People being thrown about in the water, I'd be desperately looking for rope, for something to throw to them, to help - not standing around FILMING FFS!
...to have an asteroid with a high enough probability of impact, but which is far enough in the future, that it might well encourage the development of SpaceGuard, without actually posing a truely devestating, immediate and unstoppable threat.
A totally useless and gratitous pair of new domains. Not entirely unlike the previous recent additions.
The whole point of the web is that it is device independent. Having.mobi fully implies content for mobile phones only, which is the *wrong* way to go.
Ditto having an entire top level domain for the tiny subset of job carrying sites. Why not.zoo for zoos,.mov for the DVD renters,.book for on-line booksellers - it's ridiculous.
ICANN must go. It's entirely compromised by commercial interest - the original purpose of properly managing the net has gone right out the window.
> I agree with your post but you seem to suggest > reform would occur if there was an externally > imposed crisis and that is obviously not true in > the case of NASA.
I was very brief in my point. To elaborate; I argue that reform only occurs due to an externally imposed crisis. However, I don't argue it *always* happens. When reform does not occur, even in response to an externally imposed crisis, then the organisation in question is, in one form or another, destroyed, either properly or by becoming irrelevent.
In the case of NASA, the shuttle disasters haven't really changed very much; I'd say they weren't really crises. NASA weathered the storm just by waiting it out and making some internal changes as mandated by the inquiries.
Changes in leadership don't really make much difference.
Interal reform as such does not occur.
Reform only occurs in the face of an externally imposed crisis.
NASA will be NASA - big, publically funded, inefficient, conventional and hugely discouraging private space travel - until the day it, in one form or another, dies.
"The US kids rated 28th of 40 (so in the bottom third) while the Czech Republic, which spends in education 1/3 of what the US spends, ranked in the top 10."
Population of the States: 293.0m Education budget 2004: 53.1 billion USD USA GDP 2004: 10.99 trillon USD.
Population of Czech Republic: 10.2m Education budget: can't find any numbers CR GDP 2004: 161.1 billion USD.
I can't find education budget figures for CR, but since their GRP in 2004 is 161.1 billion USD, I doubt very much they're spending 33% of their entire economy on education.
I don't see how a 50% tax on Iraqi oil means it can be sold at 75% of the current oil price.
If you tax something, the price rises, rather than falls, and I can see no other factors which would cause a price reduction.
The market currently is not a cartel, since prices are currently set by scarcity. All producer countries are going flat out. The market price currently reflects true market value in the presence of a shortage.
I think you've erred in comparing the current market and its prices to the market of a year ago. A year ago, OPEC set prices in the 22 to 28 dollar range. OPEC no longer has this ability.
...because you never know exactly what's been changed.
When I've upgrade TB/FF, sometimes I find a new feature has been added which I like; but I always find the theme has changed and something I do like or use in the GUI has changed, moved or gone.
I'm not sure I concur with the opinion stated in the OP.
Linux is always going to be around.
Solaris, OTOH, is owned by Sun, and they may change their strategy, and stop open sourcing the OS, and they may fail as a company (something which in the long run seems possible, since they appear to lack direction and occupy an ever shrinking market segment).
Two things went wrong with 1.0, for me; the loss of the in-page find in the search bar and the showing of informational messages in the display window.
I went to the Firefox IRC channel to ask if there was a hidden configuration option to do something about these issues, got into a debate about the merits and weaknesses of the new search functionality, and got banned! was not impressed.
Talked to the admin who banned me, he said it was because I was going on too much; I said decency alone means you *say* something, you don't just ban someone outright. He said, and I quote, "when did decency and IRC ever have anything to do with each other?"
The actual reason soliders/offiers went home is because they knew they couldn't win. The Iraqi army in 1991, was, by it's standards, very strong, and it was destroyed. It never recovered and in the more recent invasion, was a shadow of a army. Everyone in the army knew the outcome. So why die, when you were conscripted anyway and you hate the regieme too?
As it happened, there was also some allied propoganda telling soliders to go home. Maybe a few people even noticed.
It's goal is to spend this finite amount of money in the ways which maximize profit.
Now, as you say, dealing with Indian IT support can be a PITA. But the company, by providing IT support in this way, has made a choice; it has saved money by deciding to provide lower quality IT support. The money saved is used elsewhere - spent on something which provides a greater return than it would have, had it been spent on providing better IT support.
