At what level would you draw such a line? What about someone making a penny less or more? No matter what you are getting paid, it is under the understanding that it is based on a 40 hour work week. Anything more than that must be compensated.
No, it depends on the job description. What the work week understanding is is.... whatever you agreed to. I think that people should have the right to negotiate for almost any terms to their employment contracts. If someone wants to agree to work a 40hr week, or a 50hr week, or a 30hr week, and they find an employer who agrees, why not?
The question of whether or not you're being exploited is then whether or not the employer is compensating you fairly (and whether or not you entered into the contract freely or under coercion, which is a separate issue). You get to decide for yourself if what you're getting for your contribution is fair. If you agree to a job with a default 40hr work week, but wind up working more hours without pay, well, you're getting screwed. If you agree to a job with a 60hr work week, and get the agreed upon compensation, then no injustice is happening -- your agreement to a crummy contract is not a crime.
A job which upfront specifies carrying a pager or being on call, and in return pays a salary of above market rate is hardly "carrying a pager for free".
Hmmm. I guess it's just that I have a deep wellspring of faith in the ability of the fine art of Rhetoric (i.e. Spin) to sell ice to Inuits. I don't see why, for instance, a candidate's handlers couldn't think up a nice spin for opposing the DMCA -- c'm boys, wrap your candidate in the flag, have him stump on "opposing big business", "the Liberties that Made America Great", etc.
Generating delectable sound bites it the job of highly trained pros. It's largely independent of the actual merits of the position.
Let me tell you a fable I learned from PBS. There was a white pol in the Deep South, back in the 1950's or so, who was approached by a group trying to get funding from the state for a nursing school for black women.
Said pol listened to the plea, and then told them he'd be happy to help, but they were going about it all wrong. At his next public speech, he launched into a tirade (in res): "I have just come from a hospital where I have seen a most disgusting sight! I saw a white woman washing the back of a black man! It is indecent! I want to make sure this does not happen, and to that end I want to make sure that we have enough negro nurses that no white woman will have to do such work again...." Wouldn't'cha know, his white, racists constituents thought his funding a black nursing school was completely dandy.
Moral: I think just about anything can be spun, so just about anyone will swallow it. You just gotta figure out how.
And, in our case, we gotta make it worth their while. Let's be honest: we know it's a quid pro quo. They represent our interests in voting and introducing bills, they get our votes and maybe even campaign contributions. We have to put out, but we must also make it clear what we want.
Pandering to us makes for poor soundbites, and we're not as easily-manipulated.
Rubbish. There's lots of things we've demaned pretty much unanimously here on/., and the whole karma whore issue demonstrates that we're no less manipulable or pander-to-able than anyone else. It's just that what we want is different, and what we care about is different, and how we are to be pandered to is to be different.
I'm tired of getting ignored by politicians. Court me you bastards, and maybe you'll get my vote.
Sorry to be so blunt, but I don't quite know how else to ask this:
The candidates which I have heard in the media have made much of their efforts on behalf of, for instance, the elderly and the parents of school age children. Frankly, it's begun to sound like you think that I (a childless, working young adult in a high-tech field) and the similar majority of Slashdotters don't exist (or at least don't vote). I question whether you know what our concerns are, and am curious as to what you think our positions are.
So I would like to hear you expound on precisely what it is that you've done which you think we care about. I am asking about your record -- what you have actually already acheived as an officeholder or an activist -- not what you intend to do. In short:
Your point may (or may not) have merits. But I'm getting irritated at/.ers repeatedly confusing trends with conspiracies, so I'm going to make an example of this.
A conspiracy is a group of people agreeing -- that is, "consipiring" -- to act in concord to some goal. A trend is a bunch of people all doing the same thing without benefit of coordination.
Since presumably you're all bright enough to know the difference between a conspiracy and trend, one is left with the conclusion that the common practice of calling trends "conspiracies" is a vacuous rhetorical move explointing the negative connotation of "conspiracy" to discredit the person discussing the trend. It is a red herring, an attempt to deliberately muddy the waters of the discussion.
It doesn't work. It just makes the respondent look dumb.
Sorry folks, but what has gone from an enecdote about supposed age discrimination, has bloomed into a full
conspiracy
By that logic, if 20% more people buy Fruit Loops(tm) this month than last, that's a conspiracy. Try again.
