His point was, again, about the implied (false) moral weight behind declaring "sharing" as being wrong (something opposite to what we're taught as children.)
While many people do misquote and twist Stallman's meaning, you and he are doing the same thing with the "we were taught sharing was right as a kid" argument. What Stallman is talking about is copying, not sharing. When sharing, there is one item that is apportioned between people. Whether that be a toy that you play with sometimes and another child plays with sometimes or a pizza where you eat some slices and other people eat other slices. Sharing does not (and never has) meant to take something and make unlimited exact duplicates and give them to people (including complete strangers).
While the human interest bloat is definitely there, the show is just bloated in general. I watched Ninja Warrior to watch people take on the course. In American Ninja Warrior, I have to sit through qualifiers of people taking on part of the course. And then these same people take on the same part of the course with a couple more obstacles added on. And this happens in like 4 different "regions". I got tired of the show LONG before they got anyway near actually taking on the real course. Yes, the qualifiers are important to get a good field, but I don't want to watch them. Just show me the finals of people actually tackling the course and I'll watch it.
There is a world of difference between fast forward, which can manually be used to skip commercials and can also be used just to skip forward in a show and this. The only purpose of the auto hopper is to skip commercials with no manual intervention.
I'm torn on this. On one hand, once you record it, you should be able to do what you want with it. On the other, this is a pretty straight forward case of a company changing copyrighted works and profiting from them.
The fines HAVE to be higher than the advertising income. What would be the point of fine that were less than what they were making from advertising? "Oh, what you are doing is wrong, but keep doing what you are doing and just pay a portion of that money in fines." Whether they should be fined our not is certainly up for debate, but the fines being more than what they make from the infraction certainly isn't.
The comments are in no way tied to your account. Basically, instead of them storing your account information, they link your Gawker account to one of the others and then asks them to verify your login credentials. The comments don't show up with your FB, Twitter, or Google handles, they all still show up under your Gawker handle. The only thing that is being passed off if the actual credential check. To me, this makes perfect sense for a site that has had security issues in the past. They no longer handle the security, Google or FB or Twitter does, so there is nothing to be hacked there.
His extradition is definitely a crock. If what he did is not a crime under UK law, then it shouldn't matter if it is under US law. I'm sure many things I do are crimes in other countries, but if they asked the US to extradite me they would be laughed at. The internet is an international entity (will more specifically, it is non-national). If someone does something on the internet that is legal in their country, then that is all that matters. If someone from your country accesses it and they shouldn't, deal with the people who fall under your laws.
As for what he actually did, I am torn on it. He obviously did not actively violate copyright since he just linked. But I think he definitely wasn't in the right either, as he was actively making money off of piracy. To take a real world example, if I set up a business that tracked drug dealers and you could pay me 5 dollars to tell you exactly where the drug dealer was that had what you were looking for, I would definitely be prosecuted for aiding and abetting or conspiracy or something. I am not doing anything illegal, as I am not selling drugs, but I am certainly helping the people who are doing something illegal.
The first step should be to talk to them about it and see if they will revise it for you. I work for a company that took a boilerplate IP Policy and wanted to roll it out (like I'm sure many companies do). When they did this, I talked to them and asked them to change it because the way it was written, they basically controlled anything I did. I cited the fact that they could use it for anything from claiming rights to a novel I would write, to any invention I came up with, to even using it to force me to take down a personal website I designed for myself. They obviously replied with "but we wouldn't do that" so I asked them to change it since they had no plans to ever do any of that. I rewrote the agreement to include anything worked on during company time or anything directly related to company work, and they had no issues with that. If you are happy with your employer, and have a good relationship with them, going tot hem should be your first step. If they are reasonable (which is a big if depending on the company and area of business) they hopefully won't have any issue changing it.
I bought a 2011 Prius IV, and it works exactly as advertised. I drive about 15 minutes each way to work, about half highway and half road, and I get about 49 MPG, which is exactly what was advertised. The idea that you have to stay below 50MPH and never accelerate or go up hills is just silly (I live in Cincinnati, OH, which is fairly hilly as well). I have learned to not slam on the gas when I am taking off, but that is because it shows you your efficiency real time, so it's easy to see what you are doing to your mileage when you take of like a race car. Generally, I drive it like any other car, although the information it gives me allows me to drive a little better than I did in the past.
