While the NYT and WSJ may have lare circulations relative to other papers, they don't have large circulations.
The fact that the NYT and WSJ picked up the stories imply that they (likely) passed the watchful eyes of editors... they're likely legit.
And yet they weren't picked up on by papers, or =gasp!= television stations across the nation. That makes them candidates for big stories that were underreported in my book. YMMV.
How many people carry one or more of the following devices with them in a pocket or attached to their beltloop nearly all of the time:
* PDA
* pager
* mobile phone
* music player (LP/walk/disc man, MP3/Ogg, whatever)
* Gameboy
That's 20% ladies and gentlemen. Please deposit $10 consulting fee in that slot in your computer. I collect them using the Internet.
A Ph D (in engineering and science) is a certification in the ability to do research. Generally theory based, and often without a "real world" product in sight.
Read lots of papers, write some papers, get published.
This has as much to do with computer engineering in most companies as having your IBEW (electrician) certs.
If you want a career in research -- either in an academic institution or a semi-private or private lab (think Bell Labs or Lawrence Livermore Lab), then get a Ph D. If you want to "do" computer engineering, than a Ph D won't likely help you.
It is certainly not likely to result in a pay differential from a master's degree equivalent to the time lost earning the Ph D (4 - 6 years generally).
P.S. I'm a Ph D student in Systems Engineering (similar to operations research)
One of the reasons the scroll wheel is successful is because it's comfortable.
Why? Your knuckles allow your finget to curl with your finger remaining parallel to the side of your hand.
However, a side scrolling wheel requires either (i) an awful lot of play in your knuckles, allowing you to curl them to be non-parallel with the side of your hand, or (ii) bending the wrist to move your entire hand side-to-side.
Neither is particularly comfortable, and both result in sore hand parts quite quickly. I predict that this will never be used much... too tough on the hands.
The spooled paper is easy and convienient -- every cashier knows how to load the paper in correctly (hence, it isn't hard to train on loading). Ribbons? They are like the electronic typewritter ribbons... easy as pie to install new ones. The hardware is durable, not too costly, and quite robust. Furthermore, there is an industry of technicians that can come to a facility in $foo hours to repair the hardware on site. If you have $bar voting machines, and one printer goes down, the $bar-1 machines should do O.K. until the technician arrives on site.
Don't over-tech the problem. Use minimal hardware to print, and use a system that gets abused far more often than a home system. Use a cash register reciept system for printing, and you'll have durable, configurable, simple hardware, and cheap supplies.
(I don't work for a printing company, but I do work weekends supervising the cashiers at a Home Depot).
In principle, I agree with you. But, on the one hand, you argue that
if I don't like what someone's saying on TV, I can change the channel
implying that speech on television is "free speech" (since you have a way to avoid it). However, when refering to email, you write
don't tell me I can simply hit the delete button - thats not something I should have to do.
Does this imply that you shouldn't have to pick up the remote control and change the channel -- that the television should just read your mind? After all, in both cases (watching television and reading email) you are choosing to do so, and you are choosing to focus on a single instance (channel or particular email). If you don't like that particular instance, you either (a) change instances by using the remote control or the next/delete button, or (b) change mediums by turning the television or the email application off.
What's the difference again? Like I said, I agree with you in principle, but your logical argument here on what constitutes "free speech" is weak.
I read the whitepaper presented, and it has some difficulties:
1. It suggests the variables necessary for life as we know it. While life on Earth is incredibly varied, it isn't the end-all-be-all. Perhaps fundamentally different life could exist in different conditions, ranging from the mass of a neutrino to the spectral-jibber-jabber constant.
2. It doesn't present ranges for the variables. It does give "if higher/lower/more/fewer" qualitative statements, but not quantative. What if a variable was increased by 1%? 10%? 100%? What is the range for those variables to preserve current life-abling conditions?
I think most scientists would concur that the probability of life as we know it is almost certainly zero*. And yet, we have life, as we know it. If a variable was fudged in the past, we surely wouldn't have life as we know it, but that is not the same analysis as not having life at all.
