Worrying about the tracking boogeyman is ridiculous.
I'm not sure why you labor under the illusion that your activities aren't tracked now. Most of your activity is in one way or another and then packaged and sold to any willing buyer including Government entities.
Credit Score? Tracking Medical Records? This is a murky area, but I'm sure the U.S. health insurance co's would love to trade patient health scores. No. HIPPAA didn't outlaw this. Communication? Done. FISA, Telcos, NSA, Etc. Debit transations? Tracking. Other finance tracking? Done. It's called taxes.
There's lots of worthy things to contribute your personal energy to. This isn't one of them.
1. All the talk about "tracking" is nonsense. An RFID anything has a range measured in inches normally. Stuff it in your wallet sandwiched in between more cards and it pretty much won't work.
2. $30 is about right after all is said and done. No one is getting rich making these cards. There's secure printing, personalization, etc.
3. What's the application though? If it is just border crossings, then do border crossings have the infrastructure to process a contactless card?
4. Accidentally leaving the card inside a microwave oven while you are warming coffee would harm the chip, so don't ever do that.
First of all, these are unprecedented times in global financial markets. Once in 100 years is putting it mildly.
Second, a data center and a building are the only assets that can be valued with the shotgun marriages the Administration, Treasury, and Fed are making right **now.** By now, I mean no sleep, no one leaves until the deal is closed NOW.
BofA got a sweetheart deal with Countrywide, they are getting another sweetheart deal with whatever brokerage they acquire. The same holds true of JPMorgan Chase and Co.
Once again, the losses are being socialized while the titans of financial executive management just walk away.
You would be wise to re-balance your asset pool to reflect coming inflation. And any pension holders out there should do your best to liquidate your pension today, that is, if your pension isn't underfunded already or if that is even possible.
They are just waiting for the net radio enthusiasts to postulate. Then, they label net radio advocates as "extreme and uncooperative" as the excuse for not saying or doing anything.
It's important to remember the RIAA members control distribution. Letting net radio operate at a discount or even the same rates as broadcast is a non-starter. RIAA says, "net radio is cheaper, so give me more money. Well, actually, just give me more money..." And broadcasters are quite happy with that too.
Best stance is to let the lack of an explanation rest as is and use the FOIA, if possible, to get at communications about the issue.
Question: HOW does it come to pass that the contractor was awarded this?
James E. Malackowski (CEO of the auction firm) is very well connected in government. He sits on the board of the non-profit running invent.org, whose main sponsor is the USPTO.
His campaign contribution record is decidedly democratic, but the contribution to Henry Hyde's reelection campaign is interesting.
Is this the proverbial "Smoking Gun?" No. But probably a case of paying into the system to stay inside the beltway on these issues and pick up a contract along the way.
What I didn't do was see if this was your average "no-bid" private contract for cronies and whether the dollar amount would qualify the matter as a violation in the contracting process. Please contribute!
For their quick start CD, firmware update CD's etc. System Insight manager and their other management tools are full of GPL software.
It's not rocket science at this point and I'm sure they have enough market data at this point to see that it's a viable niche. After all, a low price is always a viable niche.
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The $20/hr number has got to be some weird concoction of contractor-base+commissions. Knowing Microsoft, base pay is probably pathetic. The key here being Microsoft wants to sell hard with Worst Buy during December. I wonder if the computer brands are kicking in for this one... From the stores mentioned in my area, I'm guessing these stores perform well with a higher likelihood that they'd sell lots of PC's.
This gives you an idea how out of how dominant Microsoft is. A manufacturer like HP can't even afford to do something like this. My fondest hope is that Microsoft is under some pressure from Worst Buy to improve performance.
It will be very interesting to see Worst Buy's Q4 performance next year and what excuse they use for poor sales.
However I am finding that Software freedom comes at a cost of other freedoms.
What exactly is harmed by having more transparency and lower communication costs resulting in more efficient infrastructure?
And those guys who choose windows over Linux aren't as stupid as I once believed, and actually had informed reasons to do so
In every case I've seen it, it's because the C-level people find the name Microsoft socially acceptable explanation for everything technological. Sprinkle ANY useless explanation with Microsoftisms like "microsoft's documentation", "active directory", ".Net", "Exchange server" and they just accept the answer as is. Obligatory star wars reference, "These are not the droids you are looking for." Try it sometime!
