For the truly daft and determined, it is possible to use the Windows Update Catalog (Windows Update, Personalize Windows Update, Show Windows Update Catalog) to download everything at once, to burn to DVD and make your own. If you limit yourself to a particular Windows flavor (98/ME/2K/XP), a CD will still hold it all, but IIR the whole shebang for all four goes over a CD these days. On the other hand, it's easier to download only one OS version the way the catalog is set up.
Figure out what the latest service pack for the OS is, and apply that. That should let you get on long enough to use windows update to scan and get a list of the other KB-patches you need. Disconnect, patch, rescan. Repeat. If you want to learn how to use QChain, it can be faster, but that doesn't work on Win 98/ME.
For the truly paranoid, keep a list of what order you need to apply the patches in. Then wipe and reinstall the OS from scratch, and apply the needed patches in order without connecting to the net first.
However, it's a lot easier to use the Update CDs. It would be nice if there was a reliable torrent of the ISO somewhere....
Sure they can't own the movie industry...but they can certainly give themselves a stranglehold over its distrobution resourcse.
[sic]
Mmmm... no. On the one hand, Quicktime is competition; if backed into a corner by Microsoft, the movie industry would be humping up Apple's leg in no time.
On the other hand, "Hollywood" is not the whole of the movie industry. Leaving aside the black sheep of the family (pr0n!), there's also Bollywood, and a shlode of independents. Of course, they won't be spending $70M on production and $50M on marketing, but that doesn't mean that they can't put out good movies. The special effects may be cheezier, but heck, I still play Angband and NetHack.
I suspect that, much like lots of little Indie music bands putting out MP3s on the cheap-and-easy, some people may start putting homemade movies up in [insert favorite format] on the Torrents. They won't get rich, and 90% of everything up there will be poorly made crap... and thus, probably a better ratio than we get today. =)
Now, perhaps M$ can end up in control of Hollywood -- given "reasonable" terms, and perhaps a little backmail ("We've 30 billion lying around... maybe we should start a movie studio? Whadayathink?"); but they don't DARE try to drive Apple out of business-- they've already been a convicted monopolist once, they don't want to deal with that again. Ergo, the little guys will continue to roam wild and free... for a little while longer.
I usually combine such work with upgrade to a larger hard drive-- economical, given the typical Win98 machine drive size. Re-install the OS and software to the new drive, then reconnect the old hard drive as a slave (or USB 2.0 external, if no slave spaces are left). That makes looking through for "OK, what else is missing" easier... and makes the process reversible, in case you screw up.
Also install a copy of diff - makes comparisons easier.
Compare this to a regular gasoline engine having perhaps 100 horsepower
Further numbers for thought:
Most cars are smaller that 3 meters wide and 5 meters long. Solar power density is peak at 1.44 kW/m^2 (or lower, depending on reference source) as a best case for noon on the equator in a vacuum.
Google gives these unrealistic best case numbers (EG, perfect efficiency, full spectrum, big car, straight down solar intercept, no atmospheric absorption, etc.) a value of about 29 watts.
After the weekend, the owner of the computer came to me complaining that he couldn't log in. It turned out that the intruder wiped his whole home directory, which had no recent back-up!
[...] These incidents have taught me the value of staying up-to-date
Perhaps it also should have taught you the role that a religious zeal in making regular backups has as part of basic security?
What is really so bad with slacking, or procrastinating?
Efficiency is good. Efficiency is intelligently applied laziness. Far too often, procrastination is unintelligently applied laziness-- and therefore bad.
And then (hopefully) the civil rights issue can be fought out without reference to religion.
Yes, and perhaps pigs will come flying out of my ass, but I'm not investing in pork futures on that basis. =)
Alas, most folk like Falwell and Pat Robertson have a vested interest in there not being a thoughful, reasoned discussion anywhere in the neighborhood of their religious beliefs. It ain't a-gonna happen.
In fact, they're all partly right (at least most of the time). The theological nature I've already discussed. The personal nature results from it being a particular nature of relationship between two people; since the state modifies its behavior in the cases of such relationships (such as with tax law), it is also a matter res politica. Unfortunately, they all want custody of the word. And while "civil union" nicely distinguishes a state-marriage from a church-marriage, I can't think of any phrase much better than "permanent shack up" to separate out a personal-marriage. "Conjugal union" maybe? "Common-law marriage"?
