I work with a guy who bought the guitar shirt, so I can amend your statement to be
One man's shameless plug is another man's conflict of interest, is also another man's coworker's inspiration for being more retarded than he usually is.
Here's how the internet works. You can choose not to click on some links - it's not like Pokemon. Or Garbage Pail Kids. It's pretty clearly labeled...
You polled professional users about this question, and none of them cared? Let's see your raw data.
Professionals have been using lower-gamma monitors for a while because it looks more faithful to the original. They thought it was because the monitor was better quality, or somehow represented the image data better. Turns out it could have been just an artifact of scaling - resizing images in linear space results in a better looking image when your monitor gamma is closer to 1 than 2.2. I'd say that indicates that some people noticed, although they didn't understand what the underlying cause was.
If you read half the comments here (you might need to adjust your threshold, this is not one of the more moderated topics right now) you'll see other examples. It is important to some people, they have had problems with this.
When I scrolled through the examples, it was obvious to me that any image that has ever been resized should be re-processed with a fixed algorithm. Images of famous paintings in art books would be a great start, since you're supposed to be seeing what the artist painted, not a rough approximation. It's easy for subtle effects to get lost in the conversion. The line drawing example was all I needed to see to be convinced.
I've scaled down images to save space before, and noticed that line drawing type images looked off somehow, but I figured if you make the lines thinner (by making everything smaller) you lose density. Kinda like re-scaling a white box on a black background - less white box means the overall brightness decreases. Turns out it just shouldn't be as obvious.
It bothered me, but since I'm not a professional I suppose you won't count me in your survey.
I'm going to say that if you put all of one model's source code in a repository, then overlaid another and did a diff, you'd be able to isolate:
1) non-changing code sections 2) volatile code sections (probably bug fixes or model-specific tweaking) 3) data-driven code, where the variables change but the code doesn't.
Based on that, you'd have a good idea where to focus your baseline evaluation, and where to watch out for potential recall cover-ups. Let the companies tell on themselves! You also don't have to review 100k LoC for every model.
Of course, you can either implicitly trust the compiler or ignore the source and go straight to disassembly. With binaries, I've seen this done using IDA Pro on Windows updates. You don't look at the whole thing more than once, just diff the old and new files. Something stands out in the new model - is it a bugfix where they should recall earlier models?
The problem is, it takes a software engineer to recognize that you need a software engineer to review code for safety. Does the FTC review source code of a microwave? Or a Blu-Ray player? People who slam cars into things for a living aren't going to be as distrusting of black-box binaries as they should be. Worked 3 times in a row, approved.
I've seen that feature, basically it helps when switching from cruise control to manual. You put your foot on the gas and release CC, and you can maintain speed. I'm not sure if the CC presses the accelerator in place of a human, or if the CC controls fuel flow and then adjusts the accelerator to match.
What I do want to know is how many crashed cars had the cruise control "on" but not set. My CC light can be on but not controlling speed until I hit "set". And if I hit the brake or clutch (it's a manual) it goes from "set" back to just "on" where I can control the pedal. I'm betting this is one of those cases where you turn on CC, disengage it through brake/clutch, and at some point CC confuses whether it's "set" (controlling speed) or "on" (waiting to take over).
There is a variable which keeps track of the current target speed, whether it's engaged or not. You can hit the brake and then hit 'resume' and it remembers the speed. There's a separate variable for whether it should be engaged or not. This variable should be correct at all times, and never changed as a side effect of something else.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this implemented as the "remembered speed" variable, which Resume uses, and the "current speed" variable, which is 0 meaning disengaged, and positive meaning engaged at that speed. That way you don't have to check:
if (engaged && speed > 0)
instead you check just:
if (speed)
Embedded systems requiring optimization, someone might be tempted to do this. All you need is an edge case as you say to set this negative (there is a 'decrease/increase' feature on most CC), or faulty memory, or even bits flipped by nearby electromagnetic equipment. You don't even need badly written code, just poor insulation.
Ah screw it, give me the firmware and I'll disassemble it.
So if I invent something, it automatically becomes unpatentable? No, that's not what you meant. If I invent something that someone else invented, it becomes unpatentable. So then I go through the "pending" patents by looking at the store shelves and writing down all of the "patent pending" numbers, then "invent" those, and claim they are non-obvious because they were independently invented and invalidate the legitimate patent?
That couldn't be what you mean either.
The race to patent the light bulb should be a lesson - the difference between first-to-file and first-to-invent clearly invalidates the idea of independent inventions making the invention non-obvious. In an ideal world where everyone is honest, that might be true. But true protection can only exist where you distrust everyone and everything. Always scrub your input, right?
A patent system should hold up even under malicious attack. Design a system, figure out how to game it, then re-design until you can't discover another attack vector, and hope that no one else is smarter than you.
Simultaneous discoveries happen all the time in science - the current research and literature suggests an area which is unexplored, people focus attention there, and the inevitable result is that the more people looking at something, the more people will come to the same conclusion. Not only is the patent obvious based on literature, it is inevitable.
How can a patent system deal with inevitable patents while still rewarding truly unique discoveries? The only way is to have existing researchers/inventors in the field weigh in on whether the discovery is inevitable, obvious, or novel. And let the infighting begin, and no patent will ever be issued.
The best advice I've seen, not that it's necessarily correct, is that you never research patents. If you have the patent in your browser history but you didn't understand it and thought it was unrelated, you can go from infringement to intentional infringement, triple damages.
If that is true, and it feels true, the only way you can survive is to attempt to patent everything. When you do research for a patent and mention prior art, you'll realize if your patent already exists. By mentioning those patents, you clearly list which ones you looked at, and it's up to the patent office to catch a patent which you missed.
Basically your only choice is to overflow the patent office and leave your product "patent pending" so that no one uses your technology. Once that patent application is rejected due to a prior patent you missed, you can't go back and re-print all of the packaging, so you win on the surface. You got a good maybe 5 years of near-exclusive use of technology, which might be enough to tilt the market in your favor.
If I photocopied a famous author's work and printed it with my name in the author's spot, I'd lose in a heartbeat. That's because there is an existing legal tool called "copyright" that the judges *do* understand, with an entire set of procedures and precedents.
As a judge, having no exposure to the idea of open source, creative commons, or other such issues, the only thing a judge can fall back on is the legislature and case precedence. In a simplistic sort of way, it's very easy to conclude that everyone is playing according to copyright law, because that's the only law that applies (DMCA being related to copyright).
The problem is that the normal copyright law is almost never superseded by a contract. Usually the contract stipulates who owns the copyright, not any specific terms of copyright, because copyright is made up of laws. And you can't have a legally binding contract that contains clauses which are contrary to the law. Open source licenses are basically legislation created by individuals, which a judge should regard with suspicion. They are *not* obviously entering into a contract, since no one signs or agrees to anything. It's about as enforceable as a pop-up EULA, but someone using open-source code never had to take an action to agree to an EULA in order to use the code. It's entirely possible to download source code, make changes, and never read or even notice the license file. (EULAs have been ruled enforceable, as long as they are reasonable, so I'm not suggesting open source licenses can be disregarded like people think EULAs can be).
