I worked at a Gamestop for a year. Policy states that anything other than this generation that gets traded in with a box, the box and manual get tossed. The plastic sleeves that people stored their NES and SNES games in to protect them? We don't even take them in. Employees usually take them home, but sometimes they go in the rubbish bin. Even for current generation GBA games, the boxes and manuals get tossed. The employees at our store had a system so that if a game came in with a box, we'd store the box seperately and write 'box' on the sticky label we affixed to the game. Our manager was understanding (she was a collector as well) and allowed us to breach policy. When she quit and our store went impact, a new manager came in, and everything went in the trash. If you're looking for older games in good condition with boxes and manuals, your best bet is not in a chain store. Especially once this generation is over--in order to make room for used bins of PS2, GC, and XBOX games, NES, SNES, and Genesis will be phased out of stores.
Also, try to make friends with an employee at a game store--they'll hold boxes and manuals for you if you're nicer to them than the average customer.
Anti-spam laws would work so much better if, say, they started chopping off the fingers of those involved.
Then we could coat the fingers in chocolate and sell them as 'delicacies' in hollywood.
Vengeance AND revenue!
It is extremely important that you're honest in your interviews and on your resume--if an employer later finds out you were dishonest, you could be terminated at worst, and at best, they would not believe anything you say ever again.
In the current economy, it's not uncommon to have held jobs for short stints of time, and for longer stretches to occur between gainful employment. As long as you sparkle in your interview, prove that you are knowledgeable and dependable, your previous employment becomes less important in the interviewer's eyes.
I, too, have been a victim of bad luck in employment. I took a job as a game designer, and little did I know that they were trying to play super-catch up and make up for months of slacking. The publisher dropped support and massive waves of lay-offs ensued. I had only been working there three months when my employment was terminated. I've been interviewing for other positions, and the question always comes up.
I consulted a friend who used to work in HR (for ten years, no less!) and he's told me on numerous occasions that without a doubt, honesty is the best policy. "It is VERY difficult to talk about a bad situation with the result being your termination. I think I would say I was laid off and leave it at that. You never want to make your former employer look bad."
So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth. I hope this helped!
The cafe I work at is located in CA, and therefore should be (or will be) affected by this. While it seems we do attract some of the dregs of society here, it does strike me as being odd that we as a business would be required to have security cameras when other similar businesses are not similarly affected. Someone is much more likely to get stabbed in a gang-related accident at the bar down the street than at our establishment, yet they are not required to videotape their customers.
It furthermore strikes me as odd that the court would go to lengths to stop minors from frequenting a business such as mine during the day, but allowing them unrestricted access in the evenings (when altercations are much more likely to occur here).
As you have noticed, it would be crippling to our business to not monitor our customers, and I am grateful that the government has not taken that ability away from us. However, I am inclined to agree with you that mandatory cameras are not the next logical step, especially in a private business.
I would like to ask you, as I'm not as up to date on this as I should be: Doesn't Carnivore render this debate obsolete regardless? If the government is already monitoring internet communication, video cameras in a cybercafe would be less of a computer privacy issue and more of personal rights issue. In which case, I would agree with you wholeheartedly that the government has no right to inject itself into my business and watch my customers.
It is an interesting idea, but I don't think it could be successfully applied at our establishment.
When I lived in Taiwan, I frequented a lot of cafes--ones that were primarily for the internet offered each patron a private cubicle. Game-based cafes were much more open.
I work at a primarily game-based cafe. Part of the energy that is generated by players at our tournaments would be stifled if everyone were separated.I suppose it would be possible to offer a row of private, internet only cubes, but honestly, I don't see it happening. Providing a 'spank tank' of sorts would still be counter-conducive to the family environment we wish to create.
As for your other question, our remote view capability is software based. We use SmartLaunch, which has a built-in monitoring tool, which basically takes a screenshot of every machine hooked into the SmartLaunch network. We have no way of monitoring customers that come in with their own laptops and hook in on our Wi-Fi...so I guess if you want privacy, there's your answer.
We try to keep it a family environment there (I know, I know, headshots might not be what some consider great for a family, but whatever).
