Dave - thanks for the detailed and well thought out reply. You guys are obviously taking security very seriously and are to be commended for that. I still suspect, though, that not all SaaS vendors are as vigilant as you are and your customer base will increase as a result of that.
"The SaaS market might shrink, but it is not going away" - Yes, I agree with that. As I said above, there are certain applications that are well suited to a SaaS platform. What I have seen with products like Workday is that they are trying to become an Enterprise solution rather than a niche player. They have a good product but I just don't think it's there yet. And again, the fact that you cannot customize it is a serious shortfall in my view. Salesforce has done well because they stick to what they do well - CRM. That's all they do and they do it well. CRM is not an Enterprise application or a business critical application, which sets it apart from HR and Financials applications. With Financials, in particular, your entire company is riding on the success of it. It just has to work and you have to be able to customize it to fit your needs.
I think that SaaS will be an important part of the mix for some companies but for the big boys I don't see SaaS replacing mission critical applications such as HR and Financials. The growth in that area will curtail, in my view, but SaaS will find a nice niche market and kind of settle in there. On premise Enterprise software and hosted SaaS solutions can co exist not as competitors but as partners. I am seeing a lot more blended solutions where customers are choosing a bit of this and a bit of that to better suit their unique needs. A place for everything and everything in it's place:-)
All this Instagram and Facebook stuff raises a very interesting, and as yet unresolved, issue. What exactly are your digital rights on the internet? Who owns your digital image? How can it be used? Can it be used without your explicit permission?
If I were to follow someone around long enough I would probably be able to snap a picture of them scratching their ass or picking their nose. What's to stop me from publicly posting that image for the express intention of embarrassing that person? Currently...nothing. What if I were to take the original picture and doctor it up so that your ears look huge or your eyes are crossed or I put some fake acne on your face and then publish it? The possibilities are endless.
If I write a book or a document or some code I can copyright that material so that others cannot steal it. But I cannot copyright my likeness. Some advertising firm could troll through Instagram photos and find a picture of someone that might look right for their latest ad campaign. Then they superimpose the person's face in the magazine ad and - bingo - instant ad copy and they don't have to pay you a dime. It's unfair, it's immoral and it's an invasion of privacy.
These so called "social" websites are a fraud. Nobody reads these terms of service and they know it. They don't have any legitimate way of making money so they steal what you upload and sell it. Nice business model. Just because they give me a few megs of space on their server should not mean that they retain full ownership rights to my pictures. If that's their terms of service fine, but I'm not playing that game.
I don't see SaaS as a viable option for Financials, HR, Supply Chain or Payroll. Those functions are just too critical to entrust to someone else to manage. It's fine to have someone host it for you because at least you can still customize it to fit your needs. As you point out, there are niche markets where SaaS will work just fine. But business critical apps like payroll and supply chain...I just don't see big companies handing that over.
I've been implementing Enterprise software for over 15 years and I have yet to see anyone implement a vanilla system with no customizations. Everyone talks about it at the beginning but in the end there are always customizations. I have worked with two SaaS products - Workday and Oracle CRM on Demand. Neither one provided any capability to customize the product in any way and I think that's a show stopper for many large corporations. Small or medium sized companies will find SaaS more appealing because of the initial cost savings.
There are a few questions that have never been answered satisfactorily for me. Perhaps you could shed some light:
1) Suppose you sign up with a SaaS vendor for a few years. Then you find out it doesn't suit your needs. How do you get your data (several years worth at this point) out of the system? 2) Data security is a big deal with HR and Financials systems. How can the vendor guarantee that your data is safe? They can't and I can't guarantee that my data is 100% secure in house either but at least I have control over how the data is secured.
I'll admit to taking a bit of a gamble on the tablets but I really do see them as entertainment devices and not really necessary, especially if you have a good smartphone. Sure, you can browse with a tablet and tap out an email but some things are just better done with a keyboard.
