I think that digital problems are not caused by the expense of converting cinemas. As you say, such a move would save producers, distributors, and even theater, large chunks of money. The costs of distributing a movie would become insignificant, and the theater costs would largely be determined by the lifetime of the digital projectors. More importantly, as more movies become natively digital, the cost of transferring to film will disappear.
As you suggest, the biggest problem might be reliable DRM. It might be relatively easy to get a perfect copy of a film from a theaters computer and then sell perfect unlicensed copies. This would be a nightmare scenario for studios. Another issue might be that cutting the cost of distribution might cause more harm that good. If movies were cheap to distribute, if the cost of making copies became insignificant, and indeed the cost of film became nonexistent, would the studios have as much power? If the independent film maker were no longer obliged to sell perpetual rights to movie in exchange for distribution costs, where would studios earn their profits? If Pixar had been able to deliver harddisks to movie theaters, would they have ever signed with Disney?
I think the major studios are worried about obsolescence. The quality of their films, as shown by the major award shows, are horrible. They make money by controlling the PR and availability of films. Distribution costs are not a major impediment to a 100 million dollar blockbuster, but it tends to keep the 100K flick out of serious competition.
Since 1984 he has done some good things (NeXT, the first iMac, OS X), but a lot of really bad ones.In the meantime, the Mac's marketshare fell below 2%
Do these numbers make any difference? Are they in any general way meaningful. *nix boxes are sprouting up everywhere. Windows boxes are bought by the dozen, used for a year, then put in a corner. I have three unused windows boxes myself.
Market share in this sense says nothing about suitability. It merely states that the number of *nix boxes are growing, and the Mac is not a commodity machine. It does not say that they Mac is not a good machine. It does not say that many people would like to own a mac. When i was into bicycles everyone wondered why i wanted campy instead of shimano. Everyone had shimano, so, no matter what quality problem shimano had in the range I wanted, i should buy it just because everyone else did.
I would think this is why Jobs contracted with Disney. The people in Hollywood likes to make all the money off movies. They like to control the theaters, the media, and the awards shows. No matter how horrible a major movie is, the controlled press with be positive. The only threat is the kiddies on the internet.
Pixar will probably have to find another major and pay tribute. However, they will hopefully be able to retain ownership of their characters.
It is the standard processing engineering problem that has faced us long before computers were widely known. How do we create a process that will insure the job gets done properly. Of course, we could come up with some half ass process over a couple beers. When crap is produced, we can just the incompetent workers/users. Or, we could use our full ass, do our job, and create a process with inherent safeguards and quality checks.
Windows has been a half ass effort. Your example has little merit. Opening up an unknown attachment is not the same thing as logging is as root. True, we try to educate users to do neither, but the similarity ends there. No *nix system I know of logs in as root automagically. Some payloads in Outlook are loaded automagically. We can disable email attachments altogether, but at some cost. We can keep the root system away from the *nix user at almost no costs.
*nix system people are thinking hard about security. The sudo command is one good piece of evidence. It allows the user to run a command as root without permanently switching to the root account. Forgetting to log out of root was a major security issue. Sudo partially solves that problem
So one receives an email saying this will disable HTML. The user, frightened by the recent news, clicks and installs it. It works great.
Even if the program contains no additional payloads, is this behavior we wish to encourage. Creating needless dangers (due to stupid default setting) that cause users to download and install unknown code?
Wouldn't modification of default internet security settings go a long way to resolve this particular instance?
Yes it would, and as mac user you should be concerned. Apple has been behaving extremely irresponsibly. HTML and images are turned on by default in the.mac web client and mail.app. Furthermore, all commuication is readable only with images and HTML turned on. Therefore, if one wants to know the latest stuff at Apple, one is forced to engaged in highly risky activities.
At some point someway may target Mac users. Although Apple does more than many companies to protect the user, thier ad department is clearly putting users at risk.
