Re:Why do we have this "grow or perish" mentality?
on
Should Sun Just Fold Now?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
The reason companies exist is to make money. They make money for their employees (employee puts time in, and gets compensated for that at a rate that the employee *should* deem greater than the effort they put into it), they make money for their investors (investor puts money in, and gets more money back than they put in...ideally), and they make money for the government (company makes money, and pays taxes on it).
The grow or perish mentality is related to the fact that capitalism requires an entity, be it a person or a corporation, to perform better than its peers/competitors. When an employee decides to work for a company, they will choose the best return on investment (i.e. most money/benefits/quality of life) that they can get for the investment of their labor. When an investor chooses to invest money, they are looking for the company that will give them the best return on their investment...in order to outpace their peers/competitors when it comes to acquiring wealth. This is what drives the fundamental economic engine.
An employee who also invests cash in their own company has even more at stake (which is typical of most large companies and their employees today). It behooves the leadership of said companies to provide the best return on investment for all parties concerned.
The unfortunate drawback is that productivity increases in personnel tends to have diminishing returns, so they tend to be expected to do more for less, while cash investors tend to scream the loudest for increasing returns, and they are paid more attention by the corporate leaders. In fact, many folks who both work for and invest in the same company tend to overlook this fact. They bitch about stock performance, then they bitch when they don't get a big raise or bonus, so they bitch even louder about stock performance, so the executives have to cut costs. I've seen it in action. The very same employee/owners who were griping the most about stock performance were amongst those who got laid off in order to cut costs.
Sun has something like $6billion in their coffers. At their current burn rate, they will be around for a long time. Their new JDE push (and associated service revenues) could be the thing they have needed to appease stockholders and get back in the game.
Of course, they could just take that cash, distribute it to their employees, lay them all off, then sell their receivables, contracts, and customer base to some other company *cough*IBM*cough*, then split that money amongst the 'execs'. There would be a lot of retired ex-Sun folks lounging around the pool.
I tend to agree with you on this. The fundamental sociological power shift would be staggering.
But, presume for a moment that mankind overcomes the technical hurdles to make this feasible. Further presume a realistic renewable power source can be found/created that will tie in well to this. Finally, presume that we manage to implement without creating global havoc, riots, civil wars, and all the rest of it.
Assuming all that (yes, I know), then mankind has finally achieved 'leisure' time. All the time. Imagine the impact this would have on philosophy, religion, art, and all of those types of endeavors that rely on mankind not having to engage in provision for necessities at least part of the time. Mankind then devotes 100% of waking consciousness to intellectual pursuits (and physical, obviously). What leaps would be made? Take it a step further...if these little doodads can repair (or at least drastically retard) the aging process, lives would extend to unbelievable proportions. Wisdom would be gained not over a few decades, but dozens of decades.
Perhaps this is the next step in evolution, bringing mankind ever closer to understanding our true nature and purpose, if such a thing exists.
Or, perhaps I should put down my crack pipe, and get back to my menial tech/project management tasks, so the 'man' can make another buck off my labor.
Hangin's too good for 'em.
Burrrnin's too good for 'em...
(T)He(y) should be torn into little pieces and buried ALIVE!!!!
I'LL KILL HIIM! KILL!! STERRRRNNNNN!!!
Can we assume that it really focuses more on the ethereal product than analyzing and understanding frames? (In short, is it more for someone who wants to squeeze the most out of ethereal, or does it do remedial to advanced instruction on packet construction, deconstruction, and analysis?
nope, to pinpoint a location in two-d, you need three points of reference (hence...TRIangulation).
To isolate x,y, and z, you need at least four points of reference.
Think of it like this, two mikes, and a gunshot. You can calculate the difference in arrival times between the two mikes, but there will be an infinite number of points (in 3d) that solve for that. There will be at LEAST 4 points that solve for it in two D (that's off the top of my head, but think of mirror images across the line between then x and y coords of the two mikes, and a perpendicular line that bisects that first line.
Good stuff. Thanks for sharing...It's good to see this many people who not only 'get it', but know more about it and can share. (NFF) --(Non facetious flag)
This is art...not science...
on
Listen to the Sky
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· Score: 5, Insightful
just enjoy it for what it is. Don't you have an inner child that loves balloons? Add that inner child to your outer geek...and this should be good stuff. Come on, not everything has to be bad.
(begin flame...NOW!)
(no, I'm not a hippie...but I HAVE been to Burning Man, and am going back this year as well){
I read all the comments to this point, and saw no mention of industrial.
It started at least 15 years ago (though some other versions may have started earlier)...in Germany.
