I (sort of) teach computers at a school here in Michigan to Kindergarten through 8th grade students. This type of material is great for them. Everytime they ask why they need to know all kinds of things about computers I tell them it's the same reason they need to know all about their government, even if they aren't going to be President; Because horrible, lying, anti-American cheats will take advantage of them and use what others don't know to harm them. And then I give them an example like Diebold. We are going to be getting a large group of voting citizens that think computers are only good for playing Diablo II and think they are computer geniuses for being able to load it. Most of them will have no understanding of why this technology harms them and how it allows others to control them.
This isn't a free download as in linux.iso. This is a free download as in W32.TROJAN. Kind of like the Anna Kournakova worm except without hope, albeit false hope, of nudity.
Remember those crazy ones during the boom that PAID you to view their ads? I never did it, they couldn't pay me enough. Way too type A to put up with all that crap swimming around my screen distracting me.
Gotta love the suits. Someone completely fucks up and he gets promoted. At the company I work for this guy was completely unqualified, came in after some barely related work in the field, managed to get almost half the staff to quit every year (people making $30K or better) to hope something else came along, drove off about 70% of the customers the first year, and continually about 50% more, finally the place is in trouble with the state and he ends up getting a promotion overseeing about 10 sites including the one he ruined. I told them I quit about a month after that because there is no way I'm going to be there cleaning someone else's mess up taking the blame for it. Currently he is trying to make it look like I ran off with all the stuff he's looted from the building, laptops, digital camera, etc.
That's illegal. They are requiring you to work without pay and from what you state in your post, it is policy and probably written policy. If not written in a big manual, at least it is probably written in emails and memos. Print them out. Send them to your state's labor board. Your company is stealing from you and all the other employees there. They have given you a job that you can only complete by working without pay. If you don't want to contact the authorities regarding this, point out to the higher ups that if you are working without pay, not on the clock, not officially, then their insurance will probably not cover any major screw ups. But if someone files a lawsuit over your screw up, they are certain to be held responsible as you can (I'm sure) provide documentation that they ordered you to work that time, those duties, without pay. I'm confident this would apply also to a case if you were injured during that time period. Such as if you leaned back in your chair and hurt your spine. Since you weren't on the clock I doubt the insurance company would pay. They would come back with the answer that you were off the clock and policy specifically said you were not to be working. Then when you sued the company you would claim that they had ordered you to work those hours. They are responsible, but because of their cheating they would not have any coverage on their end. Another alternative channel you could use would be the IRS. By not paying you for hours worked, the company is not just cheating you out of your paycheck, it is cheating you out of Social Security benefits, possibly 401k, and also cheating the IRS out of tax dollars. Consider that the company is matching your tax dollars paid on your check. If the company is cheating 100 employees out of 12 minutes a day, or 1 hours per week, that's 100 hours per week of tax evasion on the part of the company...intentional tax evasion, not forgetting to file some form, they are actively cheating the US of their tax dollars. You have something big to hold over the suits heads and I would suggest you first start gathering every piece of documentation you can regarding this and printing it out. In your shoes I would be emailing managers for clarification on this. I might even be sending higher managers emails just stating what you understand to be the rules, not asking for anything to be changed and not complaining. Then they cannot deny that they are not aware of the problem. When you have all of this documentation secured, either tell the higher ups that you have documentation of illegal pay practices and tax evasion and ask at the very least your back pay, or go to the authorities. Better check with a lawyer first, but maybe you could ask for a "bonus" for finding this "mistake" so they can correct it before someone went to the authorities. When you consider, restitution for pay, damages, damaged reputation, back taxes, IRS penalties, etc, you actually are saving the company a LOT of money by letting them handle this internally.
Wish I had mod points, that's a very informative AND insightful post. I hadn't really thought about that. As well as stealing wages from people, by shaving the time clock, these people are stealing from your taxes. That's less money paid in for Social Security and less money for Uncle Sam.
Unfair to ask a fraud and a thief to resign after stealing from employees? If this manager had been stealing my money after having me put in overtime hours away from my wife kids so that she could get some promotion or bonus the only thing I'd think was unfair about it is if the employees didn't get a chance to kick her ass on the way out the door. Although I'm sure upper management wasn't blameless on the issue either, they would certainly have some greivances too. Thinking about the lawsuits, bad publicity, lower sales, difficulty in hiring that would result from this sounds like it would be some big bucks that would far outway the manager's theft.
