I agree this would be a good idea. However, I'm cynical enough to think it won't work, for the following reason:
The Neutral 3rd Party needs funding of some sort, and that funding is going to put pressure on the 3rd party one way or another, even if it's subtle and unintentional. BigDrugCo won't want to fund (much less use) an independant system that tanks their NewExpensiveDrug with the tanking party remaining anonymous. Labs won't want to fund it, they need money for other things, and are strapped as it is. The Government could fund it, but that's what they do now, in a way (through Regulations) - and judging fomr the number of Anti-Bush posts, it seems people feel the Government running a "blind" system is asking for trouble.
Blind is great in theory, but none of the players involved would want to use / can fund a truly blind system. I'd rather go with a well-documented open one, so that someone can do fact checking when the results look wonky.
"People would think that stealing an album in a shop is immoral, but stealing an mp3 isn't. The idea of property has become more intangible."
The key difference here is that the MP3 is copied, not removed. The original owner didn't lose his copy of the file / song when the other person took it, whereas in the case of the shop, the owner can no longer sell that physical media. The first is not viewed as theft becasue the owner doesn't lose it, where the second involves actually losing something. (Of course, if the MP3 was erased after it copied, that would be a different story.)
That's what all my Fraternity Brothers said when I was doing costuming, and they were doing Mat Sci labs. Mockery the whole way.
Guess who they all came to when their buttons and zippers fell off the night of the formal? (No, I didn't sabotage them.)
Same thing you see in High School - the stuck-up History Teacher that looks down on the Shop Students that go by in the hall. When our teacher insulted some Shop students passing by, they made it VERY clear to him where is place was. "Who built your car? Your desk? Your house? The school you work in?" Ask yourself this: Who built your lab? Ran your power lines? Cools your Server room?
Think about this the next time you deal with an end user: They look at you like you look at a plumber. Someone who's unneeded, and probably unwanted, until your toilet breaks. Then they're VERY important... at least until it's fixed.
No career is any less important than any other, provided it brings value to society and life. Heck, even the oft-hated Lawyer has his place in making sure truly innocent people are free. It's when someone starts contributing crap that's not wanted or needed (frivilous lawsuits) that there is an issue.
I enjoy TV and movies. I enjoy theater. They bring value to my life. I enjoy Video Games, too. Do I need recognized names reading the lines? No, but I do expect quality work. It just doesn't have to be from an expensive person.
Multiman is Curt Schilling's company, so he did get it. Good!
Runequest was purchased by AH. I had the proof copy of the new edition sitting in my living room. Trust me, they aren't happy they were ready to send it to the publisher when it got canned indefinately.
I was good friends with an AH employee at the time they were bought - from what he said, Hasbro had no real interest in the games that AH owned, but they more wanted the titles to a few very key licenses, and the AH name itself. Axis & Allies is no longer published by Milton Bradley, it's now published by Avalon Hill - although both are owned by Hasbro in the end. They bought AH as a way to market games to a more mature audience, that would see / remember the AH label as adult games, not kiddie games of yore.
A number of titles, including Advanced Squad Leader (ASL), the new edition of Runequest (Which was ready to go to print, but is now collecting dust), and the series of bookslef wargames (Panzer Blitz, Twixt, etc.) are now owened by Hasbro, but are not likely to be re-released. They got what they wanted - the company title & image - and the rest was extra, although unlikely to be used. I'm not sure if any of them are going to be sold / spun off to other companies, there was talk of Curt Shilling purchasing ASL. (Yes, the baseball star - he's a Wargamer and an EQ player.)
Hasbro is a fairly large company - they own most of the major toy companies we recognize - MB, Parker Brothers, Kenner, WotC, TSR, AH, etc. About the only one they don't own is Mattel, which has Hot Wheels and Barbie to keep it going.
this is what the music companies are doing with degraded MP3s at a higher cost per song than the original album.
I've heard people complain for years now that physical CDs are overpriced, as a way to feed corporate coffers. By raising the cost of downloads to make an album more expensive online than in the store, it's a way to drive people to go by the (overpriced) CDs and make them look better in comparison. Even if they kill off the download market, they have succeeded in pushing people towards an overpriced product.
