Yes, sometimes the Crown Jewels is something that's been optimized to within an inch of its life. I've seen some examples.
But even if it isn't, and is a pile of cruft, it may be a pile of cruft that took years to write and is not something a competitor can easily duplicate. So keeping it under wraps could still give you an advantage.
Actually, it seems pretty reasonable to me that waste disposal should be considered as part of the operating costs, maybe not as an up-front charge, but as something you reserve for. Otherwise we just hide the real costs of the energy behind a giant subsidy. Somebody still pays.
I'd also ask any nuclear power operator to buy insurance to cover any damage caused by the plant due to negligent operation or accident. The industry keeps saying it's really, really safe, but can they find someone to sell them such an insurance policy, or afford to pay for it? That's a measure of how safe it really is.
Factor in these two costs and I doubt nuclear power would make any economic sense, compared to alternative technologies.
Re security, I was really surprised when I installed a previous release and SSH wasn't even available. I had to download/install it separately. Granted, you may not want to start the server automatically, but making it easy to set up post install a secure remote connection seems like a good idea.
Also, while gcc was installed, the C++ frontend was not. Ok, so this is maybe an end-user distro, if you're using OpenOffice and mail you don't need C++. But if you want to start with Ubuntu and configure it to do development on, it was extra work compared to other distros.
Right, but some fundamentalists, like maybe the parent poster, think you just read the Bible and that's your infallible guide to God, leaving aside that you're reading a translation and all, and maybe an out of date one at that.
But in any case, the main defining characteristic (I think) of a cult is not its belief system, Christian or not, but the fact that these are "total immersion" systems.. while most mainstream religions are fine if you go to church/temple/mosque once a week, cults want all your time, attention, and (in the case of Scientology, anyway) money. It's matter of degree, because religions tend to want you to be religious all the time, but most don't coerce or heavily pressure their members into an all or nothing commitment.
The official definition of a cult is an organization that rejects Jesus Christ, uses their own "scriptures" as superior to the King James Bible, discourages their members from reading the Bible, and then poses as a religion. Huh? Hopefully you are being ironic. I guess then a bunch of mainstream world religions, including Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are cults (no King James Bible there).
A buck is the threshold for delisting, not $0.25. But the exchange can agree to delay the delisting. It is not automatic.
Also this is the least of SCO's worries. Quite a few companies have been delisted, at least temporarily, and survived. It doesn't change their finances in any direct way.
The real problem is, SCO may wind up owing Novell the money they obtained from selling licenses to Sun and Microsoft - money they no longer have. Then they are bankrupt.
Indeed, terminating an employee is one of the least agreeable tasks of management. But there are a lot of other headaches. Conducting performance reviews, dividing up bonuses, deciding to promote/not promote, dealing with re-organization and re-assignments, are all big headaches and give you ample opportunity to make people unhappy with you. And unlike people you fire, people you piss off in other ways are still around;-).
I've managed to get a well compensated, responsible position that doesn't involve managing people, which is a good thing in my book.
Btw. most technical people I know that went into management at more than the small dev team level eventually got an MBA. Another thing I am not real anxious to do.
Well, there were a lot of new architectures for a while that did exactly that. Intel had their own.. it was called Itanium.
While Itanium has a niche market, and SPARC and others are still viable, continued bumps in performance on the x86 stack has caused it to continue to be very competitive for many applications. And compatibility is a wonderful thing. It gets more important, not less, as the number of existing x86 systems continues to grow.
Right. IMHO VC++ is quite usable. Granted, I don't like editing code in it, but it is a reasonably nice visual debugging environment. And the compiler is a nice piece of work: stable, fast, puts out good code.
Despite my concerns about somebody remote and maybe not devoid of evilness having my data, I find some attraction to having my data securely stored and backed up outside my premises. But yeah, I want that to cost less and I probably would probably also want some wider bandwidth, not just crappy DSL, to connect me to it, before it would become really attractive. I expect I'll get those things, eventually.
