If they're behind, and they try to charge, nobody will use them.
According to the articles linked to from the story, the stuff on their site and the emails are intentionally behind. Right now, only the government gets immediate notification of security concerns. The information is then delayed atleast 45 days before it is released elsewhere.
Perhaps they're at risk of loosing their Federal funding and want to sell the service they've been exclusively selling to the government to the public.
Also, I have never gotten a CERT advisory that didn't say how to fix the problem. Perhaps this earlier notification will simply be that there is a problem... solution to follow.
I think the failure of Banner Ads has more to do with large services like Doubleclick than it has to do with the nature of the medium itself.
Advertisers are moving away from banner ads because they're not getting results they were promised and they don't understand it well enough to make their own arrangements. Services like doubleclick promised to make it easy for both advertisers and the sites by taking care of everything. That was fine when advertisers simply wanted to advertise on this 'Internet' thing.
Now advertisers are questioning the results and the industry's answer is "We can make the ads bigger." Advertisers don't need bigger ads, they need ads that actually reach their target audience. Some advertisers, like the ones on Slashdot, are seeking out sites with a niche audience that matches their target. This works for some products, but not others. What advertisers need are demographics, and traffic, to target.
Perhaps something like 'Neilson ratings' will come along for the Internet. In exchange for a few dollars, you download a program that gets some census type info from you and watches your browsing habits for a couple of weeks. These statistics are then anonymously correlated and then advertisers know things like site popularity by demographic group and they can target their ads accordingly.
I think it's odd that they make no mention of affiliate programs. It's been my impression that this model still has some life in it and isn't nearly as annoying as banners. Typically the links are much smaller than banners and they pay more, but the payment is usually tied to more than just a click (like actually buying something.) Amazon probably has the most successful of the programs, but there are hundreds of others.
There's no way I'm going to sit through a 20-second commercial 5-6 times a day.
Hopefully they'll have the brains to not require this. It would be simple enough to tie advertising to a time-span of site viewing using a cookie. You view one complete ad and your good for the day.
Then we'd be stuck with low budget tripe like Kids in the Hall, or SCTV instead of quality TV like Survivor, or Survivor 2.
Funny you mention that. Shows like Survivor and the huge rash of 'reality' TV shows are a result of less advertising revenue from commercials thanks to sinking network ratings brought about by cable.
Give it another 10 years and the new hit on NBC will be "Wayne's World: The Series". Of course, they won't be able to afford Mike Myers or Dana Carvey. It'll just be two guys locked in a basement with a camera.
I own a TiVo and regularly fast-forward through commercials. Is it a right? Not really. It's just a convenient convergence of necessary features (the ability to record and fast-forward).
If the content providers could prevent people from fast-forwarding through commercials, they'd be within their rights. As would I to choose to no longer watch that network. It would be a real shame if people watched less TV.
What exactly were those construction workers thinking?
I was wondering about this as well. It's not like people put power outlets inside walls either. Sure, network cables get shoved through walls all the time, so I can see ignoring it while putting up sheetrock, but a power cord?
Good point. Having a victim to testify against the person who *took* the picture, for that crime, is a good idea.
However, I believe possession and distribution are also crimes. These criminals may not even know who the kid is, or if the photo is real or not. In these cases, it is important to follow intent. As long as it is a crime to possess or distribute kiddie porn, it doesn't matter if the material is real or fake. What matters is that it is intended to pass as real.
Freedom of speech only goes so far. You cannot shout 'Fire' in a crowded theater, because people might get hurt. Likewise, you cannot fake kiddie porn and claim it's acceptible if for no other reason than it will create a market for less technical perverts to pass their real kiddie porn as fake, because kids will get hurt.
When ISP service becomes a legal right instead of a luxury service, I think it's safe to say that the Internet has taken its place as a fundamental part of life in society.
Ahhh... but at what cost? Everything in life, down to the basic elements of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water are regulated by goverments both local and national.
