It seems to me like having nationwide 4G coverage would be a HUGE selling point for a telco, even in sparsely populated areas (we're everywhere, even while you're sleeping in the woods!!!), but they know they don't have to until forced.
I don't think most people are in such areas enough that they are willing to pay much more monthly for a service they will rarely if ever use.
Personally, I wouldn't pay an extra $10/month on my mobile bill to get mobile access while sleeping in the woods (or even driving through Wyoming). If I used such services a lot, I probably would be willing to, but obviously the carrier would have to segment the market somehow - for example, $60/month for urban/suburban coverage, $160/month if you include rural coverage (or, perhaps very high pay-as-you-go "rural network roaming" charges). The question is, would those who need it be willing to pay a premium high enough to pay for building out the infrastructure in areas where one person an hour (at peak time) uses the service?
...if you choose to live in the boonies, get get to pay the boonies premium of owning a satellite phone, satellite dish tv (satellite internet still requires an uplink path) and a needing at least two cars (don't get stuck with one dead one.)
Housing/property in the boonies is nearly always much cheaper than equivalent accommodations in/close to a big city - so there are some offsetting savings.
At least they are patenting it, which should prevent others from introducing this dumb idea.
They may turn it into a commercial product with a nice glossy cover on it that any PHB can use without even knowing what a "commit" is, let alone the contents of said commits in his/her organization.
Perhaps what is needed is a philanthropic organization to prevent problems like this. The organization could be funded by geeks' financial contributions and geeks could submit really bad ideas which should never see the light of day. The organization would then patent the ideas, the geek would sign over exclusive rights to the patent, and the organization would then "bury" the patent -- refusing to license it but aggressively defending it against others using it for evil. Perhaps the first truly useful patent troll organization!
Read my post again. In fact I do believe in life-work balance -- I, however, do not give preferential treatment (including compensation) to employees who have children over those who don't. To do otherwise would simply be unfair to those employees who don't currently have children.
Every employee gets a reasonable amount of flexibility -- but the amount of that flexibility is relatively fixed per employee except in exceptional cases (for example, illness or natural disaster or a house fire). Use it how you like -- the reality is that those with kids sometimes end up spending a lot of that flexibility on kid oriented stuff.
Employees with kids who disappear during the day to attend a "school event" are treated the same as employees who disappear during the day to play racquetball -- both are tolerated (within reason), but they are treated equally. There's no routine "extra" flexibility allotment for those with children.
When a customer crisis is unfolding and I need one of two engineers who know an area the best, I don't consider who I wake up based on if they have kids or not.
Having kids are a choice. Have as many as you want and can afford.
I assume you're talking about college for the kids. If you want to pay for your kids' college education, have fewer kids if necessary to afford it. Else, let them take out loans and find a reasonably priced school and work hard to get through as quickly as possible - they are, or are nearly so, adults by the time they get into college.
Anyway, as a hiring manager, I really don't care if you have kids or not and won't pay you more just because you do -- your kids are of no benefit to the company (and, often, serve as a distraction that reduces productivity).
Incorrect. If there is a legitimate reason for the act that is not spoliation, it's not a crime.
For example, most companies I've worked at the past ten years introduced or substantially revised their corporate wide "data retention policies" to cut back on how long they kept data (esp. email) that they were not legally required to keep longer or which business needs didn't dictate keeping longer (for example, records of ownership of property owned for decades). The companies of course claim this is to reduce storage and administrative costs -- this is mostly a lie, but no one can prove that beyond reasonable doubt. The fact that every one of these particular companies instituted or dramatically revised/enforced these corporate wide policies within months of a round of scandals (I think it was the Enron debacle but I don't recall for sure) is, of course, a mere coincidence.
The anti theft mechanism described is not, I think, unreasonable for security reasons. It would be the prosecution's job to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was done to destroy evidence, not to protect sensitive from release/use if the computer was stolen. The only serious challenge I see right off the top of my head is explaining (although it's not the defense's obligation to explain anything, sometimes it's necessary to counter the prosecution's explanation) why the data was important enough to protect from unauthorized release but not important enough to back up somewhere.
Sounds to me like a reasonable computer security system in case someone breaks into your house and takes your computer -- one wouldn't want their personal data to get out in such a case. Judge, I can't imagine any other reason to do this.
Agreed that if taxes are the only reason it's stupid. However, it's rarely the only consideration.
