You can use many different kinds of graffiti on a treo 650. One of the great things about Palm is the amount of free (as in beer) software available for it.
It's a touch screen just like any other palm. There are some times that I will use the keyboard and other times I use graffiti. If I just need a few key strokes, it's easier to use the keyboard because I don't have to get out the pen.
The NLRB rules on a wide variety of workplace rights issues. Section 7 of the NLRA specifies you have the right to "concerted activity" which includes ANYTHING you do as a group (or on behalf of a group) and not necessarily just in a union context. Workers in unions use these rules more than anyone else because they have a structure that knows how to use them.
The actual decision (pdf) doesn't say a damn thing about this being just about unions. It says that company had the right to make this rule to limit employee behavior after work. This wording is specifically upheld: you must NOT . . . fraternize on duty or off duty, date or become overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees.
Now, fraternize is broader than just dating, as dating is specifically spelled out.
So the title of the article is not catastrophizing. The company was putting down rules that really do say what you can do after work hours and the NLRB has upheld them.
If we are lucky enough to be born with some intelligence, we can achieve something tangible in our lives, something more than just making more humans who will also achieve nothing.While it is not likely that any program that you write will be around after you die or that that OLED display you invent will still be used in 30 years or that that game art you worked so hard on will ever be seen in 20 years, you will still have contributed more, been more a part of history than guys with girlfriends and social lives.
Very strange viewpoint of history you have. While it is true that new material devices and processes do change the world, the social structure is also a real thing that changes over the course of history. Only the most base marxist would say that the "forces of production" determine the course of history.
One of the reason I choose to not work at NASA was the disillusionment I experienced when I realized how projects were picked. I really felt that politics - internal and external (such as which congressional distict would be building the project) was a determining factor as to what got the go ahead. Certainly NASA might not have been ready for the projects I thought were cool, but we weren't ever going to be spending enough R&D on them to make them feasible either. Before you say "that's the government, not free enterprise" hasn't worked in a large corporation where many people can work together to create something big. The times in history when a few geeks can develope a life changing invention in their garage are few and far between.
If you follow me through that, then you can see that social strucutres, political structures and economic structures determine where our resources go - how will we make tomorrow possible?
To underscore that: there's enough money in the world to feed everyone and send them to school, but the world builds bombs instead. The pointyheadedbosses and the politicians decide a lot of what most geeks work on - more so than the geeks or the rest of society.
Changing how those decisions are made is certainly another way to effect history - more determining even then "making a new OLED display" as you say in your example. After all, at one point not so long ago, we would have had separate OLEDs for blacks and whites, women could only use OLEDs if their husbands said it was ok, etc.
heh, funny that. _I_ forgot my game theory. Still, if the strike succeeds in convincing IBM that they will lose more in this than they would gain, then we will gain from the European worker's actions.
Any tech worker, employed or not, should care when 13,000 tech workers get laid off. No, I'm not talking about moral sympathy, I'm talking plain old self-interest.
Because 13,000 more unemployed will be 13,000 more competing for what open jobs there are. Knowing that there are 13,000 more desperate workers, companies will adjust the salaries they offer at whatever openings there are.
Furthermore, the same amount of work, or more, is going to be done at IBM Europe (unless they are closing a division, which I'm not aware of in this case). That means the standard job at IBM will either be that more intense or require more of that wonderful unpaid overtime. That also changes the job market, as other companies will begin to expect that same work load out of you.
Even if you work over here, as I do, better believe that conditions in other countries effect the job market here. Can you say India?
It's the prisoner's dilema. Remember your game theory? You succeed together, or you both fail. That's what the job market does when it's moved by the invisible hand job. Said invisible hand job being the result of decisions like these by IBM management.
The unions (multiple) in Europe are doing the striking. They are faced with these layoffs and are responding.
