Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

September 19, 2013, 10:23 am

I enjoyed fragments, but they were far between. The characters were low res and the plot left me bored. Also, suspension of belief failed me. The raft surviving intact more than a week? I don't think so.

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Customer Support

September 3, 2013, 3:03 am

May Ann : Hi Tom, how may I help you?
Tom : Hi May,
Tom : I am having trouble signing up for a telstra business account
Tom : getting the following error on the business address online form:
May Ann : Oh I am sorry to hear that Tom.
Tom : "Unfortunately we can't validate this information. Please check your details and try again"
Tom : Not sure which field in the address the form doesn't like
May Ann : NO worries I will connect you to our Business MY Account Team to help you with this. Would that be okay?
Tom : Sure
May Ann : Please stay on chat whilst I connect you to them.
Tom : thanks
May Ann : I may appear signed out, but please wait until my colleague grabs our chat
May Ann has disconnected. : We are currently transferring your chat to another consultant who will be able to assist you with your enquiry. Please stay online while the new consultant joins.
Tom : ok
Christine has joined.

Tom : Hi Christine
Christine : Hi Tom, a lovely Tuesday afternoon to you.
Christine : I understand that you are unable to lgoin to your Business my account.
Christine : *login
Tom : unable to signup
Tom : I get to the Business address page
Tom : and get the following error:
Tom : "Unfortunately we can't validate this information. Please check your details and try again"
Tom : Not sure which bit of the address is causing the issue
Christine : Nothing to worry, let me assist you to register :)
Tom : ok
Christine : May I have the phone number in question please?
Tom : Not signing up for a phone ... just trying to register a business account so I can purchase a 4G USB
Tom : So I don't have a phone number for the account
Tom : because it doesn't exist yet ;)
Christine : Do you mean you don't have yet any telstra service?
Tom : Not for this business no ... that is why I am trying to signup
Christine : Oh that's it, you can register to my account if you have an existing service.
Christine : That requires an account number.
Tom : Nope ... Don't want to associate it with an existing account ... Just imagine. I have a business and I would like to buy something from Telstra (in this case a USB 4G thing). Hit the buy button and it asks to you sign up ..
Tom : this is what I am trying to do
Tom : The signup forms haven't asked me for an account number
Tom : which makes sense
Christine : No worries, that's okay, kindly stay on the line.
Christine : Sorry for the inconvenience.
Christine : I would love to have you assisted on this but it would be best if I connect this session to a colleague from the business general team to have you guided best on this.
Tom : no problem ... I'm sure we will get there eventually ;)
Tom : ok ... thanks
Christine : Yes, it just happened that the previous consultant thought that you are registering to my account, for you to view your usage and bills.
Christine : I understand that you would like to purchase online.
Tom : No idea why they thought that
Christine : To further assist you with this enquiry, I will refer you to one of my colleagues from business general team.
Christine : Let me just put a quick note on my end so you need not repeat yourself when I connect you.
Tom : great
Christine : I'll connnect you now.
Tom : just FYI .. this is the first thing I said to the first responder "I am having trouble signing up for a telstra business account"
Christine has disconnected.

We are currently transferring your chat to another consultant who will be able to assist you with your enquiry. Please stay online while the new consultant joins.
Meagan has joined.
Tom : Hi Meagan :)
Meagan : Hi Tom!
Meagan : I am just having a quick read thorough the chat you had previously
Tom : Cheers

Meagan has disconnected.
Tom has disconnected.

O_o

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Last Orders - Graham Swift

August 22, 2013, 10:22 pm

Well written, real characters. I was a little relieved when it was over.

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It's Cold

August 20, 2013, 11:39 am

Apparently there is snow falling in the Australian alps which doesn't improve how I feel about how goddamn cold it suddenly got. Obviously, I need some code to heat up my laptop.

# some code to heat up my freaking lap from cmath import exp, pi import random # thanks http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Fast_Fourier_transform for the FFT code def fft(x): N = len(x) if N <= 1: return x even = fft(x[0::2]) odd = fft(x[1::2]) return [even[k] + exp(-2j*pi*k/N)*odd[k] for k in xrange(N/2)] + \ [even[k] - exp(-2j*pi*k/N)*odd[k] for k in xrange(N/2)] while (True): print fft([random.random (), random.random (), random.random (), random.random (), random.random (), random.random (), random.random (), random.random ()])

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The Broken Bridge - Philip Pullman

August 9, 2013, 3:03 am

Didn't live up to the unreasonable expectations set by 'His Dark Materials', but enjoyable nevertheless.

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