They recorded (sampled) industrial noise, and mixed it together with vocals, percussion (indeed, some bands used the sampled noises AS vocals and percussion) to make music. Skinny Puppy is a great example.
Wow, you really have a reading comprehension problem, don't you?
First, I explicitly stated I DID NOT like having a camera phone. I wanted a phone, not a camera...but in order to get the features of the PHONE that I wanted, I was forced to buy a camera phone, because that was the only device that had everything else I wanted.
When I said this was a bonus, I was referring to the device in the article...the "lipstick" "keychain" device.
I'm still not sure where you come up with the 'shafted up the arse by the aerospace industry' comment, other than because you probably just assume that most people who respond to slashdot are bitching about some industry or another, and you feel that it is your job to bitch about that.
Going back to reading comprehension, I never bitched, at all, one iota, about the aerospace industry. I was saying that if this product were to be commonplace, then anyone who had one may have an opportunity to record a noteworthy event. Think about it like this...if everyone in or near Lockerbie Scotland had possessed one of these devices, and saw a plane in trouble, and turned it on the event, then don't you think we would have much more information about the event, thus making it easier to reconstruct and determine the source?
I must be new here...because that completely irrelevant attack surprised me.
I think it's more of a 'because we can' attitude. I am actually quite pleased with convergence in data storage devices...the video is just another input.
I DON'T like the fact that I had to buy a 'camera phone' to get the other phone features I wanted.
However, this would be a real handy gadget to have. (And it's just that...a gadget...+1 Karma to whomever can identify the origin of that word...specifically, whose name it came from and what they are most famous (in the US) for...no googling, you cheaters).
As a cheap and easy way to move over a hundred megs of data from place to place, I like it. The fact that if you happened to see something noteworthy, like, say, a hostage situation or a plane going down and you could just pull out your keys and record it (in poor quality, yes) for posterity, is just a bonus.
Plus, if it gets people interested in buying technology again, so much the better. We need tech jobs growth (in all sectors)
Come to think of it, I have a great idea for this...do new video projectors have USB inputs and file translation capabililites? If they don't, they soon will. Now those marketing droids won't need laptops...they can put together their PowerPoint presentations and them load them onto their keyring, and just jack that into the projector.
First, San Francisco is notorious for having a high number of 'red light runners'...folks on bicycles are getting hit, killed, and maimed all too frequently just for this reason. (no to mention other motorists)
Second, a new way to have fun at other's expense!
1. Drive speed limit or below, wait until traffic is backed up behind you.
2. As you approach a green light, speed up unexpectedly, so the lights begins to cycle.
3. Speed through yellow, leaving all those morons behind you with their middle fingers in the air!
4. ???
5. Profit!
You are not comparing apples (pardon me) to apples.
Let's say the average CD buyer goes out to buy a CD for 1 or 2 songs (which is mostly true, based on the RIAA marketing principles). Let's call it 2. Now, they sell a CD for $15, and the CD has 12 songs on it. Net crap gained by consumer, ten songs they weren't interested in.
Let's take that same person, who goes to a legal online service. They buy the two songs they want, for $2. Net loss to RIAA? $13 (presuming 100% transfer of funds from online service to RIAA, which isn't the case, but let's keep it on the pessimistic side).
2.5 million songs per week, x52 weeks per year=130 million songs. Net cost to consumer, $130,000,000. Net loss to RIAA? 6.5 times that amount, $845,000,000.
That number is a signifcant fraction of the total dollar figure lost. What accouts for the rest of it? Other people have mentioned economic decline, lack of content, competition from DVD/Video games, etc. There is also the fact that they concentrate their marketing efforts on what they believe to be the 'most profitable' songs...which to me is an erroneous interpretation of what the market wants. How much Britney Spears can the world stand? How many times can one person stand to hear 'Creed' on their local 'rock station'?
The article is marketing spin, FUD, and very poor science. They have shown absolutely no causality between P2P (nor have they demonstrated Piracy to be 'rampant') and a decline in sales. Some very knowledgeable scientists, on the other hand, have gone to considerable lengths to scientifically evaluate this, and have proven quite the opposite, as others have already pointed out and linked to.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason companies exist is to make money. They make money for their employees (employee puts time in, and gets compensated for that at a rate that the employee *should* deem greater than the effort they put into it), they make money for their investors (investor puts money in, and gets more money back than they put in...ideally), and they make money for the government (company makes money, and pays taxes on it).
The grow or perish mentality is related to the fact that capitalism requires an entity, be it a person or a corporation, to perform better than its peers/competitors. When an employee decides to work for a company, they will choose the best return on investment (i.e. most money/benefits/quality of life) that they can get for the investment of their labor. When an investor chooses to invest money, they are looking for the company that will give them the best return on their investment...in order to outpace their peers/competitors when it comes to acquiring wealth. This is what drives the fundamental economic engine.