I'm sad none of you seem to have heard about the supreme court's decision on the matter. It established your privilege to make and keep duplicates of your media.
SONY CORP. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 U.S. 417 (1984)
(b) Kalem Co. v. Harper Brothers, 222 U.S. 55 , does not support respondents' novel theory that supplying the "means" to accomplish an infringing activity and encouraging that activity through advertisement are sufficient to establish liability for copyright infringement
Now, was that so hard?? More to the point, when the server shows up, your reply to the complaint is right there. No merit to the case at all.
If there were a competitive market for _operating systems_ (not mac!) microsoft would not be allowed to set the price per laptop/pc as high as they do. So the difference between the price you pay microsoft for their OS on your computer now and some imaginary competitive price, much lower than Microsofts.
The last time I checked with Dell, it was at least $200 more for the Vista Premium, without an office application suite than the Ubuntu formatted hardware. I would imagine a competitive market would probably be anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 lower.
There are some things I like about it, like the whole taxonomy thing. I'm running 6.x now and it's much faster than 4.x and better to administrate.
It's very true that drupal sites look and feel quite alike. The theming has gotten better, but still, they are all quite similar. The canned forums and mailing list manager I still don't like. Almost every contributed module relies on mysql, so ignore their claims of PGSQL.
I would say that if Drupal can do your task with a few modules, it's great. If it can't, then find another CMS that can. If there is no CMS that does what you want, you may be better off starting from scratch.
I'd like to add that while the way he handled being surrounded by idiots was wrong, he was clearly surrounded by idiots.
No documentation? No change control? No diagrams?
What really rubs me the wrong way is how you haven't heard a single word from the admin and yet he is blamed for everything.
I worked one place where a guy with a great deal of responsibility died. (here today dead tomorrow kind of thing) His peers blamed *everything* on him simply because they could. This sounds like the same thing.
You know, there is really no reason whatsoever that you can't use an open source driver with windows. The driver API is well published, and there is nothing stopping the community from stepping up and writing its own drivers.
That would be a dead-end. As 64-bit becomes the norm, the Vista kernel requires Microsoft-signed drivers. Are you going to pay Microsoft for the honor of providing a driver for their OS?
Hardware vendors needed to make significant changes to their drivers and thought they'd get by with shoddy (probably outsourced) effort.
1. You know nothing about how device manufacturers work with Microsoft or any other OS. The smart companies wait for a "gold master" GM release before they write a single line of code because the changes/bugs leading up to GM are too many. The result is arguably a better driver. **Everyone** in the industry knows this and yet this jerk from Microsoft has the balls to blame the device manufacturers.
2. Manufacturers that develop on pre-release think they are getting a head start on their competitors, but guess what? They release buggier drivers! Try developing on a _very_ complex platform that is always changing sometime and get back to me.
3. A "shoddy (probably outsourced) effort." Besides insulting developers around the world lets just say that where a driver is developed has nothing to do with its quality. It is some combination of schedule, resources, and complexity that has the most to do with a quality driver.
There is no reason, besides ignorance, your comment should be rated insightful.
This "honest assessment" is blame-shifting which suggests their next OS will be worse than this one because it's everyone else's fault. Which is okay by me...
More numerous problems with your black-and-white opinions. Here's a tip, it's just not that simple.
If labor costs were less, the cars would cost less or they'd be better, and I'd be willing to bet that they'd actually be better cars, with better design. And pixies would bring me free beer too. Manufacturer gets to charge whatever the market will bear for their products. Period. Costs establish a floor, but the only ceiling is market demand of the product.
It's because the overseas labor and environmental costs are so much lower. So, you'll ignore the simple fact that American car manufacturers are global manufacturing organizations. They can assemble a car anywhere in the world and import it too!! Oh, but that doesn't fit into your neat black/white anti-union constellation.
Are you willing to put up with the consequences of unfettered environmental destruction that comes hand-in-hand with low labor costs? Probably not.
So in effect, by demanding more benefits, more pay, and more pension, the increasing labor costs has made it almost untenable to make a small car in a union shop. The labor cost is too high, the profit is too small to nonexistant
If it wasn't labor, it would be some other boogeyman that is to blame for American automaker woes. Most American executives have a bully pulpit from which they blame everything else but themselves. I have worked with executives all around the world and Americans are by far the worst of them all. There are some great American leaders, but most of them are quite happy in their niches.
