Act like a professional to be treated like one...
on
Helping Your Ex-Employer?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I've seen the posts saying 'invoice them.' Don't. Invoicing them at some rate you dreamt up and to which they did not agree is simply unprofessional. If you want some compensation for this, I suggest that you contact your ex-boss, for whom you did this favor, and ask her for a letter of recommendation.
Should this happen again in the future, express your gratitude for being offered the work and then politely inform them of your rate (or a flat fee). Spell out any minimums (e.g., 4 or 8 hour minimum), whether the billing starts from the time you begin work or if it is portal-to-portal (i.e., includes travel time), and payment schedule (e.g., downpayments, terms -- like net 30, payment in advance, etc.). If they balk at reasonable terms, then be polite but firm and tell them that you cannot accept the work.
If you do your ex-employer a favor, then you should make sure that it was you that decided to. I have, on occasion, sent ex-employers e-mails warning them of bugs and product updates for systems that I set up while under their employ. I don't expect to be paid for that in anything other than good will.
like if you get slapped, turn the other cheek, as Jesus once said
Jesus's situation would have been more analogous if Pontius Pilate had demanded that Jesus do unpaid work for him after the crucifixion. Besides, Jesus was not always in fear of losing his job to a cut-rate, H1-B messiah brought in from some third-world country. He'd have gotten pretty tired of being slapped around had he been in the computer industry.
$1 billion gotten illegitimately?? Holy crap that's a lot of money. And no one is going to jail!!!
No. They fall under the current administration's protective "big business" umbrella. If you or I stole a Sony Walkman from Circuit City, we'd probably end up in jail, but if a business tries to bilk people out of $1 billion, they get to keep half of it. Just look at the wrist-slap that the Bush administration gave Microsoft for monopolistic practices that destroyed competitors and cost consumers billions of dollars. Until we have a "regime change", this kind of thing is bound to continue.
What a big stinkin' pile. The universities aren't stifling "critical thinking", they are rescuing their bandwidth from the pr0n-swappers.
Since when did the RIAA give a damn about porn swapping? The letter from EPIC was a direct response to an RIAA letter which encouraged universities to become enforcers for the RIAA's copyrights. If universities were having such horrible bandwidth usage by porn-swappers, then they would not need the RIAA to encourage them to shut off P2P services, would they?
Broadband in this context is DSL, which is a consumer service - typically upstream speed is much lower than downstream, and contention is between 20:1 and 50:1.
Verizon offers a 1.5 Mbps downstream and 768 Kbps upstream DSL service. That's more than adequate for many small businesses. I'm not saying that it will handle ebay, but an office with a handful of lawyers or realtors is well-served by that. So is one that has a web-based mail server or some other low-bandwidth type of web content. When the site typically has two or fewer users, it'll do fine.
It might be suitable for connecting an office that downloads content and only sends email back, but it's not suitable for anyone running a business-critical server.
It depends on the traffic. The fellow I know sells a high-dollar, specialized network component. The number of hits he gets per day is measured in the tens, not hundreds. Fast DSL is more than adequate for his needs.
For many businesses the important thing is an always-on broadband connection, not a quality-of-service guaranteed, high-dollar, T-x connection. They need more speed than ISDN and dial-up, but not the type of connection enjoyed by Walmart, General Motors, or Sears.
I find it hard to believe that simply because these people are "professional editors" it means that they can't ever make mistakes in editing. Technical terms, jargon or slang may be mis- interpreted fairly easily and "corrected" to a word or phrase that means something completely different than what the original author meant. additionally the bias of the editor may enter into their "corrections", changing the whole meaning of the article entirely.
There is no doubt that such errors occasionally happen. Just as doctors mis-diagnose patients -- and sometimes get sued. Both editors and doctors must exercise due diligence in their work.
i don't question your knowledge in this matter as much as i would question any publication that would go around purposely changing articles and misquoting writers without notifying the reader of those changes.
Most publications do serve notice that they reserve the right to edit and abridge reader submissions. The majority of papers quietly fix errors of punctuation (e.g., "its" vs. "it's"), spelling, and grammar (e.g., "they has" vs. "they have"). If a reputable paper is shown that their editing resulted in a change of meaning, then they will print a correction.
Having seen what passes for writing by most people, trust me when I tell you that you would not want to read unedited letters to the editors.
(The first of 3 times you ignored an obvious joke.)
I just didn't get your jokes. Obviously, we have different senses of humor.
I'll let you check your dictionary to see that printed means "created by pressing or stamping onto a surface".
Dictionaries are notoriously out of date when it comes to usage related to computers. This is just one example. But I will try to use the phrase "the written word" in the future.
The fact that both "one-way" and "one-time" are dictionary words doesn't remove the unhypenated forms from valid English.
Your use was improper. You should always hyphenate between two adjectives when they come before a noun and act as a single idea. See the grammarbook.com.
But you missed the point: The edits show that one can correct errors without misrepresenting what the writer said.
This is akin to Dan Quayle's infamous potato/potatoe spelling-bee incident.
Don't be so hard on yourself. You just failed to capitalize and puntuate properly.
It was a joke. (Finding the 3rd one is up to you. Don't waste your time on it, though)
But what if the third one was actually humorous and I miss out?
Slashdot already has a reputation for lagging in articles, they can't afford to delay it further by more editing.
I have submitted stories and hours and hours go by before they are reviewed. Taking two minutes to edit three or four sentences isn't going to make a substantive difference in timeliness.
I just wish the bulk of readers didn't have to be burdened with language trivia, educational as it may be.
Then perhaps you should stop contributing to the "language trivia." But I'm willing to have the last word if you're willing to let me.;-)
Although I think fmaxwell is wrong (and intentionally antagonistic, a.k.a. trolling) about this whole issue of editing he is correct that papers and magazines often edit letters to the editor for content or grammar.
I'm not intentionally antagonistic or "trolling". I'm just an abrasive, opinionated person that does not give a rat's ass whether someone likes what I say. But I do appreciate you giving me credit where you felt it due. Thanks.
