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.

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.

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.

If you think that is odd, then you will love this

http://www.everydaynodaysoff.c...

Yes a 14" piece of string and a key ring attached to a rifle to make it cycle constitutes a "Machine gun" under federal law.

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.

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.

I have interviewed 100's of RHCE's who could not tell me how to set the minimum password length, how to change the permissions on a file, and none of them could tell me how to set run levels at boot.

I was surprised that they even passes the RHCE without knowing it.

Maybe it would be better to leave a note for our Great^166,666,666 grand kids and give them a heads up.

Fixed it for you.

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

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.

Can I get one with Linux installed?

if not, can I get one with No OS installed?

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.

It wont make a difference.

I dont need a 3d printer to make a gun!

I drill press and some angle iron to make a jig and I can produce produce AK47's all day long.

Best part is, guns made at home dont have to be registered and the parts that you order to make them dont have a background check. Meaning As long as I make the receiver for my own personal use (that's the part with the serial number and the part that legally constitutes a gun) then I don't have to serial number it, it does not have to be registered, and I don't have to have a background check.

Officially I break the law if I sell it or make it full auto, with a note that the mechanical difference between a semi-auto and a full auto is literally a hole in the receiver and a couple of extra parts that come with the kit.

Looks like it boils down to Non-technical people making technical decisions.

This is more directed to managers, VP's, and C-Levels. Before you agree to a contract for technical services, you really should have a skilled technical person read it and tell you where you are about to get screwed.

I have seen contracts to outsource L1 and L2 where it stated "Any ticket that can not be handled by L1 or L2 support personal will be forwarded L3 personal provided by XXXXXXXXX." Where XXXXX was the name of the company that was outsourcing the jobs to India. Sounds good tell you find out that the Indian company hired 1 guy to do both L1 and L2. He had no computer knowledge and simple passed all tickets to L3 with the comment "Do the needful" The Indian company always met their SLA's because it was a ticket that could not be handled by the guy they hired. (Note: That one was for 1500 servers)

Another contract I was shown listed a guaranteed uptime of 96%. When I questioned it, my VP replied "There management did not understand anything technical. 4% down time was sold to them as reasonable. So don't worry about it, we will always make our SLA's" (Note to managers: 99.99% uptime is reasonable, 99.999% uptime is what you want!)

My favorite was one that stated that the customer was responsible for all documentation and procedures on servers, access, and support. That one was a huge pile of steaming fecal mater which suddenly leapt into the air oscillating device when they were SOX audited. The company they were outsourced to met the SLA's and could not be held liable because it was in the contract that the customer was responsible for the documentation.

So, take it from someone with over 20 years in IT. When you outsource technical functions you need to have your technical people vet the contract and you need to keep them to monitor and make sure that the company, you are outsourcing to, does their job.

I would guess that the intent is not to make it to court.

The intent is probably to run lots of discovery and waist time tell the guy runs out of money and eventually agrees to settle by giving them the domain.

This is the kind of thing I would love to see the EFF grab and do pro-bona.