Personally, I think private domains should be illegal. A contact name and physical address, if not phone number and working email, should be required of every domain owner. If this "real estate" on the internet is so valuable, make the disclosure regulations match physical real estate.
So you think large, questionable class action suits which help nobody but the plaintiff's council are good ways to get clean air and water? Yikes.
As for socialized medicine, the most common reason to oppose it is that many in the upper-middle class do not want to get worse care for free than they get in the current employer-paid plan, and they want to be able to pay more for service of their chosing. Okay, that last part is bullshit - they want to get the service of their choosing paid for by their current (employer paid) plan. Doctors services would still be paid under a universal healthcare plan, they would be paid for by higher taxes. It's like buying into a group plan with 300 million participants - great if you're young and in perfect health, not as economally beneficial otherwise. The problem is that we (as a nation) can't afford good healthcare we are accustomed to for everyone. The government is the best example of the costs of a large group policy - their basic package is very good, but costs about $12,000 a year on the family plan. I once advocated not going with a universal plan, but instead allowing everyone in the US to purchase an individual plan at the gov't rate (i.e.- requiring healthcare insurers to offer the gov't plan for the gov't rate to any citizen). It was a good idea when you consider a fed employee pays only $3000 for those benefits (25%), but at the full rate, it would take more than a full time FMW salary to pay the premiums in such a plan. Not so hot. And if you tried to shoehorn 80-90 million families into that you end up with a trillion dollar pricetag. So you need not worry about your doctor's not getting paid, but you might fear your tax bill!
Actually, I think Americans need to realize that there just aren't enough smart, motivated people to be a "superpower." I interact with these bozos every day, and I can tell you that there are a lot of people who really should be making $4/day in a sweatshop becuase - quite honestly - they don't have the intellegence or perseverence to learn how to make $40/hr to operate, program or design a modern industrial machine.
It's not that we have more stupid people, they (China, India) just have more people from which they can select, and the smart-people fraction is going to be pretty mucht the same. Combine that with the fact getting out of really bad poverty is a motivating factor, whereas in the US we're still riding the mid-20th century wealth base, and slackers don't really reap the results of their sloth.
I don't think a major economy like the US will have a devastating crash. It may be a bumpy ride, but for all its faults, the US tends to adapt fairly well. That and, let's face it, it's not really in the best interest of anyone for the US or EU to take an economic nosedive. Sure, there are lots of places which poltically masturbate to such thoughts, but when it comes down to it - the world economy is still a closed system, and the failure of one part will cause pain in others.
They use custom pre-release versions which work with their boxes. Just because TiVo won't make 100 custom boxes that only work with specific systems isnt' their fault, right? And deploying switched digital before the offical spec is complete is no big deal, right?
If you want my opinion, the FCC should forbid any content provider from selling or leasing end-user equipment, and requiring that all providers use a common specification (we do it for OTA, why not cable?). As for my OTA comment - the FCC fucked that up, too. We should be watching 720p, period. If it weren't for all those mama's boy TV manufacturers who were so damned afraid of losing their interlaced teddy bears, we'd have been much better off.
No, that's what federal telecom fees are for. That way they can sell it for $4.6B, and still get 10% revenue. Oh, and another 40% of any profit you can't find a way to hide.
I am the person responsible for everything that goes in and out of my office, whether I did the actual calcualtions or another engineer has done the calculations. If there were useful regulations, the person who has resonsible charge would be on the hot seat. Manufacturing (and that includes software) companies convinced the government that, as corporations, they were responsible for their in-house designs and should not be subject to professional licensure laws.
So, yes, as the director of a corporation, you should be liable for everything that your employees do. Not that you can prevent an individual act, but as the "boss" you should put in place the quality control to ensure that serious errors do not make it into projects in the field. Maybe then they would think a little longer, and be a little more diligent if they had to ask themselves, "will I personally ruined if something goes wrong with my widget?"
A former chairman of safety at Johnson Space Center put it pretty succinctly - there must be one ass to kick when something goes wrong. It's easy to avoid blame where there are lots of people "responsible," but when there is one person on whos shoulders the burden of responsibility sets, they become far more vigilent. In the corporate responsibility shell game, that concept has been lost.
