if you are responsible you can have a gun if you want
Sounds great...but who decides if I'm responsible? By what criteria? We don't want to meet in the middle with the gun control advocates. They want to strip rights, or only allow certain people to exercise their rights based on their own individual critera, forgetting always, that if someone's a criminal, he doesn't care if he's also breaking the law by carrying a gun or not.
The problem is that so many gun control advocates have convinced ordinary people that if you bring a gun into a house, your children will die, a plague will descend upon you, you'll suddenly become impotent, and you really must NOT love your family...
This is not the case, and we all know it, but somehow we believe it's better to let the gun control people dictate who can own a gun and what kind without giving a thought as to the fallacies of their arguments, and why this issue seems so important to them.
This is the same thing that people said would happen with Microsoft Activation, and that everyone would be locked out of their PC when they upgraded their hardware, but I haven't heard about that happening yet, where Microsoft hasn't helped the person out.
I agree that Palladium looks and sounds terrible, and the powers that Microsoft wants to reserve for themselves are ominous, but enough with the FUD.
Plea to game makers - please make the baddies aliens and dragons or robots.
This is political correctness gone too far. You've started down a path I don't think you intended to take. If we turn it to face another way, being half-German I know that many Germans, most Germans in fact are ashamed that their history includes Nazism and Hitler. And they certainly don't like being reminded that the whole affair happened, but you're not campaigning for Medal of Honor and Castle Wolfenstein to change their games? Why not? If aliens landed tomorrow and started complaining that they're being maligned by our entertainment industry would you suddenly want to remove them from the list of acceptable villans? No, you probably wouldn't.
If a company in China or Russian or wherever released a game about invading and destroying things in the USA, I'm sure many people in the USA - and especially elements of the press - would be outraged.
And I agree with you, people in the states would be outraged, but that's not my metric for why I should or shouldn't do something. While I may not agree with the missions, or what they portray (though I think they accurately reflect active military plans the US already has drawn up), I have enough wherewithall to distinguish between a game and reality. The path you're taking leads to the same place 'concerned parents' and activists are taking us by wanting to ban violent video games altogether because of what they portray, and how they will affect us. If a game offends me, I don't buy it. You should do the same, and vote with your dollars, instead of trying to take choices from me.
Hey Tony-A, way to disregard history and the recent news littered with plainly obvious examples of corruption in SPITE of government regulation, perhaps, dare we say, because of, government regulation....
Heck, there's been plenty of corruption within the government regulating.
But whatever! Way to go, espousing a misguided, blatantly wrong, populist misconception so deftly.
Yep, those wonderful communication skills you pick up playing Quake. Why, whenever my nephew comes over to my grandmother's house on the holidays and shows off his social skills, we're all delighted:
"Whatever losers, don't make me shove this fork up your ass." and "Pass the yams or eat flaming death, bitch!" and the ever popular "You suck!"
*sigh* What a delightful rapscallion he is, and such a charming conversationalist.
Microsoft themselves, use Rational tools for their modelling needs, and has worked with Rational to ease the integration of Rational XDE within Visual Studio.NET.
No, most successful artists and writers approach their art as a full-time job and on the whole put in more hours working on what they do because they enjoy it than most do at their office job.
No, it's not the same thing. Here's the crucial difference. If the cable company wants to spend their OWN money to buy helicopters to fly around the houses of people who uncap modems, wants to rent clowns with megaphones riding elephants to parade around Toledo trumpeting the evils of uncapping their modem, hell even putting ads on TV and billboards to that effect, fine. That's their choice, it's what they want to do I have no problem with it.
But to spend federal time and resources, so paid for by US, on something that is clearly a gray legal matter, and to seize the assets of these people indiscriminately without first establishing guilt is heinous and SHOULD NOT have happened.
So if Microsoft wants to send Federal Agents to your house tomorrow to seize all of your assets and arrest you because you've not followed the EULA, you'll think that's okay?
It would have been just as effective for Buckeye Cable to have sent Cease and Desist Letters to the uncappers, and shut down the services of those who did not. The case could have been handled in a civil court, with Buckeye Cable suing for restitution. The matter could have been handled completely by the local police, or barring that, the Ohio State Police, who almost certainly have their own Electronic Crimes Department.
