Fuck no. Thats their marketing, but that isn't their target audience. Their target audience are assholes that never graduated high school but 10 years later are still trying to pick up 16 year old chicks in their ratted out cameros -- someone please cue 80s er Van Halen right about now.
I've NEVER seen anyone wearing Oakleys outside of sporting events that wasn't a dumbass idiot. Never. They aren't all that fashionable -- you'd never see the elite wear them. They aren't particularly efficient at eye protection -- those that need this asshole style -- the pseudo wrap around -- and protection will pick up Gargoyles. I believe thats was the eye protection of choice when I was shooting on a regular basis (before I realized that even target shooting was really just practice for putting someone in a dirt nap -- sorry, there isn't a reason to touch a gun unless you have a wish to kill someone -- I've done well in the last few weeks with a simple 2 by 4 in DIY home protection and it was much more rewarding in the end).
Folks that are into extreme sports will probably opt for something that is more inline with their particular needs -- just as there are different shoes for rock climbing and biking, there are different needs for different shades for each of these sports.
All in all, this product targets no one but the asshole crowd that is highly uneducated, dresses in the adult form of Garanimals if they have any sense of accessorization or tshirts and flannels for the most part, and likes to sneer at you while they hit on your girlfriend -- well maybe not your girlfriends, but definitely mine.
It might, however, catch a few geeks that think dressing and acting like these assholes might actually attract the opposite sex. It won't. no matter how much you shower, the scent of geek will still be on you and you will just look even more pathetic than the standard poser. My advice to you -- find something classic in the eyeware arena -- Raybans are always nice, or even nice prescription glasses with clip ons. I dated a girl for about 6 weeks from an eyeware shop and used her 50% discount to pick up $500 shades for a little over $200. Theres always some cute punky geeky girl working at these places that will accept you for who you are. On the MP3 side, do yourself a favor and throw away the iRiver and the Archos bullshit and pick up an iPod (and if you can't do that, spend the $30 and pick up the white earbuds from an Apple store and keep your geek box in your pocket).
This isn't a geek story. This is a story for Fuckdotwad dot com, news for assholes, Stuff that makes your camero more obnoxious.
Well, its also 'within a reasonable amount of time'.
That is up to you and the credit card company to work out. If you are out of the country for a month, and someone breaks into your house and steals a spare card and you don't realize it until your bill shows up, you can still claim that it was a reasonable amount of time to contact them about it.
All in all, the credit card company *RARELY* gets stuck with the bill, so it doesn't really matter.
For instance, as a retailer if someone uses a fradulent card or claims they never authorized the purchase, I not only get dinged the amount of the merchandise I'm out, but also for a fuck you fee (as I call it). The bank accepted that the card was legit when my software called it in, but they can come back and claim it was my responsibility to do more than that. So we have purchased their products that allow us to verify addresses and other pieces of information and we can only ship the products to that.
By paying for the service, our fuck you fees are lowered, but if something still gets though, we still have to pay for them. If it amounts to a certain percentage or number in a specific time frame, the fuck you fees start doubling. For a $20 product, we might get hit with $25 in return fees.
So, unless its cold hard cash that the person took out of your account, expect to get the money back. If its money that the CC company is out, then expect to fight over it. The CC companies really have some of us over a barrel...
And now they are giving these things to much younger kids. Its a good way of giving allowance to kids without giving them cash that the bigger kids can steal -- or if they loose it, it can be canceled and the money protected....err...in theory because debits don't carry the same protection credit cards do, but most banks will try to give you close to the same.
Beyond that, when I run a credit card, my business doesn't get to know if its a debit card or not. When I'm on the road, I use my business's debit card that doesn't look anything like the cheesy consumer debits that go out of their way to let the person swiping it know its not a real credit card regardless of the visa logo. For instance, while in North Carolina a few weeks ago, I handed over my personal debit card to rent a car -- rejected. I then give then the business one, accepted -- same bank -- same type of card -- different look.
I'm convinced that the card companies don't tell anyone if its debit or credit and they have just compiled lists of acceptable CC Prefixes.
So no, having a credit card these days means nothing because of as the parent indicated -- debit cards are everywhere and anyone can get them.
Yes, but truely great ideas only come every so often.
Creativity isn't manual labor, regardless of what Warhol et al thought it could be.
You cannot have one creative person and think to yourself, if I had 11 more folks working directly for him, I'd have a dozen creative folks.
It just doesn't work that way.
As such, the truely creative need to be protected in some small way and secured. I think copyright laws need reformed. Other IP? Patents only have 7 years...some would argue thats too long for computer based works. I've had projects of mine that were theorized 7 years ago and just now seeing the light of day. I don't have the manpower that can understand what I'm doing to actually get the stuff done, so most of the theoretical stuff I work on is a one man project -- I let others clean it up and make it presentable though. If I had patented the stuff -- and the university has tried before -- I would have lost all protection before I had a product to market.
The folks that create creative works need protection. Code monkeys will never understand, because most programmers think programming is what happens when your fingers hit the keys. Programming is dead simple. Just like writting music is dead simple. Writting something that is useful to your target audience is hard...otherwise, with all the technical advancements Linux has, everyone would be using this. Why else would OSX have become the #1 unix like OS in less than a few years selling more copies than any other unix ever (cripes...I know I'm going to have some fucking slashdotter argue over that...read the words over before responding to that statement).
Regardless, if we claim intangibles are artifically protected, we need to start saying all property needs not be protected. Why give special status to that car? Its for the good of the village that everyone be able to drive it. If everyone that owned a car suddenly had to put into the domain of the public good, these would immediately be used by everyone and even the guy that gave his up would have access to a vehicle whenever he needed one so it wouldn't really matter.
Knowledge, just because it takes no mass, is property just as anything else. Either we state that we are all commie hippies and we must give away all things private for the public good, or we state there has to be ownership by the individual -- who can state if he wants to give something to the common good or not.
The fact is, this whole IP revolution slashdotters have is just killing themselves. Unless of course, this is just a site full of manual laborers that do nothing for the world except tweek a few lines of code and pop it back in the system. Personally, I'd be happier with actual items containing mass becoming public property and pushing that as the way of the future before I did information.
Cars want to be free. Carjackers of the world unit. You are the first line of defence against the Physical Property Nazis!!!
" If the producer wanted you to hear it like that, he'd have added it to the recording."
Not really.
The modern producer has to realize the works he puts out have to be played on a number of systems.
For instance, while most of us have our high end 'impress the clients' systems, most of our mix down speakers / monitors are incredibly cheap sounding. Why? Because we have to produce for the lowest common denominator.
I've got a high end JBL system that sounds killer for that warm sound. I've got another system, BlueSkys, for the high end precision clear sound. And I keep around a pair of industry standard, any producer worth his salts can walk in and recognize the qualities of this shitty box and mix accordingly speakers.
Its all a compromise. Nothing is how we would have wanted it to be recorded unless we just have no sense of aesthetics or vision. Personally -- I'd release everything in 5.1 or higher -- much easier to mix, the sounds don't need as much equalization to keep specific sounds from clobbering each other, and instead of trying to set a three dimensional soundstage on 2 dimensional speaker, you can approximate everything more accurately if the others are using an industry standard positional setup.
So no, just because something isn't in a recording, that doesn't mean the producer specifically didn't want it.
No, I was promoted within my security job and they asked me to be a captain. I was a college student at the time, and I was actually asked to testify. Luckily for me, the guy copped a plea and I didn't have to.
And I quit the security force 6 months after that because they kept putting me and my partner at that facility on high profile duties that kept me away from school work. That and I almost had to use my weapon once -- when we were technically not supposed to have them with us (but my supervisor made it clear we needed them and as private citizens, that was our decision to make).
You do make a good troll though:P If you posted as a real person, I would have modded you up with my other account.
I have no problems with folks suing and pushing the incompetent health care professionals out of business, but this now becomes a problem with the American Jury System.
In our system -- we want absolutely no one that has a clue about what anyone is talking about lest they be prejudiced. In the Napolionic system of laws, the jury is comprised of those that actually understand whats going on -- a true jury of peers.
Unfortunately, both have problems -- the first allows the idiots to think that its a big health care system and they aren't doing any harm by giving a little money to someone grieving. After all, its the insurance companies paying, not the individual they think. In the second, you have a set of jurors that are likely to vote with the person charged simply because its one of those Prisoner Dilemma type situations...if you convict someone that is incompetent, it will make the profession look incompetent and thus implement you as well. If you don't convict, you allow someone on the street that could harm someone else -- but in the end, you are more likely to not be dinged when someone puts up a bullshit claim against you. The safest bet for you is to not convict...
Maybe a middle ground on this?
Ah...but these are the reasons health care is getting so bad. The whole victim mentality mixed with folks only wanting to pay for the lowest common denominator. My doctor costs a little more to see...he's not under my first tier on my insurance. But fucking shit, I'll pay to make certain someone that can actually sit with me for a few minutes and figure out whats wrong (or right in the case of my hypochondria) and treat me as not a number.
