Do you think welfare recipients treat their children as some sort of livestock, having kids just to get more welfare money?
Not all - but many - Yes - and often for drugs. That is the major reason even the democrats have emplemented "workfare." Entitlements for working age persons is a nightmare.
Give them a job.
Spending money on foreign countries is much more of a black hole than giving money to our citizens. Unless the foreign countries use that money to buy things from the United States then it isn't returning into the economy.
I couldn't agree more - and yet. We use money given to Egypt to bribe the powerful in egypt (Mushareff) to bribe other people in Egypt not to stir up the people against Israel. The common people see very little of this - as it is probably used to benefit the families of suicide bombers in palastine.
That's a mess. Our foriegn investment strategy has always been short sighted. Instead of giving money to foriegn travellers as micro-emessaries mono e mono we give it to the Saud family which in turn deprives the common people into a state of rebellion.
I doubt that many welfare recipients don't spend their money. In fact, seeing as how many on welfare can't afford to keep a large bank account balance, giving money to welfare is practically a direct line for government funds to return to the economy.
That is the kind of rational which can make a millionaire out of a billionaire.
Welfare is an enducement for the poor to make more children. Children which we can reasonably predict will grow up disadvantaged - require a disporportionate amount of the teachers attention at school - driving up the cost of education for everyone as a percent of GNP which translates to fewer people working to generate real GNP. Which children are disportionately predisposed to being on welfare.
When I was in Hungary - I lived in state - run orphanages, and I would suggest that the children were better cared for, treated more affectionately, and generally healthier than your average welfare child in the United States. They will all very likely become productive members of society - they take care of each other and they are not forced to pattern their lives after the failed model of their parents.
I think it is true that it takes a Village to raise a child, and that as a responsible Village we should intervene in families which fail, rather than proping them up and pretending that what is not working is.
When I "helped" orphans in Hungary - the Orphans "Helped" me back. I would go so far as to say it was one of the more enriching experiences of my life. Helping others DIRECTLY is a luxury.
However, governments help noone - they transfer wealth through a blind trust in which the exchange of help for enrichment is reduced to a zero sum game.
When the government helps individuals - they do so by anti-helping the alternative absolutely.
Welfare takes money - but it puts the money into a black hole - welfare receipents will breed to fill the available funds.
Putting money into research, education, even military on the other hand will cause some trickle down - because researchers need starbucks, teachers need houses, and haliburton hires bankrupt dairy farmers to drive trucks.
The real question when the government signs a check is how many times will that check echo within our tax system BEFORE being expatriated to an overpopulated zero GNP domain.
We are losing our economy because we are spending money in a fashion poorly opyimized for maximum GNP.
For example: medicine - for max GNP we should preserve our education expenses by treating desease - but not by spending three times the education expense on insurance so that we can afford a half million dollars of hospitalisation in the last three months of life.
education: We need to see productivity gains here. Unions need to join in the fight for global competativeness - teachers unions is a form of welfare. We should pay good teachers more, and lose the unproductive teachers.
welfare - everyone family should be garenteed one job (pay by the piece) and one child in university - if you have more children than you can handle you should agree (not to have more kids) before the government writes a check (after 2 kids)
Axiom 1. We do not - nor have we ever experience a lack of population.
Therefore solving the problem of death at overwhelming cost to society may be a waste of time.
India for example doesn't try nearly as hard as we do to keep people alive, and yet they seem quite capable of fielding an educated workforce to compete with ours.
My point is that medicine at the level we have adopted is not a competative advantage in competing for an equal share of world trade (A competition we are LOSING quite dramatically I might add.
They don't have oddles of lawyers and yet they are able to compete for our best jobs.
They don't have stadiums filled with jocks and jock watchers and yet they are able to compete for our best jobs.
The point is that we need to understand competative advantage and invest in whatever it is that it means.
You can't tell me that "good plumbing" has improved our quality of life more than eradicating smallpox or inventing bubble-gum flavored amoxicillin or supplemental oxygen for people with emphysema.
No - I'm quite sure that I can. The benefit of moving good water in and bad water out is the fundamental requirement for dense population - which are the genesis of every other advantage in advanced civilizations. Taming water is the first milestone of progress.
