Posts by SoaG
95 posts • joined Thursday 31st March 2011 13:42 GMT
Re: Yeah but....
"Yeah but who watches 18,000 hours of television a day?"
My ex-wife.
Re: Brilliant
"Sorry wrong department, I'll just transfer you over"
There's a reason that's so common.
Departments/3rd parties that deal with customers track a number of different stats about the calls they get. NONE of the other stats matter unless the Average Handle Time (AHT) target is being met.
I was in a place with an 8 minute target.
Overall AHT for tier 1s that made it through 3 month probation (including 2 months classroom training so only 1 on the phones)? Varied week to week from 6:45 to 7:57 minutes with transfer rate of 33%
AHT for tier 1s in 4th and final probation week on the phones? 10 minutes with transfer rate of 10%.
New class of trainees every month representing 20% of tier 1 staff total. Why so many? 90% of those that complete training not kept on because they don't meet AHT, even though the low transfer rate actually means less time on the phone for the customer.
So keep in mind it's not that they don't want to help you if they can. Doesn't matter if you're the tier 1 drone, department manager or CEO of a 3rd party call center. Beat the AHT target you're getting a bonus, blow it and you're fired.
Re: Yep, it does seem feasible
Quite, and looking at the map, if he's in Sydney local court, he may well have a personal connection with the town. A hacker is also more likely to make mistakes when they're emotionally invested in the target.
Or, if he did work for them, using a password or other information he knew from the job, rather than obtaining access as an outsider would have to, could also narrow the list of suspects.
Australian law has more in common with us here in Canada than US. People here have gotten house arrest for manslaughter, I wouldn't bet on him getting anywhere near the max. Such possible sentences exist as deterrents and for, a broad law such as this, for the rare infraction that would justify such a sentence (major hacks on targets causing loss of life or massive financial losses).
State not ATF/DHS/FBI
Nothing illegal disseminating weapon manufacturing information to his fellow yanks.
Making it available internationally however is apparently an issue that they can go after him on. Haven't verified this part myself, but I gather that even then it's not so much a violation of law within the US, but of US adhering to international treaties and him not having the requisite permit(s).
Either way, it's just an excuse to make an example out of him. If he'd got the permits and blocked IP ranges of embargoed countries, they'd have found something else. With millions of laws and regulations on the books and 100's of thousands more being added every year, everyone's probably in violation of something or other. Just most of us don't deliberately draw a great deal of public attention for the purpose of thumbing our noses.
I'm sure that's why, after all the build up, he complied with the take down order so quickly. He didn't do it because he believes the Predator is useful or necessary as a device. He did it to get the US 2nd amendment reaffirmed (or not) by their supreme court 5 or 6 years from now.
Dogs in IT
Two words:
Physical security,
Re: Cheers.
Offhand foot in front, and don't lock your elbow or you'll hurt your wrist.
Re: Battlefield 3/4 - Star Wars ???
You mean like this?
Also, they already did the re-skinned Battlefield thing and called it Battlefront.
Re: (... for some values of ordinary)
Yes, like diesel, and, you know, completely unlike ordinary jet fuel...
Re: Ah, the memories....
My cousin still uses AOL. Haven't talked to him in years.
Re: Punic? This war is MASSIVE
So you're just waving your E-poeni then?
Re: But surely?
"over-promoted and over-rewarded sales regardless of the sense of the sale"
Do you know of some line of business that doesn't get snookered by their own sales department?
Re: "There is no mainstream party [...] which offers to dismantle these crippling stealth taxes"
Conservatives have been firmly left of center since Thatcher left. The others are further enough left they can't even see the center. There is no right wing any more. Use your own judgment as to whether that's good or bad.
Knives I can see happening...
...but pistols?
Re: They can't retrain as storage technology engineers.
I've had a few employers go out of business in recent years. In between, rather than collect unemployment, I've opted to do temp work, mostly industrial labour. Believe me, the bulk of people I've worked with doing these kinds of jobs cannot be trained for jobs that require a capacity to think, never mind work with technology.
Good people mind you, but they're operating on a whole different level that I've never seen even among those I work with in telecom who have no responsibility beyond stringing cables.
Re: the perfectly average
Tell me more about this ground beef shake of which you speak and where I might purchase one. Or are you just floating ideas for next week's episode of Epic Meal Time?
Scam
Just because a con man claims to have noble goals as he spends donations on international travel doesn't make it either plausible, or any less a criminal act of fraud. This clown belongs in prison, not plotting his next fleecing of the gullible. More than a few of whom seem to be lurking around here. If something seems to good to be true, that's because it is folks.
