If this were an X-prize type of deal, it'd be a lot better. Who's going to bother with EFMing a drive for $40? I guess some college students with access to those machines might, but those are very fickle and easy-to-fuck-up machines..aka..kept under lock, key, and password.
What makes you think this is treated any differently? After all, there's plenty of people that think tires and brakes last forever, that they'll outrun that hurricane when it gets there, and that if someones sets foot on your property in broad daylight you have the right to kill them.
The problem is two-fold: American companies have American laws to follow. Labor laws, environmental laws, economic laws..Chinese companies have Chinese laws to follow. Which we all know are somewhat lax when it comes to labor, environmental protection, the economies they might interact with..
So you have an Intel plant that has to pay large amounts of money for waste handling, insurance, labor, etc, etc, and a Chinese plant that has to pay a tiny amount for their workers, and a guy in a 70s-era pickup truck to make loads of industrial waste disappear.
Did I mention that the Chinese are pretty good at spying? Whats to keep them from releasing a ghettoPentium 4 and calling it their own design? Even if it were banned in the US, they would still make it through the borders in embedded devices and personal imports. And then there's the rest of the world. Russia doesn't give a damn if its a Chinese-knockoff CPU as long as the numbers are similar.
Lots of people would use this as an example to say that US companies need to get with the world market. I hate to break it to you, but the world market is a dangerous place. If you want to compete with that factory selling the fire engine toy trucks to Mattel for a few pennies each, you're going to have to switch to something cheaper..like lead paint. Also, don't worry about paying your workers and you might have to ban watches/clocks and make them go by your clock..which is slow and sometimes runs backwards if output isn't high enough.
"Its much better than a DVD", says PNY-sponsored media industry analyst.
"With this new form of media, you no longer have to worry about scratched DVDs. Furthermore, we can implement hardware-level prot..err..bonus..devices to improve your experiences with our product. In the long run, this will help to curb piracy and raise our profits, thus ensuring that our movies remain at the same price point for longer, and that we have more available funds for sequels such as Gigli 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Superman vs Catwoman."
Someone I used to know back in the day built a porch add-on to their house. As everyone knows, there's plenty of codes to follow. He went down to city hall, got the necessary paperwork and guidelines, and built his porch. A month later, the city came and demanded that he knock it down, as it was too close to the road.
He told them where he got the records, from city hall itself. He showed them the copies he made showing the rule he supposedly broke (too close to the road). The city told him that the book was old, and the law had since been revised. He got the whole "It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'"
In the end the city made him remove the porch and he never built it back. Eventually, he sold his house and moved.
The worst part about it is that the city couldn't be bothered to keep its laws publicly-available, but they can sure as hell enforce them.
How many of you know the laws of your own city? What about important laws, such as traffic laws? Do you know, down to the letter, what your major and minor traffic laws are? What about self-defense? Do you have to run from an attacker or can you reasonably defend yourself if attacked? This is what I hate about laws in general. Rarely are they concise and simple to understand, but its difficult to get the exact text of the law in a lot of places.
Yeah, it can get you shot. But you shouldn't be threatening someone that has a gun in their hands anyway.
If they don't have a gun in their hands, and you have a melee weapon, you pretty much win unless they've had some kind of training.
Take pizza delivery, for example. If you show up at someone's door with the pizza and they try to prevent you from leaving, you're authorized to use necessary force to free yourself. If you're threatened with a deadly weapon or your life is in danger, you can use deadly force.
You should NEVER make house calls without some form of self defense. Be it a particularly sturdy pair of scissors that you might have to use, or a can of mace.
When you do something 'good' your brain releases chemicals that give you the pleasurable feeling.
When you get that big promotion, when you fall in love, orgasm, taking care of your basic needs, etc.
The most addictive drugs cause the same release upon taking them. This rewires your brain as the drug is easier to obtain than is doing something 'good'. Most people are probably only a half hour away from being able to obtain a line of cocaine.
