You know, I'm no fun of poor public decision-making but honestly turning off the data in underground public transportation seriously does not seem like that big of a deal to me.
Honestly, transit (air and subway) is one of the few places you could get some peace and quiet. While it's nice to have, it's not a necessity and whining about it being turned off to avert what they believed was going to be a bad event really probably wasn't all that terrible of an idea.
That said, your note that you believe the slippery slope is coming to reach to turning off the power is a bit much. Yeah you could have been exaggerating for fun but honestly, that's just silly.
Disruption of service sucks. If the public sector really thought this would mitigate that disruption, let them do it. Turning off the power, well, that would disrupt the service even more.
It's simple. If I am that desperate for a job I will delete the stupid fucking Facebook account and tell them "I don't have one, I deleted it because I'm too busy looking for work on LinkedIn and Indeed to post about my asinine behavior, love life, food picture taking habits, or whatever the fuck people do on Facebook.
I've also suggested that I'd create a professional "William Roehl" account and leave it wide open with nothing on it and keep my "Bill Roehl" account locked down as it currently is or just simply delete it. Seriously, here have at the account, I don't give a shit.
Oh, and honestly, if you're whining about FB account access by private employers over the intrusive behavior of our nation's internal spying agencies then you've fallen for it.
STOP WORRYING ABOUT FB AND WORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING EXCEPT FB.
I'm a supervisor. If my employees video me at work they're going to show the world that I use Putty and Chrome to get a more-than-occasional peek at Slashdot or Twitter.
As long as they are getting their work done to my expectations and especially the expectations of the customer, they can pretty much do what they want as well.
So why would I care that they video me and why would they want to in the first place? Are supervisors really that unethical and misbehaving so often that this is really a concern?
The average person is insane: I own an iPhone 4 and I'm always 1/2 to 1 full version behind the newest (although this will change as my wife will be taking my 4 and I will upgrade to the 5 when it comes out) to save myself money. I got my iPhone4 for $75 (and two year contract extension) and I spent about $2 on the USB car charger which has two ports and doubles as my hand-held GPS charger as well.
While I have spent some money on apps (I like Words With Friends and would have bought it on the Android platform as well), there is no way that I would have spent $600 on everything combined.
However, I'm not the norm just like you aren't either. Move along.
In this particular case he needed round-the-clock care which could not be provided in our home. He had a serious brain injury which left him totally incapacitated (as I mentioned in my original post).
He had to have a foley inserted for urine collection which he would routinely remove himself, he wore a diaper for feces, for a short while when he was first admitted he had a feeding tube. He needed to be moved frequently to avoid bedsores. He had to undergo physical therapy regularly.
Yeah, my parents could have added an addition on to the house and made it handicapped accessible. They should have brought in a team of nurses to tend to him round-the-clock in our home. My father could have quit his head-of-household wage-earning job while I was in college (I was on an athletic scholarship but still had expenses) in order to help care for him.
Unfortunately, in this instance, the best option both for my grandfather's quality of life and my parents' was to keep him in a nursing home instead.
I read that article when it came out and agreed with all of it. However, in many cases it's just simply not as easy as the article makes it seem.
My grandfather passed away several years ago after living for the better part of a decade mentally and physically incapacitated following a serious brain hemorrhage. My father, having power of attorney, noted that he was not to receive anything other than painkillers. He was simply supposed to be made comfortable but no effort was to be made to prolong his life. The cost of that nursing home was astronomical even for care which is basic.
There is also my remaining living grandparent. At 86 she is able to walk by herself, communicate clearly, etc. She also has a ton of health issues including diabetes, pain management, etc. Her costs, mostly shouldered by the taxpayers due to very low available income, are also astronomical and she's living what many may consider an active and acceptable lifestyle for her age.
So yeah. Doctor's (and many others) choose to die quickly and w/o medical intervention which is likely to fail anyway. However these astronomical costs aren't just for those who are likely terminal patients. They're for everyone--even the "healthy" ones.
I have never had anything but poor experiences with them myself but I fully support anyone changing from one shitty carrier to another.
Believe me, I get it. I hated AT&T and then I hated T-mobile. Honestly I don't mind AT&T now that I have a small business account (their reps are great and they have never overbilled me or fucked me over) but don't think that you're suddenly going to have a better experience on one carrier over another; they all suck.
Best of luck to you. I hope VM rocks it out and your prepaid account solves all of your problems but, more than likely, it's going to be more of the same with a different name.
