Moving parts - ugh. Maintenance, regular lubrication, yuck.
There's a reason people use lead-acid storage batteries, they've proven to be a solid performer at a low price for years.
This guy's company not paying for proper upkeep and disposal sounds so typical -- someone said they "needed a UPS" but didn't engineer the solution or document it and replacement of batteries was never budgeted-for.
"Bad job" to whomever did that. Better to let the company suffer through a few outages and then present the proper engineering data along with proper maintenance and upkeep costs. It's not like it should be a surprise to anyone how to properly maintain a lead-acid battery system.
By some accounts his stats are accurate. Would EITHER of you care to site some real sources? In other words -- don't say his stats are crap without backing your own up.
Read today's Motley Fool article about GE using equity to raise cash instead of taking on cheaper debt when you can (their words) hardly pass by the Fed these days without money hitting you in the head as you walk by -- why? -- the theory the Fool put out was that the executives are paid insane bonuses that debt would hurt, but burning much more expensive corporate equity would not.
Shareholder value? Fuck 'em. That's what the leadership of GE just said to the shareholder's today.
GE's just one example of a major problem in this country... people running megalo-corps don't deserve hundreds of millions a year in salary and bonuses -- it's just not financially or fiscally sound business. Even a conservative can see that.
Yet the Board of Directors of every one of those megalo-corps keeps hiring the same Harvard and Yale "educated" ignorant selfish pricks to run their companies? Hmmm.
Do we really want to go back to when the Rockefeller's and the J.P. Morgan's ran the country and the citizenry and the Government got shafted regularly? Teddy Roosevelt started breaking up the corporate control of America by supporting the miner's union strikes in Pennsylvania (think it was in PA...?) and getting both sides to sit down at the tables while he also kicked off the first U.S. Anti-Trust laws.
The Anti-Trust laws are losing teeth... Microsoft (our favorite slashdot whipping boy) effectively pled guilty to their charges (as an example), paid out a few hundred million (they sit on BILLIONS in cash/liquid capital reserves) and continued like nothing happened.
Anyway -- either one of you post some real numbers and we'll talk. Otherwise you're both full of it.
You do understand that to a very large percentage of people right here in the U.S. (not some small underdeveloped nation) that $60K a year would be "making bank"?
Go hang around a homeless shelter for a while and do some volunteering, it might get that snooty attitude off your face. Or just spend one afternoon sitting in the waiting room of an unemployment office. Best yet, just buy some poor kids toys at Christmas and realize they're that poor YEAR 'ROUND.
Those of us that lived through layoffs that turned into weeks, months, and then who breathed a sigh of relief when just over the 1-year line -- a job was found -- hoorah -- don't have any sympathy for someone who's held a job after "making bank" and now claims to be struggling on a reasonable middle-class salary. Pffft. Whatever.
Seriously man, I agree with you that many large U.S. corporations are mismanaged, but get a grip on reality about money -- just by living in the U.S. you're already more prviledged than well over 2/3's of the world's population.
Your dad went through a massive paycut because PC's are becoming a commodity item -- study up on some economics.
Commodity items don't need salespeople -- people just buy them on their way home from work every day. Milk, bread, and cheese. Ya know?
PC's are close to that... not quite there, and because of their complexity won't ever quite get there. But for those of us that know them well and use them, yeah... I know I can go get a machine I can turn into a busy server in half an hour down the road at any store, and the hardware will run me about $350 right now no matter where I get it. Dell has to give me a reason NOT to buy it locally -- so they either have to have a higher quality product for the same price, or they have to have a lower price than the local store.
Guess what else commodity items have to do? Differentiate themselves from all the other commodity products. Dell's "10K a day giveaway" is one (misguided, I agree) way to try to do that. They're trying to SAVE your dad's job, you doofus.
Personally I think they build mediocre machines with decent longevity for just under median prices. That's a "reasonable" place to be if their margins are big enough to survive bumps in the road. I know I can save about $50 buying a Dell... then it comes down to whether or not I want to wait to have it shipped to me.
But no PC or software or "license" salesman is ever going to "make bank" ever again.
Time for pops to either specialize or find something else people are paying lots of money for... the PC boom is over. Long over.
Big screen TV's and HDTV seem to be starting up the front side of the curve again, and if the economy takes off (it will, sooner or later) and diposable income rises, people will be slappin' down the cash for HDTV sets that cost three to ten times as much as a PC to produce (and the prices will start down, drastically, which will signal my usual "buy time" for such items if I feel like buying one).