By the way, I have yet to figure out what is so good about Picasa. They have a neat hack where they can let you geotag your photos but otherwise it doesn't seem impressive at all: Adobe Lightroom is much slicker, IMHO.
Mine didn't just work. If the cable channel lineup ever changed it was a pain to sync Tivo to it (one of the disadvantages of not having a tighter cable provider/DVR link). And the Tivo box would spontaneously reboot once in a while, for no discernable reason. Finally the hard disk died, I replaced it, then it was even flakier. I decided I could live without it.
I liked Deathly Hallows a lot, but Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite book (and also, so far, movie). Part of the problem is I just can't understand Umbridge as a character - you kind of know what motivates Voldemort but for her, there's no explanation of why she likes punishment like the Marquis de Sade did. Or why she's enthusiastically rounding up non-purebloods in book 7. And Order of the Phoenix would have been improved by an editor taking about 150 pages out, IMO (although I agree the movie rather took this good idea too far).
Not being a gamer, I am really uninterested in multiple graphic card support. Fast CPU, good. Fast disks, good. Fast graphics, who cares. Doesn't make emacs go any faster;-).
Also, you are taking chances when you buy an individual stock or a small number of stocks.
Even if it's not a pump and dump penny stock.
Pick up a copy of a financial publication like Barron's. Every week there is a list of top gainers and losers. The losers drop abruptly for any number of reasons, frequently ones you couldn't have known about beforehand. If you can pick winners consistently and avoid blowups like these, and make enough to cover your trading costs and taxes, then you are either very lucky or very talented. If you're not in either category (and you're probably not - even if you think you are) then you are better off hiring a professional money manager (directly or through a mutual fund) or buying and holding a highly diversified index fund or ETF.
I just switched to a prepaid plan, paying through the nose to get out of a bad contract.
The main issue with cells is that over time the cost of a non-wireless long-distance minute has gone close to zero. This hasn't happened with wireless, yet. Wireless is where a modern telco gets all their revenue. I think in time their new cash cow will become a cheap commodity like landlines but it will take time. Prepaid is certainly better but you still have ridiculous restrictions and hidden costs (e.g. prepaid minutes expire).
No, it's not typical. Target is no frills, but neither scary nor unpleasant in most locations. My whole family is a huge customer of Target. But maybe you should stay out of that neighborhood yours is in.
Well, ok, but the infrastructure needs are real. We have to repair roads and bridges, construct and keep up schools, build sewer lines. The legislature and the voters get to decide the cost/benefit and judge how much debt is too much. People can differ in how they judge that. But IMO "just say no" to everything, regardless, for ten+ years, is not a viable option.
> there is a clear line between Libertarianism and economic anarchism
I'm sorry, but I don't see it. The local Libertarian party in California has consistently opposed not only all taxes, but all bond measures. I mean all. Every one. I guess they want to hold a bake sale to build a sewer line, rather than having the city do it. Sounds like economic anarchism to me.
> This was a very touchy situation, and I doubt we'll ever know for sure what happened. > All I'll say is that, from the PR perspective, Carter hosed this one and hosed it good. > Beyond that, there's just too much that was never disclosed.
We know a lot now. There is a fairly recent book out on it ("Guests of the Ayatollah"). Carter did try diplomatic means and also eventually approved a mission to rescue the hostages. It was known to be highly risky and uncertain of success. It didn't succeed. Both the prolonged hostage situation and the failed rescue reflected badly on Carter at the time and his popularity and prestige declined. But it is not clear what else could have been done. The scary thing is, some of the same people who were holding hostages back then are in the Iranian government now. We still, today, don't have diplomatic relations with Iran or much leverage over what they do, or don't do.
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Yes, sometimes the Crown Jewels is something that's been optimized to within an inch of its life. I've seen some examples.
But even if it isn't, and is a pile of cruft, it may be a pile of cruft that took years to write and is not something a competitor can easily duplicate. So keeping it under wraps could still give you an advantage.