And I'm sorry, but no car will get the advertised gas mileage if you are going up mountains. This has nothing to do with hybrids and everything to do with that fact they don't take into account extreme driving conditions when they calculate mileage. This is actually the first car I have ever owned that gave me the gas mileage it advertised.
I mean the high-end model goes 300 miles. There are only two reasons to have a problem with that range: You actually drive further than that regularly, in which case you have no business driving an electric car right now anyways, or you've got some kind of "range survivalist syndrome" where you're always worried about "what if I run out of juice and then ZOMBIES ATTACK!?"
Or the other logical reason is that sometimes you drive farther than that. I would love to get an electric car, and it would handle 98% of my driving. But I'm single and it would be my only car, so the times I do need to drive farther I would be out of luck. I sometime (maybe bimonthly) travel between 150 and 300 miles to regional cities for concerts. Even a 300 mile range is risky since I can't guarantee that I will be able to charge it where I am going.
EVs are great as a secondary car. They make perfect sense and are wonderful. But as the only car someone has, they won't cut it until I can be sure I can find a charging station as easily as I can find a gas station in a different city. I'm just not willing to rent a car every time I want to take a weekend road trip.
The best answer is to not use tickets as your metric. I worked at a smaller company and our metric was a simple yearly user survey. We would ask what they thought of their equipment, the how the support team did (response time, niceness, knowledge, etc) and even took it so far as to ask for suggestions on what could be improved. In the end, how many tickets you close really doesn't matter. What matters is how happy your users are. If you are doing the job correctly, the majority of your users will at least be satisfied, if not happy. If the majority are unhappy, this will give you specific ideas on areas you can improve on.
Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child’s legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.
I can at least see what they are going for with not allowing students and teachers to be friends (I think it is dumb, but I can see it). But FORMER students??? So in Missouri, I can't legally be friends with anyone who has ever been my teacher, ever. I can be 40 and the former teacher 75, and legally we are not able to be friends on Facebook? That has to be one of the silliest things I have ever read.
In Ohio at least, while winnings are taxable, anything you lost in gambling is deductible from those winnings. So while the $280000 is taxable, the $200000 you spent on buying the tickets (plus anything else you can scrape up where you lost) is deducted from the total, leaving you to only pay on the actually winnings. And if you can get in good with a place, they will save the scratch offs people play, lose, and leave there so you can claim even more losses.
I don't have any real issue with checking them out on Facebook, or even getting them to friend you if they are dumb enough to do that. I think the line is clearly being crossed by offering them something (in this case internet access) for friending the prosecutor. It sets up a clear divide in the jury pool, as people who have open profiles and those who don't want to allow the prosecutor access don't get internet access. It also puts the defender at a disadvantage, since they obviously now have to offer them something to get the same access.
To me FB is like public records. It is out in the public and if you can see it, then it is fair game. But basically bribing the people to give you access crosses the line.
Um, yes, I'd hope that Google Instant was censored because who wants to type in something innocent and have it come up with a porn site? Do you really want to be searching for something like "Sexual Harassment Lawsuits" and simply have all the sites for "sex" or "sexual" come up whenever you type them?
I don't see any issue with this as long as they are requesting access and not being fraudulent about their request. If Joe Governmentworker sends you a friend request, and you accept it, you are giving him permission to view your data. If you don't know him, then you shouldn't accept the friend request.
Now if they are using fake profiles and false information to do this, then I see an issue, but as long as they are legitimate accounts, I don't see a problem with it at all.
I have never understood the stigma about swearing. They are words, just like any other. What really is the difference between saying "I took a dump" and "I took a shit"? They mean exactly the same thing, but for some reason shit is a dirty word.
It is all about how you use words, not the words you use. You can be just as vulgar and mean without using "swear" words. Is it really less offensive for me to say "The best part of you squirted out of your father's substandard size penis and rolled down that chunk of lard your mother called a thigh" than for me to say "Holy fuck that is cool"?
