And there you have hit on a huge deal. Two of them actually. Quickbooks, which in its early incarnations sucked toejam, but is now a pretty awesome package, is Windows only. It is one of the reasons I have a Windows PC at all (I am a mac person by nature). For a small business owner (which I have reluctantly found myself doing in my not-so-copious spare time) it really "just works". I never even tried to get anything on the mac in this space.
Excel just plain kicks ass. I have Office 2008 for the Mac, and Excel2007 pretty much blows its doors off. I do a lot of data mining, using tools like Matlab, and JMP, but for a large portion of it, the ease of pivot tables really maces Excel my first choice.
Apple seems to handle collection of local taxes quite well. They even know that part of my zip code is PIMA county instead of Tucson city, and thus has a (slightly) different tax rate.
I am starting a business with a friend (actually, she does the hard work, and I provide the business and some financial backing), but we collect sales tax in Arizona, and California for selling our images. Amazingly, Quickbooks handles this fine. I just do not happen to live on an Indian Reservation, like Amazon did in placing their Arizona presence.
Truth be told, I do not pick retailers online due to tax free or not. I pick them by reputation, and past experiences. If Amazon one day started collecting taxes and whatnot for the goods purchased through them, I probably wouldn't blink. And I venture to guess that most of their customers wouldn't either. They need to rethink their business plan.
What this really points out is that the tax code (federal and state) needs a thorough cleansing and simplification. Remove the loopholes, tighten the standards, and make the collection and rates balanced, and much of this behavior should disappear.
I suspect I will see pigs flying before this happens though
I have to jump in here. Both have uses, (labview really does suck, and make shit MUCH harder than it needs to be) I use Matlab still, a LOT. It is great for data visualization, and to emulate simple systems, as well as complex control systems with its add on packages...
But for an environment to teach some one not yet in their 'teens? nuh uh. Nope, not going to go there...
Get an old Atari 8 bit system, get a floppy drive, get the logo cartridge. And be happy. Then you can add Atari Basic (not too great, but it does the job) and then Basic XL (all this stuff is pretty darned cheap, just avoid E-Bay) and you can really get a good programming foundation.
I was looking not too long ago for a good Pascal environment for either the mac or a PC. Never found it, Really bummed. If anyone knows of one, please let me know...
I will venture to guess that the parent poster is in Europe. There are wacky laws there on bids and tenders. Any one who submits a bid and doens't get selected can hold the tender up for ungodly lengths of time with (seemingly) silly arguments ($10 per desktop is too low of a price, What they really want is windows blah blah blah).
I used to be in the business of selling analytical instrumentation there, and you can win the tender, and not get the order for 6 or more months. And fritter away your profit fighting all the bullshit flung at you by competitors.
"Straight" lines like the Gandfather post is primarily a Euclidean idea, and the extent of most people's view of geometry. However, Georg Riemann and those who followed describe a geometry where a plane isn't flat, lines aren't straight and many of the "truths" you learned in Highschool Geometry are no longer valid.
Start with a course in differential geometry, move to topology, then on to General Relativity, and if you have the stomach for it, there is a book that ties it all together, "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler.
Dang whippersnappers, Everything should be written in Assembly. Dag nabbit. I learnt Assembly (gasp - 6502 and PDP Macro 11) I think that the new fangled macro assemblers should be enough for anyone!
Seriously, use the best tool for the job, and move on. Nothing to see here...
Very insightful. I heard a presentation at a large chemical manufacturer, who summed up the whole production stream as: Raw component makers on one end, and largely profitable.
Finished goods sellers on the other end, also quite profitable.
And in the middle are all the value add people getting squeezed by the titans at both ends. It is what Walmart and their immense power has done to the supply chain, and all the intermediaries have no choice but to continually reduce costs and shrink their margins.
True, but we really don't have a free market, and cases like this happen all the time.
Not sure about most major laptop makers, but there is a healthy aftermarket for Apple MacBook batteries. Offering more capacity, or lower replacement values.
In the case of the instrumentation, it is not a trivial task to build a tool that can scan in one axis, and measure with nanometer resolution in Z with a range of up to 5mm, something Taylor Hobson does quite well. The barrier to entry is pretty high.
In batteries, the barrier to entry is also not trivial. Unless you are going to buy components and assemble them, you have a pretty hefty investment in production required. The point being that in verticals like that, penetrating the market is not simple.
It is called market segmentation, and in general it is good. Different segments for the same products/technologies have different values for good intrinsic to them.
As an example, Taylor Hobson makes a fine stylus profiler. It is the standard in industry and precision manufacturing for determining shape and surface quality for parts. They charge (hypothetically) $60k for this instrument when they sell it to a manufacturer of metal precision components.
However, the exact same instrument, with a couple of new software features is sold into the Optics production market. The price is ~ 2.5X the price of the same tool sold to the industrial market. They get this premium, because the optics production segment has a different value proposition for the measurements it makes.
Same thing in laptop batteries. Same technology, but the application is different. Squeezing a few extra watt-hours into a smaller space is worth the premium. Also, you use you laptop much more than you use yard implements, so the perceived value of good life and longer cycles between recharging is a higher value.
