I haven't read that particular study, but from similar studies that I have seen I wouldn't be surprised to find out that "step" family members (and possibly even live-in boyfriends) were counted as family. Research has shown that children are as much as 33 times more likely to be abused in homes where a stepfather or live-in boyfriend are present.
If you include stepfathers and live-in boyfriends as family, then yes, children are more in danger from their family. If you factor out broken homes, however, then you get a different picture entirely.
Yes, the folks at Microsoft have been amazingly good businessmen. While everyone else was gunning for the high end markets Microsoft was the only company that realized the tremendous business potential of "good enough" at a lower price.
I suppose that you could stick with the old versions of Samba, but the stuff that they currently have in beta is pretty impressive, and if one thing is certain it is that Microsoft will find ways to break Samba. Samba is one of the few projects where running a relatively recent version is *always* going to be a good idea.
Actually, if you've read Bryce's other comparisons it is pretty clear that he is biased towards long and complicated documents that rely heavily on styles. If that describes you, then chances are really good that you'll like Writer better than Word.
Unfortunately, that doesn't describe most Word users.
On the other hand it could simply be that people that consider themselves conservative are less likely to spend precious time being precise on a study that has them doing some boring and repetitive task. I was a research subject in college a couple of times because participation was part of my grade. I made sure I chose studies where I could show up, breeze through the study, and get on with my life. In a similar situation I can totally see myself telling the researchers that I considered myself conservative (I didn't at the time, but that's because I liked my girls liberal), and then just leaning on one of the buttons until I was done. Yes, I was a dork in college.
I mean, seriously, the researchers obviously want to link the results of this study to the cognitive functions of voters, but that's really a stretch. All this research proves is that researchers are as biased and opinionated as anyone else.
You are assuming that the PS3 will be given enough time to become that popular. Third party vendors are already re-assessing their support for the PS3. Unless the PS3 starts to put consoles in people's homes then there is little chance that developers are going to spend the time and effort that optimizing for the PS3 will take. It would make far more sense for these developers to spend their time making the Wii version look good, since that's what their customers are most likely to actually own.
The PS3 is just too expensive. Sony can only save the PS3 at this point by doing what Microsoft did with the original XBox. If Sony is willing to lose billions of dollars subsidizing hardware then it can weather this round of the console wars. Sony can basically forget about profiting from this iteration. If Sony is not willing to lose money hand over fist, then the PlayStation is dead.
There are some definite advantages to living in rural areas. The biggest is that housing is much less expensive. It's also nice if you like to do things outside. You can get independent films delivered to your house, you can't do that with a mountain stream.
Besides, with a little bit of research you can find rural areas that are ridiculously well connected.
Wal-Mart is just pointing out the type of content that is likely to be profitable. You are still perfectly free to make content that isn't likely to be profitable, just don't expect Wal-Mart to help market your material.
Wal-Mart doesn't have magical powers, and it has more than enough competition to keep it honest. If consumers really preferred CDs with explicit lyrics or video games that are mature enough that Wal-Mart won't carry them then people would simply go elsewhere to purchase them. The real problem is that the market for explicit lyrics and ultra-mature video games are relatively small. Wal-Mart isn't interested in niche markets, neither are most game development companies.
Precisely, the fact of the matter is that when it comes to operating systems change is rarely good. I love Linux, but I had basically given up on getting my wife to ever use it. So when my wife's computer died after the release of Vista. I went out and purchased a new Vista computer. I then spent several days setting it up so that she could use it.
To make a long story short, she hated it. She literally begged me to let her try Linux. Then to my surprise not only did Vista fail her completely, but Ubuntu wowed her. She shows off her new Linux computer to her friends.
Now, I realize that my experience is fairly singular, but there is no question that Microsoft's problem with Vista is opening doors for Linux. It's not coincidence that major OEMs are announcing deals to ship Linux.
To a certain extent Microsoft has a problematic business model. Every five years they have to convince everyone that they really really want a new operating system, even when they probably don't. Every single one of these upgrades presents opportunities for the opposition.