Touch screens in cars are my pet peeve. The problem with touch screens in cars is that a) you don't get any feedback when you touch something (a click, a sound, something that tells you that you touched in the right place) b) you have to look at the screen the whole time c) they are poorly designed. Why should I have to scroll through 4 menus to set the AC? On my car I reach forward to the AC dial and turn it. I don't even have to look at it because I know where it is. When I turn the dial there are little clicks that let me know that it has engaged. In bright sunlight (and where I live the sun is out a lot) you simply cannot see the screen. Doesn't affect my old school dials one bit. When the BMW iDrive system came out it was universally derided. I have stepped into many a rental car with a touch screen and had to fiddle around with it to perform simple functions. Maybe it's just me but they seem unintuitive, clumsy and inconsistent. It's a solution looking for a problem.
1) Facebook is going to see it's user base decline. I suspect that many of the current accounts are fake, throwaway type accounts anyway. Full of fake birth dates, occupations and other such information attached to fake throwaway email accounts used for nothing other than signing up for Facebook. Sooner or later advertisers are going to catch on to this and stop wasting their time. Besides, Facebook is pissing everyone off with their intrusive privacy policies. 2) Tablets are going to become the new net books. In other words, cute and portable but ultimately not very useful. Just another expensive toy for bored, rich westerners. 3) Windows 8 is going to be a massive flop. Sure, the sales numbers will look good because it comes preinstalled on new PC's but user adoption will be poor. Windows 9 is going to look a lot like Windows 7. 4) HP is going to clean house. So long Meg. 5) SAAS (Software As A Service) is going to fizzle out. Salesforce will continue to do well though. Some things work well in a hosted environment (CRM for example), others not so well. Multi tenant architectures can save you money in the beginning but there are a lot of real limitations. You are sharing a database with other customers. You can't customize the software. Enterprise software will move back in house. 6) No contract phones will be the way to go. Smartphones are pretty much maxed out on features now. Why get a new one? Take your off contract phone to a no contract provider and start saving some serious money. 7) Factory in-car navigation systems will become obsolete. Too expensive to begin with and you have to update the maps (and pay again for that) every few years. Why bother when you've got Google maps on your phone for free? Simllarly, touch screen control centers in cars are going to go back to old fashioned knobs and dials. Touch screens are too distracting to use and difficult to see in direct sunlight. Maybe voice activation would be better - "Turn on the AC - 72 degrees". 8) The instant gas prices go back down below $2.50/gallon Americans are going to flock back to big hulking SUV's.
IBM will continue to layoff US workers in record numbers, without making any official announcements of layoffs. IBM will continue to exploit cheap labor in India. Until Indian IT workers start making a living wage. Then IBM will abandon the Indian sub continent for Africa, the final frontier for cheap labor. Once the African labor market can no longer be exploited IBM will cease to exist because of their stubborn refusal to pay anyone a living wage. Anyone except executives of course who will continue to receive enormous bonuses. Fuck you Ginny.
My standard practice is to have a Net 15 clause in my contract for clients I haven't work with before. In other words, all fees and expenses are due within 15 days of the billing invoice. Once I get a good working relationship with them I can go Net 30 but not longer than that. I don't like having to string out receivables for that long. It also limits your downside if they don't pay and you have to walk away from it.
Yup, spot on. Here in the USA that's how things get done. Don't waste your time chasing the lower level people in Accounts Payable and don't try to slander the company. It's not worth the bad rep you'll get down the line. Usually all it takes is a letter from your attorney and they will pay up. Some big companies don't even realize which accounts are overdue they have so many of them. As long as you have your paperwork in order you will probably get at least some of the money they owe you. If they try playing hardball then get what money you can from them and move on. Don't do any further business with them. Lesson learned.
Spot on. Not to mention that people can go bankrupt trying to defend themselves against the charges. If you're convicted you get a nice criminal record that follows you around the rest of your life, limiting your employment options. And for what?
This is the closest I've ever heard a sitting president come to endorsing pot. He's basically saying that it's a State issue and unless you're pushing huge amounts the Feds are going to leave you alone. You know what...he's right. How many people out there are now saddled with criminal records for possessing small amounts of weed for personal use? It's ridiculous. I've always felt that alcohol is much, much more harmful than pot.
