If you've read Daemon and/or Freedom by Daniel Suarez, this sounds like the Hummers guarding Matthew Sobol's house. There's other autonomous vehicles, but I won't give anything else away.
1. When 3 of 4 major carriers don't sell the iPhone, the sales numbers for other devices could be much higher than those of the iPhone.
2. Android phones are the first phones in a long time to have a mass appeal of "doesn't suck" or "not corporate", i.e. Palm/Windows Mobile and Blackberry.
3. Consumers that are happy with another carrier, or don't want to switch to ATT, can finally upgrade to a phone with iPhone-like features.
4. Consumers who were in the market for an iPhone waited for v.4.
I manage a small group of machines that are connected to each other, but never to the Internet. Our customer asked for the Vista upgrade, paid for proper licensing, we installed Vista in a small test group, customers were happy. Vista failed, customers were extremely unhappy.
This is the sole reason that we haven't migrated all the clients to Vista. And why we had to rollback the test group back to XP. Vista's phone-home cycle is 180 days, then it lies to you and says that "Hardware Changed..." and drops the computer into its restricted use mode.
There is a solution for this problem, Microsoft Key Management Services (KMS). We SAs are ready to deploy KMS, but have run into management resistance for 6+ months now. Vista left such a bad impression with them, they decided to just wait until we migrate to Windows 7 to setup KMS. And that won't happen until the next hardware refresh cycle, so maybe 1Q2011.
Once you have KMS, the 180- to 90-day change really isn't that big of a deal.
Playstation Home? Charge for it. I used it a few times when I first signed up, but it doesn't really do anything. I'm sure the costs outweigh the virtual trinkets and mini games they sell.
Playstation Store? Access needs to be free. Any store costs should be included in the price of the game/movie/tv show/theme pack/etc. Plus, on the movies side, it costs enough already to rent or buy movies.
Multiplayer Games? Who is hosting the server? EA, R*, etc? The hosting cost should be figured into the price of the game. Or they (Pub/Dev) charge a separate subscription fee. Sony hosting the server? Charge for it, XBox Live style.
I have no issue with paying for PSN as long as the price is reasonable. I paid for XBox Live for years, before I got rid of my XBox. $60/yr is perfect, $5/mo. That's $5m per month with 1m users (random user number). I couldn't see servers, bandwidth, datacenter, licensing, and power costs being beyond $60m per year, but then again, IANA MMO SysAd. Any more than $60, and it will fail. Maybe they could get away with a $100/yr price if they included a full Skype client, with video...maybe.
eh hem...put on tin-foil conspiracy hat... Could this be the beginning of a real-world "Newspeak?" With everything else the UK has done in recent years, it is merely one more step toward 1984. For those unfamiliar with Orwellian Newspeak:
I've been looking for a replacement for my 12" G4 Powerbook and looked at the Dell Mini 12. Good dimensions and screen resolution, but what killed it for me was the Intel GMA 500 chipset and Atom N530. Underpowered and overpriced, plus flaky compatibility and lousy battery life. Its like a TFT maker had leftover panels and Intel had the junk leftover from making "quality" GMA 9x0 and N2x0 parts and sold it to Dell real cheap.
Roll in a candy coating and sell it for $100+ more than the good Mini 10 series and presto! A line that will be quickly discontinued because the geeks that actually buy netbooks know better.
What's amusing to me is that if you want to education or health care funded in the US, you have to lobby Congress like hell to fund it.
What's amusing to me is that people think education or health care is a proper role for the Federal Government.
What's amusing to me is that people think education or health care is a proper role for unaccountable entities whose primary responsibility is profit.
I don't think Shakrai was implying that education and health care should be run by for-profit corporation. Only that they should not be run by the Federal government. While I like my private health insurance, I believe that education should be run by the local government. Afterall, they should understand the local community better than any bureaucrat in D.C. or a state capital.
As a gamer, I've had my eye on a PSP for a while now, mainly for the piracy/hack factor. Its a nice little system that would be great for emulation and PSP games. But what is killing this system, other than the DS, is the Game Starvation. All one needs to do is compare the review lists at IGN (or your favorite game site). Games come out weekly for the DS, in bulk. Games come out in spurts for the PSP, a few here and there, sometimes months apart.
DS = Lots of games, great and shovelware, ports, remakes, and originals
PSP = Few games, mostly PSOne ports or remakes, not much original content outside of LocoRoco and Patapon. It doesn't help that the devs half-ass most of the ports/remakes.
Plus when you go to the store, the PSP section always looks like a clearance section. Few games, broken/off displays, lots of empty spaces signifying "better days," and the same few crap games they had last time you stopped in.
Games sell systems. And "50 million" PSP gamers should be large enough to sell new, quality content to. Lack of games and a great system to do emulation on equals high piracy numbers. And lack of software sales is DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE to available content. Just put together a Virtual Console like Nintendo with legal emulation and see how your software sales do.
