The economist this week: an iron ore syndicate in china turned down government investment and was subsequently held on charges of selling state secrets (which could mean anything in china). At least in the free world, you can turn down the government's involvement without getting your ass arrested. Hell, we let illegals march around in seattle and demand citizenship so long as they file for a permit. Over there, they'd run them over with tanks.
Investors definitely look at profit margins - return-on-investment is a major concern of the market in general. If Toyota only made the same $1500 (swag) that they do on a Camry when they sold an $80,000 Lexus, their margins would be awful.
Walk into a toyota dealership and see how many lexuses you find.
everything I've read from Toyota claims that they are working hard to get the same margins out of their hybrids that they get from their gasoline cars.
Which sort of speaks to my point. The point is that Toyotas are more or less in the same or similar price range (scion on the low end, lexus on the high), so a flat profit per car means lower pressure sales and a focus on the right car for you, which builds loyalty and repeat business.
at least Toyota banks mad cash on their prius in the mean time.
I doubt they make much money off of that thing. They probably make about as much as they do from a Corolla, despite it costing significantly more than a Corolla.
Yes, they probably do: it's a corporate strategy to have approximately flat margins across their model line so that they don't care which toyota you buy, so long as it's a toyota.
but the patents retard widespread deployment of hybrid vehicles and chokes further development of the technology. by the time some patents would expire (e.g. 20 years), our window to affect climate change may have past.
Oh sure, whine about big bad toyota protecting their research, acting as though they'd still behave similarly without patents. Meanwhile, advocate stripping them of their possessions because of the issue of the day - it's too important to make money on!
If we do this to them, we can do it to you down the road. It's not like toyota is just sitting on their laurels here.
That distorts the way things actually work - in your example, some people sued the government. In this case, you can't sue, you can only take a chance on the excessive damages being upheld.
"If you have to ask, you're no use" What a decidedly non-welcoming attitude.
KDE isn't a social club. They're there to get something done, and if you aren't at a professional level, then maybe you need to start somewhere else.
It's like some super double-secret club where all of the members have some attitude like "Well, it was hard for us, and we had to figure it out on our own (uphill, both ways, in the snow) and so therefor you should have to do the same before we will let you in.
It's not that hard, but you have to get to at least good before you're valuable on a large project.
we want mentors who will guide and teach us along the way, without being condescending or flippant.
My free time is in short supply - why do you expect that it's someone's job to help you get better? Find a mentor local to you and be thankful for whatever help you can get.
the field seems either intentionally structured to be difficult to break into
Buddy boy, you have got to be kidding - no certs, no official gatekeeper, hell no specific degree half the time and it's hard to break in? Get a computer - any computer - and program on it.
Now, a civil suit that argues damages for copyright infringement is a different playing field, but the consequences are the same. Somebody has to challenge the law in order to get it changed.
Nope, this is different - it isn't the government failing to recognize a right, but rather a law that has outrageous penalty clauses. This means you can't just sue the feds, but must lose a trial and then argue on appeal.
It FEELS like you are gaining skill at the game, which is enjoyable, but in fact your character is just tougher. You didn't learn shit.
Using WOW as an example, you the player learn skills when you can go kill orange or red mobs without dying. You also gain skill when you learn how to leverage each class in a small group and which roles your character can fill. Anyone who's been in a dungeon knows how easily Leroy Jenkins can get the whole group killed, so yes, there is some skill involved.
My questioning here is to the existence of them. The propagandists would like us to believe that the SWAT goes out with fully automatic rifles and damned near everything but F-16 strike jets when a little old lady calls the local PD because she heard a local teenager mention pot in reference to a nearby house.
No, it's the DEA that busts in on the little old lady with automatic weapons because a paid informant gave them the wrong address. The local PD is apparently blowing their SWAT budget in whomever Chris Hansen is going after because they're bored.
First of all, I'm not calling the police evil myself. I'm using that description in reference to the way that the propagandists portray them.
Cops aren't evil, they're dangerous - kill a cop because he acted like a burglar/mugger/etc and you're lucky to go to jail, meanwhile they get minimal consequences when they kill someone by mistake.
