I have two observations: (1) From your command of language, you are not an average GED holder. (2) Your advice to young programmers is virtually the same to that given by Stephen King (and a long list of other authors) to young authors.
Running a small business is being on the job 24 hours a day seven days a week. Starts ups, especially small ones don't pay much in the way of money. So what kills the business is fatigue. People get tired of 18 hour days and burn out after a couple of years. Remember, running the business is being the marketing guru, the advertising designer, the customer service representative, the tax accountant, the book keeper, the maintenance person, the person that runs the website and other internet services, on top of what ever the business actually does. Or you can pay for those services, and that is money going out the door. And you have to have been both wise and lucky at the timing and location of the business.
I know. I started my own business in a down economy and that business is still running six years later.
Getting to the top of a field or extracting lucrative grants from government is a system with the same inherent susceptibility for abuse. As an example: the whole link between autism and vaccinations was a fraud and an abuse of the existing grant system.
Any system we humans build will be abused. So yes, Pub Peer will be abused. As is the current system of peer review. Disruption in the systems for review keeps the game afoot and the published data gets better. Cheaters have to adapt and change so their job is harder. That is good. Refraining from using a system simply because it can be abused is absurd as every system we have is abused. That logic pretty much eliminates participation in civilization.
This part of the article caught my eye: "Roumel’s response is that his client has no responsibility to critics who refuse to put a name to their accusations. “I don’t think he has any obligation to provide the data [behind the papers called into question] to anyone other than a journal,” he says."
It is fundamentally wrong to fail to provide the data behind a published paper simply because the requester is anonymous or not a journal. The scientist involved has some questionable published figures and an explanation as to validity of the data would be useful to the scientist involved and to those who are questioning the figures. Far cheaper to put up the data and let the accusers hang themselves on the own stupidity or ignorance. On the other hand, if there is something less savory going on putting the data up would be a disaster and suing the accusers is an obvious strategy: accuse me of anything and I'll bury you in legal costs is a pretty steep penalty for questioning published data.
Unfortunately from my own experience with reproducing published work: the typical paper leaves a lot to be desired and sometimes, the published results cannot be reproduced using the methods and techniques described. This is sometimes due to fraud and most times due to incomplete experimental sections.
And the little fuckers talk about their exploits like some drunken dip-shit at a bar. They've lost sympathy from one group of people that might have some for them and they've called in a federal felony level bomb threat. Someone, perhaps their own bragging, is going to rat them out for this and a few years from now, they will be drug out of their mom's basement to the glaring light of CNN while mum tearfully cries on national TV about her over weight pasty skinned stereotype and the loss of every microprocessor device in the house.
Then the feds will hit the formerly bragging stereo type with every thing they can think up to up the charges to several hundred years in jail and the little stereotype will whine on face book and kickstarter about how the government is out to get him. Well, buddy, WE are the GOVERNMENT and WE are hoping you took metal shop in high school so that you can spend a few decades making license plates in a penitentiary. DDOSing a game is bad. Scaring hundreds of innocent people on a plane with bomb threat is way worse.
The cell phone, complete with camera and upload ability is carried by nearly everyone the police meet. Not so for the computer - ever tried to use the web cam on the lap top to film something out of a window or on the street? Pretty awkward. The regular camera has been around for decades and the police are used to those, see them, and often take them for evidence, but they are not carried around by the majority of people - and haven't ever been carried by the majority of people. Tablets are huge compared to the phone and make filming both awkward and obvious and again, most people don't have one on them all the time.
The danger to the police is that while they are focused on the guy with the camera filming their arrest of some citizen, everyone within sight can be filming and uploading their rights violations, overly aggressive behavior, etc. The media guy with the big camera, they've got a plan to deal with him. The five hundred eye witnesses? They have a plan to deal with them. The incontrovertible cell phone video showing their behavior is the problem. They have been living in a world where the court, prosecutor, and judge accept without question that the police officer's testimony is true. So after the arrest, the cops get together and make up a consistent story that justifies their actions, and fits the evidence that they gather. Since it is the job of the police to investigate the crime and tell the court and prosecution what happened, they can get the evidence to read any way they want it to read. There is no one looking at the crime after the police unless the citizen accused has the resources to do so with private investigations, private autopsies, etc. The universal presence of video endangers the beat the fuck out of some suspect perk that many, not all, in law enforcement have enjoyed. It threatens their reputation by providing independent evidence that may very well controvert the story the police tell. No other technology does this.
Once the brick feature is added to the phone, it will not be long before technology is developed that can brick a selected list of cell phones within an area. The cops can then pretend ignorance as the cell phones actively being used during the protest brick, while others, not being used, are left alone. Film the cops, brick your phone would spread through the police departments like wildfire. After the event is over, then the phones on the list can be un-bricked. Police would then be safe to make up what ever story justifies their actions and make sure that the evidence they find fits the story.
