1) It cost me $1 on sale 2) They keep adding new content to the game free of charge. 3) Each level can be played for 1 minute - 1 hour if you so desire. 4) It simple to understand and can be played by all age groups. 5) Its non-offensive in almost every way possible.
Poster child? No. Best example to date? Possibly. Will something else come along in the future that will be stood up? Yes.
Some of the responses I'm seeing so far from other Slashdotters is amazing given the support towards Net Neutrality. You do not get to determine what is "malicious" from your point of view and decide whether to keep it on or off the Internet. It gets sent out, period.
- If my home ISP, workplace, campus connection, etc. has in writing via a TOS they can quarantine me from the rest of the internet for being contagious, I'm good with that. - If said home ISP, workplace, campus connection, etc. suddenly decides to cut my connection without my consent and without the TOS stating they can do so, then I have problems with that. That changes the TOS by which I chose to interact with the other party originally. - Give me advanced notice, I can choose to continue using that service or not for Internet connection.
Case in point: I no longer frequent Panera Bread for food+Internet access given certain locations limit how long (usually 30 min) you can use their WiFi during peak periods. They did give notice of their change in TOS in writing prior to my using their Wifi. I will continue to eat at Panera Bread if I don't need internet access... that didn't change. I will not eat there if I need internet access... that did change.
It depends on the Terms of Service. Not much more discussion to be had.
You are wrong here on one point. Monsanto holds about 40% of the market share at the most for a single crop. They are not by any means "monopolizing" the seed market. Oligopoly with the other big corporate players and thereby reducing the number of small seed companies, perhaps, but not a monopoly.
Your other points are valid. Resume popcorn eating and Monsanto bashing.
If Exxon stopped pumping oil, instead of a truck delivering your iPhone, it would be carried on the back of a Unicorn and floated gently down a rainbow to your doorstep.
Sincere question: If that's the case, why not make the first set of DLC free? "Hey, we wanted to include this in the base product but had to draw a line somewhere". I understand there's a cost to publish/distribute through a console vendor (Microsoft being the worst). If there' a cost to publish/distribute, charge that amount only (say $0.99 or $1.99). Charging customers an additional 10-25% on top of the base product within a day or two of release really doesn't sit well with most folks.
Zaeed DLC for Mass Effect 2 introduced an interesting but noncritical character two days after product release. Additional DLC followed. I paid for most of the Mass Effect 2 DLC due to the high quality of the first DLC that was released. The DLC purchases added another 20 hours of total gameplay to a 40 hour game which I really enjoyed
EA has a rich 30 year history behind it. In the past 5-10 years, more power has been put into the consumers hands and has negatively affected their revenues. This is a general trend for the entertainment industry, where a movie/game/etc. can be killed within a day or two of being released. Not defending EA here, instead I'm saying they haven't responded well to this change in the industry.
Annual report is an interesting read: 1) High costs - $4.1B revenue, $76M profit. Marketing was 21% of net revenue, General/Administrative was 9%, R&D was 29%. When the cost to sell the product exceeds the cost to develop it, there's a major problem. - There's also a "cost or revenue" which ate into another 39% of the revenue. Other than third-party royalties which can't be avoided, this item looks really suspicious to eat up that big of a chunk.
2) Digital and mobile - The report admits the current models of AAA console games needs to shift. The risk+cost is too high. Digital and mobile games at a lower overall cost and via direct sales to consumers works better. The acquisition of PopCap will hopefully gain them a strong brand to start in the mobile space. The Sims will continue to dominate the social space. - I personally think Origin has a chance with PC gamers. However, it has started out really really poorly. You don't take a AAA title and throw a half-baked Beta digital distribution platform against it. For console games, I think digital distribution COULD work if done right. I'm not confident in EA's management to pull it off though given how poorly Origin started out on PC.