And the point - is thaere is a huge return on taming water - there is much less of a return to society as a result of many of our highest paid professions:
Althlets ? - Plueeeze Doctors - good - but more limited than we admit. Lawyers - very low Actors - also quite low
We have crafted a culture which is making little progress because the highest paid professions are not pulling the culture forward in terms of competing for a globally viable economy.
The standard of living we have attained is the transient effect of world servitude. We are trading in the equity of the honest economic gains of the two-working family in a fair employment industrial growth era ignited and fueled by WWII for a temporary peak in standard of living (expensive foriegn cars and cheap consumer goods).
And i sugegst here the reason is our focus is on four primary groups which cannot help us compete for quality of living in an open trade future.
We should refocus on skills which serve the end of world competition.
This is not to dis doctors lawyer and such, it is to point out that we need to undestand sustainable GNP.
The good - if there be good under the terms of "the selfish gene" is diversity as you say.
immoral genes then are genes which reduce diversity.
Say for sake of argumant that we populate the planet by building huge polluting cities and breed in essence a select genome which can tolerate the effects of polution.
We would then eliminate the alternatiivee.
That is the crime in helping people.
When you help one person - you UNHELP another.
I know that is said in provocative langauage - and as a world traveller who has spent time in orphanges in budapest and other parts of hungary - the self righteous among you can park it for a moment.
I'm talking about institutionalized "help". I'm talking transfer of wealth.
Just for example.
in the US we have welfare - that takes money FROM ME and gives it to other people's children. As a result my wife an I decide not to have a second child.
That is a criminal wealth transfer which "helps" one family at the direct expense of another.
I would argue that the justice system creates justice.
Lawyers create a unique language and distance the common man from his right to understand the language of justice - not entirely different from the catholic church carrying on in f'en latin - in order to deny people the meaning of their art.
- other than this - I agree that lawyers create an abstract and important good - but you will see a limit to the good they can create - for example - ENRON cost billions of dollars - justice will not be able to reconstruct the wealth for those who lost it in this case - and this is the growth sector for corruption.
Justice has proved it can incarcerate major portions of minority groups for health related reasons - that's justice?
OK you win.
Having said the medicine is a self defeating proposition - It could if applied with restraint improve the qualityt of life - without restraint it merely moves the suffering to a new vector.
Restraint would amount to simultaneous population control by some metric or method.
The exact same is true of welfare - without replacing the population control aspect of desease and famine - we end up with exploding population growth - which is a "cancer" in its own right - with very similar results - the choking out of diversity, asphexiation - due in part to driving etc etc etc.
The original post was written poorly and is inflamatory in its lack of explaination - but the thought is sound.
It appears we have created huge attractive salaried for non GDP professions.
Lawyers as a class contribute very litte to the GNP - but they enjoy high and protected wages.
Doctoring (hate to say it) but doctoring is a statistically self defeating enteprise (We ensure the ability of the weakest genes to survive and procreate - increasing the number of weak genes and polluters - creating more desease, war, famine, and additional work for doctors) This is challenging - but doctoring does not affect the quality of life as much as (for example) good plumbing.
I think we over invest in technologies beyond the point of diminishing returns.
Look at cars and roads - wider roads means faster commutes means more people move away from work creating longer commute, more congestion - and finally the need for more cars and more roads.
We are spending our wealth in self-defeating enterprises. (Welfare encourages larger families of dependancy minded)
The CD format could have included a unique serial number for each disk (via barcode for example)
If fact - it may still be possible.
If one could print over the data bits, and then programatically discern which sectors had been obscurred - one could reveal a serial number.
Such serial number could track copies, make duplication (more) problematic and set the bar fairly.
Without copy protection - the bar is consumer dictated which means the cost is disporportionately assigned to the honest.
Honor system make for horrible game strategy in an anonymous world.
distribute the cost fairly by a mechanism to ensure everyone pays the same price.
As a consumer - I have the right to the same price as anyone else - if some people can get it for free - I am entitled to that price.
I understand that in some case "free" is outside the EULA - but it may not be outside the "Marketing Plan"
Take Word for example. Marketing plan:
Let everyone use it for "free."
Let all highschool kids get used to using it for their homework - then magically when they go to work - MSWord is the defacto standard - why BECAUSE IT IS FREE - at least effectively and intentially free to an introductory audience.
That is a kind of bait and switch - and this is the flip side of piracy - the use of "the first one is always free" marketing.
