Except you can't reboot a universe like Doctor Who, because they did not reboot the universe...... (Technically they did reboot the universe in a recent-ish story in the new Doctor Who series, but that was a plot device.)

Make your mind up, did they or didn't they reboot the universe?

Here's your helping hint : It wasn't a plot device, but a deliberate decision by Moffat. who respected RTD's work bringing Who back, didn't want to be tied down by Russell's vision.

RTD rebooted Who by using the nebulous off camera "time war", while Moffat DID quite literally reboot the entire universe, flicking a giant reset switch that allows him to ignore anything RTD did he doesn't like.

This is how good writers make a mythology their own. They reboot in such a way as to please the ubernerds that require canon while taking the characters off in directions unemcumbered by half century of cruft.

It won't be unique to each bank though. They will simply require you to provide the ID# assigned to you by Experian.

This ID# will effectively become the new SSN, and the problems will continue.

Until you make data security a legal requirement punishable by prison, you are going to see leak after leak. Making the leak of personal data a criminal offence is the only way to make it cost effective to have decent security procedures in place.

I use http://www.livedrive.com/ . Unlimited backup storage for 3 PCs. You can browse the folders and open the files backed via the web or iphone. So even without using their "briefcase" service, you can have every file and folder from your main PC available to you whereever you are.

You can even build a streaming playlist for the iphone or laptop based on the music or movies you've backed up.

Bad news for the video games industry but it's not a total disaster. They get to benefit from a drop in corporation tax, and if they are smart, they'll take advantage of the 50K tax break for setting up a business outside of the SE hot zone.

All anyone such as Rockstar needs to do is open a new software house in Bradford, adjacent to and working with Rockstar Leeds for example and they get a reasonable tax break.

So while they've been kicked in the teeth, there are still some workable benefits to be had from the new budget.

If you've written a job description / contract that allows mediocre performance, then no, the employee cannot be fired. But that's the company's fault for writing a mediocre job description, that then needs to be honoured as all contracts should. You could write in a performance requirement, for example a sales target or a minimum allowable score in a 360 review, then you could fire them for an average performance. But again, this comes down to planning the job properly before you hire, because you can be sued for setting targets that are not achievable.

Contractors are more expensive than employees, and certainly in the UK at least, become classed as employees if you hire them for a year, and no you aren't allowed to keep hiring and firing the same people every 364 days. The other advantage to hiring employees is that they can't skip out on you, most people above burger flippers are required to give one month's notice before resigning, and senior staff can see that rise to 3 to 6 months.

 

Gutenburg wants to be able to scan orphaned works too. They have been campaigning legally for years. Gutenburg isn't a billion dollar advertising agency so can't afford the lawsuit that google pulled off. But now they are watching in horror as Google gets an exclusive deal meaning non profits such as Gutenburg and other libraries and archives are locked out. The law will never change now because congress will argue the problem is solved - Google is running it.

Imagine if instead of just indexing, Google stopped linking to the real website and just presented its cache. You'd never have access to the real site, just Google's copy of it. Imagine how happy webmasters would be then.

They aren't just indexing books, they are allowing them to be read online with Google adverts raking in the money. They have the exclusive right to do this, a monopoly gatekeeper. Books they don't approve of can simply vanish, books they do approve of, get an artificially high page rank, popular books get pay per view.

This sort of power over books should not be in the hands of any single company.

Once Google has an established monopoly there is nothing stopping them charging for access. They become the gate keepers to millions of books. Meanwhile their rivals a non profit making Project Gutenburg will be out of business because they used to scan orphaned works, and this deal prevents them from continuing.

This is not about laziness, Google just did this without bothering with permission, and then sent lawyers only billionares can afford in to steam roller an insane settlement, that no one else will ever be able to pull off.

Monopolies stop innovation and stop competition and in this case treat the talent like crap. It's a bad thing.

The writer retains the rights. Google came to an agreement with a guild that does not represent most writers to hand over EXCLUSIVE online rights to themselves even if the author didn't agree to it.

If the author doesn't like the deal, he needs to find out about it, and he may be living in isolation in a jungle somewhere, and then he needs to opt out by a deadline.

This completely screws other places offering free online books such as Gutenburg, because Google now owns the rights to pretty much all literature online. It's an EXCLUSIVE deal that means only google has the right to scan orphaned works. The only way anyone else can do it, is to scan the books anyway, and hope to win a billion dollar lawsuit from both Google and the Authors Guild.

To "help" authors make up their minds Google offered a bribe. Sign up before the deadline and get a share in the advertising revenue made from the orhpaned works, sign up aferwards and you don't get that benefit. Change your mind after a year or so, and it's too late. The data will be in the database permanently.

Google is trying to be a monopoly, and not a single piece of their behaviour appears to be concerned with authors, libraries and archivists. It's a disgrace and I look forward to them explaining the land grab of European author's rights to the EU.

I'm not convinced they did invent multi-touch first. I use a laptop powered by an N-Trig touch screen, which uses dual mode (pen, finger) ignores accidental touches (your palm) and implements gestures (two finger gestures allow you to scroll, zoom , one finger gestures move you back and forward etc).

This tech has been around on tablets for years.