Probably the whole reason I'm poor -- I want quality over quantity even if I end up broke over it...
As one of the ACs mentioned, hiding isn't a way to go about things. As the other mentioned, drugs and crime aren't just a big city problem -- I live in the midwest. Yeah, a bigger city, but no where near Chicago, LA or NYC.
I live close to town -- I can bike to where I need to. I don't have to worry about snow in the winter keeping me in. I always have something within 3 miles to do thats entertaining.
That and this was the biggest house I could afford for university wages -- I had to look within to get it. in the suburbs, I couldn't have found a structurally sound historic home with hand carved wood and detailed inlaid floors for anywhere near the money I put into this.
Since I've been calling the police more often, the other neighbors have too. In the 7 months I've been here, we successfully had a section 8 house closed and another double that was slated to be section 8 denied by the city. Section 8 housing are those that are reserved for the poor and most of the rent is paid for by the state...I don't mind poor, I mind the criminal elements they bring with them. Quite a few poor folk that are good friends here. And I'm not sure why they are considered 'poor' because they have more shit than I do. Probably poor because they spend like a fiend and let credit cards catch up with them where I'm just content to have a home of my own.
So, instead of removing myself, I'm trying to change it. Trying to encourage more families to move in. Trying to encourage folks to buy as opposed to renting. Once folks have ownership, they start to have pride and want to be out of bad situations. When its someone elses problem, you can fuck things up and move on to the next place...owning doesn't allow you to do this.
So, all in all I'm happy. There are no perfect situations. I'm hoping that it will get better and I'm sure it will. I've lived in neighborhoods almost as bad as this one only to see run down homes go for a quarter million with another half put into them. My last neighborhood had my current governor living there (well back when he was Lt. Gov) as they had cleaned it up and turned some of the shitty tenements into high class condos. All over the course of 10 years I'd lived there. Right now, my home is an investment...its the only form of investment I can make with my current income level (trying to keep my side business afloat these days...argh!). The houses in my old neighborhood went through a 100% increase in pricing in 10 years. And now city expansion is pushing directly towards my path with the yuppies that couldn't get into my old neighborhood in time (I knew I should have bought when my landlord offered it to be 5 years ago), this area is slated for urban renewal as well. I am just east of where they tore down Indianapolis's Market Square Arena and in its stead are going to be luxury condos -- most going for a half mill. Folks in my situation that want to be near that action but couldn't come near to paying for those prices will be looking at the area that is up and coming and they will be moving in next to me in the next few years.
So, I'm happy -- just not happy with ALL the elements. Hell, once this all happens, I'm going to be screaming about the property tax increases -- so it never changes...always pissed off about something...
I don't know why anyone rated your post as flamebait, just another reason the realize the fuckwads on Slashdot don't fucking know shit. Hell, most of my posts are far more flamebait that yours.
But you are right. Most likely they won't amount to anything, but thats not my problem. I will do whats right while they are around me and hope that something wears off.
By day, I work for an educational facility...I generally hire folks in the tech world that have no knowledge of the area -- but want the jobs much more than the ones that do know the area and interview with me -- these guys sound bored and one actually threatened me that if I didn't hire him it would only be because I thought he would take my job. Please -- no one gets fired or promoted in academia no matter how good or bad you are.
Kids that were probably looking at getting out with a mid $20k job are finding out that working for me after 3 years, they were getting jobs worth almost double that. I've got one employer that calls me all the time because he's never been dissatisfied with one of my students. Interestingly, most of the kids weren't even pursuing tech degrees but wanted my jobs because I paid the highest for student work on campus -- which is actually how I got my first job in the tech field -- I went for the highest paying one which happened to be a geek position.
So I have made a change in some folks lives. If people are exposed to situations like this where they are given a chance to be around positive situations, they will change somewhat. It might mean hesitating before pulling the trigger one night and deciding not to kill someone and walking away after robbing him. One of the kids in the neighborhood has violent tendencies where he picks up rocks or sticks and attacks animals. His father has taught him that animals are worthless and one can hurt or kill them without thinking. I've let him play with my animals and he actually seems to like them now. I saw him a few days ago with a leash walking my next door neighbors dog. Its not a big jump from saying that animals are worthless and need to be beat down than saying humans are worthless and need beat down.
Most of the time, I feel just the opposite -- I'd never hurt an animal, but I'd beat the shit out of a person in a heartbeat.
So changes happen. Its not seismic changes, but little ones.
As for the batman costume -- who needs the suit? I was thrown out of my first colleges dorm because I threw a dealer out of a 3rd story window after he kicked in the wrong (slightly open) door with a gun pointed. I beat the shit out of some homophobic racists that were slipping notes under black folks doors as well as the little gay kid that lived across the hall. I caught them laughing about it on the other side, and after seeing the kid come to my room every other night crying and asking why folks hated him, I took action. They never proved that I was the one that threw the guy out the window (or my buddy Mike or our friend that was in the room that was a state police officer there to play Doom I) -- he never pressed charges. They did note that I single handedly beat the shit out of 3 guys and kicked on in the nuts so hard he lost a testicle. Never mind that one of them threw the first punch after I said I was calling to police, never mind that the noted had been saved and the fingerprints matched theirs, nevermind the ringleader was ordered to stay away from several women in the dorm because he was accused of stalking them, but they said I was overly violent because there was no way that anyone could have beaten the shit out of 3 guys and left them in the condition I did if I wasn't slightly nuts -- I ended up going to jail that night, not them. We all got kicked out of the dorm, but I was the one that was almost kicked out of the university (actually I was for a while...a judge reinstated me and reprimanded the officials involved).
What did I learn from all of this? Sometimes you do need to crack heads. but more importantl
It was private care -- hence more in line with capitalism than anything else. My current job is one in assessment and psychometrics and we design testing instruments -- every nurse I've worked with in this area has been the top of her field and are the kind I would like to see in the private care areas -- but they are doing their part by trying to instill the best skills into the current crop of students.
Honestly, I don't know what I'd look for if I were a private citizen looking to put someone in a home.
On the surface, everyone seemed qualified. When I first started working there, I didn't suspect a thing. It was once I started patrolling the floors I could interact with these folks on a more than surface basis and it took a while. It wasn't until I'd be coming around a corner and hear statements like "Damn Girl, I almost kill Mr. Jeffries the other day...he wouldn't hold still and I punctured an artery but I'm gonna jus tell everyone he fell on his arm an thats why he's all bruised" -- that was one of the first things I heard that started making me wonder (or something like it...its been 10 years and my memory is faulty:-) By that statement, you realize that they didn't have enough staff to restrain a patient that needed a blood draw and just fucking stuck him just to get it over with (I was giving blood once and this happened to me -- my entire top half of my arm bruised up as blood seeped into the tissues and turned black -- it happens), and then the fact that they have to lie about whats going on in a case that might change his care -- instead of being allowed to walk around, he now may be confined to his bed because he has falling spells.
These were things I picked up over a while -- it was never anything I could have eyeballed. And again, this is why you don't want the lowest of the paid employees -- they might do an admirable job 99% of the time. Thats approximately 1 screw up every 80 hours of work. If they are working double shifts to make ends meet, thats a screw up every week that effects a patients care or his health and maybe even his life. In the tech industry, we aim for the 5 nines -- 99.999%...if you are talking server downtime, that is like 5 minutes out of a year or something like that. There isn't much difference between someone just eyeballing the care between the 99 and the 99.999 because the odds are in favor with no screw up happening while you (family member) is around anyways -- and when it does, it will be blamed on something else -- because you weren't there to witness it.
BTW everyone *WILL** screw up at some point -- especially in health care where most everything is subjective and course of treatments may happen 5 different ways with 5 different doctors -- which is one of the reasons there needs to be some health care malpractice reform -- but the fact is, those that are more into quality and less into quantity will spread their errors a lot further than the ones that are just in it for the cold hard cash.
The kids have done nothing wrong. The sins of the father do not equate to the sins of the son.
Neighborhood kids come over to my place and hang out -- outside, never inside near my shit. I keep it clean and they have a nice front yard they can play in. And I bribe them with a coke or a dollar to clean up the neighborhood. A few weekends ago, I was mowing the lawn, and we ended up mowing 6 yards and they picked up all the trash from the streets and for this, I was out a case of coke and $20. This was about 6 or 7 kids from a few families.
Maybe if the kids learn to take care of shit and work for stuff, they will not live the same life their father does. Half the kids around here are on welfare and I hope I'm helping them see how it is to do something for a living...
I call the police on these guys quite often anyways.
The fact is, in a free society you don't go calling the police on suspicions that cannot be proven unless there is a perceived immediate danger.
I call the police when I'm pretty sure they have a deal going on as noted by a dozen thugs in cars hanging outside and bags are being exchanged. Thats a danger because these guys are bringing in armed criminal elements into my neighborhood. Several have been arrested over the last few months.
But to call and say hey! I think he has a stolen laptop but I have no proof and I could be wrong (for all I know its a pawnshop laptop -- those are vetted for legality in some small ways) or otherwise. It wasn't strong enough proof to do anything about it.
