Best Buy will not match the price of an online store, but I have noticed that the lowest brick-and-mortar store price is not really that much higher than the cheapest *legitimate* online price.
I think we need to place a line between accessories and everything else. When I need an HDMI cable, I buy online. The vast majority all just work, and two seconds looking at comments and reviews reveal the one or two subpar cables that don't. I can buy a cable for a couple dollars online, or $100 at retail. That's a no-brainer. FYI: I did buy a 15 foot HDMI cable for $9 that was $125 at retail. This is not exaggeration.
When I wanted to buy a point-and-shoot camera, the difference was much less. Sure, I could save $5 off a $125 purchase online. Factor shipping and taxes, and retail still loses. But the opportunity cost of walking out of the store and not waiting a week is priceless when I need pictures that day and my previous camera was smashed on accident. How many minutes does it take me to earn $5? Many fewer than the minutes it takes to arrive at my house.
However, retailers don't make money on low-margin big-ticket items such as HDTVs, cameras, and other stuff. They make their money on high-margin small-ticket items such as cables, music, and movies. That business model needs to shift if they are going to survive. I think "big box" needs to become "small box" as they stock less and less, and offer competitive prices on the items that matter. Focus on the online presence, and the ability to ship to store to free on any item (Wal-Mart has this one nailed).
The words "Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries" do not include the word "cartel." Regardless, they are a cartel, and China is not in this case since it is a single entity. Cartels are made up of two or more entities.
Seldom! Reviews are the time that raises are brought up. Betting most places are like that. Our "yearly" reviews come every 18 months, if at all. Wanna see someone sidestep like a politician? Ask a suit " when are reviews coming?"
In five and a half years, I have received exactly two performance evaluations. I also received one flat raise aside from that, not tied to performance: everyone in the company got 2.5%.
Three raises in over five years: doing the math, I see that my salary, adjusting for inflation, is only slightly greater than it was when I was hired.
Probably not because they have to compete with the Internet too. If the highly-efficient Circuit City or Best Buy could not do it, it's doubtful some mom/pop store could do it.
MicroCenter can do it. Yeah they have some overpriced stuff (I never buy cables from them) but often they match Newegg and Amazon for price. There is always something on sale. I'm picking up a video card from them tomorrow. It's not the specific one I want, but it's the same specs and gets good reviews. Same price as Newegg. Sales tax is just the price of having it tomorrow: "free" shipping is only free if you don't need something right away.
Anyway, the key behind MicroCenter's success is not putting them everywhere. My city has one MicroCenter, and 8 or 9 Best Buys. There isn't enough room for that many big box electronics retailers who push high margin items when people know they can get better deals online, where there aren't dumbass sales staff who burn them by pushing crap they don't need.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, matters more at winning wars than logistics. The lethal fighting force is but the edge of a vast engineering and distribution network. Or, if it is not the edge of such a network, it is soon a defeated lethal fighting force.
I spent six years in the U.S. Air Force flying a desk. To this day people are shocked that the only time I flew on a plane was a civilian airliner, and I never saw combat.
When I was in, the USAF was around 300,000 Airmen. Around 10% was aircrew, which includes: pilots, navigators, crew chiefs, AWACS computer guys, etc. It took the rest of the USAF to handle the rest: feed the troops, get them to where they need to go, ensure their computers were working correctly, tracking millions of bullets, bombs and missiles, tending to medical needs, paychecks, etc.
So $5-$7 for a DVD movie, $15-$16 for TV series is not good value? How low does it and have to be? Zero?
Some movies are that cheap. Not on Blu-ray though. Not new releases. For a medium that is trivially cheap to make, it's ridiculous to pay $25 or more for a movie when it costs maybe a dollar from factory to store. Given how wealthy the entertainment industry is, I have little incentive to give them more. Yes, I buy movies and go to the theater. But I do it infrequently. We might visit the theater twice a year and buy two Blu-rays per year. Other than that if I see a cheap DVD somewhere (and I don't care about the lack of HD quality) I'll pick one up. But given the effort required, I don't put much time into it.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still like the physical media. I like that I don't need a cloud that might disappear like a fart in the wind. I pay money, I get a physical disc. Yet I still have to be lectured about not copying illegally after I paid money.
The true way to combat piracy is to look at why people are pirating and modify your business strategy so that pirates become paying customers by their own choice.
They could start by pricing DVDs and Blu-rays reasonably. Next step would be to remove all the crap that goes on between "insert disc" and "watching movie," which often cannot be skipped without violating the DMCA (I'd like to violate the DMCA, actually, with the business end of a shovel).
My main use of Google is Gmail, which is the first webmail client that was worthwhile as a main interface. That seemed pretty innovative at the time.
