In business there is growth and death. If you aren't doing 1, you are doing the other. Go ask your employer if he would like to grow or shrink. If he says he wants to remain the same size you need to find a new employer.
Dude, perhaps you missed the part where I said I bought nearly all my groceries at Walmart. Do you think I would buy most of what I eat from someone I don't like? I think Walmart is on the right track with sustainability and local sourcing; but Walmart is not only stagnant it is failing. I know you think my dislike is distorting, but go look up their same store sales for yourself. Hint: numbers that are in parentheses or preceded by a "-" indicate negative growth.
No no NO! Walmart is good at 1 thing - selling very large volumes of low to medium quality merchandise in store. When they have tried to move away from this model they have failed - repeatedly and spectacularly. The most recent example came with a redesign of stores and elimination of some merchandise to give a more Target-ish feel. EVERYONE involved in that decision has been terminated and sales dropped by nearly $2 billion. Remember Walmart's competitor to Netflix? No one else does either. Did you know Walmart sells downloadable music? It's cheaper than iTunes and you never hear about it. Walmart went big in electronics and is now reducing that department's square footage by 2000 in each store.
Walmart's profit on sales is very low - something like 3.5% across all merchandise. Grocery items have even smaller profit margins. For this to have even a slight chance of success the delivery fee will need to be tiny as the average Walmart customer is just that cost conscious. That tiny fee could easily be eaten up given even the smallest change in gas prices. I buy nearly all my groceries at Walmart. Given the choice of a $10 delivery fee and actually going to the store I will go to the store every single time.
I live near Walmart's home office, and I have to tell you, Walmart is scared. They are entering unfamiliar territory and they do not know what to do. Other than a few isolated urban pockets, there is no where left for Walmart to expand. You can go to the middle of Alaska and there is a Walmart there. Walmart's years of explosive growth have ended. The stock price has barely budged over the last 10 years. While sales increase, the profit on those sales is decreasing. Something Walmart is trying to pilot here are stores in small towns (pop. 2500) that compete with dollar stores (Family Dollar, Dollar General). This not only breaks their distribution model (large trucks over large roads to large stores) but will drain sales from their existing large stores. Those smaller stores in smaller markets will have even smaller profit margins. Walmart isn't chasing pennies any longer, they are chasing hundredths of cents. Walmart is not innovating they are copying. This grocery delivery trial is just the latest attempt by Walmart of trying something (anything) to reverse what is in all likelihood a slow but inevitable death. Walmart isn't going away anytime soon, but they are going away.
I'm almost all streaming. I got rid of Dish Network in favor of an antenna (I'm 30 miles from the nearest transmitter and reception is great) and Netflix. I get the big 4 networks and a few minor channels (CW, religious, etc). Netflix streaming is often criticized for the lack of content, but in the past few months they've really stepped up in terms of TV episodes. Cheers, The Cosby Show, Wings, MacGyver, Scrubs, X-Files, Futurama, South Park, The Twilight Zone and others are now available in their entirety. Yeah these are old, but they're better than 90% of what's on TV now. Did I mention every Star Trek series is coming soon?
Never used DVR functions when I had it with Dish. Only thing I'm going to miss is college football on ESPN. But that was generally 3-4 hours/week for 16 weeks out of a year. I'd rather have the $600/year I'm saving.
There's always going to be a bottleneck. Example - 6 months earlier we installed the fastest computers available in an area that did massive printing jobs. Unfortunately they had a token ring network that was running below 5mbps (yes, this has been a while) and still had unacceptable performance. Instead of actually fixing the network issues, the network people pushed the problem back on me and said the customers needed new computers. I balked at that since the newest models had only minimal improvements in processor in memory compared to what they had. This resulted in much yelling directed my way so to give the customer area more leverage in demanding better network speeds we installed new computers with no improvement in function. HAHAHA TAKE THAT NETWORK PEOPLE!
This was a big company with more than a $1 billion IT budget. Installing the new computers was probably the cheapest and easiest direction and avoided 4 levels of management, 2 customer areas, 3 IT areas, and some really pointless cost/benefit analysis. It didn't actually fix anything, but it was no longer my problem.