In a free society, you don't just bring in the Gestapo everytime you have a twitchy nerve telling you something ain't right.
Not being happy with a situation is what drives any society. Folks taking a shortcut to the intended goal the society would like to promote is just a side effect.
There are very few societies that thrive on maintaining purely the status quo. I fail to see your point past the obvious...then again,/.'rs aren't the most intuitive bunch, so I thank you for pointing this out to them.
I'm suggesting that this guy had stolen far more than others, and he still wasn't satisfied with the fact the had more shit than most people and still didn't know how to deal with it.
I could have easily unscrewed the case, pulled the bios battery or hit the reset jumpers and looked up the default supervisor password through google. I can't prove it was stolen, its most likely it is, but then again, one can't go around calling the police simply because you think something is stolen.
Trolling? No. Why does every stupid motherfucker on Slashdot claim trolling just because they can't understand what the poster is saying. Its called fucking English. Thats what this forum is written in. Learn it.
Now that too was not a troll. I put it in there so that you can understand the difference between a flame and a troll. Generally used by the same individuals, but in this case it is posted by a separate group.
" Unless we really want to live in a society where equality is enforced and nobody is allowed to have anymore than anyone else, the presence of thieves and other criminals is something we will always need to deal with."
I doubt it. There will always be a percentage of the population that is not happy with having the status quo. For instance, the crack dealers down the street from me have sent their friends to try to break into my house -- I know the one guy the police have caught is someone I'd seen hanging out in their den.
Sadly, they have better shit than I do. They think since I'm white and a home owner I'm fair target. One of the kids that lives there asked me to help him with his computer because someone told him I was good with these things (I generally don't tell folks what I do in this neighborhood) and it was a better laptop than I had for work -- and this is a 12 year old boy. Not his dads laptop, *HIS*.
Seems there was some sort of bios lock on the machine that was enacted after not signing it in after so many sessions (I'm not up with all the CompuTrace kinda shit that my work is always telling us we need to have on our machines).
So, no matter how much one person has in comparison to those around him, it will never be enough for some people. Its good to think that some magic hippy star trek future would eliminate hunger and greed, and as this kind of future will never happen, it doesn't really harm anyone to believe in this -- at least until you start an economical ideology based around this and then start realizing that the common laborer doesn't need the same equipment that a research scientist does and you start to pass out equipment based on need, and you realize you have just created an unequal society once again and need to set up a draconian society to ensure everyone is equally unhappy in one way or another.
Thieves are thieves and there will always be someone that wants something for nothing and wants to have more than those around him...
Even modern capitalism is really not defined by these terms any more than modern communism mean no corruption and the state is really run for the good of ALL people.
Why? because idealism is dangerous. I have a lot off beliefs that are great beliefs by themselves, but put into practice by imperfect people, would be a recipe for disaster.
This is one of those recipes.
I worked in a nursing home several years ago as a security guard while putting myself through college. I also work with nurses designing licensure exams in my day job. So I've seen the worst and the best of this area. The ones in my current professional day job are what
Supply and demand does not work. Imagine if a trucking firm decided that supply and demand was all that was needed to get a job. They'd work their guys at the lowest price that they could get away with ensuring the good guys look for better paying jobs in another industry, make sure that the guys that are willing to work the lowest will get as many hours as they want, and get there in the fastest time. This is how it use to work. My grandfather was a truck driver and it wasn't uncommon for guys to switch log books for guys on vacation with as little regulation as it needed.
Then the 'damn liberals' came along with their socialist rules. They started requiring only so many hours a week. So the guys would still pull allnighters to get the deliveries, and since they could only work so much, they had nice long weekends. I use to love when my grandfather would stop over at my place, rig in tow, simply because he burned off most of his hours and decided to spend time with me in the midwest until he could get hours to drive back to Pennsylvania. And then the damn liberals changed it again...not only a specific maximum a week, but only so many hours a day.
Did the fucking liberals not get the Cap 101 course? Or are they in fact fucking red commies disguised as gawd blessed Americans???
So back to nursing. When I was working with the nurses, this was one of those bid out to the lowest employee kinda places. The head nurse was great... unfortunately she had no hiring rights. That was done by the administrator. Out of a staff around 15 nurses, I could count 3 that I would have wanted to care for my dying relative (or in this case, my drug addled relative that got fucked up in a gangbang shooting and has to have round the clock care -- it was half nice old people, half stupid motherfuckers that should have been left on the side of the road). Ok, maybe if they could have just kept the incompetent folks on the druggie floor, I wouldn't have minded.
The incompetent were the ones that got all the extra shifts. They were they ones that couldn't do the job in the first place -- they did pass the licensure boards, but were at the low end of the acceptability range. Imagine how well they could do working 80 to 100 hours -- still within the legal range (or so they told me).
I saved at least one patient as I overheard an idiot trying to convert an intracardial injection into imperial units. The two nurses were arguing about this and the one that was most correct was STILL a magnitude off. Jeez...isn't this why we use solely the metric system in a hospital setting? I got the 'fucking know it all college boy' speech when I said something, and then paged the head nurse immediately. She fired the duty nurse on the spot when she dropped her dinner with her doctor husband 2 blocks away at the hospital -- and the idiot was back within the week because of the administrator. Her excuse? She was working too many shifts between this place and a temp service (and she was getting 70 hours already at this job). She quit the temp service and they allowed her to pick up a few more hours here.
Finally, and this was the whole reason they hired a security guard, old women were being sexually molested -- raped -- and meds were disappearing at a rate that they shouldn't. It turns out the nurses were supp
I own a small but livable home. To support it, I need to take on two jobs. It has a patch of green space and its surrounded by a fence.
And it was many more times the price of what my parents paid for a similar priced house even when you factor in inflation.
That means the average parent these days has to be out of the house much more. Do you know what your babysitter is watching? Or allowing your kids to watch? Beyond that, parents cannot be omnipotent. I know when I was a kid, I was the sneakiest bastard out there...just like every other kid I knew. I knew where my dads porn tapes were hidden (and hidden from my mom). If they were out of the house for 20 minutes -- in the back yard or cooking dinner or anything else, I could sneak a watch of this stuff.
So, now the individual consumer has the choice of restricting certain images from coming into their sets. The public airwaves are intended to be there solely for the good of the people...thats one of the reasons they can fine for debasing sexual almost rape like scenes in a dance number on an otherwise family sporting event. I'm no prude and I see stuff far more violent than this on cable every day, but I don't want my public airwaves depicting this.
Past that, as such, the gov't mandates that airwaves be coded -- it might not be coded the way you or I would like, but we don't need to pay attention to this anyways -- you are an adult I take it -- though most 'civil libretarians' with views like yours are generally juvilile punks that have no clue what free speech means.
You can buy a television without the vchip -- it just can't be one that picks up over the air signals. Thats your choice. By accessing this signals, you agree to use them as your gov't asks you to.
So is it an option for the individual consumer? Sure it is. You will probably pay more for it because A) the chip adds less than a dollar to the parts and is created enmass, B) companies don't like to build something new not adding a part that will require seperate accounting and otherwise for something that YOU CAN TURN OFF IF YOU DON'T LIKE.
So if you want your parent to pay attention to you 24/7 these days, join the fucking commune, hippy. Its not realistic in this society. And for once the gov't isn't mandating anyone do one thing or another -- they are only forcing that this option be given.
" (much like the V-Chip crap with TV's awhile back)."
Huh? VChips are in most TVs today.
Its a great piece of work...it helps the gov't allow parents to restrict what the parents want the kids to watch without having to pass draconian laws censoring the general public. I would never use it, but it it keeps even one religious freak from screaming about whats on the airwaves and getting in my congressmans face about it, I'm all for it.
As a side note, I was trying to get an older TV of mine working as my current one just died last week...I was surprised when I went through the setup that it had the Vchip in it because I never messed with it. Simple to use and it doesn't screw with anything else. Thats the way technology should be...I have no problems with folks deciding what they want to watch in their own homes...
If he keeps it to himself, it means nothing. No one owns your head. Personally, I don't like to release my own works because of the issues you have noted -- I prefer to work on other folks works and tweak the stuff to be a bit more commercial, if thats what they want, or just fill out the stuff they couldn't do on their own...but the last song of mine that was released was one that my engineer had found sitting on a hard drive and ended up playing for a client. Honestly, I would have preferred it staying out of the ears of others...I recorded it for myself. I am a bit of a freak when it comes to others criticizing my works and really don't want anyone messing with what I have -- putting my music in the public domain would mean ANYONE was able to do what they want with it. The *ONLY* reason I allowed it to be rerecorded was that the artist was a good friend of mine and a former girlfriend (which is why the engineer didn't feel there was anything in showing off what I had been working on).
But back to the point, the material is the creators. If the audience wants to take it upon themselves to add more to it, fine...it still not theirs. Just like the GPL says that if you take a work and add on to it, it and the derivatives still belong to the creator. This is only possible because copyright allows the creator to retain control.