Re: Obligatory XKCD cartoon...
386 has long been one of my favourites :) For this article though I think another is a perfect fit:
http://xkcd.com/978/
Just a new way of enforcing existing restrictions
Typically child abusers will have stipulations in their probation/conditional release about not associating with children or where children congregate.
Not really seeing a difference between not being allowed to hang out at the jungle gym in the park vs not being allowed to hang out in Lego Universe.
Sorry youngster
Nintendo has done absolutely nothing first. They're exactly the kind of company and product that will benefit from reforms that allow people to modify and improve software. It's all they do (and do well).
Eliminate stupid parents?
That's an even bigger challenge than patent reform.
Re: Thin end of the wedge
On the contrary, they both have exactly the same application. Selling users' information.
Bizzare idea
I live just down the road from University of Waterloo, most of my neighbors are students. The big parcel delivery companies in Canada are Canada Post, Purolator, UPS and FedEX.
Canada Post packages needing signature are left at the postal outlet in your nearest Shopper's Drug Mart for pickup until 9 weekdays and shorter hours on the weekend.
UPS bought Mailboxes Etc. a few years back, now the UPS store, and do the same thing there.
Fed Ex bought kinkos, same deal except the one near the universities may be open 24/7
Purolator is the big courier here and they have their own outlets as well as 3rd party locations at retail stores including Staples.
So since it's almost impossible to get something delivered that can't be picked up evenings and 7 days a week anyway, where did they come up with the idea and how did they con Google into thinking it was a viable business?
Reviewed on doing your job?
Inconceivable!
A properly designed-by-MBA review process will only look at tasks and objectives that are not part of doing your job. Thus the only way to score 4 is to do less actual work so you can do the BS special project instead. Then, the guy who picks up the slack and does your job, in turn doesn't get much done on his something-to-measure project and gets canned.
Re: 5 years?
I never have, and never will, recommend hiring anyone who hasn't had at least 1 employer for 4-5 years. Even if just part-time while they were in school. Why would an employer invest in someone who's already looking for the exit before they start?
Re: Is it only a British thing
For the most part lower and middle management are crap jobs. Salaried crap jobs at that, so lots of unpaid overtime so often 25% works out the same. If they didn't pay more, nobody would ever want a promotion. I've known people given an up or out choice for the same money, and every one of them as taken the package and gone to another tech job. Can't say I blame them, it would take a pretty big chunk to tempt me, and I actually enjoy leadership roles.
Re: @Suricou Raven
Suricou Raven caught my meaning I think. The founders of CCP (the company behind Eve) have made no secret that elite was their inspiration, right down to the logo being designed to have a resemblance.
Yes, ship control is different, but there's lots of single player flight sims, including in space. There's even another Kickstarter for one from another guy who did one of the old ones. The bandwidth and server load for such control in a real-time MMO environment would be more than a little impractical, especially on the single game universe/massive fleet battle model of Eve. I'm sure the Eve devs would have liked to include that aspect as well.
I haven't played Eve in a few years, but I know it's still growing. They're both niche games though as I said and I don't think there's market room for a 2nd Elite based MMO even if they could solve the lag. Single player definitely, so hopefully they meant that with a co-op, or small-server/LAN multiplayer, mode added on. That would likely do well.
Multiplayer game based on Elite?
I believe it's called Eve Online...
Not saying there isn't room for both, just that it's somewhat of a niche market and there needs to be a clearer differentiation.
Re: Sacked?
Marketing types are always redundant so it would have confused things to use that word.
Re: Mandatory add-on
Blues harp Inside?
Re: "Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think." – Ayn Rand
It does go into a big pot.
If an insurer takes a big loss on one line of business you think they won't recover part of that from all their other lines as well. Better a marginal increase across the board than to price just one line out of competition.
Then you also have insurers insuring each other as well. Remember when Lloyd/s almost went under in the '90s covering other companies policies on asbestos related illness and damage from Hurricane Andrew?
Gotta love the way bankers saw one industry almost collapse and decided to copy the idea and call it a CDS,,,
Blacklist is a waste for the most part anyway
Different when they're stolen pre-sale like these were, but over all it's a waste.
Having worked for a few cell companies over the years, here's how it works:
- Customer calls in to report the shiny new gadget they bought their teenager got stolen from the change room during gym class a week after purchase.
