You would think that if you are going to give a lame excuse for why you are doing bad things for a governement agency you would at least read the very handy guide on how to file a legal brief with all the naughty bits covered up.
Screw all of you. WW2 vets have been dieing at a rate of 1000 a day up until 2004. It dropped because there were just not as many left to die. No problem though because the 2400 killed in Iraq and 200+ in Afghanistan have picked up some of the slack and the Vietnam vets are just starting to die at significant rates. We take great pains to ensure the family never sees the "device" and Taps is "played" perfectly every time - no missed notes, no errors. This is not like playing at your local talent show. These are very emotional events even for those of us on funeral detail who likely know nothing of the person being buried. It is a solemn tradition we are all proud to participate in. Every time I do one I remind myself that some day someone will do the same for me. Amazon, Google and every other company in the world wont give a dam about you the day after you quit or retire. We take care of our own no mater how long they served. After burying one of my good friends killed in Iraq this year I will never hear Taps without tearing up.
You are dead on with #1. I was imprisoned....er...stationed in South Korea for 363 days (whose counting) in 2000/2001. There wasn't a single software program that couldn't be bought for 5000 won or about $3 on the streets of Seoul. I was actually harder to purchase legit copies of software than cracked versions. I wouldn't blame any company with valuable IP for pulling out of the Korean market.
If MS really wants to bring them to their knees they should buy Blizzard and threaten to withdraw Starcraft from the country.
Perhaps in a few years when my kids grow up and reach that age I will agree with you but I doubt it.
Ah, there is the rub. When I was 18 (just barely) I dated a girl who was 16. I though her parents were "cool" for letting us date. Now I think they were idiots because for all the love we professed and how much we enjoyed each others company the number one thing on my mind (and hers much of the time!) was getting her undressed and getting my hands on her nuaghty bits. Because I was a young man once I know EXACTLY what young men think when they look at a pretty girl. Heck, I still think those things when I look at a pretty woman! All good adult fun but all different when its MY daughter they are looking at.
I never thought I would care more about quality of schools over quality of bars but thats how I pick a place to live now. EVERYTHING is different when its YOUR kids.
A "weapon" is the little 9mm thingy. A "gun" as in "main gun" is the 120mm work of art at the front o a tank. I am far more worried about the guy next to me in a tank than the guy next to me with an
Only Chaplains and their assistants do not carry a weapon. It really doesnt matter though because I dont want the guy taking care of my food, pay or supplies stoned, drunk or otherwise not 100%. I used to mock crew rest for aircrew and HET drivers but when I was climbing on to that 20 ton het with 68 tons of tank in the back I sure wanted to know when that guy last had a good 8 hours.
But back to DRM - I WANT DRM on the software that controls my heart monitor. I dont care if the software that plays music has DRM. Its all about context.
Well I for one do not agree with your world view but maybe its BECAUSE I am a full grown adult. When I was a teen, pot smoking seemed like a fun, harmless thing. My employer for the last 19 years (Army) takes a hard line on drug use and I have o problem with that. See, I dont like the idea of the guy next to me with a gun being stoned - or drunk for that matter. As my daughter approaches teen dating years I developed a dim view of most young men and an even dimmer view of any with cars or motorcycles. Age does things like that to you.
But none of that stops you from starting a company and putting a big sing on the door saying "Help wanted - dope smokers welcome!" Well nothing except the extra attention you would get from the police but even that could work out if you lowered your local crime rate. It might work out that your employees are so gratefull for your keeping out of their personal lives tht they never once come to work impared. Or they could come to work impared, get hurt and sue you out of existance for failing to prevent them from hurting themselves.
This is exactly what the open source community has done with DRM and now we all have a choice between one product with DRM and one without. Most people will see the good of DRM free software and not abuse it to blatantly rip off other people hard work. Some will not. Im talking going beyond fair use to selling soneone elses work as your own. We will see which will survive long term. I would rather have the DRMless software but I understand the need to protect IP.
The open market will decide if your "Pot Smokers Friendly" business will survive and thrive and in an ideal world the open market would decide the DRM issue. I say ideal because I think the media companies iron grip on content will give DRM an unfair advantage but they still might lose.
* Do these sorts of games cause problems for the children and society?
* If the parents don't do anything about these games, then do we just let the damage happen anyway?
* Do parents have increasingly less control over what their kids do?
First off, I am sick and tired of people telling me how to raise my kids on the one hand and telling me I am responsible for raising theirs on the other. No one is FORCED to buy, play or unlock cheats in a game. I buy every game my kids play and play it with them. If they play at their friends house, I ask them what they play and I ask enough details to know if there are telling the truth. Part of why they tell the truth is that they know I wont be fooled by any BS about the uncool game they played but cant describe.
What I find even more amazing is that people STILL sprout idiocy about games leading to violence, bad grades, obesity, etc. I am 38 and I have been playing video game since Pong but somehow I am a stable, healthy citizen and so are my game playing kids and game playing wife. What's even more laughable is that much of the outrage is being sprouted by aging boomers and "Greatest Generation" types. Compared to say, real war, games are pretty tame yet for some reason the "Greatest Generation" came back from WWII and were "Great." Other than bad taste in TV, Boomers did little damage in the 70s despite being exposed to war (yes, I know PTSS for VN Vets). Of course, when the "Greatest" were kids they were corrupted by comic books, their children by movies and TV and my generation by cable and MTV.
