Yeah, they should've pulled a microsoft: Give away the Billpoint services for free up to, say, $100, and 1% or 2% after that. Essential "dump" the CC services, and call the loss a "customer service" expense. Suck away all the revenue from paypal, and if they don't go out of business in a year or two, then buy 'em while they're on the ropes (at a bargain price, of course).
As a law-and-order wonk, you should be quite distressed at your own comment:
"Sure, but only because those laws generally aren't enforced upon the townies."
To enforce laws uniformly is the only way to have a just society. It's why we get all bent out of shape when getting pulled over for 2 MPH over the limit. Everybody knows they give you a 7-10 MPH cushion, and all but the most brazen live by it.
Then again, if it were mandatory with escalating fines (1% of income, 2% of income, 5% of income) and fines applied to EVERY person in the car, I suspect speeding would stop quickly. Naturally, you would be required to scan your embedded chip as you entered the vehicle, and if the vehicle loading was greater than the tags scanned, the car wouldn't start;-) Of course, your merchandise receipt would have the mass of your purchase encoded.
The armed services is a very unique position, not to be found anywhere else. We (the people) pay to have a trained, ready military. In return, that military is not required to produce anything most of the time. Of course, when I say "most of the time," it's in a statistical sense. Some active duty folk will bust their butts their entire career, some will loaf their entire career.
The advantages, however, are quite hidden. Housing and meal allowances are TAX FREE. No FICA, no federal, no state. Special programs exist which allow military folks benefits which would be unheard of in other industries (loans, insurance...) And, of course, generally early retirement ages allows second careers and "double dipping" as it's called.
I'm not going to defend or bash the military - it has it's strengths and weaknesses - but it certainly can't be compared to the corporate world.
Acutally, I remember setting up a test on some spaceflight hardware a few years back. There were several of us in the EMI/RFI test area, and one of the women looked a bit agitated as the afternoon wore on. About 4 o'clock, she commented that she was suppose to get paged when her bf got into town, and that should have been three hours ago. Somebody started to snigger, and she got this "I'm just as stupid as stupic can be" look on her face, looked around at the huge faraday cage which insulated the enitire room, and then started to laugh as she went to find a phone.
Theft of service? I checked all the documents for residential service including their Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, and Residential Agreement. I was unable to find any reference to bandwidth limits or excess use fees. In fact, the cable service is provided as a fixed price:
In fact, the Acceptable Use policy does not mention anything about the modification of equipment on the client end, limits to total bandwidth, or limits on bandwidth rates. I hope somebody makes an archive copy of the edocuments before Buckeye goes in and changes them to suit the needs of the prosecution.
If the service does not specify limits, how can you be charged for overusage? It's theft of something you have already paid for. You may disagree with bandwidth hogs, but if there are no stated limits in the terms of use then that's Buckeye's fault. Imagine if you were arrested for using the new MCI or AT&T unlimited LD service to set up a 24/7 voice link to your buddy's apartment on the other coast. It may be a drain on the system, but it's not illegal.
Unless this is an excuse to get at the data on the machines, I foresee crippling civil litigation against Buckeye in the near future.
I could easily consume 1.2 TB in a consumer device, but that would only hold the 200 DVDs I currently own. I think I'd need at least 2.5 to 3 TB to make it worth while and to include my CDs and a little future storage space. Of course, with HD now "live," I see a need for a HD server in the next 4 to 7 years which could easily surpass 4 to 5 TB in size.
I have no fear about "too much" storage. It's a shame these devices are mechanical, though, as the reliability and complexity tends to place a large fixed price (esp in a consumer device) before the first bit can be placed.
Wow...a structrual engineer isn't usually the design professional you think of when you design a house, but I gotta say I like the idea. Of course, that's 'cause I love residential architecture and I'm a registered strucutral engineer! I designed my own house, and am in the middle of my parent's retirement home. I don't think I could make a good living at the overall design process at $4k a pop, but I suppose it's possible. My personal residence took me 6 months of weekends after 4 years of intermittant research. I suppose a month or so of work could get it done now...
You speak the truth. Saving money or not, if you've got an area you did yourself, and you did a good job, it pays dividends in pride.
You can get away without a truck if you've got a car which can tow 1000lbs (most can). For about $200 or $250, plus $100 in lumber and an afternoon of cursing the assembly manual, Harbor Freight sells a 4'x8' trailer kit that will hold 1120 lbs (?) of stuff. Anything that's too big to put in my trailer tends to be worth paying $30 to have delivered by HD/Lowes.
Like everything, land acquisition varies. Had I found the land I'm on now when it originally went on the market, I could have had all 177 acres for about $135k. It's just one example of how builders can (and do) leverage their knowledge to maximize profit.
As another example, I know another builder who buys a train-car-full of 7/16" OSB - the stuff that covers the entire house - each winter (he may buy two or three now) at the market low - about $4.25 a sheet. When the summer comes and the price spikes to $7.85 a sheet, he smiles all the way to the bank. Most owner/builders don't have the resources or facilities to capture these savings.
