You know the patent is complete bullshit when they start adding in things like:
various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention
Especially when the patent itself is already vague. If you were the first to design and build a piston-driven internal combustion engine, and you want to cover different sized pistons, different numbers of pistons, and different piston formations (V, I, radial, etc)... then fine.
But when your patent is already vague, ie 'a different method for doing something that tons of people already do' and then you add 'various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention' you're basically asking the patent office to give you the right to rip everyone else off.
You know what I think the patent office needs to do? Suspend granting any more software patents until they can get their ass in shape. Maybe _no_ software patents is the answer, maybe _some_ software patents is the answer, I don't know. All I know is that the current system is complete bullshit, rubbish, etc and needs to be put on hiatus until we can properly figure out what the hell is going on and what constitutes ingenuity in software.
Huh? The Thunderchief wasn't a terribly ugly aircraft, although it wasn't beautiful.
And the A-10? That is a gorgeous aircraft. Sure, its profile is not like that of a streamlined barracuda. But its design is elegant and striking.
I think 99% of the aircraft engineers out there would agree that the pregnant guppy looked very odd. While the A-10 would probably bring cheers from all around.
While it might be easy to bash LM, this is common among the entire Aerospace industry. Especially the big system integrators (LM, Boeing, NG, ATK, OS, etc). Because, as a system integrator, if 1 sub-contractor increases their cost by 1%, not only do you have to increase your cost my 1%, but then you have to increase it by another 1% to cover the additional costs of handling and reviewing the sub-contractor's extra 1%.
IE a sub-contractor decides that a series of bolts were not up to specifications, so they have to spend money on the re-design of the bolts, re-testing of the bolts, and re-manufacturing of the bolts. They pass this increased cost onto the system integrator.
Then the system integrator has to spend money to review they new bolt design, the new testing procedures, and the new manufacturing processes. And on top of that, they have to spend additional money to ensure that the new bolt design works with the rest of the current system design, add to that all the increased overhead involved with this new design, and you double the original cost increase.
So if the sub-contractors modify their cost by 15%, the total cost will probably increase by another 15%. And then if the system integrator makes their own modifications that result in their own 15% increase, that ends up being a 45% increase - while only 15% is truly the system integrator's responsibility and the other 30% is a result of the sub-contractors modifications.
So at least 1/3 (the original 15%) of your blame should be on the sub-contractors, perhaps up to 2/3 (the original 15% and the extra 15% system cost).
He just asked his network administrator, Glenn Lebumfacil, if they should be concerned. "I said--God, in hindsight, what an idiot--I said, 'We should be safe. I think our network is nice and tight,'" recalls Lebumfacil.
Is this guy's last name really 'The Easy Bum'? Wow, lol.
Exactly what I was thinking. At 650km, exactly how high of resolution do 2 cameras, say 1 meter apart, need to be in order to distinguish a 1 meter tall object from a 2 meter tall object? And is a 1 meter vertical resolution even all that useful for much more than cross-city or cross-county gradients and such.
Seems to me that 2 satellites on the same orbit, say 10 deg (about 0.17 radians) apart from each other... an arc length of about 1190 km could do a much better job with lower resolution cameras. A 10 deg separation may be a bit much, but even 1 deg would probably work great.
In analyzing official Boy Scouts of America information on 48,430 current Cub Scout Packs and 45,866 current Boy Scout Troops, at least 5,820 (or about 12%) of the Packs and 2,289 (about 5%) of the Troops appear to be chartered (that is, sponsored) by government agencies such as public schools, Police departments, Fire departments, park & recreation departments, and towns.
While I did agree that there were some public run troops, this obviously shows that the vast majority of them are not. And apparently (according to that website) all public troops are being rechartered as private troops as we speak. So, in effect, the problem no longer exists. Although there are probably a handful of public charters still leftover.
It's more than just being physically attracted. Sure, some people will always be simply looking to get their jollys and take anything they can get. But most people have a range that moves as their age moves. At 20 years old, you still feel like a teenager so a 16 year old is still attractive. But at 30 to 40, you feel like an adult, and the 16 year old looks like a kid (someone young enough to even be YOUR kid), so you aren't as attracted to them.
Actually, they don't use public resources as much as you may think.
I was in a scout troop when I was young and had friends in other scout troops. All of our troops used private churches to meet in.
I recall one scout troop that did use a local elementary school gym for their meetings. However, it is still within their right to exclude gays and atheists from joining their club. If a gay or atheist wanted to walk into the gym, the troop wouldn't force them out (unless of course they were being ridiculous, yelling and screaming or something). If a gay or atheist group wanted to use the gym, they could sign up just like everyone else. Yet, they can exclude straight and religious people from their groups.
