Exactly. I shoot motorsports with a canon DSLR (D20) and a 400mm lens. Not the same thing as pulling out a little point and shoot and pressing the button ;)

Are you asking for Masters graduates specifically? If so, why?

No. In fact, we don't require a degree at all.

My statement that "we feel this is perfect for a recent college grad" was not to exclude non-degree holders who know what they're doing but rather "If you just graduated college, we think this would be a suitable position".

I would happily hire someone with little to no paid professional experience that could demonstrate an understanding of the basics as well as an interest to learn. Sadly, they simply don't seem to exist these days. Much like college graduates able to do the same.

No, it doesn't. In fact, in our experience they are completely and utterly useless even when trying to make the argument that they "teach you how to learn".

We've been trying to fill two Jr. engineer positions; this is a position we feel is perfect for a recent college grad. Every applicant, without exception, has a Masters degree in Comp Sci.

They can't make it through our technical interview without extensive hand-holding, almost to the point of you having to do it for them. And I'm not talking about syntax; I'm even willing to be lenient in that dept. since it's on a white board, most of them are new at interviewing, etc. I'm talking about fundamental problems with logic - they aren't able to figure out fairly simple, straight forward problems. I've had candidates that couldn't properly create a for loop, and even after walking them through the logic (You can have *two* conditionals there ... what would those look like?) they still don't understand it. Yes, really. With a Masters degree.

And the ones that don't even make it through the phone screen? I question what it is they've been doing for the last 6 years, because it certainly didn't involve learning anything; basic questions about data structures and theory? Yeah ... not so much.

We've had to seriously beef up our phone screening and pre-screen test so as not to waste time bringing people in. We recently hired someone from the NY State University at Buffalo ... he was the first one who was able to walk in and simply breeze through the technical interview, and actually understood what he was doing. I highly suspect he didn't need to waste 6 years and who knows how much money on the degree.

Between phone screens and on-sites, that's probably a one-in-100 for us at the moment.

If I had mod points ... I'd mod you up.

I always love "the good new ideas" ... when they aren't actually stupid ideas, or simply a new name for something we've been doing for 15 years.

What you're likely to see if this comes to pass is that people who "opt out" are then bitching that they now have to actually, you know, PAY for things like email, search, social networks, etc, just like in the good 'ol days when GEnie, compuserve, AOL, Prodigy, and your local ISP were charging by the hour for access.

Yup. Lying. Or whomever told him the story was.

You can have a bench warrant posted for not paying or appearing for a ticket that *you signed* (which means you were given notice).

No notice, no warrant, no arrest.

There's a *slight* difference in how it works between a collections (civil) case and a criminal one. Specifically that whole "being served" thing.

Because they didn't. They figured out they could artificially restrict resale by selling me part of a game while "licensing" me the other part. With no benefit to me.

You keep trying to make the argument that this is like a MMO subscription service; it's not. I wasn't paying for this on a monthly basis as a service. Once I purchase it there is no recurring charge for service.

When I sell the game, I can no longer use the part they claim I don't own but I can't transfer it either, even though my license would never have expired otherwise. Because it was a one time fee you can't argue that the online portion has a cost that needs to be recouped - they already did that by charging me for it and upon selling the game, I can no longer use it. It's a net zero gain/loss in terms of resource utilization.

And here's what the effect will be on the used game market; sellers get hosed the most, and used buyers to a lesser extent. Resellers for the most part won't even care. Oh, and of course the game companies make money for nothing, which is their intent.

With this scheme, a game is instantly devalued $15 the moment you purchase it. If you're someone who sells their games when finished with them, this now means you aren't going to get as much for it when you sell it. The reseller will simply offer $15 less than they would have for the game so they are able to sell it to a used buyer who knows there's another $15 to be paid. They *might* split the difference, splitting the cost to both the seller and buyer, but they're still going to make their money. How is this a "win" for anyone?

As for why should gamestop profit hugely? For the same reason used car dealerships profit hugely by buying a car from someone and then reselling it at a higher cost (often with little more than some paperwork and a car wash involved). They provide a service for which people are willing to pay. That whole free market thing, you know?

I buy everything on Steam, and only when it's on sale. I haven't paid full retail for a game in years. Most of the time I buy it at 50% off.

When it was just that, it wasn't a problem. Most of my old games would happily install on your machine if I sold you the disc and you typed in the key. The keys were stickers on the jewel cases, and there was none of this draconian "You can only install this game 5 times, and only on Tuesdays"

Because it's not a subscription service that you could download the client for free anyway unless someone scammed you as in your example? You're comparing apples and steaks here.

How do I access that profile once I sell the game? I bought it, right?

It's not *now*. And therein lies the problem. It's an end run around the first sale doctrine by basically saying, "We didn't sell you that, we "licensed" it to you". Imagine if you couldn't buy a used car without paying Ford a "transfer fee" for the keys.

Personally ... I've never sold a game in my life, or bought one used for that matter ... the few bucks just isn't worth the hassle. But many, many people do - because they can't afford to buy everything they want new. There is a fairly huge secondary market with console games, and the game companies want to eliminate it because they somehow think people will magically have more money to spend.

If only there was some way to look this up!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale

You're being generous. I have a 7 year old dual-opteron Sunfire v20z (eBay, $250) in the basement that is chugging along quite nicely.

Um, rock band 3 now has a real guitar, made by fender:

http://www.fender.com/promos/2010/rockband3/theguitar.php

You can also use it with an amp (or a synth, since it has a regular midi out from the midi pickup)

Can you buy a guitar and a midi controller/pickup for that much?

Because that's what you get for $300. It has a standard midi-out you can use for anything you'd like. That's not really that horrible. While I don't know which telecaster it is that they're using, most of them are in the $150 - $250 price range as a "standard" guitar.

And given that, I suspect you should be able to figure out how to use any other midi guitar with rock band 3 as well.

They key word you used is "assistance". If that's all it is to you, you're fine. I actually rarely use it, even though I have it on my phone. My biggest use is to center the map on my location because that's convenient.

If you don't know how to read a map, or figure out which direction is North, it's no longer "assistance". It's the only method of navigation you understand.