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You need a union. It's the only way to fix this kind of thing.
You need a union. It's the only way to fix this kind of thing.
This. So much this. You don't have to put up with this bullshit. And it will only get worse unless you fight back.
Although I agree with the sentiment, as a former vicidial / polycom consultant in all cases where I had to log toilet breaks the underlying reason was always driven by the clients, not the call agent employers. The call centers would prefer to log nothing at all, but the clients pay good money for analysis of the dialler logging. Take a look at the contracts and you'll get an idea of how detailed these agreements are. It sucks, but that's where the pay check comes from. If you push back too hard there are a hundred more centers that could be up and running with the same product in a few days.
True enough, but some push back is required. Some of these clients are finding out that the bottom of the barrel perform on the phones much worse than they perform on their bathroom breaks.
Of course, unless one happens to be one of those people talking out of their ass, there's nothing preventing the combination of the activities. No break needed, problem solved.
And if they weren't, you'd be hearing "he doesn't care what happens to us -- he doesn't work here."
>>>laws that allowed them to exist.
In a free country like the U.S. you don't need the permission of the government to peaceably-assemble your coworkers & hold meetings to present a unified voice to the company.
Um, yes you do. Where the hell did you ever get the idea that the USA is a "free country", or that there's freedom of assembly here? Did you never hear of "free speech zones"? In case you didn't know, it's now illegal [reason.com] to protest anywhere the Secret Service may be; taking part in a protest against the government will now make you a felon and earn you a 10-year prison sentence.
OR... you could just find a new job.
Have you ever changed jobs? I'm not talking about moving from one Starbucks to another three blocks away. It can initially be quite expensive to do so. It could require new commuting expenses or even moving expenses, even if you get help from your new employer, multiplied by the number of people in your family. Unless you're expecting a giant increase in pay, and especially if you aren't, you'd better have an appropriate surplus of cash available to you because you're surely going to need some for both seen
You don't need to move 3 blocks to change jobs within Starbucks; you can easily do it in just one block, frequently less.
How that place manages to stay in business in this crappy economy, selling massively overpriced poor-quality drinks, I have no idea.
USA to china: "when I grow up, I want to be just like you!"
(think about that..)
and to fight back, any attempt at a layoff causes ALL the workforce to strike.
THAT is why you have a union. 100% that.
its high time we bring back unions. corps have shown they are not good at self-managing and self-policing. left alone, they will squeeze you dry. they used to! study your history!!
that's why you hire teamsters (etc) to 'manage' the picket lines.
to counter a brut regime, you bring in your own hired thugs.
seriously, its the only way to fight fire. the bosses are not about to give in voluntarily. again, study your history. what we lost over the last 50 yrs, we have to fight AGAIN to get back.
the repubs are busy trying to destroy organized labor. and they are winning, too
Exactly. The right has demonized unions while ignoring that they level the playing field between an employee and an employer. Without them, you get abuses like this. That doesn't mean that a union needs to drive a business into the ground. Typically they both understand that a strong business means a strong profit means a strong workforce. If things get unbalanced too much to one side, you end up with either corrupt management, or a company that goes out of business.
Hate to say it but it's not a highly technical job. If people start complaining they just outsource to India.
and then we need to counter that with laws (and tax codes) that, uhm, 'motivate' against such anti-american behavior.
I'd be all for it.
since corp ethics is on 'perma vacation', we need some teeth in the law system to stop this kind of continuing bad corp behavior.
if we don't take care of our own people, we will slip into being a 2nd world country. you want that??
Better than unionizing -- just take your wireless headset to the toilet. You can stay on your calls, and there can be an LCD monitor in the stall if you need to reference information, read from a script, check your Facebook page, etc.
At the end of a particularly annoying call, the sound of a toilet flushing would be entirely appropriate, too!http://slashdot.org/story/12/09/16/1213226/ask-slashdot-when-does-time-tracking-at-work-go-too-far#
Time to start sending out resumes.
I was thinking the same thing.
The job market's bad, but it's not THAT bad.
They can't. If they hit the bathroom break button, it changes their state, and they won't get any calls.
I'm the lead dev / product manager for a software VoIP callcentre solution. We've had to develop features such as "don't allow an agent to take a bathroom break if there aren't enough agents available, or the waiting queue is too big, or if the estimated waiting is over X".
Supervisors will spend the day looking at the monitor, constantly checking how many calls are waiting, how long each agent is on the line. They will put themselves in "whisper" mode, so they can yell at the agent, without the customer hearing anything. If you're ever on the line with a callcentre drone, and he suddenly starts taking time to answer, or suddenly starts having trouble finding his words, it's probably a sign you're using up too much of his allotted per-call time, and getting the poor lad into trouble.
We operate in France, so we've had to deal with a lot of employee-protection laws, but more often that not, our customers (the callcentre) will force us to override specific settings (the mandatory 2 second break after each call can be revoked if the last call was too long; hence not effective enough), even if they violate the law.
..not to offend hard working call center people, but wouldn't that be the usual recommendation to anyone working at one regardless of if they're tracking bathroom breaks?