Public resources don't mean that you have to be completely PC when you use those resources. They are just available to the public. If an equestrian club wants to use a public park, but won't allow anyone to join that doesn't have a horse, should they be banned from using that public resource?
And governmnet subsidies and public funds don't really make their way into the scouts anyhow. Pretty much all of the organization is run by volunteers, scouts pay dues to run their troops. Everyone pays for their own supplies, scout uniforms, scout books, etc. Camping supplies are paid for through fundraisers by the troops. They may take grants for specific projects though, ie: if a grant existed to clean up some wetlands, they might take on that project. But the goal of the grant is to clean up the wetlands, it doesn't care who does it. So the scouts will achieve that goal.
If you have any facts to back up your claims, I'd like to see them.
Ok, last response because I'm done wasting time talking to a brick wall...
And the fortune 500 represents the average business?
You were indicating in a previous response that there were hardly any companies making $100 million a year. I was showing that if there are at least 500 companies making over $3000 million a year, that there are 1000s of companies making over $100 million a year (which you seemed to indicate there were not). In fact, take a look at the fortune 1000 list - more proof that at least 1000 companies make at least $1000 million a year. I'm sorry if you are in denial, but there are 1000s upon 1000s of companies that make $100s of millions a year, all of which employ 100s of millions of people.
Either that, or allow it to survive past a point where it would otherwise have collapsed, allowing it to be successful later.
If you seriously think that cutting expenses by 0.15% will extend the life of the company enough to come up with a new business plan that will keep it afloat... then all I can say is... I'm thankful you don't manage the company I work for.
We're talking AVERAGE companies here. Most people don't make 60k.
Again, I showed you that there are 1000s of companies that employ 100s of millions of people that quite often deal in professional services or deal with specialized labors. And our original argument pertained to the professional workers/specialized laborers and their perks in the office environment. If you've got some monkey stocking shelves at the local Safeway, we don't care. Even then, the minimum wage is usually $10/hour... that's $20k per year, the number you cited before. So if the lowest worker is making $20k per year, exactly how would that result in an average of $20k per year?
It can be when you take into account all the lower-earning people on say 10k. It only takes 4 people on 10k for every elitist fuck on 60k to make an average of 20k.
Yeh maybe for one or two cases like Walmart. But what about everyone else? You think Pfizer has 4 grunts for every 1 professional? You think Citibank has 4 grunts for every 1 professional? Pull your head out of your ass, sheesh. You may only ever see the grunts in your daily life, but behind the scenes are millions of professionals making the company run.
There is definitely a gray area in there. At the age of 20, how many of you never checked out a high school chick? How many of you never checked out a 16 year old? I'm guessing somewhere around 1% or 2%... There are some VERY well developed 15 and 16 year olds out there that look like they're 18 or 19. When you're 20, jumping down 2 or so years is not a stretch. However, by time you hit 25, you should have grown out of that. Is it right that a 20 year old who has sex with a 16 year old should be GPS-tracked for the rest of their life? Hardly. Now, if that 20 year old went for a 12 year old or something, fine...
I would guess that 99.9% of 1080i displays can also do 1080p. Because, in the case of digital, you already have the 1920x1080 discrete pixels (LCD) or mirrors (DLP) or whatever. So all you need to handle 1080p over 1080i is the extra capabilities on the chip decoder. Which is inexpensive in comparison to the display hardware (optics, DLP, LCD, etc).
Now this is assuming that you are really getting a 1080 display, and not one of these marketing ploys that say "can handle 1080 inputs" but only actually displays 480 or something.
Ok, look, maybe you're a janitor at this company you speak of or something, because you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.
Er, no, doubling profits is double profits.
No, you are wrong. Doubling profits is not doubling profits. I'm sorry if you can't grasp what I was talking about, but I'm not going to explain it again.
How many companies make that much money?
It doesn't matter because the expenses scale with the size of the company. Don't like the numbers? Use 10 employees instead, all the factors will stay the same and the numbers will scale down. 3 sodas per day, 30 sodas. $0.20 per soda, $6 per day, $30 per week, $1500 per year. 10 * $80k per employee (less for a smaller company) = $800k per year, that's 0.19% of expenses.
And, actually, LOTS of companies make that much money. The smallest fortune 500 company makes over $3000 Million dollars a year. The smallest employing at least 50 000 employees. That's a minimum of 25 million employees among just those fortune 500 companies alone, probably closer to 75 or 100 million.
A company that makes $100 million a year is considered small to medium sized. There are 1000s of them all over the place.