It is irrelevant that they use the same technology.
If you are going to do that, you should go to an Audiologist, and get custom fit earplugs. I have a couple of pairs, one for motorcycle riding which blocks about 90% of the sound (and are most helpful for sleeping in LOUD hotel rooms) and a set of musicians ear plugs for when i am playing guitar with friends.
Not too expensive, and the custom fit makes them effortless to wear for long periods of times.
Re:Fire your boss for overstepping his authority
on
Music While Programming?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Did the boss take your red stapler too?
Re:Fire your boss for overstepping his authority
on
Music While Programming?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
In every company that I have worked for, they have explicitly made me sign an agreement that anything I type (paraphrasing slightly) on the keyboard of my computer is subject to them reading and using in any context which they see fit. I have no expectations of privacy, and I suspect that they even track instant messaging in and out.
If you are in the US, the odds are very high that you have a similar set of rights. It is just the way that it is. Don't like it? Go freelance, or start your own operation. But I guarantee you that after you add a few employees, you will probably adopt a similar privacy policy.
I know that most of Europe has much moe expectation of privacy, and also other rights, but here in the USA, not so much.
I am not a programmer, but I need the background music to keep my work progressing.
For about an hour yesterday, I wasn't listening to music (I am fortunate, I have an office, and I can play my music without headphones) and for some reason I was out of sorts, and found it hard to concentrate on the task at hand. Turned on the tunes, and suddenly I was lost in writing my specs again.
I travel. A lot. I am gone, out of the country, in places where I can't get english language books. I used to hit the used book store before a 3 week trip, and buy 10-12 books to read and discard.
Now I use my Sony e-Reader, and my luggage is MUCH lighter and more portable. And if I find that I am not enjoying a book, I don't feel that I wasted space and time lugging it on a trip. I can just move onto something more enjoyable.
e-Readers have greatly improved my life, and I can't imaging living without mine...
It is the built in theremin they use for input. My old D630 was horrible. The pointer would jump all over the place, except when I was trying to show the desktop support person the issue...
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And there you have hit on a huge deal. Two of them actually. Quickbooks, which in its early incarnations sucked toejam, but is now a pretty awesome package, is Windows only. It is one of the reasons I have a Windows PC at all (I am a mac person by nature). For a small business owner (which I have reluctantly found myself doing in my not-so-copious spare time) it really "just works". I never even tried to get anything on the mac in this space.
Excel just plain kicks ass. I have Office 2008 for the Mac, and Excel2007 pretty much blows its doors off. I do a lot of data mining, using tools like Matlab, and JMP, but for a large portion of it, the ease of pivot tables really maces Excel my first choice.
Otherwise, I would be a mac only household.
Oh, the world for some mod points...
Apple seems to handle collection of local taxes quite well. They even know that part of my zip code is PIMA county instead of Tucson city, and thus has a (slightly) different tax rate.
I am starting a business with a friend (actually, she does the hard work, and I provide the business and some financial backing), but we collect sales tax in Arizona, and California for selling our images. Amazingly, Quickbooks handles this fine. I just do not happen to live on an Indian Reservation, like Amazon did in placing their Arizona presence.
Truth be told, I do not pick retailers online due to tax free or not. I pick them by reputation, and past experiences. If Amazon one day started collecting taxes and whatnot for the goods purchased through them, I probably wouldn't blink. And I venture to guess that most of their customers wouldn't either. They need to rethink their business plan.
What this really points out is that the tax code (federal and state) needs a thorough cleansing and simplification. Remove the loopholes, tighten the standards, and make the collection and rates balanced, and much of this behavior should disappear.
I suspect I will see pigs flying before this happens though
Add to that the crappy cold winters, and the truly obnoxious gun control laws, and I can't for the life of me see why anyone stays there.
Well, you do have great food, and the few weeks where the weather is truly perfect, it is gorgeous to look out over the lake...
I have to jump in here. Both have uses, (labview really does suck, and make shit MUCH harder than it needs to be) I use Matlab still, a LOT. It is great for data visualization, and to emulate simple systems, as well as complex control systems with its add on packages...
But for an environment to teach some one not yet in their 'teens? nuh uh. Nope, not going to go there...
Get an old Atari 8 bit system, get a floppy drive, get the logo cartridge. And be happy. Then you can add Atari Basic (not too great, but it does the job) and then Basic XL (all this stuff is pretty darned cheap, just avoid E-Bay) and you can really get a good programming foundation.
I was looking not too long ago for a good Pascal environment for either the mac or a PC. Never found it, Really bummed. If anyone knows of one, please let me know...
I will venture to guess that the parent poster is in Europe. There are wacky laws there on bids and tenders. Any one who submits a bid and doens't get selected can hold the tender up for ungodly lengths of time with (seemingly) silly arguments ($10 per desktop is too low of a price, What they really want is windows blah blah blah).
I used to be in the business of selling analytical instrumentation there, and you can win the tender, and not get the order for 6 or more months. And fritter away your profit fighting all the bullshit flung at you by competitors.
That is general relativity.
