I believe that 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease' - if Netflix hears from enough customers affected who truly love the profiles feature, they may reconsider killing it. Especially if those customers make it clear that they won't be ponying up for another subscription, and in fact, might reduce their subscription to a lower level.
Doctors are not paid for being on-call, however, they are paid in full for their services if they are forced into the office by an emergency. In the case of the original poster, I believe the issue is that even when they are called into the office, it does not go 'on the clock' since it is not scheduled work time.
While my comments are no substitute for those of an accredited lawyer, I do believe that these business practices have been done by fast food companies in the past, and successfully challenged in court. Specifically, employees of those companies would be forced to stay after hours for cleaning and not compensated for the additional time they spent in the workplace. Taco Bell had to pay an untold fortune in compensation to those employees, and that ruling may prove to be applicable in this case.
Now, I'm not sure if my experience has been the same as every eBay seller/buyer, but for the past six-eight months I've been getting a "Get Rich Quick" spam-mail at least once a day addressed to "Dear eBay User..."These emails almost always originate from a bogus email account that vanishes within a day or so.
My impression is that it is caused by people using a search routine to troll through eBay's databases and search engines to get my email address. When I'm selling items, I don't list my email address as part of the listing nor as part of my listing, nor is it part of my login name. But it's annoying all the same that they do not apparently protect against such abuses of their own system.
Emails to them go ignored - I can't think of anyone I hate more than dealing with eBay's customer support as a seller.
Is there any way I can protect my email address from spam without making my buyers not be able to contact me?
It offends me deeply that eBay has arbitrarily forced me to 're-opt-out' of their email spam when I'm already getting spammed because of their negligence in securing the email addresses of their users.
Sadly, the Academy, when it comes down to it, is the designated self-congratulating branch of the motion picture "industry". They have long since deemed that independent film-makers would be ignored at these films - the Academy Awards are given to spur interest in commercially produced films by big-studios, not to spur interest in independent film-making.
The Academy Awards, in short, is a mutally-agreed upon Public Relations event for the major studios. Many actors, directors, and other industry professionals have spurned the attention of the Academy Awards ceremony due to its true nature as a toy of the larger studios.
However, the real logistics behind their final decision is this - it takes a lot of money to make film-prints and distribute them. Much like an elitist health-club charging prohibitively high prices for membership to keep out the 'riff-raff', the Academy has long since realized that electronic distribution empowers the average college film-maker with the same degree of power to get his films to an audience as the established endorsed Academy favorites.
Scientifically inaccurate, but still entertaining!
on
Review: 'Titan A.E.'
·
· Score: 2
Each to their own, I guess, but I found Titan AE to be heartily enjoyable Saturday-night-at-the-movies fluff. It had all the usual suspects : laser blasters, spaceships, people mysteriously surviving being ejected into cold harsh space, aliens with eyes on stalks.
Yet, I couldn't help enjoying myself more than a little. There were some great tributes in it to the original Heavy Metal movie, especially in some of the flight scenes.
The fact of the matter is that a Don Bluth film is more like cotton candy than a chocolate bar. Sweet and interesting, but in the end, very little actual substance.
Animation-wise, there were some places where I was not entirely impressed with the blending of the 2D and 3D styles. The backgrounds were entirely rendered in fairly decent 3D. However, occasionally there was some minor awkwardness between the interactions between the 2D characters and their 3D environs. Don Bluth's team could have more closely examined how the team at The Iron Giant tackled that problem for a better overall 'look' for the film.
Fans of Japanese animation or the Heavy Metal movie will have a ball with this film, but serious film buffs should definitely look elsewhere.
Remember that cranky old professor you used to have in college that demanded absurd number of verifiable sources? Turns out he's right - if it's an 'anonymous' source or someone who 'refuses to be named', chances are pretty damn good that the rumor is wishful thinking. (The only time I believe anonymous sources is when they're used to protect people from physical retribution, not when they're in conjunction with entertainment-industry rumors..)
Who in their right mind uses "Ain't It Cool" news as a primary source? Shouldn't the title of the site and the lack of writing skills on the boards be a dead giveaway that it's mostly bogus?
Let's put it this way - rumor-mongers though they might be, at least TheSmokingGun has verifiable documentation of all the stuff they claim, unlike the 'news' at 'Ain't It Cool'. At least that makes it smell a little more like journalism.
