20 years ago I had a free subscription to it. It was fun to read Notes From The Field. Quite a lot of the rest was just technology companies tooting their own horn and InfoWorld only too happy to print it and accept the advertising $.
If we'd had this before, we could have completely failed to discover Penicillin.
I believe the discovery of Penicillin was rooted in an observation (a great scientific tool) that peasants didn't seem to suffer certain ailments as often as their masters (so to speak.) A theory (another great scientific tool) was formed, the difference may be diet related (Lord knows the peasant and labourer lived in pretty filthy surroundings.) Examination (yet another great scientific tool) of diet revealed the hardy peseants eating mouldy bread. The bread mould was tested (gads, science is amok with great tools!) in a petri dish and found to kill certain bacilli (which should have been no surprise because certain of the funghi family mistook for the more edible varieties can kill people, with or without a petri dish.) Perhaps it could have been observed in a bag, but bags are so difficult to get under a microscope.
I'm referring to the Novel not the movie. But thank you for playing.
Indeed. The movie was garbage. Spielberg at his worst. Turned a great story into a "Hey, it's full of computer animated dinosaurs!" movie. Changed a lot of characters, too. What's his problem with a lawyer being a fairly decent character, not all of them are scum.
I would normally say, "This isn't your father's IBM", but with respect to Mr. Buffett's age, I'm not sure it is his father's IBM, either.
In the 60's and 70's IBM was the company to work for.
In the 80's they began cutting.
In the early 90's they were slashing. We were trying to buy an RS6000 and from week to week I didn't know who I was talking to as the people were exiting so fast. When I ran into difficulty with a security flaw I found myself talking to someone from IBM in Australia who had them send me a stack of tapes and no directions.
Since then I expect IBM has done what a lot of IT companies have done, shop out bits of the work, bring in a lot of green (cheap) workers and try to muddle through the project. I don't see IBM as the tiger they once were. I don't think any IT company is, come to that.
I've been working with an agency who contracted a large project to IBM a few years ago. The results have been... unimpressive. The training was largely a waste of time, I don't believe they even understood their audience.
Better to see Cray, I think as IBM is shopping out a bit too much of their work to people who aren't up to it.. unless IBM has seen the light.
'building a great Gmail experience in the mobile browser.'"
Seems to be a function of time that Google's products become worse; more whizzy, but add no value; useable interface replaced by inexplicable interface and really useful, neat ideas, are not implemented in favor or more cruft.
Something similar can happen anywhere - I have a pre-paid mobile and receive the odd text spam now and then. Well, one wasn't harmless, it docked my account minutes and the outfit actually was collecting through T-mobile from my bank of minutes converted to money.
Beware a text spam signing you up (this was some crap called Love Genie Tips) and keep tabs on your balance - too bloody easy for these people to charge you with the mobile phone companies effectively helping.
The roads that lead to an $800,000 house don't cost 10 times as much to build and maintain as the roads that lead to an $80,000 house. The schools don't (inherently) cost 10 times as much. And you can raise the same amount of taxes with a lower mill rate if the houses in the area cost more.
What I hadn't mentioned, is the house for $800,000 in Calfornia is about the same as the house in the Midwest. With higher cost of houses, wages have to be higher for the people who work roads, fire departments, police, schools, etc, have to be adjusted up or they won't be able to live there.
Also, the high property values have been viewed as directly the result of low property taxes. If that $800,000 house had 10x the property taxes in the midwest, well, the property value wouldn't be so high. Speculators and Real Estate agencies really loved high property values -- until the dropped like a stone.
Each failure is an opportunity to learn and improve.
The real failure would be to not identify failures and not improve - then we'd have to be blasted about it by the sensationalist media, trumpeting how inept government is.
Good ol' Prop 13...yeah, I'm sure THAT hasn't caused any negative consequences in CA, no sirree...
Hard for me to believe, but people who live in a $700,000 house are paying the same amount in property taxes as a homeowner in the midwest, living in a $80,000 house.
Doesn't seem like it. The illegals here by and large pay their state taxes (payroll and sales) and our social programs are very good overall with little wastage. Hell, I was on food stamps etc growing up and I have long since put more money into the system as a result then I ever took out (six figure earner and just purchased my house last year, would be dead in a ditch without welfare etc).
What most people outside (and a lot inside) California don't get, is the property taxes aren't where they should have been. After Prop 13 passed the state, which had a booming economy, excellent public education and healthy state budget went into slow decline. Even during the dotcom bubble years the state wasn't as well funded as it should have been. California is now in the bottom third of the nation in Education spending. Probably tops in prison spending, though.
Any time you do a sales transaction over a border, even by phone or snail mail, both places should get paid but each at half their normal rate. Example: You're in a state that wants 7%, and the seller is in a state that wants 4%. OK, your state gets 3.5% and the seller's state gets 2%.
I find it very amusing that it will 'allow' states to collect sales tax on online purchases. As if any state would pass up an opportunity to collect taxes on something.
