Of course you haven't heard a politician claim he'd "strip them of any benefits" that would be political suicide. You can instead see it in the initiatives that are put forward (privitization of social security), and the bills that are voted for by Republicans (the medicare bill being a prime example.)
You mean the way of saving for your retirement by investing the stock market? The way that so many of the readers of this site saw their 401k go up in smoke after the dot-com bubble burst? Private investment of Social Security funds is risky. I was listening to an investment show on the radio the other day and one of their analysts said something I had never heard anyone admit to, "well street is very good at figuring out who the smart investors are, and who the stupid investors are, and then treats them accordingly."
You cannot tell me that with that sort of ideology the majority of Americans would be better off with their money privately invested with so many sharks in that investment pool?
Perhaps Bush, with questionable actions of his own, is attempting to put people back in responsible possitions for what they have done. I think he needs to start back here at home, first.
Yeah totally dude! President Bush is definately trying to get people to be responsible for what they've done. Like when Rumsfeld said, "I take full responsibility" for the Abu Gharib torture scandal... and then paid zero price for it. Wow, that's really taking responsiblity for it! Or like when Bush didn't take responsibility for making up info about Weapons Of Mass Destruction, which he said Saddam Huessein had as rational for getting over 950 American soldiers killed, 12000+ injured American soliders, and god only knows how many dead Iraqi civilians (they may be brown, but they are people too, and had dreams, and are now dead.)
Is Bush going to take Responsibility for the lie that Al Qaeda and Saddam Huessein were linked? Is Bush going to take responsibility when one of the "god only knows how many" dead iraqi civilian's relatives joins Al Qaeda and then successfully strikes at US targets?
What exactly does it mean to "take responsibility?" Is it just saying it out loud and then doing absolutely no pennance, and nothing to change the future impact of the negative action you are responsible for? If so, then yes, Bush has really increased the level of "responsibility" in the US government.
They are gay. It doesn't matter if gays are gay because of biological influences, environmental influences, or if they made a choice to be. There are probably people who fall into each of those categories. Ultimately, what does it matter? No law has ever stopped gay men from living out life in gay relationships (in whatever form.) No amount of anti-gay violence has ever stopped gay men from being gay. No therapy has ever worked to make a man straight (desire for homosexual contact still continues, even if behavior is modified.)
When the gay civil rights movements began in the 20th century the laws against gay sex were brutal. For example when American soldiers liberated the Nazi death camps they returned the gay survivors of the camps back to the German prison system because, "they were criminals." Until recent times (and still in some places today) the social stigma for being discovered to have been a homosexual would lose you your job, your family, your home, etc... Ultimately, what it comes down to is that no matter what you do, what you say, or what laws you attempt to inact: gays will always be there. They are adults consenting to relationships (whether short term, or long term) that are worthy of the same level of respect we would afford to all human beings who do not harm others.
Storke victims prefer Bush... the irony is that he would strip them of their healthcare and social security benefits if he could. A lot of young people don't know what it was like before the (rather weak) social safety net was put in place during the depression. My father who began child rearing when he was a bit older, and is in late 70s now imparted the benefit of that knowledge unto me. He says that when he was a kid it was common to see Senior Citizens in the streets and homeless. Back then if you grew too old to work, you had to rely on your children. If you didn't have children, or your children didn't want you, you'd end up homeless.
Today though Social Security goes a long way to preventing that sort of thing from happening. Now the large portion of homeless here in California are the mentally ill. During Ronald Reagan's time as Governor of California he closed down all of the Asylums and just dumped the crazies out into the streets. We've been living with that here in California ever since. It's just typical right-wing nut behaviour though. "Screw everybody who isn't me."
Oh my god!? Are you kidding? That would involve leaving the nice warm glow of my computer monitor. What happens when I walk outside the building and there isn't a cieling anymore? What if I fall off the planet? What then? All because this author didn't realize it was 2004 and not 1944 and expected me to *GASP* write on paper!?
Stop the insanity!
Craigslist, oh how do I love thee? Let me count..
on
Ebay Buys Into Craiglist
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· Score: 2, Informative
I love Craigslist. It has become a very central part of bay area life, especially within San Francisco itself. If you live in SF chances are you found your current residence from an ad listed on craigslist, whether it was for an empty apartment, or one of the bajillion ads for room mates. I know that's how I found my current studio ($820/mo on Market Street, woohoo!!) apartment.
