It's not that a TV show is more important in the grand scheme of things, but as a prefered form of entertainment which has a weekly impact on these people it really does affect them more.
Trying to put it in perspective:
1. If statistics are correct, most of the people who watch that show haven't flown on a commercial airline in the last year. Almost 1% of their waking time every week is spent watching the show. The show has higher priority simply because of the promenent spot it occupies in their life. If they flew once a month or more frequently, they'd probably be more interested in what the TSA is up to.
2. $26,000 is nothing. Oh, it's a noticable gesture, but it has no real impact in the world of politics, or desease research, or world hunger. I recently learned that it costs about $300,000/yr to even get a sniff at hiring a lobbiest to fight for your cause in Washington. Most foodbanks have effective budgets in the millions/yr. Treating AIDS can easily cost over $12k/yr/person for just the drugs. The war in Iraq is burning through about $2200 per second.
Do I think this is a good way to spend $26,000? Not really, though if it gets the series back for those who really like it it's a good idea for them. We spend a lot of money on frivilous things; this just happens to be a frivilous thing which a lot of people agree on, and it's getting some press. It's really not that big a deal in the grand scheme.
It's an interesting concept though - if you can crack the system, and the cracks are easily obtainable in enduser products, then it is - for the purposes of the courts - not really encrypted. I like that thinking.
Usually everyone either uses all caps or all lower case with their acronyms. Selective capitalization could give people the wrong impression, even if you are not lawyer.
"The idea is that the content companies could charge a premium according to how many copies are allowed, Ayers said."
That just rankles. Seriously. This is NOT the way to get the rights to make copies - I predict this will be as popular as DAT.
What I want is for the numbnuts we elected to stand up to the showers of cash being thrown about by the content comglomerates and say "DRM is illegal - you sell a product, not a license. Don't like it, don't sell it!" Illegal copying for commercial distribution is still a no-no. Copying for personal use is fine and dandy. (and, for the record, no - I don't know how to deal with P2P in an equitable way from a legal standpoint. From a market standpoint, some people will always copy - if most people are copying, then the media is seen by the consumer as too expensive. For $7, I probably would never bother even looking on line.)
Hold on there, cowboy. You're going to tell me that on a disc with a 90 minute write time (write+verify at 2X speed), you expect to hit the endurance limit on this media on a regular basis?
Let's just take a random guess that this has 1000 w/e cycles. If you re-wrote to this disc every business day of the year, it would take 4 years to hit its limit. I appreciate your handleing care and frugality in trying to keep something around for that long in daily use, but I'm just not so sure it's a real issue for production.
The discussion has turned into that, but that wasn't the point. What you are worth to your company in terms of income is - ideally - what sets your value. If you generate an extra $30k-40k/yr by dropping potato stips in hot fat and putting bread on discs of ground up cow, then you're looking at minimum wage or a hair better. If you can put a quarter of a mil on their bottom line, you'll likely be staring at 80-90k. Whether its opportunity or necessity, dollars in should be greater than dollars out or a company will eventually fold.
I'm not telling you to go start a consulting business, I'm asking you how much your kind of work is actually worth to an end user in the free market. If it takes a hundred of you and a specialized lab to produce useful work, then take subtract the cost of the lab from the end product and divide by 100.
There are two pressures here: what people want to get paid, and what consumers are willing to pay for products.
You need a house, a car, diapers for the kids. You're educated. You won't take less than 80k.
A company produces widgets which sell for $3.85 each. They have several competitors in a relatively mature market, and cannot raise prices significantly without losing net income. They want to develop the next generation widget and have a target value of $4.35. They think the market is good, and the accountants have put a net-present-value of the new item at $4,000,000. The new widget will take 40 man years to develop, and the company has a combined overhead and profit of 80%.
So, to simplify, each employee necessary to develop this new widget is worth:
$4M/40my/180%=$55,600/yr.
If they pay more, the project is not viable. It doesn't matter how much mortagages cost in their area, if they can't make a profit on a person, then that person is not a good business decision.
