I was on a co-op with GE Power Systems and was working on their spreadsheets that determined necessary pipe sizes and lengths for certain operating characteristics. There was an error in there that was causing two mismatched pipe diameters to be ordered and sent to the site, at which point it cost somewhere around $10,000 to correct the problem (mainly due to delays).
I fixed the problem in the spreadsheet, and then dug through all the existing orders that were about to be filled and corrected them. The problem had cost GE about $300,000 and was about to cost them another $120,000 in the next month. The interesting thing, is nobody had really cared to do anything about it until an intern came along, and dumped it on me. They just don't see $10,000 as a whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things, so I'm sure stuff goes on like this all the time.
Whoa man! Slow down there. Verizon may be major asses representing all that is evil in the cell phone industry, but their call quality/reliability is filet mignot to the cream-of-meat that is Cingular.
Ever since switching to Cingular (from AT&T), I've experienced about 5 failed calls a day (out of about 10 I try and make) and constant dropped calls and robot-voices. All these calls are made in downtown Austin, where I live and work. Interestingly, the dropped calls and robot-voices almost exclusively happen with calls to other Cingular customers (which happen to be "free" calls...).
In short, when your contract runs up, I highly suggest dragging copper wire behind you everywhere you go. In the end it will probably be cheaper and cause much much less frustration.
Texas has two stickers: inspection and registration. Inspection stickers are issued by licensed inspectors, registration stickers get mailed from the state once you have given proof of insurance.
This gets interesting travelling in other states, where when pulled over and asked for "license and registration," you have to point them to the sticker in the window.
I've had a good deal of "financial education," and realized that most of it is crap. Sure, compounding interest kicks ass at the 20% rates they always spout out, but that's bullshit. If you're trying to save summer-job type money, the most easily accesible savings program you have is with the bank. I tried a savings account when I was in high school, and realized 1.5% doesn't really compound well....
My big point was that while you're making sub $1500 a summer during high school, there's not really any point saving it. Enjoy that money.
I've been doing engineering co-ops in college now, and am finally seeing enough money that I can have fun and also see reasonable returns on savings. I also have made enough to get into stocks, and can really start to see some return (I setup for diverse, long term stocks. None of this day trading crap). My point was that $1000 at 5% (good luck finding a mutual fund with that rate with only $1000) is still only going to keep up with inflation, and by the time you're making enough money to really start saving, that $1000 isn't quite the same anymore.
If that money couldn't afford a car then, it wouldn't be able to afford a car in 5 years. If you work part time minimum wage, with the goal of working full-time with a salary in 5 years, why save up the pennies you make now when you'll have the cash anyway in 5 years.
If you spend an entire summer saving up $1000, you're gonna be kinda dissapointed you didn't just spend it when a few years later you're making that per week.
I've always just assumed it was a way to lump in all the *days that are flying around this time of year. The "Holiday Season" includes everything from Thanksgiving through New Years depending on how you look at it, and for most of us salaried folk represents the time of year we get the most "paid holidays."
It's usually not referred to as just "holiday" but usually "the holidays," meaning inclusive of all of them. It also features my birthday, my girlfriend's birthday, my dad's birthday, my mother's birthday, and several of my friendss birthdays, so it really gets all thrown in together to "that time of year."
You're concerns are certainly justified. Solid gold pillows and matresses stuffed with 100 dollar bills can be pretty uncomfortable, and trophy wives tend to have cold feet.
I graduated from a Texas school (Dripping Springs) in '02, and have pretty much the same gripes. As much as I liked to hate the football team, they did actually create revenue for the school, so money isn't the place to complain about them. Where football hurt our school, was that state law prohibits you from having more than one coach per sport, yet we had a pretty large coaching staff for football and other sports. The administration got around this by giving part time teaching positions to many of the coaches (half the day they teach, half the day they coach). So, we ended up having twice as many coaches (who got payed more) than we would have had teachers in those subjects, plus the fact that many of them had no idea what they were teaching.
