Everyone talks about age discrimination as if it were real. I've had problems with a slow job market, but not with age discrimination. If anything, I've found more companies willing to do interviews in the past years than less.
I'm starting a business because it's the right thing to do with the efforts I've made in my life and the cards I hold right now, not because I "can't find work." I could get a regular job, and be a wage slave for the rest of my life -- I choose not to.
But then again, I'm still willing to put in as much effort as I can for my employers and customers, even if that's not as much clock time as it was 20 years ago.
Maybe you should ask yourself a pertinent question the next time you think you were discriminated against on basis of age:
Do I still act like a 20-something who thinks the world "owes" them and shoot myself in the foot with my own attitude?
Just to clarify, the long distance package for the landline is $45/month, but I have to include the basic service, caller id, and answering service fees in the total.
Actually after doing more digging, what I've decided to do is:
Have a second landline installed for $100 + technician time. This gives me access to UNLIMITED North American long distance for about $80-90/month, not just 10 hours of daytime talk per month. This could be a HUGE savings when I eventually have to deal with a remote client. Buy another phone for a whopping $50-120 outright for the landline.
Pick up a $45 flip-phone (there are three suitable models from my telco in that price range), which cost about $40-45/month for UNLIMITED local talk time and text. The data package is only about an additional $15/month -- data isn't that expensive here in Saskatchewan -- it's daytime talk that costs unless you sign up for the right package, and as a business phone, most of it's use will be for daytime calls.
Defer an Android device until I can afford it. While I'd like to do a Java client that runs on Android, I need a generic Java application before I worry about porting it to smartphone and tablet devices (especially tablets.) To be honest, I'm more interested in having fun learning how to program Android than having any real business justification for doing so at this time.
When I DO get the Android device, there's a good chance it'll be a tablet, not a phone, as I'll already have a phone. Whether I look into tethering or make do with WiFi access will depend on what I learn about the state of the market and telco support at that future time.
Only ONE Apple model is cheaper than the Android options with SaskTel. They're charging a premium price for those devices due to customer demand. For me the killer is the fact that I'd need to buy a Mac and Apple software to program an iOS device. I'm not willing to make that kind of investment to service the walled garden of a company whose patent lawsuits are distasteful to me (to say the least.) I don't want to give Apple ANY of my money until they smarten up and start working to develop markets instead of litigating competition off the field.
I've dealt with some exceptionally helpful, good lawyers in my life.
But you don't hear about them in the news. You hear about the ambulance-chasing shills, the ones who rip off their clients, the scammers who take the majority of settlement funds in class actions, etc.
In this particular case, Google has every right to complain -- the firm exhibited extremely bad judgment in taking on this new client, due to the obvious conflict of interest. They've demonstrated that like many firms, greed overrides common sense and the law.
As far as I'm aware, a law firm which has a conflict of interest is required by law to turn away the new client, just like a judge recusing themselves from a case where they have a conflict of interest.
I hope Google sues them into the ground, and leaves their bodies to hang in front of the city gates as a warning to other law firms: obey the law and live to a higher standard of legal intent, OR ELSE!
Unless they look into the course codes for your transcript, how are the employers even going to know whether a course offered by an accredited school was held in a "traditional" setting or online? Why would an employer care so long as it's a certified program of study with proper exams and coursework?
I seriously doubt it was done with the intention of locking US providers out of the GSM market. Besides, I can't think of any reason you couldn't run GSM technology on different frequency spectrums, and I know for a FACT that many nations do so. You just need to have custom hardware built for the market, and that would cost FAR less than supporting entirely different CDMA hardware to cater to big US telcos that are too tight-fisted to invest in their infrastructure but prefer to let customers put up with dropped and lost calls because they HAVE LITTLE TO NO CHOICE in the matter.
"Competition"? What competition? Every single one of the US vendors in the Delaware area REFUSED to upgrade their cell hardware, especially Verizon, who only upgraded the Wilmington area itself and left the rest of the state behind the times for YEARS while I lived there.
