I haven't seen a full system failure (motherboard, power supply, etc.) in years.
Then you haven't been around enough hardware. I have half a dozen laptops with various cooked circuit boards, defective power supplies and other similarly fatal issues in my office upstairs and I don't even do hardware support for a living. Computers die all the time. Any IT department of any size will have copious numbers of deceased machines. Hard drives are probably the most common failed equipment due to the moving parts but solid state parts fail quite regularly as well.
Honestly I'm one of the people who just hasn't "upgraded". I've got no problem with Windows 7 aside from a general distaste for Microsoft, but my current hardware that runs XP works fine for my needs and Windows 7 gives me no compelling reason to switch. Only way I'll end up with a machine running Win7 is with a new computer of some sort but I don't see that happening any time soon.
One of the thing that was made clear to me over the last few years was that the price of stock is whatever the last person bid for it.
The price of ANYTHING is the price of the last accepted bid. Always has been, always will be.
It isn't based on the book value of the company.
Not directly, no. Really stock prices are usually based on a collective opinion of the future profit making prospects of the company. Sometimes though they are based on things that have little or even nothing whatsoever to do with profits. (Exhibit A is the dot com bubble in the late 1990s) The stock market is really not much different than any other form of betting and it only secondarily has anything to do with the actual finances of the company.
Value is a subjective thing. I'm an accountant in my day job and I'll be the first to tell you that valuation is probably more of an art than a science. Opinion plays a huge role because the same thing can be worth very different amounts to different people.
I've lived where winter temperatures didn't get that WARM for weeks on end.
So, now everyone who lives where there's real winter,
Ohh, a manly man. Can we bask in your tough guy attitude?
Yes, there are very cold places but that does not describe the locations where the vast majority of the worlds population lives. If you live in a place cold enough to need an incinerator toilet, your technological needs are going to be different. Most of us are smart enough to live in more temperate climates. I'm in one of the states bordering Canada and the coldest it has gotten in the last 15 years has been about -15F. (and yes I had an outdoor CFL that survived the experience just fine)
All CFLs have a warm up period but some get 90% of the way there. Most of the ones in my house do not have a discernible delay to getting light after hitting the switch and achieve what seems to be full brightness after 40-60 seconds.
I've tried Lights of America, GE, and Philips, and they ALL take 3-4 minutes to slowly rise from a dim brownish light to a bright white. All of them.
I have about 30 CFLs in my house and none of them have either a "dim brownish light" nor do they take that long to warm up. Most of the bulbs I presently use are from Sylvania but I'd had good luck with the house brand from Home Depot too (which is the highest rated by Consumer Reports). There is definitely variability in quality of manufacture and design so sadly, some experimentation is often necessary.
CFLs can NOT be used in enclosed or upside-down fixtures. The trapped heat turns the capacitors into goop, and then they die.
Actually they can be and I've used them quite successfully in that capacity. You just have to get bulbs designed for that particular application. Not all CFLs are designed for use in enclosed fixtures and some fixtures are designed specifically for CFLs. "Current recommendations for fully enclosed, unventilated light fixtures (such as those recessed into insulated ceilings), are either to use 'reflector CFLs', cold cathode CFLs or to replace such fixtures with those designed for CFLs."
(DON YOUR FLAME SHIELD). Ya know I'm tired of rude, inconsiderate people (not you specifically but in general) who claim "You're full of shit" and "CFLs are the next best thing to a Pentium 20,
Buddy, you are debating on the internet. If you are expecting a warm and friendly environment I suggest you look elsewhere. If you say something on slashdot that people think is stupid or wrong, be ready to defend. No one is going to coddle you here.
and ignore REAL WORLD RESULTS from people who have experienced nothing but headaches and trouble with these fancy new lightbulbs.
The plural of anecdote is not data. Your personal experiences, while significant to you, are not backed up by the available data on the general performance of CFLs. Furthermore, your personal experiences are directly contradicted by my personal experiences so even if we ignore the performance data, you haven't remotely begun to convince me of your position.
IT'S RUDE to me and other, as if you think we are rednecks with no brains.
You said something that is not backed up by the available data beyond your personal opinion. If pointing that out hurts your feelings then, well... grow up. Have the confidence to back up your conviction because you're going to run into rude people the rest of your life. Waste of your time to spend it feeling hurt by people you'll never meet.
I've worked as an engineer and was trained as a scientist. Expecting me to be sympathetic to you claiming your anecdotal experience as some sort of universal truth is simply laughable. There are plenty of perfectly valid criticisms to be made of CFLs but you neglected to make any of them or back up any of your assertions.
I consider Edison's incandescent bulbs to be a superior technology to CFLs. Fast turnon, can be used in cold/hot areas (or enclosed fixtures), cost consumers 1/10th to buy, use fewer materials, easy to recycle, and no mercury vapor.
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Somewhat off topic I know but I can't resist.
Let's examine those points you made:
You're quite correct that incandescent bulbs turn on faster than CFLs. However CFLs are available that achieve near full brightness nearly instantly and have little/no noticeable warm up period. While there are cases where the difference will matter, most of the time it doesn't. Any fluorescent lighting will work best in environments where they aren't switched on/off frequently.
CFLs can be used in both hot and cold areas - just not to the extremes that incandescents can. CFLs can operate with a cold weather ballast as low as -23C (-10F). Incandescents do win on temperature in most cases however.
Incandescents do cost less (not usually 1/10th however) to buy initially but they also cost 3-4X as much to operate and CFLs last 6000-15000 hours versus 750-1000 hours for incandescents. Best case you'll buy 6 incandescents for every CFL. There really is no debate that over the full lifespan, CFLs are cheaper.
Yes incandescents use fewer materials per bulb but when you have to buy 6+ incandescents for every CFL this advantage disappears rapidly.
It is easier to recycle incandescent bulbs, however I've NEVER seen anyone recycle an incandescent bulb ever. It simply does not happen for the vast majority of lightbulbs.
The bit about no mercury vapor is nonsense in areas with coal fired power plants. A CFL will pollute less mercury and coal plants emit other toxins besides.
