Seggy

Whenever someone gives me their 2 cents, I give them back change.

Echo what doc said. I have 3 cards: debit, shared card with my wife, and my "working" CC. 99.9% of the time, I use my working card. If it's something my wife normally takes care of, I use her card — which is her main card. I *only* ever use my debit card at ATMs, and only those that I've checked for card-skimmers or other sketchy signs. My wife and I pay off both our cards each month and when we travel, we let the company know. They have a good fraud detection unit — at an airport once, the clerk fat-fingered a $4.95 charge into $495. It never went through, however, because my company called me up as soon as they saw the charge. They called me because it was outside my normal pattern. When I was doing work in Taiwan, I'd sometimes get calls at 3AM because they saw my card used halfway around the world from my normal address. Also, if you're paying for stuff online, make sure the site is using SSL encryption, with a valid certificate, and has been verified by something like Verisign, etc.

Let the traumatizing begin...

Doesn't surprise me. Fast Ad Hoc queries are a holy grail in databases. If you're using a fast database backed application, guarantee that someone has optimized the hell out of the backend by intelligently arranging their data, optimizing query choke points, and making assumptions about the nature of their data and the needs of their users.

Sorry to hear you're leaving. You were fun to talk with (you know, when I talked ).

Biggest takeaway was the clarity of differences between Facebook, Google, Windows, and Apple strategies. Facebook — focused clearly on mining social data for directing ad revenue. Moving platform to mobile and possibly fragmenting the social plumbing into disparate apps. Windows — they're still a desktop company with a desktop mindset, trying to play in the cloud. Best thing going for them is legacy and XBox. Apple — iOS, best line of laptops. Google — They're focused on creating the infrastructure that plumbs the internet and enabling app developers to focus on business logic as opposed to infrastructure concerns.

Personally, I didn't like the experience. As an aside, I may or may not have talked to a google employee at Google I/O who said she didn't think Glass was useful or have much of a point.

xf: mizhi

Put a giant fence around that sh!thole and mount the guardtowers with the weapons facing IN.

Well... technically, all beers are full of chemicals. That said, bourbons are my thing these days. Recommend Angel's Envy and Bulleit Rye.

Sup Norman. Go apply. http://fearless-assa...ations-join-us/

So, as I said in game, my vote is with USMA. I think that either academy is a worthy pursuit, so it ultimately comes down to what kind of experience you want. From the USMA, you will get a commission. From the USMA, you will also get a security clearance (as all officers are required to have a SECRET clearance). This can help grease the skids for certain kinds of jobs in the civilian sector (should you ever leave the Army). I'm fairly sure that you don't get either a commission or clearance from the USMMA — I could be wrong on the clearance though. From the USMMA, you get certifications as a Deck hand or Engineer for powered ships. When you're an officer, at some point you will be leading Soldiers. Most likely you'll first be a Platoon Leader, then move into an XO position (or staff at a higher HQ), then Company Commander. For many — myself included — Company Command is THE place to be. It's the most rewarding job, you are responsible for so much that it can be overwhelming. It's tough, but even having been out for 1.5 years now, in the civilian world I still draw upon the lessons I learned while in command. Note: I did not go to the USMA. My commissioning source was through ROTC. I've known many USMA officers though, and most of them were excellent. I can't speak as much about the Merchant Marines, so if someone else can shed some light on that, chime in.

Welcome. Vyder doesn't shoot people. He slides the knife in, nice and slow.

Congrats dude. You need to get your tubes tied. Stat.