I think he was pretty clear about calling it a rant.
I'm getting too many responses too quickly to respond to them all. I'll choose this one as a representative of the majority. Basically, those countering my position that the author's article is irresponsible (honestly, the editor is more at fault) commonly state either that it is a "rant" (which the author does say). They say that it is and editorial and thus immune to standards of journalistic ethics.
Not so. Editorials are certainly given more sway on assertions of opinion, but not claims of fact. For an author to ethically assert wrongdoing on the part of a specific entity (s)he should provide at least some documentation, and sourced quotes (even anonymous quotes accepted as valid by the editor is fine). Printing an editorial doesn't give the author (and his editor) full impunity to catagorically assert whatever they want without supporting evidence (even if it's true). Please see the Poyntr school of Journalism's web site on Journalistic Ethics for additional details (that site is filled with a great deal of information).
These are accusations of bribery and conflict(s) of interest against unspecified hardware review sites. Without naming the organization(s) and specific instances of bribery, with resulting proof, this is just irresponsible hand waving. Journalists are supposed to print facts. It's important to realize the distinction between whether bribery is taking place (possibly so), and whether this article in question backs up the assertion of bribery with documentation and quotable sources on the record. It does not. IMO: This article does NOT deserve this level of publicity, nor did it deserve publication. --M
"Degrees in engineering and physics aside, you still shouldn't trust me."
I don't.
"Voyager has had a *30 year mission*.... But we haven't gotten any scientifically worthwhile, manifestly surprising, or unexpected data from it for years. The only thing surprising about the Voyager mission is how long it's lasted."
Well, that's a very interesting assertion. You claim that the Voyager probes haven't sent, nor have we haven't received any scientifically worthwhile data from the probes in years. I simply don't believe this. Not just because you say so, but because scientists related quoted in the previous article say just the opposite. As referenced in that Newscientist article on 13 anomalies that don't make sense, there are real questions about shifts in the velocity and travelled distance in the Pioneer probes that the Voyager probes could shed additional light upon with further data collection. There's at least one specific question worth answering with that additional data. And probably many more. I've yet to see any factual basis for your claims to the contrary. Not even a cite; bias regardless.
"But if you think it's George W Bush personally making decisions to pull the plug on Voyager, you kind of need to get a fucking grip. Budgets get reprioritized[...]"
No. I think it's members of his cabinet furthering Bush's stated policy objectives, flowing down the ranks through to undersecretaries and Republican members of congress who make these specific and individual budgetary decisions. So what? The issue is relative merit of that decision, not party affiliation and political association. I argue that it's a bad decision. Period. Do I still need to "[...] get a fucking grip" for disagreeing? Should party affiliation trump agreement or disagreement on specific policy and budgetary goals, or must we all walk in lock step with the party faithful regardless of outcome?
"Lose your emotional and symbolic ties to Voyager and seriously think about what information that would be really valid that they could return simply because they've crossed an artificial boundary?"
Who's the one being emotional here? I and others have already cited arguments to continue collecting data. You have ignored these arguments, repeating the same tautological assertion that the data is worthless because it is worthless without a factual response. IMO, this only damages the credibility of your position. --M
"Voyager is useless now. (No. It really is. No. Really.) This isn't about pictures on TV. This is about good science."
[...]
"If you want to use it as an excuse to Bush-bash (not saying YOU are doing that specifically), or, startlingly, make irrelevant and nonsensical references to the US apparently devolving into the former USSR, because we won't continue to fund a useless project, go for it. Everyone else is, comrade."
...that your primary concern in posting these comments is to defend Bush and his policies regardless of the scientific objective. You appear to have concluded a priori that the Voyager probes have no scientific value simply because Bush has concluded so. Any argument in furtherance of the scientific value of collecting data as they continue out of our solar system is met with hostile political rhetoric and tautological claims that the data is worthless because it is worthless. I find your arguments highly unconvincing; your heated political rhetoric even less so.
Dropping the partisan issues here, let me ask: what expertise in the fields of space science, astronomy, and physics, do you posess which give scientific validity to your claims of the low relative worth of future Voyager data? Why should I believe you when specialists in the field are quoted as saying that the data is highly valuable, especially given the low collection cost? How about some facts instead of hot air? --M
And I haven't bothered to see it on my PSP either. Just not interested. I would have vastly prefered a copy of Lumines bundled with the PSP instead. --M
Yeah. But it was one of those 30 second news breaks during a commercial. My bet if that they were reading from a Sony PR release claiming to have sold out. By what logic only PR brains can understand...
