>Last time I checked the market set the price (with obvious unnamed monopoly exceptions *coughMicrosoftcough*).
True.
>The price the company pays for the production of the item has negligable impact on price--and that's fine. The price people are willing to pay for something has a much bigger impact on the price.
False. In the long run of a competitive market, the market price will equal the production costs. So in the long run of a truly competitive market, there is no profit.
> All outsourcing overseas does is fatten the profit margin for the sales of these IT projects.
For a small period of time it fattens the profit margin, but eventually it will reduce the cost that people pay for IT services.
Here's the economics behind it. I design something that a lot of people want. After all is said and done (administrative costs, etc.), it costs me $2 to make it, but I'm selling it for $10. You, being the entrepreneur that you are, go into business making the same thing. But you sell it for $9. If the market is truly competitive (the IT market seems to meet this rather well), then people will continue going into business until the price reaches $2. At this point, there is no profit.
The same is true in the IT industry. You don't outsource and can barely make a profit on the service. I outsource, sell the service at the same price, and profit. Eventually more people outsource, and I have to lower my price to stay competitive.
Outsourcing is just like specialization. I do the job that I'm good at, you do the job that you're good at, and then we trade services. All of us don't have to farm to be able to eat. With outsourcing, India does what they're good at, and the US does what we're good at. Surely you don't think specialization is a bad thing...
While this is a good idea, you should be able to control what exactly is locked out. Some (most?) of us, after all, can't get any work done w/o root and/or w/o Internet.
>"maybe when the focus is on the competition, and not pushing (ironically) fat-burgers, fizzy drinks and clothes manufactured in third-world sweat-shops."
Besides the TV commercials, I don't think any advertising has diverted my focus from the Games themselves (while watching on television). How have they annoyed you so much that you won't watch anymore? Anything in particular?
>Not million-dollar stage shows with fireworks and robotic Greek gods flying around. None of that adds to the real spectacle, IMHO, and none of the games requires expensive equipment or locales.
While it's not required, it certainly adds to the spectacle. And being that it is a huge international sporting event, why not add some entertainment? I'll gladly look at some advertisements if I get to see fireworks, listen to some music, etc. during the breaks in the action. I don't think these deter from the Games themselves at all. Sure you have people watching them who otherwise wouldn't, but the focus is obviously still on the Games themselves.
>You could have a perfectly excellent Olympics for a tenth or less of that. An acceptable Olympics (to most) for under a million.
>The athletes want to compete, not be whores for some commercial concern (at least until after they win.)
The athletes are definitely there to compete. But I do think the atmosphere adds to their experience as well as all of the spectators' experiences. However, there is absolutely no way you could fund the Olympics for less than a million dollars. The venues alone would cost a million dollars to rent for the time neccessary to setup, do the competitions themselves, and tear down the equipment. Could they do it for a lot less? Sure. Is it worth having the advertising so that we can see a bigger spectacle? Probably.
I think the Olympic committee is doing a fine job. I certainly wouldn't want to be put in their shoes. Sounds like a lot of work and a lot of harrassment to me.
>Is anyone else deliberately NOT watcing the Olympics in light of this corporate assholery?
If this is enough reason to convince you not to watch the Olympics, you clearly had little desire to watch in the first place. These are the best athletes of today, and being an athlete myself, I don't see how you could not watch them compete.
>No wonder attendance is only just hovering above 50% this year, even though it's in Athens. Seems like people don't like "controlled fun"... Funny that...
You're out of your mind. You really think people say to themselves "well, I would go to the Olympics, but I can't wear my Adidas shirt...maybe in 4 years..."? Come on.
>So, I didn't RTFA of course...
>Well, just accellerate current corporate greed and how much power corporations wield...
If you RTFA you would know that it has little to do with corporate greed, and lots to do with making the Olympics possible. Without sponsors, the Olympic games simply wouldn't have enough funding to go on. Are you going to donate some cash (or vote to use some tax dollars) to give more to the Olympics? Even if you do, others won't. They're trying to protect their sponsors, just like the free web providers do by not allowing you to show your own banner ads. It sounds like they might be going a bit far, but they have to do something to protect their sponsors or else they'll lose their funding.
>Will this not cause the lake to warm up? What are the envirnmental effects of this?
There will clearly be some environmental effects of this. Hopefully they have been considered by the designers/engineers of this project.
However, the one thing that everyone seems to be forgetting is this. Conventional air conditioning is much less efficient than this system of heat transfer. An air conditioner releases much more thermal energy to the atmosphere than it removed from the room it is cooling. This inefficiency has many environmental effects that we seem to be taking for granted. While this new system will still affect the environment, I think it will do so less than conventional air conditioning.
