>>That does not forbid selling them together, but it also under the laws of MOST European countries make it legally questionable to require a customer to buy them together.
It's there for a reason: We actually care about the consumers rights, and companies better accept if they want access to our markets. Experience shows that not only is this good for consumers, but it's also good for the market as it encourages unhindered competition.
Does this mean that Apple sells bare-bones Macs in France? Is their EULA stating that Mac OS/X must only run on Apple hardware invalid?
What's to stop them positioning Windows as a "Free bonus", and giving it a value of $0? Sure, you can select not to have it, but there's no financial benefit.
If they're not charging the customer for it in the first place, then the customer cannot expect a refund.
They didn't collect any details about me other than my signature on the form - it was basically to quantify the number of people refusing the scan. This is how they get statistics like "90% of people preferred the scan to a hand search", without saying that nobody was actually told they had an option in the first place.
Some other post said that they now have a sign up - but it definately wasn't there when I went through. I sure hope it's a prominent sign...
So, 15 years down the line as technology progresses... you'd rather submit to an anal probe which can scan your brainwaves in order to determine if you're a terrorist or not, than to sit through a 30-minute interrogation?
The easy path is one that leads to losing all your rights. If nobody fights for them, or thinks it's worth fighting for (despite personal inconvenience), then it's game over.
Yes - but is also needs to be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR to passengers that they have the option to opt out too! I had this experience in London Heathrow - they didn't give me a choice, until I asked if I must do it... after a few minutes of avoiding the question, they sheepishly admitted that I didn't have to.
People are often afraid of challenging any sort of authority these days - for fear of reprisal. That's unacceptable. You shouldn't be afraid to ask questions, and shouldn't be labeled a terrorist for doing so either!
I had this happen at London Heathrow. I was selected for secondary scanning, and directed to the mm-wave device. The operator was sitting in a booth right beside the machine, but only he could see the screen.
The thing that really annoyed me is that I wasn't given a choice - simply told to go through this device. There was no explanation of what it was, or what it would do, only that "the amount of radiation is about the same as flying for an additional 5 minutes at altitude in a plane". However, when I asked the simple question "do I have to?", they sheepishly admitted that I did not. I signed a form saying that I didn't accept it, and they walked me to the front of the line for normal security!
So, by saying "no", I actually saved about 20 minutes in line.
My advice - REFUSE to participate in invasive scans like this. If people accept these new intrusions like sheep, it'll just keep getting worse.
I guess I'm screwed if I want to write an application just for my own use? The choice seems to be: write it and distribute it to everyone, or get stuffed.
Hmmm... iHacking we will go, iHacking we will go.......
THey have shipping costs as well, which are not charged onto the consumer... if you take this interpretation, they need to include that in their pricing too.
my thoughts exactly. Most laser printers and copiers already insert a watermark for traceability if they are used dor cointerfitting. Its easy to do and almost undetectable. I wouldn't trust such a ballot to be secret.
However, where did they get the database of images from? If they pulled the content from the web, certainly there are copyright issues (at least if they commercialize such an engine including that database). It might be hard to tell where the source came from, but if they're profiting off the use of my imagery, I'd expect a cut.
I have developed such a system myself, and have it mounted in my car. I spend most of my days driving randomly around the city, and have developed quite a good databse of where cars were at specific dates and times. I post this information freely on the internet at http://www.fakestory.com/
Now - how would people use this information?
Well, the police could go back through it when a crime is committed, and then harass anyone that was seen in the neighbourhood of the crime within 2 hours of it happening. This would be "pre-surveilence" of people who should be presumed innocent. Even though the database doesn't prove any connection to the crime, it'll certainly make life hell for anyone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even if a crime is only reported 3 years from now, they'll be able to go back and check if you were in the area.
Your wife could also use it to see if you actually did attend that Marketing seminar in Albequreque last week... or if you spent the weekend with your mistress upstate instead.
Your insurance company could use it against you too - parking your car in high-crime areas too often? How about your next potential employer - does he like the fact that you have parked near the last 3 anti-war rallys, or were seen near an abortion clinic last week?
So - the question becomes; what's the difference with me doing this personally, versus the police doing it? Certainly I could argue that anything done in public and plain view is "public information"... nothing that people couldn't gather by themselves perfectly legally. Where does it cross the line? If the police do this, what checks and balances are in place to ensure THEY don't cross the line, and that the information is not kept or used outside of accepted applications? Keeping positive-hit information only from a "hit list" of _already_ active cases would be acceptable to me. ANything that surveils people who are not wanted for specific reasons at the time of the information capture is NOT acceptable.
