I'm stuck in copper-land thanks to the phone monopoly in my town, and the copper we have can't reliably transfer data at faster than 8Mbps. 15Mbps was great when it worked, but the disconnects were frequent. The residents in my town are never going to see gigabit speeds over our copper infrastructure. The phone company has no reason to improve it. There is no fiber alternative, Verizon pulled out of our state. Our cable TV monopoly is equally disinterested in provided higher speed service. This is probably a significant challenge all over the United States. We need to find a way to revive competition and get these legally-sole-provider-in-the-region companies to offer improved service.
DirecTV forced cable companies to up their HD offerings by making over a hundred channels HD in one go after launching some new satellites. Before that, none of the cable MSOs would bother. We need a similar antagonist in the ISP space.
With that said, I would guess we already know what a successful tablet is. We've had keyboardless touch-screen devices for many years before iPad and Android devices. They were always designed as keyboardless laptops, and they always, without exception failed in the general marketplace.
Sadly so. Popular in some niche markets, but never a major player.
Now, you might have guessed that iPad is an aberration; it succeeded not becuase the phone/tablet gestalt is superior but because a guy in a turtleneck sprinkled magic design dust on it. But then the iPad would remain the only successful tablet, and that's simply not the case.
Possibly. PDAs had a considerable market presence for a time, even Apple had the Newton. It could still be the shiny complex at work, even if it crosses brands. I wouldn't bet the farm just yet.
I'm sure RT could do well as a niche device, but it's clear that's not something MS would be content with, and also seems clear the tablet-as-laptop concept doesn't have enough mass-market appeal.
I wouldn't say it's that clear. Laplets (tabtops?) generate a lot of interest out in the wild. I think they're held back by price and the chicken and egg problem. The ones worth having are still up in the $2000 range, last I looked. Not many consumers will buy at that price. Business isn't likely to buy at that price either, except in healthcare and a few other niches. I work for a company that tried selling their own and we weren't even allowed to requisition them for in-house use because of cost. It's no wonder to me why they fail to catch on.
I might have been interested in an RT device, but after Zune and a bunch of other MS failures, who would take the risk of buying one? I do think we need choices other than Apple or Google. I don't like a choice between a walled garden or an absolute invasion of privacy. It doesn't look like the duopoly will be challenged by MS, but perhaps that's not a bad thing.
The whole "tablet" thing is confusing. I have a Fujitsu tablet that runs Windows 7, has a keyboard but also operates as a slate with a stylus and active digitizer. Tablets used to be laptops with an active or passive digitizer and possibly a keyboard, then the iPad came along and now tablets are two different things, with a variety of operating systems and capabilities. It's one thing for techies to sort through it, but quite another for the average consumer.
So you have a device that's not a phone, and not a laptop. Some customers are going to want it to function more like the laptop, with a full operating system and similar capabilities. Others may want it to work more like a phone, with a mobile, small-device oriented, simplified operating system. Who is to say which is best, or that either is best? Isn't that the failure of RT? It's neither, but tries to offer a middle-ground?
Has anything ever been truly secure? Reminds me of freedom. Absolute freedom would be anarchy, would it not? It's an illusion, an unattainable goal. This site runs stories every day on the failures of DRM and of mass security breaches and of established encryption algorithms and standards being breached by one group or another.
Sorry, I'm old fashioned. Unless it's prefaced by "online", I assume brick and mortar. But the point stands, this was a problem even before online shopping came to be. I can remember people protesting outside of bookstores whenever something "objectionable" was going to be sold there. In the online world, now you're restricted by sales engines like Amazon, or by payment processors like Paypal. Not to mention the various legal requirements for sites that host adult content normally applied to video and picture sites. The Internet is no more a free enterprise zone than is the "real world". In fact, it might even be more restrictive depending on your location.
Store owners are free to carry whatever books they want.
Not really. The town I live in has prevented several "adult" book stores from setting up shop here. The usual tactic is to claim that what they want to build isn't allowed by the zoning. Those sort of establishments have to set up shop on the other side of the river.. next town over.