Just because a culture identifies with something doesn't make it theirs. A culture can decide to make something and release it into that culture and decide that copyright means nothing to them. Good for them. It was noted that Woody Guthrie (or was it Arlo? I forget) had stated on his hand copied lyrics that he wanted the music to belong to the ages and encouraged others to play the music and pass it along, thus defeating a recent copyright act. I find his work to be fully of the people because of this.
Backstreet Boys? Jeezus Fucking Christ...if this is what passes for cultural phenomenon, the culture has already said they bow at the cock of crass consumerism and deserve to pay for this work each and everytime they hear it. And at the same time, you have pointed out a reason to keep copyright intact because in a few years from now, even the kids that loved this shit will cringe upon hearing it...and instead of being passed down to the next generation, it will hopefully be dead to the ages never to be heard again for at least 100 years and hopefully I will be dead by that time and not have to defend my culture...
The fact of the matter is that any artist that has decided to do this fulltime *HAS* to worry somewhat about their copyright and worry about future sustainability.
If you are a writer, you may write several hits in your life with several bombs in between. Creativity isn't a spout that you turn on...even when its flowing, its not always the best thing you could do.
Past that, art is very subjective. Unlike a work for hire, you aren't going to find one person willing to front what you think its worth. You need people to pay for it over the months / years / decades. IMHO, creative works are worth far more than rote technical work...my day job is academic...very little of what I do is creative. I take a salary for that. I encourage anything I give to the university to be given to the public. Quite honestly, after I'm finished with it, I have no need for it, and I really don't want to support it. My creative works? I don't think anyone can pay me for what they are worth.
Which leads to several ideas that conscious artists have done -- the MP3 books have folks that are selling these things but promise that the performance will be public domain after X years or after they make Y amount on. I can respect that. They know what its worth to them and as soon as its paid for, it belongs to the public. This is also what the Blender folks did when they turned it over to the public and let its buyers GPL it.
Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing puts his works out under the creative commons license.
http://craphound.com/est/download.php
Thats pretty cool. Unfortunately, he is protected because screen readers SUCK unless you are blind or trying to make yourself go blind (by reading a novel online). I actually bought his book because I wanted to support the cause...honestly, I've picked it up a few times and put it down just as many. I don't know if its any good as I can't get past the first 20 pages.
This doesn't really work for music...most of us grabbing an MP3 or AAC are going to keep it in that format. Other than the liner notes, the physical medium of music doesn't do anything for me. I open my cds just to rip the disc to iPod anyways.
I have no problems with folks hanging on to their copyright or giving it away if they feel like. Its their decision...its their creation, they should do as they want with it and we should respect it either way.
As for Adobe...bullshit. There are many many other packages that do the same job for free or much cheaper. Why don't liquor stores realize that getting robbed and one of their cashiers shot as part of business. Most people don't want to be legitimate or they'd be using a free PDF printer software. Or a free illustration software. Or a cheap image manipulation software. What? need the business savy features? Well them pay for it. I paid for Photoshop with a single job. I'd used it at my work for years...I bought a copy for home use after one fucking job. I picked up FinalCutPro after one commercial I edited for a friend as his album was being featured on BET. I did the first commercial edit under iMovie and it was pretty good for what we needed. FCP was FAR better (but I still use iMovie to get stuff done quickly).
If someone that has no business working in graphic design or editing video (I was asked because I'm the geek that is always hanging out with less savvy musicians and they think I can do anything -- least I know about legal title sizes in an advertisement now:-) If I, a nonpro in this particular area, can earn enough to pay for the stuff, image what a real serious artist that knew his trade could do.
As for the first testament (something they call the new testament in a lot of places), maybe we'd have a lot less wars if it was. Maybe the authors decided or were commanded to by their supreme being to open it to the public domain. Other religions such as the Mormons or the Church of Scientology keep their religious texts copywritten and hidden from the genera
Too many idiots think that free speech extends to private lands and domains. Its as if they think they can come into my living room and if you don't want to listen to them, you are violating their first amendment rights.
This is generally the argument spammers also use. They say its their first amendment right to say what they want. Sure...it is...on their fucking server. The minute they impose on my resources, they have violated any right they might have had and deserves any asskicking they may end up with. In real life, someone coming into my house repeatedly after asking them to leave and doesn't shut up is going to get a fucking two by four imprint in their forehead. I've been doing some remodeling, so I got one handy...
Just to be clear: First amendment applies to your personal space and public property, in theory, and no where else. Not the shopping mall, not the internet, not on the racist neighbors lawn.
But what the fuck does it matter is a nursery rhyme is copyrighted? We are far too attached to the past.
War footage? If its footage taken while in the company of a gov't agency, there should be limited rights given to the reporting company, but it should be public media. Too many instances of items commissioned with the use of public moneys ends up as private property.
There is nothing wrong with the public domain as long as the creator puts it there. I would rather have things like public domain works than GPL'd works. But its not my decision how folks release their works.
Honestly, the good artists will give their stuff away eventually...if they don't, they aren't artists. If they aren't artists, their work means nothing and requires no memory.
It has actually almost killed a company that is near and dear to me.
CG and Sam Ash had a 60 day return, no questions asked, and the high end equipment was NEVER sold for very long...it was used for a project and sent back. Cheaper than the rental houses. This was especially a big problem in LA and Nashville where it was said certain brands had a 90% return rate.
This equipment was sent back not just to the store, but agreements made it where the manufacturer had to take it back, sometimes sans parts like rom boards, expansions, cables, manuals, and pay for the shipping back. This was VERY bad for smaller companies that didn't have the sales to mass market products and had to deal with higher pricing because of the niche market.
Several major companies have decided they are not going to do business with GC because of this, and GC claims that if you aren't willing to follow their return policy, they won't sell the product. Sell in the #1 music store in the world, or go it yourself and out of niche distributors -- some of the niche salesfolks work out of their cars or basements and these are the guys selling the top of the line highest quality, pure matching components.
These people are killing the hardware end...especially the ones that go to one store, return and go down to the next store. It happens each and every day in the industry.
Quite honestly, I think the creator of a work should be able to indefinitely control his work no matter how long that may be.
There is *NOTHING* in a work of art that is considered a need to humanity. Nothing. Remember -- copyrights protect works of art, not ideas. Patents are for ideas and I think 7 years is more than long enough to protect an idea.
But copyright? Nothing that can save a mans life. Feed a starving nations children. Stop a speeding plane from hitting your building. Its a trivial work. As trivial as it is, the creator should be able to control it for as long as he wants.
I believe works should come from a person -- anything that is written from the perspective of a business should not be copyrightable. A person should be able to allow a business to manage his copyrights, but the business should not be able to own it. Upon death of the author, the family should have a short while to profit off the copyright so as not to induce hardships. A short time would be far shorter than it is today.
But all in all, I believe intellectual properties should be respected even if the law does not require it.
"Talent, originality, and determination made the intellectual property back then."
And it makes it today...unfortunately every motherfucker with a CD Burner or an internet connection now claims that they should have the right to reproduce this stuff -- and not require any talent to do so. Or at least one would think this is the popular group think from this site.
"You're in the industry so you tell me, did all the artists that made it to the big leagues in your industry have money coming out of their behinds to actually pay for all the crap they needed to make a good impression and get signed?"
What are your trying to prove with this question. Its goes to bias when you ask did ALL. No -- there are some thieves out there. In the hiphop world, folks brag about being thieves. Folks seem to like this and treat these idiots like ghetto kings. Yeah, Rock and Roll is all about being a rebel as well.
So no, I don't think that all musicians made it there legitimately. Personally, I think if you have to make your art by ripping someone else off, you aren't an artist. Probably why some genrea have gone to idiots not calling themselves artists but entrepreneurs. They think its a big word and they look educated by using it. At least they aren't calling themselves artists and I can respect that.
I don't know about you, but back in the day it cost me money to build my studio. I have two synths worth around $10k sitting in the studio. I had to earn those. I bought a decent Mac because thats what they big guys were using...my PC was much cheaper and was build from scraps. But thats what you did to be a pro.
In the visual arts? My roommate spends around $100 on canvases every week or two. Can't be bothered to do that? Can't really steal it can you? Well ya can, just not as easily. His airbrush? Cost him around $350 before he ripped out the guts and replaces everything once or twice. His large format camera...Its like $6 or $7 per shot in the damn thing.
So what is different between the way the old skool is with having to pay to learn the art and idiot children thinking they need to steal to get into their art? I learned 3D from using POVRay on a 486. It sounds like this is the area you are in...POVRay was free. Lots of free front ends for it that are probably much easier than it was back when I was using this crap. 48hours for a render was not uncalled for...come back over the weekend and find out its crap and start over.
I've always seen the educations versions very inexpense and far cheaper than what it cost to get into my field.
In my day job, I am a researcher and educator. My department is always trying to dodge why enrollments are down any particular year. Folks try to blame one department or another. This year they were claiming my department was pa
Slashdot Mirror
Extreme / Hardcore?
Fuck no. Thats their marketing, but that isn't their target audience. Their target audience are assholes that never graduated high school but 10 years later are still trying to pick up 16 year old chicks in their ratted out cameros -- someone please cue 80s er Van Halen right about now.
