We all know that cable companies shove unwanted junk down the throat of their customers with their packages and bundles, but having 9 different streaming services is not the answer.
Yes -- if what you want is cable, your best option is probably to keep cable. There's no right or wrong here, there's just what counts as an acceptable cost/benefit ratio for you.
The deal is that there are also a lot of people who are sick of paying the cost of cable, and who are perfectly OK with not replacing most of what cable offers. One or two services can replace it quite well. And a lot of those people don't know that they can save a ton of money without losing anything they value.
I an forced to use Comcast, and get basic cable because cable + internet is $20 cheaper per month than the same level of internet alone.
I have my own cable modem, so I don't rent theirs -- and I also have no interest in anything on basic cable, so I just returned the box without replacing it, so I don't rent that either.
I would never have assumed these defeat devices were illegal
Why wouldn't you assume that? The code had no other purpose than to lie to federally required certification. If used for that certification, that is obviously fraud, which is obviously illegal.
You get a memo requesting updates on your work, and a verbal follow up ordering the tampering.
As I said, I would write that verbal change order into an email that I send to the person who made the change order, asking them to acknowledge that my understanding of the work to be done is correct.
And, to be honest, I shouldn't even have to do that. Any competent software house does not allow work to be done without a paper trail detailing the work to be done. The amount of misunderstanding this avoids can save a ton of money and improve product quality.
That's how it's done. How exactly do you plan to sue again?
Because that's not how I'd allow it to be done. If a company has a problem with my "everything must be documented" rule, then I'm out of there, anyway. That's not a company that's worth my time.
I never work without a paper trail. I've worked at places where the engineering process was so sketchy that work was allowed to proceed without a paper trail, but even then, I have always made sure that I send an email to my supervisor after the verbal request, stating clearly what I understand the job to be, and asking if that's correct.
That should be standard practice for every engineer -- not as a CYA so much as because verbal requests are easily misunderstood, and it's to everyone's benefit if it's clear what work is to be accomplished and by when.
I'm not talking about whistleblowing. I'm talking about suing for wrongful termination. No grand jury (and rarely any normal jury) is involved.
The level of evidence required isn't even that high. All you'd really need (assuming that you have a reasonably good employment record) is an email or memo exchange showing that you were told to do something obviously illegal and that you refused to do it, and that you were fired or otherwise punished afterwards.
I've never received literal "thank you" emails in response to notifications (unless the notice was to a specific person about an issue they specifically wanted to know about), but I have received general acknowledgement responses.
I suspect the bigger issue, though, is that the companies probably have a a large number of dead email addresses in their distribution list, and probably see a whole lot of bounces with every mailing. However, those are trivially easy to filter out, so shouldn't affect a thing (and if the company were really smart, they'd use those bounces to trim their database a bit).
It sucks when someone with power and/or authority orders you to do something unethical.
It sure does! It sucks even more when you cave into those demands. Quitting would be a good thing under those circumstances -- or even better, just refuse to do it and let them fire you. Then you have actual recourse.
No matter what you do though, you are responsible for the actions you take.
You always have a choice. You document the request for the illegal thing, refuse to do it, and if you get fired, you sue for a juicy payout.
Firing someone for refusing an illegal request is illegal in and of itself.
It's not going to affect your employment prospects with any company worth working for. In fact, in a lot of companies, it will enhance them -- there really are lots of companies who value employees who act ethically.
It's been my experience, both in business and in personal life, the people tend to match your expectations of them.
If you expect people to be idiots, you'll treat them like idiots, and only idiots will talk to you. If you treat people with decency and reasonableness, they will tend to be decent and reasonable in return.
I think his point was that the engineer is the one who wrote the code (metaphorically, he pulled the trigger) and so it's not silly to prosecute him. It doesn't matter if he was doing it on orders. Just like how a hitman should be prosecuted for doing the hit, and it doesn't matter that he was doing it on orders.
In both cases, the one who gave the orders should be prosecuted as well.
Not really. There are a few exceptions, where I must do business with companies that treat their customers like shit, but the vast majority of the time the companies I do business with treat me with at least a minimum amount of respect, because if they don't I just do business with someone else instead. Over time, that's weeded out most of the bad guys.
For the most part, there's still plenty of competition that is hungry for additional customers.
There are also websites that are compiling a list of where the antennas are in various makes and models and tell you how to disconnect them. With pictures.
Slashdot Mirror
We all know that cable companies shove unwanted junk down the throat of their customers with their packages and bundles, but having 9 different streaming services is not the answer.
Yes -- if what you want is cable, your best option is probably to keep cable. There's no right or wrong here, there's just what counts as an acceptable cost/benefit ratio for you.
The deal is that there are also a lot of people who are sick of paying the cost of cable, and who are perfectly OK with not replacing most of what cable offers. One or two services can replace it quite well. And a lot of those people don't know that they can save a ton of money without losing anything they value.
I an forced to use Comcast, and get basic cable because cable + internet is $20 cheaper per month than the same level of internet alone.