If the government now sees Internet access as a right, God help us. You see, each government, from the smallest local one, to the U.N. believe they are legislating to the benefit of their constituents, but clearly they don't all share the same ideology. It will be impossible for businesses to comply with (or probably even be aware of) every regulation at every level of government in every place where they do business (thanks to the Internet.)
Remember the story of Yahoo vs France over Nazi memorabilia. That's not even the tip of the iceberg. It's just a slight dip in the water temperature caused by a giant iceberg over the horizon.
Never be happy that the government thinks something is fundamental or important. Nothing good can come of it.
They'd better all do it. I don't know of any laws that supercede what's written on the money:
"This Note Is Legal Tender For All Debts Public And Private."
IANAL, but I suspect you cannot refuse someone's business simply because they wish to pay in cash.
Regarding car rentals, they won't rent to you, typically, unless you have a credit card that they can authorize a charge against. When the time comes to actually pay, you can pay in cash. The keyword here, is rental. They are loaning you something at a cost significantly below its worth. This is not a purchase, so they can require you be credit worthy before they loan you something (i.e., their car.)
Sometimes - but not all sites offer the same price to all customers.
Ummm... If you can figure out what price to put into the form, you can figure it out again after they tell you how much they want.
If the preexisting process is based on a paper quote, it may take non-zero work to avoid embedding any quotation information in the quotation into browser session state (cookies/URL fields/whatever).
I agree that if someone is taking a paper quote and trying to then order it online (expecting the quoted price) you've got a real problem. This is, however, a business issue, not a software one. I'd suggest that this process would have to require the eMerchant manually verify the price against the quote before filling the order.
As to tracking the session, the only safe way to do this is server-side. Anything else can be compromised by someone with a clue. Any cart software worth using will track everything about the session on the server side giving the browser a unique session Id to follow along with.
The only variables that should be left up to the client are what item(s) they want, the QTY they want, how they're paying, and where it's going. Everything else should be calculated and stored server-side.
As for inflammatory--you may well be inflamed by the response, but that's a feature, not a bug. We (the readers) are pretty tired of unexplained (even unremarked on) outages and we are starting to ask WTF is going on. Can you blame us?
To add to what the parent poster is saying, as I'm sure you guys know, many of your readers are experienced IT people and are asking what happened for a variety of reasons, like:
We care about the site.
We're curious about what issues large sites face in maintenance.
We might be able to help.
Sure, some people might complain to complain, but that's almostly always in response to total silence and blank stares they've received from earlier queries.
Experience IT people know that it is merely a question on when servers will fail, not if. As such, we're pretty understanding about them, in general. It is far more embarassing to say nothing or to obfuscate about an issue than it is to simply say what happened.
When/. is down, most of us can tell right away whether the outage is really/. or something in between. If we hear nothing to explain it, we're not going to assume it was our ISP, the backbone, or what have you.
Most importantly, consider this: Most people who complain about the outages are doing so because they value/. and the contributions of the people who run it (even Katz). They feel a loss when it's not there. You've built a community here. You should respect the people who make up the community enough to keep us in the loop when something goes wrong.
I don't know about most people here, but once I could afford to own the books I/wanted/ to read, I stopped going to libraries.
The only time I'll go to a library now is if I'm forced to read something. If it wasn't available this way, I doubt I'd even be forced to read it.
I think libraries do the publishers more good than they know. Without libraries, fewer and fewer people would read as a hobby, at all. If kids had to pay for the books they read, they wouldn't be reading them. And, more importantly, they'd never pick it up as a hobby and won't *buy* books when they can, later.
I do think that every copy of a book available through a library should be paid for. Libraries should not be allowed to distribute copies, even temporarily, or within the library's walls, unless they've paid for each copy.
