All I know, from personal experience, was that in the '80s and early '90s, you never saw an "immigrant" face in town in central Florida orange picking country. At that time, they slept in the fields, kept out of sight. Somewhere in the late '90s, the whole amnesty thing finally started gaining trust in the community, all of a sudden there were lines 20 people deep waiting to talk on a payphone, huge groups (like 20 and 30 people) would pool their money and rent a trailer together, buy a big old heap of a car and load 9 and 10 at a time into it - blast down the highway having the thrill of a lifetime I'm sure...
Over the last 10 years, they have started to integrate into the communities a little better, but there are still massive drug problems that spill over into the "non immigrant" population, not that the drug problems weren't there in the non immigrants before, but now the immigrants are clearly having as much problem with crack as the native Americans have had with alcohol for the last 100 years.
My point, if there is one, is that census and survey based statistics about this population are shaky at best, most likely twisted to the pre-determined views of the statistic gatherer.
I'm all for automation of farming, especially orange grove maintenance and harvesting... but, it will be a long long time before the machines are cheaper to build and maintain than a (pardon the prejudices) trailer dwelling family of crackheads. For one thing, the hidden costs of the family are spread onto social services, supported by the taxpayers instead of the employers.
Wow- didn't know about the droids, that's giving opportunity where you can...
The "concept" of Silent Running was great, that's why I rented it... but the execution, when viewed for the first time in 2006, well...
Add to that the fact that I ended up watching it 2.5 times, and it only got worse on repetition...
Of course, I get offended at the scene in Star Wars where R2D2 and C3PO are being sold by the Jawas to Luke & Uncle Ben, after "the red one" motors away and goes poof, they cut to a scene showing R2D2 with "the red one" beside him again... Silent Running is full of "continuity" errors like that. Not to mention being utterly dull, even compared to 2001.
Great concept though. Wish there were more concepts like that, executed at least as well as the M.Night Shyalalan stuff....
The big challenge is in the vision, sort of like DARPA's Grand Challenge, but without the speed requirement. If you've got a (big enough) grant, I'm ready to work on it.
I'll post it again... Worst... Movie... Ever... we rented it from Netflix, and on some strange twist of fate ended up holding the disc for 6 weeks, sorry to the other 4 fans who might have been waiting on it.
We got that from Netflix just before we moved from Texas to Florida, I think we held it for 6 weeks... wonder if that made Netflix mark it as something we really liked a lot.
Poppycock. If we send back all of the illegals, then our unemployment will be around 5%.
Unemployment stats come from people seeking work who cannot find it. Do you think any of the current unemployment benefit collectors will step up and do farm work out in the sun for minimum wage? Do you think the farmers are ready to pay minimum wage to their workers?
....monocultures. If we would invest more in small diverse systems that would grow diverse crops in a somewhat more natural mixed up way, we could put a huge crimp in the pest problem - one that the pests couldn't evolve resistance to every 10 years, unlike pesticides, which have ramped back up to "requiring" persistence in order to be effective.
I went to school in the late '70s / early '80s, shortly enough after the whole DDT backlash to be taught that we would "never" resort to persistent pesticides again. Yeah, well, that lasted about 20 years... and it will probably be 20 more before we figure out all the various side effects we are getting from the current round of experimental pest killing chemicals we are bathing ourselves with.
I'm a bit concerned about all of this advancement to support extended population growth. My gut feeling is that we are just setting up ourselves for a big fall the more we detach ourselves from nature. Like a house of cards. It can only go so high before the entire system collapses.
Newsflash: if you live in an urban area, pretty much anywhere on the planet, your house of cards is at least 100 years high (meaning, how long it would take to rebuild after a collapse.)
There are some pretty scary stats on how long the food would last in Manhattan if you sealed all the bridges and tunnels... something less than 24 hours IIRC.
...will cost much more than a minimum wage laborer.
Minimum wage is for people who work within the law, since many farms hire illegal immigrants to pick their crops, they get their labor for less than minimum wage. That sad fact alone put me off the idea of owning and operating an orange grove.
Try the question this way: does Shareware work? I think the answer to that is a resounding NO for the authors.
However, nickle and dime ware (ala App Store) does work amazingly well. So, maybe science projects could publish an app, and patrons could get some kind of exciting insider news first on their smartphone or in their e-mail in exchange for their continued small donations?