Leave it to people what unions warrant "marriage".
That would have some unfortunate consequences. The state must make some distinction between what is and is not a "marriage"/"civil union"/"conjugal union", if it is to continue court recognition of the marital communications privilege and spousal privilege. Removing that really would be a weakening of marriage, not merely in the minds of religious zealots, but in the eyes of the court. And allowing completely arbitrary pairs of people to refuse to testify against each other simply by saying "we're married" has equally unfortunate consequences.
I see absolutely no reason why gays shouldn't be allowed to get married, and so I'd really like Kerry a lot more if he fully supported the right of gays to get married.
Would be replies, finish reading before reacting.
I was raised Catholic. My two sisters and I regularly argued theology with the parish priest-- mutually educational and broadening. =)
Even when leaving aside questions of non-Christian faiths, not all faiths recognize the Authority of the Patriarch of Rome to give approbation. Furthermore, under the American precepts of the separation of church and state, the government of the United States lacks jurisdiction to establish whether the Patriarch has that authority or not.
Therefore, any union recognized by the state is ipso facto a civil union. Whether it is also a marriage is not a question for the courts of men, but for the court of God-- and ought be presumed valid by the state given the acceptance of any church.
Therefore, I would hold that the government has no business discriminating between ANY "marriage". Mind you, they might conceivably have some business deciding which civil unions to recognize (which is why arbitrary declarations as above may be valid canonically but not civilly without a marriage licesne), but that would be a fairly straightforward civil rights case... which neither the politicians nor the preachers like the taste of.
In short, I'd say that the problem is that the politicians aren't theologians, and that the theologians want to be theocrats. Technically, the only thing politicians can discuss by definition is whether gays (or straights!) can have civil unions, not whether they can get married! Of course, neither the politicians nor theocrats are that precise in their speaking or thinking.... which is Unhelpful in discussing the issues.
Hobbesian would normally be in reference to the philosopher Thomas Hobbes who is unrelated to this expression.
Actually, this election campaign has some resemblance to a Hobbesian choice: Nasty and Brutish... but alas, not short. Also, decidedly neither solitary (fortunately) nor poor (meaning in the financial sense-- less fortunate).
but then again, if you are a safe driver and is willing to take on the responsibility of your own action, why would you need insurance in the first place? enforcing mandatory insurance is just obsurd.
Even a safe driver has some risk.
When you drive, you put other lives at risk besides your own. There is some social interest in making sure you directly bear the cost of the risks you impose on others.
Insurance is a way of... er, ensuring... that the costs for others related to such accidents are paid.
Drivers in groups statistically likely to be safe have lower expected costs, and pay lower insurance accordingly. Furthemore, my recollection from Drivers Ed is that most states do NOT require you to have any coverage for injury to yourself or your own vehicle.
I would agree with you, that forfeitable court escrow of a cash bond equal the required statutory minimum coverage amounts should be considered an acceptable alternative form of self-insurance. However, most people (besides BillG) can't afford to put $70k (VA limits, YMMV by state) in an escrow. Furthermore, I'd guess off-the-cuff it's not a good probable time-value of money investment (neglecting any political-related utility value you derive from this), once you factor in the disproportionate low probability/high consequence nature of such things.
If I drive at the speed limit and talk on my phone am I safe? But if I go 1 MPH faster than I'm unsafe?
Damage bills in accidents roughly corrolate with the kinetic energy, 0.5mv^2. Ergo, faster may not be per se more likely to have an accident; but the payout is likely to be larger-- to the same net effect on the probable cost, and thus insurance rates.
Most people who drive slowly are people who can't walk and chew gum at the same time, but think they're good drivers because they're at the speed limit.
Good? Try "safe" instead. They're probably safer than they would be driving at a higher speed, although (I suspect) you're right that as a class they're more likely to be the cause of an accident.
But the worst of the worst are the ones who go BELOW the speed limit. Excessive caution means you want to worry, too-- they probably know something about their driving you only suspect.
If we are supose to have equality in jobs/voting/freedom, why does my girlfriend have lower car insurance then me at the same age for the same car? Why do my rates go down if I get married?