All it really takes for our business to fail is one little kid to tell their parents they saw someone looking at porn, or one parent to see it for themselves. Word of mouth would kill us.
If we couldn't remotely view customer's screens, this would have happened already.
It's not something we abuse, it's a tool for us to maintain our business. Signs are posted, informing customers that we can monitor what they are doing, and we also inform first time customers of our policy. So if Mr. A hears and sees all of these warnings, and proceeds to view transgender pornography, I would say at that point it's no longer a privacy issue--if he had wanted to keep his preferences private, he would not have chosen a public venue to satisfy them. Especially considering the warnings he's been given!
I do understand that there is potential for abuse when monitoring customers, and therefore an invasion of privacy. However, with my job and business at stake, I can only applaud this decision.
But if someone uses their phone as a paperweight and a gust of wind knocks it off of the desk, they can't blame the manufacturer of the phone for not making it an adequate paperweight.
Similarly, you can use your Xbox as a PC if you want, but that's not what it was made for--so if the system changes and you can no longer use it the way you wanted to, it's not Microsoft's fault for failing to anticipate your far from standard need.
I personally don't understand WHY you want Linux to run on the xbox. I'll admit that it takes a lot of smarts and quite a bit of 'damn the man' to buck the system and do exactly what you want with your hardware. If you want to use your xbox as a server or a slave computer or simply as a badge of 'eff you' to Microsoft, that's your choice. But you can hardly expect Microsoft to support you in that decision.
Furthermore, I would prefer that Microsoft patch and update my xbox via xbox live than do things the way Sony is--namely, releasing several different versions of the PS2 with different drivers. And then when someone buys a brand new PS2 with the older drivers (so none of the new games play), attempting to blame the customer for the problem!
Given the ilk of most major lawsuits in the US (up for suing McDonalds, anyone? Didn't know their food was bad for you?) I'd say this woman is in it for what she'll get out of it. Once she's a millionaire, she won't care as much about the software licenses she purchases and doesn't like. It is a rare person who would stand true for the greater good over personal gain.
On an aside, it's not just opened software that stores aren't taking back--I bought a copy of painter for school, dropped the class, and tried to return the UNOPENED, UNUSED software to the store, where I was informed that their policy is no returns, regardless of whether or not it was opened.
Perhaps the EULA goes in effect the second your fingers touch the shrinkwrap to read the back of the box.
This Valentine's day I will be at school from 8-1:50, and at work from 2-10. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get a call from my boyfriend, who lives across the country, and who may be shipped off to Kuwait next month.
Your girlfriend is luckier than she realizes. And if all she can do is complain about your efforts, then maybe you should rethink the relationship?
Whatever you do, regardless of what you think about v-day (*cough* crass consumerism at its worst *cough* another way to alienate women from men by bringing out the greediness in women and confusion in men *cough* not a real holiday if you don't get off work for it *cough*)you should celebrate being together and loving each other. And you probably shouldn't wait until valentine's day to do it, or stop after it's over.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're looking for older games in good condition with boxes and manuals, your best bet is not in a chain store. Especially once this generation is over--in order to make room for used bins of PS2, GC, and XBOX games, NES, SNES, and Genesis will be phased out of stores.
Also, try to make friends with an employee at a game store--they'll hold boxes and manuals for you if you're nicer to them than the average customer.
Anti-spam laws would work so much better if, say, they started chopping off the fingers of those involved.
Then we could coat the fingers in chocolate and sell them as 'delicacies' in hollywood.
Vengeance AND revenue!
In the current economy, it's not uncommon to have held jobs for short stints of time, and for longer stretches to occur between gainful employment. As long as you sparkle in your interview, prove that you are knowledgeable and dependable, your previous employment becomes less important in the interviewer's eyes.
