However, we're going to have partly cloudy skies and it's not dark 24 hours a day - at least not where I'm at.
I do spend a lot of time encouraging people to get out there. My kids are older, and it's very special to take them out of the city and looking up at the full panoply of stars. I've seen thousands of meteors myself, but last year I saw dozens of people online who had just seen the first meteor of their lives thanks to our encouragement to go look up.
Seriously - go spend your time watching for them. If you are going to tweet you saw one, don't just say, "I saw one." Post it so that it can be counted and we can do some real science with it. http://meteorwatch.org/meteor-map/
I previewed that? Holy crap, that last sentence looks stupidly out of place.
"The reason I talk about energy flows instead of weather is that energy is not stored equally on the globe and it's interaction can be complex. Very simplistically...."
Smack me with a clarity bat until I start making sense.
On average, we are observing global temperatures rise. Strictly speaking, that is Global Warming.
The effects of global warming exhibit themselves in the form of a new pattern of energy distribution around the globe. Energy distribution occurs in the form of day to day weather, but the change in long term patterns is what we observe as Climate Change.
Raising the temperature one degree at the poles is expected to have a significantly different effect than raising temperature one degree in a desert. After that, it's all about how the energy flows adapt to the new conditions.
Very simplistically, if we add potential energy to the oceans, it melts polar ice and converts it to kinetic energy, creating changes in current flows.
No, you are wrong. More data will only make better predictions if all data is equally valid and all the data carries equal weight.
You have presented one data point that must be integrated into the final model, but you're going to have to explain how a measurement of 2 degrees from a 5 million year sedimentary core is the equivalent measurement of 2.00 degrees today with a calibrated thermometer.
And show them the faults in the system that collected the evidence, and the proponents deny that.
Which proponents? Are you talking proponents on the "peer review" level or are we talking proponents on the "populous" level?
Rest assured, debate over the veracity of evidence put forward can be a lot more heated in journals than it is in the media. It also tends to be much more subtle where focus is put on methodologies or efficacy.
Sadly, when popularized it gets oversimplified to the point it becomes sweeping broad strokes which are rebuffed. If you want to carry a meaningful debate you simply have to get to the level of understanding the data presented and not accept being spoon-fed generalized summary reports.
The report is a summary report that takes a very hard look at the data level and provides very firm conclusions as an answer. This report doesn't ignore any faults, it looks at the preponderance of evidence. It should be accepted as credible - not necessarily 100% correct, but absolutely credible.
What I found most fascinating in the summary was the statement "it's been a scorcher for all of us" (or words to that effect), which is both untrue (we've had a few hot days here, mostly cool) and refers to WEATHER and not CLIMATE. So, when WEATHER supports the global warming argument, WEATHER is proof. When WEATHER doesn't support the global warming argument, we're told that "WEATHER ISN'T CLIMATE, YOU MOUTH BREATHING KNUCKLE DRAGGER."
Here you must understand the subtlety between climate and weather. You are absolutely correct in saying that present weather is not evidence for or against climate change. Weather is not climate, but the subtlety is that climate is composed of long-term weather patterns. We are not debating that it is a scorcher outside the window, we're noticing that the weather patterns outside the window have been changing year after year in predictable and unpredictable ways. Polar ice caps are shrinking, glaciers are retreating, Antarctic ice flows are increasing - but they are composed of thinner ice more easily broken up during the summer months. The debate of "is it or isn't it changing?" is over, the attempt to fully describe a functional model is well under way.
Which Earth was used to conduct these experiments that provided the evidence? Are we confusing "the scientific method" with "correlation" again?
Our Earth. Which is concerning because for now it's the only one we've got. We have been in the middle of a 200 year experiment where we've been pumping more CO2 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than have been removed naturally. This is the phase where we're studying the results of that experiment.
Perhaps you need to review what is being tested through the scientific method and not confuse it with the difference between causation and correlation.
Observations have been noted, hypotheses were postulated, experiments are performed (and repeated) and theories are made. In this case, the theories that are made are a generalized model which tries to encompass all the observations which were taken. We do not have a completed, coherent model, but attempts to find one does not equal correlation.
The provable facts are as simple as looking at the absorption spectrum of CO2. It's testable, it's repeatable, it's accepted. Get closer to the data.
But, as with so many other things, reasonable voices are drowned out by the extremists--
You mean the ones who keep shouting down anyone who dares question the science behind global warming, calling them mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers, even when some of those people doing the questioning are climate scientists? Yes, I agree. Reasonable voices are drowned out, on purpose.
