That's the reason Brazil will never be a world leader in technology. Oh they have their share of smart geeks, to be sure. But whenever some guy is on the verge of a breakthrough idea, a stunning garota strolls by wearing a thong, and all thought is erased.
Still, it's a pleasant way to lag behind the curve, as it were.
"A very small number of dark pixels or continuously lit pixels is normal for LCD screens, and is not a sign of a malfunction,"
"Normal" does not imply "acceptable".
Today's "value engineering" paradigm means that out of every batch of manufactured products some number will be duds. True, we all benefit from the low cost of this approach, but it is unfair to ask a few unlucky consumers to get stuck with the bad ones. Everyone (including the company and other purchasers of the product) should share in the risk. The company should cheerfully take back any defective item for a replacement or refund.
Another approach would be for the company to take the duds and sell them at a discount. I'm sure there would be plenty of cheap bastards who would accept a screen with a few dead pixels if they could pay less.
This policy of pushing the crap out to the consumer and waiting for vocal ones to complain is just plain cynical.
I remember when we had to prepare our gopher searches on punch cards and wait days for machine time to run them
Meh. You think that was bad? Why, I remember when we had to hardwire our Internet searches on plugboards and read the results off of a teletype. Let me tell you, it was pretty tough rendering a web page on a machine without any memory. And every now and then some joker would wire the AC from the wall into a board just for laughs. No, we didn't mind the odd electrocution - it was all part of the fun of the Golden Age of computing.
Back in those days, spam was SPAM, and it came in a can. And we liked it!
You have to admire the chutzpah of their PR guys. From today's press release:
Blockbuster Enhances Communications Regarding Popular No Late Fees Program; Program Is Favored By Customers for Flexibility, Convenience and Value
I doubt they're too worried about the $630,000 settlement. This is a company that took in almost $6 Billion in the last twelve months. As an AP story puts it:
...numbers of monthly subscribers and rental transactions increased for the first time in two years after the launch of the "No Late Fees" advertising campaign. He said the company is on schedule to have 2 million subscribers by spring 2006.
So even after putting out nearly a million bucks to pay off the states and put up new signs, they will still make money. Just consider it a cost of doing business.
As long as elections are "winner take all", a third party has little chance of winning any contest at the state or national level. It would be more effective to change the election system, or join one of the two major parties (it doesn't really matter which one) and militate for change from within.
If a President of the US coined a word, then you have to give it due credit.
If a President were to think of a new word after due thought and consideration, I would credit it. However, if a President were to blurt out a malformed, ugly, dissonant utterance that merely resembles a word (but isn't one) then I reserve the right to lampoon it and him mercilessly. Not that we are speaking of anyone in particular.
It ["normalcy"] was not (contrary to popular opinion)coined by President Warren G Harding. It is a British English word of considerable antiquity.
I am chastened to find that you are correct, although according to Random House it was coined in 1857, which is not so ancient in my book. I object more to its odd construction and sound though, than to its association with Harding, who was famously bad with words, having also brought "bloviate" into common parlance.
No discussion of Harding would be complete without H.L. Mencken's description of him:
"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."
I highly doubt Google are going to create an OS. They are already in a position of profit.
Also, where is the value? Who cares about your desktop, icons, etc in the web-centric world? Today's computer users sit down at their PC and open up a web browser to do what they need. As more services are made available on the web, the need for desktop apps will decline. Why pay money to the OS vendor when the perceived value is on the Internet?
Actually, putting advertisements in downloaded episodes could be a great opportunity for TV networks. If networks were able to collect a profile of each viewer when they signed up, ads could be targeted to specific demographics, and different ads could be plugged in for each group. Hell they could even sell local advertising based on your zip code. Targeted ads could sell at higher rates (per view, that is) than broadcast.
Personally if I have to see ads I'd prefer to see ones about products which actually interest me, rather than having to hear about tampons (which require an orifice I lack), Mountain Dew (which I'm too old for) or Cialis (which I don't need...yet!).
"We wanted to be the first to offer free job postings, apartment listings, personals and other classifieds to the extraterrestrial community.
FOR SALE: **DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH**. Third planet from Sun. Surface mainly dihydrogen monoxide with some silicates. Good starter planet for young, carbon-based species. Still has much of original fossil fuel deposits. Excellent views of Venus, Mars. Small hole in ozone layer. Aboriginal biped humanoid species infestation can easily be removed with genetically engineered plague, or runaway nanotech "accident".
PRICE: 1.2 Million Quatloos. **CALL NOW** will not be listed for long at this price!