* math for really, really, really freakin' close to zero. A finite number of instances of life given an infinite number of chances.
There was a similar idea presented by a civilian American -- and mentioned on slashdot -- not too long ago.
The idea was for an assasination betting scheme. Folks could anonymously fund payoffs for currently living people. 'Gamblers' would pay some reasonably large fee to bet that a particular person would die in, say, a 24 hour period. If the person did die, than the gambler would take all payoffs that had been anonymously funded.
Of course, the only way that the odds would be in the gamblers favor is if the gambler knew the person had some abnormaly high chances of dying -- like, say, the gambler knew he was going to assasinate the person.
I wasn't able to find a mirror of the proposal, which had worked out all of the details (preserving anonyminity, payouts, etc.).
To put it in context, let's say I wanted President Joe Smith of Fooland dead. I could contribute $100 to the fund. If lots of others also wanted him dead, the payout could reach millions of dollars... enough for a 'gambler' (aka hitman) to pay $25,000 to bet that Joe Smith would die on January 32, 2006. If the hitman pulls the job off, he gets the payout. Why would I pay $100? How many Americans would put up $100 for Saddam's head? I'd bet many.
Of course, this wasn't limited to world leaders. Corporate types, athletes, religious leaders -- anybody.
Can anybody find a link to the proposal?
* Obviously, I've made up people, places, and dates to preserve the idea that this is an example, not real.
As long as the code is open, one could set his or her own parameters (In this case, reals from 0 to 1).
* Don't care much about animal cruelty: set the parameter to.05.
* Concerned about consumption of foreign oil: set the parameter to.85
* Somewhat worried about obnoxiously high (CEO salary)/(average employee salary): set the parameter to.4.
Bring in the databases that you trust, and weigh them accordingly. Exclude information provided by folks you don't believe. Whatever. Each person could configure his or her own rating system, in an attempt to model his or her own levels of "anti-goodness".
Don't poo-poo the idea. Embrace it, and it's configurability.
Now fast forward to 2003 with WiFi in ball parks. Imagine not one spotter but 10, or 20, or 30 spotters scattered around the stands all with a laptop and all simultaneously keying in the catcher's signs.... I don't think this is cheating.
Actually, it is cheating. I couldn't find the rule using google in 180 seconds, so I leave it to you. The rules state that it is perfectly legal to use the unaided eye to steal signs. However, you may not use any electronic means to capture or convey them, nor can you use any magnification device. This means you can't use the unaided eye to steal the sign and then use the telephone relay the signs from the bullpen to the dugout. Nor can you use a telescope to see the signs and signal them in with your own hand signals. It must all be done "au natural."
So, a team receiving signs from fans via WiFi is against the rules. Fans seeing the signs, and yelling them into the dugout is legal.
Surely you don't mean that. I quote my un-technological passport:
Alteration of Mutilation of Passport This passport must not be altered or mutilated in any way. Alteration may make it INVALID, and, if willful, may subject you to prosecution (Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1543). Only authorized officials of the United States or of foreign countries, in connection with official matters, may place stamps or make statements, notations, or additions to this passport. You may ammend or update personal information for your own convenience on page 5.
Emphasis theirs. Don't go messing with the technology of your passport. You could end up in the Federal pen.
North Carolina is not the East Coast's Silicon Valley. It "shares" that role with VA, MA, and NY. I've lived in Raleigh NC, in Virginia, in Boston, and a stones throw from New York. There are lots of big companies in two or more of these four geographical areas on the East Coast, and lots of interesting results and ideas coming from all four areas.
The state doesn't have to own computer hardware companies for this to happen.
The state merely has to require that any hardware vendor that does business with the state adheres to this practice.
In fact, the state does do this, to some extent. Consider IPv6. Didn't look like it would ever go anywhere in the US, until the US military decided that it wanted to migrate to IPv6 eventually. Now, software and hardware vendors that want to land these huge contracts have to show they have a roadmap to get to full compliance with IPv6 standards by such-and-such a date, etc. This requirement for U.S. gov't will roll over to the private sector; after all, the work will already have been done for the U.S. military, so why not also sell it to others?
