Certainly you're right. But it's not the fact that they're suing "for money" that bothers me, what else can you sue for? What bothers me is that they're suing at all.
"They pay me for 9 to 5, so they are going to get 9 to 5. I am not allowing myself to be abused as an employee because of the dept I work in."
Good for you! I've made a few similar postings here in Slashdot, but after receiving endless replies of "Welcome to the real world, twerp" (real quote, honestly) and the such I've given up.
If people want to let themselves be on call 24/7, work long hours of unpaid overtime, and be miserable because their "social life" is shit because of it - well, that's their problem.
Stand up for your rights as an employee, don't let them f*** you over. If you feel the need to work endless hours of unpaid overtime just to keep your job,.... well... Enjoy your life, pal.
I'd like to think that's part of the reason I have very few problems with hacking. I don't try to hack other people, I don't snoop on networks, and I don't "step up" to challenges like this.
I suppose it's possible, but I'd be very surprised and impressed if I was not only 0wn3d, but the person(s) doing it were subverting my firewall's logs the whole time.
Since the only port scans that I can recall always came from the same IP, I just figured that whoever was doing it just stopped for whatever reason.
I've had DSL for 6 months now, and have been running my computer 24/7 since. In total my logs show less than a dozen attacks in that whole time. When I first got it I got port scanned hourly, but I haven't seen one in the past month that I can recall.
Before I got DSL (and a static IP) I was warned that they usually get a lot of hack attempts. Maybe I'm the exception, or maybe I'm being hacked at such a high-level that my scanners or firewalls haven't caught it.
But overall, running Win2000 the whole time, I haven't had a problem.
We've established that it sucks. Now - what can we do about it?
Stand your ground. Make it clear to your boss that you won't do it, and why you won't do it. Don't be a jerk about it, but be firm.
Yes, it sounds like a recipe for getting shit-canned, but if you're a good employee you'll stick around.
I've had my current job for almost three years now, and have never worked a single hour of unpaid OT, and anytime anyone asks I make very sure to tell them why.
Most of my co-workers do, but I don't feel bad for "not doing it" while they're "stuck" doing it, I feel bad for them not standing up for themselves as professionals.
Just because almost no-one stands their ground doesn't mean that it can't be done.
I don't know about where you work, or the people that you know, but I've never come in on a Monday morning, asked about a person's weekend, and received a happy "I worked all weekend!" as a response. I see people all around me working late, coming in early, working weekends and they're miserable. They don't work OT because they love doing it. They enjoy the work as professionals, but the only reason they work the OT, as opposed to going home to be with their families or friends, is because they're afraid of losing their jobs if they don't.
I'd love to meet some of these people who are "happy" working for nothing. Something tells me their work consists mainly of networked Unreal Tournament or the like on the company computers, and not so much actual work.
If you work unpaid overtime, or work for free, or whatever - you are devaluing yourself, you are devaluing your co-workers, you are devaluing every other computer worker in the world.
It's SICK that we've come to a point where most people think it's expected that one has got to work unpaid overtime just to hold a job.
With the rare exception of the people who love their job and would be doing the exact same thing whether there was pay or not - you WORK for MONEY. The company pays you X amount of money to do Y amount of work. When you start to agree to do more work for the same pay, you're devaluing the product (you, your work, your skillset).
The problem we have now is because people for too long have been too willing to be too accomodating.
Stop letting yourselves get taken advantage of or it'll just get worse. When companies are able to pay their tech employees NOTHING, why would they ever start offerring paying positions?
If you'd care to actually read the site, you'd see that they've got a myriad of actual details with the whole history, as well as verifiable references. Considerring only this, I'd tend to take their word over the word of some AC on Slashdot.
However if you'd care to send them contrary evidence with verifiable references, I'm very sure they'd change the status to True.
Claim: The modern image of Santa Claus -- a jolly figure in a red-and-white suit -- was created by Coca-Cola.
Status: False
(Excerpt)"This legend is not true. Although some versions of the Santa Claus figure still had him attired in various colors of outfits past the beginning of the 20th century, the jolly, ruddy, sack-carrying Santa with a red suit and flowing white whiskers had become the standard image of Santa Claus by the 1920s, several years before Sundlom drew his first Santa illustration for Coca-Cola"
Given the replies thus far, I think I may have mispoke by giving the calculator story.
Ok, assuming that every refutation that has been given thus far about my under-powered computer thought is true, is it still so far fetched that the moon-landing MIGHT NOT be true?
