I worked at Target last year during the holiday season, in the electronics section. We carded every M-rated game we sold, as standard policy. I carded grandmas. (Partly so that they knew the game they were buying was M-rated, in case they were just working off a shopping list given them by some 8 year old...)
In many places this is policy. Where have you seen that it isn't?
(Of course, not all of my co-workers would card everyone. They'd let you slide if you looked old enough. But everyone carded anyone who we were in doubt about.)
The code can tell me what it is doing, but it can't tell me what it is supposed to be doing. The comment should tell me why the code is doing what it is doing. Then I can look at the comment and code together and tell whether the code is right. (And the comment won't have to change as I modify the code: It either stays because the why still exists, or it is removed because it doesn't.)
I'll admit my wording was slightly imprecise: instead of 'in the market' it should be something like 'in a market which they can use to control the market in which they want to use the loss-leader business model'. Which probably also isn't perfect, and is hard to understand.
MS could use their OS monopoly to directly influnce the application market, and did so. (They even went so far as to say that IE was a part of the OS.) In the console market, the only real effect it has is being a source of funds. Since Sony at least has a source of funds to match, that's not very impressive.
It's a perfectly valid and legal business model, as long as you don't have monopoly power in the market.
MS had (and still has, though I believe it is eroding) monopoly power in the desktop OS market. It does not in the gaming-console market. They think they can make money this way: let them try. If it's a viable strategy, their competetors can use it as well. If it isn't, their competetors will laugh all the way to the bank.
(The reasoning behind why it isn't legal for a monopoly is that the monopoly power can use it to deny entry by a new competetor: Just run at a loss until the new company folds, then raise the prices again.)
Unfortunately they do have a leg to stand on: the leg of public opinion. If the public accepts them, regardless of evidence, there is a debate, because the public wants it.
I guess the question is, do we measure a company and its software by its base security, or by how quickly it responds to a discovered threat? I'm personally inclined to lean towards the second.
Both, of course. The first shows how good they are at actually designing and creating software, and the second shows how much they listen to their users/their lawyers/the press. (Take your pick.)
You sound like me when I worked in the electronics department... "No, you don't need to come in on $insanely_busy_day, we'll have to later I'm sure." "Ok." (To myself:) "YES! One less customer to serve!"
Just because they exist doesn't mean they aren't boogiemen. A boogieman is something you have an irrational, and unnecessary, fear of. I'd say terrorists fit that description for most Americans.
Sure terrorists do lots different of things, but the chance of them happening to you, or even anyone you know, is fairly remote. You are much more likely, in all probablity, to get into a car accident this year.
Should terrorists be stopped? Yes. Do they have to be mentioned in every political speach for the next 10 years? No. Did they have any real relevence in this speach? No. They were just being used for the knee-jerk fear the word evokes.
I'm not. I'm replying to a post joking that some enginering positions would soon be open at Sony. My reply is pendantic: No they won't, because Sony didn't do the enginering.
That of course is a completely seperate problem from whether Sony is to blame for shipping tne CD's. Of course they are: They made them, put their label on them, and shipped them. They bought the software, and should have been able to buy something else, nothing, or have it re-written to match their specs. It is their problem.
But since none of their engineers worked on it, don't blame Sony's engineers. Quite possibly they told everyone this was a bad idea and were ignored. Blame management, or someone else in the company, but the engineers didn't touch this.
Java doesn't run everywhere: For instance, there is no Java JVM for a Palm. C/C++ programs that started elsewhere have been ported to Palm, on occasion.
ID is not the exact equivalent of "we don't know how this works": it is the equivalent of "we can't know how this works". The first is a statement of our ignorance and an invitation to further exploration, the latter is a statement of limitation, and an incentive to refrain from exploration.
Most handle it by giving you the view of the data before the other user started to modify it. The person who is editing's edits do not show until all of the edit is finished.
Postgres docs actually have a chapter on this: Concurrency Control. Like most high-end databases Postgres can handle this situation in different ways, depending on how it is set up...