One thing libraries can, and should do, is excerise control over the copying of publications done by their customers. Taking a current journal to the copier, and paying the library 10c/page for someone else's copywritten work should not be allowed. If you need it that badly, go buy it. On the other hand, if it's Out Of Print (i.e., the copyright holder won't sell it,) then you should be allowed to copy it. Generally speaking, libraries know which things are in/out of print.
These publishers should realize/remember, that loaning books, particularly to people who cannot afford them now, is the best way to promote what is essentially a leisure activity. Like drug dealers, they should be happy to have the first one be free if it stands a chance of hooking the addict. I've watched paperbacks go from $1.50 to $7.50 in my 32 years and have bought a lot more near the $7.50 end of the spectrum after borrowing a lot of the $1.50 ones from libraries as a kid.
You're right to be concerned. I think someone in charge of security should be allowed to do any two of the following:
1. Set policy as to whom can access what.
2. Monitor compliance with access policies.
3. Have full access to anything.
All three is a recipe for abuse, and 3 is questionable, period. There should, and must be, checks.
For example, at the company I work for, the only people who should have full access to the network are the System Administrators. As a consolation, by policy they have no control over what the network equipment and servers do.
Full access and full decision-making is a dangerous concept that should be avoided by policy. Not because it will or might be abused, but because it can, and without detection.
Your security people have a right to full access to security logs and to have them be accurate. This is not the same thing as full access, which should not be required to have the what they need. If they are not getting what they need, short of access, work to correct that, but you're right to resist this.
Why would they do that when they can cut prices, mantain profit margins while boosting sales and productivity.
Most mined materials are commodities and are traded as such. What is important to mining companies is their price per unit. The demand for what they produce is not very elastic.
If they produce twice as much, they may only be able to sell it for half as much, because flooding the market is bad.
Take for example, food. If a unit of food was half its current price, would you buy twice as much? Obviously not. (This, by the way, is why the government pays subsidies to farmers to not grow food)
If you produce too much of something you create a glut and render it worthless.
They may be able to mine things cheaper, but you can bet that they won't mine significantly more.
If savings are to be had from these, it'll be from reducing the steps that need to be taken to make it safe for humans to be in a mine. Prices may come down a bit, but the savings, if there are any, will go into salaries, acquistions, and to shareholders.
Why would they do that when they can cut prices, mantain profit margins while boosting sales and productivity.
Most mined materials are commodities and are traded as such. What is important to mining companies is their price per unit. The demand for what they produce is not very elastic. If they produce twice as much, they may only be able to sell it for half as much, because flooding the market is bad.
Take for example, food. If a unit of food was half
its current price, would you buy twice as much? Obviously not. (This, by the way, is why the government pays subsidies to farmers to not grow food)
If you produce too much of something you create a glut and render it worthless.
They may be able to mine things cheaper, but you can bet that they won't mine significantly more.
If savings are to be had from these, it'll be from reducing the steps that need to be taken to make it safe for humans to be in a mine. Prices may come down a bit, but the savings, if there are any, will go into salaries, acquistions, and to shareholders.
If you're too dumn to realise that sucking the smoke from fire into your body is bad, well, thats what natural selection is for.
I think Dennis Miller said it best:
"If you're telling me that you didn't know that smoking was bad for you, well you're lying through the hole in your trachea... It's fscking smoke, people."
Here are my thought both for and against selling EQ Items/Characters.
For
The first and best arguement for selling items is an analogy. Take people selling magic cards, for example. These are people spending money, time and energy hunting for valuable game components and selling just those parts to other players.
WOTC goes along with/encourages this because it encourages people to buy more cards. Cards get priced by how easily you can come by them.
How does this compare? Well, these are people selling virtual game components to each other. Sony charges all players equally regardless of whether they get access to particular components.
Against
It's a question of fairness. EQ is intended to be a game, but by its nature it's also a community. Sony is being beaten on by players who don't feel that it's fair for mercenaries to build and sell characters because the new players of those characters haven't earned their place in the community and most people don't feel you should be able to buy your way into it.