Every time a politician slams this virtual place in which geeks have made a home for ourselves, geeks (rightly) feel slammed. After all, a politician dissing the 'net is a politician dissing the people who choose to use it and find it a positive force in their lives.
We "netizens" have built this place, and feel a quite reasonable attachment to it therefore. We don't like being told, no matter how subtlely, that we should be ashamed of being here, or being a part of this realm.
What you seem to be missing is the emotional subtext, which is blindingly clear to the weepy masses. The logical component of his statement may be vacuous enough to be dismissed, but as an emotional appeal its dangerous.
I earn a living as a programmer because coding -- yea, even coding under pressure -- is fun. I'm doing web production stuff myself, and I am well aware is it meaningless fluff. But it's fun to do, intellectually satisfying, and pays me enough money to indulge in my obscure musical instruments habit.
I don't work >40hrs a week. My evenings and weekends are for being a musician, and my clients understand that unless by very special arrangement they cannot impinge on my Real Work.
I see a lot of people in this thread talking about "getting meaningful work", but when they specify, they are talking about swapping *careers* into fields which are basically human services. I have trouble seeing any geek enjoying such work.
The problem is that you guys have internalized the idea that "meaningful" == "noble, self-sacrificing, human services jobs". Actually, there's lots of other options.
I recommend Art (it works for me). Even if you're not interested in making Art yourself, there's often very satisfying and important support roles geeks can play in Art: sound engineering for live musical acts, lighting for theater and performance dance, etc. Anyone who helps bring Shakespeare to the masses needs no further justification for their life: they have earns all the oxygen they will ever breathe.
It may not seem like a big, grand, noble self-sacrificing gesture to, say, do the lighting for your local ballet school's Nutcracker (you'd be wrong, actually:), but it does the trick: howsoever humble it may seem, you do feel the "meaningfulness" of helping Art, when you do it. It makes a difference.
All graphical game designers (pro and otherwise), drop whatever the hell you are doing and pick up a copy of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.
This book has some imporant original things to say about the way people relate to abstract vs. realistic images, and should be a handbook to anyone doing graphical games. He argues convincingly that people are more engaged by abstracted images of characters precisely because they are more unspecific. The trend in games to be more and more realistic works precisely against this principle.
The question of whether or not games today, with their visual richness, are any more fun hinges on whether or not that visual richness is being used in ways which enhance the player's relationship to the game or detract from it. Read this book to begin to understand how this works.
It finally occured to me, reading this, that the real problem is that we expect people to use private insurance to pay for all medical care, in particular for any non-accident related illness.
It is one thing to rely on the private insurance industry for payment/treatment of accidental injury or illness. Different people are at different risk for being injured or contracting certain diseases based on their lifestyles. If you, say, drive to work every day instead of taking a subway, it is fair for you to pay a slightly higher premium because you are at a greater risk of being in a car accident.
But it really is something else again to have to rely on private insurance to get treatment for genetic or other in-born defect. You can't alter your lifestyle to do a damned thing to prevent it. Requiring participation in the insurance industry by people who have been damned by their genes seems amazingly unfair. It basically institutes a caste system: if you are born the wrong way, you will be deprived of sustanence, livelihood and in all likelihood years of life.
According to Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations, essentially no salaried computer programmer or related technical worker is entitled to overtime:
29 CFR 541.3 - Professional. The term employee employed in a bona fide * * * professional
capacity in section 13(a)(1) of the Act shall mean any employee:
(a) Whose primary duty consists of the performance of:
[... snipping other fields...]