One thing I forgot...so I'll say it here. If you plan well, and have good drawings, you can get a contractor to give you a fixed price for the whole job. If the price of materials goes up, the GC eats those costs.
Being your own contractor makes it cost plus - you pay whatever it costs you, plus your "overhead." It's killing my next door neigbors.
I contracted my house cost plus - and went over my budget, but that's because I didn't have a good grasp of the local labor rates, didn't figure interest, material prices increased from my benchmark prices (see OSB, above). Of course, by going cost plus my contractor charged me a fixed fee (turned out to be about 7% of the construction cost), and I got his carpentry/labor crew of four for $55/hr plus all his regular subs - and they were all top notch.
This book is not a typical story. I'm in the industry (structural engineer with an architectural firm) and have seen many different scenereos...many of them not pretty. Here's some basics:
If you take a typical tract home (built by an experienced, if average, builder) with basic finishes (paint, carpet, vinyl, MDF trim) and standard items you can expect $80/SF for the house and $20/sf for the land/improvements/utilities to purchase the house...we'll use this $100/SF number as a good basis number.
The contrator is only going to pay about $55/SF to build your house in material and labor. That means he's going to make $100 on a $75 investment. Remember, he'll have to pay $3-5 to market/sell, $3-5 in interest expenses, and his time and liability exposure.
You'll be competing with this guy for subs and materials. He'll probably only use one material supplier (or just a few) because HE GETS A DISCOUNT! Sometimes is overt, like 10% across the board. Often it includes perks like free job-site delivery, or extras such as a boom truck on drywall deliveries. It's only a couple of percent, but it adds up. You'll be paying full price. His subs, to whom he supplies work on a regular basis, will get to his job before yours - even if you called them first. So what - it's just time right? Well, if you're paying 9% on a construction loan, time is money.
Don't forget that you're going to need flexible job hours - often your low bidder sub (and even some high ones) aren't nearly as particular with their work when they're not being checked. A neighbor-owner/contractor had the felt left off his roof assembly by his roofer. He found out when a shingle blew off and there it wasn't! He got the roof replaced for free, but only after several weeks of arguing and calls to the building department. You don't need to be there all the time, but you do have to be able to check in on them.
Finally, if you don't understand how buildings go together, you could be in for a nasty suprise. A contractor generally started as a carpenter, and has seen lots of houses go together. He recognizes when something is not-quite-right. You won't. Trust me - you'll miss something. Did you check to see that the all the hurricane clips were installed, installed properly, and in the correct quantity before the drywall went up? Do you know what the right one looks like - there are different types!
Which leads me to liability. If you build your house and it doesn't work the way it's supposed to (it leaks, sags, cracks, or worse) you are the one responsible. Sure, you can try and strong arm the subs to fix it if its one discipline. But what if the problem is not obvious, such a coordination issue (framing to siding, or plumbing through the roof?) Normally, you'd stick it to the General Contractor - they're required in most states to warrant their work for a year. Guess what - THAT'S YOU! YOU are responsible, financially, for those problems.
Finally, if you're getting a $500,000 house for $300,000, you're doing your math wrong, or aren't comparing apples to apples. Most building products are commodity items. Same time, same area sales won't vary by more than 5% or so. You'll save the GC fee of, say, 20% to 25% of the cost of the construction, but you'll pay a little more for everything you get. That cost may be direct, such as paying $30 for every delivery or not getting the 15% volume builders discount at the Midtown Tile Hut, or it may be indirect such as the time it takes you to run around and compare prices, or wait two weeks for the electrician to get around to you because he has higher priorities.
Oh, one more thing. That lot you just paid $45,000 to buy? The buider paid $5,000 or less because he bought ten acres and cut it up into 10 lots. Don't forget the whole picture. If you "built" your house on a lot you owned and spent $120k, and the neighbor paid $160k for the identical house next door, you've just spent all your time and effort for the exact same thing as your neighbor got for signing a check. Don't laugh...I bought my 8 acres for $55k two years ago. The land next to me (11 acres) just sold for $90k. No well, no septic. The builder down the street (and a good friend, I might add) bought 35 acres of the same farm three years ago for $35k and is putting up six houses. He just bought 55 more acres down the way for $130k, and is getting about $50k for the timber on the land, then he's going to divide it up into 5 acre chunks and build some more houses.
90% of the USA, or 90% of the population? I suspect the latter, meaning only about 10% of the USA. They're willing to put wireless broadband where wired broadband already exists, but not to offer it to those who have no broadband at all.
I suspect if they called their congressman and offered to make wireless broadband available, starting with the sparsest populated areas and moving up (2000 census data), they'd get the spectrum gratis. In fact, there's probably money the in the current Farm Bill to help them out in those rural areas they seem so desparate to serve. There's really no sense in giving them free spectrum so they can cherry pick the population centers.
The proof's in the pudding, though. They are offering Austin, TX and Washington D.C. as test areas? Why not choose anywhere in Alaska, the Dakotas, Utah, or Maine - all states they admit are without DBS service. It's clear they want the spectrum for free so they can deploy in urban areas without licensed competition - they have no desire to service the whole country.