Which is why what we should be pushing for is the opening up of the data sets used by the scientists. U.S. citizens paid for the science, we should get more for our money than just some botched graphs. The real problem with this particular instance was that the bug was found by reverse engineering. The source for the software used should be available to anyone, and the dataset itself should likewise be available.
Until that happens rational discussion of the issue isn't really possible. In this case at least, the blame lies squarely on the "so-called" scientists. It's hard to have a scientific discussion with someone when they won't share their data.
My guess is that if you had some sort of congenital disease (and who knows, maybe you do) you would still rather be born than not. That's the funny thing about life. You might thing someone else's life isn't worth living, but they probably don't agree.
I've read the GFDL. Heck, I've written stuff I've distributed under the GFDL. Yes, there are some issues with the whole "document source" stuff, especially for people that don't write their documents in LaTeX or TeXinfo. However, the point of the GFDL is that documentation isn't software, and as such it has different requirements. So of course its not Free Software. It's Free Documentation, and there's a difference.
The folks on debian-legal, of course, see things differently, and as such have put themselves in the awkward position of accusing RMS of creating a documentation license that isn't Free enough. Quite frankly, I think that is hilarious. As if that wasn't enough. These loons then went through the work of actually removing the documentation from the distribution. After all, 9 out of 10 Free Software advocates would agree that Linux (err..., excuse me GNU/Linux) needs *less* documentation. So they started by removing documentation written by the Free Software Foundation. Those guys at the FSF *clearly* are trying to tear down the Free Software movement.
I am certainly not going to argue that the GFDL is a perfect license. I can sympathize with the Debian folks, and I can see why they wanted to discourage the adoption of the GFDL. However, once you start yanking out documentation written by RMS because it isn't "Free" enough you clearly need some powerful medication.
I wish. Apparently vi users have taken over and as part of their perniciously evil plot have decided that the documentation for Emacs (which you almost certainly need if you are going to actually use Emacs) is classified as non-free. What's worse now I get an email from "Virtual RMS" warning me about the dangers of documentation written by the real RMS under a license created by RMS.
That's pretty much where I draw the line. If licenses written and approved by RMS are not Free enough for you then we need to get you on some sort of medication ASAP.
And Nintendo is proving that wrapping up the "hardcore gamer" market is the classic Pyrrhic victory, especially if you have to subsidize the hardware so that normal folks will even buy it. Microsoft has lost billions of dollars chasing this mythical hardcore gamer, and Nintendo has consistently made profits, even when its console was the least popular console on the market. What's even more ironic is that the technology battle between Microsoft and Sony is likely to knock Sony out of the running for this generation as well. Both Sony and Microsoft are heavily in the red selling their uber-systems at a loss, and Nintendo is still cleaning both of their clocks selling game consoles that casual gamers can afford.
Yes, there are some gamers that will gladly drop ridiculous amounts of money on hardware and then turn around and spend even more money on games. However, there aren't enough of these people to make them a viable product niche. The second you start worrying about the "hardcore gamer" you have basically guaranteed that your console will flop.
Even Microsoft can't afford to throw money down a hole forever. Console gaming was supposed to be Microsoft's big hope for future growth. Instead Microsoft has lost billions of dollars subsidizing console hardware for gamers. Microsoft still hasn't even managed to become more popular than the companies that were actually making a profit. The PS2 destroyed the XBox in the last generation and the Wii is looking to clean up in this generation.
Worse, XBox gaming actually weakens Microsoft's hold on the desktop. Computer games are one of the few legitimate reasons to buy a Windows box over a Mac (or even a Linux box).
Yes code is not prose, but it is still text, and short lines of text are easier to read than long lines of text. Don't believe me take two pieces of code that you aren't familiar with, one formatted so that it fits in 80 columns or less and one that doesn't and see which one is easier to read.
I think you will be surprised. For one thing it is much easier to keep from jumping to the wrong line when the lines are shorter. Seriously, try it with some text and you'll see what I mean. If you make the lines long enough you eventually will find yourself jumping to the wrong line.
