You seem to be a little scattered with what you're saying, but the gist seems to be "of course there will be a crash, look at all the crappy games that are coming out."
What you're failing to notice is that those "Crappy games" are selling... What we're seeing now are Once great publishing houses (Midway, etc) that have too much overhead and outstanding debt to function in the low effort - high reward shovelware market.
That's not a sign that the market is failing, it's a sign that Some publishers aren't lean enough to hack it and they're going to falter as a result.
You can crap on Activision all you want because Tony Hawk: Ride was bad. But they made $550,000,000, in FIVE DAYS by releasing Modern Warfare 2. And don't think they aren't constantly raking in the World of Warcraft dollars... Most of what Activision puts out is garbage, but as long as projects mostly cover their costs, and the company as a whole doesn't put too much money on one horse, they'll be fine.
The bottom line is, it's a recession. Every industry is seeing large declines, (the average is something like 18%) and will this kill off some poorly structured developers/ absolutely, Is it a "Crash" or does it spell the doom of console gaming? Absolutely not.
The article states that the IRS is investigating 7,000 companies who hire "independent contractors" for 40 hours a week and then expect them to be "on call" for free beyond that. They're investigating those companies because those terms mean the person is no longer an independent contractor, it's an employee.
The "use you when I need you" people in our lives NEVER make themselves available to you 24 hours a day. If they do, it's because they're being paid exorbitant amounts of money to be at your beck and call. Find me a successful plumber who is cool with you calling him at 3:00 AM because your toilet is leaking, and will come out to fix it for free since you paid him for a new sink install last week. He or She doesn't exist unless you're paying them a retainer on top of fees for services rendered.
I absolutely agree. Chris Mattern up above nailed it. Firefighters work like 48 hours a week tops and after that they're completely off the clock. People who think otherwise are wrong.
The bottom line is companies that behave this way are abusive and they're taking advantage of people. Usually it's people who are lower on the skill ladder and have entry level helpdesk jobs and they need the work experience to go anywhere else. Or it's folks who are salaried and choose to make themselves available when they're able if there's an emergency.
I did my time in a company where it was 8 hour shifts and 16 hours on call for one week out of a month and their "reward" for doing that shift was 2 hours of "off time" After your week on the phone was over.
I stuck that madness out for about a year until I could jump ship to a real company that has an IT managment staff that understands the value of support and how to explain that value to the rest of the company.
The bummer is a lot of states are "at will" employers so if you don't like working for free then you're out of a job.
If you're self employed then the bottom line is you have to put it out there on front street that you absolutely will not work for free and if they want support they will pay for it by the hour. If that means breaking down your fees into an allotted "support hours" per month with an included charge. If you haven't put that out there up front then you're stuck either supporting your problem customer for free and keeping their business, or "renewing" his or her contract at the risk of losing them as a customer when they get to the updated portion of the support coverage.
So yeah, you shouldn't be expected to work for free, but you also should have enough business savvy to tell your customers up front that they will NOT have constant instant support. Or that they will, if they pay you (and your team of people that their money will hire) for it!
But it IS "done unto them" on a regular and consistent basis in China.
the Counterfeiting industry in China pulls in 16 billion dollars a year and the government has done almost nothing about it. Now that they want to be involved in the WTO they're making some superficial efforts to "crack down" but so far it's been a pretty pitiful effort.
The real problem is, Hardware manufacturers in the US and other countries have been enablers of this behavior for almost as long as it has existed. Some of the hardware in Ipod's is made by a knock off Chinese company that stole patents from Hitachi. Most of the world allows Norinco to sell arms and ordnance to supply their military and civilian populace despite the vast majority of Norinco's products being direct copies of American and Russian designs.
These American companies can not expect China to take our complaints about their violation of Intellectual Property seriously if we continue to reap the benefits of cheap knockoff parts in our products increasing our profit margins.
You are a crazy person, not a conspiracy theorist....
There is zero chance. None. That the Department of Defense has a hand in putting violence into "popular video games"... Also, you have no actual data indicatinghat the DOD has been influencing the TV and Movie business in the way you suggest.....
Seriously... get help, that level of suspicion is not healthy.
What's next? is True Blood a CIA operation to spur the acceptance of vampires in society for the day they take over the government?