A few indisputable advantages of incandescents:
Work better with dimmers. There are dimmable CFLs but they work poorly at best.
Size - incandescents are available in more compact sizes for the same light output.
UV emmissions are lower from incandescents which can be an issue with some paintings and textiles.
Most incandescents have better color rendering than most CFLs, though there are CFLs (pricey ones) which can do just about as well as incandescents.
A few indisputable disadvantages of incandescents:
Much higher frequency of replacement
Much more waste heat
3-4X higher energy consumption per lumen
Much higher lifetime operation costs.
In short, your assertion that incandescents are "a superior technology" is only true for specific applications. For most commercial buildings and residences, CFLs are a better choice much of the time for many many applications.
1. Justice system to take care of contract conflicts as well as anything that deals with harming individuals, running Class Action Lawsuits etc. 2. Minimum Military to protect against invasion. 3. Cops/Prisons.
Fascinating. You really think things are so simple don't you? Must be nice to live in a world where details don't matter. So you don't want any roads or other infrastructure? No private company or individual is going to pay for most of those (no profit in it) so how do you propose to deal with our soon to be crumbling infrastructure? Also your definition of "sense" seems to be thin on details. "Anything that deals with harming individuals" is an incredibly broad statement.
I think it's cute that some people think the only job of the government is to enforce contracts. Naive beyond belief but cute in the "what a moron" sense. It would nice if the world were that simple but it isn't. For better or worse there are a lot of jobs that government is in a better position to do than any other institution. Space travel, highways and other infrastructure, schools, military, policing, fire and emergency response, regulating utilities and financial institutions, wilderness preservation, and anything else where market failure is an issue. A government that just enforces contracts would fail because society is more complicated than that. It leaves FAR too much room for serious problems to occur. You can reasonably argue for more or less government but the sort of minimalism you suggest simply leaves too much out that we actually depend on.
Secondly, any "savings" for this method will NOT be passed on to you, they will go to slightly greater corporate profits.
You greatly overestimate the ability of food retailers to retain extra margin. This is an insanely competitive industry that competes heavily on price. You definitely see some of the savings because if the supermarket doesn't pass it on, the one down the street will. Walmart has built their whole business model on this premise. Only way they can retain the margin is if they have no local competition since groceries are mostly a local business.
Thirdly if such savings, in a fantasy world, WERE passed on to you, then you would see fresh produce for $0.98 per pound instead of $0.99 per pound. Face it, the company has passed on the cost of labor onto you, the consumer. And you think self-checkout is an advance and it makes no sense to do it otherwise!
Self checkout is simply automation. With enough volume (and supermarkets have huge volume) automation allows companies to reduce labor costs. This sort of self checkout automation is not unique to any single company so it is unlikely any supermarket will be able to retain all of the savings due to the thin margins and intense price competition.
All it is is about dumping the people working the registers so management can get a bigger bonus.
Think so? You think the bonuses are huge in an industry with 1-3% profit margins (on a good day) and insane price competition? Or maybe technology like self checkout is simply what is necessary to keep pace with the industry.
Thanks but no thanks. I like that those people have a job. No reason to take it away from them and all it could cost is a few minutes of my time a week.
No that isn't all it costs. Supermarkets are hyper competitive and margins are razor thin. It costs the supermarket more to hire a person to bag your groceries than it does to have a self checkout system (presuming enough volume to justify the capital investment) and I promise you the supermarkets have done the financial math. At some level you are going to pay for that extra cost of a person bagging your groceries. You'll never be able to separate out the cost but rest assured the cost of the checkout clerk and person bagging your groceries is in the bill. Sounds like you are fine with that but just be aware that it definitely costs you more than just your time.
I also don't think it bothers them much that one asshole can go out of his way to steal 5 bucks from them. I'm sure it doesn't affect their profits much.
You might think that and you'd be wrong. I'm an accountant. Sure one guy stealing $5 doesn't matter much but it is NEVER just one guy. There are lots of thieves out there. I guarantee people you know steal from retail stores. Typically shrinkage (the industry euphemism for shoplifting style theft is between 1-3% of revenue. Grocery stores operate on margins of about 1-5% so theft is a very big deal to them. Even a half a percent drop in shrinkage is a huge deal.
The stores are already fucking with me over membership cards and overpriced beef.
Overpriced beef? Seriously? Ignoring the fact that beef is as miraculously cheap as it is thanks to our industrial food production (not hard to find a hamburger for less that $1) yes there has been a recent increase in beef prices. Beef consumption in the US has increased by 25% since 1998 while the number of cattle peaked in 1996 at about 103 million head and is about 98 million now. So yeah, beef prices have gone up because demand has gone up (along with our waistlines) while supply has remained roughly constant.
Eat a vegetable or chicken or pork instead. I like a good steak too but I can live without it most of the time and so can you.
I agree about the membership cards. I don't actually bother getting one because my local megamart is so eager to give me one they scan a new one every time I visit so I get all the benefits with no privacy issues.
Not really. Sure we have to stay a bit general but the basic points are valid. I'm an accountant and I do this sort of financial analysis for a living. The basic principles of cost accounting don't change.
But I discount the maintenance costs for the lines. Those costs are already covered in the price of basic phone service.
Doesn't matter what kind of service you have. The installation and upkeep costs of the network are factored into your bill. I have internet service through Comcast and don't pay them for TV (don't watch TV enough to justify it) but that doesn't get either me the hook for my share of their overhead. All the big telecoms have large overhead expenses that they have to recover and I guarantee you that your bill includes these.
The DSL where I am has always been a rather pathetic 175KB/sec. UVerse was the exact same speed.
Sorry to hear it is slow but it's not surprising that DSL and Uverse provide the same speed because they are the same technology over the same lines. Uverse is just a bundling package, not a better technology.
Where are these speed improvements I'm supposed to receive in lieu of better pricing?
Well, if we're comparing anecdotal stories, I've gone from 1.5mpbs/375kbps DSL to 6mbps/1.5mpbs DSL and now to 20mbps/3mbps cable service and I'm paying the same amount per month I was 8 years ago. (roughly $60/month - all speeds have been confirmed with bandwidth tests and were reasonably close to advertised most of the time) If I kept the original speed service I'd be paying 1/3 what I used to. It's very likely I'll be getting 40mbps service within the next year for the same price or maybe slightly more than I get it now.
