I do on-site PC service work for a living. While technically, yes, that means I have opportunity to do some work "on the side" as well, reality doesn't usually allow much of it.
For starters, I have to be careful there's no conflict of interest. (If I do side work for someone who knew they could have gotten the same service by calling in to my work, but is purposely trying to go through me directly to cut his costs, then that's a good way to lose my primary job. You never know who will tattle on you somewhere down the road for doing this sort of thing!)
I knew a few Union electricians in the same boat, though. They got asked if they could install an electrical panel or what-not, over the weekends, "on the side" - and they were really afraid to agree to it; the risk of losing their license over it just wasn't worth it.
I try to limit my side jobs fixing spyware, upgrading hardware, etc. to friends and relatives only (and only when they're actually compensating me for the work!). My boss isn't going to care if I got paid on Sunday to fix my buddy's PC, but he *is* going to care if it's some random person off the street.
The car was purchased by me before we were married, and her name was never on the title.
That aside, though, yes - you're probably correct that the "better move" would have been pursuing the buyer of the car. Problem is, I had no idea until months later that she actually sold the car. When I first called and reported the car missing - I was under the impression that she just had it hidden somewhere. (One of her relatives was helping her out at the time, and they had a big garage which they could easily have been keeping my car in to prevent me from easily getting it back.)
Furthermore, although I'm pretty sure I found the buyer, she would never tell me who she sold it to - and the suspected buyer refused to return any of my phone calls I made, attempting to get more information or confirmation of a purchase.
The Dept. of Motor Vehicles won't give me information about the new buyer either, because they say that became "confidential information" ever since the title changed hands.
I never said *I* was running a mail server myself. I was referring to temporary IP bans in general... EG. I've been banned, temporarily, from IRC servers, because someone else on my ISP was causing repeated problems coming from different dynamic IPs in the same range as mine - and they just wanted a quick stiop to the problem.
No big deal, as far as I'm concerned, as long as they get to the bottom of the real problem shortly afterwards and don't punish the innocent indefinitely.
The police and their methods of handling crime are pathetic, from what I've personally observed.
EG. Wife took my modded sports car with custom stereo equipment, etc. etc. and during our divorce, proceeded to forge my signature on the title (was never titled in her name) and sold it. After nearly 6 months of complaining and making phone calls, I have yet to get anyone to see this as a criminal act worth pursuing! The local cops basically laughed at me, saying "Sucks to be you! But if your wife took it, it's not stolen. Only a civil case. Sorry." and went back to their donuts or whatever.
The prosecutor won't look into it because "We can't start ANY investigations without having a police report first."
So, thanks to this little "catch 22" and unwillingness of the police to bother with an investigation, I'm out a $35,000 or so car and forgery of a vehicle title goes unprosecuted. (To add insult to injury, the state sent me a personal property tax bill for the car, due by the end of December.)
Well, to be perfectly honest, people trying to blacklist specific dynamic IPs (or even small ranges of them) are just showing their ignorance of how the net works.
Part of verifying IPs as spam sites should include the obvious; checking to make sure it's not an IP in some ISP's dynamic IP pool.
This type of checking is already implemented by some ISPs when deciding if email should be accepted or not by their mail server. (My boss set up a small mail server on his Charter cable connection, for example. Charter, instead of issuing him a true static IP, decided to give him a "fixed dynamic IP". Basically, they just punched his network card's MAC address into their DHCP server and told it to always issue him the same IP out of their dynamic pool.) This causes his mail server to be unable to handle emails destined for AOL, because they know his IP is in a dynamic range for Charter.
Sometimes, I've seen my own dynamic IP come up as blacklisted on services, but a closer inspection typically shows they just blacklisted the whole ISP, or at least their whole pool of dynamic addresses. These types of bans are usually temporary measures put in place because they're having problems coming from somebody on that ISP and they can't afford to wait around until that ISP co-operates with them to track down the individual doing it.
I think Apple is already trying to leverage the iPod popularity... The new iMac G5 looking rather like a huge, docked iPod is no accident. (Look at the advertising they've done where you see the two side-by-side, if you don't think it's intentional!)
The stock analysts are expecting an increase in Mac sales too, based on strong iPod sales. They know the iPod is acting as a "bridge" of sorts, getting folks to consider Apple as a solid brand making quality products.
IMHO, Apple's biggest dilemma is software availability. When you buy your iPod, you can find just about any music you like and it can play it. When you buy your first iMac or iBook though - you CAN'T yet find quite a few programs (especially games, but apps too like AutoCAD, or a current version of Street Atlas USA... and the "promise" I once heard of Microsoft making Mac versions of all their apps is far from reality too). Don't get me wrong; there's a LOT of good stuff to run on a Mac. I own 3 Macs over here right now! But it's gonna dampen some people's experiences when they go to buy, say, Half Life 2, and find out "Oh, no Mac version is even so much as *planned* to ever come out?"
Here you've got a whole game centered around eating things and popping pills. Eat as much as you can before getting eaten yourself, and if you eat these magic "power pellets", you even get a chance to eat the "ghosts" that normally try to eat you!
Kids were brainwashed by Pac-Man and it started them on taking drugs and obesity. Don't you see!
Life's too short to miss out on opportunities because of fear of the unknown....
Sure, you might not get the 401K plan and whatnot... and yeah, that sucks. But I've done both, and right now - I'm working for a start-up type company that can't afford things like 401K plans, and I really may as well be a contractor, all things considered. (I do on-site service and pretty much have say-so on when calls are going to happen, within the client's wishes, of course. Nobody's really looking over my shoulder either. I just get the jobs done and turn in the time tickets afterwards.)
As many folks already said, there is no real "stability" out there in I.T. anymore. You can have the best job in the world for a huge company and next week, someone buys them out and your job vanishes... or their largest customers go bankrupt and they suddenly want to "downsize", or who knows?
Around 2001, I had to make a tough decision; stay in the industry I love and I'm most knowledgeable in, or get out and start over with a new career choice. I chose I.T. - and I realize when I did, I was choosing not to ever really "get rich" or have a stable, comfortable life. After the.com crash, a lot of major changes happened. Businesses started reconsidering how much money they should pump into computing, and focus shifted towards running with less human intervention and simplifying things to get less downtime. Off-shore outsourcing really got going too, and businesses that could get away with it dropped full-time I.T. employees in favor of contracts for "on call" workers if and when things broke.
