candidate, will get to hear about flip-flopping candidates from Massachusetts.
But politics is another category. And real issues are not for cowards.
Lame.
We are talking about aliens who are not here legally. Hence they are not legal aliens. Their alien status is that of illegal, hence the term illegal aliens.
They are not illegal people, but as aliens, they are illegal.
Avoiding using legal terms and engaging in politically correct usages results in, what I find as somebody who is handicapped, or disabled, awfully insulting. Call me physically challenged to my face, and I'll be sure to show you what DOES work, as you fall on your ass.
In my experience, MBNA / Bank of America have not been that great for credit cards. I used to get a ton of crap from MBNA, and I can be pretty sure those people have infested BoA's credit division.
My best suggestion would be to work with HSBC. A properly set up programme with them would possibly enable same/similar card services globally. I've had no problems with HSBC's customer service, aside from the occasional glitch in a VoIP connection to a call centre.
Otherwise, I've had pretty good experience with GE Money Bank and Citibank (as far as credit cards go). Chase, though, I avoid like the plague. So, if LinuxFund gets a Chase card, well, forget me then.
Public networks are the issue, not the Internet. So, it doesn't f*cking matter. Do you work for Verizon or something? You have posted all over the place with the same stupid argument. Yeah, it doesn't work if it is a PRIVATE network, but if it is a PUBLIC network, then so be it.
Hence, any system that used two phones and then sent the data across a public network, ostensbily in digital format, would work.
Of course, not every state requires reimbursing for excess electricity pumped into the grid.
The advantage of reducing solar panel costs is not enough, but works well when people have energy-efficient homes. Energy-efficient appliance are great. A washing machine that uses only the water it needs, and spins out the clothes really well saves you money on drying. Especially if you've got coldwater detergent. Instant-on water heaters are fantastic. Solar-powered attic fans for ventilation. Cellulose-based insulation. Never mind CFLs, LCD TVs and monitors, and LEDs!
I'm buying a new house soon, and I'm looking to replace all the main lights with CFLs. While I won't have cash to make all the improvements upfront, I'm planning on putting in solar tube skylights in my bathroom and possible my living room (maybe the master bedroom, and the office). So, during the day, in rooms with little or no outside light, I get light, without the heat. I plan to check the windows, and get heat-reflective films for them (if they aren't already). The attic fan and cellulose insulation in the attic will happen. I'm also looking at eventually building my own greenhouse with grow lights that are powered by a solar battery backup. I want my tomatoes and peppers and such locally, and in mid-winter that means I need to grow my own.
Lastly, with the reduction in power usage, I should manage to get down to about 600 kWh or less a month. The average house of the size I'm buying uses 1000 kWh. If I figure an average (in the southern US) of about 4 hours of good light a day for solar (annual, not each day), with a battery backup solution, a 4 kW system should be fine. That, with battery backup runs easily $40k installed. If new tech comes in the time I'm raising that cash that lowers the investment to even only $10k, over the life of the panels, I will come out ahead.
It's not that they have to grapple with the fact that album sales will be down as some kind of weird thing that happened with digital music.
The reality is that they've been pushing singles for airplay for som many years, that they have created 'albums' that have a few singles, and the rest is just songs. For most artists, there is really no crafting of an album. The reason that CD sales for releases from the 60's and 70's have remained pretty consistent is that they are albums. I can't envision listening to a number of songs without hearing them in their sequence from good albumcraft.
But for most of the artists on the radio today, forget it. Can you imagine listening to some of the insipid crap they fill CDs with these days, again and again? They've be better off picking six good songs to string together, rather than three singles and eleven waste of time tunes.
If this happens, then it will be a simple matter of resellers and such moving their product internationally, and then selling it from either Canada or Mexico, both members of NAFTA.
Yeah, it'll really hurt mom and pops, but many companies are now auctioning off their excess on eBay, and this would just encourage a new infrastructure, which will inevitably move more capital out of the U.S.
I hate Verizon to begin with for SO many reasons. So I'll put that up front.
That said, reading through the patent and the claims, it doesn't really look like anything all that original. The concept of translating POTS to IP to POTS had already existed by 1999. As far as I recall, Sprint, MCI, UUNet, and such were already engaged in that, as was good old AT&T. As for a public subscriber system, no, but internally I do believe they already had that tech in place.