I'm hardly unique. Look at AT&T or Comcast or Verizon. They have steadily increased speeds available to many customers but they aren't charging more.
Ignoring gravity works when you run off the edge of a canyon or your ACME rocket runs out of propellant. You don't fall until you actually look down and remember gravity.
The real trick is to throw yourself at the ground and miss...
Anyway, the other think to consider (especially for things like laser-based launches) is that the current "spit out a ton of speed really quickly and then coast your way to orbit" approach really sucks.
Why on earth was this moderated interesting? Is wrong information interesting now? You can't coast to orbit. When the power shuts off you either are in orbit or you aren't. Gravity doesn't take a holiday just because you are out of propellant.
Even a slow nice steady boost will get you to orbit without needing to hit escape velocity.
You can't get into orbit without hitting escape speed (escape velocity is actually a misleading term because it is a scalar). Escape speed doesn't have to be fast (in fact it can be any speed) but again, once the engines shut off you had better be at the escape speed necessary at that altitude or you will fall back to earth.
If a slow steady boost was practical, we'd be doing it. Rocket scientist is a synonym for smart for a reason. We lack the technology to escape earth's gravity well slowly in an economically practical way. I'm not even sure we could do it at all with our current capabilities, but I am sure we can't (yet) do it cheaply.
A 16GB flash drive does not cost 3x or 4x as much to make as a 4GB flash, but is priced as if it does.
Actually at first it does cost quite a bit more. Both require up front costs to produce such as R&D, capital equipment purchases, production setup, etc. These get amortized over time but at first the cost per unit is quite high. The 4GB drive has had more time to amortize the fixed costs related to production so even if the materials for the two cost the same (which they almost certainly do not), the selling price for the 16GB will be higher because it's sold fewer units. Additionally there are learning curve effects that have a significant effect on price as well.
To be sure there is a bit of extra margin involved but the cost of the 16GB drives actually might be several times higher at first. Once minimum efficient scale is achieved the costs should be similar but that takes some time.
There is enough competition in flash memory (usually) that I'm pretty sure the prices actually have some relationships to the cost.
Instead what we see are price floors which reflect the real manufacturing and retailing costs. Once the value of some equipment falls below this floor, it vanishes.
That's right and not surprising. As prices fall for higher capacities, demand will dry up for lower capacities. The costs however do not continue to fall indefinitely. At some point there is so much competition and so little profit that makers of low capacity flash memory either exit the market or have to move to higher capacity products.
I see no reason for the price of Internet service to stay as stubbornly high as it has, except lack of competition.
I'd agree there is insufficient competition but I don't think you are acknowledging that you are in all likelihood getting a faster internet service than you were just a few years ago. The equipment to provide this faster service is not free. The phone company has to upgrade its equipment the same as you do to enable faster service. Verizon has spent billions of dollars on their FiOS rollout and AT&T has spent billions rolling out their high speed internet services. These are costs that need to be recovered. The phone line to your house might be the same but the equipment behind the scenes looks NOTHING like it did even 10 years ago. I've been in numerous central offices and can verify this myself. Just because you can't see the capital expenditures doesn't mean they aren't occurring.
There are also government subsidies for laying new line.
Not as much as you might think. The vast majority of costs for the telecom networks are borne directly by the operators of those networks.
Furthermore your analogy to your ethernet cards and other equipment is flawed because the cost structures aren't the same. There are maintenance costs to the phone/cable network which do not apply to your personal equipment. Once the ethernet card leave a manufacturer, the manufacturer no longer owns it. Warranty costs have already been factored into the price and there is no upkeep. The phone network however is owned by the folks that made it, they have to pay depreciation on it and they have to fix it when it breaks, bill customers for service and incur lots of ongoing fixed costs that don't apply to a consumer electronics product.
I'm an accountant in my day job. There isn't a single sane department chair or accounting department that would spent a dime making a classroom RF proof to prevent cheating on tests. It's a waste of money and would never make it through the capital budgeting process.
The alternative (banning the offending devices) is free and requires no capital expenditures.
Oh yeah... and banning devices may not be effective.
No effort to prevent cheating is 100% effective. But it has the beauty of being clear, simple, mostly effective and cheap. Get caught with a non-approved device and you fail the test. If I were the teacher they might get hauled in front of a disciplinary committee as well.
Especially when the non-networked functions of those devices could be beneficial on a test, if people are allowed to use electronic notekeeping aids, they should be allowed to use them (without the networking functions)
There is never a need to allow networking to test the student's ability to master physics. NEVER. If they have to consult their notes for every question (regardless of format) then they should fail the test because they don't understand the material adequately.
This occurs with about the same frequency as unicorn farts.
Get the university to paint a room or two in each classroom building with WiFi- and cell-phone-blocking paint. You'll have to lay new tile and paint the ceilings as well.
Why would a university do that when banning the networked devices is free? Take the bullets out of the gun instead of building a bullet proof vest. Is the term cost versus benefit completely lost on you?
Technically possible but not practical for economic reasons.
Or you could alter the classroom so RF cannot enter through the walls or ceiling.
VERY expensive. Colleges don't really have the funds to justify that, especially when just banning the offending devices is free.
I suppose convincing the university to alter the classroom in this manner could be difficult, but they could also see the value in having some exam rooms that are essentially faraday cages
Why not just take the figurative bullets out of the gun (no networked devices allowed) instead of building an expensive figurative bullet proof vest. If they don't need the networked device for the test, there is no reason to allow it in the room in the first place.
I'm thinking of buying 30 el-cheapo four-function calculators out of my pocket, but I'm afraid that less-adaptable students will be unable to handle the switch from the calculator they know to an unfamiliar (but simpler) one."
If they can't handle a cheapo calculator, they probably weren't going to pass the course anyway. You can offer to let them get familiar with it ahead of time but they'd be better off studying more. Calculators and computers are a crutch. If students rely on them too much they never really absorb the material. Technology should supplement but rarely should it be the focus.
