I completly agree. I've worked in IT as a contractor or full time employee in one way or another since 1997, and had my own business since 1992 prior. I have not stayed in one job longer than 3.5 years. Most have been 18-24 months. I took the training I needed, learned the new job skills, and got a few certifications the company paid for. At some point, when I felt either I was not going to get a "fair market value" raise, I'd put out resume's, take 1-2 weeks off, and interview everywhere I could, and accept an offer somewhere with both a massive pay raise and new training opportunities. Usually by this point I'd still have 3-5 weeks vacation and comp time pent up, and I'd blow that while working on addsitional certifications. In 2 cases I convinced the employer to "lay me off" instead of another poor sap, and saved a buddy's job by putting my own head on the block. In both of those cases I got severance pay added on top of my unused vacation.
I went from making less than $20K anually in 1995 trying to run a startup web publishing company, to 2000 where I was making 30K as a field technician and had about $8K in training budget access. By 2002 I was MS certified and took a job in IT analysys and helped a large firm rework their bench service and sales policy and develop a revenue model based on services making well over 40K. In 2005 I left them and joined a BVC working in DR. I quickly moved up the ladder there taking 3 promotions and leaving making over 60K, and received a massive amount of Linux/Unix training and DR planning experience in the process, and was exposed to hundreds of unique network systems in enterprise companies. In 2007 I worked for a regional reseller as a presales engineer working mostly on government bids in VoIP technology and major network systems, and learned Cisco networking as well as several other enterprise class systems and took in over 75K in just under a year. Now, I'm a contractor for a major firm in the state working in IT analytics and system architecture where we have near a dozen mainframes and about other 3,000 servers and should pull in close to 120K this year including my overtime pay, and I'm lined up to become a full time part of their group and within another year I should be on the management side of the systems architecture group and cross the 150K mark.
At this point, I'm well into my 30s, and feel I'm nearing the top of the food chain without expanding into the executive IT market. The particular firm I'm with if offering a pension plan and a lot of nice benefits, and I have lots of systems I can get experience on, and my fingers on a nearly $100m IT budget. I experience new challenges daily, and the pace the company deploys systems at is nearly frightening. I have a dozen directions my career can go in, and many of thel lead into the mid six figures, and if I play my cards right, with my vast experience and ability to manage teams and projects, I have a good shot at making the leap into the executive arena, so I'm starting night classes and working on a business degree to supplement my IT degree and numerous certifications.
If I had stayed with one of the original firms I was with (I still know some people there), I;d say I'd have a good job and a good life, but I'd be lucky to be taking in more than 60K, and that only if I was one of the top managers. Work tyour way in from the bottom, basic system services for a small retailer, move on to larger fish and consulting firms. Get into pre-sales and buff up your speaking and presentation skills, learn EVERYTHING about any system you come across. When you're coming up on your anual reviews and expecting a raise, ver WELL AWARE of what your market value is, and if possible, have an offer in your pocket to throw back at them if the raise/promotion is not at your value level. Do not let the fact that you grew up somewhere keep you from moving to a good job market area, and don't be afraid to take a job working with systems you don't know how to operate if there's training involved. Do not settle for a job that
Impact sensors generally trigger on 50, 100, 150, or 250Gs of force depending on the sensitivity of the device to damage. I'd assume a laptop might have a 50-100G sensor, and a phone a 150-200G sensor. It's pretty much impossible to cause such an impact without destroying the packaging of the device or making it clearly obvious it was dropped hard before it was sold...
In most states, "incidental damage" due to "normal use" is banned by law from voiding waranties, and most states agree that cell phones do occasionally get dropped in the normal course of use. Knicks, marrs, and scratches are considdered normal, and do not count against device operation. Cracked screens can occasionally occur from dropped devices, and that's almost never covered, but it's pretty hard to tell it a cracked screen is due to simply being dropped, or being crushed in a pocket...
The iPhone itself, damn, I'm impressed with it;s resilience. i had my 2G from the week they were launched until 2 weeks after the 3GS launched. i beat the HELL out of it. In fact, it finally died not because I dropped it (again) but due to a firmware issue that effected the screen (causing scrolling, lines and colors) and even ocnsiddering multiple dings in the metal and 2 scratches in the screen they replaced it anyway. Once I swore it was destroyed while running through a heavy downpour it poped out of my shirt pocket, landed screen down, and then I stepped on it, hard... it got 1 of it;s 2 small scratches in the screen for that, that's all...
Yea, I have such coverage on ALL my personal devices, it's called a rider on my homeowners policy. I have a $100 deductibe, and any personal electronic devices on my person or in my vehicle (or a rented car, or in a car I'm riding in with someone else) becomes damaged, destroyed, stolen, etc is replaced, with a "comperable equivalent or better" (specifically NOT depreciated repolacement cost, i made sure of that). It;s a single incident deductible as well so if my camera bag, containing several cameras and several lenses, valued at more than $4,000, was stolen, I'd still only pay $100. I do need to keep good records of the models and serial numbers, but I do that anyway for waranty purposes, and I keep all the receipts.
The rider cost me about $12 a year... it ALSO covers anyone ELSE'S devices that might fall under the same issue that they bring into my home or into my car.
I've used it a few times. Once to replace a stolen GPS, once to replace a camera that was knocked out of my hands on a vacation, and once to replace everything in my wife's car after it was robbed. in no case did this negatively effect my insurance rates, i simply paid the deductible, and in each case except dropping the camera I had to have a police report filed and a copy sent to the insurer.
You're free to use the device however you please, they just won't give you a FREE ONE for using it in a stupid way if that stupid way causes it to stop working...
I do actually believe this will be a part in cost reduction yes. Apple can only hold the $200 price point (technically $599 price point) for a short time longer. High end device are moving to the $149 mark, and to protect their CURRENT profits, they need to make such adjustments.
I'm also fairly certain this will more apply to a tablet, netbook-like, or other protable device, no so much just the iPhone and iPod touch (though some of these technologies are already used in them, and some others could be with a simple software activation or very minor change to the device)
Waterproofing a hermetically sealed device isn't hard, but as soon as you introcuce charging contacts, headphone ports, and buttons, it becomes pretty much impossible to waterproof the device.