Fair market rules:
1. Charge everyone the same price for the same thing.
2. Giving the product away in order to leverage the price later on is a distortion of the free markets ability to choose the best product at the best price.
Education has incredible costs - the cost of educating a programmer is still considerable in India - especially if that education is any good. Thus the cost of programmers is still rather high.
The issue is that in America - we attach social costs to production - while the cost to participate in the market as an importer is near zero.
US companies benefit from the market benefits of the social system while electing not to participate in the costs.
(Example their customers enjoy higher purchasing power because of their state sponsered education - which benefit they enjoy by selling the product at a premium. Also the police state is available to protect their intellectual property rights - this police state is paid for by production based taxes - BUT by producing the product overseas - they can opt-out of the burden of the social system from which they benefit on the market side.
Complicated economics - but very important stuff to understand.
Must stop using blind labels and understand the essential moving parts of a government-economy
Part 1. Social Costs (Goes up wth population) This includes Medicine, retirement, and welfare
Part 2 Police Costs This is the cost of making the world safe for capitalism - it includes all Police department and the military - also private security
Part 3 Taxes This includes all manner of collecting money to pay for Part 1 and 2. Note for example that Unions have the effect of raising costs while securing medical care and retirement. That makes Unions merely a label for a kind of production tax.
The only fair tax in a global market in which production CANNOT be taxed equally - is a consumption tax. This amortizes the cost of police and social costs into the entirety of the market without regard for the nation of origion of the consumed good or services.
It promotes worldwide competition by lowering the unrelated costs of production while simultaneously raising the cost of imports (when compared to a production tax system which unfairly taxes local goods at the expense of imported goods.
Consumption taxes are the only winning endgame in a global free market.
There is a marketing strategy which is DEPENDANT on (what is here called piracy) But its double speak. Nobody steals our software because we protect it with a dongle.
If we let people steal it - it would be more popular - but we would probably not ever see a point in which market saturation rendered the product a requisite (such as is MS OFFICE).
The point is as you say - the cunts as they say - are spreading the good word at a cost - the designers WANT the product to spread - and the WANT to call the spreaders criminals so they can charge AFTER the product becomes popular.
I suggest this double standard is illegal. They should require everyone top pay - and use means to require payment - or allow free use - but software vendors are not entitled to a confused state in which the product is viable only because it has been freely shared by design.
The fact that they COULD lock up their content - and they CHOOSE NOT to lock up their content is a vote for free distribution in which the act says more than the doublespeak.
I know from experience that you can create a soft circular vignette by filters placed at the front of the primary lens.
Thus empiricly - you are right - a majority of the light passes through the primary lens in a somewhat focussed manner.
If the fStop if higher, the light can be thought of as focused throughout.
Therefore the degree to which the outside of the lens is important changes with aperture, and I believe with focal distance.
Still, if you make a smaller lens then you are to some extent moving the outside closer?
Important here is that a lens is more than just a focusing device - it is also a triangulation device which renders a very important perception of depth.
Anyone dismissing the importance of depth of field is merely a rank amateur.
All that said - I find the rate of capture to be the feature I look at most. When using my Olympus, i am usually satisfied with the quality of the picture and frustrated at the capture rate - worse in video mode.
I just bought an electric assisted bicycle, and If i were planning a trip behind enemy lines - i might choose the bicycle and an inflatable raft as you suggest as my vehicles of choice because i could carry them over or through just about anything.
The Helium however is hyperbole. just filling something with helium doesn't do it - you need a lot of space - you aren't even within a few orders of magnitude on your lighter than air pontoons.
The absence of positional informatin for a given layer - makes it difficult if not impossible to automate the replacement of a template layer with novel content (as an image)
Text objects DO support position.
Again - its not the capability of the calling language - but the properties exposed in the automation layer.
And no I am not talking about "Actions" the built in dead reckoning scripty thing.
which seems to be a perfect fit for most mac users - makes one wonder . ..
The Advantage is in forested terrain - which is also important for hiding from helicopters etc...
Someone else mentioned helicopters as an ideal ATV.
I would suggest the recent "unpleasantness" suggests that helicopters are their own worst enemy.
This vehicle may be ideal for retrieving heleicopter pilots from enemy territory - they can get through the jungle - they can be ported over fallen trees - a good deal like motorcycles - only somewhat lighter perhaps.
I believe that offshore programming is the customer reaction to being mislead by poor programming stateside.