I'm not sure what E-bay would want from it. I understand that they charge for job listings, everything else on the site is free. Plus they are expanding to other cities rapidly. I guess maybe they actually make enough from the job listing ads to support the entire site and the salary of the people who work on it.
i think you are missing the point regardless of being paid salary. you aren't expected to have any of that stuff, and if they do expect that, then they need to at least increase your salary so you can afford the extra expenses they expect you to pick up. your salary is meant to compensate you for your time, you give them a service, they pay you for it. that salary is not meant to pay for work-related expenses. so while a bit more would be expected of someone on salary, it's also not within reason to expect that person to pay for all these work-related items if they normally wouldn't have them anyways.
I think what it comes down to is whether or not you can cancel these services without facing represcussions. If you are unable to employ basic cost-cutting measures like canceling internet service you don't use, or a cell phone service you don't want, then the company should be required to pay those expenses for you. You are not their slave. That is something that is all too often forgotten. We, the techies, did not invent this technology so that we should someday find ourselves enslaved to it.
You might think about the difference between responsibility to my employer and responsibility to myself - lest you be forced to consider responsibility for reporting to the unemployment office.
agreed.
Making yourself comepetive with the services offered by others in your field is what it's all about. If you won't pay for them, someone else might - and then they will be able to provide more feature-rich service than you. They will have greater value to your employer then you (even if they have lesser skills, just because "knowledge" is not so easily visible as "hours worked" on the bottom line).
Really, it doesn't come down to any of those things. Smile alot, be chummy with whoever it is that makes the decision to let you go or keep you, or give you raises, or not to give you raises. Your knowledge set, your skill set, the hours you come in, how little you actually do... none of that will matter as long as you are friends with your boss.
You don't work from home, you don't carry a pager, and you don't give them your cell phone number. If they don't want to pay for the means of contacting you, they can try your answering machine and hope for the best.
Next thing's to work on finding an employer that isn't run by such cheap bastards.
The employer might be of the mistaken opinion that the employee is lucky to have a job. What a lot of companies are experiencing as a result of the C*O's (where * = any letter in the alphabet) thinking this is brain drain. A lot of the smart talent saved money during the boom years. Other smart talent don't feel any need at all to stay with a job they don't like. Other people are compeltely opting out of professional work all togethor.
In fact, there was an article recently in the LA Times (I know, I should have a link, but I don't.) regarding a very high percentage of people under the age of 30 aren't employed, aren't looking for jobs, and are completely happy "opting out." That should be a big red flag to the heads of corporations who continue to lower worker rages while greedily squeezing every ounce of life from those same workers.
I suggest the people at this company do exactly as is stated above. Don't give them your cell number, or any other way of contacting you if they aren't going to pay for it. It is as simple as saying, "I have to pay for the minutes you are using to call me. Therefore, you're not calling me."
Just so you all know the CCNA certification manual (the big thick book) has practice tests that are suspiciously weak. It leaves one who just failed the CCNA exam having passed the practice test the night before feeling a bit burned. It's almost as if Cisco makes more money if you take the test twice.
I worked my summers as a LA county lifeguard up until my last year at university. I got an internship my last year and didn't have any problems getting a job with a major tech company two years ago. I've managed to stay through the down economy with the same company. They've been wonderful, and this job has been wonderful. I often think though that I'd rather be out watching the water and enjoy the warm southern california beaches rather than these cold bay area summer beaches. Fog in summer... who would've thought it.
Boy that flash intro with 4 static images was really worth the download/loading time.
Their blurb reads like toxic corporate MBA talk. "It'll change the world forever, parents will be able to monitor what their children play." blah blah blah.
This is a company which -obviously- doesn't know who it's target audience is. You don't win people over with a cheesy looking computer model of your console. You win them over by showing flashy graphics in your commercials matched with good games.
This company is doomed to go down in flames unless they figure out how to play with the big boys and their big PR companies.
Oh so usefull.
on
Got Sleep?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes, that's right... as computer folk we don't deserve sleep, or time to ones self, or anything that resembles an enjoyable life.
Well, just barely. Half of those responses seemed like he only read the first line and skipped the rest. Talk about vague. I hope Slashdot didn't actually pay this guy anything.
Not to mention that the technology to stop video cameras from recording movies is going to have to be put into every camera, or into every copy of the film, or into every projector.
