That sounds bad, but what I mean is this: My goal is to do my job, and do it well, with the least amount of effort on my part. My goal is get things done fast and get it right the first time. I've created all kinds of little macros, programs and shortcuts that increase my speed and accuracy. I've made every tool available to my coworkers, but no one else uses them. The result is that I'm at least twice as productive as the people I work with (it's measurable). But I don't get paid twice as much. At most, I make 5-10k more. After working like a dog for the first 6 months of this year when we were short staffed and dealing with a couple of big projects, I got a 3% raise (the company is doing fine). After 10 years of "exceeds expectations" or "outstanding" reviews, I no longer feel like working hard. So I've been using my tools for the benefit of MYSELF, rather than my employer. I make sure everything that needs to get done gets done, and any extra time I take for myself. I take 90 minute lunches (I live close by so I go home and see my kids), I surf the web and I socialize. But I always make sure I'm a top producer - just not by so much. So maybe my raise won't be as big next year, but there's not much difference between 2.5% and 3% anyway and there is a huge difference between the way I was feeling about my job a few months ago and the way I feel about it now.
I guess you could say that I'm both lazy and creative.
My old manager was a high school teacher before he became a techie. I imagine that he was a good one. The guy knows a LOT, can explain things well, is patient, knows to step back and let us do our thing, but also knows to step in when there are problems.
That manager moved up to a VP slot and is now my boss' boss. My current manager doesn't know as much about what we do or how we do it, but she is a good manager. She knows that her job, in a nutshell is to help us do our jobs. If we have a problem that needs to be elevated, she wants to know 1) What's the problem, 2) Why is it a problem, and 3) What do we, the guys with the experience, see as possible solutions or alternatives. Armed with this information, she tries to resolve the issue. Things may not work out in our favor every time, but we know we've got someone who a) recognizes her shortcomings, b) acknowledges our expertise, and c) is willing to go to bat for us.
Is it any wonder I've worked here for over 10 years?
That's been my question since I was a kid. Why do I get tired? Has something built up in my body and brain that needs to be cleaned out? Or has something been used up that needs to be replenished.
With a full time job, 2 kids and a working spouse, I would not be interested in using this drug for work, I would want to use it to increase my leisure time. Sometimes after a hard day and an equally tough evening, I lay down in bed at 10pm, pick up a book, read two paragraphs and start dozing off. I don't want to sleep dammit! I want to read my book for awhile.
I was a PC-only gamer since my parents bought an IBM-PC in 1981. Over the past couple of years, though, I've found that I just don't have the time to keep up with game patches, driver updates, etc. With a full time job and 2 small kids, I feel lucky if I get 1/2 an hour of free time, let alone gaming time.
The last straw came a couple years ago when I had to update a video card driver to make some game work properly, but doing that made my TV tuner card behave strangely, so off to the manufacturer's site for another driver update, which broke some other functionality in the TV recording software.
I haven't played any new games on the PC since then and I haven't missed it.
He's not saying that downloading music using I2 is OK. His point is that the original editorial was completely one-sided and that the RIAA, rather than being an innocent victim, has been and continues to be guilty of similar behaviors.
He is accusing the pot of calling the kettle black - he's not saying that the kettle's bad behavior is okay.
I missed the season finale of FavoriteShow this year and no one I know has taped it. Rather than wait until you re-air it in September, I would really like download or stream a copy of the show to my home so I can watch it. Go ahead and downsample it to VCD quality if you want, I just want to watch the show. I'm quite willing to pay, too. I think $1 is a fair price for a 45 minute, low bandwidth copy of a show that has already aired. Please let me know where I can go to pay for and download this material. Seriously. I've got cash.
Several months without pay was enough to push your friend to the brink of bankruptcy? Good grief! I don't know how old this person was at the time, but I'm hoping he was about 23 years old and had been working for a year.
Once you have money coming in, you should be saving every cent you can. If there are unexpected problems, you can handle them. If not, you get to retire earlier and more comfortably.
I was lucky enough to have parents that explained all this to me when I was a kid. By the time I had my first "real job" I had enough saved that I could have gone almost a year without work. At age 39, I could go at least 8.
Don't spend your hard earned money on stupid crap you don't need.
Yes, it does. Even the codes that are unique to my town and were expensive to implement during a recent remodel. Are the surrounding towns less safe? Do more people die in fires than in my town? No.
"Do people drive whatever speed they want while throwing litter out of their windows on your street?"
I live at a T intersection on a busy street and the answer to that question is, sadly, yes. I'm constantly picking up trash from my tiny patch of front yard. Mostly beer cans.
"Does the garbage man take your garbage to a half mile away and then launch it into the sun?"
We've all seen the stories about secretaries or customer service reps who worked for company X, receiving stock in lieu of some pay before said company hit it big and the peon was able to cash out with $1 million dollars or more. But let's face it - if you are a 75-100k per year developer and are granted options that could make you a millionaire in a few years, it's very, very, VERY unlikely to happen. Big money like that just doesn't roll down to the rank and file. Look at it this way - every person between you and the CEO's office has MORE options than you. Also, most of the higher ups will have better terms on their shares so they can cash out sooner. Owners, CEOs and Presidents will be able to sell giant blocks of shares immediately, while your options will vest over 5 years or something.
The fact is, unless you have the power to stack the deck in your favor, or someone with power is willing to stack the deck on your behalf, larger rewards are the result of taking larger risks. Since the value of options won't go any lower than zero, larger risk means a greater likelihood that the value will go to zero.