I've NEVER seen anyone wearing Oakleys outside of sporting events that wasn't a dumbass idiot. Never. They aren't all that fashionable -- you'd never see the elite wear them. They aren't particularly efficient at eye protection -- those that need this asshole style -- the pseudo wrap around -- and protection will pick up Gargoyles. I believe thats was the eye protection of choice when I was shooting on a regular basis (before I realized that even target shooting was really just practice for putting someone in a dirt nap -- sorry, there isn't a reason to touch a gun unless you have a wish to kill someone -- I've done well in the last few weeks with a simple 2 by 4 in DIY home protection and it was much more rewarding in the end).
Folks that are into extreme sports will probably opt for something that is more inline with their particular needs -- just as there are different shoes for rock climbing and biking, there are different needs for different shades for each of these sports.
All in all, this product targets no one but the asshole crowd that is highly uneducated, dresses in the adult form of Garanimals if they have any sense of accessorization or tshirts and flannels for the most part, and likes to sneer at you while they hit on your girlfriend -- well maybe not your girlfriends, but definitely mine.
It might, however, catch a few geeks that think dressing and acting like these assholes might actually attract the opposite sex. It won't. no matter how much you shower, the scent of geek will still be on you and you will just look even more pathetic than the standard poser. My advice to you -- find something classic in the eyeware arena -- Raybans are always nice, or even nice prescription glasses with clip ons. I dated a girl for about 6 weeks from an eyeware shop and used her 50% discount to pick up $500 shades for a little over $200. Theres always some cute punky geeky girl working at these places that will accept you for who you are. On the MP3 side, do yourself a favor and throw away the iRiver and the Archos bullshit and pick up an iPod (and if you can't do that, spend the $30 and pick up the white earbuds from an Apple store and keep your geek box in your pocket).
This isn't a geek story. This is a story for Fuckdotwad dot com, news for assholes, Stuff that makes your camero more obnoxious.
Well, its also 'within a reasonable amount of time'.
That is up to you and the credit card company to work out. If you are out of the country for a month, and someone breaks into your house and steals a spare card and you don't realize it until your bill shows up, you can still claim that it was a reasonable amount of time to contact them about it.
All in all, the credit card company *RARELY* gets stuck with the bill, so it doesn't really matter.
For instance, as a retailer if someone uses a fradulent card or claims they never authorized the purchase, I not only get dinged the amount of the merchandise I'm out, but also for a fuck you fee (as I call it). The bank accepted that the card was legit when my software called it in, but they can come back and claim it was my responsibility to do more than that. So we have purchased their products that allow us to verify addresses and other pieces of information and we can only ship the products to that.
By paying for the service, our fuck you fees are lowered, but if something still gets though, we still have to pay for them. If it amounts to a certain percentage or number in a specific time frame, the fuck you fees start doubling. For a $20 product, we might get hit with $25 in return fees.
So, unless its cold hard cash that the person took out of your account, expect to get the money back. If its money that the CC company is out, then expect to fight over it. The CC companies really have some of us over a barrel...
And now they are giving these things to much younger kids. Its a good way of giving allowance to kids without giving them cash that the bigger kids can steal -- or if they loose it, it can be canceled and the money protected....err...in theory because debits don't carry the same protection credit cards do, but most banks will try to give you close to the same.
Beyond that, when I run a credit card, my business doesn't get to know if its a debit card or not. When I'm on the road, I use my business's debit card that doesn't look anything like the cheesy consumer debits that go out of their way to let the person swiping it know its not a real credit card regardless of the visa logo. For instance, while in North Carolina a few weeks ago, I handed over my personal debit card to rent a car -- rejected. I then give then the business one, accepted -- same bank -- same type of card -- different look.
I'm convinced that the card companies don't tell anyone if its debit or credit and they have just compiled lists of acceptable CC Prefixes.
So no, having a credit card these days means nothing because of as the parent indicated -- debit cards are everywhere and anyone can get them.
Yes, but truely great ideas only come every so often.
Creativity isn't manual labor, regardless of what Warhol et al thought it could be.
You cannot have one creative person and think to yourself, if I had 11 more folks working directly for him, I'd have a dozen creative folks.
It just doesn't work that way.
As such, the truely creative need to be protected in some small way and secured. I think copyright laws need reformed. Other IP? Patents only have 7 years...some would argue thats too long for computer based works. I've had projects of mine that were theorized 7 years ago and just now seeing the light of day. I don't have the manpower that can understand what I'm doing to actually get the stuff done, so most of the theoretical stuff I work on is a one man project -- I let others clean it up and make it presentable though. If I had patented the stuff -- and the university has tried before -- I would have lost all protection before I had a product to market.
The folks that create creative works need protection. Code monkeys will never understand, because most programmers think programming is what happens when your fingers hit the keys. Programming is dead simple. Just like writting music is dead simple. Writting something that is useful to your target audience is hard...otherwise, with all the technical advancements Linux has, everyone would be using this. Why else would OSX have become the #1 unix like OS in less than a few years selling more copies than any other unix ever (cripes...I know I'm going to have some fucking slashdotter argue over that...read the words over before responding to that statement).
Regardless, if we claim intangibles are artifically protected, we need to start saying all property needs not be protected. Why give special status to that car? Its for the good of the village that everyone be able to drive it. If everyone that owned a car suddenly had to put into the domain of the public good, these would immediately be used by everyone and even the guy that gave his up would have access to a vehicle whenever he needed one so it wouldn't really matter.
Knowledge, just because it takes no mass, is property just as anything else. Either we state that we are all commie hippies and we must give away all things private for the public good, or we state there has to be ownership by the individual -- who can state if he wants to give something to the common good or not.
The fact is, this whole IP revolution slashdotters have is just killing themselves. Unless of course, this is just a site full of manual laborers that do nothing for the world except tweek a few lines of code and pop it back in the system. Personally, I'd be happier with actual items containing mass becoming public property and pushing that as the way of the future before I did information.
Cars want to be free. Carjackers of the world unit. You are the first line of defence against the Physical Property Nazis!!!
" If the producer wanted you to hear it like that, he'd have added it to the recording."
Not really.
The modern producer has to realize the works he puts out have to be played on a number of systems.
For instance, while most of us have our high end 'impress the clients' systems, most of our mix down speakers / monitors are incredibly cheap sounding. Why? Because we have to produce for the lowest common denominator.
I've got a high end JBL system that sounds killer for that warm sound. I've got another system, BlueSkys, for the high end precision clear sound. And I keep around a pair of industry standard, any producer worth his salts can walk in and recognize the qualities of this shitty box and mix accordingly speakers.
Its all a compromise. Nothing is how we would have wanted it to be recorded unless we just have no sense of aesthetics or vision. Personally -- I'd release everything in 5.1 or higher -- much easier to mix, the sounds don't need as much equalization to keep specific sounds from clobbering each other, and instead of trying to set a three dimensional soundstage on 2 dimensional speaker, you can approximate everything more accurately if the others are using an industry standard positional setup.
So no, just because something isn't in a recording, that doesn't mean the producer specifically didn't want it.
Terminated?
:P If you posted as a real person, I would have modded you up with my other account.
No, I was promoted within my security job and they asked me to be a captain. I was a college student at the time, and I was actually asked to testify. Luckily for me, the guy copped a plea and I didn't have to.
And I quit the security force 6 months after that because they kept putting me and my partner at that facility on high profile duties that kept me away from school work. That and I almost had to use my weapon once -- when we were technically not supposed to have them with us (but my supervisor made it clear we needed them and as private citizens, that was our decision to make).
You do make a good troll though
Yup --
I have no problems with folks suing and pushing the incompetent health care professionals out of business, but this now becomes a problem with the American Jury System.
In our system -- we want absolutely no one that has a clue about what anyone is talking about lest they be prejudiced. In the Napolionic system of laws, the jury is comprised of those that actually understand whats going on -- a true jury of peers.
Unfortunately, both have problems -- the first allows the idiots to think that its a big health care system and they aren't doing any harm by giving a little money to someone grieving. After all, its the insurance companies paying, not the individual they think. In the second, you have a set of jurors that are likely to vote with the person charged simply because its one of those Prisoner Dilemma type situations...if you convict someone that is incompetent, it will make the profession look incompetent and thus implement you as well. If you don't convict, you allow someone on the street that could harm someone else -- but in the end, you are more likely to not be dinged when someone puts up a bullshit claim against you. The safest bet for you is to not convict...
Maybe a middle ground on this?
Ah...but these are the reasons health care is getting so bad. The whole victim mentality mixed with folks only wanting to pay for the lowest common denominator. My doctor costs a little more to see...he's not under my first tier on my insurance. But fucking shit, I'll pay to make certain someone that can actually sit with me for a few minutes and figure out whats wrong (or right in the case of my hypochondria) and treat me as not a number.
Probably the whole reason I'm poor -- I want quality over quantity even if I end up broke over it...