Words are just words, it's the meaning behind them that matters.
This is a "productive. talented person"? Whether or not the city was run poorly (it is a city government, so it probably was) the fact is that he was holding the router and password configs hostage. Forget him getting fired and everything that happened, what would have happened if he got hit by a bus? He can claim that the other people were idiots, but idiots with access is better than a single person with access who dies, because then no one has access. I can even sympathize with holding the passwords, but what the hell would the purpose of not committing the router configs to memory be? So every time there is a power outage or a router needs to be rebooted they need to call him? That isn;t a good admin, no matter how stupid he thinks everyone else is.
I have a better AC story. We had a second AC unit installed in server room, as the first was cranking 24/7 and was just barely keeping up, with the thought that the 2 of them in tandem could handle the load. A few days after it was installed, we noticed the room was hot when we got in in the morning. Not enough to cause alarms, but hotter than it should be. As the day went on, it dropped, so we chalked it up to a one time fluke. This happened a time or 2 more throughout the week, but it always dropped during the day. Finally the weekend came, and it got hot enough to cause an alarm. We got in and the AC units kicked on without us actually doing anything, and the room started to cool down. We called out AC guys and they checked both system and couldn't find anything wrong with either of them. Well, the same thing happened again that night. Finally, someone was there late, trying to see if they could see what was going on. Everything was fine throughout the evening, so they finally decided to leave. Luckily, they noticed as they walked out the door and flipped off the lights that the AC units both turned off. HE went back in to verify, and when he turned the lights back on, the AC units both started again. Turned the lights off, and they both shut off again. The genius (lowest bid) company that we hired to install the new AC unit had wired both units into the wall switch for the lights! So when we were there checking, we had the lights on and everything worked perfectly. We went home for the day and turned off the lights, and the AC units. Needless to say, that company isn't even allowed inside out building anymore!
I'm sure Apple and AT&T are horribly upset that you have given them your money for products you find are inferior.
I just don't understand why everyone keeps buying iPhones and iPads if they don't do what they want. By purchasing them, you are basically telling Apple and AT&T that you are happy with their products and service. If they don't do what you want, don't purchase them and purchase something that does. I don't like how Apple handles the app store, so instead of giving them money and rewarding them for their bad job, I purchased an Android phone.
I started with a small Medical Contract Research Organization right out of college (25 people) as the first IT person. At that point, I was a member of the data management department, but I think it more importantly depends on the people you have. If you don't have a dedicated IT department, the best idea is to see who has the most knowledge and more importantly, who WANTS to do it. In my case, the head of DM had the most knowledge and had been doing it up until they hired me. In your case, if the head of Clinical has knowledge and wants to do it, they are probably the best choice.
In most case something like Data Management or Stats or something along those lines will be best, since those people are usually a little more tech savvy. But if they don't want to do it, then it doesn't matter how tech savvy they are, IT isn't going to get anything from them.
While I don't think this will ever work for all games, for some games I can definitely see them going without a demo (or even better, charging for it) and it going over well. Any new games will obviously still need trailers. If you have never heard of the game before (and especially if you don't know the studio), most people aren't going to shell out $60 without a demo. But for established franchises, no one really cares about the demo, they just play it to hold them over until the full game is out. Does anyone really care about the demo of Madden 2011? The people who buy Madden will buy it, even if they can't play the demo (if anyone even does play the demo). When the new Halo or Gears of War or Mario of Zelda game comes out, all the fanboys will be lined up for it, even without a demo. And many of those fanboys would happily pay $5 for the demo just so they can brag that they played the demo and the game is great (or the game sucks, but they will still buy it anyway). With established games, everyone already knows what the game is going to be like, so the demo really doesn't serve much purpose.
I really don't have a problem with this. If the system is already rooted, the patch isn't going to actually help anything since their security is already compromised. And with all the bad press MS received last time over something that was not their fault at all, why should they risk it again? If your system has a serious issue like being rooted, then you have to take care of the issue before you can install the patch. Seems logical to me.
