The easiest way I've found to do this is to either nuke it for a second (via the Microwave, for you non-US'ers), bake it for a few minutes,, or, unevenly heat the CD (causes it to warp slightly, keeping it from spinning evenly, giving errors).
This works best if you open the case backwards (without breaking the copy protection seal), so it can be claimed you didn't open it. Plus, it would have the bonus of making the "unplayable" CD's truly unplayable.
How do you keep someone from taking the experiences with them, like "x was a bad design choice because look what happened when we did it here, y worked better as a solution, and I'd do it that was from the beginning if I had another chance."
Maybe it's just me, but that sort of thing can't be prevented by either NDA's or non-competes. That's typically referred to as "experience", having learned from past mistakes... Everyone goes through that, and I don't think companies should be allowed (or even try) to stop such.
I agree that ex-employees shouldn't leave a company and take everything (or the vital core components) with them, but at the same time, there are some elements of "I wrote it, this is mine" involved. If you worked as a programmer for a company, and when you left you took a copy of the source code YOU wrote, especially if those are non-industry specific (i.e. screen formatting utils, disk retrieval bits, etc), there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. However, if you took the entire source code, including documentation (or, in some cases, all the documentation), that would be a problem.
Now, I understand that there is some middle ground in here. Your mileage may vary, see dealer for options.
But of course, that's not even my opinion, so I could be wrong.
Try www.lawyers.com. They have a searchable list of lawyers, by practice and location. I'm not sure they'll have one listed in your area, but it's a place to start.
Alternately, try the yellow pages for your area. Typically, firms advertise there, with a brief listing of their areas of expertise.
Another good (IMHO) update site is updates.com. It's a ZDNET site, but let's not hold that against it.
It shows you a list of what you have installed that has been updated, whether it's MS or not, OS or not. I'm not sure about their update frequency, but they tend to have updates relatively soon after they appear.
can't use the trademark "referee" *anywhere* in the address, not even in the path.
Does this mean I'll be unable to set up a "BlindReferee.com" site, to show bad calls in action? After all, it does use the term "referee" in the address.
Just another case of corporate $ winning out in the federal courts. Remember, it's not how much you know, it's who you can afford in court.
Something similar could be accomplished if the geeks of the USia would recommend to their collective corps that the computers they are obsoleting should be donated to schools. Especially if the geeks would get involved in loading older "obsolete" versions of OS's on these machines (Dos 6, Win 95, NT 3.51 etc). Just something for the students to learn on.
"Well why not *nix desktops?" you ask. (go ahead, ask.... Thank you.) Since the current situation has M$ products with a huge market share, and *nix's with a significantly smaller one, it would make sense to teach the "widely available" apps / OS first, with possibly an advanced level class for *nix.
I've tried (unsuccessfully) at several workplaces to have them donate their old PC's to schools / univ's (some universities could use them for parts for Comp Eng classes / projects). Apparantly, the potential liability for doing such outweighs the tax write off the company could receive for such a "charitable" donation (IANAL, and IANAFinancial Advisor (IANAFA))
Now for the obligatory "How about a Beowulf cluster of these pouring hot grits down Natalie Portman's petrified pants??"
So does this mean, we can sue cell phone manufacturers for selling potentially harmful devices to us to use? After all, studies have shown that radiation exposure causes cancer, so in xx years, we can sue the manufacturers (assuming they're still around).
Hey, it worked for tobacco....
This is not a troll, it is a poor attempt at humor, and a comment on the sad state of affairs here in the United States of the Offended....
Some people (crackpots? geniuses? nutcases? take your pick) are working on the alternative energy problem. There are tons listed on www.crank.net. The one I've been most interested in is one about the Searle Effect.
Basically the premise of Searle consists of a motor made of impressed AC magnetic fields, which achieve their lowest energy state while rotating. (Check out the link, he does a better job of explaining it...) I don't know if it's true or not, but if it works, it would be a welcome advance.
IIRC, much of the "smog" produced in larger cities comes from the power plants in the area (as well as other industries, I'm sure, but indulge me a minute...). IF the device Searle proposes works, and can be manufactured to be large enough, then power plants could shift from coal burning infernos to magnetic generators, thereby reducing pollution, and improving (well, less destructive to) the environment.
It would work, but such would be violating the rules...