Who cares about compatibility for kids? They're LEARNING, not doing anything useful. You could give 'em a Trash80 and teach them to program on it. How 'bout an apple II - teach them to code the 6502 by hand! We don't have them design a car, or audit a company, or transplant a heart, or file a brief to a court, or perform with a touring symphony. We teach them reading, writing, math, history, music. We let them PRETEND to do real things so they can apply their basic knowledge.
They don't need Microsoft Office, they need to learn how to use a word processor, spreadsheet, database. They don't need AutoCAD. They don't Pro/ENGINEER. They don't need Timberline. They DO need to learn how to learn a computer program. They would do well to learn how a program works.
Teach them the basics, and don't throw away money on programs made, and priced, for the business market. If Linux works and keeps the budget under control - use it. I don't really care. I think there should be several OSs in each school, and each should be taught - at least the basics.
Give me a fish, and I shall eat for a day. Teach me to fish, and I shall eat for a lifetime. (or is it...I shall sit in a boat all day, drink beer, and come home smelling like fish)
Of course DVDs are only 480p. But to blow up a 480x720 pixels to 120" diagonal makes for very noticable pixelization. A good up-conversion (the Sony 10HT has a decent one) to 768x1366 smoothes out most of that. It's not perfect, but it's pretty darned good - and better than the scratched/dirty films that often make it to the local theaters. DVD is, IMHO, the bare minimum quality for large format projection.
I'm not even going to pretend that I'm going to get a random-access format in HD from the MPAA anytime this decade. Of course, when it does happen, it damned well better be at least 1080 lines and progressive. I know, JVC's got a new tape deck, but I'm not willing to pay that kind of premium for a tape of a second run. But I digress...
Pirates will always be pirates. Yes, a DIVX rip of the DVD will be quite better than the handicam version on the 'net now - but it will still be illegal (some people's sole motive for getting it, it seems), and still of inferior quality. I have a friend with a VCD pirate of LOTR. He didn't even bother to bring it over to watch on my system - it's borderline on his monitor accoring to him - it would be painful to watch full size.
I'd drop an extra $20 on a DVD if I could get it within, say, two weeks of the premier - even if there were no extras to speak of. I'd much prefer to stay at home rather than go to the theater. Why? For the price of a good HDTV, I put in a 1366x768 HiDef Projector and 120" 16:9 screen. Hooked up to my audio system, it's every bit as good as the movie houses, and quite better in most cases. Plus, I never have to deal with the hour spent in the car, uncomfortable seats, sticky floors, $5 drinks, and the kid behind me who likes kicking my seat!
They still get the first couple of weeks for the hard core viewers, and they get my money directly (rather than filtering it through the traditional disto channel). Are they worried about pirates or "personal" showings which they won't get a cut of the profits? Well, piracy obviously exists despite their best efforts and public showings of the discs are already illegal.
As an added bonus, the hard core DVD watchers will purchase the later-released, Special, Collectors, and Mutli-disc Ultimate editions when they come out.
*poof*
Oh forget about all that, I just woke up. Nice dream, though...
My wife is an accountant. She is the supervisor of two CPAs. She never bothered to sit for the CPA exam because she doesn't like to do public accounting. She's happy in private industry, and she's a damned good manager. The lack of three letters won't hurt her in what she does or where she wants to be in ten years.
A CPA is an accountant who has passed all portions of the CPA exam. Passing the CPA gives you the letters, but does not give you the right to practice in a particular state - you must still meet their minimum requirements for experience (2 years, in general) in order to become licensed and offer your services to the public.
A more accurate comparison might be someone with a BS in Engineering vs an EIT. The only required separation between the two is an exam. Admittedly, it's only a one day exam - but you've got to pass it all in one shot (and, dammit, the afternoon math _was_ hard).
An engineer, OTOH, requires 4 years of docmented, progressive engineering responsibility in addition to the degree and the first exam before you can even sit for the "real" one. Also, passing that exam _is_ the final step in getting licensed in a state.
Please don't take this the wrong way...licenced CPAs _are_ professionals. We could stand here with our pants down and rulers in hand all day but it wouldn't change the facts. Engineers tend to get their hackles up because we're less recognized than our professional bretheren. We don't do the extensive marketing and lobbying that the others do and it shows in the polls.
Engineers just have to face it: we've been dis'ed in the first round and we're raw over it. Doesn't matter that we're all too smart to fork over $300 for a goofy TLD;-) - that fact is that we don't even get the chance.
Now...if I could just convince the Peruvian government to sell me a few 2nd level domains to me, I'd be a happy camper!
Yeah, most engineering degrees are "just" four years. Five if you co-op, but that's not time in class. There are several programs considering 5 year degrees, and some already are (Arch. Engr at Penn State, for example).
