All we need to do is to create opportunities for the sadists to torture people in real life, and they will leave our precious internet alone.
This is where human cloning and AI technology come in to create virtual playgrounds where trolls can evoke
as much sadism as they like against enslaved AI-driven human clones, instead of real people.
Only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoyed 'trolling.' By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were 'non-commenters,' meaning they didn't like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters
I will contend that a majority of persistent "trolls" would not necessarily answer on a survey that they enjoy trolling.
(1) You will have trolls that claim to be 'debating issues that are important to you' ---- such as the poor speling or grammars of the postes that your are replying to.
(2) You will have trolls that claim to be just 'chatting with others' --- a lie, because they don't want to admit on a survey that they actually enjoy trolling. It's all just innocent chatter.
(3) You will have trolls that claim to be just 'making new friends' --- because they see the reponse as ironic and sarcastic, AND they being trolls -- they are going to try and troll the survey in order to skew your data.
(4) You may also have intentional or unintentional occasional trolls that truthfully DO primarily do one of the first 3 things, and they identify themselves as doing those things moreso than trolling.
(5) "Troll" is lingo --- you may have people who enjoy trolling, who have absolutely no idea what the word 'Troll' means.
They're all buggy commodity routers which are never getting updates.
Relatively recent Juniper JunOS versions respond to ntpdc monlist, as well, so they're vulnerable.
The only way to address these, I found.... was to completely firewall off NTP on the loopback interface.
The same for a number of other appliances, that are still technically supported, but the vendors seem uninterested and unconcerned about NTP issues, so much so, that they are only suggesting workarounds such as "turn off NTP",
no indication that a patch will be forthcoming
So why don't NTP servers limit their responses to, say, 1 per 10 seconds per IP address?
You couldn't bother spending 5 minutes reading to learn that the issue only exists on NTP implementations that allow administrative queries, and on modern NTP implementations that's off by default?
By the way, NTP servers CAN be configured with 'discard' and 'restrict limited' statements, to restrict the rate at which clients can query, and send KOD packets if a client is querying too often..
But that's not the DoS amplification issue.
The NTP servers need to be configured with NOQUERY by default.
Or the older ancient BSD implementations need to be upgraded to modern ones.
he's only entitled to damages suffered (in this case, probably zero unless he has a letter from another advertiser
The phrase is Actual Damages and Profits.
If his photograph was used in a marketing campaign, and there were additional revenues after the marketing campaign ---- then a proportion of the additional revenues will be profits from infringement.
Damages suffered, includes actual benefits for the infringer and his loss from their failure to pay for their commercial exercise of his exclusive rights without due compensation ----- plus any profits to the infringer that are attributable to the infringement that were not taken into account when computing actual damages.
The kid should be compensated but this is borderline extortion.
The $100,000 may actually be reasonable for the worldwide usage in multiple marketing venues.
However "Photography sponsor naming" and "Name on bottom of photos" in legible print is not customary.
He just doesn't no where to stop making demands, before they become unreasonably excessive.
And the courts probably won't award him nearly what he wants, even if he prevails.
I recall that the IoC have successfully forced take-downs of videos that happened to have the olympic rings in the background of them, citing trademark protection even though the video had nothing to do with the Olympics.
If he didn't register the image with the patent and trademark office before it was used (and lets face it most photographers don't, and pretty much every event photographer doesn't), then the maximum he can hope for is actual damages.
He could have registered the copyright formally, any time in the past year or so after shooting the photos, after he found that he was going to need to enforce the legally protected exclusive rights.
He won't be looking very good if they made an offer to remedy the situation and mitigate damages by paying the customary amounts for the license to copy and use a photograph commercially, and he refused, demanding an astronomical amount, after they learned that they were unwittingly infringing upon his rights.
The fact is... a fee of $100,000 for the use of a photograph in promotional materials and flyers is not customary.
The onus will most likely be on him to demonstrate how ill-gotten gains from copyright infringement exceed the $100k he is seeking, and what is so special about his photograph, that the royalty he warrants for its use is so high.
Why not? Shouldn't you hire people who would do the rational thing, for maximizing their happiness?
To be clear.... the concept of a "3% income tax" on your degree, is tyrannical.
