I'm not going to debate the effectiveness of filtering, but isn't this a bit much to get alarmed about--at least at this point? They're not MANDATING the USE of the filtered content, only that the ISP has to make it available. This sounds no more like censorship than setting up a V-chip so your tykes can't access adult content videos.
Now you can argue that this could be a slippery slope and I would certainly rather parents be proactive in monitoring what their kids are doing than trusting any current filterning program. But even in the best of cases, it gives parents a passive substitute for when the kids are home alone. The problem becomes that, unlike the v-chip, there are no centralized ratings to rate the content and so you're back to effectiveness issues.
But this is certainly not comparable to China--the Chinese are much more concerned about censoring out political debate or news unfavorable to the regime. That is true censorship.
I mean really, if some passenger either can't get by without their porn fix or otherwise wants to get a reaction out of other passengers, wouldn't they just bring their favorites along on their laptop?
I find it interesting that the airlines automatically assume if they have unfettered internt access that everyone's going to watch porn. And the statement, "Seat 16F is flaming Seat 16D with expletive-laden chats," shows the reporter's ignorance on how chat software works.
That's a good point (and I don't play Tetris either, because I find it monotonous and boring!) However, this type of game would necessitate a story-line and therefore a conclusion and (hopefully) a logical way to get there. Which is far different from a 'mindless' arcade puzzle. Any adventure-based game sales would tank when it leaked out that you couldn't win it. Gamers will put up with tricks and traps, but just like mystery readers, they do not like games that 'cheat' or dupe the player unfairly.
You can walk anywhere on the ship. You can turn lights on and off. You can steer. You can adjust the engines. But every time you come into Lakehurst, it blows up. And you have to figure out why, and it becomes like this weird mystery flight simulator thing. I'd still love to do that.
Probably one of these people who insist on calling their computer a "hard disk".
Actually (dating myself now) that's what they called the 3 1/2" floppy disks that came in the hard casing.;-) But what really confused them was the differece between RAM memmory and hard drive space--which is understandable. I used to compare it to a hard drive being like your file cabinet. And memory is like your desk. The bigger the desk, (the more RAM), the more files you can take out of your file cabinet to put on your desk (files opened). And the larger the file cabinet, the more files you could keep stored. (Keep in mind this was before part of the hard drive was allocated for file swapping.) Being office workers, that made total sense to them.
That sounds like a joke, but I have too! In another lifetime, I taught computer classes for 3 years at a large municipality and saw just about everything. We also encountered a person SO illiterate they couldn't find the OK button when told to click on it. No kidding.
But my favorite: We had a manager who liked to use the speakerphone (we were in cubes). One day he had a very confused woman with a printing problem. He asked her what (software) she was printing from. Her answer: "At my DESK!" He had to quickly grab the receiver because both my boss and I broke up.
Would the story be as sensational had the construction worker killed the rapist to keep his wife safe?
Not trolling here...dead serious.
Obviously the point of the article is to make us feel sorry for the rapist and another attempt to strike down Megan's law. What the linked article failed to mention (thank you CBS) was that apparently, this guy's son had been molested before. So he's not just some paranoid nut case.
Also the LA Time article say that, "Dodele committed his first offenses at age 15 and spent the last two decades either in prison or at Atascadero State Hospital receiving treatment.
His last attack was the 1987 knife-point rape of a 37-year-old woman on a Sonoma County beach." Charming person I'm sure...gentle as a lamb after 20 years in prison, I'll bet.
Seems to me that Oliver just finished doing what the justice system failed to do--protect the public from a serial rapist.
This is the same crap as the drug seizure laws. Everyone thought--great, take the houses, cars, property of the drug dealers. However, what's ended up happening is people are having their cars seized because a friend had a small amount of pot. Worse yet people are having large amounts of cash seized with the attitude that you must prove yourself innocent. It doesn't matter that no drugs were found or any evidence of drug dealing, just the fact that you're carrying a large amount of cash is considered a crime. And good luck getting it back!
Friends, our freedoms are being eroded away while we stand by. According to the Supreme Court, municipalities can grab your land under imminent domain to sell to Wal-Mart or someone building condos. Police can seize your cash for no reason other than you're carrying it and now they want the right to seize you computers on the claim that you might have illegally downloaded something. It's got to stop or this really will be a police state.
