1)Assume that the arrestee has broken the cache of drug X up into individual doses 2) Assume the arrestee is the only dealer present at a very large rock concert, thereby coming up with the maximum selling price 3) Multiply #1 x #2 4) Issue press release
I suppose none of the clients ever wondered why the mason had to come back with a ladder just after they paid the bill?
chimneys rise high above the ground, and are built off staging. Getting a brick into the top of one is non-trivial, and not exactly subtle--particularly if it requires sweeping up broken glass once the brick is inserted.
First--the status quo: say you've got your handy-dandy laptop, and are about to go on a trip. Assume that your battery weighs about a pound. Now, you decide you're willing to carry two pounds, so that you'll have more power. How much power do you gain by doubling your weight in batteries? 2X power = 2x weight. Suppose you need to run for 10 times as long--you're up to 10 lbs.
Now, for the fuel cell: assume it also weighs a pound, and that it will run for 5 hours on a charge of 30 milli-liters of methanol. If you're willing to carry 2 pounds, that's the battery plus about 250 mL of fuel--by doubling your "power" weight, you've gone to 9 times the running time....
they're refillable....
Catalyst is about the most expensive stuff on on the planet; you wouldn't want to be tossing it out everytime you need a new shot of fuel...
they got it right when they set up the program...a big achievement by our former governor (Angus King--good guy!)
The program is funded from a trust fund (something like $30 million), and so is not dependant upon a yearly allocation from the general fund. There has been political discussion about raiding the laptop trust fund to fund the current state budget shortfall, but that will require legislative action--if the state gov't does nothing, the program cruises along as is.
The computers are leased, not owned, with a planned upgrade time (3 or 4 years, IIRC) built into the budget
patenting requires that the patent holder disclose the discovery sufficient that a person "knowledgable in the art" can implement it. They DO NOT require that the discovery be liscensed....
The patent holder has exclusive rights to the discovery for the term of the patent , and can prevent others from using it if they choose.
To make an analogy, you're talking about building a car where the user never has to use the brakes
Brakes are on/off, and within my experience most people have a pretty good handle on the concept. Perhaps a better analogy would be building a car where the user doesn't have to be concerned with the timing and slippage thesholds of his ABS system--oh, wait--they already do that!
This might be the appropriate moment for a rant about the generally crappy state of software design (complete with quotes of developers whining about how it'd be too hard to make something that works), but I have actual work to do....
well... in theory, sure--the various technical fixes you suggest could be made to work.
But, of course, reality has to come into it. Friend of mine volunteers at the community theater up the street--her budget for the most recent show was $40
it could certainly be done as the poster describes, but most of the benefit of such productions (certainly for the participants, and often for the audience) is related to being in the same room.... immediacy of human contact, and all that
take away the thrill of being on stage, and I'm not sure how much merit there is to producing "Spartacus meets Elvis" for display in a browser window
It's called errors & ommissions coverage. For a small medical device company, the premium runs $3 to 5 thousand per year.
As for your statement that the insurance cost will cause you to cut down on QA--I call BS. The only reason that software companies get away with producing the crap that passes for the average code package is that they have miraculously managed to disclaim almost all liability.
A required warrantee of merchantability (as just about every other product on the planet has) is about the best thing that could possible happen to the software industry--it's about time the coders of the world took on the responsibility that comes with claiming to be an engineering discipline.
well...depending on where you live, it may have been. In any case, the road was only an example--The UPS guy's kids also go to school, and if the widget you buy on line catches on fire, the fire department still comes... In short, internet purchases leverage all the same local infrastructure as stuff you buy at the mall.
In a more general sense, sales tax provides the revenue base for most state & local expenditures. While I'm no bigger fan of taxes than the next guy, I feel generally OK about the stuff my city and state spend money on. (the feds, on the other hand, I'd be just as happy if their budget was cut by ~80%)
To the extent that the internet imperils the revenue base of state and local gov't, it's a problem. This agreement seems to me a reasonable approach to solving the problem
If (big if...) one accepts the proposition that sales taxes are legitimate, then there's no reason Amazon should be any less taxed than the bookstore down the street....
Last I checked, the UPS guy was driving on the road that local taxes paid for...
"Were my university to be audited, it would cost around $2,000,000 just to double check"
Based on your statement that you have ~10k PC's, that comes to something like $200 per machine to check liscense status. Even making some pretty generous assumptions about your hourly rate, and assuming you've never heard of interns, I can't imaging getting anywhere even close to $200 per box...
Slashdot Mirror
Yea, right--never in the history of the world has even a small percentage of people, let alone everyone, been 100% on the ball.
It's a particularly stupid suggestion when you follow it up in the very next sentence with most people using the internet are really fucking stupid
The cup leads the way... then the ice
similarly, the most expensive part of a bag-o-chips is the bag
inter-nerd?
