OMG. I wish I had mod points. I thought that was fake (somebody just pretending to be Pelosi), but there it is linked from the House's YouTube channel, so it's legit (unless the account was hacked). Kudos to her for that video.
Or maybe it's being run by people who just reinstalled their toilet paper hold up really high because the idea of turning the roll around never occurred to them.
1) When a customer comes in, and we have to come in on our day off
Well what do you do if a customer tries to come in at 3AM and finds you are not there? I'm guessing you just say "sorry, but that's not part of our regular hours". What do you do if the customer comes in during regular hours and you were out with pneumonia, or are busy all day dealing with another customer who happened to come in the same day? I assume your company says "sorry, but he's not available today...can I get someone else to help you, or would you like him to call you tomorrow?"
2) Because of the increased rest on a three-day weekend, people use less vacation time, resulting in the office being virtually deserted in December.
Simple solution....limit how many people can be off at once (first requested, first granted). When I want to take off a popular time like Thanksgiving or Christmas week, my manager checks the schedule to see whos off, makes sure my absense won't leave a gap in covered services, and then grants or rejects accordingly.
The truth is, I'm very rarely rejected in my request (in fact, I don't think in all the years that I have actually had a request rejected). We get tons of vacation time...about 5 weeks/year, and we are allowed to carry over up to 10 weeks. That's a lot of time, but it usually doesn't result in everyone taking off those times despite a number of people carrying over the max. Instead, what you will find is that people take off random entire weeks throughout the year, to sit home and relax. Or they will take off every other friday. Or maybe a monday/tuesday once per month. The problem really does mostly solve itself, but you can still put those limitations in place anyway, just in case.
I don't know the kid. I don't know the parents. Chances are I'm no closer to any of them than I am to Kevin Bacon. It doesn't really impact me. Lots of people die tragically in the world (someone probably did so while I was writing this post). I'm not going to get weepy over it. I find the idea that I should show some actual concern over this laughable. It's not like I can do anything about it. I can't stop all the gangs, robbers, and psychos in this world. I do what I can locally, but I'm not about to get worked up over something that has no effect on me and that I could have done nothing about.
$25+/GB is the cheapest it's ever been! What is your point ?
Really? Funny, because when I look at DDR2 memory on newegg I'm seeing lots going for $9-$12/GB. That's my point...the memory for this cpu is currently more than twice what it was for previous ones.
I know what you mean. I need to update my 5 year old computer because the new Adobe Lightroom brings it to a crawl when rendering. Since the i7 was just about to come out, I figured I'd wait. I knew there would be a premium for it, but I was prepared for that....until it came out and I found out just what the premium would be. $300 for the CPU was something I was prepared for, but $250 for the motherboard, and $25+/GB was a bit more than I was expecting.
IMPORTANT: The TV Converter Box Coupon Program has reached its funding ceiling. However, coupon requests from eligible households will be filled as funds from expiring coupons become available. If you would like to apply for a coupon today and are eligible, you will be placed on a waiting list and will receive coupons on a first-come-first-served basis as funds from expiring coupons become available. Coupons will expire within 90 days of the date they are mailed.
Also, the FSA and the tax return medical deductions aren't the same thing. When you file your taxes, you can only deduct the portion of medical expenses that are in excess of 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. With the FSA, you can deduct every dollar of expenses if you estimate right. As long as your FSA deduction is under your actual expenses, and by less than 7.5% of your AGI, then the FSA is the better bet. In fact, if you are under by more than 7.5%, I beleive you can still take the deduction for the portion over the 7.5% that wasn't covered by the FSA. So really, the FSA is always the same or better deal as long as you don't overestimate by too much.
I agree with you completely. I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that Pythagoras was an idiot. After all, we currently have below average high school students doing more complex mathematics than he ever did.
The quote "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants" isn't only applicable to sciences.
