Yes, you're right. If the claims are completely unbelievable, than kids will not believe them. Somehow, they are able to discern the two.
But if you show kids pictures of people who are writhing around in pain and a bloody mess becuase they wrecked their sled racing on the freeway, they're more likely to be more careful drivers in traffic.
The success is measured currently on juvenile crime, and that has gone down dramatically in areas that the GREAT program has been instituted. Of course, there are no statistics yet on adult lives of these juveniles, but it doesn't take long on google (which I can't hit right now for some reason) to find statistics on the propensity to commit crime as an adult when a person already has as a juvenile.
Very few of them do... as a former professional musician I'd venture a guess that less that 1% of professional (full time, no other work) musicians have enough $$ to retire off of today.
There are songwriters whose sole income is from royalties that are paid off of album sales. One could argue that they should find other work, but then again, one could argue that I as a programmer should find other work if all of the sudden all software becomes easily pirated (wait, it already has). Currently, there is no change on the horizon for publishing companies, who pay a pittance to writers as staff, in paying writers a decent wage. That should probably change too. But these are the people that are writing hits that the general public were buying, and are now sharing.
The bottom line is most artists are getting by like you and I are, without millions of $$ sitting around collecting dust. The ones you see on Cribs are a very small fraction of the professionals out there.
Anytime you tell a kid that something's bad, their first instinct is to go investigate it.
Though I see your point, that's not always true. If you tell them it's bad and let them know why, and what the consequences are, they (at least mine, and also myself as a child) do tend to stay away from it.
I'm far from advocating this third reich program in schools, but if they're sharp enough to show kids what awful, evil, torturous things will happen to them if they do share (unlearning what they learned in kindergarten), then they're more likely to keep "clean" of it.
True on the dividend yield information. What makes it unpopular in the US is the difference in taxing of the earnings. If it's reinvested by the company, it's taxed at the regular rate for the shareholder. But if it's paid out, the investor can reinvest it themselves, or take a capital gain (at the cap gains tax rate which could be lower for the investor), provided it was earnings that accrued in less than one years time.
And you're right... I flubbed on the % in P/E ratio (even though it really is a %, it's not expressed that way). Thanks for catching that.
Just a little bit of clarification. It's the P/E Ratio (Price to Earnings) that investors are concerned about. The average over the long haul for the S&P is about 16%. During the DotCom boom, the average P/E ratio of those companies was somewhere in the 40% range... WAY off the map. Anything bought below the norm is considered a value stock, anything above is considered a growth stock.
Either way you slice it, the typical investor is concerned with the P/E, as you mentioned. The problem with that is if the immediate P/E drops, they tend to dump the stock pretty quickly. So if said company reinvests capital for say a new server farm, investors don't tend to look at that as a profitable move for a company, and run form it. Private companies don't have that problem, as they get the opportunity to look much further down the road.
You couldn't be more right. There is a HUGE difference between a private and a public company. Private companies can still take a hickey on short term earnings during heavy R&D. If a public company were to do that these days, the entire board and C*O staff would be out the door... replaced by some suits that only care about the next earnings report.
When a private company does really well, an IPO can be a painful death. Of course, it could also mean the owner(s) want to cash in and move to the Bahamas.
As the fiance of a cop, I was more referring to things like not being able to get involved in domestic disputes until there are two officers present, not being able to do anything about stalkers until solid evidence is presented (and even then, all you can get is a criminal trespass and a protection order), etc... Cops hands are tied even in situations they want to get in. Most of them are trying to do a good job, but policy and law dictates that they can't always do that.
The only problem I see with that (and I agree with every point) is telling the truth to a clueless manager doesn't always help. You have to be able to back up any claims with hard documentation and numbers. To the MBA, it's all about pennies, and every conversation you have with them has to end with "and this will save the company money" or it will go in one ear and out the other.
Nah, I was in the old south at the time, and am back home in Texas now. I wonder, though, what the statute of limitations is on something like that. It's been 5 years, and I'm sure the data has turned over since then, but who knows.
Yeah, I was (much) younger and dumber at the time. I think about it from time to time and how I should have done more. I do know that several of the execs that were there aren't any longer. Maybe (hopefully) they've cleaned up their act.
Nah, neither. I mentioned in another response that ideally I should have reported them one way or another, but all I really wanted was away from all of that.
In retrospect, I should have, but in reality I just wanted to wash the awful taste out of my mouth. I also got "blacklisted" by the consulting firm I was with, but that was no big deal, as they turned out to be flesh pimps anyway.