Sony, want to turn your PSP software sales around? Then 1) sell the damn thing to developers! Your claimed user base should be more than enough to attract some good shops with interesting ideas and IP. 2) Hire new merchandise reps. Your store displays suck. 3) Keep publishing older games and keep them in stock. To sell more games they have to be available. 4) Stop trying to make every game a port or offshoot of a PS2/PS3 game.
When I'd go to Montreal, I'd get hit for GST and QST when I bought stuff. Then when I got back to Michigan, I was supposed to pay Duty/Use Tax for it. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that there's some IRS tax form that you can fill out to get GST and QST back, but unless its a big purchase, its more hassle than its worth. Granted, I was physically there and not shopping online.
It wouldn't surprise me though if us Americans enacted a sales tax based on company location, the Canadians would quickly pass something similar. So buy a product from NY, pay NY tax; buy QC, pay QC tax; buy CA, pay CA tax, etc. If this is the case, I can see many web businesses that aren't more than a warehouse and a website moving to low-tax locations to give them an advantage in pricing. Especially if the difference is great enough to justify the move. Or if the law allows to reincorporate in a "cheap" state and/or have a payment processing clerk there. 5 states have no sales tax: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon.
According to TFA, the Wilkins Ice Shelf has lost 1,800 km^2 of ice in the past year. This article states that the ice shelf is 200-250m thick. This gives volume lost of 360,000 km^3 to 450,000 km^3; 2000m*900m*200m, 2000m*900m*250m (easy numbers). Remaining area = (1800/.14)-1800 = 11057 km^2.
First question. Is it possible that over time (think glacial timeframe, not human timeframe) that the remaining 11,057 km^2 will rebuild the lost volume? How long is this process? If I remember correctly, Antarctica is a rather dry place regardless of the amount of ice and snow seen in pictures. This would require 32.5m to 40.6m of new packed snowfall/ice to replace what broken off in the past year; 360,000/11,057 = 32.5m, 450,000/11,057 = 40.6m.
Second question. What is the air and surface temperature impact of the hole in the ozone layer? link. Would the increased UV and microwave radiation exposure, especially in the Antarctic summer months, more directly impact surface temperature than global warming?
Wait a sec, London has CCTV cameras everywhere for Big Brother, ahem Citizen Security, including the affluent areas. And they're working oh so well... Google comes along in a little village to take pictures from the road, which afaik, anyone can do. Now Brits claim privacy evasion. Sheesh, I'd be far more afraid of your govt than of Google. Besides, it appears that you have a developing reputation of being a good target for theives regardless. I'm not certain a thief googles, "easy burglary target rural england".
If citizens had guns, maybe they'd be better defended. After all, criminals will get guns/weapons regardless of whatever stupid law you have to try and control them.
Then how would we pay for Great Leader's multi-trillion dollar spending plan? The same way new cars will be powered next year, fairy dust. Quick! Buy 1000 Fairy Dust Dec Contracts!
As a member and avid listener, NPR is balanced in news that is NOT politically sensitive. The have many great info pieces, local station pieces, and human rights stories. But during last years primaries and elections, their bias was completely obvious. On more than one occasion I had to change the channel because the reporter was about to orgasm talking about Obama. Based on the tones of their voices, you could tell who was thrilled and giddy (the Obama reporter) and who was hesitant and annoyed (the McCain reporter).
It is also biased with the current economic crisis. The only show on many NPR stations that provides real coverage of it is APM's Marketplace, and even then, that's their news beat. Where's the investigative journalism into this mess? And I don't mean a generic "Blame the Bush Administration" because honestly, that's not the whole truth. Why aren't they calling for Fannie & Freddie execs to give back their multi-million dollar bonuses? Why aren't they calling for the resignation of a number of Congress critters? Why not investigate the largest deficits ever projected by the CBO?
My political bias is libertarian and economic bias is capitalist, just fyi. And to further confirm my bias, Mark Levin's new book Liberty and Tyranny is absolutely brilliant.
You know there's 49 states other than California, right? Not all of them are quite so sunny year-round, or as windy, or have rivers flowing from mountain to ocean, or vast govt-owned deserts. For example, I'm from Michigan. Its cloudy, alot, especially in the winter. There are solar panels around, but not enough to power 10% of the state. And feel free to visit in the winter, I'll give you the broom and you can sweep the snow off the panels. Our rivers aren't exactly roaring, but there is hydro around.
I also lived in Alaska for a few years. Solar would work for, oh 4-5 months. Its pretty dark there in the winter. Forget hydro, its too cold and most of the state freezes. The Aleutians are pretty windy, but you'd have to build the entire transmission infrastructure to get it to the mainland. Easier said than done in some of the most hostile territory on earth. Besides, you hippies from the Lower 48 would complain about some environmental fad in one of the many regions of AK and try to block development.
