>> Why would I want to work during my vacation? IT'S MY VACATION! >> >> It doesn't matter that it's a different job! It's WORK! And work is something I'm against in any form! >> >> I'll pass.
then I must be messed up... the last vacation I took was spent volunteering as medical staff at a scout jamboree... my vacation time for this year is split up in to dingle or pairs of days throught the year to cover specific special events that I'm volunteering at ( a weekend as a medic at a refional scout camp, net control radio operator for a car rally, radio communications and medical services for a relay race, etc etc)
I guess I don't do "nothing" well... seems I'm always doing one thing or another... mostly volunteer work, I generally enjoy it though, you meet lots of great people and have experiences that you wouldn't otherwise have.
the answer is that it depends on a bunch of factors, (this is also why your battery life varies even when you use the phone the same way all the time) the phone will periodically contact the tower to let the tower know that it's there, depending on how strong a signal there is to the tower the phone will decide on how strong a signal is needed to reach it, if you are moving and switching between towers the phone will transmit more frequently so as to introduce itself to each new cell site. if the phone can't get a signal at all it will try transmitting on each of it's modes and at full power in an attempt to contact a cell site (this is the one that takes the most power) on my phone if I'm in the city it will last almost a week of regular usage, however if I take it fully charged in to an area with weak analog signal combined with areas of no signal at all, the phone's battery will be completely dead overnight (or less) and I can tell you that it isn't the reciever that kills the battery so quickly when there's a weak signal, it's the transmitter attempting to contact a cell site.
the problem is, even in "standby" the phone does a lot of transmitting, and that transmitting is still a power hog.
I'm not quite as negative as the grandparent poster, in that I'm happy if any component uses less power (every bit helps) but in reality, it's the transmitter that uses the lions share of the juice, not the reciever (even in standby).
> It's small, good-looking, there are smaller music players out there, and good looking is a personal statment, I personally think many other players are nicer looking.
> has a great interface maybe once you get used to it! if you know nothing about it and have never used one it has the LEAST intuitive interface in existance, it is the only mp3 player I have ever seen that doesn't bother to label half the controls... fine one marked as a power switch, and how are you supposed to know that you can use the unmarked circle as a scroll wheel? it doesn't turn or anything, and the only labelling implies simply 4 buttons one at each point, not to mention, how are you supposed to know that that's a button in the centre of the ring, it's completely unmarked. and the only way to get songs on to it is through iTunes (why is it that you can't just drag and drop like every semsible player out there?)
> is fairly price-competitive at least around here the iPod costs more than any of the competing models
> The only real reason to look at other HD-based players is if you really want a radio or recording capability. actually, I chose another HD based player because it did more, (played video before the iPod video came out, and allows easy playback and recording of music and video from standard inputs, also has a compact flash card slot to get pictures on it from my camera) cost less than the iPod, had an intuitive interface (the buttons are actually labeled and make sense, what a concept), and was easilly upgradeable with any laptop hardrive that I could want making it hold more data than any iPod. add to that the ease of use that comes with being able to simply drag and drop any file on to it and play the file without needing any extra software allowing me to add files from any computer, not just my own.
for price vs features it's hard NOT to beat the iPod.
the more appropriate statment would be: it's small, some people think it looks good, it's extremely expensive. The only real reason to look at iPod players is if you buy in to the marketing hype and just want to have the player that "everyone else" has.
more and more security conscious companies won't allow a camera on their site, and if your phone has one bundled in, then you can no longer bring the phone on site either. so for a lot of people it's not a case of "ignore the extra feature" it's a case of loosing the ability to use your phone in many locations where they could use it if the unwanted "feature" wasn't forced upon them.