Computers have become a commodity item like a microwave oven or a TV set. When it breaks, people can pitch it out and get a new, faster one. Repairs and upgrades look much less appealing than they once did. Profit margins are too slim to support good pay for those working with them.
That's just the facts... The days of your long, hard labor in this field paying off big are practically over -- at least until the "next great thing" comes along, the size of the Internet or "Multimedia". Who knows when that'll be?
Actually, it seems to me like it all depends.... I've had several relatives and family friends ask me quite a bit about "that whole Linux thing", pretty much out of the blue, after they realized I'm still working in the computer industry.
There's a fair bit of curiousity out there from people who've heard about these cheaper/free alternatives to Windows for their computers. Something they can run as easily as sticking a disc in a drive might be just the thing for them to take a first-hand peek at it.
Much really depends on how many of your family members/relatives already enjoy using a computer. In my direct family, practically nobody does. My mother uses the same PC I put together for her and gave her as an Xmas gift about 6 years ago - and she still struggles to remember exactly how she's supposed to check her email, print it out, and write replies to people. Honestly, she just hasn't been willing to put in the time it would take to get comfortable with using the few programs she wants to use.
Re:how is that different from other companies
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I'm not replying in some attempt to justify the parent poster's comments -- but the "Oh, starting your own business isn't so easy?" argument only goes so far.
I've worked with no less than 4 different groups of people trying to get new businesses off the ground - and the last 3 of them failed. The 4th. is my current employer, and I think we have a real shot at success/profitability with this business - but I'm putting in a LOT more effort than I'm be financially compensated for, simply because I believe in the thing and really want to see it go places.
Does all of that make me think huge salaries for C.E.O.'s are justified after all? Not necessarily! I often have to question whether those people made it from "small startup" to "C.E.O. of multi-billion dollar industry" through just "long and hard hours of work" or through fraud, deceptive business practices, and other dishonesty.
I feel like, especially with my current boss, he's a very honest guy and he won't even allow an accountant to do any "rule bending" to save him some $'s on taxes. He's great to work for and we're building a great reputation with our customers. BUT - the idea that this mentality could someday bring our business to become a huge conglomerate earning him millions a year? Just seems impossible, really.... I have to think he'd only get there by changing his tune and screwing some folks over, cheating on some taxes to get that extra "profit margin" in to make it over a "hump" in the business model, or something else not very ethical. Most of the truly honest businessmen/women end up running a small company that puts the food on their table back at home, but never really makes them "rich".
Why don't display manufacturers start labeling CRTs and LCD panels as to the maximum resolution they're rated for displaying w/pixel for pixel accuracy?
In the past, I guess this issue never even came up, because the electronic circuitry in the displays (and even in the video cards) weren't able to synch up with (or generate resolutions greater) than what the phosphors on the tube could display accurately.
But in the age of even "consumer grade" video boards outputing resolutions of upwards of 1600 pixels vertically, this point seems to be pretty valid.
Granted, the wide aspect ratio LCD panels (such as Apple's Cinema displays) are going to allow for accurate viewing of larger horizontal pixel resolutions before hitting their upper limits - but the vertical hasn't changed much.
Absolutely! I've done the same since day 1. But the problem is, the greedy copyright holders prefer to leverage the "letter of the law" against anyone possible, rather than look at the "intent of the law" and say "Hey... Maybe the *smart* thing to do would be only trying to prosecute folks counterfeiting our product and really making profit at our expense?"
By their very nature, these "recording/publication" industries are parasitic, though. Do they actually *create* ANY content at all?? Of course not! They're all about doing anything they can to convince people with more talent in one pinky finger than they collectively possess to sign up with them, so they can profit from the artists' skills.
As technology continues to empower the artists to do more self-promotion, recording/mixing, and distribution of their works - the reasons for working with the recording industry will keep diminishing. They know this, so they're going to milk this cash cow for as long as possible. (That means, bring in the lawyers! When you can't innovate, you litigate.... Sue your own customers. Whatever it takes....)
Well, I'm glad you are having better results than me with your Myth box. But I think my points still stand. If you browse the forums at www.mysettopbox.tv - you'll see plenty of complaints with stability problems, and hardly anything in the way of real solutions.
Most people seem to either be running older revisions (and missing out on some of the newer features), or anxiously awaiting the R5 release (which seems to still be a ways off).
I don't own a Tivo so I may be incorrect, but I thought Tivo owners had to pay for a subscription for the unit, and that gave them a different (and supposedly better) source of guide info than the free data offered at zap2it.com?
In any case, I don't know anyone who honestly found the MythTV solution to be "quick and easy" to set up and get working. Heck, I must have spent at least 2 or 3 days fighting with mine just to get it to center its display on my big-screen TV set properly, without "overscanning" too far and cutting things off on the edges, or starting to show an edge of an X window on one edge. Lots of people have to use custom X mode lines just to get things to synch up properly with given TVs, and if you own an ATI video card - good luck there too. It's a neat project, but FAR from "plug and play" like a Replay TV or Tivo would be.
I don't know if I necessarily agree. I think the Steam concept is a sound one, and it's great that it helps the developers get a larger chunk of the profit on software sales. But ultimately, I'd be more likely to support this type of online purchasing system if they shipped me out the software on a physical CD at some point after my online download.
For one thing, there are still quite a few CD-ROM drives out there that struggle to read recordable CDR discs. If you're one of those unlucky people, you count on having original CDs pressed on the silver media.
But also, the move away from providing anything tangible with a software purchase gets all of us ever closer to validating the legal stance that a software purchase is nothing more than paying for the privilege of using a piece of code according to all of the rules and regulations outlined in a legal contract. (We're already pretty much there, despite the fact that this idea really only got started back when "buying software" meant hiring developers to come out to your place and write a custom application for you.) In today's world of computers all running standard operating systems and most software being "off the shelf" packages for the masses, I'm not sure this should really apply.
If all you pay for is a download of some code that won't even run without permission from a central server someplace, you're supporting (with your dollars) that design philosophy. Smacks of a rental agreement to me, much more than a "purchase"....