This could cost you a lot more over your lifetime than the interest and principal to repay a loan.
Also, in the private sector, a degree isn't really worth very much, so there is a good chance you will never recoup the cost, and that is: to say,
the education didn't make financial sense.
That's more likely... the more your income turns out to be.
Which may or may not be attributable to the degree in any manner, whatsoever.
I didn't know my real-estate investments would pay me more, or my bank would pay me more interest because I have a degree.....
in fact... I never had a bank ask to see my diploma, before telling me what interest rate I would be earning.
I hope they are careful. Here is another way to scam the system: Arrange your classes so that at the end of your senior year, you are one credit hour shy of the requirement for graduation. Now you have the education, and the transcripts to prove it to prospective employers
So you could then drop out of the program.....
Move to another state.
2 years later, you start another program at another university, get your transcripts moved over so you can receive credits for courses completed, and then you complete the few missing credits to get a certification at a school outside the authority of the "taxable degree" program.
So under this new system, why would I ever stop going to college? This is already a problem with some of the higher level institutions.
I think they would add eligibility requirements and academic progress requirements. For example: If you don't sign up for at least 12 credits a term and complete 9 credits towards academic progress within your chosen degree program with a grade of C or higher, then you are out, and have to start paying tax as if you graduated.
Same deal if you change majors and do not complete the difference in requirements within 2 years.
the reason they don't want to do this is because if your phone gets stolen they get to sell you a brand new non-subsidized phone at full price, which makes them a lot of money.
In that case: I suggest we have a law that says: Immediately after any carrier has been presented proper notice, that a phone with a certain IMEI has been stolen, that carrier shall become liable for 100 times the original retail price of that phone, in the event that the phone is used on their network more than 5 days after the notification, because the carrier fails to prevent the phone's use on their network.
In the event that law enforcement officers deem the carrier to be helpful in the recovery of the stolen phone and successful apprehension
and arrest of a suspected criminal with sufficient evidence to prosecute, the release of the phone from law enforcement, and the reinstatement of the phone on the network will be contingent upon the payment by the owner of the phone, of a $100 reward, to be shared evenly by the assisting carriers, and an additional $1000 reward payment, that the thief shall be liable to pay upon conviction of the charges.
This is already circumvented by the fact you can live-stream to the internet.
Tablets and Laptops will be included.
Your desktop is sure to follow.
Also... I believe when they say "wiped" they really mean "Locked", so that only law enforcement such as the NSA folks can get the secret keys from the phone company, required to decrypt the data
Who is a loser? It's not always so obvious. Short term winner may be longer term looser may be looonger term winner. Short term winner may cause others (1..n) become short term and/or long term losers.
I would say that you are overthinking it.
The statement is about "Losers" today, not 'short term' or 'long term' losers;
these are people who are not adequately prepared or capable of doing today,
what they were hired to do today.
These include people who can get things done today, and appear to have done their job, but
not with the capacity that the person who hired them believed.
These are specifically people who misrepresented their abilities, for the purpose of making a sale: they claimed to have some expertise in areas where they have not even invested in learning about yet.
For example: A hired "Email Consultant expert" (individual self-professed expert in the architecture, deployment, troubleshooting, and maintenance of all Email tech) hired as an expert for the planning, software and hardware recommendations, and execution of setting up a large enterprise e-mail system, BUT upon further review, the expert doesn't know about any mail server software program except Microsoft Exchange -- and will say a "Exchange 2010 and Windows server + Domain controller server is what you need", regardless of client requirements (such as preference for Linux) ----- Doesn't turn out to know anything about the SMTP protocol or basic e-mail troubleshooting; doesn't understand anything about the DNS requirements for e-mail, spam blacklists/RBLs, or how to properly size a mail server for disk IOPS and such ------ In other words, all they know is how to follow the Microsoft Exchange and Windows installer GUIs and which pre-selected low-end Dell server packages to order.
Although they were hired to make this planning and recommendation, as well as technical troubleshooting.... any issues will just get blamed on someone or something else, such as the ISP.
This is aimed at altering the way the brain processes information, how the brain functions, to make it better able to work with math.