It has been used before, admittedly not in some time. I'm not necessarily in favor of this tactic either, but I understand why it's being done. I know first-hand, my insurance benefit from work for next year will be far worse than the plan I had this year, and will cost me more. A lot of people are seeing the same thing happen. Folks that have never had insurance are going to be forced to pay for it or pay the penalty, and depending on the state, the cost of compliance is not cheap. The budget holdup isn't necessary, but it's a tactic to address the problem. Otherwise, we're stuck until the next elections and the people suffer for it. Do you seriously think the GOP just wants to kill the AHA just for the heck of it? They're fighting for the people that elected them into office, as they should. Everyone is up in arms about the slimdown, yet few are talking about the actual problem at hand, that being what's happening to health insurance.
Evidence beyond reasonable doubt - e.g. conviction in court of law, please. Evidence that your allegations, if true, would have made a difference.
Google "Cornhusker kickback". There would never be a conviction, the DOJ is bound to ideology, not law.
"Something bad may have happened but I have no evidence for it."
Are you channeling Hillary Clinton's testimony regarding the embassy attack?
The legislation itself was never fully available so that we could even know what was up for vote.
Sorry, what? Are you claiming that your representatives didn't have the full text of primary legislation available, or that secondary legislation is left to the executive (which is standard for all lawmaking)?
A law of such impact should have been dealt with more openly. This wasn't a typical piece of legislation. Can you think of an act passed by the feds in recent times that has caused as much confusion and chaos as this one?
The vote itself was pushed time and time again until the outcome was assured.
What do you mean by this? That the legislation was modified until enough people were happy with it? IOW standard legislative process?
It wasn't about compromise. If that were true, there would have been bipartisan approval. There wasn't. It's tyranny of the majority. Legal or not, it led to the situation we're in now. Judging from the administration's inability to work on both sides of the aisle, I don't see the impasse ending anytime soon.
Heck, they even kept the legislature in DC during the winter break so that legislators wouldn't go home and hear directly from the people.
What do you actually mean by this? Define "kept".
Seriously? Keeping the debate going during what's normally a recess for the holidays kept them from hearing from their constituents. You can argue if it was intentional or not, but it happened.
A major bill like this, getting voted through with not one vote from the opposite party all but ensured something like this would happen.
"The opposite party". Way to declare your enjoyment for two-party politics. It was passed. Nobody forced people to vote Democrat, and nobody forced the elected Congresscritters to vote in favour of the bill.
We have two parties, it's a fact, not an emotion. There's an occasional independent and other parties exist, but their numbers are so low it's irrelevant.
No one forced folks to vote for the GOP either, and here we are. No one is forcing them to not vote on a budget that includes the "affordable" healthcare act.
What the GOP is doing is no worse than what the dems had to do to pass it in the first place.
"HE STARTED IT!" Grow the fuck up.
And the dems are screaming "NO TAKEBACKS!" Eat shit:)
Have you already forgotten how the "affordable" healthcare act got voted into law?
Nope. I'm Just a Bill - School House Rock. If you don't have three minutes to learn how laws are made I'll give you a quick summary: The House passed it, the Senate passed it, the President signed it, and the Supreme Court upheld it. Questions?
Also explains the government shut down. So why do you have a problem with one and not the other? No budget signed, nothing for the President to sign and nothing the Supreme Court can do.. but still perfectly legal. We should be rejoicing, right?
Yeah. And I've never seen a functional representative democracy in which a majority vote can be overridden by simply putting the whole government on hold until the minority gets its way. It's a childish, undemocratic waste of resources.
Have you already forgotten how the "affordable" healthcare act got voted into law? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't a shining example of democracy in action. There was blatant bribery where one state was gifted special benefits to purchase a yea vote on the bill. Others were pushed out of congress through scandals which may or may not have been fabricated. The legislation itself was never fully available so that we could even know what was up for vote. The vote itself was pushed time and time again until the outcome was assured. Heck, they even kept the legislature in DC during the winter break so that legislators wouldn't go home and hear directly from the people. A major bill like this, getting voted through with not one vote from the opposite party all but ensured something like this would happen. What the GOP is doing is no worse than what the dems had to do to pass it in the first place.