Especially anyone resorting to a strawman argument when the underlying data is accepted as sound. And particularly anyone
There's a whole bunch of ways to approach it, but my favorite is to dig up the Messier objects - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_object - visible in your sky and just run down what you have available. Tried and true, fairly well known, and they're tough enough you have to actually look for them, but mostly easily enough to find that the students can find success. Another bonus: There are fantastic images available online and you can dig up a pile of photos that will help them see what they're looking for. Side topics up for discussion could be photo manipulation, wavelengths of light, and why the photos don't look the same as we can see through a microscope. It's important in case you think you can put a camera at the end of a telescope and just snap off equivalent photos.
Personal recommendation: If you're just starting yourself take a look at the Astronomy Picture of the Day http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ to see what kinds of interesting objects are in the sky at that particular time of year. They give great talking points there targeted towards interested amateurs like me.
And subsequently cherish those memories for years of anguish and bitterness? And those suckers get bounced around the internet like nobody's business! Try that with print, buddy!
I'm a sysadmin by day, computer consultant by night.
I started this path because I kept getting stuck as "The Computer Guy." I set everyone up with email. I kept everything in the office running. I was the guy that knew what hardware to get next. I got a LAN up and running.
I became a known quantity and all kinds of people started coming to me to fix the stupid problems. My friend talked me into starting a business on the side after fixing her computer. If nothing else I'd get a tax writeoff and at the very best my goal was to get into IT professionally and double my income.
I burnt out. I got tired of doing the same stupid fixes for different (l)users. I got sick of working on someone's weird ass-hardware. I questioned why I ever wanted into the field in the first place. Then I got in with a company that wasn't stingy on getting standardized hardware and my job got easier (even possible). Things were great, I was excited and connected with my job, and then I ran into a lead programmer who dumped the impossible on my lap and expected immediate return. I burnt out again.
Most of the company respected what I did, a few powerful people didn't. I got out, landed with a company I feel more comfortable with, and brought all my strengths with me without the baggage of a programmer dumping me in the middle of a problem and expecting me to fix it while he looked over my shoulder.
My guru is a BoFH. I am not. It just doesn't work for me, I don't enjoy being grumpy all day (even though I secretly wish that I could be..) The people that respect what I do like me because I'm positive and helpful. When I'm not, I don't like myself. I'm most important, if I can't deal with the demands something outside me has to change, I can't live with the BoFH attitude.
On the other hand, you're not a carpet to be walked on. If you have liberal policies that are getting dumped on, well, you have no policies at all. Defend and enforce your policies - you may need to explain your rationale. I'm really liberal on my network, I'm dealing with about 20 users, but my blanket policies are stupid easy to defend. (ie "Surf porn at home - our schtick is we're fast and our customers need ever bit of bandwidth we can give them." If they don't buy that, there's a dozen more excuses in my bag. If I can't get through after that, I have to decide if it's a hill I want to die on.)
I completely agree with those who say, "Look at your work / life balance." Balance is everything. You don't have to do all your planning by the Scotty principle, but do pad your estimates and give yourself reasonable deadlines plus a bit. If you finish early, fill in that extra time you've given yourself with interesting projects. If you are enthusiastic and engaged in your work, your attitude spreads to your coworkers.
A last side note, I don't have to do the consulting gig on the side any longer, but I choose to because I find it most rewarding now. I do a lot of simple stuff these days and it's pleasant to have people at the end of their rope so grateful to have a professional look at their system. Treating coworkers as regular customers has helped me not bog down in the abyss of cynicism.
And congratulate yourself. The very notion that you asked the question is a pretty good indication that you will find your own solution.
Slow. It's Java based, I didn't expect it to be lightning fast. Really bloody easy to add in and configure modules. Pathetically simple to add in a new server to monitor. Navigation takes a while to adapt to.
Great for me on my servers with head space. It's not for everyone and it wasn't my first choice, but after I used it a bit I liked it a lot.
If you've evaluated it and found it lacking, good for you. Tell me what you prefer and I'll look at it. If you're one of the thousands of drones babbling, "What the fuck is Hyperic?" you at least have a basic answer.
Hyperic is a GPLed monitoring solution sorta akin to Nagios. I use it to give me my monitoring for my Linux & Windows servers, but also it runs queries against our data vendor's database to ensure that the database is responsive.
I inherited it, which was the first time I ran across it, but after using it I'm a big convert. I recommend taking a serious look at it.