Even if Facebook doesn't sell it, they keep everything you ever do. Case in point:
Eight months ago I was looking for an (actual) friend on Facebook. He did not have an account. Two months ago the friend signed up for Facebook. I immediately began receiving notifications that I should add this person as a friend. He hadn't contacted me. I hadn't contacted him. We don't have any interests or friends in common and we live in different states. Our only connection was that 6 month old search I did.
And that doesn't even touch the fact that since the Facebook commenting system isn't threaded it loses all value. Wow, you mean I can look through 20 pages of inane bullshit with occasional @friendsname references? Sign me up!
We've reached Peak Facebook. Everyone that wants an account has 1 (I canceled mine). Yes, there is growth in areas that don't already have easy internet access; but those markets offer smaller growth and revenue streams. Every new feature adds equal parts functionality and creepiness (though trending toward creepy). Facebook has become the de facto internet white pages, but I can hardly see why this would lead to a valuation of $65 billion. I really haven't even figured out how Facebook makes money (other than taking a cut on the sale of imaginary farm tractors).
I could be wrong. The paranoia of Zuckerberg seems equivalent to Gates so Facebook may stay on top longer than Geocities, Friendster, Myspace, or the half dozen other social networking sites that proceeded it. We should know in 5 years.
The promise of thin clients has never been on upfront costs. The advantages have to do with maintaining the clients once they have been deployed. Think patches, service packs, O/S upgrades, memory upgrades, HD replacements, etc. With traditional desktops many of these changes can only be done by going to each machine individually. Additionally, thin clients make backup/restore trivial whereas trying to enforce data retention standards on desktops is always a battle. While these issues may not present themselves in a small to medium sized company, trust me when I say that with thousands of installed desktops there are hundreds of people dedicated to maintaining the hardware and managing the environment.
I'm not sure what you mean by "there aren't suitable thin client options for most businesses." Most of the actual business of say a bank, or an insurance company, or a web vendor, or just about any company that isn't a full fledged software developer comes down to a few apps that rarely require huge amounts of memory, the latest video card, or even a hard drive since most of those apps just run as a client and save data on the server anyway. In fact I can think of few businesses where thin clients shouldn't represent the majority or installed systems.
I've got the stupid magic box they're searching for. It's called the ballot box and if any politician were to grow a spine and stand up to these goons I'd use it. The box that comes next in the series is far less peaceful.
The bottom line is that the dumbphone market is already crowded and Wal-Mart is late to the game. How's Wal-Mart's DVD-by-mail program going? Oh they sold out to Netflix. How about their online music store? Cheaper than iTunes but still not competitive. Unless it's cheap shit from China the power Wal-Mart brings to the table is negated. I give this 6 months.
Within a year of moving to a state that used an ethanol blend my head gasket went. Coolant got into the cylinders and produced a wonderful smoke screen. Not sure how many gallons of ethanol I'd have to buy to offset the $1000+ repair.
Pickens is on record as saying that Peak Oil is not only real it's now. As one of the last wildcatters it's not wise to bet against him. Then again he really likes Oklahoma State football so he's not right about everything.
This was on The History Channel's "Shock Wave" program last night. Four stripped helicopters were placed around a dirigible and connected to what amounted to aluminum sewer pipe. The thing got caught by the wind and folded pretty quick injuring 3 and killing 1. Total loss, program ended.
The people that buy this probably also tried to buy Halo for the PS2. With few exceptions, everything purchased at Wal-Mart should be done so with the knowledge that it will be used up in a couple days or used out in a couple months.
I voted in Benton County and my electronic vote (for a Green Party candidate) apparently wasn't counted. The unresponsiveness of people connected with the election, with so many obvious problems, is unacceptable.
Heifer's goals are laudable, but the organization needs improvement. According to CharityNavigator, 20% of the money donated to them is used to...raise more money.
I gave Heifer a not insignificant amount (at least for me) a couple years ago and spent most of the next year trying to get them to stop asking me for more money.
Slashdot Mirror
Name companies in this middle ground and give us their 10 year outlook. Here, I'll start you off: Microsoft.
http://hothardware.com/News/Walmart-Scaling-Back-Electronics-Department-to-Make-Room-for-Fishing-Poles/
http://archive.chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2011/04/wal-mart-shrinks-electronics-space-adds-items.html
In business there is growth and death. If you aren't doing 1, you are doing the other. Go ask your employer if he would like to grow or shrink. If he says he wants to remain the same size you need to find a new employer.