Now, that doesn't make you an engineer any more than a BA in humanities makes you a Doctor or Lawyer. [aside] Doctor, here, is used in the Medical Doctor context, not PhD. PhDs generally depend on novel thought and intellegence, MDs depend on hard work and excellent memorization skills. No offense is meant to either, merely a distintion most people overlook. [/aside]
Now that you've graduated with a B Eng or BS form an Accredited college, you are eligible to sit for the Fundementals of Engineering exam. It's a simple 8 hour, two part exam which tests your general knowledge of engineering, mathematics and science. About 75% of those taking the test who have already earned an engineering degree pass the exam.
Congratulations, you're an Engineer In Training (EIT), and you're lower than dirt! Now you can be paid a modest starting salary to work long hours while you learn how the real world works and understand how engineers get stuff done. After four more years, you're qualified to submit your application to take the Principles and Practice Exam. Of course, you'll need to document all the work you've done for the last four years showing increasing complexity and responsibility in engineering, plus written recommendations from several colleagues who are registered engineers.
If you're application is deemed worthy, you'll be allowed to sit for another 8 hour, 2 part examination. Of course, this is a bit more difficult than the last. Pass rates generally hover around 50%-60% for first time takers. Some smaller/targeted fields have higher pass rates. Some have smaller (Structural Engineers passing both halves of the Structural II for last October: 14%).
Didn't pass the first time? No big deal, you can take it again - but don't get your hopes up. Passing rates the second time around drop to around half of the first-time takers. If you don't know the material, you can't just memorize more stuff and improve your chances - this stuff is for real!
That's what it takes to get a PE. Keeping your certification is not much different that other professions - continuing education credits are required each year in many states, nominal registration fees to each state in which you are licensed, and so on.
Given the advantages of co-ops and time to process registrations and exams the typical time to obtain your PE is about 9 to 10 years , given that you pass each exam on the first try. Please don't whine about 8 years to get your MD or Law Degree. It speaks poorly for your profession.
Sorry, but if you're going to add accountants, you'd better add engineers to that list. Professional Engineers must be certified and licensed in all 50 US states, and in most industrialized nations, to practice engineering (offer engineering services to the public) - more than you can say for accountants.
Of course, you won't see me forking over $300 for a whiney "latecomer" TLD, 'cause I already own an original!
Oh, sorry, that just slipped out. If you have a chance you should go and try to meet him. I fyou can't make it the the B'burg event, try looking for him in smaller towns. His Newport appearance gathered about a dozen of us, and we each got a chance to talk with him for a coupld of minutes one-on-one.
He is quite popular...even my "Rush Limbaugh - right" in-laws vote for him every time. I think the democratic levers in the voting booths actually leaves burn marks on their skin, but they vote for him anyway;-)
More annoying than dead pixels are "hot" pixels - or those that are always on. Actually, I believe the image in the article shows a hot, rather than dead, pixel. IMHO, a dead pixel in against a field of white is far less noticable than a hot pixel on a field of black.
6 dead is a pretty loose number if hot pixels are counted, and no adjacent/near/location sensitive data is considered. Six hot green pixels near the middle of the screen would be practically unworkable.
..you've just gotta see Beryllium-Aluminum. Ti is great, but it's not that strong - steel alloys can be made much stronger. It's rather flexible - it bends twice as easily as the same size piece of steel.
Be-Al alloys weigh about 80% of Aluminum, or just about 30% of steel. It has the strength of aircraft grade aluminum - near the strength of structural (A36) steel. But the kicker is that it's STIFFER than steel! Not by much, but there are few metals or alloys which have a stiffness greater then 30,000 ksi.
Super high end golf club heads (drivers specifically) are made from the stuff, but I think they cost in excess of my monthly salary. Very sexy, indeed.
as indicated by the multi-cast of the NCAA. Four standard definition broadcasts squeezed into one 6MHz channel is no better than DirectTV or Dish, which already broadcast "digital" TV.
The lack of discussion about High Definition in favor of digital is dissappointing. Digital looks only marginally better than properly transmitted and received analog - worse in some cases. Talk about being duped. Joe Sixpack is gonna plunk down $2000 just to find a picture that's just 480 lines - not much better than he had. It's missing the entire opportunity to maximize the clarity of the picture.
It's true. We Americans, as a collective entity, have forgotten what it really means to be good neighbors in the world. I find many of our actions quite disappointing, mainly because it makes us look bad. There is a great deal of good that we offer to the world: financial aid, manpower for humanitarian purposes as examples. There's also a great deal which isn't so hot, such as commercialism, but which may be rejected. The bad-neighbor part comes when we try to enforce our will/values on other people when we know full well we wouldn't stand for such treatment in reverse.
The sad part is that it's usually done for a financial or political purpose, not out of some misguided desire to "enlighten" others. At least with the latter, it could be written off as naive. In reality, it's just evil empire-mongering.
I did this when I moved back to VA, and convinced my wife to do the same. Nobody really needs your SSN, it is just easier to check your records with it.
Hmmm, I've never seen the law...do you have a reference?
I'd love to have it handy. Most colleges require US students to supply their SSN which they then use for your ID number. You don't have to supply it, but your admission form will be promply thrown away.
