There is so much you cannot do with an IM style message in a corporate environment -- send attachments,
What kind of text-chat client are you using which can't do simultaneous file transfers? Get with the early 90s!
search the past 5 years of messages,
plain text logs
access the same message base from dozens of different device types and locations, etc.
They're plain text. Store them as a readable network file and you can access them from anywhere you want - and without needing a specialist email program or interface to do so.
If we could manage to stick a sorceror's apprentice-type module on the moon which could use solar power to move around, mine materials, and eventually build a copy of itself, there wouldn't really be an energy problem. Mine oxygen? Sure! Mine titanium? No problem. Mine Helium-3? OK, sure, whatever.
In fact, if someone really wanted to get the jump on a He3 economy, they could start shipping a couple of tons of it back down to Earth as freebies for whoever was experimenting with reactors. Eventually someone's going to crack the method, and their testing will go a lot faster if they have a lot of test fuel. All of a sudden, the world has a pretty frickin' powerful energy source that's relatively clean, and whoever's got the moon-mining operation going is the sole provider.
Of course, this will inevitably lead to a lunar invasion by some nutjob national leader or coalition. But it's pretty damn hard to invade a planetoid that's now covered with self-replicating sensor stations, anti-invasion gear, and info-hardened against reprogramming and viral injections.
Betcha absolutely no-one thinks of forming a coalition to, y'know, just not use He3 fuel. Especially if the lunar forces start landing freebie samples randomly all over the planet.
Might make a good book. I can imagine a scene where the status of the not-so-secret invading forces is continually updated in real time via a multilanguage Eat-At-Joe's scrolling sign across the entire visible face of the moon.
As soon as someone breaks into the home market and sets standards for the type of material used, I'm going to invent a way to recycle that material and sell it back to users.
After all, computer printers haven't exactly led to a decrease in the amount of paper used.
I've done much better in the past year, but only because (a) I moved to a city with a multibilliondollar mining boom, (b) tech personnel are scarce and I'm at the top of the (local) game, and (c) I went from salary to hourly on short contracts.
Couldn't say what the market has been like outside the city, though.
It's about time the net backbones moved away from the USA. With arbitrary filtering taking place in the US, there will be more pressure to route around the country.
No doubt freenets and wifi sharing will also undergo a boost in America. Soon everyone will be poor and communist, and the country will be ruled by power-crazed hippies.
I, for one, welcome our new evil-backdoor Phil-Zimmerman porn-laughing-at overlords!
- If only because of the command-line flag you'd need to enable it.
WRT the smooching, I can't say for most cases - mine was unusual as my gf worked in the same team. We did get asked to tone down the snuggling as it was distracting the other techs, heh.
As for sleeping... never while actually doing useful work. There have been a couple of utterly unnecessary meetings where I've felt myself drifting off, though.
I've also worked with a 50-ish dude in a call centre who was doing night classes as well, and he'd fall asleep between calls. Given that the calls were coming in every 30 seconds, this was quite a feat. It did screw up his call times a bit, but not badly enough to immediately make something of it, and the entire division was outsourced before it became enough of an issue anyway.
The main issue is that you first have to get to the moon with sufficient tools to construct a self-maintaining base, unless you want to have to abandon it when you run out of water or your irreplaceable technowidget component X breaks down.
Ideally, you'd be able to construct a self-improving base which would fairly rapidly become able to fabricate almost any Earth technology out of available lunar material. Presumably it would eventually need to be able to sustain human life (otherwise it's just a robofactory), defend itself against rabid earthbound policitians looking for a cheap way to scare the electorate with The Lunar Menace, and sufficient communication technology to be able to insult people over the internet.
Just make sure you're in control of how the ticketing system calculates its figures. I've run across too many systems where someone can hold a ticket for a month, then dump it into your queue the day before the stats run, and all of a sudden management's breathing down your neck wanting to know why your team has been flagged as having month-old tickets it hasn't done anything with.
Likewise, check the time calculations on parent and child tickets (if supported). Otherwise your single week-old parent ticket may acquire a couple of dozen kids plus their running stopwatches. Or if a parent ticket which might be 'on hold awaiting replacement router for downed link' isn't racking up time against your team, does that also automatically apply to the 100 helpdesk queries about 'my internet doesn't work', or are those all counting hours against you?
Essentially, think of all the evil ways you could smash a person's or team's stats to smithereens using the ticketing system, and make sure it can't be used against you.