Yeah. It's just a toy. As long as it's fun to play or does useful stuff I'll carry it around. I will say that the screen is definitely good enough to read an ebook with, and shows promise for web browsing. Strange I just saw on a CBS news break that the PSP sold out all 1 million units; they must mean Sony sold all units to stores, because there's no way all those 1 million units actually sold to customers. Well, whatever. I still want Quake III arena ported - and I'm stick'n to my story!:) --M
Well, I'm no Sony "loyalist". I bought this thing because it does stuff that the other handhelds can't. I've been waiting for a unit with this kind of screen quality and raw CPU power for several years. So I've never bought a Nintendo handheld simply because it doesn't do what I want, not out of like or dislike for Nintendo products. And I bought this on features alone, not love for Sony (who are just another company with some good and some bad products).
That said: I'm 37, not 10. If I had kids there's no way I would buy this thing for them. It's not just the price, but the thing is quite delicate. Between moving parts for the optical drive and the large (do NOT drop!) screen, there's no way this thing could survive the kind of damage a kid wealds. And just the image of this thing in a sandbox makes me cringe. For the 6 - 12yo crowd, yeah the GBA looks very durable and cheap enough to replace when the kid runs it through the washer or steps on it.
I actually feel fairly confidant that the PSP will do well enough among the 20s - 30s crowd to build a successful market. Next Christmas will be an important test of its viability. With a decent title selection and a drop to $200 it should sell well. If not, well I may have made a bad long term purchase. We'll see... --M
OK. I've said this before in a prior post, but I just can't get the idea out of my head. I want Quake III Arena ported to the PSP! I mean, how many times can Id get my money for that damn game? Bought it for Linux - check; bought it for the PS2 - check; bought it for the Mac - check. And each time I plunk the money down I feel ashamed for buying the same thing on another platform. Until I begin fragging, that is. Then I get all warm and fuzzy inside.:) Why do I love that old game so?
Will someone please port Q3A to the PSP? Pretty please?!?!?!
I know this seems silly, but what I want is Quake III Arena ported to this thing. It's got plenty of horsepower for Q3A, so why the hell not? With the USB port, can I please have keyboard+mouse support too? And wireless support so I can play online? Man... Ya know, it amazes me that Q3A is *still* fun after all these years.:)
And yeah - I like it a lot. However, it's quite apparent that the unit isn't selling like hotcakes. Every store I went to had plenty of stock available (Sears, Best Buy, EB Games, Target). What wasn't available were copies of Luminens and Ridge Racer, I had to poke through numerous stores in order to find copies of both.
The unit is beautiful and worth the money. Why isn't it selling? I don't know, but I'll hazard a few guesses:
a) No display units available. Not a single store of those four had a display unit to show potential buyers. Few people are willing to shell out $250 for a game device they've never seen perform.
b) It's a bit too expensive. Yes, it's worth the money for what you get, but it isn't cheap for a toy.
c) Game selection is limited. Yes, sixteen titles on launch. But only a few were selling well, and two (Luminens and Ridge Racer) were selling out.
So... am I glad I bought the unit? Yes! And oh yeah, did I buy the "rip off" Best Buy two-year protection plan? Yes! (hey, the damn thing has moving parts!) Now... time to check out that ebook thingy I saw in the article header. --M
Re:Maybe im crazy too, but I loved that quote
on
PSP Launch Coverage
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· Score: 1
I bet you want a Plamsa TV hanging from your ceiling in your bedroom.
No. But I do want a second TV sitting on my burrow next to the bed on my right. That way when I get sick of looking front on at the first TV I can just turn onto my side and... there's another TV! But don't thank me for that little bit of genius; Andy Richter, he's da man. --M
Interesting link. Which, if you believe a ~70 year projection, (*cough!* yeah right *cough!*) shows that S.S. isn't much of a problem, but Medicaid, Medicare, and interest will become an unsustainable nightmare. --M
3. According to the NY Times a month ago, the current budget breakdown is: Military 19% Interest 8% Medicaid 8% Medicare 13% Social Security 21% Other nondiscretionary 13% Nonmilitary discretionary 18%
This can't possibly be right. I'd like to see a link to the NY Times article in question. Just two anomalies:
The military budget in FY05 was ~$500B spent in just under ~$2T for total expenditures. That's more like 25%. To be under 20% they would have to have spend less than $400B which is clearly bogus, especially given the $86B supplemental request for two ongoing wars. How does that make 19% of the budget?