I strongly hope that you don't send Slashdot stories to your printer!
"The printed word" refers to any published, written communication, whether on a website, a book, a flyer, or a newspaper.
But Slashdot's submitters and "editors" don't have a collaborative relationship. It's a one-way, one-time process. If any "editing" has been done to the post (aside from inserting parenthetical comments and deciding where to break it off), then the submitter's words have been misrepresented.
Untrue. It is not a misrepresentation to correct obvious errors. For example, I corrected each item shown above in boldface. None of the changes misrepresented your words.
That the targeted site is non-English, and we should expect similar minor translation errors ahead.
How can we infer anything about the site based on the submitter's command of English? The submitter is a reader of Slashdot. Should we assume that Slashdot is a "non-English" site?
"How looks" is an archaic, poetic idiom. To "cultured" readers, it evokes romantic odes to the beauty of a comely woman.
So you feel it proper to evoke "romantic odes to the beauty of a comely woman" when describing your computer room? You clearly need to get out more.
Regardless of the accuracy of those interpretations, they're between the writer and readers. Editors shouldn't interfere.
Then I recommend that you stop reading almost all major, mainstream periodicals because the editors regularly edit readers' letters for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and length prior to printing them.
P.S. to moderators: Comments related directly to the presentation of the story are not "offtopic", "troll", or "flamebait."
i should hope that they don't edit letters to the editor.
They do.
if they do, they have to send them back to the writer and get their approval before publishing those letters.
Untrue. The publishing industry would grind to a halt if the editor had to send back everything for the approval of the writer. In fact, most publications even edit paid authors without the author being able to review the changes. An editor of a periodical cannot afford the time to edit an article/letter for print and then send it back to the author for approval. Neither can they allow an author to hold the article hostage until/unless the editor agrees to relinquish editorial control to the author.
what if they mis- interpret what the original writer was trying to say? that would be libel, and they'd get sued left and right.
That's why they hire professional editors. They don't make that kind of mistake and, hence, are not "sued left and right."
I'm not making any of this up. I've been published in periodicals and know what I am talking about.
It's also amazing how people can't differentiate between a submissions' text and a slashdot editor's text.
It's even more amazing that there are people who do not understand the difference between an the job functions of a writer and an editor. One aspect of an editor's job is to assure that his/her publication does not have errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling -- even for reader-submitted text. And I was fully aware of the fact that the writing in question was submitted by a Slashdot reader.
Submissions are generally not edited for content, grammar or spelling and I think that is good policy.
I do not. Any reputable newspaper or periodical corrects such errors in reader-submitted materials, for the benefit of both the readers and the writers. Do you really believe that the letters to the editor of all major newspapers are received error-free as they appear in print? It is only when the publication is trying to make a point of the submitter's stupidity/ignorance that they leave errors in place, complete with the usual "[sic]" next to each one. If an editor corrects the work of professional writers, why should that benefit be denied a reader who submits something for print?
If you're so smart then why aren't you doing something better with your time?
Were I not opposed to ad-hominem attacks, I could ask the same of you. But to answer your question, I believe that promoting high standards for the printed word is a valuable way to use one's spare time.
do we expect the editors to pick on non-native speakers of English while sifting through submissions?
No, we expect them to quietly fix any errors so that the submitter is not presented in a bad light. Do you think that the letters to the editor of Road & Track, The New York Times or any other respected, mainstream publication are published unedited? Of course not.
How about if we tell you what our rooms look like? If Slashdot editors did any less work, the Slashdot offices could be mistaken for a hospital coma ward.
I don't see how broadband would boost the economy, except for creating (likely not too many) jobs in the broadband sector.
Many non-tech businesses require broadband Internet access. For example, a retailer of outdoor apparel might want to set up a modest e-commerce site. A patent attorney might need to do online patent searches. I know someone that moved from Missouri because he runs a small business and could not get broadband. He is now in Northern, VA.
Broadband is like electricity and running water for most businesses today. It's not a luxury. It's a basic utility that they need in order to function.
My original comment was related to why Tvio and ReplayTV do not have market penetration. My opinion was that the price is too high.
And I said that it was not, showing that VCRs, despite their more limited features, had better market penetration at higher price points. I also pointed out that your estimates of the price for a TiVo unit were between 33% and 100% higher than the actual price. Rather than address that, you elected to make comments about your perceptions of my lifestyle claiming that I "spend lots of [my] excess money and time" watching TV.
In response, you have attacked me, the way I raise my kids, the way I spend my free time
Please. You attacked me with claims that "TV watching" was some all-consuming "hobby" for me. You implied that I was a dolt who did nothing but sit around watching TV all day and that you were somehow morally and intellectually superior because of your wholesome family activities. You then went on to proclaim how laughable it was for me to suggest sitting down with a child and watching an educational program (rather than taking them to Disney World).
You will also note that I became decidedly mor "hostile" after you decided to mark me as a "foe" for daring to disagree with you.
and (in another post) insinuated that the only reason I take my kids camping is for incestious purposes.
That is untrue. In my mean-spirited brand of humor, I suggested that a school counselor might become suspicious of "bad touching" if a family camped together every single weekend. I never once claimed or implied that you were actually engaged in any type of sexual behavior with your child.
Maybe you should take the rest of the day off?
You'll be happy to know that I have nothing at all scheduled for the day. So we can spend quality time together!
Then why do you insist on focusing solely on the ability to skip commercials ("Being able to automatically skip commercials versus pressing a fast forward button is not worth the difference in price to me")?
I would also be willing to buy either one. Except, that price thing keeps getting in the way...
I could better understand that when you thought that TiVos were "$400, $500, $600", but they are $300 for a brand-new 60 hour unit (and a lot less for a used one). As I said before, I used to spend that much for stereo components in 1979 when I was a teenager working in a retail store in a mall for minimum wage.
