What do you think honestly is the most likely result of this new law? Note that the wording of the law specifically targets the science that goes against the belief of the evangelical right.
I live in the South and the hostile attitude that some have to real, objective and honest science is one reason why I'm moving back to the Northeast if I ever have kids.
I'm bookmarking that article and whipping it out everytime some blowhard complains about treehuggers. Hey, guess what, the treehuggers are the reason why there's only one US city on that list.
Such a thing is widely used. It's called algorithmic trading and there's a wiki article about it. These firms have lots of money and employ people who are much smarter than we are.
Agreed, there should be a good market for a mid-range headless workstation. The Mac Pro is overkill for most people and the Mac Mini is not enough. There's a huge range in prices between them so Apple really ought to be able to fill in the gap without cannibalizing the Mac Pro. I'd be the first in line for it!
Indeed I have checked their prices. I'm actually typing on my one and I have an iBook in the living room. Comparing comparable models, their prices are indeed similar or even better than other manufacturers' offerings.
However, my "premium prices" comment was more about the fact that Apple sells higher end machines with the accompanying higher end prices. They really don't go slumming on the low price machines where gross margins are generally crap. Even when they try to strip down the hardware to reach a lower price (looking at you, Mac Mini and iPod shuffle), the demand generally isn't great.
Don't get me wrong... the EEE has its place and I'd like to mess around with it when the price goes down, but that isn't Apple's thing. I actually am an Apple shareholder and I think it would be foolish for them to erode their high margins and status as a premium brand by pushing out a low price, low margin product such as the EEE. Macs are finally on the right track now and they don't need to slum it in order to continue to take market share. Heck, I'd just sell Apple and buy Dell if I wanted to own a commodity hardware player.
I highly doubt it. Besides the porting and performance issues, Apple sells premium products at premium prices. The last thing they want to sell is a low margin $400 laptop. As a shareholder, I'd be pretty pissed if they were to waste time/money/effort on the low end market.
Amen to that! I only have the Spiderman 3 disc that came with my PS3 for that same reason. IMHO, there's a pretty short list of movies that could pry $30 from my wallet.
However, Netflix could be the savior for all parties involved. They already let you borrow BD discs for the same price as DVDs so that's really the only cheap BD source for consumers. As demand goes up, Netflix will have to increase BD purchases which should ultimately lead to lower production prices.
The press has analyzed this to death. Most recently, Friday's Wall Street Journal had an article about the Wii shortages. Wired also had an article last month.
In a nutshell, Nintendo was screwed by poor forecasting which is key to their just-in-time manufacturing model.
The whole point of JIT is to keep inventory as low as possible in order to lower costs. Unfortunately, their original forecast for the fiscal year was 3.5 million units short of their current forecast. Low inventory on hand means they have to scramble to ramp up production. Even more unfortunate is that all their manufacturing is outsourced which apparently makes it harder to quickly bring capacity online. The WSJ article also mentions difficulties in properly allocating inventory across different markets.
See McCarthyism for an concrete example of prosecution/persecution after the fact. The next witchhunt is always potentially around the corner and one can never be sure what it'll be about.
That's a very good point. People place different values on features, price and convenience. That's how two perfectly reasonable people can reach vastly different conclusions about the same product whether it be a computer, a car, a house or whatever. I've found that my values have also changed over time. I used to be a poor college kid so I built my own machines. Then I got a job and suddenly my time was worth much more so I paid a little extra money and sacrificed a bit of flexibility for pre-built stuff. Now I value my mental health so I'll gladly fork over a few extra bucks and sacrifice non-important (to me) features to be able to run OS X.
The funny thing is that the company I'm working for is in the process of migrating our production internal web servers to VMWare. Our infrastructure director spoke at a meeting of our development group and swore that there's no performance impact He actually said that with a straight face but we all knew he was full of it. I thought about it a bit and decided to let him virtualize my servers because it'll be his job on the line when it tanks, not mine.