I thought it was kind of funny, but I'd put money on it that they have your phones tapped right now just to make sure. Better put your tin foil hat on and start praying that the feds figure you are just joking. Maybe you should try making fun of a bunch of sissies that can't do anything about it. Maybe a nice Canada joke? Or better yet, make fun of the stupid, like the rest of us do. At least they won't get it.
That is an excellent observation. I (sort of) teach computer skills or technology infused lessons to K-8 students and I make it a point to let them know that some search engines are junk, some are good, some are great, but the best answer is always that you need to use the right search engine for the job. And very often that's a highly specific search engine, such as those that are dedicated to searching a specific site.
LOL. I play on a duron 900 also. I have a Geforce 4 MX though. Dual Monitor output for watching porn while gaming (Maybe that's why I get killed a lot). But seriously, I play Urban Terror, the Quake 3 mod. Yep, an old machine, 4 times slower than modern computers with a barely adequate graphics card and low frames per second. And I still have a blast. Unfortunately that's why I'm confident that better titles will be released for the consoles first.
I've been playing a free mod for about 3 years. A free mod to a 4 or 5 year old game? That I don't even have a legal copy of? (errr...I mean that some people don't have a legal copy of)....Modding is one of the biggest arguments for PC gaming, the ability to get a huge value from a game, even after years of play. And I just don't see that being big bucks for the software publishers with their current business model.
I suppose it could be very good for them if they took advantage of the number of people producing free mods as a means to sell their product for years afte release though. Hey, maybe I was wrong about that PC thing. Long term revenue from a single FPS game due to the free work of a large fan base?
Of course, the software companies could just keep producing buggy games and then sell patches to people for years.
Lucky for you they haven't. Then instead of being an old school hack gamer, you'd just be a conformist loser, unlike us other 31337 console gamers who are playing Jedi Arena on our old 2600's. Personally, I like to play old text based muds using braille. That way no one will ever be as cool as me.
What I don't get is what this guy regrets, giving into SCO, the bad publicity for caving to them, trying to use SCO dealing to get him in the spotlight, wasting investors money, alienating his user base, etc. I didn't see any news in the article at all. Just looked like more corporate speak designed to obscure any real meaning while trying to get publicity.
Is that by refusing to purchase items with RFID tags, that you would be forced into "second class" citizenry. Rather than have the items that you would like to, you would have to buy more expensive downgraded products. Perhaps reasonably, stores will say that adding the RFID tag lowers store costs and product costs, and therefor by not buying RFID implanted objects, you will be choosing to pay more, lest the majority subsidize you. I'm not sure I buy that, as the added savings, or revenue, the stores see will most likely end up in the pockets of executives, not shareholders, employees, or customers.
No matter who pays, software, hardware, or monitoring costs, this will also cost tax dollars. Plenty of them. This would add a big chunk of beauracracy and that means lots of incompetents all hired to boss other incompetents around. This would involve a good chunk of tax money AND raised cable rates.
Makes sense. What the poster put in there was excellent as a matter of fact. The comparison that you should draw was not that Microsoft might be used for piracy or copyright violations. Clearly the poster has given another example of how the legitimate tool which has been misused as part of a crime would be held responsible for it's misuse. The story pertains to how Apple would be responsible and taxed for the iPod because someone _might_ use it for an illegal act. Similarly, the poster replied that Microsoft should be taxed in the case that it's product, Windows, was misused for an illegal act, such as malicious virus code. He might have said bats should be taxed to provide compensation to victims of mugging or that tire iron makers should be taxed in case their products were misused for rioting. This is a horrible law. This makes someone liable for damage that has not even been proven, for damage that has not happened yet, for damage resulting from the intentional misuse of their product by a different individual. This goes against our heritage and core values as American citizens which would hold that men should only be judged for their own crimes, have an opportunity to defend themselves, and innocent until proven guilty. This type of law legislates guilt instead of proving it. I'm certainly not interested in defending any corporation, but ultimately, these laws presume our guilt as men and those taxes will be paid by men, not corporations. Ultimately Apple will not pay these taxes at all, it will be the french citizens who have been found guilty and penalized for crimes they _might_ commit. This should be an insult to any man, not just the French. And as Americans we would be turning our backs on our heritage not to speak up when we see others facing this type of erosion of human rights. And we would also be foolish to turn our backs and believe that it couldn't also happen to us.
Stick up for the French. They fought for their freedom before after the example Americans set for them. I doubt the real French enjoy this type of beauracracy any more than real Americans approve of the DMCA.