As to the takeover, well, I doubt it'll affect me one way or the other.
I *hate* ACL's. It's way too fidgity and complicated with too much possibility of making a mistake along the way. We're much better off with the permission system as it exists now. If you want ACL's, then go ahead and implement them on your own system. By default it should stay as it is. Why does this keep coming up over and over again?
I swear, the problem isn't a lack of critical thinking. The problem is the damn noobies don't RTFM. Now get off my lawn!
Proper attire very well may mean a tee-shirt and shorts. What is proper is not defined by your occupation, your role, your sector in the economy or your position within your company.
One of the best bosses I worked for frequently came to work in shorts and tee-shirt. Never on days when he'd have to go to a client site to provide operational support. I usually dress "business casual" since I never know what kind of interaction I'll have from day to day. Sure, I may be crawling under a desk runnin cat5 in slacks, but I may be dealing with a CxO. Hopefully not in that order.
"Proper" is defined by your circumstance and the people with which you interact. Thankfully, it does not involve suits for the lot of us.
Sure, but you also get a chance to grab data off the drive before you wipe. It's really nice to at least have the opportunity to do that - particularly in worst-case scenarios where you're waiting for the system to be responsive.
Now, granted, most of the time I'm throwing in Knoppix or some such LiveCD and yanking the data that way, but I happen to live in that lovely subset of the population that tends to frequent Slashdot and at least knows what Knoppix, Insert, Backtrack, or nUbuntu are.
My immediate brand of hell is someone who took their computer into the shop, they wiped it without telling her, and she steamed for two years over them not saving pictures of her trip to Maui with her late husband. Sometimes that 4+ hours is worth the time, even if there's no money in it.
The "4.7" is a rate per 10,000 individuals. Study's sample size was 30,000. The "six" you quote was from the entire sample size, or 2 per 10,000 individuals.
That is where the 6.7 came from.
6.7 + (2 * 6.7) gives us the estimated rate of 20.1 per 10,000.
That remains less than the "low-end" estimate. Interesting numbers, AC...
Anecdotally, no I consider it quite normal. It's rare that I hear of people who don't have some sort of pain after being in this industry a while unless they took precautions all along.
My point is specifically what you reference: I've stuck with the same keyboard (more or less) for the past 20 years, but these days I switch between several different models of mice. It's not typical for people to have five very different mice sitting on their desk, most will do with one or two. Even most people who get an ergonomic mouse get just the one and stick with it.
Getting a suitable mouse is personal and, as TFA more or less points out, there isn't a single perfect mouse out there. It costs a lot to develop the different shapes, sizes and textures of the shells themselves. Then the electronics and switches have to be developed to fit inside the shells. That's going to cost a bundle to make and test. And there aren't going to be a lot of units sold at the end of it, because that market is fragmented and personal and most people won't go out and buy five different $100 mice.
I haven't been keyboard shopping lately. I don't look at extra buttons or grips or textures on the keycaps as features, I look for tactile feedback and durability. I happily spent my $100 at pckeyboards to get my USB-flavoured Model M remix for the same reasons I'll spend on a good mouse.
If it's comfortable and keeps me productive, it's worth it.
I've noticeably developed pain in my right wrist, arm and shoulder over the past ten years. It's only my mousing arm, I rarely get pains on the keyboard, but mousing causes huge grief. Most of my pain seems to relate to the act of clicking a mouse button with my fingers.
I prefer my Model M for typing, but for mice I rotate through them. My favourite is the 3m Ergonomic (especially when I click with my thumb and not my fingers). I'm dissatisfied with it on my Mac, though, and primarily use a Mighty Mouse with it. I plugged in a cheap-o Logitech RX300 that came bundled with a new system we got because it feels comfortable to use for a while.
ANYTHING that keeps me productive for a few extra years is worth it. I doubled my salary when I started working professionally in IT - you're damned right that $100 on a mouse is worth it to me.
Slashdot Mirror
That was me. Gotta remember to log in. *sigh*
So would I.
However, we're going to have partly cloudy skies and it's not dark 24 hours a day - at least not where I'm at.
I do spend a lot of time encouraging people to get out there. My kids are older, and it's very special to take them out of the city and looking up at the full panoply of stars. I've seen thousands of meteors myself, but last year I saw dozens of people online who had just seen the first meteor of their lives thanks to our encouragement to go look up.
