There's nothing new or interesting in the article.
It's just the same old mantra of cheaper, more modular, etc.
Jobs would read this, rightly conclude that it's just another tired summary of the market forces and contray opinions he's been aware of and dealing with for his entire career.
I understand why it's news on Slashdot; I just can't figure out why it would be news anywhere else.
Universities need money to do research. There's only four places places a university research facility can get money: Tuition, Government Subsidies, Private Donations, and Profits from Research.
The more scientific research and innovation you want for universities, the more money you need to give them. If you don't want them doing Profitable Research, then you have three choices:
1. Raise your Tuition.
2. Raise your Taxes (because that's where Government Subsidies come from).
3. Donate some of the Profit from your own line of work to the University.
Actually, all three of these choices are actually a transfer of your Profits from your own work to the University Lab, to offset the sacrifice of Profits you're asking the University to make.
Moral: If you want the Universities to sell out less, you're going to have to sell out a whole lot more. In the mean time, it's probably inappropriate to lecture them on paying the bills and generating the wealth that fuels the engine of innovation.
The thing is, NASA really needs the rovers as long as possible, so NASA engineers them the best it can with the resources we give it.
Then, when it comes time for NASA to apply for a budget to run the rovers, the agency gives a conservative estimate on the rovers' lifespan. It gives an estimate they are confident they can deliver on.
This accomplishes two things: First, it keeps the budget request relatively low, which makes it more likely that the budget request will be approved. Since there's no mission at all without the budget approval, it makes sense to give a conservative cost estimate and a low budget number.
Second, it makes it easy for NASA to deliver on what it promises. If NASA announced that the rovers could last as long as six months or more, and one of them broke early on, NASA would get no credit for making it as far as it did. Rather, you and thousands of other asshats like you--including several asshats who have some direct authority over NASA's budget--would excoriate the agency for falling short of its goals.
Better to engineer the best rover you can with the resources you have, and give a conservative estimate of the mission's lifespan. If it exceeds that estimate, bonus! NASA goes back to the budget authorities with a clear win under their belt, another project delivered as promised, and some solid results to show that an addtional budget allocation is justified to continue the mission past the lower time limit and towards the upper end of the lifespan estimate.
What's more, by doing the budget approvals in stages like this, it gives you and I (and the budget authorities, of course) an opportunity to judge the value of the first 90 days before committing 250 days' worth of budget to the mission.
And the best you can come up with is "those NASA assholes must have been padding their engineering estimates! Unacceptable!"
Another thing: You don't win any credits by quoting "scotty" in "tng". Consider this: NASA is a government agency. It has to deal with politics, bureaucracy, and the human error that attends on every complex undertaking since the dawn of time. You yourself can't spell, punctuate or use basic grammar with any consistency. Yet you presume to criticize the methods NASA must use to achieve great feats of engineering and exploration. What is wrong with you?
Rover breaks an axle. A new axle (or tools to manufacture a new axle, or parts to assemble a new axle) is put on a second rover, and sent after the first rover. Second rover involves more moving parts, and more risk of component failure during trip. Meanwhile, passengers on first rover are stranded far from base.
Base breaks an axle. A new axle is removed from supply cabinet, installed. Meanwhile, passengers on base have dinner.
The second scenario seems much more safe and success-prone than the first. Not to mention that you don't have to keep a spare rover around to send after the first. The spare rover's payload budget could be spent on additonal spare parts and tools for the base, additional consumables, additional experiments, additional shielding, or some combination of the above.
If you're really hung up on the eggs:baskets thing, perhaps redundant mobile bases of optimal size, operating within support range of each other, would ease your mind.
Separating the operations element (rover and rover crew) from the support element (base and base crew) may not be the safest way to conduct operations in a harsh environment like the Moon's surface. Keeping ops and support as close together as possible would tend to minimize the hazards associated with the mission. Shorter lifeline==less risk. What could be shorter than moving the entire support element on site with the operations element?
FYI, that's not a highway, it's the roadway between the shuttle prep facility (a large hangar) and the shuttle launch facility. Both facilities are on the grounds of the spaceport. The transport never uses roadways accessible to the public. This particular roadway was purpose-built as a solid, durable surface for the transport to move over, between the two facilities.
It is, in fact, the most practical system NASA was able to come up with.
It seems to me that the problem being worked is this:
The rover gets into trouble.
To solve this problem, the base has to carve off some resources, put them on a second rover, and send them off to rescue or repair the first rover.
This solution leaves the base with less resources, and also leaves each rover with less than the total resources available to the mission as a whole.
