Actually you are right and wrong: EA is but one company. THQ is far better. I was about to buy Spore online Direct2Drive when i read the details and backed out. Unless Spore relents and removes DRM completely, iam not buying it. Stardock did away with DRM plus they care shit about pirated copies. Which is why i purchased Sins of Solar Empire, even though i never play it. I bought it, mailed them about their good sense, but i don't play it (my genre is WW2 strategy, spacewars never interested me). PCs excel at strategy like AoM, AoE, CoH, CoH OF, etc. I prefer consoles for simpler games, but that's my preference.
For a second i read Prisons and my thought was flying to two facts: 1) All the homo stuff makes new *species*--i mean how is that even possible??? 2) Mad Cow??? Do they serve all the bad beef in prison??? Note to submitter: Pls. be clear when you submit things like this: It shocks the hell out of some people.
Or better yet file a case in court asking it to throttle your payments to comcast: If comcast throttles your connection speed to a lower level for 20 mins, you can throttle your payment to a lower rate calculated exclusively by you for 20 mins. (say 8Mbps DSL costs $100 a month unlimited; that works out to 2 cents a minute. If the speed drops down to 15Kbps for 20 mins each day for 30 days it amounts to 8/100*0.0015*(600). State to small-claims court that comcast is violating a contract by "damaging" goods: so you want to pay only for correctly arrived goods. Comcast's high-powered lawyers can't do shit here. Get a court order allowing you not to pay for damaged goods: then apply your own definition of damaged goods and send off a payment you calculate along with the court order: If comcast refuses to accept the same, they are in violation of a court order: in which case you can "demand" they fulfill their contract. If they accept, then you have set a precedent. Either way you win. Use ingenuity instead of anger: corporates do the same. Logical, emotionless, greedy: be like them. Play them at their own game with a home advantage=Small claims court.
Re:The Indian Government pre-empted it...
on
Should IT Unionize?
·
· Score: 1
The indian IT environment is divided into two types: 1) Managers 2) Developers Managers include a wide variety of completely useless, Blackberry carrying, rushing-to-meetings, ever-busy-calendar types who "manage" everything in project[s]. They don't actually contribute anything to the team other than tiring them with meetings, scrum, or some useless adminitrivia passed by HR/Admin to them. BUT, they are considered as Gods by the company management which seems to think projects succeed because of heroic efforts of a project manager. Managers can't be replaced. They are paid 5-10 times more pay than others. Plus most managers work 6-7 hours a day and work "from home" most times. Anybody who hates technology and says "i don't do coding" is automatically classified as "manager material" and promoted to his level of incompetency. And if you have an MBA from a premier institute, all the more better: You never have to grow from bottom-up(read from developer). You straight-away become an Assist Project Manager or Deputy Project Manager, and your duties involve reading and answering hundreds of irrelevant mails each day, prostelyize in meetings about six sigma or ISO 9002, approving timesheets, approving leave requests[more often rejecting it as he is paid based on leave rejects], approving salary changes/variable pay[which again is a single large pool, so the manager takes his cut before he payshis team]. Developers are the workhorses of indian IT industry: They do all the work, including direct discussions with clients at times, putting in changes, coding, designing, etc. New developers assume managers are Gods and rush to them with every single problem or solution they have[thus reinforce the belief]. Experienced developers know that to get some work done, they need to get the manager our of the way: by agreeing to do whatever ridiculous changes the manager wants, and then silently doing what's necessary for the project. Developers aspire to become managers some day, but while a few succeed, most drop out. Some are wiser: they stay away from this race and become architects! Now architects are weird creations from a manager's perspective: Architects don't code[that's the rule]. They recommend designs and lay pathways for the developers to follow; yet they are not responsible when the project fails. In short an architect has all authority, but none of the responsibility. This poses a dilemma for the project manager: He is used to showering himself with Glory when the project succeeds, and blame the team when it fails (Teflon). This architect-thingy does the same thing. Most managers hence avoid interacting with architects. Some try to control the architect by overawing him: those who get overawed end up coding[they realize it later], some architects refuse to be intimidated and make sure the project succeeds at least cost to the team. (meaning the team is not broken). Either way the architect and developer work 14-18 hours a day because like the Wehrmacht, they knew their allegiance is to the project and not to one man: even though they knew they will end up broken.