Actually, it's the story of someone who is out of their depth - either professionally, technically, or organizationally. Part of being good is understanding your limitations. Tom sounds like a very nice guy, and I know lots of people like that. Many of them are not suited to grow beyond a certain size. Sort of a Peter Principal, except that your business collapses - and other people get hurt - when you hit your limit.
Part of it is also the lure of money and the likes of the VC vampires. It's easy to get out of your depth. Personal responsibility means just that - taking responsibility for your actions. At the root of this was an inability of management to understand the gravity of what they were dealing with meant higher standards for control and auditing. I'm not normally one to say nice things about ISO9000 stuff, but there are times when a quality control plan is just what is necessary. That kind of decision can only be enforced from the top.
For me, it was a reminder that everything can just disappear in a flash. Cherish what you've got. That is all to true. You might add - "know your limits" as well. Taking on too big a project is the downfall of many.
IANAL, but I read the previous topic (posted...yesterday?), and it appears, according to NYCL, that email is the primary tool of communication between plaintiff and defendant lawyers in these cases.
Yeah, I was part of the problem, too. Doubleclick and a few others were good to me, but I rode eToys into the dirt.;-)
In my opinion, specualtive markets are no more than legal gambling houses. Oh, sure, you can say they're useful for assigning and providing price risk mitigation - but when it comes down to it, most people are just subsitutuing their favorite commodity, stock, or product for the horses or the dogs at the track.
And, yes, I think it might just be better if Google didn't get all that VC money in expectation of the big stock IPO payout. Then again, I'm a little guy in a service industry with no desire for instant capitalization. I'm growing 60% a year and can barely keep up as it is. Then again, as a PE, my butt is on the line so I have to be involved at every step of the process. Might have been better for Mattel if they had been "ont the ground" and not outsourced everything, too, from what I've heard.
Sorry, officers. Not sure about the others, though I doubt their volunteer positions unless the member holds a large quantity of stock. In which case, yes, they're likely to derive significant financial benfits.
Yes, this is true especially when you pay for business support. I have a 4 year contract on my precision laptop, and - with one exception - the tech support I've spoken with have all be knowledgeable about the systems, OS, and common solutions. They are also very respectful of testing I've done (so we don't have to go through the "is your computer plugged in" list).
For what it's worth, my one tech call to Xerox on a low-level ($4k) printer/copier was also amazingly useful. I actually had a tech - the first one I talked to - walk me through testing my network email by sending a test message directly from a command line telnet session (which is how the copier sends scans to email). The product itself is a foolish POS - who makes a product where the only way to send an email require an open relay these days? - but the tech support was top notch.
Who's going to want to be a director? At the salaries these places pay, there will be people knocking at the door. And I wouldn't worry too much about the death penalty - captial murder has very narrow limits. I think the CxO would still have to stalk and kill someone to be eligible.
Actually, I'd like to see the rights of corporations curtailed. There are actually good reasons for shielding directors, officers, and sharholders (though there are bad reasons, too). I say we make corps less powerful first, then deal with the internals.
Like, say, the oil market or housing prices? Those have been great successes in the last couple of years, imho. Or, perhaps, the dot.com era a few years ago. I hear that ended really well, too.
Oh, but there you are wrong. Only a salesman can sell real estate effectively, profitably. Many successful real estate agents I know (and there are a lot - I am in the housing and commercial property industry) are just that - "people" people, who are good at service and negotiation. Many are horrible marketers. Most don't even know most of what their real estate contracts really mean (or don't care). Most couldn't figure out a mortgage by hand if you gave them the formulas and a calculator. Inspections are simply knowing whos good, taxes and fees are usually left up to the morgage broker.
Now, I will admit that there is a terribly low barrier to entry for agents, so there are lots of people who can get into it with absolutely no qualifications...hence so many failures. The best people are the ones who really know their areas, and are personable and memorable. Still, for 80% of the population, their services are mostly gatekeeper to the state forms and the closely guarded MLS listings.