I say ban the networking hardware altogether. I have a minor in applied physics and none of our tests when I was a student required anything more powerful than a scientific calculator (graphing optional) with no network capability. I think basically you should design the tests with that level of technology in mind. Let the projects and homework utilize the full capabilities of the computing hardware. Physics tests are about proving they understand concepts, not about proving they can work with a particular computer. If the problems require nothing more than a calculator that can do sine, cosine and tangent, then only allow calculators that can do that and nothing more.
The professional engineer exam is open book but if you actually need to look up a bunch of stuff you aren't going to pass anyway. Most tests should be like this. If they "need" networking during the test, they didn't really understand the material to begin with.
The USA doesn't have the resources to help them much
Sure we do. If you are thinking just dumping money on them you're thinking about the wrong things. I'm talking about helping them grow their economy. Trade. Sharing of technology. Investment in their companies and them investing here.
And yes, if the US government didn't support illegal immigration it would be entirely possible to stop.
It's not a law enforcement problem. Never has been. We have a much longer unprotected border with Canada and yet we don't have Canadians coming across the border illegally. Why? Same laws apply to them. The reason they don't immigrate illegally is there is no economic incentive for them to do so. Canada has a thriving economy. Mexico does not. Hence people come here rather than live in abject poverty.
Help Mexico build their economy and the illegal immigration problem will largely go away. Continue to ignore Mexico's economic problems in our own short sighted self interest and you will continue to have an immigration problem. You cannot realistically hope to solve this problem with law enforcement.
Which is why we need to take that economic opportunity away from them unless they play by our rules.
Unless you plan to make illegal immigration a capital crime, you will not stop it no matter how well you enforce the laws. The economic incentives greatly outweigh the consequences. If the choice is between starvation and breaking immigration laws, the choice is easy.
It's not our job to help Mexico build up its economy.
No it's not required but that doesn't make it a bad idea. We didn't have to help Europe or Japan after WWII either but it was a good idea to do so. An economically healthy Mexico would benefit the US far more than the few illegal migrant workers do now. We reap the benefits of trillions of dollars in trade each year with the EU and Japan, countries we helped. Had we crushed them when they were down things would almost certainly be worse than they are today.
But if you prefer to be short sighted and selfish, that's fine. Just recognize that by your actions have consequences - in this case, illegal immigrants by the millions. You also need to recognize that you are wasting money on a futile, greedy and spiteful response.
With the exception of fabrics you haven't named a single product that I can't live without, albeit with varying degrees of difficulty. There are also fabrics (hemp comes to mind) that don't rely on oil.
Think so? Good luck with that. I would love to see you try to live up to your boast. I'm pretty sure you would fail miserably.
Bear in mind that you will have to live as a subsistence farmer or hunter/gatherer in the most primitive conditions you can imagine. You will not be able to utilize steel or any other metal because you can't get them today without oil. You'll have to forage for seeds because modern agriculture is completely oil dependent. You will not be able to utilize rubber, most fabrics, most chemicals, and most animal products which require feed that is grown using oil products. You also will not be able to travel using any modern equipment.
So good luck there tough guy. Let me know how much you enjoy living without oil. I'm sure it will be a hoot.
I have the right to be an idiot if I so choose. I'm in my 20s and healthy.
For now. That can change in an instant. And if you choose to be an idiot I can likewise choose to support legislation to minimize the impact of your stupidity on me. Your behavior has consequences beyond yourself whether you know it or not. If I have to protect myself from your dumb decisions I will do so with any means at my disposal.
My most likely source of expensive medical bills is an automobile accident and I've already got insurance for that.
You don't buy insurance because of what is likely to happen. You buy insurance for what is unlikely but catastrophic if it does happen. Insurance isn't to save you a few bucks on your dental checkup. It's to keep you from being homeless when you need chemotherapy. You buy insurance so that if you are in an serious accident or become SERIOUSLY ill, you will not lose everything.
Unlikely events happen every day. People in their 20s and every other age get cancer and other serious illnesses. My wife is a doctor and sees people in their 20s with cancer literally every day. If you don't have insurance your prognosis is FAR worse because you simply will not get high quality treatment. What's worse, the rest of us will have to pick up the tab for your irresponsible behavior which I don't especially appreciate.
And btw, your auto insurance almost certainly does NOT cover major medical expenses in the event of an accident. Auto insurance is for liability and damage to the vehicles. No hospital in the US will accept your auto insurer as payment. You can get some supplemental riders for some types of medical expenses but they are not in any way shape or form a replacement for real major medical insurance.
Seriously man, you're playing with fire. You might come out all right (and I hope you do) but you are playing a very dangerous game of Russian roulette.
Don't be an idiot. I didn't say it would have fixed everything. It just would have been better than doing nothing.
If you think nothing was done you weren't paying attention. The fact that BP couldn't fix the root of the problem had little to do with the fact that the response to the oil spill was massive. Hundreds of ships were utilized including skimmers. It's easy to play arm chair quarterback after the fact but I'm pretty sure you weren't there, you weren't making the decisions given what was known at the time and you definitely don't have all the facts.
The root of illegal immigration is the lack of enforcement of employment law.
The root of illegal immigration is economic imbalance. More money and higher paying jobs exist in the US than exist in Mexico. Accordingly we should expect to see people migrating to where the economic opportunity happens to be. It's like osmosis - people will move in the direction of money an opportunity. Laws can do little more than slow the movement. Expecting people to obey the law when the alternative is abject poverty and possible starvation is absurd. We don't have a problem with Canadian's immigrating illegally because there is no economic incentive for them to do so. Help Mexico build up its economy and the problem will go away. Continue to ignore Mexico's economic problems and the problem will continue indefinitely. Building bigger fences and enforcing more and more restrictive laws will NEVER solve the problem but it will cost vast sums of money.
No you can't. Virtually every product available today depends directly or indirectly on oil or oil derived products. Gasoline, fertilizer, plastics, diesel, lubricants, fabrics and many more are all produced from oil. Even the food you eat and the water you drink depends on oil in order to produce it and get it to market. The manufacture of any power production equipment requires oil at some point in the process. Claiming you can choose not to buy oil is somewhat like claiming you can choose not to breathe air. The only way you could not use oil would be to go completely primitive and remove yourself from modern society completely.
