In the US we are watching a lot of small personal freedoms be legislated away. This is one of them: to do what we wish with what we purchase. I understand it isn't 'in the constitution' but it is implied in our way of life. The fact that our leaders continue to propose bills of 'fair use' that don't allow 'fair use' is more telling of who is in control. This is yet another tiny step nowhere for the 'fair use' debate.
To Be Fair.
Has anyone been successfully prosecuted for burning a personal DVD for personal use on their PSP?
It doesn't make it right that it is illegal, but at least our society doesn't enforce the fact - yet.
From my own experience, when I did play hide and seek with my little brother, I must correct this statement.
"In some of the incidents associated with clothes dryers, the appliance was accidentally, turned on while the child was inside.
Frequently, the children were playing "hide-and-seek" and the appliance or chest provided a deceptively good place to hide. When the door slammed shut,...."....and I turned the dryer on, to show my stupid little brother it was a stupid place to hide. I then laughed hysterically after I let him out and he continued to spin.
If that's the issue - require the 'good doctors' to match their time hour for hour in the public and private systems. Tax their services on top of that and use the money to improve the public system. It's win win.
The rich get what they want and end up paying even more to help the poor - classic canadian socialistic policy.
I'm fairly certain we are the kings of the disposable economy here. Who cares if we have to toss a $99 EVD player after a few years. Actually, it would still hold some value on eBay.
Early adopters aren't concerned with costs, and a new format that is specifically meant to be cheaper is going to have a lot more people trying it out.
Tell that to the Blegian courts who forced google to stop linking to news stories in their country. The traffic to their sites has diminished, so maybe the news sites learned their lesson - maybe not. I haven't heard of them begging google to crawl again them yet.
Oh I understand. I should have just QUIT MY JOB and DROPPPED OUT OF SCHOOL rather than consider hiriing people who wanted to work?
I did not set the wages. I did not make the policies. Hell I didn't even make $8/hr. I ate at work and dined on Ramen at home to get by. I used the 'pray I don't get sick' health insurance policy too you know!
It's insulting to hear it is MY fault?!
We did the I-9 paperwork and these people had social secuirty numbers, every one. If they did not have proof of citizenship they did have green cards and/or work visas. They were legal in our eyes. They were good employees. I fired the locals who did not do their jobs, as it was a burden on me to make up for their faults - period.
Of course, we could go with your philosophy too - close all the restaurants (90% of non-fast food restaurants pay less than $7/hr too) - close all the gas stations (same 90% rule) - close the grocery stores - close the malls - and shut down the agriculture industry too! Go with out your french fries, GAP t-shirts, Best Buy and fresh milk for awhile until they get a clue and start paying the real living wage of $12/hr. That'll work!
Regardless, it's not just the employers fault as you pointed out. We all want cheap products and services. It can't be fixed overnight, but at least we have some decent discussions going on about it now. It is going to be a gradual process. I sure don't want us to be in France's position with 20% unemployment because they are forced to pay higher wages, 6 weeks vacation, lifetime employment and the state covers the health care and education costs for everyone.
Will congress, will the employers, will we, will you start to change?
This discussion started about High School and we've shot off into immigrant workers, legal or not. Are they related? Obviously - so the problem is far larger than we like to realize. As Americans we have to start the change at the bottom, because the top is only interested in themselves.
I'm not insulted. You made some very good points. In fact it seems to be overlooked that I have pointed out the use of immigrants in the kitchen, not in the service areas. Those tend to be filled more with english speaking natives. We had good service and I was good at my job, being bi-lingual was very helpful as well of course.
I felt I was a good leader and that effected our service, but the reliability of our kitchen staff was an issue until we replaced them with loyal hard working immigrants - period. It was the part of the place no locals wanted to be, in the greasy hellhole of a kitchen.:)
I didn't care because this was the job I was stuck with as well - not that I appreciated making the $7.90 an hour I was getting. I actually was lucky, as at the time the minimum wage was $4.25/hr and our average employee made around $6/hr.