Well, instead of going the Tivo route to begin with, I built a MythTV box and used the Knoppix Myth ISO to install it.
Let me tell you, if you're accustomed to the stability and reliability of a Tivo type device, you will NOT be happy with MythTV yet at all!
The current Knoppix Myth release (R4V5) has some serious flaws in it, including:
* MythWeather module often reports a "timeout error" while trying to collect current weather data, and makes you click a "retry" button to get your weather. (Seems like this started when they tried to add animated doppler radar map support.) This happens despite me being on a 3Mbit DSL connection, load-balanced with a second 3Mbit cable Inet connection - so I'm not exactly short on bandwidth!
* Lots of struggling reported by various users getting the "ivtv" drivers in it working reliably and smoothly. I've tried compiling in various versions for my relatively basic Myth setup (Hauppage PVR-250 card and GeForce 4TI 4600 video card in a Pentium 4 1.8Ghz system w/512MB RAM) and I still get everything from occasional glitches in the video to the whole thing freezing up and requiring a reboot to return to normal operation.
* Free TV guide data Myth utilizes (via zap2it.com) is lacking in several ways. Primarily, pay-per-view events on satellite TV are not detailed at all. They all simply say "PPV event" in the listing.
* If you're like most users, wanting to use MythTV with a cable box or Dish Network satellite receiver, you'll have to build your own "IR Blaster" (I.R. LED soldered to some wire and a serial port connector), so your Myth box can pretend its a remote control and change the channels on the receiver. This wasn't terribly difficult or very expensive to make, but it's just another additional hassle to keep in mind. Some receivers don't catch all the digits sent too well either, requiring you fiddle with timing values in the script to get it working reliably.
Well, technically, ok - I guess it is still a "ROMPler" instrument... It has a giant data file that goes with it, that contains the raw sample data it uses.
But from reading Steinberg's instruction manual, it sounds to me like it goes far beyond simply playing back individual samples....
I get the impression that if anything, it's a "hybrid" of sorts. It has raw sound data it works with, but does a lot to process and alter that data for realistic results, instead of just playing it back exactly as recorded (with standard things like reverb or chorus effects optionally added).
A drunk driver who hasn't killed anyone has not committed that particular crime. If you're going to punish the drunk driver who does no harm equal to the drunk driver who kills someone, you're effectively handing out advance punishments for theoretical crimes you believe people were "about to commit". (Not too far off from the "justice" depicted in "Minority Report", when you think about it.)
It's really not that difficult to be legally intoxicated, yet not necessarily very much impaired to drive at all. Much depends on the "tolerance" of the individual. In a truly fair legal system, I would think the only arrests that should be made would be directly related to a person's inability to drive their vehicle in a safe, correct manner. Unfortunately, the people upset (with good reason) at having loved ones die due to intoxicated drivers have convinced the police to conduct random sobriety checks and other "guilty until proven innocent" endeavors, in an attempt to stop drunk driving.
As a musician myself, I have to agree that tube amps have their own unique "tone" and haven't ever been perfectly reproduced yet by solid state gear.
Still, I also feel it's only a matter of time. One of the biggest problems is that so far, most solid state gear (like the drum machines of the 80's and 90's) simply plays back digital samples of the real instruments. This will *never* be sufficient, because at best, you only have a perfect reproduction of one particular "hit" of a given drum or cymbal. Played over and over, this will sound too artificial. Real drummers are *human*. They don't hit the drum in the exact same place with the exact same intensity every time with the stick. Their timing is ever-so-slightly off, too, unlike a machine. Not only that, but as a drummer plays, the environment changes slightly. He/she may scoot a little bit closer or further from the drum kit, or the bolts and clamps holding everything together may be a little bit looser as a session progresses. The drum heads themselves are in various states of wear at different times too. All of these little nuances result in sample playback sounding "not quite right" to people after listening to it enough.
Where there's promise is the computer simulations of instruments. Take a virtual instrument like Steinberg's "The Grand" (grand piano soft-synth). Instead of just playing back a bunch of samples, it's synthesizing the sound, even accounting for such things as the reverberation of adjacent strings to the one vibrating from playing a given note, and the ability to reproduce the dull "thuds" of the hammers in the piano, usually only heard by the person playing the instrument.
Simulations of guitar amps are improving all the time, too. The Line 6 stuff is amazing compared to anything that came before. (I used to think my ART SGX-2000 was "incredible" - but it pales compared to even the original Pod.) As CPU power gets cheaper and people learn more about what makes a "tube sound" unique, we'll reach a point where you can't tell the tube amp from the effects processor simulating one.
Well, you can - but our government also has a system in place to effectively bypass this "obstruction" whenever they find it too inconvenient... eminent domain.
I live pretty close to a major airport that forced practically an entire municipality out of their homes for the sake of runway expansion -- and now, it's really questionable if they'll even use the extra capacity! Did they give any of these people true "fair market value" for their property? Heck no... They claimed it was all practically worthless and kicked them all out for cheap.
What's my point here? I guess nothing, except it's interesting how government always finds loopholes for its own purposes - but the "little guy" is probably stuck. Think I.P. patents are any different? Yeah, right.... How often do you hear the military get in trouble for violating someone's patent when they're developing secret new weapons technology? If it's "in the interest of national security", average Joe patent-holder isn't going to even be allowed to find out if they ripped of his idea or not.
The idea of joining a union sounds great on the surface, but honestly - it hasn't worked so well for most people.
Think about it... When unions got started, it was in labor-heavy industries predominantly employing the physically tough, though not necessarily high I.Q.
When you get a bunch of big guys real upset with how they're being treated, and they're not statistically the most likely bunch to sit down and listen to reason - you've got a real problem on your hands. Therefore, their "collective bargaining power" was significant.
Look at what the unions have done for others, though, such as grocery store workers. Many times, after paying their union dues, they're coming out not so far from min. wage pay. Sure, if they stick with their dead-end job long enough, there's some sort of reward for them (maybe $12 to even $18/hr. or so for cashiers?). But what would these folks be earning if, instead, they treated these jobs as the dead-ends they really are, got more of an education, and tried for higher-paying jobs elsewhere? The grocery store workers went on strike around here not that long ago, and it seems to me - all they really got was stores installing more "self-checkout" lanes so they could get by with fewer employees.
