Great reply and I agree. Thanks for the reply.

If I take the OP words, his answer is in his post -- "... then shop it around to developers who are interested." In other words, the contractor must understand and agree to work with a fixed amount of payment before starting the work. If the contractor thinks that the money is not worth the work or he/she is expecting a certain hours of work, he/she should have negotiated before working on it. If he/she gets paid the full amount but could not deliver the work as the given spec (good enough with bugs), what do you think who is responsible for the extra work afterward?

You are taking it quite far when you talk about legal. To do so, you have to be sure about your written contract with developers that ensure you to do so. It is not easy though because interpretation of laws is not the same for everyone. If you have even a hole in it, you will waste both time and money.

To me, the OP is not clear on 2 parts. One part, he/she said that he/she is an excellent product spec writer. My question would be how excellent? If his/her write up is that great, then the bugs in the software would be from the contractor (developer). However, if it is just good enough and the software produces bugs that are hidden (or not obvious) in his/her spec, then it is his/her responsibility (and the write up is not that excellent).

The other part when he/she talks about his/her client complains about bugs and he/she wants the developer to fix them for free. This is very important. What kind of "bugs" he/she is talking about? End users usually do not know what they want, and may expect something different from what the software introduces. As a result, the users complain and report the issue as a bug because it is not exactly what they want. If that is the case, the responsibility is for the OP himself/herself. However, if the bugs come from misinterpreting of the spec or incomplete implementations, it could be from the developer. I said it could be because there are some cases that the spec is not written clearly. This then refers back to what I said earlier, how excellent the spec writer the OP is?

Well, tell us the "whole" story about that before you summarize it into something too brief with bias.

To answer to GP, sometimes the law should be harsh if one violates it. Different people view each situation differently. This situation may look too harsh to Americans (and I agree), but it may not be enough or is good enough to Latvian. We are living in different cultures, so we should not expect others to be the same. If this issue happens in the U.S., then I would completely agree with the opinion.

I am sorry but your explanation still does not convince me that these tasks (step-by-step in certain timely manner) can be perfectly done only by humans. If you are arguing about these tasks can't be done by the current technology and/or with the same amount of money that pay to hire bartenders, then I would accept that. Robots are good at doing tasks precisely if it is correctly set up. All you are talking are tasks. Unless you are talking about emotions and communication (the social part), I don't see that it is impossible with any amount of money in the near future.

Also, speaking of space, your imagination seems to be stuck to an old cranky robot hand in an assembly factory. It is all about design. The brain (CPU) parts can be outside of the bar area (could be behind the counter, the bar wall, etc), and connect the hand with wires toward the ceiling. The bar counter could be design to have specific items in specific locations (somewhat hard-wired style). Therefore, the small enough space you are talking about is irrelevant.

Your maths is correct, but that means you have an assumption of linearly incremental performance equation. What if the incremental equation is instead a 1/x? So that the result would opposite!

Even though I agree with you that there will always be people doing what you mentioned, it should not be concerned unless the U.S. is populated with those evil mind set that plan ahead to suck as much blood as they can from their host (the U.S.). I doubt that.

Unless I am very far off, a regular person would try to get the best job he or she could. Salary is one of the major reasons for taking a job. It makes no sense to take a less payment on purpose for the student loan payment. If the person is too lazy to work, the person would never get a job at all because low-payment job does not always mean less work (often times it is the opposite).

The part I agree is that there should not be any time limitation of the loan. With limitation, it actually teaches people to ignore consequences of what they have done. The loan should not be forgiven until it is paid in full.

I don't agree with the definition. It may used to be that way, but I doubt it is that black & white any more. The words are just to be convenient. Often times, the responsibilities of those who are programmers & software engineers are overlapped. It depends on how a company names the position. Also, often times the name is related to salary rate. Don't simply put down "programmers" and praise "software engineers" with a bias. Some programmers do more design work than software engineers, and vice versa.

