Try reporting a child abuser. You'll quickly find yourself mired in all sorts of allegations from the abuser trying to discredit you. Fortunately, my cross-examination skills are good - good enough to get them ejected from the courtroom - twice - for totally losing control. I enjoyed that one... in the end, the judge said he couldn't tell where their lies ended and pure fantasy started. So why should I be deprived of my fun torturing someone on the witness stand for 2 days when they TOTALLY deserve a lot worse? Or do you think that people shouldn't report someone beating on a 2-year-old because they might find themselves the target of all sorts of crap?
Or try having someone you don't owe a penny to sue you, and refuse to drop it despite LOTS of warnings... it ended up costing them $15,000 and 3 days in court to find out that they owed ME a couple of grand. I particularly enjoyed catching them in lies, getting them to confirm them under oath several times, then pulling out a print-out from the government's computers showing they lied. The opposing lawyer was NOT happy with his client after that... and neither was the judge.
Or try having a crazy ex-landlord who refuses to pay for the damages he caused. That case has had almost 2 dozen appearances so far, but he's pretty much run out of delays and other stupid tactics.
Is it my fault if, every few years, someone decides to be stupid? Or expects the threat of legal hassles will make me STFU when they've beaten a 2-year-old? Or any one of a couple dozen other stupidities that happen because people assume I'll just bend over because it will be cheaper - when it doesn't cost me anything except my time to fight back?
Case in point: I've done a few protest demonstrations. 64 of us did a protest way back when... we were all arrested and charged. Everyone took a lawyer except for me. During the meetings to discuss legal tactics, I made it clear that I was of the opinion that we had NOT broken the law, and that each one of us should present at least one different defense. Not only would it clog up the courts, but if ANY of us won, the rest could appeal based on that ruling.
Everyone else whined and sniveled, and took the lawyers' advice, which was "well, what you did was illegal, so..." Just because the municipality has a law against something doesn't mean the law is either legal or enforceable. I've successfully challenged cities before, and my gut feeling was that the city didn't have a solid case.
They all pled guilty on his advice, got convictions, fines, and criminal records.
I chose to go to court.
I had 3 separate arguments prepared, including, of course, a constitutional challenge (I've used constitutional challenges to win in the past - nothing trumps that).
The judge asked if I was sure I could defend myself, because "these are serious charges."
"No problem, I've done it before."
Then he asked the prosecution if they were ready to proceed.
"We have a problem, your honor. We don't have any evidence."
PLONK! Immediate verdict of not guilty.
Fortune smiles on the bold. But I would have won anyway. I always do, for the simple reason that if I'm wrong, I settle; if I'm right, and we can't come to some sort of reasonable settlement, I fight. If more people did this, it would make for a much larger incentive NOT to try to screw people over, or put them in the poorhouse with legal costs so that they decide to pay because it's less than the cost to fight an injustice. Too often, it's extortion, and lawyers having a quasi-monopoly on in-court representation are the perpetrators and enablers of the system.
Considering I've beaten "professional" lawyers more than a dozen times, I can say that it's the lawyers who have fools for clients, and not the person who represents themselves.
It's not like we don't have large enough monitors to accommodate it.
BTW - I wrote a script to change all the spaces used to indent php code for a popular cms to tabs
s/ {2,8}/\t/g; # replace anything from 2 to 8 spaces with a tab
Also joined long lines that had ridiculous double-indent for the second, 3rd, 4th, 20th lines,
Added a few other optimizations, like removing the stupid "xml-like" closing of entities in html files.
End result - shrunk it from 21 megs to 2.
WTF is wrong with using a hard tab? Hard tabs mean less data to read and write, fewer characters to interpret at runtime, etc. The hard tab is not only good for performance, it's environmentally friendly.
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" - Henry VI.
I wouldn't go THAT far, but certainly lawyers are an impediment to justice.
Why not go back to the old system that was in place at the time of Abe Lincoln, where ANYONE could argue a case on behalf of anyone. This cuts out the BS with the various lawyer's associations, etc., and lack of access because of $$$ issues.
It's happening anyway - 60% of all family cases have one side representing themselves. Far better if they have a friend who is more knowledgeable to argue for them, instead of either having to go broke paying a lawyer who, in many cases, simply can't do a better job.
And before all the idiots here go nuts and say "you don't know what you're talking about", I've got over 1,000 hours in the courts, arguing civil, criminal, and regulatory cases,
Most lawyers are a waste of money.