Even my watch, which is rated for 100M depths and comes with a submersion guarantee clearly states in the manual, "do not press any buttons on the device during submersion, nor after surfacing until such a time as the device is completely dry. Pressing buttongs during exposure to water, even rain, can break the device's sealants and introduce liquitd to the interior"
Try associating some of those quotes to dates first of all. Shay's rebellion happened before the signing of the constitution, and all of the work Lincoln and others put into that document to end the likely needs of armed rebellions were not available in Massachusetts at that time.
Lincoln also said "Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights." and; "The arm of the people [is] a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree." and; "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., securing inherent and inalienable rights, with powers derived from the consent of the governed], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." This quote alone, spoken BEFORE the rebellion in MA in 1776, makes no mention of ARMED rebellion, nor do most of his quotes stating his support of rebellion, only that the people require the power to unseat their government. If that can be done with pen as easilly as musket, then the musket can be rele=gated to other needs and spared from the streets.
Further, to Ben Franlin in 1808 Jefferson wrote: "In no country on earth is [a disposition to oppose the law by force] so impracticable as in one where every man feels a vital interest in maintaining the authority of the laws, and instantly engages in it as in his own personal cause."...and my closing statement: "In a country whose constitution is derived from the will of the people directly expressed by their free suffrages, where the principal executive functionaries and those of the legislature are renewed by them at short periods, where under the character of jurors they exercise in person the greatest portion of the judiciary powers, where the laws are consequently so formed and administered as to bear with equal weight and favor on all, restraining no man in the pursuits of honest industry and securing to every one the property which that acquires, it would not be supposed that any safeguards could be needed against insurrection or enterprise on the public peace or authority. The laws, however, aware that these should not be trusted to moral restraints only, have wisely provided punishments for these crimes when committed." Written in 1806 to the people of the united states in his 6th anual message to the people. In shorter terms, we set up this government to be run by men and women we place a level of trust and moral expectations in, but in that same government are clear rights of the people, and punishments for those who seek to abuse the power trusted to them where morals fail. Also the mention of the short term assumed that even one who abuses, who might not be easily removed, and in short span, be replaced should the people in mass object, none of this requiring armed force, and any means other than spoken or written word and the excercise of personal choice.
You can find statements about "blood should be spilled" but that blood remember need not be the PEOPLE'S! Treason was a hanging offence, it was the blood of the CORRUPT he intended to spill, corpses he counted in the tens ("the few, or a dozen" we words used), not in the hundreds expectant of an armed conflict of a mob.
Um, the original constitution was truncated extensively, explicity for publication... The fact it was hand written is because you have to have a copy first to bring to the press to have replicated. They knew the original (3 copies of it actually) would be circulated including the signatures to the heads of each colony as proof of the original, but they also new tens of thousands of copies needed to be circulated to each small town. Parchment was not cheap, nor were presses and press time. Limiting it so a few pages not only provided a significant savings in cost of replication (and time of replication which itself may he been more imoirtant) but it also made the document more specific, and left all the remaining powers to the states to be decided elsewise.
In today's society, in this country, given the near everpresent video surveilance or outright security presence, and cops close at hand, few if any people should be carrying loaded weapons for self defence. This becomes even more limited if the criminals also don't have guns of their own.
Further, noone said you had to be a COP to carry a gun, simply a deputised person, or former military person. And "concealed" shoudl not be an option. Weapons worn VISIBLY on your hip, in plain sight, with a holster containing a photo ID of your also clearly visible through a plastic cover on a permit would be quite sufficint. And with even 1 in 50 people so permited, and carying, criminals would be highly wary of any such crime. Also add to this shop proprieters and owners, for which the shop can be considered an extention of their land, and naturally this also allows you to have a gun in your house/apartment. Now within a very short distance of anywhere a crime can happen, is a weapon to defend people, but the only people who might have a weapon who don't have clearly visible authority to do so are automatically criminals...
Further, look into the evidence into gun restriction and per capita crime rates. In nations where handguns and other weapons have been banned in public places, crime rates often spiked for a very short period (weeks or months) but the existing crime rate is FAR below where it was previously. Many of these countries are not even permitting "on your own lands" but simply saying "no guns unless deputised" and still they're safer.
We needed guns because we had no police, no army, and a sparse population. We had no defense from outside, and no defense for ourselves, yet the STILL wished initially, to restrict weapons to one's own lands. You still have them, you could still rebel if you really felt you had to, you can still defend yourself and your country. Just in public, and in shops, and on open streets, you have to rely on the COMMUNITY or the GOVERNMENT to protect you from crime.
Go further: If not only did every person who wanted so have a weapon, but also had a strict training program to use that weapon, and was only certified to carry one if considered a marksman (which even my wife easily became in a few hours in a shooting range with simple instruction, where having previously fired guns for years on her family's farm she couldn't hit a barn...) then criminals would not only know you had a gun, but it would eliminate the nearly TWENTY TIMES as many cases of accidental shootings, and also of people being killed with their own weapons of self defense due to the lack of understanding of how to actually defend one's self with it. Crimains fear the confident, and the prepared, but far beyond that, it;s a small chance you'll be mugged by gunpoiont and actually get shot, you're FAR more likely to be ACCIDENTALLY shot by your own gun, or shoot someone accidentally with it... THAT we really CAN do something about, even if we don;t limit how can and can't have a gun to anything more strict than making you take a class (which btw, you have to take one to even get a FISHING license in some states, yet you don't need to take a class to garry a loaded gun???? and that's infringing on your rights to make you???)
First, our forefathers forcibly rebelled against their government because their government INVADED their lands by force. Peacable means were attemted first and failed, including protests and more. The states suffered under sanctions for years prior, and considering it was illegal under the king to do such simply things as MAKE CLOTH,sanctions were quite harsh...
Second, there is no precess for removing a KING from Office and supplanting a new leadership other than KILLING ONE or winning a war. We built into the constitution means for dealing with government OTHER than violence. Also, having arms "..on his own lands" still prevents the government from having a coup...
and how does any of this go against adding the simple phrase "...on his own lands" to the right to bear arms? The above would STILL BE TRUE.
The right to bear arms on one's own lands whoever would NOT give untrained, unlicensed, undeputized citizens the right to walk around city streets with concealed weapons, and thus anyone who would be found with one not in a clearly maked, locked case, with amunition seperated, would automatically be a criminal, and be assumed to be posessing the weapon with the intent to use it (as any weapon not in a locked case clearly would have a reson for being so).