It might be grid prices eventually, but I would bet rates will go up to market price after all the subsidies end in 2017, link or link or link. Besides, don't you Californian's have enough taxes on everything already? And the 7th largest economy is broke? Thanks but I prefer the +/- of the midwest, we don't need to import your bad habits.
Then what? As I said, whatever's next. I'm not a fortune teller or a captain of the New World Order, so I have no idea what exactly is next nor when. I'd like to buy a fully electric car when I replace my current gasoline one, but it won't happen for many reasons, price, practicality, range, design, availability, etc. I'm hopeful for the car after that though.
"Good faith" is broken all the time. Contract law and its enforcement is why contracts can safely be entered into. Guess you've never been apart of a verbal agreement gone bad. "I'll buy the beer next time," can often be heard by moocher friends.
"Good Intentions" drove up the stock and commodities markets last year to unsustainable levels. You can think of "Good Intentions" several ways in this case: 1)Your 401k or similar market investment was going up, way up. Easy money for you. 2)The quick and high runup in oil and base materials was considered best-case-scenario by many environmentalists. This made alternatives cost competitive and spurred investment in their development. 3)Due to high commuting costs, people started looking at housing closer to work/city centers, helping to reduce urban sprawl (well, theoretically anyways). Also for more efficient cars.
In case you've been living under a rock, money has basically collapsed. Over 40% of the worlds wealth has vanished over the past 8 months. The paper backing the USD is practially worthless, 25bp. The only reason that the dollar is as strong as it is, is because of the economies and currencies of the world, the US is the best of the worst. Once other markets recover, look for an exodus from the USD. Then you'll really see some economic fireworks.
Well, I guess you could say that oil was once dinosaur dust, but not fairy dust, fairies are mythological. Peak oil is certainly an accepted concept, but as to when the peak has/will occur is debatable. There are still too many unknowns, variables, and estimates to determine a reliable answer. Peak Oil. Lots of charts and data open for interpretation. Keep in mind, I agree with the concept, but I'm not drinking the eco-religion Kool-Aid.
As to "look beyond" there's many, many companies investing in and researching alternative energies. In this case, Shell is no longer one of them. Shell is an oil company. The only priority of a company is to make a profit. Without that, there can be no R&D, no investments, no hiring employees, no philanthropy, etc. If they run out of oil, they go out of business or adapt to the market and sell something else. A study of the dot com bubble will show many companies that ignored reality for best-case, long-term ideas. But they forgot to make money now too. They lasted as long as the VC could afford them.
Based on your logic, I should start investing in horses and drawn-carriages. Both are renewable and sustainable, minimal emissions during use and construction, and minimal nasty chemicals used during manufacturing, much of the world does not have current access to them, and they can travel places other transportation cannot. Think of the demand for veterinarians and blacksmiths, plus tack and riding gear, and carpenters and farmers too. Horses are natural, so we can have as many of them as we need without consequence, right?
Seriously, they are an oil company in the business of producing and refining crude oil, for a profit. That's what their entire infrastructure is built around. Thousands of miles of pipe, thousands of service stations, thousands of by-products and oil-derivatives, sea and land tanker fleets, claims to reserves, geological surveys, exploration, oil derricks, off-shore platforms, thousands of scientists, geeks, tradesmen, and explorers, and so on. None of which correlate well to Wind, Solar, or Hydro. Yes, you can use oil products to generate electricity, but Shell wants to deliver the fuel, not run the power plant.
Now that the price of crude oil has settled back to where the market dictates, instead of speculators, Shell is making far less money (along with every company/country in that sector). This isn't much more than a belt tightening and cutting projects that are not contributing to the core business.
Again, they're an oil company trying to profit. The world doesn't run on good intentions, well wishes, and fairy dust. It does run on money and oil though.
I think the other technologies show lots of promise, especially solar, but let someone who specializes in it do it. I am a realist and understand that its going to take a combination of everything to get us to whatever is next.
What is missing is the same thing missing from most people newly joining the work force. They have little to no investment in the company.
Unless you interned with or already work(ed) for that company, you're going to have zero investment in said company.
"This will look good on my resume" and rarely "This will be a great career."
Bingo!
The biggest difference when entering the workforce now versus 20y ago, is that you grew up with a reasonable expectation that you would be with 3-5 companies your entire career. Now you're almost expected to have been with 3-5 by 30. When I graduated college in 2005, I had already been with 7 companies, with the shortest tenure of 9 months; some part-time to pay for school, some career-path type of jobs that paid less than the retail part-time ones, and always at least 2 jobs at once (School's expensive!).
