Reading about economics and business on slashdot is an exercise in face palming.
Untold profits? Hiring someone new will cost money and when business slows you can just fire that person? That is not how you profit . It is not that easy.
You can hire temps perhaps but for most operations they will not be up to speed quickly enough. But wait....You could outsource to a place that does not have restrictions on the work environment and then you could keep up the low prices for Mr and Mrs while complying with some new work hour regulation!
I may complain. Actually I complain a lot. But in the end I could settle for less and find a new job. Or I could be a bum. There's a whole lot of options in between. I guess I'm saying I would prefer to have the freedom to choose to be a bum rather than have more and more regulations from the government when it's just not that easy.
on a side note, i did not rtfa, I am not sure if government regulation was mentioned at all in another comment either. That is just the endgame for ideas like this and I just hate reading about business topics on slashdot.
I am not sure if you are referring to Bastiat's Broken Window Example..
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html
Basically, in the 1800's it was argued that burning Paris to the ground would benefit the economy because all of the people who would be employed by rebuilding the city. Bastiat gave a simple example to show the fundamental problem with ideas like that. If you are forced to part with your money to pay for something that was broken (drm, scratched xbox 360 disk, smashed window), then you buy something again, have less money but the same amount of goods. If you did not have to replace the object, then you would buy something else and have two goods instead of one.
The studios have taken some steps towards competing: cinema releases are increasingly worldwide and DVD releases have a shorter delay. But they're not really close - it's like the big airlines trying to do the low-cost airline thing, they just don't have the mentality for it.
Big Airlines are competing on low-cost because it is incredibly difficult to differentiate a plane ride from another plane ride to consumers. When people shop on the web they go for the lowest cost the majority of the time. Try picturing yourself eating a better meal and watching a movie on a plane, would you even pay 20$ more? Most people say to the hell with it Ill save money and eat whenever I get there.
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html
Airline industry is consistently at the bottom for profit/margin, they fail if they do not have low costs. The studios make take an idea for a film, make a bunch of products based on that film, push all this shit on everyone everywhere, and are still trying to double up by not letting you even make a damn backup in the case a spec of sand finds its way onto your disc.
As a secondary side note, most companies worry about customer support when they mass distribute a product. I have never got s4n74cl4wz to respond to my requests when the the frame is clipped. Think about it, how can these be "quite basic market forces" when the "competition" is distributing your product without paying you?
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/
No wonder profits are....higher than ever at the box office?
Maybe it's the premium people pay or raised prices but apparently people are willing to consume more at the box office than ever before. Of course the numbers don't tell the whole story but was 2009 even inflationary?
believe whatever you want, but in my gut i know that this is more than just tragedy of the commons.
oil companies, cigarette companies, drug cartels, corrupt governments. most threads here talk about business decisions, and this may be the most profitable one for shell. more like rape vs a long term relationship. everyday people are getting it from every angle. only future generations will feel the pain more than us.
Why can't anyone do something? You've either got to believe marijuana should be legalized or want him in jail. You can't work with congress to "balance" rights between corporations and consumers either.
Who is more of a citizen, joe or bob's Inc. ? Stop writing laws left and right that try to fix things. half the time a corporate hand is influencing the law a lot more than a real citizen. Then we've got backwards laws protecting things that dont need protection and the people who do have voting cards are the ones worse off.
Just nit-picking real quick here, but come on....it IS the SAME stuff we hear from the other candidates. Seek balance? When you seek there is a chance you don't find. Every presidential candidate talks like this but when they get into the office they just play political grabass all day rather than get stuff done. When you are the president who is supposedly elected by the people, then if the people want something, you make it happen. You are the president, sure you gotta play along with the corporate congressmen but if you actually had resolve, vision blah blah etc then you'd realize that you are at the top and it's the best time to make the people's wishes come true if that is what you are about.
If all candidates "seek balance" then why even talk about it? I want to know who IS going to do something and when they plan to do many things I want, I'll vote for them. This two party system is a joke.
When we get presidents like the current one, it is clear they had a completely different mindset going into presidency. The people wanted a war? Eat my ass you fake clowns.