I see the same thing happening if, say, software developers formed a union. You'd have a bunch of intelligent but relatively non-threatening people demanding pay that the industry wouldn't want to give out. The immigrants, younger folks who just want their first "real job" and other such people would take the positions, and the "union developers" would be sitting around unemployed or underemployed most of the time.
Considering the BSA's track record of bullying tactics, brainwashing the masses with simplistic explanations of what piracy is all about, and so on - yes, I'd agree that they would still go after a company that owned a number of software licenses for a package, yet licensed one using the wrong key.
Nonetheless, that DOESN'T mean they'd win their case. (In fact, hasn't the BSA simply threatened most people they've gone after, scaring them into compliance, rather than actually fighting it out in court?)
If I purchase 250 Windows licenses for my company, and can prove that I'm only using a total of 250 machines - then where's the real issue? (In fact, this very thing came up at least 4 years ago, when businesses started making use of drive cloning software like Symantec Ghost to easily restore workstations to a specific configuration. You'd clone one, and then the drive image contained the CD key of that particular copy of Windows. Restore it back to multiple computers, and now you've got multiple computers sharing a key only intended for use with one PC.) Of course, businesses (rightly, IMHO) assumed this was perfectly legal as long as they retained proof that they purchased enough Windows licenses to cover all of the computers.
Problem was (is?), MS begged to differ, making claims that particular copies of Windows and their accompanying key were tied to specific systems (at least when they came as a bundle with the hardware), and businesses needed to buy "additional full-retail or volume licenses" for Windows if they wanted to swap the keys among multiple computers. (Their claim was, a discounted OEM version of Windows wasn't really as flexible, legally speaking, as the full price retail or volume licensed versions!?!)
Well, once again, this wasn't really tested in a court of law - because the outcry from large corporations caused MS to quickly shut up about the whole issue, and pretend it didn't exist after all. So now, who really knows?
This EA story sickens me, but sure doesn't surprise me. Since I've always worked on the hardware and support side of the PC industry (not software development), I haven't been pushed quite as hard as the coders out there who are always supposed to "make the impossible happen, and do it yesterday!". Nonetheless, I experienced my share of this in corporate I.T. - and I did my best not to accept it, except on the occasions where I could see I had to "give in" or else surely lose my job. In the end, I did lose my job with one of these places - but looking back, it was for the best.
The fact is, one of management's primary roles SHOULD be figuring out how to best utilize their workers within a 40 hour work-week timeframe. Instead, many seem to think it's about manipulating the employees any way possible to achieve specific goals/milestones.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I find that I can get an awful lot accomplished around my own house if I actually get 8 hour blocks of time each day I can allocate to doing the tasks. And that's taking into consideration the fact that I'm working on these projects/tasks/chores single-handedly, with limited tools and resources at my disposal! If a business with anywhere from dozens to thousands of employees can't get their projects done with each of the people working 8 hour days, 5 days a week - they're NOT MANAGING THEIR RESOURCES PROPERLY!
I'm not denying that a *small minority* of people might do the whole thing of returning items just to try to buy them again at discount - but I think my original statement is still valid. It's simply not something that a store should be concerned enough about to create new, customer-hostile policies to prevent.
(In your example of a hitman or murderer, no - I may not personally know anyone who has done those things, but I can completely understand the motivation for them and why some folks would kill. That's quite a bit different than acting out small scams to make some extra cash off of retail outlets.)
The "re shrink-wrap" scam you mention is interesting, because I was a victim of that very thing at Best Buy, years ago. I bought a new 28.8K internal Zoom modem, and when I got home and opened the box, a used 2400 baud was in the package! I tried to exchange it and I was treated like a criminal by everyone in the store. I was quite upset - because I tried explaining how the scam could easily have been pulled, and all I got were sighs and dirty looks, like *I* was the one who must have re shrink-wrapped it. That kept me out of Best Buy for months afterwards, actually.
True about Apple, and I was going to mention that too. Apple sells their systems a lot like Saturn did cars. Offer a fixed price on new ones, and you'll keep the resale values relatively high for people down the road. The consumer pays a little more up-front but ends up with more of an investment and less of a "net loss".
Only thing is about this method of sales, it seems to only be effective with larger purchases. If you sell relatively inexpensive "consumables" or "accessory items" at fixed prices, it seems to backfire at some point. (Look at IOMega and their pretty much fixed-price policy on zip drives and media, for example.)
To sell at a fixed price, you have to have a product deemed valuable enough that consumers decide it's one they plan on keeping for a relatively long time, and expect to be able to recoup some money on at the end of their use of it.
I can't say I agree with the parent poster... First of all, Best Buy is concerned about people buying new products and then returning them on purpose, just so they can buy them again later off the rebate tables??
I'm sorry, but that's a load of B.S. I never knew *anyone* who would purposely do this - because quite frankly, it's a huge waste of time (and time = money, don't forget). You have no guarantee the item you return will ever make it to a sale table, for one thing. Many times, manufacturers will accept opened merchandise returned by stores directly to them. But even if it did, you don't know exactly WHEN it will be put back out there, and unless you hound the store looking for the item's appearance, someone else may buy it first. Then you completely wasted all of your time and effort. To top it off, merchandise that's not missing anything and is simply an "open box" deal isn't discounted too heavily. Especially at stores like Best Buy, you're often lucky to get more than maybe 10% off for that. Even for 20% off, the savings is probably not worth all this time and trouble.
As for buying a product "at rebate" and returning it to keep the price difference, I'm not sure I get that one at all? If you mean buying it to get a mail-in rebate and then returning it - that's why they always make you cut up the boxes to get the rebates. Stores can easily see when a UPC code is cut out and know what you're trying to do. When was this ever really an issue? Furthermore, if it is because they're allowing returns where a customer claims the "original box got wet and is ruined" or whatever - so what? The best solution to that is to quit doing all the mail-in rebates paid for by Best Buy Corporation themselves, and only do manufacturer rebates. Just give people the better price up-front and quit the game playing, and you'll avoid this potential loss. (But they don't, because they stand to gain more than they lose from folks who don't bother to do the work of mailing in for the rebates, or lose their receipts and can't do it, etc. etc.)