I don't think people should be driving a car or operating heavy machinery or sitting across the desk from you at an office meeting if they are stoned...basically the same rules as alcohol...but if someone wants to light up on their own time, in their own home I say have at it. If the government wants to do something useful here they should narrow the war on drugs to things like cocaine and heroin and meth and stop wasting our time and money on recreational drug use.
Now I'm not an attorney but wouldn't getting elected to the Australian parliament make him immune from extradition to the US? It would probably provide him with diplomatic immunity as well, allowing him save passage into Australia. Clearly Assange's worry is the US government, not the Swedish government.
Congrats on the AppStore game, I hope you're successful with it:-)
It's not that I doubt your sincerity in the comment above it's just that it's easy to say what you'd do with a lot of money when you don't have it yet. I'm certainly not in the monetary class of Cheney or Romney but I've done quite well and I've come a long, long way from where I was in a lower class upbringing. One thing I've learned about money is that it's very addictive. The more you have the more you want. Now this is not universally true but I believe that largely it is. Perhaps you're one of the small minority that truly would give away much of your wealth. I hope you do, the world will be a better place for it.
And if you talk to many wealthy people they will gladly pay their share of taxes as well. What bothers them is government pissing the money away, like it always does. Nearly every day we hear stories of government mismanagement, fraud, cronyism, nepotism and sheer stupidity. Most of these rich people didn't get there running their businesses that way.
Many of them genuinely care about the poor and give large sums of money to charities every year. Say what you want about Cheney and Romney but they have given more money to charities than, I would venture to guess, you and I will make in an entire lifetime. Yet they are vilified in the press as greedy and uncaring.
Ever been there? Trust me, it's very expensive. It costs a lot to get there, it costs a lot to eat there, it costs a lot to stay there. Nearly everything (well, outside of pineapples and orchids) has to be shipped in. Honolulu is the most expensive housing market in the entire United States. That includes New York city and Silicon Valley.
Beyond that it's not just Obama and his wife going. It's the little Obamettes. It's the Secret Service people. It's every other political hack that can hitch a ride. They probably have to book half the hotel just to accommodate his posse.
It's just astounding to me how Obama gets such a free ride from the press on this. Bush takes a vacation as his ranch - his own ranch, bought and paid for with his own money - and the press is all over him. Obama jets off to fucking Hawaii, the whole trip paid for with taxpayer money, and it's all honky-dory. His wife decides to redecorate the White House and go on expensive shopping trips overseas...crickets. Unbelievable.
my MacBook Pro does an outstanding job of running Linux. You can dual boot it or run Linux in VMware or Virtual Box. No graphics card issues at all. Everything worked right out of the gate - sound, graphics, wireless, everything. If you can, try and find one a few years old. The new ones have those soldered on chips that make it impossible to upgrade. Get an SSD, take out the DVD, put in a second HD and you're off to the races.
You have taken a similar path to me. I have travelled all over the country and have seen what you describe in varying degrees. We ended up settling in Arizona and love it here. With lower prices for housing and lower taxes compared to many other parts of the country we enjoy a very, very good lifestyle here. Big house, big yard, pool. Incidentally, I worked in Dallas for about a year and really liked it. I could live there.
I love the Bay Area...been there many, many times on business trips. Great weather most of the year, although it rains too much in the winter for my liking. As you get further inland you get less rain. Incredible variety of topography - ocean, mountains, valleys...you name it. If I had an unlimited budget I would live there in a heartbeat. Everything, and I mean everything, costs more in CA. The biggest problem is the staggering cost of housing. If I were to try and get a home comparable to the one I have now it would probably cost upwards of $3 million in the Bay Area. Sure, I could find one cheaper by moving further away but then you've got to deal with the nightmarish traffic. Yeah, it's nice there...just not THAT nice:-)
Something else I found about Boston - it seemed to be a very transient population and very provincial. I surmised that it was transient because there are so many schools in the general area and many people are only in Boston to attend school and then they go back to where they came from. As a result there seemed to be two kinds of people - born and bred blue blood New Englanders and outsiders, like me. Outsiders spoke differently (without the Boston accent) so we stood out and were easy to identify. Maybe it was just me but I got the impression that New Englanders didn't have much time for outsiders. They seemed a bit cold and insular to me.