(4) Work that requires theoretical and practical application of
highly-specialized knowledge in computer systems analysis, programming,
and software engineering, and who is employed and engaged in these
activities as a computer systems analyst, computer programmer, software
engineer, or other similarly skilled worker in the computer software
field, as provided in Sec. 541.303; and
(b) Whose work requires the consistent exercise of discretion and
judgment in its performance; and
(c) Whose work is predominantly intellectual and varied in character
(as opposed to routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work) and
is of such character that the output produced or the result accomplished
cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time; and
(d) Who does not devote more than 20 percent of his hours worked in
the workweek to activities which are not an essential part of and
necessarily incident to the work described in paragraphs (a) through (c)
of this section; and
(e) Who is compensated for services on a salary or fee basis at a
rate of not less than $170 per week ($150 per week, if employed by other
than the Federal Government in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or
American Samoa), exclusive of board, lodging, or other facilities:
Provided, That this paragraph shall not apply in the case of an employee
who is the holder of a valid license or certificate permitting the
practice of law or medicine or any of their branches and who is actually
engaged in the practice thereof, nor in the case of an employee who is
the holder of the requisite academic degree for the general practice of
medicine and is engaged in an internship or resident program pursuant to
the practice of medicine or any of its branches, nor in the case of an
employee employed and engaged as a teacher as provided in paragraph
(a)(3) of this section: Provided further, That an employee who is
compensated on a salary or fee basis at a rate of not less than $250 per
week (or $200 per week, if employed by other than the Federal Government
in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or American Samoa), exclusive of
board, lodging, or other facilities, and whose primary duty consists of
the performance either of work described in paragraph (a) (1), (3), or
(4) of this section, which includes work requiring the consistent
exercise of discretion and judgment, or of work requiring invention,
imagination, or talent in a recognized field of artistic endeavor, shall
be deemed to meet all of the requirements of this section: Provided
further, That the salary or fee requirements of this paragraph shall not
apply to an employee engaged in computer-related work within the scope
of paragraph (a)(4) of this section and who is compensated on an hourly
basis at a rate in excess of 6\1/2\ times the minimum wage provided by
section 6 of the Act.
[38 FR 11390, May 7, 1973, as amended at 40 FR 7092, Feb. 19, 1975; 57
FR 46744, Oct. 9, 1992]
I want to speak up on behalf of the book, not because I disagree with you, but because I concur. You're quite correct that it is a choice, but I still meet many people in the working world who don't seem to understand that, especially young people, especially men.
You comment that men seem more likely to choose "pay over lifestyle", and that fits my observation. But it seems to me that that itself is a product of our culture's sexism. Boys are raised to interalize values of material success, to see themselves as men only in so far as they make much money and wield power. That's vile! That's terribly inhumane: the value of no person is solely in their ability to make money or get promoted. That we still do this to our sons is evidence that there's still lots of work on eradicating sexism yet to do.
It's a good thing for young people, especially young men to question their values -- the ones they may not even realize they received and internalized as children.
There's nothing wrong with deciding that you want to commit yourself wholly to a project, a job, a company that you believe in -- if, in fact, you are making a decision. But there's everything wrong with employers using a young man's (or woman's) insecurity in his adulthood to manipulate him and to exploit him. The question is: are you working 60hr weeks because {you love what you're doing | you're meeting your personal financial goals | you believe in the worth of the project}... or are you doing it because you feel like you're not really a grownup if you don't, because you have a need to "prove something" and you don't even know to whom, because you have a subconscious contempt for anyone who doesn't try to win the rat race?
Young people hate asking that question of themselves, because merely humoring the question of whether or not one has been manipulated is so distasteful.
Anything which encourages young people entering the workforce to think about these issues is a good thing.
A lady and an engineer were sitting in the park,
the engineer engaging in some research after dark.
His scientific method was a wonder to observe:
His left hand drew the figures while his right hand traced the curves.
"Sir, I'm here to let you know about a great opportunity--"
"Would you like a better job? How much are you making now?"
"Uh..."
"You're not being recorded, are you?"
"... no...."
"Well, how good is the money you're making doing cold calls?"
"[insert pitiful commission rate here]"
"Well you have a fine voice. Have you ever thought of going into computers?"
"Computers?"
"Heck, yeah. My company is in dire need of {phone support people/data-entry people/receptionists}. We've got offices all over the place, and we pay [insert completely reasonable salary], and have full benefits. And we train. Where are you?"
"[insert some obscure location]"
"Have you ever considered moving to [insert real place with jobs]? Say, can you get me your resume?..."
Imagine if that happened to every telemarketter to pick up a phone....:)
There is a regulatory body which exists to protect consumers from the fraud and force of utility corporations. They are, in Massachusetts, the Department of Telecommunications and Energy. Yes, they take complaints from the public. They even have an on-line submission form if you want to lodge a compaint with them.
I just called them. See my other post in this thread for more info.