Are you so absolutely sure in the truth of the moon-landing that you're willing to throw around the term "crackpot" in reference to anyone who may disagree with you? You have every right to claim that they're wrong and give reasons as to why you believe they're wrong, but throwing around the term "crack-pot" seems a little pre-judgemental and ivory-towerish, n'est pas?
I find it interesting that everyone is referring to the non-believers as "crackpots".
One thing that always stood out in my mind was a High School teacher of mine telling us that the computational power used to deliver people to the moon way back when was equivelant to the computational power in "current" (1994?) calculators.
Up untill that moment I had no reason to doubt the moon landing. After that, however, I started to wonder - not doubt, mind you - but wonder.
Is it really such a hard thing to find a hint of disbelief in? Way back when, on their first attempt, people fired a big-ass rocket off the earth, located and landed safely on another planet, walked around a bit, launched succesfully off of that other planet, located and landed safely back on earth.
I mean come on, yeah, in all likelihood it happened, but can you say that with absolute certainty that it DID happen (or as close to absolute certainty that reality will allow)? Are you so certain as to be able to label those who disagree with you as crackpots without even talking to them first?
Whether you don't buy the car at all, or buy the car from a reputable non-spammer seller, the spammer still does not see a profit.
Besides, with the run-away hit that these cars already are, the few thousand lost sales that an absolutely succesful slashdot-wide boycott would cause would not be noticed.
But you're absolutely right in that people should never by a product from the company that spammed them. If you receive an ad for something cool, go out and buy it from their closest non-spamming competitor.
in actually buying one of these, in the Las Vegas Hilton in their Star Trek wing (seriously) they have a store where you can see the life-sized locutus for real (and other such rich-folks collectibles), and buy them if you like.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd never buy anything like that unless I've seen it up close in real life.
... Also for $12,000 you can have them (the paramount wardrobe department) custom make you a Klingon Warrior Uniform.
"Nice story, but you're not going to get a lot of sympathy around here for buying crappy hardware and then complaining how crappy it is"
Thank you for your comments.
I don't remember exactly the year that the Matrox Mystique came out, but as the AC said, it used to be top of the line for a very short time, and that's when it was bought. My fault for guessing at a year "some time" ago, but "not that terribly long".
I wouldn't call either purchase "Crappy Hardware", but obviously you disagree.
And yes, as another poster said, both were just very bad timing. Bad that is the way that it worked out. Sucks to be me and all that.
I'm hardly looking for sympathy, I'm just stating why I simply don't play PC games anymore.
I'm very happy that you've been able to frugally keep up with the market. I hope it continues to work well out for you.
Probably about 6 years ago I was given a Matrox Mystique Video Card for christmas - the latest and greatest there was. It's magical stuff supported the three games that came with it (MechWarrior 2, and two others I can't remember), but nothing else that I could find / cared about.
Within 6 months it was already too slow for the latest junk that didn't support it's special chipset (which was every new game, the standard never caught on).
So I stopped playing games simply because I couldn't run them. Period.
Then about three years ago I finally had a job, and bought the latest and greatest video card, top of the line ATI-All-in-Wonder-Rage-128-PRO. Supported almost everything, so I looked into some of the latest game, but within I think three months a new breed of games came out, and it was again too slow. I had the Rage chipset, they needed the Rage2 chipset for optimal performance. Little did I know that I bought the Rage chipset on the ass-end of its existence
Thank God for consoles. I bought the PS2 summer of 2001 pretty much just for GT3, and it still runs just fine. No upgrades, no new chipset standards every few months.... Couldn't be happier. Games are fun again, and I never have to worry as to whether or not the hardware will drive the latest games.
The problem currently is that there's so many people who are doing a very good job at blocking / stopping most of the spam that the average joe or public official doesn't realize just how much spam is sent to his mailbox every day (or at least would be if it weren't for the anti-spammers).
What if for a period of time, maybe a week or a month, a day isn't long enough, the anti-spammers just quit. All of them. Let the spammers have an internet-wide orgy. Let people see how much of a problem this is - let the lawmakers make better spam laws, and then have the law enforcement stop them.
Blocking the spam is counter-productive, it only encourages the spammers to come up with better ideas on how to get it into your mailbox. The spam needs to be stopped at the source.
"And in a few years you'll be able to talk to your computer. You can say like 'Wash my car', or 'Clean my room'.... Of course it won't be able to do any of those things, but it'll understand what you said."
Slashdot Mirror
But I wonder how much of a pain it will be to upgrade later on?
Certainly you're right. But it's not the fact that they're suing "for money" that bothers me, what else can you sue for? What bothers me is that they're suing at all.
Being a jerk shouldn't be illegal / a suable thing.
"They pay me for 9 to 5, so they are going to get 9 to 5. I am not allowing myself to be abused as an employee because of the dept I work in."