Yeah, this one guy hates you alllll and wants to make you feel bad because.. because... oh he's just PURE EVIL:'(.
Worse, I think he truly believes he's doing the best thing for us.
In the US, historically "attempting to bully or marginalize" half the nation's population has been exactly the path to "progress." See: slavery, segregation.
Or not, as in Chic-Fil-A. You might count the donation thing as a win, but considering the backlash of people supporting the chain, I think it'd be a bit dishonest. All those pissed off people are more likely now to regard the whole issue with disdain. It takes a lot to get an American off their ass to take action on something. Considering the numbers that came out in defense of the company, that was a huge set-back for the intolerant pro-tolerance folks.
Chic-fil-a did not close, but they got a lot of negative publicity, and now other restaurant chains will be reluctant to take sides on divisive social issues. When I drive past a Chic-fil-a, I have a mental image of two ugly guys having sex, and I lose my appetite.
Actually, they had bad publicity for a short time, then ended up with long lines of customers who had never even eaten there before because they were pissed off by the reaction to the CEO's (or whatever his title is) opinion. Folks need to realize that attempting to bully or marginalize half the nation's population is not a path to "progress".
But to be honest, everyone should agree and realize it's not your merits that get you jobs and promotions. It has always been and always will be WHO you manage to befriend, and WHO'S family you were born into.
That's not honest, that's defeatist. Not all companies are that way. If you find yourself working for people like that, it's time to go.
That if you work hard at where you're at, you can be seen as 'you best fit here' so the bosses will pass you over for promotion because they figure your replacement will be worse.
Seriously? Where do you people work? I want to be as far away from there as possible. Office Space is just a movie.
Is that directed at me or the article? I'm not a boomer, but I am pre-80s. If someone keeps ringing my phone thinking it's going to make me favor them, it's likely to be the opposite. I'm not even sure why we have desk phones anymore. They seem like phone-booths or printed memos, artifacts of an earlier era. Bonus points if they're voip with shit sound quality and wonderful echos like the one on my desk.
My point is the opposite of the article. Social graces in the tech field aren't that important, or shouldn't be anyway. If it's customer or public facing, yea. If it's folks you work with ever day, this prim and proper thing sounds like a flashback to the 1950s. Let's whip out the suit and tie and get the ladies to serve us coffee and do the typing for us, like the good old days. Tech standards change over time, as do social standards. If the higher ups are all folks like the author of the article suggests, what future does that company have? Innovation certainly doesn't live there.
If the bullet points the author laid out are actually useful to anyone for moving up in a company, then that company is not worth working for. Sure, I used to use the phone a lot more than I do now. That doesn't mean I want to continue relying it, especially when the information could more easily be sent by email or chat, or the most horrible of acts, talking face-to-face.
The last point was the only thing I saw approaching sanity. Even so, no one should put in hours just to put in hours. If you're actually accomplishing something, great! Yet I've met plenty of people that claim to work all hours of the night and put in time on the weekends with little to show for it. If I see that, the first thing I'm going to think is not, hey.. there's a "straight shooter with upper management potential". I'm going to wonder why they can't get work done during normal hours like everyone else.
Salutations, spelling, grammar? Really? I have a crazy idea. Keep up with technology. Use your skills, be creative, and most of all.. get the work done. That's a measure of success. That will drive your performance reviews. No boss is grading emails. These tips sound perfect for someone whose goal in life is to be a butt-kissing brown-noser. Oh, but they're tips to get a promotion. Perhaps they make sense after all.
Yeah, I don't think I've heard of anyone who actually lives in Massachusetts complaining about it
That's because they've moved to New Hampshire. As a NH resident that lives on the border I hear "Taxachusettes" almost as often as I hear the term "Masshole".. which is often. In fact it's so bad, NH's laws are starting to look like MA's because there's so many of them living here now and voting for the same stupid laws that screwed up their former state.
The city's emergency management office isn't responsible for the backup system? The city is obligated to test these things to make sure they work. Vendors don't police themselves.
Whatever happened to accountability? We're living in the age of "pass the buck".
The only difference between the two parties is the campaign rhetoric.