Email over the web was innovative. Perfecting it was iterative. Perhaps there are some true innovations under the covers of gmail which help keep the vast majority of the spam out, but its main interface was hardly innovative even when it was new.
Not entirely true, and taken partially out of context.
Yes, the sun will hurt and be uncomfortable but not likely induce blindness. However, I have seen a telescope aimed at the sun during broad daylight focus the energy and ignite a piece of paper placed a few inches from the eyepiece. I do not possess a medical degree, but I will go out on a limb and say that it can cause blindness.
Not really sure how the sea part, nor the titanic part is relevant.
I'd say the bulk of the advances in radio were military, and general commercial use of radio. Ships benefited too, but I really don't see them as being the real cause for innovation.
Ships... military... the Navy, maybe? Before satellite communication, the U.S. Navy had to communicate long distances using radios. Think the Pacific Theater in WW2 if nothing else. Radio was definitely a big factor in communicating long distances over water.
Well, if you're so paranoid, get some tape and cover over the camera and microphone, or take it apart and disconnect it.
Everyone who stops by my desk asks "why do you have electrical tape over your webcam camera?" My answer is "because MIS didn't say they wouldn't spy on me.
Also, I tend not to wear clothes around the house. Even when I'm telecommuting. Although, putting the two together could be interesting given I have a female boss up a notch or two in the hierarchy. "Yeah, we need to talk about your telecommuting... forget business casual, please at least wear sweatpants at home."
And what exactly is stopping the 3rd party to arise?
First past the post voting, for one. Instant runoff would be a huge help to get even a small number of non R or D candidates into offices that matter. Second, proportional representation.
But the real thing preventing a viable third party is the first two parties. They are the ones in government, they are the ones that passed laws in every state (e.g ballot access restrictions, electoral votes being winner take all) making it extremely difficult to get elected if you don't have an R or D after your name.
The same source brings some "news" about the rotational period being 58.7 Earth days and the "tidal lock" being actually a spin-orbit resonance with a 3:2 ratio (1 "year" = 1.5 "days").
And I actually read that after I posted it. Oh well, I got it wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Astronomy fascinates me, but I suck at physics.
I think the important point from all of this is that if the Sun is pulling on the surface of Mercury, and it rotates very slowly from the Sun's perspective, then it makes sense that there could be craters where the center of the crater is higher up than the edges.
Question: Do you think the games made you a better shot?
No. Being able to whip around with a mouse and use my wrist to aim precisely is nowhere near the same as using both arms to hold a weapon steady, look through the site, squeeze the trigger, deal with the recoil, etc. Two completely different actions in my opinion and my experience.
I don't think games made me violent, either. I never had to fire on an enemy and I am grateful for that. Pixels don't have feelings. People do, even if they are the "bad" guys. Of course, given a choice between "me" and "them" I would have pumped "them" full of lead if my life depended on it, I just would rather it not come to that. Thankfully, in my case, it didn't come to that. Also, there is no respawning in real life unless you're a Buddhist.
Not that I am any better. I grew up playing Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, and look where I wound up: the U.S. military. Now I am a civilian again and vehemently anti-war except for self-defense (hint: this involves bullets/bombs/etc on our soil).
How long do think it would be, before everyone and their third cousin lynched Rick, if he got his way and nobody (including married folk) should or could have sex except for procreation. The guy is in that rarefied region of the WackoSphere where even the deranged fear to go.
Being Catholic myself, I had to look into this. According to Wikipedia (lol) he is Catholic, and does have some pretty wacked out views on morality. A small number of them even agree with Catholic doctrine. Yeah, this guy is a nutcase, but he's a fringe lunatic and representative of the rest of us religious folk who exercise our first amendment rights sanely. For example: he opposes stem cell research, while I have to agree with the Pope on this one: stem cells for curing disease = good. Creating Frankenstein's monster = bad. Donating cord blood = good. Killing fetuses for stem cells = bad.
Believing in God is not orthagonal to believing in science. There are millions of people like me who are religious but also exercise rational thought. Then there are the vocal minority of assholes like Santorum who want to legislate the rest of us into the dark ages.
If you think this wasn't an avenue for pedophilia, I leave you with this post from a self-admitted pedophile on Reddit, admitting that he masturbated to pictures on/r/jailbait and other "outlets" on Reddit that are now banned.
The guy seems honest enough. I think he needs help. I may not be a physician but everything I've read points to sexual deviance being hardwired in the brain. He needs to seek out a good psychiatrist who can help him suppress those feelings.
The reason is that while he may be claiming not to harm children, he is viewing material where children were (psychologically) harmed during the production of the material. Maybe he's not raping little girls, but he is providing demand, and the suppliers are harming children.
That right there is the core reason why possession of child pornography is illegal in the United States. It supports a despicable industry.
