And as such is a juicy target for all the hucksters. Home users can switch if they get pissed off at one brand. And nobody really needs Facebook anyway. But sitting at your desk at work, you will use what they tell you to. And when the people selling crap to corporate IT discovered this, it was game on for thousands of dollars per seat for licenses. And then there was the blow-back. Many BODs looked at the IT spending and realized that they were getting screwed by travelling salesmen. And they tightened the purse strings.
I worked in and around a few IT projects at Boeing back in the 1990s. Back when "The Web" was becoming viable for enterprise applications. But before vendors caught on that their precious "green screen" mainframe apps could be replaced for pennies on the dollar by a couple of smart people. But once they caught on, they convinced the (newly created position of) CIO that the only way to maintain corporate credibility was to be juggling a bunch of billion dollar development and procurement projects. You are measured by the budget that you consume. Finally, when the non IT management types started seeing the TV ads with the empty data centers, except for that one tiny rack in the corner that replaced it all, they cut off the blank checks, cocaine and hookers.
In order to prevent me from speaking truthfully about some aspect of a previous employer, they are going to have to describe the particular incident or policy about which I must not speak in detail. In writing, as a part of the severance agreement.
fossil fuels will become too valuable to burn for personal transportation
Not sure why you have to single out personal transportation here. As fossil fuels become more expensive, we'll see whether people are still willing to pay the premium for the personal aspect. Keep in mind: The diesel fuel for the busses will be going up in price as well. And (the recent drop in energy prices aside), mass transit was being hit a lot harder by cost increases than personal transportation. And much of the subsidy for mass transit is dependent on people paying those gas taxes in their cars.
Have fun when we all park our cars and take the bus. With a complete collapse in the subsidy system, your fare will reflect actual transit costs. And of all the horrors that the social engineers can envision, mass transit that has to pay its own way will be one of the worst.
post-oil future without some magical energy source
Got it. I'll plug my Tesla into the hydro power supply system here in Seattle.
Risk. Your laptop battery pack shuts down if one of eight (or whatever) LiON cells goes below some threshold. So it doesn't overheat and catch fire in your carry-on luggage or somewhere equally inconvenient. But this means that the other seven cells are probably near the end of their life as well. So replacing the one bad one isn't an economically viable option.
The upside of TFA's proposed application is that these single cells, used for a lighting application probably present a lower hazard risk than in a remanufactured laptop battery. Until entire shanty towns around Bangalore start going up in flames, killing thousands. Because someone's night light exploded.
Yes. And I still remember the blow-back when a bunch of us read Stranger in a Strange land back in high school. The kids from socially conservative backgrounds rejected it as garbage. Because it was inconceivable that anything would ever challenge the established Judeo-Christian foundations of our culture.
Some authors do investigate culturl changes that could be brought on by new technology or contact with alien cultures. But they risk rousing the rage of those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Interesting note: In The Day the Earth Stood Still, the revival of Klaatu (after being shot and killed) had to be explained as 'temporary' so as not to enrage Christian audiences.
Making sure that all the billing goes through correctly is not trivial.
No. But it has been done (successfully) by numerous entities in the past. Everything from suppliers who handle gov't, DoD and commercial contracts simultaneously to law offices who have to allocate billable hours to the proper clients, there are well established processes out there. And off the shelf accounting s/w.
Keep in mind the benefits of one household using solar are shared equally by everybody
Maybe. In some 'pie-in-the-sky' philosophical model. But the climatologists are so far away from having a model that quantifies the effects in economic terms that I'm not willing to pay $X for a ton of carbon when they can't figire out what X is.
Strange. because it has been a few decades since I was in the salaried worker pool. But way back then, I wasn't aware of a threshold. I got overtime (1.5x) or not depending on the definition of my job. And back then I was bringing in around $150K/year.
The OT/no OT decision was based on the definition in the National Labor Relations Act of an exempt professional: doing work
"involving the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in its performance"
and
"of such a character that the output produced or the result accomplished cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time"
So when the boss walked up and told me how to do my job, or told me that he expected me to work to a rigid schedule, I just replied, "Thanks buddy. That'll be $120/hour for anything over 40 hours per week. Or get your damned nose out of my cubicle and I'll solve the problem as best I can."
