Should I tell my doctor something about my medical history that might keep her from prescribing me the birth control I want?
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posted by anonymous
on Dec 20, 2005 -
36 answers
Last week I was walking home from work and found a laptop in the street. How far can I go, ethically, to get this system back to its owner?
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posted by Lazlo
on Dec 15, 2005 -
30 answers
Need help drafting Conflict of Interest guidelines for a community radio station. Media folks, law folks, journalistas, can you help?
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posted by Miko
on Dec 8, 2005 -
3 answers
Is it foolish to confront a teacher about his behavior in class if our final is in one week?
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posted by Who_Am_I
on Nov 29, 2005 -
35 answers
I am a research assistant for a project that involves studying participants in a website for a particular deviant sexuality. I think my research methodology is unethical, but my supervisor disagrees. What can I do? Is the internet a public or private place?
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posted by anonymous
on Nov 27, 2005 -
47 answers
I got rear-ended by a drunk driver. They're offering to pay the damage outright versus going through the insurance company. Do I take the offer?
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posted by eschatfische
on Nov 10, 2005 -
40 answers
Has this poor little Treo truly been abandoned? And if so, how do I adopt it?
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posted by mimi
on Nov 9, 2005 -
14 answers
Old Dog Filter: I have a great old mutt. He's about 12. We don't know for sure as he was adopted full-grown. We've had him for 7 years and my wife and I have "decided" to forego any surgery should he get sick again. But I have mixed feelings.
[more inside]
posted by captainscared
on Nov 2, 2005 -
14 answers
Ethics in billing IT hours: I'm not 'working' but I'm not 'not-working'. How can I bill for my time? This is a lot more than just being on-call.
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posted by anonymous
on Oct 13, 2005 -
18 answers
Graphics for hire ethics question: For some years I've been creating fairly complex instructional graphics for a small company as a freelance editor/designer, using Illustrator. Until recently, all I sent them was a print-out of the finished results that they then had reproduced. Recently they've slowed down on sending me work, started asking me questions about Illustrator, and requesting that I send them copies of some of the .ai files I've created over the years.
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posted by dpcoffin
on Oct 12, 2005 -
25 answers
I just started working for an IT company that has been dipping it's toes in the world of web design & development for a while, but not been doing things right. How do I get them to shape up? Or do I ship out?
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posted by lemonfridge
on Sep 21, 2005 -
13 answers
"Non-exploitative pornography": is it a contradiction in terms? I'm especially interested in MetaFilter women's opinion. Thanks.
posted by PenguinBukkake
on Sep 20, 2005 -
37 answers
I agreed to "edit" a (25-page) thesis paper for a friend at another college. When the paper arrived, it was so raw that the whole thing needed to be massively reorganized, not just tweaked for grammar and clarity. It then became clear (through subsequent discussions with her about it) that what she wanted me to do was basically reword much of the language as well (she considers me to be a stronger writer) to make it "sound better."
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posted by anonymous
on Aug 28, 2005 -
43 answers
My wife is pregnant (yay!), but is currently between jobs (boooo). However, she currently has several positions she's applying to. At what point in the hiring process should she be divulging the fact that she will have to take maternity leave relatively soon?
posted by crawl
on Aug 24, 2005 -
13 answers
IT concerns, what do you do to employees who do not seem to understand that if they delete e-mails, they are still retained? Recently while trying to figure out if my spam filters were keeping e-mails out, I found some amorous e-mails.
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posted by anonymous
on Aug 1, 2005 -
28 answers
it-still-may-explode-but-i'll-take-my-chances-filter: I received my replacement Powerbook battery from Apple - Am I obligated to return the old one?
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posted by anonymous
on Jul 27, 2005 -
9 answers
Why should one shop for groceries at a co-op that sells local and organic foods, especially since it's more expensive?
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posted by anonymous
on Jul 7, 2005 -
21 answers
This evening at a gathering of neighbors, I heard a disturbing story. The neighbor's ex-girlfriend has a brother who was sent to prison for raping her daughter when the child was 2-3 years old. The brother is now out of jail and living with his mother - the child's grandmother. When the girlfriend goes out, she takes all of her children and drops them off at the grandmother - which is where the child rapist lives.
[more inside]
posted by anonymous
on Jun 1, 2005 -
55 answers
As an intern in a software dev company whose desktop system is a 233MHz PII, I'm wondering if I should bring in my own PC to work on?
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posted by ChrisR
on May 10, 2005 -
17 answers
My current laptop has become unstable and I've been forced to ditch it suddenly to get a new one. It functions, but I don't trust it. What are the ethics of reselling it?
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posted by felix betachat
on Apr 10, 2005 -
11 answers
I'm going on a fairly long business trip, and my only broadband access at the hotel will be a wireless connection. I bought a wireless broadband card for my laptop today, and wanted to install and test it before I headed off, figuring I'd be able to hook it up to my wired network at home for updates, and bring it down to the local cafe to check the wireless part out.
However, when I plugged it in at home, I discovered a wide-open wifi network named 'Wireless', with the default root password still on the router, and just a single Apple MAC attached to it.
I strongly suspect this is not intentional, but just a non-savvy user setting it up, and they have no idea what they've left themselves open to. I figure this is somewhat the equivalent of noticing a neighbor left their door unlocked, unintentionally.
How do I go about letting them know what the situation is, ideally in an anonymous fashion? I'd like for them to be able to know about it and fix it, but I don't want to get roped into being their support person for perpetuity - I've already got enough of that with my family and friends).