Dentists are a poor example. Dentists actually work and provide a service. No, I think you're referring to speculators, brokers (stock, real estate, mortgage, etc), and middle managers. Just about anyone who takes a percentage of someone else's transaction or work would apply. Very little value is given, and normally the value is simply in navagating a set of rules (governmental, legal) that is not normally encountered in daily life.
Why bother working hard in school, when you can make 6 figures as a real estate broker without ever worrying about anything but a nice smile and the ability to sell an absolute lemon to even the most simple and innocent buyer.
Trust me, it's not some fancy concrete. We may not know how they did it with what they had, but we can build it bigger and stronger today. We don't, because it's still fantastically expensive to do so - and the resulting space is not very useful. Should you ever think how amazing it is to see such a large open strucutre, you need only look to modern sports stadia to see how much can be done today. Heck, the dome in NO, LA withstood a category 5 Hurricane, and I daresay the cover is far lighter than the pantheon. Of course, it's not concrete. Not because it couldn't be done, it just coulnd't be done economically.
Have you ever heard of the Pantheon, in Rome? Made of concrete, been standing 2000 years. I'd say that's a "working solution," wouldn't you?
All you have to do is reverse-engineer it (and, I suppose, fill in the oculus)... And get a small army of slaves^Wlow paid workers and a budget similar to a small city. The reason things last a long time is that they are massive, which lends fault tolerance.
And the southern third due to cooling requirements in the summer. And the middle third for the extreme seasons. I'm thinking Hawaii, actually. Maybe Bermuda for those who prefer the east.
Did I say it was practical for the current population? Of course not. I said it was the most environmentally responsible thing to do. Just as a human population measured in millions would be far better than hundreds of millions or billions. Are you doing your part in controlling the human impact though reducing the human population? (And by that I mean not having children, not stalking and killing people for sport...)
There are exceedingly few places where such things are possible, but it it - bar none - the best way to reduce your energy consumption of heating and cooling your home. By the way - you may also want to get up and go to bed with the sun, reducing the need for artificial illumination. Where you do need illumination, I'd suggest a single, low pressure sodium lamp and make all of your interior walls have windows. Okay, that last one may start tipping into the freakish, but it would be efficient.
Don't forget to put in a solar water heater (for disinfection, you should take lukewarm sponge baths once a week instead of showers...whoops, going nutjob again) - it's free energy.
That was the first thing I thought of. Sure, he's funny on the show, but deep down he really means it. It's funny when he calls somebody out for doing something stupid, it's down right sobering when he does it to their faces on national TV.
Hard to believe the Woz can be taken in by this whole "southern yellow pine" bullshit. Energy efficiency is much more than using the same wood we us by the million board-feet here in the southeast. I happen to be an engineer who workes in the residential market, and I can pretty much guarantee that there is no miracle in S. Pine.
There is a certain amount of value to thermal mass, but it's not a panacea. You see, if your diurnal cycle lies outside of your comfort zone, it's going to take a massive amount of energy to keep those walls at your comfort temperature, and solid substances used in building are all very conductive. Want R-19 walls? Great - go build your walls 15 inches thick! Getting that temp cycle to work for you requires that your average temp is your indoor desired temp (Lisa, in this house...).
When thermal mass houses are subjected to extended cold (like we have here, even in Virginia), they suck - heat that is.
There are lots of great things you can do, but energy efficiency can be helped most by doing the following:
1) Don't build a new house - buy an existing one. 2) If you build, don't do the code minimums - they are there so production builders can make 25% while giving you a Wal-Mart quality product (excuse me, "affordable" housing is what they call it)... and the best way to save energy... 3) Move somewhere where you don't need to heat or cool your house to be comfortable.
Now, if you're still dead set to build something energy efficient, give me a call and we can talk about my fees. The last house I built from scratch - about 52,000 conditioned cubic feet with several hundered square feet of windows in a 6500HDD environment cost me just about $40/mo to heat and cool, on averge, throughout the year.
