Very well said. As an American, I have grown up with Stuff, and I, a single woman, have too much stuff for just me. But I also understand that value of my income. I used to max out Credit cards when I was very young, and I learned really quickly how much money I wasted on interest payments for little crap. Now I only put something on Credit card that I know I can pay off that month, or maybe two months to help keep a revolving credit check mark for my Credit scores.
I drive a small car, and if I could safely drive a smaller car (or motorcycle) I would. I buy gas once every 2 to 3 weeks and spend only about $25 per tank on premium gas. I try to bring lunch to work as often as possible, I reuse water bottles because of the enormous waste to our landfills. I use water bottles to go to the gym or for guests who insist on "bottled water" I buy 3 24 pack of water a year, the rest of the time I clean and reuse where possible.
I too am aghast at how much people are willing to pay for data plans to cell phone providers. It is such a rip-off.
I hope I don't live long enough to have to support all of today's big spenders tomorrow.
Personally I think our government celebrates too few holidays, but that is the American way. If you are from another country and are living here, whether on a visa or permanently, it's time to melt in to the pot. We have specific holidays for our country and they have been adopted as such over the centuries. If you choose to emigrate to the US and don't adopt our culture then you really haven't accepted your new home. You should ask yourself then, do you really belong here?
I see no reason why you cannot continue to celebrate holidays from your native culture, but that should be done by your choice. If you want the day off, take the day off, burn your own vacation to do it though. Most corporations in the US offer between 1 and 3 floating holidays, these have been designed as such for those of you who wish to still celebrate your culture's holidays.
While the USA is a melting pot of cultural diversity, which I personally believe to be pretty cool, one is still expected to melt into the pot upon making the USA your home.
Just this week, in the paper, I read that one senator is proposing a bill to allow employees to freely and openly discuss their pay. But here we read that this information is simply handed over to credit agencies. These credit agencies can then basically sell your information to Credit Card companies, Banks and more.
So it really begs the question, why am I not allowed to openly discuss my salary information but HR can hand it out to a Credit agency where from there it can be sold to half the corporations in America?
Our government really does not care about it's citizens any longer, only which corporations donate the most to their campaigns./sigh
Have you ever read your insurance bill break down of services billed and the amount paid by the insurance company, and then compare it to what you owe as a co-pay? Insurance companies have soooo convoluted the billing practices of doctor's offices that an un-insured patient cannot even pay cash anymore, because the doctor's offices no longer can say what a fair price for service is. (I've heard this from a friend who manages his wife's doctors office)
Data/Phone Plans are just as bad. Today a cell phone provider will sell you a phone at a discounted rate as long as you're locked into some data plan, usually 2 years. When a customer asks about the price of a phone without a data plan, the cost is outrageous. The cheapest of the phones, I'm talking a little flip phone with no keypad and a tiny screen and only digits on the keypad will cost $250.00 without the 2 year plan. I can buy a brand new PC for that and get more out of it than this tiny "piece of shit" phone. So with the 2 year contract, it brings the price down to 1/2 that initial cost. I about threw up when I heard the prices. My original StarTac cost $300 and did more than my POS now. I had to force the phone company to turn off / block internet access on this POS phone. I have internet access, it's at home, it already costs me $35/mo for that? Why would I pay more than that per month for a data plan just to browse the web, from a tiny display? It's sheer craziness.
I'm always amazed at how much people are willing to spend to be active on the web 24/7. I personally feel that cell phone carriers need to split out their products. Pure and true cell phones and data phones; and then offer some reasonable prices for the cell phones that aren't pieces of shit.
At one carrier's store I found only 4 basic flip phone cell phones. All made by the same manufacturer and they all are very poorly made. Cell carriers no longer cater to those of us who don't need or what all that other stuff.
It will be a while, a long while, if ever, that I get myself into a data plan, the cost is just too much.
While I believe this is a good thing for vaccinations, I know it will be abused.
If all it takes to inject someone with a vaccine is a thin dis-solvable layer, like that of a temporary tattoo, this will surely be abused by people.
Instead of applying a vaccine, one could apply a deadly virus. The technology could also be used do deliver narcotics where they would no longer require hypodermic needles. You'd get a dime bag of patches.
How easy would it be to make a Roofie patch. You don't have to watch your drink any more just don't have exposed skin.
