It's not like we've been making new matter here on Earth in any quantities.:-P
If there was a big cloud that eventually formed our sun and planets, then all of the matter came before the sun existed before the sun. And stuff coming from outside (or the very far bits) of our solar system was also there before.
Unless new matter is just springing into existence. And I can't fathom how that would happen.
If "we are made of starstuff", it's because all of these elements have been fused in a previous star which has already been through its life cycle.
I'm with you, I fail to see how it could be otherwise.
"Why would you want reports when you have a dashboard?"
Because a dashboard is a transient thing, which is a snapshot in time and which you can't look back for historical records.
Corporations want things they can file and hold onto, and a PDF can do that much better than a dashboard. You can submit a report to an external entity... a snapshot of your dashboard? Give me a break.
This is stupid, because it sounds like "why would you need your paystub when you can look at your bank balance". They're different things, and you can glean more information from looking at a series of reports, than an instantaneous dashboard.
If you think a dashboard does the same thing, then maybe your understanding of what they get used for is lacking?
There is a reason why management is asking for it. And your inability/unwillingness to deliver it means that you're either acting thick, or thinking that you are the most important aspect of your business.
God, it's like IT in the 90s all over again... we don't care what you want, this is what we're giving you because we think it's cool.
This whole article reads like "we in IT are too uninterested in giving management what they want, so I need someone to help me phrase it better".
In the absence of a government-protected monopoly, if all sellers' costs decrease, competition will drive the price down over time.
Horseshit.
If all sellers have their costs go down, prices stay the same and profits go up.
Or they get together as a group and decide where to set the price.
Your faith in the market to respond to these ways in a way which isn't anti-consumer is quaint, but it isn't what happens in the real world.
In the real world, corporations have shareholders to answer to, and a lowering of costs doesn't translate into a lowering of prices.
So I have zero faith that your theoretical model of competition in any way matches what actually happens. Because corporations have demonstrated time and time again they aren't interested in such things.
And somehow you seem to think this hasn't been happening to other countries for years, and that it's different when it happens to you.
Numerous American firms have bought Canadian companies, signed contracts saying they'd keep the jobs, and then after a few years shut everything down and left.. leaving us with neither the jobs nor the ownership of the original business. And in several instances when the Canadian company was more profitable, but since they weren't American jobs they were expendable.
Multinationals are like locusts, they take what they want, make huge demands to get concessions, fail to live up to their promises, and then move on to somewhere else.
Companies like Nike have been steadily moving their labor to the next cheapest place whenever people start asking for fair wages and working conditions. And yet a lot of people just say "well, that's the free market, adapt or die".
I've been looking at the entire picture for the last 20 years.
Maybe some Americans are only just now realizing what that picture is?
The problem is the branch of economics which says all of this is a desirable outcome, and the fact that politicians and business people have been feeding us this line saying it's going to improve our lives. Because it's all predicated on lies, bullshit, bad assumptions, and the implicit idea that greed is the highest ideal.
The reality is, it doesn't, and never actually has.
What it has done is allowed corporations to do what you describe for the last several decades, and the politicians who back them (or, are paid by them), hand over what they want.
Capitalism as envisioned by a lot of people is basically a suicide pact, and as long as the people at the top get what they want, nothing will change.
The rest of us just get screwed. And, like I said, it's been happening to everybody else for decades.
Under NAFTA any Canadian with a college degree can get a 'no questions asked' work visa at the border.
Are you aware that your entire post is wrong, or merely ill-informed?
If I am passing through US customs, I will be asked if I am there for work. If I say I am there for work, it pretty much has to be in the form of "client meetings", or there is a risk the customs/border agent will flag me. Because I might be doing some work an American can be doing. Even if it's a Canadian made product and there are no Americans who could do it.
A friend had been working in the US for a few years, came back to visit his family, and when returning to the US was told that since he was going there to work and didn't have a work visa or a green card, he was cheating the system. He was flagged, and it took him six months to get it sorted out. Despite having a girlfriend, a house, and a job in the US for several years.