Now, you may object to lower quality IT support. But you don't, for example, object to the silent reduction in the prices of the services or goods offered by the company who's support you are using.
You, personally, make a choice, considering all that you know about this company, and decide whether or not to use it's services, or the services of a competitor.
Which one matters more to you?
If IT support is a major issue for consumers, something which really matters, then money will tend to be spent on it, since it will really affect customer choices.
However, if, say, the retail price of the services or goods has more effect, then money will be liberated from less important areas (such as IT support) and spent there, since it is more effective.
Ideally, *everything* a company does would be of the highest quality.
However, resources are finite and prioritization must occur. The free market is the best - and indeed, only viable - mechanism for allocating resources efficiently.
> Exactly. Some people, such as yourself, care > about the long term. Other people, such as > protectionists, care about the short term.
My view is that the protectionists don't understand what it is that they preach. If they did, they wouldn't; and if they do understand, and they still preach, then they are putting their own *personal* self-interest ahead of the good of the nation and the people.
What's agonizing about this is that so many people think that what's being done is right, and so support them! the selfish leading the blind.
Sure. Let's keep ALL work in the US - I mean, if outsourcing IT work is bad, why is outsourcing say banana production good? surely if outsourcing IT work is wrong because "it sends jobs overseas" then ALL work which does this is wrong?
So all the jobs which are more cheaply done overseas would then be done more expensively in the US (and they would be more expensive, because they're *already* done in the cheapest and most efficient locations, which means, when appropriate, overseas), and so everything they make costs more, which means we all have less real wealth, since bananas now cost say a dollar a piece, which means there is, in the larger picture, less money to invest in making more money in the future, so the annual growth rate is lowered, and so we all find our year-in year-out living standards rising more slowly than they otherwise would, and there are that many fewer jobs pretty much everywhere in the economy, since it's growing more slowly, because if you make one sector cost more, all the sectors which depend on it cost more, and all the sectors depending on them cost more, and so on and so on.
But hey, we've got to protect ourselves, right? and that means keeping jobs at home.
Well, first off, much as this is a deeply moving story, you have to remember it's a single as yet uncorroborated story. It doesn't feel like it, but it's still possible the entire story is fabricated; and it is sadly true that it is easier to discern a falsehood than to discern a truth.
Assuming the story is true, then the working conditions are such that the job, in effect, pays far less than it should; clearly a strong incentive to find an alternative job. After all, if I worked as a professional programmer for say half the going rate, I'd be looking for another job.
What's more, given the huge wage reduction EA are in effect imposing by demanding such long hours, almost any job in the industry is likely to be a better deal; less money in absolute terms, but a much better overall package.
I presume, although it's not stated anywhere in the story, that the EA programmer in question *has* been looking for alternative work?
To end on a political-economic note, this story is a good example of one of the reasons State involvement in industry is wrong; when the State is involved in an industry, all private businesses are ruined [1], which leaves a single employer in that industry. If that employer, the State, is awful to work for, who else can you turn to for a better job?
We all feel for this guy, working for an appalling employer - but we also know, at the same time, he can find work elsewhere. How much worse would we feel if we in fact knew that he was stuck with this job, since he could *not* find work elsewhere?
-- Toby
[1] State services are normally provided free at the point of use. Private business can in no way exist in the presence of such a pricing model.
Slashdot Mirror
Firewalls are configured to permit TCP pass through on port 80 for HTTP.
VOIP does not use TCP, it uses UDP, so using port 80 doesn't help, you still get blocked.
--
Toby
I feel exactly the same.
People being thrown about in the water, I'd be desperately looking for rope, for something to throw to them, to help - not standing around FILMING FFS!
--
Toby
Tell me if I'm wrong, but in the States, don't they sell GUNS to everyone?
And now some bozo brings out a 100mW laser pointer and everyone is like "oh no, think how dangerous they are!!"
As Bill Hicks would have said: huh?!
--
Toby
...to have an asteroid with a high enough probability of impact, but which is far enough in the future, that it might well encourage the development of SpaceGuard, without actually posing a truely devestating, immediate and unstoppable threat.
--
Toby
A totally useless and gratitous pair of new domains. Not entirely unlike the previous recent additions.
.mobi fully implies content for mobile phones only, which is the *wrong* way to go.