Just ask any retired lawyer or judge.
Preparing motions and arguing cases is not that complicated. Any fool can do it. Oops, what am I saying - fools do it every day. And greater fools pay them to do stuff that they could do themselves with a bit of searching on the net.
I'm still hoping for the mythical "+5 Troll" mod. In theory, it's supposed to be possible depending on the timing of the mods, but the odds are, even if you DO achieve it, someone else will mod it yet again.
Now back on-topic... I've found that people who aren't unionized are AFRAID of talking about unions. "It might get back to the boss" seems to be the prevalent attitude.
When employees are treated fairly (I'm not saying "coddled", just treated fairly and with respect), the question of a union doesn't even come up. Talk of a union is a sign that employees are fed up and would jump ship at the first decent offer. They're looking at job boards, they're less productive because they're demoralized, etc.
If a union prevents those conditions from getting to that point, it seems that it would be in the employers' best interests to not discourage one or more unions.
then again, it's in the employers' best interests to treat employees properly, but they don't do THAT either in a lot of places.
Hint - When you feel constrained against voicing your opinion of job conditions on the job, it's time to leave the job.
"why buy a wireless router for $100 when you get go get a cheap used PC for $25,
1. How about "Because the used PC doesn't have wireless"? Duh! The cost of the add-in wireless xmitter, or a switch ($15), second network card ($10), and a couple of ethernet cables ($6 each) brings it up to $62.00
2. Because a wireless router is under $50.00 on sale (the older Linksys b/g and the Dlink b/g/n - $49 is what I paid for each of them), not $100.00.
3. Because with a laptop or Wii, wireless networking is built in, but I have to spend money on more cables if I use the PC as router (and for the Wii, I'd also have to buy an adapter).
And then there's the smart-alec who accidentally uses a permanent marker on it.
Your point is valid, but there's precisely nothing stopping someone using a permanent marker all over your new "Boogie Board".
There's no need to use ANY sort of marker on a boogie board. Your finger does fine, and there's less likelihood of someone mistaking a sharpie for their finger, unless they're management.
We've already got to deal with the bullshit and idiocy and idiocy of the MBA managers who don't understand the technology they're managing
And that's why you need some sort of collective bargaining. To tell the company "look, you guys are obviously failing at your jobs. 70-hour weeks show you do not know how to allocate resources or plan properly. You are setting us all up for failure. Fire the management assholes responsible, and sit down with us to discuss working conditions, or from now on we're just going to "work to rule". Don't like it, we'll have a picket line set up in 2 minutes - the signs are already in our car trunks, we've already organized it to go public on facebook, twitter, etc., and those NDAs - you're in breach of our original agreements - think about it."
The reality is that companies like Rockstar are abusing their employees, and it's dragging down everyone else in a rush to the bottom. It's not going to stop until people push back.
Realistically, they're going to be out of a job anyway, so what do they have to lose?
I agree they should have refused to work the extra hours, but again, it's the myth that, just because they're white-collar, they *have* to put in the extra hours. If the majority came in and said "We're not doing the extra hours any more, and we also refuse to work with anyone who scabs by doing the extra hours, and here's our new contract! Sign it or we work to rule!"... "work to rule" is the one job tactic management absolutely hates. It gets less done, and raises costs.
The company only has two choices - fire them (and never ship), or accede to the demands, ship late, and learn to devote the right amount of resources (people and time) next time so as to avoid "crunch time" as a way of hiding management incompetence. Otherwise, the cycle repeats.
No, they know unions are bullshit. BULL FUCKING SHIT I SAID IT
They know that the unions WILL turn against them, cut good things like flexible hours and telecommuting, etc
So no
Never been in a union, have you? It shows. Unions don't take away flex-time, etc.
Come back when you've actually been a union-dues-paying member.
A union can work in the best interests of both the employee and employer. The employee gets some protection from management games and abuse, and the employer gets a stable work-force. Also, the employer now has an official way to be notified when they're going too far - before it's too late - rather than what's happening at Rockstar, where it's obviously gone to the point where it's not salvageable.
70-hour weeks say one thing - management doesn't know how to do their jobs. Coders don't put in twice as many productive hours in twice the time - production turns negative after a certain point, with more bugs, lower morale, and generally lower productivity ALL the time, and not just during the extra hours.