By provincial I mean that there was this general attitude that everything revolved around New England and everything there was the best it could possibly be. I met people that had been born there and had never ventured beyond it's boarders their whole life. In the summer they went to Cape Cod. It led to what I felt was a rather narrow view of the world. There is subtle, but very pronounced, racism there. It's not as easy to spot as it is in the deep south but it's there.
I met some nice people there but the place just wasn't for me.
Not much lower. I lived in Boston for a few years and could not get out of there fast enough. The cost of housing was outrageous. Finding a decent rental was nearly impossible. Most of them are these dilapidated triple deckers with drafty windows, on street parking, and require key money. On top of that there is shitty weather most of the year. Nice place to visit, didn't enjoy living there.
SF is very expensive but I would sooner pay to live there than Boston.
Yeah sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that there were 300 pound safeties. Just the same I'm sure that a 200 pound safety could deliver a pretty jarring hit. Remember, these guys are not just 200 pounds and flabby...they are a very strong 200 pounds with very low body fat. Most of them could probably bench 300 pounds without blinking an eye.
You're right about the blind side hits. I think that quarterbacks and receivers are the most vulnerable to those types of hits and they can be devastating. Running backs are generally moving forward and can see their opponents before they get hit. Hence they are more susceptible to knee injuries, as are linemen from cut blocks.
Bingo! Microsoft is hamstrung by Office/Exchange/AD. They feel the need to include it in everything whether it's needed or not. Maybe they should have let the XBox group design the tablet instead. Then they might have a winner. I mean, who would use an XBox to edit a fucking spreadsheet on their big screen TV? Nobody. The XBox is a consumer device, just like tablets are.
I called this one right when they came out....http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3285997&cid=42159587
For the life of me I can't see what the fascination is with all these tablets. I got a cheap-o Touchpad when the fire sale was underway and all I ever use it for is watching movies on the plane. Mainly because it's got better battery life than my laptop and I don't run the risk of the guy in front of me leaning back and crushing my screen. My smartphone does all the mobile online stuff I need to do.
I was at the local Best Buy the other day and there is a big display of tablets..iPad, Galaxy, Fire and a Surface. Not a single person was looking at the Surface. Maybe the price scared them off, who knows. So I decide to check it out. Decent display, although not as good as the iPad or Nexus. Seemed responsive enough. Metro seemed kind of cool. But I doubt they sold a single Surface that day.
The market seems split between cheap tablets (Fire, Nook, Galaxy 7) and the iPad. Microsoft is trying to present the Surface as some sort of fusion between the tablet and the ultrabook. It has some nice features but they just don't have the cachet of Apple so they can't get away with selling it at that price. Then you have the lower end tablets selling for half the price, or less. The Surface just doesn't make the short list.
"People cheer sometimes because the opposing quarterback is out, but it doesn't look that cool to see someone writhing on the ground in pain. " - I think it's pretty sickening to see that sort of thing. What's wrong with these people anyhow? What if that was their son or uncle or husband writhing in pain? Would they still cheer?
I still remember the hit that Kurt Warner took against the Saints in the 2010 playoffs. Not a dirty hit but he absolutely got his bell rung and you can bet his wife and kids had a good deal to do with his retirement, announced shortly after that incident. Then he comes out and says more recently that he'd rather his kids not play football. Warner took a lot of flack for that comment but I think it was the right thing to do. Who better than him to know the dangers of football? He's made a lot of money. His kids won't have to bag groceries like he did.
Slashdot Mirror
Dave - thanks for the detailed and well thought out reply. You guys are obviously taking security very seriously and are to be commended for that. I still suspect, though, that not all SaaS vendors are as vigilant as you are and your customer base will increase as a result of that.