Video games and certain other activities, must go through the brain's feedback process. For example, a unique piece of gear dropping on Diablo 2 will stimulate a release of pleasure into your brain, and an even bigger one if its a good unique piece of gear. However, eventually you'll get tired of it. Just like how thrill-seekers have to find more and more thrilling things to do to stimulate themselves, because whatever they were doing before got old.
Imagine if the brain's feedback process were broken. Instead of eventually getting bored with Diablo 2, you played it all day, and all night. Fueled by hope for another unique dropping, or getting another level. Pretty soon you have a decked out character of every class, and end up starting over. There are plenty of people like this.
Its easy to get people to believe something they want as opposed to something they don't.
Trying to convince the religious that their religion is a sham is next to impossible. Trying to convince the poor that they can become rich overnight is easy.
Incidence of Natalie Portman rape would rise sharply if she had no proof she was ever raped, because the rapists were responsible for providing the evidence to convict them.
What's to keep the bank themselves from taking $100k out sometimes and then saying they only cover $50k of it? They have access to all of that information and I wouldn't put it above one of them to do so.
If I were the company that lost $200k+ mentioned in the article, I would make the bank spend at LEAST $200k+ in legal fees to defend against my many lawsuits I'd file. Run them into the fucking ground if they won't insure your money and investigate problems on their own dollar.
Technology COULD solve it, just as technology COULD solve a lot of problems.
But it isn't solving this one, and as long as the US Government/Army Corps of Engineers/Civil engineers/corporations are funding the building/repair of flood management devices, those devices will continue to be substandard, fail, and give people a false sense of security.
Instead of trying to stop the floods, for example, why not design the area to be able to better handle them? Mandate flood-resistant buildings. Mandate flood-compatible street design. Mandate flood-resistant housing. Don't like it? Don't live there. Have to live there? No flood insurance for you.
Actually BSE / mad cow disease probably has a threshold before it becomes contagious. And I bet you have to be vulnerable to it to have it infect you anyway. By slaughtering the cows before their skulls fill with prions instead of brain, you reduce the overall exposure.
Its the best way to limit exposure without making meat scarce.
If a company takes too much from your account and causes you to generate overdraft fees, they won't help you. The bank won't help you, either. In order to get some kind of satisfactory resolution out of them, you have to take them to court.
According to the bank, the overdraft fees are your fault for paying automatically. According to the company, the overdraft fees are your fault because they claim to not be responsible for them, even if its their fault.
So there you have it, fees for absolutely no fault of your own.
Sounds like fraud to me, but to Bank of America, its Monday.
Well, I should say, Wealth for a few. Why don't we just get rid of all food inspection while we're at it? Maybe we shouldn't buy meat if we can't afford to go to the hospital after eating a bad burger or contaminated chicken.
A better analogy would be one of long-distance rally drivers. Fatigue plays a real part in their sport. A driver using meth during or before a race would be a big no-no, as they'd have so much energy they'd be taking apart their car's stereo while driving and still be bored.
Sweat running down glasses isn't your problem if you don't have to deal with them. If they don't want to wear glasses, fine, let them get the surgery. Moreover, no one is going to make people with good vision wear glasses so competition can be 'equal'.
Notice that it doesn't say anything about if the 'data limit' is uploaded data or downloaded. My guess is they'll make it combined.
Also, since there IS now a limit that can be tied with the monthly price, can we sue spammers/advertisers/etc for $.0000002 per kilobyte? I think its a very generous rate to give them, since cell phone companies like to charge $.10 per kilobyte.
The only valid contracts are ones that will hold up in court.
If you sign a contract saying you forfeit your house upon nonpayment of your cellphone bill, you better be prepared to move out or take them to court when its 'lost' in the mail for the third month in a row.
I believe courts usually side with end users, as 90% of contracts signed in today's society are completely and utterly against one of the signers. Yet another benefit of the free market economy: Consumers are prisoners in their own homes.
