If you choose none, then you will have to estimate total lifetime users, a "fair" cost to use the software. Then factor in a percentage for pirated copies/users and charge your legitimate customers the "fair" price plus the lost income for pirated copies.
If your software becomes popular and becomes the default software package, like MS Office, you will then have the pleasure of reading slashdot comments about why your software is so expensive and that the only recourse they have is to pirate the software. You will implement some kind of copy protection to keep profits up and software at a certain price, and then they will complain there is copy protection and now the only recourse they have is to pirate the software so they don't have to put up with the unfair/intrusive copy protection. Then....
Get into plumbing. As long as people keep crapping, there will be a need. Also, it is really hard to send your plumbing work overseas.
If I could do it all over again (I am 40) I would read the book 48 days to the work you love by Dan Miller and do something I really loved.
I am a former electrical engineer, have been promoted into upper management and my days consist of endless meetings and teleconferences. I hate my job, my economic future looks very good, but if I get really lucky, some bastard will blow a stop sign and hit me - lawsuit! Unfortunately, with a wife, kids, house, and dog, I am stuck, and so is the anonymous coward to whom(who?)
I am replying. Do something you love and the money will follow and if the money doesn't follow, at least you will be happy and not wishing the next 45 years of your life away until retirement.
FYI, I was always interested in engineering, the occupational handbook 25 years ago said EE was the wave of the future. I have never looked or applied for a job, engineering firms always approached me first. My anecdotal evidence suggests the handbook was right on.
So basically, if I want to find out the passwords on someone else's computer, I have to bring along a high capacity DVD's-worth of data as well?
If you want all my passwords (at work), just look at the cardboard backing attached to the paper calendar under my keyboard. If the IT department wanted me to have a very secure, impossible to guess password, then they would not require me to have different passwords on different company sites (payroll, timecard, network, email, etc), force me to change my password every 30, 45, 60, or 90 days (depending on the company site) so that I have at least one password changing every other week, and have different rules for each site with regard to password length, special characters, capital letters, and numbers.
If I can't be trusted to make up a password, then assign me a password that is incredibly complex that accesses everything that I need to access, but let me keep the damn thing long enough to make remembering easy and worthwhile.
Next summer, get a job as a tech writer/editor at an engineering firm. See what skills are required for the jobs that the techs/engineers do and how it will relate to your classroom, and then apply what you have learned.
I wish that teacher certification required that at least once every three/five years, a teacher was required to get a job in the industry that they teach. I have asked around a hundred grade/high school teachers how what they teach is usefull in the non-academic world, and maybe ten have been able to answer.
When I moved from the city to the country, I was impressed by how bright a full moon actually is. I'd also forgotten that you can actually see the milky way, planets, and shooting stars with the naked eye any night that does not have clouds.
The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, at the time of VeriChip's approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson. Two weeks after the device's approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options.
Thompson, until recently a candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, says he had no personal relationship with the company as the VeriChip was being evaluated, nor did he play any role in FDA's approval process of the RFID tag.
"I didn't even know VeriChip before I stepped down from the Department of Health and Human Services," he said in a telephone interview.
Yet another amazing coincidence. If I could just pay a dollar in taxes every time this happens, somebody sure could get rich.
When either the Congress or the Senate pass something, it typically stinks. Among the many laws that they do not follow is the "law of unintended consequences." They act to make a system fair or better and end up making it more unfair and worse.
it's probably a personal preference thing - but I notice the market share numbers, and suspect I'm not that unusual.
I wish more of slashdot would remember that much of what is used is for personal preference and stop the "my browser/OS/IDE etc. is better than yours" attacks.
I just switched from FF to Opera because of its low market share numbers - which was the same reason I switched from IE to FF when the FF market was about 2%.
I don't send in rebates any more unless they are $50 or higher.
Which is exactly why retailers/OEMs will continue with rebates. They work on a large percentage of the population and almost an equally large number won't send in the rebate forms.
What is scary is if one of these were to "disappear", so that someone can rig/replace the detonator. That'd save you about 99% of the work of building one yourself
There are several "lost" nuclear bombs around the world that I had heard about when I was in the military.
I don't know if the one in the link has been recovered (it was the only one that I remember that wasn't classified), but it has been sitting in the mud off the coast of Georgia for about 50 years.
I have an incredibly long attention span. I can sit and write code for hours.
Based on the timestamp of your post (2:27PM on a Wednesday) I would suggest that your boss may not agree with your ability to code for hours.
