Let's just try the smell test. There are 5 boys in my street (one of which is mine) between the ages of 8 and 12. They all ride bikes, none wear helmets. A typical weekday would see them riding their bikes twice (to somewhere and then back again). Though they ride more often on weekends and less often in winter. So lets call it once a day. There wasn't a single head injury from biking in the last year. Or the year before that. So call that 5*365*2 = 3650 (it's a smell test, that it's a leap year is the least significant of our errors). So by your unsourced claim there should have been 182 head injuries amongst these 5 boys.
I must live in the luckiest street in the world or something.
No, you don't live on the luckiest street in the world. However, if one is willing to use a non-statistical sample, they can show anything they want. The 5 kids on your street are not a statistical sample. But here are actual statistics from the Children's Safety Network:
Bicycle injuries and deaths affect children and young people more often than any other age group.
In 2005, 44 percent of nonfatal bicycle injuries occurred in children and youth age 5 to 20.
In 2005, the rate per million of nonfatal bicycle injuries in children and youth age 5 to 20 was 462.17 compared to 153.3 overall.
In 2005, children and youth age 0 to 20 made up 23.4 percent of bicycle fatalities.
In 2005, the rate per million of bicycle fatalities in children and youth age 5 to 20 was 4.37 compared to 2.64 overall.
In 2005, children under 15 accounted for 53 percent of bicycle injuries treated in emergency departments.
From 1999 to 2002, the average annual cost of bicycle fatalities in children and youth age 0 to 19 was $1.03 billion.
From 1999 to 2002, the average annual cost of nonfatal bicycle injuries in children and youth age 0 to 19 was $3.6 billion.
Young cyclists are more likely than adult cyclists to die of head injuries, most of which are caused by motor vehicle collisions. Among children and youth age 0 to 19 in 2000:
Head injuries accounted for 62.6 percent of bicycle fatalities.
Collisions with motor vehicles accounted for 75.7 percent of bicycle fatalities.
61.7 percent of motor vehicle collision deaths were due to head injury.
So we know that if you are going head first into the pavement, you want a helmet on. But does wearing a helmet increase the chances of a serious crash by impairing the biker?
No, at least not on motor cycles, where the helmets are much more restrictive than bicycles. Helmets do not significantly reduce the peripheral vision or the hearing of the biker. Most bicycle accidents occur with 160 degrees of the direction of travel while normal vision is around 220-240 degrees. You would need to cover about 1/4 of your eye to get down to 160 degrees. Since most bike helmets sit on top of the head instead of around it like a motorcycle helmet, there is no additional risk do to vision. As for the other complaint, hearing, again, the helmet rests on top of the head while the ears are on the side, so it is unlikely that a helmet will increase the risk of a crash from impaired hearing.
Would more people might ride bikes if they didn't have to wear a helmet? I don't know. But if they did, then there would also be more deaths and injuries. It's simple, really. Bike helmets protect the skull and brain in serious accidents and protect the scalp and skin in less serious accidents (even without a brain injury, having to reattach one's scalp is a pretty serious situation).
Put it this way, the kicker in American football rarely needs to tackle anybody, but they still have a helmet and pads for the rare occasion that they do. Most people will never have a serious bike accident, but they should still wear a helmet for the rare occasion that they do.
I've got a 4yr old and he didn't want to wear his helmet. So I told him he didn't have to. My wife didn't like it but I told her "he's still in training wheels, he can't even go 5mph, short of him getting hit by a car, there's no way he can injure himself bad enough to warrant a helmet. She relented. Then some of the neighborhood moms saw him and freaked out. I reasoned with them, but they wouldn't shut up so finally I told them to mind their own god damned business. So they of course, all got together and ganged up on my wife when I wasn't home, who now insists he use the helmet. So... now he doesn't ride his bike anymore because he doesn't want to bother with the helmet. In fact, the majority of the kids in my neighborhood don't. Last week, while NOT riding a bike, he was climbing over a fence and fell on his head. Go figure.
So, when he is a teenager, are you going to tell him to not use a condom? I mean, the overall pregnancy rate for unprotected sex is around 5% which is actually lower than the head injury rate from biking without a helmet. The purpose of your 4 year old wearing a helmet is to get him into the habit of wearing it for the time he really does need it.
Average kid downloads 1,000 songs that could have been purchased for $0.99 each, so studios lost $999 (artists even less). Average Chinese bootleg produces 100,000 CDs and studios lose $1.3M. Why not go after the real problem?
Yes, abstinance works so well. So who gets to conrol it? Surely you didn't think you'd get to?
