No argument with your claims of how copyrighted works are being treated in countries that have no real enforced copyright law.... but I'd also suggest there's a bit of a "chicken and egg" situation here. By that, I mean you're claiming it's "interesting" that all this bootlegged IP seems to be produced in the nations that DO have strong copyright law in place. But is that REALLY because the strong copyright legislation is required to get the movies, music, etc. produced? Or is it simply a case of nations like the United States perfecting the art of producing entertainment content, and thereby producing "world class" material that everyone else wants to view or listen to -- with copyright legislation an end result when those producers wanted more laws ensuring a "lock in" on their success?
I know as a U.S. citizen myself, I'm able to get my hands on plenty of movies produced in other countries, but much of what I've seen just looks like immature/amateurish attempts to achieve the production quality considered a minimum standard for a U.S. made film (Bollywood productions, etc.). Sometimes, the story lines of some of the Russian and Asian film are quite good (far superior to the cliche, tired stories Hollywood likes to rehash endlessly) -- but it's evident they don't have as well honed a system, from the quality of the acting to the quality of the filming to the quality of the directing.
Maybe I just think too highly of the U.S. made material because I live here -- but I suspect this is one of the few areas where the U.S. simply has a head-start on much of the rest of the world and more experience doing it well.
I recall magazines selling the ZX-81 in kit form, but at that time, I had no interest in spending a whole $100 (after shipping and/or sales tax, anyway) for a bag of unassembled parts. I really wanted my own home computer though, so the assembled Timex-Sinclair 1000 version was just the thing for me.
I even owned a very rare plastic carrying case for it, that I had to order direct from Timex with a special coupon to get. As I recall, it held 4 cassette tapes in their plastic cases, the computer and AC adapter, TV converter box, and maybe a spot for that 16K RAM expansion pack (it had 2K internally).
Well, I definitely don't think I'm trying to troll here. Yet you bring up a point I've often gone back and forth about myself. (For the record, I enjoy photography as a hobby but am certainly not a "pro photographer". Several of my good friends, however, have photography as their profession.)
No argument a good photographer could spend days, weeks, or even months attempting to compose just the right photograph. But still, it's not really the same as the artist drawing a sketch by hand, IMO. After all, the artist could invest every bit as much time "up front" as the photographer did, locating just the right scene in the right lighting conditions to sit down and draw. But in the end, the artist is painting or drawing a rendition manually, and a photographer is using an electro-mechanical device to capture a copy of that moment in time with a press of a button.
Does that make the photographer less talented than the painter? Not necessarily... but that's irrelevant anyway. The issue at hand is the concept of copyright, and I think a strong case can be made that photographers push the limits of what's really copyrightable. Prime example? Look at the industry of taking school portraits. A photographer goes into the school, sets everything up, and in an assembly-line manner, runs kids through one after the other, taking the same basic head-shot photos of each one. Then, not only are parents expected to pay a fairly steep price for a copy of these photos in various sizes, but they're told the images are copyrighted (property of the photographer), so any reprints must be obtained through the photography business! All the photographer did was capture an image a kid's face -- a face that has unique characteristics making it worthy of photographing in the first place only because it's a result of the unique interactions of the DNA of the child's PARENTS. So logic would tell you that once paying for the SERVICE of having the initial photos taken, the right to duplicate the prints now possessed should belong to the parents!
Seriously, you believe the products like the Segway and Volt are priced wrong because "the 1% do not understand the 99%"?
I'd say that has practically nothing to do with it. What you've generally got here is the realization that our govt. leaders are pushing for environmentally "greener" solutions to energy-related issues, meaning loads of tax subsidies and loans available to those promising to design and deliver such solutions.
We saw this same thing in the Clinton administration when Bill mandated an electric car be put into production during his term in office. GM responded with the EV-1 electric car, which promptly flopped -- failing so miserably, almost all of the vehicles were buried underground! GM didn't elect to produce the EV-1 because they really believed it would be profitable and successful. They did it because federal govt. hung out the "WANTED!" poster demanding one, and they knew there were political favors to be had and loads of positive P.R. for forging ahead with it.
The people with the money to buy an electric car as an "expensive toy" aren't really a target market for a Chevy Volt either. (Well, there will always be at least a few exceptions to the rule since tastes are so varied...) In general though? Those "1 percenters" are going to go for something much "cooler" than a car with the Chevy bow-tie on it and with better performance, like the Fisker Karma or the Tesla roadster.
The 1% tend to be people in industries like banking and finance, where they presumably have a pretty good handle on the spending habits of the "rest of us". They may be living in their own fantasy world made possible by their large amount of available spending money, but that doesn't mean they'd make a really boneheaded business decision like trying to sell the public a car that's 2x the max. price many of them can even get the loan approved for. There are other motivations at work here.
As wi-fi becomes a mainstream Internet on-ramp when you're out and about, I think the rogue AP issue needs to be addressed FAR better than it is today. As the story's submitter said, tech. conferences might be the least of the problem since most of the time, you've got a massive flood of wi-fi usage attempts concentrated under one roof at such things. The tech-savvy will already plan on other forms of connectivity (such as 3G or 4G cellular). Plus, the vast majority of conference-goers are trying to send photos, video or blog entries of the happenings... not taking out time to do their online banking, shopping or what-not. So rogue sites trying to scape for data are less likely to capture anything really useful.
My co-workers have started asking me, "How do I know if it's safe to connect to a wi-fi hotspot when I'm traveling?"... and I'm realizing the answer isn't very clear-cut. I can advise them that certain companies contract to provide thousands of APs for chain restaurants, and typically have an AP identifying themselves as such. (You'll often see an SSID of "wayport" at a McDonalds for example.) But beyond that, the average laptop or smartphone user really doesn't even think about someone spoofing a legitimate-looking SSID. I've even run across such things as multiple SSIDs showing up with no password at our airport, where I knew at least 1 or 2 of them were fakes. (One had an SSID of "airport wifi", as I recall, when I know our airport only provides wifi in the terminal waiting area via AT&T - who would NOT name it anything like that.)
The only reason Windows Phone 7 hasn't caused any ruckus over concepts like rooting/jailbreaking/unlocking is because it has such a small market-share to begin with. The few people using those phones are typically not even the "power users" who'd care about such things, and the overall lack of developer support for their phone means there's little incentive to CARE anyway.
Really, before smartphones even came out, this was a problem everyone had to put up with. I remember having a Moto Razr with downloadable apps using the proprietary "BREW" language, all locked down with DRM. Your phone got lost and had to be replaced? You lost your apps and had to beg them to let you re-download them without paying again (which they'd often not do).
As one of those guys who DOES get paid to remove viruses, I have to disagree with you....
Yes, a complete wipe of everything and a fresh reinstall is the only way to be 100% sure you eliminated whatever malware or virus was on a given machine. BUT, that's like telling the exterminator he should just burn your entire house down to get rid of the ants or spiders you called about, because simply spraying some poison down doesn't guarantee they're all gone.