Personal story - The company I work for uses performance shares. If you do some stellar piece of work, you might be rewarded with shares that increase in value based on company performance and automatically vest and pay out after 2 years. I did some great work in 2000, was awarded shares my boss said could be worth $15,000. The timing proved to be dismal and the shares ended up being worth $1,900 at the end of 2002. That kind of pissed me off because it means I didn't get rewarded very much for work that even today saves them time and money. Of course, by 2002, everyone just shrugs their shoulders, says, "Well, we tried", and then asks, "What have you done for us lately?"
It is extremely unlikely that you will get rich working for someone else. I'm not talking about working somewhere for 30 years, saving diligently and retiring at age 55 with a multimillion dollar nest egg. I'm talking about giant payouts that put hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in the pockets of anyone below the level of senior management. A company that makes millionaires out of its employees has to go find new employees.
The president is the head of the executive branch which is charged with enforcing the laws passed by congress. And they get to decide how the laws are enforced. If a president doesn't like the DMCA, for example, he can tell his Attorney General that his priority is to go after people selling pirated CD's and DVD's, and that he doesn't want to see any kids in handcuffs for creating software tools.
If they want, they can create rules (i.e. how the law is enforced) that basically make it difficult or impossible to enforce.
When I was a kid, our church would sponsor a recycling day once a month or so - a large open container would be dropped off in the parking lot and people would bring their newspapers and magazines on their way to service.
One time, I think I was about 12, I saw my friend Dave sitting on top of the pile, reading. When I asked what he was doing, he said, "There's a whole bunch of dirty magazines up here." He packed a grocery bag with about 30 magazines, told his parents he had found a ton of comic books, stuck them in the back of the family station wagon and took them home. Recycling day was our source of porn for years.
So, I was first exposed to pornography by our church, and our church supplied me with free porn throughout my adolescence. Yay God!
I missed the season finale of West Wing this year and no one I know has taped it. Rather than wait until you re-air it in September, I would really like download or stream a copy of the show to my home so I can watch it. Go ahead and downsample it to VCD quality if you want. I just want to watch the show. I'm quite willing to pay, too. I think $1 is a fair price for a 45 minute, low bandwidth copy of a show that has already aired. There are other episodes of other shows I would really like to have copies of (I'm not interested in buying whole collections, but there are certain episodes of certain shows I'd like to own). Please let me know where I can go to pay for and download this material. Seriously. I've got cash.
Dear NFL:
I've never watched a whole football game in my life. You can do whatever the hell you want. I don't care.
Dear Music Industry,
Your prices are too high. You are competing against DVD's for my entertainment dollars and they consistently offer better value. In the past two years I've bought about 30 DVD's and maybe four CD's. And just so you know, I haven't downloaded music for over 2.5 years. Actually, that 4 CD figure is not correct. Last year BMG offered every title in their catalog for $7 and we bought 14 CD's. So it appears that, for me at least, the $7 price point puts you right back in the running for those entertainment dollars I was talking about. Oh, and by the way, BMG messed up the order and sent 8 incorrect titles. They sent along the correct titles and told us to keep the other ones (so we actually got 22 CD's for $100). It appears that it wasn't even worth the cost to return ship and restock those 8 CD's. How much do those things cost you anyway? There are a lot of titles I'm interested in but refuse to buy at the current prices. If you drop your prices to $5, I would probably buy 20 titles immediately and at least 10 titles per year thereafter. You would earn MUCH more off of me than you are under your current pricing structure.
I just started using Peapod. My personal experience is limited, but my sister-in-law has been using it for a year and is very happy.
With a 3 year old, a 4 month old and a full time job, I've reached the point where I'm simply out of large blocks of free time. I had started going shopping at 7am on Saturday, not because I like it, but because that was the only time I could go. Now I submit and order to Peapod and groceries arrive the next day.
Quality of produce and fish (my main concern) are excellent.
My only problem is that I buy my meat, milk and diapers at a warehouse club, and I do my own cooking (no higher-priced pre-packaged meals) so it's hard for me to hit the $100 cutoff for the lowest delivery charge ($4.95). But I got coupons for $5 off my first 5 orders, that plus choosing discounted delivery times should give me almost 2 months of nearly free service. They don't have everything available either, but if you have to go to the B&M store, you're in and out in 5 minutes.
I'm liking the lists feature, too. You can break things down by category (I've got lists for pantry items, baking, produce, etc), or by recipe (list everything you need and buy what you don't have - great for menu planning).
For me, what it boiled down to was this: Am I willing to pay someone $5-$8 to go shopping for me and deliver the groceries to my kitchen? Answer: Yes!
Actually, their sales were 4.7 billion, not thier profits. We don't know their profits because Giant is privately held, but if their ratio of sales to profits is the same as other grocery chains, then we can assume Giant's profits were about 110 million (that's right, the store has to sell you over $40 in groceries in order to make a $1 profit).
I sincerely doubt that 55 million of that was from the selling of personal information. I would have no trouble believing that Giant has a higher profit margin on the info vs. the groceries, but not that the info brings in more money overall.
Giant is private, so we can't look through their financials for the "Evil Deeds: Selling of Personal Info" line item. But their are plenty of public grocery chains out there. Go have a look and see if anything stands out.