Except that, as has been posted here before, people are terrible at self-assessing their skill...I know for a fact that I cannot multitask. However, I believe myself to be particularly good at self-evaluation.
So people are bad at self-assessing, and you believe you are good at self evaluation and bad at multi-tasking. So by your own definition you are probably one of the few super-taskers, you just can't tell.
I understand the ideas behind them saying a company is too big to fail. I even understand wanting to help them survive if that is the case, because it will have wide-reaching consequences over a huge number of other companies/industries. What I don't understand is how after they determine a company is too big to fail, they then don't start working on a plan to correct it.
Pfizer is too big to prosecute because they are too big to fail. Fine, so we let them slide this time. But what about next time? If there isn't a solution put in place, it basically signals to them that they can continue to break the law, because they will always get lesser penalties. How about if we determine a company is too big to fail, we start making it so they are the right size so if they fail, it won't kill everything. We should be looking into ways of forcing Pfizer to break into multiple companies so the next time something happens, they aren't too big to fail. I understand the issue, and I understand why they don't want them to fail, but the solution isn't to leave them as big as they are, it's to right-size them so they aren't too big to fail. Otherwise, we will always be left holding the bag for these companies.
This is a great idea if you REALLY want to devolve into total crap. Everyone (especially geeks) like to complain about all of the crap on their TV. There are too many crappy reality shows and not enough good content. If TV went al la carte, this would truly be the case. The reason most of the smaller niche channels, the ones that have the good original intelligent programming, can survive are because of bundling. It is, unfortunately, also the reason there are 7 ESPN channels and 12 religious networks, but I will put up with them to have the good content. Channels like G4, the Science channel, the National Geographic channel, the lesser music channels that still show music such as VH1 classic and Palladium, the History channel, and Ovation wouldn't be able to exist without bundling. Instead, all that would be left is lowest common denominator TV like MTV and E. We would lose probably half the channels, but int hat half would be the ones that are willing to take a chance and show interesting niche programing instead of showing reruns of American Idol and the Real World.
I will happily keep paying for bundles to make sure there is actually something I want to watch available on my cable system.
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His point was, again, about the implied (false) moral weight behind declaring "sharing" as being wrong (something opposite to what we're taught as children.)
While many people do misquote and twist Stallman's meaning, you and he are doing the same thing with the "we were taught sharing was right as a kid" argument. What Stallman is talking about is copying, not sharing. When sharing, there is one item that is apportioned between people. Whether that be a toy that you play with sometimes and another child plays with sometimes or a pizza where you eat some slices and other people eat other slices. Sharing does not (and never has) meant to take something and make unlimited exact duplicates and give them to people (including complete strangers).
While the human interest bloat is definitely there, the show is just bloated in general. I watched Ninja Warrior to watch people take on the course. In American Ninja Warrior, I have to sit through qualifiers of people taking on part of the course. And then these same people take on the same part of the course with a couple more obstacles added on. And this happens in like 4 different "regions". I got tired of the show LONG before they got anyway near actually taking on the real course. Yes, the qualifiers are important to get a good field, but I don't want to watch them. Just show me the finals of people actually tackling the course and I'll watch it.
There is a world of difference between fast forward, which can manually be used to skip commercials and can also be used just to skip forward in a show and this. The only purpose of the auto hopper is to skip commercials with no manual intervention.
I'm torn on this. On one hand, once you record it, you should be able to do what you want with it. On the other, this is a pretty straight forward case of a company changing copyrighted works and profiting from them.
The fines HAVE to be higher than the advertising income. What would be the point of fine that were less than what they were making from advertising? "Oh, what you are doing is wrong, but keep doing what you are doing and just pay a portion of that money in fines." Whether they should be fined our not is certainly up for debate, but the fines being more than what they make from the infraction certainly isn't.
The comments are in no way tied to your account. Basically, instead of them storing your account information, they link your Gawker account to one of the others and then asks them to verify your login credentials. The comments don't show up with your FB, Twitter, or Google handles, they all still show up under your Gawker handle. The only thing that is being passed off if the actual credential check. To me, this makes perfect sense for a site that has had security issues in the past. They no longer handle the security, Google or FB or Twitter does, so there is nothing to be hacked there.