It's not paranoid. Look at the published police attitude, the rise of no-knock SWAT team served warrants, and realize that citizen cell phones have played an important role in revealing the bad operations with in the police force. Many police do not want this scrutiny and many are afraid of it because they know that if everyone knew how badly they acted as cops, they would be unemployed or in jail.
A large part of the cost of publishing a book is the printing. I reference an old article that I read on Baen Books, whose source page I am too pressed for time to locate. I've had enough stuff printed to know that the upfront costs on "set up" are pretty steep in many cases - from everything from tee shirts to novels. So the more you print, the lower the cost per unit. This set up and printing cost does not exist for publishers of ebooks. They still have to market, design, edit, and pay the author, but if everything in the arrangement between the author and the publisher is the same for ebooks and paper bound books, the publisher stands to make the money and not the author.
As for the "shitty self published" stuff, think about the number of indy bands. Sure a lot of them suck, but not all of them. The ones that suck vanish, the others don't always vanish. TO assume that anyone not signed by a publisher is crap is the same as thinking that the only good music comes out of signed bands played on the radio. The market for novels is shifting. Publishers have never been that good at figuring out what would be a big hit. They are also having some issues, as are authors, about what to do as the literature market shifts.
I'm not willing to pay the same or close to the same price for an ebook because I can't share that with anyone, and it can be taken away by the publisher at any time. I can't resell it or buy a used one. It requires electricity to read and the batteries only last so long. So it is a limited product. Less valuable.
Oh gee. Let's see. Hmmm. In 2008 the financial wizards of America crashed the entire economy. Millions of people were out of work. SO those credit cards don't get paid. The dentist doesn't get paid. The doctor doesn't get paid. Parking tickets don't get paid. Student loans don't get paid. And after four years the job situation for millions is not better than it was in 2008. Sure they might be employed - but that does not mean that they are employed at the same pay rate, or even in the same field. Those collection accounts linger until you make them go away. And when the bills for food and shelter are just about what you make, then those collection accounts are not going to be paid. The current bills will be paid, but not those from more than half a year.
SO when you pay for that service it says something like "up to 75mbps" which in reality means that the speed test and google's home page could see that much speed and everyone else will look like dial up from the 1990's.
It would be much better if the services had to advertise their average speed across the most popular sites. That way if they throttle Netflix to.375mpbs, they have to inform customers that while they are paying $125/month for "blazing fast speed" they are actually getting blazingly fast dial up speeds.
It takes time and effort to create a novel - even a crappy one. One of the authors that I read frequently puts out about two novels per year and spends 40-50 hours per week writing. It takes me a weekend to read her novel. Even if a musician gets $0.05/track, they get something and they can play a concert and sell t-shirts, or fan club memberships, etc. What can an author do? They don't do public performances, or have fan clubs, or sell T-shirts.
There was never much money in creative writing, and the subscription service isn't going to put food on the table for authors. So I guess you give away your first few novels and hope you can raise enough to eat via Patreon.
Oh what utter rubbish! Management is mostly irrelevant - especially the over paid CEO types who can't seem to figure out what the company does - but they can sure "manage" it. Good, driven, visionary management can keep a company healthy and profitable for centuries, but most of these managers are about as useful as pot holes. What they are really good at is convincing themselves and their cronies on the board of directors that they deserve more pay, more bonuses, because well, they are paid millions so they must be worth millions more! In reality, the average manager is not any smarter than the guy running the project and certainly not better at predicting where the market it is headed, or what the economy is going to do, or what the sales for next quarter will be. AS for the higher level concerns . . . what higher level concerns? A business has all the same issues as a family - income, taxes, the crazy dude next door with the chainsaw and the lawyer...which church to go to for the tax breaks and legal loop holes. Please don't put any faith in management - they either understand the company because they've worked there (and can do an adequate job of keeping the place running) or they are just some rich dude in a suit with less clue about how to run a company than a chimpanzee has of running a zoo.
I worked for a giant company that merged with another giant company. A merger of companies who could not compete in the market, so they merged thinking that this would be better. The division employing me was spun off into it's own mutlibillion dollar company. After consultation with the geniuses at Arthur Anderson (remember them from the Enron disaster?), they made some pretty shitty moves mostly to reduce work force, and not hire anyone else. Everyone in the work force saw this as the slow death of the company and prepared to leave. The shell of that company was purchased by a competitor a few years ago and they are in the process of winding that old business down - closing sites, etc.
"Irrelevant. Companies don't keep employees because they are affordable, but because they are profitable. If an employee is not adding net value, it is better for both Microsoft and the overall economy for that person to be employed elsewhere."
Not quite true. Profitable companies reduce work force to compensate the CEO and the company elite, while spinning the upcoming company death spiral as good for the stock price because costs are reduced. Reducing the work force won't improve moral, change the culture, create new products, or improve the long term prospects of the company. Anyone in the workforce who can leave will leave. What it will do is boost the stock price long enough for the current company elite to sell their stock at inflated prices and justify the ginormous bonuses they will get right before the plunge into financial crises - at which time they will pull the golden parachute and land in some other cash rich company.