This is the distinction between "prejudice" and "discrimination". "Prejudice" is when you make a distinction without basis in facts. "Discrimination" makes a distinction with basis in fact-- like being able to tell the difference between the competent and the incompetent. (Those seeking to justify the former oft pretend to the latter, to the detriment of the connotations.)
As a statistical body, drivers who have had their license for under two years, drivers who have had previous at-fault accidents, drivers who are unmarried, and drivers who are male are more likely to have an at-fault accident. Since they are more likely to be the problem, they pay more.
And yes, it sucks to be in one or more of those categories. Who told you life was going to be fair beforehand?
Coupons exist (as I recall from ECON 201) because of the shape of the marginal supply/demand curve. The increase in sales from the lower price means the maker gets a slightly smaller per-item profit on vastly larger sales. It's also a way for inducing customers to try new products (increasing sales)-- which is why the manufacturers pay the stores to let them put those silly coupon dispensers right by the product. Any time you start dealing with "costs of information" you can expect things to get counterintuitive.
Bottom line: coupons MAKE money for the manufacturers.
I could be flip about it and say "well, if you don't speed then why would you object?"
To which I would respond, "Because I do speed."
On the other hand, it's my only vice when driving. I maintain safe distance when following and leave safe distance after passing, never pass on the right, and always signal turns and lane changes at least four seconds beforehand... although I'd skip that to evade an accident ahead =). If someone is tailgating me, I change lanes, and drop as much speed as I can to let them pass. I take the defensive driving class every three years just to improve my odds-- it doesn't affect my insurance, since I'm already at my carrier's maximum discount level for my age and sex, and haven't had an accident since after the year I first got my car. (Hint: if the left turn is blind, drive the extra mile to avoid it.) And I will cheerfully slow to *half* the speed limit to give a cyclist the clearance they need to be comfortable.
My point being, yes, I'm not a perfectly safe driver... but I'm vastly safer than most of the SUV-driving "Well, *I'M* safe" lunatics out there. And that little black box says NOTHING about the fact that when I'm doing twenty-(mumble) miles over the speed limit, it's at three AM when there's usually only one car within a mile of me on the road!
I dropped Progressive after they raised my rates 30% for no reason... or more exactly, rates across the board for most of my state. Intruding into my privacy isn't likely to bring me back into the fold. Of course, I'm a troglodyte who won't use EZ Pass for the same privacy concerns; I keep about $200 in quarters in my car, so I fear no tollbooth nor laundromat. =)
I think that's a bit unfair, beacuse after time your skills may degrade as a result of not being in the industry. I think they shuold just payout the entire period up-front - oh and pay for any courses you take during the process to keep up to par with your industry. THAT is fair.
[Shrug] So, ask for that instead. I think the position I suggested is more likely to fly. While the course payment is a good suggestion, I'm not sure you'll convince anyone of the equity of an up-front payout. After all, if you can find a job in your field at what you feel is an acceptable salary doing work that isn't covered by the non-compete (IE, switching from researching artificial blood substitutes to improved joint replacements in biomedical engineering, or from turboencapulator research to flux capacitor manufacturing in gibberish engineering), there's no reason on EITHER side why they should pay you for the time. Furthermore, there's higher time-value-of-money to an up-front lump sum as opposed to continuing the monthly salary-style checks.
Also, bear in mind this is in effect REGARDLESS of why you leave the company. You get fed up with a quit? You get paid. Your job is RIF-ed? You get paid. You get fired for screwing the CEO's pet poodle in the boardroom on company time? You Get Paid.
With your proposed terms, I suspect the bean-counters in HR would be reluctant to allow you to still get paid if you just up and quit. Which, if your boss retired and was replaced by a dipshit, would suck.
True. The solution is to spend two years working in the field on something useless but amusing, and staying abrest of the relevant journals. Biotech? Work on designing terraforming packages for Venus. Civil Engineering? Work on designing a bridge between Hawaiian Islands. Computer Science? You may be able to find an open source project you're allowed to be helpful on, although not within your primary expertise. Done right, you can add to your resume "While-U-Wait". You just can't make money while doing it, you won't have a billion dollar lab to work in, and the ownership of what you work on depends on your non-compete. It's difficult, but that's why you're (still) being paid.
