Reading a modern hard disk that's been written over with zeroes is not that simple, and would likely require very specialized, very precise hardware.
The historical problem with writing over with zeroes was that the amount of magnetic surface between tracks on the platter was fairly large. This space between tracks would keep a "ghost" of previous data should there be only zeroes written to the nearby tracks. Guttman's research and the DoD wiping method were designed to overwrite the track data and make sure that that "ghost data" would be wiped as well.
Modern disks have such narrow gaps between tracks that overwriting with zeroes is sufficient to stump any commercial data-recovery attempts. (See, e.g. The Great Zero Challenge).
The military takes more extreme measures with highly-classified data because there are ridiculously expensive and time-consuming methods that one could use to recover data that's been "merely" wiped. There are governments and organizations that have those resources that might be willing to expend them to get their hands on such data.
There are not criminal organizations that have or will expend the insane effort to recover the information that might be on an individual's drive. The cost-benefit just isn't there. An individual who boots something like DBAN and does a one-pass wipe of all zeroes across the entire disk is entirely safe from anyone who has less resources than a major government intelligence agency.
I am guessing that the update is DRM updates... something like the ability for the player to identify copied disks, or maybe blacklisted keys or something.
Or, you know, bugfixes. And, contrary to popular belief, many vendors do in fact release updates to add additional features. Yes, it's for selfish reasons -- making your customers happy means they're likely to recommend you and buy your products again in the future.
People who don't realize that companies often do customer service to make their customers happy often seem to assume, as you appear to have done, that corporations' inherent selfishness automatically means they'll never do anything good.
A business never ever does anything unless it thinks it will be benefitting from the action.
This is true, but also exactly how it should work. Businesses do a lot of very good things because the management believes that it's the best way to keep their company in business and profitable. Taking good care of the customer -- even at fairly high cost -- is a good long-term strategy for growth.
Yes, because the kids would be so much better off with parents who are unhappy, no longer in love, but lack the gonads to admit it and move on with their lives.
Kids are better off having divorced parents than having married parents in an unstable relationship.
It's not illegal. You obviously think your project is better than theirs, so act like it. I suggest you spend less time whining that someone "stole" your idea (if you wanted to keep it, why did you make it Open anyhow?) and more time writing good software.
Whichever software is truly more useful to people will get used, and people will hear about it.
My personal theory is that since there's less social stigma against divorce now, people are more willing to actually get divorced when they realize they're not in a functional relationship. It used to be that people (especially women, due to their relative social status) would stay in an entirely unhappy marriage simply because being divorced was worse.
I don't see what the big "concern" is over divorce rates anyhow, unless your brand of morality includes the idea that people shouldn't get divorced. From a pragmatic point of view, who cares?
It's not clear to be that society agreed to be bound by copyright.
Society certainly agreed that the principal of copyrights needed to exist.
Copyright, in the traditional sense, was a well-debated topic. Our society at large understood the trade-off: allow creators of original work to have a limited-term monopoly on distribution of that work (thus encouraging its creation), but ensuring that the Library of Congress got a copy and so that the work would be available to the public for posterity.
Copyrights are not inherently evil, it's just that they've been perverted over time to serve the interests of large corporations who don't actually produce any content over the interests of the actual creators of that content.
Don't forget that Creative Commons and every open-source license in existence works only because copyrights exist.
The EULA is the license to make additional copies of OS X.
Not quite. The EULA is an agreement that allows you to make certain uses of OS X; in particular, you may install and run it on a given number of computers, but you may not use it on non-Apple hardware nor assist anyone in doing so. It's a small difference, but like many legal details, it's an important one. There's no question that Psystar violated the terms of the EULA.
However, even if the court were to hold that the EULA was entirely invalid (not something they're likely to do), Psystar would still be in some hot water. They modified and redistributed a copyright-protected work -- for profit -- without any license to do so. That's not just a violation of a license agreement (which is basically breach of contract), but egregious copyright infringement.