Therefore, it is argued, let the whole base, with all the resources available to the mission, bring all those resources to bear on whatever problem faces the mission.
Clearly, since the base can carry more resources, it can solve more problems than any rover. If the base encounters a problem that it cannot solve, then it is no worse off than the rover would have been. For all problems less than "cannot be solved by the entire base", the base is much better off than the rover could hope to be.
The logical extreme would be to bring the entire Earth to the Moon, but that's beyond our capability. However, the principle is sound, and from the principle an optimal base size and resource load can be determined.
The author of this solution obviously believes that the principle demands a base size and resource load somewhat larger than "moon buggy".
Obviously, the new legislation would be detrimental to the company, otherwise the company wouldn't oppose it so strongly.
And we all know companies never oppose good laws and good rules, and they never support bad laws or bad rules.
You make a very good point here, and I'm well aware of it. However, the parent poster does not make this point at all.
Rather, the parent poster makes the point that he hates the company he works for, and wishes it ill. My question is, if he hates the company and wishes it ill, why is he working there? And if he has some compelling reason to work there, why is he undermining that reason by wishing the company ill?
If the options suddenly appear as expenses on the company's books, then the company's overall financial situation takes a sudden dive.
No, the company's actual finances remain unchanged.
While the company's bank account stands exactly where it did before, it has taken a serious hit to its bottom line, by listing the options as negative dollar amounts in its ledgers.
Which company has a more appealing and reassuring financial picture? The one that lists "Profit = Income - (lease + debt repayment + payroll + benefits + utilities)"? Or the one that lists Profit = Income - (lease + debt repayment + payroll + benefits + utilities + options)"?
Adopting legislation that makes the company's financial situation appear worse is not in the company's best interest. There may be principled reasons to suppor the legislation anyway, but the parent poster never brought these up, and they're not really relevant here.
If accurately reflecting the cost of doing business with no actual change in finance flow were to somehow send a company spiraling into destruction then their must have been some pretty serious book-cooking going on.
Not at all; simply that last quarter, stock options weren't counted as a cost of doing business. Next quarter they are, and the cost of doing business appears to go up dramatically. This changes things a lot for the company in question--especially if their financial picture was shaky already.
I happily agree that this legislation is probably in the best interests of investors, who should be entitled to a complete and accurate financial picture. Assuming that listing stock options as an expense really does make for a more complete and accurate picture, of course. And I'll even stipulate that, too.
But all that is irrelevant to this particular thread. Why do you insist on changing the subject to whether or not the legislation is a good thing, from whether or not the parent poster is right to wish his employer ill, and act against his employer, in spite of his own compelling interest in keeping his job with that employer?
Don't get me wrong: yours is a good and interesting subject. It's just not this subject, though. If you keep this up, I'll have to resort to ad hominem attacks about the MTV generation, short attention spans, and an inability to focus on the topic at hand.
We're not talking about the options themselves. We're talking about how those options are recorded in the financial picture of the company. If they're recorded as expenses, the company suddenly appears to have a lot less money. This is bad news to lenders, creditors, and investors; therefore, it is bad news for the company.
The top executives might very well come out millions of dollars ahead no matter what, but the company itself stands or falls by things such as this.
And the parent poster stands or falls with the company.
Given that he hates the company but works there anyway, I firmly believe that he has some compelling interest to see the company stand, not fall. Therefore, his position on this legislation, absent any moral or ethical principle, seems to run contrary to his best interests and the sacrifices of pride and principle he has already made, by choosing to remain an employee at this company.
Please re-read the part of my post that you quoted.
I'm talking about the financial situation of the company, and how expensing options--whether they're worth something or not, and whether they belong to employees or executives--makes the financial situation of the company itself look worse than before.
My argument is that supporting legislation that is detrimental to your employer (and making the financial situation of a company look worse is definitely detrimental) is only justified in two cases: when you desire to sabotage your employer, or when you have some strong moral or ethical princple that favors the legislation.
Since the parent poster hates his employer so much, I guessed that he has some compelling reason (probably because there aren't any other jobs to be had) to work there anyway. Since he has such a compelling reason to work there, it would be counter-productive for him to sabotage his employer, or otherwise wish them ill. Any ill that befalls his employer befalls him as well.
Likewise, I ruled out a principled support of the legislation because I detected no indication of such principles in the parent post.
Obviously, the new legislation would be detrimental to the company, otherwise the company wouldn't oppose it so strongly.
If the options suddenly appear as expenses on the company's books, then the company's overall financial situation takes a sudden dive. This is never good. Investors, lenders, creditors: nobody will read this as a good sign, and the company will be much shakier next quarter than it was last quarter.