Hell, when DSL was available throughout every place I'd lived for the past decade, I had to dig out my old 56.6Kbps modem while in Delaware, and because Verizon was so tight fisted on their landline infrastructure as well, I could only get 28.8 connections!
The US is WAY BEHIND THE WORLD when it comes to telecommunications because of the profit-hungry oligopoly.
What a crock of shit. Stop making excuses for the tightwad US telcos that refuse to invest in infrastructure.
You can't get any more spread out than Saskatchewan with 1,000,000-odd people (and we are odd!) in a province this size, yet 98% of our province is covered by SaskTel's GSM network, and was covered in under 5 years once they decided to upgrade from the old analogue cell systems they used to have.
They're not US, I know, but SaskTel actually supports CDMA, GSM, and another protocol I'd never heard of before. So dropping CDMA support shouldn't be an issue for me.
SaskTel alway has been a leader in technology amongst Canada's phone and cell providers, because their market is small enough that they can deploy the technology to the province without a 5-10 year rollout plan that bigger districts like Ontario, Quebec, or BC require. Manitoba's telephone company breathes hard down SaskTel's neck, though.
Alberta seems to be a bit of a mess without any one complete provincial coverage company available. I don't know what the situation is in any of the eastern provinces.
If it's an option, I might even just by the Android device and use it with WiFi for testing rather than actually signing up to a service contract. On the flip side, it's the long distance charges that hurt, so I decided in the end that I'll stick with a voice-data-text cell plan for $60+fees+tax per month, and spring the $100 to have another land line installed for "the office phone." Long distance on a land line is barely HALF the price for UNLIMITED calling in North America!
I say again: Every cell provider out there is GOUGING THE CUSTOMER ON LONG DISTANCE. Big time. I checked the competition before opting to continue with SaskTel service for the business.
I don't think the prices are unreasonable -- it's an extremely compact device with a lot of FLASH memory, a screen resolution better than many laptops, and better battery life than most laptops. The Apple devices sold by SaskTel are marginally cheaper in many cases, more expensive in others, depending on which model you get.
But for me, the main purpose is to develop for the phone, not to use it as a phone, so when you add in the cost of a Mac and software to program for iOS devices, the Android platform wins by a HUGE margin.
Oh, sure, if I want to lock in to a $150+/month contract for 3 years to get unlimited local voice, text, data, and 10 hours of North America long distance/month, I can get the same device for under $100. But that's one HELL of a contract to lock in to in order to save a few bucks now.
I'm not planning to buy a smart phone because I need or want one, but to have a device to program to support at least some segment of the smart phone market. Hence putting it off for now.
I've decided to opt for a Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android 4.0 device from SaskTel when I eventually get a smart phone (subject to new models coming out from Samsung or HTC and sold by SaskTel), but that's because it's a Java-based system I already have the tools to program, not because I'm concerned about app stability overall.
In fact, the odds are I won't use the thing to run too many apps if what I need is already included: email/web, GPS mapping and routing, and Java applications (including one I'll be working on myself some time in the next year or so.)
In the short term, I'll probably opt for a BASIC voice-and-text flip-phone of some kind, because I can't afford (nor stomach!) spending $600 on a PHONE whose MAIN purpose is to MAKE CALLS when I can get a $70 model that will take care of that primary function just fine for now.
Pity. I thought it was kind of cool that he bought a fighter to race with instead of a yacht, car, or motorcycle.
But if he has a lot of business trips, I can see the sense to a private jet. Though personally I'd settle for something smaller, like a Lear. More available landing strips means less road travel to get where you're going if it's not a city with an airport.
It really is a US problem, not a global problem. Many districts like Canada consider downloading and previewing or prelistening before purchasing media to be a RIGHT of the people. As long as the US government keeps shilling on behalf of the *AA, the US will never wake up to the fact that the MAJORITY of the world seems to take the Canadian view on what the *AA calls "piracy."