.zoo for zoos, .mov for the DVD renters, .book for on-line booksellers - it's ridiculous.
The whole point of the web is that it is device independent. Having
Ditto having an entire top level domain for the tiny subset of job carrying sites. Why not
ICANN must go. It's entirely compromised by commercial interest - the original purpose of properly managing the net has gone right out the window.
--
Toby
> I agree with your post but you seem to suggest
> reform would occur if there was an externally
> imposed crisis and that is obviously not true in
> the case of NASA.
I was very brief in my point. To elaborate; I argue that reform only occurs due to an externally imposed crisis. However, I don't argue it *always* happens. When reform does not occur, even in response to an externally imposed crisis, then the organisation in question is, in one form or another, destroyed, either properly or by becoming irrelevent.
In the case of NASA, the shuttle disasters haven't really changed very much; I'd say they weren't really crises. NASA weathered the storm just by waiting it out and making some internal changes as mandated by the inquiries.
--
Toby
Changes in leadership don't really make much difference.
Interal reform as such does not occur.
Reform only occurs in the face of an externally imposed crisis.
NASA will be NASA - big, publically funded, inefficient, conventional and hugely discouraging private space travel - until the day it, in one form or another, dies.
--
Toby
483 USD is about 250 UKP - I can build a sweetspot box for that, although sans monitor and printer.
--
Toby
"The US kids rated 28th of 40 (so in the bottom third) while the Czech Republic, which spends in education 1/3 of what the US spends, ranked in the top 10."
Population of the States: 293.0m
Education budget 2004: 53.1 billion USD
USA GDP 2004: 10.99 trillon USD.
Population of Czech Republic: 10.2m
Education budget: can't find any numbers
CR GDP 2004: 161.1 billion USD.
I can't find education budget figures for CR, but since their GRP in 2004 is 161.1 billion USD, I doubt very much they're spending 33% of their entire economy on education.
--
Toby
I don't see how a 50% tax on Iraqi oil means it can be sold at 75% of the current oil price.
If you tax something, the price rises, rather than falls, and I can see no other factors which would cause a price reduction.
The market currently is not a cartel, since prices are currently set by scarcity. All producer countries are going flat out. The market price currently reflects true market value in the presence of a shortage.
I think you've erred in comparing the current market and its prices to the market of a year ago. A year ago, OPEC set prices in the 22 to 28 dollar range. OPEC no longer has this ability.
--
Toby
If you put a 50% tax on Iraqi oil, no one would buy any, because every other oil supplier on the market would be cheaper.
--
Toby
Sounds like a great way to burden the industry with debt so future investment is minimal.
What matters most here? revenue for the state or service for consumers?
--
Toby
So NASA has its full funding.
Hmm.
But isn't there a VAST deficit?
There is.
So...NASA has full funding, by dint of the nation taking out a loan.
I'm not sure this is the way to go.
--
Toby
...because you never know exactly what's been changed.
When I've upgrade TB/FF, sometimes I find a new feature has been added which I like; but I always find the theme has changed and something I do like or use in the GUI has changed, moved or gone.
--
Toby
Competition is absolutely necessary, but competition from the State is *not* competition - it's the free market equivelent of penicillin.
The real need is for deregulation, plus anti-trust law to prevent the incumbents from crushing newcomers.
--
Toby
OMFG!
They've FINALLY got it RIGHT!
YEAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
--
Toby
I'm not sure I concur with the opinion stated in the OP.
Linux is always going to be around.
Solaris, OTOH, is owned by Sun, and they may change their strategy, and stop open sourcing the OS, and they may fail as a company (something which in the long run seems possible, since they appear to lack direction and occupy an ever shrinking market segment).
--
Toby
Two things went wrong with 1.0, for me; the loss of the in-page find in the search bar and the showing of informational messages in the display window.
I went to the Firefox IRC channel to ask if there was a hidden configuration option to do something about these issues, got into a debate about the merits and weaknesses of the new search functionality, and got banned! was not impressed.
Talked to the admin who banned me, he said it was because I was going on too much; I said decency alone means you *say* something, you don't just ban someone outright. He said, and I quote, "when did decency and IRC ever have anything to do with each other?"
Not good to hear that from a channel admin.
--
Toby
The actual reason soliders/offiers went home is because they knew they couldn't win. The Iraqi army in 1991, was, by it's standards, very strong, and it was destroyed. It never recovered and in the more recent invasion, was a shadow of a army. Everyone in the army knew the outcome. So why die, when you were conscripted anyway and you hate the regieme too?