Agreed, if the dude who "got outed" filed all these complaints after the "outing" went down every single allegation is suspect. Doesn't make them false, but it does make them suspicious.
Also this article couldn't be more inflammatory if it tried. The warrant is repeating allegations made by the dude who got outed, the piracy, the hacking, the "use of two OSes to cover his tracks" And, the warrant request (which is all we have to go on) doesn't even say Linux... it just lists a prompt based Operating System... for all that cop knows it might be DOS...
everything in the text of this post after "The probably cause?" is intentionally misleading and inflammatory. there is a Laundry list beyond those minor details..
Close, but not quite. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act
Silencers are NFA (National Firearms Act) items and require an NFA Tax Stamp to purchase.
The stamp is only good for one purchase and the process to purchase the stamp involves an in depth federal background check. Once you clear the check, you pay Uncle Sam $200 for the stamp, then you go to the store and buy your Suppressor.
There's no "license" that allows you to own NFA restricted items, you must apply for each one individually and pay the neccessary extra taxes each time.
2 exceptions, if you are in a trust or corporation You do not need the authorization of local law enforcement to purchase an NFA item, and any Authorized officer of the corporation or trustee is legally allowed to possess the NFA items that are owned by the corporation or Trust.
Also, If you're a class 3 dealer you can own and sell NFA items without paying the stamp each time. You're paying for the class 3 license, and also you must demonstrate that you have "business hours" and you must keep a log book of every single gun related transaction. Also you must agree that your place of business is available to be inspected by the government at ANY time they choose for any reason. Even if your place of business is your home.
Too Long:Didn't Read version, there is no "license" that allows a private citizen to own NFA items like machine guns or silencers.... You just pass a background check, get permission from the local sheriff as part of that check, and Pay the government the $200 "sin tax" they've levied against items in the NFA.
Exactly. Most contracted on-site technicians charge a Minimum rate for even the smallest jobs.
The place we go through charges $150 per hour with a half hour minimum charge even if the fix only takes 5 minutes.
So if I were you, I'd put all of your "urgent" issues in one bucket and "bill" them individually based on time spent as if you were a contractor, start them at $75 for even the smallest 5 minute fixes and go from there.
Then take your preventative maintenance stuff and add it all together and charge that as one flat fee (since conceivably your company could call in a contractor once a month to spend all day (or a few days) doing preventative fixes and maintenance. but it'll still cost them more than you make an hour to be sure.
Just stress when you're done that you're giving them a simplified breakdown that also involves them waiting on a tech to be scheduled and having little to no recourse if that tech makes things worse or isn't skilled, the opportunity cost of Not having you, a person who is familiary with their systems, on site at the moment of a break/fix type failure puts their costs into complex accounting figures that you're not capable of coming up with without spending hours doing calculations.
Good Luck, Sounds to me like your boss might be one of the few out there who is actively trying to prove your value and get you a raise.
1. Who does Random student B shoot at? Noone, he isn't in direct danger and will have been trained to go get help instead of jumping in the middle of a gun fight.
2. Whats sort of lawsuit would Random Student B face for killing Random Student A?
You've already assumed that student B will choose to shoot student A, and that student A's wounds will be fatal. You're assuming an awful lot here. but anyway... student B would face civil and criminal charges most likely If student A were found to be a law abiding person who presented no threat to student B. And student B would deserve to face charges because he had no business running in to the middle of a gun fight as an armed civilian.
3. Students A and B are teenagers. How excitable are teenagers?
This is the most brilliant part of your post... if student A and B are teenagers they are not carrying legally. because in the united states federal law states you have to be 21 years old to carry a concealed weapon.
Also you're making the assumption that all teenagers are excitable... again you're making a lot of assumptions.
4. How does the response scale up from 1 Gunman and 2 Random Students, to 1 Gunman and 50 Random students running around with guns? Note that the majority of the students will be acting independently, but multiple students acting together has been a tactic used in a previous school shooting.
More assumptions, You're assuming the students are "running around with guns" instead of just going about their business as normal, as hundreds of thousands of legally carrying Americans do every day.
you're also assuming that the students will not be communicating with eachother as they are trained to do in their carry classes.
5. What does law enforcement do when confronted with this situation? (Hint: See question 2)
Hint: question two was bogus just like this one. Law enforcement does what they always do when confronted with an armed suspect, they give directions to the armed people and only shoot if necessary... this is not a video game, cops don't mow people down just because they're carrying a gun.