In other words: it's kind of like a variation on ECT/Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy, minus the Convulsions and pain by using low current.
The objective is still to change the brain's function. Different people may react to it differently. It is not clear if: in the long term it will be safe.
The method is still a bit crude -- imprecise and primitive: applying random electrical currents to the body.
Which seems to be a continuous fad: I mean, folks, even came up with "Tens Units" for pain management, and various other electrical stimulators as a supposed physical exercise replacement.
You need to stop worrying about whether your expert is an "idiot" or not.
The only question is: are they qualified to provide the input, or do the thing they needed to be brought in for?
If yes, then if necessary remind them and the client what the scope limits are on what the expert is needed for,
show the concerns proof that the expert was going a bit out of scope, and point out their "signs of incompetence"
as specific problems/action points for the expert to address,
or point out on how you know this expert has not so far brought the expertise in the area you needed.
You should not put yourself in this position in the first place.
If you lack expertise, and the expertise is not just vendor support, You should find your own experts to help you, not ask your client to go out and find another expert; which basically reduces your appearance of qualification to even
make the decision that the expert is not clueful about the right things.
What about when the expert you had the client recruit tells them that you ( the consultant) are an idiot?
If he's a contractor, then yes, he fixes it (depending on the contract) on his own time.
If he's a contractor, then he probably BOTH builds AND fixes it under most likely the same terms,
because a self-employed contractor would be paid for building the wall: not paid for spending X hours building the wall.
A builder builds a wall. A week later, bricks begin to fall out of the bottom, but he continues to build the wall higher.
If you want a successful software development project: making mistakes, and software bugs are in fact part of the process, because nobody is perfect, AND a great deal of resources will always have to be spent to fix bugs.
It makes sense that the employer should pay for this, BECAUSE It is a required cost of development, that is NOT a result of programmer incompetence, BUT instead by the complexity and novelty of the software development process (There is no novelty, creativity, or real complexity in the simple mechanical process of wallbuilding!).
Usually, the employer is going to get all the intellectual property rights from the developers building this thing that has not been built before, and working through all the sometimes unexpected problems that will arise in the design of all-new complex systems; therefore, The employer should be bearing all these costs, UNLESS they are sharing intellectual property rights with the developer (For example: a guaranteed royalty on the work and any derivative works, copyrights or exclusive relicensing/sublicensing rights for any usage of the software except by the employer)..
Writing software is not like building a wall.
First of all... when you build a wall, the employer is not getting a digital copy of the wall, that they can seamlessly make as many copies as they want. The builder can be assured that if the employer wants to provide clients with more walls,
then a wall builder will have to be engaged full time, for a long duration, for each wall that is erected.
Building a wall is essentially a standard procedure. All walls are essentially the same, and constructing a wall
is a mechanical procedure that does not require engaging the human brain --- there are proper procedures to build walls,
and any defect, can only result from a serious and easily preventable failure on the builder's part.
There is no real "creativity" in wall building.
On the other hand; with software: a great deal of creativity, and problem solving is required for success.
Every software development project will essentially have new elements.
Software development is fundamentally mental, not mechanical.
When it comes to mental processes no developer has achieved perfection, AND
there are always mistakes that are going to be made when building something entirely new, or working
on complex software systems with the time demands that are typically placed on developers.
Good point. Look at how when SOX made the officers of a company personally liable for incorrect financial statements that suddenly companies put financial controls in place.
Maybe.... but SOX was really just an irrational reaction to Enron (whose executives were prosecuted anyways), and the additional financial "controls" are mostly just lip service, with no real improvement.
The SOX are ultimately stifling free enterprise and opportunities for Americans, and are a great example of poor, overreaching regulation.
Nowadays, most companies have started buying additional legal liability insurance to protect their corporate officers, anyways, at great additional expense for shareholders, and rules such as SOX have kept or caused many companies to become or remain private, instead of going public in the first place, so ultimately: the shareholders of public companies, and American investors as a whole are losing profits or potential gains for their retirement because of expensive knee-jerk laws such as SOX.
Why do gigantic oil companies like that get government moneyto clean up the mess these companies themselves carelessly created in the first place?