Think about it: I download a movie or CD and spend 10-15 minutes checking it out without the hassle of going to the store. The vast majority were a waste of bandwidth, and I don't watch or finish listening to them.
But they do have those occasional nuggets that I BUY. If I had to do my previewing in the traditional model where I'd go to a store, I'd probably never buy another piece of media in my life..
Nor has Canada. Harper wired it in to his omnibus "tough on crime" legislation to try to ram it through with a bunch of other unsavoury clauses. He may have done so with his majority Parliament, but he doesn't Rule the Senate (yet!)
The senate review on the acceptability and legality of the whole package of laws is now in doubt because the Senate is where Canada has it's "due process" to at least try to ratify and pre-evaluate new legislation in light of existing/case law and the Charter of Rights.
With any luck, the whole of C-10 will be shot down by the Canadian Senate.
I don't think things are anywhere near that organized. Nor do I believe any nation is interested in being pigeon-holed in such a fashion. Sure China built it's finances on manufacturing, but they've invested heavily in education, housing, etc. with those monies and are trying to become an innovator, even going so far as to launch their own (effective!) space program.
I don't buy into the theories and paranoia about "The Bilderberg Group", "The Illuminati", or any other "secret society" running the world with any logic or sense. It's all just one big ant hill with a few queens trying to steer the masses in what they see as the "right direction" and meeting in private from time to time to discuss issues that the general population doesn't know about or even want to think about.
What I care about is that professionals who claim to be concerned about the health of the population are doing their damndest to end-run the certification process so the incompetent can become doctors.
I don't CARE where a site is hosted. The only thing that affects is the process for issuing a copyright takedown order or legal action.
EVERY INTERNET COMPANY IS REQUIRED TO ABIDE BY THE LAWS OF IT'S CUSTOMER NATIONS.
Your option is to abide by the laws and regulations of the nations where your customers and users are, or to be blocked from those markets for non-compliance.
That applies to EVERYONE in the world, not just US companies.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone talks about age discrimination as if it were real. I've had problems with a slow job market, but not with age discrimination. If anything, I've found more companies willing to do interviews in the past years than less.
I'm starting a business because it's the right thing to do with the efforts I've made in my life and the cards I hold right now, not because I "can't find work." I could get a regular job, and be a wage slave for the rest of my life -- I choose not to.
But then again, I'm still willing to put in as much effort as I can for my employers and customers, even if that's not as much clock time as it was 20 years ago.
Maybe you should ask yourself a pertinent question the next time you think you were discriminated against on basis of age:
Gee, I thought if anyone "owned" Slashdot, it was CmdrTaco (retired), not you.
Just because you drink the smart phone kool-aid doesn't mean people can't discuss other options and ways of doing things.
What a pity you see discussion as anything but sharing ideas.
Just to clarify, the long distance package for the landline is $45/month, but I have to include the basic service, caller id, and answering service fees in the total.
Actually after doing more digging, what I've decided to do is:
When I DO get the Android device, there's a good chance it'll be a tablet, not a phone, as I'll already have a phone. Whether I look into tethering or make do with WiFi access will depend on what I learn about the state of the market and telco support at that future time.
Only ONE Apple model is cheaper than the Android options with SaskTel. They're charging a premium price for those devices due to customer demand. For me the killer is the fact that I'd need to buy a Mac and Apple software to program an iOS device. I'm not willing to make that kind of investment to service the walled garden of a company whose patent lawsuits are distasteful to me (to say the least.) I don't want to give Apple ANY of my money until they smarten up and start working to develop markets instead of litigating competition off the field.
I've dealt with some exceptionally helpful, good lawyers in my life.
But you don't hear about them in the news. You hear about the ambulance-chasing shills, the ones who rip off their clients, the scammers who take the majority of settlement funds in class actions, etc.
In this particular case, Google has every right to complain -- the firm exhibited extremely bad judgment in taking on this new client, due to the obvious conflict of interest. They've demonstrated that like many firms, greed overrides common sense and the law.