Any ideas?
posted by bemis
on Apr 1, 2005 -
15 answers
What are your opinions of the ethics of spyware and adware? ..and do you think they play an important role in e-commerce?
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posted by lemonfridge
on Mar 26, 2005 -
14 answers
A large client i do some work for is considering sending out a targetted 20k unsolicited email. I need some good arguments and facts against it.
[more inside]
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo
on Feb 19, 2005 -
14 answers
In following the excellent, comprehensive research being done by MeFites ericb and amberglow in
covering the Gannon scandal, I am curious what the average lag time is between the occurrence of any politically controversial event and the resulting coverage in so-called MSM outlets and newspapers? [mi]
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posted by AlexReynolds
on Feb 18, 2005 -
8 answers
(RIAA-filter) Concerning downloading copyrighted material, is the act of downloading illegal, or just possesion? If you download a song and delete it, are you stil culpable? Of what offense? And is intent a factor?
posted by Edible Energy
on Feb 12, 2005 -
18 answers
A friend left her guitar at my house while she moved to the West Coast, so I hung it on one of those guitar hooks to get it out of the way--until it came crashing down two days later, suffering a huge crack in the headstock. Since it's a Gibson Sonex with a bolt-on neck, can the neckpiece simply be swapped out? Is there a good place to get a spare piece? What are the options when a guitar sustains serious neck damage? I assume I'll be paying for it since it was in my care at the time, but then again, I was never asked to babysit--it was just left behind. I guess that leaves me with another, stickier dilemma...
posted by dhoyt
on Jan 21, 2005 -
21 answers
I just went to my corner credit union ATM and made a $15 withdrawal. The machine gave me $80. Reflexively, I went into the branch, and reported it. They were appreciative. Two people virtually raced over to the back of the machine to shut it down.
At the time, it was a no brainer. But I am wondering if, since the receipt I got indicated a $15 withdrawal, and the cameras usually focus and faces, what would the traceability of it have been? I wonder if Diebold might have been stuck with the mistake. . .Maybe my honesty could have been turned into a political act, if Diebold would have lost out on the money. . .
posted by Danf
on Jan 13, 2005 -
15 answers
Is there such a thing as "compassionate tourism" where people travel and volunteer their time/resources in rebuilding, in this case, the tsunami-hit South Asian region?
posted by azul
on Jan 10, 2005 -
16 answers
Being sick of Christmas consumerism, I'm trying to create as many of my holiday presents as I can. A semester-long photography course has allowed me to make a bunch of nice-sized prints for friends. I saved the best for my girlfriend, a portrait of a swan from our recent trip tp Strasbourg, France.
What I'm wondering is if it's presumptuous/precocious/obnoxious to have it framed for her.
posted by themadjuggler
on Dec 17, 2004 -
20 answers
[Social consciense filter]
I know, for a fact, that someone is drink driving EVERY DAY. Not just a few pints, but at LEAST 8pints and then driving home. Mostly it's a short, five minute drive, but sometimes it's longer distance. I have tried to talk to him and get him to stop - to walk to the pub. His brother has tried to talk to him. He just won't. He is also diabetic, so the drink has adverse effects on his sugar levels, which makes him more dangerous. He can't even walk properly when he gets home, so goodness knows how he can drive. The problem is, this person is a relative - and he's given me somewhere to live when I had nowhere.
I just don't know what to do. Would you inform someone? Or would you keep quiet? I don't particularly WANT to 'rat' on him, but what happens if he hits someone, and I know I could have stopped it? What would you do?
posted by anonymous
on Dec 6, 2004 -
40 answers
Philosophical question regarding opposition: When is it appropriate to leave or boycott an organization when one disagrees with its policies, as opposed to actively working with or within the organization to change its policies to your liking? Recent posts regarding
gay ministers and
Boy Scouts make me wonder whether boycotting organizations is the best approach, or whether one should remain within an organization in an effort to reform it?
posted by Doohickie
on Dec 3, 2004 -
28 answers
If I post a message to a public internets forum, and then decide I would like to retract my statement, is the site owner/admin under any obligation to do so? Suppose there were no Terms of Service, and user editing/deleting is not supported. What about archived threads?
posted by Jack Karaoke
on Nov 26, 2004 -
10 answers
MLA Citation Filter: The information I'm citing was found on a
website. However, the person who made the website did not create this information. The information I'm putting into my paper is all from articles cited on the website; it's either a direct quote from the journal article that I copied and pasted from the website, or it's factual information from the articles that is presented and cited by the website author.
In my paper's bibliography, how should I cite the copied portions of journal articles? How should I cite the facts from the journal articles that are presented by the website's author? Do I cite the journal article, or the website?
posted by punishinglemur
on Nov 23, 2004 -
5 answers
Ethical question. The junk food vending machine in my department occasionally gets into a mode where the food is dispensed, but the money drops into the coin return bin. If you put in more than the required amount it will also give change, in addition to the food and original coins.
My question is, am I obligated to inform my colleagues?
posted by Wet Spot
on Nov 6, 2004 -
33 answers
During tonight's debate the Vice President talked about meeting an Ob/Gyn who screens potential patients and then refuses, for financial rather than medical reasons, to accept those who are high-risk. Is that allowed? In my vast medical law/ethics experience
cough*Dr. Abby Bartlett*cough this doesn't sound kosher, but...um...what do the actual rules say?
posted by nakedcodemonkey
on Oct 5, 2004 -
5 answers