The oil companies are no more responsible for causing the mess, than the airplane manufacturer Boeing was responsible for 9/11, no more responsible than Smith and Wesson is responsible if someone goes on a shooting spree, or Jack Daniels is responsible if someone drives drunk on their product and runs down some innocent pedestrians.
The oil companies are not responsible for these tanks.
They did not build them, they were not in charge of their maintenance, and they don't own the tanks or the land.
The tanks largely belonged to private gas station operations, and many of those belonged to companies that are no longer in business.
The big oil companies were recruited to clean up messes that somebody else left behind -- that were the result of negligence by the owners of the tanks.
Additionally, having someone other than dell replace the broken component would void your warranty
No.... a manufacturer cannot completely void your warranty, just because you used their product with a different component. They can only do so, if you caused the damage as a result of changing the component. Also, in general: a product's warranty is worth 10% of the value of a new unit, or less.
And your response to the original issue was analogous to suggesting that an appropriate remedy would be buying some duct tape and taping it up after every fill
No, but the most you are due is the cost of a replacement gas cap, and the replacement does not necessarily have to appear identical to the standard or original one.
Duct tape wouldn't work as a repair, since there are actually safety issues with it.
Seriously, post some kind of logic to back up your position. Should we also make it "actionable" to attempt to discredit a company by an individual?
No. We're talking specifically about abuse by a corporate entity, or by an entity paying multiple other people to assist in the act of maliciously attempting to discredit.
Companies already have plenty of highly-effective legal avenues to retaliate against an individual.
How about one individual against another?
If one of the individuals is highly resourced and hiring third parties or pooling money to explicitly personally discredit the other individual, then yes.
Sorry, I prefer my speech to be unregulated. As long as they aren't lying about anything, I see no reason to make them stop.
I am not talking about regulating speech.
I am talking about restricting the use of financial resources; units of government-produced currency units to facilitate maliciously discrediting a person. Shareholders of corporations are allowed to pool assets and receive limited liability for the public benefit.
Using those resources to maliciously target an individual, is an abuse of the public trust.
That's hardly a reasonable workaround for a laptop computer.
There are inexpensive mini-speakers available for a laptop that can plug in using USB, which can be used with a laptop.
The courts don't reimburse plaintiffs for "inconvenience" or for "disappointment" at having to attach an adapter to their laptop. If the workaround restores the product to the same functionality, then the Dell owner isn't going to be able to successfully sue Dell for a cost higher than that of the workaround.
That's why I think the whole "anticompetitive behavior against VLC", that, and the higher dollar amount, is much more likely to get Dell's attention and make them address their support problems.
US tax payers aren't on the hook for most of the loans that students have. It's not just government loans that are "protected".
No..... however... the banks did award the students lower interest rates, than they might otherwise would have; if these loans could be discharged in bankruptcy. In many cases the US government did guarantee these loans or subsidize a portion.
Personally: I think instead of guaranteeing loans, the government should set a statutory limit to the highest rate of interest that banks may charge for student loans .
E.g. Under no circumstances may a loan written for X years, exceed in interest the average government bond rates for a similar duration bond at the time of loan origination PLUS an allowed profit margin.
Standard and penalty rates on revolving credit should also be capped.
If the short term interest rates are 1%, for example: 7% might be the highest interest rate a credit card company would be allowed to charge, and an effective rate of 12% might be the highest penalty rate they would be allowed to apply for portions of balance in default.
Overlimit fees, overdraft fees, and other penalties: should be likewise capped and restricted by statute to 1% of the total outstanding delinquent payments.
There's nothing stopping you from borrowing for other reasons, using the cash to pay off loans, then bankrupting youself out of the new debt. That would be the appropriate civil disobediance for the non-dischargeable loans.
This is also highly dishonest behavior, that would constitute criminal fraud if the student planned on doing it all along, and the bankruptcy will eliminate the student's chance of getting more credit maybe, renting an apartment, buying a cell phone, they may never be able to buy a home (except paying cash), and it may render them permanently ineligible for certain jobs, for 7 years at least
Since bankruptcies are public record, they will show up on a background check, and a number of the negative consequences can be lifelong.
Slashdot Mirror
All we need to do is to create opportunities for the sadists to torture people in real life, and they will leave our precious internet alone.