.... well... Enjoy your life, pal.
Good for you! I've made a few similar postings here in Slashdot, but after receiving endless replies of "Welcome to the real world, twerp" (real quote, honestly) and the such I've given up.
If people want to let themselves be on call 24/7, work long hours of unpaid overtime, and be miserable because their "social life" is shit because of it - well, that's their problem.
Stand up for your rights as an employee, don't let them f*** you over. If you feel the need to work endless hours of unpaid overtime just to keep your job,
Uhhh.... Can I borrow them?
"Bill Gates still in search of CLIT"
what's your ip address? ;-)
127.0.0.1
Do your worst. >:)
I'd like to think that's part of the reason I have very few problems with hacking. I don't try to hack other people, I don't snoop on networks, and I don't "step up" to challenges like this.
Live and let live.
I suppose it's possible, but I'd be very surprised and impressed if I was not only 0wn3d, but the person(s) doing it were subverting my firewall's logs the whole time.
Since the only port scans that I can recall always came from the same IP, I just figured that whoever was doing it just stopped for whatever reason.
I've had DSL for 6 months now, and have been running my computer 24/7 since. In total my logs show less than a dozen attacks in that whole time. When I first got it I got port scanned hourly, but I haven't seen one in the past month that I can recall.
Before I got DSL (and a static IP) I was warned that they usually get a lot of hack attempts. Maybe I'm the exception, or maybe I'm being hacked at such a high-level that my scanners or firewalls haven't caught it.
But overall, running Win2000 the whole time, I haven't had a problem.
We've established that it sucks. Now - what can we do about it?
Stand your ground. Make it clear to your boss that you won't do it, and why you won't do it. Don't be a jerk about it, but be firm.
Yes, it sounds like a recipe for getting shit-canned, but if you're a good employee you'll stick around.
I've had my current job for almost three years now, and have never worked a single hour of unpaid OT, and anytime anyone asks I make very sure to tell them why.
Most of my co-workers do, but I don't feel bad for "not doing it" while they're "stuck" doing it, I feel bad for them not standing up for themselves as professionals.
Just because almost no-one stands their ground doesn't mean that it can't be done.
I don't know about where you work, or the people that you know, but I've never come in on a Monday morning, asked about a person's weekend, and received a happy "I worked all weekend!" as a response. I see people all around me working late, coming in early, working weekends and they're miserable. They don't work OT because they love doing it. They enjoy the work as professionals, but the only reason they work the OT, as opposed to going home to be with their families or friends, is because they're afraid of losing their jobs if they don't.
I'd love to meet some of these people who are "happy" working for nothing. Something tells me their work consists mainly of networked Unreal Tournament or the like on the company computers, and not so much actual work.
This is a huge pet peeve of mine.
If you work unpaid overtime, or work for free, or whatever - you are devaluing yourself, you are devaluing your co-workers, you are devaluing every other computer worker in the world.
It's SICK that we've come to a point where most people think it's expected that one has got to work unpaid overtime just to hold a job.
With the rare exception of the people who love their job and would be doing the exact same thing whether there was pay or not - you WORK for MONEY. The company pays you X amount of money to do Y amount of work. When you start to agree to do more work for the same pay, you're devaluing the product (you, your work, your skillset).
The problem we have now is because people for too long have been too willing to be too accomodating.
Stop letting yourselves get taken advantage of or it'll just get worse. When companies are able to pay their tech employees NOTHING, why would they ever start offerring paying positions?
"I, for one, welcome our hockey and donut-eating overlords."
Not all of us eat hockey! Only, like, half of us - at the most!
(runs away crying)
If you'd care to actually read the site, you'd see that they've got a myriad of actual details with the whole history, as well as verifiable references. Considerring only this, I'd tend to take their word over the word of some AC on Slashdot.
However if you'd care to send them contrary evidence with verifiable references, I'm very sure they'd change the status to True.
The Santa by-way-of-Coke is an Urban Legend.
Claim: The modern image of Santa Claus -- a jolly figure in a red-and-white suit -- was created by Coca-Cola.
Status: False
(Excerpt)"This legend is not true. Although some versions of the Santa Claus figure still had him attired in various colors of outfits past the beginning of the 20th century, the jolly, ruddy, sack-carrying Santa with a red suit and flowing white whiskers had become the standard image of Santa Claus by the 1920s, several years before Sundlom drew his first Santa illustration for Coca-Cola"
Given the replies thus far, I think I may have mispoke by giving the calculator story.
Ok, assuming that every refutation that has been given thus far about my under-powered computer thought is true, is it still so far fetched that the moon-landing MIGHT NOT be true?