IANAL, but fair use appears to be a fluid issue. Some comics license the material they parody. Sometimes it is ok to copy an article, sometimes not. It is ok to show a movie related to the subject in a formal classroom setting, but show Finding Nemo without a license and trouble may ensue.
MS could and would certainly sue on a number of fronts for the publication of the code. The 10 line defense would probably not fly in court.
Finding these things are not hard if you know how to look for them. User input has to put into a variable. If the variable is not immidiately sanitized, then searching for the use of the variable will likely lead to a buffer overflow. Even if the variable is sanitized, perhpas it is improperly used elsewhere.
From the trouble that MS has fixing these bugs, it appears that they routinely treat foriegn data as trustworthy, and put data and control functions on the same data lines. Both went out of style a long time ago, and both are unacceptable.
Re:Upgrading Chips != More Cheap Horsepower.
on
Hack Your Car
·
· Score: 1
The real problem with the article is that you normally have to compromise between factors. Generally more power or a better torque/RPM curve will reduce fuel effeciency. I did not RTFA, but basic physics tends to back me up.
Therefore, there is no cheap horsepower. It costs gas and maybe engine life.
to fit in on the Seattle scene
you gotta do something they ain't never seen
so thinking up a gimmick on day
we decided to be the only band that wouldn't play
a note
under any circumstances
silence
music's original alternative
--Todd Snider
I don't think deactivation would be that hard. Like many security devices, this is good to protect the innocent rather than thwart motivated criminal behavior. For example, this method would allow all secure documents and materials to have an RFID tag on it to prevent or track an item that are removed from a secure location. Offices could use it to keep writing implement from wandering out of the office. In both cases, the tag could easily be torn or scratched off.
I also wonder if they would make a good replacement for barcodes. Now that stores let you check yourself out, I have wondered if people bring extra bar codes with them. For instance, instead of paying for the 30 dollar bottle of wine, you swipe a bar code for the 10 dollar bottle of wine. Traditional RFID tags may be a counter measure to this, but this type of tag may not be.
First, a matter of policy, at least in the U.S., we have official methods of taking life. We execute criminals, even if they are minors or not of full mental capacity. We go off to other places and kill other people in the name of national interest. Our courts allow and encourage corporation to actively draw out lawsuits so the victim dies before money damages can be awarded. We cut funding on relatively inexpensive programs that will help mother and child live healthy lives to give tax cuts to $1000 top contributors.
Second children are increasingly reaching sexual maturity before adolescence, all while we are asking them to keep their virginity until older and older ages. The days of sexual maturity and marriage at 16 are over. People will have sex. The female body is designed to get pregnant. A female body of a 16-25 year old is at it's prime to have a child.
Third, no contraceptive is 100% effective, even if used perfectly and in tandem. Many effective rates are as low as 90%. Therefore, if a couple is having sex, especially a young couple, even with all care, the odds are stacked in favor of pregnancy.
Read those last two paragraphs. Sex and pregnancy is a biological imperative. There are no perfect contraceptives. Even in the best case scenario, we will have unwanted pregnancies. Sex should not be a mechanical process in which the women lies their while the man puts on a condom and gets his rocks off. It is an emotional thing, and mistakes will happen. The number of abortion, when the government allows full family planning programming, is a relatively small number. I suspect more children are killed in various accidents.
The problem is that he is comparing the ideal in closed source programming to the reality of OSS. Such a comparison shows either a deep ignorance, a failure to understand the art of rhetoric, or a malicious intent to mislead.
As has been shown repeatedly, if you have a few guys writing closed code, they can put in pretty much whatever they want . Malicious intent can only be gleaned through a black box analysis. The problems become even greater where many people are working on code. Often companies will not pay for full code reviews, and only broad regression tests by third party, generally QA. Few companies will check for features that are not supposed to exist. Even if the company knows exactly what the software is doing, which is in fact never true, the user still has little assurance that the company is disclosing all features.