6. Given studies have shown that even trained soldiers can have trouble firing at living humans, why should non-military trained civilians suddenly be able to throw aside all qualms about doing so? Or should first person shooter games be required study when getting a gun license?
being a trained soldier ordered to attack another human is completely different than being a trained civilian making a personal decision to defend your own life by shooting someone who is a threat to you.
Also I'm not sure what first person shooter games have to do with this at all and comments like this make it difficult to take you seriously.
7. Assuming that all people now carry guns to protect against rare forms of crime (i.e. school shootings), how will turning all civilians into people with no qualms about killing change society? In your reply compare/contrast shootings with other more common forms of anti social behavior such as "road rage'.
Defending ones self and making the decision to kill someone who you feel is going to kill you does NOT mean you have "no qualms about killing". It means you've made the decision to protect your own life using whatever means necessary...
your question is equating a self defense shooting with "anti-social" behavior... protecting your own life has nothing to do with being antisocial, it has everything to do with our basic instinct to stay alive.
In summary, all your questions are biased and slanted and I highly doubt you'll accept any of the answers I've given because the nature of the question precludes any answer that isn't "anti-Gun" and the tone of your questions are very near rhetorical.
The bottom line, however, is the shelf life on a zylon vest being used by a person who sweats is incredibly low (life span warranty of 30 months?) and police departments simply do not have the budget to cycle their vests that often.
Zylon is an inferior choice for body armor, and is not to be trusted in current applications.
Which is why it was de-certified. Toyobo (the company that makes zylon ) has produced data on it's own that says the conditions zylon is subjected to on a daily basis during wear by an officer are enough to reduce the lifespan and effectiveness of a vest containing zylon. When the company that MAKES zylon is basically saying "Don't use zylon as part of a garment exposed to heat and moisture" that should tell you something.
and it's very much NOT a travesty, these vests being out of circulation and replaced by kevlar is saving lives.
what Second Chance did wrong was put their money on the wrong pony, they don't deserve to continue hawking inferior wares simply because they are an "American manufacturer".
Slashdot Mirror
You seem to be a little scattered with what you're saying, but the gist seems to be "of course there will be a crash, look at all the crappy games that are coming out."
What you're failing to notice is that those "Crappy games" are selling... What we're seeing now are Once great publishing houses (Midway, etc) that have too much overhead and outstanding debt to function in the low effort - high reward shovelware market.
That's not a sign that the market is failing, it's a sign that Some publishers aren't lean enough to hack it and they're going to falter as a result.
You can crap on Activision all you want because Tony Hawk: Ride was bad. But they made $550,000,000, in FIVE DAYS by releasing Modern Warfare 2. And don't think they aren't constantly raking in the World of Warcraft dollars... Most of what Activision puts out is garbage, but as long as projects mostly cover their costs, and the company as a whole doesn't put too much money on one horse, they'll be fine.
The bottom line is, it's a recession. Every industry is seeing large declines, (the average is something like 18%) and will this kill off some poorly structured developers/ absolutely, Is it a "Crash" or does it spell the doom of console gaming? Absolutely not.
Even if developers die, the Platforms will go on.
The article states that the IRS is investigating 7,000 companies who hire "independent contractors" for 40 hours a week and then expect them to be "on call" for free beyond that. They're investigating those companies because those terms mean the person is no longer an independent contractor, it's an employee.
The "use you when I need you" people in our lives NEVER make themselves available to you 24 hours a day. If they do, it's because they're being paid exorbitant amounts of money to be at your beck and call. Find me a successful plumber who is cool with you calling him at 3:00 AM because your toilet is leaking, and will come out to fix it for free since you paid him for a new sink install last week. He or She doesn't exist unless you're paying them a retainer on top of fees for services rendered.
I absolutely agree. Chris Mattern up above nailed it. Firefighters work like 48 hours a week tops and after that they're completely off the clock. People who think otherwise are wrong.
The bottom line is companies that behave this way are abusive and they're taking advantage of people. Usually it's people who are lower on the skill ladder and have entry level helpdesk jobs and they need the work experience to go anywhere else. Or it's folks who are salaried and choose to make themselves available when they're able if there's an emergency.