Well, then perhaps the advertisers in their magazines should be aware that they are stealing from or attempting to steal from 2600 magazine. Sure it is a hacker magazine, but if they will steal from hackers, they will surely rip off the automotive enthusiasts.
2600 should file claims immediately both civil and criminal. Keeping about $100,000 is enough to get big agencies interested and it is certainly not legal to spin off the "bad" parts to a "bankrupt" entity merely to avoid paying the bills.
Ah, yes! Everyone uses language. Copyright language. NOW, everyone uses YOUR copyrighted language. SO! PROFITS RAIN DOWN FROM THE SKY! Well, that is exactly how the drug addled minds behind these schemes think. SO the next best thing is to TAX everyone for using language.
Well, we know where all of the communists and socialists are. This is nothing more than redistribution of wealth!
The argument used by christians who claim that life does not exist beyond the confines of earth are all derivatives of "It's not in the bible, so it must not exist." The vatican has often ruled on the validity of science via the interpretation of scripture. What this means is that someone takes the literal writings of the bible ands says: If these words are true, then what must also be true? So if the bible says that the earth was created but does not mention any other world, then no other worlds must have been created. Such interpretations have been demonstrated to be patently false as we have found other worlds in orbit around other suns, and we have shown that the earth is not the center of the universe, and we have shown that the sun does not go round the earth. Nevertheless, the interpretation of scripture as a means of determining the nature of the world continues.
The catholic church was given the power to write the laws of christianity by the Emperor Constantine at the first council of Niceae where the full count of bishops of the christian church were brought together by the power of the emperor and the decisions of the council were enforced by the power of the roman empire. While the churches of the christian religion all claim that their faith gives them the moral authority to interpret the scriptures, the legal authority to write the laws of the religion is derived from the ancient roman legal authority.
They are wasting our time and money on this obviously stupid stuff and because it is so stupid, they slap "super secret" on it. Just because something is "secret" does not mean that it is in the best interest of the public to not know about it. The real national security issue is that some jackass got on a plane with a bomb in Nigeria, and then made it through Amsterdam and all the way to Detroit before trying to blow up the plane. Making passengers sit still with their hands in the air for the last hour of a 12 hour flight doesn't address how the bomb got on the flight to Detroit in the first place. The TSA has a tough job: keep the bombs off the planes without making air travel so odious that it doesn't work. But when the TSA does something like this proposal - something so obviously not related to fixing the actual problem, they want it to be secret because everyone will think, and rightfully so, that Colonel Klink and Sergeant Shultz of Hogan's Heros are running airport security.
To me, this leak falls under the whistleblower laws. This type of stupidity is negligent.
But of course, the TSA thinks that all of its requirements and lists must be secret because the "Bad Guys" will get through much easier if things are known. But then, secret laws and secret rules with brutal enforcement are fundamentally unfair and ineffective. Far too easy to catch the ignorantly innocent rather than the nefarious. The TSA has a history or trying to hide their rules and go with arbitrary requirements, and by golly they don't want ANYONE to talk about it.
Re:Programming without music? Listen Up Cog
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Music While Programming?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Forget you. You are not valuable. You are an expense. You are a necessary evil that cuts into the profits. Why do you think the company stock goes up when a bunch of you are laid off? If you were valuable assets, then the company could borrow against your value like it can against inventory and accounts receivable. You could be sold or traded like inventory or the old company car.
Right now there are fifty guys in line for your job. Your manager can replace you with another monkey in clothing faster than you can say "But I like music." IT does not matter what your experience or your skills or education, you are a cog in a machine and when you squeak you get replaced with some less squeaky cog.
So what you are saying is simply that the climate will change. There is NOTHING that we can do to stop climate change. If we spend trillions of dollars to do something the climate will change. If we do NOTHING the climate will change. Which is how this planet's environment has been working for billions of years. The climate changes. Duh.
Raising a hullabaloo over the climate changing is a very good political game, but it is not very good science. Should we study how the climate works? Should we learn to model and predict the weather? Sure. These are worthy goals. But that is NOT what is going on here. At this time, there are conflicting models about how changes in the various components of the atmosphere will change the climate. Some predict high temperatures, some do not. Some think that the high temperatures will trigger an ice age, some do not. Some predict that the Sahara Desert will become green, some say that the desert will expand. Many of these models, based upon reasonable science lead to mutually exclusive results: they cannot all be correct.