Furthermore, did it ever occur to you that unions can be credited in part with creating a thriving middle class? Will Toyota ever be credited with sustaining the American middle-class? No. They don't pay well enough on the floor. And that has very broad implications regarding national infrastructure. But that's too challenging for your black-and-white view.
space heaters were fine Now I know you are making this up. The current demand for an electric heater(s) in a cubicle farm would.... turn off the lights.
You know, it's a much more complicated issue than you want it to be. Choosing such a simple belief system does you a major disservice over the course of your lifetime. Good luck.
There's an assumption about targeting "a couple" of sites, but EA's reach is much broader than that. They have a ton of big-box retail distribution whose customers probably don't care about DRM.
Games are a much easier target given the monolithic nature of their release Like music, their customers are not monolithic and most don't give a moments care to DRM. Worst case scenario, "Urgh stupid Windows is broken again!" No real connection to what's "broke." Losing the DRM key for itunes is another example of the same thing. Itunes "breaks", not "DRM is to blame"
Finally, there's nothing like a little controversy to sell a few more boxes. Unfortunately, anti-drm advocates are easy to marginalize so it stands a good chance of enriching EA. In the U.S., enterprises get the benefit of the doubt well after the facts prove harm. Consider it the downside of our vibrant economy.
Instead of expanding capacity (which lowers prices) they stuck to their high price, let 'em wait attitude.
Might that be because expanding requires more labor, and the unions made hiring more labor unprofitable?
Nope. Labor is a very small cost compared to the capital required to build the mill. Instead of reinvesting the capital in the business, primary shareholders put it in their pockets and squandered and insurmountable lead in worldwide steel production.
Since when do assembly line workers get to plan and design cars? The point being the product they've been selling has put them into the dire straits they are in now. It's not in the union's scope to design cars, establish features, etc.
"a retirement plan based on selling cars" Toyota and other younger companies either, 1. Haven't been in the U.S. long enough to have the burden of pensions on their books. It's also worth noting the unions have taken over much of the pension plan. http://www.knowyourpension.org/pensions/UAWpensions/UAW_pension_updates.aspx
2. Don't offer pensions. Which means the average assembler working for much less.
Today's lesson: don't count on a pension. Ever. Between inflation used to discount them and the lack of penalties for abandoning them, the pensioneer is screwed.
There are too many problems with your post, so I'll just name a couple.
The auto jobs that are here (and aren't in danger of being lost by imminent bankruptcy of GM, Ford, and Chrysler) are the non-union jobs from Honda, Toyota, and Nissan.
Since when do assembly line workers get to plan and design cars? Union assemblers build em' good or bad and they've been building products nobody wants for decades. Pontiac Fiero anyone?
The textile workers Huh? The products that can't be made anywhere else have stayed in the U.S. Your generic t-shirt has been made abroad for at least a generation.
The steelworkers, who through a combination of union tactics AND environmental laws You need a better understanding of the history of the American steel industry. Those mills were booking work *years* in advance. Instead of expanding capacity (which lowers prices) they stuck to their high price, let 'em wait attitude. It's very difficult for me to see how floor workers were to blame for that.
See, I was supposed to wait for one of the union electricians to come over and move my stuff.
Did it ever occur to you there might be a reason that is more important than your immediate need to use another cubicle? Imagine a worker who brings an electric heater to her new cubicle.. No problem right?? Well, he's probably the one that screwed it up for you.
Having experienced the *exact* same thing, how would you feel about the power going out at your booth during the show? How about a fire during the show? The show producer certainly won't give you any money back because it wasn't their fault.
You will also note the conspicuous absence of a thriving local industry for really large convention halls.
And then they get sued by some show participant because they crushed their own foot with the convention hall's pallet jack. It's easy to call out unions with that anecdote, but there are many reasons for the stupidity, little of it having to do with the union.
Doctors are self employed. Organizing makes sense. Lawyers are self employed. Organizing makes sense.
In both cases you are wrong. It's far more complicated than that, but it boils down to *one* and only one certification in both industries. It creates a monopoly condition where the lawyers and doctors become price makers.
Slashdot Mirror
Worrying about the tracking boogeyman is ridiculous.
I'm not sure why you labor under the illusion that your activities aren't tracked now. Most of your activity is in one way or another and then packaged and sold to any willing buyer including Government entities.
Credit Score? Tracking
Medical Records? This is a murky area, but I'm sure the U.S. health insurance co's would love to trade patient health scores. No. HIPPAA didn't outlaw this.