The problem with telecommuting on a first-run trial basis is that the company, rather than backing off a bit on how much work gets done in favor of how to make things run smoother, will demand more and more work be done.
After all, if you're in your comfy desk chair at home in front of your comfy computer you should have no reason to not be sitting there cranking away for 8 hours solid. Anything less will get you shifted back to the main office while the workaholics clock 8 hours at home and crank things out for 12.
Even if the clause weren't in the FTC demand, it would still happen that way. Much like how in order to have ANY KIND OF CONTRACT with a company, as a consumer, you agree never ever to sue or hold them liable. Of course those things never stand up in court, but they sufficiently intimidate people enough.
I bought my laptop with the intention of downgrading to Windows XP for increased stability and performance.
I was shocked, on the other hand, to find that there were no Windows XP drivers and that inserting the Windows XP CD and booting from it caused a BSOD before the installing starts. I have an HP Pavilion DV5-1002NR.
Do not purchase this laptop if you want to use Windows XP on it.
Maybe it'll come to that one day. Look at what Monsanto pulls. Trust me, if Monsanto had their way, they'd own all food production in the US. Then they'd jack the prices up 50x, since its been shown that we Americans have enough disposable income to be able to make it to work and back when gas prices rise 400% in two years.
1. Plant a field of GM crops.
2. Test neighbor's crops for patented GM markers.
3. Sue neighbor when nature spreads the GM genetic markers to other fields.
4. Profit, force neighbor to burn their crops.
5. Buy out their field and plant a field of GM crops, watch his neighbors get nervous.
Slashdot Mirror
The challenge isn't stupid, the rewards are.
If this were an X-prize type of deal, it'd be a lot better. Who's going to bother with EFMing a drive for $40? I guess some college students with access to those machines might, but those are very fickle and easy-to-fuck-up machines..aka..kept under lock, key, and password.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Ignorance of car safety features is no excuse.
Ignorance of the weather is no excuse.
What makes you think this is treated any differently? After all, there's plenty of people that think tires and brakes last forever, that they'll outrun that hurricane when it gets there, and that if someones sets foot on your property in broad daylight you have the right to kill them.
The problem is two-fold: American companies have American laws to follow. Labor laws, environmental laws, economic laws..Chinese companies have Chinese laws to follow. Which we all know are somewhat lax when it comes to labor, environmental protection, the economies they might interact with..
So you have an Intel plant that has to pay large amounts of money for waste handling, insurance, labor, etc, etc, and a Chinese plant that has to pay a tiny amount for their workers, and a guy in a 70s-era pickup truck to make loads of industrial waste disappear.
Did I mention that the Chinese are pretty good at spying? Whats to keep them from releasing a ghettoPentium 4 and calling it their own design? Even if it were banned in the US, they would still make it through the borders in embedded devices and personal imports. And then there's the rest of the world. Russia doesn't give a damn if its a Chinese-knockoff CPU as long as the numbers are similar.
Lots of people would use this as an example to say that US companies need to get with the world market. I hate to break it to you, but the world market is a dangerous place. If you want to compete with that factory selling the fire engine toy trucks to Mattel for a few pennies each, you're going to have to switch to something cheaper..like lead paint. Also, don't worry about paying your workers and you might have to ban watches/clocks and make them go by your clock..which is slow and sometimes runs backwards if output isn't high enough.
"Its much better than a DVD", says PNY-sponsored media industry analyst.
"With this new form of media, you no longer have to worry about scratched DVDs. Furthermore, we can implement hardware-level prot..err..bonus..devices to improve your experiences with our product. In the long run, this will help to curb piracy and raise our profits, thus ensuring that our movies remain at the same price point for longer, and that we have more available funds for sequels such as Gigli 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Superman vs Catwoman."