Yeah, getting out is the only sane option. I used to work at a place which implemented a tracking scheme like that, and after two weeks they had lost about two thirds of the people. Too many to have the remaining people work overtime. I was among the people who left, but heard from someone who stayed that they stopped that silliness only a month after introducing it.
So getting out will make one of two things happen: Either you are free from a horrible employment situation, or you help make them see the erro
They should use the same methods for tracking management and the employees.
You'll eventually see that people in your apartment spend a LOT of time "asking questions/helping customers" and almost nobody has to poop anymore.
And you've just discovered the REAL purpose of rolling something like this out. Anyone mgmt likes (hotties, brownnosers, relatives, etc) will ignored when they falsify records, but anyone they want to get rid of (wrong race, wrong church, wrong political party, whatever) will be fired with cause due to documented fraud resulting in no unemployment benefits because they were falsifying timesheet documents by taking a dump instead of "asking questions". I mean they'd got a timesheet showing you were "asking a question" and a avi file from the security cameras clearly showing you walk into the bathroom, it seems an open and shut case?
This also goes higher level than just employee. Now any team lead / supvr / manager can be disciplined at any time for allowing the falsification to happen
This is the real evil of overly draconian regulations or laws. Sure, the subjects can choose to ignore them, and the authorities can choose not to enforce them -- but the authorities can also choose to enforce them, at their own discretion, and with no apparent legal recourse for those they single out. As far as I can tell, "everybody else was doing it" is not a valid defense.
You're in a call center, so when you get up today, you already have to hit something to stop receiving calls that were in queue. I would say the purpose of that button is to separate out a bit more detail on the reporting side vs, checking up on individuals. I came from a prior call-center environment, on the backend network/telephony team, and having to "check-in/out" each time you walk away from the phone/cube was normal. This was a 600 person call center, also healthcare.
You can be pretty confident the management doesn't impose this on themselves.
It's up to a human manager to determine if you're abusing bathroom breaks or not. Sometimes there are good reasons. A robot isn't going to give any leeway.
I worked for a couple years in a helpdesk organization where breaks were tracked. In my country you are legally entitled to 10 minutes break every hour. You can take 10x 1 minute, or 1x 10 minute, or even skip a few breaks and take a larger one. At the end of the day though, you should not have more than 90 minutes of breaks.
This was tracked through Avaya CMS and usually there was no action taken even if those breaks were exceeded, as long as the offended didn't blatantly exceed his break quota for an extended amount of days.
It depends a lot on how does the employer interpret that data. In my company, the processes and procedures are lax, there's usually no follow up unless someone really abuses breaks.
Another reason for monitoring is capacity management. You wouldn't want all your employees to go on breaks at the same time (some tend to group up when going for a smoke, that affects call flow and customers). There was a live report publicly displayed on every center using projectors, so that everyone could see whether they affect call flow or not by going in a break. Sometimes agents had a particularly nasty call and they needed to lay off the pressure by stepping away for a few minutes, and all they needed to do was ask for an exception, that was always granted. There was a guy who tried abusing that as well, so I had to talk to him for a few times and he finally got back in line.
Monitoring your behavior while at work is okay. being absurd about the data is not. Fine line between those two.
I can give you an answer, but it'll have to take less than three minutes to explain. More than three minutes gets rounded to six minutes, a billable tenth of an hour.
Most countries this is 100% legal. They can also listen in on all phone conversations work related or not. They can also place a video camera pointed at your face from 1 foot away.
Is it good for the people working there. NOPE.
Does it instil a sense of corporate loyalty. NOPE.
I've been through these call centres. I feel depressed just entering the floor. It's a cattle station with better flooring.
Get a trade, skill, education, anything and move on out.
Lots of companies force employees to track their time. Even salary employees who legally do not have to punch a clock to get paid. That's fine. It helps them for future estimates and proposals involving labor hours. It can be a very valuable tool.
However, all too often management begins to use these time tracking systems to try and shift overhead expenses to something billable to a customer. You walk in and read e-mails on billing guidance on how regular staff meetings, training, and even fire drills are billable to customers. Then another e-mail on billing guidance informs you that the normal overhead related billing is now forbidden unless given explicit authorization (that you will never get). Essentially, they are lying to themselves, that they have zero overhead when running their business. That nothing ever goes wrong and no one has to wait for anything.
But the one thing they forget is that by charging their customers for everything, they are charging them too much for services. The business is now vulnerable to any other business that can provide the same service and not charge their overhead to the customer.
I'm a manager at a call center. We track time away from calls, not because we care how long it takes you to take a smoke, or to take a crap, but for metrics. We have over 25,000 people on the phones world wide and how many minutes a call takes vs. how many workers are available for a call vs. how many workers are away from their desk (for whatever reason, we don't care) is critical to improving wait time.
As usual for the paranoia gang around here, it's not really about you. It's a big wad of data that is considered on the whole to make better business decisions.
Now back to your extended shitter break.
This. I also work in the industry. There is a massive amount of truth to what you say here, but there is some truth to the submitters fears.