I taught my wife to fire rifles, handguns, and shotguns in a matter of hours. By her third time at the range she was scoring over 40 on 5x10 targets at competition range.
If it takes "extended time" to train someone who's never held a gun, those people have other issues...
In fact, personally knowing several drill instructers, and having a general in my family, they seem to be of the opinion it is EASIER to train someone who is completely green vs. someone who "thinks" they know how to use a weapon. knowing how to aim in a general direction, fire, and clean a weapon is easy, doing it the RIGHT WAY is harder, and harder still if bad habits have set in...
Jefferson's ideas of "organized rebellion" WERE incorporated into the constitution, in the form of the balance of powers (which did not previosly exist), the abiltiy for people to be removed from office, and the election processes. Forced rebelion is the only way to fight an aristocracy, but guns are completely unnecessary in a land where free speech, the press, and rights to assembe and protest are highly protected, and where processes to remove rulers, laws, and judicial rulings are readily available to the people.
In his days, he never expected the political process to be tied up in courts for 3-5 years, but lets face it, corruption charges against politicians go QUICK.
First of all, as natural is it is for us geeks to repel women, due mostly to intelligence and disinterest in their meterial needs, and their disinterest in ours, there are actually INTELLIGENT women out there who have been equally rejected by males, and many of them are actually quite attractive if not downright hot.
Alpha males have extreme difficulty dealing with intelligent women, as their authority is oftem trumped by logic or knowledge, and they're not fond of that.
The woman I've been with for 8 years (and married 4 ago) was generally considdered one of the hottest girls on campus. She's an education nut, and fantasy geekette. Somewhat reserved, blatantly against sorority life, and not into sports (though she enjoys watching both hockey and Football), she became attracted to our gaming group as there were few other places where groups of friendly people got together to do anything other then the above.
It took about 5 minutes of sitting her in front of a PC with Diablo II running before she was hooked, and we had her regularly playing in network games, and absorbed her into our collective. Her fantasy and reading interests melded well with the group. We started dating soon after (not my first girlfriend by any stretch btw), and eventually married.
Of the rest of the guys in the group, each had a similar experience (though not all while still in college). There's 9 core members of our original fellowship, and all of us are currently happily maried to inteligent independent women who we have great sex with, who have at least some interests in common, and who also are completely accepting to allow us our space to game (some of them game with us). They're each just as happy to involve themselves in crafts, a good book, or just socializing amung themselves when we're doing something that does disinterest them, and welcome to join when we're doing something they're into.
My wife at least was a starter cook when i met her. Some helping from my italian heritage, and her personal addiction to the food network, and now a few years later she's a competent cook who experiments a lot and regularly has something new to bring to the table. I cook about as often as she does as well.
I maintain the house, electronics, the cars, do the heavy labor in the yard, and do the basic housecleaning chores, and most of the shopping; she does the laundry, the detail cleaning (dusting, windows, etc), plans our dinner menus, and handles a bit more of the kid-related chores than i do (though I'm not far off doing half of that too). It's a nice balance and we each feel we have control over certain things. It's never "your turn" to do this or that...
Lessons learned: 1) intelligent women require being involved in decisions constantly, and must get their way at least as often as we do if not more to even feel equal on any level. However, take note that in most cases a "compromise" in no way counts as "she got her way" or "she made that decision." She must be given complete control over a process or thing on a regular basis, being responsible for all planning and decisions related to that thing. At best you might be able to suggest what color you really would hate to have something, and that might slide, but suggesting what color it should BE instantly makes that your decision, even if she agrees and makes no alternate suggestion... Mostly for us this revolves around choosing furniture, a new car, decorating, where to go on vacation, etc. In a nutshell, she now has to make all the decisions or there's an argument that we'll have about it 6 monts or more from now, and on about half those decisions, i get my way by "suggesting an alternative" or compromising to get some small part of a win for me.
In our last house, we coordiated and both selected the same floorplan we liked after looking at about 150 options. It was the only one we both had on a list of our top 3, and for both of us it was the number 1 choice. We selected curtains togethe
1) they left the definition of reasonable to the FCC, for which standards already exist thanks to the case against Comcast, and which those requirements can be further refined.
2) Apparently you;re unfamiliar with the original drafts of the constitution, often used by the supreme court and others to determine the mindset of those who wrote it. You see, the constitution was revised multiple times, much of it in order to make it fit to a small number of pages for simplicity of replication and distribution to the million plus people who needed to see a copy after it was ratified (a massive expense in 1776). In those drafts, Jefferson had penned "The right of the free man to bear arms on his own lands, being necessary..." The forefathers felt this was redundant, as that was the existing law, a FREE, LAND OWNING man was allowed to have weapons within the bounds of his own lands.
You also need to considder that A) we had no organized police force, only magistrites and jailers and B) in the fronteir, the only defense on your own land, which could be tens of thousands of acres, against invaders, the Spanish, indians, and more, was for people to arm themselves, as we also not only did not have a military, but most of our borders were wholy undefended.
Jefferson and the rest of our forfathers had NO INTENTION of letting just anyone run around town with guns. let alone had they imagined "portable" machine guns or weapons easily concealable capable of inflicting mass casualties. It was for the protection of one's own lands in the fronteir, for the ability to hunt on one's own lands, and for if and when the local government or state called you to arms in defense of self, town, god, and country. If you would actually read some real history, including one of the 6,000+ letters Lincoln alone wrote about stuff like this, or visit some of our colonial towns and dive into the history, get an understanding for what life was like in the late 18th century, you might have a greater appreciation for what we have today.
I'm not ragging the peopole who work the DHS, just the morons telling them how to do their jobs.
Fact is, their existance, in many ways, INCREASES our threat level, and causes terorists and other common criminals to bypass commonly accepted routes in order to distribute things that bypass the scrutiny of DHS.
Worse, when stuff like this is leaked to the press, it's only making the entire matter worse, as their incompetence, and sheer expenditures of money for at best moderate improvements in security, has made them an easy and press worthy target of criticism.
They're a walking PR nightmare, and in many ways, that makes the terrorists jobs EASIER.