I love lots of types of metal, but the death metal I've heard (and maybe it's not even death metal in general, but a certain fringe of it, and I'm not specific enough in my terminology) is often stuff that has no real discernible melody and rhythm. I'm a musician myself, and to me it sounds like a bunch of random people picked up instruments and started playing random notes as fast as they could without any thought to composition or coordinating their playing with anyone else in their band. On top of that, I'd be lucky to figure out even a handful of the words being screamed (they often don't even resemble words). I've heard more musical stuff come from accidentally spilling the contents of my toolbox on the floor.
Sorry if I offend your tastes, but considering the stuff I'm talking about, I'd actually much rather listen to [shudder]Britney[/shudder], as at least I have some idea of what she's trying to accomplish musically.
Actually, the lag problem has been solved. There are a number of LCDs that have 0ms lag. The problem is that most TVs haven't been designed with lag in mind, as it hasn't been much of an issue up to now. I've done plenty of gaming on my TV and never really noticed a lag before. I could play any sort of action or FPS game without a problem. However, now that I have Guitar Hero and Rock Band, those games are definitely a lot more timing sensitive, and I certainly did notice it. Hopefully the tremendous popularity of those games will bring the issue more to light and force manufacturers to work towards 0ms lag on all TVs.
Perhaps the rest of the country should start having rolling blackouts too
You are aware that the well known rolling blackout thing was a manufactured crises courtesy of Enron, right? They were manipulating the market to look like there was a shortage to justify charging higher prices.
Also, California doesn't have the highest unemployment rate. That fame unfortunately goes to my state of Michigan. California is third.
I have no knowledge about any of your other comments.
Having money in a bank account isn't (usually) the same as hoarding money the way stuffing cash into a mattress is. It's money that the bank will invest on your behalf as long as you have it there (giving you a small cut in the form of interest), so it's still circulating usefully to the economy.
But not in quite the same way. If more money were shifted away from the banks and into the hands of ordinary people, you might see a tightening of lending. However, with more people having more money, the businesses that do get loans will likely have better sales, generating more revenue. That probably means less risk of loan default, so more money makes it back to the bank to relend. It also means the businesses are less likely to have to take out additional loans once they get going, and the loans they do take have a better chance of being paid back sooner, so that money will be recycled more quickly.
Now, whether that would be a wash or a net positive/negative in available lending, I can't say, but there is at least some offset there.
That's a pretty simplistic view. Better infrastructure can return it's cost by reducing costs in other sectors. Those other sectors, being more cost efficient, have a better chance at competing with other countries, which means more jobs for us, and less for them (and we don't count foreign jobs when figuring net).
In addition, there are a number of people who don't spend all of their money, but rather just hold onto a bunch of it. Having a better infrastructure can result in a wider variety of companies, services, and product offerings, which increases the chance that maybe something will catch their interest, so that's more money for the average person and a little less in their bank account. Now, granted that is technically a wash, but it will improve things for the people with less money, and the people with more money will be just as happy having their new shiny thing, so everyone wins.
No, the raw conversion process is what happens on the computer (well, it happens in camera when you shoot jpeg, but since jpegs are only 8 bit anyway, that's not relevant to this discussion). The raw file itself is simply the raw data read straight from the sensor (and the EXIF metadata). No processing has been done other than lossless compression. Thats why a 12MP RAW image is typically only 12-20 MB. Once you interpolate the channels and add the extra 2 bits to round up to an even 16 bits per channel, you typically end up with a TIFF file that's 40-70MB, even with compression.
Actually, the majority of sensors used in cameras are Bayer sensors, and for those each pixel only captures one color channel. The raw conversion process then interpolates the other colors into each pixel.
The only alternative I'm aware of that captures all colors per pixel are the Foveon sensors, and I think the number of cameras that have used those is small enough to count on two hand.
Yeah, but I'm not sure you can exactly give Jobs all the credit. In the time he was gone he founded NeXT, and although they got bought up by Apple for a decent price, I don't think you could exactly make the case that NeXT was a thriving company.