Thanks to Obama I will not be able to choose whether or not I buy health insurance, at least not until SCOTUS strikes down that portion of his "reform" legislation.
Were you seriously planning to NOT buy health insurance? If you have the means to do so and choose not to then you are an idiot.
Perhaps that could have mitigated if the White House had accepted the offer of skimming skips from the Dutch?
Right. I'm sure that would have fixed everything. If only the Dutch had come to the rescue everything would be fine... [/sarcasm]
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I haven't seen a full system failure (motherboard, power supply, etc.) in years.
Then you haven't been around enough hardware. I have half a dozen laptops with various cooked circuit boards, defective power supplies and other similarly fatal issues in my office upstairs and I don't even do hardware support for a living. Computers die all the time. Any IT department of any size will have copious numbers of deceased machines. Hard drives are probably the most common failed equipment due to the moving parts but solid state parts fail quite regularly as well.
Honestly I'm one of the people who just hasn't "upgraded". I've got no problem with Windows 7 aside from a general distaste for Microsoft, but my current hardware that runs XP works fine for my needs and Windows 7 gives me no compelling reason to switch. Only way I'll end up with a machine running Win7 is with a new computer of some sort but I don't see that happening any time soon.
One of the thing that was made clear to me over the last few years was that the price of stock is whatever the last person bid for it.
The price of ANYTHING is the price of the last accepted bid. Always has been, always will be.
It isn't based on the book value of the company.
Not directly, no. Really stock prices are usually based on a collective opinion of the future profit making prospects of the company. Sometimes though they are based on things that have little or even nothing whatsoever to do with profits. (Exhibit A is the dot com bubble in the late 1990s) The stock market is really not much different than any other form of betting and it only secondarily has anything to do with the actual finances of the company.
Value is a subjective thing. I'm an accountant in my day job and I'll be the first to tell you that valuation is probably more of an art than a science. Opinion plays a huge role because the same thing can be worth very different amounts to different people.
I've lived where winter temperatures didn't get that WARM for weeks on end.
So, now everyone who lives where there's real winter,
Ohh, a manly man. Can we bask in your tough guy attitude?
Yes, there are very cold places but that does not describe the locations where the vast majority of the worlds population lives. If you live in a place cold enough to need an incinerator toilet, your technological needs are going to be different. Most of us are smart enough to live in more temperate climates. I'm in one of the states bordering Canada and the coldest it has gotten in the last 15 years has been about -15F. (and yes I had an outdoor CFL that survived the experience just fine)
Where are these "instant on" bulbs?
All CFLs have a warm up period but some get 90% of the way there. Most of the ones in my house do not have a discernible delay to getting light after hitting the switch and achieve what seems to be full brightness after 40-60 seconds.
I've tried Lights of America, GE, and Philips, and they ALL take 3-4 minutes to slowly rise from a dim brownish light to a bright white. All of them.
I have about 30 CFLs in my house and none of them have either a "dim brownish light" nor do they take that long to warm up. Most of the bulbs I presently use are from Sylvania but I'd had good luck with the house brand from Home Depot too (which is the highest rated by Consumer Reports). There is definitely variability in quality of manufacture and design so sadly, some experimentation is often necessary.
CFLs can NOT be used in enclosed or upside-down fixtures. The trapped heat turns the capacitors into goop, and then they die.
Actually they can be and I've used them quite successfully in that capacity. You just have to get bulbs designed for that particular application. Not all CFLs are designed for use in enclosed fixtures and some fixtures are designed specifically for CFLs. "Current recommendations for fully enclosed, unventilated light fixtures (such as those recessed into insulated ceilings), are either to use 'reflector CFLs', cold cathode CFLs or to replace such fixtures with those designed for CFLs."
(DON YOUR FLAME SHIELD). Ya know I'm tired of rude, inconsiderate people (not you specifically but in general) who claim "You're full of shit" and "CFLs are the next best thing to a Pentium 20,
Buddy, you are debating on the internet. If you are expecting a warm and friendly environment I suggest you look elsewhere. If you say something on slashdot that people think is stupid or wrong, be ready to defend. No one is going to coddle you here.
and ignore REAL WORLD RESULTS from people who have experienced nothing but headaches and trouble with these fancy new lightbulbs.
The plural of anecdote is not data. Your personal experiences, while significant to you, are not backed up by the available data on the general performance of CFLs. Furthermore, your personal experiences are directly contradicted by my personal experiences so even if we ignore the performance data, you haven't remotely begun to convince me of your position.
IT'S RUDE to me and other, as if you think we are rednecks with no brains.
You said something that is not backed up by the available data beyond your personal opinion. If pointing that out hurts your feelings then, well... grow up. Have the confidence to back up your conviction because you're going to run into rude people the rest of your life. Waste of your time to spend it feeling hurt by people you'll never meet.
I've worked as an engineer and was trained as a scientist. Expecting me to be sympathetic to you claiming your anecdotal experience as some sort of universal truth is simply laughable. There are plenty of perfectly valid criticisms to be made of CFLs but you neglected to make any of them or back up any of your assertions.
I consider Edison's incandescent bulbs to be a superior technology to CFLs. Fast turnon, can be used in cold/hot areas (or enclosed fixtures), cost consumers 1/10th to buy, use fewer materials, easy to recycle, and no mercury vapor.
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Somewhat off topic I know but I can't resist.
Let's examine those points you made:
A few indisputable advantages of incandescents:
A few indisputable disadvantages of incandescents:
In short, your assertion that incandescents are "a superior technology" is only true for specific applications. For most commercial buildings and residences, CFLs are a better choice much of the time for many many applications.
Cellphones currently have 600 megahertz of space.
I do not think that means what you think it means... [/Inigo Montoya]
(600 megahertz is a frequency, not a bandwidth. Cell phones operate at many different frequencies.)
Gov't that makes sense is this:
1. Justice system to take care of contract conflicts as well as anything that deals with harming individuals, running Class Action Lawsuits etc.