I just called the MA DTE on the phone (617 727-3531) and asked them: They said that if more than 20 people complained, a fine might be assessed against the slamming company. They also keep stats on slams.
As it happens, I just switched from AT&T to MCI/WorldCom. In the course of doing this I discovered that Verizon (my local bell) has an optional free feature, whereby they will not change your long distance service unless you personally call them up and authorize it; they make you testify to a 3rd party verification service (who tapes you) that you want your service change. Ask MediaOne if they will do it; I bet they will.
In any event: IFF you cannot get satisfaction on a (any) dispute with your phone (or gas, or electricity) co. after contacting them directly, then contact the DTE. On your phone bill, usually on the back of the first page, you will find a phone number for the DTE Consumer Division, or you may file a complaint electronically here. You must try to iron things out with the company directly, first, then the DTE will talk to you.
You missunderstand my point. The idea of changing evidenciary procedure (which would be a legislative act, necessarily, yes?) would be to create a legal fiction to the effect that file traces on hds did not exist after 6 months (or other arbitrary date).
But they do exist. And creating a legal fiction that they don't exist (in the context of a court of law) would have to have extraordinarily compelling arguments behind it. I truly cannot grant that "because people aren't adjusted to the affordances of the medium" is such.
The suppression of evidence on the grounds that it was illegally procured (such as in an unwarranted search and seizure), has a much more compelling reason: it is the only way to put teeth into the 4th amendment.
But we have no right not to be recorded when we ourselves press the "record" button on a tape player. We have no right not to be recorded when we ourselves commit our words to paper. To think we have a right not to be recorded when we ourselves put our words on digital media is absurd.
To put that into the law is to privilege electronic media in a way that they are not in reality.
Consider: The judge might have well argued that, for instance, nothing writen on paper may be considered evidence after a fixed length of time. What he is doing is suggesting that we create a class of communications media which is especially privileged, for the purpose of advancing the free exchange of ideas, e.g. that we have a medium in which things may be said with more impunity (in this case from being used as evidence) than in other media. To make an analogy, what if he argued that there should be specially privileged public spaces, in which slander laws do not apply, so that there be more free flow of information? What he suggests is no less radical.
As interesting as that idea is, it is a massive change to both civic and cultural life in the US; it impacts all branches of government and the lives of every one of its citizen. It is literally revolutionary.
While I'll be the last person to say all is well in this country, I will be convinced that this is a good idea only by some pretty amazing philosophical underpinnings, with which this idea as of yet most certainly has not been presented. A vague ascertion that this will remedy self-censorship (so would repealing the slander and libel laws) doesn't cut it.
The creation of a legal fiction -- to yet further divorce law from reality, to yet further sculpt what juries see and hear -- is never a good thing; it is at best the lesser of two evils.
And it is the equivalent of legislating pi to be three.
This is different from legislating Pi to be three, how?
The electronic record exists. Cope.
What needs to happen is not a change in evidentiary procedure, but a shift in western culture. When juries and judges are themselves familiar with what their own electronic traces are, then they will view the electronic traces of others in more reasonable proportion.
You asked if it seemed reasonable. You got an answer as silly as your question.
Look, there are many valid bases on which to criticise MB theory. Why don't you go find one?
And if you have a dissenting view, state it, don't frame it as a snarky question. Or at least realize that if you ask a snarky vapid question, you will get a snarky vapid answer.
Oops, I missed the ad hominem: "Heck, for your personality, I bet we could make do with only 3."
The question I don't think anyone is asking is whether the majority of people even want a community.
That's an excellent question. I think the answer eventually boils down to "Yes, but", though one learns a lot by asking it.
Communities have costs as well as benefits. Whether any given individual desires to be in any given community depends entirely on the cost/benefit calculation that person makes.
I think that just about everyone has a strong appetite for community, but our "state of the art", if you will, in communities is so poor, that they deliver on their benefits only feebly, while their costs are high.
For instance, western culture is terrible at the issue of diversity (not just racial or religious, but any difference). This means community demands of conformity are often total, in absense of other forces. Most people are wise enough not to put all their emotional eggs into a basket so easily tipped over: if the slightest failure to conform means you lose your effort investment in that community, why take the risk?
