mean, they don't pay you for work mode 24x7 when not travelling, that (likely) doesn't mean they are being unreasonable when they say you can't host a party after work in the conference room.
Just thought of a good response to this analogy. I agree that hosting a party after work in the office would be unreasonable of me, but I think if I was travelling on business and I wanted to host a party in my hotel room, it would be unreasonable of my employer to stop me.
But I don't quite get why you feel that you should be able to treat company property as your private property.
I don't, but I do feel that, because I am doing my employer a favour by being flexible, my employer should allow me to do whatever I like with my (company provided) laptop in the privacy of my hotel room. I also feel that I should be allowed to use company resources to stay in contact with my friends and family when I am away from home on business.
I actually work for a really nice, flexible employer who specifically allow for contact with friends and family when travelling and informally don't mind how I use the laptop on my time (as long as it doesn't get destroyed etc). This flexibility is mutually beneficial. Because the company goes the extra mile for its employees, the employees go the extra mile for the company.
Umm, if what you want to do personally can't be done withing the work specifications of the machine, then yes. If you really must have random games, programs or whatever on a machine, then get a personal machine.
...
So what would you need on a laptop for business trips? Remember that IT is there to allow you to get work done. Not to set up your dream gaming machine, or your multimedia center (unless your job is creating video presentations or the like).
I travel a lot on business, sometimes on very short notice. I don't have to do this - my contract says I don't have to work more than 30 miles from home. I have a company laptop and a company mobile phone. I use both for personal use when I am away on business. If my employer starts putting restrictions on what I can do with the laptop and mobile in the privacy of whatever hotel room they stick me in, then I will start refusing to travel. This is partly because I don't want to be out of contact with my friends and family when I travel, partly because my company doesn't pay for any entertainment when I am travelling, but mainly because by being so flexible I expect my company to be flexible in return. It might be different if they paid me to be in "work behaviour mode" 24 hours a day when I was travelling, but they don't.
I agree with this. I'd prefer to be paid what I am worth through the year rather than have part of my salary withheld to be given to me as a "gift" at the end of the year. I used to work at one place where the Christmas bonus was an open bar at the company dinner - not worth much to someone like me who doesn't drink.
I've used OpenSP a lot. It's a suite of tools that includes onsgmls, the parser that lies at the heart of the W3 validator. Combined with find you can easily validate local copies of all the files. Its faster than using the validator for multiple pages. It also included onsgmlnorm, which is used to normalize SGML. If you have a load of "XHTML without closing p tags" type HTML, change the doctype to an HTML doctype, run it through onsgmlnorm, switch the doctype back, and all the closing ps are there. (It's not quite that simple though - you have to clean up lots of suprious > s which get introduced for sensible but obscure SGML reasons, usually after img elements. It's trivial to do the cleanup automatically.)
When I was a student, I used to know someone who loved windsurfing during thunderstorms. He also liked to sit on the (flat, copper) roof of the (steel framed) halls of residence during thunderstorms. He didn't see anything wrong with this, despite the fact he was studying physics.
I take it you haven't meet any teenagers lately? Because they almost all seem to be incapable of figuring out that fire burns.
I had lunch with a couple of teenage boys on Friday. At one point one did try to set the other one on fire using a cigarette lighter. Amazingly they are friends.
Hey, here's a smart idea, put cable TV in their rooms too and don't block the Playboy channel, then ask the government to step in and do something about it.
Disturbingly, this has been suggested, more or less:
"You can always turn the television off and of course block the channels you don't want but why should you have to?" said Mr Martin.
While you're accused of (or being investigated for) an academic or disciplinary offence, you have no right to a lawyer. Contacting any form of legal representation is itself a further disciplinary offence.
That's scary. The university I went to would get you a solicitor if you were facing formal discipline. OK, they were a member of the law faculty, but they were also your solicitor and acted as such.
Actually, I think calling it an Online to Offline Provisioning Suituation in the Internet Environment would be better - "Call the engineers, there's been an OOPSIE!".
I have a theory about the Care Bear Beams: every time they used them, the Care Bears lost a little bit of intelligence, but it felt really good to use them.
At the start, they rerely used them. It was like the Care Bear Stare was some terrible weapon. As time progressed they used them more and more. So the first time they used them it was "We can't do that! Don't you know what it will do to us?" but the more they used them the less intelligent they got, but they enjoyed it. Now they are all locked in a room somewhere, drooling like idiots, using the stare every few seconds because it feels so good.
IIRC, the percentage of the population of the USA killed in the 9/11 attacks was slightly lower than the percentage of the population of Northern Ireland killed in the Omagh Bomb.