I think Microsoft is more concerned about OLPC machines being able to run Windows XP versus actually giving XP away. I don't doubt that they may give away demos of XP or something similar, but more than likely Microsoft sees a huge market sector they are guaranteed (at this point) to miss out on.
Almost, but not quite.... What M$ fears is all these children (and adults) learning to run a computer that uses Linux-based software. People are creatures of habit. Once they do that, it's unlikely they'll want to use Windows--and they certainly won't want to forced to pay for an OS.
Ah, yes, but that keeps anal-retentive middle managers from being able to micromanage their employees. They would no longer be necessary except to keep the conference room chairs warm.
Besides...letting people work at home might actually make them *happier*. And change is for the good of the company--not the employee. And you can't make a change that's good for the company if it is also good for the employee. Win-win is for losers.
I say this in all seriousness with my tongue firmly held in cheek....
"All the major computer manufacturers are listed...with one notable exception: Microsoft. MS did not have their domain name while its competitors did."
Microsoft?? First off, MS is an OS, not a computer manufacturer. Secondly, Microsoft didn't know the internet even existed until 1995!
"The first two were fired for burning a non-copyrighted CD for another employee on a non company issued blank CD-R."
Make them turn in their geek card! These guys don't have their own CD burners at home???
"I admitted in my interrogation that I was aware of this, and that I stopped these events after that occurrence. I was fired for being aware of this non copyrighted CD being copied. To quote, I did not provide the proper example of leadership."
Of course being a supervisor at Best Buy is like being the chief fry cook at McDonalds! What actually amazes me is how people will be put up with interrogations and being treated like criminals all for a minimal-paying job. (And yes I've been in a similarly, unpleasant job situation--until I walked out. You find it really doesn't matter if you quit--because if you put up with their shit and stay, they'll just find a way to fire you anyway. Either way, you probably won't get unemployment benefits unless you can prove you were fired illegally, which is tough.) You'll also find that life is better when you quit digging the hole deeper and just climb out.
That's a normal, knee-jerk reaction. But what if the blogger was accusing a public figure of being a pedophile or an embezzler? In this case, the blogger accused them of criminal acts. What if this is just a tactic used by the opposition party being that this is an electoral race? It's not a case of a disgruntled employee or customer talking about a company. It asks a bigger question: At what point does the line get crossed between free speech and smearing someone's reputation--perhaps affecting an election--from behind a cloak of anonymity?
True, although I was thinking of something a bit less obvious. Such as I got your message regarding software X and will get it installed as soon as possible. I checked with Store Y and 10 licenses of X will cost $___. To which cost number shall I charge this? Best regards....
I would be willing to bet many managers would answer an email, even if they just say, "Don't worry about that...see me" or something even more incriminating such as we have a license or I've got a copy. Or the admission comes from a fellow employee: Bob told me he had a copy to install.
I used to work for a local, large city government. (Yes, government is just as corrupt, if not more so, than you think.) I had a friend in plan checking--there were some things he would openly refuse to sign because they contained not only violations of building code, but dangerous violations. Now in government it's generally harder to fire you (although they can always find a way). One of these tactics was to stick you somewhere crappy and hope that you'll quit. Another is to make you a scapegoat if something does happen. They did this to him along with his boss and other misfits they didn't want. Sure enough, some minor scandal broke which involved his boss and the department. The boss and an underling were blamed--fortunately, my friend had already found another job or no doubt they would have swept him along too. The boss and co-worker were acquitted, but of course, had to go to the expense to hire lawyers, etc.
The point is you never want to remain in a place that's crooked and you sure don't want to sign off on things...even under duress. Else you're like to find yourself in court saying, "Yeah, but...yeah, but...." Claiming 'my boss told me to do X' *might* work if you're an admin assistant, but not as a IT manager.
Of course, companies are always going to blame the "disgruntled former employee." But how many of those ex-ITs were responsible for the software BUDGET? Most companies have a policy: They limit employees to licensed software and budget accordingly. But others, with a more lax management attitude, are no doubt telling IT what they want installed and "just do it." Yeah, the former IT person is going to know the company isn't properly licensed. But I'd bet that 98% of the time, he/she didn't have the authority OR the budget to demand company compliance either.
It goes back to: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Management is going to have a hard time putting it on an ex-employee when their own spreadsheets show they never budgeted for software upgrades. Then they have to plead that they're so stupid, they didn't understand their own budget.
