6 years ago I looked at my income and expenses. I lived in a rented house, I had about 100k in shares and savings.
I earned about 80 k (my pay has gone up about 5k per year)
Now I own my own small house (no mortgage) and have about 600k in shares. Mostly blue-chips, tho to be fair I've probably made almost as much from telecoms and gold-mines as blue-chips.
If any intelligent self-directed person without other responsibilities cannot duplicate that performance then in my opinion they are complacent.
No, I'm an engineer, suspensions on Mustang, engines on Corvette.
"Your low profile tires comment makes absolutely no sense."
Because you don't know what you are talking about.
"They are indeed not designed for racing."
Thank you, that was my point.
" However, they are high" (ish) " performance vehicles (the Corvette more so) and they should be fully capable of being used in closed course events such as driver education (racetrack) and autocross.
Of course they are. But that's not racing. If you want to race a Corvette you replace almost every single component and body panel. It's a whole new car.
"It's hard to believe that the Corvette with its near supercar horsepower, handling, and braking is only being designed with slightly elevated durability targets."
Well, try really hard. Or become an automotive engineer.
Neither Corvette nor Mustang are designed in any significant fashion for racing. I've been on product development teams for both. Durability requirements were pretty much the same as for any sporty derivative, which are slightly higher than for a sedan due to the low profile tires.
I'd have thought that if a profitable, identifiable, manufacturer had committed fraud there would be no end of private and public cases coming up in court. If not, why not? black helicopters?
Since the uptime on all my machines is greater than 1 week, all I can do is observe that NT4, XP, and Linux 2.4.2 are vastly more reliable than their predecessors from 6-8 years ago. I don't know if NT4 is more reliable now than it was then, my perception is that it is, on the other hand it has had 6 SPs so it ought to be. It probably appreciates having room to breathe as well - Linux certainly does.
Oh, did I have to reverse engineer Windows to realise that it was going to be less reliable than a *NIX based OS? No.
I did as you probably did when you buy something that you are not an expert in, and just found out what other people thought, via say magazine reviews if nothing else.
Admittedly this is a little easier than it was back in the days when the Apple fan-boys claimed that their reliability was way ahead of W3.1, yet by personal experience, both OS's needed about the same number of reboots per day (2).
In any reasonable market the purchaser has the duty to himself to ensure that the thing he purchases meets his requirements.
Anyone buying Windows, Linux or OSX should be aware that they are buggy, virus prone, and variously liable to collapse at innopportune moments.
Of course, these days the nanny state can be relied on to replace personal responsibility. Waa waa waa the nasty man took my money and gave me a POS. Waa waa waa.
The record was already more than 5000 mpg. Whilst I appreciate that the new regs require a slightly more practical design, is the best that can be done after an additional 20 years, merely 60% as good? Particularly since these designs can leach off all the low rolling resistance and aero technology developed by the solar car people?
On the other hand, for a student team, yeah, not bad.
Do you seriously think that in a commercial environment like the USA Auto companies are currently going through, that if they thought they could sell an EV profitably, they wouldn't?
I must admit, I am surprised that there is no sensible EV currently on sale. The technology is pretty straightforward, and if you just take Toyota's approach with the RAV then, even though it is not especially efficient, it is safe and useful.
My health cover costs about 50 per month. It will rise faster than inflation, inevitably, but some rather stupid legislation forbids modifying the rates to account for risk. Quite how the yoof of today will regard this setup, down the track, i am not sure.
Incidentally the 'free' public health system in Australia is adequate, except for dental.
Probably worth pointing out that not having children makes that decision a lot simpler. On balance I'd rather have had children and accepted that I was likely to have to work until I was 65 or more, than my current alternative. Hey ho.
It's not hard, it is just a decision you make. I work as a mechanical engineer for a large company. I am 45. I own my house and drive a 20 year old car.
I eat in (good) restaurants twice a week, and holiday overseas for a month every two years.
I don't intend on retiring since I enjoy my job, but I could retire tomorrow just on the income from my shares. It took 10 years to do this, once I decided on a financial plan, and that decade includes losing a lot of money in the tech-wreck.
The average USAn in the same job as me gets into work at 8, has a looong cup of coffee in the canteen, checks ebay, has a long cup of cofee and a doughnut in the canteen, organises where to go out for lunch, goes out for lunch, has another looong cup of coffee in the canteen, and goes home at 430.
I work the same hours, and even if I'm hungover I'm not spending almost two hours a day sitting in the canteen or a restaurant.
And according to an apocryphal study, having a hangover is not detrimental to your performance in the office (well OK, barfing over the keyboard probably is).