I've actually gone through the whole "backup data, wipe drive, reload OS, reinstall all needed apps from the original CDs, restore data" process for people on many occasions, when they had a computer that was so obviously screwed up, I didn't feel like I was making headway with anything else.
That's really a losing proposition for everyone involved when you're reached that point, though. Inevitably, there's SOMETHING that doesn't get put back the way the user wants it, because he/she can no longer find an installation disc for some program or lost a license key for some downloadable product. It takes so much time, you can't really bill your normal labor rate for such a project, or the customer will go ballistic (and probably refuse to pay!). It's really not what they WANTED to pay you to do in the first place when they called you.
In most cases (maybe 80% of the one I've encountered?), I see pretty readily identifiable infections (like those fake "AntiVirus 2011" programs that would pop up on startup and do a fake scan), or I have a system that's still fairly usable, except for symptoms like random pop-ups in the browser, telling me it's not quite right. Most of these issues are pretty well documented all over the net, with people offering known good solutions for removing them. If I boot from a CD and scan the system while its own OS isn't running, I stand a good chance of finding and removing the most stubborn pieces of the malware with that. A full scan with a couple other good tools like Malware Bytes as a follow-up, and if nothing else is detected at that point AND the PC seems to be working right? That's good enough for most people.
Actually, you've got all the privacy you're willing to fight for....
Want email privacy? Use PGP on everything and convince all your recipients to do so to, or else they simply can't read what you send them anymore....
What the majority are really complaining about is the de-facto lack of privacy... the system that makes you really work to attain privacy, over and over again - losing it every time you slip up and forget to take the required precautions.
Maybe... but where do you draw the line? When I was trying to build a fairly "full featured" personal web site, many years ago, I fought with these issues. I'd design something only to discover it didn't format the way I liked when the user had certain versions of Netscape, vs. Internet Explorer, or a piece of javascript didn't make a button change color on mouse-over with OS/2's browser, or ??
After all these years and attempts at standardization, we still see the exact same problems today. I don't think it's ever going to end, as long as companies or organizations out there feel they can offer something beneficial in their browser that "the competition doesn't do yet". There's always going to be that assumption that their new idea is so good and will be so well received, the competitors will "just have to play catch-up and add it too". Of course, they often don't.....
It doesn't make your site "less professional" if you define a scope and say, "Look. We know statistically, the VAST majority of viewers are going to come to use using Internet Explorer 7 or later, a recent version of Firefox, or either an iOS device or Android device, on the mobile side of things." Test your results with those options and if it looks good, call it a done deal. You'll pull your hair out trying to make anything but the most basic of pages look consistent on all the potential combinations. (Craigslist does it, but that's NOT the look most business are going to pay for, when they want an online presence!)
you probably earned a genuine clearance that stays with you if you switch jobs!
That's one of the big rip-offs I've seen in recent years with regard to "security clearances". Many times, an employer will require obtaining a clearance, but they'll say it's "provisional", and add on a stipulation that the clearance is only valid for the length of time you're employed with them.
A good friend of mine applied for a (low paying) job handling government records, some years back (I believe it had to do with health records of retired military personnel), and they grilled her and all of her close friends for weeks. I remember getting a phone call where I was asked all sorts of things, such as if I was aware of her communicating regularly with anyone who resided outside the United States, if I had any background on why she got divorced, etc. etc. This wasn't even a top secret clearance... merely a "secret" one. As it turns out, she was offered a better-paying job in the private sector while all this was going on, so she wound up not accepting it anyway. So all that digging they did was for absolutely nothing, since they said her not accepting the position automatically invalidated it.
I understand why some govt. agencies or contractors would be concerned that you're just going to apply there to obtain the clearance and then jump ship to a better job that demands you already have one.... but after you've offered that much information up to them and it's determined you not some sort of risk? It seems like a clearance is a clearance. If too many people get it and run, that probably means you're simply not paying enough.
Absolutely true.... I've never used a WYSIWYG HTML editor before that didn't make a mess of the original code. BUT, until the day comes along where someone's able to build one that produces only clean code? It's the nature of the beast.
IMO, web sites really take two basic forms (with a lot of "gray area" in-between in some cases). Either you're essentially building a web APPLICATION... a relatively interactive site that does data lookups from a back-end database, and/or interfaces with other Internet sites to pull and filter content for re-display, OR you're building a more static site intended to serve as a business's "shingle on the net", or photo gallery, or ?? The folks doing the later are usually far better served with apps along the lines of Dreamweaver (or on the Mac side, I prefer such tools as Rapidweaver with 3rd. party plug-ins and extensions). A full grasp of HTML code isn't even really necessary to do a good job with sites of this sort. Much more critical is a good sense of style and design, while hanging onto the concept that part of that impression the site makes on viewers involves loading time, as well.
The coders like to call these more static, design-oriented sites "less professional" because they clearly weren't hand-coded, and the HTML source is typically a big mess. But quite frankly, they're also the sites I see that are usually the most visually appealing and when done properly, have the most efficiently organized layouts of their content too.
There *are* advantages to integrating the software into the TV itself.... I own a 2nd. generation AppleTV box and thought it was great for my needs (primarily watching Netflix streaming content, plus the occasional use to stream some music from Internet radio stations or redirect something playing on an iPhone / iPad to the TV screen). But then I got a Sony GoogleTV on a good deal (refurbished special) and put it in the bedroom. It was a good enough price, I was initially just buying it to get a bigger LCD in the bedroom. I wasn't even really giving much consideration to the GoogleTV capabilities in it.
When I started delving into it though, especially after downloading the most recent GoogleTV software upgrade, I found a lot to like about it. Even though it's arguable Google didn't implement it in the best way possible, it IS nice that you can put the set in split screen mode, with a browser open on one half while watching live TV on the other half. You can press a button on the remote to launch said browser with a context-sensitive search based on what you're currently viewing on TV, as well. And since the GoogleTV software also handles a downloaded TV guide, you get some additional capabilities and integration there too.
When you combine all of that with the ability to download additional apps (such as a Plex client I installed, allowing me to stream all of my movie and saved TV show content from my Plex server running on my Mac), the fact it's built into my TV set isn't really a negative at all.
The big complaint I have with used cellphones, at least here in the USA, is this:
Most people obtain their new phone with a 1 or 2 year contract, so the phone's price is heavily subsidized up-front. You might get a $700 phone for $200, or a $400 phone for $50. You wind up paying its full price, of course, but only as you pay your monthly bills to finish off your contract (or pay the ETF to get out of it sooner).
Problem is, the used market generally views these devices as though their actual VALUE is relative to the subsidized prices, not the TRUE prices.