So in the judge's head, people give things away for free and then invent arbitrary legislation to go along with it, and the end user never has to agree to follow those rules. Since citizens can't create enforceable legislation, open source developers are giving stuff away, and the most sensible conclusion is that "Open Source license was tantamount to a dedication to the public domain." Once the "bad guys" made this argument, it clicked and the gavel came down.
It was a smart argument. What the judge missed is that there was a copyright notice attached to the code (either in the header or in the code package). The whole point of copyright is that the copyright holder retains the right to copy, regardless of how it is distributed. I can have a free screening of a movie, but that doesn't mean people can film it. I can give away 20 copies of a book, but that doesn't mean I intend to give away my rights, just 20 copies as promotional value.
If you're going to ignore the citizen-created license, you have to fall back on the law, and the law says it's copyrighted unless otherwise declared.
The obvious counter-argument is a web site. CNN pays for web servers and an internet connection, basically paying money to give away content - but they aren't giving away the rights to the content, just the content. The business model is to get advertising revenue by giving away content for free, just like the TV channel. Open source doesn't have anything like that to establish it as a legitimate business model, so it's not obvious what open source exists for.
And that is the fundamental flaw the judge made, in my opinion. "... Tantamount to putting something in the public domain" assumes that since you aren't losing money, you aren't being harmed. Copyright isn't there to protect a business or business model, it's there to encourage people to create things and let them be seen - without fear that someone will take advantage of its availability. The judge's ruling, and the appellate court agreeing, suggests that business interests are seen as more important than individual rights. Maybe I'm misreading, but that's not a good sign. Good thing this guy fought the law.
I bet you let your automotive oil go around the car several times before you let the injector replace the used oil, and your car is being destroyed from the inside out. You don't even know it. And I think I saw you wear that shirt before - did you happen to buy two of the exact same style accidentally, or was it a subtle joke about Germany? I wasn't sure, but I did chuckle and told my psychiatrist. She's the best - you'd like her. She tells me exactly which purchases will make me feel better about myself, and when it's time to switch to donations. You can never give enough to help those poor people who have to reuse things. I feel so sorry for them sometimes. I mean, do I want to carry an entire movie around with me, or do I want to just want to download it from hotbox again whenever I have time - HELLOO?? It only takes a second to download and then when the scene's over SHOOMP! and it's off the desktop. I just can't stand all that clutter. Besides, I have to buy new shirts anyway because I keep getting them dirty when I return the 25% of food I don't have a right to digest. I'm glad they passed that law, it was unfair to the food industry, and without them we'd not have food, so it's better overall. I'm on a diet, so I dropped down to the "less than morbid" plan. It's less food licensing, so I make up the difference by straight up eating dollar bills and shitting them out at the Windows® Media Center® Toilet Edition®, which gives half of it back to the creative people who make the music and movies you watch while donating cash out your ass and takes the other half and sets it on fire as a way to motivate those creepy artists to produce more. I mean, how can you fit in to a world when you don't even think like everyone else? Oh, sorry, have to get to the ATM.
... provided that my potential customer will only purchase from me. But when I'm charging $1 for the song and you're giving it away for free, why would they go to me?
Some people don't know it's available for free, some people want to do the right thing, some people don't believe it's possible to get stuff for free. Lots of people believe that if you want to have something, you pay for it. That's why you can mod a satellite card for free TV, but most people pay for it.
You're only responsible for the damages you caused, or to put it another way the damages that can be proven. If you steal someone's jet pack plans and give them to a fab company in China, now someone else is producing these things and making money from it. If you sue someone, you're suing because they are making money which should be yours. In other words people are paying for the product, they just aren't paying you. You can sue the fab company for their profits, and also sue the plan thief for something, depending on what evidence you have.
Downloading something is different - there are arguments about the percentages, but not every download is a lost sale. And the person uploading isn't getting money for a sale. You can sue because someone might have enabled someone who possibly might have bought the product to obtain it without purchasing it. So the very idea of damages in this case is a lot more nebulous than you make it. You can take all of a company's profits made from your property, but you can't take an uploader's profits because they don't exist. There has to be some sort of valid explanation for the damage amount. I can't tell where you're trying to land your argument, but you have to concede that the prosecution has to make a rational argument that damages were caused, and were calculated to be a particular amount in some fashion which makes sense to the judge and cannot be ripped apart by the defense.
Also, you're making a case that the first person who uploads something is on the hook for more damages than the last person to download it when no one else is requesting pieces. "The first distribution destroys the exclusivity, and most of the value is in the exclusivity." But the law says, as you end, that the original infringer is no different from followers. The uploader is not the same as the plan thief, unless the uploader got hold of a copy and made it available. In that case, the original uploader is guilty of more than just uploading. That's where this logic falls apart - being guilty of multiple things should carry a harsher punishment than guilty of just one of those things.
So here's my point. When you feel wronged, you can decide how to proceed. If someone uploads a copy of my movie, I can accuse them of distributing, or profiting, or depriving me of sales, or being the "original uploader". I can accuse them of wearing boxers instead of briefs. But I have to have something solid as evidence to prove what I lost. You can't just make a movie or song, hope someone copies it, and then claim you lost millions of potential sales and the person should pay you piles of money. That would be legally sanctioned theft since you are not entitled to those damages. There goes your exclusivity argument, but only technically since the original uploader can fall under corporate espionage or property theft, depending on how the copy was taken from the premises.
Someone who downloads and then uploads copyrighted material is not guilty of the act of taking the original copy from its owner. That much should be plain as day. So the argument isn't about whether the first person destroys exclusivity, it should be about whether someone broke multiple laws or just one.
You're funny, you think common sense will win. If I sell a used car, or table, or piece of gum, I pretty much have to sell it cheaper than when I bought it. Except for collectibles or antiques, products generally decline in value due to age.
The funny part is where a video game, being bits on a DVD, cannot deteriorate. You can enter a gaming shop and see a game new in box for $60, or the exact same thing "used" for a good bit less. Why are used games less valuable than new, despite being exactly the same? They aren't less functional, nor are they dingy or in need of cleaning (the used games stores usually clean as much as possible first).
So how does used game sale make sense? Usually it's older titles that are available used, and value diminishes over time as new games usurp older ones. Even Sony drops the price on games after a while.
The kicker is when you buy an older game that says clearly on the back, like many "classic" PS2 games, that online play is no longer available because the servers are down. You can buy lots of multiplayer games now and only play the single-player missions. That's decreased value.