Guess who is going to have pay the patent fees for this technology? That's right, you and I. If they put it in every camcorder we're going to have to pay the fee everytime we buy a camcorder. If they put it in the films we'll have to pay the fee everytime in movie ticket purchases. And if they put into projectors, same thing.
The web is a public medium. So sorry, but it doens't compare to private property rights. If you put something publicly, unprotected, on the web, it should be legal to access it.
I don't know what the current regulations regarding the.us domain are. Previously the.us domain was a very poorly administered domain. It has primarily only been used for local government pages.
If you don't like when US based sites our US centric then perhaps you should stop reading US based sites. I know, this is a stunning thought... but perhaps you should read news.bbc.co.uk they aren't US-centric. They're UKcentric. Or how about you read Le Monde, they aren't US-centric, in fact, they're french centric. Hmmmm... Well how about you read the Islamic times, they aren't UScentric either.
Wait a second... I'm seeing a crazy pattern here! The sites are centric to where they are based. WILD MAN! FAR OUT!! That's just CRAZY. I bet I could do a doctorate on this wild and crazy idea of mine.
*sheesh* just because you're a non-american doesn't mean you have a monopoly on disliking texans, especially illegitimate Presidents. There are plenty of us here in the states who think Texas should cease to exist, and that President Bush is a man with a very small brain, and a very small diiiiick, and is trying desperatly to prove otherwise.
In the 805 AC we had some guy named Chaun who went by the handle Locutus. Man that guy sucked. He had his own BBS that was known as the worst BBS in the 805. Every board had him black listed. Some boards would let him create an account so that he would post something that would cause everybody to go apesheeznit.
Oh the good old days. I sometimes wonder what happened to some of the more respected 805 BBSers like G.Washington, Crushed Ice, Uncle Ivar (you stupid canadian, how dare you move back to.ca) Oh and the old "ANSi Art Groups" like ACiD and CiA and all the other names spelled with a lower case 'i' in them.
Create your own site then. The.com domain is a United States domain. Just like.co.uk is the biritish equivalent to.com . Stop being such a whiney brat and start your own site if you don't like it.
Besides, the three digit Area code system is unique to North America.
I think he should just quit. What sort of moron (other then the trolls who will respond to this) quits University twice and then asks if he should go back for his trifecta. If I worked under this guy I would quit.
I think the content providers should charge Indian ISPs for giving their users something to look at. In fact, I think Yahoo, and MSN, and any other major site should charge 100x what the ISP asks.
After all, who wants an ISP that bars them from visiting sites?
Slashdot Mirror
Of course you haven't heard a politician claim he'd "strip them of any benefits" that would be political suicide. You can instead see it in the initiatives that are put forward (privitization of social security), and the bills that are voted for by Republicans (the medicare bill being a prime example.)
You mean the way of saving for your retirement by investing the stock market? The way that so many of the readers of this site saw their 401k go up in smoke after the dot-com bubble burst? Private investment of Social Security funds is risky. I was listening to an investment show on the radio the other day and one of their analysts said something I had never heard anyone admit to, "well street is very good at figuring out who the smart investors are, and who the stupid investors are, and then treats them accordingly."
You cannot tell me that with that sort of ideology the majority of Americans would be better off with their money privately invested with so many sharks in that investment pool?
Perhaps Bush, with questionable actions of his own, is attempting to put people back in responsible possitions for what they have done. I think he needs to start back here at home, first.
Yeah totally dude! President Bush is definately trying to get people to be responsible for what they've done. Like when Rumsfeld said, "I take full responsibility" for the Abu Gharib torture scandal... and then paid zero price for it. Wow, that's really taking responsiblity for it! Or like when Bush didn't take responsibility for making up info about Weapons Of Mass Destruction, which he said Saddam Huessein had as rational for getting over 950 American soldiers killed, 12000+ injured American soliders, and god only knows how many dead Iraqi civilians (they may be brown, but they are people too, and had dreams, and are now dead.)
Is Bush going to take Responsibility for the lie that Al Qaeda and Saddam Huessein were linked? Is Bush going to take responsibility when one of the "god only knows how many" dead iraqi civilian's relatives joins Al Qaeda and then successfully strikes at US targets?