The arrogance of man is obvious to those who look for it: we THINK that we are so IMPORTANT that we can and should control the climate. The truth is that we do not understand our climate to any significant degree. We cannot predict next summer's weather any better than our ancient ancestors despite reams of data and sophisticated models. Scientists make fools of themselves and their profession by making predictions that do not come true. How many Atlantic hurricanes again? How many droughts predicted in advance? If you could predict such things, you would make a killing in the markets, by the way. The incentive to make accurate climate and weather models is extreme. Think of the things we could do if we knew that the monsoon was going to be bad next year; or how many hurricanes in the Atlantic, Typhoons in the pacific, what the winter in Siberia was going to be. How well are the rains going to fall in the Midwest? Trillions of dollars in damages and untold consequences in human and animal suffering all because we can't predict next years regional climate.
As to the certainty of catastrophe, none of the models predict a climate that is inhospitable to life on our world. None of the models are even going outside the boundaries of known, past behavior for our planet. So what is this catastrophe? That the arable land will shift around? That humans will have to adapt to a changing climate? That we will face the political and economic difficulties of mass human migration? That is not a catastrophe of an environmental nature. That is a POLITICAL problem caused not by man's technology and emissions of carbon dioxide, but by the artificial walled gardens we created called countries. That changes in our climate can lead humans to kill each other over food is NOT a CLIMATE problem but a problem of human BEHAVIOR. Tossing trillions at a moving climate isn't going to the root of the problem: human behavior. And when those predictions do not lead to catastrophe, the science will be discredited like the boy who cried wolf. THAT is the real impending catastrophe.
But of course, by 2050, the scientists making the predictions will be long gone. They will have spent their grants and retired, and perhaps even expired. Kinda like religion where the priest promises you paradise after you are dead, so if he lied you can't complain, can you?
While it is certainly the job of science and those who profess to be scientists to provide the rest of us with data and interpretations, that is clearly NOT what is going on here. The data is being cherry picked. Criticism suppressed not with facts and data, but with political machinations - something that has clearly lead to disaster in our past. The truth, while painful, is liberating to all of us. That is NOT what is going here, people with vested economic and political interests are suppressing and manipulating data to support a pre conceived conclusion. Here we are seventy year
First off, being "in love" with someone is a pretty messed up mental state which often blinds people to the faults and realities of the other person. This state of being "in love" can last a couple of years - though it does last far longer for some folks. The biology of this emotional state is to get two people who would otherwise not hook up, to have kids. Essentially, love blinds you to the faults (large and small) of the other person so that you are willing to make an eternal commitment to the other person.
1. Sex in relationships often diminishes regardless of the honesty of the people involved mostly because the female does not have the same sex drive as the male. Other factors contribute to the decrease in sex: medications (such as the birth control pill, anxiety medications, etc.), time stresses (got married and now you are both focuses on earning money to pay for the mortagage), and the negative emotional baggage that builds up over time. Sure, you love her now, and the fact that she won't do the dishes until the last dish is dirty doesn't bother you, but it will bother you a lot three years from now when you come home from an exhausting day of work related hell to find that all of the fucking cups are dirty. You won't get confrontational about it then because you are TIRED and it's a small thing. But sand is a small thing, and it can irritate the hell out of you. And after you have kids. . . sex is a challenge because nothing on earth kills the moment like the sound of your offspring opening the door for . . . a drink of water.
2. Weight gain happens because your metabolism changes and as you get older the work you do becomes less and less physical.
3. You money stops going where you wanted it to go when you were single. That causes resentment because no matter what, marriage does not change WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU LIKE. Don't expect her to change either. The only thing that changes people of either sex is trauma - emotional, physical trauma.
4. Relatives . . . mine are strange and insufferable. I like my in laws better.
5. My spouse drives the vehicle I don't want to drive. Right now, I drive the new truck and she drives the old civic. When we bought the SUV, she drove it, because I liked driving the protege better, of course she wanted to drive it.
6. Neglecting your spouse because you play HALO, or WOW 80 hours per week will cause just as much trouble as if you spent 90 hours per week working came home and watched football. It's the not being fair to the other person and forgetting that they need you to participate in their emotional well being part that cause the trouble.
7. Yes, she will ask. You will lie about it.
8. Learn to cook well.
9 & 10. Love is blinding so you'd better be sure she's being honest. If she likes to do the same things you like to do then you're doing pretty well. Otherwise, you'll need some win-win negotiations.
Honesty is the most important factor. If a person is brave enough to be honest with you, and very much wants to be a part of your life and vice versa, great. Beware though, the deceiver, because like a cheater, a liar keeps on lying.
Actually, that's wrong. It's not the public. The government and the lobbyists around the current political military industrial complex do not care about the moon, or the rest of the solar system. They are make heaps of cash and taking control of vast territories on earth and have no interest in spending billions on going to the moon. The US has already spent more money than it would cost to land men on Mars and bring them home on the war in Iraq. As soon as their is a tangible military advantage to owning the moon, it will be colonized.
Slashdot Mirror
And if they get there way, they will raise prices and still not roll out anything faster than the current system.
I have two observations: (1) From your command of language, you are not an average GED holder. (2) Your advice to young programmers is virtually the same to that given by Stephen King (and a long list of other authors) to young authors.