Companies have assetts other than people. Hasbro bought Avalon Hill not for its staff (which were all terminated), but for the brand name and titles that they held. The staff was more of a hinderance, when Hasbro already had all the staff and production facilities it needed, all it wanted was the brand names and rights to all of AH's games. As a result, Hasbro now has two things: All the classic games (Squad Leader, Panzer Blitz, etc.), and the Brand Name (Axis & Alies is now an Avalon Hill game, not Milton Bradley).
The (Old) Republic becomes The Empire. The Rebellion hasn't started (because it has nothing, yet, to rebel against). Dooku is on the side that will become The Empire.
Minor Clarification - Dooku is on the "rebels" side, even though he's evil and working for Palpatine / Sidious. There's a few people duped into being on the "wrong" side, or who are playing someone else, so you can't really say Dooku is on one side or the other all the way.
In summary:
Senator Palpatine is Darth Sidious, the Big Baddie Boss. While they haven't officially announced this or made the conneciton in 1 & 2, it's clear from watching 5 & 6.
Palpatine / Sidious is playing both sides. He's a nice senator with the best intenitons for the Republic on one side (Palpatine), and the hidden threat (the "Phantom Menace") that is getting everyone to seperate from the Republic on the other (Darth Sidious). End result - with the war, he can grab more power. He forced the vote (through Amadala) that bumped the old leader from the senate, and got himself installed in the spot. Meanwhile, he's aiding the "rebels" (Trade Federation & Seepratists) that are breaking away from the Republic as Sidious.
Count Dooku is evil, but is being played. He thinks he's bringing down a bad thing and helping the good guys by leading the Seperatists, but he's being tricked by Sidious / Palpatine. There's a scene in Ep 2. where he tries to convince Kenobi that he's doing the right thing, and it's clear he's confused. He's a bad guy because he works for Sidious and is attacking the current government, but he thinks he's doing it for the right reasons.
What's coming up (Minor Spoiler if you haven't seen 4, 5, and 6 yet):
Senator Palpatine has already become the leader of the Senate. He will eventually rename it the Empire, and declare himself Emperor. This is backed up by Vader in Episode 4 early on when he says "The Emperor has just dissolved the Imperial Seante, the last remains of the Old Repuplic have been washed away," (or something close) while talking to Leia.
The Clone Army that was made to help the Republic will eventually become the Storm Troopers that serve the Empire.
The Seperatist Movement, once led by Dooku & Grevious, will become the Rebellion. The current Bad Guys will become the Good Guys in 4 thru 6, when it's revealed that the Emire went from good to bad under Palpatine / Sidous.
My guess is that the Secret Service was using Blackberries, which uses encrypted transmissions between the Blackberry server and the device, and even multiple encryptions, if I remember correctly (one for the message, one for the Wireless). I doubt that they were stupid enough to use unencrpyted service, when regular non-Govt. customers can have encryption (We have it here at our job on our BBs). Note that they say "emails" and not "SMS" or "Text Messages."
Speaking as a corporate IT guy (Help Desk / Jr. System Admin), I would love to see some sort of Central Administration that would let me run this on a server, and then run it on client PCs on a regularly scheduled basis. We have Symantec Anti-Virus 9.0 set up this way, and it's wonderful. Nightly scans of every PC at 3:00 am - always clean, doesn't interrupt the work of our users, no effort on anyone's part except to check the logs. With current spyware solutions, they need to be updated and run manually. SAV claims to check for Spyware, but is not as good as other solutions yet.
There is one key factor here that only applies in MMORPGs, and not Real Life - Griefers are paying customers.
If I was a Griefer, I would probably be annoyed that I was being shut down by an in-game system I was paying real-life cash for. A few loud, public complaints of "Why should I pay for a system that screws me? I'm taking my allmightly dollah somewhere else!" and most corporations will bend and let them continue to Grief.
I play in a lot of Live RPGs (LARPs), and the same thing happens there. The end result is different only in that a majority of the time, the game is run for fun, not profit, so any Griefers get booted by the owners even when they wave their wallet (although sometimes it takes a bit of pressure from the rest of the player base).