How many companies make that much money?
Ok, for the third freaking time: cutting insignificant costs will only prolong your company's death. Capisca?
I'm not even looking at companies like Google. Google is a fluke in the system. But the same rules that govern these large companies work for smaller companies too.
And I forgot to reply to this from your past comment:
Also I'm sure that average wages are not 60k, probably more like 20k.
Maybe for Molly Maid, the house cleaning service company. We're talking professional companies here though. A 60k average salary is low when you're talking about seasoned engineers, designers, lawyers, mfgr labor, etc. Even with the low-dollar mail room people they hire, but even then, THEY still make 20k a year, so no way in hell the average would be 20k. It's quite obvious from this statement that you have no fucking clue what you are talking about.
And finally,
Cutting costs goes a long way to keeping a business afloat, especially when your margins are small, as they are at many companies. No doubt you work for some mega-rich company so your perspective is skewed.
I've worked on either end of the spectrum, both for a company that had less than $150k per year in revenues (basically me and another guy working together), and a company in the top 50 of the fortune 500, making over $30 Billion a year. The rules apply in both cases.
Only if your DVD player has an interlacer built in. Most inexpensive ones do not (ie the $40 POS at WalMart). You usually have to fork over a couple $100 to get a DVD player that does the interlacing for you. The DVD definition is 480i, so someone, somewhere, had to do the interlacing. That may be your DVD player or your display device, but either way the DVD was still, originally, 480i. And quite often the interlacers in the display devices are pretty good already, so most people don't bother.
Obviously you don't know what you're talking about, because you never look at expenses in terms of razor-thin profits. When you do that, you get ridiculous numbers like the 50% you quoted. What does it matter if a company that brings in $100.3 million a year on $100.15 million in expenses spends $0.15 million on soda? What people are going to look at is their profit margin in terms of their revenue and expenses. Only some bullshit PR kid would say "look, we increased our profits by 100% this year". Yeh, he looks like a hero at first, but then he looks like a fucking dumbass when some guy in the back of the room points out that he only did it by reducing expenses by 0.15% and keeping revenues the same.
And of course you can't provide free meals to your employees if your business is on the verge of net losses. I wasn't advocating that. If your business is extremely successful and you want to add that as a perk to make your employees happier, fine by me. However, that's not an excuse to have a horribly run cafeteria. The company doesn't normally sponsor the cafeteria anyway. They typically just provide the space in one of their buildings, and some other company comes in and takes on all of the expenses to prepare the food. As a result, they take all the profits too. Companies just need to give the contracts to better food services.
Significance?
My point wasn't that every work place should have free soda, it was that you don't keep a business afloat by cutting insignificant expenses. You keep a business afloat by gaining new customers, developing new ideas, and streamlining your processes.
Why not improve the efficiency, cut out redundant design steps, AND cut the soda? It doesn't take 2 weeks of solid work to say 'right no more free soda', it's take a single fucking memo.
You obviously haven't been around corporate culture long enough.
Well, I'm not sure of this "firefire" you speak of, but I have had this happen with XP + Firefox. Although, I have to say, I haven't seen it in a very long time. Perhaps the Firefox developers added:
But how much does it really cost? If you are buying soda on a bulk basis for your employees, you can get it pretty cheap. Let's say you have 1000 employees, and you have enough for everyone to get 3 sodas a day (you really shouldn't drink that much anyhow). That's 3000 sodas a day, at probably $0.20 per soda (or less) in bulk (I'm thinking a 12 ounce can). That's $600 per day, $3000 per week, $150 000 per year. Might seem like a lot right now, but considering that the company spends at least $100k per year on each employee, probably more ($60k average salary, another $40k on infrastructure and benefits)... it's not that much. That's $100 000 000 spent on employees. The $150k is only 0.15% of their total employee expenses.
And I am sure you could cut the soda costs to 1/10th of that by dropping the individual serving cans in favor of bulk syrup, gas, and a dispensing machine.
In the end, it's just managers looking to cut whatever they possibly can. They don't look at the significance of the cuts. Instead of spending 2 weeks deciding to cut the soda, and formulating a plan for cutting the soda, only to save the company 0.15%, why not spend those two weeks on improving company/department efficiency or cutting out redundant design steps, etc.
Well, on one hand you have the 1 hour lunch where you can split up your day, so that the morning feels separate from the afternoon. And you are refreshed when you come back.
But on the other hand, you have the lunch at your desk, so that you can continue working and leave 1 hour earlier every day. That means missing the rush hour, getting home earlier than normal, enjoying a longer evening. Or that means you don't leave earlier, but rack up 4 extra hours M/T/W/Th so that you can leave 4 hours early on Friday.