I think a fair compromise would be to allow the sale of anything but the characters. Kind of like reality. You can sell anything, except your kids or yourself (or even parts of yourself).
I agree with one of the other posters that Sony should set themselves up as an impartial broker of these sales, taking a small cut, rather than trying to ban them. Maybe they can make the game cheaper by facilitating these transactions.
Well, when some people believe in something, they actually stand by it. It's called having convictions.
Of course, they could have a Windows box around so that they can atleast verify what they're writing about.
For all they know, it could be a troll. In this case, you can probably trust the domain, but you never know. It is, after all, a Speilberg movie with a trailer hosted by sony.com. (Speilberg is a part owner of DreamWorks.)
There are convictions and then there's ( objectivity || journalistic integrity ), but Slashdot isn't a 'News' site, right.
What you're saying about how it's supposed to work is spot on. But there are always people operating in ignorance of the law and it's hard to tell when someone is actually descriminating on a hiring choice vs. just not picking you, unless they're dumb enough to actually bring it up.
That said, you wouldn't want to work for someone who would descriminate on that basis anyway. It has been my experience as a past employer of ex-military/reservists that they have the best work ethic I've seen and present the least trouble when it comes to things like following policies and taking direction. I'm convinced that these traits are a result of military service making them the better candidate.
Employers should realize that even with slightly reduced availability of the employee, greater overall productivity is more likely. Yeah, it might be inconvenient if your two weeks fell in the middle of a big project, but it's not like it's a surprise. And as for active service, well, that's the risk you take. You could just as easily crash your car and be out as long (and at greater expense.)
It occured to me after watching this that a great scene at the end would have been to have a Linux user glance over at his TV to see the big broadcast and then look back at his still working Gnome desktop and shrug at all the fuss.
Slashdot Mirror
If they're behind, and they try to charge, nobody will use them.
... solution to follow.
According to the articles linked to from the story, the stuff on their site and the emails are intentionally behind. Right now, only the government gets immediate notification of security concerns. The information is then delayed atleast 45 days before it is released elsewhere.
Perhaps they're at risk of loosing their Federal funding and want to sell the service they've been exclusively selling to the government to the public.
Also, I have never gotten a CERT advisory that didn't say how to fix the problem. Perhaps this earlier notification will simply be that there is a problem
--
I think the failure of Banner Ads has more to do with large services like Doubleclick than it has to do with the nature of the medium itself.
Advertisers are moving away from banner ads because they're not getting results they were promised and they don't understand it well enough to make their own arrangements. Services like doubleclick promised to make it easy for both advertisers and the sites by taking care of everything. That was fine when advertisers simply wanted to advertise on this 'Internet' thing.
Now advertisers are questioning the results and the industry's answer is "We can make the ads bigger." Advertisers don't need bigger ads, they need ads that actually reach their target audience. Some advertisers, like the ones on Slashdot, are seeking out sites with a niche audience that matches their target. This works for some products, but not others. What advertisers need are demographics, and traffic, to target.
Perhaps something like 'Neilson ratings' will come along for the Internet. In exchange for a few dollars, you download a program that gets some census type info from you and watches your browsing habits for a couple of weeks. These statistics are then anonymously correlated and then advertisers know things like site popularity by demographic group and they can target their ads accordingly.
--
I think it's odd that they make no mention of affiliate programs. It's been my impression that this model still has some life in it and isn't nearly as annoying as banners. Typically the links are much smaller than banners and they pay more, but the payment is usually tied to more than just a click (like actually buying something.) Amazon probably has the most successful of the programs, but there are hundreds of others.
--
There's no way I'm going to sit through a 20-second commercial 5-6 times a day.
Hopefully they'll have the brains to not require this. It would be simple enough to tie advertising to a time-span of site viewing using a cookie. You view one complete ad and your good for the day.