Using a book analogy, Psystar didn't just make a photocopy for their own use, or scan in the book so they could read it on their PDA. They made a copy, changed some tiny bits, and sold the copy for a profit. On top of that, Apple will likely argue that they did so in such a way that the average consumer could confuse Psystar's offering as being an Apple product, even though the modified version of Leopard is no longer supported or licensed by Apple.
So, again, I point out that the EULA term that Psystar violated -- namely, that they wouldn't install nor help anyone install OS X on non-Apple hardware -- is only a tiny footnote to the real issues at hand.
(Not a lawyer, this isn't advice -- I do know a thing or two about the law)
if the vast majority of a society doesn't agree with a law then there's no reason for it to exist at all.
That's really misguided. When a society agrees to be bound by the rule of law, and enshrines certain rights into that law, it is precisely to protect against a "tyranny of the majority", at least in the short term (that majority has to stay passionate long enough to change a law or amend the Constitution, in the US).
I know the Slashdot hordes like to bitch and moan about EULAs -- not without cause, mind you -- but the EULA violation in this case might as well be a footnote.
If all Psystar had done was violate the EULA clause that said "hey, you won't do anything to make this run on non-Apple hardware", then this case would be about how enforceable that clause is.
Unfortunately, Psystar did much more egregious things than violate a silly EULA term. They, by their own public admission, modified a copyright-protected work, then redistributed these modifications without a license to do so. And they did it for commercial purposes, no less. Even under the traditional terms of copyright (as opposed to the mutilated corporate-serving terms we have now), that's just not cricket.
On top of that copyright infringement, they also noodle-headedly used at least one Apple trademark (the "Leopard" name and mark) to promote the sale of hardware and software.
I will be absolutely stunned if Apple doesn't prevail on the Copyright and Trademark parts of their case, though I do hope that the judge will find that a license to run software on a particular kind of hardware is not binding.
(Not a lawyer, this isn't advice -- I do know a thing or two about the law)
if the game is rated "M for mature," the parent can THEN say "Well, not right now, let me look into it a bit and I'll decide for you."
Sorry to pick on you*, but while this is oodles more reasonable than most parents, it still misses the point of parenthood by a huge margin.
The core responsibility of a parent is to turn your kids into responsible and healthy adults. Sometimes, true, this means protecting them or making decisions on their behalf; but telling a 15-year-old kid "let me research this rated-M game and I'll decide for you" is inane.
How about "let's do some research together (maybe play a demo) and see if it's something we can both be comfortable with you playing." Parents who do this will often find that the kid does a pretty good job of aligning their own standards to their parent's, and will rarely have to pull the "now, see, I'm not real comfortable with you playing a game that has that level of gore" card (after the first couple of times).
The root problem is that parents spend far too much effort trying to "protect" their children, instead of helping (teaching) the kids to make decisions that the parents find acceptable. All that happens is that the kids buy (or steal) the games on their own, and play them when unsupervised. And when they get out of the house and on their own, they're not equipped to make any kind of ethical decisions for themselves -- and then they let the lobbies and the media outlets make these choices for them.
"Judge, yes I hired burglars to break into my competitor's office and steal his papers, but as the burglars never signed an NDA these are not trade secrets."
Perhaps that's true, but if you give me copies without also telling me that I can't disclose the information that's in them, you'll have a lot harder time proving they were secret information later.
The most common way to prove that you've told me not to share information is an NDA in writing.
There's kind of a severe problem with your position, that "Your government appears to be reserving the right to pick up and intern anybody they fancy of any nationality in any country and declare they don't have to tell us why, and don't have to let the interned people go at any time."
See, I agree that what the US Military is doing under the auspices of the current administration is truly horrible. But the kind of exaggeration you're making there is used as ammunition by people who support those horrible policies.
There *is* a process that's followed to declare someone an enemy combatant. The real issues are:
* The process is not sufficiently robust, and does not follow due-process as defined by US law; it's too easy to class someone as an enemy combatant or a terrorist. * The outcome of the process is that enemy combatants are denied basic rights they have under the Geneva Convention -- a treaty that the US is party to, and which is therefore considered to have the force of law in the US. * The treatment of those classed as enemy combatants is inhumane; it very much appears as though human rights violations which, had they been committed by another country, would cause the US to impose sanctions (at the very least), are being perpetuated under orders from administration officials.