My kids play video games, read, run, watch TV, ride bikes, do homework, listen to loud music, go to the movies, go to church, go to museums, go camping, go to Scouts, surf the internet, play cops and robbers, ride skate boards, build Legos, eat fast food and drink soda. My wife and I do all these things WITH THEM! We also do lots of these things without them because we are adults and kids don't need to be part of some of our games. We try for overall moderation in all their activities. Sometimes they get too much of something and they have to cut back. Sometimes what they want to do is not appropriate for their age and we tell them no. That's what parents do.
iTMS is not a loss leader. Early on it broke even or had a loss due to one time charges related to startup. In the mean time they have built up a dominating position in market share and mind share. The addition of Podcasts was a brilliant move to get even more people to use the store. Apple is positioning itself for the coming fee based Podcasts. Can you think of a Podcast you would pay $5 a year to listen to? What if Apple collected 1 of those 5 dollars and took care of all the subscription management and payment process.
The songs may be DRMed but its pretty fair DRM - I can make unlimited copies as long as I change the playlist, have legal copies on more than one computer and I can transfer everything to a new computer when I buy one.
The iTMS certainly helps sell iPods but now Apple is getting the reverse benefit. Having sold over 11 million pods in the last 6 months alone, there are a lot of Pod owners out there and by definition they are into music. If each one buys just one song a month over the next year thats over 120 million songs. Show a profit of just $.10 a song and you have $12 million. I still Limewire far more than I get off iTMS but I also have bought way more than one song a month for the last year and so has my wife.
Apple has created a way to earn a very very small fee off something everyone said people wouldn't pay for. They have also used that thing as a way to integrate Apple products into peoples daily lives and added "or a Macintosh" to the list of computer options people think of. Based on last quarters sales numbers, more and more are taking that option. And they make a profit on the service to boot. Apples PR machine is one of the best for NOT plastering how much profit they made off selling songs. They tell analysis that during their financial conference calls not on the front of the store.
Ill second the review comment about Amazon. I rarely buy anything without checking for an Amazon review. Reviews from real live owners of the product are very valuable and have kept me from buying a printer that was noisy, Flash memory that was slow and a camera that was blurry. There are plenty of bogus and whinny reviews out there and I never base my decision entirely on the reviews but often use them to dig deeper if I have doubts. I have also gotten some great recommendations for alternate products from Amazon. After reading reviews for an inexpensive tripod I decided not to buy it but instead one that 3 reviews of the cheep product recommended. For $3 more I got a great tripod.
and the rest of the "deal family." I have never gotten a "bad" retailer from one of their links. Over the year I have saved thousands of dollars from "Deal" sites.
Ill start by saying I am a gun owner, former member of the NRA and current member of the Armed Forces. I start with that to cut off any of the reflexive comments from some.
I think this ruling CLEARLY opens some gun manufactures to being sued.
Hunting rifles serve a legitimate, legal purpose. AK-47s and AR15s are meant to kill people.
Hand guns like my SW Model 66 revolver serve a legitimate personal protection legal purpose. MAC 10/11s are meant to kill people.
If you produce, market and sell soft metal stamped hand guns for the $50 "Saturday Night Special" market, you should be looking for an exit strategy because these weapons serve no legitimate purpose and are not sold to or marketed to legitimate gun owners. They are so inaccurate that they pose a greater threat to anyone around the intended target than the target itself. Their only redeeming value is that they are so poorly made that they often blow up in the hands of their owners.
I am pro hunting, pro gun ownership, pro concealed carry and pro registration. It is because of the last part that I cancelled my NRA membership. I am a law abiding gun owner and have nothing to fear from registration and the NRAs refusal to support any limits on clearly dangerous weapons and weapon sales makes them part of the problem in my opinion. I find it ironic that I could do in Iraq (confiscate "people killing" weapons while leaving personal defense) what cannot be done here. (Truth in lending - over there an AK-47 is the "house" gun and each male was allowed one. It was the RPGs that got you in trouble!)
I developed B&W film for my high school yearbook in a janitors closet that had been converted into a dark room. Small, hot and smelly.... good times, good times. I much prefer Photoshop now but one thing it cant replace is the opportunity to take a picture of a girl and bring her into the dark room and make a print just for her and then make out while it dries. Girls today are just not impressed by geeks who press print and even the slowest printer doesn't give much quality time! Back then if you took a girls picture in the morning and handed it to her a few hours later she might be inclined to let a hand UNDER the bra!
We are seeing something different now. These jobs are not antiquated. Many of the jobs moving overseas are still relevent and will be in the future. They are simply moving out side of the country to cheaper labor.
I agree that cheap labor is the primary motivator but advances in technology made it possible to build something like a laptop with cheap labor. At some point the skill needed to build a laptop declined to the point where the value of that skill was lower than the minimum acceptable wage for some people but higher for others. The jobs moved to where they best fit.
I also agree that we don't want to see a return to the horrid labor practices of times past but just because the employer pays what we think is a low wage doesn't mean it is low for that location. I am in the military and I have had a chance to compare pay with members of many nations militaries. In absolute dollars the US military is the best paid but in standard of living terms, my peers in the Dutch and Australian armies do better. They may make less but they can afford a house and insurance on a car while I am stationed in California or in the DC area where I can afford half the apartments. If you have a $20,000 a year job in New Your City you are poor. If you have a $20,000 a year job in Mexico City you are rich. The goal should be a non-exploitative wage for the local condition and before you ask, I have no idea how in the heck to determine that!
But they'll be great at tracking DHL/AirBorne and of course flipping burgers;-)
Only the stupid ones. Progress has always left some jobs behind. Buggy whip and block ice jobs used to be well paying. The idea is that you take the opportunity to do something else that is higher paying/higher margin and leave the low pay/low margin stuff to others. Do what you do well, hire someone else to do everything else.