If someone were to start offering the company a contract for $30 per new-widget, then that million dollar salary starts looking feasible. Of course, it won't happen unless the number of widget scientists is low, and the rich buyer makes their offer to your competitors. Otherwise, you'll get your $80k, and the company with keep the extra profit, making the shareholders (and likely your 401k) a little bit richer.
Of course, the smart widget scientist would see the opportunity to go market a $30 widget and start his own widget company...if he had the cash to do so. Otherwise, he needs to go let someone else front the cash and take the chance, and accept $55,600 as the salary which justifies his position. Or stop being a widget scientist.
They're a little over $1 each here, though I wouldn't necessarily trust critical backups to this brand. Good ones are half again as much. Far less, per GB, than these HD discs at the moment. They area about 3x the cost of the single layer media, or (roughly) a 50-60% premium for the denser storage.
Here's the thing - even if you were to go out on your own, you wouldn't get to keep that 100,000. Sure, you can work from a home office - if you already have a clientele and never have to have a face to face meeting or do any marketing where the client comes to see your facility. Otherwise you need a real office or have to rent a conference room in a shared space, then admit you don't have a "real" office. Not very professional (oh, I'm gonna get flamed for that one).
Next, you'll need to come up with your employers part of the taxes for your salary, and your benefits. Taxes for a small firm are probably down in the 10-12% range for everything (payroll, which is 7.2% off of the top, plus capital/merchant's tax, on things like your software and computers, desk, chairs, etc.) - no big deal. Benefits...well, your dead simple health plan will run you $3k a year on yourself - if you're healthy. The "good" healthcare you get from the fed gov't will cost you about $10,000/yr, and still won't cover everything. Add a few hundred to thousand if you get dental. Life and disability might go another couple hundred. Retirement will run about 3-5% more for a simple 403(b)/401(k) as long as you don't put any of your "own" money in and expect it to get matched. Then there's vacation, holiday, and sick leave. We'll call that 30 days (10 federal holidays, 2 weeks of vacation, 2 weeks of sick). That's going to reduce your 52 week output by 13% - but we'll just call it a cost; actually, it's 13% of your gross billables, so at 100k, that's closer to 32% of your take home pay. Although you might have your computer now, you'll need to buy proper software licenses, and keep them current. Mine run about $2000-$2500/yr for the basics, on average, if you include upgrades that aren't annual. No more educational Word for you. We'll say 5% of your salary. Now, let's talk business insurance. General liability? Good idea - probably 3% if you're careful and don't have much to insure. You're a scientist, so errors and omissions might be prudent as a consultant (mine is 12% of gross billables - that'd be about 30% of your net income at 40k). We'll give you $100/mo for supplies (paper, toner, pencils, etc.)
Now, you're going to have to do some continuing education, or seminars, plus you'll need to do the accounting and taxes, and no doubt a bit of marketing - having only one client is a dangerous place to be when you're on your own. We'll give you $3000 for your total travel budget and seminar fees (which isn't much), add 2 weeks of missed work for marketing and said education (again, low, but we'll assume you have good clients), then drop 2 hours a week on billing, taxes, and other adminitrative fees.
So, where do we stand...you don't have an office, and you don't pay yourself back for internet, rent, electricity, or heat/ac. You meet clients around your kitchen table. You keep up with your field and you do a bit of marketing (which includes those unbillable calls for potential clients that always crop up). You pay your taxes and file on time with the local, state, and fed athorities. You pay for software - no warez on your machine. I'm getting about $48,000 in fees and "lost work" over the course of your $100,000 year, leaving you almost $12,000 to the good! Of course, that presumes that you do manage to make all that time billable.
FWIW - I have an office, though it's in the low rent district, someone to do my accounting, and a part time cad student to help out. On January 1, I know I will owe $80,000 to various people over the next 12 months, so that number above isn't just blowing smoke.
Exactly. Prices won't come down due to competition...they'll come down when manufacturing costs go down, and when there's competition. Even if there were 5 players producing these discs, you'd be lucky to see them at retail for less than $9.
The great teachers put in the extra time. Most of the teachers don't do any more time during the school year than your typical "40 hour" salaried employee. And, for the record, I think they technically 10 month employees, since they are often required to be in school the week before and (sometimes after) the academic year.