2. Minimum Military to protect against invasion.
3. Cops/Prisons.
Fascinating. You really think things are so simple don't you? Must be nice to live in a world where details don't matter. So you don't want any roads or other infrastructure? No private company or individual is going to pay for most of those (no profit in it) so how do you propose to deal with our soon to be crumbling infrastructure? Also your definition of "sense" seems to be thin on details. "Anything that deals with harming individuals" is an incredibly broad statement.
I think it's cute that some people think the only job of the government is to enforce contracts. Naive beyond belief but cute in the "what a moron" sense. It would nice if the world were that simple but it isn't. For better or worse there are a lot of jobs that government is in a better position to do than any other institution. Space travel, highways and other infrastructure, schools, military, policing, fire and emergency response, regulating utilities and financial institutions, wilderness preservation, and anything else where market failure is an issue. A government that just enforces contracts would fail because society is more complicated than that. It leaves FAR too much room for serious problems to occur. You can reasonably argue for more or less government but the sort of minimalism you suggest simply leaves too much out that we actually depend on.
Secondly, any "savings" for this method will NOT be passed on to you, they will go to slightly greater corporate profits.
You greatly overestimate the ability of food retailers to retain extra margin. This is an insanely competitive industry that competes heavily on price. You definitely see some of the savings because if the supermarket doesn't pass it on, the one down the street will. Walmart has built their whole business model on this premise. Only way they can retain the margin is if they have no local competition since groceries are mostly a local business.
Thirdly if such savings, in a fantasy world, WERE passed on to you, then you would see fresh produce for $0.98 per pound instead of $0.99 per pound. Face it, the company has passed on the cost of labor onto you, the consumer. And you think self-checkout is an advance and it makes no sense to do it otherwise!
Self checkout is simply automation. With enough volume (and supermarkets have huge volume) automation allows companies to reduce labor costs. This sort of self checkout automation is not unique to any single company so it is unlikely any supermarket will be able to retain all of the savings due to the thin margins and intense price competition.
All it is is about dumping the people working the registers so management can get a bigger bonus.
Think so? You think the bonuses are huge in an industry with 1-3% profit margins (on a good day) and insane price competition? Or maybe technology like self checkout is simply what is necessary to keep pace with the industry.
Thanks but no thanks. I like that those people have a job. No reason to take it away from them and all it could cost is a few minutes of my time a week.
No that isn't all it costs. Supermarkets are hyper competitive and margins are razor thin. It costs the supermarket more to hire a person to bag your groceries than it does to have a self checkout system (presuming enough volume to justify the capital investment) and I promise you the supermarkets have done the financial math. At some level you are going to pay for that extra cost of a person bagging your groceries. You'll never be able to separate out the cost but rest assured the cost of the checkout clerk and person bagging your groceries is in the bill. Sounds like you are fine with that but just be aware that it definitely costs you more than just your time.
I also don't think it bothers them much that one asshole can go out of his way to steal 5 bucks from them. I'm sure it doesn't affect their profits much.
You might think that and you'd be wrong. I'm an accountant. Sure one guy stealing $5 doesn't matter much but it is NEVER just one guy. There are lots of thieves out there. I guarantee people you know steal from retail stores. Typically shrinkage (the industry euphemism for shoplifting style theft is between 1-3% of revenue. Grocery stores operate on margins of about 1-5% so theft is a very big deal to them. Even a half a percent drop in shrinkage is a huge deal.
The stores are already fucking with me over membership cards and overpriced beef.
Overpriced beef? Seriously? Ignoring the fact that beef is as miraculously cheap as it is thanks to our industrial food production (not hard to find a hamburger for less that $1) yes there has been a recent increase in beef prices. Beef consumption in the US has increased by 25% since 1998 while the number of cattle peaked in 1996 at about 103 million head and is about 98 million now. So yeah, beef prices have gone up because demand has gone up (along with our waistlines) while supply has remained roughly constant.
Eat a vegetable or chicken or pork instead. I like a good steak too but I can live without it most of the time and so can you.
I agree about the membership cards. I don't actually bother getting one because my local megamart is so eager to give me one they scan a new one every time I visit so I get all the benefits with no privacy issues.
Commence Star Trek references in 3... 2... 1...
Difficult to argue points without hard numbers.
Not really. Sure we have to stay a bit general but the basic points are valid. I'm an accountant and I do this sort of financial analysis for a living. The basic principles of cost accounting don't change.
But I discount the maintenance costs for the lines. Those costs are already covered in the price of basic phone service.
Doesn't matter what kind of service you have. The installation and upkeep costs of the network are factored into your bill. I have internet service through Comcast and don't pay them for TV (don't watch TV enough to justify it) but that doesn't get either me the hook for my share of their overhead. All the big telecoms have large overhead expenses that they have to recover and I guarantee you that your bill includes these.
The DSL where I am has always been a rather pathetic 175KB/sec. UVerse was the exact same speed.
Sorry to hear it is slow but it's not surprising that DSL and Uverse provide the same speed because they are the same technology over the same lines. Uverse is just a bundling package, not a better technology.
Where are these speed improvements I'm supposed to receive in lieu of better pricing?
Well, if we're comparing anecdotal stories, I've gone from 1.5mpbs/375kbps DSL to 6mbps/1.5mpbs DSL and now to 20mbps/3mbps cable service and I'm paying the same amount per month I was 8 years ago. (roughly $60/month - all speeds have been confirmed with bandwidth tests and were reasonably close to advertised most of the time) If I kept the original speed service I'd be paying 1/3 what I used to. It's very likely I'll be getting 40mbps service within the next year for the same price or maybe slightly more than I get it now.
I'm hardly unique. Look at AT&T or Comcast or Verizon. They have steadily increased speeds available to many customers but they aren't charging more.
Ignoring gravity works when you run off the edge of a canyon or your ACME rocket runs out of propellant. You don't fall until you actually look down and remember gravity.
The real trick is to throw yourself at the ground and miss...
Anyway, the other think to consider (especially for things like laser-based launches) is that the current "spit out a ton of speed really quickly and then coast your way to orbit" approach really sucks.