Actually, you were the one who began comparing the vcr to the Tivo/ReplayTV units. I just continued with it.
I compared prices of VCRs to TiVo units. I refuted your argument that TiVo units are overly expensive by showing that VCRs were significantly more expensive at the time that they soared in popularity -- despite being so much more limited.
Even if you had not said you had no kids, it would be very obvious from this comment. I am sure all the other parents in this forums got a lot of amusement from this.
While it may be obvious to you that I don't have kids, it is even more obvious to me that I'd do a better job raising kids than you do -- despite your sanctimonous attitude of superiority.
Just try making a 7-year-old kid sit thru documentarys[sic] on these 3 channnels. Then tell the kid, he/she can never watch cartoons. Next explain to this child why Disney World is an evil empire and he/ she will never go there. Good Luck!.
You seem to feel that there are two extremes between which a parent must choose:
1. Indulge your child's every whim 2. Refuse to let them ever do anything that they want while forcing them to watch documentaries aimed at adults
Were you even aware that The Discovery Channel produces Discovery Kids aimed at children? Did you know that National Geographic produces educational shows for kids? Did you know that The History Channel has many shows appropriate for children? Or were you at an amusement park stuffing cotton candy into your kid when those shows were on? I never went to Disney World and never wanted to. My parents took me places like The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and Natural History Museum. They bought me books about science. When I was in elementary school, I was excited about the Apollo missions and put together a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about them. I remember the excitement of getting a microscope, telescope, and electronics set -- in addition to the now long-forgotten plastic toys. I was more interested in dinosaurs and rockets than in seeing some adult dressed up as an 8-foot tall mouse. (And I did not claim that children should never watch cartoons. In fact, I pointed out that a TiVo could let them skip the myriad ads aimed at children during such shows.)
There is more to raising a child than amusing them. Part of a parent's responsibility is to educate their children and nurture interests in science, history, and the arts. There is a balance one must strike between entertaining the child and educating them. If you can't afford a TiVo and a trip to Disney World, then buy the TiVo and take the kid to a local carnival. Your child will benefit much more from year-round access to intelligent, educational kids' shows than from a vacation to Disney World.
You're right. However, my family's quality of life is not related in any way to the quality of TV viewing we do.
That's very sad. With all of the intelligent, high-quality, entertaining, and educational programming available, it's really a shame that you'd sooner take your kids to Disney World. If your attitude is commonplace, it would explain a lot about falling science test scores.
My time is too precious to channel surf through infomercials, soap operas, and Spanish-language game shows. I don't want to waste my time watching commercials. I do not want to have to choose between taking a phone call or watching a program that I want to see. When I take time to watch TV, I want to choose a quality program that the TiVo has recorded rather than see whatever dreck happens to be on at that time. I don't want to waste my time programming VCRs, swapping tapes, labelling them, reading television guides, and all of that other pre-TiVo idiocy. Technology is there to improve my life and save my time and I'm glad to let it do so.
I don't need super advanced TV watching features. You guys need to get out more..:)
No, you need to get out more. I set up a season pass for any show that interests me and that's it. I tell it that, for instance, I want all first run episodes of Enterprise and it finds them -- whenever they are on, regardless of the channel. Or I can tell it to record anything with "Apollo" in the description. Ever. On any channel. I can then go out in my boat, on my motorcycle, or even on vacation. When I return, all the stuff I want is there. I don't have to change, label, or rewind tapes. I don't have to manually search every week for any show that might interest me on 100 channels. I'm not limited to three hours of tolerable quality video -- I have 96 hours of satellite quality video.
Geez, that's all TiVo is! A hard drive hooked up to a cable tuner with some TV guide software.
Will your setup let you pause live TV using a remote control while you get the phone? Will it let you pick programs to record by description? Will it record programs you might like based on what you watch and record? Will it have a slick, polished interace like a TiVo? Will it automatically delete older programs to make room for newer ones? Will it put save-until dates on programs it records?
Not worth hundreds of dollars to me.
What are you? A cashier at McDonalds? The things cost $300. How many hours are you willing to work for $300?
Finally, I can think of little I would rather not do than camp with your family every weekend for the summer.
What child would not relish the thought of spending every weekend with his/her overly clingy parents in a tent? Think about the popularity he/she will enjoy after regaling the class about the every-weekend family camping trips! Imagine the fun they will have answering questions about "bad touching" when the suspicious social worker, alerted by the teacher, starts asking about the camping trips that were scheduled for every weekend of the summer.
They grew in popularity when the price dropped. Even at $300, it's still lots more expensive than a vcr.
I maintain a collection of magazines that goes back several decades. I just grabbed the Feb. 1990 issue of Stereo Review and went to the 6th Avenue Electronics ad and looked up a few VCR prices for low to mid-line VCRs:
VCRs were damned popular by 1990, so I think that blows your argument about the price being too high out of the water.
Being able to automatically skip commercials versus pressing a fast forward button is not worth the difference in price to me, and apparently to lots of other people as well
It's obvious that you don't understand what TiVo does. Here are some challenges:
1. Go on vacation for a couple of weeks and set up your VCR to record 10 hours or more of video in your absence. 2. Using your VCR, watch live TV, get a phone call, pause the TV, and then continue watching the show after you hang up five minutes later. 3. Set up your VCR so that it only records first run episodes of your favorite shows -- no repeats. 4. Program your VCR so that it will record the next showing of Apollo 13, regardless of the channel, date, or time that it comes on. 5. Program your VCR to record any television program that has the word "NASA" in its description.
Comparing TiVo to a VCR is like comparing a Big Wheel is to a Mercedes.
Because it would then cost twice as much! For twice as much, I could take my kids to Disney World for a weekend. If I asked my kids if they want a fancy vcr or a trip to Disney World, what do you think they would pick?