Growing up in a Michigan auto town, I saw exactly what company loyalty got you, laid-off with few options, and if you were lucky, some sort of union severance. Mid-career positions being eliminated, for cost or other reasons, hurt entry level positions and the concept of a career ladder. Now we not only have to compete against other recent grads, which is/was normal, but also against many, many more people with experience. Our biggest advantage against experience is our cost. A single person right out of college is going to be looking for less money than a 40-something with a mortgage, wife, & 3 kids.
Last bit of personal anecdote, companies don't invest in their employees any longer beyond the basic HR-mandated crap. They understand their turnover rates and instead of trying to fix it, they minimize their investment in the new employee. If they succeed with us, great; if not, oh well. When you see "self-starter" on a job advert, it really means "Zero to Minimal training. Hope you like to read!"
I really hope others have had better luck with their careers, but that's been my experience. YMMV. Narcissistic? Yes, but capitalism is a cold-hearted bitch. No one else is looking out for me or my career.
Sorry, I got on a bit of a rant there. It was late when I wrote it, but for some reason, my computer didn't post it until I refreshed it around noon today. Anyways...
I agree with you about the concept of a pension via an annuity. And you're right that it should have been paid when the work was performed. The railroad pension system is a good example of a proper defined benefit program. Its not without its kinks and issues, but it works and is properly capitalized.
Yes, those companies should have properly funded said annuities as they were accrued. Unfortunately for many retirees, they didn't. So any bankruptcy will pass the responsibility to the PBGC. Which will ultimately mean a reduction in benefits to retirees.
Let's say I have $50,000 budgeted for you this year. Option A) $50,000 - $12,000 for healthcare = $38,000. $38,000 *.65 (35% fed, state, city, ss, med) = $24,700 net, or $475/wk. Option B) $50,000 - $12,000 for healthcare = $38,000. $38,000 *.8 (20% pre-tax earnings toward retirement) = $30,400. $30,400 *.65 (35% taxes) = $19,760 net, $380/wk.
Unfortunately, most people I know take the short-sighted "Option A" route because it gives them an additional $4,940 now. Also, "Option B" which are traditional defined benefit plans or similar company-managed programs rarely exist any longer. They're much more likely to be employee-managed programs like 401k, and still require the employee to actively make that choice to defer wages. And to your point, I'd be stiffing you $7,600 if you chose "Option B" and I just didn't pay it. Which is wrong, unethical, immoral, illegal, and yes, stealing from you.
If any company with retirees/pensioners goes bankrupt and cannot even pay currently working employees, how do you propose to pay the retirees? Any company, not just UAW and other union companies? Where's the money come from? Rich executives? Hardly. Oh right, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). An interesting piece of legislation known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, signed into law by Gerald Ford on Labor Day, created the PBGC. While not directly financed by the general tax fund, its an indirect tax on business, which obviously passes that along to their customers. If you are management and have budgeted for a 3%-6% increase in your premium to keep your pension fund fully funded, then get hit with an increase of 10%-12%, where do you get that extra 4%-9% from? Healthcare costs alone are up 120% over the past 9y, compared to inflation, up 44%, and wages, up 29%; source. And while its not right, illegal, and immoral to stiff your retirees fund, according to this law anyways, its what executives have done. Where's the cryouts for government enforcement of that law?
As a capitalistic business owner, you work, I pay you; you don't work, I don't pay you. Seems like a basic theme throughout the history of the world. Retirees don't work, I don't see why I should still pay you. I'm sure you did a great job and provided excellent value for me to keep you around for 25+ years, but that gives me no reason to pay you for another 25+ years. In fact, I could probably hire 2 new people to replace you after you retire. If you're smart enough to properly plan and save for your own retirement, great, wonderful, I'll even through you a party. Otherwise, keep working.
When did retirement become a right and a given in life? Especially of the publicly-funded type. Only in the last 50y in western cultures. Certainly in the past there was family and community help for the elderly, but many were also wise enough to save for their own needs and also live within their means.
If you think the UAW pensioners, and their fund, are screwed, just wait until the bulk of the boomers here in the US start retiring and drawing Social Security and Medicare. Don't worry though, the greediest generation will just print more money or use the Fed's Chinese Express (CHEX?) charge card.
So let's see, boomers and their greedy offspring have:
Made their children compete with world labor rates (instead of far closer national or regional rates)
Commoditize as much as possible to compete only on price.
Exported millions of 'middle class' jobs, manufacturing, knowledge, service, etc.
Raised the middle class workforce entry barrier to include a 4y degree, which in-debts twenty-somethings with a mortgage-sized payment without actually owning a house or property
Driven up costs of housing by insane urban planning (or lack thereof)
To paraphrase a quote generally attributed to de Tocqueville, they've hired legislators to bribe themselves with their own money. See all entitlement programs and the most recent redistribution, er...Bailout, nope, umm...Stimulus Packages (I think that's the PC term this week).