Sometimes management needs to have their feet held to the fire, for their own good. 70-hour work weeks are one of those times.
Unfortunately, my experience in the industry has taught me that most developers are willing to put up with enormous amounts of crap so as "not to rock the boat".
Unfortunately, most developers are too brainwashed | chickenshit | dysfunctional to unionize. "Oh, but our job is different." "We're not blue-collar workers!" "We'd lose our independence!"
There, fixed it for you.
There's nothing stopping workers from unionizing except themselves.
So if I invent a Time Machine, and nobody else can find another way to travel through time so they use my design, then my solution was obvious and I am a patent troll for enforcing my patent?
Good luck with that - I'll just use your patented time machine to go back in time and patent it before you!
Digitizing tablets let you go instantly from one point to the other. I currently have a 12" wacom set to cover twin 26" 1920x1200 screens, and there is no delay in going from extreme left to extreme right. Great for when I can't find the cursor - instead of wiggling the mouse and hoping I see it, I just touch the pad about where I want it to be.
Use a mile of copper wire for the inside windings, and several turns of flexible copper pipe for the outer ones. Not directional, but it WILL disable a lot of the nearby electronics while in operation.
If you spend so much time inside playing video games that you get a case of the rickets, you've got way more problems than just vitamin deficiency.
You don't hear people talk about it much, for obvious reasons, but it's also a cause of the rise in prolapsed anuses in teenagers caused by the support structures weakening from too much inactivity, combined with poor bowel movements.
Because when there is a Senate seat won in Mass, and you live in California, you would not want to know the ramifications to the healthcare bill in the senate?
And anyone who cares knows about it. And it's not like the candidates and the parties weren't talking about it either, duh!
Heck, I'm in Kanuckistan, haven't read a newspaper in a year, don't watch tv news or listen to it on the radio, and I know about it - because of this wonderful thing called the Internet. Why bother with any other source - when half the time they're just recycling stuff I've heard about 3 days before?
If you're fat, old, and stupid, you get your news from TV (46%). Well, Duh! Not newspapers.
If you're old and educated, you get it from TV and the Net (23%). Not newspapers.
If you're under 50, educated, you get your news mostly off the internet, with some TV. Not newspapers.
The graph is a bit out of date - newspapers are not #3 any more - they're #4, behind TV, radio, and the Internet, as a news source. A lot has changed since the Great Recession started, with more than 10% of all newspapers just disappearing.
All of today's newspapers will be out of print by 2020 - either purely digital, or bankrupt and re-organized.
Next on the "hit list" is #1 - TV news. Radio will survive for a while because it's illegal to surf the net while driving. But TV news is under tremendous pressure, with ALL broadcast TV viewing down because of:
Time competition from the Internet.
Big-screen TVs hooked to laptops, gaming consoles, the Internet, satellite, dvd and blu-ray players.
Crap content from the networks. 500 channels, and often there's nothing on!
The news industry suffered a serious blow in the late 60's or maybe early 70's, don't quite recall, when news went commercial and had to show a profit.
You really are naive if you believe that. For centuries, news was a profit center. Not decades. It's only in the latter half of the last century that came under assault, from the quickly-rising costs of production and oil distribution from the oil crisis of 1974.
The price of newsprint doubled, then doubled again. The cost of fuel to run the distribution network also went through the roof.
So their subscription prices went up, and their readership went down.
Then, to try to recoup readership, they took on huge debt loads to modernize their equipment - specifically, colour printing - at a time of rising interest rates (prime peaked at over 20%). So they had to raise prices again... which reduced readership.
Faced with so much debt, they had no choice except to engage in cut-throat promotions (get 12 weeks for only $12) to try to be the "last man standing" in their market. The survivor would get some of the readership, but often not enough to make up for the increased debt load.
The old print papers can't survive. Their cost structure is too high, their product is stale before it's off the presses, and it's a major source of pollution, from the production of the newsprint to the costs of recycling. None of them will be around in 2020. They will have all gone through chapter 11 re-orgs, ditched their presses (and the printers unions), and gone purely digital.
And everything you say, non-journalists can do just as well, or better, because, living there, they KNOW what's going on. And we don't need the Times to talk about experts in geology, we can find them (and their opinions) ourselves on the Internet - same way the NYT does it. Just as we can get the same info from the emergency orgs, the various governments, etc. What you're defending is the NYT operating as just another news aggregator - and that model is dead, because anyone can set up a crawler and become an aggregator.