Running a small business is being on the job 24 hours a day seven days a week. Starts ups, especially small ones don't pay much in the way of money. So what kills the business is fatigue. People get tired of 18 hour days and burn out after a couple of years. Remember, running the business is being the marketing guru, the advertising designer, the customer service representative, the tax accountant, the book keeper, the maintenance person, the person that runs the website and other internet services, on top of what ever the business actually does. Or you can pay for those services, and that is money going out the door. And you have to have been both wise and lucky at the timing and location of the business.
I know. I started my own business in a down economy and that business is still running six years later.
Getting to the top of a field or extracting lucrative grants from government is a system with the same inherent susceptibility for abuse. As an example: the whole link between autism and vaccinations was a fraud and an abuse of the existing grant system.
Any system we humans build will be abused. So yes, Pub Peer will be abused. As is the current system of peer review. Disruption in the systems for review keeps the game afoot and the published data gets better. Cheaters have to adapt and change so their job is harder. That is good. Refraining from using a system simply because it can be abused is absurd as every system we have is abused. That logic pretty much eliminates participation in civilization.
This part of the article caught my eye: "Roumel’s response is that his client has no responsibility to critics who refuse to put a name to their accusations. “I don’t think he has any obligation to provide the data [behind the papers called into question] to anyone other than a journal,” he says."
It is fundamentally wrong to fail to provide the data behind a published paper simply because the requester is anonymous or not a journal. The scientist involved has some questionable published figures and an explanation as to validity of the data would be useful to the scientist involved and to those who are questioning the figures. Far cheaper to put up the data and let the accusers hang themselves on the own stupidity or ignorance. On the other hand, if there is something less savory going on putting the data up would be a disaster and suing the accusers is an obvious strategy: accuse me of anything and I'll bury you in legal costs is a pretty steep penalty for questioning published data.
Unfortunately from my own experience with reproducing published work: the typical paper leaves a lot to be desired and sometimes, the published results cannot be reproduced using the methods and techniques described. This is sometimes due to fraud and most times due to incomplete experimental sections.
And the little fuckers talk about their exploits like some drunken dip-shit at a bar. They've lost sympathy from one group of people that might have some for them and they've called in a federal felony level bomb threat. Someone, perhaps their own bragging, is going to rat them out for this and a few years from now, they will be drug out of their mom's basement to the glaring light of CNN while mum tearfully cries on national TV about her over weight pasty skinned stereotype and the loss of every microprocessor device in the house.
Then the feds will hit the formerly bragging stereo type with every thing they can think up to up the charges to several hundred years in jail and the little stereotype will whine on face book and kickstarter about how the government is out to get him. Well, buddy, WE are the GOVERNMENT and WE are hoping you took metal shop in high school so that you can spend a few decades making license plates in a penitentiary. DDOSing a game is bad. Scaring hundreds of innocent people on a plane with bomb threat is way worse.
The cell phone, complete with camera and upload ability is carried by nearly everyone the police meet. Not so for the computer - ever tried to use the web cam on the lap top to film something out of a window or on the street? Pretty awkward. The regular camera has been around for decades and the police are used to those, see them, and often take them for evidence, but they are not carried around by the majority of people - and haven't ever been carried by the majority of people. Tablets are huge compared to the phone and make filming both awkward and obvious and again, most people don't have one on them all the time.
The danger to the police is that while they are focused on the guy with the camera filming their arrest of some citizen, everyone within sight can be filming and uploading their rights violations, overly aggressive behavior, etc. The media guy with the big camera, they've got a plan to deal with him. The five hundred eye witnesses? They have a plan to deal with them. The incontrovertible cell phone video showing their behavior is the problem. They have been living in a world where the court, prosecutor, and judge accept without question that the police officer's testimony is true. So after the arrest, the cops get together and make up a consistent story that justifies their actions, and fits the evidence that they gather. Since it is the job of the police to investigate the crime and tell the court and prosecution what happened, they can get the evidence to read any way they want it to read. There is no one looking at the crime after the police unless the citizen accused has the resources to do so with private investigations, private autopsies, etc. The universal presence of video endangers the beat the fuck out of some suspect perk that many, not all, in law enforcement have enjoyed. It threatens their reputation by providing independent evidence that may very well controvert the story the police tell. No other technology does this.
Once the brick feature is added to the phone, it will not be long before technology is developed that can brick a selected list of cell phones within an area. The cops can then pretend ignorance as the cell phones actively being used during the protest brick, while others, not being used, are left alone. Film the cops, brick your phone would spread through the police departments like wildfire. After the event is over, then the phones on the list can be un-bricked. Police would then be safe to make up what ever story justifies their actions and make sure that the evidence they find fits the story.
It's not paranoid. Look at the published police attitude, the rise of no-knock SWAT team served warrants, and realize that citizen cell phones have played an important role in revealing the bad operations with in the police force. Many police do not want this scrutiny and many are afraid of it because they know that if everyone knew how badly they acted as cops, they would be unemployed or in jail.