The science department was dismal, and the few teachers who actually knew their subject were being driven away for younger teachers who cost less. Once in college and talking to other students, I was amazed at how lacking our school was at teaching anything technically related. For me, high school served nothing more than a time to goof around and see in what ways we could manipulate the system. But college more than makes up for it, especially if you can get far away from home.
I was looking for a way to give Marvel some credit here, being that I've never seen the CoH character creation interface. Maybe there's presets that look all too close to Marvel characters? Certain outfits that are almost identical? I'd be like Bic making a stamp in the shape of Hulk or Wolverine: while you're still putting it on paper, Bic made it that much easier for you to recreate Marvel's IP.
And then I read this:
The New York-based company also took issue with the ability of players to go so far as to name their superhero creations after Marvel comic book characters.
And realized Marvel is completely out to lunch on this. They claim that CoH is infringing IP because they didn't disallow people from typing in the specific, trademarked names? Should CoH keep a database of every trademarked name and lock them out as character names? "Sorry, you can't be Kroger, that name is already taken."
much smaller developer for cell phone games and their crunch time wasn't nearly as long
I'm sorry, but I can't stop thinking of the project directors sending out the memo "Pre-orders are at record numbers. We're going to have to all start making some serious commitments if we want to see Nibbles X2000 go gold in time to meet its launch date."
If I could get EA CEO Larry Probst on the phone, there are a few things I would ask him. "What's your salary?"
According to Yahoo Finance it's a paultry $1.45 million. Course, with options he exercised about $23 million.
[Note: To anybody in a corporation, I highly recomend against looking up your CEO's salary. It's one of the most depressing things you could possibly do (my CEO makes in one hour what I make all year).]
You reminded me of 5th grade, staying up late to watch all three Alien movies and both Predator movies back to back with some friends(though I think we all fell asleep during Alien 3, and didn't make it to Predator 2, but no big losses there).
I used em to level up, killing them at about the same rate they split. Yet I can't really find a way to link that anecdote very effectively to the story.
You hit it. Large corporations go through a reogranization almost annually. I've gone through two in the past year with two different companies. The managers and high-ups make a huge deal about it (rightly so, since it's stuff like that that keeps em in a job) while everyone else just goes "yeah alright, so my division got renamed. yippee."
I think its mostly to create some buzz amongst the investors and shareholders, who think a reorganization means increased efficiency and therefore huge profits. Plus, it allows for new banners with fancy slogans and missions statements to be hung on the wall, and to keep everyone up to date on the latest corporate slang (a reorganization is really nothing more than lots of little paradigm shifts to better utilize the synergistic capabilities of our capital-index work force, etc)
I completely agree with you, and the typical answer is "well just get the bottom line phone, ya know, the one they give away for free with service. All it does is make calls."
But I don't want necessarily the cheapest, because from my experience it means crap ass signal, horrible color LCD screen, small buttons, and a pain in the ass interface.
I was extremely excited when Motorola came out with this the i530. Built to military spec, simple screen, strong signal. The only problem is they don't have a GSM version out yet. I have seriously thought about going to Nextel just to get a decent phone like that.
Good point. They could start following the model the motion picture companies have been using for a while: release the movie on VHS/DVD initially at a ridiculous price, usually from $100 to $200. Generally it's too pricey for the average consumer, but Blockbuster will buy multiple copies at the price expecting to make it back up in the large volume of rentals. Effectively, it takes the large demand for a product and forces the consumer to rent it if they want to see it, then buy it later.
I remember the $150 version of the Matrix DVD being sold at Amazon a couple of months before the "normal priced" edition, and people spending that much just to have the movie early. Marketing at its best.
Hmm, you got me thinkin now, because technically your right. But I seem to have grown up under the impression that a console required a TV, and portables were fully self contained. As in "console" refering to the TV cabinet/entertainment center. But "console" also has the definition of any computer with a display and an interface. So I'm not to sure now...
Come on, it's obvious: the Virtual Boy wasn't a console. It was a portable, and marketed as such. I mean, it wouldn't even fit in most backpacks, and ran about 2 hours off of 6 AA batteries, and playing it in the car would cause your inner ear to explode through your retina, but other than it was portable by definition.