>I mean, where do you draw the line?
I draw the line when a local cable company involves the Federal Government for something that while may have cost Buckeye Cable money, is not clearly illeagal, especially considering the article states that some people DID NOT sign agreements stating bandwidth caps.
No..It IS Excessive Force. Excessive Force occurs when the amount of manpower and/or the actions of said manpower far exceed the reasonable expected need to place someone under arrest.
I don't care what the motivation is, it's still excessive force in your story, and in the story in Toledo.
No see, it's got nothing to do with luck, and everything to do with your willingness to research your target companies, do the footwork to be prepared, and to put forth effort to get hired. A lot of people say they can't get hired, not because jobs aren't out there, but because this is the dot com boom anymore where you could write your resume on a piece of used toilet paper in crayon and odds were if it mentioned a computer you'd get hired.
If you know a company is hiring, find out who works there, find out what they do, find out what computer systems they use, what projects they've done lately, etc.
There are many sources where you can get information on a company's financial status, recent layoffs, mortgages, etc. Almost all of that information is public record.
But if you go in and don't know squat about the company you're interviewing at, they don't have a reason to get to know you.
I do have a family, including a preemie newborn. If we needed to move so I could have a job, we would, because that's what would be best for all of us. Period. My wife understands that, our parents understand that, everyone in our families understand that.
I'm sorry that you're not having luck finding work for Unix Admin. Searching from New York City to Washington DC, to Harrisburg (I figure living in Philly you can just as easily take the train to work) I found a couple of positions.
However, I do know some people in the New Jersey area, and elsewhere, and if you would like I can help you find work. I know I probably seem disingenuious, but I'm serious. Most jobs are not found through Dice.com or even recruiters, but also in who you know.
Hear hear! Finally a sensible thing said on Slashdot. Either someone is desperate enough that they're willing to bite the bullet and move to greener pastures or something else other than employment in their chosen field is more important to them, they've made that choice and they need to stop bitching. It comes down to individual choices and when you make the decision to stay in an area because of family ties and you can't find work, then that's your choice. You made it, now you're living with the consequences.
No one said growing up was easy. No one said every choice was going to be easy and any path your chose was lined with roses and candy shops. No one even said you have to like the consequences of your decisions, but they are a direct result. That's the nature of living, and frankly the litmus test of being an adult.
I got a job when my previous employer looked to be on the ropes. Am I happy that I have to pay more for Health Benefits? No, because I know I need them, and I traded off a little more money out of my pocket for greater stability and more opportunity. I recognize that as my choice and I'm living with it. Everyone complaining needs to do the same.
Funny, last month my company was looking like it was going to go Tits Up and I started floating my resume. Within two weeks I had my pick of four offers. What downturn? What recession?
For example, a quick peek at the Pittsburgh Tech Council Website shows that since 11/1/2002 there have been 104 IS jobs posted that are still open.
Geekfinder shows 744 positions open in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 434 in Maryland, 799 in Virginia, 936 in New Jersey, and 1322 in New York. So within 4 hours of here, I have over 4300 jobs to search through. Not to mention the local listings which don't make it to Dice.com, and even openings that never make it to the papers but you find out about through friends and contacts. If you can't find a job right now, you're just not looking hard enough. Nuff said. Have a dog biscuit and quite your bitching.
Yeah, Lord knows that with my English Literature degree is completely useless here at my Senior Developer position.
Never minding the fact that as an English Major I learned to spot patterns in text, motifs, and paradigms, which I use to see patterns in business, behavior, and people and apply that to coding. Never minding that I studied psychology and can use that knowledge to understand how a person expects something to work, and how a person reacts when something doesn't work that way. Never minding the fact that I studied philosophy and I'm used to dealing with abstractions of thought, and high-level concepts.
Fact of the matter is, by having a broad education I get a broader perspective, I get along well with all sorts of people, and I can roll with the changes in markets more quickly than someone who solely focused on the technical portions of education.
True there are lot of ignorant Americans, and we have our shortcomings, just as every other nation, but we must obviously be better than most every other place out there, or else we wouldn't have thousands upon thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Mexicans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, etc etc come into this country every year.
Pennsylvania also has a no call list. I signed up my number for it and I've gotten nary a call since. This is the wave of the future. Now if only there was a central place to do this for regular mail and email.