3) Work with your Customer - Of all the things the annual report is missing... focus on the customer. I see absolutely nothing listed for how they plan to incorporate their customers into their business model. You can't go into the digital or mobile space and expect to succeed without this incorporated into your strategy. Steam, Facebook and Apple all have gotten a LOT of things right in this regard, like them or hate them, they've gotten it right. - EA needs to work with their customers, not against them. Do not pull another Command and Conquer 4 and introduce radical change in gameplay to completely destroy one of the best and longest running game series. Do not announce / force a specific release date for a game ahead of time if it needs more polish ala Mass Effect 3. - Do not focus so much on the short-term, you are destroying your brand equity longer-term by doing so. The tinfoil hat part of me suggests the Extended Cut for Mass Effect 3 was planned all along, but would have taken too long to release... after the end of EAs fiscal year (March 31st). This would have resulted in a huge loss for the year rather than a small profit.
A private purchase may return EA to profitability. It needs some significant changes and this may be the ticket to do so. Really feel sorry for the employees of the company... they were already putting up with 60-100 hour work weeks... this will just make things a lot worse. Probably better than the company folding, but not by much.
Diablo III's requirement for constant connection sucks bandwidth and takes away from the porn. That's the problem. In the future, I would recommend trying Porn + G/F or Diablo III + G/F, but not Diablo III + Porn. The two just don't mix.
Unlimited mobile broadband plans from Verizon/Alltel stopped being offered awhile ago. The last ones offered by Verizon were in 2007 before they established overage charges, and by Alltel in 2009 before the acquisition was complete. All grandfathered unlimited mobile broadband plans are well past the two-year agreement terms. Unlimited data plans on phone may extend a bit longer into 2013.
I am on a grandfathered unlimited plan from Alltel. This is the ONLY decent internet coverage where I live. Satellite and Dialup do not count. The other two big networks (Sprint/AT&T) do not reach my house. Right now, we average 50GB per month, topping out at 80GB one or twice a year (usually right around when Steam has their summer/winter sales). Based on current Verizon rates:
Highest tier current mobile broadband plan: 10GB at $80/month. $10/GB overage. Estimated combined cost... ~$500/month.
Offer me a high-tiered plan that costs less than a T1 per month. 30GB is not enough, keeping going into 50GB, 80GB, 100GB range range for those of us that need it. $4 per GB is not unreasonable... I would be willing to pay $200/month for my 50GB of usage. Others may not be willing to pay that much, in which case, they already have options for lower tier data packages and can moderate their use accordingly. Offer an option to your current heavy data users. You'd be surprised what your heavy data users are willing to pay given the opportunity.
I'm an individual in my late twenties, meaning, I was in high school roughly ten years ago. During that time, I took:
- Junior Year: 5 AP courses, +3 other "normal" high-school courses
- The AP courses were equivalent to 23 college credit hours, chalk up another +1 for the other "normal" high school courses, looking at 26 credit hours, which is considered a full-time two semester college student
- Senior Year: 5 AP courses, +4 community college courses (in lieu of normal high school courses, 2 per semester), +1 other "normal" high-school course
- The AP courses were equivalent to 15 college credit hours, chalk up another +2 for the other courses, looking at 25 credit hours, which is still considered a full-time two semester college student
I entered a university as a "sophomore" by credit hours once all AP exams were done. Where am I going with all of this? Public education offers a LOT of opportunities and challenges for students. Larger school systems likely will be able to offer more opportunities and challenges over smaller school systems, but, the opportunities and challenges are there still nonetheless. It is up to the student to explore and pursue those opportunities and challenges. The same is true for college, work, and life in general; there are plenty of opportunities and challenges out there. I'll be damned if "public education" as a whole gets blamed for what is largely the responsibility of the individual. Now, whether enough students are (or should) be encouraged towards such opportunities and challenges, that is another subject for discussion.
To the AC, informed, yes: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/business/bank-of-america-drops-plan-for-debit-card-fee.html
"
On Oct. 1, a new federal rule went into effect that limits the fees banks can levy on merchants every time a consumer swipes a debit card to make a purchase. The new limit is expected to cost the banks about $6.6 billion in revenue a year, beginning in 2012, according to Javelin Strategy and Research. That comes on top of another loss, of $5.6 billion, from new rules restricting overdraft fees, which were widely seen as onerous and went into effect in July 2010.
"
Fire-proof safe tends to work a bit better. Offsite location even better if can be arranged. However, low-tech is effective and only requires minimum maintenance.
Get a composition notebook to track over time if you change your passwords frequently and/or keep a separate password for each site.