So it may be the case that Apple (without Jobs) has what it takes to be successful, but while Jobs was out he was replaced with incompetent management that prevented the company from reaching its potential. It may be was that his only unique role was to be the guy to OK throwing conventional design out the window and trying something new. Now that the doors have been opened, things may go just as well without him.
The thing that lets apple be more successful than other companies trying the same thing is their reputation and fanbase. Few people would pay Apple prices for other brands, so other brands can't justify investing in the R&D to create such expensive and innovative products. But since it's apple, they can do almost whatever they want. For example, what other company would get away with making their portable music player have no other way to load it with music other than through their official software?
Wow, I tried to be nice, but now you have to resort to calling me an idiot? OK. Lets see about this. I'll use your estimate of 11 shipments per month. Prices taken from: https://www.blockbuster.com/signup/rp/regPlan
If you are on the 1/month: no exchanges = $9/11 = 81.8 cents per rental limited exchange = $12/(11+2) = 92.3 cents per rental unlimited exchange = $22/(11+11) = $1 per rental
If you are on the 2/month: no exchanges = $14/(11*2) = 63.6 cents per rental limited exchange = $17/(11*2+3) = 68 cents per rental unlimited exchange = $30/(11*2+11*2) = 68.1 cents per rental
If you are on the 3/month: no exchanges = $16/(11*3) = 48.4 cents per rental limited exchange = $20/(11*3+5) = 52.6 cents per rental unlimited exchange = $35/(11*3+11*3) = 53 cents per rental
So, in every single case, adding the exchanges translates into a higher price per disc, and adding the unlimited excahanges is worse than the limited exchanges. But in every case, moving up to the next plan is cheaper.
So, if you have 1+no exchange, you get 11 discs/month. If you go to the unlimited exchange, you now get 22 discs for a higher cost per disc, where as going to the 2 disc no exchange gets you 22 discs for a lower cost per disc. Which one makes more sense from a purely economic standpoint?
Likewise, if you have 2+no exchange, you get 22 discs. Going to unlimited gets you 44 discs for a higher cost. Getting two separate 2+no exchange plans gets you 44 discs for the same cost per month, or getting a 3+none and 1+none gets you 44 for a lower (cost-averaged) cost per disc.
If you are on the 3+none, you get 33 discs. Going to unlimited exchanges gets you 66 for a higher per disc price. Going to two separate 3+none planes gets you the same 66 for the same cost per disc.
So please show me (based on current pricing) in what case the unlimited makes sense financially?
You might want to check to make sure your house isn't made of glass before tossing those idiot stones around
I see no option for a same price unlimited plan on the website, so how is supposed to know such a promotion will come along if you don't mention it?
And yes, I did do my math. Reread my post. I said you would be better off switching to the X+1/month with no exchanges than you would with the X/month with ***limited*** exchanges. I also said that you would be better subscribing for two separate X/month no excahange plans than you would a single X/month plan with unlimited exchanges. Nowhere did I say the X+1 was better than the X with unlimited exchanges.
And again, that statement was based off of available pricing since you failed to mention any sort of promotion. When you mention the benefits of being in a grandfathered plan, you need to actually point out that you are talking about a grandfathered plan.
Due to the loudness war, I've been basically unable to listen to anything released over the last fifteen-twenty years.
Wow. Somebody sure is a drama queen. Unlistenable? Granted, I'd gladly take a properly mastered recording over what they tend to do these days, but I'd hardly call a modern release unlistenable. Maybe you've confused the loudness war with the death metal genre.
The answer isn't OBVIOUSLY no. Owning the DVD can be worse because you pay a higher rate and aren't guaranteed that it will work forever (if it breaks or gets stolen when you've only watched it once or twice, you are actually worse off than renting). Likewise, if you only watch it once in the first year or two, you might be better off renting it at first and then picking up the DVD if it moves down to a discounted price.