Depends on your definition of dream job
on
Dream Jobs of 2004
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No, they don't call it "work" for nothing, but if you're going to be somewhere 8 hours a day, 5 days a week minimum, you might as well find something to do that you find interesting and enjoyable. Nobody said we're only talking about jobs you'll like more than vacation, family and sex.
My job isn't cool, hip or sexy, but it's my dream job. Why? Because it pays well and comes with excellent benefits. It's 10 minutes from my house. I like the people I work with. Most of my work is the kind of stuff I do best. My projects are of short duration so I have a feeling of accomplishment almost every day. Stress levels aren't high, I can telecommute if I need to (did this morning in fact), I get 4 weeks of vacation, and best of all, I work a 37.5 hour week and when I go home, I don't think about work until I get up the next morning.
Why wouldn't I love this job? I'm not working on the Mars rover and living on Mars time, but my situation is better than almost anyone I know.
Let me get this straight. Because it was raining OUTSIDE, they decided to show you a movie instead of teaching you math, or spelling, or history, or something like that? I'm surprised you can feed yourself, much less operate a computer.
In my day (1970's) if they showed a movie in school they at least PRETENDED it was educational and showed us "Our Friend the Beaver" or "The History of Zinc" - films made in the 1950's with budgets of hundreds of dollars.
My take on this whole RIAA thing:
In the early eighties, a movie on videotape cost $45-$95, but for about $9 you could buy a quality blank tape, rent a movie and make a copy if you had a friend with a VCR. Today, movies on tape cost less than nine 1982 dollars and they sell by the truckload. The same sort of thing will happen with music.
My prediction for the future:
The recent price cut is only the first - there will be more. Once the price drops to the point where you can buy a CD for about $7, sales will go back up. There are ten CD's I can think of right now that I would buy at that price. At $18, it's an investment and I have to know I'm getting my money's worth. At $7 it's an impulse buy and if there's only 2 good songs on the album, that's fine. If I can dowload the two tracks and pay $1 or less per song, then that's terrific.
CD Prices will drop, digital downloads will be available for even less (0.50 per song, $5 per album). CD copy protection and DRM will go away (it doesn't work and confuses/angers paying customers). File trading will continue, but it will be a fringe thing - why bother? The legit stuff would be so cheap that $100 would buy 15 - 20 entire CDs. Most people don't spend that much on music in a year. I buy 1 or 2 CD's a year (I have a "4 good songs" rule). I would gladly triple my music spending under this scenario.
It's not the quality, it's not the selection, it's THE PRICE. If you're selling me something for $18 that I can duplicate for $1 in time and materials, then your price is way too high. People will happily pay a FAIR price.
Five years from now, the industry will still be selling CD's but, just like with videotapes, they will be selling more units than ever, and they will be making money hand over fist in the digital realm (no manufaturing, no materials, no shipping, no warehousing, no returns and only bandwidth and storage space = high margins).
I felt underpaid at the first company I worked for, asked for a raise and was told (after being strung along for a month) that they didn't think they would have any trouble hiring a replacement for me at my current salary, so no raise for me. I had a new job in 3 weeks and this was during the LAST recession. And my replacement cost them 30% more. Which hardly mattered because they were shut down (it was a bank) five months later.
The "you're lucky you even have a job" attitude is a horrible one for any manager or executive to have. It virtually guarantees that people will start jumping ship as soon as job market starts recovering.
Managers need to let their employees know what's going on - why they're being asked to do more, how that helps the business and the bottom line, what other sacrifices are being made, and whether there is a light at the end of the tunnel. If it just sounds like management is doing all this to keep their $250k salaries coming for an extra 5 months, then start looking now.
If it sounds like the company will survive, why not try to negotiate an equity stake as compensation for the extra work?
Maybe it's advertising that needs to improve. I don't have the answers, but there has to be a better way of doing it. Some examples:
I am not in the market for a car, yet I have to watch an endless stream of car advertising. Furthermore, I have to watch ads for cars I will never, ever buy either because they're too small or too expensive.
I am well aware of the products of the Coca Cola and Pepsi companies, what their flagship products taste like and which I prefer. I should be excused from having to view any of their ads, yet I have to watch them all the time.
I watched a movie on TBS recently and at every commercial break (every 12 minutes) they ran the SAME ad for the SAME lame looking made for TBS movie. I watched only 90 minutes of the movie and saw the same ad 8 times. I wasn't going to watch it after seeing the first ad and the subsequent 7 viewings did nothing to change my mind.
Currently, advertisers pay a lot of money to reach millions of people, of which only a small fraction might be interested in what they are selling.
Tivo ought to offer a program that allows you to cut your monthly subscription cost by 50 or 100% depending on how many ads you watch. Not the ads you recorded along with "Friends" last night, but ads that are stored on your machine and play when you access a recorded program, like the ads that play before movies these days. It can be one 30 second or two 15 second spots. No more. Furthermore, you've provided the Tivo software information about yourself or your household (whatever you feel comfortable with) so the advertising is much better targeted. The more information you provide, the better targeted the advertising. So now, you'll only see car ads if the you've told the machine you might be buying a new car in the next six months, and since it knows your preferences, it won't show you ads for Korean econoboxes or Lincoln Navigators. Anyone who doesn't want to participate doesn't have to. And if you don't want to provide any information you don't have to do that either, but the ads will be about as well targeted as regular TV. Oh, and you can give thumbs up or down to the ads themselves to provide feedback for the advertisers.
