Perhaps is more Americans saw their work as a source of pride instead of simply a source of income...
And perhaps if companies saw their employees as assests instead of a cost expenditure aganist the bottom line, then maybe more people would care about the quality of their work. Back in the day when you went to work for a company at 18 and expected to work there until you retired, you did see a lot of pride in the work and company. But once companies shifted into that "you better thank us that you even HAVE a job" attitude, the workers attitudes shifted in response.
Remember the day when you bought stocks because the return on your investment was the dividends paid by holding that stock? That's when people had pride in their work. As the value of stocks became the price of the stock itself instead of the dividends, companies began to see anything that cost money as a bad thing, and that includes employee's salaries. That caused a shift in attitudes towards the work force (ie, they are expendable if it we can achieve a higher stock price), which resulted in a shift in attitude from employees.
Granted, I know that's an over simplification and leaves out a LOT of factors, but when you look at the big picture you can't deny the impact of this on the American workforce.
Exactly. I agree 100%. Of everything I thought about while RTFA, that was the single most striking point I came away with. Basically, never trust Tucows. End of story. Damn what a way to piss away every last drop of credibility.
The problem isn't that "poor people don't know how to save". The problem is that the people that set the minimum wage don't seem to think that working at a job full time should at least earn you enough money to purchase both food AND shelter.
Of course, raising the minimum wage will also lead to an increase of costs to the businesses that employ those workers, meaning either also increasing wages of those above but near minimum wage or risking unhappy workers (been there 2 years, and suddenly all new hires make the same as you?) meaning an increase in prices, meaning an general wave of inflation, making those same goods and services more expensive to those earning minimum wage and thus still keeping them from actually being able to attain them.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying I have all the answers, and raising minimum wage probably would help in the short term, but within a year or two, we'd be right back to where we started, if not worse. When inflation rises at 3.5% and most companies top out their raises at 5%, meaning most people get less, then increasing minimum wage across the board will eventually simply hurt everyone, including those getting the increase at the bottom.
Of course, free healthcare could alleviate a lot of the problems and make things more even keel, but take a look at how well most housing projects are run, and you'll see why I have serious reservations about that. Maybe eliminating ALL medical malpractise lawsuits, except in cases of gross negligence, would bring insurance costs down to reasonable levels. Funny how a country that can't accept an ounce of personal responsiblity demands perfection from a doctor, who is just as human as the rest of us...
A lot of Europeans complain that Americans are sheltered and don't know anything about the rest of the world.
In our defense, you can get in a car, drive 2,000 miles in a straight line, and still be in the US. In Europe, you easily hit a few different countries in a single day by car.
It is MUCH easier to visit other countries and cultures when you don't need to cross an entire ocean to visit something other than Mexico or Canada.
That's the trick, and ties into what the grandparent poster is pretty much saying. It is the love of money. People want want want. The place vaule in physical things above all else.
Me? If I got my review and was offered double my current salary, or the same pay and a 32 hour work week, I'd be so excited to get that extra day off I'd barely be able to contain myself. Why? Because my life is mine, and getting more of it for myself instead of giving it to my employer is worth more than they would ever reasonably pay me.
I think 3rd Rock from the Sun said it best in one episode of the show. "People mortgage their lives for money. My life is worth more than minimum wage and a slice of free pie."
Most of the US has lost sight of everything important. Slavery is still slavery, even if we enslave ourselves...
... where (quote) "identifiable group" means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.).
Wait, so this means, since the "indentifiable group" I am targeting is not in that list, I can still promote genocide against people who can't use a public restroom without pissing on the toilet seats / floors / walls / etc, and it's not hate speech?
AWESOME!
Oh yeah, people driving slow in the fast lane, you're not covered either, and you're next!
I may be American, but right now, I sure do love Canada!:)
But as the EFF pointed out, those in the first category can opt out of the settlement and sue on their own dime
But, what the EFF said was:
First, you understand that the settlement *preserves* the claims of folks who have hardware damage due to the rootkit, right? They can still sue to get more and we're happy to help. The scope of the settlement is for a different harm -- the harm of merely having bought these bad CDs.
