If the end user has the responsibility to ensure they are not illegally using patented software, wouldn't they be entitled to examine the source of all software they buy in order to make that determination? Otherwise, they would be prevented from doing their legal duty. I wonder if the legal geniuses at Microsoft thought of what that would do to the company's business.
This is symbolic legislation at it's best. It is not designed to actually solve a problem, but to have the appearance of a solution. This way, some group of do-gooders can feel like they have accomplished something. Their opinion of the law would not change even if they were informed of how easy this "solution" would be to defeat. In otherwords, it's to save the children.
They were probably relying on their Microsoft ISA firewall to protect it. That's how my company protects it's proprietary data, and it's damn amazing nobody has hacked them to pieces yet.
Patent cases are a matter of federal law, which means they are heard by a federal judge. These judges are appointed, not elected. So a contribution would be nothing more than a bribe, which is very difficult to accomplish with a federal judge.
I've noticed certain clueless website operators must think that the internet is the same as TV, with full screen ads that play before a page loads. Who the hell do they think is going to put up with this? If my ad blocker doesn't stop it, I'll just not go to that site anymore. Talk about a dying business model. I somehow think they would have much better results by targeting unintrusive, relevant ads to their users. Crapflooded, untargeted ads have a limited amount of time left, so the industry needs to evolve to deal with this inevitability.
I already do a web search for the title of any DVD I am considering buying to see if people have reported that it has forced previews. If so, I don't buy, no matter what it is. If I really want the movie, I'll take the time to write the studio to let them know why I didn't buy it. And they wonder why people are downloading movies from file sharing networks. Hey, the pirate version has no forced anything.
Norton products are perfect examples of security made so cumbersome as to be useless. Every machine I've ever used with Norton Internet Security has some major function, such as network connectivity, disabled until Norton is shut down. After enough tinkering, you can get Norton to work and still allow yourself to use the internet, or print, or whatever. As soon as you change anything, time to reconfigure Norton. Then there's the incessant popup nagging reminders or alerts. I'll take viruses and spyware over Norton anyday. I just wonder how much longer this company will be able to continue living off their reputation, since it is the only way they can get people to buy their overpriced bloatware.
Remember that your average "IT Consultant" thinks the internet consists only of web pages, email and IM. Perhaps they've heard about this file sharing thing but they think that's just something that kids used to do until the RIAA shut it all down. Yes, it's no surprise that whoever came up with that number for this article is an uninformed asshat.
This will definitely make it harder to find employees. Indiana business leaders are always bitching about what they call a "brain drain". Basically most graduates of Indiana University and Purdue end up leaving the state to find jobs. Some of them leave because there are no jobs in their field to be found in the state, and others like myself leave because the offers from Indiana companies are way way lower than those from Chicago based companies. The cost of living in the suburbs here is a little higher than Indianapolis, but the salaries are a night and day difference. Companies located in rural areas (yes, this includes Indy) are going to have to pay more if they want to ensure a good supply of employees once the job market bounces back. I don't think this will work out to be the slave labor corporate utopia that some people seem to think it will be.
Having lived in Tennessee and Alabama for several years at a time, I must say this post is not funny. It's informative. There were people there that I simply could not understand, even after asking them to repeat themselves 5 times.
This is what I've always thought too, which is why I would never ask for my job back in a lawsuit. I would sue for damages including lost wages, back pay, etc. Usually the law allows for substantial extra damages too. Not to mention wrongful termination, since they probably would have fired me as soon as they found out I made a complaint. After collecting a fat wad of cash, I'd take it easy for a couple of months, then find a better place to work. BTW, this most likely would not go to court, as the company wouldn't want to have their ass handed to them by a jury. They would probably offer a good sized settlement which the employee would be well advised to take, along with a confidentiality agreement to ensure they can't tell future employers that you sued them.
Yes, but even in a right to work state, which is what you're referring to, firing an employee in a manner that appears to be retaliation for complaining about illegal working conditions is legally very risky. Federal law punishes employers for a number of labor law violations, such as overtime pay, and the punishment is much more severe when they try to retaliate against the complaining employee. Contrary to what many people believe, salaried employees are entitled to overtime in many situations. Only if they are truly in management, with direct reports and a certain amount of autonomy over their job situations, are they fully exempt from overtime. EA had better be careful if they want to avoid a nasty legal mess, and it may be too late for them.
