Sprint, um, advances ... or something ... the science of service

Oh yeah ... I've been meaning to mention that Sprint has a new bill-payment scheme in their stores that replaces the customer service desk.  It's a bank of three ATM-like machines.

( Clicky )

But they sure look all modern and spiffy, standing there all in a bright shiny row.

Offshoring the Economy

A sobering article in Fast Company magazine says that as many as 14 million jobs in the US could be offshored.  It's not just IT any more.  It's accountants, customer service reps, medical transcriptionists.

"More than just outsourcing IT or anyone's job, we're outsourcing the American middle class," says Bronstein.

I find myself increasingly thinking it's time to abandon both this career and this country, and find some other way to make a living, somewhere else.  I just don't know what.  I still don't know if I could handle the schooling to become a pharmacist.  I'm seriously considering retail; I'm told Home Despot pays $16 an hour.  Our friends wolfspaw and stoda already abandoned IT to become massage therapists.  And frankly, I seriously think that the US economy is going to crash as a result of offshoring -- the ultimate manifestation of the shortsighted Wall Street quest for short-term profit.

A partial list of Fast Company's "at risk" jobs:

• Extreme risk:  Accountant, industrial engineer, production control specialist, quality assurance engineer, helpdesk specialist, telemarketer
• High or moderate risk:  Automotive engineer, computer systems analyst, database administrator, software developer, customer-service representative, CAD technician, paralegal/legal assistant, medical transcriptionist, copy editor, journalist, film editor, insurance agent, lab technician, human resources specialist
• Low risk:  Aircraft mechanic, artist, carpenter, civil engineer, headhunter, interior designer

We're not just offshoring jobs:  We're offshoring our economy.

Wrap that w..... er, patch that machine

For those who haven't seen, the latest Microsoft vulnerabilities have just been disclosed: four updates covering 20 vulnerabilities, 16 of them remotely exploitable, 8 of them rated "Critical" severity, most of them affecting ALL versions of Windows, most of them allowing a skilled hacker to take complete control of the system.

I note that the Outlook Express vulnerability patch goes by Outlook version ..... Hey, Microsoft, I've got a much better idea. How about just letting me REMOVE the festering piece of shit?

Oh yeah.  Don't expect to successfully download these any time soon.  Windows Update is being hammered.

(Thanks to echristo for calling this to my attention.)