They would have argued that they need it to search for evidence against him.
Then he could have been able to argue "You can't have it - returning it to you would be self-incrimination."
Or he could have just removed the hard disk and paid them $100 for a replacement hard disk, or better yet:
"gee, it died a few days ago, and I replaced it. BTW, here's the invoice. Please reimburse me".
Were they the ones that took the 450-766-mhz P3? They WERE the pits. 20% DOA.
Fortunately, they've cleaned up their act. They had no choice (and everyone in the industry later got hit by those "environment-friendly" water-based capacitors).
Its not like "Hot Coffee" actually hurt the industry. It created the sort of buzz you can't buy. (the only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity). The people who claimed to be "offended" weren't the target market anyway.
A bright flashlight does the job as well, but you don't have the convenience of being able to do it from across the room. A strobe light would probably work by saturating the ccd and messing up with the auto-gaoi/white balance/backlight compensation circuitry. Unfortunately, I don't have a strobe light handy to test the theory.
The analysts at RBC Capital Markets just want to have more of an excuse to blame someone else because they haven't got a clue.
Or has anyone else forgotten what another division of RBC - Baystar|RBC - has done, the SCO PIPE fairy?
Besides, if they want the info, they can just google for it and actually do some ANALYSIS. Oh, right - they don't know how to analyse anything - its all "educated guesswork."
I guess they saved all those for the US market. In my experience, if its cheap, and it runs a week, it'll run forever. If its name-brand, it dies a few months after the warranty expires. That's why I left the stupid box sit for a year - I was so pissed off! Now there are cheapie versions out that will take the cpu and peripherals, and I can use another box for a specific task, so I don't mind replacing it so much.
The bad caps bit affected the whole industry, and not just motherboards. Like the power supplies that worked fine for a while, then went "bang" one day on power-up and let out all the magic blue smoke...
Criminal mischief? Vandalism? Gee, I can see it now. Boss complains to the police. They ask "What damage was done?" The answer - "Well, uh, none." "In that case its a civil matter. Good-bye."
Think for 2 seconds. If you've ever played with a laser pointer, you know how hard it is for anyone to track down who's doing the pointing. I bring one to the movies any time I go, just to mess around with the stupid ads they run before the movie.
I should have also mentioned that the cheap pointers are best because the beams DO spread out quickly - they're not pin-point sharp. They have a bright center surrounded by a penumbra (cheap lens/no lens, scratches on the surface, etc., all help the beam to widen as it spreads).
This is another example where buying cheap is better, same as motherboards (stupid ASUS A7V8X-X dies 13 months after purchase - the cheap-ass pc-chips I'm typing this on has been running for 5 years without a hiccup, and its handled up to 400 gigs/month. I have yet to see a name-brand (ASUS, MSI) mb last more than a couple of years when run under any sort of load, or a cheapie last less than 5, even when run 24/7. You don't get what you pay for with the name brands).
Thats why you use a laser pointer - they can't see the beam until it hits the camera - and then the image flare pretty much makes it impossible to see the source.
Why not give it a try, like I did, before saying its that hard. 50' isn't a great distance, not when you're using a laser pointer as your "pointer". From a distance of 50 feet (I just paced it off to test it again) it only takes a couple of seconds to hit the camera lens while seated with my hands on a flat surface. From 15', its really quick and easy, even when "shooting from the hip".
Use a clothes pin to hold the on-off switch in the on position, and set the pointer on one of those "bean-bags" you stick in the microwave and heat up when you want to apply heat to sore muscles, and you can keep it pointed at the camer for as long as the batter lasts.
My dogs absolutely love it. There's something to be said about 400 pounds of dogs chasing a tiny dot, pushing each other out of the way. Especially when they try to "gnaw" it off the floor or stomp it with a paw.
What spooks them is the radio-controlled truck one of my daughters gave me for christmas a few years ago. I haven't met a dog that isn't totally freaked by it. Its funny watching my St. Bernard trying to hide in a bathtub (its the only way to get her into the tub).