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Yeah, they should've pulled a microsoft: Give away the Billpoint services for free up to, say, $100, and 1% or 2% after that. Essential "dump" the CC services, and call the loss a "customer service" expense. Suck away all the revenue from paypal, and if they don't go out of business in a year or two, then buy 'em while they're on the ropes (at a bargain price, of course).
As a law-and-order wonk, you should be quite distressed at your own comment:
;-) Of course, your merchandise receipt would have the mass of your purchase encoded.
"Sure, but only because those laws generally aren't enforced upon the townies."
To enforce laws uniformly is the only way to have a just society. It's why we get all bent out of shape when getting pulled over for 2 MPH over the limit. Everybody knows they give you a 7-10 MPH cushion, and all but the most brazen live by it.
Then again, if it were mandatory with escalating fines (1% of income, 2% of income, 5% of income) and fines applied to EVERY person in the car, I suspect speeding would stop quickly. Naturally, you would be required to scan your embedded chip as you entered the vehicle, and if the vehicle loading was greater than the tags scanned, the car wouldn't start
The armed services is a very unique position, not to be found anywhere else. We (the people) pay to have a trained, ready military. In return, that military is not required to produce anything most of the time. Of course, when I say "most of the time," it's in a statistical sense. Some active duty folk will bust their butts their entire career, some will loaf their entire career.
The advantages, however, are quite hidden. Housing and meal allowances are TAX FREE. No FICA, no federal, no state. Special programs exist which allow military folks benefits which would be unheard of in other industries (loans, insurance...) And, of course, generally early retirement ages allows second careers and "double dipping" as it's called.
I'm not going to defend or bash the military - it has it's strengths and weaknesses - but it certainly can't be compared to the corporate world.
Acutally, I remember setting up a test on some spaceflight hardware a few years back. There were several of us in the EMI/RFI test area, and one of the women looked a bit agitated as the afternoon wore on. About 4 o'clock, she commented that she was suppose to get paged when her bf got into town, and that should have been three hours ago. Somebody started to snigger, and she got this "I'm just as stupid as stupic can be" look on her face, looked around at the huge faraday cage which insulated the enitire room, and then started to laugh as she went to find a phone.
Theft of service? I checked all the documents for residential service including their Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, and Residential Agreement. I was unable to find any reference to bandwidth limits or excess use fees. In fact, the cable service is provided as a fixed price:
_ ht ml/bexpspecs.html
http://www.buckeyeexpress.com/bci_html/internet
In fact, the Acceptable Use policy does not mention anything about the modification of equipment on the client end, limits to total bandwidth, or limits on bandwidth rates. I hope somebody makes an archive copy of the edocuments before Buckeye goes in and changes them to suit the needs of the prosecution.
If the service does not specify limits, how can you be charged for overusage? It's theft of something you have already paid for. You may disagree with bandwidth hogs, but if there are no stated limits in the terms of use then that's Buckeye's fault. Imagine if you were arrested for using the new MCI or AT&T unlimited LD service to set up a 24/7 voice link to your buddy's apartment on the other coast. It may be a drain on the system, but it's not illegal.
Unless this is an excuse to get at the data on the machines, I foresee crippling civil litigation against Buckeye in the near future.
I could easily consume 1.2 TB in a consumer device, but that would only hold the 200 DVDs I currently own. I think I'd need at least 2.5 to 3 TB to make it worth while and to include my CDs and a little future storage space. Of course, with HD now "live," I see a need for a HD server in the next 4 to 7 years which could easily surpass 4 to 5 TB in size.
I have no fear about "too much" storage. It's a shame these devices are mechanical, though, as the reliability and complexity tends to place a large fixed price (esp in a consumer device) before the first bit can be placed.
Wow...a structrual engineer isn't usually the design professional you think of when you design a house, but I gotta say I like the idea. Of course, that's 'cause I love residential architecture and I'm a registered strucutral engineer! I designed my own house, and am in the middle of my parent's retirement home. I don't think I could make a good living at the overall design process at $4k a pop, but I suppose it's possible. My personal residence took me 6 months of weekends after 4 years of intermittant research. I suppose a month or so of work could get it done now...
You speak the truth. Saving money or not, if you've got an area you did yourself, and you did a good job, it pays dividends in pride.
You can get away without a truck if you've got a car which can tow 1000lbs (most can). For about $200 or $250, plus $100 in lumber and an afternoon of cursing the assembly manual, Harbor Freight sells a 4'x8' trailer kit that will hold 1120 lbs (?) of stuff. Anything that's too big to put in my trailer tends to be worth paying $30 to have delivered by HD/Lowes.
Like everything, land acquisition varies. Had I found the land I'm on now when it originally went on the market, I could have had all 177 acres for about $135k. It's just one example of how builders can (and do) leverage their knowledge to maximize profit.
As another example, I know another builder who buys a train-car-full of 7/16" OSB - the stuff that covers the entire house - each winter (he may buy two or three now) at the market low - about $4.25 a sheet. When the summer comes and the price spikes to $7.85 a sheet, he smiles all the way to the bank. Most owner/builders don't have the resources or facilities to capture these savings.