I recently bought a PC from WorstBuy because I had to get one quickly and cheaply. I too hate WB more than the average person and while my encounter on exiting the store (I had a huge box in my hands, my wife was clearly pregnant and holding hands with my 2 year old and they still demanded I show a receipt without saying "please") I had no problems buying, picking up and leaving the store w/o a hassle about the Geek Squad.
Buy your shit online and pick it up. Done and done.
The best English teacher I had was my English instructor my first year of undergrad. Instead of concentrating on whether we were writing our papers to the curriculum and/or her own beliefs about the content, she was instead interested in developing our English skills.
I went from a C student in English to an A student. I never considered myself to have any ability to write, thankfully because someone took the time to actually think critically about my work instead of comparing it to their own preconceived notions I excelled and went on to complete a research and writing focused program. This degree later fed into my graduate degree which was also research and writing focused.
If this automated grading setup can provide students with clear expectations and explanations of the mechanics of their work while avoiding personal content expectations, I really do think it'll match the claims and help to foster a positive writing environment for many.
So? As I also said there are other options for people to go to instead. You can have an Android phone or a Foo phone. Apple isn't the only game in town. They are free to make their devices as they see fit and they userbase and potential userbase can choose to use them if they want.
They don't forbid you to jailbreak your device (the reasons for this are obviously outside of their control) so you definitely have an option to run apps which are not vetted on your device.
I'm all for free and open. I like having that option. However I also like not having to worry all that much that some random app on my phone is going to possibly interfere with me making a call when I really need to or that it's not crashing my device over and over again because it wasn't carefully tested before showing up in the store.
I recently bought a MacBook Pro. Why? Because at 33 years old and 15+ years of Linux experience and 30+ years of other computing experience I am tired of the bullshit. I want to turn my machine on and use it and use it well without a fucking hassle. The Mac gives me that ability both with Windows and OS X.
So yeah, locked down archs suck but there are plenty of other options for you to explore if you want to do that. Just because I'm happy to have what I feel is the best option for my day-to-day use devices doesn't mean I don't use Debian Stable to run my web/dns/mail server at home.
There is a happy medium out there. I used to bitch a lot about the openness of shit on here. A LOT. I've gotten older, wiser, lazier and I have a lot more money to blow on what's more comfortable and easy for me to use.
The recognition is getting better as the voicemail transcripts I receive in e-mail are no longer totally unreadable. While they're rarely correct, I can now get a basic idea of the call before listening to it.
I'd be willing to bet that while they're getting a lot of "evil" information out of the data they are collecting, they are also providing a somewhat useful service to those who use their services.
It's possible but unlikely. Only one potential employer even used Google on my name and clicked through to my personal website which is the #1 returned result.
If they're not going to even do a simple Google search they're not going to give a shit about Slashdot.
I recently did a job search and had numerous offers none of which asked for my social media logins. If they had asked I would have moved on to the next.
That said, if it came down to it I'd have "William Roehl" on Facebook and I'd keep my Bill Roehl account for my usual FB needs. While my FB account has nothing questionable aside from birth announcements to family/friends which could be used against me, I'd be happy to hand over the l/p to a completely empty account.
They want to play stupid games? I can play stupid games better than they can.
Simple fact of the matter is, however, if a company wants this crap they really aren't worth working for.
I am a recent convert to a MacbookPro. Coming from a Windows->OS/2->Linux->XP->OS X history, I am a big fan of Spaces. Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of OS X's handling of Command Tab.
I want to Command Tab between all open windows, not just open applications and then have to do the CMD+~ to get to the next. I want it to work like Windows.
Now, I have been using Witch to do this and it works--most of the time--with Spaces. They have a known issue where sometimes it doesn't. Yeah, this is fine now that it's not-yet-Nagging-me-ware but it's going to start soon and I really don't want to have to plunk down $10 on an application which doesn't really work.
Figured you guys may be the best to ask. So what application can use COMMAND+TAB to switch correctly between all open windows on OS X while using Spaces for free? Yes, I know there are some free ones which don't work with COMMAND+TAB. Yes, I've tried some of them, no they're not acceptable.
You're better off collectively bargaining for that. That's what the farmers in PA did for natural gas rights and made a ton more money than when they were individually settling.
There are probably a half-dozen test-prep organizations for high school students, technical learning, non-technical government licensing, and the like.
And they pay to use test prep materials sold to them by the copyright holder.