BTW "national security interests, including its interests in a viable space program"... if you place a space program under the national security interests umbrella then average citizens can't hope for much. Space is not a security interest, rather it is the great beyond. It is the future and a place of dreams. Why is everyone thinking of it as a security interest? So we can write a million laws from the hand of people who never have known average, and the real average joe sits on this rock forever.
Supposing such a simulation existed, and it was in some sort of computer, for argument's sake, and being in a computer it allowed reality of size x to be modeled in a much smaller, finite space, then if you run multiple realities in parallel, that's pretty much the equivalent of the multiple universe theory. So as far as we're concerned it's the exact same thing! don't think that think the multiple universe theory is comparable to running mutliple OS in virtualization on the same box. It isn't a "parallel" universe. It has more to do with the states/spins/vibrations/circles/movements/forces between the most incomprehensibly sized (or not sized) particles and the "properties" of them, of which we can barely figure out.
I think the idea of a virtual reality universe to be way off though. It would have to be a perfect quantum computing machine, computing everything from pain to pleasure, to making a star form that lets us recognize the heat produced.
the universe may be (essentially) 1's and 0's in the end, all entangled with eachother as they follow some rules. but it's self centered and ignorant to think we know what's going on and to ponder stuff like VR universe when we can't even see what physics and life is like "around the block", for ourselves.
Within the ranks of AOL staff, accounts which had overhead abilities could suspend other accounts. These suspended accounts then have to call AOL and talk about the infraction, hear the warning or whatever, and then they get the account back.
Phishing and trojans back in the days I am talking about..(95-2000? maybe they have the same setup) were pretty easy to pull off. You could easily get the password for one of these accounts and go ahead and start suspending many other accounts. There was even a hierarchy of these accounts, some had more banning power than others (and could terminate other overhead accounts). The phrase used when one person terminated another was called a TOS.
Two things came of all this, the AO-underworld would start killing off eachother's accounts in mass. You can't call AOL to get an account reactivated which you created from phished credit cards. The second, a lot of people claiming they didn't break the TOS when they got TOS'd, and AOL laxing it's punishments.
Player A just uses multiple accounts to complain. Player B eventually gets terminated. OR the staff will have to start letting people off the hook because they just don't know the truth.
This question coming from my ignorance...but since people mention freezing the cloned body parts for later use or even full grown clones, how is it that the tissue and cells are not damaged? We are made up of lots of water, water freezes into ice crystals. I get an image of a thin balloon filled with water being frozen, and then being punctured by ice. Except that the body has tons of water in a million of different places. Beyond sharp ice within cells, are there any other obstacles to freezing spare organs and humans?
It may mean that the old franchises we love are going to be replaced by new franchises we will love. If a guy was such an influential and creative person, another company will put 'em to good use.
The cost of the internet services WILL go up. All these companies do is pass along the costs to consumers. Lay new fiber? Long term maybe, but why the hell should we keep having to pay more and more to monopolies. Why should new lines have to be run for every company trying to compete in the market? U.S. already pays too much for cable and internet services. The fact that the voting is split between Rep/Dems should tell you that the committee cannot think for themselves anyway.
Do these firms spend these security dollars properly or do they just do as recommended by whichever software/analyst group wants to sell them more software/and or information on holes? How much of the $$$ designated forward security is worth it?
Anyone have insight into that aspect?
While I understand your logic, in this case the point would be to support someone who's life "may be ruined", after she has already been forced to pay up. I'm no legal buff, I imagine she goes through some appeals and then files bankruptcy and maybe the RIAA does not get much out of her. Sure this is supposed to be an example from the RIAA to tell the general public that the penalty is quite devastating and to stop distributing music. Just imagining a day when/. can pool together a buck or two apiece and let judges/RIAA know that there is a real community and face up against the shit they (RIAA in this case) spew. I'm not going to lay out plans right here and now, but I believe an effort could get noticed and change some minds. People against injustice, sending letters to members of congress and the RIAA won't media.