>> i have no problem with criminal checks. if i was hiring an accountant i would want to know he wasn't involved in previous fraud or other scandals
There are 2 problems here, first of all this depends on the scope of the criminal check, is it any of your business if your accountant had a drunk driving conviction 15 years ago? secondly, we as a society frequently complain that criminals aren't properly rehabilitated after serving their sentences, but a lot of that is our fault. just try to get a decent job with a criminal record, it's almost impossible, so these people can't get a good job, they go back to what they know they can do... if we want to rehabilitate people and stop them from committing the same crimes again, how are we supposed to do that if we won't hire them?
while I'm sure this was mostly meant as a joke... I don't know about where you are, but around here there is a phone number for the bank that owns the machine listed on each machine, there's also the possibility of a phone book, or call directory assistance... when you're dealing with the possibility of your financial information being stolen, or worse, some form identity theft, the 50c for the 411 call is well worth it...
>> Bull. You can't show up late for a job or important appointment merely because the ATM ate your card
All you have to do is make one simple phone call, that doesn't take all THAT long... If you phone the bank and notify them, any transaction that takes place after your notification is THEIR problem, not yours as you have notified them that the card is no longer in your posesion, a phone call doesn't take long, and is the only way to ensure you are safe from this form of fraud. if a machine legitimitally takes your card it will notify you on the screen, if it simply gets "Stuck" phone the bank immediately.
telcos already make more on business customers, a simple POTS line costs almost double for a business what it does for a residential customer, there is no difference whatsoever in the line itself, the only difference is that a business customer can only get support 9-5 mon-fri while a residential customer gets support 24/7... (yes, I know how absurd this is) business customers pay almost double and get LESS service already... then add DSL and it gets worse, you also have to have a business DSL line on your business POTS line, and a business DSL package costs double what a residential one does... all told it costs twice as much, and you end up with the same thing or worse...
the problem isn't that we can't get a good picture of the moon, it's more that you can't convince the "fake moon landing" crowd with pictures, they'll just tell you that the pictures are faked too, for that matter, even bringing something back wouldn't convince them, they'd say it was just in storage for a few years, after all, the fact that people brought back pictures, and video, and pieces of the moon itself in the first missions didn't convince these people, why would us doing it again convince them?
>> I'm pretty sure you're talking from phone->tower->phone (unless using walkie-talkie mode),
well... you're half right... they will talk phone -> tower -> phone (or more likely add some more steps in there) but it doesn't matter what "mode" you are in, even the "walkie-talkie" phones still go through the tower, it's kind of like a speed-dial/conference call combination when you push the button, they never behave like true "walkie-talkies" they are always behaving like cell phones.
of course that's only one of many many holes in the whole theory anyway, so relatively minor...
The problem with "crushing" a patent company, is that along with having no employees, they also have no assets, there's nothing to "crush" by invalidating the patent they have already taken away that company's only asset, and the way companies are structured, the people behind the company are immune to anything but the most severe illegal acts, the company declares bankruptcy and the owner walks away with any remaining funds in some form of "severance"
in short, it's not worth anyone's time to counter-sue, as even if you win, you'll never see any funds.
Re:Patnets brought to their logical conclusion
on
Supreme Court spurns RIM
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
this all depends on your point of view, the point of view of the creators of the patent and copyright systems was that nobody would produce anything worthwhile without protection from people copying them, the parent of this post seems to share that view.
the opposing view is that preople invented things and produced works of art for centuries before any patent system, or copyright system came in to place, why would you expect that they would suddenly stop now?
in reality nobody can guess what would happen without these protections, sure people invented and created for centuries without protection, but at the same time, they didn't have to worry about some huge corporation running off with their idea and making millions while they got nothing, they also didn't have to worry about their copyrighted works being re-produced for free by people with no special skills...
I have no doubt that if both the patent system and the copyright system completely vanished people would still invent and produce, the question really revolves around "how much" they would produce, and nobody knows for sure.
it's obvious the current system is broken, but most likely some form of a system does in fact need to be in place... it's just a matter of where the correct "balance" is...
what I don't understand is why more devices aren't built like my NAD stero system, on the front of the unit it has a button marked power which actually disconnects the power, and one marked standby which still allows you to use the remote, the "power" button on the remote does the equivlant of "standby" on the unit... user choice... unlike most components where unplugging is the only true "off" option... I'm not against having a standby mode, I'm just against it being the only option, and definitely against it pretending to be an actual power off mode.
while on the topic of extra buttons on the unit... my other big pet-peeve (which again is done correctly on that NAD stereo system) is that most electronics these days REQUIRE the remote, the controls on the unit itself are so limited that you can't do anything without the remote... is a button REALLY that expensive?