In short, the reason that community has suffered in western culture is that it has not kept pace with the changes in culture. Our cultural implementation of community is archaic and does not fit modern values or situations.
Frankly, I think it's vital. But I think in real life (so far) it's worked the other way around: a geographic group of people develop a virtual aspect.
I live in the Boston area, and know at least 2 "half-virtual" communities (am in one) off the top of my head. I expect there are more. Not being wholly virtual, they aren't necessary visible to the entire net. They don't necessarily want to be innundated with non-local members, so why advertise their presence as such on the www? Also, bluntly, they don't do real-time chat, or exist on web pages: they exist in email.
What makes virtual community appealing and so interesting is that it allows people to gather by topic, interests, attitudes, or tastes, or some commonality besides geography. So efforts to start virtual communities based on no more basis that "people who live in this town" tend to fail.
The two half-virtual communities I mention above both have themes other than merely "we all live here". They have more profound connections between the people.
So to my mind, the question is "how do you help existing communities become half-virtual, to reap the benefits of virtuality?" (there are many), not "how do you found new virtual communities and have them transcend virtuality?"
Slashdot Mirror
No, it depends on the job description. What the work week understanding is is.... whatever you agreed to. I think that people should have the right to negotiate for almost any terms to their employment contracts. If someone wants to agree to work a 40hr week, or a 50hr week, or a 30hr week, and they find an employer who agrees, why not?
The question of whether or not you're being exploited is then whether or not the employer is compensating you fairly (and whether or not you entered into the contract freely or under coercion, which is a separate issue). You get to decide for yourself if what you're getting for your contribution is fair. If you agree to a job with a default 40hr work week, but wind up working more hours without pay, well, you're getting screwed. If you agree to a job with a 60hr work week, and get the agreed upon compensation, then no injustice is happening -- your agreement to a crummy contract is not a crime.
A job which upfront specifies carrying a pager or being on call, and in return pays a salary of above market rate is hardly "carrying a pager for free".
And for this you are paid.... $50k/yr? $75k/yr? $100k/yr? What?
The question of whether or not someone is being exploited rather depends on how much they're being paid, doesn't it?
Hmmm. I guess it's just that I have a deep wellspring of faith in the ability of the fine art of Rhetoric (i.e. Spin) to sell ice to Inuits. I don't see why, for instance, a candidate's handlers couldn't think up a nice spin for opposing the DMCA -- c'm boys, wrap your candidate in the flag, have him stump on "opposing big business", "the Liberties that Made America Great", etc.
Generating delectable sound bites it the job of highly trained pros. It's largely independent of the actual merits of the position.
Let me tell you a fable I learned from PBS. There was a white pol in the Deep South, back in the 1950's or so, who was approached by a group trying to get funding from the state for a nursing school for black women.
Said pol listened to the plea, and then told them he'd be happy to help, but they were going about it all wrong. At his next public speech, he launched into a tirade (in res): "I have just come from a hospital where I have seen a most disgusting sight! I saw a white woman washing the back of a black man! It is indecent! I want to make sure this does not happen, and to that end I want to make sure that we have enough negro nurses that no white woman will have to do such work again...." Wouldn't'cha know, his white, racists constituents thought his funding a black nursing school was completely dandy.
Moral: I think just about anything can be spun, so just about anyone will swallow it. You just gotta figure out how.
And, in our case, we gotta make it worth their while. Let's be honest: we know it's a quid pro quo. They represent our interests in voting and introducing bills, they get our votes and maybe even campaign contributions. We have to put out, but we must also make it clear what we want.
Rubbish. There's lots of things we've demaned pretty much unanimously here on /., and the whole karma whore issue demonstrates that we're no less manipulable or pander-to-able than anyone else. It's just that what we want is different, and what we care about is different, and how we are to be pandered to is to be different.
I'm tired of getting ignored by politicians. Court me you bastards, and maybe you'll get my vote.
I too am afraid of that. But that's why I ask. I want to know what precisely they think we want.
Sorry to be so blunt, but I don't quite know how else to ask this:
The candidates which I have heard in the media have made much of their efforts on behalf of, for instance, the elderly and the parents of school age children. Frankly, it's begun to sound like you think that I (a childless, working young adult in a high-tech field) and the similar majority of Slashdotters don't exist (or at least don't vote). I question whether you know what our concerns are, and am curious as to what you think our positions are.