As other people have said, it's a fact of (real) life that asshoels exist, and people suck. The thing is, people play games to *avoid* real life and have fun, and are dissapointed when the fantasy they are paying for doesn't meet expecataions or what's on the box.
There are a lot of comments about what a "Frat" is - a bunch of beer-guzzling pig-headed college students is the typical one. But it's a stereotype, and like many stereotypes it has a kernel of truth, but is also wrong in many ways. Having been in one, and almost quitting at a later point in disgust, I've seen both sides of the coin.
The concept behind a Fraternity is just what the name implies - Brotherhood. It's a group of guys that are in the group to support each other through the trials of college (or life in general), and they usually have a founding principal, charter, or ideal that they follow. Some are based on religions, others on more generic creeds, but they usually have a goal or such they are supposed to strive for - Academics, moral character, philanthropy, etc.
Where this all falls apart is the fact that most college students don't quite get it, and they aren't there long enough (4 years) to really learn. They see a group of guys who think like them as drinking buddies, and pay lip service to the charter or ideals as an excuse to party and name-drop. Some of the ideas do still carry through - the idea of Brotherhood carries on as contacts and buddies in the "real world" post-graduation.
A lot of the more negative aspects of "Frats" (as opposed to Fraternities) are offshoots of the idea of brotherhood. Hazing, name-calling, etc. is supposed to make you feel closer to these guys, as you did the same thing they did when they joined - you now have a common experience. The "elitism" factor of "making you cut it to join us" is not in the charter of any group on paper - it's added by the local groups on the side as a way to boost their self esteem.
There are Fraternities out there that aren't the stereotype. Sadly, they are few and far between, at least when I was in college. I joined a Fraternity that did not encourage drinking, and had a decent GPA. The selling point for me was when a visiting girl told me she was safer sleeping at the house, under the brother's protection, than sleeping in her own dorm room.
Sadly, groups like these have to struggle to attract new members, because most incoming kids look for the beer & chicks they expect from stereotypes. In our case, we were looking at becoming financially insolvent unless we got 12 new members one year, and we didn't. We did a second recruitment drive (which nearly killed our grades), and took in 12 new members, but several of them were lacking in character - they were just warm bodies to pay the rent. In retrospect, it was like a bad reality TV show. Within a year, there was no brotherhood left, and the Fraternity collapsed.
That all being said, like any other stereotype (including geeks, nerds, race, and so on), dig a bit before you assume all Frats are drunk meatheads. You may be plesantly surprised what you find. Having seen Animal House before I went to Cornell (Which was 50% Greek while I was there), I was determined not to join... and I did despite my preconceived notions. I have no regrets, I learned a LOT about life by doing so, and I highly recommend at least a thorough looking by any college student.
Just don't live up to the stereotypes, and look behind the curtains that most of them put up to fool you.
Quitting a job because it's overworking you is not that simple. I've been in bad jobs before, and I have quit them to go to better ones, but each time it was a scary step - almost a leap of faith that the new situation would be better than the current one.
What happens if you don't have a new job lined up? I know people that have gone 4+ years in IT without jobs. If you can live in your mom's basement, fine, but if you have a spouse and kids, it's a lot harder. Car payments, Mortgage payments, etc. can wreck your credit rating if you leave too soon, and you can't just say "I quit my job, I can't pay for a while." (Thought - get the spouse on a job as coverage, and have the EA person spend time at home recovering and job hunting, to maintain income in the meantime.)
Quitting a job can have other impacts. When you go to your next interview, "Why did you leave your last job?" "I didn't like the work hours" sounds bad, even if they are inhumane. You are giving the new employer the impression you'll quit if you don't like the conditions.
Loss of Benefits: I don't know about this individual case, but I do know people that can't quit because if they do, they have medical coverage that will evaporate and leave them screwed. Again, if you have a spouse and / or kids, you're not just shooting yourself in the foot, you're unloading the clip in theirs as well.
