My son said to me one day that he didn't want to grow up and work in a cubicle because all of those people have dull and boring jobs and just work 'for the man'. I laughed it off at first, then started realizing I have worked at a desk or cubicle for all of my 28 years of working. Yet I never found it dull and boring all the time. Sure, there were days when I was working as a project manager and just wanted to kill someone. But for the most part, I have always enjoyed my job.
I started out as a lowly office clerk filling out order and estimation sheets. I remember I used to see how many I could do an hour as a challenge to myself. There were always people around me to talk to for breaks and we would go out after work once or twice a week for dinner and drinks. Not a fulfilling job, but I only did it for a few years before I learned how to run Burroughs computers and then program.
As I started into computers, I developed new friends and found new ways to challenge myself by learning new skills as they were needed. And I loved my job more. Even the periods working 80 hour weeks to do bank conversions had their challenges.
I remember spending a month literally taking meeting minutes for technically meetings (I had been farmed out to one of our investors when our company was having trouble making ends meet.) They asked me if I was overqualified for what I was doing. I simply laughed and said if their company wanted to pay my company $100/hour for me to take minutes, they would be the best god-damned meeting minutes they ever had. I never resented it, I just did my job the best way I knew how.
Of course I complain and want to be paid more money for less effort. Whenever I don't like something, I tell my boss so he won't be surprised if I leave. It's not fair to your boss to not let them know about the things you don't like and at least give them a chance to change them. I'll never be like one of my cube-mates who complained about not having a 21" monitor. When I suggested he ask for one, he said he would probably never get one so why bother. Don't complain to me about something you won't do anything about.
If you choose to sit there and whine and be bored, not learn new things, and not post something on Monster.com, you deserve exactly what you are getting, so stop whining to me. If you are making attempts to improve your job, we can sit and whine in our beer together (in a manly way, not Brokeback Mountain way.)
Does function drive design, or should design drive function?? The 'modern' PC appears to be made the way it is for functionality purposes. The internal bus structure is faster than the external buses, so fast stuff goes there such as memory, video cards and disk drives. The external stuff aren't as fast, so long runs of cables are allowed.
I don't want my memory or video card sitting a couple of feet away from the CPU, with signals bouncing across several interconnects. The amount of noise in the system that will have to be overcome will surely result in decreased performance from current designs.
I don't want a computer that is designed around DRM instead of speed. DRM is not being requested by the masses, and results in pissed off customers. I want faster and better, not slower and less function. I want to be able to copy any DVD/CD to my hard drive so I can put my media on a shelf and never touch it again because the media is too fragile. I want to be able to copy it to my car/phone/media player so I can listen to it anywhere without buying more than one copy. Just like being able to carry a book anywhere and read it, I want to be able to take my music or video anywhere and enjoy it.
Any computer or system that doesn't provide the above, and CDs/DVDs that won't run unless used on an approved DRM device will not be purchased by me. Or if accidentally purchased, will be returned.
If they have come up with a fiber interconnect that the average Joe User can manage. Now that would be a great design idea.
Thank you for such a wonderful, literate reply. I'll be sure to check out your other postings, I'm sure they are also masterpieces of intelligent, thought provoking prose that easily miss the point of the original poster.
My buddies were shooting at a bird on a telphone post with a BB gun. After about 15 or 20 minutes of them missing, I took the gun, fired one shot, hit the bird (well, think I did as there was a spray of feathers and the bird flew away) and handed the gun back.
It's not different, all jokes are funny. Some people have a lopsided sense of humor, or an over-developed sense that their opinions somehow matter to the joke-teller. They fail to realize that if the joke teller found the joke offensive, it wouldn't have been told in the first place.
My 20 year old Toshiba VCR is looking better and better every day. I have yet to find anything it could not record when using the analog video/audio jack feeds....
We currently have applications like iTunes and MusicMatch that enable us to hide the details of where our files are in the file system, and present them in a means other than sorting by name/date/size. And that in the future we will have more. These applications no longer require the user to be intimate with the hierarchical structure of a file system;
Wow... thanks... really appreciate the heads up.