The other week that football coach blew up on a reporter at a conference after a game. He went wild on her, all to stick up for his player. Political correctness aside, people told him he should have just talked to the reporter behind closed doors to dispell false points in her article. If he had done that, then his opinion and view would not be heard UNLESS she wrote another article claiming she was wrong (RIAA/congress members would do that?) By going out in public against the article, he took sports headlines across the country. Same principle would apply here with a public effort to show support.
in light of the 10 year anniversary of/. and a bunch of people completely pissed off at the RIAA agenda, someone could easily setup a paypal donation account or something of the sort and we could see if/. user base really cares about a woman who's life has been ruined by the RIAA. That would make sense, be easy, help someone who thousands of people find has received injustice, piss RIAA off, and perhaps grab headlines around the globe.
She may be guilty of sharing the songs, she may owe SOMETHING, but if so many people can plainly see the injustice, then how come no one helps another citizen? Corporations and government have already won, good game.
I would guess these churches realize that kids would rather be home playing video games in comfy clothes on Sunday morning than getting read childrens tales at a church. I know that is all I wanted to do when I was young. Soon as I was old enough for my parents to realize I really was not going to be buying into any religous ideas, we stopped going to church. If it was not a business then they would not strive to interfer with everyday lives so much. Can't they get their messages in on just one day a week? I love life, I love feeling free. These people want to keep tabs on young males so they "don't go to hell"? Control freaks.
Also, donated money usually just goes to lavish bullcrap anyway. Now it's going to expensive gaming systems, projection displays and all this entertainment? What happened to the idea of helping others? The battered wives, the homeless, the cancer research? To think a nation's churches squander a lot of the donations on entertainment & large complexes. Some things never change I guess, but I sure wish religions would just go away. They already interfer with political policy and scientific endeavors too much for my liking.
Slashdot has good debates on various politcal topics ranging from law to internet policy nearly every day. Bright people can make a difference if logic and pressure are applied in the right areas. There are obstacles to every "revolution", but it has to start somewhere and many countries have bad policies in the works. Debating online only goes so far, perhaps there is a way to evolve through the plight of the community. Have you ever considered leveraging the community to make a REAL difference?
secrets and power. a few weeks ago there was a show on the history channel (i believe..) that was showcasing the secrets of ancient priests. the priests used their wealth (i assume donated, or mandated fees) to hire the brightest people around and turned the temples into giant entertainment venues. light a fire underneath a canopy of sorts, heat some water, create steam, route steam to massive doors which open upon mysteriously during the sacrifice. everyone leaves in awe, someone just got roasted and the doors opened on their own. the only people at the time who knew of these tricks were the "scientists" and priests. everyone else blindly followed. priests also knew of various poisons, just incase. sure these scientiests, via being paid were motivated into creating incredibly advanced devices for the time, but they might just have done it on their own and the entire public would have benefit.
my point is that religion just CAN'T be good in the end from a humanity perspective. if you want instant gratification, want to feel good, donate to something other than give your time/money to people wearing silly hats, robes, and especially if they are threatening your life when you don't follow them. or smoke pot.
honestly, look at the scope, look how long this has been going on. I hope that, it being 2007, the world could wake up. free flow of information please, stop the stifling, the trickery, it is doing humanity so much more harm than good. it's frustrating enough knowing that big business uses power to deceive and steal these days.
just to poke some fun now, all these diety clubs are hindering the enjoyment of my sundays. so many people devoting 52 +/- days a year is causing a lot of traffic jams on my local roads. just knock it off already
the bunch of you shrugging off apple's stance because these tweakers knew they could risk botching up the software would waive the freedom to alter SOFTWARE on any piece of hardware from here on out?
it's been said here a few times already but every few posts still chimes in with essentially "dumb @$#%!%*". What if dell users edit windows registry? what if dell ubuntu users get sudo happy? Then dell wont replace their computer because a heatsink was faulty and something got burnt? If it is under warranty, then they should replace the hardware! I lame examples but it really is the same in principle I'd say the line should be drawn with: I buy phone, I am satisfied with my software modifications to my phone, faulty hardware under warranty should be replaced, I continue using MY phone how I want.