I mention Obamacare because, well.. it turns the IRS into a law enforcement agency. Couple with all the spying going on plus the fact that the IRS intentionally targeted certain groups, it's a very serious concern. I don't care which side is in power, the IRS should never be part of the reigning party's reelection campaign.
We recently had the federal Internal Revenue Service targeting political groups and their supporters because the administration didn't like their politics. Have they exploited this USPS data collection system? Just by looking at snail mail "metadata" they could identify members and supporters of all sorts of nefarious groups such as the National Rifle Association, or if the balance of power shifts, Planned Parenthood and the like.
Now citizen, obey the executive branch or we'll send the IRS after you. With Obamacare, the IRS becomes a law enforcement agency, which makes it that much worse. You failed to purchase the exact type of health insurance that the executive branch dictated? Here comes the IRS. Oh, and we see you're an NRA member. Off to Gitmo with you.. which is actually still open despite certain campaign promises from a somewhat prominent individual.
I guess the ultimate of that is saying that if you make a tutorial video for autocad, would it be just to say that you lose rights to said video, because all the content "was" already in the program you're making the tutorial out of.. or even further, does adobe own copyright for everything edited with their sw..
Autocad and Adobe-Whatever exist to create original content. Can you really say that of a game? The game's content is already set. The player may expose different parts of it and in different order, but the content is still just the content. The player isn't really "creating" anything.
Like I said, grey area. Even the movie watching analogy, I get the MST3K example. Yet, if I just sat there and didn't say a single thing the whole time the movie played, is that a valid derivative work? No.. but what if I coughed once or twice? Where's the fine line?
The videos are about people playing a game, not the game itself. That is a transformational use and thus a fair use. Nintendo is stealing from their own customers, plain and simple.
What if I post a video of me watching a movie? It's not about the movie.. it's about me watching the movie.
We're looking for a fine line in what's really a grey area. I can easily see both points of view.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm stuck in copper-land thanks to the phone monopoly in my town, and the copper we have can't reliably transfer data at faster than 8Mbps. 15Mbps was great when it worked, but the disconnects were frequent. The residents in my town are never going to see gigabit speeds over our copper infrastructure. The phone company has no reason to improve it. There is no fiber alternative, Verizon pulled out of our state. Our cable TV monopoly is equally disinterested in provided higher speed service. This is probably a significant challenge all over the United States. We need to find a way to revive competition and get these legally-sole-provider-in-the-region companies to offer improved service.
DirecTV forced cable companies to up their HD offerings by making over a hundred channels HD in one go after launching some new satellites. Before that, none of the cable MSOs would bother. We need a similar antagonist in the ISP space.
With that said, I would guess we already know what a successful tablet is. We've had keyboardless touch-screen devices for many years before iPad and Android devices. They were always designed as keyboardless laptops, and they always, without exception failed in the general marketplace.
Sadly so. Popular in some niche markets, but never a major player.
Now, you might have guessed that iPad is an aberration; it succeeded not becuase the phone/tablet gestalt is superior but because a guy in a turtleneck sprinkled magic design dust on it. But then the iPad would remain the only successful tablet, and that's simply not the case.
Possibly. PDAs had a considerable market presence for a time, even Apple had the Newton. It could still be the shiny complex at work, even if it crosses brands. I wouldn't bet the farm just yet.
I'm sure RT could do well as a niche device, but it's clear that's not something MS would be content with, and also seems clear the tablet-as-laptop concept doesn't have enough mass-market appeal.
I wouldn't say it's that clear. Laplets (tabtops?) generate a lot of interest out in the wild. I think they're held back by price and the chicken and egg problem. The ones worth having are still up in the $2000 range, last I looked. Not many consumers will buy at that price. Business isn't likely to buy at that price either, except in healthcare and a few other niches. I work for a company that tried selling their own and we weren't even allowed to requisition them for in-house use because of cost. It's no wonder to me why they fail to catch on.
I might have been interested in an RT device, but after Zune and a bunch of other MS failures, who would take the risk of buying one? I do think we need choices other than Apple or Google. I don't like a choice between a walled garden or an absolute invasion of privacy. It doesn't look like the duopoly will be challenged by MS, but perhaps that's not a bad thing.