I wholeheartedly say "If the job sucks, find a new one you like." Note I don't say "Quit." There is a difference. The trick is to find one you can slide into with little disruption; the catch is having the energy to do it while in Crunch Mode. The hardest part of finding a new job is finding the time and energy to do it while surviving the current one, especially if it's as crunchy as EA sounds.
My first thought was that the usual Family Thnaksgiving trip from Philly to Pittsburgh (300 miles) would be done in 2.5 minutes instead of 5 hours. I then realized one could cross the USA coast to coast in under a half hour... that's damn impressive, assuming the heat can be dealt with and speed maintained for that long of a time period.
I have a GRX-500 with the 16" screen. I'm happy with it.
I don't want a lightweight laptop - I got this as a Desktop Replacement. When I take it on the road, I don't plan on using it on the train, or on the bus - I plan on sitting it down on a desk or table, and using it there.
I can see why people would want a smaller laptop. But there are people who want a portable desktop, for use at shows, offsite, etc. where it won't be moved much once it's deployed.
IMO, if I want a very portable PC, I'll use a PDA.;)
I am in the 'burbs of Philly, where the local Cable Monopoly is Comcast. They have capped uploads at 64K, and downloads, while not bad, are no where near as good as the numbers iA am seeing here. I'm guessing it's traffic and load-sharing, since I live in an area that has a lot of cable modems.
A neighbor upstaird has Earthlink DSL, and can get 1.2MB down / 128K up for $50/Month, and up to 6 IPs. There are some good deals on DSL around, but multiple IPs with those deals are hard to find...
In Philly, Comcast is currently the Monopoly. RCN recently tried to get in the area, but later retracted their bid - because the local government (Philly's City Council) pretty much blocked them. While yes, the legally could get into the area, the Red Tape was so thick RCN decided they were not wanted, and backed out.
If that is de-regulation, I'm scared.
As for the lame shows thing, I have not had cable TV for over a year now (I belive the quote from Pink Floyd is "Got thirteen channels of sh*t on the T.V. to choose from"). My Comcast @Home Cable Modem still sucks, but it's still cheaper than DSL for the same speeds. Until competition really arrives, I'm stuck with the best of a bad situation.
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I agree this would be a good idea. However, I'm cynical enough to think it won't work, for the following reason:
The Neutral 3rd Party needs funding of some sort, and that funding is going to put pressure on the 3rd party one way or another, even if it's subtle and unintentional. BigDrugCo won't want to fund (much less use) an independant system that tanks their NewExpensiveDrug with the tanking party remaining anonymous. Labs won't want to fund it, they need money for other things, and are strapped as it is. The Government could fund it, but that's what they do now, in a way (through Regulations) - and judging fomr the number of Anti-Bush posts, it seems people feel the Government running a "blind" system is asking for trouble.
Blind is great in theory, but none of the players involved would want to use / can fund a truly blind system. I'd rather go with a well-documented open one, so that someone can do fact checking when the results look wonky.
"People would think that stealing an album in a shop is immoral, but stealing an mp3 isn't. The idea of property has become more intangible."
The key difference here is that the MP3 is copied, not removed. The original owner didn't lose his copy of the file / song when the other person took it, whereas in the case of the shop, the owner can no longer sell that physical media. The first is not viewed as theft becasue the owner doesn't lose it, where the second involves actually losing something. (Of course, if the MP3 was erased after it copied, that would be a different story.)
That's what all my Fraternity Brothers said when I was doing costuming, and they were doing Mat Sci labs. Mockery the whole way.
Guess who they all came to when their buttons and zippers fell off the night of the formal? (No, I didn't sabotage them.)
Same thing you see in High School - the stuck-up History Teacher that looks down on the Shop Students that go by in the hall. When our teacher insulted some Shop students passing by, they made it VERY clear to him where is place was. "Who built your car? Your desk? Your house? The school you work in?" Ask yourself this: Who built your lab? Ran your power lines? Cools your Server room?
Think about this the next time you deal with an end user: They look at you like you look at a plumber. Someone who's unneeded, and probably unwanted, until your toilet breaks. Then they're VERY important... at least until it's fixed.