Ask China how well controlled population works. One child per couple is below the rate to sustain a society or culture. But then, maybe that is why the West convinced China to take that course so many decades ago.
Actually, this is a great misconception. China's one child per couple policy has doomed the nation to non-existence in the next 30 years. A typical chinese extended family is called 421 - four grandparents, 2 parents and one son. Even if China lifted it's once child per couple policy today and started producing only girls instead of sons, by the time they reached sexual maturity, it would be too late to turn the tide around. They simply cannot sustain their population into the future.
Europe would be in the same situation except for the Muslim immigration. Europe will survive because Muslims are producing children, but the European culture will be lost. Likewise, in the US, the Hispanic immigration with their higher birthrate will keep the US going, however, within 50 years, the majority of Americans will be of Hispanic heritage instead of German as it is now.
The problem for the world is not that there is not enough food and resources for 6 billion people. There is adequate food and resources for far more. What the problem in the world truly has is one of distribution where a minority of the world's population consumes the vast majority of the world's resources.
Limiting population growth via birth control, war, or what ever means is not the answer and will only lead to the even quicker decline. But at least those that have, will have more, for a while.
Yep, pretty good. If you define 'good' as maximal help for a limited class of human beings at the expense of large swaths of the population and the planet.
Well one should expect that capitalism is good, if not very good for the capitalists. Unfortunately, for those who have to work for the capitalists, a different story emerges.
Capitalism is very much like Darwin's survival of the fittest. Both favor the most successful at the expense of everybody else. There is a reason why in the early 20th century there were a lot of anti-trust laws created. The good of the people required protection from the most successful capitalists. There is also a reason why now, most of those laws are ignored. The good of the corporation is now above the good of the people.
Unfortunately, today, people ignorantly shout capitalism when the reality is fascism and today's "capitalists" are actually fascists.
The hold back on XP probably is not ie6 compatibility for the majority of businesses. On the other hand, business tend to make decisions based on ROI. If upgrading to Windows 7 gives a favorable ROI, businesses will upgrade. If not, they won't. For most business users, word processing and spreadsheets are the major applications. Does switching to Windows 7 make one type faster? No, of course not. Therefore there is a low ROI.
Another move has been to hosting apps on a terminal server and then just using an RDP client. Again, the ROI on moving users from XP to Win 7 in that scenario is also poor.
Businesses make business decisions based on the bottom line. If they can get a better return doing X than Y, then they will do X. It's not that businesses can't benefit from switching to Win 7. It's just that they don't benefit as much as using those resources elsewhere in the company.
Most home users barely use many of the features of these tools to begin with, they won't see the value of paying $100 a year for this. That's a lot of money to many people.
Of course Microsoft could just change the licensing agreement on your existing copy (like Google and Facebook have recently done with their services) and you then have the choice to upgrade to the new subscription or stop using the product.
People who use Office daily, for whom 27Â per day is reasonable.
People who use Office daily probably aren't home users (which the article is about). The small business cost is $150 per user per year, so a 100 person office will pay $15,000/yr. Regular business cost is even higher. Previously, a small business could purchase those 100 copies for around $20,000 and then use them for 5 years. That equates to $4,000/yr versus $15,000.
No wonder the republicans want tax cuts for the wealth, job creators -- they are going to have to use it to pay for new copies of Office.
This has nothing to do with being a developer. Most workplaces discourage or outright ban workplace romances because they rarely work out and the fallout is detrimental to the organization.
Take the only moving part of your PC subsystem and swap it with something that has none. Fans don't count. It is the only upgrade that you will instantly see a significant difference in response times. Seriously, ask your neighbourhood PC gamer.
Since OP has issues with fractions, I'll put this succinctly, get an SSD. Whichever one you can afford. Even if you have to move software storage to a seperate disk from OS.
I've never tried hybrids, but with 128 GB SSDs under $100 at Newegg, there's never been a better time to lose your HDD as your boot drive.
My mother is in her 80s and uses the PC to browse the internet, check email and maybe look at a photo or two. Do you really think that swapping out the HDD for and SSD will make a significant change for her?
What about an office worker? Sure document saving/retrieving will be quicker, but an SSD won't help one bit with document creation which is a human tasked project (it won't make you type faster nor have ideas for what to type pop in your head faster).
SSDs are really only cost beneficial for things that truly require what they excel at which is speed and power consumption. Desktops don't really need to worry about power consumption, nor do most laptops. Tablets would be a different story. Speed (at least drive i/o) isn't an issue for most users unless you are serving up a database or web pages. Even then, assuming there are large amounts of data involved, a 128GB SSD for under a $100 is no deal if you need to store more data than that, especially since you can get a 2TB HDD for under $200.