Communication? Done. FISA, Telcos, NSA, Etc.
Debit transations? Tracking.
Other finance tracking? Done. It's called taxes.
There's lots of worthy things to contribute your personal energy to. This isn't one of them.
1. All the talk about "tracking" is nonsense. An RFID anything has a range measured in inches normally. Stuff it in your wallet sandwiched in between more cards and it pretty much won't work.
2. $30 is about right after all is said and done. No one is getting rich making these cards. There's secure printing, personalization, etc.
3. What's the application though? If it is just border crossings, then do border crossings have the infrastructure to process a contactless card?
4. Accidentally leaving the card inside a microwave oven while you are warming coffee would harm the chip, so don't ever do that.
First of all, these are unprecedented times in global financial markets. Once in 100 years is putting it mildly.
Second, a data center and a building are the only assets that can be valued with the shotgun marriages the Administration, Treasury, and Fed are making right **now.** By now, I mean no sleep, no one leaves until the deal is closed NOW.
BofA got a sweetheart deal with Countrywide, they are getting another sweetheart deal with whatever brokerage they acquire. The same holds true of JPMorgan Chase and Co.
The Fed has literally run out of money with the AIG nationalization and has asked the treasury to print more dollars NOW. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/271257f2-83f1-11dd-bf00-000077b07658.html
Once again, the losses are being socialized while the titans of financial executive management just walk away.
You would be wise to re-balance your asset pool to reflect coming inflation. And any pension holders out there should do your best to liquidate your pension today, that is, if your pension isn't underfunded already or if that is even possible.
They are just waiting for the net radio enthusiasts to postulate. Then, they label net radio advocates as "extreme and uncooperative" as the excuse for not saying or doing anything.
It's important to remember the RIAA members control distribution. Letting net radio operate at a discount or even the same rates as broadcast is a non-starter. RIAA says, "net radio is cheaper, so give me more money. Well, actually, just give me more money..." And broadcasters are quite happy with that too.
Best stance is to let the lack of an explanation rest as is and use the FOIA, if possible, to get at communications about the issue.
Mr. Malackowski's donation record: http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?zip=60657&last=Malackowski&first=James
Like the others, NASA should license the patent and collect revenues. Selling it outright is simply giving it away.
Question: HOW does it come to pass that the contractor was awarded this?
James E. Malackowski (CEO of the auction firm) is very well connected in government. He sits on the board of the non-profit running invent.org, whose main sponsor is the USPTO.
His campaign contribution record is decidedly democratic, but the contribution to Henry Hyde's reelection campaign is interesting.
Is this the proverbial "Smoking Gun?" No. But probably a case of paying into the system to stay inside the beltway on these issues and pick up a contract along the way.
What I didn't do was see if this was your average "no-bid" private contract for cronies and whether the dollar amount would qualify the matter as a violation in the contracting process. Please contribute!
For their quick start CD, firmware update CD's etc. System Insight manager and their other management tools are full of GPL software.
It's not rocket science at this point and I'm sure they have enough market data at this point to see that it's a viable niche. After all, a low price is always a viable niche.
The rest of the posts missed this entirely. The court was right here too...
And when the state suggested that the court merely tailor a restriction to the law within its opinion, the court declined.
Courts more or less interpret laws and process law breakers. Changes in the law are supposed to come from legislation, not the bench.
From the site...
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The $20/hr number has got to be some weird concoction of contractor-base+commissions. Knowing Microsoft, base pay is probably pathetic. The key here being Microsoft wants to sell hard with Worst Buy during December. I wonder if the computer brands are kicking in for this one... From the stores mentioned in my area, I'm guessing these stores perform well with a higher likelihood that they'd sell lots of PC's.
This gives you an idea how out of how dominant Microsoft is. A manufacturer like HP can't even afford to do something like this. My fondest hope is that Microsoft is under some pressure from Worst Buy to improve performance.
It will be very interesting to see Worst Buy's Q4 performance next year and what excuse they use for poor sales.
However I am finding that Software freedom comes at a cost of other freedoms.
What exactly is harmed by having more transparency and lower communication costs resulting in more efficient infrastructure?
And those guys who choose windows over Linux aren't as stupid as I once believed, and actually had informed reasons to do so
In every case I've seen it, it's because the C-level people find the name Microsoft socially acceptable explanation for everything technological. Sprinkle ANY useless explanation with Microsoftisms like "microsoft's documentation", "active directory", ".Net", "Exchange server" and they just accept the answer as is. Obligatory star wars reference, "These are not the droids you are looking for." Try it sometime!