Equal commision percentage, dad would be "bringin' home the bacon" again. So, that Circuit City job may not be so bad nowadays... and at the very least you'd have a nice discount on buying one.
But any "science" of economy would have to take politics itself into account as a form of economic gain. Since that's what most politicians are doing -- gaining for themselves.
Pure "scientific" economics likes to leave messy things like politics out of the equation, which looks great on paper but (obviously by your own admission) falls apart in the real world.
I again say that because of this, economics is NOT a science we fully understand -- therefore, individuals with their own needs and reasons drive true economic development more than any of the monday-morning quarterbacks known as Economists.
Whether those Economists believe they're scientists or voodoo doctors... doesn't matter, as it's supremely rare to have an economist who's added value to the world's economy, or even their local community.
The U.S's apathy toward voting is because the politicians pander to the CENTER and if the CENTER were upset, you'd see a lot more people voting.
The far left and far right are generally shunned completely and the slightly left and slightly right get on talk shows. Who cares?
If a completely left or right canidate ever makes it to the office of President you'd see a MASS turnout of voters and possibly open rioting and revolution in the streets.
Meanwhile, those of us that DO vote appreciate every single person who DOESN'T -- making our vote worth just a little more.
Sincerely,
A dyed-in-the-wool ANTI-INCUMBENT voter.
If a politician hasn't done enough that I even know who they are on my ballot form, they're obviously not doing enough for ME and they're history -- no matter what side of politics they claim to be from. Buh-bye. What part didn't you understand, the buh, or the bye... buh-bye. Now THAT's real politics.
Jeez, where have you been? There are thousands of such companies out there.
The *real* question is -- what will they do when you call with a problem? Will they attempt to stall you while they *find* resources, or will they ignore you.
And as standard inflation continues it's slow inevitable upward slide, we middle-class folks are all about to plow headlong into the Alternative Minimum Tax -- which is slowly dropping down down down... until we're all paying at a much higher taxation level. All while being told that AMT only applies to "the rich" so we'll feel guilty that we make too much money.
Meanwhile loopholes will be opened for the super-rich so they're off the hook as usual.
So we're all about to pay off your deficit you're so worried about, and they've snuck it in on us so it'll seem less painful as it slowly works its way down through the middle-class. And most people don't realize it's coming -- in the next couple of years... your taxes if you're an upper-middle-class worker will be hammered with AMT, and it'll work its way down (assuming business-as-usual in Washington D.C.) into the mainstream middle-class by about 2008, I'd guess.
If economics is a science, then it should be obvious to the scientists how to fix the problems in the U.S. Economy. Or are we not advanced enough in our understanding of this so-called "science"? What a crock of crap.
Scientists would at least they would be formulating theories and testing them on a micro-scale, in true Scientific Method fashion, to find the fixes for the world's economic problems... if it really were a science.
I think the Sociologists and Psychologists down the hall (who also claim they're part of a Science of their own) would disagree that Economics is a science.
And the Engineers over in the corner would disagree with all of them.
And generally, while all those guys are arguing about their "scientific principals", some nobody willing to work hard for his own personal reasons will blow away all three "scientists" over the long-term, in terms of useful application of a "fix" to the economic problems he's seeing in his life.
His hard work and successes will be infectious to others who also desire a better standard of living... while the idiot "scientists" notice the economic trends rising and think it was something they did to help it along.
Or maybe college should be an EDUCATION and not a social event. The tasks required of current college students at many Universities are not hard. And college is more of a job-training session at many Universities for that student's particular discipline of study, and a bonus add-on of plenty of party-time -- than a REAL EDUCATION.
The REAL EDUCATION of college that only a few students ever really learn is that there are opportunities for students to really learn new things and push, and many many more opportunities for them to slide along thinking they're entitled to good jobs because they'll soon have a "college education" to rest on.
Those that "learn to learn" will do best -- for the rest of their lives. Those that "learn to follow instructions" will always be booring peasants with small minds, college degree or no.
Actually it's in their interests to have ALMOST happy employees.
Employees that are "too happy" don't produce as much as "almost happy" employees.
i.e. You struggle for that promotion because if you got it life would be "perfect" but right now you feel just slightly underpaid and underappreciated.
The risk they took paying for the PhD was that they would be competing in a very small marketplace of other PhD's and they might not be able to pay it back or find work at their education level. Big deal. Why is this a surprise to them? The whole "I have the degree so I'm ENTITLED to a great job" thing is sickening.