It's funny that these same apps usually use a hierarchical approach to display the data back. The two music ripping apps I use store the data under directories that have chosen because I have specific drives where I store 'data', and then stores them by in artists and album directories.
So all that is really done is provided a means to resort data by tags and edit those tags. I think the author should have gone the next step and suggested that maybe the standard file browser should provide for the ability to add plug ins to display certain directory and file types.
Now THAT would be revolutionary!!! Opps, forgot that Firefox (and other browsers and graphic tools and music players) already support those also.
My Honda 750 weighs in at a measly 460lbs and gets 57mpg. It only cost $6,500 new, the insurance is less, is probably less damaging to the highway systems, and is a hell of a lot more fun than a Toyoto. Since the MAJORITY of cars I see on the highway only have one person in them, it seems like a mass conversion to motorcycles in many areas would impact the environment with less economic impact far more than Prius. Living in Maine for 20 years, and now Phoenix, it is possible in most areas of the country to ride a motorcycle at least 6 months out of the year.
To all the 'get a bicycle, it's even better for you', I don't plan on riding 90 minutes one way to work. In 108 degree heat 4 months out of the year and carrying 2 gallons of water with me. My motorcycle is the comprimise I'm willing to make. (Yes... I ride my motorcycle in 108+ heat, wearing a helmet and leather/nylon mesh jacket. It's actually cooler with the jacket in that heat than without it, I think it acts as an insulator in that level of heat. Just don't wait at a stop light for more than a couple of minutes, it's a killer.)
First thoughts are dtrace, QOS partitioning, and being able to reduce processes running as root to almost nothing. Excellent lights-out-management services built in (no add-on cards needed) makes remote maintenance wicked simple.
Add onto that one-call support for a down machine, I don't have to worry about whether it is an OS issue or a hardware issue, I just call Sun.
The fact that the FBI has documentation showing that these acts were being investigated indicates to me that these items were either accidental or rogue acts, not general policy.
How many of you have failed to file status reports? If this is the worst that comes out of this 'investigation', I have no worries about the FBI. A few people did some work outside the expiration of a search warrant?? OH MY GOD, the sky is falling down and chicken little has spoken yet again on/.
The worst part in the whole article is the last paragraph, where it states:
The documents, EPIC writes, "suggest that there may be at least thirteen instances of unlawful intelligence investigations that were never disclosed to Congress."
Wow... 13 huh. Better get those tinfoil hats on now, the odds of you being number 14 are pretty... infinitesimal.
Yep...when I was young I ate a lot of beans (beans made in a bean pot to save money) with fatback cut up in it for flavor. My mother used to make 'potato soup', which was soup made from potatoes, a little milk, and flour. I never knew until I became an adult what salads were really like; I thought they were just lettuce with vinegar/oil dressing. We used to have beef and noodles for dinner. Guess what it was?? That's right, the cheapest cut of beef cooked for hours to try and make it tender and some noodles and mashed potatos. Lucky for us we lived in the corn belt and could buy corn very cheaply, cook it, and can/freeze it. I ate a lot of potatos and corn growing up. A lot of milk, but hardly any soda. We grew a lot of tomatos and cucumbers in a little garden.
When I grew up and got stupid and moved out (by then my parents were doing OK), I had many periods where my paychecks didn't cover my bills (mostly because I was stupid). I got by remembering how to eat very, very cheaply. It's amazing how much of a paycheck can go to food when they don't spend wisely. Or the cable bill, or the telephone bill, or the car, or other things that I have gone without many times because I couldn't afford them.
When I see people on food stamps buying potato chips and soda and frozen pizza, I see them spending my money. I wish I could teach them how to make each dollar go as far as it can AND eat better. I get tired of the 'they are people, the deserve special treats.' Bull shit...when they can afford to buy their own frozen pizza with their own money, then they can have it. The sad part is, the people that can manage their budget are often too proud to ask for help, just like my parents.
Now I make over $100K a year and eat whatever I want (and have the waistline to prove it.) It took me 40 years to get that far, I don't accept that other people can't travel that same road with minimal handouts from the government.