These issues are important to investigate and correct. But it's also only going to happen with the right kind of response and pressure from the citizens of the US and the other branches of our government.
When you say "your government appears...", you're only looking at what the administration has done. As a whole, the legislature -- and with this recent decision, the judiciary -- have not approved of these actions.
I think it's best to let some learn for themselves but give them "encouragement" along the way.
That's pretty much the definition I'd use for "teaching" (as opposed to "instructing"). A good teacher simply guides their students in learning for themselves.
That answer is so bad it almost sounds like sarcasm. Given how easy it is to sniff sensitive data from an unencrypted wireless network, I can't imagine Bruce would allow it unless he segments his network or wires up his own PC.
As the man himself says: "For the record, I have an ultra-secure wireless network that automatically reports all hacking attempts to unsavory men with bitey dogs."
Seriously though, Bruce has explained several times that the best choice is "secure the hosts, open the network". I personally like to take no chances and attempt to secure both, but that doesn't mean that Bruce is wrong per se, just that his opinion is unsettling. Think about it in great depth for a while, and you'll see he has a quite valid point.
if SEO's are allowed to thumb up down their competitors' websites, we're in trouble.
Oh, come on. RTF summary at least. The thumbs up/thumbs down will only affect your own personal search results, and will not be used to affect the results of others. It said that, explicitly, right in the summary!
The strawman argument that I'm not being forced to think about these things is misleading.
I think it is you, sir, that have created the straw man. First, by including the "[live as they are]" interpretation, which changes the meaning of the sentence; second, by changing the topic of my argument to whether people must consider various circumstances when making the choice. On the assumption that your comments are merely grounded in misunderstanding, rather than malice, I'll re-explain:
I said:
I respect their choice, but I don't like it when people pretend they're forced to make it.
To re-phrase for clarity, I respect that people can choose to live wherever and however they'd like, so long as they are not directly harming me; however, I don't like it when people claim that they had no choice in the manner in which they live. Simply put, unless you are truly impoverished, you do have a choice about how you live -- when people claim they are forced to live in a suburb, it irritates me. You choose to live in a suburb, because the considerations of quality school districts, low crime, size of home, or what have you outweigh your desire to live in a more "eco-friendly" small space in a city.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that choice. However, I only rarely hear someone say something like: "I could reduce my carbon emissions by moving to the city, but doing so is less important to me than living away from the noise of the city and having a larger home and yard for my kids to play in." I'd like to hear that from time to time.
What I usually hear, though, is: "I could reduce emissions by moving to the city, but I have to live in a lower-crime area, and I have 2 kids, so I have to have at least 1600 sq. ft. in my home, so I really couldn't possibly live in the city." And that, I take issue with.
Whatever the cause, it doesn't change the fact that it still makes the most sense on an individual level to follow suit.
Perhaps it's time you re-read The Tragedy of the Commons. And think about it a bit. Following a strict approach of "do whatever is best for me on an individual level" is no way to break the cycle that results in the Tragedy.
Enlightened self-interest would suggest that maybe it's worthwhile to make some personal sacrifice to benefit the community as a whole. Now, I'm not judging your particular circumstance -- I know there are places where living in relative security and being able to bike or walk to work is prohibitively expensive. I am saying, though, that there are plenty of people who can and do make the decision to live more simply for the benefit of the community.
My wife and I, for example, moved into an 800-square-foot house in the city -- the cost of which would have bought us almost 2000 sq. feet in a reasonable suburb. We did this because it:
dramatically reduced my wife's commute
provided carpool opportunities for my wife
eliminated my need to drive to work (I walk or bike except in bad weather)
Yeah, it costs more, but we're happy with our choice. There are many others who are in a position where they could choose to make similar decisions, but don't because having a bigger (and/or nicer) house is more important. I respect their choice, but I don't like it when people pretend they're forced to make it.