In the end, it really boils down to what one actually needs as to whether or not it is a good deal or not.
Honestly, this question seems to be coming up a lot lately. As with any tech, it either meets your needs or it doesn't, and if it doesn't then its not worth it at any price.
Probably keeps coming up because somebody, somewhere, is wanting you to buy SSDs. While SSDs can be used in place of a regular HD, for most people, the cost/benefit is negative. That doesn't stop them from trying to sell you one.
It's like the new iPhone. If you have a iPhone 4(s) does upgrading really make much sense? I'm sure there are some people that might really "need" a new feature, but most people, probably just want the new feature and through Apple's marketing, have convinced themself that they need it.
If your main use of the computer is serving the web, checking emails, typing some documents, then the extra cost of the SSD isn't going to make a major difference. OTOH, if what you are doing is somewhat disk intensive, then it very well could.
As with most things in life, technology or otherwise, wants usually carry more weight with one's decisions than do needs. Marketers count on that.
It will never be economical to send people into space until we start doing it regularly. The only way to make something like that economical is to keep on fixing and fiddling things to make them cheaper. And that won't happen if you don't have anything to fix and fiddle.
The 'eggs in one basket' problem is the biggest reason I want us to get off the planet sooner rather than later.
It's not about economics, it's about safety. Getting to space and back is the relatively easy part, when it comes to safety. The effects of zero-gravity, solar radiation/flares, micrometeors and a slew of other things is the hard part. The reason it costs so much more to launch a human being into space than a satellite has to do with the economics of safety, not the economics of the physics involved.
As far as the "eggs in one basket" problem, you better look at some other solution than cheap space flights. Prevention and protection are much more achievable goals than escape.
Thinking that death is better than life is not a valid viewpoint. If you think that while remaining alive, you clearly need a kick in the pants.
Allowing one bad event or one bad person to define your entire existence is pathetic, and is not something to be tolerated. Anyone can toughen up and become stronger, and they will be better off for it.
Don't you think to feel that death is better than life, might be an example of how damaging child sexual abuse is to the very core of a person. The Pew Foundation (I think that's the one) has statistics on adults that were sexually abused as children and the suicide rate is very high. Obviously, not everyone who was sexually abused as a child commits suicide, but the original poster's comment seems to correspond with the reality that for many, right or wrong, death is preferable to life. That is one of the reasons the pedophilia is such a heinous crime.
Yes, you do. Look at any sex scene in any R rated movie and see if you ever see anyone kissing a woman's breast.
Then we must see different movies. Because there is kissing of breasts all the time in R rated movies. Even the Black Swan had oral sex scenes and was rated R.
And I didn't say anything about "going back to the way things were". I said that the concept of CP being illegal is recent.
That is true. What you did say was "Yes, those should be legal, just like they were up until a few decades ago in the West"
And you don't know a thing about freedom, so shut up. "Don't have a right to watch". For fucks sake, you do realize that there are two parties that participate in speech, right?
I think that you are confused about freedom. In the US, you are guaranteed a freedom of expression (usually called speech) although there are some restrictions. However, you have no equivalent freedom actually to view or hear that expression. A 12 year old cannot go into a NC-17 movie, because he has no freedom to do so. You cannot download all of the music and videos you want (well, legally, anyway) because you do not have a freedom to do so, and in doing so you are infringing on another's rights. I can stand on the street corner and espouse all my thoughts, but YOU do not have to listen, nor if you want to listen, but I am doing so inside a local club, can you just come in and listen. The fact that you have to pay to view or hear most expressions of speech is evidence enough that you do not have the right to view it, but must pay for the privilege to view it.
Even with the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, it is very limited. You are free to send a letter to the editor of the paper, but they are free to not publish it. You are not free to slander or libel somebody else. You are not free to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. You are not free to express your views in a way that would be construed to be a hate crime.
In addition, there is only one party necessary for speech and that is the one expressing their ideas. There are two or more parties required to communicate. Basically, a sender and a receiver, but that is not a constitutional freedom.
Lots of people in the book 1984 would have claimed that they weren't living in a totalitarian dictatorship, too. I wonder if you resemble a beetle, as they did?
Exactly. Outlawing even references to pedophile activities is a clear first step of implementing a true thought police. Also, it will of course make both the prevention and post-abuse treatment close to impossible, thus having the opposite effect of making it significantly easier for pedophiles to do their evil stuff.