I deal daily with several large call centres all over the world. Each want different things from their "Bathroom break" metrics.
1) Some outsourcer call centres' clients pay for these metrics. Usually as a summary figure on the campaign they paid for. These cleint pay big money for a campaign to be run, so they want to know everything... time waiting for a call, time on a call, time wrapping, time crapping etc etc.
2) Call centres themselves want to know about their own figures. Everyone has targets, SLAs to work to. Knowing how productive you have been is sumarised, and not focussed on individuals. Sure if 50% of the day was spend in the bathroom, you need to do something about it!
3) To use as ammo. If you have an underperformer, pain int he arse, or otherwise undesirable person you want rid of, this is good ammo. Getting rid of someone for putting "bathroom break" while actually smoking/talking/whatever is great for a falsifying records offense. Sickening but have seen done.
3 is a little tinfoil hat, but I have seen this done more than once.
In short, there is probably nothing to worry about here, its pretty normal in call centres.
Also, submitter, dude, you posted on slashdot with a reasoned question... Surely a call centre is not for you? (ignore me if I am not seeing some big picture)
When I worked in a call center, it was the reps' responsibility to hit a button on the phone so that after the call our phone would be put into a special mode, not dropped right back into the queue. This let us have enough time to document the call. After documenting the call, we were supposed to hit the button again to be dropped back into the queue to get another call.
We had to have an average of less than 30 seconds per call in this mode.
At the times of day when we weren't getting calls, I wouldn't hit the button. I'd go straight back into the queue and know with about 90% certainty that I wasn't going to get a call.
I kept track of the number of times I went straight back into the queue, and at the times when we were getting slammed the hardest, I'd use up the extra time I had saved up, and stay out of the queue for a minute or 90 seconds, until we stopped being slammed again.
I was really good at the job, and my average call time was about half of the average of most people on the floor, and for the ~6 months I was there, my lowest review was 97%.
If they're going to treat you like a small child, act like one.
Yes, yes it is, tho it may not be good for morale
You get x minutes of break time according to your contract/law. Bathroom breaks come out of that time, not the companies time.
If you ever worked on an assembly line, or a construction job site you would already know this is how it works. Office people really don't have a clue these days on what real work is it seems.
I used to work full-time in an elected position representing employee interests, so I do have a bit of expertise on the subject.
That said, I can not comment on "legal", because that is a matter of your local laws, and I only know my local laws well enough to say that.
Aside from legal, however, this is completely inacceptable. The employer does have an interest to track whether or not you are working, but when you are not working, you are spending private time, and what you do in your private time is your business.
If you are in a position to negotiate, ask what the real interest of the employer is. Almost certainly, he doesn't really care if you take a piss or bone his secretary. What he wants to know is that you are not working and probably what kind of break you are taking in the sense of an answer to the question how soon you will be back. A solution here would be to make two options of breaks, one regular and one short break, where the short break option does the employer that you'll be back shortly (duh).
Then again, he just might be a Big Brother control freak, in which case you need to get enough support from co-workers to put pressure on him and tell him that you and lots of others are not willing to accept that invasion of your private time and that either the bathroom breaks are paid time, or you will continue to book them as regular breaks and he can take you to court if he thinks he stands a chance of winning. Do consult a lawyer before telling him that last piece, though. In my country, you would almost certainly win, but your laws may vary.
Thufir's a Harkonnen now.


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Peralta shows patriotism
Tampa Bay pitcher Joel Peralta (62) faces Minnesota during the the fifth inning Sunday at Charlotte Sports Park.
Photo by Tom O'Neill
FORT MYERS — The morning after the Dominican Republic defeated the United States in the World Baseball Classic, Joel Peralta entered the Rays' clubhouse proudly donning cap with his country's colors.
He couldn't be there, but still supported his country from Port Charlotte as he prepared for the Tampa Bay season.

subset: commoncrawl


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Originally published on December 13, 2012 9:03 am
CALM is an acronym for a new law that takes effect Thursday. It stands for the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, and it means you won't have to jump for your TV remote the second commercials air. The law says the volume of commercials needs to be the same as the programs they're coming out of.


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MELROSE — Mayor Robert J. Dolan appears on his way to a bigger payday.
At a public meeting on Monday, during which residents and civic leaders packed City Hall to praise Dolan's decade-long tenure as mayor, the Melrose Board of Aldermen took a first vote to approve a $25,000 pay raise for the mayor.
If approved by a second vote of the 11-member board on Monday, Dolan's annual salary would rise to $125,000 on Jan. 1, 2014. His current salary of $99,896, which went into effect on Jan. 1, reflects a raise approved by the aldermen in 2010.
Dolan, 41, who was present at the meeting, did not address the aldermen. He is in the second year of a four-year term, and has campaigned publicly for the raise.
Sixteen residents and business owners spoke in favor of higher pay, citing Dolan's work to improve Melrose schools, youth and senior services, and the economy of this city of nearly 27,000 people.
"I don't think, by any measure, that one could conclude that Mayor Dolan has not been an effective mayor for the city of Melrose," said David Driscoll, a former state education commissioner and Melrose school superintendent. "He shows leadership. He shows creativity. . . . I am very proud to speak on behalf of Mayor Dolan, because I think he's done an excellent job."