Yeah, I suppose we do, a little. But some of us laugh about it. The Internet proved to be a great equalizer -- it has let all people everywhere be the asshats they really are without restraint.
Now all we need is a September-free zone (other than the Scary Devil Monastery, of course)
The apostrophe should never be used to pluralize. I see some people do it with initialisms (like "PDF's"), but it's incorrect ("PDF files" or "PDF documents" would be the most correct, but if I were editing, I'd accept "PDFs" for informal text).
Apostrophes should only be used to indicate possession or contraction. A plural word ending in "s" (e.g. "friends") is made possessive by placing the apostrophe after the "s" -- "my freinds' phones" refers to the phones owned by several of my friends, while "my friend's phones" refers to several phones owned by one friend.
It's and its give some trouble. It's is always a contraction of "it is". One makes "it" possessive in the same way one makes "her" possessive. "Her" becomes "hers", so "it" becomes "its".
Then don't. Use Google's presentation app to *develop* your presentation, not to present it. That's why any presentation you build on Google Docs can be exported to an HTML presentation which works, offline, when showed in a browser's full-screen mode.
Besides, I regularly give presentations to hundreds of folks spread across a half-dozen locations. I already depend on a reliable Internet connection to share the audio and presentation content in real time. No, I don't do this in a hotel.
A big duh to you, sire, for not remembering that one should Use What Works, and that What Works for you is not the same as What Works for others.
Not knowing what tomorrow will be like means you can kiss goodbye to any long-term plans you may have.
BS. This only applies if you are living above your means. Like with anything else, you learn very quickly that $60/hr. isn't $60/hr * 5 days * 52 weeks, and you adjust your spending and saving habits to emphasize savings. This is only tough the first year; after that, you simply live on what you saved the year before; as business picks up, the reward is delayed but very real. As business slumps, you have time to adjust your finances to survive it, and you can easily plan to save enough for your long-term goals.
Forget about going on holidays for more than a weekend, your clients need you.
Pansy. You explain to your clients when you'll be gone for a few weeks, and you do a good job networking so that you can pay another indep. worker to cover support while you're gone. You know, just like an employer would.
Forget about buying a house, your income isn't stable enough.
Heh, tell that to my wife; I bought my house on contracting income. They don't care nearly as much about "stable" if your payment is going to be less than 20% of your average income over the past 5 years. Besides, if you're a corp, you pay yourself a salary (that's plenty "stable"). You then get bonuses when the company does well. Have you actually tried any of this?
And hope nothing happens to you that could keep you from working or else lose all your clients...
Dude, it's called insurance. And no, not just health and car insurance. If you actually bother to incorporate yourself, you can (and should!) have liability insurance and some form of loss/temporary disability insurance that would allow you to collect a salary and even pay someone to keep running your business for you while you're out of commission.
I've been fortunate enough not to need mine, but have had business associates that were able to keep their org. running after things like spinal injuries that made them unable to work for nearly a year.
Slashdot Mirror
Reading a modern hard disk that's been written over with zeroes is not that simple, and would likely require very specialized, very precise hardware.
The historical problem with writing over with zeroes was that the amount of magnetic surface between tracks on the platter was fairly large. This space between tracks would keep a "ghost" of previous data should there be only zeroes written to the nearby tracks. Guttman's research and the DoD wiping method were designed to overwrite the track data and make sure that that "ghost data" would be wiped as well.
Modern disks have such narrow gaps between tracks that overwriting with zeroes is sufficient to stump any commercial data-recovery attempts. (See, e.g. The Great Zero Challenge).
The military takes more extreme measures with highly-classified data because there are ridiculously expensive and time-consuming methods that one could use to recover data that's been "merely" wiped. There are governments and organizations that have those resources that might be willing to expend them to get their hands on such data.
There are not criminal organizations that have or will expend the insane effort to recover the information that might be on an individual's drive. The cost-benefit just isn't there. An individual who boots something like DBAN and does a one-pass wipe of all zeroes across the entire disk is entirely safe from anyone who has less resources than a major government intelligence agency.
