I also looked at those financials and completely agree. That said, I don't believe replacing their Apple Store equivalents with independent dealers fixes the problem. After all, dealerships don't work for free. The money eventually must come from somewhere, usually from the customer paying higher prices for their cars. Now if customers are already willing to pay more, then Tesla could just raise the prices themselves.
Yep, I bought a 10-year-old Toyota for $4000 and used it for 14 more years. I paid maybe $10,000 on maintenance, including some fender benders. Then when I finally scrapped it, I was paid $1500 by the government for trading in a "fuel-inefficient" car. And I don't even know how much I saved on cheaper insurance and registration fees.
Any car that costs $50,000 upfront is very costly by comparison.
QR doesn't work if you have soft materials or something that could be damaged. Plastic bags of all kinds can fold up onto itself. Paper is the same and it can also tear. Packaging is usually damaged when the user opens it. Water bottles and cans can be crushed. There are simply too many ways for a label to become unreadable after it's gone through the hands of a consumer.
We're not going to have the data until we actually discover alien life, at which point the equation is moot. For example, how would you know "the fraction of habitable planets that develops life" if you only have one example of a habitable planet with life on it?
Where in that article you linked says we're able to measure the atmospheric contents of exoplanets? As far as I can tell they're looking at proto-planetary disks, which is quite a ways away from becoming planets.
I think you overestimate what it would take to make Mars habitable. A day's worth of solar output would easily vaporize Mars and turn it into a cloud of plasma (3.3x10^31 J heating up 6.4x10^23 kg of rock would raise the temperature by 60000 K).
But even if you're right, and aliens need planet-sized solar collectors, we've barely looked at 0.25% of the night sky with Kepler, and only 150,000 of stars in that area are close enough to be tracked by the telescope. Now the Milky Way has about 250 billion stars in it, so we've looked at 0.0001% of its stars. And that's just a single galaxy out of billions.
This is like seeing no squirrels on one pine tree and concluding that there are no squirrels on the entire continent.
"Hard work - Not Relevant" is probably the most important part. Trying to implement it, however, is much harder. At some point, there'll be someone who finishes all their work in 3 hours and goes home. Most managers will intervene when they see this, either by coming up with busywork or just telling them to stay to keep up appearances.
How does the company even end up with 100 hours of work per week for everyone? Is that all essential work, or just busywork? If burnout rate is super high, wouldn't you end up with even more work and fewer people to do it?
If you think sales tax is why online shopping is dominating, then you need to wake up to the 21st century.
Reasons why people don't shop at local stores:
1. It's more expensive, even before sales tax
2. The gas to drive to the store costs money
3. Standing at the checkout line is a waste of time
4. Some things simply aren't sold in your area, and even if it is...
5. It can take you several hours and many stores to find what you're looking for
6. Comparing 2 products sold by 2 different stores means going back and forth between them
If profit is involved then viable businesses will figure out a way.
Oh? Then why don't we have the cure to cancer yet? There's billions in profits waiting there.
Businesses are not magic, it's composed of real humans with very human limitations. If the rules are too complex or too vague, businesses are not going to take that risk. And even if they choose to, why do you want them to waste money on tax law compliance? Wouldn't you rather take that money as taxes?
The reason something like 20% time works is that it's actually work time, which means no screwing around or playing video games. If you get a bunch of smart people to do nothing for a while, they'll start coming up with interesting ideas. Out of those, a few end up being profitable for the company.
Whether the same applies to food service employees waits to be seen. I'm sure some are just coasting along, while others are trying to better themselves. If the owner can afford it, I don't see why he shouldn't give the latter group a chance.
While technology generally reduces costs, it's not as effective when the cost driver is the raw material itself. Jewelry is still very expensive, mainly due to the precious metals in it. Likewise, housing is growing ever more expensive, mainly due to limited quantities of land.
Yes, you can build higher, but the cost of building skyscrapers hasn't improved at all. The Empire State Building, built in 1931, costs about $400 million in today's dollars. One World Trade Center costs $3.9 billion.
Hold on, you lived in a former communist country? If you didn't like your life there, isn't that a problem with whatever replaced communism?
And as someone who's visited both China and India, I can tell you that practicing communism, at least in certain stages of development, turned out better for their nation.
If you have to pick which backdoor, pick one from people who have the least power over you. Who cares if China knows you're a furry? They're not going to arrest you from half way across the world.
If women and "people of color" make bad major choices, then having the university tell them "no" is by far the best possible outcome. Why do you want them to rack up a hundred thousand dollars in debt to get a useless degree?
If you want less discrimination, then the simplest way is to ban race and sex from appearing on the applications. Of course, there's a slight problem with that, since they're currently using that information to discriminate against white and asian men.
An easy way to fix graduation rates and bad major choices is to make the school responsible for the outcome. Right now they have little incentive to make students successful, other than bragging rights. So ban them from collecting tuition. Instead divert a portion of post graduation income to them, maybe for 5 or 6 years. The better the college is at getting students to make good career choices, the more funding they get.
It's great for even a good student, since it's a guaranteeing "make money with this major, or you don't pay".
Slashdot Mirror
That's not how pricing works. If people can afford to pay double the price, the ISP would've already raised the price.
I also looked at those financials and completely agree. That said, I don't believe replacing their Apple Store equivalents with independent dealers fixes the problem. After all, dealerships don't work for free. The money eventually must come from somewhere, usually from the customer paying higher prices for their cars. Now if customers are already willing to pay more, then Tesla could just raise the prices themselves.