You have twenty minutes to present to an audience who has little to no information about your topic. Within 2 minutes, grab their attention or you'll lose them for the remaining 18 minutes. An interesting visual to begin with will be helpful.
One of the best demos I remember seeing was Cisco presenting their work on the Playstation2 networking components. They popped a disc into the Playstation2 and started messing around with the innards. They had my attention for the remaining hour.
For this specific group, do NOT give detailed explanations or definitions, they will not care. Show them what the field is capable of doing with recent examples (the Watson computer on Jeopardy, the recent innovations with automotive technology, iPhone/Android apps, etc.), and, a bit of your own personal work. Finish up by saying "without computer science, none of this would be possible". Leave 5 minutes for Q&A... you'll have a few folks genuinely interested.
In which case, Red Hat has an excellent writeup of a manual / non-code workaround via update of the web.xml file if you are version-locked: https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-30741
The second part of your post was in ignorance I believe. Former AOL CEO, Former Verizon President, current Nokia General Manager, current CEO of Lucent... that's not bad for "people who've run tech companies"... could do a lot better, could do a lot worse.
The first part of your post was right on. Not enough diversity on HP's board of directors. Need at least one director from non-profit company, one from academia, and preferably another active CEO. If you want diversity in a board of directors for a profitable company, lookup Exxon-Mobil's board of directors --> http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/investor_governance_directors.aspx
To the GP's post... HP's board of directors has changed 6 of its 13 members this year alone (counting the new CEO).
Table #8 is accurate. The total is $16T. However, banks frequently borrow and repay within a short time period. Hence why table #8 is labeled "Institutions with Largest Total Transaction Amounts (Not Term-Adjusted)"
Table #9 on pg. 132-133 is also accurate. The total is $1.1T. Table #9 is labeled "Institutions with Largest Total Term-Adjusted Borrowing", which is more in line with what media outlets, et. al are reporting.
Will need to read into it more later to see if there are hidden nuggets. Most GAO reports have them, just need to take the time to look.
I agree with the spirit behind the post, but not the implementations proposed. The idea being that the Western world (especially the U.S.) is in for a culture shock / change in the next 5-10 years. The personal finances aspect will be one of many items that will need to be revisited.
However, I disagree with the notion of "no debt" / "debt is bad". Debt is good/healthy, so long as its properly managed debt. There's where the struggle comes in and the real education needs to happen.
From personal experience, I pretty much violated every one of your proposals coming out of college (no grants/scholarship awarded so loans were needed, $15k+ credit card debt, car loan on 1 year used car, 10% on mortgage). However, all debt will be paid off, as will the house, by the time I am 35. How/why? Self-educating myself of taking on debt while in college and planning against future income with contingencies built in (was out of a job for 6 months at one point).
Again, I think what you are proposing is a good starting point, but disagree with the "debt is bad" notion.
The sample size seems good, however, there is zero indication of how the sample is composed. Is the sample truly random and representative of the general population of telecommuters? Do the results vary based on factors such as geography, industry, age, primary method of communication in a company, relative importance of method of communication, etc.?
Those last two bits are important. In my current job role at my current company, instant messenger is the primary form of communication, followed by email, then face-to-face, then teleconference/e-meeting, and lastly phone. Working at home / telecommuting rarely impacts the effectiveness of our communication, which seems to be the primary concern here. However, other job roles / other companies (SO as one example), telecommuting simply would not work and effectiveness of communication would drop dramatically.
By itself, this is a start, but, not sufficient to draw conclusions of any sort. I'm hoping they do a followup to this survey in the future.
If all HR is to your company is benefits, payroll, and hiring, then you are working for a company doesn't doesn't know how to use HR to its advantage. If the HR at your company is not involved with the company's strategy and success, that's an indication of company that does not leverage HR, not an issue with HR itself. That's a lose/lose situation for you and your company.
From the source, not the blog writeup:
"We believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S. – from your local corner store to Walmart. We will no longer need to carry a wallet."
There is a difference between "end of the wallet" and "no longer need to carry a wallet".
The former will not happen for several hundred years, physical currency has been in use too long in humankind existence for it to disappear that quickly. The latter I can agree with, if you can find a way to make my driver's license electronic so I can legally DRIVE to said store and then PURCHASE items which normally require ID. Otherwise, not gonna happen.
