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Learning from Mistakes (
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Just when you thought Air Canada couldn't get any cheaper, or callous: sweet merciful crap. That link takes you to a CNN story this site picked up, explaining that Air Canada's regional operator, Jazz, has decided to save 25 kilograms of weight from each flight by getting rid of the life vests. The rules state that as long as your plane is flying within 50 miles of land, it's okay to do this - you can use the seat cushion as a flotation device instead. So as long as I can swim 50 miles I'll be okay? Oh sweet mother - I think I have to sign up for some advanced swimming lessons before going to my next client, which happens to be on the coast. Let's pray and hope - and assume for argument's sake - that in the unlikely event a plane needs to make an emergency landing it doesn't crash and crumple and otherwise disintegrate catastrophically. If you were to look for a place to land and there were no roads in the area, what would be a better touch-down pad? A bunch...
I'm not really in the mood to argue. I mean, I've had some excellent food lately, which should really put anyone in a good mood. But I'm still shocked and appalled. And I really should've replied to the news that photography is banned from the station with a chilly, "what for?" You see, according to the best guess of the Montreal train station's security, I apparently must look like a terrorist. Wow, they should've seen me when I was all scruffy and bearded in university. One of my friends from back then thought I was a History, rather than a Commerce student, for that simple fact. This is the second time in two months that I've been witness to an instruction from security to stop taking photos in a government-owned facility. And it's so stupid I wish I got drop the hammer on someone the way America's Henry Waxman does two and a half minutes into this video . Waxman is understandably annoyed with the stonewalling he gets from the EPA about...
Unfortunately you won't learn how to pass most exams with this knowledge, but applying the rules or tips in Dave Pollard's "When not to use e-mail" posting will make you a much better communicator. This list applies to all people, but there are specific insights for auditors. Especially when you're starting out, and you find yourself thinking, "this is great, I can just e-mail everything and wait for answers to come back." Although it can, funnily enough, often work in spite of Pollard's list, it's important to know how this can and will fail. Above: there are media other than e-mail which you can use for communication, more successfully too Remember, that time is precious, and e-mail can unfortunately waste it. Consider these two 'rules'. 3. When you are seeking information that is not simple and straight-forward 4. When you're sending a few people complicated instructions The rules are tightly linked - the more confusing something gets...
Some thoughts on flex-time popped up after seeing a this clip on Videosift with a bunch of American politicians walking out after a grandstanding speech making some spurious claims of support for disgraced Bush administration officials. What amused me about the video was thinking, well, actually, I can do that too. Not so much defend disgraced officials, but make my own hours. Of course, I leave for home either because I'm done work for the day or because I can finish it at home if I need to, and it does eventually gets done - on time. That's the nice thing about working "flexibly", from management's point of view - I get stuff done well and on time. The upside to me is that if we have 30 cm of snow on the way, I can just go home, or stay home for the whole day, spending some time shoveling the snow, and the rest with my laptop getting work done. I've seen things done the wrong way - at least the way I've read Cordie present her situation at PWC: I would argue...
Easy answer. This one. My first response to his associated related "Recruit Genie" site was "BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA" coupled with, "was this designed by a 12 year old with too much time on his hands?" "Strange as it may seem, employees don't have many free speech rights, especially when it comes to making negative, public comments about their current employer. That's just fine with us..." No. No. Stop. Which former Soviet Republic did you grow up in? How many cold winters did you experience in Siberia? Yes, badmouthing your boss is not something that's a Good Idea, but coming out like the all-knowing Oracle with your own commentary is worse than amateur. It looks like the sit is really a Borat DVD easter egg or something similar. It gets funnier, though. This is worse than the sales pitches I attempted for my college newspaper back in the day: Job posts are always free, but you can enhance your presence and your recruitment brand with an inexpensive...
The team behind Bioshock caught a lot of flack for releasing a sub-par disc masquerading as a soundtrack for buyers of the game's Limited Edition in the UK. It was a mere three tracks, all remixes by Moby. What a disappointment if you paid extra for that. Fortunately, I never did. In a doubly awesome twist, 2K made up for it by releasing the entire soundtrack to the game's original in-game audio . Click here for a direct download . There's a cool story with the soundtrack composer at Music 4 Games . The game is set in the 60's and as such, includes a slew of licensed songs which - there's a discussion on the developer forums where some hardcore fans have figured out how to extract said songs. Yay again to Rock, Paper, Shotgun for tipping me off to the existence of all these goodies - it's one of my new favourite sites.
On one level, I'm grateful for Microsoft for being so culturally sensitive: tell Windows Vista that you're in Canada and it'll give you a couple of extra keyboard options. If you hit Alt+Shift, or so I'm told, the keyboard language will switch. This of course will drive you batty, though, if you don't expect it, and you keep getting an "ѐ" when all you really wanted was a "/". Poor Firefox is most susceptible to this nasty little issue - some people believe it happens whether or not you hit Alt+Shift, or the other option, Ctrl+Shift. I think that was happening to me too. Fortunately. I noticed that others are suffering from this minor headache and I followed the advice that was given to them: uninstall the extra keyboards. To do that, just go to Control Panel, and find your keyboard settings page. In Vista you need to open a second page by another button that says "Change Keyboards." In true, "you're already annoyed so I'm...