Or, you know, bugfixes. And, contrary to popular belief, many vendors do in fact release updates to add additional features. Yes, it's for selfish reasons -- making your customers happy means they're likely to recommend you and buy your products again in the future.
People who don't realize that companies often do customer service to make their customers happy often seem to assume, as you appear to have done, that corporations' inherent selfishness automatically means they'll never do anything good.
This is true, but also exactly how it should work. Businesses do a lot of very good things because the management believes that it's the best way to keep their company in business and profitable. Taking good care of the customer -- even at fairly high cost -- is a good long-term strategy for growth.
Their kids probably care.
Yes, because the kids would be so much better off with parents who are unhappy, no longer in love, but lack the gonads to admit it and move on with their lives.
Kids are better off having divorced parents than having married parents in an unstable relationship.
It's not illegal. You obviously think your project is better than theirs, so act like it. I suggest you spend less time whining that someone "stole" your idea (if you wanted to keep it, why did you make it Open anyhow?) and more time writing good software .
Whichever software is truly more useful to people will get used, and people will hear about it.
Grow a pair and get to work.
My personal theory is that since there's less social stigma against divorce now, people are more willing to actually get divorced when they realize they're not in a functional relationship. It used to be that people (especially women, due to their relative social status) would stay in an entirely unhappy marriage simply because being divorced was worse.
I don't see what the big "concern" is over divorce rates anyhow, unless your brand of morality includes the idea that people shouldn't get divorced. From a pragmatic point of view, who cares?
It's not clear to be that society agreed to be bound by copyright.
Society certainly agreed that the principal of copyrights needed to exist.
Copyright, in the traditional sense, was a well-debated topic. Our society at large understood the trade-off: allow creators of original work to have a limited-term monopoly on distribution of that work (thus encouraging its creation), but ensuring that the Library of Congress got a copy and so that the work would be available to the public for posterity.
Copyrights are not inherently evil, it's just that they've been perverted over time to serve the interests of large corporations who don't actually produce any content over the interests of the actual creators of that content.
Don't forget that Creative Commons and every open-source license in existence works only because copyrights exist.
The EULA is the license to make additional copies of OS X.
Not quite. The EULA is an agreement that allows you to make certain uses of OS X; in particular, you may install and run it on a given number of computers, but you may not use it on non-Apple hardware nor assist anyone in doing so. It's a small difference, but like many legal details, it's an important one. There's no question that Psystar violated the terms of the EULA.
However, even if the court were to hold that the EULA was entirely invalid (not something they're likely to do), Psystar would still be in some hot water. They modified and redistributed a copyright-protected work -- for profit -- without any license to do so. That's not just a violation of a license agreement (which is basically breach of contract), but egregious copyright infringement.
Using a book analogy, Psystar didn't just make a photocopy for their own use, or scan in the book so they could read it on their PDA. They made a copy, changed some tiny bits, and sold the copy for a profit. On top of that, Apple will likely argue that they did so in such a way that the average consumer could confuse Psystar's offering as being an Apple product, even though the modified version of Leopard is no longer supported or licensed by Apple.
So, again, I point out that the EULA term that Psystar violated -- namely, that they wouldn't install nor help anyone install OS X on non-Apple hardware -- is only a tiny footnote to the real issues at hand.
(Not a lawyer, this isn't advice -- I do know a thing or two about the law)
if the vast majority of a society doesn't agree with a law then there's no reason for it to exist at all.
That's really misguided. When a society agrees to be bound by the rule of law, and enshrines certain rights into that law, it is precisely to protect against a "tyranny of the majority", at least in the short term (that majority has to stay passionate long enough to change a law or amend the Constitution, in the US).
I know the Slashdot hordes like to bitch and moan about EULAs -- not without cause, mind you -- but the EULA violation in this case might as well be a footnote.
If all Psystar had done was violate the EULA clause that said "hey, you won't do anything to make this run on non-Apple hardware", then this case would be about how enforceable that clause is.