That means that the lawsuit applies only to buying the DRM'd CD. It has nothing to do installing it, nor the damage done by it. You can collect on the current class action for having bought one of the CDs, and still be able to sue or join a second class action for damages caused by the CDs. Which is pretty darn cool, IMHO. It means this lawsuit actually has a VERY reasonable settlement value. You bought a DRM'd CD, you get a free non-DRM'd CD, plus $7.50, plus some free downloads. Not bad, if you ask me. Oh, the damage it did to your machine by installing it? Well, as they say, that's a whole different lawsuit. And inclusion in this class does NOT exclude you from the other. You don't have to opt out if it to get damages for the DRM hosing your system.
(All that assumes what the EFF said was true, of course...)
Are you serious? When DNF comes out Microsoft will have dropped support for legacy OS's like Vista!
By the time DNF comes out, we'll be much more worried about the fact that the sun is about to burn out than any kind of DRM in some OS that no one even remembers since Google took over...
Re:Difficult to measure material's properties?
on
Flexible Body Armor
·
· Score: 1
I agree completely. And I doubt this would be a replacement for typical body armor. But, if this material works, why not make the BDU out of it? Make it a supplement to normal armor, not a replacement, and you end up with a little extra protection and benefit with no loss of flexibility and no increased weight. Seems like a win win except possibly for the cost. Granted this doesn't take into account other issues such as surviving the wear and tear a BDU will go through in its lifespan, etc... But it can't hurt to look at a bit...
Microsoft/Intel/Laptop Manufacturers definitely should have warned people that plugging in a USB device would disable their CPU's power-saving features
I was thinking the same thing, but I wonder if anyone's checked that somewhere buried in the manual no one ever reads, in fine print hidden on some sub paragraph on page 247 or something, that maybe it does, in fact, say that.
The question is not only what constitutes what must be disclosed (plugging in a USB Device will shorten battery life) but what prominence the disclosure should have. One page 1 in bold? Page 10? Page 247 in fine print? Me, I think a nice thing somewhere easily seen on the USB section of the manual would suffice.
This brings up an interesting point. I wish I had a blackberry now. From my point of view, to continue service for State and Federal Government, while discountinuing service for the public, should be an actionable offense. It's okay to violate the patent as long as the violating service is being sold to a governmental authority? Seriously, there is way too many lawsuits in this country, yes, but if the system is going to contradcit itself, we should use it and either force it to shut itself down, or make it have to take such an extreme position to continue operations as to become laughable.
Dead serious, if I owned a Blackberry and it got shut off, but the government was allowed to keep theirs, I'd so be calling my attorney. Heck, the fact there there is such a deal, regardless of any service interruption or not, is probably actionable.
Nothing against RIM mind you, I'd just like to see the government get what it deserves sometimes.
People modded you as funny, but if you read the actual law, then yes, pushing all the buttons in an elevator could, in fact, be a felony:
SB 146, Sec 2909.04: (B) No person shall knowingly use any... electronic device or system... so as to disrupt, interrupt, or impair the functions of any... commercial... operations. (C) Whoever violates this section is guilty of disrupting public services, a felony of the fourth degree. (Law snippet borrowed from previous poster...)
To make your protest and boycott truly useful, you need to take one additional step. Simply telling Gap they lost your business won't help. Instead, send them a nice printed letter explaining exactly why you shopped elsewhere, and that you had intended to shop there first until you were turned away. Then, include photocopies of the reciepts, so they can see actual physical evidence of lost purchases. It puts a concrete number on an abstract idea of "losing a customer" and lets them see, exactly, what they have lost.
How long ago was that? I've been banking online for the past 3 or 4 years with Bank One (ever since they bought First Chicago) and now Chase. I've *never* had a problem using Firefox from my Mac or my PC on thier site. Just curious if this was some time ago as my experience in this century has been that there have been no issues at all. I'm wondering if they saw the light a while back...
On Dec. 8, a 38-year-old man died suddenly after playing Internet games for 20 straight days at an Internet café, sustaining himself solely on instant noodles.
I think we just nailed it in this case. What's the mystery?
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps is more Americans saw their work as a source of pride instead of simply a source of income...
And perhaps if companies saw their employees as assests instead of a cost expenditure aganist the bottom line, then maybe more people would care about the quality of their work. Back in the day when you went to work for a company at 18 and expected to work there until you retired, you did see a lot of pride in the work and company. But once companies shifted into that "you better thank us that you even HAVE a job" attitude, the workers attitudes shifted in response.
Remember the day when you bought stocks because the return on your investment was the dividends paid by holding that stock? That's when people had pride in their work. As the value of stocks became the price of the stock itself instead of the dividends, companies began to see anything that cost money as a bad thing, and that includes employee's salaries. That caused a shift in attitudes towards the work force (ie, they are expendable if it we can achieve a higher stock price), which resulted in a shift in attitude from employees.