Additionally, Verizon envisioned a PC using software, not a hardware device that needs no PC. Again, from the software (which I remember using a lot of voice chat back then when it first came out), there isn't really any technological improvement.
To me, it's like trying to patent peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Peanut butter is there, and jelly is there, and the bread is there, and it's a natural progression, but it's like, well, we were the first to throw it on paper and file, and it's ridiculous.
There is no actual INVENTION by Verizon in this patent, but simply a PROGRESSION or MERGING of then current technology.
The Linksys boxes that provide service for Vonage, AT&T, and more are beyond Verizon's vision at that point. If I were to say that Vonage had to change anything, it would be software on the PC to make calls, and possibly minute billing.
I had the same issue, since I've been holding back on a full rig rebuild.
I got a Sapphire X700 card. Runs in my AGP x4 slot, with both DVI and VGA outputs.
Was supercheap from Newegg.
Regarding mobile connections, though, the government did mandate the systems that have to be used. Finland has good interoperability. In the US, with very little regulation on technical standards, we end up with systems that aren't interoperable. That's one of the main reasons text messaging took forever, because we have widely different standards between carriers. The whole Sprint/Nextel merger has been interesting, as the two companies used and still use different methods.
But, as someone who lived in Finland during the period of severe broadband growth, I agree that competition can easily work. The problem in the US is a matter of infrastructure problems, more than anything. I live in California and CANNOT get DSL, yet my parents live 10 miles outside a town of 1100 people in South Dakota and can get DSL. (Never mind that they live a mile and a half down a dirt road, too.)
Of course, part of me wonders if Finland hasn't simply benefitted from such cold weather forcing a 'build it right the first time' mentality. The last time I saw something truly fail was that Italian-designed Pendolino train.
Yes, the government does get to decide that.
However, rare is the time when the government will allow classified information to be seized for a civil trial.
Yet another reason to get a security clearance. If you have it, encrypt your stuff and say that seizure by a private entity without security clearance would be a violation of national security. Stealing state secrets is a crime if they take it.
I guess they can then wait for the TS/SCI cleared FBI agent who has the requisite clearances. Make the BSA burn money while they wait on their lawyers.
Just because this administration decided to cave on MS as a monopoly, doesn't mean the next one will. With the limited time support and the fact that your really don't OWN your copy (you licensed it, remember?), you're easily forced into upgrading. What's funny is that MS didn't pursue this stuff early on, because piracy increased their market share.
I will congratulate any company that runs Linux, buys a bunch of PCs, gets a security clearance, and gets audited. This would be so sweet. Heck, just to burn the BSA's money, I'd be willing to 'rat out' a couple fully-compliant companies who don't own any BSA software.
I don't agree with piracy, but then again, I don't like corporate monopolization of the business world, either.
Given that I now move from place to place, the Internet is really the only way I'd know about a con.
That said, my reasons to go to a con?
- I can play with a variety of different people.
- I'm away from home, so I can continue to play without chores interrupting.
- I see products sometimes that I wouldn't otherwise bother with.
- Goodie bags are fun!
- With the significant number of rather large people, I feel very in shape.
So, there are reasons to go. The question is do the con organisers realise these reasons?Years ago, we always had problems with Fujitsu/Siemens stuff. We had staff who bought their own notebooks, and then they were horrified at the replacement costs for parts, like an external floppy.
I've not had experience with HP for parts, but I know that I've had an easy time with Dell. I was able to order a replacement keyboard for my laptop, with minimal hassle (and that was in Switzerland, replacing a US keyboard with a Finnish one). Other places I've worked, we had it pretty easy getting replacement motherboards and so on.
Aside from a few co-workers I would consider friends, I'm pretty well unavailable when on vacation. I will shut off the cell phone and leave behind if I can. I might check my e-mail, but probably not. I won't spend more than 5-10 minutes a day looking at any of it, even if there's a critical project.
Chances are, the building could burn down, the company move, or whatever, and I wouldn't know it while I'm away. Even better, now that I telecommute, I may well not realise it when I get back.
I tried Second Life for about 15 minutes, and then realised exactly how boring it was.