It has nothing to do with where the money is, but what the financial picture looks like. The new regulation would make the financial picture look worse. A lot worse. That's not a desireable effect, for the company.
It doesn't even have anything to do with right or wrong, for the purposes of this discussion. If the company was concerned with doing right, they'd probably expense their options voluntarily. But that's not the company's concern. The company's concern is with staying in business. That becomes less likely if they expense their options.
If the parent poster were making some principled stand, such as saying that he believes that expensing options is a good thing, and he won't oppose it even to save the company he depends on to buy groceries and pay the rent, then I'd say it was abotu right and wrong.
I'm not suggesting that he has any obligations, except to himself.
What compelling reason does he have, to work at a company he despises, that is not also a compelling reason to support that company and further its well-being?
If the company goes under because he refused to support it politically, doesn't that render worthless the sacrifice he has already made to his pride and principles by working there in the first place?
He's already sold his soul to this company. Why refuse to get his money's worth, so to speak?
I'm guessing that if your company expensed the options, it would make their financial situation significantly worse.
I'm guessing further that if the stock options are expensed, the "possible layoffs" will become "definite layoffs".
I'm guessing still further that the reason your company is spamming you to oppose option expensing isn't so much because they care about preserving your job, but because they care about preserving the company itself (and all the jobs in it).
I'm guessing still further that you took a gamble when you accepted options as compensation, probably because it seemed like a good idea (or the lesser of two evils) at the time, and that you're complaining overmuch now that your gamble hasn't paid off.
I'm guessing that you're definitely complaining overmuch, considering as how you haven't left the company in spite of how much you claim to hate them.
And it's the last one that really bugs me. I figure, you must have some compelling reason to stick with this company, even though they took all your hard work and failed to turn it into a strong, profitable business plan.
If you insist on working at this company, then shouldn't you also insist on doing whatever you can to prevent the company from laying you off and/or going out of business?
What do you gain by working there, that you would not gain more of by opposing option expensing?
Make up your fucking mind: either support the company you work for, or quit. Staying on the payroll while working through acts of commission and omission to undermine and weaken the company is both immoral and just plain stupid.
Or are you one of those "any job worth doing is worth doing badly" people?
A government will use whatever tools are available to do whatever it is that that government is into doing.
People get excited about tools because tools are exciting.
I don't see very many people running around saying too bad we invented cars, because now the government can use cars to oppress people!
It's not the lack of robots that's keeping you safe from your own government, and robots won't make your government any more dangerous to you than it is right now.
You argue that Israel was never at risk because their military was stronger than their neighbors' military.
Would Israel still have been safe if their military was weaker than their neighbors'?
You say that Israel used overwhelming force to end a conflict as quickly and decisively as possible... as if that's a bad thing.
Would it have been better for Israel to commit no more than 80,000 troops, and limit their tech usage to the obosolete tech level of their opponents?
Did you allow for the possibility that Israel has such a large army because their neighbors insist on massing whatever troops they have on Israel's borders, along with the best weapons technology they can muster?
Did you allow for the possibility that the only hope Israel has of winning a war of agression is to apply overwhelming force immmediately? That perhaps that's why Israel maintains such a large and advanced military?
That Egypt, Syria, et al were unwilling or unable to follow up with a counterattack is hardly an indictment of Israel. Rather, it indicates that Israel struck at the right moment, before the forces massing on its borders were in a position to achieve the victory they sought.
The Geneva convention is opt-in, and applies only to signatories who abide by its rules. Like all other "international law", it is only worth the enforcement that underwrites it. In the case of the Geneva Convention, enforcement comes in the form of "tit for tat"--if you violate the rules, then your enemy is free to also violate the rules. In fact, the retaliation is not against the rules at all.
According to the Geneva Convention, the first entity to use biological weapons is in violation. The second entity is in total compliance when it retaliates with biological weapons of its own.
Before we discuss this further, though, it might be interesting to know which of the parties involved were signatories of the Geneva Convention at the time.
As for the rest of "international law", it is essentially meaningless without enforcement. Israel was bound only by its treaties, and by the ability and willingness of other entities to police Israel (and its neighbors) effectively. Absent a higher power with legitimate authority to dictate policy to nation-states, and with enough force of arms and force of will to enforce that policy, whatever Israel has done may be "unfair" in your opinion, but it cannot be "illegal".
There are many veterans who stand by John Kerry's Vietnam record and support his anti-war sentiments. But there are just as many veterans who repudiate his record and denounce his anti-war sentiments. It never occurred to me that all Israeli generals would think--then or now--that the 1967 war was a good idea. It also never occurred to me that if a general opposed the war, it must therefore have been a bad idea. What about all the generals who supported the war? Do their opinions not count?