His extradition is definitely a crock. If what he did is not a crime under UK law, then it shouldn't matter if it is under US law. I'm sure many things I do are crimes in other countries, but if they asked the US to extradite me they would be laughed at. The internet is an international entity (will more specifically, it is non-national). If someone does something on the internet that is legal in their country, then that is all that matters. If someone from your country accesses it and they shouldn't, deal with the people who fall under your laws.
As for what he actually did, I am torn on it. He obviously did not actively violate copyright since he just linked. But I think he definitely wasn't in the right either, as he was actively making money off of piracy. To take a real world example, if I set up a business that tracked drug dealers and you could pay me 5 dollars to tell you exactly where the drug dealer was that had what you were looking for, I would definitely be prosecuted for aiding and abetting or conspiracy or something. I am not doing anything illegal, as I am not selling drugs, but I am certainly helping the people who are doing something illegal.
The first step should be to talk to them about it and see if they will revise it for you. I work for a company that took a boilerplate IP Policy and wanted to roll it out (like I'm sure many companies do). When they did this, I talked to them and asked them to change it because the way it was written, they basically controlled anything I did. I cited the fact that they could use it for anything from claiming rights to a novel I would write, to any invention I came up with, to even using it to force me to take down a personal website I designed for myself. They obviously replied with "but we wouldn't do that" so I asked them to change it since they had no plans to ever do any of that. I rewrote the agreement to include anything worked on during company time or anything directly related to company work, and they had no issues with that. If you are happy with your employer, and have a good relationship with them, going tot hem should be your first step. If they are reasonable (which is a big if depending on the company and area of business) they hopefully won't have any issue changing it.
I bought a 2011 Prius IV, and it works exactly as advertised. I drive about 15 minutes each way to work, about half highway and half road, and I get about 49 MPG, which is exactly what was advertised. The idea that you have to stay below 50MPH and never accelerate or go up hills is just silly (I live in Cincinnati, OH, which is fairly hilly as well). I have learned to not slam on the gas when I am taking off, but that is because it shows you your efficiency real time, so it's easy to see what you are doing to your mileage when you take of like a race car. Generally, I drive it like any other car, although the information it gives me allows me to drive a little better than I did in the past.
And I'm sorry, but no car will get the advertised gas mileage if you are going up mountains. This has nothing to do with hybrids and everything to do with that fact they don't take into account extreme driving conditions when they calculate mileage. This is actually the first car I have ever owned that gave me the gas mileage it advertised.
I mean the high-end model goes 300 miles. There are only two reasons to have a problem with that range: You actually drive further than that regularly, in which case you have no business driving an electric car right now anyways, or you've got some kind of "range survivalist syndrome" where you're always worried about "what if I run out of juice and then ZOMBIES ATTACK!?"
Or the other logical reason is that sometimes you drive farther than that. I would love to get an electric car, and it would handle 98% of my driving. But I'm single and it would be my only car, so the times I do need to drive farther I would be out of luck. I sometime (maybe bimonthly) travel between 150 and 300 miles to regional cities for concerts. Even a 300 mile range is risky since I can't guarantee that I will be able to charge it where I am going.
EVs are great as a secondary car. They make perfect sense and are wonderful. But as the only car someone has, they won't cut it until I can be sure I can find a charging station as easily as I can find a gas station in a different city. I'm just not willing to rent a car every time I want to take a weekend road trip.
The best answer is to not use tickets as your metric. I worked at a smaller company and our metric was a simple yearly user survey. We would ask what they thought of their equipment, the how the support team did (response time, niceness, knowledge, etc) and even took it so far as to ask for suggestions on what could be improved. In the end, how many tickets you close really doesn't matter. What matters is how happy your users are. If you are doing the job correctly, the majority of your users will at least be satisfied, if not happy. If the majority are unhappy, this will give you specific ideas on areas you can improve on.
Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child’s legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.
I can at least see what they are going for with not allowing students and teachers to be friends (I think it is dumb, but I can see it). But FORMER students??? So in Missouri, I can't legally be friends with anyone who has ever been my teacher, ever. I can be 40 and the former teacher 75, and legally we are not able to be friends on Facebook? That has to be one of the silliest things I have ever read.