Are prepared to tax Gen X/Y into oblivion to continue their excessive lifestyles. I'm interested in theories as to how my taxes WON'T go up, at any level of government.
Created huge indirect taxes through legislation, think of the various mandatory insurances.
Created a legal environment which is threatening to anyone trying to run a business, or develop new products, or treat patients.
As to the thread topic, unless those companies listed in the theory start buying up track rights, or property for new track, they're pretty worthless to the rails. Yes they have great manufacturing capacity and talent, but the railroads a
As this has already turned into an Apple loving/bashing forum, here's a different point of view-
ITS ABOUT F'N TIME!
Seriously though...How long has Nokia had incredible Symbian-based phone around the globe? The US gets the version the red-headed step child slobbered on, shook vigorously, then beat with a bat. Then our beloved GSM carriers get ahold of it and lock it down to do as little as possible. So up to now, one needs to buy an expensive (compared to subsidized models) unlocked phone off ebay or elsewhere and get a SIM card and pray most of the features work to get a Symbian phone that doesn't suck. And that crowd is limited to techno-geeks who know they can do that.
The iPhone and surrounding technosphere are nice, relative to the rest of the US market, but compared to many Nokia, SonyEricsson, HTC, etc. handsets, they're nothing special.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you have a link to those neat Japanese Led lights? I'd like to evaluate them for a project I am planning to build this fall. Thanks.
If you've read Daemon and/or Freedom by Daniel Suarez, this sounds like the Hummers guarding Matthew Sobol's house. There's other autonomous vehicles, but I won't give anything else away.
Seems simple enough to me.
I manage a small group of machines that are connected to each other, but never to the Internet. Our customer asked for the Vista upgrade, paid for proper licensing, we installed Vista in a small test group, customers were happy. Vista failed, customers were extremely unhappy.
This is the sole reason that we haven't migrated all the clients to Vista. And why we had to rollback the test group back to XP. Vista's phone-home cycle is 180 days, then it lies to you and says that "Hardware Changed..." and drops the computer into its restricted use mode.
There is a solution for this problem, Microsoft Key Management Services (KMS). We SAs are ready to deploy KMS, but have run into management resistance for 6+ months now. Vista left such a bad impression with them, they decided to just wait until we migrate to Windows 7 to setup KMS. And that won't happen until the next hardware refresh cycle, so maybe 1Q2011.
Once you have KMS, the 180- to 90-day change really isn't that big of a deal.
I have no issue with paying for PSN as long as the price is reasonable. I paid for XBox Live for years, before I got rid of my XBox. $60/yr is perfect, $5/mo. That's $5m per month with 1m users (random user number). I couldn't see servers, bandwidth, datacenter, licensing, and power costs being beyond $60m per year, but then again, IANA MMO SysAd. Any more than $60, and it will fail. Maybe they could get away with a $100/yr price if they included a full Skype client, with video...maybe.
eh hem...put on tin-foil conspiracy hat... Could this be the beginning of a real-world "Newspeak?" With everything else the UK has done in recent years, it is merely one more step toward 1984. For those unfamiliar with Orwellian Newspeak:
Well, I did put "quality" in quotes for a reason, but you are correct.
I've been looking for a replacement for my 12" G4 Powerbook and looked at the Dell Mini 12. Good dimensions and screen resolution, but what killed it for me was the Intel GMA 500 chipset and Atom N530. Underpowered and overpriced, plus flaky compatibility and lousy battery life. Its like a TFT maker had leftover panels and Intel had the junk leftover from making "quality" GMA 9x0 and N2x0 parts and sold it to Dell real cheap.
Roll in a candy coating and sell it for $100+ more than the good Mini 10 series and presto! A line that will be quickly discontinued because the geeks that actually buy netbooks know better.
What's amusing to me is that if you want to education or health care funded in the US, you have to lobby Congress like hell to fund it.
What's amusing to me is that people think education or health care is a proper role for the Federal Government.
What's amusing to me is that people think education or health care is a proper role for unaccountable entities whose primary responsibility is profit.
I don't think Shakrai was implying that education and health care should be run by for-profit corporation. Only that they should not be run by the Federal government. While I like my private health insurance, I believe that education should be run by the local government. Afterall, they should understand the local community better than any bureaucrat in D.C. or a state capital.
Well said. Thank you for posting that. I wish more people understood the points you made, especially about IT being about service.
As a gamer, I've had my eye on a PSP for a while now, mainly for the piracy/hack factor. Its a nice little system that would be great for emulation and PSP games. But what is killing this system, other than the DS, is the Game Starvation. All one needs to do is compare the review lists at IGN (or your favorite game site). Games come out weekly for the DS, in bulk. Games come out in spurts for the PSP, a few here and there, sometimes months apart.