Next step - "r/c trucks with frigging lasers strapped on them":-)
he company must deal with storage and handling of the media (tape or DVD); if any incident occur they must go back in time, search for a while, then hope the picture is clear, and in most case it will have no value in court. It's a lot of annoyance for little ROI. But anyway I don't mind being on camera myself, as long as pictures of me spilling coffee in the fax server don't get on "America's Funniest Videos".
Todays setups are much better. Motion and alarm triggers, a decent-sized (705x480) picture, 25 frames per second, with audio, viewable in real time and searchable over any network or the internet. Infrared cams that will pick you out in the dark when you can't see your hand in front of your face (they're fun to experiment with - they use infrared LEDs to light up stuff up to 30 feet away as bright as day). Easily searchable, and you can store up to a year if you don't mind setting up a JBOD. A couple of terrabyes of storage isn't that expensive any more, and mp4s don't take up nearly as much space as you'd think.
Its not that hard - you're aiming at the lens, not the ccd. The lens does the job of focusing it onto the ccd. Hit the lens pretty much anywhere and the results are bad. The further away, the better, since the "dot" gets bigger, so you need LESS steadiness, not more. But the best part is that its a lot easier to aim than you think - just "walk" the dot across the wall with your hand resting on a desk or other stable surface.
The cameras typically have sensitivities well under 1 lux and their backlight/brightness compensation circuitry can't cope with a laser. Like I said, I tested it with a cctv cam I have hanging around for testing purposes when I build these things, so I know a few of their weaknesses.
nail polish remover will frost over the protective dome
vaseline will make it look like the ccd has gone bad
if its 2.4 ghz wireless, its a 4 channel unit. Find out which channel its sending, and broadcast a movie on the same frequency, but closer to the receiver. The transmitters aren't that expensive - just hook the dvd out to the transmitter in - no camera needed. To find the actual frequency, plug the receiver into a cheap hand-held portable tv.
grape juice in a water pistol, or a can of coke shaken, then "accidently" opened just under it, work wonders for a temporary blind
find the power source once you've temporarily blinded it (some use wall-warts, some use a 12 volt feeder wire) and give it 120 volts
look around for a microphone. Some units have the mike built in, some use a separate microphone. Cut the microphone and attach a dozen feet of crappy unshielded audio cable. Nothing more annoying than picking up spanish AM radio broadcasts when you're trying to spy on someone
again, find the microphone, and start telling outrageous lies about how you accidently walked in on one of the managers playing with a penis pump, or you saw them in a restaurant having supper with someone you KNOW works for the competition (have a receipt on hand for your own meal at the restaurant as "evidence" that it actually took place - you can "prove" you were there).
the cam leads usually go into a dvr. The dvr has 1 or more boards, with 4 to 8 a/v processors per board. tap into the video feed and throw some low-amperage AC into the circut. If you get lucky, you can fry the computer, not just the board. If you can tap into 2 camera feeds, then you can connect the core of each feed to opposite sides of your AC circuit - one amp should do it. Much more than that will melt the wires on the pig-tail used to connect the cams to the boards.
The cameras are pretty cheap. Buy one (or even one of those "fake" dummy cameras), bring it to work, and mount it in their washroom. You don't have to connect it to anything. Stick a $1 antenna on it - look. ma - wireless toilet-cam.
If you can get a group together to buy 3 real cameras with wireless transmitters, label them Cam1, Cam3, and Cam6 and mount them, then watch the show. When they're found, they'll go nuts trying to find Cam2, Cam4 and Cam5. Just remember to wear gloves while handling everything.
Just so happens that I build/sell those systems, so I also know their weak points.
You can buy laser pointers for a couple of bucks a piece. I have one handy that I use to tease my dogs with (they love chasing the dot), plus a cctv camera hanging around, so I just tested this to make sure.
Shine the pointer into the camera. You can blind it from 50' away if you have a steady hand.
Have a few drinks with your coworkers (and NOT the boss) once a week just to get it off your chest.