Must be a really slow day for submissions when Taco et al are reduced to posting their neice and nephew's homework.
But it is nice to see that the stilted literary touch and high quality editing runs in the family
1)Assume that the arrestee has broken the cache of drug X up into individual doses
2) Assume the arrestee is the only dealer present at a very large rock concert, thereby coming up with the maximum selling price
3) Multiply #1 x #2
4) Issue press release
I suppose none of the clients ever wondered why the mason had to come back with a ladder just after they paid the bill? chimneys rise high above the ground, and are built off staging. Getting a brick into the top of one is non-trivial, and not exactly subtle--particularly if it requires sweeping up broken glass once the brick is inserted.
the point is:
First--the status quo:
say you've got your handy-dandy laptop, and are about to go on a trip. Assume that your battery weighs about a pound. Now, you decide you're willing to carry two pounds, so that you'll have more power. How much power do you gain by doubling your weight in batteries?
2X power = 2x weight. Suppose you need to run for 10 times as long--you're up to 10 lbs.
Now, for the fuel cell:
assume it also weighs a pound, and that it will run for 5 hours on a charge of 30 milli-liters of methanol. If you're willing to carry 2 pounds, that's the battery plus about 250 mL of fuel--by doubling your "power" weight, you've gone to 9 times the running time....
they're refillable.... Catalyst is about the most expensive stuff on on the planet; you wouldn't want to be tossing it out everytime you need a new shot of fuel...
they got it right when they set up the program...a big achievement by our former governor (Angus King--good guy!)
The program is funded from a trust fund (something like $30 million), and so is not dependant upon a yearly allocation from the general fund. There has been political discussion about raiding the laptop trust fund to fund the current state budget shortfall, but that will require legislative action--if the state gov't does nothing, the program cruises along as is.
The computers are leased, not owned, with a planned upgrade time (3 or 4 years, IIRC) built into the budget
well, for starters there's the problem that Halon's been illegal in most uses for a couple years now... Ozone hole, and all that...
etch-a-sketch
patenting requires that the patent holder disclose the discovery sufficient that a person "knowledgable in the art" can implement it. They DO NOT require that the discovery be liscensed....
The patent holder has exclusive rights to the discovery for the term of the patent , and can prevent others from using it if they choose.
because they have better lawyers than you did
Brakes are on/off, and within my experience most people have a pretty good handle on the concept. Perhaps a better analogy would be building a car where the user doesn't have to be concerned with the timing and slippage thesholds of his ABS system--oh, wait--they already do that!
This might be the appropriate moment for a rant about the generally crappy state of software design (complete with quotes of developers whining about how it'd be too hard to make something that works), but I have actual work to do....
well... in theory, sure--the various technical fixes you suggest could be made to work.
But, of course, reality has to come into it. Friend of mine volunteers at the community theater up the street--her budget for the most recent show was $40
take away the thrill of being on stage, and I'm not sure how much merit there is to producing "Spartacus meets Elvis" for display in a browser window
not to detract from your larger point, but you may be off-track with this particular statement...
It's called errors & ommissions coverage. For a small medical device company, the premium runs $3 to 5 thousand per year.
As for your statement that the insurance cost will cause you to cut down on QA--I call BS. The only reason that software companies get away with producing the crap that passes for the average code package is that they have miraculously managed to disclaim almost all liability.
A required warrantee of merchantability (as just about every other product on the planet has) is about the best thing that could possible happen to the software industry--it's about time the coders of the world took on the responsibility that comes with claiming to be an engineering discipline.
well...depending on where you live, it may have been. In any case, the road was only an example--The UPS guy's kids also go to school, and if the widget you buy on line catches on fire, the fire department still comes... In short, internet purchases leverage all the same local infrastructure as stuff you buy at the mall.
In a more general sense, sales tax provides the revenue base for most state & local expenditures. While I'm no bigger fan of taxes than the next guy, I feel generally OK about the stuff my city and state spend money on. (the feds, on the other hand, I'd be just as happy if their budget was cut by ~80%)
To the extent that the internet imperils the revenue base of state and local gov't, it's a problem. This agreement seems to me a reasonable approach to solving the problem
Last I checked, the UPS guy was driving on the road that local taxes paid for...
"Were my university to be audited, it would cost around $2,000,000 just to double check"
Based on your statement that you have ~10k PC's, that comes to something like $200 per machine to check liscense status. Even making some pretty generous assumptions about your hourly rate, and assuming you've never heard of interns, I can't imaging getting anywhere even close to $200 per box...
not even accurate with that clarification... Among numerous other historical possibilities, consider:
1) internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII
2) suspension of habeus-corpus during the civil war
give the man a mod point!
Gosh--it already seemed like some of them lasted forever
speaking as a former automation engineer--
sure, you can automate anything, and it might just work--except when it doesn't...