Unfortunately, Psystar did much more egregious things than violate a silly EULA term. They, by their own public admission, modified a copyright-protected work, then redistributed these modifications without a license to do so. And they did it for commercial purposes, no less. Even under the traditional terms of copyright (as opposed to the mutilated corporate-serving terms we have now), that's just not cricket.
On top of that copyright infringement, they also noodle-headedly used at least one Apple trademark (the "Leopard" name and mark) to promote the sale of hardware and software.
I will be absolutely stunned if Apple doesn't prevail on the Copyright and Trademark parts of their case, though I do hope that the judge will find that a license to run software on a particular kind of hardware is not binding.
(Not a lawyer, this isn't advice -- I do know a thing or two about the law)
Sorry to pick on you*, but while this is oodles more reasonable than most parents, it still misses the point of parenthood by a huge margin.
The core responsibility of a parent is to turn your kids into responsible and healthy adults. Sometimes, true, this means protecting them or making decisions on their behalf; but telling a 15-year-old kid "let me research this rated-M game and I'll decide for you" is inane.
How about "let's do some research together (maybe play a demo) and see if it's something we can both be comfortable with you playing." Parents who do this will often find that the kid does a pretty good job of aligning their own standards to their parent's, and will rarely have to pull the "now, see, I'm not real comfortable with you playing a game that has that level of gore" card (after the first couple of times).
The root problem is that parents spend far too much effort trying to "protect" their children, instead of helping (teaching) the kids to make decisions that the parents find acceptable. All that happens is that the kids buy (or steal) the games on their own, and play them when unsupervised. And when they get out of the house and on their own, they're not equipped to make any kind of ethical decisions for themselves -- and then they let the lobbies and the media outlets make these choices for them.
</rant>
*But only a little
Because any decent cryptographic system of this type is resilient to replay attacks. This one included.
The most common way to prove that you've told me not to share information is an NDA in writing.
Damn, you beat me to it. And I really needed to slap someone today. ;-)
Yes. Perhaps I should have made it more clear that I was being tounge-in-cheek?
The word you wanted was "interred", FYI.
There's kind of a severe problem with your position, that "Your government appears to be reserving the right to pick up and intern anybody they fancy of any nationality in any country and declare they don't have to tell us why, and don't have to let the interned people go at any time."
See, I agree that what the US Military is doing under the auspices of the current administration is truly horrible. But the kind of exaggeration you're making there is used as ammunition by people who support those horrible policies.
There *is* a process that's followed to declare someone an enemy combatant. The real issues are:
* The process is not sufficiently robust, and does not follow due-process as defined by US law; it's too easy to class someone as an enemy combatant or a terrorist.
* The outcome of the process is that enemy combatants are denied basic rights they have under the Geneva Convention -- a treaty that the US is party to, and which is therefore considered to have the force of law in the US.
* The treatment of those classed as enemy combatants is inhumane; it very much appears as though human rights violations which, had they been committed by another country, would cause the US to impose sanctions (at the very least), are being perpetuated under orders from administration officials.
These issues are important to investigate and correct. But it's also only going to happen with the right kind of response and pressure from the citizens of the US and the other branches of our government.
When you say "your government appears...", you're only looking at what the administration has done. As a whole, the legislature -- and with this recent decision, the judiciary -- have not approved of these actions.
I'd wager that's the most accurate projection you'll see on this matter.
That's pretty much the definition I'd use for "teaching" (as opposed to "instructing"). A good teacher simply guides their students in learning for themselves.
Seriously though, Bruce has explained several times that the best choice is "secure the hosts, open the network". I personally like to take no chances and attempt to secure both, but that doesn't mean that Bruce is wrong per se, just that his opinion is unsettling. Think about it in great depth for a while, and you'll see he has a quite valid point.