I, too, have been a victim of bad luck in employment. I took a job as a game designer, and little did I know that they were trying to play super-catch up and make up for months of slacking. The publisher dropped support and massive waves of lay-offs ensued. I had only been working there three months when my employment was terminated. I've been interviewing for other positions, and the question always comes up. I consulted a friend who used to work in HR (for ten years, no less!) and he's told me on numerous occasions that without a doubt, honesty is the best policy. "It is VERY difficult to talk about a bad situation with the result being your termination. I think I would say I was laid off and leave it at that. You never want to make your former employer look bad."
So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth. I hope this helped!
It furthermore strikes me as odd that the court would go to lengths to stop minors from frequenting a business such as mine during the day, but allowing them unrestricted access in the evenings (when altercations are much more likely to occur here).
As you have noticed, it would be crippling to our business to not monitor our customers, and I am grateful that the government has not taken that ability away from us. However, I am inclined to agree with you that mandatory cameras are not the next logical step, especially in a private business.
I would like to ask you, as I'm not as up to date on this as I should be: Doesn't Carnivore render this debate obsolete regardless? If the government is already monitoring internet communication, video cameras in a cybercafe would be less of a computer privacy issue and more of personal rights issue. In which case, I would agree with you wholeheartedly that the government has no right to inject itself into my business and watch my customers.
When I lived in Taiwan, I frequented a lot of cafes--ones that were primarily for the internet offered each patron a private cubicle. Game-based cafes were much more open.
I work at a primarily game-based cafe. Part of the energy that is generated by players at our tournaments would be stifled if everyone were separated.I suppose it would be possible to offer a row of private, internet only cubes, but honestly, I don't see it happening. Providing a 'spank tank' of sorts would still be counter-conducive to the family environment we wish to create.
As for your other question, our remote view capability is software based. We use SmartLaunch, which has a built-in monitoring tool, which basically takes a screenshot of every machine hooked into the SmartLaunch network. We have no way of monitoring customers that come in with their own laptops and hook in on our Wi-Fi...so I guess if you want privacy, there's your answer.
It's not something we abuse, it's a tool for us to maintain our business. Signs are posted, informing customers that we can monitor what they are doing, and we also inform first time customers of our policy. So if Mr. A hears and sees all of these warnings, and proceeds to view transgender pornography, I would say at that point it's no longer a privacy issue--if he had wanted to keep his preferences private, he would not have chosen a public venue to satisfy them. Especially considering the warnings he's been given!
I do understand that there is potential for abuse when monitoring customers, and therefore an invasion of privacy. However, with my job and business at stake, I can only applaud this decision.
Similarly, you can use your Xbox as a PC if you want, but that's not what it was made for--so if the system changes and you can no longer use it the way you wanted to, it's not Microsoft's fault for failing to anticipate your far from standard need.
Furthermore, I would prefer that Microsoft patch and update my xbox via xbox live than do things the way Sony is--namely, releasing several different versions of the PS2 with different drivers. And then when someone buys a brand new PS2 with the older drivers (so none of the new games play), attempting to blame the customer for the problem!
Given the ilk of most major lawsuits in the US (up for suing McDonalds, anyone? Didn't know their food was bad for you?) I'd say this woman is in it for what she'll get out of it. Once she's a millionaire, she won't care as much about the software licenses she purchases and doesn't like. It is a rare person who would stand true for the greater good over personal gain. On an aside, it's not just opened software that stores aren't taking back--I bought a copy of painter for school, dropped the class, and tried to return the UNOPENED, UNUSED software to the store, where I was informed that their policy is no returns, regardless of whether or not it was opened. Perhaps the EULA goes in effect the second your fingers touch the shrinkwrap to read the back of the box.
This Valentine's day I will be at school from 8-1:50, and at work from 2-10. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get a call from my boyfriend, who lives across the country, and who may be shipped off to Kuwait next month.
.02
Your girlfriend is luckier than she realizes. And if all she can do is complain about your efforts, then maybe you should rethink the relationship?
Whatever you do, regardless of what you think about v-day (*cough* crass consumerism at its worst *cough* another way to alienate women from men by bringing out the greediness in women and confusion in men *cough* not a real holiday if you don't get off work for it *cough*)you should celebrate being together and loving each other. And you probably shouldn't wait until valentine's day to do it, or stop after it's over.
My lame