I did my time in a company where it was 8 hour shifts and 16 hours on call for one week out of a month and their "reward" for doing that shift was 2 hours of "off time" After your week on the phone was over.
I stuck that madness out for about a year until I could jump ship to a real company that has an IT managment staff that understands the value of support and how to explain that value to the rest of the company.
The bummer is a lot of states are "at will" employers so if you don't like working for free then you're out of a job.
If you're self employed then the bottom line is you have to put it out there on front street that you absolutely will not work for free and if they want support they will pay for it by the hour. If that means breaking down your fees into an allotted "support hours" per month with an included charge.
If you haven't put that out there up front then you're stuck either supporting your problem customer for free and keeping their business, or "renewing" his or her contract at the risk of losing them as a customer when they get to the updated portion of the support coverage.
So yeah, you shouldn't be expected to work for free, but you also should have enough business savvy to tell your customers up front that they will NOT have constant instant support. Or that they will, if they pay you (and your team of people that their money will hire) for it!
But it IS "done unto them" on a regular and consistent basis in China.
the Counterfeiting industry in China pulls in 16 billion dollars a year and the government has done almost nothing about it. Now that they want to be involved in the WTO they're making some superficial efforts to "crack down" but so far it's been a pretty pitiful effort.
The real problem is, Hardware manufacturers in the US and other countries have been enablers of this behavior for almost as long as it has existed. Some of the hardware in Ipod's is made by a knock off Chinese company that stole patents from Hitachi. Most of the world allows Norinco to sell arms and ordnance to supply their military and civilian populace despite the vast majority of Norinco's products being direct copies of American and Russian designs.
These American companies can not expect China to take our complaints about their violation of Intellectual Property seriously if we continue to reap the benefits of cheap knockoff parts in our products increasing our profit margins.
You are a crazy person, not a conspiracy theorist....
There is zero chance. None. That the Department of Defense has a hand in putting violence into "popular video games"... Also, you have no actual data indicatinghat the DOD has been influencing the TV and Movie business in the way you suggest.....
Seriously... get help, that level of suspicion is not healthy.
What's next? is True Blood a CIA operation to spur the acceptance of vampires in society for the day they take over the government?
Agreed, if the dude who "got outed" filed all these complaints after the "outing" went down every single allegation is suspect. Doesn't make them false, but it does make them suspicious.
Also this article couldn't be more inflammatory if it tried. The warrant is repeating allegations made by the dude who got outed, the piracy, the hacking, the "use of two OSes to cover his tracks"
And, the warrant request (which is all we have to go on) doesn't even say Linux... it just lists a prompt based Operating System... for all that cop knows it might be DOS...
everything in the text of this post after "The probably cause?" is intentionally misleading and inflammatory. there is a Laundry list beyond those minor details..
Close, but not quite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act
Silencers are NFA (National Firearms Act) items and require an NFA Tax Stamp to purchase.
The stamp is only good for one purchase and the process to purchase the stamp involves an in depth federal background check. Once you clear the check, you pay Uncle Sam $200 for the stamp, then you go to the store and buy your Suppressor.
There's no "license" that allows you to own NFA restricted items, you must apply for each one individually and pay the neccessary extra taxes each time.
2 exceptions, if you are in a trust or corporation You do not need the authorization of local law enforcement to purchase an NFA item, and any Authorized officer of the corporation or trustee is legally allowed to possess the NFA items that are owned by the corporation or Trust.
Also, If you're a class 3 dealer you can own and sell NFA items without paying the stamp each time. You're paying for the class 3 license, and also you must demonstrate that you have "business hours" and you must keep a log book of every single gun related transaction. Also you must agree that your place of business is available to be inspected by the government at ANY time they choose for any reason. Even if your place of business is your home.
Too Long:Didn't Read version, there is no "license" that allows a private citizen to own NFA items like machine guns or silencers.... You just pass a background check, get permission from the local sheriff as part of that check, and Pay the government the $200 "sin tax" they've levied against items in the NFA.