The interface was more complicated than most MMORPGs, and there wasn't anything interesting.
Ok, I'm all for private money vs. public funding for projects.
The question I'm still wondering about is whether or not funding more projects that burn fuel and pollute our atmosphere are really worthwhile? I'm sure this would help all kinds of corporations, but will this really do anything to solve any of the problems we currently have? We still face problems of undereducation, unemployment, civil unrest, disease, starvation, and international strife. Can't we put money into private enterprise that might solve some of these issues and help people here?
Personally, I think space exploration is a worthwhile endeavor, but AFTER we make life a little better for the next generation.
I'm a big fat Firefox fanboy, and yes, it's still a memory hog. Now I do have extensions installed, and it's not so bad if I shut off Firefox occasionally, but then again, I find that shutting down my machine occasionally is good for my Windows box anyway. (Due to space issues, my Linux box is currently in the closet so haven't tested there yet.)
I loaded up IE 7 on this machine, checked out some sites that had been kludged to work in IE 6 and Firefox and Opera, etc. (standards, followed by kludge) and watched them look like crap. That's to be expected. I noticed that Google's Web Accelerator worked with IE 7, which it doesn't with FF 2.0. But, otherwise, it wasn't impressive. It was.... expected?
And, everyone should go and meta-moderate, because this parent post clearly is not Troll. I hate fanboy moderators getting mod points because people (including me) don't meta-moderate.
How long until we see countries leaving the EU? I mean, I really like the idea of a common currency, but given the number of problems and the obvious attempts to create a single government to rule over Europe, how long until the UK decides to leave?
Can anyone point out to me how the UK benefits from being in the EU (as opposed to the EEA)? When (not if) the Conservatives come back to power, what reason do they have to remain in a union that subsidises crappy French farming?
Too many problems of history are wrapped up in the EU. Germans are afraid of their past, and so is everyone else. France wants to get the EU Constitution so it can try to run Europe as a rebuilding of Napoleon's empire. A lot of poorer nations have joined to get subsidies. It sounds really nice, but the cost is egregious.
I grew up in a house with dogs and small children. We NEVER had the lid up. I would get chewed out by my mom for leaving the lid up. So, now, married, I always close the lid and try to get everyone else to.
There are few things I find more disgusting than the dog licking me after drinking out of the toilet bowl. (One of those would be after she ate cat shit.)
To add on to the advice:
When dealing with recruitment agencies, you need to be persistent. It's a two-way street. You need to follow-up with them. The go-getter who calls is going to stick in their head more than the the stack of CVs on their desk. If they don't have your CV in front of them when you call, offer to e-mail it straight away.
The other part is that you need to be selective about the recruitment agency as well. Make sure they are good. Ask if you can talk to others who have worked for them. You don't want to get bound to some crappy company. And companies vary from region to region, so make sure you find out from someone local what the rep is, not from another part of the country.
I hounded my recruiter for weeks and weeks. And he got me a job, partly because I kept up with him, kept my skills fresh in his mind, and reminded him that I could do jobs he was thinking would be boring for me.
Of course I'm not going to buy a Ford Focus because of an ad, but I'm in a demographic that wouldn't buy a Ford Focus in the first place. I'd be more inclined to buy a more upscale and environmentally friendly car. If Mitsubishi had turned their concept Eclipse hybrid into a production vehicle, or someone came up with something equally cool, well, that would speak to me, and the ad would be worthwhile, whereas some of my associates who live in the middle of nowhere would find it awful (they also don't like socially liberal shows like Family Guy).
I've talked to a few people who've been involved in Nielsen ratings, and these were hardly normal people. One family basically only ever watched Charmed on TNT, and then an occasional news broadcast. They really need to start pulling more automated information.
In my home, I have Dish Network, with a dual-tuner DVR. So, I often end up watching two shows from the same timeslot. Yeah, I probably skip through commercials, but I doubt they are getting ratings for both shows at the same time.
The other thing with Nielsen is a failure to get really good demographics. I mean, if Nielsen had a clue, they wouldn't have yanked Family Guy and have to bring it back. They always look at numbers for total viewers, instead of demographics and loyalty. Some of the smaller shows that get yanked could actually charge more for better targetted advertising.