Sigh....
I'm sad none of you seem to have heard about the supreme court's decision on the matter. It established your privilege to make and keep duplicates of your media.
SONY CORP. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 U.S. 417 (1984)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=464&invol=417
(b) Kalem Co. v. Harper Brothers, 222 U.S. 55 , does not support respondents' novel theory that supplying the "means" to accomplish an infringing activity and encouraging that activity through advertisement are sufficient to establish liability for copyright infringement
Now, was that so hard?? More to the point, when the server shows up, your reply to the complaint is right there. No merit to the case at all.
If there were a competitive market for _operating systems_ (not mac!) microsoft would not be allowed to set the price per laptop/pc as high as they do. So the difference between the price you pay microsoft for their OS on your computer now and some imaginary competitive price, much lower than Microsofts.
The last time I checked with Dell, it was at least $200 more for the Vista Premium, without an office application suite than the Ubuntu formatted hardware. I would imagine a competitive market would probably be anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 lower.
There are some things I like about it, like the whole taxonomy thing. I'm running 6.x now and it's much faster than 4.x and better to administrate.
It's very true that drupal sites look and feel quite alike. The theming has gotten better, but still, they are all quite similar. The canned forums and mailing list manager I still don't like. Almost every contributed module relies on mysql, so ignore their claims of PGSQL.
I would say that if Drupal can do your task with a few modules, it's great. If it can't, then find another CMS that can. If there is no CMS that does what you want, you may be better off starting from scratch.
Exactly right....
Excellent Marx Brothers reference. Today is going to be a good day.
I'd like to add that while the way he handled being surrounded by idiots was wrong, he was clearly surrounded by idiots.
No documentation?
No change control?
No diagrams?
What really rubs me the wrong way is how you haven't heard a single word from the admin and yet he is blamed for everything.
I worked one place where a guy with a great deal of responsibility died. (here today dead tomorrow kind of thing) His peers blamed *everything* on him simply because they could. This sounds like the same thing.
You know, there is really no reason whatsoever that you can't use an open source driver with windows. The driver API is well published, and there is nothing stopping the community from stepping up and writing its own drivers.
That would be a dead-end. As 64-bit becomes the norm, the Vista kernel requires Microsoft-signed drivers. Are you going to pay Microsoft for the honor of providing a driver for their OS?
Hardware vendors needed to make significant changes to their drivers and thought they'd get by with shoddy (probably outsourced) effort.
1. You know nothing about how device manufacturers work with Microsoft or any other OS. The smart companies wait for a "gold master" GM release before they write a single line of code because the changes/bugs leading up to GM are too many. The result is arguably a better driver. **Everyone** in the industry knows this and yet this jerk from Microsoft has the balls to blame the device manufacturers.
2. Manufacturers that develop on pre-release think they are getting a head start on their competitors, but guess what? They release buggier drivers! Try developing on a _very_ complex platform that is always changing sometime and get back to me.
3. A "shoddy (probably outsourced) effort." Besides insulting developers around the world lets just say that where a driver is developed has nothing to do with its quality. It is some combination of schedule, resources, and complexity that has the most to do with a quality driver.
There is no reason, besides ignorance, your comment should be rated insightful.
This "honest assessment" is blame-shifting which suggests their next OS will be worse than this one because it's everyone else's fault. Which is okay by me...
More numerous problems with your black-and-white opinions. Here's a tip, it's just not that simple.
If labor costs were less, the cars would cost less or they'd be better, and I'd be willing to bet that they'd actually be better cars, with better design.
And pixies would bring me free beer too. Manufacturer gets to charge whatever the market will bear for their products. Period. Costs establish a floor, but the only ceiling is market demand of the product.
It's because the overseas labor and environmental costs are so much lower.
So, you'll ignore the simple fact that American car manufacturers are global manufacturing organizations. They can assemble a car anywhere in the world and import it too!! Oh, but that doesn't fit into your neat black/white anti-union constellation.
Are you willing to put up with the consequences of unfettered environmental destruction that comes hand-in-hand with low labor costs? Probably not.
