I survived 18 months in Quito, Ecuador without any major losses. I had to carry my laptop and other gear daily through some areas that are not totally safe.
The best hiding places are always in plain sight - make the item look worthless and nobody will want it. IMHO, the most important rule is to avoid using a laptop case when in unsafe areas.
Thieves know exactly what laptop cases look like and they are very easy to swipe (the thieves run by and grab the strap which is usually just hanging on your shoulder). You can find laptop cases disguised as a regular backpack - these offer the protection of a laptop case without alerting the thieves (the one I use is made by Jansport). Plus, backpacks are difficult to steal - someone would actually have to mug you, which is relatively unlikely. Of course, spend awhile roughing it up to make it look like nothing valuable would be put in it. If nobody wants it, nobody will steal it.
On the way home from work yesterday I was driving over the speed limit and I passed 3 police cars. I knew the risk that I might get ticketed and accepted that risk. The police likely knew or should have known that I was speeding but decided not to stop me. If I sped past a 4th police car and the officer decided to ticket me, I certainly could not say "the other 3 didn't stop me... they gave me an implied license to drive fast... shove your ticket." Do serial killers have an implied license to kill just because they have killed alot of people and haven't been caught yet?
IMHO the student should be more outraged that they let him cheat and therefore did not give him an education for his money, not that they did not give him a diploma. Who wants a degree without the education that is supposed to go with it? Without the education, a degree is just a piece of paper. It would be like the time my mother gave me one of my older brother's trophies so I would have one too... not satisfying at all.
If the USA had a national team that was respected in a "world standard" sport such as football, then perhaps 9/11 wouldn't have happened.
What are you talking about? Last time I looked, the U.S. did have a very good national soccer (football) team. Indeed, a FIFA top 10 team (currently #8). And, I might add, Spain has one of the top national teams in the world, but that didn't seem to help much in Madrid. The fact is that the US is quite competitive in most international sports. We even have a reasonably competitive national cricket team.
The problem with this is that one cannot simply move. I won't get further into the whole "if you don't like it move" argument. If you are really that simple, it is unlikely that anyone will get through to you and it is a waste of time. If not, then you are just trolling and it isn't worth a response either.
But, even assuming it is that easy, it is unlikely that one would escape the long arm of the American "anti-terrorism" effort by moving.
Exactly. Alot of the discussion misses the point that academic programs are not, are not intended to be and probably should not be vocational training.
This is especially true at the graduate level. For example, is a guy with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering OVERqualified to be an auto mechanic? Is he even qualified at all?
This is apples and oranges - a Ph.D. in CS is not intended to be vocational training to churn out really, really, really qualified programmers. Its not as if one spends four years of undergraduate learning to program and four more years in graduate school learning to progrem even better. If you want a programmer, look at technical schools. If you need a scientist, look at universities.
he had forgotten the email address he had signed up under, was too stupid to check the headers, and continued to complain because we wouldn't take him off of our list (because he wouldn't provide us with the email address).
Why would he need to know which email address the message was sent to? IMHO there should be a link in the message to click and opt-out (the link has the email address in it so the customer doesn't have to know anything). You would want to do this not solely for the recipeint's convenience, but also to save you from having to deal with dopes like him.
I once worked for a company that sent 100,000 emails a month to customers who had requested it.
In my experience, out of 100,000 people, there will be about 5,000 idiots for whom you have to make everything easy or you will run into problems like the one you recounted. I bet this happened more than once.
Most of the adware crap is "toolbars" (often invisible) for Internet Explorer. Netscape, Mozilla, Opera et. al. are largely immune. Unfortunately, only one click will install this junk on IE and it can be difficult to remove - it often requires editing the registry.
You are MUCH safer running Mozilla for this and many other reasons (as we know all too well).
Caffeine most certainly would not be a schedule I drug.
Schedule I drugs are those highly addictive drugs that have no accepted medical use. Caffeine has a plethora of medical uses (most importantly for treatment of breathing problems and to increase the effectiveness of certain pain relievers).
The abuse potential most certainly not on the same level as heroin. Indeed, there is some serious debate about whether caffeine is truly addictive at all.
The obvious suggestion was that the company should be "slashdotted." That is, that they be harassed by a huge contingent of/. users in order that they would have to pay a huge phone bill. Indeed, many of the responses were quite direct in expressing such a mentality.
There are systems and technologies for handling such things. The world doesn't need a vigilante group being judge, jury and executioner. Ever.
The Washington D.C. Metro has been using RFID cards for quite some time (AKA "SmarTrip"). Before getting on the train platform, you have to wave your card over a reader. Most commuters carry the cards in a plastic case hanging from their neck with their other ID cards.
It has significantly reduced the wait time to get to the train platform. Many posters have said that saving a couple of seconds isn't important. But, when hundreds of people in line ahead of you each save a couple of seconds, believe me - it is significant.
Not that this has much to do with credit cards. But, it is easy to envision a similar time savings buying tickets at the theater, amusement park and thousands of other arenas where we all have to wait for hundreds of routine, small transactions to complete.
They're so hard up for you to use the library, but there's really no point in it.