Are you physically capable of reading the headline D-Link's USB-Powered Access Point and just skipping over it? Don't read the comments, don't post a comment, don't click on the link.
We don't need to hear about it everytime you don't like an article.
The issue here is intelligence. In this case, some of the intelligence is gained through surveillance, but it's still intelligence.
>How does a camera have any hope of stopping someone who walks in with a suitcase bomb and a trigger on the handle?
Imagine some questions:
Why is he carrying a suitcase?
Why does he look nervous?
Who is he?
Where is he from?
Who does he hang out with on the weekends?
Why does he want to see the Olympics?
etc.
etc.
etc.
Ideally, your intelligence will be able to answer all of these questions so you know how big of a threat the person is. In reality, you gather as much intelligence as possible to help determine whether or not he/she is enough of a threat to confront the person. If you knew enough background information, you could make this decision with reasonable accuracy (and without infringing on too many innocent people).
>And so they go up to him, and bonus for him, 'cause now he gets to kill some cops, too.
First of all, you try to approach him before he enters. Secondly, the more you know about the person, the more likely you can convince him not to do something he will regret (or in some cases, not to do something that he won't regret). In either case, it increases the chances of being able to save lives.
>Surveillance might start to be acceptable when it has any chance of being beneficial.
Surveillance isn't beneficial?
>It's a placebo
Maybe. But even if it is just a placebo, I still think it is beneficial.
>If you tried, it would take you five seconds to find a way to kill a bunch of people their despite the precautions.
Have some faith in the people who call themselves security experts (and have the experience to back it up). People tell me all that time that computers are junk and pointless and a waste of time. I ignore them because they have little experience and in my opinion don't know what they're talking about. I'm sure you've had a similar experience regarding some topic or another. Now...why should I believe you when you say what you could and could not do given present security measures? Are you experienced in the field? Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Or do you make what you consider to be a well-informed conclusion based on news articles which probably tell the truth, but certainly not the whole truth?
You and I can't fathom what $1 billion is.
How can you look at a company like Google and suddenly say to yourself..."I don't think it's worth $36 billion."
How much is it worth then? $35 billion? $30 billion? $20 billion?
Most people use a single drive on the desktop. How many people actually use RAID-1 or RAID-5 on the desktop?
Backups are essential for desktop machines. With current storage technology, they don't appear to be going away anytime soon. Might as well get used to it.
If only my cable carrier would make all the NBC channels right in a row. How the hell am I supposed to remember that the Olympics are on channels 5, 7, 21, 34, etc?
Slashdot Mirror
True.
>The price the company pays for the production of the item has negligable impact on price--and that's fine. The price people are willing to pay for something has a much bigger impact on the price.
False. In the long run of a competitive market, the market price will equal the production costs. So in the long run of a truly competitive market, there is no profit.
> All outsourcing overseas does is fatten the profit margin for the sales of these IT projects.
For a small period of time it fattens the profit margin, but eventually it will reduce the cost that people pay for IT services.
Here's the economics behind it. I design something that a lot of people want. After all is said and done (administrative costs, etc.), it costs me $2 to make it, but I'm selling it for $10. You, being the entrepreneur that you are, go into business making the same thing. But you sell it for $9. If the market is truly competitive (the IT market seems to meet this rather well), then people will continue going into business until the price reaches $2. At this point, there is no profit.
The same is true in the IT industry. You don't outsource and can barely make a profit on the service. I outsource, sell the service at the same price, and profit. Eventually more people outsource, and I have to lower my price to stay competitive.
Outsourcing is just like specialization. I do the job that I'm good at, you do the job that you're good at, and then we trade services. All of us don't have to farm to be able to eat. With outsourcing, India does what they're good at, and the US does what we're good at. Surely you don't think specialization is a bad thing...
Woah, that's a lot of /s for /..
I agree with you. But if the lawsuit goes through and France wins, it will have much more far-reaching effects than just this specific incident.
A pre-written e-mail everytime I hit the View This Page in IE button wouldn't bother me one bit. Maybe a confirmation first.
Besides the TV commercials, I don't think any advertising has diverted my focus from the Games themselves (while watching on television). How have they annoyed you so much that you won't watch anymore? Anything in particular?
While it's not required, it certainly adds to the spectacle. And being that it is a huge international sporting event, why not add some entertainment? I'll gladly look at some advertisements if I get to see fireworks, listen to some music, etc. during the breaks in the action. I don't think these deter from the Games themselves at all. Sure you have people watching them who otherwise wouldn't, but the focus is obviously still on the Games themselves.
>You could have a perfectly excellent Olympics for a tenth or less of that. An acceptable Olympics (to most) for under a million.
>The athletes want to compete, not be whores for some commercial concern (at least until after they win.)