According to other sources, he spent most of his time attention whoring, massively misrepresented his behavior (posting kill logs, taunting the dead, and pulling people out of existing battles) and just generally acted like a douche. Not only that, but he's the only one who thinks he's the most reviled character on that game. In short, act like a douche and people don't like you.
Their products are overly complex for home users and the licensing fees so large for large companies that companies like Sun have found it cheaper to write their own office applications and to give them away for free.
No, Sun is trying to erode MS' gravy train, nothing more.
No, it'll be available for $100 or less. Meanwhile, the console will have new games published for it - there's more to a fun game than 100k polygons and 5 channel sound.
Why is everyone concentrating on fancy whizbangs? The reason a game works is the compelling gameplay, which doesn't require fancy graphics (although a DX game on windows is plenty to start with). If you want to make games, then make one and worry about the shiny later.
I've been keeping track of mine for about 20 days (when I started using my bicycle for moderately short trips, about 10 km a day), and it's dropped from 86 to 64
86 resting? Damn, I'm sorry, but that is just shockingly bad. Glad you're in a normalish range now.
How about you just require speeding tickets to be given by cops? They're the ones in a position to determine that a driver is dangerous, and frankly, making revenue enforcement cheapens them.
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The economist this week: an iron ore syndicate in china turned down government investment and was subsequently held on charges of selling state secrets (which could mean anything in china). At least in the free world, you can turn down the government's involvement without getting your ass arrested. Hell, we let illegals march around in seattle and demand citizenship so long as they file for a permit. Over there, they'd run them over with tanks.
Come on, this is China. Only the ruling elite have rights. Everyone else is so much chattel.
We don't always get the ability to audit everything available in that house before they stay there.
So don't let your kids stay at someone's house if you don't trust the parents.
some times you can't reasonably avoid them being exposed to something you'd rather they weren't.
That's part of growing up. How you deal with it demonstrates how good a parent you are.
Investors definitely look at profit margins - return-on-investment is a major concern of the market in general. If Toyota only made the same $1500 (swag) that they do on a Camry when they sold an $80,000 Lexus, their margins would be awful.
Walk into a toyota dealership and see how many lexuses you find.
everything I've read from Toyota claims that they are working hard to get the same margins out of their hybrids that they get from their gasoline cars.
Which sort of speaks to my point. The point is that Toyotas are more or less in the same or similar price range (scion on the low end, lexus on the high), so a flat profit per car means lower pressure sales and a focus on the right car for you, which builds loyalty and repeat business.
Investors don't demand that sort of thing, they look for profits in a general sense, and this is just a way to go after them.
at least Toyota banks mad cash on their prius in the mean time.
I doubt they make much money off of that thing. They probably make about as much as they do from a Corolla, despite it costing significantly more than a Corolla.
Yes, they probably do: it's a corporate strategy to have approximately flat margins across their model line so that they don't care which toyota you buy, so long as it's a toyota.
but the patents retard widespread deployment of hybrid vehicles and chokes further development of the technology. by the time some patents would expire (e.g. 20 years), our window to affect climate change may have past.
Oh sure, whine about big bad toyota protecting their research, acting as though they'd still behave similarly without patents. Meanwhile, advocate stripping them of their possessions because of the issue of the day - it's too important to make money on!
If we do this to them, we can do it to you down the road. It's not like toyota is just sitting on their laurels here.
That distorts the way things actually work - in your example, some people sued the government. In this case, you can't sue, you can only take a chance on the excessive damages being upheld.
"If you have to ask, you're no use" What a decidedly non-welcoming attitude.
KDE isn't a social club. They're there to get something done, and if you aren't at a professional level, then maybe you need to start somewhere else.
It's like some super double-secret club where all of the members have some attitude like "Well, it was hard for us, and we had to figure it out on our own (uphill, both ways, in the snow) and so therefor you should have to do the same before we will let you in.
It's not that hard, but you have to get to at least good before you're valuable on a large project.
we want mentors who will guide and teach us along the way, without being condescending or flippant.