They need to be clear that if you stream Netflix for an hour and half at the gym everyday in additon to other use it my run you a few grand in overages
There are hybrid parking spaces at the local transit station I use daily. I don't agree with limiting parking spaces in a publicly funded parking lot for those who can afford a new car and especially one that is a hybrid.
If I had more than one car and actually drove to the transit station myself to park (instead of being dropped off, walking or biking as I do) I would park there with my "gas guzzling" Mazda3 (yes, it is a gas guzzler even though it's very compact).
Perhaps instead of having "no manners whatsoever" they simply don't agree with such ridiculousness?
I scour publicly available records for fun stuff all the time. I not only find it online but I also request it from government agencies (not Federal usually but local/county/etc).
In Minnesota data must be, "easily accessible for convenient use." While that has specific wording related to historical records, it basically means that on recent data it must be in some sort of electronic format or otherwise easily found and presented, free of charge as long as you do it in person, to anyone who asks--even anonymously. Now. This is great in theory. Unfortunately just because it's easy for the agency to use it doesn't mean it's easy for you to use or interpret.
Let's take for instance data on bus ridership data. It's not well organized for outsiders to read it and due to collection methodologies (not explained to the general person who had to pay $50 to get the data in the first place) is basically useless.
They have the data and after months of fighting with them for how much they claimed it cost (they wanted to charge me more than $300 IIRC) I got it down to $50 and got what you see above even though they already pulled it (and summarized it) for the mass media but wouldn't release it in a raw format.
So. It's in a format which isn't standard. It's methodology is questionable and it's expensive. So no matter the mandates, the promises, etc, the data is not terribly useful across agencies or to the public without some intermediate steps which costs the taxpayers more than doing it right the first time around.
So get your ass into office and work to change the laws before you fall into the trap where you game the stock market and make a fortune on the backs of others.
You're posting this on a forum where a good number of readers are obsessed with Linux. It's not that Linux isn't a great OS (I use it for server-side stuff) but it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do.
There is a breakeven point for many people. Those people who are happy to pay $200 for a machine and spend the time getting it to run well with something like Linux even at the expense of a better experience which may cost 6x as much (Apple).
So, if someone cannot or is unwilling to pay $500 for an iPad but may be willing to pay less than $100, it's going to give a much better experience than nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, I'm no fun of poor public decision-making but honestly turning off the data in underground public transportation seriously does not seem like that big of a deal to me.
Honestly, transit (air and subway) is one of the few places you could get some peace and quiet. While it's nice to have, it's not a necessity and whining about it being turned off to avert what they believed was going to be a bad event really probably wasn't all that terrible of an idea.
That said, your note that you believe the slippery slope is coming to reach to turning off the power is a bit much. Yeah you could have been exaggerating for fun but honestly, that's just silly.
Disruption of service sucks. If the public sector really thought this would mitigate that disruption, let them do it. Turning off the power, well, that would disrupt the service even more.
Move along, nothing to see here.
It's simple. If I am that desperate for a job I will delete the stupid fucking Facebook account and tell them "I don't have one, I deleted it because I'm too busy looking for work on LinkedIn and Indeed to post about my asinine behavior, love life, food picture taking habits, or whatever the fuck people do on Facebook.
I've also suggested that I'd create a professional "William Roehl" account and leave it wide open with nothing on it and keep my "Bill Roehl" account locked down as it currently is or just simply delete it. Seriously, here have at the account, I don't give a shit.
Oh, and honestly, if you're whining about FB account access by private employers over the intrusive behavior of our nation's internal spying agencies then you've fallen for it.
STOP WORRYING ABOUT FB AND WORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING EXCEPT FB.
I'm a supervisor. If my employees video me at work they're going to show the world that I use Putty and Chrome to get a more-than-occasional peek at Slashdot or Twitter.
As long as they are getting their work done to my expectations and especially the expectations of the customer, they can pretty much do what they want as well.
So why would I care that they video me and why would they want to in the first place? Are supervisors really that unethical and misbehaving so often that this is really a concern?
The average person is insane: I own an iPhone 4 and I'm always 1/2 to 1 full version behind the newest (although this will change as my wife will be taking my 4 and I will upgrade to the 5 when it comes out) to save myself money. I got my iPhone4 for $75 (and two year contract extension) and I spent about $2 on the USB car charger which has two ports and doubles as my hand-held GPS charger as well.
While I have spent some money on apps (I like Words With Friends and would have bought it on the Android platform as well), there is no way that I would have spent $600 on everything combined.
However, I'm not the norm just like you aren't either. Move along.
