Not sure about getting abused, but it certainly drives down the earning potential in the field.
I have full time position, but was applying for a new opportunity. The position was listed with high requirements and experience. I fit the job description almost perfectly. When it came to discussing salary, they were offering $40k less than I currently make and without the high level of benefits I currently have. After I expressed disappointment in the salary for what was advertised as a highly experienced position, the recruiter said that their client was hoping to get an H1B visa person and the rate they quoted me was the going rate.
And they will cheat to get the jobs. How you say? I poured over many resumes and weed out what I can see a obvious bullshit and such. Then I get them on a phone interview and ask basic questions and get really bad answers. But the outsourcing/contracting firm likes to have someone on the call, which I thought was strange but whatever. What we discovered is that the contracting firm was collecting all of our questions, getting valid answers, and then grooming the next candidate to have all the answers to our questions on the phone screen. As soon as we go "off script" from our normal questions, the phone candidate is lost.
Where I work, all of the Indian contractors have this ingrained need to dump everything into an Excel sheet and then send that out as an email attachment. You need to send a screen shot? Put it into an Excel file and send it. You need to write up some instructions (and include a few screen shots)? Put it in an Excel file and send it. The list goes on and on. I don't know if it is a culture thing or an outsourced training thing or what, but it is common practice and everyone does it. It is annoying as hell.
That is kind of the point. People don't want mediocre (i.e. solid product). They have been settling for "good enough" but that doesn't mean it is what people want.
Are you syncing to iTunes on Windows? That is the only place I have seen the type of problems you describe with wiping data. My wife was syncing to our Windows XP laptop and had these kinds of issues. Syncing to my Mac has NEVER had a problem with any of that.
Both my current employer and my previous employer claim to use the Agile process. What this means to both development teams is that the developers didn't have to document ANYTHING so they could just pump out code. I work in the testing group, so we never had any requirements or other documents describing the functionality that we were supposed to test. At best we got a handful of very basic use cases. Agile is just a word to throw around to mean whatever they want it to mean.
While see your point and tend to agree with it, there is still the problem of the perceived victim abusing the system. Under this broader definition, if I ask a co-worker on a date (even if only once and I let it go) and she is so inclined, she can report me for sexual harassment. As you say, the victim defines the crime and most companies have a no tolerance rule for sexual harassment, so I stand a very good chance of losing my job because of something a "reasonable person" would never consider harassment. I have seen first hand a similar situation where a female co-worker didn't like this one guy and looked for anything to report him. As soon as he had an interaction with her while working as a team on a project, she reported him and got him fired, even though another co-worker witnessed the interaction and said it was not inappropriate. Victim cries wolf and someone is fired.
American used the "mechanical failure" excuse on our vacation flight at the end of June. They cancelled the flight 3 days ahead of time, citing mechanical failure, and bumped us to a flight the next day, costing us (11 total passenger in our group) an entire day of paid vacation time at the resort (roughly $3500). After multiple phone calls, complaints, etc. they refused any sort of reimbursement. So putting "mechanical failure" on an Act of God list or not, it is still an industry excuse not to be liable for messing up your plans.
Re:Here come the DRM whiners
on
Apple iPad Reviewed
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I absolutely agree with you. Vista always seemed to put responding to my input as a low priority activity; even lower than System Idle Process. I used to work in the telecom industry. The priority of processes in a telephone switch (which is just a dedicated computer) was highest priority goes to Call Processing (actually making call connections which is the primary function of the switch). Next to highest priority is responding to the maintenance interface (the user terminal). If someone is trying to do something at the terminal, they have a reason and need a response now. Why the OS thinks all these background processes need priority over what I (the user) is trying to do right now is beyond me. All the things mentioned by the GP like indexing, RSS monitoring, checking updates, etc. can wait a millisecond for the UI to respond to the user and will probably not be noticed at all, ever, by the user. Vista was the worst I ever saw an OS do at this. And in just about all users minds, if the UI won't respond, the system must be screwed up, and it is, but by design not by some virus.
When an investor asks what you are doing about people copying your games "there is nothing we can do" is not an answer that will go down well.
That's why they wouldn't say "there is nothing we can do", and instead talk about the negative ROI on the cost associated with DRM in not only the sunk cost for the DRM itself but the increased support costs and any other factors they can throw in. The cost of adding the DRM is a known cost. The cost of "lost sales" are all speculation with reports of varying dollars associated with it; some big, some small, but none verifiable. Increased support costs can be estimated based on past call history if they have that kind of data. The point is, a valid argument can be made to any investor that thinks they know more about the business than the game maker.
What I really don't like about this is that Verison is depending on knowledgeable people like McMurry to save them millions of dollars in support instead of actually providing the tech support that the users are paying for, especially at the kind of rates we pay in the USA for internet access. They don't want to spend money to improve bandwidth or to provide good tech support. The poor, locked-in user (since many areas only have one broadband service provider) is lucky to get the help from knowledgeable people on forums because the (often overseas) tech support script readers and no help at all.