The whole "tablet" thing is confusing. I have a Fujitsu tablet that runs Windows 7, has a keyboard but also operates as a slate with a stylus and active digitizer. Tablets used to be laptops with an active or passive digitizer and possibly a keyboard, then the iPad came along and now tablets are two different things, with a variety of operating systems and capabilities. It's one thing for techies to sort through it, but quite another for the average consumer.
So you have a device that's not a phone, and not a laptop. Some customers are going to want it to function more like the laptop, with a full operating system and similar capabilities. Others may want it to work more like a phone, with a mobile, small-device oriented, simplified operating system. Who is to say which is best, or that either is best? Isn't that the failure of RT? It's neither, but tries to offer a middle-ground?
Oh yeah, good idea. Let's just be rid of this whole Internet thing, and all the crap people put on it.
WWW != Internet
Has anything ever been truly secure? Reminds me of freedom. Absolute freedom would be anarchy, would it not? It's an illusion, an unattainable goal. This site runs stories every day on the failures of DRM and of mass security breaches and of established encryption algorithms and standards being breached by one group or another.
Slightly ironic given that vehicles sold in CA have to conform to the state's own emission requirements.
Sorry, I'm old fashioned. Unless it's prefaced by "online", I assume brick and mortar. But the point stands, this was a problem even before online shopping came to be. I can remember people protesting outside of bookstores whenever something "objectionable" was going to be sold there. In the online world, now you're restricted by sales engines like Amazon, or by payment processors like Paypal. Not to mention the various legal requirements for sites that host adult content normally applied to video and picture sites. The Internet is no more a free enterprise zone than is the "real world". In fact, it might even be more restrictive depending on your location.
Store owners are free to carry whatever books they want.
Not really. The town I live in has prevented several "adult" book stores from setting up shop here. The usual tactic is to claim that what they want to build isn't allowed by the zoning. Those sort of establishments have to set up shop on the other side of the river.. next town over.
It has been used before, admittedly not in some time. I'm not necessarily in favor of this tactic either, but I understand why it's being done. I know first-hand, my insurance benefit from work for next year will be far worse than the plan I had this year, and will cost me more. A lot of people are seeing the same thing happen. Folks that have never had insurance are going to be forced to pay for it or pay the penalty, and depending on the state, the cost of compliance is not cheap. The budget holdup isn't necessary, but it's a tactic to address the problem. Otherwise, we're stuck until the next elections and the people suffer for it. Do you seriously think the GOP just wants to kill the AHA just for the heck of it? They're fighting for the people that elected them into office, as they should. Everyone is up in arms about the slimdown, yet few are talking about the actual problem at hand, that being what's happening to health insurance.
Evidence beyond reasonable doubt - e.g. conviction in court of law, please. Evidence that your allegations, if true, would have made a difference.
Google "Cornhusker kickback". There would never be a conviction, the DOJ is bound to ideology, not law.
"Something bad may have happened but I have no evidence for it."
Are you channeling Hillary Clinton's testimony regarding the embassy attack?
The legislation itself was never fully available so that we could even know what was up for vote.
Sorry, what? Are you claiming that your representatives didn't have the full text of primary legislation available, or that secondary legislation is left to the executive (which is standard for all lawmaking)?
A law of such impact should have been dealt with more openly. This wasn't a typical piece of legislation. Can you think of an act passed by the feds in recent times that has caused as much confusion and chaos as this one?
The vote itself was pushed time and time again until the outcome was assured.
What do you mean by this? That the legislation was modified until enough people were happy with it? IOW standard legislative process?
It wasn't about compromise. If that were true, there would have been bipartisan approval. There wasn't. It's tyranny of the majority. Legal or not, it led to the situation we're in now. Judging from the administration's inability to work on both sides of the aisle, I don't see the impasse ending anytime soon.
Heck, they even kept the legislature in DC during the winter break so that legislators wouldn't go home and hear directly from the people.
What do you actually mean by this? Define "kept".
Seriously? Keeping the debate going during what's normally a recess for the holidays kept them from hearing from their constituents. You can argue if it was intentional or not, but it happened.