Besides, there are lots of times when being able to see two (or three) pages of code side by side is very handy, say when you are resolving conflicts in two versions of a file. I often have two different files (or two parts of the same file) side by side on my desktop. Using 80 columns is also nice when you want to print out your code, or use part of it as an example in printed documentation. Monitors are wider than they were 20 years ago, but paper isn't.
The real problem is that many IDEs don't support having side by side editing panes. That doesn't mean that 80 columns doesn't have advantages, it simply means that many developers use tools that don't try and maximize the use of screen real estate. It's hard to make the argument that longer columns are easier to read. However, since for most developers only using 80 columns would require them to format a lot of code by hand they don't bother. Personally, I don't blame them.
You need to move from wherever it is that you currently live. I know of several companies where the starting salaries are just south of the average, and I live in Utah where the cost of living isn't ridiculous. It's not 1999 here, but when I needed to shift jobs about a year ago I was able to get a new job in less than a week.
Seriously, things are actually pretty good right now for the software development market as a whole. If they aren't good where you are, then you need to think about taking a look at a better market in some other part of the country.
To a certain extent Microsoft makes a living by forcing developers to learn new technologies. You probably should be somewhat concerned about the long term viability of the skills that you are currently acquiring. On the bright side the Mono hackers appear to be doing a pretty good job of giving people in your position a viable road to a Free Software platform.
I don't use Microsoft's technologies personally, but I wouldn't be too concerned about.NET becoming the next Powerbuilder. There's a large enough community that your skills are safe, and there's a workable Free Software variant if Microsoft decides to get pushy.
Nothing personal, but your examples are horrible. For example, there are so many producers of milk that price fixing is basically impossible. Worse, milk spoils, and so no retailer would ever agree to a fixed retail price. If the milk wasn't selling they would definitely rather drop the price than take a loss.
Automobiles are an even worse example, as there is a huge used market. It's possible that a manufacturer might be able to fix the prices of its *new* vehicles, the used vehicle market is basically impossible to fix. Of course if Toyota started fixing prices on new Toyotas you would simply expect more people to buy Hondas.
Technology is perhaps the worst example yet. No computer parts vendor would ever agree to a "no discounts" policy unless they didn't have to carry any inventory at all. Otherwise you'd see technology vendors with brand new 386s that they could only sell for $3500.
In fact, the only case in which this sort of thing actually applies in the modern economy are in situations are very similar to the case in question. A particular leather goods company has carved out a niche for its products in exclusive boutiques. Part of the commitment that these boutiques have to make to carry the line is that they cannot offer them at a discounted price. This particular company does *not* want to see its merchandise online for 25% off. Basically these items are high priced fashion items that other snob types are supposed to care about. Instead of competing on price the retailers are supposed to compete on service. The retailers purchase the inventory knowing that if they can't sell it at the asking price, then there's no way to discount it and get rid of it. Personally, I don't know why retailers would take that from a vendor, but apparently this particular vendor is hot enough that people are willing to stock its merchandise.
In other words the only items that are you are likely to be able to price fix in this matter are items that are so trendy that being the "exclusive dealer" matters. You'd probably be better off just looking for knock offs if you don't have neighbors to impress with your snootiness.
If the bully himself asks me, then it would depend on my opinions of the bully and the thief.
First of all, the ethics of the situation don't really change on whether you like the person that is asking. Second of all, the RIAA could press criminal charges against the filesharers in question, at which point the government would swoop in and demand this information of the University. The only reason that the RIAA is not using the criminal justice system against these people is that the criminal justice system would come down on these fools like three tons of bricks. The RIAA wants a $3000-$5000 deterrent and not millions of dollars in statutory fines, a felony conviction, and time in a federal prison.
Some bully. The RIAA could destroy these people if it wanted to. Instead it simply hits them up for a few grand.
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Profits are good, don't get me wrong, but what investors want is growth. Over the last year AAPL has been a very good investment. MSFT, not so much.
I spent too much time reading the articles.