John McLaughlin, a homeowner and businessman who sent e-mails to city residents encouraging support for the raise, said Dolan has led an "impressive community renaissance" since taking office in 2002.
"I would put an emphasis on the word 'impressive,' " said McLaughlin, a long-time political supporter of Dolan. "No other community comes close to approximating the accomplishments of our city and its leaders. Perhaps the success is taken for granted because of its regularity."
Two residents spoke in opposition of the raise, saying the city could not afford it.
"The mayor has a proven track record," said resident Devon Manchester. "I just don't feel we as citizens of Melrose can afford to once again reach into our pockets. . . . Our schools are in need of improvements. Our roads in need of repair, and our parks in need of maintenance."
Ted Kenney, a frequent critic of the Melrose School Committee, said the pay increase was too much. "He's done a lot of great things. I'm not taking that away from anyone," Kenney said. "But 25 percent? Come on."
Marianne Long, the city's director of human resources, made the formal request for the salary change, saying the job of Melrose mayor has long been underpaid.
"This order represents a solution to a human resources issue that our city has faced since Mayor Milano's administration," Long said, referring to the late James Milano, who served as mayor for 20 years, retiring in the early 1990s. "The mayor's compensation has been sporadically adjusted, but never adequately adjusted."
A survey of 30 area communities showed the average pay for a mayor or town manager is $130,000, she said. In the Middlesex League, an athletic conference Melrose competes in against communities of similar makeup, the average pay is $137,000, Long said.
If approved by a second vote of the 11-member board, Mayor Robert J. Dolan's annual salary would rise to $125,000 on Jan. 1, 2014.
She also noted that Dolan earns less than 14 city department heads, including the police chief, the fire chief, and the school superintendent.
"As HR director, and as a current resident of Melrose, I feel very strongly that we must fairly compensate our current and future mayors," Long said.
The Melrose Chamber of Commerce endorsed the pay raise, writing in a letter to the aldermen that "the position of mayor is one that is important to residents and businesses alike, and the salary needs to be commensurate with those of neighboring communities."
Most aldermen — who noted that they had received dozens of e-mails from residents supporting the pay raise — appeared to agree.
"Overwhelmingly, our constituents are supporting this," said Ward Five Alderman Gail M. Infurna. "This is not about Mayor Dolan. This is about the position, and our chief executive officer has 14 department heads earning more than he does. I'm not sure any other company would work that way."
Ward Six Alderman Peter D. Mortimer noted that early in his tenure, Dolan voluntarily cut his pay by $5,000, while the city weathered cuts in local aid. "Mayor Dolan has served Melrose for a long time," Mortimer said. "He's worked hard. He deserves the raise."
The 11-member board was sitting as the appropriations committee, which reviews all financial matters. The pay raise was approved on a voice vote, with three board members saying no.
Alderwoman at Large Jaclyn L. Bird chided Dolan for drumming up public support for the raise.
"This feels a little bit more like a campaign meeting, than a Board of Aldermen meeting," she said. "Despite the personal testimony here tonight . . . this is a not a personal issue, it is a personnel issue. . . . It is simply not the role of the Board of Aldermen to give out a 26 percent raise to an elected incumbent, who has two more years left on his term."
Ward Two Alderwoman Monica C. Medeiros urged the board to take more time to consider such a large pay increase. "I do think this is a hefty proposal," she said. "It's a salary proposal for a 25 percent raise. This is something that we should review."
Alderman at Large Donald L. Conn said he would not support the pay raise when it comes to a final vote on Monday. "I think it's too high," Conn said, addressing his comments to Dolan. "I don't think it has anything to do with you, the person, or you, the mayor. . . . Setting compensation tailored to a particular person who is very popular, I don't think is the way to do business."Kathy McCabe can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow her on Twitter: @GlobeKMcCabe.


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Video A Credit Card-Sized, Arduino-Based Game Device (Video) 33
Tim: So,Kevin what is the ARDUBOY?
Kevin: The ARDUBOY is a programmable game system, size of a credit card, you can use the Arduino language, which many people are familiar with and it's got a OLED display, capacitor touch buttons, a piezo speaker, it's powered by a coin cell battery, run for about 9 hours actually and looking to have these on sale in about couple of months on website Tindie.
Tim: Okay. What's your inspiration for making this tiny, tiny little computer?
Kevin: Actually a lot of people make – well maybe not a lot of people, few people make credit card shaped electronic devices, some people have made one that has a USB stick on, you can plug it into a computer and it emulates a keyboard and types a program into and compiles or downloads his resume from the website. So other people out there are doing really cool electronic stuff, I wanted to kind of put my version out there and people really responded to it.
Tim: I've not seen many that as yours do that actually include display at this size?
Kevin: Right, and that was one of the fun things about the project, is I wasn't sure how I wanted to kind of get my name out there, how I wanted to do the business card, but I had all these parts on my table and I had a circuit board next to the screen I was just using in another project, and I said hey, these are the same height, wouldn't it be cool if you made a cut out and then you could cut out the processor and the battery and it just became a constant battle of finding components from just the right thickness in order to make it very flush and thin design and it's been received really well, people really like it.