Despite his trollish tone, NineNine has a point that if you dance around waiting from some VC angel to give you the cash because you don't want to pony up your own time and dough, then you need to rethink your desire to go into business.
And as far as finding the cash, if you have a business plan that tells you you need close to $10,000 to start, fantastic, go hit the banks. Some investor will probably give you a shot. If you don't even know how much you'd need to start, then stop whining, create your business plan and get to work!
By way of example, Kevin Smith really wanted to make a movie, Clerks, and he didn't want to lose control of the work, so he applied for a bunch of credit cards, borrowed money from friends and family and made his movie. Now he's swimming in dough. It takes one person, one idea, and whole hell of a lot of determination to get somewhere in the business world.
Wrong. It's not a simple matter of a package of software. Using Pennsylvania as an example, according to State Sales Tax laws, if you buy a shed, it's taxable because it can be removed from your property, but the foundation you place the shed on is not. A bathing suit is taxable, but a bowling shirt is not. If you buy thread in Pennsylvania, and intend to use it patch a hole in your shirt or trousers, the thread is non-taxable. If, however, you intend to patch a hole in your couch, that same thread becomes taxable.
The examples given here are not indicative of Pennsylvania, but are typical of all States, which is what the States are trying to remedy by streamlining State sales taxes to make them more uniform. That's all fine and good, BUT...
As stated elsewhere in this thread, the Constitution explicitly prohibits the taxing of goods that are "exported" to another State. States have tried for years to overturn, or side-step this law with little luck. The law is very clear. States may not tax on goods sold in one state to a consumer in another state.
Amazon.com is headquartered in Washington State, therefore it is legal for them to compel Amazon to charge sales tax for Washington residents. Beyond that, it should not be legal, no.
Hey, if you want to set up in Bermuda, by all means. I have no problem with it, and those that do haven't grasped the economic realities of capitalism.
Slashdot Mirror
if you are responsible you can have a gun if you want
Sounds great...but who decides if I'm responsible? By what criteria? We don't want to meet in the middle with the gun control advocates. They want to strip rights, or only allow certain people to exercise their rights based on their own individual critera, forgetting always, that if someone's a criminal, he doesn't care if he's also breaking the law by carrying a gun or not.
The problem is that so many gun control advocates have convinced ordinary people that if you bring a gun into a house, your children will die, a plague will descend upon you, you'll suddenly become impotent, and you really must NOT love your family...
This is not the case, and we all know it, but somehow we believe it's better to let the gun control people dictate who can own a gun and what kind without giving a thought as to the fallacies of their arguments, and why this issue seems so important to them.
Why is it so important to them to take guns away?
This is the same thing that people said would happen with Microsoft Activation, and that everyone would be locked out of their PC when they upgraded their hardware, but I haven't heard about that happening yet, where Microsoft hasn't helped the person out.
I agree that Palladium looks and sounds terrible, and the powers that Microsoft wants to reserve for themselves are ominous, but enough with the FUD.
Plea to game makers - please make the baddies aliens and dragons or robots.
This is political correctness gone too far. You've started down a path I don't think you intended to take. If we turn it to face another way, being half-German I know that many Germans, most Germans in fact are ashamed that their history includes Nazism and Hitler. And they certainly don't like being reminded that the whole affair happened, but you're not campaigning for Medal of Honor and Castle Wolfenstein to change their games? Why not? If aliens landed tomorrow and started complaining that they're being maligned by our entertainment industry would you suddenly want to remove them from the list of acceptable villans? No, you probably wouldn't.
If a company in China or Russian or wherever released a game about invading and destroying things in the USA, I'm sure many people in the USA - and especially elements of the press - would be outraged.
And I agree with you, people in the states would be outraged, but that's not my metric for why I should or shouldn't do something. While I may not agree with the missions, or what they portray (though I think they accurately reflect active military plans the US already has drawn up), I have enough wherewithall to distinguish between a game and reality. The path you're taking leads to the same place 'concerned parents' and activists are taking us by wanting to ban violent video games altogether because of what they portray, and how they will affect us. If a game offends me, I don't buy it. You should do the same, and vote with your dollars, instead of trying to take choices from me.