Nah, you should bring the boss... this way, they pay for it! After all, they'll just write it off as a business expense anyway, and after a decade of drinking as part of the job, you can claim disability - work turned you into an alcoholic. Its the Amercian Way - sue your way to a happy retirement!
The other effect is that with a much smaller budget, they can actually make money if they keep distribution costs down by allowing people to "sample" a low-res version, creating demand for a legit hi-res version that can be sold on the cheap and still be profitable for everyone in the supply chain.
Heck, when budgets get low enough, you'll see them being given away in breakfast cereal boxes. Distribution cost to the producer is then $0, and the profit is locked in.
People didn't get it... he said it would happen...
"Over my dead body"
We're talking Bush administration here. Talk about painting a target on your back! They'd WANT to get rid of anyone who can point a finger. Disposing of the body is no big deal.
Heck, they don't even have to "terminate with extreme sanction" any more. Just drop a hint to Balmer that he's going to work for google, and let a random chair take him out.
Speaking of which, if google wanted to throw up a few roadblocks, they could "hint/spread rumours/FUD" that a few critical microsoft developers have accepted/will accept/are in secret talks to accept to jump switch, and watch the body count in Redmond rise like the kill score in Alien 2, from the "pre-emptive kills".
Good point. I can see the next step along the social engineering ladder - distributing the commands as "immunization" against robots. People would fall for it. They always do.
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Probably not, but lawyers have to eat, too. There's only so much sustenance to be gained by sucking the lifeblood out of people.
They would have argued that they need it to search for evidence against him.
Then he could have been able to argue "You can't have it - returning it to you would be self-incrimination."
Or he could have just removed the hard disk and paid them $100 for a replacement hard disk, or better yet: "gee, it died a few days ago, and I replaced it. BTW, here's the invoice. Please reimburse me".
Lesson - posession is still 9/10 of the law.
Fortunately, they've cleaned up their act. They had no choice (and everyone in the industry later got hit by those "environment-friendly" water-based capacitors).
Considering his track record, HE should be put in a box.
Its not like "Hot Coffee" actually hurt the industry. It created the sort of buzz you can't buy. (the only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity). The people who claimed to be "offended" weren't the target market anyway.
A bright flashlight does the job as well, but you don't have the convenience of being able to do it from across the room. A strobe light would probably work by saturating the ccd and messing up with the auto-gaoi/white balance/backlight compensation circuitry. Unfortunately, I don't have a strobe light handy to test the theory.
Or has anyone else forgotten what another division of RBC - Baystar|RBC - has done, the SCO PIPE fairy?
Besides, if they want the info, they can just google for it and actually do some ANALYSIS. Oh, right - they don't know how to analyse anything - its all "educated guesswork."
I guess they saved all those for the US market. In my experience, if its cheap, and it runs a week, it'll run forever. If its name-brand, it dies a few months after the warranty expires. That's why I left the stupid box sit for a year - I was so pissed off! Now there are cheapie versions out that will take the cpu and peripherals, and I can use another box for a specific task, so I don't mind replacing it so much.
The bad caps bit affected the whole industry, and not just motherboards. Like the power supplies that worked fine for a while, then went "bang" one day on power-up and let out all the magic blue smoke ...
Criminal mischief? Vandalism? Gee, I can see it now. Boss complains to the police. They ask "What damage was done?" The answer - "Well, uh, none." "In that case its a civil matter. Good-bye."
Think for 2 seconds. If you've ever played with a laser pointer, you know how hard it is for anyone to track down who's doing the pointing. I bring one to the movies any time I go, just to mess around with the stupid ads they run before the movie.
I should have also mentioned that the cheap pointers are best because the beams DO spread out quickly - they're not pin-point sharp. They have a bright center surrounded by a penumbra (cheap lens/no lens, scratches on the surface, etc., all help the beam to widen as it spreads).