Tim: Could you go ahead and point out some of the components?
Kevin: Well, absolutely, so we've got the coin cell battery here which is inside of a custom kind of prototype contact and we can flip it over and see the back side, you can see that kind of snaps into there. You've got capacitive touchpad buttons, so you are actually touching the electrical contacts, the chip that's in there. This is the Atmel 328p which is the same one that's in your Arduino. It's a piezoelectric speaker there and this is the one bit OLED display, it's got 128/64 pixels, refreshes it about 30 frames per second.
Tim: So at that speed you can play games pretty nicely?
Kevin: Yeah, you can run games pretty good. The horsepower of the chip isn't all that great. We are running at 8 megahertz because of the 3-volt battery supply. So one thing to consider is games you know, if you ran it on a Gameboy or maybe an original Mac – I mean Apple, it's been a while since I've had to say Apple instead of Mac, but yeah, I mean, Oregon Trail for example would be kind of a great example. People have talked about putting, choose your own adventures, story games on there. We've got an example here. In my badge, you've got a version that's running rasterized 3D cubes, so you could write a little maze game through that. So I want to see what other people come up with, that's really my challenge is. You're going to be forced to kind of push the boundaries of your hardware or your hardware programming skills or software skills in order to maximize the performance of the device, and then in the future we get a little color screen action going on, a faster processor and here is an example of what we might be able to do in the future, with additional development, adding more components, but you can see we have to edit a large
Tim: That's the same processor?
Kevin: This is a faster processor, so again, a faster processor, bigger screen, color screen requires larger battery, so you can't do with thin device at this stage, but 10 years, 20 years, it's going to be amazing to see what we have as far as tangible objects, internet of things, getting Bluetooth, Wi-Fi on to these devices, really excited to come out with new versions with new features.
Tim: What about the software to run on this? There can't be that many games that are optimized for this size, are there?
Kevin: Actually there is a library of games already out there, I'm not the first person to make an Arduino game system. There's a device called the Hack Vision, that's actually where I got most of the source code like for example on Space Rocks here, which is a kind of a different name for a popular game and it looks like Asteroids, which is a trademarked property, that was available for the thing and all I had to do is download a source code and change the library files for my display and my button configuration and that's what's so amazing about it, is the community is millions of people strong, and there's already stuff out there, people are familiar with it. I have people at this convention coming to me all the time. Oh, 20 years ago man, I was programming on like Pong and stuff like that. I know exactly how I can do that in assembly. And so these people will be able to kind of revisit, have some nostalgia, at the same time then encouraging the learning of a new generation of people can get excited about this. And like I said, as the new versions come out, keep building that community, maybe even potentially running some contest, housing some prize money out there for people to make some really cool games.
Tim: I know you've got a vision for how to program this using hardware, can you show us the interface you've got
Kevin: Oh, yeah, so programming right now is done by actually soldering some pin connectors on here, but in the future it'll actually have female pin connectors which will come out on a surface amounted to the board, so you'll be able to have some pins or something, you'll be able to like docket into a connector, have a plug-in connector just like that, standard USB, the serial FTDI adaptor. It will sell with that as an option. You'll be able to if you have one already be able to just go ahead and get the ARDUBOY by itself and yeah, I mean that cable will also work with a whole litany of other devices, so it's getting you started and familiar with an existing ecosystem, a lot of exciting parts.
Tim: And it's the same software infrastructure you used to program in the Arduino device?
Kevin: Exactly. So you make a game for this and somebody else comes out with another Arduino software, faster processors and things like that. It's going to port. And for the most part it's an objective C language too. So you can take that and I'll try and make my code pretty clean, so you could pull it over to a PIC or a ARM processor, things like that, as long as the drivers is well enough designed, so it's not hard coded in there, your port registers, this is all going to be portable code, absolutely.
Tim: And what besides games?
Kevin: Some people said some interesting stuff, so like a password keeper, you can put in a certain button combination to get your passwords, if you add a USB port and may be a bigger processor that can handle encryption, you can do a Bitcoin wallet. It would be a really great use case. Some people said interactive fiction, you know maybe that's not quite a game but it's kind of like when people said just put your resume on it and stuff like that. I had a guy who works
Tim: I'm not sure that's totally necessary in your case.
Kevin: No, no, it's absolutely not, but I mean one of the other cool examples, a guy contacted me, he does relief work for disasters, and what he wanted to do was let's put like a survival guide on there, it can fit in your wallet, and it's got pages and pages of information on. Is it practical? No, but it's neat, it gets people's attention and one of the most exciting things about that is people ask me that, can it do this, can it do that, and invariably the answer is yes. I mean, it's a computer. The question is can we get it that small and it's just time, energy and money and I'm going to go far as down that path as I can.
Tim: Wikipedia.
Kevin: Yeah.
Tim: I wantWikipedia in my pocket.