And, of course, there's always the option of adding another college degree to your collection....
Non-competes are valid even if you are fired, meaning they can fire you and prevent you from working for a competitor, which is basically contractually enforced unemployment.
I crashed a college engineering class where a contract lawyer was giving a guest lecture on the subject of NDAs and non-competes. He presented a compromise that several of his clients have used to modify the non-compete agreement to be more equitable to both sides. (I've got the boilerplate handout somewhere in my papers.)
In the event an employee leaves his job, voluntarily or involuntarily, the non-compete kicks in. But the company must continue to pay his full salary so long as he submits to the company each month:
1) Proof that the ex-employee is actively seeking employment in their chosen profession.
2) Evidence (EG, a job offer from a competitor) that the non-compete agreement is the only thing keeping the employee from current employment.
Each month you're looking for work and the non-compete keeps you from taking it, the company must send you your a check. If they decide they're sick of paying you, they may opt to include with the check a letter releasing you from your non-compete. You spend the month surfing in Australia instead of looking, you don't get paid for that month, but the checks resume afterwards.
If what you and what you know are worth squat, your salary is worth the slight expense to keep you and your knowledge out of the hands (or brains) of the competition.
If the company is worth squat, they'll be willing to pay this as reasonable compensation.
Not all will--refusals generally come from the same ones whose HR trolls make you sign over every idea you've ever had or will have on anything relevant or irrelevant. Ethical companies will accept, or make a reasonable counter-offer-- so avoid the slimeballs, stick with the ethical companies.
Therefore, I haven't agreed to the end user license agreement.
So, ignoring the question of legality under copyright, by what legal theory am I bound by any garbage-- be it about redistribution, reverse engineering, or the existance of souls for turnips-- in a EULA that I have neither read nor agreed to? No meeting of minds, no agreement, no contract.
(On the other hand, I Am No Lawyer. And yes, I explicitly neglected the question of what would give me the right to redistribute the SP aside from the EULA.)
The law of the land is what Congress changes daily. The constitution is supposed to be the essential principles behind and the foundation of that law.
What the founders planned aside, when the "law of the land" cannot be changed for fear of violating these expressed principles, it means that you need to consider more closely either the proposed law, or the principles. And indeed, as is healthy, we regularly consider these principles with reguard to the laws... but seldom find a need to change our expressed principles. (After all, they've survived over 220 years of discussion and debate.) And as this country grows from an adolescent to an adult in the family of nations, I would hope that it has fairly well developed its principles by this time, and would not change them as casually as it does it's mood.
Yes, we do need to recognize that these founders were men of their times, and their plan was not perfect. Merely because an idea is not consistent with their plan need not be the idea's final bane. On the other hand, it was and is a good plan overall. Furthermore, they worked out a set of political compromises that has mostly lasted for over 200 years (leaving aside one virgorous attempt after about 80 years). Most of our current lawmakers would count themselves lucky if anything they propose lasts half so long half so well, and most are suitably humble towards the efforts of those who wrought so well, realizing they while they might be at least in the equal to Jonathan Dayton, few can hope to equal of Madison, Franklin, Washington, nor Hamilton... and even less hope to equal alone what these men achieved combined.
The problem your random new idea faces is that, when considering the new idea, you weigh the wisdom of the new idea against more than 200 years of demonstrated overall wisdom of the plan. This is a Good Thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Figure out what the latest service pack for the OS is, and apply that. That should let you get on long enough to use windows update to scan and get a list of the other KB-patches you need. Disconnect, patch, rescan. Repeat. If you want to learn how to use QChain, it can be faster, but that doesn't work on Win 98/ME.
For the truly paranoid, keep a list of what order you need to apply the patches in. Then wipe and reinstall the OS from scratch, and apply the needed patches in order without connecting to the net first.
However, it's a lot easier to use the Update CDs. It would be nice if there was a reliable torrent of the ISO somewhere....
Mmmm... no. On the one hand, Quicktime is competition; if backed into a corner by Microsoft, the movie industry would be humping up Apple's leg in no time.