No, no, the opposite. Apple and MS are now potential partners. MS sell SOFTWARE. Apple Sells HARDWARE. Apple is now in direct competition with Dell, HP and others. I would not be surprised to see HP end their iPod deal over this. MS doesn't care what a box runs as long as it runs Windows. Apple makes boxes. Their boxes will now run Windows more easily. MS will do what it needs to make it run perfectly.
5 years from now Dell will probably dominate the "industrial" PC market - the market for straight up Windows boxes. If you want a low cost (read low margin) box you will get a Dell. Apple will likely dominate the "digital home" market - the geeks with 3 digital cameras, DV cam, Tivo, iPod, Photoshop, Final Cut, etc. They will be able to sell a "OS Agnostic" box preloaded with OS X, Windows and Linux. I would buy one and I bet a lot of gamers, developers, and other digitaly savy people will.
After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that."
However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."
Read this carefully and you have a HUGE opportunity for Apple and a HUGE problem for Dell, HP and others. If you buy a Dell you get Windows and/or Linux. Buy and Apple and you will get OS X, Linux and Windows. Apple suddenly becomes a "partner" of Microsoft because Microsoft doesn't sell hardware. Imagine Apple and Microsoft entering into an agreement to bundle a version of Virtual PC that includes a copy of Windows Whatever. Microsoft instantly achieves near 100% market share and at the same time kills any monopoly argument because Apple builds the ultimate choice machine. Apple could enter another agreement to bundle with Red Hat and offer an out of the box tri-boot system that would be a developers dream. Apple gets the sweet irony of Dell and others being screwed by Microsoft. Their dependence on Microsoft to provide them with an OS and their complicity in building a monopoly that now screws them by helping remove the one thing that protected them from the best hardware company in the business.
Short term this will kill Apples hardware sales. I know I am going to hold off replacing my desktop for a year. But long term market share will be determined on Apples ability to produce machines and market them.
I guess I start with asking if ANY property right to an idea is acceptable? It goes to the heart of patent and copyright law - if I make something new do I have the RIGHT to restrict its use in any way? I believe the answer is yes....but.
Take the example of a car. I own a Honda. I can resell my Honda and "share" my Honda, rent my Honda, all without having to pay an "Auto Rights Management" Fee. I can even modify my Honda and resell it under a new name (See AMG and Selene). What I can't do is take apart my Honda, copy every part and sell it as an original product. I can design a car, build a car, modify a car, sell a car, share a car, whatever but I cant duplicate my Honda and resell it as an original. This is good protection. I bought a product, I can use it as I see fit as long as I don't try to "steal" the thing that makes it unique. Honda doesn't have to worry about me doing that because there is no profit motive in it but they protect their IP all the same because Kia or GM could copy my Honda and sell it.
I have dishes made by Pfaltzgraff. I have the same right to use, share, rent etc without paying a "Dish Rights Management" Fee. I can buy or make napkins or dish carriers that match them. I can even SELL napkins or dish carriers that match them. What I can't do is copy the design and sell my own dishes. I can make dishes, sell them, share them whatever but I cant shape and paint them exactly like my Pfaltzgraff ones and sell them. Good protection.
All this works great in the atom world and I believe the vast majority of people feel the system works. Because of the ability to make perfect copies, the digital world is a tougher challenge.
I buy a song from iTunes. I am BUYING it. Once I OWN it I should be able to do everything I can with my car or my plates. I should be able to sell it, modify it, share it and even rent it. The key thing here is that it has to be just like my car - one at a time. If my car is rented out, I don't have a "backup copy" that I can use. I would take the car metaphor further. I can put 1 to 5 people in my Honda without paying anymore money to Honda. Once I add the need for a 6th person or need the ability to drive two places, I have to pay Honda another fee (or buy a larger car in the first place!). I should have similar rights with my iTunes song (in fact I do). I have 5 computers so I should be able to play my song on all of them. If I resell my song, I lose the right to play it at all. If I sell my car, I don't get to go to the buyer every day and drive it to work. I should also be able to use it in my own works. Here is where I disagree with most current rights fees. If you something is sold, you lose the right to determine its use. If I use a song I OWN in a movie I make I should not have to pay more for it. A fair price was agreed on and paid. I can use my Honda to make deliveries for a profit without paying Honda. Atom rights. As long as I am not claiming to have made the song myself, the seller has no right to restrict my use of it. This is only an issue in the digital world. GM SELLS cars that are rented without claiming a portion of the rental profits. Blockbuster BUYS movies and rents them without paying a portion of the profit. What I can't do is buy one copy of a song and put it in 10000 copies of my movie. I either have to buy more copies of a song or enter into a NEW agreement on a bulk purchase - just like GM and Blockbuster do. Somehow this is lost on the digital world on both the user and rights holder sides.
I accept any DRM that gives me the same rights I have over my atoms. If I BUY it, I OWN it. I should be able to resell, share, modify, rent and destroy it as I see fit. I should even be able to make a profit off its use as long as I am not making copies that I did not pay for. If I make a movie with a song and I show it and charge admission I should be able to do that without paying anything to the song owner (deliveries in my Honda). I still physically posses the thing I p
Where I work there are a large number of older non-us born people who generally have little computer knowledge.
One day our IT guy got a call from one of these guys. He was very irate and started yelling immediately about how long he had worked there and how he deserved a better computer and how no matter what he did he couldnt get his computer to work, blah blah blah.
So the IT guy goes to his office (yes, they make office calls) becaus he knew the particular person and knew it was hopeless to try over the phone. It turned out that he did in fact have an older system and it was in the process of being replaced. One of the other IT guys had collected it earlier in the day and had left the persons mouse, keyboard, speakers etc. People get very attached to those. In the hour or so he had been gone some of the guys co-workers had decided to move some furnature around the office and had set a combo TV/DVD on his desk. Non-Tech guy had come back to his desk and thinking his computer had been replaced started pounding keys and on/off switches to no avail. He honnestly thought the TV was his new computer and was mad that it was not a flat pannel he had been promised.