I could go on and on about how unfair wages are and how stupid society is in dealing with the lowe end wage-earners. Here's an example:
A fast food joint spends on average 20% on labor (non-hourly mgmt not included). A Big Mac averages $2.49 An increase from $6/hr to $8/hr would raise the price of a Big Mac to about $2.79
Spend another $3/hr on low-end benefits like 80% coverage cheapo insurance and the Big Mac might cost you $2.99
Why can't we afford this? It would only effect lowe end products, not the entire country, altho applying forced insurance to all employees may actually decrease the cost of healthcare as we no longer have non-payers effecting the system, right?
As far as ethics, that's irrelevant. I didn't care because my job was HARDER because of the laziness I had to deal with with the non-immigrants who worked poorly when they showed up. That was the issue, not the fact that they made others unemployed.
In fact as it has been stated repeatedly, americans obviously did not want these kinds of jobs - do you?
I did it because I needed a flexible job to work around a school schedule, the wages sucked but I got by and I earn far more now on my own. I don't regret that at all.
In my early twenties I used to manage a fast food joint, while I attended college. I also spoke spanish that I learned in High School. We had a serious labor problem. Nobody wanted to work for $6 an hour and those that did were lazy, late and called in sick a lot.
We solved the problem by hiring an entirely immigrant (spansih speaking) kitchen. Productivity went through the roof, quality went up, cleanliness was impeccable and they came to work every day - usually early.
Whether they were illegal or not, I could care less - we did the proper paperwork to cover our butts so it was irrelevant. What I learned was true americans did not want the jobs, heck even I hated mine at the time. Another truth is many of the american employees were lazy, unproductive, had low self esteem and took little pride in their work.
While I may have had some work ethic and maybe you do as well, not everyone does. Even tho I hated my job, I did it and I tried to do so with pride. Maybe I was brought up differently and others are or were not instilled pride in themselves - I don't know. The fact is these immigrants came to work, were happy to work and did their jobs well, something my american counterparts failed to do.
So the next time you get a Big Mac or a Whopper in an understaffed restaurant and it tastes like crap and looks even worse, consider the fact that the kitchen is filled with stupid lazy people who really don't even deserve the jobs they do have. Go find somewhere who uses immigrants and enjoy your meal...
You hit the nail on the head. They will gain far more customers/users from the fact that you can leave easily.
One of the reasons I used to hate to change ISPs was I had to change my email address - now I use gmail so I never have to worry about that. If I want to leave gmail, I can and not lose a thing - they'll even forward my mail free for life. Everyone I explain this and the other finer points of gmail to ends up switching to gmail themselves. It's portable.
Contact lists have always been a pain for me to deal with too. It's often hard to transfer them from service to service. If google can make that easier, I'll probably try more services, Google or not. I'll probably also stick with google because they allow me to be portable as well.
In the end, the idea attracts more people than they lose. As long as they keep their services at the same level of quality and reliablity, they'll keep their users. Until their competition can match it, they'll always be better than the rest as well. It encourages competition and keeps Google on it's toes.
They should keep the search as it is and scan every book in they choose to. The result pages though could be renamed 'Google Book Store,' maybe with a byline 'brought to you by Google Book Search.'
This makes them no different than a library using the indexing system and/or a book store. People can search for what they want and browse parts of it and choose to buy it. Would the publishers say 'you can't sell our books?'
This could be expanded further into a subscription based library model too, but I doubt it would do well until ePaper takes off and is widespread. Reading a book on a screen sucks.
Do you really want companies to run extended background checks on you before they sell you anything to make sure you may not use it in some obscure way to harm others?
You mean like the government wants our ISPs to track and monitor our web usage and keep copies of all our IM's, searches and emails? Or how about our libraries revealing what books we check out? Maybe AT&T could provide a log of all your phone calls. How about the banks reveal all your financial transactions?
Oops, I forgot - the Patriot Act, among other obscure laws, already allow this.
Innocent until proven guilty no longer applies in the land of the free - why should it apply to corporate America any different? Oh yea, I forgot, they own the politicians.
Why can't Microsoft patch the holes in it's software? Why can't MySpace screen it's advertisers? They aren't showing porn site ads, because they 'screened' the ads, correct? So, how come they are serving adware?
If it's ok for the government to be constantly running background checks (illegally I might add) on it's own citizens in a 'FREE' country, then MySpace should also be responsible for spreading viruses and spyware. Of course, they won't ever have to answer for it. News Corp may as well be owned by the GOP...