So in effect, by demanding more benefits, more pay, and more pension, the increasing labor costs has made it almost untenable to make a small car in a union shop. The labor cost is too high, the profit is too small to nonexistant
If it wasn't labor, it would be some other boogeyman that is to blame for American automaker woes. Most American executives have a bully pulpit from which they blame everything else but themselves. I have worked with executives all around the world and Americans are by far the worst of them all. There are some great American leaders, but most of them are quite happy in their niches.
Furthermore, did it ever occur to you that unions can be credited in part with creating a thriving middle class? Will Toyota ever be credited with sustaining the American middle-class? No. They don't pay well enough on the floor. And that has very broad implications regarding national infrastructure. But that's too challenging for your black-and-white view.
space heaters were fine
Now I know you are making this up. The current demand for an electric heater(s) in a cubicle farm would.... turn off the lights.
You know, it's a much more complicated issue than you want it to be. Choosing such a simple belief system does you a major disservice over the course of your lifetime. Good luck.
There's an assumption about targeting "a couple" of sites, but EA's reach is much broader than that. They have a ton of big-box retail distribution whose customers probably don't care about DRM.
Games are a much easier target given the monolithic nature of their release
Like music, their customers are not monolithic and most don't give a moments care to DRM. Worst case scenario, "Urgh stupid Windows is broken again!" No real connection to what's "broke." Losing the DRM key for itunes is another example of the same thing. Itunes "breaks", not "DRM is to blame"
Finally, there's nothing like a little controversy to sell a few more boxes. Unfortunately, anti-drm advocates are easy to marginalize so it stands a good chance of enriching EA. In the U.S., enterprises get the benefit of the doubt well after the facts prove harm. Consider it the downside of our vibrant economy.
Instead of expanding capacity (which lowers prices) they stuck to their high price, let 'em wait attitude.
Might that be because expanding requires more labor, and the unions made hiring more labor unprofitable?
Nope. Labor is a very small cost compared to the capital required to build the mill. Instead of reinvesting the capital in the business, primary shareholders put it in their pockets and squandered and insurmountable lead in worldwide steel production.
Since when do assembly line workers get to plan and design cars?
The point being the product they've been selling has put them into the dire straits they are in now. It's not in the union's scope to design cars, establish features, etc.
"a retirement plan based on selling cars"
Toyota and other younger companies either,
1. Haven't been in the U.S. long enough to have the burden of pensions on their books. It's also worth noting the unions have taken over much of the pension plan. http://www.knowyourpension.org/pensions/UAWpensions/UAW_pension_updates.aspx
2. Don't offer pensions. Which means the average assembler working for much less.
Today's lesson: don't count on a pension. Ever. Between inflation used to discount them and the lack of penalties for abandoning them, the pensioneer is screwed.
There are too many problems with your post, so I'll just name a couple.
The auto jobs that are here (and aren't in danger of being lost by imminent bankruptcy of GM, Ford, and Chrysler) are the non-union jobs from Honda, Toyota, and Nissan.
Since when do assembly line workers get to plan and design cars? Union assemblers build em' good or bad and they've been building products nobody wants for decades. Pontiac Fiero anyone?
The textile workers
Huh? The products that can't be made anywhere else have stayed in the U.S. Your generic t-shirt has been made abroad for at least a generation.
The steelworkers, who through a combination of union tactics AND environmental laws
You need a better understanding of the history of the American steel industry. Those mills were booking work *years* in advance. Instead of expanding capacity (which lowers prices) they stuck to their high price, let 'em wait attitude. It's very difficult for me to see how floor workers were to blame for that.
See, I was supposed to wait for one of the union electricians to come over and move my stuff.
Did it ever occur to you there might be a reason that is more important than your immediate need to use another cubicle? Imagine a worker who brings an electric heater to her new cubicle.. No problem right?? Well, he's probably the one that screwed it up for you.
Having experienced the *exact* same thing, how would you feel about the power going out at your booth during the show? How about a fire during the show? The show producer certainly won't give you any money back because it wasn't their fault.
You will also note the conspicuous absence of a thriving local industry for really large convention halls.
And then they get sued by some show participant because they crushed their own foot with the convention hall's pallet jack. It's easy to call out unions with that anecdote, but there are many reasons for the stupidity, little of it having to do with the union.
Doctors are self employed. Organizing makes sense. Lawyers are self employed. Organizing makes sense.
In both cases you are wrong. It's far more complicated than that, but it boils down to *one* and only one certification in both industries. It creates a monopoly condition where the lawyers and doctors become price makers.