Recently, there was a case of an American actor crossing the Canadian border. He didn't have any proper documentation to work, and said he was there for a vacation. The problem is he'd been across many times, and admitted he was there to work. He got sent back home, and he's been flagged. If he tried to come back now, he'd get sent home.
If I show up at a US border and expect to get a 'no questions asked' work visa, I'd be screwed. In fact, I'd be flagged as someone who can't come in because I'm going there for work, and then I'd never even be able to go on a vacation. The same goes for an American coming into Canada.
You will be deported and subsequently denied entry if you tried that.
So, I have no idea what you think you know about NAFTA and how work visas work across the two countries, but you're wrong as hell. You can't simply show up and say "I'm here to work" and expect that to happen.
You have to already have the visa in place BEFORE you show up at the border, and it's not, and never has been, a no questions asked process.
Better idea. For every piece of work they shift, their taxes go up to support communities they dump. As in, they are forced to shoulder the real costs of outsourcing, rather than "outsourcing" the cost to the tax payers.
Yeah, I can picture the howling of "socialism" from the Tea Party and the Republicans now.
Because to them, if it means corporate profits, it's a good thing.
And if you get left behind in all of this, that's your damned problem.
What an awesome worldview. And there's no way those people can suddenly backtrack and say "but what about our jobs", because their policies have always boiled down to "screw you, I've got mine".
What you're describing would require a MAJOR shift in US economic policy, thinking, and ideology. And I don't see that happening.
So, now you're on the race to the bottom the rest of the world has been dragged into by your companies.
Once you clarify what you're talking about, I don't see anything funny about it.
I don't disagree.
But, having seen companies bought up by US firms, only to downsize or offshore half the jobs to elsewhere and shunt all the profits back to a US firm... I have very little sympathy.
Because American corporations have been screwing over everybody else for decades.
Trade with America means America will hammer you on anything which props up your local industry (eg agricultural subsidies), all the while falling back to their own brand of exceptionalism... corn and steel subsidies, for example.
Trade with America means getting screwed in the name of US corporations profiting, and acting like it's a good deal. It also means the US shoving things into treaties which further guarantees the rights of corporations, at the expense of the population.
Hell, America lets trade groups write entire sections of treaties, entirely for your own benefit.
So, blame your politicians and your corporations for this mess. The rest of us have been for decades now.
But if suddenly these companies are going to bring jobs to us instead of the other way around, good. Because we're tired of getting robbed for your benefit.
This is precisely what your government and lobbyists and corporations have been working for. And a surprising amount of people still act like it's a good idea.
Let them move jobs overseas. In retaliation, we the people should demand that the government ditch all Microsoft products and go open source!
You know, the reality is that US businesses have been moving labor to cheaper places for decades now.
This whole globalization thing was your idea, and has been championed as economic policy for a very long time now -- so that corporations can maximize profits.
I find it terribly amusing that suddenly Americans are going "Yarg! But what about our jobs?".
And I'm sure a lot of your politicians will say that anything the companies are doing for profit is a good thing. Until that is you realize just how much you're gutting your own economy.
But, hey, that's the version of Capitalism America has been pushing on the rest of the world for several decades now.
And since American firms have been buying up companies around the world, and outsourcing those jobs to yet another country... I'm not sure the rest of the world has much sympathy for you on this front. In fact, I'm betting very little.
Because America has been doing it to us for years now.
That it's starting to hit you close to home means you're finally realizing what we've known for years -- that Globalization guts local economies in order to allow multinationals to play a shell game and not give a rats ass about how it affects anybody else.
So, really, cry us a river... many other countries have been on the receiving end of this for a very long time now.
This is Capitalism as envisioned and pitched by you guys. If you don't like the outcome, don't blame us for it.
Flash... Java... Bash. They all have the letter 'a' in them as their first vowel.
I think it's a conspiracy by the first letter of the english alphabet.... Yup, that must be it.
Oh wait.... "Windows". Hmm... that doesn't fit the pattern at all, does it?
Well, that's OK. i is like a for large enough values of a (or really small values of i).
And depending on what part of the world you're in, the sound of vowels can change quite a bit.