Also, regarding the debate you allude to, I figure the agressors had maybe two options: Either a limited conflict, or a total conflict.
If their intention was the latter, then Israel was certainly fighting a war against annihilation.
If their intention was the former, then either the invaders would have had to make their invasion permanent, running into exactly the "illegal" problem you're hung up on in the first place, or else they would've had to retreat.
If they were to retreat, why bother invading in the first place?
And anyway, when you start a war, you pretty much forfeit everything you have, until the war is over. A forceful invasion sends a clear signal that you will subject all of your possessions and territories to the rule of the strongest force.
If your enemy counterattacks and takes some of your territory from you, you have nobody to blame but yourself. If you didn't want to risk losing it, you shouldn't have announced to the world that it was up for grabs and then given your neighbor an excuse to grab it.
... How is this post not unlike a tiny party hat for my ass? Let me count the ways:
First, you explain the basic premise of SETI as if nobody here knows what it is. Here's a memo you might not have gotten yet: Slashdot understands SETI. Try transmitting your breaking newsflash to 1999, where it might add something new to the discussion.
Second, and speaking of years now long past, everybody who was going to care about the redundant data blocks "lie" has already moved on. Nobody besides you really cares anymore.
Third, you're painfully unaware of the ugly irony in taking umbrage in SETI's lies, while simultaneously pimping out a lie of a whole other caliber.
Way to go, dude. On my ass's next birthday, we'll be sure to look to you to provide the festive headgear.
So if every single Saturn built had made it into orbit, would you have considered the Apollo project a gaint success of human exploration?
So not all the Saturns got launched. I feel sad for this particular rocket, since its sole purpose in life was never realized, but the project itself was still successful--giantly so!
And even this sad, unfulfilled engine of discovery can still find a purpose: to remain here on Earth, to stand as a monument to human exploration, and inspire in all who visit the sense of greatness appropriate to the endeavor it represents.
But you know, hey, feel free to be bummed out about the whole thing, if that's what turns you on.
This theorem is a theory of how prime numbers are distributed...
It's actually a little more complex than that.
Riemann was investigating the distribution of prime numbers. Along the way he devised (discovered?) the Zeta Function, which describes with considerable accuracy the distribution of prime numbers. While working with the Zeta Function, he discovered an interesting property: It appeared that all the non-trivial zeroes of the function had a real part of one-half. However, since this property of the function was not related to the prime-distribution work he was doing, he did not bother to prove this apparent property, which came to be known as the "Riemann Hypothesis" (presumably, once it is proven it will be known as the Riemann Theorem, or some such).
Thus, the Riemann Hypothesis is in fact tangential to (and possibly unrelated to) the distribution of prime numbers. Riemann's notes on the Zeta Function, regarding his work on prime distribution, are pretty explicit about this.
That's because they're enemy combatants, not criminals. The point of detaining enemy combatants is to keep them out of combat until the combat is over. They don't get hearings, trials, or whatever. They just get to sit out the rest of the war in the penalty box. Then they get to go home. Obviously, there's lots of room for refinements of this principle, and many such refinements have been made over the years, but the basic principle is still the same: They're enemy combatants, not criminal suspects. It has to do with the difference between "army" and "police", along with a lot of other things. Step back, take a deep breath and look at it again. Maybe then you'll see that the fact that our Supreme Court is reviewing the situation and ruling in favor of granting more than the customary privileges to these POWs is a testament to this nation's generosity and commitment to humane behavior.
Of course, it also does nothing to add to the relevance or insightfulness.
And let's not forget that the character that uttered those words had descended into a dark pit of madness and despair. His mindset was such that he had renounced his oaths and allegiances, set himself up as a god-king for a savage tribe (and set up the savage tribe itself through demagoguery and brainwashing), and indulged in bloody, dehumanizing rituals of degradation and murder.
Faced with the horror of the fanatic, Brando's character loses his nerve, and descends into madness. Martin Sheen's character, who had undoubtedly committed many atrocious acts himself, when faced with the same insane fanaticism (in the form of Kurtz himself, this time), yet manages to retain his sanity, and his humanity.
But now I'm rambling. The point is, Brando's character in Apocalypse Now is hardly a good source of military wisdom. It's clear that he was once a leader in this field, but by the time Sheen finds him, that is obviously no longer the case.
I'd say that whatever Kurtz says in that movie, do the opposite, but I'm not quite sure what the opposite of being a snail on a razor's edge would look like. So I'll just stop here.