I do believe we need border and customs security, but scanning for radiation, chemical and biological componds; the use of random spot checks on packages and containers; and the levying of serious fines and penalties for attemts to circumvent the screening system; things like this are good. Scrutinizing items for their printed content??? that's BS and you know it.
You are correct MobileReference would bear the brunt of the suit, but Amazon would have been named (and likely would have counter sued MobileReference.
However, Amazon is at least partly at fault for not verifying the copyright status of the item the distributed.
If you illegally sold an item, you can be required to pay punitive damages, and you can even go so far as to notify the buyers, but taking back the product (recalling it) is reserverd only for true "stolen goods" and even then only in rare cases, and usually not for retail products. Counterfeit products are often reclaimed, but not valid products sold simply without license or copywrite.
Amazon should have paid the fine (if one was even imposed by the holder). By themsleves (and not thrhrough the action of a courth or dualy authorized agency) taking back this product, they have violated multiple premises in the doctrine of first sale, the commerce codes of the United States and likely multiple state laws, and the punishment for doing so should be significantly greater than the punishment would have been simply for the infringement.
The customers though no fault of their owen purchaesed legally this unlicenced product. They did not buy it out of a truck or through some black market where a crime might be inferred, but through a well known and trusted retailer. Refund of money alone is insufficient in this case as once the product has been sold, the contract of sale is completed, and the product is now OWNED by the customer. Should Amazon want it back, the CUSTOMER becomes the seller, and has every right to set their OWN price for the return. As a student, that electronic copy might be FAR more valuable to me than a physical copy, and even if Amazon offered to replace the elctronic copy with one that WAS authorized for distribution, if it was not compatible with the Kindle, and supported the same notes file taken by the student, then it would not have been an equal value replacement, and asking the student, who was the legal woner of that product, to accept an inferior replacement, even for free after refund, may still not equate to the value of his loss (which can easily be measured in man hours repeating his effort in another form of the book, and correcting and correlating all the notes already takes, using a fair labor rate).
The moron in homeland security are far too stupid to realize that holding an item like this for potential security related issues simply GUARANTEED that the press passed on this info, people got in an uproar, and all the terrorists went and P2Pd an electronic copy off the net.
Stopping the physical copy of any printed material is an instant "We need to look at that" indicator. unless all WORLDWIDE copies can be captured, and online leaks prevented, stopping media it at our boarder is completely pointless (especially since extremely few of the terrorists are actually HERE, they're out there with all the remaining copies somone would need to offload cheap if we blocked them coming in!)
UHT is used in the US for some "room temperature" milk producs, including some of the milk packs designed to go in kids lunch bags. Its also used in some backing products. Milk in the grocery cooler uses the low temp pasturization, and has shorter shelf life. (UHT can last months, usually 6 or longer, until opened). There is quite a noticable flavor difference.... I much prefer the lot temp method thankfuly used here.
I don't have an issue with milk spoiling. A gallon lasts a week if I'm lucky in the fridge, but would be good for 3-4 weeks typically per the label (and it's usuallly good a week past that, or up to 20 days after it's been opened the first time)
It's also a bug in Google's phone, Blackberry, and the Symbian OS too. If this was limited to Apple, it would be Apple's problem.
However even if it WAS only Apple's problem, the fact that 500 messages can be sent in 1 second to ANYONE's device is 1) completely unnecessary and outside the reality of any need, 2) a potentially exploitable security risk for the future that might effect other systems, 3) malformed messages should not be sent al all...
...until carrying those messages is an issue, and thus bandwidth (messages per minute) limits are an easy to deploy system, inexpensive, and solve these issues.
Of course, even from the tower transmitter itself, the commit time and transmit time for a single SMS is not infinitessimal, and the phone can only have 1 active cvonnection at a time. I'd like to see if it;'s even possible for a single phone to actually connect and receive messages as fast as 10 in a second...
Almost all my local grocery is "local" SC passed laws mandating that certain percentages of produce must carry a "grown in SC" sticker or the grocer had to pay additional taxes and fees (this naturally is limited to products that actually reliably grow here, and to certain seasons).
The problem with "transit" grocery, is it never ripens... It;s harvested early and ripens in shipping, greatly reducing it's flavor and nutitional value. That said, most organic crops are ALSO transit crops, few are local. In fact, we ahve a VAST variety of local non-organics in the grocery store, and very few local organics.
The don't sell "organic" milk here, at least, not in the milk isle.
Also, several of the microfarms that server us are out-of-state actually. At the farmers market it's all local sure, but microfarms serve a LOT of our resturants, and some of our grocers. It;s simply fresher not having gone through mass distribution, but more direct delivery by small trucks from the farm.
The few local "micro" farmers around here are actually FAR from micro in size. I keep putting in quotes because they grow smaller yields, but that doesn't mean they don't have a hundred or more acres covered in raised planters. They're simply using a much more specific growing method, and don't use large tractors or machinery for harvest. Also, a single tomato plant grown their way produces many times the number of ripe fruit of a earth grown traditional plant and the integrated fertilizing/watering system supports much healthier and more rapid plant growth. In a small field they can sometomes outproduce a more traditional farmer with twice the land. It's more labor intensive, and thus the higher cost, but it's a better way all around (and we have pleanty of people looking for work...)
Doesn't this make AT&T guilty for allowing texts in the system that could not be possibly sent by human beings? SMS is by policy not to be used by automated systems without AT&Ts express authority. Why is this Apple's fault (Or google's, since it also effects Android, and I'm sure shortly will be ANOTHER hack effecting symbian via SMS).
Can't AT&T realize it should not be possible to deliver 500 texts to a device in such a short period, and stagger them say at not more than 1 text per 2-3 seconds? Can't they also filter "malformed" text messages that pass in their own system? TFA also states this effects Android too, not just iPhone, and it;s in their own interest, considdering this could cause a text storm and cause network bottlenecks and disruption to the whole system, to prevent such types of attacks from whtin the core network? It should be REAL easy to notice a device sending a single character non-ascii message and simply refuse to send it... I can understand a person sending a message like "!" or "Y" or "?", or a single emoji or smiley, but beyond that, there's not a whole lot of call for SMS to allow such type of messages at all, and since it can, there's your security risk!