My point is simply that the U.S. doesn't have to own the companies, or even force them to change their ways. All the U.S. gov't has to do is only buy from the companies who follow trade practices that benefit all of American society -- such as ink refils, standards compliant, etc... for all or their products. The freer market will result in companies migrating over to better business practices; likely at the cost to consumers of slightly higher prices.
Because there are folks that I do trust. I don't trust the latest nightly build of Mozilla, but I do trust the most recent stable release after it's been out a week or so.
You see, I know there are folks out there like you... so I don't have to be like you too. Enough hobiests and security folks will bang on popular newly released code to pacify my concerns. For specialty apps coming from unknown sources, care is taken and sourcecode reviewed. But, for code from the likeness of a major OS distributor (RedHat, Debian, etc) or a major code project (Moz, Apache, etc), I don't have to bother.
Fact: Agencies like NASA can stimulate the economy, by virtue of their sheer size. The same, but more so goes for the defense establishment
So, couldn't we just take all of NASA's funding, and create, I don't know, the National Hungry People Eat Association (NHPEA) and just have this giant beaurocracy that exists to feed hungry people -- perhaps not terribly efficiently or fairly -- merely because by virtue of its sheer size, it could be stimulating the economy? I mean, it'd "stimulate the economy" and occasionally nurish people too!
Personally, I'd like to see NASA get more money and the Pentagon less... and I work for a military laboratory. I think you'll find the slashdot is all in favor of military research (if it will eventually be shared). After all, the Internet and GPS are pretty cool technologies. I don't know how many slashdoters, however, are in favor of spending so much money building and maintaining weapons. Do we really need as many AK47s/landmines/missiles as we keep building?
Either way, it doesn't make sense to fund an organization "for the economy" -- you could just create a second organization in leu of the first, which could accomplish some positive things for the country/world, and also "stimulate the economy, by virtue of its sheer size."
and so I cannot comment on how much we sell. It would be a trade secret, and company policy prohibits me from telling you.
I can point out though that Home Depot has approximately 1500 stores, and did about 60 billion dollars in sales in 2002.
60 billion divided by 1500 stores is $40,000,000 per store per year. That's better than $100,000 per day per store, or $3.3 million dollars per month. Of course, that's sales -- not profit.
What you mean is that most shrink is caused by employees. This includes theft, but also includes things like cashiers failing to ring everything in a cart up, ringing up something cheap instead of a more expensive item, failing to detail recieve every item that is delivered, breaking an item and failing to report it as damaged, using an item in the store and failing to report it as store used, issuing too much money for a return, incorrectly pricing an item, etc.
Some shrink is caused by theft. Percentage wise, not a whole lot in high volume stores.
Most theft in high volume stores is from outsiders. Theft, however, is not nearly as important a number as shrink.
FYI, shrink is the total retail value of all items that should be in the store and sellable, minus the actual retail value of the items inventoried in the store. It's the difference between the value of the inventory the store thinks it should have, minus the value of the inventory it thinks it counted when it did an inventory.
Of course, there are many mistakes made during all of these processes for a high volume store such as Wal-Mart or Home Depot, resulting in a shrink number that can never be precise, due to so many errors in the inventory process.
The owner of the gun is required to ensure that they are secured properly. If dad is the owner, and dad didn't lock them up in accordance to local, state, and federal laws -- than there may be charges pressed against dad.
Like any tool that can cause damage, owning a gun requires a certain amount of responsibility. In fact, most of it is spelled out in the law. If dad didn't abide by those laws, than the very well may find himself in court.
So... you don't think the facts that the Delaware courts have historically been friendly to corporations when making decisions or the fact that delaware has no corporate income tax have anything to do with it?
It is true that the Delaware laws are straightforward -- because they offer very few restrictions. Delaware's corporation laws are slim; there just aren't many of them... including an entire section missing (the tax code).
The fact is that Delaware is a corporation haven because they have few regulations, and no taxation on corporations... merely claiming that it's because they have really good corporate laws that are straightforward and easy to understand doesn't quite embrace all of the facts.