Of course, looking at my timestamp black pots and kettles come to mind.
I wonder how you'd feel if a relative of yours died, knowing that some treatment could have saved them, had stem cell research been allowed to commence without so much protest.
Not saying that the original post was correct, but the "what if it happened to you?" question is flawed because it assumes nobody will stand by their principles when tested.
People let themselves and their families come to harm/death everyday based on principles. Some even consider it a badge of honour when they suffer great loss because of their principles - for example, suicide bombers.
Of the several moves that I made before moving into the middle of nowhere, my experience for DSL has been the exact opposite. Give them a street address, they looked up a phone number on that street and based on that told me if DSL was available or not. Cable companies suck and your experience mirrored mine, and are lucky that they know who has cable on their own system.
Soon after moving to Gilsum, N.H. (population 811), [Kim] Rossey learned that he couldn't get broadband to support his Web programming business, TooCoolWebs.
He couldn't check the web to see if broadband was available? 18 months ago, I moved from a large city to rural Indiana (town population - 500) and guess what, I knew that broadband was not available because I checked before moving. Sure, I pay through the teeth (comparatively) for satellite (which sucks), but it wasn't a surprise that my home would not have traditional broadband.
How many power plants would you have to take out to cripple New York City?
I'd say the answer is zero. A large EMB Bomb could allow the remotely located power plants to work, but allow little to nothing to use the electricity in a distant area like NYC.
Perhaps because the consequences of their business practices don't necessarily only affect consumers, but the companies from which they are buying their products, specifically the labour practices of the manufacturers. Walmart has low prices, this is true, but the value we enjoy from those prices are supported solely by the unfair wages and operations of overseas manufacturers. It is just like thermodynamics. The low cost of these products has to come from somewhere. It just happens this somewhere is sometimes a sweatshop.
Yes, I know the following contains anecdotal evidence and does not reflect all situations.
That being said, my wife, a naturalized citizen of the USA comes from rural Colombia where the average person earns about $2000 US per year. When I have gone to Colombia to visit her family, they told me that they wish someone like a Walmart supplier would come and give them jobs at unfair wages. They mistakenly think that a job at unfair wages, which allows them to buy food, clothing, and shelter is better than no job.
I being morally superior, do not want them to have a job with unfair wages because I don't think it is fair. If they want food, let them eat cake.
Sarcasm and anecdotal evidence aside, it is amazing how little money made a difference in their lives. For a couple (less than $4,000) thousand dollars, we sent a brother to college, he has a job and has lifted most of the family out of horrible poverty.
I wonder if there are grounds for a Class Action lawsuit, the Class being everyone who has had any problems using a third party box with their cable?
Yes, a class action lawsuit is just what is needed here. A law firm getting millions of dollars while the chumps that signed on for the lawsuit get a coupon for $5 off their next cable purchase.
My favorite tech related class action lawsuit was against Iomega where Iomega agreed to pay legal expenses of at least $650,000 while the losers that signed up for the lawsuit got product discount offers, free dedicated technical support. Oh yeah, Iomega also paid a $1,000,000 charitable donation to someone but I didn't feel like researching the recipient.
What if performance-enhancing drugs are involved in said baseball?
Performance-enhancing drugs, or the lack, in any sport would probably not change the end results of the game/contest because the drugs do not make you a better athlete, they only enhance what is already there.
If you can routinely hit a baseball out of the park without the drugs and then you start taking the drugs can routinely hit a baseball out of the park by an extra 20 feet, nothing has changed, it is still an out of the park home run.
How about the guy that could only hit the ball to the wall, now with drugs, he can hit it out of the park? His run will be countered by the other other team that probably has someone else at the same batting skill level. Or it may be countered by the faster outfielder, the faster pitch, etc., but the outcome is still the same.
Also, I don't remember hearing much complaining when some of the parks brought their walls closer to the plate to increase the number of home runs.
No, not "loudness": compression of dynamic range. Did you not read the article?
Yep, read the article, but took the term "loudness" from the title of the slashdot summary.
My comments about analog vs digital, digital vs digital compression, and poor quality speakers indicates that I was responding to compression of dynamic range issues.
The record companies are not interested in the music, they are not interested in the quality of the sound,
Listeners are not interested in the sound quality of music either. When the switch was made from vinyl to cd, improvements to sound quality ended. Sure the cd doesn't have the hiss and pops that a record had, but it was analog and the playback equipment (and record) could improve to match the sound (it did, but not as well as it could have). With digital, the sound quality was limited to whatever the ones and zeros were.