It's an important reminder to not allow ANY company to pressure you into illegal activities of any type or sign off on same. And make sure you keep good documentation such as any emails regarding purchase (or refusal) of commercial software. Because if it's someone else who blows the whistle, management is going to roll you like a drunk.
Yeah, cause we know NO ONE goofs off at work to read Slashdot for instance. (oops!)
Not to mention the company saves money on buildings, cubicles (which are NOT cheap), electric, etc. If a worker has actual work to do it's pretty easy to measure their progress. Either the work gets done or it doesn't. If they're just doing "busy work" then it won't matter if they're doing it here or there...it still won't add up to production.
As a former telecommuter (not with the phone company), I found the concept worked very well as I came in the office twice a week. I sat at a "hotelling" station, my phone transferred back to home (I was supplied with an ISDN line for internet/network access and a phone capable of parking my phone number so where ever I was, my work number would reach me.) I could plan to meet around the days I'd be in to assist co-workers, so I wasn't being pulled away every 5 minutes. Also, my commute was around 60 miles roundtrip, so it saved a lot of gas + wear and tear on the car.
In this day and age with our technology and with the traffic congestion of the big cities, it makes no sense to force everyone to drive into a central location when it's not needed. How many people use chat and email to communicate with co-workers even when they're both in the same office? It's probably pretty rare that you actually need to meet face-to-face, so why not just use the same tools at home?
One problem I did find out (I was part of a pilot program) is that upper management can take you for granted--or that they don't really need you--out of sight, out of mind. If your boss or yourself isn't proactive to make sure they are aware of your contributions, you risk being on the cutting block the next time layoffs come around.
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I'm not going to debate the effectiveness of filtering, but isn't this a bit much to get alarmed about--at least at this point? They're not MANDATING the USE of the filtered content, only that the ISP has to make it available. This sounds no more like censorship than setting up a V-chip so your tykes can't access adult content videos.
Now you can argue that this could be a slippery slope and I would certainly rather parents be proactive in monitoring what their kids are doing than trusting any current filterning program. But even in the best of cases, it gives parents a passive substitute for when the kids are home alone. The problem becomes that, unlike the v-chip, there are no centralized ratings to rate the content and so you're back to effectiveness issues.
But this is certainly not comparable to China--the Chinese are much more concerned about censoring out political debate or news unfavorable to the regime. That is true censorship.
Do no evil... we'll see how their principles stand up to a little success.
I think they bascially screwed that creedo after kissing up to repressive governments.
I mean really, if some passenger either can't get by without their porn fix or otherwise wants to get a reaction out of other passengers, wouldn't they just bring their favorites along on their laptop?
I find it interesting that the airlines automatically assume if they have unfettered internt access that everyone's going to watch porn. And the statement, "Seat 16F is flaming Seat 16D with expletive-laden chats," shows the reporter's ignorance on how chat software works.
"Have you beaten Tetris yet?"
That's a good point (and I don't play Tetris either, because I find it monotonous and boring!) However, this type of game would necessitate a story-line and therefore a conclusion and (hopefully) a logical way to get there. Which is far different from a 'mindless' arcade puzzle. Any adventure-based game sales would tank when it leaked out that you couldn't win it. Gamers will put up with tricks and traps, but just like mystery readers, they do not like games that 'cheat' or dupe the player unfairly.
Thats sounds like the plot for Global Thermonuclear Warfare (the game from the movie War Games).
Personally if I found I'd been duped into playing a game for hours only to find there is no solution, it would piss me off.
Things I'd rather see:
How about employer incentives like working from home, so we don't have to drive there in the first place?
You can walk anywhere on the ship. You can turn lights on and off. You can steer. You can adjust the engines. But every time you come into Lakehurst, it blows up. And you have to figure out why, and it becomes like this weird mystery flight simulator thing. I'd still love to do that.
Gosh, Will, I'd like to play that too!
Wii would like to play!
Does it come with a gamepad?
Probably one of these people who insist on calling their computer a "hard disk".
Actually (dating myself now) that's what they called the 3 1/2" floppy disks that came in the hard casing. ;-) But what really confused them was the differece between RAM memmory and hard drive space--which is understandable. I used to compare it to a hard drive being like your file cabinet. And memory is like your desk. The bigger the desk, (the more RAM), the more files you can take out of your file cabinet to put on your desk (files opened). And the larger the file cabinet, the more files you could keep stored. (Keep in mind this was before part of the hard drive was allocated for file swapping.) Being office workers, that made total sense to them.