So -- yes, it is a corvette. Or, more precisely, some specs from some newfangled 2003 corvette or two (C5 and maybe something similar). There were a few different models, and I wasn't careful about which I wrote down because...
* the point was to list specs, not to sort them, and
* as stated, I don't know what most of that means.
It seems I've made both points fairly well. Some folks find the information useful enough to determine which kind (and in some cases, which model) of car that is. Others know what most of that means, but not enough to know the car. Still, others know it relates to cars, but not quite how.
I've made my ignorance clear... I don't know enough about cars to list the horsepower. I didn't "go out of my way to confuse" because I'm not able to arrange the data in a more confusing manner than just barfing it from the spec sheets. I just listed some specs and some acronyms associated with a particular car or two.
He's able to leverage the data so that he can see gains (I'm thinking an entire career) while the folks that have lots to lose (banks, utilities, transportation, US gov) pay for him to help show their achilies heels and bottlenecks.
If 25 telcos happen to be sharing the same 'pipe' of fibre, it may not be a terrorist that breaks that connection... regardless of who severs that line, it ain't good for the telcos -- and the telcos should be using his data to reduce risks.
Insurance companies and actuaries for corporations and governments love this kind of stuff, as do operations research people. Tell me how much it'll cost to reduce risk to this level, or: I have $10,000,000 -- how can I spend it to ensure that the worst case scenario isn't as bad.
Hopefully the information doesn't become classified; hopefully, it's used over the next few years to sure up the bottlenecks and other weak points, making the infrastructure far more robust in the following years.
If not, go to a website selling a new car. Lots of jibber jabber about power telescoping steering columns, intermitent windshield wipers, ABS, Limited Slip, 5.7 Liter V8, Sequential Fuel Injection, F55 Magnetic Selective Ride Control, Fully independent suspension with transverse springs, front P245/45ZR-17, rear P275/40ZR-18, 18 gallon tank, 6.5 quarts oil, 11.5 quarts antifreeze, 16.1:1 steering ratio, 2.66 turns lock-to-lock, 39.4 foot turning diameter curb-to-curb, 22.6 sq inch gross lining on brakes (front), engine with 5655 cc, 375 pound-feet of torque at 4400 RPM manual, 6000 RPM redline, 10.1:1 compression ratio, a firing order of 1-8-7-2-6-5-4-3, head gasket thickness of 1.33mm, Bore x Stroke = 3.9 x 3.62 in, 19mpg city.
Now, I don't have a clue what some of that stuff means. Other stuff I can understand, but I don't know why or if that particular configuration is any better or worse than another.
When I buy a car, I don't care about most of those specs. I consider overall price (inital cost, financing, maintainance, and operating costs), reliability, functionality, and reputation. I know it's highly unlikely I'll ever do more than change the oil or replace a cheap (and easy to get to) part like an air filter or the power window motor. I won't use MotorHead magazine as a reference to help me buy a car... I'll use something much closer to Consumer Reports.
All of this is A-OK. My ignorance won't prevent me from making a pretty good choice in my purchase of an automobile. Why would it stop others in their purchase of an MP3 player, flat screen monitor, or printer/scanner/fax/copier machine?
Bonus points to whomever can figure out what car I (arbitrarily) chose...
Soliciting a donation is not promoting a sale, lease, or exchange of goods, real property, or any other thing of (financial) value.
Me: "Give me money, or I'll... well, nothing." You: "Spam!" Me: "Nope. I wasn't trying to sell you anything, send you any item (tangible or digital), or anything else. I just asked you for money."
Sounds like solicitations for donations aren't spam.
Slashdot Mirror
While the NYT and WSJ may have lare circulations relative to other papers, they don't have large circulations.
The fact that the NYT and WSJ picked up the stories imply that they (likely) passed the watchful eyes of editors... they're likely legit.
And yet they weren't picked up on by papers, or =gasp!= television stations across the nation. That makes them candidates for big stories that were underreported in my book. YMMV.