Hey Tony-A, way to disregard history and the recent news littered with plainly obvious examples of corruption in SPITE of government regulation, perhaps, dare we say, because of, government regulation....
Heck, there's been plenty of corruption within the government regulating.
But whatever! Way to go, espousing a misguided, blatantly wrong, populist misconception so deftly.
Yep, those wonderful communication skills you pick up playing Quake. Why, whenever my nephew comes over to my grandmother's house on the holidays and shows off his social skills, we're all delighted:
"Whatever losers, don't make me shove this fork up your ass."
and
"Pass the yams or eat flaming death, bitch!"
and the ever popular
"You suck!"
*sigh* What a delightful rapscallion he is, and such a charming conversationalist.
Microsoft themselves, use Rational tools for their modelling needs, and has worked with Rational to ease the integration of Rational XDE within Visual Studio.NET.
No, most successful artists and writers approach their art as a full-time job and on the whole put in more hours working on what they do because they enjoy it than most do at their office job.
No, it's not the same thing. Here's the crucial difference. If the cable company wants to spend their OWN money to buy helicopters to fly around the houses of people who uncap modems, wants to rent clowns with megaphones riding elephants to parade around Toledo trumpeting the evils of uncapping their modem, hell even putting ads on TV and billboards to that effect, fine. That's their choice, it's what they want to do I have no problem with it.
But to spend federal time and resources, so paid for by US, on something that is clearly a gray legal matter, and to seize the assets of these people indiscriminately without first establishing guilt is heinous and SHOULD NOT have happened.
So if Microsoft wants to send Federal Agents to your house tomorrow to seize all of your assets and arrest you because you've not followed the EULA, you'll think that's okay?
It would have been just as effective for Buckeye Cable to have sent Cease and Desist Letters to the uncappers, and shut down the services of those who did not. The case could have been handled in a civil court, with Buckeye Cable suing for restitution. The matter could have been handled completely by the local police, or barring that, the Ohio State Police, who almost certainly have their own Electronic Crimes Department.
>I mean, where do you draw the line?
I draw the line when a local cable company involves the Federal Government for something that while may have cost Buckeye Cable money, is not clearly illeagal, especially considering the article states that some people DID NOT sign agreements stating bandwidth caps.
No..It IS Excessive Force. Excessive Force occurs when the amount of manpower and/or the actions of said manpower far exceed the reasonable expected need to place someone under arrest.
I don't care what the motivation is, it's still excessive force in your story, and in the story in Toledo.
The process is called 'Asset Forfeiture' and it's covered in much more depth here.
You mean, as opposed to Dubya who wasn't actually elected but appointed to the presidency?
No see, it's got nothing to do with luck, and everything to do with your willingness to research your target companies, do the footwork to be prepared, and to put forth effort to get hired. A lot of people say they can't get hired, not because jobs aren't out there, but because this is the dot com boom anymore where you could write your resume on a piece of used toilet paper in crayon and odds were if it mentioned a computer you'd get hired.
If you know a company is hiring, find out who works there, find out what they do, find out what computer systems they use, what projects they've done lately, etc.
There are many sources where you can get information on a company's financial status, recent layoffs, mortgages, etc. Almost all of that information is public record.
But if you go in and don't know squat about the company you're interviewing at, they don't have a reason to get to know you.
I do have a family, including a preemie newborn. If we needed to move so I could have a job, we would, because that's what would be best for all of us. Period. My wife understands that, our parents understand that, everyone in our families understand that.
I'm sorry that you're not having luck finding work for Unix Admin. Searching from New York City to Washington DC, to Harrisburg (I figure living in Philly you can just as easily take the train to work) I found a couple of positions.
However, I do know some people in the New Jersey area, and elsewhere, and if you would like I can help you find work. I know I probably seem disingenuious, but I'm serious. Most jobs are not found through Dice.com or even recruiters, but also in who you know.
Hear hear! Finally a sensible thing said on Slashdot. Either someone is desperate enough that they're willing to bite the bullet and move to greener pastures or something else other than employment in their chosen field is more important to them, they've made that choice and they need to stop bitching. It comes down to individual choices and when you make the decision to stay in an area because of family ties and you can't find work, then that's your choice. You made it, now you're living with the consequences.