We also hire immigrant or work-visa employees who are willing to work for around 2/3 the salary of an American born and bred here.
Please stop spreading this. It is just not true.
Depends on the specific circumstances under which immigrant workers are hired. I have seen it first-hand. I admit not to be being familiar with the immigration laws since I am a natural born citizen, but I have seen non-citizens make substantially less salary just because the employer can get away with it.
You want the jobs to come back? Get the government out of small businesses, and eliminate SarBox so the small business owners can dream. It costs you nothing!
I agree -- we need less government, not more. Regulations hurt small businesses, and decades of that crap is well-documented and understood.
At this rate, all that will be left in this country in 20 years will be Wal-Mart and McDonald's.
PhDs are definitely overrated. Unless you want to push the boundaries of technology and not just build the next widget, that is.
The only reasons to get a Ph.D. are to teach college, or to do research. Specifically, if you want grants to pay for said research, most organizations will look for the Ph.D. after your name as proof that you can succeed at the task and the research money will be well-spent.
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I think we need to place a line between accessories and everything else. When I need an HDMI cable, I buy online. The vast majority all just work, and two seconds looking at comments and reviews reveal the one or two subpar cables that don't. I can buy a cable for a couple dollars online, or $100 at retail. That's a no-brainer. FYI: I did buy a 15 foot HDMI cable for $9 that was $125 at retail. This is not exaggeration.
When I wanted to buy a point-and-shoot camera, the difference was much less. Sure, I could save $5 off a $125 purchase online. Factor shipping and taxes, and retail still loses. But the opportunity cost of walking out of the store and not waiting a week is priceless when I need pictures that day and my previous camera was smashed on accident. How many minutes does it take me to earn $5? Many fewer than the minutes it takes to arrive at my house.
However, retailers don't make money on low-margin big-ticket items such as HDTVs, cameras, and other stuff. They make their money on high-margin small-ticket items such as cables, music, and movies. That business model needs to shift if they are going to survive. I think "big box" needs to become "small box" as they stock less and less, and offer competitive prices on the items that matter. Focus on the online presence, and the ability to ship to store to free on any item (Wal-Mart has this one nailed).
My F5 key hasn't moved in years. Not sure about yours.
The words "Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries" do not include the word "cartel." Regardless, they are a cartel, and China is not in this case since it is a single entity. Cartels are made up of two or more entities.
In five and a half years, I have received exactly two performance evaluations. I also received one flat raise aside from that, not tied to performance: everyone in the company got 2.5%.
Three raises in over five years: doing the math, I see that my salary, adjusting for inflation, is only slightly greater than it was when I was hired.
MicroCenter can do it. Yeah they have some overpriced stuff (I never buy cables from them) but often they match Newegg and Amazon for price. There is always something on sale. I'm picking up a video card from them tomorrow. It's not the specific one I want, but it's the same specs and gets good reviews. Same price as Newegg. Sales tax is just the price of having it tomorrow: "free" shipping is only free if you don't need something right away.
Anyway, the key behind MicroCenter's success is not putting them everywhere. My city has one MicroCenter, and 8 or 9 Best Buys. There isn't enough room for that many big box electronics retailers who push high margin items when people know they can get better deals online, where there aren't dumbass sales staff who burn them by pushing crap they don't need.
I spent six years in the U.S. Air Force flying a desk. To this day people are shocked that the only time I flew on a plane was a civilian airliner, and I never saw combat.
When I was in, the USAF was around 300,000 Airmen. Around 10% was aircrew, which includes: pilots, navigators, crew chiefs, AWACS computer guys, etc. It took the rest of the USAF to handle the rest: feed the troops, get them to where they need to go, ensure their computers were working correctly, tracking millions of bullets, bombs and missiles, tending to medical needs, paychecks, etc.
This makes as much sense as saying my wife had been handed her balls on a platter.
Some movies are that cheap. Not on Blu-ray though. Not new releases. For a medium that is trivially cheap to make, it's ridiculous to pay $25 or more for a movie when it costs maybe a dollar from factory to store. Given how wealthy the entertainment industry is, I have little incentive to give them more. Yes, I buy movies and go to the theater. But I do it infrequently. We might visit the theater twice a year and buy two Blu-rays per year. Other than that if I see a cheap DVD somewhere (and I don't care about the lack of HD quality) I'll pick one up. But given the effort required, I don't put much time into it.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still like the physical media. I like that I don't need a cloud that might disappear like a fart in the wind. I pay money, I get a physical disc. Yet I still have to be lectured about not copying illegally after I paid money.
The worst part about the FBI warnings is that the FBI prioritizes copyright over missing person cases. How about you spend less time ruining movie night and more time saving lives?