I'm a Canadian that used to live in the USA. One of the things that always amazed me is how your health insurance can obligate you to stay working for a company.
Essentially, once you're diagnosed with a disease or condition, it's impossible to change to another provider because they won't cover pre-existing conditions. This means that if you leave a job (or are fired), you have to personally keep paying very high rates to your old company's provider in order to keep insurance. Your new employer (if any) will usually not take on those costs, because they have their own provider and plan - which you don't qualify for due to the pre-existing condition. It's a vicious circle.
However, I lived in Massachusetts as well, and I did like some aspects of the co-pay system there. In Canada, anyone can go to the doctor whenever they like, and it's free. So, you get mothers dragging their kids to the doctor every time they sneeze, and all kinds of other useless visits to hospitals and so forth. Having even a token co-pay (exempted for those below poverty) reduces needless visits. I think most visits on my plan in the USA were $10 or something, which is enough.
So - my ideal world would be the Canadian system, plus a small co-pay. Unfortunately most of Canada's best doctors move to the USA so they can get rich instead.:(
Behind every Marketing person with an idea, there is a programmer that has to implement it. I don't think you can blame the technical issues you quoted on bad marketing... just poor programming.
Yes, I'm in Marketing... and yes, I also program (semi-professionally). However, I realize that I am not the person best qualified for doing "mission-critical" projects like that (mission-critical to a Marketing program, in this case).
Well, "retirement age" is just a reflection of what point in your life you become:
1) able to financially support yourself for the rest of your life without continuing to work, and
2) possibly no longer valuable in the workforce (i.e. too expensive for the quality/quantity of work you can contribute)
Living longer would mean you need more money to support yourself in retirement, or that you need to delay retiring. The second point depends on what health state (and mental state) you're in at an older age.
Personally, I plan to retire as soon as possible - but there's no way I could support myself and wife/etc. for 80+ years on what I've saved to date!
>> During the trial at least, only SMS, MMS, and GPRS (data) traffic will be allowed; voice calls will be blocked.
Having data/sms access would be nice, but I've always thought that having voice access would be very disturbing. The last thing I need is to spend an overnight flight listening to the knob next to me jabber on his phone the whole time.
If they do enable this in a wider scale, I would hope they continue to block voice calls.
Non-compete agreements are tenuous at best, and very difficult to enforce. Essentially, in most regions in North America at least, you cannot lawfully stop someone from gainful employment.
In most cases, the ONLY way to ensure the effectiveness of a non-compete is to continue paying the person for the full term of the non-compete. I.e., if you don't want me to work for a competitor for the next 12 months, you have to pay me for the next 12 months instead.
Now - you CAN legally bind the person from not sharing confidential information or inside understanding of your business... but proving that is much tougher.
This is not a legal opinion (IANAL), but it IS a summary of legal advice was given to my wife (HR Manager) regarding employees of her company leaving.
I had to do this a while back on a reinstall, and was all prepared to be the "bullying customer"... then all the steam was let out of me when they just said OK, here it is.
Besides the annoying fact that I had to call to activate something that should have been automatic (or non-existant actually), it was very simple. Phoning people should not be a scary exercise for MOST people.
Add dual monitors to your setup, and you'll REALLY be blown away. I'm running the 24" iMac, with a 17" flat screen hooked up on the side. OSX is running full-screen on the iMac, and W2k is running full-screen on the external flat screen. It's like having to computers for the price of one, with a shared keyboard and mouse. Bootcamp took the risk out of going to Mac, but Parallels made it sweet. I can't give up Windows 100%, so it's there whenever I want it. But truthfully, 95% of what I do is on the Mac only (unless you count running the Windows screensaver).
Slashdot Mirror
>>That does not forbid selling them together, but it also under the laws of MOST European countries make it legally questionable to require a customer to buy them together.
It's there for a reason: We actually care about the consumers rights, and companies better accept if they want access to our markets. Experience shows that not only is this good for consumers, but it's also good for the market as it encourages unhindered competition.
Does this mean that Apple sells bare-bones Macs in France? Is their EULA stating that Mac OS/X must only run on Apple hardware invalid?
MadCow.
What's to stop them positioning Windows as a "Free bonus", and giving it a value of $0? Sure, you can select not to have it, but there's no financial benefit.