I guess this is all flex time though, if you are required to be there from 8 till 5 and your lunch break is mandatory, then yes, I agree with you, get the hell away from it all when you can.
I worked at a place in the south bay area... "battleship gray" and "maybe a notch above hospital and school cafeterias" pretty much describes it (except that should be a notch __below__). I once asked for a meatball sandwich, and the guy took some round balls he found lying on top of the fridge from a couple days ago, plunked them in the deep fryer, and slapped on a piece of provolone. I was terrified to eat that thing, but also starving. After I almost broke a tooth for the second or third time, I threw the last half of it in the garbage.
One of my coworkers said that Yahoo is around there somewhere though, and he visited it once before. Apparently they had excellent food, but it was subsidized by Yahoo. I wouldn't have minded paying full price just to have been sure that I wouldn't get sick from my lunch.
Not to mention that our cafeteria started closing down by 12:45 pm. So you better get your lunch early if you want anything at all.
I ended up packing my lunch in as often as possible.
I guess that's a tradeoff; we have some of the best benefits in our industry at least.
I used my university web mail frequently while at work - too frequently I guess. One day it just went blip and I could no longer access the web mail. They just check the logs from time to time and investigate interesting requests. If they find out that bobshost.mydomain.com is a web mail server at your home, they'll block it. I guess you could set up a 'gatekeeper' page that initially says "Welcome to Bob's site, please enter the password to see the information." or something, and use that before you get to any site that indicates this is web mail. They would probably get suspicious and contact you though, or just block it to be safe.
American Chopper and American Hotrod are alright, I watched a bunch of them when they first came out, but not anymore. They concentrate on the drama too much (which is funny sometimes, but not what I am looking for in shows like those) and not enough on the technical details.
Besides the fact that 90% of the mods they do on those cars make them the tackiest things on the road (like putting a a BMW hood on an early-90s Ford Escort... wtf were they thinking?), that is my biggest problem with that show. They don't do anything mechanical to the cars (they might have put some air suspensions on 1 or 2 of them). Otherwise, they don't touch the drive train, they don't do __REAL__ body work (sorry, bondo over rusted-out holes in the car does not count), they don't do much to the suspension, steering, axles/differentials, etc. The only time I ever saw them touch the drive train was when a car broke down while Xzibit drove it to the shop. Even then, all they did was pull out the old, crappy engine that was in there before... clean it up... then stick it back in.
Then again, with only 4 or 5 guys and 1 or 2 days to do the work, what do you expect?
If you want to see a real car show, watch Overhaulin on TLC. They take a car, have about 40 or 50 experts work on it over the course of a full week, and even then they are often running very close to the deadline. They strip the cars down to the bare chasis, clean everything up, pull off the body and all trim pieces, make proper repairs to everything, seal the chasis, put in great suspensions, braking, steering systems, custom interiors (that actually look good), custom paint jobs (that actually look good), unique rims (each designed by Chip Foose for each individual car), stick in a kick ass crate motor, tranny, exhaust, etc, etc, etc. The only thing bad about the show is that the owner doesn't know about the work being done, and they usually do some cheesy prank where they fake the car being stolen. Otherwise, it's a good show.
Depends on how interested in the subject I am. If it's just on a whim, of no particular significance, and I have other things to get to, I'll probably stop after Google. But if it's a subject that I am seriously interested in or plan to delve deeper into, I will proceed to Yahoo, Altavista, etc and even specific sites that may cater to that subject. Right now Google may be king of the country, but it certainly isn't lord of the universe (yet:P).
Yeh, because when you have mission critical applications and astronaut's lives at stake you go with a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm amateur satellite developed over the course of a year or two by university students in their spare time. I looked around at their testing documents and see no mention of RAD testing at all.
Don't get me wrong, I think CubeSat is awesome, but it's a hobby project for university students. There's only so much you can do in that type of environment. And it can't match the work of 1000s of seasoned engineers working 50 hours a week.
Personally, I would find it hilarious to see the aftermath of all this.
Just imagine: millions of rednecks and fat bastards on welfare with too many kids marching from over the hillside a la civil-war front-line style, raising rabit ears over their heads, pulling their circa 1970 TV sets in their little red Radio Flyer wagons, screaming some indiscernible southern hick yella-belly gibberish that amounts to "give us tv or give us death", the ground trembling as they aproach, the stench overwhelming even though they are downwind, their tattered and soiled clothes barely covering the numerous warts and rashes, legislators running in horror, asking "why allah, why oh why?!?!"