A large part of the cost of publishing a book is the printing. I reference an old article that I read on Baen Books, whose source page I am too pressed for time to locate. I've had enough stuff printed to know that the upfront costs on "set up" are pretty steep in many cases - from everything from tee shirts to novels. So the more you print, the lower the cost per unit. This set up and printing cost does not exist for publishers of ebooks. They still have to market, design, edit, and pay the author, but if everything in the arrangement between the author and the publisher is the same for ebooks and paper bound books, the publisher stands to make the money and not the author.
As for the "shitty self published" stuff, think about the number of indy bands. Sure a lot of them suck, but not all of them. The ones that suck vanish, the others don't always vanish. TO assume that anyone not signed by a publisher is crap is the same as thinking that the only good music comes out of signed bands played on the radio. The market for novels is shifting. Publishers have never been that good at figuring out what would be a big hit. They are also having some issues, as are authors, about what to do as the literature market shifts.
I'm not willing to pay the same or close to the same price for an ebook because I can't share that with anyone, and it can be taken away by the publisher at any time. I can't resell it or buy a used one. It requires electricity to read and the batteries only last so long. So it is a limited product. Less valuable.
Oh gee. Let's see. Hmmm. In 2008 the financial wizards of America crashed the entire economy. Millions of people were out of work. SO those credit cards don't get paid. The dentist doesn't get paid. The doctor doesn't get paid. Parking tickets don't get paid. Student loans don't get paid. And after four years the job situation for millions is not better than it was in 2008. Sure they might be employed - but that does not mean that they are employed at the same pay rate, or even in the same field. Those collection accounts linger until you make them go away. And when the bills for food and shelter are just about what you make, then those collection accounts are not going to be paid. The current bills will be paid, but not those from more than half a year.
That's why.
SO when you pay for that service it says something like "up to 75mbps" which in reality means that the speed test and google's home page could see that much speed and everyone else will look like dial up from the 1990's.
It would be much better if the services had to advertise their average speed across the most popular sites. That way if they throttle Netflix to .375mpbs, they have to inform customers that while they are paying $125/month for "blazing fast speed" they are actually getting blazingly fast dial up speeds.
It takes time and effort to create a novel - even a crappy one. One of the authors that I read frequently puts out about two novels per year and spends 40-50 hours per week writing. It takes me a weekend to read her novel. Even if a musician gets $0.05/track, they get something and they can play a concert and sell t-shirts, or fan club memberships, etc. What can an author do? They don't do public performances, or have fan clubs, or sell T-shirts.
There was never much money in creative writing, and the subscription service isn't going to put food on the table for authors. So I guess you give away your first few novels and hope you can raise enough to eat via Patreon.
Sounds really bleak.
Oh what utter rubbish! Management is mostly irrelevant - especially the over paid CEO types who can't seem to figure out what the company does - but they can sure "manage" it. Good, driven, visionary management can keep a company healthy and profitable for centuries, but most of these managers are about as useful as pot holes. What they are really good at is convincing themselves and their cronies on the board of directors that they deserve more pay, more bonuses, because well, they are paid millions so they must be worth millions more! In reality, the average manager is not any smarter than the guy running the project and certainly not better at predicting where the market it is headed, or what the economy is going to do, or what the sales for next quarter will be. AS for the higher level concerns . . . what higher level concerns? A business has all the same issues as a family - income, taxes, the crazy dude next door with the chainsaw and the lawyer...which church to go to for the tax breaks and legal loop holes. Please don't put any faith in management - they either understand the company because they've worked there (and can do an adequate job of keeping the place running) or they are just some rich dude in a suit with less clue about how to run a company than a chimpanzee has of running a zoo.
I worked for a giant company that merged with another giant company. A merger of companies who could not compete in the market, so they merged thinking that this would be better. The division employing me was spun off into it's own mutlibillion dollar company. After consultation with the geniuses at Arthur Anderson (remember them from the Enron disaster?), they made some pretty shitty moves mostly to reduce work force, and not hire anyone else. Everyone in the work force saw this as the slow death of the company and prepared to leave. The shell of that company was purchased by a competitor a few years ago and they are in the process of winding that old business down - closing sites, etc.
"Irrelevant. Companies don't keep employees because they are affordable, but because they are profitable. If an employee is not adding net value, it is better for both Microsoft and the overall economy for that person to be employed elsewhere."
Not quite true. Profitable companies reduce work force to compensate the CEO and the company elite, while spinning the upcoming company death spiral as good for the stock price because costs are reduced. Reducing the work force won't improve moral, change the culture, create new products, or improve the long term prospects of the company. Anyone in the workforce who can leave will leave. What it will do is boost the stock price long enough for the current company elite to sell their stock at inflated prices and justify the ginormous bonuses they will get right before the plunge into financial crises - at which time they will pull the golden parachute and land in some other cash rich company.