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I do on-site PC service work for a living. While technically, yes, that means I have opportunity to do some work "on the side" as well, reality doesn't usually allow much of it.
For starters, I have to be careful there's no conflict of interest. (If I do side work for someone who knew they could have gotten the same service by calling in to my work, but is purposely trying to go through me directly to cut his costs, then that's a good way to lose my primary job. You never know who will tattle on you somewhere down the road for doing this sort of thing!)
I knew a few Union electricians in the same boat, though. They got asked if they could install an electrical panel or what-not, over the weekends, "on the side" - and they were really afraid to agree to it; the risk of losing their license over it just wasn't worth it.
I try to limit my side jobs fixing spyware, upgrading hardware, etc. to friends and relatives only (and only when they're actually compensating me for the work!). My boss isn't going to care if I got paid on Sunday to fix my buddy's PC, but he *is* going to care if it's some random person off the street.
The car was purchased by me before we were married, and her name was never on the title.
That aside, though, yes - you're probably correct that the "better move" would have been pursuing the buyer of the car. Problem is, I had no idea until months later that she actually sold the car. When I first called and reported the car missing - I was under the impression that she just had it hidden somewhere. (One of her relatives was helping her out at the time, and they had a big garage which they could easily have been keeping my car in to prevent me from easily getting it back.)
Furthermore, although I'm pretty sure I found the buyer, she would never tell me who she sold it to - and the suspected buyer refused to return any of my phone calls I made, attempting to get more information or confirmation of a purchase.
The Dept. of Motor Vehicles won't give me information about the new buyer either, because they say that became "confidential information" ever since the title changed hands.
I never said *I* was running a mail server myself. I was referring to temporary IP bans in general... EG. I've been banned, temporarily, from IRC servers, because someone else on my ISP was causing repeated problems coming from different dynamic IPs in the same range as mine - and they just wanted a quick stiop to the problem.
No big deal, as far as I'm concerned, as long as they get to the bottom of the real problem shortly afterwards and don't punish the innocent indefinitely.
Yep, no doubt....
The police and their methods of handling crime are pathetic, from what I've personally observed.
EG. Wife took my modded sports car with custom stereo equipment, etc. etc. and during our divorce, proceeded to forge my signature on the title (was never titled in her name) and sold it. After nearly 6 months of complaining and making phone calls, I have yet to get anyone to see this as a criminal act worth pursuing! The local cops basically laughed at me, saying "Sucks to be you! But if your wife took it, it's not stolen. Only a civil case. Sorry." and went back to their donuts or whatever.
The prosecutor won't look into it because "We can't start ANY investigations without having a police report first."
So, thanks to this little "catch 22" and unwillingness of the police to bother with an investigation, I'm out a $35,000 or so car and forgery of a vehicle title goes unprosecuted. (To add insult to injury, the state sent me a personal property tax bill for the car, due by the end of December.)
Well, to be perfectly honest, people trying to blacklist specific dynamic IPs (or even small ranges of them) are just showing their ignorance of how the net works.
Part of verifying IPs as spam sites should include the obvious; checking to make sure it's not an IP in some ISP's dynamic IP pool.
This type of checking is already implemented by some ISPs when deciding if email should be accepted or not by their mail server. (My boss set up a small mail server on his Charter cable connection, for example. Charter, instead of issuing him a true static IP, decided to give him a "fixed dynamic IP". Basically, they just punched his network card's MAC address into their DHCP server and told it to always issue him the same IP out of their dynamic pool.) This causes his mail server to be unable to handle emails destined for AOL, because they know his IP is in a dynamic range for Charter.
Sometimes, I've seen my own dynamic IP come up as blacklisted on services, but a closer inspection typically shows they just blacklisted the whole ISP, or at least their whole pool of dynamic addresses. These types of bans are usually temporary measures put in place because they're having problems coming from somebody on that ISP and they can't afford to wait around until that ISP co-operates with them to track down the individual doing it.
I think Apple is already trying to leverage the iPod popularity ... The new iMac G5 looking rather like a huge, docked iPod is no accident. (Look at the advertising they've done where you see the two side-by-side, if you don't think it's intentional!)
The stock analysts are expecting an increase in Mac sales too, based on strong iPod sales. They know the iPod is acting as a "bridge" of sorts, getting folks to consider Apple as a solid brand making quality products.
IMHO, Apple's biggest dilemma is software availability. When you buy your iPod, you can find just about any music you like and it can play it. When you buy your first iMac or iBook though - you CAN'T yet find quite a few programs (especially games, but apps too like AutoCAD, or a current version of Street Atlas USA... and the "promise" I once heard of Microsoft making Mac versions of all their apps is far from reality too). Don't get me wrong; there's a LOT of good stuff to run on a Mac. I own 3 Macs over here right now! But it's gonna dampen some people's experiences when they go to buy, say, Half Life 2, and find out "Oh, no Mac version is even so much as *planned* to ever come out?"
Here you've got a whole game centered around eating things and popping pills. Eat as much as you can before getting eaten yourself, and if you eat these magic "power pellets", you even get a chance to eat the "ghosts" that normally try to eat you!
Kids were brainwashed by Pac-Man and it started them on taking drugs and obesity. Don't you see!
Life's too short to miss out on opportunities because of fear of the unknown....
... or their largest customers go bankrupt and they suddenly want to "downsize", or who knows?
.com crash, a lot of major changes happened. Businesses started reconsidering how much money they should pump into computing, and focus shifted towards running with less human intervention and simplifying things to get less downtime. Off-shore outsourcing really got going too, and businesses that could get away with it dropped full-time I.T. employees in favor of contracts for "on call" workers if and when things broke.
Sure, you might not get the 401K plan and whatnot... and yeah, that sucks. But I've done both, and right now - I'm working for a start-up type company that can't afford things like 401K plans, and I really may as well be a contractor, all things considered. (I do on-site service and pretty much have say-so on when calls are going to happen, within the client's wishes, of course. Nobody's really looking over my shoulder either. I just get the jobs done and turn in the time tickets afterwards.)