Seriously - go spend your time watching for them. If you are going to tweet you saw one, don't just say, "I saw one." Post it so that it can be counted and we can do some real science with it. http://meteorwatch.org/meteor-map/
Sean and his son Jonathon are reported banged up but okay.
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2010/08/sean-okeefe-and.html
I previewed that? Holy crap, that last sentence looks stupidly out of place.
"The reason I talk about energy flows instead of weather is that energy is not stored equally on the globe and it's interaction can be complex. Very simplistically...."
Smack me with a clarity bat until I start making sense.
On average, we are observing global temperatures rise. Strictly speaking, that is Global Warming.
The effects of global warming exhibit themselves in the form of a new pattern of energy distribution around the globe. Energy distribution occurs in the form of day to day weather, but the change in long term patterns is what we observe as Climate Change.
Raising the temperature one degree at the poles is expected to have a significantly different effect than raising temperature one degree in a desert. After that, it's all about how the energy flows adapt to the new conditions.
Very simplistically, if we add potential energy to the oceans, it melts polar ice and converts it to kinetic energy, creating changes in current flows.
No, you are wrong. More data will only make better predictions if all data is equally valid and all the data carries equal weight.
You have presented one data point that must be integrated into the final model, but you're going to have to explain how a measurement of 2 degrees from a 5 million year sedimentary core is the equivalent measurement of 2.00 degrees today with a calibrated thermometer.
And show them the faults in the system that collected the evidence, and the proponents deny that.
Which proponents? Are you talking proponents on the "peer review" level or are we talking proponents on the "populous" level?
Rest assured, debate over the veracity of evidence put forward can be a lot more heated in journals than it is in the media. It also tends to be much more subtle where focus is put on methodologies or efficacy.
Sadly, when popularized it gets oversimplified to the point it becomes sweeping broad strokes which are rebuffed. If you want to carry a meaningful debate you simply have to get to the level of understanding the data presented and not accept being spoon-fed generalized summary reports.
The report is a summary report that takes a very hard look at the data level and provides very firm conclusions as an answer. This report doesn't ignore any faults, it looks at the preponderance of evidence. It should be accepted as credible - not necessarily 100% correct, but absolutely credible.
What I found most fascinating in the summary was the statement "it's been a scorcher for all of us" (or words to that effect), which is both untrue (we've had a few hot days here, mostly cool) and refers to WEATHER and not CLIMATE. So, when WEATHER supports the global warming argument, WEATHER is proof. When WEATHER doesn't support the global warming argument, we're told that "WEATHER ISN'T CLIMATE, YOU MOUTH BREATHING KNUCKLE DRAGGER."
Here you must understand the subtlety between climate and weather. You are absolutely correct in saying that present weather is not evidence for or against climate change. Weather is not climate, but the subtlety is that climate is composed of long-term weather patterns. We are not debating that it is a scorcher outside the window, we're noticing that the weather patterns outside the window have been changing year after year in predictable and unpredictable ways. Polar ice caps are shrinking, glaciers are retreating, Antarctic ice flows are increasing - but they are composed of thinner ice more easily broken up during the summer months. The debate of "is it or isn't it changing?" is over, the attempt to fully describe a functional model is well under way.
Which Earth was used to conduct these experiments that provided the evidence? Are we confusing "the scientific method" with "correlation" again?
Our Earth. Which is concerning because for now it's the only one we've got. We have been in the middle of a 200 year experiment where we've been pumping more CO2 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than have been removed naturally. This is the phase where we're studying the results of that experiment.
Perhaps you need to review what is being tested through the scientific method and not confuse it with the difference between causation and correlation.
Observations have been noted, hypotheses were postulated, experiments are performed (and repeated) and theories are made. In this case, the theories that are made are a generalized model which tries to encompass all the observations which were taken. We do not have a completed, coherent model, but attempts to find one does not equal correlation.
The provable facts are as simple as looking at the absorption spectrum of CO2. It's testable, it's repeatable, it's accepted. Get closer to the data.
But, as with so many other things, reasonable voices are drowned out by the extremists--
You mean the ones who keep shouting down anyone who dares question the science behind global warming, calling them mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers, even when some of those people doing the questioning are climate scientists? Yes, I agree. Reasonable voices are drowned out, on purpose.
Especially anyone resorting to a strawman argument when the underlying data is accepted as sound. And particularly anyone
eThay onlyway ersonpay owhay ouldway aysay atthay ustmay ebay away opcay.