I have zero sympathy for someone smart and dedicated enough to get a PhD who wasn't also smart enough to realize there were no jobs coming open in their field in the near future and PLANNING for that fact by making contacts and finding other work closer to their education level.
This is similar to Aviation, my original course of study at college. There are virtually never mass-openings for jobs in the good-paying sectors of Aviation and people have to "pay their dues" if they come in from the civillian side of things. 10-15 years as a Flight Instructor and then a low-paid overworked commuter airline pilot are TYPICAL numbers for that industry, and while everyone knows that "one guy" who timed it right in the seniority rankings to bust that, it's very rare indeed. I got off the treadmill early-on when I realized I would bankrupt myself to do something I love and that I could make a decent living elsewhere and still afford to fly once in a while, thus keeping it -- something I love.
Why other industries think they are entitled to a great-paying job just because of education and talent is completely beyond me. That's not how business works.
Not to mention -- anyone dedicated enough to get through a typical PhD program today certainly has the fortitude to turn that stick-with-it-ness around and use it to find a lower level job better than delivering pizza. Or they could use it to CREATE such an opportunity... isn't that what the highly educated are SUPPOSED to do? Get out there and CREATE yourself a job with all that brainpower. Investors and others DO listen to highly educated people in our society more than the uneducated and PhD's have a higher chance of social success when pitching new ideas they would like others to fund, obviously.
The idiot PhD who took the pizza job took it away from a nice middle-class dude trying to make ends meet and put his kids through college so THEY can be PhD's too!
(Umm, hmmm... I'm seeing an infinite loop forming here... Heh.)
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe a tablet PC never was for you...?
Moving parts - ugh. Maintenance, regular lubrication, yuck.
There's a reason people use lead-acid storage batteries, they've proven to be a solid performer at a low price for years.
This guy's company not paying for proper upkeep and disposal sounds so typical -- someone said they "needed a UPS" but didn't engineer the solution or document it and replacement of batteries was never budgeted-for.
"Bad job" to whomever did that. Better to let the company suffer through a few outages and then present the proper engineering data along with proper maintenance and upkeep costs. It's not like it should be a surprise to anyone how to properly maintain a lead-acid battery system.
By some accounts his stats are accurate. Would EITHER of you care to site some real sources? In other words -- don't say his stats are crap without backing your own up.
Read today's Motley Fool article about GE using equity to raise cash instead of taking on cheaper debt when you can (their words) hardly pass by the Fed these days without money hitting you in the head as you walk by -- why? -- the theory the Fool put out was that the executives are paid insane bonuses that debt would hurt, but burning much more expensive corporate equity would not.
Shareholder value? Fuck 'em. That's what the leadership of GE just said to the shareholder's today.
GE's just one example of a major problem in this country... people running megalo-corps don't deserve hundreds of millions a year in salary and bonuses -- it's just not financially or fiscally sound business. Even a conservative can see that.
Yet the Board of Directors of every one of those megalo-corps keeps hiring the same Harvard and Yale "educated" ignorant selfish pricks to run their companies? Hmmm.
Do we really want to go back to when the Rockefeller's and the J.P. Morgan's ran the country and the citizenry and the Government got shafted regularly? Teddy Roosevelt started breaking up the corporate control of America by supporting the miner's union strikes in Pennsylvania (think it was in PA...?) and getting both sides to sit down at the tables while he also kicked off the first U.S. Anti-Trust laws.
The Anti-Trust laws are losing teeth... Microsoft (our favorite slashdot whipping boy) effectively pled guilty to their charges (as an example), paid out a few hundred million (they sit on BILLIONS in cash/liquid capital reserves) and continued like nothing happened.
Anyway -- either one of you post some real numbers and we'll talk. Otherwise you're both full of it.
You do understand that to a very large percentage of people right here in the U.S. (not some small underdeveloped nation) that $60K a year would be "making bank"?
Go hang around a homeless shelter for a while and do some volunteering, it might get that snooty attitude off your face. Or just spend one afternoon sitting in the waiting room of an unemployment office. Best yet, just buy some poor kids toys at Christmas and realize they're that poor YEAR 'ROUND.
Those of us that lived through layoffs that turned into weeks, months, and then who breathed a sigh of relief when just over the 1-year line -- a job was found -- hoorah -- don't have any sympathy for someone who's held a job after "making bank" and now claims to be struggling on a reasonable middle-class salary. Pffft. Whatever.