The IBM employees in this country that have joined CWA through Alliance@IBM (a grassroots group that _choose_ to affiliate with CWA) are simply supporting their fellow employees - at the very least by publicizing the strike. That is what workers in unions do - they help each other out. That's the point. To work together to make things better for everyone at the workplace, even in the industry. Instead, the parent chooses to throw stones. Nice guy.
The conflict before the movie is akin to the US Civil War. The colony planets (in a "state's rights" fashion) resist domination by the Alliance. (No slavery in the story though so no idealogical high ground for the Alliance).
The frontier is much like the American West after the Civil War. The Alliance is powerful but remote authority. Some of the main characters were rebels and wore brown (thus brown coats) much like some western characters (ie, the Outlaw Josey Wales) were former confederates.
No, the company still needs to get the work done. They'll just have to actually pay benefits and treat them as human beings.
So instead of hiring you as a contractor, they'll hire you as an employee.
When Microsoft was forced by the lawsuit to treat temps better they ended up hiring more full time employees. Back when M/S stock options were something to be desired (say, back before M/S unilaterally changed their policies) this was quite a step up for the former temps.
MS I believe lost all it's appeals but has still been delaying payment... need to check up on that. I know some of the plaintiffs. Last I heard they still hadn't received their checks.
Judge: Contractors Were Common-Law Employees of Microsoft A U.S. District Court judge ruled Wednesday that workers employed as independent contractors, and then subsequently forced to work through temporary agencies, were in fact common law employees of Microsoft while working at the company between 1987 and 1990. The ruling in the class action Vizcaino v. Microsoft lawsuit also clarified which workers would likely be part of the class, but left open the possibility that potential class members not covered under this case could be a part of future litigation.
Re:Dude, did I steal your job?
on
Offshoring IT
·
· Score: 1
Yep, it's the CEOs that are taking advantage of global disparities and are shipping OUR jobs overseas and not the fault of the foreign programmers.
Why do I call them OUR jobs?
WE built the products that these companies got rich on.
WE provided the support that built the brand.
WE built the infrastructure that they are using against us.
But to the CEOs we are just replaceable cogs in the machine. A lot of us are very smart and talented, but none of us are so smart that someone can't do what we do (given time). No amount of retraining will change that. To management, it's simply price and quantity.
Pretty sure I was not racist. I specifically didn't even mind the competition - AS LONG AS THEY WERE PAID THE SAME AS ME.
Seems to me, the people who pay visa and over-seas workers less are the ones being racist, not me.
Most of the jobs filled by visas or outsourced can be done by people here - just not at the cut-rates that corporations are demanding. It is the corporations who are the problem here as I see it - for workers here and over there.
Other IT organizations have also been lobbying this for awhile.
I sat with other Washtech members and tried to beat it in Jay Insley's head (democrat from Boeing, err Everet) that outsourcing was an area of concern, as well as H-1 and L-1 visas.
He tried to tell us that India would buy enough Boeing airplanes (he's head of some India Caucus or something other) and that H-1 visas were needed to help get unique talent like 7' tall Chinese basketball players.
After an hour of listening to us, something must have sunk in, because on NPR he did say he was pushing for a study.
Not the only congresscritter we lobbied, but one I personally shock the hand of.
But whichever effort finally broke the camel's back, I'm glad. Now if enough geeks get busy calling their reps and putting pressure, the study might come to something.
Otherwise, it's just a study. For those of us that already know that the job market is different,a study won't do much but let us know we're not the only ones in this mess. Myself, I now have a higher skilled admin job than I had before, but at less pay. Myself, I don't mind the competition as long as they would get paid as well as I do. Hard to compete with people paid less than half I do.
"I asked our MCSE about this and he'd never heard of it... went and had a look around then decided we'd never afford it anyway."
Software Update Services is free. IF (and only if) your domain meets all this, it's great:
Active Directory with group policy IIS all clients are Service Pack3
You go to your IIS server's SUS page, login as admin, check for updates, click approve and wait for your scheduled update that you defined in group policy.
If you are already running a domain as described, SUS is a great relief. Your MCSE... well, enough said.