What happened on 9/11 was terrible, almost to the point where I can't comprehend it. What happened in Northern Ireland was worse. And what happened in Northern Ireland was peanuts compared to Rwanda.
My dad had a BT Cellnet mobile when he died. They refused to believe that he was dead, and kept sending him bills demanding payment for line rental *months* after he died. They also kept phoning our house to speak to him. They had noticed that he wasn't using his phone any more.
Eventually they sent him a final demand, saying their next step would be to take him to court. We rang them to say that court would indeed be an acceptable solution. They backed down very quickly.
I can't see a reason why you would need english and japanese in the same domain for instance.
I'm currently working on a paper about translations of a rare greek term, arsenokoites. If I wanted to put up a website about it translatingarsenokoites.org would be a nice choice, if I could also have arsenokoites in Greek too.
Slashdot Mirror
Just thought of a good response to this analogy. I agree that hosting a party after work in the office would be unreasonable of me, but I think if I was travelling on business and I wanted to host a party in my hotel room, it would be unreasonable of my employer to stop me.
Recreation is a form of personal enrichment.
I agree with this. I'd prefer to be paid what I am worth through the year rather than have part of my salary withheld to be given to me as a "gift" at the end of the year. I used to work at one place where the Christmas bonus was an open bar at the company dinner - not worth much to someone like me who doesn't drink.
I've used OpenSP a lot. It's a suite of tools that includes onsgmls, the parser that lies at the heart of the W3 validator. Combined with find you can easily validate local copies of all the files. Its faster than using the validator for multiple pages. It also included onsgmlnorm, which is used to normalize SGML. If you have a load of "XHTML without closing p tags" type HTML, change the doctype to an HTML doctype, run it through onsgmlnorm, switch the doctype back, and all the closing ps are there. (It's not quite that simple though - you have to clean up lots of suprious > s which get introduced for sensible but obscure SGML reasons, usually after img elements. It's trivial to do the cleanup automatically.)
No, we're just being British.
Cardinal Richelieu
When I was a student, I used to know someone who loved windsurfing during thunderstorms. He also liked to sit on the (flat, copper) roof of the (steel framed) halls of residence during thunderstorms. He didn't see anything wrong with this, despite the fact he was studying physics.
Sometimes I wonder if he is still alive.
I have the same name as a man that photographs "swimsuit and glamour models" (possibly NSFW).
I had lunch with a couple of teenage boys on Friday. At one point one did try to set the other one on fire using a cigarette lighter. Amazingly they are friends.
Nah, it must be something else. We've been their slaves for centuries.
Its best at 4.x!
Netscape 4.x was evil, unless you disabled JavaScript. 3.x was better. In fact, Netscape 4.x was so bad it made me use IE4.
That's scary. The university I went to would get you a solicitor if you were facing formal discipline. OK, they were a member of the law faculty, but they were also your solicitor and acted as such.
Heh, I had that nerve cluster removed because of a war wound.
Actually, I think calling it an Online to Offline Provisioning Suituation in the Internet Environment would be better - "Call the engineers, there's been an OOPSIE!".
Online to Offline Provisioning Situation?
That's nothing. I just got a *helpful* person when I rang my credit card company's help line!
I have a theory about the Care Bear Beams: every time they used them, the Care Bears lost a little bit of intelligence, but it felt really good to use them.
At the start, they rerely used them. It was like the Care Bear Stare was some terrible weapon. As time progressed they used them more and more. So the first time they used them it was "We can't do that! Don't you know what it will do to us?" but the more they used them the less intelligent they got, but they enjoyed it. Now they are all locked in a room somewhere, drooling like idiots, using the stare every few seconds because it feels so good.
Incendiary bombs were used by Germany. At least someone dropped a lot on Belfast in 1941. I don't think we were at war with anyone else at the time.
IIRC, the percentage of the population of the USA killed in the 9/11 attacks was slightly lower than the percentage of the population of Northern Ireland killed in the Omagh Bomb.
Something like 3000 people have been killed in the troubles as a whole.
What happened on 9/11 was terrible, almost to the point where I can't comprehend it. What happened in Northern Ireland was worse. And what happened in Northern Ireland was peanuts compared to Rwanda.
My dad had a BT Cellnet mobile when he died. They refused to believe that he was dead, and kept sending him bills demanding payment for line rental *months* after he died. They also kept phoning our house to speak to him. They had noticed that he wasn't using his phone any more.
Eventually they sent him a final demand, saying their next step would be to take him to court. We rang them to say that court would indeed be an acceptable solution. They backed down very quickly.