How many people would subscribe at $10/month to a "Manned Mission to the Moon." The media division of the project (making the videos and other rewards for the subscribers) could do a damn impressive job for less than 1% of the ongoing cost of the mission.
Leave it to the marketing geniuses to determine what you get for 0.99 one time, vs 0.99 per month, 9.99 per month, etc.
And, the number of media delivering devices in my life has been growing steadily, forever, so I'm not interested in subscribing to any service that is only available on one device (this "new" TV?) Pandora: good (available on a wide variety of internet connected devices) Other (can't even think of a product name because they turn me off so quickly) bad.
You know, if you're upset about losing money on every TV set you sell, I've got two solutions for you: 1) Charge more, or 2) Quit making them.
If you're going to charge more, differentiate your product with quality, ease of use, and other things that set you apart from and clearly above the commodity market (hint: name on the box isn't worth the premium, we all know that these days and can read the product reviews on the internet before buying.)
I'm thrilled that popular media is moving to the on-demand via the internet model, but a little dismayed at the fragmentation that has taken place in the market. I don't have any real answers for industry beyond saying that I, for one, am not going to sign up for a subscription service that only delivers a fraction of the content I am interested in. In other words: Netflix good, Hulu+ bad.
Any of you ever take a couple of months off from playing and then go back?
Any of you NOT completely suck after being out of practice?
Some things are simple and unforgettable, like riding a bicycle, playing Starcraft (well) is not. Sounds like an excuse for another fMRI study of 6 people (3 players and 3 controls) to be published and covered in the media as if it is discovering some truth of the universe, based on one billionth of the population.
Site locations seem to be one of the major challenges for the greenhouse turbines... anywhere close enough to population, or even transmission lines, to get enough land with an ideal hill, will tend to be relatively expensive compared to being out in the middle of the desert where nobody needs the electricity. I can imagine a few places in Australia, or perhaps the American Southwest, that might be feasible.
I'm not certain I'm correct, either. But... nifty as the greenhouse turbines are, I think non-reflectivity hits a point of diminishing returns for them, maybe at 90-95% if the cost of the paint increases by 2x, maybe somewhere else. I _almost_ put reflective paint inside my attic, but opted for the traditional additional 6" of fiberglass instead, cost about the same, and I'm pretty sure the fiberglass serves me better, inside the house at least.
To me, the greenhouse would best be served by improved insulation and back-reflection in the transparent layer, that would be a very interesting problem due to variables like bio-fouling of the top layer, aging of the transparent materials in the sun, etc. Does a double layer of transparent material pay off? If so, do you immobilize the air in it, or make it another convection layer? If it's a convection layer, maybe a third or fourth layer would help? Maybe only in the hotter regions? etc. etc. Neat project, lots of questions.
Super-super-super-non-reflective sounds to me like mostly optical applications inside lens barrels, and maybe a good thing to coat Peltier cooling junctions with - especially since the coating is so thin and thus non-insulating.
Anyway, if he thinks those people underperform, why not just fire them for a cause and be done with it?
Having his cake and eating it too... trying to shame the underperformer into giving up the shares because "he knows he doesn't deserve them," but offering him pity and the opportunity to stay on for salary.
The contractually correct thing to do would be to fire him for cause, then offer him a new position the next morning, said new position to clearly exclude the shares... not sure if there are any "wash sale" or "sham transaction" type legal concepts that apply here, but it's pretty clear that the players involved aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer (yes, I know they're wildly successful and filthy rich, doesn't make them bright.)
I feel like I have hedged against getting too screwed by one simple method: making sure I get at least 90% of "my market value" in salary. Stock is a nice bonus when it works out, I worked at one place that did a "standard employee purchase plan" that worked very well for me, almost like a 15% bonus every 6 months. But, the high risk, "potentially very wealthy" deals have always turned to their most likely result in the end: zero value.
From TFA, the small minority of employees asked to return the stocks are executives, not engineers, architects or the creative folk.... Most executives don't deserve what they get paid in USA. Most of them just lunch off of the productivity and manipulate for their personal gain. There's a term for that in the nature. It is called a parasite.
