The penny is legal tender. You are not required to accept legal tender, but if you don't state up front you won't, you are going to have a hard time justifying your position.
Unfortunately, over the internet it becomes much harder to know who to trust, and much easier for crooked individuals to make themselves appear trustworthy.
All transactions are based on trust. Except perhaps those between neighbors of 50 years standing in a village of no more than 100 residents. Nope; those too.
Do you eat in resturants? Read George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London for a description of the amount of trust you are putting in the kitchen. If you want something more recent, I could tell you some stories about when I worked at the grocery store. Maybe better not.
Personal anecdotes are not a substitute for statistics, but I have not observed a greater percentage of bad transactions on-line compated to in person.
I'm confused. Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme? Or is the stock market? While SS in many ways resembles a Ponzi scheme, it's been a remarkably sustainable one.
Some of both.
First of all, while you don't have a SocSec "account" in the same sense you have a stockbroker account, the SSA has been doing its best to hide that by sending out "account statements" every 5 years (just got my last one a few days ago). So they would like you to think that you have an ownership account, anyway.
Second, SocSec has been sustainable because the population and average wealth of the United States have been growing continuously since it was created (1935 or thereabouts). As we saw with Enron, as long as the wealth is rising, you can pay for anything. However, starting around 2020 or so those trends will reverse (unless we import, I mean allow to immigrate, a lot of teenagers between 2010 and 2020), the average age of the US population will start going up, and whether or not the total wealth continues to increase the growth to support SocSec will no longer exist. Again the results of this can be observed in Enron. Too bad for me;-(
Finally, due to the baby boomers hitting their peak earning years, SSA is currently running a surplus. They have to put that money somewhere, so they buy US Treasury bonds. Sort of like you running out of money in your checking account and floating yourself a loan from your savings account. Net increase in value: zero. So when it comes time to redeem those bonds in 2025, I wouldn't expect that wealth to be there anywhere!
Since this was a private conversation I can't provide more details (and have disguised the story a bit) so take it for whatever value you put on anything you find on the Internet;-(
However, if you would like to know more about how content providers calculate "profit" the best place to start is Art Buchwald's Coming to America case. Terms of the settlement were never disclosed, but for a movie studio to even offer a settlement says a lot.
There is one simple, effective and reasonably sound way of dealing with the payola problem - legalize it. Sounds unfair you think? Think again. As long as we accept music as an industry there will be money in it. And anytime you have large amounts of money circulating around, someone is going to try and stick their hand out. There is no business reason why it shouldn't be radio station owners wanting some of that money and that's why payola continues, despite the numerous attempts to stop it.
Payola, or paying a placement fee, is perfectly legal in the radio industry. The radio station need merely announce prior to playing the "content" that such a fee has been paid. That was the end result of the scandal in the 1950s.
Of course, doing so would allow consumers to make independent judgements on what they like, and why certain songs are being played. So I guess we can't have that!
It's been said to me by people who should know that some number way smaller than 10% of these releases actually make money. This is the missing information that people like Courtney leave out of their diatribes against those bloodsuckers in "the industry".
I once talked to the CIO of a conglomerate with an entertainment division. He told me about the time he called a meeting of the senior technology people from all his divisions. The meeting was to be held in LA. He went to JFK to fly to the meeting, and as he was walking back to his coach seat he saw all his techies from the music division sitting in first class seats - cost about $4,000 each (he checked later). When he berated them for this waste of money he was told, "but everyone in our division ALWAYS flies first class".
So (as with the Coming to America case) let's be very very careful about defining what "makes money" and what doesn't.
I really don't see how this type of crap can continue for much longer.
On the contrary: no one who is adversely affected by this behaviour (read: individual consumers) has the power to do anything about it. And no one who has the power to do anything about it (read: lawmakers, FCC, Justice Dept.) cares (or more charitably, thinks it is a bad thing).
