Job Scam - Employment scam through Monster - privacy

Here is a letter that I received from a recruiter.

Good morning

We are sending you this email because we reviewed the résumé you sent posted on Monster.    We have commercial sales openings at our City location, which seems like a good fit with your skill set. There is training provided, we are also looking at fast tracking individuals into Leadership roles. My Manager would like to schedule a time to  meet with you in his office for an interview this Wednesday to discuss the position details.

Please let me know what time:

Weekday, Month 34^th  : 8:00AM or  3:30PM

will work for you. I am available until 4 pm today, please try and get back to me before then. I will send over the full address and directions upon your reply.

-It should also be noted that a successful applicant would need to be available to start work within 1-2 weeks.

All the best,

Joe Slick Sleaze

Centralized Recruiting

Recruiting Specialist

I believe it is a scam :

• Commission only
• No phone or computer provided
• No compensation for fuel costs

 Other recruitment e-mail:

 

Hi Witdim, 

Thank you for applying( WAIT! I never applied !?!?!) to our full-time opening that we have available with Telecom Canaduh! We came across your resume and felt you may be a great fit for the Customer Service/ Sales role. We have taken your previous skills and experience into consideration and we're interested in learning how you may be an asset to the companies long term goals and expansion plans.  

This is an immediate entry level opportunity with the potential of developing into a management role. The selected candidate must be available Monday – Friday from the hours of 7:00 am to 8:30 pm.

We will be conducting interviews with qualified candidates at our new downtown location. We would like to invite you in to discuss the opportunity in more detail with one of our hiring managers on April 19th, 2015 at 9:20 am or at 10:00 am. 

Please confirm which time works best for your schedule. If these times do not work for you let us know how we can accommodate you better. 

We're looking forward to hearing from you soon!

 

Regards,

Game Testers : bugs/design flaws to pick up - Dragon Age Inquisition

For the most part, I play video games for the stories. In particular to BioWare titles, there is a lot more than the storyline. I enjoy the dialogues, relationships, humour, artwork, social commentary or the reflections upon society's challenges regarding politics, sexism, sexuality, treatment of minorities, fear of death, etc. However, it doesn't mean that details, which make the difference between a good and a poor product, can be ignored.

Here are some of the obvious flaws with Dragon Age Inquisition that the developer should have corrected before launch:

Dialogues

1. After an intimate or antagonistic conversation, the inquisitor and the party member do not change tone or script to say "Speak with you later". There are no grudges, threats to leave, repeated romantic encounters, ( it was good last time, let's try again...) etc.
2. Matching characters in the party with diametrically opposing views doesn't initiate the banter. Having party members fight, with respective cut scenes, would be nice. Why not even have party members telling you that they would like work with another companion?
3. Environments or battles with party members who have a history or link with the enemy should trigger more dialogue. 
4. Newly acquired weapons, armor or accessories, could prompt character to say,"That would suit me really well" old inventory suggestions such as "I am using something much better, let's scrap this" etc. 
5. Intimate relationships between NPC characters or companions. They are human/elf/dwarf/Qunari after all. 
6. My party sometimes consisted of no humans, or males, whatsoever. No talk about the particular nature of the group. 

Race
What I found interesting with the first Dragon Age was the Chantry. The institution presented an alternative to the male dominated religious institutions that we know today. In DA:I, there was a strange twist that is a clear projection of our world : a female religious leader of African origin.
Oddly enough, there were few Black, Asian, Polynesian, Maya, Inca, Aztech or Middle-Eastern looking characters in the elves, dwarfs or humans. I know it isn't any more difficult to make such models. Perhaps it is just easier to make them

Game play

1. The Jump/Take/Climb/Talk button. The main button is right there, placed for the right thumb to hit whenever convenient, however it has been rather frustrating. A conversation starts with the Inquisitor not even facing the NPC; the Inquisitor in the middle of a jump facing the NPC - almost like a marionette. In combat, the main "A" button has been even more frustrating, when I find myself looting a corpse rather than jumping out of the way of an attacking the enemy. 

Graphics and animation

1. Interference - when building models, padding can be added to prevent other objects to intercept or cut through. When visiting the Winter Palace, I was upset to see the lovely hands cut through the wonderful dresses of the ball's guests. 
   
2. Hair. Need I say more? ( Lara Croft from Tomb Raider 2013 vs DA:I - something somewhere went terribly wrong.)

AMD Mantle, although being replaced with DirectX 12, makes a huge difference my gaming performance in Dragon Age Inquisiton

I thought my system was good enough. In reality it was, but I wanted the graphics to be that much clearer. This article on Cinemablend prompted me to upgrade my video card. Okay, upgrade from using the 7660D iGPU to a discrete R9 290X.