So there are just a couple examples where owning isn't obviously better. That's the problem when you try to make absolute statements like that...you are likely to run into some case where it's not true.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry to be the bearer or bad news, but:
http://www.circuitcity.com/closed.html
Energy prices went up, so they tried to cut back on usage?
He's probably just got a really old fridge. He should probably go to Sears and get a new Kenmore fridge. They are on sale this week.
***this message was created by the Kenmore Energy Star Net+AI 21.7 Cu. Ft. Refrigerator***
OMG. I wish I had mod points. I thought that was fake (somebody just pretending to be Pelosi), but there it is linked from the House's YouTube channel, so it's legit (unless the account was hacked). Kudos to her for that video.
Or maybe it's being run by people who just reinstalled their toilet paper hold up really high because the idea of turning the roll around never occurred to them.
Well what do you do if a customer tries to come in at 3AM and finds you are not there? I'm guessing you just say "sorry, but that's not part of our regular hours". What do you do if the customer comes in during regular hours and you were out with pneumonia, or are busy all day dealing with another customer who happened to come in the same day? I assume your company says "sorry, but he's not available today...can I get someone else to help you, or would you like him to call you tomorrow?"
Simple solution....limit how many people can be off at once (first requested, first granted). When I want to take off a popular time like Thanksgiving or Christmas week, my manager checks the schedule to see whos off, makes sure my absense won't leave a gap in covered services, and then grants or rejects accordingly.
The truth is, I'm very rarely rejected in my request (in fact, I don't think in all the years that I have actually had a request rejected). We get tons of vacation time...about 5 weeks/year, and we are allowed to carry over up to 10 weeks. That's a lot of time, but it usually doesn't result in everyone taking off those times despite a number of people carrying over the max. Instead, what you will find is that people take off random entire weeks throughout the year, to sit home and relax. Or they will take off every other friday. Or maybe a monday/tuesday once per month. The problem really does mostly solve itself, but you can still put those limitations in place anyway, just in case.
Wait....where are you at that you get taxed at more than 70%?
I don't know the kid. I don't know the parents. Chances are I'm no closer to any of them than I am to Kevin Bacon. It doesn't really impact me. Lots of people die tragically in the world (someone probably did so while I was writing this post). I'm not going to get weepy over it. I find the idea that I should show some actual concern over this laughable. It's not like I can do anything about it. I can't stop all the gangs, robbers, and psychos in this world. I do what I can locally, but I'm not about to get worked up over something that has no effect on me and that I could have done nothing about.
So does this mean I've lost contact with reality?
Really? Funny, because when I look at DDR2 memory on newegg I'm seeing lots going for $9-$12/GB. That's my point...the memory for this cpu is currently more than twice what it was for previous ones.
I know what you mean. I need to update my 5 year old computer because the new Adobe Lightroom brings it to a crawl when rendering. Since the i7 was just about to come out, I figured I'd wait. I knew there would be a premium for it, but I was prepared for that....until it came out and I found out just what the premium would be. $300 for the CPU was something I was prepared for, but $250 for the motherboard, and $25+/GB was a bit more than I was expecting.
Nope. Those funds get put back into the pool
https://www.dtv2009.gov/ApplyCoupon.aspx
IMPORTANT: The TV Converter Box Coupon Program has reached its funding ceiling. However, coupon requests from eligible households will be filled as funds from expiring coupons become available. If you would like to apply for a coupon today and are eligible, you will be placed on a waiting list and will receive coupons on a first-come-first-served basis as funds from expiring coupons become available. Coupons will expire within 90 days of the date they are mailed.
Also, the FSA and the tax return medical deductions aren't the same thing. When you file your taxes, you can only deduct the portion of medical expenses that are in excess of 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. With the FSA, you can deduct every dollar of expenses if you estimate right. As long as your FSA deduction is under your actual expenses, and by less than 7.5% of your AGI, then the FSA is the better bet. In fact, if you are under by more than 7.5%, I beleive you can still take the deduction for the portion over the 7.5% that wasn't covered by the FSA. So really, the FSA is always the same or better deal as long as you don't overestimate by too much.