Sell your AT&T stock anyway. That company is about to tank, trust me. They have never been able to survive in a truly competitive marketplace, since they were a monopoly in one way or another for so long. And good riddance to a nasty company.
I've often wondered myself why the theaters price all movies the same. It seems like they would get more money overall by lowering the price on bad movies and raising it on good ones. One drawback I see from the theater's perspective is staffing. There would have to be ticket takers at the door of each auditorium. Most multiplexes now have the ticket takers at the theater entrance. You buy a ticket, walk 10 feet, hand it to the employee, and then go into the main area. If this system were used for multi-tiered pricing, people would just buy the cheapest ticket and then go see a more expensive movie. The theater would have to consider the additional staffing cost vs. the additional revenue, if any, from a new pricing model.
Got to love how companies are always complaining about lack of experienced professionals, but then they try very hard to avoid actually giving someone experience. They've got to start somewhere, right?
Re:Disenchantment
on
Cube Farm
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Putting up with different opinions, even if you know they're wrong, is part of maturity. Yes, it's a tough pill to swallow, but you're going to keep slamming your head into a brick wall if you don't. You are doing the right thing by forming your own company, it sounds like you are smart enough to keep it running, but business acumen is very important as well. That included seeing things from the client's point of view, and some clients will definitely be morons. You can't cause them to lose face, or you'll lost business; you must diplomatically try to steer them in the right direction.
Re:Everyone everywhere sucks and I am great
on
Cube Farm
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· Score: 1
Tell me about it. I think the grandparent poster must be Cubicledrone's trolling account.
Since an attorney is a licensed profession, and they have to be licensed in the state they are practicing in, outsourcing attorney work to India is nearly impossible. In any case, it would be hard to outsource legal work and be confident that the outsourced attorneys are familiar with all of the federal and local laws at the client's location.
Companies do not make hiring decisions based on the amount of debt the government is currently carrying. For that matter, the government does not make spending decisions based on the amount of debt they are carrying. It could be argued that government debt creates jobs in the financial services industry since all of the T-bill holders would be making interest on government bonds.
In any case, the government was deep in debt during the prosperous mid to late 90s. It didn't seem to affect prosperity. The "budget surplus" was a big hoax; smoke and mirrors Enron style accounting which was so popular at the time. When everything was actually accounted for, there was no real surplus. Besides, if you were $100,000 in the hole and all of a sudden you are handed $10,000 do you now have a surplus? Hell no, now you're $90,000 in debt.
It would be very irresponsible indeed for the government to borrow more than it could afford to pay back. Countries have had riots in the streets when this happened. But taking money away from government and giving them less to spend has not been known to cost people their jobs, unless they work for the government.
Why do some older people all of a sudden start believing anything they are told and hand out money to damn near anyone? My grandma is almost 80 and she's probably a lot more aware of potential scams than I am, so it's not like the human brain is incapable of detecting scams at an older age. If I ever get to the point where I think it's a good idea to send all my money off to some TV preacher, or worse yet some guy in an annonymous email who can't even spell, I hope my kids or grandkids will be kind enough to take me out back and shoot me.
This unfortunately is not surprising. One thing I have noticed about modern corporation customer relations is that when the customer is clearly going to be screwed, they always try to spin it as some sort of benefit. Comcast does it when they have their annual 20% rate hike.
Example: Dear Comcast Customer, you can now pick from an exciting new cable package with more home shopping channels plus the Hallmark channel! Try not to notice that it's $10 more expensive than you are used to paying.
Considering the source for this report, Common Dreams, I'd say you're exactly right. You can tell by the group's name that they are socialist, and not exactly unbiased.
I fully agree that the voting system should be as fair and accurate as possible, and is currently in need of improvement, but people do need to put things in perspective. Voting has always been a somewhat inaccurate process. I'd say there were more problems years ago when technology wasn't as advanced. But it only becomes a big issue when the election will be close. Nobody disputed Clinton's reelection victory over Dole because everyone knew Clinton would win; he was way ahead in the polls. With the 2000 fiasco in recent memory, a lot of focus was put on the 2004 election being as accurate as possible. Inevitably, there were some mistakes, as there always will be, but I'd say that compared to previous elections, this one was surprisingly accurate. The people who are complaining the loudest about problems seem to be primarily the ones who are simply not satisfied with the outcome.
