Don't blame the summary, it was quoted from the article. Blame author of the article who doesn't understand the phrase "in combination." From the 201 CMR 17.00:
"Personal information, a Massachusetts resident's first name and last name or first initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements that relate to such resident: (a) Social Security number; (b) driver's license number or state-issued identification card number; or (c) financial account number, or credit or debit card number..."
Now termination may be a bit harsh, but removal from front-line duties for those who refuse the vaccination seems more than reasonable to me.
So are you suggesting that doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, etc. not be in contact with patients? Kinda hard for them to do their jobs that way. The hospital that I work at is seeking 100% compliance for either flu shots or waivers on file for flu shots. So if you refuse the shot they have a record, not as a disciplinary measure but a way to quickly identify who hasn't been vaccinated, and if they are in direct patient contact. Then you have a smaller group of people who you can track and have on precautions such as masks at all times if a pandemic starts.
The best thing to do is get vaccinated. If you have health reasons why you cannot get a vaccination (and there are many legitimate reasons) then you take precautions. If you do not believe in vaccinations you should not be working in health care.
I would argue that some state and local governments make it nearly impossible to dispose of waste properly. For example, Massachusetts has a ban on construction materials in landfills. This is a good thing, but they did not standardize how to deal with the materials on a local level. The town I grew up in has a transfer station. I can drive in with a pickup truck, weigh in, and dispose of materials in marked bins (wood, metal, etc.), I weigh out, and pay a reasonable rate usually $15 or so depending on how full the truck was. They also have areas for propane tanks, fluorescent bulbs, etc. The material is recycled and disposed of properly and takes an hour of my time on a Saturday.
The town I live in now has no transfer station. If I want to dispose of a piece of drywall and a few 2 x 4s I am supposed to rent a dumpster for several hundred dollars. No joke, they are not set up to handle it. So instead everyone just puts everything in the garbage because it is prohibitively expensive for the average person to do things the right way.
Agree with all, save for differentiating between Part Time Ivy/Normal.
If you've gone back to school at any college while holding a full time job you tend to have your shit together. I'll take an MBA/MIS from a continuing ed program any day over the student who expects everything on a platter after they graduate. Those are the people who know how to work and work hard.
On the Apple side EyeTV 250 plus is a nice gadget as well. I'm a big fan of mine. External unit, built in hardware encoding, plus I think its a whole lot easier to use than Windows Media Center and is more consumer-friendly than MythTV.
Not knocking MythTV either, that is an awesome system and if I were going for a homebrew PVR I would take that any day. But if you want something easy to use that syncs to iTunes and doesn't require running another computer I'd go that route.
Plus I'm running XBox Media Center so I can still get to everything on my TV via the network share:-)
Simply put IT issues aren't a factor in my voting either for or against any candidate. In general they will never understand the issues and if they did it would scare the hell out of me. Who wants a sysadmin in charge of thermonuclear weapons? That cannot end well.
True, the key is to stay diversified. I actually do better when the stock market dips as my funds are spread over a wide number of stocks and bonds. When prices dip I get to buy more stock, value goes up when the market is in an upswing. I have another 30-40 years before I have to worry about not being able to work. Combine that with real estate, the pension plan through work, and the rest going to a high interest savings account and you stay in good shape.
Good techie, made the choice to work for a nonprofit. Good hours, you actually make a difference, and I get paid very well compared to the average American. I get to be happy and provide for my family, works for me.
RE: Social Security, I think that techies also understand the idea of mismanagement and compounding interest. I don't trust the government with a spork, let alone my financial well-being in my old age. As such I'm an advocate of smaller government, which is generally to the right, but certainly not a factor in the current administration and congress.
I'm not without empathy, but social security was never supposed to be used for full financial support and people wonder why the hell its not working anymore. Or you could buy a smaller house, smaller car, put your money ideally in an employee matched 401K or a Roth IRA and retire a millionaire. Guess which way I'm going.
That is absolutely hilarious as I sit here looking at the Mac OS Server I have to configure.