If you don't have cell phone reception where you live, my sympathies. If you do, buy yourself a router which allows a cellular aircard to be plugged into it and use it as a WAN connection (I have a Cradlepoint MBR-1000). Internet comes in over 1xRTT or 3G if you are lucky enough. You usually can get 1.5Mbps (~160KB/s). 5GB cap for most carriers, no cap for other carriers with restrictions (Cricket as one example will not charge overages but will throttle your speed).
Not great, but beats the heck of out Satellite or Dialup when no other high-speed alternatives are available in the boonies.
Percentage of revenue: Wireless plans - 46.84%
Accessories (cell, home audio/video) - 20.31%M
Modern home (computers, home theater audio) - 11.07%
Personal Electronics (digital cameras, mp3 players) - 8.85%
Power (batteries) - 4.32% Technical (the real radioshack roots) - 3.09%
Kudos to RadioShack for trying to boost that 3.09%, but it ain't gonna happen overnight. Capitalizing on the masses by offering wireless plans is a good way to keep them alive for now, but won't sustain into the future. Too many big competitors will drive them out in due time.
I hope they find a way to stay alive. Good brand, really confusing business strategy / model.
Slashdot Mirror
1) It cost me $1 on sale
2) They keep adding new content to the game free of charge.
3) Each level can be played for 1 minute - 1 hour if you so desire.
4) It simple to understand and can be played by all age groups.
5) Its non-offensive in almost every way possible.
Poster child? No.
Best example to date? Possibly.
Will something else come along in the future that will be stood up? Yes.
Do you have any links / case studies of where a coop ISP has been successfully implemented, lessons learned, etc.?
Some of the responses I'm seeing so far from other Slashdotters is amazing given the support towards Net Neutrality. You do not get to determine what is "malicious" from your point of view and decide whether to keep it on or off the Internet. It gets sent out, period.
- If my home ISP, workplace, campus connection, etc. has in writing via a TOS they can quarantine me from the rest of the internet for being contagious, I'm good with that.
- If said home ISP, workplace, campus connection, etc. suddenly decides to cut my connection without my consent and without the TOS stating they can do so, then I have problems with that. That changes the TOS by which I chose to interact with the other party originally.
- Give me advanced notice, I can choose to continue using that service or not for Internet connection.
Case in point: I no longer frequent Panera Bread for food+Internet access given certain locations limit how long (usually 30 min) you can use their WiFi during peak periods. They did give notice of their change in TOS in writing prior to my using their Wifi. I will continue to eat at Panera Bread if I don't need internet access ... that didn't change. I will not eat there if I need internet access ... that did change.
It depends on the Terms of Service. Not much more discussion to be had.
so... i should finally give in and buy the coprocessor for my 386!!
No need to spend the extra money on the coprocessor. Hit the "turbo" button on your computer case.
You are wrong here on one point. Monsanto holds about 40% of the market share at the most for a single crop. They are not by any means "monopolizing" the seed market. Oligopoly with the other big corporate players and thereby reducing the number of small seed companies, perhaps, but not a monopoly.
Your other points are valid. Resume popcorn eating and Monsanto bashing.
If Exxon stopped pumping oil, instead of a truck delivering your iPhone, it would be carried on the back of a Unicorn and floated gently down a rainbow to your doorstep.
I want a pony dammit. And a pink one at that!
Sincere question: If that's the case, why not make the first set of DLC free? "Hey, we wanted to include this in the base product but had to draw a line somewhere". I understand there's a cost to publish/distribute through a console vendor (Microsoft being the worst). If there' a cost to publish/distribute, charge that amount only (say $0.99 or $1.99). Charging customers an additional 10-25% on top of the base product within a day or two of release really doesn't sit well with most folks.
Zaeed DLC for Mass Effect 2 introduced an interesting but noncritical character two days after product release. Additional DLC followed. I paid for most of the Mass Effect 2 DLC due to the high quality of the first DLC that was released. The DLC purchases added another 20 hours of total gameplay to a 40 hour game which I really enjoyed
EA has a rich 30 year history behind it. In the past 5-10 years, more power has been put into the consumers hands and has negatively affected their revenues. This is a general trend for the entertainment industry, where a movie/game/etc. can be killed within a day or two of being released. Not defending EA here, instead I'm saying they haven't responded well to this change in the industry.