How can we expect them to understand difference in OS when they cant pick out a computer from a lineup!
Ill take it a step further. Microsoft is like a drug dealer who gives you free stuff until you are hooked.
I owned a small screwdriver shop in the late 90s and I owed much of the success I had (which was limited!) to Microsoft. They gave me tools, free software and rebates based on how many copies of Winsows I sold. They also helped me get Igram Micro and Tech Data accounts that let me "sell bigger" than I was. Those acounts in turn helped me get better deals on credic card processsing, other supliers, etc. The price for this? I could only sell Window OS, I pledged not to work on systms with cracked copies of Windows and I was "encouraged" to only sell systems sith Windows preinstalled. I wasnt nearly big enough for the real discounts tht went along with never selling an OS-less system but I was working on it. At that time the most expensive part of a system for me was the Hard Drive. The OS was #2. Given a chance to reduce the cost of my second most expensive component I would.
Before you think I am a MS cheerleader, Im not. Im a Mac guy who would be in an all Mac house if his daughter hadn't begged for an evil Dell machine for games. What I used personally and what I could sell in my store were two different things. Dell, Alien, and just about every other PC maker not named HP started as a guy and a screwdriver and they owe a lot to MS and MS makes sure they remember.
I was stationed in Germany in the 80s and we had the same thing on our photocopies for two reasons:
Prevent copiers being used/abused for personal reasons or jobs that should go to the print plant.
Track copies of classified documents (who to blame when they were found in the trash or in the hands of the Russians)
My copier was SP30! It was actually a sticker on the "back side" of the glass.
We had a limit of 10K copies per month on the machine (Xerox 10??) and one of the first "hacks" I ever achieved was figureing out how to reset the counter so my boss wouldn't get into trouble for making more than the allotment. In return he managed to find indoor duties for me when the snow was the worst. We got around the mark for party flyers by putting solid black graphic right were the SP30 was. Ahh the memories!
The Army is hiring and requires no expirence. Believe it or not, there are LOTS of SysAdmin jobs in the military. If you are a US citizen and your family are all US born, try NSA. The hiring process is a real pain but its one of the more exciting networking jobs out there.
Good luck!!
but a dad. When my wife and I had our first child, a good friend advised us to become a single income household. he gave lots of reasons but the impact on children was the single most important. We are fortunate that my job (Army) pays well enought for us to be able to do that. Our life is not lavish - we average 9 years per car, 4 years per computer and it will be a long time before all our furtunature matches. On the other hand our children are healthy and well adjusted. You cant put a price on that. Another friend told me to abide by the rule of God first, family second and work third with the understanding that sometimes they will be out of balance but as long as you maintain a long term balance, you will be OK. Long hours in the Army tend to last months so when I can spend time with my family I do. My boss has always understood when I left for doctors appointments, soccer games and PTA meetings because they have alwasys known that somewhere down the line will be 90+ hour weeks. We both know that if we say its important, it really is (it has to work both ways and your family has to know that sometimes work is important). I count myself lucky in that respect becausee many of my friends have had bosses that work them for sport. Some things I have learned about time with my kids:
Doctors appointmnts are more important than I thought. Go if you can.
30 minutes of reading to your kids before bed is worth hours doing almost anything else.
Bring them to your office once in awhile if you can. I never knew how important this was until I changed jobs that did not allow any outside visitors and my kids couldnt see where I was when I was not home.
Show up for lunch at their school twice a year and they will talk about it all year and be the envy of 90% of their friends.
Make parent teacher conferences. If the teachers know you are involved, 50% of the normal issues never even happen.
include your family in any work related recognition. It lets them kow why you were gone and reminds your boss how important your family is to you.
Someday I intend to retire. I plan on having a family to spend time with. Your company will not show up at your funeral, your family will (ok, turth in lending, my company will!).
>>Whats so hard when its not your job on the line. When its not your money and freedom. Think about how it is for the other person.>>
Thinking about the other person is exactly why it is hard. Anyone who can easliy do it is without a soul. Each time I had to it felt like kicking my own dog.
As for being brain washed or mindless, in 18 years I have met neither. We expect even demand critical thinking. brainwashed andriods are easy to defeat.
back to the whole point of my original post, stress is being a police officer and deciding if thats a real gun or a water gun at night in a bad part of town. Stress is telling someone to go into a room full of people who want to kill you knowing that their chances for survival are low and you are responsible for informing their family if they die. Stress is putting someones body back togeather in an ER or even worse, deciding that they cant be saved and letting them die so you can save someone else. And so on. Stress is most definately not making sure pretty pictures pop up at some website.
Sorry but you have driven me to post here for the first time. Building websites is NOT a stressfull job. I agree with the other poster that there is something else causeing your stress.
No one has ever beeen killed by bad HTML!
Im in the military and my standard for having a good day is being alive. Two months driving around Baghdad give you a lot of prespective. As long as my day doesnt end in being burned, draged and strung up, it pretty good.
I spent 18 months commanding 140 people. I had to put some out of the military. I had to punish some taking money and freedom. I had to tell some that a loved one had died.
We all laugh about managers but try being the guy who tells someone that they have been laid off. Try explaining why someone got passed over for promotion.
Your 24. If you are stressed now you will die from it. Live, enjoy. Quit taking things so seriously. Work out, run, have wild sex in strange places, whatever.
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No, no, here is the idiocy - the NSA has a VERY good guide to doing the right!