As many folks already said, there is no real "stability" out there in I.T. anymore. You can have the best job in the world for a huge company and next week, someone buys them out and your job vanishes
Around 2001, I had to make a tough decision; stay in the industry I love and I'm most knowledgeable in, or get out and start over with a new career choice. I chose I.T. - and I realize when I did, I was choosing not to ever really "get rich" or have a stable, comfortable life. After the
Computers have become a commodity item like a microwave oven or a TV set. When it breaks, people can pitch it out and get a new, faster one. Repairs and upgrades look much less appealing than they once did. Profit margins are too slim to support good pay for those working with them.
That's just the facts... The days of your long, hard labor in this field paying off big are practically over -- at least until the "next great thing" comes along, the size of the Internet or "Multimedia". Who knows when that'll be?
Actually, it seems to me like it all depends.... I've had several relatives and family friends ask me quite a bit about "that whole Linux thing", pretty much out of the blue, after they realized I'm still working in the computer industry.
There's a fair bit of curiousity out there from people who've heard about these cheaper/free alternatives to Windows for their computers. Something they can run as easily as sticking a disc in a drive might be just the thing for them to take a first-hand peek at it.
Much really depends on how many of your family members/relatives already enjoy using a computer. In my direct family, practically nobody does. My mother uses the same PC I put together for her and gave her as an Xmas gift about 6 years ago - and she still struggles to remember exactly how she's supposed to check her email, print it out, and write replies to people. Honestly, she just hasn't been willing to put in the time it would take to get comfortable with using the few programs she wants to use.
I'm not replying in some attempt to justify the parent poster's comments -- but the "Oh, starting your own business isn't so easy?" argument only goes so far.
I've worked with no less than 4 different groups of people trying to get new businesses off the ground - and the last 3 of them failed. The 4th. is my current employer, and I think we have a real shot at success/profitability with this business - but I'm putting in a LOT more effort than I'm be financially compensated for, simply because I believe in the thing and really want to see it go places.
Does all of that make me think huge salaries for C.E.O.'s are justified after all? Not necessarily! I often have to question whether those people made it from "small startup" to "C.E.O. of multi-billion dollar industry" through just "long and hard hours of work" or through fraud, deceptive business practices, and other dishonesty.
I feel like, especially with my current boss, he's a very honest guy and he won't even allow an accountant to do any "rule bending" to save him some $'s on taxes. He's great to work for and we're building a great reputation with our customers. BUT - the idea that this mentality could someday bring our business to become a huge conglomerate earning him millions a year? Just seems impossible, really.... I have to think he'd only get there by changing his tune and screwing some folks over, cheating on some taxes to get that extra "profit margin" in to make it over a "hump" in the business model, or something else not very ethical. Most of the truly honest businessmen/women end up running a small company that puts the food on their table back at home, but never really makes them "rich".
Why don't display manufacturers start labeling CRTs and LCD panels as to the maximum resolution they're rated for displaying w/pixel for pixel accuracy?
In the past, I guess this issue never even came up, because the electronic circuitry in the displays (and even in the video cards) weren't able to synch up with (or generate resolutions greater) than what the phosphors on the tube could display accurately.
But in the age of even "consumer grade" video boards outputing resolutions of upwards of 1600 pixels vertically, this point seems to be pretty valid.
Granted, the wide aspect ratio LCD panels (such as Apple's Cinema displays) are going to allow for accurate viewing of larger horizontal pixel resolutions before hitting their upper limits - but the vertical hasn't changed much.
Absolutely! I've done the same since day 1. But the problem is, the greedy copyright holders prefer to leverage the "letter of the law" against anyone possible, rather than look at the "intent of the law" and say "Hey... Maybe the *smart* thing to do would be only trying to prosecute folks counterfeiting our product and really making profit at our expense?"
By their very nature, these "recording/publication" industries are parasitic, though. Do they actually *create* ANY content at all?? Of course not! They're all about doing anything they can to convince people with more talent in one pinky finger than they collectively possess to sign up with them, so they can profit from the artists' skills.
As technology continues to empower the artists to do more self-promotion, recording/mixing, and distribution of their works - the reasons for working with the recording industry will keep diminishing. They know this, so they're going to milk this cash cow for as long as possible. (That means, bring in the lawyers! When you can't innovate, you litigate.... Sue your own customers. Whatever it takes....)
Well, I'm glad you are having better results than me with your Myth box. But I think my points still stand. If you browse the forums at www.mysettopbox.tv - you'll see plenty of complaints with stability problems, and hardly anything in the way of real solutions.
Most people seem to either be running older revisions (and missing out on some of the newer features), or anxiously awaiting the R5 release (which seems to still be a ways off).
I don't own a Tivo so I may be incorrect, but I thought Tivo owners had to pay for a subscription for the unit, and that gave them a different (and supposedly better) source of guide info than the free data offered at zap2it.com?
In any case, I don't know anyone who honestly found the MythTV solution to be "quick and easy" to set up and get working. Heck, I must have spent at least 2 or 3 days fighting with mine just to get it to center its display on my big-screen TV set properly, without "overscanning" too far and cutting things off on the edges, or starting to show an edge of an X window on one edge. Lots of people have to use custom X mode lines just to get things to synch up properly with given TVs, and if you own an ATI video card - good luck there too. It's a neat project, but FAR from "plug and play" like a Replay TV or Tivo would be.
I don't know if I necessarily agree. I think the Steam concept is a sound one, and it's great that it helps the developers get a larger chunk of the profit on software sales. But ultimately, I'd be more likely to support this type of online purchasing system if they shipped me out the software on a physical CD at some point after my online download.
For one thing, there are still quite a few CD-ROM drives out there that struggle to read recordable CDR discs. If you're one of those unlucky people, you count on having original CDs pressed on the silver media.
But also, the move away from providing anything tangible with a software purchase gets all of us ever closer to validating the legal stance that a software purchase is nothing more than paying for the privilege of using a piece of code according to all of the rules and regulations outlined in a legal contract. (We're already pretty much there, despite the fact that this idea really only got started back when "buying software" meant hiring developers to come out to your place and write a custom application for you.) In today's world of computers all running standard operating systems and most software being "off the shelf" packages for the masses, I'm not sure this should really apply.
If all you pay for is a download of some code that won't even run without permission from a central server someplace, you're supporting (with your dollars) that design philosophy. Smacks of a rental agreement to me, much more than a "purchase"....