Kevin: Wikipedia in your pocket. I mean, once you get – I mean here's an example of another, they keep teasing you with these things, but this has got a Bluetooth chip on it and this one can be programmed remotely and then can receive like notifications from your cellphone potentially. This is a high energy version, there's low energy Bluetooth, which will run on a coin cell and actually I'm already in the works of developing hardware that can be programmed, you know, coin cell Bluetooth, but that's down the line. I want to focus on getting this thing in people's hands as soon as possible, people are screaming, I mean they say we want this, we want
Tim: How soon is that?
Kevin: As soon as possible, a couple of months hopefully, as we are selling on the retail website, Tindie.com, it's a retail website for independent hardware creators to be able to sell their own equipment. And I'm going to be launching there exclusively for three months, then after that you're going to see a lot of new more exciting stuff.
Tim: I'll ask one more question.
Kevin: Sure.
Tim: Using coin cells here.
Kevin: Yes.
Tim: What is the battery life because I know they're great for a watch.
Kevin: Sure.
Tim: But my watch doesn't do anything that this does?
Kevin: No, it doesn't, but you can actually get as much as nine hours. This has been running since yesterday and actually the whole conventions are nine plus hours of battery life, people have asked me what about rechargeable battery. You can do that, you can get that coin cell battery rechargeable, but just to give you an idea, it only runs for about an hour on that, so people who want to just use it for a few minutes at a time, that might work, but for an example, I've had these as a badge or whatever.
Tim: That you can do.
Kevin: Yeah, sure the idea is that you can have it on all day, oh, it's not rotating, let's get this moving here for you. This is a 3D rasterized generator there, so the idea is kind of give you, how much could you do with a horsepower, a maze type game or something like that. But you know, getting Twitter updates from it isn't far off, maybe NFC, you could get it programmed and then hand you the – here's some more information and stuff like that, but
Tim: You ever seethe point of a smart wallet in the same way you have smartphone...
Kevin: If you guys want to see it, let me know, I mean, get out to me, bateskeycom is my Twitter handle, so you can always tweet at there, and then email@example.com; feel free to email me any time and let me know what you want to see, what you don't want to see and I'll do my best to see what I can do to make you happy.


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The Office of Sponsored Programs and Research presents a workshop on how to market ideas in hopes to secure funding.
"Pitching Your Research Ideas: A Practical Workshop on Writing the Concept Note" will illustrate how to write a concept note to help market an idea to potential funding sources when a proposal hasn't been solicited. The first of this two-session workshop will be Friday, March 7, from 10:30 a.m. to noon in room G262. The second will be by appointment on Friday, April 25, in room C3301.
Consultants Yvonne Chang and Sarah Nerenberg will facilitate. Both have experience developing proposals for government agencies, private clients, foundations and corporations. They currently support the development of proposals at nonprofits and educational institutions in Indiana and Illinois.
To RSVP, email the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research or call Jennifer Morehead at 708.235.2846. More information about this and other OSPR training and grant writing resources can be found at www.govst.edu/ospr/training.
Posted by Michael Drakulich at 02/24/2014 01:07:26 PM


text: i just bought a used car that came with a some sony hu, and i wanted to install my old pioneer, it's an mp3 player so it makes everything a lot nicer. anyway when i took out the old hu, i noticed the plug with a bunch of different wires, including the speaker wire, was different and doesn't fit into the back of my pioneer. What do i do? i didn't take out the clip from my old car and i traded it in so i don't have access to that anymore. did i just make a big mistake?


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Episode #301
series: Baking With Julia
air date: 2/14/13 6:30 AM
Martha Stewart, a magazine editor, star of her own television show and author of the popluar "Weddings" book joins Julia to bake one grand a nd glorious three-tiered wedding cake. Martha prepares the batter and bakes each layer in graduated diamond-shaped cake forms. While the cak e bakes, and then chills, Martha creates a variety of delicately reali stic and delicious marzipan fruits, right down to the little stems and leaves. She also makes and chills enough vanilla rum buttercream to i ce the entire cake.
WARNING: Email reminders for this program have already been sent out. Your reminder may not reach the intended address in time for this program's airing.
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Counterfeit Bill Shows Up at Wells Fargo
An unspecified counterfeit bill showed up at Wells Fargo Bank in Valley City Monday. Lieutenant Mark McDonald with the Valley City Police Department said the bank received just one counterfeit bill, but he wasn't sure of the amount. The VCPD forwarded the bill to the United States Secret Service for federal investigation.
McDonald said if someone does acquire a bill believed to be counterfeit, that person should turn it into a local law enforcement agency.
He said one of the main telltale signs in identifying a counterfeit bill is the blue and red fibers in the paper that appear on genuine bills.
"One of the easiest ways to identify a counterfeit bill is to compare it with a bill that you know is real," he said, adding that all bills excluding the 1 and 2 dollar bill do have water marks, or security threads, that began in 1990.
He also said that authentic bills should be crisp. "If you see a bill that doesn't have very defined edges on its printing, that instills a red flag," the lieutenant said. Also, he said, paper used in U.S. currency does have a unique feel.