As many said, IIS is dangerous. I use IIS as internal only. I needed to run it for Exchange, because they wanted outlook calendars and four years ago I didn't like the alternatives.
Own a congressman? Heck the corporations own the president.
Right now he and his lackies are trying to change the overtime laws so white collar workers won't qualify.... think about that the next time you're fixing a crash in the wee hours of the morning or staying late to get the project out on time.
Don't think that this and other policies (like FTAA which will only accelerate the offshoring of the jobs we've created) won't be impacting these surveys.
Here's a link to Washtech's webform to tell the resident and your representatives what they can do with this overtime change.
click here
You can quote rags-to-riches stories all you like. It won't change that only so many will succeed and the rest fail. This is not simply due to the skills or efforts of those that don't succeed but circumstance and environment.
The fact remains that if we want mass-produced devices (cars, etc.) someone will have to work those jobs (until complete automation). And if we want those toys what's wrong with making the jobs that make them livable?
And if you haven't noticed, there are attempts at de-skilling going on in IT as well. Or don't you keep up with microsoft's product lines?
Two kinds of Internet, two kinds of online games
on
Spector, Garriott on Games
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Some folks think that MMOGs are the next generation of MUDs, but I think not.
MMOGs are the AOL of the internet - a prepackaged, lowest-common-denominator experience. That's the economics of paying for the bandwidth and paying for the servers - you need so many customers. Because of that, MMOGs are simply not going to be as challenging as the single-player games in difficulty, but are still not going to allow everyone to complete the game. What will be challenging for the 10 hour a day player will be impossible for the 10 hour a week or month player.
The MUDs were so great because of the connection between community and the creators of the content - often there was overlap.
There are some open-source mmog projects (mmog open-server) and Nel. There is some hope of community-driven content in mmog gaming. Of course, there is also, NeverWinterNights, which although proprietary, still is really taking off in terms of its community and its player-created content.
In Washington, the magic cut-off was $27.63/hour, so that is what my last job paid.
What to do about it? We've gone to the state legislature in Olympia, but so far haven't _yet_ mobilized enough people to oppose the Washington Software Alliance lobbying. Heh - employers say that employees don't need a union but then they join things like the WSA and the Chamber of Commerce to have more power collectively. What is good for the goose is good for the gander I say.
I've read my history and know that the '40 hour work week' only came about because enough employees demanded it. Companies that reduced their work week below that often have seen increases in productivity (Kelloggs found this out - page 3 of this pdf.
But then now the work week is increasing as companies try to squeeze blood from a stone. I know that if I refuse to do overtime by myself, I will be replaced. What else to do but to demand better conditions as a group?
Brother Fjordhr,
I'd email you but your email isn't public.
Check out www.washtech.org. We have at-large memberships across the nation, though mostly in Washington. (Given our recent success in our campaign on outsourcing, it may only be a matter of time before we have a NY/NJ local).
I'm not suprised that some unions wouldn't talk to you. Unions are not created equal - it varies from national union to national union and even between locals. Check out washtech. There also might be other locals besides the ones you contacted. If you have something hot, you could always do it yourself with an independent union or with a radical group like www.iww.org
If you do this action as a group, or at least include in your communication to your boss that you are doing this because it is a concern of other employees as well, then you are also protected by federal labor laws. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act gives you protection to "engage in other concerted activities" and we aren't talking musical instruments. If they retaliate against you, you can bring a federal unfair labor practice against them.
Also there is safety in numbers. Your boss will feel less able to intimidate you if you aren't alone.
But that is my only addition to what is otherwise very good advice.
Slashdot Mirror
You can use many different kinds of graffiti on a treo 650. One of the great things about Palm is the amount of free (as in beer) software available for it.
The grafitti program that I use on my Treo is Graffiti Anywhere.
It's a touch screen just like any other palm. There are some times that I will use the keyboard and other times I use graffiti. If I just need a few key strokes, it's easier to use the keyboard because I don't have to get out the pen.