In Ohio at least, while winnings are taxable, anything you lost in gambling is deductible from those winnings. So while the $280000 is taxable, the $200000 you spent on buying the tickets (plus anything else you can scrape up where you lost) is deducted from the total, leaving you to only pay on the actually winnings. And if you can get in good with a place, they will save the scratch offs people play, lose, and leave there so you can claim even more losses.
I don't have any real issue with checking them out on Facebook, or even getting them to friend you if they are dumb enough to do that. I think the line is clearly being crossed by offering them something (in this case internet access) for friending the prosecutor. It sets up a clear divide in the jury pool, as people who have open profiles and those who don't want to allow the prosecutor access don't get internet access. It also puts the defender at a disadvantage, since they obviously now have to offer them something to get the same access.
To me FB is like public records. It is out in the public and if you can see it, then it is fair game. But basically bribing the people to give you access crosses the line.
Um, yes, I'd hope that Google Instant was censored because who wants to type in something innocent and have it come up with a porn site? Do you really want to be searching for something like "Sexual Harassment Lawsuits" and simply have all the sites for "sex" or "sexual" come up whenever you type them?
Yes, yes I do.
I don't see any issue with this as long as they are requesting access and not being fraudulent about their request. If Joe Governmentworker sends you a friend request, and you accept it, you are giving him permission to view your data. If you don't know him, then you shouldn't accept the friend request.
Now if they are using fake profiles and false information to do this, then I see an issue, but as long as they are legitimate accounts, I don't see a problem with it at all.
I have never understood the stigma about swearing. They are words, just like any other. What really is the difference between saying "I took a dump" and "I took a shit"? They mean exactly the same thing, but for some reason shit is a dirty word.
It is all about how you use words, not the words you use. You can be just as vulgar and mean without using "swear" words. Is it really less offensive for me to say "The best part of you squirted out of your father's substandard size penis and rolled down that chunk of lard your mother called a thigh" than for me to say "Holy fuck that is cool"?
Words are just words, it's the meaning behind them that matters.
This is a "productive. talented person"? Whether or not the city was run poorly (it is a city government, so it probably was) the fact is that he was holding the router and password configs hostage. Forget him getting fired and everything that happened, what would have happened if he got hit by a bus? He can claim that the other people were idiots, but idiots with access is better than a single person with access who dies, because then no one has access. I can even sympathize with holding the passwords, but what the hell would the purpose of not committing the router configs to memory be? So every time there is a power outage or a router needs to be rebooted they need to call him? That isn;t a good admin, no matter how stupid he thinks everyone else is.
I have a better AC story. We had a second AC unit installed in server room, as the first was cranking 24/7 and was just barely keeping up, with the thought that the 2 of them in tandem could handle the load. A few days after it was installed, we noticed the room was hot when we got in in the morning. Not enough to cause alarms, but hotter than it should be. As the day went on, it dropped, so we chalked it up to a one time fluke. This happened a time or 2 more throughout the week, but it always dropped during the day. Finally the weekend came, and it got hot enough to cause an alarm. We got in and the AC units kicked on without us actually doing anything, and the room started to cool down. We called out AC guys and they checked both system and couldn't find anything wrong with either of them. Well, the same thing happened again that night. Finally, someone was there late, trying to see if they could see what was going on. Everything was fine throughout the evening, so they finally decided to leave. Luckily, they noticed as they walked out the door and flipped off the lights that the AC units both turned off. HE went back in to verify, and when he turned the lights back on, the AC units both started again. Turned the lights off, and they both shut off again. The genius (lowest bid) company that we hired to install the new AC unit had wired both units into the wall switch for the lights! So when we were there checking, we had the lights on and everything worked perfectly. We went home for the day and turned off the lights, and the AC units. Needless to say, that company isn't even allowed inside out building anymore!
I'm sure Apple and AT&T are horribly upset that you have given them your money for products you find are inferior.
