Why do you assume that Big Corporation is fine in the Libertarian world view. Many of us think that the limited liability conferred by the government skews things significantly....
A nice swiss dress watch will set you back considerably more than 725. Rolex, Vacherin Constantin, or Patek Phillipe watches cost more to service than that...
Maybe, just maybe, if they had Microsoft's practically unlimited budget to give WMP away for free and develoop WMP, they wouldn't have to be so desperate to get money.
Remember kids, Netscape and REAL probably didn't want to go down this path, but they were competing with a monopolist willing to give away a product for free to put them out of business.
Yes, they should have learned from Netscape's mistakes, but nobody has beaten Microsoft when Microsoft has been giving away a free product in competition with one you pay for. What would happen to Quicken if Microsoft Money got built into the OS?
Re:Then inform your girlfriend that her 'real' one
on
Diamond Age Coming Soon
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Your post would have been valid seven years ago.
Kimberly Process. It is being taken very seriously in the trade, and for very selfish reasons, as well as ethical ones. The idea of children with their legs cut off does not sell diamonds. The diamond industry has made every effort to sort it out. Compare our attitude to that of the clothing industry while they continue to use third world slave labour.
The cultured pearl vs natural pearl industry is a great example... Natural pearls are just as rare and expensive as they ever were, and the cultured pearl market is at a much lower price point. Recently the high end of the cultured pearl market has been eaten away by Chinese freshwater cultured pearls. The market expands each time. People who couldn't afford a strand of natural pearls (read, not royalty) loved the fact that they could get cultured pearls from Mikimoto. Now, the middle and lower income folks can afford Chinese freshwater pearls. It's all good.
The people who will lose market share here, are the Cubic Zirconia producers, and the Moissanite folks.
I'll leave it as an excercise to the reader to wander down to the local jewellery store, count the number of diamonds, then count the number of emeralds. It's called supply AND demand.
I work for an independent jewellery maker and retailer. Check my UID, it's not like I haven't been here for a while. I am not an astroturfer, no matter what you'd like to imply.
1952 was the year that man made diamonds made their debut. Despite all the innacurate blather from Wired, we can still tell man made from natural diamond.Spectroscopic examination of Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) created diamonds, which is the method Apollo uses, or the classic High Pressure/High temperature (HPHT) method, both have characteristic absorption spectra. Furthermore, there are some clues to be had with less esoteric equipment. CVD diamonds have a chararacteristic strain pattern in the crystal structure that is discernable. HPHT diamonds are more identifiable, as the gemmologist community has had more time to examine them... decades.
Man made emeralds and rubies have been made for decades, and in many cases are superior. Chatham offers a life time warranty on their emeralds for example. It hasn't destroyed the price of emeralds, as there are enough people who want the real thing, much like many people can paint a repica of the Mona Lisa, down to the brush strokes, but the real thing is still more expensive.
The real problem as far as the jewellery industry is concerned is that unscrupulous people try and sell these as real, and less knowledgeable jewellers pass them on to consumers. I have no problems selling man made stones as man made stones, but disclosure is the important part. I expect that this might even drive the price of diamonds that are certified as natural up, due to the difficulty but not impossibility of identification.
p.s. To those people who think that diamonds are overpriced due to DeBeers, why is it that now that DeBeers no longer controls the industry (less than half of worldwide production now goes through DeBeers), why have prices stayed stable? Could it be that the price of mining and cutting is reflected in the price of diamonds, and that the pricing actually is correct?
... and get together with an MBA, and write the killer app for OS. Put together a modular business package, customizable for a variety of businesses (that's where you make the money). Look at ACC-PAC for inspiration. Most businesses need: Accounts Receivable/Customer relations Accounts Payable/Supplier relations Inventory Payroll/ HR management
This ain't rocket surgery. It is painfully dull, boring and potentially stupidly lucrative.
As one person I suggested it to said: "Thom, that would be great but involves two things that geeks hate: writing accounting software, and cold calling."
Most businesses that need this desperately are small to medium sized businesses that are currently using a few thousand dollars worth of computer hardware exactly the same way they would use a two hundred dollar typewriter.
When I started where I work, inventory was typed out in MS Word, and printed out once a year, with additions hand written throughout the year. We're currently paying someone several thousand dollars to write an inventory database for us in Filemaker. Why wasn't this done years ago? THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT COULD BE DONE!!! If you want to make a good living, and can write accounting software, cold call businesses in your area, and tell them: "I can make the computer work the way YOU want it to work, not make you work the way that off the shelf software wants you to work." You will make the sale, and you can reuse your code on the next project.
Why don't I do it? I have a job I like more, that pays enough to keep me in all the toys I want.:)
My girlfriend bought me a prada bag last christmas that costs almost as much as my 12" powerbook. My 'pooter fits in it perfectly, and it's amazing how careful I am with it. It's unpadded, so instead of relying on padding, I'm just very very careful. It's actually remarkably well made, and I actually trust the strap. It's a nice match for my Christian Dior iPod case that she bought me for my birthday.
Now if I could only convince her to get me a Louis Vuitton rack mount case....