I don't see anything wrong with current deficits (when compared to historical deficits and corrected for inflation. Same with gas prices.) One look at my credit card statements will support that I don't find anything wrong with borrowing money or living on credit.
If it was up to me, many of the social welfare programs, including social security, would be cut back severely with serious restrictions. Food stamps, for example, would only be able to be used for staples (flour, sugar, produce, milk), not processed foods like frozen pizzas, candy, hamburger helper or soda. Social security would be virtually eliminated and people would have to learn how to save for retirement instead of having it forced on them. Or, maybe they might have to work all of their lives like my great-grandparents and father and mother did.
I guess I hate the 'vision' word. To often it seems to be a fancy name to 'ra-ra' the team so it can blindly follow the C*O. I prefer a CIO who says he is going to do something AND gets it done, someone who is reliable and predictable (for the most part.) If that meets your definition of vision, then I agree with you.
Any CIO worth his salt will pull together a task for to either look for better ideas than he already has (or improvements to them), or to gain consensus by having the task force look at all alternatives.
2) The CIO is an idiot and looking for "vision" from subordinates
I don't understand your comment. Any C level that is not utilizing the talents of the staff reporting to them is an idiot. Idiot CIOs are the ones that blindly follow the "I've done this for 20 years" path.
Or.. as it was referred to in Maine when I lived there for 20 years... massive-two-shits. Some people called it tax-it-two-us, but since I worked in both states at different times, it seemed both of them screwed me equally as well.
I use my store card to buy beer, books, and my prescriptions (no need for birth control, my fiancee has her tubes tied). So they already know what I buy. And I have the store coupons at checkout to show for it.
Now that I have bought this stuff, I walk into another store and they scan me and now know what I have on me. Unless I buy something, they don't know who I am (unless RFID is on my store card or credit cards). It would require massive cooperation to do something as dramatic as track an individual can of beer.
Since I don't take any of these itemsto work, it would be very difficult for my employer or insurer to find out about them unless they came into my home for a scan. I had to submit to a blood test for both work and health insurance, so I can see how a scan could become part of an employement contract, but again RFID doesn't add anything to it that isn't already there.
It is also very doubtful that each can of beer will have a unique number. It is more likely that the same method used today for UPC codes will be used.. all Bud Lights that are part of the 'Drink early and often' promo will have the same codes. Or maybe the batch just for Safeway will have the same number. The same for books, etc. There is very little value for a store to have unique serial numbers on each product, as they would have to store each serial number and track them. It's far easier to track 'I have 1200 bottles of bud with UPC/RFID code xyz' than to track 1200 unique codes. With margins what they are in supermarkets, I doubt they would track every item without some type of incentive.
So that leaves the garbage truck scanner to scan and record each house. Possible, but then again so is it possible for them to take my garbage (without a warrant once I've set it out on the street) and go through it to find these things out. It's far cheaper to study garbage when you need it than to store the accumulated inventory of a couple hundred million households on a weekly basis. It is doubtful that anything but legal items will have RDIF tags in them, so again I can't see any reason for a mass scanning project.
Consider this. I have told my mother a couple of hundred times to not send me urban legends, but to check snopes.com first. Guess how many 'send this email to everyone you know' emails I get a month?? At least one.
My brother continues to buy 'deals' at truck stops around the US. Watches for $5, drills for $10, etc and he is still surprised that this crap doesn't work.
Education does not work for these types of schemes because the scammers know that there are many people who are just gullible or choose to wish that what the scammer is telling them is true. If they can contact 1,000 people, odds are a couple will respond and provide them enough funds to do it again tomorrow.
I'm sorry, I didn't include my gasoline receipts to backup my facts or give you the names of my friends. So sorry...
It was nice to see facts in your reply, although they are completely irrelevant to this discussion. Ok.. fuel expenses are the highest cost. And that means....what. If fuel goes up, ticket prices go up. People either pay more or fly less. If they fly less airlines cut back, this results in either bankruptcy as the remaining revenue can't cover expenses or they chew up assets *assuming* they can't remain profitable. Not all airlines will fail at the same time, so the ones that do will be bought out or their flights will be picked up by someone else. Higher prices, but hardly the death of an industry. Seems to me the auto industry, textile industries, etc., etc., all seemed to survive massive layoffs, as did the US and world economy. Maybe we'll see less US airlines and more overseas airlines where the costs to run are less (no unions, lower wages, etc.) I don't know what will happen, does your crystal ball??