I have been to many cut cables, of those, about 2 or 3 the company hadn't bothered to have a locate done, (it's FREE people!) and in EVERY other case the locate had been done, and was accurate within a couple of inches, and the people STILL cut the cables. adding a different way to locate the cable wouldn't make any difference, the same people who cut the cables now would still cut them, they already know exactly where they are, it still doesn't help.... I talked to one construction guy who said it was cheaper for them to pay the cost of repair than to spend the extra time to be carefull how they dig... and I think therein lies the problem, until it is more expensive for us to come repair it than it is for them to pay attention, they'll keep doing it.
in my line of work we call it the "dig-before-you-call" number (after the advertising campaign for "call-before-you-dig") I have seen mant of them... amazingly, most of them HAVE done a locate and IGNORED it! I showed up to do one repair and they had cut through cable, power, phone, and gas, and all of them were marked properly... the worst part? it wasn't the first time they had cut these same utilities at this same location! I had another one who cut through our phone line not once, but in five different places!
We had one a couple years ago in downtown vancouver where a construction company drove many lengths of rebar through a re-inforced concrete duct bank disturbing several thousand phone lines and a couple hundred fibre lines, took several people working around the clock for 2 weeks to fix it all (just to make things more fun, most of the cable was old non-colour coded paper cable, meaning the splicers had to tone out each and every line) (and yes, the construction company at fault did get the bill... I'm guessing that building was slightly over-budget after that...)
The problem is, the copper that is currently in use rarely gets re-used, there is a huge amount of unused copper wire in a lot of buildings who have upgraded to a higher category of cable or gone to fibre and simply left the old stuff in place (too expensive/difficult to remove) I've been in many offices that have perfectly good cable that isn't used anymore simply because they thought it was messy, instead of pulling it out they hacked it off where it comes out of the wall and ran new cables, burried cables that have gone bad are also generally left in the ground, you run a new cable, but nobody pulls out the old ones.
And even in the rare cases that the old cable is removed, what percentage is actually recycled? I suspect most of it is simply thrown away, and mining a landfill to recover it is not exactly a fun task....
so even if it is used less, a shortage is still a problem. maybe fewer long distance runs, but you still need it in the electronics on both ends, and the power systems still use it heavilly, so although new usage is expected to be at a slower rate, it will still require new copper, or recover the old copper, this article says the former is difficult, and the latter is so far pretty rare as well...
to force you to show up on time here we have a random legth of trailers/ads before a movie, I've seen anywhere from zero (yes, the movie actually started at the start time, I was shocked!) up to over 20 minutes worth of advertising before the show, problem is, if you just decide to be late, it'll be one of the rare zero ad movies...
and I have never even heard of assigned seats in a movie theatre around here (Canada)
the problem with simply getting the camera/other device to format the card is that the camera/other device manufacturer still has to pay the patent royalty even though the media manufacturer didn't...
the only way aroud this that I see is for the camera/other device not to use FAT but instead use a different file system, the problem there being that you would no longer be able to pop the card out and read it in a windows machine without third party drivers... however I have noticed a trend among camera manufacturers insisting you use THEIR software to download from the cameras, so needing their special software to read the cards isn't that much of a stretch (as much as I think it's an appalling setup)
recently (within the past 2-3 years) the electrical utility in my city did a complete inventory of all the transformers at the tops of poles and in boxes in back lanes, at that time they affixed stikers to most of them stating that they had been inspected and do not contain PCBs... considering that I have yet to see one that doesn't have the "no pcb" sticker I'm guessing that they also swapped out any that did have PCBs...
proper lockout/tagout procedures would involve the person doing the work personally putting a padlock on the circuit breaker (in the off position), one to which the only key is in the posession of the person working inside the device, along with a tag stating who he is, what he's working on, and when he expects to be done, after which he would personally test that the equipment is not capable of powering on before climbing inside.