Look, your beloved ________ manufacturer could pull the same gimmick if apple evades lawsuit. If enough people perceive injustice, then perhaps there IS injustice. Why can't Apple just say that if you alter clock speeds/power consumption then you gotta pay to replace that one part, but general OS and 3rd party apps that have no chance of ruining hardware are cool to use? Oh because as one poster previously stated, At&T and apple are big business and they want to pump everyone dry. Profits and margins rule the day, they've got your money, you are on a two year service contract, why should they give you any money back in the form of reliable customer service and valid hardware warranty claims? They all have the resources to do it. I hope these people get their day in court even if they don't know what they are doing software wise. That's not the point.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like business as usual 4/15/14 /. post about turbo tax lobbying against simplifying the tax system
Or threefold for that matter.
Untold profits? Hiring someone new will cost money and when business slows you can just fire that person? That is not how you profit . It is not that easy.
You can hire temps perhaps but for most operations they will not be up to speed quickly enough. But wait....You could outsource to a place that does not have restrictions on the work environment and then you could keep up the low prices for Mr and Mrs while complying with some new work hour regulation!
I may complain. Actually I complain a lot. But in the end I could settle for less and find a new job. Or I could be a bum. There's a whole lot of options in between. I guess I'm saying I would prefer to have the freedom to choose to be a bum rather than have more and more regulations from the government when it's just not that easy.
on a side note, i did not rtfa, I am not sure if government regulation was mentioned at all in another comment either. That is just the endgame for ideas like this and I just hate reading about business topics on slashdot.
I am not sure if you are referring to Bastiat's Broken Window Example.. http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html Basically, in the 1800's it was argued that burning Paris to the ground would benefit the economy because all of the people who would be employed by rebuilding the city. Bastiat gave a simple example to show the fundamental problem with ideas like that. If you are forced to part with your money to pay for something that was broken (drm, scratched xbox 360 disk, smashed window), then you buy something again, have less money but the same amount of goods. If you did not have to replace the object, then you would buy something else and have two goods instead of one.
The studios have taken some steps towards competing: cinema releases are increasingly worldwide and DVD releases have a shorter delay. But they're not really close - it's like the big airlines trying to do the low-cost airline thing, they just don't have the mentality for it.
Big Airlines are competing on low-cost because it is incredibly difficult to differentiate a plane ride from another plane ride to consumers. When people shop on the web they go for the lowest cost the majority of the time. Try picturing yourself eating a better meal and watching a movie on a plane, would you even pay 20$ more? Most people say to the hell with it Ill save money and eat whenever I get there.
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html
Airline industry is consistently at the bottom for profit/margin, they fail if they do not have low costs. The studios make take an idea for a film, make a bunch of products based on that film, push all this shit on everyone everywhere, and are still trying to double up by not letting you even make a damn backup in the case a spec of sand finds its way onto your disc. As a secondary side note, most companies worry about customer support when they mass distribute a product. I have never got s4n74cl4wz to respond to my requests when the the frame is clipped. Think about it, how can these be "quite basic market forces" when the "competition" is distributing your product without paying you?
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/ No wonder profits are....higher than ever at the box office? Maybe it's the premium people pay or raised prices but apparently people are willing to consume more at the box office than ever before. Of course the numbers don't tell the whole story but was 2009 even inflationary?
heads will roll? that's typical. blame someone. why not start talking about real reform? \=
believe whatever you want, but in my gut i know that this is more than just tragedy of the commons.
oil companies, cigarette companies, drug cartels, corrupt governments. most threads here talk about business decisions, and this may be the most profitable one for shell. more like rape vs a long term relationship. everyday people are getting it from every angle. only future generations will feel the pain more than us.