Always, always verify your sources, and don't always believe what's on the Web... I had thought Slashdot was a little better about picking-and-choosing source material, even on slow news days. Tsk, tsk, tsk!
IT's dirty little secret - in the end, after all the extra hours worked, most IT professionals aren't making a per-hour wage that is the eqivilent of your average semi-skilled factory worker. Sometimes they earn far less per hour. Human Resources professionals all know this - many companies have employees keep time cards even when salaried.
If you think about it, we've been set up to lose at most companies. If we're not competitive with the other geeks, constantly putting in overtime, spending our precious free time studying up on the latest technology, we might be passed over for promotion, or worse yet, laid off.
There's a word for this technique of doing business - sweatshop. Management creates unrealistic expectations of IT professionals and then expects them to miraculously create a product without half the tools they need or even a quarter of the time. We're constantly running late, and it is made to look like our fault that it is happening. Employees are kept until they burn out...and then afterwards, they leave for another company that's going to treat them the same way.
Perhaps what is needed is unionization of IT professionals across the board. When factory workers are faced with similar conditions, they have the ability to go on strike until management meets their needs - after all, a group always has more power than an individual. Such a union could revolutionize the industry - stop the salary games between companies and create a more stable work environment.
But we're probably not going to see that happen. Many standard contracts that are signed by IT professionals today include that they are not allowed to unionize - and for damn good reason. Otherwise, their caring company might actually have to foot the bill for all those times they're woken up at 3 am to fix a minor problem...
Just my $.02. -LConover
Damn. I've gotten into this discussion far too late, so no one's going to see this post. Oh well.:)
a) regular super-hero stuff doesn't tend to translate all that well into live action. Even blockbusters like the Batman series really weren't very good.
Although, I'd hazard the statement that Mystery Men was not a too-shabby attempt. It could have used some merciless editing here and there to fix the pacing, but, on the whole, it was an excellent superhero parody. Who could not like PMS Woman "I kick ass..but for only 4 days a month."
So, I'm willing to give a live-action Tick a chance to be as good as its comic book and cartoon history. We have the computer technology to seamlessly fuse in the special effects that would be called for, so it wouldn't look like the original Batman. And, perhaps it would trigger some nostalgia for the old cartoon - I'd love to see those run on TV again. I'm still regreting not having videotaped any episodes.
Speaking of videotaped episodes, did they ever produce a commercial videotape collection of The Tick?:)
I'd have to agree with your concept of the tenets of civil disobedience. The civil rights movement would never have succeeded if it were fought through vandalism, nor would any other movement of consequence in the last century. Logically speaking, then, we're not dealing with folks who are even interested in the concept of civil disobedience, we're dealing with terrorists.
Now, I realize there's a lot of socio-political baggage with the word terrorist, but keep in mind, the whole concept here is that terrorists keep themselves anonymous so that you can never figure out where the attack is coming from. If you can't figure out where the attack came from, you can't protect yourself from it. (Generally speaking.) And thus, a climate of fear is projected - "If I can't protect myself from these people, and the government/society/authority can't protect me.." The end result is always the same - a loss of faith in those systems in which we depend on for protection. And that is always the end goal of terrorism - the loss of faith and confidence.
As for these hackers, I must admit, I have no respect for them. It's one thing to display a hole in a security system by knocking it out for a little while. It's another thing to attack multiple systems for the hell of it - it crosses the line from what could have been a warning to an act of vandalism and terrorism, a far cry from those who would help people to create safer and more secure server systems. It gives all those hackers that would help to create a better system a bad name.
As another female gamer, I feel that I should respond to this as well. A lot of people have put forth the arguement that women don't play games as often as men - and perhaps in America, that may hold true. In Japan, game designers more actively seek to tailor games to a wider variety of tastes- in the US, the dominant genre is that of the action/shoot-em-up.
Perhaps this takes a little bit of cultural rewind, though - dating back to the heyday of Commodore and Atari, the primary market segment has always been adolescent males. When I was growing up, Star Raiders and Missle Command were the hot games. . . and since then, a plethora of games imitating the formula of other successful games has taken place.
The fact is, American companies hate taking risks, since if you take a risk you might lose everything... Some of the SIM games that appealed to a largely female audience flopped miserably. Unfortunately, the one leading the fray for the 'female game' is Hasbro with its crop of incredibly bad Barbie games - no WONDER the young girls won't play them.
However, the Japanese games that appeal to both genders equally have met to great success here in the States. One needs merely look at the sales track record of SquareSoft to prove those numbers.