Parent does not know what he is talking about.
The NLRB rules on a wide variety of workplace rights issues. Section 7 of the NLRA specifies you have the right to "concerted activity" which includes ANYTHING you do as a group (or on behalf of a group) and not necessarily just in a union context. Workers in unions use these rules more than anyone else because they have a structure that knows how to use them.
The actual decision (pdf) doesn't say a damn thing about this being just about unions. It says that company had the right to make this rule to limit employee behavior after work. This wording is specifically upheld:
you must NOT . . . fraternize on duty or off duty, date or become overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees.
Now, fraternize is broader than just dating, as dating is specifically spelled out.
So the title of the article is not catastrophizing. The company was putting down rules that really do say what you can do after work hours and the NLRB has upheld them.
If we are lucky enough to be born with some intelligence, we can achieve something tangible in our lives, something more than just making more humans who will also achieve nothing.While it is not likely that any program that you write will be around after you die or that that OLED display you invent will still be used in 30 years or that that game art you worked so hard on will ever be seen in 20 years, you will still have contributed more, been more a part of history than guys with girlfriends and social lives.
Very strange viewpoint of history you have. While it is true that new material devices and processes do change the world, the social structure is also a real thing that changes over the course of history. Only the most base marxist would say that the "forces of production" determine the course of history.
One of the reason I choose to not work at NASA was the disillusionment I experienced when I realized how projects were picked. I really felt that politics - internal and external (such as which congressional distict would be building the project) was a determining factor as to what got the go ahead. Certainly NASA might not have been ready for the projects I thought were cool, but we weren't ever going to be spending enough R&D on them to make them feasible either. Before you say "that's the government, not free enterprise" hasn't worked in a large corporation where many people can work together to create something big. The times in history when a few geeks can develope a life changing invention in their garage are few and far between.
If you follow me through that, then you can see that social strucutres, political structures and economic structures determine where our resources go - how will we make tomorrow possible?
To underscore that: there's enough money in the world to feed everyone and send them to school, but the world builds bombs instead. The pointyheadedbosses and the politicians decide a lot of what most geeks work on - more so than the geeks or the rest of society.
Changing how those decisions are made is certainly another way to effect history - more determining even then "making a new OLED display" as you say in your example. After all, at one point not so long ago, we would have had separate OLEDs for blacks and whites, women could only use OLEDs if their husbands said it was ok, etc.
"IE needs Netscape uninstalled to work"
I wonder if that is a bug on Netscape's part or a feature?
heh, funny that. _I_ forgot my game theory. Still, if the strike succeeds in convincing IBM that they will lose more in this than they would gain, then we will gain from the European worker's actions.
Any tech worker, employed or not, should care when 13,000 tech workers get laid off. No, I'm not talking about moral sympathy, I'm talking plain old self-interest.
Because 13,000 more unemployed will be 13,000 more competing for what open jobs there are. Knowing that there are 13,000 more desperate workers, companies will adjust the salaries they offer at whatever openings there are.
Furthermore, the same amount of work, or more, is going to be done at IBM Europe (unless they are closing a division, which I'm not aware of in this case). That means the standard job at IBM will either be that more intense or require more of that wonderful unpaid overtime. That also changes the job market, as other companies will begin to expect that same work load out of you.
Even if you work over here, as I do, better believe that conditions in other countries effect the job market here. Can you say India?
It's the prisoner's dilema. Remember your game theory? You succeed together, or you both fail. That's what the job market does when it's moved by the invisible hand job. Said invisible hand job being the result of decisions like these by IBM management.
The unions (multiple) in Europe are doing the striking. They are faced with these layoffs and are responding.
The IBM employees in this country that have joined CWA through Alliance@IBM (a grassroots group that _choose_ to affiliate with CWA) are simply supporting their fellow employees - at the very least by publicizing the strike. That is what workers in unions do - they help each other out. That's the point. To work together to make things better for everyone at the workplace, even in the industry. Instead, the parent chooses to throw stones. Nice guy.