This is another example where buying cheap is better, same as motherboards (stupid ASUS A7V8X-X dies 13 months after purchase - the cheap-ass pc-chips I'm typing this on has been running for 5 years without a hiccup, and its handled up to 400 gigs/month. I have yet to see a name-brand (ASUS, MSI) mb last more than a couple of years when run under any sort of load, or a cheapie last less than 5, even when run 24/7. You don't get what you pay for with the name brands).
Thats why you use a laser pointer - they can't see the beam until it hits the camera - and then the image flare pretty much makes it impossible to see the source.
Use a clothes pin to hold the on-off switch in the on position, and set the pointer on one of those "bean-bags" you stick in the microwave and heat up when you want to apply heat to sore muscles, and you can keep it pointed at the camer for as long as the batter lasts.
My dogs absolutely love it. There's something to be said about 400 pounds of dogs chasing a tiny dot, pushing each other out of the way. Especially when they try to "gnaw" it off the floor or stomp it with a paw.
What spooks them is the radio-controlled truck one of my daughters gave me for christmas a few years ago. I haven't met a dog that isn't totally freaked by it. Its funny watching my St. Bernard trying to hide in a bathtub (its the only way to get her into the tub).
Next step - "r/c trucks with frigging lasers strapped on them" :-)
Todays setups are much better. Motion and alarm triggers, a decent-sized (705x480) picture, 25 frames per second, with audio, viewable in real time and searchable over any network or the internet. Infrared cams that will pick you out in the dark when you can't see your hand in front of your face (they're fun to experiment with - they use infrared LEDs to light up stuff up to 30 feet away as bright as day). Easily searchable, and you can store up to a year if you don't mind setting up a JBOD. A couple of terrabyes of storage isn't that expensive any more, and mp4s don't take up nearly as much space as you'd think.
The cameras typically have sensitivities well under 1 lux and their backlight/brightness compensation circuitry can't cope with a laser. Like I said, I tested it with a cctv cam I have hanging around for testing purposes when I build these things, so I know a few of their weaknesses.
The cameras are pretty cheap. Buy one (or even one of those "fake" dummy cameras), bring it to work, and mount it in their washroom. You don't have to connect it to anything. Stick a $1 antenna on it - look. ma - wireless toilet-cam.
If you can get a group together to buy 3 real cameras with wireless transmitters, label them Cam1, Cam3, and Cam6 and mount them, then watch the show. When they're found, they'll go nuts trying to find Cam2, Cam4 and Cam5. Just remember to wear gloves while handling everything.
Just so happens that I build/sell those systems, so I also know their weak points.
You can buy laser pointers for a couple of bucks a piece. I have one handy that I use to tease my dogs with (they love chasing the dot), plus a cctv camera hanging around, so I just tested this to make sure.
Shine the pointer into the camera. You can blind it from 50' away if you have a steady hand.
Nah, you should bring the boss ... this way, they pay for it! After all, they'll just write it off as a business expense anyway, and after a decade of drinking as part of the job, you can claim disability - work turned you into an alcoholic. Its the Amercian Way - sue your way to a happy retirement!
At least they haven't stopped you posting on slashdot ... yet.
Heck, when budgets get low enough, you'll see them being given away in breakfast cereal boxes. Distribution cost to the producer is then $0, and the profit is locked in.
Guess the figures are right ...
In other words, 25% will put up with all sorts of sh*t. Sounds like Dell's market to me.
People didn't get it ... he said it would happen ...
We're talking Bush administration here. Talk about painting a target on your back! They'd WANT to get rid of anyone who can point a finger. Disposing of the body is no big deal.
Heck, they don't even have to "terminate with extreme sanction" any more. Just drop a hint to Balmer that he's going to work for google, and let a random chair take him out.
Speaking of which, if google wanted to throw up a few roadblocks, they could "hint/spread rumours/FUD" that a few critical microsoft developers have accepted/will accept/are in secret talks to accept to jump switch, and watch the body count in Redmond rise like the kill score in Alien 2, from the "pre-emptive kills".
Good point. I can see the next step along the social engineering ladder - distributing the commands as "immunization" against robots. People would fall for it. They always do.