--
Then we'd be stuck with low budget tripe like Kids in the Hall, or SCTV instead of quality TV like Survivor, or Survivor 2.
Funny you mention that. Shows like Survivor and the huge rash of 'reality' TV shows are a result of less advertising revenue from commercials thanks to sinking network ratings brought about by cable.
Give it another 10 years and the new hit on NBC will be "Wayne's World: The Series". Of course, they won't be able to afford Mike Myers or Dana Carvey. It'll just be two guys locked in a basement with a camera.
I own a TiVo and regularly fast-forward through commercials. Is it a right? Not really. It's just a convenient convergence of necessary features (the ability to record and fast-forward).
If the content providers could prevent people from fast-forwarding through commercials, they'd be within their rights. As would I to choose to no longer watch that network. It would be a real shame if people watched less TV.
--
What exactly were those construction workers thinking?
I was wondering about this as well. It's not like people put power outlets inside walls either. Sure, network cables get shoved through walls all the time, so I can see ignoring it while putting up sheetrock, but a power cord?
--
One of these days, this is going to happen one time too many.
Maybe Slashdot could cache these items ala google's approach. It would be especially handy if the link is to something that gets permanently removed.
Since links are often cited without quoting the relevant content, archived articles can lose all context if the site/page is taken down for good.
Just a thought.
--
I recommend you plug your ears if you go to bonobo.org, a site about bonobos.
.com is a German splash page, and the .net looks like a French magazine.
BTW, the
--
What exactly is bonobo?
I was wondering the same thing. I did some poking around and found this article about what it does. Sounds cool.
--
How about actually finding the abused child?
Good point. Having a victim to testify against the person who *took* the picture, for that crime, is a good idea.
However, I believe possession and distribution are also crimes. These criminals may not even know who the kid is, or if the photo is real or not. In these cases, it is important to follow intent. As long as it is a crime to possess or distribute kiddie porn, it doesn't matter if the material is real or fake. What matters is that it is intended to pass as real.
Freedom of speech only goes so far. You cannot shout 'Fire' in a crowded theater, because people might get hurt. Likewise, you cannot fake kiddie porn and claim it's acceptible if for no other reason than it will create a market for less technical perverts to pass their real kiddie porn as fake, because kids will get hurt.
--
When ISP service becomes a legal right instead of a luxury service, I think it's safe to say that the Internet has taken its place as a fundamental part of life in society.
Ahhh... but at what cost? Everything in life, down to the basic elements of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water are regulated by goverments both local and national.
If the government now sees Internet access as a right, God help us. You see, each government, from the smallest local one, to the U.N. believe they are legislating to the benefit of their constituents, but clearly they don't all share the same ideology. It will be impossible for businesses to comply with (or probably even be aware of) every regulation at every level of government in every place where they do business (thanks to the Internet.)
Remember the story of Yahoo vs France over Nazi memorabilia. That's not even the tip of the iceberg. It's just a slight dip in the water temperature caused by a giant iceberg over the horizon.
Never be happy that the government thinks something is fundamental or important. Nothing good can come of it.
--
They'd better all do it. I don't know of any laws that supercede what's written on the money:
IANAL, but I suspect you cannot refuse someone's business simply because they wish to pay in cash.
Regarding car rentals, they won't rent to you, typically, unless you have a credit card that they can authorize a charge against. When the time comes to actually pay, you can pay in cash. The keyword here, is rental. They are loaning you something at a cost significantly below its worth. This is not a purchase, so they can require you be credit worthy before they loan you something (i.e., their car.)
--
Sometimes - but not all sites offer the same price to all customers.
Ummm... If you can figure out what price to put into the form, you can figure it out again after they tell you how much they want.
If the preexisting process is based on a paper quote, it may take non-zero work to avoid embedding any quotation information in the quotation into browser session state (cookies/URL fields/whatever).