The thing that I hate about Mac Server is the lack of books, sites, and walkthroughs on how to actually USE it. I need it for QuickTime streaming and since we run a Mac shop its easier to interface with. Makes sense for us, but I would never use it otherwise. I've configured Fedora servers and Ubuntu servers so much easier. I am not afraid of the command line. What I am afraid of is the pretty GUI menus that give me a ton of options with no explanation of what they do or how to do it or why the hell it isn't working. Right now the only options is the PDF manuals on Apple's site that tell me about the features, but not how to apply them in a way that makes sense.
You should write a book, and I'm completely serious about that. Hell, write a pamphlet. These are things that we know and the masses don't and industry isn't doing a very good job of getting that information to the end-user and simple things like a guide on what dropdown to choose are hugely helpful. The average user doesn't know what AES is or what TKIP is. Thank God that A comes before T in the alphabet because thats their default choice because that was what was already in there first!
And when they're broadcast you can Tivo them and use TivoToGo to sync it to your iPod or any other device. Or you can do what I did and buy an Elgato EyeTV 250 and turn your Mac into a DVR box that automatically syncs to iTunes and your iPod. Those are a few easy ways for those with a Mac and are completely legal.
What really annoys me is when the media companies try to stamp out these types of technologies by trying to push through broadcast flags, copy protection through HDMI, encrypted signals, dragging their feet on CableCard compliance, and the list goes on. I'm not a pirate, I'm a consumer. I have no problem paying a reasonable fee for my entertainment. I DO have a problem with them making it continually difficult to actually use the products I pay for. If they brought more products to the market that were easy to use, convenient, and reasonably priced they would be able to curb a significant amount of casual piracy. AND MAKE MONEY AT THE SAME TIME!
This launch is a case of "if it ain't broke don't fix it." Improvements on the iMac with a thinner design and using glass and aluminum. Cool. A few updates to iLife and a new spreadsheet program in iWorks, very cool. The keyboard does bother me. Personally I like a nice heavy keyboard that can withstand blunt force trauma...or inflict it on others. But its a keyboard and easily replaced just as the original mice were when Apple insisted on the one-button approach.
"And they can always come back and do movies or mini-series if there's a demand for it."
Or an entirely new series in the "BSG Universe" that continues the story after finding Earth or pre-BSG like the proposed Caprica series. Ending the series properly really encapsulates it and 'protects' it. For example, I loved Babylon 5, but Crusade was lousy. But Crusade doesn't take away from Babylon 5 as a whole because there is a strict delineation in the stories even though they share common characters, timelines, and cannon. This is unlike shows that just go on for way too long. Imagine if Matt Groening had ended the Simpsons entirely once launching Futurama. Or Stargate ending once Stargate Atlantis started up. Stretching a series too long can poison its memory. So good for them on ending it properly and after a very impressive run.
That said I really want to see Ron Moore and crew do something different and get out of BSG for a while. By all means come back to it, but I think Galactica was a very happy accident being a one shot remake (the mini-series) turned into a great series in its own right. Use that as leverage to launch an original series of your own design.
I have the advantage of never owning a Tivo, so I don't know what I'm missing. I'm content enough to stick with Comcast until something really worth my while comes out. Like the HD Unicon:-)
Just an FYI, I have DVR through Comcast and the firewire port is active. I don't know if this is for every local, but they use the Motorola 6412 box and wikipedia has info on how to connect and transfer via firewire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_6412
I've connected to my cable box with my laptop via Firewire and was able to use it like a capture device.
I've thought of building my own MythTV box, but in Boston Comcast charges an extra $14 a month for both HDTV and DVR and for me quite frankly its worth my while to just pay that compared to the time and cost of building my own system. I'm not knocking MythTV at all, I think its great but unless they resurrect the broadcast flag I'm not going to bother with it quite yet.
That being said, I feel sorry for the well-intentioned geeks who spend some small portion of their lives with a Best Buy name tag affixed below their lapel. It must be horrifying to be expected to be so disinformative just to sell warranties and accessories.
I worked at Best Buy for about 6 months part time after I got my undergrad while I was looking for full time work...thats 4 years ago now. But it was pre Geek Squad and the techs I worked with were actually rather knowlegable and well paid. So you know that wasn't going to last.