As one of the ACs mentioned, hiding isn't a way to go about things. As the other mentioned, drugs and crime aren't just a big city problem -- I live in the midwest. Yeah, a bigger city, but no where near Chicago, LA or NYC.
I live close to town -- I can bike to where I need to. I don't have to worry about snow in the winter keeping me in. I always have something within 3 miles to do thats entertaining.
That and this was the biggest house I could afford for university wages -- I had to look within to get it. in the suburbs, I couldn't have found a structurally sound historic home with hand carved wood and detailed inlaid floors for anywhere near the money I put into this.
Since I've been calling the police more often, the other neighbors have too. In the 7 months I've been here, we successfully had a section 8 house closed and another double that was slated to be section 8 denied by the city. Section 8 housing are those that are reserved for the poor and most of the rent is paid for by the state...I don't mind poor, I mind the criminal elements they bring with them. Quite a few poor folk that are good friends here. And I'm not sure why they are considered 'poor' because they have more shit than I do. Probably poor because they spend like a fiend and let credit cards catch up with them where I'm just content to have a home of my own.
So, instead of removing myself, I'm trying to change it. Trying to encourage more families to move in. Trying to encourage folks to buy as opposed to renting. Once folks have ownership, they start to have pride and want to be out of bad situations. When its someone elses problem, you can fuck things up and move on to the next place...owning doesn't allow you to do this.
So, all in all I'm happy. There are no perfect situations. I'm hoping that it will get better and I'm sure it will. I've lived in neighborhoods almost as bad as this one only to see run down homes go for a quarter million with another half put into them. My last neighborhood had my current governor living there (well back when he was Lt. Gov) as they had cleaned it up and turned some of the shitty tenements into high class condos. All over the course of 10 years I'd lived there. Right now, my home is an investment...its the only form of investment I can make with my current income level (trying to keep my side business afloat these days...argh!). The houses in my old neighborhood went through a 100% increase in pricing in 10 years. And now city expansion is pushing directly towards my path with the yuppies that couldn't get into my old neighborhood in time (I knew I should have bought when my landlord offered it to be 5 years ago), this area is slated for urban renewal as well. I am just east of where they tore down Indianapolis's Market Square Arena and in its stead are going to be luxury condos -- most going for a half mill. Folks in my situation that want to be near that action but couldn't come near to paying for those prices will be looking at the area that is up and coming and they will be moving in next to me in the next few years.
So, I'm happy -- just not happy with ALL the elements. Hell, once this all happens, I'm going to be screaming about the property tax increases -- so it never changes...always pissed off about something...
I don't know why anyone rated your post as flamebait, just another reason the realize the fuckwads on Slashdot don't fucking know shit. Hell, most of my posts are far more flamebait that yours.
But you are right. Most likely they won't amount to anything, but thats not my problem. I will do whats right while they are around me and hope that something wears off.
By day, I work for an educational facility...I generally hire folks in the tech world that have no knowledge of the area -- but want the jobs much more than the ones that do know the area and interview with me -- these guys sound bored and one actually threatened me that if I didn't hire him it would only be because I thought he would take my job. Please -- no one gets fired or promoted in academia no matter how good or bad you are.
Kids that were probably looking at getting out with a mid $20k job are finding out that working for me after 3 years, they were getting jobs worth almost double that. I've got one employer that calls me all the time because he's never been dissatisfied with one of my students. Interestingly, most of the kids weren't even pursuing tech degrees but wanted my jobs because I paid the highest for student work on campus -- which is actually how I got my first job in the tech field -- I went for the highest paying one which happened to be a geek position.
So I have made a change in some folks lives. If people are exposed to situations like this where they are given a chance to be around positive situations, they will change somewhat. It might mean hesitating before pulling the trigger one night and deciding not to kill someone and walking away after robbing him. One of the kids in the neighborhood has violent tendencies where he picks up rocks or sticks and attacks animals. His father has taught him that animals are worthless and one can hurt or kill them without thinking. I've let him play with my animals and he actually seems to like them now. I saw him a few days ago with a leash walking my next door neighbors dog. Its not a big jump from saying that animals are worthless and need to be beat down than saying humans are worthless and need beat down.
Most of the time, I feel just the opposite -- I'd never hurt an animal, but I'd beat the shit out of a person in a heartbeat.
So changes happen. Its not seismic changes, but little ones.
As for the batman costume -- who needs the suit? I was thrown out of my first colleges dorm because I threw a dealer out of a 3rd story window after he kicked in the wrong (slightly open) door with a gun pointed. I beat the shit out of some homophobic racists that were slipping notes under black folks doors as well as the little gay kid that lived across the hall. I caught them laughing about it on the other side, and after seeing the kid come to my room every other night crying and asking why folks hated him, I took action. They never proved that I was the one that threw the guy out the window (or my buddy Mike or our friend that was in the room that was a state police officer there to play Doom I) -- he never pressed charges. They did note that I single handedly beat the shit out of 3 guys and kicked on in the nuts so hard he lost a testicle. Never mind that one of them threw the first punch after I said I was calling to police, never mind that the noted had been saved and the fingerprints matched theirs, nevermind the ringleader was ordered to stay away from several women in the dorm because he was accused of stalking them, but they said I was overly violent because there was no way that anyone could have beaten the shit out of 3 guys and left them in the condition I did if I wasn't slightly nuts -- I ended up going to jail that night, not them. We all got kicked out of the dorm, but I was the one that was almost kicked out of the university (actually I was for a while...a judge reinstated me and reprimanded the officials involved).
What did I learn from all of this? Sometimes you do need to crack heads. but more importantl
It was private care -- hence more in line with capitalism than anything else. My current job is one in assessment and psychometrics and we design testing instruments -- every nurse I've worked with in this area has been the top of her field and are the kind I would like to see in the private care areas -- but they are doing their part by trying to instill the best skills into the current crop of students.
:-) By that statement, you realize that they didn't have enough staff to restrain a patient that needed a blood draw and just fucking stuck him just to get it over with (I was giving blood once and this happened to me -- my entire top half of my arm bruised up as blood seeped into the tissues and turned black -- it happens), and then the fact that they have to lie about whats going on in a case that might change his care -- instead of being allowed to walk around, he now may be confined to his bed because he has falling spells.
Honestly, I don't know what I'd look for if I were a private citizen looking to put someone in a home.
On the surface, everyone seemed qualified. When I first started working there, I didn't suspect a thing. It was once I started patrolling the floors I could interact with these folks on a more than surface basis and it took a while. It wasn't until I'd be coming around a corner and hear statements like "Damn Girl, I almost kill Mr. Jeffries the other day...he wouldn't hold still and I punctured an artery but I'm gonna jus tell everyone he fell on his arm an thats why he's all bruised" -- that was one of the first things I heard that started making me wonder (or something like it...its been 10 years and my memory is faulty
These were things I picked up over a while -- it was never anything I could have eyeballed. And again, this is why you don't want the lowest of the paid employees -- they might do an admirable job 99% of the time. Thats approximately 1 screw up every 80 hours of work. If they are working double shifts to make ends meet, thats a screw up every week that effects a patients care or his health and maybe even his life. In the tech industry, we aim for the 5 nines -- 99.999%...if you are talking server downtime, that is like 5 minutes out of a year or something like that. There isn't much difference between someone just eyeballing the care between the 99 and the 99.999 because the odds are in favor with no screw up happening while you (family member) is around anyways -- and when it does, it will be blamed on something else -- because you weren't there to witness it.
BTW everyone *WILL** screw up at some point -- especially in health care where most everything is subjective and course of treatments may happen 5 different ways with 5 different doctors -- which is one of the reasons there needs to be some health care malpractice reform -- but the fact is, those that are more into quality and less into quantity will spread their errors a lot further than the ones that are just in it for the cold hard cash.
The kids have done nothing wrong. The sins of the father do not equate to the sins of the son.
Neighborhood kids come over to my place and hang out -- outside, never inside near my shit. I keep it clean and they have a nice front yard they can play in. And I bribe them with a coke or a dollar to clean up the neighborhood. A few weekends ago, I was mowing the lawn, and we ended up mowing 6 yards and they picked up all the trash from the streets and for this, I was out a case of coke and $20. This was about 6 or 7 kids from a few families.
Maybe if the kids learn to take care of shit and work for stuff, they will not live the same life their father does. Half the kids around here are on welfare and I hope I'm helping them see how it is to do something for a living...
I call the police on these guys quite often anyways.
The fact is, in a free society you don't go calling the police on suspicions that cannot be proven unless there is a perceived immediate danger.
I call the police when I'm pretty sure they have a deal going on as noted by a dozen thugs in cars hanging outside and bags are being exchanged. Thats a danger because these guys are bringing in armed criminal elements into my neighborhood. Several have been arrested over the last few months.
But to call and say hey! I think he has a stolen laptop but I have no proof and I could be wrong (for all I know its a pawnshop laptop -- those are vetted for legality in some small ways) or otherwise. It wasn't strong enough proof to do anything about it.
In a free society, you don't just bring in the Gestapo everytime you have a twitchy nerve telling you something ain't right.