Regarding interest on the debt: The treasury makes interest payment data available to the public:
Available Historical Data FISCAL Year End 2004 $321,566,323,971.29 2003 $318,148,529,151.51 2002 $332,536,958,599.42 2001 $359,507,635,242.41 2000 $361,997,734,302.36 1999 $353,511,471,722.87 1998 $363,823,722,920.26 1997 $355,795,834,214.66 1996 $343,955,076,695.15 1995 $332,413,555,030.62 1994 $296,277,764,246.26 1993 $292,502,219,484.25 1992 $292,361,073,070.74 1991 $286,021,921,181.04 1990 $264,852,544,615.90 1989 $240,863,231,535.71 1988 $214,145,028,847.73
I assume this table is raw dollars and doesn't factor inflation. I'm having difficultly finding a similar table of yearly federal budget totals, though the government does provide an interface to d/l data raw data for each budget. However, just taking FY2004 and assuming $2T (which is larger than the actual budget) and you get much more than 8% total budgetary expenditure for interest on the debt. More like 12% - 13%. It's worse than that because I think the actual budget was somewhere around $1.7T.\
4. In 2003 the social security surplus was 68 Billion. That's a lot of money, but the annual increase in total federal spending for each of the past 5 years is higher than that. (The range is 75-147 billion). In other words, if you held spending even, instead of increasing it, for one year, you'd be able to stop taking any money from the social security surplus for the general budget.
Speaking of S.S. surpluses in no way answers the original question. If you yank S.S. as a program, would you be willing to yank the payroll taxes used to finance the program as well? If so, how would you pay for the federal deficit? Would you continue to borrow?
1) You list two doublings of raw tax income increases across nearly twenty-five years. Are you factoring in combined inflation and currency (dollar) depriciation into your numbers?
2) As a percentage of GDP, how much more or less does the federal government take in through taxation between 1980 vs. 2005?
3) How much of the federal budget is used to pay interest on the debt vs. military spending vs. spending programs such as NSF, DOE, Education, HUD, Medicare/Medicaid, etc?
4) If one were to end Social Security, would ending the payrol tax be appropriate? If so, how would one pay for the military and service debt? Cut all social programs from the federal budget and there is still a significant shortfall. Or would you keep the payroll tax and end S.S. at the same time?
Except I referenced another person in the article who was fired for posting fiction written while taking a class off company hours. Is it reasonable to allow a company to fire someone for unrelated work done off hours which in no way references the employer? I think not. "At will" should have limits, IMO. --M
"We hold these rights to be self evident..." refers to human beings, not social organizations. When were companies granted "human rights"? Companies have obligations to the state first, and their shareholders second. Which means if the state demands that they follow certain rules of conduct with their employees, companies will be forced to do so. Further, a corporation's articles of incorporation may be terminated by the state through a court order at will. Convention (and rational economic policy) deems it necessary for the state to revoke articles of incorporation very rarely. Further, certain states may set legislation which sets limits to for revoking and refusing incorporation articles within strict guidelines. However, federal and state constitutions do not give corporations "inalienable rights". Those are reserved for human beings, and will remain so without a constitutional amendment. --M
"Employers aren't "granted" the right to fire you for what you do on our spare time at all. That's a natural right they have, and the government can only step in to intervene when society has deemed those reasons improper[...]"
Corporations are "granted" the right to exist as soon as the state registers their articles of incorporation. The state has a right to confirm or deny articles of incorporation, as well as revoke those articles by court order at a future date. Thus, employers are -- by definition -- "granted" rights by the state. Further, corporations and other organizations can NEVER have inalienable rights; that is something expressed within our constitution that is limited ONLY to human beings. Corporations and other organizations have NO natural rights.
However, you seem to support the notion that businesses should have every right to terminate employment "at will" for any reason whatsoever. And consider the right of an employee to resign "at will" gives equitable parity to this arrangement. I think Adam Smith would disagree. Speaking of the power relationship between the employee and business holder, as well as foreseeing the potential for future unionization disputes. Smith says:
"It is not, however, difficult to forsee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen." - Wealth of Nations, Book I, Ch. "Wages of Labor"
Smith was actually quite concerned about power disparities between labor and employers leading to massive immoral conduct by employers. He knew very well who were the "masters" and was quite open to the use of government authority to curb unreasonable abuse of power. And while he is considered a paean of free trade due to his theories on capital allocation inefficiencies due to protectionist policies, he would have been the first to say that certain market inefficiency are still desireable by society, even if the misallocate capital in the process. I suspect he would consider our transfer of high technology manufacturing and engineering skills overseas outright policy insanity.