My free time is in short supply - why do you expect that it's someone's job to help you get better? Find a mentor local to you and be thankful for whatever help you can get.
the field seems either intentionally structured to be difficult to break into
Buddy boy, you have got to be kidding - no certs, no official gatekeeper, hell no specific degree half the time and it's hard to break in? Get a computer - any computer - and program on it.
Now, a civil suit that argues damages for copyright infringement is a different playing field, but the consequences are the same. Somebody has to challenge the law in order to get it changed.
Nope, this is different - it isn't the government failing to recognize a right, but rather a law that has outrageous penalty clauses. This means you can't just sue the feds, but must lose a trial and then argue on appeal.
It FEELS like you are gaining skill at the game, which is enjoyable, but in fact your character is just tougher. You didn't learn shit.
Using WOW as an example, you the player learn skills when you can go kill orange or red mobs without dying. You also gain skill when you learn how to leverage each class in a small group and which roles your character can fill. Anyone who's been in a dungeon knows how easily Leroy Jenkins can get the whole group killed, so yes, there is some skill involved.
I can bake a great loaf of bread if I follow a recipe exactly, but I'm not a savant who can stray from the recipe and make novel things taste good.
That's because you haven't. Take some time to understand why the recipe tells you to do certain things and experiment with changes and you will.
My questioning here is to the existence of them. The propagandists would like us to believe that the SWAT goes out with fully automatic rifles and damned near everything but F-16 strike jets when a little old lady calls the local PD because she heard a local teenager mention pot in reference to a nearby house.
No, it's the DEA that busts in on the little old lady with automatic weapons because a paid informant gave them the wrong address. The local PD is apparently blowing their SWAT budget in whomever Chris Hansen is going after because they're bored.
First of all, I'm not calling the police evil myself. I'm using that description in reference to the way that the propagandists portray them.
Cops aren't evil, they're dangerous - kill a cop because he acted like a burglar/mugger/etc and you're lucky to go to jail, meanwhile they get minimal consequences when they kill someone by mistake.
that's a bit different - if you're on a RPG style game, then holding off 10-20 players of moderate skill and comparable level simply does not happen.
is it at all surprising that large numbers of people got their collective asses handed to them by a single griefer?
Not really, since it's only him that's saying that. Seriously, do you really believe that a lone player can hold off 20 pissed off other players?
According to other sources, he spent most of his time attention whoring, massively misrepresented his behavior (posting kill logs, taunting the dead, and pulling people out of existing battles) and just generally acted like a douche. Not only that, but he's the only one who thinks he's the most reviled character on that game. In short, act like a douche and people don't like you.
Their products are overly complex for home users and the licensing fees so large for large companies that companies like Sun have found it cheaper to write their own office applications and to give them away for free.
No, Sun is trying to erode MS' gravy train, nothing more.
It's always Microsoft's fault.
Not always, but when Microsoft drives your trading platform and it crashes this badly, it sure as hell is.
No, it'll be available for $100 or less. Meanwhile, the console will have new games published for it - there's more to a fun game than 100k polygons and 5 channel sound.
Why is everyone concentrating on fancy whizbangs? The reason a game works is the compelling gameplay, which doesn't require fancy graphics (although a DX game on windows is plenty to start with). If you want to make games, then make one and worry about the shiny later.
I can go down to the store and buy whatever $600 graphics card is on the shelf and it will blow away anything that any console has.
I should hope so - you're spending twice the amount on a graphics card as a whole console costs.
I've been keeping track of mine for about 20 days (when I started using my bicycle for moderately short trips, about 10 km a day), and it's dropped from 86 to 64
86 resting? Damn, I'm sorry, but that is just shockingly bad. Glad you're in a normalish range now.
A twinkie is nice, but is it worth breathing hard from walking a mile in the park?
If you are just checking the odometer, my home state gets all the money even if I travel out of state often?
who cares, so long as it balances out on average?
How about you just require speeding tickets to be given by cops? They're the ones in a position to determine that a driver is dangerous, and frankly, making revenue enforcement cheapens them.