I haven't read that particular study, but from similar studies that I have seen I wouldn't be surprised to find out that "step" family members (and possibly even live-in boyfriends) were counted as family. Research has shown that children are as much as 33 times more likely to be abused in homes where a stepfather or live-in boyfriend are present.
If you include stepfathers and live-in boyfriends as family, then yes, children are more in danger from their family. If you factor out broken homes, however, then you get a different picture entirely.
I was expecting an article on using MySQL in production.
Yes, the folks at Microsoft have been amazingly good businessmen. While everyone else was gunning for the high end markets Microsoft was the only company that realized the tremendous business potential of "good enough" at a lower price.
I suppose that you could stick with the old versions of Samba, but the stuff that they currently have in beta is pretty impressive, and if one thing is certain it is that Microsoft will find ways to break Samba. Samba is one of the few projects where running a relatively recent version is *always* going to be a good idea.
Actually, if you've read Bryce's other comparisons it is pretty clear that he is biased towards long and complicated documents that rely heavily on styles. If that describes you, then chances are really good that you'll like Writer better than Word.
Unfortunately, that doesn't describe most Word users.
On the other hand it could simply be that people that consider themselves conservative are less likely to spend precious time being precise on a study that has them doing some boring and repetitive task. I was a research subject in college a couple of times because participation was part of my grade. I made sure I chose studies where I could show up, breeze through the study, and get on with my life. In a similar situation I can totally see myself telling the researchers that I considered myself conservative (I didn't at the time, but that's because I liked my girls liberal), and then just leaning on one of the buttons until I was done. Yes, I was a dork in college.
I mean, seriously, the researchers obviously want to link the results of this study to the cognitive functions of voters, but that's really a stretch. All this research proves is that researchers are as biased and opinionated as anyone else.
You are assuming that the PS3 will be given enough time to become that popular. Third party vendors are already re-assessing their support for the PS3. Unless the PS3 starts to put consoles in people's homes then there is little chance that developers are going to spend the time and effort that optimizing for the PS3 will take. It would make far more sense for these developers to spend their time making the Wii version look good, since that's what their customers are most likely to actually own.
The PS3 is just too expensive. Sony can only save the PS3 at this point by doing what Microsoft did with the original XBox. If Sony is willing to lose billions of dollars subsidizing hardware then it can weather this round of the console wars. Sony can basically forget about profiting from this iteration. If Sony is not willing to lose money hand over fist, then the PlayStation is dead.
Whatever happened to Natalie Portman and hot grits down the pants jokes? I miss those.
Yes, I realize this is off topic. I can afford to be modded down.
There are some definite advantages to living in rural areas. The biggest is that housing is much less expensive. It's also nice if you like to do things outside. You can get independent films delivered to your house, you can't do that with a mountain stream.
Besides, with a little bit of research you can find rural areas that are ridiculously well connected.
Wal-Mart is just pointing out the type of content that is likely to be profitable. You are still perfectly free to make content that isn't likely to be profitable, just don't expect Wal-Mart to help market your material.
Wal-Mart doesn't have magical powers, and it has more than enough competition to keep it honest. If consumers really preferred CDs with explicit lyrics or video games that are mature enough that Wal-Mart won't carry them then people would simply go elsewhere to purchase them. The real problem is that the market for explicit lyrics and ultra-mature video games are relatively small. Wal-Mart isn't interested in niche markets, neither are most game development companies.
Precisely, the fact of the matter is that when it comes to operating systems change is rarely good. I love Linux, but I had basically given up on getting my wife to ever use it. So when my wife's computer died after the release of Vista. I went out and purchased a new Vista computer. I then spent several days setting it up so that she could use it.
To make a long story short, she hated it. She literally begged me to let her try Linux. Then to my surprise not only did Vista fail her completely, but Ubuntu wowed her. She shows off her new Linux computer to her friends.
Now, I realize that my experience is fairly singular, but there is no question that Microsoft's problem with Vista is opening doors for Linux. It's not coincidence that major OEMs are announcing deals to ship Linux.
