Posts by bsop

Law Enforcement..?

How about a different IT angle...?

In order to use a SIM, even a freebie, you still have to register with a service. On that basis, if the email account "idunno@gmail" was sending spam, the phone number could serve as extra source of information for the police to track and, thereby, address matters of "email courtesy and etiquitte" in the real world. Politely, of course. With the utmost restraint and (self-) control.

It may not help - some people change phone numbers as often as they do socks and emails can be spoofed. I would not want to become a "false-positive" either.

Depending upon the activity on the account (some criminals are criminally stupid), even a PAYG phone could be traced by top-ups and the method of payment for those top-ups. Following the money is fairly easy and it only takes one slip-up for the criminal to be spotted. If law enforcement are going to take the time and dig deep enough to find where the email actually came from, isn't about time they profitted from that effort and found someone they could convict in the real world?

Yes, what about those pesky aliens...?

Dear Anonymous Coward,

What about the aliens...? Yes, what about the aliens? Do you really think getting the aliens out of the United States (or any country) is really going to kick-start the economy?

These persons are not working in IT. Or banking. Or health care. Or social work. There may be plenty of foreign workers in these industries, but these are not illegal immigrants.

Where I come from, illegal immigrants are working primarily in agriculture. They are in the fields starting at 5 in the morning having nothing to look forward to except picking fruits, vegatables and melons in the heat of the day for the next twelve to eighteen hours.

Twelve to eighteen long hours. In the heat of the sun. In the pouring rain. In sleet, snow, wind, hail, and all other flavours of "weather". With few or no breaks. Working with all of the speed, strength, stamina, and accuracy they can muster. And always worried about immigration agents raiding the farms and sending them home where there is (apparently) no work to feed an (equally apparently) starving family.

Could you do that? Could you work those hours in those conditions while fearing deportation and prison? Day after day? Not knowing the local language? Not knowing your rights? Working no matter how you were treated by your employer who cares even less about you than the law of the land?

Would you fill one of those jobs if they became available because all of the "non-citizens" were sent packing? Sir, I have come to understand that the jobs taken by illegal immigrants are often the ones the local "citizens" refuse to fill.

I bid you Good Day, Sir.

DISCLAIMER: Prior to my move across the pond, I worked in Phoenix - about 100 miles north of the greatest migration free-for-all in the West. And I speak as one of those "aliens" (albeit a "legal alien" through marriage and appropriate visas - but not a "citizen" who you state should get all the jobs). And I appreciate you probably were not targetting me personally, but it can be so difficult to be sure given the tone & content of your posting.

Re: Giving up work due to fuel costs

This actually is not as unreasonable as it sounds.

I was working as a permie (IT Helpdesk) and the fuel costs slowly made it uneconomical to get to work. Over the two years I worked there, the fuel costs doubled and I was considering leaving the position due to the sheer economics. As it ended up, I was made redundant and found a job much closer to home.

That was about four years ago. Now I drive a third of the distance, spend 10 minutes door-to-door instead of about an hour, and can still afford to keep going to work, even in the face of four years of increasing fuel costs.

If it came to it again, I would be prepared to make the same decision. I do not live to work, I work to live. The jobs are out there. And, should I need to, I will find one that I can do that pays me enough to staive off starvation and not require me to sell off the children as indentured servants.

AC - Keeping Away Visitors

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you were joking.

Your plan is marvelous. I would even be tempted to patent your idea, but, you know, maybe - just maybe - the leather or rubber soles in most shoes would stop the effectiveness of your latest "cunning plan."

PS - Just so you know. There probably are better ways to keep Jehovah's Witnesses at bay. You know, like asking them nicely. Double glazers, on the other hand, I don't know what would keep them away - they're actually SALESMEN...!