In spite of this sounding like a rather snotty attitude, it did serve to remind my employer of the economics of employees as a resource. You want X done at a certain rate (lines of code, sheets of engineering drawings or pages of specifications), fine. Pay for the work by the hour. You want me to take on some risk for getting a challenging job done? I'll work for a fixed price, but only if I have the flexibility to control my processes, tools and working environment. Quite a few enlightened managers saw the value in the latter option.
The economics of vehicular and fixed uses are entirely different. Weight and volume are minor factors for fixed solar energy storage. So why haven't we seen local storage for solar (and wind) take off with more economical technologies?
Answer: Because the pricing structure for solar power doesn't require it.
To date, the storage issue is a hot potato, tossed back and forth between the interconnecting utilities (they don't want to pay for it or impose the costs on their entire customer base) and alternative power producers (who want to be paid per kWh when it's convenient for them to generate, but expect someone else to fund the 'smart grid' or demand shifting necessary to make their product viable).
Not being a Node.js developer/user, I am not aware of the organizational politics surrounding this pronoun gender issue. But a quick scan of coments and related threads leads me to believe that this issue is the symptom of some underlying politics at Joyent. The documentation and development direction conroversies are hiding the fact that management has lost control of the culture of the company. And now a few factions are engaged in an office war and higher-ups are powerless to deal with it.
I don't know which group left to support the fork and which stayed behind. But I wouldn't be surprised if the battle will now continue between the two groups. "They did X. And since they are a bunch of assholes, X must be bad. So we won't do it." And the user community will suffer as a result.
Slashdot Mirror
And as such is a juicy target for all the hucksters. Home users can switch if they get pissed off at one brand. And nobody really needs Facebook anyway. But sitting at your desk at work, you will use what they tell you to. And when the people selling crap to corporate IT discovered this, it was game on for thousands of dollars per seat for licenses. And then there was the blow-back. Many BODs looked at the IT spending and realized that they were getting screwed by travelling salesmen. And they tightened the purse strings.
I worked in and around a few IT projects at Boeing back in the 1990s. Back when "The Web" was becoming viable for enterprise applications. But before vendors caught on that their precious "green screen" mainframe apps could be replaced for pennies on the dollar by a couple of smart people. But once they caught on, they convinced the (newly created position of) CIO that the only way to maintain corporate credibility was to be juggling a bunch of billion dollar development and procurement projects. You are measured by the budget that you consume. Finally, when the non IT management types started seeing the TV ads with the empty data centers, except for that one tiny rack in the corner that replaced it all, they cut off the blank checks, cocaine and hookers.
It's still on the menu at my favorite Chinese restaurant. Only they prefer that you call it chicken.
I found the one for Britain
Flash is dead.
-- Emperor Ming.
Everyone drink, post and repeat. Until Facebook warns you to stop.
If he would have used a Trojan, he wouldn't be in the trouble he is now.
But there would certainly be corporate liability involved.
Liability? I'd like to see how that would play out. Torrent sites would sue because Sony interfered with their distribution of misappropriated goods?
Are you going to pay for the carbon that coal plant squirts into the atmosphere to charge your Nissan Leaf?
Didn't think so.
This.
In order to prevent me from speaking truthfully about some aspect of a previous employer, they are going to have to describe the particular incident or policy about which I must not speak in detail. In writing, as a part of the severance agreement.
fossil fuels will become too valuable to burn for personal transportation
Not sure why you have to single out personal transportation here. As fossil fuels become more expensive, we'll see whether people are still willing to pay the premium for the personal aspect. Keep in mind: The diesel fuel for the busses will be going up in price as well. And (the recent drop in energy prices aside), mass transit was being hit a lot harder by cost increases than personal transportation. And much of the subsidy for mass transit is dependent on people paying those gas taxes in their cars.
Have fun when we all park our cars and take the bus. With a complete collapse in the subsidy system, your fare will reflect actual transit costs. And of all the horrors that the social engineers can envision, mass transit that has to pay its own way will be one of the worst.
post-oil future without some magical energy source
Got it. I'll plug my Tesla into the hydro power supply system here in Seattle.