My wife tried one of the spam opt-out links, and not only did she start getting more spam, but they started using her email address as a spoofed "From" address. I have since enlightened her on how to handle spam that gets through the server filter.
Bought that song on your computer at work? Want to listen to it on your computer at home? Well guess what, charlie, unless you find some obscure bullshit setting in some hidden window in some far off corner of some far off menu in iTunes, $1 more shall go to the Steve.
What??!?!? Do you not know how to transfer a file from one computer to another??? Find the file in your music library, email it to yourself or put it on a thumb drive or whatever, and load it on your home computer. When prompted, input your iTMS account info to get the DRM key to play the file (that is assuming you used a different iTMS account on your work computer than your home computer). Seriously, this "obscure bullshit setting in some hidden window" is just stupid talk.
Hahahahahaha. Whew! Too funny. Not based on the quality of work we got from the non-US workers for the projects IBM did. Crap code or nothing at all to show for the 9 months of work they billed us for.
It's no wonder they are laying off. The company I work for did some big contracts with IBM last year. The work was mostly done offshore. The quality was terrible and they didn't deliver well on anything. We are dumping them as fast as we can. If other companies are having similar experiences, then IBM won't have work for all those people as companies run as fast as they can from IBM.
So what you're saying is that back in the day, there was actual competition propelling innovation and improvements in the industry, and Apple should put a stop to that right quick?
I wouldn't exactly view it that way because Power Computing was dependant on Apple to survive. In the bad analogy vein, say Power Computing is a virus that depends on Apple as a host. As the virus gets stronger, it kills the host and they both die. Apple couldn't afford to keep developing an OS and other software if Power Computing was taking all it hardware profits that funded the software development. So the entire Mac ecosystem was on a dying path.
I assume you're referring to 45's. Adjusting for inflation, $0.99 in 1979 (the year I bought the 45 of the song "Funkytown" at Woolco) would be, according the the BLS calculator [bls.gov], $2.87 today.
But with that 45, you actually got 2 songs for your $2.87. So $0.99 per song is not that far off. Granted the backside track was not always a great one, but was a song from the album. Although it was possible to get some 45's with a hit on each side (I have several of them), but these weren't available at the hit song's initial release; they were ones I ordered a year or two later.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when using a browser that supports tabs, closing the tab is not the same a closing the browser for the session cookie. So if I close the tab that I used to connect, but don't shut down my browser because I have other sites up, someone could still get access. This is how the Apple store works. You can log in, but there is no logout. I chatted online with an Apple rep and asked how do I log out. There answer was to close the browser. Closing the tab won't work. I told them that I don't want to close my browser because I have 5 other important sites up and they should add a logout button.
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure about getting abused, but it certainly drives down the earning potential in the field. I have full time position, but was applying for a new opportunity. The position was listed with high requirements and experience. I fit the job description almost perfectly. When it came to discussing salary, they were offering $40k less than I currently make and without the high level of benefits I currently have. After I expressed disappointment in the salary for what was advertised as a highly experienced position, the recruiter said that their client was hoping to get an H1B visa person and the rate they quoted me was the going rate.
Like they tried in Snowpiercer http://eudoxos.svbtle.com/on-s...
And they will cheat to get the jobs. How you say? I poured over many resumes and weed out what I can see a obvious bullshit and such. Then I get them on a phone interview and ask basic questions and get really bad answers. But the outsourcing/contracting firm likes to have someone on the call, which I thought was strange but whatever. What we discovered is that the contracting firm was collecting all of our questions, getting valid answers, and then grooming the next candidate to have all the answers to our questions on the phone screen. As soon as we go "off script" from our normal questions, the phone candidate is lost.
Where I work, all of the Indian contractors have this ingrained need to dump everything into an Excel sheet and then send that out as an email attachment. You need to send a screen shot? Put it into an Excel file and send it. You need to write up some instructions (and include a few screen shots)? Put it in an Excel file and send it. The list goes on and on. I don't know if it is a culture thing or an outsourced training thing or what, but it is common practice and everyone does it. It is annoying as hell.
Bill Burr explains it well... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
That is kind of the point. People don't want mediocre (i.e. solid product). They have been settling for "good enough" but that doesn't mean it is what people want.
Are you syncing to iTunes on Windows? That is the only place I have seen the type of problems you describe with wiping data. My wife was syncing to our Windows XP laptop and had these kinds of issues. Syncing to my Mac has NEVER had a problem with any of that.
FTFY
Both my current employer and my previous employer claim to use the Agile process. What this means to both development teams is that the developers didn't have to document ANYTHING so they could just pump out code. I work in the testing group, so we never had any requirements or other documents describing the functionality that we were supposed to test. At best we got a handful of very basic use cases. Agile is just a word to throw around to mean whatever they want it to mean.
While see your point and tend to agree with it, there is still the problem of the perceived victim abusing the system. Under this broader definition, if I ask a co-worker on a date (even if only once and I let it go) and she is so inclined, she can report me for sexual harassment. As you say, the victim defines the crime and most companies have a no tolerance rule for sexual harassment, so I stand a very good chance of losing my job because of something a "reasonable person" would never consider harassment. I have seen first hand a similar situation where a female co-worker didn't like this one guy and looked for anything to report him. As soon as he had an interaction with her while working as a team on a project, she reported him and got him fired, even though another co-worker witnessed the interaction and said it was not inappropriate. Victim cries wolf and someone is fired.