Higher prices will result in lower demand in areas where demand is already high. This is a proven trend over the course of gas prices in the US, whether it be cars or airlines.
The largest increases in demand will come from the countries that the Kyoto accord affects the least, those countries with developing economies. Already, India has more middle class than the entire population of the US, and their polution standards are pitiful. Maybe the best way to curtail future emissions is to crush all new development in all of the so-called thirld world countries and don't allow them to enter the global economy.
I can almost guarantee that Pratt Whitney and the other engine manufacturers, along with Boeing and the other commercial jet builders are all working their hardest to produce airlines that use less fuel. Why?? The winner in that race MAKES ALL THE MONEY!! Wow... capitalism at it's finest. What makes you think that the government telling them to work harder or sets some goals will do any good?? It will only cause them more paperwork and more inefficiences as they race to conform to some short-sighted, politically backed goal that is already a comprimise between multiple countries.
Wow...thanks for providing a fact filled response to my display of facts (irrelevant or otherwise is left up to the reader to decide.)
My first thought was not to reply, since you didn't provide anything of substance to reply to. But this is/., so what the hell...
History has shown us that the airline industruy will not go belly up. The few that are making money will remain and their prices will go up further because of less competition. Maybe the overly paid pilots, stewards, and mechanics will see cuts in pay to keep prices lower. Or not, people don't have to fly. Competition is an amazing thing... businesses find all kinds of ways to cut costs when they have to. And if prices go up 25% AND 25% fewer people fly, well, we have a magical 25% reduction in consumption, don't we. It might cause an economic problem, but Kyoto might also. I place more faith in business and economic forces to react than I do in the government to legislate. From what I have seen of the newer airline companies, there are still many places for cuts.
If there must be legislation to reduce consumption, I prefer local legislation that makes sense for specific areas, not grandiose ideas that, if wrong, would either take years to work out or countries would just say 'Oh... we didn't really mean to sign that, sorry.' and ignore them anyway. California is an excellent example of how one state can impact emission controls across the country.
Utilities are starting to tap into other resources, nuclear is starting back onto the radar screens, and automobiles like the Prius cause long waiting lists, so there are demands for them. When the economies are right (i.e. oil becomes more and more expensive), technology that wasn't feasible (or tolerable in the case of nuclear) at $1.59 a gallon becomes feasible (or tolerable as the lights start to go out.)
You have your opinions, I have mine. They are based on some faith in some degree, so using that as an argument is irrelevant without some facts to back it up.
Or... maybe, just maybe, because gasoline gets more expensive, people will find ways to use less. Like, oh, I don't know, since my monthly gas expenses went from $120 to over $200, I went out and bought a used 750cc motorcycle for my 23 mile commute. Now I'm spending $16 every three days instead of $30 during the week. And I know of a few people at work that are now car pooling, and two others that are thinking of selling their homes and moving closer.
And to think all of this decreased consumption (almost 50% in my case) occured because the natural supply and demand drove prices up, not because of legislation.
I used maps.google.com during a recent home-buying experience, and it was very useful. It's easier to see the different residential and industrial areas for neighborhoods one is not familiar with. It's also pretty easy to spot apartment complexes, parks, golf courses, and how close a home is to a highway.
One can also compare lot sizes to get an idea of residential density, the number of homes with pools (I live in Phoenix, so pools are very common). Being able to switch easily between maps and images makes it easy to determine what that big parking lot is a part of, such as a mall or a mental health facility. Fortunately, the images for Phoenix appear to be less than a year or two old.
Some people may prefer to live next to a mental health facility, some may prefer the mall. All this info makes it easier to informed decisions about whether or not you want to live someplace before making the decision so schedule a home visit. Granted, it didn't always work out, I remember driving up to one place and telling the realtor to keep driving.