A few years back, my wife's mother and some friends were in the southern US... she walked into the store and asked if they have any pins... the cashier asked if she "wanted a ball point pin or a fountain pin". I kid you not.
In fact, my wife had an economics prof from Texas once. There was no discernible difference between the sound of "microeconomics" and "macroeconomics", because apparently a and i have the same value there.
Therefore, in Texas, your statement is 100% true.;-)
My work blackberry charges fine off every USB cable I've used. Are you sure you weren't using a data-only USB cable?
Unplugged the cable I use to charge my Nexus 7 and my cell phone (and half a dozen other things) and plugged it straight into the BB. It had just finished charging my phone.
Kensington 4 port USB wall wart I've charged dozens of different devices.
Got the big message that the device couldn't charge the BB.
If it was data only, I'd never have been able to charge anything else with it. My wife's Playbook has the same problem... it will only charge with the BB cable and wall wart.
So, yeah, I'm 100% sure it wasn't a data-only cable.
What it comes down to is that it just lacks the development community.
And better products. And market share. And a compelling reason to use them.
RIM may have invented the market for the modern smart phone. But any of the reasons to use them have been dwindling over the last few years.
Checking you email and updating a calendar can be done from pretty much any phone these days. And those other phones already have apps and other things for them.
So except for the people who go "ZOMG! Square screens!", I'm not sure who is going to be buying from them.
My limited experience with them tells me I'm not even remotely interested.
Who has been asking for square screens? And other than people who are die-hard fans of the company, who wants anything from Blackberry?
My brother was visiting recently, and his POS BlackBerry (no idea what model) wouldn't charge from a standard USB, it kept complaining it needed a special cable.
Seriously guys, WTF is the point of using a standard connector if you need a magic cable or charger?
Sorry BlackBerry, but I think this is just one more product which the market nobody really wants.
The Playbook I bought my wife was a steaming pile of useless.
I certainly won't be buying anything from BB anytime soon.
strongly-typed languages, where more defects can be caught at compile time, are less prone to runtime failures than interpreted or weakly-typed languages
Isn't that kind of the point?
Is this supposed to be something we didn't know? Or just confirming something we did?
Slashdot Mirror
Or, and I'll go with my interpretation here, you're understanding of humor leaves much to be desired.
Fish fuck in it.
Wouldn't it pretty much have to be?
It's not like we've been making new matter here on Earth in any quantities. :-P
If there was a big cloud that eventually formed our sun and planets, then all of the matter came before the sun existed before the sun. And stuff coming from outside (or the very far bits) of our solar system was also there before.
Unless new matter is just springing into existence. And I can't fathom how that would happen.
If "we are made of starstuff", it's because all of these elements have been fused in a previous star which has already been through its life cycle.
I'm with you, I fail to see how it could be otherwise.
Because a dashboard is a transient thing, which is a snapshot in time and which you can't look back for historical records.
Corporations want things they can file and hold onto, and a PDF can do that much better than a dashboard. You can submit a report to an external entity ... a snapshot of your dashboard? Give me a break.
This is stupid, because it sounds like "why would you need your paystub when you can look at your bank balance". They're different things, and you can glean more information from looking at a series of reports, than an instantaneous dashboard.
If you think a dashboard does the same thing, then maybe your understanding of what they get used for is lacking?
There is a reason why management is asking for it. And your inability/unwillingness to deliver it means that you're either acting thick, or thinking that you are the most important aspect of your business.
God, it's like IT in the 90s all over again ... we don't care what you want, this is what we're giving you because we think it's cool.
This whole article reads like "we in IT are too uninterested in giving management what they want, so I need someone to help me phrase it better".
Same place the movie studios get one.
You have your model builders build you a high quality model you can then scan.
From what I can tell, most stuff done in CG starts out life in the hands of your model builders and scupltors.
Horseshit.
If all sellers have their costs go down, prices stay the same and profits go up.
Or they get together as a group and decide where to set the price.
Your faith in the market to respond to these ways in a way which isn't anti-consumer is quaint, but it isn't what happens in the real world.
In the real world, corporations have shareholders to answer to, and a lowering of costs doesn't translate into a lowering of prices.