There's a legal limit on the nuclear industry's liability, so their insurance is in effect subsidized:
Also it is unclear the nuclear disposal fund into which utilities are paying will be sufficient to cover the actual costs of nuclear waste.
Actually, it seems pretty reasonable to me that waste disposal should be considered as part of the operating costs, maybe not as an up-front charge, but as something you reserve for. Otherwise we just hide the real costs of the energy behind a giant subsidy. Somebody still pays.
I'd also ask any nuclear power operator to buy insurance to cover any damage caused by the plant due to negligent operation or accident. The industry keeps saying it's really, really safe, but can they find someone to sell them such an insurance policy, or afford to pay for it? That's a measure of how safe it really is.
Factor in these two costs and I doubt nuclear power would make any economic sense, compared to alternative technologies.
Sounds like Rhapsody.
Re security, I was really surprised when I installed a previous release and SSH wasn't even available. I had to download/install it separately. Granted, you may not want to start the server automatically, but making it easy to set up post install a secure remote connection seems like a good idea.
Also, while gcc was installed, the C++ frontend was not. Ok, so this is maybe an end-user distro, if you're using OpenOffice and mail you don't need C++. But if you want to start with Ubuntu and configure it to do development on, it was extra work compared to other distros.
And buggy. You forgot to mention buggy. Serious regressions and bugs in every release.
Right, but some fundamentalists, like maybe the parent poster, think you just read the Bible and that's your infallible guide to God, leaving aside that you're reading a translation and all, and maybe an out of date one at that.
.. while most mainstream religions are fine if you go to church/temple/mosque once a week, cults want all your time, attention, and (in the case of Scientology, anyway) money. It's matter of degree, because religions tend to want you to be religious all the time, but most don't coerce or heavily pressure their members into an all or nothing commitment.
But in any case, the main defining characteristic (I think) of a cult is not its belief system, Christian or not, but the fact that these are "total immersion" systems
A buck is the threshold for delisting, not $0.25. But the exchange can agree to delay the delisting. It is not automatic.
Also this is the least of SCO's worries. Quite a few companies have been delisted, at least temporarily, and survived. It doesn't change their finances in any direct way.
The real problem is, SCO may wind up owing Novell the money they obtained from selling licenses to Sun and Microsoft - money they no longer have. Then they are bankrupt.
Indeed, terminating an employee is one of the least agreeable tasks of management. But there are a lot of other headaches. Conducting performance reviews, dividing up bonuses, deciding to promote/not promote, dealing with re-organization and re-assignments, are all big headaches and give you ample opportunity to make people unhappy with you. And unlike people you fire, people you piss off in other ways are still around ;-).
I've managed to get a well compensated, responsible position that doesn't involve managing people, which is a good thing in my book.
Btw. most technical people I know that went into management at more than the small dev team level eventually got an MBA. Another thing I am not real anxious to do.
Well, there were a lot of new architectures for a while that did exactly that. Intel had their own .. it was called Itanium.
While Itanium has a niche market, and SPARC and others are still viable, continued bumps in performance on the x86 stack has caused it to continue to be very competitive for many applications. And compatibility is a wonderful thing. It gets more important, not less, as the number of existing x86 systems continues to grow.
Right. IMHO VC++ is quite usable. Granted, I don't like editing code in it, but it is a reasonably nice visual debugging environment. And the compiler is a nice piece of work: stable, fast, puts out good code.
Despite my concerns about somebody remote and maybe not devoid of evilness having my data, I find some attraction to having my data securely stored and backed up outside my premises. But yeah, I want that to cost less and I probably would probably also want some wider bandwidth, not just crappy DSL, to connect me to it, before it would become really attractive. I expect I'll get those things, eventually.
By the way, I have yet to figure out what is so good about Picasa. They have a neat hack where they can let you geotag your photos but otherwise it doesn't seem impressive at all: Adobe Lightroom is much slicker, IMHO.