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If the end user has the responsibility to ensure they are not illegally using patented software, wouldn't they be entitled to examine the source of all software they buy in order to make that determination? Otherwise, they would be prevented from doing their legal duty. I wonder if the legal geniuses at Microsoft thought of what that would do to the company's business.
This is symbolic legislation at it's best. It is not designed to actually solve a problem, but to have the appearance of a solution. This way, some group of do-gooders can feel like they have accomplished something. Their opinion of the law would not change even if they were informed of how easy this "solution" would be to defeat. In otherwords, it's to save the children.
They were probably relying on their Microsoft ISA firewall to protect it. That's how my company protects it's proprietary data, and it's damn amazing nobody has hacked them to pieces yet.
Patent cases are a matter of federal law, which means they are heard by a federal judge. These judges are appointed, not elected. So a contribution would be nothing more than a bribe, which is very difficult to accomplish with a federal judge.
I've noticed certain clueless website operators must think that the internet is the same as TV, with full screen ads that play before a page loads. Who the hell do they think is going to put up with this? If my ad blocker doesn't stop it, I'll just not go to that site anymore. Talk about a dying business model. I somehow think they would have much better results by targeting unintrusive, relevant ads to their users. Crapflooded, untargeted ads have a limited amount of time left, so the industry needs to evolve to deal with this inevitability.
I already do a web search for the title of any DVD I am considering buying to see if people have reported that it has forced previews. If so, I don't buy, no matter what it is. If I really want the movie, I'll take the time to write the studio to let them know why I didn't buy it. And they wonder why people are downloading movies from file sharing networks. Hey, the pirate version has no forced anything.
What will be the penalty for going to the bathroom during a commercial break? Hey, it's no less ridiculous than some of Hatch's other ideas.
Norton products are perfect examples of security made so cumbersome as to be useless. Every machine I've ever used with Norton Internet Security has some major function, such as network connectivity, disabled until Norton is shut down. After enough tinkering, you can get Norton to work and still allow yourself to use the internet, or print, or whatever. As soon as you change anything, time to reconfigure Norton. Then there's the incessant popup nagging reminders or alerts. I'll take viruses and spyware over Norton anyday. I just wonder how much longer this company will be able to continue living off their reputation, since it is the only way they can get people to buy their overpriced bloatware.
Remember that your average "IT Consultant" thinks the internet consists only of web pages, email and IM. Perhaps they've heard about this file sharing thing but they think that's just something that kids used to do until the RIAA shut it all down. Yes, it's no surprise that whoever came up with that number for this article is an uninformed asshat.
This will definitely make it harder to find employees. Indiana business leaders are always bitching about what they call a "brain drain". Basically most graduates of Indiana University and Purdue end up leaving the state to find jobs. Some of them leave because there are no jobs in their field to be found in the state, and others like myself leave because the offers from Indiana companies are way way lower than those from Chicago based companies. The cost of living in the suburbs here is a little higher than Indianapolis, but the salaries are a night and day difference. Companies located in rural areas (yes, this includes Indy) are going to have to pay more if they want to ensure a good supply of employees once the job market bounces back. I don't think this will work out to be the slave labor corporate utopia that some people seem to think it will be.
Having lived in Tennessee and Alabama for several years at a time, I must say this post is not funny. It's informative. There were people there that I simply could not understand, even after asking them to repeat themselves 5 times.
This is what I've always thought too, which is why I would never ask for my job back in a lawsuit. I would sue for damages including lost wages, back pay, etc. Usually the law allows for substantial extra damages too. Not to mention wrongful termination, since they probably would have fired me as soon as they found out I made a complaint. After collecting a fat wad of cash, I'd take it easy for a couple of months, then find a better place to work. BTW, this most likely would not go to court, as the company wouldn't want to have their ass handed to them by a jury. They would probably offer a good sized settlement which the employee would be well advised to take, along with a confidentiality agreement to ensure they can't tell future employers that you sued them.
Yes, but even in a right to work state, which is what you're referring to, firing an employee in a manner that appears to be retaliation for complaining about illegal working conditions is legally very risky. Federal law punishes employers for a number of labor law violations, such as overtime pay, and the punishment is much more severe when they try to retaliate against the complaining employee. Contrary to what many people believe, salaried employees are entitled to overtime in many situations. Only if they are truly in management, with direct reports and a certain amount of autonomy over their job situations, are they fully exempt from overtime. EA had better be careful if they want to avoid a nasty legal mess, and it may be too late for them.