According to the Secret Service's website, "The portrait on a bill appears lifelike and stands out distinctly from the background. The counterfeit portrait is usually lifeless and flat. Details merge into the background which is often too dark or mottled."
The website also explains that on a genuine bill, the saw-tooth points of the Federal Reserve and Treasury seals are clear, distinct and sharp. The counterfeit seals may have uneven, blunt or broken saw-tooth points.
Plus, the fine lines in the border of a genuine bill are clear and unbroken. On the counterfeit, the lines in the outer margin and scrollwork may be blurred and indistinct.
McDonald said, just like everywhere, technology with money is also changing, and he says that relying on counterfeit pens is often not enough.
"The realistic truth is that the pen is only reacting to the presence of starch in the paper, and I would assume the counterfeiters possibly know this, so it's not foolproof.
Beth Lang, from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Bismarck, said the maximum sentence for manufacturing or knowingly passing counterfeit money is 20 years.
McDonald said it's not common around the area for people to innocently acquire counterfeit money from retailers, for example, but if they do end up with a bill they believe to be counterfeit, they should turn it in to authorities right away.
"If they know it's counterfeit, it would be illegal for them to attempt to pass it," McDonald said.
The last time a counterfeit bill came to the VCPD was about a year ago.
"It's not a common occurrence for Valley City," McDonald said.


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Honorable Mention: Golf-PGA Tour Northern Trust Open (Thursday & Friday 3pm live on Golf Channel, Saturday & Sunday 3pm live on CBS. All golf from Pacific Palisades, CA), Champions Tour ACE Group Classic (Friday & Saturday 6:30pm, Sunday 7pm from Naples, FL live on Golf Channel), Honda LPGA Thailand (Friday 12:30pm, Saturday & Sunday 3pm from Chonburi, Thailand live on Golf Channel); High School Basketball: Parkville @ Perry Hall (Wednesday 6:30pm); Boxing: Friday Night Fights-Fernando Guerrero vs. Saul Roman (Friday 7pm from Wicomico Civic Center live on ESPN2), Fernando Montiel vs. Nonito Donaire (Friday 9:45pm from Las Vegas live on HBO)
10. Salt-N-Pepa/Naughty By Nature/MC Lyte/Kool Moe Dee/Kurtis Blow (Saturday 8pm 1st Mariner Arena); Plain White T's/Parachute (Friday 7pm Rams Head Live); Taproot (Saturday 6:30pm Bourbon Street); Vusi Mahlasela (Monday 8pm Rams Head On Stage); Slightly Stoopid (Wednesday & Thursday 6:30pm 9:30 Club), Drive-By Truckers (Friday & Saturday 8pm 9:30 Club), Los Lobos (Monday 7pm 9:30 Club); Pablo Francisco (Thursday-Sunday DC Improv); John Mellencamp (Tuesday 7pm D.A.R. Constitution Hall), Avett Brothers (Friday 8pm D.A.R. Constitution Hall); Herb Alpert (Wednesday 7:30pm Birchmere), Bacon Brothers (Saturday & Sunday 7:30pm Birchmere); Big Head Todd & The Monsters (Thursday 8pm Strathmore); Buddy Jewell (Thursday 7pm Severna Park High School)
You're not going to catch me saying a negative word about Salt, Pepa or Spindarella. They're strong.
A few weeks ago, I woke up to a video of Dave Matthews Band and Vusi Mahlasela playing "Everyday" in my Hotmail Inbox. I had never heard of Vusi Mahlasela. I immediately wanted to hear more…
John Mellencamp rules. Not much else I can say about that…
I haven't had a chance to listen much to the Avett Brothers. That's my mistake…
9. Soccer: MISL-Omaha Vipers @ Baltimore Blast (Friday 7:35pm 1st Mariner Arena), Milwaukee Wave @ Baltimore Blast (Sunday 5:05pm 1st Mariner Arena)
It's been a long time since I've included soccer on the list. So I had to reference Yahoo! Sports' Dirty Tackle blog to find out what I had missed.
Apparently Wesley Sneijder scored a nifty goal for the Netherlands in a friendly against Austria…
And some dude had his pants fall down while trying to take a picture with Lionel Messi…
8. Mixed Martial Arts: Strikeforce Challengers (Friday 11pm from Cedar Park, TX live on Showtime)
I got to see Strikeforce live for the first time this past Saturday night in New Jersey. With any luck, the smell will come out by St. Patrick's Day.
The bad news for Strikeforce is that Fedor Emelianenko-the only fighter Strikeforce had that non-MMA hardcores gave a rip about-was eliminated from their World Heavyweight Grand Prix Tournament.
The good news for Strikeforce is that on Saturday night they also officially announced the return of Gina Carano. I'd like to tell you that I think she's a good fighter. The reality is that no one knows and even fewer care…
For the record, I tried posting the "Gina Carano is back" video Strikeforce showed on Showtime Saturday night; but it wasn't up on YouTube yet. It's a lovely video. Trust me.