Plus when you go to the store, the PSP section always looks like a clearance section. Few games, broken/off displays, lots of empty spaces signifying "better days," and the same few crap games they had last time you stopped in.
Games sell systems. And "50 million" PSP gamers should be large enough to sell new, quality content to. Lack of games and a great system to do emulation on equals high piracy numbers. And lack of software sales is DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE to available content. Just put together a Virtual Console like Nintendo with legal emulation and see how your software sales do.
Sony, want to turn your PSP software sales around? Then 1) sell the damn thing to developers! Your claimed user base should be more than enough to attract some good shops with interesting ideas and IP. 2) Hire new merchandise reps. Your store displays suck. 3) Keep publishing older games and keep them in stock. To sell more games they have to be available. 4) Stop trying to make every game a port or offshoot of a PS2/PS3 game.
When I'd go to Montreal, I'd get hit for GST and QST when I bought stuff. Then when I got back to Michigan, I was supposed to pay Duty/Use Tax for it. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that there's some IRS tax form that you can fill out to get GST and QST back, but unless its a big purchase, its more hassle than its worth. Granted, I was physically there and not shopping online.
It wouldn't surprise me though if us Americans enacted a sales tax based on company location, the Canadians would quickly pass something similar. So buy a product from NY, pay NY tax; buy QC, pay QC tax; buy CA, pay CA tax, etc. If this is the case, I can see many web businesses that aren't more than a warehouse and a website moving to low-tax locations to give them an advantage in pricing. Especially if the difference is great enough to justify the move. Or if the law allows to reincorporate in a "cheap" state and/or have a payment processing clerk there. 5 states have no sales tax: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon.
Here is a link to the Bloomberg news article. No registration or subscription required.
I have 2 questions.
According to TFA, the Wilkins Ice Shelf has lost 1,800 km^2 of ice in the past year. This article states that the ice shelf is 200-250m thick. This gives volume lost of 360,000 km^3 to 450,000 km^3; 2000m*900m*200m, 2000m*900m*250m (easy numbers). Remaining area = (1800/.14)-1800 = 11057 km^2.
First question. Is it possible that over time (think glacial timeframe, not human timeframe) that the remaining 11,057 km^2 will rebuild the lost volume? How long is this process? If I remember correctly, Antarctica is a rather dry place regardless of the amount of ice and snow seen in pictures. This would require 32.5m to 40.6m of new packed snowfall/ice to replace what broken off in the past year; 360,000/11,057 = 32.5m, 450,000/11,057 = 40.6m.
Second question. What is the air and surface temperature impact of the hole in the ozone layer? link. Would the increased UV and microwave radiation exposure, especially in the Antarctic summer months, more directly impact surface temperature than global warming?
Wait a sec, London has CCTV cameras everywhere for Big Brother, ahem Citizen Security, including the affluent areas. And they're working oh so well... Google comes along in a little village to take pictures from the road, which afaik, anyone can do. Now Brits claim privacy evasion. Sheesh, I'd be far more afraid of your govt than of Google. Besides, it appears that you have a developing reputation of being a good target for theives regardless. I'm not certain a thief googles, "easy burglary target rural england".
If citizens had guns, maybe they'd be better defended. After all, criminals will get guns/weapons regardless of whatever stupid law you have to try and control them.
Then how would we pay for Great Leader's multi-trillion dollar spending plan? The same way new cars will be powered next year, fairy dust. Quick! Buy 1000 Fairy Dust Dec Contracts!
As a member and avid listener, NPR is balanced in news that is NOT politically sensitive. The have many great info pieces, local station pieces, and human rights stories. But during last years primaries and elections, their bias was completely obvious. On more than one occasion I had to change the channel because the reporter was about to orgasm talking about Obama. Based on the tones of their voices, you could tell who was thrilled and giddy (the Obama reporter) and who was hesitant and annoyed (the McCain reporter).
It is also biased with the current economic crisis. The only show on many NPR stations that provides real coverage of it is APM's Marketplace, and even then, that's their news beat. Where's the investigative journalism into this mess? And I don't mean a generic "Blame the Bush Administration" because honestly, that's not the whole truth. Why aren't they calling for Fannie & Freddie execs to give back their multi-million dollar bonuses? Why aren't they calling for the resignation of a number of Congress critters? Why not investigate the largest deficits ever projected by the CBO?
My political bias is libertarian and economic bias is capitalist, just fyi. And to further confirm my bias, Mark Levin's new book Liberty and Tyranny is absolutely brilliant.
You know there's 49 states other than California, right? Not all of them are quite so sunny year-round, or as windy, or have rivers flowing from mountain to ocean, or vast govt-owned deserts. For example, I'm from Michigan. Its cloudy, alot, especially in the winter. There are solar panels around, but not enough to power 10% of the state. And feel free to visit in the winter, I'll give you the broom and you can sweep the snow off the panels. Our rivers aren't exactly roaring, but there is hydro around.