No career is any less important than any other, provided it brings value to society and life. Heck, even the oft-hated Lawyer has his place in making sure truly innocent people are free. It's when someone starts contributing crap that's not wanted or needed (frivilous lawsuits) that there is an issue.
I enjoy TV and movies. I enjoy theater. They bring value to my life. I enjoy Video Games, too. Do I need recognized names reading the lines? No, but I do expect quality work. It just doesn't have to be from an expensive person.
For a moment, I thought they were talking about this kind of Sentinel...
Shouldn't that be Corinthians, 19th book?
Multiman is Curt Schilling's company, so he did get it. Good!
Runequest was purchased by AH. I had the proof copy of the new edition sitting in my living room. Trust me, they aren't happy they were ready to send it to the publisher when it got canned indefinately.
I was good friends with an AH employee at the time they were bought - from what he said, Hasbro had no real interest in the games that AH owned, but they more wanted the titles to a few very key licenses, and the AH name itself. Axis & Allies is no longer published by Milton Bradley, it's now published by Avalon Hill - although both are owned by Hasbro in the end. They bought AH as a way to market games to a more mature audience, that would see / remember the AH label as adult games, not kiddie games of yore.
A number of titles, including Advanced Squad Leader (ASL), the new edition of Runequest (Which was ready to go to print, but is now collecting dust), and the series of bookslef wargames (Panzer Blitz, Twixt, etc.) are now owened by Hasbro, but are not likely to be re-released. They got what they wanted - the company title & image - and the rest was extra, although unlikely to be used. I'm not sure if any of them are going to be sold / spun off to other companies, there was talk of Curt Shilling purchasing ASL. (Yes, the baseball star - he's a Wargamer and an EQ player.)
Hasbro is a fairly large company - they own most of the major toy companies we recognize - MB, Parker Brothers, Kenner, WotC, TSR, AH, etc. About the only one they don't own is Mattel, which has Hot Wheels and Barbie to keep it going.
this is what the music companies are doing with degraded MP3s at a higher cost per song than the original album.
I've heard people complain for years now that physical CDs are overpriced, as a way to feed corporate coffers. By raising the cost of downloads to make an album more expensive online than in the store, it's a way to drive people to go by the (overpriced) CDs and make them look better in comparison. Even if they kill off the download market, they have succeeded in pushing people towards an overpriced product.
Companies have assetts other than people. Hasbro bought Avalon Hill not for its staff (which were all terminated), but for the brand name and titles that they held. The staff was more of a hinderance, when Hasbro already had all the staff and production facilities it needed, all it wanted was the brand names and rights to all of AH's games. As a result, Hasbro now has two things: All the classic games (Squad Leader, Panzer Blitz, etc.), and the Brand Name (Axis & Alies is now an Avalon Hill game, not Milton Bradley).
The (Old) Republic becomes The Empire. The Rebellion hasn't started (because it has nothing, yet, to rebel against). Dooku is on the side that will become The Empire.
;-)
Minor Clarification - Dooku is on the "rebels" side, even though he's evil and working for Palpatine / Sidious. There's a few people duped into being on the "wrong" side, or who are playing someone else, so you can't really say Dooku is on one side or the other all the way.
In summary:
Senator Palpatine is Darth Sidious, the Big Baddie Boss. While they haven't officially announced this or made the conneciton in 1 & 2, it's clear from watching 5 & 6.
Palpatine / Sidious is playing both sides. He's a nice senator with the best intenitons for the Republic on one side (Palpatine), and the hidden threat (the "Phantom Menace") that is getting everyone to seperate from the Republic on the other (Darth Sidious). End result - with the war, he can grab more power. He forced the vote (through Amadala) that bumped the old leader from the senate, and got himself installed in the spot. Meanwhile, he's aiding the "rebels" (Trade Federation & Seepratists) that are breaking away from the Republic as Sidious.
Count Dooku is evil, but is being played. He thinks he's bringing down a bad thing and helping the good guys by leading the Seperatists, but he's being tricked by Sidious / Palpatine. There's a scene in Ep 2. where he tries to convince Kenobi that he's doing the right thing, and it's clear he's confused. He's a bad guy because he works for Sidious and is attacking the current government, but he thinks he's doing it for the right reasons.