Fox bought Myspace. YouTube is still independent IIRC. In the short term, partnering with YouTube actually makes a lot of sense for Warner because it probably costs them a lot less to digitize their video collection than it would take to roll out a new service or buy out another site. Even if they were to have their own site, they'd be fighting an uphill battle to steal eyeballs from YouTube.
I'm writing a paper on my computer for a group project. The group is meeting at another member's house to work on it. We want to make edits to the paper but he doesn't have that version of Word. What now? Sure, I can save to RTF but it doesn't preserve the formatting properly. Same goes for OpenOffice.
Who owns the data created by Microsoft Office? IANAL but I believe the user owns the data. If I was a user I would ask why Microsoft has the right to hold hostage the data that they do not own?
David Axmark's just saying he expects up to 10x as many users.
The 40% figure refers to their OSS marketshare. Well, what's MySQL's marketshare of the entire database market (OSS and non-OSS)? If it's less than 10% then it's mathematically possible if all these people suddenly deploy MySQL overnight.
Also, he didn't say when he expects his userbase to actually hit the 10x mark. It's probable that the size of the overall database market will have grown by then.
I couldn't agree more. Let's face it, not every kid is going to college. They might not care about high school education and may drag everyone down with their unhappiness about being forced to go to school. I'm not looking down or passing judgement on them. That's just the way it is.
For these kids, there should be an option for vocational schools. They'll learn some useful skills to prepare them to earn a decent wage and maybe they'll be happier not having to be in a place they don't feel they belong. Additionally, they can be taught the basic math and literary skills needed to function in society at their own pace.
The DOJ succumbs to the MSFT juggernaut and gives them the "freedom to innovate" and what do they do with it? Rip off iTunes?
Look at the stuff MSFT has put out the last few years... XP,.NET, home networking hardware, yet another version of Office, the tilt mouse. All are essentially reimplementations of previous works. The point is that MSN music is more of the same. They haven't innovated since the optical mouse and I wouldn't be surprised if that came from an OEM.
I'm no Linux or FOSS fanboy but Microsoft has no credibility due to all the FUD they spread and their reprehensible business practices. Why would I want to work with a company like this? Maybe they'll throw a semi-important project under a BSD type license and assign some sharp technical people to it but even then the inherent evilness of the company is too much to overcome. Am I the only one here that feels this way?
With that said, I don't think Slashdot is the community MS is going after. There are tons of MS developers out there that don't have these moral objections who would give their left nut to work on a MS project.
One more thing... doesn't the fact that they need to entice and motivate people to work with them indicate that something is awry? They shouldn't have to twist any arms if they were doing anything worthwhile.
Some applications may not work properly with SP2 so do your homework before applying this. For example, Microsoft's own CRM product does not work properly with SP2 without an upgrade and applying some workarounds. I can't imagine that would be a fun thing to do.
Disclaimer: I work as a jack of all trades developer in a non-software industry IT department so my answers may not be typical. Just my $0.02.
As the job market gains strength, what are companies willing to do in order to attract the best talent?
Nothing. There are plenty of IS workers looking for jobs.
Are we about to enter another era where employers are willing to make work fun again, in order to attract and keep talent?
No, not until demand for workers exceed supply.
Will this have any effect on other employers, forcing them to again offer benefits to keep pace and talent?
No. See previous answer.
How important are these kinds of perks to the average employee anyway?
Not important. I care about interesting projects, competitive salary, raises and bonuses exceeding the rate of inflation and opportunities for career and knowledge advancement.
What kind of perks would you have to have to switch to a job that pay the same?
Perks take a back seat to everything mentioned in the previous answer.
Slashdot Mirror
What do you think honestly is the most likely result of this new law? Note that the wording of the law specifically targets the science that goes against the belief of the evangelical right.
I live in the South and the hostile attitude that some have to real, objective and honest science is one reason why I'm moving back to the Northeast if I ever have kids.