So I would like to hear you expound on precisely what it is that you've done which you think we care about. I am asking about your record -- what you have actually already acheived as an officeholder or an activist -- not what you intend to do. In short:
What have you done for us lately?
Your point may (or may not) have merits. But I'm getting irritated at
A conspiracy is a group of people agreeing -- that is, "consipiring" -- to act in concord to some goal. A trend is a bunch of people all doing the same thing without benefit of coordination.
Since presumably you're all bright enough to know the difference between a conspiracy and trend, one is left with the conclusion that the common practice of calling trends "conspiracies" is a vacuous rhetorical move explointing the negative connotation of "conspiracy" to discredit the person discussing the trend. It is a red herring, an attempt to deliberately muddy the waters of the discussion.
It doesn't work. It just makes the respondent look dumb.
By that logic, if 20% more people buy Fruit Loops(tm) this month than last, that's a conspiracy. Try again.
Well, actually you can. Or homeschool, if you don't want to deal with the regulations of founding a school.
In other words, the internet is a slum?
Every time a politician slams this virtual place in which geeks have made a home for ourselves, geeks (rightly) feel slammed. After all, a politician dissing the 'net is a politician dissing the people who choose to use it and find it a positive force in their lives.
We "netizens" have built this place, and feel a quite reasonable attachment to it therefore. We don't like being told, no matter how subtlely, that we should be ashamed of being here, or being a part of this realm.
What you seem to be missing is the emotional subtext, which is blindingly clear to the weepy masses. The logical component of his statement may be vacuous enough to be dismissed, but as an emotional appeal its dangerous.
Well, I'm a musician.
I earn a living as a programmer because coding -- yea, even coding under pressure -- is fun. I'm doing web production stuff myself, and I am well aware is it meaningless fluff. But it's fun to do, intellectually satisfying, and pays me enough money to indulge in my obscure musical instruments habit.
I don't work >40hrs a week. My evenings and weekends are for being a musician, and my clients understand that unless by very special arrangement they cannot impinge on my Real Work.
I see a lot of people in this thread talking about "getting meaningful work", but when they specify, they are talking about swapping *careers* into fields which are basically human services. I have trouble seeing any geek enjoying such work.
The problem is that you guys have internalized the idea that "meaningful" == "noble, self-sacrificing, human services jobs". Actually, there's lots of other options.
I recommend Art (it works for me). Even if you're not interested in making Art yourself, there's often very satisfying and important support roles geeks can play in Art: sound engineering for live musical acts, lighting for theater and performance dance, etc. Anyone who helps bring Shakespeare to the masses needs no further justification for their life: they have earns all the oxygen they will ever breathe.
It may not seem like a big, grand, noble self-sacrificing gesture to, say, do the lighting for your local ballet school's Nutcracker (you'd be wrong, actually :), but it does the trick: howsoever humble it may seem, you do feel the "meaningfulness" of helping Art, when you do it. It makes a difference.
Ah, but where can on find a version of "Fool's Errand" which runs on anything other than a Mac with OS6?
All graphical game designers (pro and otherwise), drop whatever the hell you are doing and pick up a copy of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.
This book has some imporant original things to say about the way people relate to abstract vs. realistic images, and should be a handbook to anyone doing graphical games. He argues convincingly that people are more engaged by abstracted images of characters precisely because they are more unspecific. The trend in games to be more and more realistic works precisely against this principle.
The question of whether or not games today, with their visual richness, are any more fun hinges on whether or not that visual richness is being used in ways which enhance the player's relationship to the game or detract from it. Read this book to begin to understand how this works.
It finally occured to me, reading this, that the real problem is that we expect people to use private insurance to pay for all medical care, in particular for any non-accident related illness.
It is one thing to rely on the private insurance industry for payment/treatment of accidental injury or illness. Different people are at different risk for being injured or contracting certain diseases based on their lifestyles. If you, say, drive to work every day instead of taking a subway, it is fair for you to pay a slightly higher premium because you are at a greater risk of being in a car accident.