I also lived in Alaska for a few years. Solar would work for, oh 4-5 months. Its pretty dark there in the winter. Forget hydro, its too cold and most of the state freezes. The Aleutians are pretty windy, but you'd have to build the entire transmission infrastructure to get it to the mainland. Easier said than done in some of the most hostile territory on earth. Besides, you hippies from the Lower 48 would complain about some environmental fad in one of the many regions of AK and try to block development.
It might be grid prices eventually, but I would bet rates will go up to market price after all the subsidies end in 2017, link or link or link. Besides, don't you Californian's have enough taxes on everything already? And the 7th largest economy is broke? Thanks but I prefer the +/- of the midwest, we don't need to import your bad habits.
Then what? As I said, whatever's next. I'm not a fortune teller or a captain of the New World Order, so I have no idea what exactly is next nor when. I'd like to buy a fully electric car when I replace my current gasoline one, but it won't happen for many reasons, price, practicality, range, design, availability, etc. I'm hopeful for the car after that though.
"Good faith" is broken all the time. Contract law and its enforcement is why contracts can safely be entered into. Guess you've never been apart of a verbal agreement gone bad. "I'll buy the beer next time," can often be heard by moocher friends.
"Good Intentions" drove up the stock and commodities markets last year to unsustainable levels. You can think of "Good Intentions" several ways in this case: 1)Your 401k or similar market investment was going up, way up. Easy money for you. 2)The quick and high runup in oil and base materials was considered best-case-scenario by many environmentalists. This made alternatives cost competitive and spurred investment in their development. 3)Due to high commuting costs, people started looking at housing closer to work/city centers, helping to reduce urban sprawl (well, theoretically anyways). Also for more efficient cars.
In case you've been living under a rock, money has basically collapsed. Over 40% of the worlds wealth has vanished over the past 8 months. The paper backing the USD is practially worthless, 25bp. The only reason that the dollar is as strong as it is, is because of the economies and currencies of the world, the US is the best of the worst. Once other markets recover, look for an exodus from the USD. Then you'll really see some economic fireworks.
Well, I guess you could say that oil was once dinosaur dust, but not fairy dust, fairies are mythological. Peak oil is certainly an accepted concept, but as to when the peak has/will occur is debatable. There are still too many unknowns, variables, and estimates to determine a reliable answer. Peak Oil. Lots of charts and data open for interpretation. Keep in mind, I agree with the concept, but I'm not drinking the eco-religion Kool-Aid.
As to "look beyond" there's many, many companies investing in and researching alternative energies. In this case, Shell is no longer one of them. Shell is an oil company. The only priority of a company is to make a profit. Without that, there can be no R&D, no investments, no hiring employees, no philanthropy, etc. If they run out of oil, they go out of business or adapt to the market and sell something else. A study of the dot com bubble will show many companies that ignored reality for best-case, long-term ideas. But they forgot to make money now too. They lasted as long as the VC could afford them.
Based on your logic, I should start investing in horses and drawn-carriages. Both are renewable and sustainable, minimal emissions during use and construction, and minimal nasty chemicals used during manufacturing, much of the world does not have current access to them, and they can travel places other transportation cannot. Think of the demand for veterinarians and blacksmiths, plus tack and riding gear, and carpenters and farmers too. Horses are natural, so we can have as many of them as we need without consequence, right?
Seriously, they are an oil company in the business of producing and refining crude oil, for a profit. That's what their entire infrastructure is built around. Thousands of miles of pipe, thousands of service stations, thousands of by-products and oil-derivatives, sea and land tanker fleets, claims to reserves, geological surveys, exploration, oil derricks, off-shore platforms, thousands of scientists, geeks, tradesmen, and explorers, and so on. None of which correlate well to Wind, Solar, or Hydro. Yes, you can use oil products to generate electricity, but Shell wants to deliver the fuel, not run the power plant.
Now that the price of crude oil has settled back to where the market dictates, instead of speculators, Shell is making far less money (along with every company/country in that sector). This isn't much more than a belt tightening and cutting projects that are not contributing to the core business.
Again, they're an oil company trying to profit. The world doesn't run on good intentions, well wishes, and fairy dust. It does run on money and oil though.
I think the other technologies show lots of promise, especially solar, but let someone who specializes in it do it. I am a realist and understand that its going to take a combination of everything to get us to whatever is next.
What is missing is the same thing missing from most people newly joining the work force. They have little to no investment in the company.
Unless you interned with or already work(ed) for that company, you're going to have zero investment in said company.
"This will look good on my resume" and rarely "This will be a great career."
Bingo!