To a certain extent Microsoft has a problematic business model. Every five years they have to convince everyone that they really really want a new operating system, even when they probably don't. Every single one of these upgrades presents opportunities for the opposition.
Which is why what we should be pushing for is the opening up of the data sets used by the scientists. U.S. citizens paid for the science, we should get more for our money than just some botched graphs. The real problem with this particular instance was that the bug was found by reverse engineering. The source for the software used should be available to anyone, and the dataset itself should likewise be available.
Until that happens rational discussion of the issue isn't really possible. In this case at least, the blame lies squarely on the "so-called" scientists. It's hard to have a scientific discussion with someone when they won't share their data.
My guess is that if you had some sort of congenital disease (and who knows, maybe you do) you would still rather be born than not. That's the funny thing about life. You might thing someone else's life isn't worth living, but they probably don't agree.
I've read the GFDL. Heck, I've written stuff I've distributed under the GFDL. Yes, there are some issues with the whole "document source" stuff, especially for people that don't write their documents in LaTeX or TeXinfo. However, the point of the GFDL is that documentation isn't software, and as such it has different requirements. So of course its not Free Software. It's Free Documentation, and there's a difference.
The folks on debian-legal, of course, see things differently, and as such have put themselves in the awkward position of accusing RMS of creating a documentation license that isn't Free enough. Quite frankly, I think that is hilarious. As if that wasn't enough. These loons then went through the work of actually removing the documentation from the distribution. After all, 9 out of 10 Free Software advocates would agree that Linux (err..., excuse me GNU/Linux) needs *less* documentation. So they started by removing documentation written by the Free Software Foundation. Those guys at the FSF *clearly* are trying to tear down the Free Software movement.
I am certainly not going to argue that the GFDL is a perfect license. I can sympathize with the Debian folks, and I can see why they wanted to discourage the adoption of the GFDL. However, once you start yanking out documentation written by RMS because it isn't "Free" enough you clearly need some powerful medication.
See, that's the line I was talking about.
I wish. Apparently vi users have taken over and as part of their perniciously evil plot have decided that the documentation for Emacs (which you almost certainly need if you are going to actually use Emacs) is classified as non-free. What's worse now I get an email from "Virtual RMS" warning me about the dangers of documentation written by the real RMS under a license created by RMS.
That's pretty much where I draw the line. If licenses written and approved by RMS are not Free enough for you then we need to get you on some sort of medication ASAP.
Then you'll just have to worry about the commercial drivers in their 18 wheelers and their box trucks, neither of which is going to get any smaller.
And Nintendo is proving that wrapping up the "hardcore gamer" market is the classic Pyrrhic victory, especially if you have to subsidize the hardware so that normal folks will even buy it. Microsoft has lost billions of dollars chasing this mythical hardcore gamer, and Nintendo has consistently made profits, even when its console was the least popular console on the market. What's even more ironic is that the technology battle between Microsoft and Sony is likely to knock Sony out of the running for this generation as well. Both Sony and Microsoft are heavily in the red selling their uber-systems at a loss, and Nintendo is still cleaning both of their clocks selling game consoles that casual gamers can afford.
Yes, there are some gamers that will gladly drop ridiculous amounts of money on hardware and then turn around and spend even more money on games. However, there aren't enough of these people to make them a viable product niche. The second you start worrying about the "hardcore gamer" you have basically guaranteed that your console will flop.
Even Microsoft can't afford to throw money down a hole forever. Console gaming was supposed to be Microsoft's big hope for future growth. Instead Microsoft has lost billions of dollars subsidizing console hardware for gamers. Microsoft still hasn't even managed to become more popular than the companies that were actually making a profit. The PS2 destroyed the XBox in the last generation and the Wii is looking to clean up in this generation.
Worse, XBox gaming actually weakens Microsoft's hold on the desktop. Computer games are one of the few legitimate reasons to buy a Windows box over a Mac (or even a Linux box).
Yes code is not prose, but it is still text, and short lines of text are easier to read than long lines of text. Don't believe me take two pieces of code that you aren't familiar with, one formatted so that it fits in 80 columns or less and one that doesn't and see which one is easier to read.