TV isn't going away and advertising isn't going away either, but they need to get rid of the clutter. The solution to people ignoring ads because there too many ads is not to have even more ads. It's to make sure the right ads are being seen by the right people. Assuming 90% of what we have to sit through is clutter, if they can figure out how to get the right ads to the right people, they can cut the number of ads I have to watch by 90% and charge advertisers 10 times as much per ad. If someone wants to spend 300k to have an ad seen by 20 million people, only 2 million of which are interested then it stands to reason that they would spend 300k to reach the right 2 million people.
My thoughts. Somewhat scattered. Serves me right for writing while trying to talk on the phone.
Or wait until his "Shrek" DVD gets all scratched up. I just found out a couple of days ago that the disc with the widescreen (e.g. correct) version of the movie is mangled and won't play.
I paid for it, and it doesn't work as Jack advertises (i.e. "never wears out"). Will I get a free replacement? No, I will not. So I borrowed a copy from a friend and I'm making myself a copy. And once that copy is complete, I will make another copy. Why? Because I have a small child and they can break the unbreakable and wear out the un-wear-out-able.
I intend to make "kid copies" of all my kid's DVD's and keep the original as backup. Let him throw the copy across the room, or stand on it, or put it into the machine crooked, or play with it in the driveway, or use it as part of an intricate LEGO construction.
JV claims everything he predicted about video tapes and copying came true. Everything, that is, except for the utter destruction of the movie and television industry, right Jack?
I think the company that is selling or renting edited versions of movies is creating derivative works even if they confirm that the customer purchased an original copy of the DVD.
Clear Play is NOT creating a derivative work. They are selling a software DVD player that reads the legally purchased or rented DVD along with a file of fast forward and mute cues that has been downloaded from the company's website. If I sell a list of instructions on how to read certain books (chapters, pages, paragraphs) in a way that gives busy people the ability to skip any parts that aren't connected to the main narrative, I have not created a derivative work. The only difference with the Clear Play product is that it's happening automatically.
This is not censorship. The owner of the DVD can play it with the edit file or without. Who decides what gets cut? Who cares! If a person approves of how the company is providing the edits, they will continue the business relationship. If not, they will go back to not watching these movies at all.
And this is not about making extremely violent or sex filled movies suitable for children. There are movies that a 10 year old could watch except for a scene or two and some bad language. I wouldn't take a 10 year old to see "8-Mile" but they could watch the DVD on the proposed system if they muted out all the fucks and shits and cut away during the one sex scene. Likewise, many PG-13 movies get their rating for language only. Mute out the 10 instances where people swear and it's appropriate for a wider audience. And as a parent, I do get to decide what is appropriate for my kid.
And we're not just talking about kids here. My parents don't like watching movie that have been rated R because characters are saying "fuck" ever two minutes. My father might rent "The Sopranos" if this type of player was avialable. He tried watching it, but couldn't get past the language.
Hollywood is being stupid. They should not go after these guys. The movie has been purchased and the owner still has the option of watching it in its original form. They have the right to use the remote to mute, fast forward and otherwise choose how they watch the movie (don't they?). They should also have the right to download a list of commands that corresponds to a level of editing they've chosen that automatically causes the player to mute and fast forward their movie in a particular pattern that, again, results in the movie being viewed in the manner they wish.
If Hollywood wins this case, the first thing they'll do is duplicate it. They would be stupid not to - it increases sales by making certain movies suitable to a wider audience (more $$ per title), and it involves a subscription fee (new revenue stream!!). And compared to other production expenses, it costs virtually nothing to produce the file of player cues. They could even bring the director in to help put it together so his "vision" is being preserved as much as possible.
Yes, movies and music are different, the main difference being that paying customers line up to see a movie in the theater before also buying the shiny disc.
But there are similarities as well. Both industries use warped accounting to suck every last possible dime into their coffers and leave the artist out in the cold. I'll bet fewer than one movie in ten ever "officially" breaks even. There are movies with a $200 million US box office that have "lost money."
Most importantly, though, DVD's and CD's are the same in one simple respect - they are 2 products that are competing for MY entertainment dollar. Do I go with the one that offers me about 60 minutes of music, or (for only a couple dollars more) do I go with the one that offers me a 2 hour movie with additional, possible even decent, bonus materials?
Oh, and let's not forget that in the face of more competition for consumers' time and disposable dollars as well as a slow economy, CD prices have risen while DVD prices have dropped.
Let's not pretend that stores are losing money. The cost of fraud is built into the prices they charge. If a company suddenly stopped losing $5,000 per month (or whatever) to fraud, then they could (and would in this competetive environment) lower their prices and still make the same profit.
This is about making the job of the police easier, but only the stupidest of criminals would:
a) Pass a check in a store that requires fingerprints when there are stores that don't, or b) Provide a valid print when there are ways around it
If we're just looking at cost, I refuse to believe it costs less to install this new system, train employees (high turnover in these jobs means constant training), and pay the monthly cost to maintain the system, than it does to simply charge all customers a tiny extra percentage on each item.