The problem is neither I nor any of the other techs would try to upsell any products or unnecessary warrenties. We fixed what was broken and gave sound advice. Needless to say they replaced experienced techs with unexperienced teenagers who would work for half the money and bought into the Best Buy mantra.
No that was my experience as a tech. I can tell you first hand that Best Buy is a horrible place to work as a sales person. Managers track how many warrenties and accessories are sold by you by the hour and reprimand you if you are not on quota. They are tied into a network of Best Buys accross the country and each store has daily and hourly quotas to be met by section. They have these big "Go Team" meetings every morning that end with the store chant. I kid you not.
The problem is that Best Buy employs a lot of teenagers that totally buy into this and feel they are doing a disservice to the company by not selling these "pure profit" extended warrenties. Best Buy loves to say their employees do not work on commission...instead they rely on brain-washing.
All that said I still shop there when I can't find a better deal online, you just have to be a smart consumer about it.
I'm all for them taking their time in the next release especially since the development builds started supporting Broadcom chipsets. I'm running Fedora at the moment but I would gladly swith if I could get wireless running natively instead of having to deal with ndiswrapper. No disrespect to ndiswrapper, it works just fine, I just hate fiddling with it everytime I install an update to the kernal.
You also have to remember that we're not exactly your normal users of technology. If you're a Slashdot reader then chances are you already know whats coming down the pipeline in addition to a ton of rumors in addition to that. It kinda makes everything anti-climactic.
This is really aimed to show the masses how powerful and useful an open-source project can be. I'm thrilled to see Web Developer win something, that is the the reason why FireFox became my primary browser, I use it all the time.
Oh no, its more that I hate having to go through a bunch of ridiculous CSS hacks and such to make IE for Mac ignore the CSS that works in every other browser except IE for Mac. That gets old real fast. I usually just do a Javascript redirect if they are using IE for Mac telling them to use Safari or Firefox.
"Can't See Styles" was just the wittiest thing I could think up on the fly. I'm too low on coffee to try for anything else.
Craves Style Support...Crashes Silly Sites...
yeah, need coffee
Slashdot Mirror
Now termination may be a bit harsh, but removal from front-line duties for those who refuse the vaccination seems more than reasonable to me.
So are you suggesting that doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, etc. not be in contact with patients? Kinda hard for them to do their jobs that way. The hospital that I work at is seeking 100% compliance for either flu shots or waivers on file for flu shots. So if you refuse the shot they have a record, not as a disciplinary measure but a way to quickly identify who hasn't been vaccinated, and if they are in direct patient contact. Then you have a smaller group of people who you can track and have on precautions such as masks at all times if a pandemic starts. The best thing to do is get vaccinated. If you have health reasons why you cannot get a vaccination (and there are many legitimate reasons) then you take precautions. If you do not believe in vaccinations you should not be working in health care.
Nah, what would be cruel would be to do the same thing only holding your breath while slumped over.
I would argue that some state and local governments make it nearly impossible to dispose of waste properly. For example, Massachusetts has a ban on construction materials in landfills. This is a good thing, but they did not standardize how to deal with the materials on a local level. The town I grew up in has a transfer station. I can drive in with a pickup truck, weigh in, and dispose of materials in marked bins (wood, metal, etc.), I weigh out, and pay a reasonable rate usually $15 or so depending on how full the truck was. They also have areas for propane tanks, fluorescent bulbs, etc. The material is recycled and disposed of properly and takes an hour of my time on a Saturday. The town I live in now has no transfer station. If I want to dispose of a piece of drywall and a few 2 x 4s I am supposed to rent a dumpster for several hundred dollars. No joke, they are not set up to handle it. So instead everyone just puts everything in the garbage because it is prohibitively expensive for the average person to do things the right way.
Agree with all, save for differentiating between Part Time Ivy/Normal. If you've gone back to school at any college while holding a full time job you tend to have your shit together. I'll take an MBA/MIS from a continuing ed program any day over the student who expects everything on a platter after they graduate. Those are the people who know how to work and work hard.