Impressive - This is stupidity squared!
Your logic is flawed. First they aren't outlawing references to pedophile activities. They are trying to outlaw explicit accounts of it. Regardless, it is not anymore Orwellian than not allowing creationism to be in the textbooks. Nobody on slashdot would claim a push to make sure creationism isn't taught is censorship and we should fight it. Nobody would shout read 1984 if that is the topic.
Not everything a government does is automatically bad. There are very complex problems in the world and while I don't think this proposal will solve the one at hand, does not mean governments should try and keep child rape from happening.
I pretty much agree with everything you posted, particularly the sliding through the shades of grey. It is a complex and complicated issue and not really an Orwellian one as many on/. want to make it.
With regards to sexting and teenagers you posed, the issue there is not so much with the law, but the application of it. It is ludicrous that a kid sending a picture of themself to their boy/girl friend should be charged with a sex crime. It is definitely foolish, but not criminal. The problem is, at least in the US, legislators have imposed all of these mandatory sentences on things and the judicial system is than hand-cuffed. On the other hand, it is still up to a prosecutor to bring the case to court, they aren't forced to do so.
As for shooting someone versus child porn. Well, there are cases where one can legitimately shoot somebody, but I am unaware of a single case where an adult having sex with a young child could be legitimate.
Like you, I do not have the answers. I do know that if the MP is successful in his attempt to pass this, it will not have the intended consequences. That isn't something unique in this case, but in every attempt to hastily legislate morality.
I would also like to add, that I have actually enjoyed this thought provoking discussion with you. It is most unlike most/. discussions.
Yes, those should be legal, just like they were up until a few decades ago in the West. If you are going to outlaw child pornography using the justification that children are hurt in its production, then you have to outlaw ALL videos of children being hurt. My father has a great perspective on this, with regards to adult women in movies: "If you have a man kissing a woman's breast in a movie, it will receive an NC-17 rating. If you have a man slicing off that breast, it receives an R rating."
How fucked up is that?
Ok, so now you say, "well, it's not about the victimization, but about encouraging the behavior". Well, again, the same conditions apply. With that argument, you are now saying it is fine to kill a child, but fucking one is EVIL. There are lots of potential serial killers out there who could get off on such things.
No, this whole CP being illegal crap has got to stop. It is nothing but anti-sex insanity. Sex is NOT WORSE THAN DEATH.
You do not get an NC-17 rating for kissing a woman's breast in a movie (If she sucks off a horse, you may, though). As for slicing off that breast, well, was that special effects or did they actually slice it off? With child porn it isn't special effects.
As for making things legal like they were a few decades ago, film is much more lax than it has ever been. You need to go look at some of the codes in effect in the early and middle parts of the 20th century, at least in the US.
It seems like this discussion is trying to equate a freedom to watch with a freedom of speech. There is no freedom to watch. In the US, one does have a limited freedom of speech (can't yell fire in the theatre, for instance). There is no right to be able to view anything you want. One does have the right not to be forced to view or participate in things.
This is not 1984 as many on slashdot want to make it, but is about is it ever acceptable to limit freedom of expression and if so, in what circumstances.
There is more involved than choosing the type of business format to operate under. Corporations add asset protections for their shareholders, that is true, but only if you actually keep everything separate. Many an individual has been surprised that they are legally liable even though they formed an LLC, Corp S or even a Corp C. Not only do you need to form the corporation, you need to operate it as a separate entity. You cannot commingle assets, so you need separate bank accounts from your personal accounts. You cannot pay personal expenses from your business account nor can you pay business expenses from your personal account (unless traditional reimbursement expenses like mileage, meals, etc.). If you drive a corporate vehicle, you need to track personal mileage and business mileage and you need to pay taxes on the leased value of your personal mileage. If you operate out of your home, you don't get a deduction from your personal taxes for a home office, because it is the corporation operating there. The corporation should be paying rent for the space and you are liable for taxes on the rent paid.
There are many other gotcha's that will remove the protections a corporation provides, so suffice it to say, if one chooses this route, they seek actual legal advice on what they may or may not do. That doesn't mean don't do it. Just do it smartly.
Slashdot Mirror
Bullshit.
Let's just try the smell test. There are 5 boys in my street (one of which is mine) between the ages of 8 and 12. They all ride bikes, none wear helmets. A typical weekday would see them riding their bikes twice (to somewhere and then back again). Though they ride more often on weekends and less often in winter. So lets call it once a day. There wasn't a single head injury from biking in the last year. Or the year before that. So call that 5*365*2 = 3650 (it's a smell test, that it's a leap year is the least significant of our errors). So by your unsourced claim there should have been 182 head injuries amongst these 5 boys.