Perhaps if marketeers would take a second look at the new generation of simulation games coming out of Japan they would find more women entering the fray. Some of the most popular genres of simulation games there include 'dating sims' which are heavily plot based (Thousand Arms, Todomechi Memorial), 'decision sims' where the decisions you make determine the course and development of the game (Princess Maker).
We need more Roller Coaster Tycoons, and far less Doom-clones.
I'm glad to see that one company at least has the intellect to price their service (relatively speaking) reasonably. Palm VII's wireless pricing was a godawful idea, especially for those of us accostomed to unlimited speedy access to the WWW from our desktops. What made it even more unattractive was the limited capability of the current web-clipping services. "Sure, I'll pay quintuple the cost of the cellular phone airtime for the priviledge of knowing exactly where a Starbucks is near me. .."
With the rush of these new Palmtop Internet systems (Palm VII and now this..) I'm starting to wonder if there's any future left for my Palm III.
I've been keeping my eye on the Handspring Visor for a while, but the downside is that they have no information regarding whether any of their partners are planning a similar wireless strategy. Does anyone have an inside track on what the future holds for the Handspring and wireless?
In the end, though, it will be the affordability of the monthly service charges that will determine whether this technology will become the province of most people, or for people with cash to burn. I'd like to imagine a world where I'd never have to hear a cellular phone ring again during a movie...
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease' - if Netflix hears from enough customers affected who truly love the profiles feature, they may reconsider killing it. Especially if those customers make it clear that they won't be ponying up for another subscription, and in fact, might reduce their subscription to a lower level.
Anyone know of any way to email Netflix support?
While my comments are no substitute for those of an accredited lawyer, I do believe that these business practices have been done by fast food companies in the past, and successfully challenged in court. Specifically, employees of those companies would be forced to stay after hours for cleaning and not compensated for the additional time they spent in the workplace. Taco Bell had to pay an untold fortune in compensation to those employees, and that ruling may prove to be applicable in this case.
My impression is that it is caused by people using a search routine to troll through eBay's databases and search engines to get my email address. When I'm selling items, I don't list my email address as part of the listing nor as part of my listing, nor is it part of my login name. But it's annoying all the same that they do not apparently protect against such abuses of their own system.
Emails to them go ignored - I can't think of anyone I hate more than dealing with eBay's customer support as a seller.
Is there any way I can protect my email address from spam without making my buyers not be able to contact me?
It offends me deeply that eBay has arbitrarily forced me to 're-opt-out' of their email spam when I'm already getting spammed because of their negligence in securing the email addresses of their users.
The Academy Awards, in short, is a mutally-agreed upon Public Relations event for the major studios. Many actors, directors, and other industry professionals have spurned the attention of the Academy Awards ceremony due to its true nature as a toy of the larger studios.
However, the real logistics behind their final decision is this - it takes a lot of money to make film-prints and distribute them. Much like an elitist health-club charging prohibitively high prices for membership to keep out the 'riff-raff', the Academy has long since realized that electronic distribution empowers the average college film-maker with the same degree of power to get his films to an audience as the established endorsed Academy favorites.
Yet, I couldn't help enjoying myself more than a little. There were some great tributes in it to the original Heavy Metal movie, especially in some of the flight scenes.
The fact of the matter is that a Don Bluth film is more like cotton candy than a chocolate bar. Sweet and interesting, but in the end, very little actual substance.
Animation-wise, there were some places where I was not entirely impressed with the blending of the 2D and 3D styles. The backgrounds were entirely rendered in fairly decent 3D. However, occasionally there was some minor awkwardness between the interactions between the 2D characters and their 3D environs. Don Bluth's team could have more closely examined how the team at The Iron Giant tackled that problem for a better overall 'look' for the film.
Fans of Japanese animation or the Heavy Metal movie will have a ball with this film, but serious film buffs should definitely look elsewhere.
Who in their right mind uses "Ain't It Cool" news as a primary source? Shouldn't the title of the site and the lack of writing skills on the boards be a dead giveaway that it's mostly bogus?
Let's put it this way - rumor-mongers though they might be, at least TheSmokingGun has verifiable documentation of all the stuff they claim, unlike the 'news' at 'Ain't It Cool'. At least that makes it smell a little more like journalism.
Always, always verify your sources, and don't always believe what's on the Web... I had thought Slashdot was a little better about picking-and-choosing source material, even on slow news days. Tsk, tsk, tsk!