Huh...I had heard that 2007 would only work on Vista and Office 2003 was the only one that would work on both Vista and XP. I stand corrected.
That sounds like a joke, but I have too! In another lifetime, I taught computer classes for 3 years at a large municipality and saw just about everything. We also encountered a person SO illiterate they couldn't find the OK button when told to click on it. No kidding.
But my favorite: We had a manager who liked to use the speakerphone (we were in cubes). One day he had a very confused woman with a printing problem. He asked her what (software) she was printing from. Her answer: "At my DESK!" He had to quickly grab the receiver because both my boss and I broke up.
Yup, if you install your free office 2007 under xp, you will have to worry about xp stuff.
You'd have more problems than that--Office 2007 doesn't work under XP! ;-)
Would the story be as sensational had the construction worker killed the rapist to keep his wife safe?
Not trolling here...dead serious.
Obviously the point of the article is to make us feel sorry for the rapist and another attempt to strike down Megan's law. What the linked article failed to mention (thank you CBS) was that apparently, this guy's son had been molested before. So he's not just some paranoid nut case.
Also the LA Time article say that, "Dodele committed his first offenses at age 15 and spent the last two decades either in prison or at Atascadero State Hospital receiving treatment.
His last attack was the 1987 knife-point rape of a 37-year-old woman on a Sonoma County beach." Charming person I'm sure...gentle as a lamb after 20 years in prison, I'll bet.
Seems to me that Oliver just finished doing what the justice system failed to do--protect the public from a serial rapist.
This is the same crap as the drug seizure laws. Everyone thought--great, take the houses, cars, property of the drug dealers. However, what's ended up happening is people are having their cars seized because a friend had a small amount of pot. Worse yet people are having large amounts of cash seized with the attitude that you must prove yourself innocent. It doesn't matter that no drugs were found or any evidence of drug dealing, just the fact that you're carrying a large amount of cash is considered a crime. And good luck getting it back!
Friends, our freedoms are being eroded away while we stand by. According to the Supreme Court, municipalities can grab your land under imminent domain to sell to Wal-Mart or someone building condos. Police can seize your cash for no reason other than you're carrying it and now they want the right to seize you computers on the claim that you might have illegally downloaded something. It's got to stop or this really will be a police state.
I think Microsoft is more concerned about OLPC machines being able to run Windows XP versus actually giving XP away. I don't doubt that they may give away demos of XP or something similar, but more than likely Microsoft sees a huge market sector they are guaranteed (at this point) to miss out on.
Almost, but not quite.... What M$ fears is all these children (and adults) learning to run a computer that uses Linux-based software. People are creatures of habit. Once they do that, it's unlikely they'll want to use Windows--and they certainly won't want to forced to pay for an OS.
A kid spending his day farming isn't going to say, "man, I could really go for a /. break right now."
Well...they'd better get their damn priorities STRAIGHT!
And furthermore, how's he supposed to survive without his quota of porn...or be unable to have a MySpace page for gosh sakes!
I don't know if it should be all THAT surprising.
Somebody's has to be sending money to improve their dick size and help out Nigerian princes!
Ah, yes, but that keeps anal-retentive middle managers from being able to micromanage their employees. They would no longer be necessary except to keep the conference room chairs warm.
Besides...letting people work at home might actually make them *happier*. And change is for the good of the company--not the employee. And you can't make a change that's good for the company if it is also good for the employee. Win-win is for losers.
I say this in all seriousness with my tongue firmly held in cheek....
"All the major computer manufacturers are listed...with one notable exception: Microsoft. MS did not have their domain name while its competitors did."
Microsoft?? First off, MS is an OS, not a computer manufacturer. Secondly, Microsoft didn't know the internet even existed until 1995!
"The first two were fired for burning a non-copyrighted CD for another employee on a non company issued blank CD-R."
Make them turn in their geek card! These guys don't have their own CD burners at home???
"I admitted in my interrogation that I was aware of this, and that I stopped these events after that occurrence. I was fired for being aware of this non copyrighted CD being copied. To quote, I did not provide the proper example of leadership."
Of course being a supervisor at Best Buy is like being the chief fry cook at McDonalds! What actually amazes me is how people will be put up with interrogations and being treated like criminals all for a minimal-paying job. (And yes I've been in a similarly, unpleasant job situation--until I walked out. You find it really doesn't matter if you quit--because if you put up with their shit and stay, they'll just find a way to fire you anyway. Either way, you probably won't get unemployment benefits unless you can prove you were fired illegally, which is tough.) You'll also find that life is better when you quit digging the hole deeper and just climb out.