So what Sony is saying here is they are guaranteeing servers will be up and playable when you buy a used game, I'm with Sony on this one because it takes time and money to support online gaming. However, if they don't make an exception for games with no online play to begin with, then no value is being lost in a used game transaction. You should be able to sell the game back to Sony at cost, and they can re-sell it to whomever at retail value. But Sony doesn't want that either, obviously. And of course online games should be given away free, with online play being its own subscription. I mean, if I buy a game and play it for 10 hours online, my purchase cost is supporting someone who hammers the server 16 hours a day. That's out of line.
That's what makes me conclude that the entire used game market is very much misguided to start with, and this decision only complicates things.
That won't work. The answer is to buy your copy, then call support every time DRM pisses you off. As the other guy said, you can't buy Assassins Creed 2 from someone else, you're stuck with this company.
Don't call them just to complain that you're not going to buy it. Buy it, so now you're a legit customer. Call EVERY TIME DRM does something stupid. Take a long time to explain yourself in detail, if you have to call back.
The game might be $60, but after 4 calls where you explain your frustration, they are probably close to just breaking even. They'll realize they can't support a game that pisses off its users. "Insert disc to play" is annoying, but we've been dealing with it. "Please connect to the internet even though you're playing in the back seat of a car, or a cheap hotel, and don't have steady hotspots" is not something we can deal with. "Hey Ubisoft, I'm on this business trip and my company won't pay for my internet connection and I'm trapped in this room with no internet, my work notebook and my personal notebook. How do I play your stupid DRM I mean game?" Then call back because you're bored. Then call back to see if they've released a patch for the DRM. Then order room service from Ubisoft.
The last call you make should be the one where you say you are fed up with this, and would like to know which torrent has it available for download, pre-cracked. You aren't breaking any EULA by downloading a cracked version (check your local laws of course), since you aren't altering the game. You do have a license to play it, so you're not doing anything clearly illegal (local laws might cover uploading if you're using p2p of course).
I bought your game, I hate the DRM, I'm playing a cracked version. Next time you release something like this I'll do the same.
Reinventing the wheel implies that they set out to find a measure of importance. So they would have had to decide to make a search engine, have it produce relative results, decide that relative importance is the key, and then go searching for ways to find relative importance. There's a major gap there, a leap in thinking that simply wasn't present at the time. How important a page is indicates what order it should be in results. That makes sense, but it wasn't obvious at the time. Previous results were based on things like the number of times the page mentions your word, or what order the pages were added. People tried to figure out: what is that quality which makes a page more relevant than others? And they failed.
The key was settling on Importance, or we could call it Charisma. When you mention the name "Brad", do more people think of the guy you work with first or Brad Pitt? Brad Pitt is more relevant (technically relevant to more people), but why? More people know of him, and more people speak of him. More importantly, more important people speak of him.
Scientific papers have been measured for their influence factor this way (but that might be a false correlation: http://www.physorg.com/news165950992.html "... papers published early in a field receive citations essentially regardless of content because they are the only game in town.") If they had looked to science to see what makes something influential, they would have seen the same concept. But they didn't know they needed to find "influential", just "relevant".
The breakthrough Google made was deciding on a quality which made things more relevant, which is roughly equivalent to notoriety. Not just the number of references to a page, but the weight of those references in relation to who references them. That's where link farming sprouted, and they had to figure a way to cancel that effect out.
How many people know this page, as opposed to that page? And then they had to figure a way to find the pages, process the data, calculate notoriety, and serve it up quickly, and create a revenue stream from all of that. It's not about whether you're going to arrive more quickly by re-inventing the wheel. Often times you can, especially if it's in a language where you don't know all of the built-in functions. You can write a linked list with sorting faster than searching for how the language implements it under certain circumstances.
It's about whether you will arrive better, at a better solution in other words. The point was to look elsewhere for implementation, but the part you missed was you have to have inspiration to know where to look.
Google wanted to get something to lots of people. They might have had stuff in baskets. They could re-invent the wheel to make the baskets easier to transport, or they could build up a farm, attracting farm hands and their families and gradually build up a town, making the people come to Google instead. Once you know you need a transportation solution, it's easier to copy an existing idea. It just so happens that once you decide the solution to your problem is relative importance, there's a description of how to do it in a book from the 1940's.
In that era, search engines were like mini databases. You had to put in exactly the right query to get results.
I was famous for being able to find anything, and I mean anything, using AltaVista, when others couldn't. It was a lot like programming in a way, which explains why I was good.
I used to be able to be king of Google until they made it much more natural-language tolerant. Now my 10 year old neighbor can find things when I can't.
On the plus side, I can now type in "When is the damn stupid bowl mutherfucker" and Google shows the first hit to NFL.com, with the teams listed next to the date and time, each linking to the team's home page. Not the sponsored result, and clearly optimized for the day, but the goal of cataloging the world's data is on track.
I rabidly hate anything 2007 from Microsoft, in fact I am compiling a list of bugs in Vista and 2007 products that's about 300 lines long, and I've never seen any of this. You might want to see if you have plug-ins or integrations or something interfering, or an incompetent Exchange admin. Unless you're talking about Express, if a 2007 version exists.
Engineering duties are being moved to the lowest cost area, with lead coding done on-shore. The design and architecture gets passed out, and code comes back. That's the new digital economy. If you're coding, you're either doing lone-wolf work and likely to encounter the words "knowledge transfer" soon, or you're doing prototype work for someone else to flesh out. Otherwise, you're nerf-herding and playing with Visio or UML while your job code still says "coder".
If you're old, you're probably expensive, and the first one on the chopping block when the economy craps itself. Only safe if you've built a reputation, or can move into management, or to a team that has to have on-shore workers for contractual reasons. After that layoff binge, you're likely to get a pay cut as job codes get reorganized.
Example: I'm one of few people left who understand how our entire client-delivery portal works end-to-end, and I'm not allowed to answer questions about it because I'm reorganized into my little cubbyhole. "Not allowed" meaning if I do help out my old contacts in order to deliver something to a client on time it's on my own time, and I have to get my deadlines first. I still owe some favors, so I do help sometimes. I digress.
You filed a complaint with the BBB, called your state Attorney General, tried contacting corporate headquarters, complained to FTC, right?
No? Just made a single phone call and let it slide? Then you're the problem.
I don't have standing to complain about this, but you do. And when they do the same thing to me, it's my obligation to do all of the above and more. But it would mean so much more if they can see a pattern because of your prior complaint. You owe it to everyone who will get screwed in the future.
I always ask the store if they sell shoddy products. "I'm assuming you wouldn't sell something that's likely to fail within that timeframe, right?"
Well, we cover damage due to blah and blah and blah.
"In other words, you cover stuff that doesn't really matter."
Well, we cover blah blah and blah.
"And you make a profit doing so, since you charge a price that is higher than your expected payouts, like any other insurance company, making it plausible that I will end up on the short side of the stick if I buy the warranty every time, and the long side if I decline every time. Correct?"
Um, well, I have to try... I'd get fired if I didn't ask...