So I have zero faith that your theoretical model of competition in any way matches what actually happens. Because corporations have demonstrated time and time again they aren't interested in such things.
And somehow you seem to think this hasn't been happening to other countries for years, and that it's different when it happens to you.
Numerous American firms have bought Canadian companies, signed contracts saying they'd keep the jobs, and then after a few years shut everything down and left .. leaving us with neither the jobs nor the ownership of the original business. And in several instances when the Canadian company was more profitable, but since they weren't American jobs they were expendable.
Multinationals are like locusts, they take what they want, make huge demands to get concessions, fail to live up to their promises, and then move on to somewhere else.
Companies like Nike have been steadily moving their labor to the next cheapest place whenever people start asking for fair wages and working conditions. And yet a lot of people just say "well, that's the free market, adapt or die".
I've been looking at the entire picture for the last 20 years.
Maybe some Americans are only just now realizing what that picture is?
The problem is the branch of economics which says all of this is a desirable outcome, and the fact that politicians and business people have been feeding us this line saying it's going to improve our lives. Because it's all predicated on lies, bullshit, bad assumptions, and the implicit idea that greed is the highest ideal.
The reality is, it doesn't, and never actually has.
What it has done is allowed corporations to do what you describe for the last several decades, and the politicians who back them (or, are paid by them), hand over what they want.
Capitalism as envisioned by a lot of people is basically a suicide pact, and as long as the people at the top get what they want, nothing will change.
The rest of us just get screwed. And, like I said, it's been happening to everybody else for decades.
Are you aware that your entire post is wrong, or merely ill-informed?
If I am passing through US customs, I will be asked if I am there for work. If I say I am there for work, it pretty much has to be in the form of "client meetings", or there is a risk the customs/border agent will flag me. Because I might be doing some work an American can be doing. Even if it's a Canadian made product and there are no Americans who could do it.
A friend had been working in the US for a few years, came back to visit his family, and when returning to the US was told that since he was going there to work and didn't have a work visa or a green card, he was cheating the system. He was flagged, and it took him six months to get it sorted out. Despite having a girlfriend, a house, and a job in the US for several years.
Recently, there was a case of an American actor crossing the Canadian border. He didn't have any proper documentation to work, and said he was there for a vacation. The problem is he'd been across many times, and admitted he was there to work. He got sent back home, and he's been flagged. If he tried to come back now, he'd get sent home.
If I show up at a US border and expect to get a 'no questions asked' work visa, I'd be screwed. In fact, I'd be flagged as someone who can't come in because I'm going there for work, and then I'd never even be able to go on a vacation. The same goes for an American coming into Canada.
You will be deported and subsequently denied entry if you tried that.
So, I have no idea what you think you know about NAFTA and how work visas work across the two countries, but you're wrong as hell. You can't simply show up and say "I'm here to work" and expect that to happen.
You have to already have the visa in place BEFORE you show up at the border, and it's not, and never has been, a no questions asked process.
Yeah, I can picture the howling of "socialism" from the Tea Party and the Republicans now.
Because to them, if it means corporate profits, it's a good thing.
And if you get left behind in all of this, that's your damned problem.
What an awesome worldview. And there's no way those people can suddenly backtrack and say "but what about our jobs", because their policies have always boiled down to "screw you, I've got mine".
What you're describing would require a MAJOR shift in US economic policy, thinking, and ideology. And I don't see that happening.
So, now you're on the race to the bottom the rest of the world has been dragged into by your companies.
Bummer, Dude.
I don't disagree.
But, having seen companies bought up by US firms, only to downsize or offshore half the jobs to elsewhere and shunt all the profits back to a US firm ... I have very little sympathy.
Because American corporations have been screwing over everybody else for decades.
Trade with America means America will hammer you on anything which props up your local industry (eg agricultural subsidies), all the while falling back to their own brand of exceptionalism ... corn and steel subsidies, for example.
Trade with America means getting screwed in the name of US corporations profiting, and acting like it's a good deal. It also means the US shoving things into treaties which further guarantees the rights of corporations, at the expense of the population.
Hell, America lets trade groups write entire sections of treaties, entirely for your own benefit.