Your kids might prefer cake to broccoli if given the choice. That's why you don't give them that choice. If I had kids, I would rather that they always have a selection of quality programming from The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, and National Geographic than that they spend a weekend immersed in the crass commercialization of Disney World. I would rather that they be able to skip commercials rather than be a captive audience for Mattel, Toys-R-Us, and every other bottom-feeder that advertises during childrens' programs. As to the "fancy VCR" comment, I think you need to learn a bit more about what TiVo can do.
Most people don't have unlimited funds or time.
$300 is not a lot of money to improve your family's quality of life. I used to spend that much on audio components when I was a kid working retail in the mall 20 years ago. And if your time is so limited, why would you be adverse to something that would save so much of it?
Most people spend their excess money and time on activites that are fun for them. You seem to be a person that would give TV a high "fun factor" rating and are willing to spend lots of your excess money and time persuing this "hobby".
Quite the opposite. I want to spend less time watching TV and, when I do watch, have play-on-demand, quality programming available. I do not want to spend my time "channel surfing", seeing whatever crap might happen to be on. I don't want to waste time watching commercials. Nor do I want to spend hours paging through the TV Guide, programming VCRs, and handling tapes.
And maybe that's the problem TiVo has: It's aimed at an audience that values their time and convenience more than does the average consumer.
In fact, I don't personally know of any one who owns either one.
I know several people that do. So much for anecdotal evidence.
I think the reason is simply price. I would love to be able to use the features of these 2 products, pause live tv, skip commericals on playback, very easy recording of tv shows. But the truth is, this type of convenience is not worth the $400, $500, $600, or more that they charge for the unit. That's in addition to the monthly fee.
First, a 60 hour TiVo unit is $300 at Best Buy (after $50 rebate). Second, for years, VCRs cost more than a TiVo does now and they constantly grew in popularity for time-shifting television shows -- despite being less convenient, less reliable, having a much smaller capacity, and producing video of lower quality.
For approximately the same amount of money, I can take my whole family camping every weekend thru the summer and have a lot more fun!
So why not do both. And when you come home from your camping trips, the shows you enjoy will be waiting for you.
I will never understand how people prioritize things. I remember talking to someone who is a smoker, with a habit that probably costs him around $2,000 per year, and he told me that TiVo was too expensive. I see other people who spend a fortune for large projection televisions and then channel surf for hours desperately looking for something to watch -- rather than just buying a TiVo and watching what they want when they want to. Why would someone sit through ten minutes of commercials in every hour of programming that they see. Isn't their time worth anything to them? And the purpose of TV is to entertain. Commercials and an inability to watch what I want when I want detract from the entertainment value.
In closing, I think that it's a good deal for the money.
And your statements show how ignorant, sexist and bigoted you are towards men. If a man tried to kill [sacbee.com] his wife he'd get more than one day in jail.
In the case to which you refer, she was sentenced to five years for the use of a gun in a crime plus one day for the assault. The sentence was later overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, who ruled that the judge had sentenced improperly. So you see the actions of a lone, rogue judge in imposing too short a sentence as proof that women and men face equal threats? How the hell did that leap of logic take place?
When a woman rips her boyfriends testicles off [tennessean.com] she gets three months in jail.
And I suppose you are going to tell me that is standard practice and that all judges would have sentenced the same way. Face it: You chose articles that sensationalized extreme rulings, not intelligent studies or statistics.
And people like you will cheerfully rattle of statistics on how many women are abused while ignoring what happens to men [washtimes.com].
Regarding the article from the right-wing, lunatic fringe newspaper (The Washington Times), the only thing cited in there was frequency of violence, not the results. I hardly think that husbands whose wives hit/smack/etc. them show up to work in casts, limping, covered in bruises, or end up beaten to death. I've seen female victims of domestic violence. I know how much stronger men are than women (on average).
I'll ask you this: When was the last time that you heard of a male jogger being overpowered, raped, beaten, and left for dead by a group of women?
Given your writing, it is apparent that you live in fear of being beaten up by women, but I assure you that such fears are uncommon among most men. I also note that you posted anonymously -- possibly out of fear that you wife/girlfriend would see it. Please, if your wife/girlfriend is beating you up, go to the police and talk to an attorney. Don't assume that it's normal.
Actually, no, I'm a very liberal Democrat (probably a little bit left of Martin Sheen)
Then I owe you an apology for accusing you of being a "right-winger." Next time, I'll try to be more careful before calling someone such an offensive name.;-)
Didn't the original story say the ACCOUNTING SYSTEM screwed up? Why not sue the programmer who made the accounting system? Oh, I know... because he probably doesn't have deep pockets.
No, you don't know. She has no contract with the programmer[s] who created the accounting system. Her contract is with the ISP. She has no legal standing to sue the programmer. The ISP might be able to, though.
Absolutely not, but in this case the ISP wasn't screwing over a customer, a system failed.
No, the ISP willfully continued to accept e-mail for the woman and held it hostage to make her pay a bill that they thought she owed. They had every right to shut off her service for non-payment, but to accept e-mail destined for her and then hold it is wrong. That e-mail is her property. It's like an apartment manager accepting UPS packages for a resident and then refusing to deliver them until the resident payed a late rental bill.
By the employer giving the job to someone else, that would imply that the position was never "hers" to begin with and was only a lost opportunity. There was no guarantee that she would get the position.
IANAL but I have worked in managerial positions long enough to know how it works.
I, too, have been in managerial positions and if I'm leaning towards a particular candidate, but just barely, a failure to answer an e-mail might be reason enough for me to prefer the other candidate. Or it might just be a coin toss as to who the better candidate is. Not returning voice mail, not answering e-mail, etc., might well be taken as a warning sign: Okay, I might track this person down, but is this what I should expect on a regular basis? Is the person just not that interested in the job?
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I've seen the posts saying 'invoice them.' Don't. Invoicing them at some rate you dreamt up and to which they did not agree is simply unprofessional. If you want some compensation for this, I suggest that you contact your ex-boss, for whom you did this favor, and ask her for a letter of recommendation.