He is doing the right thing. So let's not be quick in judging him. ok ?
On an emotional level, I am with you, but if a parasite's promise to another parasite is not worth anything, what is a parasite's promise to an engineer worth?
These were not the hallmarks of a large, successful company in the 1950s, 60s or 70s.
There, fixed that for ya. Ever since the "greed is good," "buy the company cheap, break it up into pieces and sell it for a profit," trickle down '80s, corporate morals have been on greased skids to hell. I hope Occupy succeeds in turning this around, if they don't it will only be a more painful correction for everybody when it eventually does come.
Also, the cited reason "we want to avoid a Google Chef situation" - what is wrong with a Chef making $20M off of working at a high-risk low reward company at the early stages? What did Mark Zuckerburg, or Bill Gates for that matter, do that justifies the magnitude of their fortunes? It's all a lottery, Zynga should be happy for their winners, even the ones who don't look like they deserve it. If those lucky people had all turned their backs on Zynga in the early days, Zynga would probably have failed hard - the promise was to share in potential IPO spoils, keep the promise or have your CEO report to the State Penitentiary for fraud.
the firm's executives reportedly justified their strategy by saying it was best for the company. With the unvested shares, the executives believed they could attract more top talent with the promise of stock.
What's best for the company is to conduct business within the law, meet your contractual obligations. If I would start a plumbing business, hire a bunch of journeymen plumbers for stock, then claw back the unvested shares from the low performers because it's "better for the business" to make those shares available to new plumbers who might perform better, what would the judge say to that?
Also, what lowlife idiot would sign up for a promise of stock from a company that has already done this to former employees?
just issue new shares and dilute current shares; while giving management and investors a number to keep their percentages the same.
Similarly, mark Zynga clueless for trying something so boneheaded when the parent's tried and true method accomplishes the same thing, but in a way that has been, sadly, accepted by the establishment for years.
Slashdot Mirror
All I know, from personal experience, was that in the '80s and early '90s, you never saw an "immigrant" face in town in central Florida orange picking country. At that time, they slept in the fields, kept out of sight. Somewhere in the late '90s, the whole amnesty thing finally started gaining trust in the community, all of a sudden there were lines 20 people deep waiting to talk on a payphone, huge groups (like 20 and 30 people) would pool their money and rent a trailer together, buy a big old heap of a car and load 9 and 10 at a time into it - blast down the highway having the thrill of a lifetime I'm sure...
Over the last 10 years, they have started to integrate into the communities a little better, but there are still massive drug problems that spill over into the "non immigrant" population, not that the drug problems weren't there in the non immigrants before, but now the immigrants are clearly having as much problem with crack as the native Americans have had with alcohol for the last 100 years.
My point, if there is one, is that census and survey based statistics about this population are shaky at best, most likely twisted to the pre-determined views of the statistic gatherer.
I'm all for automation of farming, especially orange grove maintenance and harvesting... but, it will be a long long time before the machines are cheaper to build and maintain than a (pardon the prejudices) trailer dwelling family of crackheads. For one thing, the hidden costs of the family are spread onto social services, supported by the taxpayers instead of the employers.
Wow- didn't know about the droids, that's giving opportunity where you can...
The "concept" of Silent Running was great, that's why I rented it... but the execution, when viewed for the first time in 2006, well...
Add to that the fact that I ended up watching it 2.5 times, and it only got worse on repetition...
Of course, I get offended at the scene in Star Wars where R2D2 and C3PO are being sold by the Jawas to Luke & Uncle Ben, after "the red one" motors away and goes poof, they cut to a scene showing R2D2 with "the red one" beside him again... Silent Running is full of "continuity" errors like that. Not to mention being utterly dull, even compared to 2001.
Great concept though. Wish there were more concepts like that, executed at least as well as the M.Night Shyalalan stuff....
The big challenge is in the vision, sort of like DARPA's Grand Challenge, but without the speed requirement. If you've got a (big enough) grant, I'm ready to work on it.
I'll post it again... Worst... Movie... Ever... we rented it from Netflix, and on some strange twist of fate ended up holding the disc for 6 weeks, sorry to the other 4 fans who might have been waiting on it.
About those shrimp:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/business/simple-innovation-is-often-the-most-successful-prototype.html
Worst... Movie... Ever...