So I would expect this to continue until someone with political clout (e.g. Clear Channel) is hurt; at that point there there will be a big brawl in Congress but again the individual consumer will not be at the negotiating table.
You can't change your finger prints (without scaring them) do you ever worry about who gets ahold of your fingerprints? No one does except a criminal.
Um, I am not a criminal, but when Best Buy digitized my signature and then transmitted it in the clear over a wireless cash register system, yes, I was worried just a wee bit (no pun intended).
- I'll bet almost every US citizen here had their fingerprints taken as grade schoolers as part of some Community Enrolement program under the auspices of "help us find your child if they're ever lost or kidnapped.
Those fingerprint cards are given to the parents, not retained by the school or the police. Now if the parents use them irresponsibly, that would be another issue, but that is also true of many things that parents/guardians could do.
In fact, until about 1992 or so "SQL" was pronounced "ess-que-ell" in US English. About the time Microsoft "SequelServer" was released it suddenly became "Seek-kwell". Don't know why, but it does tend to grate on those who used it before change.
Funny. But please note that it wasn't until 1992 or so that the US English pronunciation of "SQL" changed from "ess-que-ell" to "see-quill". And I have never understood why that happened.
How does this compare to A Visual Introduction to SQL? The first edition of that book is the best into to SQL and (indirectly) relational databases I have seen. The first edition didn't cover outer joins, though, and before I buy the second edition I was wondering how the reviewed book compares.
Plenum rated cable generates less smoke than standard cable; it is specified when the area above the ceiling is used as the HVAC return air plenum. However, inside a conduit smoke generation is not a concern, and plenum cable is quite a bit more expensive.
Riser rated cable, otoh, is supposed to limit vertical flame spread. This would help to prevent flame from travelling up the conduit from floor to floor. Although in a residential application the benefit would be small - the key would be to firestop the conduit openings after the cables are in.
In one of Robert Heinlein's novels (don't have the reference at hand), the main character is told to sit down in front of what we would think of today as (WWW + Google) and "learn whatever she can about everything". After a few weeks of coming up with some useful stuff, she finally asks the system: 'who controls this database?', and it replies 'not programmed with that information'. The next morning an assasination team tries to kill her.
Not to be too "X-File'ish", but does there come a point where too much knowledge is captured in Google? A point where anything that doesn't exist in Google doesn't exist, period? Wouldn't that represent a very tempting target for a bin Laden or a John Ashcroft, to try to control how the modern world thinks?
Kind of far out there, I know, but do you guys worry about this kind of thing?
Maybe someone with more knowledge can check me on this, but isn't using conduit a potential building code violation? At the very least, you have to use the more expensive plenum rated cable instead of the more common version.
Um, no. In fact in many cities it would be a building code violation not to use conduit.
If you are planning on doing this kind of work, do yourself a favor and do some research on the national and local code, the practicalities, and your options.
Generally speaking, you are going to want to use riser rated (not plenum rated) cable in conduit and firestop all ends of the conduit.
But again - either hire someone fully qualified in this area, or do the detailed research.
The building codes are pretty subjective - also, in most jurisdictions the law just refers to _copyrighted_ and very expensive publications by building industry groups. (There's something fundamentally wrong about a copyrighted law...)
A excellent decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals just made it a lot harder for laws to be copyrighted: Veeck vs. SBCCI
Thats a major slight on the Architectural profession you are making there. Architects do not just deal with "asthetics". A/good/ architect should be considering how the building is to be used, which materials are suitable to be used together with asthetic values.
Architecture is a lot about layout rather than just fancy features.
Well, they should. And a few do. However, too many architects have read Mies' work and decided that they are out to Change the World and teach everyone how buildings "should" be built. Which generally means throwing out 10,000 years of accumulated experience. The result is buildings which look good to other architects but are absolute horrors for ordinary people to use. See any work by Helmut Jahn for an example.
House is an excellent book. The contractors that Kidder wrote about in House later wrote their own book, The Apple Corps Guide to the Well-Built House. I believe it is out of print but it is well worth tracking down a used copy if you are starting the house-building (or even buying) process.