"I know. Let your manager know that many customers know this is a fraud and don't appreciate being asked."
Re-read what I wrote. A policy which says SSN is required is a lot different from a company which never provides product or service unless you provide an SSN.
Private companies can *effectively* require your SSN, by denying you service arbitrarily. They cannot truly require it without laws explicitly granting such a requirement. As Shakrai posted, the local PSC told Verizon to suck it after a complaint. Sure Verizon "requires" your SSN. If Verizon were truly able to require SSN, the PSC would have had no ability to overrule Verizon's requirement. If you don't provide your SSN, the company has the option of refusing service, but you also have the option to file a complaint and get around this requirement, making it simply a "strongly encouraged" piece of data. There are companies which are *required* to obtain your SSN, because of various laws, but they are not the majority.
If you make a big deal about the SSN being for tax and Social Security purposes only, you'll find that most companies (except those legally required) will accept an alternate ID instead of your SSN. You actually can get service without supplying your SSN, despite documented company policy to the contrary, meaning that it is not actually required.
My point still stands - call the company on it, ask what rules allow them to gather your SSN, and let them know you'd prefer not to give it out. Mention a competitor if you want to. But don't be afraid to find out whether the company falls under one of the relevant identity verification laws.
Personally, I don't go this far, I just tell them I'm going to leave it blank and if they want me to go to another company they'll let me know. After that, they tend to allow an alternate number. It's disappointing, because I intend to refuse to end the conversation until they acknowledge this much: "So what you're saying is you'd rather I go to someone else?" Eventually I hope they will get pissed off and just say "Yes, please go somewhere else." That has never happened, because an alternate number suffices.
This is misunderstood a lot. Companies are not allowed to require your SSN for service. They often ask for it, just to be able to track you down if you fail to pay. (alert: USA-centric info follows). The loophole is, most companies are not required to offer service to everyone. So they can refuse to provide service to you without explanation (usually "incomplete application" or something similar), while technically following the law. That's why there's usually no state (or fed) regulation which allows this behaviour specifically.
Semi-related: I recently applied for a membership at Hollywood Video, when I lived 100 feet away from the store. They wouldn't give me a membership without a phone number, because they couldn't call me and tell me my movies were late. I told them it would be more convenient for me to rent there than somewhere else, but if they felt that driving 100 feet to get their movies back was a hardship, I'd take my business somewhere else. It's not required to have a phone number, but since my application was not complete I was denied.
The only workaround is as you said, contact someone and complain. More people need to do this. There are several companies which ask for my SSN and I level-set, look them directly in the eye, and say "You are not an agent of the Social Security administration, therefore you are not allowed to ask for that." They pause for a bit, say "uhhh, ok, I'll just leave that blank," and continue. By stating it that way, there is no question that I know my rights under the law, and they usually aren't prepared to fight it because they don't know the relevant law, being the front-line grunts just following orders. It amuses me.
Of course, recent IRS and anti-terrorism laws have changed this slightly, but it's still a small portion of companies.
Partial list of who might legitimately be required to retain SSN:
* Commercial banks.
* Agencies and branches of foreign banks in the United States.
* Thrifts (savings and loan institutions).
* Credit unions.
* Private banks.
* Trust companies.
* Investment companies.
* Brokers and dealers in securities.
* Futures commission merchants.
* Insurance companies.
* Travel agents.
* Pawnbrokers.
* Dealers in precious metals.
* Check cashers.
* Casinos.
* Telegraph companies.
As always, know your rights. In my opinion, casinos require SSNs for tax enforcement under the guise of covering money laundering. Telegraph companies? Maybe "money by wire" makes sense for tracking financial terrorist support, but if I'm sending a telegraph, they are allowed to ask for my SSN for no apparent reason.
Call their bluff. You'll lose a few, but most companies won't change headquarters too many times. What you're suggesting means everyone gives in when the company threatens to throw a temper tantrum. The logical end of that is zero corporate taxes, hoping to make revenue from the payroll taxes of the employees.
So you're going to have to pick a side, zero taxes or call their bluff. Otherwise you're giving in and hoping someone else doesn't, wind up being the only state with taxes.
I wouldn't get a job there because they flat out wouldn't pay what I'm worth. You want someone who understands.NET completely, you're paying a lot more than for someone who "can code" in.NET. It is possible, but expensive, and that's my point.
The expense of learning has to be paid by one of: The employee, raising the minimum salary the employee will accept The new employer, raising expenses in the form of providing time set aside for training The previous employer, by allowing the employee to fit in training, making the employee more valuable.
Someone has to pay for training. Ultimately, it will be the hiring company in the form of training materials, time, or pay for experience. Typical.NET or PHP coding type jobs are paying in the range of $25-$60k/year, which is not enough to make me learn the entire.NET CLR on my own time. Catch-22, what do you do? Economic downturn and let the expensive people go, and get the lower paid people make up for it.
"Everything will now be done in.NET, but we're not allowing you training time. Here's the schedule we promised to the client, so fit your training in around that." That's how it works, unless you're into spending money on people.
Buy used CDs. Indie artists will appreciate the additional exposure, RIAA companies will miss 50% of their revenue if every CD is re-sold once on average. That way it doesn't matter who produced the music, win-win.
Or it creates a market for intermediate converters which take the 3D output of the player and convert it to any of:
Split-screen (left picture on the left, right on right) Split-screen cross-eyed (for apparatus-free viewing) Anaglyph (to match whatever color glasses you have around) Interlaced to match shutter-glasses (which will have to be timed to the converter) Split into two streams for dual-projection (polarized) or LCD glasses
The options are endless. If they can just do auto-anaglyph, with the option to set the colors, the experience would be very satisfying with existing TVs. Coraline worked really well, using blue/yellow I think, but it was designed to work that way. Other movies might require different colors, but the concept is the same.
Something like MythTV or VLC might even include this option without requiring a hardware converter.
Bullshit yourself. You might be referring to things like advertising and marketing, which try to promise things so people will buy it. To me, "Buy Windows" means I have the source code and all related trademarks and patent licenses so I can turn around and sell Windows. Clearly that's not what they mean, so it must not mean what it says.
By using the software, you accept these terms... If you comply with these license terms, you have the rights below for each license you acquire... License Model. The software is licensed on a per copy per computer basis. A computer is a physical hardware system with an internal storage device capable of running the software. A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate computer. a. One Copy per Computer. You may install one copy of the software on one computer. That computer is the "licensed computer." b. Licensed Computer. You may use the software on up to two processors on the licensed computer at one time. Unless otherwise provided in these license terms, you may not use the software on any other computer. c. Number of Users.
You can't run it on a quad-processor computer. You bought it, just like the store said, but you're not allowed to do certain things. That's licensing.
e. Device Connections. You may allow up to 20 other devices to access software installed on the licensed computer to use only File Services, Print Services, Internet Information Services and Internet Connection Sharing and Telephony Services.