I must live in the luckiest street in the world or something.
No, you don't live on the luckiest street in the world. However, if one is willing to use a non-statistical sample, they can show anything they want. The 5 kids on your street are not a statistical sample. But here are actual statistics from the Children's Safety Network:
Bicycle injuries and deaths affect children and young people more often than any other age group.
In 2005, 44 percent of nonfatal bicycle injuries occurred in children and youth age 5 to 20.
In 2005, the rate per million of nonfatal bicycle injuries in children and youth age 5 to 20 was 462.17 compared to 153.3 overall.
In 2005, children and youth age 0 to 20 made up 23.4 percent of bicycle fatalities.
In 2005, the rate per million of bicycle fatalities in children and youth age 5 to 20 was 4.37 compared to 2.64 overall.
In 2005, children under 15 accounted for 53 percent of bicycle injuries treated in emergency departments.
From 1999 to 2002, the average annual cost of bicycle fatalities in children and youth age 0 to 19 was $1.03 billion.
From 1999 to 2002, the average annual cost of nonfatal bicycle injuries in children and youth age 0 to 19 was $3.6 billion.
Young cyclists are more likely than adult cyclists to die of head injuries, most of which are caused by motor vehicle collisions. Among children and youth age 0 to 19 in 2000:
Head injuries accounted for 62.6 percent of bicycle fatalities.
Collisions with motor vehicles accounted for 75.7 percent of bicycle fatalities.
61.7 percent of motor vehicle collision deaths were due to head injury.
There is no benefit to teenage sex. There is a benefit to riding a bike... which is the goal here.
There is no benefit to riding a bike that walking wouldn't provide. Besides, sex is a good cardiovascular exercise.
So we know that if you are going head first into the pavement, you want a helmet on. But does wearing a helmet increase the chances of a serious crash by impairing the biker?
No, at least not on motor cycles, where the helmets are much more restrictive than bicycles. Helmets do not significantly reduce the peripheral vision or the hearing of the biker. Most bicycle accidents occur with 160 degrees of the direction of travel while normal vision is around 220-240 degrees. You would need to cover about 1/4 of your eye to get down to 160 degrees. Since most bike helmets sit on top of the head instead of around it like a motorcycle helmet, there is no additional risk do to vision. As for the other complaint, hearing, again, the helmet rests on top of the head while the ears are on the side, so it is unlikely that a helmet will increase the risk of a crash from impaired hearing.
Would more people might ride bikes if they didn't have to wear a helmet? I don't know. But if they did, then there would also be more deaths and injuries. It's simple, really. Bike helmets protect the skull and brain in serious accidents and protect the scalp and skin in less serious accidents (even without a brain injury, having to reattach one's scalp is a pretty serious situation).
Put it this way, the kicker in American football rarely needs to tackle anybody, but they still have a helmet and pads for the rare occasion that they do. Most people will never have a serious bike accident, but they should still wear a helmet for the rare occasion that they do.
I've got a 4yr old and he didn't want to wear his helmet. So I told him he didn't have to. My wife didn't like it but I told her "he's still in training wheels, he can't even go 5mph, short of him getting hit by a car, there's no way he can injure himself bad enough to warrant a helmet. She relented. Then some of the neighborhood moms saw him and freaked out. I reasoned with them, but they wouldn't shut up so finally I told them to mind their own god damned business. So they of course, all got together and ganged up on my wife when I wasn't home, who now insists he use the helmet. So... now he doesn't ride his bike anymore because he doesn't want to bother with the helmet. In fact, the majority of the kids in my neighborhood don't. Last week, while NOT riding a bike, he was climbing over a fence and fell on his head. Go figure.
So, when he is a teenager, are you going to tell him to not use a condom? I mean, the overall pregnancy rate for unprotected sex is around 5% which is actually lower than the head injury rate from biking without a helmet. The purpose of your 4 year old wearing a helmet is to get him into the habit of wearing it for the time he really does need it.
To Encourage Biking, Lose the Cars!
Average kid downloads 1,000 songs that could have been purchased for $0.99 each, so studios lost $999 (artists even less). Average Chinese bootleg produces 100,000 CDs and studios lose $1.3M. Why not go after the real problem?
Yes, abstinance works so well. So who gets to conrol it? Surely you didn't think you'd get to?