I just don't understand why everyone keeps buying iPhones and iPads if they don't do what they want. By purchasing them, you are basically telling Apple and AT&T that you are happy with their products and service. If they don't do what you want, don't purchase them and purchase something that does. I don't like how Apple handles the app store, so instead of giving them money and rewarding them for their bad job, I purchased an Android phone.
I started with a small Medical Contract Research Organization right out of college (25 people) as the first IT person. At that point, I was a member of the data management department, but I think it more importantly depends on the people you have. If you don't have a dedicated IT department, the best idea is to see who has the most knowledge and more importantly, who WANTS to do it. In my case, the head of DM had the most knowledge and had been doing it up until they hired me. In your case, if the head of Clinical has knowledge and wants to do it, they are probably the best choice.
In most case something like Data Management or Stats or something along those lines will be best, since those people are usually a little more tech savvy. But if they don't want to do it, then it doesn't matter how tech savvy they are, IT isn't going to get anything from them.
While I don't think this will ever work for all games, for some games I can definitely see them going without a demo (or even better, charging for it) and it going over well. Any new games will obviously still need trailers. If you have never heard of the game before (and especially if you don't know the studio), most people aren't going to shell out $60 without a demo. But for established franchises, no one really cares about the demo, they just play it to hold them over until the full game is out. Does anyone really care about the demo of Madden 2011? The people who buy Madden will buy it, even if they can't play the demo (if anyone even does play the demo). When the new Halo or Gears of War or Mario of Zelda game comes out, all the fanboys will be lined up for it, even without a demo. And many of those fanboys would happily pay $5 for the demo just so they can brag that they played the demo and the game is great (or the game sucks, but they will still buy it anyway). With established games, everyone already knows what the game is going to be like, so the demo really doesn't serve much purpose.
I really don't have a problem with this. If the system is already rooted, the patch isn't going to actually help anything since their security is already compromised. And with all the bad press MS received last time over something that was not their fault at all, why should they risk it again? If your system has a serious issue like being rooted, then you have to take care of the issue before you can install the patch. Seems logical to me.
Except that, as has been posted here before, people are terrible at self-assessing their skill...I know for a fact that I cannot multitask. However, I believe myself to be particularly good at self-evaluation.
So people are bad at self-assessing, and you believe you are good at self evaluation and bad at multi-tasking. So by your own definition you are probably one of the few super-taskers, you just can't tell.
I understand the ideas behind them saying a company is too big to fail. I even understand wanting to help them survive if that is the case, because it will have wide-reaching consequences over a huge number of other companies/industries. What I don't understand is how after they determine a company is too big to fail, they then don't start working on a plan to correct it.
Pfizer is too big to prosecute because they are too big to fail. Fine, so we let them slide this time. But what about next time? If there isn't a solution put in place, it basically signals to them that they can continue to break the law, because they will always get lesser penalties. How about if we determine a company is too big to fail, we start making it so they are the right size so if they fail, it won't kill everything. We should be looking into ways of forcing Pfizer to break into multiple companies so the next time something happens, they aren't too big to fail. I understand the issue, and I understand why they don't want them to fail, but the solution isn't to leave them as big as they are, it's to right-size them so they aren't too big to fail. Otherwise, we will always be left holding the bag for these companies.
This is a great idea if you REALLY want to devolve into total crap. Everyone (especially geeks) like to complain about all of the crap on their TV. There are too many crappy reality shows and not enough good content. If TV went al la carte, this would truly be the case. The reason most of the smaller niche channels, the ones that have the good original intelligent programming, can survive are because of bundling. It is, unfortunately, also the reason there are 7 ESPN channels and 12 religious networks, but I will put up with them to have the good content. Channels like G4, the Science channel, the National Geographic channel, the lesser music channels that still show music such as VH1 classic and Palladium, the History channel, and Ovation wouldn't be able to exist without bundling. Instead, all that would be left is lowest common denominator TV like MTV and E. We would lose probably half the channels, but int hat half would be the ones that are willing to take a chance and show interesting niche programing instead of showing reruns of American Idol and the Real World.
I will happily keep paying for bundles to make sure there is actually something I want to watch available on my cable system.