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That sounds bad, but what I mean is this: My goal is to do my job, and do it well, with the least amount of effort on my part. My goal is get things done fast and get it right the first time. I've created all kinds of little macros, programs and shortcuts that increase my speed and accuracy. I've made every tool available to my coworkers, but no one else uses them. The result is that I'm at least twice as productive as the people I work with (it's measurable). But I don't get paid twice as much. At most, I make 5-10k more. After working like a dog for the first 6 months of this year when we were short staffed and dealing with a couple of big projects, I got a 3% raise (the company is doing fine). After 10 years of "exceeds expectations" or "outstanding" reviews, I no longer feel like working hard. So I've been using my tools for the benefit of MYSELF, rather than my employer. I make sure everything that needs to get done gets done, and any extra time I take for myself. I take 90 minute lunches (I live close by so I go home and see my kids), I surf the web and I socialize. But I always make sure I'm a top producer - just not by so much. So maybe my raise won't be as big next year, but there's not much difference between 2.5% and 3% anyway and there is a huge difference between the way I was feeling about my job a few months ago and the way I feel about it now.
I guess you could say that I'm both lazy and creative.
My old manager was a high school teacher before he became a techie. I imagine that he was a good one. The guy knows a LOT, can explain things well, is patient, knows to step back and let us do our thing, but also knows to step in when there are problems.
That manager moved up to a VP slot and is now my boss' boss. My current manager doesn't know as much about what we do or how we do it, but she is a good manager. She knows that her job, in a nutshell is to help us do our jobs. If we have a problem that needs to be elevated, she wants to know 1) What's the problem, 2) Why is it a problem, and 3) What do we, the guys with the experience, see as possible solutions or alternatives. Armed with this information, she tries to resolve the issue. Things may not work out in our favor every time, but we know we've got someone who a) recognizes her shortcomings, b) acknowledges our expertise, and c) is willing to go to bat for us.
Is it any wonder I've worked here for over 10 years?
DD
That's been my question since I was a kid. Why do I get tired? Has something built up in my body and brain that needs to be cleaned out? Or has something been used up that needs to be replenished.
With a full time job, 2 kids and a working spouse, I would not be interested in using this drug for work, I would want to use it to increase my leisure time. Sometimes after a hard day and an equally tough evening, I lay down in bed at 10pm, pick up a book, read two paragraphs and start dozing off. I don't want to sleep dammit! I want to read my book for awhile.
DD
I was a PC-only gamer since my parents bought an IBM-PC in 1981. Over the past couple of years, though, I've found that I just don't have the time to keep up with game patches, driver updates, etc. With a full time job and 2 small kids, I feel lucky if I get 1/2 an hour of free time, let alone gaming time.
The last straw came a couple years ago when I had to update a video card driver to make some game work properly, but doing that made my TV tuner card behave strangely, so off to the manufacturer's site for another driver update, which broke some other functionality in the TV recording software.
I haven't played any new games on the PC since then and I haven't missed it.
He's not saying that downloading music using I2 is OK. His point is that the original editorial was completely one-sided and that the RIAA, rather than being an innocent victim, has been and continues to be guilty of similar behaviors.
He is accusing the pot of calling the kettle black - he's not saying that the kettle's bad behavior is okay.
DD
Dear Hollywood,
I missed the season finale of FavoriteShow this year and no one I know has taped it. Rather than wait until you re-air it in September, I would really like download or stream a copy of the show to my home so I can watch it. Go ahead and downsample it to VCD quality if you want, I just want to watch the show. I'm quite willing to pay, too. I think $1 is a fair price for a 45 minute, low bandwidth copy of a show that has already aired. Please let me know where I can go to pay for and download this material. Seriously. I've got cash.
DD
Several months without pay was enough to push your friend to the brink of bankruptcy? Good grief! I don't know how old this person was at the time, but I'm hoping he was about 23 years old and had been working for a year.
Once you have money coming in, you should be saving every cent you can. If there are unexpected problems, you can handle them. If not, you get to retire earlier and more comfortably.
I was lucky enough to have parents that explained all this to me when I was a kid. By the time I had my first "real job" I had enough saved that I could have gone almost a year without work. At age 39, I could go at least 8.
Don't spend your hard earned money on stupid crap you don't need.
DD
"Does it conform to local fire codes?"
Yes, it does. Even the codes that are unique to my town and were expensive to implement during a recent remodel. Are the surrounding towns less safe? Do more people die in fires than in my town? No.
"Do people drive whatever speed they want while throwing litter out of their windows on your street?"
I live at a T intersection on a busy street and the answer to that question is, sadly, yes. I'm constantly picking up trash from my tiny patch of front yard. Mostly beer cans.
"Does the garbage man take your garbage to a half mile away and then launch it into the sun?"
Now THAT is a service I would pay for.
DD
We've all seen the stories about secretaries or customer service reps who worked for company X, receiving stock in lieu of some pay before said company hit it big and the peon was able to cash out with $1 million dollars or more. But let's face it - if you are a 75-100k per year developer and are granted options that could make you a millionaire in a few years, it's very, very, VERY unlikely to happen. Big money like that just doesn't roll down to the rank and file. Look at it this way - every person between you and the CEO's office has MORE options than you. Also, most of the higher ups will have better terms on their shares so they can cash out sooner. Owners, CEOs and Presidents will be able to sell giant blocks of shares immediately, while your options will vest over 5 years or something.
The fact is, unless you have the power to stack the deck in your favor, or someone with power is willing to stack the deck on your behalf, larger rewards are the result of taking larger risks. Since the value of options won't go any lower than zero, larger risk means a greater likelihood that the value will go to zero.