One thing I forgot...so I'll say it here. If you plan well, and have good drawings, you can get a contractor to give you a fixed price for the whole job. If the price of materials goes up, the GC eats those costs.
Being your own contractor makes it cost plus - you pay whatever it costs you, plus your "overhead." It's killing my next door neigbors.
I contracted my house cost plus - and went over my budget, but that's because I didn't have a good grasp of the local labor rates, didn't figure interest, material prices increased from my benchmark prices (see OSB, above). Of course, by going cost plus my contractor charged me a fixed fee (turned out to be about 7% of the construction cost), and I got his carpentry/labor crew of four for $55/hr plus all his regular subs - and they were all top notch.
This book is not a typical story. I'm in the industry (structural engineer with an architectural firm) and have seen many different scenereos...many of them not pretty. Here's some basics:
If you take a typical tract home (built by an experienced, if average, builder) with basic finishes (paint, carpet, vinyl, MDF trim) and standard items you can expect $80/SF for the house and $20/sf for the land/improvements/utilities to purchase the house...we'll use this $100/SF number as a good basis number.
The contrator is only going to pay about $55/SF to build your house in material and labor. That means he's going to make $100 on a $75 investment. Remember, he'll have to pay $3-5 to market/sell, $3-5 in interest expenses, and his time and liability exposure.
You'll be competing with this guy for subs and materials. He'll probably only use one material supplier (or just a few) because HE GETS A DISCOUNT! Sometimes is overt, like 10% across the board. Often it includes perks like free job-site delivery, or extras such as a boom truck on drywall deliveries. It's only a couple of percent, but it adds up. You'll be paying full price. His subs, to whom he supplies work on a regular basis, will get to his job before yours - even if you called them first. So what - it's just time right? Well, if you're paying 9% on a construction loan, time is money.
Don't forget that you're going to need flexible job hours - often your low bidder sub (and even some high ones) aren't nearly as particular with their work when they're not being checked. A neighbor-owner/contractor had the felt left off his roof assembly by his roofer. He found out when a shingle blew off and there it wasn't! He got the roof replaced for free, but only after several weeks of arguing and calls to the building department. You don't need to be there all the time, but you do have to be able to check in on them.
Finally, if you don't understand how buildings go together, you could be in for a nasty suprise. A contractor generally started as a carpenter, and has seen lots of houses go together. He recognizes when something is not-quite-right. You won't. Trust me - you'll miss something. Did you check to see that the all the hurricane clips were installed, installed properly, and in the correct quantity before the drywall went up? Do you know what the right one looks like - there are different types!
Which leads me to liability. If you build your house and it doesn't work the way it's supposed to (it leaks, sags, cracks, or worse) you are the one responsible. Sure, you can try and strong arm the subs to fix it if its one discipline. But what if the problem is not obvious, such a coordination issue (framing to siding, or plumbing through the roof?) Normally, you'd stick it to the General Contractor - they're required in most states to warrant their work for a year. Guess what - THAT'S YOU! YOU are responsible, financially, for those problems.
Finally, if you're getting a $500,000 house for $300,000, you're doing your math wrong, or aren't comparing apples to apples. Most building products are commodity items. Same time, same area sales won't vary by more than 5% or so. You'll save the GC fee of, say, 20% to 25% of the cost of the construction, but you'll pay a little more for everything you get. That cost may be direct, such as paying $30 for every delivery or not getting the 15% volume builders discount at the Midtown Tile Hut, or it may be indirect such as the time it takes you to run around and compare prices, or wait two weeks for the electrician to get around to you because he has higher priorities.
Oh, one more thing. That lot you just paid $45,000 to buy? The buider paid $5,000 or less because he bought ten acres and cut it up into 10 lots. Don't forget the whole picture. If you "built" your house on a lot you owned and spent $120k, and the neighbor paid $160k for the identical house next door, you've just spent all your time and effort for the exact same thing as your neighbor got for signing a check. Don't laugh...I bought my 8 acres for $55k two years ago. The land next to me (11 acres) just sold for $90k. No well, no septic. The builder down the street (and a good friend, I might add) bought 35 acres of the same farm three years ago for $35k and is putting up six houses. He just bought 55 more acres down the way for $130k, and is getting about $50k for the timber on the land, then he's going to divide it up into 5 acre chunks and build some more houses.
90% of the USA, or 90% of the population? I suspect the latter, meaning only about 10% of the USA. They're willing to put wireless broadband where wired broadband already exists, but not to offer it to those who have no broadband at all.
I suspect if they called their congressman and offered to make wireless broadband available, starting with the sparsest populated areas and moving up (2000 census data), they'd get the spectrum gratis. In fact, there's probably money the in the current Farm Bill to help them out in those rural areas they seem so desparate to serve. There's really no sense in giving them free spectrum so they can cherry pick the population centers.
The proof's in the pudding, though. They are offering Austin, TX and Washington D.C. as test areas? Why not choose anywhere in Alaska, the Dakotas, Utah, or Maine - all states they admit are without DBS service. It's clear they want the spectrum for free so they can deploy in urban areas without licensed competition - they have no desire to service the whole country.