"The SaaS market might shrink, but it is not going away" - Yes, I agree with that. As I said above, there are certain applications that are well suited to a SaaS platform. What I have seen with products like Workday is that they are trying to become an Enterprise solution rather than a niche player. They have a good product but I just don't think it's there yet. And again, the fact that you cannot customize it is a serious shortfall in my view. Salesforce has done well because they stick to what they do well - CRM. That's all they do and they do it well. CRM is not an Enterprise application or a business critical application, which sets it apart from HR and Financials applications. With Financials, in particular, your entire company is riding on the success of it. It just has to work and you have to be able to customize it to fit your needs.
I think that SaaS will be an important part of the mix for some companies but for the big boys I don't see SaaS replacing mission critical applications such as HR and Financials. The growth in that area will curtail, in my view, but SaaS will find a nice niche market and kind of settle in there. On premise Enterprise software and hosted SaaS solutions can co exist not as competitors but as partners. I am seeing a lot more blended solutions where customers are choosing a bit of this and a bit of that to better suit their unique needs. A place for everything and everything in it's place :-)
All this Instagram and Facebook stuff raises a very interesting, and as yet unresolved, issue. What exactly are your digital rights on the internet? Who owns your digital image? How can it be used? Can it be used without your explicit permission?
If I were to follow someone around long enough I would probably be able to snap a picture of them scratching their ass or picking their nose. What's to stop me from publicly posting that image for the express intention of embarrassing that person? Currently...nothing. What if I were to take the original picture and doctor it up so that your ears look huge or your eyes are crossed or I put some fake acne on your face and then publish it? The possibilities are endless.
If I write a book or a document or some code I can copyright that material so that others cannot steal it. But I cannot copyright my likeness. Some advertising firm could troll through Instagram photos and find a picture of someone that might look right for their latest ad campaign. Then they superimpose the person's face in the magazine ad and - bingo - instant ad copy and they don't have to pay you a dime. It's unfair, it's immoral and it's an invasion of privacy.
These so called "social" websites are a fraud. Nobody reads these terms of service and they know it. They don't have any legitimate way of making money so they steal what you upload and sell it. Nice business model. Just because they give me a few megs of space on their server should not mean that they retain full ownership rights to my pictures. If that's their terms of service fine, but I'm not playing that game.
I don't see SaaS as a viable option for Financials, HR, Supply Chain or Payroll. Those functions are just too critical to entrust to someone else to manage. It's fine to have someone host it for you because at least you can still customize it to fit your needs. As you point out, there are niche markets where SaaS will work just fine. But business critical apps like payroll and supply chain...I just don't see big companies handing that over.
I've been implementing Enterprise software for over 15 years and I have yet to see anyone implement a vanilla system with no customizations. Everyone talks about it at the beginning but in the end there are always customizations. I have worked with two SaaS products - Workday and Oracle CRM on Demand. Neither one provided any capability to customize the product in any way and I think that's a show stopper for many large corporations. Small or medium sized companies will find SaaS more appealing because of the initial cost savings.
There are a few questions that have never been answered satisfactorily for me. Perhaps you could shed some light:
1) Suppose you sign up with a SaaS vendor for a few years. Then you find out it doesn't suit your needs. How do you get your data (several years worth at this point) out of the system?
2) Data security is a big deal with HR and Financials systems. How can the vendor guarantee that your data is safe? They can't and I can't guarantee that my data is 100% secure in house either but at least I have control over how the data is secured.
I'll admit to taking a bit of a gamble on the tablets but I really do see them as entertainment devices and not really necessary, especially if you have a good smartphone. Sure, you can browse with a tablet and tap out an email but some things are just better done with a keyboard.