What exactly does it mean to "take responsibility?" Is it just saying it out loud and then doing absolutely no pennance, and nothing to change the future impact of the negative action you are responsible for? If so, then yes, Bush has really increased the level of "responsibility" in the US government.
They are gay. It doesn't matter if gays are gay because of biological influences, environmental influences, or if they made a choice to be. There are probably people who fall into each of those categories. Ultimately, what does it matter? No law has ever stopped gay men from living out life in gay relationships (in whatever form.) No amount of anti-gay violence has ever stopped gay men from being gay. No therapy has ever worked to make a man straight (desire for homosexual contact still continues, even if behavior is modified.)
When the gay civil rights movements began in the 20th century the laws against gay sex were brutal. For example when American soldiers liberated the Nazi death camps they returned the gay survivors of the camps back to the German prison system because, "they were criminals." Until recent times (and still in some places today) the social stigma for being discovered to have been a homosexual would lose you your job, your family, your home, etc... Ultimately, what it comes down to is that no matter what you do, what you say, or what laws you attempt to inact: gays will always be there. They are adults consenting to relationships (whether short term, or long term) that are worthy of the same level of respect we would afford to all human beings who do not harm others.
Storke victims prefer Bush... the irony is that he would strip them of their healthcare and social security benefits if he could. A lot of young people don't know what it was like before the (rather weak) social safety net was put in place during the depression. My father who began child rearing when he was a bit older, and is in late 70s now imparted the benefit of that knowledge unto me. He says that when he was a kid it was common to see Senior Citizens in the streets and homeless. Back then if you grew too old to work, you had to rely on your children. If you didn't have children, or your children didn't want you, you'd end up homeless.
Today though Social Security goes a long way to preventing that sort of thing from happening. Now the large portion of homeless here in California are the mentally ill. During Ronald Reagan's time as Governor of California he closed down all of the Asylums and just dumped the crazies out into the streets. We've been living with that here in California ever since. It's just typical right-wing nut behaviour though. "Screw everybody who isn't me."
Tell me about the craigslist/ListFoundation thingy. That sounds like an interesting story.
Oh my god!? Are you kidding? That would involve leaving the nice warm glow of my computer monitor. What happens when I walk outside the building and there isn't a cieling anymore? What if I fall off the planet? What then? All because this author didn't realize it was 2004 and not 1944 and expected me to *GASP* write on paper!?
Stop the insanity!
I love Craigslist. It has become a very central part of bay area life, especially within San Francisco itself. If you live in SF chances are you found your current residence from an ad listed on craigslist, whether it was for an empty apartment, or one of the bajillion ads for room mates. I know that's how I found my current studio ($820/mo on Market Street, woohoo!!) apartment.
I'm not sure what E-bay would want from it. I understand that they charge for job listings, everything else on the site is free. Plus they are expanding to other cities rapidly. I guess maybe they actually make enough from the job listing ads to support the entire site and the salary of the people who work on it.
I think what it comes down to is whether or not you can cancel these services without facing represcussions. If you are unable to employ basic cost-cutting measures like canceling internet service you don't use, or a cell phone service you don't want, then the company should be required to pay those expenses for you. You are not their slave. That is something that is all too often forgotten. We, the techies, did not invent this technology so that we should someday find ourselves enslaved to it.
agreed.
Really, it doesn't come down to any of those things. Smile alot, be chummy with whoever it is that makes the decision to let you go or keep you, or give you raises, or not to give you raises. Your knowledge set, your skill set, the hours you come in, how little you actually do... none of that will matter as long as you are friends with your boss.
The employer might be of the mistaken opinion that the employee is lucky to have a job. What a lot of companies are experiencing as a result of the C*O's (where * = any letter in the alphabet) thinking this is brain drain. A lot of the smart talent saved money during the boom years. Other smart talent don't feel any need at all to stay with a job they don't like. Other people are compeltely opting out of professional work all togethor.
In fact, there was an article recently in the LA Times (I know, I should have a link, but I don't.) regarding a very high percentage of people under the age of 30 aren't employed, aren't looking for jobs, and are completely happy "opting out." That should be a big red flag to the heads of corporations who continue to lower worker rages while greedily squeezing every ounce of life from those same workers.
I suggest the people at this company do exactly as is stated above. Don't give them your cell number, or any other way of contacting you if they aren't going to pay for it. It is as simple as saying, "I have to pay for the minutes you are using to call me. Therefore, you're not calling me."