The biggest difference when entering the workforce now versus 20y ago, is that you grew up with a reasonable expectation that you would be with 3-5 companies your entire career. Now you're almost expected to have been with 3-5 by 30. When I graduated college in 2005, I had already been with 7 companies, with the shortest tenure of 9 months; some part-time to pay for school, some career-path type of jobs that paid less than the retail part-time ones, and always at least 2 jobs at once (School's expensive!).
Growing up in a Michigan auto town, I saw exactly what company loyalty got you, laid-off with few options, and if you were lucky, some sort of union severance. Mid-career positions being eliminated, for cost or other reasons, hurt entry level positions and the concept of a career ladder. Now we not only have to compete against other recent grads, which is/was normal, but also against many, many more people with experience. Our biggest advantage against experience is our cost. A single person right out of college is going to be looking for less money than a 40-something with a mortgage, wife, & 3 kids.
Last bit of personal anecdote, companies don't invest in their employees any longer beyond the basic HR-mandated crap. They understand their turnover rates and instead of trying to fix it, they minimize their investment in the new employee. If they succeed with us, great; if not, oh well. When you see "self-starter" on a job advert, it really means "Zero to Minimal training. Hope you like to read!"
I really hope others have had better luck with their careers, but that's been my experience. YMMV. Narcissistic? Yes, but capitalism is a cold-hearted bitch. No one else is looking out for me or my career.
Sorry, I got on a bit of a rant there. It was late when I wrote it, but for some reason, my computer didn't post it until I refreshed it around noon today. Anyways...
.65 (35% fed, state, city, ss, med) = $24,700 net, or $475/wk. .8 (20% pre-tax earnings toward retirement) = $30,400. $30,400 * .65 (35% taxes) = $19,760 net, $380/wk.
I agree with you about the concept of a pension via an annuity. And you're right that it should have been paid when the work was performed. The railroad pension system is a good example of a proper defined benefit program. Its not without its kinks and issues, but it works and is properly capitalized.
Yes, those companies should have properly funded said annuities as they were accrued. Unfortunately for many retirees, they didn't. So any bankruptcy will pass the responsibility to the PBGC. Which will ultimately mean a reduction in benefits to retirees.
Let's say I have $50,000 budgeted for you this year.
Option A) $50,000 - $12,000 for healthcare = $38,000. $38,000 *
Option B) $50,000 - $12,000 for healthcare = $38,000. $38,000 *
Unfortunately, most people I know take the short-sighted "Option A" route because it gives them an additional $4,940 now. Also, "Option B" which are traditional defined benefit plans or similar company-managed programs rarely exist any longer. They're much more likely to be employee-managed programs like 401k, and still require the employee to actively make that choice to defer wages. And to your point, I'd be stiffing you $7,600 if you chose "Option B" and I just didn't pay it. Which is wrong, unethical, immoral, illegal, and yes, stealing from you.
As a capitalistic business owner, you work, I pay you; you don't work, I don't pay you. Seems like a basic theme throughout the history of the world. Retirees don't work, I don't see why I should still pay you. I'm sure you did a great job and provided excellent value for me to keep you around for 25+ years, but that gives me no reason to pay you for another 25+ years. In fact, I could probably hire 2 new people to replace you after you retire. If you're smart enough to properly plan and save for your own retirement, great, wonderful, I'll even through you a party. Otherwise, keep working.
When did retirement become a right and a given in life? Especially of the publicly-funded type. Only in the last 50y in western cultures. Certainly in the past there was family and community help for the elderly, but many were also wise enough to save for their own needs and also live within their means.
If you think the UAW pensioners, and their fund, are screwed, just wait until the bulk of the boomers here in the US start retiring and drawing Social Security and Medicare. Don't worry though, the greediest generation will just print more money or use the Fed's Chinese Express (CHEX?) charge card.
So let's see, boomers and their greedy offspring have:
As to the thread topic, unless those companies listed in the theory start buying up track rights, or property for new track, they're pretty worthless to the rails. Yes they have great manufacturing capacity and talent, but the railroads a
As this has already turned into an Apple loving/bashing forum, here's a different point of view-
ITS ABOUT F'N TIME!
Seriously though...How long has Nokia had incredible Symbian-based phone around the globe? The US gets the version the red-headed step child slobbered on, shook vigorously, then beat with a bat. Then our beloved GSM carriers get ahold of it and lock it down to do as little as possible. So up to now, one needs to buy an expensive (compared to subsidized models) unlocked phone off ebay or elsewhere and get a SIM card and pray most of the features work to get a Symbian phone that doesn't suck. And that crowd is limited to techno-geeks who know they can do that.
The iPhone and surrounding technosphere are nice, relative to the rest of the US market, but compared to many Nokia, SonyEricsson, HTC, etc. handsets, they're nothing special.
As a former sys admin for the USAF, I think you should read up on SIPRNET and JWICS, 2 such secure networks.