I think you meant to refer to bullets/shot, not casings. Casings are usually made from brass, or plastic with a brass head in the case of shotgun hulls. Some ammunition has steel casings; this stuff is generally either Soviet-bloc military surplus ammunition or commercial ammunition made for export in former Soviet-bloc nations.
The question is, how much of a premium would you be willing to pay for that? If you're going to be replacing labor that costs $0.25 per hour with labor that costs $8.00 per hour, most products will see a large rise in cost.
Yeah, but the difference is, you don't have those "scads" of electricity with you wherever you go. This is sponsored by Orange, who run a mobile phone network; they're to charge mobile devices.
To the unthinking out there, sure, it *looks* environmentally friendly, and we all know that the energy costs associated with their creation mean they'd be lucky to break even. But that's not the point. Really it's a convenience product so your phone doesn't die out.
To the unthinking out there, sure, it *looks* like it'll recharge your phone. But those microwatts per square centimeter aren't going to generate enough power to even run the phone in standby, let alone recharge the batteries at any usable rate. And they'll only even pretend to work in winter (by cooling down your feet), or maybe a very hot summer on ground exposed to full sunlight (by warming up your feet), and will do nothing at all during moderately comfortable weather. So, it'll require scads of energy to manufacture, it'll make your feet less comfortable, and it won't charge your phone. Sounds like pure fail to me.
But catching 1710 criminals is meaningful, for the slight inconvenience the others faced. What's wrong with catching criminals?
0.5% of the people selected for secondary screening by the SPOT officers ended up getting arrested, and thus 99.5% of them did not. Is there any data that suggests that such an arrest rate is substantially higher than could be expected from any random sampling of air travelers? If not, then the SPOT officers don't appear to be doing anything worthwhile.
What you really need is a truly random selection, and figures for how many criminals were caught that way to see if what they are doing is making a statistical difference from truly random additional screening.
Agreed. Given the mere 0.5% arrest rate, I'm pretty skeptical that such figures would show that the SPOT officers earn their pay.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. The "crap" that I referred to "stealing" is only ad-supported stuff. Like a broadcast TV show that I might record and then watch while skipping the ads (I don't bother doing that any more), or a web page that's festooned with annoying ads (that I happily block). I don't pirate music at all. I have just under 3,500 songs in my music collection, and I've paid for all of them either by ripping a CD that I bought (and still own/possess), or by buying them from a digital provider like iTunes or Amazon. I am quite happy to support providers of quality content, including music, TV shows, movies and software. Even the CDs I own were mostly bought new (except for out-of-print stuff that's not available new), so I generally don't double-dip by buying a CD that somebody else has already ripped. Heck, a friend recently turned me onto the web series The Guild, and I bought it in the iTunes store rather than watching it for free on their web site. I was happy that a portion of the purchase price would be going back to the creators of that series.
My point was simply that I despise ads so much that I refuse to tolerate them at all. I will pay for quality non-ad-supported products. If a product is only available in an ad-supported format, I'll either block/skip the ads or just live without the product.
I despise ads so much that I've quit watching broadcast TV or listening to radio. The few TV shows that I do watch, I buy from the iTunes store, because I'd rather pay a couple bucks than have to watch any ads, and I don't watch enough TV shows to justify bothering with a cable TV subscription and DVR (to skip the ads).
When I'm in a friend's vehicle and they have the radio on, hearing the ads is worse torture than their incompatible taste in music. I used to subscribe to XM radio, but cancelled when they merged the XM/Sirius channel lineups and eliminated much of the stuff that I wanted to listen to; at that point, they no longer could compete with my iPod.
I like my Apple products, and barely tolerate Apple's iron fist (there's a lot of room for improvement there). However, if there was an "Apple Broadcasting Network" supported by "iAds", I wouldn't have any interest in it unless there was an easy way to avoid ever seeing any of the ads. I have zero interest in ad-supported products, though I'm not above using ad-supported products and services where I can easily block the ads.
So, to all of you ad-supported product providers out there: Unless you let me steal your crappy product without having to see the ads, I'm just not interested. Die in a fire, and all that. If you think you have a product that's good enough that I can't live without it, then give me a way to support it without seeing ads. If it's a good enough product, I'll happily pay for it; if it's crap, I'll either steal it for free or just live without it.
I suspect that it'll become much more common for bosses to say things like "Hey Bob, here's $750 in cash. Take a long lunch and come back with a printer."