Annual report is an interesting read:
1) High costs
- $4.1B revenue, $76M profit. Marketing was 21% of net revenue, General/Administrative was 9%, R&D was 29%. When the cost to sell the product exceeds the cost to develop it, there's a major problem.
- There's also a "cost or revenue" which ate into another 39% of the revenue. Other than third-party royalties which can't be avoided, this item looks really suspicious to eat up that big of a chunk.
2) Digital and mobile
- The report admits the current models of AAA console games needs to shift. The risk+cost is too high. Digital and mobile games at a lower overall cost and via direct sales to consumers works better. The acquisition of PopCap will hopefully gain them a strong brand to start in the mobile space. The Sims will continue to dominate the social space.
- I personally think Origin has a chance with PC gamers. However, it has started out really really poorly. You don't take a AAA title and throw a half-baked Beta digital distribution platform against it. For console games, I think digital distribution COULD work if done right. I'm not confident in EA's management to pull it off though given how poorly Origin started out on PC.
3) Work with your Customer ... focus on the customer. I see absolutely nothing listed for how they plan to incorporate their customers into their business model. You can't go into the digital or mobile space and expect to succeed without this incorporated into your strategy. Steam, Facebook and Apple all have gotten a LOT of things right in this regard, like them or hate them, they've gotten it right. ... after the end of EAs fiscal year (March 31st). This would have resulted in a huge loss for the year rather than a small profit.
- Of all the things the annual report is missing
- EA needs to work with their customers, not against them. Do not pull another Command and Conquer 4 and introduce radical change in gameplay to completely destroy one of the best and longest running game series. Do not announce / force a specific release date for a game ahead of time if it needs more polish ala Mass Effect 3.
- Do not focus so much on the short-term, you are destroying your brand equity longer-term by doing so. The tinfoil hat part of me suggests the Extended Cut for Mass Effect 3 was planned all along, but would have taken too long to release
A private purchase may return EA to profitability. It needs some significant changes and this may be the ticket to do so. Really feel sorry for the employees of the company ... they were already putting up with 60-100 hour work weeks ... this will just make things a lot worse. Probably better than the company folding, but not by much.
Diablo III's requirement for constant connection sucks bandwidth and takes away from the porn. That's the problem. In the future, I would recommend trying Porn + G/F or Diablo III + G/F, but not Diablo III + Porn. The two just don't mix.
Unlimited mobile broadband plans from Verizon/Alltel stopped being offered awhile ago. The last ones offered by Verizon were in 2007 before they established overage charges, and by Alltel in 2009 before the acquisition was complete. All grandfathered unlimited mobile broadband plans are well past the two-year agreement terms. Unlimited data plans on phone may extend a bit longer into 2013.
... ~$500/month.
... I would be willing to pay $200/month for my 50GB of usage. Others may not be willing to pay that much, in which case, they already have options for lower tier data packages and can moderate their use accordingly. Offer an option to your current heavy data users. You'd be surprised what your heavy data users are willing to pay given the opportunity.
I am on a grandfathered unlimited plan from Alltel. This is the ONLY decent internet coverage where I live. Satellite and Dialup do not count. The other two big networks (Sprint/AT&T) do not reach my house. Right now, we average 50GB per month, topping out at 80GB one or twice a year (usually right around when Steam has their summer/winter sales). Based on current Verizon rates:
Highest tier current mobile broadband plan: 10GB at $80/month. $10/GB overage. Estimated combined cost
Offer me a high-tiered plan that costs less than a T1 per month. 30GB is not enough, keeping going into 50GB, 80GB, 100GB range range for those of us that need it. $4 per GB is not unreasonable
Depending on how long the "on-call" lasts for. You really don't need high-tech for this, low-tech will work.