-- What this world needs is some geeks with the backbone to stand up for what they believe in.
.... Begin long story here....
I lost a job for it, and fell like a better man in the long run. I worked for a company that processed medical records, and sent hundreds of reports back to the practices/hospitals. Side benefit was selling generic statistics to insurance companies, etc... All of that was legal and the companies we serviced had knowledge of it.
While rewriting crappy code there, I noticed one particular batch that was different. It seemed to be sending not-so-generic data (it included names, address, and phone numbers). It also had a different naming convention. I brought it up with my IT Director, who promptly dismissed it as "normal, we deal with many kinds of businesses."
It seems we were selling personal information to marketing firms. I found that the firms we serviced had no knowledge of that, so I refused to write the code. Of course I got fired,had a company officer watch me pack my things, and escort me to the door, all the while trying to convince me they were doing nothing wrong, and I shouldn't mention this to anyone, blah blah blah.
.... End long story here....
I think anyone in the know at a company (and most programmers/dba's are in the know) should exercise some responsibility. If it's wrong, it's wrong. Look at the folks who got in trouble at Enron for looking the other way.
If that same company were shipping data overseas, I would have had the same reaction, and probably the same ensuing unemployment.
I subscribe to ntbugtraq.com and read what others are saying about the patches. Inevitibly, there are some that patch immediately, and a few of them are kind enough to report their findings.
True, but then you have the DMCA worries. If the specs are unpublished, then you're feasably hacking the package to get what you want out of it. And if the data is encrypted, your worries include jail time.
As much as I enjoy the idea of open standards, they're not worth sitting in a cell to me.
Wow, you couldn't possibly have been the first poster to remember that could you? When I saw the title, I hit the article, searched for Tesla, found nothing, hit the comments, searched it again, and found you.
Not being much of an EE, do you have any idea if this "weapon" resembles Tesla's work and the mysterious test in the USSR?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, you're right. If the claims are completely unbelievable, than kids will not believe them. Somehow, they are able to discern the two.
But if you show kids pictures of people who are writhing around in pain and a bloody mess becuase they wrecked their sled racing on the freeway, they're more likely to be more careful drivers in traffic.
The success is measured currently on juvenile crime, and that has gone down dramatically in areas that the GREAT program has been instituted. Of course, there are no statistics yet on adult lives of these juveniles, but it doesn't take long on google (which I can't hit right now for some reason) to find statistics on the propensity to commit crime as an adult when a person already has as a juvenile.
The artists live in multimillion dollar mansions
Very few of them do... as a former professional musician I'd venture a guess that less that 1% of professional (full time, no other work) musicians have enough $$ to retire off of today.
There are songwriters whose sole income is from royalties that are paid off of album sales. One could argue that they should find other work, but then again, one could argue that I as a programmer should find other work if all of the sudden all software becomes easily pirated (wait, it already has). Currently, there is no change on the horizon for publishing companies, who pay a pittance to writers as staff, in paying writers a decent wage. That should probably change too. But these are the people that are writing hits that the general public were buying, and are now sharing.
The bottom line is most artists are getting by like you and I are, without millions of $$ sitting around collecting dust. The ones you see on Cribs are a very small fraction of the professionals out there.
Anytime you tell a kid that something's bad, their first instinct is to go investigate it.
Though I see your point, that's not always true. If you tell them it's bad and let them know why, and what the consequences are, they (at least mine, and also myself as a child) do tend to stay away from it.
I'm far from advocating this third reich program in schools, but if they're sharp enough to show kids what awful, evil, torturous things will happen to them if they do share (unlearning what they learned in kindergarten), then they're more likely to keep "clean" of it.
DARE has been replaced by GREAT, which so far has a pretty good success rate.
True on the dividend yield information. What makes it unpopular in the US is the difference in taxing of the earnings. If it's reinvested by the company, it's taxed at the regular rate for the shareholder. But if it's paid out, the investor can reinvest it themselves, or take a capital gain (at the cap gains tax rate which could be lower for the investor), provided it was earnings that accrued in less than one years time.
And you're right... I flubbed on the % in P/E ratio (even though it really is a %, it's not expressed that way). Thanks for catching that.
Because most of our politicians (law-makers) are in fact lawyers themselves?
Just a little bit of clarification. It's the P/E Ratio (Price to Earnings) that investors are concerned about. The average over the long haul for the S&P is about 16%. During the DotCom boom, the average P/E ratio of those companies was somewhere in the 40% range... WAY off the map. Anything bought below the norm is considered a value stock, anything above is considered a growth stock.