In short - the customer says the computer should save time by making information easy to enter and get to. So they put out for the lowest bid - they get crap, and then they want it changed (it breaks) and the project is up in smoke.
That they can get in india. They can start fail - start fail, and finally get something working for the price of a single faiure in the US.
To keep customers here - we need scalable solutions.
It's also possible, I suppose, to puke out some crappy code to meet some fool's idea of a specification. I wouldn't know.
Well Said.
My experience suggests that if you let the customer lead you - you will go down a blind alley - and then the customer will see some other company with a better solution and dump you faster than you can can say - oh if you like it like that we'll change it.
Information has rules.
I think the father of Visual Basic said when you choose the name of something try to find a name near the front of the thesauras (general concepts) and stay away from the high numbered words (Specifics).
My guess is Rose is an expensive way to automate function declarations.
I just use Access - not often but when I want to finese the properties of a class so the class is live, responsive, and effecient it's nice to be able to change the formation of the property procedures quickly.
Ramble Ramble.
I wrote a program in 1995 which is still in use - it was my first product and I'm amazed its stil being used - but it was written fiercly generic and it has held up well.
The thing that has me unable to switch to Photoshop is its hopelessly borked automation.
There is a scripting system for photoshop - but it is lame and incomplete.
For example layer objects in Photoshop have no size or position properties under the automation interface.
Corel by contrast has supported objects with usual properties under automation since 1995 - that's almost ten years before Photoshop and they still haven't caught up.
The argument that nobody uses scripting is lame - since it doesn't work - its a given that it won't be used - so nobody uses it - so it - the point is that its in there. Actions have been an important part of Photoshop for a lomng time - but actions are limited - they can't do referential manipulation (reduce resolution on n number of dissimilar images).
Not only is the USA not the center of the Univers - it is the last place on Earth I would want to be.
America is afflicted with a cancerous desease known as Cars. It has pushed its houses aparts - its people apart and it poisens them with cancerous monoxide. We are drownding in our own vomit.
My wife if not from America, and my child was in five countries before she was born. I have visted Mexico - a developing country, and lived in Hungary, Ukraine, and Egypt.
I'm not fluent in anything but English, but I can greet a person in Spanish, Hungarian and Russian and figure out how to buy bread or condoms or whatever I'm needing at the moment.
America is the best place to be from.
But still the United States manages to produce a disportportionate number of new ideas - that has to be recognized - not jingoistically, but intellectually - and inquizitavely.
I feel as though my thoughts have been run through a blender.
I don't really have a beef with the RAII per se - but I see how they represent the locus of my concern.
My complaint is tragic irony - there is no enemy.
The complaint again is that Thomas Edisen has changed the face of music by creating the recording machine.
Imagine how Blogs such as this will suffer when turing finally invents the dialectic machine - the program that can create interactive dialogue as good or better than a human.
Conversations such as this one will be manufactored based on the cookies on one's browser perhaps with a complete pool of competing ideas expressed in one's language - centered on one's personal beliefs with the sole intent of pursuading the viewer a. that he is superb, b. that the other people in the blog are real, c. that he should considering buying a particular product which is unnecessary.
The point is that technology can render certain human experiences moot.
Recording has rendered many live musicians unnecessary and moot.
I am wistful for this reason - perhaps i miss that world - but the fact is I have never lived in the alternate reality of live music being appreciated - but that too is not true - I once played in an irish pub in Germany - it was truly great! But it was only one night - Where I live (The South) a recording of some country music is as good or better than anything real.
Slashdot Mirror
For $1,100 i just purchased an electric assisted Bicycle.
It amounts to a $300 bike with a built in $700 electric motor assist.
The motor gets me up hills, and up to speed quickly so that I spend most of my 40 minute commute at the top speed of 19 MPH.
I look forward to the commute - and I look forward to pissing off the SUV commuters wanting to pass on a two lane xero shoulder road.
Highly recommended - plus I'm losing weight!
AIK
But when the alternative is MS - with a pretty similar record for EULAS and draconian IP efforts - SCO is a bit like noise.
AIK
Just Bought an electric / pedal hybrid from Holland.
This thing and a muni system could get me places!
AIK
Do you think welfare recipients treat their children as some sort of livestock, having kids just to get more welfare money?