Exactly. Most contracted on-site technicians charge a Minimum rate for even the smallest jobs. The place we go through charges $150 per hour with a half hour minimum charge even if the fix only takes 5 minutes. So if I were you, I'd put all of your "urgent" issues in one bucket and "bill" them individually based on time spent as if you were a contractor, start them at $75 for even the smallest 5 minute fixes and go from there. Then take your preventative maintenance stuff and add it all together and charge that as one flat fee (since conceivably your company could call in a contractor once a month to spend all day (or a few days) doing preventative fixes and maintenance. but it'll still cost them more than you make an hour to be sure. Just stress when you're done that you're giving them a simplified breakdown that also involves them waiting on a tech to be scheduled and having little to no recourse if that tech makes things worse or isn't skilled, the opportunity cost of Not having you, a person who is familiary with their systems, on site at the moment of a break/fix type failure puts their costs into complex accounting figures that you're not capable of coming up with without spending hours doing calculations. Good Luck, Sounds to me like your boss might be one of the few out there who is actively trying to prove your value and get you a raise.
1. Who does Random student B shoot at?
Noone, he isn't in direct danger and will have been trained to go get help instead of jumping in the middle of a gun fight.
2. Whats sort of lawsuit would Random Student B face for killing Random Student A?
You've already assumed that student B will choose to shoot student A, and that student A's wounds will be fatal. You're assuming an awful lot here. but anyway... student B would face civil and criminal charges most likely If student A were found to be a law abiding person who presented no threat to student B. And student B would deserve to face charges because he had no business running in to the middle of a gun fight as an armed civilian.
3. Students A and B are teenagers. How excitable are teenagers?
This is the most brilliant part of your post... if student A and B are teenagers they are not carrying legally. because in the united states federal law states you have to be 21 years old to carry a concealed weapon.
Also you're making the assumption that all teenagers are excitable... again you're making a lot of assumptions.
4. How does the response scale up from 1 Gunman and 2 Random Students, to 1 Gunman and 50 Random students running around with guns? Note that the majority of the students will be acting independently, but multiple students acting together has been a tactic used in a previous school shooting.
More assumptions, You're assuming the students are "running around with guns" instead of just going about their business as normal, as hundreds of thousands of legally carrying Americans do every day.
you're also assuming that the students will not be communicating with eachother as they are trained to do in their carry classes.
5. What does law enforcement do when confronted with this situation? (Hint: See question 2)
Hint: question two was bogus just like this one.
Law enforcement does what they always do when confronted with an armed suspect, they give directions to the armed people and only shoot if necessary... this is not a video game, cops don't mow people down just because they're carrying a gun.
6. Given studies have shown that even trained soldiers can have trouble firing at living humans, why should non-military trained civilians suddenly be able to throw aside all qualms about doing so? Or should first person shooter games be required study when getting a gun license?
being a trained soldier ordered to attack another human is completely different than being a trained civilian making a personal decision to defend your own life by shooting someone who is a threat to you.
Also I'm not sure what first person shooter games have to do with this at all and comments like this make it difficult to take you seriously.
7. Assuming that all people now carry guns to protect against rare forms of crime (i.e. school shootings), how will turning all civilians into people with no qualms about killing change society? In your reply compare/contrast shootings with other more common forms of anti social behavior such as "road rage'.
Defending ones self and making the decision to kill someone who you feel is going to kill you does NOT mean you have "no qualms about killing". It means you've made the decision to protect your own life using whatever means necessary...
your question is equating a self defense shooting with "anti-social" behavior... protecting your own life has nothing to do with being antisocial, it has everything to do with our basic instinct to stay alive.
In summary, all your questions are biased and slanted and I highly doubt you'll accept any of the answers I've given because the nature of the question precludes any answer that isn't "anti-Gun" and the tone of your questions are very near rhetorical.
The bottom line, however, is the shelf life on a zylon vest being used by a person who sweats is incredibly low (life span warranty of 30 months?) and police departments simply do not have the budget to cycle their vests that often. Zylon is an inferior choice for body armor, and is not to be trusted in current applications. Which is why it was de-certified. Toyobo (the company that makes zylon ) has produced data on it's own that says the conditions zylon is subjected to on a daily basis during wear by an officer are enough to reduce the lifespan and effectiveness of a vest containing zylon. When the company that MAKES zylon is basically saying "Don't use zylon as part of a garment exposed to heat and moisture" that should tell you something. and it's very much NOT a travesty, these vests being out of circulation and replaced by kevlar is saving lives. what Second Chance did wrong was put their money on the wrong pony, they don't deserve to continue hawking inferior wares simply because they are an "American manufacturer".