Granted, I know that's an over simplification and leaves out a LOT of factors, but when you look at the big picture you can't deny the impact of this on the American workforce.
Ha ha! You said "prior art" as if that exists in the patent office!
Exactly. I agree 100%. Of everything I thought about while RTFA, that was the single most striking point I came away with. Basically, never trust Tucows. End of story. Damn what a way to piss away every last drop of credibility.
The problem isn't that "poor people don't know how to save". The problem is that the people that set the minimum wage don't seem to think that working at a job full time should at least earn you enough money to purchase both food AND shelter.
Of course, raising the minimum wage will also lead to an increase of costs to the businesses that employ those workers, meaning either also increasing wages of those above but near minimum wage or risking unhappy workers (been there 2 years, and suddenly all new hires make the same as you?) meaning an increase in prices, meaning an general wave of inflation, making those same goods and services more expensive to those earning minimum wage and thus still keeping them from actually being able to attain them.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying I have all the answers, and raising minimum wage probably would help in the short term, but within a year or two, we'd be right back to where we started, if not worse. When inflation rises at 3.5% and most companies top out their raises at 5%, meaning most people get less, then increasing minimum wage across the board will eventually simply hurt everyone, including those getting the increase at the bottom.
Of course, free healthcare could alleviate a lot of the problems and make things more even keel, but take a look at how well most housing projects are run, and you'll see why I have serious reservations about that. Maybe eliminating ALL medical malpractise lawsuits, except in cases of gross negligence, would bring insurance costs down to reasonable levels. Funny how a country that can't accept an ounce of personal responsiblity demands perfection from a doctor, who is just as human as the rest of us...
A lot of Europeans complain that Americans are sheltered and don't know anything about the rest of the world.
In our defense, you can get in a car, drive 2,000 miles in a straight line, and still be in the US. In Europe, you easily hit a few different countries in a single day by car.
It is MUCH easier to visit other countries and cultures when you don't need to cross an entire ocean to visit something other than Mexico or Canada.
That's the trick, and ties into what the grandparent poster is pretty much saying. It is the love of money. People want want want. The place vaule in physical things above all else.
Me? If I got my review and was offered double my current salary, or the same pay and a 32 hour work week, I'd be so excited to get that extra day off I'd barely be able to contain myself. Why? Because my life is mine, and getting more of it for myself instead of giving it to my employer is worth more than they would ever reasonably pay me.
I think 3rd Rock from the Sun said it best in one episode of the show. "People mortgage their lives for money. My life is worth more than minimum wage and a slice of free pie."
Most of the US has lost sight of everything important. Slavery is still slavery, even if we enslave ourselves...
Prevent the use of his or her name as the author of any work of visual art that (s)he did not create
Damn, I wish we had one of these for audio so I could actually sue all the P2P asshats who think every funny song was written by Wierd Al...
Philip Zimmermann has apparently vanished from the face of the earth. Film at 11.
... where (quote) "identifiable group" means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.).
:)
Wait, so this means, since the "indentifiable group" I am targeting is not in that list, I can still promote genocide against people who can't use a public restroom without pissing on the toilet seats / floors / walls / etc, and it's not hate speech?
AWESOME!
Oh yeah, people driving slow in the fast lane, you're not covered either, and you're next!
I may be American, but right now, I sure do love Canada!
But as the EFF pointed out, those in the first category can opt out of the settlement and sue on their own dime
But, what the EFF said was:
First, you understand that the settlement *preserves* the claims of folks who have hardware damage due to the rootkit, right? They can still sue to get more and we're happy to help. The scope of the settlement is for a different harm -- the harm of merely having bought these bad CDs.
That means that the lawsuit applies only to buying the DRM'd CD. It has nothing to do installing it, nor the damage done by it. You can collect on the current class action for having bought one of the CDs, and still be able to sue or join a second class action for damages caused by the CDs. Which is pretty darn cool, IMHO. It means this lawsuit actually has a VERY reasonable settlement value. You bought a DRM'd CD, you get a free non-DRM'd CD, plus $7.50, plus some free downloads. Not bad, if you ask me. Oh, the damage it did to your machine by installing it? Well, as they say, that's a whole different lawsuit. And inclusion in this class does NOT exclude you from the other. You don't have to opt out if it to get damages for the DRM hosing your system.