Well, I heard that OSTG is planning to sell Slashdot to Microsoft and turn the whole thing into a spyware app running on Windoze ONLY. But all that is just a cover for something more sinister. You see, somehow the original documents from the Rathergate incident (the REAL ones, not the fakes) ended up in a file cabinet in the plush Slashdot offices, and the President ordered Bill Gates to buy up the evidence and suppress it. They tried hacking in and loading IIS on the Slashdot servers (hoping to overwork the CPUs and heat them up to the point where they exploded) but thankfully Slashdot runs on the superior Linux operating system, which as we know has no security holes. (Or maybe it runs on BSD or something. Anyways it's not Windoze. Cuz Windoze sucks).
But hey, you already knew all that, right? It was posted here last month.
Most of them will probably be happy accepting that it is "our kind of life" that is the special thing and that the existance of microbes etc elsewhere doesn't diminish how special us higher beings are.
Of course, if we did somehow stumble upon an advanced alien civilization, with a rich, complex culture and superior intelligence, our local Christians would pause for less than a microsecond before deciding that the most important priority for humanity would be to send missionaries and start spreading the gospel. Personally I would find that very embarrassing.
It would be great if the aliens exploded on contact with water. That would make the sacrament of baptism much more interesting!
Here's an interesting quote about the responsibility of corporations to their shareholders:
[snip]
There's not a lot of governance going on in corporate boardrooms. And the first thing that's not going on is that boards are not establishing the purpose of the corporation. Board members believe their only choice is to follow the prime directive, which is to maximize returns to shareholders.
The genesis of this directive is worth exploring a bit. It may have a feeling to it of long-settled and inviolable law, but it does not arise from either federal or state constitutions, nor is it in any solid sense found in state statutes. Indeed, it contradicts America's early tradition of chartering corporations to serve the public good--to construct bridges, for example. Shareholder primacy emerged from the ether in the midnineteenth century, when it was articulated by the courts. The basis of shareholder primacy is thus primarily common law, judge-made law. In state statutes, directors have a duty of loyalty to the corporation. But in common law, this is interpreted as a loyalty to shareholders alone.
Common law can be overturned in a heartbeat by legislation. And legislators have in fact attempted to make changes in thirty-two states, with stakeholder statutes that give directors leeway to serve the interests of employees and the community. But because enforcement tools for these laws are nonexistent, the myth of shareholder primacy remains solid in the business mind.
This myth found its most forceful articulation in the 1919 Michigan Supreme Court case of Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., which established that "A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end." There are exceptions, but this basic design has been affirmed in various ways over the years--particularly in Delaware, where over half the Fortune 500 is incorporated and hence where the most significant precedents are now set. Thus we have a handful of conservative Delaware judges setting economic policy for the nation. And that policy remains tethered to two sentences a state judge wrote eighty years ago. "To this day," as George Washington University law professor Lawrence Mitchell has written, "Dodge v. Ford remains the leading case on corporate purpose."
I'd argue that corporations are legally forced to act for the benefit of their shareholders, to the exclusion of all other considerations, despite the personal motivations of the managers and/or employees.
Slashdot Mirror
I hear it has plenty of fiber.
That's odd. Whenever I search on that term, I get redirected here. :)
Still, it's a pleasant way to lag behind the curve, as it were.
"Normal" does not imply "acceptable".
Today's "value engineering" paradigm means that out of every batch of manufactured products some number will be duds. True, we all benefit from the low cost of this approach, but it is unfair to ask a few unlucky consumers to get stuck with the bad ones. Everyone (including the company and other purchasers of the product) should share in the risk. The company should cheerfully take back any defective item for a replacement or refund.
Another approach would be for the company to take the duds and sell them at a discount. I'm sure there would be plenty of cheap bastards who would accept a screen with a few dead pixels if they could pay less.
This policy of pushing the crap out to the consumer and waiting for vocal ones to complain is just plain cynical.
Meh. You think that was bad? Why, I remember when we had to hardwire our Internet searches on plugboards and read the results off of a teletype. Let me tell you, it was pretty tough rendering a web page on a machine without any memory. And every now and then some joker would wire the AC from the wall into a board just for laughs. No, we didn't mind the odd electrocution - it was all part of the fun of the Golden Age of computing.
Back in those days, spam was SPAM, and it came in a can. And we liked it!
You left out an "of".
If you're going to nitpick, get it right for Christ's sake!
You have to admire the chutzpah of their PR guys. From today's press release:
I doubt they're too worried about the $630,000 settlement. This is a company that took in almost $6 Billion in the last twelve months. As an AP story puts it:
So even after putting out nearly a million bucks to pay off the states and put up new signs, they will still make money. Just consider it a cost of doing business.
As long as elections are "winner take all", a third party has little chance of winning any contest at the state or national level. It would be more effective to change the election system, or join one of the two major parties (it doesn't really matter which one) and militate for change from within.