And nobody needs to talk to anyone to know "why so many buildings weren't earthquake-proof". The country is dirt poor.
Newspapers are going to have to can the high costs of maintaining a print presence if they want to survive. Ditch the presses, go completely to an on-line presence. There won't be anyone printing newspapers outside of little podunk towns in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
When it comes to higher education, here's how it works.
First, there's the B.S. - and we all know what that means.
Then there's the M.S. - which means "More of the Same."
Then there's the PhD - "Piled Higher and Deeper."
Try reporting a child abuser. You'll quickly find yourself mired in all sorts of allegations from the abuser trying to discredit you. Fortunately, my cross-examination skills are good - good enough to get them ejected from the courtroom - twice - for totally losing control. I enjoyed that one ... in the end, the judge said he couldn't tell where their lies ended and pure fantasy started. So why should I be deprived of my fun torturing someone on the witness stand for 2 days when they TOTALLY deserve a lot worse? Or do you think that people shouldn't report someone beating on a 2-year-old because they might find themselves the target of all sorts of crap?
Or try having someone you don't owe a penny to sue you, and refuse to drop it despite LOTS of warnings ... it ended up costing them $15,000 and 3 days in court to find out that they owed ME a couple of grand. I particularly enjoyed catching them in lies, getting them to confirm them under oath several times, then pulling out a print-out from the government's computers showing they lied. The opposing lawyer was NOT happy with his client after that ... and neither was the judge.
Or try having a crazy ex-landlord who refuses to pay for the damages he caused. That case has had almost 2 dozen appearances so far, but he's pretty much run out of delays and other stupid tactics.
Is it my fault if, every few years, someone decides to be stupid? Or expects the threat of legal hassles will make me STFU when they've beaten a 2-year-old? Or any one of a couple dozen other stupidities that happen because people assume I'll just bend over because it will be cheaper - when it doesn't cost me anything except my time to fight back?
Case in point: I've done a few protest demonstrations. 64 of us did a protest way back when ... we were all arrested and charged. Everyone took a lawyer except for me. During the meetings to discuss legal tactics, I made it clear that I was of the opinion that we had NOT broken the law, and that each one of us should present at least one different defense. Not only would it clog up the courts, but if ANY of us won, the rest could appeal based on that ruling.
Everyone else whined and sniveled, and took the lawyers' advice, which was "well, what you did was illegal, so ..." Just because the municipality has a law against something doesn't mean the law is either legal or enforceable. I've successfully challenged cities before, and my gut feeling was that the city didn't have a solid case.
They all pled guilty on his advice, got convictions, fines, and criminal records.
I chose to go to court.
I had 3 separate arguments prepared, including, of course, a constitutional challenge (I've used constitutional challenges to win in the past - nothing trumps that).
The judge asked if I was sure I could defend myself, because "these are serious charges."
"No problem, I've done it before."
Then he asked the prosecution if they were ready to proceed.
"We have a problem, your honor. We don't have any evidence."
PLONK! Immediate verdict of not guilty.
Fortune smiles on the bold. But I would have won anyway. I always do, for the simple reason that if I'm wrong, I settle; if I'm right, and we can't come to some sort of reasonable settlement, I fight. If more people did this, it would make for a much larger incentive NOT to try to screw people over, or put them in the poorhouse with legal costs so that they decide to pay because it's less than the cost to fight an injustice. Too often, it's extortion, and lawyers having a quasi-monopoly on in-court representation are the perpetrators and enablers of the system.
Considering I've beaten "professional" lawyers more than a dozen times, I can say that it's the lawyers who have fools for clients, and not the person who represents themselves.
Earth's magnetic poles don't match the geographic poles. They pretty much never have, except by coincidence.
One true tab.
It's not like we don't have large enough monitors to accommodate it.
BTW - I wrote a script to change all the spaces used to indent php code for a popular cms to tabs
s/ {2,8}/\t/g; # replace anything from 2 to 8 spaces with a tab
Also joined long lines that had ridiculous double-indent for the second, 3rd, 4th, 20th lines,
Added a few other optimizations, like removing the stupid "xml-like" closing of entities in html files.
End result - shrunk it from 21 megs to 2.