Removing a fuse is no more effective then turning off the switch if some idiot comes along and puts it back together (the same idiot who first tried the switch and found it didn't work) always LOCK it out.
ok... so there's always some moron with bolt-cutters... but I'd love to see him claim THAT was an accident when he goes to trial...
Perhaps it's more of a "common usage" thing rather than a dictionary definition thing... (many words, although defined in a certain way, are commonly used in slightly different ways)
Either way, neither racism, nor predjudice should be encouraged.
Also in reference to "many people believed it who didn't specifically ACT on that belief" while that is undoubtably true, you will never see history full of "he thought about it but never said or did anything" which was my point. While I still don't think that it is appropriate to hold those beliefs, if nothing was ever said, nor done, you can't even prove the person was thinking it, and we don't really want to get in to the business of policeing people's thoughts, only their actions. (speech is more of a grey area, freedom of speech is good, when it doesn't interfere with safety of others (ie telling people to commit a crime is bad))
If I can look through history and see it, then there was an "overt action" (otherwise what am I seeing?)... I'm inclined to agree with the previous poster who said that predjudice is thinking it, racism is acting on it... (though by definition there is a lot more overlap)
that's not to say that either one is excusable, and because the mental state of predjudice is likely to, in many cases, develop in to racism, or at least a tolerance for it, it should definitely be discouraged.
I think the biggest thing that needs to be done to patents is make them the property of the inventor, and non-trasferable to anyone else. if a company wants to lisence the use of the patent they contact the inventor, if they want to make a portfolio of hundreds of patents, they'll have to hire all the people that invented the items, if that person dies, the patent expires on the spot.
this still provides the incentive to create that the patent system was designed for, while providing a strong discouragment to those that just want to own all the patents for the money, if they suddenly have to keep the inventor on payroll (and at a higher wage than he would make at the competition) just to keep his patent, they'll think twice about wanting the patent without plans to bring it to market.
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>> Why would I want to work during my vacation? IT'S MY VACATION!
>>
>> It doesn't matter that it's a different job! It's WORK! And work is something I'm against in any form!
>>
>> I'll pass.
then I must be messed up... the last vacation I took was spent volunteering as medical staff at a scout jamboree... my vacation time for this year is split up in to dingle or pairs of days throught the year to cover specific special events that I'm volunteering at ( a weekend as a medic at a refional scout camp, net control radio operator for a car rally, radio communications and medical services for a relay race, etc etc)
I guess I don't do "nothing" well... seems I'm always doing one thing or another... mostly volunteer work, I generally enjoy it though, you meet lots of great people and have experiences that you wouldn't otherwise have.
the answer is that it depends on a bunch of factors, (this is also why your battery life varies even when you use the phone the same way all the time) the phone will periodically contact the tower to let the tower know that it's there, depending on how strong a signal there is to the tower the phone will decide on how strong a signal is needed to reach it, if you are moving and switching between towers the phone will transmit more frequently so as to introduce itself to each new cell site. if the phone can't get a signal at all it will try transmitting on each of it's modes and at full power in an attempt to contact a cell site (this is the one that takes the most power) on my phone if I'm in the city it will last almost a week of regular usage, however if I take it fully charged in to an area with weak analog signal combined with areas of no signal at all, the phone's battery will be completely dead overnight (or less) and I can tell you that it isn't the reciever that kills the battery so quickly when there's a weak signal, it's the transmitter attempting to contact a cell site.
the problem is, even in "standby" the phone does a lot of transmitting, and that transmitting is still a power hog.
I'm not quite as negative as the grandparent poster, in that I'm happy if any component uses less power (every bit helps) but in reality, it's the transmitter that uses the lions share of the juice, not the reciever (even in standby).
> It's small, good-looking,
there are smaller music players out there, and good looking is a personal statment, I personally think many other players are nicer looking.