Well, instead of going the Tivo route to begin with, I built a MythTV box and used the Knoppix Myth ISO to install it.
Let me tell you, if you're accustomed to the stability and reliability of a Tivo type device, you will NOT be happy with MythTV yet at all!
The current Knoppix Myth release (R4V5) has some serious flaws in it, including:
* MythWeather module often reports a "timeout error" while trying to collect current weather data, and makes you click a "retry" button to get your weather. (Seems like this started when they tried to add animated doppler radar map support.) This happens despite me being on a 3Mbit DSL connection, load-balanced with a second 3Mbit cable Inet connection - so I'm not exactly short on bandwidth!
* Lots of struggling reported by various users getting the "ivtv" drivers in it working reliably and smoothly. I've tried compiling in various versions for my relatively basic Myth setup (Hauppage PVR-250 card and GeForce 4TI 4600 video card in a Pentium 4 1.8Ghz system w/512MB RAM) and I still get everything from occasional glitches in the video to the whole thing freezing up and requiring a reboot to return to normal operation.
* Free TV guide data Myth utilizes (via zap2it.com) is lacking in several ways. Primarily, pay-per-view events on satellite TV are not detailed at all. They all simply say "PPV event" in the listing.
* If you're like most users, wanting to use MythTV with a cable box or Dish Network satellite receiver, you'll have to build your own "IR Blaster" (I.R. LED soldered to some wire and a serial port connector), so your Myth box can pretend its a remote control and change the channels on the receiver. This wasn't terribly difficult or very expensive to make, but it's just another additional hassle to keep in mind. Some receivers don't catch all the digits sent too well either, requiring you fiddle with timing values in the script to get it working reliably.
Well, technically, ok - I guess it is still a "ROMPler" instrument... It has a giant data file that goes with it, that contains the raw sample data it uses.
But from reading Steinberg's instruction manual, it sounds to me like it goes far beyond simply playing back individual samples....
I get the impression that if anything, it's a "hybrid" of sorts. It has raw sound data it works with, but does a lot to process and alter that data for realistic results, instead of just playing it back exactly as recorded (with standard things like reverb or chorus effects optionally added).
A drunk driver who hasn't killed anyone has not committed that particular crime. If you're going to punish the drunk driver who does no harm equal to the drunk driver who kills someone, you're effectively handing out advance punishments for theoretical crimes you believe people were "about to commit". (Not too far off from the "justice" depicted in "Minority Report", when you think about it.)
It's really not that difficult to be legally intoxicated, yet not necessarily very much impaired to drive at all. Much depends on the "tolerance" of the individual. In a truly fair legal system, I would think the only arrests that should be made would be directly related to a person's inability to drive their vehicle in a safe, correct manner. Unfortunately, the people upset (with good reason) at having loved ones die due to intoxicated drivers have convinced the police to conduct random sobriety checks and other "guilty until proven innocent" endeavors, in an attempt to stop drunk driving.
As a musician myself, I have to agree that tube amps have their own unique "tone" and haven't ever been perfectly reproduced yet by solid state gear.
Still, I also feel it's only a matter of time. One of the biggest problems is that so far, most solid state gear (like the drum machines of the 80's and 90's) simply plays back digital samples of the real instruments. This will *never* be sufficient, because at best, you only have a perfect reproduction of one particular "hit" of a given drum or cymbal. Played over and over, this will sound too artificial. Real drummers are *human*. They don't hit the drum in the exact same place with the exact same intensity every time with the stick. Their timing is ever-so-slightly off, too, unlike a machine. Not only that, but as a drummer plays, the environment changes slightly. He/she may scoot a little bit closer or further from the drum kit, or the bolts and clamps holding everything together may be a little bit looser as a session progresses. The drum heads themselves are in various states of wear at different times too. All of these little nuances result in sample playback sounding "not quite right" to people after listening to it enough.
Where there's promise is the computer simulations of instruments. Take a virtual instrument like Steinberg's "The Grand" (grand piano soft-synth). Instead of just playing back a bunch of samples, it's synthesizing the sound, even accounting for such things as the reverberation of adjacent strings to the one vibrating from playing a given note, and the ability to reproduce the dull "thuds" of the hammers in the piano, usually only heard by the person playing the instrument.
Simulations of guitar amps are improving all the time, too. The Line 6 stuff is amazing compared to anything that came before. (I used to think my ART SGX-2000 was "incredible" - but it pales compared to even the original Pod.) As CPU power gets cheaper and people learn more about what makes a "tube sound" unique, we'll reach a point where you can't tell the tube amp from the effects processor simulating one.
Well, you can - but our government also has a system in place to effectively bypass this "obstruction" whenever they find it too inconvenient... eminent domain.
I live pretty close to a major airport that forced practically an entire municipality out of their homes for the sake of runway expansion -- and now, it's really questionable if they'll even use the extra capacity! Did they give any of these people true "fair market value" for their property? Heck no... They claimed it was all practically worthless and kicked them all out for cheap.
What's my point here? I guess nothing, except it's interesting how government always finds loopholes for its own purposes - but the "little guy" is probably stuck. Think I.P. patents are any different? Yeah, right.... How often do you hear the military get in trouble for violating someone's patent when they're developing secret new weapons technology? If it's "in the interest of national security", average Joe patent-holder isn't going to even be allowed to find out if they ripped of his idea or not.
The idea of joining a union sounds great on the surface, but honestly - it hasn't worked so well for most people.
Think about it... When unions got started, it was in labor-heavy industries predominantly employing the physically tough, though not necessarily high I.Q.
When you get a bunch of big guys real upset with how they're being treated, and they're not statistically the most likely bunch to sit down and listen to reason - you've got a real problem on your hands. Therefore, their "collective bargaining power" was significant.
Look at what the unions have done for others, though, such as grocery store workers. Many times, after paying their union dues, they're coming out not so far from min. wage pay. Sure, if they stick with their dead-end job long enough, there's some sort of reward for them (maybe $12 to even $18/hr. or so for cashiers?). But what would these folks be earning if, instead, they treated these jobs as the dead-ends they really are, got more of an education, and tried for higher-paying jobs elsewhere? The grocery store workers went on strike around here not that long ago, and it seems to me - all they really got was stores installing more "self-checkout" lanes so they could get by with fewer employees.