As just one example? My Sprint HTC Evo 4G is just under 1 year old right now, and when I got it, it was the "rock star" of phones on the Sprint network. There was really nothing better they could sell you, even if you wanted it. Currently, Sprint has a "trade in" offer where you can send back your old phone for credit on your future bills (not even cash!), and my Evo is worth a whopping $80, if in "excellent condition". Never-mind I'm probably still paying Sprint more than that for the phone, as I use up the remainder of the 2 year contract I had with it!
And judging from my experiences with most of the "cellphone recyclers" out there I'd talked to, I suspect they pay even LESS on average. Their business models usually revolve around the idea that plenty of people value their used phones at "basically zero", considering them a waste of space, or extra junk lying around.
If you've got a plain old flip-phone of some sort (hardly matters what make, model or how new) -- because it's used and not a "smartphone", I'd say you'd be lucky to get even $5 - $10 for it from most recyclers. That's one hell of a depreciation rate, when you consider a lot of those were "military spec" Nextels and such, that their owners only recently got done paying hundreds for in their contracts.
I've consistently found I got FAR more out of semi-recent model used cellphones by reselling them on Craigslist or even eBay, vs. recycling them. People who don't want long contracts but need reliable cellular service with a major carrier quickly realize the real value of these used phones, and are essentially the only customers you'll have who'll pay you a fair price for one.
If what you're saying is true (and if it is, I'm not even quite sure how you found time to read this article on Slashdot and post a reply?)... you *really* need to sit back, think about what you just wrote, and ask yourself if that's REALLY how you want your life to be from here forward!
First of all, I would assume and hope you're getting paid pretty well for working all those 18 hour days and having so much responsibility. That means, you're simply not doing something right if you haven't been able to put aside some of that money in savings, in case you DO need to switch jobs and don't have a check for a while. (So that situation you're so afraid of, of being out of work for 3 years and not knowing how you were going to sleep or eat shouldn't have to happen again.)
Second, yep, fewer and fewer businesses have any loyalty to employees, but that should be a 2-way street! If they view you as that "expendable", then why work so hard for them?! Do the basics outlined in your job description, and not anything more unless you actually WANT to do it. If, like you say, they "throw you to the curb" thinking they can get someone a lot cheaper to do the same or better, LET THEM. Either they're right and you were simply getting paid too much for the value you actually brought to their table, or (much more likely) they'll fail a few times in a row and start adjusting their expectations and/or pay scale as they learn how wrong they were.
And third? Maybe you need to spend less time worrying about customers running into these mistakes you're concerned about, and more time documenting procedures so OTHERS can do some of these tasks properly? It sounds like right now, a lot of people are getting paid to screw things up that you're putting in all these insane hours correcting. You've got to break that cycle, even IF it means a temporary drop in customer satisfaction....
I agree with this to a point. I mean, that's how I'd describe my current job. I don't DISLIKE it that much. By contrast, there are SO many other career options out there I have no interest in, to the point where I'd probably rather be on govt. assistance and living out of a cardboard box on the street corner than doing some of them every day. It's not a place I usually look forward to going, but often, it's really not bad at all once I'm there and get involved with whatever's needed that day. Specific PROJECTS I have to tackle there are often actually fun, but interacting with some of the other employees or doing dull but necessary work like coding bills or scanning in paper documents? Not so much.
On the other hand? All the people who swear they'd "never work another day in their life" if they were financially able, I don't quite relate to either. It would be great for a while, but like a lot of retirees say after they retire, life just gets kind of boring. You start losing track of basics like what day of the week it is, and you start feeling a little bit guilty that all around you, everyone else seems to be working while you just walk past, or make use of their services. You have a need to feel like you're "useful" in some way... like you're accomplishing tasks that other people need accomplished.
Also, I've spent enough time around some of the "independently wealthy" people who spend all their time playing with toys and having fun to know they come across pretty shallow. They tend to rub me the wrong way, and not out of jealousy. It's more a sense that they really have no ambitions or goals. Thanks to the life they've voluntarily placed themselves in, they start assigning an artificially high level of importance to things that simply aren't that important.
Actually, I've always felt like when doing corporate I.T., it's really a big part of my job to ensure everyone ELSE is able to do their respective jobs with a minimal amount of hassle or interruption due to computer-related problems. They all need computers these days, to varying extents, so I'm here to make sure those computers work as more of a benefit than a detriment during their workday.
Granted, I'm not a software developer... I'm doing systems administration and PC support roles. But software devs should really approach it from the same angle. The company hired them for the same reasons. They're just taking care of the "other half" of the computing problem (software vs. hardware).
I've always understood that a company's sales or marketing staff is critically important to the functioning of the business. I mean, if we can't get our products sold, how is anyone going to pay MY paycheck? So in that sense, no, I don't think less of those people.
The reason I think you see people (myself included) poking fun at sales/marketing staff on sites like/. regularly has more to do with the polar opposite natures. Our sales staff where I work now, for example, consists of a bunch of guys who basically just want to come in to work each day, have some fun goofing around and laughing at each other's stories or jokes, and have a primary motivation of money and bonuses. The single ones often have goals of owning specific things -- new cars, boats, a bigger house, vacation trips, clothes, or money to spend on girls they want to impress.... whatever. The older ones with families are just motivated by having the money to pursue whatever their weekend interests are (such as hunting or fishing) while keeping all the bills paid... putting a kid through college or what-not. They view their job as a means to an end, but they don't have any particular love of their work, itself. They don't like change very much in the workplace, and they're very much in the "now", in the sense of "What is customer X going to buy from me TODAY?"
I.T. and software devs are quite a bit different. Sure, many of us have goals of buying material things of interest too -- but most of us actually "live" this stuff outside of work. We own nice computer systems at home and spend a lot of time on the net outside of the workplace. Software guys tend to feel a sense of ownership of the code they're paid to work on. There's a sense of pride, similar to the contractor who can drive by a house and say, "I put the roof on that one." or "We installed that driveway." years after the fact. Network admins have a similar sense of pride in a network environment that runs well.
That creates sort of a personality clash, when sales people call demanding a problem be solved NOW and everything's critical to them because "I'm losing orders over here!" Meanwhile, I.T. or software guys can easily see that many times, these situations could have been avoided if they bothered to notify them of warning signs of the impending problem that they just blew off for days before. They often ask for seemingly simple things that computer people think "they should know by now", while they simply don't want to spend the effort to learn all that "techie stuff" that's not their thing.
If you ask me, it's becoming more clear all the time that it's not as simple as the American public "getting what we voted for, or not voting at all" that's caused the mess we're in.
The system has always been heavily biased towards only the wealthy succeeding in a political career, but that's evolved from a perfectly acceptable reality (where wealthy folks who actually cared about the future of the country could dedicate some of their time and resources towards steering it in what they felt was the right direction) to a playground for the uber-rich. Today's leaders feel like they're above the law, entitled to any self-serving deals they're able to strike, and are part of an elite who only care about success for their own political cohorts and connections.