Anyway, your employer doesn't have a "right" to squat. The owners of that business have the same inalienable "rights" as do us all. The business the own, however, is bound to abide by whatever civil law legislators deem desirable.
"In 1997, blogging pioneer Cameron Barrett lost a job at a small marketing firm in Michigan after co-workers stumbled upon "experimental" short stories from his creative writing class on his site. Now, he's much more cautious, and he suspended his blog while campaigning for Wesley Clark during the Democratic presidential primaries."
Yes, employment is "at will". Does that mean that employers should have the write to fire an employee for publishing a novel written on personal time? Or should society place limits on employers rights to fire employees over off work hours speech unrelated to their job? Personally, I think giving employers the right to squelch employees by threat of arbitrary termination hands them a bit too much power. What you say (unrelated to work) on your own time is your own business and not that of the employer. JMO. --M
Miniaturization doesn't have much to do with calculator features/quality.
Maybe not. But it would dramatically affect manufacturing costs in high volume. Assuming the same volume as in 1980, it's certainly cheaper per unit to manufacture a calculator with the same features today than before. Everything from better tooling at the plant to fewer raw materials per unit would drive manufacturing costs down. This could be translated to either more features at the same cost or cheaper end-consumer prices. This is certainly a great "benefit" of increasing electronics density. Anyway, I doubt the person at HP who said that expected those words to be used a full 25 years later.
This plus durability is IMHO why the older calculators are so prized[...]
But are they prized among enough potential consumers to constitute a profitable market for a manufacturer? I'm not saying it would be unprofitable, only that since few have entered the market it appears that way. Further, I said that the high prices seen on the used market doesn't constitute evidence that a viable market exists for highly durable (or even cheap and disposable) scientific calculators today.
Yes, there are times when a cheap, disposable product can make sense to both the producer and consumer.... But in general I don't think electronics are in that category.
I think "real world" evidence in the market shows that among consumers and manufacturers you appear to be in the minority here. JMO. --M
From me personally HP sure doesn't get any recurring anymore sales because their current product is crap.
Well, right. As others have pointed out, HP ate their R&D seed corn. However, that doesn't discount the value of considering recurring sales to a profitable marketing plan (and even to end consumers). Even if you (as an individual, and others - as the Ebay market shows) prefer the sturdier old models, with a bit of research one could prove that in certain circumstances cheaper and less sturdy manufacturing will maximizing profits. And in an environment of fast technological innovation, disposable calculators could easily make better economic sense for consumers than a rugged high quality product (and that's even factoring in disposal costs).
Are those old HP calculators "better" than the "best" scientific calculators on the market today? Well, yeah. But that's not because miniaturization of computing technology has stagnated. Instead, it's likely because few large businesses believe it's worth spending the capital necessary to mass manufacture new scientific calculators. Which is lamentable. But that old HP calculators are sturdy and still good, does not mean that all cheap disposable products are bad. Only that the high prices seen in the used calculator market are poor indicators of a profitable market for a new productline. --M
[...]while that 25 year old model has keys that still work perfectly, with no sign of wear on key labels.
Yeah. My dad bought an HP-67 back in the late '70s and continued using it until right before he passed away in 2000. It still works. My sister has it; I have no idea is she uses it or cares. But I can confirm the near indestructibility of those things. Which doesn't much help recurring sales, though. *cough!* --M
"Bill Hewlett used to remind us that "The marketing guys said the HP-35 would be a failure because it was too small, and then we couldn't make them fast enough to meet the demand. The marketing folks don't know everything."
Because it was too small. Talk about misreading a market. Computing became ubiquitous entirely because of continuing miniaturization. Of course marketers would argue that they've now learned their lesson. They won't make that mistake again! No. They'll make some other ridiculous mistake. Not because they're stupid people, but because they don't understand current technology limitations and how trends imply change upon those limitations. Presumably, those former marketers thought "bigger meant better". Bigger cars were "better", right? They didn't see the potential utility of a pocket calculator, just as some will miss the utility of some other invention or advancement.
Marketing is fine as a tool for finding products people want. But it's useless for determining if a completely new technology might create or revolutionize a market. See the Dyson vacuum cleaner as another example of marketers misreading how new technology might completely change a mature market. Marketing works best only after the marketers understand a technology and its limitations, in coordination with traditional market analysis. Not prior. --M
Because Apple is the New Microsoft. They use courts to squelch free speech rights of those who would impart Apple trade secrets to the public; they legally commit restraint of trade by mixing proprietary hardware with proprietary software so competitors can't break into their non-monopoly markets with alternative products; and they don't give all their code away for free, but instead select to give away or hold secret that which maximizes profit for their shareholders. Evil bastards! *cough!* --M
Slashdot Mirror
I think he was pretty clear about calling it a rant.