What's coming up (Minor Spoiler if you haven't seen 4, 5, and 6 yet):
Senator Palpatine has already become the leader of the Senate. He will eventually rename it the Empire, and declare himself Emperor. This is backed up by Vader in Episode 4 early on when he says "The Emperor has just dissolved the Imperial Seante, the last remains of the Old Repuplic have been washed away," (or something close) while talking to Leia.
The Clone Army that was made to help the Republic will eventually become the Storm Troopers that serve the Empire.
The Seperatist Movement, once led by Dooku & Grevious, will become the Rebellion. The current Bad Guys will become the Good Guys in 4 thru 6, when it's revealed that the Emire went from good to bad under Palpatine / Sidous.
That should clear it all up.
My guess is that the Secret Service was using Blackberries, which uses encrypted transmissions between the Blackberry server and the device, and even multiple encryptions, if I remember correctly (one for the message, one for the Wireless). I doubt that they were stupid enough to use unencrpyted service, when regular non-Govt. customers can have encryption (We have it here at our job on our BBs). Note that they say "emails" and not "SMS" or "Text Messages."
Speaking as a corporate IT guy (Help Desk / Jr. System Admin), I would love to see some sort of Central Administration that would let me run this on a server, and then run it on client PCs on a regularly scheduled basis.
We have Symantec Anti-Virus 9.0 set up this way, and it's wonderful. Nightly scans of every PC at 3:00 am - always clean, doesn't interrupt the work of our users, no effort on anyone's part except to check the logs. With current spyware solutions, they need to be updated and run manually. SAV claims to check for Spyware, but is not as good as other solutions yet.
There is one key factor here that only applies in MMORPGs, and not Real Life - Griefers are paying customers.
If I was a Griefer, I would probably be annoyed that I was being shut down by an in-game system I was paying real-life cash for. A few loud, public complaints of "Why should I pay for a system that screws me? I'm taking my allmightly dollah somewhere else!" and most corporations will bend and let them continue to Grief.
I play in a lot of Live RPGs (LARPs), and the same thing happens there. The end result is different only in that a majority of the time, the game is run for fun, not profit, so any Griefers get booted by the owners even when they wave their wallet (although sometimes it takes a bit of pressure from the rest of the player base).
As other people have said, it's a fact of (real) life that asshoels exist, and people suck. The thing is, people play games to *avoid* real life and have fun, and are dissapointed when the fantasy they are paying for doesn't meet expecataions or what's on the box.
There are a lot of comments about what a "Frat" is - a bunch of beer-guzzling pig-headed college students is the typical one. But it's a stereotype, and like many stereotypes it has a kernel of truth, but is also wrong in many ways. Having been in one, and almost quitting at a later point in disgust, I've seen both sides of the coin.
The concept behind a Fraternity is just what the name implies - Brotherhood. It's a group of guys that are in the group to support each other through the trials of college (or life in general), and they usually have a founding principal, charter, or ideal that they follow. Some are based on religions, others on more generic creeds, but they usually have a goal or such they are supposed to strive for - Academics, moral character, philanthropy, etc.
Where this all falls apart is the fact that most college students don't quite get it, and they aren't there long enough (4 years) to really learn. They see a group of guys who think like them as drinking buddies, and pay lip service to the charter or ideals as an excuse to party and name-drop. Some of the ideas do still carry through - the idea of Brotherhood carries on as contacts and buddies in the "real world" post-graduation.
A lot of the more negative aspects of "Frats" (as opposed to Fraternities) are offshoots of the idea of brotherhood. Hazing, name-calling, etc. is supposed to make you feel closer to these guys, as you did the same thing they did when they joined - you now have a common experience. The "elitism" factor of "making you cut it to join us" is not in the charter of any group on paper - it's added by the local groups on the side as a way to boost their self esteem.
There are Fraternities out there that aren't the stereotype. Sadly, they are few and far between, at least when I was in college. I joined a Fraternity that did not encourage drinking, and had a decent GPA. The selling point for me was when a visiting girl told me she was safer sleeping at the house, under the brother's protection, than sleeping in her own dorm room.