Seriously man, I agree with you that many large U.S. corporations are mismanaged, but get a grip on reality about money -- just by living in the U.S. you're already more prviledged than well over 2/3's of the world's population.
Your dad went through a massive paycut because PC's are becoming a commodity item -- study up on some economics.
Commodity items don't need salespeople -- people just buy them on their way home from work every day. Milk, bread, and cheese. Ya know?
PC's are close to that... not quite there, and because of their complexity won't ever quite get there. But for those of us that know them well and use them, yeah... I know I can go get a machine I can turn into a busy server in half an hour down the road at any store, and the hardware will run me about $350 right now no matter where I get it. Dell has to give me a reason NOT to buy it locally -- so they either have to have a higher quality product for the same price, or they have to have a lower price than the local store.
Guess what else commodity items have to do? Differentiate themselves from all the other commodity products. Dell's "10K a day giveaway" is one (misguided, I agree) way to try to do that. They're trying to SAVE your dad's job, you doofus.
Personally I think they build mediocre machines with decent longevity for just under median prices. That's a "reasonable" place to be if their margins are big enough to survive bumps in the road. I know I can save about $50 buying a Dell... then it comes down to whether or not I want to wait to have it shipped to me.
But no PC or software or "license" salesman is ever going to "make bank" ever again.
Time for pops to either specialize or find something else people are paying lots of money for... the PC boom is over. Long over.
Big screen TV's and HDTV seem to be starting up the front side of the curve again, and if the economy takes off (it will, sooner or later) and diposable income rises, people will be slappin' down the cash for HDTV sets that cost three to ten times as much as a PC to produce (and the prices will start down, drastically, which will signal my usual "buy time" for such items if I feel like buying one).
Equal commision percentage, dad would be "bringin' home the bacon" again. So, that Circuit City job may not be so bad nowadays... and at the very least you'd have a nice discount on buying one.
They're about equal.
Something about "doomed to repeat it" comes to mind... ;-)
LOL! Jesus saves, Gretsky rebounds and SCORES! ;-)
But any "science" of economy would have to take politics itself into account as a form of economic gain. Since that's what most politicians are doing -- gaining for themselves.
Pure "scientific" economics likes to leave messy things like politics out of the equation, which looks great on paper but (obviously by your own admission) falls apart in the real world.
I again say that because of this, economics is NOT a science we fully understand -- therefore, individuals with their own needs and reasons drive true economic development more than any of the monday-morning quarterbacks known as Economists.
Whether those Economists believe they're scientists or voodoo doctors... doesn't matter, as it's supremely rare to have an economist who's added value to the world's economy, or even their local community.
Wet cleanup, aisle five!
What? In God We Trust?
Nicely said.
The U.S's apathy toward voting is because the politicians pander to the CENTER and if the CENTER were upset, you'd see a lot more people voting.
The far left and far right are generally shunned completely and the slightly left and slightly right get on talk shows. Who cares?
If a completely left or right canidate ever makes it to the office of President you'd see a MASS turnout of voters and possibly open rioting and revolution in the streets.
Meanwhile, those of us that DO vote appreciate every single person who DOESN'T -- making our vote worth just a little more.
Sincerely,
A dyed-in-the-wool ANTI-INCUMBENT voter.
If a politician hasn't done enough that I even know who they are on my ballot form, they're obviously not doing enough for ME and they're history -- no matter what side of politics they claim to be from. Buh-bye. What part didn't you understand, the buh, or the bye... buh-bye. Now THAT's real politics.
Halfway up the five-digits also gets it.
Jeez, where have you been? There are thousands of such companies out there.
The *real* question is -- what will they do when you call with a problem? Will they attempt to stall you while they *find* resources, or will they ignore you.
Yeah I guess that's true. I never saw those kinds of salaries, even during the "boom". Many people did, I guess.
Been available for years. Where you been?
You get charged for text messaging to use it if your package doesn't have unlimited messages.
He said *working satellite*.
Pay attention, there's going to be a test.
Yes, the majority of Amateur satellites are communications satellites and thus, made for communication. Go read the website.
And now Eisner is out... or soon to be...
The pendulum swings...
And as standard inflation continues it's slow inevitable upward slide, we middle-class folks are all about to plow headlong into the Alternative Minimum Tax -- which is slowly dropping down down down... until we're all paying at a much higher taxation level. All while being told that AMT only applies to "the rich" so we'll feel guilty that we make too much money.