Should this happen again in the future, express your gratitude for being offered the work and then politely inform them of your rate (or a flat fee). Spell out any minimums (e.g., 4 or 8 hour minimum), whether the billing starts from the time you begin work or if it is portal-to-portal (i.e., includes travel time), and payment schedule (e.g., downpayments, terms -- like net 30, payment in advance, etc.). If they balk at reasonable terms, then be polite but firm and tell them that you cannot accept the work.
If you do your ex-employer a favor, then you should make sure that it was you that decided to. I have, on occasion, sent ex-employers e-mails warning them of bugs and product updates for systems that I set up while under their employ. I don't expect to be paid for that in anything other than good will.
like if you get slapped, turn the other cheek, as Jesus once said
Jesus's situation would have been more analogous if Pontius Pilate had demanded that Jesus do unpaid work for him after the crucifixion. Besides, Jesus was not always in fear of losing his job to a cut-rate, H1-B messiah brought in from some third-world country. He'd have gotten pretty tired of being slapped around had he been in the computer industry.
$1 billion gotten illegitimately?? Holy crap that's a lot of money. And no one is going to jail!!!
No. They fall under the current administration's protective "big business" umbrella. If you or I stole a Sony Walkman from Circuit City, we'd probably end up in jail, but if a business tries to bilk people out of $1 billion, they get to keep half of it. Just look at the wrist-slap that the Bush administration gave Microsoft for monopolistic practices that destroyed competitors and cost consumers billions of dollars. Until we have a "regime change", this kind of thing is bound to continue.
What a big stinkin' pile. The universities aren't stifling "critical thinking", they are rescuing their bandwidth from the pr0n-swappers.
Since when did the RIAA give a damn about porn swapping? The letter from EPIC was a direct response to an RIAA letter which encouraged universities to become enforcers for the RIAA's copyrights. If universities were having such horrible bandwidth usage by porn-swappers, then they would not need the RIAA to encourage them to shut off P2P services, would they?
The phrase to which I alluded was not the title of the article, but was in the summary that followed:
how your room looks like.
Just FYI.
Broadband in this context is DSL, which is a consumer service - typically upstream speed is much lower than downstream, and contention is between 20:1 and 50:1.
Verizon offers a 1.5 Mbps downstream and 768 Kbps upstream DSL service. That's more than adequate for many small businesses. I'm not saying that it will handle ebay, but an office with a handful of lawyers or realtors is well-served by that. So is one that has a web-based mail server or some other low-bandwidth type of web content. When the site typically has two or fewer users, it'll do fine.
It might be suitable for connecting an office that downloads content and only sends email back, but it's not suitable for anyone running a business-critical server.
It depends on the traffic. The fellow I know sells a high-dollar, specialized network component. The number of hits he gets per day is measured in the tens, not hundreds. Fast DSL is more than adequate for his needs.
For many businesses the important thing is an always-on broadband connection, not a quality-of-service guaranteed, high-dollar, T-x connection. They need more speed than ISDN and dial-up, but not the type of connection enjoyed by Walmart, General Motors, or Sears.
I find it hard to believe that simply because these people are "professional editors" it means that they can't ever make mistakes in editing. Technical terms, jargon or slang may be mis- interpreted fairly easily and "corrected" to a word or phrase that means something completely different than what the original author meant. additionally the bias of the editor may enter into their "corrections", changing the whole meaning of the article entirely.
There is no doubt that such errors occasionally happen. Just as doctors mis-diagnose patients -- and sometimes get sued. Both editors and doctors must exercise due diligence in their work.
i don't question your knowledge in this matter as much as i would question any publication that would go around purposely changing articles and misquoting writers without notifying the reader of those changes.
Most publications do serve notice that they reserve the right to edit and abridge reader submissions. The majority of papers quietly fix errors of punctuation (e.g., "its" vs. "it's"), spelling, and grammar (e.g., "they has" vs. "they have"). If a reputable paper is shown that their editing resulted in a change of meaning, then they will print a correction.
Having seen what passes for writing by most people, trust me when I tell you that you would not want to read unedited letters to the editors.
(The first of 3 times you ignored an obvious joke.)
;-)
I just didn't get your jokes. Obviously, we have different senses of humor.
I'll let you check your dictionary to see that printed means "created by pressing or stamping onto a surface".
Dictionaries are notoriously out of date when it comes to usage related to computers. This is just one example. But I will try to use the phrase "the written word" in the future.
The fact that both "one-way" and "one-time" are dictionary words doesn't remove the unhypenated forms from valid English.
Your use was improper. You should always hyphenate between two adjectives when they come before a noun and act as a single idea. See the grammarbook.com.
But you missed the point: The edits show that one can correct errors without misrepresenting what the writer said.
This is akin to Dan Quayle's infamous potato/potatoe spelling-bee incident.
Don't be so hard on yourself. You just failed to capitalize and puntuate properly.
It was a joke. (Finding the 3rd one is up to you. Don't waste your time on it, though)
But what if the third one was actually humorous and I miss out?
Slashdot already has a reputation for lagging in articles, they can't afford to delay it further by more editing.
I have submitted stories and hours and hours go by before they are reviewed. Taking two minutes to edit three or four sentences isn't going to make a substantive difference in timeliness.
I just wish the bulk of readers didn't have to be burdened with language trivia, educational as it may be.
Then perhaps you should stop contributing to the "language trivia." But I'm willing to have the last word if you're willing to let me.
Although I think fmaxwell is wrong (and intentionally antagonistic, a.k.a. trolling) about this whole issue of editing he is correct that papers and magazines often edit letters to the editor for content or grammar.
I'm not intentionally antagonistic or "trolling". I'm just an abrasive, opinionated person that does not give a rat's ass whether someone likes what I say. But I do appreciate you giving me credit where you felt it due. Thanks.
I went back and looked at the story again. The phrase "how looks" was not used. The phrase was "how your room looks like" .
Perhaps "cultured" readers such as yourself, should concentrate a bit more on reading and a bit less on appearing cultured.