Shirt. Pants. Skivvies. Left Sock. Right Sock.
How many people carry one or more of the following devices with them in a pocket or attached to their beltloop nearly all of the time:
* PDA
* pager
* mobile phone
* music player (LP/walk/disc man, MP3/Ogg, whatever)
* Gameboy
That's 20% ladies and gentlemen. Please deposit $10 consulting fee in that slot in your computer. I collect them using the Internet.
The zylene is sold as Goof Off, and available in the paint department at Home Depot. It has a nasty smell to it.
I find that for many purposes, WD-40 (warning: audio on site) does the same trick, is cheaper, not smelly, and (perhaps?) not as carcinogenic.
A Ph D (in engineering and science) is a certification in the ability to do research. Generally theory based, and often without a "real world" product in sight.
Read lots of papers, write some papers, get published.
This has as much to do with computer engineering in most companies as having your IBEW (electrician) certs.
If you want a career in research -- either in an academic institution or a semi-private or private lab (think Bell Labs or Lawrence Livermore Lab), then get a Ph D. If you want to "do" computer engineering, than a Ph D won't likely help you.
It is certainly not likely to result in a pay differential from a master's degree equivalent to the time lost earning the Ph D (4 - 6 years generally).
P.S. I'm a Ph D student in Systems Engineering (similar to operations research)
Fair, I didn't read (well, I glanced).
Even if it leans, it requires pressure in a direction that is normal to the joint... not comfortable, and stressful on the hand.
Maybe the actual implementation is just right in terms of resistance... but I doubt it.
One of the reasons the scroll wheel is successful is because it's comfortable.
Why? Your knuckles allow your finget to curl with your finger remaining parallel to the side of your hand.
However, a side scrolling wheel requires either
(i) an awful lot of play in your knuckles, allowing you to curl them to be non-parallel with the side of your hand, or
(ii) bending the wrist to move your entire hand side-to-side.
Neither is particularly comfortable, and both result in sore hand parts quite quickly. I predict that this will never be used much... too tough on the hands.
You need cash register printers.
The spooled paper is easy and convienient -- every cashier knows how to load the paper in correctly (hence, it isn't hard to train on loading). Ribbons? They are like the electronic typewritter ribbons... easy as pie to install new ones. The hardware is durable, not too costly, and quite robust. Furthermore, there is an industry of technicians that can come to a facility in $foo hours to repair the hardware on site. If you have $bar voting machines, and one printer goes down, the $bar-1 machines should do O.K. until the technician arrives on site.
Don't over-tech the problem. Use minimal hardware to print, and use a system that gets abused far more often than a home system. Use a cash register reciept system for printing, and you'll have durable, configurable, simple hardware, and cheap supplies.
(I don't work for a printing company, but I do work weekends supervising the cashiers at a Home Depot).
In principle, I agree with you. But, on the one hand, you argue that
if I don't like what someone's saying on TV, I can change the channel
implying that speech on television is "free speech" (since you have a way to avoid it). However, when refering to email, you write
don't tell me I can simply hit the delete button - thats not something I should have to do.
Does this imply that you shouldn't have to pick up the remote control and change the channel -- that the television should just read your mind? After all, in both cases (watching television and reading email) you are choosing to do so, and you are choosing to focus on a single instance (channel or particular email). If you don't like that particular instance, you either (a) change instances by using the remote control or the next/delete button, or (b) change mediums by turning the television or the email application off.
What's the difference again? Like I said, I agree with you in principle, but your logical argument here on what constitutes "free speech" is weak.
I read the whitepaper presented, and it has some difficulties:
1. It suggests the variables necessary for life as we know it. While life on Earth is incredibly varied, it isn't the end-all-be-all. Perhaps fundamentally different life could exist in different conditions, ranging from the mass of a neutrino to the spectral-jibber-jabber constant.
2. It doesn't present ranges for the variables. It does give "if higher/lower/more/fewer" qualitative statements, but not quantative. What if a variable was increased by 1%? 10%? 100%? What is the range for those variables to preserve current life-abling conditions?