Most teachers, esp. those whohave never done anything else, don't realize that most salaried workers work more than 40 hours for their paychecks, and often see about 15-20 days of total leave. Most non-teachers don't understand that for most of the day, a teacher is "on" and teaching requires more "quality" work time during those 4.5-6 hours than your typical cube drone in the same span of time.
Me? I don't work for the Man, I am the Man. When I don't come in to work, I don't get paid. If I take vacation, I don't get paid. If I don't do my job completely, I don't get paid. I don't get health insurance, retirement benefits, disability, or any other perk unless I pay for it. I have to pay for my annual training twice - once for the training, and again in the time that I'm not able to bill clients. I work about 50 hours a week (plus/. time, of course - it's my watercooler) - when I'm not under a real crunch, though I find that trying to get in more the 60 hours is pretty wasted time. I used to be a company guy, and I've done some side teaching (not much, and not k-12). I don't do well with other people's schedules, so I work for myself. I couldn't deal with 30 adolescents every day, and I don't know a k-12 teacher who can design a seismic moment resisting frame.
Teachers actually get paid similarly what someone in industry with similar "ability" would get paid, on an annual basis, but they do have a lot more free time. If they choose to spend that free time on their classes and their career, that's their choice for the most part. Every discipline has people who like what they do, and part of that time is rightfully considered "hobby", not paid service. The trick is finding that person to work for you, or be your teacher, or provide you with their service.
Here's the test: can you go out and form your own company and make more than you are being offered? If you cannot, then you've just discovered why somebody else doesn't want to hire you for that kind of money. Stop thinking about it as how much you are "worth" because of your educational expenditures, and start looking at the income you can reliably, continuously produce for your company. Once you have that number, divide it by three* and that's what your salary should be.
*okay, maybe two in a really large organization with low overhead, or if you fall at the very low or high ends of the payscale. But you're unlikely to be in either of the high/low paid cases.
Developers seem to be a lot like engineers. Not surprising, since they do very similar things. (disclaimer: I'm an engineer) My wife is an accountant and worked in several engineering companies. She hated dealing with engineers, primarily because their attitude was that she was doing work which they could do, but didn't because it wasn't worth their time, was below their station, or was simply to mudane. I'm sure devs are the same - they could do it if they wanted to - and much better than some lowly marketing hack - but it isn't necessary because the product is so great. Besides, they don't have time for that drivel - they have important work to do.
*shrug* I suppose that's why they're not millionaires. (disclaimer: I am not a millionaire...yet)
...below "have a nice day". Or put it on little cards next to the register, if the POS is too difficult to program for a new message. If you worry about the "wastefulness", make up 27 (or some number which doesn't sync with the calendar well) sets of cards and rotate them.
If the cafe had "free WiFi" printed anywhere within view of the parking space, without some obvious limitations (for patrons only), I'd say it should have been considered authorized. (No, of course I didn't RTFA)
If people want to make Linux more "user friendly" developers should think a lot about the name they give their programs.
They do - and developers are often far more clever (or think they should be) than the typical enduser. In all honesty, a developer is fully commited to the process, and understands far more about the application than any enduser will. It's no big deal that they use acronyms because they know what it stands for. Think of 14 year old girls texting - they don't see a string of meaningless letters, they see a fully formed sentence. You almost need someone with a flair for marketing - someone who hasn't a clue what happens inside the code - to come up with a name that the puclic will understand. Call them a waste of oxygen (and I often do) but marketing types do serve a useful function here. And, sadly, linux probably needs a few of them. I recommend having them tied and gagged most of the time, but others migh consider just locking them in a room until we need them.
The casual user is the perfect convert. In fact, anyone who is willing to switch from a windows box to a mac is a good candidate to switch to linux. The key is finding someone who isn't tied to a particular suite of windows-centric software (i.e.: has not spent years "learning" word, excel, photoshop, autocad, whatever). If you can survive the application switch, the OS is a piece of cake. I say this because every new windows release completely fucks up all the usual places and operations that you were used to in the old version (which is why my XP desktop still looks like NT3.51 as much as possible). If you can migrate up though a windows upgrade, you can migrate to linux. Or mac. As long as you don't need to concern yourself with application continuity or back catalog compatibility, you're probably golden.