I strongly hope that you don't send Slashdot stories to your printer!
"The printed word" refers to any published, written communication, whether on a website, a book, a flyer, or a newspaper.
But Slashdot's submitters and "editors" don't have a collaborative relationship. It's a one-way, one-time process. If any "editing" has been done to the post (aside from inserting parenthetical comments and deciding where to break it off), then the submitter's words have been misrepresented.
Untrue. It is not a misrepresentation to correct obvious errors. For example, I corrected each item shown above in boldface. None of the changes misrepresented your words.
That the targeted site is non-English, and we should expect similar minor translation errors ahead.
How can we infer anything about the site based on the submitter's command of English? The submitter is a reader of Slashdot. Should we assume that Slashdot is a "non-English" site?
"How looks" is an archaic, poetic idiom. To "cultured" readers, it evokes romantic odes to the beauty of a comely woman.
So you feel it proper to evoke "romantic odes to the beauty of a comely woman" when describing your computer room? You clearly need to get out more.
Regardless of the accuracy of those interpretations, they're between the writer and readers. Editors shouldn't interfere.
Then I recommend that you stop reading almost all major, mainstream periodicals because the editors regularly edit readers' letters for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and length prior to printing them.
P.S. to moderators: Comments related directly to the presentation of the story are not "offtopic", "troll", or "flamebait."
i should hope that they don't edit letters to the editor.
They do.
if they do, they have to send them back to the writer and get their approval before publishing those letters.
Untrue. The publishing industry would grind to a halt if the editor had to send back everything for the approval of the writer. In fact, most publications even edit paid authors without the author being able to review the changes. An editor of a periodical cannot afford the time to edit an article/letter for print and then send it back to the author for approval. Neither can they allow an author to hold the article hostage until/unless the editor agrees to relinquish editorial control to the author.
what if they mis- interpret what the original writer was trying to say? that would be libel, and they'd get sued left and right.
That's why they hire professional editors. They don't make that kind of mistake and, hence, are not "sued left and right."
I'm not making any of this up. I've been published in periodicals and know what I am talking about.
It's also amazing how people can't differentiate between a submissions' text and a slashdot editor's text.
It's even more amazing that there are people who do not understand the difference between an the job functions of a writer and an editor. One aspect of an editor's job is to assure that his/her publication does not have errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling -- even for reader-submitted text. And I was fully aware of the fact that the writing in question was submitted by a Slashdot reader.
Submissions are generally not edited for content, grammar or spelling and I think that is good policy.
I do not. Any reputable newspaper or periodical corrects such errors in reader-submitted materials, for the benefit of both the readers and the writers. Do you really believe that the letters to the editor of all major newspapers are received error-free as they appear in print? It is only when the publication is trying to make a point of the submitter's stupidity/ignorance that they leave errors in place, complete with the usual "[sic]" next to each one. If an editor corrects the work of professional writers, why should that benefit be denied a reader who submits something for print?
If you're so smart then why aren't you doing something better with your time?
Were I not opposed to ad-hominem attacks, I could ask the same of you. But to answer your question, I believe that promoting high standards for the printed word is a valuable way to use one's spare time.
do we expect the editors to pick on non-native speakers of English while sifting through submissions?
No, we expect them to quietly fix any errors so that the submitter is not presented in a bad light. Do you think that the letters to the editor of Road & Track, The New York Times or any other respected, mainstream publication are published unedited? Of course not.
tell us how your room looks like
How about if we tell you what our rooms look like? If Slashdot editors did any less work, the Slashdot offices could be mistaken for a hospital coma ward.
I don't see how broadband would boost the economy, except for creating (likely not too many) jobs in the broadband sector.
Many non-tech businesses require broadband Internet access. For example, a retailer of outdoor apparel might want to set up a modest e-commerce site. A patent attorney might need to do online patent searches. I know someone that moved from Missouri because he runs a small business and could not get broadband. He is now in Northern, VA.
Broadband is like electricity and running water for most businesses today. It's not a luxury. It's a basic utility that they need in order to function.
You seem to be really upset.
Not really. Just a little annoyed.
My original comment was related to why Tvio and ReplayTV do not have market penetration. My opinion was that the price is too high.
And I said that it was not, showing that VCRs, despite their more limited features, had better market penetration at higher price points. I also pointed out that your estimates of the price for a TiVo unit were between 33% and 100% higher than the actual price. Rather than address that, you elected to make comments about your perceptions of my lifestyle claiming that I "spend lots of [my] excess money and time" watching TV.
In response, you have attacked me, the way I raise my kids, the way I spend my free time
Please. You attacked me with claims that "TV watching" was some all-consuming "hobby" for me. You implied that I was a dolt who did nothing but sit around watching TV all day and that you were somehow morally and intellectually superior because of your wholesome family activities. You then went on to proclaim how laughable it was for me to suggest sitting down with a child and watching an educational program (rather than taking them to Disney World).
You will also note that I became decidedly mor "hostile" after you decided to mark me as a "foe" for daring to disagree with you.
and (in another post) insinuated that the only reason I take my kids camping is for incestious purposes.
That is untrue. In my mean-spirited brand of humor, I suggested that a school counselor might become suspicious of "bad touching" if a family camped together every single weekend. I never once claimed or implied that you were actually engaged in any type of sexual behavior with your child.
Maybe you should take the rest of the day off?
You'll be happy to know that I have nothing at all scheduled for the day. So we can spend quality time together!
Remember, God loves you.
So, you don't think I'm on his Slashdot foe list?
Actually, I do. I also know what ReplayTV does.
Then why do you insist on focusing solely on the ability to skip commercials ("Being able to automatically skip commercials versus pressing a fast forward button is not worth the difference in price to me")?
I would also be willing to buy either one. Except, that price thing keeps getting in the way...
I could better understand that when you thought that TiVos were "$400, $500, $600", but they are $300 for a brand-new 60 hour unit (and a lot less for a used one). As I said before, I used to spend that much for stereo components in 1979 when I was a teenager working in a retail store in a mall for minimum wage.