The conflict before the movie is akin to the US Civil War. The colony planets (in a "state's rights" fashion) resist domination by the Alliance. (No slavery in the story though so no idealogical high ground for the Alliance).
The frontier is much like the American West after the Civil War. The Alliance is powerful but remote authority. Some of the main characters were rebels and wore brown (thus brown coats) much like some western characters (ie, the Outlaw Josey Wales) were former confederates.
No, the company still needs to get the work done. They'll just have to actually pay benefits and treat them as human beings.
So instead of hiring you as a contractor, they'll hire you as an employee.
When Microsoft was forced by the lawsuit to treat temps better they ended up hiring more full time employees. Back when M/S stock options were something to be desired (say, back before M/S unilaterally changed their policies) this was quite a step up for the former temps.
http://www.washtech.org/news/courts/display.php?ID _Content=58
MS I believe lost all it's appeals but has still been delaying payment... need to check up on that. I know some of the plaintiffs. Last I heard they still hadn't received their checks.
Judge: Contractors Were Common-Law Employees of Microsoft
A U.S. District Court judge ruled Wednesday that workers employed as independent contractors, and then subsequently forced to work through temporary agencies, were in fact common law employees of Microsoft while working at the company between 1987 and 1990. The ruling in the class action Vizcaino v. Microsoft lawsuit also clarified which workers would likely be part of the class, but left open the possibility that potential class members not covered under this case could be a part of future litigation.
continued in the link
um, tell me exactly how Iraq was related to September 11th?
Oh, right. It wasn't.
Petty that so many Bush voters thought so. Sorry that's a pdf, but questions 13, 14 and 16 explain a lot about why people supported this war and voted for Bush.
Yep, it's the CEOs that are taking advantage of global disparities and are shipping OUR jobs overseas and not the fault of the foreign programmers.
Why do I call them OUR jobs?
WE built the products that these companies got rich on.
WE provided the support that built the brand.
WE built the infrastructure that they are using against us.
But to the CEOs we are just replaceable cogs in the machine. A lot of us are very smart and talented, but none of us are so smart that someone can't do what we do (given time). No amount of retraining will change that. To management, it's simply price and quantity.
Washtech has a web form to send your feelings on this issue to your congresscritters and the relevant decision makers.
Here's the link. Registration required so you can send to the appropriate folks.
Pretty sure I was not racist. I specifically didn't even mind the competition - AS LONG AS THEY WERE PAID THE SAME AS ME.
Seems to me, the people who pay visa and over-seas workers less are the ones being racist, not me.
Most of the jobs filled by visas or outsourced can be done by people here - just not at the cut-rates that corporations are demanding. It is the corporations who are the problem here as I see it - for workers here and over there.
Other IT organizations have also been lobbying this for awhile.
I sat with other Washtech members and tried to beat it in Jay Insley's head (democrat from Boeing, err Everet) that outsourcing was an area of concern, as well as H-1 and L-1 visas.
He tried to tell us that India would buy enough Boeing airplanes (he's head of some India Caucus or something other) and that H-1 visas were needed to help get unique talent like 7' tall Chinese basketball players.
After an hour of listening to us, something must have sunk in, because on NPR he did say he was pushing for a study.
Not the only congresscritter we lobbied, but one I personally shock the hand of.
But whichever effort finally broke the camel's back, I'm glad. Now if enough geeks get busy calling their reps and putting pressure, the study might come to something.
Otherwise, it's just a study. For those of us that already know that the job market is different,a study won't do much but let us know we're not the only ones in this mess. Myself, I now have a higher skilled admin job than I had before, but at less pay. Myself, I don't mind the competition as long as they would get paid as well as I do. Hard to compete with people paid less than half I do.
"I asked our MCSE about this and he'd never heard of it... went and had a look around then decided we'd never afford it anyway."
... well, enough said.
