A better solution then counting hours wasted is for companies to establish incentives that make people want to work. For instance, create relatively small entreprenurial organizations within the company. This allows for both performers and non-performers to be visible. The performers then get CEO type incentives -- stock options, stock grants . CEOs, while not popular on slashdot, tend to work long hours and also focus on the company rather then the keeping under the radar mentality that seems to pervade a lot of workers. Result, both workers and company do well.
It is expected that there will be hardware-only solutions to watch movies on your computer (as using software solutions entails a very substantial financial risk if anything goes wrong - Microsoft has said they wouldn't take the risk with Windows XP). The high-def player will connect directly to your HDMI-based graphic card which will in turn connect to the HDCP-capable monitor.
Depends how you measure contrast, 30,000 to 1 is the off-on-contrast. The ANSI contrast of CRT projectors is usually quite bad compared to top of the line digital projector (say the Sony Qualia). Digital projectors also win easily for brightness, although the black level of good CRT projectors rocks.
Neither one is a clear winner, although this may change when Blu-ray and HD-DVD come out as both are widely assumed not to support HD component output (CRT projectors can't legally use HDMI sources although there are ways around this).
Actually, it wasn't marketing superiority. It was the fact that Gates decided that he'd ignore the law, rake in the money, and pay a relatively small amount of that money back in fines, judgements, and settlements.
Of course, if the company was doing something useful then other companies in the industry and/or startups will take the company's place, leading to make for of a meritocracy. The airline industry, btw, gets bailouts as a result of giving money to Congress.
In a lot of cases, people are poor because of bad choices. That's not a bad thing. The hypothetical guy making $25,000 a year for example has kids to support. Everything depends on the specifics and on his priorities, but it's quite arguable that his judgement in having kids was poor.
I'd much rather do that then make a government-created monopoly. I think the correct solution is to let companies that want to compete do so. Some will wire redundantly and others will promote on-site solutions like solar power. Customers can pick the very best solution for them.
Just wait a little longer and you'll be able to get an HDTV card that supports CableCard. Support for this is mandated by July 1st. Then you'll no longer need the cable box, just rent the card for a few bucks a month and you'll be able to watch all cable channels encrypted or not.
The days of having to use inferior boxes from the cable companies are almost over.
Sounds good, but I for one have never seen a sysadmin fired for incompetence. Their managers usually like the visibility that a security vulnerability brings, because they can lobby for more money to fight against future vulnerabilities. Few companies critically judge their IT employees, which is why MSCEs are able to get jobs and why shifting everything to India sounds like such a good idea.
I don't think we should tax them to keep jobs in America. I think we should (a) fix compensation such that it is focused on long term success, not short term gains. (b) add tariffs to compensate for apples to oranges transfers (i.e. if one level of healthcare is required for employees in the US and a different level required in India then sufficient tarrifs to eliminate this factor is required). This will limit the effect of government mandates. (c) Countries that require knowledge transfers in exchange for doing other business in those countries should be illegal to do business with.
They aren't deregulated now so how do you draw the conclusion that has what caused a few companies to dominate? I'd argue the opposite point that those companies control the FCC and the FCC is making regulations that have helped these companies increase their dominance.
Face it, the FCC isn't going to improve. Government has shown repeatedly that it is, in general, corrupt and incompetent, so it's just not a realistic expectation. Abolishment has it's downsides, but better nothing then what is now.
I'd imagine that the complex stuff Google is doing requires a substantial coming up to speed for all employees working on it irrespective of their degrees. After all, Google isn't specifing highly specific Ph.D.s they want, but rather just likes Ph.D.s in general.
I'd say the biggest plus of hiring Ph.D.s is that Google has a quantifiable analysis of how "smart" that employee is. It's unfortunately much better then a good recommendation from the prospective employee's previous boss, especially these days when the lawyers won't let managers say anything bad about past employees less they get sued. And, a person's position with a company often has as much to do with how good a politician they are as how good an employee they are. All of this causes major problems for companies looking to hire smart people.
Hiring smart employees is I think Google's major desire, and one I heartily approve of.
This usually works well. Note however that your single co-workers have lives outside of work too that are, to them, generally just as important as going home to see your family is to you. Respect this and you'll be good.
As a for instance, if your boss needs you to work late, don't say "Bob doesn't have any kids, ask him instead."
Requiring examiners to be experts in the field seem to be pretty reasonable requirement. Giving out patents is something to be treated seriously. It may cost a bit more upfront, but companies will save as there will be fewer lawsuits as approved patents will be much more likely to be the genuine article.