Someone I used to know back in the day built a porch add-on to their house. As everyone knows, there's plenty of codes to follow. He went down to city hall, got the necessary paperwork and guidelines, and built his porch. A month later, the city came and demanded that he knock it down, as it was too close to the road.
He told them where he got the records, from city hall itself. He showed them the copies he made showing the rule he supposedly broke (too close to the road). The city told him that the book was old, and the law had since been revised. He got the whole "It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'"
In the end the city made him remove the porch and he never built it back. Eventually, he sold his house and moved.
The worst part about it is that the city couldn't be bothered to keep its laws publicly-available, but they can sure as hell enforce them.
How many of you know the laws of your own city? What about important laws, such as traffic laws? Do you know, down to the letter, what your major and minor traffic laws are? What about self-defense? Do you have to run from an attacker or can you reasonably defend yourself if attacked? This is what I hate about laws in general. Rarely are they concise and simple to understand, but its difficult to get the exact text of the law in a lot of places.
Yeah, it can get you shot. But you shouldn't be threatening someone that has a gun in their hands anyway.
If they don't have a gun in their hands, and you have a melee weapon, you pretty much win unless they've had some kind of training.
Take pizza delivery, for example. If you show up at someone's door with the pizza and they try to prevent you from leaving, you're authorized to use necessary force to free yourself. If you're threatened with a deadly weapon or your life is in danger, you can use deadly force.
You should NEVER make house calls without some form of self defense. Be it a particularly sturdy pair of scissors that you might have to use, or a can of mace.
When you do something 'good' your brain releases chemicals that give you the pleasurable feeling.
When you get that big promotion, when you fall in love, orgasm, taking care of your basic needs, etc.
The most addictive drugs cause the same release upon taking them. This rewires your brain as the drug is easier to obtain than is doing something 'good'. Most people are probably only a half hour away from being able to obtain a line of cocaine.
Video games and certain other activities, must go through the brain's feedback process. For example, a unique piece of gear dropping on Diablo 2 will stimulate a release of pleasure into your brain, and an even bigger one if its a good unique piece of gear. However, eventually you'll get tired of it. Just like how thrill-seekers have to find more and more thrilling things to do to stimulate themselves, because whatever they were doing before got old.
Imagine if the brain's feedback process were broken. Instead of eventually getting bored with Diablo 2, you played it all day, and all night. Fueled by hope for another unique dropping, or getting another level. Pretty soon you have a decked out character of every class, and end up starting over. There are plenty of people like this.
Its easy to get people to believe something they want as opposed to something they don't.
Trying to convince the religious that their religion is a sham is next to impossible.
Trying to convince the poor that they can become rich overnight is easy.
Incidence of Natalie Portman rape would rise sharply if she had no proof she was ever raped, because the rapists were responsible for providing the evidence to convict them.
What's to keep the bank themselves from taking $100k out sometimes and then saying they only cover $50k of it? They have access to all of that information and I wouldn't put it above one of them to do so.
If I were the company that lost $200k+ mentioned in the article, I would make the bank spend at LEAST $200k+ in legal fees to defend against my many lawsuits I'd file. Run them into the fucking ground if they won't insure your money and investigate problems on their own dollar.
Technology COULD solve it, just as technology COULD solve a lot of problems.
But it isn't solving this one, and as long as the US Government/Army Corps of Engineers/Civil engineers/corporations are funding the building/repair of flood management devices, those devices will continue to be substandard, fail, and give people a false sense of security.
Instead of trying to stop the floods, for example, why not design the area to be able to better handle them? Mandate flood-resistant buildings. Mandate flood-compatible street design. Mandate flood-resistant housing. Don't like it? Don't live there. Have to live there? No flood insurance for you.
Actually BSE / mad cow disease probably has a threshold before it becomes contagious. And I bet you have to be vulnerable to it to have it infect you anyway. By slaughtering the cows before their skulls fill with prions instead of brain, you reduce the overall exposure.
Its the best way to limit exposure without making meat scarce.
Not in America.