So, OSS software is still no worse off. Even if there is no formal code review of new submissions, interested parties can do informal code reviews. Blackbox analysis can still be done, but now offending code can be identified. Best of all, if you so choose, you can remove the troublesome feature and continue to use the rest of the functionality.
The stuff we download off the net, whether closed or open source, is always risky. We are assuming the coders are good guys. OSS is probably a little more trustworthy because there is no hiding behind technicalities. OSS is saying yes to all information requests, not cowardly hiding behind a policy of secrecy.
The reality is that good salespeople remember customers. Good salespeople follow up. Good salespeople remember what you wanted and what was not available on you last trip. This is how good salespeople make money.
At a good boutique, the personal touches are already there. What this device might do is allow Prada to hire substandard salespeople at cut rate wages and commisions. One would expect that service will suffer.
If it is a world wide database,this might help them identify the jet setters. However, a stranger knowing too much might be kind of wierd.
The best use for this might be tiered service. Someone like me, who tends to get stuff of the sales racks at boutiques, can be ignored or given a junior. If I need assistance, I can ask. OTOH, some of my acquaintances, who can afford the current designs, and like the attention, will get accosted by the assistants in need of a real commission.
Of course, the point is moot as all my Prada cards remain secreted in a wooden box at home.
Re:"prepare-for-disappointment department"?
on
The Simpsons Movie
·
· Score: 1
M*A*S*H was a movie first. The finale, like most of the last season, was terrible. It used sentimental tripe to compensate for bad writing. I was a disgrace to the memory of the show
South Park, due to the nature of the show, was well suited to the longer format. The issue was the limited number of themes available, which made it a less than classic movie.
Beavis and Butthead is the gold standard. 5 Minutes short turned into a very memorable feature film.
The Simpsons is too old, the writers are too tired, the themes are too used. It may be a credible movie, but nothing new will be added.
I answered this last time the Simpsons movie was posted.
The Simpsons has a very simple formula, at least of late. The show is a series of possible unrelated storylines that mesh into each other as cause and effect. The individual storylines can be completely unrelated and take place over long periods of time. For instance, Bart breaks his leg, the school has to build a ramp, the mob overcharges, A toy company gets control of the school, an evil robot is born, and a ends with a happy sing for all.(I am not up on my Simpsons trivia, so I may have mixed up stories). In this case, bart breaking his leg and the ramp are merely lead ins to the main storyline. This formula can be used to link as many stories together as necessary.
While South Park is the current golden child, it is not the best example. Unlike the Simpsons, South Park is a relatively self consistent and continuos story. It is also kind of parody of the children's cartoon. All Trey and Matt had to do for the movie was make a parody of the Disney classics.
A better example is Beavis and Butthead, in which Judge turned 5 minute shorts into a movie. He used the plot devices of travel to string together short, not necessarily related, segments. The only difference is that such plot devices are already part of nature of the Simpsons.
His stance on this issue is motivated by the ideology that big bidness is the best entity to provide for the needs of the nation. This was the basis in his desire to give spectrum to the broadcasters, and allow media to conglomerate into a few megacorporations that effectively controls the nations information.
Unless the congress or supreme court, which are still more centrist than the administrations and it's appointments, get involved it is highly unlikely that VOIP will be regulated.
And in this case regulation will allow the market to grow, just like regulation and government intervention allowed us to have competing long distance then competing local service. VOIP will start with independents, as the majors tend not to do anything too risky. However, the majors will still control the wire and will be able to exert some significant control over growth, especially as it bites into their profits. And frankly, without regulations that force VOIP to play by the same rules as other providers, the big players have an inherent need to insure that VOIP does not get too big, at least until they own it.
Right now the land line is the most reliable utility, at least in the United States. Given that people lives often depend on the service, the regulation and cost is justified. This reliability costs money, and what we pay the phone company reflects the guarantee that service will be available. Compare this reliability to a consumer grade ISP, cable television, or even electricity.