Without the 'fast-forward' function, why even own a commercial DVR?
Wouldn't people just switch to DVD recorders or a media center capable system, whether it's Linux or Windows or even custom made?
Removing features from an established product like DVRs would only infuriate not only your veiwers but the owners of the products who bought them for the very features you intend to disable. Millions of DVR owners would just stop watching ABC, and download the commercial free versions of their favorite shows online - bypassing any revenue you would intend to make over this change.
I believe I'll go sell all my Disney/ABC stock now, I want no part in such idiocy nor the loss in profits if it actually happens. If I were a financial adviser, I'd advise others to do the same.
Yea, the idea has little chance in todays political climate, but America began with a revolution and it's headed for another - so you never know. If more Americans would act like Americans and stop putting up with the corporate control of the government things could start changing for it's citizens. Until then, count on the only things that matter are the corporate entities and their lobbies.
I know this goes completely against the 'American way' but maybe it should be considered. Besides, WE paid for the telco networks, WE subsidize them in taxes that never end. WE have put up with their BS for long enough. The bloated telco's are already facing their demise as communication becomes cheaper and cheaper thru alternative sources, and will eventually be completely free or near to it for the majority.
Let's use 'eminent domain' the right way, not against the citizens, but against the corrupt telcos whose only interest is their own survival and profits - not the consumer.
On the flip side - there is already a company building a free wi-fi network, you share your wi-fi and you get to use everyone elses too - free - or don't share it and only pay a fair $2 a day to use other people's wi-fi hotpsots. Check out: http://en.fon.com/
Slashdot Mirror
Here's an old list of Bush's resume: http://www.laughparty.com/view/id/945/
4 0,00.html
As for the specific Bush/Nazi connection:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,13125
http://ecosyn.us/Bush-Hitler/
In the US we are watching a lot of small personal freedoms be legislated away. This is one of them: to do what we wish with what we purchase. I understand it isn't 'in the constitution' but it is implied in our way of life. The fact that our leaders continue to propose bills of 'fair use' that don't allow 'fair use' is more telling of who is in control. This is yet another tiny step nowhere for the 'fair use' debate.
To Be Fair.
Has anyone been successfully prosecuted for burning a personal DVD for personal use on their PSP?
It doesn't make it right that it is illegal, but at least our society doesn't enforce the fact - yet.
Yea, but, not everyone lives in Florida.
From my own experience, when I did play hide and seek with my little brother, I must correct this statement.
....and I turned the dryer on, to show my stupid little brother it was a stupid place to hide. I then laughed hysterically after I let him out and he continued to spin.
"In some of the incidents associated with clothes dryers, the appliance was accidentally, turned on while the child was inside.
Frequently, the children were playing "hide-and-seek" and the appliance or chest provided a deceptively good place to hide. When the door slammed shut,...."
If that's the issue - require the 'good doctors' to match their time hour for hour in the public and private systems. Tax their services on top of that and use the money to improve the public system. It's win win.
The rich get what they want and end up paying even more to help the poor - classic canadian socialistic policy.
What loss?
I'm fairly certain we are the kings of the disposable economy here. Who cares if we have to toss a $99 EVD player after a few years. Actually, it would still hold some value on eBay.
Early adopters aren't concerned with costs, and a new format that is specifically meant to be cheaper is going to have a lot more people trying it out.
"There is currently no other technique in naval architecture that can promise such savings."
k /
6 -03.asp
I hate innacurate reporting. Adding Giant Kite-like sails to cargo ships is an alternative as well.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13325827/site/newswee
This is in use now and increases both speed and fuel efficiency far more than the 20% savings the air bubbles promise.
Imagine using both technologies together, or even adding solar panels to the sails for even more efficiency.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-0
In the USA, yes you can.
The difference is your business is not in the USA.
Tell that to the Blegian courts who forced google to stop linking to news stories in their country. The traffic to their sites has diminished, so maybe the news sites learned their lesson - maybe not. I haven't heard of them begging google to crawl again them yet.
People are idiots.
Oh I understand. I should have just QUIT MY JOB and DROPPPED OUT OF SCHOOL rather than consider hiriing people who wanted to work?
I did not set the wages. I did not make the policies. Hell I didn't even make $8/hr. I ate at work and dined on Ramen at home to get by. I used the 'pray I don't get sick' health insurance policy too you know!