Risk. Your laptop battery pack shuts down if one of eight (or whatever) LiON cells goes below some threshold. So it doesn't overheat and catch fire in your carry-on luggage or somewhere equally inconvenient. But this means that the other seven cells are probably near the end of their life as well. So replacing the one bad one isn't an economically viable option.
The upside of TFA's proposed application is that these single cells, used for a lighting application probably present a lower hazard risk than in a remanufactured laptop battery. Until entire shanty towns around Bangalore start going up in flames, killing thousands. Because someone's night light exploded.
Whatever. Third world problems.
Yes. And I still remember the blow-back when a bunch of us read Stranger in a Strange land back in high school. The kids from socially conservative backgrounds rejected it as garbage. Because it was inconceivable that anything would ever challenge the established Judeo-Christian foundations of our culture.
Some authors do investigate culturl changes that could be brought on by new technology or contact with alien cultures. But they risk rousing the rage of those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Interesting note: In The Day the Earth Stood Still, the revival of Klaatu (after being shot and killed) had to be explained as 'temporary' so as not to enrage Christian audiences.
In related news, access to pr0n continues unimpeded.
I fear a world in which the FBI has their own aircraft carrier.
Making sure that all the billing goes through correctly is not trivial.
No. But it has been done (successfully) by numerous entities in the past. Everything from suppliers who handle gov't, DoD and commercial contracts simultaneously to law offices who have to allocate billable hours to the proper clients, there are well established processes out there. And off the shelf accounting s/w.
Political power grows out of the barrel of a pun.
And me with no +1 mod points.
Hey! Do they get more mod points in N. Korea? I'm packing my bags.
top websites - including Slashdot,
My sides!
IOW, bar code readers.
Keep in mind the benefits of one household using solar are shared equally by everybody
Maybe. In some 'pie-in-the-sky' philosophical model. But the climatologists are so far away from having a model that quantifies the effects in economic terms that I'm not willing to pay $X for a ton of carbon when they can't figire out what X is.
No.
Strange. because it has been a few decades since I was in the salaried worker pool. But way back then, I wasn't aware of a threshold. I got overtime (1.5x) or not depending on the definition of my job. And back then I was bringing in around $150K/year.
The OT/no OT decision was based on the definition in the National Labor Relations Act of an exempt professional: doing work
"involving the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in its performance"
and
"of such a character that the output produced or the result accomplished cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time"
So when the boss walked up and told me how to do my job, or told me that he expected me to work to a rigid schedule, I just replied, "Thanks buddy. That'll be $120/hour for anything over 40 hours per week. Or get your damned nose out of my cubicle and I'll solve the problem as best I can."
In spite of this sounding like a rather snotty attitude, it did serve to remind my employer of the economics of employees as a resource. You want X done at a certain rate (lines of code, sheets of engineering drawings or pages of specifications), fine. Pay for the work by the hour. You want me to take on some risk for getting a challenging job done? I'll work for a fixed price, but only if I have the flexibility to control my processes, tools and working environment. Quite a few enlightened managers saw the value in the latter option.
This.
The economics of vehicular and fixed uses are entirely different. Weight and volume are minor factors for fixed solar energy storage. So why haven't we seen local storage for solar (and wind) take off with more economical technologies?
Answer: Because the pricing structure for solar power doesn't require it.
To date, the storage issue is a hot potato, tossed back and forth between the interconnecting utilities (they don't want to pay for it or impose the costs on their entire customer base) and alternative power producers (who want to be paid per kWh when it's convenient for them to generate, but expect someone else to fund the 'smart grid' or demand shifting necessary to make their product viable).
Not being a Node.js developer/user, I am not aware of the organizational politics surrounding this pronoun gender issue. But a quick scan of coments and related threads leads me to believe that this issue is the symptom of some underlying politics at Joyent. The documentation and development direction conroversies are hiding the fact that management has lost control of the culture of the company. And now a few factions are engaged in an office war and higher-ups are powerless to deal with it.
I don't know which group left to support the fork and which stayed behind. But I wouldn't be surprised if the battle will now continue between the two groups. "They did X. And since they are a bunch of assholes, X must be bad. So we won't do it." And the user community will suffer as a result.
If codenames are supposed to be assigned randomly, then why don't we see some like WEASELVOMIT?