I recommend buying a kit. Not a complete one - just the chassis, engine and transmission. Once you get that running, there are lots of places to buy a body, wheels, tires, windshield, etc. Oh, and it should be a stick - don't get an automatic 'cause you'll never really learn to "drive" in an automatic.
Sorry, I just couldn't help myself. *hangs head in shame*
I agree. I've always found it interesting that it costs $2000-3000 per acre to buy land, but nobody in the area seems to be willing to sell their land. If you've got 1000 acres that are really worth $2k/ac, that's enough to retire on if it's invested well, or it's enough to start a new business for the next generation somewhere else - provided you're willing to work, and we would presume the offspring of farmers understand the concept of hard work.
If the land isn't really worth that much, and you can only sell it for $500-800/acre, then it's still enough to make a good start at a new line of work, and it's cost is worth aggregating into a larger operation at the current corn prices.
In a way it seems like the farmers are just as "foolish" as the record and movie executives: they've done it this way for decades (or longer) and they expect the same revenue their predecessors got. The economy is constantly changing, and if you stay in one spot you're going to get left behind. Fewer foo farmers _will_ drive up the cost of foo in the market - but everybody seems to think someone else should get out of the business and let them reap the rewards of a tighter market. Instead, they all cling to the same rock as it sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
It just might be cheaper then cable for usual stuff. I've got DTV, and it's running me about $700/yr with two TiVos (the HD one is hacked so I can d/l stuff). I know I could do better buying content for myself, and I might break even with my daughter, but my wife likes funky history and biography-like shows that just aren't available - or easily found - for aftermarket purchase. She probably keeps up on 4-5 daily or weekly OTA series overall - don't know what a subscription would cost. I have to think that she could easily go through $25-40/mo alone on what she normally watches.
I must admit, if I were single I'd probably have dropped sat/cable entirely in favor of iTMS, or - since I have the patience and loose moral fiber - usenet (which, oddly, I actually pay for). With three people in the house who all watch different things, it's actually more economical (with DTiVo, at least) to be a slave to the Man.
Just like I have the right to make a living by setting off firecrackers in my backyard.
Just because you really like to do it - even if you happen to be good at it - doesn't mean that you have a right to earn a living doing it. Supply and demand, baby.
"He uses the extra time saved to read books he checked out of the library, because he ran out of cash trying to buy all the content he wanted to see off of iTMS."
There, fixed that for you. You see, the idea is that TV has always been "free" for the viewer, and the intent of these things is to leverage that content to reduce the regular outlay of cash associated with paying for every instance of a recording. If you don't understand that economy (spending time to save money), then you are detached from most of America. Then again, you seem to be a mac fan, so...
The problem is that, often, once you've discovered a breach of your security (say, when you get your checking statement at the end of the month) there could be many fraudulent transactions, and by then your mortgage, utility, and other payments may have already bounced. That's what's known in consumer circles as a Bad Thing (TM). A single NSF on a single account can result in the triggering of all sorts of punitive clauses on non-related accounts (esp credit cards). And federal law does NOT protect you from NSF fees charged by your bank or others, even if fraud is the root cause of your account going below zero, nor does it protect you from the punitive clauses from being invoked. You are, in effect, at the mercy of all of your creditors.
This has not happened to me, and I never intend it to. Check that - it did happen (fraudulent charge on a debit card), and by shear luck I happened to check my balance on line the day after it occured - but only about 1/2 way through the statement cycle. The money - about 3/4 of the balance - was gone from my account and it took a month to get it back. Now, by design I do not have a check card on my "real" account, but instead have that one on a small, secondary account I also use for paypal and other companies I don't really trust all that much. It was a clear lesson in how dangerous ACH can be in the wild. If a CC charge is fraudulent, and I dispute it, the money never comes out of my pocket - the CC company floats the money. if it happens by ACH, I'm out the money until the bank either clears the issue or is generous and credits the account on my good history.
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It's not that a TV show is more important in the grand scheme of things, but as a prefered form of entertainment which has a weekly impact on these people it really does affect them more.