This is where human cloning and AI technology come in to create virtual playgrounds where trolls can evoke as much sadism as they like against enslaved AI-driven human clones, instead of real people.
Only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoyed 'trolling.' By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were 'non-commenters,' meaning they didn't like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters
I will contend that a majority of persistent "trolls" would not necessarily answer on a survey that they enjoy trolling.
(1) You will have trolls that claim to be 'debating issues that are important to you' ---- such as the poor speling or grammars of the postes that your are replying to.
(2) You will have trolls that claim to be just 'chatting with others' --- a lie, because they don't want to admit on a survey that they actually enjoy trolling. It's all just innocent chatter.
(3) You will have trolls that claim to be just 'making new friends' --- because they see the reponse as ironic and sarcastic, AND they being trolls -- they are going to try and troll the survey in order to skew your data.
(4) You may also have intentional or unintentional occasional trolls that truthfully DO primarily do one of the first 3 things, and they identify themselves as doing those things moreso than trolling.
(5) "Troll" is lingo --- you may have people who enjoy trolling, who have absolutely no idea what the word 'Troll' means.
They're all buggy commodity routers which are never getting updates.
Relatively recent Juniper JunOS versions respond to ntpdc monlist, as well, so they're vulnerable. The only way to address these, I found.... was to completely firewall off NTP on the loopback interface.
The same for a number of other appliances, that are still technically supported, but the vendors seem uninterested and unconcerned about NTP issues, so much so, that they are only suggesting workarounds such as "turn off NTP", no indication that a patch will be forthcoming
So why don't NTP servers limit their responses to, say, 1 per 10 seconds per IP address?
You couldn't bother spending 5 minutes reading to learn that the issue only exists on NTP implementations that allow administrative queries, and on modern NTP implementations that's off by default?
By the way, NTP servers CAN be configured with 'discard' and 'restrict limited' statements, to restrict the rate at which clients can query, and send KOD packets if a client is querying too often..
But that's not the DoS amplification issue. The NTP servers need to be configured with NOQUERY by default.
Or the older ancient BSD implementations need to be upgraded to modern ones.
he's only entitled to damages suffered (in this case, probably zero unless he has a letter from another advertiser
The phrase is Actual Damages and Profits. If his photograph was used in a marketing campaign, and there were additional revenues after the marketing campaign ---- then a proportion of the additional revenues will be profits from infringement.
Damages suffered, includes actual benefits for the infringer and his loss from their failure to pay for their commercial exercise of his exclusive rights without due compensation ----- plus any profits to the infringer that are attributable to the infringement that were not taken into account when computing actual damages.
The kid should be compensated but this is borderline extortion.
The $100,000 may actually be reasonable for the worldwide usage in multiple marketing venues. However "Photography sponsor naming" and "Name on bottom of photos" in legible print is not customary.
He just doesn't no where to stop making demands, before they become unreasonably excessive. And the courts probably won't award him nearly what he wants, even if he prevails.
I recall that the IoC have successfully forced take-downs of videos that happened to have the olympic rings in the background of them, citing trademark protection even though the video had nothing to do with the Olympics.
Takedowns, Yes.
Transfer of copyright and royalty-free use, No.
If he didn't register the image with the patent and trademark office before it was used (and lets face it most photographers don't, and pretty much every event photographer doesn't), then the maximum he can hope for is actual damages.
He could have registered the copyright formally, any time in the past year or so after shooting the photos, after he found that he was going to need to enforce the legally protected exclusive rights.
He won't be looking very good if they made an offer to remedy the situation and mitigate damages by paying the customary amounts for the license to copy and use a photograph commercially, and he refused, demanding an astronomical amount, after they learned that they were unwittingly infringing upon his rights.
The fact is... a fee of $100,000 for the use of a photograph in promotional materials and flyers is not customary. The onus will most likely be on him to demonstrate how ill-gotten gains from copyright infringement exceed the $100k he is seeking, and what is so special about his photograph, that the royalty he warrants for its use is so high.
Plus would you hire someone who did that?
Why not? Shouldn't you hire people who would do the rational thing, for maximizing their happiness?