We're not really given realistic options to vote for, in most elections. It's very polarized, with candidates standing on the "right" or the "left" and pretending either of the two choices are the only sane/realistic ones a voter can make. All we get at the presidential level are lies and empty promises, about concepts as basic as caring about the "poor" or more recently, "the hard-working middle class". In reality, both sides only see the "poor" as a useful political tool and the "hard working middle class" as a group to sap resources from while it lasts. Heck, we've got numerous instances where a politician was a well-known Democrat yet he ran on a Republican ticket at some point, because nobody else was on the ticket for a given election. The political ideologies be dammed... they're just treated as available slots.
The claim that our taxes aren't really that high for a developed nation is VERY questionable. When I see that claim thrown around most of the time, someone's trying to do an "apples to apples" comparison of percentages of income paid out in Federal income tax, or something along those lines. It's much more difficult to determine what the average American really pays, total, in taxes - because we've gotten so creative at taxing in little chunks, all over the place. Gasoline tax, sales tax, property tax, inheritance tax, retirement tax, import or export taxes, tax on profits earned from investments, govt. licenses of various sorts, and even traffic tickets all play a role. Additionally, some of these taxes are increased by an order of magnitude depending on the situation. EG. Sales tax suddenly jumps up in some parts of my community, if you buy from stores in special "tax corridors" where the local community voted to take in extra funds for some project or other.
So you're saying folks like Santorum or Romney have that math all figured out?
Funny... I'm still waiting for one of them to submit the Excel spreadsheet that has the economic problem all solved for us.
Come on, man... you don't have to like Ron Paul or think he's presidential material. But to pretend he's different than all the others simply because he's using a mix of psychology and gut instinct? I'd say that right there describes Obama to a T.
Why do you consider a "let the states decide" concept such bullshit?
The idea is, Federal govt. shouldn't be dictating things that are in the realm of the states to handle. They should only be guaranteeing the most basic of rights outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The right to keep and bear arms would remain under Federal jurisdiction, since as the designers of the system itself realized, needs to be a right guaranteed to *all* citizens of the nation to ensure the citizenry retains power against government corruption.
Marriage licenses and details on how they're granted? We already allow states to handle that however they see fit, and ultimately - it's just a legal construct anyway. Two people can choose to live together and get married without involving government's permission. All people are really fighting about, when it comes down to it, is a right to file their taxes as married and a right to have the courts treat their situation as per standards used for "married couples" in case of a divorce or other dispute.
With so many "alternative lifestyles" out there, many judges are coming around and handling cases involving property division as if the people involved were legally married anyway.
I agree - but as you hinted with your comment, I wonder how much has to do with life changes placing less emphasis on "mental gymnastics"? I doubt most people invest as much time/energy on learning new things outside school as they did while they were there. On top of that, as you progress from "entry level" career type positions to more "senior" ones, you tend to get promoted out of hands-on, problem-solving type positions and into managerial ones - where your people skills become more of a factor than your technical skills.
By contrast, we've got people like Stephen Hawking out there, who at age 70, seem to still be exceptionally sharp, mentally.
Actually, I believe ALL of the states in the USA recognize "at will" employment as the standard. The only variations have to do with EXCEPTIONS to the rule which some states allow and others don't.
Interestingly, one of the statutory exceptions Federal govt. seems to universally recognize is failure to fire someone according to any rules printed in a company's own employee handbook.
Sounds exactly like what he was just saying about general purpose computing....
Can't there be a viable middle-ground though? Why is it always framed as a free and open "general purpose" system, vs. a walled-garden model?
All many of us desire is a full-blown mainstream OS that's hardened enough against malware and virus threats so things like "clicking the wrong ad banner" on some website aren't enough to take the system down.
If users flock to walled gardens with locked down boot-loaders, it's not really the fault of the "computer-savvy user" who cast blame on them, so much as it's a failure of the developers of said mainstream OS's to succeed in meeting these requirements.
Well, Microsoft doesn't even allow you to do an upgrade install from XP to 7. You can only do that from Vista to 7. The "upgrade" procedure consists of it doing a full, clean install of 7 into a new folder on the drive while placing all the XP stuff into a WINDOWS.OLD folder. You have to manually move your documents and data over to the appropriate places after it's done, and reinstall all the apps from scratch.
I've done this MANY times for people already, and it works just fine but it's time consuming.
There's something to be said for that... but there's also the problem that MOST computer users aren't content to keep using the same old software and peripherals they've always used. Eventually, they get a glimpse of what someone else is doing with a more modern setup and they decide that they'd like to have the same functionality.
Then you've got those who really DON'T want to change a thing, but their hardware finally dies on them, and then what? They're FORCED to move to something more current since nobody's interested in selling you a PC with XP on it anymore.
For example, I had a client who's retired (in his 80's, actually) and got interested in joining the "computer age" when a relative gave him their old Dell laptop computer and got him signed up for cable broadband Internet. Over time, he learned enough to use the basic features of Outlook Express (only email client he had on the machine) and Internet Explorer on XP, and really, that was enough for him.
Understandably, he didn't want to change, but his laptop's motherboard started failing and it wasn't feasible to repair it. He finally gave in and bought a new desktop machine at the store (decided he didn't need anything portable this time around, and the bigger display would be nice too). That forced him into Windows 7, but really - it didn't turn out to be so bad. In a matter of days, he was back to his usual routines. I helped him migrate his Outlook Express mail to Windows "Live Mail" -- which is enough like OE so there's not much learning curve, and we moved over his old IE "Favorites" and Address Book contacts.
It actually makes tasks like printing out emailed photos easier than what he dealt with under XP, since 7 has a more friendly "wizard" to handle printing them now -- and that's a benefit he wasn't even expecting.
You're talking about ONE economic theory out there, which is highly dubious in nature and VERY risky to implement, in case it turns out to be wrong.
Absolutely, our nation has a problem because we're spending money we can't afford to spend on things like war. But the idea that we need more and larger stimulus efforts to "kick-start" the economy back into action? I don't really believe it. The big problem with the concept is that we've got to borrow from other nations to even have the money to give out in a stimulus. That means not only does the (hopefully) recovering economy have to do well enough to pay all of that money back, but they've got to do it PLUS interest, AND in an environment where there's tougher competition with other nations of the world who upgraded their infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities with all of that money they borrowed from the U.S.
Besides, the stimulus spending winds up "playing favorites" with people who have enough political clout to ensure their pet business interests receive the lion's share of the money.
The alternate suggestion of promoting new, small business startups sounds like a much better long-term solution to me. Instead of people finding themselves unemployed for long stretches of time, collecting govt. assistance as they search and often settle for "under-employment"? They could be encouraged to start their own new businesses, which should lead to eventual generation of more job openings that would be the type suitable to be filled by others like themselves (who perhaps started their own small businesses too, but weren't real successful with them, or found it wasn't their thing after they gave it an honest try).
Rounds of stimulus payouts will make more people happy in the short-term, but is likely to be a plan that implodes in the long haul.