However, it factors into determining if one should pay off a low/moderate interest home loan when high interest/return options exist for that same money. All calculations need to include the tax consequences (and time value of money and risk of course), and for high income earners the tax issue can be a significant part of the equation which will tip the scales in favor of not paying off the loan early. This is esp. true if the alternative investments are returning LT cap gains or qualified dividends which are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income or if the investment will shift income into a time when one expects to be retired and have lower taxable income.
Effectively, the tax deduction for the interest portion of the mortgage payment can, depending on state tax laws/rates, cut the effective interest rate in about 1/2 in the early years of payment. That's a powerful influence on decisions.
My girlfriends 401k went from over $100k down to $12k. It's back up to $15k. 401k. Safe investment. It's your retirement nest egg. Well, until the stock market crashes, and all the funds tank.
Although I have no idea what company your girlfriend [insert/. meme about imaginary girlfriend here] works for, every 401(k) I've ever had offered very safe investments. It's hard to imagine a "safe" portfolio that dropped from $100K to $12K. Every one of them, for example, let me invest in some sort of money market fund (which really isn't "safe" due to the inflation risk - but it's a pretty safe place to park money until you move on to another job and can roll your unreasonable 401(k) over to an IRA with nearly unlimited options) and some form(s) of broad market index fund(s).
Also, I think in areas where the average homeowner really requires 25 years to pay off a house, the land is often a significant proportion of the cost because of location, location, location.
Many people who can easily pay off their house in far less than 25 or 30 years choose not to. Sometimes this is due to tax policy (such as in the US, most mortgage interest is tax deductible). Sometimes this is due to investment considerations (if a credit worthy borrower gets a fixed 30 mortgage at current interest rates and interest rates begin to climb, it will just be stupid to pay down the principal instead of put that money into high interest "safe" investments such as FDIC insured CDs or Treasuries). Sometimes this is due to lifestyle decisions (instead of paying down principal the borrower chooses to replace a perfectly serviceable five year old car with a shiny new car rather than driving the old car until it's no longer economically feasible).
The essence of a corporation doesn't require "special protections granted to them by the government" beyond the extent that any entity (individual or collective) relies on laws enacted and enforced by US/state/local governments (such as civil courts and bankruptcy laws).
It is true that corporations engage in regulatory capture and rent seeking due to the intrusiveness of the current system of governance in the US. However, this is simply exploiting opportunity and if the opportunity did not exist, the corporate model would still be viable.
On the other hand, government in the US interferes with large business entities (most of which are corporations) regularly via mechanisms such as anti-trust laws, regulation about publicly traded companies (such as Sarbanes–Oxley), minimum wage laws, and "consumer protection" laws (such as the Credit CARD Act of 2009). All of these limit the ability of providers of services/capital to freely negotiate with consumers of services/capital.
I lean strongly libertarian, but do see that some regulations are necessary and appropriate - such as limited anti-trust laws, reasonable patent and copyright laws, and laws requiring full disclosure to consumers (although, not laws that actually require shaping the transactions in some way -- full disclosure is enough). I certainly don't see corporations as a bad thing. Corporations provide a way for business entities to be created when, individually, no one person has enough capital to create and grow the business to the point where advanced development can be funded and economy of scale can be realized. As well, corporations can exist independent of the lifespan of a person (and the heirs) to continue to support existing product lines and expand and innovate -- which benefits everyone.
As any salesman knows, there's a fine line between being proactive and nagging. The latter is not appreciated by customers and can sour relationships and future sales - esp. important in enterprise products where relationships can last for decades and involve millions of dollars a quarter.
Note that in my hypothetical, the salesman was notified by the CIO when there was a problem suggesting that there was a good relationship between the salesman and the CIO. Also, the CIO got the audience with the CEO for the salesman and seemed to have the confidence that the salesman would come through and make use of the slot effectively -- again, suggesting there was a good relationship between the salesman and the CIO.
The salesman was also dealing at exactly the right level and it's apparent that the CIO had expected (and communicated that) the CEO to sign off and, unexpectedly, the CEO didn't. If the salesman had gotten the CEO's mobile number and pestered the CEO before there was a need, it might well have cost the sale. Similarly with pestering the CIO.
BTW, this is only barely a hypothetical -- the names and places have been changed to protect the guilty, but this sort of scenario plays out regularly.
One can fault the vendor for getting themselves into the "discount at end of quarter" cycle, but if you're about to raise money in a C round, meeting the quarter could be the difference between meeting payroll and not or at least employees getting their stock options diluted more than necessary or not.