A major bill like this, getting voted through with not one vote from the opposite party all but ensured something like this would happen.
"The opposite party". Way to declare your enjoyment for two-party politics. It was passed. Nobody forced people to vote Democrat, and nobody forced the elected Congresscritters to vote in favour of the bill.
We have two parties, it's a fact, not an emotion. There's an occasional independent and other parties exist, but their numbers are so low it's irrelevant.
No one forced folks to vote for the GOP either, and here we are. No one is forcing them to not vote on a budget that includes the "affordable" healthcare act.
What the GOP is doing is no worse than what the dems had to do to pass it in the first place.
"HE STARTED IT!" Grow the fuck up.
And the dems are screaming "NO TAKEBACKS!" Eat shit :)
Have you already forgotten how the "affordable" healthcare act got voted into law?
Nope. I'm Just a Bill - School House Rock. If you don't have three minutes to learn how laws are made I'll give you a quick summary: The House passed it, the Senate passed it, the President signed it, and the Supreme Court upheld it. Questions?
Also explains the government shut down. So why do you have a problem with one and not the other? No budget signed, nothing for the President to sign and nothing the Supreme Court can do.. but still perfectly legal. We should be rejoicing, right?
Yeah. And I've never seen a functional representative democracy in which a majority vote can be overridden by simply putting the whole government on hold until the minority gets its way. It's a childish, undemocratic waste of resources.
Have you already forgotten how the "affordable" healthcare act got voted into law? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't a shining example of democracy in action. There was blatant bribery where one state was gifted special benefits to purchase a yea vote on the bill. Others were pushed out of congress through scandals which may or may not have been fabricated. The legislation itself was never fully available so that we could even know what was up for vote. The vote itself was pushed time and time again until the outcome was assured. Heck, they even kept the legislature in DC during the winter break so that legislators wouldn't go home and hear directly from the people. A major bill like this, getting voted through with not one vote from the opposite party all but ensured something like this would happen. What the GOP is doing is no worse than what the dems had to do to pass it in the first place.
Yeah, this one guy hates you alllll and wants to make you feel bad because.. because... oh he's just PURE EVIL :'(.
Worse, I think he truly believes he's doing the best thing for us.
In the US, historically "attempting to bully or marginalize" half the nation's population has been exactly the path to "progress." See: slavery, segregation.
Or not, as in Chic-Fil-A. You might count the donation thing as a win, but considering the backlash of people supporting the chain, I think it'd be a bit dishonest. All those pissed off people are more likely now to regard the whole issue with disdain. It takes a lot to get an American off their ass to take action on something. Considering the numbers that came out in defense of the company, that was a huge set-back for the intolerant pro-tolerance folks.
Chic-fil-a did not close, but they got a lot of negative publicity, and now other restaurant chains will be reluctant to take sides on divisive social issues. When I drive past a Chic-fil-a, I have a mental image of two ugly guys having sex, and I lose my appetite.
Actually, they had bad publicity for a short time, then ended up with long lines of customers who had never even eaten there before because they were pissed off by the reaction to the CEO's (or whatever his title is) opinion. Folks need to realize that attempting to bully or marginalize half the nation's population is not a path to "progress".
But to be honest, everyone should agree and realize it's not your merits that get you jobs and promotions. It has always been and always will be WHO you manage to befriend, and WHO'S family you were born into.
That's not honest, that's defeatist. Not all companies are that way. If you find yourself working for people like that, it's time to go.
That if you work hard at where you're at, you can be seen as 'you best fit here' so the bosses will pass you over for promotion because they figure your replacement will be worse.
Seriously? Where do you people work? I want to be as far away from there as possible. Office Space is just a movie.
Is that directed at me or the article? I'm not a boomer, but I am pre-80s. If someone keeps ringing my phone thinking it's going to make me favor them, it's likely to be the opposite. I'm not even sure why we have desk phones anymore. They seem like phone-booths or printed memos, artifacts of an earlier era. Bonus points if they're voip with shit sound quality and wonderful echos like the one on my desk.
