Notice also the proportion of shareholders which are other corporations, and thus have no personal interest in society other than that it permits them to live.
And how many times has your pension fund voted against your wider interests, in order to maximize return on your retirement contributions? Is this good or bad?
"...why do you guys let these corporations get away with blue murder without doing anything?"
We don't. History is replete with corporations destroyed by their overreaching, when their customers got fed up. But it takes time to tear down a giant.
And destruction is not the only option. Sometimes the monopolist just has his market redefined for him. ATT doesn't own the telecom business anymore, but they're still a power to be reckoned with -- just not the power that, many years ago, they thought they'd be today. Ratepayers wanted a more flexible, diverse basket of options and they got it.
The thing is cyclical. You get what you want, you stop shouting. The market consolidates, ossifies, and one day you realize you can't get what you want anymore, so you do something about it again.
I mean, why don't they just put all the bad guys in jail, and then there'd never be crime again? If you cleaned your refrigerator, how come it's dirty now? Grunge builds up, on appliances and in society, until it goes over the limit and the cleanup commences. I think someone is about to reach for the scrub-brush and begin cleaning up local telecom policy.
Well, I learned not to see billboards a long time ago, and we have NPR in my market, so what's to care about? Let ClearChannel make buckets of money off things that don't interest me, if they can.
Ah, but the power propping up the "state-enforced monopoly" is owned by the ratepayers, and they can change the management of *that* if they wish. The new management might even decide to try the old management and their buddies for malfeasance resp. illegal restraint of trade, or some such.
Exactly right. So, raise the bare minimum until it's what you wanted. One way is to take your business elsewhere, even if you have to create an elsewhere to which to take it.
I think it's about time to just say that "Saturn has billyuns and billyuns of rings" and be done with it. As long as I've got working radar and enough delta-vee to avoid the big chunks, "here be lots of loose junk" is warning enough.
Or how about, "Saturn has trillions of moons, most of them smaller than a home refrigerator."
...that there will, at long last, actually be some HTDV receivers in the stores? All I ever see is those incomplete "HDTV ready" boxes with the same crummy analog tuners we've had for decades.
Am I the only one who read that and imagined robots reading the news on TV? (Then I imagined them doing it in the style of "Robot Theater" from _Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In_./\/\/\/\/\)
There are probably businesses here in my town that have 5GB of indexes alone. The guys a few floors down from me digitize a GB or so of aerial photos every day, and the results go into a database. Our piddly little print accounting system has several hundred thousand rows in it.
Still it's a thoughtful gift, as well as a good foot-in-the-door for Sybase. Lots of tiny app.s will be able to use it. [applause]
BTW, I recall that IBM is giving away a version of DB2. Someone else mentioned PostgreSQL. There are lots of good, rugged alternatives to MSSQL if you want one. My last database application was developed on PGSQL ('cos it's easy to get and easy to use), then put into production on MSSQL ('cos that's what they gave me to do the job).
Re:Don't count on it
on
They Killed Ken!
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"What incentive to you have to watch...?"
The wagering on the Daily Doubles? Wondering how Contestant X could possibly, possibly not know the question to *that* answer? The chitchat they use to fill the time slot when the play is too rapid? Seeing what sort of categories appeal to a left-handed pipefitter from Oshkosh who once bungee-jumped off the Sears Tower? The schadenfreude when a player relearns that pushing the button too soon makes it go dead? Discovering what the writers' idea of Really Tough Physics Questions is?
Spoiler? What spoiler? Where is the list of answers? Where are the contestants' questions? Where are the running totals at each score? As yet we know next to nothing.
If I care to pry myself away from the computer that night, I guarantee I'll enjoy that show exactly as much as any other instalment of _Jeopardy!_
You bring up a worthwhile point: the runtime library. One reason ALGOL manuals are so small is that there *is* no standard runtime library, at least none for programmers to use. By contrast, the Java language is fairly small but the standard class libraries are *enormous*, so Java books *must* be fairly hefty. (One could of course split the language and the libraries into separate volumes.)
I'm still not sure that could account for *all* the difference in books on, say, Simula vs. C++.