Perhaps, but that's because systems and businesses are run by humans. Most humans have traits (such as greed, selfishness, drive to survive, desire for approval/success/power, et al) which result in them building systems that are "inherently and idiotically broken" by some standards. However, these same traits also result in advances that are useful.
Development of business and commerce (and the systems that arise in and around them) is an evolutionary process. As such, it will always have failures and retain a lot of stupid stuff mixed in with occasional great successes. This is true of capitalistic systems, communal societies, democracies, and totalitarian governments - really, most any human venture or system of commerce or government.
By the way, a consumer who shops around for the best price on something or delays a purchase because they expect something will get cheaper in the future is playing the same game as Sam and Chet (and perhaps Scrooge) is playing -- just at a much lower level where the individual consumer/vendor power balance is quite different. Indeed, in the US this "Christmas Shopping Season", consumers and retailers seem to have played the same game that Sam and Chet did - the consumers apparently (if one believes some news reports) waited hoping for sales, which forced the retailers to begin discounting early and deep to avoid having to dump the merchandise at even lower prices after Christmas.
In enterprise sales, it's not unusual for a customer to take negotiations down to the wire.
The customer knows that the vendor may be highly motivated to give deeper and deeper discounts as the end of the quarter approaches so it's often to the customer's advantage to drag it out. It's a game of chicken played out every quarter. Sometimes the customer misjudges and something goes wrong at his end (such as this potential case) and they lose a lot of their negotiating power on {Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct} 1. Sometimes of course, the customer discovers that end-of-quarter discounts are not happening this quarter because the vendor is going to meet their goals without this sale and may actually prefer to leave it in backlog.
The fact a salesperson is in this situation doesn't necessarily say anything bad about the salesperson. It may say something about bad about the company the salesperson works for (esp. if it's a large company) as offering end-of-quarter discounts sets a precedent that will bite later. However for smaller companies where two or three deals can be the difference between exceeding shareholder expectations and failing to meet them, it's sometimes hard to avoid.
Remind me again why the average US citizen is so violently opposed to the existence of trade unions, let alone joining one?
I don't know if this is true or not for the "average US citizen". However in the software development arena I've worked in for more years than I care to think about, I've never met a colleague who expressed the slightest interest in joining a union and when asked most are very opposed to doing so (as am I).
From my perspective, I enjoy much of what I do. I therefore find myself working long hours even when not 'required' - sometimes I'm working on the core product doing things I think will improve it from the customer's viewpoint or improve my and my colleagues lives dealing with the system. Much of this is not planned or required and if I were paid by the hour, I'd have to make a financial justification for it rather than just doing it and betting (correctly) that folks will like it (sure, they will gripe that it doesn't have all the features they would have put in -- simple answer: "have a go at it, let me know if I can help!")
In exchange for this effort and initiative, I expect to be (and am) paid well. I don't want a union negotiating on my behalf - I can take care of that myself.
For example, I don't want a union negotiating a contract that specifies work hours. When I'm an IC, I often work strange hours -- when in the groove coding or debugging a nasty problem stopping work really isn't possible, the brain would keep me awake all night begging to work on the problem. Therefore I may work until 3AM and, of course, probably not show up for work at exactly 9AM. Besides, it's not unusual at all for me to wake up in the wee hours of the morning with "the answer" (or at least a promising avenue to explore) to a nasty transient problem - is the union contract likely to include compensation for the hours my brain was working on the problem while sleeping and how on earth would I know how to record that time (I'm sure my brain is traversing the problem space a lot more than I'm consciously aware of -- it only seems to wake me when it has an 'ah-ha' moment and, even then, maybe it drops some of those on the floor and lets me sleep blissfully ignorant of the insight - who knows)?
Good bosses know what I'm good at (and what I'm not). They know what the impact would be (or not be!) if I were to leave or get demotivated. The shop steward wouldn't have the same personal interest in my success as my boss and I do.
I couldn't care less (either as an IC or a manager) why one developer is less productive than another unless I can somehow help them to be more productive. In particular, I don't care if they have a wife and three kids so they have "family stuff" to do or if they love surfing and disappear when the waves are awesome. I try to make reasonable accommodations for such things (and I consider surfing dude's distractions to be no less important than family guy's distractions - both made a conscious choice to be what they are) but only if those accommodations don't pose a significant burden on others and actually result in high productivity. If I have two developers who are equally "productive", I don't care if one of them is a genius and only works 2 hours a day and the other is "slow and reliable" and works 13 hours a day -- I would strive to pay them equally (yes, it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the crux of it). If the genius starts working 4 hours a day and his productivity scales, I would expect to pay him a lot more than "slow and reliable". If "slow and reliable" starts working 2 hours a day, they would probably get sent on their way very quickly if their productivity scaled down as a result.