Dude, perhaps you missed the part where I said I bought nearly all my groceries at Walmart. Do you think I would buy most of what I eat from someone I don't like? I think Walmart is on the right track with sustainability and local sourcing; but Walmart is not only stagnant it is failing. I know you think my dislike is distorting, but go look up their same store sales for yourself. Hint: numbers that are in parentheses or preceded by a "-" indicate negative growth.
No no NO! Walmart is good at 1 thing - selling very large volumes of low to medium quality merchandise in store. When they have tried to move away from this model they have failed - repeatedly and spectacularly. The most recent example came with a redesign of stores and elimination of some merchandise to give a more Target-ish feel. EVERYONE involved in that decision has been terminated and sales dropped by nearly $2 billion. Remember Walmart's competitor to Netflix? No one else does either. Did you know Walmart sells downloadable music? It's cheaper than iTunes and you never hear about it. Walmart went big in electronics and is now reducing that department's square footage by 2000 in each store.
Walmart's profit on sales is very low - something like 3.5% across all merchandise. Grocery items have even smaller profit margins. For this to have even a slight chance of success the delivery fee will need to be tiny as the average Walmart customer is just that cost conscious. That tiny fee could easily be eaten up given even the smallest change in gas prices. I buy nearly all my groceries at Walmart. Given the choice of a $10 delivery fee and actually going to the store I will go to the store every single time.
I live near Walmart's home office, and I have to tell you, Walmart is scared. They are entering unfamiliar territory and they do not know what to do. Other than a few isolated urban pockets, there is no where left for Walmart to expand. You can go to the middle of Alaska and there is a Walmart there. Walmart's years of explosive growth have ended. The stock price has barely budged over the last 10 years. While sales increase, the profit on those sales is decreasing. Something Walmart is trying to pilot here are stores in small towns (pop. 2500) that compete with dollar stores (Family Dollar, Dollar General). This not only breaks their distribution model (large trucks over large roads to large stores) but will drain sales from their existing large stores. Those smaller stores in smaller markets will have even smaller profit margins. Walmart isn't chasing pennies any longer, they are chasing hundredths of cents. Walmart is not innovating they are copying. This grocery delivery trial is just the latest attempt by Walmart of trying something (anything) to reverse what is in all likelihood a slow but inevitable death. Walmart isn't going away anytime soon, but they are going away.
I'm almost all streaming. I got rid of Dish Network in favor of an antenna (I'm 30 miles from the nearest transmitter and reception is great) and Netflix. I get the big 4 networks and a few minor channels (CW, religious, etc). Netflix streaming is often criticized for the lack of content, but in the past few months they've really stepped up in terms of TV episodes. Cheers, The Cosby Show, Wings, MacGyver, Scrubs, X-Files, Futurama, South Park, The Twilight Zone and others are now available in their entirety. Yeah these are old, but they're better than 90% of what's on TV now. Did I mention every Star Trek series is coming soon?
Never used DVR functions when I had it with Dish. Only thing I'm going to miss is college football on ESPN. But that was generally 3-4 hours/week for 16 weeks out of a year. I'd rather have the $600/year I'm saving.
Activision and EA probably thought the same thing at one time...
There's always going to be a bottleneck. Example - 6 months earlier we installed the fastest computers available in an area that did massive printing jobs. Unfortunately they had a token ring network that was running below 5mbps (yes, this has been a while) and still had unacceptable performance. Instead of actually fixing the network issues, the network people pushed the problem back on me and said the customers needed new computers. I balked at that since the newest models had only minimal improvements in processor in memory compared to what they had. This resulted in much yelling directed my way so to give the customer area more leverage in demanding better network speeds we installed new computers with no improvement in function. HAHAHA TAKE THAT NETWORK PEOPLE!
This was a big company with more than a $1 billion IT budget. Installing the new computers was probably the cheapest and easiest direction and avoided 4 levels of management, 2 customer areas, 3 IT areas, and some really pointless cost/benefit analysis. It didn't actually fix anything, but it was no longer my problem.
Even if Facebook doesn't sell it, they keep everything you ever do. Case in point:
Eight months ago I was looking for an (actual) friend on Facebook. He did not have an account. Two months ago the friend signed up for Facebook. I immediately began receiving notifications that I should add this person as a friend. He hadn't contacted me. I hadn't contacted him. We don't have any interests or friends in common and we live in different states. Our only connection was that 6 month old search I did.