RR *can't* forward complaints to you, 'cos they just send them back with a form saying, "you should have included [N items, every one of which I included]."
I doubt RR has seen any complaints in years. I no longer bother trying to get their attention.
...why had I never heard of them before? (Maybe they don't do anything that *is* worth mentioning?)
The thinner, the better
on
Dive Into Python
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Fat language books are just, well, fat. I learned 98% of FORTRAN IV from a book about.75" thick, and my ALGOL 68 book is even thinner. It takes very little space to thoroughly introduce the programmer to Modula or Icon. Even COBOL books don't have to be wordy even though most COBOL code is.
When I see a slender volume sitting among the telephone-directory-sized tomes, I usually pick it up on the assumption that it should be good if it's so lean. I am not often disappointed.
(I just realized that LISP books *all* tend to be rather slender. McCarthy, Siklossy, and Steele all managed to say quite a lot in very little space. Hmmm.)
IIRC in the Revelation to John the bringing of the whole world under a single government is, not forbidden, but prophesied. If one believes that this is true, then objecting to the formation of that government would be like ordering the tide not to come in -- it ain't gonna make any difference. In fact Christians should not be trying to stave off the formation of that government but saying, "bring it on!" since it's part of the Plan.
Growth as a percentage of last period's shipment becomes significant only as total shipments become commensurate with the competition's. If Linux shipped two units last year and four this year then that's 100% growth, but 200% of "negligible" is still "negligible".
The total shipments of one competitor as percentage of the total across all competitors tells a much more interesting story, and in this case the theme is that Linux is indeed a serious competitor, taking one fifth of new installs.
It's high time to be on the lookout for the problems attendant on success.:-/
Slashdot Mirror
Notice also the proportion of shareholders which are other corporations, and thus have no personal interest in society other than that it permits them to live.
And how many times has your pension fund voted against your wider interests, in order to maximize return on your retirement contributions? Is this good or bad?
"...why do you guys let these corporations get away with blue murder without doing anything?"
We don't. History is replete with corporations destroyed by their overreaching, when their customers got fed up. But it takes time to tear down a giant.
And destruction is not the only option. Sometimes the monopolist just has his market redefined for him. ATT doesn't own the telecom business anymore, but they're still a power to be reckoned with -- just not the power that, many years ago, they thought they'd be today. Ratepayers wanted a more flexible, diverse basket of options and they got it.
The thing is cyclical. You get what you want, you stop shouting. The market consolidates, ossifies, and one day you realize you can't get what you want anymore, so you do something about it again.
I mean, why don't they just put all the bad guys in jail, and then there'd never be crime again? If you cleaned your refrigerator, how come it's dirty now? Grunge builds up, on appliances and in society, until it goes over the limit and the cleanup commences. I think someone is about to reach for the scrub-brush and begin cleaning up local telecom policy.
Well, I learned not to see billboards a long time ago, and we have NPR in my market, so what's to care about? Let ClearChannel make buckets of money off things that don't interest me, if they can.
I voted against the cable monopoly by not having cable at all. "Do without" isn't right for everybody, but it's still an option.
Ah, but the power propping up the "state-enforced monopoly" is owned by the ratepayers, and they can change the management of *that* if they wish. The new management might even decide to try the old management and their buddies for malfeasance resp. illegal restraint of trade, or some such.
Exactly right. So, raise the bare minimum until it's what you wanted. One way is to take your business elsewhere, even if you have to create an elsewhere to which to take it.
I'm trying to think of *any* case I ever heard of wherein IT workers were eligible for overtime.
Nope, nothing.
I think it's about time to just say that "Saturn has billyuns and billyuns of rings" and be done with it. As long as I've got working radar and enough delta-vee to avoid the big chunks, "here be lots of loose junk" is warning enough.
Or how about, "Saturn has trillions of moons, most of them smaller than a home refrigerator."
...that there will, at long last, actually be some HTDV receivers in the stores? All I ever see is those incomplete "HDTV ready" boxes with the same crummy analog tuners we've had for decades.