Either way you slice it, the typical investor is concerned with the P/E, as you mentioned. The problem with that is if the immediate P/E drops, they tend to dump the stock pretty quickly. So if said company reinvests capital for say a new server farm, investors don't tend to look at that as a profitable move for a company, and run form it. Private companies don't have that problem, as they get the opportunity to look much further down the road.
You couldn't be more right. There is a HUGE difference between a private and a public company. Private companies can still take a hickey on short term earnings during heavy R&D. If a public company were to do that these days, the entire board and C*O staff would be out the door... replaced by some suits that only care about the next earnings report.
When a private company does really well, an IPO can be a painful death. Of course, it could also mean the owner(s) want to cash in and move to the Bahamas.
Wouldn't that depend on how long the printer lasts? Who would work for $10000/year?
As the fiance of a cop, I was more referring to things like not being able to get involved in domestic disputes until there are two officers present, not being able to do anything about stalkers until solid evidence is presented (and even then, all you can get is a criminal trespass and a protection order), etc... Cops hands are tied even in situations they want to get in. Most of them are trying to do a good job, but policy and law dictates that they can't always do that.
Ah... but it's these same ridiculous laws that make cops stand by until it's legal to do something about it.
The only problem I see with that (and I agree with every point) is telling the truth to a clueless manager doesn't always help. You have to be able to back up any claims with hard documentation and numbers. To the MBA, it's all about pennies, and every conversation you have with them has to end with "and this will save the company money" or it will go in one ear and out the other.
Nah, I was in the old south at the time, and am back home in Texas now. I wonder, though, what the statute of limitations is on something like that. It's been 5 years, and I'm sure the data has turned over since then, but who knows.
Yeah, I was (much) younger and dumber at the time. I think about it from time to time and how I should have done more. I do know that several of the execs that were there aren't any longer. Maybe (hopefully) they've cleaned up their act.
Nah, neither. I mentioned in another response that ideally I should have reported them one way or another, but all I really wanted was away from all of that.
In retrospect, I should have, but in reality I just wanted to wash the awful taste out of my mouth. I also got "blacklisted" by the consulting firm I was with, but that was no big deal, as they turned out to be flesh pimps anyway.
-- What this world needs is some geeks with the backbone to stand up for what they believe in.
.... Begin long story here ....
,had a company officer watch me pack my things, and escort me to the door, all the while trying to convince me they were doing nothing wrong, and I shouldn't mention this to anyone, blah blah blah.
.... End long story here ....
I lost a job for it, and fell like a better man in the long run. I worked for a company that processed medical records, and sent hundreds of reports back to the practices/hospitals. Side benefit was selling generic statistics to insurance companies, etc... All of that was legal and the companies we serviced had knowledge of it.
While rewriting crappy code there, I noticed one particular batch that was different. It seemed to be sending not-so-generic data (it included names, address, and phone numbers). It also had a different naming convention. I brought it up with my IT Director, who promptly dismissed it as "normal, we deal with many kinds of businesses."
It seems we were selling personal information to marketing firms. I found that the firms we serviced had no knowledge of that, so I refused to write the code. Of course I got fired
I think anyone in the know at a company (and most programmers/dba's are in the know) should exercise some responsibility. If it's wrong, it's wrong. Look at the folks who got in trouble at Enron for looking the other way.
If that same company were shipping data overseas, I would have had the same reaction, and probably the same ensuing unemployment.
I wasn't suggesting this would use weapons grade materials. Just that radioactive material is sometimes "manufactured."
radioactive material isn't manufactured
But it is enriched manually, right?
I subscribe to ntbugtraq.com and read what others are saying about the patches. Inevitibly, there are some that patch immediately, and a few of them are kind enough to report their findings.
True, but then you have the DMCA worries. If the specs are unpublished, then you're feasably hacking the package to get what you want out of it. And if the data is encrypted, your worries include jail time.
As much as I enjoy the idea of open standards, they're not worth sitting in a cell to me.
Lack of published standards on the part of M$?
Dang. Every time I'm in CL I look for that real El Camino, and it always eludes me... now I know why.
Wow, you couldn't possibly have been the first poster to remember that could you? When I saw the title, I hit the article, searched for Tesla, found nothing, hit the comments, searched it again, and found you.
Not being much of an EE, do you have any idea if this "weapon" resembles Tesla's work and the mysterious test in the USSR?