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There is so much you cannot do with an IM style message in a corporate environment -- send attachments, What kind of text-chat client are you using which can't do simultaneous file transfers? Get with the early 90s! search the past 5 years of messages, plain text logs access the same message base from dozens of different device types and locations, etc. They're plain text. Store them as a readable network file and you can access them from anywhere you want - and without needing a specialist email program or interface to do so.
They only just found out that 419 software won't run under Wine.
In fact, if someone really wanted to get the jump on a He3 economy, they could start shipping a couple of tons of it back down to Earth as freebies for whoever was experimenting with reactors. Eventually someone's going to crack the method, and their testing will go a lot faster if they have a lot of test fuel. All of a sudden, the world has a pretty frickin' powerful energy source that's relatively clean, and whoever's got the moon-mining operation going is the sole provider.
Of course, this will inevitably lead to a lunar invasion by some nutjob national leader or coalition. But it's pretty damn hard to invade a planetoid that's now covered with self-replicating sensor stations, anti-invasion gear, and info-hardened against reprogramming and viral injections.
Betcha absolutely no-one thinks of forming a coalition to, y'know, just not use He3 fuel. Especially if the lunar forces start landing freebie samples randomly all over the planet.
Might make a good book. I can imagine a scene where the status of the not-so-secret invading forces is continually updated in real time via a multilanguage Eat-At-Joe's scrolling sign across the entire visible face of the moon.
As soon as someone breaks into the home market and sets standards for the type of material used, I'm going to invent a way to recycle that material and sell it back to users. After all, computer printers haven't exactly led to a decrease in the amount of paper used.
Alien babe, green, hot!
So if someone had an overly active rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala, would that make them Optimist Prime?
Couldn't say what the market has been like outside the city, though.
It looks like you've got road rage! Would you like some help?
Hmm, you wouldn't have the home addresses of some of these politicians, would you? I just need to make a... phone call.
It's about time the net backbones moved away from the USA. With arbitrary filtering taking place in the US, there will be more pressure to route around the country. No doubt freenets and wifi sharing will also undergo a boost in America. Soon everyone will be poor and communist, and the country will be ruled by power-crazed hippies.
If I ever got to design a currency system for the first moon settlers, it'd be simple - LUnar CREdits. Filthiness optional.
You assume this is the first time they've used the technique :)
I, for one, welcome our new evil-backdoor Phil-Zimmerman porn-laughing-at overlords! - If only because of the command-line flag you'd need to enable it.
There, fixed that for ya.
"Sure. Diet loose penis fast perfectly legal golf ball toner mortgage."
"None of these laws apply to Bob."
Is the company going to supply free webcams to all its players?
As for sleeping... never while actually doing useful work. There have been a couple of utterly unnecessary meetings where I've felt myself drifting off, though.
I've also worked with a 50-ish dude in a call centre who was doing night classes as well, and he'd fall asleep between calls. Given that the calls were coming in every 30 seconds, this was quite a feat. It did screw up his call times a bit, but not badly enough to immediately make something of it, and the entire division was outsourced before it became enough of an issue anyway.
Their budget, your leadership. Glass houses?
I got some spare change. Might get me a couple of senators.
The main issue is that you first have to get to the moon with sufficient tools to construct a self-maintaining base, unless you want to have to abandon it when you run out of water or your irreplaceable technowidget component X breaks down.
Ideally, you'd be able to construct a self-improving base which would fairly rapidly become able to fabricate almost any Earth technology out of available lunar material. Presumably it would eventually need to be able to sustain human life (otherwise it's just a robofactory), defend itself against rabid earthbound policitians looking for a cheap way to scare the electorate with The Lunar Menace, and sufficient communication technology to be able to insult people over the internet.
Then the engine gives out? Governor kicks in? The tires blow up? When this baby hits 158mph, you're gonna see some serious shit.
Just make sure you're in control of how the ticketing system calculates its figures. I've run across too many systems where someone can hold a ticket for a month, then dump it into your queue the day before the stats run, and all of a sudden management's breathing down your neck wanting to know why your team has been flagged as having month-old tickets it hasn't done anything with. Likewise, check the time calculations on parent and child tickets (if supported). Otherwise your single week-old parent ticket may acquire a couple of dozen kids plus their running stopwatches. Or if a parent ticket which might be 'on hold awaiting replacement router for downed link' isn't racking up time against your team, does that also automatically apply to the 100 helpdesk queries about 'my internet doesn't work', or are those all counting hours against you? Essentially, think of all the evil ways you could smash a person's or team's stats to smithereens using the ticketing system, and make sure it can't be used against you.
They'd re-elect the critters.
"I'm 162.83.177.207!"
"I'm 162.83.177.207!"
"I'm 162.83.177.207, and so's my wife!"