We got that from Netflix just before we moved from Texas to Florida, I think we held it for 6 weeks... wonder if that made Netflix mark it as something we really liked a lot.
Poppycock. If we send back all of the illegals, then our unemployment will be around 5%.
Unemployment stats come from people seeking work who cannot find it. Do you think any of the current unemployment benefit collectors will step up and do farm work out in the sun for minimum wage? Do you think the farmers are ready to pay minimum wage to their workers?
Bigger machines are more efficient at harvesting
....monocultures. If we would invest more in small diverse systems that would grow diverse crops in a somewhat more natural mixed up way, we could put a huge crimp in the pest problem - one that the pests couldn't evolve resistance to every 10 years, unlike pesticides, which have ramped back up to "requiring" persistence in order to be effective.
I went to school in the late '70s / early '80s, shortly enough after the whole DDT backlash to be taught that we would "never" resort to persistent pesticides again. Yeah, well, that lasted about 20 years... and it will probably be 20 more before we figure out all the various side effects we are getting from the current round of experimental pest killing chemicals we are bathing ourselves with.
I'm a bit concerned about all of this advancement to support extended population growth. My gut feeling is that we are just setting up ourselves for a big fall the more we detach ourselves from nature. Like a house of cards. It can only go so high before the entire system collapses.
Newsflash: if you live in an urban area, pretty much anywhere on the planet, your house of cards is at least 100 years high (meaning, how long it would take to rebuild after a collapse.)
There are some pretty scary stats on how long the food would last in Manhattan if you sealed all the bridges and tunnels... something less than 24 hours IIRC.
...will cost much more than a minimum wage laborer.
Minimum wage is for people who work within the law, since many farms hire illegal immigrants to pick their crops, they get their labor for less than minimum wage. That sad fact alone put me off the idea of owning and operating an orange grove.
Try the question this way: does Shareware work? I think the answer to that is a resounding NO for the authors.
However, nickle and dime ware (ala App Store) does work amazingly well. So, maybe science projects could publish an app, and patrons could get some kind of exciting insider news first on their smartphone or in their e-mail in exchange for their continued small donations?
How many people would subscribe at $10/month to a "Manned Mission to the Moon." The media division of the project (making the videos and other rewards for the subscribers) could do a damn impressive job for less than 1% of the ongoing cost of the mission.
Leave it to the marketing geniuses to determine what you get for 0.99 one time, vs 0.99 per month, 9.99 per month, etc.
Sorry, submitted before completing my thought:
And, the number of media delivering devices in my life has been growing steadily, forever, so I'm not interested in subscribing to any service that is only available on one device (this "new" TV?) Pandora: good (available on a wide variety of internet connected devices) Other (can't even think of a product name because they turn me off so quickly) bad.
You know, if you're upset about losing money on every TV set you sell, I've got two solutions for you: 1) Charge more, or 2) Quit making them.
If you're going to charge more, differentiate your product with quality, ease of use, and other things that set you apart from and clearly above the commodity market (hint: name on the box isn't worth the premium, we all know that these days and can read the product reviews on the internet before buying.)
I'm thrilled that popular media is moving to the on-demand via the internet model, but a little dismayed at the fragmentation that has taken place in the market. I don't have any real answers for industry beyond saying that I, for one, am not going to sign up for a subscription service that only delivers a fraction of the content I am interested in. In other words: Netflix good, Hulu+ bad.
Any Starcraft players here?
Any of you ever take a couple of months off from playing and then go back?
Any of you NOT completely suck after being out of practice?
Some things are simple and unforgettable, like riding a bicycle, playing Starcraft (well) is not. Sounds like an excuse for another fMRI study of 6 people (3 players and 3 controls) to be published and covered in the media as if it is discovering some truth of the universe, based on one billionth of the population.
Site locations seem to be one of the major challenges for the greenhouse turbines... anywhere close enough to population, or even transmission lines, to get enough land with an ideal hill, will tend to be relatively expensive compared to being out in the middle of the desert where nobody needs the electricity. I can imagine a few places in Australia, or perhaps the American Southwest, that might be feasible.