= /snac/vtechrep/I333-TR-015R-2005.PDF
Its call - "Redacting with Confidence: How to Safely Publish Sanitized Reports Converted From Word to PDF "
http://www.nsa.gov/notices/notic00004.cfm?Address
You would think that if you are going to give a lame excuse for why you are doing bad things for a governement agency you would at least read the very handy guide on how to file a legal brief with all the naughty bits covered up.
Idiots!!!
Screw all of you. WW2 vets have been dieing at a rate of 1000 a day up until 2004. It dropped because there were just not as many left to die. No problem though because the 2400 killed in Iraq and 200+ in Afghanistan have picked up some of the slack and the Vietnam vets are just starting to die at significant rates. We take great pains to ensure the family never sees the "device" and Taps is "played" perfectly every time - no missed notes, no errors. This is not like playing at your local talent show. These are very emotional events even for those of us on funeral detail who likely know nothing of the person being buried. It is a solemn tradition we are all proud to participate in. Every time I do one I remind myself that some day someone will do the same for me. Amazon, Google and every other company in the world wont give a dam about you the day after you quit or retire. We take care of our own no mater how long they served. After burying one of my good friends killed in Iraq this year I will never hear Taps without tearing up.
You are dead on with #1. I was imprisoned ....er...stationed in South Korea for 363 days (whose counting) in 2000/2001. There wasn't a single software program that couldn't be bought for 5000 won or about $3 on the streets of Seoul. I was actually harder to purchase legit copies of software than cracked versions. I wouldn't blame any company with valuable IP for pulling out of the Korean market.
If MS really wants to bring them to their knees they should buy Blizzard and threaten to withdraw Starcraft from the country.
Perhaps in a few years when my kids grow up and reach that age I will agree with you but I doubt it.
Ah, there is the rub. When I was 18 (just barely) I dated a girl who was 16. I though her parents were "cool" for letting us date. Now I think they were idiots because for all the love we professed and how much we enjoyed each others company the number one thing on my mind (and hers much of the time!) was getting her undressed and getting my hands on her nuaghty bits. Because I was a young man once I know EXACTLY what young men think when they look at a pretty girl. Heck, I still think those things when I look at a pretty woman! All good adult fun but all different when its MY daughter they are looking at.
I never thought I would care more about quality of schools over quality of bars but thats how I pick a place to live now. EVERYTHING is different when its YOUR kids.
A "weapon" is the little 9mm thingy. A "gun" as in "main gun" is the 120mm work of art at the front o a tank. I am far more worried about the guy next to me in a tank than the guy next to me with an Only Chaplains and their assistants do not carry a weapon. It really doesnt matter though because I dont want the guy taking care of my food, pay or supplies stoned, drunk or otherwise not 100%. I used to mock crew rest for aircrew and HET drivers but when I was climbing on to that 20 ton het with 68 tons of tank in the back I sure wanted to know when that guy last had a good 8 hours. But back to DRM - I WANT DRM on the software that controls my heart monitor. I dont care if the software that plays music has DRM. Its all about context.
Well I for one do not agree with your world view but maybe its BECAUSE I am a full grown adult. When I was a teen, pot smoking seemed like a fun, harmless thing. My employer for the last 19 years (Army) takes a hard line on drug use and I have o problem with that. See, I dont like the idea of the guy next to me with a gun being stoned - or drunk for that matter. As my daughter approaches teen dating years I developed a dim view of most young men and an even dimmer view of any with cars or motorcycles. Age does things like that to you.
But none of that stops you from starting a company and putting a big sing on the door saying "Help wanted - dope smokers welcome!" Well nothing except the extra attention you would get from the police but even that could work out if you lowered your local crime rate. It might work out that your employees are so gratefull for your keeping out of their personal lives tht they never once come to work impared. Or they could come to work impared, get hurt and sue you out of existance for failing to prevent them from hurting themselves.
This is exactly what the open source community has done with DRM and now we all have a choice between one product with DRM and one without. Most people will see the good of DRM free software and not abuse it to blatantly rip off other people hard work. Some will not. Im talking going beyond fair use to selling soneone elses work as your own. We will see which will survive long term. I would rather have the DRMless software but I understand the need to protect IP.
The open market will decide if your "Pot Smokers Friendly" business will survive and thrive and in an ideal world the open market would decide the DRM issue. I say ideal because I think the media companies iron grip on content will give DRM an unfair advantage but they still might lose.
* Do these sorts of games cause problems for the children and society?
* If the parents don't do anything about these games, then do we just let the damage happen anyway?
* Do parents have increasingly less control over what their kids do?
First off, I am sick and tired of people telling me how to raise my kids on the one hand and telling me I am responsible for raising theirs on the other. No one is FORCED to buy, play or unlock cheats in a game. I buy every game my kids play and play it with them. If they play at their friends house, I ask them what they play and I ask enough details to know if there are telling the truth. Part of why they tell the truth is that they know I wont be fooled by any BS about the uncool game they played but cant describe.
What I find even more amazing is that people STILL sprout idiocy about games leading to violence, bad grades, obesity, etc. I am 38 and I have been playing video game since Pong but somehow I am a stable, healthy citizen and so are my game playing kids and game playing wife. What's even more laughable is that much of the outrage is being sprouted by aging boomers and "Greatest Generation" types. Compared to say, real war, games are pretty tame yet for some reason the "Greatest Generation" came back from WWII and were "Great." Other than bad taste in TV, Boomers did little damage in the 70s despite being exposed to war (yes, I know PTSS for VN Vets). Of course, when the "Greatest" were kids they were corrupted by comic books, their children by movies and TV and my generation by cable and MTV.