I agree with you completely. I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that Pythagoras was an idiot. After all, we currently have below average high school students doing more complex mathematics than he ever did.
The quote "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants" isn't only applicable to sciences.
I love lots of types of metal, but the death metal I've heard (and maybe it's not even death metal in general, but a certain fringe of it, and I'm not specific enough in my terminology) is often stuff that has no real discernible melody and rhythm. I'm a musician myself, and to me it sounds like a bunch of random people picked up instruments and started playing random notes as fast as they could without any thought to composition or coordinating their playing with anyone else in their band. On top of that, I'd be lucky to figure out even a handful of the words being screamed (they often don't even resemble words). I've heard more musical stuff come from accidentally spilling the contents of my toolbox on the floor.
Sorry if I offend your tastes, but considering the stuff I'm talking about, I'd actually much rather listen to [shudder]Britney[/shudder], as at least I have some idea of what she's trying to accomplish musically.
Actually, the lag problem has been solved. There are a number of LCDs that have 0ms lag. The problem is that most TVs haven't been designed with lag in mind, as it hasn't been much of an issue up to now. I've done plenty of gaming on my TV and never really noticed a lag before. I could play any sort of action or FPS game without a problem. However, now that I have Guitar Hero and Rock Band, those games are definitely a lot more timing sensitive, and I certainly did notice it. Hopefully the tremendous popularity of those games will bring the issue more to light and force manufacturers to work towards 0ms lag on all TVs.
You are aware that the well known rolling blackout thing was a manufactured crises courtesy of Enron, right? They were manipulating the market to look like there was a shortage to justify charging higher prices.
Also, California doesn't have the highest unemployment rate. That fame unfortunately goes to my state of Michigan. California is third.
I have no knowledge about any of your other comments.
But not in quite the same way. If more money were shifted away from the banks and into the hands of ordinary people, you might see a tightening of lending. However, with more people having more money, the businesses that do get loans will likely have better sales, generating more revenue. That probably means less risk of loan default, so more money makes it back to the bank to relend. It also means the businesses are less likely to have to take out additional loans once they get going, and the loans they do take have a better chance of being paid back sooner, so that money will be recycled more quickly.
Now, whether that would be a wash or a net positive/negative in available lending, I can't say, but there is at least some offset there.
That's a pretty simplistic view. Better infrastructure can return it's cost by reducing costs in other sectors. Those other sectors, being more cost efficient, have a better chance at competing with other countries, which means more jobs for us, and less for them (and we don't count foreign jobs when figuring net).
In addition, there are a number of people who don't spend all of their money, but rather just hold onto a bunch of it. Having a better infrastructure can result in a wider variety of companies, services, and product offerings, which increases the chance that maybe something will catch their interest, so that's more money for the average person and a little less in their bank account. Now, granted that is technically a wash, but it will improve things for the people with less money, and the people with more money will be just as happy having their new shiny thing, so everyone wins.
No, the raw conversion process is what happens on the computer (well, it happens in camera when you shoot jpeg, but since jpegs are only 8 bit anyway, that's not relevant to this discussion). The raw file itself is simply the raw data read straight from the sensor (and the EXIF metadata). No processing has been done other than lossless compression. Thats why a 12MP RAW image is typically only 12-20 MB. Once you interpolate the channels and add the extra 2 bits to round up to an even 16 bits per channel, you typically end up with a TIFF file that's 40-70MB, even with compression.
Actually, the majority of sensors used in cameras are Bayer sensors, and for those each pixel only captures one color channel. The raw conversion process then interpolates the other colors into each pixel.
The only alternative I'm aware of that captures all colors per pixel are the Foveon sensors, and I think the number of cameras that have used those is small enough to count on two hand.
Yeah, but I'm not sure you can exactly give Jobs all the credit. In the time he was gone he founded NeXT, and although they got bought up by Apple for a decent price, I don't think you could exactly make the case that NeXT was a thriving company.