Most business people perform the most critical, high risk and toughest jobs in the company.
That depends on what sort of risk you're considering. The business people often deal with a lot of economic risk, in that their decisions can win or lose millions of dollars (whether their own dollars or somebody else's). On the other hand, they face much less risk of getting impaled by a forklift or shorting out a 440V main with their face than a laborer does.
The business man and the laborer both think that they're the one doing the hard work... and they're both right.
You're not the only one who has opted out of Facebook. About a week ago, I deleted all of my pictures, all of my old posts (that took a lot of clicking), all of my group affiliations, and almost all of my personal information. I'll maintain the account just to let people I've lost touch with find me. The only things I post there now are links to stories about what's wrong with Facebook, and its potential replacements. I won't comment on or click "like" on anybody else's postings. I've changed my bio information to state that I do not approve of Facebook's privacy policy changes and that I'm only maintaining my account to allow old friends to make initial contact with me.
The recent news about diaspora interests me, and I'll be keeping my eye on that project. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come out with at the end of summer. I enjoyed using Facebook until their privacy policy changes led me to stop, and I hope to see future social media options that lack Facebook's undesirable features and policies.
Hmm.... you'd have to find people who are willing to die for a chance to kill an opponent of much higher strategic value. I wonder where you'd find that?
Or, you hire a cargo ship to go from point A to point B via route C, and you don't tell them that there are missiles in those sea containers at the top of the pile, and that they're going into battle against an aircraft carrier group.
I recall that the quick-turn houses I worked with used to be limited to 7-8 mil space/trace around 5ish years ago, and I also had a harder time getting good results at 3 mil design rules back then, so I think that capabilities have improved a little bit in that timeframe.
I design PCBs for a living, and I've also done IC design and molded plastic design. My company's chips (GPS receivers) are generally either BGAs or CSPs with 0.5mm ball pitch, and 3 mil space/trace rules are necessary for die escape (i.e., in order to fit a trace between two IC balls). Sometimes I even need to use blind and buried vias, depending on the chip and product. Not every PCB manufacturer can do 3 mil space/trace well, but it's not that uncommon a capability for big PCB houses. Any reputable full-service PCB house can do 5 mil space and trace rules all day long, and even quick-turn houses can do 6 mil these days. 3 mil rules are pretty common in mass-market devices such as cell phones, and it's not unusual for such devices to have 6 to 8 layer PCBs. With 3 mil rules, I can cram a complete GPS receiver (not including battery or antenna) onto a one square centimeter PCB, using just 4 layers, including space for module pins on the bottom.
Without the overhead of liability and regulatory rules, a typical IC development costs on the order of a million bucks or so (very complicated, bleeding-edge things like modern CPUs can cost a lot more). Considering how many people with hearing loss there are in the US alone, the nonrecurring engineering cost of a brand-new hearing aid IC would be on the order of a few bucks per device amortized over a fairly short period... and maybe less of the chip was designed to have alternate non-medical uses such as in headsets and so forth.
Consider how compact things like Bluetooth telephone headsets are, and how cheap they are. They're pretty much disposable.
I just don't see any technical reason for digital hearing aids to cost so much. The cost may include obscene mark-up, or it may (as many have posted here) be driven up by liability and regulatory costs... but it's certainly not because of any technical reason.
Has Microsoft really damaged you so much that whatever they do meets so much resistance that the sheer *thought* of using a product would make you cringe?
Yes. I hate everything about their software products. I will not use them unless I have no viable alternative, and I will go out of my way to use not-quite-viable alternatives instead if I have to.
And on a related note, what should Microsoft do to regain your respect?
Nothing. My respect is not available to them.
On a social analogy, is a thief always a thief, even when he shows remorse and changed his ways?
He may no longer be a thief, but I still won't trust him. There are plenty of other people who have not already demonstrated their untrustworthiness, so I can get by without that former thief just fine.
Slashdot Mirror
I get the cents you're mocking me.
Well-played, sir! Well-played, indeed. /bow
Agreed. Just think of all the things people could do with that extra 89 sense. Then tell me what they are.
They could use the extra 89 cents to pay somebody to teach them the difference between "sense" and "cents".
So, instead of becoming infested with mice, it'll become infested with dogs? Well, I guess that's an improvement.
It requires about 6.02E23 alpha particles per mole of helium.
Cool.