Slashdot Mirror
You know the patent is complete bullshit when they start adding in things like:
... then fine.
various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention
Especially when the patent itself is already vague. If you were the first to design and build a piston-driven internal combustion engine, and you want to cover different sized pistons, different numbers of pistons, and different piston formations (V, I, radial, etc)
But when your patent is already vague, ie 'a different method for doing something that tons of people already do' and then you add 'various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention' you're basically asking the patent office to give you the right to rip everyone else off.
You know what I think the patent office needs to do? Suspend granting any more software patents until they can get their ass in shape. Maybe _no_ software patents is the answer, maybe _some_ software patents is the answer, I don't know. All I know is that the current system is complete bullshit, rubbish, etc and needs to be put on hiatus until we can properly figure out what the hell is going on and what constitutes ingenuity in software.
Huh? The Thunderchief wasn't a terribly ugly aircraft, although it wasn't beautiful.
And the A-10? That is a gorgeous aircraft. Sure, its profile is not like that of a streamlined barracuda. But its design is elegant and striking.
I think 99% of the aircraft engineers out there would agree that the pregnant guppy looked very odd. While the A-10 would probably bring cheers from all around.
While it might be easy to bash LM, this is common among the entire Aerospace industry. Especially the big system integrators (LM, Boeing, NG, ATK, OS, etc). Because, as a system integrator, if 1 sub-contractor increases their cost by 1%, not only do you have to increase your cost my 1%, but then you have to increase it by another 1% to cover the additional costs of handling and reviewing the sub-contractor's extra 1%.
IE a sub-contractor decides that a series of bolts were not up to specifications, so they have to spend money on the re-design of the bolts, re-testing of the bolts, and re-manufacturing of the bolts. They pass this increased cost onto the system integrator.
Then the system integrator has to spend money to review they new bolt design, the new testing procedures, and the new manufacturing processes. And on top of that, they have to spend additional money to ensure that the new bolt design works with the rest of the current system design, add to that all the increased overhead involved with this new design, and you double the original cost increase.
So if the sub-contractors modify their cost by 15%, the total cost will probably increase by another 15%. And then if the system integrator makes their own modifications that result in their own 15% increase, that ends up being a 45% increase - while only 15% is truly the system integrator's responsibility and the other 30% is a result of the sub-contractors modifications.
So at least 1/3 (the original 15%) of your blame should be on the sub-contractors, perhaps up to 2/3 (the original 15% and the extra 15% system cost).
He just asked his network administrator, Glenn Lebumfacil, if they should be concerned. "I said--God, in hindsight, what an idiot--I said, 'We should be safe. I think our network is nice and tight,'" recalls Lebumfacil.
Is this guy's last name really 'The Easy Bum'? Wow, lol.
Exactly what I was thinking. At 650km, exactly how high of resolution do 2 cameras, say 1 meter apart, need to be in order to distinguish a 1 meter tall object from a 2 meter tall object? And is a 1 meter vertical resolution even all that useful for much more than cross-city or cross-county gradients and such.
... an arc length of about 1190 km could do a much better job with lower resolution cameras. A 10 deg separation may be a bit much, but even 1 deg would probably work great.
Seems to me that 2 satellites on the same orbit, say 10 deg (about 0.17 radians) apart from each other
In analyzing official Boy Scouts of America information on 48,430 current Cub Scout Packs and 45,866 current Boy Scout Troops, at least 5,820 (or about 12%) of the Packs and 2,289 (about 5%) of the Troops appear to be chartered (that is, sponsored) by government agencies such as public schools, Police departments, Fire departments, park & recreation departments, and towns.
While I did agree that there were some public run troops, this obviously shows that the vast majority of them are not. And apparently (according to that website) all public troops are being rechartered as private troops as we speak. So, in effect, the problem no longer exists. Although there are probably a handful of public charters still leftover.
It's more than just being physically attracted. Sure, some people will always be simply looking to get their jollys and take anything they can get. But most people have a range that moves as their age moves. At 20 years old, you still feel like a teenager so a 16 year old is still attractive. But at 30 to 40, you feel like an adult, and the 16 year old looks like a kid (someone young enough to even be YOUR kid), so you aren't as attracted to them.
Actually, they don't use public resources as much as you may think.
I was in a scout troop when I was young and had friends in other scout troops. All of our troops used private churches to meet in.
I recall one scout troop that did use a local elementary school gym for their meetings. However, it is still within their right to exclude gays and atheists from joining their club. If a gay or atheist wanted to walk into the gym, the troop wouldn't force them out (unless of course they were being ridiculous, yelling and screaming or something). If a gay or atheist group wanted to use the gym, they could sign up just like everyone else. Yet, they can exclude straight and religious people from their groups.