On the Apple side EyeTV 250 plus is a nice gadget as well. I'm a big fan of mine. External unit, built in hardware encoding, plus I think its a whole lot easier to use than Windows Media Center and is more consumer-friendly than MythTV. Not knocking MythTV either, that is an awesome system and if I were going for a homebrew PVR I would take that any day. But if you want something easy to use that syncs to iTunes and doesn't require running another computer I'd go that route. Plus I'm running XBox Media Center so I can still get to everything on my TV via the network share :-)
"We reject kings, presidents and voting." - IETF
Simply put IT issues aren't a factor in my voting either for or against any candidate. In general they will never understand the issues and if they did it would scare the hell out of me. Who wants a sysadmin in charge of thermonuclear weapons? That cannot end well.
True, the key is to stay diversified. I actually do better when the stock market dips as my funds are spread over a wide number of stocks and bonds. When prices dip I get to buy more stock, value goes up when the market is in an upswing. I have another 30-40 years before I have to worry about not being able to work. Combine that with real estate, the pension plan through work, and the rest going to a high interest savings account and you stay in good shape.
Good techie, made the choice to work for a nonprofit. Good hours, you actually make a difference, and I get paid very well compared to the average American. I get to be happy and provide for my family, works for me.
RE: Social Security, I think that techies also understand the idea of mismanagement and compounding interest. I don't trust the government with a spork, let alone my financial well-being in my old age. As such I'm an advocate of smaller government, which is generally to the right, but certainly not a factor in the current administration and congress.
I'm not without empathy, but social security was never supposed to be used for full financial support and people wonder why the hell its not working anymore. Or you could buy a smaller house, smaller car, put your money ideally in an employee matched 401K or a Roth IRA and retire a millionaire. Guess which way I'm going.
That is absolutely hilarious as I sit here looking at the Mac OS Server I have to configure.
The thing that I hate about Mac Server is the lack of books, sites, and walkthroughs on how to actually USE it. I need it for QuickTime streaming and since we run a Mac shop its easier to interface with. Makes sense for us, but I would never use it otherwise. I've configured Fedora servers and Ubuntu servers so much easier. I am not afraid of the command line. What I am afraid of is the pretty GUI menus that give me a ton of options with no explanation of what they do or how to do it or why the hell it isn't working. Right now the only options is the PDF manuals on Apple's site that tell me about the features, but not how to apply them in a way that makes sense.
Thank you for the link to the DIY coilgun site. Some nice men with radios just jumped out of a van and want to have a chat with me. BRB
You should write a book, and I'm completely serious about that. Hell, write a pamphlet. These are things that we know and the masses don't and industry isn't doing a very good job of getting that information to the end-user and simple things like a guide on what dropdown to choose are hugely helpful. The average user doesn't know what AES is or what TKIP is. Thank God that A comes before T in the alphabet because thats their default choice because that was what was already in there first!
And when they're broadcast you can Tivo them and use TivoToGo to sync it to your iPod or any other device. Or you can do what I did and buy an Elgato EyeTV 250 and turn your Mac into a DVR box that automatically syncs to iTunes and your iPod. Those are a few easy ways for those with a Mac and are completely legal.
What really annoys me is when the media companies try to stamp out these types of technologies by trying to push through broadcast flags, copy protection through HDMI, encrypted signals, dragging their feet on CableCard compliance, and the list goes on. I'm not a pirate, I'm a consumer. I have no problem paying a reasonable fee for my entertainment. I DO have a problem with them making it continually difficult to actually use the products I pay for. If they brought more products to the market that were easy to use, convenient, and reasonably priced they would be able to curb a significant amount of casual piracy. AND MAKE MONEY AT THE SAME TIME!
Oh come now, you can always disconnect the battery to make sure its not transmitting. Is it honestly that difficult to...oh...yes, apparently it is.
This launch is a case of "if it ain't broke don't fix it." Improvements on the iMac with a thinner design and using glass and aluminum. Cool. A few updates to iLife and a new spreadsheet program in iWorks, very cool. The keyboard does bother me. Personally I like a nice heavy keyboard that can withstand blunt force trauma...or inflict it on others. But its a keyboard and easily replaced just as the original mice were when Apple insisted on the one-button approach.
"And they can always come back and do movies or mini-series if there's a demand for it."