My point is the opposite of the article. Social graces in the tech field aren't that important, or shouldn't be anyway. If it's customer or public facing, yea. If it's folks you work with ever day, this prim and proper thing sounds like a flashback to the 1950s. Let's whip out the suit and tie and get the ladies to serve us coffee and do the typing for us, like the good old days. Tech standards change over time, as do social standards. If the higher ups are all folks like the author of the article suggests, what future does that company have? Innovation certainly doesn't live there.
If the bullet points the author laid out are actually useful to anyone for moving up in a company, then that company is not worth working for. Sure, I used to use the phone a lot more than I do now. That doesn't mean I want to continue relying it, especially when the information could more easily be sent by email or chat, or the most horrible of acts, talking face-to-face.
The last point was the only thing I saw approaching sanity. Even so, no one should put in hours just to put in hours. If you're actually accomplishing something, great! Yet I've met plenty of people that claim to work all hours of the night and put in time on the weekends with little to show for it. If I see that, the first thing I'm going to think is not, hey.. there's a "straight shooter with upper management potential". I'm going to wonder why they can't get work done during normal hours like everyone else.
Salutations, spelling, grammar? Really? I have a crazy idea. Keep up with technology. Use your skills, be creative, and most of all.. get the work done. That's a measure of success. That will drive your performance reviews. No boss is grading emails. These tips sound perfect for someone whose goal in life is to be a butt-kissing brown-noser. Oh, but they're tips to get a promotion. Perhaps they make sense after all.
I doubt anyone in either of the two major parties know enough about technology to know that this would be an issue they could potentially latch on to.
Yeah, I don't think I've heard of anyone who actually lives in Massachusetts complaining about it
That's because they've moved to New Hampshire. As a NH resident that lives on the border I hear "Taxachusettes" almost as often as I hear the term "Masshole".. which is often. In fact it's so bad, NH's laws are starting to look like MA's because there's so many of them living here now and voting for the same stupid laws that screwed up their former state.
If I hire someone to manage something, and it goes to hell, I sure don't blame myself.
I'm sure no one in Detroit is blaming themselves either.
The city's emergency management office isn't responsible for the backup system? The city is obligated to test these things to make sure they work. Vendors don't police themselves.
Whatever happened to accountability? We're living in the age of "pass the buck".
The only difference between the two parties is the campaign rhetoric.
I mention Obamacare because, well.. it turns the IRS into a law enforcement agency. Couple with all the spying going on plus the fact that the IRS intentionally targeted certain groups, it's a very serious concern. I don't care which side is in power, the IRS should never be part of the reigning party's reelection campaign.
We recently had the federal Internal Revenue Service targeting political groups and their supporters because the administration didn't like their politics. Have they exploited this USPS data collection system? Just by looking at snail mail "metadata" they could identify members and supporters of all sorts of nefarious groups such as the National Rifle Association, or if the balance of power shifts, Planned Parenthood and the like.
Now citizen, obey the executive branch or we'll send the IRS after you. With Obamacare, the IRS becomes a law enforcement agency, which makes it that much worse. You failed to purchase the exact type of health insurance that the executive branch dictated? Here comes the IRS. Oh, and we see you're an NRA member. Off to Gitmo with you.. which is actually still open despite certain campaign promises from a somewhat prominent individual.
It's amazing how f'd up things have become.
I guess the ultimate of that is saying that if you make a tutorial video for autocad, would it be just to say that you lose rights to said video, because all the content "was" already in the program you're making the tutorial out of.. or even further, does adobe own copyright for everything edited with their sw..
Autocad and Adobe-Whatever exist to create original content. Can you really say that of a game? The game's content is already set. The player may expose different parts of it and in different order, but the content is still just the content. The player isn't really "creating" anything.
Like I said, grey area. Even the movie watching analogy, I get the MST3K example. Yet, if I just sat there and didn't say a single thing the whole time the movie played, is that a valid derivative work? No.. but what if I coughed once or twice? Where's the fine line?
The videos are about people playing a game, not the game itself. That is a transformational use and thus a fair use. Nintendo is stealing from their own customers, plain and simple.
What if I post a video of me watching a movie? It's not about the movie.. it's about me watching the movie.
We're looking for a fine line in what's really a grey area. I can easily see both points of view.