My kids play video games, read, run, watch TV, ride bikes, do homework, listen to loud music, go to the movies, go to church, go to museums, go camping, go to Scouts, surf the internet, play cops and robbers, ride skate boards, build Legos, eat fast food and drink soda. My wife and I do all these things WITH THEM! We also do lots of these things without them because we are adults and kids don't need to be part of some of our games. We try for overall moderation in all their activities. Sometimes they get too much of something and they have to cut back. Sometimes what they want to do is not appropriate for their age and we tell them no. That's what parents do.
iTMS is not a loss leader. Early on it broke even or had a loss due to one time charges related to startup. In the mean time they have built up a dominating position in market share and mind share. The addition of Podcasts was a brilliant move to get even more people to use the store. Apple is positioning itself for the coming fee based Podcasts. Can you think of a Podcast you would pay $5 a year to listen to? What if Apple collected 1 of those 5 dollars and took care of all the subscription management and payment process.
The songs may be DRMed but its pretty fair DRM - I can make unlimited copies as long as I change the playlist, have legal copies on more than one computer and I can transfer everything to a new computer when I buy one.
The iTMS certainly helps sell iPods but now Apple is getting the reverse benefit. Having sold over 11 million pods in the last 6 months alone, there are a lot of Pod owners out there and by definition they are into music. If each one buys just one song a month over the next year thats over 120 million songs. Show a profit of just $.10 a song and you have $12 million. I still Limewire far more than I get off iTMS but I also have bought way more than one song a month for the last year and so has my wife.
Apple has created a way to earn a very very small fee off something everyone said people wouldn't pay for. They have also used that thing as a way to integrate Apple products into peoples daily lives and added "or a Macintosh" to the list of computer options people think of. Based on last quarters sales numbers, more and more are taking that option. And they make a profit on the service to boot. Apples PR machine is one of the best for NOT plastering how much profit they made off selling songs. They tell analysis that during their financial conference calls not on the front of the store.
Ill second the review comment about Amazon. I rarely buy anything without checking for an Amazon review. Reviews from real live owners of the product are very valuable and have kept me from buying a printer that was noisy, Flash memory that was slow and a camera that was blurry. There are plenty of bogus and whinny reviews out there and I never base my decision entirely on the reviews but often use them to dig deeper if I have doubts. I have also gotten some great recommendations for alternate products from Amazon. After reading reviews for an inexpensive tripod I decided not to buy it but instead one that 3 reviews of the cheep product recommended. For $3 more I got a great tripod.
Dealmac.com http://www.dealmac.com/
dealram.com http://www.dealram.com/
and the rest of the "deal family." I have never gotten a "bad" retailer from one of their links. Over the year I have saved thousands of dollars from "Deal" sites.
Ill start by saying I am a gun owner, former member of the NRA and current member of the Armed Forces. I start with that to cut off any of the reflexive comments from some.
I think this ruling CLEARLY opens some gun manufactures to being sued.
Hunting rifles serve a legitimate, legal purpose. AK-47s and AR15s are meant to kill people.
Hand guns like my SW Model 66 revolver serve a legitimate personal protection legal purpose. MAC 10/11s are meant to kill people.
If you produce, market and sell soft metal stamped hand guns for the $50 "Saturday Night Special" market, you should be looking for an exit strategy because these weapons serve no legitimate purpose and are not sold to or marketed to legitimate gun owners. They are so inaccurate that they pose a greater threat to anyone around the intended target than the target itself. Their only redeeming value is that they are so poorly made that they often blow up in the hands of their owners.
I am pro hunting, pro gun ownership, pro concealed carry and pro registration. It is because of the last part that I cancelled my NRA membership. I am a law abiding gun owner and have nothing to fear from registration and the NRAs refusal to support any limits on clearly dangerous weapons and weapon sales makes them part of the problem in my opinion. I find it ironic that I could do in Iraq (confiscate "people killing" weapons while leaving personal defense) what cannot be done here. (Truth in lending - over there an AK-47 is the "house" gun and each male was allowed one. It was the RPGs that got you in trouble!)
I developed B&W film for my high school yearbook in a janitors closet that had been converted into a dark room. Small, hot and smelly.... good times, good times. I much prefer Photoshop now but one thing it cant replace is the opportunity to take a picture of a girl and bring her into the dark room and make a print just for her and then make out while it dries. Girls today are just not impressed by geeks who press print and even the slowest printer doesn't give much quality time! Back then if you took a girls picture in the morning and handed it to her a few hours later she might be inclined to let a hand UNDER the bra!
We are seeing something different now. These jobs are not antiquated. Many of the jobs moving overseas are still relevent and will be in the future. They are simply moving out side of the country to cheaper labor.
I agree that cheap labor is the primary motivator but advances in technology made it possible to build something like a laptop with cheap labor. At some point the skill needed to build a laptop declined to the point where the value of that skill was lower than the minimum acceptable wage for some people but higher for others. The jobs moved to where they best fit.
I also agree that we don't want to see a return to the horrid labor practices of times past but just because the employer pays what we think is a low wage doesn't mean it is low for that location. I am in the military and I have had a chance to compare pay with members of many nations militaries. In absolute dollars the US military is the best paid but in standard of living terms, my peers in the Dutch and Australian armies do better. They may make less but they can afford a house and insurance on a car while I am stationed in California or in the DC area where I can afford half the apartments. If you have a $20,000 a year job in New Your City you are poor. If you have a $20,000 a year job in Mexico City you are rich. The goal should be a non-exploitative wage for the local condition and before you ask, I have no idea how in the heck to determine that!
But they'll be great at tracking DHL/AirBorne and of course flipping burgers ;-)
Only the stupid ones. Progress has always left some jobs behind. Buggy whip and block ice jobs used to be well paying. The idea is that you take the opportunity to do something else that is higher paying/higher margin and leave the low pay/low margin stuff to others. Do what you do well, hire someone else to do everything else.