Public resources don't mean that you have to be completely PC when you use those resources. They are just available to the public. If an equestrian club wants to use a public park, but won't allow anyone to join that doesn't have a horse, should they be banned from using that public resource?
And governmnet subsidies and public funds don't really make their way into the scouts anyhow. Pretty much all of the organization is run by volunteers, scouts pay dues to run their troops. Everyone pays for their own supplies, scout uniforms, scout books, etc. Camping supplies are paid for through fundraisers by the troops. They may take grants for specific projects though, ie: if a grant existed to clean up some wetlands, they might take on that project. But the goal of the grant is to clean up the wetlands, it doesn't care who does it. So the scouts will achieve that goal.
If you have any facts to back up your claims, I'd like to see them.
Ok, last response because I'm done wasting time talking to a brick wall...
And the fortune 500 represents the average business?
You were indicating in a previous response that there were hardly any companies making $100 million a year. I was showing that if there are at least 500 companies making over $3000 million a year, that there are 1000s of companies making over $100 million a year (which you seemed to indicate there were not). In fact, take a look at the fortune 1000 list - more proof that at least 1000 companies make at least $1000 million a year. I'm sorry if you are in denial, but there are 1000s upon 1000s of companies that make $100s of millions a year, all of which employ 100s of millions of people.
Either that, or allow it to survive past a point where it would otherwise have collapsed, allowing it to be successful later.
If you seriously think that cutting expenses by 0.15% will extend the life of the company enough to come up with a new business plan that will keep it afloat
We're talking AVERAGE companies here. Most people don't make 60k.
Again, I showed you that there are 1000s of companies that employ 100s of millions of people that quite often deal in professional services or deal with specialized labors. And our original argument pertained to the professional workers/specialized laborers and their perks in the office environment. If you've got some monkey stocking shelves at the local Safeway, we don't care. Even then, the minimum wage is usually $10/hour
It can be when you take into account all the lower-earning people on say 10k. It only takes 4 people on 10k for every elitist fuck on 60k to make an average of 20k.
Yeh maybe for one or two cases like Walmart. But what about everyone else? You think Pfizer has 4 grunts for every 1 professional? You think Citibank has 4 grunts for every 1 professional? Pull your head out of your ass, sheesh. You may only ever see the grunts in your daily life, but behind the scenes are millions of professionals making the company run.
I'm done, have a nice life.
There is definitely a gray area in there. At the age of 20, how many of you never checked out a high school chick? How many of you never checked out a 16 year old? I'm guessing somewhere around 1% or 2% ... There are some VERY well developed 15 and 16 year olds out there that look like they're 18 or 19. When you're 20, jumping down 2 or so years is not a stretch. However, by time you hit 25, you should have grown out of that. Is it right that a 20 year old who has sex with a 16 year old should be GPS-tracked for the rest of their life? Hardly. Now, if that 20 year old went for a 12 year old or something, fine ...
I would guess that 99.9% of 1080i displays can also do 1080p. Because, in the case of digital, you already have the 1920x1080 discrete pixels (LCD) or mirrors (DLP) or whatever. So all you need to handle 1080p over 1080i is the extra capabilities on the chip decoder. Which is inexpensive in comparison to the display hardware (optics, DLP, LCD, etc).
Now this is assuming that you are really getting a 1080 display, and not one of these marketing ploys that say "can handle 1080 inputs" but only actually displays 480 or something.
Ok, look, maybe you're a janitor at this company you speak of or something, because you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.
Er, no, doubling profits is double profits.
No, you are wrong. Doubling profits is not doubling profits. I'm sorry if you can't grasp what I was talking about, but I'm not going to explain it again.
How many companies make that much money?
It doesn't matter because the expenses scale with the size of the company. Don't like the numbers? Use 10 employees instead, all the factors will stay the same and the numbers will scale down. 3 sodas per day, 30 sodas. $0.20 per soda, $6 per day, $30 per week, $1500 per year. 10 * $80k per employee (less for a smaller company) = $800k per year, that's 0.19% of expenses.
And, actually, LOTS of companies make that much money. The smallest fortune 500 company makes over $3000 Million dollars a year. The smallest employing at least 50 000 employees. That's a minimum of 25 million employees among just those fortune 500 companies alone, probably closer to 75 or 100 million.
A company that makes $100 million a year is considered small to medium sized. There are 1000s of them all over the place.
How many companies make that much money?
Ok, for the third freaking time: cutting insignificant costs will only prolong your company's death. Capisca?