But it really is something else again to have to rely on private insurance to get treatment for genetic or other in-born defect. You can't alter your lifestyle to do a damned thing to prevent it. Requiring participation in the insurance industry by people who have been damned by their genes seems amazingly unfair. It basically institutes a caste system: if you are born the wrong way, you will be deprived of sustanence, livelihood and in all likelihood years of life.
According to Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations, essentially no salaried computer programmer or related technical worker is entitled to overtime:
Hell, yes. Not only that, but you could probably get DoD funding for it as an ant i-radiation poisoning technology!
I want to speak up on behalf of the book, not because I disagree with you, but because I concur. You're quite correct that it is a choice, but I still meet many people in the working world who don't seem to understand that, especially young people, especially men.
You comment that men seem more likely to choose "pay over lifestyle", and that fits my observation. But it seems to me that that itself is a product of our culture's sexism. Boys are raised to interalize values of material success, to see themselves as men only in so far as they make much money and wield power. That's vile! That's terribly inhumane: the value of no person is solely in their ability to make money or get promoted. That we still do this to our sons is evidence that there's still lots of work on eradicating sexism yet to do.
It's a good thing for young people, especially young men to question their values -- the ones they may not even realize they received and internalized as children.
There's nothing wrong with deciding that you want to commit yourself wholly to a project, a job, a company that you believe in -- if, in fact, you are making a decision. But there's everything wrong with employers using a young man's (or woman's) insecurity in his adulthood to manipulate him and to exploit him. The question is: are you working 60hr weeks because {you love what you're doing | you're meeting your personal financial goals | you believe in the worth of the project}... or are you doing it because you feel like you're not really a grownup if you don't, because you have a need to "prove something" and you don't even know to whom, because you have a subconscious contempt for anyone who doesn't try to win the rat race?
Young people hate asking that question of themselves, because merely humoring the question of whether or not one has been manipulated is so distasteful.
Anything which encourages young people entering the workforce to think about these issues is a good thing.
From the MIT drinking song:
Offer the poor schmucks better jobs.
"Hello, is this John Smith."
"Yes, are you a telemarketter?"
"Sir, I'm here to let you know about a great opportunity--"
"Would you like a better job? How much are you making now?"
"Uh..."
"You're not being recorded, are you?"
"... no...."
"Well, how good is the money you're making doing cold calls?"
"[insert pitiful commission rate here]"
"Well you have a fine voice. Have you ever thought of going into computers?"
"Computers?"
"Heck, yeah. My company is in dire need of {phone support people/data-entry people/receptionists}. We've got offices all over the place, and we pay [insert completely reasonable salary], and have full benefits. And we train. Where are you?"
"[insert some obscure location]"
"Have you ever considered moving to [insert real place with jobs]? Say, can you get me your resume?..."
Imagine if that happened to every telemarketter to pick up a phone.... :)
Um, but: duh.
There is a regulatory body which exists to protect consumers from the fraud and force of utility corporations. They are, in Massachusetts, the Department of Telecommunications and Energy. Yes, they take complaints from the public. They even have an on-line submission form if you want to lodge a compaint with them.
I just called them. See my other post in this thread for more info.
Greetings, Hemos, and welcome to Boston!
Slamming is quite illegal. If you have the bill in hand which demonstrates you have been slammed, report them to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy -- Consumer Division. The DTE is the regulatory body which governs utility companies. (I worked for them once, and oh, the stories I can tell...)
I just called the MA DTE on the phone (617 727-3531) and asked them: They said that if more than 20 people complained, a fine might be assessed against the slamming company. They also keep stats on slams.
As it happens, I just switched from AT&T to MCI/WorldCom. In the course of doing this I discovered that Verizon (my local bell) has an optional free feature, whereby they will not change your long distance service unless you personally call them up and authorize it; they make you testify to a 3rd party verification service (who tapes you) that you want your service change. Ask MediaOne if they will do it; I bet they will.
In any event: IFF you cannot get satisfaction on a (any) dispute with your phone (or gas, or electricity) co. after contacting them directly, then contact the DTE. On your phone bill, usually on the back of the first page, you will find a phone number for the DTE Consumer Division, or you may file a complaint electronically here. You must try to iron things out with the company directly, first, then the DTE will talk to you.
You missunderstand my point. The idea of changing evidenciary procedure (which would be a legislative act, necessarily, yes?) would be to create a legal fiction to the effect that file traces on hds did not exist after 6 months (or other arbitrary date).