Not all - but many - Yes - and often for drugs. That is the major reason even the democrats have emplemented "workfare." Entitlements for working age persons is a nightmare.
Give them a job.
Spending money on foreign countries is much more of a black hole than giving money to our citizens. Unless the foreign countries use that money to buy things from the United States then it isn't returning into the economy.
I couldn't agree more - and yet.
We use money given to Egypt to bribe the powerful in egypt (Mushareff) to bribe other people in Egypt not to stir up the people against Israel. The common people see very little of this - as it is probably used to benefit the families of suicide bombers in palastine.
That's a mess. Our foriegn investment strategy has always been short sighted. Instead of giving money to foriegn travellers as micro-emessaries mono e mono we give it to the Saud family which in turn deprives the common people into a state of rebellion.
I doubt that many welfare recipients don't spend their money. In fact, seeing as how many on welfare can't afford to keep a large bank account balance, giving money to welfare is practically a direct line for government funds to return to the economy.
That is the kind of rational which can make a millionaire out of a billionaire.
Welfare is an enducement for the poor to make more children. Children which we can reasonably predict will grow up disadvantaged - require a disporportionate amount of the teachers attention at school - driving up the cost of education for everyone as a percent of GNP which translates to fewer people working to generate real GNP. Which children are disportionately predisposed to being on welfare.
When I was in Hungary - I lived in state - run orphanages, and I would suggest that the children were better cared for, treated more affectionately, and generally healthier than your average welfare child in the United States. They will all very likely become productive members of society - they take care of each other and they are not forced to pattern their lives after the failed model of their parents.
I think it is true that it takes a Village to raise a child, and that as a responsible Village we should intervene in families which fail, rather than proping them up and pretending that what is not working is.
AIK
When you help me - there is a balance of trade.
When I "helped" orphans in Hungary - the Orphans "Helped" me back. I would go so far as to say it was one of the more enriching experiences of my life. Helping others DIRECTLY is a luxury.
However, governments help noone - they transfer wealth through a blind trust in which the exchange of help for enrichment is reduced to a zero sum game.
When the government helps individuals - they do so by anti-helping the alternative absolutely.
Welfare takes money - but it puts the money into a black hole - welfare receipents will breed to fill the available funds.
Putting money into research, education, even military on the other hand will cause some trickle down - because researchers need starbucks, teachers need houses, and haliburton hires bankrupt dairy farmers to drive trucks.
The real question when the government signs a check is how many times will that check echo within our tax system BEFORE being expatriated to an overpopulated zero GNP domain.
We are losing our economy because we are spending money in a fashion poorly opyimized for maximum GNP.
For example:
medicine - for max GNP we should preserve our education expenses by treating desease - but not by spending three times the education expense on insurance so that we can afford a half million dollars of hospitalisation in the last three months of life.
education: We need to see productivity gains here.
Unions need to join in the fight for global competativeness - teachers unions is a form of welfare. We should pay good teachers more, and lose the unproductive teachers.
welfare - everyone family should be garenteed one job (pay by the piece) and one child in university - if you have more children than you can handle you should agree (not to have more kids) before the government writes a check (after 2 kids)
AIK
Axiom 1. We do not - nor have we ever experience a lack of population.
Therefore solving the problem of death at overwhelming cost to society may be a waste of time.
India for example doesn't try nearly as hard as we do to keep people alive, and yet they seem quite capable of fielding an educated workforce to compete with ours.
My point is that medicine at the level we have adopted is not a competative advantage in competing for an equal share of world trade (A competition we are LOSING quite dramatically I might add.
They don't have oddles of lawyers and yet they are able to compete for our best jobs.
They don't have stadiums filled with jocks and jock watchers and yet they are able to compete for our best jobs.
The point is that we need to understand competative advantage and invest in whatever it is that it means.
AIK
You can't tell me that "good plumbing" has improved our quality of life more than eradicating smallpox or inventing bubble-gum flavored amoxicillin or supplemental oxygen for people with emphysema.
No - I'm quite sure that I can. The benefit of moving good water in and bad water out is the fundamental requirement for dense population - which are the genesis of every other advantage in advanced civilizations. Taming water is the first milestone of progress.
And the point - is thaere is a huge return on taming water - there is much less of a return to society as a result of many of our highest paid professions:
Althlets ? - Plueeeze
Doctors - good - but more limited than we admit.