If they're not charging the customer for it in the first place, then the customer cannot expect a refund.
MadCow.
They didn't collect any details about me other than my signature on the form - it was basically to quantify the number of people refusing the scan. This is how they get statistics like "90% of people preferred the scan to a hand search", without saying that nobody was actually told they had an option in the first place.
Some other post said that they now have a sign up - but it definately wasn't there when I went through. I sure hope it's a prominent sign...
MadCow.
So, 15 years down the line as technology progresses... you'd rather submit to an anal probe which can scan your brainwaves in order to determine if you're a terrorist or not, than to sit through a 30-minute interrogation?
The easy path is one that leads to losing all your rights. If nobody fights for them, or thinks it's worth fighting for (despite personal inconvenience), then it's game over.
MadCow.
Yes - but is also needs to be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR to passengers that they have the option to opt out too! I had this experience in London Heathrow - they didn't give me a choice, until I asked if I must do it... after a few minutes of avoiding the question, they sheepishly admitted that I didn't have to.
People are often afraid of challenging any sort of authority these days - for fear of reprisal. That's unacceptable. You shouldn't be afraid to ask questions, and shouldn't be labeled a terrorist for doing so either!
MadCow.
I had this happen at London Heathrow. I was selected for secondary scanning, and directed to the mm-wave device. The operator was sitting in a booth right beside the machine, but only he could see the screen.
The thing that really annoyed me is that I wasn't given a choice - simply told to go through this device. There was no explanation of what it was, or what it would do, only that "the amount of radiation is about the same as flying for an additional 5 minutes at altitude in a plane". However, when I asked the simple question "do I have to?", they sheepishly admitted that I did not. I signed a form saying that I didn't accept it, and they walked me to the front of the line for normal security!
So, by saying "no", I actually saved about 20 minutes in line.
My advice - REFUSE to participate in invasive scans like this. If people accept these new intrusions like sheep, it'll just keep getting worse.
MadCow.
I guess I'm screwed if I want to write an application just for my own use? The choice seems to be: write it and distribute it to everyone, or get stuffed.
Hmmm... iHacking we will go, iHacking we will go.......
MadCow
>>For an additional $5000 the car comes equipped with a politician and a special adapter to route all the hot air into the tank.
:)
That's a rip off - around here, you can buy a politician for a lot less than $5000.
MadCow.
What about brick-and-mortar stores?
THey have shipping costs as well, which are not charged onto the consumer... if you take this interpretation, they need to include that in their pricing too.
MadCow.
and that proves that it will take time to get used to typing on an itouch :)
my thoughts exactly. Most laser printers and copiers already insert a watermark for traceability if they are used dor cointerfitting. Its easy to do and almost undetectable. I wouldn't trust such a ballot to be secret.
Madcow.
There is a new meaning to "I have a burning sensation when I pee..."
MadCow
However, where did they get the database of images from? If they pulled the content from the web, certainly there are copyright issues (at least if they commercialize such an engine including that database). It might be hard to tell where the source came from, but if they're profiting off the use of my imagery, I'd expect a cut.
It would not seem to me to fall under fair use...
MadCow.
I have developed such a system myself, and have it mounted in my car. I spend most of my days driving randomly around the city, and have developed quite a good databse of where cars were at specific dates and times. I post this information freely on the internet at http://www.fakestory.com/
Now - how would people use this information?
Well, the police could go back through it when a crime is committed, and then harass anyone that was seen in the neighbourhood of the crime within 2 hours of it happening. This would be "pre-surveilence" of people who should be presumed innocent. Even though the database doesn't prove any connection to the crime, it'll certainly make life hell for anyone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even if a crime is only reported 3 years from now, they'll be able to go back and check if you were in the area.
Your wife could also use it to see if you actually did attend that Marketing seminar in Albequreque last week... or if you spent the weekend with your mistress upstate instead.
Your insurance company could use it against you too - parking your car in high-crime areas too often? How about your next potential employer - does he like the fact that you have parked near the last 3 anti-war rallys, or were seen near an abortion clinic last week?
So - the question becomes; what's the difference with me doing this personally, versus the police doing it? Certainly I could argue that anything done in public and plain view is "public information"... nothing that people couldn't gather by themselves perfectly legally. Where does it cross the line? If the police do this, what checks and balances are in place to ensure THEY don't cross the line, and that the information is not kept or used outside of accepted applications? Keeping positive-hit information only from a "hit list" of _already_ active cases would be acceptable to me. ANything that surveils people who are not wanted for specific reasons at the time of the information capture is NOT acceptable.