Option 1: Get another job. Plenty of jobs don't require you to be accessible during vacation.
Option 2: Form a union (I'm assuming you are in the US based on context of your comments). Current laws likely give you this ability if at least half of your co-workers agree with you and see unionization as a solution.
why would [...] sales people need to be on call 24-7?
Suppose Sam the salesguy's bonus and/or the quarterly financial results and/or the sales team's reputation hinge in part on a pending $50M sale at MegastoreCorp.
Chet, MegastoreCorp's CIO, has assured Sam that "Scrooge [MegastoreCorp's CEO] is comfortable with the deal and will sign off on it. We will get the deal done by COB tomorrow so you can get it in this quarter and we can get our end-of-quarter firesale discount".
Sam might, just maybe, want to see the following email immediately rather than at 8AM:
From: Chet@MegastoreCorp.com
To: Sam@CoolSolutions.com
Date: Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 2:00 AM
Subj: Deal not sealed yet.
Sam,
Scrooge is balking at signing the deal. He's almost there but needs to see a competitive analysis between your solution and OldSchool's offering before signing. You had gone over some of this with my staff and it was quite compelling but I don't have the feature-by-feature comparison here. I tentatively got you 5 minutes with Scrooge on a remote conference at 9:15AM today so you can present. Please don't let me down here as I had to pull some strings to get the timeslot with Scrooge. Give me a call @7:30 to arrange logistics for the conference.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if safety scissors, on the average, kill and injure more people in the US than nuclear power plants do per year. Obviously if you include, for example, uranium mining accidents in the "nuclear count", you have to include some iron ore mining accidents in the "scissors count" as well.
I've not noticed a lot of Slashdotters indicating that they bath in hand sanitizer or spray Lysol all over the place so I can't comment on that.
However, when the subject of vaccines comes up, I've noticed quite a few Slashdotters do indicate that they trust and even partake of the common ones. (Again, however, I've not noticed that many of these indicate that they take untested vaccines and, indeed, it seems they are usually talking about vaccines that have been approved by the FDA which requires some degree of testing to be done). This position on vaccines seems consistent with not dismissing nuclear power plant just because something "unknown could go wrong" and ignoring the benefits that accrue from both. A pretty standard engineering approach - cost vs. benefit coupled with a realization that there are no 100% guarantees about hardly any aspect of life.
I don't follow charging plug technology/standards. However if "spilling electricity" is a problem, it seems that something very wrong has happened in the standards process for these plugs. (The size/weight of a 300A cable for a very weak person might be more of a problem, although it seems like even that could be addressed by fairly simple mechanical systems to counterbalance the weight.)
Presumably (I certainly hope!) the charging stations have GFCI protection to prevent injury/damage from some of the common screwups/failures (fault to ground through human being a particularly interesting one).
A firm verified locking engagement of the cable and car presumably (again, I certainly hope) is required before power is enabled and breaking that locked engagement presumably shuts off the power.
For extra credit, if the charging unit and the vehicle being charged ever disagree substantially on the amount of energy being transferred (due, for example, to a breakdown somewhere in the cable causing a short across positive/negative which would not be detected by GFCI but could lead to fire problems et al), the charger should presumably shut down (this might not be a very precise safety mechanism due to having to allow for varying resistances of cables/cars).
For super extra credit, provide a standard mechanism to allow a car to identify itself though the plug via a cryptographically secure mechanism (similar to smart card). This would facilitate employers, for example, allowing employees to recharge their registered cars for free with a minimum of hassle without opening the recharging up to everyone in the parking lot. It would also allow cardless recharging at commercial recharging stations -- just plug into a charging station that is on the ShellCharge network and your car is instantly recognized and you're billed as appropriate. It would also allow a multifamily dwelling complex to provide chargers in a very transparent fashion to their residents.
Responding only to the "the coffee sucks" tweet...
So, if a juror's wife asks "Where is the trial you are serving on in case I go into labor and need to get in touch with you?", is answering this question grounds for mistrial because it might help her figure out which trial you're on or the response might be a code phrase (perhaps through some carefully prearranged scheme, "Downtown Courthouse" might be code for "we're going to fry the guy" while "Main Courthouse" might be code for "the guy's gonna walk")?