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No argument with your claims of how copyrighted works are being treated in countries that have no real enforced copyright law.... but I'd also suggest there's a bit of a "chicken and egg" situation here. By that, I mean you're claiming it's "interesting" that all this bootlegged IP seems to be produced in the nations that DO have strong copyright law in place. But is that REALLY because the strong copyright legislation is required to get the movies, music, etc. produced? Or is it simply a case of nations like the United States perfecting the art of producing entertainment content, and thereby producing "world class" material that everyone else wants to view or listen to -- with copyright legislation an end result when those producers wanted more laws ensuring a "lock in" on their success?
I know as a U.S. citizen myself, I'm able to get my hands on plenty of movies produced in other countries, but much of what I've seen just looks like immature/amateurish attempts to achieve the production quality considered a minimum standard for a U.S. made film (Bollywood productions, etc.). Sometimes, the story lines of some of the Russian and Asian film are quite good (far superior to the cliche, tired stories Hollywood likes to rehash endlessly) -- but it's evident they don't have as well honed a system, from the quality of the acting to the quality of the filming to the quality of the directing.
Maybe I just think too highly of the U.S. made material because I live here -- but I suspect this is one of the few areas where the U.S. simply has a head-start on much of the rest of the world and more experience doing it well.
I recall magazines selling the ZX-81 in kit form, but at that time, I had no interest in spending a whole $100 (after shipping and/or sales tax, anyway) for a bag of unassembled parts. I really wanted my own home computer though, so the assembled Timex-Sinclair 1000 version was just the thing for me.
I even owned a very rare plastic carrying case for it, that I had to order direct from Timex with a special coupon to get. As I recall, it held 4 cassette tapes in their plastic cases, the computer and AC adapter, TV converter box, and maybe a spot for that 16K RAM expansion pack (it had 2K internally).
Good times!
Well, I definitely don't think I'm trying to troll here. Yet you bring up a point I've often gone back and forth about myself. (For the record, I enjoy photography as a hobby but am certainly not a "pro photographer". Several of my good friends, however, have photography as their profession.)
No argument a good photographer could spend days, weeks, or even months attempting to compose just the right photograph. But still, it's not really the same as the artist drawing a sketch by hand, IMO. After all, the artist could invest every bit as much time "up front" as the photographer did, locating just the right scene in the right lighting conditions to sit down and draw. But in the end, the artist is painting or drawing a rendition manually, and a photographer is using an electro-mechanical device to capture a copy of that moment in time with a press of a button.
Does that make the photographer less talented than the painter? Not necessarily... but that's irrelevant anyway. The issue at hand is the concept of copyright, and I think a strong case can be made that photographers push the limits of what's really copyrightable. Prime example? Look at the industry of taking school portraits. A photographer goes into the school, sets everything up, and in an assembly-line manner, runs kids through one after the other, taking the same basic head-shot photos of each one. Then, not only are parents expected to pay a fairly steep price for a copy of these photos in various sizes, but they're told the images are copyrighted (property of the photographer), so any reprints must be obtained through the photography business! All the photographer did was capture an image a kid's face -- a face that has unique characteristics making it worthy of photographing in the first place only because it's a result of the unique interactions of the DNA of the child's PARENTS. So logic would tell you that once paying for the SERVICE of having the initial photos taken, the right to duplicate the prints now possessed should belong to the parents!
Seriously, you believe the products like the Segway and Volt are priced wrong because "the 1% do not understand the 99%"?
I'd say that has practically nothing to do with it. What you've generally got here is the realization that our govt. leaders are pushing for environmentally "greener" solutions to energy-related issues, meaning loads of tax subsidies and loans available to those promising to design and deliver such solutions.
We saw this same thing in the Clinton administration when Bill mandated an electric car be put into production during his term in office. GM responded with the EV-1 electric car, which promptly flopped -- failing so miserably, almost all of the vehicles were buried underground! GM didn't elect to produce the EV-1 because they really believed it would be profitable and successful. They did it because federal govt. hung out the "WANTED!" poster demanding one, and they knew there were political favors to be had and loads of positive P.R. for forging ahead with it.
The people with the money to buy an electric car as an "expensive toy" aren't really a target market for a Chevy Volt either. (Well, there will always be at least a few exceptions to the rule since tastes are so varied ...) In general though? Those "1 percenters" are going to go for something much "cooler" than a car with the Chevy bow-tie on it and with better performance, like the Fisker Karma or the Tesla roadster.
The 1% tend to be people in industries like banking and finance, where they presumably have a pretty good handle on the spending habits of the "rest of us". They may be living in their own fantasy world made possible by their large amount of available spending money, but that doesn't mean they'd make a really boneheaded business decision like trying to sell the public a car that's 2x the max. price many of them can even get the loan approved for. There are other motivations at work here.
As wi-fi becomes a mainstream Internet on-ramp when you're out and about, I think the rogue AP issue needs to be addressed FAR better than it is today. As the story's submitter said, tech. conferences might be the least of the problem since most of the time, you've got a massive flood of wi-fi usage attempts concentrated under one roof at such things. The tech-savvy will already plan on other forms of connectivity (such as 3G or 4G cellular). Plus, the vast majority of conference-goers are trying to send photos, video or blog entries of the happenings ... not taking out time to do their online banking, shopping or what-not. So rogue sites trying to scape for data are less likely to capture anything really useful.
My co-workers have started asking me, "How do I know if it's safe to connect to a wi-fi hotspot when I'm traveling?" ... and I'm realizing the answer isn't very clear-cut. I can advise them that certain companies contract to provide thousands of APs for chain restaurants, and typically have an AP identifying themselves as such. (You'll often see an SSID of "wayport" at a McDonalds for example.) But beyond that, the average laptop or smartphone user really doesn't even think about someone spoofing a legitimate-looking SSID. I've even run across such things as multiple SSIDs showing up with no password at our airport, where I knew at least 1 or 2 of them were fakes. (One had an SSID of "airport wifi", as I recall, when I know our airport only provides wifi in the terminal waiting area via AT&T - who would NOT name it anything like that.)
The only reason Windows Phone 7 hasn't caused any ruckus over concepts like rooting/jailbreaking/unlocking is because it has such a small market-share to begin with. The few people using those phones are typically not even the "power users" who'd care about such things, and the overall lack of developer support for their phone means there's little incentive to CARE anyway.
Really, before smartphones even came out, this was a problem everyone had to put up with. I remember having a Moto Razr with downloadable apps using the proprietary "BREW" language, all locked down with DRM. Your phone got lost and had to be replaced? You lost your apps and had to beg them to let you re-download them without paying again (which they'd often not do).
As one of those guys who DOES get paid to remove viruses, I have to disagree with you....
Yes, a complete wipe of everything and a fresh reinstall is the only way to be 100% sure you eliminated whatever malware or virus was on a given machine. BUT, that's like telling the exterminator he should just burn your entire house down to get rid of the ants or spiders you called about, because simply spraying some poison down doesn't guarantee they're all gone.