I think most scientists would concur that the probability of life as we know it is almost certainly zero*. And yet, we have life, as we know it. If a variable was fudged in the past, we surely wouldn't have life as we know it, but that is not the same analysis as not having life at all.
* math for really, really, really freakin' close to zero. A finite number of instances of life given an infinite number of chances.
There was a similar idea presented by a civilian American -- and mentioned on slashdot -- not too long ago.
The idea was for an assasination betting scheme. Folks could anonymously fund payoffs for currently living people. 'Gamblers' would pay some reasonably large fee to bet that a particular person would die in, say, a 24 hour period. If the person did die, than the gambler would take all payoffs that had been anonymously funded.
Of course, the only way that the odds would be in the gamblers favor is if the gambler knew the person had some abnormaly high chances of dying -- like, say, the gambler knew he was going to assasinate the person.
I wasn't able to find a mirror of the proposal, which had worked out all of the details (preserving anonyminity, payouts, etc.).
To put it in context, let's say I wanted President Joe Smith of Fooland dead. I could contribute $100 to the fund. If lots of others also wanted him dead, the payout could reach millions of dollars... enough for a 'gambler' (aka hitman) to pay $25,000 to bet that Joe Smith would die on January 32, 2006. If the hitman pulls the job off, he gets the payout. Why would I pay $100? How many Americans would put up $100 for Saddam's head? I'd bet many.
Of course, this wasn't limited to world leaders. Corporate types, athletes, religious leaders -- anybody.
Can anybody find a link to the proposal?
* Obviously, I've made up people, places, and dates to preserve the idea that this is an example, not real.
As long as the code is open, one could set his or her own parameters (In this case, reals from 0 to 1).
.05. .85 .4.
* Don't care much about animal cruelty: set the parameter to
* Concerned about consumption of foreign oil: set the parameter to
* Somewhat worried about obnoxiously high (CEO salary)/(average employee salary): set the parameter to
Bring in the databases that you trust, and weigh them accordingly. Exclude information provided by folks you don't believe. Whatever. Each person could configure his or her own rating system, in an attempt to model his or her own levels of "anti-goodness".
Don't poo-poo the idea. Embrace it, and it's configurability.
Now fast forward to 2003 with WiFi in ball parks. Imagine not one spotter but 10, or 20, or 30 spotters scattered around the stands all with a laptop and all simultaneously keying in the catcher's signs. ... I don't think this is cheating.
Actually, it is cheating. I couldn't find the rule using google in 180 seconds, so I leave it to you. The rules state that it is perfectly legal to use the unaided eye to steal signs. However, you may not use any electronic means to capture or convey them, nor can you use any magnification device. This means you can't use the unaided eye to steal the sign and then use the telephone relay the signs from the bullpen to the dugout. Nor can you use a telescope to see the signs and signal them in with your own hand signals. It must all be done "au natural."
So, a team receiving signs from fans via WiFi is against the rules. Fans seeing the signs, and yelling them into the dugout is legal.
Try to hack?
Surely you don't mean that. I quote my un-technological passport:
Alteration of Mutilation of Passport
This passport must not be altered or mutilated in any way. Alteration may make it INVALID, and, if willful, may subject you to prosecution (Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1543). Only authorized officials of the United States or of foreign countries, in connection with official matters, may place stamps or make statements, notations, or additions to this passport. You may ammend or update personal information for your own convenience on page 5.
Emphasis theirs. Don't go messing with the technology of your passport. You could end up in the Federal pen.
North Carolina is not the East Coast's Silicon Valley. It "shares" that role with VA, MA, and NY. I've lived in Raleigh NC, in Virginia, in Boston, and a stones throw from New York. There are lots of big companies in two or more of these four geographical areas on the East Coast, and lots of interesting results and ideas coming from all four areas.
(Yes, this is offtopic)
The state doesn't have to own computer hardware companies for this to happen.
The state merely has to require that any hardware vendor that does business with the state adheres to this practice.