What if she asks "Is the coffee any good at the courthouse, do you want me to make a thermos of coffee for you in the morning?" Is responding "Yes, thanks, please make me a thermos of coffee in the morning." grounds for mistrial because it implies that, indeed, the coffee sucks and this could be a "code" for something?
(1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or
(2) in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true;
is guilty of perjury and shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by law, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. This section is applicable whether the statement or subscription is made within or without the United States.
Suppose a juror, under oath (assuming jurors are under oath during voir dire in the jurisdiction), declares that they will apply the law as explained by the court and intends to do so at that time. If, during deliberations, a juror changes their mind and decides to engage in "jury nullification", there was no perjury because he has offered no statement that he did not believe to be true at the time he made the statement -- a complete defense against a perjury charge.
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I don't think most people are in such areas enough that they are willing to pay much more monthly for a service they will rarely if ever use.
Personally, I wouldn't pay an extra $10/month on my mobile bill to get mobile access while sleeping in the woods (or even driving through Wyoming). If I used such services a lot, I probably would be willing to, but obviously the carrier would have to segment the market somehow - for example, $60/month for urban/suburban coverage, $160/month if you include rural coverage (or, perhaps very high pay-as-you-go "rural network roaming" charges). The question is, would those who need it be willing to pay a premium high enough to pay for building out the infrastructure in areas where one person an hour (at peak time) uses the service?
Housing/property in the boonies is nearly always much cheaper than equivalent accommodations in/close to a big city - so there are some offsetting savings.
They may turn it into a commercial product with a nice glossy cover on it that any PHB can use without even knowing what a "commit" is, let alone the contents of said commits in his/her organization.
Perhaps what is needed is a philanthropic organization to prevent problems like this. The organization could be funded by geeks' financial contributions and geeks could submit really bad ideas which should never see the light of day. The organization would then patent the ideas, the geek would sign over exclusive rights to the patent, and the organization would then "bury" the patent -- refusing to license it but aggressively defending it against others using it for evil. Perhaps the first truly useful patent troll organization!
Read my post again. In fact I do believe in life-work balance -- I, however, do not give preferential treatment (including compensation) to employees who have children over those who don't. To do otherwise would simply be unfair to those employees who don't currently have children.
Every employee gets a reasonable amount of flexibility -- but the amount of that flexibility is relatively fixed per employee except in exceptional cases (for example, illness or natural disaster or a house fire). Use it how you like -- the reality is that those with kids sometimes end up spending a lot of that flexibility on kid oriented stuff.
Employees with kids who disappear during the day to attend a "school event" are treated the same as employees who disappear during the day to play racquetball -- both are tolerated (within reason), but they are treated equally. There's no routine "extra" flexibility allotment for those with children.
When a customer crisis is unfolding and I need one of two engineers who know an area the best, I don't consider who I wake up based on if they have kids or not.
Having kids are a choice. Have as many as you want and can afford.
I assume you're talking about college for the kids. If you want to pay for your kids' college education, have fewer kids if necessary to afford it. Else, let them take out loans and find a reasonably priced school and work hard to get through as quickly as possible - they are, or are nearly so, adults by the time they get into college.
Anyway, as a hiring manager, I really don't care if you have kids or not and won't pay you more just because you do -- your kids are of no benefit to the company (and, often, serve as a distraction that reduces productivity).
(Obviously I'm referring to criminal, not civil, proceedings above).
Incorrect. If there is a legitimate reason for the act that is not spoliation, it's not a crime.
For example, most companies I've worked at the past ten years introduced or substantially revised their corporate wide "data retention policies" to cut back on how long they kept data (esp. email) that they were not legally required to keep longer or which business needs didn't dictate keeping longer (for example, records of ownership of property owned for decades). The companies of course claim this is to reduce storage and administrative costs -- this is mostly a lie, but no one can prove that beyond reasonable doubt. The fact that every one of these particular companies instituted or dramatically revised/enforced these corporate wide policies within months of a round of scandals (I think it was the Enron debacle but I don't recall for sure) is, of course, a mere coincidence.
See here for a fairly frank discussion.
The anti theft mechanism described is not, I think, unreasonable for security reasons. It would be the prosecution's job to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was done to destroy evidence, not to protect sensitive from release/use if the computer was stolen. The only serious challenge I see right off the top of my head is explaining (although it's not the defense's obligation to explain anything, sometimes it's necessary to counter the prosecution's explanation) why the data was important enough to protect from unauthorized release but not important enough to back up somewhere.
Sounds to me like a reasonable computer security system in case someone breaks into your house and takes your computer -- one wouldn't want their personal data to get out in such a case. Judge, I can't imagine any other reason to do this.