Call me crazy (it's been done before) but I'm not sure that happiness is all that great a goal. As a test, if someone offered you a happy drug that would make you deliriously happy the rest of your life would you take it?
Problem is politicians would have easy access to scanning devices. They are as you say "insiders" and election officials work for them. So soon, people would be selling their votes. Admittedly, both sides would be buying them so nothing would really change, but still not a good idea.
VoIP isn't yet as good a 911 provider as the existing telephone system, so there may be some users who suffer for this until it improves. On the other hand, it's highly probable that the sizeable sum that each VoIP user saves a year can be used, if the user so desires, to pay for a complete alarm system for their home.
Those regulations are there largely to make competition against the entrenched players difficult. I'd be all for removing the regulations against PSTN, but applying the same rules to VoIP companies would help no one except the existing entrenched players which means the regulations are bad for consumers and bad for business.
I'm thinking before too long, ISPs will try to force one too many onerous terms and people will respond by dropping their ISPs and freeing their wireless hubs forming a decentralized network. This will be the real Internet2.
When insurance companies won't cover nanotech entrepeneurs' products then, in the US's highly litigious environment, these products are simply not going to be sold (or even invented). Not the insurance companies' fault to be sure, but something that needs to be considered.
They could also study how many lives will be saved by nanotechnology, but being an insurance company this is not their focus. If nanotechnology saves 1000 lives and kills one, the insurance company's problem is still the millions of dollars they'll need to pay out in lawsuits.
Surprise, surprise, teacher salaries is the problem. Who would have guessed that that is a teachers answer to the problem.
That said, I'm happy to pay teachers who are worth it more (even a lot more), but that means metrics and "performance-based salaries". Metrics can handle students with disabilities and grade inflation btw (we're not talking about pay based on how many As you hand out).
As for voucher, they don't work everywhere, you're right, but in a lot of areas they do work both by getting kids out of bad schools and, to a lesser extent, getting those bad schools to clean up there acts. Shouldn't we get as many kids out of bad schools as possible? That seems logical.:)
Especially as efforts to clean up bad schools have a generally poor record, since firing bad teachers isn't favoured by the union.
Slashdot Mirror
A better solution then counting hours wasted is for companies to establish incentives that make people want to work. For instance, create relatively small entreprenurial organizations within the company. This allows for both performers and non-performers to be visible. The performers then get CEO type incentives -- stock options, stock grants . CEOs, while not popular on slashdot, tend to work long hours and also focus on the company rather then the keeping under the radar mentality that seems to pervade a lot of workers. Result, both workers and company do well.
It is expected that there will be hardware-only solutions to watch movies on your computer (as using software solutions entails a very substantial financial risk if anything goes wrong - Microsoft has said they wouldn't take the risk with Windows XP). The high-def player will connect directly to your HDMI-based graphic card which will in turn connect to the HDCP-capable monitor.
Depends how you measure contrast, 30,000 to 1 is the off-on-contrast. The ANSI contrast of CRT projectors is usually quite bad compared to top of the line digital projector (say the Sony Qualia). Digital projectors also win easily for brightness, although the black level of good CRT projectors rocks.
Neither one is a clear winner, although this may change when Blu-ray and HD-DVD come out as both are widely assumed not to support HD component output (CRT projectors can't legally use HDMI sources although there are ways around this).
Actually, it wasn't marketing superiority. It was the fact that Gates decided that he'd ignore the law, rake in the money, and pay a relatively small amount of that money back in fines, judgements, and settlements.
It might help if you'd say what you're going to doing about it. Actions speak louder then words.
Of course, if the company was doing something useful then other companies in the industry and/or startups will take the company's place, leading to make for of a meritocracy. The airline industry, btw, gets bailouts as a result of giving money to Congress.
In a lot of cases, people are poor because of bad choices. That's not a bad thing. The hypothetical guy making $25,000 a year for example has kids to support. Everything depends on the specifics and on his priorities, but it's quite arguable that his judgement in having kids was poor.
Do I want to wire california redundantly?
I'd much rather do that then make a government-created monopoly. I think the correct solution is to let companies that want to compete do so. Some will wire redundantly and others will promote on-site solutions like solar power. Customers can pick the very best solution for them.
Well it wouldn't be very hard if the US legal system wasn't broken. Unfortunately it is.
Just wait a little longer and you'll be able to get an HDTV card that supports CableCard. Support for this is mandated by July 1st. Then you'll no longer need the cable box, just rent the card for a few bucks a month and you'll be able to watch all cable channels encrypted or not.
The days of having to use inferior boxes from the cable companies are almost over.