Contractually we can be sacked if we use more sick leave than we have owing to us. In practice, in the past, if we had 120 days and are struck by something serious the company used to try and figure something out. These days that might not be true - watch this space.
As to the taking sickies thing. It used to be that most hourly paid workers took their entire sick pay entitlement every year. That didn't happen so much with office workers. Where I work the average absentee rate across the entire sub-organisation (say 400-600 people) is ~2%, (ie 4 days off a year) which probably compares very well with anywhere except Japan.
20 days annual vacation - some of which have to be taken during plant shutdown
10 days public holidays
12 days flexed off (2 hours per week back as one day per month, approx) - 6 have to be taken on specified shutdown days.
37 hour working week, overtime is in theory payable, in practice I just flex more time off as it suits.
1.5 days per month accumulative sick leave to 120 days max (weird logic applies after that)
5 days per year accumulated long service leave - accessible after 10 years.
Compared with the UK, I'm behind on annual leave, ahead on flex time off, and the long service leave more or less makes up for the AL deficit. Sick leave is about line ball in practice - except that in Oz it is culturally acceptable to take sick days off at ones discretion.
My parent's generation, the returning soldiers (etc) from WW2, voted for the Labour government whose central plank was the Welfare state - universal state provided healthcare, universal state provided education.
I think those people (and the soldiers (etc) of WW1) had put their lives on the line for society, and had a right to define which way it should go.
I'd rather live with their vision, faults and all, than that of assorted isolationist fat-cats.
Slashdot Mirror
6 years ago I looked at my income and expenses. I lived in a rented house, I had about 100k in shares and savings.
I earned about 80 k (my pay has gone up about 5k per year)
Now I own my own small house (no mortgage) and have about 600k in shares. Mostly blue-chips, tho to be fair I've probably made almost as much from telecoms and gold-mines as blue-chips.
If any intelligent self-directed person without other responsibilities cannot duplicate that performance then in my opinion they are complacent.
"You were on the marketing team? "
No, I'm an engineer, suspensions on Mustang, engines on Corvette.
"Your low profile tires comment makes absolutely no sense."
Because you don't know what you are talking about.
"They are indeed not designed for racing."
Thank you, that was my point.
" However, they are high" (ish) " performance vehicles (the Corvette more so) and they should be fully capable of being used in closed course events such as driver education (racetrack) and autocross.
Of course they are. But that's not racing. If you want to race a Corvette you replace almost every single component and body panel. It's a whole new car.
"It's hard to believe that the Corvette with its near supercar horsepower, handling, and braking is only being designed with slightly elevated durability targets."
Well, try really hard. Or become an automotive engineer.
Recently available at a Mercedes dealer near you (S class I think). They've stopped it now.
Neither Corvette nor Mustang are designed in any significant fashion for racing. I've been on product development teams for both. Durability requirements were pretty much the same as for any sporty derivative, which are slightly higher than for a sedan due to the low profile tires.
For certain values of x and y
I'd have thought that if a profitable, identifiable, manufacturer had committed fraud there would be no end of private and public cases coming up in court. If not, why not? black helicopters?
Since the uptime on all my machines is greater than 1 week, all I can do is observe that NT4, XP, and Linux 2.4.2 are vastly more reliable than their predecessors from 6-8 years ago. I don't know if NT4 is more reliable now than it was then, my perception is that it is, on the other hand it has had 6 SPs so it ought to be. It probably appreciates having room to breathe as well - Linux certainly does.
Oh, did I have to reverse engineer Windows to realise that it was going to be less reliable than a *NIX based OS? No.
I did as you probably did when you buy something that you are not an expert in, and just found out what other people thought, via say magazine reviews if nothing else.
Admittedly this is a little easier than it was back in the days when the Apple fan-boys claimed that their reliability was way ahead of W3.1, yet by personal experience, both OS's needed about the same number of reboots per day (2).
In any reasonable market the purchaser has the duty to himself to ensure that the thing he purchases meets his requirements.
Anyone buying Windows, Linux or OSX should be aware that they are buggy, virus prone, and variously liable to collapse at innopportune moments.
Of course, these days the nanny state can be relied on to replace personal responsibility. Waa waa waa the nasty man took my money and gave me a POS. Waa waa waa.
all the dowel pins used to hold an engine in alignment during assembly. Which are ground steel.
So basically you are talking shit.
I'm sorry, you don't have the faintest fucking idea of how engineering works.
The guy who designs high frequency vibration stuff (such as me) would not attempt to seal a bridge design.