Mine didn't just work. If the cable channel lineup ever changed it was a pain to sync Tivo to it (one of the disadvantages of not having a tighter cable provider/DVR link). And the Tivo box would spontaneously reboot once in a while, for no discernable reason. Finally the hard disk died, I replaced it, then it was even flakier. I decided I could live without it.
I liked Deathly Hallows a lot, but Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite book (and also, so far, movie). Part of the problem is I just can't understand Umbridge as a character - you kind of know what motivates Voldemort but for her, there's no explanation of why she likes punishment like the Marquis de Sade did. Or why she's enthusiastically rounding up non-purebloods in book 7. And Order of the Phoenix would have been improved by an editor taking about 150 pages out, IMO (although I agree the movie rather took this good idea too far).
Not being a gamer, I am really uninterested in multiple graphic card support. Fast CPU, good. Fast disks, good. Fast graphics, who cares. Doesn't make emacs go any faster ;-).
>selecting it may hurt systems that don't have SSE4 or the program might not run
> at all depending on how the compiler is written
Intel compilers can generate multiple versions of a function for different processors and code to dispatch to the most optimal one.
Also, you are taking chances when you buy an individual stock or a small number of stocks.
Even if it's not a pump and dump penny stock.
Pick up a copy of a financial publication like Barron's. Every week there is a list of top gainers and losers. The losers drop abruptly for any number of reasons, frequently ones you couldn't have known about beforehand. If you can pick winners consistently and avoid blowups like these, and make enough to cover your trading costs and taxes, then you are either very lucky or very talented. If you're not in either category (and you're probably not - even if you think you are) then you are better off hiring a professional money manager (directly or through a mutual fund) or buying and holding a highly diversified index fund or ETF.
I just switched to a prepaid plan, paying through the nose to get out of a bad contract.
The main issue with cells is that over time the cost of a non-wireless long-distance minute has gone close to zero. This hasn't happened with wireless, yet. Wireless is where a modern telco gets all their revenue. I think in time their new cash cow will become a cheap commodity like landlines but it will take time. Prepaid is certainly better but you still have ridiculous restrictions and hidden costs (e.g. prepaid minutes expire).
See http://www.openbsd.org/security.html.
After a while they stop issuing patches for old versions - 3.7 is old enough to be in this category.
So even if you have kept up security patches, by not upgrading, you do have possible issues.
No, it's not typical. Target is no frills, but neither scary nor unpleasant in most locations. My whole family is a huge customer of Target. But maybe you should stay out of that neighborhood yours is in.
Well, ok, but the infrastructure needs are real. We have to repair roads and bridges, construct and keep up schools, build sewer lines. The legislature and the voters get to decide the cost/benefit and judge how much debt is too much. People can differ in how they judge that. But IMO "just say no" to everything, regardless, for ten+ years, is not a viable option.
> there is a clear line between Libertarianism and economic anarchism
I'm sorry, but I don't see it. The local Libertarian party in California has consistently opposed not only all taxes, but all bond measures. I mean all. Every one. I guess they want to hold a bake sale to build a sewer line, rather than having the city do it. Sounds like economic anarchism to me.
I think is pretty hard to find an Itanium workstation nowadays. HP, SGI and Dell had them but killed them off. Mainly it is for servers.
> This was a very touchy situation, and I doubt we'll ever know for sure what happened.
> All I'll say is that, from the PR perspective, Carter hosed this one and hosed it good.
> Beyond that, there's just too much that was never disclosed.
We know a lot now. There is a fairly recent book out on it ("Guests of the Ayatollah"). Carter did try diplomatic means and also eventually approved a mission to rescue the hostages. It was known to be highly risky and uncertain of success. It didn't succeed. Both the prolonged hostage situation and the failed rescue reflected badly on Carter at the time and his popularity and prestige declined. But it is not clear what else could have been done. The scary thing is, some of the same people who were holding hostages back then are in the Iranian government now. We still, today, don't have diplomatic relations with Iran or much leverage over what they do, or don't do.