My concern is if VOIP is not regulated properly, it may become widespread enough that it will affect the revenue the companies that maintain the land lines, and reliability will suffer. Clearly VOIP cannot be as reliable as POTS, as it requires a much more complex consumer hardware and software. Cell phones could be nearly as reliable as POTS except that the wireless companies seem to be more focused on bells and whistles rather than insuring basic service.
It may be that we can no longer afford reliable telephone service. If so, I would like to see that decision made intentionally.
Opera is a wonderful browser, and in many respects may be the best browser. It is having deserved success in the embedded market. Knowing that it is a quality product, I would opt to buy devices that used it.a
I think the current situation was caused by a decision made many moons ago to focus on the Windows market. Windows will continue to dominated by IE. There is no way around this. MS owns the OS and the browser and no regulatory agency seems to be currently willing to force real competition. Therefore, while some Windows user may switch to a free browser, they are unlikely to buy one.
In the process, opera let development of other platforms suffer. Opera, at the time, could have competed with Netscape/Mozilla. I used Opera instead of Netscape. Unfortunately Opera did not seriously support non-windows platform, so I did not give them any money. When Mozilla became usable, I gave up on the adware that is Opera and just use the open source product.
I really wish these silly statements would stop being modded as useful. They are really nothing but the ranting of ill informed or angry children.
Professorships are extremely rare these day, and Universities do not generally offer them to people who clearly cannot teach. Most Universities have research staff, which fund their own work, and Professors who get some funding from the University in exchange for teaching. If they get tenure, it is because they can get grants and are good teachers.
The tenured Professors I know are extremely good researchers and teachers. Some are better teachers than grant writers, and others go the other way. As far as incompetent professors, I never saw one that was tenured. I had some that were flaky, but even if they did not teach the course as they should have, their experience was illuminating. I suppose if you are only at college for a sheet of paper such professors might be bothersome. The real problem is that Universities tend to use a lot of adjunct faculty. The quality of these people vary widely, and they are often only loosely associated with the school, and only peripherally aware of the needs of the students.
As far as evaluations are concerned, all must be taken with a grain of salt. It is very difficult for a student to be honest and objective on an evaluation. Most will not own their personal shortcomings, but will project these issues onto the professor. Therefore a bad grade is not the result of improper study habits or not going to class, but rather the result of a boring Professor or textbook with too few pictures. Like the parent comment, many are based on personal opinion of the way things are.
In all honesty, if take this tact is hard to blame the management or anyone. These things take a life of thier own and pretty soon everyone is just trying to keep the whole thing from self destructing.
However, the programmer do often have the choice of writing good code or bad code. Since writing bad code is often easier than good code, and since few people know the difference, many will take the lazy way out and do a crummy job for the paycheck. Even in this case, since it is human nature to be lazy, one can only blame the proccess for not make such behavior undesirable.
As you say, they are good to communicate the company line. And, as you say, to use the lingo, some meetings primary purpose is just to allow "face time." The less social of us would believe such time to be useless, but really the benefits of full presence are hard to beat. The problem is that many people are so busy being angry that they cannot be intentionally present.
However, some meeting are so poorly planed, that they have no net benefit. What I like to do is estimate the amount of money, in salaries, opportunity costs, and other resources, a meeting is costing, and then think if that is money well spent. Sometimes it is. Sometimes, like for company wide financial or unstructured motivational things, it is not.
Which describes much of what we eat. Many of the food recalls, which some would say have accelerated over the past few years, are caused by fecal contamination. Such contamination news tends to be suppressed because it might force mainstream food and drug manufacturers to improve their contamination prevention efforts. Such manufacturers have traditionally resisted any improvements in these areas.