Yep, I bought a 10-year-old Toyota for $4000 and used it for 14 more years. I paid maybe $10,000 on maintenance, including some fender benders. Then when I finally scrapped it, I was paid $1500 by the government for trading in a "fuel-inefficient" car. And I don't even know how much I saved on cheaper insurance and registration fees.
Any car that costs $50,000 upfront is very costly by comparison.
QR doesn't work if you have soft materials or something that could be damaged. Plastic bags of all kinds can fold up onto itself. Paper is the same and it can also tear. Packaging is usually damaged when the user opens it. Water bottles and cans can be crushed. There are simply too many ways for a label to become unreadable after it's gone through the hands of a consumer.
You made the argument, so you need to provide links that support your argument. Is that hard to understand?
That's a lot of feel good bullshit. Go give ISIS some love. You can report back on how that went, assuming they didn't cut your head off first.
I think "caught" is the key word.
Also I imagine those samurai swords don't instantaneously teleport from the blacksmith into someone's house.
Some say the universe is infinite. If so, then pink unicorns are somewhere out there, maybe even invisible ones.
We're not going to have the data until we actually discover alien life, at which point the equation is moot. For example, how would you know "the fraction of habitable planets that develops life" if you only have one example of a habitable planet with life on it?
Where in that article you linked says we're able to measure the atmospheric contents of exoplanets? As far as I can tell they're looking at proto-planetary disks, which is quite a ways away from becoming planets.
I think you overestimate what it would take to make Mars habitable. A day's worth of solar output would easily vaporize Mars and turn it into a cloud of plasma (3.3x10^31 J heating up 6.4x10^23 kg of rock would raise the temperature by 60000 K).
But even if you're right, and aliens need planet-sized solar collectors, we've barely looked at 0.25% of the night sky with Kepler, and only 150,000 of stars in that area are close enough to be tracked by the telescope. Now the Milky Way has about 250 billion stars in it, so we've looked at 0.0001% of its stars. And that's just a single galaxy out of billions.
This is like seeing no squirrels on one pine tree and concluding that there are no squirrels on the entire continent.
What I never do is go, "Oh, I finished all my work." I can always find new and different ways to add value to my employer.
Just curious, how much of that value actually gets passed on to you?
"Hard work - Not Relevant" is probably the most important part. Trying to implement it, however, is much harder. At some point, there'll be someone who finishes all their work in 3 hours and goes home. Most managers will intervene when they see this, either by coming up with busywork or just telling them to stay to keep up appearances.
How does the company even end up with 100 hours of work per week for everyone? Is that all essential work, or just busywork? If burnout rate is super high, wouldn't you end up with even more work and fewer people to do it?
Reasons why people don't shop at local stores:
1. It's more expensive, even before sales tax
2. The gas to drive to the store costs money
3. Standing at the checkout line is a waste of time
4. Some things simply aren't sold in your area, and even if it is...
5. It can take you several hours and many stores to find what you're looking for
6. Comparing 2 products sold by 2 different stores means going back and forth between them
If profit is involved then viable businesses will figure out a way.
Oh? Then why don't we have the cure to cancer yet? There's billions in profits waiting there.
Businesses are not magic, it's composed of real humans with very human limitations. If the rules are too complex or too vague, businesses are not going to take that risk. And even if they choose to, why do you want them to waste money on tax law compliance? Wouldn't you rather take that money as taxes?
The reason something like 20% time works is that it's actually work time, which means no screwing around or playing video games. If you get a bunch of smart people to do nothing for a while, they'll start coming up with interesting ideas. Out of those, a few end up being profitable for the company.
Whether the same applies to food service employees waits to be seen. I'm sure some are just coasting along, while others are trying to better themselves. If the owner can afford it, I don't see why he shouldn't give the latter group a chance.
As much as I like In-N-Out, the page doesn't say organic or grass fed beef, which in corporate speak means feedlot cattle with antibiotics & hormones.
The roboburger also looks a bit bigger. If they got the taste anywhere near as good as In-N-Out, it'll be well worth the extra $2.
While technology generally reduces costs, it's not as effective when the cost driver is the raw material itself. Jewelry is still very expensive, mainly due to the precious metals in it. Likewise, housing is growing ever more expensive, mainly due to limited quantities of land.
Yes, you can build higher, but the cost of building skyscrapers hasn't improved at all. The Empire State Building, built in 1931, costs about $400 million in today's dollars. One World Trade Center costs $3.9 billion.
You know roofs can also be painted white, right? Also, what do you do in case of a tornado or hurricane? Or hail for that matter.
Hold on, you lived in a former communist country? If you didn't like your life there, isn't that a problem with whatever replaced communism?
And as someone who's visited both China and India, I can tell you that practicing communism, at least in certain stages of development, turned out better for their nation.
Since everyone uses SSL now, how is a switch or router supposed to get access to your encrypted communication?
If you have to pick which backdoor, pick one from people who have the least power over you. Who cares if China knows you're a furry? They're not going to arrest you from half way across the world.
If women and "people of color" make bad major choices, then having the university tell them "no" is by far the best possible outcome. Why do you want them to rack up a hundred thousand dollars in debt to get a useless degree?
If you want less discrimination, then the simplest way is to ban race and sex from appearing on the applications. Of course, there's a slight problem with that, since they're currently using that information to discriminate against white and asian men.
An easy way to fix graduation rates and bad major choices is to make the school responsible for the outcome. Right now they have little incentive to make students successful, other than bragging rights. So ban them from collecting tuition. Instead divert a portion of post graduation income to them, maybe for 5 or 6 years. The better the college is at getting students to make good career choices, the more funding they get.
It's great for even a good student, since it's a guaranteeing "make money with this major, or you don't pay".
What's really surprising is that Trump is the more sane one right now.