> has a great interface
maybe once you get used to it! if you know nothing about it and have never used one it has the LEAST intuitive interface in existance, it is the only mp3 player I have ever seen that doesn't bother to label half the controls... fine one marked as a power switch, and how are you supposed to know that you can use the unmarked circle as a scroll wheel? it doesn't turn or anything, and the only labelling implies simply 4 buttons one at each point, not to mention, how are you supposed to know that that's a button in the centre of the ring, it's completely unmarked. and the only way to get songs on to it is through iTunes (why is it that you can't just drag and drop like every semsible player out there?)
> is fairly price-competitive
at least around here the iPod costs more than any of the competing models
> The only real reason to look at other HD-based players is if you really want a radio or recording capability.
actually, I chose another HD based player because it did more, (played video before the iPod video came out, and allows easy playback and recording of music and video from standard inputs, also has a compact flash card slot to get pictures on it from my camera) cost less than the iPod, had an intuitive interface (the buttons are actually labeled and make sense, what a concept), and was easilly upgradeable with any laptop hardrive that I could want making it hold more data than any iPod. add to that the ease of use that comes with being able to simply drag and drop any file on to it and play the file without needing any extra software allowing me to add files from any computer, not just my own.
for price vs features it's hard NOT to beat the iPod.
the more appropriate statment would be: it's small, some people think it looks good, it's extremely expensive. The only real reason to look at iPod players is if you buy in to the marketing hype and just want to have the player that "everyone else" has.
more and more security conscious companies won't allow a camera on their site, and if your phone has one bundled in, then you can no longer bring the phone on site either. so for a lot of people it's not a case of "ignore the extra feature" it's a case of loosing the ability to use your phone in many locations where they could use it if the unwanted "feature" wasn't forced upon them.
>> i have no problem with criminal checks. if i was hiring an accountant i would want to know he wasn't involved in previous fraud or other scandals
There are 2 problems here, first of all this depends on the scope of the criminal check, is it any of your business if your accountant had a drunk driving conviction 15 years ago?
secondly, we as a society frequently complain that criminals aren't properly rehabilitated after serving their sentences, but a lot of that is our fault. just try to get a decent job with a criminal record, it's almost impossible, so these people can't get a good job, they go back to what they know they can do... if we want to rehabilitate people and stop them from committing the same crimes again, how are we supposed to do that if we won't hire them?
while I'm sure this was mostly meant as a joke... I don't know about where you are, but around here there is a phone number for the bank that owns the machine listed on each machine, there's also the possibility of a phone book, or call directory assistance... when you're dealing with the possibility of your financial information being stolen, or worse, some form identity theft, the 50c for the 411 call is well worth it...
>> Bull. You can't show up late for a job or important appointment merely because the ATM ate your card
All you have to do is make one simple phone call, that doesn't take all THAT long... If you phone the bank and notify them, any transaction that takes place after your notification is THEIR problem, not yours as you have notified them that the card is no longer in your posesion, a phone call doesn't take long, and is the only way to ensure you are safe from this form of fraud. if a machine legitimitally takes your card it will notify you on the screen, if it simply gets "Stuck" phone the bank immediately.
telcos already make more on business customers, a simple POTS line costs almost double for a business what it does for a residential customer, there is no difference whatsoever in the line itself, the only difference is that a business customer can only get support 9-5 mon-fri while a residential customer gets support 24/7... (yes, I know how absurd this is) business customers pay almost double and get LESS service already... then add DSL and it gets worse, you also have to have a business DSL line on your business POTS line, and a business DSL package costs double what a residential one does... all told it costs twice as much, and you end up with the same thing or worse...
the problem isn't that we can't get a good picture of the moon, it's more that you can't convince the "fake moon landing" crowd with pictures, they'll just tell you that the pictures are faked too, for that matter, even bringing something back wouldn't convince them, they'd say it was just in storage for a few years, after all, the fact that people brought back pictures, and video, and pieces of the moon itself in the first missions didn't convince these people, why would us doing it again convince them?
