Bill and Melinda Gates gave money for the French building here at Duke University (her alma mater), for interdisciplinary science classes. (French being her maiden name, but still a pretty complicated misnomer.) Then again, we do have the Gay Love auditorium (in the Gross Chemistry building).
At least in the US, musicians pay to join an organization like BMI, which monitors radio stations, TV stations, theaters, etc. to keep track of how often particular songs are played. BMI takes a random sample of the airwaves and divides up royalties accordingly. Stations pay generalized "royalty money" to be able to air X minutes of music per hour, and that money gets passed onto the artists. This avoids the artists having to track their airtime themselves.
Consequently, indie groups get left out of the system - if you don't get enough airtime to show up on BMI's random sample, you don't get paid at all. (BMI does offer a form for artists to fill out if they feel they are getting more airtime than is represented, like niche markets or local play.)
Depending on his age, you might want to look into summer camps or Saturday programs for gifted children. Being one of the few (*gasp*) girls who was into computers and science, it took me a while to catch on. The best thing for me was going to a number of day- or week-long academically-based camps throughout gradeschool and junior high where I learned to use my social skills within a "geek" environment, i.e. with kids who weren't used to being the bullies. Not that I necessarily fit in there, either, but it was good for everyone to work on social skills in a new environment.
For me, then going to college at a top university wasn't such a shock - colleges do require people skills, no matter how good at computers or math you are, and when you get there you're interacting with the best of the best all over again.
Certainly there are some doctors who knowingly abuse the system, and the same with patients - the problem is the patients who honestly don't believe they're wrong. A patient sued my father, an ophthalmologist, for giving him bad advice that ultimately resulted in him going blind. In the courtroom, it came out that a) the patient had gone to three other doctors seeking a particular diagnosis before coming to my father, b) my father told the patient what ultimately was shown to be the right diagnosis, c) my father proscribed eye drops for the patient and noted several times that he reminded the patient to take them in sequential visits, and d) the patient's condition could have only happened because he didn't take the drops.
The patient truly honestly believed that he had been cheated, and that it was my father's fault. Well, yes, he didn't take the drops, and went to two more doctors before he found one who would tell him they weren't necessary, but that's not the point. Or so he believed.
The way these things work, a lawyer agrees to take the patient's case without actually viewing the evidence. The doctors' lawyers must jump all sorts of legal hurdles in preparation for a trial, which often doesn't happen - at the last minute, the patient's lawyer finally looked at the evidence, told the patient he obviously didn't have a case, and the whole thing was dropped. After, of course, a good deal of money had been spent on the part of the doctors. Here's a case where malpractice insurance goes up despite absolutely no wrongdoing on the part of the doctor.
You really need to see Final Fantasy X-2. Beat up things, collect new dresses, and new wardrobes to put the dresses in. Tell me this isn't aimed for girls.
http://atlanta.about.com/cs/artsentertainment/a/go dsnumber.htm
Anybody seen the movie Bruce Almighty? In it, Jim Carrey gets repeatedly paged by God (with the number, not a 555 number for once, appearing on the screen). In the weeks following the release of the movie, people all over the nation got calls from Americans wanting to talk to God - including in Georgia, where callers got a church.
while it's wonderful that all/.ers seem to be courteous with their cell phones, I have to think that maybe all those jerks out there think they're being courteous too . . .
You know your company better than I do, but most places are willing to give you a second chance at a promotion . . . someday. Think of it as one "turn down promotion free" card before you aren't asked again.
That said, if the person who will be evaluating you if you take the promotion and fail is not the same as the current person evaluating you in your team's project, and if your new manager/supervisor/boss wouldn't be too understanding about if the new project fails (or needs someone to pin the blame on if it would fall on their shoulders otherwise), try to say "thanks, but no thanks."
Be realistic about what you're worth, though. How likely are you to be making real money off your side programming? How big is the company? In my experience, smaller companies (where the person hiring you is also the one entitled to make the decisions about whether changes in the contract are acceptable or not) are much more forgiving and willing to compromise than are big companies, who have used the same document for the last 2,000 employees and aren't about to change it for the 2,001st.
If you're really not likely to be making much money with your side work anyway, weigh your potential income (and potential loss) against the cost of hiring a lawyer. If you're up against a big company, I'd say forget it. They often don't have time to track down individual employees' successes anyway, and they won't be willing to call in their (undoubtedly very expensive) lawyers because you're squeamish about their contract.