Agreed that if taxes are the only reason it's stupid. However, it's rarely the only consideration.
However, it factors into determining if one should pay off a low/moderate interest home loan when high interest/return options exist for that same money. All calculations need to include the tax consequences (and time value of money and risk of course), and for high income earners the tax issue can be a significant part of the equation which will tip the scales in favor of not paying off the loan early. This is esp. true if the alternative investments are returning LT cap gains or qualified dividends which are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income or if the investment will shift income into a time when one expects to be retired and have lower taxable income.
Effectively, the tax deduction for the interest portion of the mortgage payment can, depending on state tax laws/rates, cut the effective interest rate in about 1/2 in the early years of payment. That's a powerful influence on decisions.
Although I have no idea what company your girlfriend [insert /. meme about imaginary girlfriend here] works for, every 401(k) I've ever had offered very safe investments. It's hard to imagine a "safe" portfolio that dropped from $100K to $12K. Every one of them, for example, let me invest in some sort of money market fund (which really isn't "safe" due to the inflation risk - but it's a pretty safe place to park money until you move on to another job and can roll your unreasonable 401(k) over to an IRA with nearly unlimited options) and some form(s) of broad market index fund(s).
Also, I think in areas where the average homeowner really requires 25 years to pay off a house, the land is often a significant proportion of the cost because of location, location, location.
Many people who can easily pay off their house in far less than 25 or 30 years choose not to. Sometimes this is due to tax policy (such as in the US, most mortgage interest is tax deductible). Sometimes this is due to investment considerations (if a credit worthy borrower gets a fixed 30 mortgage at current interest rates and interest rates begin to climb, it will just be stupid to pay down the principal instead of put that money into high interest "safe" investments such as FDIC insured CDs or Treasuries). Sometimes this is due to lifestyle decisions (instead of paying down principal the borrower chooses to replace a perfectly serviceable five year old car with a shiny new car rather than driving the old car until it's no longer economically feasible).
The essence of a corporation doesn't require "special protections granted to them by the government" beyond the extent that any entity (individual or collective) relies on laws enacted and enforced by US/state/local governments (such as civil courts and bankruptcy laws).
It is true that corporations engage in regulatory capture and rent seeking due to the intrusiveness of the current system of governance in the US. However, this is simply exploiting opportunity and if the opportunity did not exist, the corporate model would still be viable.
On the other hand, government in the US interferes with large business entities (most of which are corporations) regularly via mechanisms such as anti-trust laws, regulation about publicly traded companies (such as Sarbanes–Oxley), minimum wage laws, and "consumer protection" laws (such as the Credit CARD Act of 2009). All of these limit the ability of providers of services/capital to freely negotiate with consumers of services/capital.
I lean strongly libertarian, but do see that some regulations are necessary and appropriate - such as limited anti-trust laws, reasonable patent and copyright laws, and laws requiring full disclosure to consumers (although, not laws that actually require shaping the transactions in some way -- full disclosure is enough). I certainly don't see corporations as a bad thing. Corporations provide a way for business entities to be created when, individually, no one person has enough capital to create and grow the business to the point where advanced development can be funded and economy of scale can be realized. As well, corporations can exist independent of the lifespan of a person (and the heirs) to continue to support existing product lines and expand and innovate -- which benefits everyone.
As any salesman knows, there's a fine line between being proactive and nagging. The latter is not appreciated by customers and can sour relationships and future sales - esp. important in enterprise products where relationships can last for decades and involve millions of dollars a quarter.
Note that in my hypothetical, the salesman was notified by the CIO when there was a problem suggesting that there was a good relationship between the salesman and the CIO. Also, the CIO got the audience with the CEO for the salesman and seemed to have the confidence that the salesman would come through and make use of the slot effectively -- again, suggesting there was a good relationship between the salesman and the CIO.
The salesman was also dealing at exactly the right level and it's apparent that the CIO had expected (and communicated that) the CEO to sign off and, unexpectedly, the CEO didn't. If the salesman had gotten the CEO's mobile number and pestered the CEO before there was a need, it might well have cost the sale. Similarly with pestering the CIO.
BTW, this is only barely a hypothetical -- the names and places have been changed to protect the guilty, but this sort of scenario plays out regularly.
One can fault the vendor for getting themselves into the "discount at end of quarter" cycle, but if you're about to raise money in a C round, meeting the quarter could be the difference between meeting payroll and not or at least employees getting their stock options diluted more than necessary or not.