Touch screens in cars are my pet peeve. The problem with touch screens in cars is that a) you don't get any feedback when you touch something (a click, a sound, something that tells you that you touched in the right place) b) you have to look at the screen the whole time c) they are poorly designed. Why should I have to scroll through 4 menus to set the AC? On my car I reach forward to the AC dial and turn it. I don't even have to look at it because I know where it is. When I turn the dial there are little clicks that let me know that it has engaged. In bright sunlight (and where I live the sun is out a lot) you simply cannot see the screen. Doesn't affect my old school dials one bit. When the BMW iDrive system came out it was universally derided. I have stepped into many a rental car with a touch screen and had to fiddle around with it to perform simple functions. Maybe it's just me but they seem unintuitive, clumsy and inconsistent. It's a solution looking for a problem.
So here's my predictions for 2013:
1) Facebook is going to see it's user base decline. I suspect that many of the current accounts are fake, throwaway type accounts anyway. Full of fake birth dates, occupations and other such information attached to fake throwaway email accounts used for nothing other than signing up for Facebook. Sooner or later advertisers are going to catch on to this and stop wasting their time. Besides, Facebook is pissing everyone off with their intrusive privacy policies.
2) Tablets are going to become the new net books. In other words, cute and portable but ultimately not very useful. Just another expensive toy for bored, rich westerners.
3) Windows 8 is going to be a massive flop. Sure, the sales numbers will look good because it comes preinstalled on new PC's but user adoption will be poor. Windows 9 is going to look a lot like Windows 7.
4) HP is going to clean house. So long Meg.
5) SAAS (Software As A Service) is going to fizzle out. Salesforce will continue to do well though. Some things work well in a hosted environment (CRM for example), others not so well. Multi tenant architectures can save you money in the beginning but there are a lot of real limitations. You are sharing a database with other customers. You can't customize the software. Enterprise software will move back in house.
6) No contract phones will be the way to go. Smartphones are pretty much maxed out on features now. Why get a new one? Take your off contract phone to a no contract provider and start saving some serious money.
7) Factory in-car navigation systems will become obsolete. Too expensive to begin with and you have to update the maps (and pay again for that) every few years. Why bother when you've got Google maps on your phone for free? Simllarly, touch screen control centers in cars are going to go back to old fashioned knobs and dials. Touch screens are too distracting to use and difficult to see in direct sunlight. Maybe voice activation would be better - "Turn on the AC - 72 degrees".
8) The instant gas prices go back down below $2.50/gallon Americans are going to flock back to big hulking SUV's.
IBM will continue to layoff US workers in record numbers, without making any official announcements of layoffs. IBM will continue to exploit cheap labor in India. Until Indian IT workers start making a living wage. Then IBM will abandon the Indian sub continent for Africa, the final frontier for cheap labor. Once the African labor market can no longer be exploited IBM will cease to exist because of their stubborn refusal to pay anyone a living wage. Anyone except executives of course who will continue to receive enormous bonuses. Fuck you Ginny.
My standard practice is to have a Net 15 clause in my contract for clients I haven't work with before. In other words, all fees and expenses are due within 15 days of the billing invoice. Once I get a good working relationship with them I can go Net 30 but not longer than that. I don't like having to string out receivables for that long. It also limits your downside if they don't pay and you have to walk away from it.
Yup, spot on. Here in the USA that's how things get done. Don't waste your time chasing the lower level people in Accounts Payable and don't try to slander the company. It's not worth the bad rep you'll get down the line. Usually all it takes is a letter from your attorney and they will pay up. Some big companies don't even realize which accounts are overdue they have so many of them. As long as you have your paperwork in order you will probably get at least some of the money they owe you. If they try playing hardball then get what money you can from them and move on. Don't do any further business with them. Lesson learned.
Spot on. Not to mention that people can go bankrupt trying to defend themselves against the charges. If you're convicted you get a nice criminal record that follows you around the rest of your life, limiting your employment options. And for what?
This is the closest I've ever heard a sitting president come to endorsing pot. He's basically saying that it's a State issue and unless you're pushing huge amounts the Feds are going to leave you alone. You know what...he's right. How many people out there are now saddled with criminal records for possessing small amounts of weed for personal use? It's ridiculous. I've always felt that alcohol is much, much more harmful than pot.