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My son said to me one day that he didn't want to grow up and work in a cubicle because all of those people have dull and boring jobs and just work 'for the man'. I laughed it off at first, then started realizing I have worked at a desk or cubicle for all of my 28 years of working. Yet I never found it dull and boring all the time. Sure, there were days when I was working as a project manager and just wanted to kill someone. But for the most part, I have always enjoyed my job.
I started out as a lowly office clerk filling out order and estimation sheets. I remember I used to see how many I could do an hour as a challenge to myself. There were always people around me to talk to for breaks and we would go out after work once or twice a week for dinner and drinks. Not a fulfilling job, but I only did it for a few years before I learned how to run Burroughs computers and then program.
As I started into computers, I developed new friends and found new ways to challenge myself by learning new skills as they were needed. And I loved my job more. Even the periods working 80 hour weeks to do bank conversions had their challenges.
I remember spending a month literally taking meeting minutes for technically meetings (I had been farmed out to one of our investors when our company was having trouble making ends meet.) They asked me if I was overqualified for what I was doing. I simply laughed and said if their company wanted to pay my company $100/hour for me to take minutes, they would be the best god-damned meeting minutes they ever had. I never resented it, I just did my job the best way I knew how.
Of course I complain and want to be paid more money for less effort. Whenever I don't like something, I tell my boss so he won't be surprised if I leave. It's not fair to your boss to not let them know about the things you don't like and at least give them a chance to change them. I'll never be like one of my cube-mates who complained about not having a 21" monitor. When I suggested he ask for one, he said he would probably never get one so why bother. Don't complain to me about something you won't do anything about.
If you choose to sit there and whine and be bored, not learn new things, and not post something on Monster.com, you deserve exactly what you are getting, so stop whining to me. If you are making attempts to improve your job, we can sit and whine in our beer together (in a manly way, not Brokeback Mountain way.)
Does function drive design, or should design drive function?? The 'modern' PC appears to be made the way it is for functionality purposes. The internal bus structure is faster than the external buses, so fast stuff goes there such as memory, video cards and disk drives. The external stuff aren't as fast, so long runs of cables are allowed.
I don't want my memory or video card sitting a couple of feet away from the CPU, with signals bouncing across several interconnects. The amount of noise in the system that will have to be overcome will surely result in decreased performance from current designs.
I don't want a computer that is designed around DRM instead of speed. DRM is not being requested by the masses, and results in pissed off customers. I want faster and better, not slower and less function. I want to be able to copy any DVD/CD to my hard drive so I can put my media on a shelf and never touch it again because the media is too fragile. I want to be able to copy it to my car/phone/media player so I can listen to it anywhere without buying more than one copy. Just like being able to carry a book anywhere and read it, I want to be able to take my music or video anywhere and enjoy it.
Any computer or system that doesn't provide the above, and CDs/DVDs that won't run unless used on an approved DRM device will not be purchased by me. Or if accidentally purchased, will be returned.
If they have come up with a fiber interconnect that the average Joe User can manage. Now that would be a great design idea.
Nice .... I added a auto-reload tab into Firefox so that it reloads this URL every 15 seconds.
Thank you for such a wonderful, literate reply. I'll be sure to check out your other postings, I'm sure they are also masterpieces of intelligent, thought provoking prose that easily miss the point of the original poster.
My buddies were shooting at a bird on a telphone post with a BB gun. After about 15 or 20 minutes of them missing, I took the gun, fired one shot, hit the bird (well, think I did as there was a spray of feathers and the bird flew away) and handed the gun back.
I never said a word.....
It's not different, all jokes are funny. Some people have a lopsided sense of humor, or an over-developed sense that their opinions somehow matter to the joke-teller. They fail to realize that if the joke teller found the joke offensive, it wouldn't have been told in the first place.
My 20 year old Toshiba VCR is looking better and better every day. I have yet to find anything it could not record when using the analog video/audio jack feeds....
We currently have applications like iTunes and MusicMatch that enable us to hide the details of where our files are in the file system, and present them in a means other than sorting by name/date/size. And that in the future we will have more. These applications no longer require the user to be intimate with the hierarchical structure of a file system;
... thanks ... really appreciate the heads up.