Software Update Services is free. IF (and only if) your domain meets all this, it's great:
Active Directory with group policy
IIS
all clients are Service Pack3
You go to your IIS server's SUS page, login as admin, check for updates, click approve and wait for your scheduled update that you defined in group policy.
If you are already running a domain as described, SUS is a great relief. Your MCSE
As many said, IIS is dangerous. I use IIS as internal only. I needed to run it for Exchange, because they wanted outlook calendars and four years ago I didn't like the alternatives.
Own a congressman? Heck the corporations own the president.
Right now he and his lackies are trying to change the overtime laws so white collar workers won't qualify.... think about that the next time you're fixing a crash in the wee hours of the morning or staying late to get the project out on time.
Don't think that this and other policies (like FTAA which will only accelerate the offshoring of the jobs we've created) won't be impacting these surveys.
Here's a link to Washtech's webform to tell the resident and your representatives what they can do with this overtime change. click here
Twit.
You can quote rags-to-riches stories all you like. It won't change that only so many will succeed and the rest fail. This is not simply due to the skills or efforts of those that don't succeed but circumstance and environment.
The fact remains that if we want mass-produced devices (cars, etc.) someone will have to work those jobs (until complete automation). And if we want those toys what's wrong with making the jobs that make them livable?
And if you haven't noticed, there are attempts at de-skilling going on in IT as well. Or don't you keep up with microsoft's product lines?
Some folks think that MMOGs are the next generation of MUDs, but I think not.
MMOGs are the AOL of the internet - a prepackaged, lowest-common-denominator experience. That's the economics of paying for the bandwidth and paying for the servers - you need so many customers. Because of that, MMOGs are simply not going to be as challenging as the single-player games in difficulty, but are still not going to allow everyone to complete the game. What will be challenging for the 10 hour a day player will be impossible for the 10 hour a week or month player.
The MUDs were so great because of the connection between community and the creators of the content - often there was overlap.
There are some open-source mmog projects (mmog open-server) and Nel. There is some hope of community-driven content in mmog gaming. Of course, there is also, NeverWinterNights, which although proprietary, still is really taking off in terms of its community and its player-created content.
These things have been available in comic books for years.
In Washington, the magic cut-off was $27.63/hour, so that is what my last job paid.
What to do about it? We've gone to the state legislature in Olympia, but so far haven't _yet_ mobilized enough people to oppose the Washington Software Alliance lobbying. Heh - employers say that employees don't need a union but then they join things like the WSA and the Chamber of Commerce to have more power collectively. What is good for the goose is good for the gander I say.
I've read my history and know that the '40 hour work week' only came about because enough employees demanded it. Companies that reduced their work week below that often have seen increases in productivity (Kelloggs found this out - page 3 of this pdf.
But then now the work week is increasing as companies try to squeeze blood from a stone. I know that if I refuse to do overtime by myself, I will be replaced. What else to do but to demand better conditions as a group?
Brother Fjordhr, I'd email you but your email isn't public.
Check out www.washtech.org. We have at-large memberships across the nation, though mostly in Washington. (Given our recent success in our campaign on outsourcing, it may only be a matter of time before we have a NY/NJ local).
I'm not suprised that some unions wouldn't talk to you. Unions are not created equal - it varies from national union to national union and even between locals. Check out washtech. There also might be other locals besides the ones you contacted. If you have something hot, you could always do it yourself with an independent union or with a radical group like www.iww.org
If you do this action as a group, or at least include in your communication to your boss that you are doing this because it is a concern of other employees as well, then you are also protected by federal labor laws. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act gives you protection to "engage in other concerted activities" and we aren't talking musical instruments. If they retaliate against you, you can bring a federal unfair labor practice against them.
Also there is safety in numbers. Your boss will feel less able to intimidate you if you aren't alone.
But that is my only addition to what is otherwise very good advice.
As it has been pointed out in this discussion, we don't have much power to refuse such demands by ourselves.
Now if we refused as a group, don't you think we'd have a better chance?
They have an interesting piece on globalization right now. And they are trying to do something about it.