I'll second that. Wish I had a mod point for you. I don't trust 3.5s any more at all. USB flash drives for quick mobile storage, CD-Rs for anything bigger or more long term. Even the CD-Rs don't last well anymore. Now all those 3.5s come with those stupid little plastic sliders instead of the sturdy old metal ones. Constantly I find those things coming off and getting jammed in the drives at work. And the plastic is so cheap and flimsy they are almost a real "floppy" disk again. Of course, it doesn't help that now it's not just the computer geeks using these things and a bunch of stupid college kids are storing all of their term papers on these crappy things. Then they run around with them jammed in their back pocket or backpack until crushed, bent, or otherwise destroyed. My job involves me helping people use the computer, but I'm about to put a sign up that help with college work will cost extra.
That's because Gates does a pretty decent job of guessing what the future holds. And judging by his moves in the marketplace, he's guessing that PC's are going to lose their market. And if that happens, it's a pretty wise idea to risk some serious cash in order to find the next big thing, like Palm type computers. Telephony has been around a long time, but getting more successful now as it reaches for the internet appliance model. Who knows if that will work out, but still a good idea for someone to try throwing some money into if he can afford it.
I'll second that. It always drives me nuts when I hear people ask why a computer can't "just work" like a phone. Of course it's because a phone just sits there and rings, it doesn't have to be an arcade, media center, telephone, xxx theatre, dirty magazine, public chat forum, video production studio. And it doesn't need to be updated every week to protect against vulnerabilities or communicate with your friends 2 week more recent computer.
Personal Computers are made to be able to handle a wide variety of tasks and to be customizable. For the home user who has trouble operating a VCR, a PC is going to be a problem. I think customized computers are definitely the future. TIVO for instance.
Want my barely used tin of Penguin Mints? After tasting one of them I decided I'd rather lick caffiene pills off my dogs ass than have another of those fecal-vomit tasting caffiene pill wannabes.
I am not being sarcastic; given the choice an expensive machine in place that will be giving false negatives and false positives about someone's status as a sex offender versus another on campus security guard to statutory rape high school girls, I would absolutley vote for the unlikely high school graduate security guard.
However, if they did both, I guess they could catch the security guards with the past records of screwing high school girls.
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I (sort of) teach computers at a school here in Michigan to Kindergarten through 8th grade students. This type of material is great for them. Everytime they ask why they need to know all kinds of things about computers I tell them it's the same reason they need to know all about their government, even if they aren't going to be President; Because horrible, lying, anti-American cheats will take advantage of them and use what others don't know to harm them.
And then I give them an example like Diebold. We are going to be getting a large group of voting citizens that think computers are only good for playing Diablo II and think they are computer geniuses for being able to load it. Most of them will have no understanding of why this technology harms them and how it allows others to control them.
This isn't a free download as in linux.iso. This is a free download as in W32.TROJAN. Kind of like the Anna Kournakova worm except without hope, albeit false hope, of nudity.
Remember those crazy ones during the boom that PAID you to view their ads? I never did it, they couldn't pay me enough. Way too type A to put up with all that crap swimming around my screen distracting me.
Set your filters and stop begging for censorship! No one here wants what you're selling.
Gotta love the suits. Someone completely fucks up and he gets promoted. At the company I work for this guy was completely unqualified, came in after some barely related work in the field, managed to get almost half the staff to quit every year (people making $30K or better) to hope something else came along, drove off about 70% of the customers the first year, and continually about 50% more, finally the place is in trouble with the state and he ends up getting a promotion overseeing about 10 sites including the one he ruined. I told them I quit about a month after that because there is no way I'm going to be there cleaning someone else's mess up taking the blame for it. Currently he is trying to make it look like I ran off with all the stuff he's looted from the building, laptops, digital camera, etc.
That's illegal. They are requiring you to work without pay and from what you state in your post, it is policy and probably written policy. If not written in a big manual, at least it is probably written in emails and memos. Print them out. Send them to your state's labor board. Your company is stealing from you and all the other employees there. They have given you a job that you can only complete by working without pay. If you don't want to contact the authorities regarding this, point out to the higher ups that if you are working without pay, not on the clock, not officially, then their insurance will probably not cover any major screw ups. But if someone files a lawsuit over your screw up, they are certain to be held responsible as you can (I'm sure) provide documentation that they ordered you to work that time, those duties, without pay.
I'm confident this would apply also to a case if you were injured during that time period. Such as if you leaned back in your chair and hurt your spine. Since you weren't on the clock I doubt the insurance company would pay. They would come back with the answer that you were off the clock and policy specifically said you were not to be working. Then when you sued the company you would claim that they had ordered you to work those hours. They are responsible, but because of their cheating they would not have any coverage on their end.