Trying to put it in perspective:
1. If statistics are correct, most of the people who watch that show haven't flown on a commercial airline in the last year. Almost 1% of their waking time every week is spent watching the show. The show has higher priority simply because of the promenent spot it occupies in their life. If they flew once a month or more frequently, they'd probably be more interested in what the TSA is up to.
2. $26,000 is nothing. Oh, it's a noticable gesture, but it has no real impact in the world of politics, or desease research, or world hunger. I recently learned that it costs about $300,000/yr to even get a sniff at hiring a lobbiest to fight for your cause in Washington. Most foodbanks have effective budgets in the millions/yr. Treating AIDS can easily cost over $12k/yr/person for just the drugs. The war in Iraq is burning through about $2200 per second.
Do I think this is a good way to spend $26,000? Not really, though if it gets the series back for those who really like it it's a good idea for them. We spend a lot of money on frivilous things; this just happens to be a frivilous thing which a lot of people agree on, and it's getting some press. It's really not that big a deal in the grand scheme.
Never heard them called that. Thanks for making me chuckle this early saturday-morning-at-work.
It's an interesting concept though - if you can crack the system, and the cracks are easily obtainable in enduser products, then it is - for the purposes of the courts - not really encrypted. I like that thinking.
Usually everyone either uses all caps or all lower case with their acronyms. Selective capitalization could give people the wrong impression, even if you are not lawyer.
Man, if mods could go to 6...
"The idea is that the content companies could charge a premium according to how many copies are allowed, Ayers said."
That just rankles. Seriously. This is NOT the way to get the rights to make copies - I predict this will be as popular as DAT.
What I want is for the numbnuts we elected to stand up to the showers of cash being thrown about by the content comglomerates and say "DRM is illegal - you sell a product, not a license. Don't like it, don't sell it!" Illegal copying for commercial distribution is still a no-no. Copying for personal use is fine and dandy. (and, for the record, no - I don't know how to deal with P2P in an equitable way from a legal standpoint. From a market standpoint, some people will always copy - if most people are copying, then the media is seen by the consumer as too expensive. For $7, I probably would never bother even looking on line.)
So, do we now have the ???? step before x. Profit! filled in?
Hold on there, cowboy. You're going to tell me that on a disc with a 90 minute write time (write+verify at 2X speed), you expect to hit the endurance limit on this media on a regular basis?
Let's just take a random guess that this has 1000 w/e cycles. If you re-wrote to this disc every business day of the year, it would take 4 years to hit its limit. I appreciate your handleing care and frugality in trying to keep something around for that long in daily use, but I'm just not so sure it's a real issue for production.
The discussion has turned into that, but that wasn't the point. What you are worth to your company in terms of income is - ideally - what sets your value. If you generate an extra $30k-40k/yr by dropping potato stips in hot fat and putting bread on discs of ground up cow, then you're looking at minimum wage or a hair better. If you can put a quarter of a mil on their bottom line, you'll likely be staring at 80-90k. Whether its opportunity or necessity, dollars in should be greater than dollars out or a company will eventually fold.
I'm not telling you to go start a consulting business, I'm asking you how much your kind of work is actually worth to an end user in the free market. If it takes a hundred of you and a specialized lab to produce useful work, then take subtract the cost of the lab from the end product and divide by 100.
There are two pressures here: what people want to get paid, and what consumers are willing to pay for products.
You need a house, a car, diapers for the kids. You're educated. You won't take less than 80k.
A company produces widgets which sell for $3.85 each. They have several competitors in a relatively mature market, and cannot raise prices significantly without losing net income.
They want to develop the next generation widget and have a target value of $4.35. They think the market is good, and the accountants have put a net-present-value of the new item at $4,000,000. The new widget will take 40 man years to develop, and the company has a combined overhead and profit of 80%.
So, to simplify, each employee necessary to develop this new widget is worth:
$4M/40my/180%=$55,600/yr.
If they pay more, the project is not viable. It doesn't matter how much mortagages cost in their area, if they can't make a profit on a person, then that person is not a good business decision.