I realize it's Buyer beware, but when companies that sell PC's, Phones, tablets, or any data storage device advertise 128GB, they are not clearly stating total storage space minus operating system and bloat-ware. They are touting 128GB or 64GB, honestly when they would only use a smidgen of that space it really wasn't an issue, but now.... it's become misleading advertising.
.... sleep loss which then results in poor memory retention.
I was in a marriage with a man I absolutely loved with all my heart and soul and I thought he was a good guy, but he just up and quit the marriage, leaving with no real explanation as to what happened. Naturally, I slipped into deep stress and depression, I found myself lying awake every night for hours and hours only to get about 2 to 3 hours of restless sleep a night. I've been doing this for over a year now and each night I struggle to find restful sleep.
I try, but it still eludes me. Exercise to the point of exhaustion only barely helps. Sleep aids don't even phase me. Alcohol does virtually nothing, and frankly I've avoided it due to migraines that it can cause.
I believe that happiness is the best thing for sleep and a good memory. Because most happy people aren't usually depressed and less stressed out.
... and now not only all your Facebook Posts with the person you're having an affair with won't be the only thing used in divorce court. Now all your instant messages and the actual discussions you've had with your lover will be fodder for the Cheated on spouse in an UGLY divorce.
... when one is marked as UNCLASSIFIED - sensitive, and the other is not marked with a classification at all (that I saw)? If it's not marked with a classification level the I believe that it is automatically unclassified and deemed suitable for public.
I wish people would stop comparing our county and it's violence against others.
In African countries they use machetes and hatchets to maim and kill people, just for being a different sect of people. In Middle Eastern countries they are permitted to stone people to death. In China, there have been a rash of multiple stabbings of school children. These countries have laws but their violence is different and so is the type of their violence. So lets stop comparing country to country.
I'm not for mass murder, but because a handful of bad people out of millions cause death and mayhem among the MILLIONS of law abiding citizens we enact sweeping gun laws, infringing upon the rights of MILLIONS for a few ass hats.
When we had the death penalty in all 50 states and a shorter process of imposing that death sentence there was a greater fear from those who considered a such acts. Now, sitting in jail is a freaking slap on the wrist. Hell the ass hat in jail gets 3 square meals a day, walking distance to a state funded library, their own bed, medical care, legal help, psychiatric help, and cable tv. Tell me again why this is going to fix the problem?
If you consider a life of crime knowing none of your victims will have weapons, then what would stop you from seriously doing it? But not knowing if your victim is trained in the use of firearms and is packing heat will likely get you to consider a different path in life.
I know it's their park, but since Walt Disney World was granted a 20 year tax break from the government for it's purchase and setup in Florida, I don't quite see it as a private company, even though it is. Even still, if we gripe about something like this being done in Walmart or Target or airports, why the hell would we not gripe about it from an entertainment perspective.
I've paid my entrance fee, to have free roam of the park in certain areas. I do not feel they have the right to track my every move.
If you are a nurse / doctor / employee who feels it is your right to have such a sensitive job and your beliefs regardless of religious basis define for you no vaccine, you are well within your rights; but you will be subject to a harsher scrutiny. 1. you are personally libel for your patients health, not the medical facility 2. you will wear a face mask from the moment you walk into the facility to the moment you leave, and the medical facility is not required to provide you the daily supply. 3. you will sterilize your hands each and every time you take off your latex gloves and then instantly put them on again and will wear them the entire time you're at the facility, and as stated before, the medical facility is not required to provide you with this supply 4. if you do not like these safety guidelines imposed, feel free to seek employment in a medical facility that does not impose such restrictions. 5. if you are sick, you will not return to work for 5 days after you are healthy again at your own expense. 6. if you contract a virus at work that you refused vaccination for you will be immediately dismissed from your job with no further compensation, either submit to return to work based on health or termination, which ever the medical facilities guidelines are.
If you are a patient who cannot be moved from the facility due to several factors (distance, specialty care, public etc...) 1. you have the right of refusal for allowing a non-vaccinated employee from tending to you 2. should you waive those rights, you release the non-vaccinated medical professional free of liability for contraction of the sickness the vaccines were for
I'm pretty lucky so far, I have almost always had a great experience with Sony Products. Reading this patent I am seriously considering never buying Sony again. This is completely unfair to the consumer and it is very disappointing. I'm one of those consumers who always bought her games. 1st and 2nd hand when I couldn't find it new. It was because of the 2nd hand market that I would seek out new releases of games I normally would not have played 1st hand.