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I completly agree. I've worked in IT as a contractor or full time employee in one way or another since 1997, and had my own business since 1992 prior. I have not stayed in one job longer than 3.5 years. Most have been 18-24 months. I took the training I needed, learned the new job skills, and got a few certifications the company paid for. At some point, when I felt either I was not going to get a "fair market value" raise, I'd put out resume's, take 1-2 weeks off, and interview everywhere I could, and accept an offer somewhere with both a massive pay raise and new training opportunities. Usually by this point I'd still have 3-5 weeks vacation and comp time pent up, and I'd blow that while working on addsitional certifications. In 2 cases I convinced the employer to "lay me off" instead of another poor sap, and saved a buddy's job by putting my own head on the block. In both of those cases I got severance pay added on top of my unused vacation.
I went from making less than $20K anually in 1995 trying to run a startup web publishing company, to 2000 where I was making 30K as a field technician and had about $8K in training budget access. By 2002 I was MS certified and took a job in IT analysys and helped a large firm rework their bench service and sales policy and develop a revenue model based on services making well over 40K. In 2005 I left them and joined a BVC working in DR. I quickly moved up the ladder there taking 3 promotions and leaving making over 60K, and received a massive amount of Linux/Unix training and DR planning experience in the process, and was exposed to hundreds of unique network systems in enterprise companies. In 2007 I worked for a regional reseller as a presales engineer working mostly on government bids in VoIP technology and major network systems, and learned Cisco networking as well as several other enterprise class systems and took in over 75K in just under a year. Now, I'm a contractor for a major firm in the state working in IT analytics and system architecture where we have near a dozen mainframes and about other 3,000 servers and should pull in close to 120K this year including my overtime pay, and I'm lined up to become a full time part of their group and within another year I should be on the management side of the systems architecture group and cross the 150K mark.
At this point, I'm well into my 30s, and feel I'm nearing the top of the food chain without expanding into the executive IT market. The particular firm I'm with if offering a pension plan and a lot of nice benefits, and I have lots of systems I can get experience on, and my fingers on a nearly $100m IT budget. I experience new challenges daily, and the pace the company deploys systems at is nearly frightening. I have a dozen directions my career can go in, and many of thel lead into the mid six figures, and if I play my cards right, with my vast experience and ability to manage teams and projects, I have a good shot at making the leap into the executive arena, so I'm starting night classes and working on a business degree to supplement my IT degree and numerous certifications.
If I had stayed with one of the original firms I was with (I still know some people there), I;d say I'd have a good job and a good life, but I'd be lucky to be taking in more than 60K, and that only if I was one of the top managers. Work tyour way in from the bottom, basic system services for a small retailer, move on to larger fish and consulting firms. Get into pre-sales and buff up your speaking and presentation skills, learn EVERYTHING about any system you come across. When you're coming up on your anual reviews and expecting a raise, ver WELL AWARE of what your market value is, and if possible, have an offer in your pocket to throw back at them if the raise/promotion is not at your value level. Do not let the fact that you grew up somewhere keep you from moving to a good job market area, and don't be afraid to take a job working with systems you don't know how to operate if there's training involved. Do not settle for a job that
Impact sensors generally trigger on 50, 100, 150, or 250Gs of force depending on the sensitivity of the device to damage. I'd assume a laptop might have a 50-100G sensor, and a phone a 150-200G sensor. It's pretty much impossible to cause such an impact without destroying the packaging of the device or making it clearly obvious it was dropped hard before it was sold...
In most states, "incidental damage" due to "normal use" is banned by law from voiding waranties, and most states agree that cell phones do occasionally get dropped in the normal course of use. Knicks, marrs, and scratches are considdered normal, and do not count against device operation. Cracked screens can occasionally occur from dropped devices, and that's almost never covered, but it's pretty hard to tell it a cracked screen is due to simply being dropped, or being crushed in a pocket...
The iPhone itself, damn, I'm impressed with it;s resilience. i had my 2G from the week they were launched until 2 weeks after the 3GS launched. i beat the HELL out of it. In fact, it finally died not because I dropped it (again) but due to a firmware issue that effected the screen (causing scrolling, lines and colors) and even ocnsiddering multiple dings in the metal and 2 scratches in the screen they replaced it anyway. Once I swore it was destroyed while running through a heavy downpour it poped out of my shirt pocket, landed screen down, and then I stepped on it, hard... it got 1 of it;s 2 small scratches in the screen for that, that's all...
Yea, I have such coverage on ALL my personal devices, it's called a rider on my homeowners policy. I have a $100 deductibe, and any personal electronic devices on my person or in my vehicle (or a rented car, or in a car I'm riding in with someone else) becomes damaged, destroyed, stolen, etc is replaced, with a "comperable equivalent or better" (specifically NOT depreciated repolacement cost, i made sure of that). It;s a single incident deductible as well so if my camera bag, containing several cameras and several lenses, valued at more than $4,000, was stolen, I'd still only pay $100. I do need to keep good records of the models and serial numbers, but I do that anyway for waranty purposes, and I keep all the receipts.
The rider cost me about $12 a year... it ALSO covers anyone ELSE'S devices that might fall under the same issue that they bring into my home or into my car.
I've used it a few times. Once to replace a stolen GPS, once to replace a camera that was knocked out of my hands on a vacation, and once to replace everything in my wife's car after it was robbed. in no case did this negatively effect my insurance rates, i simply paid the deductible, and in each case except dropping the camera I had to have a police report filed and a copy sent to the insurer.
You're free to use the device however you please, they just won't give you a FREE ONE for using it in a stupid way if that stupid way causes it to stop working...
I do actually believe this will be a part in cost reduction yes. Apple can only hold the $200 price point (technically $599 price point) for a short time longer. High end device are moving to the $149 mark, and to protect their CURRENT profits, they need to make such adjustments.
I'm also fairly certain this will more apply to a tablet, netbook-like, or other protable device, no so much just the iPhone and iPod touch (though some of these technologies are already used in them, and some others could be with a simple software activation or very minor change to the device)
Waterproofing a hermetically sealed device isn't hard, but as soon as you introcuce charging contacts, headphone ports, and buttons, it becomes pretty much impossible to waterproof the device.