Why on earth was this moderated interesting? Is wrong information interesting now? You can't coast to orbit. When the power shuts off you either are in orbit or you aren't. Gravity doesn't take a holiday just because you are out of propellant.
Even a slow nice steady boost will get you to orbit without needing to hit escape velocity.
You can't get into orbit without hitting escape speed (escape velocity is actually a misleading term because it is a scalar). Escape speed doesn't have to be fast (in fact it can be any speed) but again, once the engines shut off you had better be at the escape speed necessary at that altitude or you will fall back to earth.
If a slow steady boost was practical, we'd be doing it. Rocket scientist is a synonym for smart for a reason. We lack the technology to escape earth's gravity well slowly in an economically practical way. I'm not even sure we could do it at all with our current capabilities, but I am sure we can't (yet) do it cheaply.
A 16GB flash drive does not cost 3x or 4x as much to make as a 4GB flash, but is priced as if it does.
Actually at first it does cost quite a bit more. Both require up front costs to produce such as R&D, capital equipment purchases, production setup, etc. These get amortized over time but at first the cost per unit is quite high. The 4GB drive has had more time to amortize the fixed costs related to production so even if the materials for the two cost the same (which they almost certainly do not), the selling price for the 16GB will be higher because it's sold fewer units. Additionally there are learning curve effects that have a significant effect on price as well.
To be sure there is a bit of extra margin involved but the cost of the 16GB drives actually might be several times higher at first. Once minimum efficient scale is achieved the costs should be similar but that takes some time.
There is enough competition in flash memory (usually) that I'm pretty sure the prices actually have some relationships to the cost.
Instead what we see are price floors which reflect the real manufacturing and retailing costs. Once the value of some equipment falls below this floor, it vanishes.
That's right and not surprising. As prices fall for higher capacities, demand will dry up for lower capacities. The costs however do not continue to fall indefinitely. At some point there is so much competition and so little profit that makers of low capacity flash memory either exit the market or have to move to higher capacity products.
I see no reason for the price of Internet service to stay as stubbornly high as it has, except lack of competition.
I'd agree there is insufficient competition but I don't think you are acknowledging that you are in all likelihood getting a faster internet service than you were just a few years ago. The equipment to provide this faster service is not free. The phone company has to upgrade its equipment the same as you do to enable faster service. Verizon has spent billions of dollars on their FiOS rollout and AT&T has spent billions rolling out their high speed internet services. These are costs that need to be recovered. The phone line to your house might be the same but the equipment behind the scenes looks NOTHING like it did even 10 years ago. I've been in numerous central offices and can verify this myself. Just because you can't see the capital expenditures doesn't mean they aren't occurring.
There are also government subsidies for laying new line.
Not as much as you might think. The vast majority of costs for the telecom networks are borne directly by the operators of those networks.
Furthermore your analogy to your ethernet cards and other equipment is flawed because the cost structures aren't the same. There are maintenance costs to the phone/cable network which do not apply to your personal equipment. Once the ethernet card leave a manufacturer, the manufacturer no longer owns it. Warranty costs have already been factored into the price and there is no upkeep. The phone network however is owned by the folks that made it, they have to pay depreciation on it and they have to fix it when it breaks, bill customers for service and incur lots of ongoing fixed costs that don't apply to a consumer electronics product.
I'm not so sure it's that expensive.
I'm an accountant in my day job. There isn't a single sane department chair or accounting department that would spent a dime making a classroom RF proof to prevent cheating on tests. It's a waste of money and would never make it through the capital budgeting process.
The alternative (banning the offending devices) is free and requires no capital expenditures.
Oh yeah... and banning devices may not be effective.
No effort to prevent cheating is 100% effective. But it has the beauty of being clear, simple, mostly effective and cheap. Get caught with a non-approved device and you fail the test. If I were the teacher they might get hauled in front of a disciplinary committee as well.
Especially when the non-networked functions of those devices could be beneficial on a test, if people are allowed to use electronic notekeeping aids, they should be allowed to use them (without the networking functions)
There is never a need to allow networking to test the student's ability to master physics. NEVER. If they have to consult their notes for every question (regardless of format) then they should fail the test because they don't understand the material adequately.
For classes where every student can be trusted:
This occurs with about the same frequency as unicorn farts.
Get the university to paint a room or two in each classroom building with WiFi- and cell-phone-blocking paint. You'll have to lay new tile and paint the ceilings as well.
Why would a university do that when banning the networked devices is free? Take the bullets out of the gun instead of building a bullet proof vest. Is the term cost versus benefit completely lost on you?
You can make WiFi unusable, however.
Technically possible but not practical for economic reasons.
Or you could alter the classroom so RF cannot enter through the walls or ceiling.
VERY expensive. Colleges don't really have the funds to justify that, especially when just banning the offending devices is free.
I suppose convincing the university to alter the classroom in this manner could be difficult, but they could also see the value in having some exam rooms that are essentially faraday cages
Why not just take the figurative bullets out of the gun (no networked devices allowed) instead of building an expensive figurative bullet proof vest. If they don't need the networked device for the test, there is no reason to allow it in the room in the first place.
I'm thinking of buying 30 el-cheapo four-function calculators out of my pocket, but I'm afraid that less-adaptable students will be unable to handle the switch from the calculator they know to an unfamiliar (but simpler) one."
If they can't handle a cheapo calculator, they probably weren't going to pass the course anyway. You can offer to let them get familiar with it ahead of time but they'd be better off studying more. Calculators and computers are a crutch. If students rely on them too much they never really absorb the material. Technology should supplement but rarely should it be the focus.
I say ban the networking hardware altogether. I have a minor in applied physics and none of our tests when I was a student required anything more powerful than a scientific calculator (graphing optional) with no network capability. I think basically you should design the tests with that level of technology in mind. Let the projects and homework utilize the full capabilities of the computing hardware. Physics tests are about proving they understand concepts, not about proving they can work with a particular computer. If the problems require nothing more than a calculator that can do sine, cosine and tangent, then only allow calculators that can do that and nothing more.
The professional engineer exam is open book but if you actually need to look up a bunch of stuff you aren't going to pass anyway. Most tests should be like this. If they "need" networking during the test, they didn't really understand the material to begin with.