Ask China how well controlled population works. One child per couple is below the rate to sustain a society or culture. But then, maybe that is why the West convinced China to take that course so many decades ago.
Actually, this is a great misconception. China's one child per couple policy has doomed the nation to non-existence in the next 30 years. A typical chinese extended family is called 421 - four grandparents, 2 parents and one son. Even if China lifted it's once child per couple policy today and started producing only girls instead of sons, by the time they reached sexual maturity, it would be too late to turn the tide around. They simply cannot sustain their population into the future.
Europe would be in the same situation except for the Muslim immigration. Europe will survive because Muslims are producing children, but the European culture will be lost. Likewise, in the US, the Hispanic immigration with their higher birthrate will keep the US going, however, within 50 years, the majority of Americans will be of Hispanic heritage instead of German as it is now.
The problem for the world is not that there is not enough food and resources for 6 billion people. There is adequate food and resources for far more. What the problem in the world truly has is one of distribution where a minority of the world's population consumes the vast majority of the world's resources.
Limiting population growth via birth control, war, or what ever means is not the answer and will only lead to the even quicker decline. But at least those that have, will have more, for a while.
Medicare is far worse than private insurance. They pay less across the board and refuse to allow many types of treatment. They make the VA look good.
Maybe that is why the VA is in even worse shape than Medicare.
Yep, pretty good. If you define 'good' as maximal help for a limited class of human beings at the expense of large swaths of the population and the planet.
Well one should expect that capitalism is good, if not very good for the capitalists. Unfortunately, for those who have to work for the capitalists, a different story emerges.
Capitalism is very much like Darwin's survival of the fittest. Both favor the most successful at the expense of everybody else. There is a reason why in the early 20th century there were a lot of anti-trust laws created. The good of the people required protection from the most successful capitalists. There is also a reason why now, most of those laws are ignored. The good of the corporation is now above the good of the people.
Unfortunately, today, people ignorantly shout capitalism when the reality is fascism and today's "capitalists" are actually fascists.
The hold back on XP probably is not ie6 compatibility for the majority of businesses. On the other hand, business tend to make decisions based on ROI. If upgrading to Windows 7 gives a favorable ROI, businesses will upgrade. If not, they won't. For most business users, word processing and spreadsheets are the major applications. Does switching to Windows 7 make one type faster? No, of course not. Therefore there is a low ROI.
Another move has been to hosting apps on a terminal server and then just using an RDP client. Again, the ROI on moving users from XP to Win 7 in that scenario is also poor.
Businesses make business decisions based on the bottom line. If they can get a better return doing X than Y, then they will do X. It's not that businesses can't benefit from switching to Win 7. It's just that they don't benefit as much as using those resources elsewhere in the company.
Word 2003 still works just fine...
Most home users barely use many of the features of these tools to begin with, they won't see the value of paying $100 a year for this. That's a lot of money to many people.
Of course Microsoft could just change the licensing agreement on your existing copy (like Google and Facebook have recently done with their services) and you then have the choice to upgrade to the new subscription or stop using the product.
People who use Office daily, for whom 27Â per day is reasonable.
People who use Office daily probably aren't home users (which the article is about). The small business cost is $150 per user per year, so a 100 person office will pay $15,000/yr. Regular business cost is even higher. Previously, a small business could purchase those 100 copies for around $20,000 and then use them for 5 years. That equates to $4,000/yr versus $15,000.
No wonder the republicans want tax cuts for the wealth, job creators -- they are going to have to use it to pay for new copies of Office.
This has nothing to do with being a developer. Most workplaces discourage or outright ban workplace romances because they rarely work out and the fallout is detrimental to the organization.
Take the only moving part of your PC subsystem and swap it with something that has none. Fans don't count.
It is the only upgrade that you will instantly see a significant difference in response times. Seriously, ask your neighbourhood PC gamer.
Since OP has issues with fractions, I'll put this succinctly, get an SSD. Whichever one you can afford. Even if you have to move software storage to a seperate disk from OS.
I've never tried hybrids, but with 128 GB SSDs under $100 at Newegg, there's never been a better time to lose your HDD as your boot drive.
My mother is in her 80s and uses the PC to browse the internet, check email and maybe look at a photo or two. Do you really think that swapping out the HDD for and SSD will make a significant change for her?
What about an office worker? Sure document saving/retrieving will be quicker, but an SSD won't help one bit with document creation which is a human tasked project (it won't make you type faster nor have ideas for what to type pop in your head faster).