Lawyers - very low
Actors - also quite low
We have crafted a culture which is making little progress because the highest paid professions are not pulling the culture forward in terms of competing for a globally viable economy.
The standard of living we have attained is the transient effect of world servitude. We are trading in the equity of the honest economic gains of the two-working family in a fair employment industrial growth era ignited and fueled by WWII for a temporary peak in standard of living (expensive foriegn cars and cheap consumer goods).
And i sugegst here the reason is our focus is on four primary groups which cannot help us compete for quality of living in an open trade future.
We should refocus on skills which serve the end of world competition.
This is not to dis doctors lawyer and such, it is to point out that we need to undestand sustainable GNP.
None. Not one
I think you argue against your own point.
The good - if there be good under the terms of "the selfish gene" is diversity as you say.
immoral genes then are genes which reduce diversity.
Say for sake of argumant that we populate the planet by building huge polluting cities and breed in essence a select genome which can tolerate the effects of polution.
We would then eliminate the alternatiivee.
That is the crime in helping people.
When you help one person - you UNHELP another.
I know that is said in provocative langauage - and as a world traveller who has spent time in orphanges in budapest and other parts of hungary - the self righteous among you can park it for a moment.
I'm talking about institutionalized "help". I'm talking transfer of wealth.
Just for example.
in the US we have welfare - that takes money FROM ME and gives it to other people's children. As a result my wife an I decide not to have a second child.
That is a criminal wealth transfer which "helps" one family at the direct expense of another.
AIK
argue that lawyers create justice
I would argue that the justice system creates justice.
Lawyers create a unique language and distance the common man from his right to understand the language of justice - not entirely different from the catholic church carrying on in f'en latin - in order to deny people the meaning of their art.
- other than this - I agree that lawyers create an abstract and important good - but you will see a limit to the good they can create - for example - ENRON cost billions of dollars - justice will not be able to reconstruct the wealth for those who lost it in this case - and this is the growth sector for corruption.
Justice has proved it can incarcerate major portions of minority groups for health related reasons - that's justice?
OK you win.
Having said the medicine is a self defeating proposition - It could if applied with restraint improve the qualityt of life - without restraint it merely moves the suffering to a new vector.
Restraint would amount to simultaneous population control by some metric or method.
The exact same is true of welfare - without replacing the population control aspect of desease and famine - we end up with exploding population growth - which is a "cancer" in its own right - with very similar results - the choking out of diversity, asphexiation - due in part to driving etc etc etc.
The original post was written poorly and is inflamatory in its lack of explaination - but the thought is sound.
AIK
We don't die.
We have children - who in turn have children.
We leave the planet to ourselves by way of our children.
Sustainable solution should not be ignored merely because of generational turnover.
AIK
It appears we have created huge attractive salaried for non GDP professions.
Lawyers as a class contribute very litte to the GNP - but they enjoy high and protected wages.
Doctoring (hate to say it) but doctoring is a statistically self defeating enteprise (We ensure the ability of the weakest genes to survive and procreate - increasing the number of weak genes and polluters - creating more desease, war, famine, and additional work for doctors) This is challenging - but doctoring does not affect the quality of life as much as (for example) good plumbing.
I think we over invest in technologies beyond the point of diminishing returns.
Look at cars and roads - wider roads means faster commutes means more people move away from work creating longer commute, more congestion - and finally the need for more cars and more roads.
We are spending our wealth in self-defeating enterprises. (Welfare encourages larger families of dependancy minded)
etc
AIK
The CD format could have included a unique serial number for each disk (via barcode for example)
If fact - it may still be possible.
If one could print over the data bits, and then programatically discern which sectors had been obscurred - one could reveal a serial number.
Such serial number could track copies, make duplication (more) problematic and set the bar fairly.
Without copy protection - the bar is consumer dictated which means the cost is disporportionately assigned to the honest.
Honor system make for horrible game strategy in an anonymous world.
distribute the cost fairly by a mechanism to ensure everyone pays the same price.
As a consumer - I have the right to the same price as anyone else - if some people can get it for free - I am entitled to that price.
I understand that in some case "free" is outside the EULA - but it may not be outside the "Marketing Plan"
Take Word for example. Marketing plan:
Let everyone use it for "free."
Let all highschool kids get used to using it for their homework - then magically when they go to work - MSWord is the defacto standard - why BECAUSE IT IS FREE - at least effectively and intentially free to an introductory audience.