I don't know, the Hillary vote seems to be split as "Absolutely" and "Not on your life", so the "other" candidate in the race may have an easy time of it if 61% of the voters don't want here, and only a couple percent ever vote for third praty candidates, that's a landslide un US elections, given that most are decided by less than 4-5% of the popular vote.
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Personally, I think private domains should be illegal. A contact name and physical address, if not phone number and working email, should be required of every domain owner. If this "real estate" on the internet is so valuable, make the disclosure regulations match physical real estate.
Now get off my lawn...
So you think large, questionable class action suits which help nobody but the plaintiff's council are good ways to get clean air and water? Yikes.
As for socialized medicine, the most common reason to oppose it is that many in the upper-middle class do not want to get worse care for free than they get in the current employer-paid plan, and they want to be able to pay more for service of their chosing. Okay, that last part is bullshit - they want to get the service of their choosing paid for by their current (employer paid) plan. Doctors services would still be paid under a universal healthcare plan, they would be paid for by higher taxes. It's like buying into a group plan with 300 million participants - great if you're young and in perfect health, not as economally beneficial otherwise. The problem is that we (as a nation) can't afford good healthcare we are accustomed to for everyone. The government is the best example of the costs of a large group policy - their basic package is very good, but costs about $12,000 a year on the family plan. I once advocated not going with a universal plan, but instead allowing everyone in the US to purchase an individual plan at the gov't rate (i.e.- requiring healthcare insurers to offer the gov't plan for the gov't rate to any citizen). It was a good idea when you consider a fed employee pays only $3000 for those benefits (25%), but at the full rate, it would take more than a full time FMW salary to pay the premiums in such a plan. Not so hot. And if you tried to shoehorn 80-90 million families into that you end up with a trillion dollar pricetag. So you need not worry about your doctor's not getting paid, but you might fear your tax bill!
Just as long as you don't plug it into 220volts while in Germany.
Actually, I think Americans need to realize that there just aren't enough smart, motivated people to be a "superpower." I interact with these bozos every day, and I can tell you that there are a lot of people who really should be making $4/day in a sweatshop becuase - quite honestly - they don't have the intellegence or perseverence to learn how to make $40/hr to operate, program or design a modern industrial machine.
It's not that we have more stupid people, they (China, India) just have more people from which they can select, and the smart-people fraction is going to be pretty mucht the same. Combine that with the fact getting out of really bad poverty is a motivating factor, whereas in the US we're still riding the mid-20th century wealth base, and slackers don't really reap the results of their sloth.
I don't think a major economy like the US will have a devastating crash. It may be a bumpy ride, but for all its faults, the US tends to adapt fairly well. That and, let's face it, it's not really in the best interest of anyone for the US or EU to take an economic nosedive. Sure, there are lots of places which poltically masturbate to such thoughts, but when it comes down to it - the world economy is still a closed system, and the failure of one part will cause pain in others.
They use custom pre-release versions which work with their boxes. Just because TiVo won't make 100 custom boxes that only work with specific systems isnt' their fault, right? And deploying switched digital before the offical spec is complete is no big deal, right?
If you want my opinion, the FCC should forbid any content provider from selling or leasing end-user equipment, and requiring that all providers use a common specification (we do it for OTA, why not cable?). As for my OTA comment - the FCC fucked that up, too. We should be watching 720p, period. If it weren't for all those mama's boy TV manufacturers who were so damned afraid of losing their interlaced teddy bears, we'd have been much better off.
No, that's what federal telecom fees are for. That way they can sell it for $4.6B, and still get 10% revenue. Oh, and another 40% of any profit you can't find a way to hide.
I am the person responsible for everything that goes in and out of my office, whether I did the actual calcualtions or another engineer has done the calculations. If there were useful regulations, the person who has resonsible charge would be on the hot seat. Manufacturing (and that includes software) companies convinced the government that, as corporations, they were responsible for their in-house designs and should not be subject to professional licensure laws.
So, yes, as the director of a corporation, you should be liable for everything that your employees do. Not that you can prevent an individual act, but as the "boss" you should put in place the quality control to ensure that serious errors do not make it into projects in the field. Maybe then they would think a little longer, and be a little more diligent if they had to ask themselves, "will I personally ruined if something goes wrong with my widget?"