I'm not even looking at companies like Google. Google is a fluke in the system. But the same rules that govern these large companies work for smaller companies too.
And I forgot to reply to this from your past comment:
Also I'm sure that average wages are not 60k, probably more like 20k.
Maybe for Molly Maid, the house cleaning service company. We're talking professional companies here though. A 60k average salary is low when you're talking about seasoned engineers, designers, lawyers, mfgr labor, etc. Even with the low-dollar mail room people they hire, but even then, THEY still make 20k a year, so no way in hell the average would be 20k. It's quite obvious from this statement that you have no fucking clue what you are talking about.
And finally,
Cutting costs goes a long way to keeping a business afloat, especially when your margins are small, as they are at many companies. No doubt you work for some mega-rich company so your perspective is skewed.
I've worked on either end of the spectrum, both for a company that had less than $150k per year in revenues (basically me and another guy working together), and a company in the top 50 of the fortune 500, making over $30 Billion a year. The rules apply in both cases.
Only if your DVD player has an interlacer built in. Most inexpensive ones do not (ie the $40 POS at WalMart). You usually have to fork over a couple $100 to get a DVD player that does the interlacing for you. The DVD definition is 480i, so someone, somewhere, had to do the interlacing. That may be your DVD player or your display device, but either way the DVD was still, originally, 480i. And quite often the interlacers in the display devices are pretty good already, so most people don't bother.
Obviously you don't know what you're talking about, because you never look at expenses in terms of razor-thin profits. When you do that, you get ridiculous numbers like the 50% you quoted. What does it matter if a company that brings in $100.3 million a year on $100.15 million in expenses spends $0.15 million on soda? What people are going to look at is their profit margin in terms of their revenue and expenses. Only some bullshit PR kid would say "look, we increased our profits by 100% this year". Yeh, he looks like a hero at first, but then he looks like a fucking dumbass when some guy in the back of the room points out that he only did it by reducing expenses by 0.15% and keeping revenues the same.
And of course you can't provide free meals to your employees if your business is on the verge of net losses. I wasn't advocating that. If your business is extremely successful and you want to add that as a perk to make your employees happier, fine by me. However, that's not an excuse to have a horribly run cafeteria. The company doesn't normally sponsor the cafeteria anyway. They typically just provide the space in one of their buildings, and some other company comes in and takes on all of the expenses to prepare the food. As a result, they take all the profits too. Companies just need to give the contracts to better food services.
Significance?
My point wasn't that every work place should have free soda, it was that you don't keep a business afloat by cutting insignificant expenses. You keep a business afloat by gaining new customers, developing new ideas, and streamlining your processes.
Why not improve the efficiency, cut out redundant design steps, AND cut the soda? It doesn't take 2 weeks of solid work to say 'right no more free soda', it's take a single fucking memo.
You obviously haven't been around corporate culture long enough.
Well, I'm not sure of this "firefire" you speak of, but I have had this happen with XP + Firefox. Although, I have to say, I haven't seen it in a very long time. Perhaps the Firefox developers added:
if(slashdot)
{
display(weird)
}
else
{
display(normal)
}
But how much does it really cost? If you are buying soda on a bulk basis for your employees, you can get it pretty cheap. Let's say you have 1000 employees, and you have enough for everyone to get 3 sodas a day (you really shouldn't drink that much anyhow). That's 3000 sodas a day, at probably $0.20 per soda (or less) in bulk (I'm thinking a 12 ounce can). That's $600 per day, $3000 per week, $150 000 per year. Might seem like a lot right now, but considering that the company spends at least $100k per year on each employee, probably more ($60k average salary, another $40k on infrastructure and benefits) ... it's not that much. That's $100 000 000 spent on employees. The $150k is only 0.15% of their total employee expenses.
And I am sure you could cut the soda costs to 1/10th of that by dropping the individual serving cans in favor of bulk syrup, gas, and a dispensing machine.
In the end, it's just managers looking to cut whatever they possibly can. They don't look at the significance of the cuts. Instead of spending 2 weeks deciding to cut the soda, and formulating a plan for cutting the soda, only to save the company 0.15%, why not spend those two weeks on improving company/department efficiency or cutting out redundant design steps, etc.
Well, on one hand you have the 1 hour lunch where you can split up your day, so that the morning feels separate from the afternoon. And you are refreshed when you come back.
But on the other hand, you have the lunch at your desk, so that you can continue working and leave 1 hour earlier every day. That means missing the rush hour, getting home earlier than normal, enjoying a longer evening. Or that means you don't leave earlier, but rack up 4 extra hours M/T/W/Th so that you can leave 4 hours early on Friday.