I'm getting too many responses too quickly to respond to them all. I'll choose this one as a representative of the majority. Basically, those countering my position that the author's article is irresponsible (honestly, the editor is more at fault) commonly state either that it is a "rant" (which the author does say). They say that it is and editorial and thus immune to standards of journalistic ethics.
Not so. Editorials are certainly given more sway on assertions of opinion, but not claims of fact. For an author to ethically assert wrongdoing on the part of a specific entity (s)he should provide at least some documentation, and sourced quotes (even anonymous quotes accepted as valid by the editor is fine). Printing an editorial doesn't give the author (and his editor) full impunity to catagorically assert whatever they want without supporting evidence (even if it's true). Please see the Poyntr school of Journalism's web site on Journalistic Ethics for additional details (that site is filled with a great deal of information).
Cheers,
--Maynard
These are accusations of bribery and conflict(s) of interest against unspecified hardware review sites. Without naming the organization(s) and specific instances of bribery, with resulting proof, this is just irresponsible hand waving. Journalists are supposed to print facts. It's important to realize the distinction between whether bribery is taking place (possibly so), and whether this article in question backs up the assertion of bribery with documentation and quotable sources on the record. It does not. IMO: This article does NOT deserve this level of publicity, nor did it deserve publication. --M
[political fingerpointing snipped as irrelevant]
... But we haven't gotten any scientifically worthwhile, manifestly surprising, or unexpected data from it for years. The only thing surprising about the Voyager mission is how long it's lasted."
"Degrees in engineering and physics aside, you still shouldn't trust me."
I don't.
"Voyager has had a *30 year mission*.
Well, that's a very interesting assertion. You claim that the Voyager probes haven't sent, nor have we haven't received any scientifically worthwhile data from the probes in years. I simply don't believe this. Not just because you say so, but because scientists related quoted in the previous article say just the opposite. As referenced in that Newscientist article on 13 anomalies that don't make sense, there are real questions about shifts in the velocity and travelled distance in the Pioneer probes that the Voyager probes could shed additional light upon with further data collection. There's at least one specific question worth answering with that additional data. And probably many more. I've yet to see any factual basis for your claims to the contrary. Not even a cite; bias regardless.
"But if you think it's George W Bush personally making decisions to pull the plug on Voyager, you kind of need to get a fucking grip. Budgets get reprioritized[...]"
No. I think it's members of his cabinet furthering Bush's stated policy objectives, flowing down the ranks through to undersecretaries and Republican members of congress who make these specific and individual budgetary decisions. So what? The issue is relative merit of that decision, not party affiliation and political association. I argue that it's a bad decision. Period. Do I still need to "[...] get a fucking grip" for disagreeing? Should party affiliation trump agreement or disagreement on specific policy and budgetary goals, or must we all walk in lock step with the party faithful regardless of outcome?
"Lose your emotional and symbolic ties to Voyager and seriously think about what information that would be really valid that they could return simply because they've crossed an artificial boundary?"
Who's the one being emotional here? I and others have already cited arguments to continue collecting data. You have ignored these arguments, repeating the same tautological assertion that the data is worthless because it is worthless without a factual response. IMO, this only damages the credibility of your position. --M
[...]
"If you want to use it as an excuse to Bush-bash (not saying YOU are doing that specifically), or, startlingly, make irrelevant and nonsensical references to the US apparently devolving into the former USSR, because we won't continue to fund a useless project, go for it. Everyone else is, comrade."
Dropping the partisan issues here, let me ask: what expertise in the fields of space science, astronomy, and physics, do you posess which give scientific validity to your claims of the low relative worth of future Voyager data? Why should I believe you when specialists in the field are quoted as saying that the data is highly valuable, especially given the low collection cost? How about some facts instead of hot air? --M
And I haven't bothered to see it on my PSP either. Just not interested. I would have vastly prefered a copy of Lumines bundled with the PSP instead. --M
Yeah. But it was one of those 30 second news breaks during a commercial. My bet if that they were reading from a Sony PR release claiming to have sold out. By what logic only PR brains can understand...