I think you meant to refer to bullets/shot, not casings. Casings are usually made from brass, or plastic with a brass head in the case of shotgun hulls. Some ammunition has steel casings; this stuff is generally either Soviet-bloc military surplus ammunition or commercial ammunition made for export in former Soviet-bloc nations.
tl;dr
I would have thought that a "HighTechGenius" would know about the paragraph tag.
The question is, how much of a premium would you be willing to pay for that? If you're going to be replacing labor that costs $0.25 per hour with labor that costs $8.00 per hour, most products will see a large rise in cost.
I'll happily pay a premium of $7.75. :D
Yeah, but the difference is, you don't have those "scads" of electricity with you wherever you go. This is sponsored by Orange, who run a mobile phone network; they're to charge mobile devices.
To the unthinking out there, sure, it *looks* environmentally friendly, and we all know that the energy costs associated with their creation mean they'd be lucky to break even. But that's not the point. Really it's a convenience product so your phone doesn't die out.
To the unthinking out there, sure, it *looks* like it'll recharge your phone. But those microwatts per square centimeter aren't going to generate enough power to even run the phone in standby, let alone recharge the batteries at any usable rate. And they'll only even pretend to work in winter (by cooling down your feet), or maybe a very hot summer on ground exposed to full sunlight (by warming up your feet), and will do nothing at all during moderately comfortable weather. So, it'll require scads of energy to manufacture, it'll make your feet less comfortable, and it won't charge your phone. Sounds like pure fail to me.
"Criminal" also includes individuals with unpaid traffic tickets. While I may be talking out my ass, I'm often told that my ass is smart... :P
But catching 1710 criminals is meaningful, for the slight inconvenience the others faced. What's wrong with catching criminals?
0.5% of the people selected for secondary screening by the SPOT officers ended up getting arrested, and thus 99.5% of them did not. Is there any data that suggests that such an arrest rate is substantially higher than could be expected from any random sampling of air travelers? If not, then the SPOT officers don't appear to be doing anything worthwhile.
What you really need is a truly random selection, and figures for how many criminals were caught that way to see if what they are doing is making a statistical difference from truly random additional screening.
Agreed. Given the mere 0.5% arrest rate, I'm pretty skeptical that such figures would show that the SPOT officers earn their pay.
I bet you roll over and go to sleep immediately after orgasm, too. (Yes, I am aware that this is /.)
Depends on what's on TV... ;)
It's cool.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. The "crap" that I referred to "stealing" is only ad-supported stuff. Like a broadcast TV show that I might record and then watch while skipping the ads (I don't bother doing that any more), or a web page that's festooned with annoying ads (that I happily block). I don't pirate music at all. I have just under 3,500 songs in my music collection, and I've paid for all of them either by ripping a CD that I bought (and still own/possess), or by buying them from a digital provider like iTunes or Amazon. I am quite happy to support providers of quality content, including music, TV shows, movies and software. Even the CDs I own were mostly bought new (except for out-of-print stuff that's not available new), so I generally don't double-dip by buying a CD that somebody else has already ripped. Heck, a friend recently turned me onto the web series The Guild, and I bought it in the iTunes store rather than watching it for free on their web site. I was happy that a portion of the purchase price would be going back to the creators of that series.
My point was simply that I despise ads so much that I refuse to tolerate them at all. I will pay for quality non-ad-supported products. If a product is only available in an ad-supported format, I'll either block/skip the ads or just live without the product.
I despise ads so much that I've quit watching broadcast TV or listening to radio. The few TV shows that I do watch, I buy from the iTunes store, because I'd rather pay a couple bucks than have to watch any ads, and I don't watch enough TV shows to justify bothering with a cable TV subscription and DVR (to skip the ads).
When I'm in a friend's vehicle and they have the radio on, hearing the ads is worse torture than their incompatible taste in music. I used to subscribe to XM radio, but cancelled when they merged the XM/Sirius channel lineups and eliminated much of the stuff that I wanted to listen to; at that point, they no longer could compete with my iPod.
I like my Apple products, and barely tolerate Apple's iron fist (there's a lot of room for improvement there). However, if there was an "Apple Broadcasting Network" supported by "iAds", I wouldn't have any interest in it unless there was an easy way to avoid ever seeing any of the ads. I have zero interest in ad-supported products, though I'm not above using ad-supported products and services where I can easily block the ads.