A former chairman of safety at Johnson Space Center put it pretty succinctly - there must be one ass to kick when something goes wrong. It's easy to avoid blame where there are lots of people "responsible," but when there is one person on whos shoulders the burden of responsibility sets, they become far more vigilent. In the corporate responsibility shell game, that concept has been lost.
Part of it is also the lure of money and the likes of the VC vampires. It's easy to get out of your depth. Personal responsibility means just that - taking responsibility for your actions. At the root of this was an inability of management to understand the gravity of what they were dealing with meant higher standards for control and auditing. I'm not normally one to say nice things about ISO9000 stuff, but there are times when a quality control plan is just what is necessary. That kind of decision can only be enforced from the top. For me, it was a reminder that everything can just disappear in a flash. Cherish what you've got. That is all to true. You might add - "know your limits" as well. Taking on too big a project is the downfall of many.
IANAL, but I read the previous topic (posted...yesterday?), and it appears, according to NYCL, that email is the primary tool of communication between plaintiff and defendant lawyers in these cases.
Yeah, I was part of the problem, too. Doubleclick and a few others were good to me, but I rode eToys into the dirt. ;-)
In my opinion, specualtive markets are no more than legal gambling houses. Oh, sure, you can say they're useful for assigning and providing price risk mitigation - but when it comes down to it, most people are just subsitutuing their favorite commodity, stock, or product for the horses or the dogs at the track.
And, yes, I think it might just be better if Google didn't get all that VC money in expectation of the big stock IPO payout. Then again, I'm a little guy in a service industry with no desire for instant capitalization. I'm growing 60% a year and can barely keep up as it is. Then again, as a PE, my butt is on the line so I have to be involved at every step of the process. Might have been better for Mattel if they had been "ont the ground" and not outsourced everything, too, from what I've heard.
Sorry, officers. Not sure about the others, though I doubt their volunteer positions unless the member holds a large quantity of stock. In which case, yes, they're likely to derive significant financial benfits.
Yes, this is true especially when you pay for business support. I have a 4 year contract on my precision laptop, and - with one exception - the tech support I've spoken with have all be knowledgeable about the systems, OS, and common solutions. They are also very respectful of testing I've done (so we don't have to go through the "is your computer plugged in" list).
For what it's worth, my one tech call to Xerox on a low-level ($4k) printer/copier was also amazingly useful. I actually had a tech - the first one I talked to - walk me through testing my network email by sending a test message directly from a command line telnet session (which is how the copier sends scans to email). The product itself is a foolish POS - who makes a product where the only way to send an email require an open relay these days? - but the tech support was top notch.
Actually, I'd like to see the rights of corporations curtailed. There are actually good reasons for shielding directors, officers, and sharholders (though there are bad reasons, too). I say we make corps less powerful first, then deal with the internals.
Like, say, the oil market or housing prices? Those have been great successes in the last couple of years, imho. Or, perhaps, the dot.com era a few years ago. I hear that ended really well, too.
Oh, but there you are wrong. Only a salesman can sell real estate effectively, profitably. Many successful real estate agents I know (and there are a lot - I am in the housing and commercial property industry) are just that - "people" people, who are good at service and negotiation. Many are horrible marketers. Most don't even know most of what their real estate contracts really mean (or don't care). Most couldn't figure out a mortgage by hand if you gave them the formulas and a calculator. Inspections are simply knowing whos good, taxes and fees are usually left up to the morgage broker.
Now, I will admit that there is a terribly low barrier to entry for agents, so there are lots of people who can get into it with absolutely no qualifications...hence so many failures. The best people are the ones who really know their areas, and are personable and memorable. Still, for 80% of the population, their services are mostly gatekeeper to the state forms and the closely guarded MLS listings.
Nobody is held accountable for the actions of a corporation. The board of directors and all officers should be held personally liable.
(I happen to own a corporation, however as a professional engineer, I am also personally liable for everything which goes out the door.)