They are preparing you to do real, academic research. Ask anyone who has written a graduate thesis/dissertation or any research scientist whether (s)he prefers access to a research library or search engines.
The internet is wonderful for looking up many types of information, most importantly factoids and recent news. But true depth of information required for serious research often must come from a research library. Why? Because only research libraries have full sets of journal articles going back decades. Only research libraries have full archives of government/NGO documents and newspapers.
Whether this type of information should be available on the internet is quite another question. The fact is that it is not and, for now, all of us who do serious research are stuck in the stacks of musty old libraries.
But, the article did not claim to be assessing Google's usefulness for serious research. It was assessing its usefulness for looking up trivia.
It's like those math teachers in the 60's who frowned upon calculators and insisted you use your "handy, tried and true" slide rule.
Wrong. A calculator is a better slide rule (often). The the internet is not a better library. The resources are different and have different pros/cons depending on what you are trying to do.
Slashdot Mirror
The best hiding places are always in plain sight - make the item look worthless and nobody will want it. IMHO, the most important rule is to avoid using a laptop case when in unsafe areas.
Thieves know exactly what laptop cases look like and they are very easy to swipe (the thieves run by and grab the strap which is usually just hanging on your shoulder). You can find laptop cases disguised as a regular backpack - these offer the protection of a laptop case without alerting the thieves (the one I use is made by Jansport). Plus, backpacks are difficult to steal - someone would actually have to mug you, which is relatively unlikely. Of course, spend awhile roughing it up to make it look like nothing valuable would be put in it. If nobody wants it, nobody will steal it.
IMHO the student should be more outraged that they let him cheat and therefore did not give him an education for his money, not that they did not give him a diploma. Who wants a degree without the education that is supposed to go with it? Without the education, a degree is just a piece of paper. It would be like the time my mother gave me one of my older brother's trophies so I would have one too... not satisfying at all.
What are you talking about? Last time I looked, the U.S. did have a very good national soccer (football) team. Indeed, a FIFA top 10 team (currently #8). And, I might add, Spain has one of the top national teams in the world, but that didn't seem to help much in Madrid. The fact is that the US is quite competitive in most international sports. We even have a reasonably competitive national cricket team.
But, even assuming it is that easy, it is unlikely that one would escape the long arm of the American "anti-terrorism" effort by moving.
Acceptance yes, but taxation? Where do I buy heroin stamps exactly?
This is apples and oranges - a Ph.D. in CS is not intended to be vocational training to churn out really, really, really qualified programmers. Its not as if one spends four years of undergraduate learning to program and four more years in graduate school learning to progrem even better. If you want a programmer, look at technical schools. If you need a scientist, look at universities.
Why would he need to know which email address the message was sent to? IMHO there should be a link in the message to click and opt-out (the link has the email address in it so the customer doesn't have to know anything). You would want to do this not solely for the recipeint's convenience, but also to save you from having to deal with dopes like him.
I once worked for a company that sent 100,000 emails a month to customers who had requested it.
In my experience, out of 100,000 people, there will be about 5,000 idiots for whom you have to make everything easy or you will run into problems like the one you recounted. I bet this happened more than once.
You are MUCH safer running Mozilla for this and many other reasons (as we know all too well).
Schedule I drugs are those highly addictive drugs that have no accepted medical use. Caffeine has a plethora of medical uses (most importantly for treatment of breathing problems and to increase the effectiveness of certain pain relievers).
The abuse potential most certainly not on the same level as heroin. Indeed, there is some serious debate about whether caffeine is truly addictive at all.
There are systems and technologies for handling such things. The world doesn't need a vigilante group being judge, jury and executioner. Ever.
It is too bad that you don't see that.
This is a blatant call to action for vigilante harassment. It is irresponsible and unjustifiable to publish such an article.
Yes, this company is scum sucking slime. If you call a toll-free just to harass them, so are you.
It has significantly reduced the wait time to get to the train platform. Many posters have said that saving a couple of seconds isn't important. But, when hundreds of people in line ahead of you each save a couple of seconds, believe me - it is significant.
Not that this has much to do with credit cards. But, it is easy to envision a similar time savings buying tickets at the theater, amusement park and thousands of other arenas where we all have to wait for hundreds of routine, small transactions to complete.
They're so hard up for you to use the library, but there's really no point in it. They are preparing you to do real, academic research. Ask anyone who has written a graduate thesis/dissertation or any research scientist whether (s)he prefers access to a research library or search engines. The internet is wonderful for looking up many types of information, most importantly factoids and recent news. But true depth of information required for serious research often must come from a research library. Why? Because only research libraries have full sets of journal articles going back decades. Only research libraries have full archives of government/NGO documents and newspapers. Whether this type of information should be available on the internet is quite another question. The fact is that it is not and, for now, all of us who do serious research are stuck in the stacks of musty old libraries. But, the article did not claim to be assessing Google's usefulness for serious research. It was assessing its usefulness for looking up trivia. It's like those math teachers in the 60's who frowned upon calculators and insisted you use your "handy, tried and true" slide rule. Wrong. A calculator is a better slide rule (often). The the internet is not a better library. The resources are different and have different pros/cons depending on what you are trying to do.