That's a normal, knee-jerk reaction. But what if the blogger was accusing a public figure of being a pedophile or an embezzler? In this case, the blogger accused them of criminal acts. What if this is just a tactic used by the opposition party being that this is an electoral race? It's not a case of a disgruntled employee or customer talking about a company. It asks a bigger question: At what point does the line get crossed between free speech and smearing someone's reputation--perhaps affecting an election--from behind a cloak of anonymity?
True, although I was thinking of something a bit less obvious. Such as I got your message regarding software X and will get it installed as soon as possible. I checked with Store Y and 10 licenses of X will cost $___. To which cost number shall I charge this? Best regards....
I would be willing to bet many managers would answer an email, even if they just say, "Don't worry about that...see me" or something even more incriminating such as we have a license or I've got a copy. Or the admission comes from a fellow employee: Bob told me he had a copy to install.
I used to work for a local, large city government. (Yes, government is just as corrupt, if not more so, than you think.) I had a friend in plan checking--there were some things he would openly refuse to sign because they contained not only violations of building code, but dangerous violations. Now in government it's generally harder to fire you (although they can always find a way). One of these tactics was to stick you somewhere crappy and hope that you'll quit. Another is to make you a scapegoat if something does happen. They did this to him along with his boss and other misfits they didn't want. Sure enough, some minor scandal broke which involved his boss and the department. The boss and an underling were blamed--fortunately, my friend had already found another job or no doubt they would have swept him along too. The boss and co-worker were acquitted, but of course, had to go to the expense to hire lawyers, etc.
The point is you never want to remain in a place that's crooked and you sure don't want to sign off on things...even under duress. Else you're like to find yourself in court saying, "Yeah, but...yeah, but...." Claiming 'my boss told me to do X' *might* work if you're an admin assistant, but not as a IT manager.
Of course, companies are always going to blame the "disgruntled former employee." But how many of those ex-ITs were responsible for the software BUDGET? Most companies have a policy: They limit employees to licensed software and budget accordingly. But others, with a more lax management attitude, are no doubt telling IT what they want installed and "just do it." Yeah, the former IT person is going to know the company isn't properly licensed. But I'd bet that 98% of the time, he/she didn't have the authority OR the budget to demand company compliance either.
It goes back to: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Management is going to have a hard time putting it on an ex-employee when their own spreadsheets show they never budgeted for software upgrades. Then they have to plead that they're so stupid, they didn't understand their own budget.
It's an important reminder to not allow ANY company to pressure you into illegal activities of any type or sign off on same. And make sure you keep good documentation such as any emails regarding purchase (or refusal) of commercial software. Because if it's someone else who blows the whistle, management is going to roll you like a drunk.
...throw another shrimp on the barbie.
;-)
And that's MR. SHRIMP to you.
Yeah, cause we know NO ONE goofs off at work to read Slashdot for instance. (oops!)
Not to mention the company saves money on buildings, cubicles (which are NOT cheap), electric, etc. If a worker has actual work to do it's pretty easy to measure their progress. Either the work gets done or it doesn't. If they're just doing "busy work" then it won't matter if they're doing it here or there...it still won't add up to production.
As a former telecommuter (not with the phone company), I found the concept worked very well as I came in the office twice a week. I sat at a "hotelling" station, my phone transferred back to home (I was supplied with an ISDN line for internet/network access and a phone capable of parking my phone number so where ever I was, my work number would reach me.) I could plan to meet around the days I'd be in to assist co-workers, so I wasn't being pulled away every 5 minutes. Also, my commute was around 60 miles roundtrip, so it saved a lot of gas + wear and tear on the car.
In this day and age with our technology and with the traffic congestion of the big cities, it makes no sense to force everyone to drive into a central location when it's not needed. How many people use chat and email to communicate with co-workers even when they're both in the same office? It's probably pretty rare that you actually need to meet face-to-face, so why not just use the same tools at home?
One problem I did find out (I was part of a pilot program) is that upper management can take you for granted--or that they don't really need you--out of sight, out of mind. If your boss or yourself isn't proactive to make sure they are aware of your contributions, you risk being on the cutting block the next time layoffs come around.