I'm not certain I'm correct, either. But... nifty as the greenhouse turbines are, I think non-reflectivity hits a point of diminishing returns for them, maybe at 90-95% if the cost of the paint increases by 2x, maybe somewhere else. I _almost_ put reflective paint inside my attic, but opted for the traditional additional 6" of fiberglass instead, cost about the same, and I'm pretty sure the fiberglass serves me better, inside the house at least.
To me, the greenhouse would best be served by improved insulation and back-reflection in the transparent layer, that would be a very interesting problem due to variables like bio-fouling of the top layer, aging of the transparent materials in the sun, etc. Does a double layer of transparent material pay off? If so, do you immobilize the air in it, or make it another convection layer? If it's a convection layer, maybe a third or fourth layer would help? Maybe only in the hotter regions? etc. etc. Neat project, lots of questions.
Super-super-super-non-reflective sounds to me like mostly optical applications inside lens barrels, and maybe a good thing to coat Peltier cooling junctions with - especially since the coating is so thin and thus non-insulating.
Anyway, if he thinks those people underperform, why not just fire them for a cause and be done with it?
Having his cake and eating it too... trying to shame the underperformer into giving up the shares because "he knows he doesn't deserve them," but offering him pity and the opportunity to stay on for salary.
The contractually correct thing to do would be to fire him for cause, then offer him a new position the next morning, said new position to clearly exclude the shares... not sure if there are any "wash sale" or "sham transaction" type legal concepts that apply here, but it's pretty clear that the players involved aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer (yes, I know they're wildly successful and filthy rich, doesn't make them bright.)
I feel like I have hedged against getting too screwed by one simple method: making sure I get at least 90% of "my market value" in salary. Stock is a nice bonus when it works out, I worked at one place that did a "standard employee purchase plan" that worked very well for me, almost like a 15% bonus every 6 months. But, the high risk, "potentially very wealthy" deals have always turned to their most likely result in the end: zero value.
From TFA, the small minority of employees asked to return the stocks are executives, not engineers, architects or the creative folk.... Most executives don't deserve what they get paid in USA. Most of them just lunch off of the productivity and manipulate for their personal gain. There's a term for that in the nature. It is called a parasite.
He is doing the right thing. So let's not be quick in judging him. ok ?
On an emotional level, I am with you, but if a parasite's promise to another parasite is not worth anything, what is a parasite's promise to an engineer worth?
Oh I agree completely. I'm just pointing out that this is what they told their employees.
Allegedly told their employees, the defense will argue.
These were not the hallmarks of a large, successful company in the 1950s, 60s or 70s.
There, fixed that for ya. Ever since the "greed is good," "buy the company cheap, break it up into pieces and sell it for a profit," trickle down '80s, corporate morals have been on greased skids to hell. I hope Occupy succeeds in turning this around, if they don't it will only be a more painful correction for everybody when it eventually does come.
Mr. Pincus' employees need to start wearing voice recorders to meetings.
Also, the cited reason "we want to avoid a Google Chef situation" - what is wrong with a Chef making $20M off of working at a high-risk low reward company at the early stages? What did Mark Zuckerburg, or Bill Gates for that matter, do that justifies the magnitude of their fortunes? It's all a lottery, Zynga should be happy for their winners, even the ones who don't look like they deserve it. If those lucky people had all turned their backs on Zynga in the early days, Zynga would probably have failed hard - the promise was to share in potential IPO spoils, keep the promise or have your CEO report to the State Penitentiary for fraud.
the firm's executives reportedly justified their strategy by saying it was best for the company. With the unvested shares, the executives believed they could attract more top talent with the promise of stock.
What's best for the company is to conduct business within the law, meet your contractual obligations. If I would start a plumbing business, hire a bunch of journeymen plumbers for stock, then claw back the unvested shares from the low performers because it's "better for the business" to make those shares available to new plumbers who might perform better, what would the judge say to that?
Also, what lowlife idiot would sign up for a promise of stock from a company that has already done this to former employees?
Mod Parent up +5 Sad Truth.
just issue new shares and dilute current shares; while giving management and investors a number to keep their percentages the same.
Similarly, mark Zynga clueless for trying something so boneheaded when the parent's tried and true method accomplishes the same thing, but in a way that has been, sadly, accepted by the establishment for years.
FarmVille, etc. I already boycott based on lack of interest in the product.