I agree that if someone is taking a paper quote and trying to then order it online (expecting the quoted price) you've got a real problem. This is, however, a business issue, not a software one. I'd suggest that this process would have to require the eMerchant manually verify the price against the quote before filling the order.
As to tracking the session, the only safe way to do this is server-side. Anything else can be compromised by someone with a clue. Any cart software worth using will track everything about the session on the server side giving the browser a unique session Id to follow along with.
The only variables that should be left up to the client are what item(s) they want, the QTY they want, how they're paying, and where it's going. Everything else should be calculated and stored server-side.
--
To add to what the parent poster is saying, as I'm sure you guys know, many of your readers are experienced IT people and are asking what happened for a variety of reasons, like:
- We care about the site.
- We're curious about what issues large sites face in maintenance.
- We might be able to help.
Sure, some people might complain to complain, but that's almostly always in response to total silence and blank stares they've received from earlier queries.Experience IT people know that it is merely a question on when servers will fail, not if. As such, we're pretty understanding about them, in general. It is far more embarassing to say nothing or to obfuscate about an issue than it is to simply say what happened.
When
Most importantly, consider this: Most people who complain about the outages are doing so because they value
--
I don't know about most people here, but once I could afford to own the books I /wanted/ to read, I stopped going to libraries.
The only time I'll go to a library now is if I'm forced to read something. If it wasn't available this way, I doubt I'd even be forced to read it.
I think libraries do the publishers more good than they know. Without libraries, fewer and fewer people would read as a hobby, at all. If kids had to pay for the books they read, they wouldn't be reading them. And, more importantly, they'd never pick it up as a hobby and won't *buy* books when they can, later.
I do think that every copy of a book available through a library should be paid for. Libraries should not be allowed to distribute copies, even temporarily, or within the library's walls, unless they've paid for each copy.
One thing libraries can, and should do, is excerise control over the copying of publications done by their customers. Taking a current journal to the copier, and paying the library 10c/page for someone else's copywritten work should not be allowed. If you need it that badly, go buy it. On the other hand, if it's Out Of Print (i.e., the copyright holder won't sell it,) then you should be allowed to copy it. Generally speaking, libraries know which things are in/out of print.
These publishers should realize/remember, that loaning books, particularly to people who cannot afford them now, is the best way to promote what is essentially a leisure activity. Like drug dealers, they should be happy to have the first one be free if it stands a chance of hooking the addict. I've watched paperbacks go from $1.50 to $7.50 in my 32 years and have bought a lot more near the $7.50 end of the spectrum after borrowing a lot of the $1.50 ones from libraries as a kid.
--
You're right to be concerned. I think someone in charge of security should be allowed to do any two of the following:
1. Set policy as to whom can access what.
2. Monitor compliance with access policies.
3. Have full access to anything.
All three is a recipe for abuse, and 3 is questionable, period. There should, and must be, checks.
For example, at the company I work for, the only people who should have full access to the network are the System Administrators. As a consolation, by policy they have no control over what the network equipment and servers do.
Full access and full decision-making is a dangerous concept that should be avoided by policy. Not because it will or might be abused, but because it can, and without detection.
Your security people have a right to full access to security logs and to have them be accurate. This is not the same thing as full access, which should not be required to have the what they need. If they are not getting what they need, short of access, work to correct that, but you're right to resist this.
--
Once more, properly formatted:
Why would they do that when they can cut prices, mantain profit margins while boosting sales and productivity.
Most mined materials are commodities and are traded as such. What is important to mining companies is their price per unit. The demand for what they produce is not very elastic.
If they produce twice as much, they may only be able to sell it for half as much, because flooding the market is bad.
Take for example, food. If a unit of food was half its current price, would you buy twice as much? Obviously not. (This, by the way, is why the government pays subsidies to farmers to not grow food)
If you produce too much of something you create a glut and render it worthless.
They may be able to mine things cheaper, but you can bet that they won't mine significantly more.