Sounds good, but I for one have never seen a sysadmin fired for incompetence. Their managers usually like the visibility that a security vulnerability brings, because they can lobby for more money to fight against future vulnerabilities. Few companies critically judge their IT employees, which is why MSCEs are able to get jobs and why shifting everything to India sounds like such a good idea.
I don't think we should tax them to keep jobs in America. I think we should
(a) fix compensation such that it is focused on long term success, not short term gains.
(b) add tariffs to compensate for apples to oranges transfers (i.e. if one level of healthcare is required for employees in the US and a different level required in India then sufficient tarrifs to eliminate this factor is required). This will limit the effect of government mandates.
(c) Countries that require knowledge transfers in exchange for doing other business in those countries should be illegal to do business with.
They aren't deregulated now so how do you draw the conclusion that has what caused a few companies to dominate? I'd argue the opposite point that those companies control the FCC and the FCC is making regulations that have helped these companies increase their dominance.
Face it, the FCC isn't going to improve. Government has shown repeatedly that it is, in general, corrupt and incompetent, so it's just not a realistic expectation. Abolishment has it's downsides, but better nothing then what is now.
I'd imagine that the complex stuff Google is doing requires a substantial coming up to speed for all employees working on it irrespective of their degrees. After all, Google isn't specifing highly specific Ph.D.s they want, but rather just likes Ph.D.s in general.
I'd say the biggest plus of hiring Ph.D.s is that Google has a quantifiable analysis of how "smart" that employee is. It's unfortunately much better then a good recommendation from the prospective employee's previous boss, especially these days when the lawyers won't let managers say anything bad about past employees less they get sued. And, a person's position with a company often has as much to do with how good a politician they are as how good an employee they are. All of this causes major problems for companies looking to hire smart people.
Hiring smart employees is I think Google's major desire, and one I heartily approve of.
This usually works well. Note however that your single co-workers have lives outside of work too that are, to them, generally just as important as going home to see your family is to you. Respect this and you'll be good.
As a for instance, if your boss needs you to work late, don't say "Bob doesn't have any kids, ask him instead."
Requiring examiners to be experts in the field seem to be pretty reasonable requirement. Giving out patents is something to be treated seriously. It may cost a bit more upfront, but companies will save as there will be fewer lawsuits as approved patents will be much more likely to be the genuine article.
Call me crazy (it's been done before) but I'm not sure that happiness is all that great a goal. As a test, if someone offered you a happy drug that would make you deliriously happy the rest of your life would you take it?
I wouldn't.
Problem is politicians would have easy access to scanning devices. They are as you say "insiders" and election officials work for them. So soon, people would be selling their votes. Admittedly, both sides would be buying them so nothing would really change, but still not a good idea.
Won't happen as the government isn't the least bit interested in our opinions(although they want to seem interested).
Let's do some risk/reward analysis.
VoIP isn't yet as good a 911 provider as the existing telephone system, so there may be some users who suffer for this until it improves. On the other hand, it's highly probable that the sizeable sum that each VoIP user saves a year can be used, if the user so desires, to pay for a complete alarm system for their home.
Those regulations are there largely to make competition against the entrenched players difficult. I'd be all for removing the regulations against PSTN, but applying the same rules to VoIP companies would help no one except the existing entrenched players which means the regulations are bad for consumers and bad for business.
I'm thinking before too long, ISPs will try to force one too many onerous terms and people will respond by dropping their ISPs and freeing their wireless hubs forming a decentralized network. This will be the real Internet2.
When insurance companies won't cover nanotech entrepeneurs' products then, in the US's highly litigious environment, these products are simply not going to be sold (or even invented). Not the insurance companies' fault to be sure, but something that needs to be considered.
They could also study how many lives will be saved by nanotechnology, but being an insurance company this is not their focus. If nanotechnology saves 1000 lives and kills one, the insurance company's problem is still the millions of dollars they'll need to pay out in lawsuits.
Surprise, surprise, teacher salaries is the problem. Who would have guessed that that is a teachers answer to the problem.
:)
That said, I'm happy to pay teachers who are worth it more (even a lot more), but that means metrics and "performance-based salaries". Metrics can handle students with disabilities and grade inflation btw (we're not talking about pay based on how many As you hand out).
As for voucher, they don't work everywhere, you're right, but in a lot of areas they do work both by getting kids out of bad schools and, to a lesser extent, getting those bad schools to clean up there acts. Shouldn't we get as many kids out of bad schools as possible? That seems logical.
Especially as efforts to clean up bad schools have a generally poor record, since firing bad teachers isn't favoured by the union.