Not being happy with a situation is what drives any society. Folks taking a shortcut to the intended goal the society would like to promote is just a side effect.
/.'rs aren't the most intuitive bunch, so I thank you for pointing this out to them.
There are very few societies that thrive on maintaining purely the status quo. I fail to see your point past the obvious...then again,
No, I'm suggesting it was stolen.
I'm suggesting that this guy had stolen far more than others, and he still wasn't satisfied with the fact the had more shit than most people and still didn't know how to deal with it.
I could have easily unscrewed the case, pulled the bios battery or hit the reset jumpers and looked up the default supervisor password through google. I can't prove it was stolen, its most likely it is, but then again, one can't go around calling the police simply because you think something is stolen.
Trolling? No. Why does every stupid motherfucker on Slashdot claim trolling just because they can't understand what the poster is saying. Its called fucking English. Thats what this forum is written in. Learn it.
Now that too was not a troll. I put it in there so that you can understand the difference between a flame and a troll. Generally used by the same individuals, but in this case it is posted by a separate group.
" Unless we really want to live in a society where equality is enforced and nobody is allowed to have anymore than anyone else, the presence of thieves and other criminals is something we will always need to deal with."
I doubt it. There will always be a percentage of the population that is not happy with having the status quo. For instance, the crack dealers down the street from me have sent their friends to try to break into my house -- I know the one guy the police have caught is someone I'd seen hanging out in their den.
Sadly, they have better shit than I do. They think since I'm white and a home owner I'm fair target. One of the kids that lives there asked me to help him with his computer because someone told him I was good with these things (I generally don't tell folks what I do in this neighborhood) and it was a better laptop than I had for work -- and this is a 12 year old boy. Not his dads laptop, *HIS*.
Seems there was some sort of bios lock on the machine that was enacted after not signing it in after so many sessions (I'm not up with all the CompuTrace kinda shit that my work is always telling us we need to have on our machines).
So, no matter how much one person has in comparison to those around him, it will never be enough for some people. Its good to think that some magic hippy star trek future would eliminate hunger and greed, and as this kind of future will never happen, it doesn't really harm anyone to believe in this -- at least until you start an economical ideology based around this and then start realizing that the common laborer doesn't need the same equipment that a research scientist does and you start to pass out equipment based on need, and you realize you have just created an unequal society once again and need to set up a draconian society to ensure everyone is equally unhappy in one way or another.
Thieves are thieves and there will always be someone that wants something for nothing and wants to have more than those around him...
Capitalism 101?
Even modern capitalism is really not defined by these terms any more than modern communism mean no corruption and the state is really run for the good of ALL people.
Why? because idealism is dangerous. I have a lot off beliefs that are great beliefs by themselves, but put into practice by imperfect people, would be a recipe for disaster.
This is one of those recipes.
I worked in a nursing home several years ago as a security guard while putting myself through college. I also work with nurses designing licensure exams in my day job. So I've seen the worst and the best of this area. The ones in my current professional day job are what
Supply and demand does not work. Imagine if a trucking firm decided that supply and demand was all that was needed to get a job. They'd work their guys at the lowest price that they could get away with ensuring the good guys look for better paying jobs in another industry, make sure that the guys that are willing to work the lowest will get as many hours as they want, and get there in the fastest time. This is how it use to work. My grandfather was a truck driver and it wasn't uncommon for guys to switch log books for guys on vacation with as little regulation as it needed.
Then the 'damn liberals' came along with their socialist rules. They started requiring only so many hours a week. So the guys would still pull allnighters to get the deliveries, and since they could only work so much, they had nice long weekends. I use to love when my grandfather would stop over at my place, rig in tow, simply because he burned off most of his hours and decided to spend time with me in the midwest until he could get hours to drive back to Pennsylvania. And then the damn liberals changed it again...not only a specific maximum a week, but only so many hours a day.
Did the fucking liberals not get the Cap 101 course? Or are they in fact fucking red commies disguised as gawd blessed Americans???
So back to nursing. When I was working with the nurses, this was one of those bid out to the lowest employee kinda places. The head nurse was great... unfortunately she had no hiring rights. That was done by the administrator. Out of a staff around 15 nurses, I could count 3 that I would have wanted to care for my dying relative (or in this case, my drug addled relative that got fucked up in a gangbang shooting and has to have round the clock care -- it was half nice old people, half stupid motherfuckers that should have been left on the side of the road). Ok, maybe if they could have just kept the incompetent folks on the druggie floor, I wouldn't have minded.
The incompetent were the ones that got all the extra shifts. They were they ones that couldn't do the job in the first place -- they did pass the licensure boards, but were at the low end of the acceptability range. Imagine how well they could do working 80 to 100 hours -- still within the legal range (or so they told me).
I saved at least one patient as I overheard an idiot trying to convert an intracardial injection into imperial units. The two nurses were arguing about this and the one that was most correct was STILL a magnitude off. Jeez...isn't this why we use solely the metric system in a hospital setting? I got the 'fucking know it all college boy' speech when I said something, and then paged the head nurse immediately. She fired the duty nurse on the spot when she dropped her dinner with her doctor husband 2 blocks away at the hospital -- and the idiot was back within the week because of the administrator. Her excuse? She was working too many shifts between this place and a temp service (and she was getting 70 hours already at this job). She quit the temp service and they allowed her to pick up a few more hours here.
Finally, and this was the whole reason they hired a security guard, old women were being sexually molested -- raped -- and meds were disappearing at a rate that they shouldn't. It turns out the nurses were supp
Me turn out right?
:)
No, I turned out to be a lying deceiving bastard who rats on his coworkers.
If I ever have children, I'd want to know they didn't have the same freedoms I did
I own a small but livable home. To support it, I need to take on two jobs. It has a patch of green space and its surrounded by a fence.
And it was many more times the price of what my parents paid for a similar priced house even when you factor in inflation.
That means the average parent these days has to be out of the house much more. Do you know what your babysitter is watching? Or allowing your kids to watch? Beyond that, parents cannot be omnipotent. I know when I was a kid, I was the sneakiest bastard out there...just like every other kid I knew. I knew where my dads porn tapes were hidden (and hidden from my mom). If they were out of the house for 20 minutes -- in the back yard or cooking dinner or anything else, I could sneak a watch of this stuff.
So, now the individual consumer has the choice of restricting certain images from coming into their sets. The public airwaves are intended to be there solely for the good of the people...thats one of the reasons they can fine for debasing sexual almost rape like scenes in a dance number on an otherwise family sporting event. I'm no prude and I see stuff far more violent than this on cable every day, but I don't want my public airwaves depicting this.
Past that, as such, the gov't mandates that airwaves be coded -- it might not be coded the way you or I would like, but we don't need to pay attention to this anyways -- you are an adult I take it -- though most 'civil libretarians' with views like yours are generally juvilile punks that have no clue what free speech means.
You can buy a television without the vchip -- it just can't be one that picks up over the air signals. Thats your choice. By accessing this signals, you agree to use them as your gov't asks you to.
So is it an option for the individual consumer? Sure it is. You will probably pay more for it because A) the chip adds less than a dollar to the parts and is created enmass, B) companies don't like to build something new not adding a part that will require seperate accounting and otherwise for something that YOU CAN TURN OFF IF YOU DON'T LIKE.
So if you want your parent to pay attention to you 24/7 these days, join the fucking commune, hippy. Its not realistic in this society. And for once the gov't isn't mandating anyone do one thing or another -- they are only forcing that this option be given.
" (much like the V-Chip crap with TV's awhile back)."
Huh? VChips are in most TVs today.
Its a great piece of work...it helps the gov't allow parents to restrict what the parents want the kids to watch without having to pass draconian laws censoring the general public. I would never use it, but it it keeps even one religious freak from screaming about whats on the airwaves and getting in my congressmans face about it, I'm all for it.
As a side note, I was trying to get an older TV of mine working as my current one just died last week...I was surprised when I went through the setup that it had the Vchip in it because I never messed with it. Simple to use and it doesn't screw with anything else. Thats the way technology should be...I have no problems with folks deciding what they want to watch in their own homes...
Why should it matter?
If he keeps it to himself, it means nothing. No one owns your head. Personally, I don't like to release my own works because of the issues you have noted -- I prefer to work on other folks works and tweak the stuff to be a bit more commercial, if thats what they want, or just fill out the stuff they couldn't do on their own...but the last song of mine that was released was one that my engineer had found sitting on a hard drive and ended up playing for a client. Honestly, I would have preferred it staying out of the ears of others...I recorded it for myself. I am a bit of a freak when it comes to others criticizing my works and really don't want anyone messing with what I have -- putting my music in the public domain would mean ANYONE was able to do what they want with it. The *ONLY* reason I allowed it to be rerecorded was that the artist was a good friend of mine and a former girlfriend (which is why the engineer didn't feel there was anything in showing off what I had been working on).
But back to the point, the material is the creators. If the audience wants to take it upon themselves to add more to it, fine...it still not theirs. Just like the GPL says that if you take a work and add on to it, it and the derivatives still belong to the creator. This is only possible because copyright allows the creator to retain control.