So, to all of you ad-supported product providers out there: Unless you let me steal your crappy product without having to see the ads, I'm just not interested. Die in a fire, and all that. If you think you have a product that's good enough that I can't live without it, then give me a way to support it without seeing ads. If it's a good enough product, I'll happily pay for it; if it's crap, I'll either steal it for free or just live without it.
I suspect that it'll become much more common for bosses to say things like "Hey Bob, here's $750 in cash. Take a long lunch and come back with a printer."
Most business people perform the most critical, high risk and toughest jobs in the company.
That depends on what sort of risk you're considering. The business people often deal with a lot of economic risk, in that their decisions can win or lose millions of dollars (whether their own dollars or somebody else's). On the other hand, they face much less risk of getting impaled by a forklift or shorting out a 440V main with their face than a laborer does.
The business man and the laborer both think that they're the one doing the hard work... and they're both right.
You're not the only one who has opted out of Facebook. About a week ago, I deleted all of my pictures, all of my old posts (that took a lot of clicking), all of my group affiliations, and almost all of my personal information. I'll maintain the account just to let people I've lost touch with find me. The only things I post there now are links to stories about what's wrong with Facebook, and its potential replacements. I won't comment on or click "like" on anybody else's postings. I've changed my bio information to state that I do not approve of Facebook's privacy policy changes and that I'm only maintaining my account to allow old friends to make initial contact with me.
The recent news about diaspora interests me, and I'll be keeping my eye on that project. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come out with at the end of summer. I enjoyed using Facebook until their privacy policy changes led me to stop, and I hope to see future social media options that lack Facebook's undesirable features and policies.
Hmm.... you'd have to find people who are willing to die for a chance to kill an opponent of much higher strategic value. I wonder where you'd find that?
Or, you hire a cargo ship to go from point A to point B via route C, and you don't tell them that there are missiles in those sea containers at the top of the pile, and that they're going into battle against an aircraft carrier group.
I recall that the quick-turn houses I worked with used to be limited to 7-8 mil space/trace around 5ish years ago, and I also had a harder time getting good results at 3 mil design rules back then, so I think that capabilities have improved a little bit in that timeframe.
I design PCBs for a living, and I've also done IC design and molded plastic design. My company's chips (GPS receivers) are generally either BGAs or CSPs with 0.5mm ball pitch, and 3 mil space/trace rules are necessary for die escape (i.e., in order to fit a trace between two IC balls). Sometimes I even need to use blind and buried vias, depending on the chip and product. Not every PCB manufacturer can do 3 mil space/trace well, but it's not that uncommon a capability for big PCB houses. Any reputable full-service PCB house can do 5 mil space and trace rules all day long, and even quick-turn houses can do 6 mil these days. 3 mil rules are pretty common in mass-market devices such as cell phones, and it's not unusual for such devices to have 6 to 8 layer PCBs. With 3 mil rules, I can cram a complete GPS receiver (not including battery or antenna) onto a one square centimeter PCB, using just 4 layers, including space for module pins on the bottom.
Without the overhead of liability and regulatory rules, a typical IC development costs on the order of a million bucks or so (very complicated, bleeding-edge things like modern CPUs can cost a lot more). Considering how many people with hearing loss there are in the US alone, the nonrecurring engineering cost of a brand-new hearing aid IC would be on the order of a few bucks per device amortized over a fairly short period... and maybe less of the chip was designed to have alternate non-medical uses such as in headsets and so forth.
Consider how compact things like Bluetooth telephone headsets are, and how cheap they are. They're pretty much disposable.
I just don't see any technical reason for digital hearing aids to cost so much. The cost may include obscene mark-up, or it may (as many have posted here) be driven up by liability and regulatory costs... but it's certainly not because of any technical reason.
My head just exploded... like a Ford Pinto.
this has to be the worst car analogy ever.
You might say it's like the Yugo of car analogies.
We have that little annoying thing here called "The Freedom of Speach
We also have this really cool thing called spelling.
Has Microsoft really damaged you so much that whatever they do meets so much resistance that the sheer *thought* of using a product would make you cringe?
Yes. I hate everything about their software products. I will not use them unless I have no viable alternative, and I will go out of my way to use not-quite-viable alternatives instead if I have to.
And on a related note, what should Microsoft do to regain your respect?
Nothing. My respect is not available to them.
On a social analogy, is a thief always a thief, even when he shows remorse and changed his ways?
He may no longer be a thief, but I still won't trust him. There are plenty of other people who have not already demonstrated their untrustworthiness, so I can get by without that former thief just fine.