It states in the Battlebot rules (Section 11.2) that there can be no RF jamming, nor electricity used as a weapon.
Personally, the thought of dropping a tesla coil on a bot, and having the output coil sent through two robot arms (which you drive over and put your opponent between) really appealled to me... Or perhaps a shot of EMP....
Until Limp Bizkit releases a full album for free on their webpage in mp3 form, I will refuse to believe that any band is actually pro-napster and just says they are to get you god damned sheep to buy their stuff
I don't know about Limp Bizkit, but the Offspring are doing their part. Check out www.offspring.com-
Effective September 29th, The Offspring's new single, "Original Prankster," will be available in MP3 format from
www.offspring.com and a myriad of other web outlets... Following this, the band's forthcoming new album, titled Conspiracy Of One, will be available in its entirety at www.offspring.com.
So, you see, some bands really are putting their money where their mouth is.
What exactly are they requesting comments on? Is this an open forum on why we think UCITA is wrong, or is this a discussion about what recourses a current consumer (pre-UCITA) has if a software product fails?
I saw a brief reference to UCITA in question 7a, but I would prefer to know what I'm responding to before submitting an offtopic email to a gov't agency. OT emails might (IMHO) do more harm than good.
Having been in a similar situation, I can strongly sympathize with your scenario.
However, one thing I think you left out of your post is the effects of being the "answer guy" for an organization. Eventually the stress of having to know / figure out all the answers (i.e. do all the work) for your idiot cow-orkers (DNRC!) will cause burnout. Once you've burnt out, you're going to either find a new job, or run your current one into the ground (perhaps by giving wrong answers to people...). Either one will have some impact on your employer.
If you leave, then they lose your "knowledge asset", and someone else will have to get off their lazy butts and learn what you knew. Typically this takes a while... (I'm still not sure that the place I left due to this has recovered. I do know that they went through 2 managers and 2 head tech's in about 3 months...)
Even if someone else there can pick up the slack at the company, it's been my experience that desertions happen in groups, and typically the ones with clues leave together. It makes sense, especially if you figure out that the company will drop Mr A's work on you after he leaves, unless you do as well.
"Well you see, Your Honor, in a previous MP3 related case the defendant was found guilty of damages greater than $100 million..."
IANAL, but it seems to me that this case might be referred to as precedent in the Napster case. (I know, MP3.com was hosting files, Napster wasn't, but just because the educated majority of slashdot readers know the difference doesn't mean the US Judicial system does.)
Could this tactic be used by other online retailers without consumer knowledge?
For example: CDNow has a "my CDNow", which will make recommendations based on past purchases (and user input, if any) as to other albums (cd's) you might enjoy. Should we be concerned that Amazon's "Consumer Randomly Allocated Pricing" scheme might catch on in the music market?
Basically, should we be concerned about more of this CRAP online?
Well, the simplest solution I can think of is to set up an email account on a free system (hotmail, juno, etc..) filled out with less than true info (transposed digits on your address, wrong zip, etc..), and use it for your online shopping / newsletters/etc...
Then, once a week / month or so, go by and delete all the messages (possibly keeping some of them, but typically not...). It works, it's relatively easy, and it keeps your main email address free from spam.
Besides, anyone else noticed that some mailing lists (esp. ZDNet ones) tend to multiply? As if they decide to add your address to other lists of theirs?
Well, my first thought is to include schematics / plans for a CD / DVD decoder, but trying to get them into a 0 level format would take up too much space (especially since you can't put all the info on another CD...). Alternately, including a cd reader (old audio CD players anyone?) would help, but would still require them 1: having our same type of power system, and 2: being willing/able to understand our language. What good would it do to explain everything via sound to a species that communicates via light? (how can they hear if they have no ears?)
"Hey Zborak, look... another one of those d*mn earthling's blank CD's... wonder why they keep shedding all this junk."
Would DMCA and / or UCITA apply to them? (supposing they haven't been overturned by the time aliens from planet X receive the DVD, decode it, and word gets back here. Although, considering that bad news travels faster than anything else known to man (including light?), I'm sure the lawsuits would stack up quickly.)
Slashdot Mirror
The easiest way I've found to do this is to either nuke it for a second (via the Microwave, for you non-US'ers), bake it for a few minutes,, or, unevenly heat the CD (causes it to warp slightly, keeping it from spinning evenly, giving errors).