WTF, a limit on the number of attached devices? And an arbitrary one at that, since it supports USB which can daisy-chain 127 devices.
SCOPE OF LICENSE. The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the features included in the software edition you licensed. Microsoft reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You may not
work around any technical limitations in the software;
reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
use components of the software to run applications not running on the software;
make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation;
publish the software for others to copy;
rent, lease or lend the software; or
use the software for commercial software hosting services.
Oh snap! You just got told. You might be thinking about what normal customers think, but they are misinformed and lied to. It's right there, licensed not sold.
Slashdot Mirror
I work with a guy who bought the guitar shirt, so I can amend your statement to be
Here's how the internet works. You can choose not to click on some links - it's not like Pokemon. Or Garbage Pail Kids. It's pretty clearly labeled...
You polled professional users about this question, and none of them cared? Let's see your raw data.
Professionals have been using lower-gamma monitors for a while because it looks more faithful to the original. They thought it was because the monitor was better quality, or somehow represented the image data better. Turns out it could have been just an artifact of scaling - resizing images in linear space results in a better looking image when your monitor gamma is closer to 1 than 2.2. I'd say that indicates that some people noticed, although they didn't understand what the underlying cause was.
If you read half the comments here (you might need to adjust your threshold, this is not one of the more moderated topics right now) you'll see other examples. It is important to some people, they have had problems with this.
When I scrolled through the examples, it was obvious to me that any image that has ever been resized should be re-processed with a fixed algorithm. Images of famous paintings in art books would be a great start, since you're supposed to be seeing what the artist painted, not a rough approximation. It's easy for subtle effects to get lost in the conversion. The line drawing example was all I needed to see to be convinced.
I've scaled down images to save space before, and noticed that line drawing type images looked off somehow, but I figured if you make the lines thinner (by making everything smaller) you lose density. Kinda like re-scaling a white box on a black background - less white box means the overall brightness decreases. Turns out it just shouldn't be as obvious.
It bothered me, but since I'm not a professional I suppose you won't count me in your survey.
I'm going to say that if you put all of one model's source code in a repository, then overlaid another and did a diff, you'd be able to isolate:
1) non-changing code sections
2) volatile code sections (probably bug fixes or model-specific tweaking)
3) data-driven code, where the variables change but the code doesn't.
Based on that, you'd have a good idea where to focus your baseline evaluation, and where to watch out for potential recall cover-ups. Let the companies tell on themselves! You also don't have to review 100k LoC for every model.
Of course, you can either implicitly trust the compiler or ignore the source and go straight to disassembly. With binaries, I've seen this done using IDA Pro on Windows updates. You don't look at the whole thing more than once, just diff the old and new files. Something stands out in the new model - is it a bugfix where they should recall earlier models?
The problem is, it takes a software engineer to recognize that you need a software engineer to review code for safety. Does the FTC review source code of a microwave? Or a Blu-Ray player? People who slam cars into things for a living aren't going to be as distrusting of black-box binaries as they should be. Worked 3 times in a row, approved.
I've seen that feature, basically it helps when switching from cruise control to manual. You put your foot on the gas and release CC, and you can maintain speed. I'm not sure if the CC presses the accelerator in place of a human, or if the CC controls fuel flow and then adjusts the accelerator to match.
What I do want to know is how many crashed cars had the cruise control "on" but not set. My CC light can be on but not controlling speed until I hit "set". And if I hit the brake or clutch (it's a manual) it goes from "set" back to just "on" where I can control the pedal. I'm betting this is one of those cases where you turn on CC, disengage it through brake/clutch, and at some point CC confuses whether it's "set" (controlling speed) or "on" (waiting to take over).
There is a variable which keeps track of the current target speed, whether it's engaged or not. You can hit the brake and then hit 'resume' and it remembers the speed. There's a separate variable for whether it should be engaged or not. This variable should be correct at all times, and never changed as a side effect of something else.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this implemented as the "remembered speed" variable, which Resume uses, and the "current speed" variable, which is 0 meaning disengaged, and positive meaning engaged at that speed. That way you don't have to check :
instead you check just:
Embedded systems requiring optimization, someone might be tempted to do this. All you need is an edge case as you say to set this negative (there is a 'decrease/increase' feature on most CC), or faulty memory, or even bits flipped by nearby electromagnetic equipment. You don't even need badly written code, just poor insulation.
Ah screw it, give me the firmware and I'll disassemble it.
So if I invent something, it automatically becomes unpatentable? No, that's not what you meant. If I invent something that someone else invented, it becomes unpatentable. So then I go through the "pending" patents by looking at the store shelves and writing down all of the "patent pending" numbers, then "invent" those, and claim they are non-obvious because they were independently invented and invalidate the legitimate patent?
That couldn't be what you mean either.
The race to patent the light bulb should be a lesson - the difference between first-to-file and first-to-invent clearly invalidates the idea of independent inventions making the invention non-obvious. In an ideal world where everyone is honest, that might be true. But true protection can only exist where you distrust everyone and everything. Always scrub your input, right?
A patent system should hold up even under malicious attack. Design a system, figure out how to game it, then re-design until you can't discover another attack vector, and hope that no one else is smarter than you.
Simultaneous discoveries happen all the time in science - the current research and literature suggests an area which is unexplored, people focus attention there, and the inevitable result is that the more people looking at something, the more people will come to the same conclusion. Not only is the patent obvious based on literature, it is inevitable.
How can a patent system deal with inevitable patents while still rewarding truly unique discoveries? The only way is to have existing researchers/inventors in the field weigh in on whether the discovery is inevitable, obvious, or novel. And let the infighting begin, and no patent will ever be issued.
The best advice I've seen, not that it's necessarily correct, is that you never research patents. If you have the patent in your browser history but you didn't understand it and thought it was unrelated, you can go from infringement to intentional infringement, triple damages.
If that is true, and it feels true, the only way you can survive is to attempt to patent everything. When you do research for a patent and mention prior art, you'll realize if your patent already exists. By mentioning those patents, you clearly list which ones you looked at, and it's up to the patent office to catch a patent which you missed.
Basically your only choice is to overflow the patent office and leave your product "patent pending" so that no one uses your technology. Once that patent application is rejected due to a prior patent you missed, you can't go back and re-print all of the packaging, so you win on the surface. You got a good maybe 5 years of near-exclusive use of technology, which might be enough to tilt the market in your favor.
As a judge, having no exposure to the idea of open source, creative commons, or other such issues, the only thing a judge can fall back on is the legislature and case precedence. In a simplistic sort of way, it's very easy to conclude that everyone is playing according to copyright law, because that's the only law that applies (DMCA being related to copyright).