Well, then perhaps the advertisers in their magazines should be aware that they are stealing from or attempting to steal from 2600 magazine. Sure it is a hacker magazine, but if they will steal from hackers, they will surely rip off the automotive enthusiasts.
2600 should file claims immediately both civil and criminal. Keeping about $100,000 is enough to get big agencies interested and it is certainly not legal to spin off the "bad" parts to a "bankrupt" entity merely to avoid paying the bills.
Should be fun to watch.
EVen worse, they have a share this page icon for facebook,Digg, etc
The goal of the Navy is to NOT have a sub lost due to a nuclear accident.
The goal of the OIL company is to make as much money as possible while pushing as much of the cost and risk to other people.
This spill is a consequence of corporate valuation in monetary units as the sole reason for corporate existence.
Ah, yes! Everyone uses language. Copyright language. NOW, everyone uses YOUR copyrighted language. SO! PROFITS RAIN DOWN FROM THE SKY! Well, that is exactly how the drug addled minds behind these schemes think. SO the next best thing is to TAX everyone for using language.
Well, we know where all of the communists and socialists are. This is nothing more than redistribution of wealth!
The argument used by christians who claim that life does not exist beyond the confines of earth are all derivatives of "It's not in the bible, so it must not exist." The vatican has often ruled on the validity of science via the interpretation of scripture. What this means is that someone takes the literal writings of the bible ands says: If these words are true, then what must also be true? So if the bible says that the earth was created but does not mention any other world, then no other worlds must have been created. Such interpretations have been demonstrated to be patently false as we have found other worlds in orbit around other suns, and we have shown that the earth is not the center of the universe, and we have shown that the sun does not go round the earth. Nevertheless, the interpretation of scripture as a means of determining the nature of the world continues.
The catholic church was given the power to write the laws of christianity by the Emperor Constantine at the first council of Niceae where the full count of bishops of the christian church were brought together by the power of the emperor and the decisions of the council were enforced by the power of the roman empire. While the churches of the christian religion all claim that their faith gives them the moral authority to interpret the scriptures, the legal authority to write the laws of the religion is derived from the ancient roman legal authority.
They are wasting our time and money on this obviously stupid stuff and because it is so stupid, they slap "super secret" on it. Just because something is "secret" does not mean that it is in the best interest of the public to not know about it. The real national security issue is that some jackass got on a plane with a bomb in Nigeria, and then made it through Amsterdam and all the way to Detroit before trying to blow up the plane. Making passengers sit still with their hands in the air for the last hour of a 12 hour flight doesn't address how the bomb got on the flight to Detroit in the first place. The TSA has a tough job: keep the bombs off the planes without making air travel so odious that it doesn't work. But when the TSA does something like this proposal - something so obviously not related to fixing the actual problem, they want it to be secret because everyone will think, and rightfully so, that Colonel Klink and Sergeant Shultz of Hogan's Heros are running airport security.
To me, this leak falls under the whistleblower laws. This type of stupidity is negligent.
But of course, the TSA thinks that all of its requirements and lists must be secret because the "Bad Guys" will get through much easier if things are known. But then, secret laws and secret rules with brutal enforcement are fundamentally unfair and ineffective. Far too easy to catch the ignorantly innocent rather than the nefarious. The TSA has a history or trying to hide their rules and go with arbitrary requirements, and by golly they don't want ANYONE to talk about it.
Forget you. You are not valuable. You are an expense. You are a necessary evil that cuts into the profits. Why do you think the company stock goes up when a bunch of you are laid off? If you were valuable assets, then the company could borrow against your value like it can against inventory and accounts receivable. You could be sold or traded like inventory or the old company car.
Right now there are fifty guys in line for your job. Your manager can replace you with another monkey in clothing faster than you can say "But I like music." IT does not matter what your experience or your skills or education, you are a cog in a machine and when you squeak you get replaced with some less squeaky cog.
That's the nature of companies in our day in age.
So what you are saying is simply that the climate will change. There is NOTHING that we can do to stop climate change. If we spend trillions of dollars to do something the climate will change. If we do NOTHING the climate will change. Which is how this planet's environment has been working for billions of years. The climate changes. Duh.
Raising a hullabaloo over the climate changing is a very good political game, but it is not very good science. Should we study how the climate works? Should we learn to model and predict the weather? Sure. These are worthy goals. But that is NOT what is going on here. At this time, there are conflicting models about how changes in the various components of the atmosphere will change the climate. Some predict high temperatures, some do not. Some think that the high temperatures will trigger an ice age, some do not. Some predict that the Sahara Desert will become green, some say that the desert will expand. Many of these models, based upon reasonable science lead to mutually exclusive results: they cannot all be correct.