Re:The Indian Government pre-empted it...
on
Should IT Unionize?
·
· Score: 1
I don't know whether you are joking or serious: If you are joking, its not in good taste. If you are serious, then probably what Ross Gellar said in one episode is true: "Not funny, and probably racist."
The Indian Government pre-empted it...
on
Should IT Unionize?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The current Indian Government pre-empted such a move by classifying IT as a "Profession", meaning no fixed working hours, no overtime pay, no benefits, but, we do need to pay close to $50 a year as Profession Tax. Plus major indian IT cos have gone on record stating that long hours are simply "fiction" and each employee works only 8 hours a day: The last time i checked my team was working 14 hours a day.
Oh...my. Sorry. I just dumbed it down because am posting on Slashdot, and i don't which AC would come and bite me back in my ass if i use a modicum of techno-language. Anywho, we Mac users don't really worry about directories (Folders in our parlance), we have Spotlight, so i can throw my junk anywhere on my disk[s] and either create a Virtual Folder or use spotlight to pinpoint it. Plus, a USB drive uses less battery power than a spinning CD drive. Point in case for you mortal PC user: Your Dell/HP has less "staying" power on batteries than a Mac does. Mine goes 6-8 hours easily. Tell me which airlines you fly in Coach class which provides you power sockets, and i will tell you how to call DHS when you rush to the airplane's toilet to recharge your laptop. Other passengers might *wonder* why you want to rush to a toilet with your laptop unless... You get the idea. So, for us Mac users longevity, stamina and strength is a given. For you *PC* users you have none of them, which is why you need to rush to toilets and elsewhere... And thanks for the book suggestion: Although it would be more useful to you than me: I use a Mac which comes with a *real* printed manual rather than a PDF joke. Ta ta
Yup! Really a coincidence though: Only yesterday i was watching Tremors (the first one) on an USB stick on my Mac. The Mac was running on battery, and a DVD would suck it down. A USB copy though was lot easier on battery. As more people start watching movies on PC's and Macs, it makes sense to release it on a medium that's easier and portable. Hell, i could carry about a dozen USB sticks (write protected), when i go on trips. DivX is the ideal format for its small size and insane quality (HD). I hope the studios take notice and move out of the DVD and BluRay corset.
Not exactly true. Unsolicited? Yes, Spammer? Not really. If the owner had hidden his contact details while registering the domain, the buyer would attempt to make contact through a mediator like Godaddy.com Godaddy offers to make contact on buyer's behalf with the owner asking whether he would sell. For this godaddy makes money. So, the buyer has already spent money to contact an you. No self-respecting spammer would do so.
Lets say... zero. If you cam't find a girl on Earth, what are your chances against alien supermen? particularly someone who is built like Gort? In a bar fight, you can only win at ASDF keyboard battles.
When i started up on Java in 1997, i used the first edition of Java, The Complete Reference by Herbert Schild and Patrick Naughton. Nowadays the Naughton name does not come up as he was indicted on child porn. But his book remains the gold standard. Try that. Apart from that, study the specifications well. Java is all about specifications. Learn the limitations and you will go a long way.
Well... what to expect from a country that loved the nazis, their Gestapo and Stalin's NKVD so much that they did a threesome with all of them...so much so that neither Hitler nor Stalin invaded that little cow-bearing, laundered money haven of a two-bit country which would not exist if Germany so much as sneezed.
!!! well, i seriously didn't think of it that way. I always thought since kaspersky prevents attacks, it does not use up the bandwidth.... Probably another of my dumb assumptions... Thanks for the tip. Will check my actual usage (via BitMeter) versus the ISP's bill...
Its not just pirated movies and MS Office 2007 flying their f*cks here. Lots of people do business from their homes: medical Transcriptions where pictures are easily are about 30MB in size each. Video downloads and editing and uploading to rapidshare.com etc., Uploading home videos in HD to dotMac. Lots. Not just dumb ISOs...
My ISP charges by the amount of traffic for my measly 2 Mbps ADSL. 50GB traffic is free for $100/- per month. But no port limitations, nothing. Just the raw stuff. I have run my home servers (for test runs), used my Mac as FTP server (when i was downloading stuff into my laptop before i discovered rapidshare). My ISP does allow me to boost up the speeds to 8Mbps for short periods (2 hours max free of cost). I just that when iam downloading latest Torchwood episodes.