That is a kind of bait and switch - and this is the flip side of piracy - the use of "the first one is always free" marketing.
Fair market rules:
1. Charge everyone the same price for the same thing.
2. Giving the product away in order to leverage the price later on is a distortion of the free markets ability to choose the best product at the best price.
3. Market distortions should not be upheld.
AIK
Not Quite.
Education has incredible costs - the cost of educating a programmer is still considerable in India - especially if that education is any good. Thus the cost of programmers is still rather high.
The issue is that in America - we attach social costs to production - while the cost to participate in the market as an importer is near zero.
US companies benefit from the market benefits of the social system while electing not to participate in the costs.
(Example their customers enjoy higher purchasing power because of their state sponsered education - which benefit they enjoy by selling the product at a premium. Also the police state is available to protect their intellectual property rights - this police state is paid for by production based taxes - BUT by producing the product overseas - they can opt-out of the burden of the social system from which they benefit on the market side.
Complicated economics - but very important stuff to understand.
Must stop using blind labels and understand the essential moving parts of a government-economy
Part 1. Social Costs (Goes up wth population)
This includes Medicine, retirement, and welfare
Part 2 Police Costs
This is the cost of making the world safe for capitalism - it includes all Police department and the military - also private security
Part 3 Taxes
This includes all manner of collecting money to pay for Part 1 and 2. Note for example that Unions have the effect of raising costs while securing medical care and retirement. That makes Unions merely a label for a kind of production tax.
The only fair tax in a global market in which production CANNOT be taxed equally - is a consumption tax. This amortizes the cost of police and social costs into the entirety of the market without regard for the nation of origion of the consumed good or services.
It promotes worldwide competition by lowering the unrelated costs of production while simultaneously raising the cost of imports (when compared to a production tax system which unfairly taxes local goods at the expense of imported goods.
Consumption taxes are the only winning endgame in a global free market.
AIK
There is a marketing strategy which is DEPENDANT on (what is here called piracy) But its double speak. Nobody steals our software because we protect it with a dongle.
If we let people steal it - it would be more popular - but we would probably not ever see a point in which market saturation rendered the product a requisite (such as is MS OFFICE).
The point is as you say - the cunts as they say - are spreading the good word at a cost - the designers WANT the product to spread - and the WANT to call the spreaders criminals so they can charge AFTER the product becomes popular.
I suggest this double standard is illegal. They should require everyone top pay - and use means to require payment - or allow free use - but software vendors are not entitled to a confused state in which the product is viable only because it has been freely shared by design.
The fact that they COULD lock up their content - and they CHOOSE NOT to lock up their content is a vote for free distribution in which the act says more than the doublespeak.
AIK
I know - These guys have been working this design for a while.
The counter weight - unless it is honest payload is a weakness.
The Segway is functionally similar - and also started life as a monowheel which doesn't require a counter weight.
A version of this for two people might be a portable design.
AIK
I like this idea - the problem is storing the bubble wrap - even if it was metalized I think the storage life is pretty short.
AIK
I know from experience that you can create a soft circular vignette by filters placed at the front of the primary lens.
Thus empiricly - you are right - a majority of the light passes through the primary lens in a somewhat focussed manner.
If the fStop if higher, the light can be thought of as focused throughout.
Therefore the degree to which the outside of the lens is important changes with aperture, and I believe with focal distance.
Still, if you make a smaller lens then you are to some extent moving the outside closer?
Important here is that a lens is more than just a focusing device - it is also a triangulation device which renders a very important perception of depth.
Anyone dismissing the importance of depth of field is merely a rank amateur.
All that said - I find the rate of capture to be the feature I look at most. When using my Olympus, i am usually satisfied with the quality of the picture and frustrated at the capture rate - worse in video mode.
AIK
I just bought an electric assisted bicycle, and If i were planning a trip behind enemy lines - i might choose the bicycle and an inflatable raft as you suggest as my vehicles of choice because i could carry them over or through just about anything.
The Helium however is hyperbole. just filling something with helium doesn't do it - you need a lot of space - you aren't even within a few orders of magnitude on your lighter than air pontoons.
AIK
Doesn't really matter.
.
The absence of positional informatin for a given layer - makes it difficult if not impossible to automate the replacement of a template layer with novel content (as an image)
Text objects DO support position.