Or an entirely new series in the "BSG Universe" that continues the story after finding Earth or pre-BSG like the proposed Caprica series. Ending the series properly really encapsulates it and 'protects' it. For example, I loved Babylon 5, but Crusade was lousy. But Crusade doesn't take away from Babylon 5 as a whole because there is a strict delineation in the stories even though they share common characters, timelines, and cannon. This is unlike shows that just go on for way too long. Imagine if Matt Groening had ended the Simpsons entirely once launching Futurama. Or Stargate ending once Stargate Atlantis started up. Stretching a series too long can poison its memory. So good for them on ending it properly and after a very impressive run.
That said I really want to see Ron Moore and crew do something different and get out of BSG for a while. By all means come back to it, but I think Galactica was a very happy accident being a one shot remake (the mini-series) turned into a great series in its own right. Use that as leverage to launch an original series of your own design.
I have the advantage of never owning a Tivo, so I don't know what I'm missing. I'm content enough to stick with Comcast until something really worth my while comes out. Like the HD Unicon :-)
Just an FYI, I have DVR through Comcast and the firewire port is active. I don't know if this is for every local, but they use the Motorola 6412 box and wikipedia has info on how to connect and transfer via firewire:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_6412
I've connected to my cable box with my laptop via Firewire and was able to use it like a capture device.
I've thought of building my own MythTV box, but in Boston Comcast charges an extra $14 a month for both HDTV and DVR and for me quite frankly its worth my while to just pay that compared to the time and cost of building my own system. I'm not knocking MythTV at all, I think its great but unless they resurrect the broadcast flag I'm not going to bother with it quite yet.
I worked at Best Buy for about 6 months part time after I got my undergrad while I was looking for full time work...thats 4 years ago now. But it was pre Geek Squad and the techs I worked with were actually rather knowlegable and well paid. So you know that wasn't going to last.
The problem is neither I nor any of the other techs would try to upsell any products or unnecessary warrenties. We fixed what was broken and gave sound advice. Needless to say they replaced experienced techs with unexperienced teenagers who would work for half the money and bought into the Best Buy mantra.
No that was my experience as a tech. I can tell you first hand that Best Buy is a horrible place to work as a sales person. Managers track how many warrenties and accessories are sold by you by the hour and reprimand you if you are not on quota. They are tied into a network of Best Buys accross the country and each store has daily and hourly quotas to be met by section. They have these big "Go Team" meetings every morning that end with the store chant. I kid you not.
The problem is that Best Buy employs a lot of teenagers that totally buy into this and feel they are doing a disservice to the company by not selling these "pure profit" extended warrenties. Best Buy loves to say their employees do not work on commission...instead they rely on brain-washing.
All that said I still shop there when I can't find a better deal online, you just have to be a smart consumer about it.
I'm all for them taking their time in the next release especially since the development builds started supporting Broadcom chipsets. I'm running Fedora at the moment but I would gladly swith if I could get wireless running natively instead of having to deal with ndiswrapper. No disrespect to ndiswrapper, it works just fine, I just hate fiddling with it everytime I install an update to the kernal.
But the real question is who will be the first one to play Fallout on a fuel-cell powered laptop?
You also have to remember that we're not exactly your normal users of technology. If you're a Slashdot reader then chances are you already know whats coming down the pipeline in addition to a ton of rumors in addition to that. It kinda makes everything anti-climactic. This is really aimed to show the masses how powerful and useful an open-source project can be. I'm thrilled to see Web Developer win something, that is the the reason why FireFox became my primary browser, I use it all the time.
Oh no, its more that I hate having to go through a bunch of ridiculous CSS hacks and such to make IE for Mac ignore the CSS that works in every other browser except IE for Mac. That gets old real fast. I usually just do a Javascript redirect if they are using IE for Mac telling them to use Safari or Firefox. "Can't See Styles" was just the wittiest thing I could think up on the fly. I'm too low on coffee to try for anything else. Craves Style Support...Crashes Silly Sites... yeah, need coffee
Does this finally mean I can stop banging my head on my desk when IE for the Mac decides that CSS stands for Can't See Styles?