You left out
so I didn't read that part.If a President were to think of a new word after due thought and consideration, I would credit it. However, if a President were to blurt out a malformed, ugly, dissonant utterance that merely resembles a word (but isn't one) then I reserve the right to lampoon it and him mercilessly. Not that we are speaking of anyone in particular.
It ["normalcy"] was not (contrary to popular opinion)coined by President Warren G Harding. It is a British English word of considerable antiquity.
I am chastened to find that you are correct, although according to Random House it was coined in 1857, which is not so ancient in my book. I object more to its odd construction and sound though, than to its association with Harding, who was famously bad with words, having also brought "bloviate" into common parlance.
No discussion of Harding would be complete without H.L. Mencken's description of him:
Maybe "nucular" ain't so bad after all :)
'Cromulent.' Er, yes. Right. Thank you for embiggening my vocabulary!
Also, where is the value? Who cares about your desktop, icons, etc in the web-centric world? Today's computer users sit down at their PC and open up a web browser to do what they need. As more services are made available on the web, the need for desktop apps will decline. Why pay money to the OS vendor when the perceived value is on the Internet?
Oh no it shouldn't.
Before this newborn word draws breath, let us strangle it in its crib, as we should have done for "normalcy", "incent", and "misunderestimate".
Personally if I have to see ads I'd prefer to see ones about products which actually interest me, rather than having to hear about tampons (which require an orifice I lack), Mountain Dew (which I'm too old for) or Cialis (which I don't need...yet!).
FOR SALE: **DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH**. Third planet from Sun. Surface mainly dihydrogen monoxide with some silicates. Good starter planet for young, carbon-based species. Still has much of original fossil fuel deposits. Excellent views of Venus, Mars. Small hole in ozone layer. Aboriginal biped humanoid species infestation can easily be removed with genetically engineered plague, or runaway nanotech "accident".
PRICE: 1.2 Million Quatloos. **CALL NOW** will not be listed for long at this price!
But hey, you already knew all that, right? It was posted here last month.
Of course, if we did somehow stumble upon an advanced alien civilization, with a rich, complex culture and superior intelligence, our local Christians would pause for less than a microsecond before deciding that the most important priority for humanity would be to send missionaries and start spreading the gospel. Personally I would find that very embarrassing.
It would be great if the aliens exploded on contact with water. That would make the sacrament of baptism much more interesting!
OK, I will shut up and go to Hell now ....
"No honey, you're not fat, you just have lots of bandwidth!"
You misunderestimate the purpose of the internets. :)
Really?! That's great! Let's try that ...
(ahem)
"I have a really, really big Johnson."
(looks down)
Whoa! It works! Say, let's try something else...
"Windows is a secure operating system"
(scratches head) That's weird, my nose got longer...
Well, let's see...
1. It's smooth and round.
2. It protrudes.
3. Sometimes you have to crank it real hard.
I think that should be clear enough. :)
I'm not sure I agree with everything you wrote, but that was a damned good argument! Never a mod point when you need one ...
[snip]
There's not a lot of governance going on in corporate boardrooms. And the first thing that's not going on is that boards are not establishing the purpose of the corporation. Board members believe their only choice is to follow the prime directive, which is to maximize returns to shareholders.
The genesis of this directive is worth exploring a bit. It may have a feeling to it of long-settled and inviolable law, but it does not arise from either federal or state constitutions, nor is it in any solid sense found in state statutes. Indeed, it contradicts America's early tradition of chartering corporations to serve the public good--to construct bridges, for example. Shareholder primacy emerged from the ether in the midnineteenth century, when it was articulated by the courts. The basis of shareholder primacy is thus primarily common law, judge-made law. In state statutes, directors have a duty of loyalty to the corporation. But in common law, this is interpreted as a loyalty to shareholders alone.
Common law can be overturned in a heartbeat by legislation. And legislators have in fact attempted to make changes in thirty-two states, with stakeholder statutes that give directors leeway to serve the interests of employees and the community. But because enforcement tools for these laws are nonexistent, the myth of shareholder primacy remains solid in the business mind.
This myth found its most forceful articulation in the 1919 Michigan Supreme Court case of Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., which established that "A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end." There are exceptions, but this basic design has been affirmed in various ways over the years--particularly in Delaware, where over half the Fortune 500 is incorporated and hence where the most significant precedents are now set. Thus we have a handful of conservative Delaware judges setting economic policy for the nation. And that policy remains tethered to two sentences a state judge wrote eighty years ago. "To this day," as George Washington University law professor Lawrence Mitchell has written, "Dodge v. Ford remains the leading case on corporate purpose."
[snip]
from The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy by Marjorie Kelly
I'd argue that corporations are legally forced to act for the benefit of their shareholders, to the exclusion of all other considerations, despite the personal motivations of the managers and/or employees.
Here's hoping your SO isn't a tax auditor ... :)