A database should never tell you that the data is not avalible. It should always give you the best version of the data it has.
I'm seeing a few answers about how they are 6% and 9% of totally different numbers, but that's actually besides the point. (And it is to compare companies despite those differences that these ratios were created.)
The answer is: It depends. Generally, within an industry, the company with the higher profit margin is in a better position. However, the amount of difference a percentage point is effectively is highly industry dependant: if you were talking about grocery stores, that's a huge difference. With manufacturers, it isn't quite as much. I'd have to check a few other computer manufacturers to get a good 'feel' for how much difference it is in this case. And it would be a 'feel': this is a very subjective question, especially since no two companies operate exactly alike. (Good rule of thumb for comparing how companies are doing: Never rely on just one number.)
Suffice it to say, it is a decent difference. Enough that Dell is probably looking at Apple to see what they can imitate to improve their own profit margins. Whether that they find is something they can use is another question entirely.
The unique ID is tied to the passport. The passport is tied to you. So, it's a step harder to tie the ID to you. One, small, step harder. All it takes is access to one database.
Most of the ones I saw were trivial tasks. Even the auto description was edit the auto description until it was human readable. Since they are trivial, people get bored doing them. The common solution has been to over-pay someone to do them, and have the pay offset their boredom. This interface provides a new idea: let people do them until they get bored, and pay them by the piece.
If your time is truly worth more, don't do them. But there are people who will find it an interesting diversion for a few minutes, and they get paid a bit for it. All in all, not a bad extension of the free market.
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The bank. It's called a mortgage.
(Of course, they may not think you have enough value to be worth buying.)
Or for that matter, for virus-analysis. I know of people who email each other copies of viruses (safely marked) so that they can all examine them.
I worked at Target last year during the holiday season, in the electronics section. We carded every M-rated game we sold, as standard policy. I carded grandmas. (Partly so that they knew the game they were buying was M-rated, in case they were just working off a shopping list given them by some 8 year old...)
In many places this is policy. Where have you seen that it isn't?
(Of course, not all of my co-workers would card everyone. They'd let you slide if you looked old enough. But everyone carded anyone who we were in doubt about.)
The code can tell me what it is doing, but it can't tell me what it is supposed to be doing. The comment should tell me why the code is doing what it is doing. Then I can look at the comment and code together and tell whether the code is right. (And the comment won't have to change as I modify the code: It either stays because the why still exists, or it is removed because it doesn't.)
Probably; I'm educated in business law, but no expert or lawyer.
I'll admit my wording was slightly imprecise: instead of 'in the market' it should be something like 'in a market which they can use to control the market in which they want to use the loss-leader business model'. Which probably also isn't perfect, and is hard to understand.
MS could use their OS monopoly to directly influnce the application market, and did so. (They even went so far as to say that IE was a part of the OS.) In the console market, the only real effect it has is being a source of funds. Since Sony at least has a source of funds to match, that's not very impressive.
It's a perfectly valid and legal business model, as long as you don't have monopoly power in the market.
MS had (and still has, though I believe it is eroding) monopoly power in the desktop OS market. It does not in the gaming-console market. They think they can make money this way: let them try. If it's a viable strategy, their competetors can use it as well. If it isn't, their competetors will laugh all the way to the bank.
(The reasoning behind why it isn't legal for a monopoly is that the monopoly power can use it to deny entry by a new competetor: Just run at a loss until the new company folds, then raise the prices again.)
Unfortunately they do have a leg to stand on: the leg of public opinion. If the public accepts them, regardless of evidence, there is a debate, because the public wants it.
A stupid debate, but a debate never the less.
Both, of course. The first shows how good they are at actually designing and creating software, and the second shows how much they listen to their users/their lawyers/the press. (Take your pick.)
If it was used the way 'terrorist' was here, yes.
You sound like me when I worked in the electronics department...
"No, you don't need to come in on $insanely_busy_day, we'll have to later I'm sure."
"Ok."
(To myself:) "YES! One less customer to serve!"