On the other hand, "Hollywood" is not the whole of the movie industry. Leaving aside the black sheep of the family (pr0n!), there's also Bollywood, and a shlode of independents. Of course, they won't be spending $70M on production and $50M on marketing, but that doesn't mean that they can't put out good movies. The special effects may be cheezier, but heck, I still play Angband and NetHack.
I suspect that, much like lots of little Indie music bands putting out MP3s on the cheap-and-easy, some people may start putting homemade movies up in [insert favorite format] on the Torrents. They won't get rich, and 90% of everything up there will be poorly made crap... and thus, probably a better ratio than we get today. =)
Now, perhaps M$ can end up in control of Hollywood -- given "reasonable" terms, and perhaps a little backmail ("We've 30 billion lying around... maybe we should start a movie studio? Whadayathink?"); but they don't DARE try to drive Apple out of business-- they've already been a convicted monopolist once, they don't want to deal with that again. Ergo, the little guys will continue to roam wild and free... for a little while longer.
I usually combine such work with upgrade to a larger hard drive-- economical, given the typical Win98 machine drive size. Re-install the OS and software to the new drive, then reconnect the old hard drive as a slave (or USB 2.0 external, if no slave spaces are left). That makes looking through for "OK, what else is missing" easier... and makes the process reversible, in case you screw up.
Also install a copy of diff - makes comparisons easier.
Further numbers for thought:
Most cars are smaller that 3 meters wide and 5 meters long. Solar power density is peak at 1.44 kW/m^2 (or lower, depending on reference source) as a best case for noon on the equator in a vacuum.
Google gives these unrealistic best case numbers (EG, perfect efficiency, full spectrum, big car, straight down solar intercept, no atmospheric absorption, etc.) a value of about 29 watts.
Perhaps it also should have taught you the role that a religious zeal in making regular backups has as part of basic security?
Efficiency is good. Efficiency is intelligently applied laziness. Far too often, procrastination is unintelligently applied laziness-- and therefore bad.
Alas, most folk like Falwell and Pat Robertson have a vested interest in there not being a thoughful, reasoned discussion anywhere in the neighborhood of their religious beliefs. It ain't a-gonna happen.
In fact, they're all partly right (at least most of the time). The theological nature I've already discussed. The personal nature results from it being a particular nature of relationship between two people; since the state modifies its behavior in the cases of such relationships (such as with tax law), it is also a matter res politica. Unfortunately, they all want custody of the word. And while "civil union" nicely distinguishes a state-marriage from a church-marriage, I can't think of any phrase much better than "permanent shack up" to separate out a personal-marriage. "Conjugal union" maybe? "Common-law marriage"?
That would have some unfortunate consequences. The state must make some distinction between what is and is not a "marriage"/"civil union"/"conjugal union", if it is to continue court recognition of the marital communications privilege and spousal privilege. Removing that really would be a weakening of marriage, not merely in the minds of religious zealots, but in the eyes of the court. And allowing completely arbitrary pairs of people to refuse to testify against each other simply by saying "we're married" has equally unfortunate consequences.Would be replies, finish reading before reacting.
I was raised Catholic. My two sisters and I regularly argued theology with the parish priest-- mutually educational and broadening. =)
Under the contemporary view of Catholicism on marriage, marriage is a sacrament, an external sign of god's grace. Furthermore (and pay attention), Matrimonium facit consensus, i.e. Marriage is contracted through the mutual, expressed consent. Therein is contained implicitly the doctrine that the persons contracting marriage are themselves the agents or ministers of the sacrament. In other words, any two people who declare themselves married before the community have ipso facto married. However, it has also held that marriage, like other sacrements, must be performed with the approbation (spiritual approval) of the church.
Even when leaving aside questions of non-Christian faiths, not all faiths recognize the Authority of the Patriarch of Rome to give approbation. Furthermore, under the American precepts of the separation of church and state, the government of the United States lacks jurisdiction to establish whether the Patriarch has that authority or not.
Therefore, any union recognized by the state is ipso facto a civil union. Whether it is also a marriage is not a question for the courts of men, but for the court of God-- and ought be presumed valid by the state given the acceptance of any church.