Why can't anyone do something? You've either got to believe marijuana should be legalized or want him in jail. You can't work with congress to "balance" rights between corporations and consumers either. Who is more of a citizen, joe or bob's Inc. ? Stop writing laws left and right that try to fix things. half the time a corporate hand is influencing the law a lot more than a real citizen. Then we've got backwards laws protecting things that dont need protection and the people who do have voting cards are the ones worse off. Just nit-picking real quick here, but come on....it IS the SAME stuff we hear from the other candidates. Seek balance? When you seek there is a chance you don't find. Every presidential candidate talks like this but when they get into the office they just play political grabass all day rather than get stuff done. When you are the president who is supposedly elected by the people, then if the people want something, you make it happen. You are the president, sure you gotta play along with the corporate congressmen but if you actually had resolve, vision blah blah etc then you'd realize that you are at the top and it's the best time to make the people's wishes come true if that is what you are about. If all candidates "seek balance" then why even talk about it? I want to know who IS going to do something and when they plan to do many things I want, I'll vote for them. This two party system is a joke. When we get presidents like the current one, it is clear they had a completely different mindset going into presidency. The people wanted a war? Eat my ass you fake clowns. BTW "national security interests, including its interests in a viable space program"... if you place a space program under the national security interests umbrella then average citizens can't hope for much. Space is not a security interest, rather it is the great beyond. It is the future and a place of dreams. Why is everyone thinking of it as a security interest? So we can write a million laws from the hand of people who never have known average, and the real average joe sits on this rock forever.
I think the idea of a virtual reality universe to be way off though. It would have to be a perfect quantum computing machine, computing everything from pain to pleasure, to making a star form that lets us recognize the heat produced.
the universe may be (essentially) 1's and 0's in the end, all entangled with eachother as they follow some rules. but it's self centered and ignorant to think we know what's going on and to ponder stuff like VR universe when we can't even see what physics and life is like "around the block", for ourselves.
Phishing and trojans back in the days I am talking about..(95-2000? maybe they have the same setup) were pretty easy to pull off. You could easily get the password for one of these accounts and go ahead and start suspending many other accounts. There was even a hierarchy of these accounts, some had more banning power than others (and could terminate other overhead accounts). The phrase used when one person terminated another was called a TOS.
Two things came of all this, the AO-underworld would start killing off eachother's accounts in mass. You can't call AOL to get an account reactivated which you created from phished credit cards. The second, a lot of people claiming they didn't break the TOS when they got TOS'd, and AOL laxing it's punishments.
Player A just uses multiple accounts to complain. Player B eventually gets terminated. OR the staff will have to start letting people off the hook because they just don't know the truth.
This question coming from my ignorance...but since people mention freezing the cloned body parts for later use or even full grown clones, how is it that the tissue and cells are not damaged? We are made up of lots of water, water freezes into ice crystals. I get an image of a thin balloon filled with water being frozen, and then being punctured by ice. Except that the body has tons of water in a million of different places. Beyond sharp ice within cells, are there any other obstacles to freezing spare organs and humans?
It may mean that the old franchises we love are going to be replaced by new franchises we will love. If a guy was such an influential and creative person, another company will put 'em to good use.
The cost of the internet services WILL go up. All these companies do is pass along the costs to consumers. Lay new fiber? Long term maybe, but why the hell should we keep having to pay more and more to monopolies. Why should new lines have to be run for every company trying to compete in the market? U.S. already pays too much for cable and internet services. The fact that the voting is split between Rep/Dems should tell you that the committee cannot think for themselves anyway.
Do these firms spend these security dollars properly or do they just do as recommended by whichever software/analyst group wants to sell them more software/and or information on holes? How much of the $$$ designated forward security is worth it? Anyone have insight into that aspect?
The other week that football coach blew up on a reporter at a conference after a game. He went wild on her, all to stick up for his player. Political correctness aside, people told him he should have just talked to the reporter behind closed doors to dispell false points in her article. If he had done that, then his opinion and view would not be heard UNLESS she wrote another article claiming she was wrong (RIAA/congress members would do that?) By going out in public against the article, he took sports headlines across the country. Same principle would apply here with a public effort to show support.
in light of the 10 year anniversary of /. and a bunch of people completely pissed off at the RIAA agenda, someone could easily setup a paypal donation account or something of the sort and we could see if /. user base really cares about a woman who's life has been ruined by the RIAA. That would make sense, be easy, help someone who thousands of people find has received injustice, piss RIAA off, and perhaps grab headlines around the globe.
She may be guilty of sharing the songs, she may owe SOMETHING, but if so many people can plainly see the injustice, then how come no one helps another citizen? Corporations and government have already won, good game.