An employee who also invests cash in their own company has even more at stake (which is typical of most large companies and their employees today). It behooves the leadership of said companies to provide the best return on investment for all parties concerned.
The unfortunate drawback is that productivity increases in personnel tends to have diminishing returns, so they tend to be expected to do more for less, while cash investors tend to scream the loudest for increasing returns, and they are paid more attention by the corporate leaders. In fact, many folks who both work for and invest in the same company tend to overlook this fact. They bitch about stock performance, then they bitch when they don't get a big raise or bonus, so they bitch even louder about stock performance, so the executives have to cut costs. I've seen it in action. The very same employee/owners who were griping the most about stock performance were amongst those who got laid off in order to cut costs.
Neat how that works, isn't it?
Sun has something like $6billion in their coffers. At their current burn rate, they will be around for a long time. Their new JDE push (and associated service revenues) could be the thing they have needed to appease stockholders and get back in the game.
Of course, they could just take that cash, distribute it to their employees, lay them all off, then sell their receivables, contracts, and customer base to some other company *cough*IBM*cough*, then split that money amongst the 'execs'. There would be a lot of retired ex-Sun folks lounging around the pool.
I tend to agree with you on this. The fundamental sociological power shift would be staggering.
But, presume for a moment that mankind overcomes the technical hurdles to make this feasible. Further presume a realistic renewable power source can be found/created that will tie in well to this. Finally, presume that we manage to implement without creating global havoc, riots, civil wars, and all the rest of it.
Assuming all that (yes, I know), then mankind has finally achieved 'leisure' time. All the time. Imagine the impact this would have on philosophy, religion, art, and all of those types of endeavors that rely on mankind not having to engage in provision for necessities at least part of the time. Mankind then devotes 100% of waking consciousness to intellectual pursuits (and physical, obviously). What leaps would be made? Take it a step further...if these little doodads can repair (or at least drastically retard) the aging process, lives would extend to unbelievable proportions. Wisdom would be gained not over a few decades, but dozens of decades.
Perhaps this is the next step in evolution, bringing mankind ever closer to understanding our true nature and purpose, if such a thing exists.
Or, perhaps I should put down my crack pipe, and get back to my menial tech/project management tasks, so the 'man' can make another buck off my labor.
Hangin's too good for 'em.
Burrrnin's too good for 'em...
(T)He(y) should be torn into little pieces and buried ALIVE!!!!
I'LL KILL HIIM! KILL!! STERRRRNNNNN!!!
EOM
PHB: Mr. Frennzy, we'd like to offer you employment. Your base wage will be $27.65 per hour.
Me: No WAY man! I won't take a penny over $27.62 per hour.
Thankfully, it's not an issue if you're self-employed.
Can we assume that it really focuses more on the ethereal product than analyzing and understanding frames? (In short, is it more for someone who wants to squeeze the most out of ethereal, or does it do remedial to advanced instruction on packet construction, deconstruction, and analysis?
We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Bah Dah BUM bump.
Posting a funny parody...free.
/. do more to take away your free speech than MC or AmEx could ever dream of....priceless.
Getting a C&D letter from MC/AmEx...free.
Having
No, he just carried over the mistake from the Register, from whence he plagiarized the article.
nope, to pinpoint a location in two-d, you need three points of reference (hence...TRIangulation).
To isolate x,y, and z, you need at least four points of reference.
Think of it like this, two mikes, and a gunshot. You can calculate the difference in arrival times between the two mikes, but there will be an infinite number of points (in 3d) that solve for that. There will be at LEAST 4 points that solve for it in two D (that's off the top of my head, but think of mirror images across the line between then x and y coords of the two mikes, and a perpendicular line that bisects that first line.
Good stuff. Thanks for sharing...It's good to see this many people who not only 'get it', but know more about it and can share. (NFF) --(Non facetious flag)
just enjoy it for what it is. Don't you have an inner child that loves balloons? Add that inner child to your outer geek...and this should be good stuff. Come on, not everything has to be bad.
(begin flame...NOW!)
(no, I'm not a hippie...but I HAVE been to Burning Man, and am going back this year as well){
I read all the comments to this point, and saw no mention of industrial.
It started at least 15 years ago (though some other versions may have started earlier)...in Germany.
They recorded (sampled) industrial noise, and mixed it together with vocals, percussion (indeed, some bands used the sampled noises AS vocals and percussion) to make music. Skinny Puppy is a great example.
Just thought I'd bring it up.
Wow, you really have a reading comprehension problem, don't you?