Yeah. It's just a toy. As long as it's fun to play or does useful stuff I'll carry it around. I will say that the screen is definitely good enough to read an ebook with, and shows promise for web browsing. Strange I just saw on a CBS news break that the PSP sold out all 1 million units; they must mean Sony sold all units to stores, because there's no way all those 1 million units actually sold to customers. Well, whatever. I still want Quake III arena ported - and I'm stick'n to my story! :) --M
Well, I'm no Sony "loyalist". I bought this thing because it does stuff that the other handhelds can't. I've been waiting for a unit with this kind of screen quality and raw CPU power for several years. So I've never bought a Nintendo handheld simply because it doesn't do what I want, not out of like or dislike for Nintendo products. And I bought this on features alone, not love for Sony (who are just another company with some good and some bad products).
That said: I'm 37, not 10. If I had kids there's no way I would buy this thing for them. It's not just the price, but the thing is quite delicate. Between moving parts for the optical drive and the large (do NOT drop!) screen, there's no way this thing could survive the kind of damage a kid wealds. And just the image of this thing in a sandbox makes me cringe. For the 6 - 12yo crowd, yeah the GBA looks very durable and cheap enough to replace when the kid runs it through the washer or steps on it.
I actually feel fairly confidant that the PSP will do well enough among the 20s - 30s crowd to build a successful market. Next Christmas will be an important test of its viability. With a decent title selection and a drop to $200 it should sell well. If not, well I may have made a bad long term purchase. We'll see... --M
OK. I've said this before in a prior post, but I just can't get the idea out of my head. I want Quake III Arena ported to the PSP! I mean, how many times can Id get my money for that damn game? Bought it for Linux - check; bought it for the PS2 - check; bought it for the Mac - check. And each time I plunk the money down I feel ashamed for buying the same thing on another platform. Until I begin fragging, that is. Then I get all warm and fuzzy inside. :) Why do I love that old game so?
Will someone please port Q3A to the PSP? Pretty please?!?!?!
I know this seems silly, but what I want is Quake III Arena ported to this thing. It's got plenty of horsepower for Q3A, so why the hell not? With the USB port, can I please have keyboard+mouse support too? And wireless support so I can play online? Man... Ya know, it amazes me that Q3A is *still* fun after all these years. :)
And yeah - I like it a lot. However, it's quite apparent that the unit isn't selling like hotcakes. Every store I went to had plenty of stock available (Sears, Best Buy, EB Games, Target). What wasn't available were copies of Luminens and Ridge Racer, I had to poke through numerous stores in order to find copies of both.
The unit is beautiful and worth the money. Why isn't it selling? I don't know, but I'll hazard a few guesses:
a) No display units available. Not a single store of those four had a display unit to show potential buyers. Few people are willing to shell out $250 for a game device they've never seen perform.
b) It's a bit too expensive. Yes, it's worth the money for what you get, but it isn't cheap for a toy.
c) Game selection is limited. Yes, sixteen titles on launch. But only a few were selling well, and two (Luminens and Ridge Racer) were selling out.
So... am I glad I bought the unit? Yes! And oh yeah, did I buy the "rip off" Best Buy two-year protection plan? Yes! (hey, the damn thing has moving parts!) Now... time to check out that ebook thingy I saw in the article header. --M
I bet you want a Plamsa TV hanging from your ceiling in your bedroom.
No. But I do want a second TV sitting on my burrow next to the bed on my right. That way when I get sick of looking front on at the first TV I can just turn onto my side and... there's another TV! But don't thank me for that little bit of genius; Andy Richter, he's da man. --M
Interesting link. Which, if you believe a ~70 year projection, (*cough!* yeah right *cough!*) shows that S.S. isn't much of a problem, but Medicaid, Medicare, and interest will become an unsustainable nightmare. --M
3. According to the NY Times a month ago, the current budget breakdown is:
Military 19%
Interest 8%
Medicaid 8%
Medicare 13%
Social Security 21%
Other nondiscretionary 13%
Nonmilitary discretionary 18%
This can't possibly be right. I'd like to see a link to the NY Times article in question. Just two anomalies:
The military budget in FY05 was ~$500B spent in just under ~$2T for total expenditures. That's more like 25%. To be under 20% they would have to have spend less than $400B which is clearly bogus, especially given the $86B supplemental request for two ongoing wars. How does that make 19% of the budget?