A less cynical view is that some contamination is to be expected. If the levels are below some regulatory standard, there really is no issue. Newspapers tend to make these anthills seem like mountains to sell newspaper. I suppose web sites should do an analysis of the pathogens found on newspapers, and then create FUD about how these could kill you.
In another food and drug industry defense, many of these things will only kill children, pregnant women, and the elderly. Since these people are not supposed to use the product, or will die soon anyway, there again is no issue.
It is expectations and the realization that if you want just sex with people, or merely flaunt your sexuality for money, you might have to fill those expectations. I mean why is a woman with perfectly acceptable and touchable and lickable breasts, no matter what size, going to risk her health and sensitivity by putting in ugly implants. The fanstasy aspect is one thing, but why do people expect to live fantasies. Such behavior is why people video games and movies get so much flack.
Some people say the lawyers are the problem, but it the doctors that are doing these useless procedures for money.
Slashdot Mirror
As you suggest, the biggest problem might be reliable DRM. It might be relatively easy to get a perfect copy of a film from a theaters computer and then sell perfect unlicensed copies. This would be a nightmare scenario for studios. Another issue might be that cutting the cost of distribution might cause more harm that good. If movies were cheap to distribute, if the cost of making copies became insignificant, and indeed the cost of film became nonexistent, would the studios have as much power? If the independent film maker were no longer obliged to sell perpetual rights to movie in exchange for distribution costs, where would studios earn their profits? If Pixar had been able to deliver harddisks to movie theaters, would they have ever signed with Disney?
I think the major studios are worried about obsolescence. The quality of their films, as shown by the major award shows, are horrible. They make money by controlling the PR and availability of films. Distribution costs are not a major impediment to a 100 million dollar blockbuster, but it tends to keep the 100K flick out of serious competition.
Do these numbers make any difference? Are they in any general way meaningful. *nix boxes are sprouting up everywhere. Windows boxes are bought by the dozen, used for a year, then put in a corner. I have three unused windows boxes myself.
Market share in this sense says nothing about suitability. It merely states that the number of *nix boxes are growing, and the Mac is not a commodity machine. It does not say that they Mac is not a good machine. It does not say that many people would like to own a mac. When i was into bicycles everyone wondered why i wanted campy instead of shimano. Everyone had shimano, so, no matter what quality problem shimano had in the range I wanted, i should buy it just because everyone else did.
Pixar will probably have to find another major and pay tribute. However, they will hopefully be able to retain ownership of their characters.
Windows has been a half ass effort. Your example has little merit. Opening up an unknown attachment is not the same thing as logging is as root. True, we try to educate users to do neither, but the similarity ends there. No *nix system I know of logs in as root automagically. Some payloads in Outlook are loaded automagically. We can disable email attachments altogether, but at some cost. We can keep the root system away from the *nix user at almost no costs.
*nix system people are thinking hard about security. The sudo command is one good piece of evidence. It allows the user to run a command as root without permanently switching to the root account. Forgetting to log out of root was a major security issue. Sudo partially solves that problem
Even if the program contains no additional payloads, is this behavior we wish to encourage. Creating needless dangers (due to stupid default setting) that cause users to download and install unknown code?
Yes it would, and as mac user you should be concerned. Apple has been behaving extremely irresponsibly. HTML and images are turned on by default in the .mac web client and mail.app. Furthermore, all commuication is readable only with images and HTML turned on. Therefore, if one wants to know the latest stuff at Apple, one is forced to engaged in highly risky activities.
At some point someway may target Mac users. Although Apple does more than many companies to protect the user, thier ad department is clearly putting users at risk.
MS could and would certainly sue on a number of fronts for the publication of the code. The 10 line defense would probably not fly in court.
From the trouble that MS has fixing these bugs, it appears that they routinely treat foriegn data as trustworthy, and put data and control functions on the same data lines. Both went out of style a long time ago, and both are unacceptable.