If savings are to be had from these, it'll be from reducing the steps that need to be taken to make it safe for humans to be in a mine. Prices may come down a bit, but the savings, if there are any, will go into salaries, acquistions, and to shareholders.
--
Why would they do that when they can cut prices, mantain profit margins while boosting sales and productivity.
Most mined materials are commodities and are traded as such. What is important to mining companies is their price per unit. The demand for what they produce is not very elastic. If they produce twice as much, they may only be able to sell it for half as much, because flooding the market is bad.
Take for example, food. If a unit of food was half its current price, would you buy twice as much? Obviously not. (This, by the way, is why the government pays subsidies to farmers to not grow food)
If you produce too much of something you create a glut and render it worthless.
They may be able to mine things cheaper, but you can bet that they won't mine significantly more.
If savings are to be had from these, it'll be from reducing the steps that need to be taken to make it safe for humans to be in a mine. Prices may come down a bit, but the savings, if there are any, will go into salaries, acquistions, and to shareholders.
--
I think Dennis Miller said it best:
--
D'oh. Should have previewed that. Stupid bold tag.
--
Here are my thought both for and against selling EQ Items/Characters.
For
The first and best arguement for selling items is an analogy. Take people selling magic cards, for example. These are people spending money, time and energy hunting for valuable game components and selling just those parts to other players.
WOTC goes along with/encourages this because it encourages people to buy more cards. Cards get priced by how easily you can come by them.
How does this compare? Well, these are people selling virtual game components to each other. Sony charges all players equally regardless of whether they get access to particular components.
Against It's a question of fairness. EQ is intended to be a game, but by its nature it's also a community. Sony is being beaten on by players who don't feel that it's fair for mercenaries to build and sell characters because the new players of those characters haven't earned their place in the community and most people don't feel you should be able to buy your way into it.
I think a fair compromise would be to allow the sale of anything but the characters. Kind of like reality. You can sell anything, except your kids or yourself (or even parts of yourself).
I agree with one of the other posters that Sony should set themselves up as an impartial broker of these sales, taking a small cut, rather than trying to ban them. Maybe they can make the game cheaper by facilitating these transactions.
--
Well, when some people believe in something, they actually stand by it. It's called having convictions.
Of course, they could have a Windows box around so that they can atleast verify what they're writing about.
For all they know, it could be a troll. In this case, you can probably trust the domain, but you never know. It is, after all, a Speilberg movie with a trailer hosted by sony.com. (Speilberg is a part owner of DreamWorks.)
There are convictions and then there's ( objectivity || journalistic integrity ), but Slashdot isn't a 'News' site, right.
--
What you're saying about how it's supposed to work is spot on. But there are always people operating in ignorance of the law and it's hard to tell when someone is actually descriminating on a hiring choice vs. just not picking you, unless they're dumb enough to actually bring it up.
That said, you wouldn't want to work for someone who would descriminate on that basis anyway. It has been my experience as a past employer of ex-military/reservists that they have the best work ethic I've seen and present the least trouble when it comes to things like following policies and taking direction. I'm convinced that these traits are a result of military service making them the better candidate.
Employers should realize that even with slightly reduced availability of the employee, greater overall productivity is more likely. Yeah, it might be inconvenient if your two weeks fell in the middle of a big project, but it's not like it's a surprise. And as for active service, well, that's the risk you take. You could just as easily crash your car and be out as long (and at greater expense.)
--
From the list linked to in the parent:
"Monopoly" for a real estate-trading board game
I think I'd still check with a lawyer before I release my own "Monopoly" game no matter what this list says.
There are other's on the list that I cannot believe were ever trademarked (e.g. Honey Baked Ham)
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It occured to me after watching this that a great scene at the end would have been to have a Linux user glance over at his TV to see the big broadcast and then look back at his still working Gnome desktop and shrug at all the fuss.
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