I have my own cable modem, so I don't rent theirs -- and I also have no interest in anything on basic cable, so I just returned the box without replacing it, so I don't rent that either.
If you're using the Android SDK you are writing in Java.
Or in C#. Or, if you don't care about platform independence, even C or C++.
Never trust anyone who says "trust me".
I don't. The last time I dug into this was a year ago, purely out of intellectual curiosity. Sorry!
That's right. That's why documentation is important.
I would never have assumed these defeat devices were illegal
Why wouldn't you assume that? The code had no other purpose than to lie to federally required certification. If used for that certification, that is obviously fraud, which is obviously illegal.
You get a memo requesting updates on your work, and a verbal follow up ordering the tampering.
As I said, I would write that verbal change order into an email that I send to the person who made the change order, asking them to acknowledge that my understanding of the work to be done is correct.
And, to be honest, I shouldn't even have to do that. Any competent software house does not allow work to be done without a paper trail detailing the work to be done. The amount of misunderstanding this avoids can save a ton of money and improve product quality.
That's how it's done. How exactly do you plan to sue again?
Because that's not how I'd allow it to be done. If a company has a problem with my "everything must be documented" rule, then I'm out of there, anyway. That's not a company that's worth my time.
I never work without a paper trail. I've worked at places where the engineering process was so sketchy that work was allowed to proceed without a paper trail, but even then, I have always made sure that I send an email to my supervisor after the verbal request, stating clearly what I understand the job to be, and asking if that's correct.
That should be standard practice for every engineer -- not as a CYA so much as because verbal requests are easily misunderstood, and it's to everyone's benefit if it's clear what work is to be accomplished and by when.
I'm not talking about whistleblowing. I'm talking about suing for wrongful termination. No grand jury (and rarely any normal jury) is involved.
The level of evidence required isn't even that high. All you'd really need (assuming that you have a reasonably good employment record) is an email or memo exchange showing that you were told to do something obviously illegal and that you refused to do it, and that you were fired or otherwise punished afterwards.
The engineers that I know who consistently put in effort that results in exceptionally good work get rewarded through being paid extra well.
If that's not true where you work, I strongly encourage you to look around for a better job. Great engineers are hard to find and in demand.
An engineer is allowed to be a bastard, but if he's a liar, he's not a fricken' engineer.
That's brilliant (and accurate). I'm going to start using that.
I've never received literal "thank you" emails in response to notifications (unless the notice was to a specific person about an issue they specifically wanted to know about), but I have received general acknowledgement responses.
I suspect the bigger issue, though, is that the companies probably have a a large number of dead email addresses in their distribution list, and probably see a whole lot of bounces with every mailing. However, those are trivially easy to filter out, so shouldn't affect a thing (and if the company were really smart, they'd use those bounces to trim their database a bit).
It's not a lame pseudo-name -- he legally changed it to that, so it's a lame real name.
The reason for the state of software isn't the languages. It's the economics.
Yes, this has been my experience. I haven't seen even one of those in-car computer systems that was actually worth a damn.
Even the map software universally sucks. So much so that I always end up using my phone for that anyway.
It sucks when someone with power and/or authority orders you to do something unethical.
It sure does! It sucks even more when you cave into those demands. Quitting would be a good thing under those circumstances -- or even better, just refuse to do it and let them fire you. Then you have actual recourse.
No matter what you do though, you are responsible for the actions you take.
No indemnification clause will protect you when you knowingly do something wrong.
You always have a choice. You document the request for the illegal thing, refuse to do it, and if you get fired, you sue for a juicy payout.
Firing someone for refusing an illegal request is illegal in and of itself.
It's not going to affect your employment prospects with any company worth working for. In fact, in a lot of companies, it will enhance them -- there really are lots of companies who value employees who act ethically.
A million times this.
It's been my experience, both in business and in personal life, the people tend to match your expectations of them.
If you expect people to be idiots, you'll treat them like idiots, and only idiots will talk to you. If you treat people with decency and reasonableness, they will tend to be decent and reasonable in return.
I think his point was that the engineer is the one who wrote the code (metaphorically, he pulled the trigger) and so it's not silly to prosecute him. It doesn't matter if he was doing it on orders. Just like how a hitman should be prosecuted for doing the hit, and it doesn't matter that he was doing it on orders.
In both cases, the one who gave the orders should be prosecuted as well.
The executives should have been prosecuted too, but they may have been more careful to cover their tracks.
That said, if an engineer does something he knows is illegal, then he should be prosecuted for it -- even if he was ordered to do it by his superiors.
Why not?
Because (and I recognize that people have different perspectives on this) the data about me is mine, not the site's.
Are you paying for the service?
Depends on the site. There are several that I pay for, yes.
Not really. There are a few exceptions, where I must do business with companies that treat their customers like shit, but the vast majority of the time the companies I do business with treat me with at least a minimum amount of respect, because if they don't I just do business with someone else instead. Over time, that's weeded out most of the bad guys.
For the most part, there's still plenty of competition that is hungry for additional customers.
There are also websites that are compiling a list of where the antennas are in various makes and models and tell you how to disconnect them. With pictures.