So, blame your politicians and your corporations for this mess. The rest of us have been for decades now.
But if suddenly these companies are going to bring jobs to us instead of the other way around, good. Because we're tired of getting robbed for your benefit.
This is precisely what your government and lobbyists and corporations have been working for. And a surprising amount of people still act like it's a good idea.
You know, the reality is that US businesses have been moving labor to cheaper places for decades now.
This whole globalization thing was your idea, and has been championed as economic policy for a very long time now -- so that corporations can maximize profits.
I find it terribly amusing that suddenly Americans are going "Yarg! But what about our jobs?".
And I'm sure a lot of your politicians will say that anything the companies are doing for profit is a good thing. Until that is you realize just how much you're gutting your own economy.
But, hey, that's the version of Capitalism America has been pushing on the rest of the world for several decades now.
And since American firms have been buying up companies around the world, and outsourcing those jobs to yet another country ... I'm not sure the rest of the world has much sympathy for you on this front. In fact, I'm betting very little.
Because America has been doing it to us for years now.
That it's starting to hit you close to home means you're finally realizing what we've known for years -- that Globalization guts local economies in order to allow multinationals to play a shell game and not give a rats ass about how it affects anybody else.
So, really, cry us a river ... many other countries have been on the receiving end of this for a very long time now.
This is Capitalism as envisioned and pitched by you guys. If you don't like the outcome, don't blame us for it.
LOL ... I gather it was more like "mah-cro" and "mah-cro".
Well, that's OK. i is like a for large enough values of a (or really small values of i).
And depending on what part of the world you're in, the sound of vowels can change quite a bit.
A few years back, my wife's mother and some friends were in the southern US ... she walked into the store and asked if they have any pins ... the cashier asked if she "wanted a ball point pin or a fountain pin". I kid you not.
In fact, my wife had an economics prof from Texas once. There was no discernible difference between the sound of "microeconomics" and "macroeconomics", because apparently a and i have the same value there.
Therefore, in Texas, your statement is 100% true. ;-)
Unplugged the cable I use to charge my Nexus 7 and my cell phone (and half a dozen other things) and plugged it straight into the BB. It had just finished charging my phone.
Kensington 4 port USB wall wart I've charged dozens of different devices.
Got the big message that the device couldn't charge the BB.
If it was data only, I'd never have been able to charge anything else with it. My wife's Playbook has the same problem ... it will only charge with the BB cable and wall wart.
So, yeah, I'm 100% sure it wasn't a data-only cable.
And better products. And market share. And a compelling reason to use them.
RIM may have invented the market for the modern smart phone. But any of the reasons to use them have been dwindling over the last few years.
Checking you email and updating a calendar can be done from pretty much any phone these days. And those other phones already have apps and other things for them.
So except for the people who go "ZOMG! Square screens!", I'm not sure who is going to be buying from them.
My limited experience with them tells me I'm not even remotely interested.
Who has been asking for square screens? And other than people who are die-hard fans of the company, who wants anything from Blackberry?
My brother was visiting recently, and his POS BlackBerry (no idea what model) wouldn't charge from a standard USB, it kept complaining it needed a special cable.
Seriously guys, WTF is the point of using a standard connector if you need a magic cable or charger?
Sorry BlackBerry, but I think this is just one more product which the market nobody really wants.
The Playbook I bought my wife was a steaming pile of useless.
I certainly won't be buying anything from BB anytime soon.
No, for this kind of testing you start with a lesser, more expendable species ... I suggest politicians and lawyers.
Just fine. Thanks for asking.
As long as they don't go to the goatse universe. ;-)
So, what are those big honking things seeing?
Is this a case where something has been mathematically proven to not exist after it's been observationally confirmed?
Isn't that kind of the point?
Is this supposed to be something we didn't know? Or just confirming something we did?
LOL ... since when did Putin replace Chuck Norris for that meme?
And, they will correctly point out that you've not been there in decades and are resting on your laurels.
Want to impress us? Beat them there again.
Otherwise you're just reliving glory days.
Roboctopi-nado!
I can see the movie now ... nuclear powered octopus meets laser-sharknado.
Mark my words.