Dentists are a poor example. Dentists actually work and provide a service. No, I think you're referring to speculators, brokers (stock, real estate, mortgage, etc), and middle managers. Just about anyone who takes a percentage of someone else's transaction or work would apply. Very little value is given, and normally the value is simply in navagating a set of rules (governmental, legal) that is not normally encountered in daily life.
Why bother working hard in school, when you can make 6 figures as a real estate broker without ever worrying about anything but a nice smile and the ability to sell an absolute lemon to even the most simple and innocent buyer.
Trust me, it's not some fancy concrete. We may not know how they did it with what they had, but we can build it bigger and stronger today. We don't, because it's still fantastically expensive to do so - and the resulting space is not very useful. Should you ever think how amazing it is to see such a large open strucutre, you need only look to modern sports stadia to see how much can be done today. Heck, the dome in NO, LA withstood a category 5 Hurricane, and I daresay the cover is far lighter than the pantheon. Of course, it's not concrete. Not because it couldn't be done, it just coulnd't be done economically.
All you have to do is reverse-engineer it (and, I suppose, fill in the oculus)... And get a small army of slaves^Wlow paid workers and a budget similar to a small city. The reason things last a long time is that they are massive, which lends fault tolerance.
And the southern third due to cooling requirements in the summer. And the middle third for the extreme seasons. I'm thinking Hawaii, actually. Maybe Bermuda for those who prefer the east.
Did I say it was practical for the current population? Of course not. I said it was the most environmentally responsible thing to do. Just as a human population measured in millions would be far better than hundreds of millions or billions. Are you doing your part in controlling the human impact though reducing the human population? (And by that I mean not having children, not stalking and killing people for sport...)
There are exceedingly few places where such things are possible, but it it - bar none - the best way to reduce your energy consumption of heating and cooling your home. By the way - you may also want to get up and go to bed with the sun, reducing the need for artificial illumination. Where you do need illumination, I'd suggest a single, low pressure sodium lamp and make all of your interior walls have windows. Okay, that last one may start tipping into the freakish, but it would be efficient.
Don't forget to put in a solar water heater (for disinfection, you should take lukewarm sponge baths once a week instead of showers...whoops, going nutjob again) - it's free energy.
That was the first thing I thought of. Sure, he's funny on the show, but deep down he really means it. It's funny when he calls somebody out for doing something stupid, it's down right sobering when he does it to their faces on national TV.
Hard to believe the Woz can be taken in by this whole "southern yellow pine" bullshit. Energy efficiency is much more than using the same wood we us by the million board-feet here in the southeast. I happen to be an engineer who workes in the residential market, and I can pretty much guarantee that there is no miracle in S. Pine.
... and the best way to save energy...
There is a certain amount of value to thermal mass, but it's not a panacea. You see, if your diurnal cycle lies outside of your comfort zone, it's going to take a massive amount of energy to keep those walls at your comfort temperature, and solid substances used in building are all very conductive. Want R-19 walls? Great - go build your walls 15 inches thick! Getting that temp cycle to work for you requires that your average temp is your indoor desired temp (Lisa, in this house...).
When thermal mass houses are subjected to extended cold (like we have here, even in Virginia), they suck - heat that is.
There are lots of great things you can do, but energy efficiency can be helped most by doing the following:
1) Don't build a new house - buy an existing one.
2) If you build, don't do the code minimums - they are there so production builders can make 25% while giving you a Wal-Mart quality product (excuse me, "affordable" housing is what they call it)
3) Move somewhere where you don't need to heat or cool your house to be comfortable.
Now, if you're still dead set to build something energy efficient, give me a call and we can talk about my fees. The last house I built from scratch - about 52,000 conditioned cubic feet with several hundered square feet of windows in a 6500HDD environment cost me just about $40/mo to heat and cool, on averge, throughout the year.
There was never a better time to tag a story nevertellmetheodds!
I don't know, the Hillary vote seems to be split as "Absolutely" and "Not on your life", so the "other" candidate in the race may have an easy time of it if 61% of the voters don't want here, and only a couple percent ever vote for third praty candidates, that's a landslide un US elections, given that most are decided by less than 4-5% of the popular vote.