There's a whole bunch of ways to approach it, but my favorite is to dig up the Messier objects - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_object - visible in your sky and just run down what you have available. Tried and true, fairly well known, and they're tough enough you have to actually look for them, but mostly easily enough to find that the students can find success. Another bonus: There are fantastic images available online and you can dig up a pile of photos that will help them see what they're looking for. Side topics up for discussion could be photo manipulation, wavelengths of light, and why the photos don't look the same as we can see through a microscope. It's important in case you think you can put a camera at the end of a telescope and just snap off equivalent photos.
Personal recommendation: If you're just starting yourself take a look at the Astronomy Picture of the Day http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ to see what kinds of interesting objects are in the sky at that particular time of year. They give great talking points there targeted towards interested amateurs like me.
I'm working now. And I should be reading Slashdot!
(Sadly, a true story. Back to the grind.)
How else could we prove infidelity?
And subsequently cherish those memories for years of anguish and bitterness? And those suckers get bounced around the internet like nobody's business! Try that with print, buddy!
I'm a sysadmin by day, computer consultant by night.
I started this path because I kept getting stuck as "The Computer Guy." I set everyone up with email. I kept everything in the office running. I was the guy that knew what hardware to get next. I got a LAN up and running.
I became a known quantity and all kinds of people started coming to me to fix the stupid problems. My friend talked me into starting a business on the side after fixing her computer. If nothing else I'd get a tax writeoff and at the very best my goal was to get into IT professionally and double my income.
I burnt out. I got tired of doing the same stupid fixes for different (l)users. I got sick of working on someone's weird ass-hardware. I questioned why I ever wanted into the field in the first place. Then I got in with a company that wasn't stingy on getting standardized hardware and my job got easier (even possible). Things were great, I was excited and connected with my job, and then I ran into a lead programmer who dumped the impossible on my lap and expected immediate return. I burnt out again.
Most of the company respected what I did, a few powerful people didn't. I got out, landed with a company I feel more comfortable with, and brought all my strengths with me without the baggage of a programmer dumping me in the middle of a problem and expecting me to fix it while he looked over my shoulder.
My guru is a BoFH. I am not. It just doesn't work for me, I don't enjoy being grumpy all day (even though I secretly wish that I could be..) The people that respect what I do like me because I'm positive and helpful. When I'm not, I don't like myself. I'm most important, if I can't deal with the demands something outside me has to change, I can't live with the BoFH attitude.
On the other hand, you're not a carpet to be walked on. If you have liberal policies that are getting dumped on, well, you have no policies at all. Defend and enforce your policies - you may need to explain your rationale. I'm really liberal on my network, I'm dealing with about 20 users, but my blanket policies are stupid easy to defend. (ie "Surf porn at home - our schtick is we're fast and our customers need ever bit of bandwidth we can give them." If they don't buy that, there's a dozen more excuses in my bag. If I can't get through after that, I have to decide if it's a hill I want to die on.)
I completely agree with those who say, "Look at your work / life balance." Balance is everything. You don't have to do all your planning by the Scotty principle, but do pad your estimates and give yourself reasonable deadlines plus a bit. If you finish early, fill in that extra time you've given yourself with interesting projects. If you are enthusiastic and engaged in your work, your attitude spreads to your coworkers.
Go get Thomas Limoncelli's "Time Management for System Administrators." http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244613832&sr=8-1 I found it infinitely worthwhile and read it every few months when I start to feel overwhelmed again.
A last side note, I don't have to do the consulting gig on the side any longer, but I choose to because I find it most rewarding now. I do a lot of simple stuff these days and it's pleasant to have people at the end of their rope so grateful to have a professional look at their system. Treating coworkers as regular customers has helped me not bog down in the abyss of cynicism.
And congratulate yourself. The very notion that you asked the question is a pretty good indication that you will find your own solution.
Slow. It's Java based, I didn't expect it to be lightning fast. Really bloody easy to add in and configure modules. Pathetically simple to add in a new server to monitor. Navigation takes a while to adapt to.
Great for me on my servers with head space. It's not for everyone and it wasn't my first choice, but after I used it a bit I liked it a lot.
If you've evaluated it and found it lacking, good for you. Tell me what you prefer and I'll look at it. If you're one of the thousands of drones babbling, "What the fuck is Hyperic?" you at least have a basic answer.
Hyperic is a GPLed monitoring solution sorta akin to Nagios. I use it to give me my monitoring for my Linux & Windows servers, but also it runs queries against our data vendor's database to ensure that the database is responsive.