I'm an individual in my late twenties, meaning, I was in high school roughly ten years ago. During that time, I took:
- Junior Year: 5 AP courses, +3 other "normal" high-school courses
- The AP courses were equivalent to 23 college credit hours, chalk up another +1 for the other "normal" high school courses, looking at 26 credit hours, which is considered a full-time two semester college student
- Senior Year: 5 AP courses, +4 community college courses (in lieu of normal high school courses, 2 per semester), +1 other "normal" high-school course
- The AP courses were equivalent to 15 college credit hours, chalk up another +2 for the other courses, looking at 25 credit hours, which is still considered a full-time two semester college student
I entered a university as a "sophomore" by credit hours once all AP exams were done. Where am I going with all of this? Public education offers a LOT of opportunities and challenges for students. Larger school systems likely will be able to offer more opportunities and challenges over smaller school systems, but, the opportunities and challenges are there still nonetheless. It is up to the student to explore and pursue those opportunities and challenges. The same is true for college, work, and life in general; there are plenty of opportunities and challenges out there. I'll be damned if "public education" as a whole gets blamed for what is largely the responsibility of the individual. Now, whether enough students are (or should) be encouraged towards such opportunities and challenges, that is another subject for discussion.
To the AC, informed, yes: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/business/bank-of-america-drops-plan-for-debit-card-fee.html
" On Oct. 1, a new federal rule went into effect that limits the fees banks can levy on merchants every time a consumer swipes a debit card to make a purchase. The new limit is expected to cost the banks about $6.6 billion in revenue a year, beginning in 2012, according to Javelin Strategy and Research. That comes on top of another loss, of $5.6 billion, from new rules restricting overdraft fees, which were widely seen as onerous and went into effect in July 2010. "
The full report unfortunately is paywalled: https://www.javelinstrategy.com/brochure/219
However, if we ask what percentage of revenue this is: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-25/dodd-frank-cutting-9-billion-of-revenue-spurs-u-s-banks-to-invent-fees.html
" The 10 biggest banks’ estimated impact of the two rules accounts for less than 2 percent of the $514.6 billion net revenue they posted last year. "
I'm not sympathetic.
Fire-proof safe tends to work a bit better. Offsite location even better if can be arranged. However, low-tech is effective and only requires minimum maintenance.
Get a composition notebook to track over time if you change your passwords frequently and/or keep a separate password for each site.
You have twenty minutes to present to an audience who has little to no information about your topic. Within 2 minutes, grab their attention or you'll lose them for the remaining 18 minutes. An interesting visual to begin with will be helpful.
... you'll have a few folks genuinely interested.
One of the best demos I remember seeing was Cisco presenting their work on the Playstation2 networking components. They popped a disc into the Playstation2 and started messing around with the innards. They had my attention for the remaining hour.
For this specific group, do NOT give detailed explanations or definitions, they will not care. Show them what the field is capable of doing with recent examples (the Watson computer on Jeopardy, the recent innovations with automotive technology, iPhone/Android apps, etc.), and, a bit of your own personal work. Finish up by saying "without computer science, none of this would be possible". Leave 5 minutes for Q&A
In which case, Red Hat has an excellent writeup of a manual / non-code workaround via update of the web.xml file if you are version-locked:
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-30741
Cheers.
Handy link: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/investor/board.html
... that's not bad for "people who've run tech companies" ... could do a lot better, could do a lot worse.
... HP's board of directors has changed 6 of its 13 members this year alone (counting the new CEO).
The second part of your post was in ignorance I believe. Former AOL CEO, Former Verizon President, current Nokia General Manager, current CEO of Lucent
The first part of your post was right on. Not enough diversity on HP's board of directors. Need at least one director from non-profit company, one from academia, and preferably another active CEO. If you want diversity in a board of directors for a profitable company, lookup Exxon-Mobil's board of directors --> http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/investor_governance_directors.aspx
To the GP's post
Thanks for pointing out that GAO report.
Table #8 is accurate. The total is $16T. However, banks frequently borrow and repay within a short time period. Hence why table #8 is labeled "Institutions with Largest Total Transaction Amounts (Not Term-Adjusted)"
Table #9 on pg. 132-133 is also accurate. The total is $1.1T. Table #9 is labeled "Institutions with Largest Total Term-Adjusted Borrowing", which is more in line with what media outlets, et. al are reporting.
Will need to read into it more later to see if there are hidden nuggets. Most GAO reports have them, just need to take the time to look.