To be clear.... the concept of a "3% income tax" on your degree, is tyrannical.
This could cost you a lot more over your lifetime than the interest and principal to repay a loan.
Also, in the private sector, a degree isn't really worth very much, so there is a good chance you will never recoup the cost, and that is: to say, the education didn't make financial sense.
That's more likely... the more your income turns out to be.
Which may or may not be attributable to the degree in any manner, whatsoever.
I didn't know my real-estate investments would pay me more, or my bank would pay me more interest because I have a degree..... in fact... I never had a bank ask to see my diploma, before telling me what interest rate I would be earning.
I hope they are careful. Here is another way to scam the system: Arrange your classes so that at the end of your senior year, you are one credit hour shy of the requirement for graduation. Now you have the education, and the transcripts to prove it to prospective employers
So you could then drop out of the program.....
Move to another state.
2 years later, you start another program at another university, get your transcripts moved over so you can receive credits for courses completed, and then you complete the few missing credits to get a certification at a school outside the authority of the "taxable degree" program.
So under this new system, why would I ever stop going to college? This is already a problem with some of the higher level institutions.
I think they would add eligibility requirements and academic progress requirements. For example: If you don't sign up for at least 12 credits a term and complete 9 credits towards academic progress within your chosen degree program with a grade of C or higher, then you are out, and have to start paying tax as if you graduated.
Same deal if you change majors and do not complete the difference in requirements within 2 years.
the reason they don't want to do this is because if your phone gets stolen they get to sell you a brand new non-subsidized phone at full price, which makes them a lot of money.
In that case: I suggest we have a law that says: Immediately after any carrier has been presented proper notice, that a phone with a certain IMEI has been stolen, that carrier shall become liable for 100 times the original retail price of that phone, in the event that the phone is used on their network more than 5 days after the notification, because the carrier fails to prevent the phone's use on their network.
In the event that law enforcement officers deem the carrier to be helpful in the recovery of the stolen phone and successful apprehension and arrest of a suspected criminal with sufficient evidence to prosecute, the release of the phone from law enforcement, and the reinstatement of the phone on the network will be contingent upon the payment by the owner of the phone, of a $100 reward, to be shared evenly by the assisting carriers, and an additional $1000 reward payment, that the thief shall be liable to pay upon conviction of the charges.
This is already circumvented by the fact you can live-stream to the internet.
Tablets and Laptops will be included.
Your desktop is sure to follow.
Also... I believe when they say "wiped" they really mean "Locked", so that only law enforcement such as the NSA folks can get the secret keys from the phone company, required to decrypt the data
Who is a loser? It's not always so obvious. Short term winner may be longer term looser may be looonger term winner. Short term winner may cause others (1..n) become short term and/or long term losers.
I would say that you are overthinking it.
The statement is about "Losers" today, not 'short term' or 'long term' losers; these are people who are not adequately prepared or capable of doing today, what they were hired to do today. These include people who can get things done today, and appear to have done their job, but not with the capacity that the person who hired them believed.
These are specifically people who misrepresented their abilities, for the purpose of making a sale: they claimed to have some expertise in areas where they have not even invested in learning about yet.
For example: A hired "Email Consultant expert" (individual self-professed expert in the architecture, deployment, troubleshooting, and maintenance of all Email tech) hired as an expert for the planning, software and hardware recommendations, and execution of setting up a large enterprise e-mail system, BUT upon further review, the expert doesn't know about any mail server software program except Microsoft Exchange -- and will say a "Exchange 2010 and Windows server + Domain controller server is what you need", regardless of client requirements (such as preference for Linux) ----- Doesn't turn out to know anything about the SMTP protocol or basic e-mail troubleshooting; doesn't understand anything about the DNS requirements for e-mail, spam blacklists/RBLs, or how to properly size a mail server for disk IOPS and such ------ In other words, all they know is how to follow the Microsoft Exchange and Windows installer GUIs and which pre-selected low-end Dell server packages to order.
Although they were hired to make this planning and recommendation, as well as technical troubleshooting.... any issues will just get blamed on someone or something else, such as the ISP.
This is aimed at altering the way the brain processes information, how the brain functions, to make it better able to work with math.