But they do exist. And creating a legal fiction that they don't exist (in the context of a court of law) would have to have extraordinarily compelling arguments behind it. I truly cannot grant that "because people aren't adjusted to the affordances of the medium" is such.
The suppression of evidence on the grounds that it was illegally procured (such as in an unwarranted search and seizure), has a much more compelling reason: it is the only way to put teeth into the 4th amendment.
But we have no right not to be recorded when we ourselves press the "record" button on a tape player. We have no right not to be recorded when we ourselves commit our words to paper. To think we have a right not to be recorded when we ourselves put our words on digital media is absurd.
To put that into the law is to privilege electronic media in a way that they are not in reality.
Consider: The judge might have well argued that, for instance, nothing writen on paper may be considered evidence after a fixed length of time. What he is doing is suggesting that we create a class of communications media which is especially privileged, for the purpose of advancing the free exchange of ideas, e.g. that we have a medium in which things may be said with more impunity (in this case from being used as evidence) than in other media. To make an analogy, what if he argued that there should be specially privileged public spaces, in which slander laws do not apply, so that there be more free flow of information? What he suggests is no less radical.
As interesting as that idea is, it is a massive change to both civic and cultural life in the US; it impacts all branches of government and the lives of every one of its citizen. It is literally revolutionary.
While I'll be the last person to say all is well in this country, I will be convinced that this is a good idea only by some pretty amazing philosophical underpinnings, with which this idea as of yet most certainly has not been presented. A vague ascertion that this will remedy self-censorship (so would repealing the slander and libel laws) doesn't cut it.
The creation of a legal fiction -- to yet further divorce law from reality, to yet further sculpt what juries see and hear -- is never a good thing; it is at best the lesser of two evils.
And it is the equivalent of legislating pi to be three.
This is different from legislating Pi to be three, how?
The electronic record exists. Cope.
What needs to happen is not a change in evidentiary procedure, but a shift in western culture. When juries and judges are themselves familiar with what their own electronic traces are, then they will view the electronic traces of others in more reasonable proportion.
You asked if it seemed reasonable. You got an answer as silly as your question.
Look, there are many valid bases on which to criticise MB theory. Why don't you go find one?
And if you have a dissenting view, state it, don't frame it as a snarky question. Or at least realize that if you ask a snarky vapid question, you will get a snarky vapid answer.
Oops, I missed the ad hominem: "Heck, for your personality, I bet we could make do with only 3."
That's an excellent question. I think the answer eventually boils down to "Yes, but", though one learns a lot by asking it.
Communities have costs as well as benefits. Whether any given individual desires to be in any given community depends entirely on the cost/benefit calculation that person makes.
I think that just about everyone has a strong appetite for community, but our "state of the art", if you will, in communities is so poor, that they deliver on their benefits only feebly, while their costs are high.
For instance, western culture is terrible at the issue of diversity (not just racial or religious, but any difference). This means community demands of conformity are often total, in absense of other forces. Most people are wise enough not to put all their emotional eggs into a basket so easily tipped over: if the slightest failure to conform means you lose your effort investment in that community, why take the risk?
In short, the reason that community has suffered in western culture is that it has not kept pace with the changes in culture. Our cultural implementation of community is archaic and does not fit modern values or situations.
Frankly, I think it's vital. But I think in real life (so far) it's worked the other way around: a geographic group of people develop a virtual aspect.
I live in the Boston area, and know at least 2 "half-virtual" communities (am in one) off the top of my head. I expect there are more. Not being wholly virtual, they aren't necessary visible to the entire net. They don't necessarily want to be innundated with non-local members, so why advertise their presence as such on the www? Also, bluntly, they don't do real-time chat, or exist on web pages: they exist in email.
What makes virtual community appealing and so interesting is that it allows people to gather by topic, interests, attitudes, or tastes, or some commonality besides geography. So efforts to start virtual communities based on no more basis that "people who live in this town" tend to fail.
The two half-virtual communities I mention above both have themes other than merely "we all live here". They have more profound connections between the people.
So to my mind, the question is "how do you help existing communities become half-virtual, to reap the benefits of virtuality?" (there are many), not "how do you found new virtual communities and have them transcend virtuality?"