Even my watch, which is rated for 100M depths and comes with a submersion guarantee clearly states in the manual, "do not press any buttons on the device during submersion, nor after surfacing until such a time as the device is completely dry. Pressing buttongs during exposure to water, even rain, can break the device's sealants and introduce liquitd to the interior"
Try associating some of those quotes to dates first of all. Shay's rebellion happened before the signing of the constitution, and all of the work Lincoln and others put into that document to end the likely needs of armed rebellions were not available in Massachusetts at that time.
Lincoln also said "Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights." and;
"The arm of the people [is] a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree." and;
"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., securing inherent and inalienable rights, with powers derived from the consent of the governed], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." This quote alone, spoken BEFORE the rebellion in MA in 1776, makes no mention of ARMED rebellion, nor do most of his quotes stating his support of rebellion, only that the people require the power to unseat their government. If that can be done with pen as easilly as musket, then the musket can be rele=gated to other needs and spared from the streets.
Further, to Ben Franlin in 1808 Jefferson wrote: "In no country on earth is [a disposition to oppose the law by force] so impracticable as in one where every man feels a vital interest in maintaining the authority of the laws, and instantly engages in it as in his own personal cause." ...and my closing statement: "In a country whose constitution is derived from the will of the people directly expressed by their free suffrages, where the principal executive functionaries and those of the legislature are renewed by them at short periods, where under the character of jurors they exercise in person the greatest portion of the judiciary powers, where the laws are consequently so formed and administered as to bear with equal weight and favor on all, restraining no man in the pursuits of honest industry and securing to every one the property which that acquires, it would not be supposed that any safeguards could be needed against insurrection or enterprise on the public peace or authority. The laws, however, aware that these should not be trusted to moral restraints only, have wisely provided punishments for these crimes when committed." Written in 1806 to the people of the united states in his 6th anual message to the people. In shorter terms, we set up this government to be run by men and women we place a level of trust and moral expectations in, but in that same government are clear rights of the people, and punishments for those who seek to abuse the power trusted to them where morals fail. Also the mention of the short term assumed that even one who abuses, who might not be easily removed, and in short span, be replaced should the people in mass object, none of this requiring armed force, and any means other than spoken or written word and the excercise of personal choice.
You can find statements about "blood should be spilled" but that blood remember need not be the PEOPLE'S! Treason was a hanging offence, it was the blood of the CORRUPT he intended to spill, corpses he counted in the tens ("the few, or a dozen" we words used), not in the hundreds expectant of an armed conflict of a mob.
Um, the original constitution was truncated extensively, explicity for publication... The fact it was hand written is because you have to have a copy first to bring to the press to have replicated. They knew the original (3 copies of it actually) would be circulated including the signatures to the heads of each colony as proof of the original, but they also new tens of thousands of copies needed to be circulated to each small town. Parchment was not cheap, nor were presses and press time. Limiting it so a few pages not only provided a significant savings in cost of replication (and time of replication which itself may he been more imoirtant) but it also made the document more specific, and left all the remaining powers to the states to be decided elsewise.
In today's society, in this country, given the near everpresent video surveilance or outright security presence, and cops close at hand, few if any people should be carrying loaded weapons for self defence. This becomes even more limited if the criminals also don't have guns of their own.
Further, noone said you had to be a COP to carry a gun, simply a deputised person, or former military person. And "concealed" shoudl not be an option. Weapons worn VISIBLY on your hip, in plain sight, with a holster containing a photo ID of your also clearly visible through a plastic cover on a permit would be quite sufficint. And with even 1 in 50 people so permited, and carying, criminals would be highly wary of any such crime. Also add to this shop proprieters and owners, for which the shop can be considered an extention of their land, and naturally this also allows you to have a gun in your house/apartment. Now within a very short distance of anywhere a crime can happen, is a weapon to defend people, but the only people who might have a weapon who don't have clearly visible authority to do so are automatically criminals...
Further, look into the evidence into gun restriction and per capita crime rates. In nations where handguns and other weapons have been banned in public places, crime rates often spiked for a very short period (weeks or months) but the existing crime rate is FAR below where it was previously. Many of these countries are not even permitting "on your own lands" but simply saying "no guns unless deputised" and still they're safer.
We needed guns because we had no police, no army, and a sparse population. We had no defense from outside, and no defense for ourselves, yet the STILL wished initially, to restrict weapons to one's own lands. You still have them, you could still rebel if you really felt you had to, you can still defend yourself and your country. Just in public, and in shops, and on open streets, you have to rely on the COMMUNITY or the GOVERNMENT to protect you from crime.
Go further: If not only did every person who wanted so have a weapon, but also had a strict training program to use that weapon, and was only certified to carry one if considered a marksman (which even my wife easily became in a few hours in a shooting range with simple instruction, where having previously fired guns for years on her family's farm she couldn't hit a barn...) then criminals would not only know you had a gun, but it would eliminate the nearly TWENTY TIMES as many cases of accidental shootings, and also of people being killed with their own weapons of self defense due to the lack of understanding of how to actually defend one's self with it. Crimains fear the confident, and the prepared, but far beyond that, it;s a small chance you'll be mugged by gunpoiont and actually get shot, you're FAR more likely to be ACCIDENTALLY shot by your own gun, or shoot someone accidentally with it... THAT we really CAN do something about, even if we don;t limit how can and can't have a gun to anything more strict than making you take a class (which btw, you have to take one to even get a FISHING license in some states, yet you don't need to take a class to garry a loaded gun???? and that's infringing on your rights to make you???)
Please refrain from using the word common where the per capita incident of such is less than 1%...
First, our forefathers forcibly rebelled against their government because their government INVADED their lands by force. Peacable means were attemted first and failed, including protests and more. The states suffered under sanctions for years prior, and considering it was illegal under the king to do such simply things as MAKE CLOTH,sanctions were quite harsh...
Second, there is no precess for removing a KING from Office and supplanting a new leadership other than KILLING ONE or winning a war. We built into the constitution means for dealing with government OTHER than violence. Also, having arms "..on his own lands" still prevents the government from having a coup...
and how does any of this go against adding the simple phrase "...on his own lands" to the right to bear arms? The above would STILL BE TRUE.
The right to bear arms on one's own lands whoever would NOT give untrained, unlicensed, undeputized citizens the right to walk around city streets with concealed weapons, and thus anyone who would be found with one not in a clearly maked, locked case, with amunition seperated, would automatically be a criminal, and be assumed to be posessing the weapon with the intent to use it (as any weapon not in a locked case clearly would have a reson for being so).