Who cares about compatibility for kids? They're LEARNING, not doing anything useful. You could give 'em a Trash80 and teach them to program on it. How 'bout an apple II - teach them to code the 6502 by hand! We don't have them design a car, or audit a company, or transplant a heart, or file a brief to a court, or perform with a touring symphony. We teach them reading, writing, math, history, music. We let them PRETEND to do real things so they can apply their basic knowledge.
...I shall sit in a boat all day, drink beer, and come home smelling like fish)
They don't need Microsoft Office, they need to learn how to use a word processor, spreadsheet, database. They don't need AutoCAD. They don't Pro/ENGINEER. They don't need Timberline. They DO need to learn how to learn a computer program. They would do well to learn how a program works.
Teach them the basics, and don't throw away money on programs made, and priced, for the business market. If Linux works and keeps the budget under control - use it. I don't really care. I think there should be several OSs in each school, and each should be taught - at least the basics.
Give me a fish, and I shall eat for a day. Teach me to fish, and I shall eat for a lifetime. (or is it
Actually, I prefer to think the "moon" as just our sister planet, making us the only binary planet in our solar system :-)
Of course DVDs are only 480p. But to blow up a 480x720 pixels to 120" diagonal makes for very noticable pixelization. A good up-conversion (the Sony 10HT has a decent one) to 768x1366 smoothes out most of that. It's not perfect, but it's pretty darned good - and better than the scratched/dirty films that often make it to the local theaters. DVD is, IMHO, the bare minimum quality for large format projection.
I'm not even going to pretend that I'm going to get a random-access format in HD from the MPAA anytime this decade. Of course, when it does happen, it damned well better be at least 1080 lines and progressive. I know, JVC's got a new tape deck, but I'm not willing to pay that kind of premium for a tape of a second run. But I digress...
Pirates will always be pirates. Yes, a DIVX rip of the DVD will be quite better than the handicam version on the 'net now - but it will still be illegal (some people's sole motive for getting it, it seems), and still of inferior quality. I have a friend with a VCD pirate of LOTR. He didn't even bother to bring it over to watch on my system - it's borderline on his monitor accoring to him - it would be painful to watch full size.
I'd drop an extra $20 on a DVD if I could get it within, say, two weeks of the premier - even if there were no extras to speak of. I'd much prefer to stay at home rather than go to the theater. Why? For the price of a good HDTV, I put in a 1366x768 HiDef Projector and 120" 16:9 screen. Hooked up to my audio system, it's every bit as good as the movie houses, and quite better in most cases. Plus, I never have to deal with the hour spent in the car, uncomfortable seats, sticky floors, $5 drinks, and the kid behind me who likes kicking my seat!
They still get the first couple of weeks for the hard core viewers, and they get my money directly (rather than filtering it through the traditional disto channel). Are they worried about pirates or "personal" showings which they won't get a cut of the profits? Well, piracy obviously exists despite their best efforts and public showings of the discs are already illegal.
As an added bonus, the hard core DVD watchers will purchase the later-released, Special, Collectors, and Mutli-disc Ultimate editions when they come out.
*poof*
Oh forget about all that, I just woke up. Nice dream, though...
Of course I do.
;-) - that fact is that we don't even get the chance.
My wife is an accountant. She is the supervisor of two CPAs. She never bothered to sit for the CPA exam because she doesn't like to do public accounting. She's happy in private industry, and she's a damned good manager. The lack of three letters won't hurt her in what she does or where she wants to be in ten years.
A CPA is an accountant who has passed all portions of the CPA exam. Passing the CPA gives you the letters, but does not give you the right to practice in a particular state - you must still meet their minimum requirements for experience (2 years, in general) in order to become licensed and offer your services to the public.
A more accurate comparison might be someone with a BS in Engineering vs an EIT. The only required separation between the two is an exam. Admittedly, it's only a one day exam - but you've got to pass it all in one shot (and, dammit, the afternoon math _was_ hard).
An engineer, OTOH, requires 4 years of docmented, progressive engineering responsibility in addition to the degree and the first exam before you can even sit for the "real" one. Also, passing that exam _is_ the final step in getting licensed in a state.
Please don't take this the wrong way...licenced CPAs _are_ professionals. We could stand here with our pants down and rulers in hand all day but it wouldn't change the facts. Engineers tend to get their hackles up because we're less recognized than our professional bretheren. We don't do the extensive marketing and lobbying that the others do and it shows in the polls.
Engineers just have to face it: we've been dis'ed in the first round and we're raw over it. Doesn't matter that we're all too smart to fork over $300 for a goofy TLD
Now...if I could just convince the Peruvian government to sell me a few 2nd level domains to me, I'd be a happy camper!