>> I'm pretty sure you're talking from phone->tower->phone (unless using walkie-talkie mode),
well... you're half right... they will talk phone -> tower -> phone (or more likely add some more steps in there) but it doesn't matter what "mode" you are in, even the "walkie-talkie" phones still go through the tower, it's kind of like a speed-dial/conference call combination when you push the button, they never behave like true "walkie-talkies" they are always behaving like cell phones.
of course that's only one of many many holes in the whole theory anyway, so relatively minor...
The problem with "crushing" a patent company, is that along with having no employees, they also have no assets, there's nothing to "crush" by invalidating the patent they have already taken away that company's only asset, and the way companies are structured, the people behind the company are immune to anything but the most severe illegal acts, the company declares bankruptcy and the owner walks away with any remaining funds in some form of "severance"
in short, it's not worth anyone's time to counter-sue, as even if you win, you'll never see any funds.
this all depends on your point of view, the point of view of the creators of the patent and copyright systems was that nobody would produce anything worthwhile without protection from people copying them, the parent of this post seems to share that view.
the opposing view is that preople invented things and produced works of art for centuries before any patent system, or copyright system came in to place, why would you expect that they would suddenly stop now?
in reality nobody can guess what would happen without these protections, sure people invented and created for centuries without protection, but at the same time, they didn't have to worry about some huge corporation running off with their idea and making millions while they got nothing, they also didn't have to worry about their copyrighted works being re-produced for free by people with no special skills...
I have no doubt that if both the patent system and the copyright system completely vanished people would still invent and produce, the question really revolves around "how much" they would produce, and nobody knows for sure.
it's obvious the current system is broken, but most likely some form of a system does in fact need to be in place... it's just a matter of where the correct "balance" is...
what I don't understand is why more devices aren't built like my NAD stero system, on the front of the unit it has a button marked power which actually disconnects the power, and one marked standby which still allows you to use the remote, the "power" button on the remote does the equivlant of "standby" on the unit... user choice... unlike most components where unplugging is the only true "off" option... I'm not against having a standby mode, I'm just against it being the only option, and definitely against it pretending to be an actual power off mode.
while on the topic of extra buttons on the unit... my other big pet-peeve (which again is done correctly on that NAD stereo system) is that most electronics these days REQUIRE the remote, the controls on the unit itself are so limited that you can't do anything without the remote... is a button REALLY that expensive?
I have been to many cut cables, of those, about 2 or 3 the company hadn't bothered to have a locate done, (it's FREE people!) and in EVERY other case the locate had been done, and was accurate within a couple of inches, and the people STILL cut the cables. adding a different way to locate the cable wouldn't make any difference, the same people who cut the cables now would still cut them, they already know exactly where they are, it still doesn't help.... I talked to one construction guy who said it was cheaper for them to pay the cost of repair than to spend the extra time to be carefull how they dig... and I think therein lies the problem, until it is more expensive for us to come repair it than it is for them to pay attention, they'll keep doing it.
in my line of work we call it the "dig-before-you-call" number (after the advertising campaign for "call-before-you-dig") I have seen mant of them... amazingly, most of them HAVE done a locate and IGNORED it! I showed up to do one repair and they had cut through cable, power, phone, and gas, and all of them were marked properly... the worst part? it wasn't the first time they had cut these same utilities at this same location! I had another one who cut through our phone line not once, but in five different places!
We had one a couple years ago in downtown vancouver where a construction company drove many lengths of rebar through a re-inforced concrete duct bank disturbing several thousand phone lines and a couple hundred fibre lines, took several people working around the clock for 2 weeks to fix it all (just to make things more fun, most of the cable was old non-colour coded paper cable, meaning the splicers had to tone out each and every line) (and yes, the construction company at fault did get the bill... I'm guessing that building was slightly over-budget after that...)
The problem is, the copper that is currently in use rarely gets re-used, there is a huge amount of unused copper wire in a lot of buildings who have upgraded to a higher category of cable or gone to fibre and simply left the old stuff in place (too expensive/difficult to remove) I've been in many offices that have perfectly good cable that isn't used anymore simply because they thought it was messy, instead of pulling it out they hacked it off where it comes out of the wall and ran new cables, burried cables that have gone bad are also generally left in the ground, you run a new cable, but nobody pulls out the old ones.