[Note: I am sad to say I was a huge Virtual Boy fan. I pre-ordered it, and even after forking over the cash and getting one the day of it's release, only to be the only one in line, I still told myself it was the coolest thing in the world. When nobody else at school had one and claimed it was giving children in Japan brain damage, I still said it was the coolest thing in the world. And when I found a fully-functioning in-store demo kiosk sitting on the side of the road waiting for the garbage truck, I threw it in the back of my truck, took it home and continued to call it the coolest thing in the world. I still live in denial that it was an overpriced, headache inducing pile of crap.]
A quarter would be awesome. Arcades lost their luster for me when I started having to pay $1 for Area 51 because I couldn't afford Time Crisis 2 at $2. Pretty much the only arcades left any more are at places like Dave and Busters, where you get a point card that really starts to screw up the budgeting. "Let's see, $10 got me 4378 points, and Tokyo Wars costs 653 points, so that makes it cost how much?"
On a slightly related note, I was wating in the airport recently and realized how well an arcade would do there. I might even be willing to spend $1 for a round at some shooter, since that'd be cheap compared to the $8 Big Mac I just ate, and beats the hell out of watching the Weather Channel while sitting on those akward benches.
Like putting on a coat of hydrophobic Rain-X, the water will bead up (as described in the article) instead of sticking to the surface. It's the streaking water being splashed about in the rain that causes the greatest distortion when looking through the windshield. With that hydrophobic layer, the water almost instantly collects into large drops with plenty of space to see between them clearly, which are then pushed off by the wind.
No better businessmen in the world than a politician. Should be some starting to look for work in the next day or two (Senators are good, but aren't as cheap as House Representatives, who you can usually get a package deal for).
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I fixed the problem in the spreadsheet, and then dug through all the existing orders that were about to be filled and corrected them. The problem had cost GE about $300,000 and was about to cost them another $120,000 in the next month. The interesting thing, is nobody had really cared to do anything about it until an intern came along, and dumped it on me. They just don't see $10,000 as a whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things, so I'm sure stuff goes on like this all the time.
Ever since switching to Cingular (from AT&T), I've experienced about 5 failed calls a day (out of about 10 I try and make) and constant dropped calls and robot-voices. All these calls are made in downtown Austin, where I live and work. Interestingly, the dropped calls and robot-voices almost exclusively happen with calls to other Cingular customers (which happen to be "free" calls...).
In short, when your contract runs up, I highly suggest dragging copper wire behind you everywhere you go. In the end it will probably be cheaper and cause much much less frustration.
This gets interesting travelling in other states, where when pulled over and asked for "license and registration," you have to point them to the sticker in the window.
My big point was that while you're making sub $1500 a summer during high school, there's not really any point saving it. Enjoy that money.
I've been doing engineering co-ops in college now, and am finally seeing enough money that I can have fun and also see reasonable returns on savings. I also have made enough to get into stocks, and can really start to see some return (I setup for diverse, long term stocks. None of this day trading crap). My point was that $1000 at 5% (good luck finding a mutual fund with that rate with only $1000) is still only going to keep up with inflation, and by the time you're making enough money to really start saving, that $1000 isn't quite the same anymore.
If you spend an entire summer saving up $1000, you're gonna be kinda dissapointed you didn't just spend it when a few years later you're making that per week.
It's usually not referred to as just "holiday" but usually "the holidays," meaning inclusive of all of them. It also features my birthday, my girlfriend's birthday, my dad's birthday, my mother's birthday, and several of my friendss birthdays, so it really gets all thrown in together to "that time of year."
You know, the ones with a kevlar liner that can stop bullets and mind control.
You're concerns are certainly justified. Solid gold pillows and matresses stuffed with 100 dollar bills can be pretty uncomfortable, and trophy wives tend to have cold feet.
The science department was dismal, and the few teachers who actually knew their subject were being driven away for younger teachers who cost less. Once in college and talking to other students, I was amazed at how lacking our school was at teaching anything technically related. For me, high school served nothing more than a time to goof around and see in what ways we could manipulate the system. But college more than makes up for it, especially if you can get far away from home.