Sell your AT&T stock anyway. That company is about to tank, trust me. They have never been able to survive in a truly competitive marketplace, since they were a monopoly in one way or another for so long. And good riddance to a nasty company.
I've often wondered myself why the theaters price all movies the same. It seems like they would get more money overall by lowering the price on bad movies and raising it on good ones. One drawback I see from the theater's perspective is staffing. There would have to be ticket takers at the door of each auditorium. Most multiplexes now have the ticket takers at the theater entrance. You buy a ticket, walk 10 feet, hand it to the employee, and then go into the main area. If this system were used for multi-tiered pricing, people would just buy the cheapest ticket and then go see a more expensive movie. The theater would have to consider the additional staffing cost vs. the additional revenue, if any, from a new pricing model.
Got to love how companies are always complaining about lack of experienced professionals, but then they try very hard to avoid actually giving someone experience. They've got to start somewhere, right?
Putting up with different opinions, even if you know they're wrong, is part of maturity. Yes, it's a tough pill to swallow, but you're going to keep slamming your head into a brick wall if you don't. You are doing the right thing by forming your own company, it sounds like you are smart enough to keep it running, but business acumen is very important as well. That included seeing things from the client's point of view, and some clients will definitely be morons. You can't cause them to lose face, or you'll lost business; you must diplomatically try to steer them in the right direction.
Tell me about it. I think the grandparent poster must be Cubicledrone's trolling account.
Since an attorney is a licensed profession, and they have to be licensed in the state they are practicing in, outsourcing attorney work to India is nearly impossible. In any case, it would be hard to outsource legal work and be confident that the outsourced attorneys are familiar with all of the federal and local laws at the client's location.
Companies do not make hiring decisions based on the amount of debt the government is currently carrying. For that matter, the government does not make spending decisions based on the amount of debt they are carrying. It could be argued that government debt creates jobs in the financial services industry since all of the T-bill holders would be making interest on government bonds.
In any case, the government was deep in debt during the prosperous mid to late 90s. It didn't seem to affect prosperity. The "budget surplus" was a big hoax; smoke and mirrors Enron style accounting which was so popular at the time. When everything was actually accounted for, there was no real surplus. Besides, if you were $100,000 in the hole and all of a sudden you are handed $10,000 do you now have a surplus? Hell no, now you're $90,000 in debt.
It would be very irresponsible indeed for the government to borrow more than it could afford to pay back. Countries have had riots in the streets when this happened. But taking money away from government and giving them less to spend has not been known to cost people their jobs, unless they work for the government.
Why do some older people all of a sudden start believing anything they are told and hand out money to damn near anyone? My grandma is almost 80 and she's probably a lot more aware of potential scams than I am, so it's not like the human brain is incapable of detecting scams at an older age. If I ever get to the point where I think it's a good idea to send all my money off to some TV preacher, or worse yet some guy in an annonymous email who can't even spell, I hope my kids or grandkids will be kind enough to take me out back and shoot me.
This unfortunately is not surprising. One thing I have noticed about modern corporation customer relations is that when the customer is clearly going to be screwed, they always try to spin it as some sort of benefit. Comcast does it when they have their annual 20% rate hike.
Example:
Dear Comcast Customer, you can now pick from an exciting new cable package with more home shopping channels plus the Hallmark channel! Try not to notice that it's $10 more expensive than you are used to paying.
You do have some proof of this, right?
Considering the source for this report, Common Dreams, I'd say you're exactly right. You can tell by the group's name that they are socialist, and not exactly unbiased.
I fully agree that the voting system should be as fair and accurate as possible, and is currently in need of improvement, but people do need to put things in perspective. Voting has always been a somewhat inaccurate process. I'd say there were more problems years ago when technology wasn't as advanced. But it only becomes a big issue when the election will be close. Nobody disputed Clinton's reelection victory over Dole because everyone knew Clinton would win; he was way ahead in the polls. With the 2000 fiasco in recent memory, a lot of focus was put on the 2004 election being as accurate as possible. Inevitably, there were some mistakes, as there always will be, but I'd say that compared to previous elections, this one was surprisingly accurate. The people who are complaining the loudest about problems seem to be primarily the ones who are simply not satisfied with the outcome.