I half agree with you. The problem is that you assume that everyone will give in an equal (or close) amount in the sharing. In reality, this rarely happens and it usually ends up some taking advantages of the situation -- only take but not share or mostly take and very little share. The Copyright is supposed to protect from those who only take (or steal). Again, nothing is perfect. A few others found a loop hole and exploit the Copyright protection -- trolls -- and that is the issue we are facing anywhere right now.

So complaining about copyright is purely bad is extreme; whereas, saying copyright is totally good is the other extreme. I believe copyright is neutral but good or bad comes from how people use it to their own advantages.

Dedicated thieves don't go the route most people think to make money. They may also have plenty of time in their hand and no need to make it obvious. Besides, What would they lose if they really try and got locked out? Unless they are not that sophisticated thieves and associate their real identity to the attempt.

Does that CVV really matter if a thief got everything he/she needs but merely 3-digit (or 4-digit) number? Is it impossible for someone to implement a way (even brute-force) to get those 3 (or 4) digit numbers? I highly doubt that there is NO way to obtain a card's CVV number. Think out of the box please...

You may need to research about the word ecosystem. Even though it may not guarantee that this action would destroy the world, the current ecosystem would be distorted by human and could impact other system directly and indirectly.

You seem to be too optimistic in the issue. You need to think further outside the optimistic box. On the flip side, what would happen when there is an abuse of the system? Would the abuse cause worse effect than leaving these civets alone in their wild?

To me, attempt to make money off something you don't own in the first place is abusive and selfish. Also, many people who do not understand people from the 3rd world country would not understand how they think. There are a lot more of those who do not have, and these people may take advantage of whatever they have a hand on. In this case, there could be more people capturing all these wild animals; as a result, the local ecosystem (and could impact global in a different way) is changed by humans (and usually toward the worse). I would rather prepare for the worst than expect only good outcome of this change.

Then I believe you don't know how end-user people work on Excel. One scenario I can think of from this type of user error is the assumption by the user.

For example, you create a data row and add a range-formula at the bottom of the table (to do average, count, sum, etc). Let say, your data is from A1 to A30 and you sum the value at cell A31 for those 30 rows above. Now, you have some new data to add, so you insert 2 new rows between A29 and A30. The sum-cell is now at A33 and you have empty cells at A30 and A31. When you enter new data in those 2 new cells, the sum-cell will automatically cover the values in those cells. Now, let's say you insert 2 more new rows between A32 and A33 (sum-cell). The sum-cell is now at A35. This often time is the problem for some people who don't understand Excel. These people would think that the sum-cell will automatically extend the range to cover from A1 to A34, but it is a wrong assumption. Excel will not automatically extend the range in this case and you must either edit the range or redo the sum again.

The similar behaviour (automatic range coverage when insert new rows/columns) is also in OpenOffice spreadsheet. So I believe this is an "on purpose" functionality of a spreadsheet software (correct me if I am wrong).

"Better" does not mean it is "good enough" in the sense of security. If security is breached, do you still say "better" is "good"? This issue keeps occurring due to negligence and/or laziness of users who supposedly need to change the default password. Also, if someone intends to take control of/hijack your device, the person will find a way to get to your device and may or may not need to physically present by your house. Normally, the first thing to try is to probe with the default configuration...

In term of Verizon router, it is now publicly known as MAC address as the default password. Is it really different from '1234' in term of security?

Are you talking about the amount inside "Cafeteria Plan" section on your W2? If so, the plan does not really mean "cafeteria" but it is under section 125 tax code...

It still doesn't make sense... If a "large passenger vehicle" never has passengers on at any time, why would the vehicle be bought in the first place? People buy "large passenger cars" on purpose. It is, however, very rare to buy them just to "show off." Besides, "vast majority" is still a lot more than 50% in total. The word "never" is too exaggerate to me still. If you said "most of the time," I would feel much more comfortable with it.