Personal story - The company I work for uses performance shares. If you do some stellar piece of work, you might be rewarded with shares that increase in value based on company performance and automatically vest and pay out after 2 years. I did some great work in 2000, was awarded shares my boss said could be worth $15,000. The timing proved to be dismal and the shares ended up being worth $1,900 at the end of 2002. That kind of pissed me off because it means I didn't get rewarded very much for work that even today saves them time and money. Of course, by 2002, everyone just shrugs their shoulders, says, "Well, we tried", and then asks, "What have you done for us lately?"
It is extremely unlikely that you will get rich working for someone else. I'm not talking about working somewhere for 30 years, saving diligently and retiring at age 55 with a multimillion dollar nest egg. I'm talking about giant payouts that put hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in the pockets of anyone below the level of senior management. A company that makes millionaires out of its employees has to go find new employees.
DD
The president is the head of the executive branch which is charged with enforcing the laws passed by congress. And they get to decide how the laws are enforced. If a president doesn't like the DMCA, for example, he can tell his Attorney General that his priority is to go after people selling pirated CD's and DVD's, and that he doesn't want to see any kids in handcuffs for creating software tools.
If they want, they can create rules (i.e. how the law is enforced) that basically make it difficult or impossible to enforce.
DD
When I was a kid, our church would sponsor a recycling day once a month or so - a large open container would be dropped off in the parking lot and people would bring their newspapers and magazines on their way to service.
One time, I think I was about 12, I saw my friend Dave sitting on top of the pile, reading. When I asked what he was doing, he said, "There's a whole bunch of dirty magazines up here." He packed a grocery bag with about 30 magazines, told his parents he had found a ton of comic books, stuck them in the back of the family station wagon and took them home. Recycling day was our source of porn for years.
So, I was first exposed to pornography by our church, and our church supplied me with free porn throughout my adolescence. Yay God!
Dear Hollywood,
I missed the season finale of West Wing this year and no one I know has taped it. Rather than wait until you re-air it in September, I would really like download or stream a copy of the show to my home so I can watch it. Go ahead and downsample it to VCD quality if you want. I just want to watch the show. I'm quite willing to pay, too. I think $1 is a fair price for a 45 minute, low bandwidth copy of a show that has already aired. There are other episodes of other shows I would really like to have copies of (I'm not interested in buying whole collections, but there are certain episodes of certain shows I'd like to own). Please let me know where I can go to pay for and download this material. Seriously. I've got cash.
Dear NFL:
I've never watched a whole football game in my life. You can do whatever the hell you want. I don't care.
Dear Music Industry,
Your prices are too high. You are competing against DVD's for my entertainment dollars and they consistently offer better value. In the past two years I've bought about 30 DVD's and maybe four CD's. And just so you know, I haven't downloaded music for over 2.5 years. Actually, that 4 CD figure is not correct. Last year BMG offered every title in their catalog for $7 and we bought 14 CD's. So it appears that, for me at least, the $7 price point puts you right back in the running for those entertainment dollars I was talking about. Oh, and by the way, BMG messed up the order and sent 8 incorrect titles. They sent along the correct titles and told us to keep the other ones (so we actually got 22 CD's for $100). It appears that it wasn't even worth the cost to return ship and restock those 8 CD's. How much do those things cost you anyway? There are a lot of titles I'm interested in but refuse to buy at the current prices. If you drop your prices to $5, I would probably buy 20 titles immediately and at least 10 titles per year thereafter. You would earn MUCH more off of me than you are under your current pricing structure.
Love,
DoD
I just started using Peapod. My personal experience is limited, but my sister-in-law has been using it for a year and is very happy.
With a 3 year old, a 4 month old and a full time job, I've reached the point where I'm simply out of large blocks of free time. I had started going shopping at 7am on Saturday, not because I like it, but because that was the only time I could go. Now I submit and order to Peapod and groceries arrive the next day.
Quality of produce and fish (my main concern) are excellent.
My only problem is that I buy my meat, milk and diapers at a warehouse club, and I do my own cooking (no higher-priced pre-packaged meals) so it's hard for me to hit the $100 cutoff for the lowest delivery charge ($4.95). But I got coupons for $5 off my first 5 orders, that plus choosing discounted delivery times should give me almost 2 months of nearly free service. They don't have everything available either, but if you have to go to the B&M store, you're in and out in 5 minutes.
I'm liking the lists feature, too. You can break things down by category (I've got lists for pantry items, baking, produce, etc), or by recipe (list everything you need and buy what you don't have - great for menu planning).
For me, what it boiled down to was this: Am I willing to pay someone $5-$8 to go shopping for me and deliver the groceries to my kitchen? Answer: Yes!
DD
1/3 of TV is advertising
1/3 of my mail is junk
1/3 of my paycheck disappears
1/3 of the day is spent sleeping
and now 1/3 of email is spam
Proof of a higher power that is laughing at us.
Actually, their sales were 4.7 billion, not thier profits. We don't know their profits because Giant is privately held, but if their ratio of sales to profits is the same as other grocery chains, then we can assume Giant's profits were about 110 million (that's right, the store has to sell you over $40 in groceries in order to make a $1 profit).
I sincerely doubt that 55 million of that was from the selling of personal information. I would have no trouble believing that Giant has a higher profit margin on the info vs. the groceries, but not that the info brings in more money overall.
Giant is private, so we can't look through their financials for the "Evil Deeds: Selling of Personal Info" line item. But their are plenty of public grocery chains out there. Go have a look and see if anything stands out.
No, they don't call it "work" for nothing, but if you're going to be somewhere 8 hours a day, 5 days a week minimum, you might as well find something to do that you find interesting and enjoyable. Nobody said we're only talking about jobs you'll like more than vacation, family and sex.