If someone were to start offering the company a contract for $30 per new-widget, then that million dollar salary starts looking feasible. Of course, it won't happen unless the number of widget scientists is low, and the rich buyer makes their offer to your competitors. Otherwise, you'll get your $80k, and the company with keep the extra profit, making the shareholders (and likely your 401k) a little bit richer.
Of course, the smart widget scientist would see the opportunity to go market a $30 widget and start his own widget company...if he had the cash to do so. Otherwise, he needs to go let someone else front the cash and take the chance, and accept $55,600 as the salary which justifies his position. Or stop being a widget scientist.
They're a little over $1 each here, though I wouldn't necessarily trust critical backups to this brand. Good ones are half again as much. Far less, per GB, than these HD discs at the moment. They area about 3x the cost of the single layer media, or (roughly) a 50-60% premium for the denser storage.
The world is full of consultants...go become one.
Here's the thing - even if you were to go out on your own, you wouldn't get to keep that 100,000. Sure, you can work from a home office - if you already have a clientele and never have to have a face to face meeting or do any marketing where the client comes to see your facility. Otherwise you need a real office or have to rent a conference room in a shared space, then admit you don't have a "real" office. Not very professional (oh, I'm gonna get flamed for that one).
Next, you'll need to come up with your employers part of the taxes for your salary, and your benefits. Taxes for a small firm are probably down in the 10-12% range for everything (payroll, which is 7.2% off of the top, plus capital/merchant's tax, on things like your software and computers, desk, chairs, etc.) - no big deal. Benefits...well, your dead simple health plan will run you $3k a year on yourself - if you're healthy. The "good" healthcare you get from the fed gov't will cost you about $10,000/yr, and still won't cover everything. Add a few hundred to thousand if you get dental. Life and disability might go another couple hundred. Retirement will run about 3-5% more for a simple 403(b)/401(k) as long as you don't put any of your "own" money in and expect it to get matched. Then there's vacation, holiday, and sick leave. We'll call that 30 days (10 federal holidays, 2 weeks of vacation, 2 weeks of sick). That's going to reduce your 52 week output by 13% - but we'll just call it a cost; actually, it's 13% of your gross billables, so at 100k, that's closer to 32% of your take home pay. Although you might have your computer now, you'll need to buy proper software licenses, and keep them current. Mine run about $2000-$2500/yr for the basics, on average, if you include upgrades that aren't annual. No more educational Word for you. We'll say 5% of your salary. Now, let's talk business insurance. General liability? Good idea - probably 3% if you're careful and don't have much to insure. You're a scientist, so errors and omissions might be prudent as a consultant (mine is 12% of gross billables - that'd be about 30% of your net income at 40k). We'll give you $100/mo for supplies (paper, toner, pencils, etc.)
Now, you're going to have to do some continuing education, or seminars, plus you'll need to do the accounting and taxes, and no doubt a bit of marketing - having only one client is a dangerous place to be when you're on your own. We'll give you $3000 for your total travel budget and seminar fees (which isn't much), add 2 weeks of missed work for marketing and said education (again, low, but we'll assume you have good clients), then drop 2 hours a week on billing, taxes, and other adminitrative fees.
So, where do we stand...you don't have an office, and you don't pay yourself back for internet, rent, electricity, or heat/ac. You meet clients around your kitchen table. You keep up with your field and you do a bit of marketing (which includes those unbillable calls for potential clients that always crop up). You pay your taxes and file on time with the local, state, and fed athorities. You pay for software - no warez on your machine. I'm getting about $48,000 in fees and "lost work" over the course of your $100,000 year, leaving you almost $12,000 to the good! Of course, that presumes that you do manage to make all that time billable.
FWIW - I have an office, though it's in the low rent district, someone to do my accounting, and a part time cad student to help out. On January 1, I know I will owe $80,000 to various people over the next 12 months, so that number above isn't just blowing smoke.
Exactly. Prices won't come down due to competition...they'll come down when manufacturing costs go down, and when there's competition. Even if there were 5 players producing these discs, you'd be lucky to see them at retail for less than $9.
The great teachers put in the extra time. Most of the teachers don't do any more time during the school year than your typical "40 hour" salaried employee. And, for the record, I think they technically 10 month employees, since they are often required to be in school the week before and (sometimes after) the academic year.