According to banking laws (atleast European), if a customer disputes a banking debit and claims it as unauthorised by him, then the onus is on the bank to prove the customer really did it. And the laws state the bank MUST refund the money to the customer if the transaction was not authorised by the customer. The law of limitation does NOT apply in such cases. The banking contract says the money is held by the bank on behalf of the customer which the bank cannot pay to someone else without the customer's written word. Origination of checks/cheques. A fradulent debit is no debit according to law. meaning the customer did not authorise such debit, and the bank helped itself to his money. According to law this is theft: The customer can really file a case of theft/robbery and if the lawyers are highly ingenious they can get the manager/CEO arrested for that crime. EU laws are pretty stricy on this count: Banks are trustees of our money, and even one whiff of scandal is enough to destroy all of them. I had an issue with my bank: They paid a post-dated check early to their corporate client: by seven days. The manager cunningly said, that since i was intending to pay the party anyways so what does it matter if i paid it one wek early!!! Well, my lawyer studied it deeply (for hardest ways to nail him), and we ended up filing a case of simple theft and criminal fraud against the bank's manager. It quickly became a criminal case since the courts here thought fraud amounts to embezzlement, which equals criminal charges, and hence asked me for proof: which i had. The manager was nailed on those charges and just before the judge signed the arrest warrant, the bank ponied up the money PLUS interest @ 33.36% P.A. (my credit card's rate). Until i was able to successfully withdraw all the money as cash, i kept the warrant in abeyance. I ended trashing the manager as criminal and continued with the warrant once i got the money: The bank was maaadddd! Fortunately my lawyer intervened, and the case was dismissed (not settled) when the bank proved i had my money. They closed my account next day.
Well if china did this, you will see a ?regime change in Beijing led by US: alone. If Japan did this, U would suddenly read in the newspapers about a japanese nuke attempt gone horribly wrong as a result of which Kyoto was... If Russia did this, you would suddenly see US marines landing in Georgia to "defend" it against US imperialism. You forgot that although the US tiger may be old, but it still has teeth and claws.
Oh yeah??? So how come when Sony installs rootkits on my open PC, the Government pats them on their back and allows them to go scot-free, but when i do it, it sends me to Gitmo?
All of your thoughts are fine, but you forgot one thing: you agree to rollover and let them sc!ew you. First of all, these changes change the terms of the original contract you signed with comcast: Take them to court and ask the court to enforce the terms comcast agreed initially. Comcast definitely will refuse and let you go. Fine, if enough customers do this, they will get the message. And don't contact this FCC: they will rule *against* you thus preventing you from going to courts.
No. You should NOT sue to get your money. The IRS doesn't sue you if you fail to pay taxes: they arrest you and auction off your property, all without going to court: because the law gives them the power. Suing the is the last option: If the law allows IRS to seize my assets and freeze my bank accounts on authority of its letters, the same law should allow me to freeze the accounts of government officials concerned (say tax refunds), arrest them and auction the government premises immediately all without going to court and crying my eyes out to the judge. Why should the low discriminate against a tax payer in favor of the government always? Socrates didn't say this when be proposed people's government, and Plato definitely didn't say this.
No, that's not what i meant. For instance if i owe IRS back taxes and they find out, they get a notice of arrest issued, arrest me, seize my property and sell it. Similarly, if the government owes me money, i should be able to walk up to the Town Hall, do a citizens' arrest of the nearest official i can lay my hands on, and sell off the town hall to recover my dues: without going to the court. The law permits IRS to do this: you goto court to defend yourself. Similarly the law needs to give me power to do the same thing: the government needs to goto the court to defend itself. The courts are when the either party disobeys law or contracts: the courts then step in to enforce the same if legal. The day iam able to arrest the nearest congressman (Pelosi), auction the State's assets to repay the government's debt to me, will be the day US actually has democracy and is a republic: until then its all a sham.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually you are right and wrong:
EA is but one company. THQ is far better.
I was about to buy Spore online Direct2Drive when i read the details and backed out. Unless Spore relents and removes DRM completely, iam not buying it.