Wow
It's funny that these same apps usually use a hierarchical approach to display the data back. The two music ripping apps I use store the data under directories that have chosen because I have specific drives where I store 'data', and then stores them by in artists and album directories.
So all that is really done is provided a means to resort data by tags and edit those tags. I think the author should have gone the next step and suggested that maybe the standard file browser should provide for the ability to add plug ins to display certain directory and file types.
Now THAT would be revolutionary!!! Opps, forgot that Firefox (and other browsers and graphic tools and music players) already support those also.
Ok, evolutionary. Microsoft, are you listening???
My Honda 750 weighs in at a measly 460lbs and gets 57mpg. It only cost $6,500 new, the insurance is less, is probably less damaging to the highway systems, and is a hell of a lot more fun than a Toyoto. Since the MAJORITY of cars I see on the highway only have one person in them, it seems like a mass conversion to motorcycles in many areas would impact the environment with less economic impact far more than Prius. Living in Maine for 20 years, and now Phoenix, it is possible in most areas of the country to ride a motorcycle at least 6 months out of the year.
... I ride my motorcycle in 108+ heat, wearing a helmet and leather/nylon mesh jacket. It's actually cooler with the jacket in that heat than without it, I think it acts as an insulator in that level of heat. Just don't wait at a stop light for more than a couple of minutes, it's a killer.)
To all the 'get a bicycle, it's even better for you', I don't plan on riding 90 minutes one way to work. In 108 degree heat 4 months out of the year and carrying 2 gallons of water with me. My motorcycle is the comprimise I'm willing to make. (Yes
First thoughts are dtrace, QOS partitioning, and being able to reduce processes running as root to almost nothing. Excellent lights-out-management services built in (no add-on cards needed) makes remote maintenance wicked simple.
.....
Add onto that one-call support for a down machine, I don't have to worry about whether it is an OS issue or a hardware issue, I just call Sun.
They might even be able to fix it
The fact that the FBI has documentation showing that these acts were being investigated indicates to me that these items were either accidental or rogue acts, not general policy.
How many of you have failed to file status reports? If this is the worst that comes out of this 'investigation', I have no worries about the FBI. A few people did some work outside the expiration of a search warrant?? OH MY GOD, the sky is falling down and chicken little has spoken yet again on
The worst part in the whole article is the last paragraph, where it states: Wow
Yep...when I was young I ate a lot of beans (beans made in a bean pot to save money) with fatback cut up in it for flavor. My mother used to make 'potato soup', which was soup made from potatoes, a little milk, and flour. I never knew until I became an adult what salads were really like; I thought they were just lettuce with vinegar/oil dressing. We used to have beef and noodles for dinner. Guess what it was?? That's right, the cheapest cut of beef cooked for hours to try and make it tender and some noodles and mashed potatos. Lucky for us we lived in the corn belt and could buy corn very cheaply, cook it, and can/freeze it. I ate a lot of potatos and corn growing up. A lot of milk, but hardly any soda. We grew a lot of tomatos and cucumbers in a little garden.
When I grew up and got stupid and moved out (by then my parents were doing OK), I had many periods where my paychecks didn't cover my bills (mostly because I was stupid). I got by remembering how to eat very, very cheaply. It's amazing how much of a paycheck can go to food when they don't spend wisely. Or the cable bill, or the telephone bill, or the car, or other things that I have gone without many times because I couldn't afford them.
When I see people on food stamps buying potato chips and soda and frozen pizza, I see them spending my money. I wish I could teach them how to make each dollar go as far as it can AND eat better. I get tired of the 'they are people, the deserve special treats.' Bull shit...when they can afford to buy their own frozen pizza with their own money, then they can have it. The sad part is, the people that can manage their budget are often too proud to ask for help, just like my parents.
Now I make over $100K a year and eat whatever I want (and have the waistline to prove it.) It took me 40 years to get that far, I don't accept that other people can't travel that same road with minimal handouts from the government.
I don't see anything wrong with current deficits (when compared to historical deficits and corrected for inflation. Same with gas prices.) One look at my credit card statements will support that I don't find anything wrong with borrowing money or living on credit.