My job isn't cool, hip or sexy, but it's my dream job. Why? Because it pays well and comes with excellent benefits. It's 10 minutes from my house. I like the people I work with. Most of my work is the kind of stuff I do best. My projects are of short duration so I have a feeling of accomplishment almost every day. Stress levels aren't high, I can telecommute if I need to (did this morning in fact), I get 4 weeks of vacation, and best of all, I work a 37.5 hour week and when I go home, I don't think about work until I get up the next morning.
Why wouldn't I love this job? I'm not working on the Mars rover and living on Mars time, but my situation is better than almost anyone I know.
A: I considered the recess angle
B: My copy of Star Wars indicates that it is 2 hours and 1 minute long. That's a long recess.
C: I was kidding.
DD
Let me get this straight. Because it was raining OUTSIDE, they decided to show you a movie instead of teaching you math, or spelling, or history, or something like that? I'm surprised you can feed yourself, much less operate a computer.
In my day (1970's) if they showed a movie in school they at least PRETENDED it was educational and showed us "Our Friend the Beaver" or "The History of Zinc" - films made in the 1950's with budgets of hundreds of dollars.
My take on this whole RIAA thing:
In the early eighties, a movie on videotape cost $45-$95, but for about $9 you could buy a quality blank tape, rent a movie and make a copy if you had a friend with a VCR. Today, movies on tape cost less than nine 1982 dollars and they sell by the truckload. The same sort of thing will happen with music.
My prediction for the future:
The recent price cut is only the first - there will be more. Once the price drops to the point where you can buy a CD for about $7, sales will go back up. There are ten CD's I can think of right now that I would buy at that price. At $18, it's an investment and I have to know I'm getting my money's worth. At $7 it's an impulse buy and if there's only 2 good songs on the album, that's fine. If I can dowload the two tracks and pay $1 or less per song, then that's terrific.
CD Prices will drop, digital downloads will be available for even less (0.50 per song, $5 per album). CD copy protection and DRM will go away (it doesn't work and confuses/angers paying customers). File trading will continue, but it will be a fringe thing - why bother? The legit stuff would be so cheap that $100 would buy 15 - 20 entire CDs. Most people don't spend that much on music in a year. I buy 1 or 2 CD's a year (I have a "4 good songs" rule). I would gladly triple my music spending under this scenario.
It's not the quality, it's not the selection, it's THE PRICE. If you're selling me something for $18 that I can duplicate for $1 in time and materials, then your price is way too high. People will happily pay a FAIR price.
Five years from now, the industry will still be selling CD's but, just like with videotapes, they will be selling more units than ever, and they will be making money hand over fist in the digital realm (no manufaturing, no materials, no shipping, no warehousing, no returns and only bandwidth and storage space = high margins).
Just my 0.02
DD
I felt underpaid at the first company I worked for, asked for a raise and was told (after being strung along for a month) that they didn't think they would have any trouble hiring a replacement for me at my current salary, so no raise for me. I had a new job in 3 weeks and this was during the LAST recession. And my replacement cost them 30% more. Which hardly mattered because they were shut down (it was a bank) five months later.
The "you're lucky you even have a job" attitude is a horrible one for any manager or executive to have. It virtually guarantees that people will start jumping ship as soon as job market starts recovering.
Managers need to let their employees know what's going on - why they're being asked to do more, how that helps the business and the bottom line, what other sacrifices are being made, and whether there is a light at the end of the tunnel. If it just sounds like management is doing all this to keep their $250k salaries coming for an extra 5 months, then start looking now.
If it sounds like the company will survive, why not try to negotiate an equity stake as compensation for the extra work?
DD
Maybe it's advertising that needs to improve. I don't have the answers, but there has to be a better way of doing it. Some examples:
I am not in the market for a car, yet I have to watch an endless stream of car advertising. Furthermore, I have to watch ads for cars I will never, ever buy either because they're too small or too expensive.
I am well aware of the products of the Coca Cola and Pepsi companies, what their flagship products taste like and which I prefer. I should be excused from having to view any of their ads, yet I have to watch them all the time.
I watched a movie on TBS recently and at every commercial break (every 12 minutes) they ran the SAME ad for the SAME lame looking made for TBS movie. I watched only 90 minutes of the movie and saw the same ad 8 times. I wasn't going to watch it after seeing the first ad and the subsequent 7 viewings did nothing to change my mind.
Currently, advertisers pay a lot of money to reach millions of people, of which only a small fraction might be interested in what they are selling.
Tivo ought to offer a program that allows you to cut your monthly subscription cost by 50 or 100% depending on how many ads you watch. Not the ads you recorded along with "Friends" last night, but ads that are stored on your machine and play when you access a recorded program, like the ads that play before movies these days. It can be one 30 second or two 15 second spots. No more. Furthermore, you've provided the Tivo software information about yourself or your household (whatever you feel comfortable with) so the advertising is much better targeted. The more information you provide, the better targeted the advertising. So now, you'll only see car ads if the you've told the machine you might be buying a new car in the next six months, and since it knows your preferences, it won't show you ads for Korean econoboxes or Lincoln Navigators. Anyone who doesn't want to participate doesn't have to. And if you don't want to provide any information you don't have to do that either, but the ads will be about as well targeted as regular TV. Oh, and you can give thumbs up or down to the ads themselves to provide feedback for the advertisers.