As far as I'm aware, a law firm which has a conflict of interest is required by law to turn away the new client, just like a judge recusing themselves from a case where they have a conflict of interest.
I hope Google sues them into the ground, and leaves their bodies to hang in front of the city gates as a warning to other law firms: obey the law and live to a higher standard of legal intent, OR ELSE!
Unless they look into the course codes for your transcript, how are the employers even going to know whether a course offered by an accredited school was held in a "traditional" setting or online? Why would an employer care so long as it's a certified program of study with proper exams and coursework?
Crackbook Anonymous.
I seriously doubt it was done with the intention of locking US providers out of the GSM market. Besides, I can't think of any reason you couldn't run GSM technology on different frequency spectrums, and I know for a FACT that many nations do so. You just need to have custom hardware built for the market, and that would cost FAR less than supporting entirely different CDMA hardware to cater to big US telcos that are too tight-fisted to invest in their infrastructure but prefer to let customers put up with dropped and lost calls because they HAVE LITTLE TO NO CHOICE in the matter.
"Competition"? What competition? Every single one of the US vendors in the Delaware area REFUSED to upgrade their cell hardware, especially Verizon, who only upgraded the Wilmington area itself and left the rest of the state behind the times for YEARS while I lived there.
Hell, when DSL was available throughout every place I'd lived for the past decade, I had to dig out my old 56.6Kbps modem while in Delaware, and because Verizon was so tight fisted on their landline infrastructure as well, I could only get 28.8 connections!
The US is WAY BEHIND THE WORLD when it comes to telecommunications because of the profit-hungry oligopoly.
What a crock of shit. Stop making excuses for the tightwad US telcos that refuse to invest in infrastructure.
You can't get any more spread out than Saskatchewan with 1,000,000-odd people (and we are odd!) in a province this size, yet 98% of our province is covered by SaskTel's GSM network, and was covered in under 5 years once they decided to upgrade from the old analogue cell systems they used to have.
They're not US, I know, but SaskTel actually supports CDMA, GSM, and another protocol I'd never heard of before. So dropping CDMA support shouldn't be an issue for me.
SaskTel alway has been a leader in technology amongst Canada's phone and cell providers, because their market is small enough that they can deploy the technology to the province without a 5-10 year rollout plan that bigger districts like Ontario, Quebec, or BC require. Manitoba's telephone company breathes hard down SaskTel's neck, though.
Alberta seems to be a bit of a mess without any one complete provincial coverage company available. I don't know what the situation is in any of the eastern provinces.
If it's an option, I might even just by the Android device and use it with WiFi for testing rather than actually signing up to a service contract. On the flip side, it's the long distance charges that hurt, so I decided in the end that I'll stick with a voice-data-text cell plan for $60+fees+tax per month, and spring the $100 to have another land line installed for "the office phone." Long distance on a land line is barely HALF the price for UNLIMITED calling in North America!
I say again: Every cell provider out there is GOUGING THE CUSTOMER ON LONG DISTANCE. Big time. I checked the competition before opting to continue with SaskTel service for the business.
I don't think the prices are unreasonable -- it's an extremely compact device with a lot of FLASH memory, a screen resolution better than many laptops, and better battery life than most laptops. The Apple devices sold by SaskTel are marginally cheaper in many cases, more expensive in others, depending on which model you get.
But for me, the main purpose is to develop for the phone, not to use it as a phone, so when you add in the cost of a Mac and software to program for iOS devices, the Android platform wins by a HUGE margin.
Oh, sure, if I want to lock in to a $150+/month contract for 3 years to get unlimited local voice, text, data, and 10 hours of North America long distance/month, I can get the same device for under $100. But that's one HELL of a contract to lock in to in order to save a few bucks now.
I'm not planning to buy a smart phone because I need or want one, but to have a device to program to support at least some segment of the smart phone market. Hence putting it off for now.