Except for certain specialized tasks (e.g. brain surgery), a dedicated amateur can almost always do a "better" job than a professional - because the amateur can value his own time at zero, and ignore issues of profitability and sustainability.
Basically, this book is saying that if you have the skills of a project manager and the time, patience, and persistence to act as your own general contractor, you can save money and get a higher quality house.
No doubt true - IF you have those skills, if the plumber who used to beat you up in high school can't still intimidate you, and if you have the time.
You also need to consider, however, that most contractors/subcontractors in a given area form their own community, and generally will work together to take advantage of any "lone wolf" outside the system. You will also have a difficult time figuring out, e.g., who the good HVAC contractors are vs. the rip-off artists. This is something the general brings to the game that you can't duplicate.
If a contractor can save money he will, but unless he is a bad contractor (in which case he won't be around long), they won't purchase the lowest quality materials just because they are cheap. They try to find a happy medium.
Would that that were true. Homeowners contracting construction are caught in several classic game theory traps, particularly those involving information costs and public vs. private information.
And the homeowner loses every time, because they do exactly one transaction per decade with the contractor, while the contractor does hunderds of transactions per year with homeowners. Yeah, bad word of mouth can hurt in a smaller community, but when was the last time you heard of a contractor going out of business for that reason?
The 2000 fridge is also an improvement on the 1950 fridge in one very, very significant way - it breaks sooner. Lighter materials, and lots of stupid little unnecessary components add up to a fridge that will be on the scrap heap sooner.
YMMV, but that hasn't been my experience. Since 1990 or so fridges have become far more reliable than anything I remember from the 1960s (which were mostly 1950s models). Most manufacturers have been working hard, and successfully, at getting the parts count down, which helps a lot.
In any case, a 350 USD unit with 60 kg of materials, discarded every 15 years, is better for the environment than a 800 (constant 2002 USD) unit with 120 kg of materials that lasts 30 years.
If I wrote a word processor, and had between 1950 and now to write it, you better belive the new version would be better than the 50-year old version.
There is very little in Word XP that is needed to process words that wasn't also in WordPerfect 5.1 (text version). Or Electric Pencil for that matter. Graphical table cell layout and merge is nice, I guess. Other than that, as a "power user" I make use of about 1.5% of Word's features. So I have to disagree with you a bit there.
If software companies tried to do what car companies (or refrigerator companies for that matter) do (i.e. offer a slightly improved version of pretty much the same product) year after year they would inevitably fail, probably very quickly.
In fact, that is exactly what vertical-market software vendors (think midrange ERP) do. Once they have the customer locked in, they sit back and collect the 15% yearly maintenace and "upgrade" fee from now until Doomsday.
Except that they generally forget about the "improving" side of the equation. And they often leave the same bugs intact from version to version, while adding new features to "delight" their customers.
We can agree to disagree if you like. I did understand the analogy. I am not saying it is totally wrong. However, two points to consider (a) cars and refrigerators are far more complex than the average consumer believes. That cars from 1985 seem to perform their function flawlessly is a result of lots of hard work by lots of dedicated people (b) in many cases, new software performing the exact same function as its 1980 counterpart (purchase orders and bills of lading have not changed their basic form since 1500 AD or so, and BOLs from 3000 BC are easily recognizable by shipping clerks in 2000 AD) does not work as well as the older stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
The penny is legal tender. You are not required to accept legal tender, but if you don't state up front you won't, you are going to have a hard time justifying your position.
sPh
Do you eat in resturants? Read George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London for a description of the amount of trust you are putting in the kitchen. If you want something more recent, I could tell you some stories about when I worked at the grocery store. Maybe better not.