Now, that doesn't make you an engineer any more than a BA in humanities makes you a Doctor or Lawyer. [aside] Doctor, here, is used in the Medical Doctor context, not PhD. PhDs generally depend on novel thought and intellegence, MDs depend on hard work and excellent memorization skills. No offense is meant to either, merely a distintion most people overlook. [/aside]
Now that you've graduated with a B Eng or BS form an Accredited college, you are eligible to sit for the Fundementals of Engineering exam. It's a simple 8 hour, two part exam which tests your general knowledge of engineering, mathematics and science. About 75% of those taking the test who have already earned an engineering degree pass the exam.
Congratulations, you're an Engineer In Training (EIT), and you're lower than dirt! Now you can be paid a modest starting salary to work long hours while you learn how the real world works and understand how engineers get stuff done. After four more years, you're qualified to submit your application to take the Principles and Practice Exam. Of course, you'll need to document all the work you've done for the last four years showing increasing complexity and responsibility in engineering, plus written recommendations from several colleagues who are registered engineers.
If you're application is deemed worthy, you'll be allowed to sit for another 8 hour, 2 part examination. Of course, this is a bit more difficult than the last. Pass rates generally hover around 50%-60% for first time takers. Some smaller/targeted fields have higher pass rates. Some have smaller (Structural Engineers passing both halves of the Structural II for last October: 14%).
Didn't pass the first time? No big deal, you can take it again - but don't get your hopes up. Passing rates the second time around drop to around half of the first-time takers. If you don't know the material, you can't just memorize more stuff and improve your chances - this stuff is for real!
That's what it takes to get a PE. Keeping your certification is not much different that other professions - continuing education credits are required each year in many states, nominal registration fees to each state in which you are licensed, and so on.
Given the advantages of co-ops and time to process registrations and exams the typical time to obtain your PE is about 9 to 10 years , given that you pass each exam on the first try. Please don't whine about 8 years to get your MD or Law Degree. It speaks poorly for your profession.
Overzeetop, PE
Sorry, but if you're going to add accountants, you'd better add engineers to that list. Professional Engineers must be certified and licensed in all 50 US states, and in most industrialized nations, to practice engineering (offer engineering services to the public) - more than you can say for accountants.
Of course, you won't see me forking over $300 for a whiney "latecomer" TLD, 'cause I already own an original!
Woo Hooo! Go Hokies!
;-)
Oh, sorry, that just slipped out. If you have a chance you should go and try to meet him. I fyou can't make it the the B'burg event, try looking for him in smaller towns. His Newport appearance gathered about a dozen of us, and we each got a chance to talk with him for a coupld of minutes one-on-one.
He is quite popular...even my "Rush Limbaugh - right" in-laws vote for him every time. I think the democratic levers in the voting booths actually leaves burn marks on their skin, but they vote for him anyway
More annoying than dead pixels are "hot" pixels - or those that are always on. Actually, I believe the image in the article shows a hot, rather than dead, pixel. IMHO, a dead pixel in against a field of white is far less noticable than a hot pixel on a field of black.
6 dead is a pretty loose number if hot pixels are counted, and no adjacent/near/location sensitive data is considered. Six hot green pixels near the middle of the screen would be practically unworkable.
..you've just gotta see Beryllium-Aluminum. Ti is great, but it's not that strong - steel alloys can be made much stronger. It's rather flexible - it bends twice as easily as the same size piece of steel.
Be-Al alloys weigh about 80% of Aluminum, or just about 30% of steel. It has the strength of aircraft grade aluminum - near the strength of structural (A36) steel. But the kicker is that it's STIFFER than steel! Not by much, but there are few metals or alloys which have a stiffness greater then 30,000 ksi.
Super high end golf club heads (drivers specifically) are made from the stuff, but I think they cost in excess of my monthly salary. Very sexy, indeed.
as indicated by the multi-cast of the NCAA. Four standard definition broadcasts squeezed into one 6MHz channel is no better than DirectTV or Dish, which already broadcast "digital" TV.
The lack of discussion about High Definition in favor of digital is dissappointing. Digital looks only marginally better than properly transmitted and received analog - worse in some cases. Talk about being duped. Joe Sixpack is gonna plunk down $2000 just to find a picture that's just 480 lines - not much better than he had. It's missing the entire opportunity to maximize the clarity of the picture.
It's true. We Americans, as a collective entity, have forgotten what it really means to be good neighbors in the world. I find many of our actions quite disappointing, mainly because it makes us look bad. There is a great deal of good that we offer to the world: financial aid, manpower for humanitarian purposes as examples. There's also a great deal which isn't so hot, such as commercialism, but which may be rejected. The bad-neighbor part comes when we try to enforce our will/values on other people when we know full well we wouldn't stand for such treatment in reverse.
The sad part is that it's usually done for a financial or political purpose, not out of some misguided desire to "enlighten" others. At least with the latter, it could be written off as naive. In reality, it's just evil empire-mongering.
I did this when I moved back to VA, and convinced my wife to do the same. Nobody really needs your SSN, it is just easier to check your records with it.
Hmmm, I've never seen the law...do you have a reference?
I'd love to have it handy. Most colleges require US students to supply their SSN which they then use for your ID number. You don't have to supply it, but your admission form will be promply thrown away.