Regarding interest on the debt: The treasury makes interest payment data available to the public:
Available Historical Data
FISCAL Year End
2004 $321,566,323,971.29
2003 $318,148,529,151.51
2002 $332,536,958,599.42
2001 $359,507,635,242.41
2000 $361,997,734,302.36
1999 $353,511,471,722.87
1998 $363,823,722,920.26
1997 $355,795,834,214.66
1996 $343,955,076,695.15
1995 $332,413,555,030.62
1994 $296,277,764,246.26
1993 $292,502,219,484.25
1992 $292,361,073,070.74
1991 $286,021,921,181.04
1990 $264,852,544,615.90
1989 $240,863,231,535.71
1988 $214,145,028,847.73
I assume this table is raw dollars and doesn't factor inflation. I'm having difficultly finding a similar table of yearly federal budget totals, though the government does provide an interface to d/l data raw data for each budget. However, just taking FY2004 and assuming $2T (which is larger than the actual budget) and you get much more than 8% total budgetary expenditure for interest on the debt. More like 12% - 13%. It's worse than that because I think the actual budget was somewhere around $1.7T.\
4. In 2003 the social security surplus was 68 Billion. That's a lot of money, but the annual increase in total federal spending for each of the past 5 years is higher than that. (The range is 75-147 billion). In other words, if you held spending even, instead of increasing it, for one year, you'd be able to stop taking any money from the social security surplus for the general budget.
Speaking of S.S. surpluses in no way answers the original question. If you yank S.S. as a program, would you be willing to yank the payroll taxes used to finance the program as well? If so, how would you pay for the federal deficit? Would you continue to borrow?
Cheers,
--Maynard
1) You list two doublings of raw tax income increases across nearly twenty-five years. Are you factoring in combined inflation and currency (dollar) depriciation into your numbers?
2) As a percentage of GDP, how much more or less does the federal government take in through taxation between 1980 vs. 2005?
3) How much of the federal budget is used to pay interest on the debt vs. military spending vs. spending programs such as NSF, DOE, Education, HUD, Medicare/Medicaid, etc?
4) If one were to end Social Security, would ending the payrol tax be appropriate? If so, how would one pay for the military and service debt? Cut all social programs from the federal budget and there is still a significant shortfall. Or would you keep the payroll tax and end S.S. at the same time?
Curious,
--Maynard
Except I referenced another person in the article who was fired for posting fiction written while taking a class off company hours. Is it reasonable to allow a company to fire someone for unrelated work done off hours which in no way references the employer? I think not. "At will" should have limits, IMO. --M
It's about the companies rights.
"We hold these rights to be self evident..." refers to human beings, not social organizations. When were companies granted "human rights"? Companies have obligations to the state first, and their shareholders second. Which means if the state demands that they follow certain rules of conduct with their employees, companies will be forced to do so. Further, a corporation's articles of incorporation may be terminated by the state through a court order at will. Convention (and rational economic policy) deems it necessary for the state to revoke articles of incorporation very rarely. Further, certain states may set legislation which sets limits to for revoking and refusing incorporation articles within strict guidelines. However, federal and state constitutions do not give corporations "inalienable rights". Those are reserved for human beings, and will remain so without a constitutional amendment. --M
"Employers aren't "granted" the right to fire you for what you do on our spare time at all. That's a natural right they have, and the government can only step in to intervene when society has deemed those reasons improper[...]"
Corporations are "granted" the right to exist as soon as the state registers their articles of incorporation. The state has a right to confirm or deny articles of incorporation, as well as revoke those articles by court order at a future date. Thus, employers are -- by definition -- "granted" rights by the state. Further, corporations and other organizations can NEVER have inalienable rights; that is something expressed within our constitution that is limited ONLY to human beings. Corporations and other organizations have NO natural rights.
However, you seem to support the notion that businesses should have every right to terminate employment "at will" for any reason whatsoever. And consider the right of an employee to resign "at will" gives equitable parity to this arrangement. I think Adam Smith would disagree. Speaking of the power relationship between the employee and business holder, as well as foreseeing the potential for future unionization disputes. Smith says:
"It is not, however, difficult to forsee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen." - Wealth of Nations, Book I, Ch. "Wages of Labor"
Smith was actually quite concerned about power disparities between labor and employers leading to massive immoral conduct by employers. He knew very well who were the "masters" and was quite open to the use of government authority to curb unreasonable abuse of power. And while he is considered a paean of free trade due to his theories on capital allocation inefficiencies due to protectionist policies, he would have been the first to say that certain market inefficiency are still desireable by society, even if the misallocate capital in the process. I suspect he would consider our transfer of high technology manufacturing and engineering skills overseas outright policy insanity.