No, no, the opposite. Apple and MS are now potential partners. MS sell SOFTWARE. Apple Sells HARDWARE. Apple is now in direct competition with Dell, HP and others. I would not be surprised to see HP end their iPod deal over this. MS doesn't care what a box runs as long as it runs Windows. Apple makes boxes. Their boxes will now run Windows more easily. MS will do what it needs to make it run perfectly.
5 years from now Dell will probably dominate the "industrial" PC market - the market for straight up Windows boxes. If you want a low cost (read low margin) box you will get a Dell. Apple will likely dominate the "digital home" market - the geeks with 3 digital cameras, DV cam, Tivo, iPod, Photoshop, Final Cut, etc. They will be able to sell a "OS Agnostic" box preloaded with OS X, Windows and Linux. I would buy one and I bet a lot of gamers, developers, and other digitaly savy people will.
JMHO
After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that."
However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."
Read this carefully and you have a HUGE opportunity for Apple and a HUGE problem for Dell, HP and others. If you buy a Dell you get Windows and/or Linux. Buy and Apple and you will get OS X, Linux and Windows. Apple suddenly becomes a "partner" of Microsoft because Microsoft doesn't sell hardware. Imagine Apple and Microsoft entering into an agreement to bundle a version of Virtual PC that includes a copy of Windows Whatever. Microsoft instantly achieves near 100% market share and at the same time kills any monopoly argument because Apple builds the ultimate choice machine. Apple could enter another agreement to bundle with Red Hat and offer an out of the box tri-boot system that would be a developers dream. Apple gets the sweet irony of Dell and others being screwed by Microsoft. Their dependence on Microsoft to provide them with an OS and their complicity in building a monopoly that now screws them by helping remove the one thing that protected them from the best hardware company in the business.
Short term this will kill Apples hardware sales. I know I am going to hold off replacing my desktop for a year. But long term market share will be determined on Apples ability to produce machines and market them.
JMHO
I guess I start with asking if ANY property right to an idea is acceptable? It goes to the heart of patent and copyright law - if I make something new do I have the RIGHT to restrict its use in any way? I believe the answer is yes....but.
Take the example of a car. I own a Honda. I can resell my Honda and "share" my Honda, rent my Honda, all without having to pay an "Auto Rights Management" Fee. I can even modify my Honda and resell it under a new name (See AMG and Selene). What I can't do is take apart my Honda, copy every part and sell it as an original product. I can design a car, build a car, modify a car, sell a car, share a car, whatever but I cant duplicate my Honda and resell it as an original. This is good protection. I bought a product, I can use it as I see fit as long as I don't try to "steal" the thing that makes it unique. Honda doesn't have to worry about me doing that because there is no profit motive in it but they protect their IP all the same because Kia or GM could copy my Honda and sell it.
I have dishes made by Pfaltzgraff. I have the same right to use, share, rent etc without paying a "Dish Rights Management" Fee. I can buy or make napkins or dish carriers that match them. I can even SELL napkins or dish carriers that match them. What I can't do is copy the design and sell my own dishes. I can make dishes, sell them, share them whatever but I cant shape and paint them exactly like my Pfaltzgraff ones and sell them. Good protection.
All this works great in the atom world and I believe the vast majority of people feel the system works. Because of the ability to make perfect copies, the digital world is a tougher challenge.
I buy a song from iTunes. I am BUYING it. Once I OWN it I should be able to do everything I can with my car or my plates. I should be able to sell it, modify it, share it and even rent it. The key thing here is that it has to be just like my car - one at a time. If my car is rented out, I don't have a "backup copy" that I can use. I would take the car metaphor further. I can put 1 to 5 people in my Honda without paying anymore money to Honda. Once I add the need for a 6th person or need the ability to drive two places, I have to pay Honda another fee (or buy a larger car in the first place!). I should have similar rights with my iTunes song (in fact I do). I have 5 computers so I should be able to play my song on all of them. If I resell my song, I lose the right to play it at all. If I sell my car, I don't get to go to the buyer every day and drive it to work. I should also be able to use it in my own works. Here is where I disagree with most current rights fees. If you something is sold, you lose the right to determine its use. If I use a song I OWN in a movie I make I should not have to pay more for it. A fair price was agreed on and paid. I can use my Honda to make deliveries for a profit without paying Honda. Atom rights. As long as I am not claiming to have made the song myself, the seller has no right to restrict my use of it. This is only an issue in the digital world. GM SELLS cars that are rented without claiming a portion of the rental profits. Blockbuster BUYS movies and rents them without paying a portion of the profit. What I can't do is buy one copy of a song and put it in 10000 copies of my movie. I either have to buy more copies of a song or enter into a NEW agreement on a bulk purchase - just like GM and Blockbuster do. Somehow this is lost on the digital world on both the user and rights holder sides.
I accept any DRM that gives me the same rights I have over my atoms. If I BUY it, I OWN it. I should be able to resell, share, modify, rent and destroy it as I see fit. I should even be able to make a profit off its use as long as I am not making copies that I did not pay for. If I make a movie with a song and I show it and charge admission I should be able to do that without paying anything to the song owner (deliveries in my Honda). I still physically posses the thing I p
Where I work there are a large number of older non-us born people who generally have little computer knowledge.
One day our IT guy got a call from one of these guys. He was very irate and started yelling immediately about how long he had worked there and how he deserved a better computer and how no matter what he did he couldnt get his computer to work, blah blah blah.