MadCow.
>> Missouri Institute of Science and Technology, or MUST for short
:)
If THAT is how you spell or make acronyms in Missouri, I'd be looking out of state for school too.
MadCow.
I'm a Canadian that used to live in the USA. One of the things that always amazed me is how your health insurance can obligate you to stay working for a company.
:(
Essentially, once you're diagnosed with a disease or condition, it's impossible to change to another provider because they won't cover pre-existing conditions. This means that if you leave a job (or are fired), you have to personally keep paying very high rates to your old company's provider in order to keep insurance. Your new employer (if any) will usually not take on those costs, because they have their own provider and plan - which you don't qualify for due to the pre-existing condition. It's a vicious circle.
However, I lived in Massachusetts as well, and I did like some aspects of the co-pay system there. In Canada, anyone can go to the doctor whenever they like, and it's free. So, you get mothers dragging their kids to the doctor every time they sneeze, and all kinds of other useless visits to hospitals and so forth. Having even a token co-pay (exempted for those below poverty) reduces needless visits. I think most visits on my plan in the USA were $10 or something, which is enough.
So - my ideal world would be the Canadian system, plus a small co-pay. Unfortunately most of Canada's best doctors move to the USA so they can get rich instead.
MadCow.
Behind every Marketing person with an idea, there is a programmer that has to implement it. I don't think you can blame the technical issues you quoted on bad marketing... just poor programming.
Yes, I'm in Marketing... and yes, I also program (semi-professionally). However, I realize that I am not the person best qualified for doing "mission-critical" projects like that (mission-critical to a Marketing program, in this case).
MadCow.
Well, "retirement age" is just a reflection of what point in your life you become:
1) able to financially support yourself for the rest of your life without continuing to work, and
2) possibly no longer valuable in the workforce (i.e. too expensive for the quality/quantity of work you can contribute)
Living longer would mean you need more money to support yourself in retirement, or that you need to delay retiring. The second point depends on what health state (and mental state) you're in at an older age.
Personally, I plan to retire as soon as possible - but there's no way I could support myself and wife/etc. for 80+ years on what I've saved to date!
MadCow.
It sounds like a perfect approach. :)
MadCow.
>> During the trial at least, only SMS, MMS, and GPRS (data) traffic will be allowed; voice calls will be blocked.
Having data/sms access would be nice, but I've always thought that having voice access would be very disturbing. The last thing I need is to spend an overnight flight listening to the knob next to me jabber on his phone the whole time.
If they do enable this in a wider scale, I would hope they continue to block voice calls.
MadCow.
This would be handled very simply: a subpoena for the source code. It's called "Discovery" for a reason.
MadCow.
Non-compete agreements are tenuous at best, and very difficult to enforce. Essentially, in most regions in North America at least, you cannot lawfully stop someone from gainful employment.
In most cases, the ONLY way to ensure the effectiveness of a non-compete is to continue paying the person for the full term of the non-compete. I.e., if you don't want me to work for a competitor for the next 12 months, you have to pay me for the next 12 months instead.
Now - you CAN legally bind the person from not sharing confidential information or inside understanding of your business... but proving that is much tougher.
This is not a legal opinion (IANAL), but it IS a summary of legal advice was given to my wife (HR Manager) regarding employees of her company leaving.
MadCow.
I had to do this a while back on a reinstall, and was all prepared to be the "bullying customer"... then all the steam was let out of me when they just said OK, here it is.
Besides the annoying fact that I had to call to activate something that should have been automatic (or non-existant actually), it was very simple. Phoning people should not be a scary exercise for MOST people.
MadCow.
If we're burning dinosaurs in our fuel tanks (fossil fuels), then what were the dinosaurs burning in theirs? :)
Add dual monitors to your setup, and you'll REALLY be blown away. I'm running the 24" iMac, with a 17" flat screen hooked up on the side. OSX is running full-screen on the iMac, and W2k is running full-screen on the external flat screen. It's like having to computers for the price of one, with a shared keyboard and mouse. Bootcamp took the risk out of going to Mac, but Parallels made it sweet. I can't give up Windows 100%, so it's there whenever I want it. But truthfully, 95% of what I do is on the Mac only (unless you count running the Windows screensaver).
MadCow.