Meanwhile loopholes will be opened for the super-rich so they're off the hook as usual.
So we're all about to pay off your deficit you're so worried about, and they've snuck it in on us so it'll seem less painful as it slowly works its way down through the middle-class. And most people don't realize it's coming -- in the next couple of years... your taxes if you're an upper-middle-class worker will be hammered with AMT, and it'll work its way down (assuming business-as-usual in Washington D.C.) into the mainstream middle-class by about 2008, I'd guess.
If economics is a science, then it should be obvious to the scientists how to fix the problems in the U.S. Economy. Or are we not advanced enough in our understanding of this so-called "science"? What a crock of crap.
Scientists would at least they would be formulating theories and testing them on a micro-scale, in true Scientific Method fashion, to find the fixes for the world's economic problems... if it really were a science.
I think the Sociologists and Psychologists down the hall (who also claim they're part of a Science of their own) would disagree that Economics is a science.
And the Engineers over in the corner would disagree with all of them.
And generally, while all those guys are arguing about their "scientific principals", some nobody willing to work hard for his own personal reasons will blow away all three "scientists" over the long-term, in terms of useful application of a "fix" to the economic problems he's seeing in his life.
His hard work and successes will be infectious to others who also desire a better standard of living... while the idiot "scientists" notice the economic trends rising and think it was something they did to help it along.
Or maybe college should be an EDUCATION and not a social event. The tasks required of current college students at many Universities are not hard. And college is more of a job-training session at many Universities for that student's particular discipline of study, and a bonus add-on of plenty of party-time -- than a REAL EDUCATION.
The REAL EDUCATION of college that only a few students ever really learn is that there are opportunities for students to really learn new things and push, and many many more opportunities for them to slide along thinking they're entitled to good jobs because they'll soon have a "college education" to rest on.
Those that "learn to learn" will do best -- for the rest of their lives. Those that "learn to follow instructions" will always be booring peasants with small minds, college degree or no.
You rolls the dice, you takes your chances.
Spending $30K on an education and choosing to stay out of the workforce for a "higher paying job later" is a GAMBLE in ANY market. Isn't that obvious?
Do what you love, if you can -- do what you have to in order to survive if you can't. That hasn't changed in thousands of years.
No one's entitled to great jobs just because they paid for an education.
Actually it's in their interests to have ALMOST happy employees.
Employees that are "too happy" don't produce as much as "almost happy" employees.
i.e. You struggle for that promotion because if you got it life would be "perfect" but right now you feel just slightly underpaid and underappreciated.
The risk they took paying for the PhD was that they would be competing in a very small marketplace of other PhD's and they might not be able to pay it back or find work at their education level. Big deal. Why is this a surprise to them? The whole "I have the degree so I'm ENTITLED to a great job" thing is sickening.
I have zero sympathy for someone smart and dedicated enough to get a PhD who wasn't also smart enough to realize there were no jobs coming open in their field in the near future and PLANNING for that fact by making contacts and finding other work closer to their education level.
This is similar to Aviation, my original course of study at college. There are virtually never mass-openings for jobs in the good-paying sectors of Aviation and people have to "pay their dues" if they come in from the civillian side of things. 10-15 years as a Flight Instructor and then a low-paid overworked commuter airline pilot are TYPICAL numbers for that industry, and while everyone knows that "one guy" who timed it right in the seniority rankings to bust that, it's very rare indeed. I got off the treadmill early-on when I realized I would bankrupt myself to do something I love and that I could make a decent living elsewhere and still afford to fly once in a while, thus keeping it -- something I love.
Why other industries think they are entitled to a great-paying job just because of education and talent is completely beyond me. That's not how business works.
Not to mention -- anyone dedicated enough to get through a typical PhD program today certainly has the fortitude to turn that stick-with-it-ness around and use it to find a lower level job better than delivering pizza. Or they could use it to CREATE such an opportunity... isn't that what the highly educated are SUPPOSED to do? Get out there and CREATE yourself a job with all that brainpower. Investors and others DO listen to highly educated people in our society more than the uneducated and PhD's have a higher chance of social success when pitching new ideas they would like others to fund, obviously.
The idiot PhD who took the pizza job took it away from a nice middle-class dude trying to make ends meet and put his kids through college so THEY can be PhD's too!
(Umm, hmmm... I'm seeing an infinite loop forming here... Heh.)