WTF is wrong with using a hard tab? Hard tabs mean less data to read and write, fewer characters to interpret at runtime, etc. The hard tab is not only good for performance, it's environmentally friendly.
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" - Henry VI.
I wouldn't go THAT far, but certainly lawyers are an impediment to justice.
Why not go back to the old system that was in place at the time of Abe Lincoln, where ANYONE could argue a case on behalf of anyone. This cuts out the BS with the various lawyer's associations, etc., and lack of access because of $$$ issues.
It's happening anyway - 60% of all family cases have one side representing themselves. Far better if they have a friend who is more knowledgeable to argue for them, instead of either having to go broke paying a lawyer who, in many cases, simply can't do a better job.
And before all the idiots here go nuts and say "you don't know what you're talking about", I've got over 1,000 hours in the courts, arguing civil, criminal, and regulatory cases,
Most lawyers are a waste of money. Just ask any retired lawyer or judge.
Preparing motions and arguing cases is not that complicated. Any fool can do it. Oops, what am I saying - fools do it every day. And greater fools pay them to do stuff that they could do themselves with a bit of searching on the net.
I'm still hoping for the mythical "+5 Troll" mod. In theory, it's supposed to be possible depending on the timing of the mods, but the odds are, even if you DO achieve it, someone else will mod it yet again.
Now back on-topic ... I've found that people who aren't unionized are AFRAID of talking about unions. "It might get back to the boss" seems to be the prevalent attitude.
When employees are treated fairly (I'm not saying "coddled", just treated fairly and with respect), the question of a union doesn't even come up. Talk of a union is a sign that employees are fed up and would jump ship at the first decent offer. They're looking at job boards, they're less productive because they're demoralized, etc.
If a union prevents those conditions from getting to that point, it seems that it would be in the employers' best interests to not discourage one or more unions.
then again, it's in the employers' best interests to treat employees properly, but they don't do THAT either in a lot of places.
Hint - When you feel constrained against voicing your opinion of job conditions on the job, it's time to leave the job.
1. How about "Because the used PC doesn't have wireless"? Duh! The cost of the add-in wireless xmitter, or a switch ($15), second network card ($10), and a couple of ethernet cables ($6 each) brings it up to $62.00
2. Because a wireless router is under $50.00 on sale (the older Linksys b/g and the Dlink b/g/n - $49 is what I paid for each of them), not $100.00.
3. Because with a laptop or Wii, wireless networking is built in, but I have to spend money on more cables if I use the PC as router (and for the Wii, I'd also have to buy an adapter).
There's no need to use ANY sort of marker on a boogie board. Your finger does fine, and there's less likelihood of someone mistaking a sharpie for their finger, unless they're management.
Markers for the whiteboard dry out. And then there's the smart-alec who accidentally uses a permanent marker on it.
You can. It's called a camera. Same as taking a picture of a whiteboard or blackboard.
At $30, it's cheaper than almost anything except a free digitizer.
So when did the UNION force you to give up flex-time and tele-commuting? Or is this just a made-up example of union-bashing?
And that's why you need some sort of collective bargaining. To tell the company "look, you guys are obviously failing at your jobs. 70-hour weeks show you do not know how to allocate resources or plan properly. You are setting us all up for failure. Fire the management assholes responsible, and sit down with us to discuss working conditions, or from now on we're just going to "work to rule". Don't like it, we'll have a picket line set up in 2 minutes - the signs are already in our car trunks, we've already organized it to go public on facebook, twitter, etc., and those NDAs - you're in breach of our original agreements - think about it."
The reality is that companies like Rockstar are abusing their employees, and it's dragging down everyone else in a rush to the bottom. It's not going to stop until people push back.
Realistically, they're going to be out of a job anyway, so what do they have to lose?
I agree they should have refused to work the extra hours, but again, it's the myth that, just because they're white-collar, they *have* to put in the extra hours. If the majority came in and said "We're not doing the extra hours any more, and we also refuse to work with anyone who scabs by doing the extra hours, and here's our new contract! Sign it or we work to rule!" ... "work to rule" is the one job tactic management absolutely hates. It gets less done, and raises costs.
The company only has two choices - fire them (and never ship), or accede to the demands, ship late, and learn to devote the right amount of resources (people and time) next time so as to avoid "crunch time" as a way of hiding management incompetence. Otherwise, the cycle repeats.
Never been in a union, have you? It shows. Unions don't take away flex-time, etc.