Just because they exist doesn't mean they aren't boogiemen. A boogieman is something you have an irrational, and unnecessary, fear of. I'd say terrorists fit that description for most Americans.
Sure terrorists do lots different of things, but the chance of them happening to you, or even anyone you know, is fairly remote. You are much more likely, in all probablity, to get into a car accident this year.
Should terrorists be stopped? Yes. Do they have to be mentioned in every political speach for the next 10 years? No. Did they have any real relevence in this speach? No. They were just being used for the knee-jerk fear the word evokes.
Yeah: Give people six sentences (a couple of which are snippits!) and they only read two...
This says something about our attention spans.
I'm not. I'm replying to a post joking that some enginering positions would soon be open at Sony. My reply is pendantic: No they won't, because Sony didn't do the enginering.
That of course is a completely seperate problem from whether Sony is to blame for shipping tne CD's. Of course they are: They made them, put their label on them, and shipped them. They bought the software, and should have been able to buy something else, nothing, or have it re-written to match their specs. It is their problem.
But since none of their engineers worked on it, don't blame Sony's engineers. Quite possibly they told everyone this was a bad idea and were ignored. Blame management, or someone else in the company, but the engineers didn't touch this.
Remember: Sony didn't write the rootkit. They bought it from someone else.
Now, the question is, what department thought it was a good idea? Sales and Marketing? Legal? Somebody had to think it was worth the money...
Now, why hadn't I seen that before? Thanks.
;)
Not that my device is listed as supported though...
Java doesn't run everywhere: For instance, there is no Java JVM for a Palm. C/C++ programs that started elsewhere have been ported to Palm, on occasion.
It's a bit of an extreme case, I admit, but...
ID is not the exact equivalent of "we don't know how this works": it is the equivalent of "we can't know how this works". The first is a statement of our ignorance and an invitation to further exploration, the latter is a statement of limitation, and an incentive to refrain from exploration.
That is why ID is dangerous.
Hey, we've come up with an innovative theory on pre-emtive war...
It is quite possible that it was both: Someone had mixed up a foot (or more likely a yard) and a meter in the code...
Most handle it by giving you the view of the data before the other user started to modify it. The person who is editing's edits do not show until all of the edit is finished.
Postgres docs actually have a chapter on this: Concurrency Control. Like most high-end databases Postgres can handle this situation in different ways, depending on how it is set up...
A database should never tell you that the data is not avalible. It should always give you the best version of the data it has.
Don't think 'thieves'. Think 'other employees'.
As for the original question: I'm not sure. It would depend on the environment.
I'm seeing a few answers about how they are 6% and 9% of totally different numbers, but that's actually besides the point. (And it is to compare companies despite those differences that these ratios were created.)
The answer is: It depends. Generally, within an industry, the company with the higher profit margin is in a better position. However, the amount of difference a percentage point is effectively is highly industry dependant: if you were talking about grocery stores, that's a huge difference. With manufacturers, it isn't quite as much. I'd have to check a few other computer manufacturers to get a good 'feel' for how much difference it is in this case. And it would be a 'feel': this is a very subjective question, especially since no two companies operate exactly alike. (Good rule of thumb for comparing how companies are doing: Never rely on just one number.)
Suffice it to say, it is a decent difference. Enough that Dell is probably looking at Apple to see what they can imitate to improve their own profit margins. Whether that they find is something they can use is another question entirely.
The unique ID is tied to the passport. The passport is tied to you. So, it's a step harder to tie the ID to you. One, small, step harder. All it takes is access to one database.
So, don't do it.
Most of the ones I saw were trivial tasks. Even the auto description was edit the auto description until it was human readable. Since they are trivial, people get bored doing them. The common solution has been to over-pay someone to do them, and have the pay offset their boredom. This interface provides a new idea: let people do them until they get bored, and pay them by the piece.
If your time is truly worth more, don't do them. But there are people who will find it an interesting diversion for a few minutes, and they get paid a bit for it. All in all, not a bad extension of the free market.