/. time, of course - it's my watercooler) - when I'm not under a real crunch, though I find that trying to get in more the 60 hours is pretty wasted time. I used to be a company guy, and I've done some side teaching (not much, and not k-12). I don't do well with other people's schedules, so I work for myself. I couldn't deal with 30 adolescents every day, and I don't know a k-12 teacher who can design a seismic moment resisting frame.
Most teachers, esp. those whohave never done anything else, don't realize that most salaried workers work more than 40 hours for their paychecks, and often see about 15-20 days of total leave.
Most non-teachers don't understand that for most of the day, a teacher is "on" and teaching requires more "quality" work time during those 4.5-6 hours than your typical cube drone in the same span of time.
Me? I don't work for the Man, I am the Man. When I don't come in to work, I don't get paid. If I take vacation, I don't get paid. If I don't do my job completely, I don't get paid. I don't get health insurance, retirement benefits, disability, or any other perk unless I pay for it. I have to pay for my annual training twice - once for the training, and again in the time that I'm not able to bill clients. I work about 50 hours a week (plus
Teachers actually get paid similarly what someone in industry with similar "ability" would get paid, on an annual basis, but they do have a lot more free time. If they choose to spend that free time on their classes and their career, that's their choice for the most part. Every discipline has people who like what they do, and part of that time is rightfully considered "hobby", not paid service. The trick is finding that person to work for you, or be your teacher, or provide you with their service.
...then you are overpriced for the market.
Here's the test: can you go out and form your own company and make more than you are being offered? If you cannot, then you've just discovered why somebody else doesn't want to hire you for that kind of money. Stop thinking about it as how much you are "worth" because of your educational expenditures, and start looking at the income you can reliably, continuously produce for your company. Once you have that number, divide it by three* and that's what your salary should be.
*okay, maybe two in a really large organization with low overhead, or if you fall at the very low or high ends of the payscale. But you're unlikely to be in either of the high/low paid cases.
Not once you find out how many fun toys there are to buy with that kind of cash!
Developers seem to be a lot like engineers. Not surprising, since they do very similar things. (disclaimer: I'm an engineer) My wife is an accountant and worked in several engineering companies. She hated dealing with engineers, primarily because their attitude was that she was doing work which they could do, but didn't because it wasn't worth their time, was below their station, or was simply to mudane. I'm sure devs are the same - they could do it if they wanted to - and much better than some lowly marketing hack - but it isn't necessary because the product is so great. Besides, they don't have time for that drivel - they have important work to do.
*shrug* I suppose that's why they're not millionaires. (disclaimer: I am not a millionaire...yet)
...below "have a nice day". Or put it on little cards next to the register, if the POS is too difficult to program for a new message. If you worry about the "wastefulness", make up 27 (or some number which doesn't sync with the calendar well) sets of cards and rotate them.
If the cafe had "free WiFi" printed anywhere within view of the parking space, without some obvious limitations (for patrons only), I'd say it should have been considered authorized. (No, of course I didn't RTFA)
If people want to make Linux more "user friendly" developers should think a lot about the name they give their programs.
They do - and developers are often far more clever (or think they should be) than the typical enduser. In all honesty, a developer is fully commited to the process, and understands far more about the application than any enduser will. It's no big deal that they use acronyms because they know what it stands for. Think of 14 year old girls texting - they don't see a string of meaningless letters, they see a fully formed sentence. You almost need someone with a flair for marketing - someone who hasn't a clue what happens inside the code - to come up with a name that the puclic will understand. Call them a waste of oxygen (and I often do) but marketing types do serve a useful function here. And, sadly, linux probably needs a few of them. I recommend having them tied and gagged most of the time, but others migh consider just locking them in a room until we need them.
The casual user is the perfect convert. In fact, anyone who is willing to switch from a windows box to a mac is a good candidate to switch to linux. The key is finding someone who isn't tied to a particular suite of windows-centric software (i.e.: has not spent years "learning" word, excel, photoshop, autocad, whatever). If you can survive the application switch, the OS is a piece of cake. I say this because every new windows release completely fucks up all the usual places and operations that you were used to in the old version (which is why my XP desktop still looks like NT3.51 as much as possible). If you can migrate up though a windows upgrade, you can migrate to linux. Or mac. As long as you don't need to concern yourself with application continuity or back catalog compatibility, you're probably golden.