Personal anecdotes are not a substitute for statistics, but I have not observed a greater percentage of bad transactions on-line compated to in person.
sPh
First of all, while you don't have a SocSec "account" in the same sense you have a stockbroker account, the SSA has been doing its best to hide that by sending out "account statements" every 5 years (just got my last one a few days ago). So they would like you to think that you have an ownership account, anyway.
Second, SocSec has been sustainable because the population and average wealth of the United States have been growing continuously since it was created (1935 or thereabouts). As we saw with Enron, as long as the wealth is rising, you can pay for anything. However, starting around 2020 or so those trends will reverse (unless we import, I mean allow to immigrate, a lot of teenagers between 2010 and 2020), the average age of the US population will start going up, and whether or not the total wealth continues to increase the growth to support SocSec will no longer exist. Again the results of this can be observed in Enron. Too bad for me ;-(
Finally, due to the baby boomers hitting their peak earning years, SSA is currently running a surplus. They have to put that money somewhere, so they buy US Treasury bonds. Sort of like you running out of money in your checking account and floating yourself a loan from your savings account. Net increase in value: zero. So when it comes time to redeem those bonds in 2025, I wouldn't expect that wealth to be there anywhere!
sPh
However, if you would like to know more about how content providers calculate "profit" the best place to start is Art Buchwald's Coming to America case. Terms of the settlement were never disclosed, but for a movie studio to even offer a settlement says a lot.
sPh
Of course, doing so would allow consumers to make independent judgements on what they like, and why certain songs are being played. So I guess we can't have that!
sPh
So (as with the Coming to America case) let's be very very careful about defining what "makes money" and what doesn't.
sph
So I would expect this to continue until someone with political clout (e.g. Clear Channel) is hurt; at that point there there will be a big brawl in Congress but again the individual consumer will not be at the negotiating table.
sPh
sPh
sPh
sPh
sPh
sPh
Riser rated cable, otoh, is supposed to limit vertical flame spread. This would help to prevent flame from travelling up the conduit from floor to floor. Although in a residential application the benefit would be small - the key would be to firestop the conduit openings after the cables are in.
sPh
sPh
Not to be too "X-File'ish", but does there come a point where too much knowledge is captured in Google? A point where anything that doesn't exist in Google doesn't exist, period? Wouldn't that represent a very tempting target for a bin Laden or a John Ashcroft, to try to control how the modern world thinks?
Kind of far out there, I know, but do you guys worry about this kind of thing?
sPh
If you are planning on doing this kind of work, do yourself a favor and do some research on the national and local code, the practicalities, and your options.
Generally speaking, you are going to want to use riser rated (not plenum rated) cable in conduit and firestop all ends of the conduit.
But again - either hire someone fully qualified in this area, or do the detailed research.
sPh
Veeck vs. SBCCI
sPh
See From Bauhaus to Our House or Death and Life of Great American Cities for more details.
sPh
sPh
Basically, this book is saying that if you have the skills of a project manager and the time, patience, and persistence to act as your own general contractor, you can save money and get a higher quality house.
No doubt true - IF you have those skills, if the plumber who used to beat you up in high school can't still intimidate you, and if you have the time.
You also need to consider, however, that most contractors/subcontractors in a given area form their own community, and generally will work together to take advantage of any "lone wolf" outside the system. You will also have a difficult time figuring out, e.g., who the good HVAC contractors are vs. the rip-off artists. This is something the general brings to the game that you can't duplicate.
Anyway, have fun!
sPh
And the homeowner loses every time, because they do exactly one transaction per decade with the contractor, while the contractor does hunderds of transactions per year with homeowners. Yeah, bad word of mouth can hurt in a smaller community, but when was the last time you heard of a contractor going out of business for that reason?
sPh
In any case, a 350 USD unit with 60 kg of materials, discarded every 15 years, is better for the environment than a 800 (constant 2002 USD) unit with 120 kg of materials that lasts 30 years.
sPh
sPh
Except that they generally forget about the "improving" side of the equation. And they often leave the same bugs intact from version to version, while adding new features to "delight" their customers.
sPh
sPh