I taught my wife to fire rifles, handguns, and shotguns in a matter of hours. By her third time at the range she was scoring over 40 on 5x10 targets at competition range.
If it takes "extended time" to train someone who's never held a gun, those people have other issues...
In fact, personally knowing several drill instructers, and having a general in my family, they seem to be of the opinion it is EASIER to train someone who is completely green vs. someone who "thinks" they know how to use a weapon. knowing how to aim in a general direction, fire, and clean a weapon is easy, doing it the RIGHT WAY is harder, and harder still if bad habits have set in...
Jefferson's ideas of "organized rebellion" WERE incorporated into the constitution, in the form of the balance of powers (which did not previosly exist), the abiltiy for people to be removed from office, and the election processes. Forced rebelion is the only way to fight an aristocracy, but guns are completely unnecessary in a land where free speech, the press, and rights to assembe and protest are highly protected, and where processes to remove rulers, laws, and judicial rulings are readily available to the people.
In his days, he never expected the political process to be tied up in courts for 3-5 years, but lets face it, corruption charges against politicians go QUICK.
You must be meeting the wrong people.
First of all, as natural is it is for us geeks to repel women, due mostly to intelligence and disinterest in their meterial needs, and their disinterest in ours, there are actually INTELLIGENT women out there who have been equally rejected by males, and many of them are actually quite attractive if not downright hot.
Alpha males have extreme difficulty dealing with intelligent women, as their authority is oftem trumped by logic or knowledge, and they're not fond of that.
The woman I've been with for 8 years (and married 4 ago) was generally considdered one of the hottest girls on campus. She's an education nut, and fantasy geekette. Somewhat reserved, blatantly against sorority life, and not into sports (though she enjoys watching both hockey and Football), she became attracted to our gaming group as there were few other places where groups of friendly people got together to do anything other then the above.
It took about 5 minutes of sitting her in front of a PC with Diablo II running before she was hooked, and we had her regularly playing in network games, and absorbed her into our collective. Her fantasy and reading interests melded well with the group. We started dating soon after (not my first girlfriend by any stretch btw), and eventually married.
Of the rest of the guys in the group, each had a similar experience (though not all while still in college). There's 9 core members of our original fellowship, and all of us are currently happily maried to inteligent independent women who we have great sex with, who have at least some interests in common, and who also are completely accepting to allow us our space to game (some of them game with us). They're each just as happy to involve themselves in crafts, a good book, or just socializing amung themselves when we're doing something that does disinterest them, and welcome to join when we're doing something they're into.
My wife at least was a starter cook when i met her. Some helping from my italian heritage, and her personal addiction to the food network, and now a few years later she's a competent cook who experiments a lot and regularly has something new to bring to the table. I cook about as often as she does as well.
I maintain the house, electronics, the cars, do the heavy labor in the yard, and do the basic housecleaning chores, and most of the shopping; she does the laundry, the detail cleaning (dusting, windows, etc), plans our dinner menus, and handles a bit more of the kid-related chores than i do (though I'm not far off doing half of that too). It's a nice balance and we each feel we have control over certain things. It's never "your turn" to do this or that...
Lessons learned: 1) intelligent women require being involved in decisions constantly, and must get their way at least as often as we do if not more to even feel equal on any level. However, take note that in most cases a "compromise" in no way counts as "she got her way" or "she made that decision." She must be given complete control over a process or thing on a regular basis, being responsible for all planning and decisions related to that thing. At best you might be able to suggest what color you really would hate to have something, and that might slide, but suggesting what color it should BE instantly makes that your decision, even if she agrees and makes no alternate suggestion... Mostly for us this revolves around choosing furniture, a new car, decorating, where to go on vacation, etc. In a nutshell, she now has to make all the decisions or there's an argument that we'll have about it 6 monts or more from now, and on about half those decisions, i get my way by "suggesting an alternative" or compromising to get some small part of a win for me.
In our last house, we coordiated and both selected the same floorplan we liked after looking at about 150 options. It was the only one we both had on a list of our top 3, and for both of us it was the number 1 choice. We selected curtains togethe
1) they left the definition of reasonable to the FCC, for which standards already exist thanks to the case against Comcast, and which those requirements can be further refined.
2) Apparently you;re unfamiliar with the original drafts of the constitution, often used by the supreme court and others to determine the mindset of those who wrote it. You see, the constitution was revised multiple times, much of it in order to make it fit to a small number of pages for simplicity of replication and distribution to the million plus people who needed to see a copy after it was ratified (a massive expense in 1776). In those drafts, Jefferson had penned "The right of the free man to bear arms on his own lands, being necessary..." The forefathers felt this was redundant, as that was the existing law, a FREE, LAND OWNING man was allowed to have weapons within the bounds of his own lands.
You also need to considder that A) we had no organized police force, only magistrites and jailers and B) in the fronteir, the only defense on your own land, which could be tens of thousands of acres, against invaders, the Spanish, indians, and more, was for people to arm themselves, as we also not only did not have a military, but most of our borders were wholy undefended.
Jefferson and the rest of our forfathers had NO INTENTION of letting just anyone run around town with guns. let alone had they imagined "portable" machine guns or weapons easily concealable capable of inflicting mass casualties. It was for the protection of one's own lands in the fronteir, for the ability to hunt on one's own lands, and for if and when the local government or state called you to arms in defense of self, town, god, and country. If you would actually read some real history, including one of the 6,000+ letters Lincoln alone wrote about stuff like this, or visit some of our colonial towns and dive into the history, get an understanding for what life was like in the late 18th century, you might have a greater appreciation for what we have today.
I'm not ragging the peopole who work the DHS, just the morons telling them how to do their jobs.
Fact is, their existance, in many ways, INCREASES our threat level, and causes terorists and other common criminals to bypass commonly accepted routes in order to distribute things that bypass the scrutiny of DHS.
Worse, when stuff like this is leaked to the press, it's only making the entire matter worse, as their incompetence, and sheer expenditures of money for at best moderate improvements in security, has made them an easy and press worthy target of criticism.
They're a walking PR nightmare, and in many ways, that makes the terrorists jobs EASIER.