No one said growing up was easy. No one said every choice was going to be easy and any path your chose was lined with roses and candy shops. No one even said you have to like the consequences of your decisions, but they are a direct result. That's the nature of living, and frankly the litmus test of being an adult.
I got a job when my previous employer looked to be on the ropes. Am I happy that I have to pay more for Health Benefits? No, because I know I need them, and I traded off a little more money out of my pocket for greater stability and more opportunity. I recognize that as my choice and I'm living with it. Everyone complaining needs to do the same.
Funny, last month my company was looking like it was going to go Tits Up and I started floating my resume. Within two weeks I had my pick of four offers. What downturn? What recession?
For example, a quick peek at the Pittsburgh Tech Council Website shows that since 11/1/2002 there have been 104 IS jobs posted that are still open.
Geekfinder shows 744 positions open in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 434 in Maryland, 799 in Virginia, 936 in New Jersey, and 1322 in New York. So within 4 hours of here, I have over 4300 jobs to search through. Not to mention the local listings which don't make it to Dice.com, and even openings that never make it to the papers but you find out about through friends and contacts. If you can't find a job right now, you're just not looking hard enough. Nuff said. Have a dog biscuit and quite your bitching.
Yeah, Lord knows that with my English Literature degree is completely useless here at my Senior Developer position.
Never minding the fact that as an English Major I learned to spot patterns in text, motifs, and paradigms, which I use to see patterns in business, behavior, and people and apply that to coding. Never minding that I studied psychology and can use that knowledge to understand how a person expects something to work, and how a person reacts when something doesn't work that way. Never minding the fact that I studied philosophy and I'm used to dealing with abstractions of thought, and high-level concepts.
Fact of the matter is, by having a broad education I get a broader perspective, I get along well with all sorts of people, and I can roll with the changes in markets more quickly than someone who solely focused on the technical portions of education.
Check this out, once a year in PA, we have to pay an...AHEM..."Occupational Privilege Tax" because we have the privilege of having a job....
That is the most fucked up tax I've seen yet.
True there are lot of ignorant Americans, and we have our shortcomings, just as every other nation, but we must obviously be better than most every other place out there, or else we wouldn't have thousands upon thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Mexicans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, etc etc come into this country every year.
Pennsylvania also has a no call list. I signed up my number for it and I've gotten nary a call since. This is the wave of the future. Now if only there was a central place to do this for regular mail and email.
Despite his trollish tone, NineNine has a point that if you dance around waiting from some VC angel to give you the cash because you don't want to pony up your own time and dough, then you need to rethink your desire to go into business.
And as far as finding the cash, if you have a business plan that tells you you need close to $10,000 to start, fantastic, go hit the banks. Some investor will probably give you a shot. If you don't even know how much you'd need to start, then stop whining, create your business plan and get to work!
By way of example, Kevin Smith really wanted to make a movie, Clerks, and he didn't want to lose control of the work, so he applied for a bunch of credit cards, borrowed money from friends and family and made his movie. Now he's swimming in dough. It takes one person, one idea, and whole hell of a lot of determination to get somewhere in the business world.
Wrong. It's not a simple matter of a package of software. Using Pennsylvania as an example, according to State Sales Tax laws, if you buy a shed, it's taxable because it can be removed from your property, but the foundation you place the shed on is not. A bathing suit is taxable, but a bowling shirt is not. If you buy thread in Pennsylvania, and intend to use it patch a hole in your shirt or trousers, the thread is non-taxable. If, however, you intend to patch a hole in your couch, that same thread becomes taxable.
The examples given here are not indicative of Pennsylvania, but are typical of all States, which is what the States are trying to remedy by streamlining State sales taxes to make them more uniform. That's all fine and good, BUT...
As stated elsewhere in this thread, the Constitution explicitly prohibits the taxing of goods that are "exported" to another State. States have tried for years to overturn, or side-step this law with little luck. The law is very clear. States may not tax on goods sold in one state to a consumer in another state.
Amazon.com is headquartered in Washington State, therefore it is legal for them to compel Amazon to charge sales tax for Washington residents. Beyond that, it should not be legal, no.
Hey, if you want to set up in Bermuda, by all means. I have no problem with it, and those that do haven't grasped the economic realities of capitalism.