To further prove the point, the next big thing in music was MP3s, a compressed form of the cd ripped at lower bps. Take the MP3 a step further and lower on sound quality, the speakers that an MP3 is typically played through are tiny little pieces of crap that are put directly into the ear (ipod and the like).
After all this, people are complaining about loudness?
Slashdot Mirror
If your software becomes popular and becomes the default software package, like MS Office, you will then have the pleasure of reading slashdot comments about why your software is so expensive and that the only recourse they have is to pirate the software. You will implement some kind of copy protection to keep profits up and software at a certain price, and then they will complain there is copy protection and now the only recourse they have is to pirate the software so they don't have to put up with the unfair/intrusive copy protection. Then....
If I could do it all over again (I am 40) I would read the book 48 days to the work you love by Dan Miller and do something I really loved.
I am a former electrical engineer, have been promoted into upper management and my days consist of endless meetings and teleconferences. I hate my job, my economic future looks very good, but if I get really lucky, some bastard will blow a stop sign and hit me - lawsuit! Unfortunately, with a wife, kids, house, and dog, I am stuck, and so is the anonymous coward to whom(who?) I am replying. Do something you love and the money will follow and if the money doesn't follow, at least you will be happy and not wishing the next 45 years of your life away until retirement.
FYI, I was always interested in engineering, the occupational handbook 25 years ago said EE was the wave of the future. I have never looked or applied for a job, engineering firms always approached me first. My anecdotal evidence suggests the handbook was right on.
If I can't be trusted to make up a password, then assign me a password that is incredibly complex that accesses everything that I need to access, but let me keep the damn thing long enough to make remembering easy and worthwhile.
I wish that teacher certification required that at least once every three/five years, a teacher was required to get a job in the industry that they teach. I have asked around a hundred grade/high school teachers how what they teach is usefull in the non-academic world, and maybe ten have been able to answer.
I just switched from FF to Opera because of its low market share numbers - which was the same reason I switched from IE to FF when the FF market was about 2%.
I don't know if the one in the link has been recovered (it was the only one that I remember that wasn't classified), but it has been sitting in the mud off the coast of Georgia for about 50 years.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/13/lost.bomb/index .html
People let themselves and their families come to harm/death everyday based on principles. Some even consider it a badge of honour when they suffer great loss because of their principles - for example, suicide bombers.
Of the several moves that I made before moving into the middle of nowhere, my experience for DSL has been the exact opposite. Give them a street address, they looked up a phone number on that street and based on that told me if DSL was available or not. Cable companies suck and your experience mirrored mine, and are lucky that they know who has cable on their own system.
I'd say the answer is zero. A large EMB Bomb could allow the remotely located power plants to work, but allow little to nothing to use the electricity in a distant area like NYC.
That being said, my wife, a naturalized citizen of the USA comes from rural Colombia where the average person earns about $2000 US per year. When I have gone to Colombia to visit her family, they told me that they wish someone like a Walmart supplier would come and give them jobs at unfair wages. They mistakenly think that a job at unfair wages, which allows them to buy food, clothing, and shelter is better than no job.
I being morally superior, do not want them to have a job with unfair wages because I don't think it is fair. If they want food, let them eat cake.
Sarcasm and anecdotal evidence aside, it is amazing how little money made a difference in their lives. For a couple (less than $4,000) thousand dollars, we sent a brother to college, he has a job and has lifted most of the family out of horrible poverty.
My favorite tech related class action lawsuit was against Iomega where Iomega agreed to pay legal expenses of at least $650,000 while the losers that signed up for the lawsuit got product discount offers, free dedicated technical support. Oh yeah, Iomega also paid a $1,000,000 charitable donation to someone but I didn't feel like researching the recipient.
How about the guy that could only hit the ball to the wall, now with drugs, he can hit it out of the park? His run will be countered by the other other team that probably has someone else at the same batting skill level. Or it may be countered by the faster outfielder, the faster pitch, etc., but the outcome is still the same.
Also, I don't remember hearing much complaining when some of the parks brought their walls closer to the plate to increase the number of home runs.
My comments about analog vs digital, digital vs digital compression, and poor quality speakers indicates that I was responding to compression of dynamic range issues.
To further prove the point, the next big thing in music was MP3s, a compressed form of the cd ripped at lower bps. Take the MP3 a step further and lower on sound quality, the speakers that an MP3 is typically played through are tiny little pieces of crap that are put directly into the ear (ipod and the like).
After all this, people are complaining about loudness?