Best regards,
LConover
"Hope clouds observation." (Frank Herbert, Dune.)
If you think about it, we've been set up to lose at most companies. If we're not competitive with the other geeks, constantly putting in overtime, spending our precious free time studying up on the latest technology, we might be passed over for promotion, or worse yet, laid off.
There's a word for this technique of doing business - sweatshop. Management creates unrealistic expectations of IT professionals and then expects them to miraculously create a product without half the tools they need or even a quarter of the time. We're constantly running late, and it is made to look like our fault that it is happening. Employees are kept until they burn out...and then afterwards, they leave for another company that's going to treat them the same way.
Perhaps what is needed is unionization of IT professionals across the board. When factory workers are faced with similar conditions, they have the ability to go on strike until management meets their needs - after all, a group always has more power than an individual. Such a union could revolutionize the industry - stop the salary games between companies and create a more stable work environment.
But we're probably not going to see that happen. Many standard contracts that are signed by IT professionals today include that they are not allowed to unionize - and for damn good reason. Otherwise, their caring company might actually have to foot the bill for all those times they're woken up at 3 am to fix a minor problem...
Just my $.02.
-LConover
Damn. I've gotten into this discussion far too late, so no one's going to see this post. Oh well. :)
Although, I'd hazard the statement that Mystery Men was not a too-shabby attempt. It could have used some merciless editing here and there to fix the pacing, but, on the whole, it was an excellent superhero parody. Who could not like PMS Woman "I kick ass..but for only 4 days a month."
So, I'm willing to give a live-action Tick a chance to be as good as its comic book and cartoon history. We have the computer technology to seamlessly fuse in the special effects that would be called for, so it wouldn't look like the original Batman. And, perhaps it would trigger some nostalgia for the old cartoon - I'd love to see those run on TV again. I'm still regreting not having videotaped any episodes.
Speaking of videotaped episodes, did they ever produce a commercial videotape collection of The Tick? :)
Now, I realize there's a lot of socio-political baggage with the word terrorist, but keep in mind, the whole concept here is that terrorists keep themselves anonymous so that you can never figure out where the attack is coming from. If you can't figure out where the attack came from, you can't protect yourself from it. (Generally speaking.) And thus, a climate of fear is projected - "If I can't protect myself from these people, and the government/society/authority can't protect me.." The end result is always the same - a loss of faith in those systems in which we depend on for protection. And that is always the end goal of terrorism - the loss of faith and confidence.
As for these hackers, I must admit, I have no respect for them. It's one thing to display a hole in a security system by knocking it out for a little while. It's another thing to attack multiple systems for the hell of it - it crosses the line from what could have been a warning to an act of vandalism and terrorism, a far cry from those who would help people to create safer and more secure server systems. It gives all those hackers that would help to create a better system a bad name.
Perhaps this takes a little bit of cultural rewind, though - dating back to the heyday of Commodore and Atari, the primary market segment has always been adolescent males. When I was growing up, Star Raiders and Missle Command were the hot games. . . and since then, a plethora of games imitating the formula of other successful games has taken place.
The fact is, American companies hate taking risks, since if you take a risk you might lose everything... Some of the SIM games that appealed to a largely female audience flopped miserably. Unfortunately, the one leading the fray for the 'female game' is Hasbro with its crop of incredibly bad Barbie games - no WONDER the young girls won't play them.
However, the Japanese games that appeal to both genders equally have met to great success here in the States. One needs merely look at the sales track record of SquareSoft to prove those numbers.
Perhaps if marketeers would take a second look at the new generation of simulation games coming out of Japan they would find more women entering the fray. Some of the most popular genres of simulation games there include 'dating sims' which are heavily plot based (Thousand Arms, Todomechi Memorial), 'decision sims' where the decisions you make determine the course and development of the game (Princess Maker).
We need more Roller Coaster Tycoons, and far less Doom-clones.
With the rush of these new Palmtop Internet systems (Palm VII and now this..) I'm starting to wonder if there's any future left for my Palm III.
I've been keeping my eye on the Handspring Visor for a while, but the downside is that they have no information regarding whether any of their partners are planning a similar wireless strategy. Does anyone have an inside track on what the future holds for the Handspring and wireless?
In the end, though, it will be the affordability of the monthly service charges that will determine whether this technology will become the province of most people, or for people with cash to burn. I'd like to imagine a world where I'd never have to hear a cellular phone ring again during a movie...