Slashdot Mirror
Bill and Melinda Gates gave money for the French building here at Duke University (her alma mater), for interdisciplinary science classes. (French being her maiden name, but still a pretty complicated misnomer.) Then again, we do have the Gay Love auditorium (in the Gross Chemistry building).
Do you really want guys in black suits knocking on your door because you picked the wrong .mob territory?
At least in the US, musicians pay to join an organization like BMI, which monitors radio stations, TV stations, theaters, etc. to keep track of how often particular songs are played. BMI takes a random sample of the airwaves and divides up royalties accordingly. Stations pay generalized "royalty money" to be able to air X minutes of music per hour, and that money gets passed onto the artists. This avoids the artists having to track their airtime themselves.
Consequently, indie groups get left out of the system - if you don't get enough airtime to show up on BMI's random sample, you don't get paid at all. (BMI does offer a form for artists to fill out if they feel they are getting more airtime than is represented, like niche markets or local play.)
Depending on his age, you might want to look into summer camps or Saturday programs for gifted children. Being one of the few (*gasp*) girls who was into computers and science, it took me a while to catch on. The best thing for me was going to a number of day- or week-long academically-based camps throughout gradeschool and junior high where I learned to use my social skills within a "geek" environment, i.e. with kids who weren't used to being the bullies. Not that I necessarily fit in there, either, but it was good for everyone to work on social skills in a new environment.
For me, then going to college at a top university wasn't such a shock - colleges do require people skills, no matter how good at computers or math you are, and when you get there you're interacting with the best of the best all over again.
Certainly there are some doctors who knowingly abuse the system, and the same with patients - the problem is the patients who honestly don't believe they're wrong. A patient sued my father, an ophthalmologist, for giving him bad advice that ultimately resulted in him going blind. In the courtroom, it came out that a) the patient had gone to three other doctors seeking a particular diagnosis before coming to my father, b) my father told the patient what ultimately was shown to be the right diagnosis, c) my father proscribed eye drops for the patient and noted several times that he reminded the patient to take them in sequential visits, and d) the patient's condition could have only happened because he didn't take the drops.
The patient truly honestly believed that he had been cheated, and that it was my father's fault. Well, yes, he didn't take the drops, and went to two more doctors before he found one who would tell him they weren't necessary, but that's not the point. Or so he believed.
The way these things work, a lawyer agrees to take the patient's case without actually viewing the evidence. The doctors' lawyers must jump all sorts of legal hurdles in preparation for a trial, which often doesn't happen - at the last minute, the patient's lawyer finally looked at the evidence, told the patient he obviously didn't have a case, and the whole thing was dropped. After, of course, a good deal of money had been spent on the part of the doctors. Here's a case where malpractice insurance goes up despite absolutely no wrongdoing on the part of the doctor.
You really need to see Final Fantasy X-2. Beat up things, collect new dresses, and new wardrobes to put the dresses in. Tell me this isn't aimed for girls.
http://atlanta.about.com/cs/artsentertainment/a/go dsnumber.htm
Anybody seen the movie Bruce Almighty? In it, Jim Carrey gets repeatedly paged by God (with the number, not a 555 number for once, appearing on the screen). In the weeks following the release of the movie, people all over the nation got calls from Americans wanting to talk to God - including in Georgia, where callers got a church.
while it's wonderful that all /.ers seem to be courteous with their cell phones, I have to think that maybe all those jerks out there think they're being courteous too . . .
You know your company better than I do, but most places are willing to give you a second chance at a promotion . . . someday. Think of it as one "turn down promotion free" card before you aren't asked again.
That said, if the person who will be evaluating you if you take the promotion and fail is not the same as the current person evaluating you in your team's project, and if your new manager/supervisor/boss wouldn't be too understanding about if the new project fails (or needs someone to pin the blame on if it would fall on their shoulders otherwise), try to say "thanks, but no thanks."
Be realistic about what you're worth, though. How likely are you to be making real money off your side programming? How big is the company? In my experience, smaller companies (where the person hiring you is also the one entitled to make the decisions about whether changes in the contract are acceptable or not) are much more forgiving and willing to compromise than are big companies, who have used the same document for the last 2,000 employees and aren't about to change it for the 2,001st. If you're really not likely to be making much money with your side work anyway, weigh your potential income (and potential loss) against the cost of hiring a lawyer. If you're up against a big company, I'd say forget it. They often don't have time to track down individual employees' successes anyway, and they won't be willing to call in their (undoubtedly very expensive) lawyers because you're squeamish about their contract.