Ah, sounds like you've never dealt with vulture capitalists!
Perhaps, but that's because systems and businesses are run by humans. Most humans have traits (such as greed, selfishness, drive to survive, desire for approval/success/power, et al) which result in them building systems that are "inherently and idiotically broken" by some standards. However, these same traits also result in advances that are useful.
Development of business and commerce (and the systems that arise in and around them) is an evolutionary process. As such, it will always have failures and retain a lot of stupid stuff mixed in with occasional great successes. This is true of capitalistic systems, communal societies, democracies, and totalitarian governments - really, most any human venture or system of commerce or government.
By the way, a consumer who shops around for the best price on something or delays a purchase because they expect something will get cheaper in the future is playing the same game as Sam and Chet (and perhaps Scrooge) is playing -- just at a much lower level where the individual consumer/vendor power balance is quite different. Indeed, in the US this "Christmas Shopping Season", consumers and retailers seem to have played the same game that Sam and Chet did - the consumers apparently (if one believes some news reports) waited hoping for sales, which forced the retailers to begin discounting early and deep to avoid having to dump the merchandise at even lower prices after Christmas.
In enterprise sales, it's not unusual for a customer to take negotiations down to the wire.
The customer knows that the vendor may be highly motivated to give deeper and deeper discounts as the end of the quarter approaches so it's often to the customer's advantage to drag it out. It's a game of chicken played out every quarter. Sometimes the customer misjudges and something goes wrong at his end (such as this potential case) and they lose a lot of their negotiating power on {Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct} 1. Sometimes of course, the customer discovers that end-of-quarter discounts are not happening this quarter because the vendor is going to meet their goals without this sale and may actually prefer to leave it in backlog.
The fact a salesperson is in this situation doesn't necessarily say anything bad about the salesperson. It may say something about bad about the company the salesperson works for (esp. if it's a large company) as offering end-of-quarter discounts sets a precedent that will bite later. However for smaller companies where two or three deals can be the difference between exceeding shareholder expectations and failing to meet them, it's sometimes hard to avoid.
I don't know if this is true or not for the "average US citizen". However in the software development arena I've worked in for more years than I care to think about, I've never met a colleague who expressed the slightest interest in joining a union and when asked most are very opposed to doing so (as am I).
From my perspective, I enjoy much of what I do. I therefore find myself working long hours even when not 'required' - sometimes I'm working on the core product doing things I think will improve it from the customer's viewpoint or improve my and my colleagues lives dealing with the system. Much of this is not planned or required and if I were paid by the hour, I'd have to make a financial justification for it rather than just doing it and betting (correctly) that folks will like it (sure, they will gripe that it doesn't have all the features they would have put in -- simple answer: "have a go at it, let me know if I can help!")
In exchange for this effort and initiative, I expect to be (and am) paid well. I don't want a union negotiating on my behalf - I can take care of that myself.
For example, I don't want a union negotiating a contract that specifies work hours. When I'm an IC, I often work strange hours -- when in the groove coding or debugging a nasty problem stopping work really isn't possible, the brain would keep me awake all night begging to work on the problem. Therefore I may work until 3AM and, of course, probably not show up for work at exactly 9AM. Besides, it's not unusual at all for me to wake up in the wee hours of the morning with "the answer" (or at least a promising avenue to explore) to a nasty transient problem - is the union contract likely to include compensation for the hours my brain was working on the problem while sleeping and how on earth would I know how to record that time (I'm sure my brain is traversing the problem space a lot more than I'm consciously aware of -- it only seems to wake me when it has an 'ah-ha' moment and, even then, maybe it drops some of those on the floor and lets me sleep blissfully ignorant of the insight - who knows)?
Good bosses know what I'm good at (and what I'm not). They know what the impact would be (or not be!) if I were to leave or get demotivated. The shop steward wouldn't have the same personal interest in my success as my boss and I do.
I couldn't care less (either as an IC or a manager) why one developer is less productive than another unless I can somehow help them to be more productive. In particular, I don't care if they have a wife and three kids so they have "family stuff" to do or if they love surfing and disappear when the waves are awesome. I try to make reasonable accommodations for such things (and I consider surfing dude's distractions to be no less important than family guy's distractions - both made a conscious choice to be what they are) but only if those accommodations don't pose a significant burden on others and actually result in high productivity. If I have two developers who are equally "productive", I don't care if one of them is a genius and only works 2 hours a day and the other is "slow and reliable" and works 13 hours a day -- I would strive to pay them equally (yes, it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the crux of it). If the genius starts working 4 hours a day and his productivity scales, I would expect to pay him a lot more than "slow and reliable". If "slow and reliable" starts working 2 hours a day, they would probably get sent on their way very quickly if their productivity scaled down as a result.