I perform lots of testing on my team and the ones that code well can usually find the reported bugs and fix them fairly quickly unless the logic of the code is extremely complex. But, by having another team member debug your code, the sheer amount of vocal bitching at shitty coding standards will begin to give the bad coder a clue. It will probably float up to management which will either push the employee to training, start following standards, or show the bad coder the door.
I read recently that Disney does exactly this so that the employees who take your family picture can easily charge your credit card. Cameras around the park ID you using facial recognition, reverse-look up your credit card info from databases and charge that account. http://occupycorporatism.com/disney-biometrics-and-the-department-of-defense/
Here is a list of reasons people still go into work sick....
* Fear of losing their job
* Management scrutinizes number of sick days taken and what days of the week they are taken, too many that bump up against a weekend are considered suspicious. They forget that people pick up bugs over the weekend because that's when someone's out in public getting personal errands run, so Monday sick days are frown upon. Being bogged down with piles of work due to thin workforce causes a stress level increase and after so much time of being stressed and over-worked, by Friday you're exhausted, and those days are frowned upon for being missed.
* Teams are cut to the bone so by missing a day of work unexpectedly means that when you do go back to work you have to catch up on the work you didn't do when you were sick.
* People don't go to the doctor until too late and go into work contagious without realizing they are contagious.
* Many companies are combining Vacation and Sick time to save company money and call it PTO time (Paid Time Off). Most people try to save their PTO time for fun vacations, not lying in be sick.
* Some companies that offer sick time still have earned sick time, so if you haven't earned sick time, you are expected to use vacation time. Employees see this as unfair and come into work sick.
* Some companies say there's an arbitrary number of allowed sick days a year, even though it's not in the employee hand-book, and you get dinged on year-end reviews if you used or exceed this arbitrary number
* Since some companies are in states where Unions prevail in the workforce, the companies are always at battle with those few employees who abuse the sick time policies of a company. I saw this personally when living in a Pro-Union state. There were union employees who would take 20-30 sick days a year and be caught taking trips and vacations when claiming sick. This happened with non-union employees also, but in my experience the union employees abused sick time more often than non-union.
* Sick time use appears to be more accepted by Parents with children than Child-less employees, but this is only an observation.
.... and took it upon themselves to post information about me on-line. So as a non-FB user, I have every right to be forgotten when I never gave them (the user or Facebook) permission to put information about me out there. I didn't create an account. I tell everyone I know to not put information about me on Facebook or on any social network, but when someone else takes it upon themselves to post info about me, now FB claims that they own that data.
This is where I have big issues with Privacy laws and companies who data mine and then sell that data.
Don't I have every right to be forgotten, since I went out of my way to avoid being "remembered"?
I like anyone else hate taxes on levied upon me, but I also understand taxes are necessary. The United States is a very large country with many governments: local, state, and federal. While I'm sick to death of our tax dollars being wasted by our leadership, I also believe that if our tax dollars weren't wasted people tax rates would be much smaller and this would be a non-issue.
If I pick up the phone and call a company and purchase a product from that business in another state other than the one I live in, I'm expected to pay their sales taxes, which may include local and state taxes. So why would this tax assessment be any different for a product I purchased via the internet? It should not be different. If by using the web to make my purchase, I am not taxed, the is discrimination against those who make phone transactions. Now, the State from which I reside is not entitled to tax me for the product I purchased. The product was not bought in my state. If this is where this proposed bill is going then it's wrong and I oppose it at it's very core.
If this is an issue that cannot be resolved without double-taxing the consumer then this would provide support for a different tax system. I've heard of the flat-tax system, and I am not horribly opposed to this, as long as everyone pays the same % of tax and all loopholes are gone. But someone else has mentioned to me a straight up Consumer Tax plan. No more income taxes, but taxes exist on any and everything we consume. That plan has some merit to it's structure also, but I think this would be more likely because people will always find away to avoid taxes.