Actually, you were the one who began comparing the vcr to the Tivo/ReplayTV units. I just continued with it.
I compared prices of VCRs to TiVo units. I refuted your argument that TiVo units are overly expensive by showing that VCRs were significantly more expensive at the time that they soared in popularity -- despite being so much more limited.
Even if you had not said you had no kids, it would be very obvious from this comment. I am sure all the other parents in this forums got a lot of amusement from this.
While it may be obvious to you that I don't have kids, it is even more obvious to me that I'd do a better job raising kids than you do -- despite your sanctimonous attitude of superiority.
Just try making a 7-year-old kid sit thru documentarys[sic] on these 3 channnels. Then tell the kid, he/she can never watch cartoons. Next explain to this child why Disney World is an evil empire and he/ she will never go there. Good Luck!.
You seem to feel that there are two extremes between which a parent must choose:
1. Indulge your child's every whim
2. Refuse to let them ever do anything that they want while forcing them to watch documentaries aimed at adults
Were you even aware that The Discovery Channel produces Discovery Kids aimed at children? Did you know that National Geographic produces educational shows for kids? Did you know that The History Channel has many shows appropriate for children? Or were you at an amusement park stuffing cotton candy into your kid when those shows were on? I never went to Disney World and never wanted to. My parents took me places like The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and Natural History Museum. They bought me books about science. When I was in elementary school, I was excited about the Apollo missions and put together a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about them. I remember the excitement of getting a microscope, telescope, and electronics set -- in addition to the now long-forgotten plastic toys. I was more interested in dinosaurs and rockets than in seeing some adult dressed up as an 8-foot tall mouse. (And I did not claim that children should never watch cartoons. In fact, I pointed out that a TiVo could let them skip the myriad ads aimed at children during such shows.)
There is more to raising a child than amusing them. Part of a parent's responsibility is to educate their children and nurture interests in science, history, and the arts. There is a balance one must strike between entertaining the child and educating them. If you can't afford a TiVo and a trip to Disney World, then buy the TiVo and take the kid to a local carnival. Your child will benefit much more from year-round access to intelligent, educational kids' shows than from a vacation to Disney World.
You're right. However, my family's quality of life is not related in any way to the quality of TV viewing we do.
That's very sad. With all of the intelligent, high-quality, entertaining, and educational programming available, it's really a shame that you'd sooner take your kids to Disney World. If your attitude is commonplace, it would explain a lot about falling science test scores.
My time is too precious to channel surf through infomercials, soap operas, and Spanish-language game shows. I don't want to waste my time watching commercials. I do not want to have to choose between taking a phone call or watching a program that I want to see. When I take time to watch TV, I want to choose a quality program that the TiVo has recorded rather than see whatever dreck happens to be on at that time. I don't want to waste my time programming VCRs, swapping tapes, labelling them, reading television guides, and all of that other pre-TiVo idiocy. Technology is there to improve my life and save my time and I'm glad to let it do so.
I don't need super advanced TV watching features. You guys need to get out more.. :)
No, you need to get out more. I set up a season pass for any show that interests me and that's it. I tell it that, for instance, I want all first run episodes of Enterprise and it finds them -- whenever they are on, regardless of the channel. Or I can tell it to record anything with "Apollo" in the description. Ever. On any channel. I can then go out in my boat, on my motorcycle, or even on vacation. When I return, all the stuff I want is there. I don't have to change, label, or rewind tapes. I don't have to manually search every week for any show that might interest me on 100 channels. I'm not limited to three hours of tolerable quality video -- I have 96 hours of satellite quality video.
Geez, that's all TiVo is! A hard drive hooked up to a cable tuner with some TV guide software.
Will your setup let you pause live TV using a remote control while you get the phone? Will it let you pick programs to record by description? Will it record programs you might like based on what you watch and record? Will it have a slick, polished interace like a TiVo? Will it automatically delete older programs to make room for newer ones? Will it put save-until dates on programs it records?
Not worth hundreds of dollars to me.
What are you? A cashier at McDonalds? The things cost $300. How many hours are you willing to work for $300?
Finally, I can think of little I would rather not do than camp with your family every weekend for the summer.
What child would not relish the thought of spending every weekend with his/her overly clingy parents in a tent? Think about the popularity he/she will enjoy after regaling the class about the every-weekend family camping trips! Imagine the fun they will have answering questions about "bad touching" when the suspicious social worker, alerted by the teacher, starts asking about the camping trips that were scheduled for every weekend of the summer.
Oh yes, a world of joy awaits these kids.
They grew in popularity when the price dropped. Even at $300, it's still lots more expensive than a vcr.
I maintain a collection of magazines that goes back several decades. I just grabbed the Feb. 1990 issue of Stereo Review and went to the 6th Avenue Electronics ad and looked up a few VCR prices for low to mid-line VCRs:
Panasonic PV-4960: $416
JVC HRD-620U: $316
JVC HRD-840U: $466
Mitusbishi HS-51U: $496
Sony SLV-353: $396
VCRs were damned popular by 1990, so I think that blows your argument about the price being too high out of the water.
Being able to automatically skip commercials versus pressing a fast forward button is not worth the difference in price to me, and apparently to lots of other people as well
It's obvious that you don't understand what TiVo does. Here are some challenges:
1. Go on vacation for a couple of weeks and set up your VCR to record 10 hours or more of video in your absence.
2. Using your VCR, watch live TV, get a phone call, pause the TV, and then continue watching the show after you hang up five minutes later.
3. Set up your VCR so that it only records first run episodes of your favorite shows -- no repeats.
4. Program your VCR so that it will record the next showing of Apollo 13, regardless of the channel, date, or time that it comes on.
5. Program your VCR to record any television program that has the word "NASA" in its description.
Comparing TiVo to a VCR is like comparing a Big Wheel is to a Mercedes.