So the IT guy goes to his office (yes, they make office calls) becaus he knew the particular person and knew it was hopeless to try over the phone. It turned out that he did in fact have an older system and it was in the process of being replaced. One of the other IT guys had collected it earlier in the day and had left the persons mouse, keyboard, speakers etc. People get very attached to those. In the hour or so he had been gone some of the guys co-workers had decided to move some furnature around the office and had set a combo TV/DVD on his desk. Non-Tech guy had come back to his desk and thinking his computer had been replaced started pounding keys and on/off switches to no avail. He honnestly thought the TV was his new computer and was mad that it was not a flat pannel he had been promised.
How can we expect them to understand difference in OS when they cant pick out a computer from a lineup!
Ill take it a step further. Microsoft is like a drug dealer who gives you free stuff until you are hooked.
I owned a small screwdriver shop in the late 90s and I owed much of the success I had (which was limited!) to Microsoft. They gave me tools, free software and rebates based on how many copies of Winsows I sold. They also helped me get Igram Micro and Tech Data accounts that let me "sell bigger" than I was. Those acounts in turn helped me get better deals on credic card processsing, other supliers, etc. The price for this? I could only sell Window OS, I pledged not to work on systms with cracked copies of Windows and I was "encouraged" to only sell systems sith Windows preinstalled. I wasnt nearly big enough for the real discounts tht went along with never selling an OS-less system but I was working on it. At that time the most expensive part of a system for me was the Hard Drive. The OS was #2. Given a chance to reduce the cost of my second most expensive component I would.
Before you think I am a MS cheerleader, Im not. Im a Mac guy who would be in an all Mac house if his daughter hadn't begged for an evil Dell machine for games. What I used personally and what I could sell in my store were two different things. Dell, Alien, and just about every other PC maker not named HP started as a guy and a screwdriver and they owe a lot to MS and MS makes sure they remember.
I was stationed in Germany in the 80s and we had the same thing on our photocopies for two reasons:
Prevent copiers being used/abused for personal reasons or jobs that should go to the print plant.
Track copies of classified documents (who to blame when they were found in the trash or in the hands of the Russians)
My copier was SP30! It was actually a sticker on the "back side" of the glass.
We had a limit of 10K copies per month on the machine (Xerox 10??) and one of the first "hacks" I ever achieved was figureing out how to reset the counter so my boss wouldn't get into trouble for making more than the allotment. In return he managed to find indoor duties for me when the snow was the worst. We got around the mark for party flyers by putting solid black graphic right were the SP30 was. Ahh the memories!
The Army is hiring and requires no expirence. Believe it or not, there are LOTS of SysAdmin jobs in the military. If you are a US citizen and your family are all US born, try NSA. The hiring process is a real pain but its one of the more exciting networking jobs out there. Good luck!!
but a dad. When my wife and I had our first child, a good friend advised us to become a single income household. he gave lots of reasons but the impact on children was the single most important. We are fortunate that my job (Army) pays well enought for us to be able to do that. Our life is not lavish - we average 9 years per car, 4 years per computer and it will be a long time before all our furtunature matches. On the other hand our children are healthy and well adjusted. You cant put a price on that. Another friend told me to abide by the rule of God first, family second and work third with the understanding that sometimes they will be out of balance but as long as you maintain a long term balance, you will be OK. Long hours in the Army tend to last months so when I can spend time with my family I do. My boss has always understood when I left for doctors appointments, soccer games and PTA meetings because they have alwasys known that somewhere down the line will be 90+ hour weeks. We both know that if we say its important, it really is (it has to work both ways and your family has to know that sometimes work is important). I count myself lucky in that respect becausee many of my friends have had bosses that work them for sport. Some things I have learned about time with my kids:
Doctors appointmnts are more important than I thought. Go if you can.
30 minutes of reading to your kids before bed is worth hours doing almost anything else.
Bring them to your office once in awhile if you can. I never knew how important this was until I changed jobs that did not allow any outside visitors and my kids couldnt see where I was when I was not home.
Show up for lunch at their school twice a year and they will talk about it all year and be the envy of 90% of their friends.
Make parent teacher conferences. If the teachers know you are involved, 50% of the normal issues never even happen.
include your family in any work related recognition. It lets them kow why you were gone and reminds your boss how important your family is to you.
Someday I intend to retire. I plan on having a family to spend time with. Your company will not show up at your funeral, your family will (ok, turth in lending, my company will!).
Good luck!
>>Whats so hard when its not your job on the line. When its not your money and freedom. Think about how it is for the other person.>> Thinking about the other person is exactly why it is hard. Anyone who can easliy do it is without a soul. Each time I had to it felt like kicking my own dog. As for being brain washed or mindless, in 18 years I have met neither. We expect even demand critical thinking. brainwashed andriods are easy to defeat. back to the whole point of my original post, stress is being a police officer and deciding if thats a real gun or a water gun at night in a bad part of town. Stress is telling someone to go into a room full of people who want to kill you knowing that their chances for survival are low and you are responsible for informing their family if they die. Stress is putting someones body back togeather in an ER or even worse, deciding that they cant be saved and letting them die so you can save someone else. And so on. Stress is most definately not making sure pretty pictures pop up at some website.
Sorry but you have driven me to post here for the first time. Building websites is NOT a stressfull job. I agree with the other poster that there is something else causeing your stress. No one has ever beeen killed by bad HTML! Im in the military and my standard for having a good day is being alive. Two months driving around Baghdad give you a lot of prespective. As long as my day doesnt end in being burned, draged and strung up, it pretty good. I spent 18 months commanding 140 people. I had to put some out of the military. I had to punish some taking money and freedom. I had to tell some that a loved one had died. We all laugh about managers but try being the guy who tells someone that they have been laid off. Try explaining why someone got passed over for promotion. Your 24. If you are stressed now you will die from it. Live, enjoy. Quit taking things so seriously. Work out, run, have wild sex in strange places, whatever.