If it was up to me, many of the social welfare programs, including social security, would be cut back severely with serious restrictions. Food stamps, for example, would only be able to be used for staples (flour, sugar, produce, milk), not processed foods like frozen pizzas, candy, hamburger helper or soda. Social security would be virtually eliminated and people would have to learn how to save for retirement instead of having it forced on them. Or, maybe they might have to work all of their lives like my great-grandparents and father and mother did.
Sounds good to me ... (See sig for more information)
I guess I hate the 'vision' word. To often it seems to be a fancy name to 'ra-ra' the team so it can blindly follow the C*O. I prefer a CIO who says he is going to do something AND gets it done, someone who is reliable and predictable (for the most part.) If that meets your definition of vision, then I agree with you.
... neat website, at least the first page.
BTW
I don't understand your comment. Any C level that is not utilizing the talents of the staff reporting to them is an idiot. Idiot CIOs are the ones that blindly follow the "I've done this for 20 years" path.
Or .. as it was referred to in Maine when I lived there for 20 years ... massive-two-shits. Some people called it tax-it-two-us, but since I worked in both states at different times, it seemed both of them screwed me equally as well.
I use my store card to buy beer, books, and my prescriptions (no need for birth control, my fiancee has her tubes tied). So they already know what I buy. And I have the store coupons at checkout to show for it.
.. all Bud Lights that are part of the 'Drink early and often' promo will have the same codes. Or maybe the batch just for Safeway will have the same number. The same for books, etc. There is very little value for a store to have unique serial numbers on each product, as they would have to store each serial number and track them. It's far easier to track 'I have 1200 bottles of bud with UPC/RFID code xyz' than to track 1200 unique codes. With margins what they are in supermarkets, I doubt they would track every item without some type of incentive.
Now that I have bought this stuff, I walk into another store and they scan me and now know what I have on me. Unless I buy something, they don't know who I am (unless RFID is on my store card or credit cards). It would require massive cooperation to do something as dramatic as track an individual can of beer.
Since I don't take any of these itemsto work, it would be very difficult for my employer or insurer to find out about them unless they came into my home for a scan. I had to submit to a blood test for both work and health insurance, so I can see how a scan could become part of an employement contract, but again RFID doesn't add anything to it that isn't already there.
It is also very doubtful that each can of beer will have a unique number. It is more likely that the same method used today for UPC codes will be used
So that leaves the garbage truck scanner to scan and record each house. Possible, but then again so is it possible for them to take my garbage (without a warrant once I've set it out on the street) and go through it to find these things out. It's far cheaper to study garbage when you need it than to store the accumulated inventory of a couple hundred million households on a weekly basis. It is doubtful that anything but legal items will have RDIF tags in them, so again I can't see any reason for a mass scanning project.
ASCAP??? Is that the same as ASSHAT??? My dad would threatened to give me an ASSHAT, but I wasn't sure what he meant...
Consider this. I have told my mother a couple of hundred times to not send me urban legends, but to check snopes.com first. Guess how many 'send this email to everyone you know' emails I get a month?? At least one.
My brother continues to buy 'deals' at truck stops around the US. Watches for $5, drills for $10, etc and he is still surprised that this crap doesn't work.
Education does not work for these types of schemes because the scammers know that there are many people who are just gullible or choose to wish that what the scammer is telling them is true. If they can contact 1,000 people, odds are a couple will respond and provide them enough funds to do it again tomorrow.
Are you talking about the same Vietnam that China, France and Japan screwed up before the US got there?
I'm sorry, I didn't include my gasoline receipts to backup my facts or give you the names of my friends. So sorry...
.. fuel expenses are the highest cost. And that means....what. If fuel goes up, ticket prices go up. People either pay more or fly less. If they fly less airlines cut back, this results in either bankruptcy as the remaining revenue can't cover expenses or they chew up assets *assuming* they can't remain profitable. Not all airlines will fail at the same time, so the ones that do will be bought out or their flights will be picked up by someone else. Higher prices, but hardly the death of an industry. Seems to me the auto industry, textile industries, etc., etc., all seemed to survive massive layoffs, as did the US and world economy. Maybe we'll see less US airlines and more overseas airlines where the costs to run are less (no unions, lower wages, etc.) I don't know what will happen, does your crystal ball??
