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Comment Re:"...the same as trespassing." (Score 1) 1197

I dont know about Kentucky, however in Texas you can shoot people for Criminal Trespass. You can use deadly force to protect your self and your property.

IANAL, however the fact that the drone was waved off and left then came back would indicate to me that the operator was aware that it was not welcome. I would construe the act of returning as a Criminal Trespass. I personally would have used a shotgun with bird shot to shoot it down. The bird shot reduces the danger to others when it comes down.

Then again, I have a shoulder launched surface to air rocket. Using that may work better, scare the crap out of the operator and is legal to shoot in town because it does not qualify as a "Gun" and with no explosive charge in the rocket it does not qualify as a destructive device.

Comment Re:Pfft! (Score 4, Informative) 49

Roll it to 17 years, with no renewal.
Toss the automatic copyright and go back to requiring registration to get the copyright.
Require all software applying for copyright protection include all source code!
When copyright runs out on software, it is the source code and the compiled work that gets released to the Public Domain.
Take anything over 25 years old and make it public domain.
Require any court cases dealing with violation of copyright to have the plaintiff pay all legal fees should the case be found for the diffident.

Comment Re:Negotiating salaries is for the birds. (Score 1) 430

If you were to ask me up front I would reply with "It depends on a lot of things. What range are you looking to pay?"

For me it depends on the kind of work, how exhausted the team looks during the interview, how far the drive is, How much room I see for growth, how interested I am in the company as a whole, the perks and packages offered, etc. As long as we are in the right ball park. It can be worked out and on some occasions Ill take a lot less pay for something I really want as a perk.

Comment Re:Negotiating salaries is for the birds. (Score 4, Interesting) 430

It is always a pain when they don't list the salary range.

I have gone over to being very up front and straight forward. If they want me to interview I ask "What salary range are you looking to pay?" If they give me some BS about how it is dependent on experience or "At this time it is open." I normally reply with "Sorry, I know how business works. A salary rage was selected before the listing was made. I am only asking what that range is so I can decide if it is worth my time to pursue the position. If it is to low then I am waisting my time and yours by even accepting an interview."

I would like to say they were all consistent but they were all over the map. The one that comes to mind is one that had 150 Linux servers running an online service. They had been hacked and were looking for someone to come in and clean it up, secure the systems, and make sure they were not re-hacked. They specifically listed 10 years experience and ton of must knows. When I got them to tell me how much they were looking to pay, they wanted someone who would work for $12.00 an hr on a 1099. I about fell over and had to let them know that they put the period in the wrong place, minimum would have been $120.00 an hr on a 1099.

Comment Many will say that this is bad advice but (Score 3, Insightful) 54

Back in 2000 the company I worked for "Accidentally" put everyones info (HR Database) on the public FTP site. Including Bank account info, all the security questions, ss#, salaries, etc.

At that time I looked into "Protecting" myself from identity theft and realized there was an easy solution.

1) Run my credit into the ground. Someone stealing an identity does not want to clean up your credit. They want an easy target.
2) Pay off all my debts. Believe it or not, paying off your debts without creating new ones lowers your credit score.
3) Live off what I make! No credit cards, no loans, no credit.

Now, 15 years later, I have 4 cars, a boat, 12.5 acres in the country, and a house. I got the home loan before I did all of this and it is the only debt I have left. The rest was saved for and I paid cash for them.

It is amazing how much cash you have when you are not loosing 12%, 15%, or 25%, to interest on loan payments.

Comment A couple of years ago (Score 1) 620

I was called by one of the local computer repair shops. Seems someone brought in an old SCO box to get fixed and they had never seen anything like it so they called me to take a look at it. When I asked what it was doing over the phone I was told "It looks like the drive is bad but when we opened it there were two ribbon cables connected to the drive and we have never seen anything like that."

When I got there it was a 386 running SCO with RLL drives. They were amazed when I poked C800:5 to get to the controller menu.

Drive was dead, backups were non-existent. I polity suggested that the owner upgrade and put it on display with the date bought and the date it died.

Comment Re:Never heard that one before (Score 1) 504

Jar Jar's speech sounds a lot like Jamaican patois to me. Whether that is racist or not is another story, but Jar Jar's general behavior; stupid, lazy, and addled, do conjure up the way Pot Smokers were portrayed in literature and films for a rather long time.

Fixed it for you.

Has anyone ever noticed that the black stereotypes are also the stereotypes applied to pot smokers?

Comment Re:It's a sales tool. (Score 1) 296

As any salesman will tell you.

Step 1) Find the person who can make the decision.
Step 2) Go directly to them. Dont waist time on the people who can not buy.

Works in finding a job, skip HR and locate the hiring manager. Call him or her, contact him or her via linked-in, etc. That is the person that will get you past the HR filters.

Comment Re:Hidden Blackholes (Score 1) 92

I'm not convinced that the "gravitational lensing" we are seeing is an invisible gravity well.

From what we know of physics, time moves slower in a gravity well. The fact that "gravitational lensing" appears in distant regions where there is no mass to explain the warping of space time leads me to believe that we are seeing areas of space where time is moving faster than it is here. Causing a visual distortion of the light that passes through the area.

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