This of course it only one person's opinion, and with limited facts. I'm sure with more facts I'd have a different opinion.
This sounds like a form of Bait and Switch, but alas I think I'm wrong by that definition. Most assuredly this move on the part of Microsoft is a full on Greed move.
You sell some group a license to your product and you define it at a specific rate, and then when you don't get the market share you want, you jack up the prices to those who have purchased your product. While a minimal increase in licensing fees may be legit, an extreme price jack sounds like a sure fire way to lose your customers and in a hurry.
Microsoft (or any other company with this model) get corporations tied to their products by making them so that the customer builds an infrastructure around the tools that were licensed, and then the company jacks the price up to some absurd fee price. The company believes the customer will pay because it would hurt their customer's business not to. So the mistake here is assuming your customers will stand for this more then once. They likely won't especially if it affects the customer's bottom line. Sadly it is this corporate mentality to never see profits dip in the financial world. Stock / Share holders want the biggest bang for their buck (unrealistic dividends), Boards try to meet those demands, and eventually you have one company's bottom line against another company's bottom line. One will lose.
I've long since had a problem with a doctor or doctor's office claiming they own my health data. I pay them for a service, and thus what they tell me should be between my provider and myself. Once I'm finished with my appointment. I should be leaving the office with a copy of the diagnosis and treatment suggested. If I make an agreement with my doctor to receive medical payment from my insurance company, then my doctor may send a copy of that visit information to my insurance company. And if I feel it is important for my doctor to have some sort of running history, then I agree that my doctor (or his practice) may retain a copy for the life of my partnership with him. Should I leave that partnership, then after x years, my doctor must destroy his copy of my medical information.
I should never hear that my doctor had his notes transcribed by anyone other then one of his physically present staff.
Other than that, I should be the only one to own my medical (health) data. No if, ands, or buts about it. I paid for the diagnosis.
Slashdot Mirror
Very well said. As an American, I have grown up with Stuff, and I, a single woman, have too much stuff for just me. But I also understand that value of my income. I used to max out Credit cards when I was very young, and I learned really quickly how much money I wasted on interest payments for little crap. Now I only put something on Credit card that I know I can pay off that month, or maybe two months to help keep a revolving credit check mark for my Credit scores.
I drive a small car, and if I could safely drive a smaller car (or motorcycle) I would. I buy gas once every 2 to 3 weeks and spend only about $25 per tank on premium gas. I try to bring lunch to work as often as possible, I reuse water bottles because of the enormous waste to our landfills. I use water bottles to go to the gym or for guests who insist on "bottled water" I buy 3 24 pack of water a year, the rest of the time I clean and reuse where possible.
I too am aghast at how much people are willing to pay for data plans to cell phone providers. It is such a rip-off.
I hope I don't live long enough to have to support all of today's big spenders tomorrow.
Personally I think our government celebrates too few holidays, but that is the American way. If you are from another country and are living here, whether on a visa or permanently, it's time to melt in to the pot. We have specific holidays for our country and they have been adopted as such over the centuries. If you choose to emigrate to the US and don't adopt our culture then you really haven't accepted your new home. You should ask yourself then, do you really belong here?
I see no reason why you cannot continue to celebrate holidays from your native culture, but that should be done by your choice. If you want the day off, take the day off, burn your own vacation to do it though. Most corporations in the US offer between 1 and 3 floating holidays, these have been designed as such for those of you who wish to still celebrate your culture's holidays.
While the USA is a melting pot of cultural diversity, which I personally believe to be pretty cool, one is still expected to melt into the pot upon making the USA your home.
It was meant to be funny. =p
.... Hey Programmers, what does the following string say in English?
"01001000 01000101 01001100 01001100 01001111 00100000 01010111 01001111 01010010 01001100 01000100"
Just this week, in the paper, I read that one senator is proposing a bill to allow employees to freely and openly discuss their pay. But here we read that this information is simply handed over to credit agencies. These credit agencies can then basically sell your information to Credit Card companies, Banks and more.
So it really begs the question, why am I not allowed to openly discuss my salary information but HR can hand it out to a Credit agency where from there it can be sold to half the corporations in America?