I'm bookmarking that article and whipping it out everytime some blowhard complains about treehuggers. Hey, guess what, the treehuggers are the reason why there's only one US city on that list.
Such a thing is widely used. It's called algorithmic trading and there's a wiki article about it. These firms have lots of money and employ people who are much smarter than we are.
Agreed, there should be a good market for a mid-range headless workstation. The Mac Pro is overkill for most people and the Mac Mini is not enough. There's a huge range in prices between them so Apple really ought to be able to fill in the gap without cannibalizing the Mac Pro. I'd be the first in line for it!
Indeed I have checked their prices. I'm actually typing on my one and I have an iBook in the living room. Comparing comparable models, their prices are indeed similar or even better than other manufacturers' offerings.
However, my "premium prices" comment was more about the fact that Apple sells higher end machines with the accompanying higher end prices. They really don't go slumming on the low price machines where gross margins are generally crap. Even when they try to strip down the hardware to reach a lower price (looking at you, Mac Mini and iPod shuffle), the demand generally isn't great.
Don't get me wrong... the EEE has its place and I'd like to mess around with it when the price goes down, but that isn't Apple's thing. I actually am an Apple shareholder and I think it would be foolish for them to erode their high margins and status as a premium brand by pushing out a low price, low margin product such as the EEE. Macs are finally on the right track now and they don't need to slum it in order to continue to take market share. Heck, I'd just sell Apple and buy Dell if I wanted to own a commodity hardware player.
I highly doubt it. Besides the porting and performance issues, Apple sells premium products at premium prices. The last thing they want to sell is a low margin $400 laptop. As a shareholder, I'd be pretty pissed if they were to waste time/money/effort on the low end market.
Amen to that! I only have the Spiderman 3 disc that came with my PS3 for that same reason. IMHO, there's a pretty short list of movies that could pry $30 from my wallet.
However, Netflix could be the savior for all parties involved. They already let you borrow BD discs for the same price as DVDs so that's really the only cheap BD source for consumers. As demand goes up, Netflix will have to increase BD purchases which should ultimately lead to lower production prices.
The press has analyzed this to death. Most recently, Friday's Wall Street Journal had an article about the Wii shortages. Wired also had an article last month. In a nutshell, Nintendo was screwed by poor forecasting which is key to their just-in-time manufacturing model.
The whole point of JIT is to keep inventory as low as possible in order to lower costs. Unfortunately, their original forecast for the fiscal year was 3.5 million units short of their current forecast. Low inventory on hand means they have to scramble to ramp up production. Even more unfortunate is that all their manufacturing is outsourced which apparently makes it harder to quickly bring capacity online. The WSJ article also mentions difficulties in properly allocating inventory across different markets.
See McCarthyism for an concrete example of prosecution/persecution after the fact. The next witchhunt is always potentially around the corner and one can never be sure what it'll be about.
That's a very good point. People place different values on features, price and convenience. That's how two perfectly reasonable people can reach vastly different conclusions about the same product whether it be a computer, a car, a house or whatever. I've found that my values have also changed over time. I used to be a poor college kid so I built my own machines. Then I got a job and suddenly my time was worth much more so I paid a little extra money and sacrificed a bit of flexibility for pre-built stuff. Now I value my mental health so I'll gladly fork over a few extra bucks and sacrifice non-important (to me) features to be able to run OS X.
The funny thing is that the company I'm working for is in the process of migrating our production internal web servers to VMWare. Our infrastructure director spoke at a meeting of our development group and swore that there's no performance impact He actually said that with a straight face but we all knew he was full of it. I thought about it a bit and decided to let him virtualize my servers because it'll be his job on the line when it tanks, not mine.
YouTube has profit sharing deals in place with CBS, NBC, UMG, Sony BMG and Warner. It seems to me that media companies would rather cooperate than litigate in this particular case.