SSDs are really only cost beneficial for things that truly require what they excel at which is speed and power consumption. Desktops don't really need to worry about power consumption, nor do most laptops. Tablets would be a different story. Speed (at least drive i/o) isn't an issue for most users unless you are serving up a database or web pages. Even then, assuming there are large amounts of data involved, a 128GB SSD for under a $100 is no deal if you need to store more data than that, especially since you can get a 2TB HDD for under $200.
In the end, it really boils down to what one actually needs as to whether or not it is a good deal or not.
...then the answer is no.
Honestly, this question seems to be coming up a lot lately. As with any tech, it either meets your needs or it doesn't, and if it doesn't then its not worth it at any price.
Probably keeps coming up because somebody, somewhere, is wanting you to buy SSDs. While SSDs can be used in place of a regular HD, for most people, the cost/benefit is negative. That doesn't stop them from trying to sell you one.
It's like the new iPhone. If you have a iPhone 4(s) does upgrading really make much sense? I'm sure there are some people that might really "need" a new feature, but most people, probably just want the new feature and through Apple's marketing, have convinced themself that they need it.
The correct answer is it depends.
If your main use of the computer is serving the web, checking emails, typing some documents, then the extra cost of the SSD isn't going to make a major difference. OTOH, if what you are doing is somewhat disk intensive, then it very well could.
As with most things in life, technology or otherwise, wants usually carry more weight with one's decisions than do needs. Marketers count on that.
It will never be economical to send people into space until we start doing it regularly. The only way to make something like that economical is to keep on fixing and fiddling things to make them cheaper. And that won't happen if you don't have anything to fix and fiddle.
The 'eggs in one basket' problem is the biggest reason I want us to get off the planet sooner rather than later.
It's not about economics, it's about safety. Getting to space and back is the relatively easy part, when it comes to safety. The effects of zero-gravity, solar radiation/flares, micrometeors and a slew of other things is the hard part. The reason it costs so much more to launch a human being into space than a satellite has to do with the economics of safety, not the economics of the physics involved.
As far as the "eggs in one basket" problem, you better look at some other solution than cheap space flights. Prevention and protection are much more achievable goals than escape.
Thinking that death is better than life is not a valid viewpoint. If you think that while remaining alive, you clearly need a kick in the pants.
Allowing one bad event or one bad person to define your entire existence is pathetic, and is not something to be tolerated. Anyone can toughen up and become stronger, and they will be better off for it.
Don't you think to feel that death is better than life, might be an example of how damaging child sexual abuse is to the very core of a person. The Pew Foundation (I think that's the one) has statistics on adults that were sexually abused as children and the suicide rate is very high. Obviously, not everyone who was sexually abused as a child commits suicide, but the original poster's comment seems to correspond with the reality that for many, right or wrong, death is preferable to life. That is one of the reasons the pedophilia is such a heinous crime.
Bullshit. If you didn't, you would have killed yourself.
Also, don't kill yourself. Just stop being a victim.
That's pretty cold.
Yes, you do. Look at any sex scene in any R rated movie and see if you ever see anyone kissing a woman's breast.
Then we must see different movies. Because there is kissing of breasts all the time in R rated movies. Even the Black Swan had oral sex scenes and was rated R.
And I didn't say anything about "going back to the way things were". I said that the concept of CP being illegal is recent.
That is true. What you did say was "Yes, those should be legal, just like they were up until a few decades ago in the West"
And you don't know a thing about freedom, so shut up. "Don't have a right to watch". For fucks sake, you do realize that there are two parties that participate in speech, right?
I think that you are confused about freedom. In the US, you are guaranteed a freedom of expression (usually called speech) although there are some restrictions. However, you have no equivalent freedom actually to view or hear that expression. A 12 year old cannot go into a NC-17 movie, because he has no freedom to do so. You cannot download all of the music and videos you want (well, legally, anyway) because you do not have a freedom to do so, and in doing so you are infringing on another's rights. I can stand on the street corner and espouse all my thoughts, but YOU do not have to listen, nor if you want to listen, but I am doing so inside a local club, can you just come in and listen. The fact that you have to pay to view or hear most expressions of speech is evidence enough that you do not have the right to view it, but must pay for the privilege to view it.
Even with the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, it is very limited. You are free to send a letter to the editor of the paper, but they are free to not publish it. You are not free to slander or libel somebody else. You are not free to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. You are not free to express your views in a way that would be construed to be a hate crime.
In addition, there is only one party necessary for speech and that is the one expressing their ideas. There are two or more parties required to communicate. Basically, a sender and a receiver, but that is not a constitutional freedom.