In fact, the state does do this, to some extent. Consider IPv6. Didn't look like it would ever go anywhere in the US, until the US military decided that it wanted to migrate to IPv6 eventually. Now, software and hardware vendors that want to land these huge contracts have to show they have a roadmap to get to full compliance with IPv6 standards by such-and-such a date, etc. This requirement for U.S. gov't will roll over to the private sector; after all, the work will already have been done for the U.S. military, so why not also sell it to others?
My point is simply that the U.S. doesn't have to own the companies, or even force them to change their ways. All the U.S. gov't has to do is only buy from the companies who follow trade practices that benefit all of American society -- such as ink refils, standards compliant, etc... for all or their products. The freer market will result in companies migrating over to better business practices; likely at the cost to consumers of slightly higher prices.
Because there are folks that I do trust. I don't trust the latest nightly build of Mozilla, but I do trust the most recent stable release after it's been out a week or so.
You see, I know there are folks out there like you... so I don't have to be like you too. Enough hobiests and security folks will bang on popular newly released code to pacify my concerns. For specialty apps coming from unknown sources, care is taken and sourcecode reviewed. But, for code from the likeness of a major OS distributor (RedHat, Debian, etc) or a major code project (Moz, Apache, etc), I don't have to bother.
I want it fast and pain - free. Binaries please.
This argument, posted above, is bunk:
Fact: Agencies like NASA can stimulate the economy, by virtue of their sheer size. The same, but more so goes for the defense establishment
So, couldn't we just take all of NASA's funding, and create, I don't know, the National Hungry People Eat Association (NHPEA) and just have this giant beaurocracy that exists to feed hungry people -- perhaps not terribly efficiently or fairly -- merely because by virtue of its sheer size, it could be stimulating the economy? I mean, it'd "stimulate the economy" and occasionally nurish people too!
Personally, I'd like to see NASA get more money and the Pentagon less... and I work for a military laboratory. I think you'll find the slashdot is all in favor of military research (if it will eventually be shared). After all, the Internet and GPS are pretty cool technologies. I don't know how many slashdoters, however, are in favor of spending so much money building and maintaining weapons. Do we really need as many AK47s/landmines/missiles as we keep building?
Either way, it doesn't make sense to fund an organization "for the economy" -- you could just create a second organization in leu of the first, which could accomplish some positive things for the country/world, and also "stimulate the economy, by virtue of its sheer size."
and so I cannot comment on how much we sell. It would be a trade secret, and company policy prohibits me from telling you.
I can point out though that Home Depot has approximately 1500 stores, and did about 60 billion dollars in sales in 2002.
60 billion divided by 1500 stores is $40,000,000 per store per year. That's better than $100,000 per day per store, or $3.3 million dollars per month. Of course, that's sales -- not profit.
Nope. You don't mean that.
What you mean is that most shrink is caused by employees. This includes theft, but also includes things like cashiers failing to ring everything in a cart up, ringing up something cheap instead of a more expensive item, failing to detail recieve every item that is delivered, breaking an item and failing to report it as damaged, using an item in the store and failing to report it as store used, issuing too much money for a return, incorrectly pricing an item, etc.
Some shrink is caused by theft. Percentage wise, not a whole lot in high volume stores.
Most theft in high volume stores is from outsiders. Theft, however, is not nearly as important a number as shrink.
FYI, shrink is the total retail value of all items that should be in the store and sellable, minus the actual retail value of the items inventoried in the store. It's the difference between the value of the inventory the store thinks it should have, minus the value of the inventory it thinks it counted when it did an inventory.
Of course, there are many mistakes made during all of these processes for a high volume store such as Wal-Mart or Home Depot, resulting in a shrink number that can never be precise, due to so many errors in the inventory process.
The owner of the gun is required to ensure that they are secured properly. If dad is the owner, and dad didn't lock them up in accordance to local, state, and federal laws -- than there may be charges pressed against dad.
Like any tool that can cause damage, owning a gun requires a certain amount of responsibility. In fact, most of it is spelled out in the law. If dad didn't abide by those laws, than the very well may find himself in court.