Stardock did away with DRM plus they care shit about pirated copies. Which is why i purchased Sins of Solar Empire, even though i never play it. I bought it, mailed them about their good sense, but i don't play it (my genre is WW2 strategy, spacewars never interested me).
PCs excel at strategy like AoM, AoE, CoH, CoH OF, etc.
I prefer consoles for simpler games, but that's my preference.
For a second i read Prisons and my thought was flying to two facts:
1) All the homo stuff makes new *species*--i mean how is that even possible???
2) Mad Cow??? Do they serve all the bad beef in prison???
Note to submitter: Pls. be clear when you submit things like this: It shocks the hell out of some people.
Or better yet file a case in court asking it to throttle your payments to comcast: If comcast throttles your connection speed to a lower level for 20 mins, you can throttle your payment to a lower rate calculated exclusively by you for 20 mins. (say 8Mbps DSL costs $100 a month unlimited; that works out to 2 cents a minute. If the speed drops down to 15Kbps for 20 mins each day for 30 days it amounts to 8/100*0.0015*(600).
State to small-claims court that comcast is violating a contract by "damaging" goods: so you want to pay only for correctly arrived goods. Comcast's high-powered lawyers can't do shit here.
Get a court order allowing you not to pay for damaged goods: then apply your own definition of damaged goods and send off a payment you calculate along with the court order: If comcast refuses to accept the same, they are in violation of a court order: in which case you can "demand" they fulfill their contract. If they accept, then you have set a precedent.
Either way you win.
Use ingenuity instead of anger: corporates do the same. Logical, emotionless, greedy: be like them. Play them at their own game with a home advantage=Small claims court.
The indian IT environment is divided into two types:
1) Managers
2) Developers
Managers include a wide variety of completely useless, Blackberry carrying, rushing-to-meetings, ever-busy-calendar types who "manage" everything in project[s]. They don't actually contribute anything to the team other than tiring them with meetings, scrum, or some useless adminitrivia passed by HR/Admin to them. BUT, they are considered as Gods by the company management which seems to think projects succeed because of heroic efforts of a project manager. Managers can't be replaced. They are paid 5-10 times more pay than others. Plus most managers work 6-7 hours a day and work "from home" most times. Anybody who hates technology and says "i don't do coding" is automatically classified as "manager material" and promoted to his level of incompetency.
And if you have an MBA from a premier institute, all the more better: You never have to grow from bottom-up(read from developer). You straight-away become an Assist Project Manager or Deputy Project Manager, and your duties involve reading and answering hundreds of irrelevant mails each day, prostelyize in meetings about six sigma or ISO 9002, approving timesheets, approving leave requests[more often rejecting it as he is paid based on leave rejects], approving salary changes/variable pay[which again is a single large pool, so the manager takes his cut before he payshis team].
Developers are the workhorses of indian IT industry: They do all the work, including direct discussions with clients at times, putting in changes, coding, designing, etc. New developers assume managers are Gods and rush to them with every single problem or solution they have[thus reinforce the belief]. Experienced developers know that to get some work done, they need to get the manager our of the way: by agreeing to do whatever ridiculous changes the manager wants, and then silently doing what's necessary for the project.
Developers aspire to become managers some day, but while a few succeed, most drop out. Some are wiser: they stay away from this race and become architects!
Now architects are weird creations from a manager's perspective: Architects don't code[that's the rule]. They recommend designs and lay pathways for the developers to follow; yet they are not responsible when the project fails. In short an architect has all authority, but none of the responsibility. This poses a dilemma for the project manager: He is used to showering himself with Glory when the project succeeds, and blame the team when it fails (Teflon). This architect-thingy does the same thing. Most managers hence avoid interacting with architects. Some try to control the architect by overawing him: those who get overawed end up coding[they realize it later], some architects refuse to be intimidated and make sure the project succeeds at least cost to the team. (meaning the team is not broken).
Either way the architect and developer work 14-18 hours a day because like the Wehrmacht, they knew their allegiance is to the project and not to one man: even though they knew they will end up broken.
I don't know whether you are joking or serious: If you are joking, its not in good taste.
If you are serious, then probably what Ross Gellar said in one episode is true: "Not funny, and probably racist."