In other words: it's kind of like a variation on ECT/Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy, minus the Convulsions and pain by using low current.
The objective is still to change the brain's function. Different people may react to it differently. It is not clear if: in the long term it will be safe.
The method is still a bit crude -- imprecise and primitive: applying random electrical currents to the body. Which seems to be a continuous fad: I mean, folks, even came up with "Tens Units" for pain management, and various other electrical stimulators as a supposed physical exercise replacement.
You need to stop worrying about whether your expert is an "idiot" or not. The only question is: are they qualified to provide the input, or do the thing they needed to be brought in for? If yes, then if necessary remind them and the client what the scope limits are on what the expert is needed for, show the concerns proof that the expert was going a bit out of scope, and point out their "signs of incompetence" as specific problems/action points for the expert to address, or point out on how you know this expert has not so far brought the expertise in the area you needed.
You should not put yourself in this position in the first place.
If you lack expertise, and the expertise is not just vendor support, You should find your own experts to help you, not ask your client to go out and find another expert; which basically reduces your appearance of qualification to even make the decision that the expert is not clueful about the right things.
What about when the expert you had the client recruit tells them that you ( the consultant) are an idiot?
Either way, if you can't call out losers, you'll wind up being one.
I like it. That line should be elevated to "ancient chinese proverb" status.
If he's a contractor, then yes, he fixes it (depending on the contract) on his own time.
If he's a contractor, then he probably BOTH builds AND fixes it under most likely the same terms, because a self-employed contractor would be paid for building the wall: not paid for spending X hours building the wall.
A builder builds a wall. A week later, bricks begin to fall out of the bottom, but he continues to build the wall higher.
If you want a successful software development project: making mistakes, and software bugs are in fact part of the process, because nobody is perfect, AND a great deal of resources will always have to be spent to fix bugs. It makes sense that the employer should pay for this, BECAUSE It is a required cost of development, that is NOT a result of programmer incompetence, BUT instead by the complexity and novelty of the software development process (There is no novelty, creativity, or real complexity in the simple mechanical process of wallbuilding!).
Usually, the employer is going to get all the intellectual property rights from the developers building this thing that has not been built before, and working through all the sometimes unexpected problems that will arise in the design of all-new complex systems; therefore, The employer should be bearing all these costs, UNLESS they are sharing intellectual property rights with the developer (For example: a guaranteed royalty on the work and any derivative works, copyrights or exclusive relicensing/sublicensing rights for any usage of the software except by the employer)..
Writing software is not like building a wall.
First of all... when you build a wall, the employer is not getting a digital copy of the wall, that they can seamlessly make as many copies as they want. The builder can be assured that if the employer wants to provide clients with more walls, then a wall builder will have to be engaged full time, for a long duration, for each wall that is erected.
Building a wall is essentially a standard procedure. All walls are essentially the same, and constructing a wall is a mechanical procedure that does not require engaging the human brain --- there are proper procedures to build walls, and any defect, can only result from a serious and easily preventable failure on the builder's part. There is no real "creativity" in wall building.
On the other hand; with software: a great deal of creativity, and problem solving is required for success. Every software development project will essentially have new elements.
Software development is fundamentally mental, not mechanical.
When it comes to mental processes no developer has achieved perfection, AND there are always mistakes that are going to be made when building something entirely new, or working on complex software systems with the time demands that are typically placed on developers.
Good point. Look at how when SOX made the officers of a company personally liable for incorrect financial statements that suddenly companies put financial controls in place.
Maybe.... but SOX was really just an irrational reaction to Enron (whose executives were prosecuted anyways), and the additional financial "controls" are mostly just lip service, with no real improvement. The SOX are ultimately stifling free enterprise and opportunities for Americans, and are a great example of poor, overreaching regulation.
Nowadays, most companies have started buying additional legal liability insurance to protect their corporate officers, anyways, at great additional expense for shareholders, and rules such as SOX have kept or caused many companies to become or remain private, instead of going public in the first place, so ultimately: the shareholders of public companies, and American investors as a whole are losing profits or potential gains for their retirement because of expensive knee-jerk laws such as SOX.
Why do gigantic oil companies like that get government moneyto clean up the mess these companies themselves carelessly created in the first place?