Am I the only one who read that and imagined robots reading the news on TV? (Then I imagined them doing it in the style of "Robot Theater" from _Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In_. /\/\/\/\/\)
Asimov was there first, again. "Reason" introduces us to a robo-prophet and its god.
If I don't care who wins, it's not a spoiler for me. I'm watching for the *other* 29'59" of each show -- you know, when they *play the game*.
There are probably businesses here in my town that have 5GB of indexes alone. The guys a few floors down from me digitize a GB or so of aerial photos every day, and the results go into a database. Our piddly little print accounting system has several hundred thousand rows in it.
Still it's a thoughtful gift, as well as a good foot-in-the-door for Sybase. Lots of tiny app.s will be able to use it. [applause]
BTW, I recall that IBM is giving away a version of DB2. Someone else mentioned PostgreSQL. There are lots of good, rugged alternatives to MSSQL if you want one. My last database application was developed on PGSQL ('cos it's easy to get and easy to use), then put into production on MSSQL ('cos that's what they gave me to do the job).
"What incentive to you have to watch...?"
The wagering on the Daily Doubles? Wondering how Contestant X could possibly, possibly not know the question to *that* answer? The chitchat they use to fill the time slot when the play is too rapid? Seeing what sort of categories appeal to a left-handed pipefitter from Oshkosh who once bungee-jumped off the Sears Tower? The schadenfreude when a player relearns that pushing the button too soon makes it go dead? Discovering what the writers' idea of Really Tough Physics Questions is?
Spoiler? What spoiler? Where is the list of answers? Where are the contestants' questions? Where are the running totals at each score? As yet we know next to nothing.
If I care to pry myself away from the computer that night, I guarantee I'll enjoy that show exactly as much as any other instalment of _Jeopardy!_
You're missing a few (QUOTE x) there.
You bring up a worthwhile point: the runtime library. One reason ALGOL manuals are so small is that there *is* no standard runtime library, at least none for programmers to use. By contrast, the Java language is fairly small but the standard class libraries are *enormous*, so Java books *must* be fairly hefty. (One could of course split the language and the libraries into separate volumes.)
I'm still not sure that could account for *all* the difference in books on, say, Simula vs. C++.
RR *can't* forward complaints to you, 'cos they just send them back with a form saying, "you should have included [N items, every one of which I included]."
I doubt RR has seen any complaints in years. I no longer bother trying to get their attention.
...why had I never heard of them before? (Maybe they don't do anything that *is* worth mentioning?)
Fat language books are just, well, fat. I learned 98% of FORTRAN IV from a book about .75" thick, and my ALGOL 68 book is even thinner. It takes very little space to thoroughly introduce the programmer to Modula or Icon. Even COBOL books don't have to be wordy even though most COBOL code is.
When I see a slender volume sitting among the telephone-directory-sized tomes, I usually pick it up on the assumption that it should be good if it's so lean. I am not often disappointed.
(I just realized that LISP books *all* tend to be rather slender. McCarthy, Siklossy, and Steele all managed to say quite a lot in very little space. Hmmm.)
...since I have no use for an iPod, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. I just want the classes, dudes.
IIRC in the Revelation to John the bringing of the whole world under a single government is, not forbidden, but prophesied. If one believes that this is true, then objecting to the formation of that government would be like ordering the tide not to come in -- it ain't gonna make any difference. In fact Christians should not be trying to stave off the formation of that government but saying, "bring it on!" since it's part of the Plan.
Whoops, one tenth, not one fifth. Still, that smells like success to me.
Growth as a percentage of last period's shipment becomes significant only as total shipments become commensurate with the competition's. If Linux shipped two units last year and four this year then that's 100% growth, but 200% of "negligible" is still "negligible".
:-/
The total shipments of one competitor as percentage of the total across all competitors tells a much more interesting story, and in this case the theme is that Linux is indeed a serious competitor, taking one fifth of new installs.
It's high time to be on the lookout for the problems attendant on success.
You mean, like the sixteen or seventeen people who put all sorts of "interesting" words in their .signature s, hoping to DOS Echelon? Good luck.