As it happened, there was also some allied propoganda telling soliders to go home. Maybe a few people even noticed.
--
Toby
The cockroach robot will lead to the death of all trusting cockroaches.
Distrustful cockroaches will multiply to fill the void.
Then what?
--
Toby
The Heart of Gold is NOT a SPHERE!
READ THE GOD-DAMN BOOKS!
--
Toby
(Lameness filter failure - proportion of caps is high for a REASON!)
A company has a given amount of money.
It's goal is to spend this finite amount of money in the ways which maximize profit.
Now, as you say, dealing with Indian IT support can be a PITA. But the company, by providing IT support in this way, has made a choice; it has saved money by deciding to provide lower quality IT support. The money saved is used elsewhere - spent on something which provides a greater return than it would have, had it been spent on providing better IT support.
Now, you may object to lower quality IT support. But you don't, for example, object to the silent reduction in the prices of the services or goods offered by the company who's support you are using.
You, personally, make a choice, considering all that you know about this company, and decide whether or not to use it's services, or the services of a competitor.
Which one matters more to you?
If IT support is a major issue for consumers, something which really matters, then money will tend to be spent on it, since it will really affect customer choices.
However, if, say, the retail price of the services or goods has more effect, then money will be liberated from less important areas (such as IT support) and spent there, since it is more effective.
Ideally, *everything* a company does would be of the highest quality.
However, resources are finite and prioritization must occur. The free market is the best - and indeed, only viable - mechanism for allocating resources efficiently.
--
Toby
> Exactly. Some people, such as yourself, care
> about the long term. Other people, such as
> protectionists, care about the short term.
My view is that the protectionists don't understand what it is that they preach. If they did, they wouldn't; and if they do understand, and they still preach, then they are putting their own *personal* self-interest ahead of the good of the nation and the people.
What's agonizing about this is that so many people think that what's being done is right, and so support them! the selfish leading the blind.
--
Toby
"...as sending jobs to India."
*smacks head against wall*
Sure. Let's keep ALL work in the US - I mean, if outsourcing IT work is bad, why is outsourcing say banana production good? surely if outsourcing IT work is wrong because "it sends jobs overseas" then ALL work which does this is wrong?
So all the jobs which are more cheaply done overseas would then be done more expensively in the US (and they would be more expensive, because they're *already* done in the cheapest and most efficient locations, which means, when appropriate, overseas), and so everything they make costs more, which means we all have less real wealth, since bananas now cost say a dollar a piece, which means there is, in the larger picture, less money to invest in making more money in the future, so the annual growth rate is lowered, and so we all find our year-in year-out living standards rising more slowly than they otherwise would, and there are that many fewer jobs pretty much everywhere in the economy, since it's growing more slowly, because if you make one sector cost more, all the sectors which depend on it cost more, and all the sectors depending on them cost more, and so on and so on.
But hey, we've got to protect ourselves, right? and that means keeping jobs at home.
--
Toby
Well, first off, much as this is a deeply moving story, you have to remember it's a single as yet uncorroborated story. It doesn't feel like it, but it's still possible the entire story is fabricated; and it is sadly true that it is easier to discern a falsehood than to discern a truth.
Assuming the story is true, then the working conditions are such that the job, in effect, pays far less than it should; clearly a strong incentive to find an alternative job. After all, if I worked as a professional programmer for say half the going rate, I'd be looking for another job.
What's more, given the huge wage reduction EA are in effect imposing by demanding such long hours, almost any job in the industry is likely to be a better deal; less money in absolute terms, but a much better overall package.
I presume, although it's not stated anywhere in the story, that the EA programmer in question *has* been looking for alternative work?
To end on a political-economic note, this story is a good example of one of the reasons State involvement in industry is wrong; when the State is involved in an industry, all private businesses are ruined [1], which leaves a single employer in that industry. If that employer, the State, is awful to work for, who else can you turn to for a better job?
We all feel for this guy, working for an appalling employer - but we also know, at the same time, he can find work elsewhere. How much worse would we feel if we in fact knew that he was stuck with this job, since he could *not* find work elsewhere?
--
Toby
[1] State services are normally provided free at the point of use. Private business can in no way exist in the presence of such a pricing model.