And that doesn't even touch the fact that since the Facebook commenting system isn't threaded it loses all value. Wow, you mean I can look through 20 pages of inane bullshit with occasional @friendsname references? Sign me up!
We've reached Peak Facebook. Everyone that wants an account has 1 (I canceled mine). Yes, there is growth in areas that don't already have easy internet access; but those markets offer smaller growth and revenue streams. Every new feature adds equal parts functionality and creepiness (though trending toward creepy). Facebook has become the de facto internet white pages, but I can hardly see why this would lead to a valuation of $65 billion. I really haven't even figured out how Facebook makes money (other than taking a cut on the sale of imaginary farm tractors).
I could be wrong. The paranoia of Zuckerberg seems equivalent to Gates so Facebook may stay on top longer than Geocities, Friendster, Myspace, or the half dozen other social networking sites that proceeded it. We should know in 5 years.
The promise of thin clients has never been on upfront costs. The advantages have to do with maintaining the clients once they have been deployed. Think patches, service packs, O/S upgrades, memory upgrades, HD replacements, etc. With traditional desktops many of these changes can only be done by going to each machine individually. Additionally, thin clients make backup/restore trivial whereas trying to enforce data retention standards on desktops is always a battle. While these issues may not present themselves in a small to medium sized company, trust me when I say that with thousands of installed desktops there are hundreds of people dedicated to maintaining the hardware and managing the environment.
I'm not sure what you mean by "there aren't suitable thin client options for most businesses." Most of the actual business of say a bank, or an insurance company, or a web vendor, or just about any company that isn't a full fledged software developer comes down to a few apps that rarely require huge amounts of memory, the latest video card, or even a hard drive since most of those apps just run as a client and save data on the server anyway. In fact I can think of few businesses where thin clients shouldn't represent the majority or installed systems.
I've got the stupid magic box they're searching for. It's called the ballot box and if any politician were to grow a spine and stand up to these goons I'd use it. The box that comes next in the series is far less peaceful.
And it would be compatible with the proposed new system that only has 2 settings: "elevated" and "imminent".
Annual defense budget: $700,000,000,000
Average annual taxes per American adult to defense: $3,050
NSF budget: $7,000,000,000
Average annual taxes per American adult to NSF: $30
No no no, it's the X-terminal with WIRELESS!
To: alicethesurfer@gmail.com
From: alf@nbc.com
I found your cat. It was delicious.
I'm buying this to run on my Windows phone!
Biggest way to improve the recommendations is to stop recommending things I already have in my queue!
The bottom line is that the dumbphone market is already crowded and Wal-Mart is late to the game. How's Wal-Mart's DVD-by-mail program going? Oh they sold out to Netflix. How about their online music store? Cheaper than iTunes but still not competitive. Unless it's cheap shit from China the power Wal-Mart brings to the table is negated. I give this 6 months.
Within a year of moving to a state that used an ethanol blend my head gasket went. Coolant got into the cylinders and produced a wonderful smoke screen. Not sure how many gallons of ethanol I'd have to buy to offset the $1000+ repair.
The best part of that commercial is when she says she's "not cool enough to be a Mac person" you see she's driving a VW.
Pickens is on record as saying that Peak Oil is not only real it's now. As one of the last wildcatters it's not wise to bet against him. Then again he really likes Oklahoma State football so he's not right about everything.
This was on The History Channel's "Shock Wave" program last night. Four stripped helicopters were placed around a dirigible and connected to what amounted to aluminum sewer pipe. The thing got caught by the wind and folded pretty quick injuring 3 and killing 1. Total loss, program ended.
http://www.piasecki.com/pa-97.htm
The people that buy this probably also tried to buy Halo for the PS2. With few exceptions, everything purchased at Wal-Mart should be done so with the knowledge that it will be used up in a couple days or used out in a couple months.
I voted in Benton County and my electronic vote (for a Green Party candidate) apparently wasn't counted. The unresponsiveness of people connected with the election, with so many obvious problems, is unacceptable.
Heifer's goals are laudable, but the organization needs improvement. According to CharityNavigator, 20% of the money donated to them is used to...raise more money.
I gave Heifer a not insignificant amount (at least for me) a couple years ago and spent most of the next year trying to get them to stop asking me for more money.