Re:SCO only getting 1 paragraph understandable...
on
The Year In Tech Law
·
· Score: 1
I think it's an Explorer bug, but I've never seen one either.
Jesus folks, Netscape was *crap* by the time IE started eating their lunch(remember blink tags? ). Why? Because they had to create revenue. Same reason that Real sucks donkey balls through a straw. Look over there is a shiny penny! When the next cool thing comes along and Microsoft starts knifing the baby again, you idiots will be reminiscing about how poor Real(which you'll remember as way better than WMP 12) got killed, but this product is crap and deserves to die.
WMP, and IE are better, faster and less intrusive because they're funded out of revenues from something else. The coders just have to focus on making the program better. They don't have to worry about a revenue model.
Of course WMP is better than Real. That's the fucking point you bozos. Microsoft doesn't have to play by the same rules because they are funding WMP through the Microsoft tax. Real One has to make money.
The only people that can beat Microsoft are us Open Source folks because we don't worry about a revenue model either.
I'll agree that a pox on both their houses is in order, but Microsoft is abusing their monopoly in exactly the same way that they did to cut off Netscape's air supply and knife the baby.
Ixnay my friend. If you do the math, you'll find that the repetitions mean that on each day the true love of the singer gave a partridge in a pear tree, and added the extra on top of it. That means a total of 12 partridges in pear trees. That is the repetition. No profit margin there. There's fourty golden rings sold at a loss.
As a jeweller, I'd like to know how they did that! At 72.25 each, that's dirt cheap. I know that they cost me more than that wholesale. Let's see... assume three pennyweights per ring(20dwt=1 Oz)...at 406.50/oz, that's 60.98 dollars each for the gold bought as 24K bullion. by the time it's refined to 18K sheet, and made into a ring, assume it's double the price. call it $122. That leaves no room for the retailer to make a profit.
I know it's a joke, but it would be funnier if it was accurate
Re:Monkeys... trained monkeys....
on
SCOrched Earth
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· Score: 1
it was me, which makes your subject especially funny.
Re:Sad state of affairs...
on
Stealth Inflation
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I actually do this. I usually write it up as bookkeeping charges. They waste my time figuring out what the charges are for, so I charge them my usual hourly. I feel it is valid to charge them for my time when it is their bookkeeping "error".
Telephone and cable companies never pay them, but it makes me feel better anyway;)
Slashdot Mirror
...demonstrably cheaper and more effective than the current or a deregulated system?
Proof please. As someone who lives in Canada, I can attest that it is most definitely NOT cheaper or more effective.
Why do you assume that Big Corporation is fine in the Libertarian world view. Many of us think that the limited liability conferred by the government skews things significantly....
A nice swiss dress watch will set you back considerably more than 725. Rolex, Vacherin Constantin, or Patek Phillipe watches cost more to service than that...
So what you're saying is that Windows isn't ready for the desktop of an average user yet.
Pamela Jones is still the main contributor and editor for Groklaw.
Check your facts.
Makes me almost happy to put up with Shaw's mediocre mail servers.
GO SHAW!
Maybe, just maybe, if they had Microsoft's practically unlimited budget to give WMP away for free and develoop WMP, they wouldn't have to be so desperate to get money.
Remember kids, Netscape and REAL probably didn't want to go down this path, but they were competing with a monopolist willing to give away a product for free to put them out of business.
Yes, they should have learned from Netscape's mistakes, but nobody has beaten Microsoft when Microsoft has been giving away a free product in competition with one you pay for. What would happen to Quicken if Microsoft Money got built into the OS?
Your post would have been valid seven years ago.
Kimberly Process. It is being taken very seriously in the trade, and for very selfish reasons, as well as ethical ones. The idea of children with their legs cut off does not sell diamonds. The diamond industry has made every effort to sort it out. Compare our attitude to that of the clothing industry while they continue to use third world slave labour.
The cultured pearl vs natural pearl industry is a great example... Natural pearls are just as rare and expensive as they ever were, and the cultured pearl market is at a much lower price point. Recently the high end of the cultured pearl market has been eaten away by Chinese freshwater cultured pearls. The market expands each time. People who couldn't afford a strand of natural pearls (read, not royalty) loved the fact that they could get cultured pearls from Mikimoto. Now, the middle and lower income folks can afford Chinese freshwater pearls. It's all good.
The people who will lose market share here, are the Cubic Zirconia producers, and the Moissanite folks.
I'll leave it as an excercise to the reader to wander down to the local jewellery store, count the number of diamonds, then count the number of emeralds. It's called supply AND demand.
;) caught me
I work for an independent jewellery maker and retailer. Check my UID, it's not like I haven't been here for a while. I am not an astroturfer, no matter what you'd like to imply.
1952 was the year that man made diamonds made their debut. Despite all the innacurate blather from Wired, we can still tell man made from natural diamond.Spectroscopic examination of Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) created diamonds, which is the method Apollo uses, or the classic High Pressure/High temperature (HPHT) method, both have characteristic absorption spectra. Furthermore, there are some clues to be had with less esoteric equipment. CVD diamonds have a chararacteristic strain pattern in the crystal structure that is discernable. HPHT diamonds are more identifiable, as the gemmologist community has had more time to examine them... decades.