I guess this is all flex time though, if you are required to be there from 8 till 5 and your lunch break is mandatory, then yes, I agree with you, get the hell away from it all when you can.
I worked at a place in the south bay area ... "battleship gray" and "maybe a notch above hospital and school cafeterias" pretty much describes it (except that should be a notch __below__). I once asked for a meatball sandwich, and the guy took some round balls he found lying on top of the fridge from a couple days ago, plunked them in the deep fryer, and slapped on a piece of provolone. I was terrified to eat that thing, but also starving. After I almost broke a tooth for the second or third time, I threw the last half of it in the garbage.
One of my coworkers said that Yahoo is around there somewhere though, and he visited it once before. Apparently they had excellent food, but it was subsidized by Yahoo. I wouldn't have minded paying full price just to have been sure that I wouldn't get sick from my lunch.
Not to mention that our cafeteria started closing down by 12:45 pm. So you better get your lunch early if you want anything at all.
I ended up packing my lunch in as often as possible.
I guess that's a tradeoff; we have some of the best benefits in our industry at least.
I used my university web mail frequently while at work - too frequently I guess. One day it just went blip and I could no longer access the web mail. They just check the logs from time to time and investigate interesting requests. If they find out that bobshost.mydomain.com is a web mail server at your home, they'll block it. I guess you could set up a 'gatekeeper' page that initially says "Welcome to Bob's site, please enter the password to see the information." or something, and use that before you get to any site that indicates this is web mail. They would probably get suspicious and contact you though, or just block it to be safe.
American Chopper and American Hotrod are alright, I watched a bunch of them when they first came out, but not anymore. They concentrate on the drama too much (which is funny sometimes, but not what I am looking for in shows like those) and not enough on the technical details.
Besides the fact that 90% of the mods they do on those cars make them the tackiest things on the road (like putting a a BMW hood on an early-90s Ford Escort ... wtf were they thinking?), that is my biggest problem with that show. They don't do anything mechanical to the cars (they might have put some air suspensions on 1 or 2 of them). Otherwise, they don't touch the drive train, they don't do __REAL__ body work (sorry, bondo over rusted-out holes in the car does not count), they don't do much to the suspension, steering, axles/differentials, etc. The only time I ever saw them touch the drive train was when a car broke down while Xzibit drove it to the shop. Even then, all they did was pull out the old, crappy engine that was in there before ... clean it up ... then stick it back in.
Then again, with only 4 or 5 guys and 1 or 2 days to do the work, what do you expect?
If you want to see a real car show, watch Overhaulin on TLC. They take a car, have about 40 or 50 experts work on it over the course of a full week, and even then they are often running very close to the deadline. They strip the cars down to the bare chasis, clean everything up, pull off the body and all trim pieces, make proper repairs to everything, seal the chasis, put in great suspensions, braking, steering systems, custom interiors (that actually look good), custom paint jobs (that actually look good), unique rims (each designed by Chip Foose for each individual car), stick in a kick ass crate motor, tranny, exhaust, etc, etc, etc. The only thing bad about the show is that the owner doesn't know about the work being done, and they usually do some cheesy prank where they fake the car being stolen. Otherwise, it's a good show.
Depends on how interested in the subject I am. If it's just on a whim, of no particular significance, and I have other things to get to, I'll probably stop after Google. But if it's a subject that I am seriously interested in or plan to delve deeper into, I will proceed to Yahoo, Altavista, etc and even specific sites that may cater to that subject. Right now Google may be king of the country, but it certainly isn't lord of the universe (yet :P).
That's funny, the one I grew up around would always call herself "pretty bird" ... stuck up, that's for sure :)
Yeh, because when you have mission critical applications and astronaut's lives at stake you go with a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm amateur satellite developed over the course of a year or two by university students in their spare time. I looked around at their testing documents and see no mention of RAD testing at all.
Don't get me wrong, I think CubeSat is awesome, but it's a hobby project for university students. There's only so much you can do in that type of environment. And it can't match the work of 1000s of seasoned engineers working 50 hours a week.
Personally, I would find it hilarious to see the aftermath of all this.
Just imagine: millions of rednecks and fat bastards on welfare with too many kids marching from over the hillside a la civil-war front-line style, raising rabit ears over their heads, pulling their circa 1970 TV sets in their little red Radio Flyer wagons, screaming some indiscernible southern hick yella-belly gibberish that amounts to "give us tv or give us death", the ground trembling as they aproach, the stench overwhelming even though they are downwind, their tattered and soiled clothes barely covering the numerous warts and rashes, legislators running in horror, asking "why allah, why oh why?!?!"
Yeh, that would be funny.