I recommend buying a kit. Not a complete one - just the chassis, engine and transmission. Once you get that running, there are lots of places to buy a body, wheels, tires, windshield, etc. Oh, and it should be a stick - don't get an automatic 'cause you'll never really learn to "drive" in an automatic.
Sorry, I just couldn't help myself. *hangs head in shame*
I agree. I've always found it interesting that it costs $2000-3000 per acre to buy land, but nobody in the area seems to be willing to sell their land. If you've got 1000 acres that are really worth $2k/ac, that's enough to retire on if it's invested well, or it's enough to start a new business for the next generation somewhere else - provided you're willing to work, and we would presume the offspring of farmers understand the concept of hard work.
If the land isn't really worth that much, and you can only sell it for $500-800/acre, then it's still enough to make a good start at a new line of work, and it's cost is worth aggregating into a larger operation at the current corn prices.
In a way it seems like the farmers are just as "foolish" as the record and movie executives: they've done it this way for decades (or longer) and they expect the same revenue their predecessors got. The economy is constantly changing, and if you stay in one spot you're going to get left behind. Fewer foo farmers _will_ drive up the cost of foo in the market - but everybody seems to think someone else should get out of the business and let them reap the rewards of a tighter market. Instead, they all cling to the same rock as it sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
It just might be cheaper then cable for usual stuff. I've got DTV, and it's running me about $700/yr with two TiVos (the HD one is hacked so I can d/l stuff). I know I could do better buying content for myself, and I might break even with my daughter, but my wife likes funky history and biography-like shows that just aren't available - or easily found - for aftermarket purchase. She probably keeps up on 4-5 daily or weekly OTA series overall - don't know what a subscription would cost. I have to think that she could easily go through $25-40/mo alone on what she normally watches.
I must admit, if I were single I'd probably have dropped sat/cable entirely in favor of iTMS, or - since I have the patience and loose moral fiber - usenet (which, oddly, I actually pay for). With three people in the house who all watch different things, it's actually more economical (with DTiVo, at least) to be a slave to the Man.
Just like I have the right to make a living by setting off firecrackers in my backyard.
Just because you really like to do it - even if you happen to be good at it - doesn't mean that you have a right to earn a living doing it. Supply and demand, baby.
"He uses the extra time saved to read books he checked out of the library, because he ran out of cash trying to buy all the content he wanted to see off of iTMS."
There, fixed that for you. You see, the idea is that TV has always been "free" for the viewer, and the intent of these things is to leverage that content to reduce the regular outlay of cash associated with paying for every instance of a recording. If you don't understand that economy (spending time to save money), then you are detached from most of America. Then again, you seem to be a mac fan, so...
The problem is that, often, once you've discovered a breach of your security (say, when you get your checking statement at the end of the month) there could be many fraudulent transactions, and by then your mortgage, utility, and other payments may have already bounced. That's what's known in consumer circles as a Bad Thing (TM). A single NSF on a single account can result in the triggering of all sorts of punitive clauses on non-related accounts (esp credit cards). And federal law does NOT protect you from NSF fees charged by your bank or others, even if fraud is the root cause of your account going below zero, nor does it protect you from the punitive clauses from being invoked. You are, in effect, at the mercy of all of your creditors.
This has not happened to me, and I never intend it to. Check that - it did happen (fraudulent charge on a debit card), and by shear luck I happened to check my balance on line the day after it occured - but only about 1/2 way through the statement cycle. The money - about 3/4 of the balance - was gone from my account and it took a month to get it back. Now, by design I do not have a check card on my "real" account, but instead have that one on a small, secondary account I also use for paypal and other companies I don't really trust all that much. It was a clear lesson in how dangerous ACH can be in the wild. If a CC charge is fraudulent, and I dispute it, the money never comes out of my pocket - the CC company floats the money. if it happens by ACH, I'm out the money until the bank either clears the issue or is generous and credits the account on my good history.