Both companies will deny fault, and at best, you'll get hung up on and not transferred to the manager you requested.
You'll be stuck with the overdraft fees.
You'll be stuck without the funds until you take them to court.
If a company takes too much from your account and causes you to generate overdraft fees, they won't help you. The bank won't help you, either. In order to get some kind of satisfactory resolution out of them, you have to take them to court.
According to the bank, the overdraft fees are your fault for paying automatically.
According to the company, the overdraft fees are your fault because they claim to not be responsible for them, even if its their fault.
So there you have it, fees for absolutely no fault of your own.
Sounds like fraud to me, but to Bank of America, its Monday.
Wealth wins again in the war of Health vs Wealth.
Well, I should say, Wealth for a few. Why don't we just get rid of all food inspection while we're at it? Maybe we shouldn't buy meat if we can't afford to go to the hospital after eating a bad burger or contaminated chicken.
This is not NEARLY on the same level.
A better analogy would be one of long-distance rally drivers. Fatigue plays a real part in their sport. A driver using meth during or before a race would be a big no-no, as they'd have so much energy they'd be taking apart their car's stereo while driving and still be bored.
Sweat running down glasses isn't your problem if you don't have to deal with them. If they don't want to wear glasses, fine, let them get the surgery. Moreover, no one is going to make people with good vision wear glasses so competition can be 'equal'.
Notice that it doesn't say anything about if the 'data limit' is uploaded data or downloaded. My guess is they'll make it combined.
Also, since there IS now a limit that can be tied with the monthly price, can we sue spammers/advertisers/etc for $.0000002 per kilobyte? I think its a very generous rate to give them, since cell phone companies like to charge $.10 per kilobyte.
The only valid contracts are ones that will hold up in court.
If you sign a contract saying you forfeit your house upon nonpayment of your cellphone bill, you better be prepared to move out or take them to court when its 'lost' in the mail for the third month in a row.
I believe courts usually side with end users, as 90% of contracts signed in today's society are completely and utterly against one of the signers. Yet another benefit of the free market economy: Consumers are prisoners in their own homes.
Is his name L. Bob Rife? Oh wait, its O'Brien..sounds like Rife, though.
I've already read the book. Its quite good, starts out a little slow, but I certainly enjoyed it. I would highly recommend it.
She, too, will likely be brushed off or 'corrected'.
That's the Chinese way. Everything is expendable.
The problem with telecommuting on a first-run trial basis is that the company, rather than backing off a bit on how much work gets done in favor of how to make things run smoother, will demand more and more work be done.
After all, if you're in your comfy desk chair at home in front of your comfy computer you should have no reason to not be sitting there cranking away for 8 hours solid. Anything less will get you shifted back to the main office while the workaholics clock 8 hours at home and crank things out for 12.
Even if the clause weren't in the FTC demand, it would still happen that way. Much like how in order to have ANY KIND OF CONTRACT with a company, as a consumer, you agree never ever to sue or hold them liable. Of course those things never stand up in court, but they sufficiently intimidate people enough.
I bought my laptop with the intention of downgrading to Windows XP for increased stability and performance.
I was shocked, on the other hand, to find that there were no Windows XP drivers and that inserting the Windows XP CD and booting from it caused a BSOD before the installing starts. I have an HP Pavilion DV5-1002NR.
Do not purchase this laptop if you want to use Windows XP on it.
Maybe it'll come to that one day. Look at what Monsanto pulls. Trust me, if Monsanto had their way, they'd own all food production in the US. Then they'd jack the prices up 50x, since its been shown that we Americans have enough disposable income to be able to make it to work and back when gas prices rise 400% in two years.
1. Plant a field of GM crops.
2. Test neighbor's crops for patented GM markers.
3. Sue neighbor when nature spreads the GM genetic markers to other fields.
4. Profit, force neighbor to burn their crops.
5. Buy out their field and plant a field of GM crops, watch his neighbors get nervous.