I would guess these churches realize that kids would rather be home playing video games in comfy clothes on Sunday morning than getting read childrens tales at a church. I know that is all I wanted to do when I was young. Soon as I was old enough for my parents to realize I really was not going to be buying into any religous ideas, we stopped going to church. If it was not a business then they would not strive to interfer with everyday lives so much. Can't they get their messages in on just one day a week? I love life, I love feeling free. These people want to keep tabs on young males so they "don't go to hell"? Control freaks. Also, donated money usually just goes to lavish bullcrap anyway. Now it's going to expensive gaming systems, projection displays and all this entertainment? What happened to the idea of helping others? The battered wives, the homeless, the cancer research? To think a nation's churches squander a lot of the donations on entertainment & large complexes. Some things never change I guess, but I sure wish religions would just go away. They already interfer with political policy and scientific endeavors too much for my liking.
Slashdot has good debates on various politcal topics ranging from law to internet policy nearly every day. Bright people can make a difference if logic and pressure are applied in the right areas. There are obstacles to every "revolution", but it has to start somewhere and many countries have bad policies in the works. Debating online only goes so far, perhaps there is a way to evolve through the plight of the community. Have you ever considered leveraging the community to make a REAL difference?
secrets and power. a few weeks ago there was a show on the history channel (i believe..) that was showcasing the secrets of ancient priests. the priests used their wealth (i assume donated, or mandated fees) to hire the brightest people around and turned the temples into giant entertainment venues. light a fire underneath a canopy of sorts, heat some water, create steam, route steam to massive doors which open upon mysteriously during the sacrifice. everyone leaves in awe, someone just got roasted and the doors opened on their own. the only people at the time who knew of these tricks were the "scientists" and priests. everyone else blindly followed. priests also knew of various poisons, just incase. sure these scientiests, via being paid were motivated into creating incredibly advanced devices for the time, but they might just have done it on their own and the entire public would have benefit.
my point is that religion just CAN'T be good in the end from a humanity perspective. if you want instant gratification, want to feel good, donate to something other than give your time/money to people wearing silly hats, robes, and especially if they are threatening your life when you don't follow them. or smoke pot.
http://www.touregypt.net/science.htm
Just something i googled real quick to show scope
honestly, look at the scope, look how long this has been going on. I hope that, it being 2007, the world could wake up. free flow of information please, stop the stifling, the trickery, it is doing humanity so much more harm than good. it's frustrating enough knowing that big business uses power to deceive and steal these days.
just to poke some fun now, all these diety clubs are hindering the enjoyment of my sundays. so many people devoting 52 +/- days a year is causing a lot of traffic jams on my local roads. just knock it off already
the bunch of you shrugging off apple's stance because these tweakers knew they could risk botching up the software would waive the freedom to alter SOFTWARE on any piece of hardware from here on out?
it's been said here a few times already but every few posts still chimes in with essentially "dumb @$#%!%*". What if dell users edit windows registry? what if dell ubuntu users get sudo happy? Then dell wont replace their computer because a heatsink was faulty and something got burnt? If it is under warranty, then they should replace the hardware! I lame examples but it really is the same in principle I'd say the line should be drawn with: I buy phone, I am satisfied with my software modifications to my phone, faulty hardware under warranty should be replaced, I continue using MY phone how I want.
Look, your beloved ________ manufacturer could pull the same gimmick if apple evades lawsuit. If enough people perceive injustice, then perhaps there IS injustice. Why can't Apple just say that if you alter clock speeds/power consumption then you gotta pay to replace that one part, but general OS and 3rd party apps that have no chance of ruining hardware are cool to use? Oh because as one poster previously stated, At&T and apple are big business and they want to pump everyone dry. Profits and margins rule the day, they've got your money, you are on a two year service contract, why should they give you any money back in the form of reliable customer service and valid hardware warranty claims? They all have the resources to do it. I hope these people get their day in court even if they don't know what they are doing software wise. That's not the point.
Orson Scott Card's book Ender's Game spoke of things that resembled message boards and such. what up now Charlie?