I don't think people should be driving a car or operating heavy machinery or sitting across the desk from you at an office meeting if they are stoned...basically the same rules as alcohol...but if someone wants to light up on their own time, in their own home I say have at it. If the government wants to do something useful here they should narrow the war on drugs to things like cocaine and heroin and meth and stop wasting our time and money on recreational drug use.
The earliest known case of lactose intolerance. Cause and effect.
Now I'm not an attorney but wouldn't getting elected to the Australian parliament make him immune from extradition to the US? It would probably provide him with diplomatic immunity as well, allowing him save passage into Australia. Clearly Assange's worry is the US government, not the Swedish government.
Congrats on the AppStore game, I hope you're successful with it :-)
It's not that I doubt your sincerity in the comment above it's just that it's easy to say what you'd do with a lot of money when you don't have it yet. I'm certainly not in the monetary class of Cheney or Romney but I've done quite well and I've come a long, long way from where I was in a lower class upbringing. One thing I've learned about money is that it's very addictive. The more you have the more you want. Now this is not universally true but I believe that largely it is. Perhaps you're one of the small minority that truly would give away much of your wealth. I hope you do, the world will be a better place for it.
And if you talk to many wealthy people they will gladly pay their share of taxes as well. What bothers them is government pissing the money away, like it always does. Nearly every day we hear stories of government mismanagement, fraud, cronyism, nepotism and sheer stupidity. Most of these rich people didn't get there running their businesses that way.
Many of them genuinely care about the poor and give large sums of money to charities every year. Say what you want about Cheney and Romney but they have given more money to charities than, I would venture to guess, you and I will make in an entire lifetime. Yet they are vilified in the press as greedy and uncaring.
Ever been there? Trust me, it's very expensive. It costs a lot to get there, it costs a lot to eat there, it costs a lot to stay there. Nearly everything (well, outside of pineapples and orchids) has to be shipped in. Honolulu is the most expensive housing market in the entire United States. That includes New York city and Silicon Valley.
Beyond that it's not just Obama and his wife going. It's the little Obamettes. It's the Secret Service people. It's every other political hack that can hitch a ride. They probably have to book half the hotel just to accommodate his posse.
It's just astounding to me how Obama gets such a free ride from the press on this. Bush takes a vacation as his ranch - his own ranch, bought and paid for with his own money - and the press is all over him. Obama jets off to fucking Hawaii, the whole trip paid for with taxpayer money, and it's all honky-dory. His wife decides to redecorate the White House and go on expensive shopping trips overseas...crickets. Unbelievable.
my MacBook Pro does an outstanding job of running Linux. You can dual boot it or run Linux in VMware or Virtual Box. No graphics card issues at all. Everything worked right out of the gate - sound, graphics, wireless, everything. If you can, try and find one a few years old. The new ones have those soldered on chips that make it impossible to upgrade. Get an SSD, take out the DVD, put in a second HD and you're off to the races.
You have taken a similar path to me. I have travelled all over the country and have seen what you describe in varying degrees. We ended up settling in Arizona and love it here. With lower prices for housing and lower taxes compared to many other parts of the country we enjoy a very, very good lifestyle here. Big house, big yard, pool. Incidentally, I worked in Dallas for about a year and really liked it. I could live there.
I love the Bay Area...been there many, many times on business trips. Great weather most of the year, although it rains too much in the winter for my liking. As you get further inland you get less rain. Incredible variety of topography - ocean, mountains, valleys...you name it. If I had an unlimited budget I would live there in a heartbeat. Everything, and I mean everything, costs more in CA. The biggest problem is the staggering cost of housing. If I were to try and get a home comparable to the one I have now it would probably cost upwards of $3 million in the Bay Area. Sure, I could find one cheaper by moving further away but then you've got to deal with the nightmarish traffic. Yeah, it's nice there...just not THAT nice :-)
Something else I found about Boston - it seemed to be a very transient population and very provincial. I surmised that it was transient because there are so many schools in the general area and many people are only in Boston to attend school and then they go back to where they came from. As a result there seemed to be two kinds of people - born and bred blue blood New Englanders and outsiders, like me. Outsiders spoke differently (without the Boston accent) so we stood out and were easy to identify. Maybe it was just me but I got the impression that New Englanders didn't have much time for outsiders. They seemed a bit cold and insular to me.