Anyway, your employer doesn't have a "right" to squat. The owners of that business have the same inalienable "rights" as do us all. The business the own, however, is bound to abide by whatever civil law legislators deem desirable.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Yes, employment is "at will". Does that mean that employers should have the write to fire an employee for publishing a novel written on personal time? Or should society place limits on employers rights to fire employees over off work hours speech unrelated to their job? Personally, I think giving employers the right to squelch employees by threat of arbitrary termination hands them a bit too much power. What you say (unrelated to work) on your own time is your own business and not that of the employer. JMO. --M
They refuse to port their OS to x86 because they're using their software to sell their proprietary hardware solution.
"Share and enjoy!" darwinx86-602.iso.gz
"Why, it tastes not quite unlike tea!"
Miniaturization doesn't have much to do with calculator features/quality.
... But in general I don't think electronics are in that category.
Maybe not. But it would dramatically affect manufacturing costs in high volume. Assuming the same volume as in 1980, it's certainly cheaper per unit to manufacture a calculator with the same features today than before. Everything from better tooling at the plant to fewer raw materials per unit would drive manufacturing costs down. This could be translated to either more features at the same cost or cheaper end-consumer prices. This is certainly a great "benefit" of increasing electronics density. Anyway, I doubt the person at HP who said that expected those words to be used a full 25 years later.
This plus durability is IMHO why the older calculators are so prized[...]
But are they prized among enough potential consumers to constitute a profitable market for a manufacturer? I'm not saying it would be unprofitable, only that since few have entered the market it appears that way. Further, I said that the high prices seen on the used market doesn't constitute evidence that a viable market exists for highly durable (or even cheap and disposable) scientific calculators today.
Yes, there are times when a cheap, disposable product can make sense to both the producer and consumer.
I think "real world" evidence in the market shows that among consumers and manufacturers you appear to be in the minority here. JMO. --M
From me personally HP sure doesn't get any recurring anymore sales because their current product is crap.
Well, right. As others have pointed out, HP ate their R&D seed corn. However, that doesn't discount the value of considering recurring sales to a profitable marketing plan (and even to end consumers). Even if you (as an individual, and others - as the Ebay market shows) prefer the sturdier old models, with a bit of research one could prove that in certain circumstances cheaper and less sturdy manufacturing will maximizing profits. And in an environment of fast technological innovation, disposable calculators could easily make better economic sense for consumers than a rugged high quality product (and that's even factoring in disposal costs).
Are those old HP calculators "better" than the "best" scientific calculators on the market today? Well, yeah. But that's not because miniaturization of computing technology has stagnated. Instead, it's likely because few large businesses believe it's worth spending the capital necessary to mass manufacture new scientific calculators. Which is lamentable. But that old HP calculators are sturdy and still good, does not mean that all cheap disposable products are bad. Only that the high prices seen in the used calculator market are poor indicators of a profitable market for a new productline. --M
[...]while that 25 year old model has keys that still work perfectly, with no sign of wear on key labels.
Yeah. My dad bought an HP-67 back in the late '70s and continued using it until right before he passed away in 2000. It still works. My sister has it; I have no idea is she uses it or cares. But I can confirm the near indestructibility of those things. Which doesn't much help recurring sales, though. *cough!* --M
But I like this quote:
"Bill Hewlett used to remind us that "The marketing guys said the HP-35 would be a failure because it was too small, and then we couldn't make them fast enough to meet the demand. The marketing folks don't know everything."
Because it was too small. Talk about misreading a market. Computing became ubiquitous entirely because of continuing miniaturization. Of course marketers would argue that they've now learned their lesson. They won't make that mistake again! No. They'll make some other ridiculous mistake. Not because they're stupid people, but because they don't understand current technology limitations and how trends imply change upon those limitations. Presumably, those former marketers thought "bigger meant better". Bigger cars were "better", right? They didn't see the potential utility of a pocket calculator, just as some will miss the utility of some other invention or advancement.
Marketing is fine as a tool for finding products people want. But it's useless for determining if a completely new technology might create or revolutionize a market. See the Dyson vacuum cleaner as another example of marketers misreading how new technology might completely change a mature market. Marketing works best only after the marketers understand a technology and its limitations, in coordination with traditional market analysis. Not prior. --M
Because Apple is the New Microsoft. They use courts to squelch free speech rights of those who would impart Apple trade secrets to the public; they legally commit restraint of trade by mixing proprietary hardware with proprietary software so competitors can't break into their non-monopoly markets with alternative products; and they don't give all their code away for free, but instead select to give away or hold secret that which maximizes profit for their shareholders. Evil bastards! *cough!* --M