It's insulting to hear it is MY fault?!
We did the I-9 paperwork and these people had social secuirty numbers, every one. If they did not have proof of citizenship they did have green cards and/or work visas. They were legal in our eyes. They were good employees. I fired the locals who did not do their jobs, as it was a burden on me to make up for their faults - period.
Of course, we could go with your philosophy too - close all the restaurants (90% of non-fast food restaurants pay less than $7/hr too) - close all the gas stations (same 90% rule) - close the grocery stores - close the malls - and shut down the agriculture industry too! Go with out your french fries, GAP t-shirts, Best Buy and fresh milk for awhile until they get a clue and start paying the real living wage of $12/hr. That'll work!
Regardless, it's not just the employers fault as you pointed out. We all want cheap products and services. It can't be fixed overnight, but at least we have some decent discussions going on about it now. It is going to be a gradual process. I sure don't want us to be in France's position with 20% unemployment because they are forced to pay higher wages, 6 weeks vacation, lifetime employment and the state covers the health care and education costs for everyone.
Will congress, will the employers, will we, will you start to change?
This discussion started about High School and we've shot off into immigrant workers, legal or not. Are they related? Obviously - so the problem is far larger than we like to realize. As Americans we have to start the change at the bottom, because the top is only interested in themselves.
Yep, 3month raises were the noirm and typically higher for the immigrants than the americans.
Pay for performance.
I'm not insulted. You made some very good points. In fact it seems to be overlooked that I have pointed out the use of immigrants in the kitchen, not in the service areas. Those tend to be filled more with english speaking natives. We had good service and I was good at my job, being bi-lingual was very helpful as well of course.
:)
I felt I was a good leader and that effected our service, but the reliability of our kitchen staff was an issue until we replaced them with loyal hard working immigrants - period. It was the part of the place no locals wanted to be, in the greasy hellhole of a kitchen.
I didn't care because this was the job I was stuck with as well - not that I appreciated making the $7.90 an hour I was getting. I actually was lucky, as at the time the minimum wage was $4.25/hr and our average employee made around $6/hr.
I could go on and on about how unfair wages are and how stupid society is in dealing with the lowe end wage-earners. Here's an example:
A fast food joint spends on average 20% on labor (non-hourly mgmt not included).
A Big Mac averages $2.49
An increase from $6/hr to $8/hr would raise the price of a Big Mac to about $2.79
Spend another $3/hr on low-end benefits like 80% coverage cheapo insurance and the Big Mac might cost you $2.99
Why can't we afford this? It would only effect lowe end products, not the entire country, altho applying forced insurance to all employees may actually decrease the cost of healthcare as we no longer have non-payers effecting the system, right?
As far as ethics, that's irrelevant. I didn't care because my job was HARDER because of the laziness I had to deal with with the non-immigrants who worked poorly when they showed up. That was the issue, not the fact that they made others unemployed.
In fact as it has been stated repeatedly, americans obviously did not want these kinds of jobs - do you?
I did it because I needed a flexible job to work around a school schedule, the wages sucked but I got by and I earn far more now on my own. I don't regret that at all.
In my early twenties I used to manage a fast food joint, while I attended college. I also spoke spanish that I learned in High School. We had a serious labor problem. Nobody wanted to work for $6 an hour and those that did were lazy, late and called in sick a lot.
We solved the problem by hiring an entirely immigrant (spansih speaking) kitchen. Productivity went through the roof, quality went up, cleanliness was impeccable and they came to work every day - usually early.
Whether they were illegal or not, I could care less - we did the proper paperwork to cover our butts so it was irrelevant. What I learned was true americans did not want the jobs, heck even I hated mine at the time. Another truth is many of the american employees were lazy, unproductive, had low self esteem and took little pride in their work.
While I may have had some work ethic and maybe you do as well, not everyone does. Even tho I hated my job, I did it and I tried to do so with pride. Maybe I was brought up differently and others are or were not instilled pride in themselves - I don't know. The fact is these immigrants came to work, were happy to work and did their jobs well, something my american counterparts failed to do.