Another alternative channel you could use would be the IRS. By not paying you for hours worked, the company is not just cheating you out of your paycheck, it is cheating you out of Social Security benefits, possibly 401k, and also cheating the IRS out of tax dollars. Consider that the company is matching your tax dollars paid on your check. If the company is cheating 100 employees out of 12 minutes a day, or 1 hours per week, that's 100 hours per week of tax evasion on the part of the company...intentional tax evasion, not forgetting to file some form, they are actively cheating the US of their tax dollars.
You have something big to hold over the suits heads and I would suggest you first start gathering every piece of documentation you can regarding this and printing it out. In your shoes I would be emailing managers for clarification on this. I might even be sending higher managers emails just stating what you understand to be the rules, not asking for anything to be changed and not complaining. Then they cannot deny that they are not aware of the problem.
When you have all of this documentation secured, either tell the higher ups that you have documentation of illegal pay practices and tax evasion and ask at the very least your back pay, or go to the authorities. Better check with a lawyer first, but maybe you could ask for a "bonus" for finding this "mistake" so they can correct it before someone went to the authorities.
When you consider, restitution for pay, damages, damaged reputation, back taxes, IRS penalties, etc, you actually are saving the company a LOT of money by letting them handle this internally.
Wish I had mod points, that's a very informative AND insightful post. I hadn't really thought about that. As well as stealing wages from people, by shaving the time clock, these people are stealing from your taxes. That's less money paid in for Social Security and less money for Uncle Sam.
Unfair to ask a fraud and a thief to resign after stealing from employees? If this manager had been stealing my money after having me put in overtime hours away from my wife kids so that she could get some promotion or bonus the only thing I'd think was unfair about it is if the employees didn't get a chance to kick her ass on the way out the door. Although I'm sure upper management wasn't blameless on the issue either, they would certainly have some greivances too. Thinking about the lawsuits, bad publicity, lower sales, difficulty in hiring that would result from this sounds like it would be some big bucks that would far outway the manager's theft.
I thought it was kind of funny, but I'd put money on it that they have your phones tapped right now just to make sure. Better put your tin foil hat on and start praying that the feds figure you are just joking.
Maybe you should try making fun of a bunch of sissies that can't do anything about it. Maybe a nice Canada joke? Or better yet, make fun of the stupid, like the rest of us do. At least they won't get it.
You saw the pic and it's the PDA you want to Fsck? Fsck the teenager I say! Then again... you Fsck the PDA, I'll Fsck the teenager.
I belatedly welcome our not so new corporate overlords.
That is an excellent observation. I (sort of) teach computer skills or technology infused lessons to K-8 students and I make it a point to let them know that some search engines are junk, some are good, some are great, but the best answer is always that you need to use the right search engine for the job. And very often that's a highly specific search engine, such as those that are dedicated to searching a specific site.
LOL. I play on a duron 900 also. I have a Geforce 4 MX though. Dual Monitor output for watching porn while gaming (Maybe that's why I get killed a lot). But seriously, I play Urban Terror, the Quake 3 mod. Yep, an old machine, 4 times slower than modern computers with a barely adequate graphics card and low frames per second. And I still have a blast. Unfortunately that's why I'm confident that better titles will be released for the consoles first.
I've been playing a free mod for about 3 years. A free mod to a 4 or 5 year old game? That I don't even have a legal copy of? (errr...I mean that some people don't have a legal copy of)....Modding is one of the biggest arguments for PC gaming, the ability to get a huge value from a game, even after years of play. And I just don't see that being big bucks for the software publishers with their current business model.
I suppose it could be very good for them if they took advantage of the number of people producing free mods as a means to sell their product for years afte release though. Hey, maybe I was wrong about that PC thing. Long term revenue from a single FPS game due to the free work of a large fan base?
Of course, the software companies could just keep producing buggy games and then sell patches to people for years.
Lucky for you they haven't. Then instead of being an old school hack gamer, you'd just be a conformist loser, unlike us other 31337 console gamers who are playing Jedi Arena on our old 2600's. Personally, I like to play old text based muds using braille. That way no one will ever be as cool as me.
What I don't get is what this guy regrets, giving into SCO, the bad publicity for caving to them, trying to use SCO dealing to get him in the spotlight, wasting investors money, alienating his user base, etc.
I didn't see any news in the article at all. Just looked like more corporate speak designed to obscure any real meaning while trying to get publicity.