In this particular case he needed round-the-clock care which could not be provided in our home. He had a serious brain injury which left him totally incapacitated (as I mentioned in my original post).
He had to have a foley inserted for urine collection which he would routinely remove himself, he wore a diaper for feces, for a short while when he was first admitted he had a feeding tube. He needed to be moved frequently to avoid bedsores. He had to undergo physical therapy regularly.
Yeah, my parents could have added an addition on to the house and made it handicapped accessible. They should have brought in a team of nurses to tend to him round-the-clock in our home. My father could have quit his head-of-household wage-earning job while I was in college (I was on an athletic scholarship but still had expenses) in order to help care for him.
Unfortunately, in this instance, the best option both for my grandfather's quality of life and my parents' was to keep him in a nursing home instead.
YMMV.
I read that article when it came out and agreed with all of it. However, in many cases it's just simply not as easy as the article makes it seem.
My grandfather passed away several years ago after living for the better part of a decade mentally and physically incapacitated following a serious brain hemorrhage. My father, having power of attorney, noted that he was not to receive anything other than painkillers. He was simply supposed to be made comfortable but no effort was to be made to prolong his life. The cost of that nursing home was astronomical even for care which is basic.
There is also my remaining living grandparent. At 86 she is able to walk by herself, communicate clearly, etc. She also has a ton of health issues including diabetes, pain management, etc. Her costs, mostly shouldered by the taxpayers due to very low available income, are also astronomical and she's living what many may consider an active and acceptable lifestyle for her age.
So yeah. Doctor's (and many others) choose to die quickly and w/o medical intervention which is likely to fail anyway. However these astronomical costs aren't just for those who are likely terminal patients. They're for everyone--even the "healthy" ones.
I have never had anything but poor experiences with them myself but I fully support anyone changing from one shitty carrier to another.
Believe me, I get it. I hated AT&T and then I hated T-mobile. Honestly I don't mind AT&T now that I have a small business account (their reps are great and they have never overbilled me or fucked me over) but don't think that you're suddenly going to have a better experience on one carrier over another; they all suck.
Best of luck to you. I hope VM rocks it out and your prepaid account solves all of your problems but, more than likely, it's going to be more of the same with a different name.
I recently bought a PC from WorstBuy because I had to get one quickly and cheaply. I too hate WB more than the average person and while my encounter on exiting the store (I had a huge box in my hands, my wife was clearly pregnant and holding hands with my 2 year old and they still demanded I show a receipt without saying "please") I had no problems buying, picking up and leaving the store w/o a hassle about the Geek Squad.
Buy your shit online and pick it up. Done and done.
The best English teacher I had was my English instructor my first year of undergrad. Instead of concentrating on whether we were writing our papers to the curriculum and/or her own beliefs about the content, she was instead interested in developing our English skills.
I went from a C student in English to an A student. I never considered myself to have any ability to write, thankfully because someone took the time to actually think critically about my work instead of comparing it to their own preconceived notions I excelled and went on to complete a research and writing focused program. This degree later fed into my graduate degree which was also research and writing focused.
If this automated grading setup can provide students with clear expectations and explanations of the mechanics of their work while avoiding personal content expectations, I really do think it'll match the claims and help to foster a positive writing environment for many.
So? As I also said there are other options for people to go to instead. You can have an Android phone or a Foo phone. Apple isn't the only game in town. They are free to make their devices as they see fit and they userbase and potential userbase can choose to use them if they want.
They don't forbid you to jailbreak your device (the reasons for this are obviously outside of their control) so you definitely have an option to run apps which are not vetted on your device.
I'm all for free and open. I like having that option. However I also like not having to worry all that much that some random app on my phone is going to possibly interfere with me making a call when I really need to or that it's not crashing my device over and over again because it wasn't carefully tested before showing up in the store.
I recently bought a MacBook Pro. Why? Because at 33 years old and 15+ years of Linux experience and 30+ years of other computing experience I am tired of the bullshit. I want to turn my machine on and use it and use it well without a fucking hassle. The Mac gives me that ability both with Windows and OS X.
So yeah, locked down archs suck but there are plenty of other options for you to explore if you want to do that. Just because I'm happy to have what I feel is the best option for my day-to-day use devices doesn't mean I don't use Debian Stable to run my web/dns/mail server at home.
There is a happy medium out there. I used to bitch a lot about the openness of shit on here. A LOT. I've gotten older, wiser, lazier and I have a lot more money to blow on what's more comfortable and easy for me to use.
YMMV.