I think you will be surprised. For one thing it is much easier to keep from jumping to the wrong line when the lines are shorter. Seriously, try it with some text and you'll see what I mean. If you make the lines long enough you eventually will find yourself jumping to the wrong line.
Besides, there are lots of times when being able to see two (or three) pages of code side by side is very handy, say when you are resolving conflicts in two versions of a file. I often have two different files (or two parts of the same file) side by side on my desktop. Using 80 columns is also nice when you want to print out your code, or use part of it as an example in printed documentation. Monitors are wider than they were 20 years ago, but paper isn't.
The real problem is that many IDEs don't support having side by side editing panes. That doesn't mean that 80 columns doesn't have advantages, it simply means that many developers use tools that don't try and maximize the use of screen real estate. It's hard to make the argument that longer columns are easier to read. However, since for most developers only using 80 columns would require them to format a lot of code by hand they don't bother. Personally, I don't blame them.
You need to move from wherever it is that you currently live. I know of several companies where the starting salaries are just south of the average, and I live in Utah where the cost of living isn't ridiculous. It's not 1999 here, but when I needed to shift jobs about a year ago I was able to get a new job in less than a week.
Seriously, things are actually pretty good right now for the software development market as a whole. If they aren't good where you are, then you need to think about taking a look at a better market in some other part of the country.
To a certain extent Microsoft makes a living by forcing developers to learn new technologies. You probably should be somewhat concerned about the long term viability of the skills that you are currently acquiring. On the bright side the Mono hackers appear to be doing a pretty good job of giving people in your position a viable road to a Free Software platform.
I don't use Microsoft's technologies personally, but I wouldn't be too concerned about .NET becoming the next Powerbuilder. There's a large enough community that your skills are safe, and there's a workable Free Software variant if Microsoft decides to get pushy.
Nothing personal, but your examples are horrible. For example, there are so many producers of milk that price fixing is basically impossible. Worse, milk spoils, and so no retailer would ever agree to a fixed retail price. If the milk wasn't selling they would definitely rather drop the price than take a loss.
Automobiles are an even worse example, as there is a huge used market. It's possible that a manufacturer might be able to fix the prices of its *new* vehicles, the used vehicle market is basically impossible to fix. Of course if Toyota started fixing prices on new Toyotas you would simply expect more people to buy Hondas.
Technology is perhaps the worst example yet. No computer parts vendor would ever agree to a "no discounts" policy unless they didn't have to carry any inventory at all. Otherwise you'd see technology vendors with brand new 386s that they could only sell for $3500.
In fact, the only case in which this sort of thing actually applies in the modern economy are in situations are very similar to the case in question. A particular leather goods company has carved out a niche for its products in exclusive boutiques. Part of the commitment that these boutiques have to make to carry the line is that they cannot offer them at a discounted price. This particular company does *not* want to see its merchandise online for 25% off. Basically these items are high priced fashion items that other snob types are supposed to care about. Instead of competing on price the retailers are supposed to compete on service. The retailers purchase the inventory knowing that if they can't sell it at the asking price, then there's no way to discount it and get rid of it. Personally, I don't know why retailers would take that from a vendor, but apparently this particular vendor is hot enough that people are willing to stock its merchandise.
In other words the only items that are you are likely to be able to price fix in this matter are items that are so trendy that being the "exclusive dealer" matters. You'd probably be better off just looking for knock offs if you don't have neighbors to impress with your snootiness.
First of all, the ethics of the situation don't really change on whether you like the person that is asking. Second of all, the RIAA could press criminal charges against the filesharers in question, at which point the government would swoop in and demand this information of the University. The only reason that the RIAA is not using the criminal justice system against these people is that the criminal justice system would come down on these fools like three tons of bricks. The RIAA wants a $3000-$5000 deterrent and not millions of dollars in statutory fines, a felony conviction, and time in a federal prison.
Some bully. The RIAA could destroy these people if it wanted to. Instead it simply hits them up for a few grand.