Our government really does not care about it's citizens any longer, only which corporations donate the most to their campaigns. /sigh
Have you ever read your insurance bill break down of services billed and the amount paid by the insurance company, and then compare it to what you owe as a co-pay? Insurance companies have soooo convoluted the billing practices of doctor's offices that an un-insured patient cannot even pay cash anymore, because the doctor's offices no longer can say what a fair price for service is. (I've heard this from a friend who manages his wife's doctors office)
Data/Phone Plans are just as bad. Today a cell phone provider will sell you a phone at a discounted rate as long as you're locked into some data plan, usually 2 years. When a customer asks about the price of a phone without a data plan, the cost is outrageous. The cheapest of the phones, I'm talking a little flip phone with no keypad and a tiny screen and only digits on the keypad will cost $250.00 without the 2 year plan. I can buy a brand new PC for that and get more out of it than this tiny "piece of shit" phone. So with the 2 year contract, it brings the price down to 1/2 that initial cost. I about threw up when I heard the prices. My original StarTac cost $300 and did more than my POS now. I had to force the phone company to turn off / block internet access on this POS phone. I have internet access, it's at home, it already costs me $35/mo for that? Why would I pay more than that per month for a data plan just to browse the web, from a tiny display? It's sheer craziness.
I'm always amazed at how much people are willing to spend to be active on the web 24/7. I personally feel that cell phone carriers need to split out their products. Pure and true cell phones and data phones; and then offer some reasonable prices for the cell phones that aren't pieces of shit.
At one carrier's store I found only 4 basic flip phone cell phones. All made by the same manufacturer and they all are very poorly made. Cell carriers no longer cater to those of us who don't need or what all that other stuff.
It will be a while, a long while, if ever, that I get myself into a data plan, the cost is just too much.
While I believe this is a good thing for vaccinations, I know it will be abused.
If all it takes to inject someone with a vaccine is a thin dis-solvable layer, like that of a temporary tattoo, this will surely be abused by people.
Instead of applying a vaccine, one could apply a deadly virus. The technology could also be used do deliver narcotics where they would no longer require hypodermic needles. You'd get a dime bag of patches.
How easy would it be to make a Roofie patch. You don't have to watch your drink any more just don't have exposed skin.
I realize it's Buyer beware, but when companies that sell PC's, Phones, tablets, or any data storage device advertise 128GB, they are not clearly stating total storage space minus operating system and bloat-ware. They are touting 128GB or 64GB, honestly when they would only use a smidgen of that space it really wasn't an issue, but now.... it's become misleading advertising.
It needs to stop.
.... sleep loss which then results in poor memory retention.
I was in a marriage with a man I absolutely loved with all my heart and soul and I thought he was a good guy, but he just up and quit the marriage, leaving with no real explanation as to what happened. Naturally, I slipped into deep stress and depression, I found myself lying awake every night for hours and hours only to get about 2 to 3 hours of restless sleep a night. I've been doing this for over a year now and each night I struggle to find restful sleep.
I try, but it still eludes me. Exercise to the point of exhaustion only barely helps. Sleep aids don't even phase me. Alcohol does virtually nothing, and frankly I've avoided it due to migraines that it can cause.
I believe that happiness is the best thing for sleep and a good memory. Because most happy people aren't usually depressed and less stressed out.
....and here I thought I was the only one who ever said "Snikeys!". ;)
But who would they copy from?
... and now not only all your Facebook Posts with the person you're having an affair with won't be the only thing used in divorce court. Now all your instant messages and the actual discussions you've had with your lover will be fodder for the Cheated on spouse in an UGLY divorce.
Oh what a time it is for divorce attorneys.
... when one is marked as UNCLASSIFIED - sensitive, and the other is not marked with a classification at all (that I saw)? If it's not marked with a classification level the I believe that it is automatically unclassified and deemed suitable for public.
Here is an interesting paper on understanding government classification of information.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/bagley.html
The USA is not Australia.
I wish people would stop comparing our county and it's violence against others.
In African countries they use machetes and hatchets to maim and kill people, just for being a different sect of people.
In Middle Eastern countries they are permitted to stone people to death.
In China, there have been a rash of multiple stabbings of school children.
These countries have laws but their violence is different and so is the type of their violence. So lets stop comparing country to country.
I'm not for mass murder, but because a handful of bad people out of millions cause death and mayhem among the MILLIONS of law abiding citizens we enact sweeping gun laws, infringing upon the rights of MILLIONS for a few ass hats.