The problem is that the normal copyright law is almost never superseded by a contract. Usually the contract stipulates who owns the copyright, not any specific terms of copyright, because copyright is made up of laws. And you can't have a legally binding contract that contains clauses which are contrary to the law. Open source licenses are basically legislation created by individuals, which a judge should regard with suspicion. They are *not* obviously entering into a contract, since no one signs or agrees to anything. It's about as enforceable as a pop-up EULA, but someone using open-source code never had to take an action to agree to an EULA in order to use the code. It's entirely possible to download source code, make changes, and never read or even notice the license file. (EULAs have been ruled enforceable, as long as they are reasonable, so I'm not suggesting open source licenses can be disregarded like people think EULAs can be).
So in the judge's head, people give things away for free and then invent arbitrary legislation to go along with it, and the end user never has to agree to follow those rules. Since citizens can't create enforceable legislation, open source developers are giving stuff away, and the most sensible conclusion is that "Open Source license was tantamount to a dedication to the public domain." Once the "bad guys" made this argument, it clicked and the gavel came down.
It was a smart argument. What the judge missed is that there was a copyright notice attached to the code (either in the header or in the code package). The whole point of copyright is that the copyright holder retains the right to copy, regardless of how it is distributed. I can have a free screening of a movie, but that doesn't mean people can film it. I can give away 20 copies of a book, but that doesn't mean I intend to give away my rights, just 20 copies as promotional value.
If you're going to ignore the citizen-created license, you have to fall back on the law, and the law says it's copyrighted unless otherwise declared.
The obvious counter-argument is a web site. CNN pays for web servers and an internet connection, basically paying money to give away content - but they aren't giving away the rights to the content, just the content. The business model is to get advertising revenue by giving away content for free, just like the TV channel. Open source doesn't have anything like that to establish it as a legitimate business model, so it's not obvious what open source exists for.
And that is the fundamental flaw the judge made, in my opinion. "... Tantamount to putting something in the public domain" assumes that since you aren't losing money, you aren't being harmed. Copyright isn't there to protect a business or business model, it's there to encourage people to create things and let them be seen - without fear that someone will take advantage of its availability. The judge's ruling, and the appellate court agreeing, suggests that business interests are seen as more important than individual rights. Maybe I'm misreading, but that's not a good sign. Good thing this guy fought the law.
I bet you let your automotive oil go around the car several times before you let the injector replace the used oil, and your car is being destroyed from the inside out. You don't even know it. And I think I saw you wear that shirt before - did you happen to buy two of the exact same style accidentally, or was it a subtle joke about Germany? I wasn't sure, but I did chuckle and told my psychiatrist. She's the best - you'd like her. She tells me exactly which purchases will make me feel better about myself, and when it's time to switch to donations. You can never give enough to help those poor people who have to reuse things. I feel so sorry for them sometimes. I mean, do I want to carry an entire movie around with me, or do I want to just want to download it from hotbox again whenever I have time - HELLOO?? It only takes a second to download and then when the scene's over SHOOMP! and it's off the desktop. I just can't stand all that clutter. Besides, I have to buy new shirts anyway because I keep getting them dirty when I return the 25% of food I don't have a right to digest. I'm glad they passed that law, it was unfair to the food industry, and without them we'd not have food, so it's better overall. I'm on a diet, so I dropped down to the "less than morbid" plan. It's less food licensing, so I make up the difference by straight up eating dollar bills and shitting them out at the Windows® Media Center® Toilet Edition®, which gives half of it back to the creative people who make the music and movies you watch while donating cash out your ass and takes the other half and sets it on fire as a way to motivate those creepy artists to produce more. I mean, how can you fit in to a world when you don't even think like everyone else? Oh, sorry, have to get to the ATM.
[captcha: halcyon]
Some people don't know it's available for free, some people want to do the right thing, some people don't believe it's possible to get stuff for free. Lots of people believe that if you want to have something, you pay for it. That's why you can mod a satellite card for free TV, but most people pay for it.
You're only responsible for the damages you caused, or to put it another way the damages that can be proven. If you steal someone's jet pack plans and give them to a fab company in China, now someone else is producing these things and making money from it. If you sue someone, you're suing because they are making money which should be yours. In other words people are paying for the product, they just aren't paying you. You can sue the fab company for their profits, and also sue the plan thief for something, depending on what evidence you have.
Downloading something is different - there are arguments about the percentages, but not every download is a lost sale. And the person uploading isn't getting money for a sale. You can sue because someone might have enabled someone who possibly might have bought the product to obtain it without purchasing it. So the very idea of damages in this case is a lot more nebulous than you make it. You can take all of a company's profits made from your property, but you can't take an uploader's profits because they don't exist. There has to be some sort of valid explanation for the damage amount. I can't tell where you're trying to land your argument, but you have to concede that the prosecution has to make a rational argument that damages were caused, and were calculated to be a particular amount in some fashion which makes sense to the judge and cannot be ripped apart by the defense.
Also, you're making a case that the first person who uploads something is on the hook for more damages than the last person to download it when no one else is requesting pieces. "The first distribution destroys the exclusivity, and most of the value is in the exclusivity." But the law says, as you end, that the original infringer is no different from followers. The uploader is not the same as the plan thief, unless the uploader got hold of a copy and made it available. In that case, the original uploader is guilty of more than just uploading. That's where this logic falls apart - being guilty of multiple things should carry a harsher punishment than guilty of just one of those things.
So here's my point. When you feel wronged, you can decide how to proceed. If someone uploads a copy of my movie, I can accuse them of distributing, or profiting, or depriving me of sales, or being the "original uploader". I can accuse them of wearing boxers instead of briefs. But I have to have something solid as evidence to prove what I lost. You can't just make a movie or song, hope someone copies it, and then claim you lost millions of potential sales and the person should pay you piles of money. That would be legally sanctioned theft since you are not entitled to those damages. There goes your exclusivity argument, but only technically since the original uploader can fall under corporate espionage or property theft, depending on how the copy was taken from the premises.
Someone who downloads and then uploads copyrighted material is not guilty of the act of taking the original copy from its owner. That much should be plain as day. So the argument isn't about whether the first person destroys exclusivity, it should be about whether someone broke multiple laws or just one.
You're funny, you think common sense will win. If I sell a used car, or table, or piece of gum, I pretty much have to sell it cheaper than when I bought it. Except for collectibles or antiques, products generally decline in value due to age.
The funny part is where a video game, being bits on a DVD, cannot deteriorate. You can enter a gaming shop and see a game new in box for $60, or the exact same thing "used" for a good bit less. Why are used games less valuable than new, despite being exactly the same? They aren't less functional, nor are they dingy or in need of cleaning (the used games stores usually clean as much as possible first).
So how does used game sale make sense? Usually it's older titles that are available used, and value diminishes over time as new games usurp older ones. Even Sony drops the price on games after a while.
The kicker is when you buy an older game that says clearly on the back, like many "classic" PS2 games, that online play is no longer available because the servers are down. You can buy lots of multiplayer games now and only play the single-player missions. That's decreased value.