By provincial I mean that there was this general attitude that everything revolved around New England and everything there was the best it could possibly be. I met people that had been born there and had never ventured beyond it's boarders their whole life. In the summer they went to Cape Cod. It led to what I felt was a rather narrow view of the world. There is subtle, but very pronounced, racism there. It's not as easy to spot as it is in the deep south but it's there.
I met some nice people there but the place just wasn't for me.
Not much lower. I lived in Boston for a few years and could not get out of there fast enough. The cost of housing was outrageous. Finding a decent rental was nearly impossible. Most of them are these dilapidated triple deckers with drafty windows, on street parking, and require key money. On top of that there is shitty weather most of the year. Nice place to visit, didn't enjoy living there.
SF is very expensive but I would sooner pay to live there than Boston.
Yeah sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that there were 300 pound safeties. Just the same I'm sure that a 200 pound safety could deliver a pretty jarring hit. Remember, these guys are not just 200 pounds and flabby...they are a very strong 200 pounds with very low body fat. Most of them could probably bench 300 pounds without blinking an eye.
You're right about the blind side hits. I think that quarterbacks and receivers are the most vulnerable to those types of hits and they can be devastating. Running backs are generally moving forward and can see their opponents before they get hit. Hence they are more susceptible to knee injuries, as are linemen from cut blocks.
Bingo! Microsoft is hamstrung by Office/Exchange/AD. They feel the need to include it in everything whether it's needed or not. Maybe they should have let the XBox group design the tablet instead. Then they might have a winner. I mean, who would use an XBox to edit a fucking spreadsheet on their big screen TV? Nobody. The XBox is a consumer device, just like tablets are.
I called this one right when they came out....http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3285997&cid=42159587
For the life of me I can't see what the fascination is with all these tablets. I got a cheap-o Touchpad when the fire sale was underway and all I ever use it for is watching movies on the plane. Mainly because it's got better battery life than my laptop and I don't run the risk of the guy in front of me leaning back and crushing my screen. My smartphone does all the mobile online stuff I need to do.
I was at the local Best Buy the other day and there is a big display of tablets..iPad, Galaxy, Fire and a Surface. Not a single person was looking at the Surface. Maybe the price scared them off, who knows. So I decide to check it out. Decent display, although not as good as the iPad or Nexus. Seemed responsive enough. Metro seemed kind of cool. But I doubt they sold a single Surface that day.
The market seems split between cheap tablets (Fire, Nook, Galaxy 7) and the iPad. Microsoft is trying to present the Surface as some sort of fusion between the tablet and the ultrabook. It has some nice features but they just don't have the cachet of Apple so they can't get away with selling it at that price. Then you have the lower end tablets selling for half the price, or less. The Surface just doesn't make the short list.
Try the local Best Buy. The store near me had one on display. By the looks of it you won't have to worry about them selling out ;-)
When I tried it out the Metro interface didn't seem bad at all. It's pretty responsive.
"People cheer sometimes because the opposing quarterback is out, but it doesn't look that cool to see someone writhing on the ground in pain. " - I think it's pretty sickening to see that sort of thing. What's wrong with these people anyhow? What if that was their son or uncle or husband writhing in pain? Would they still cheer?
I still remember the hit that Kurt Warner took against the Saints in the 2010 playoffs. Not a dirty hit but he absolutely got his bell rung and you can bet his wife and kids had a good deal to do with his retirement, announced shortly after that incident. Then he comes out and says more recently that he'd rather his kids not play football. Warner took a lot of flack for that comment but I think it was the right thing to do. Who better than him to know the dangers of football? He's made a lot of money. His kids won't have to bag groceries like he did.