California rolled back the online tax plan, at least for now, after Amazon threatened to excommunicate all in-state partners.
That really wasn't that long ago, did you forget already?
Its the only legal way I'm aware of. Taxes are how the government raises money to pay for things. The only other option is a loan or bond, which still needs to be repaid with taxes.
Alas, the government has got away from responsible borrowing and gone credit-card-crazy.
First thing is pass federal law, which requires 66% in House and Senate to exceed revenues from prior year, further tying the overage to a repayment plan, which cannot be rotating (borrow again to pay the prior loan.)
Second, pay down the debt - all of it. After that, taxes could be lowered greatly. Probably never see it in my lifetime, though.
Yeah, if this absorbs from ultraviolet to infrared that well then how much heat would it transfer? If you have an air gap of inner and outer walls in a research station in the north or south poles with this material lining the inner wall would it re-absorb much of the lost heat? Would layering this stuff between air gaps suck in more heat than you lose in temperatures that cold?
Well, my father, a CE, had a friend who build a large collector for his roof, back in the 1970's. He collected aluminum cans, cut the tops and bottoms off, halved them and anodized the inside of the halves in some fashion. He arranged these as an air path in a frame on the roof of his house, southern exposed and used a small fan to run a current of air through it. Free heating during the day and it worked quite well for far less than running the furnace.
Forward to today and an enterprising company could get in on the ground floor of this technology and establish itself well before Chinese competitors show up and try to cut their legs off from under them (as happened to Solyndra.)
Since the scale wasn't mentioned, unless you read TFA.
Hmm. This would be awesomes for people who put solar heat collectors on their roofs in the Great White North. I wonder how soon it can be done affordably.
Slashdot Mirror
..bit torrents, me thinks you mean BT.
Give them time. David will likely see BP take over BT, because too big to fail is always a good thing.
Probably a defect in a Clacks tower along the Grand Trunk.
Damn you, Reacher Gilt!
What geek willingly goes to InfoWorld?
20 years ago I had a free subscription to it. It was fun to read Notes From The Field. Quite a lot of the rest was just technology companies tooting their own horn and InfoWorld only too happy to print it and accept the advertising $.
Segmentation fault
(core dumped)
Got the technical stuff easily, but the contemporary stuff of media creating - meh.
If we'd had this before, we could have completely failed to discover Penicillin.
I believe the discovery of Penicillin was rooted in an observation (a great scientific tool) that peasants didn't seem to suffer certain ailments as often as their masters (so to speak.) A theory (another great scientific tool) was formed, the difference may be diet related (Lord knows the peasant and labourer lived in pretty filthy surroundings.) Examination (yet another great scientific tool) of diet revealed the hardy peseants eating mouldy bread. The bread mould was tested (gads, science is amok with great tools!) in a petri dish and found to kill certain bacilli (which should have been no surprise because certain of the funghi family mistook for the more edible varieties can kill people, with or without a petri dish.) Perhaps it could have been observed in a bag, but bags are so difficult to get under a microscope.
Science - It's full of tools.
To quote the eminent Ren Höek, "bloated sack of protoplasm."
I'm referring to the Novel not the movie. But thank you for playing.
Indeed. The movie was garbage. Spielberg at his worst. Turned a great story into a "Hey, it's full of computer animated dinosaurs!" movie. Changed a lot of characters, too. What's his problem with a lawyer being a fairly decent character, not all of them are scum.
Strange. If IBM is dying, then why is Warren Buffett investing $10.7 billion in them? Perhaps he knows something that we don't know?
I would normally say, "This isn't your father's IBM", but with respect to Mr. Buffett's age, I'm not sure it is his father's IBM, either.
In the 60's and 70's IBM was the company to work for.
In the 80's they began cutting.
In the early 90's they were slashing. We were trying to buy an RS6000 and from week to week I didn't know who I was talking to as the people were exiting so fast. When I ran into difficulty with a security flaw I found myself talking to someone from IBM in Australia who had them send me a stack of tapes and no directions.
Since then I expect IBM has done what a lot of IT companies have done, shop out bits of the work, bring in a lot of green (cheap) workers and try to muddle through the project. I don't see IBM as the tiger they once were. I don't think any IT company is, come to that.
I've been working with an agency who contracted a large project to IBM a few years ago. The results have been ... unimpressive. The training was largely a waste of time, I don't believe they even understood their audience.
Better to see Cray, I think as IBM is shopping out a bit too much of their work to people who aren't up to it .. unless IBM has seen the light.
Awesome. Sounds like they were doing things right.
Yeah, sounds like they did better than most businesses *cough* Sony *cough* who probably kept everything in a big ol' text file.
which was named readme.txt
Facebook's even going to notice that?
Ok, using that line of reasoning, I'm going to fine Facebook for $400,000. Hand it over Zuckerberg, it's a bargain.
He'll probably ask you to break a $500,000 bill.