So what Sony is saying here is they are guaranteeing servers will be up and playable when you buy a used game, I'm with Sony on this one because it takes time and money to support online gaming. However, if they don't make an exception for games with no online play to begin with, then no value is being lost in a used game transaction. You should be able to sell the game back to Sony at cost, and they can re-sell it to whomever at retail value. But Sony doesn't want that either, obviously. And of course online games should be given away free, with online play being its own subscription. I mean, if I buy a game and play it for 10 hours online, my purchase cost is supporting someone who hammers the server 16 hours a day. That's out of line.
That's what makes me conclude that the entire used game market is very much misguided to start with, and this decision only complicates things.
That won't work. The answer is to buy your copy, then call support every time DRM pisses you off. As the other guy said, you can't buy Assassins Creed 2 from someone else, you're stuck with this company.
Don't call them just to complain that you're not going to buy it. Buy it, so now you're a legit customer. Call EVERY TIME DRM does something stupid. Take a long time to explain yourself in detail, if you have to call back.
The game might be $60, but after 4 calls where you explain your frustration, they are probably close to just breaking even. They'll realize they can't support a game that pisses off its users. "Insert disc to play" is annoying, but we've been dealing with it. "Please connect to the internet even though you're playing in the back seat of a car, or a cheap hotel, and don't have steady hotspots" is not something we can deal with. "Hey Ubisoft, I'm on this business trip and my company won't pay for my internet connection and I'm trapped in this room with no internet, my work notebook and my personal notebook. How do I play your stupid DRM I mean game?" Then call back because you're bored. Then call back to see if they've released a patch for the DRM. Then order room service from Ubisoft.
The last call you make should be the one where you say you are fed up with this, and would like to know which torrent has it available for download, pre-cracked. You aren't breaking any EULA by downloading a cracked version (check your local laws of course), since you aren't altering the game. You do have a license to play it, so you're not doing anything clearly illegal (local laws might cover uploading if you're using p2p of course).
I bought your game, I hate the DRM, I'm playing a cracked version. Next time you release something like this I'll do the same.
Wow, +5 Pedantic.
Reinventing the wheel implies that they set out to find a measure of importance. So they would have had to decide to make a search engine, have it produce relative results, decide that relative importance is the key, and then go searching for ways to find relative importance. There's a major gap there, a leap in thinking that simply wasn't present at the time. How important a page is indicates what order it should be in results. That makes sense, but it wasn't obvious at the time. Previous results were based on things like the number of times the page mentions your word, or what order the pages were added. People tried to figure out: what is that quality which makes a page more relevant than others? And they failed.
The key was settling on Importance, or we could call it Charisma. When you mention the name "Brad", do more people think of the guy you work with first or Brad Pitt? Brad Pitt is more relevant (technically relevant to more people), but why? More people know of him, and more people speak of him. More importantly, more important people speak of him.
Scientific papers have been measured for their influence factor this way (but that might be a false correlation: http://www.physorg.com/news165950992.html "... papers published early in a field receive citations essentially regardless of content because they are the only game in town.") If they had looked to science to see what makes something influential, they would have seen the same concept. But they didn't know they needed to find "influential", just "relevant".
The breakthrough Google made was deciding on a quality which made things more relevant, which is roughly equivalent to notoriety. Not just the number of references to a page, but the weight of those references in relation to who references them. That's where link farming sprouted, and they had to figure a way to cancel that effect out.
How many people know this page, as opposed to that page? And then they had to figure a way to find the pages, process the data, calculate notoriety, and serve it up quickly, and create a revenue stream from all of that. It's not about whether you're going to arrive more quickly by re-inventing the wheel. Often times you can, especially if it's in a language where you don't know all of the built-in functions. You can write a linked list with sorting faster than searching for how the language implements it under certain circumstances.
It's about whether you will arrive better, at a better solution in other words. The point was to look elsewhere for implementation, but the part you missed was you have to have inspiration to know where to look.
Google wanted to get something to lots of people. They might have had stuff in baskets. They could re-invent the wheel to make the baskets easier to transport, or they could build up a farm, attracting farm hands and their families and gradually build up a town, making the people come to Google instead. Once you know you need a transportation solution, it's easier to copy an existing idea. It just so happens that once you decide the solution to your problem is relative importance, there's a description of how to do it in a book from the 1940's.
In that era, search engines were like mini databases. You had to put in exactly the right query to get results.
I was famous for being able to find anything, and I mean anything, using AltaVista, when others couldn't. It was a lot like programming in a way, which explains why I was good.
I used to be able to be king of Google until they made it much more natural-language tolerant. Now my 10 year old neighbor can find things when I can't.
On the plus side, I can now type in "When is the damn stupid bowl mutherfucker" and Google shows the first hit to NFL.com, with the teams listed next to the date and time, each linking to the team's home page. Not the sponsored result, and clearly optimized for the day, but the goal of cataloging the world's data is on track.
I rabidly hate anything 2007 from Microsoft, in fact I am compiling a list of bugs in Vista and 2007 products that's about 300 lines long, and I've never seen any of this. You might want to see if you have plug-ins or integrations or something interfering, or an incompetent Exchange admin. Unless you're talking about Express, if a 2007 version exists.
Engineering duties are being moved to the lowest cost area, with lead coding done on-shore. The design and architecture gets passed out, and code comes back. That's the new digital economy. If you're coding, you're either doing lone-wolf work and likely to encounter the words "knowledge transfer" soon, or you're doing prototype work for someone else to flesh out. Otherwise, you're nerf-herding and playing with Visio or UML while your job code still says "coder".
If you're old, you're probably expensive, and the first one on the chopping block when the economy craps itself. Only safe if you've built a reputation, or can move into management, or to a team that has to have on-shore workers for contractual reasons. After that layoff binge, you're likely to get a pay cut as job codes get reorganized.
Example: I'm one of few people left who understand how our entire client-delivery portal works end-to-end, and I'm not allowed to answer questions about it because I'm reorganized into my little cubbyhole. "Not allowed" meaning if I do help out my old contacts in order to deliver something to a client on time it's on my own time, and I have to get my deadlines first. I still owe some favors, so I do help sometimes. I digress.
Posted from a Fortune 50 or less company, YMMV.
You filed a complaint with the BBB, called your state Attorney General, tried contacting corporate headquarters, complained to FTC, right?
No? Just made a single phone call and let it slide? Then you're the problem.
I don't have standing to complain about this, but you do. And when they do the same thing to me, it's my obligation to do all of the above and more. But it would mean so much more if they can see a pattern because of your prior complaint. You owe it to everyone who will get screwed in the future.
I always ask the store if they sell shoddy products. "I'm assuming you wouldn't sell something that's likely to fail within that timeframe, right?"
Well, we cover damage due to blah and blah and blah.
"In other words, you cover stuff that doesn't really matter."
Well, we cover blah blah and blah.
"And you make a profit doing so, since you charge a price that is higher than your expected payouts, like any other insurance company, making it plausible that I will end up on the short side of the stick if I buy the warranty every time, and the long side if I decline every time. Correct?"