The recognition is getting better as the voicemail transcripts I receive in e-mail are no longer totally unreadable. While they're rarely correct, I can now get a basic idea of the call before listening to it.
I'd be willing to bet that while they're getting a lot of "evil" information out of the data they are collecting, they are also providing a somewhat useful service to those who use their services.
It's possible but unlikely. Only one potential employer even used Google on my name and clicked through to my personal website which is the #1 returned result.
If they're not going to even do a simple Google search they're not going to give a shit about Slashdot.
I recently did a job search and had numerous offers none of which asked for my social media logins. If they had asked I would have moved on to the next.
That said, if it came down to it I'd have "William Roehl" on Facebook and I'd keep my Bill Roehl account for my usual FB needs. While my FB account has nothing questionable aside from birth announcements to family/friends which could be used against me, I'd be happy to hand over the l/p to a completely empty account.
They want to play stupid games? I can play stupid games better than they can.
Simple fact of the matter is, however, if a company wants this crap they really aren't worth working for.
Some people suck and some people are great. Sex has absolutely nothing to do with personality or ability to manage.
I am a recent convert to a MacbookPro. Coming from a Windows->OS/2->Linux->XP->OS X history, I am a big fan of Spaces. Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of OS X's handling of Command Tab.
I want to Command Tab between all open windows, not just open applications and then have to do the CMD+~ to get to the next. I want it to work like Windows.
Now, I have been using Witch to do this and it works--most of the time--with Spaces. They have a known issue where sometimes it doesn't. Yeah, this is fine now that it's not-yet-Nagging-me-ware but it's going to start soon and I really don't want to have to plunk down $10 on an application which doesn't really work.
Figured you guys may be the best to ask. So what application can use COMMAND+TAB to switch correctly between all open windows on OS X while using Spaces for free? Yes, I know there are some free ones which don't work with COMMAND+TAB. Yes, I've tried some of them, no they're not acceptable.
Any ideas?
You're better off collectively bargaining for that. That's what the farmers in PA did for natural gas rights and made a ton more money than when they were individually settling.
And they pay to use test prep materials sold to them by the copyright holder.
Or the apps themselves do. Like the XM app does.
There are hybrid parking spaces at the local transit station I use daily. I don't agree with limiting parking spaces in a publicly funded parking lot for those who can afford a new car and especially one that is a hybrid.
If I had more than one car and actually drove to the transit station myself to park (instead of being dropped off, walking or biking as I do) I would park there with my "gas guzzling" Mazda3 (yes, it is a gas guzzler even though it's very compact).
Perhaps instead of having "no manners whatsoever" they simply don't agree with such ridiculousness?
Except they can't fit the DSLR in their pocket and they take much longer to focus in auto.
I have a DSLR and I can't imagine life without it but to say that they can be used just like P&Ss is simply not true.
I scour publicly available records for fun stuff all the time. I not only find it online but I also request it from government agencies (not Federal usually but local/county/etc).
In Minnesota data must be, "easily accessible for convenient use." While that has specific wording related to historical records, it basically means that on recent data it must be in some sort of electronic format or otherwise easily found and presented, free of charge as long as you do it in person, to anyone who asks--even anonymously. Now. This is great in theory. Unfortunately just because it's easy for the agency to use it doesn't mean it's easy for you to use or interpret.
Let's take for instance data on bus ridership data. It's not well organized for outsiders to read it and due to collection methodologies (not explained to the general person who had to pay $50 to get the data in the first place) is basically useless.
They have the data and after months of fighting with them for how much they claimed it cost (they wanted to charge me more than $300 IIRC) I got it down to $50 and got what you see above even though they already pulled it (and summarized it) for the mass media but wouldn't release it in a raw format.
So. It's in a format which isn't standard. It's methodology is questionable and it's expensive. So no matter the mandates, the promises, etc, the data is not terribly useful across agencies or to the public without some intermediate steps which costs the taxpayers more than doing it right the first time around.
So get your ass into office and work to change the laws before you fall into the trap where you game the stock market and make a fortune on the backs of others.
You're posting this on a forum where a good number of readers are obsessed with Linux. It's not that Linux isn't a great OS (I use it for server-side stuff) but it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do.
There is a breakeven point for many people. Those people who are happy to pay $200 for a machine and spend the time getting it to run well with something like Linux even at the expense of a better experience which may cost 6x as much (Apple).
So, if someone cannot or is unwilling to pay $500 for an iPad but may be willing to pay less than $100, it's going to give a much better experience than nothing.