Which he pulled out of petty cash.
The Gmall app is bu©ggy and slowý
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Posting this via my Blackbýerry Býold
In Soviet Russia, does Gmail app discontinue YOU?!?
'building a great Gmail experience in the mobile browser.'"
Seems to be a function of time that Google's products become worse; more whizzy, but add no value; useable interface replaced by inexplicable interface and really useful, neat ideas, are not implemented in favor or more cruft.
In Soviet Russia misused service launders YOU!
Something similar can happen anywhere - I have a pre-paid mobile and receive the odd text spam now and then. Well, one wasn't harmless, it docked my account minutes and the outfit actually was collecting through T-mobile from my bank of minutes converted to money.
Beware a text spam signing you up (this was some crap called Love Genie Tips) and keep tabs on your balance - too bloody easy for these people to charge you with the mobile phone companies effectively helping.
People always get confused about that.
The roads that lead to an $800,000 house don't cost 10 times as much to build and maintain as the roads that lead to an $80,000 house. The schools don't (inherently) cost 10 times as much. And you can raise the same amount of taxes with a lower mill rate if the houses in the area cost more.
What I hadn't mentioned, is the house for $800,000 in Calfornia is about the same as the house in the Midwest. With higher cost of houses, wages have to be higher for the people who work roads, fire departments, police, schools, etc, have to be adjusted up or they won't be able to live there.
Also, the high property values have been viewed as directly the result of low property taxes. If that $800,000 house had 10x the property taxes in the midwest, well, the property value wouldn't be so high. Speculators and Real Estate agencies really loved high property values -- until the dropped like a stone.
Each failure is an opportunity to learn and improve.
The real failure would be to not identify failures and not improve - then we'd have to be blasted about it by the sensationalist media, trumpeting how inept government is.
Good ol' Prop 13...yeah, I'm sure THAT hasn't caused any negative consequences in CA, no sirree...
Hard for me to believe, but people who live in a $700,000 house are paying the same amount in property taxes as a homeowner in the midwest, living in a $80,000 house.
Doesn't seem like it. The illegals here by and large pay their state taxes (payroll and sales) and our social programs are very good overall with little wastage. Hell, I was on food stamps etc growing up and I have long since put more money into the system as a result then I ever took out (six figure earner and just purchased my house last year, would be dead in a ditch without welfare etc).
What most people outside (and a lot inside) California don't get, is the property taxes aren't where they should have been. After Prop 13 passed the state, which had a booming economy, excellent public education and healthy state budget went into slow decline. Even during the dotcom bubble years the state wasn't as well funded as it should have been. California is now in the bottom third of the nation in Education spending. Probably tops in prison spending, though.
Any time you do a sales transaction over a border, even by phone or snail mail, both places should get paid but each at half their normal rate.
Example: You're in a state that wants 7%, and the seller is in a state that wants 4%. OK, your state gets 3.5% and the seller's state gets 2%.
You're far to clever for government. ;)
I find it very amusing that it will 'allow' states to collect sales tax on online purchases. As if any state would pass up an opportunity to collect taxes on something.
California rolled back the online tax plan, at least for now, after Amazon threatened to excommunicate all in-state partners.
That really wasn't that long ago, did you forget already?
All my "purchases" are actually made by overseas family members who give me gifts on a regular basis. Tax circumvented under current procedures.
Surely you pay duty on everything.
Its the only legal way I'm aware of. Taxes are how the government raises money to pay for things. The only other option is a loan or bond, which still needs to be repaid with taxes.
Alas, the government has got away from responsible borrowing and gone credit-card-crazy.
First thing is pass federal law, which requires 66% in House and Senate to exceed revenues from prior year, further tying the overage to a repayment plan, which cannot be rotating (borrow again to pay the prior loan.)
Second, pay down the debt - all of it. After that, taxes could be lowered greatly. Probably never see it in my lifetime, though.
They could balance the budget in less than a year.
Yeah, if this absorbs from ultraviolet to infrared that well then how much heat would it transfer? If you have an air gap of inner and outer walls in a research station in the north or south poles with this material lining the inner wall would it re-absorb much of the lost heat? Would layering this stuff between air gaps suck in more heat than you lose in temperatures that cold?
Well, my father, a CE, had a friend who build a large collector for his roof, back in the 1970's. He collected aluminum cans, cut the tops and bottoms off, halved them and anodized the inside of the halves in some fashion. He arranged these as an air path in a frame on the roof of his house, southern exposed and used a small fan to run a current of air through it. Free heating during the day and it worked quite well for far less than running the furnace.
Forward to today and an enterprising company could get in on the ground floor of this technology and establish itself well before Chinese competitors show up and try to cut their legs off from under them (as happened to Solyndra.)
Since the scale wasn't mentioned, unless you read TFA.
Hmm. This would be awesomes for people who put solar heat collectors on their roofs in the Great White North. I wonder how soon it can be done affordably.
Better market prospect for that than Solyndra.