First, I explicitly stated I DID NOT like having a camera phone. I wanted a phone, not a camera...but in order to get the features of the PHONE that I wanted, I was forced to buy a camera phone, because that was the only device that had everything else I wanted.
When I said this was a bonus, I was referring to the device in the article...the "lipstick" "keychain" device.
I'm still not sure where you come up with the 'shafted up the arse by the aerospace industry' comment, other than because you probably just assume that most people who respond to slashdot are bitching about some industry or another, and you feel that it is your job to bitch about that.
Going back to reading comprehension, I never bitched, at all, one iota, about the aerospace industry. I was saying that if this product were to be commonplace, then anyone who had one may have an opportunity to record a noteworthy event. Think about it like this...if everyone in or near Lockerbie Scotland had possessed one of these devices, and saw a plane in trouble, and turned it on the event, then don't you think we would have much more information about the event, thus making it easier to reconstruct and determine the source?
I must be new here...because that completely irrelevant attack surprised me.
I think it's more of a 'because we can' attitude. I am actually quite pleased with convergence in data storage devices...the video is just another input.
I DON'T like the fact that I had to buy a 'camera phone' to get the other phone features I wanted.
However, this would be a real handy gadget to have. (And it's just that...a gadget...+1 Karma to whomever can identify the origin of that word...specifically, whose name it came from and what they are most famous (in the US) for...no googling, you cheaters).
As a cheap and easy way to move over a hundred megs of data from place to place, I like it. The fact that if you happened to see something noteworthy, like, say, a hostage situation or a plane going down and you could just pull out your keys and record it (in poor quality, yes) for posterity, is just a bonus.
Plus, if it gets people interested in buying technology again, so much the better. We need tech jobs growth (in all sectors)
Come to think of it, I have a great idea for this...do new video projectors have USB inputs and file translation capabililites? If they don't, they soon will. Now those marketing droids won't need laptops...they can put together their PowerPoint presentations and them load them onto their keyring, and just jack that into the projector.
First, San Francisco is notorious for having a high number of 'red light runners'...folks on bicycles are getting hit, killed, and maimed all too frequently just for this reason. (no to mention other motorists)
Second, a new way to have fun at other's expense!
1. Drive speed limit or below, wait until traffic is backed up behind you.
2. As you approach a green light, speed up unexpectedly, so the lights begins to cycle.
3. Speed through yellow, leaving all those morons behind you with their middle fingers in the air!
4. ???
5. Profit!
Man in the middle ARP re-routing. (Also known as ARP cache poisoning).
Or, if you use Cisco switches, use 'set span blah blah blah', and jack into that port.
Or, Identify the core links (where data ias aggregated) and use a hub to tap into that link.
Switching isn't the end of sniffing.
You are not comparing apples (pardon me) to apples.
Let's say the average CD buyer goes out to buy a CD for 1 or 2 songs (which is mostly true, based on the RIAA marketing principles). Let's call it 2. Now, they sell a CD for $15, and the CD has 12 songs on it. Net crap gained by consumer, ten songs they weren't interested in.
Let's take that same person, who goes to a legal online service. They buy the two songs they want, for $2. Net loss to RIAA? $13 (presuming 100% transfer of funds from online service to RIAA, which isn't the case, but let's keep it on the pessimistic side).
2.5 million songs per week, x52 weeks per year=130 million songs. Net cost to consumer, $130,000,000. Net loss to RIAA? 6.5 times that amount, $845,000,000.
That number is a signifcant fraction of the total dollar figure lost. What accouts for the rest of it? Other people have mentioned economic decline, lack of content, competition from DVD/Video games, etc. There is also the fact that they concentrate their marketing efforts on what they believe to be the 'most profitable' songs...which to me is an erroneous interpretation of what the market wants. How much Britney Spears can the world stand? How many times can one person stand to hear 'Creed' on their local 'rock station'?
The article is marketing spin, FUD, and very poor science. They have shown absolutely no causality between P2P (nor have they demonstrated Piracy to be 'rampant') and a decline in sales. Some very knowledgeable scientists, on the other hand, have gone to considerable lengths to scientifically evaluate this, and have proven quite the opposite, as others have already pointed out and linked to.
Duh...you don't need a person sized microwave.
You just need to cut the person into small enough pieces to stack into a normal sized microwave. Sheesh.
(waves hand)
These aren't the comments you are looking for...
(/waves hand)
Mod points last three days. Take a nap. Come back tomorrow when you're not so grumpy.
The best 4-1 'article' I've seen today, courtesy of The Register can be found here.
256?
I guess it's a good thing TV still stands by the old sitcom model of '8 Bits Is Enough'