I agree with the spirit behind the post, but not the implementations proposed. The idea being that the Western world (especially the U.S.) is in for a culture shock / change in the next 5-10 years. The personal finances aspect will be one of many items that will need to be revisited.
However, I disagree with the notion of "no debt" / "debt is bad". Debt is good/healthy, so long as its properly managed debt. There's where the struggle comes in and the real education needs to happen.
From personal experience, I pretty much violated every one of your proposals coming out of college (no grants/scholarship awarded so loans were needed, $15k+ credit card debt, car loan on 1 year used car, 10% on mortgage). However, all debt will be paid off, as will the house, by the time I am 35. How/why? Self-educating myself of taking on debt while in college and planning against future income with contingencies built in (was out of a job for 6 months at one point).
Again, I think what you are proposing is a good starting point, but disagree with the "debt is bad" notion.
Link:
http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?id=pr656&sd=9%2F15%2F2011&ed=9%2F15%2F2099
" This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive© on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 5,299 U.S. workers (employed full-time; not self-employed; non-government); ages 18 and over between May 18 and June 8, 2011 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With a pure probability sample of 5,299 one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.35 percentage points. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies. "
The sample size seems good, however, there is zero indication of how the sample is composed. Is the sample truly random and representative of the general population of telecommuters? Do the results vary based on factors such as geography, industry, age, primary method of communication in a company, relative importance of method of communication, etc.?
Those last two bits are important. In my current job role at my current company, instant messenger is the primary form of communication, followed by email, then face-to-face, then teleconference/e-meeting, and lastly phone. Working at home / telecommuting rarely impacts the effectiveness of our communication, which seems to be the primary concern here. However, other job roles / other companies (SO as one example), telecommuting simply would not work and effectiveness of communication would drop dramatically.
By itself, this is a start, but, not sufficient to draw conclusions of any sort. I'm hoping they do a followup to this survey in the future.
If all HR is to your company is benefits, payroll, and hiring, then you are working for a company doesn't doesn't know how to use HR to its advantage. If the HR at your company is not involved with the company's strategy and success, that's an indication of company that does not leverage HR, not an issue with HR itself. That's a lose/lose situation for you and your company.
I do agree with most of the rest of your points. Give the following a read from your local library. It will probably be eye-opening:
http://www.amazon.com/Workforce-Scorecard-Managing-Capital-Strategy/dp/1591392454
Maybe Apple has finally decided to support Flash?
From the source, not the blog writeup:
"We believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S. – from your local corner store to Walmart. We will no longer need to carry a wallet."
There is a difference between "end of the wallet" and "no longer need to carry a wallet".
The former will not happen for several hundred years, physical currency has been in use too long in humankind existence for it to disappear that quickly. The latter I can agree with, if you can find a way to make my driver's license electronic so I can legally DRIVE to said store and then PURCHASE items which normally require ID. Otherwise, not gonna happen.
If you don't have cell phone reception where you live, my sympathies. If you do, buy yourself a router which allows a cellular aircard to be plugged into it and use it as a WAN connection (I have a Cradlepoint MBR-1000). Internet comes in over 1xRTT or 3G if you are lucky enough. You usually can get 1.5Mbps (~160KB/s). 5GB cap for most carriers, no cap for other carriers with restrictions (Cricket as one example will not charge overages but will throttle your speed).
Not great, but beats the heck of out Satellite or Dialup when no other high-speed alternatives are available in the boonies.
Sadly, parent is correct. Check Radioshack's last annual statement, pg. 23:
http://ir.radioshackcorporation.com/annuals.cfm
Percentage of revenue:
Wireless plans - 46.84%
Accessories (cell, home audio/video) - 20.31%M
Modern home (computers, home theater audio) - 11.07%
Personal Electronics (digital cameras, mp3 players) - 8.85%
Power (batteries) - 4.32%
Technical (the real radioshack roots) - 3.09%
Kudos to RadioShack for trying to boost that 3.09%, but it ain't gonna happen overnight. Capitalizing on the masses by offering wireless plans is a good way to keep them alive for now, but won't sustain into the future. Too many big competitors will drive them out in due time.
I hope they find a way to stay alive. Good brand, really confusing business strategy / model.