I've actually gone through the whole "backup data, wipe drive, reload OS, reinstall all needed apps from the original CDs, restore data" process for people on many occasions, when they had a computer that was so obviously screwed up, I didn't feel like I was making headway with anything else.
That's really a losing proposition for everyone involved when you're reached that point, though. Inevitably, there's SOMETHING that doesn't get put back the way the user wants it, because he/she can no longer find an installation disc for some program or lost a license key for some downloadable product. It takes so much time, you can't really bill your normal labor rate for such a project, or the customer will go ballistic (and probably refuse to pay!). It's really not what they WANTED to pay you to do in the first place when they called you.
In most cases (maybe 80% of the one I've encountered?), I see pretty readily identifiable infections (like those fake "AntiVirus 2011" programs that would pop up on startup and do a fake scan), or I have a system that's still fairly usable, except for symptoms like random pop-ups in the browser, telling me it's not quite right. Most of these issues are pretty well documented all over the net, with people offering known good solutions for removing them. If I boot from a CD and scan the system while its own OS isn't running, I stand a good chance of finding and removing the most stubborn pieces of the malware with that. A full scan with a couple other good tools like Malware Bytes as a follow-up, and if nothing else is detected at that point AND the PC seems to be working right? That's good enough for most people.
Actually, you've got all the privacy you're willing to fight for....
Want email privacy? Use PGP on everything and convince all your recipients to do so to, or else they simply can't read what you send them anymore ....
What the majority are really complaining about is the de-facto lack of privacy... the system that makes you really work to attain privacy, over and over again - losing it every time you slip up and forget to take the required precautions.
Maybe ... but where do you draw the line? When I was trying to build a fairly "full featured" personal web site, many years ago, I fought with these issues. I'd design something only to discover it didn't format the way I liked when the user had certain versions of Netscape, vs. Internet Explorer, or a piece of javascript didn't make a button change color on mouse-over with OS/2's browser, or ??
After all these years and attempts at standardization, we still see the exact same problems today. I don't think it's ever going to end, as long as companies or organizations out there feel they can offer something beneficial in their browser that "the competition doesn't do yet". There's always going to be that assumption that their new idea is so good and will be so well received, the competitors will "just have to play catch-up and add it too". Of course, they often don't .....
It doesn't make your site "less professional" if you define a scope and say, "Look. We know statistically, the VAST majority of viewers are going to come to use using Internet Explorer 7 or later, a recent version of Firefox, or either an iOS device or Android device, on the mobile side of things." Test your results with those options and if it looks good, call it a done deal. You'll pull your hair out trying to make anything but the most basic of pages look consistent on all the potential combinations. (Craigslist does it, but that's NOT the look most business are going to pay for, when they want an online presence!)
you probably earned a genuine clearance that stays with you if you switch jobs!
That's one of the big rip-offs I've seen in recent years with regard to "security clearances". Many times, an employer will require obtaining a clearance, but they'll say it's "provisional", and add on a stipulation that the clearance is only valid for the length of time you're employed with them.
A good friend of mine applied for a (low paying) job handling government records, some years back (I believe it had to do with health records of retired military personnel), and they grilled her and all of her close friends for weeks. I remember getting a phone call where I was asked all sorts of things, such as if I was aware of her communicating regularly with anyone who resided outside the United States, if I had any background on why she got divorced, etc. etc. This wasn't even a top secret clearance ... merely a "secret" one. As it turns out, she was offered a better-paying job in the private sector while all this was going on, so she wound up not accepting it anyway. So all that digging they did was for absolutely nothing, since they said her not accepting the position automatically invalidated it.
I understand why some govt. agencies or contractors would be concerned that you're just going to apply there to obtain the clearance and then jump ship to a better job that demands you already have one.... but after you've offered that much information up to them and it's determined you not some sort of risk? It seems like a clearance is a clearance. If too many people get it and run, that probably means you're simply not paying enough.
Absolutely true .... I've never used a WYSIWYG HTML editor before that didn't make a mess of the original code. BUT, until the day comes along where someone's able to build one that produces only clean code? It's the nature of the beast.
IMO, web sites really take two basic forms (with a lot of "gray area" in-between in some cases). Either you're essentially building a web APPLICATION ... a relatively interactive site that does data lookups from a back-end database, and/or interfaces with other Internet sites to pull and filter content for re-display, OR you're building a more static site intended to serve as a business's "shingle on the net", or photo gallery, or ?? The folks doing the later are usually far better served with apps along the lines of Dreamweaver (or on the Mac side, I prefer such tools as Rapidweaver with 3rd. party plug-ins and extensions). A full grasp of HTML code isn't even really necessary to do a good job with sites of this sort. Much more critical is a good sense of style and design, while hanging onto the concept that part of that impression the site makes on viewers involves loading time, as well.
The coders like to call these more static, design-oriented sites "less professional" because they clearly weren't hand-coded, and the HTML source is typically a big mess. But quite frankly, they're also the sites I see that are usually the most visually appealing and when done properly, have the most efficiently organized layouts of their content too.
There *are* advantages to integrating the software into the TV itself.... I own a 2nd. generation AppleTV box and thought it was great for my needs (primarily watching Netflix streaming content, plus the occasional use to stream some music from Internet radio stations or redirect something playing on an iPhone / iPad to the TV screen). But then I got a Sony GoogleTV on a good deal (refurbished special) and put it in the bedroom. It was a good enough price, I was initially just buying it to get a bigger LCD in the bedroom. I wasn't even really giving much consideration to the GoogleTV capabilities in it.
When I started delving into it though, especially after downloading the most recent GoogleTV software upgrade, I found a lot to like about it. Even though it's arguable Google didn't implement it in the best way possible, it IS nice that you can put the set in split screen mode, with a browser open on one half while watching live TV on the other half. You can press a button on the remote to launch said browser with a context-sensitive search based on what you're currently viewing on TV, as well. And since the GoogleTV software also handles a downloaded TV guide, you get some additional capabilities and integration there too.
When you combine all of that with the ability to download additional apps (such as a Plex client I installed, allowing me to stream all of my movie and saved TV show content from my Plex server running on my Mac), the fact it's built into my TV set isn't really a negative at all.
The big complaint I have with used cellphones, at least here in the USA, is this:
Most people obtain their new phone with a 1 or 2 year contract, so the phone's price is heavily subsidized up-front. You might get a $700 phone for $200, or a $400 phone for $50. You wind up paying its full price, of course, but only as you pay your monthly bills to finish off your contract (or pay the ETF to get out of it sooner).
Problem is, the used market generally views these devices as though their actual VALUE is relative to the subsidized prices, not the TRUE prices.