So it may be the case that Apple (without Jobs) has what it takes to be successful, but while Jobs was out he was replaced with incompetent management that prevented the company from reaching its potential. It may be was that his only unique role was to be the guy to OK throwing conventional design out the window and trying something new. Now that the doors have been opened, things may go just as well without him.
The thing that lets apple be more successful than other companies trying the same thing is their reputation and fanbase. Few people would pay Apple prices for other brands, so other brands can't justify investing in the R&D to create such expensive and innovative products. But since it's apple, they can do almost whatever they want. For example, what other company would get away with making their portable music player have no other way to load it with music other than through their official software?
Wow, I tried to be nice, but now you have to resort to calling me an idiot? OK. Lets see about this. I'll use your estimate of 11 shipments per month. Prices taken from:
https://www.blockbuster.com/signup/rp/regPlan
If you are on the 1/month:
no exchanges = $9/11 = 81.8 cents per rental
limited exchange = $12/(11+2) = 92.3 cents per rental
unlimited exchange = $22/(11+11) = $1 per rental
If you are on the 2/month:
no exchanges = $14/(11*2) = 63.6 cents per rental
limited exchange = $17/(11*2+3) = 68 cents per rental
unlimited exchange = $30/(11*2+11*2) = 68.1 cents per rental
If you are on the 3/month:
no exchanges = $16/(11*3) = 48.4 cents per rental
limited exchange = $20/(11*3+5) = 52.6 cents per rental
unlimited exchange = $35/(11*3+11*3) = 53 cents per rental
So, in every single case, adding the exchanges translates into a higher price per disc, and adding the unlimited excahanges is worse than the limited exchanges. But in every case, moving up to the next plan is cheaper.
So, if you have 1+no exchange, you get 11 discs/month. If you go to the unlimited exchange, you now get 22 discs for a higher cost per disc, where as going to the 2 disc no exchange gets you 22 discs for a lower cost per disc. Which one makes more sense from a purely economic standpoint?
Likewise, if you have 2+no exchange, you get 22 discs. Going to unlimited gets you 44 discs for a higher cost. Getting two separate 2+no exchange plans gets you 44 discs for the same cost per month, or getting a 3+none and 1+none gets you 44 for a lower (cost-averaged) cost per disc.
If you are on the 3+none, you get 33 discs. Going to unlimited exchanges gets you 66 for a higher per disc price. Going to two separate 3+none planes gets you the same 66 for the same cost per disc.
So please show me (based on current pricing) in what case the unlimited makes sense financially?
You might want to check to make sure your house isn't made of glass before tossing those idiot stones around
I see no option for a same price unlimited plan on the website, so how is supposed to know such a promotion will come along if you don't mention it?
And yes, I did do my math. Reread my post. I said you would be better off switching to the X+1/month with no exchanges than you would with the X/month with ***limited*** exchanges. I also said that you would be better subscribing for two separate X/month no excahange plans than you would a single X/month plan with unlimited exchanges. Nowhere did I say the X+1 was better than the X with unlimited exchanges.
And again, that statement was based off of available pricing since you failed to mention any sort of promotion. When you mention the benefits of being in a grandfathered plan, you need to actually point out that you are talking about a grandfathered plan.
Wow. Somebody sure is a drama queen. Unlistenable? Granted, I'd gladly take a properly mastered recording over what they tend to do these days, but I'd hardly call a modern release unlistenable. Maybe you've confused the loudness war with the death metal genre.
The answer isn't OBVIOUSLY no. Owning the DVD can be worse because you pay a higher rate and aren't guaranteed that it will work forever (if it breaks or gets stolen when you've only watched it once or twice, you are actually worse off than renting). Likewise, if you only watch it once in the first year or two, you might be better off renting it at first and then picking up the DVD if it moves down to a discounted price.
So there are just a couple examples where owning isn't obviously better. That's the problem when you try to make absolute statements like that...you are likely to run into some case where it's not true.