Lots of people in the book 1984 would have claimed that they weren't living in a totalitarian dictatorship, too. I wonder if you resemble a beetle, as they did?
I don't, but I do drive one.
Exactly. Outlawing even references to pedophile activities is a clear first step of implementing a true thought police. Also, it will of course make both the prevention and post-abuse treatment close to impossible, thus having the opposite effect of making it significantly easier for pedophiles to do their evil stuff.
Impressive - This is stupidity squared!
Your logic is flawed. First they aren't outlawing references to pedophile activities. They are trying to outlaw explicit accounts of it. Regardless, it is not anymore Orwellian than not allowing creationism to be in the textbooks. Nobody on slashdot would claim a push to make sure creationism isn't taught is censorship and we should fight it. Nobody would shout read 1984 if that is the topic.
Not everything a government does is automatically bad. There are very complex problems in the world and while I don't think this proposal will solve the one at hand, does not mean governments should try and keep child rape from happening.
I pretty much agree with everything you posted, particularly the sliding through the shades of grey. It is a complex and complicated issue and not really an Orwellian one as many on /. want to make it.
With regards to sexting and teenagers you posed, the issue there is not so much with the law, but the application of it. It is ludicrous that a kid sending a picture of themself to their boy/girl friend should be charged with a sex crime. It is definitely foolish, but not criminal. The problem is, at least in the US, legislators have imposed all of these mandatory sentences on things and the judicial system is than hand-cuffed. On the other hand, it is still up to a prosecutor to bring the case to court, they aren't forced to do so.
As for shooting someone versus child porn. Well, there are cases where one can legitimately shoot somebody, but I am unaware of a single case where an adult having sex with a young child could be legitimate.
Like you, I do not have the answers. I do know that if the MP is successful in his attempt to pass this, it will not have the intended consequences. That isn't something unique in this case, but in every attempt to hastily legislate morality.
I would also like to add, that I have actually enjoyed this thought provoking discussion with you. It is most unlike most /. discussions.
Yes, those should be legal, just like they were up until a few decades ago in the West. If you are going to outlaw child pornography using the justification that children are hurt in its production, then you have to outlaw ALL videos of children being hurt. My father has a great perspective on this, with regards to adult women in movies: "If you have a man kissing a woman's breast in a movie, it will receive an NC-17 rating. If you have a man slicing off that breast, it receives an R rating."
How fucked up is that?
Ok, so now you say, "well, it's not about the victimization, but about encouraging the behavior". Well, again, the same conditions apply. With that argument, you are now saying it is fine to kill a child, but fucking one is EVIL. There are lots of potential serial killers out there who could get off on such things.
No, this whole CP being illegal crap has got to stop. It is nothing but anti-sex insanity. Sex is NOT WORSE THAN DEATH.
You do not get an NC-17 rating for kissing a woman's breast in a movie (If she sucks off a horse, you may, though). As for slicing off that breast, well, was that special effects or did they actually slice it off? With child porn it isn't special effects.
As for making things legal like they were a few decades ago, film is much more lax than it has ever been. You need to go look at some of the codes in effect in the early and middle parts of the 20th century, at least in the US.
It seems like this discussion is trying to equate a freedom to watch with a freedom of speech. There is no freedom to watch. In the US, one does have a limited freedom of speech (can't yell fire in the theatre, for instance). There is no right to be able to view anything you want. One does have the right not to be forced to view or participate in things.
This is not 1984 as many on slashdot want to make it, but is about is it ever acceptable to limit freedom of expression and if so, in what circumstances.
There is more involved than choosing the type of business format to operate under. Corporations add asset protections for their shareholders, that is true, but only if you actually keep everything separate. Many an individual has been surprised that they are legally liable even though they formed an LLC, Corp S or even a Corp C. Not only do you need to form the corporation, you need to operate it as a separate entity. You cannot commingle assets, so you need separate bank accounts from your personal accounts. You cannot pay personal expenses from your business account nor can you pay business expenses from your personal account (unless traditional reimbursement expenses like mileage, meals, etc.). If you drive a corporate vehicle, you need to track personal mileage and business mileage and you need to pay taxes on the leased value of your personal mileage. If you operate out of your home, you don't get a deduction from your personal taxes for a home office, because it is the corporation operating there. The corporation should be paying rent for the space and you are liable for taxes on the rent paid.
There are many other gotcha's that will remove the protections a corporation provides, so suffice it to say, if one chooses this route, they seek actual legal advice on what they may or may not do. That doesn't mean don't do it. Just do it smartly.