The USA doesn't have the resources to help them much
Sure we do. If you are thinking just dumping money on them you're thinking about the wrong things. I'm talking about helping them grow their economy. Trade. Sharing of technology. Investment in their companies and them investing here.
And yes, if the US government didn't support illegal immigration it would be entirely possible to stop.
It's not a law enforcement problem. Never has been. We have a much longer unprotected border with Canada and yet we don't have Canadians coming across the border illegally. Why? Same laws apply to them. The reason they don't immigrate illegally is there is no economic incentive for them to do so. Canada has a thriving economy. Mexico does not. Hence people come here rather than live in abject poverty.
Help Mexico build their economy and the illegal immigration problem will largely go away. Continue to ignore Mexico's economic problems in our own short sighted self interest and you will continue to have an immigration problem. You cannot realistically hope to solve this problem with law enforcement.
Which is why we need to take that economic opportunity away from them unless they play by our rules.
Unless you plan to make illegal immigration a capital crime, you will not stop it no matter how well you enforce the laws. The economic incentives greatly outweigh the consequences. If the choice is between starvation and breaking immigration laws, the choice is easy.
It's not our job to help Mexico build up its economy.
No it's not required but that doesn't make it a bad idea. We didn't have to help Europe or Japan after WWII either but it was a good idea to do so. An economically healthy Mexico would benefit the US far more than the few illegal migrant workers do now. We reap the benefits of trillions of dollars in trade each year with the EU and Japan, countries we helped. Had we crushed them when they were down things would almost certainly be worse than they are today.
But if you prefer to be short sighted and selfish, that's fine. Just recognize that by your actions have consequences - in this case, illegal immigrants by the millions. You also need to recognize that you are wasting money on a futile, greedy and spiteful response.
With the exception of fabrics you haven't named a single product that I can't live without, albeit with varying degrees of difficulty. There are also fabrics (hemp comes to mind) that don't rely on oil.
Think so? Good luck with that. I would love to see you try to live up to your boast. I'm pretty sure you would fail miserably.
Bear in mind that you will have to live as a subsistence farmer or hunter/gatherer in the most primitive conditions you can imagine. You will not be able to utilize steel or any other metal because you can't get them today without oil. You'll have to forage for seeds because modern agriculture is completely oil dependent. You will not be able to utilize rubber, most fabrics, most chemicals, and most animal products which require feed that is grown using oil products. You also will not be able to travel using any modern equipment.
So good luck there tough guy. Let me know how much you enjoy living without oil. I'm sure it will be a hoot.
I have the right to be an idiot if I so choose. I'm in my 20s and healthy.
For now. That can change in an instant. And if you choose to be an idiot I can likewise choose to support legislation to minimize the impact of your stupidity on me. Your behavior has consequences beyond yourself whether you know it or not. If I have to protect myself from your dumb decisions I will do so with any means at my disposal.
My most likely source of expensive medical bills is an automobile accident and I've already got insurance for that.
You don't buy insurance because of what is likely to happen. You buy insurance for what is unlikely but catastrophic if it does happen. Insurance isn't to save you a few bucks on your dental checkup. It's to keep you from being homeless when you need chemotherapy. You buy insurance so that if you are in an serious accident or become SERIOUSLY ill, you will not lose everything.
Unlikely events happen every day. People in their 20s and every other age get cancer and other serious illnesses. My wife is a doctor and sees people in their 20s with cancer literally every day. If you don't have insurance your prognosis is FAR worse because you simply will not get high quality treatment. What's worse, the rest of us will have to pick up the tab for your irresponsible behavior which I don't especially appreciate.
And btw, your auto insurance almost certainly does NOT cover major medical expenses in the event of an accident. Auto insurance is for liability and damage to the vehicles. No hospital in the US will accept your auto insurer as payment. You can get some supplemental riders for some types of medical expenses but they are not in any way shape or form a replacement for real major medical insurance.
Seriously man, you're playing with fire. You might come out all right (and I hope you do) but you are playing a very dangerous game of Russian roulette.
Don't be an idiot. I didn't say it would have fixed everything. It just would have been better than doing nothing.
If you think nothing was done you weren't paying attention. The fact that BP couldn't fix the root of the problem had little to do with the fact that the response to the oil spill was massive. Hundreds of ships were utilized including skimmers. It's easy to play arm chair quarterback after the fact but I'm pretty sure you weren't there, you weren't making the decisions given what was known at the time and you definitely don't have all the facts.
The root of illegal immigration is the lack of enforcement of employment law.
The root of illegal immigration is economic imbalance. More money and higher paying jobs exist in the US than exist in Mexico. Accordingly we should expect to see people migrating to where the economic opportunity happens to be. It's like osmosis - people will move in the direction of money an opportunity. Laws can do little more than slow the movement. Expecting people to obey the law when the alternative is abject poverty and possible starvation is absurd. We don't have a problem with Canadian's immigrating illegally because there is no economic incentive for them to do so. Help Mexico build up its economy and the problem will go away. Continue to ignore Mexico's economic problems and the problem will continue indefinitely. Building bigger fences and enforcing more and more restrictive laws will NEVER solve the problem but it will cost vast sums of money.
I can choose whether or not I buy oil.
No you can't. Virtually every product available today depends directly or indirectly on oil or oil derived products. Gasoline, fertilizer, plastics, diesel, lubricants, fabrics and many more are all produced from oil. Even the food you eat and the water you drink depends on oil in order to produce it and get it to market. The manufacture of any power production equipment requires oil at some point in the process. Claiming you can choose not to buy oil is somewhat like claiming you can choose not to breathe air. The only way you could not use oil would be to go completely primitive and remove yourself from modern society completely.
Thanks to Obama I will not be able to choose whether or not I buy health insurance, at least not until SCOTUS strikes down that portion of his "reform" legislation.
Were you seriously planning to NOT buy health insurance? If you have the means to do so and choose not to then you are an idiot.
Perhaps that could have mitigated if the White House had accepted the offer of skimming skips from the Dutch?
Right. I'm sure that would have fixed everything. If only the Dutch had come to the rescue everything would be fine... [/sarcasm]