Man made emeralds and rubies have been made for decades, and in many cases are superior. Chatham offers a life time warranty on their emeralds for example. It hasn't destroyed the price of emeralds, as there are enough people who want the real thing, much like many people can paint a repica of the Mona Lisa, down to the brush strokes, but the real thing is still more expensive.
The real problem as far as the jewellery industry is concerned is that unscrupulous people try and sell these as real, and less knowledgeable jewellers pass them on to consumers. I have no problems selling man made stones as man made stones, but disclosure is the important part. I expect that this might even drive the price of diamonds that are certified as natural up, due to the difficulty but not impossibility of identification.
p.s. To those people who think that diamonds are overpriced due to DeBeers, why is it that now that DeBeers no longer controls the industry (less than half of worldwide production now goes through DeBeers), why have prices stayed stable? Could it be that the price of mining and cutting is reflected in the price of diamonds, and that the pricing actually is correct?
Sure, If you multiply by a million....in a country of just over thirty million.
Canada has one of the highest ratios of people on broadband.
... and get together with an MBA, and write the killer app for OS. Put together a modular business package, customizable for a variety of businesses (that's where you make the money). Look at ACC-PAC for inspiration. Most businesses need :
:)
Accounts Receivable/Customer relations
Accounts Payable/Supplier relations
Inventory
Payroll/ HR management
This ain't rocket surgery. It is painfully dull, boring and potentially stupidly lucrative.
As one person I suggested it to said: "Thom, that would be great but involves two things that geeks hate: writing accounting software, and cold calling."
Most businesses that need this desperately are small to medium sized businesses that are currently using a few thousand dollars worth of computer hardware exactly the same way they would use a two hundred dollar typewriter.
When I started where I work, inventory was typed out in MS Word, and printed out once a year, with additions hand written throughout the year. We're currently paying someone several thousand dollars to write an inventory database for us in Filemaker. Why wasn't this done years ago? THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT COULD BE DONE!!! If you want to make a good living, and can write accounting software, cold call businesses in your area, and tell them:
"I can make the computer work the way YOU want it to work, not make you work the way that off the shelf software wants you to work."
You will make the sale, and you can reuse your code on the next project.
Why don't I do it? I have a job I like more, that pays enough to keep me in all the toys I want.
Oddly enough, you'll come out ahead. You see, in the real world, you'll actually have learned enought to keep your job... maybe even get promoted!
I will resist WMA to the end. I don't have, and don't want the ability to play it.
My girlfriend bought me a prada bag last christmas that costs almost as much as my 12" powerbook. My 'pooter fits in it perfectly, and it's amazing how careful I am with it. It's unpadded, so instead of relying on padding, I'm just very very careful. It's actually remarkably well made, and I actually trust the strap. It's a nice match for my Christian Dior iPod case that she bought me for my birthday.
Now if I could only convince her to get me a Louis Vuitton rack mount case....
I think it's an Explorer bug, but I've never seen one either.
--Clueless Camino/Safari user.
Jesus folks, Netscape was *crap* by the time IE started eating their lunch(remember blink tags? ). Why? Because they had to create revenue. Same reason that Real sucks donkey balls through a straw. Look over there is a shiny penny! When the next cool thing comes along and Microsoft starts knifing the baby again, you idiots will be reminiscing about how poor Real(which you'll remember as way better than WMP 12) got killed, but this product is crap and deserves to die.
WMP, and IE are better, faster and less intrusive because they're funded out of revenues from something else. The coders just have to focus on making the program better. They don't have to worry about a revenue model.
Of course WMP is better than Real. That's the fucking point you bozos. Microsoft doesn't have to play by the same rules because they are funding WMP through the Microsoft tax. Real One has to make money.
The only people that can beat Microsoft are us Open Source folks because we don't worry about a revenue model either.
I'll agree that a pox on both their houses is in order, but Microsoft is abusing their monopoly in exactly the same way that they did to cut off Netscape's air supply and knife the baby.
Pull out a calculator. Add up the columns. Remove foot from your mouth. It *is* 361.25 for five rings.
twit.
Ixnay my friend. If you do the math, you'll find that the repetitions mean that on each day the true love of the singer gave a partridge in a pear tree, and added the extra on top of it. That means a total of 12 partridges in pear trees. That is the repetition. No profit margin there. There's fourty golden rings sold at a loss.
As a jeweller, I'd like to know how they did that! At 72.25 each, that's dirt cheap. I know that they cost me more than that wholesale. Let's see... assume three pennyweights per ring(20dwt=1 Oz)...at 406.50/oz, that's 60.98 dollars each for the gold bought as 24K bullion. by the time it's refined to 18K sheet, and made into a ring, assume it's double the price. call it $122. That leaves no room for the retailer to make a profit.
I know it's a joke, but it would be funnier if it was accurate
it was me, which makes your subject especially funny.
I actually do this. I usually write it up as bookkeeping charges. They waste my time figuring out what the charges are for, so I charge them my usual hourly. I feel it is valid to charge them for my time when it is their bookkeeping "error".
;)
Telephone and cable companies never pay them, but it makes me feel better anyway