Therefore, there is no cheap horsepower. It costs gas and maybe engine life.
to fit in on the Seattle scene
you gotta do something they ain't never seen
so thinking up a gimmick on day
we decided to be the only band that wouldn't play
a note
under any circumstances
silence
music's original alternative
--Todd Snider
I also wonder if they would make a good replacement for barcodes. Now that stores let you check yourself out, I have wondered if people bring extra bar codes with them. For instance, instead of paying for the 30 dollar bottle of wine, you swipe a bar code for the 10 dollar bottle of wine. Traditional RFID tags may be a counter measure to this, but this type of tag may not be.
Second children are increasingly reaching sexual maturity before adolescence, all while we are asking them to keep their virginity until older and older ages. The days of sexual maturity and marriage at 16 are over. People will have sex. The female body is designed to get pregnant. A female body of a 16-25 year old is at it's prime to have a child.
Third, no contraceptive is 100% effective, even if used perfectly and in tandem. Many effective rates are as low as 90%. Therefore, if a couple is having sex, especially a young couple, even with all care, the odds are stacked in favor of pregnancy.
Read those last two paragraphs. Sex and pregnancy is a biological imperative. There are no perfect contraceptives. Even in the best case scenario, we will have unwanted pregnancies. Sex should not be a mechanical process in which the women lies their while the man puts on a condom and gets his rocks off. It is an emotional thing, and mistakes will happen. The number of abortion, when the government allows full family planning programming, is a relatively small number. I suspect more children are killed in various accidents.
As has been shown repeatedly, if you have a few guys writing closed code, they can put in pretty much whatever they want . Malicious intent can only be gleaned through a black box analysis. The problems become even greater where many people are working on code. Often companies will not pay for full code reviews, and only broad regression tests by third party, generally QA. Few companies will check for features that are not supposed to exist. Even if the company knows exactly what the software is doing, which is in fact never true, the user still has little assurance that the company is disclosing all features.
So, OSS software is still no worse off. Even if there is no formal code review of new submissions, interested parties can do informal code reviews. Blackbox analysis can still be done, but now offending code can be identified. Best of all, if you so choose, you can remove the troublesome feature and continue to use the rest of the functionality.
The stuff we download off the net, whether closed or open source, is always risky. We are assuming the coders are good guys. OSS is probably a little more trustworthy because there is no hiding behind technicalities. OSS is saying yes to all information requests, not cowardly hiding behind a policy of secrecy.
At a good boutique, the personal touches are already there. What this device might do is allow Prada to hire substandard salespeople at cut rate wages and commisions. One would expect that service will suffer.
If it is a world wide database,this might help them identify the jet setters. However, a stranger knowing too much might be kind of wierd.
Of course, the point is moot as all my Prada cards remain secreted in a wooden box at home.
South Park, due to the nature of the show, was well suited to the longer format. The issue was the limited number of themes available, which made it a less than classic movie.
Beavis and Butthead is the gold standard. 5 Minutes short turned into a very memorable feature film.
The Simpsons is too old, the writers are too tired, the themes are too used. It may be a credible movie, but nothing new will be added.
The Simpsons has a very simple formula, at least of late. The show is a series of possible unrelated storylines that mesh into each other as cause and effect. The individual storylines can be completely unrelated and take place over long periods of time. For instance, Bart breaks his leg, the school has to build a ramp, the mob overcharges, A toy company gets control of the school, an evil robot is born, and a ends with a happy sing for all.(I am not up on my Simpsons trivia, so I may have mixed up stories). In this case, bart breaking his leg and the ramp are merely lead ins to the main storyline. This formula can be used to link as many stories together as necessary.
While South Park is the current golden child, it is not the best example. Unlike the Simpsons, South Park is a relatively self consistent and continuos story. It is also kind of parody of the children's cartoon. All Trey and Matt had to do for the movie was make a parody of the Disney classics.