Come back when you've actually been a union-dues-paying member.
A union can work in the best interests of both the employee and employer. The employee gets some protection from management games and abuse, and the employer gets a stable work-force. Also, the employer now has an official way to be notified when they're going too far - before it's too late - rather than what's happening at Rockstar, where it's obviously gone to the point where it's not salvageable.
70-hour weeks say one thing - management doesn't know how to do their jobs. Coders don't put in twice as many productive hours in twice the time - production turns negative after a certain point, with more bugs, lower morale, and generally lower productivity ALL the time, and not just during the extra hours.
Sometimes management needs to have their feet held to the fire, for their own good. 70-hour work weeks are one of those times.
Unfortunately, most developers are too brainwashed | chickenshit | dysfunctional to unionize. "Oh, but our job is different." "We're not blue-collar workers!" "We'd lose our independence!"
There, fixed it for you.
There's nothing stopping workers from unionizing except themselves.
... will he bounce?
Good luck with that - I'll just use your patented time machine to go back in time and patent it before you!
Some things are impossible to protect by patents.
Digitizing tablets let you go instantly from one point to the other. I currently have a 12" wacom set to cover twin 26" 1920x1200 screens, and there is no delay in going from extreme left to extreme right. Great for when I can't find the cursor - instead of wiggling the mouse and hoping I see it, I just touch the pad about where I want it to be.
build one of these
Use a mile of copper wire for the inside windings, and several turns of flexible copper pipe for the outer ones. Not directional, but it WILL disable a lot of the nearby electronics while in operation.
You don't hear people talk about it much, for obvious reasons, but it's also a cause of the rise in prolapsed anuses in teenagers caused by the support structures weakening from too much inactivity, combined with poor bowel movements.
And anyone who cares knows about it. And it's not like the candidates and the parties weren't talking about it either, duh!
Heck, I'm in Kanuckistan, haven't read a newspaper in a year, don't watch tv news or listen to it on the radio, and I know about it - because of this wonderful thing called the Internet. Why bother with any other source - when half the time they're just recycling stuff I've heard about 3 days before?
Some facts
All of today's newspapers will be out of print by 2020 - either purely digital, or bankrupt and re-organized.
Next on the "hit list" is #1 - TV news. Radio will survive for a while because it's illegal to surf the net while driving. But TV news is under tremendous pressure, with ALL broadcast TV viewing down because of:
No, but if even 1 in 100,000 blogs are professional-quality, that's good enough to give more quality stuff than you can ever read in a lifetime.
You really are naive if you believe that. For centuries, news was a profit center. Not decades. It's only in the latter half of the last century that came under assault, from the quickly-rising costs of production and oil distribution from the oil crisis of 1974.
The price of newsprint doubled, then doubled again. The cost of fuel to run the distribution network also went through the roof.
So their subscription prices went up, and their readership went down.
Then, to try to recoup readership, they took on huge debt loads to modernize their equipment - specifically, colour printing - at a time of rising interest rates (prime peaked at over 20%). So they had to raise prices again ... which reduced readership.
Faced with so much debt, they had no choice except to engage in cut-throat promotions (get 12 weeks for only $12) to try to be the "last man standing" in their market. The survivor would get some of the readership, but often not enough to make up for the increased debt load.
The old print papers can't survive. Their cost structure is too high, their product is stale before it's off the presses, and it's a major source of pollution, from the production of the newsprint to the costs of recycling. None of them will be around in 2020. They will have all gone through chapter 11 re-orgs, ditched their presses (and the printers unions), and gone purely digital.
And everything you say, non-journalists can do just as well, or better, because, living there, they KNOW what's going on. And we don't need the Times to talk about experts in geology, we can find them (and their opinions) ourselves on the Internet - same way the NYT does it. Just as we can get the same info from the emergency orgs, the various governments, etc. What you're defending is the NYT operating as just another news aggregator - and that model is dead, because anyone can set up a crawler and become an aggregator.
And nobody needs to talk to anyone to know "why so many buildings weren't earthquake-proof". The country is dirt poor.
Newspapers are going to have to can the high costs of maintaining a print presence if they want to survive. Ditch the presses, go completely to an on-line presence. There won't be anyone printing newspapers outside of little podunk towns in the future.
So cut #2 - I don't need someone else to tell me how I should think about something. Problem solved.