American used the "mechanical failure" excuse on our vacation flight at the end of June. They cancelled the flight 3 days ahead of time, citing mechanical failure, and bumped us to a flight the next day, costing us (11 total passenger in our group) an entire day of paid vacation time at the resort (roughly $3500). After multiple phone calls, complaints, etc. they refused any sort of reimbursement. So putting "mechanical failure" on an Act of God list or not, it is still an industry excuse not to be liable for messing up your plans.
I absolutely agree with you. Vista always seemed to put responding to my input as a low priority activity; even lower than System Idle Process. I used to work in the telecom industry. The priority of processes in a telephone switch (which is just a dedicated computer) was highest priority goes to Call Processing (actually making call connections which is the primary function of the switch). Next to highest priority is responding to the maintenance interface (the user terminal). If someone is trying to do something at the terminal, they have a reason and need a response now. Why the OS thinks all these background processes need priority over what I (the user) is trying to do right now is beyond me. All the things mentioned by the GP like indexing, RSS monitoring, checking updates, etc. can wait a millisecond for the UI to respond to the user and will probably not be noticed at all, ever, by the user. Vista was the worst I ever saw an OS do at this. And in just about all users minds, if the UI won't respond, the system must be screwed up, and it is, but by design not by some virus.
It depends on where you stand in the scenario.
In this case, for Microsoft, who is not directly affected, it's an issue. For CPAN, it's a problem.
Really?? I certainly do. My bank allows me to set up my login ID as anything I want so it isn't attached to my real name.
That's why they wouldn't say "there is nothing we can do", and instead talk about the negative ROI on the cost associated with DRM in not only the sunk cost for the DRM itself but the increased support costs and any other factors they can throw in. The cost of adding the DRM is a known cost. The cost of "lost sales" are all speculation with reports of varying dollars associated with it; some big, some small, but none verifiable. Increased support costs can be estimated based on past call history if they have that kind of data. The point is, a valid argument can be made to any investor that thinks they know more about the business than the game maker.
What I really don't like about this is that Verison is depending on knowledgeable people like McMurry to save them millions of dollars in support instead of actually providing the tech support that the users are paying for, especially at the kind of rates we pay in the USA for internet access. They don't want to spend money to improve bandwidth or to provide good tech support. The poor, locked-in user (since many areas only have one broadband service provider) is lucky to get the help from knowledgeable people on forums because the (often overseas) tech support script readers and no help at all.
My wife tried one of the spam opt-out links, and not only did she start getting more spam, but they started using her email address as a spoofed "From" address. I have since enlightened her on how to handle spam that gets through the server filter.
What??!?!? Do you not know how to transfer a file from one computer to another??? Find the file in your music library, email it to yourself or put it on a thumb drive or whatever, and load it on your home computer. When prompted, input your iTMS account info to get the DRM key to play the file (that is assuming you used a different iTMS account on your work computer than your home computer). Seriously, this "obscure bullshit setting in some hidden window" is just stupid talk.
Hahahahahaha. Whew! Too funny. Not based on the quality of work we got from the non-US workers for the projects IBM did. Crap code or nothing at all to show for the 9 months of work they billed us for.
It's no wonder they are laying off. The company I work for did some big contracts with IBM last year. The work was mostly done offshore. The quality was terrible and they didn't deliver well on anything. We are dumping them as fast as we can. If other companies are having similar experiences, then IBM won't have work for all those people as companies run as fast as they can from IBM.
I believe the corporate think is declining revenue == PIRACY!!!
So, while I am with you on the "don't buy it or pirate it" boycott of DRM'd media, the corporations just won't get it.
I wouldn't exactly view it that way because Power Computing was dependant on Apple to survive. In the bad analogy vein, say Power Computing is a virus that depends on Apple as a host. As the virus gets stronger, it kills the host and they both die. Apple couldn't afford to keep developing an OS and other software if Power Computing was taking all it hardware profits that funded the software development. So the entire Mac ecosystem was on a dying path.
Does that include all the money they are losing on the RROD repair treadmill? Or is that loss figured in somewhere else?
But with that 45, you actually got 2 songs for your $2.87. So $0.99 per song is not that far off. Granted the backside track was not always a great one, but was a song from the album. Although it was possible to get some 45's with a hit on each side (I have several of them), but these weren't available at the hit song's initial release; they were ones I ordered a year or two later.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when using a browser that supports tabs, closing the tab is not the same a closing the browser for the session cookie. So if I close the tab that I used to connect, but don't shut down my browser because I have other sites up, someone could still get access. This is how the Apple store works. You can log in, but there is no logout. I chatted online with an Apple rep and asked how do I log out. There answer was to close the browser. Closing the tab won't work. I told them that I don't want to close my browser because I have 5 other important sites up and they should add a logout button.