Fox bought Myspace. YouTube is still independent IIRC. In the short term, partnering with YouTube actually makes a lot of sense for Warner because it probably costs them a lot less to digitize their video collection than it would take to roll out a new service or buy out another site. Even if they were to have their own site, they'd be fighting an uphill battle to steal eyeballs from YouTube.
The Human Fund could always use some money to donate Festivus poles to the needy during the holidays.
I'm writing a paper on my computer for a group project. The group is meeting at another member's house to work on it. We want to make edits to the paper but he doesn't have that version of Word. What now? Sure, I can save to RTF but it doesn't preserve the formatting properly. Same goes for OpenOffice.
Who owns the data created by Microsoft Office? IANAL but I believe the user owns the data. If I was a user I would ask why Microsoft has the right to hold hostage the data that they do not own?
Yeah, I thought the whole marketshare thing was pretty obvious but then again this IS Slashdot so one never knows...
David Axmark's just saying he expects up to 10x as many users.
The 40% figure refers to their OSS marketshare. Well, what's MySQL's marketshare of the entire database market (OSS and non-OSS)? If it's less than 10% then it's mathematically possible if all these people suddenly deploy MySQL overnight.
Also, he didn't say when he expects his userbase to actually hit the 10x mark. It's probable that the size of the overall database market will have grown by then.
New Verizon slogan: Can you crash me now?
Does this mean Clippy pop up with suggestions when MSN copies this?
I couldn't agree more. Let's face it, not every kid is going to college. They might not care about high school education and may drag everyone down with their unhappiness about being forced to go to school. I'm not looking down or passing judgement on them. That's just the way it is.
For these kids, there should be an option for vocational schools. They'll learn some useful skills to prepare them to earn a decent wage and maybe they'll be happier not having to be in a place they don't feel they belong. Additionally, they can be taught the basic math and literary skills needed to function in society at their own pace.
The DOJ succumbs to the MSFT juggernaut and gives them the "freedom to innovate" and what do they do with it? Rip off iTunes?
Look at the stuff MSFT has put out the last few years... XP, .NET, home networking hardware, yet another version of Office, the tilt mouse. All are essentially reimplementations of previous works. The point is that MSN music is more of the same. They haven't innovated since the optical mouse and I wouldn't be surprised if that came from an OEM.
I'm no Linux or FOSS fanboy but Microsoft has no credibility due to all the FUD they spread and their reprehensible business practices. Why would I want to work with a company like this? Maybe they'll throw a semi-important project under a BSD type license and assign some sharp technical people to it but even then the inherent evilness of the company is too much to overcome. Am I the only one here that feels this way?
With that said, I don't think Slashdot is the community MS is going after. There are tons of MS developers out there that don't have these moral objections who would give their left nut to work on a MS project.
One more thing... doesn't the fact that they need to entice and motivate people to work with them indicate that something is awry? They shouldn't have to twist any arms if they were doing anything worthwhile.
Some applications may not work properly with SP2 so do your homework before applying this. For example, Microsoft's own CRM product does not work properly with SP2 without an upgrade and applying some workarounds. I can't imagine that would be a fun thing to do.
Disclaimer: I work as a jack of all trades developer in a non-software industry IT department so my answers may not be typical. Just my $0.02.
As the job market gains strength, what are companies willing to do in order to attract the best talent?
Nothing. There are plenty of IS workers looking for jobs.
Are we about to enter another era where employers are willing to make work fun again, in order to attract and keep talent?
No, not until demand for workers exceed supply.
Will this have any effect on other employers, forcing them to again offer benefits to keep pace and talent?
No. See previous answer.
How important are these kinds of perks to the average employee anyway?
Not important. I care about interesting projects, competitive salary, raises and bonuses exceeding the rate of inflation and opportunities for career and knowledge advancement.
What kind of perks would you have to have to switch to a job that pay the same?
Perks take a back seat to everything mentioned in the previous answer.