7. NHL: Washington Capitals @ Anaheim Ducks (Wednesday 10pm from Anaheim live on Comcast SportsNet), Washington Capitals @ San Jose Sharks (Thursday 10:30pm from San Jose live on Comcast SportsNet), Washington Capitals @ Buffalo Sabres (Sunday 12:30pm from Buffalo live on NBC), Washington Capitals @ Pittsburgh Penguins (Monday 7:30pm from Pittsburgh live on VERSUS)
I know that without Monday Night Football there might be a few more folks interested in checking out the Caps face the Pens in a Winter Classic rematch. I won't be one of them. I hate the Redskins, I hate the Steelers. So I just don't care for the hockey teams in those cities either.
BUT…if Penguins goalie Brent Johnson gets in another fight like the one he got into against the New York Islanders the other night…I'd be ALL IN…at least to watch the highlights on SportsCenter or something.
6. Women's College Basketball: Duke @ Maryland (Thursday 7:30pm Comcast Center), Maryland @ Florida State (Sunday 3pm from Tallahassee, FL live on ESPN2)
Can SOMEONE please manage to figure out a way to beat Duke?!? PLEASE?!?!?
I'll be in College Park Thursday night to check out the Terrapins women as they do the Lord's work against the Blue Devils.
Hopefully the spirit of Kristi Toliver will be alive as the Terps battle the Devils…
5. Pro Wrestling: WWE Elimination Chamber (Sunday 8pm from Oakland live on Pay-Per-View)
Yep, the Elimination Chamber is crazy. But I could show you a video of that or I could show you a picture of WWE Diva Kelly Kelly. I mean, what are we really doing here anyway???
4. College Lacrosse: Navy @ Loyola (Saturday 2pm from Ridley Athletic Complex live on AM1570 WNST); Johns Hopkins @ Towson (Saturday 12pm from Unitas Stadium live on ABC2 & ESPN3.com); Detroit @ Maryland (Saturday 1pm Byrd Stadium)
And with this, Lacrosse is now REALLY back in Charm City. Sadly, it will only kill a handful of Saturdays during MLB season for me, and there won't be NEARLY enough weeknight games to avoid baseball altogether-but at least there's an entertaining outdoor sport to watch.
This is also very awkward because I try to support all of the local teams, but they face off more in lacrosse than they do in any other sport.
So for this week I say "Let's Go BlueTigerTerpHoundsmen!!!"
3. College Basketball: Maryland @ Virginia Tech (Tuesday 8pm from Blacksburg, VA live on ACC Network-WNUV 54 in Charm City), North Carolina State @ Maryland (Sunday 5:30pm from Comcast Center live on Comcast SportsNet); James Madison @ Towson (Tuesday 7pm Towson Center); UMES @ Morgan State (Monday 9pm from Hill Field House live on ESPNU); Rider @ Loyola (Wednesday 7pm Reitz Arena); Hartford @ UMBC (Saturday 7pm RAC Arena); UMES @ Coppin State (Saturday 4pm Coppin State Physical Education Complex), Delaware State @ Coppin State (Monday 7:30pm Coppin State Physical Education Complex); ESPNU Bracketbusters: VMI @ Morgan State (Saturday 4pm Hill Field House), Loyola @ Towson (Saturday 7pm Towson Center)
Things I feel better about than Maryland's chances of making the NCAA Tournament:
-The American economy
-The Orioles getting Prince Fielder in the offseason
-Katy Perry finally saying "yes" to one of my date requests
-Seeing a new Chris Farley movie one of these days
-Steve Melewski buying me a beer when Drew Forrester and I do our show in Sarasota
-Duke football getting bowl eligible
I think you know where I'm going here.
But if they figure out a way to beat the Hokies Tuesday night…
2. NBA: All-Star Game (Sunday 8pm from Los Angeles live on TNT), All-Star Saturday Night (Saturday 8pm from Los Angeles live on TNT), T-Mobile Rookie Challenge (Friday 9pm from Los Angeles live on TNT); Washington Wizards @ Orlando Magic (Wednesday 7pm from Orlando live on Comcast SportsNet)
Nine out of ten NBA games are awful as it is, yet somehow the ASG finds a way to be even more awful than that.
I guess the dunk contest has occasionally been watchable…and is certainly the only reason any of us are familiar with names like Harold Miner or Gerald Green. And by "any of us" I mean "I went to Wikipedia and looked up to see who all won dunk contests in the past."
Seriously, why the hell don't they just put down trampolines and do the whole contest Slamball-style?!?!?
1. Auto Racing: NASCAR-Gatorade Duels (Thursday 2pm from Daytona, FL live on SPEED), Daytona 500 (Sunday 1pm from Daytona, FL live on FOX)
I wish I cared about NASCAR this week. I know this is a big deal to a handful of folks…I just don't care. At all.
I've tried watching races. I've tried going to races. I've tried hosting a NASCAR radio show with Donnie Neuenberger (seriously). I've tried starting at pictures of Danica Patrick.
None of it worked. I just don't care. It's cars racing.
It doesn't mean any of these aren't funny…
Flexing my mic muscles since 1983…
(Week of Tuesday, February 15-Monday February 21)