And even in the rare cases that the old cable is removed, what percentage is actually recycled? I suspect most of it is simply thrown away, and mining a landfill to recover it is not exactly a fun task....
so even if it is used less, a shortage is still a problem. maybe fewer long distance runs, but you still need it in the electronics on both ends, and the power systems still use it heavilly, so although new usage is expected to be at a slower rate, it will still require new copper, or recover the old copper, this article says the former is difficult, and the latter is so far pretty rare as well...
to force you to show up on time here we have a random legth of trailers/ads before a movie, I've seen anywhere from zero (yes, the movie actually started at the start time, I was shocked!) up to over 20 minutes worth of advertising before the show, problem is, if you just decide to be late, it'll be one of the rare zero ad movies...
and I have never even heard of assigned seats in a movie theatre around here (Canada)
the problem with simply getting the camera/other device to format the card is that the camera/other device manufacturer still has to pay the patent royalty even though the media manufacturer didn't...
the only way aroud this that I see is for the camera/other device not to use FAT but instead use a different file system, the problem there being that you would no longer be able to pop the card out and read it in a windows machine without third party drivers... however I have noticed a trend among camera manufacturers insisting you use THEIR software to download from the cameras, so needing their special software to read the cards isn't that much of a stretch (as much as I think it's an appalling setup)
recently (within the past 2-3 years) the electrical utility in my city did a complete inventory of all the transformers at the tops of poles and in boxes in back lanes, at that time they affixed stikers to most of them stating that they had been inspected and do not contain PCBs... considering that I have yet to see one that doesn't have the "no pcb" sticker I'm guessing that they also swapped out any that did have PCBs...
proper lockout/tagout procedures would involve the person doing the work personally putting a padlock on the circuit breaker (in the off position), one to which the only key is in the posession of the person working inside the device, along with a tag stating who he is, what he's working on, and when he expects to be done, after which he would personally test that the equipment is not capable of powering on before climbing inside.
Removing a fuse is no more effective then turning off the switch if some idiot comes along and puts it back together (the same idiot who first tried the switch and found it didn't work) always LOCK it out.
ok... so there's always some moron with bolt-cutters... but I'd love to see him claim THAT was an accident when he goes to trial...
Perhaps it's more of a "common usage" thing rather than a dictionary definition thing... (many words, although defined in a certain way, are commonly used in slightly different ways)
Either way, neither racism, nor predjudice should be encouraged.
Also in reference to "many people believed it who didn't specifically ACT on that belief" while that is undoubtably true, you will never see history full of "he thought about it but never said or did anything" which was my point. While I still don't think that it is appropriate to hold those beliefs, if nothing was ever said, nor done, you can't even prove the person was thinking it, and we don't really want to get in to the business of policeing people's thoughts, only their actions. (speech is more of a grey area, freedom of speech is good, when it doesn't interfere with safety of others (ie telling people to commit a crime is bad))
If I can look through history and see it, then there was an "overt action" (otherwise what am I seeing?)... I'm inclined to agree with the previous poster who said that predjudice is thinking it, racism is acting on it... (though by definition there is a lot more overlap)
that's not to say that either one is excusable, and because the mental state of predjudice is likely to, in many cases, develop in to racism, or at least a tolerance for it, it should definitely be discouraged.
here's where my idealism gets the best of me... what's to stop assassinations... the law...
I think the biggest thing that needs to be done to patents is make them the property of the inventor, and non-trasferable to anyone else. if a company wants to lisence the use of the patent they contact the inventor, if they want to make a portfolio of hundreds of patents, they'll have to hire all the people that invented the items, if that person dies, the patent expires on the spot.
this still provides the incentive to create that the patent system was designed for, while providing a strong discouragment to those that just want to own all the patents for the money, if they suddenly have to keep the inventor on payroll (and at a higher wage than he would make at the competition) just to keep his patent, they'll think twice about wanting the patent without plans to bring it to market.