The athletes are definitely there to compete. But I do think the atmosphere adds to their experience as well as all of the spectators' experiences. However, there is absolutely no way you could fund the Olympics for less than a million dollars. The venues alone would cost a million dollars to rent for the time neccessary to setup, do the competitions themselves, and tear down the equipment. Could they do it for a lot less? Sure. Is it worth having the advertising so that we can see a bigger spectacle? Probably.
I think the Olympic committee is doing a fine job. I certainly wouldn't want to be put in their shoes. Sounds like a lot of work and a lot of harrassment to me.
This is one of the few events where so many countries in the world come together. Of course politics is involved. How could it not be?
If this is enough reason to convince you not to watch the Olympics, you clearly had little desire to watch in the first place. These are the best athletes of today, and being an athlete myself, I don't see how you could not watch them compete.
>No wonder attendance is only just hovering above 50% this year, even though it's in Athens. Seems like people don't like "controlled fun"... Funny that...
You're out of your mind. You really think people say to themselves "well, I would go to the Olympics, but I can't wear my Adidas shirt...maybe in 4 years..."? Come on.
>Well, just accellerate current corporate greed and how much power corporations wield...
If you RTFA you would know that it has little to do with corporate greed, and lots to do with making the Olympics possible. Without sponsors, the Olympic games simply wouldn't have enough funding to go on. Are you going to donate some cash (or vote to use some tax dollars) to give more to the Olympics? Even if you do, others won't. They're trying to protect their sponsors, just like the free web providers do by not allowing you to show your own banner ads. It sounds like they might be going a bit far, but they have to do something to protect their sponsors or else they'll lose their funding.
Of course it doesn't need to be. But it'd be nice if I could change the temperature in my cabin up north a few days before I go up.
What happened to http://www.bugmenot.com/? It appears to be dead, yet I have no idea why.
There will clearly be some environmental effects of this. Hopefully they have been considered by the designers/engineers of this project.
However, the one thing that everyone seems to be forgetting is this. Conventional air conditioning is much less efficient than this system of heat transfer. An air conditioner releases much more thermal energy to the atmosphere than it removed from the room it is cooling. This inefficiency has many environmental effects that we seem to be taking for granted. While this new system will still affect the environment, I think it will do so less than conventional air conditioning.
We don't need to hear about it everytime you don't like an article.
Are you sure it's not changeable w/ a registry edit? Maybe it is but Microsoft is hiding it from us? I wouldn't put it past them.
Agreed, but, how can you relax the rules? Is there a registry key somewhere? This really sucks if there's not. Will nMap still work?
The issue here is intelligence. In this case, some of the intelligence is gained through surveillance, but it's still intelligence.
>How does a camera have any hope of stopping someone who walks in with a suitcase bomb and a trigger on the handle?
Imagine some questions:
Why is he carrying a suitcase?
Why does he look nervous?
Who is he?
Where is he from?
Who does he hang out with on the weekends?
Why does he want to see the Olympics?
etc.
etc.
etc.
Ideally, your intelligence will be able to answer all of these questions so you know how big of a threat the person is. In reality, you gather as much intelligence as possible to help determine whether or not he/she is enough of a threat to confront the person. If you knew enough background information, you could make this decision with reasonable accuracy (and without infringing on too many innocent people).
>And so they go up to him, and bonus for him, 'cause now he gets to kill some cops, too.
First of all, you try to approach him before he enters. Secondly, the more you know about the person, the more likely you can convince him not to do something he will regret (or in some cases, not to do something that he won't regret). In either case, it increases the chances of being able to save lives.
ummm...what about the athletes?
Surveillance isn't beneficial?
>It's a placebo
Maybe. But even if it is just a placebo, I still think it is beneficial.
>If you tried, it would take you five seconds to find a way to kill a bunch of people their despite the precautions.
Have some faith in the people who call themselves security experts (and have the experience to back it up). People tell me all that time that computers are junk and pointless and a waste of time. I ignore them because they have little experience and in my opinion don't know what they're talking about. I'm sure you've had a similar experience regarding some topic or another. Now...why should I believe you when you say what you could and could not do given present security measures? Are you experienced in the field? Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Or do you make what you consider to be a well-informed conclusion based on news articles which probably tell the truth, but certainly not the whole truth?
Thanks a ton, this is what I was looking for. Link is here if anyone cares.
Speaking of which, how about an extension so I can right-click and "Fake referer header"?
Maybe a Disney flavor of linux is in our future.
How much is it worth then? $35 billion? $30 billion? $20 billion?
Backups are essential for desktop machines. With current storage technology, they don't appear to be going away anytime soon. Might as well get used to it.
I hate when watching TV actually requires effort.