Slashdot Mirror
Price trumps style?
There's nothing new or interesting in the article.
It's just the same old mantra of cheaper, more modular, etc.
Jobs would read this, rightly conclude that it's just another tired summary of the market forces and contray opinions he's been aware of and dealing with for his entire career.
I understand why it's news on Slashdot; I just can't figure out why it would be news anywhere else.
Newsflash: Research costs money.
Universities need money to do research. There's only four places places a university research facility can get money: Tuition, Government Subsidies, Private Donations, and Profits from Research.
The more scientific research and innovation you want for universities, the more money you need to give them. If you don't want them doing Profitable Research, then you have three choices:
1. Raise your Tuition.
2. Raise your Taxes (because that's where Government Subsidies come from).
3. Donate some of the Profit from your own line of work to the University.
Actually, all three of these choices are actually a transfer of your Profits from your own work to the University Lab, to offset the sacrifice of Profits you're asking the University to make.
Moral: If you want the Universities to sell out less, you're going to have to sell out a whole lot more. In the mean time, it's probably inappropriate to lecture them on paying the bills and generating the wealth that fuels the engine of innovation.
The thing is, NASA really needs the rovers as long as possible, so NASA engineers them the best it can with the resources we give it.
Then, when it comes time for NASA to apply for a budget to run the rovers, the agency gives a conservative estimate on the rovers' lifespan. It gives an estimate they are confident they can deliver on.
This accomplishes two things: First, it keeps the budget request relatively low, which makes it more likely that the budget request will be approved. Since there's no mission at all without the budget approval, it makes sense to give a conservative cost estimate and a low budget number.
Second, it makes it easy for NASA to deliver on what it promises. If NASA announced that the rovers could last as long as six months or more, and one of them broke early on, NASA would get no credit for making it as far as it did. Rather, you and thousands of other asshats like you--including several asshats who have some direct authority over NASA's budget--would excoriate the agency for falling short of its goals.
Better to engineer the best rover you can with the resources you have, and give a conservative estimate of the mission's lifespan. If it exceeds that estimate, bonus! NASA goes back to the budget authorities with a clear win under their belt, another project delivered as promised, and some solid results to show that an addtional budget allocation is justified to continue the mission past the lower time limit and towards the upper end of the lifespan estimate.
What's more, by doing the budget approvals in stages like this, it gives you and I (and the budget authorities, of course) an opportunity to judge the value of the first 90 days before committing 250 days' worth of budget to the mission.
And the best you can come up with is "those NASA assholes must have been padding their engineering estimates! Unacceptable!"
Another thing: You don't win any credits by quoting "scotty" in "tng". Consider this: NASA is a government agency. It has to deal with politics, bureaucracy, and the human error that attends on every complex undertaking since the dawn of time. You yourself can't spell, punctuate or use basic grammar with any consistency. Yet you presume to criticize the methods NASA must use to achieve great feats of engineering and exploration. What is wrong with you?
Rover breaks an axle. A new axle (or tools to manufacture a new axle, or parts to assemble a new axle) is put on a second rover, and sent after the first rover. Second rover involves more moving parts, and more risk of component failure during trip. Meanwhile, passengers on first rover are stranded far from base.
Base breaks an axle. A new axle is removed from supply cabinet, installed. Meanwhile, passengers on base have dinner.
The second scenario seems much more safe and success-prone than the first. Not to mention that you don't have to keep a spare rover around to send after the first. The spare rover's payload budget could be spent on additonal spare parts and tools for the base, additional consumables, additional experiments, additional shielding, or some combination of the above.
If you're really hung up on the eggs:baskets thing, perhaps redundant mobile bases of optimal size, operating within support range of each other, would ease your mind.
Separating the operations element (rover and rover crew) from the support element (base and base crew) may not be the safest way to conduct operations in a harsh environment like the Moon's surface. Keeping ops and support as close together as possible would tend to minimize the hazards associated with the mission. Shorter lifeline==less risk. What could be shorter than moving the entire support element on site with the operations element?
FYI, that's not a highway, it's the roadway between the shuttle prep facility (a large hangar) and the shuttle launch facility. Both facilities are on the grounds of the spaceport. The transport never uses roadways accessible to the public. This particular roadway was purpose-built as a solid, durable surface for the transport to move over, between the two facilities.
It is, in fact, the most practical system NASA was able to come up with.
I defy you to propose a more practical one.
It seems to me that the problem being worked is this:
The rover gets into trouble.
To solve this problem, the base has to carve off some resources, put them on a second rover, and send them off to rescue or repair the first rover.