When we had the death penalty in all 50 states and a shorter process of imposing that death sentence there was a greater fear from those who considered a such acts. Now, sitting in jail is a freaking slap on the wrist. Hell the ass hat in jail gets 3 square meals a day, walking distance to a state funded library, their own bed, medical care, legal help, psychiatric help, and cable tv. Tell me again why this is going to fix the problem?
If you consider a life of crime knowing none of your victims will have weapons, then what would stop you from seriously doing it? But not knowing if your victim is trained in the use of firearms and is packing heat will likely get you to consider a different path in life.
I know it's their park, but since Walt Disney World was granted a 20 year tax break from the government for it's purchase and setup in Florida, I don't quite see it as a private company, even though it is. Even still, if we gripe about something like this being done in Walmart or Target or airports, why the hell would we not gripe about it from an entertainment perspective.
I've paid my entrance fee, to have free roam of the park in certain areas. I do not feel they have the right to track my every move.
If you are a nurse / doctor / employee who feels it is your right to have such a sensitive job and your beliefs regardless of religious basis define for you no vaccine, you are well within your rights; but you will be subject to a harsher scrutiny.
1. you are personally libel for your patients health, not the medical facility
2. you will wear a face mask from the moment you walk into the facility to the moment you leave, and the medical facility is not required to provide you the daily supply.
3. you will sterilize your hands each and every time you take off your latex gloves and then instantly put them on again and will wear them the entire time you're at the facility, and as stated before, the medical facility is not required to provide you with this supply
4. if you do not like these safety guidelines imposed, feel free to seek employment in a medical facility that does not impose such restrictions.
5. if you are sick, you will not return to work for 5 days after you are healthy again at your own expense.
6. if you contract a virus at work that you refused vaccination for you will be immediately dismissed from your job with no further compensation, either submit to return to work based on health or termination, which ever the medical facilities guidelines are.
If you are a patient who cannot be moved from the facility due to several factors (distance, specialty care, public etc...)
1. you have the right of refusal for allowing a non-vaccinated employee from tending to you
2. should you waive those rights, you release the non-vaccinated medical professional free of liability for contraction of the sickness the vaccines were for
pure and simple Greed.
I'm pretty lucky so far, I have almost always had a great experience with Sony Products. Reading this patent I am seriously considering never buying Sony again. This is completely unfair to the consumer and it is very disappointing. I'm one of those consumers who always bought her games. 1st and 2nd hand when I couldn't find it new. It was because of the 2nd hand market that I would seek out new releases of games I normally would not have played 1st hand.
I perform lots of testing on my team and the ones that code well can usually find the reported bugs and fix them fairly quickly unless the logic of the code is extremely complex. But, by having another team member debug your code, the sheer amount of vocal bitching at shitty coding standards will begin to give the bad coder a clue. It will probably float up to management which will either push the employee to training, start following standards, or show the bad coder the door.
It's fun and reasonably priced. You might find one on Think Geek.
I read recently that Disney does exactly this so that the employees who take your family picture can easily charge your credit card. Cameras around the park ID you using facial recognition, reverse-look up your credit card info from databases and charge that account. http://occupycorporatism.com/disney-biometrics-and-the-department-of-defense/
Interesting read, and a bit scary.
Here is a list of reasons people still go into work sick....
* Fear of losing their job
* Management scrutinizes number of sick days taken and what days of the week they are taken, too many that bump up against a weekend are considered suspicious. They forget that people pick up bugs over the weekend because that's when someone's out in public getting personal errands run, so Monday sick days are frown upon. Being bogged down with piles of work due to thin workforce causes a stress level increase and after so much time of being stressed and over-worked, by Friday you're exhausted, and those days are frowned upon for being missed.
* Teams are cut to the bone so by missing a day of work unexpectedly means that when you do go back to work you have to catch up on the work you didn't do when you were sick.
* People don't go to the doctor until too late and go into work contagious without realizing they are contagious.
* Many companies are combining Vacation and Sick time to save company money and call it PTO time (Paid Time Off). Most people try to save their PTO time for fun vacations, not lying in be sick.
* Some companies that offer sick time still have earned sick time, so if you haven't earned sick time, you are expected to use vacation time. Employees see this as unfair and come into work sick.