Just because a culture identifies with something doesn't make it theirs. A culture can decide to make something and release it into that culture and decide that copyright means nothing to them. Good for them. It was noted that Woody Guthrie (or was it Arlo? I forget) had stated on his hand copied lyrics that he wanted the music to belong to the ages and encouraged others to play the music and pass it along, thus defeating a recent copyright act. I find his work to be fully of the people because of this.
Backstreet Boys? Jeezus Fucking Christ...if this is what passes for cultural phenomenon, the culture has already said they bow at the cock of crass consumerism and deserve to pay for this work each and everytime they hear it. And at the same time, you have pointed out a reason to keep copyright intact because in a few years from now, even the kids that loved this shit will cringe upon hearing it...and instead of being passed down to the next generation, it will hopefully be dead to the ages never to be heard again for at least 100 years and hopefully I will be dead by that time and not have to defend my culture...
The fact of the matter is that any artist that has decided to do this fulltime *HAS* to worry somewhat about their copyright and worry about future sustainability.
:-) If I, a nonpro in this particular area, can earn enough to pay for the stuff, image what a real serious artist that knew his trade could do.
If you are a writer, you may write several hits in your life with several bombs in between. Creativity isn't a spout that you turn on...even when its flowing, its not always the best thing you could do.
Past that, art is very subjective. Unlike a work for hire, you aren't going to find one person willing to front what you think its worth. You need people to pay for it over the months / years / decades. IMHO, creative works are worth far more than rote technical work...my day job is academic...very little of what I do is creative. I take a salary for that. I encourage anything I give to the university to be given to the public. Quite honestly, after I'm finished with it, I have no need for it, and I really don't want to support it. My creative works? I don't think anyone can pay me for what they are worth.
Which leads to several ideas that conscious artists have done -- the MP3 books have folks that are selling these things but promise that the performance will be public domain after X years or after they make Y amount on. I can respect that. They know what its worth to them and as soon as its paid for, it belongs to the public. This is also what the Blender folks did when they turned it over to the public and let its buyers GPL it.
Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing puts his works out under the creative commons license.
http://craphound.com/est/download.php
Thats pretty cool. Unfortunately, he is protected because screen readers SUCK unless you are blind or trying to make yourself go blind (by reading a novel online). I actually bought his book because I wanted to support the cause...honestly, I've picked it up a few times and put it down just as many. I don't know if its any good as I can't get past the first 20 pages.
This doesn't really work for music...most of us grabbing an MP3 or AAC are going to keep it in that format. Other than the liner notes, the physical medium of music doesn't do anything for me. I open my cds just to rip the disc to iPod anyways.
I have no problems with folks hanging on to their copyright or giving it away if they feel like. Its their decision...its their creation, they should do as they want with it and we should respect it either way.
As for Adobe...bullshit. There are many many other packages that do the same job for free or much cheaper. Why don't liquor stores realize that getting robbed and one of their cashiers shot as part of business. Most people don't want to be legitimate or they'd be using a free PDF printer software. Or a free illustration software. Or a cheap image manipulation software. What? need the business savy features? Well them pay for it. I paid for Photoshop with a single job. I'd used it at my work for years...I bought a copy for home use after one fucking job. I picked up FinalCutPro after one commercial I edited for a friend as his album was being featured on BET. I did the first commercial edit under iMovie and it was pretty good for what we needed. FCP was FAR better (but I still use iMovie to get stuff done quickly).
If someone that has no business working in graphic design or editing video (I was asked because I'm the geek that is always hanging out with less savvy musicians and they think I can do anything -- least I know about legal title sizes in an advertisement now
As for the first testament (something they call the new testament in a lot of places), maybe we'd have a lot less wars if it was. Maybe the authors decided or were commanded to by their supreme being to open it to the public domain. Other religions such as the Mormons or the Church of Scientology keep their religious texts copywritten and hidden from the genera
No fucking shit.
Too many idiots think that free speech extends to private lands and domains. Its as if they think they can come into my living room and if you don't want to listen to them, you are violating their first amendment rights.
This is generally the argument spammers also use. They say its their first amendment right to say what they want. Sure...it is...on their fucking server. The minute they impose on my resources, they have violated any right they might have had and deserves any asskicking they may end up with. In real life, someone coming into my house repeatedly after asking them to leave and doesn't shut up is going to get a fucking two by four imprint in their forehead. I've been doing some remodeling, so I got one handy...
Just to be clear: First amendment applies to your personal space and public property, in theory, and no where else. Not the shopping mall, not the internet, not on the racist neighbors lawn.
You didn't read my post did you?
But what the fuck does it matter is a nursery rhyme is copyrighted? We are far too attached to the past.
War footage? If its footage taken while in the company of a gov't agency, there should be limited rights given to the reporting company, but it should be public media. Too many instances of items commissioned with the use of public moneys ends up as private property.
There is nothing wrong with the public domain as long as the creator puts it there. I would rather have things like public domain works than GPL'd works. But its not my decision how folks release their works.
Honestly, the good artists will give their stuff away eventually...if they don't, they aren't artists. If they aren't artists, their work means nothing and requires no memory.
Actually, this practice is being done away with.
It has actually almost killed a company that is near and dear to me.
CG and Sam Ash had a 60 day return, no questions asked, and the high end equipment was NEVER sold for very long...it was used for a project and sent back. Cheaper than the rental houses. This was especially a big problem in LA and Nashville where it was said certain brands had a 90% return rate.
This equipment was sent back not just to the store, but agreements made it where the manufacturer had to take it back, sometimes sans parts like rom boards, expansions, cables, manuals, and pay for the shipping back. This was VERY bad for smaller companies that didn't have the sales to mass market products and had to deal with higher pricing because of the niche market.
Several major companies have decided they are not going to do business with GC because of this, and GC claims that if you aren't willing to follow their return policy, they won't sell the product. Sell in the #1 music store in the world, or go it yourself and out of niche distributors -- some of the niche salesfolks work out of their cars or basements and these are the guys selling the top of the line highest quality, pure matching components.
These people are killing the hardware end...especially the ones that go to one store, return and go down to the next store. It happens each and every day in the industry.
If ya want to nitpick,
Quite honestly, I think the creator of a work should be able to indefinitely control his work no matter how long that may be.
There is *NOTHING* in a work of art that is considered a need to humanity. Nothing. Remember -- copyrights protect works of art, not ideas. Patents are for ideas and I think 7 years is more than long enough to protect an idea.
But copyright? Nothing that can save a mans life. Feed a starving nations children. Stop a speeding plane from hitting your building. Its a trivial work. As trivial as it is, the creator should be able to control it for as long as he wants.
I believe works should come from a person -- anything that is written from the perspective of a business should not be copyrightable. A person should be able to allow a business to manage his copyrights, but the business should not be able to own it. Upon death of the author, the family should have a short while to profit off the copyright so as not to induce hardships. A short time would be far shorter than it is today.
But all in all, I believe intellectual properties should be respected even if the law does not require it.
"Talent, originality, and determination made the intellectual property back then."
And it makes it today...unfortunately every motherfucker with a CD Burner or an internet connection now claims that they should have the right to reproduce this stuff -- and not require any talent to do so. Or at least one would think this is the popular group think from this site.
"You're in the industry so you tell me, did all the artists that made it to the big leagues in your industry have money coming out of their behinds to actually pay for all the crap they needed to make a good impression and get signed?"
What are your trying to prove with this question. Its goes to bias when you ask did ALL. No -- there are some thieves out there. In the hiphop world, folks brag about being thieves. Folks seem to like this and treat these idiots like ghetto kings. Yeah, Rock and Roll is all about being a rebel as well.
So no, I don't think that all musicians made it there legitimately. Personally, I think if you have to make your art by ripping someone else off, you aren't an artist. Probably why some genrea have gone to idiots not calling themselves artists but entrepreneurs. They think its a big word and they look educated by using it. At least they aren't calling themselves artists and I can respect that.
I don't know about you, but back in the day it cost me money to build my studio. I have two synths worth around $10k sitting in the studio. I had to earn those. I bought a decent Mac because thats what they big guys were using...my PC was much cheaper and was build from scraps. But thats what you did to be a pro.
In the visual arts? My roommate spends around $100 on canvases every week or two. Can't be bothered to do that? Can't really steal it can you? Well ya can, just not as easily. His airbrush? Cost him around $350 before he ripped out the guts and replaces everything once or twice. His large format camera...Its like $6 or $7 per shot in the damn thing.
So what is different between the way the old skool is with having to pay to learn the art and idiot children thinking they need to steal to get into their art? I learned 3D from using POVRay on a 486. It sounds like this is the area you are in...POVRay was free. Lots of free front ends for it that are probably much easier than it was back when I was using this crap. 48hours for a render was not uncalled for...come back over the weekend and find out its crap and start over.
I've always seen the educations versions very inexpense and far cheaper than what it cost to get into my field.
In my day job, I am a researcher and educator. My department is always trying to dodge why enrollments are down any particular year. Folks try to blame one department or another. This year they were claiming my department was pa