Feb 9 2005 = Wednesday
Feb 9 2006 = Thursday
Feb 9 2007 = Friday
As in "Bungie put a date at the end of the credits. WTF?"
And then I read this:
The New York-based company also took issue with the ability of players to go so far as to name their superhero creations after Marvel comic book characters.
And realized Marvel is completely out to lunch on this. They claim that CoH is infringing IP because they didn't disallow people from typing in the specific, trademarked names? Should CoH keep a database of every trademarked name and lock them out as character names? "Sorry, you can't be Kroger, that name is already taken."
"Nurse! Get this man two point five times ten to the negative squared 1992 Honda Accord Engines Displacement Worths of morphine, STAT!!"
In critical moments, it avoids confusions and saves precious time.
I'm sorry, but I can't stop thinking of the project directors sending out the memo "Pre-orders are at record numbers. We're going to have to all start making some serious commitments if we want to see Nibbles X2000 go gold in time to meet its launch date."
If I could get EA CEO Larry Probst on the phone, there are a few things I would ask him. "What's your salary?"
According to Yahoo Finance it's a paultry $1.45 million. Course, with options he exercised about $23 million.
[Note: To anybody in a corporation, I highly recomend against looking up your CEO's salary. It's one of the most depressing things you could possibly do (my CEO makes in one hour what I make all year).]
You reminded me of 5th grade, staying up late to watch all three Alien movies and both Predator movies back to back with some friends(though I think we all fell asleep during Alien 3, and didn't make it to Predator 2, but no big losses there).
I used em to level up, killing them at about the same rate they split. Yet I can't really find a way to link that anecdote very effectively to the story.
I think its mostly to create some buzz amongst the investors and shareholders, who think a reorganization means increased efficiency and therefore huge profits. Plus, it allows for new banners with fancy slogans and missions statements to be hung on the wall, and to keep everyone up to date on the latest corporate slang (a reorganization is really nothing more than lots of little paradigm shifts to better utilize the synergistic capabilities of our capital-index work force, etc)
But I don't want necessarily the cheapest, because from my experience it means crap ass signal, horrible color LCD screen, small buttons, and a pain in the ass interface.
I was extremely excited when Motorola came out with this the i530. Built to military spec, simple screen, strong signal. The only problem is they don't have a GSM version out yet. I have seriously thought about going to Nextel just to get a decent phone like that.
Keep in mind that number represents only registered idiots.
I remember the $150 version of the Matrix DVD being sold at Amazon a couple of months before the "normal priced" edition, and people spending that much just to have the movie early. Marketing at its best.
Is an iPod a console? Why not?
[Note: I am sad to say I was a huge Virtual Boy fan. I pre-ordered it, and even after forking over the cash and getting one the day of it's release, only to be the only one in line, I still told myself it was the coolest thing in the world. When nobody else at school had one and claimed it was giving children in Japan brain damage, I still said it was the coolest thing in the world. And when I found a fully-functioning in-store demo kiosk sitting on the side of the road waiting for the garbage truck, I threw it in the back of my truck, took it home and continued to call it the coolest thing in the world. I still live in denial that it was an overpriced, headache inducing pile of crap.]
On a slightly related note, I was wating in the airport recently and realized how well an arcade would do there. I might even be willing to spend $1 for a round at some shooter, since that'd be cheap compared to the $8 Big Mac I just ate, and beats the hell out of watching the Weather Channel while sitting on those akward benches.
Like putting on a coat of hydrophobic Rain-X, the water will bead up (as described in the article) instead of sticking to the surface. It's the streaking water being splashed about in the rain that causes the greatest distortion when looking through the windshield. With that hydrophobic layer, the water almost instantly collects into large drops with plenty of space to see between them clearly, which are then pushed off by the wind.
No better businessmen in the world than a politician. Should be some starting to look for work in the next day or two (Senators are good, but aren't as cheap as House Representatives, who you can usually get a package deal for).