* Some companies say there's an arbitrary number of allowed sick days a year, even though it's not in the employee hand-book, and you get dinged on year-end reviews if you used or exceed this arbitrary number
* Since some companies are in states where Unions prevail in the workforce, the companies are always at battle with those few employees who abuse the sick time policies of a company. I saw this personally when living in a Pro-Union state. There were union employees who would take 20-30 sick days a year and be caught taking trips and vacations when claiming sick. This happened with non-union employees also, but in my experience the union employees abused sick time more often than non-union.
* Sick time use appears to be more accepted by Parents with children than Child-less employees, but this is only an observation.
I'm sure there are many more reasons.
.... and took it upon themselves to post information about me on-line. So as a non-FB user, I have every right to be forgotten when I never gave them (the user or Facebook) permission to put information about me out there. I didn't create an account. I tell everyone I know to not put information about me on Facebook or on any social network, but when someone else takes it upon themselves to post info about me, now FB claims that they own that data.
This is where I have big issues with Privacy laws and companies who data mine and then sell that data.
Don't I have every right to be forgotten, since I went out of my way to avoid being "remembered"?
I like anyone else hate taxes on levied upon me, but I also understand taxes are necessary. The United States is a very large country with many governments: local, state, and federal. While I'm sick to death of our tax dollars being wasted by our leadership, I also believe that if our tax dollars weren't wasted people tax rates would be much smaller and this would be a non-issue.
If I pick up the phone and call a company and purchase a product from that business in another state other than the one I live in, I'm expected to pay their sales taxes, which may include local and state taxes. So why would this tax assessment be any different for a product I purchased via the internet? It should not be different. If by using the web to make my purchase, I am not taxed, the is discrimination against those who make phone transactions. Now, the State from which I reside is not entitled to tax me for the product I purchased. The product was not bought in my state. If this is where this proposed bill is going then it's wrong and I oppose it at it's very core.
If this is an issue that cannot be resolved without double-taxing the consumer then this would provide support for a different tax system. I've heard of the flat-tax system, and I am not horribly opposed to this, as long as everyone pays the same % of tax and all loopholes are gone. But someone else has mentioned to me a straight up Consumer Tax plan. No more income taxes, but taxes exist on any and everything we consume. That plan has some merit to it's structure also, but I think this would be more likely because people will always find away to avoid taxes.
This of course it only one person's opinion, and with limited facts. I'm sure with more facts I'd have a different opinion.
This sounds like a form of Bait and Switch, but alas I think I'm wrong by that definition. Most assuredly this move on the part of Microsoft is a full on Greed move.
You sell some group a license to your product and you define it at a specific rate, and then when you don't get the market share you want, you jack up the prices to those who have purchased your product. While a minimal increase in licensing fees may be legit, an extreme price jack sounds like a sure fire way to lose your customers and in a hurry.
Microsoft (or any other company with this model) get corporations tied to their products by making them so that the customer builds an infrastructure around the tools that were licensed, and then the company jacks the price up to some absurd fee price. The company believes the customer will pay because it would hurt their customer's business not to. So the mistake here is assuming your customers will stand for this more then once. They likely won't especially if it affects the customer's bottom line. Sadly it is this corporate mentality to never see profits dip in the financial world. Stock / Share holders want the biggest bang for their buck (unrealistic dividends), Boards try to meet those demands, and eventually you have one company's bottom line against another company's bottom line. One will lose.
I've long since had a problem with a doctor or doctor's office claiming they own my health data. I pay them for a service, and thus what they tell me should be between my provider and myself. Once I'm finished with my appointment. I should be leaving the office with a copy of the diagnosis and treatment suggested. If I make an agreement with my doctor to receive medical payment from my insurance company, then my doctor may send a copy of that visit information to my insurance company. And if I feel it is important for my doctor to have some sort of running history, then I agree that my doctor (or his practice) may retain a copy for the life of my partnership with him. Should I leave that partnership, then after x years, my doctor must destroy his copy of my medical information.
I should never hear that my doctor had his notes transcribed by anyone other then one of his physically present staff.
Other than that, I should be the only one to own my medical (health) data. No if, ands, or buts about it. I paid for the diagnosis.