Sadly, groups like these have to struggle to attract new members, because most incoming kids look for the beer & chicks they expect from stereotypes. In our case, we were looking at becoming financially insolvent unless we got 12 new members one year, and we didn't. We did a second recruitment drive (which nearly killed our grades), and took in 12 new members, but several of them were lacking in character - they were just warm bodies to pay the rent. In retrospect, it was like a bad reality TV show. Within a year, there was no brotherhood left, and the Fraternity collapsed.
That all being said, like any other stereotype (including geeks, nerds, race, and so on), dig a bit before you assume all Frats are drunk meatheads. You may be plesantly surprised what you find. Having seen Animal House before I went to Cornell (Which was 50% Greek while I was there), I was determined not to join... and I did despite my preconceived notions. I have no regrets, I learned a LOT about life by doing so, and I highly recommend at least a thorough looking by any college student.
Just don't live up to the stereotypes, and look behind the curtains that most of them put up to fool you.
Quitting a job because it's overworking you is not that simple. I've been in bad jobs before, and I have quit them to go to better ones, but each time it was a scary step - almost a leap of faith that the new situation would be better than the current one.
What happens if you don't have a new job lined up? I know people that have gone 4+ years in IT without jobs. If you can live in your mom's basement, fine, but if you have a spouse and kids, it's a lot harder. Car payments, Mortgage payments, etc. can wreck your credit rating if you leave too soon, and you can't just say "I quit my job, I can't pay for a while." (Thought - get the spouse on a job as coverage, and have the EA person spend time at home recovering and job hunting, to maintain income in the meantime.)
Quitting a job can have other impacts. When you go to your next interview, "Why did you leave your last job?" "I didn't like the work hours" sounds bad, even if they are inhumane. You are giving the new employer the impression you'll quit if you don't like the conditions.
Loss of Benefits: I don't know about this individual case, but I do know people that can't quit because if they do, they have medical coverage that will evaporate and leave them screwed. Again, if you have a spouse and / or kids, you're not just shooting yourself in the foot, you're unloading the clip in theirs as well.
I wholeheartedly say "If the job sucks, find a new one you like." Note I don't say "Quit." There is a difference. The trick is to find one you can slide into with little disruption; the catch is having the energy to do it while in Crunch Mode. The hardest part of finding a new job is finding the time and energy to do it while surviving the current one, especially if it's as crunchy as EA sounds.
My first thought was that the usual Family Thnaksgiving trip from Philly to Pittsburgh (300 miles) would be done in 2.5 minutes instead of 5 hours. I then realized one could cross the USA coast to coast in under a half hour... that's damn impressive, assuming the heat can be dealt with and speed maintained for that long of a time period.
I have a GRX-500 with the 16" screen. I'm happy with it.
;)
I don't want a lightweight laptop - I got this as a Desktop Replacement. When I take it on the road, I don't plan on using it on the train, or on the bus - I plan on sitting it down on a desk or table, and using it there.
I can see why people would want a smaller laptop. But there are people who want a portable desktop, for use at shows, offsite, etc. where it won't be moved much once it's deployed.
IMO, if I want a very portable PC, I'll use a PDA.
I am in the 'burbs of Philly, where the local Cable Monopoly is Comcast. They have capped uploads at 64K, and downloads, while not bad, are no where near as good as the numbers iA am seeing here. I'm guessing it's traffic and load-sharing, since I live in an area that has a lot of cable modems.
A neighbor upstaird has Earthlink DSL, and can get 1.2MB down / 128K up for $50/Month, and up to 6 IPs. There are some good deals on DSL around, but multiple IPs with those deals are hard to find...
If that is de-regulation, I'm scared.
As for the lame shows thing, I have not had cable TV for over a year now (I belive the quote from Pink Floyd is "Got thirteen channels of sh*t on the T.V. to choose from"). My Comcast @Home Cable Modem still sucks, but it's still cheaper than DSL for the same speeds. Until competition really arrives, I'm stuck with the best of a bad situation.