The oil companies are no more responsible for causing the mess, than the airplane manufacturer Boeing was responsible for 9/11, no more responsible than Smith and Wesson is responsible if someone goes on a shooting spree, or Jack Daniels is responsible if someone drives drunk on their product and runs down some innocent pedestrians.
The oil companies are not responsible for these tanks. They did not build them, they were not in charge of their maintenance, and they don't own the tanks or the land.
The tanks largely belonged to private gas station operations, and many of those belonged to companies that are no longer in business.
The big oil companies were recruited to clean up messes that somebody else left behind -- that were the result of negligence by the owners of the tanks.
Additionally, having someone other than dell replace the broken component would void your warranty
No.... a manufacturer cannot completely void your warranty, just because you used their product with a different component. They can only do so, if you caused the damage as a result of changing the component. Also, in general: a product's warranty is worth 10% of the value of a new unit, or less.
And your response to the original issue was analogous to suggesting that an appropriate remedy would be buying some duct tape and taping it up after every fill
No, but the most you are due is the cost of a replacement gas cap, and the replacement does not necessarily have to appear identical to the standard or original one.
Duct tape wouldn't work as a repair, since there are actually safety issues with it.
Seriously, post some kind of logic to back up your position. Should we also make it "actionable" to attempt to discredit a company by an individual?
No. We're talking specifically about abuse by a corporate entity, or by an entity paying multiple other people to assist in the act of maliciously attempting to discredit. Companies already have plenty of highly-effective legal avenues to retaliate against an individual.
How about one individual against another?
If one of the individuals is highly resourced and hiring third parties or pooling money to explicitly personally discredit the other individual, then yes.
Sorry, I prefer my speech to be unregulated. As long as they aren't lying about anything, I see no reason to make them stop.
I am not talking about regulating speech. I am talking about restricting the use of financial resources; units of government-produced currency units to facilitate maliciously discrediting a person. Shareholders of corporations are allowed to pool assets and receive limited liability for the public benefit.
Using those resources to maliciously target an individual, is an abuse of the public trust.
That's hardly a reasonable workaround for a laptop computer.
There are inexpensive mini-speakers available for a laptop that can plug in using USB, which can be used with a laptop.
The courts don't reimburse plaintiffs for "inconvenience" or for "disappointment" at having to attach an adapter to their laptop. If the workaround restores the product to the same functionality, then the Dell owner isn't going to be able to successfully sue Dell for a cost higher than that of the workaround.
That's why I think the whole "anticompetitive behavior against VLC", that, and the higher dollar amount, is much more likely to get Dell's attention and make them address their support problems.
US tax payers aren't on the hook for most of the loans that students have. It's not just government loans that are "protected".
No..... however... the banks did award the students lower interest rates, than they might otherwise would have; if these loans could be discharged in bankruptcy. In many cases the US government did guarantee these loans or subsidize a portion.
Personally: I think instead of guaranteeing loans, the government should set a statutory limit to the highest rate of interest that banks may charge for student loans . E.g. Under no circumstances may a loan written for X years, exceed in interest the average government bond rates for a similar duration bond at the time of loan origination PLUS an allowed profit margin.
Standard and penalty rates on revolving credit should also be capped. If the short term interest rates are 1%, for example: 7% might be the highest interest rate a credit card company would be allowed to charge, and an effective rate of 12% might be the highest penalty rate they would be allowed to apply for portions of balance in default. Overlimit fees, overdraft fees, and other penalties: should be likewise capped and restricted by statute to 1% of the total outstanding delinquent payments.
There's nothing stopping you from borrowing for other reasons, using the cash to pay off loans, then bankrupting youself out of the new debt. That would be the appropriate civil disobediance for the non-dischargeable loans.
This is also highly dishonest behavior, that would constitute criminal fraud if the student planned on doing it all along, and the bankruptcy will eliminate the student's chance of getting more credit maybe, renting an apartment, buying a cell phone, they may never be able to buy a home (except paying cash), and it may render them permanently ineligible for certain jobs, for 7 years at least
Since bankruptcies are public record, they will show up on a background check, and a number of the negative consequences can be lifelong.