This solution leaves the base with less resources, and also leaves each rover with less than the total resources available to the mission as a whole.
Therefore, it is argued, let the whole base, with all the resources available to the mission, bring all those resources to bear on whatever problem faces the mission.
Clearly, since the base can carry more resources, it can solve more problems than any rover. If the base encounters a problem that it cannot solve, then it is no worse off than the rover would have been. For all problems less than "cannot be solved by the entire base", the base is much better off than the rover could hope to be.
The logical extreme would be to bring the entire Earth to the Moon, but that's beyond our capability. However, the principle is sound, and from the principle an optimal base size and resource load can be determined.
The author of this solution obviously believes that the principle demands a base size and resource load somewhat larger than "moon buggy".
It all seems straightforward enough to me.
I knew there was a good answer somewhere! Looking back over the parent post, I can see how it might be interpreted to mean what you have said here.
You, have put it quite clearly. It all makes a lot more sense to me now.
Thank you.
You make a very good point here, and I'm well aware of it. However, the parent poster does not make this point at all.
Rather, the parent poster makes the point that he hates the company he works for, and wishes it ill. My question is, if he hates the company and wishes it ill, why is he working there? And if he has some compelling reason to work there, why is he undermining that reason by wishing the company ill?
While the company's bank account stands exactly where it did before, it has taken a serious hit to its bottom line, by listing the options as negative dollar amounts in its ledgers.
Which company has a more appealing and reassuring financial picture? The one that lists "Profit = Income - (lease + debt repayment + payroll + benefits + utilities)"? Or the one that lists Profit = Income - (lease + debt repayment + payroll + benefits + utilities + options)"?
Adopting legislation that makes the company's financial situation appear worse is not in the company's best interest. There may be principled reasons to suppor the legislation anyway, but the parent poster never brought these up, and they're not really relevant here.
Not at all; simply that last quarter, stock options weren't counted as a cost of doing business. Next quarter they are, and the cost of doing business appears to go up dramatically. This changes things a lot for the company in question--especially if their financial picture was shaky already.
I happily agree that this legislation is probably in the best interests of investors, who should be entitled to a complete and accurate financial picture. Assuming that listing stock options as an expense really does make for a more complete and accurate picture, of course. And I'll even stipulate that, too.
But all that is irrelevant to this particular thread. Why do you insist on changing the subject to whether or not the legislation is a good thing, from whether or not the parent poster is right to wish his employer ill, and act against his employer, in spite of his own compelling interest in keeping his job with that employer?
Don't get me wrong: yours is a good and interesting subject. It's just not this subject, though. If you keep this up, I'll have to resort to ad hominem attacks about the MTV generation, short attention spans, and an inability to focus on the topic at hand.
We're not talking about the options themselves. We're talking about how those options are recorded in the financial picture of the company. If they're recorded as expenses, the company suddenly appears to have a lot less money. This is bad news to lenders, creditors, and investors; therefore, it is bad news for the company.
The top executives might very well come out millions of dollars ahead no matter what, but the company itself stands or falls by things such as this.
And the parent poster stands or falls with the company.
Given that he hates the company but works there anyway, I firmly believe that he has some compelling interest to see the company stand, not fall. Therefore, his position on this legislation, absent any moral or ethical principle, seems to run contrary to his best interests and the sacrifices of pride and principle he has already made, by choosing to remain an employee at this company.
Please re-read the part of my post that you quoted.
I'm talking about the financial situation of the company, and how expensing options--whether they're worth something or not, and whether they belong to employees or executives--makes the financial situation of the company itself look worse than before.
My argument is that supporting legislation that is detrimental to your employer (and making the financial situation of a company look worse is definitely detrimental) is only justified in two cases: when you desire to sabotage your employer, or when you have some strong moral or ethical princple that favors the legislation.
Since the parent poster hates his employer so much, I guessed that he has some compelling reason (probably because there aren't any other jobs to be had) to work there anyway. Since he has such a compelling reason to work there, it would be counter-productive for him to sabotage his employer, or otherwise wish them ill. Any ill that befalls his employer befalls him as well.
Likewise, I ruled out a principled support of the legislation because I detected no indication of such principles in the parent post.
Obviously, the new legislation would be detrimental to the company, otherwise the company wouldn't oppose it so strongly.
If the options suddenly appear as expenses on the company's books, then the company's overall financial situation takes a sudden dive. This is never good. Investors, lenders, creditors: nobody will read this as a good sign, and the company will be much shakier next quarter than it was last quarter.
It has nothing to do with where the money is, but what the financial picture looks like. The new regulation would make the financial picture look worse. A lot worse. That's not a desireable effect, for the company.