This works best if you open the case backwards (without breaking the copy protection seal), so it can be claimed you didn't open it. Plus, it would have the bonus of making the "unplayable" CD's truly unplayable.
Maybe it's just me, but that sort of thing can't be prevented by either NDA's or non-competes. That's typically referred to as "experience", having learned from past mistakes... Everyone goes through that, and I don't think companies should be allowed (or even try) to stop such.
I agree that ex-employees shouldn't leave a company and take everything (or the vital core components) with them, but at the same time, there are some elements of "I wrote it, this is mine" involved. If you worked as a programmer for a company, and when you left you took a copy of the source code YOU wrote, especially if those are non-industry specific (i.e. screen formatting utils, disk retrieval bits, etc), there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. However, if you took the entire source code, including documentation (or, in some cases, all the documentation), that would be a problem.
Now, I understand that there is some middle ground in here. Your mileage may vary, see dealer for options.
But of course, that's not even my opinion, so I could be wrong.
Except for Pulp Fraction, which was a "Royale with Cheese"....
Yes, that would be Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light... Ruler of Heck.
Or so say these people...
Try www.lawyers.com. They have a searchable list of lawyers, by practice and location. I'm not sure they'll have one listed in your area, but it's a place to start.
Alternately, try the yellow pages for your area. Typically, firms advertise there, with a brief listing of their areas of expertise.
daBumAnother good (IMHO) update site is updates.com. It's a ZDNET site, but let's not hold that against it.
It shows you a list of what you have installed that has been updated, whether it's MS or not, OS or not. I'm not sure about their update frequency, but they tend to have updates relatively soon after they appear.
Link for the update page is here.
daBumDoes this mean I'll be unable to set up a "BlindReferee.com" site, to show bad calls in action? After all, it does use the term "referee" in the address.
Just another case of corporate $ winning out in the federal courts. Remember, it's not how much you know, it's who you can afford in court.
www.crank.net
www.searleffect.com
www.tesla.org
Bill Beaty's Wierd Science page
Something similar could be accomplished if the geeks of the USia would recommend to their collective corps that the computers they are obsoleting should be donated to schools. Especially if the geeks would get involved in loading older "obsolete" versions of OS's on these machines (Dos 6, Win 95, NT 3.51 etc). Just something for the students to learn on.
"Well why not *nix desktops?" you ask. (go ahead, ask.... Thank you.) Since the current situation has M$ products with a huge market share, and *nix's with a significantly smaller one, it would make sense to teach the "widely available" apps / OS first, with possibly an advanced level class for *nix.
I've tried (unsuccessfully) at several workplaces to have them donate their old PC's to schools / univ's (some universities could use them for parts for Comp Eng classes / projects). Apparantly, the potential liability for doing such outweighs the tax write off the company could receive for such a "charitable" donation (IANAL, and IANAFinancial Advisor (IANAFA))
Now for the obligatory "How about a Beowulf cluster of these pouring hot grits down Natalie Portman's petrified pants??"
So does this mean, we can sue cell phone manufacturers for selling potentially harmful devices to us to use? After all, studies have shown that radiation exposure causes cancer, so in xx years, we can sue the manufacturers (assuming they're still around).
Hey, it worked for tobacco....
This is not a troll, it is a poor attempt at humor, and a comment on the sad state of affairs here in the United States of the Offended....
So that's why MS stock has been so "over valued" lately.... (j/k)
Actually, who's to say he didn't? Especially over a period of time, a series of small adjustments wouldn't show up... (but _would_ add up...)
Just my $0.02...
Some people (crackpots? geniuses? nutcases? take your pick) are working on the alternative energy problem. There are tons listed on www.crank.net. The one I've been most interested in is one about the Searle Effect.
Basically the premise of Searle consists of a motor made of impressed AC magnetic fields, which achieve their lowest energy state while rotating. (Check out the link, he does a better job of explaining it...) I don't know if it's true or not, but if it works, it would be a welcome advance.
IIRC, much of the "smog" produced in larger cities comes from the power plants in the area (as well as other industries, I'm sure, but indulge me a minute...). IF the device Searle proposes works, and can be manufactured to be large enough, then power plants could shift from coal burning infernos to magnetic generators, thereby reducing pollution, and improving (well, less destructive to) the environment.
Well, if they've got a good enough heat sink, perhaps have a snowball fight.