I inherited it, which was the first time I ran across it, but after using it I'm a big convert. I recommend taking a serious look at it.
As to the takeover, well, I doubt it'll affect me one way or the other.
No bloody way.
I *hate* ACL's. It's way too fidgity and complicated with too much possibility of making a mistake along the way. We're much better off with the permission system as it exists now. If you want ACL's, then go ahead and implement them on your own system. By default it should stay as it is. Why does this keep coming up over and over again?
I swear, the problem isn't a lack of critical thinking. The problem is the damn noobies don't RTFM. Now get off my lawn!
Proper attire very well may mean a tee-shirt and shorts. What is proper is not defined by your occupation, your role, your sector in the economy or your position within your company.
One of the best bosses I worked for frequently came to work in shorts and tee-shirt. Never on days when he'd have to go to a client site to provide operational support. I usually dress "business casual" since I never know what kind of interaction I'll have from day to day. Sure, I may be crawling under a desk runnin cat5 in slacks, but I may be dealing with a CxO. Hopefully not in that order.
"Proper" is defined by your circumstance and the people with which you interact. Thankfully, it does not involve suits for the lot of us.
So has Slashdot has been seeding dupes for years to cash in on this $300 advertising phenomenon?
Diabolical! When do the bad dupes get moved down?
Sure, but you also get a chance to grab data off the drive before you wipe. It's really nice to at least have the opportunity to do that - particularly in worst-case scenarios where you're waiting for the system to be responsive.
Now, granted, most of the time I'm throwing in Knoppix or some such LiveCD and yanking the data that way, but I happen to live in that lovely subset of the population that tends to frequent Slashdot and at least knows what Knoppix, Insert, Backtrack, or nUbuntu are.
My immediate brand of hell is someone who took their computer into the shop, they wiped it without telling her, and she steamed for two years over them not saving pictures of her trip to Maui with her late husband. Sometimes that 4+ hours is worth the time, even if there's no money in it.
The "4.7" is a rate per 10,000 individuals. Study's sample size was 30,000. The "six" you quote was from the entire sample size, or 2 per 10,000 individuals.
That is where the 6.7 came from.
6.7 + (2 * 6.7) gives us the estimated rate of 20.1 per 10,000.
That remains less than the "low-end" estimate. Interesting numbers, AC...
Our girlfriends and wives won't let us.
Holy shit, she's really a GIRL?
We have elephants. Pink ones. No one talks about them, though.
That'll be GREAT.
Finally I'll be able to use the voices in my head that drown out everything else for the forces of GOOD, not EVIL.
Anecdotally, no I consider it quite normal. It's rare that I hear of people who don't have some sort of pain after being in this industry a while unless they took precautions all along.
My point is specifically what you reference: I've stuck with the same keyboard (more or less) for the past 20 years, but these days I switch between several different models of mice. It's not typical for people to have five very different mice sitting on their desk, most will do with one or two. Even most people who get an ergonomic mouse get just the one and stick with it.
Getting a suitable mouse is personal and, as TFA more or less points out, there isn't a single perfect mouse out there. It costs a lot to develop the different shapes, sizes and textures of the shells themselves. Then the electronics and switches have to be developed to fit inside the shells. That's going to cost a bundle to make and test. And there aren't going to be a lot of units sold at the end of it, because that market is fragmented and personal and most people won't go out and buy five different $100 mice.
I haven't been keyboard shopping lately. I don't look at extra buttons or grips or textures on the keycaps as features, I look for tactile feedback and durability. I happily spent my $100 at pckeyboards to get my USB-flavoured Model M remix for the same reasons I'll spend on a good mouse.
If it's comfortable and keeps me productive, it's worth it.
I'm 40. I've been using a mouse for 20 years now.
I've noticeably developed pain in my right wrist, arm and shoulder over the past ten years. It's only my mousing arm, I rarely get pains on the keyboard, but mousing causes huge grief. Most of my pain seems to relate to the act of clicking a mouse button with my fingers.
I prefer my Model M for typing, but for mice I rotate through them. My favourite is the 3m Ergonomic (especially when I click with my thumb and not my fingers). I'm dissatisfied with it on my Mac, though, and primarily use a Mighty Mouse with it. I plugged in a cheap-o Logitech RX300 that came bundled with a new system we got because it feels comfortable to use for a while.
ANYTHING that keeps me productive for a few extra years is worth it. I doubled my salary when I started working professionally in IT - you're damned right that $100 on a mouse is worth it to me.