As just one example? My Sprint HTC Evo 4G is just under 1 year old right now, and when I got it, it was the "rock star" of phones on the Sprint network. There was really nothing better they could sell you, even if you wanted it. Currently, Sprint has a "trade in" offer where you can send back your old phone for credit on your future bills (not even cash!), and my Evo is worth a whopping $80, if in "excellent condition". Never-mind I'm probably still paying Sprint more than that for the phone, as I use up the remainder of the 2 year contract I had with it!
And judging from my experiences with most of the "cellphone recyclers" out there I'd talked to, I suspect they pay even LESS on average. Their business models usually revolve around the idea that plenty of people value their used phones at "basically zero", considering them a waste of space, or extra junk lying around.
If you've got a plain old flip-phone of some sort (hardly matters what make, model or how new) -- because it's used and not a "smartphone", I'd say you'd be lucky to get even $5 - $10 for it from most recyclers. That's one hell of a depreciation rate, when you consider a lot of those were "military spec" Nextels and such, that their owners only recently got done paying hundreds for in their contracts.
I've consistently found I got FAR more out of semi-recent model used cellphones by reselling them on Craigslist or even eBay, vs. recycling them. People who don't want long contracts but need reliable cellular service with a major carrier quickly realize the real value of these used phones, and are essentially the only customers you'll have who'll pay you a fair price for one.
If what you're saying is true (and if it is, I'm not even quite sure how you found time to read this article on Slashdot and post a reply?) ... you *really* need to sit back, think about what you just wrote, and ask yourself if that's REALLY how you want your life to be from here forward!
First of all, I would assume and hope you're getting paid pretty well for working all those 18 hour days and having so much responsibility. That means, you're simply not doing something right if you haven't been able to put aside some of that money in savings, in case you DO need to switch jobs and don't have a check for a while. (So that situation you're so afraid of, of being out of work for 3 years and not knowing how you were going to sleep or eat shouldn't have to happen again.)
Second, yep, fewer and fewer businesses have any loyalty to employees, but that should be a 2-way street! If they view you as that "expendable", then why work so hard for them?! Do the basics outlined in your job description, and not anything more unless you actually WANT to do it. If, like you say, they "throw you to the curb" thinking they can get someone a lot cheaper to do the same or better, LET THEM. Either they're right and you were simply getting paid too much for the value you actually brought to their table, or (much more likely) they'll fail a few times in a row and start adjusting their expectations and/or pay scale as they learn how wrong they were.
And third? Maybe you need to spend less time worrying about customers running into these mistakes you're concerned about, and more time documenting procedures so OTHERS can do some of these tasks properly? It sounds like right now, a lot of people are getting paid to screw things up that you're putting in all these insane hours correcting. You've got to break that cycle, even IF it means a temporary drop in customer satisfaction ....
I agree with this to a point. I mean, that's how I'd describe my current job. I don't DISLIKE it that much. By contrast, there are SO many other career options out there I have no interest in, to the point where I'd probably rather be on govt. assistance and living out of a cardboard box on the street corner than doing some of them every day. It's not a place I usually look forward to going, but often, it's really not bad at all once I'm there and get involved with whatever's needed that day. Specific PROJECTS I have to tackle there are often actually fun, but interacting with some of the other employees or doing dull but necessary work like coding bills or scanning in paper documents? Not so much.
On the other hand? All the people who swear they'd "never work another day in their life" if they were financially able, I don't quite relate to either. It would be great for a while, but like a lot of retirees say after they retire, life just gets kind of boring. You start losing track of basics like what day of the week it is, and you start feeling a little bit guilty that all around you, everyone else seems to be working while you just walk past, or make use of their services. You have a need to feel like you're "useful" in some way ... like you're accomplishing tasks that other people need accomplished.
Also, I've spent enough time around some of the "independently wealthy" people who spend all their time playing with toys and having fun to know they come across pretty shallow. They tend to rub me the wrong way, and not out of jealousy. It's more a sense that they really have no ambitions or goals. Thanks to the life they've voluntarily placed themselves in, they start assigning an artificially high level of importance to things that simply aren't that important.
Actually, I've always felt like when doing corporate I.T., it's really a big part of my job to ensure everyone ELSE is able to do their respective jobs with a minimal amount of hassle or interruption due to computer-related problems. They all need computers these days, to varying extents, so I'm here to make sure those computers work as more of a benefit than a detriment during their workday.
Granted, I'm not a software developer ... I'm doing systems administration and PC support roles. But software devs should really approach it from the same angle. The company hired them for the same reasons. They're just taking care of the "other half" of the computing problem (software vs. hardware).
I've always understood that a company's sales or marketing staff is critically important to the functioning of the business. I mean, if we can't get our products sold, how is anyone going to pay MY paycheck? So in that sense, no, I don't think less of those people.
The reason I think you see people (myself included) poking fun at sales/marketing staff on sites like /. regularly has more to do with the polar opposite natures. Our sales staff where I work now, for example, consists of a bunch of guys who basically just want to come in to work each day, have some fun goofing around and laughing at each other's stories or jokes, and have a primary motivation of money and bonuses. The single ones often have goals of owning specific things -- new cars, boats, a bigger house, vacation trips, clothes, or money to spend on girls they want to impress.... whatever. The older ones with families are just motivated by having the money to pursue whatever their weekend interests are (such as hunting or fishing) while keeping all the bills paid ... putting a kid through college or what-not. They view their job as a means to an end, but they don't have any particular love of their work, itself. They don't like change very much in the workplace, and they're very much in the "now", in the sense of "What is customer X going to buy from me TODAY?"
I.T. and software devs are quite a bit different. Sure, many of us have goals of buying material things of interest too -- but most of us actually "live" this stuff outside of work. We own nice computer systems at home and spend a lot of time on the net outside of the workplace. Software guys tend to feel a sense of ownership of the code they're paid to work on. There's a sense of pride, similar to the contractor who can drive by a house and say, "I put the roof on that one." or "We installed that driveway." years after the fact. Network admins have a similar sense of pride in a network environment that runs well.
That creates sort of a personality clash, when sales people call demanding a problem be solved NOW and everything's critical to them because "I'm losing orders over here!" Meanwhile, I.T. or software guys can easily see that many times, these situations could have been avoided if they bothered to notify them of warning signs of the impending problem that they just blew off for days before. They often ask for seemingly simple things that computer people think "they should know by now", while they simply don't want to spend the effort to learn all that "techie stuff" that's not their thing.
If you ask me, it's becoming more clear all the time that it's not as simple as the American public "getting what we voted for, or not voting at all" that's caused the mess we're in.
The system has always been heavily biased towards only the wealthy succeeding in a political career, but that's evolved from a perfectly acceptable reality (where wealthy folks who actually cared about the future of the country could dedicate some of their time and resources towards steering it in what they felt was the right direction) to a playground for the uber-rich. Today's leaders feel like they're above the law, entitled to any self-serving deals they're able to strike, and are part of an elite who only care about success for their own political cohorts and connections.