The current Indian Government pre-empted such a move by classifying IT as a "Profession", meaning no fixed working hours, no overtime pay, no benefits, but, we do need to pay close to $50 a year as Profession Tax.
Plus major indian IT cos have gone on record stating that long hours are simply "fiction" and each employee works only 8 hours a day: The last time i checked my team was working 14 hours a day.
Oh...my. Sorry. I just dumbed it down because am posting on Slashdot, and i don't which AC would come and bite me back in my ass if i use a modicum of techno-language.
Anywho, we Mac users don't really worry about directories (Folders in our parlance), we have Spotlight, so i can throw my junk anywhere on my disk[s] and either create a Virtual Folder or use spotlight to pinpoint it.
Plus, a USB drive uses less battery power than a spinning CD drive. Point in case for you mortal PC user: Your Dell/HP has less "staying" power on batteries than a Mac does. Mine goes 6-8 hours easily.
Tell me which airlines you fly in Coach class which provides you power sockets, and i will tell you how to call DHS when you rush to the airplane's toilet to recharge your laptop. Other passengers might *wonder* why you want to rush to a toilet with your laptop unless...
You get the idea.
So, for us Mac users longevity, stamina and strength is a given. For you *PC* users you have none of them, which is why you need to rush to toilets and elsewhere...
And thanks for the book suggestion: Although it would be more useful to you than me: I use a Mac which comes with a *real* printed manual rather than a PDF joke.
Ta ta
Yup! Really a coincidence though: Only yesterday i was watching Tremors (the first one) on an USB stick on my Mac. The Mac was running on battery, and a DVD would suck it down. A USB copy though was lot easier on battery.
As more people start watching movies on PC's and Macs, it makes sense to release it on a medium that's easier and portable. Hell, i could carry about a dozen USB sticks (write protected), when i go on trips.
DivX is the ideal format for its small size and insane quality (HD).
I hope the studios take notice and move out of the DVD and BluRay corset.
Not exactly true.
Unsolicited? Yes,
Spammer? Not really.
If the owner had hidden his contact details while registering the domain, the buyer would attempt to make contact through a mediator like Godaddy.com Godaddy offers to make contact on buyer's behalf with the owner asking whether he would sell. For this godaddy makes money.
So, the buyer has already spent money to contact an you. No self-respecting spammer would do so.
Am i the only one who thinks Palin is "Stacy's Mom"??? I mean look at her! At 44 she's HOT!
McCain sure has an eye for the ladies... yessire...
Lets say... zero.
If you cam't find a girl on Earth, what are your chances against alien supermen? particularly someone who is built like Gort?
In a bar fight, you can only win at ASDF keyboard battles.
Well.. now once he goes to prison he will be able to feel *it* up his ass. Best real advertising ever!
When i started up on Java in 1997, i used the first edition of Java, The Complete Reference by Herbert Schild and Patrick Naughton.
Nowadays the Naughton name does not come up as he was indicted on child porn.
But his book remains the gold standard.
Try that.
Apart from that, study the specifications well.
Java is all about specifications. Learn the limitations and you will go a long way.
Well... what to expect from a country that loved the nazis, their Gestapo and Stalin's NKVD so much that they did a threesome with all of them...so much so that neither Hitler nor Stalin invaded that little cow-bearing, laundered money haven of a two-bit country which would not exist if Germany so much as sneezed.
!!! well, i seriously didn't think of it that way.
I always thought since kaspersky prevents attacks, it does not use up the bandwidth....
Probably another of my dumb assumptions...
Thanks for the tip. Will check my actual usage (via BitMeter) versus the ISP's bill...
Its not just pirated movies and MS Office 2007 flying their f*cks here.
Lots of people do business from their homes: medical Transcriptions where pictures are easily are about 30MB in size each. Video downloads and editing and uploading to rapidshare.com etc., Uploading home videos in HD to dotMac.
Lots. Not just dumb ISOs...
Yup. That's it.
Thanks for correcting it.
Guess that's why one should preview and then submit.
My ISP charges by the amount of traffic for my measly 2 Mbps ADSL. 50GB traffic is free for $100/- per month.
But no port limitations, nothing. Just the raw stuff. I have run my home servers (for test runs), used my Mac as FTP server (when i was downloading stuff into my laptop before i discovered rapidshare).