I've decided to opt for a Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android 4.0 device from SaskTel when I eventually get a smart phone (subject to new models coming out from Samsung or HTC and sold by SaskTel), but that's because it's a Java-based system I already have the tools to program, not because I'm concerned about app stability overall.
In fact, the odds are I won't use the thing to run too many apps if what I need is already included: email/web, GPS mapping and routing, and Java applications (including one I'll be working on myself some time in the next year or so.)
In the short term, I'll probably opt for a BASIC voice-and-text flip-phone of some kind, because I can't afford (nor stomach!) spending $600 on a PHONE whose MAIN purpose is to MAKE CALLS when I can get a $70 model that will take care of that primary function just fine for now.
Pity. I thought it was kind of cool that he bought a fighter to race with instead of a yacht, car, or motorcycle.
But if he has a lot of business trips, I can see the sense to a private jet. Though personally I'd settle for something smaller, like a Lear. More available landing strips means less road travel to get where you're going if it's not a city with an airport.
I seem to recall reading about the CEO of Google buying a fighter jet to compete with Larry Elison's yacht, but I don't recall what kind of jet.
They're expensive no matter who is in charge of designing, testing, and building them.
But you have to admit, the one clause of the Constitution the US government has never wavered from supporting is "The Right To Bear Arms."
In spades.
It really is a US problem, not a global problem. Many districts like Canada consider downloading and previewing or prelistening before purchasing media to be a RIGHT of the people. As long as the US government keeps shilling on behalf of the *AA, the US will never wake up to the fact that the MAJORITY of the world seems to take the Canadian view on what the *AA calls "piracy."
Think about it: I download a movie or CD and spend 10-15 minutes checking it out without the hassle of going to the store. The vast majority were a waste of bandwidth, and I don't watch or finish listening to them.
But they do have those occasional nuggets that I BUY. If I had to do my previewing in the traditional model where I'd go to a store, I'd probably never buy another piece of media in my life..
Nor has Canada. Harper wired it in to his omnibus "tough on crime" legislation to try to ram it through with a bunch of other unsavoury clauses. He may have done so with his majority Parliament, but he doesn't Rule the Senate (yet!)
The senate review on the acceptability and legality of the whole package of laws is now in doubt because the Senate is where Canada has it's "due process" to at least try to ratify and pre-evaluate new legislation in light of existing/case law and the Charter of Rights.
With any luck, the whole of C-10 will be shot down by the Canadian Senate.
In the meantime, Canadians: Write your Senators!
Now there's a challenge!
Prove that something which already exists CAN'T exist!
Methinks their money might be safe on this one... :P :P :P
I don't think things are anywhere near that organized. Nor do I believe any nation is interested in being pigeon-holed in such a fashion. Sure China built it's finances on manufacturing, but they've invested heavily in education, housing, etc. with those monies and are trying to become an innovator, even going so far as to launch their own (effective!) space program.
I don't buy into the theories and paranoia about "The Bilderberg Group", "The Illuminati", or any other "secret society" running the world with any logic or sense. It's all just one big ant hill with a few queens trying to steer the masses in what they see as the "right direction" and meeting in private from time to time to discuss issues that the general population doesn't know about or even want to think about.
Just like your little video game icons, really.
What I care about is that professionals who claim to be concerned about the health of the population are doing their damndest to end-run the certification process so the incompetent can become doctors.
That's freaking SCARY.
I don't CARE where a site is hosted. The only thing that affects is the process for issuing a copyright takedown order or legal action.
EVERY INTERNET COMPANY IS REQUIRED TO ABIDE BY THE LAWS OF IT'S CUSTOMER NATIONS.
Your option is to abide by the laws and regulations of the nations where your customers and users are, or to be blocked from those markets for non-compliance.
That applies to EVERYONE in the world, not just US companies.
If you want to ensure meetings are fast and don't run overly long, just schedule them for 4:30. Everyone will STFU because they want to go home.