A better example is Beavis and Butthead, in which Judge turned 5 minute shorts into a movie. He used the plot devices of travel to string together short, not necessarily related, segments. The only difference is that such plot devices are already part of nature of the Simpsons.
Unless the congress or supreme court, which are still more centrist than the administrations and it's appointments, get involved it is highly unlikely that VOIP will be regulated.
And in this case regulation will allow the market to grow, just like regulation and government intervention allowed us to have competing long distance then competing local service. VOIP will start with independents, as the majors tend not to do anything too risky. However, the majors will still control the wire and will be able to exert some significant control over growth, especially as it bites into their profits. And frankly, without regulations that force VOIP to play by the same rules as other providers, the big players have an inherent need to insure that VOIP does not get too big, at least until they own it.
My concern is if VOIP is not regulated properly, it may become widespread enough that it will affect the revenue the companies that maintain the land lines, and reliability will suffer. Clearly VOIP cannot be as reliable as POTS, as it requires a much more complex consumer hardware and software. Cell phones could be nearly as reliable as POTS except that the wireless companies seem to be more focused on bells and whistles rather than insuring basic service.
It may be that we can no longer afford reliable telephone service. If so, I would like to see that decision made intentionally.
I think the current situation was caused by a decision made many moons ago to focus on the Windows market. Windows will continue to dominated by IE. There is no way around this. MS owns the OS and the browser and no regulatory agency seems to be currently willing to force real competition. Therefore, while some Windows user may switch to a free browser, they are unlikely to buy one.
In the process, opera let development of other platforms suffer. Opera, at the time, could have competed with Netscape/Mozilla. I used Opera instead of Netscape. Unfortunately Opera did not seriously support non-windows platform, so I did not give them any money. When Mozilla became usable, I gave up on the adware that is Opera and just use the open source product.
Professorships are extremely rare these day, and Universities do not generally offer them to people who clearly cannot teach. Most Universities have research staff, which fund their own work, and Professors who get some funding from the University in exchange for teaching. If they get tenure, it is because they can get grants and are good teachers.
The tenured Professors I know are extremely good researchers and teachers. Some are better teachers than grant writers, and others go the other way. As far as incompetent professors, I never saw one that was tenured. I had some that were flaky, but even if they did not teach the course as they should have, their experience was illuminating. I suppose if you are only at college for a sheet of paper such professors might be bothersome. The real problem is that Universities tend to use a lot of adjunct faculty. The quality of these people vary widely, and they are often only loosely associated with the school, and only peripherally aware of the needs of the students.
As far as evaluations are concerned, all must be taken with a grain of salt. It is very difficult for a student to be honest and objective on an evaluation. Most will not own their personal shortcomings, but will project these issues onto the professor. Therefore a bad grade is not the result of improper study habits or not going to class, but rather the result of a boring Professor or textbook with too few pictures. Like the parent comment, many are based on personal opinion of the way things are.
However, the programmer do often have the choice of writing good code or bad code. Since writing bad code is often easier than good code, and since few people know the difference, many will take the lazy way out and do a crummy job for the paycheck. Even in this case, since it is human nature to be lazy, one can only blame the proccess for not make such behavior undesirable.
However, some meeting are so poorly planed, that they have no net benefit. What I like to do is estimate the amount of money, in salaries, opportunity costs, and other resources, a meeting is costing, and then think if that is money well spent. Sometimes it is. Sometimes, like for company wide financial or unstructured motivational things, it is not.
A less cynical view is that some contamination is to be expected. If the levels are below some regulatory standard, there really is no issue. Newspapers tend to make these anthills seem like mountains to sell newspaper. I suppose web sites should do an analysis of the pathogens found on newspapers, and then create FUD about how these could kill you.
In another food and drug industry defense, many of these things will only kill children, pregnant women, and the elderly. Since these people are not supposed to use the product, or will die soon anyway, there again is no issue.
Some people say the lawyers are the problem, but it the doctors that are doing these useless procedures for money.