Again - its not the capability of the calling language - but the properties exposed in the automation layer.
And no I am not talking about "Actions" the built in dead reckoning scripty thing.
which seems to be a perfect fit for most mac users - makes one wonder . .
The Advantage is in forested terrain - which is also important for hiding from helicopters etc...
Someone else mentioned helicopters as an ideal ATV.
I would suggest the recent "unpleasantness" suggests that helicopters are their own worst enemy.
This vehicle may be ideal for retrieving heleicopter pilots from enemy territory - they can get through the jungle - they can be ported over fallen trees - a good deal like motorcycles - only somewhat lighter perhaps.
AIK
I believe that offshore programming is the customer reaction to being mislead by poor programming stateside.
In short - the customer says the computer should save time by making information easy to enter and get to. So they put out for the lowest bid - they get crap, and then they want it changed (it breaks) and the project is up in smoke.
That they can get in india. They can start fail - start fail, and finally get something working for the price of a single faiure in the US.
To keep customers here - we need scalable solutions.
AIK
It's also possible, I suppose, to puke out some crappy code to meet some fool's idea of a specification. I wouldn't know.
Well Said.
My experience suggests that if you let the customer lead you - you will go down a blind alley - and then the customer will see some other company with a better solution and dump you faster than you can can say - oh if you like it like that we'll change it.
Information has rules.
I think the father of Visual Basic said when you choose the name of something try to find a name near the front of the thesauras (general concepts) and stay away from the high numbered words (Specifics).
My guess is Rose is an expensive way to automate function declarations.
I just use Access - not often but when I want to finese the properties of a class so the class is live, responsive, and effecient it's nice to be able to change the formation of the property procedures quickly.
Ramble Ramble.
I wrote a program in 1995 which is still in use - it was my first product and I'm amazed its stil being used - but it was written fiercly generic and it has held up well.
AIK
AIK
The thing that has me unable to switch to Photoshop is its hopelessly borked automation.
There is a scripting system for photoshop - but it is lame and incomplete.
For example layer objects in Photoshop have no size or position properties under the automation interface.
Corel by contrast has supported objects with usual properties under automation since 1995 - that's almost ten years before Photoshop and they still haven't caught up.
The argument that nobody uses scripting is lame - since it doesn't work - its a given that it won't be used - so nobody uses it - so it - the point is that its in there. Actions have been an important part of Photoshop for a lomng time - but actions are limited - they can't do referential manipulation (reduce resolution on n number of dissimilar images).
They can't be data driven.
and they support no logic whatsoever.
Pretty silly overall.
AIK
Not only is the USA not the center of the Univers - it is the last place on Earth I would want to be.
America is afflicted with a cancerous desease known as Cars. It has pushed its houses aparts - its people apart and it poisens them with cancerous monoxide. We are drownding in our own vomit.
My wife if not from America, and my child was in five countries before she was born. I have visted Mexico - a developing country, and lived in Hungary, Ukraine, and Egypt.
I'm not fluent in anything but English, but I can greet a person in Spanish, Hungarian and Russian and figure out how to buy bread or condoms or whatever I'm needing at the moment.
America is the best place to be from.
But still the United States manages to produce a disportportionate number of new ideas - that has to be recognized - not jingoistically, but intellectually - and inquizitavely.
I feel as though my thoughts have been run through a blender.
I don't really have a beef with the RAII per se - but I see how they represent the locus of my concern.
My complaint is tragic irony - there is no enemy.
The complaint again is that Thomas Edisen has changed the face of music by creating the recording machine.
Imagine how Blogs such as this will suffer when turing finally invents the dialectic machine - the program that can create interactive dialogue as good or better than a human.
Conversations such as this one will be manufactored based on the cookies on one's browser perhaps with a complete pool of competing ideas expressed in one's language - centered on one's personal beliefs with the sole intent of pursuading the viewer a. that he is superb, b. that the other people in the blog are real, c. that he should considering buying a particular product which is unnecessary.
The point is that technology can render certain human experiences moot.
Recording has rendered many live musicians unnecessary and moot.
I am wistful for this reason - perhaps i miss that world - but the fact is I have never lived in the alternate reality of live music being appreciated - but that too is not true - I once played in an irish pub in Germany - it was truly great! But it was only one night - Where I live (The South) a recording of some country music is as good or better than anything real.
So I am sad.
AIK