Using the in-game benchmark, I found the following difference in performance between Mantle and DirectX 11. All the settings were "Ultra" with the exception of Tessellation and Post Processing which were set to "High". Please note that I did not average the lowest number of frames per second. The lowest number shows the worst case scenario for system performance.

Mantle
Test	1	2	3	Average
Minimum	51.3	43.2	47.4
Average	56.1	55.2	55.4	55.6
DirectX 11
Test	1	2	3	Average
Minimum	14.2	14.7	17.4
Average	38.4	38	35.9	37.4

I am under the impression that I have little to gain in getting a new motherboard and CPU. A few FPS would just be bragging rights when the game is already very playable. This example of frequency scaling suggest that I could further overclock my system, however, I want to avoid stressing my 500W power supply. I am probably already drawing close to 400W !

Looking at the modest improvements that I would have using a Intel i7-4770k, make me think I made a good decision with my 120$ APU back in 2012. In the end, I can attest that Mantle does make a CPU last a lot longer with one of the most demanding titles around.

System Components:

Windows 8.1

A10-5800k@4.6GHz (AMD) CPU

R9-290X (Powercolor) GPU

8GB DDR3 2133 (G.Skill) RAM

5900RPM 1.5TB (Western Digital) HDD


1920x1080  60Hz (LG) Monitor

Black box around image and blurry text on HDMI - Fix

I am not sure why, but there is a default setting when I connect my PC to and HDMI TV or monitor. I would get something like this :

It was somewhat frustrating not knowing why my new screen doesn't look as amazing as I would like it to. Actually, I just wanted text to look crisp on a big screen.

Going into the settings panel, I found this :
AMD Catalyst Control Center -> My Digital Flat-Panels-> Scaling Options:

The correction is setting the underscan to 0%. Move the slider all the way to the right to the 0%.

( I don't know why it is labeled "Overscan". )

Raptr - Replay and Record Disabled - fix to re-enable recording/DVR features

I had been using Raptr for some time. After one update, the recording features were lost. I was wondering if there was something up with only enabling on video cards which are on the highest tier to prevent losses of performance. Doing so would make Raptr appear to have less an impact on the performance of your PC.

It was not the case. A bug in the update caused the previous settings of Raptr to misread the configuration file.

Solution #1 : Correct the configuration file "raptr.cfg" - It is found in %appdata%\Raptr
Change the line
'gamedvr_use_software_encoder = false'
to
'gamedvr_use_software_encoder = true'

Solution #2 : Delete the configuration file "raptr.cfg" -  It is found in %appdata%\Raptr
You will have to log in again to restore your account settings.

Enjoy:

Higher octane fuel (91, 92) caused my engine to hesitate and have poor fuel economy

For some time, I have had a P0460 Check Engine light on my dash. It was first noted that it took a few seconds for my telemetry to register the engine temperature as well as the fuel level.
The P0460 code referred to the Fuel Level Sensor. Based on some research from online forums, it was due to the pump level sensor sticking, so I tried a number of different fuel injection cleaners and lastly this 91 octane fuel.

My engine was designed to operate with 87 octane fuel. Using a higher octane fuel had the following consequences :

• Hesitation in cold weather - this was not only worrying for the state of the engine but also the transmission, At higher RPM, there would be an occasional hesitation. If the automatic transmission is changing gears and there is a hesitation, it may have damaged the transmission. 
• Poor fuel economy - this was evident seeing the amount of fuel consumed for the few kilometers that I had driven - I only got about 10km/L where as I usually would get between 13 and 16km/L
• Contamination of my catalytic converter - Higher octane means reduced knocking for engines running at higher pressures and temperatures. The result in an engine designed to operate at 87octane means unburnt fuel being sent through the manifold and contaminating the catalytic converter. This also means the exhaust contained volatile organic compounds being sent into the atmosphere.

Bottom line : higher octane fuel did not resolve my check engine light code P0460 fuel level circuit. The higher octane fuel made my vehicle run poorly.

New iPhone exactly the same as the previous version but has different specs

An orderly queue of Apple fans are outside the store eagerly waiting to get their hands on the new iPhone. While all of them are aware that the new phone is pretty much the same as the older incarnation, there is something to brag about : I frivolously spent hundreds of dollars on a piece of technology - one for which you were not daring enough to consider putting yourself in debt.