- Service suspended under category lost/stolen and phone added to blacklist
- Customer advised they're still on the hook for 3 years at $80/month
- Customer rages.
- Customer told they can put another phone on the contract.
- Customer pulls out their own previous phone collecting dust in a drawer to give to teenager.
- Customer calls back to activate old phone on teen's service.
- Suspension is lifted, thus removing it from blacklist because the process assumes it was lost and then found, not stolen and replaced.
- Thief sees teen w/ replacement phone next gym class and knows the stolen one is no longer hot and can now be sold/used.
Re: There goes the neighbourhood
Clearly a question to be answered by the PFoJ. Or perhaps those splitters in the JPF.
Re: What we need here is a women's perspective...
Either way, it's viral so be certain to isolate the control group before getting too deep into the research.
Posted in EA kills Medal of Honour arms deal
Not possible
"Despite understanding concerns,"
Nope, 'concerns' not understandable at all. Next time just mail the complainers a big box of Raisin Bran and a coupon for some milk.
Confusing weather and climate?
No, he's recognizing that an individual not competent at making short term predictions about weather is probably not an individual capable of producing reliable long term predictions using far fewer known quantities, many more variables and vastly more unknown quantities and feedbacks.
Like a grade schooler struggling to add fractions will probably not give you the right answer to a calculus problem.
If he can't do the (comparatively) simple, he's got no business attempting the more complex.
Re: made at least $7m
Right, because everyone knows that financial companies moving tens of millions in a single trade with their own in-house traders pay the same fees that we mere peasants do.
Re: Lucky...
You mean the police helicopter? The footage from which was subsequently released and, when broadcast, stamped with the TV station's logo?
Re: Was this one of their...
You mean retarded comments by people incapable of spotting obvious (albeit a poor attempt) humour? Like, say, yourself?
Sharp? Really?
Didn't realize they were still in business.
They used to be THE brand for ghetto blasters back in the mid-late '80s.
Haven't seen anything with their name on it in the last 15-20 years.
Re: HP Sauce
A1 sauce is also of British origins. Here in Canuckistan it's sold as a steak sauce specifically, which I'm inclined to agree with. I wouldn't put HP on steak, but it's much more versatile in/on any number of other things vs. A1 being single usage.
Re: Interesting
@csmac3144 So...just how long have you been married?
For those w/o time in the military:
.223 caliber is better known as 5.56 mm, the standard NATO assault rifle/light machine gun ammunition.
Not sure about US, but here the bolt is serialized as well and I would think much harder to make a durable one from plastic.
Re: Rick Astley
This,
Posted in Valve to raise Steam for Ubuntu
Re: Platform meaningless without games
Except that, other than, you know, online multi-player games, it doesn't demand a web connection. I don't play much single player anymore, usually when I do it's because the internet is out, Steam pops up a no connection notification, click OK, and carry on.
DRM, well, there's plenty of Steam versions of games available for download as torrents already if it really bothers them.
You have somewhat of a point about chicken/egg, but I think it will be moot.
Valve's entire catalog will move and they'll give it time to work, they're doing it because they want to do it.
They also have unique history among game companies selling other's products, especially indies. Combine that with them already having mobile phone apps and the possibilities for dealing with 3rd parties and new markets there.
Then there's also word they're moving into non-gaming software, which would not only give an immediate huge catalog of existing Linux products, but also let them move beyond the consumer gaming market on PC and Apple as well.
My sense of the timing of these things is Valve is making a much bigger play than just Linux games. More like going head to head with iTunes, NetFlix, Amazon et al.
Posted in Ten... alien invasions
BigbooTAY!
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
A better alien invasion movie is simply not possible.
Everything old is new again
If you use a personal account for work, it ceases to be a personal account, and yes, your employer is then obligated to do due diligence and ensure all use of that account is within guidelines.
Of course, if you use a personal account for work in the first place, you're an idiot and probably need someone to hold your hand to protect you from the big bad interwebs anyway.
The thing is, though, this is not something new with social networking. If you wrote a letter to the editor 100 years ago and mentioned your employer or position there were the same expectations then.
So, enough with the hand-wringing over something that was settled long ago.
Keep your work out of your personal accounts, and your personal out of your work accounts, and you'll never have an issue.
Posted in Friggin Giant Ugly Microsoft Ads!
Back in my day...
...the re-colouring of The Register's homepage to suit the whims of MS marketing only happened for one day...April 1st.
I actually run windows and I'm still disappointed with El Reg selling their soul like this. For shame!