Because, by signing, it makes you PERSONALLY and LEGALLY responsible for that design. You become the focal point for all legal actions from then on.
The record was already more than 5000 mpg. Whilst I appreciate that the new regs require a slightly more practical design, is the best that can be done after an additional 20 years, merely 60% as good? Particularly since these designs can leach off all the low rolling resistance and aero technology developed by the solar car people?
On the other hand, for a student team, yeah, not bad.
Do you seriously think that in a commercial environment like the USA Auto companies are currently going through, that if they thought they could sell an EV profitably, they wouldn't?
I must admit, I am surprised that there is no sensible EV currently on sale. The technology is pretty straightforward, and if you just take Toyota's approach with the RAV then, even though it is not especially efficient, it is safe and useful.
My health cover costs about 50 per month. It will rise faster than inflation, inevitably, but some rather stupid legislation forbids modifying the rates to account for risk. Quite how the yoof of today will regard this setup, down the track, i am not sure.
Incidentally the 'free' public health system in Australia is adequate, except for dental.
Probably worth pointing out that not having children makes that decision a lot simpler. On balance I'd rather have had children and accepted that I was likely to have to work until I was 65 or more, than my current alternative. Hey ho.
Ah, your job is so simple that no handover is required? What do you do - cook at a MickeyD?
It's not hard, it is just a decision you make. I work as a mechanical engineer for a large company. I am 45. I own my house and drive a 20 year old car.
I eat in (good) restaurants twice a week, and holiday overseas for a month every two years.
I don't intend on retiring since I enjoy my job, but I could retire tomorrow just on the income from my shares. It took 10 years to do this, once I decided on a financial plan, and that decade includes losing a lot of money in the tech-wreck.
"Office is the most wellknown example" We run office, we are not administrators. Where's your evidence that you have to be admin to run office?
Phillip Island is a racing circuit near here. The lap records for cars and bikes can be compared here
p hp
http://www.phillipislandcircuit.com.au/lap_times.
Fastest bike 1'30
Fastest car 1'24
Fastest F3 car 1'27
F3 cars are nothing like F1 - they use a restrictor plate and a 2 litre engine limiting the power to around 200 HP.
So a 200 HP car will beat the best motorcycle riders on the planet, apart from you.
The average USAn in the same job as me gets into work at 8, has a looong cup of coffee in the canteen, checks ebay, has a long cup of cofee and a doughnut in the canteen, organises where to go out for lunch, goes out for lunch, has another looong cup of coffee in the canteen, and goes home at 430.
I work the same hours, and even if I'm hungover I'm not spending almost two hours a day sitting in the canteen or a restaurant.
And according to an apocryphal study, having a hangover is not detrimental to your performance in the office (well OK, barfing over the keyboard probably is).
Contractually we can be sacked if we use more sick leave than we have owing to us. In practice, in the past, if we had 120 days and are struck by something serious the company used to try and figure something out. These days that might not be true - watch this space.
As to the taking sickies thing. It used to be that most hourly paid workers took their entire sick pay entitlement every year. That didn't happen so much with office workers. Where I work the average absentee rate across the entire sub-organisation (say 400-600 people) is ~2%, (ie 4 days off a year) which probably compares very well with anywhere except Japan.
I had that when I was younger. The cost of the injections was trivial, the nurse's time cost more.
Works like a charm. I didn't do the allergan free diet, mine was all tree pollen, and I don't eat trees.
There's no sensible answer to that. People can decide to be miserable anywhere.
My contract is pretty typical (for information).
I get paid:
20 days annual vacation - some of which have to be taken during plant shutdown
10 days public holidays
12 days flexed off (2 hours per week back as one day per month, approx) - 6 have to be taken on specified shutdown days.
37 hour working week, overtime is in theory payable, in practice I just flex more time off as it suits.
1.5 days per month accumulative sick leave to 120 days max (weird logic applies after that)
5 days per year accumulated long service leave - accessible after 10 years.
Compared with the UK, I'm behind on annual leave, ahead on flex time off, and the long service leave more or less makes up for the AL deficit. Sick leave is about line ball in practice - except that in Oz it is culturally acceptable to take sick days off at ones discretion.
My parent's generation, the returning soldiers (etc) from WW2, voted for the Labour government whose central plank was the Welfare state - universal state provided healthcare, universal state provided education.
I think those people (and the soldiers (etc) of WW1) had put their lives on the line for society, and had a right to define which way it should go.
I'd rather live with their vision, faults and all, than that of assorted isolationist fat-cats.
...decent food, decent cheap wine, gorgeous scenery. Being poorish in France is not a bad thing to be.