"Straight" lines like the Gandfather post is primarily a Euclidean idea, and the extent of most people's view of geometry. However, Georg Riemann and those who followed describe a geometry where a plane isn't flat, lines aren't straight and many of the "truths" you learned in Highschool Geometry are no longer valid.
Start with a course in differential geometry, move to topology, then on to General Relativity, and if you have the stomach for it, there is a book that ties it all together, "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler.
Hmm, my Riemannian geometry must have let me down... It all depends on your reference.
While I understand your point, there are alternatives to Euclidean geometry, so what you state isn't a tautology...
p.s. me being a math geek will probably wreck my karma... Sigh
Dang whippersnappers, Everything should be written in Assembly. Dag nabbit. I learnt Assembly (gasp - 6502 and PDP Macro 11) I think that the new fangled macro assemblers should be enough for anyone!
Seriously, use the best tool for the job, and move on. Nothing to see here...
Very insightful. I heard a presentation at a large chemical manufacturer, who summed up the whole production stream as:
Raw component makers on one end, and largely profitable.
Finished goods sellers on the other end, also quite profitable.
And in the middle are all the value add people getting squeezed by the titans at both ends. It is what Walmart and their immense power has done to the supply chain, and all the intermediaries have no choice but to continually reduce costs and shrink their margins.
True, but we really don't have a free market, and cases like this happen all the time.
Not sure about most major laptop makers, but there is a healthy aftermarket for Apple MacBook batteries. Offering more capacity, or lower replacement values.
In the case of the instrumentation, it is not a trivial task to build a tool that can scan in one axis, and measure with nanometer resolution in Z with a range of up to 5mm, something Taylor Hobson does quite well. The barrier to entry is pretty high.
In batteries, the barrier to entry is also not trivial. Unless you are going to buy components and assemble them, you have a pretty hefty investment in production required. The point being that in verticals like that, penetrating the market is not simple.
It is called market segmentation, and in general it is good. Different segments for the same products/technologies have different values for good intrinsic to them.
As an example, Taylor Hobson makes a fine stylus profiler. It is the standard in industry and precision manufacturing for determining shape and surface quality for parts. They charge (hypothetically) $60k for this instrument when they sell it to a manufacturer of metal precision components.
However, the exact same instrument, with a couple of new software features is sold into the Optics production market. The price is ~ 2.5X the price of the same tool sold to the industrial market. They get this premium, because the optics production segment has a different value proposition for the measurements it makes.
Same thing in laptop batteries. Same technology, but the application is different. Squeezing a few extra watt-hours into a smaller space is worth the premium. Also, you use you laptop much more than you use yard implements, so the perceived value of good life and longer cycles between recharging is a higher value.
It is irrelevant that they use the same technology.
They must have confused my account for yours. You just about nailed 50% of the spam in my spam filter...
If you are going to do that, you should go to an Audiologist, and get custom fit earplugs. I have a couple of pairs, one for motorcycle riding which blocks about 90% of the sound (and are most helpful for sleeping in LOUD hotel rooms) and a set of musicians ear plugs for when i am playing guitar with friends.
Not too expensive, and the custom fit makes them effortless to wear for long periods of times.
Did the boss take your red stapler too?
In every company that I have worked for, they have explicitly made me sign an agreement that anything I type (paraphrasing slightly) on the keyboard of my computer is subject to them reading and using in any context which they see fit. I have no expectations of privacy, and I suspect that they even track instant messaging in and out.
If you are in the US, the odds are very high that you have a similar set of rights. It is just the way that it is. Don't like it? Go freelance, or start your own operation. But I guarantee you that after you add a few employees, you will probably adopt a similar privacy policy.
I know that most of Europe has much moe expectation of privacy, and also other rights, but here in the USA, not so much.
I am not a programmer, but I need the background music to keep my work progressing.
For about an hour yesterday, I wasn't listening to music (I am fortunate, I have an office, and I can play my music without headphones) and for some reason I was out of sorts, and found it hard to concentrate on the task at hand. Turned on the tunes, and suddenly I was lost in writing my specs again.
The boss is wrong...
Team America will be right on that...
I travel. A lot. I am gone, out of the country, in places where I can't get english language books. I used to hit the used book store before a 3 week trip, and buy 10-12 books to read and discard. Now I use my Sony e-Reader, and my luggage is MUCH lighter and more portable. And if I find that I am not enjoying a book, I don't feel that I wasted space and time lugging it on a trip. I can just move onto something more enjoyable. e-Readers have greatly improved my life, and I can't imaging living without mine...
Cool. Another Analog reader. I toyed with the e-subscription on my reader, but I just prefer the pulp rag when I read it... Maybe next year...
Agreed. PDF just doesn't cut it as a format for eReaders. My Sony can display them, but native Word docs are handled better...
Amplification and distortion also help make you sound awesome.
Sir, I wish I had mod points....
Great reply.
Thanks for the clarification. I forget that not every geek knows musical instruments...
It is the built in theremin they use for input. My old D630 was horrible. The pointer would jump all over the place, except when I was trying to show the desktop support person the issue...