So... you don't think the facts that the Delaware courts have historically been friendly to corporations when making decisions or the fact that delaware has no corporate income tax have anything to do with it?
It is true that the Delaware laws are straightforward -- because they offer very few restrictions. Delaware's corporation laws are slim; there just aren't many of them... including an entire section missing (the tax code).
The fact is that Delaware is a corporation haven because they have few regulations, and no taxation on corporations... merely claiming that it's because they have really good corporate laws that are straightforward and easy to understand doesn't quite embrace all of the facts.
So -- yes, it is a corvette. Or, more precisely, some specs from some newfangled 2003 corvette or two (C5 and maybe something similar). There were a few different models, and I wasn't careful about which I wrote down because...
* the point was to list specs, not to sort them, and
* as stated, I don't know what most of that means.
It seems I've made both points fairly well. Some folks find the information useful enough to determine which kind (and in some cases, which model) of car that is. Others know what most of that means, but not enough to know the car. Still, others know it relates to cars, but not quite how.
I've made my ignorance clear... I don't know enough about cars to list the horsepower. I didn't "go out of my way to confuse" because I'm not able to arrange the data in a more confusing manner than just barfing it from the spec sheets. I just listed some specs and some acronyms associated with a particular car or two.
He's able to leverage the data so that he can see gains (I'm thinking an entire career) while the folks that have lots to lose (banks, utilities, transportation, US gov) pay for him to help show their achilies heels and bottlenecks.
If 25 telcos happen to be sharing the same 'pipe' of fibre, it may not be a terrorist that breaks that connection... regardless of who severs that line, it ain't good for the telcos -- and the telcos should be using his data to reduce risks.
Insurance companies and actuaries for corporations and governments love this kind of stuff, as do operations research people. Tell me how much it'll cost to reduce risk to this level, or: I have $10,000,000 -- how can I spend it to ensure that the worst case scenario isn't as bad.
Hopefully the information doesn't become classified; hopefully, it's used over the next few years to sure up the bottlenecks and other weak points, making the infrastructure far more robust in the following years.
If not, go to a website selling a new car. Lots of jibber jabber about power telescoping steering columns, intermitent windshield wipers, ABS, Limited Slip, 5.7 Liter V8, Sequential Fuel Injection, F55 Magnetic Selective Ride Control, Fully independent suspension with transverse springs, front P245/45ZR-17, rear P275/40ZR-18, 18 gallon tank, 6.5 quarts oil, 11.5 quarts antifreeze, 16.1:1 steering ratio, 2.66 turns lock-to-lock, 39.4 foot turning diameter curb-to-curb, 22.6 sq inch gross lining on brakes (front), engine with 5655 cc, 375 pound-feet of torque at 4400 RPM manual, 6000 RPM redline, 10.1:1 compression ratio, a firing order of 1-8-7-2-6-5-4-3, head gasket thickness of 1.33mm, Bore x Stroke = 3.9 x 3.62 in, 19mpg city.
Now, I don't have a clue what some of that stuff means. Other stuff I can understand, but I don't know why or if that particular configuration is any better or worse than another.
When I buy a car, I don't care about most of those specs. I consider overall price (inital cost, financing, maintainance, and operating costs), reliability, functionality, and reputation. I know it's highly unlikely I'll ever do more than change the oil or replace a cheap (and easy to get to) part like an air filter or the power window motor. I won't use MotorHead magazine as a reference to help me buy a car... I'll use something much closer to Consumer Reports.
All of this is A-OK. My ignorance won't prevent me from making a pretty good choice in my purchase of an automobile. Why would it stop others in their purchase of an MP3 player, flat screen monitor, or printer/scanner/fax/copier machine?
Bonus points to whomever can figure out what car I (arbitrarily) chose...
Soliciting a donation is not promoting a sale, lease, or exchange of goods, real property, or any other thing of (financial) value.
Me: "Give me money, or I'll... well, nothing."
You: "Spam!"
Me: "Nope. I wasn't trying to sell you anything, send you any item (tangible or digital), or anything else. I just asked you for money."
Sounds like solicitations for donations aren't spam.