Just so you all know the CCNA certification manual (the big thick book) has practice tests that are suspiciously weak. It leaves one who just failed the CCNA exam having passed the practice test the night before feeling a bit burned. It's almost as if Cisco makes more money if you take the test twice.
I completley agree with you.
I worked my summers as a LA county lifeguard up until my last year at university. I got an internship my last year and didn't have any problems getting a job with a major tech company two years ago. I've managed to stay through the down economy with the same company. They've been wonderful, and this job has been wonderful. I often think though that I'd rather be out watching the water and enjoy the warm southern california beaches rather than these cold bay area summer beaches. Fog in summer... who would've thought it.
Boy that flash intro with 4 static images was really worth the download/loading time.
Their blurb reads like toxic corporate MBA talk. "It'll change the world forever, parents will be able to monitor what their children play." blah blah blah.
This is a company which -obviously- doesn't know who it's target audience is. You don't win people over with a cheesy looking computer model of your console. You win them over by showing flashy graphics in your commercials matched with good games.
This company is doomed to go down in flames unless they figure out how to play with the big boys and their big PR companies.
Yes, that's right... as computer folk we don't deserve sleep, or time to ones self, or anything that resembles an enjoyable life.
Makes sense.
Well, just barely. Half of those responses seemed like he only read the first line and skipped the rest. Talk about vague. I hope Slashdot didn't actually pay this guy anything.
Not to mention that the technology to stop video cameras from recording movies is going to have to be put into every camera, or into every copy of the film, or into every projector.
Guess who is going to have pay the patent fees for this technology? That's right, you and I. If they put it in every camcorder we're going to have to pay the fee everytime we buy a camcorder. If they put it in the films we'll have to pay the fee everytime in movie ticket purchases. And if they put into projectors, same thing.
The web is a public medium. So sorry, but it doens't compare to private property rights. If you put something publicly, unprotected, on the web, it should be legal to access it.
I don't know what the current regulations regarding the .us domain are. Previously the .us domain was a very poorly administered domain. It has primarily only been used for local government pages.
If you don't like when US based sites our US centric then perhaps you should stop reading US based sites. I know, this is a stunning thought... but perhaps you should read news.bbc.co.uk they aren't US-centric. They're UKcentric. Or how about you read Le Monde, they aren't US-centric, in fact, they're french centric. Hmmmm... Well how about you read the Islamic times, they aren't UScentric either.
Wait a second... I'm seeing a crazy pattern here! The sites are centric to where they are based. WILD MAN! FAR OUT!! That's just CRAZY. I bet I could do a doctorate on this wild and crazy idea of mine.
*sheesh* just because you're a non-american doesn't mean you have a monopoly on disliking texans, especially illegitimate Presidents. There are plenty of us here in the states who think Texas should cease to exist, and that President Bush is a man with a very small brain, and a very small diiiiick, and is trying desperatly to prove otherwise.
I bet you were ELiTE just like me! hehe.
I actually miss the lame ANSi art. It was fun to work with. Plus the dark colors that most ELiTE boards used kinda added to that underground feel.
This is also the United States. You might be labeled an Enemy Combatant and denied your constitutionally garunteed rights.
In the 805 AC we had some guy named Chaun who went by the handle Locutus. Man that guy sucked. He had his own BBS that was known as the worst BBS in the 805. Every board had him black listed. Some boards would let him create an account so that he would post something that would cause everybody to go apesheeznit.
.ca) Oh and the old "ANSi Art Groups" like ACiD and CiA and all the other names spelled with a lower case 'i' in them.
Oh the good old days. I sometimes wonder what happened to some of the more respected 805 BBSers like G.Washington, Crushed Ice, Uncle Ivar (you stupid canadian, how dare you move back to
Create your own site then. The .com domain is a United States domain. Just like .co.uk is the biritish equivalent to .com . Stop being such a whiney brat and start your own site if you don't like it.
Besides, the three digit Area code system is unique to North America.
I think he should just quit. What sort of moron (other then the trolls who will respond to this) quits University twice and then asks if he should go back for his trifecta. If I worked under this guy I would quit.
I think the content providers should charge Indian ISPs for giving their users something to look at. In fact, I think Yahoo, and MSN, and any other major site should charge 100x what the ISP asks.
After all, who wants an ISP that bars them from visiting sites?