We're not really given realistic options to vote for, in most elections. It's very polarized, with candidates standing on the "right" or the "left" and pretending either of the two choices are the only sane/realistic ones a voter can make. All we get at the presidential level are lies and empty promises, about concepts as basic as caring about the "poor" or more recently, "the hard-working middle class". In reality, both sides only see the "poor" as a useful political tool and the "hard working middle class" as a group to sap resources from while it lasts. Heck, we've got numerous instances where a politician was a well-known Democrat yet he ran on a Republican ticket at some point, because nobody else was on the ticket for a given election. The political ideologies be dammed ... they're just treated as available slots.
The claim that our taxes aren't really that high for a developed nation is VERY questionable. When I see that claim thrown around most of the time, someone's trying to do an "apples to apples" comparison of percentages of income paid out in Federal income tax, or something along those lines. It's much more difficult to determine what the average American really pays, total, in taxes - because we've gotten so creative at taxing in little chunks, all over the place. Gasoline tax, sales tax, property tax, inheritance tax, retirement tax, import or export taxes, tax on profits earned from investments, govt. licenses of various sorts, and even traffic tickets all play a role. Additionally, some of these taxes are increased by an order of magnitude depending on the situation. EG. Sales tax suddenly jumps up in some parts of my community, if you buy from stores in special "tax corridors" where the local community voted to take in extra funds for some project or other.
So you're saying folks like Santorum or Romney have that math all figured out?
Funny ... I'm still waiting for one of them to submit the Excel spreadsheet that has the economic problem all solved for us.
Come on, man... you don't have to like Ron Paul or think he's presidential material. But to pretend he's different than all the others simply because he's using a mix of psychology and gut instinct? I'd say that right there describes Obama to a T.
Why do you consider a "let the states decide" concept such bullshit?
The idea is, Federal govt. shouldn't be dictating things that are in the realm of the states to handle. They should only be guaranteeing the most basic of rights outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The right to keep and bear arms would remain under Federal jurisdiction, since as the designers of the system itself realized, needs to be a right guaranteed to *all* citizens of the nation to ensure the citizenry retains power against government corruption.
Marriage licenses and details on how they're granted? We already allow states to handle that however they see fit, and ultimately - it's just a legal construct anyway. Two people can choose to live together and get married without involving government's permission. All people are really fighting about, when it comes down to it, is a right to file their taxes as married and a right to have the courts treat their situation as per standards used for "married couples" in case of a divorce or other dispute.
With so many "alternative lifestyles" out there, many judges are coming around and handling cases involving property division as if the people involved were legally married anyway.
I agree - but as you hinted with your comment, I wonder how much has to do with life changes placing less emphasis on "mental gymnastics"? I doubt most people invest as much time/energy on learning new things outside school as they did while they were there. On top of that, as you progress from "entry level" career type positions to more "senior" ones, you tend to get promoted out of hands-on, problem-solving type positions and into managerial ones - where your people skills become more of a factor than your technical skills.
By contrast, we've got people like Stephen Hawking out there, who at age 70, seem to still be exceptionally sharp, mentally.
Actually, I believe ALL of the states in the USA recognize "at will" employment as the standard. The only variations have to do with EXCEPTIONS to the rule which some states allow and others don't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
Interestingly, one of the statutory exceptions Federal govt. seems to universally recognize is failure to fire someone according to any rules printed in a company's own employee handbook.
Sounds exactly like what he was just saying about general purpose computing ....
Can't there be a viable middle-ground though? Why is it always framed as a free and open "general purpose" system, vs. a walled-garden model?
All many of us desire is a full-blown mainstream OS that's hardened enough against malware and virus threats so things like "clicking the wrong ad banner" on some website aren't enough to take the system down.
If users flock to walled gardens with locked down boot-loaders, it's not really the fault of the "computer-savvy user" who cast blame on them, so much as it's a failure of the developers of said mainstream OS's to succeed in meeting these requirements.
Well, Microsoft doesn't even allow you to do an upgrade install from XP to 7. You can only do that from Vista to 7. The "upgrade" procedure consists of it doing a full, clean install of 7 into a new folder on the drive while placing all the XP stuff into a WINDOWS.OLD folder. You have to manually move your documents and data over to the appropriate places after it's done, and reinstall all the apps from scratch.
I've done this MANY times for people already, and it works just fine but it's time consuming.
There's something to be said for that ... but there's also the problem that MOST computer users aren't content to keep using the same old software and peripherals they've always used. Eventually, they get a glimpse of what someone else is doing with a more modern setup and they decide that they'd like to have the same functionality.
Then you've got those who really DON'T want to change a thing, but their hardware finally dies on them, and then what? They're FORCED to move to something more current since nobody's interested in selling you a PC with XP on it anymore.
For example, I had a client who's retired (in his 80's, actually) and got interested in joining the "computer age" when a relative gave him their old Dell laptop computer and got him signed up for cable broadband Internet. Over time, he learned enough to use the basic features of Outlook Express (only email client he had on the machine) and Internet Explorer on XP, and really, that was enough for him.
Understandably, he didn't want to change, but his laptop's motherboard started failing and it wasn't feasible to repair it. He finally gave in and bought a new desktop machine at the store (decided he didn't need anything portable this time around, and the bigger display would be nice too). That forced him into Windows 7, but really - it didn't turn out to be so bad. In a matter of days, he was back to his usual routines. I helped him migrate his Outlook Express mail to Windows "Live Mail" -- which is enough like OE so there's not much learning curve, and we moved over his old IE "Favorites" and Address Book contacts.
It actually makes tasks like printing out emailed photos easier than what he dealt with under XP, since 7 has a more friendly "wizard" to handle printing them now -- and that's a benefit he wasn't even expecting.
You're talking about ONE economic theory out there, which is highly dubious in nature and VERY risky to implement, in case it turns out to be wrong.
Absolutely, our nation has a problem because we're spending money we can't afford to spend on things like war. But the idea that we need more and larger stimulus efforts to "kick-start" the economy back into action? I don't really believe it. The big problem with the concept is that we've got to borrow from other nations to even have the money to give out in a stimulus. That means not only does the (hopefully) recovering economy have to do well enough to pay all of that money back, but they've got to do it PLUS interest, AND in an environment where there's tougher competition with other nations of the world who upgraded their infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities with all of that money they borrowed from the U.S.
Besides, the stimulus spending winds up "playing favorites" with people who have enough political clout to ensure their pet business interests receive the lion's share of the money.
The alternate suggestion of promoting new, small business startups sounds like a much better long-term solution to me. Instead of people finding themselves unemployed for long stretches of time, collecting govt. assistance as they search and often settle for "under-employment"? They could be encouraged to start their own new businesses, which should lead to eventual generation of more job openings that would be the type suitable to be filled by others like themselves (who perhaps started their own small businesses too, but weren't real successful with them, or found it wasn't their thing after they gave it an honest try).
Rounds of stimulus payouts will make more people happy in the short-term, but is likely to be a plan that implodes in the long haul.