... capitalism at it's finest. What makes you think that the government telling them to work harder or sets some goals will do any good?? It will only cause them more paperwork and more inefficiences as they race to conform to some short-sighted, politically backed goal that is already a comprimise between multiple countries.
It was nice to see facts in your reply, although they are completely irrelevant to this discussion. Ok
Higher prices will result in lower demand in areas where demand is already high. This is a proven trend over the course of gas prices in the US, whether it be cars or airlines.
The largest increases in demand will come from the countries that the Kyoto accord affects the least, those countries with developing economies. Already, India has more middle class than the entire population of the US, and their polution standards are pitiful. Maybe the best way to curtail future emissions is to crush all new development in all of the so-called thirld world countries and don't allow them to enter the global economy.
I can almost guarantee that Pratt Whitney and the other engine manufacturers, along with Boeing and the other commercial jet builders are all working their hardest to produce airlines that use less fuel. Why?? The winner in that race MAKES ALL THE MONEY!! Wow
Wow...thanks for providing a fact filled response to my display of facts (irrelevant or otherwise is left up to the reader to decide.)
/., so what the hell...
... businesses find all kinds of ways to cut costs when they have to. And if prices go up 25% AND 25% fewer people fly, well, we have a magical 25% reduction in consumption, don't we. It might cause an economic problem, but Kyoto might also. I place more faith in business and economic forces to react than I do in the government to legislate. From what I have seen of the newer airline companies, there are still many places for cuts.
... we didn't really mean to sign that, sorry.' and ignore them anyway. California is an excellent example of how one state can impact emission controls across the country.
My first thought was not to reply, since you didn't provide anything of substance to reply to. But this is
History has shown us that the airline industruy will not go belly up. The few that are making money will remain and their prices will go up further because of less competition. Maybe the overly paid pilots, stewards, and mechanics will see cuts in pay to keep prices lower. Or not, people don't have to fly. Competition is an amazing thing
If there must be legislation to reduce consumption, I prefer local legislation that makes sense for specific areas, not grandiose ideas that, if wrong, would either take years to work out or countries would just say 'Oh
Utilities are starting to tap into other resources, nuclear is starting back onto the radar screens, and automobiles like the Prius cause long waiting lists, so there are demands for them. When the economies are right (i.e. oil becomes more and more expensive), technology that wasn't feasible (or tolerable in the case of nuclear) at $1.59 a gallon becomes feasible (or tolerable as the lights start to go out.)
You have your opinions, I have mine. They are based on some faith in some degree, so using that as an argument is irrelevant without some facts to back it up.
Or ... maybe, just maybe, because gasoline gets more expensive, people will find ways to use less. Like, oh, I don't know, since my monthly gas expenses went from $120 to over $200, I went out and bought a used 750cc motorcycle for my 23 mile commute. Now I'm spending $16 every three days instead of $30 during the week. And I know of a few people at work that are now car pooling, and two others that are thinking of selling their homes and moving closer.
And to think all of this decreased consumption (almost 50% in my case) occured because the natural supply and demand drove prices up, not because of legislation.
I used maps.google.com during a recent home-buying experience, and it was very useful. It's easier to see the different residential and industrial areas for neighborhoods one is not familiar with. It's also pretty easy to spot apartment complexes, parks, golf courses, and how close a home is to a highway.
One can also compare lot sizes to get an idea of residential density, the number of homes with pools (I live in Phoenix, so pools are very common). Being able to switch easily between maps and images makes it easy to determine what that big parking lot is a part of, such as a mall or a mental health facility. Fortunately, the images for Phoenix appear to be less than a year or two old.
Some people may prefer to live next to a mental health facility, some may prefer the mall. All this info makes it easier to informed decisions about whether or not you want to live someplace before making the decision so schedule a home visit. Granted, it didn't always work out, I remember driving up to one place and telling the realtor to keep driving.