Therefore, I would hold that the government has no business discriminating between ANY "marriage". Mind you, they might conceivably have some business deciding which civil unions to recognize (which is why arbitrary declarations as above may be valid canonically but not civilly without a marriage licesne), but that would be a fairly straightforward civil rights case... which neither the politicians nor the preachers like the taste of.
In short, I'd say that the problem is that the politicians aren't theologians, and that the theologians want to be theocrats. Technically, the only thing politicians can discuss by definition is whether gays (or straights!) can have civil unions, not whether they can get married! Of course, neither the politicians nor theocrats are that precise in their speaking or thinking.... which is Unhelpful in discussing the issues.
Even a safe driver has some risk. When you drive, you put other lives at risk besides your own. There is some social interest in making sure you directly bear the cost of the risks you impose on others. Insurance is a way of... er, ensuring... that the costs for others related to such accidents are paid. Drivers in groups statistically likely to be safe have lower expected costs, and pay lower insurance accordingly. Furthemore, my recollection from Drivers Ed is that most states do NOT require you to have any coverage for injury to yourself or your own vehicle.
I would agree with you, that forfeitable court escrow of a cash bond equal the required statutory minimum coverage amounts should be considered an acceptable alternative form of self-insurance. However, most people (besides BillG) can't afford to put $70k (VA limits, YMMV by state) in an escrow. Furthermore, I'd guess off-the-cuff it's not a good probable time-value of money investment (neglecting any political-related utility value you derive from this), once you factor in the disproportionate low probability/high consequence nature of such things.
Damage bills in accidents roughly corrolate with the kinetic energy, 0.5mv^2. Ergo, faster may not be per se more likely to have an accident; but the payout is likely to be larger-- to the same net effect on the probable cost, and thus insurance rates.
Most people who drive slowly are people who can't walk and chew gum at the same time, but think they're good drivers because they're at the speed limit.
Good? Try "safe" instead. They're probably safer than they would be driving at a higher speed, although (I suspect) you're right that as a class they're more likely to be the cause of an accident.
But the worst of the worst are the ones who go BELOW the speed limit. Excessive caution means you want to worry, too-- they probably know something about their driving you only suspect.
As a statistical body, drivers who have had their license for under two years, drivers who have had previous at-fault accidents, drivers who are unmarried, and drivers who are male are more likely to have an at-fault accident. Since they are more likely to be the problem, they pay more.
And yes, it sucks to be in one or more of those categories. Who told you life was going to be fair beforehand?
Coupons exist (as I recall from ECON 201) because of the shape of the marginal supply/demand curve. The increase in sales from the lower price means the maker gets a slightly smaller per-item profit on vastly larger sales. It's also a way for inducing customers to try new products (increasing sales)-- which is why the manufacturers pay the stores to let them put those silly coupon dispensers right by the product. Any time you start dealing with "costs of information" you can expect things to get counterintuitive.
Bottom line: coupons MAKE money for the manufacturers.
I could be flip about it and say "well, if you don't speed then why would you object?"
To which I would respond, "Because I do speed."
On the other hand, it's my only vice when driving. I maintain safe distance when following and leave safe distance after passing, never pass on the right, and always signal turns and lane changes at least four seconds beforehand... although I'd skip that to evade an accident ahead =). If someone is tailgating me, I change lanes, and drop as much speed as I can to let them pass. I take the defensive driving class every three years just to improve my odds-- it doesn't affect my insurance, since I'm already at my carrier's maximum discount level for my age and sex, and haven't had an accident since after the year I first got my car. (Hint: if the left turn is blind, drive the extra mile to avoid it.) And I will cheerfully slow to *half* the speed limit to give a cyclist the clearance they need to be comfortable.
My point being, yes, I'm not a perfectly safe driver... but I'm vastly safer than most of the SUV-driving "Well, *I'M* safe" lunatics out there. And that little black box says NOTHING about the fact that when I'm doing twenty-(mumble) miles over the speed limit, it's at three AM when there's usually only one car within a mile of me on the road!