Because it would then cost twice as much! For twice as much, I could take my kids to Disney World for a weekend. If I asked my kids if they want a fancy vcr or a trip to Disney World, what do you think they would pick?
Your kids might prefer cake to broccoli if given the choice. That's why you don't give them that choice. If I had kids, I would rather that they always have a selection of quality programming from The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, and National Geographic than that they spend a weekend immersed in the crass commercialization of Disney World. I would rather that they be able to skip commercials rather than be a captive audience for Mattel, Toys-R-Us, and every other bottom-feeder that advertises during childrens' programs. As to the "fancy VCR" comment, I think you need to learn a bit more about what TiVo can do.
Most people don't have unlimited funds or time.
$300 is not a lot of money to improve your family's quality of life. I used to spend that much on audio components when I was a kid working retail in the mall 20 years ago. And if your time is so limited, why would you be adverse to something that would save so much of it?
Most people spend their excess money and time on activites that are fun for them. You seem to be a person that would give TV a high "fun factor" rating and are willing to spend lots of your excess money and time persuing this "hobby".
Quite the opposite. I want to spend less time watching TV and, when I do watch, have play-on-demand, quality programming available. I do not want to spend my time "channel surfing", seeing whatever crap might happen to be on. I don't want to waste time watching commercials. Nor do I want to spend hours paging through the TV Guide, programming VCRs, and handling tapes.
And maybe that's the problem TiVo has: It's aimed at an audience that values their time and convenience more than does the average consumer.
In fact, I don't personally know of any one who owns either one.
I know several people that do. So much for anecdotal evidence.
I think the reason is simply price. I would love to be able to use the features of these 2 products, pause live tv, skip commericals on playback, very easy recording of tv shows. But the truth is, this type of convenience is not worth the $400, $500, $600, or more that they charge for the unit. That's in addition to the monthly fee.
First, a 60 hour TiVo unit is $300 at Best Buy (after $50 rebate). Second, for years, VCRs cost more than a TiVo does now and they constantly grew in popularity for time-shifting television shows -- despite being less convenient, less reliable, having a much smaller capacity, and producing video of lower quality.
For approximately the same amount of money, I can take my whole family camping every weekend thru the summer and have a lot more fun!
So why not do both. And when you come home from your camping trips, the shows you enjoy will be waiting for you.
I will never understand how people prioritize things. I remember talking to someone who is a smoker, with a habit that probably costs him around $2,000 per year, and he told me that TiVo was too expensive. I see other people who spend a fortune for large projection televisions and then channel surf for hours desperately looking for something to watch -- rather than just buying a TiVo and watching what they want when they want to. Why would someone sit through ten minutes of commercials in every hour of programming that they see. Isn't their time worth anything to them? And the purpose of TV is to entertain. Commercials and an inability to watch what I want when I want detract from the entertainment value.
In closing, I think that it's a good deal for the money.
And your statements show how ignorant, sexist and bigoted you are towards men. If a man tried to kill [sacbee.com] his wife he'd get more than one day in jail.
In the case to which you refer, she was sentenced to five years for the use of a gun in a crime plus one day for the assault. The sentence was later overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, who ruled that the judge had sentenced improperly. So you see the actions of a lone, rogue judge in imposing too short a sentence as proof that women and men face equal threats? How the hell did that leap of logic take place?
When a woman rips her boyfriends testicles off [tennessean.com] she gets three months in jail.
And I suppose you are going to tell me that is standard practice and that all judges would have sentenced the same way. Face it: You chose articles that sensationalized extreme rulings, not intelligent studies or statistics.
And people like you will cheerfully rattle of statistics on how many women are abused while ignoring what happens to men [washtimes.com].
Regarding the article from the right-wing, lunatic fringe newspaper (The Washington Times), the only thing cited in there was frequency of violence, not the results. I hardly think that husbands whose wives hit/smack/etc. them show up to work in casts, limping, covered in bruises, or end up beaten to death. I've seen female victims of domestic violence. I know how much stronger men are than women (on average).
I'll ask you this: When was the last time that you heard of a male jogger being overpowered, raped, beaten, and left for dead by a group of women?
Given your writing, it is apparent that you live in fear of being beaten up by women, but I assure you that such fears are uncommon among most men. I also note that you posted anonymously -- possibly out of fear that you wife/girlfriend would see it. Please, if your wife/girlfriend is beating you up, go to the police and talk to an attorney. Don't assume that it's normal.
Actually, no, I'm a very liberal Democrat (probably a little bit left of Martin Sheen)
;-)
Then I owe you an apology for accusing you of being a "right-winger." Next time, I'll try to be more careful before calling someone such an offensive name.
Didn't the original story say the ACCOUNTING SYSTEM screwed up? Why not sue the programmer who made the accounting system? Oh, I know... because he probably doesn't have deep pockets.
No, you don't know. She has no contract with the programmer[s] who created the accounting system. Her contract is with the ISP. She has no legal standing to sue the programmer. The ISP might be able to, though.
Absolutely not, but in this case the ISP wasn't screwing over a customer, a system failed.
No, the ISP willfully continued to accept e-mail for the woman and held it hostage to make her pay a bill that they thought she owed. They had every right to shut off her service for non-payment, but to accept e-mail destined for her and then hold it is wrong. That e-mail is her property. It's like an apartment manager accepting UPS packages for a resident and then refusing to deliver them until the resident payed a late rental bill.
By the employer giving the job to someone else, that would imply that the position was never "hers" to begin with and was only a lost opportunity. There was no guarantee that she would get the position.
IANAL but I have worked in managerial positions long enough to know how it works.
I, too, have been in managerial positions and if I'm leaning towards a particular candidate, but just barely, a failure to answer an e-mail might be reason enough for me to prefer the other candidate. Or it might just be a coin toss as to who the better candidate is. Not returning voice mail, not answering e-mail, etc., might well be taken as a warning sign: Okay, I might track this person down, but is this what I should expect on a regular basis? Is the person just not that interested in the job?