The arrogance of man is obvious to those who look for it: we THINK that we are so IMPORTANT that we can and should control the climate. The truth is that we do not understand our climate to any significant degree. We cannot predict next summer's weather any better than our ancient ancestors despite reams of data and sophisticated models. Scientists make fools of themselves and their profession by making predictions that do not come true. How many Atlantic hurricanes again? How many droughts predicted in advance? If you could predict such things, you would make a killing in the markets, by the way. The incentive to make accurate climate and weather models is extreme. Think of the things we could do if we knew that the monsoon was going to be bad next year; or how many hurricanes in the Atlantic, Typhoons in the pacific, what the winter in Siberia was going to be. How well are the rains going to fall in the Midwest? Trillions of dollars in damages and untold consequences in human and animal suffering all because we can't predict next years regional climate.
As to the certainty of catastrophe, none of the models predict a climate that is inhospitable to life on our world. None of the models are even going outside the boundaries of known, past behavior for our planet. So what is this catastrophe? That the arable land will shift around? That humans will have to adapt to a changing climate? That we will face the political and economic difficulties of mass human migration? That is not a catastrophe of an environmental nature. That is a POLITICAL problem caused not by man's technology and emissions of carbon dioxide, but by the artificial walled gardens we created called countries. That changes in our climate can lead humans to kill each other over food is NOT a CLIMATE problem but a problem of human BEHAVIOR. Tossing trillions at a moving climate isn't going to the root of the problem: human behavior. And when those predictions do not lead to catastrophe, the science will be discredited like the boy who cried wolf. THAT is the real impending catastrophe.
But of course, by 2050, the scientists making the predictions will be long gone. They will have spent their grants and retired, and perhaps even expired. Kinda like religion where the priest promises you paradise after you are dead, so if he lied you can't complain, can you?
While it is certainly the job of science and those who profess to be scientists to provide the rest of us with data and interpretations, that is clearly NOT what is going on here. The data is being cherry picked. Criticism suppressed not with facts and data, but with political machinations - something that has clearly lead to disaster in our past. The truth, while painful, is liberating to all of us. That is NOT what is going here, people with vested economic and political interests are suppressing and manipulating data to support a pre conceived conclusion. Here we are seventy year
First off, being "in love" with someone is a pretty messed up mental state which often blinds people to the faults and realities of the other person. This state of being "in love" can last a couple of years - though it does last far longer for some folks. The biology of this emotional state is to get two people who would otherwise not hook up, to have kids. Essentially, love blinds you to the faults (large and small) of the other person so that you are willing to make an eternal commitment to the other person.
1. Sex in relationships often diminishes regardless of the honesty of the people involved mostly because the female does not have the same sex drive as the male. Other factors contribute to the decrease in sex: medications (such as the birth control pill, anxiety medications, etc.), time stresses (got married and now you are both focuses on earning money to pay for the mortagage), and the negative emotional baggage that builds up over time. Sure, you love her now, and the fact that she won't do the dishes until the last dish is dirty doesn't bother you, but it will bother you a lot three years from now when you come home from an exhausting day of work related hell to find that all of the fucking cups are dirty. You won't get confrontational about it then because you are TIRED and it's a small thing. But sand is a small thing, and it can irritate the hell out of you. And after you have kids. . . sex is a challenge because nothing on earth kills the moment like the sound of your offspring opening the door for . . . a drink of water.
2. Weight gain happens because your metabolism changes and as you get older the work you do becomes less and less physical.
3. You money stops going where you wanted it to go when you were single. That causes resentment because no matter what, marriage does not change WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU LIKE. Don't expect her to change either. The only thing that changes people of either sex is trauma - emotional, physical trauma.
4. Relatives . . . mine are strange and insufferable. I like my in laws better.
5. My spouse drives the vehicle I don't want to drive. Right now, I drive the new truck and she drives the old civic. When we bought the SUV, she drove it, because I liked driving the protege better, of course she wanted to drive it.
6. Neglecting your spouse because you play HALO, or WOW 80 hours per week will cause just as much trouble as if you spent 90 hours per week working came home and watched football. It's the not being fair to the other person and forgetting that they need you to participate in their emotional well being part that cause the trouble.
7. Yes, she will ask. You will lie about it.
8. Learn to cook well.
9 & 10. Love is blinding so you'd better be sure she's being honest. If she likes to do the same things you like to do then you're doing pretty well. Otherwise, you'll need some win-win negotiations.
Honesty is the most important factor. If a person is brave enough to be honest with you, and very much wants to be a part of your life and vice versa, great. Beware though, the deceiver, because like a cheater, a liar keeps on lying.
Been there, done that, have the tee-shirt.
Actually, that's wrong. It's not the public. The government and the lobbyists around the current political military industrial complex do not care about the moon, or the rest of the solar system. They are make heaps of cash and taking control of vast territories on earth and have no interest in spending billions on going to the moon. The US has already spent more money than it would cost to land men on Mars and bring them home on the war in Iraq. As soon as their is a tangible military advantage to owning the moon, it will be colonized.