So the next time you get a Big Mac or a Whopper in an understaffed restaurant and it tastes like crap and looks even worse, consider the fact that the kitchen is filled with stupid lazy people who really don't even deserve the jobs they do have. Go find somewhere who uses immigrants and enjoy your meal...
Just something to ponder.
We already do this on a large number of roadways America.
We call them FREEWAYS.
Is it just me or is the option to reply to a comment gone?
Firefox 1.5.08 here...
You hit the nail on the head. They will gain far more customers/users from the fact that you can leave easily.
One of the reasons I used to hate to change ISPs was I had to change my email address - now I use gmail so I never have to worry about that. If I want to leave gmail, I can and not lose a thing - they'll even forward my mail free for life. Everyone I explain this and the other finer points of gmail to ends up switching to gmail themselves. It's portable.
Contact lists have always been a pain for me to deal with too. It's often hard to transfer them from service to service. If google can make that easier, I'll probably try more services, Google or not. I'll probably also stick with google because they allow me to be portable as well.
In the end, the idea attracts more people than they lose. As long as they keep their services at the same level of quality and reliablity, they'll keep their users. Until their competition can match it, they'll always be better than the rest as well. It encourages competition and keeps Google on it's toes.
I love the first tag for the article: 'idiot'
LOL
They should keep the search as it is and scan every book in they choose to. The result pages though could be renamed 'Google Book Store,' maybe with a byline 'brought to you by Google Book Search.'
This makes them no different than a library using the indexing system and/or a book store. People can search for what they want and browse parts of it and choose to buy it. Would the publishers say 'you can't sell our books?'
This could be expanded further into a subscription based library model too, but I doubt it would do well until ePaper takes off and is widespread. Reading a book on a screen sucks.
It's been a long time since we 'elected' a president.
I'm sorry but that thing is ugly. It looks like a giant cassette case from the 80's.
You mean like the government wants our ISPs to track and monitor our web usage and keep copies of all our IM's, searches and emails? Or how about our libraries revealing what books we check out? Maybe AT&T could provide a log of all your phone calls. How about the banks reveal all your financial transactions?
Oops, I forgot - the Patriot Act, among other obscure laws, already allow this.
Innocent until proven guilty no longer applies in the land of the free - why should it apply to corporate America any different? Oh yea, I forgot, they own the politicians.
Why can't Microsoft patch the holes in it's software? Why can't MySpace screen it's advertisers? They aren't showing porn site ads, because they 'screened' the ads, correct? So, how come they are serving adware?
If it's ok for the government to be constantly running background checks (illegally I might add) on it's own citizens in a 'FREE' country, then MySpace should also be responsible for spreading viruses and spyware. Of course, they won't ever have to answer for it. News Corp may as well be owned by the GOP...
Without the 'fast-forward' function, why even own a commercial DVR?
Wouldn't people just switch to DVD recorders or a media center capable system, whether it's Linux or Windows or even custom made?
Removing features from an established product like DVRs would only infuriate not only your veiwers but the owners of the products who bought them for the very features you intend to disable. Millions of DVR owners would just stop watching ABC, and download the commercial free versions of their favorite shows online - bypassing any revenue you would intend to make over this change.
I believe I'll go sell all my Disney/ABC stock now, I want no part in such idiocy nor the loss in profits if it actually happens. If I were a financial adviser, I'd advise others to do the same.
Yea, the idea has little chance in todays political climate, but America began with a revolution and it's headed for another - so you never know. If more Americans would act like Americans and stop putting up with the corporate control of the government things could start changing for it's citizens. Until then, count on the only things that matter are the corporate entities and their lobbies.
:D
We don't matter anymore.
Viva la revolucion!
I know this goes completely against the 'American way' but maybe it should be considered. Besides, WE paid for the telco networks, WE subsidize them in taxes that never end. WE have put up with their BS for long enough. The bloated telco's are already facing their demise as communication becomes cheaper and cheaper thru alternative sources, and will eventually be completely free or near to it for the majority.
Let's use 'eminent domain' the right way, not against the citizens, but against the corrupt telcos whose only interest is their own survival and profits - not the consumer.
On the flip side - there is already a company building a free wi-fi network, you share your wi-fi and you get to use everyone elses too - free - or don't share it and only pay a fair $2 a day to use other people's wi-fi hotpsots. Check out: http://en.fon.com/