In looking for info about this I found a news article that he wrote a check to the state government to cover the value of the car - $8965.67, which is probably right for an older Crown Victoria, probably with many miles on it from government service, possibly as a police car.

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20121005tim_murray_paid_9000_to_cover_crashed_car_costs

In the case of Lt. Gov. Murray, it was a vehicle owned by his employer.

Employers routinely monitor the driving habits of the drivers of their vehicles. Ask any trucking or delivery company.

There is no privacy concern or fifth amendment issue in his case.

As a side comment, it's pretty amazing that you can crash a car at 100 mph, not wearing a seat belt,and say anything afterward, isn't it? Twenty years ago he would have been dead and none of his "scandal" would have happened except an accident investigation and a funeral.

Yes, I know, but the company gets touchy about anything potentially contrary-to-license, so I'm just using putty. It's fine, I only use it once or twice a month for the "problem children."

Mine's in my mom's basement. Series D board, 4K of memory, later upgraded to 64K.

Man it feels weird typing "K" instead of "M" or "G".

It never had the luxury of having a color tv attached to it though.

I wonder if it still works.

I have a US Robotics modem connected to my laptop dock at work, and I use it about once a month when I can't get into one of our locations over the network. There are a few locations where it is faster and more stable than the network.

I connected to one at 2400 baud recently. It's like typing in mud.

Since Windows 7 doesn't have HyperTerm, I use putty and type atdt commands at it.

At my first real tech job (1990) the developers told them to take away the crappy 386-SX no-name clones they'd bought us and give us some of the nice serial terminals that were sitting in the warehouse. All we were using them for was telnet anyhow, and the third-party NFS we were using with Windows 3.1 didn't actually work very well.

The company still had serial cables strung to all the offices so they happily obliged, and 4 or 5 developers all shared a mighty 486-25DX running SCO Unix. You could tell when someone else compiled, but aside from that it was fine.

As far as I know, no accounting whatsoever happens for our company's long distance bill except the company pays it.

For years we had no idea what a massive modem bank was costing in terms of long distance because it was all rolled into the building's bill.

I support and deal with thousands of locations all over the country (USA.) No way I'm making those calls from something I pay for.

I know nationwide long distance is included in my cellular plan, but I share 700 minutes among four people on a family plan. I sometimes make work calls from my cell when it makes *my* life better, but I'm always aware of how many minutes I'm burning.

Although some have company-paid cell phones, I'm not one of the some.

It's simple.

Tech is an important part of driving the economy and building the future economy. But IT has nothing to do with that.

IT is just the technology version of workplace facilities management. In other words, the janitors and carpenters. Need new cubicals assembled? Need the floors mopped? Need IDs provisioned or a new report about something? None of those folks are doing anything to drive the economy except in the same way as anyone else who gets paid to do a job.

They're a cost of doing business. Nothing more.

I used to work for technology companies, doing R&D for the products that the companies sold. Now I work in IT at a giant company that runs restaurants. The restaurant company is highly dependent on the technology, and there are some things they couldn't do without it, but nobody confuses IT with product R&D.

There is a big difference.

Absolutely. The terms used in discussion of this matter are absurd.

A fetus is alive. Eggs are alive. Sperm are alive. Tapeworms are alive. Viruses are alive. Dog and cats are alive.

I have a seven-month old daughter. We were seeing bad grainy pictures of her from age negative six months on. To my wife and (perhaps to a lesser degree) me she was very much alive and very much a person. We talked to her, sang to her, and thought of her as our baby, not as a blob of living material that might some day be our child.

The real question is, when does a fetus become a person?

It's not like they said Aspergers isn't a problem.

They are simply saying that it is a form of autism and doesn't merit its own separate name.

I have an autistic relative. She does not talk, but can mostly follow simple instructions. She usually makes it to the bathroom. Her big excitement is if someone gives her some soda.

We can play "pick the word" between disease, disorder, or whatever, but this state of being is assuredly undesirable.

On a personal level, people do that all the time.

In work environments, you're usually apologizing for something that you don't even owe an apology for, and certainly was not intentional.

There are some basic customer handling techniques for calming down the irate. The only one I can remember is to never yell, never raise your voice, to the contrary, talk as softly as possible. They will quiet down to hear you.

I have, a couple times, hung up on a customer who was being unreasonably irate and abusive. Once they've moved on from being mad to a steady stream of profanity, it's time for them to go. "Sir, I understand this is upsetting, but it's clear that you're not able to properly discuss it right now. Please call me back when you are able to do so in a more calm fashion. Thank you."

Also a couple times, I have fired a customer, including refunding every penny they ever gave us. Life is too short.

Hey, that's how you deal with kids, too.

You don't tell them to do something. You make them think they're deciding.

Don't say "go take a shower" because then they'll argue that they don't need a shower.

Say "Do you want to take your shower before or after dinner?" and it's a lot harder for them to argue that they don't need a shower.

America the country may never apologize for all the crap we pull as a country. Many of us are embarrassed by our country's behavior, and sincerely sorry for any trouble it may cause the rest of the world.

But I'm afraid you're wrong. Americans apologize constantly. Especially when working support or retail.

* I'm so sorry that ____ didn't work out for you. Of course you can return it.
* I'm sorry that repair is still giving you troubles. When did you want us to try to address it?
* I'm sorry your computer isn't working
* I'm sorry your cable is out
* I'm sorry you weren't delighted by our service

WATTCP? (The TCP/IP implementation for packet drivers.)

I actually bought that manual. Still have it, I think.