Are you so absolutely sure in the truth of the moon-landing that you're willing to throw around the term "crackpot" in reference to anyone who may disagree with you? You have every right to claim that they're wrong and give reasons as to why you believe they're wrong, but throwing around the term "crack-pot" seems a little pre-judgemental and ivory-towerish, n'est pas?
I find it interesting that everyone is referring to the non-believers as "crackpots".
One thing that always stood out in my mind was a High School teacher of mine telling us that the computational power used to deliver people to the moon way back when was equivelant to the computational power in "current" (1994?) calculators.
Up untill that moment I had no reason to doubt the moon landing. After that, however, I started to wonder - not doubt, mind you - but wonder.
Is it really such a hard thing to find a hint of disbelief in? Way back when, on their first attempt, people fired a big-ass rocket off the earth, located and landed safely on another planet, walked around a bit, launched succesfully off of that other planet, located and landed safely back on earth.
I mean come on, yeah, in all likelihood it happened, but can you say that with absolute certainty that it DID happen (or as close to absolute certainty that reality will allow)? Are you so certain as to be able to label those who disagree with you as crackpots without even talking to them first?
To what end would you boycott the product?
Whether you don't buy the car at all, or buy the car from a reputable non-spammer seller, the spammer still does not see a profit.
Besides, with the run-away hit that these cars already are, the few thousand lost sales that an absolutely succesful slashdot-wide boycott would cause would not be noticed.
But you're absolutely right in that people should never by a product from the company that spammed them. If you receive an ad for something cool, go out and buy it from their closest non-spamming competitor.
Three-peat
Everyone thinks of themselves, and their own social groupings, as above average.
in actually buying one of these, in the Las Vegas Hilton in their Star Trek wing (seriously) they have a store where you can see the life-sized locutus for real (and other such rich-folks collectibles), and buy them if you like.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd never buy anything like that unless I've seen it up close in real life.
... Also for $12,000 you can have them (the paramount wardrobe department) custom make you a Klingon Warrior Uniform.
"Nice story, but you're not going to get a lot of sympathy around here for buying crappy hardware and then complaining how crappy it is"
Thank you for your comments.
I don't remember exactly the year that the Matrox Mystique came out, but as the AC said, it used to be top of the line for a very short time, and that's when it was bought. My fault for guessing at a year "some time" ago, but "not that terribly long".
I wouldn't call either purchase "Crappy Hardware", but obviously you disagree.
And yes, as another poster said, both were just very bad timing. Bad that is the way that it worked out. Sucks to be me and all that.
I'm hardly looking for sympathy, I'm just stating why I simply don't play PC games anymore.
I'm very happy that you've been able to frugally keep up with the market. I hope it continues to work well out for you.
And I didn't even own a console untill 2001!
Probably about 6 years ago I was given a Matrox Mystique Video Card for christmas - the latest and greatest there was. It's magical stuff supported the three games that came with it (MechWarrior 2, and two others I can't remember), but nothing else that I could find / cared about.
Within 6 months it was already too slow for the latest junk that didn't support it's special chipset (which was every new game, the standard never caught on).
So I stopped playing games simply because I couldn't run them. Period.
Then about three years ago I finally had a job, and bought the latest and greatest video card, top of the line ATI-All-in-Wonder-Rage-128-PRO. Supported almost everything, so I looked into some of the latest game, but within I think three months a new breed of games came out, and it was again too slow. I had the Rage chipset, they needed the Rage2 chipset for optimal performance. Little did I know that I bought the Rage chipset on the ass-end of its existence
Thank God for consoles. I bought the PS2 summer of 2001 pretty much just for GT3, and it still runs just fine. No upgrades, no new chipset standards every few months.... Couldn't be happier. Games are fun again, and I never have to worry as to whether or not the hardware will drive the latest games.
The problem currently is that there's so many people who are doing a very good job at blocking / stopping most of the spam that the average joe or public official doesn't realize just how much spam is sent to his mailbox every day (or at least would be if it weren't for the anti-spammers).
What if for a period of time, maybe a week or a month, a day isn't long enough, the anti-spammers just quit. All of them. Let the spammers have an internet-wide orgy. Let people see how much of a problem this is - let the lawmakers make better spam laws, and then have the law enforcement stop them.
Blocking the spam is counter-productive, it only encourages the spammers to come up with better ideas on how to get it into your mailbox. The spam needs to be stopped at the source.
"And in a few years you'll be able to talk to your computer. You can say like 'Wash my car', or 'Clean my room'. ... Of course it won't be able to do any of those things, but it'll understand what you said."