It doesn't even have anything to do with right or wrong, for the purposes of this discussion. If the company was concerned with doing right, they'd probably expense their options voluntarily. But that's not the company's concern. The company's concern is with staying in business. That becomes less likely if they expense their options.
If the parent poster were making some principled stand, such as saying that he believes that expensing options is a good thing, and he won't oppose it even to save the company he depends on to buy groceries and pay the rent, then I'd say it was abotu right and wrong.
But that's obviously not what's going on here.
I'm not suggesting that he has any obligations, except to himself. What compelling reason does he have, to work at a company he despises, that is not also a compelling reason to support that company and further its well-being? If the company goes under because he refused to support it politically, doesn't that render worthless the sacrifice he has already made to his pride and principles by working there in the first place? He's already sold his soul to this company. Why refuse to get his money's worth, so to speak?
I'm guessing that if your company expensed the options, it would make their financial situation significantly worse.
I'm guessing further that if the stock options are expensed, the "possible layoffs" will become "definite layoffs".
I'm guessing still further that the reason your company is spamming you to oppose option expensing isn't so much because they care about preserving your job, but because they care about preserving the company itself (and all the jobs in it).
I'm guessing still further that you took a gamble when you accepted options as compensation, probably because it seemed like a good idea (or the lesser of two evils) at the time, and that you're complaining overmuch now that your gamble hasn't paid off.
I'm guessing that you're definitely complaining overmuch, considering as how you haven't left the company in spite of how much you claim to hate them.
And it's the last one that really bugs me. I figure, you must have some compelling reason to stick with this company, even though they took all your hard work and failed to turn it into a strong, profitable business plan.
If you insist on working at this company, then shouldn't you also insist on doing whatever you can to prevent the company from laying you off and/or going out of business?
What do you gain by working there, that you would not gain more of by opposing option expensing?
Make up your fucking mind: either support the company you work for, or quit. Staying on the payroll while working through acts of commission and omission to undermine and weaken the company is both immoral and just plain stupid.
Or are you one of those "any job worth doing is worth doing badly" people?
A government will use whatever tools are available to do whatever it is that that government is into doing.
People get excited about tools because tools are exciting.
I don't see very many people running around saying too bad we invented cars, because now the government can use cars to oppress people!
It's not the lack of robots that's keeping you safe from your own government, and robots won't make your government any more dangerous to you than it is right now.
You argue that Israel was never at risk because their military was stronger than their neighbors' military.
Would Israel still have been safe if their military was weaker than their neighbors'?
You say that Israel used overwhelming force to end a conflict as quickly and decisively as possible... as if that's a bad thing.
Would it have been better for Israel to commit no more than 80,000 troops, and limit their tech usage to the obosolete tech level of their opponents?
Did you allow for the possibility that Israel has such a large army because their neighbors insist on massing whatever troops they have on Israel's borders, along with the best weapons technology they can muster?
Did you allow for the possibility that the only hope Israel has of winning a war of agression is to apply overwhelming force immmediately? That perhaps that's why Israel maintains such a large and advanced military?
That Egypt, Syria, et al were unwilling or unable to follow up with a counterattack is hardly an indictment of Israel. Rather, it indicates that Israel struck at the right moment, before the forces massing on its borders were in a position to achieve the victory they sought.
The Geneva convention is opt-in, and applies only to signatories who abide by its rules. Like all other "international law", it is only worth the enforcement that underwrites it. In the case of the Geneva Convention, enforcement comes in the form of "tit for tat"--if you violate the rules, then your enemy is free to also violate the rules. In fact, the retaliation is not against the rules at all.
According to the Geneva Convention, the first entity to use biological weapons is in violation. The second entity is in total compliance when it retaliates with biological weapons of its own.
Before we discuss this further, though, it might be interesting to know which of the parties involved were signatories of the Geneva Convention at the time.
As for the rest of "international law", it is essentially meaningless without enforcement. Israel was bound only by its treaties, and by the ability and willingness of other entities to police Israel (and its neighbors) effectively. Absent a higher power with legitimate authority to dictate policy to nation-states, and with enough force of arms and force of will to enforce that policy, whatever Israel has done may be "unfair" in your opinion, but it cannot be "illegal".
There are many veterans who stand by John Kerry's Vietnam record and support his anti-war sentiments. But there are just as many veterans who repudiate his record and denounce his anti-war sentiments. It never occurred to me that all Israeli generals would think--then or now--that the 1967 war was a good idea. It also never occurred to me that if a general opposed the war, it must therefore have been a bad idea. What about all the generals who supported the war? Do their opinions not count?