(All that assumes what the EFF said was true, of course...)
Are you serious? When DNF comes out Microsoft will have dropped support for legacy OS's like Vista!
By the time DNF comes out, we'll be much more worried about the fact that the sun is about to burn out than any kind of DRM in some OS that no one even remembers since Google took over...
I agree completely. And I doubt this would be a replacement for typical body armor. But, if this material works, why not make the BDU out of it? Make it a supplement to normal armor, not a replacement, and you end up with a little extra protection and benefit with no loss of flexibility and no increased weight. Seems like a win win except possibly for the cost. Granted this doesn't take into account other issues such as surviving the wear and tear a BDU will go through in its lifespan, etc... But it can't hurt to look at a bit...
When he died, we found some of his notes about the Eniac in old notebook which we donated to the Smithsonian.
Holy crap? No eBay? No book? No thought of monetary reward? Someone actually did something selfless for the betterment of everyone?
Seriously, though, thanks man. I for one, definitely appreciate it.
It's wiki. Give me 5 minutes and you'll be wrong. :)
they could recover the cost of their r&d by using this to post some super high-quality shots of paris hilton!
Really? I've never seen a THIN angle lens before.... With this resolution though, you might actually get all 8 pixels of her, so hmm...
Microsoft/Intel/Laptop Manufacturers definitely should have warned people that plugging in a USB device would disable their CPU's power-saving features
I was thinking the same thing, but I wonder if anyone's checked that somewhere buried in the manual no one ever reads, in fine print hidden on some sub paragraph on page 247 or something, that maybe it does, in fact, say that.
The question is not only what constitutes what must be disclosed (plugging in a USB Device will shorten battery life) but what prominence the disclosure should have. One page 1 in bold? Page 10? Page 247 in fine print? Me, I think a nice thing somewhere easily seen on the USB section of the manual would suffice.
This brings up an interesting point. I wish I had a blackberry now. From my point of view, to continue service for State and Federal Government, while discountinuing service for the public, should be an actionable offense. It's okay to violate the patent as long as the violating service is being sold to a governmental authority? Seriously, there is way too many lawsuits in this country, yes, but if the system is going to contradcit itself, we should use it and either force it to shut itself down, or make it have to take such an extreme position to continue operations as to become laughable.
Dead serious, if I owned a Blackberry and it got shut off, but the government was allowed to keep theirs, I'd so be calling my attorney. Heck, the fact there there is such a deal, regardless of any service interruption or not, is probably actionable.
Nothing against RIM mind you, I'd just like to see the government get what it deserves sometimes.
And porn. Don't forget the porn.
Yep, I'll just wait for the hack, and when it's done I'll just search for it on good ole Google...
I love this guy's site for things like this. Not much newer information, but a little more thorough.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jur1.htm
People modded you as funny, but if you read the actual law, then yes, pushing all the buttons in an elevator could, in fact, be a felony:
... electronic device or system ... so as to disrupt, interrupt, or impair the functions of any ... commercial ... operations.
SB 146, Sec 2909.04:
(B) No person shall knowingly use any
(C) Whoever violates this section is guilty of disrupting public services, a felony of the fourth degree.
(Law snippet borrowed from previous poster...)
That's not really funny at all.
To make your protest and boycott truly useful, you need to take one additional step. Simply telling Gap they lost your business won't help. Instead, send them a nice printed letter explaining exactly why you shopped elsewhere, and that you had intended to shop there first until you were turned away. Then, include photocopies of the reciepts, so they can see actual physical evidence of lost purchases. It puts a concrete number on an abstract idea of "losing a customer" and lets them see, exactly, what they have lost.
How long ago was that? I've been banking online for the past 3 or 4 years with Bank One (ever since they bought First Chicago) and now Chase. I've *never* had a problem using Firefox from my Mac or my PC on thier site. Just curious if this was some time ago as my experience in this century has been that there have been no issues at all. I'm wondering if they saw the light a while back...
From TFA:
On Dec. 8, a 38-year-old man died suddenly after playing Internet games for 20 straight days at an Internet café, sustaining himself solely on instant noodles.
I think we just nailed it in this case. What's the mystery?
I doubt that many would suddenly start going 140mph just because there's no signs.
:)
And besides, the few people that would drive like that wouldn't be around anymore within a week or two anyway, and it'd be better for everyone...