Is that by refusing to purchase items with RFID tags, that you would be forced into "second class" citizenry. Rather than have the items that you would like to, you would have to buy more expensive downgraded products. Perhaps reasonably, stores will say that adding the RFID tag lowers store costs and product costs, and therefor by not buying RFID implanted objects, you will be choosing to pay more, lest the majority subsidize you. I'm not sure I buy that, as the added savings, or revenue, the stores see will most likely end up in the pockets of executives, not shareholders, employees, or customers.
I welcome our new super intelligent rat overlords.
- Willard
Too late to enter my old Chevette? The title sounds like a new NBC reality show.
No matter who pays, software, hardware, or monitoring costs, this will also cost tax dollars. Plenty of them. This would add a big chunk of beauracracy and that means lots of incompetents all hired to boss other incompetents around. This would involve a good chunk of tax money AND raised cable rates.
Makes sense.
What the poster put in there was excellent as a matter of fact. The comparison that you should draw was not that Microsoft might be used for piracy or copyright violations. Clearly the poster has given another example of how the legitimate tool which has been misused as part of a crime would be held responsible for it's misuse. The story pertains to how Apple would be responsible and taxed for the iPod because someone _might_ use it for an illegal act. Similarly, the poster replied that Microsoft should be taxed in the case that it's product, Windows, was misused for an illegal act, such as malicious virus code. He might have said bats should be taxed to provide compensation to victims of mugging or that tire iron makers should be taxed in case their products were misused for rioting.
This is a horrible law. This makes someone liable for damage that has not even been proven, for damage that has not happened yet, for damage resulting from the intentional misuse of their product by a different individual. This goes against our heritage and core values as American citizens which would hold that men should only be judged for their own crimes, have an opportunity to defend themselves, and innocent until proven guilty. This type of law legislates guilt instead of proving it.
I'm certainly not interested in defending any corporation, but ultimately, these laws presume our guilt as men and those taxes will be paid by men, not corporations. Ultimately Apple will not pay these taxes at all, it will be the french citizens who have been found guilty and penalized for crimes they _might_ commit. This should be an insult to any man, not just the French. And as Americans we would be turning our backs on our heritage not to speak up when we see others facing this type of erosion of human rights. And we would also be foolish to turn our backs and believe that it couldn't also happen to us.
Stick up for the French. They fought for their freedom before after the example Americans set for them. I doubt the real French enjoy this type of beauracracy any more than real Americans approve of the DMCA.
I'll second that. Wish I had a mod point for you. I don't trust 3.5s any more at all. USB flash drives for quick mobile storage, CD-Rs for anything bigger or more long term. Even the CD-Rs don't last well anymore. Now all those 3.5s come with those stupid little plastic sliders instead of the sturdy old metal ones. Constantly I find those things coming off and getting jammed in the drives at work. And the plastic is so cheap and flimsy they are almost a real "floppy" disk again.
Of course, it doesn't help that now it's not just the computer geeks using these things and a bunch of stupid college kids are storing all of their term papers on these crappy things. Then they run around with them jammed in their back pocket or backpack until crushed, bent, or otherwise destroyed.
My job involves me helping people use the computer, but I'm about to put a sign up that help with college work will cost extra.
That's because Gates does a pretty decent job of guessing what the future holds. And judging by his moves in the marketplace, he's guessing that PC's are going to lose their market. And if that happens, it's a pretty wise idea to risk some serious cash in order to find the next big thing, like Palm type computers. Telephony has been around a long time, but getting more successful now as it reaches for the internet appliance model. Who knows if that will work out, but still a good idea for someone to try throwing some money into if he can afford it.
I'll second that. It always drives me nuts when I hear people ask why a computer can't "just work" like a phone. Of course it's because a phone just sits there and rings, it doesn't have to be an arcade, media center, telephone, xxx theatre, dirty magazine, public chat forum, video production studio. And it doesn't need to be updated every week to protect against vulnerabilities or communicate with your friends 2 week more recent computer.
Personal Computers are made to be able to handle a wide variety of tasks and to be customizable. For the home user who has trouble operating a VCR, a PC is going to be a problem. I think customized computers are definitely the future. TIVO for instance.
Want my barely used tin of Penguin Mints? After tasting one of them I decided I'd rather lick caffiene pills off my dogs ass than have another of those fecal-vomit tasting caffiene pill wannabes.
I am not being sarcastic; given the choice an expensive machine in place that will be giving false negatives and false positives about someone's status as a sex offender versus another on campus security guard to statutory rape high school girls, I would absolutley vote for the unlikely high school graduate security guard.
However, if they did both, I guess they could catch the security guards with the past records of screwing high school girls.