They could start by pricing DVDs and Blu-rays reasonably. Next step would be to remove all the crap that goes on between "insert disc" and "watching movie," which often cannot be skipped without violating the DMCA (I'd like to violate the DMCA, actually, with the business end of a shovel).
Email over the web was innovative. Perfecting it was iterative. Perhaps there are some true innovations under the covers of gmail which help keep the vast majority of the spam out, but its main interface was hardly innovative even when it was new.
J Edgar Hoover died in 1972.
Not entirely true, and taken partially out of context.
Yes, the sun will hurt and be uncomfortable but not likely induce blindness. However, I have seen a telescope aimed at the sun during broad daylight focus the energy and ignite a piece of paper placed a few inches from the eyepiece. I do not possess a medical degree, but I will go out on a limb and say that it can cause blindness.
Ships... military... the Navy, maybe? Before satellite communication, the U.S. Navy had to communicate long distances using radios. Think the Pacific Theater in WW2 if nothing else. Radio was definitely a big factor in communicating long distances over water.
Everyone who stops by my desk asks "why do you have electrical tape over your webcam camera?" My answer is "because MIS didn't say they wouldn't spy on me.
Also, I tend not to wear clothes around the house. Even when I'm telecommuting. Although, putting the two together could be interesting given I have a female boss up a notch or two in the hierarchy. "Yeah, we need to talk about your telecommuting... forget business casual, please at least wear sweatpants at home."
First past the post voting, for one. Instant runoff would be a huge help to get even a small number of non R or D candidates into offices that matter. Second, proportional representation.
But the real thing preventing a viable third party is the first two parties. They are the ones in government, they are the ones that passed laws in every state (e.g ballot access restrictions, electoral votes being winner take all) making it extremely difficult to get elected if you don't have an R or D after your name.
And I actually read that after I posted it. Oh well, I got it wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Astronomy fascinates me, but I suck at physics.
I think the important point from all of this is that if the Sun is pulling on the surface of Mercury, and it rotates very slowly from the Sun's perspective, then it makes sense that there could be craters where the center of the crater is higher up than the edges.
According to wikipedia:
Seems plausible given I am a computer scientist and not an astrophysicist.
No, XKCD.
No. Being able to whip around with a mouse and use my wrist to aim precisely is nowhere near the same as using both arms to hold a weapon steady, look through the site, squeeze the trigger, deal with the recoil, etc. Two completely different actions in my opinion and my experience.
I don't think games made me violent, either. I never had to fire on an enemy and I am grateful for that. Pixels don't have feelings. People do, even if they are the "bad" guys. Of course, given a choice between "me" and "them" I would have pumped "them" full of lead if my life depended on it, I just would rather it not come to that. Thankfully, in my case, it didn't come to that. Also, there is no respawning in real life unless you're a Buddhist.
My kids have fought over Guess Who? and Othello.
Not that I am any better. I grew up playing Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, and look where I wound up: the U.S. military. Now I am a civilian again and vehemently anti-war except for self-defense (hint: this involves bullets/bombs/etc on our soil).
Being Catholic myself, I had to look into this. According to Wikipedia (lol) he is Catholic, and does have some pretty wacked out views on morality. A small number of them even agree with Catholic doctrine. Yeah, this guy is a nutcase, but he's a fringe lunatic and representative of the rest of us religious folk who exercise our first amendment rights sanely. For example: he opposes stem cell research, while I have to agree with the Pope on this one: stem cells for curing disease = good. Creating Frankenstein's monster = bad. Donating cord blood = good. Killing fetuses for stem cells = bad.
Believing in God is not orthagonal to believing in science. There are millions of people like me who are religious but also exercise rational thought. Then there are the vocal minority of assholes like Santorum who want to legislate the rest of us into the dark ages.
The guy seems honest enough. I think he needs help. I may not be a physician but everything I've read points to sexual deviance being hardwired in the brain. He needs to seek out a good psychiatrist who can help him suppress those feelings.
The reason is that while he may be claiming not to harm children, he is viewing material where children were (psychologically) harmed during the production of the material. Maybe he's not raping little girls, but he is providing demand, and the suppliers are harming children.
That right there is the core reason why possession of child pornography is illegal in the United States. It supports a despicable industry.
Depends on the specific circumstances under which immigrant workers are hired. I have seen it first-hand. I admit not to be being familiar with the immigration laws since I am a natural born citizen, but I have seen non-citizens make substantially less salary just because the employer can get away with it.
I agree -- we need less government, not more. Regulations hurt small businesses, and decades of that crap is well-documented and understood.
At this rate, all that will be left in this country in 20 years will be Wal-Mart and McDonald's.
The only reasons to get a Ph.D. are to teach college, or to do research. Specifically, if you want grants to pay for said research, most organizations will look for the Ph.D. after your name as proof that you can succeed at the task and the research money will be well-spent.