I dropped Progressive after they raised my rates 30% for no reason... or more exactly, rates across the board for most of my state. Intruding into my privacy isn't likely to bring me back into the fold. Of course, I'm a troglodyte who won't use EZ Pass for the same privacy concerns; I keep about $200 in quarters in my car, so I fear no tollbooth nor laundromat. =)
[Shrug] So, ask for that instead. I think the position I suggested is more likely to fly. While the course payment is a good suggestion, I'm not sure you'll convince anyone of the equity of an up-front payout. After all, if you can find a job in your field at what you feel is an acceptable salary doing work that isn't covered by the non-compete (IE, switching from researching artificial blood substitutes to improved joint replacements in biomedical engineering, or from turboencapulator research to flux capacitor manufacturing in gibberish engineering), there's no reason on EITHER side why they should pay you for the time. Furthermore, there's higher time-value-of-money to an up-front lump sum as opposed to continuing the monthly salary-style checks.
Also, bear in mind this is in effect REGARDLESS of why you leave the company. You get fed up with a quit? You get paid. Your job is RIF-ed? You get paid. You get fired for screwing the CEO's pet poodle in the boardroom on company time? You Get Paid.
With your proposed terms, I suspect the bean-counters in HR would be reluctant to allow you to still get paid if you just up and quit. Which, if your boss retired and was replaced by a dipshit, would suck.
But this is what contract negotiations are for.
Counter-intuitively, just because someone's on a Mac does not mean they can't use Windows XP SP2 on it. =)
And, of course, there's always the option of adding another college degree to your collection....
I crashed a college engineering class where a contract lawyer was giving a guest lecture on the subject of NDAs and non-competes. He presented a compromise that several of his clients have used to modify the non-compete agreement to be more equitable to both sides. (I've got the boilerplate handout somewhere in my papers.)
In the event an employee leaves his job, voluntarily or involuntarily, the non-compete kicks in. But the company must continue to pay his full salary so long as he submits to the company each month:
Each month you're looking for work and the non-compete keeps you from taking it, the company must send you your a check. If they decide they're sick of paying you, they may opt to include with the check a letter releasing you from your non-compete. You spend the month surfing in Australia instead of looking, you don't get paid for that month, but the checks resume afterwards.If what you and what you know are worth squat, your salary is worth the slight expense to keep you and your knowledge out of the hands (or brains) of the competition. If the company is worth squat, they'll be willing to pay this as reasonable compensation.
Not all will--refusals generally come from the same ones whose HR trolls make you sign over every idea you've ever had or will have on anything relevant or irrelevant. Ethical companies will accept, or make a reasonable counter-offer-- so avoid the slimeballs, stick with the ethical companies.
I use a Mac at work and Windows 2000 at home.
Therefore, I haven't installed the service pack.
Therefore, I haven't agreed to the end user license agreement.
So, ignoring the question of legality under copyright, by what legal theory am I bound by any garbage-- be it about redistribution, reverse engineering, or the existance of souls for turnips-- in a EULA that I have neither read nor agreed to? No meeting of minds, no agreement, no contract.
(On the other hand, I Am No Lawyer. And yes, I explicitly neglected the question of what would give me the right to redistribute the SP aside from the EULA.)
What the founders planned aside, when the "law of the land" cannot be changed for fear of violating these expressed principles, it means that you need to consider more closely either the proposed law, or the principles. And indeed, as is healthy, we regularly consider these principles with reguard to the laws... but seldom find a need to change our expressed principles. (After all, they've survived over 220 years of discussion and debate.) And as this country grows from an adolescent to an adult in the family of nations, I would hope that it has fairly well developed its principles by this time, and would not change them as casually as it does it's mood.
Yes, we do need to recognize that these founders were men of their times, and their plan was not perfect. Merely because an idea is not consistent with their plan need not be the idea's final bane. On the other hand, it was and is a good plan overall. Furthermore, they worked out a set of political compromises that has mostly lasted for over 200 years (leaving aside one virgorous attempt after about 80 years). Most of our current lawmakers would count themselves lucky if anything they propose lasts half so long half so well, and most are suitably humble towards the efforts of those who wrought so well, realizing they while they might be at least in the equal to Jonathan Dayton, few can hope to equal of Madison, Franklin, Washington, nor Hamilton... and even less hope to equal alone what these men achieved combined.
The problem your random new idea faces is that, when considering the new idea, you weigh the wisdom of the new idea against more than 200 years of demonstrated overall wisdom of the plan. This is a Good Thing.