I do believe we need border and customs security, but scanning for radiation, chemical and biological componds; the use of random spot checks on packages and containers; and the levying of serious fines and penalties for attemts to circumvent the screening system; things like this are good. Scrutinizing items for their printed content??? that's BS and you know it.
You are correct MobileReference would bear the brunt of the suit, but Amazon would have been named (and likely would have counter sued MobileReference.
However, Amazon is at least partly at fault for not verifying the copyright status of the item the distributed.
If you illegally sold an item, you can be required to pay punitive damages, and you can even go so far as to notify the buyers, but taking back the product (recalling it) is reserverd only for true "stolen goods" and even then only in rare cases, and usually not for retail products. Counterfeit products are often reclaimed, but not valid products sold simply without license or copywrite.
Amazon should have paid the fine (if one was even imposed by the holder). By themsleves (and not thrhrough the action of a courth or dualy authorized agency) taking back this product, they have violated multiple premises in the doctrine of first sale, the commerce codes of the United States and likely multiple state laws, and the punishment for doing so should be significantly greater than the punishment would have been simply for the infringement.
The customers though no fault of their owen purchaesed legally this unlicenced product. They did not buy it out of a truck or through some black market where a crime might be inferred, but through a well known and trusted retailer. Refund of money alone is insufficient in this case as once the product has been sold, the contract of sale is completed, and the product is now OWNED by the customer. Should Amazon want it back, the CUSTOMER becomes the seller, and has every right to set their OWN price for the return. As a student, that electronic copy might be FAR more valuable to me than a physical copy, and even if Amazon offered to replace the elctronic copy with one that WAS authorized for distribution, if it was not compatible with the Kindle, and supported the same notes file taken by the student, then it would not have been an equal value replacement, and asking the student, who was the legal woner of that product, to accept an inferior replacement, even for free after refund, may still not equate to the value of his loss (which can easily be measured in man hours repeating his effort in another form of the book, and correcting and correlating all the notes already takes, using a fair labor rate).
The moron in homeland security are far too stupid to realize that holding an item like this for potential security related issues simply GUARANTEED that the press passed on this info, people got in an uproar, and all the terrorists went and P2Pd an electronic copy off the net.
Stopping the physical copy of any printed material is an instant "We need to look at that" indicator. unless all WORLDWIDE copies can be captured, and online leaks prevented, stopping media it at our boarder is completely pointless (especially since extremely few of the terrorists are actually HERE, they're out there with all the remaining copies somone would need to offload cheap if we blocked them coming in!)
UHT is used in the US for some "room temperature" milk producs, including some of the milk packs designed to go in kids lunch bags. Its also used in some backing products. Milk in the grocery cooler uses the low temp pasturization, and has shorter shelf life. (UHT can last months, usually 6 or longer, until opened). There is quite a noticable flavor difference.... I much prefer the lot temp method thankfuly used here.
I don't have an issue with milk spoiling. A gallon lasts a week if I'm lucky in the fridge, but would be good for 3-4 weeks typically per the label (and it's usuallly good a week past that, or up to 20 days after it's been opened the first time)
It's also a bug in Google's phone, Blackberry, and the Symbian OS too. If this was limited to Apple, it would be Apple's problem.
However even if it WAS only Apple's problem, the fact that 500 messages can be sent in 1 second to ANYONE's device is 1) completely unnecessary and outside the reality of any need, 2) a potentially exploitable security risk for the future that might effect other systems, 3) malformed messages should not be sent al all...
...until carrying those messages is an issue, and thus bandwidth (messages per minute) limits are an easy to deploy system, inexpensive, and solve these issues.
Of course, even from the tower transmitter itself, the commit time and transmit time for a single SMS is not infinitessimal, and the phone can only have 1 active cvonnection at a time. I'd like to see if it;'s even possible for a single phone to actually connect and receive messages as fast as 10 in a second...
Almost all my local grocery is "local" SC passed laws mandating that certain percentages of produce must carry a "grown in SC" sticker or the grocer had to pay additional taxes and fees (this naturally is limited to products that actually reliably grow here, and to certain seasons).
The problem with "transit" grocery, is it never ripens... It;s harvested early and ripens in shipping, greatly reducing it's flavor and nutitional value. That said, most organic crops are ALSO transit crops, few are local. In fact, we ahve a VAST variety of local non-organics in the grocery store, and very few local organics.
The don't sell "organic" milk here, at least, not in the milk isle.
Also, several of the microfarms that server us are out-of-state actually. At the farmers market it's all local sure, but microfarms serve a LOT of our resturants, and some of our grocers. It;s simply fresher not having gone through mass distribution, but more direct delivery by small trucks from the farm.
The few local "micro" farmers around here are actually FAR from micro in size. I keep putting in quotes because they grow smaller yields, but that doesn't mean they don't have a hundred or more acres covered in raised planters. They're simply using a much more specific growing method, and don't use large tractors or machinery for harvest. Also, a single tomato plant grown their way produces many times the number of ripe fruit of a earth grown traditional plant and the integrated fertilizing/watering system supports much healthier and more rapid plant growth. In a small field they can sometomes outproduce a more traditional farmer with twice the land. It's more labor intensive, and thus the higher cost, but it's a better way all around (and we have pleanty of people looking for work...)
Doesn't this make AT&T guilty for allowing texts in the system that could not be possibly sent by human beings? SMS is by policy not to be used by automated systems without AT&Ts express authority. Why is this Apple's fault (Or google's, since it also effects Android, and I'm sure shortly will be ANOTHER hack effecting symbian via SMS).
Why should Apple fix it?
Can't AT&T realize it should not be possible to deliver 500 texts to a device in such a short period, and stagger them say at not more than 1 text per 2-3 seconds? Can't they also filter "malformed" text messages that pass in their own system? TFA also states this effects Android too, not just iPhone, and it;s in their own interest, considdering this could cause a text storm and cause network bottlenecks and disruption to the whole system, to prevent such types of attacks from whtin the core network? It should be REAL easy to notice a device sending a single character non-ascii message and simply refuse to send it... I can understand a person sending a message like "!" or "Y" or "?", or a single emoji or smiley, but beyond that, there's not a whole lot of call for SMS to allow such type of messages at all, and since it can, there's your security risk!