My ISP does allow me to boost up the speeds to 8Mbps for short periods (2 hours max free of cost). I just that when iam downloading latest Torchwood episodes.
According to banking laws (atleast European), if a customer disputes a banking debit and claims it as unauthorised by him, then the onus is on the bank to prove the customer really did it. And the laws state the bank MUST refund the money to the customer if the transaction was not authorised by the customer. The law of limitation does NOT apply in such cases.
The banking contract says the money is held by the bank on behalf of the customer which the bank cannot pay to someone else without the customer's written word. Origination of checks/cheques.
A fradulent debit is no debit according to law. meaning the customer did not authorise such debit, and the bank helped itself to his money. According to law this is theft: The customer can really file a case of theft/robbery and if the lawyers are highly ingenious they can get the manager/CEO arrested for that crime.
EU laws are pretty stricy on this count: Banks are trustees of our money, and even one whiff of scandal is enough to destroy all of them.
I had an issue with my bank: They paid a post-dated check early to their corporate client: by seven days. The manager cunningly said, that since i was intending to pay the party anyways so what does it matter if i paid it one wek early!!!
Well, my lawyer studied it deeply (for hardest ways to nail him), and we ended up filing a case of simple theft and criminal fraud against the bank's manager. It quickly became a criminal case since the courts here thought fraud amounts to embezzlement, which equals criminal charges, and hence asked me for proof: which i had. The manager was nailed on those charges and just before the judge signed the arrest warrant, the bank ponied up the money PLUS interest @ 33.36% P.A. (my credit card's rate). Until i was able to successfully withdraw all the money as cash, i kept the warrant in abeyance.
I ended trashing the manager as criminal and continued with the warrant once i got the money: The bank was maaadddd!
Fortunately my lawyer intervened, and the case was dismissed (not settled) when the bank proved i had my money.
They closed my account next day.
Good thing China doesn't have a nuclear deterrent eh
According to Rice, Bolton and Abramoff (time to be pardoned), China is still a backward country which can be nuked with NO backdraft.
Well if china did this, you will see a ?regime change in Beijing led by US: alone.
If Japan did this, U would suddenly read in the newspapers about a japanese nuke attempt gone horribly wrong as a result of which Kyoto was...
If Russia did this, you would suddenly see US marines landing in Georgia to "defend" it against US imperialism.
You forgot that although the US tiger may be old, but it still has teeth and claws.
Oh yeah??? So how come when Sony installs rootkits on my open PC, the Government pats them on their back and allows them to go scot-free, but when i do it, it sends me to Gitmo?
All of your thoughts are fine, but you forgot one thing: you agree to rollover and let them sc!ew you.
First of all, these changes change the terms of the original contract you signed with comcast: Take them to court and ask the court to enforce the terms comcast agreed initially. Comcast definitely will refuse and let you go. Fine, if enough customers do this, they will get the message. And don't contact this FCC: they will rule *against* you thus preventing you from going to courts.
No. You should NOT sue to get your money. The IRS doesn't sue you if you fail to pay taxes: they arrest you and auction off your property, all without going to court: because the law gives them the power.
Suing the is the last option: If the law allows IRS to seize my assets and freeze my bank accounts on authority of its letters, the same law should allow me to freeze the accounts of government officials concerned (say tax refunds), arrest them and auction the government premises immediately all without going to court and crying my eyes out to the judge.
Why should the low discriminate against a tax payer in favor of the government always? Socrates didn't say this when be proposed people's government, and Plato definitely didn't say this.
No, that's not what i meant. For instance if i owe IRS back taxes and they find out, they get a notice of arrest issued, arrest me, seize my property and sell it.
Similarly, if the government owes me money, i should be able to walk up to the Town Hall, do a citizens' arrest of the nearest official i can lay my hands on, and sell off the town hall to recover my dues: without going to the court. The law permits IRS to do this: you goto court to defend yourself. Similarly the law needs to give me power to do the same thing: the government needs to goto the court to defend itself.
The courts are when the either party disobeys law or contracts: the courts then step in to enforce the same if legal.
The day iam able to arrest the nearest congressman (Pelosi), auction the State's assets to repay the government's debt to me, will be the day US actually has democracy and is a republic: until then its all a sham.