Um, well, I have to try... I'd get fired if I didn't ask...
"I know. Let your manager know that many customers know this is a fraud and don't appreciate being asked."
Re-read what I wrote. A policy which says SSN is required is a lot different from a company which never provides product or service unless you provide an SSN.
Private companies can *effectively* require your SSN, by denying you service arbitrarily. They cannot truly require it without laws explicitly granting such a requirement. As Shakrai posted, the local PSC told Verizon to suck it after a complaint. Sure Verizon "requires" your SSN. If Verizon were truly able to require SSN, the PSC would have had no ability to overrule Verizon's requirement. If you don't provide your SSN, the company has the option of refusing service, but you also have the option to file a complaint and get around this requirement, making it simply a "strongly encouraged" piece of data. There are companies which are *required* to obtain your SSN, because of various laws, but they are not the majority.
If you make a big deal about the SSN being for tax and Social Security purposes only, you'll find that most companies (except those legally required) will accept an alternate ID instead of your SSN. You actually can get service without supplying your SSN, despite documented company policy to the contrary, meaning that it is not actually required.
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs10-ssn.htm#17
My point still stands - call the company on it, ask what rules allow them to gather your SSN, and let them know you'd prefer not to give it out. Mention a competitor if you want to. But don't be afraid to find out whether the company falls under one of the relevant identity verification laws.
Personally, I don't go this far, I just tell them I'm going to leave it blank and if they want me to go to another company they'll let me know. After that, they tend to allow an alternate number. It's disappointing, because I intend to refuse to end the conversation until they acknowledge this much: "So what you're saying is you'd rather I go to someone else?" Eventually I hope they will get pissed off and just say "Yes, please go somewhere else." That has never happened, because an alternate number suffices.
This is misunderstood a lot. Companies are not allowed to require your SSN for service. They often ask for it, just to be able to track you down if you fail to pay. (alert: USA-centric info follows). The loophole is, most companies are not required to offer service to everyone. So they can refuse to provide service to you without explanation (usually "incomplete application" or something similar), while technically following the law. That's why there's usually no state (or fed) regulation which allows this behaviour specifically.
Semi-related: I recently applied for a membership at Hollywood Video, when I lived 100 feet away from the store. They wouldn't give me a membership without a phone number, because they couldn't call me and tell me my movies were late. I told them it would be more convenient for me to rent there than somewhere else, but if they felt that driving 100 feet to get their movies back was a hardship, I'd take my business somewhere else. It's not required to have a phone number, but since my application was not complete I was denied.
The only workaround is as you said, contact someone and complain. More people need to do this. There are several companies which ask for my SSN and I level-set, look them directly in the eye, and say "You are not an agent of the Social Security administration, therefore you are not allowed to ask for that." They pause for a bit, say "uhhh, ok, I'll just leave that blank," and continue. By stating it that way, there is no question that I know my rights under the law, and they usually aren't prepared to fight it because they don't know the relevant law, being the front-line grunts just following orders. It amuses me.
Of course, recent IRS and anti-terrorism laws have changed this slightly, but it's still a small portion of companies.
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs10a-SSNFAQ.htm
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs31-CIP.htm
Partial list of who might legitimately be required to retain SSN:
* Commercial banks.
* Agencies and branches of foreign banks in the United States.
* Thrifts (savings and loan institutions).
* Credit unions.
* Private banks.
* Trust companies.
* Investment companies.
* Brokers and dealers in securities.
* Futures commission merchants.
* Insurance companies.
* Travel agents.
* Pawnbrokers.
* Dealers in precious metals.
* Check cashers.
* Casinos.
* Telegraph companies.
As always, know your rights. In my opinion, casinos require SSNs for tax enforcement under the guise of covering money laundering. Telegraph companies? Maybe "money by wire" makes sense for tracking financial terrorist support, but if I'm sending a telegraph, they are allowed to ask for my SSN for no apparent reason.
Call their bluff. You'll lose a few, but most companies won't change headquarters too many times. What you're suggesting means everyone gives in when the company threatens to throw a temper tantrum. The logical end of that is zero corporate taxes, hoping to make revenue from the payroll taxes of the employees.
So you're going to have to pick a side, zero taxes or call their bluff. Otherwise you're giving in and hoping someone else doesn't, wind up being the only state with taxes.
I wouldn't get a job there because they flat out wouldn't pay what I'm worth. You want someone who understands .NET completely, you're paying a lot more than for someone who "can code" in .NET. It is possible, but expensive, and that's my point.
The expense of learning has to be paid by one of:
The employee, raising the minimum salary the employee will accept
The new employer, raising expenses in the form of providing time set aside for training
The previous employer, by allowing the employee to fit in training, making the employee more valuable.
Someone has to pay for training. Ultimately, it will be the hiring company in the form of training materials, time, or pay for experience. Typical .NET or PHP coding type jobs are paying in the range of $25-$60k/year, which is not enough to make me learn the entire .NET CLR on my own time. Catch-22, what do you do? Economic downturn and let the expensive people go, and get the lower paid people make up for it.
"Everything will now be done in .NET, but we're not allowing you training time. Here's the schedule we promised to the client, so fit your training in around that." That's how it works, unless you're into spending money on people.
Buy used CDs. Indie artists will appreciate the additional exposure, RIAA companies will miss 50% of their revenue if every CD is re-sold once on average. That way it doesn't matter who produced the music, win-win.
Or it creates a market for intermediate converters which take the 3D output of the player and convert it to any of:
Split-screen (left picture on the left, right on right)
Split-screen cross-eyed (for apparatus-free viewing)
Anaglyph (to match whatever color glasses you have around)
Interlaced to match shutter-glasses (which will have to be timed to the converter)
Split into two streams for dual-projection (polarized) or LCD glasses
The options are endless. If they can just do auto-anaglyph, with the option to set the colors, the experience would be very satisfying with existing TVs. Coraline worked really well, using blue/yellow I think, but it was designed to work that way. Other movies might require different colors, but the concept is the same.
Something like MythTV or VLC might even include this option without requiring a hardware converter.
Bullshit yourself. You might be referring to things like advertising and marketing, which try to promise things so people will buy it. To me, "Buy Windows" means I have the source code and all related trademarks and patent licenses so I can turn around and sell Windows. Clearly that's not what they mean, so it must not mean what it says.
Here is the EULA you agree to, which as I said is locality dependent, I chose Windows 7 Home Basic / English:
http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx
You can't run it on a quad-processor computer. You bought it, just like the store said, but you're not allowed to do certain things. That's licensing.
WTF, a limit on the number of attached devices? And an arbitrary one at that, since it supports USB which can daisy-chain 127 devices.
Oh snap! You just got told. You might be thinking about what normal customers think, but they are misinformed and lied to. It's right there, licensed not sold.
Microsoft's version of .ORG - it's still in the first of the 3 E's.