I see the same thing happening if, say, software developers formed a union. You'd have a bunch of intelligent but relatively non-threatening people demanding pay that the industry wouldn't want to give out. The immigrants, younger folks who just want their first "real job" and other such people would take the positions, and the "union developers" would be sitting around unemployed or underemployed most of the time.
Considering the BSA's track record of bullying tactics, brainwashing the masses with simplistic explanations of what piracy is all about, and so on - yes, I'd agree that they would still go after a company that owned a number of software licenses for a package, yet licensed one using the wrong key.
Nonetheless, that DOESN'T mean they'd win their case. (In fact, hasn't the BSA simply threatened most people they've gone after, scaring them into compliance, rather than actually fighting it out in court?)
If I purchase 250 Windows licenses for my company, and can prove that I'm only using a total of 250 machines - then where's the real issue? (In fact, this very thing came up at least 4 years ago, when businesses started making use of drive cloning software like Symantec Ghost to easily restore workstations to a specific configuration. You'd clone one, and then the drive image contained the CD key of that particular copy of Windows. Restore it back to multiple computers, and now you've got multiple computers sharing a key only intended for use with one PC.) Of course, businesses (rightly, IMHO) assumed this was perfectly legal as long as they retained proof that they purchased enough Windows licenses to cover all of the computers.
Problem was (is?), MS begged to differ, making claims that particular copies of Windows and their accompanying key were tied to specific systems (at least when they came as a bundle with the hardware), and businesses needed to buy "additional full-retail or volume licenses" for Windows if they wanted to swap the keys among multiple computers. (Their claim was, a discounted OEM version of Windows wasn't really as flexible, legally speaking, as the full price retail or volume licensed versions!?!)
Well, once again, this wasn't really tested in a court of law - because the outcry from large corporations caused MS to quickly shut up about the whole issue, and pretend it didn't exist after all. So now, who really knows?
This EA story sickens me, but sure doesn't surprise me. Since I've always worked on the hardware and support side of the PC industry (not software development), I haven't been pushed quite as hard as the coders out there who are always supposed to "make the impossible happen, and do it yesterday!". Nonetheless, I experienced my share of this in corporate I.T. - and I did my best not to accept it, except on the occasions where I could see I had to "give in" or else surely lose my job. In the end, I did lose my job with one of these places - but looking back, it was for the best.
The fact is, one of management's primary roles SHOULD be figuring out how to best utilize their workers within a 40 hour work-week timeframe. Instead, many seem to think it's about manipulating the employees any way possible to achieve specific goals/milestones.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I find that I can get an awful lot accomplished around my own house if I actually get 8 hour blocks of time each day I can allocate to doing the tasks. And that's taking into consideration the fact that I'm working on these projects/tasks/chores single-handedly, with limited tools and resources at my disposal! If a business with anywhere from dozens to thousands of employees can't get their projects done with each of the people working 8 hour days, 5 days a week - they're NOT MANAGING THEIR RESOURCES PROPERLY!
I'm not denying that a *small minority* of people might do the whole thing of returning items just to try to buy them again at discount - but I think my original statement is still valid. It's simply not something that a store should be concerned enough about to create new, customer-hostile policies to prevent.
(In your example of a hitman or murderer, no - I may not personally know anyone who has done those things, but I can completely understand the motivation for them and why some folks would kill. That's quite a bit different than acting out small scams to make some extra cash off of retail outlets.)
The "re shrink-wrap" scam you mention is interesting, because I was a victim of that very thing at Best Buy, years ago. I bought a new 28.8K internal Zoom modem, and when I got home and opened the box, a used 2400 baud was in the package! I tried to exchange it and I was treated like a criminal by everyone in the store. I was quite upset - because I tried explaining how the scam could easily have been pulled, and all I got were sighs and dirty looks, like *I* was the one who must have re shrink-wrapped it. That kept me out of Best Buy for months afterwards, actually.
True about Apple, and I was going to mention that too. Apple sells their systems a lot like Saturn did cars. Offer a fixed price on new ones, and you'll keep the resale values relatively high for people down the road. The consumer pays a little more up-front but ends up with more of an investment and less of a "net loss".
Only thing is about this method of sales, it seems to only be effective with larger purchases. If you sell relatively inexpensive "consumables" or "accessory items" at fixed prices, it seems to backfire at some point. (Look at IOMega and their pretty much fixed-price policy on zip drives and media, for example.)
To sell at a fixed price, you have to have a product deemed valuable enough that consumers decide it's one they plan on keeping for a relatively long time, and expect to be able to recoup some money on at the end of their use of it.
I can't say I agree with the parent poster... First of all, Best Buy is concerned about people buying new products and then returning them on purpose, just so they can buy them again later off the rebate tables??
I'm sorry, but that's a load of B.S. I never knew *anyone* who would purposely do this - because quite frankly, it's a huge waste of time (and time = money, don't forget). You have no guarantee the item you return will ever make it to a sale table, for one thing. Many times, manufacturers will accept opened merchandise returned by stores directly to them. But even if it did, you don't know exactly WHEN it will be put back out there, and unless you hound the store looking for the item's appearance, someone else may buy it first. Then you completely wasted all of your time and effort. To top it off, merchandise that's not missing anything and is simply an "open box" deal isn't discounted too heavily. Especially at stores like Best Buy, you're often lucky to get more than maybe 10% off for that. Even for 20% off, the savings is probably not worth all this time and trouble.
As for buying a product "at rebate" and returning it to keep the price difference, I'm not sure I get that one at all? If you mean buying it to get a mail-in rebate and then returning it - that's why they always make you cut up the boxes to get the rebates. Stores can easily see when a UPC code is cut out and know what you're trying to do. When was this ever really an issue? Furthermore, if it is because they're allowing returns where a customer claims the "original box got wet and is ruined" or whatever - so what? The best solution to that is to quit doing all the mail-in rebates paid for by Best Buy Corporation themselves, and only do manufacturer rebates. Just give people the better price up-front and quit the game playing, and you'll avoid this potential loss. (But they don't, because they stand to gain more than they lose from folks who don't bother to do the work of mailing in for the rebates, or lose their receipts and can't do it, etc. etc.)