Option 1: Get another job. Plenty of jobs don't require you to be accessible during vacation.
Option 2: Form a union (I'm assuming you are in the US based on context of your comments). Current laws likely give you this ability if at least half of your co-workers agree with you and see unionization as a solution.
Option 3: Keep whining.
Suppose Sam the salesguy's bonus and/or the quarterly financial results and/or the sales team's reputation hinge in part on a pending $50M sale at MegastoreCorp.
Chet, MegastoreCorp's CIO, has assured Sam that "Scrooge [MegastoreCorp's CEO] is comfortable with the deal and will sign off on it. We will get the deal done by COB tomorrow so you can get it in this quarter and we can get our end-of-quarter firesale discount".
Sam might, just maybe, want to see the following email immediately rather than at 8AM:
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if safety scissors, on the average, kill and injure more people in the US than nuclear power plants do per year. Obviously if you include, for example, uranium mining accidents in the "nuclear count", you have to include some iron ore mining accidents in the "scissors count" as well.
I've not noticed a lot of Slashdotters indicating that they bath in hand sanitizer or spray Lysol all over the place so I can't comment on that.
However, when the subject of vaccines comes up, I've noticed quite a few Slashdotters do indicate that they trust and even partake of the common ones. (Again, however, I've not noticed that many of these indicate that they take untested vaccines and, indeed, it seems they are usually talking about vaccines that have been approved by the FDA which requires some degree of testing to be done). This position on vaccines seems consistent with not dismissing nuclear power plant just because something "unknown could go wrong" and ignoring the benefits that accrue from both. A pretty standard engineering approach - cost vs. benefit coupled with a realization that there are no 100% guarantees about hardly any aspect of life.
I don't follow charging plug technology/standards. However if "spilling electricity" is a problem, it seems that something very wrong has happened in the standards process for these plugs. (The size/weight of a 300A cable for a very weak person might be more of a problem, although it seems like even that could be addressed by fairly simple mechanical systems to counterbalance the weight.)
Presumably (I certainly hope!) the charging stations have GFCI protection to prevent injury/damage from some of the common screwups/failures (fault to ground through human being a particularly interesting one).
A firm verified locking engagement of the cable and car presumably (again, I certainly hope) is required before power is enabled and breaking that locked engagement presumably shuts off the power.
For extra credit, if the charging unit and the vehicle being charged ever disagree substantially on the amount of energy being transferred (due, for example, to a breakdown somewhere in the cable causing a short across positive/negative which would not be detected by GFCI but could lead to fire problems et al), the charger should presumably shut down (this might not be a very precise safety mechanism due to having to allow for varying resistances of cables/cars).
For super extra credit, provide a standard mechanism to allow a car to identify itself though the plug via a cryptographically secure mechanism (similar to smart card). This would facilitate employers, for example, allowing employees to recharge their registered cars for free with a minimum of hassle without opening the recharging up to everyone in the parking lot. It would also allow cardless recharging at commercial recharging stations -- just plug into a charging station that is on the ShellCharge network and your car is instantly recognized and you're billed as appropriate. It would also allow a multifamily dwelling complex to provide chargers in a very transparent fashion to their residents.
Responding only to the "the coffee sucks" tweet...
So, if a juror's wife asks "Where is the trial you are serving on in case I go into labor and need to get in touch with you?", is answering this question grounds for mistrial because it might help her figure out which trial you're on or the response might be a code phrase (perhaps through some carefully prearranged scheme, "Downtown Courthouse" might be code for "we're going to fry the guy" while "Main Courthouse" might be code for "the guy's gonna walk")?
What if she asks "Is the coffee any good at the courthouse, do you want me to make a thermos of coffee for you in the morning?" Is responding "Yes, thanks, please make me a thermos of coffee in the morning." grounds for mistrial because it implies that, indeed, the coffee sucks and this could be a "code" for something?
Suppose a juror, under oath (assuming jurors are under oath during voir dire in the jurisdiction), declares that they will apply the law as explained by the court and intends to do so at that time. If, during deliberations, a juror changes their mind and decides to engage in "jury nullification", there was no perjury because he has offered no statement that he did not believe to be true at the time he made the statement -- a complete defense against a perjury charge.
Of course there was that O.J. thing.