Illegal according to who?
Also, regarding the debate you allude to, I figure the agressors had maybe two options: Either a limited conflict, or a total conflict.
If their intention was the latter, then Israel was certainly fighting a war against annihilation.
If their intention was the former, then either the invaders would have had to make their invasion permanent, running into exactly the "illegal" problem you're hung up on in the first place, or else they would've had to retreat.
If they were to retreat, why bother invading in the first place?
And anyway, when you start a war, you pretty much forfeit everything you have, until the war is over. A forceful invasion sends a clear signal that you will subject all of your possessions and territories to the rule of the strongest force.
If your enemy counterattacks and takes some of your territory from you, you have nobody to blame but yourself. If you didn't want to risk losing it, you shouldn't have announced to the world that it was up for grabs and then given your neighbor an excuse to grab it.
First, you explain the basic premise of SETI as if nobody here knows what it is. Here's a memo you might not have gotten yet: Slashdot understands SETI. Try transmitting your breaking newsflash to 1999, where it might add something new to the discussion.
Second, and speaking of years now long past, everybody who was going to care about the redundant data blocks "lie" has already moved on. Nobody besides you really cares anymore.
Third, you're painfully unaware of the ugly irony in taking umbrage in SETI's lies, while simultaneously pimping out a lie of a whole other caliber.
Way to go, dude. On my ass's next birthday, we'll be sure to look to you to provide the festive headgear.
If there's all that coverup, how come you know so much about it?
Seriously, how is this over the top, Darwin-wise?
So if every single Saturn built had made it into orbit, would you have considered the Apollo project a gaint success of human exploration?
So not all the Saturns got launched. I feel sad for this particular rocket, since its sole purpose in life was never realized, but the project itself was still successful--giantly so!
And even this sad, unfulfilled engine of discovery can still find a purpose: to remain here on Earth, to stand as a monument to human exploration, and inspire in all who visit the sense of greatness appropriate to the endeavor it represents.
But you know, hey, feel free to be bummed out about the whole thing, if that's what turns you on.
It's actually a little more complex than that.
Riemann was investigating the distribution of prime numbers. Along the way he devised (discovered?) the Zeta Function, which describes with considerable accuracy the distribution of prime numbers. While working with the Zeta Function, he discovered an interesting property: It appeared that all the non-trivial zeroes of the function had a real part of one-half. However, since this property of the function was not related to the prime-distribution work he was doing, he did not bother to prove this apparent property, which came to be known as the "Riemann Hypothesis" (presumably, once it is proven it will be known as the Riemann Theorem, or some such).
Thus, the Riemann Hypothesis is in fact tangential to (and possibly unrelated to) the distribution of prime numbers. Riemann's notes on the Zeta Function, regarding his work on prime distribution, are pretty explicit about this.
Or would you argue that things like, say, the Internet are awsome for the White Man, but suck for the Red Man?
Methinks you didn't understand the movie at all.
That's because they're enemy combatants, not criminals. The point of detaining enemy combatants is to keep them out of combat until the combat is over. They don't get hearings, trials, or whatever. They just get to sit out the rest of the war in the penalty box. Then they get to go home. Obviously, there's lots of room for refinements of this principle, and many such refinements have been made over the years, but the basic principle is still the same: They're enemy combatants, not criminal suspects. It has to do with the difference between "army" and "police", along with a lot of other things. Step back, take a deep breath and look at it again. Maybe then you'll see that the fact that our Supreme Court is reviewing the situation and ruling in favor of granting more than the customary privileges to these POWs is a testament to this nation's generosity and commitment to humane behavior.
And let's not forget that the character that uttered those words had descended into a dark pit of madness and despair. His mindset was such that he had renounced his oaths and allegiances, set himself up as a god-king for a savage tribe (and set up the savage tribe itself through demagoguery and brainwashing), and indulged in bloody, dehumanizing rituals of degradation and murder.
Faced with the horror of the fanatic, Brando's character loses his nerve, and descends into madness. Martin Sheen's character, who had undoubtedly committed many atrocious acts himself, when faced with the same insane fanaticism (in the form of Kurtz himself, this time), yet manages to retain his sanity, and his humanity.
But now I'm rambling. The point is, Brando's character in Apocalypse Now is hardly a good source of military wisdom. It's clear that he was once a leader in this field, but by the time Sheen finds him, that is obviously no longer the case.
I'd say that whatever Kurtz says in that movie, do the opposite, but I'm not quite sure what the opposite of being a snail on a razor's edge would look like. So I'll just stop here.