TV isn't going away and advertising isn't going away either, but they need to get rid of the clutter. The solution to people ignoring ads because there too many ads is not to have even more ads. It's to make sure the right ads are being seen by the right people. Assuming 90% of what we have to sit through is clutter, if they can figure out how to get the right ads to the right people, they can cut the number of ads I have to watch by 90% and charge advertisers 10 times as much per ad. If someone wants to spend 300k to have an ad seen by 20 million people, only 2 million of which are interested then it stands to reason that they would spend 300k to reach the right 2 million people.
My thoughts. Somewhat scattered. Serves me right for writing while trying to talk on the phone.
DD
"Wait until his hard disk dies ;)"
Or wait until his "Shrek" DVD gets all scratched up. I just found out a couple of days ago that the disc with the widescreen (e.g. correct) version of the movie is mangled and won't play.
I paid for it, and it doesn't work as Jack advertises (i.e. "never wears out"). Will I get a free replacement? No, I will not. So I borrowed a copy from a friend and I'm making myself a copy. And once that copy is complete, I will make another copy. Why? Because I have a small child and they can break the unbreakable and wear out the un-wear-out-able.
I intend to make "kid copies" of all my kid's DVD's and keep the original as backup. Let him throw the copy across the room, or stand on it, or put it into the machine crooked, or play with it in the driveway, or use it as part of an intricate LEGO construction.
JV claims everything he predicted about video tapes and copying came true. Everything, that is, except for the utter destruction of the movie and television industry, right Jack?
DoD
I think the company that is selling or renting edited versions of movies is creating derivative works even if they confirm that the customer purchased an original copy of the DVD.
Clear Play is NOT creating a derivative work. They are selling a software DVD player that reads the legally purchased or rented DVD along with a file of fast forward and mute cues that has been downloaded from the company's website. If I sell a list of instructions on how to read certain books (chapters, pages, paragraphs) in a way that gives busy people the ability to skip any parts that aren't connected to the main narrative, I have not created a derivative work. The only difference with the Clear Play product is that it's happening automatically.
This is not censorship. The owner of the DVD can play it with the edit file or without. Who decides what gets cut? Who cares! If a person approves of how the company is providing the edits, they will continue the business relationship. If not, they will go back to not watching these movies at all.
And this is not about making extremely violent or sex filled movies suitable for children. There are movies that a 10 year old could watch except for a scene or two and some bad language. I wouldn't take a 10 year old to see "8-Mile" but they could watch the DVD on the proposed system if they muted out all the fucks and shits and cut away during the one sex scene. Likewise, many PG-13 movies get their rating for language only. Mute out the 10 instances where people swear and it's appropriate for a wider audience. And as a parent, I do get to decide what is appropriate for my kid.
And we're not just talking about kids here. My parents don't like watching movie that have been rated R because characters are saying "fuck" ever two minutes. My father might rent "The Sopranos" if this type of player was avialable. He tried watching it, but couldn't get past the language.
Hollywood is being stupid. They should not go after these guys. The movie has been purchased and the owner still has the option of watching it in its original form. They have the right to use the remote to mute, fast forward and otherwise choose how they watch the movie (don't they?). They should also have the right to download a list of commands that corresponds to a level of editing they've chosen that automatically causes the player to mute and fast forward their movie in a particular pattern that, again, results in the movie being viewed in the manner they wish.
If Hollywood wins this case, the first thing they'll do is duplicate it. They would be stupid not to - it increases sales by making certain movies suitable to a wider audience (more $$ per title), and it involves a subscription fee (new revenue stream!!). And compared to other production expenses, it costs virtually nothing to produce the file of player cues. They could even bring the director in to help put it together so his "vision" is being preserved as much as possible.
DoD
Yes, movies and music are different, the main difference being that paying customers line up to see a movie in the theater before also buying the shiny disc.
But there are similarities as well. Both industries use warped accounting to suck every last possible dime into their coffers and leave the artist out in the cold. I'll bet fewer than one movie in ten ever "officially" breaks even. There are movies with a $200 million US box office that have "lost money."
Most importantly, though, DVD's and CD's are the same in one simple respect - they are 2 products that are competing for MY entertainment dollar. Do I go with the one that offers me about 60 minutes of music, or (for only a couple dollars more) do I go with the one that offers me a 2 hour movie with additional, possible even decent, bonus materials?
Oh, and let's not forget that in the face of more competition for consumers' time and disposable dollars as well as a slow economy, CD prices have risen while DVD prices have dropped.
BH
Let's not pretend that stores are losing money. The cost of fraud is built into the prices they charge. If a company suddenly stopped losing $5,000 per month (or whatever) to fraud, then they could (and would in this competetive environment) lower their prices and still make the same profit.
This is about making the job of the police easier, but only the stupidest of criminals would:
a) Pass a check in a store that requires fingerprints when there are stores that don't, or
b) Provide a valid print when there are ways around it
If we're just looking at cost, I refuse to believe it costs less to install this new system, train employees (high turnover in these jobs means constant training), and pay the monthly cost to maintain the system, than it does to simply charge all customers a tiny extra percentage on each item.
DoD
"Inside the tunnels, too, are chalk drawings of animals and warriors resembling those found in caves thousands of years ago."
"No TV and no beer make Homer something something."
"Go crazy?"
"Don't mind if I do!!! BLAGGGHH!! BLABBAHGAHH!!"