I said:To re-phrase for clarity, I respect that people can choose to live wherever and however they'd like, so long as they are not directly harming me; however, I don't like it when people claim that they had no choice in the manner in which they live. Simply put, unless you are truly impoverished, you do have a choice about how you live -- when people claim they are forced to live in a suburb, it irritates me. You choose to live in a suburb, because the considerations of quality school districts, low crime, size of home, or what have you outweigh your desire to live in a more "eco-friendly" small space in a city.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that choice. However, I only rarely hear someone say something like: "I could reduce my carbon emissions by moving to the city, but doing so is less important to me than living away from the noise of the city and having a larger home and yard for my kids to play in." I'd like to hear that from time to time.
What I usually hear, though, is: "I could reduce emissions by moving to the city, but I have to live in a lower-crime area, and I have 2 kids, so I have to have at least 1600 sq. ft. in my home, so I really couldn't possibly live in the city." And that, I take issue with.
Enlightened self-interest would suggest that maybe it's worthwhile to make some personal sacrifice to benefit the community as a whole. Now, I'm not judging your particular circumstance -- I know there are places where living in relative security and being able to bike or walk to work is prohibitively expensive. I am saying, though, that there are plenty of people who can and do make the decision to live more simply for the benefit of the community.
My wife and I, for example, moved into an 800-square-foot house in the city -- the cost of which would have bought us almost 2000 sq. feet in a reasonable suburb. We did this because it:
Yeah, it costs more, but we're happy with our choice. There are many others who are in a position where they could choose to make similar decisions, but don't because having a bigger (and/or nicer) house is more important. I respect their choice, but I don't like it when people pretend they're forced to make it.
Yeah, I suppose we do, a little. But some of us laugh about it. The Internet proved to be a great equalizer -- it has let all people everywhere be the asshats they really are without restraint.
Now all we need is a September-free zone (other than the Scary Devil Monastery, of course)
Apostrophes wrongly used in the parent: 7
The apostrophe should never be used to pluralize. I see some people do it with initialisms (like "PDF's"), but it's incorrect ("PDF files" or "PDF documents" would be the most correct, but if I were editing, I'd accept "PDFs" for informal text).
Apostrophes should only be used to indicate possession or contraction. A plural word ending in "s" (e.g. "friends") is made possessive by placing the apostrophe after the "s" -- "my freinds' phones" refers to the phones owned by several of my friends, while "my friend's phones" refers to several phones owned by one friend.
It's and its give some trouble. It's is always a contraction of "it is". One makes "it" possessive in the same way one makes "her" possessive. "Her" becomes "hers", so "it" becomes "its".
HTH, HAND.
Besides, I regularly give presentations to hundreds of folks spread across a half-dozen locations. I already depend on a reliable Internet connection to share the audio and presentation content in real time. No, I don't do this in a hotel.
A big duh to you, sire, for not remembering that one should Use What Works, and that What Works for you is not the same as What Works for others.
BS. This only applies if you are living above your means. Like with anything else, you learn very quickly that $60/hr. isn't $60/hr * 5 days * 52 weeks, and you adjust your spending and saving habits to emphasize savings. This is only tough the first year; after that, you simply live on what you saved the year before; as business picks up, the reward is delayed but very real. As business slumps, you have time to adjust your finances to survive it, and you can easily plan to save enough for your long-term goals.
Pansy. You explain to your clients when you'll be gone for a few weeks, and you do a good job networking so that you can pay another indep. worker to cover support while you're gone. You know, just like an employer would.
Heh, tell that to my wife; I bought my house on contracting income. They don't care nearly as much about "stable" if your payment is going to be less than 20% of your average income over the past 5 years. Besides, if you're a corp, you pay yourself a salary (that's plenty "stable"). You then get bonuses when the company does well. Have you actually tried any of this?
Dude, it's called insurance. And no, not just health and car insurance. If you actually bother to incorporate yourself, you can (and should!) have liability insurance and some form of loss/temporary disability insurance that would allow you to collect a salary and even pay someone to keep running your business for you while you're out of commission.
I've been fortunate enough not to need mine, but have had business associates that were able to keep their org. running after things like spinal injuries that made them unable to work for nearly a year.