And this would be different than a MS OS how???
It would work, but such would be violating the rules...
It states in the Battlebot rules (Section 11.2) that there can be no RF jamming, nor electricity used as a weapon.
Personally, the thought of dropping a tesla coil on a bot, and having the output coil sent through two robot arms (which you drive over and put your opponent between) really appealled to me... Or perhaps a shot of EMP....
I'm probably being trolled, but oh well...
I don't know about Limp Bizkit, but the Offspring are doing their part. Check out www.offspring.com-
So, you see, some bands really are putting their money where their mouth is.But what do I know....
I'm sure I'm showing my ignorance here, but...
What exactly are they requesting comments on? Is this an open forum on why we think UCITA is wrong, or is this a discussion about what recourses a current consumer (pre-UCITA) has if a software product fails?
I saw a brief reference to UCITA in question 7a, but I would prefer to know what I'm responding to before submitting an offtopic email to a gov't agency. OT emails might (IMHO) do more harm than good.
Having been in a similar situation, I can strongly sympathize with your scenario.
However, one thing I think you left out of your post is the effects of being the "answer guy" for an organization. Eventually the stress of having to know / figure out all the answers (i.e. do all the work) for your idiot cow-orkers (DNRC!) will cause burnout. Once you've burnt out, you're going to either find a new job, or run your current one into the ground (perhaps by giving wrong answers to people...). Either one will have some impact on your employer.
If you leave, then they lose your "knowledge asset", and someone else will have to get off their lazy butts and learn what you knew. Typically this takes a while... (I'm still not sure that the place I left due to this has recovered. I do know that they went through 2 managers and 2 head tech's in about 3 months...)
Even if someone else there can pick up the slack at the company, it's been my experience that desertions happen in groups, and typically the ones with clues leave together. It makes sense, especially if you figure out that the company will drop Mr A's work on you after he leaves, unless you do as well.
But, that's just my opinion...
This can only mean bad things for Napster...
"Well you see, Your Honor, in a previous MP3 related case the defendant was found guilty of damages greater than $100 million..."
IANAL, but it seems to me that this case might be referred to as precedent in the Napster case. (I know, MP3.com was hosting files, Napster wasn't, but just because the educated majority of slashdot readers know the difference doesn't mean the US Judicial system does.)
Could this tactic be used by other online retailers without consumer knowledge?
For example: CDNow has a "my CDNow", which will make recommendations based on past purchases (and user input, if any) as to other albums (cd's) you might enjoy. Should we be concerned that Amazon's "Consumer Randomly Allocated Pricing" scheme might catch on in the music market?
Basically, should we be concerned about more of this CRAP online?
As Momma always said.... "It's easier to get into something than it is to get out of it..."
Who'ldathunkit'd apply to computers?
(Yes, I'm from the deep south US. How'd you guess?)
Well, the simplest solution I can think of is to set up an email account on a free system (hotmail, juno, etc..) filled out with less than true info (transposed digits on your address, wrong zip, etc..), and use it for your online shopping / newsletters /etc...
Then, once a week / month or so, go by and delete all the messages (possibly keeping some of them, but typically not...). It works, it's relatively easy, and it keeps your main email address free from spam.
Besides, anyone else noticed that some mailing lists (esp. ZDNet ones) tend to multiply? As if they decide to add your address to other lists of theirs?
daBum
Microsoft's policies (embrace and extend) worked so well, the RIAA decided they should try them....
Why does this worry me?
Well, my first thought is to include schematics / plans for a CD / DVD decoder, but trying to get them into a 0 level format would take up too much space (especially since you can't put all the info on another CD...). Alternately, including a cd reader (old audio CD players anyone?) would help, but would still require them 1: having our same type of power system, and 2: being willing /able to understand our language. What good would it do to explain everything via sound to a species that communicates via light? (how can they hear if they have no ears?)
"Hey Zborak, look ... another one of those d*mn earthling's blank CD's... wonder why they keep shedding all this junk."
But that's just my opinion, I could be right.
Would DMCA and / or UCITA apply to them? (supposing they haven't been overturned by the time aliens from planet X receive the DVD, decode it, and word gets back here. Although, considering that bad news travels faster than anything else known to man (including light?), I'm sure the lawsuits would stack up quickly.)
Act now to free-release our DVD's in space!